{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_54824/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_54824","id":"gutenberg_54824","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54824","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Theosophy"],"text":"The Secret Doctrine\n\n            The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy\n\n                                    By\n\n                        Helena Petrovna Blavatsky\n\n                        Author of \u201cIsis Unveiled.\u201d\n\n                        Third and Revised Edition.\n\n                        SATY\u00c2T N\u00c2STI PARO DHARMAH.\n\n                \u201cThere is no Religion higher than Truth.\u201d\n\n                                Volume I.\n\n                               Cosmogenesis\n\n                    The Theosophical Publishing House\n\n                                  London\n\n                                   1893\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nPreface To The First Edition.\nPreface To The Third And Revised Edition.\nIntroductory.\nProem: Pages From A Pre\u2010Historic Record.\nPart I. Cosmic Evolution.\n   Seven Stanzas From The \u201cBook Of Dzyan\u201d\n      Stanza I.\n      Stanza II.\n      Stanza III.\n      Stanza IV.\n      Stanza V.\n      Stanza VI.\n      Stanza VII.\n   Commentaries On The Seven Stanzas And Their Terms, According To Their\n   Numeration, In Stanzas And Shlokas.\n      Stanza I.\n      Stanza II.\n      Stanza III.\n      Stanza IV.\n      Stanza V.\n      Stanza VI.\n      A Digression.\n         A Few Early Misconceptions Concerning Planets, Rounds, And Man.\n         The Septenary Division In Different Indian Systems.\n         Additional Facts And Explanations Concerning The Globes And The\n         Monads.\n      Stanza VI.\u2014_Continued_.\n      Stanza VII.\n      Summing Up.\n      Extracts From An Eastern Private Commentary, Hitherto Secret.\nPart II. The Evolution Of Symbolism.\n   Section I. Symbolism and Ideographs.\n   Section II. The Mystery Language and Its Keys.\n   Section III. Primordial Substance and Divine Thought.\n   Section IV. Chaos: Theos: Kosmos.\n   Section V. On the Hidden Deity, Its Symbols and Glyphs.\n   Section VI. The Mundane Egg.\n   Section VII. The Days and Nights of Brahm\u00e2.\n   Section VIII. The Lotus, as a Universal Symbol.\n   Section IX. The Moon; Deus Lunus, Ph\u0153be.\n   Section X. Tree, Serpent, and Crocodile Worship.\n   Section XI. Demon est Deus Inversus.\n   Section XII. The Theogony of the Creative Gods.\n   Section XIII. The Seven Creations.\n   Section XIV. The Four Elements.\n   Section XV. On Kwan\u2010Shi\u2010Yin and Kwan\u2010Yin.\nPart III. Addenda. On Occult And Modern Science.\n   Section I. Reasons for These Addenda.\n   Section II. Modern Physicists are Playing at Blind Man\u2019s Buff.\n      \u201cAn Lumen Sit Corpus, Nec Non?\u201d\n   Section III. Is Gravitation a Law?\n   Section IV. The Theories of Rotation in Science.\n      Current Hypotheses explaining the Origin of Rotation.\n      Hypotheses of the Origin of Planets and Comets.\n   Section V. The Masks of Science. Physics Or Metaphysics?\n   Section VI. An Attack on the Scientific Theory of Force by a Man of\n   Science.\n   Section VII. Life, Force, or Gravity.\n   Section VIII. The Solar Theory.\n   Section IX. The Coming Force. Its Possibilities And Impossibilities.\n   Section X. On the Elements and Atoms.\n   Section XI. Ancient Thought in Modern Dress.\n   Section XII. Scientific and Esoteric Evidence for, and Objections to,\n   the Modern Nebular Theory.\n   Section XIII. Forces\u2014Modes of Motion or Intelligences?\n   Section XIV. Gods, Monads and Atoms.\n   Section XV. Cyclic Evolution and Karma.\n   Section XVI. The Zodiac and its Antiquity.\n   Section XVII. Summary of the Position.\nFootnotes\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                               [Cover Art]\n\n[Transcriber\u2019s Note: The above cover image was produced by the submitter\nat Distributed Proofreaders, and is being placed into the public domain.]\n\n\n\n\n\nThis Work\nI Dedicate to all True Theosophists,\nIn every Country,\nAnd of every Race,\nFor they called it forth, and for them it was recorded.\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.\n\n\nThe author\u2014the writer, rather\u2014feels it necessary to apologize for the long\ndelay which has occurred in the appearance of this work. It has been\noccasioned by ill\u2010health and the magnitude of the undertaking. Even the\ntwo volumes now issued do not complete the scheme, nor do these treat\nexhaustively of the subjects dealt with in them. A large quantity of\nmaterial has already been prepared, dealing with the history of Occultism\nas contained in the lives of the great Adepts of the \u00c2ryan Race, and\nshowing the bearing of Occult Philosophy upon the conduct of life, as it\nis and as it ought to be. Should the present volumes meet with a\nfavourable reception, no effort will be spared to carry out the scheme of\nthe work in its entirety.\n\nThis scheme, it must be added, was not in contemplation when the\npreparation of the work was first announced. As originally announced, it\nwas intended that _The Secret Doctrine_ should be an amended and enlarged\nversion of _Isis Unveiled_. It was, however, soon found that the\nexplanations which could be added to those already put before the world,\nin the last\u2010named and other works dealing with Esoteric Science, were such\nas to require a different method of treatment; and consequently the\npresent volumes do not contain, in all, twenty pages extracted from _Isis\nUnveiled_.\n\nThe author does not feel it necessary to ask the indulgence of her readers\nand critics for the many defects of literary style, and the imperfect\nEnglish which may be found in these pages. She is a foreigner, and her\nknowledge of the language was acquired late in life. The English tongue is\nemployed because it offers the most widely\u2010diffused medium for conveying\nthe truths which it had become her duty to place before the world.\n\nThese truths are in no sense put forward as a _revelation_; nor does the\nauthor claim the position of a revealer of mystic lore, now made public\nfor the first time in the world\u2019s history. For what is contained in this\nwork is to be found scattered throughout thousands of volumes embodying\nthe Scriptures of the great Asiatic and early European religions, hidden\nunder glyph and symbol, and hitherto left unnoticed because of this veil.\nWhat is now attempted is to gather the oldest tenets together and to make\nof them one harmonious and unbroken whole. The sole advantage which the\nwriter has over her predecessors, is that she need not resort to personal\nspeculations and theories. For this work is a partial statement of what\nshe herself has been taught by more advanced students, supplemented, in a\nfew details only, by the results of her own study and observation. The\npublication of many of the facts herein stated has been rendered necessary\nby the wild and fanciful speculations in which many Theosophists and\nstudents of Mysticism have indulged, during the last few years, in their\nendeavour, as they imagined, to work out a complete system of thought from\nthe few facts previously communicated to them.\n\nIt is needless to explain that this book is not the Secret Doctrine in its\nentirety, but a select number of fragments of its fundamental tenets,\nspecial attention being paid to some facts which have been seized upon by\nvarious writers, and distorted out of all resemblance to the truth.\n\nBut it is perhaps desirable to state unequivocally that the teachings,\nhowever fragmentary and incomplete, contained in these volumes, do not\nbelong to the Hind\u00fb, the Zoroastrian, the Chald\u00e6an, or the Egyptian\nreligion, nor to Buddhism, Islam, Judaism or Christianity exclusively. The\nSecret Doctrine is the essence of all these. Sprung from it in their\norigins, the various religious schemes are now made to merge back into\ntheir original element, out of which every mystery and dogma has grown,\ndeveloped, and become materialized.\n\nIt is more than probable that the book will be regarded by a large section\nof the public as a romance of the wildest kind; for who has ever even\nheard of the Book of Dzyan?\n\nThe writer, therefore, is fully prepared to take all the responsibility\nfor what is contained in this work, and even to face the charge of having\ninvented the whole of it. That it has many shortcomings she is fully\naware; all that she claims for it is that, romantic as it may seem to\nmany, its logical coherence and consistency entitle this new Genesis to\nrank, at any rate, on a level with the \u201cworking hypotheses\u201d so freely\naccepted by Modern Science. Further, it claims consideration, not by\nreason of any appeal to dogmatic authority, but because it closely adheres\nto Nature, and follows the laws of uniformity and analogy.\n\nThe aim of this work may be thus stated: to show that Nature is not \u201ca\nfortuitous concurrence of atoms,\u201d and to assign to man his rightful place\nin the scheme of the Universe; to rescue from degradation the archaic\ntruths which are the basis of all religions; to uncover, to some extent,\nthe fundamental unity from which they all spring; finally, to show that\nthe Occult side of Nature has never been approached by the Science of\nmodern civilization.\n\nIf this is in any degree accomplished, the writer is content. It is\nwritten in the service of humanity, and by humanity and the future\ngenerations it must be judged. Its author recognizes no inferior court of\nappeal. Abuse she is accustomed to; calumny she is daily acquainted with;\nat slander she smiles in silent contempt.\n\n_De minimis non curat lex._\n\nH. P. B.\n\nLONDON, _October, 1888_.\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE THIRD AND REVISED EDITION.\n\n\nIn preparing this edition for the press, we have striven to correct minor\npoints of detail in literary form, without touching at all more important\nmatters. Had H. P. Blavatsky lived to issue the new edition, she would\ndoubtless have corrected and enlarged it to a very considerable extent.\nThat this is not done is one of the many minor losses caused by the one\ngreat loss.\n\nAwkward phrases, due to imperfect knowledge of English, have been\ncorrected; most of the quotations have been verified, and exact references\ngiven\u2014a work involving great labour, as the references in the previous\neditions were often very loose; a uniform system of transliteration for\nSanskrit words has been adopted. Rejecting the form most favoured by\nWestern Orientalists as being misleading to the general reader\u2014we have\ngiven to the consonants not present in our English alphabet combinations\nthat approximately express their sound\u2010values, and we have carefully\ninserted quantities, wherever they occur, on the vowels. In a few\ninstances we have incorporated notes in the text, but this has been very\nsparingly done, and only when they obviously formed part of it.\n\nWe have added a copious Index for the assistance of students, and have\nbound it separately, so that reference to it may be facilitated. For the\ngreat labour in this we, and all students, are the debtors of Mr. A. J.\nFaulding.\n\nANNIE BESANT.\nG. R. S. MEAD.\n\nLONDON, 1893.\n\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY.\n\n\n    Gently to hear, kindly to judge.\n    SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\nSince the appearance of Theosophical literature in England, it has become\ncustomary to call its teachings \u201cEsoteric Buddhism.\u201d And, having become a\nhabit\u2014as an old proverb based on daily experience has it\u2014\u201cError runs down\nan inclined plane, while Truth has to laboriously climb its way up hill.\u201d\n\nOld truisms are often the wisest. The human mind can hardly remain\nentirely free from bias, and decisive opinions are often formed before a\nthorough examination of a subject from all its aspects has been made. This\nis said with reference to the prevailing double mistake (_a_) of limiting\nTheosophy to Buddhism; and (_b_) of confounding the tenets of the\nreligious philosophy preached by Gautama, the Buddha, with the doctrines\nbroadly outlined in _Esoteric Buddhism_. Any thing more erroneous than\nthis could hardly be imagined. It has enabled our enemies to find an\neffective weapon against Theosophy, because, as an eminent P\u00e2li scholar\nvery pointedly expressed it, there was in the volume named \u201cneither\nEsotericism nor Buddhism.\u201d The esoteric truths, presented in Mr. Sinnett\u2019s\nwork, ceased to be esoteric from the moment they were made public; nor did\nthe book contain the religion of Buddha, but simply a few tenets from a\nhitherto hidden teaching, which are now explained and supplemented by many\nmore in the present volumes. And even the latter, though giving out many\nfundamental tenets from the SECRET DOCTRINE of the East, raise but a small\ncorner of the dark veil. For no one, not even the greatest living Adept,\nwould be permitted to, or could\u2014even if he would\u2014give out promiscuously to\na mocking, unbelieving world that which has been so effectually concealed\nfrom it for long \u00e6ons and ages.\n\n_Esoteric Buddhism_ was an excellent work with a very unfortunate title,\nthough it meant no more than does the title of this work, THE SECRET\nDOCTRINE. It proved unfortunate, because people are always in the habit of\njudging things by their appearance rather than by their meaning, and\nbecause the error has now become so universal, that even most of the\nFellows of the Theosophical Society have fallen victims to the same\nmisconception. From the first, however, protests were raised by Br\u00e2hmans\nand others against the title; and, in justice to myself, I must add that\n_Esoteric Buddhism_ was presented to me as a completed volume, and that I\nwas entirely unaware of the manner in which the author intended to spell\nthe word \u201cBudh\u2010ism.\u201d\n\nThis has to be laid directly at the door of those who, having been the\nfirst to bring the subject under public notice, neglected to point out the\ndifference between \u201cBuddhism\u201d\u2014the religious system of ethics preached by\nthe Lord Gautama, and so named from his title of _Buddha_, the\n\u201cEnlightened\u201d\u2014and \u201cBudhism,\u201d from _Budha_, Wisdom, or Knowledge (Vidy\u00e2),\nthe faculty of cognizing, from the Sanskrit root _Budh_, to know. We\nTheosophists of India are ourselves the real culprits, although, at the\ntime, we did our best to correct the mistake.(1) To avoid this deplorable\nmisnomer was easy; the spelling of the word had only to be altered, and by\ncommon consent both pronounced and written \u201cBudhism,\u201d instead of\n\u201cBuddhism.\u201d Nor is the latter term correctly spelt and pronounced, as it\nought to be called, in English, Buddha\u00efsm, and its votaries \u201cBuddha\u00efsts.\u201d\n\nThis explanation is absolutely necessary at the beginning of a work like\nthe present. The Wisdom\u2010Religion is the inheritance of all the nations,\nthe world over, in spite of the statement made in _Esoteric Buddhism_(2)\nthat \u201ctwo years ago (_i.e._, in 1883), neither I, _nor any other European\nliving_, knew the alphabet of the Science, here for the first time put\ninto a scientific shape,\u201d etc. This error must have crept in through\ninadvertence. The present writer knew all that is \u201cdivulged\u201d in _Esoteric\nBuddhism_, and much more, _many years_ before it became her duty (in 1880)\nto impart a small portion of the Secret Doctrine to two _European_\ngentlemen, one of whom was the author of _Esoteric Buddhism_; and surely\nthe present writer has the undoubted, though to her, rather equivocal,\nprivilege of being a European by birth and education. Moreover, a\nconsiderable part of the philosophy expounded by Mr. Sinnett was taught in\nAmerica, even before _Isis Unveiled_ was published, to two Europeans and\nto my colleague, Colonel H. S. Olcott. Of the three teachers the latter\ngentleman has had, the first was a Hungarian Initiate, the second an\nEgyptian, the third a Hind\u00fb. As permitted, Colonel Olcott has given out\nsome of this teaching in various ways; if the other two have not, it has\nbeen simply because they were not allowed, their time for public work\nhaving not yet come. But for others it has, and the appearance of Mr.\nSinnett\u2019s several interesting books is a visible proof of the fact.\nMoreover, it is above everything important to keep in mind that no\nTheosophical book acquires the least additional value from pretended\nauthority.\n\n\u00c2di, or \u00c2dhi Budha, the One, or the First, and Supreme Wisdom, is a term\nused by \u00c2ry\u00e2sanga in his secret treatises, and now by all the mystic\nNorthern Buddhists. It is a Sanskrit term, and an appellation given by the\nearliest \u00c2ryans to the Unknown Deity; the word \u201cBrahm\u00e2\u201d not being found in\nthe _Vedas_ and the early works. It means the Absolute Wisdom, and\n\u00c2dibh\u00fbta is translated by Fitzedward Hall, \u201cthe primeval uncreated cause\nof all.\u201d \u00c6ons of untold duration must have elapsed, before the epithet of\nBuddha was so humanized, so to speak, as to allow of the term being\napplied to mortals, and finally appropriated to one whose unparalleled\nvirtues and knowledge caused him to receive the title of the \u201cBuddha of\nWisdom Unmoved.\u201d _Bodha_ means the innate possession of divine intellect\nor understanding; _Buddha_, the acquirement of it by personal efforts and\nmerit; while _Buddhi_ is the faculty of cognizing, the channel through\nwhich divine knowledge reaches the Ego, the discernment of good and evil,\nalso divine conscience, and the Spiritual Soul, which is the vehicle of\n\u00c2tm\u00e2. \u201cWhen Buddhi absorbs our Ego\u2010tism (destroys it) with all its\nVik\u00e2ras, Avalokiteshvara becomes manifested to us, and Nirv\u00e2na, or Mukti,\nis reached,\u201d Mukti being the same as Nirvana, _i.e._, freedom from the\ntrammels of M\u00e2y\u00e2 or Illusion. _Bodhi_ is likewise the name of a particular\nstate of trance\u2010condition, called Sam\u00e2dhi, during which the subject\nreaches the culmination of spiritual knowledge.\n\nUnwise are those who, in their blind and, in our age, untimely hatred of\nBuddhism, and, by re\u00e4ction, of Budhism, deny its esoteric teachings, which\nare those also of the Br\u00e2hmans, simply because the name suggests what to\nthem, as Monotheists, are noxious doctrines. _Unwise_ is the correct term\nto use in their case. For in this age of crass and illogical materialism,\nthe Esoteric Philosophy alone is calculated to withstand the repeated\nattacks on all and everything man holds most dear and sacred in his inner\nspiritual life. The true philosopher, the student of Esoteric Wisdom,\nentirely loses sight of personalities, dogmatic beliefs and special\nreligions. Moreover, Esoteric Philosophy reconciles all religions, strips\nevery one of its outward human garments, and shows the root of each to be\nidentical with that of every other great religion. It proves the necessity\nof a Divine Absolute Principle in Nature. It denies Deity no more than it\ndoes the sun. Esoteric Philosophy has never rejected God in Nature, nor\nDeity as the absolute and abstract _Ens_. It only refuses to accept any of\nthe gods of the so\u2010called monotheistic religions, gods created by man in\nhis own image and likeness, a blasphemous and sorry caricature of the\nEver\u2010Unknowable. Furthermore, the records we mean to place before the\nreader embrace the esoteric tenets of the whole world since the beginning\nof our humanity, and Buddhistic Occultism occupies therein only its\nlegitimate place, and no more. Indeed, the secret portions of the _Dan_ or\n_Janna_ (_Dhy\u00e2na_)(3) of Gautama\u2019s metaphysics\u2014grand as they appear to one\nunacquainted with the tenets of the Wisdom\u2010Religion of antiquity\u2014are but a\nvery small portion of the whole. The Hind\u00fb reformer limited his public\nteachings to the purely moral and physiological aspect of the Wisdom\u2010\nReligion, to ethics and man alone. Things \u201cunseen and incorporeal,\u201d the\nmysteries of Being outside our terrestrial sphere, the great Teacher left\nentirely untouched in his public lectures, reserving the Hidden Truths for\na select circle of his Arhats. The latter received their Initiation at the\nfamous Saptaparna Cave (the Sattapanni of Mah\u00e2vansa) near Mount Baibh\u00e2r\n(the Webh\u00e2ra of the P\u00e2li MSS.). This cave was in R\u00e2j\u00e2griha, the ancient\ncapital of Magadha, and was the Cheta Cave of Fa\u2010hian, as is rightly\nsuspected by some archaeologists.(4)\n\nTime and human imagination made short work of the purity and philosophy of\nthese teachings, once that they were transplanted from the secret and\nsacred circle of the Arhats, during the course of their work of\nproselytism, into a soil less prepared for metaphysical conceptions than\nIndia; _i.e._, once they were transferred into China, Japan, Siam, and\nBurmah. How the pristine purity of these grand revelations was dealt with\nmay be seen in studying some of the so\u2010called \u201cesoteric\u201d Buddhist schools\nof antiquity in their modern garb, not only in China and other Buddhist\ncountries in general, but even in not a few schools of Tibet, which have\nbeen left to the care of uninitiated Lamas and Mongolian innovators.\n\nThus the reader is asked to bear in mind the very important difference\nbetween _orthodox_ Buddhism\u2014_i.e._, the public teachings of Gautama, the\nBuddha\u2014and his esoteric Budhism. His Secret Doctrine, however, differed in\nno wise from that of the initiated Brahmans of his day. The Buddha was a\nchild of \u00c2ryan soil, a born Hind\u00fb, a Kshatriya and a disciple of the\nTwice\u2010born (the initiated Br\u00e2hmans) or Dv\u00eejas. His teachings, therefore,\ncould not be different from their doctrines, for the whole Buddhist reform\nconsisted merely in giving out a portion of that which had been kept\nsecret from every man outside of the \u201cenchanted\u201d circle of ascetics and\nTemple\u2010Initiates. Unable, owing to his pledges, to teach _all_ that had\nbeen imparted to him, though the Buddha taught a philosophy built upon the\nground\u2010work of the true esoteric knowledge, he gave to the world only its\noutward material body and kept its soul for his Elect. Many Chinese\nscholars among Orientalists have heard of the \u201cSoul\u2010Doctrine.\u201d None seem\nto have understood its real meaning and importance.\n\nThat doctrine was preserved secretly\u2014too secretly, perhaps\u2014within the\nsanctuary. The mystery that shrouded its chief dogma and\naspiration\u2014Nirv\u00e2na\u2014has so tried and irritated the curiosity of those\nscholars who have studied it, that, unable to solve it logically and\nsatisfactorily by untying its Gordian knot, they have cut it through by\ndeclaring that Nirv\u00e2na means _absolute annihilation_.\n\nToward the end of the first quarter of this century a distinct class of\nliterature appeared in the world, which with every year became more\ndefined in its tendency. Being based, _soi\u2010disant_, on the scholarly\nresearches of Sanskritists and Orientalists in general, it was considered\nscientific. Hind\u00fb, Egyptian, and other ancient religions, myths, and\nemblems were made to yield anything the symbologist wanted them to yield,\nand thus often the rude _outward_ form was given out in place of the inner\nmeaning. Works, most remarkable for their ingenious deductions and\nspeculations, _circulo vicioso_\u2014foregone conclusions generally taking the\nplace of premisses in the syllogisms of more than one Sanskrit and P\u00e2li\nscholar\u2014appeared rapidly in succession, over\u2010flooding the libraries with\ndissertations on phallic and sexual worship rather than on real symbology,\nand each contradicting the other.\n\nThis is the true reason, perhaps, why the outline of a few fundamental\ntruths from the Secret Doctrine of the Archaic Ages is now permitted to\nsee the light, after long millenniums of the most profound silence and\nsecrecy. I say advisedly \u201ca _few_ truths,\u201d because that which must remain\nunsaid could not be contained in a hundred such volumes, nor could it be\nimparted to the present generation of Sadducees. But even the little that\nis now given is better than complete silence upon these vital truths. The\nworld of to\u2010day, in its mad career towards the unknown, which the\nPhysicist is too ready to confound with the unknowable, whenever the\nproblem eludes his grasp, is rapidly progressing on the reverse plane to\nthat of spirituality. It has now become a vast arena, a true valley of\ndiscord and of eternal strife, a necropolis, wherein lie buried the\nhighest and the most holy aspirations of our Spirit\u2010Soul. That soul\nbecomes with every new generation more paralyzed and atrophied. The\n\u201camiable infidels and accomplished profligates\u201d of Society, spoken of by\nGreeley, care little for the revival of the _dead_ sciences of the past;\nbut there is a fair minority of earnest students who are entitled to learn\nthe few truths that may be given to them _now_; and now much more than ten\nyears ago, when _Isis Unveiled_ appeared, or even when the later attempts\nto explain the mysteries of esoteric science were published.\n\nOne of the greatest and perhaps the most serious objection to the\ncorrectness and reliability of the whole work will be the preliminary\nStanzas. How can the statements contained in them be verified? True,\nthough a great portion of the Sanskrit, Chinese, and Mongolian works\nquoted in the present volumes is known to some Orientalists, yet the chief\nwork\u2014that one from which the Stanzas are given\u2014is not in the possession of\nEuropean Libraries. THE BOOK OF DZYAN (or DZAN) is utterly unknown to our\nPhilologists, or at any rate was never heard of by them under its present\nname. This is, of course, a great drawback to those who follow the methods\nof research prescribed by official Science; but to students of Occultism,\nand to every genuine Occultist, this will be of little moment. The main\nbody of the doctrines given, however, is found scattered throughout\nhundreds and thousands of Sanskrit MSS., some already\ntranslated\u2014disfigured in their interpretations, as usual\u2014others still\nwaiting their turn. Every scholar, therefore, has an opportunity of\nverifying the statements herein made, and of checking most of the\nquotations. A few new facts, _new_ to the profane Orientalist only, and\npassages quoted from the Commentaries will be found difficult to trace.\nSeveral of the teachings also have hitherto been transmitted orally, yet\neven these in every instance are hinted at in the almost countless volumes\nof Br\u00e2hmanical, Chinese and Tibetan temple\u2010literature.\n\nHowever it may be, and whatsoever is in store for the writer through\nmalevolent criticism, one fact is quite certain. The members of several\nesoteric schools\u2014the seat of which is beyond the Him\u00e2layas, and whose\nramifications may be found in China, Japan, India, Tibet, and even in\nSyria, and also South America\u2014claim to have in their possession the _sum\ntotal_ of sacred and philosophical works in MSS. and print, all the works,\nin fact, that have ever been written, in whatever language or character,\nsince the art of writing began, from the ideographic hieroglyphs down to\nthe alphabet of Cadmus and the Devan\u00e2gari.\n\nIt has been constantly claimed that, ever since the destruction of the\nAlexandrian Library,(5) every work of a character that might lead the\nprofane to the ultimate discovery and comprehension of some of the\nmysteries of the Secret Science, owing to the combined efforts of the\nmembers of these Brotherhoods, has been diligently searched for. It is\nadded, moreover, by those who know, that once found all such works were\ndestroyed, save three copies of each which were preserved and safely\nstored away. In India, the last of these precious manuscripts were secured\nand hidden during the reign of the Emperor Akbar.\n\nProf. Max M\u00fcller shows that no bribes or threats of Akbar could extort the\noriginal text of the _Vedas_ from the Br\u00e2hmans, and yet boasts that\nEuropean Orientalists have it.(6) That Europe has the _complete text_ is\nexceedingly doubtful, and the future may have very disagreeable surprises\nin store for the Orientalists.\n\nIt is maintained, furthermore, that every sacred book of this kind, the\ntext of which was not sufficiently veiled in symbolism, or which had any\ndirect references to the ancient mysteries, was first carefully copied in\ncryptographic characters, such as to defy the art of the best and\ncleverest pal\u00e6ographer, and then destroyed to the last copy. During\nAkbar\u2019s reign, some fanatical courtiers, displeased at the Emperor\u2019s\nsinful prying into the religions of the infidels, themselves helped the\nBr\u00e2hmans to conceal their MSS. Such was Bad\u00e1on\u00ed, who had an _undisguised\nhorror_ of Akbar\u2019s mania for idolatrous religions.\n\nBad\u00e1on\u00ed, in his _Muntakhab_ at _Tawarikh_, writes:\n\n\n    As they [the Shramana and Br\u00e2hmans] surpass other learned men in\n    their treatises on morals and on physical and religious sciences,\n    and reach a high degree in their _knowledge of the future_, in\n    spiritual power, and human perfection, they brought proofs based\n    on reason and testimony, ... and inculcated their doctrines so\n    firmly ... that no man ... could now raise a doubt in his Majesty\n    even if mountains were to crumble to dust, or the heavens were to\n    tear asunder.... His Majesty relished inquiries into the sects of\n    these infidels, who cannot be counted, so numerous they are, and\n    who have no end of _revealed books_.(7)\n\n\nThis work \u201cwas kept secret and, was not published till the reign of\nJah\u00e1ng\u00edr.\u201d\n\nMoreover in all the large and wealthy Lamasaries, there are subterranean\ncrypts and cave\u2010libraries, cut in the rock, whenever the Gonpa and\nLhakhang are situated in the mountains. Beyond the Western Tsaydam, in the\nsolitary passes of Kuen\u2010lun there are several such hiding\u2010places. Along\nthe ridge of Altyn\u2010tag, whose soil no European foot has ever trodden so\nfar, there exists a certain hamlet, lost in a deep gorge. It is a small\ncluster of houses, a hamlet rather than a monastery, with a poor\u2010looking\ntemple in it, and one old Lama, a hermit, living near by to watch it.\nPilgrims say that the subterranean galleries and halls under it contain a\ncollection of books, the number of which, according to the accounts given,\nis too large to find room even in the British Museum.\n\nAccording to the same tradition the now desolate regions of the waterless\nland of Tarim\u2014a veritable wilderness in the heart of Turkestan\u2014were in\ndays of old covered with flourishing and wealthy cities. At present, a few\nverdant oases only relieve its dread solitude. One such, carpeting the\nsepulchre of a vast city buried under the sandy soil of the desert,\nbelongs to no one, but is often visited by Mongolians and Buddhists. The\ntradition also speaks of immense subterranean abodes, of large corridors\nfilled with tiles and cylinders. It may be an idle rumour, and it may be\nan actual fact.\n\nAll this will very likely provoke a smile of doubt. But before the reader\nrejects the truthfulness of the reports, let him pause and reflect over\nthe following well\u2010known facts. The collective researches of Orientalists,\nand especially of late years the labours of students of Comparative\nPhilology and the Science of Religion, have enabled them to ascertain that\nan incalculable number of MSS., and even of printed works _known to have\nexisted, are now to be no more found_. They have disappeared without\nleaving the slightest trace behind them. Were they works of no importance\nthey might, in the natural course of time, have been left to perish, and\ntheir very names would have been obliterated from human memory. But this\nis not so, for, as now ascertained, most of them contained the true keys\nto works still extant, and now _entirely incomprehensible_, for the\ngreater portion of their readers, _without these additional volumes of\ncommentaries and explanations_.\n\nSuch, for instance, are the works of Lao\u2010tse, the predecessor of\nConfucius. He is said to have written nine hundred and thirty books on\nethics and religions, and seventy on magic, _one thousand_ in all. His\ngreat work, however, the _Tao\u2010te\u2010King_, the _heart_ of his doctrine and\nthe sacred scripture of the _Tao\u2010sse_, has in it, as Stanislas Julien\nshows, only \u201cabout 5,000 words,\u201d(8) hardly a dozen of pages; yet Professor\nMax M\u00fcller finds that \u201cthe text is unintelligible without commentaries, so\nthat M. Julien had to consult more than sixty commentators for the purpose\nof his translation, the earliest going back as far as the year 163 B.C.\u201d,\nand _not earlier_, as we see. During the four centuries and a half that\npreceded this \u201cearliest\u201d of the commentators there was ample time to veil\nthe true Lao\u2010tse doctrine from all but his initiated priests. The\nJapanese, among whom are now to be found the most learned of the priests\nand followers of Lao\u2010tse, simply laugh at the blunders and hypotheses of\nEuropean Chinese scholars; and tradition affirms that the commentaries to\nwhich our Western Sinologues have access are not the real _occult_\nrecords, but intentional veils, and that the true commentaries, as well as\nalmost all the texts, have long _disappeared_ from the eyes of the\nprofane.\n\nOf the works of Confucius we read:\n\n\n    If we turn to China, we find that the religion of Confucius is\n    founded on the Five _King_ and the Four _Shu_ books\u2014in themselves\n    of considerable extent and surrounded by voluminous Commentaries,\n    without which even the most learned scholars would not venture to\n    fathom _the depth_ of their sacred canon.(9)\n\n\nBut they have not fathomed it; and this is the complaint of the\nConfucianists, as a very learned member of that body, in Paris, complained\nin 1881.\n\nIf our scholars turn to the ancient literature of the Semitic religions,\nto the Scriptures of Chaldea, the elder sister and instructress, if not\nthe fountain\u2010head of the Mosaic Bible, the basis and starting\u2010point of\nChristianity, what do they find? To perpetuate the memory of the ancient\nreligions of Babylon, to record the vast cycle of astronomical\nobservations of the Chaldean Magi, to justify the tradition of their\nsplendid and pre\u00ebminently occult literature, what now remains? Only a few\nfragments, which are _said to be_ by Berosus.\n\nThese, however, are almost valueless, even as a clue to the character of\nwhat has disappeared, for they passed through the hands of his Reverence,\nthe Bishop of C\u00e6sarea\u2014that self\u2010constituted censor and editor of the\nsacred records of other men\u2019s religions\u2014and they doubtless to this day\nbear the mark of his eminently veracious and trustworthy hand. For what is\nthe history of this treatise on the once grand religion of Babylon?\n\nIt was written in Greek for Alexander the Great, by Berosus, a priest of\nthe temple of Belus, from the astronomical and chronological records\npreserved by the priests of that temple\u2014records covering a period of\n200,000 years\u2014and is now lost. In the first century B.C. Alexander\nPolyhistor made a series of extracts from it, _which are also lost_.\nEusebius (270\u2010340 A.D.) used these extracts in writing his _Chronicon_.\nThe points of resemblance\u2014almost of identity\u2014between the Jewish and the\nChaldean scriptures,(10) made the latter most dangerous to Eusebius, in\nhis _r\u00f4le_ of defender and champion of the new faith which had adopted the\nformer scriptures and together with them an absurd chronology.\n\nNow it is pretty certain that Eusebius did not spare the Egyptian\nsynchronistic tables of Manetho\u2014so much so that Bunsen(11) charges him\nwith mutilating history most unscrupulously, and Socrates, a historian of\nthe fifth century, and Syncellus, vice\u2010patriarch of Constantinople in the\nbeginning of the eighth, denounce him as the most daring and desperate\nforger. Is it likely, then, that he dealt more tenderly with the Chaldean\nrecords, which were already menacing the new religion, so rashly accepted?\n\nSo that, with the exception of these more than doubtful fragments, the\nentire Chaldean sacred literature has disappeared from the eyes of the\nprofane as completely as the lost Atlantis. A few facts that were\ncontained in the Berosian History are given later on, and may throw great\nlight on the true origin of the Fallen Angels, personified by Bel and the\nDragon.\n\nTurning now to the oldest specimen of \u00c2ryan literature, the _Rig Veda_,\nthe student if he strictly follows in this the data furnished by the\nOrientalists themselves, will find that although the _Rig Veda_ contains\nonly about 10,580 verses, or 1,028 hymns, yet in spite of the _Br\u00e2hmanas_\nand the mass of glosses and commentaries, it is not understood correctly\nto this day. Why is this so? Evidently because the _Br\u00e2hmanas_, \u201cthe\nscholastic and oldest treatises on the primitive hymns,\u201d _themselves\nrequire a key_, which the Orientalists have failed to secure.\n\nWhat, again, do the scholars say of Buddhist literature? Do they possess\nit in its completeness? Assuredly not. Notwithstanding the 325 volumes of\nthe _Kanjur_ and _Tanjur_ of the Northern Buddhists, each volume, we are\ntold, \u201cweighing from four to five pounds,\u201d nothing, in truth, is known of\nreal Lama\u00efsm. Yet the sacred canon is said in the _Saddharm\u00e2lank\u00e2ra_(12)\nto contain 29,368,000 letters, or, exclusive of treatises and\ncommentaries, five or six times the amount of the matter contained in the\n_Bible_, which, as Professor Max M\u00fcller states, rejoices in only 3,567,180\nletters. Notwithstanding, then, these 325 volumes (in reality there are\n333, the _Kanjur_ comprising 108, and _Tanjur_ 225 volumes), \u201cthe\ntranslators, instead of supplying us with correct versions, have\ninterwoven them with their own commentaries, for the purpose of justifying\nthe dogmas of their several schools.\u201d(13) Moreover, \u201caccording to a\ntradition preserved by the Buddhist schools, both of the South and of the\nNorth, the sacred Buddhist Canon comprised originally 80,000 or 84,000\ntracts, but most of them were lost, so that there remained but 6,000\u201d\u2014as\nthe Professor tells his audience. Lost, as usual\u2014for Europeans. But who\ncan be quite sure that they are likewise lost for Buddhists and Br\u00e2hmans?\n\nConsidering the reverence of the Buddhists for every line written upon\nBuddha and the Good Law, the loss of nearly 76,000 tracts does seem\nmiraculous. Had it been _vice vers\u00e2_, every one acquainted with the\nnatural course of events would subscribe to the statement that, of these\n76,000, 5,000 or 6,000 treatises _might have been_ destroyed during the\npersecutions in, and emigrations from, India. But as it is well\nascertained that the Buddhist Arhats began their religious exodus, for the\npurpose of propagating the new faith beyond Kashmir and the Him\u00e2layas, as\nearly as the year 300 before our era,(14) and reached China in the year 61\nA.D.,(15) when Kashyapa, at the invitation of the Emperor Ming\u2010ti, went\nthere to acquaint the \u201cSon of Heaven\u201d with the tenets of Buddhism, it does\nseem strange to hear the Orientalists speaking of such a loss as though it\nwere really possible. They do not seem to allow for one moment the\npossibility that the texts may be lost only for the West and for\nthemselves, or that the Asiatic people should have the unparalleled\nboldness to keep their most sacred records out of the reach of foreigners,\nthus refusing to deliver them to the profanation and misuse even of races\nso \u201cvastly superior\u201d to themselves.\n\nJudging by the expressed regrets and numerous confessions of almost every\none of the Orientalists,(16) the public may feel sufficiently sure, (_a_)\nthat the students of ancient religions have indeed very few data upon\nwhich to build such final conclusions as they generally do about the old\nfaiths, and (_b_) that such lack of data does not in the least prevent\nthem from dogmatizing. One would imagine that, thanks to the numerous\nrecords of the Egyptian theogony and mysteries, preserved in the classics\nand in a number of ancient writers, the rites and dogmas of Pharaonic\nEgypt, at least, ought to be well understood; better, at any rate, than\nthe too abstruse philosophies and Pantheism of India, of whose religion\nand language Europe had hardly any idea before the beginning of the\npresent century. Along the Nile and on the face of the whole country,\nthere stand to this hour, yearly and daily exhumed, ever fresh relics\nwhich eloquently tell their own history. Still it is not so. The learned\nOxford Philologist himself confesses the truth by saying:\n\n\n    We see still standing the pyramids, and the ruins of temples and\n    labyrinths, their walls covered with hieroglyphic inscriptions,\n    and with the strange pictures of gods and goddesses. On rolls of\n    papyrus, which seem to defy the ravages of time, we have even\n    fragments of what may be called the sacred books of the Egyptians.\n    Yet, though much has been deciphered in the ancient records of the\n    mysterious race, the mainspring of the religion of Egypt and the\n    original intention of its ceremonial worship are far from being\n    fully disclosed to us.(17)\n\n\nHere again the mysterious hieroglyphic documents remain, but the keys by\nwhich alone they become intelligible have disappeared.\n\nIn fact so little acquainted are our greatest Egyptologists with the\nfunerary rites of the Egyptians and the outward marks of the difference of\nsex on the mummies, that it has led to the most ludicrous mistakes. Only a\nyear or two ago, one of this kind was discovered at Boulaq, Cairo. The\nmummy of what was considered the wife of an unimportant Pharaoh, has,\nthanks to an inscription found on an amulet hung round its neck, turned\nout to be that of Sesostris\u2014the greatest King of Egypt!\n\nNevertheless, having found that \u201cthere is a natural connection between\nlanguage and religion\u201d; and that \u201cthere was a _common_ \u00c2ryan religion\nbefore the separation of the \u00c2ryan race; a _common_ Semitic religion\nbefore the separation of the Semitic race; and a _common_ Turanic religion\nbefore the separation of the Chinese and the other tribes belonging to the\nTuranian class\u201d; having, in fact, discovered only \u201cthree ancient centres\nof religion\u201d and \u201cthree centres of language\u201d; and though as entirely\nignorant of those primitive religions and languages as of their origin\u2014the\nProfessor does not hesitate to declare \u201cthat a truly _historical basis_\nfor a scientific treatment of the principal religions of the world\u201d has\nbeen gained!\n\nA \u201cscientific treatment\u201d of a subject is no guarantee for its \u201chistorical\nbasis\u201d; and with such scarcity of data on hand, no Philologist, even among\nthe most eminent, is justified in giving out his own conclusions for\n_historical facts_. No doubt, the eminent Orientalist has thoroughly\nproved to the world\u2019s satisfaction that, according to the phonetic rules\nof Grimm\u2019s law, Odin and Buddha are two different personages, quite\ndistinct from each other, and has proved it _scientifically_. When,\nhowever, he takes the opportunity of saying in the same breath that Odin\n\u201cwas worshipped as the supreme deity during a period long anterior to the\nage of the _Veda_ and of Homer,\u201d(18) he has not the slightest \u201chistorical\nbasis\u201d for it, but makes _history_ and _fact_ subservient to his own\nconclusions, which may be very \u201cscientific\u201d in the sight of Oriental\nscholars, but yet very wide of the mark of actual truth. The conflicting\nviews of the various eminent Philologists and Orientalists, from Martin\nHaug down to Prof. Max M\u00fcller himself, on the subject of chronology, in\nthe case of the _Vedas_, are an evident proof that the statement has no\n\u201chistorical\u201d basis to stand upon, \u201cinternal evidence\u201d being very often a\nJack\u2010o\u2019\u2010lantern, instead of a safe beacon to follow. Nor has the Science\nof modern Comparative Mythology any better argument to bring forward to\ncrush the contention of those learned writers who have insisted for the\nlast century or so that there must have been \u201cfragments of a primeval\nrevelation, granted to the ancestors of the whole race of mankind ...\npreserved in the temples of Greece and Italy.\u201d For this is what all the\nEastern Initiates and Pandits have been proclaiming to the world from time\nto time. And while a prominent Singhalese priest assured the writer that\nit was well known that the most important tracts, belonging to the\nBuddhist sacred canon, were stored away in _countries and places\ninaccessible to the European Pandits_, the late Sv\u00e2mi Dayanand Sarasvat\u00ee,\nthe greatest Sanskritist of his day in India, assured some members of the\nTheosophical Society of the same fact with regard to ancient Br\u00e2hmanical\nworks. When told that Professor Max M\u00fcller had declared to the audiences\nof his _Lectures_ that the theory \u201c_that there was a primeval\npreternatural revelation_ granted to the fathers of the human race, finds\nbut few supporters at present\u201d\u2014the holy and learned man laughed. His\nanswer was suggestive. \u201cIf Mr. \u2018Moksh Mooller\u2019 [as he pronounced the\nname], were a Br\u00e2hman, and came with me, I might take him to a _gupa_ cave\n[a secret crypt] near Okhee Math, in the Him\u00e2layas, where he would soon\nfind out that what crossed the K\u00e2lapani [the black waters of the ocean]\nfrom India to Europe were only the _bits of rejected copies of some\npassages from our sacred books_. There _was_ a \u2018primeval revelation,\u2019 and\nit still exists; nor will it ever be lost to the world, but will re\u00e4ppear;\nthough the Mlechchhas will of course have to wait.\u201d\n\nQuestioned further on the point, he would say no more. This was at Meerut,\nin 1880.\n\nNo doubt the mystification played by the Br\u00e2hmans upon Colonel Wilford and\nSir William Jones, in the last century, at Calcutta, was cruel, but it had\nbeen well deserved, and no one was more to blame in that affair than the\nmissionaries and Colonel Wilford himself. The former, on the testimony of\nSir William Jones himself,(19) were silly enough to maintain that \u201cthe\nHind\u00fbs were even now almost Christians, because their Brahm\u00e2, Vishnu and\nMahesha were no other than the Christian trinity.\u201d(20) It was a good\nlesson. It made the Oriental scholars doubly cautious; but perchance it\nhas also made some of them too shy and, in its re\u00e4ction, has caused the\npendulum of foregone conclusions to swing too much the other way. For\n\u201cthat first supply from the Br\u00e2hmanical market,\u201d in answer to the demand\nof Colonel Wilford, has now created an evident necessity and desire in the\nOrientalists to declare nearly every archaic Sanskrit manuscript so modern\nas to give the missionaries full justification for availing themselves of\ntheir opportunity. That they do so and to the full extent of their mental\npowers, is shown by the absurd attempts of late to prove that the whole\nPur\u00e2nic story about Krishna was _plagiarized by the Br\u00e2hmans from the\nBible!_ But the facts cited by the Oxford Professor in his _Lectures_\nconcerning the now famous interpolations, for the benefit, and later on to\nthe sorrow, of Colonel Wilford, do not at all interfere with the\nconclusions to which one who studies the Secret Doctrine must unavoidably\ncome. For, if the results show that neither the _New_ nor even the _Old\nTestament_ borrowed anything from the more ancient religion of the\nBr\u00e2hmans and Buddhists, it does not follow that the Jews have not borrowed\nall they knew from the Chaldean records, the latter being mutilated later\non by Eusebius. As to the Chaldeans, they assuredly got their primitive\nlearning from the Br\u00e2hmans, for Rawlinson shows an undeniably Vedic\ninfluence in the early mythology of Babylon; and Colonel Vans Kennedy has\nlong ago justly declared that Babylonia was, from her origin, the seat of\nSanskrit and Br\u00e2hman learning. But all such proofs must lose their value,\nin the presence of the latest theory worked out by Prof. Max M\u00fcller. What\nit is everyone knows. The code of phonetic laws has now become a universal\nsolvent for every identification and \u201cconnection\u201d between the gods of many\nnations. Thus, though the Mother of Mercury (Budha, Thot\u2010Hermes, etc.) was\nMaia, the mother of Gautama Buddha, also M\u00e2y\u00e2, and the mother of Jesus,\nlikewise M\u00e2y\u00e2 (Illusion, for Mary is Mare, the Sea, the great Illusion\nsymbolically)\u2014yet these three characters have no connection, nor can they\nhave any, since Bopp has \u201claid down his code of phonetic laws.\u201d\n\nIn their efforts to collect together the many skeins of unwritten history,\nit is a bold step for our Orientalists to take, to deny _\u00e0 priori_\neverything that does not dove\u2010tail with their special conclusions. Thus,\nwhile new discoveries are daily made of great arts and sciences having\nexisted far back in the night of time, yet even the knowledge of writing\nis refused to some of the most ancient nations, and they are credited with\nbarbarism instead of culture. Nevertheless traces of an immense\ncivilization, even in Central Asia, are still to be found. This\ncivilization is undeniably _prehistoric_. And how can there be\ncivilization without a literature in some form, without annals or\nchronicles? Common sense alone ought to supplement the broken links in the\nhistory of departed nations. The gigantic and unbroken wall of the\nmountains that hem in the whole table\u2010land of Tibet, from the upper course\nof the river Khuan\u2010Kh\u00e9 down to the Karakorum hills, witnessed a\ncivilization during millenniums of years, and should have strange secrets\nto tell mankind. The eastern and central portions of these regions\u2014the\nNan\u2010chan and the Altyn\u2010tag\u2014were once upon a time covered with cities that\ncould well vie with Babylon. A whole geological period has swept over the\nland, since those cities breathed their last, as the mounds of shifting\nsand and the sterile and now dead soil of the immense central plains of\nthe basin of Tarim testify. The borderlands alone are superficially known\nto the traveller. Within those table\u2010lands of sand there is water, and\nfresh oases are found blooming there, wherein no European foot has ever\nyet ventured, or trodden the now treacherous soil. Among these verdant\noases there are some which are entirely inaccessible even to the profane\nnative traveller. Hurricanes may \u201ctear up the sands and sweep whole plains\naway,\u201d they are powerless to destroy that which is beyond their reach.\nBuilt deep in the bowels of the earth, the subterranean stores are secure;\nand as their entrances are concealed, there is little fear that anyone\nwould discover them, even should several armies invade the sandy wastes\nwhere\u2014\n\n\n    Not a pool, not a bush, not a house is seen,\n    And the mountain\u2010range forms a rugged screen\n    Round the parch\u2019d flats of the dry, dry desert....\n\n\nBut there is no need to send the reader across the desert, when the same\nproofs of ancient civilization are found even in comparatively populated\nregions of the same country. The oasis of Tchertchen, for instance,\nsituated about 4,000 feet above the level of the river Tchertchen\u2010Darya,\nis now surrounded in every direction by the ruins of archaic towns and\ncities. There, some 3,000 human beings represent the relics of about a\nhundred extinct nations and races, the very names of which are now unknown\nto our ethnologists. An anthropologist would feel more than embarrassed to\nclass, divide and subdivide them; the more so, as the respective\ndescendants of all these antediluvian races and tribes themselves know as\nlittle of their own forefathers as if they had fallen from the moon. When\nquestioned about their origin, they reply that they know not whence their\nfathers had come, but had heard that their first, or earliest, men were\nruled by the great Genii of these deserts. This may be put down to\nignorance and superstition, yet in view of the teachings of the Secret\nDoctrine, the answer may be based upon primeval tradition. Alone the tribe\nof Khoorassan claims to have come from what is now known as Afghanistan,\nlong before the days of Alexander, and brings legendary lore to that\neffect in corroboration. The Russian traveller Colonel (now General)\nPrjevalsky found quite close to the oasis of Tchertchen the ruins of two\nenormous cities, the oldest of which, according to local tradition, was\ndestroyed 3,000 years ago by a hero and giant, and the other by Mongolians\nin the tenth century of our era.\n\n\n    The emplacement of the two cities is now covered, owing to\n    shifting sands and the desert wind, with strange and heterogeneous\n    relics; with broken china and kitchen utensils and human bones.\n    The natives often find copper and gold coins, melted silver\n    ingots, diamonds, and turquoises, and what is the most\n    remarkable\u2014broken glass.... Coffins of some undecaying wood, or\n    material, also, within which beautifully preserved embalmed bodies\n    are found.... The male mummies are all extremely tall powerfully\n    built men with long wavy hair.... A vault was found with twelve\n    dead men sitting in it. Another time, in a separate coffin, a\n    young girl was discovered by us. Her eyes were closed with golden\n    discs, and the jaws held firm by a golden circlet running from\n    under the chin across the top of the head. Clad in a narrow\n    woollen garment, her bosom was covered with golden stars, the feet\n    being left naked.(21)\n\n\nTo this, the famous traveller adds that all along their way on the river\nTchertchen they heard legends about twenty\u2010three towns buried ages ago by\nthe shifting sands of the deserts. The same tradition exists on the Lob\u2010\nnor and in the oasis of Kerya.\n\nThe traces of such civilization, and these and like traditions, give us\nthe right to credit other legendary lore, warranted by well educated and\nlearned natives of India and Mongolia who speak of immense libraries\nreclaimed from the sand, together with various relics of ancient Magic\nLore, which have all been safely stowed away.\n\nTo recapitulate. The Secret Doctrine was the universally diffused religion\nof the ancient and prehistoric world. Proofs of its diffusion, authentic\nrecords of its history, a complete chain of documents, showing its\ncharacter and presence in every land, together with the teaching of all\nits great Adepts, exist to this day in the secret crypts of libraries\nbelonging to the Occult Fraternity.\n\nThis statement is rendered more credible by a consideration of the\nfollowing facts: the tradition of the thousands of ancient parchments\nsaved when the Alexandrian library was destroyed; the thousands of\nSanskrit works which disappeared in India in the reign of Akbar; the\nuniversal tradition in China and Japan that the true ancient texts with\nthe commentaries, which alone make them comprehensible, amounting to many\nthousands of volumes, have long passed out of the reach of profane hands;\nthe disappearance of the vast sacred and occult literature of Babylon; the\nloss of those keys which alone could solve the thousand riddles of the\nEgyptian hieroglyphic records; the tradition in India that the real secret\ncommentaries which alone make the _Vedas_ intelligible, though no longer\nvisible to profane eyes, still remain for the Initiate, hidden in secret\ncaves and crypts; and an identical belief among the Buddhists, with regard\nto their secret books.\n\nThe Occultists assert that all these exist, safe from Western spoliating\nhands, to re\u00e4ppear in some more enlightened age, for which, in the words\nof the late Sv\u00e2mi Dayanand Sarasvat\u00ee, \u201cthe Mlechchhas [outcasts, savages,\nthose beyond the pale of \u00c2ryan civilization] will have to wait.\u201d\n\nFor it is not the fault of the Initiates that these documents are now\n\u201clost\u201d to the profane; nor was their policy dictated by selfishness, or\nany desire to monopolise the life\u2010giving sacred lore. There were portions\nof the Secret Science that for incalculable ages had to remain concealed\nfrom the profane gaze. But this was because the imparting to the\nunprepared multitude secrets of such tremendous importance was equivalent\nto giving a child a lighted candle in a powder magazine.\n\nThe answer to a question which has frequently arisen in the minds of\nstudents, when meeting with statements such as this, may well be outlined\nhere.\n\nWe can understand, they say, the necessity for concealing from the herd\nsuch secrets as the Vril, or the rock\u2010destroying force, discovered by J.\nW. Keely, of Philadelphia, but we cannot understand how any danger could\narise from the revelation of such a purely philosophical doctrine, for\ninstance, as the evolution of the Planetary Chains.\n\nThe danger was that such doctrines as the Planetary Chain, or the seven\nRaces, at once give a clue to the seven\u2010fold nature of man, for each\nprinciple is correlated to a plane, a planet, and a race, and the human\nprinciples are, on every plane, correlated to seven\u2010fold occult forces,\nthose of the higher planes being of tremendous power. So that any\nseptenary division at once gives a clue to tremendous occult powers, the\nabuse of which would cause incalculable evil to humanity; a clue which is,\nperhaps, no clue to the present generation\u2014especially to Westerns,\nprotected as they are by their very blindness and ignorant materialistic\ndisbelief in the occult\u2014but a clue which would, nevertheless, have been\nvery real in the early centuries of the Christian era to people fully\nconvinced of the reality of Occultism, and entering a cycle of degradation\nwhich made them rife for abuse of occult powers and sorcery of the worst\ndescription.\n\nThe documents were concealed, it is true, but the knowledge itself and its\nactual existence was never made a secret of by the Hierophants of the\nTemples, wherein the MYSTERIES have ever been made a discipline and\nstimulus to virtue. This is very old news, and was repeatedly made known\nby the great Adepts, from Pythagoras and Plato down to the Neo\u2010Platonists.\nIt was the new religion of the Nazarenes that wrought a change for the\nworse in the policy of centuries.\n\nMoreover, there is a well\u2010known fact\u2014a very curious one, corroborated to\nthe writer by a reverend gentleman attached for years to a Russian\nEmbassy\u2014that there are several documents in the St. Petersburg Imperial\nLibraries to show that, even so late as the days when Freemasonry and\nSecret Societies of Mystics flourished without hindrance in Russia, namely\nat the end of the last and the beginning of the present century, more than\none Russian Mystic travelled to Tibet _vi\u00e2_ the Ural Mountains in search\nof knowledge and initiation in the unknown crypts of Central Asia. And\nmore than one returned years later, with a rich store of information such\nas could never have been given him anywhere in Europe. Several cases could\nbe cited and well\u2010known names brought forward, but for the fact that such\npublicity might annoy the surviving relatives of the late Initiates\nreferred to. Let any one look over the annals and history of Freemasonry\nin the archives of the Russian metropolis, and he will assure himself of\nthe fact above stated.\n\nThis is a corroboration of what has been stated many times before,\nunfortunately, too indiscreetly. Instead of benefiting humanity, the\nvirulent charges of deliberate invention and imposture with a purpose,\nhurled at those who asserted a veritable, even if a little known fact,\nhave only generated bad Karma for the slanderers. But now the mischief is\ndone, and truth should no longer be denied, whatever the consequences.\n\nIs Theosophy a new religion, we are asked? By no means; it is not a\n\u201creligion,\u201d nor is its philosophy \u201cnew\u201d; for, as already stated, it is as\nold as thinking man. Its tenets are not now published for the first time,\nbut have been cautiously given out to, and taught by, more than one\nEuropean Initiate\u2014especially by the late Ragon.\n\nMore than one great scholar has stated that there never was a religious\nfounder, whether \u00c2ryan, Semitic or Turanian, who had _invented_ a new\nreligion, or revealed a new truth. These founders were all _transmitters_,\nnot original teachers. They were the authors of new forms and\ninterpretations, while the truths upon which their teachings were based\nwere as old as mankind. Thus out of the many truths revealed orally to man\nin the beginning, preserved and perpetuated in the Adyta of the temples\nthrough initiation, during the Mysteries and by personal transmission,\nthey selected one or more of such grand verities\u2014actualities visible only\nto the eye of the real Sage and Seer, and revealed them to the masses.\nThus every nation received in its turn some of the said truths, under the\nveil of its own local and special symbolism, which, as time went on,\ndeveloped into a more or less philosophical cultus, a Pantheon in mythical\ndisguise. Therefore is Confucius, a very ancient legislator in historical\nchronology, though a very modern sage in the world\u2019s history, shown by Dr.\nLegge(22) to be emphatically a _transmitter_, not a maker. As he himself\nsays, \u201cI only hand on: I cannot create new things. I believe in the\nancients and therefore I love them.\u201d(23)\n\nThe writer loves them too, and therefore believes in these ancients, and\nthe modern heirs to their Wisdom. And believing in both, she now transmits\nthat which she has received and learnt herself, to all those who will\naccept it. As to those who may reject her testimony\u2014the great majority\u2014she\nwill bear them no malice, for they will be as right in their way in\ndenying, as she is right in hers in affirming, since they look at Truth\nfrom two entirely different stand\u2010points. Agreeably with the rules of\ncritical scholarship, the Orientalist has to reject _\u00e0 priori_ whatever\nevidence he cannot fully verify for himself. And how can a Western scholar\naccept on hearsay that which he knows nothing about? Indeed, that which is\ngiven in these volumes is selected from oral, as much as from written\nteachings. This first instalment of the esoteric doctrines is based upon\nStanzas, which are the records of a people unknown to ethnology. They are\nwritten, it is claimed, in a tongue absent from the nomenclature of\nlanguages and dialects with which philology is acquainted; are said to\nemanate from a source repudiated by Science\u2014to\u2010wit, Occultism; and finally\nthey are offered through an agency, incessantly discredited before the\nworld by all those who hate unwelcome truths, or have some special hobby\nof their own to defend. Therefore, the rejection of these teachings may be\nexpected, and must be expected beforehand. No one styling himself a\n\u201cscholar,\u201d in whatever department of exact Science, will permit himself to\nregard these teachings seriously. They will be derided and rejected _\u00e0\npriori_ in this century, but only in this one. For in the twentieth\ncentury of our era scholars will begin to recognize that the Secret\nDoctrine has neither been invented nor exaggerated, but, on the contrary,\nsimply outlined; and finally that its teachings antedate the Vedas. This\nis no pretension to prophecy, but simply a statement based on the\nknowledge of facts. Every century an attempt is being made to show the\nworld that Occultism is no vain superstition. Once the door is permitted\nto remain a little ajar, it will be opened wider with every new century.\nThe times are ripe for a more serious knowledge than hitherto permitted,\nthough still, even now, very limited.\n\nFor have not even the _Vedas_ been derided, rejected and called \u201ca modern\nforgery\u201d even so recently as fifty years ago? Was not Sanskrit proclaimed\nat one time the progeny of, and a dialect derived from, the Greek,\naccording to Lempri\u00e8re and other scholars? About 1820, as Prof. Max M\u00fcller\ntells us, the sacred books of the Br\u00e2hmans, of the Magians, and of the\nBuddhists, \u201cwere all but unknown, their very existence was doubted, and\nthere was not a single scholar who could have translated a line of the\n_Veda_ ... of the _Zend Avesta_, or ... of the Buddhist _Tripitaka_, and\nnow the _Vedas_ are proved to be the work of the highest antiquity, whose\n\u2018preservation amounts almost to a marvel\u2019.\u201d\n\nThe same will be said of the Secret Archaic Doctrine, when undeniable\nproofs are given of its existence and records. But it will be centuries\nbefore much more is given from it. Speaking of the keys to the Zodiacal\nMysteries as being almost lost to the world, it was remarked by the writer\nsome ten years ago in _Isis Unveiled_ that: \u201cThe said key must be turned\nseven times before the whole system is divulged. We will give it but one\nturn, and thereby allow the profane one glimpse into the mystery. Happy\nhe, who understands the whole!\u201d\n\nThe same may be said of the whole Esoteric System. One turn of the key,\nand no more, was given in _Isis Unveiled_. Much more is explained in these\nvolumes. In those days the writer hardly knew the language in which the\nwork was written, and the disclosure of many things, freely spoken about\nnow, was forbidden. In Century the Twentieth, some disciple more informed,\nand far better fitted, may be sent by the Masters of Wisdom to give final\nand irrefutable proofs that there exists a Science called Gupta Vidy\u00e2; and\nthat, like the once mysterious sources of the Nile, the source of all\nreligions and philosophies now made known to the world has been for many\nages forgotten and lost to men, but it is at last found.\n\nSuch a work as this has to be introduced with no simple preface, but with\na volume rather\u2014one that would give facts, not mere disquisitions, since\nTHE SECRET DOCTRINE is not a treatise, or a series of vague theories, but\ncontains all that can be given out to the world in this century.\n\nIt would be worse than useless to publish in these pages even those\nportions of the esoteric teachings that have now escaped from confinement,\nunless the genuineness and authenticity, or at any rate the probability,\nof the existence of such teachings were first established. Such statements\nas will now be made, have to be shown as warranted by various authorities,\nsuch as ancient philosophers, classical writers and even certain learned\nChurch Fathers, some of whom knew these doctrines because they had studied\nthem, had seen and read works written upon them; and some of whom had even\nbeen personally initiated into the ancient Mysteries, during the\nperformance of which the arcane doctrines were allegorically enacted. The\nwriter will have to give historical and trustworthy names, and to cite\nwell\u2010known authors, ancient and modern, of recognized ability, good\njudgment, and truthfulness, as also to name some of the famous proficients\nin the secret arts and science, together with the mysteries of the latter,\nas they are divulged, or rather partially presented before the public in\ntheir strange archaic form.\n\nHow is this to be done; what is the best way for achieving such an object,\nhas been the ever\u2010recurring question. To make our plan clearer, an\nillustration may be attempted. When a tourist, coming from a well\u2010explored\ncountry, suddenly reaches the borderland of a _terra incognita_, hedged\nin, and shut out from view by a formidable barrier of impassable rocks, he\nmay still refuse to acknowledge himself baffled in his exploratory plans.\nIngress beyond is forbidden. But if he cannot visit the mysterious region\npersonally, he may still find a means of examining it from as short a\ndistance as can be arrived at. Helped by his knowledge of the landscapes\nleft behind, he can get a general and pretty correct idea of the\ntransmural view, if he will only climb to the loftiest summit of the\naltitudes in front of him. Once there, he can gaze at it at his leisure,\ncomparing that which he dimly perceives with that which he has just left\nbelow, now that he is, thanks to his own efforts, beyond the line of the\nmists and the cloud\u2010capped cliffs.\n\nSuch a point of preliminary observation, cannot in these two volumes be\noffered to those who would like to get a more correct understanding of the\nmysteries of the pre\u2010archaic periods given in the texts. But if the reader\nhas patience, and will glance at the present state of beliefs and creeds\nin Europe, compare and check it with what is known to history of the ages\ndirectly preceding and following the Christian era, then he will find all\nthis in a future volume of the present work.\n\nIn the latter volume a brief recapitulation will be made of all the\nprincipal Adepts known to history, and the downfall of the Mysteries will\nbe described, after which began the disappearance and the systematic and\nfinal elimination from the memory of men of the real nature of Initiation\nand the Sacred Science. From that time its teachings became occult, and\nMagic sailed but too often under the venerable but frequently misleading\nname of Hermetic Philosophy. As real Occultism had been prevalent among\nthe Mystics during the centuries that preceded our era, so Magic, or\nrather Sorcery, with its Occult Arts, followed the beginning of\nChristianity.\n\nHowever great and zealous the fanatical efforts, during these early\ncenturies, to obliterate every trace of the mental and intellectual labour\nof the Pagans, they were a failure; but the same spirit of the dark demon\nof bigotry and intolerance has ever since systematically perverted every\nbright page written in the pre\u2010Christian periods. Even history, in her\nuncertain records, has preserved enough of that which has survived to\nthrow an impartial light upon the whole. Let, then, the reader tarry a\nlittle while with the writer on the spot of observation selected. He is\nasked to give all his attention to that millennium of the pre\u2010Christian\nand the post\u2010Christian periods, divided by the year One of the Nativity.\nThis event\u2014whether historically correct or not\u2014has nevertheless been made\nto serve as a first signal for the erection of manifold bulwarks against\nany possible return of, or even a glimpse into, the hated religions of the\nPast; hated and dreaded, because throwing such a vivid light on the novel\nand intentionally veiled interpretation of what is now known as the \u201cNew\nDispensation.\u201d\n\nHowever superhuman the efforts of the early Christian Fathers to\nobliterate the Secret Doctrine from the very memory of man, they all\nfailed. Truth can never be killed; hence the failure to sweep away\nentirely from the face of the earth every vestige of that ancient Wisdom,\nand to shackle and gag every witness who testified to it. Let one only\nthink of the thousands, perhaps millions, of MSS. burnt; of monuments,\nwith their too indiscreet inscriptions and pictorial symbols, pulverized\nto dust; of the bands of early hermits and ascetics roaming about among\nthe ruined cities of Upper and Lower Egypt, in desert and mountain, valley\nand highland, seeking for and eager to destroy every obelisk and pillar,\nscroll or parchment they could lay their hands on, if only it bore the\nsymbol of the Tau, or any other sign borrowed and appropriated by the new\nfaith\u2014and he will then see plainly how it is that so little has remained\nof the records of the past. Verily, the fiendish spirit of fanaticism of\nearly and medi\u00e6val Christianity and of Islam has loved from the first to\ndwell in darkness and ignorance; and both have made\n\n\n    ... the sun like blood, the earth a tomb,\n    The tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom!\n\n\nBoth creeds have won their proselytes at the point of the sword; both have\nbuilt their churches on heaven\u2010kissing hecatombs of human victims. Over\nthe gateway of Century I of our era, the ominous words \u201cTHE KARMA OF\nISRAEL,\u201d fatally glowed. Over the portals of our own, the future seer may\ndiscern other words, that will point to the Karma for cunningly made\u2010up\nhistory, for events purposely perverted, and for great characters\nslandered by posterity, mangled out of recognition, between the two cars\nof Jagann\u00e2tha\u2014Bigotry and Materialism; one accepting too much, the other\ndenying all. Wise is he who holds to the golden mid\u2010point, who believes in\nthe eternal justice of things. Says Faizi D\u00edw\u00e1n, the \u201cwitness to the\nwonderful speeches of a freethinker who belongs to a thousand sects\u201d:\n\n\n    In the assembly of the day of resurrection, when past things shall\n    be forgiven, the sins of the Ka\u2019bah will be forgiven for the sake\n    of the dust of Christian churches.\n\n\nTo this, Professor Max M\u00fcller replies:\n\n\n    The sins of Islam are _as worthless as the dust of Christianity;\n    on the day of resurrection both Muhammadans and Christians will\n    see the vanity of their religious doctrines._ Men fight about\n    religion on earth; in heaven they shall find out that there is\n    only one true religion\u2014the worship of God\u2019s SPIRIT.(24)\n\n\nIn other words, \u201cTHERE IS NO RELIGION [OR LAW] HIGHER THAN TRUTH\u201d\u2014(_Saty\u00e2t\nN\u00e2sti Paro Dharmah_)\u2014the motto of the Mah\u00e2r\u00e2jah of Benares, adopted by the\nTheosophical Society.\n\nAs already said in the _Preface_, THE SECRET DOCTRINE is not a version of\n_Isis Unveiled_, as originally intended. It is rather a volume explanatory\nof the latter, and, though entirely independent of the earlier work, an\nindispensable corollary to it. Much of what was in the former work could\nhardly be understood by Theosophists in those days. THE SECRET DOCTRINE\nwill now throw light on many a problem left unsolved in the first work,\nespecially on the opening pages, which have never been understood.\n\nAs it was concerned simply with the philosophies within historical times\nand the respective symbolism of the fallen nations, only a hurried glance\ncould be thrown at the panorama of Occultism in the two volumes of _Isis_.\nIn the present work, detailed cosmogony and the evolution of the four\nRaces that preceded our fifth\u2010race Humanity are given, and now two large\nvolumes explain that which was stated only on the first page of _Isis\nUnveiled_ alone, and in a few allusions scattered hither and thither\nthroughout that work. Nor can the vast catalogue of the Archaic Sciences\nbe attempted in the present volumes, before we have disposed of such\ntremendous problems as cosmic and planetary Evolution, and the gradual\ndevelopment of the mysterious humanities and races that preceded our\nAdamic Humanity. Therefore, the present attempt to elucidate some\nmysteries of the Esoteric Philosophy has, in truth, nothing to do with the\nearlier work. The writer must be allowed to illustrate what is said by an\ninstance.\n\nVolume I of _Isis_ begins with a reference to an \u201cold book\u201d:\n\n\n    So very old that our modern antiquarians might ponder over its\n    pages an indefinite time, and still not quite agree as to the\n    nature of the fabric upon which it is written. It is the only\n    original copy now in existence. The most ancient Hebrew document\n    on occult learning\u2014the _Siprah Dzeniouta_\u2014was compiled from it,\n    and that at a time when the former was already considered in the\n    light of a literary relic. One of its illustrations represents the\n    Divine Essence emanating from ADAM(25) like a luminous arc\n    proceeding to form a circle; and then, having attained the highest\n    point of its circumference, the ineffable Glory bends back again,\n    and returns to earth, bringing a higher type of humanity in its\n    vortex. As it approaches nearer and nearer to our planet, the\n    Emanation becomes more and more shadowy, until upon touching the\n    ground it is as black as night.\n\n\nThis very old book is the original work from which the many volumes of\n_Kiu\u2010ti_ were compiled. Not only the latter and the _Siphrah Dzeniouta_,\nbut even the _Sepher Jetzirah_(26)\u2014the work attributed by the Hebrew\nKabalists to their Patriarch Abraham (!), the _Shu\u2010king_, China\u2019s\nprimitive Bible, the sacred volumes of the Egyptian Thoth\u2010Hermes, the\n_Pur\u00e2nas_ in India, the Chaldean _Book of Numbers_ and the _Pentateuch_\nitself, are all derived from that one small parent volume. Tradition says,\nthat it was taken down in _Senzar_, the secret sacerdotal tongue, from the\nwords of Divine Beings, who dictated it to the Sons of Light, in Central\nAsia, at the very beginning of our Fifth Race; for there was a time when\nits language (the Senzar) was known to the Initiates of every nation, when\nthe forefathers of the Toltec understood it as easily as the inhabitants\nof the lost Atlantis, who inherited it, in their turn, from the sages of\nthe Third Race, the M\u00e2nushis, who learnt it direct from the Devas of the\nSecond and First Races. The illustration spoken of in _Isis_ relates to\nthe evolution of these Races and of our fourth\u2010 and fifth\u2010race Humanity in\nthe Vaivasvata Manvantara, or Round; each Round being composed of the\nYugas of the seven periods of Humanity; four of which are now passed in\n_our_ Life\u2010Cycle, the middle point of the fifth being nearly reached. This\nillustration is symbolical, as every one can well understand, and covers\nthe ground from the beginning. The old book, having described cosmic\nevolution and explained the origin of everything on earth, including\nphysical man, after giving the true history of the Races, from the First\ndown to our own Fifth Race, goes no further. It stops short at the\nbeginning of the Kali Yuga, just 4,989 years ago, at the death of Krishna,\nthe bright Sun\u2010god, the once living hero and reformer.\n\nBut there exists another book. None of its possessors regard it as very\nancient, as it was born with, and is only as old as the Black Age, namely,\nabout 5,000 years. In about nine years hence, the first cycle of the first\nfive millenniums, that began with the great cycle of the Kali Yuga, will\nend. And then the last prophecy contained in that book\u2014the first volume of\nthe prophetic record for the Black Age\u2014will be accomplished. We have not\nlong to wait, and many of us will witness the dawn of the New Cycle, at\nthe end of which not a few accounts will be settled and squared between\nthe races. Volume II of the prophecies is nearly ready, having been in\npreparation since the time of Buddha\u2019s grand successor, Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya.\n\nOne more important point must be noticed, one that stands foremost in the\nseries of proofs given of the existence of one primeval, universal\nWisdom\u2014at any rate for Christian Kabalists and students. The teachings\nwere, at least, partially known to several of the Fathers of the Church.\nIt is maintained, on purely historical grounds, that Origen, Synesius, and\neven Clemens Alexandrinus, had themselves been initiated into the\nMysteries before adding to the Neo\u2010Platonism of the Alexandrian school\nthat of the Gnostics, under the Christian veil. More than this, some of\nthe doctrines of the secret schools, though by no means all, were\npreserved in the Vatican, and have since become part and parcel of the\nMysteries, in the shape of disfigured additions made to the original\nChristian programme by the Latin Church. Such is the now materialised\ndogma of the Immaculate Conception. This accounts for the great\npersecutions set on foot by the Roman Catholic Church against Occultism,\nMasonry, and heterodox Mysticism generally.\n\nThe days of Constantine were the last turning\u2010point in history, the period\nof the supreme struggle, that ended in the Western world throttling the\nold religions in favour of the new one, built on their bodies. From thence\nthe vista into the far distant past, beyond the Deluge and the Garden of\nEden, began to be forcibly and relentlessly shut out by every fair and\nunfair means from the indiscreet gaze of posterity. Every issue was\nblocked up, every record upon which hands could be laid, destroyed. Yet\nthere remains enough, even among such mutilated records, to warrant us in\nsaying that there is in them every requisite evidence of the actual\nexistence of a Parent Doctrine. Fragments have survived geological and\npolitical cataclysms, to tell the story; and every survival shows evidence\nthat the now secret Wisdom was once the one fountain head, the ever\u2010\nflowing perennial source, from which were fed all the streamlets\u2014the later\nreligions of all nations\u2014from the first down to the last. This period,\nbeginning with Buddha and Pythagoras at the one end and finishing with the\nNeo\u2010Platonists and Gnostics at the other, is the only focus left in\nHistory wherein converge for the last time the bright rays of light\nstreaming from the \u00e6ons of times gone by, unobscured by the hand of\nbigotry and fanaticism.\n\nThis accounts for the necessity under which the writer has laboured of\never explaining the facts given from the hoariest past by evidence\ngathered from the historical period, even at the risk of being once more\ncharged with a lack of method and system. No other means was at hand. The\npublic must be made acquainted with the efforts of many world\u2010adepts, of\ninitiated poets and writers in the classics of every age, to preserve in\nthe records of humanity the knowledge at least of the existence of such a\nphilosophy, if not actually of its tenets. The Initiates of 1888 would\nindeed remain incomprehensible and even a seemingly impossible myth, were\nnot like Initiates shown to have lived in every other age of history. This\ncould be done only by naming chapter and verse where mention may be found\nof these great characters, who were preceded and followed by a long and\ninterminable line of other famous antediluvian and postdiluvian Masters in\nthe arts. Thus only could it be shown, on semi\u2010traditional and semi\u2010\nhistorical authority, that occult knowledge and the powers it confers on\nman, are not altogether fictions, but that they are as old as the world\nitself.\n\nTo my judges, past and future, therefore\u2014whether they are serious literary\ncritics, or those howling dervishes in literature who judge a book\naccording to the popularity or unpopularity of the author\u2019s name, who,\nhardly glancing at its contents, fasten like lethal _bacilli_ on the\nweakest points of the body\u2014I have nothing to say. Nor shall I condescend\nto notice those crack\u2010brained slanderers\u2014fortunately very few in\nnumber\u2014who, hoping to attract public attention by throwing discredit on\nevery writer whose name is better known than their own, foam and bark at\ntheir very shadows. These, having first maintained for years that the\ndoctrines taught in the _Theosophist_, and which culminated in _Esoteric\nBuddhism_, had been all _invented_ by the present writer, have finally\nturned round, and denounced _Isis Unveiled_ and the rest as a plagiarism\nfrom \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi (!), Paracelsus (!!), and, _mirabile dictu_, Buddhism\nand Br\u00e2hminism (!!!). As well charge Renan with having stolen his _Vie de\nJ\u00e9sus_ from the Gospels, and Max M\u00fcller his _Sacred Books of the East_ or\nhis _Chips_ from the philosophies of the Br\u00e2hmans and of Gautama, the\nBuddha. But to the public in general and the readers of THE SECRET\nDOCTRINE I may repeat what I have stated all along, and which I now clothe\nin the words of Montaigne:\n\n\n    _Gentlemen, __\u201c__I have here made only a nosegay of culled\n    flowers, and have brought nothing of my own but the string that\n    ties them.__\u201d_\n\n\nPull the \u201cstring\u201d to pieces and cut it up in shreds, if you will. As for\nthe nosegay of _facts_\u2014you will never be able to make away with these. You\ncan only ignore them, and no more.\n\nWe may close with a parting word concerning this first volume. In an\nintroduction prefacing chapters dealing chiefly with cosmogony, certain\nsubjects brought forward may be deemed out of place, but one more\nconsideration added to those already given has led me to touch upon them.\nEvery reader will inevitably judge the statements made from the stand\u2010\npoint of his own knowledge, experience, and consciousness, basing his\njudgment on what he has already learnt. This fact the writer is constantly\nobliged to bear in mind; hence, also the frequent references in this first\nvolume to matters which, properly speaking, belong to a later part of the\nwork, but which could not be passed by in silence, lest the reader should\nlook upon it as a fairy tale indeed\u2014a fiction of some modern brain.\n\nThus, the Past shall help to realize the Present, and the latter to better\nappreciate the Past. The errors of the day must be explained and swept\naway, yet it is more than probable\u2014nay in the present case it amounts to\ncertitude\u2014that once more the testimony of long ages and of history will\nfail to impress any but the very intuitional\u2014which is equal to saying the\nvery few. But in this as in all like cases, the true and the faithful may\nconsole themselves by presenting the sceptical modern Sadducee with the\nmathematical proof and memorial of his obdurate obstinacy and bigotry.\nThere still exists somewhere in the archives of the French Academy, the\nfamous law of probabilities worked out by certain mathematicians for the\nbenefit of sceptics by an algebraical process. It runs thus: If two\npersons give their evidence to a fact, and thus impart to it each of them\n5/6 of certitude; that fact will have then 35/36 of certitude; _i.e._, its\nprobability will bear to its improbability the ratio of 35 to 1. If three\nsuch evidences are joined together the certitude will become 215/216. The\nagreement of ten persons giving each 1/2 of certitude will produce\n1023/1024, etc., etc. The Occultist may remain satisfied with such\ncertitude, and care for no more.\n\n\n\n\n\nPROEM: PAGES FROM A PRE\u2010HISTORIC RECORD.\n\n\nAn archaic Manuscript\u2014a collection of palm leaves made impermeable to\nwater, fire, and air, by some specific and unknown process\u2014is before the\nwriter\u2019s eye. On the first page is an immaculate white disk within a dull\nblack ground. On the following page, the same disk, but with a central\npoint. The first, the student knows, represents Kosmos in Eternity, before\nthe re\u00e4wakening of still slumbering Energy, the Emanation of the World in\nlater systems. The point in the hitherto immaculate disk, Space and\nEternity in Pralaya, denotes the dawn of differentiation. It is the Point\nin the Mundane Egg, the Germ within it which will become the Universe, the\nAll, the boundless, periodical Kosmos\u2014a Germ which is latent and active,\nperiodically and by turns. The one circle is divine Unity, from which all\nproceeds, whither all returns: its circumference\u2014a forcibly limited\nsymbol, in view of the limitation of the human mind\u2014indicates the\nabstract, ever incognizable PRESENCE, and its plane, the Universal Soul,\nalthough the two are one. Only, the face of the disk being white, and the\nsurrounding ground black, clearly shows that its plane is the sole\nknowledge, dim and hazy though it still is, that is attainable by man. It\nis on this plane that the manvantaric manifestations begin; for it is in\nthis SOUL, that slumbers, during the Pralaya, the Divine Thought,(27)\nwherein lies concealed the plan of every future cosmogony and theogony.\n\nIt is the ONE LIFE, eternal, invisible, yet omnipresent, without beginning\nor end, yet periodical in its regular manifestations\u2014between which periods\nreigns the dark mystery of Non\u2010Being; unconscious, yet absolute\nConsciousness, unrealizable, yet the one self\u2010existing Reality; truly, \u201ca\nChaos to the sense, a Kosmos to the reason.\u201d Its one absolute attribute,\nwhich is Itself, eternal, ceaseless Motion, is called in esoteric parlance\nthe Great Breath,(28) which is the perpetual motion of the Universe, in\nthe sense of limitless, ever\u2010present Space. That which is motionless\ncannot be Divine. But then there is nothing in fact and reality absolutely\nmotionless within the Universal Soul.\n\nAlmost five centuries B.C. Leucippus, the instructor of Democritus,\nmaintained that Space was eternally filled with atoms actuated by a\nceaseless motion, which, in due course of time, as they aggregated,\ngenerated rotatory motion, through mutual collisions producing lateral\nmovements. Epicurus and Lucretius taught the same doctrine, adding however\nto the lateral motion of the atoms the idea of affinity\u2014an Occult\nteaching.\n\nFrom the beginning of man\u2019s inheritance, from the first appearance of the\narchitects of the globe he lives on, the unrevealed Deity was recognized\nand considered under its only philosophical aspect\u2014Universal Motion, the\nthrill of the creative Breath in Nature. Occultism sums up the One\nExistence thus: \u201c_Deity is an arcane, living [or moving] Fire, and the\neternal witnesses to this unseen Presence, are Light, Heat,\nMoisture_,\u201d\u2014this trinity including, and being the cause of, every\nphenomenon in Nature.(29) Intra\u2010cosmic motion is eternal and ceaseless;\ncosmic motion\u2014the visible, or that which is subject to perception\u2014is\nfinite and periodical. As an eternal abstraction it is the Ever\u2010Present;\nas a manifestation, it is finite both in the coming direction and the\nopposite, the two being the Alpha and Omega of successive reconstructions.\nKosmos\u2014the Noumenon\u2014has nought to do with the causal relations of the\nphenomenal World. It is only with reference to the intra\u2010cosmic Soul, the\nideal Kosmos in the immutable Divine Thought, that we may say: \u201cIt never\nhad a beginning nor will it have an end.\u201d With regard to its body or\ncosmic organization, though it cannot be said that it had a first, or will\never have a last construction, yet at each new Manvantara, its\norganization may be regarded as the first and the last of its kind, as it\nevolves every time on a higher plane.\n\nA few years ago only, it was stated that:\n\n\n    The esoteric doctrine, like Buddhism and Br\u00e2hmanism, and even\n    Kabalism, teaches that the one infinite and unknown Essence exists\n    from all eternity, and in regular and harmonious successions is\n    either passive or active. In the poetical phraseology of Manu\n    these conditions are called the Days and the Nights of Brahm\u00e2. The\n    latter is either \u201cawake\u201d or \u201casleep.\u201d The Sv\u00e2bh\u00e2vikas, or\n    philosophers of the oldest school of Buddhism, which still exists\n    in Nepaul, speculate only upon the active condition of this\n    \u201cEssence,\u201d which they call Svabh\u00e2vat, and deem it foolish to\n    theorize upon the abstract and \u201cunknowable\u201d power in its passive\n    condition. Hence they are called Atheists by both Christian\n    theologians and modern scientists, for neither of the two are able\n    to understand the profound logic of their philosophy. The former\n    will allow of no other God than the personified secondary powers\n    which have worked out the visible universe, and which becomes with\n    them the anthropomorphic God of the Christians\u2014the male Jehovah,\n    roaring amid thunder and lightning. In its turn, rationalistic\n    science greets the Buddhists and the Sv\u00e2bh\u00e2vikas as the\n    \u201cPositivists\u201d of the archaic ages. If we take a one\u2010sided view of\n    the philosophy of the latter, our materialists may be right in\n    their own way. The Buddhists maintain that there is no Creator,\n    but an infinitude of creative powers, which collectively form the\n    one eternal substance, the essence of which is inscrutable\u2014hence\n    not a subject for speculation for any true philosopher. Socrates\n    invariably refused to argue upon the mystery of universal being,\n    yet no one would ever have thought of charging him with atheism,\n    except those who were bent upon his destruction. Upon inaugurating\n    an active period, says the Secret Doctrine, an expansion of this\n    Divine Essence from without inwardly and from within outwardly,\n    occurs in obedience to eternal and immutable law, and the\n    phenomenal or visible universe is the ultimate result of the long\n    chain of cosmical forces thus progressively set in motion. In like\n    manner, when the passive condition is resumed, a contraction of\n    the Divine Essence takes place, and the previous work of creation\n    is gradually and progressively undone. The visible universe\n    becomes disintegrated, its material dispersed; and \u201cdarkness\u201d\n    solitary and alone, broods once more over the face of the \u201cdeep.\u201d\n    To use a metaphor from the secret books, which will convey the\n    idea still more clearly, an out\u2010breathing of the \u201cunknown essence\u201d\n    produces the world; and an inhalation causes it to disappear. This\n    process has been going on from all eternity, and our present\n    universe is but one of an infinite series, which had no beginning\n    and will have no end.(30)\n\n\nThis passage will be explained, as far as it is possible, in the present\nwork. Though it contains nothing new to the Orientalist, as it now stands,\nits esoteric interpretation may contain a good deal which has hitherto\nremained entirely unknown to the Western student.\n\nThe first illustration is a plain disk, [circle]. The second in the\narchaic symbol shows a disk with a point in it, [circle with dot]\u2014the\nfirst differentiation in the periodical manifestations of the ever\u2010eternal\nNature, sexless and infinite, \u201cAditi in THAT,\u201d(31) or potential Space\nwithin abstract Space. In its third stage the point is transformed into a\ndiameter, [circle with line]. It now symbolizes a divine immaculate\nMother\u2010Nature within the all\u2010embracing absolute Infinitude. When the\nhorizontal diameter is crossed by a vertical one, [circle with cross], it\nbecomes the Mundane Cross. Humanity has reached its Third Root\u2010Race; it is\nthe sign for the origin of human Life. When the circumference disappears\nand leaves only the [cross], it is a sign that the fall of man into matter\nis accomplished, and the Fourth Race begins. The cross within a circle\nsymbolizes pure Pantheism; when the cross is left uninscribed, it becomes\nphallic. It had the same and yet other meanings as a Tau inscribed within\na circle, [circle with lines (Tau)]; or as a Thor\u2019s Hammer\u2014the so\u2010called\nJaina cross, or Svastika, within a circle, [circle with swastika].\n\nBy the third symbol\u2014the circle divided in two by a horizontal diameter\u2014was\nmeant the first manifestation of creative Nature\u2014still passive, because\nfeminine. The first shadowy perception of man connected with procreation\nis feminine, because man knows his mother more than his father. Hence\nfemale deities were more sacred than male. Nature is therefore feminine,\nand, to a degree, objective and tangible, and the Spirit Principle which\nfructifies it, is concealed.(32) By adding to the horizontal line in the\ncircle, a perpendicular, the Tau was formed, [T], the oldest form of the\nletter. It was the glyph of the Third Root\u2010Race to the day of its\nsymbolical Fall\u2014_i.e._, when the separation of sexes by natural evolution\ntook place\u2014when the figure became [circle with vertical line], or sexless\nlife modified or separated\u2014a double glyph or symbol. With the sub\u2010races of\nour Fifth Race it became in symbology the Sacr\u2019, and in Hebrew N\u2019cabvah,\nof the first\u2010formed Races;(33) then it changed into the Egyptian emblem of\nlife, [Ankh], and still later into the sign of Venus, [female symbol].\nThen comes the Svastika (Thor\u2019s Hammer, now the Hermetic Cross), entirely\nseparated from its circle, thus becoming purely phallic. The esoteric\nsymbol of Kali Yuga is the five\u2010pointed star reversed, with its two points\n(horns) turned heavenward, thus [five\u2010pointed star], the sign of human\nsorcery, a position every Occultist will recognize as one of the \u201cleft\u2010\nhand,\u201d and used in ceremonial magic.\n\nIt is hoped that during the perusal of this work the erroneous ideas of\nthe public in general with regard to Pantheism will be modified. It is\nwrong and unjust to regard the Buddhists and Advaitin Occultists as\nAtheists. If not all of them philosophers, they are, at any rate, all\nlogicians, their objections and arguments being based on strict reasoning.\nIndeed, if the Parabrahman of the Hind\u00fbs may be taken as a representative\nof the hidden and nameless deities of other nations, this absolute\nPrinciple will be found to be the prototype from which all the others were\ncopied. Parabrahman is not \u201cGod,\u201d because It is not _a_ God. \u201cIt is that\nwhich is supreme, and not supreme (_paravara_).\u201d(34) It is supreme as\ncause, not supreme as effect. Parabrahman is simply, as a Secondless\nReality, the all\u2010inclusive Kosmos\u2014or rather the infinite Cosmic Space\u2014in\nthe highest spiritual sense, of course. Brahman (neuter) being the\nunchanging, pure, free, undecaying supreme Root, the \u201cOne true Existence,\nParam\u00e2rthika,\u201d and the absolute Chit and Chaitanya (Intelligence,\nConsciousness), cannot be a cognizer, \u201cfor THAT can have no subject of\ncognition.\u201d Can the Flame be called the Essence of Fire? This Essence is\n\u201cthe Life and Light of the Universe, the visible fire and flame are\ndestruction, death, and evil.\u201d \u201cFire and Flame destroy the body of an\nArhat, their essence makes him immortal.\u201d(35) \u201cThe knowledge of the\nabsolute Spirit, like the effulgence of the sun, or like heat in fire, is\nnaught else than the absolute Essence itself,\u201d says Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya. IT\u2014is\n\u201cthe Spirit of the Fire,\u201d not Fire itself; therefore, \u201cthe attributes of\nthe latter, Heat or Flame, are not the attributes of the Spirit, but of\nthat of which that Spirit is the unconscious cause.\u201d Is not the above\nsentence the true key\u2010note of later Rosicrucian philosophy? Parabrahman\nis, in short, the collective aggregate of Kosmos in its infinity and\neternity, the \u201cTHAT\u201d and \u201cTHIS\u201d to which distributive aggregates can not\nbe applied.(36) \u201cIn the beginning THIS was the Self, one only;\u201d(37) and\nthe great Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya explains that \u201c_This_\u201d refers to the Universe\n(Jagat); the words, \u201cin the beginning,\u201d meaning before the reproduction of\nthe phenomenal Universe.\n\nTherefore, when the Pantheists echo the _Upanishads_, which state, as in\nthe Secret Doctrine, that \u201cThis\u201d cannot create, they do not deny a\nCreator, or rather a collective aggregate of creators; they simply refuse,\nvery logically, to attribute \u201ccreation\u201d and especially formation\u2014something\nfinite\u2014to an Infinite Principle. With them, Parabrahman is a passive\nbecause an absolute Cause, the unconditioned Mukta. It is only limited\nomniscience and omnipotence that are refused to the latter, because these\nare still attributes, reflected in man\u2019s perceptions; and because\nParabrahman, being the Supreme ALL, the ever invisible Spirit and Soul of\nNature, changeless and eternal, can have no attributes, the term\nAbsoluteness very naturally precluding any idea of the finite or\nconditioned from being connected with it. And if the Ved\u00e2ntins postulate\nattributes as belonging simply to its emanation, calling it \u00ceshvara _plus_\nM\u00e2y\u00e2, and Avidy\u00e2 (Agnosticism and Nescience rather than Ignorance), it is\ndifficult to find any Atheism in this conception.(38) Since there can be\nneither two Infinites nor two Absolutes in a Universe supposed to be\nboundless, this Self\u2010Existence can hardly be conceived of as creating\npersonally. To the senses and in the perceptions of finite _beings_, THAT\nis Non\u2010_Being_, in the sense that it is the One _Be\u2010ness_; for, in this\nALL lies concealed its co\u00ebternal and co\u00ebval emanation or inherent\nradiation, which, becoming periodically Brahm\u00e2 (the male\u2010female Potency),\nexpands itself into the manifested Universe. \u201cN\u00e2r\u00e2yana moving on the\n[abstract] Waters of Space,\u201d is transformed into the Waters of concrete\nsubstance moved by him, who now becomes the manifested Word or Logos.\n\nThe orthodox Br\u00e2hmans, those who rise the most against the Pantheists and\nAdvaitins, calling them Atheists, are forced, if Manu is any authority in\nthis matter, to accept the death of Brahm\u00e2, the Creator, at the expiration\nof every Age of this deity\u2014100 Divine Years, a period which in our years\nrequires fifteen figures to express. Yet no philosopher among them will\nview this \u201cdeath\u201d in any other sense than as a temporary disappearance\nfrom the manifested plane of existence, or as a periodical rest.\n\nThe Occultists are, therefore, at one with the Advaita Ved\u00e2ntin\nphilosophers as to the above tenet. They show, on philosophical grounds,\nthe impossibility of accepting the idea of the absolute ALL creating or\neven evolving the Golden Egg, into which it is said to enter in order to\ntransform itself into Brahm\u00e2, the Creator, who later expands himself into\nthe Gods and all the visible Universe. They say that absolute Unity cannot\npass to Infinity, for Infinity presupposes the limitless extension of\n_something_, and the duration of that something; and the One All\u2014like\nSpace, which is its only mental and physical representation on this earth,\nor our plane of existence\u2014is neither an object of, nor a subject to,\nperception. If one could suppose the eternal infinite All, the omnipresent\nUnity, instead of being in Eternity, becoming through periodical\nmanifestation a manifold Universe or a multiple Personality, that Unity\nwould cease to be one. Locke\u2019s idea, that \u201cpure space is capable of\nneither resistance nor motion,\u201d is incorrect. Space is neither a\n\u201climitless void,\u201d nor a \u201cconditioned fulness,\u201d but both. Being\u2014on the\nplane of absolute abstraction\u2014the ever\u2010incognizable Deity, which is void\nonly to finite minds,(39) and on that of m\u00e2y\u00e2vic perception, the Plenum,\nthe absolute Container of all that is, whether manifested or unmanifested,\nit is, therefore, that ABSOLUTE ALL. There is no difference between the\nChristian Apostle\u2019s \u201cin Him we live and move and have our being,\u201d and the\nHind\u00fb Rishi\u2019s \u201cthe Universe lives in, proceeds from, and will return to,\nBrahm\u00e2\u201d: for Brahman (neuter), the unmanifested, is that Universe _in\nabscondito_, and Brahm\u00e2, the manifested, is the Logos, made male\u2010\nfemale(40) in the symbolical orthodox dogmas, the God of the Apostle\u2010\nInitiate and of the Rishi being both the Unseen and the Visible Space.\nSpace is called, in esoteric symbolism, the \u201cSeven\u2010Skinned Eternal Mother\u2010\nFather.\u201d From its undifferentiated to its differentiated surface it is\ncomposed of seven layers.\n\n\u201c_What is that which was, is, and will be, whether there is a Universe or\nnot; whether there be gods or none?_\u201d asks the esoteric Senzar Catechism.\nAnd the answer made is\u2014\u201c_Space_.\u201d\n\nIt is not the One unknown ever\u2010present God in Nature, or Nature _in\nabscondito_, that is rejected, but the \u201cGod\u201d of human dogma, and his\n_humanized_ \u201cWord.\u201d Man, in his infinite conceit and inherent pride and\nvanity, shaped it himself with his sacrilegious hand out of the material\nhe found in his own small brain\u2010fabric, and forced it upon his fellows as\na direct revelation from the one unrevealed SPACE.(41) The Occultist\naccepts revelation as coming from divine yet still finite Beings, the\nmanifested Lives, never from the unmanifestable ONE LIFE; from those\nEntities, called Primordial Man, Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas, or Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, the\nRishi\u2010Praj\u00e2pati of the Hindus, the Elohim or Sons of God of the Jews, the\nPlanetary Spirits of all nations, who have become Gods for men. The\nOccultist also regards the \u00c2di\u2010Shakti\u2014the direct emanation of\nM\u00fblaprakriti, the eternal Root of THAT, and the female aspect of the\nCreative Cause, Brahm\u00e2, in her \u00e2k\u00e2shic form of the Universal Soul\u2014as\nphilosophically a M\u00e2y\u00e2, and cause of human M\u00e2y\u00e2. But this view does not\nprevent him from believing in its existence so long as it lasts, to wit,\nfor one Mah\u00e2manvantara; nor from applying \u00c2k\u00e2sha, the radiation of\nM\u00fblaprakriti,(42) to practical purposes, connected as this World\u2010Soul is\nwith all natural phenomena known or unknown to Science.\n\nThe oldest religions of the world\u2014exoterically, for the esoteric root or\nfoundation is one\u2014are the Indian, the Mazdean, and the Egyptian. Next\ncomes the Chaldean, the outcome of these, now entirely lost to the world,\nexcept in its disfigured Sabeanism as at present rendered by the\narch\u00e6ologists. Then, passing over a number of religions that will be\nmentioned later, comes the Jewish, esoterically following in the line of\nBabylonian Magism, as in the _Kabalah_; exoterically, a collection of\nallegorical legends, as in _Genesis_ and the _Pentateuch_. Read by the\nlight of the _Zohar_, the four initial chapters of _Genesis_ are the\nfragment of a highly philosophical page in the world\u2019s cosmogony. Left in\ntheir symbolical disguise, they are a nursery tale, an ugly thorn in the\nside of science and logic, an evident effect of Karma. To let them serve\nas a prologue to Christianity was a cruel revenge on the part of the\nRabbis, who knew better what their _Pentateuch_ meant. It was a silent\nprotest against their spoliation, and the Jews have now certainly the\nbetter of their traditional persecutors. The above\u2010named exoteric creeds\nwill be explained in the light of the universal doctrine as we proceed.\n\nThe Occult Catechism contains the following questions and answers:\n\n_What is it that ever is?_\u2014_Space, the eternal Anup\u00e2daka [Parentless]._\n_What is it that ever was?\u2014The Germ in the Root. What is it that is ever\ncoming and going?\u2014The Great Breath. Then, there are three Eternals?\u2014No, __\nthe three are one. That which ever is is one, that which ever was is one,\nthat which is ever being and becoming is also one: and this is Space._\n\n_Explain, O Lanoo [disciple].\u2014The One is an unbroken Circle [Ring] with no\ncircumference, for it is nowhere and everywhere; the One is the boundless\nPlane of the Circle, manifesting a Diameter only during the manvantaric\nperiods; the One is the indivisible Point found nowhere, perceived\neverywhere during those periods; it is the Vertical and the Horizontal,\nthe Father and the Mother, the summit and base of the Father, the two\nextremities of the Mother, reaching in reality nowhere, for the One is the\nRing as also the Rings that are within that Ring. Light in Darkness and\nDarkness in Light: the __\u201c__Breath which is eternal.__\u201d__ It proceeds from\nwithout inwardly, when it is everywhere, and from within outwardly, when\nit is nowhere\u2014(i.e., M\u00e2y\u00e2,_(_43_)_ one of the Centres)._(_44_)_ It expands\nand contracts [exhalation and inhalation]. When it expands, the Mother\ndiffuses and scatters; when it contracts, the Mother draws back and\ningathers. This produces the periods of Evolution and Dissolution,\nManvantara and Pralaya. The Germ is invisible and fiery; the Root [the\nPlane of the Circle] is cool; but during Evolution and Manvantara her\ngarment is cold and radiant. Hot Breath is the Father who devours the\nprogeny of the many\u2010faced Element [heterogeneous], and leaves the single\u2010\nfaced ones [homogeneous]. Cool Breath is the Mother, who conceives, forms,\nbrings forth, and receives them back into her bosom, to reform them at the\nDawn [of the Day of Brahm\u00e2, or Manvantara]._\n\nFor clearer understanding on the part of the general reader, it must be\nstated that Occult Science recognizes _seven_ Cosmic Elements\u2014four\nentirely physical, and the fifth (Ether) semi\u2010material, which will become\nvisible in the Air towards the end of our Fourth Round, to reign supreme\nover the others during the whole of the Fifth. The remaining two are as\nyet absolutely beyond the range of human perception. They will, however,\nappear as presentments during the Sixth and Seventh Races of this Round,\nand will be fully known in the Sixth and Seventh Rounds respectively.(45)\nThese seven Elements with their numberless sub\u2010elements, which are far\nmore numerous than those known to Science, are simply _conditional_\nmodifications and aspects of the One and only Element. This latter is not\nEther,(46) not even \u00c2k\u00e2sha, but the _source_ of these. The Fifth Element,\nnow quite freely advocated by Science, is not the Ether hypothesized by\nSir Isaac Newton\u2014although he calls it by that name, having probably\nassociated it in his mind with \u00c6ther, the \u201cFather\u2010Mother\u201d of antiquity. As\nNewton intuitionally says, \u201cNature is a perpetual circulatory worker,\ngenerating fluids out of solids, fixed things out of volatile, and\nvolatile out of fixed, subtile out of gross, and gross out of subtile....\nThus, perhaps, may all things be originated from Ether.\u201d(47)\n\nThe reader has to bear in mind that the Stanzas treat only of the\ncosmogony of our own planetary system and of what is visible around it,\nafter a Solar Pralaya. The secret teachings with regard to the evolution\nof the Universal Kosmos cannot be given, since they could not be\nunderstood by even the highest minds in this age, and there seem to be\nvery few Initiates, even among the greatest, who are allowed to speculate\nupon this subject. Moreover the Teachers say openly that not even the\nhighest Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Chohans have ever penetrated the mysteries beyond those\nboundaries that separate the milliards of solar systems from the Central\nSun, as it is called. Therefore, that which is given relates only to our\nvisible Cosmos, after a Night of Brahm\u00e2.\n\nBefore the reader proceeds to the consideration of the Stanzas from the\n_Book of Dzyan_ which form the basis of the present work, it is absolutely\nnecessary that he should be made acquainted with the few fundamental\nconceptions which underlie and pervade the entire system of thought to\nwhich his attention is invited. These basic ideas are few in number, but\non their clear apprehension depends the understanding of all that follows;\ntherefore no apology is required for asking the reader to make himself\nfamiliar with these first, before entering on the perusal of the work\nitself.\n\nThe Secret Doctrine then, establishes three fundamental propositions:\n\nI. An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless and Immutable PRINCIPLE, on which\nall speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human\nconception and can only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude.\nIt is beyond the range and reach of thought\u2014in the words of the\n_M\u00e2nd\u00fbkya_, \u201cunthinkable and unspeakable.\u201d\n\nTo render these ideas clearer to the general reader, let him set out with\nthe postulate that there is One Absolute Reality which antecedes all\nmanifested, conditioned Being. This Infinite and Eternal Cause\u2014dimly\nformulated in the \u201cUnconscious\u201d and \u201cUnknowable\u201d of current European\nphilosophy\u2014is the Rootless Root of \u201call that was, is, or ever shall be.\u201d\nIt is of course devoid of all attributes and is essentially without any\nrelation to manifested, finite Being. It is \u201cBe\u2010ness\u201d rather than Being,\nSat in Sanskrit, and is beyond all thought or speculation.\n\nThis Be\u2010ness is symbolized in the Secret Doctrine under two aspects. On\nthe one hand, absolute Abstract Space, representing bare subjectivity, the\none thing which no human mind can either exclude from any conception, or\nconceive of by itself. On the other, absolute Abstract Motion representing\nUnconditioned Consciousness. Even our Western thinkers have shown that\nconsciousness is inconceivable to us apart from change, and motion best\nsymbolizes change, its essential characteristic. This latter aspect of the\nOne Reality, is also symbolized by the term the Great Breath, a symbol\nsufficiently graphic to need no further elucidation. Thus, then, the first\nfundamental axiom of the Secret Doctrine is this metaphysical One Absolute\nBE\u2010NESS\u2014symbolized by finite intelligence as the theological Trinity.\n\nIt may, however, assist the student if a few further explanations are here\ngiven.\n\nHerbert Spencer has of late so far modified his Agnosticism, as to assert\nthat the nature of the \u201cFirst Cause,\u201d(48) which the Occultist more\nlogically derives from the Causeless Cause, the \u201cEternal,\u201d and the\n\u201cUnknowable,\u201d may be essentially the same as that of the consciousness\nwhich wells up within us: in short, that the impersonal Reality pervading\nthe Kosmos is the pure noumenon of thought. This advance on his part\nbrings him very near to the Esoteric and Ved\u00e2ntin tenet.(49)\n\nParabrahman, the One Reality, the Absolute, is the field of Absolute\nConsciousness, _i.e._, that Essence which is out of all relation to\nconditioned existence, and of which conscious existence is a conditioned\nsymbol. But once that we pass in thought from this (to us) Absolute\nNegation, duality supervenes in the contrast of Spirit (or Consciousness)\nand Matter, Subject and Object.\n\nSpirit (or Consciousness) and Matter are, however, to be regarded, not as\nindependent realities, but as the two symbols or aspects of the Absolute,\nParabrahman, which constitute the basis of conditioned Being whether\nsubjective or objective.\n\nConsidering this metaphysical triad as the Root from which proceeds all\nmanifestation, the Great Breath assumes the character of Pre\u2010cosmic\nIdeation. It is the _fons et origo_ of Force and of all individual\nConsciousness, and supplies the guiding intelligence in the vast scheme of\ncosmic Evolution. On the other hand, Pre\u2010cosmic Root\u2010Substance\n(M\u00fblaprakriti) is that aspect of the Absolute which underlies all the\nobjective planes of Nature.\n\nJust as Pre\u2010cosmic Ideation is the root of all individual Consciousness,\nso Pre\u2010cosmic Substance is the substratum of Matter in the various grades\nof its differentiation.\n\nHence it will be apparent that the contrast of these two aspects of the\nAbsolute is essential to the existence of the Manifested Universe. Apart\nfrom Cosmic Substance, Cosmic Ideation could not manifest as individual\nConsciousness, since it is only through a vehicle (_up\u00e2dhi_) of matter\nthat consciousness wells up as \u201cI am I,\u201d a physical basis being necessary\nto focus a Ray of the Universal Mind at a certain stage of complexity.\nAgain, apart from Cosmic Ideation, Cosmic Substance would remain an empty\nabstraction, and no emergence of Consciousness could ensue.\n\nThe Manifested Universe, therefore, is pervaded by duality, which is, as\nit were, the very essence of its _Ex_\u2010istence as Manifestation. But just\nas the opposite poles of Subject and Object, Spirit and Matter, are but\naspects of the One Unity in which they are synthesized, so, in the\nManifested Universe, there is \u201cthat\u201d which links Spirit to Matter, Subject\nto Object.\n\nThis something, at present unknown to Western speculation, is called by\nOccultists Fohat. It is the \u201cbridge\u201d by which the Ideas existing in the\nDivine Thought are impressed on Cosmic Substance as the Laws of Nature.\nFohat is thus the dynamic energy of Cosmic Ideation; or, regarded from the\nother side, it is the intelligent medium, the guiding power of all\nmanifestation, the Thought Divine transmitted and made manifest through\nthe Dhy\u00e2n Chohans,(50) the Architects of the visible World. Thus from\nSpirit, or Cosmic Ideation, comes our Consciousness, from Cosmic Substance\nthe several Vehicles in which that Consciousness is individualized and\nattains to self\u2014or reflective\u2014consciousness; while Fohat, in its various\nmanifestations, is the mysterious link between Mind and Matter, the\nanimating principle electrifying every atom into life.\n\nThe following summary will afford a clearer idea to the reader.\n\n(1.) ABSOLUTENESS: the Parabrahman of the Ved\u00e2ntins or the One Reality,\nSat, which is, as Hegel says, both Absolute Being and Non\u2010Being.\n\n(2.) The _First_ Logos: the impersonal, and, in philosophy, Unmanifested\nLogos, the precursor of the Manifested. This is the \u201cFirst Cause,\u201d the\n\u201cUnconscious\u201d of European Pantheists.\n\n(3.) The _Second_ Logos: Spirit\u2010Matter, Life; the \u201cSpirit of the\nUniverse,\u201d Purusha and Prakriti.\n\n(4.) The _Third_ Logos: Cosmic Ideation, Mahat or Intelligence, the\nUniversal World\u2010Soul; the Cosmic Noumenon of Matter, the basis of the\nintelligent operations in and of Nature, also called Mah\u00e2\u2010Buddhi.\n\nThe ONE REALITY: its _dual_ aspects in the conditioned Universe.\n\nFurther, the Secret Doctrine affirms:\n\nII. The Eternity of the Universe _in toto_ as a boundless plane;\nperiodically \u201cthe playground of numberless Universes incessantly\nmanifesting and disappearing,\u201d called the \u201cManifesting Stars,\u201d and the\n\u201cSparks of Eternity.\u201d \u201c_The Eternity of the Pilgrim_(_51_)_ is like a wink\nof the Eye of Self\u2010Existence_,\u201d as the _Book of Dyzan_ puts it. \u201c_The\nappearance and disappearance of Worlds is like a regular tidal ebb of flux\nand reflux._\u201d\n\nThis second assertion of the Secret Doctrine is the absolute universality\nof that law of periodicity, of flux and reflux, ebb and flow, which\nphysical science has observed and recorded in all departments of nature.\nAn alternation such as that of Day and Night, Life and Death, Sleeping and\nWaking, is a fact so common, so perfectly universal and without exception,\nthat it is easy to comprehend that in it we see one of the absolutely\nfundamental Laws of the Universe.\n\nMoreover, the Secret Doctrine teaches:\n\nIII. The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over\u2010Soul,\nthe latter being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root; and the obligatory\npilgrimage for every Soul\u2014a spark of the former\u2014through the Cycle of\nIncarnation, or Necessity, in accordance with Cyclic and Karmic Law,\nduring the whole term. In other words, no purely spiritual Buddhi (Divine\nSoul) can have an independent conscious existence before the spark which\nissued from the pure Essence of the Universal Sixth Principle\u2014or the OVER\u2010\nSOUL\u2014has (a) passed through every elemental form of the phenomenal world\nof that Manvantara, and (b) acquired individuality, first by natural\nimpulse, and then by self\u2010induced and self\u2010devised efforts, checked by its\nKarma, thus ascending through all the degrees of intelligence, from the\nlowest to the highest Manas, from mineral and plant, up to the holiest\nArchangel (Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddha). The pivotal doctrine of the Esoteric Philosophy\nadmits no privileges or special gifts in man, save those won by his own\nEgo through personal effort and merit throughout a long series of\nmetempsychoses and re\u00efncarnations. This is why the Hind\u00fbs say that the\nUniverse is Brahman and Brahm\u00e2, for Brahman is in every atom of the\nuniverse, the six Principles in Nature being all the outcome\u2014the variously\ndifferentiated aspects\u2014of the Seventh and One, the only Reality in the\nUniverse whether cosmic or micro\u2010cosmic; and also why the permutations,\npsychic, spiritual and physical, on the plane of manifestation and form,\nof the Sixth (Brahm\u00e2 the vehicle of Brahman) are viewed by metaphysical\nantiphrasis as illusive and m\u00e2y\u00e2vic. For although the root of every atom\nindividually and of every form collectively, is that Seventh Principle or\nthe One Reality, still, in its manifested phenomenal and temporary\nappearance, it is no better than an evanescent illusion of our senses.\n\nIn its absoluteness, the One Principle under its two aspects, Parabrahman\nand M\u00fblaprakriti, is sexless, unconditioned and eternal. Its periodical\nmanvantaric emanation, or primal radiation, is also One, androgynous and\nphenomenally finite. When the radiation radiates in its turn, all its\nradiations are also androgynous, to become male and female principles in\ntheir lower aspects. After Pralaya, whether the Great or Minor Pralaya\u2014the\nlatter leaving the worlds _in statu quo_(52)\u2014the first that re\u00e4wakes to\nactive life is the plastic \u00c2k\u00e2sha, Father\u2010Mother, the Spirit and Soul of\nEther, or the Plane of the Circle. Space is called the Mother before its\ncosmic activity, and Father\u2010Mother at the first stage of re\u00e4wakening. In\nthe _Kabalah_ it is also Father\u2010Mother\u2010Son. But whereas in the Eastern\nDoctrine, these are the Seventh Principle of the Manifested Universe, or\nits Atm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi\u2010Manas (Spirit\u2010Soul\u2010Intelligence), the Triad branching off\nand dividing into seven cosmical and seven human Principles, in the\nWestern _Kabalah_ of the Christian Mystics it is the Triad or Trinity, and\nwith their Occultists, the male\u2010female Jehovah, Jah\u2010Havah. In this lies\nthe whole difference between the Esoteric and the Christian Trinities. The\nMystics and the Philosophers, the Eastern and Western Pantheists,\nsynthesize their pregenetic Triad in the pure divine abstraction. The\northodox, anthropomorphize it. Hiranyagarbha, Hari, and Shankara\u2014the three\nHypostases of the manifesting \u201cSpirit of the Supreme Spirit,\u201d by which\ntitle Prithiv\u00ee, the Earth, greets Vishnu in his first Avat\u00e2ra\u2014are the\npurely metaphysical abstract qualities of Formation, Preservation, and\nDestruction, and are the three divine Avasth\u00e2s (Hypostases) of that which\n\u201cdoes not perish with created things,\u201d Achyuta, a name of Vishnu; whereas\nthe orthodox Christian separates his Personal Creative Deity into the\nthree Personages of the Trinity, and admits of no higher Deity. The\nlatter, in Occultism, is the abstract Triangle; with the orthodox, the\nperfect Cube. The creative god or the aggregate gods are regarded by the\nEastern philosopher as _Bhr\u00e2ntidarshanatah_, \u201cfalse appearances,\u201d\nsomething \u201cconceived of, by reason of erroneous appearances, as a material\nform,\u201d and explained as arising from the illusive conception of the\negotistic personal and human Soul (lower Fifth Principle). It is\nbeautifully expressed in a revised translation in Fitzedward Hall\u2019s notes\nto Wilson\u2019s translation of the _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_. \u201cThat Brahma in its\ntotality, has essentially the aspect of Prakriti, both evolved and\nunevolved [M\u00fblaprakriti], and also the aspect of Spirit and the aspect of\nTime. Spirit, O twice born, is the leading aspect of the Supreme\nBrahma.(53) The next is a two\u2010fold aspect,\u2014Prakriti, both evolved and\nunevolved, and Time is the last.\u201d Cronus is shown in the Orphic Theogony\nalso as being a generated god or agent.\n\nAt this stage of the re\u00e4wakening of the Universe, the sacred symbolism\nrepresents it as a perfect Circle with the Point (Root) in the centre.\nThis sign was universal, therefore we find it in the _Kabalah_ also. The\nWestern _Kabalah_, however, now in the hands of Christian Mystics, ignores\nit altogether, though it is plainly shown in the _Zohar_. These sectarians\nbegin at the end, and give, as the symbol of pregenetic Kosmos, [cross],\ncalling it the \u201cUnion of the Rose and Cross,\u201d the great mystery of occult\ngeneration, from whence the name\u2014Rosicrucian (Rose Cross)! This may be\nseen from one of the most important and best known of their symbols, one\nwhich has never been hitherto understood even by modern Mystics. It is\nthat of the Pelican tearing open its breast to feed its seven little\nones\u2014the real creed of the Brothers of the Rosie\u2010Cross and a direct\noutcome from the Eastern Secret Doctrine.\n\nBrahman (neuter) is called K\u00e2lahamsa, meaning, as explained by Western\nOrientalists, the Eternal Swan (or goose), and so is Brahm\u00e2, the Creator.\nA great mistake is thus brought under notice; it is Brahman (neuter) which\nought to be referred to as Hamsa\u2010v\u00e2hana (that which uses the Swan as its\nVehicle), and not Brahm\u00e2, the Creator, who is the real K\u00e2lahamsa; while\nBrahman (neuter) is Hamsa, and A\u2010hamsa, as will be explained in the\nCommentaries. Let it be understood that the terms Brahm\u00e2 and Parabrahman\nare not used here because they belong to our Esoteric nomenclature, but\nsimply because they are more familiar to the students in the West. Both\nare the perfect equivalents of our one, three, and seven vowelled terms,\nwhich stand for the ONE ALL, and the One \u201cAll in All.\u201d\n\nSuch are the basic conceptions on which the Secret Doctrine rests.\n\nIt would not be in place here to enter upon any defence or proof of their\ninherent reasonableness; nor can I pause to show how they are, in fact,\ncontained\u2014though too often under a misleading guise\u2014in every system of\nthought or philosophy worthy of the name.\n\nOnce that the reader has gained a clear comprehension of them and realized\nthe light which they throw on every problem of life, they will need no\nfurther justification in his eyes, because their truth will be to him as\nevident as the sun in heaven. I pass on, therefore, to the subject matter\nof the Stanzas as given in this volume, adding a skeleton outline of them,\nin the hope of thereby rendering the task of the student more easy, by\nplacing before him in a few words the general conception therein\nexplained.\n\nThe history of Cosmic Evolution, as traced in the Stanzas, is, so to say,\nthe abstract algebraical formula of that evolution. Hence the student must\nnot expect to find there an account of all the stages and transformations\nwhich intervene between the first beginnings of Universal Evolution and\nour present state. To give such an account would be as impossible as it\nwould be incomprehensible to men who cannot grasp the nature of even the\nplane of existence next to that to which, for the moment, their\nconsciousness is limited.\n\nThe Stanzas, therefore, give an abstract formula which can be applied,\n_mutatis mutandis_, to all evolution: to that of our tiny Earth, to that\nof the Chain of Planets of which that Earth forms one, to the Solar\nUniverse to which that Chain belongs and so on, in an ascending scale,\ntill the mind reels and is exhausted in the effort.\n\nThe seven Stanzas given in this volume represent the seven terms of this\nabstract formula. They refer to, and describe, the seven great stages of\nthe evolutionary process, which are spoken of in the _Pur\u00e2nas_ as the\n\u201cSeven Creations,\u201d and in the _Bible_ as the \u201cDays\u201d of Creation.\n\n_Stanza I_ describes the state of the ONE ALL during Pralaya, before the\nfirst flutter of re\u00e4wakening Manifestation.\n\nA moment\u2019s thought shows that such a state can only be symbolized; to\ndescribe it is impossible. Nor can it be symbolized except in negatives;\nfor, since it is the state of Absoluteness _per se_, it can possess none\nof those specific attributes which serve us to describe objects in\npositive terms. Hence that state can only be suggested by the negatives of\nall those most abstract attributes which men feel rather than conceive, as\nthe remotest limits attainable by their power of conception.\n\n_Stanza II_ describes a stage which, to a Western mind, is so nearly\nidentical with that mentioned in Stanza I, that to express the idea of its\ndifference would require a treatise in itself. Hence it must be left to\nthe intuition and the higher faculties of the reader to grasp, as far as\nhe can, the meaning of the allegorical phrases used. Indeed it must be\nremembered that all these Stanzas appeal to the inner faculties rather\nthan to the ordinary comprehension of the physical brain.\n\n_Stanza III_ describes the Re\u00e4wakening of the Universe to life after\nPralaya. It depicts the emergence of the Monads from their state of\nabsorption within the One, the earliest and highest stage in the formation\nof Worlds\u2014the term Monad being one which may apply equally to the vastest\nSolar System or the tiniest atom.\n\n_Stanza IV_ shows the differentiation of the \u201cGerm\u201d of the Universe into\nthe Septenary Hierarchy of conscious Divine Powers, which are the active\nmanifestations of the One Supreme Energy. They are the framers, shapers,\nand ultimately the creators of all the manifested Universe, in the only\nsense in which the name \u201ccreator\u201d is intelligible; they inform and guide\nit; they are the intelligent Beings who adjust and control evolution,\nembodying in themselves those manifestations of the One Law, which we know\nas the \u201cLaws of Nature.\u201d\n\nGenerically, they are known as the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, though each of the\nvarious groups has its own designation in the Secret Doctrine.\n\nThis stage of evolution is spoken of in Hind\u00fb mythology as the \u201cCreation\nof the Gods.\u201d\n\n_Stanza V_ describes the process of world\u2010formation. First, diffused\nCosmic Matter, then the \u201cFiery Whirlwind,\u201d the first stage in the\nformation of a nebula. This nebula condenses, and after passing through\nvarious transformations, forms a Solar Universe, a Planetary Chain, or a\nsingle Planet, as the case may be.\n\n_Stanza VI_ indicates the subsequent stages in the formation of a \u201cWorld\u201d\nand brings the evolution of such a World down to its fourth great period,\ncorresponding to the period in which we are now living.\n\n_Stanza VII_ continues the history, tracing the descent of life down to\nthe appearance of Man; and thus closes the First Book of the Secret\nDoctrine.\n\nThe development of \u201cMan\u201d from his first appearance on this earth in this\nRound to the state in which we now find him will form the subject of Book\nII.\n\nThe Stanzas which form the thesis of every section are given throughout in\ntheir modern translated version, as it would be worse than useless to make\nthe subject still more difficult by introducing the archaic phraseology of\nthe original, with its puzzling style and words. Extracts are given from\nthe Chinese, Tibetan and Sanskrit translations of the original Senzar\nCommentaries and Glosses on the _Book of Dzyan_\u2014now rendered for the first\ntime into a European language. It is almost unnecessary to state that only\nportions of the seven Stanzas are here given. Were they published complete\nthey would remain incomprehensible to all save a few high Occultists. Nor\nis there any need to assure the reader that no more than most of the\nprofane, does the writer, or rather the humble recorder, understand those\nforbidden passages. To facilitate the reading, and to avoid the too\nfrequent reference to foot\u2010notes, it was thought best to blend together\ntexts and glosses, using the Sanskrit and Tibetan proper names whenever\nthese could not be avoided, in preference to giving the originals: the\nmore so as the said terms are all accepted synonyms, the latter only being\nused between a Master and his Chel\u00e2s (or Disciples).\n\nThus, were one to translate into English, using only the substantives and\ntechnical terms as employed in one of the Tibetan and Senzar versions,\nshloka 1 would read as follows:\n\n_Tho\u2010ag in Zhi\u2010gyu slept seven Khorlo. Zodmanas zhiba. All Nyug bosom.\nKonch\u2010hog not; Thyan\u2010Kam not; Lha\u2010Chohan not; Tenbrel Chugnyi not;\nDharmak\u00e2ya ceased; Tgenchang not become; Barnang and Ssa in Ngovonyidj;\nalone Tho\u2010og Yinsin in night of Sun\u2010chan and Yong\u2010Grub [Paranishpanna],\netc., etc._\n\nThis would sound like pure _Abracadabra_.\n\nAs this work is written for the instruction of students of Occultism, and\nnot for the benefit of Philologists, we may well avoid such foreign terms\nwherever it is possible to do so. The untranslateable terms alone,\nincomprehensible unless their meanings are explained, are left, but all\nsuch terms are rendered in their Sanskrit form. Needless to remind the\nreader that these are, in almost every case, the late developments of the\nlatter language, and pertain to the Fifth Root\u2010Race. Sanskrit, as now\nknown, was not spoken by the Atlanteans, and most of the philosophical\nterms used in the systems of the India of the Post\u2010Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2ratan period are\nnot found in the _Vedas_, nor are they to be met with in the original\nStanzas, but only their equivalents. The reader who is not a Theosophist,\nis once more invited to regard all that follows as a fairy tale, if he\nlikes; at best as one of the yet unproven speculations of dreamers; and,\nat the worst, as an additional hypothesis to the many scientific\nhypotheses past, present and future, some exploded, others still\nlingering. It is not in any sense less scientific than are many of the so\u2010\ncalled scientific theories; and it is in every case more philosophical and\nprobable.\n\nIn view of the abundant comments and explanations required, the references\nto the footnotes are marked in the usual way, while the sentences to be\ncommented upon are marked with letters. Additional matter will be found in\nthe Chapters on Symbolism, which are often more full of information than\nthe Commentaries.\n\n\n\n\n\nPART I. COSMIC EVOLUTION.\n\n\nSeven Stanzas From The \u201cBook Of Dzyan,\u201d With Commentaries.\n\n\n    Nor Aught nor Nought existed; yon bright sky\n    Was not, nor heaven\u2019s broad roof outstretched above.\n    What covered all? What sheltered? What concealed?\n    Was it the water\u2019s fathomless abyss?\n    There was no death\u2014yet there was nought immortal,\n    There was no confine betwixt day and night;\n    The only One breathed breathless by Itself,\n    Other than It there nothing since has been.\n    Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled\n    In gloom profound\u2014an ocean without light.\n    The germ that still lay covered in the husk\n    Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat.\n\n    Who knows the secret? Who proclaimed it here?\n    Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang?\n    The Gods themselves came later into being\u2014\n    Who knows from whence this great creation sprang?\n    That, whence all this great creation came,\n    Whether Its will created or was mute,\n    The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven,\n    He knows it\u2014or perchance even he knows not.\n\n    Gazing into eternity\n    Ere the foundations of the earth were laid.\n\n    Thou wert. And when the subterranean flame\n    Shall burst its prison and devour the frame,\n    Thou shalt be still as thou wert before\n    And know no change, when time shall be no more.\n    O, endless thought, divine Eternity.\n\n    _Rig Veda_ (COLEBROOKE).\n\n\n\n\nSeven Stanzas From The \u201cBook Of Dzyan\u201d\n\n\n\nStanza I.\n\n\n1. The Eternal Parent, wrapped in her Ever\u2010Invisible Robes, had slumbered\nonce again for Seven Eternities.\n\n2. Time was not, for it lay asleep in the Infinite Bosom of Duration.\n\n3. Universal Mind was not, for there were no Ah\u2010hi to contain it.\n\n4. The Seven Ways to Bliss were not. The Great Causes of Misery were not,\nfor there was no one to produce and get ensnared by them.\n\n5. Darkness alone filled the Boundless All, for Father, Mother and Son\nwere once more one, and the Son had not yet awakened for the new Wheel and\nhis Pilgrimage thereon.\n\n6. The Seven Sublime Lords and the Seven Truths had ceased to be, and the\nUniverse, the Son of Necessity, was immersed in Paranishpanna, to be\noutbreathed by that which is, and yet is not. Naught was.\n\n7. The Causes of Existence had been done away with; the Visible that was,\nand the Invisible that is, rested in Eternal Non\u2010Being\u2014the One Being.\n\n8. Alone, the One Form of Existence stretched boundless, infinite,\ncauseless, in Dreamless Sleep; and Life pulsated unconscious in Universal\nSpace, throughout that All\u2010Presence, which is sensed by the Opened Eye of\nDangma.\n\n9. But where was Dangma when the \u00c2laya of the Universe was in Param\u00e2rtha,\nand the Great Wheel was Anup\u00e2daka?\n\n\n\nStanza II.\n\n\n1. ... Where were the Builders, the Luminous Sons of Manvantaric Dawn?...\nIn the Unknown Darkness in their Ah\u2010hi Paranishpanna. The Producers of\nForm from No\u2010Form\u2014the Root of the World\u2014the Devam\u00e2tri and Svabh\u00e2vat,\nrested in the Bliss of Non\u2010Being.\n\n2. ... Where was Silence? Where the ears to sense it? No, there was\nneither Silence nor Sound; naught save Ceaseless Eternal Breath, which\nknows itself not.\n\n3. The Hour had not yet struck; the Ray had not yet flashed into the Germ;\nthe M\u00e2tripadma had not yet swollen.\n\n4. Her Heart had not yet opened for the One Ray to enter, thence to fall,\nas Three into Four, into the Lap of M\u00e2y\u00e2.\n\n5. The Seven were not yet born from the Web of Light. Darkness alone was\nFather\u2010Mother, Svabh\u00e2vat; and Svabh\u00e2vat was in Darkness.\n\n6. These Two are the Germ, and the Germ is One. The Universe was still\nconcealed in the Divine Thought and the Divine Bosom.\n\n\n\nStanza III.\n\n\n1. ... The last Vibration of the Seventh Eternity thrills through\nInfinitude. The Mother swells, expanding from within without, like the Bud\nof the Lotus.\n\n2. The Vibration sweeps along, touching with its swift Wing the whole\nUniverse and the Germ that dwelleth in Darkness, the Darkness that\nbreathes over the slumbering Waters of Life.\n\n3. Darkness radiates Light, and Light drops one solitary Ray into the\nWaters, into the Mother\u2010Deep. The Ray shoots through the Virgin Egg, the\nRay causes the Eternal Egg to thrill, and drop the non\u2010eternal Germ, which\ncondenses into the World\u2010Egg.\n\n4. The Three fall into the Four. The Radiant Essence becomes Seven inside,\nSeven outside. The Luminous Egg, which in itself is Three, curdles and\nspreads in milk\u2010white Curds throughout the Depths of Mother, the Root that\ngrows in the Depths of the Ocean of Life.\n\n5. The Root remains, the Light remains, the Curds remain, and still\nOeaohoo is One.\n\n6. The Root of Life was in every Drop of the Ocean of Immortality, and the\nOcean was Radiant Light, which was Fire, and Heat, and Motion. Darkness\nvanished and was no more; it disappeared in its own Essence, the Body of\nFire and Water, of Father and Mother.\n\n7. Behold, O Lanoo, the Radiant Child of the Two, the unparalleled\nrefulgent Glory\u2014Bright Space, Son of Dark Space, who emerges from the\nDepths of the great Dark Waters. It is Oeaohoo, the Younger, the \u2014\u2014. He\nshines forth as the Sun, he is the Blazing Divine Dragon of Wisdom; the\nEka is Chatur, and Chatur takes to itself Tri, and the Union produces the\nSapta, in whom are the Seven, which become the Tridasha, the Hosts and the\nMultitudes. Behold him lifting the Veil, and unfurling it from East to\nWest. He shuts out the Above, and leaves the Below to be seen as the Great\nIllusion. He marks the places for the Shining Ones, and turns the Upper\ninto a shoreless Sea of Fire, and the One Manifested into the Great\nWaters.\n\n8. Where was the Germ, and where was now Darkness? Where is the Spirit of\nthe Flame that burns in thy Lamp, O Lanoo? The Germ is That, and That is\nLight, the White Brilliant Son of the Dark Hidden Father.\n\n9. Light is Cold Flame, and Flame is Fire, and Fire produces Heat, which\nyields Water\u2014the Water of Life in the Great Mother.\n\n10. Father\u2010Mother spin a Web, whose upper end is fastened to Spirit, the\nLight of the One Darkness, and the lower one to its shadowy end, Matter;\nand this Web is the Universe, spun out of the Two Substances made in One,\nwhich is Svabh\u00e2vat.\n\n11. It expands when the Breath of Fire is upon it; it contracts when the\nBreath of the Mother touches it. Then the Sons dissociate and scatter, to\nreturn into their Mother\u2019s Bosom, at the end of the Great Day, and re\u2010\nbecome one with her. When it is cooling, it becomes radiant. Its Sons\nexpand and contract through their own Selves and Hearts; they embrace\nInfinitude.\n\n12. Then Svabh\u00e2vat sends Fohat to harden the Atoms. Each is a part of the\nWeb. Reflecting the \u201cSelf\u2010Existent Lord,\u201d like a Mirror, each becomes in\nturn a World.\n\n\n\nStanza IV.\n\n\n1. ... Listen, ye Sons of the Earth, to your Instructors\u2014the Sons of the\nFire. Learn, there is neither first nor last; for all is One Number,\nissued from No\u2010Number.\n\n2. Learn what we, who descend from the Primordial Seven, we, who are born\nfrom the Primordial Flame, have learnt from our Fathers....\n\n3. From the Effulgency of Light\u2014the Ray of the Ever\u2010Darkness\u2014sprang in\nSpace the re\u00e4wakened Energies; the One from the Egg, the Six, and the\nFive. Then the Three, the One, the Four, the One, the Five\u2014the Twice\nSeven, the Sum Total. And these are the Essences, the Flames, the\nElements, the Builders, the Numbers, the Ar\u00fbpa, the R\u00fbpa, and the Force or\nDivine Man, the Sum Total. And from the Divine Man emanated the Forms, the\nSparks, the Sacred Animals, and the Messengers of the Sacred Fathers\nwithin the Holy Four.\n\n4. This was the Army of the Voice, the Divine Mother of the Seven. The\nSparks of the Seven are subject to, and the servants of, the First, the\nSecond, the Third, the Fourth, the Fifth, the Sixth, and the Seventh of\nthe Seven. These are called Spheres, Triangles, Cubes, Lines and\nModellers; for thus stands the Eternal Nid\u00e2na\u2014the Oi\u2010Ha\u2010Hou.\n\n5. The Oi\u2010Ha\u2010Hou, which is Darkness, the Boundless, or the No\u2010Number, \u00c2di\u2010\nNid\u00e2na Svabh\u00e2vat, the [circle]:\n\nI. The \u00c2di\u2010Sanat, the Number, for he is One.\n\nII. The Voice of the Word, Svabh\u00e2vat, the Numbers, for he is One and Nine.\n\nIII. The \u201cFormless Square.\u201d\n\nAnd these Three, enclosed within the [circle], are the Sacred Four; and\nthe Ten are the Ar\u00fbpa Universe. Then come the Sons, the Seven Fighters,\nthe One, the Eighth left out, and his Breath which is the Light\u2010Maker.\n\n6. ... Then the Second Seven, who are the Lipika, produced by the Three.\nThe Rejected Son is One. The \u201cSon\u2010Suns\u201d are countless.\n\n\n\nStanza V.\n\n\n1. The Primordial Seven, the First Seven Breaths of the Dragon of Wisdom,\nproduce in their turn from their Holy Circumgyrating Breaths the Fiery\nWhirlwind.\n\n2. They make of him the Messenger of their Will. The Dzyu becomes Fohat:\nthe swift Son of the Divine Sons, whose Sons are the Lipika, runs circular\nerrands. Fohat is the Steed, and the Thought is the Rider. He passes like\nlightning through the fiery clouds; takes Three, and Five, and Seven\nStrides through the Seven Regions above, and the Seven below. He lifts his\nVoice, and calls the innumerable Sparks, and joins them together.\n\n3. He is their guiding spirit and leader. When he commences work, he\nseparates the Sparks of the Lower Kingdom, that float and thrill with joy\nin their radiant dwellings, and forms therewith the Germs of Wheels. He\nplaces them in the Six Directions of Space, and One in the middle\u2014the\nCentral Wheel.\n\n4. Fohat traces spiral lines to unite the Sixth to the Seventh\u2014the Crown.\nAn Army of the Sons of Light stands at each angle; the Lipika, in the\nMiddle Wheel. They say: \u201chis is good.\u201d The first Divine World is ready;\nthe First, the Second. Then the \u201cDivine Ar\u00fbpa\u201d reflects itself in Chh\u00e2y\u00e2\nLoka, the First Garment of Anup\u00e2daka.\n\n5. Fohat takes five strides, and builds a winged wheel at each corner of\nthe square for the Four Holy Ones ... and their Armies.\n\n6. The Lipika circumscribe the Triangle, the First One, the Cube, the\nSecond One, and the Pentacle within the Egg. It is the Ring called \u201cPass\nNot\u201d for those who descend and ascend; who during the Kalpa are\nprogressing towards the Great Day \u201cBe With Us.\u201d... Thus were formed the\nAr\u00fbpa and the R\u00fbpa: from One Light, Seven Lights; from each of the Seven,\nseven times Seven Lights. The Wheels watch the Ring....\n\n\n\nStanza VI.\n\n\n1. By the power of the Mother of Mercy and Knowledge, Kwan\u2010Yin\u2014the Triple\nof Kwan\u2010Shai\u2010Yin, residing in Kwan\u2010Yin\u2010Tien\u2014Fohat, the Breath of their\nProgeny, the Son of the Sons, having called forth, from the lower Abyss,\nthe Illusive Form of Sien\u2010Tchan and the Seven Elements.\n\n2. The Swift and the Radiant One produces the seven Laya Centres, against\nwhich none will prevail to the Great Day \u201cBe With Us\u201d; and seats the\nUniverse on these Eternal Foundations, surrounding Sien\u2010Tchan with the\nElementary Germs.\n\n3. Of the Seven\u2014first One manifested, Six concealed; Two manifested, Five\nconcealed; Three manifested, Four concealed; Four produced, Three hidden;\nFour and One Tsan revealed, Two and One\u2010Half concealed; Six to be\nmanifested, One laid aside. Lastly, Seven Small Wheels revolving: one\ngiving birth to the other.\n\n4. He builds them in the likeness of older Wheels, placing them on the\nImperishable Centres.\n\nHow does Fohat build them? He collects the Fiery\u2010Dust. He makes Balls of\nFire, runs through them, and round them, infusing life there\u00efnto, then\nsets them into motion; some one way, some the other way. They are cold, he\nmakes them hot. They are dry, he makes them moist. They shine, he fans and\ncools them. Thus acts Fohat from one Twilight to the other, during Seven\nEternities.\n\n5. At the Fourth, the Sons are told to create their Images. One\u2010Third\nrefuses. Two obey.\n\nThe Curse is pronounced. They will be born in the Fourth, suffer and cause\nsuffering. This is the First War.\n\n6. The Older Wheels rotated downward and upward.... The Mother\u2019s Spawn\nfilled the whole. There were Battles fought between the Creators and the\nDestroyers, and Battles fought for Space; the Seed appearing and\nre\u00e4ppearing continuously.\n\n7. Make thy calculations, O Lanoo, if thou wouldst learn the correct age\nof thy Small Wheel. Its Fourth Spoke is our Mother. Reach the Fourth Fruit\nof the Fourth Path of Knowledge that leads to Nirvana, and thou shalt\ncomprehend, for thou shalt see....\n\n\n\nStanza VII.\n\n\n1. Behold the beginning of sentient formless Life.\n\nFirst, the Divine, the One from the Mother\u2010Spirit; then, the Spiritual;\nthe Three from the One, the Four from the One, and the Five, from which\nthe Three, the Five and the Seven. These are the Three\u2010fold and the Four\u2010\nfold downward; the Mind\u2010born Sons of the First Lord, the Shining Seven. It\nis they who are thou, I, he, O Lanoo; they who watch over thee and thy\nmother, Bh\u00fbm\u00ee.\n\n2. The One Ray multiplies the smaller Rays. Life precedes Form, and Life\nsurvives the last atom. Through the countless Rays the Life\u2010Ray, the One,\nlike a Thread through many Beads.\n\n3. When the One becomes Two, the Threefold appears, and the Three are One;\nand it is our Thread, O Lanoo, the Heart of the Man\u2010Plant called\nSaptaparna.\n\n4. It is the Root that never dies; the Three\u2010tongued Flame of the Four\nWicks. The Wicks are the Sparks, that draw from the Three\u2010tongued Flame\nshot out by the Seven\u2014their Flame\u2014the Beams and Sparks of one Moon\nreflected in the running Waves of all the Rivers of Earth.\n\n5. The Spark hangs from the Flame by the finest thread of Fohat. It\njourneys through the Seven Worlds of M\u00e2y\u00e2. It stops in the First, and is a\nMetal and a Stone; it passes into the Second, and behold\u2014a Plant; the\nPlant whirls through seven changes and becomes a Sacred Animal. From the\ncombined attributes of these, Manu, the Thinker, is formed. Who forms him?\nThe Seven Lives and the One Life. Who completes him? The Fivefold Lha. And\nwho perfects the last Body? Fish, Sin, and Soma....\n\n6. From the First\u2010born the Thread between the Silent Watcher and his\nShadow becomes more strong and radiant with every Change. The morning\nSunlight has changed into noon\u2010day glory....\n\n7. \u201cThis is thy present Wheel,\u201d said the Flame to the Spark. \u201cThou art\nmyself, my image and my shadow. I have clothed myself in thee, and thou\nart my V\u00e2han to the Day \u2018Be With Us,\u2019 when thou shalt re\u2010become myself and\nothers, thyself and me.\u201d Then the Builders, having donned their first\nClothing, descend on radiant Earth and reign over Men\u2014who are\nthemselves....\n\n[_Thus ends this portion of the archaic narrative, dark, confused, almost\nincomprehensible. An attempt will now be made to throw light into this\ndarkness, to make sense out of this apparent non\u2010sense._]\n\n\n\n\nCommentaries On The Seven Stanzas And Their Terms, According To Their\nNumeration, In Stanzas And Shlokas.\n\n\n\nStanza I.\n\n\n1. THE ETERNAL PARENT,(54) WRAPPED IN HER EVER\u2010INVISIBLE ROBES, HAD\nSLUMBERED ONCE AGAIN FOR SEVEN ETERNITIES.\n\nThe \u201cParent,\u201d Space, is the eternal, ever\u2010present Cause of all\u2014the\nincomprehensible DEITY, whose \u201cInvisible Robes\u201d are the mystic Root of all\nMatter, and of the Universe. Space is the _one eternal thing_ that we can\nmost easily imagine, immovable in its abstraction and uninfluenced by\neither the presence or absence in it of an objective Universe. It is\nwithout dimension, in every sense, and self\u2010existent. Spirit is the first\ndifferentiation from \u201cTHAT,\u201d the Causeless Cause of both Spirit and\nMatter. As taught in the Esoteric Catechism, it is neither \u201climitless\nvoid,\u201d nor \u201cconditioned fulness,\u201d but both. It was and ever will be.\n\nThus, the \u201cRobes\u201d stand for the noumenon of undifferentiated Cosmic\nMatter. It is not matter as we know it, but the spiritual essence of\nmatter, and is co\u00ebternal and even one with Space in its abstract sense.\nRoot\u2010Nature is also the source of the subtile invisible properties in\nvisible matter. It is the Soul, so to say, of the One Infinite Spirit. The\nHind\u00fbs call it M\u00fblaprakriti, and say that it is the primordial Substance,\nwhich is the basis of the Up\u00e2dhi or Vehicle of every phenomenon, whether\nphysical, psychic or mental. It is the source from which \u00c2k\u00e2sha radiates.\n\nBy the \u201cSeven Eternities,\u201d \u00e6ons or periods are meant. The word Eternity,\nas understood in Christian theology, has no meaning to the Asiatic ear,\nexcept in its application to the One Existence; nor is the term\n\u201csempiternity,\u201d the eternal only in futurity, anything better than a\nmisnomer.(55) Such words do not and cannot exist in philosophical\nmetaphysics, and were unknown till the advent of ecclesiastical\nChristianity. The Seven Eternities mean the seven periods, or a period\nanswering in its duration to the seven periods, of a Manvantara, extending\nthroughout a Mah\u00e2kalpa or \u201cGreat Age\u201d (100 Years of Brahm\u00e2), making a\ntotal of 311,040,000,000,000 of years; each Year of Brahm\u00e2 being composed\nof 360 Days, and of the same number of Nights of Brahm\u00e2 (reckoning by the\nChandr\u00e2yana or lunar year); and a Day of Brahm\u00e2 consisting of\n4,320,000,000 of mortal years. These Eternities belong to the most secret\ncalculations, in which, in order to arrive at the true total, every figure\nmust be 7x, x varying according to the nature of the cycle in the\nsubjective or real world; and every figure relating to, or representing,\nthe different cycles\u2014from the greatest to the smallest\u2014in the objective or\nunreal world, must necessarily be multiples of seven. The key to this\ncannot be given, for herein lies the mystery of esoteric calculations, and\nfor the purposes of ordinary calculation it has no sense. \u201cThe number\nseven,\u201d says the _Kabalah_, \u201cis the great number of the Divine Mysteries\u201d;\nnumber ten is that of all human knowledge (the Pythagorean Decad); 1,000\nis the number ten to the third power, and therefore the number 7,000 is\nalso symbolical. In the Secret Doctrine the figure 4 is the male symbol\nonly on the highest plane of abstraction; on the plane of matter the 3 is\nthe masculine and the 4 the feminine\u2014the upright and the horizontal in the\nfourth stage of symbolism, when the symbols become the glyphs of the\ngenerative powers on the physical plane.\n\n2. TIME WAS NOT, FOR IT LAY ASLEEP IN THE INFINITE BOSOM OF DURATION.\n\n\u201cTime\u201d is only an illusion produced by the succession of our states of\nconsciousness as we travel through Eternal Duration, and it does not exist\nwhere no consciousness exists in which the illusion can be produced, but\n\u201clies asleep.\u201d The Present is only a mathematical line which divides that\npart of Eternal Duration which we call the Future, from that part which we\ncall the Past. Nothing on earth has real duration, for nothing remains\nwithout change\u2014or the same\u2014for the billionth part of a second; and the\nsensation we have of the actuality of the division of Time known as the\nPresent, comes from the blurring of the momentary glimpse, or succession\nof glimpses, of things that our senses give us, as those things pass from\nthe region of ideals, which we call the Future, to the region of memories\nthat we name the Past. In the same way we experience a sensation of\nduration in the case of the instantaneous electric spark, by reason of the\nblurred and continuing impression on the retina. The real person or thing\ndoes not consist solely of what is seen at any particular moment, but is\ncomposed of the sum of all its various and changing conditions from its\nappearance in material form to its disappearance from earth. It is these\n\u201csum\u2010totals\u201d that exist from eternity in the Future, and pass by degrees\nthrough matter, to exist for eternity in the Past. No one would say that a\nbar of metal dropped into the sea came into existence as it left the air,\nand ceased to exist as it entered the water, and that the bar itself\nconsisted only of that cross\u2010section thereof which at any given moment\ncoincided with the mathematical plane that separates, and, at the same\ntime, joins, the atmosphere and the ocean. Even so of persons and things,\nwhich, dropping out of the \u201cto be\u201d into the \u201chas been,\u201d out of the Future\ninto the Past\u2014present momentarily to our senses a cross\u2010section, as it\nwere, of their total selves, as they pass through Time and Space (as\nMatter) on their way from one eternity to another: and these two\neternities constitute that Duration in which alone anything has true\nexistence, were our senses but able to cognize it.\n\n3. UNIVERSAL MIND WAS NOT, FOR THERE WERE NO AH\u2010HI(56) TO CONTAIN IT.(57)\n\n\u201cMind\u201d is a name given to the sum of the States of Consciousness, grouped\nunder Thought, Will and Feeling. During deep sleep ideation ceases on the\nphysical plane, and memory is in abeyance; thus for the time\u2010being \u201cMind\nis not,\u201d because the organ, through which the Ego manifests ideation and\nmemory on the material plane, has temporarily ceased to function. A\nnoumenon can become a phenomenon on any plane of existence only by\nmanifesting on that plane through an appropriate basis or vehicle; and\nduring the long Night of rest called Pralaya, when all the Existences are\ndissolved, the \u201cUniversal Mind\u201d remains as a permanent possibility of\nmental action, or as that abstract absolute Thought, of which Mind is the\nconcrete relative manifestation. The Ah\u2010hi (Dhy\u00e2n Chohans) are the\ncollective hosts of spiritual Beings\u2014the Angelic Hosts of Christianity,\nthe Elohim and \u201cMessengers\u201d of the Jews\u2014who are the Vehicle for the\nmanifestation of the Divine or Universal Thought and Will. They are the\nIntelligent Forces that give to, and enact in, Nature her \u201cLaws,\u201d while\nthey themselves act according to Laws imposed upon them in a similar\nmanner by still higher Powers; but they are not the \u201cpersonifications\u201d of\nthe Powers of Nature, as erroneously thought. This Hierarchy of spiritual\nBeings, through which the Universal Mind comes into action, is like an\narmy\u2014a host, truly\u2014by means of which the fighting power of a nation\nmanifests itself, and which is composed of army\u2010corps, divisions,\nbrigades, regiments, and so forth, each with its separate individuality or\nlife, and its limited freedom of action and limited responsibilities; each\ncontained in a larger individuality, to which its own interests are\nsubservient, and each containing lesser individualities in itself.\n\n4. THE SEVEN WAYS TO BLISS(58) WERE NOT (_a_). THE GREAT CAUSES OF\nMISERY(59) WERE NOT, FOR THERE WAS NO ONE TO PRODUCE AND GET ENSNARED BY\nTHEM (_b_).\n\n(_a_) There are \u201cSeven Paths\u201d or \u201cWays\u201d to the \u201cBliss\u201d of Non\u2010Existence,\nwhich is absolute Being, Existence and Consciousness. They were not,\nbecause the Universe, so far, was empty, and existed only in the Divine\nThought.\n\n(_b_) For it is ... the Twelve Nid\u00e2nas, or Causes of Being. Each is the\neffect of its antecedent cause, and a cause, in its turn, to its\nsuccessor; the sum total of the Nid\u00e2nas being based on the Four Truths, a\ndoctrine especially characteristic of the H\u00eenay\u00e2na System.(60) They belong\nto the theory of the stream of catenated law which produces merit and\ndemerit, and finally brings Karma into full sway. It is a system based\nupon the great truth that re\u00efncarnation is to be dreaded, as existence in\nthis world entails upon man only suffering, misery and pain; death itself\nbeing unable to deliver man from it, since death is merely the door\nthrough which he passes to another life on earth after a little rest on\nits threshold\u2014Devachan. The H\u00eenay\u00e2na System, or School of the Little\nVehicle, is of very ancient growth; while the Mah\u00e2y\u00e2na, or School of the\nGreat Vehicle, is of a later period, having originated after the death of\nBuddha. Yet the tenets of the latter are as old as the hills that have\ncontained such schools from time immemorial, and the H\u00eenay\u00e2na and Mah\u00e2y\u00e2na\nSchools both teach the same doctrine in reality. Y\u00e2na, or Vehicle, is a\nmystic expression, both \u201cVehicles\u201d inculcating that man may escape the\nsufferings of rebirth and even the false bliss of Devachan, by obtaining\nWisdom and Knowledge, which alone can dispel the Fruits of Illusion and\nIgnorance.\n\nM\u00e2y\u00e2, or Illusion, is an element which enters into all finite things, for\neverything that exists has only a relative, not an absolute, reality,\nsince the appearance which the hidden noumenon assumes for any observer\ndepends upon his power of cognition. To the untrained eye of the savage, a\npainting is at first an unmeaning confusion of streaks and daubs of\ncolour, while an educated eye sees instantly a face or a landscape.\nNothing is permanent except the one hidden absolute Existence which\ncontains in itself the noumena of all realities. The Existences belonging\nto every plane of being, up to the highest Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, are,\ncomparatively, like the shadows cast by a magic lantern on a colourless\nscreen. Nevertheless all things are relatively real, for the cognizer is\nalso a reflection, and the things cognized are therefore as real to him as\nhimself. Whatever reality things possess, must be looked for in them\nbefore or after they have passed like a flash through the material world;\nfor we cannot cognize any such existence directly, so long as we have\nsense\u2010instruments which bring only material existence into the field of\nour consciousness. Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both\nwe and the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our\nonly realities. But as we rise in the scale of development, we perceive\nthat in the stages through which we have passed, we mistook shadows for\nrealities, and that the upward progress of the Ego is a series of\nprogressive awakenings, each advance bringing with it the idea that now,\nat last, we have reached \u201creality\u201d; but only when we shall have reached\nabsolute Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from\nthe delusions produced by M\u00e2y\u00e2.\n\n5. DARKNESS ALONE FILLED THE BOUNDLESS ALL (_a_), FOR FATHER, MOTHER AND\nSON WERE ONCE MORE ONE, AND THE SON HAD NOT YET AWAKENED FOR THE NEW\nWHEEL(61) AND HIS PILGRIMAGE THEREON (_b_).\n\n(_a_) \u201c_Darkness is Father\u2010Mother: Light their Son_,\u201d says an old Eastern\nproverb. Light is inconceivable except as coming from some source which is\nthe cause of it: and as, in the case of Primordial Light, that source is\nunknown, though so strongly demanded by reason and logic, therefore it is\ncalled \u201cDarkness\u201d by us, from an intellectual point of view. As to\nborrowed or secondary light, whatever its source, it can be only of a\ntemporary m\u00e2y\u00e2vic character. Darkness, then, is the Eternal Matrix in\nwhich the Sources of Light appear and disappear. Nothing is added to\ndarkness to make of it light, or to light to make it darkness, on this our\nplane. They are interchangeable; and, scientifically, light is but a mode\nof darkness and _vice vers\u00e2_. Yet both are phenomena of the same\nnoumenon\u2014which is absolute darkness to the scientific mind, and but a gray\ntwilight to the perception of the average Mystic, though to that of the\nspiritual eye of the Initiate it is absolute light. How far we discern the\nlight that shines in darkness depends upon our powers of vision. What is\nlight to us is darkness to certain insects, and the eye of the clairvoyant\nsees illumination where the normal eye perceives only blackness. When the\nwhole Universe was plunged in sleep\u2014had returned to its one primordial\nelement\u2014there was neither centre of luminosity, nor eye to perceive light,\nand darkness necessarily filled the \u201cBoundless All.\u201d\n\n(_b_) The \u201cFather\u201d and \u201cMother\u201d are the male and female principles in\nRoot\u2010Nature, the opposite poles that manifest in all things on every plane\nof Kosmos\u2014or Spirit and Substance, in a less allegorical aspect, the\nresultant of which is the Universe, or the \u201cSon.\u201d They are \u201conce more\none,\u201d when in the Night of Brahm\u00e2, during Pralaya, all in the objective\nUniverse has returned to its one primal and eternal cause, to re\u00e4ppear at\nthe following Dawn\u2014as it does periodically. K\u00e2rana\u2014Eternal Cause\u2014was\nalone. To put it more plainly: K\u00e2rana is alone during the Nights of\nBrahm\u00e2. The previous objective Universe has dissolved into its one primal\nand eternal Cause, and is, so to say, held in solution in Space, to\ndifferentiate again and crystallize out anew at the following Manvataric\nDawn, which is the commencement of a new Day or new activity of Brahm\u00e2\u2014the\nsymbol of a Universe. In esoteric parlance, Brahm\u00e2 is Father\u2010Mother\u2010Son,\nor Spirit, Soul and Body at once; each personage being symbolical of an\nattribute, and each attribute or quality being a graduated efflux of\nDivine Breath in its cyclic differentiation, involutionary and\nevolutionary. In the cosmico\u2010physical sense, it is the Universe, the\nPlanetary Chain and the Earth; in the purely spiritual, the Unknown Deity,\nPlanetary Spirit, and Man\u2014the son of the two, the creature of Spirit and\nMatter, and a manifestation of them in his periodical appearances on Earth\nduring the \u201cWheels,\u201d or the Manvantaras.\n\n6. THE SEVEN SUBLIME LORDS AND THE SEVEN TRUTHS HAD CEASED TO BE, (_a_)\nAND THE UNIVERSE, THE SON OF NECESSITY, WAS IMMERSED IN PARANISHPANNA,(62)\n(_b_) TO BE OUTBREATHED BY THAT WHICH IS, AND YET IS NOT. NAUGHT WAS\n(_c_).\n\n(a) The \u201cSeven Sublime Lords\u201d are the Seven Creative Spirits, the Dhy\u00e2n\nChohans, who correspond to the Hebrew Elohim. It is the same Hierarchy of\nArchangels to which St. Michael, St. Gabriel, and others belong, in\nChristian Theogony. Only while St. Michael, for instance, is allowed in\ndogmatic Latin Theology to watch over all the promontories and gulfs, in\nthe Esoteric System the Dhy\u00e2nis watch successively over one of the Rounds\nand the great Root\u2010Races of our Planetary Chain. They are, moreover, said\nto send their Bodhisattvas, the human correspondents of the Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas\nduring every Round and Race. Out of the \u201cSeven Truths\u201d and Revelations, or\nrather revealed secrets, four only have been handed to us, as we are still\nin the Fourth Round, and the world also has had only four Buddhas, so far.\nThis is a very complicated question, and will receive more ample treatment\nlater on.\n\nSo far \u201cthere are only Four Truths, and Four _Vedas_\u201d\u2014say the Buddhists\nand Hind\u00fbs. For a similar reason Iren\u00e6us insisted on the necessity of Four\nGospels. But as every new Root\u2010Race at the head of a Round must have its\nrevelation and revealers, the next Round will bring the Fifth, the\nfollowing the Sixth, and so on.\n\n(b) \u201cParanishpanna\u201d is the Absolute Perfection to which all Existences\nattain at the close of a great period of activity, or Mah\u00e2manvantara, and\nin which they rest during the succeeding period of repose. In Tibetan it\nis called \u201cYong\u2010Grub.\u201d Up to the day of the Yog\u00e2ch\u00e2rya School the true\nnature of Paranirv\u00e2na was taught publicly, but since then it has become\nentirely esoteric; hence so many contradictory interpretations of it. It\nis only a true Idealist who can understand it. Everything has to be viewed\nas ideal, with the exception of Paranirv\u00e2na, by him who would comprehend\nthat state, and acquire a knowledge of how Non\u2010Ego, Voidness, and Darkness\nare Three in One, and alone self\u2010existent and perfect. It is absolute,\nhowever, only in a relative sense, for it must give room to still further\nabsolute perfection, according to a higher standard of excellence in the\nfollowing period of activity\u2014just as a perfect flower must cease to be a\nperfect flower and die, in order to grow into a perfect fruit, if such a\nmode of expression may be permitted.\n\nThe Secret Doctrine teaches the progressive development of everything,\nworlds as well as atoms; and this stupendous development has neither\nconceivable beginning nor imaginable end. Our \u201cUniverse\u201d is only one of an\ninfinite number of Universes, all of them \u201cSons of Necessity,\u201d because\nlinks in the great cosmic chain of Universes, each one standing in the\nrelation of an effect as regards its predecessor, and of a cause as\nregards its successor.\n\nThe appearance and disappearance of the Universe are pictured as an\noutbreathing and inbreathing of the \u201cGreat Breath,\u201d which is eternal, and\nwhich, being Motion, is one of the three symbols of the Absolute\u2014Abstract\nSpace and Duration being the other two. When the Great Breath is\nprojected, it is called the Divine Breath, and is regarded as the\nbreathing of the Unknowable Deity\u2014the One Existence\u2014which breathes out a\nthought, as it were, which becomes the Kosmos. So also is it that when the\nDivine Breath is inspired, the Universe disappears into the bosom of the\nGreat Mother, who then sleeps \u201cwrapped in her Ever\u2010Invisible Robes.\u201d\n\n(c) By \u201cthat which is, and yet is not\u201d is meant the Great Breath itself,\nwhich we can only speak of as Absolute Existence, but cannot picture to\nour imagination as any form of Existence that we can distinguish from Non\u2010\nExistence. The three periods\u2014the Present, the Past and the Future\u2014are in\nEsoteric Philosophy a compound time; for the three are a composite number\nonly in relation to the phenomenal plane, but in the realm of noumena have\nno abstract validity. As said in the Scriptures: \u201cThe Past Time is the\nPresent Time, as also the Future, which, though it has not come into\nexistence, still is,\u201d according to a precept in the Prasanga Madhyamika\nteaching, whose dogmas have been known ever since it broke away from the\npurely esoteric schools.(63) Our ideas, in short, on duration and time are\nall derived from our sensations according to the laws of association.\nInextricably bound up with the relativity of human knowledge, they\nnevertheless can have no existence except in the experience of the\nindividual Ego, and perish when its evolutionary march dispels the M\u00e2y\u00e2 of\nphenomenal existence. What is time, for instance, but the panoramic\nsuccession of our states of consciousness? In the words of a Master, \u201cI\nfeel irritated at having to use these three clumsy words\u2014Past, Present,\nand Future\u2014miserable concepts of the objective phases of the subjective\nwhole, they are about as ill\u2010adapted for the purpose as an axe for fine\ncarving.\u201d One has to acquire Param\u00e2rtha lest one should become too easy a\nprey to Samvriti\u2014is a philosophical axiom.(64)\n\n7. THE CAUSES OF EXISTENCE HAD BEEN DONE AWAY WITH; (_a_) THE VISIBLE THAT\nWAS, AND THE INVISIBLE THAT IS, RESTED IN ETERNAL NON\u2010BEING\u2014THE ONE BEING\n(_b_).\n\n(a) \u201cThe Causes of Existence\u201d mean not only the physical causes known to\nScience, but the metaphysical causes, the chief of which is the desire to\nexist, an outcome of Nid\u00e2na and M\u00e2y\u00e2. This desire for a sentient life\nshows itself in everything, from an atom to a sun, and is a reflection of\nthe Divine Thought propelled into objective existence, into a law that the\nUniverse should exist. According to Esoteric teaching, the real cause of\nthat supposed desire, and of all existence, remains for ever hidden, and\nits first emanations are the most complete abstractions mind can conceive.\nThese abstractions must of necessity be postulated as the cause of the\nmaterial Universe which presents itself to the senses and intellect, and\nmust underlie the secondary and subordinate powers of Nature, which have\nbeen anthropomorphized and worshipped as \u201cGod\u201d and \u201cgods\u201d by the common\nherd of every age. It is impossible to conceive anything without a cause;\nthe attempt to do so makes the mind a blank. This is virtually the\ncondition to which the mind must come at last when we try to trace back\nthe chain of causes and effects, but both Science and Religion jump to\nthis condition of blankness much more quickly than is necessary, for they\nignore the metaphysical abstractions which are the only conceivable causes\nof physical concretions. These abstractions become more and more concrete\nas they approach our plane of existence, until finally they phenomenalize\nin the form of the material Universe, by a process of conversion of\nmetaphysics into physics, analogous to that by which steam can be\ncondensed into water, and water frozen into ice.\n\n(b) The idea of \u201cEternal Non\u2010Being,\u201d which is the \u201cOne Being,\u201d will appear\na paradox to anyone who does not remember that we limit our ideas of Being\nto our present consciousness of Existence; making it a specific, instead\nof a generic term. An unborn infant, could it think in our acceptation of\nthat term, would necessarily in a similar manner limit its conception of\nBeing to the intra\u2010uterine life which alone it knows; and were it to\nendeavour to express to its consciousness the idea of life after birth\n(death to it), it would, in the absence of data to go upon, and of\nfaculties to comprehend such data, probably express that life as \u201cNon\u2010\nBeing which is Real Being.\u201d In our case the One Being is the noumenon of\nall the noumena which we know must underlie phenomena, and give them\nwhatever shadow of reality they possess, but which we have not the senses\nor the intellect to cognize at present. The impalpable atoms of gold\nscattered through the substance of a ton of auriferous quartz may be\nimperceptible to the naked eye of the miner, yet he knows that they are\nnot only present there, but that they alone give his quartz any\nappreciable value; and this relation of the gold to the quartz may faintly\nshadow forth that of the noumenon to the phenomenon. Only the miner knows\nwhat the gold will look like when extracted from the quartz, whereas the\ncommon mortal can form no conception of the reality of things separated\nfrom the M\u00e2y\u00e2 which veils them, and in which they are hidden. Alone the\nInitiate, rich with the lore acquired by numberless generations of his\npredecessors, directs the \u201cEye of Dangma\u201d toward the essence of things on\nwhich no M\u00e2y\u00e2 can have any influence. It is here that the teachings of\nEsoteric Philosophy in relation to the Nid\u00e2nas and the Four Truths become\nof the greatest importance; but they are secret.\n\n8. ALONE, THE ONE FORM OF EXISTENCE (A) STRETCHED BOUNDLESS, INFINITE,\nCAUSELESS, IN DREAMLESS SLEEP (B); AND LIFE PULSATED UNCONSCIOUS IN\nUNIVERSAL SPACE, THROUGHOUT THAT ALL\u2010PRESENCE, WHICH IS SENSED BY THE\nOPENED EYE OF DANGMA.(65)\n\n(a) The tendency of modern thought is to recur to the archaic idea of a\nhomogeneous basis for apparently widely different things\u2014heterogeneity\ndeveloped from homogeneity. Biologists are now searching for their\nhomogeneous protoplasm and Chemists for their protyle, while Science is\nlooking for the force of which electricity, magnetism, heat, and so forth,\nare the differentiations. The Secret Doctrine carries this idea into the\nregion of metaphysics, and postulates a \u201cOne Form of Existence\u201d as the\nbasis and source of all things. But perhaps the phrase, the \u201cOne Form of\nExistence,\u201d is not altogether correct. The Sanskrit word is Prabhav\u00e2pyaya,\n\u201cthe place [or rather plane] whence is the origination, and into which is\nthe resolution of all things,\u201d as a commentator says. It is not the\n\u201cMother of the World,\u201d as translated by Wilson;(66) for Jagad Yoni, as\nshown by Fitzedward Hall, is scarcely so much the \u201cMother of the World,\u201d\nor the \u201cWomb of the World,\u201d as the \u201cMaterial Cause of the World.\u201d The\nPur\u00e2nic commentators explain it by K\u00e2rana, \u201cCause,\u201d but Esoteric\nPhilosophy, by the _ideal spirit of that cause_. In its secondary stage,\nit is the Svabh\u00e2vat of the Buddhist philosopher, the Eternal Cause and\nEffect, omnipresent yet abstract, the self\u2010existent plastic Essence and\nthe Root of all things, viewed in the same dual light as the Ved\u00e2ntin\nviews his Parabrahman and M\u00fblaprakriti, the one under two aspects. It\nseems indeed extraordinary to find great scholars speculating on the\npossibility of the Ved\u00e2nta, and the Uttara M\u00eem\u00e2ns\u00e2 especially, having been\n\u201cevoked by the teachings of the Buddhists\u201d; whereas, on the contrary, it\nis Buddhism, the teaching of Gautama Buddha, that was \u201cevoked\u201d and\nentirely upreared on the tenets of the Secret Doctrine, of which a partial\nsketch is here attempted, and on which, also, the _Upanishads_ are made to\nrest.(67) According to the teachings of Shr\u00ee Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya our contention\nis undeniable.(68)\n\n(b) \u201cDreamless Sleep\u201d is one of the seven states of consciousness known in\nOriental Esotericism. In each of these states a different portion of the\nmind comes into action; or as a Ved\u00e2ntin would express it, the individual\nis conscious in a different plane of his being. The term \u201cDreamless\nSleep,\u201d in this case, is applied allegorically to the Universe to express\na condition somewhat analogous to that state of consciousness in man,\nwhich, not being remembered in a waking state, seems a blank, just as the\nsleep of the mesmerized subject seems to him an unconscious blank when he\nreturns to his normal condition, although he has been talking and acting\nas a conscious individual would.\n\n9. BUT WHERE WAS DANGMA WHEN THE \u00c2LAYA OF THE UNIVERSE(69) WAS IN\nPARAM\u00c2RTHA (_a_),(70) AND THE GREAT WHEEL WAS ANUP\u00c2DAKA (_b_)?\n\n(a) Here we have before us the subject of centuries of scholastic\ndisputations. The two terms \u201c\u00c2laya,\u201d and \u201cParam\u00e2rtha,\u201d have been the\ncauses of dividing schools and splitting the truth into more different\naspects than any other mystic words. \u00c2laya is the Soul of the World or\nAnima Mundi\u2014the Over\u2010Soul of Emerson\u2014which according to esoteric teaching\nchanges its nature periodically. \u00c2laya, though eternal and changeless in\nits inner essence on the planes which are unreachable by either men or\ncosmic gods (Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas), changes during the active life\u2010period with\nrespect to the lower planes, ours included. During that time not only the\nDhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas are one with \u00c2laya in Soul and Essence, but even the man\nstrong in Yoga (Mystic Meditation) \u201cis able to merge his soul with it,\u201d as\nAry\u00e2sanga, of the Yog\u00e2ch\u00e2rya school, says. This is not Nirv\u00e2na, but a\ncondition next to it. Hence the disagreement. Thus, while the Yog\u00e2ch\u00e2ryas\nof the Mah\u00e2y\u00e2na School say that \u00c2laya (Nyingpo and Tsang in Tibetan) is\nthe personification of the Voidness, and yet \u00c2laya is the basis of every\nvisible and invisible thing, and that, though it is eternal and immutable\nin its essence, it reflects itself in every object of the Universe \u201clike\nthe moon in clear tranquil water\u201d; other schools dispute the statement.\nThe same for Param\u00e2rtha. The Yog\u00e2ch\u00e2ryas interpret the term as that which\nis also dependent upon other things (_paratantra_); and the Madhyamikas\nsay that Param\u00e2rtha is limited to Paranishpanna or Absolute Perfection;\n_i.e._, in the exposition of these \u201cTwo Truths\u201d of the Four, the former\nbelieve and maintain that, on this plane, at any rate, there exists only\nSamvritisatya or relative truth; and the latter teach the existence of\nParam\u00e2rthasatya, Absolute Truth.(71) \u201cNo Arhat, O mendicants, can reach\nabsolute knowledge before he becomes one with Paranirv\u00e2na. Parikalpita and\nParatantra are his two great enemies.\u201d(72) Parikalpita (in Tibetan Kun\u2010\ntag) is error, made by those unable to realize the emptiness and\nillusionary nature of all; who believe something to exist which does\nnot\u2014_e.g._, the Non\u2010Ego. And Paratantra is that, whatever it is, which\nexists only through a dependent or causal connection, and which has to\ndisappear as soon as the cause from which it proceeds is removed\u2014_e.g._,\nthe flame of a wick. Destroy or extinguish it, and light disappears.\n\nEsoteric Philosophy teaches that everything lives and is conscious, but\nnot that all life and consciousness are similar to those of human or even\nanimal beings. Life we look upon as the One Form of Existence, manifesting\nin what is called Matter; or what, incorrectly separating them, we name\nSpirit, Soul and Matter in man. Matter is the Vehicle for the\nmanifestation of Soul on this plane of existence, and Soul is the Vehicle\non a higher plane for the manifestation of Spirit, and these three are a\nTrinity synthesized by Life, which pervades them all. The idea of\nUniversal Life is one of those ancient conceptions which are returning to\nthe human mind in this century, as a consequence of its liberation from\nanthropomorphic Theology. Science, it is true, contents itself with\ntracing or postulating the signs of Universal Life, but has not yet been\nbold enough to even whisper \u201cAnima Mundi\u201d! The idea of \u201ccrystalline life,\u201d\nnow familiar to Science, would have been scouted half a century ago.\nBotanists are now searching for the nerves of plants; not that they\nsuppose that plants can feel or think as animals do, but because they\nbelieve that some structure, bearing the same relation functionally to\nplant life that nerves bear to animal life, is necessary to explain\nvegetable growth and nutrition. It seems hardly possible that Science, by\nthe mere use of terms such as \u201cforce\u201d and \u201cenergy,\u201d can disguise from\nitself much longer the fact that things that have life are living things,\nwhether they be atoms or planets.\n\nBut what is the belief of the inner Esoteric Schools, the reader may ask.\nWhat are the doctrines taught on this subject by the Esoteric \u201cBuddhists\u201d?\nWith them, we answer, \u00c2laya has a double and even a threefold meaning. In\nthe Yog\u00e2ch\u00e2rya system of the contemplative Mah\u00e2y\u00e2na School, \u00c2laya is both\nthe Universal Soul, Anima Mundi, and the Self of a progressed Adept. \u201cHe\nwho is strong in the Yoga can introduce at will his \u00c2laya by means of\nmeditation into the true nature of Existence.\u201d \u201cThe \u00c2laya has an absolute\neternal existence,\u201d says Ary\u00e2sanga, the rival of N\u00e2g\u00e2rjuna.(73) In one\nsense it is Pradh\u00e2na, which is explained in _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_ as, \u201cthat\nwhich is the unevolved cause, is emphatically called, by the most eminent\nsages, Pradh\u00e2na, original base, which is subtile Prakriti, _viz._, that\nwhich is eternal, and which at once is [or comprehends what is] and [what]\nis not, or is mere process.\u201d(74) \u201cThe indiscrete cause which is uniform,\nand both cause and effect, and which those who are acquainted with first\nprinciples, call Pradh\u00e2na and Prakriti, is the incognizable Brahma who was\nbefore all,\u201d(75) _i.e._, Brahma does not put forth evolution itself or\ncreate, but only exhibits various aspects of itself, one of which is\nPrakriti, an aspect of Pradh\u00e2na. \u201cPrakriti,\u201d however, is an incorrect\nword, and \u00c2laya would explain it better; for Prakriti is not the\n\u201cuncognizable Brahma.\u201d It is a mistake of those who know nothing of the\nuniversality of the Occult doctrines from the very cradle of the human\nraces, and especially so of those scholars who reject the very idea of a\n\u201cprimordial revelation,\u201d to teach that the Anima Mundi, the One Life or\nUniversal Soul, was made known only by Anaxagoras, or during his age. This\nphilosopher brought the teaching forward simply to oppose the too\nmaterialistic conceptions of Democritus on cosmogony, based on the\nexoteric theory of _blindly_ driven atoms. Anaxagoras of Clazomen\u00e6,\nhowever, was not its inventor, but only its propagator, as was also Plato.\nThat which he called Mundane Intelligence, Nous (\u039d\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2), the principle that\naccording to his views is absolutely separated and free from matter and\nacts with design, was called Motion, the One Life, or J\u00eev\u00e2tm\u00e2, in India,\nages before the year 500 B.C. Only the \u00c2ryan philosophers never endowed\nthis principle, which with them is infinite, with the finite \u201cattribute of\nthinking.\u201d(76)\n\nThis leads naturally to the \u201cSupreme Spirit\u201d of Hegel and the German\nTranscendentalists\u2014a contrast that it may be useful to point out. The\nschools of Schelling and Fichte have diverged widely from the primitive\narchaic conception of an Absolute Principle, and have mirrored an aspect\nonly of the basic idea of the Ved\u00e2nta. Even the \u201cAbsoluter Geist\u201d shadowed\nforth by von Hartmann in his pessimistic philosophy of the \u201cUnconscious,\u201d\nwhile it is, perhaps, the closest approximation made by European\nspeculation to the Hind\u00fb Advaitin doctrines, yet similarly falls far short\nof the reality.\n\nAccording to Hegel, the \u201cUnconscious\u201d would never have undertaken the vast\nand laborious task of evolving the Universe, except in the hope of\nattaining clear Self\u2010Consciousness. In this connection it is to be borne\nin mind that in designating Spirit, a term which the European Pantheists\nuse as equivalent to Parabrahman, as Unconscious, they do not attach to\nthe expression the connotation it usually bears. It is employed in the\nabsence of a better term to symbolize a profound mystery.\n\nThe \u201cAbsolute Consciousness behind phenomena,\u201d they tell us, which is only\ntermed unconsciousness in the absence of any element of personality,\ntranscends human conception. Man, unable to form a single concept except\nin terms of empirical phenomena, is powerless from the very constitution\nof his being to raise the veil that shrouds the majesty of the Absolute.\nOnly the liberated Spirit is able to faintly realize the nature of the\nsource whence it sprung and whither it must eventually return. As the\nhighest Dhy\u00e2n Chohan, however, can but bow in ignorance before the awful\nmystery of Absolute Being; and since, even in that culmination of\nconscious existence\u2014\u201cthe merging of the individual in the universal\nconsciousness,\u201d to use a phrase of Fichte\u2019s\u2014the Finite cannot conceive the\nInfinite, nor can it apply to it its own standard of mental experiences,\nhow can it be said that the Unconscious and the Absolute can have even an\ninstinctive impulse or hope of attaining clear Self\u2010Consciousness?(77) A\nVed\u00e2ntin, moreover, would never admit this Hegelian idea; and the\nOccultist would say that it applies perfectly to the awakened Mahat, the\nUniversal Mind already projected into the phenomenal world as the first\naspect of the changeless Absolute, but never to the latter. \u201cSpirit and\nMatter, or Purusha and Prakriti, are but the two primeval aspects of the\nOne and Secondless,\u201d we are taught.\n\nThe matter\u2010moving Nous, the animating Soul, immanent in every atom,\nmanifested in man, latent in the stone, has different degrees of power;\nand this Pantheistic idea of a general Spirit\u2010Soul pervading all Nature is\nthe oldest of all the philosophical notions. Nor was the Arch\u00e6us a\ndiscovery either of Paracelsus or of his pupil Van Helmont; for this same\nArch\u00e6us is \u201cFather\u2010\u00c6ther,\u201d the manifested basis and source of the\ninnumerable phenomena of life\u2014localized. The whole series of the\nnumberless speculations of this kind are but variations on the same theme,\nthe key\u2010note of which was struck in this \u201cprimeval revelation.\u201d\n\n(b) The term \u201cAnup\u00e2daka,\u201d parentless, or without progenitors, is a\nmystical designation having several meanings in our philosophy. By this\nname Celestial Beings, the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans or Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas, are generally\nmeant. These correspond mystically to the human Buddhas and Bodhisattvas,\nknown as the M\u00e2nushi (Human) Buddhas, which latter are also designated\nAnup\u00e2daka, once that their whole personality is merged in their compound\nSixth and Seventh Principles, or \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi, and they have become the\n\u201cDiamond\u2010Souled\u201d (Vajrasattvas(78)), or full Mah\u00e2tm\u00e2s. The \u201cConcealed\nLord\u201d (Sangbai Dag\u2010po), \u201cthe one merged with the Absolute,\u201d can have no\nparents since he is Self\u2010Existent, and one with the Universal Spirit\n(Svayambh\u00fb),(79) the Svabh\u00e2vat in its highest aspect. The mystery of the\nHierarchy of the Anup\u00e2daka is great, its apex being the universal Spirit\u2010\nSoul, and the lower rung the M\u00e2nushi\u2010Buddha: and even every soul\u2010endowed\nman also is an Anup\u00e2daka in a latent state. Hence\u2014when speaking of the\nUniverse in its formless, eternal, or absolute condition, before it was\nfashioned by the Builders\u2014the expression, \u201cthe great Wheel [Universe] was\nAnup\u00e2daka.\u201d\n\n\n\nStanza II.\n\n\n1. ... WHERE WERE THE BUILDERS, THE LUMINOUS SONS OF MANVANTARIC DAWN?...\n(_a_) IN THE UNKNOWN DARKNESS IN THEIR AH\u2010HI(80) PARANISHPANNA. THE\nPRODUCERS OF FORM(81) FROM NO\u2010FORM(82)\u2014THE ROOT OF THE WORLD\u2014THE\nDEV\u00c2MATRI(83) AND SVABH\u00c2VAT, RESTED IN THE BLISS OF NON\u2010BEING (_b_).\n\n(a) The \u201cBuilders,\u201d the \u201cSons of Manvantaric Dawn,\u201d are the real creators\nof the Universe; and in this doctrine, which deals only with our Planetary\nSystem, they, as the architects of the latter, are also called the\n\u201cWatchers\u201d of the Seven Spheres, which exoterically are the seven planets,\nand esoterically the seven earths or spheres (Globes) of our Chain also.\nThe opening sentence of Stanza I, when mentioning \u201cSeven Eternities,\u201d\napplies both to the Mah\u00e2kalpa or \u201cthe (Great) Age of Brahm\u00e2,\u201d as well as\nto the Solar Pralaya and subsequent resurrection of our Planetary System\non a higher plane. There are many kinds of Pralaya (dissolution of a thing\nvisible), as will be shown elsewhere.\n\n(b) \u201cParanishpanna,\u201d remember, is the _summum bonum_, the Absolute, hence\nthe same as Paranirv\u00e2na. Besides being the final state, it is that\ncondition of subjectivity which has no relation to anything but the One\nAbsolute Truth (Param\u00e2rthasatya) on its own plane. It is that state which\nleads one to appreciate correctly the full meaning of Non\u2010Being, which, as\nexplained, is Absolute Being. Sooner or later, all that now _seemingly_\nexists, will be in reality and actually in the state of Paranishpanna. But\nthere is a great difference between _conscious_ and _unconscious_ Being.\nThe condition of Paranishpanna, without Param\u00e2rtha, the Self\u2010analysing\nConsciousness (Svasamved\u00e2na), is no bliss, but simply extinction for Seven\nEternities. Thus, an iron ball placed under the scorching rays of the sun\nwill get heated through, but will not feel or appreciate the warmth, while\na man will. It is only \u201c_with a mind clear and undarkened by Personality,\nand an assimilation of the merit of manifold Existences devoted to Being\nin its collectivity_ [_the whole living and sentient Universe_],\u201d that one\ngets rid of personal existence, merging into, becoming one with, the\nAbsolute,(84) and continuing in full possession of Param\u00e2rtha.\n\n2. ... WHERE WAS SILENCE? WHERE THE EARS TO SENSE IT? NO, THERE WAS\nNEITHER SILENCE NOR SOUND (_a_); NAUGHT SAVE CEASELESS ETERNAL BREATH,(85)\nWHICH KNOWS ITSELF NOT (_b_).\n\n(a) The idea that things can cease to _exist_ and still _be_, is a\nfundamental one in Eastern psychology. Under this apparent contradiction\nin terms, there rests a fact of Nature, to realize which in the mind,\nrather than to argue about words, is the important thing. A familiar\ninstance of a similar paradox is afforded by chemical combination. The\nquestion whether hydrogen and oxygen cease to exist, when they combine to\nform water, is still a moot one; some arguing that since they are found\nagain when the water is decomposed, they must be there all the while;\nothers contending that as they actually turn into something totally\ndifferent, they must cease to exist as themselves for the time being; but\nneither side is able to form the faintest conception of the real condition\nof a thing, which has become something else and yet has not ceased to be\nitself. Existence as water for oxygen and hydrogen may be said to be a\nstate of Non\u2010Being, which is more real Being than their existence as\ngases; and it may faintly symbolize the condition of the Universe when it\ngoes to sleep, or ceases to be, during the Nights of Brahm\u00e2\u2014to awaken or\nre\u00e4ppear again, when the dawn of the new Manvantara recalls it to what we\ncall existence.\n\n(b) The \u201cBreath\u201d of the One Existence is only used in application to the\nspiritual aspect of Cosmogony by Archaic Esotericism; in other cases, it\nis replaced by its equivalent on the material plane\u2014Motion. The One\nEternal Element, or element\u2010containing Vehicle, is Space, dimensionless in\nevery sense; co\u00ebxistent with which are Endless Duration, Primordial (hence\nIndestructible) Matter, and Motion\u2014Absolute \u201cPerpetual Motion,\u201d which is\nthe \u201cBreath\u201d of the One Element. This Breath, as seen, can never cease,\nnot even during the Pralayic Eternities.\n\nBut the Breath of the One Existence does not, all the same, apply to the\nOne Causeless Cause or the All\u2010Be\u2010ness, in contradistinction to All\u2010Being,\nwhich is Brahm\u00e2, or the Universe. Brahm\u00e2, the four\u2010faced god, who, after\nlifting the Earth out of the waters, \u201caccomplished the creation,\u201d is held\nto be only the Instrumental, and not, as clearly implied, the Ideal Cause.\nNo Orientalist, so far, seems to have thoroughly comprehended the real\nsense of the verses in the _Pur\u00e2nas_, that treat of \u201ccreation.\u201d\n\nTherein Brahm\u00e2 is the cause of the potencies that are to be generated\nsubsequently for the work of \u201ccreation.\u201d For instance, in the _Vishnu\nPur\u00e2na_,(86) the translation, \u201cand from him proceed the potencies to be\ncreated, after they have become the real cause,\u201d would perhaps be more\ncorrectly rendered, \u201cand from IT proceed the potencies that _will create_\nas they _become_ the real cause [on the material plane].\u201d Save that One\nCauseless Ideal Cause there is no other to which the Universe can be\nreferred. \u201cWorthiest of ascetics, through its potency\u2014_i.e._, through the\npotency of that cause\u2014every created thing comes by its inherent or proper\nnature.\u201d If, \u201cin the Ved\u00e2nta and Ny\u00e2ya, _nimitta_ is the efficient cause,\nas contrasted with _up\u00e2d\u00e2na_, the material cause, [and] in the S\u00e2nkhya,\n_pradh\u00e2na_ implies the functions of both\u201d; in the Esoteric Philosophy,\nwhich reconciles all these systems, and the nearest exponent of which is\nthe Ved\u00e2nta as expounded by the Advaita Ved\u00e2ntists, none but the _up\u00e2d\u00e2na_\ncan be speculated upon. That which is, in the minds of the Vaishnavas (the\nVisishthadvaitas), as the ideal in contradistinction to the real\u2014or\nParabrahman and \u00ceshvara\u2014can find no room in published speculations, since\nthat ideal even is a misnomer, when applied to that of which no human\nreason, even that of an Adept, can conceive.\n\nTo know itself or oneself, necessitates consciousness and perception to be\ncognized\u2014both limited faculties in relation to any subject except\nParabrahman. Hence the \u201cEternal Breath which knows itself not.\u201d Infinity\ncannot comprehend Finiteness. The Boundless can have no relation to the\nBounded and the Conditioned. In the Occult teachings, the Unknown and the\nUnknowable Mover, or the Self\u2010Existing, is the Absolute Divine Essence.\nAnd thus being Absolute Consciousness, and Absolute Motion\u2014to the limited\nsenses of those who describe this indescribable\u2014it is unconsciousness and\nimmovableness. Concrete consciousness cannot be predicated of abstract\nconsciousness, any more than the quality wet can be predicated of\nwater\u2014wetness being its own attribute and the cause of the wet quality in\nother things. Consciousness implies limitations and qualifications;\nsomething to be conscious of, and someone to be conscious of it. But\nAbsolute Consciousness contains the cognizer, the thing cognized and the\ncognition, all three in itself and all three _one_. No man is conscious of\nmore than that portion of his knowledge which happens to be recalled to\nhis mind at any particular time, yet such is the poverty of language that\nwe have no term to distinguish the knowledge not actively thought of, from\nknowledge we are unable to recall to memory. To forget is synonymous with\nnot to remember. How much greater must be the difficulty of finding terms\nto describe, and to distinguish between, abstract metaphysical facts or\ndifferences! It must not be forgotten, also, that we give names to things\naccording to the appearances they assume for ourselves. We call Absolute\nConsciousness \u201cunconsciousness,\u201d because it seems to us that it must\nnecessarily be so, just as we call the Absolute, \u201cDarkness,\u201d because to\nour finite understanding it appears quite impenetrable; yet we recognize\nfully that our perception of such things does not do them justice. We\ninvoluntarily distinguish in our minds, for instance, between unconscious\nAbsolute Consciousness, and unconsciousness, by secretly endowing the\nformer with some indefinite quality that corresponds, on a higher plane\nthan our thoughts can reach, with what we know as consciousness in\nourselves. But this is not any kind of consciousness that we can manage to\ndistinguish from what appears to us as unconsciousness.\n\n3. THE HOUR HAD NOT YET STRUCK; THE RAY HAD NOT YET FLASHED INTO THE GERM\n(_a_); THE M\u00c2TRIPADMA(87) HAD NOT YET SWOLLEN (_b_).(88)\n\n(_a_) The \u201cRay\u201d of the \u201cEver Darkness\u201d becomes, as it is emitted, a Ray of\neffulgent Light or Life, and flashes into the \u201cGerm\u201d\u2014the Point in the\nMundane Egg, represented by Matter in its abstract sense. But the term\n\u201cPoint\u201d must not be understood as applying to any particular point in\nSpace, for a germ exists in the centre of every atom, and these\ncollectively form the \u201cGerm;\u201d or rather, as no atom can be made visible to\nour physical eye, the collectivity of these (if the term can be applied to\nsomething which is boundless and infinite) forms the noumenon of eternal\nand indestructible Matter.\n\n(_b_) One of the symbolical figures for the Dual Creative Power in Nature\n(matter and force on the material plane) is \u201cPadma,\u201d the water\u2010lily of\nIndia. The Lotus is the product of heat (fire) and water (vapour or\nether); fire standing in every philosophical and religious system, even in\nChristianity, as a representation of the Spirit of Deity, the active,\nmale, generative principle; and ether, or the soul of matter, the light of\nthe fire, for the passive female principle, from which everything in this\nUniverse emanated. Hence, ether or water is the Mother, and fire is the\nFather. Sir William Jones\u2014and before him archaic botany\u2014showed that the\nseeds of the Lotus contain\u2014even before they germinate\u2014perfectly formed\nleaves, with the miniature shape of what one day, as perfect plants, they\nwill become: nature thus giving us a specimen of the preformation of its\nproduction ... the seeds of all phanerogamous plants bearing proper\nflowers containing an embryo plantlet ready formed.(89) This explains the\nsentence, \u201cThe M\u00e2tri\u2010Padma had not yet swollen\u201d\u2014the form being usually\nsacrificed to the inner or root idea in archaic symbology.\n\nThe Lotus, or Padma, is, moreover, a very ancient and favourite symbol for\nthe Cosmos itself, and also for man. The popular reasons given are,\nfirstly, the fact just mentioned, that the Lotus\u2010seed contains within\nitself a perfect miniature of the future plant, which typifies the fact\nthat the spiritual prototypes of all things exist in the immaterial world,\nbefore these things become materialized on earth. Secondly, the fact that\nthe Lotus\u2010plant grows up through the water, having its root in the Ilus,\nor mud, and spreading its flower in the air above. The Lotus thus typifies\nthe life of man and also that of the Cosmos; for the Secret Doctrine\nteaches that the elements of both are the same, and that both are\ndeveloping in the same direction. The root of the Lotus sunk in the mud\nrepresents material life, the stalk passing up through the water typifies\nexistence in the astral world, and the flower floating on the water and\nopening to the sky is emblematical of spiritual being.\n\n4. HER HEART HAD NOT YET OPENED FOR THE ONE RAY TO ENTER, THENCE TO FALL,\nAS THREE INTO FOUR, INTO THE LAP OF M\u00c2Y\u00c2.\n\nThe Primordial Substance had not yet passed out of its precosmic latency\ninto differentiated objectivity, or even become the (to man, so far)\ninvisible Protyle of Science. But, as the \u201cHour strikes\u201d and it becomes\nreceptive of the Fohatic impress of the Divine Thought\u2014the Logos, or the\nmale aspect of the Anima Mundi, Alaya\u2014its \u201cHeart\u201d opens. It\ndifferentiates, and the Three (Father, Mother, Son) are transformed into\nFour. Herein lies the origin of the double mystery of the Trinity and the\nImmaculate Conception. The first and fundamental dogma of Occultism is\nUniversal Unity (or Homogeneity) under three aspects. This leads to a\npossible conception of Deity, which as an absolute Unity must remain\nforever incomprehensible to finite intellects.\n\n\n    If thou wouldest believe in the Power which acts within the root\n    of a plant, or imagine the root concealed under the soul, thou\n    hast to think of its stalk or trunk, and of its leaves and\n    flowers. Thou canst not imagine that Power independently of these\n    objects. Life can be known only by the Tree of Life....(90)\n\n\nThe idea of Absolute Unity would be broken entirely in our conception, had\nwe not something concrete before our eyes to contain that Unity. And the\nDeity being absolute, must be omnipresent; hence not an atom but contains\nIt within itself. The roots, the trunk, and its many branches, are three\ndistinct objects, yet they are one tree. Say the Kabalists: \u201cThe Deity is\none, because It is infinite. It is triple, because It is ever\nmanifesting.\u201d This manifestation is triple in its aspects, for it\nrequires, as Aristotle has it, three principles for every natural body to\nbecome objective: privation, form, and matter.(91) Privation meant in the\nmind of the great philosopher that which the Occultists call the\nprototypes impressed in the Astral Light\u2014the lowest plane and world of\nAnima Mundi. The union of these three principles depends upon a fourth\u2014the\nLife which radiates from the summits of the Unreachable, to become a\nuniversally diffused Essence on the manifested planes of Existence. And\nthis Quaternary (Father, Mother, Son, as a Unity, and a Quaternary\u2014as a\nliving manifestation) has been the means of leading to the very archaic\nidea of Immaculate Conception, now finally crystallized into a dogma of\nthe Christian Church, which has carnalized this metaphysical idea beyond\nany common sense. For one has but to read the _Kabalah_ and study its\nnumerical methods of interpretation to find the origin of the dogma. It is\npurely astronomical, mathematical, and pre\u00ebminently metaphysical: the Male\nElement in Nature (personified by the male deities and Logoi\u2014Vir\u00e2j, or\nBrahm\u00e2, Horus, or Osiris, etc., etc.) is born through, not from, an\nimmaculate source, personified by the \u201cMother,\u201d for\u2014the Abstract Deity\nbeing sexless, and not even a Being but Be\u2010ness, or Life itself\u2014that Male\nhaving a \u201cMother\u201d cannot have a \u201cFather.\u201d Let us render this in the\nmathematical language of the author of _The Source of Measures_. Speaking\nof the \u201cMeasure of a Man\u201d and his numerical (Kabalistic) value, he writes\nthat in _Genesis_, iv. 1\u2014\n\n\n    It is called the \u201cMan even Jehovah\u201d Measure, and this is obtained\n    in this way, viz.: 113 x 5 = 565, and the value 565 can be placed\n    under the form of expression 56.5 x 10 = 565. Here the Man\u2010number\n    113 becomes a factor of 56.5 x 10, and the (Kabalistic) reading of\n    this last numbered expression is Jod, He, Vau, He, or Jehovah....\n    The expansion of 565 into 56\u00b75 x 10 is purposed to show the\n    emanation of the male (Jod) from the female (Eva) principle; or,\n    so to speak, the birth of a male element from an immaculate\n    source, in other words, an immaculate conception.\n\n\nThus is repeated on earth the mystery enacted, according to the Seers, on\nthe divine plane. The Son of the Immaculate Celestial Virgin (or the\nUndifferentiated Cosmic Protyle, Matter in its infinitude) is born again\non earth as the Son of the terrestrial Eve, our mother Earth, and becomes\nHumanity as a total\u2014past, present, and future\u2014for Jehovah, or Jod\u2010H\u00e9\u2010Vau\u2010\nH\u00e9, is androgyne, or both male and female. Above, the Son is the whole\nKosmos; below, he is Mankind. The Triad or Triangle becomes Tetraktys, the\nsacred Pythagorean number, the perfect Square, and a six\u2010faced Cube on\nearth. The Macroprosopus (the Great Face) is now Microprosopus (the Lesser\nFace); or, as the Kabbalists have it, the Ancient of Days, descending on\nAdam Kadmon whom he uses as his vehicle to manifest through, gets\ntransformed into Tetragrammaton. It is now in the \u201cLap of M\u00e2y\u00e2,\u201d the Great\nIllusion, and between itself and the Reality has the Astral Light, the\nGreat Deceiver of man\u2019s limited senses, unless Knowledge through\nParam\u00e2rthasatya comes to the rescue.\n\n5. THE SEVEN(92) WERE NOT YET BORN FROM THE WEB OF LIGHT, DARKNESS ALONE\nWAS FATHER\u2010MOTHER, SVABH\u00c2VAT; AND SVABH\u00c2VAT WAS IN DARKNESS.\n\nThe Secret Doctrine, in the Stanzas here given, occupies itself chiefly,\nif not entirely, with our Solar System, and especially with our Planetary\nChain. The \u201cSeven Sons,\u201d therefore, are the creators of the latter. This\nteaching will be explained more fully hereafter.\n\nSvabh\u00e2vat, the \u201cPlastic Essence\u201d that fills the Universe, is the root of\nall things. Svabh\u00e2vat is, so to say, the Buddhistic concrete aspect of the\nabstraction called in Hind\u00fb philosophy M\u00fblaprakriti. It is the body of the\nSoul, and that which Ether would be to \u00c2k\u00e2sha, the latter being the\ninforming principle of the former. Chinese mystics have made of it the\nsynonym of \u201cBeing.\u201d In the Chinese translation of the _Ekashloka\u2010Sh\u00e2stra_\nof N\u00e2g\u00e2rjuna (the Lung\u2010shu of China), called the _Yih\u2010shu\u2010lu\u2010kia\u2010lun_, it\nis said that the term \u201cBeing,\u201d or \u201cSubh\u00e2va,\u201d (Yeu in Chinese) means \u201cthe\nSubstance giving substance to itself\u201d; it is also explained by him as\nmeaning \u201cwithout action and with action,\u201d \u201cthe nature which has no nature\nof its own.\u201d Subh\u00e2va, from which Svabh\u00e2vat, is composed of two words: _su_\nfair, handsome, good; _sva_, self, and _bh\u00e2va_, being or states of being.\n\n6. THESE TWO ARE THE GERM, AND THE GERM IS ONE. THE UNIVERSE WAS STILL\nCONCEALED IN THE DIVINE THOUGHT AND THE DIVINE BOSOM.\n\nThe \u201cDivine Thought\u201d does not imply the idea of a Divine Thinker. The\nUniverse, not only past, present and future\u2014a human and finite idea\nexpressed by finite thought\u2014but in its totality, the Sat (an\nuntranslateable term), Absolute Being, with the Past and Future\ncrystallized in an eternal Present, is that Thought itself reflected in a\nsecondary or manifested cause. Brahman (neuter), as the Mysterium Magnum\nof Paracelsus, is an absolute mystery to the human mind. Brahm\u00e2, the male\u2010\nfemale, the aspect and anthropomorphic reflection of Brahman, is\nconceivable to the perceptions of blind faith, though rejected by human\nintellect when it attains its majority.\n\nHence the statement that during the prologue, so to say, of the drama of\ncreation, or the beginning of cosmic evolution, the Universe, or the Son,\nlies still concealed \u201cin the Divine Thought,\u201d which had not yet penetrated\ninto the \u201cDivine Bosom.\u201d This idea, note well, is at the root, and forms\nthe origin, of all the allegories about the \u201cSons of God\u201d born of\nimmaculate virgins.\n\n\n\nStanza III.\n\n\n1. ... THE LAST VIBRATION OF THE SEVENTH ETERNITY THRILLS THROUGH\nINFINITUDE (_a_). THE MOTHER SWELLS, EXPANDING FROM WITHIN WITHOUT, LIKE\nTHE BUD OF THE LOTUS (_b_).\n\n(_a_) The seemingly paradoxical use of the term, \u201cSeventh Eternity,\u201d thus\ndividing the indivisible, is sanctified in Esoteric Philosophy. The latter\ndivides boundless Duration into unconditionally eternal and universal Time\n(K\u00e2la); and conditioned Time (Khandak\u00e2la). One is the abstraction or\nnoumenon of infinite Time, the other its phenomenon appearing\nperiodically, as the effect of Mahat\u2014the Universal Intelligence, limited\nby manvantaric duration. With some schools, Mahat is the first\u2010born of\nPradh\u00e2na (undifferentiated Substance, or the periodical aspect of\nM\u00fblaprakriti, the Root of Nature), which (Pradh\u00e2na) is called M\u00e2y\u00e2,\nIllusion. In this respect, I believe, Esoteric teaching differs from the\nVed\u00e2ntin doctrines of both the Advaita and the Visishthadvaita schools.\nFor it says that, while M\u00fblaprakriti, the noumenon, is self\u2010existing and\nwithout any origin\u2014is, in short, parentless, Anup\u00e2daka, as one with\nBrahman\u2014Prakriti, its phenomenon, is periodical and no better than a\nphantasm of the former; so Mahat, the first\u2010born of J\u00f1\u00e2na (or Gn\u00f4sis),\nKnowledge, Wisdom or the Logos\u2014is a phantasm reflected from the Absolute\nNirguna (Parabrahman), the One Reality, \u201cdevoid of attributes and\nqualities\u201d; while with some Ved\u00e2ntins Mahat is a manifestation of\nPrakriti, or Matter.\n\n(_b_) Therefore, the \u201clast Vibration of the Seventh Eternity\u201d was \u201cfore\u2010\nordained\u201d\u2014by no God in particular, but occurred in virtue of the eternal\nand changeless Law which causes the great periods of Activity and Rest,\ncalled so graphically, and at the same time so poetically, the Days and\nNights of Brahm\u00e2. The expansion \u201cfrom within without\u201d of the Mother,\ncalled elsewhere the \u201cWaters of Space,\u201d \u201cUniversal Matrix,\u201d etc., does not\nallude to an expansion from a small centre or focus, but means the\ndevelopment of limitless subjectivity into as limitless objectivity,\nwithout reference to size or limitation or area. \u201c_The ever [to us]\ninvisible and immaterial Substance present in eternity, threw its\nperiodical Shadow from its own plane into the Lap of M\u00e2y\u00e2._\u201d It implies\nthat this expansion, not being an increase in size\u2014for infinite extension\nadmits of no enlargement\u2014was a change of condition. It expanded \u201clike the\nBud of the Lotus\u201d; for the Lotus plant exists not only as a miniature\nembryo in its seed (a physical characteristic), but its prototype is\npresent in an ideal form in the Astral Light from \u201cDawn\u201d to \u201cNight\u201d during\nthe manvantaric period, like everything else, as a matter of fact, in this\nobjective Universe; from man to mite, from giant trees to the tiniest\nblades of grass.\n\nAll this, teaches the Hidden Science, is but the temporary reflection, the\nshadow of the eternal ideal prototype in Divine Thought; the word\n\u201cEternity,\u201d note well again, standing here only in the sense of \u201c\u00c6on,\u201d as\nlasting throughout the seemingly interminable, but still limited cycle of\nactivity, called by us Manvantara. For what is the real esoteric meaning\nof Manvantara, or rather a Manu\u2010antara? It means, literally, \u201cbetween two\nManus,\u201d of whom there are fourteen in every Day of Brahm\u00e2, such a Day\nconsisting of 1,000 aggregates of four Ages, 1,000 \u201cGreat Ages\u201d or\nMah\u00e2yugas. Let us now analyse the word or name Manu. Orientalists in their\ndictionaries tell us that the term \u201cManu\u201d is from the root _man_, \u201cto\nthink\u201d; hence \u201cthe thinking man.\u201d But, esoterically, every Manu, as an\nanthropomorphized patron of his special cycle (or Round), is but the\npersonified idea of the \u201cThought Divine\u201d (as the Hermetic Pymander); each\nof the Manus, therefore, being the special god, the creator and fashioner\nof all that appears during his own respective cycle of being or\nManvantara. Fohat runs the Manus\u2019 (or Dhy\u00e2n Chohans\u2019) errands, and causes\nthe ideal prototypes to expand from within without\u2014that is, to cross\ngradually, on a descending scale, all the planes, from the noumenal to the\nlowest phenomenal, to bloom finally on the last into full objectivity\u2014the\nacme of Illusion, or the grossest matter.\n\n2. THE VIBRATION SWEEPS ALONG, TOUCHING(93) WITH ITS SWIFT WING THE WHOLE\nUNIVERSE AND THE GERM THAT DWELLETH IN DARKNESS, THE DARKNESS THAT\nBREATHES(94) OVER THE SLUMBERING WATERS OF LIFE.\n\nThe Pythagorean Monas is also said to dwell in solitude and \u201cDarkness\u201d\nlike the \u201cGerm.\u201d The idea of the Breath of Darkness moving over \u201cthe\nslumbering Waters of Life,\u201d which is Primordial Matter with the latent\nSpirit in it, recalls the first chapter of _Genesis_. Its original is the\nBr\u00e2hmanical N\u00e2r\u00e2yana (the Mover on the Waters), who is the personification\nof the Eternal Breath of the unconscious All (or Parabrahaman) of the\nEastern Occultists. The Waters of Life, or Chaos\u2014the female principle in\nsymbolism\u2014are the vacuum (to our mental sight), in which lie the latent\nSpirit and Matter. This it was that made Democritus assert, after his\ninstructor Leucippus, that the primordial principles of all were atoms and\na vacuum, in the sense of space, but not of empty space, for \u201cNature\nabhors a vacuum,\u201d according to the Peripatetics and every ancient\nphilosopher.\n\nIn all Cosmogonies \u201cWater\u201d plays the same important part. It is the base\nand source of material existence. Scientists, mistaking the word for the\nthing, understand by it the definite chemical combination of oxygen and\nhydrogen, thus giving a specific meaning to a term used by Occultists in a\ngeneric sense, and which is employed in Cosmogony with a metaphysical and\nmystical meaning. Ice is not water, neither is steam, although all three\nhave precisely the same chemical composition.\n\n3. DARKNESS RADIATES LIGHT, AND LIGHT DROPS ONE SOLITARY RAY INTO THE\nWATERS, INTO THE MOTHER\u2010DEEP. THE RAY SHOOTS THROUGH THE VIRGIN EGG, THE\nRAY CAUSES THE ETERNAL EGG TO THRILL, AND DROP THE NON\u2010ETERNAL GERM,(95)\nWHICH CONDENSES INTO THE WORLD\u2010EGG.\n\nThe \u201csolitary Ray\u201d dropping into the \u201cMother\u2010Deep\u201d may be taken to mean\nDivine Thought, or Intelligence, impregnating Chaos. This, however, occurs\non the plane of metaphysical abstraction, or rather the plane whereon that\nwhich we call a metaphysical abstraction, is a reality. The \u201cVirgin\u2010Egg,\u201d\nbeing in one sense the abstract of all ova, or the power of becoming\ndeveloped through fecundation, is eternal and for ever the same. And just\nas the fecundation of an egg takes place before it is dropped; so the non\u2010\neternal periodical Germ, which later becomes in symbolism the Mundane Egg,\ncontains in itself, when it emerges from the said symbol, \u201cthe promise and\npotency\u201d of all the Universe. Though the idea _per se_ is, of course, an\nabstraction, a symbolical mode of expression, it is a true symbol, for it\nsuggests the idea of infinity as an endless circle. It brings before the\nmind\u2019s eye the picture of Kosmos emerging from and in boundless Space, a\nUniverse as shoreless in magnitude, if not as endless in its objective\nmanifestation. The symbol of an egg also expresses the fact taught in\nOccultism that the primordial form of everything manifested, from atom to\nglobe, from man to angel, is spheroidal, the sphere being with all nations\nthe emblem of eternity and infinity\u2014a serpent swallowing its tail. To\nrealize the meaning, however, the sphere must be thought of as seen from\nits centre. The field of vision, or of thought, is like a sphere whose\nradii proceed from one\u2019s self in every direction, and extend out into\nspace, opening up boundless vistas all around. It is the symbolical circle\nof Pascal and the Kabalists, \u201cwhose centre is everywhere and circumference\nnowhere\u201d\u2014a conception which enters into the compound idea of this emblem.\n\nThe \u201cWorld\u2010Egg\u201d is, perhaps, one of the most universally adopted symbols,\nhighly suggestive as it is, equally in the spiritual, physiological, and\ncosmological sense. Therefore, it is found in every world\u2010theogony, where\nit is largely associated with the serpent symbol, the latter being\neverywhere, in philosophy as in religious symbolism, an emblem of\neternity, infinitude, regeneration, and rejuvenation, as well as of\nwisdom. The mystery of apparent self\u2010generation and evolution through its\nown creative power, repeating in miniature, in the egg, the process of\ncosmic evolution\u2014both due to heat and moisture under the efflux of the\nunseen creative spirit\u2014fully justified the selection of this graphic\nsymbol. The \u201cVirgin\u2010Egg\u201d is the microcosmic symbol of the macrocosmic\nprototype, the \u201cVirgin Mother\u201d\u2014Chaos or the Primeval Deep. The male\ncreator (under whatever name) springs forth from the virgin female, the\nImmaculate Root fructified by the Ray. Who, if versed in astronomy and\nnatural sciences, can fail to see its suggestiveness? Kosmos, as receptive\nNature, is an egg fructified\u2014yet left immaculate; for once regarded as\nboundless, it could have no other representation than a spheroid. The\nGolden Egg was surrounded by seven natural Elements, \u201cfour ready [ether,\nfire, air, water], three secret.\u201d This may be found stated in _Vishnu\nPur\u00e2na_, where elements are translated \u201cenvelopes,\u201d and a _secret_ one is\nadded\u2014Ahamk\u00e2ra.(96) The original text has no Ahamk\u00e2ra; it mentions seven\nElements without specifying the last three.\n\n4. THE THREE(97) FALL INTO THE FOUR(98). THE RADIANT ESSENCE BECOMES SEVEN\nINSIDE, SEVEN OUTSIDE (_a_). THE LUMINOUS EGG,(99) WHICH IN ITSELF IS\nTHREE,(100) CURDLES AND SPREADS IN MILK\u2010WHITE CURDS THROUGHOUT THE DEPTHS\nOF MOTHER, THE ROOT THAT GROWS IN THE DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN OF LIFE (_b_).\n\nThe use of geometrical figures and the frequent allusions to figures in\nall ancient scriptures, as in the _Pur\u00e2nas_, the Egyptian _Book of the\nDead_ and even the _Bible_\u2014must be explained. In the _Book of Dzyan_, as\nin the _Kabalah_, there are two kinds of numerals to be studied\u2014the\nFigures, often simple blinds, and the Sacred Numbers, the values of which\nare all known to the Occultists through Initiation. The former are but\nconventional glyphs; the latter, the basic symbols of all. That is to say,\nthe one are purely physical, the other purely metaphysical, the two\nstanding in relation to each other as Matter stands to Spirit\u2014the extreme\npoles of the One Substance.\n\nAs Balzac, the unconscious Occultist of French literature, says somewhere,\nthe Number is to Mind the same as it is to Matter, \u201can incomprehensible\nagent.\u201d Perhaps so to the profane, never to the initiated mind. Number is,\nas the great writer thought, an Entity, and, at the same time, a Breath\nemanating from what he called God and what we call the ALL, the Breath\nwhich alone could organize the physical Cosmos, \u201cwhere naught obtains its\nform but through the Deity, which is an effect of Number.\u201d It is\ninstructive to quote Balzac\u2019s words upon this subject:\n\n\n    The smallest as the most immense creations, are they not to be\n    distinguished from each other by their quantities, their\n    qualities, their dimensions, their forces and attributes, all\n    begotten by Number? The infinitude of Numbers is a fact proven to\n    our mind, but of which no proof can be physically given. The\n    mathematician will tell us that the infinitude of Numbers exists\n    but is not to be demonstrated. God is a Number endowed with\n    motion, which is felt but not demonstrated. _As Unity, it begins\n    the Numbers, with which it has nothing in common._... The\n    existence of Numbers depends on Unity, which without a single\n    Number, begets them all.... What! unable either to measure the\n    first abstraction yielded to you by the Deity, or to get hold of\n    it, you still hope to subject to your measurements the mystery of\n    the Secret Sciences which emanate from that Deity? .... And what\n    would you feel, were I to plunge you into the abysses of Motion,\n    the Force which organizes the Numbers? What would you think, were\n    I to add that _Motion_ and _Number_(101) are begotten by the Word,\n    the Supreme Reason of the Seers and Prophets, who, in days of old,\n    sensed the mighty Breath of God, a witness to which is the\n    Apocalypse?\n\n\n(_b_) \u201cThe Radiant Essence curdles and spreads throughout the Depths\u201d of\nSpace. From an astronomical point of view this is easy of explanation: it\nis the Milky Way, the World\u2010Stuff, or Primordial Matter in its first form.\nIt is more difficult, however, to explain it in a few words, or even\nlines, from the standpoint of Occult Science and Symbolism, as it is the\nmost complicated of glyphs. Herein are enshrined more than a dozen\nsymbols. To begin with, it contains the whole pantheon of mysterious\nobjects,(102) every one of them having some definite Occult meaning,\nextracted from the Hind\u00fb allegorical \u201cChurning of the Ocean\u201d by the Gods.\nBesides Amrita, the water of life or immortality, Surabhi, the \u201ccow of\nplenty,\u201d called \u201cthe fountain of milk and curds,\u201d was extracted from this\n\u201csea of milk.\u201d Hence the universal adoration of the cow and bull, one the\nproductive, the other the generative power in Nature: symbols connected\nwith both the solar and the cosmic deities. The specific properties, for\nOccult purposes, of the \u201cfourteen precious things,\u201d being explained only\nat the Fourth Initiation, cannot be given here; but the following may be\nremarked. In the _Shatapatha Br\u00e2hmana_ it is stated that the Churning of\nthe Ocean of Milk took place in the Satya Yuga, the first Age which\nimmediately followed the \u201cDeluge.\u201d As, however, neither the _Rig Veda_ nor\n_Manu_\u2014both preceding Vaivasvata\u2019s \u201cDeluge,\u201d that of the bulk of the\nFourth Race\u2014mention this Deluge, it is evident that it is neither the\nGreat Deluge, nor that which carried away Atlantis, nor even the Deluge of\nNoah, which is here meant. This \u201cChurning\u201d relates to a period before the\nearth\u2019s formation, and is in direct connection with another universal\nlegend, the various and contradictory versions of which culminated in the\nChristian dogma of the \u201cWar in Heaven,\u201d and the \u201cFall of the Angels.\u201d The\n_Br\u00e2hmanas_, reproached by the Orientalists with their versions on the\nsame subjects often clashing with each other, _are pre\u00ebminently occult\nworks_, hence used purposely as blinds. They are allowed to survive for\npublic use and property only because they were and are absolutely\nunintelligible to the masses. Otherwise they would have disappeared from\ncirculation as long ago as the days of Akbar.\n\n5. THE ROOT REMAINS, THE LIGHT REMAINS, THE CURDS REMAIN, AND STILL\nOEAOHOO IS ONE.\n\n\u201cOeaohoo\u201d is rendered \u201cFather\u2010Mother of the Gods\u201d in the Commentaries, or\nthe \u201cSix in One,\u201d or _the Septenary Root from which all proceeds_. All\ndepends upon the accent given to these seven vowels, which may be\npronounced as one, three, or even seven syllables, by adding an _e_ after\nthe final _o_. This mystic name is given out, because without a thorough\nmastery of the triple pronunciation it remains for ever ineffectual.\n\n\u201cIs One\u201d refers to the Non\u2010Separateness of all that lives and has its\nbeing, whether in an active or passive state. In one sense, Oeaohoo is the\nRootless Root of All; hence, one with Parabrahman: in another sense it is\na name for the manifested One Life, the eternal living Unity. The \u201cRoot\u201d\nmeans, as already explained, Pure Knowledge (Sattva),(103) eternal\n(_nitya_) unconditioned Reality, or Sat (Satya), whether we call it\nParabrahman or M\u00fblaprakriti, for these are but the two symbols of the One.\nThe \u201cLight\u201d is the same Omnipresent Spiritual Ray, which has entered and\nnow fecundated the Divine Egg, and calls cosmic matter to begin its long\nseries of differentiations. The \u201cCurds\u201d are the first differentiation, and\nprobably also refer to that cosmic matter which is supposed to be the\norigin of the Milky Way\u2014the matter we know. This \u201cmatter,\u201d which,\naccording to the revelation received from the primeval Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas, is,\nduring the periodical Sleep of the Universe, of the ultimate tenuity\nconceivable to the eye of the perfect Bodhisattva\u2014this matter, radiant and\ncool, becomes, at the first reawakening of cosmic motion, scattered\nthrough Space; appearing, when seen from the Earth, in clusters and lumps,\nlike curds in thin milk. These are the seeds of the future worlds, the\n\u201cstar\u2010stuff.\u201d\n\n6. THE ROOT OF LIFE WAS IN EVERY DROP OF THE OCEAN OF IMMORTALITY,(104)\nAND THE OCEAN WAS RADIANT LIGHT, WHICH WAS FIRE, AND HEAT, AND MOTION.\nDARKNESS VANISHED AND WAS NO MORE; IT DISAPPEARED IN ITS OWN ESSENCE, THE\nBODY OF FIRE AND WATER, OF FATHER AND MOTHER.\n\nThe Essence of Darkness being Absolute Light, Darkness is taken as the\nappropriate allegorical representation of the condition of the Universe\nduring Pralaya, or the term of Absolute Rest, or Non\u2010Being, as it appears\nto our finite minds. The \u201cFire, and Heat, and Motion,\u201d here spoken of,\nare, of course, not the fire, heat, and motion of Physical Science, but\nthe underlying abstractions, the noumena, or the soul, of the essence of\nthese material manifestations\u2014the \u201cthings in themselves,\u201d which, as Modern\nScience confesses, entirely elude the instruments of the laboratory, and\nwhich even the mind cannot grasp, although it can equally as little avoid\nthe conclusion that these underlying essences of things must exist. \u201cFire\nand Water, or Father and Mother,\u201d may be taken here to mean the divine Ray\nand Chaos. \u201cChaos, from this union with Spirit obtaining sense, shone with\npleasure, and thus was produced the Protogonos [the first\u2010born Light],\u201d\nsays a fragment of Hermas. Damascius calls it Dis, the \u201cdisposer of all\nthings.\u201d(105)\n\nAccording to the Rosicrucian tenets, as handled and explained by the\nprofane for once correctly, if only partially, \u201cLight and Darkness are\nidentical in themselves, being only divisible in the human mind\u201d; and\naccording to Robert Fludd, \u201cDarkness adopted illumination in order to make\nitself visible.\u201d(106) According to the tenets of Eastern Occultism,\nDarkness is the one true actuality, the basis and the root of Light,\nwithout which the latter could never manifest itself, nor even exist.\nLight is Matter, and Darkness pure Spirit. Darkness, in its radical,\nmetaphysical basis, is subjective and absolute Light; while the latter in\nall its seeming effulgence and glory, is merely a mass of shadows, as it\ncan never be eternal, and is simply an Illusion, or M\u00e2y\u00e2.\n\nEven in the mind\u2010baffling and science\u2010harassing _Genesis_,(107) light is\ncreated out of darkness\u2014\u201cand darkness was upon the face of the deep\u201d\u2014and\nnot _vice vers\u00e2_. \u201cIn him [in darkness] was life; and the life was the\n_light_ of men.\u201d(108) A day may come when the eyes of men will be opened;\nand then they may comprehend better than they do now the verse in the\nGospel of John that says, \u201cAnd the light shineth in darkness; and the\ndarkness comprehendeth it not.\u201d They will see then that the word\n\u201cdarkness\u201d does not apply to man\u2019s spiritual eyesight, but indeed to\nDarkness, the Absolute, that comprehendeth not (cannot cognize) transient\nLight, however transcendent to human eyes. _Demon est Deus inversus._ The\nDevil is now called \u201cdarkness\u201d by the Church, whereas in the _Bible_, in\nthe _Book of Job_, he is called the \u201cSon of God,\u201d the bright star of the\nearly morning, Lucifer. There is a whole philosophy of dogmatic craft in\nthe reason why the first Archangel, who sprang from the depths of Chaos,\nwas called Lux (Lucifer), the luminous \u201cSon of the Morning,\u201d or\nManvantaric Dawn. He has been transformed by the Church into Lucifer or\nSatan, because he is higher and older than Jehovah, and had to be\nsacrificed to the new dogma.\n\n7. BEHOLD, O LANOO,(109) THE RADIANT CHILD OF THE TWO, THE UNPARALLELED\nREFULGENT GLORY\u2014BRIGHT SPACE, SON OF DARK SPACE, WHO EMERGES FROM THE\nDEPTHS OF THE GREAT DARK WATERS. IT IS OEAOHOO, THE YOUNGER, THE \u2014\u2014 (110)\n(_a_). HE SHINES FORTH AS THE SUN, HE IS THE BLAZING DIVINE DRAGON OF\nWISDOM; THE EKA(111) IS CHATUR, AND CHATUR TAKES TO ITSELF TRI, AND THE\nUNION PRODUCES THE SAPTA, IN WHOM ARE THE SEVEN, WHICH BECOME THE\nTRIDASHA,(112) THE HOSTS AND THE MULTITUDES (_b_). BEHOLD HIM LIFTING THE\nVEIL, AND UNFURLING IT FROM EAST TO WEST. HE SHUTS OUT THE ABOVE, AND\nLEAVES THE BELOW TO BE SEEN AS THE GREAT ILLUSION. HE MARKS THE PLACES FOR\nTHE SHINING ONES,(113) AND TURNS THE UPPER(114) INTO A SHORELESS SEA OF\nFIRE (_c_), AND THE ONE MANIFESTED(115) INTO THE GREAT WATERS.\n\n(_a_) \u201cBright Space, Son of Dark Space,\u201d corresponds to the Ray dropped at\nthe first thrill of the new Dawn into the great Cosmic Depths, from which\nit re\u00ebmerges differentiated as \u201cOeaohoo, the Younger\u201d (the \u201cNew Life\u201d), to\nbe to the end of the Life\u2010Cycle the Germ of all things. He is \u201cthe\nIncorporeal Man who contains in himself the Divine Idea,\u201d the generator of\nLight and Life, to use an expression of Philo Jud\u00e6us. He is called the\n\u201cBlazing Dragon of Wisdom,\u201d because, firstly, he is that which the Greek\nphilosophers called the Logos, the Verbum of the Thought Divine; and\nsecondly, because in Esoteric Philosophy this first manifestation, being\nthe synthesis or the aggregate of Universal Wisdom, Oeaohoo, the \u201cSon of\nthe Sun,\u201d contains in himself the Seven Creative Hosts (Sephiroth), and is\nthus the essence of manifested Wisdom. \u201c_He who bathes in the Light of\nOeaohoo will never be deceived by the Veil of M\u00e2y\u00e2._\u201d\n\n\u201cKwan\u2010Shai\u2010Yin\u201d is identical with, and an equivalent of the Sanskrit\nAvalokiteshvara, and as such is an androgynous deity, like the\nTetragrammaton and all the Logoi of antiquity. It is only by some sects in\nChina that he is anthropomorphized, and represented with female\nattributes; under his female aspect becoming Kwan\u2010Yin, the Goddess of\nMercy, called the \u201cDivine Voice.\u201d(116) The latter is the patron deity of\nTibet and of the island of Puto in China, where both deities have a number\nof monasteries.(117)\n\nThe higher gods of antiquity are all \u201cSons of the Mother\u201d before they\nbecome \u201cSons of the Father.\u201d The Logoi, like Jupiter or Zeus, son of\nCronus\u2010Saturn, \u201cInfinite Time\u201d (K\u00e2la), in their origin were represented as\nmale\u2010female. Zeus is said to be the \u201cbeautiful virgin,\u201d and Venus is made\nbearded. Apollo was originally bisexual, so is Brahm\u00e2\u2010V\u00e2ch in _Manu_ and\nthe _Pur\u00e2nas_. Osiris is interchangeable with Isis, and Horus is of both\nsexes. Finally in St. John\u2019s vision in _Revelation_, the Logos, who is now\nconnected with Jesus, is hermaphrodite, for he is described as having\nfemale breasts. So also is Tetragrammaton, or Jehovah. But there are two\nAvalokiteshvaras in Esotericism; the First and the Second Logos.\n\nNo religious symbol can escape profanation and even derision in our days\nof politics and science. In Southern India the writer has seen a converted\nnative making p\u00fbj\u00e2 with offerings before a statue of Jesus clad in woman\u2019s\nclothes and with a ring in its nose. On asking the meaning of this\nmasquerade, we were answered that it was Jesu\u2010Maria blended in one, and\nthat it was done by the permission of the Padre, as the zealous convert\nhad no money to purchase two statues, or \u201cidols\u201d as they, very properly,\nwere called by a witness, another but a non\u2010converted Hind\u00fb. Blasphemous\nthis will appear to a dogmatic Christian, but the Theosophist and the\nOccultist must award the palm of logic to the converted Hind\u00fb. The\nesoteric Christos in the Gn\u00f4sis is, of course, sexless, but in exoteric\nTheology he is male and female.\n\n(b) The \u201cDragon of Wisdom\u201d is the One, the \u201cEka\u201d or Saka. It is curious\nthat Jehovah\u2019s name in Hebrew should also be One, Achad. \u201cHis name is\nAchad,\u201d say the Rabbins. The Philologists ought to decide which of the two\nis derived from the other, linguistically and symbolically; surely, not\nthe Sanskrit. The \u201cOne\u201d and the \u201cDragon\u201d are expressions used by the\nancients in connection with their respective Logoi. Jehovah\u2014esoterically\nElohim\u2014is also the Serpent or Dragon that tempted Eve; and the Dragon is\nan old glyph for the Astral Light (Primordial Principle), \u201cwhich is the\nWisdom of Chaos.\u201d Archaic philosophy, recognizing neither Good nor Evil as\na fundamental or independent power, but starting from the Absolute ALL\n(Universal Perfection eternally), traces both through the course of\nnatural evolution to pure Light condensing gradually into form, and hence\nbecoming Matter or Evil. It was left with the early and ignorant Christian\nFathers to degrade the philosophical and highly scientific idea of this\nemblem into the absurd superstition called the \u201cDevil.\u201d They took this\nfrom the later Zoroastrians, who saw Devils or Evil in the Hind\u00fb Devas,\nand the word Evil has become by a double transmutation D\u2019Evil (Diabolos,\nDiable, Diavolo, Teufel). But the Pagans have always shown a philosophical\ndiscrimination in their symbols. The primitive symbol of the serpent\nsymbolized divine Wisdom and Perfection, and has always stood for\npsychical Regeneration and Immortality. Hence, Hermes calling the serpent\nthe most spiritual of all beings; Moses, initiated into the Wisdom of\nHermes, following suit in _Genesis_; the Gnostic Serpent with the seven\nvowels over its head, being the emblem of the Seven Hierarchies of the\nSeptenary or Planetary Creators. Hence, also, the Hind\u00fb serpent Shesha or\nAnanta, the Infinite, a name of Vishnu, and his first V\u00e2hana, or Vehicle,\non the Primordial Waters. Like the Logoi and the Hierarchies of Powers,\nhowever, these serpents have to be distinguished one from the other.\nShesha or Ananta, the \u201cCouch of Vishnu,\u201d is an allegorical abstraction,\nsymbolizing infinite Time in Space, which contains the Germ and throws off\nperiodically the efflorescence of this Germ, the Manifested Universe;\nwhereas, the Gnostic Ophis contains the same triple symbolism in its seven\nvowels as the one, three and seven\u2010syllabled Oeaohoo of the archaic\ndoctrine; _i.e._, the First Unmanifested Logos, the Second Manifested, the\nTriangle concreting into the Quaternary or Tetragrammaton, and the Rays of\nthe latter on the material plane.\n\nYet they all made a difference between the good and the bad Serpent (the\nAstral Light of the Kabalists)\u2014between the former, the embodiment of\ndivine Wisdom in the region of the Spiritual, and the latter, Evil, on the\nplane of Matter. For the Astral Light, or the Ether, of the ancient\nPagans\u2014the name Astral Light is quite modern\u2014is Spirit\u2010Matter. Beginning\nwith the pure spiritual plane, it becomes grosser as it descends, until it\nbecomes M\u00e2y\u00e2, or the tempting and deceitful Serpent on our plane.\n\nJesus accepted the serpent as a synonym of Wisdom, and this formed part of\nhis teaching: \u201cBe ye wise as serpents,\u201d he says. \u201c_In the beginning,\nbefore Mother became Father\u2010Mother, the Fiery Dragon moved in the\nInfinitudes alone._\u201d(118) The _Aitareya Brahmana_ calls the Earth\nSarpar\u00e2jni, the \u201cSerpent Queen,\u201d and the \u201cMother of all that moves.\u201d\nBefore our globe became egg\u2010shaped (and the Universe also), \u201ca long trail\nof cosmic dust [or fire\u2010mist] moved and writhed like a serpent in Space.\u201d\nThe \u201cSpirit of God moving on Chaos\u201d was symbolized by every nation in the\nshape of a fiery serpent breathing fire and light upon the primordial\nwaters, until it had incubated cosmic matter and made it assume the\nannular shape of a serpent with its tail in its mouth\u2014which symbolizes not\nonly eternity and infinitude, but also the globular shape of all the\nbodies formed within the Universe from that fiery mist. The Universe, as\nalso the Earth and Man, serpent\u2010like, periodically cast off their old\nskins, to assume new ones after a time of rest. The serpent is surely not\na less graceful or a more unpoetical image than the caterpillar and\nchrysalis from which springs the butterfly, the Greek emblem of Psyche,\nthe human soul! The Dragon was also the symbol of the Logos with the\nEgyptians, as with the Gnostics. In the _Book of Hermes_, Pymander, the\noldest and the most spiritual of the Logoi of the Western Continent,\nappears to Hermes in the shape of a Fiery Dragon of \u201cLight, Fire, and\nFlame.\u201d Pymander, the \u201cThought Divine\u201d personified, says:\n\n\n    The Light is I, I am the Nous [the Mind or Manu], I am thy God,\n    and I am far older than the human principle which escapes from the\n    shadow [Darkness, or the concealed Deity]. I am the germ of\n    thought, the resplendent Word, the Son of God. All that thus sees\n    and hears in thee is the Verbum of the Master; it is the Thought\n    [Mahat] which is God, the Father.(119) The celestial Ocean, the\n    \u00c6ther, ... is the Breath of the Father, the life\u2010giving principle,\n    the Mother, the Holy Spirit, ... for these are not separated, and\n    their union is Life.\n\n\nHere we find the unmistakable echo of the archaic Secret Doctrine, as now\nexpounded. Only the latter does not place at the head of the Evolution of\nLife the \u201cFather,\u201d who comes third and is the \u201cSon of the Mother,\u201d but the\n\u201cEternal and Ceaseless Breath of the ALL.\u201d Mahat (Understanding, Universal\nMind, Thought, etc.), before it manifests itself as Brahm\u00e2 or Shiva,\nappears as Vishnu, says the _S\u00e2nkhya S\u00e2ra_.(120) Hence it has several\naspects, just as the Logos has. Mahat is called the Lord, in the _Primary_\nCreation, and is, in this sense, Universal Cognition or Thought Divine;\nbut, \u201cthat Mahat which was first produced is (afterwards) called _Ego\u2010\nism_, when it is born as (the feeling itself) \u2018I,\u2019 that is said to be the\n_Secondary_ Creation.\u201d(121) And the translator (an able and learned\nBr\u00e2hman, not a European Orientalist) explains in a foot\u2010note, \u201c_i.e._,\nwhen Mahat develops into the feeling of Self\u2010Consciousness\u2014I\u2014then it\nassumes the name of Egoism,\u201d which, translated into our Esoteric\nphraseology, means\u2014when Mahat is transformed into the human Manas (or even\nthat of the finite gods), and becomes _Aham_\u2010ship. Why it is called the\nMahat of the _Secondary_ Creation (or the _Ninth_, the Kaum\u00e2ra in _Vishnu\nPur\u00e2na_), will be explained hereafter.\n\n(c) The \u201cSea of Fire\u201d is, then, the Super\u2010Astral (_i.e._, Noumenal) Light,\nthe first radiation from the Root M\u00fblaprakriti, Undifferentiated Cosmic\nSubstance, which becomes Astral Matter. It is also called the \u201cFiery\nSerpent,\u201d as above described. If the student bears in mind that there is\nbut One Universal Element, which is infinite, unborn, and undying and that\nall the rest\u2014as in the world of phenomena\u2014are but so many various\ndifferentiated aspects and transformations (correlations, they are now\ncalled) of that One, from macrocosmical down to microcosmical effects,\nfrom super\u2010human down to human and sub\u2010human beings, the totality, in\nshort, of objective existence\u2014then the first and chief difficulty will\ndisappear and Occult Cosmology may be mastered. Thus in the Egyptian also\nas in the Indian Theogony there was a _Concealed_ Deity, the ONE, and a\ncreative, androgynous god; Shoo being the god of creation, and Osiris in\nhis original primary form, the god \u201cwhose name is unknown.\u201d(122)\n\nAll the Kabalists and Occultists, Eastern and Western, recognize (_a_) the\nidentity of \u201cFather\u2010Mother\u201d with Primordial \u00c6ther, or \u00c2k\u00e2sha (Astral\nLight); and (_b_) its homogeneity before the evolution of the \u201cSon,\u201d\ncosmically Fohat, for it is Cosmic Electricity. \u201c_Fohat hardens and\nscatters the Seven Brothers_\u201d;(123) which means that the Primordial\nElectric Entity\u2014for the Eastern Occultists insist that Electricity is an\nEntity\u2014electrifies into life, and separates primordial stuff or pregenetic\nmatter into atoms, themselves the source of all life and consciousness.\n\u201cThere exists a universal _agent unique_ of all forms and of life, that is\ncalled Od, Ob, and Aour,(124) active and passive, positive and negative,\nlike day and night: it is the first light in Creation\u201d (\u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi)\u2014the\n\u201cfirst light\u201d of the primordial Elohim, the Adam, \u201cmale and female,\u201d or\n(scientifically) Electricity and Life.\n\nThe ancients represented it by a serpent, for \u201c_Fohat hisses as he glides\nhither and thither_,\u201d in zigzags. The Kabalah figures it with the Hebrew\nletter Teth, \u05d8, whose symbol is the serpent which played such a prominent\npart in the Mysteries. Its universal value is nine, for it is the ninth\nletter of the alphabet, and the ninth door of the fifty portals, or\ngateways, that lead to the concealed mysteries of being. It is the magical\nagent _par excellence_, and designates in Hermetic philosophy \u201cLife\ninfused into Primordial Matter,\u201d the essence that composes all things, and\nthe spirit that determines their form. But there are two secret Hermetical\noperations, one spiritual, the other material, correlative and for ever\nunited. As Hermes says:\n\n\n    Thou shalt separate the earth from the fire, the subtile from the\n    solid ... that which ascends from earth to heaven and descends\n    again from heaven to earth. It [the subtile light] is the strong\n    force of every force, for it conquers every subtile thing and\n    penetrates into every solid. Thus was the world formed.\n\n\nIt was not Zeno, the founder of the Stoics, alone, who taught that the\nUniverse evolves, and its primary substance is transformed from the state\nof fire into that of air, then into that of water, etc. Heraclitus of\nEphesus maintained that the one principle that underlies all phenomena in\nNature is fire. The intelligence that moves the Universe is fire, and fire\nis intelligence. And while Anaximenes said the same of air, and Thales of\nMiletus (600 years B.C.) of water, the Esoteric Doctrine reconciles all\nthese philosophers, by showing that though each was right, the system of\nnone was complete.\n\n8. WHERE WAS THE GERM, AND WHERE WAS NOW DARKNESS? WHERE IS THE SPIRIT OF\nTHE FLAME THAT BURNS IN THY LAMP, O LANOO? THE GERM IS THAT, AND THAT IS\nLIGHT, THE WHITE BRILLIANT SON OF THE DARK HIDDEN FATHER..\n\nThe answer to the first question, suggested by the second, which is the\nreply of the teacher to the pupil, contains in a single phrase one of the\nmost essential truths of Occult Philosophy. It indicates the existence of\nthings imperceptible to our physical senses which are of far greater\nimportance, more real and more permanent, than those that appeal to these\nsenses themselves. Before the Lanoo can hope to understand the\ntranscendentally metaphysical problem contained in the first question, he\nmust be able to answer the second; while the very answer he gives to the\nsecond will furnish him with the clue to the correct reply to the first.\n\nIn the Sanskrit Commentary on this Stanza, the terms used for the\nconcealed and the unrevealed Principle are many. In the earliest MSS. of\nIndian literature this Unrevealed Abstract Deity has no name. It is\ngenerally called \u201cThat\u201d (Tad, in Sanskrit), and means all that is, was,\nand will be, or that can be so received by the human mind.\n\nAmong such appellations given\u2014of course, only in Esoteric Philosophy\u2014as\nthe \u201cUnfathomable Darkness,\u201d the \u201cWhirlwind,\u201d etc., it is also called the\n\u201cIt of the K\u00e2lahansa,\u201d the \u201cK\u00e2la\u2010ham\u2010sa,\u201d and even the \u201cK\u00e2li Hamsa\u201d (Black\nSwan). Here the m and the n are convertible, and both sound like the nasal\nFrench an or am. As in the Hebrew so also in the Sanskrit many a\nmysterious sacred name conveys to the profane ear no more than some\nordinary, and often vulgar word, because it is concealed anagrammatically\nor otherwise. This word Hansa, or Hamsa, is just such a case. Hamsa is\nequal to \u201cA\u2010ham\u2010sa\u201d\u2014three words meaning \u201cI am He\u201d; while divided in still\nanother way it will read \u201cSo\u2010ham,\u201d \u201cHe [is] I.\u201d In this single word is\ncontained, for him who understands the language of wisdom, the universal\nmystery, the doctrine of the identity of man\u2019s essence with god\u2010essence.\nHence the glyph of, and the allegory about, K\u00e2lahansa (or Hamsa), and the\nname given to Brahman (neuter), later on to the male Brahm\u00e2, of Hamsa\u2010\nv\u00e2hana, \u201che who uses the Hamsa as his vehicle.\u201d The same word may be read\n\u201cK\u00e2laham\u2010sa,\u201d or \u201cI am I, in the eternity of time,\u201d answering to the\nBiblical, or rather Zoroastrian, \u201cI am that I am.\u201d The same doctrine is\nfound in the _Kabalah_, as witness the following extract from an\nunpublished MS. by Mr. S. Liddell McGregor Mathers, the learned Kabalist:\n\n\n    The three pronouns, \u05d4\u05d5\u05d0, \u05d0\u05ea\u05d4, \u05d0\u05e0\u05d9, Hua, Ateh, Ani\u2014He, Thou, I\u2014are\n    used to symbolize the ideas of Macroposopus and Microprosopus in\n    the Hebrew Qabalah. Hua, \u201cHe,\u201d is applied to the hidden and\n    concealed Macroprosopus; Ateh, \u201cThou,\u201d to Microprosopus; and Ani,\n    \u201cI,\u201d to the latter when He is represented as speaking. (See\n    _Lesser Holy Assembly_, 204 _et seq_.) It is to be noted that each\n    of these names consists of three letters, of which the letter\n    Aleph \u05d0, A, forms the conclusion of the first word Hua, and the\n    commencement of Atah and Ani, as if it were the connecting link\n    between them. But \u05d0 is the symbol of the Unity and consequently of\n    the unvarying Idea of the Divine operating through all these. But\n    behind the \u05d0 in the name Hua are the letters \u05d5 and \u05d4, the symbols\n    of the numbers Six and Five, the Male and the Female, the Hexagram\n    and the Pentagram. And the numbers of these three words, Hua,\n    Ateh, Ani, are 12, 406, and 61, which are resumed in the key\n    numbers of 3, 10, and 7, by the Qabalah of the Nine Chambers which\n    is a form of the exegetical rule of Temura.\n\n\nIt is useless to attempt to explain the mystery in full. Materialists and\nthe men of Modern Science will never understand it, since, in order to\nobtain clear perception of it, one has first of all to admit the postulate\nof a universally diffused, omnipresent, eternal Deity in Nature; secondly,\nto have fathomed the mystery of electricity in its true essence; and\nthirdly, to credit man with being the septenary symbol, on the terrestrial\nplane, of the One Great Unit, the Logos, which is Itself the seven\u2010\nvowelled sign, the Breath crystallized into the Word.(125) He who believes\nin all this, has also to believe in the multiple combination of the seven\nplanets of Occultism and of the _Kabalah_, with the twelve zodiacal signs;\nand attribute, as we do, to each planet and to each constellation an\ninfluence which, in the words of Mr. Ely Star (a French astrologer), \u201cis\nproper to it, beneficent or maleficent, and this, after the planetary\nspirit which rules it, who, in his turn, is capable of influencing men and\nthings which are found in harmony with him and with which he has any\naffinity.\u201d For these reasons, and since few believe in the foregoing, all\nthat can now be given is that in both cases the symbol of Hansa (whether\nI, He, Goose or Swan) is an important symbol, representing, among other\nthings, Divine Wisdom, Wisdom in Darkness beyond the reach of men. For all\nexoteric purposes, Hansa, as every Hind\u00fb knows, is a fabulous bird which,\nwhen (in the allegory) given milk mixed with water for its food, separated\nthe two, drinking the milk and leaving the water; thus showing inherent\nwisdom\u2014milk standing symbolically for spirit, and water for matter.\n\nThat this allegory is very ancient and dates from the very earliest\narchaic period, is shown by the mention, in the _Bh\u00e2gavata Pur\u00e2na_, of a\ncertain caste named Hamsa or Hansa, which was the \u201cone caste\u201d _par\nexcellence_; when far back in the mists of a forgotten past there was\namong the Hind\u00fbs only \u201cOne Veda, One Deity, One Caste.\u201d There is also a\nrange in the Him\u00e2layas, described in the old books as being situated north\nof Mount Meru, called Hamsa, and connected with episodes pertaining to the\nhistory of religious mysteries and initiations. As to K\u00e2lahansa being the\nsupposed Vehicle of Brahm\u00e2\u2010Praj\u00e2pati, in the exoteric texts and\ntranslations of the Orientalists, it is quite a mistake. Brahman, the\nneuter, is called by them K\u00e2la\u2010hansa, and Brahm\u00e2, the male, Hansa\u2010v\u00e2hana,\nbecause, forsooth, \u201chis vehicle is a swan or goose.\u201d(126) This is a purely\nexoteric gloss. Esoterically and logically, if Brahman, the infinite, is\nall that is described by the Orientalists, and, agreeably with the\nVed\u00e2ntic texts, is an abstract deity, in no way characterized by the\nascription of any human attributes, and at the same time it is maintained\nthat he or it is called K\u00e2lahansa\u2014then how can it ever become the V\u00e2han of\nBrahm\u00e2, the manifested finite god? It is quite the reverse. The \u201cSwan or\nGoose\u201d (Hansa) is the symbol of the male or temporary deity, Brahm\u00e2, the\nemanation of the primordial Ray, which is made to serve as a V\u00e2han or\nVehicle for the Divine Ray, which otherwise could not manifest itself in\nthe Universe, being, antiphrastically, itself an emanation of Darkness\u2014for\nour human intellect, at any rate. It is Brahm\u00e2, then, who is K\u00e2lahansa,\nand the Ray, Hansa\u2010v\u00e2hana.\n\nAs to the strange symbol thus chosen, it is equally suggestive; the true\nmystic significance being the idea of a Universal Matrix, figured by the\nPrimordial Waters of the Deep, or the opening for the reception, and\nsubsequently for the issuing, of that One Ray (the Logos) which contains\nin itself the other Seven Procreative Rays or Powers (the Logoi or\nBuilders). Hence the choice by the Rosecroix of the aquatic fowl\u2014whether\nswan or pelican(127)\u2014with seven young ones, for a symbol, modified and\nadapted to the religion of every country. Ain Suph is called the \u201cFiery\nSoul of the Pelican\u201d in the _Book of Numbers_.(128) Appearing with every\nManvantara as N\u00e2r\u00e2yana, or Sv\u00e2yambhuva, the Self\u2010Existent, and penetrating\ninto the Mundane Egg, it emerges from it at the end of the divine\nincubation as Brahm\u00e2, or Praj\u00e2pati, the progenitor of the future Universe,\ninto which he expands. He is Purusha (Spirit), but he is also Prakriti\n(Matter). Therefore it is only after separating itself into two\nhalves\u2014Brahm\u00e2\u2010V\u00e2ch (the female) and Brahm\u00e2\u2010Vir\u00e2j (the male)\u2014that the\nPraj\u00e2pati becomes the male Brahm\u00e2.\n\n9. LIGHT IS COLD FLAME, AND FLAME IS FIRE, AND FIRE PRODUCES HEAT, WHICH\nYIELDS WATER\u2014THE WATER OF LIFE IN THE GREAT MOTHER.(129)\n\nIt must be remembered that the words \u201cLight,\u201d \u201cFlame\u201d and \u201cFire,\u201d have\nbeen adopted by the translators from the vocabulary of the old \u201cFire\nPhilosophers,\u201d(130) in order to render more clearly the meaning of the\narchaic terms and symbols employed in the original. Otherwise they would\nhave remained entirely unintelligible to a European reader. To a student\nof the Occult, however, the above terms will be sufficiently clear.\n\nAll these\u2014\u201cLight,\u201d \u201cFlame,\u201d \u201cCold,\u201d \u201cFire,\u201d \u201cHeat,\u201d \u201cWater,\u201d and \u201cWater of\nLife\u201d\u2014are, on our plane, the progeny, or, as a modern Physicist would say,\nthe correlations of Electricity. Mighty word, and a still mightier symbol!\nSacred generator of a no less sacred progeny; of Fire\u2014the creator, the\npreserver and the destroyer; of Light\u2014the essence of our divine ancestors;\nof Flame\u2014the soul of things. Electricity, the One Life at the upper rung\nof Being, and Astral Fluid, the Athanor of the Alchemists, at the lower;\nGod and Devil, Good and Evil.\n\nNow, why is Light called \u201cCold Flame\u201d? In the order of Cosmic Evolution\n(as taught by the Occultist), the energy that actuates matter, after its\nfirst formation into atoms, is generated on our plane by Cosmic Heat; and\nbefore that period Cosmos, in the sense of dissociated matter, was not.\nThe first Primordial Matter, eternal and co\u00ebval with Space, \u201c_which has\nneither a beginning nor an end, [is] neither hot nor cold, but is of its\nown special nature_,\u201d says the Commentary. Heat and cold are relative\nqualities and pertain to the realms of the manifested worlds, which all\nproceed from the manifested Hyle, which, in its absolutely latent aspect,\nis referred to as the \u201cCold Virgin,\u201d and when awakened to life, as the\n\u201cMother.\u201d The ancient Western cosmogonic myths state that at first there\nwas only cold mist (the Father) and the prolific slime (the Mother, Ilus\nor Hyle), from which crept forth the Mundane Snake (Matter).(131)\nPrimordial Matter, then, before it emerges from the plane of the never\u2010\nmanifesting, and awakens to the thrill of action under the impulse of\nFohat, is but \u201ca cool radiance, colourless, formless, tasteless, and\ndevoid of every quality and aspect.\u201d Even such are her First\u2010born, the\n\u201cFour Sons,\u201d who \u201care One, and become Seven,\u201d\u2014the Entities, by whose\nqualifications and names the ancient Eastern Occultists called the four of\nthe seven primal \u201cCentres of Force,\u201d or Atoms, that develop later into the\ngreat Cosmic \u201cElements,\u201d now divided into the seventy or so sub\u2010elements,\nknown to Science. The four \u201cPrimal Natures\u201d of the first Dhy\u00e2n Chohans are\nthe so\u2010called (for want of better terms) \u00c2k\u00e2shic, Ethereal, Watery and\nFiery. They answer, in the terminology of practical Occultism, to the\nscientific definitions of gases, which\u2014to convey a clear idea to both\nOccultists and laymen\u2014may be defined as parahydrogenic,(132) paraoxygenic,\noxyhydrogenic, and ozonic, or perhaps nitrozonic; the latter forces, or\ngases (in Occultism, supersensuous, yet atomic substances), being the most\neffective and active when energizing on the plane of more grossly\ndifferentiated matter. These elements are both electro\u2010positive and\nelectro\u2010negative. These and many more are probably the missing links of\nChemistry. They are known by other names in Alchemy and to Occultists who\npractise phenomenal powers. It is by combining and recombining, or\ndissociating, the \u201cElements\u201d in a certain way, by means of Astral Fire,\nthat the greatest phenomena are produced.\n\n10. FATHER\u2010MOTHER SPIN A WEB, WHOSE UPPER END IS FASTENED TO SPIRIT,(133)\nTHE LIGHT OF THE ONE DARKNESS, AND THE LOWER ONE TO ITS SHADOWY END,\nMATTER;(134) AND THIS WEB IS THE UNIVERSE SPUN OUT OF THE TWO SUBSTANCES\nMADE IN ONE, WHICH IS SVABH\u00c2VAT.\n\nIn the _M\u00e2ndukya Upanishad_(135) it is written, \u201cAs a spider throws out\nand retracts its web, as herbs spring up in the ground ... so is the\nUniverse derived from the undecaying one,\u201d Brahm\u00e2, for the \u201cGerm of\nunknown Darkness,\u201d is the material from which all evolves and develops,\n\u201cas the web from the spider, as foam from the water,\u201d etc. This is only\ngraphic and true, if the term Brahm\u00e2, the \u201cCreator,\u201d is derived from the\nroot _brih_, to increase or expand. Brahm\u00e2 \u201cexpands,\u201d and becomes the\nUniverse woven out of his own substance.\n\nThe same idea has been beautifully expressed by Goethe, who says:\n\n\n    Thus at the roaring loom of Time I ply,\n    And weave for God the garment thou see\u2019st Him by.\n\n\n11. IT(136) EXPANDS WHEN THE BREATH OF FIRE(137) IS UPON IT; IT CONTRACTS\nWHEN THE BREATH OF THE MOTHER(138) TOUCHES IT. THEN THE SONS(139)\nDISSOCIATE AND SCATTER, TO RETURN INTO THEIR MOTHER\u2019S BOSOM, AT THE END OF\nTHE GREAT DAY, AND RE\u2010BECOME ONE WITH HER. WHEN IT(140) IS COOLING, IT\nBECOMES RADIANT. ITS SONS EXPAND AND CONTRACT THROUGH THEIR OWN SELVES AND\nHEARTS; THEY EMBRACE INFINITUDE.\n\nThe expanding of the Universe, under the \u201cBreath of Fire,\u201d is very\nsuggestive in the light of the fire\u2010mist period, of which Modern Science\nspeaks so much, and knows in reality so little.\n\nGreat heat breaks up the compound elements and resolves the heavenly\nbodies into their Primeval One Element, explains the Commentary.\n\n\u201c_Once disintegrated into its primal constituent, by getting within the\nattraction and reach of a focus, or centre of heat [energy], of which many\nare carried about to and fro in space, a body, whether alive or dead, will\nbe vapourized, and held in the __\u2018__Bosom of the Mother,__\u2019__ until Fohat,\ngathering a few of the clusters of Cosmic Matter [nebul\u00e6], will, by giving\nit an impulse, set it in motion anew, develop the required heat, and then\nleave it to follow its own new growth._\u201d\n\nThe expanding and contracting of the \u201cWeb\u201d _i.e._, the world\u2010stuff, or\natoms\u2014express here the pulsatory movement; for it is the regular\ncontraction and expansion of the infinite and shoreless Ocean, of that\nwhich we may call the noumenon of Matter, emanated by Svabh\u00e2vat, which\ncauses the universal vibration of atoms. But it is also suggestive of\nsomething else. It shows that the ancients were acquainted with that which\nis now the puzzle of many Scientists and especially of Astronomers\u2014the\ncause of the first ignition of matter, or world\u2010stuff, the paradox of the\nheat produced by refrigerative contraction, and other such cosmic\nriddles\u2014for it points unmistakably to a knowledge by the ancients of such\nphenomena. \u201c_There is heat internal and heat external in every atom_,\u201d say\nthe MSS. Commentaries, to which the writer has had access, \u201c_the Breath of\nthe Father [Spirit], and the Breath [or Heat] of the Mother [Matter]_\u201d;\nand they give explanations which show that the modern theory of the\nextinction of the solar fires, by loss of heat through radiation, is\nerroneous. The assumption is false even on the Scientists\u2019 own admission.\nFor, as Professor Newcomb(141) points out, \u201cby losing heat a gaseous body\ncontracts, and the heat generated by the contraction exceeds that which it\nhad to lose in order to produce the contraction.\u201d This paradox, that a\nbody gets hotter, as the shrinking produced by its getting colder is\ngreater, has led to long disputes. The surplus of heat, it is argued, is\nlost by radiation, and to assume that the temperature is not lowered _pari\npassu_ with a decrease of volume under a constant pressure, is to set at\nnaught the law of Charles. Contraction develops heat, it is true; but\ncontraction (from cooling) is incapable of developing the whole amount of\nheat at any time existing in the mass, or even of maintaining a body at a\nconstant temperature, etc. Professor Winchell tries to reconcile the\nparadox\u2014only a seeming one in fact, as J. Homer Lane(142) proved\u2014by\nsuggesting \u201csomething besides heat.\u201d \u201cMay it not be,\u201d he asks, \u201csimply a\nrepulsion among the molecules, which varies according to some law of the\ndistance\u201d?(143) But even this will be found irreconcilable, unless this\n\u201csomething besides heat\u201d is ticketed \u201cCauseless Heat,\u201d the \u201cBreath of\nFire,\u201d the all\u2010creative Force _plus_ Absolute Intelligence, which Physical\nScience is not likely to accept.\n\nHowever it may be, the reading of this Stanza, notwithstanding its archaic\nphraseology, shows it to be more scientific than even Modern Science.\n\n12. THEN SVABH\u00c2VAT SENDS FOHAT TO HARDEN THE ATOMS. EACH(144) IS A PART OF\nTHE WEB.(145) REFLECTING THE \u201cSELF\u2010EXISTENT LORD,\u201d(146) LIKE A MIRROR,\nEACH BECOMES IN TURN A WORLD.(147)\n\nFohat hardens the Atoms; _i.e._, by infusing energy into them, he scatters\nthe \u201cAtoms,\u201d or Primordial Matter. \u201c_He scatters himself while scattering\nMatter into Atoms_.\u201d\n\nIt is through Fohat that the ideas of the Universal Mind are impressed\nupon Matter. Some faint idea of the nature of Fohat may be gathered from\nthe appellation \u201cCosmic Electricity,\u201d sometimes applied to it; but, in\nthis case, to the commonly known properties of electricity, must be added\nothers, including intelligence. It is of interest to note that Modern\nScience has come to the conclusion, that all cerebration and brain\u2010\nactivity are attended by electrical phenomena.\n\n\n\nStanza IV.\n\n\n1. ... LISTEN, YE SONS OF THE EARTH, TO YOUR INSTRUCTORS\u2014THE SONS OF THE\nFIRE (_a_). LEARN THERE IS NEITHER FIRST NOR LAST; FOR ALL IS ONE NUMBER,\nISSUED FROM NO\u2010NUMBER (_b_).\n\n(_a_) The terms, the \u201cSons of the Fire,\u201d the \u201cSons of the Fire\u2010Mist,\u201d and\nthe like, require explanation. They are connected with a great primordial\nand universal mystery, and it is not easy to make it clear. There is a\npassage in the _Bhagavadg\u00eet\u00e2_, wherein Krishna, speaking symbolically and\nesoterically, says:\n\n\n    I will state the times [conditions] ... at which devotees\n    departing [from this life] do so never to return [be reborn], or\n    to return [to incarnate again]. The fire, the flame, the day, the\n    bright [lucky] fortnight, the six months of the northern solstice,\n    departing [dying] ... in these, those who know the Brahman [Yog\u00ees]\n    go to the Brahman. Smoke, night, the dark [unlucky] fortnight, the\n    six months of the southern solstice, (dying) in these, the devotee\n    goes to the lunar light [or mansion, the Astral Light also] and\n    returns [is reborn]. These two paths, bright and dark, are said to\n    be eternal in this world [or Great Kalpa (Age)]. By the one (a\n    man) goes never to return, by the other he comes back.(148)\n\n\nNow these terms \u201cfire,\u201d \u201cflame,\u201d \u201cday,\u201d the \u201cbright fortnight,\u201d etc.,\n\u201csmoke,\u201d \u201cnight,\u201d and so on, leading only to the end of the Lunar Path,\nare incomprehensible without a knowledge of Esotericism. These are all\n_names of various deities_ which preside over the cosmo\u2010psychic Powers. We\noften speak of the Hierarchy of \u201cFlames,\u201d of the \u201cSons of Fire,\u201d etc.\nShankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya, the greatest of the Esoteric Masters of India, says that\nFire means a deity which presides over Time (K\u00e2la). The able translator of\nthe _Bhagavadg\u00eet\u00e2_, K\u00e2shin\u00e2th Trimbak Telang, M.A., of Bombay, confesses\nhe has \u201cno clear notion of the meaning of these verses.\u201d It seems quite\nclear, on the contrary, to him who knows the Occult doctrine. With these\nverses the mystic sense of the solar and lunar symbols are connected. The\nPitris are Lunar Deities and our Ancestors, because they _created the\nphysical man_. The Agnishvatta, the Kum\u00e2ras (the Seven Mystic Sages), are\nSolar Deities, though they are Pitris also; and these are the \u201cFashioners\nof the _Inner_ Man.\u201d They are \u201cThe Sons of Fire,\u201d because they are the\nfirst Beings, called \u201cMinds,\u201d in the Secret Doctrine, evolved from\nPrimordial Fire. \u201cThe Lord ... is a consuming fire.\u201d(149) \u201cThe Lord shall\nbe revealed ... with his mighty angels in flaming fire.\u201d(150) The Holy\nGhost descended on the Apostles as \u201ccloven tongues like as of fire\u201d;(151)\nVishnu will return on Kalk\u00ee, the White Horse, as the last Avat\u00e2ra, amid\nfire and flames; and Sosiosh will also descend on a White Horse in a\n\u201ctornado of fire.\u201d \u201cAnd I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and\nhe that sat upon him ... and his name is called the Word of God,\u201d(152)\namid flaming Fire. Fire is \u00c6ther in its purest form, and hence is not\nregarded as matter, but is the unity of \u00c6ther\u2014the second, manifested\ndeity\u2014in its universality. But there are two \u201cFires,\u201d and a distinction is\nmade between them in the Occult teachings. The first, or the purely\n_formless_ and _invisible_ Fire, concealed in the _Central Spiritual Sun_,\nis spoken of as Triple (metaphysically); while the Fire of the Manifested\nCosmos is Septenary, throughout both the Universe and our Solar System.\n\u201c_The fire of knowledge burns up all action on the plane of illusion_,\u201d\nsays the Commentary. \u201c_Therefore, those who have acquired it and are\nemancipated, are called __\u2018__Fires__\u2019__._\u201d Speaking of the _seven_ senses,\nsymbolized as Hotris, or Priests, N\u00e2rada says in _Anugit\u00e2_: \u201cThus these\nseven [senses, smell and taste, and colour, and sound, etc.,] are the\ncauses of emancipation\u201d; and the translator adds: \u201cIt is from these seven\nfrom which the Self is to be emancipated. \u2018I\u2019 [in the sentence, \u2018I am ...\ndevoid of qualities\u2019] must mean the Self, not the Br\u00e2hmana who\nspeaks.\u201d(153)\n\n(_b_) The expression, \u201call is One Number, issued from No\u2010Number,\u201d relates\nagain to that universal and philosophical tenet just explained in the\ncommentary on Shloka 4 of Stanza III. That which is absolute, is of course\nNo\u2010Number; but in its later significance it has an application both in\nSpace and in Time. It means that not only every increment of time is part\nof a larger increment, up to the most indefinitely prolonged duration\nconceivable by the human intellect, but also that no manifested thing can\nbe thought of except as part of a whole: the total aggregate being the One\nManifested Universe that issues from the Unmanifested or Absolute\u2014called\nNon\u2010Being, or \u201cNo\u2010Number,\u201d to distinguish it from Being, or the \u201cOne\nNumber.\u201d\n\n2. LEARN WHAT WE, WHO DESCEND FROM THE PRIMORDIAL SEVEN, WE, WHO ARE BORN\nFROM THE PRIMORDIAL FLAME, HAVE LEARNT FROM OUR FATHERS....\n\nThis is explained in Book II, and the term, \u201cPrimordial Flame,\u201d\ncorroborates what is said in the first paragraph of the preceding\ncommentary on Stanza IV.\n\nThe distinction between the \u201cPrimordial\u201d and the subsequent Seven Builders\nis that the former are the Ray and direct emanation of the first \u201cSacred\nFour,\u201d the Tetraktys, that is, the eternally Self\u2010Existent One\u2014eternal in\n_essence_ note well, not in manifestation, and distinct from the Universal\nOne. Latent, during Pralaya, and active, during Manvantara, the\n\u201cPrimordial\u201d proceed from \u201cFather\u2010Mother\u201d (Spirit\u2010Hyle, or Ilus); whereas\nthe other Manifested Quaternary and the Seven proceed from the Mother\nalone. It is the latter who is the immaculate Virgin\u2010Mother, who is\novershadowed, not impregnated, by the Universal Mystery\u2014when she emerges\nfrom her state of Laya, or undifferentiated condition. In reality, they\nare, of course, all one; but their aspects on the various planes of Being\nare different.\n\nThe first Primordial are the highest Beings on the Scale of Existence.\nThey are the Archangels of Christianity, those who refuse to create or\nrather to multiply\u2014as did Michael in the latter system, and as did the\neldest \u201cMind\u2010born Sons\u201d of Brahm\u00e2 (Vedh\u00e2s).\n\n3. FROM THE EFFULGENCY OF LIGHT\u2014THE RAY OF THE EVER\u2010DARKNESS\u2014SPRANG IN\nSPACE THE RE\u00c4WAKENED ENERGIES;(154) THE ONE FROM THE EGG, THE SIX, AND THE\nFIVE (_a_). THEN THE THREE, THE ONE, THE FOUR, THE ONE, THE FIVE\u2014THE TWICE\nSEVEN, THE SUM TOTAL (_b_). AND THESE ARE THE ESSENCES, THE FLAMES, THE\nELEMENTS, THE BUILDERS, THE NUMBERS (_c_), THE AR\u00dbPA,(155) THE R\u00dbPA,(156)\nAND THE FORCE, OR DIVINE MAN\u2014THE SUM TOTAL. AND FROM THE DIVINE MAN\nEMANATED THE FORMS, THE SPARKS, THE SACRED ANIMALS (_d_), AND THE\nMESSENGERS OF THE SACRED FATHERS(157) WITHIN THE HOLY FOUR.(158)\n\n(a) This relates to the Sacred Science of the Numerals; so sacred, indeed,\nand so important in the study of Occultism that the subject can hardly be\nskimmed, even in such a large work as the present. It is on the\nHierarchies and the correct numbers of these Beings\u2014invisible (to us)\nexcept upon very rare occasions\u2014that the mystery of the whole Universe is\nbuilt. The Kum\u00e2ras, for instance, are called the \u201cFour\u201d\u2014though in reality\nseven in number\u2014because Sanaka, Sananda, San\u00e2tana and Sanatkum\u00e2ra are the\nchief Vaidh\u00e2tra (their patronymic name), who sprang from the \u201cfour\u2010fold\nmystery.\u201d To make the whole clearer, we have to turn for our illustrations\nto tenets more familiar to some of our readers, namely the Br\u00e2hmanical.\n\nAccording to _Manu_, Hiranyagarbha is Brahm\u00e2, the first _male_, formed by\nthe undiscernible Causeless Cause, in a \u201cGolden Egg resplendent as the\nSun,\u201d as states the _Hind\u00fb Classical Dictionary_; Hiranyagarbha meaning\nthe Golden, or rather the Effulgent, Womb or Egg. The meaning tallies\nawkwardly with the epithet \u201cmale.\u201d Surely the esoteric meaning of the\nsentence is clear enough! In the _Rig Veda_ it is said\u2014\u201cTHAT, the one Lord\nof all beings ... the one animating principle of gods and men,\u201d arose, in\nthe beginning, in the Golden Womb, Hiranyagarbha\u2014which is the Mundane Egg,\nor Sphere of our Universe. That Being is surely androgynous, and the\nallegory of Brahm\u00e2 separating into two, and creating in one of his halves\n(the female V\u00e2ch) himself as Vir\u00e2j, is a proof of it.\n\n\u201cThe One from the Egg, the Six and the Five,\u201d give the number 1065, the\nvalue of the First\u2010born (later on the male and female Brahm\u00e2\u2010Praj\u00e2pati),\nwho answers to the numbers 7, and 14, and 21 respectively. The Praj\u00e2pati,\nlike the Sephiroth are only seven, including the synthetic Sephira of the\nTriad from which they spring. Thus from Hiranyagarbha, or Praj\u00e2pati, the\nTriune (the primeval Vedic Trim\u00fbrti, Agni, V\u00e2yu, and S\u00fbrya), emanate the\nother seven, or again ten, if we separate the first three which exist in\none, and one in three; all, moreover, being comprehended within that one\n\u201cSupreme,\u201d Parama, called Guhya or \u201cSecret,\u201d and Sarv\u00e2tman, the \u201cSuper\u2010\nSoul.\u201d \u201c_The seven Lords of Being lie concealed in Sarv\u00e2tman like thoughts\nin one brain_.\u201d So with the Sephiroth. They are either seven when counting\nfrom the upper Triad, headed by Kether, or ten\u2014exoterically. In the\n_Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata_, the Praj\u00e2pati are 21 in number, or ten, six, and five\n(1065), thrice seven.(159)\n\n(b) \u201cThe Three, the One, the Four, the One, the Five,\u201d in their\ntotal\u2014Twice Seven, represent 31415\u2014the numerical Hierarchy of the Dhy\u00e2n\nChohans of various orders, and of the inner or circumscribed world.(160)\nPlaced on the boundary of the great Circle, \u201cPass Not\u201d\u2014called also the\nDhy\u00e2nip\u00e2sha, the \u201cRope of the Angels,\u201d the \u201cRope\u201d that hedges off the\nphenomenal from the noumenal Cosmos, which does not fall within the range\nof our present objective consciousness\u2014this number, when not enlarged by\npermutation and expansion, is ever 31415, anagrammatically and\nKabalistically, being both the number of the Circle and the mystic\nSvastika, the \u201cTwice Seven\u201d once more; for whatever way the two sets of\nfigures are counted, when added separately, one figure after another,\nwhether crossways from right, or from left, they will always yield\nfourteen. Mathematically they represent the well\u2010known mathematical\nformula, that the ratio of the diameter of a circle to the circumference\nis as 1 to 3.1415, or the value of \u03c0 (pi), as it is called. This set of\nfigures must have the same meaning, since the 1:314,159 and again\n1:3.1415927 are worked out in the secret calculations to express the\nvarious cycles and ages of the \u201cFirst\u2010born,\u201d or 311,040,000,000,000 with\nfractions, and yield the same 1.3415 by a process we are not concerned\nwith at present. And it may be shown that Mr. Ralston Skinner, the author\nof _The Source of Measures_, reads the Hebrew word Alhim in the same\nnumber values\u2014by omitting, as said, the ciphers, and by permutation\u201413514:\nsince \u05d0 (a) is 1; \u05dc (l) is 3 (30); \u05d4 (h) is 5; \u05d9 (i) is 1 (10); and \u05de (m)\nis 4 (40); and anagrammatically\u201431415, as explained by him.\n\nThus, while in the metaphysical world, the Circle with the one central\nPoint in it has no number, and is called Anup\u00e2daka\u2014parentless and\nnumberless, for it can fall under no calculation; in the manifested world,\nthe Mundane Egg or Circle is circumscribed within the groups called the\nLine, the Triangle, the Pentagram, the second Line and the Square (or\n13514); and when the Point has generated a Line, and thus becomes a\ndiameter which stands for the androgynous Logos, then the figures become\n31415, or a triangle, a line, a square, a second line, and a pentagram.\n\u201c_When the Son separates from the Mother he becomes the Father_,\u201d the\ndiameter standing for Nature, or the feminine principle. Therefore it is\nsaid: \u201c_In the World of Being, the One Point fructifies the Line, the\nVirgin Matrix of Kosmos [the egg\u2010shaped zero], and the immaculate Mother\ngives birth to the Form that combines all forms_.\u201d Praj\u00e2pati is called the\nfirst procreating male, and \u201chis mother\u2019s husband.\u201d(161) This gives the\nkey\u2010note to all the later \u201cDivine Sons\u201d from \u201cImmaculate Mothers.\u201d It is\nstrongly corroborated by the significant fact that Anna, the name of the\nMother of the Virgin Mary, now represented by the Roman Catholic Church as\nhaving given birth to her daughter in an immaculate way (\u201cMary conceived\nwithout sin\u201d), is derived from the Chaldean Ana, Heaven, or Astral Light,\nAnima Mundi; whence Anaitia, Dev\u00ee\u2010Durg\u00e2, the wife of Shiva, is also called\nAnnapurna, and Kany\u00e2, the Virgin; Um\u00e2\u2010Kany\u00e2 being her esoteric name, and\nmeaning the \u201cVirgin of Light,\u201d Astral Light in one of its multitudinous\naspects.\n\n(_c_) The Devas, Pitris, Rishis; the Suras and the Asuras; the Daityas and\n\u00c2dityas; the D\u00e2navas and Gandharvas, etc., etc., have all their synonyms\nin our Secret Doctrine, as well as in the _Kabalah_ and Hebrew Angelology;\nbut it is useless to give their ancient names, as it would only create\nconfusion. Many of these may be now also found even in the Christian\nHierarchy of divine and celestial Powers. All those Thrones and Dominions,\nVirtues and Principalities, Cherubs, Seraphs and Demons, the various\ndenizens of the Sidereal World, are the modern copies of archaic\nprototypes. The very symbolism in their names, when transliterated and\narranged, in Greek and Latin, are sufficient to show it, as will be proved\nin several cases further on.\n\n(_d_) The \u201cSacred Animals\u201d are found in the _Bible_ as well as in the\n_Kabalah_, and they have their meaning\u2014a very profound one, too\u2014on the\npage of the origins of Life. In the _Sepher Jetzirah_ it is stated that:\n\u201cGod engraved in the Holy Four the Throne of his Glory, the Auphanim [the\nWheels or World\u2010Spheres], the Seraphim, and the Sacred Animals, as\nMinistering Angels, and from these [Air, Water, and Fire or Ether] he\nformed his habitation.\u201d\n\nThe following is the literal translation from the IXth and Xth Sections:\n\n\n    Ten numbers without what? One: the Spirit of the living God ...\n    who liveth in eternities! Voice and Spirit and Word, and this is\n    the Holy Spirit. Two: Air out of Spirit. He designed and hewed\n    therewith twenty\u2010two letters of foundation, three mothers, and\n    seven double and twelve single, and one Spirit out of them. Three:\n    Water out of Spirit; he designed and hewed with them the barren\n    and the void, mud and earth. He designed them as a flower\u2010bed,\n    hewed them as a wall, covered them as a paving. Four: Fire out of\n    Water. He designed and hewed therewith the throne of glory and the\n    wheels, and the seraphim and the holy animals as ministering\n    angels, and of the three He founded his dwelling, as it is said,\n    He makes his angels spirits, and his servants fiery flames!\n\n\nThe words \u201cfounded his dwelling\u201d show clearly that in the _Kabalah_, as in\nIndia, the Deity was considered as the Universe, and was not, in his\norigin, the extra\u2010cosmic God he now is.\n\nThus was the world made \u201cthrough Three Seraphim\u2014Sepher, Saphar, and\nSipur,\u201d or \u201cthrough Number, Numbers, and Numbered.\u201d With the astronomical\nkey, these \u201cSacred Animals\u201d become the signs of the Zodiac.\n\n4. THIS WAS THE ARMY OF THE VOICE, THE DIVINE MOTHER OF THE SEVEN. THE\nSPARKS OF THE SEVEN ARE SUBJECT TO, AND THE SERVANTS OF, THE FIRST, THE\nSECOND, THE THIRD, THE FOURTH, THE FIFTH, THE SIXTH, AND THE SEVENTH OF\nTHE SEVEN (_a_). THESE(162) ARE CALLED SPHERES, TRIANGLES, CUBES, LINES\nAND MODELLERS; FOR THUS STANDS THE ETERNAL NID\u00c2NA\u2014THE OI\u2010HA\u2010HOU\n(_b_).(163)\n\n(a) This Shloka gives again a brief analysis of the Hierarchies of the\nDhy\u00e2n Chohans, called Devas (Gods) in India, or the Conscious Intelligent\nPowers in Nature. To this Hierarchy correspond the actual types into which\nHumanity may be divided; for Humanity, as a whole, is in reality a\nmaterialized, though as yet imperfect, expression thereof. The \u201cArmy of\nthe Voice\u201d is a term closely connected with the mystery of Sound and\nSpeech, as an effect and corollary of the Cause\u2014Divine Thought. As\nbeautifully expressed by P. Christian, the learned author of _Histoire de\nla Magie_ and _L\u2019Homme Rouge des Tuileries_, the words spoken by, as well\nas the name of, every individual largely determine his future fate. Why?\nBecause:\n\n\n    When our soul [mind] creates or evokes a thought, the\n    representative sign of that thought is self\u2010engraved upon the\n    astral fluid, which is the receptacle and, so to say, the mirror\n    of all the manifestations of being.\n\n    The sign expresses the thing: the thing is the [hidden or occult]\n    virtue of the sign.\n\n    To pronounce a word is to evoke a thought, and make it present:\n    the magnetic potency of human speech is the commencement of every\n    manifestation in the Occult World. To utter a Name is not only to\n    define a Being [an Entity], but to place it under, and condemn it\n    through the emission of the Word [Verbum] to the influence of, one\n    or more Occult potencies. Things are, for every one of us, that\n    which it [the Word] makes them while naming them. The Word\n    [Verbum] or the speech of every man is, quite unconsciously to\n    himself, a _blessing_ or a _curse_; this is why our present\n    ignorance about the properties and attributes of the _idea_, as\n    well as about the attributes and properties of _matter_, is often\n    fatal to us.\n\n    Yes, names [and words] are either _beneficent_ or _maleficent_;\n    they are, in a certain sense, either venomous or health\u2010giving,\n    according to the hidden influences attached by Supreme Wisdom to\n    their elements, that is to say, to the _letters_ which compose\n    them, and the _numbers_ correlative to these letters.\n\n\nThis is strictly true as an esoteric teaching accepted by all the Eastern\nSchools of Occultism. In the Sanskrit, as also in the Hebrew and all other\nalphabets, every letter has its occult meaning and its _rationale_: it is\na cause and an effect of a preceding cause, and a combination of these\nvery often produces the most magical effect. The vowels, especially,\ncontain the most occult and formidable potencies. The _Mantras_ (magical\nrather than religious invocations, esoterically) are chanted by the\nBr\u00e2hmans, and so are the rest of the _Vedas_ and other Scriptures.\n\nThe \u201cArmy of the Voice\u201d is the prototype of the \u201cHost of the Logos,\u201d or\nthe \u201cWord,\u201d of the _Sepher Jetzirah_, called in the Secret Doctrine the\n\u201cOne Number issued from No\u2010Number\u201d\u2014the One Eternal Principle. The Esoteric\nTheogony begins with the One Manifested (therefore not eternal in its\npresence and being, if eternal in its essence), the Number of the Numbers\nand Numbered\u2014the latter proceeding from the Voice, the feminine V\u00e2ch, \u201cof\nthe hundred forms,\u201d Shatar\u00fbp\u00e2, or Nature. It is from this Number, 10, or\nCreative Nature, the Mother (the Occult cypher, or \u201c0,\u201d ever procreating\nand multiplying in union with the unit \u201c1,\u201d or the Spirit of Life), that\nthe whole Universe proceeds.\n\nIn the _Anug\u00eet\u00e2_,(164) a conversation is given between a Br\u00e2hmana and his\nwife on the origin of Speech and its Occult properties. The wife asks how\nSpeech came into existence, and which was prior to the other, Speech or\nMind. The Br\u00e2hmana tells her that the Ap\u00e2na (_inspirational __ breath_)\nbecoming lord, changes that intelligence, which does not understand Speech\nor Words, into the state of Ap\u00e2na, and thus opens the Mind. Thereupon he\ntells her a story, a dialogue between Speech and Mind. Both went to the\nSelf of Being (_i.e._, to the individual Higher Self, as N\u00eelakantha\nthinks; to Praj\u00e2pati, according to the commentator Arjuna Mishra), and\nasked him to destroy their doubts, and decide which of them preceded and\nwas superior to the other. To this the Lord said: \u201cMind (is superior).\u201d\nBut Speech answered the Self of Being, by saying: \u201cI verily yield (you)\nyour desires,\u201d meaning that by Speech he acquired what he desired.\nThereupon again, the Self told her that there are two Minds, the \u201cmovable\u201d\nand the \u201cimmovable.\u201d \u201cThe immovable is with me,\u201d he said, \u201cthe movable is\nin your dominion\u201d (_i.e._ of Speech), on the plane of matter. \u201cTo that you\nare superior.\u201d\n\n\n    But inasmuch, O beautiful one, as you came personally to speak to\n    me (in the way you did, _i.e._ proudly), therefore, O Sarasvat\u00ee!\n    you shall never speak after (hard) exhalation. The goddess Speech\n    [Sarasvat\u00ee, a later form or aspect of V\u00e2ch, the goddess also of\n    secret learning, or Esoteric Wisdom], verily, dwelt always between\n    the Pr\u00e2na and the Ap\u00e2na. But, O noble one! going with the Ap\u00e2na\n    wind [vital air], though impelled, ... without the Pr\u00e2na\n    [expirational breath], she ran up to Praj\u00e2pati [Brahm\u00e2], saying,\n    \u201cBe pleased, O venerable sir!\u201d Then the Pr\u00e2na appeared again\n    nourishing Speech. And, therefore, Speech never speaks after\n    (hard) exhalation. It is always noisy or noiseless. Of these two,\n    the noiseless is the superior to the noisy (Speech).... The\n    (Speech) which is produced in the body by means of the Pr\u00e2na, and\n    which then goes [is transformed] into Ap\u00e2na and then becoming\n    assimilated with the Ud\u00e2na [physical organs of Speech] ... then\n    finally dwells in the Sam\u00e2na [\u201cat the navel in the form of sound,\n    as the material cause of all words,\u201d says Arjuna Mishra]. So\n    Speech formerly spoke. Hence the Mind is distinguished by reason\n    of its being immovable, and the Goddess (Speech) by reason of her\n    being movable.\n\n\nThe above allegory is at the root of the Occult law, which prescribes\nsilence upon the knowledge of certain secret and invisible things,\nperceptible only to the spiritual mind (the sixth sense), and which cannot\nbe expressed by \u201cnoisy\u201d or uttered speech. This chapter of _Anug\u00eet\u00e2_\nexplains, says Arjuna Mishra, Pr\u00e2n\u00e2y\u00e2ma, or regulation of the breath in\nYoga practices. This mode, however, without the previous acquisition of,\nor at least full understanding of, the two higher senses (of which there\nare seven, as will be shown), pertains rather to the lower Yoga. The Hatha\nso called was and still is discountenanced by the Arhats. It is injurious\nto the health, and alone can never develop into R\u00e2ja Yoga. This story is\nquoted to show how inseparably connected in the metaphysics of old, are\nintelligent beings, or rather \u201cintelligences,\u201d with every sense or\nfunction, whether physical or mental. The Occult claim that there are\nseven senses in man, and in nature, as there are seven states of\nconsciousness, is corroborated in the same work, Chapter vii, on\nPraty\u00e2h\u00e2ra (the restraint and regulation of the senses, Pr\u00e2n\u00e2y\u00e2ma being\nthat of the \u201cvital winds\u201d or breath). The Br\u00e2hmana, speaking of the\ninstitution of the seven sacrificial Priests (Hotris), says: \u201cThe nose and\nthe eye, and the tongue, and the skin and the ear as the fifth [or smell,\nsight, taste, touch, and hearing], mind and understanding are the seven\nsacrificial priests separately stationed,\u201d which \u201cdwelling in a minute\nspace (still) do not perceive each other,\u201d on this sensuous plane, none of\nthem except mind. For mind says: \u201cThe nose smells not without me, the eye\ndoes not take in colour, etc., etc. I am the eternal chief among all\nelements [_i.e._, senses]. Without me, the senses never shine, like an\nempty dwelling, or like fires the flames of which are extinct. Without me,\nall beings, like fuel half dried and half moist, fail to apprehend\nqualities or objects even with the senses exerting themselves.\u201d(165)\n\nThis, of course, only with regard to _mind on the sensuous plane_.\nSpiritual Mind, the upper portion or aspect of the _impersonal_ Manas,\ntakes no cognizance of the senses in physical man. How well the ancients\nwere acquainted with the correlation of forces, and all the recently\ndiscovered phenomena of mental and physical faculties and functions, and\nwith many more mysteries also\u2014may be found in reading Chapters vii and\nviii of this priceless work in philosophy and mystic learning. See the\nquarrel of the senses about their respective superiority and their taking\nthe Brahman, the Lord of all creatures, for their arbiter. \u201cYou are all\ngreatest and not greatest [or superior to objects, as Arjuna Mishra says,\nnone being independent of the other]. You are all possessed of one\nanother\u2019s qualities. All are greatest in their own spheres and all support\none another. There is one unmoving [life\u2010wind or breath, the _yoga\u2010\ninhalation_, so called, which is the breath of the _One_ or Higher Self].\nThat one is my own Self, accumulated in numerous (forms).\u201d\n\nThis Breath, Voice, Self or Wind (Pneuma?), is the Synthesis of the Seven\nSenses, _noumenally_ all minor deities, and esoterically\u2014the _Septenary_\nand the \u201cArmy of the Voice.\u201d\n\n(_b_) Next we see Cosmic Matter scattering and forming itself into\nElements; grouped into the mystic Four within the fifth Element\u2014Ether, the\n\u201clining\u201d of \u00c2k\u00e2sha, the Anima Mundi, or Mother of Cosmos. \u201cDots, Lines,\nTriangles, Cubes, Circles\u201d and finally \u201cSpheres\u201d\u2014why or how? Because, says\nthe Commentary, such is the first law of Nature, and because Nature\ngeometrizes universally in all her manifestations. There is an inherent\nlaw\u2014not only in the primordial, but also in the manifested matter of our\nphenomenal plane\u2014by which Nature correlates her geometrical forms, and\nlater, also, her compound elements, and in which also there is no place\nfor accident or chance. It is a fundamental law in Occultism, that there\nis no rest or cessation of motion in Nature.(166) That which seems rest is\nonly the change of one form into another, the change of substance going\nhand in hand with that of form\u2014so at least we are taught in Occult\nphysics, which thus seem to have anticipated the discovery of the\n\u201cconservation of matter\u201d by a considerable time. Says the ancient\nCommentary(167) to Stanza IV:\n\n_The Mother is the fiery Fish of Life. She scatters her Spawn and the\nBreath [Motion] heats and quickens it. The Grains [of Spawn] are soon\nattracted to each other and form the Curds in the Ocean [of Space]. The\nlarger lumps coalesce and receive new Spawn\u2014in fiery Dots, Triangles and\nCubes, which ripen, and at the appointed time some of the lumps detach\nthemselves and assume spheroidal form, a process which they effect only\nwhen not interfered with by the others. After which, Law No. \u2014\u2014 comes into\noperation. Motion [the Breath] becomes the Whirlwind and sets them into\nrotation._(168)\n\n5. THE OI\u2010HA\u2010HOU, WHICH IS DARKNESS, THE BOUNDLESS, OR THE NO\u2010NUMBER, \u00c2DI\u2010\nNID\u00c2NA SVABH\u00c2VAT, THE [circle]:(169)\n\nI. THE \u00c2DI\u2010SANAT, THE NUMBER, FOR HE IS ONE (_a_).\n\nII. THE VOICE OF THE WORD, SVABH\u00c2VAT, THE NUMBERS, FOR HE IS ONE AND\nNINE.(170)\n\nIII. THE \u201cFORMLESS SQUARE\u201d.(171)\n\nAND THESE THREE, ENCLOSED WITHIN THE [CIRCLE],(172) ARE THE SACRED FOUR;\nAND THE TEN ARE THE AR\u00dbPA (173) UNIVERSE (_b_). THEN COME THE SONS, THE\nSEVEN FIGHTERS, THE ONE, THE EIGHTH LEFT OUT, AND HIS BREATH WHICH IS THE\nLIGHT\u2010MAKER (_c_).(174)\n\n(_a_) \u201c\u00c2di\u2010Sanat,\u201d translated literally, is the First or \u201cPrimeval\nAncient,\u201d a name which identifies the Kabalistic \u201cAncient of Days\u201d and the\n\u201cHoly Aged\u201d (Sephira and Adam Kadmon) with Brahm\u00e2, the Creator, called\nalso Sanat among his other names and titles.\n\n\u201cSvabh\u00e2vat\u201d is the mystic Essence, the plastic Root of physical\nNature\u2014\u201cNumbers\u201d when manifested; the \u201cNumber,\u201d in its Unity of Substance,\non the highest plane. The name is of Buddhist use and a synonym for the\nfour\u2010fold Anima Mundi, the Kabalistic Archetypal World, from whence\nproceed the Creative, Formative, and Material Worlds; and the Scintill\u00e6 or\nSparks\u2014the various other worlds contained in the last three. The Worlds\nare all subject to Rulers or Regents\u2014Rishis and Pitris with the Hind\u00fbs,\nAngels with the Jews and Christians, Gods with the Ancients in general.\n\n(_b_) \u201c[circle].\u201d This means that the \u201cBoundless Circle,\u201d the zero,\nbecomes a number, only when one of the other nine figures precedes it, and\nthus manifests its value and potency; the \u201cWord\u201d or Logos, in union with\n\u201cVoice\u201d and Spirit(175) (the expression and source of Consciousness),\nstanding for the nine figures, and thus forming, with the cypher, the\nDecad which contains in itself all the Universe. The Triad forms the\nTetraktys, or \u201cSacred Four,\u201d within the Circle, the Square within the\nCircle being the most potent of all the magical figures.\n\n(_c_) The \u201cOne Rejected\u201d is the Sun of our system. The exoteric version\nmay be found in the oldest Sanskrit Scriptures. In the _Rig Veda_, Aditi,\nthe \u201cBoundless\u201d or Infinite Space\u2014translated by Prof. Max M\u00fcller, \u201cthe\nvisible infinite, visible by the naked eye (!!); the endless expanse\nbeyond the earth, beyond the clouds, beyond the sky\u201d\u2014is the equivalent of\n\u201cMother\u2010Space,\u201d co\u00ebval with \u201cDarkness.\u201d She is very properly called the\n\u201cMother of the Gods,\u201d Deva\u2010M\u00e2tri, as it is from her cosmic matrix that all\nthe heavenly bodies of our system were born\u2014sun and planets. Thus she is\ndescribed, allegorically, in this wise: \u201c_Eight sons were born from the\nbody of Aditi; she approached the gods with seven, but cast away the\neighth, M\u00e2rtt\u00e2nda_,\u201d our sun. The seven sons called the Adityas are,\ncosmically or astronomically, the seven planets; and the sun being\nexcluded from their number shows plainly that the Hind\u00fbs may have known,\nand in fact knew, of a seventh planet, without calling it Uranus.(176) But\nesoterically and theologically, so to say, the Adityas, in their primitive\nmost ancient meanings, are the eight, and twelve great gods of the Hind\u00fb\nPantheon. \u201cThe Seven allow the mortals to see their dwellings, but show\nthemselves only to the Arhats,\u201d says an old proverb; \u201ctheir dwellings\u201d\nstanding here for the planets. The ancient Commentary gives the following\nallegory and explains it:\n\n_Eight houses were built by Mother: eight houses for her eight Divine\nSons; four large and four small ones. Eight brilliant Suns, according to\ntheir age and merits. Bal\u2010i\u2010lu [M\u00e2rtt\u00e2nda] was not satisfied, though his\nhouse was the largest. He began [to work] as the huge elephants do. He\nbreathed [drew in] into his stomach the vital airs of his brothers. He\nsought to devour them. The larger four were far away; far, on the margin\n__ of their kingdom._(_177_)_ They were not robbed [affected], and\nlaughed. Do your worst, Sir, you cannot reach us, they said. But the\nsmaller wept. They complained to the Mother. She exiled Bal\u2010i\u2010lu to the\ncentre of her kingdom, from whence he could not move. [Since then] he\n[only] watches and threatens. He pursues them, turning slowly round\nhimself; they turning swiftly from him, and he following from afar the\ndirection in which his brothers move on the path that encircles their\nhouses._(_178_)_ From that day he feeds on the sweat of the Mother\u2019s body.\nHe fills himself with her breath and refuse. Therefore, she rejected him_.\n\nThus the \u201cRejected Son\u201d being our Sun, evidently, as shown above, the\n\u201cSon\u2010Suns\u201d refer not only to our planets but to the heavenly bodies in\ngeneral. S\u00fbrya, himself only a reflection of the Central Spiritual Sun, is\nthe prototype of all those bodies that evolved after him. In the _Vedas_\nhe is called Loka\u2010Chakshuh, the \u201cEye of the World\u201d (our planetary world),\nand he is one of the three chief deities. He is called indifferently the\nSon of Dyaus or of Aditi, because no distinction is made with reference\nto, or scope allowed for, the esoteric meaning. Thus he is depicted as\ndrawn by seven horses, and by one horse with seven heads; the former\nreferring to his seven planets, the latter to their one common origin from\nthe One Cosmic Element. This \u201cOne Element\u201d is called figuratively \u201cFire.\u201d\nThe _Vedas_ teach that \u201cfire verily is all the deities.\u201d(179)\n\nThe meaning of the allegory is plain, for we have both the Dzyan\nCommentary and Modern Science to explain it, though the two differ in more\nthan one particular. The Occult Doctrine rejects the hypothesis born of\nthe Nebular Theory, that the (seven) great planets have evolved from the\nSun\u2019s central mass, of this our visible Sun, at any rate. The first\ncondensation of cosmic matter of course took place about a central\nnucleus, its parent Sun; but our Sun, it is taught, merely detached itself\nearlier than all the others, as the rotating mass contracted, and is their\nelder, bigger \u201cbrother\u201d therefore, not their \u201cfather.\u201d The eight Adityas,\nthe \u201cgods,\u201d are all formed from the eternal substance (cometary\nmatter(180)\u2014the Mother), or the \u201cworld\u2010stuff,\u201d which is both the fifth and\nthe sixth Cosmic Principle, the Up\u00e2dhi, or Basis, of the Universal Soul,\njust as in man, the Microcosm, Manas(181) is the Up\u00e2dhi of Buddhi.(182)\n\nThere is a whole poem on the pregenetic battles fought by the growing\nplanets before the final formation of Cosmos, thus accounting for the\nseemingly disturbed position of the systems of several planets; the plane\nof the satellites of some (of Neptune and Uranus, for instance, of which\nthe ancients knew nothing, it is said) being tilted over, thus giving them\nan appearance of retrograde motion. These planets are called the Warriors,\nthe Architects, and are accepted by the Roman Church as the leaders of the\nheavenly Hosts, thus showing the same traditions. Having evolved from\nCosmic Space, the Sun, we are taught\u2014before the final formation of the\nprimaries and the annulation of the planetary nebul\u00e6\u2014drew into the depths\nof his mass all the cosmic vitality he could, threatening to engulf his\nweaker \u201cBrothers,\u201d before the law of attraction and repulsion was finally\nadjusted; after which, he began feeding on \u201cthe Mother\u2019s refuse and\nsweat\u201d; in other words, on those portions of \u00c6ther (the \u201cBreath of the\nUniversal Soul\u201d), of the existence and constitution of which Science is as\nyet absolutely ignorant. As a theory of this kind has been propounded by\nSir William Grove,(183) who theorizes that the systems \u201care gradually\nchanging by atmospheric additions or subtractions, or by accretions and\ndiminutions arising from nebular substance,\u201d and again that \u201cthe sun may\ncondense gaseous matter as it travels in space, and so heat may be\nproduced\u201d\u2014the archaic teaching seems scientific enough, even in this\nage.(184) Mr. W. Mattieu Williams suggested that the diffused matter or\nEther, which is the recipient of the heat radiations of the Universe, is\nthereby drawn into the depths of the solar mass; expelling thence the\npreviously condensed and thermally exhausted Ether, it becomes compressed\nand gives up its heat, to be in turn itself driven out in a rarefied and\ncooled state, to absorb a fresh supply of heat, which he supposes to be in\nthis way taken up by the Ether, and again concentrated and redistributed\nby the Suns of the Universe.\n\nThis is about as close an approximation to the Occult teachings as Science\never imagined; for Occultism explains it by the \u201cdead breath,\u201d given back\nby M\u00e2rtt\u00e2nda, and his feeding on the \u201csweat and refuse\u201d of \u201cMother Space.\u201d\nWhat could affect Neptune,(185) Saturn and Jupiter, but little, would have\nkilled such comparatively small \u201cHouses\u201d as Mercury, Venus and Mars. As\nUranus was not known before the end of the eighteenth century, the name of\nthe fourth planet mentioned in the allegory must remain to us, so far, a\nmystery.\n\nThe \u201cBreath\u201d of all the \u201cSeven\u201d is said to be Bh\u00e2skara, the Light\u2010Maker,\nbecause they (the planets) were all comets and suns in their origin. They\nevolve into manvantaric life from Primeval Chaos (now the noumenon of\nirresolvable nebul\u00e6), by aggregation and accumulation of the primary\ndifferentiations of eternal Matter, according to the beautiful expression\nin the Commentary, \u201c_Thus the Sons of Light clothed themselves in the\nfabric of Darkness_.\u201d They are called allegorically the \u201cHeavenly Snails,\u201d\non account of their (to us) formless Intelligences inhabiting unseen their\nstarry and planetary homes, and so to speak, carrying them, as the snails\ndo, along with themselves in their revolution. The doctrine of a common\norigin for all the heavenly bodies and planets was, as we see, inculcated\nby the archaic astronomers, before Kepler, Newton, Leibnitz, Kant,\nHerschel and Laplace. Heat (the \u201cBreath\u201d), Attraction and Repulsion\u2014the\nthree great factors of Motion\u2014are the conditions under which all the\nmembers of this primitive family are born, develop, and die; to be reborn\nafter a Night of Brahm\u00e2, during which eternal Matter relapses periodically\ninto its primary undifferentiated state. The most attenuated gases can\ngive no idea of its nature to the modern Physicist. Centres of Forces at\nfirst, the invisible Sparks, or primordial Atoms, differentiate into\nMolecules, and become Suns\u2014passing gradually into objectivity\u2014gaseous,\nradiant, cosmic, the one \u201cWhirlwind\u201d (or Motion) finally giving the\nimpulse to the form, and the initial motion, regulated and sustained by\nthe never\u2010resting \u201cBreaths\u201d\u2014the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans.\n\n6. ... THEN THE SECOND SEVEN, WHO ARE THE LIPIKA, PRODUCED BY THE\nTHREE.(186) THE REJECTED SON IS ONE. THE \u201cSON\u2010SUNS\u201d ARE COUNTLESS.\n\nThe \u201cLipika,\u201d from the word _lipi_, \u201cwriting,\u201d means literally the\n\u201cScribes.\u201d(187) Mystically, these Divine Beings are connected with Karma,\nthe Law of Retribution, for they are the Recorders, or Annalists, who\nimpress on the (to us) invisible tablets of the Astral Light, \u201cthe great\npicture\u2010gallery of eternity\u201d\u2014a faithful record of every act, and even\nthought, of man; of all that was, is, or ever will be, in the phenomenal\nUniverse. As said in _Isis Unveiled_, this divine and unseen canvas is the\n_Book of Life_. As it is the Lipika who project into objectivity from the\npassive Universal Mind the ideal plan of the Universe, upon which the\n\u201cBuilders\u201d reconstruct the Kosmos after every Pralaya, it is they who\nstand parallel to the Seven Angels of the Presence, whom the Christians\nrecognize in the Seven \u201cPlanetary Spirits,\u201d or the \u201cSpirits of the Stars\u201d;\nand thus it is they who are the direct amanuenses of the Eternal\nIdeation\u2014or, as Plato calls it, the \u201cDivine Thought.\u201d The Eternal Record\nis no fantastic dream, for we meet with the same records in the world of\ngross matter. As Dr. Draper says:\n\n\n    A shadow never falls upon a wall without leaving thereupon a\n    permanent trace which might be made visible by resorting to proper\n    processes.... The portraits of our friends or landscape\u2010views may\n    be hidden on the sensitive surface from the eye, but they are\n    ready to make their appearance as soon as proper developers are\n    resorted to. A spectre is concealed on a silver or a glassy\n    surface, until, by our necromancy, we make it come forth into the\n    visible world. Upon the walls of our most private apartments,\n    where we think the eye of intrusion is altogether shut out, and\n    our retirement can never be profaned, there exist the vestiges of\n    our acts, silhouettes of whatever we have done.(188)\n\n\nDrs. Jevons and Babbage believe that every thought displaces the particles\nof the brain and, setting them in motion, scatters them throughout the\nuniverse: they also think that \u201ceach particle of the existing matter must\nbe a register of all that has happened.\u201d(189) Thus the ancient doctrine\nhas begun to acquire rights of citizenship in the speculations of the\nscientific world.\n\nThe forty \u201cAssessors,\u201d who stand in the region of Amenti as the accusers\nof the Soul before Osiris, belong to the same class of deities as the\nLipika, and might stand as parallels, were not the Egyptian gods so little\nunderstood in their esoteric meaning. The Hind\u00fb Chitragupta who reads out\nthe account of every Soul\u2019s life from his register, called Agra\u2010Sandh\u00e2n\u00ee;\nthe Assessors who read theirs from the Heart of the Defunct, which becomes\nan open book before either Yama, Minos, Osiris, or Karma\u2014are all so many\ncopies of, and variants from, the Lipika and their Astral Records.\nNevertheless, the Lipika are not deities connected with Death, but with\nLife Eternal.\n\nConnected as the Lipika are with the destiny of every man, and the birth\nof every child, whose life is already traced in the Astral Light\u2014not\nfatalistically, but only because the Future, like the Past, is ever alive\nin the Present\u2014they may also be said to exercise an influence on the\nScience of Horoscopy. We must admit the truth of the latter whether we\nwill or not. For, as observed by one of the modern professors of\nAstrology:\n\n\n    Now that photography has revealed to us the chemical influence of\n    the sidereal system, by fixing on the sensitized plate of the\n    apparatus milliards of stars and planets that had hitherto baffled\n    the efforts of the most powerful telescopes to discover, it\n    becomes easier to understand how our solar system can, at the\n    birth of a child, influence his brain\u2014virgin of any impression\u2014in\n    a definite manner and according to the presence on the zenith of\n    such or another zodiacal constellation.(190)\n\n\n\nStanza V.\n\n\n1. THE PRIMORDIAL SEVEN, THE FIRST SEVEN BREATHS OF THE DRAGON OF WISDOM,\nPRODUCE IN THEIR TURN FROM THEIR HOLY CIRCUMGYRATING BREATHS THE FIERY\nWHIRLWIND.\n\nThis is, perhaps, the most difficult of all the Stanzas to explain. Its\nlanguage is comprehensible only to him who is thoroughly versed in Eastern\nallegory, and its purposely obscure phraseology. The question will surely\nbe asked: Do the Occultists believe in all these \u201cBuilders,\u201d \u201cLipika,\u201d and\n\u201cSons of Light,\u201d as Entities, or are they merely imagery? To this the\nanswer is given as plainly: After due allowance for the imagery of\npersonified Powers, we must admit the existence of these Entities, if we\nwould not reject the existence of Spiritual Humanity within physical\nmankind. For the hosts of these Sons of Light, the Mind\u2010born Sons of the\nfirst manifested Ray of the Unknown All, are the very root of Spiritual\nMan. Unless we want to believe the unphilosophical dogma of a specially\ncreated soul for every human birth\u2014a fresh supply of these pouring in\ndaily, since \u201cAdam\u201d\u2014we have to admit the Occult teachings. This will be\nexplained in its place. Let us see, now, what may be the meaning of this\nOccult Stanza.\n\nThe Doctrine teaches that, in order to become a divine, fully conscious\nGod\u2014aye, even the highest\u2014the Spiritual Primeval Intelligences must pass\nthrough the human stage. And when we say human, this does not apply merely\nto our terrestrial humanity, but to the mortals that inhabit any world,\n_i.e._, to those Intelligences that have reached the appropriate\nequilibrium between matter and spirit, as _we_ have now, ever since the\nmiddle point of the Fourth Root Race of the Fourth Round was passed. Each\nEntity must have won for itself the right of becoming divine, through\nself\u2010experience. Hegel, the great German thinker, must have known or\nsensed intuitionally this truth, when he said, that the Unconscious\nevolved the Universe only \u201cin the hope of attaining clear self\u2010\nconsciousness,\u201d in other words, of becoming Man; for this is also the\nsecret meaning of the oft recurring Pur\u00e2nic phrase, of Brahm\u00e2 being\nconstantly \u201cmoved by the desire to create.\u201d This explains also the hidden\nKabalistic meaning of the saying: \u201cThe Breath becomes a stone; the stone,\na plant; the plant, an animal; the animal, a man; the man, a spirit; and\nthe spirit, a god.\u201d The Mind\u2010born Sons, the Rishis, the Builders, etc.,\nwere all Men\u2014of whatever forms and shapes\u2014in other worlds and in preceding\nManvantaras.\n\nThis subject being so very mystical, it is most difficult to explain it in\nall its details and bearings; for the whole mystery of evolutionary\ncreation is contained therein. A sentence or two in the Shloka vividly\nrecalls to mind similar sentences in the _Kabalah_ and the phraseology of\nthe King Psalmist.(191) Both, when speaking of God, show him making the\nwind his messenger and his \u201cministers a flaming fire.\u201d But in the Esoteric\nDoctrine it is used figuratively. The \u201cFiery Whirl\u2010wind\u201d is the\nincandescent cosmic dust which only follows magnetically, as the iron\nfilings follow the magnet, the directing thought of the \u201cCreative Forces.\u201d\nYet, this cosmic dust is something more; for every atom in the Universe\nhas the potentiality of self\u2010consciousness in it, and is, like the Monads\nof Leibnitz, a Universe in itself, and _for_ itself. _It is an atom and an\nangel_.\n\nIn this connection it should be noted that one of the luminaries of the\nmodern Evolutionist School, Mr. A. R. Wallace, when discussing the\ninadequacy of \u201cnatural selection\u201d as the sole factor in the development of\nphysical man, practically concedes the whole point here discussed. He\nholds that the evolution of man was directed and furthered by superior\nIntelligences, whose agency is a necessary factor in the scheme of Nature.\nBut once the operation of these Intelligences is admitted in one place, it\nis only a logical deduction to extend it still further. No hard and fast\nline can be drawn.\n\n2. THEY MAKE OF HIM THE MESSENGER OF THEIR WILL (_a_). THE DZYU BECOMES\nFOHAT: THE SWIFT SON OF THE DIVINE SONS, WHOSE SONS ARE THE LIPIKA,(192)\nRUNS CIRCULAR ERRANDS. FOHAT IS THE STEED, AND THE THOUGHT IS THE\nRIDER.(193) HE PASSES LIKE LIGHTNING THROUGH THE FIERY CLOUDS(194) (_b_);\nTAKES THREE, AND FIVE, AND SEVEN STRIDES THROUGH THE SEVEN REGIONS ABOVE,\nAND THE SEVEN BELOW.(195) HE LIFTS HIS VOICE, AND CALLS THE INNUMERABLE\nSPARKS,(196) AND JOINS THEM TOGETHER (_c_).\n\n(_a_) This shows the \u201cPrimordial Seven\u201d using for their Vehicle, (V\u00e2hana,\nor the manifested subject which becomes the symbol of the Power directing\nit) Fohat, called in consequence, the \u201cMessenger of their Will\u201d\u2014the \u201cFiery\nWhirlwind.\u201d\n\n(_b_) \u201cDzyu becomes Fohat\u201d\u2014the expression itself shows it. Dzyu is the one\nReal (Magical) Knowledge, or Occult Wisdom; which, dealing with eternal\ntruths and primal causes, becomes almost omnipotence when applied in the\nright direction. Its antithesis is Dzyu\u2010mi, that which deals with\nillusions and false appearances only, as in our exoteric modern sciences.\nIn this case, Dzyu is the expression of the collective Wisdom of the\nDhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas.\n\nAs the reader is supposed not to be acquainted with the Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas, it\nis as well to say at once that, _according to the Orientalists_, there are\nfive Dhy\u00e2nis who are the Celestial Buddhas, of whom the Human Buddhas are\nthe manifestations in the world of form and matter. Esoterically, however,\nthe Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas are seven, of whom five only have hitherto\nmanifested,(197) and two are to come in the Sixth and Seventh Root\u2010Races.\nThey are, so to speak, the eternal prototypes of the Buddhas who appear on\nthis earth, each of whom has his particular divine prototype. So, for\ninstance, Amit\u00e2bha is the Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddha of Gautama Sh\u00e2kyamuni, manifesting\nthrough him whenever this great Soul incarnates on earth as He did in\nTzonkha\u2010pa.(198) As the synthesis of the seven Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas,\nAvalokiteshvara was the first Buddha (the Logos), and Amit\u00e2bha is the\ninner \u201cGod\u201d of Gautama, who, in China, is called Amida (Buddha). They are,\nas Prof. Rhys Davids correctly states, \u201cthe glorious counterparts in the\nmystic world, free from the debasing conditions of this material life,\u201d of\nevery earthly mortal Buddha\u2014the liberated M\u00e2nushi\u2010Buddhas appointed to\ngovern the Earth in this Round. They are the \u201cBuddhas of Contemplation,\u201d\nand are all Anup\u00e2daka (parentless), _i.e._, self\u2010born of the divine\nessence. The exoteric teaching\u2014which says that every Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddha has the\nfaculty of creating from himself an equally celestial son, a Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010\nBodhisattva, who, after the decease of the M\u00e2nushi\u2010Buddha, has to carry\nout the work of the latter\u2014rests on the fact that, owing to the highest\nInitiation performed by one overshadowed by the \u201cSpirit of Buddha\u201d\u2014who is\ncredited by the Orientalists with having created the five Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010\nBuddhas!\u2014a candidate becomes virtually a Bodhisattva, created such by the\nHigh Initiator.\n\n(_c_) Fohat, being one of the most, if not the most important character in\nEsoteric cosmogony, should be minutely described. As in the oldest Grecian\ncosmogony, which differed widely from the later mythology, Eros is the\nthird person in the primeval trinity, Chaos, G\u00e6a, Eros\u2014answering to the\nKabalistic Trinity, Ain Suph, the Boundless All (for Chaos is Space, from\n\u03c7\u03b1\u03af\u03bd\u03c9, to open wide, to be void), Shekinah and the Ancient of Days, or the\nHoly Ghost\u2014so Fohat is one thing in the yet Unmanifested Universe, and\nanother in the phenomenal and Cosmic World. In the latter, he is that\noccult, electric, vital power, which, under the Will of the Creative\nLogos, unites and brings together all forms, giving them the first\nimpulse, which in time becomes law. But in the Unmanifested Universe,\nFohat is no more this, than Eros is the later brilliant winged Cupid, or\nLove. Fohat has naught to do with Cosmos yet, since Cosmos is not born,\nand the Gods still sleep in the bosom of \u201cFather\u2010Mother.\u201d He is an\nabstract philosophical idea. He produces nothing yet by himself; he is\nsimply that potential creative Power, in virtue of whose action the\nNoumenon of all future phenomena divides, so to speak, but to reunite in a\nmystic supersensuous act, and emit the creative Ray. When the \u201cDivine Son\u201d\nbreaks forth, then Fohat becomes the propelling force, the active Power\nwhich causes the One to become Two and Three\u2014on the cosmic plane of\nmanifestation. The triple One differentiates into the Many, and then Fohat\nis transformed into that force which brings together the elemental atoms,\nand makes them aggregate and combine. We find an echo of this primeval\nteaching in early Greek mythology. Erebus and Nux are born out of Chaos,\nand, under the action of Eros, give birth in their turn to \u00c6ther and\nHemera, the light of the superior and the light of the inferior, or\nterrestrial, regions. Darkness generates light. Compare in the _Pur\u00e2nas_\nBrahm\u00e2\u2019s Will or \u201cDesire\u201d to create; and in the Ph\u0153nician cosmogony of\nSanchuniathon the doctrine that Desire, \u03c0\u03cc\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2, is the principle of\ncreation.\n\nFohat is closely related to the \u201cOne Life.\u201d From the Unknown One, the\nInfinite Totality, the Manifested One, or the periodical, Manvantaric\nDeity, emanates; and this is the Universal Mind, which, separated from its\nFountain\u2010Source, is the Demiurge or the Creative Logos of the Western\nKabalists, and the Four\u2010faced Brahm\u00e2 of the Hind\u00fb religion. In its\ntotality, viewed, in the Esoteric doctrine, from the standpoint of\nmanifested Divine Thought, it represents the Hosts of the higher Creative\nDhy\u00e2n Chohans. Simultaneously with the evolution of the Universal Mind,\nthe Concealed Wisdom of Adi\u2010Buddha\u2014the One Supreme and Eternal\u2014manifests\nitself as Avalokiteshvara (or Manifested \u00ceshvara), which is the Osiris of\nthe Egyptians, the Ahura\u2010Mazda of the Zoroastrians, the Heavenly Man of\nthe Hermetic philosophers, the Logos of the Platonists, and the \u00c2tman of\nthe Ved\u00e2ntins.(199) By the action of the Manifested Wisdom, or\nMahat\u2014represented by these innumerable centres of spiritual energy in the\nKosmos\u2014the Reflection of the Universal Mind, which is Cosmic Ideation and\nthe Intellectual Force accompanying such Ideation, becomes objectively the\nFohat of the Buddhist esoteric philosopher. Fohat, running along the seven\nprinciples of \u00c2k\u00e2sha, acts upon manifested Substance, or the One Element,\nas declared above, and, by differentiating it into various centres of\nenergy, sets in motion the law of Cosmic Evolution, which, in obedience to\nthe Ideation of the Universal Mind, brings into existence all the various\nstates of being in the manifested Solar System.\n\nThe Solar System, brought into existence by these agencies, consists of\nSeven Principles, like everything else within these centres. Such is the\nteaching of the Trans\u2010Him\u00e2layan Esotericism. Every philosophy, however,\nhas its own way of dividing these principles.\n\nFohat, then, is the personified electric vital power, the transcendental\nbinding unity of all cosmic energies, on the unseen as on the manifested\nplanes, the action of which resembles\u2014on an immense scale\u2014that of a living\nForce created by Will, in those phenomena where the seemingly subjective\nacts on the seemingly objective, and propels it to action. Fohat is not\nonly the living Symbol and Container of that Force, but is looked upon by\nthe Occultists as an Entity; the forces it acts upon being cosmic, human\nand terrestrial, and exercising their influence on all these planes\nrespectively. On the earthly plane, its influence is felt in the magnetic\nand active force generated by the strong desire of the magnetizer. On the\ncosmic, it is present in the constructive power that, in the formation of\nthings\u2014from the planetary system down to the glow\u2010worm and simple\ndaisy\u2014carries out the plan in the mind of Nature, or in the Divine\nThought, with regard to the development and growth of a particular thing.\nIt is, metaphysically, the objectivized Thought of the Gods, the \u201cWord\nmade flesh\u201d on a lower scale, and the messenger of cosmic and human\nIdeation; the active force in Universal Life. In its secondary aspect,\nFohat is the Solar Energy, the electric vital fluid, and the preserving\nFourth Principle, the Animal Soul of Nature, so to say, or\u2014Electricity.\n\nIn 1882, the President of the Theosophical Society, Col. Olcott, was taken\nto task for asserting in one of his lectures that Electricity is matter.\nSuch, nevertheless, is the teaching of the Occult Doctrine. \u201cForce,\u201d\n\u201cEnergy,\u201d may be better names for it, so long as European Science knows so\nlittle about its true nature; yet matter it is, as much as Ether is\nmatter, since it is as atomic, though indeed several removes from Ether.\nIt seems ridiculous to argue that because a thing is imponderable to\nScience, therefore it cannot be called matter. Electricity is\n\u201cimmaterial,\u201d in the sense that its molecules are not subject to\nperception and experiment; yet it may be\u2014and Occultism says it is\u2014atomic;\ntherefore it is matter. But even supposing it were unscientific to speak\nof it in such terms, once Electricity is called in Science a source of\nEnergy, Energy simply, and a Force\u2014where is that Force or that Energy\nwhich can be thought of without thinking of matter? Maxwell, a\nmathematician and one of the greatest authorities upon Electricity and its\nphenomena, said, years ago, that Electricity was matter, not motion\nmerely. \u201cIf we accept the hypothesis that the elementary substances are\ncomposed of atoms, we cannot avoid concluding that electricity also,\npositive as well as negative, is divided into definite elementary\nportions, which behave like atoms of electricity.\u201d(200) We will go further\nthan this, and assert that Electricity is not only Substance, but that it\nis an emanation from an Entity, which is neither God nor Devil, but one of\nthe numberless Entities that rule and guide our world, according to the\neternal Law of Karma.\n\nTo return to Fohat, it is connected with Vishnu and S\u00fbrya in the early\ncharacter of the former God; for Vishnu is not a high God in the _Rig\nVeda_. The name Vishnu is from the root _vish_, \u201cto pervade,\u201d and Fohat is\ncalled the \u201cPervader\u201d and the Manufacturer, because he shapes the atoms\nfrom crude material.(201) In the sacred texts of the _Rig Veda_, Vishnu is\nalso \u201ca manifestation of the Solar Energy, and is described as striding\nthrough the seven regions of the Universe in three steps,\u201d the Vedic God\nhaving little in common with the Vishnu of later times. Therefore the two\nare identical in this particular feature, and one is the copy of the\nother.\n\nThe Three and Seven \u201cStrides\u201d refer to the seven spheres inhabited by man,\nin the Esoteric Doctrine, as well as to the seven regions of the Earth.\nNotwithstanding the frequent objections made by would\u2010be Orientalists, the\nSeven Worlds, or Spheres, of our Planetary Chain are distinctly referred\nto in the exoteric Hind\u00fb scriptures. But how strangely all these numbers\nare connected with like numbers in other cosmogonies and with their\nsymbols, can be seen from the comparisons and parallelisms made by\nstudents of old religions. The \u201cthree strides of Vishnu,\u201d through the\n\u201cseven regions of the Universe,\u201d of the _Rig Veda_, have been variously\nexplained by commentators as meaning fire, lightning and the sun,\ncosmically, and as having been taken in the earth, the atmosphere, and the\nsky; more philosophically\u2014and in the astronomical sense, very\ncorrectly\u2014they are explained by Aurnav\u00e2bha as being the various positions\nof the sun, rising, noon, and setting. Esoteric Philosophy alone explains\nit clearly, though the _Zohar_ has laid it down very philosophically and\ncomprehensively. It is plainly demonstrated therein that in the beginning\nthe Elohim (Alhim) were called Achad, \u201cOne,\u201d or the \u201cDeity, One in Many,\u201d\na very simple idea in a pantheistic conception\u2014pantheistic in its\nphilosophical sense, of course. Then came the change, \u201cJehovah is Elohim,\u201d\nthus unifying the multiplicity and taking the first step towards\nMonotheism. Now to the query, \u201cHow is Jehovah Elohim?\u201d the answer is, \u201cBy\nThree Steps\u201d from below. The meaning is plain. The Steps are symbols, and\nemblematic, mutually and correlatively, of Spirit, Soul and Body (Man); of\nthe Circle, transformed into Spirit, the Soul of the World and its Body\n(or Earth). Stepping out of the Circle of Infinity, that no man\ncomprehendeth, Ain Suph\u2014the Kabalistic synonym for Parabrahman, for the\nZero\u00e2na Akerne, of the Mazdeans, or for any other \u201cUnknowable\u201d\u2014becomes\n\u201cOne\u201d (the Achad, the Eka, the Ahu); then he (or it) is transformed by\nevolution into the \u201cOne in Many,\u201d the Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas or the Elohim, or\nagain the Amshaspends, his third Step being taken into the generation of\nthe flesh, or Man. And from Man, or Jah\u2010Hovah, \u201cmale\u2010female,\u201d the _inner_\ndivine entity becomes, on the metaphysical plane, once more the Elohim.\n\nThe numbers 3, 5, and 7 are prominent in speculative Masonry, as shown in\n_Isis Unveiled_. A Mason writes:\n\n\n    There are the 3, 5, and 7 steps to show a circular walk. The three\n    faces of 3, 3; 5, 3; and 7, 3; etc., etc. Sometimes it comes in\n    this form: 753/2 = 376.5, and 7535/2 = 3817.5, and the ratio of\n    20612/6561 feet for cubit measure gives the Great Pyramid\n    measures.\n\n\nThree, five and seven are mystical numbers, and the last and the first are\nas greatly honoured by Masons as by Parsis\u2014the Triangle being a symbol of\nDeity everywhere.(202) As a matter of course, Doctors of Divinity\u2014Cassel,\nfor instance\u2014show the _Zohar_ explaining and supporting the Christian\nTrinity(!). It is the latter, however, that had its origin from the\n[triangle], in the archaic Occultism and Symbology of the Heathen. The\nThree Strides relate metaphysically to the descent of Spirit into Matter,\nof the Logos falling as a ray into the spirit, then into the soul, and\nfinally into the human physical form of man, in which it becomes Life.\n\nThe Kabalistic idea is identical with the Esotericism of the archaic\nperiod. This Esotericism is the common property of all, and belongs\nneither to the \u00c2ryan Fifth Race, nor to any of its numerous sub\u2010races. It\ncannot be claimed by the Turanians, so\u2010called, the Egyptians, Chinese,\nChaldeans, or by any of the seven divisions of the Fifth Root Race, but\nreally belongs to the Third and Fourth Root Races, whose descendants we\nfind in the Seed of the Fifth, the earliest \u00c2ryans. The Circle was with\nevery nation the symbol of the Unknown\u2014\u201cBoundless Space,\u201d the abstract\ngarb of an ever present abstraction\u2014the Incognizable Deity. It represents\nlimitless Time in Eternity. The Zero\u00e2na Akerne is also the \u201cBoundless\nCircle of Unknown Time,\u201d from which Circle issues the radiant Light\u2014the\nUniversal Sun, or Ormazd(203)\u2014and the latter is identical with Cronus, in\nhis \u00c6olian form, that of a Circle. For the Circle is Sar and Saros, or\nCycle. It was the Babylonian God whose circular horizon was the visible\nsymbol of the invisible, while the Sun was the One Circle from which\nproceeded the cosmic orbs, of which he was considered the leader. Zero\u00e2na,\nis the Chakra, or Circle, of Vishnu, the mysterious emblem which is,\naccording to the definition of a Mystic, \u201ca curve of such a nature that as\nto any, the least possible, part thereof, if the curve be protracted\neither way, it will proceed and finally re\u00ebnter upon itself, and form one\nand the same curve\u2014or that which we call the circle.\u201d No better definition\ncould thus be given of the natural symbol and the evident nature of Deity,\nwhich having its circumference everywhere (the boundless) has, therefore,\nits central point also everywhere; in other words, is in every point of\nthe Universe. The invisible Deity is thus also the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, or the\nRishis, the primitive seven, and the nine, without, and ten, including,\ntheir synthetical unit, from which IT steps into Man.\n\nReturning to Commentary 4 of Stanza IV, the reader now will understand\nwhy, while the Trans\u2010Him\u00e2layan Chakra has inscribed within it [triangle]\n[square] [5\u2010point star with middle dot]\u2014triangle, first line, square,\nsecond line, and a pentacle with a point in the centre, either thus\n[5\u2010point star with middle dot] or some other variation\u2014the Kabalistic\nCircle of the Elohim reveals, when the letters of the word \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd (Alhim or\nElohim) are read numerically, the famous numerals 13514, or\nanagrammatically 31415\u2014the astronomical \u03c0 (pi), or the hidden meaning of\nthe Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas, of the Gebers, the Giburim, the Kabeiri, and the\nElohim, all signifying \u201cGreat Men,\u201d \u201cTitans,\u201d \u201cHeavenly Men,\u201d and, on\nearth, \u201cGiants.\u201d\n\nThe Seven was a Sacred Number with every nation; but none applied it to\nmore physiologically materialistic uses than the Hebrews. With them 7 was\npre\u00ebminently the generative number, and 9 the male causative one, forming\nas shown by the Kabalists the otz, \u05e2\u05e6 (90, 70), or \u201cthe Tree of the Garden\nof Eden,\u201d the \u201cdouble hermaphrodite rod\u201d of the Fourth Race. This was the\nsymbol of the \u201cHoly of Holies,\u201d the 3 and the 4 of sexual separation.\nNearly every one of the 22 Hebrew letters are merely phallic symbols. Of\nthe two letters\u2014as shown above\u2014one, the _ayin_, is a negative female\nletter, symbolically an eye; the the other a male letter, _tz\u00e2_, a\n_fish_\u2010hook or dart. Whereas with the Hind\u00fbs and \u00c2ryans generally, the\nsignificance was manifold, and related almost entirely to purely\nmetaphysical and astronomical truths. Their Rishis and Gods, their Demons\nand Heroes, have historical and ethical meanings.\n\nYet we are told by a Kabalist, who, in a work not yet published, contrasts\nthe _Kabalah_ and _Zohar_ with \u00c2ryan Esotericism, that:\n\n\n    The Hebrew clear, short, terse and exact, modes far and beyond\n    measure surpass the toddling word\u2010talk of the Hind\u00fbs\u2014just as by\n    parallelisms the Psalmist says, \u201cMy mouth speaks with my tongue, I\n    know not thy numbers\u201d (lxxi., 15).... The Hind\u00fb glyph shows by its\n    insufficiency in the large admixture of adventitious sides the\n    same borrowed plumage that the Greeks (the lying Greeks) had, and\n    that Masonry has: which, in the rough monosyllabic (and apparent)\n    poverty of the Hebrew, shows the latter to have come down from a\n    far more remote antiquity than any of these, and to have been the\n    source [! ?], or nearer the old original source than any of them.\n\n\nThis is entirely erroneous. Our learned brother and correspondent judges\nthe Hind\u00fb religious systems apparently by their _Sh\u00e2stras_ and _Pur\u00e2nas_,\nprobably the latter, and in their modern translations moreover, which\ndisfigure them out of all recognition. It is to their philosophical\nsystems that we have to turn, to their esoteric teaching, if we would make\na point of comparison. No doubt the symbology of the _Pentateuch_, and\neven of the _New Testament_, comes from the same source. But surely the\nPyramid of Cheops, whose measurements are all found, by Professor Piazzi\nSmyth, repeated in Solomon\u2019s alleged and mythical Temple, is not of a\nlater date than the Mosaic books? Hence, if there is any such great\nidentity as is claimed, it must be due to servile copying on the part of\nthe Jews, not on that of the Egyptians. The glyphs of the Jews\u2014and even\ntheir language, the Hebrew\u2014are not original. They are borrowed from the\nEgyptians, from whom Moses got his Wisdom; from the Coptic, the probable\nkinsman, if not parent, of the old Ph\u0153nician and from the Hyksos, their\n(alleged) ancestors, as Josephus shows.(204) Aye; but who are the Hyksos\nshepherds? And who the Egyptians? History knows nothing of the question,\nand speculates and theorizes out of the depths of the respective\nconsciousnesses of her historians.(205) \u201cKhamism, or old Coptic, is from\nWestern Asia, and contains some germ of the Semitic, thus bearing witness\nto the primitive cognate unity of the \u00c2ryan and Semitic races,\u201d says\nBunsen, who places the great events in Egypt 9,000 years B.C. The fact is\nthat in archaic Esotericism and \u00c2ryan thought we find a grand philosophy,\nwhereas in the Hebrew records we find only the most surprising ingenuity\nin inventing apotheoses for phallic worship and sexual theogony.\n\nThat the \u00c2ryans never made their religion rest solely on physiological\nsymbols, as the old Hebrews have done, may be seen in the exoteric Hind\u00fb\nScriptures. That these accounts, also, are blinds is shown by their\ncontradicting each other, a different explanation being found in almost\nevery _Pur\u00e2na_ and epic poem. Read esoterically, however, they will all\nyield the same meaning. Thus one account enumerates seven worlds,\nexclusive of the nether worlds, also seven in number; these fourteen upper\nand nether worlds have nothing to do with the classification of the\nSeptenary Chain and belong to the purely ethereal, invisible worlds. These\nwill be noticed elsewhere. Suffice it for the present to show that they\nare purposely referred to as though they belonged to the Chain. \u201cAnother\nenumeration calls the seven worlds earth, sky, heaven, middle region,\nplace of birth, mansion of the blest, and abode of truth; placing the Sons\nof Brahm\u00e2 in the sixth division, and stating the fifth, or Jana\u2010loka, to\nbe that where animals destroyed in the general conflagration are born\nagain.\u201d(206) Some real Esoteric teaching is given in the subsequent\nchapters on Symbolism. He who is prepared for it will understand the\nhidden meaning.\n\n3. HE IS THEIR GUIDING SPIRIT AND LEADER. WHEN HE COMMENCES WORK, HE\nSEPARATES THE SPARKS OF THE LOWER KINGDOM,(207) THAT FLOAT AND THRILL WITH\nJOY IN THEIR RADIANT DWELLINGS,(208) AND FORMS THEREWITH THE GERMS OF\nWHEELS. HE PLACES THEM IN THE SIX DIRECTIONS OF SPACE, AND ONE IN THE\nMIDDLE\u2014THE CENTRAL WHEEL.\n\n\u201cWheels,\u201d as already explained, are the centres of force, around which\nprimordial cosmic matter expands, and, passing through all the six stages\nof consolidation, becomes spheroidal and ends by being transformed into\nglobes or spheres. It is one of the fundamental dogmas of Esoteric\ncosmogony, that during the Kalpas (or \u00c6ons) of Life, Motion, which, during\nthe periods of Rest, \u201c_pulsates and thrills through every slumbering\natom_\u201d\u2014assumes an evergrowing tendency, from the first awakening of Kosmos\nto a new \u201cDay,\u201d to circular movement. \u201cThe Deity becomes a Whirlwind.\u201d It\nmay be asked, as the writer has not failed to ask: Who is there to\nascertain the difference in that Motion, since all Nature is reduced to\nits primal essence, and there can be no one\u2014not even one of the Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010\nChohans, who are all in Nirv\u00e2na\u2014to see it? The answer to this is:\nEverything in Nature has to be judged by analogy. Though the highest\nDeities (Archangels or Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas) are unable to penetrate the\nmysteries which lie too far beyond our Planetary System and the visible\nCosmos, yet there were great seers and prophets in olden times who were\nenabled to perceive the mystery of Breath and Motion retrospectively, when\nthe systems of Worlds were at rest and plunged in their periodic sleep.\n\nThe Wheels are also called Rot\u00e6\u2014the moving wheels of the celestial orbs\nparticipating in the world\u2019s creation\u2014when the meaning refers to the\nanimating principle of the stars and planets; for, in the _Kabalah_, they\nare represented by the Auphanim, the Angels of the Spheres and Stars, of\nwhich they are the informing Souls.(209)\n\nThis law of vortical movement in primordial matter is one of the oldest\nconceptions of Greek philosophy, whose first historical sages were nearly\nall Initiates of the Mysteries. The Greeks had it from the Egyptians, and\nthe latter from the Chaldeans, who had been the pupils of Br\u00e2hmans of the\nEsoteric school. Leucippus, and Democritus of Abdera\u2014the pupil of the\nMagi\u2014taught that this gyratory movement of the atoms and spheres existed\nfrom eternity.(210) Hicetas, Heraclides, Ecphantus, Pythagoras, and all\nhis pupils, taught the rotation of the earth; and \u00c2ryabhata of India,\nAristarchus, Seleucus, and Archimedes calculated its revolution as\nscientifically as the Astronomers do now; while the theory of Elemental\nVortices was known to Anaxagoras, and maintained by him 500 years B.C., or\nnearly 2,000 before it was taken up by Galileo, Descartes, Swedenborg, and\nfinally, with slight modifications, by Sir W. Thomson.(211) All such\nknowledge, if justice be only done, is an echo of the archaic doctrine, an\nattempt to explain which is now being made. How men of the last few\ncenturies have come to the same ideas and conclusions that were taught as\naxiomatic truths in the secrecy of the Adyta, dozens of millenniums ago,\nis a question that is treated separately. Some were led to it by the\nnatural progress in Physical Science and by independent observation;\nothers\u2014such as Copernicus, Swedenborg, and a few more\u2014their great learning\nnotwithstanding, owed their knowledge far more to intuitive than to\nacquired ideas, developed in the usual way by a course of study. That\nSwedenborg, who could not possibly have known anything of the esoteric\nideas of Buddhism, independently came near the Occult teaching in his\ngeneral conceptions, is shown by his essay on the Vortical Theory. In\nClissold\u2019s translation of it, quoted by Prof. Winchell,(212) we find the\nfollowing _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_:\n\n\n    The first cause is the infinite or unlimited. This gives existence\n    to the first finite or limited. [The Logos in its manifestation\n    and the Universe.] That which produces a limit is analogous to\n    motion. [See Stanza I _supra_.] The limit produced is a point, the\n    essence of which is motion; but being without parts, this essence\n    is not actual motion, but only a conatus to it. [In our doctrine\n    it is not a \u201cconatus,\u201d but a change from Eternal Vibration, in the\n    unmanifested, to Vortical Motion, in the phenomenal or manifested\n    World.] From this first proceed extension, space, figure, and\n    succession, or time. As in geometry a point generates a line, a\n    line a surface, and a surface a solid, so here the conatus of the\n    point tends towards lines, surfaces and solids. In other words,\n    the Universe is contained _in ovo_ in the first natural point.\n\n    The Motion toward which the conatus tends is circular, since the\n    circle is the most perfect of all figures.... \u201cThe most perfect\n    figure of the motion above described must be the perpetually\n    circular; that is to say, it must proceed from the centre to the\n    periphery and from the periphery to the centre.\u201d(213)\n\n\nThis is Occultism pure and simple.\n\nBy the \u201cSix Directions of Space\u201d is here meant the \u201cDouble Triangle,\u201d the\njunction and blending together of pure Spirit and Matter, of the Ar\u00fbpa and\nthe R\u00fbpa, of which the Triangles are a Symbol. This Double Triangle is a\nsign of Vishnu; it is Solomon\u2019s Seal, and the Shr\u00ee\u2010Antara of the Br\u00e2hmans.\n\n4. FOHAT TRACES SPIRAL LINES TO UNITE THE SIXTH TO THE SEVENTH\u2014THE CROWN\n(_a_). AN ARMY OF THE SONS OF LIGHT STANDS AT EACH ANGLE; THE LIPIKA, IN\nTHE MIDDLE WHEEL (_b_). THEY(214) SAY: \u201cTHIS IS GOOD.\u201d THE FIRST DIVINE\nWORLD IS READY; THE FIRST, THE SECOND.(215) THEN THE \u201cDIVINE AR\u00dbPA\u201d(216)\nREFLECTS ITSELF IN CHH\u00c2Y\u00c2 LOKA,(217) THE FIRST GARMENT OF ANUP\u00c2DAKA (_c_).\n\n(_a_) This tracing of \u201cspiral lines\u201d refers to the evolution of Man\u2019s as\nwell as of Nature\u2019s Principles; an evolution which takes place gradually,\nas does everything else in Nature. The Sixth Principle in Man (Buddhi, the\nDivine Soul), though a mere breath, in our conceptions, is still something\nmaterial when compared with Divine Spirit (\u00c2tm\u00e2), of which it is the\ncarrier or vehicle. Fohat, in his capacity of Divine Love (Eros), the\nelectric power of affinity and sympathy, is shown, allegorically, trying\nto bring the pure Spirit, the Ray inseparable from the One Absolute, into\nunion with the Soul, the two constituting in Man the Monad, and in Nature\nthe first link between the ever\u2010unconditioned and the manifested. \u201cThe\nFirst is now the Second [World]\u201d\u2014of the Lipikas\u2014has reference to the same.\n\n(_b_) The \u201cArmy\u201d at each angle is the Host of Angelic Beings (Dhy\u00e2n\nChohans), appointed to guide and watch over each respective region, from\nthe beginning to the end of a Manvantara. They are the \u201cMystic Watchers\u201d\nof the Christian Kabalists and Alchemists, and relate, symbolically as\nwell as cosmogonically, to the numerical system of the Universe. The\nnumbers with which these Celestial Beings are connected, are extremely\ndifficult to explain, as each number refers to several groups of distinct\nideas, according to the particular group of \u201cAngels\u201d which it is intended\nto represent. Herein lies the _nodus_ in the study of symbology, with\nwhich so many scholars, unable to untie it, have preferred dealing as\nAlexander dealt with the Gordian knot; hence erroneous conceptions and\nteachings, as a direct result.\n\n(_c_) The \u201cFirst is the Second,\u201d because the \u201cFirst\u201d cannot really be\nnumbered or regarded as such, for the First is the realm of noumena in its\nprimary manifestation, the threshold to the World of Truth, or Sat,\nthrough which the direct energy that radiates from the One Reality\u2014the\nNameless Deity\u2014reaches us. Here again, the untranslateable term Sat (Be\u2010\nness) is likely to lead to an erroneous conception, since that which is\nmanifested cannot be Sat, but is something phenomenal, not everlasting,\nnor, in truth, even sempiternal. It is co\u00ebval and co\u00ebxistent with the One\nLife, \u201cSecondless,\u201d but as a manifestation it is still a M\u00e2y\u00e2\u2014like the\nrest. This \u201cWorld of Truth,\u201d in the words of the Commentary, can be\ndescribed only as \u201c_a bright star dropped from the Heart of Eternity; the\nbeacon of hope on whose Seven Rays hang the Seven Worlds of Being_.\u201d Truly\nso; since these are the Seven Lights whose reflections are the human\nimmortal Monads\u2014the \u00c2tm\u00e2, or the irradiating Spirit of every creature of\nthe human family. First, this Septenary Light; then the \u201cDivine World\u201d\u2014the\ncountless lights lit at the primeval Light\u2014the Buddhis, or formless Divine\nSouls, of the last Ar\u00fbpa (Formless) World, the \u201cSum Total,\u201d in the\nmysterious language of the old Stanza.\n\nIn the Catechism, the Master is made to ask the pupil:\n\n_\u201c__Lift thy head, O Lanoo; dost thou see one, or countless lights above\nthee, burning in the dark midnight sky?__\u201d_\n\n_\u201c__I sense one Flame, O Gurudeva, I see countless undetached sparks\nshining in it.__\u201d_\n\n_\u201c__Thou sayest well. And now look around and into thyself. That light\nwhich burns inside thee, dost thou feel it different in anywise from the\nlight that shines in thy brother\u2010men?__\u201d_\n\n_\u201c__It is in no way different, though the prisoner is held in bondage by\nKarma, and though its outer garments delude the ignorant into saying,\n__\u2018__Thy Soul and My Soul__\u2019__.__\u201d_\n\nThe radical unity of the ultimate essence of each constituent part of\ncompounds in Nature\u2014from star to mineral atom, from the highest Dhy\u00e2n\nChohan to the smallest infusorium, in the fullest acceptation of the term,\nand whether applied to the spiritual, intellectual, or physical\nworlds\u2014this unity is the one fundamental law in Occult Science. \u201cThe Deity\nis boundless and infinite expansion,\u201d says an Occult axiom: hence, the\nname of Brahm\u00e2, as previously remarked.(218)\n\nThere is a deep philosophy underlying the earliest worship in the world,\nthe worship of the Sun and of Fire. Of all the Elements known to Physical\nScience, Fire is that which has ever eluded definite analysis. It is\nconfidently asserted that air is a mixture containing the gases oxygen and\nnitrogen. We view the Universe and the Earth as matter composed of\ndefinite chemical molecules. We speak of the primitive ten earths,\nendowing each with a Greek or Latin name. We say that water is,\nchemically, a compound of oxygen and hydrogen. But what is Fire? It is the\neffect of combustion, we are gravely answered. It is heat and light and\nmotion, and a correlation of physical and chemical forces in general. And\nthis scientific definition is philosophically supplemented by a\ntheological one in Webster\u2019s Dictionary, which explains fire as \u201cthe\ninstrument of punishment, or the punishment of the impenitent in another\nstate\u201d\u2014the \u201cstate,\u201d by the bye, being supposed to be spiritual; but, alas!\nthe presence of fire would seem to be a convincing proof of its material\nnature. Yet, speaking of the illusion of regarding phenomena as simple,\nbecause they are familiar, Professor Bain says:\n\n\n    Very familiar facts seem to stand in no need of explanation\n    themselves and to be the means of explaining whatever can be\n    assimilated to them. Thus, the boiling and evaporation of a liquid\n    is supposed to be a very simple phenomenon requiring no\n    explanation, and a satisfactory explanation of rarer phenomena.\n    That water should dry up is, to the uninstructed mind, a thing\n    wholly intelligible: whereas to the man acquainted with physical\n    science the liquid state is anomalous and inexplicable. The\n    lighting of a fire by a flame is a _great scientific difficulty_,\n    yet few people think so.(219)\n\n\nWhat says the Esoteric teaching with regard to Fire? \u201c_Fire is the most\nperfect and unadulterated reflection, in Heaven as on Earth, of the One\nFlame. It is Life and Death, the origin and the end of every material\nthing. It is divine Substance._\u201d Thus, not only the Fire\u2010Worshipper, the\nParsi, but even the wandering savage tribes of America, which proclaim\nthemselves \u201cborn of fire,\u201d show more science in their creeds and truth in\ntheir superstitions, than all the speculations of modern physics and\nlearning. The Christian who says, \u201cGod is a living Fire,\u201d and speaks of\nthe Pentecostal \u201cTongues of Fire\u201d and of the \u201cBurning Bush\u201d of Moses, is\nas much a fire\u2010worshipper as any other \u201cHeathen.\u201d Among the Mystics and\nKabalists, the Rosicrucians were those who defined Fire in the most\ncorrect way. Procure a sixpenny lamp, keep it only supplied with oil, and\nyou will be able to light at its flame the lamps, candles, and fires of\nthe whole globe without diminishing that flame. If the Deity, the radical\nOne, is an eternal and infinite Substance never consumed (\u201cthe Lord thy\nGod is a consuming fire\u201d), then it does not seem reasonable that the\nOccult teaching should be held as unphilosophical when it says: \u201cThus were\nformed the Ar\u00fbpa and R\u00fbpa [Worlds]: from One Light Seven Lights; from each\nof the Seven, seven times Seven\u201d etc., etc.\n\n5. FOHAT TAKES FIVE STRIDES(220) (_a_), AND BUILDS A WINGED WHEEL AT EACH\nCORNER OF THE SQUARE FOR THE FOUR HOLY ONES ... AND THEIR ARMIES(221)\n(_b_).\n\n(_a_) The \u201cStrides,\u201d as already explained in the last Commentary, refer to\nboth the cosmic and the human Principles\u2014the latter of which consist, in\nthe exoteric division, of three (Spirit, Soul and Body), and, in the\nesoteric calculation, of seven Principles\u2014three Rays of the Essence and\nfour Aspects.(222) Those who have studied Mr. Sinnett\u2019s _Esoteric\nBuddhism_ will easily grasp the nomenclature. There are two Esoteric\nschools beyond the Him\u00e2layas, or rather one school, divided into two\nsections\u2014one for the inner Lanoos, the other for the outer or semi\u2010lay\nChel\u00e2s; the first teaching a septenary, the other a six\u2010fold division of\nthe human Principles.\n\nFrom a cosmic point of view, Fohat taking \u201cFive Strides\u201d refers here to\nthe five upper planes of Consciousness and Being, the sixth and the\nseventh (counting downwards) being the astral and the terrestrial, or the\ntwo lower planes.\n\n(_b_) Four \u201cWinged Wheels at each corner ... for the Four Holy Ones and\ntheir Armies (Hosts).\u201d These are the \u201cFour Mah\u00e2r\u00e2jahs,\u201d or great Kings, of\nthe Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, the Devas, who preside each over one of the four\ncardinal points. They are the Regents, or Angels, who rule over the\nCosmical Forces of North, South, East and West, Forces having each a\ndistinct Occult property. These Beings are also connected with Karma, as\nthe latter needs physical and material agents to carry out its decrees,\nsuch as the four kinds of winds, for instance, professedly admitted by\nScience to have their respective evil and beneficent influences upon the\nhealth of mankind and every living thing. There is Occult philosophy in\nthe Roman Catholic doctrine which traces the various public calamities,\nsuch as epidemics of disease, and wars, and so on, to the invisible\n\u201cMessengers\u201d from North and West. \u201cThe glory of God comes from the way of\nthe East,\u201d says Ezekiel; while Jeremiah, Isaiah, and the Psalmist assure\ntheir readers that all the evil under the Sun comes from the North and the\nWest\u2014which, when applied to the Jewish nation, sounds like an undeniable\nprophecy. And this accounts also for St. Ambrose(223) declaring that it is\nprecisely for this reason that \u201cwe curse the North Wind, and that during\nthe ceremony of baptism we begin by turning towards the West [Sidereal],\nto renounce the better him who inhabits it; after which we turn to the\nEast.\u201d\n\nBelief in the Four Mah\u00e2r\u00e2jahs\u2014the Regents of the four cardinal points\u2014was\nuniversal and is now that of Christians, who call them, after St.\nAugustine, \u201cAngelic Virtues\u201d and \u201cSpirits,\u201d when enumerated by themselves,\nand \u201cDevils,\u201d when named by Pagans. But where is the difference between\nthe Pagans and the Christians in this case? Says the scholarly Vossius:\n\n\n    Though St. Augustine has said that every visible thing in this\n    world had an angelic virtue as an overseer near it, it is not\n    individuals but entire species of things that must be understood,\n    each such species having indeed its particular angel to watch it.\n    He is at one in this with all the philosophers ... For us these\n    angels are spirits separated from the objects.... whereas for the\n    [Pagan] philosophers they were gods.(224)\n\n\nConsidering the Ritual for the \u201cSpirits of the Stars,\u201d established by the\nRoman Catholic Church, these look suspiciously like \u201cgods,\u201d but they were\nno more honoured or worshipped by the ancient, nor are they by the modern,\nPagan rabble than they are now at Rome by the highly cultured Catholic\nChristians.\n\nFollowing Plato, Aristotle explained that the term \u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c7\u03b5\u1fd6\u03b1 was understood\nonly as meaning the incorporeal principles placed at each of the four\ngreat divisions of our cosmical world, to supervise them. Thus, no more\nthan Christians do Pagans _adore_ and _worship_ the Elements and the\n(imaginary) cardinal points, but the \u201cgods\u201d that respectively rule over\nthem. For the Church, there are two kinds of Sidereal Beings, Angels and\nDevils. For the Kabalist and Occultist, there is but one class, and\nneither Occultist nor Kabalist makes any difference between the \u201cRectors\nof Light\u201d and the \u201cRectores Tenebrarum,\u201d or Cosmocratores, whom the Roman\nChurch imagines and discovers in the \u201cRectors of Light,\u201d as soon as any\none of them is called by another name than the one she addresses him by.\nIt is not the Rector, or Mah\u00e2r\u00e2jah, who punishes or rewards, with or\nwithout \u201cGod\u2019s\u201d permission or order, but man himself\u2014his deeds, or Karma,\nattracting individually and collectively (as in the case of whole nations,\nsometimes) every kind of evil and calamity. We produce _Causes_, and these\nawaken the corresponding powers in the Sidereal World, which are\nmagnetically and irresistibly attracted to\u2014and re\u00e4ct upon\u2014those who\nproduce such causes; whether such persons are practically the evil\u2010doers,\nor simply \u201cthinkers\u201d who brood mischief. For thought is matter, we are\ntaught by Modern Science; and \u201cevery particle of the existing matter must\nbe a register of all that has happened,\u201d as Messrs. Jevons and Babbage in\ntheir _Principles of Science_ tell the profane. Modern Science is every\nday drawn more into the ma\u00eblstrom of Occultism; unconsciously, no doubt,\nstill very sensibly.\n\n\u201cThought is matter\u201d: not of course, however, in the sense of the German\nMaterialist Moleschott, who assures us that \u201cthought is the movement of\nmatter\u201d\u2014a statement of almost unparalleled absurdity. Mental states and\nbodily states are utterly contrasted as such. But that does not affect the\nposition that every thought, in addition to its physical accompaniment\n(brain\u2010change), exhibits an objective\u2014though to us supersensuously\nobjective\u2014aspect on the astral plane.(225)\n\nThe two main theories of Science as to the relations between Mind and\nMatter are Monism and Materialism. These two cover the whole ground of\nnegative psychology with the exception of the quasi\u2010occult views of the\nGerman Pantheistic schools.\n\nThe views of our present\u2010day scientific thinkers as to the relations\nbetween mind and matter may be reduced to the following two hypotheses.\nThese show that both views equally exclude the possibility of an\nindependent soul, distinct from the physical brain through which it\nfunctions. They are:\n\n(1.) _Materialism_, the theory which regards mental phenomena as the\nproduct of molecular change in the brain; _i.e._, as the outcome of a\ntransformation of motion into feeling (!). The cruder school once went so\nfar as to identify mind with a \u201cpeculiar mode of motion\u201d (!!), but this\nview is now happily regarded as absurd by most of the men of Science\nthemselves.\n\n(2.)_ Monism_, or the Single Substance doctrine, is the more subtle form\nof negative psychology, which one of its advocates, Professor Bain, ably\nterms \u201cguarded materialism.\u201d This doctrine, which commands a very wide\nassent, counting among its upholders such men as Lewes, Spencer, Ferrier,\nand others, while positing thought and mental phenomena generally as\nradically contrasted with matter, regards them as the two sides, or\naspects, of one and the same substance in some of its conditions. Thought\nas thought, they say, is utterly contrasted with material phenomena, but\nit must be also regarded as only \u201cthe subjective side of nervous\nmotion\u201d\u2014whatever our learned men may mean by this.\n\nTo return to the commentary on the Four Mah\u00e2r\u00e2jahs, however, in the\nEgyptian temples, according to Clemens Alexandrinus, an immense curtain\nseparated the tabernacle from the place for the congregation. The Jews had\nthe same. In both, the curtain was drawn over five pillars (the Pentacle),\nsymbolizing our five senses and five Root Races esoterically, while the\nfour colours of the curtain represented the four cardinal points and the\nfour terrestrial elements. The whole was an allegorical symbol. It is\nthrough the four high Rulers over the four points and elements that our\nfive senses may become cognizant of the hidden truths of Nature; and not\nat all, as Clemens would have it, that it is the elements _per se_ that\nfurnished the Pagans with Divine Knowledge or the Knowledge of God.(226)\nWhile the Egyptian emblem was spiritual, that of the Jews was purely\nmaterialistic, and, indeed, honoured only the blind elements and the\nimaginary \u201cpoints.\u201d For what was the meaning of the square Tabernacle\nraised by Moses in the wilderness, if it had not the same cosmical\nsignificance? \u201cThou shalt make an hanging ... of blue, purple, and scarlet\n... five pillars of shittim wood for the hanging ... four brazen rings in\nthe four corners thereof ... boards of fine wood for the four sides,\nNorth, South, West, and East ... of the Tabernacle ... with Cherubims of\ncunning work.\u201d(227) The Tabernacle and the square courtyard, Cherubim and\nall, were precisely the same as those in the Egyptian temples. The square\nform of the Tabernacle meant just the same thing as it still means, to\nthis day, in the exoteric worship of the Chinese and Tibetans\u2014the four\ncardinal points signifying that which the four sides of the pyramids,\nobelisks, and other such square erections mean. Josephus takes care to\nexplain the whole thing. He declares that the Tabernacle pillars were the\nsame as those raised at Tyre to the four elements, which were placed on\npedestals whose four angles faced the four cardinal points; adding that\n\u201cthe angles of the pedestals had the four figures of the Zodiac\u201d on them,\nwhich represented the same orientation.(228)\n\nThe idea may be traced in the Zoroastrian caves, in the rock\u2010cut temples\nof India, and in all the sacred square buildings of antiquity that have\nsurvived to this day. This is shown definitely by Layard, who finds the\nfour cardinal points, and the four primitive elements, in the religion of\nevery country, under the shape of square obelisks, the four sides of the\npyramids, etc., etc. Of these elements and their points the Four\nMah\u00e2r\u00e2jahs were the regents and directors.\n\nIf the student would know more of them, he has but to compare the Vision\nof Ezekiel (ch. i.) with what is known of Chinese Buddhism, even in its\nexoteric teachings, and examine the outward shape of these \u201cGreat Kings of\nthe Devas.\u201d In the opinion of the Rev. Joseph Edkins, \u201cthey preside each\nover one of the four continents into which the Hind\u00fbs divide the world....\nEach leads an army of spiritual beings to protect mankind and\nBuddhism.\u201d(229) With the exception of favouritism towards Buddhism, the\nfour Celestial Beings are precisely this. The Hind\u00fbs, however, happen to\ndivide the world into seven continents, exoterically as well as\nesoterically; and their four Cosmic Devas are eight, presiding over the\neight points of the compass and not over the continents.\n\nThe \u201cFour\u201d are the protectors of mankind and also the agents of Karma on\nEarth, whereas the Lipika are concerned with Humanity\u2019s hereafter. At the\nsame time they are the four living creatures, \u201cwho have the likeness of a\nman,\u201d of Ezekiel\u2019s vision, called by the translators of the Bible,\n\u201cCherubim,\u201d \u201cSeraphim,\u201d etc.; by the Occultists, \u201cWinged Globes,\u201d \u201cFiery\nWheels\u201d; and in the Hind\u00fb Pantheon, by a number of different names. All\nthese Gandharvas, the \u201cSweet Songsters,\u201d the Asuras, Kinnaras, and N\u00e2gas,\nare the allegorical descriptions of the Four Mah\u00e2r\u00e2jahs. The Seraphim are\nthe fiery Serpents of Heaven which we find in a passage, describing Mount\nMeru as \u201cthe exalted mass of glory, the venerable haunt of gods and\nheavenly choristers ... not to be reached by sinful men ... because\nguarded by Serpents.\u201d They are called the Avengers, and the \u201cWinged\nWheels.\u201d\n\nTheir mission and character being explained, let us see what the Christian\nbible\u2010interpreters say of the Cherubim. \u201cThe word signifies in Hebrew,\nfulness of knowledge; these angels are so called from their exquisite\nKnowledge, and were therefore used for the punishment of men who affected\ndivine Knowledge.\u201d (Interpreted by Cruden in his _Concordance_, from\n_Genesis_ iii. 24.) Very well; and vague as the information is, it shows\nthat the Cherub placed at the gate of the Garden of Eden, after the\n\u201cFall,\u201d suggested to the venerable interpreters the idea of punishment\nconnected with forbidden Science or divine Knowledge\u2014one that generally\nleads to another \u201cFall,\u201d that of the gods or \u201cGod,\u201d in man\u2019s estimation.\nBut as the good old Cruden knew nought of Karma, he may be forgiven. Yet\nthe allegory is suggestive. From Meru, the abode of gods, to Eden, the\ndistance is very small, and from the Hind\u00fb Serpents to the Ophite\nCherubim, the third out of the seven of which was the Dragon, the\nseparation is still smaller, for both watched the entrance to the realm of\nSecret Knowledge. Ezekiel, moreover, plainly describes the four Cosmic\nAngels:\n\n\n    I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind, ... a ... cloud and a fire\n    infolding it ... also out of the midst thereof came the likeness\n    of four living creatures ... they had the likeness of a man. And\n    every one had four faces and ... four wings ... the face of a\n    man,(230) and the face of a lion ... the face of an ox, and ...\n    the face of an eagle.... Now as I beheld the living creatures,\n    behold one wheel upon the Earth ... with his four faces ... as it\n    were a wheel in the middle of a wheel ... for the spirit of the\n    living creature was in the wheel.(231)\n\n\nThere are three chief Groups of Builders, and as many of the Planetary\nSpirits and the Lipika, each Group being again divided into seven sub\u2010\ngroups. It is impossible, even in such a large work as this, to enter into\na minute examination of even the three principal Groups, as it would\ndemand an extra volume. The Builders are the representatives of the first\n\u201cMind\u2010Born\u201d Entities, therefore of the primeval Rishi\u2010Praj\u00e2pati; also of\nthe Seven great Gods of Egypt, of which Osiris is the chief; of the Seven\nAmshaspends of the Zoroastrians, with Ormazd at their head; of the \u201cSeven\nSpirits of the Face\u201d; of the Seven Sephiroth separated from the first\nTriad, etc., etc.(232) They build, or rather rebuild, every \u201cSystem\u201d after\nthe \u201cNight.\u201d The Second Group of the Builders is the Architect of our\nPlanetary Chain exclusively; and the Third, the Progenitor of our\nHumanity\u2014the macrocosmic prototype of the microcosm.\n\nThe Planetary Spirits are the informing spirits of the Stars in general,\nand of the Planets especially. They rule the destinies of men who are all\nborn under one or other of their constellations; the Second and Third\nGroups pertaining to other systems have the same functions, and all rule\nvarious departments in Nature. In the Hind\u00fb exoteric Pantheon they are the\nguardian deities who preside over the eight points of the compass\u2014the four\ncardinal and the four intermediate points\u2014and are called Lokap\u00e2las,\n\u201cSupporters or Guardians of the World\u201d (in our visible Cosmos), of which\nIndra (East), Yama (South), Varuna (West), and Kuvera (North) are the\nchief; their elephants and spouses pertaining of course to fancy and\nafterthought, though all of them have an Occult significance.\n\nThe Lipika, a description of whom is given in Commentary 6 of Stanza IV,\nare the Spirits of the Universe, whereas the Builders are only our own\nplanetary deities. The former belong to the most Occult portion of\ncosmogenesis, which cannot be given here. Whether the Adepts\u2014even the\nhighest\u2014know this angelic order in the completeness of its triple degrees,\nor only the lower one connected with the records of our world, is\nsomething which the writer is unprepared to say, and she would rather\nincline to the latter supposition. Of its highest grade one thing only is\ntaught: the Lipika are connected with Karma\u2014being its direct Recorders.\nThe Symbol for Sacred and Secret Knowledge in antiquity was universally a\nTree, by which a Scripture or a Record was also meant. Hence the word\nLipika, the Writers or Scribes; the Dragons, symbols of Wisdom, who guard\nthe Trees of Knowledge; the \u201cgolden\u201d Apple\u2010Tree of the Hesperides; the\n\u201cLuxuriant Trees\u201d and vegetation of Mount Meru, guarded by Serpents.\nJuno\u2019s giving Jupiter, on her marriage, a Tree with golden fruit, is\nanother form of Eve offering Adam the apple from the Tree of Knowledge.\n\n6. THE LIPIKA CIRCUMSCRIBE THE TRIANGLE, THE FIRST ONE,(233) THE CUBE, THE\nSECOND ONE, AND THE PENTACLE WITHIN THE EGG(234) (_a_).\n\nIT IS THE RING CALLED \u201cPASS NOT\u201d FOR THOSE WHO DESCEND AND ASCEND;(235)\nWHO DURING THE KALPA ARE PROGRESSING TOWARDS THE GREAT DAY \u201cBE WITH US\u201d\n(_b_).... THUS WERE FORMED THE AR\u00dbPA AND THE R\u00dbPA:(236) FROM ONE LIGHT,\nSEVEN LIGHTS; FROM EACH OF THE SEVEN, SEVEN TIMES SEVEN LIGHTS. THE WHEELS\nWATCH THE RING....\n\nThe Stanza proceeds with a minute classification of the Orders of the\nAngelic Hierarchy. From the Group of Four and Seven emanates the Mind\u2010Born\nGroups of Ten, of Twelve, of Twenty\u2010one, etc., all these divided again\ninto sub\u2010groups of Heptads, Enneads, Dodecads, and so on, until the mind\nis lost in this endless enumeration of celestial Hosts and Beings, each\nhaving its distinct task in the ruling of the visible Cosmos during its\nexistence.\n\n(_a_) The Esoteric meaning of the first sentence of the Shloka is, that\nthose who have been called Lipikas, the Recorders of the Karmic Ledger,\nmake an impassible barrier between the personal _Ego_ and the impersonal\n_Self_, the Noumenon and Parent\u2010Source of the former. Hence the allegory.\nThey circumscribe the manifested world of matter within the Ring \u201cPass\nNot.\u201d This world is the objective symbol of the One divided into the Many,\non the planes of Illusion, of Adi (the \u201cFirst\u201d) or of Eka (the \u201cOne\u201d); and\nthis One is the collective aggregate, or totality, of the principal\nCreators or Architects of this visible Universe. In Hebrew Occultism their\nname is both Achath, feminine, \u201cOne,\u201d and Achad, \u201cOne\u201d again, but\nmasculine. The Monotheists have taken, and are still taking, advantage of\nthe profound esotericism of the _Kabalah_, to apply the name by which the\nOne Supreme Essence is known, to _its_ manifestation, the Sephiroth\u2010\nElohim, and call it Jehovah. But this is quite arbitrary and against all\nreason and logic, as the term Elohim is a plural noun, identical with the\nplural word Chiim, often compounded with it. The sentence in the _Sepher\nYetzirah_ and elsewhere, \u201cAchath\u2010Ruach\u2010Elohim\u2010Chiim,\u201d denotes the Elohim\nas androgynous at best, the feminine element almost predominating, as it\nwould read: \u201cONE is She the Spirit of the Elohim of Life.\u201d As said, Achath\n(or Echath) is feminine, and Achad (or Echad) masculine, both meaning One.\n\nMoreover, in Occult metaphysics, there are, properly speaking, two\n\u201cOnes\u201d\u2014the One on the unreachable plane of Absoluteness and Infinity, on\nwhich no speculation is possible; and the second One on the plane of\nEmanations. The former can neither emanate nor be divided, as it is\neternal, absolute, and immutable; but the second, being, so to speak, the\nreflection of the first One (for it is the Logos, or \u00ceshvara, in the\nUniverse of Illusion), can do so. It emanates from itself\u2014as the upper\nSephirothal Triad emanates the lower seven Sephiroth\u2014the seven Rays or\nDhy\u00e2n Chohans; in other words, the Homogeneous becomes the Heterogeneous,\nthe Protyle differentiates into the Elements. But these, unless they\nreturn into their primal Element, can never cross beyond the Laya, or\nzero\u2010point. This metaphysical tenet can hardly be better described than in\nT. Subba Row\u2019s _Bhagavadg\u00eet\u00e2_ Lectures:\n\n\n    M\u00fblaprakriti [the veil of Parabrahman] acts as the one energy\n    through the Logos [or \u00ceshvara]. Now Parabrahman ... is the one\n    essence from which starts into existence a centre of energy, which\n    I shall for the present call the Logos.... It is called the Verbum\n    ... by the Christians, and it is the divine Christos who is\n    eternal in the bosom of his Father. It is called Avalokiteshvara\n    by the Buddhists.... In almost every doctrine, they have\n    formulated the existence of a centre of spiritual energy which is\n    unborn and eternal, and which exists in the bosom of Parabrahman\n    at the time of Pralaya, and starts as a centre of conscious energy\n    at the time of cosmic activity....(237)\n\n\nFor, as the lecturer premised by saying, Parabrahman is not this or that,\nit is not even consciousness, as it cannot be related to matter or\nanything conditioned. It is not Ego nor is it Non\u2010Ego, nor even \u00c2tm\u00e2, but\nverily the one source of all manifestations and modes of existence.\n\nThus in the allegory, the Lipika separate the world (or plane) of pure\nSpirit from that of Matter. Those who \u201cdescend and ascend\u201d\u2014the incarnating\nMonads, and men striving towards purification and \u201cascending,\u201d but still\nnot having quite reached the goal\u2014may cross the Circle of \u201cPass Not,\u201d only\non the Day \u201cBe With Us\u201d; that day when man, freeing himself from the\ntrammels of ignorance, and recognizing fully the non\u2010separateness of the\nEgo within his Personality\u2014erroneously regarded as his own\u2014from the\nUniversal Ego (Anima Supra\u2010Mundi), merges thereby into the One Essence, to\nbecome not only one with \u201cUs,\u201d the manifested universal Lives which are\n_one_ Life, but that very Life itself.\n\nAstronomically, the Ring \u201cPass Not\u201d that the Lipika trace round \u201cthe\nTriangle, the First One, the Cube, the Second One, and the Pentacle,\u201d to\ncircumscribe these figures, is thus again shown to contain the symbols of\n31415, or the co\u00ebfficient constantly used in mathematical tables, the\nvalue \u03c0 (pi), the geometrical figures standing here for numerical figures.\nAccording to the general philosophical teachings, this Ring is beyond the\nregion of what are called nebul\u00e6 in astronomy. But this is as erroneous a\nconception as that of the topography and descriptions, given in Pur\u00e2nic\nand other exoteric Scriptures, about the 1008 worlds of the Deva\u2010loka\nworlds and firmaments. There are worlds, of course, in the esoteric as\nwell as in the profane scientific teachings, at such incalculable\ndistances that the light of the nearest of them, though it has only just\nreached our modern \u201cChaldees,\u201d may have left its luminary long before the\nday on which the words, \u201cLet there be Light,\u201d were pronounced; but these\nare not worlds on the Devalokic plane, but in our Cosmos.\n\nThe Chemist goes to the laya or zero\u2010point of the plane of matter with\nwhich he deals, and then stops short. The Physicist or the Astronomer\ncounts billions of miles beyond the nebul\u00e6, and then he also stops short.\nThe semi\u2010initiated Occultist also will represent this laya\u2010point to\nhimself as existing on some plane which, if not physical, is still\nconceivable to the human intellect. But the full Initiate _knows_ that the\nRing \u201cPass Not\u201d is neither a locality, nor can it be measured by distance,\nbut that it exists in the absoluteness of Infinity. In this \u201cInfinity\u201d of\nthe full Initiate, there is neither height, breadth nor thickness, but all\nis fathomless profundity, reaching down from the physical to the \u201cpara\u2010\nmetaphysical.\u201d In using the word \u201cdown,\u201d essential depth\u2014\u201cnowhere and\neverywhere\u201d\u2014is meant, not depth of physical matter.\n\nIf one carefully searches through the exoteric and grossly anthropomorphic\nallegories of popular religions, even in these the doctrine embodied in\nthe Circle of \u201cPass Not,\u201d guarded by the Lipika, may be dimly perceived.\nThus one finds it even in the teachings of the Ved\u00e2ntin sect of the\nVisishthadvaita, the most tenaciously anthropomorphic in all India. For we\nread of the released soul that, after reaching Moksha\u2014a state of bliss\nmeaning \u201crelease from Bandha,\u201d or bondage\u2014bliss is enjoyed by it in a\nplace called Paramapada, which place is not material, but made of\nSuddasattva, the essence, of which the body of \u00ceshvara\u2014the \u201cLord\u201d\u2014is\nformed. There, Muktas or J\u00eev\u00e2tm\u00e2s (Monads) who have attained Moksha, are\nnever again subject to the qualities of either matter or Karma. \u201cBut if\nthey choose, _for the __ sake of doing good to the world_, they may\nincarnate on earth.\u201d(238) The way to Paramapada, or the immaterial worlds,\nfrom this world, is called Devay\u00e2na. When a person has attained Moksha and\nthe body dies:\n\n\n    The J\u00eeva (Soul) goes with S\u00fbkshma Sharira(239) from the heart of\n    the body to the Brahmarandra in the crown of the head, traversing\n    Sushumna, a nerve connecting the heart with the Brahmarandra. The\n    Jiva breaks through the Brahmarandra and goes to the region of the\n    Sun (S\u00fbryamandala) through the solar rays. Then it goes, through a\n    dark spot in the Sun, to Paramapada.... The J\u00eeva is directed on\n    its way ... by the Supreme Wisdom acquired by Yoga.(240) The J\u00eeva\n    thus proceeds to Paramapada by the aid of Athiv\u00e2hikas (bearers in\n    transit), known by the names of Archi Ahas ... \u00c2ditya, ...\n    Praj\u00e2pati, etc. The Archis, etc., here mentioned, are certain pure\n    Souls, etc., etc.(241)\n\n\nNo Spirits except the \u201cRecorders\u201d (Lipika) have ever crossed the forbidden\nline of this Ring, nor will any do so until the day of the next Pralaya,\nfor it is the boundary that separates the Finite\u2014however infinite in man\u2019s\nsight\u2014from the truly Infinite. The Spirits referred to, therefore, as\nthose who \u201cascend and descend,\u201d are the \u201cHosts\u201d of what are loosely called\n\u201cCelestial Beings.\u201d But they are, in fact, nothing of the kind. They are\nEntities of higher worlds in the Hierarchy of Being, so immeasurably high\nthat, to us, they must appear as Gods, and collectively\u2014_God_. But so must\nwe, mortal men, appear to the ant, which reasons on the scale of its\nspecial capacities. The ant may also, for all we know, see the avenging\nfinger of a Personal God in the hand of the urchin who, under the impulse\nof mischief, destroys, in one moment, its ant\u2010hill, the labour of many\nweeks\u2014long years in the chronology of insects. The ant, feeling it\nacutely, may also, like man, attribute the undeserved calamity to a\ncombination of providence and sin, and see in it the result of the sin of\nits first parent. Who knows, and who can affirm or deny? The refusal to\nadmit, in the whole Solar System, of any other reasonable and intellectual\nbeings than ourselves on the human plane, is the greatest conceit of our\nage. All that Science has a right to affirm, is that there are no\ninvisible Intelligences living under the same conditions as we do. It\ncannot deny point\u2010blank the possibility of there being worlds within\nworlds, under conditions totally different to those that constitute the\nnature of our world; nor can it deny that there may be a certain limited\ncommunication between some of these worlds and our own. The greatest\nphilosopher of European birth, Emmanuel Kant, assures us that such a\ncommunication is in no way improbable.\n\n\n    I confess I am much disposed to assert the existence of immaterial\n    natures in the world, and to place my own soul in the class of\n    these beings. It will hereafter, I know not where, or when, yet be\n    proved that the human soul stands even in this life in\n    indissoluble connection with all immaterial natures in the spirit\u2010\n    world, that it reciprocally acts upon these and receives\n    impressions from them.(242)\n\n\nTo the highest of these worlds, we are taught, belong the seven Orders of\nthe purely divine Spirits; to the six lower ones belong Hierarchies that\ncan occasionally be seen and heard by men, and that do communicate with\ntheir progeny of the Earth; a progeny which is indissolubly linked with\nthem, each Principle in man having its direct source in the nature of\nthese great Beings, who furnish us respectively with the invisible\nelements in us. Physical Science is welcome to speculate upon the\nphysiological mechanism of living beings, and to continue her fruitless\nefforts in trying to resolve our feelings, our sensations, mental and\nspiritual, into functions of their organic vehicles. Nevertheless, all\nthat will ever be accomplished in this direction has already been done,\nand Science can go no farther. She is before a dead wall, on the face of\nwhich she traces, as she imagines, great physiological and psychic\ndiscoveries, every one of which will be shown later on to be no better\nthan cobwebs, spun by her scientific fancies and illusions. The tissues of\nour objective framework alone are subservient to the analysis and\nresearches of Physiological Science. The six higher Principles in them\nwill evade for ever the hand that is guided by an animus, which purposely\nignores and rejects the Occult Sciences. All that modern physiological\nresearch in connection with psychological problems has, and owing to the\nnature of things could have shown, is that every thought, sensation, and\nemotion is attended with a re\u2010marshalling of the molecules of certain\nnerves. The inference drawn by scientists of the type of B\u00fcchner, Vogt,\nand others, that thought is molecular motion, necessitates the fact of our\nsubjective consciousness being made a complete abstraction.\n\nThe Great Day \u201cBe With Us,\u201d then, is an expression, the only merit of\nwhich lies in its literal translation. Its significance is not so easily\nrevealed to a public, unacquainted with the mystic tenets of Occultism, or\nrather of Esoteric Wisdom or \u201cBudhism.\u201d It is an expression peculiar to\nthe latter, and as hazy for the profane as that of the Egyptians, who\ncalled the same the Day \u201cCome To Us,\u201d which is identical with the\nformer\u2014though the word \u201cbe,\u201d in this sense, might be still better replaced\nwith either of the two terms \u201cremain\u201d or \u201crest with us,\u201d as it refers to\nthat long period of Rest which is called Paranirv\u00e2na. \u201cLe Jour de \u2018Viens \u00e0\nnous\u2019! C\u2019est le jour o\u00f9 Osiris a dit au Soleil: Viens! Je le vois\nrencontrant le Soleil dans l\u2019Amenti.\u201d(243) The Sun here stands for the\nLogos (or Christos, or Horus), as the central Essence synthetically, and\nas a diffused essence of radiated Entities, different in substance, but\nnot in essence. As expressed by the _Bhagavadg\u00eet\u00e2_ lecturer, \u201cit must not\nbe supposed that the Logos is but a single centre of energy which is\nmanifested by Parabrahman. There are innumerable others. Their number is\nalmost infinite, in the bosom of Parabrahman.\u201d Hence the expressions, \u201cThe\nDay of Come to Us\u201d and \u201cThe Day of Be With Us,\u201d etc. Just as the Square is\nthe Symbol of the Four sacred Forces or Powers\u2014Tetraktys\u2014so the Circle\nshows the boundary within the Infinity that no man, even in spirit, or\nDeva or Dhy\u00e2n Chohan can cross. The Spirits of those who \u201cdescend and\nascend,\u201d during the course of cyclic evolution, shall cross the \u201ciron\u2010\nbound world,\u201d only on the day of their approach to the threshold of\nParanirv\u00e2na. If they reach it, they will rest in the bosom of Parabrahman,\nor the \u201cUnknown Darkness,\u201d which shall then become for all of them Light,\nduring the whole period of Mah\u00e2pralaya, the \u201cGreat Night,\u201d namely,\n311,040,000,000,000 years of absorption in Brahman. The Day of \u201cBe With\nUs\u201d is this period of Rest, or Paranirv\u00e2na. It corresponds to the Day of\nthe Last Judgment of the Christians, which has been sorely materialized in\ntheir religion.(244)\n\nAs in the exoteric interpretation of the Egyptian rites, the soul of every\ndefunct person\u2014from the Hierophant down to the sacred bull Apis\u2014became an\nOsiris, was Osirified (the Secret Doctrine, however, teaching that the\nreal Osirification was the lot of every Monad only after 3,000 cycles of\nExistences); so in the present case. The Monad, born of the nature and the\nvery Essence of the \u201cSeven\u201d (its highest Principle becoming immediately\nenshrined in the Seventh Cosmic Element), has to perform its septenary\ngyration throughout the Cycle of Being and Forms, from the highest to the\nlowest; and then again from man to God. At the threshold of Paranirv\u00e2na,\nit re\u00e4ssumes its primeval Essence and becomes the Absolute once more.\n\n\n\nStanza VI.\n\n\n1. BY THE POWER OF THE MOTHER OF MERCY AND KNOWLEDGE (_a_), KWAN\u2010YIN\u2014THE\nTRIPLE OF KWAN\u2010SHAI\u2010YIN, RESIDING IN KWAN\u2010YIN\u2010TIEN (_b_)\u2014FOHAT, THE BREATH\nOF THEIR PROGENY, THE SON OF THE SONS, HAVING CALLED FORTH, FROM THE LOWER\nABYSS,(245) THE ILLUSIVE FORM OF SIEN\u2010TCHAN(246) AND THE SEVEN ELEMENTS.\n\nThis Stanza is translated from the Chinese text, and the names given as\nthe equivalents of the original terms are preserved. The real Esoteric\nnomenclature cannot be given, as it would only confuse the reader. The\nBr\u00e2hmanical doctrine has no equivalents for these. V\u00e2ch seems, in many an\naspect, to approach the Chinese Kwan\u2010Yin, but there is no regular worship\nof V\u00e2ch under this name in India, as there is of Kwan\u2010Yin in China. No\nexoteric religious system has ever adopted a female Creator, and thus,\nfrom the first dawn of popular religions, woman has been regarded and\ntreated as inferior to man. It is only in China and Egypt that Kwan\u2010Yin\nand Isis are placed on a par with the male gods. Esotericism ignores both\nsexes. Its highest Deity is as sexless as it is formless, neither Father\nnor Mother; and its first manifested beings, celestial and terrestrial\nalike, become only gradually androgynous to finally separate into distinct\nsexes.\n\n(_a_) \u201cThe Mother of Mercy and Knowledge\u201d is called the \u201cTriple\u201d of Kwan\u2010\nShai\u2010Yin, because in her correlations, metaphysical and cosmical, she is\nthe \u201cMother, the Wife and the Daughter\u201d of the Logos, just as in the later\ntheological translations she became the \u201cFather, Son and (female) Holy\nGhost\u201d\u2014the Shakti or Energy\u2014the Essence of the Three. Thus in the\nEsotericism of the Ved\u00e2ntins, Daiviprakriti, the Light manifested through\n\u00ceshvara, the Logos,(247) is at one and the same time the Mother and also\nthe Daughter of the Logos, or Verbum of Parabrahman; while in that of the\nTrans\u2010Him\u00e2layan teachings, it is\u2014in the Hierarchy of their allegorical and\nmetaphysical theogony\u2014the \u201cMother,\u201d or abstract ideal Matter,\nM\u00fblaprakriti, the Root of Nature; from the metaphysical standpoint, a\ncorrelation of Adi\u2010Budha, manifested in the Logos, Avalokiteshvara; and\nfrom the purely Occult and cosmical, Fohat, the \u201cSon of the Son,\u201d the\nandrogynous energy resulting from this \u201cLight of the Logos,\u201d which\nmanifests in the plane of the objective Universe as the hidden, as much as\nthe revealed, Electricity\u2014which is Life. Says T. Subba Row:\n\n\n    Evolution is commenced by the intellectual energy of the Logos,\n    ... not merely on account of the potentialities locked up in\n    M\u00fblaprakriti. This Light of the Logos is the link ... between\n    objective matter and the subjective Thought of \u00ceshvara [or Logos].\n    It is called in several Buddhist books Fohat. It is the one\n    instrument with which the Logos works.(248)\n\n\n(_b_) \u201cKwan\u2010Yin\u2010Tien\u201d means the \u201cMelodious Heaven of Sound,\u201d the Abode of\nKwan\u2010Yin, or the \u201cDivine Voice.\u201d This \u201cVoice\u201d is a synonym of the Verbum\nor Word, \u201cSpeech,\u201d as the expression of Thought. Thus may be traced the\nconnection with, and even the origin of, the Hebrew Bath\u2010Kol, the\n\u201cDaughter of the Divine Voice,\u201d or Verbum, or the male and female Logos,\nthe \u201cHeavenly Man,\u201d or Adam Kadmon, who is at the same time Sephira. The\nlatter was surely anticipated by the Hind\u00fb V\u00e2ch, the goddess of Speech, or\nof the Word. For V\u00e2ch\u2014the daughter and the female portion, as is stated,\nof Brahm\u00e2, one \u201cgenerated by the gods\u201d\u2014is, in company with Kwan\u2010Yin, with\nIsis (also the daughter, wife and sister of Osiris) and other goddesses,\nthe female Logos, so to speak, the goddess of the _active_ forces in\nNature, the Word, Voice or Sound, and Speech. If Kwan\u2010Yin is the\n\u201cMelodious Voice,\u201d so is V\u00e2ch \u201cthe melodious cow who milked forth\nsustenance and water [the female principle] ... who yields us nourishment\nand sustenance,\u201d as Mother\u2010Nature. She is associated in the work of\ncreation with Praj\u00e2pati. She is male and female _ad libitum_, as Eve is\nwith Adam. And she is a form of Aditi\u2014the principle higher than \u00c6ther\u2014of\n\u00c2k\u00e2sha, the synthesis of all the forces in Nature. Thus V\u00e2ch and Kwan\u2010Yin\nare both the magic potency of Occult Sound in Nature and \u00c6ther\u2014which\n\u201cVoice\u201d calls forth Sien\u2010Tchan, the illusive form of the Universe out of\nChaos and the Seven Elements.\n\nThus, in _Manu_, Brahm\u00e2 (the Logos also) is shown dividing his body into\ntwo parts, male and female, and creating in the latter, who is V\u00e2ch,\nVir\u00e2j, who is himself, or Brahm\u00e2 again. A learned Ved\u00e2ntin Occultist\nspeaks of this \u201cgoddess\u201d as follows, explaining the reason why \u00ceshvara (or\nBrahm\u00e2) is called Verbum or Logos; why in fact it is called Sabda Brahman:\n\n\n    The explanation I am going to give you will appear thoroughly\n    mystical; but if mystical, it has a tremendous significance when\n    properly understood. Our old writers said that V\u00e2ch is of four\n    kinds. [See _Rig Veda_ and the _Upanishads_.] Vaikhar\u00ee V\u00e2ch is\n    what we utter. Every kind of Vaikhar\u00ee V\u00e2ch exists in its Madhyama,\n    further in its Pashyanti, and ultimately in its Para form.(249)\n    The reason why this Pranava is called V\u00e2ch is this, that the four\n    principles of the great cosmos correspond to these four forms of\n    V\u00e2ch. Now the whole manifested solar system exists in its S\u00fbkshma\n    form in the light or energy of the Logos, because its energy is\n    caught up and transferred to cosmic matter ... the whole cosmos in\n    its objective form is Vaikhar\u00ee V\u00e2ch, the light of the Logos is the\n    Madhyama form, and the Logos itself the Pashyanti form, and\n    Parabrahman the Para aspect of that V\u00e2ch. It is by the light of\n    this explanation that we must try to understand certain statements\n    made by various philosophers to the effect that the manifested\n    cosmos is the Verbum manifested as cosmos.(250)\n\n\n2. THE SWIFT AND THE RADIANT ONE PRODUCES THE SEVEN LAYA(251) CENTRES\n(_a_), AGAINST WHICH NONE WILL PREVAIL TO THE GREAT DAY \u201cBE WITH US\u201d; AND\nSEATS THE UNIVERSE ON THESE ETERNAL FOUNDATIONS, SURROUNDING SIEN\u2010TCHAN\nWITH THE ELEMENTARY GERMS (_b_).\n\n(_a_) The seven Laya Centres are the seven zero\u2010points, using the term\nzero in the same sense that Chemists do. It indicates, in Esotericism, a\npoint at which the reckoning of differentiation begins. From these\nCentres\u2014beyond which Esoteric Philosophy allows us to perceive the dim\nmetaphysical outlines of the \u201cSeven Sons\u201d of Life and Light, the Seven\nLogoi of the Hermetic and all other philosophers\u2014begins the\ndifferentiation of the Elements which enter into the constitution of our\nSolar System. It has often been asked what is the exact definition of\nFohat and his powers and functions, for he seems to exercise those of a\nPersonal God as understood in the popular religions. The answer has just\nbeen given in the Commentary on Stanza V. As well said in the\n_Bhagavadg\u00eet\u00e2_ Lectures, \u201cThe whole cosmos must necessarily exist in the\none source of energy from which this light [Fohat] emanates.\u201d Whether we\ncount the principles in cosmos and man as seven or only as four, the\nforces of, and in, physical Nature are Seven; and it is stated by the same\nauthority that, \u201cPrajn\u00e2, or the capacity of perception, exists in seven\ndifferent aspects corresponding to the seven conditions of matter.\u201d For,\n\u201cjust as a human being is composed of seven principles, differentiated\nmatter in the solar system exists in seven different conditions.\u201d(252) So\ndoes Fohat. Fohat has several meanings, as already shown. He is called the\n\u201cBuilder of the Builders,\u201d the Force that he personifies having formed our\nSeptenary Chain. He is One and Seven, and on the cosmic plane is behind\nall such manifestations as light, heat, sound, adhesion, etc., etc., and\nis the \u201cspirit\u201d of electricity, which is the Life of the Universe. As an\nabstraction, we will call it the One Life; as an objective and evident\nReality, we speak of a septenary scale of manifestation, which begins at\nthe upper rung with the One Unknowable Causality, and ends as Omnipresent\nMind and Life, immanent in every atom of Matter. Thus, while Science\nspeaks of its evolution through brute matter, blind force, and senseless\nmotion, the Occultists point to _Intelligent_ Law and _Sentient_ Life, and\nadd that Fohat is the guiding Spirit of all this. Yet he is no personal\ngod at all, but the emanation of those other Powers behind him, whom the\nChristians call the \u201cMessengers\u201d of their God (in reality, of the Elohim,\nor rather one of the Seven Creators called Elohim), and we the Messenger\nof the primordial Sons of Life and Light.\n\n(_b_) The \u201cElementary Germs,\u201d with which he fills Sien\u2010Tchan (the\nUniverse) from Tien\u2010Sin (the \u201cHeaven of Mind,\u201d or that which is absolute),\nare the Atoms of Science and the Monads of Leibnitz.\n\n3. OF THE SEVEN(253)\u2014FIRST ONE MANIFESTED, SIX CONCEALED; TWO MANIFESTED,\nFIVE CONCEALED; THREE MANIFESTED, FOUR CONCEALED; FOUR PRODUCED, THREE\nHIDDEN; FOUR AND ONE TSAN(254) REVEALED, TWO AND ONE HALF CONCEALED; SIX\nTO BE MANIFESTED, ONE LAID ASIDE (_a_). LASTLY, SEVEN SMALL WHEELS\nREVOLVING; ONE GIVING BIRTH TO THE OTHER (_b_).\n\n(_a_) Although these Stanzas refer to the whole Universe after a\nMah\u00e2pralaya (Universal Dissolution), yet this sentence, as any student of\nOccultism may see, refers also by analogy to the evolution and final\nformation of the primitive (though compound) seven Elements on our Earth.\nOf these, four Elements are now fully manifested, while the fifth\u2014Ether\u2014is\nonly partially so, as we are hardly in the second half of the Fourth\nRound, and consequently the fifth Element will manifest fully only in the\nFifth Round. The Worlds, including our own, as germs, were of course\nprimarily evolved from the One Element in its second stage\u2014\u201cFather\u2010\nMother,\u201d the Differentiated World\u2019s Soul, not what is termed the \u201cOver\u2010\nSoul\u201d by Emerson\u2014whether we call it, with Modern Science, cosmic dust and\nfire\u2010mist, or with Occultism, \u00c2k\u00e2sha, J\u00eev\u00e2tm\u00e2, Divine Astral Light, or the\n\u201cSoul of the World.\u201d But this first stage of Evolution was in due course\nof time followed by the next. No World, and no heavenly body, could be\nconstructed on the objective plane, had not the Elements been already\nsufficiently differentiated from their primeval Ilus, resting in Laya. The\nlatter term is a synonym of Nirv\u00e2na. It is, in fact, the Nirv\u00e2nic\ndissociation of all substances, merged after a Life\u2010Cycle into the latency\nof their primary conditions. It is the luminous but bodiless shadow of the\nMatter that _was_, the realm of negativeness\u2014wherein lie latent during\ntheir period of rest the active Forces of the Universe.\n\nNow, speaking of Elements, it is made the standing reproach of the\nAncients, that they \u201csupposed their elements simple and undecomposable.\u201d\nThe shades of our pre\u2010historic ancestors might return the compliment to\nmodern Physicists, now that new discoveries in Chemistry have led Mr. W.\nCrookes, F.R.S., to admit, that Science is yet a thousand leagues from a\nknowledge of the compound nature of the simplest molecule. From him we\nlearn that such a thing as a really simple molecule entirely homogeneous\nis _terra incognita_ in Chemistry. \u201cWhere are we to draw the line?\u201d he\nasks; \u201cis there no way out of this perplexity? Must we either make the\nelementary examinations so stiff that only 60 or 70 candidates can pass,\nor must we open the examination doors so wide that the number of\nadmissions is limited only by the number of applicants?\u201d And then the\nlearned chemist gives striking instances. He says:\n\n\n    Take the case of yttrium. It has its definite atomic weight, it\n    behaved in every respect as a simple body, an element, to which we\n    might indeed add, but from which we could not take away. Yet this\n    yttrium, this supposed homogeneous whole, on being submitted to a\n    certain method of fractionation, is resolved into portions not\n    absolutely identical among themselves, and exhibiting a gradation\n    of properties. Or take the case of didymium. Here was a body\n    betraying all the recognized characters of an element. It had been\n    separated with much difficulty from other bodies which\n    approximated closely to it in their properties, and during this\n    crucial process it had undergone very severe treatment and very\n    close scrutiny. But then came another chemist, who, treating this\n    assumed homogeneous body by a peculiar process of fractionation,\n    resolved it into the two bodies praseodymium and neodymium,\n    between which certain distinctions are perceptible. Further, we\n    even now have no certainty that neodymium and praseodymium are\n    simple bodies. On the contrary, they likewise exhibit symptoms of\n    splitting up. Now, if one supposed element on proper treatment is\n    thus found to comprise dissimilar molecules, we are surely\n    warranted in asking whether similar results might not be obtained\n    in other elements, perhaps in all elements, if treated in the\n    right way. We may even ask where the process of sorting\u2010out is to\n    stop\u2014a process which of course presupposes variations between the\n    individual molecules of each species. And in these successive\n    separations we naturally find bodies approaching more and more\n    closely to each other.(255)\n\n\nOnce more this reproach against the Ancients is an unwarrantable\nstatement. Their initiated philosophers at any rate, can hardly come under\nsuch an imputation, since it is they who have invented allegories and\nreligious myths from the beginning. Had they been ignorant of the\nHeterogeneity of their Elements they would have had no personifications of\nFire, Air, Water, Earth, and \u00c6ther; their cosmic gods and goddesses would\nnever have been blessed with such posterity, with so many sons and\ndaughters, elements born _from_ and _within_ each respective Element.\nAlchemy and Occult phenomena would have been a delusion and a snare, even\nin theory, had the Ancients been ignorant of the potentialities and\ncorrelative functions and attributes, of every element that enters into\nthe composition of Air, Water, Earth, and even Fire\u2014the latter a _terra\nincognita_ to this day to Modern Science, which is obliged to call it\nmotion, evolution of light and heat, state of ignition\u2014defining it by its\noutward aspects in short, in ignorance of its nature.\n\nBut what Modern Science seems to fail to perceive, is that, differentiated\nas may have been those simple chemical atoms\u2014which archaic philosophy\ncalled \u201cthe creators of their respective parents,\u201d fathers, brothers,\nhusbands of their mothers, and these mothers the daughters of their own\nsons, like Aditi and Daksha, for example\u2014differentiated as these elements\nwere in the beginning, still, they were not the compound bodies known to\nScience, as they are now. Neither Water, Air, nor Earth (a synonym for\nsolids generally) existed in their present form, representing the only\nthree states of matter recognized by Science; for all these and even Fire\nare productions already recombined by the atmospheres of completely formed\nglobes, so that in the first periods of the earth\u2019s formation they were\nsomething quite _sui generis_. Now that the conditions and laws ruling our\nSolar System are fully developed, and that the atmosphere of our earth, as\nof every other globe, has become, so to say, a crucible of its own, Occult\nScience teaches that there is a perpetual exchange taking place, in space,\nof molecules, or rather of atoms, correlating, and thus changing their\ncombining equivalents on every planet. Some men of Science, and these\namong the greatest Physicists and Chemists, begin to suspect this fact,\nwhich has been known for ages to the Occultists. The spectroscope shows\nonly the probable similarity (on external evidence) of terrestrial and\nsidereal substance; it is unable to go any farther, or to show whether or\nnot atoms gravitate towards one another in the same way, and under the\nsame conditions, as they are supposed to do on our planet, physically and\nchemically. The scale of temperature, from the highest degree to the\nlowest that can be conceived of, may be imagined to be one and the same in\nand for the whole Universe; nevertheless, its properties, other than those\nof dissociation and re\u00e4ssociation, differ on every planet; and thus atoms\nenter into new forms of existence, undreamed of, and incognizable to,\nPhysical Science. As already expressed in _Five Years of Theosophy_,(256)\nthe essence of cometary matter, for instance, \u201cis totally different from\nany of the chemical or physical characteristics with which the greatest\nChemists and Physicists of the earth are acquainted.\u201d And even that\nmatter, during rapid passage through our atmosphere, undergoes a certain\nchange in its nature.\n\nThus not only the elements of our planet, but even those of all its\nsisters in the Solar System, differ in their combinations as widely from\neach other, as from the cosmic elements beyond our solar limits. This is\nagain corroborated by the same man of Science in the lecture referred to\nabove, who quotes Clerk Maxwell, saying \u201cthat the elements are not\nabsolutely homogeneous.\u201d He writes:\n\n\n    It is difficult to conceive of selection and elimination of\n    intermediate varieties, for where can these eliminated molecules\n    have gone to, if, as we have reason to believe, the hydrogen,\n    etc., of the fixed stars is composed of molecules identical in all\n    respects with our own.... In the first place we may call in\n    question this absolute molecular identity, since we have hitherto\n    had no means for coming to a conclusion save the means furnished\n    by the spectroscope, while it is admitted that, for accurately\n    comparing and discriminating the spectra of two bodies, they\n    should be examined under identical states of temperature,\n    pressure, and all other physical conditions. We have certainly\n    seen, in the spectrum of the sun, rays which we have not been able\n    to identify.\n\n\nTherefore, the elements of our planet cannot be taken as a standard for\ncomparison with the elements in other worlds. In fact each world has its\nFohat, which is omnipresent in its own sphere of action. But there are as\nmany Fohats as there are worlds, each varying in power and degree of\nmanifestation. The individual Fohats make one universal, collective\nFohat\u2014the aspect\u2010entity of the one absolute Non\u2010Entity, which is absolute\nBe\u2010ness, Sat. \u201cMillions and billions of worlds are produced at every\nManvantara\u201d\u2014it is said. Therefore there must be many Fohats, whom we\nconsider as conscious and _intelligent_ Forces. This, no doubt, to the\ndisgust of scientific minds. Nevertheless the Occultists, who have good\nreasons for it, consider all the forces of Nature as veritable, though\nsupersensuous, states of Matter; and as possible objects of perception to\nbeings endowed with the requisite senses.\n\nEnshrined in its pristine, virgin state within the Bosom of the Eternal\nMother, every atom born beyond the threshold of her realm is doomed to\nincessant differentiation. \u201c_The Mother sleeps, yet is ever breathing_.\u201d\nAnd every breath sends out into the plane of manifestation her protean\nproducts, which, carried on by the wave of efflux, are scattered by Fohat,\nand driven toward or beyond this or another planetary atmosphere. Once\ncaught by the latter, the atom is lost; its pristine purity is gone for\never, unless fate dissociates it by leading it to a \u201ccurrent of efflux\u201d\n(an Occult term meaning quite a different process from that which the\nordinary word implies), when it may be carried once more to the borderland\nwhere it had previously perished, and taking its flight, not into Space\n_above_ but into Space _within_, be brought under a state of differential\nequilibrium and happily reabsorbed. Were a truly learned Occultist\u2010\nAlchemist to write the \u201cLife and Adventures of an Atom,\u201d he would secure\nthereby the supreme scorn of the modern Chemist, though perchance also his\nsubsequent gratitude. Indeed, if such an imaginary Chemist happened to be\nintuitional, and would for a moment step out of the habitual groove of\nstrictly \u201cExact Science,\u201d as the Alchemists of old did, he might be repaid\nfor his audacity. However it may be, \u201c_The Breath of the Father\u2010Mother\nissues cold and radiant, and gets hot and corrupt, to cool once more and\nbe purified in the eternal bosom of inner Space_,\u201d says the Commentary.\nMan absorbs cold pure air on the mountain\u2010top, and throws it out impure,\nhot and transformed. Thus, the higher atmosphere of every globe, being its\nmouth, and the lower its lungs, the man of our planet breathes only the\n\u201crefuse of Mother;\u201d therefore, \u201che is doomed to die thereon.\u201d He who would\nallotropize sluggish oxygen into ozone to a measure of alchemical\nactivity, reducing it to its pure essence (for which there are means),\nwould discover thereby a substitute for an \u201cElixir of Life\u201d and prepare it\nfor practical use.\n\n(_b_) The process referred to as the \u201cSmall Wheels, one giving birth to\nthe other,\u201d takes place in the sixth region from above, and on the plane\nof the most material world of all in the manifested Kosmos\u2014our terrestrial\nplane. These \u201cSeven Wheels\u201d are our Planetary Chain. By \u201cWheels\u201d the\nvarious spheres and centres of forces are generally meant; but in this\ncase they refer to our septenary Ring.\n\n4. HE BUILDS THEM IN THE LIKENESS OF OLDER WHEELS,(257) PLACING THEM ON\nTHE IMPERISHABLE CENTRES (_a_).\n\nHOW DOES FOHAT BUILD THEM? HE COLLECTS THE FIERY\u2010DUST. HE MAKES BALLS OF\nFIRE, RUNS THROUGH THEM, AND ROUND THEM, INFUSING LIFE THEREINTO, THEN\nSETS THEM INTO MOTION; SOME ONE WAY, SOME THE OTHER WAY. THEY ARE COLD, HE\nMAKES THEM HOT. THEY ARE DRY, HE MAKES THEM MOIST. THEY SHINE, HE FANS AND\nCOOLS THEM (_b_). THUS ACTS FOHAT FROM ONE TWILIGHT TO THE OTHER, DURING\nSEVEN ETERNITIES.(258)\n\n(_a_) The Worlds are built \u201cin the likeness of older Wheels\u201d\u2014_i.e._, of\nthose that had existed in preceding Manvantaras and went into Pralaya; for\nthe Law for the birth, growth, and decay of everything in Kosmos, from the\nSun to the glow\u2010worm in the grass, is One. There is an everlasting work of\nperfection with every new appearance, but the Substance\u2010Matter and Forces\nare all one and the same. And this Law acts on every planet through minor\nand varying laws.\n\nThe \u201cImperishable [Laya] Centres\u201d have a great importance, and their\nmeaning must be fully understood, if we would have a clear conception of\nthe Archaic Cosmogony, whose theories have now passed into Occultism. At\npresent, one thing may be stated. The Worlds are built neither _upon_, nor\n_over_, nor _in_ the Laya Centres, the zero\u2010point being a condition, not a\nmathematical point.\n\n(_b_) Bear in mind that Fohat, the constructive Force of Cosmic\nElectricity, is said, metaphorically, to have sprung, like Rudra from the\nhead of Brahm\u00e2, \u201c_from the Brain of the Father and the Bosom of the\nMother_,\u201d and then to have metamorphosed himself into a male and a female,\n_i.e._, polarized himself into positive and negative electricity. He has\n_Seven Sons_ who are his _Brothers_. Fohat is forced to be born, time\nafter time, whenever any two of his \u201cSon\u2010Brothers\u201d indulge in _too close\ncontact_\u2014whether an embrace or a fight. To avoid this, he unites and binds\ntogether those of unlike nature, and separates those of similar\ntemperaments. This, as any one can see, relates, of course, to electricity\ngenerated by friction, and to the law of attraction between two objects of\nunlike, and repulsion between those of like polarity. The Seven Son\u2010\nBrothers, however, represent and personify the seven forms of cosmic\nmagnetism, called in Practical Occultism the \u201cSeven Radicals,\u201d whose\nco\u00f6perative and active progeny are, among other energies, Electricity,\nMagnetism, Sound, Light, Heat, Cohesion, etc. Occult Science defines all\nthese as super\u2010sensuous effects in their hidden behaviour, and as\nobjective phenomena in the world of sense; the former requiring abnormal\nfaculties to perceive them, the latter cognizable by our ordinary physical\nsenses. They all pertain to, and are the emanations of, still more\nsupersensuous spiritual qualities, not personated by, but belonging to,\nreal and conscious Causes. To attempt a description of such Entities would\nbe worse than useless. The reader must bear in mind that, according to our\nteaching which regards this phenomenal Universe as a Great Illusion, the\nnearer a body is to the Unknown Substance, the more it approaches Reality,\nas being the farther removed from this world of M\u00e2y\u00e2. Therefore, though\nthe molecular constitution of these bodies is not deducible from their\nmanifestations, on this plane of consciousness, they nevertheless, from\nthe standpoint of the Adept Occultist, possess a distinctive objective if\nnot material structure, in the relatively noumenal\u2014as opposed to the\nphenomenal\u2014Universe. Men of science may term them force or forces\ngenerated by matter, or \u201cmodes of its motion,\u201d if they will; Occultism\nsees in these effects Elementals (Forces), and, in the direct causes\nproducing them, intelligent Divine Workmen. The intimate connection of\nthese Elementals, guided by the unerring hand of the Rulers, with the\nelements of pure Matter\u2014their correlation we might call it\u2014results in our\nterrestrial phenomena, such as light, heat, magnetism, etc., etc. Of\ncourse we shall never agree with the American Substantialists(259) who\ncall every force and energy\u2014whether light, heat, electricity or\ncohesion\u2014an \u201centity\u201d; for this would be equivalent to calling the noise\nproduced by the rolling of the wheels of a vehicle an entity\u2014thus\nconfusing and identifying that \u201cnoise\u201d with the \u201cdriver\u201d _outside_, and\nthe guiding \u201cMaster Intelligence\u201d _within_ the vehicle. But we do\ncertainly give that name to the \u201cdrivers\u201d and to these guiding\n\u201cIntelligences,\u201d the ruling Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, as has been shown. The\nElementals, the Nature\u2010Forces, are the acting, though invisible, or rather\nimperceptible, secondary causes, and in themselves the effects of primary\ncauses behind the veil of all terrestrial phenomena. Electricity, light,\nheat, etc., have been aptly termed the \u201cGhosts or Shadows of Matter in\nMotion,\u201d _i.e._, supersensuous states of Matter whose effects only we are\nable to cognize. To expand, then, the simile given above. The sensation of\nlight is like the sound of the rolling wheels\u2014a purely phenomenal effect,\nhaving no existence outside the observer. The proximate exciting cause of\nthe sensation is comparable to the driver\u2014a supersensuous state of matter\nin motion, a Nature\u2010Force or Elemental. But, behind this\u2014just as the owner\nof the carriage directs the driver from within\u2014stands the higher and\n_noumenal_ cause, the _Intelligence_ from whose essence radiate these\nStates of \u201cMother,\u201d generating the countless milliards of Elementals, or\nPsychic Nature\u2010Spirits, just as every drop of water generates its physical\ninfinitesimal Infusoria. It is Fohat who guides the transfer of the\nprinciples from one planet to the other, from one star to another child\u2010\nstar. When a planet dies, its informing principles are transferred to a\nlaya or sleeping centre, with potential but latent energy in it, which is\nthus awakened into life and begins to form itself into a new sidereal\nbody.\n\nIt is most remarkable that, while honestly confessing their entire\nignorance of the true nature of even terrestrial matter\u2014primordial\nsubstance being regarded more as a dream than as a sober reality\u2014the\nPhysicists should, nevertheless, set themselves up as judges of that\nmatter, and claim to know what it is able and is not able to do, in\nvarious combinations. Scientists know this matter hardly skin\u2010deep, and\nyet they will dogmatize. It is \u201ca mode of motion\u201d and nothing else! But\nthe \u201cforce\u201d that is inherent in a living person\u2019s breath, when blowing a\nspeck of dust from the table, is also, undeniably, \u201ca mode of motion.\u201d It\nis as undeniably not a quality of the matter, or the particles of the\nspeck, and it emanates from the living and thinking Entity that breathed,\nwhether the impulse originated consciously or unconsciously. Indeed, to\nendow matter\u2014something of which nothing is so far known\u2014with an inherent\nquality called force, of the nature of which still less is known, is to\ncreate a far more serious difficulty than that which lies in the\nacceptation of the intervention of our \u201cNature\u2010Spirits\u201d in every natural\nphenomenon.\n\nThe Occultists\u2014who, if they would express themselves correctly, do not say\nthat matter, but only the _substance_ or _essence_ of matter, (_i.e._,\nM\u00fblaprakriti, the Root of all) is indestructible and eternal\u2014assert that\nall the so\u2010called Forces of Nature, electricity, magnetism, light, heat,\netc., etc., far from being modes of motion of material particles, are _in\nesse_, _i.e._, in their ultimate constitution, the differentiated aspects\nof that Universal Motion which is discussed and explained in the first\npages of this volume. When Fohat is said to produce Seven Laya Centres, it\nmeans that, for formative or creative purposes, the _Great Law_\u2014Theists\nmay call it God\u2014stays, or rather modifies, its perpetual motion on seven\ninvisible points within the area of the Manifested Universe. \u201c_The Great\nBreath digs through Space seven holes into Laya, to cause them to\ncircumgyrate during Manvantara_,\u201d says the Occult Catechism. We have said\nthat Laya is what Science may call the zero\u2010point or line; the realm of\nabsolute negativeness, or the one real absolute Force, the _noumenon_ of\nthe Seventh State of that which we ignorantly call and recognize as\n\u201cForce\u201d; or again the noumenon of Undifferentiated Cosmic Substance, which\nis itself an unreachable and unknowable object for finite perception; the\nroot and basis of all states of objectivity and also subjectivity; the\nneutral axis, not one of the many aspects, but its centre. It may serve to\nelucidate the meaning, if we try to imagine a \u201cneutral centre\u201d\u2014the dream\nof those who would discover perpetual motion. A \u201cneutral centre\u201d is, in\none aspect, the limiting point of any given set of senses. Thus, imagine\ntwo consecutive planes of matter; each of these corresponding to an\nappropriate set of perceptive organs. We are forced to admit that between\nthese two planes of matter an incessant circulation takes place; and if we\nfollow the atoms and molecules of, say, the lower in their transformation\nupwards, they will come to a point where they pass altogether beyond the\nrange of the faculties we are using on the lower plane. In fact, for us\nthe matter of the lower plane there vanishes from our perception\u2014or\nrather, it passes on to the higher plane, and the state of matter\ncorresponding to such a point of transition must certainly possess\nspecial, and not readily discoverable, properties. Seven such \u201cNeutral\nCentres,\u201d(260) then, are produced by Fohat, who, when, as Milton has it:\n\n\n    Fair foundations (are) laid whereon to build ...\n\n\nquickens matter into activity and evolution.\n\nThe Primordial Atom (Anu) cannot be multiplied either in its pregenetic\nstate, or its primogeneity; therefore it is called the \u201cSum Total,\u201d of\ncourse, figuratively, as that \u201cSum Total\u201d is boundless. That which is the\nabyss of nothingness to the Physicist, who knows only the world of visible\ncauses and effects, is the boundless Space of the Divine Plenum to the\nOccultist. Among many other objections to the doctrine of an endless\nevolution and involution, or re\u00e4bsorption of the Kosmos, a process which,\naccording to the Br\u00e2hmanical and Esoteric Doctrine, is without beginning\nor end, the Occultist is told that it cannot be, since \u201cby all the\nadmissions of modern scientific philosophy it is a necessity of nature to\nrun down.\u201d If the tendency of nature \u201cto run down\u201d is to be considered so\nforcible an objection to Occult Cosmogony, how, we may ask, do your\nPositivists and Free\u2010thinkers and Scientists account for the phalanx of\nactive stellar systems around us? They had eternity to \u201crun down\u201d in; why,\nthen, is not the Kosmos a huge inert mass? Even the moon is only\nhypothetically believed to be a dead planet, \u201crun down,\u201d and Astronomy\ndoes not seem to be acquainted with many such dead planets.(261) The query\nis unanswerable. But apart from this, it must be noted that the idea of\nthe amount of \u201ctransformable energy\u201d in our little system coming to an\nend, is based purely on the fallacious conception of a \u201cwhite\u2010hot,\nincandescent sun,\u201d perpetually radiating away its heat without\ncompensation into space. To this we reply that nature runs down and\ndisappears from the objective plane, only to re\u00ebmerge after a time of rest\nout of the subjective, and to re\u00e4scend once more. Our Kosmos and Nature\nwill run down only to re\u00e4ppear on a more perfect plane after every\nPralaya. The Matter of the Eastern philosophers is not the \u201cmatter\u201d and\nNature of the Western metaphysicians. For what is Matter? And above all,\nwhat is our scientific philosophy but that which was so justly and so\npolitely defined by Kant as the \u201cscience of the _limits_ to our\nknowledge?\u201d To what have the many attempts made by Science to bind,\nconnect, and define all the phenomena of organic life, by mere physical\nand chemical manifestations, brought it? To speculation generally\u2014mere\nsoap\u2010bubbles, that have burst one after the other before the men of\nScience were permitted to discover real facts. All this would have been\navoided, and the progress of knowledge would have proceeded with gigantic\nstrides, had only Science and its philosophy abstained from accepting\nhypotheses merely on the one\u2010sided knowledge of _their_ \u201cmatter.\u201d The\nbehaviour of Uranus and Neptune\u2014whose satellites, four and one in number\nrespectively, revolved, it was thought, in their orbits from East to West,\nwhereas all the other satellites rotate from West to East\u2014is a very good\ninstance, as showing how unreliable are all _\u00e0 priori_ speculations, even\nwhen based on the strictest mathematical analysis. The famous hypothesis\nof the formation of our Solar System out of nebulous rings, put forward by\nKant and Laplace, was chiefly based on the assumed fact that all the\nplanets revolved in the same direction. Laplace, relying on this\nmathematically demonstrated fact in his own time, and calculating on the\ntheory of probabilities, offered to bet three milliards to one that the\nnext planet discovered would have in its system the same peculiarity of\nmotion eastward. The immutable laws of scientific mathematics got \u201cworsted\nby further experiments and observations.\u201d This idea of Laplace\u2019s mistake\nprevails generally to this day; but some Astronomers have finally\nsucceeded in demonstrating (?) that the error has been in accepting\nLaplace\u2019s assertion for a mistake; and steps to correct the _b\u00e9vue_,\nwithout attracting general attention, are now being taken. Many such\nunpleasant surprises are in store for hypotheses of even a purely physical\ncharacter. What further disillusions, then, may there not be in questions\nconcerning a transcendental, Occult Nature? At any rate, Occultism teaches\nthat the so\u2010called \u201creverse rotation\u201d is a fact.\n\nIf no physical intellect is capable of counting the grains of sand\ncovering a few miles of sea\u2010shore, or of fathoming the ultimate nature and\nessence of these grains, when palpable and visible on the palm of the\nNaturalist, how can any Materialist limit the laws which govern the\nchanges in the conditions and being of the atoms in Primordial Chaos, or\nknow anything certain about the capabilities and potency of the atoms and\nmolecules, before and after their formation into worlds? These changeless\nand eternal molecules\u2014far more numberless in space than the grains on the\nocean shore\u2014may differ in their constitution along the lines of their\nplanes of existence, as the soul\u2010substance differs from its vehicle, the\nbody. Each atom has seven planes of being or existence, we are taught; and\neach plane is governed by its specific laws of evolution and absorption.\nIgnorant of any, even approximate, chronological data from which to start,\nin attempting to decide the age of our planet or the origin of the solar\nsystem, Astronomers, Geologists, and Physicists, with each new hypothesis,\nare drifting farther and farther away from the shores of fact into the\nfathomless depths of speculative ontology.(262) The Law of Analogy, in the\nplan of structure between the trans\u2010solar systems and the solar planets,\ndoes not necessarily bear upon the finite conditions, to which every\nvisible body is subject, in this our plane of being. In Occult Science,\nthis Law of Analogy is the first and most important key to cosmic physics;\nbut it has to be studied in its minutest details, and \u201cturned seven\ntimes,\u201d before one comes to understand it. Occult Philosophy is the only\nscience that can teach it. How, then, can anyone hang the truth or the\nuntruth of the Occultist\u2019s proposition, \u201cthe Kosmos is eternal in its\nunconditioned collectivity, and finite only in its conditioned\nmanifestations,\u201d on this one\u2010sided physical enunciation that \u201cit is a\nnecessity of Nature to run down\u201d?(263)\n\n\n\nA Digression.\n\n\nWith this Shloka ends that portion of the Stanzas relating to the\ncosmogony of the Universe after the last Mah\u00e2pralaya, or Universal\nDissolution, which, when it comes, sweeps out of Space every\ndifferentiated thing, gods as well as atoms, like so many dry leaves. From\nthis verse onwards, the Stanzas are only concerned with our Solar System\nin general, with the Planetary Chains therein inferentially, and with the\nhistory of our Globe (the Fourth and its Chain) especially. All the verses\nwhich follow in this Volume refer only to the evolution of, and on, our\nEarth. With regard to the latter, a strange tenet\u2014strange from the modern\nscientific standpoint only, of course\u2014is held, which ought to be made\nknown.\n\nBut before entirely new and somewhat startling theories are presented to\nthe reader, they must be prefaced by a few words of explanation. This is\nabsolutely necessary, as these theories clash not only with Modern\nScience, but, on certain points, contradict earlier statements(264) made\nby other Theosophists, who claim to base their explanations and renderings\nof these teachings on the same authority as we do.\n\nThis may give rise to the idea that there is a decided contradiction\nbetween the expounders of the same doctrine; whereas the difference, in\nreality, arises from the incompleteness of the information given to\nearlier writers, who thus drew some erroneous conclusions and indulged in\npremature speculations, in their endeavour to present a complete system to\nthe public. Thus the reader, who is already a student of Theosophy, must\nnot be surprised to find in these pages the rectification of certain\nstatements made in various Theosophical works, and also the explanation of\ncertain points which have remained obscure, because they were necessarily\nleft incomplete. Many are the questions upon which even the author of\n_Esoteric Buddhism_, the best and most accurate of all such works, has not\ntouched. On the other hand, even he has introduced several mistaken\nnotions, which must now be presented in their true mystic light, as far as\nthe present writer is capable of so doing.\n\nLet us then make a short break between the Shlokas just explained and\nthose which follow, for the cosmic periods which separate them are of\nimmense duration. This will afford us ample time to take a bird\u2019s\u2010eye view\nof some points pertaining to the Secret Doctrine, which have been\npresented to the public under a more or less uncertain and sometimes\nmistaken light.\n\n\nA Few Early Misconceptions Concerning Planets, Rounds, And Man.\n\n\nAmong the eleven Stanzas omitted, there is one which gives a full\ndescription of the formation of the Planetary Chains one after another,\nafter the first cosmic and atomic differentiation had commenced in the\nprimitive Acosmism. It is idle to speak of \u201claws arising when Deity\nprepares to create,\u201d for \u201claws,\u201d or rather Law, are eternal and uncreated;\nand again Deity is Law, and _vice vers\u00e0_. Moreover, the one eternal Law\nunfolds everything in the (to be) manifested Nature on a sevenfold\nprinciple; among the rest, the countless circular Chains of Worlds,\ncomposed of seven Globes, graduated on the four lower planes of the World\nof Formation, the three others belonging to the Archetypal Universe. Out\nof these seven only one, _the lowest and the most material of these\nGlobes_, is within our plane or means of perception, the six others lying\noutside it and being therefore invisible to the terrestrial eye. Every\nsuch Chain of Worlds is the progeny and creation of another, _lower_, and\n_dead_ Chain\u2014its _re\u00efncarnation_, so to say. To make it clearer: we are\ntold that each of the planets\u2014of which _seven only_ were called sacred, as\nbeing ruled by the highest Regents or Gods, and not at all because the\nAncients knew nothing of the others(265)\u2014whether known or unknown, is a\nseptenary, as also is the Chain to which the Earth belongs. For instance,\nall such planets as Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, etc., etc., or\nour Earth, are as visible to us as our Globe, probably, is to the\ninhabitants, if any, of the other planets, because they are all on the\nsame plane; while the superior fellow\u2010globes of these planets are on other\nplanes quite outside that of our terrestrial senses. As their relative\npositions are given further on, and also in the diagram appended to the\ncomments on Shloka 6 of Stanza VI, a few words of explanation is all that\nis needed at present. These invisible companions correspond curiously to\nthat which we call the \u201cprinciples\u201d in man. The seven are on three\nmaterial planes and one spiritual plane, answering to the three Up\u00e2dhis\n(Material Bases), and one spiritual Vehicle (V\u00e2hana), of our seven\nPrinciples in the human division. If, for the sake of a clearer mental\nconception, we imagine the human Principles to be arranged as in the\nfollowing scheme, we shall obtain the following diagram of\ncorrespondences:\n\n                               [Diagram I]\n\nAs we are proceeding here from Universals to Particulars, instead of using\nthe inductive or Aristotelean method, the numbers are reversed. Spirit is\nenumerated the first instead of seventh, as is usually done, but in truth,\n_ought not to be done_.\n\nThe Principles, as usually named after the manner of _Esoteric Buddhism_\nand other works, are: 1, \u00c2tm\u00e2; 2, Buddhi (Spiritual Soul); 3, Manas (Human\nSoul); 4, K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa (Vehicle of Desires and Passions); 5, Pr\u00e2na; 6, Linga\nShar\u00eera; 7, Sth\u00fbla Shar\u00eera.\n\nThe dark horizontal lines of the lower planes are the Up\u00e2dhis in the case\nof the human Principles, and the planes in the case of the Planetary\nChain. Of course, as regards the Human Principles, the diagram does not\nplace them quite in order, yet it shows the correspondence and analogy to\nwhich attention is now drawn. As the reader will see, it is a case of\ndescent into matter, the adjustment\u2014in both the mystic and the physical\nsense\u2014of the two, and their interblending for the great coming \u201cstruggle\nfor life\u201d that awaits both Entities. \u201cEntity\u201d may be thought a strange\nterm to use in the case of a Globe, but the ancient philosophers, who saw\nin the Earth a huge \u201canimal,\u201d were wiser in their generation than our\nmodern geologists are in theirs; and Pliny, who called the Earth our kind\nnurse and mother, the only Element which is not inimical to man, spoke\nmore truly than Watts, who fancied that he saw in her the footstool of\nGod. For Earth is only the footstool of man in his ascension to higher\nregions; the vestibule\u2014\n\n\n    ... to glorious mansions,\n    Through which a moving crowd for ever press.\n\n\nBut this only shows how admirably Occult Philosophy fits every thing in\nNature, and how much more logical are its tenets than the lifeless\nhypothetical speculations of Physical Science.\n\nHaving learned thus much, the Mystic will be better prepared to understand\nthe Occult teaching, though every formal student of Modern Science may,\nand probably will, regard it as preposterous nonsense. The student of\nOccultism, however, holds that the theory at present under discussion is\nfar more philosophical and probable than any other. It is more logical, at\nany rate, than the theory recently advanced which made of the Moon the\nprojection of a portion of our Earth, extruded when the latter was a globe\nin fusion, a molten plastic mass.\n\nSays Mr. Samuel Laing, the author of _Modern Science and Modern Thought_:\n\n\n    The astronomical conclusions are theories based on data so\n    uncertain, that while in some cases they give results incredibly\n    short, like that of 15 millions of years for the whole past\n    process of formation of the solar system, in others they give\n    results almost incredibly long, as in that which _supposes the\n    moon to have been thrown off when the earth was rotating in three\n    hours_, while the utmost actual retardation obtained from\n    observation would require 600 millions of years to make it rotate\n    in twenty\u2010three hours instead of twenty\u2010four.(266)\n\n\nAnd if Physicists persist in such speculations, why should the chronology\nof the Hind\u00fbs be laughed at as exaggerated?\n\nIt is said, moreover, that the Planetary Chains having their Days and\ntheir Nights\u2014_i.e._, periods of activity or life, and of inertia or\ndeath\u2014behave in heaven as do men on earth: they generate their likes, grow\nold, and become personally extinct, their spiritual principles only living\nin their progeny as a survival of themselves.\n\nWithout attempting the very difficult task of giving out the whole process\nin all its cosmic details, enough may be said to give an approximate idea\nof it. When a Planetary Chain is in its last Round, its Globe A, before\nfinally _dying out_, sends all its energy and principles into a neutral\ncentre of latent force, a laya centre, and thereby informs a new nucleus\nof undifferentiated substance or matter, _i.e._, calls it into activity or\ngives it life. Suppose such a process to have taken place in the Lunar\nPlanetary Chain; suppose again, for argument\u2019s sake\u2014though Mr. Darwin\u2019s\ntheory quoted below has lately been upset, even if the fact has not yet\nbeen ascertained by mathematical calculation\u2014that the Moon is far older\nthan the Earth. Imagine the _six_ fellow\u2010globes of the Moon\u2014\u00e6ons before\nthe first Globe of our seven was evolved\u2014just in the same position in\nrelation to each other as the fellow\u2010globes of our Chain now occupy in\nregard to our Earth.(267) And now it will be easy to imagine further Globe\nA of the Lunar Chain informing Globe A of the Terrestrial Chain,\nand\u2014dying; next Globe B of the former sending its energy into Globe B of\nthe new Chain; then Globe C of the Lunar creating its progeny Sphere C of\nthe Terrene Chain; then the Moon (our satellite) pouring forth into the\nlowest Globe of our Planetary Chain\u2014Globe D, our Earth\u2014all its life,\nenergy and powers; and, having transferred them to a new centre, becoming\nvirtually a _dead planet_, in which since the birth of our Globe rotation\nhas almost ceased. The Moon is the satellite of our Earth, undeniably, but\nthis does not invalidate the theory that she has given to the Earth all\nbut her corpse. For Darwin\u2019s theory to hold good, besides the hypothesis\njust upset, other still more incongruous speculations had to be invented.\nThe Moon, it is said, has cooled nearly six times as rapidly as the\nEarth.(268) \u201cThe Moon, if the earth is 14,000,000 years old since its\nincrustation, is only eleven and two\u2010thirds millions of years old since\nthat stage ...\u201d etc. And if our Moon is but a splash from our Earth, why\ncan no similar inference be established for the Moons of other planets?\nThe Astronomers \u201cdo not know.\u201d Why should Venus and Mercury have no\nsatellites, and by what, when they exist, were they formed? The\nAstronomers do not know, because, we say, Science has only one key\u2014the key\nof matter\u2014to open the mysteries of Nature, while Occult Philosophy has\nseven keys and explains that which Science fails to see. Mercury and Venus\nhave no satellites, but they had \u201cparents\u201d just as the Earth had. Both are\nfar older than the Earth, and, before the latter reaches her Seventh\nRound, her mother Moon will have dissolved into thin air, as the Moons of\nthe other planets have, or have not, as the case may be, since there are\nplanets which have _several_ Moons\u2014a mystery again which no \u0152dipus of\nAstronomy has solved.\n\nThe Moon is now the cold residual quantity, the shadow dragged after the\nnew body, into which her living powers and principles are transfused. She\nnow is doomed for long ages to be ever pursuing the Earth, to be attracted\nby and to attract her progeny. Constantly _vampirized_ by her child, she\nrevenges herself on it, by soaking it through and through with the\nnefarious, invisible and poisoned influence which emanates from the occult\nside of her nature. For she is a _dead_, yet a _living body_. The\nparticles of her decaying corpse are full of active and destructive life,\nalthough the body which they had formed, is soulless and lifeless.\nTherefore its emanations are at the same time beneficent and maleficent\u2014a\ncircumstance finding its parallel on earth, in the fact that the grass and\nplants are nowhere more juicy and thriving than on graves; while at the\nsame time it is the graveyard, or corpse\u2010emanations, which kill. And like\nall ghouls or vampires, the Moon is the friend of the sorcerers and the\nfoe of the unwary. From the archaic \u00e6ons and the later times of the\nwitches of Thessaly, down to some of the present T\u00e2ntrikas of Bengal, her\nnature and properties have been known to every Occultist, but have\nremained a closed book for Physicists.\n\nSuch is the Moon from the astronomical, geological, and physical\nstandpoints. As to her metaphysical and psychic nature, it must remain an\noccult secret in this work, as it was in the volume entitled _Esoteric\nBuddhism_, notwithstanding the rather sanguine statement made therein,\nthat \u201cthere is not much mystery left now in the riddle of the eighth\nsphere.\u201d(269) These are topics, indeed, \u201con which the Adepts are very\nreserved in their communications to uninitiated pupils,\u201d and since they\nhave, moreover, never sanctioned or permitted any published speculations\nupon them, the less said the better.\n\nYet, without treading upon the forbidden ground of the \u201ceighth sphere,\u201d it\nmay be useful to state some additional facts with regard to the ex\u2010monads\nof the Lunar Chain\u2014the \u201cLunar Ancestors\u201d\u2014as they play a leading part in\nthe coming Anthropogenesis. This brings us directly to the Septenary\nConstitution of man; and as some discussion has arisen of late about the\nbest classification to be adopted for the division of the microcosmic\nentity, two systems are now appended with a view to facilitate comparison.\nThe subjoined short article is from the pen of Mr. T. Subba Row, a learned\nVed\u00e2ntin scholar. He prefers the Br\u00e2hmanical division of the R\u00e2ja Yoga,\nand from a metaphysical point of view he is quite right. But, as it is a\nquestion of simple choice and expediency, we hold in this work to the\ntime\u2010honoured classification of the Trans\u2010Him\u00e2layan \u201cArhat Esoteric\nSchool.\u201d The following table and its explanatory text are reprinted from\nthe _Theosophist_, and are also contained in _Five Years of\nTheosophy_.(270)\n\n\nThe Septenary Division In Different Indian Systems.\n\n\nWe give below in a tabular form the classifications adopted by the\nBuddhist and Ved\u00e2ntic teachers of the principles of man:\n\n\u201cEsoteric         Ved\u00e2nta.              T\u00e2raka R\u00e2ja\nBuddhism.\u201d                              Yoga.\n1. Sth\u00fbla         Annamayakosha.(271)   Sth\u00fblop\u00e2dhi.(272)\nShar\u00eera.\n2. Pr\u00e2na.(273)    Pr\u00e2namayakosha.       Sth\u00fblop\u00e2dhi.\n3. The Vehicle    Pr\u00e2namayakosha.       Sth\u00fblop\u00e2dhi.\nof Pr\u00e2na.(274)\n4. K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa.     M\u00e2nomayakosha.        S\u00fbkshmop\u00e2dhi.\n5. Mind           M\u00e2nomayakosha.        S\u00fbkshmop\u00e2dhi.\n(Volitions and\nfeelings);\nVij\u00f1\u00e2nam.\n6. Spiritual      \u00c2nandamayakosha.      K\u00e2ranop\u00e2dhi.\nSoul.(275)\n7. \u00c2tm\u00e2.          \u00c2tm\u00e2.                 \u00c2tm\u00e2.\n\nFrom the foregoing table it will be seen that the third principle in the\nBuddhist classification is not separately mentioned in the Ved\u00e2ntic\ndivision, as it is merely the vehicle of Pr\u00e2na. It will also be seen that\nthe fourth principle is included in the third Kosha (Sheath), as the same\nprinciple is but the vehicle of will\u2010power, which is but an energy of the\nmind. It must also be noticed that the Vij\u00f1\u00e2namayakosha is considered to\nbe distinct from the M\u00e2nomayakosha, as a division is made after death\nbetween the lower part of the mind, as it were, which has a closer\naffinity with the fourth principle than with the sixth and its higher\npart, which attaches itself to the latter, and which is, in fact, the\nbasis for the higher spiritual individuality of man.\n\nWe may also here point out to our readers that the classification\nmentioned in the last column is, for all practical purposes, connected\nwith R\u00e2ja Yoga, the best and simplest. Though there are seven principles\nin man, there are but three distinct Up\u00e2dhis (Bases), in each of which his\n\u00c2tm\u00e2 may work independently of the rest. These three Up\u00e2dhis can be\nseparated by an Adept without killing himself. He cannot separate the\nseven principles from each other without destroying his constitution.\n\nThe student will now be better prepared to see that between the three\nUp\u00e2dhis of the R\u00e2ja Yoga and its Atm\u00e2, and our three Up\u00e2dhis, \u00c2tm\u00e2, and\nthe additional three divisions, there is in reality but very little\ndifference. Moreover, as every Adept in Cis\u2010Him\u00e2layan or Trans\u2010Him\u00e2layan\nIndia, of the Patanjali, the \u00c2ry\u00e2sanga or the Mah\u00e2y\u00e2na schools, has to\nbecome a R\u00e2ja Yog\u00ee, he must, therefore, accept the T\u00e2raka R\u00e2ja\nclassification in principle and theory, whatever classification he resorts\nto for practical and Occult purposes. Thus, it matters very little whether\none speaks of the _three_ Up\u00e2dhis, with their _three_ Aspects, and \u00c2tm\u00e2,\nthe eternal and immortal synthesis, or calls them the \u201cSeven Principles.\u201d\n\nFor the benefit of those who may not have read, or, if they have, may not\nhave clearly understood, in Theosophical writings, the doctrine of the\nseptenary Chains of Worlds in the Solar Cosmos, the teaching is briefly as\nfollows.\n\n1. Everything in the metaphysical as in the physical Universe is\nseptenary. Hence every sidereal body, every planet, whether visible or\ninvisible, is credited with six companion Globes. The evolution of life\nproceeds on these seven Globes or bodies, from the First to the Seventh,\nin Seven Rounds or Seven Cycles.\n\n2. These Globes are formed by a process which the Occultists call the\n\u201crebirth of Planetary Chains (or Rings).\u201d When the Seventh and last Round\nof one of such Rings has been entered upon, the highest or first Globe, A,\nfollowed by all the others down to the last, instead of entering upon a\ncertain time of rest\u2014or \u201cObscuration,\u201d as in the previous Rounds\u2014begins to\ndie out. The Planetary Dissolution (Pralaya) is at hand, and its hour has\nstruck; each Globe has to transfer its life and energy to another\nplanet.(276)\n\n3. Our Earth, as the visible representative of its invisible superior\nfellow\u2010globes, its \u201cLords\u201d or \u201cPrinciples,\u201d has to live, as have the\nothers, through seven Rounds. During the first three, it forms and\nconsolidates; during the fourth, it settles and hardens; during the last\nthree, it gradually returns to its first ethereal form: it is\nspiritualized, so to say.\n\n4. Its Humanity develops fully only in the Fourth\u2014our present Round. Up to\nthis Fourth Life\u2010Cycle, it is referred to as \u201cHumanity\u201d only for lack of a\nmore appropriate term. Like the grub which becomes chrysalis and\nbutterfly, Man, or rather that which becomes Man, passes through all the\nforms and kingdoms during the First Round, and through all the human\nshapes during the two following Rounds. Arrived on our Earth at the\ncommencement of the Fourth, in the present series of Life\u2010Cycles and\nRaces, Man is the first form that appears thereon, being preceded only by\nthe mineral and vegetable kingdoms\u2014even the latter having to _develop and\ncontinue_ its further evolution _through man_. This will be explained in\nVolume II. During the three Rounds to come, Humanity, like the Globe on\nwhich it lives, will be ever tending to re\u00e4ssume its primeval form, that\nof a Dhy\u00e2n Chohanic Host. Man tends to become _a_ God and then\u2014_God_, like\nevery other Atom in the Universe.\n\n_Beginning so early as with the Second Round, Evolution proceeds already\non quite a different plan. It is only during the first Round that\n(Heavenly) Man becomes a human being on Globe A, (rebecomes) a mineral, a\nplant, an animal, on Globe B and C, etc. The process changes entirely from\nthe Second Round; but you have learned prudence ... and I advise you to\nsay nothing before the time for saying it has come...._(277)\n\n5. Every Life\u2010Cycle on Globe D (our Earth)(278) is composed of seven Root\u2010\nRaces. They commence with the ethereal and end with the spiritual, on the\ndouble line of physical and moral evolution\u2014from the beginning of the\nTerrestrial Round to its close. One is a \u201cPlanetary Round\u201d from Globe A to\nGlobe G, the seventh; the other, the \u201cGlobe Round,\u201d or the Terrestrial.\n\nThis is very well described in _Esoteric Buddhism_, and needs no further\nelucidation for the time being.\n\n6. The First Root\u2010Race, _i.e._, the first \u201cMen\u201d on earth (irrespective of\nform), were the progeny of the \u201cCelestial Men,\u201d rightly called in Indian\nphilosophy the \u201cLunar Ancestors\u201d or the Pitris, of which there are seven\nClasses or Hierarchies. As all this will be sufficiently explained in the\nfollowing sections and in Volume II, no more need be said of it here.\n\nBut the two works already mentioned, both of which treat of subjects from\nthe Occult doctrine, need particular notice. _Esoteric Buddhism_ is too\nwell known in Theosophical circles, and even to the outside world, for it\nto be necessary to enter at length upon its merits here. It is an\nexcellent book, and has done still more excellent work. But this does not\nalter the fact that it contains some mistaken notions, and that it has led\nmany Theosophists and lay\u2010readers to form an erroneous conception of the\nEastern Secret Doctrine. Moreover it seems, perhaps, a little too\nmaterialistic.\n\n_Man_, which came later, was an attempt to present the archaic doctrine\nfrom a more ideal standpoint, to translate some visions in and from the\nAstral Light, to render some teachings partly gathered from a Master\u2019s\nthoughts, but unfortunately misunderstood. This work also speaks of the\nevolution of the early Races of men on Earth, and contains some excellent\npages of a philosophical character. But so far it is only an interesting\nlittle mystical romance. It has failed in its mission, because the\nconditions required for a correct translation of these visions were not\npresent. Hence the reader must not wonder if our volumes contradict these\nearlier descriptions in several particulars.\n\nEsoteric cosmogony in general, and the evolution of the human Monad\nespecially, differ so essentially in these two books, and in other\nTheosophical works written independently by _beginners_, that it becomes\nimpossible to proceed with the present work without special mention of\nthese two earlier volumes, for both have a number of admirers\u2014_Esoteric\nBuddhism_ especially. The time has arrived for the explanation of some\nmatters in this direction. Mistakes have now to be checked by the original\nteachings, and corrected. If one of the said works has too pronounced a\nbias toward materialistic Science, the other is decidedly too idealistic,\nand at times is fantastic.\n\nFrom the doctrine\u2014rather incomprehensible to Western minds\u2014which deals\nwith the periodical Obscurations and successive Rounds of the Globes,\nalong their circular Chains, were born the first perplexities and\nmisconceptions. One of such has reference to the \u201cFifth\u2010\u201d and even \u201cSixth\u2010\nRounders.\u201d Those who knew that a Round was preceded and followed by a long\nPralaya, a pause of rest, which created an impassable gulf between two\nRounds until the time came for a renewed cycle of life, could not\nunderstand the \u201cfallacy\u201d of talking about \u201c_Fifth_ and _Sixth_\u2010Rounders\u201d\nin our _Fourth_ Round. Gautama Buddha, it was held, was a \u201cSixth\u2010Rounder,\u201d\nPlato and some other great philosophers and minds, \u201cFifth\u2010Rounders.\u201d How\ncould it be? One Master taught and affirmed that there were such \u201cFifth\u2010\nRounders\u201d even now on Earth; and though _understood to say_ that mankind\nwas yet in the Fourth Round, in another place he _seemed_ to say that we\nwere in the Fifth. To this an \u201capocalyptic answer\u201d was returned by another\nTeacher: \u201cA few drops of rain do not make a monsoon, though they presage\nit.\u201d... \u201cNo, we are not in the Fifth Round, but Fifth Round men have been\ncoming in for the last few thousand years.\u201d This was worse than the riddle\nof the Sphinx! Students of Occultism subjected their brains to the wildest\nwork of speculation. For a considerable time they tried to outvie \u0152dipus\nand reconcile the two statements. And as the Masters kept as silent as the\nstony Sphinx herself, they were accused of \u201cinconsistency,\u201d\n\u201ccontradiction,\u201d and \u201cdiscrepancies.\u201d But they were simply allowing the\nspeculations to go on, in order _to teach a lesson_ which the Western mind\nsorely needs. In their conceit and arrogance, and in their habit of\nmaterializing every metaphysical conception and term, without allowing any\nmargin for Eastern metaphor and allegory, the Orientalists had made a\njumble of the Hind\u00fb exoteric philosophy, and the Theosophists were now\ndoing the same with regard to Esoteric teachings. To this day it is\nevident that the latter have utterly failed to understand the meaning of\nthe term \u201cFifth and Sixth\u2010Rounders.\u201d But it is simply this: every Round\nbrings about a new development, and even an entire change, in the mental,\npsychic, spiritual and physical constitution of man; all these principles\nevolving on an ever ascending scale. Hence it follows that those persons\nwho, like Confucius and Plato, belonged psychically, mentally and\nspiritually to the higher planes of evolution, were in our Fourth Round as\nthe average man will be in the Fifth Round, whose mankind is destined to\nfind itself, on this scale of evolution, immensely higher than is our\npresent humanity. Similarly, Gautama Buddha\u2014Wisdom incarnate\u2014was still\nhigher and greater than all the men we have mentioned who are called\n\u201cFifth\u2010Rounders,\u201d and so Buddha and Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya are termed \u201cSixth\nRounders,\u201d allegorically. Hence again the concealed wisdom of the remark,\npronounced at the time \u201cevasive\u201d\u2014\u201ca few drops of rain do not make a\nmonsoon, _though they presage it_.\u201d\n\nAnd now the truth of the following remark, in _Esoteric Buddhism_, will be\nfully apparent:\n\n\n    It is impossible, _when the complicated facts of an entirely\n    unfamiliar science are being presented to untrained minds for the\n    first time_, to put them forward with all their appropriate\n    qualifications ... and abnormal developments.... We must be\n    content to take the broad rules first and deal with the exceptions\n    afterwards, and especially is this the case with a study, in\n    connection with which _the traditional methods of teaching,\n    generally followed, aim at impressing every fresh idea on the\n    memory by provoking the perplexity it at last relieves_.\n\n\nAs the author of the remark was himself, as he says, \u201can untrained mind\u201d\nin Occultism, his own inferences, and his better knowledge of modern\nastronomical speculations than of archaic doctrines, led him, quite\nnaturally, and unconsciously to himself, to commit a few mistakes of\ndetail rather than of any \u201cbroad rule.\u201d One such will now be noticed. It\nis a trifling one, still it is calculated to lead many a beginner into\nerroneous conceptions. But as the mistaken notions of the earlier editions\nwere corrected in the annotations of the fifth edition, so the sixth may\nbe revised and perfected. There were several reasons for such mistakes.\nThey were due to the necessity, under which the Teachers laboured, of\ngiving what were considered as \u201cevasive answers\u201d; the questions being too\npersistently pressed to be left unnoticed, while, on the other hand, they\n_could only be partially answered_. This position notwithstanding, the\nconfession that \u201chalf a loaf is better than no bread\u201d was but too often\nmisunderstood, and hardly appreciated as it ought to have been. As a\nresult thereof gratuitous speculations were sometimes indulged in by the\nEuropean lay\u2010chel\u00e2s. Among such were the \u201cMystery of the Eighth Sphere\u201d in\nits relation to the Moon, and the erroneous statement that two of the\nsuperior Globes of the Terrestrial Chain were two of our well\u2010known\nplanets; \u201cbesides the earth ... there are _only two other worlds of our\nchain which are visible_ ... Mars and Mercury....\u201d(279)\n\nThis was a great mistake. But the blame for it is to be attached as much\nto the vagueness and incompleteness of the Master\u2019s answer as to the\nquestion of the learner itself, which was equally vague and indefinite.\n\nIt was asked: \u201cWhat planets, of those known to ordinary Science, besides\nMercury, belong to our system of worlds?\u201d Now if by \u201csystem of worlds\u201d our\n_Terrestrial Chain_, or \u201cString,\u201d was intended, in the mind of the\nquerist, instead of the \u201cSolar System of Worlds,\u201d as it should have been,\nthen of course the answer was likely to have been misunderstood. For the\nreply was: \u201c_Mars, etc., and, four other planets of which Astronomy knows\nnothing. Neither A, B, nor Y, Z, are known, nor can they be seen through\nphysical means, however perfected_.\u201d This is plain: (_a_) Astronomy as yet\nknows nothing in reality of the planets, neither the ancient ones, nor\nthose discovered in modern times. (_b_) No _companion_ planets from A to\nZ, _i.e._, no upper Globes of any Chain in the Solar System, can be seen;\nwith the exception of course of all the planets which come _fourth_ in\nnumber, as our Earth, the Moon, etc., etc. As to Mars, Mercury, and \u201cthe\nfour other planets,\u201d they bear a relation to Earth of which no Master or\nhigh Occultist will ever speak, much less explain the nature.\n\nIn this same letter the impossibility is distinctly stated by one of the\nTeachers to the author of _Esoteric Buddhism_: \u201c_Try to understand that\nyou are putting me questions pertaining to the highest Initiation; that I\ncan give you (only) a general view, but that I dare not, nor will I, enter\ninto details_....\u201d Copies of all the letters ever received, or sent, with\nthe exception of a few private ones\u2014\u201c_in which there was no teaching_,\u201d\nthe Master says\u2014are with the writer. As it was her duty, in the beginning,\nto answer and explain certain points not touched upon, it is more than\nlikely that, notwithstanding the many annotations on these copies, the\nwriter, in her ignorance of English and her fear of saying too much, may\nhave bungled the information given. _She takes the whole blame for it upon\nherself in any and every case_. But it is impossible for her to allow\nstudents to remain any longer under erroneous impressions, or to believe\nthat the fault lies with the Esoteric system.\n\nLet it then be now distinctly stated that the theory broached is\nimpossible, with or without the additional evidence furnished by modern\nAstronomy. Physical Science can supply corroborative, though still very\nuncertain, evidence, but only as regards heavenly bodies on the same plane\nof materiality as our objective Universe. Mars and Mercury, Venus and\nJupiter, like every hitherto discovered planet, or those still to be\ndiscovered, are all, _per se_, the representatives on our plane of such\nChains. As distinctly stated in one of the numerous letters of Mr.\nSinnett\u2019s Teacher: \u201c_there are other and innumerable __ manvantaric Chains\nof Globes which bear intelligent Beings, both in and outside our Solar\nSystem_.\u201d But neither Mars nor Mercury belong to _our_ Chain. They are,\nalong with other planets, septenary Units in the great host of Chains of\nour System, and all are as visible as their _upper_ Globes are invisible.\n\nIf it is still argued that certain expressions in the Teacher\u2019s letters\nwere liable to mislead, the answer comes: Amen; so they were. The author\nof _Esoteric Buddhism_ understood it well when he wrote that such are \u201cthe\ntraditional modes of teaching ... by provoking the perplexity,\u201d they _do_\nor _do not relieve_\u2014as the case may be. At all events, if it is urged that\nthis might have been explained earlier, and the true nature of the planets\ngiven out as they now are, the answer comes that: It was not found\nexpedient to do so at the time, as it would have opened the way to a\nseries of additional questions _which could never be answered on account\nof their Esoteric nature_, and thus would only become embarrassing. It had\nbeen declared from the first, and has been repeatedly asserted since: (1)\nThat no Theosophist, _not even as an accepted Chel\u00e2_, let alone lay\nstudents, could expect to have the secret teachings explained to him\n_thoroughly and completely_, before _he had irretrievably pledged himself\nto the Brotherhood and passed through at least one Initiation_, because no\nfigures and numbers could be given to the public, for figures and numbers\nare the key to the Esoteric system. (2) That what was revealed was merely\nthe Esoteric lining of that which is contained in almost all the exoteric\nscriptures of the world\u2010religions\u2014pre\u00ebminently in the _Br\u00e2hmanas_ and the\n_Upanishads_ of the _Vedas_, and even in the _Pur\u00e2nas_. It was a small\nportion of what is divulged far more fully now in the present volumes; and\neven this is very incomplete and fragmentary.\n\nWhen the present work was commenced, the writer, feeling sure that the\nspeculation about Mars and Mercury was a mistake, applied to the Teachers\n_by letter_ for an explanation and an authoritative version. Both came in\ndue time, and _verbatim_ extracts from these are now given.\n\n\u201c... _It is quite correct that Mars is in a state of obscuration at\npresent, and Mercury just beginning to get out of it. You might add that\nVenus is in her last Round.... If neither Mercury nor Venus have\nsatellites, it is because of the reasons ... and also because Mars has two\nsatellites to which he has no right.... Phobos, the supposed\n__\u2018__inner__\u2019__ satellite, is no satellite at all. Thus, this remark of\nlong ago by Laplace and now by Faye do not agree, you see. (Read\n__\u2018__Comptes Rendus,__\u2019__ __ Tome XC, p. 569.) Phobos keeps a too short\nperiodic time, and therefore there __\u2018__must exist some defect in the\nmother idea of the theory,__\u2019__ as Faye justly observes.... Again, both\n[Mars and Mercury] are septenary Chains, as independent of the Earth\u2019s\nsidereal lords and superiors as you are independent of the\n__\u2018__principles__\u2019__ of D\u00e4umling [Tom Thumb]\u2014which were perhaps his six\nbrothers, with or without night\u2010caps.... __\u2018__Gratification of curiosity\nis the end of knowledge for some men,__\u2019__ was said by Bacon, who was as\nright in postulating this truism, as those who were familiar with it\nbefore him, were right in hedging off_ WISDOM _from Knowledge, and tracing\nlimits to that which is to be given out at one time.... Remember:_\n\n\n    _... knowledge dwells_\n    _In heads replete with thoughts of other men,_\n    _Wisdom in minds attentive to their own_....\u201d\n\n\n\u201c_You can never impress it too profoundly on the minds of those to whom\nyou impart some of the Esoteric teachings_.\u201d\n\nHere are more extracts from another letter written by the same authority.\nThis time it is in answer to some objections laid before the Teachers.\nThey are based upon extremely scientific, and as futile, reasonings about\nthe advisability of trying to reconcile the Esoteric theories with the\nspeculations of Modern Science, were written by a young Theosophist as a\nwarning against the \u201cSecret Doctrine,\u201d and in reference to the same\nsubject. He had declared that if there were such companion Earths, \u201cthey\nmust be only a wee bit less material than our globe.\u201d How then was it that\nthey could not be seen? The answer was:\n\n\u201c..._ Were psychic and spiritual teachings more fully understood, it would\nbecome next to impossible to even imagine such an incongruity. Unless less\ntrouble is taken to reconcile the irreconcilable\u2014that is to say, the\nmetaphysical and spiritual sciences with physical or natural philosophy,\n__\u2018__natural__\u2019__ being a synonym to them [men of Science] of that matter\nwhich falls under the perception of their corporeal senses\u2014no progress can\nbe really achieved. Our Globe, as taught from the first, is at the bottom\nof the arc of descent, where the matter of our perceptions exhibits itself\nin its grossest form.... Hence it only stands to reason that the Globes\nwhich overshadow our Earth, must be on different and superior planes. In\nshort, as Globes, they are in_ CO\u00c4DUNITION _but not in_ CONSUBSTANTIALITY\n_with our Earth, and thus pertain to quite another state of consciousness.\nOur planet (like all those we see) is adapted to the peculiar state of its\nhuman stock, that state which enables us to see with our naked eye the\nsidereal bodies __ which are co\u00ebssential with our terrene plane and\nsubstance, just as their respective inhabitants, the Jovians, Martians and\nothers, can perceive our little world; because our planes of\nconsciousness, differing as they do in degree, but being the same in kind,\nare on the same layer of differentiated matter.... What I wrote was:\n__\u2018__The minor Pralaya concerns only our little Strings of Globes. (We\ncalled Chains __\u201c__Strings__\u201d__ in those days of lip\u2010confusion.)... To\nsuch a String our Earth belongs.__\u2019__ This ought to have shown plainly\nthat the other planets were also __\u2018__Strings,__\u2019__ or_ CHAINS.... _If he\n[meaning the objector] would perceive even the dim silhouette of one of\nsuch __\u2018__planets__\u2019__ on the higher planes, he has to first throw off\neven the thin clouds of the astral matter that stand between him and the\nnext plane_.\u201d\n\nIt thus becomes patent why we could not perceive, even with the help of\nthe best telescopes, that which is outside our world of matter. Those\nalone, whom we call Adepts, who know how to direct their mental vision and\nto transfer their consciousness\u2014both physical and psychic\u2014to other planes\nof being, are able to speak with authority on such subjects. And they tell\nus plainly:\n\n\u201c_Lead the life necessary for the acquisition of such knowledge and\npowers, and Wisdom will come to you naturally. Whenever you are able to\nattune your consciousness to any of the seven chords of __\u2018__Universal\nConsciousness,__\u2019__ those chords that run along the sounding\u2010board of\nKosmos, vibrating from one Eternity to another; when you have studied\nthoroughly the __\u2018__Music of the Spheres,__\u2019__ then only will you become\nquite free to share your knowledge with those with whom it is safe to do\nso. Meanwhile, be prudent. Do not give out the great Truths that are the\ninheritance of the future Races, to our present generation. Do not attempt\nto unveil the secret of Being and Non\u2010Being to those unable to see the\nhidden meaning of Apollo\u2019s Heptachord, the lyre of the radiant god, in\neach of the seven strings of which dwelleth the Spirit, Soul and Astral\nBody of the Kosmos, whose shell only has now fallen into the hands of\nmodern Science.... Be prudent, we say, prudent and wise, and above all\ntake care what those who learn from you believe in; lest by deceiving\nthemselves they deceive others, ... for such is the fate of every truth\nwith which men are, as yet, unfamiliar.... Let rather the Planetary Chains\nand other super\u2010 and sub\u2010cosmic mysteries remain a dreamland for those who\ncan neither see, nor yet believe that others can_.\u201d\n\nIt is to be regretted that few of us have followed the wise advice, and\nthat many a priceless pearl, many a jewel of wisdom, has been cast to an\nenemy, unable to understand its value, who has turned round and rent us.\n\n\u201c_Let us imagine_\u201d\u2014wrote the same Master to his two \u201clay chel\u00e2s,\u201d as he\ncalled the author of _Esoteric Buddhism_ and another gentleman, his co\u2010\nstudent for some time\u2014\u201c_let us imagine that our earth is one of a group of\nseven planets or man\u2010bearing worlds.... [The __\u2018__seven planets__\u2019__ are\nthe sacred planets of antiquity, and are all septenary.] Now the life\u2010\nimpulse reaches A, or rather that which is destined to become A, and which\nso far is but cosmic dust [a laya\u2010centre]_ ...\u201d etc.\n\nIn these early letters, in which terms had to be invented and words\ncoined, the \u201cRings\u201d very often became \u201cRounds,\u201d and the \u201cRounds,\u201d \u201cLife\u2010\nCycles,\u201d and _vice vers\u00e2_. To a correspondent who called a \u201cRound\u201d a\n\u201cWorld\u2010Ring,\u201d the Teacher wrote: \u201c_I believe this will lead to a further\nconfusion. A Round we are agreed to call the passage of a Monad from Globe\nA to Globe G or Z.... The __\u2018__World\u2010Ring__\u2019__ is correct.... Advise Mr.\n... strongly, to agree upon a nomenclature before going any further_.\u201d\n\nNotwithstanding this agreement, many mistakes, owing to this confusion,\ncrept into the earliest teachings. The \u201cRaces\u201d even were occasionally\nmixed up with the \u201cRounds\u201d and \u201cRings,\u201d and led to similar mistakes in\n_Man: Fragments of Forgotten Truth_. From the first the Master had\nwritten:\n\n\u201c_Not being permitted to give you the whole truth, or divulge the number\nof isolated fractions, ... I am unable to satisfy you_.\u201d\n\nThis in answer to the questions: \u201cIf we are right, then the total\nexistence prior to the man\u2010period is 637,\u201d etc., etc. To all the queries\nrelating to figures, the reply was: \u201c_Try to solve the problem of 777\nincarnations.... Though I am obliged to withhold information, ... yet if\nyou should work out the problem by yourself, it will be my duty to tell\nyou so_.\u201d\n\nBut it never was so worked out, and the results were\u2014never\u2010ceasing\nperplexity and mistakes.\n\nEven the teaching about the septenary constitution of the sidereal bodies\nand of the macrocosm\u2014from which the septenary division of the microcosm,\nor man\u2014has until now been among the most esoteric. In olden times it used\nto be divulged only at Initiation together with the most sacred figures of\nthe cycles. Now, as stated in one of the Theosophical journals,(280) the\nrevelation of the whole system of cosmogony had not been contemplated, nor\neven thought for one moment possible, at a time when a few scraps of\ninformation were sparingly given out, in answer to letters, written by the\nauthor of _Esoteric Buddhism_, in which he put forward a multiplicity of\nquestions. Among these were questions on such problems _as no_ MASTER,\n_however high and independent he might be, would have the right to answer,\nand thus divulge to the world the most time\u2010honoured and archaic of the\nmysteries of the ancient college\u2010temples_. Hence only a few of the\ndoctrines were revealed in their broad outlines, while details were\nconstantly withheld, and all the efforts made to elicit more information\nabout them were systematically eluded from the beginning. This was\nperfectly natural. Of the four Vidy\u00e2s, out of the seven branches of\nKnowledge mentioned in the _Pur\u00e2nas_\u2014namely, Yajna Vidy\u00e2, the performance\nof religious rites in order to produce certain results; Mah\u00e2 Vidy\u00e2, the\ngreat (magic) knowledge, now degenerated into T\u00e2ntrika worship; Guhya\nVidy\u00e2, the science of Mantras and their true rhythm or chanting, of\nmystical incantations, etc.; \u00c2tm\u00e2 Vidy\u00e2, or the true _spiritual_ and\n_divine Wisdom_\u2014it is only the last which can throw final and absolute\nlight upon the teachings of the three first named. Without the help of\n\u00c2tm\u00e2 Vidy\u00e2, the other three remain no better than _surface_ sciences,\ngeometrical magnitudes having length and breadth, but no thickness. They\nare like the soul, limbs and mind of a sleeping man, capable of mechanical\nmotions, of chaotic dreams and even sleep\u2010walking, of producing visible\neffects, but stimulated only by instinctual not intellectual causes, least\nof all by fully conscious spiritual impulses. A good deal can be given out\nand explained from the three first\u2010named sciences. But unless the key to\ntheir teachings is furnished by \u00c2tm\u00e2 Vidy\u00e2, they will remain for ever like\nthe fragments of a mangled text\u2010book, like the adumbrations of great\ntruths, dimly perceived by the most spiritual, but distorted out of all\nproportion by those who would nail every shadow to the wall.\n\nThen, again, another great perplexity was created in the minds of students\nby the incomplete exposition of the doctrine of the evolution of the\nMonads. To be fully realized, both this process and that of the birth of\nthe Globes must be examined far more from their metaphysical aspect, than\nfrom what one might call a statistical standpoint, involving figures and\nnumbers which are rarely permitted to be widely used. Unfortunately, there\nare few who are inclined to handle these doctrines only metaphysically.\nEven the best of the Western writers upon our doctrine declares in his\nwork, when speaking of the evolution of the Monads, that \u201con pure\nmetaphysics of that sort we are not now engaged.\u201d(281) And in such case,\nas the Teacher remarks in a letter to him: \u201c_Why this preaching of our\ndoctrines, all this uphill work and swimming __\u2018__in adversum flumen__\u2019__?\nWhy should the West ... learn ... from the East ... that which can never\nmeet the requirements of the special tastes of the \u00e6sthetics?_\u201d And he\ndraws his correspondent\u2019s attention \u201c_to the formidable difficulties\nencountered by us [the Adepts] in every attempt we make to explain our\nmetaphysics to the Western mind._\u201d\n\nAnd well he may; for _outside_ of metaphysics, no Occult philosophy, no\nEsotericism is possible. It is like trying to explain the aspirations and\naffections, love and hatred, the most private and sacred workings in the\nsoul and mind of a living man, by an anatomical description of the thorax\nand brain of his dead body.\n\nLet us now examine two tenets mentioned above, but hardly alluded to in\n_Esoteric Buddhism_, and supplement them as far as lies in our power.\n\n\nAdditional Facts And Explanations Concerning The Globes And The Monads.\n\n\nTwo statements made in the above work must be noticed and the author\u2019s\nopinions quoted. The first is as follows:\n\n\n    The spiritual Monads ... do not fully complete their mineral\n    existence on Globe A, then complete it on Globe B, and so on. They\n    pass several times round the whole circle as minerals, and then\n    again several times round as vegetables, and several times as\n    animals. We purposely refrain for the present from going into\n    figures, etc., etc.(282)\n\n\nThat was a wise course to adopt in view of the great secrecy maintained\nwith regard to figures and numbers. This reticence is now partially\nrelinquished; but it would perhaps have been better had the real numbers\nconcerning Rounds and evolutional gyrations been either entirely divulged\nat the time, or entirely withheld. Mr. Sinnett understood this difficulty\nwell when saying:\n\n\n    For reasons which are not easy for the outsider to divine, the\n    possessors of Occult knowledge are especially reluctant to give\n    out numerical facts relating to cosmogony, though it is hard for\n    the uninitiated to understand why they should be withheld.(283)\n\n\nThat there were such reasons is evident. Nevertheless, it is to this\nreticence that most of the confused ideas of some Eastern as well as\nWestern pupils are due. The difficulties in the way of the acceptance of\nthe particular tenets under consideration seemed great, just because of\nthe absence of any data to go upon. But there it was. For, as the Masters\nhave many times declared, the figures belonging to the Occult calculations\ncannot be given\u2014outside the circle of pledged Chel\u00e2s, and not even these\ncan break the rules.\n\nTo make things plainer, without touching upon the mathematical aspects of\nthe doctrine, the teaching given may be expanded and some obscure points\nsolved. As the evolution of the Globes and that of the Monads are so\nclosely interblended, we will make of the two teachings one. In reference\nto the Monads, the reader is asked to bear in mind that Eastern philosophy\nrejects the Western theological dogma of a newly\u2010created soul for every\nbaby born, a dogma as unphilosophical as it is impossible in the economy\nof Nature. There must be a limited number of Monads, evolving and growing\nmore and more perfect, through their assimilation of many successive\nPersonalities, in every new Manvantara. This is absolutely necessary in\nview of the doctrines of Rebirth and Karma, and of the gradual return of\nthe human Monad to its source\u2014Absolute Deity. Thus, although the hosts of\nmore or less progressed Monads are almost incalculable, they are still\nfinite, as is everything in this Universe of differentiation and\nfiniteness.\n\nAs shown in the double diagram of the human Principles and the ascending\nGlobes of the World\u2010Chains,(284) there is an eternal concatenation of\ncauses and effects, and a perfect analogy which runs through, and links\ntogether, all the lines of evolution. One begets the other\u2014Globes as\nPersonalities. But, let us begin at the beginning.\n\nThe general outline of the process by which the successive Planetary\nChains are formed has just been given. To prevent future misconceptions,\nsome further details may be offered which will also throw light on the\nhistory of Humanity on our own Chain, the progeny of that of the Moon.\n\nIn the accompanying diagram, Fig. 1 represents the Lunar Chain of seven\nGlobes at the outset of its seventh or last Round; while Fig. 2 represents\nthe Earth Chain which will be, but is not yet in existence. The seven\nGlobes of each Chain are distinguished in their cyclic order by the\nletters A to G, the Globes of the Earth Chain being further marked by a\ncross, the symbol of the Earth.\n\n                               [Diagram II]\n\nNow, it must be remembered that the Monads cycling round any septenary\nChain are divided into seven Classes or Hierarchies, according to their\nrespective stages of evolution, consciousness and merit. Let us follow,\nthen, the order of their appearance on Globe A, in the First Round. The\ntime\u2010spaces between the appearances of these Hierarchies on any one Globe\nare so adjusted, that when Class 7, the last, appears on Globe A, Class 1,\nthe first, has just passed on to Globe B; and so on, step by step, all\nround the Chain.\n\nAgain, in the Seventh Round of the Lunar Chain, when Class 7, the last,\nquits Globe A, that Globe, instead of falling asleep, as it had done in\nprevious Rounds, begins to die (to go into its Planetary Pralaya);(285)\nand in dying it transfers successively, as just said, its principles, or\nlife\u2010elements and energy, etc., one after the other, to a new laya\u2010centre,\nwhich commences the formation of Globe A of the Earth Chain. A similar\nprocess takes place for each of the Globes of the Lunar Chain, one after\nthe other, each forming a fresh Globe of the Earth Chain. Our Moon was the\nfourth Globe of the series, and was on the same plane of perception as our\nEarth. But Globe A of the Lunar Chain is not fully \u201cdead,\u201d till the first\nMonads of the first Class have passed from Globe G or Z, the last of the\nLunar Chain, into the Nirv\u00e2na which awaits them between the two Chains;\nand similarly for all the other Globes as stated, each giving birth to the\ncorresponding Globe of the Earth Chain.\n\nFurther, when Globe A of the new Chain is ready, the first Class or\nHierarchy of Monads from the Lunar Chain incarnate upon it in the lowest\nkingdom, and so on successively. The result of this is, that it is only\nthe first Class of Monads which attains the human state of development\nduring the first Round, since the second Class, on each Globe, arriving\nlater, has not time to reach that stage. Thus the Monads of Class 2 reach\nthe incipient human stage only in the Second Round, and so on up to the\nmiddle of the Fourth Round. But at this point\u2014and on this Fourth Round in\nwhich the human stage will be _fully_ developed\u2014the \u201cdoor\u201d into the human\nkingdom closes; and henceforward the number of \u201chuman\u201d Monads, _i.e._,\nMonads in the human stage of development, is complete. For the Monads\nwhich had not reached the human stage by this point, will, owing to the\nevolution of Humanity itself, find themselves so far behind, that they\nwill reach the human stage only at the close of the Seventh and last\nRound. They will, therefore, not be men on this Chain, but will form the\nHumanity of a future Manvantara, and be rewarded by becoming \u201cmen\u201d on a\nhigher Chain altogether, thus receiving their Karmic compensation. To this\nthere is _but one solitary exception_, and for very good reasons, of which\nwe shall speak farther on. But this accounts for the difference in the\nRaces.\n\nIt thus becomes apparent how perfect is the analogy between the processes\nof Nature in the cosmos and in the individual man. The latter lives\nthrough his life\u2010cycle, and dies. His higher principles, corresponding in\nthe development of a Planetary Chain to the cycling Monads, pass into\nDevachan, which corresponds to the Nirv\u00e2na and states of rest intervening\nbetween two Chains. The man\u2019s lower principles are disintegrated in time,\nand are used by Nature again for the formation of new human principles;\nthe same process also taking place in the disintegration and formation of\nWorlds. Analogy is thus the surest guide to the comprehension of the\nOccult teachings.\n\nThis is one of the \u201cseven mysteries of the moon,\u201d and it is now revealed.\nThe seven \u201cmysteries\u201d are called by the Japanese Yamabooshis, the mystics\nof the Lao\u2010Tze sect and the ascetic monks of Kioto, the Dzenodoo\u2014the\n\u201cSeven Jewels\u201d; only, the Japanese and the Chinese Buddhist ascetics and\nInitiates are, if possible, even more reticent in giving out their\n\u201cKnowledge\u201d than are the Hind\u00fbs.\n\nBut the reader must not be allowed to lose sight of the Monads, and must\nbe enlightened as to their nature, as far as permitted, without\ntrespassing upon the highest mysteries, of which the writer does not in\nany way pretend to know the last or final word.\n\nThe Monadic Host may be roughly divided into three great Classes:\n\n1. The most developed Monads\u2014the Lunar Gods or \u201cSpirits,\u201d called, in\nIndia, the Pitris\u2014whose function it is to pass in the First Round through\nthe whole triple cycle of the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms, in\ntheir most ethereal, filmy, and rudimentary forms, in order to clothe\nthemselves in, and assimilate, the nature of the newly formed Chain. They\nare those who first reach the human form\u2014if there can be any form in the\nrealm of the almost subjective\u2014on Globe A, in the First Round. It is they,\ntherefore, who lead and represent the human element during the Second and\nThird Rounds, and finally evolve their shadows at the beginning of the\nFourth Round for the second Class, or those who come behind them.\n\n2. Those Monads that are the first to reach the human stage during the\nthree and a half Rounds, and to become \u201cmen.\u201d\n\n3. The laggards, the Monads which are retarded, and which will not reach,\nby reason of Karmic impediments, the human stage at all during this Cycle\nor Round, save one exception which will be spoken of elsewhere, as already\npromised.\n\nWe are forced to use above the misleading word \u201cmen,\u201d and this is a clear\nproof of how little any European language is adapted to express these\nsubtle distinctions.\n\nIt stands to reason that these \u201cmen\u201d did not resemble the men of to\u2010day,\neither in form or nature. Why then, it may be asked, call them \u201cmen\u201d at\nall? Because there is no other term, in any Western language, which\napproximately conveys the idea intended. The word \u201cmen\u201d at least indicates\nthat these beings were \u201c_manus_,\u201d thinking entities, however they differed\nin form and intellection from ourselves. But in reality they were, in\nrespect of spirituality and intellection, rather \u201cgods\u201d than \u201cmen.\u201d\n\nThe same difficulty of language is met with in describing the \u201cstages\u201d\nthrough which the Monad passes. Metaphysically speaking, it is of course\nan absurdity to talk of the \u201cdevelopment\u201d of a Monad, or to say that _it_\nbecomes \u201cman.\u201d But any attempt to preserve metaphysical accuracy of\nlanguage, in the use of such a tongue as the English, would necessitate at\nleast three extra volumes of this work, and would entail an amount of\nverbal repetition which would be wearisome in the extreme. It stands to\nreason that a Monad cannot either progress or develop, or even be affected\nby the changes of state it passes through. _It is not of this world or\nplane_, and may only be compared to an indestructible star of divine light\nand fire, thrown down on to our Earth, as a plank of salvation for the\nPersonalities in which it indwells. It is for the latter to cling to it;\nand thus partaking of its divine nature, obtain immortality. Left to\nitself the Monad will cling to no one; but, like the plank, be drifted\naway to another incarnation, by the unresting current of evolution.\n\nNow the evolution of the _external_ form, or body, round the _astral_, is\nproduced by the terrestrial forces, just as in the case of the lower\nkingdoms; but the evolution of the _internal_, or real, _Man_ is purely\nspiritual. It is now no more a passage of the impersonal Monad through\nmany and various forms of matter\u2014endowed at best with instinct and\nconsciousness on quite a different plane\u2014as in the case of external\nevolution, but a journey of the \u201cPilgrim\u2010Soul\u201d through various _states_ of\nnot only matter, but of self\u2010consciousness and self\u2010perception, or of\n_perception_ from _apperception_.\n\nThe Monad emerges from its state of spiritual and intellectual\nunconsciousness; and, skipping the first two planes\u2014too near the Absolute\nto permit of any correlation with anything on a lower plane\u2014it gets\ndirectly into the plane of Mentality. But there is no plane in the whole\nuniverse with a broader margin, or a wider field of action, in its almost\nendless gradations of perceptive and apperceptive qualities, than this\nplane, which has in its turn an appropriate smaller plane for every\n\u201cform,\u201d from the Mineral Monad up to the time when that Monad blossoms\nforth by evolution into the Divine Monad. But all the time it is still one\nand the same Monad, differing only in its incarnations, throughout its\never succeeding cycles of partial or total obscuration of spirit, or\npartial or total obscuration of matter\u2014two polar antitheses\u2014as it ascends\ninto the realms of mental spirituality, or descends into the depths of\nmateriality.\n\nTo return to _Esoteric Buddhism_. The second statement is with regard to\nthe enormous period intervening between the mineral epoch, on Globe A, and\nthe man epoch, the term \u201cman epoch\u201d being used because of the necessity of\ngiving a name to that fourth kingdom which follows the animal, though in\ntruth the \u201cman\u201d on Globe A, during the First Round, is no man, but only\nhis prototype, or dimensionless image, from the astral regions. The\nstatement runs as follows:\n\n\n    The full development of the mineral epoch on Globe A, prepares the\n    way for the vegetable development, and, as soon as this begins,\n    the mineral life\u2010impulse overflows into Globe B. Then, when the\n    vegetable development on Globe A is complete and the animal\n    development begins, the vegetable life\u2010impulse overflows to Globe\n    B, and the mineral impulse passes on to Globe C. Then finally\n    comes the human life impulse on Globe A.(286)\n\n\nAnd so it goes on for three Rounds, when it slackens, and finally stops at\nthe threshold of our Globe, in the Fourth Round; because the human period\n(of the true physical men to be), the seventh, is now reached. This is\nevident, for as said:\n\n\n    ... There are processes of evolution which precede the mineral\n    kingdom, and thus a wave of evolution, indeed several waves of\n    evolution, precede the mineral wave in its progress round the\n    spheres.(287)\n\n\nAnd now we have to quote from another article, \u201cThe Mineral Monad,\u201d in\n_Five Years of Theosophy_:\n\n\n    There are seven kingdoms. The first group comprises three degrees\n    of elementals, or nascent centres of forces\u2014from the first stage\n    of differentiation of [from] M\u00fblaprakriti [or rather Pradh\u00e2na,\n    Primordial Homogeneous Matter] to its third degree\u2014_i.e._, from\n    full unconsciousness to semi\u2010perception; the second or higher\n    group embraces the kingdoms from vegetable to man; the mineral\n    kingdom thus forming the central or turning point in the degrees\n    of the \u201cMonadic Essence,\u201d considered as an evolving energy. Three\n    stages [sub\u2010physical] on the elemental side; the mineral kingdom;\n    three stages on the objective physical(288) side\u2014these are the\n    [first or preliminary] seven links of the evolutionary chain.(289)\n\n\n\u201cPreliminary\u201d because they are preparatory, and though belonging in fact\nto the natural, they would be more correctly described as the sub\u2010natural\nevolution. This process makes a halt in its stages at the third, at the\nthreshold of the fourth stage, when it becomes, on the plane of natural\nevolution, the first really manward stage, thus forming with the three\nelemental kingdoms, the ten, the Sephirothal number. It is at this point\nthat begins:\n\n\n    A descent of spirit into matter equivalent to an ascent in\n    physical evolution; a re\u00e4scent from the deepest depths of\n    materiality (the mineral) towards its _status quo ante_, with a\n    corresponding dissipation of concrete organism\u2014up to Nirv\u00e2na, the\n    vanishing point of differentiated matter.(290)\n\n\nTherefore it becomes evident, why that which is pertinently called in\n_Esoteric Buddhism_ \u201cwave of evolution,\u201d and \u201cmineral, vegetable, animal\nand man\u2010impulse,\u201d stops at the door of our Globe, at its Fourth Cycle or\nRound. It is at this point that the Cosmic Monad (Buddhi) will be wedded\nto, and become the vehicle of, the \u00c2tmic Ray; _i.e._, Buddhi will awaken\nto an apperception of it (\u00c2tman), and thus enter on the first step of a\nnew septenary ladder of evolution, which will lead it eventually to the\ntenth, counting from the lowest upwards, of the Sephirothal Tree, the\nCrown.\n\nEverything in the Universe follows analogy. \u201cAs above, so below\u201d; Man is\nthe microcosm of the Universe. That which takes place on the spiritual\nplane, repeats itself on the cosmic plane. Concretion follows the lines of\nabstraction; corresponding to the highest must be the lowest; the material\nto the spiritual. Thus, corresponding to the Sephirothal Crown, or Upper\nTriad, there are the three elemental kingdoms, which precede the\nmineral,(291) and which, using the language of the Kabalists, answer in\nthe cosmic differentiation to the Worlds of Form and Matter, from the\nSuper\u2010Spiritual to the Archetypal.\n\nNow what is a Monad? And what relation does it bear to an Atom? The\nfollowing reply is based upon the explanations given in answer to these\nquestions in the above\u2010cited article, \u201cThe Mineral Monad,\u201d written by the\nauthor. To the second question it is answered:\n\n\n    None whatever to the atom or molecule as at present existing in\n    the scientific conception. It can neither be compared with the\n    microscopic organisms, once classed among polygastric infusoria,\n    and now regarded as vegetable, and classed among alg\u00e6; nor is it\n    quite the _monas_ of the Peripatetics. Physically or\n    constitutionally the Mineral Monad differs, of course, from the\n    Human Monad, which is not physical, nor can its constitution be\n    rendered by chemical symbols and elements.(292)\n\n\nIn short, as the Spiritual Monad is One, Universal, Boundless and\nImpartite, whose Rays, nevertheless, form what we, in our ignorance, call\nthe \u201cIndividual Monads\u201d of men, so the Mineral Monad\u2014being at the opposite\ncurve of the circle\u2014is also One, and from it proceed the countless\nphysical atoms, which Science is beginning to regard as individualized.\n\n\n    Otherwise how could one account for, and explain mathematically,\n    the evolutionary and spiral progress of the four kingdoms? The\n    Monad is the combination of the last two principles in man, the\n    sixth and the seventh, and, properly speaking, the term \u201cHuman\n    Monad\u201d applies only to the Dual Soul (\u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi), not to its\n    highest spiritual vivifying principle, \u00c2tm\u00e2, alone. But since the\n    Spiritual Soul, if divorced from the latter (\u00c2tm\u00e2), could have no\n    existence, no being, it has thus been called.... Now the Monadic,\n    or rather Cosmic, Essence, if such a term be permitted, in the\n    mineral, vegetable and animal, though the same throughout the\n    series of cycles, from the lowest elemental up to the Deva\n    kingdom, yet differs in the scale of progression. It would be very\n    misleading to imagine a Monad as a separate Entity, trailing its\n    slow way in a distinct path through the lower kingdoms, and after\n    an incalculable series of transformations flowering into a human\n    being; in short, that the Monad of a Humboldt dates back to the\n    Monad of an atom of hornblende. Instead of saying a \u201cMineral\n    Monad,\u201d the more correct phraseology in Physical Science, which\n    differentiates every atom, would of course have been to call it\n    \u201cthe Monad manifesting in that form of Prakriti called \u2018the\n    Mineral Kingdom\u2019.\u201d The atom, as represented in the ordinary\n    scientific hypothesis, is not a particle of something, animated by\n    a psychic something, destined after \u00e6ons to blossom into a man.\n    But it is a concrete manifestation of the Universal Energy, which\n    itself has not yet become individualized; a sequential\n    manifestation of the one Universal Monas. The Ocean of Matter does\n    not divide into its potential and constituent drops, until the\n    sweep of the life\u2010impulse reaches the evolutionary stage of man\u2010\n    birth. The tendency towards segregation into individual Monads is\n    gradual, and in the higher animals comes almost to the point. The\n    Peripatetics applied the word Monas to the whole Kosmos, in the\n    pantheistic sense; and the Occultists, while accepting this\n    thought for convenience sake, distinguish the progressive stages\n    of the evolution of the concrete from the abstract, by terms of\n    which the \u201cMineral, Vegetable, Animal Monad,\u201d etc., are examples.\n    The term merely means that the tidal wave of spiritual evolution\n    is passing through that arc of its circuit. The \u201cMonadic Essence\u201d\n    begins to imperceptibly differentiate towards individual\n    consciousness in the vegetable kingdom. As the Monads are\n    uncompounded things, as correctly defined by Leibnitz, it is the\n    Spiritual Essence which vivifies them in their degrees of\n    differentiation, which properly constitutes the Monad\u2014not the\n    atomic aggregation, which is only the vehicle and the substance\n    through which thrill the lower and the higher degrees of\n    intelligence.(293)\n\n\nLeibnitz conceived of the Monads as elementary and indestructible units,\nendowed with the power of _giving and receiving_ with respect to other\nunits, and thus of determining all spiritual and physical phenomena. It is\nhe who invented the term apperception, which together with nerve\u2010 (not\nperception, but rather) sensation, expresses the state of the Monadic\nconsciousness through all the kingdoms up to Man.\n\nThus it may be wrong, on strictly metaphysical lines, to call \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi\na Monad, since in the materialistic view it is dual and therefore\ncompound. But as Matter is Spirit, and _vice vers\u00e2_; and since the\nUniverse and the Deity which informs it are unthinkable apart from each\nother; so in the case of \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi. The latter being the vehicle of the\nformer, Buddhi stands in the same relation to \u00c2tm\u00e2, as Adam\u2010Kadmon, the\nKabalistic Logos, does to Ain Suph, or M\u00fblaprakriti to Parabrahman.\n\nAnd now a few words more on the Moon.\n\nWhat, it may be asked, are the \u201cLunar Monads,\u201d just spoken of? The\ndescription of the seven Classes of Pitris will come later, but now some\ngeneral explanations may be given. It must be plain to everyone that they\nare Monads, who, having ended their Life\u2010Cycle on the Lunar Chain, which\nis inferior to the Terrestrial Chain, have incarnated on the latter. But\nthere are some further details which may be added, though they border too\nclosely on forbidden ground to be treated of fully. The last word of the\nmystery is divulged only to Adepts, but it may be stated that our\nsatellite is only the gross body of its invisible principles. Seeing then\nthat there are seven Earths, so there are seven Moons, the last alone\nbeing visible; the same for the Sun, whose visible body is called a M\u00e2y\u00e2,\na reflection, just as man\u2019s body is. \u201c_The real Sun and the real Moon are\nas invisible as the real man_,\u201d says an Occult maxim.\n\nAnd it may be remarked, _en passant_, that those Ancients were not so\nfoolish after all who first started the idea of \u201cSeven Moons.\u201d For though\nthis conception is now taken solely as an astronomical measure of time, in\na very materialized form, yet underlying the husk there can still be\nrecognized the traces of a profoundly philosophical idea.\n\nIn reality the Moon is the satellite of the Earth in one respect only,\nviz., that physically the Moon revolves round the Earth. But in every\nother respect, it is the Earth which is the satellite of the Moon, and not\n_vice vers\u00e2_. Startling as the statement may seem, it is not without\nconfirmation from scientific knowledge. It is evidenced by the tides, by\nthe cyclic changes in many forms of disease, which coincide with the lunar\nphases; it can be traced in the growth of plants, and is very marked in\nthe phenomena of human conception and gestation. The importance of the\nMoon and its influence on the Earth were recognized in every ancient\nreligion, notably the Jewish, and have been remarked by many observers of\npsychical and physical phenomena. But, so far as Science knows, the\nEarth\u2019s action on the Moon is confined to the physical attraction, which\ncauses her to circle in her orbit. And should an objector insist, that\nthis fact alone is sufficient evidence that the Moon is truly the Earth\u2019s\nsatellite on other planes of action, one may reply by asking whether a\nmother, who walks round and round her child\u2019s cradle, keeping watch over\nthe infant, is the subordinate of her child or dependent upon it? Though\nin one sense she is its satellite, yet she is certainly older and more\nfully developed than the child she watches.\n\nIt is, then, the Moon that plays the largest and most important part, as\nwell in the formation of the Earth itself, as in the peopling thereof with\nhuman beings. The Lunar Monads, or Pitris, the ancestors of man, become in\nreality man himself. They are the Monads, who enter on the cycle of\nevolution on Globe A, and who, passing round the Chain of Globes, evolve\nthe human form, as has just been shown. At the beginning of the human\nstage of the Fourth Round on this Globe, they \u201cooze out\u201d their astral\ndoubles, from the \u201cape\u2010like\u201d forms which they had evolved in the Third\nRound. And it is this subtle, finer form, which serves as the model round\nwhich Nature builds physical man. These Monads, or Divine Sparks, are thus\nthe Lunar Ancestors, the Pitris themselves; for these Lunar Spirits have\nto become \u201cmen,\u201d in order that their Monads may reach a higher plane of\nactivity and self\u2010consciousness, _i.e._, the plane of the M\u00e2nasa\u2010Putras,\nthose who endow the \u201csenseless\u201d shells, created and informed by the\nPitris, with \u201cmind,\u201d in the latter part of the Third Root\u2010Race.\n\nIn the same way, the Monads, or Egos, of the men of the Seventh Round of\nour Earth, after our own Globes A, B, C, D, etc., parting with their life\u2010\nenergy, will have informed, and thereby called to life, other laya\u2010\ncentres, destined to live and act on a still higher plane of being\u2014in the\nsame way will the Terrene Ancestors create those who will become their\nsuperiors.\n\nIt now becomes plain, that there exists in Nature a triple evolutionary\nscheme for the formation of the three _periodical_ Up\u00e2dhis; or rather\nthree separate schemes of evolution, which in our system are inextricably\ninterwoven and interblended at every point. These are the Monadic (or\nSpiritual), the Intellectual, and the Physical Evolutions. These three are\nthe finite aspects, or the reflections on the field of Cosmic Illusion, of\n\u00c2tm\u00e2, the seventh, the One Reality.\n\n1. The Monadic, as the name implies, is concerned with the growth and\ndevelopment into still higher phases of activity of the Monads, in\nconjunction with:\n\n2. The Intellectual, represented by the M\u00e2nasa\u2010Dhy\u00e2nis (the Solar Devas,\nor the Agnishvatta Pitris), the \u201cgivers of intelligence and consciousness\u201d\nto man, and:\n\n3. The Physical, represented by the Chh\u00e2y\u00e2s of the Lunar Pitris, round\nwhich Nature has concreted the present physical body. This body serves as\nthe vehicle for the \u201cgrowth,\u201d to use a misleading word, and the\ntransformations\u2014through Manas, and owing to the accumulation of\nexperiences\u2014of the Finite into the Infinite, of the Transient into the\nEternal and Absolute.\n\nEach of these three systems has its own laws, and is ruled and guided by\ndifferent sets of the highest Dhy\u00e2nis or Logoi. Each is represented in the\nconstitution of Man, the Microcosm of the great Macrocosm; and it is the\nunion of these three streams in him, which makes him the complex being he\nnow is.\n\nNature, the physical evolutionary Power, could never evolve Intelligence\nunaided; she can only create \u201csenseless forms,\u201d as will be seen in our\nAnthropogenesis. The Lunar Monads cannot progress, for they have not yet\nhad sufficient touch with the forms created by \u201cNature,\u201d to allow of their\naccumulating experiences through its means. It is the M\u00e2nasa\u2010Dhy\u00e2nis who\nfill up the gap, and they represent the evolutionary power of Intelligence\nand Mind, the link between Spirit and Matter\u2014in this Round.\n\nAlso it must be borne in mind that the Monads which enter upon the\nevolutionary cycle upon Globe A, in the first Round, are in very different\nstages of development. Hence the matter becomes somewhat complicated. Let\nus recapitulate.\n\nThe most developed, the Lunar Monads, reach the human germ\u2010stage in the\nFirst Round; become terrestrial, though very ethereal, human beings\ntowards the end of the Third Round, remaining on the Globe through the\n\u201cobscuration\u201d period, as the seed for future mankind in the Fourth Round,\nand thus become the pioneers of Humanity at the beginning of this, the\npresent Fourth Round. Others reach the human stage only during later\nRounds, _i.e._, in the second, third or first half of the Fourth Round.\nAnd finally the most retarded of all\u2014_i.e._, those still occupying animal\nforms after the middle turning\u2010point of the Fourth Round\u2014will not become\nmen at all during this Manvantara. They will reach to the verge of\nHumanity only at the close of the Seventh Round, to be, in their turn,\nushered into a new Chain, after Pralaya, by older pioneers, the\nprogenitors of Humanity, or the Seed\u2010Humanity (Shishta), viz., the men who\nwill be at the head of all at the end of these Rounds.\n\nThe student scarcely needs any further explanation on the part played by\nthe Fourth Globe and the Fourth Round in the scheme of evolution.\n\nFrom the preceding diagrams, which are applicable, _mutatis mutandis_, to\nRounds, Globes or Races, it will be seen that the fourth member of a\nseries occupies a unique position. Unlike the others, the Fourth has no\n\u201csister\u201d Globe on the same plane as itself, and it thus forms the fulcrum\nof the \u201cbalance\u201d represented by the whole Chain. It is the sphere of final\nevolutionary adjustments, the world of the Karmic scales, the Hall of\nJustice, where the balance is struck which determines the future course of\nthe Monad during the remainder of its incarnations in the Cycle. And\ntherefore is it that, after this central turning\u2010point has been passed in\nthe Great Cycle\u2014_i.e._, after the middle point of the Fourth Race in the\nFourth Round on our Globe\u2014no more Monads can enter the human kingdom. The\ndoor is closed for this Cycle, and the balance struck. For were it\notherwise\u2014had there been a new soul created for each of the countless\nmilliards of human beings that have passed away, and had there been no\nre\u00efncarnation\u2014it would become difficult indeed to provide room for the\ndisembodied \u201cspirits\u201d; nor could the origin and cause of suffering ever be\naccounted for. It is the ignorance of the Occult tenets, and the\nenforcement of false conceptions under the guise of religious education,\nwhich have created Materialism and Atheism as a protest against the\nasserted divine order of things.\n\nThe only exceptions to the rule just stated are the \u201cdumb races,\u201d whose\nMonads are already within the human stage, in virtue of the fact that\nthese \u201canimals\u201d are later than, and even half descended from, man; their\nlast descendants being the anthropoid and other apes. These \u201chuman\npresentments\u201d are in truth only the distorted copies of the early\nhumanity. But this will receive full attention in the next volume.\n\nAs the Commentary, broadly rendered, says:\n\n_1. Every Form on earth, and every Speck [atom] in Space strives in its\nefforts towards self\u2010formation to follow the model placed for it in the\n__\u201c__Heavenly Man.__\u201d__... Its (the atom\u2019s) involution and evolution, its\n__ external and internal growth and development, have all one and the same\nobject\u2014Man; Man, as the highest physical and ultimate form on this Earth;\nthe __\u201c__Monad,__\u201d__ in its absolute totality and awakened condition\u2014as\nthe culmination of the divine incarnations on Earth._\n\n_2. The Dhy\u00e2nis [Pitris] are those who have evolved their Bhuta [Doubles]\nfrom themselves, which R\u00fbpa [Form] has become the vehicle of Monads\n[Seventh and Sixth principles] that had completed their cycle of\ntransmigration in the three preceding Kalpas [Rounds]. Then, they [the\nAstral Doubles] became the men of the first Human Race of the Round. But\nthey were not complete, and were senseless._\n\nThis will be explained in the sequel. Meanwhile man\u2014or rather his\nMonad\u2014has existed on Earth from the very beginning of this Round. But, up\nto our own Fifth Race, the external shapes which covered those divine\nAstral Doubles, have changed and consolidated with every sub\u2010race; the\nform and physical structure of the fauna changing at the same time, as\nthey had to be adapted to the ever\u2010changing conditions of life on this\nGlobe, during the geological periods of its formative cycle. And thus will\nthey go on changing with every Root\u2010Race, and every _chief_ sub\u2010race, down\nto the last one of the Seventh in this Round.\n\n_3. The inner, now concealed, man, was then [in the beginnings] the\nexternal man. The progeny of the Dhy\u00e2nis [Pitris], he was __\u201c__the son\nlike unto his father.__\u201d__ Like the lotus, whose external shape assumes\ngradually the form of the model within itself, so did the form of man in\nthe beginning evolve from within without. After the cycle in which man\nbegan to procreate his species after the fashion of the present animal\nkingdom, it became the reverse. The human f\u0153tus follows now in its\ntransformations all the forms that the physical frame of man assumed,\nthroughout the three Kalpas [Rounds], during the tentative efforts at\nplastic formation around the Monad, by senseless, because imperfect,\nmatter, in her blind wanderings. In the present age, the physical embryo\nis a plant, a reptile, an animal, before it finally becomes man, evolving\nwithin himself his own ethereal counterpart, in his turn. In the beginning\nit was that counterpart [astral man] which, being senseless, got entangled\nin the meshes of matter._\n\nBut this \u201cman\u201d belongs to the Fourth Round. As shown, the Monad had passed\nthrough, journeyed and been imprisoned in, every transitional form,\nthroughout every kingdom of nature, during the three preceding Rounds. But\nthe Monad which becomes human, is _not the Man_. In this Round\u2014with the\nexception of the highest mammals after man, the anthropoids destined to\ndie out in this our race, when their Monads will be liberated and pass\ninto the astral human forms, or the highest elementals, of the Sixth and\nthe Seventh Races, and then into the lowest human forms in the Fifth\nRound\u2014no units of any of the kingdoms are animated any longer by Monads\ndestined to become human in their next stage, but only by the lower\nelementals of their respective realms. These \u201celementals\u201d will become\nhuman Monads, in their turn, only at the next great planetary Manvantara.\n\nAnd in fact the last human Monad incarnated before the beginning of the\nFifth Root\u2010Race. Nature never repeats herself; therefore the anthropoids\nof our day have not existed at any time since the middle of the Miocene\nperiod, when, like all cross breeds, they began to show a tendency, more\nand more marked as time went on, to return to the type of their first\nparent, the gigantic black and yellow Lemuro\u2010Atlantean. To search for the\n\u201cmissing link\u201d is useless. To the Scientists of the closing Sixth Root\u2010\nRace, millions and millions of years hence, our modern races, or rather\ntheir fossils, will appear as those of small insignificant apes\u2014an extinct\nspecies of the _genus homo_.\n\nSuch anthropoids form an exception because they were not intended by\nNature, but are the direct product and creation of \u201csenseless\u201d man. The\nHind\u00fbs attribute a divine origin to the apes and monkeys, because the men\nof the Third Race were gods from another plane, who had become \u201csenseless\u201d\nmortals. This subject had already been touched upon in _Isis Unveiled_,\ntwelve years ago, as plainly as was then possible. The reader is there\nreferred to the Br\u00e2hmans, if he would know the reason of the regard they\nhave for the monkeys.\n\n\n    He [the reader] would perhaps learn\u2014were the Br\u00e2hman to judge him\n    worthy of an explanation\u2014that the Hind\u00fb sees in the ape but what\n    Manu desired he should: the transformation of species most\n    directly connected with that of the human family\u2014a bastard branch\n    engrafted on their own stock before the final perfection of the\n    latter. He might learn, further, that in the eyes of the educated\n    \u201cheathen\u201d the spiritual or inner man is one thing, and his\n    terrestrial physical casket another. That physical nature, that\n    great combination of correlations of physical forces, ever\n    creeping on towards perfection, has to avail herself of the\n    material at hand; she models and remodels as she proceeds, and,\n    finishing her crowning work in man, presents him alone as a fit\n    tabernacle for the overshadowing of the Divine Spirit.(294)\n\n\nMoreover, a German scientific work is mentioned in a footnote on the same\npage. It says that:\n\n\n    A Hanoverian Scientist has recently published a work entitled,\n    _Ueber die __ Aufl\u00f6sung der Arten durch Nat\u00fcrliche Zucht\u2010wahl_, in\n    which he shows, with great ingenuity, that Darwin was wholly\n    mistaken in tracing man back to the ape. On the contrary, he\n    maintains that it is the ape which is evolved from man. He shows\n    that, in the beginning, mankind were, morally and physically, the\n    types and prototypes of our present race and of our human dignity,\n    by their beauty of form, regularity of feature, cranial\n    development, nobility of sentiments, heroic impulses, and grandeur\n    of ideal conceptions. This is a purely Br\u00e2hmanic, Buddhistic and\n    Kabalistic doctrine. His book is copiously illustrated with\n    diagrams, tables, etc. It asserts that the gradual debasement and\n    degradation of man, morally and physically, can be readily traced\n    throughout ethnological transformations down to our time. And, as\n    one portion has already degenerated into apes, so the civilized\n    man of the present day will at last, under the action of the\n    inevitable law of necessity, be also succeeded by like\n    descendants. If we may judge of the future by the actual present,\n    it certainly does seem possible that so unspiritual and\n    materialistic a race should end as Simia rather than as Seraphs.\n\n\nBut though the apes descend from man, it is certainly not the fact that\nthe human Monad, which has once reached the level of humanity, ever\nincarnates again in the form of an animal.\n\nThe cycle of \u201cmetempsychosis\u201d for the human Monad is closed, for we are in\nthe Fourth Round and the Fifth Root\u2010Race. The reader will have to bear in\nmind\u2014at any rate one who has made himself acquainted with _Esoteric\nBuddhism_\u2014that the Stanzas which follow in this volume and the next speak\nof the evolution in our Fourth Round only. The latter is the cycle of the\nturning\u2010point, after which, matter, having reached its lowest depths,\nbegins to strive onward and to become spiritualized, with every new race\nand with every fresh cycle. Therefore the student must take care not to\nsee contradiction where there is none, for in _Esoteric Buddhism_ Rounds\nare spoken of in general, while here only the Fourth, or our present\nRound, is meant. Then it was the work of formation; now it is that of\nreformation and evolutionary perfection.\n\nFinally, to close this digression anent various, but unavoidable,\nmisconceptions, we must refer to a statement in _Esoteric Buddhism_, which\nhas produced a very fatal impression upon the minds of many Theosophists.\nOne unfortunate sentence, from the work just referred to, is constantly\nbrought forward to prove the materialism of the doctrine. The author,\nreferring to the progress of organisms on the Globes, says that:\n\n\n    The mineral kingdom will no more develop the vegetable ... than\n    the Earth was able to develop man from the ape, till it received\n    an impulse.(295)\n\n\nWhether this sentence renders the thought of the author literally, or is\nsimply, as we believe it is, a _lapsus calami_, may remain an open\nquestion.\n\nIt is really with surprise that we have ascertained the fact, that\n_Esoteric Buddhism_ was so little understood by some Theosophists, as to\nhave led them into the belief that it thoroughly supported Darwinian\nevolution, and especially the theory of the descent of man from a\npithecoid ancestor. As one member writes: \u201cI suppose you realize that\nthree\u2010fourths of Theosophists and even outsiders imagine that, as far as\nthe evolution of man is concerned, Darwinism and Theosophy kiss one\nanother.\u201d Nothing of the kind was ever realized, nor is there any great\nwarrant for it, so far as we know, in _Esoteric Buddhism_. It has been\nrepeatedly stated, that evolution as taught by Manu and Kapila was the\ngroundwork of the modern teachings, but neither Occultism nor Theosophy\nhas ever supported the wild theories of the present Darwinists\u2014least of\nall the descent of man from an ape. Of this, more hereafter. But one has\nonly to turn to p. 47 of the work named, to find the statement that:\n\n\n    Man belongs to a kingdom distinctly separate from that of the\n    animals.\n\n\nWith such a plain and unequivocal statement before him, it is very strange\nthat any careful student should have been so misled, unless he is prepared\nto charge the author with a gross contradiction.\n\nEvery Round repeats the evolutionary work of the preceding Round, on a\nhigher scale. With the exception of some higher anthropoids, as just\nmentioned, the Monadic inflow, or inner evolution, is at an end till the\nnext Manvantara. It can never be too often repeated that the full\u2010blown\nhuman Monads have to be first disposed of, before the new crop of\ncandidates appears on this Globe at the beginning of the next Cycle. Thus\nthere is a lull; and this is why, during the Fourth Round, man appears on\nEarth earlier than any animal creation, as will be described.\n\nBut it is still urged that the author of _Esoteric Buddhism_ has \u201cpreached\nDarwinism\u201d all along. Certain passages would undoubtedly seem to lend\ncountenance to this inference. Besides which, the Occultists themselves\nare ready to concede _partial_ correctness to the Darwinian hypothesis, in\nlater details, bye\u2010laws of evolution, and after the midway point of the\nFourth Race. Of that which has taken place, Physical Science can really\nknow nothing, for such matters lie entirely outside of its sphere of\ninvestigation. But what the Occultists have never admitted, nor will they\never admit, is that man was _an ape in __ this or any other Round_; or\nthat he ever could be one, however much he may have been \u201cape\u2010like.\u201d This\nis vouched for by the very authority from whom the author of _Esoteric\nBuddhism_ got his information.\n\nThus to those who confront the Occultists with these lines from the above\u2010\nnamed volume:\n\n\n    It is enough to show that we may as reasonably\u2014and that we must,\n    if we would talk about these matters at all\u2014conceive a life\u2010\n    impulse giving birth to mineral forms, as of the same sort of\n    impulse concerned to _raise a race of apes into a race of\n    rudimentary men_.\n\n\nTo those who bring this passage forward as showing \u201cdecided Darwinism,\u201d\nthe Occultists answer by pointing to the explanation of the Master, Mr.\nSinnett\u2019s Teacher, which would contradict these lines, were they written\nin the spirit attributed to them. A copy of this letter was sent to the\nwriter, together with others, two years ago (1886), with additional\nmarginal remarks, to quote from, in the _Secret Doctrine_.\n\nIt begins by considering the difficulty experienced by the Western\nstudent, in reconciling some facts, previously given, with the evolution\nof man from the animal, _i.e._, from the mineral, vegetable and animal\nkingdoms, and advises the student to hold to the doctrine of analogy and\ncorrespondences. Then it touches upon the mystery of the Devas, and even\nGods, having to pass through states, which it was agreed to refer to as\n\u201cImmetallization, Inherbation, Inzo\u00f6nization and finally Incarnation,\u201d and\nexplains this by hinting at the necessity of failures even in the ethereal\nraces of Dhy\u00e2n Chohans. Concerning this it says:\n\n\u201c_These __\u2018__failures__\u2019__ are too far progressed and spiritualized to be\nthrown back forcibly from Dhy\u00e2n Chohanship into the vortex of a new\nprimordial evolution through the lower kingdoms_....\u201d\n\nAfter which, a hint only is given about the mystery contained in the\nallegory of the fallen Asuras, which will be expanded and explained in\nVolume II. When Karma has reached them at the stage of human evolution:\n\n\u201c_They will have to drink it to the last drop in the bitter cup of\nretribution. Then they become an active force and commingle with the\nelementals, the progressed entities of the pure animal kingdom, to develop\nlittle by little the full type of humanity._\u201d\n\nThese Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, as we see, do not pass through the three kingdoms as\ndo the lower Pitris; nor do they incarnate in man until the Third Root\nRace. Thus, as the teaching stands:\n\n\u201c_Round I. Man in the First Round and First Race on Globe D, our __ Earth,\nwas an ethereal being (a Lunar Dhy\u00e2ni, as man), non\u2010intelligent but super\u2010\nspiritual; and correspondingly, on the law of analogy, in the First Race\nof the Fourth Round. In each of the subsequent races and sub\u2010races, ... he\ngrows more and more into an encased or incarnate being, but still\npreponderatingly ethereal.... He is sexless, and, like the animal and\nvegetable, he develops monstrous bodies correspondential with his coarser\nsurroundings._\n\n\u201c_Round II. He [man] is still gigantic and ethereal, but growing firmer\nand more condensed in body; a more physical man yet still less intelligent\nthan spiritual (1), for mind is a slower and more difficult evolution than\nis the physical frame...._\n\n\u201c_Round III. He has now a perfectly concrete or compacted body, at first\nthe form of a giant\u2010ape, and now more intelligent, or rather cunning, than\nspiritual. For, on the downward arc, he has now reached a point where his\nprimordial spirituality is eclipsed and overshadowed by nascent mentality\n(2). In the last half of the Third Round, his gigantic stature decreases,\nand his body improves in texture, and he becomes a more rational being,\nthough still more an ape than a Deva.... [All this is almost exactly\nrepeated in the Third Root\u2010Race of the Fourth Round.]_\n\n\u201c_Round IV. Intellect has an enormous development in this Round. The\n[hitherto] dumb races acquire our [present] human speech on this Globe, on\nwhich, from the Fourth Race, language is perfected and knowledge\nincreases. At this half\u2010way point of the Fourth Round [as of the Fourth,\nor Atlantean, Root\u2010Race], humanity passes the axial point of the minor\nmanvantaric cycle ... the world teeming with the results of intellectual\nactivity and spiritual decrease...._\u201d\n\nThis is from the authentic letter; what follows are the later remarks and\nadditional explanations traced by the same hand in the form of footnotes.\n\n\u201c_(1) ... The original letter contained general teaching\u2014a __\u2018__bird\u2019s\u2010eye\nview__\u2019__\u2014and particularized nothing.... To speak of __\u2018__physical\nman,__\u2019__ while limiting the statement to the early Rounds, would be\ndrifting back to the miraculous and instantaneous __\u2018__coats of\nskin.__\u2019__... The first __\u2018__Nature,__\u2019__ the first __\u2018__body,__\u2019__ the\nfirst __\u2018__mind__\u2019__ on the first plane of perception, on the first Globe\nin the first Round, is what was meant. For Karma and evolution have:_\n\n\n    \u2018_... centred in our make such strange extremes,_\n    _From different Natures_(_296_)_ marvellously mixed ..._\u2019\n\n\n\u201c_(2) Restore: he has now reached the point [by analogy, and as the __\nThird Root Race in the Fourth Round], where his [the angel\u2010man\u2019s]\nprimordial spirituality is eclipsed and overshadowed by nascent human\nmentality, and you have the true version on your thumb\u2010nail...._\u201d\n\nThese are the words of the Teacher; text, words and sentences in brackets,\nand explanatory footnotes. It stands to reason that there must be an\nenormous difference in such terms as \u201cobjectivity\u201d and \u201csubjectivity,\u201d\n\u201cmateriality\u201d and \u201cspirituality,\u201d when the same terms are applied to\ndifferent planes of being and perception. All this must be taken in its\nrelative sense. And therefore there is little to be wondered at, if, left\nto his own speculations, an author who, however eager to learn, was yet\nquite inexperienced in these abstruse teachings, has fallen into an error.\nNor was the difference between the Rounds and the Races sufficiently\ndefined in the letters received, since nothing of the kind had been\nrequired before, as the ordinary Eastern disciple would have found out the\ndifference in a moment. Moreover, to quote from a letter of the Master:\n\n\u201c_The teachings were imparted under protest.... They were, so to say,\nsmuggled goods ... and when I remained face to face with only one\ncorrespondent, the other, Mr. ... had so far tossed all the cards into\nconfusion, that little remained to be said without trespassing upon law._\u201d\n\nTheosophists \u201cwhom it may concern\u201d will understand what is meant.\n\nThe outcome of all this is, that nothing had ever been said in the letters\nto warrant the assurance, that the Occult doctrine has ever taught, or any\nAdept believed in, unless metaphorically, the preposterous modern theory\nof the descent of man from a common ancestor with the ape\u2014an anthropoid of\nthe actual animal kind. To this day the world is more full of ape\u2010like men\nthan the woods are of men\u2010like apes. The ape is sacred in India because\nits origin is well known to the Initiates, though concealed under a thick\nveil of allegory. Hanum\u00e2na is the son of Pavana (V\u00e2yu, \u201cGod of the wind\u201d)\nby Anjan\u00e2, wife of a monster called Kesar\u00ee, though his genealogy varies.\nThe reader who bears this in mind, will find in Volume II, _passim_, the\nwhole explanation of this ingenious allegory. The \u201cmen\u201d of the Third Race\n(who separated) were \u201cGods,\u201d by their spirituality and purity, though\nsenseless, and as yet destitute of mind, as men.\n\nThese \u201cmen\u201d of the Third Race, the ancestors of the Atlanteans, were just\nsuch ape\u2010like, intellectually senseless, giants as were those beings, who,\nduring the Third Round, represented Humanity. Morally irresponsible, it\nwas these Third Race \u201cmen\u201d who, through promiscuous connection with animal\nspecies lower than themselves, created that missing link which became ages\nlater (in the Tertiary period only), the remote ancestor of the real ape,\nas we find it now in the pithecoid family.\n\nAnd if this is found clashing with the statement which shows the animal\nlater than man, then the reader is asked to bear in mind that the\n_placental mammal_ only is meant. In those days, there were animals of\nwhich Zo\u00f6logy does not even dream in our own; _and the modes of\nreproduction were not identical_ with the notions which modern Physiology\nhas upon the subject. It is not altogether convenient to touch upon such\nquestions in public, but there is _no_ contradiction or impossibility in\nthis whatever.\n\nThus the earlier teachings, however unsatisfactory, vague and fragmentary,\ndid not teach the evolution of \u201cman\u201d from the \u201cape.\u201d Nor does the author\nof _Esoteric Buddhism_ assert it anywhere in his work in so many words;\nbut, owing to his inclination towards Modern Science, he uses language\nwhich might perhaps justify such an inference. The man who preceded the\nFourth, the Atlantean, Race, however much he may have looked physically\nlike a \u201cgigantic ape\u201d\u2014\u201cthe counterfeit of man who hath not the life of a\nman\u201d\u2014was still a thinking and already a speaking man. The Lemuro\u2010Atlantean\nwas a highly civilized Race, and if one accepts tradition, which is better\nhistory than the speculative fiction which now passes under that name, he\nwas higher than we are with all our sciences and the degraded civilization\nof the day: at any rate, the Lemuro\u2010Atlantean of the closing Third Race\nwas so.\n\nAnd now we may return to the Stanzas.\n\n\n\nStanza VI.\u2014_Continued_.\n\n\n5. AT THE FOURTH(297) (_a_), THE SONS ARE TOLD TO CREATE THEIR IMAGES. ONE\nTHIRD REFUSES. TWO(298) OBEY.\n\nTHE CURSE IS PRONOUNCED (_b_); THEY WILL BE BORN IN THE FOURTH,(299)\nSUFFER AND CAUSE SUFFERING. THIS IS THE FIRST WAR (_c_).\n\nThe full meaning of this Shloka can only be fully comprehended after\nreading the additional detailed explanations, in the Anthropogenesis and\nits Commentaries, in Volume II. Between this Shloka and Shloka 4, extend\nlong ages; and there now gleams the dawn and sunrise of another \u00e6on. The\ndrama enacted on our planet is at the beginning of its fourth act; but for\na clearer comprehension of the whole play the reader will have to turn\nback before he can proceed onward. For this verse belongs to the general\nCosmogony given in the archaic volumes, whereas Volume II will give a\ndetailed account of the \u201ccreation,\u201d or rather formation, of the first\nhuman beings, followed by the second humanity, and then by the third; or,\nas they are called, the First, Second, and the Third Root\u2010Races. As the\nsolid Earth began by being a ball of liquid fire, of fiery dust and its\nprotoplasmic phantom, so did man.\n\n(_a_) That which is meant by the qualification the \u201cFourth,\u201d is explained\nas the Fourth Round, only on the authority of the Commentaries. It can\nequally mean Fourth Eternity as Fourth Round, or even our Fourth Globe.\nFor, as will repeatedly be shown, the latter is the fourth sphere, on the\nfourth or lowest plane of material life. And it so happens that we are in\nthe Fourth Round, at the middle point of which the perfect equilibrium\nbetween Spirit and Matter had to take place.\n\nIt was, as we shall see, at this period\u2014during the highest point of\ncivilization and knowledge, and also of human intellectuality, of the\nFourth, Atlantean Race\u2014that, owing to the final crisis of the\nphysiologico\u2010spiritual adjustment of the races, humanity branched off into\ntwo diametrically opposite paths: the _Right\u2010_ and the _Left\u2010hand_ Paths\nof Knowledge or Vidy\u00e2. In the words of the Commentary:\n\n_Thus were the germs of the White and the Black Magic sown in those days.\nThe seeds lay latent for some time, to sprout only during the early period\nof the Fifth [our Race]._\n\nSays the Commentary explaining the Shloka:\n\n_The Holy Youths [the Gods] refused to multiply and create species after\ntheir likeness, after their kind. __\u201c__They are not fit Forms [R\u00fbpas] for\nus. They have to grow.__\u201d__ They refuse to enter the Chh\u00e2y\u00e2s [Shadows or\nImages] of their inferiors. Thus had selfish feeling prevailed from the\nbeginning, even among the Gods, and they fell under the eye of the Karmic\nLipikas._\n\nThey had to suffer for it in later births. How the punishment reached the\nGods will be seen in Volume II.\n\nIt is a universal tradition that, before the physiological \u201cFall,\u201d\npropagation of one\u2019s kind, whether human or animal, took place through the\n_Will_ of the Creators, or of their progeny. This was the Fall of Spirit\ninto generation, not the Fall of mortal Man. It has already been stated\nthat, to become self\u2010conscious, Spirit must pass through every cycle of\nbeing, culminating in its highest point on earth in Man. Spirit _per se_\nis an unconscious negative _abstraction_. Its purity is inherent, not\nacquired by merit; hence, as already shown, to become the highest Dhy\u00e2n\nChohan, it is necessary for each Ego to attain to full self\u2010consciousness\nas a human, _i.e._, conscious, being, which is synthesized for us in Man.\nThe Jewish Kabalists, arguing that no Spirit can belong to the divine\nHierarchy unless Ruach (Spirit) is united to Nephesh (Living Soul), only\nrepeat the Eastern Esoteric teaching:\n\n_A Dhy\u00e2ni has to be an \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi; once the Buddhi\u2010Manas breaks loose\nfrom the immortal \u00c2tm\u00e2, of which it (Buddhi) is the vehicle, \u00c2tman passes\ninto Non\u2010Being, which is Absolute Being._\n\nThis means that the purely Nirv\u00e2nic state is a passage of Spirit back to\nthe ideal abstraction of Be\u2010ness, which has no relation to the plane on\nwhich our Universe is accomplishing its cycle.\n\n(_b_) \u201cThe Curse is pronounced\u201d does not mean, in this instance, that any\nPersonal Being, God, or Superior Spirit, pronounced it, but simply that\nthe cause, which could but create bad results, had been generated; and\nthat the effects of this Karmic cause could lead the Beings that\ncounteracted the laws of Nature, and thus impeded her legitimate progress,\nonly to bad incarnations, hence to suffering.\n\n(_c_) \u201cThere were many Wars,\u201d all referring to struggles of adjustment,\nspiritual, cosmical and astronomical, but chiefly to the mystery of the\nevolution of man, as he is now. The Powers or pure Essences that were\n\u201ctold to create,\u201d relate to a mystery explained, as already said,\nelsewhere. It is not only one of the most hidden secrets of Nature\u2014that of\ngeneration, over whose solution the Embryologists have vainly put their\nheads together\u2014but likewise a divine function which involves that great\nreligious, or rather dogmatic, mystery, the so\u2010called \u201cFall\u201d of the\nAngels. Satan and his rebellious host, when the meaning of the allegory is\nexplained, will thus prove to have refused to create physical man, only to\nbecome the direct Saviours and Creators of divine Man. The symbolical\nteaching is more than mystical and religious, it is purely scientific, as\nwill be seen later on. For, instead of remaining a mere blind functioning\nmedium, impelled and guided by fathomless Law, the \u201crebellious\u201d Angel\nclaimed and enforced his right of independent judgment and will, his right\nof free\u2010agency and responsibility, since Man and Angel are alike under\nKarmic Law.\n\nExplaining Kabalistic views, the author of _New Aspects of Life_ says of\nthe Fallen Angels that:\n\n\n    According to the symbolical teaching, Spirit, from being simply a\n    functionary agent of God, became volitional in its developed and\n    developing action; and, substituting its own will for the divine\n    desire in its regard, so fell. Hence the kingdom and reign of\n    spirits and spiritual action, which flow from and are the product\n    of spirit\u2010volition, are outside, and contrasted with, and in\n    contradiction to, the kingdom of souls and divine action.(300)\n\n\nSo far, so good; but what does the author mean by saying:\n\n\n    When man was created, he was human in constitution, with human\n    affections, human hopes and aspirations. From this state he\n    fell\u2014into the brute and savage.\n\n\nThis is diametrically opposite to our Eastern teaching, and even to the\nKabalistic notion, so far as we understand it, and to the _Bible_ itself.\nThis looks like Corporealism and Substantialism colouring Positive\nPhilosophy, though it is rather difficult to feel quite sure of the\nauthor\u2019s meaning. A _fall_, however, \u201cfrom the natural into the\nsupernatural and the animal\u201d\u2014supernatural meaning the purely spiritual in\nthis case\u2014implies what we suggest.\n\nThe _New Testament_ speaks of one of these \u201cWars,\u201d as follows:\n\n\n    And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against\n    the Dragon; and the Dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed\n    not; neither was their place found any more in Heaven. And the\n    great Dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil and\n    Satan, which deceiveth the whole world.(301)\n\n\nThe Kabalistic version of the same story is given in the _Codex Nazar\u00e6us_,\nthe scripture of the Nazarenes, the real mystic Christians of John the\nBaptist, and the Initiates of Christos. Bahak Zivo, the \u201cFather of the\nGenii,\u201d is ordered to construct creatures\u2014to \u201ccreate.\u201d But, as he is\n\u201cignorant of Orcus,\u201d he fails to do so, and calls in Fetahil, a still\npurer spirit, to his aid, who fails still worse. This is a repetition of\nthe failure of the \u201cFathers,\u201d the Lords of Light, who fail one after the\nother.(302)\n\nWe will now quote from our earlier volumes:(303)\n\n\n    Then steps on the stage of creation the Spirit(304) (of the Earth\n    so\u2010called, or the Soul, Psyche, which St. James calls \u201cdevilish\u201d),\n    the lower portion of the Anima Mundi or Astral Light. [See the\n    close of this Shloka.] With the Nazarenes and the Gnostics this\n    Spirit was _feminine_. Thus the Spirit of the Earth, perceiving\n    that for Fetahil,(305) the newest man (the latest), the splendour\n    was \u201cchanged,\u201d and that for splendour existed \u201cdecrease and\n    damage,\u201d she awakes Karabtanos,(306) \u201cwho was frantic and _without\n    sense and judgment_,\u201d and says to him: \u201cArise, see, the Splendour\n    (Light) of the _Newest_ Man (Fetahil) has failed (to produce or\n    create men), the decrease of this Splendour is visible. Rise up,\n    come with thy Mother (the Spiritus) and free thee from limits by\n    which thou art held, and those more ample than the whole world.\u201d\n    After which, follows the union of the frantic and blind matter,\n    guided by the insinuations of the Spirit (not the _Divine_ Breath\n    but the _Astral_ Spirit, which by its double essence is already\n    tainted with matter); and the offer of the Mother being accepted,\n    the Spiritus conceives \u201cSeven Figures,\u201d and the Seven Stellars\n    (Planets), which represent also the _seven capital sins_, the\n    progeny of an Astral Soul, separated from its divine source\n    (spirit), and _matter_, the blind demon of concupiscence. Seeing\n    this, Fetahil extends his hand towards the abyss of matter, and\n    says: \u201cLet the earth exist, just as the abode of the Powers has\n    existed.\u201d Dipping his hand in the chaos, which he condenses, he\n    creates our planet.\n\n    Then the _Codex_ proceeds to tell how Bahak Zivo was separated\n    from the Spiritus, and the Genii or Angels from the Rebels.(307)\n    Then (the greatest) Mano,(308) who dwells with the greatest Ferho,\n    calls Kebar Zivo (known also by the name of Nebat Iavar bar Iufin\n    Ifafin), the Helm and Vine of the Food of Life(309)\u2014he being the\n    third Life, and commiserating the rebellious and foolish Genii, on\n    account of the magnitude of their ambition, says: \u201cLord of the\n    Genii(310) (\u00c6ons), see what the Genii (the Rebellious Angels) do,\n    and about what they are consulting.(311) They say: \u2018Let us call\n    forth the world, and let us call the \u201cPowers\u201d into existence. The\n    Genii are the Princes (Principes), the Sons of Light, but Thou art\n    the Messenger of Life\u2019.\u201d\n\n    And in order to counteract the influence of the seven \u201cbadly\n    disposed\u201d principles the progeny of Spiritus, Kebar Zivo (or Cabar\n    Zio), the mighty Lord of Splendour, produces _seven other lives_\n    (the cardinal virtues), who shine in their own form and light\n    \u201cfrom on high,\u201d(312) and thus re\u00ebstablish the balance between good\n    and evil, light and darkness.\n\n\nHere one finds a repetition of the early _allegorical_ dual systems, such\nas the Zoroastrian, and detects a germ of the dogmatic and dualistic\nreligions of the future, a germ which has grown into such a luxuriant tree\nin ecclesiastical Christianity. It is already the outline of the two\n\u201cSupremes\u201d\u2014God and Satan. But in the Stanzas no such idea exists.\n\nMost of the Western Christian Kabalists\u2014pre\u00ebminently \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi\u2014in their\ndesire to reconcile the Occult Sciences with Church Dogmas, did their best\nto make of the \u201cAstral Light\u201d only and preeminently the Pler\u00f4ma of the\nearly Church Fathers, the abode of the Hosts of the Fallen Angels, of the\nArch\u00f4ns and Powers. But the Astral Light, though only the lower aspect of\nthe Absolute, is still dual. It is the Anima Mundi, and ought never to be\nviewed otherwise, except for Kabalistic purposes. The difference which\nexists between its \u201cLight\u201d and its \u201cLiving Fire,\u201d ought ever to be present\nin the mind of the Seer and the Psychic. The higher aspect of this\n\u201cLight,\u201d without which only creatures of matter can be produced, is this\nLiving Fire, and its Seventh Principle. It is stated in _Isis Unveiled_,\nin a complete description of it:\n\n\n    The Astral Light or Anima Mundi is dual and bi\u2010sexual. The (ideal)\n    male part of it is purely divine and spiritual, it is Wisdom, it\n    is Spirit or Purusha; while the female portion (the Spiritus of\n    the Nazarenes) is tainted, in one sense, with matter, _is_ indeed\n    matter, and therefore is evil already. It is the life\u2010principle of\n    every living creature, and furnishes the astral soul, the fluidic\n    _perisprit_, to men, animals, fowls of the air, and everything\n    living. Animals have only the latent germ of the highest immortal\n    soul in them. This latter will develop only after a series of\n    countless evolutions; the doctrine of which evolutions is\n    contained in the Kabalistic axiom: \u201cA stone becomes a plant; a\n    plant, a beast; a beast, a man; a man, a spirit; and the spirit, a\n    god.(313)\u201d\n\n\nThe seven principles of the Eastern Initiates had not been explained when\n_Isis Unveiled_ was written, but only the three _Kabalistic Faces_ of the\nsemi\u2010exoteric _Kabalah_.(314) But these contain the description of the\nmystic natures of the first Group of Dhy\u00e2n Chohans in the _regimen ignis_,\nthe region and \u201crule (or government) of fire,\u201d divided into three classes,\nsynthesized by the first, which makes _four_ or the \u201cTetraktys.\u201d If one\nstudies the commentaries attentively, he will find the same progression in\nthe angelic natures, _viz_., from the _passive_ down to the _active_; the\nlast of these Beings are as near to the Ahamk\u00e2ra Element\u2014the region or\nplane wherein _Egoship_, or the feeling of _I\u2010am\u2010ness_, is beginning to be\ndefined\u2014as the first are near to the undifferentiated Essence. The former\nare Ar\u00fbpa, incorporeal; the latter, R\u00fbpa, corporeal.\n\nIn Volume II of the same work,(315) the philosophical systems of the\nGnostics and the primitive Jewish Christians, the Nazarenes and the\nEbionites, are fully considered. They show the views held in those days,\noutside the circle of Mosaic Jews, about Jehovah. He was identified by all\nthe Gnostics with the evil, rather than with the good principle. For them,\nhe was Ilda\u2010Baoth, the \u201cSon of Darkness,\u201d whose mother, Sophia Acham\u00f4th,\nwas the daughter of Sophia, the Divine Wisdom\u2014the female Holy Ghost of the\nearly Christians\u2014\u00c2k\u00e2sha; Sophia Acham\u00f4th personifying the Lower Astral\nLight or Ether. The Astral Light stands in the same relation to \u00c2k\u00e2sha and\nAnima Mundi, as Satan stands to the Deity. They are one and the same thing\n_seen from two aspects_, the spiritual and the psychic\u2014the super\u2010ethereal,\nor connecting link between matter and pure spirit\u2014and the physical.(316)\nIlda\u2010Baoth\u2014a compound name, made up of _Ilda_ (\u05d9\u05dc\u05d3), child, and _Baoth_;\nthe latter from \u05d1\u05d4\u05d5\u05e6 an egg, and \u05d1\u05d4\u05d5\u05ea, chaos, emptiness, void, or\ndesolation; or the Child born in the Egg of Chaos, like Brahm\u00e2\u2014or Jehovah,\nis simply one of the Elohim, the Seven Creative Spirits, and one of the\nlower Sephiroth. Ilda\u2010Baoth produces from himself seven other Gods,\n\u201cStellar Spirits,\u201d or the Lunar Ancestors,(317) for they are all the\nsame.(318) They are all _in his own image_, the \u201cSpirits of the Face,\u201d and\nthe reflections one of the other, who become darker and more material, as\nthey successively recede from their originator. They also inhabit seven\nregions disposed like a stair, for its steps mount and descend the scale\nof spirit and matter.(319) With Pagans and Christians, with Hind\u00fbs and\nChaldeans, with Greek as with Roman Catholics\u2014the texts varying slightly\nin their interpretations\u2014they all were the Genii of the seven planets, and\nof the seven planetary spheres of our septenary Chain, of which Earth is\nthe lowest. This connects the \u201cStellar\u201d and \u201cLunar\u201d Spirits with the\nhigher planetary Angels, and the Saptarshis, the Seven Rishis of the\nStars, of the Hind\u00fbs\u2014as subordinate Angels, or Messengers, to these\nRishis, their emanations, on the descending scale. Such, in the opinion of\nthe philosophical Gnostics, were the God and the Archangels now worshipped\nby the Christians! The \u201cFallen Angels\u201d and the legend of the \u201cWar in\nHeaven\u201d are thus purely pagan in their origin, and come from India, _vi\u00e1_\nPersia and Chaldea. The only reference to them in the Christian canon is\nfound in _Revelation_ xii, as quoted a few pages back.\n\nThus \u201cSatan,\u201d once he ceases to be viewed in the superstitious, dogmatic,\nunphilosophical spirit of the Churches, grows into the grandiose image of\none who makes of a _terrestrial_, a _divine_ Man; who gives him,\nthroughout the long cycle of Mah\u00e2kalpa, the law of the Spirit of Life, and\nmakes him free from the Sin of Ignorance, hence of Death.\n\n6. THE OLDER WHEELS ROTATED DOWNWARD AND UPWARD (_a_).... THE MOTHER\u2019S\nSPAWN FILLED THE WHOLE.(320) THERE WERE BATTLES FOUGHT BETWEEN THE\nCREATORS AND THE DESTROYERS, AND BATTLES FOUGHT FOR SPACE; THE SEED\nAPPEARING AND RE\u00c4PPEARING CONTINUOUSLY (_b_).(321)\n\n(_a_) Here, having finished for the time being with our side\u2010issues\u2014which,\nhowever they may break the flow of the narrative, are necessary for the\nelucidation of the whole scheme\u2014we must return once more to Cosmogony. The\nphrase \u201cOlder Wheels\u201d refers to the Worlds, or Globes, of our Chain as\nthey were during the previous Rounds. The present Stanza, when explained\nesoterically, is found embodied entirely in Kabalistic works. Therein will\nbe found the very history of the evolution of those countless Globes,\nwhich evolve after a periodical Pralaya, rebuilt from old material into\nnew forms. The previous Globes disintegrate and re\u00e4ppear, transformed and\nperfected for a new phase of life. In the _Kabalah_, worlds are compared\nto sparks which fly from under the hammer of the great Architect\u2014_Law_,\nthe Law which rules all the smaller Creators.\n\nThe following comparative diagram shows the identity between the two\nsystems, the Kabalistic and the Eastern. The three upper are the three\nhigher planes of consciousness, revealed and explained in both schools\nonly to the Initiates; the lower represent the four lower planes\u2014the\nlowest being our plane, or the visible Universe.\n\n                              [Diagram III]\n\nThese seven _planes_ correspond to the seven _states_ of consciousness in\nman. It remains with him to attune the three higher states in himself to\nthe three higher planes in Kosmos. But before he can attempt to attune, he\nmust awaken the three \u201cseats\u201d to life and activity. And how many are\ncapable of bringing themselves to even a superficial comprehension of \u00c2tm\u00e2\nVidy\u00e2 (Spirit\u2010Knowledge), or what is called by the Sufis, Rohanee!(322)\n\n(_b_) \u201cThe Seed appearing and re\u00e4ppearing continuously.\u201d Here \u201cSeed\u201d\nstands for the \u201cWorld\u2010Germ,\u201d viewed by Science as material particles in a\nhighly attenuated condition, but in Occult Physics as \u201cspiritual\nparticles,\u201d _i.e._, supersensuous matter existing in a state of primeval\ndifferentiation. To see and appreciate the difference\u2014the immense gulf\nthat separates terrestrial matter from the finer grades of supersensuous\nmatter\u2014every Astronomer, every Chemist and Physicist ought to be a\n_Psychometer_, to say the least; he ought to be able to sense for himself\nthat difference in which he now refuses to believe. Mrs. Elizabeth Denton,\none of the most learned, and also one of the most materialistic and\nsceptical women of her age\u2014the wife of Professor Denton, the well\u2010known\nAmerican Geologist, and the author of _The Soul of Things_\u2014was, in spite\nof her scepticism, one of the most wonderful psychometers. This is what\nshe describes in one of her experiments. A particle of a meteorite was\nplaced on her forehead, in an envelope, and the lady, not being aware of\nwhat it contained, said:\n\n\n    What a difference between that which we recognize as matter here\n    and that which seems like matter there! In the one, the _elements\n    are so coarse and so angular_, I wonder that we can endure it at\n    all, much more that we can desire to continue our present\n    relations to it; in the other, all the elements are so refined,\n    they are so free from those great, rough angularities, which\n    characterize the elements here, that I can but regard _that_ as by\n    so much the more than this the real existence.(323)\n\n\nIn Theogony, every Seed is an ethereal organism, from which evolves later\non a celestial Being, a God.\n\nIn the \u201cBeginning,\u201d that which is called in mystic phraseology \u201cCosmic\nDesire\u201d evolves into Absolute Light. Now light without any shadow would be\nabsolute light; in other words, absolute darkness, as Physical Science\ntries to prove. This \u201cshadow\u201d appears under the form of primordial matter,\nallegorized\u2014if you will\u2014in the shape of the Spirit of Creative Fire or\nHeat. If, rejecting the poetical form and allegory, Science chooses to see\nin this the primordial \u201cfire\u2010mist,\u201d it is welcome to do so. Whether one\nway or the other, whether Fohat or the famous Force of Science, nameless\nand as difficult of definition as our Fohat himself, that Something\n\u201ccaused the Universe to move with circular motion,\u201d as Plato has it; or,\nas the Occult teaching expresses it:\n\n_The Central Sun causes Fohat to collect primordial dust in the form of\nballs, to impel them to move in converging lines and finally to approach\n__ each other and aggregate.... Being scattered in Space, without order or\nsystem, the World\u2010Germs come into frequent collision until their final\naggregation, after which they become Wanderers [Comets]. Then the battles\nand struggles begin. The older [bodies] attract the younger, while others\nrepel them. Many perish, devoured by their stronger companions. Those that\nescape become worlds._(324)\n\nWhen carefully analyzed and reflected upon, this will be found as\nscientific as Science can make it, even at our late period.\n\nWe have been assured, that there exist several modern works of speculative\nfancy upon such struggles for life in sidereal heaven, especially in the\nGerman language. We rejoice to hear it, for ours is an Occult teaching\nlost in the darkness of archaic ages. We have treated of it fully in _Isis\nUnveiled_,(325) and the idea of Darwinian\u2010like evolution, of struggle for\nlife and supremacy, and of the \u201csurvival of the fittest,\u201d among the Hosts\nabove as of the Hosts below, runs throughout both the volumes of our\nearlier work, written in 1876. But the idea is not ours, it is that of\nantiquity. Even the Pur\u00e2nic writers have ingeniously interwoven allegory\nwith cosmic facts and human events. Any symbologist may discern their\nastro\u2010cosmical allusions, even though he be unable to grasp the whole\nmeaning. The great \u201cwars in heaven,\u201d in the _Pur\u00e2nas_; the wars of the\nTitans, in Hesiod and other classical writers; the \u201cstruggles\u201d also\nbetween Osiris and Typhon, in the Egyptian myth; and even those in the\nScandinavian legends; all refer to the same subject. Northern Mythology\nrefers to it as the battle of the Flames, the sons of Muspel who fought on\nthe field of Wigred. All these relate to Heaven and Earth, and have a\ndouble, and often even a triple, meaning and esoteric application to\nthings above as to things below. They severally relate to astronomical,\ntheogonical and human struggles; to the adjustment of orbs, and the\nsupremacy among nations and tribes. The \u201cstruggle for existence\u201d and the\n\u201csurvival of the fittest\u201d reigned supreme from the moment that Kosmos\nmanifested into being, and could hardly escape the observant eye of the\nancient Sages. Hence the incessant fights of Indra, the God of the\nFirmament, with the Asuras\u2014degraded from high Gods into cosmic Demons\u2014and\nwith Vritra or Ahi; the battles fought between stars and constellations,\nbetween moons and planets\u2014later on incarnated as kings and mortals. Hence\nalso the War in Heaven of Michael and his Host against the Dragon\u2014Jupiter\nand Lucifer Venus\u2014when a third of the stars of the rebellious Host was\nhurled down into Space, and \u201cits place was found no more in Heaven.\u201d As we\nwrote long ago:\n\n\n    This is the basic and fundamental stone of the secret cycles. It\n    shows that the Br\u00e2hmans and Tana\u00efm ... speculated on the creation\n    and development of the world quite in a Darwinian way, both\n    anticipating him and his school in the natural selection, gradual\n    development and transformation of species.(326)\n\n\nThere were old worlds that perished, conquered by the new, etc., etc. The\nassertion that all the worlds (stars, planets, etc.)\u2014as soon as a nucleus\nof primordial substance, in the laya (undifferentiated) state, is informed\nby the freed principles of a just _deceased_ sidereal body\u2014become first\ncomets, and then suns, to cool down to inhabitable worlds, is a teaching\nas old as the Rishis.\n\nThus the Secret Books, as we see, distinctly teach an astronomy that would\nnot be rejected even by modern speculation, could the latter thoroughly\nunderstand its teachings.\n\nFor archaic astronomy and the ancient physical and mathematical sciences\nexpressed views identical with those of Modern Science, and many of far\nmore momentous import. A \u201cstruggle for life\u201d and a \u201csurvival of the\nfittest,\u201d in the worlds above and on our planet here below, are distinctly\ntaught. This teaching, however, although it would not be entirely rejected\nby Science, is sure to be repudiated as an integral whole. For it avers\nthat there are only seven self\u2010born primordial \u201cGods,\u201d emanated from the\ntrinitarian One. In other words, it means that all the worlds, or sidereal\nbodies\u2014always on strict analogy\u2014are formed one from the other, after the\nprimordial manifestation at the beginning of the Great Age is\naccomplished.\n\nThe birth of the celestial bodies in space is compared to a multitude of\npilgrims at the Festival of the Fires. Seven ascetics appear on the\nthreshold of the temple with seven lighted sticks of incense. At the light\nof these the first row of pilgrims light their incense sticks. After\nwhich, every ascetic begins whirling his stick around his head in space,\nand furnishes the rest with fire. Thus with the heavenly bodies. A laya\u2010\ncentre is lighted and awakened into life by the fires of another\n\u201cpilgrim,\u201d after which, the new \u201ccentre\u201d rushes into space and becomes a\ncomet. It is only after losing its velocity, and hence its fiery tail,\nthat the Fiery Dragon settles down into quiet and steady life, as a\nregular respectable citizen of the sidereal family. Therefore it is said:\n\n_Born in the unfathomable depths of Space, out of the homogeneous Element\ncalled the World\u2010Soul, every nucleus of cosmic matter, suddenly launched\ninto being, begins life under the most hostile circumstances. Through a\nseries of countless ages, it has to conquer for itself a place in the\ninfinitudes. It circles round and round, between denser and already fixed\nbodies, moving by jerks, and pulling towards some given point or centre\nthat attracts it, and, like as a ship drawn into a channel dotted with\nreefs and sunken rocks, trying to avoid other bodies that draw and repel\nit in turn. Many perish, their mass disintegrating through stronger\nmasses, and, when born within a system, chiefly within the insatiable\nstomachs of various Suns. Those which move slower, and are propelled into\nan elliptic course, are doomed to annihilation sooner or later. Others,\nmoving in parabolic curves, generally escape destruction, owing to their\nvelocity._\n\nSome very critical readers will perhaps imagine that this teaching, as to\nthe cometary stage passed through by all heavenly bodies, is in\ncontradiction with the statements just made as to the Moon being the\nmother of the Earth. They will perhaps fancy that intuition is needed to\nharmonize the two. But no intuition is in truth required. What does\nScience know of comets, their genesis, growth, and ultimate behaviour?\nNothing\u2014absolutely nothing! And what is there so impossible in that a\nlaya\u2010centre\u2014a lump of cosmic protoplasm, homogeneous and latent\u2014when\nsuddenly animated or fired up, should rush from its bed in space, and\nwhirl throughout the abysmal depths, in order to strengthen its\nhomogeneous organism by an accumulation and addition of differentiated\nelements? And why should not such a comet settle in life, live, and become\nan inhabited globe?\n\n_\u201c__The abodes of Fohat are many__\u201d_\u2014it is said. _\u201c__He places his Four\nFiery [electro\u2010positive] Sons in the Four Circles__\u201d_; these Circles are\nthe equator, the ecliptic, and the two parallels of declination, or the\ntropics, to preside over the _climates_ of which are placed the Four\nMystical Entities. Then again: \u201c_Other Seven [Sons] are commissioned to\npreside over the seven hot, and seven cold Lokas [the Hells of the\northodox Br\u00e2hmans] at the two ends of the Egg of Matter [our Earth and its\npoles]._\u201d The seven Lokas are elsewhere also called the \u201cRings\u201d and the\n\u201cCircles.\u201d The Ancients made the polar circles _seven_ instead of two, as\ndo the Europeans; for Mount Meru, which is the North Pole, is said to have\nseven gold and seven silver steps leading to it.\n\nThe strange statements, in one of the Stanzas, that \u201c_The Songs of __\nFohat and his Sons were_ RADIANT _as the noon\u2010tide Sun and the Moon\ncombined_,\u201d and that the Four Sons, on the _middle_ Four\u2010fold Circle, \u201cSAW\n_their Father\u2019s Songs and_ HEARD _his solar\u2010selenic Radiance_,\u201d are\nexplained, in the Commentary, in these words: \u201c_The agitation of the\nFohatic Forces at the two cold ends [North and South Poles] of the Earth,\nwhich results in a multicoloured radiance at night, has in it several of\nthe properties of \u00c2k\u00e2sha [Ether], Colour and Sound as well_.\u201d\n\n\u201cSound is the characteristic of \u00c2k\u00e2sha [Ether]: it generates Air, the\nproperty of which is Touch; which [by friction] becomes productive of\nColour and Light.\u201d(327)\n\nPerhaps the above will be regarded as archaic nonsense, but it will be\nbetter comprehended, if the reader remembers the Aurora Borealis and\nAustralis, both of which take place at the very centres of terrestrial\nelectric and magnetic forces. The two Poles are said to be the store\u2010\nhouses, the receptacles and liberators, at the same time, of cosmic and\nterrestrial Vitality (Electricity), from the surplus of which the Earth,\nhad it not been for these two natural safety\u2010valves, would have been rent\nto pieces long ago. At the same time it is a theory that has lately become\nan axiom, that the phenomenon of the polar lights is accompanied by, and\nproductive of, strong sounds, like whistling, hissing and cracking. See\nProfessor Humboldt\u2019s works on the Aurora Borealis, and his correspondence\nregarding this moot question.\n\n7. MAKE THY CALCULATIONS, O LANOO, IF THOU WOULDST LEARN THE CORRECT AGE\nOF THY SMALL WHEEL.(328) ITS FOURTH SPOKE IS OUR MOTHER(329) (_a_). REACH\nTHE FOURTH FRUIT OF THE FOURTH PATH OF KNOWLEDGE THAT LEADS TO NIRV\u00c2NA,\nAND THOU SHALT COMPREHEND, FOR THOU SHALT SEE (_b_)....\n\n(_a_) The \u201cSmall Wheel\u201d is our Chain of Spheres, and the \u201cFourth Spoke\u201d is\nour Earth, the fourth in the Chain. It is one of those on which the \u201chot\n[positive] breath of the Sun\u201d has a direct effect.\n\nThe seven fundamental transformations of the Globes or heavenly Spheres,\nor rather of their constituent particles of matter, are described as\nfollows: (1) _homogeneous_; (2) _a\u00ebriform_ and _radiant_\u2014gaseous; (3)\n_curd\u2010like_ (nebulous); (4) _atomic, ethereal_\u2014beginning of motion, hence\nof differentiation; (5) _germinal, fiery_\u2014differentiated, but composed of\nthe germs only of the Elements, in their earliest states, they having\nseven states, when completely developed on our earth; (6) _four\u2010fold,\nvapoury_\u2014the future Earth; (7) _cold_\u2014and depending on the Sun for life\nand light.\n\nTo calculate its age, however, as the pupil is asked to do in the Stanza,\nis rather difficult, since we are not given the figures of the Great\nKalpa, and are not allowed to publish those of our small Yugas, except as\nto the approximate duration of these. \u201c_The older Wheels rotated for one\nEternity and one\u2010half of an Eternity_,\u201d it says. We know that by\n\u201cEternity\u201d the seventh part of 311,040,000,000,000 years, or an Age of\nBrahm\u00e2 is meant. But what of that? We also know that, to begin with, if we\ntake for our basis the above figures, we have first of all to eliminate\nfrom the 100 Years of Brahm\u00e2, or 311,040,000,000,000 years, two Years\ntaken up by the Sandhy\u00e2s (Twilights), which leaves 98, as we have to bring\nit to the mystical combination 14 x 7. But _we_ have no knowledge at what\ntime precisely the evolution and formation of our little Earth began.\nTherefore, it is impossible to calculate its age, unless the time of its\nbirth is given\u2014which the Teachers refuse to do, so far. At the close of\nthis Volume and in Volume II, however, some chronological hints will be\ngiven. We must remember, moreover, that the law of analogy holds good for\nthe worlds, as it does for man; and that as \u201c_The One [Deity] becomes Two\n[Deva or Angel], and Two becomes Three [or Man]_,\u201d etc., so we are taught\nthat the Curds (World\u2010Stuff) become Wanderers (Comets); these become\nstars; and the stars (the centres of vortices), _our sun and planets_\u2014to\nput it briefly. This cannot be so very _unscientific_, since Descartes\nalso thought that \u201cthe planets rotate on their axes, because they were\nonce lucid stars, the centres of vortices.\u201d\n\n(_b_) There are four grades of Initiation mentioned in exoteric works,\nwhich are known respectively in Sanskrit as Srot\u00e2panna, Sakrid\u00e2g\u00e2min,\nAn\u00e2g\u00e2min, and Arhan; the Four Paths to Nirv\u00e2na, in this our Fourth Round,\nbearing the same appellations. The Arhan, though he can see the Past, the\nPresent and the Future, is not yet the highest Initiate; for the Adept\nhimself, the _initiated_ candidate, becomes Chel\u00e2 (Pupil) to a higher\nInitiate. Three higher grades have still to be conquered by the Arhan who\nwould reach the apex of the ladder of Arhatship. There are those who have\nreached it even in this Fifth Race of ours, but the faculties necessary\nfor the attainment of these higher grades will be fully developed, in the\naverage ascetic, only at the end of this Root\u2010Race, and in the Sixth and\nSeventh. Thus, there will always be Initiates and the Profane until the\nend of this minor Manvantara, the present Life\u2010Cycle. The Arhats of the\n\u201cFire\u2010Mist,\u201d of the Seventh Rung, are but one remove from the Root\u2010Base of\ntheir Hierarchy, the highest on Earth and our Terrestrial Chain. This\n\u201cRoot\u2010Base\u201d has a name which can only be translated into English by\nseveral compound words\u2014the \u201cEver\u2010Living\u2010Human\u2010Banyan.\u201d This \u201cWondrous\nBeing\u201d descended from a \u201chigh region,\u201d they say, in the early part of the\nThird Age, before the separation of sexes in the Third Race.\n\nThis Third Race is sometimes called collectively the \u201cSons of Passive\nYoga,\u201d _i.e._, it was produced unconsciously by the Second Race, which, as\nit was intellectually inactive, is supposed to have been constantly\nplunged in a kind of blank or abstract contemplation, as required by the\nconditions of the Yoga state. In the first or earlier portion of the\nexistence of this Third Race, while it was yet in its state of purity, the\n\u201cSons of Wisdom,\u201d who, as will be seen, incarnated in this Root\u2010Race,\nproduced by Kriy\u00e2shakti a progeny, called the \u201cSons of Ad,\u201d or of the\n\u201cFire\u2010Mist,\u201d the \u201cSons of Will and Yoga,\u201d etc. They were a conscious\nproduction, as a portion of the Race was already animated with the divine\nspark of spiritual, superior intelligence. This progeny was not a race. It\nwas at first a Wondrous Being, called the \u201cInitiator,\u201d and after him a\ngroup of semi\u2010divine and semi\u2010human Beings. \u201cSet apart\u201d in archaic genesis\nfor certain purposes, they are those in whom are said to have incarnated\nthe highest Dhy\u00e2nis\u2014\u201cMunis and Rishis from previous Manvantaras\u201d\u2014_to form\nthe nursery for future human Adepts_, on this Earth and during the present\nCycle. These \u201cSons of Will and Yoga,\u201d born, so to speak, in an immaculate\nway, remained, it is explained, entirely apart from the rest of mankind.\n\nThe \u201cBeing\u201d just referred to, who has to remain nameless, is the _Tree_\nfrom which, in subsequent ages, all the great _historically_ known Sages\nand Hierophants, such as the Rishi Kapila, Hermes, Enoch, Orpheus, etc.,\nhave branched off. As objective _man_, he is the mysterious (to the\nprofane\u2014the ever invisible, yet ever present) Personage, about whom\nlegends are rife in the East, especially among the Occultists and the\nstudents of the Sacred Science. It is he who changes form, yet remains\never the same. And it is he, again, who holds spiritual sway over the\n_initiated_ Adepts throughout the whole world. He is, as said, the\n\u201cNameless One\u201d who has so many names, and yet whose names and whose very\nnature are unknown. He is _the_ \u201cInitiator,\u201d called the \u201cGREAT SACRIFICE.\u201d\nFor, sitting at the Threshold of LIGHT, he looks into it from within the\nCircle of Darkness, which he will not cross; nor will he quit his post\ntill the last Day of this Life\u2010Cycle. Why does the Solitary Watcher remain\nat his self\u2010chosen post? Why does he sit by the Fountain of Primeval\nWisdom, of which he drinks no longer, for he has naught to learn which he\ndoes not know\u2014aye, neither on this Earth, nor in its Heaven? Because the\nlonely, sore\u2010footed Pilgrims, on their journey back to their Home, are\nnever sure, to the last moment, of not losing their way, in this limitless\ndesert of Illusion and Matter called Earth\u2010Life. Because he would fain\nshow the way to that region of freedom and light, from which he is a\nvoluntary exile himself, to every prisoner who has succeeded in liberating\nhimself from the bonds of flesh and illusion. Because, in short, he has\nsacrificed himself for the sake of Mankind, though but a few elect may\nprofit by the GREAT SACRIFICE.\n\nIt is under the direct, silent guidance of this _Mah\u00e2\u2010Guru_ that all the\nother less divine Teachers and Instructors of Mankind became, from the\nfirst awakening of human consciousness, the guides of early Humanity. It\nis through these \u201cSons of God\u201d that infant Humanity learned its first\nnotions of all the arts and sciences, as well as of spiritual knowledge;\nand it is They who laid the first foundation\u2010stone of those ancient\ncivilizations that so sorely puzzle our modern generation of students and\nscholars.\n\nLet those who doubt this statement, explain, on any other equally\nreasonable grounds, the mystery of the extraordinary knowledge possessed\nby the Ancients\u2014who, some pretend, developed from lower and animal\u2010like\nsavages, the \u201ccave\u2010men\u201d of the pal\u00e6olithic age! Let them turn, for\ninstance, to such works as those of Vitruvius Pollio of the Augustan age,\non architecture, in which all the rules of proportion are those _anciently\ntaught at Initiations_, if they would acquaint themselves with this truly\ndivine art, and understand the _deep esoteric significance hidden in every\nrule and law of proportion_. No man descended from a pal\u00e6olithic cave\u2010\ndweller could ever evolve such a science unaided, even in millenniums of\nthought and intellectual evolution. It is the pupils of those incarnated\nRishis and Devas of the Third Root Race who handed on their knowledge,\nfrom one generation to another, to Egypt and to Greece with her now lost\n_canon of proportion_; just as the disciples of the Initiates of the\nFourth, the Atlanteans, handed it over to their Cyclopes, the \u201cSons of\nCycles\u201d or of the \u201cInfinite,\u201d from whom the name passed to the still later\ngenerations of Gnostic priests.\n\n\n    It is owing to the divine perfection of these architectural\n    proportions that the Ancients could build these wonders of all the\n    subsequent ages, their Fanes, Pyramids, Cave\u2010Temples, Cromlechs,\n    Cairns, Altars, proving they had the powers of machinery and a\n    knowledge of mechanics to which modern skill is like a child\u2019s\n    play, and which that skill refers to itself as the \u201cworks of\n    hundred\u2010handed giants.\u201d(330)\n\n\nModern architects may not have altogether neglected these rules, but they\nhave superadded enough empirical innovations to destroy the just\nproportions. It is Vitruvius who gave to posterity the rules of\nconstruction of the Grecian temples erected to the immortal Gods; and the\nten books of Marcus Vitruvius Pollio on Architecture, of one, in short,\n_who was an Initiate_, can only be studied esoterically. The Druidical\nCircles, the Dolmens, the Temples of India, Egypt and Greece, the Towers,\nand the 127 towns in Europe which were found \u201cCyclopean in origin\u201d by the\nFrench Institute, are all the work of initiated Priest\u2010Architects, the\ndescendants of those first taught by the \u201cSons of God,\u201d and justly called\nthe \u201cBuilders.\u201d This is what appreciative posterity says of these\ndescendants:\n\n\n    They used neither mortar nor cement, nor steel, nor iron to cut\n    the stones with; and yet they were so artificially wrought that in\n    many places the joints are hardly seen, though many of the stones,\n    as in Peru, are 38 feet long, 18 feet broad, and 6 feet thick, and\n    in the walls of the fortress of Cuzco there are stones of a still\n    greater size.(331)\n\n\nAgain:\n\n\n    The well of Syene, made 5,400 years ago, when that spot was\n    exactly under the tropic, which it has now ceased to be, was ...\n    so constructed, that at noon, at the precise moment of the solar\n    solstice, the entire disk of the sun was seen reflected on its\n    surface\u2014a work which the united skill of all the astronomers in\n    Europe would not now be able to effect.(332)\n\n\nAlthough these matters were barely hinted at in _Isis Unveiled_, it will\nbe well to remind the reader of what was said there(333) concerning a\ncertain Sacred Island in Central Asia, and to refer him for further\ndetails to the Section, entitled \u201cThe Sons of God and the Sacred Island,\u201d\nattached to Stanza IX of Volume II. A few more explanations, however,\nthough thrown out in a fragmentary form, may help the student to obtain a\nglimpse into the present mystery.\n\nTo state at least one detail concerning these mysterious \u201cSons of God\u201d in\nplain words: it is from them, these Brahmaputras, that the high Dvijas,\nthe initiated Br\u00e2hmans of old, claimed descent, while the modern Br\u00e2hman\nwould have the lower castes believe literally that they (the Br\u00e2hmans)\nissued direct from the mouth of Brahm\u00e2. Such is the Esoteric teaching; and\nit adds moreover that, although those descended (spiritually, of course)\nfrom the \u201cSons of Will and Yoga\u201d became in time divided into opposite\nsexes, as their \u201cKriy\u00e2shakti\u201d progenitors did themselves later on; yet\neven their degenerate descendants have, down to the present day, retained\na veneration and respect for the creative function, and still regard it in\nthe light of a religious ceremony, whereas the more civilized nations\nconsider it as a mere animal function. Compare the Western views and\npractice in these matters with the Institutions of Manu, in regard to the\nlaws of Grihastha, or married life. The true Br\u00e2hman is, thus, indeed \u201che\nwhose seven forefathers have drunk the juice of the Moon\u2010plant (Soma),\u201d\nand who is a \u201cTrisuparna,\u201d for he has understood the secret of the\n_Vedas_.\n\nAnd, to this day, such Br\u00e2hmans know that, during the early beginnings of\nthis Race, psychic and physical intellect being dormant and consciousness\nstill undeveloped, its spiritual conceptions were quite unconnected with\nits physical surroundings; that _divine_ man dwelt in his animal\u2014though\nexternally human\u2014form; that, if there was instinct in him, no self\u2010\nconsciousness came to enlighten the darkness of the latent Fifth\nPrinciple. When the Lords of Wisdom, moved by the law of evolution,\ninfused into him the spark of consciousness, the first feeling it awoke to\nlife and activity was a sense of solidarity, of one\u2010ness with his\nspiritual creators. As the child\u2019s first feeling is for its mother and\nnurse, so the first aspirations of the awakening consciousness in\nprimitive man were for those whose element he felt within himself, and who\nwere yet outside, and independent of him. _Devotion_ arose out of that\nfeeling, and became the first and foremost motor in his nature; for it is\nthe only one which is natural in his heart, which is innate in him, and\nwhich we find alike in the human babe and the young of the animal. This\nfeeling of irrepressible, instinctive aspiration in primitive man is\nbeautifully, and one may say intuitionally, described by Carlyle, who\nexclaims:\n\n\n    The great antique heart\u2014how like a child\u2019s in its simplicity, like\n    a man\u2019s in its earnest solemnity and depth! Heaven lies over him\n    wheresoever he goes or stands on the earth; making all the earth a\n    mystic temple to him, the earth\u2019s business all a kind of worship.\n    Glimpses of bright creatures flash in the common sunlight; angels\n    yet hover, doing God\u2019s messages among men.... Wonder, miracle,\n    encompass the man; he lives in an element of miracle.(334)... A\n    great law of duty, high as these two infinitudes (heaven and\n    hell), dwarfing all else, annihilating all else\u2014it was a reality,\n    and it is one: the garment only of it is dead; the essence of it\n    lives through all times and all eternity!\n\n\nIt lives undeniably, and has settled in all its ineradicable strength and\npower in the Asiatic \u00c2ryan heart, from the Third Race direct, through its\nfirst Mind\u2010born Sons, the fruits of Kriy\u00e2shakti. As time rolled on, the\nholy caste of Initiates produced, but rarely, from age to age, such\nperfect creatures; beings apart, inwardly, though the same as those who\nproduced them, outwardly.\n\nIn the infancy of the Third primitive Race:\n\n\n    A creature of a more exalted kind\n    Was wanting yet, and therefore was designed;\n    Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,\n    For empire formed and fit to rule the rest.\n\n\nIt was called into being, a ready and perfect vehicle for the incarnating\ndenizens of higher spheres, who took forthwith their abodes in these\nforms, born of _Spiritual Will_ and the natural divine power in man. It\nwas a child of pure spirit, mentally unalloyed with any tincture of\nearthly element. Its physical frame alone was of time and of life, for it\ndrew its intelligence direct from above. It was the Living Tree of Divine\nWisdom; and may therefore be likened to the Mundane Tree of the Norse\nLegends, which cannot wither and die until the last battle of life shall\nbe fought, while its roots are all the time gnawed by the dragon Nidhogg.\nFor even so, the first and holy Son of Kriy\u00e2shakti had his body gnawed by\nthe tooth of time, but the roots of his inner being remained for ever\nundecaying and strong, because they grew and expanded in heaven, and not\non earth. He was the first of the _First_, and he was the Seed of all the\nothers. There were other Sons of Kriy\u00e2shakti produced by a second\nspiritual effort, but the first one has remained to this day the Seed of\nDivine Knowledge, the One and the Supreme among the terrestrial \u201cSons of\nWisdom.\u201d Of this subject we can say no more, except to add that in every\nage\u2014aye, even in our own\u2014there have been great intellects who have\nunderstood the problem correctly.\n\nBut how comes our physical body to the state of perfection it is now found\nin? Through millions of years of evolution, of course, yet never through,\nor from, animals, as taught by Materialism. For, as Carlyle says:\n\n\n    ... The essence of our being, the mystery in us that calls itself\n    \u201cI,\u201d\u2014ah, what words have we for such things?\u2014is a breath of\n    Heaven; the Highest Being reveals himself in man. This body, these\n    faculties, this life of ours, is it not all as a vesture for that\n    Unnamed?\n\n\nThe \u201cbreath of Heaven,\u201d or rather the breath of Life, called in the\n_Bible_ Nephesh, is in every animal, in every animate speck and in every\nmineral atom. But none of these has, like man, the consciousness of the\nnature of that \u201cHighest Being,\u201d(335) as none has that divine harmony in\nits form, which man possesses. It is, as Novalis said, and no one since\nhas said it better, as repeated by Carlyle:\n\n\n    There is but one temple in the Universe, and that is the Body of\n    Man. Nothing is holier than that high form.... We touch Heaven\n    when we lay our hand on a human body! This sounds like a mere\n    flourish of rhetoric; but it is not so. If well meditated, it will\n    turn out to be a scientific fact; the expression ... of the actual\n    truth of the thing. _We_ are the miracle of miracles\u2014the great\n    inscrutable Mystery....(336)\n\n\n\nStanza VII.\n\n\n1. BEHOLD THE BEGINNING OF SENTIENT FORMLESS LIFE (_a_).\n\nFIRST, THE DIVINE(337) (_b_), THE ONE FROM THE MOTHER\u2010SPIRIT;(338) THEN,\nTHE SPIRITUAL(339) (_c_); (340)THE THREE FROM THE ONE (_d_), THE FOUR FROM\nTHE ONE (_e_), AND THE FIVE (_f_), FROM WHICH THE THREE, THE FIVE AND THE\nSEVEN (_g_). THESE ARE THE THREE\u2010FOLD AND THE FOUR\u2010FOLD DOWNWARD; THE\nMIND\u2010BORN SONS OF THE FIRST LORD,(341) THE SHINING SEVEN.(342) IT IS THEY\nWHO ARE THOU, I, HE, O LANOO; THEY WHO WATCH OVER THEE AND THY MOTHER,\nBH\u00dbMI.(343)\n\n(_a_) The Hierarchy of Creative Powers is divided esoterically into Seven\n(four and three), within the Twelve great Orders, recorded in the twelve\nsigns of the Zodiac; the Seven of the manifesting scale being connected,\nmoreover, with the Seven Planets. All these are subdivided into numberless\nGroups of divine spiritual, semi\u2010spiritual, and ethereal Beings.\n\nThe chief Hierarchies among these are hinted at in the great Quaternary,\nor the \u201cfour bodies and the three faculties,\u201d exoterically, of Brahm\u00e2 and\nthe Panch\u00e2sya, the five Brahm\u00e2s, or the five Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas in the\nBuddhist system.\n\nThe highest Group is composed of the Divine Flames, so called, also spoken\nof as the \u201cFiery Lions\u201d and the \u201cLions of Life,\u201d whose esotericism is\nsecurely hidden in the zodiacal sign of Leo. It is the _nucleole_ of the\nsuperior Divine World. They are the Formless Fiery Breaths, identical in\none aspect with the upper Sephirothal Triad, which is placed by the\nKabalists in the Archetypal World.\n\nThe same Hierarchy, with the same numbers, is found in the Japanese\nsystem, in the \u201cBeginnings,\u201d as taught by both the Shinto and the Buddhist\nsects. In this system, Anthropogenesis precedes Cosmogenesis, as the\ndivine merges into the human, and creates\u2014midway in its descent into\nmatter\u2014the visible Universe; the legendary personages, remarks\nreverentially Omoie, \u201chaving to be understood as the stereotyped\nembodiment of the higher [secret] doctrine, and its sublime truths.\u201d To\nstate this old system at full length would occupy too much of our space; a\nfew words on it, however, cannot be out of place. The following is a short\nsynopsis of this Anthropo\u2010Cosmogenesis, and shows how closely the most\nseparated nations echoed one and the same archaic teaching.\n\nWhen all was as yet Chaos (Kon\u2010ton), three spiritual Beings appeared on\nthe stage of future creation: (1) Ame no ani naka nushi no Kami, \u201cDivine\nMonarch of the Central Heaven\u201d; (2) Taka mi onosubi no Kami, \u201cExalted,\nImperial Divine Offspring of Heaven and Earth\u201d; and (3) Kamu mi musubi no\nKami, \u201cOffspring of the Gods,\u201d simply.\n\nThese were without form or substance\u2014our Ar\u00fbpa Triad\u2014as neither the\ncelestial nor the terrestrial substance had yet differentiated, \u201cnor had\nthe essence of things been formed.\u201d\n\n(_b_) In the _Zohar_\u2014which, as now arranged and re\u00ebdited by Moses de Leon,\nwith the help of Syrian and Chaldean Christian Gnostics, in the XIIIth\ncentury, and corrected and revised still later by many Christian hands, is\nonly a little less exoteric than the _Bible_ itself\u2014this \u201cDivine\n[Vehicle]\u201d no longer appears as it does in the Chaldean _Book of Numbers_.\nTrue enough, Ain Suph, the Absolute Endless No\u2010thing, uses also the form\nof the One, the manifested \u201cHeavenly Man\u201d (the First Cause), as its\nChariot (Mercabah, in Hebrew; V\u00e2hana, in Sanskrit) or Vehicle, to descend\ninto, and manifest itself in, the phenomenal world. But the Kabalists\nneither make it plain how the Absolute can use anything, or exercise any\nattribute whatever, since, as the Absolute, it is devoid of attributes;\nnor do they explain that in reality it is the First Cause (Plato\u2019s Logos),\nthe original and eternal Idea, that manifests through Adam Kadmon, the\nSecond Logos, so to speak. In the _Book of Numbers_, it is explained that\nAin (En, or Ai\u00f4r) is the only self\u2010existent, whereas its \u201cDepth,\u201d the\nBythos of the Gnostics, called Propat\u00f4r, is only periodical. The latter is\nBrahm\u00e2, as differentiated from Brahman or Parabrahman. It is the Depth,\nthe Source of Light, or Propat\u00f4r, which is the Unmanifested Logos, or the\nabstract Idea, and not Ain Suph, whose Ray uses Adam Kadmon\u2014\u201cmale and\nfemale\u201d\u2014or the Manifested Logos, the objective Universe, as a Chariot,\nthrough which to manifest. But in the _Zohar_ we read the following\nincongruity: \u201c_Senior occultatus est, et absconditus; Microprosopus\nmanifestus est, et non manifestus_.\u201d(344) This is a fallacy, since\nMicroprosopus, or the Microcosm, can only exist during its manifestations,\nand is destroyed during the Mah\u00e2pralayas. Rosenroth\u2019s _Kabbala_ is no\nguide, but very often a puzzle.\n\nThe _First Order_ are the Divine. As in the Japanese system, in the\nEgyptian, and every old cosmogony\u2014at this divine Flame, the \u201cOne,\u201d are lit\nthe Three descending Groups. Having their potential being in the higher\nGroup, they now become distinct and separate Entities. These are called\nthe Virgins of Life, the Great Illusion, etc., etc., and collectively the\nsix\u2010pointed star. The latter, in almost every religion, is the symbol of\nthe Logos as the first emanation. It is the sign of Vishnu in India, the\nChakra, or Wheel; and the glyph of the Tetragrammaton, \u201cHe of the Four\nLetters,\u201d in the _Kabalah_, or metaphorically the \u201cLimbs of\nMicroprosopus,\u201d which are ten and six respectively.\n\nThe later Kabalists, however, especially the Christian Mystics, have\nplayed sad havoc with this magnificent symbol. Indeed, the\nMicroprosopus\u2014who is, philosophically speaking, quite distinct from the\nunmanifested eternal Logos, \u201cone with the Father\u201d\u2014has finally been\nbrought, by centuries of incessant efforts of sophistry and of paradoxes,\nto be considered as one with Jehovah, or the _one_ living God (!), whereas\nJehovah is no better than Binah, a female Sephira. This fact cannot be too\nfrequently impressed upon the reader. For the \u201cTen Limbs\u201d of the Heavenly\nMan are the ten Sephiroth; but the first Heavenly Man is the unmanifested\nSpirit of the Universe, and ought never to be degraded into Microprosopus,\nthe Lesser Face or Countenance, the prototype of man on the terrestrial\nplane. The Microprosopus is, as just said, the Logos manifested, and of\nsuch there are many. Of this, however, later on. The six\u2010pointed star\nrefers to the six Forces or Powers of Nature, the six planes, principles,\netc., etc., all synthesized by the seventh, or the central point in the\nstar. All these, the upper and lower Hierarchies included, emanate from\nthe Heavenly or Celestial Virgin, the Great Mother in all religions, the\nAndrogyne, the Sephira Adam Kadmon. Sephira is the Crown, Kether, in the\nabstract principle only, as a mathematical x, the unknown quantity. On the\nplane of differentiated nature, she is the female counterpart of Adam\nKadmon, the first Androgyne. The _Kabalah_ teaches that the words \u201c_Fiat\nLux_\u201d(345) referred to the formation and evolution of the Sephiroth, and\nnot to light as opposed to darkness. Rabbi Simeon says:\n\n\n    O companions, companions, man as an emanation was both man and\n    woman, Adam Kadmon verily, and this is the sense of the words,\n    \u201cLet there be Light, and there was Light.\u201d And this is the two\u2010\n    fold man.(346)\n\n\nIn its Unity, Primordial Light is the seventh, or highest, principle,\nDaiviprakriti, the Light of the Unmanifested Logos. But in its\ndifferentiation, it becomes Fohat, or the \u201cSeven Sons.\u201d The former is\nsymbolized by the central point in the Double Triangle; the latter by the\nHexagon itself, or the \u201cSix Limbs\u201d of Microprosopus, the Seventh being\nMalkuth, the \u201cBride\u201d of the Christian Kabalists, or our Earth. Hence the\nexpressions:\n\n_The first after the One is Divine Fire; the second, Fire and Ether; the\nthird is composed of Fire, Ether and Water; the fourth of Fire, Ether,\nWater, and Air. The One is not concerned with Man\u2010bearing Globes, but with\nthe inner, invisible Spheres. The First\u2010Born are the_ LIFE, _the Heart and\nPulse of the Universe; the Second are its_ MIND _or Consciousness_.\n\nThese Elements of Fire, Air, etc., are not our compound elements; and this\n\u201cConsciousness\u201d has no relation to our consciousness. The Consciousness of\nthe \u201cOne Manifested,\u201d if not absolute, is still unconditioned. Mahat, the\nUniversal Mind, is the first production of the Brahm\u00e2\u2010Creator, but also of\nPradh\u00e2na, Undifferentiated Matter.\n\n(_c_) The _Second Order_ of Celestial Beings, those of Fire and Ether,\ncorresponding to Spirit and Soul, or \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi, whose names are legion,\nare still formless, but more definitely \u201csubstantial.\u201d They are the first\ndifferentiation in the Secondary Evolution or \u201cCreation\u201d\u2014a misleading\nword. As the name shows, they are the Prototypes of the incarnating J\u00eevas\nor Monads, and are composed of the Fiery Spirit of Life. It is through\nthese that passes, like a pure solar beam, the Ray which is furnished by\nthem with its future Vehicle, the Divine Soul, Buddhi. These are directly\nconcerned with the Hosts of the higher World of _our_ System. From these\nTwo\u2010fold Units emanate the \u201cThree\u2010fold.\u201d\n\nIn the cosmogony of Japan, when, out of the chaotic mass, an egg\u2010like\nnucleus appears, having within itself the germ and potency of all\nuniversal as well as of all terrestrial life, it is the Three\u2010fold just\nnamed, which differentiate. The male ethereal principle (Yo) ascends, and\nthe female grosser or more material principle (In) is precipitated into\nthe universe of substance, when a separation occurs between the celestial\nand the terrestrial. From this, the female, the Mother, the first\nrudimentary objective being is born. It is ethereal, without form or sex,\nand yet it is from it and the Mother that the Seven Divine Spirits are\nborn, from whom will emanate the seven \u201ccreations\u201d; just as in the _Codex\nNazar\u00e6us_ from Karabtanos and the Mother Spiritus the seven \u201cevilly\ndisposed\u201d (material) spirits are born. It would be too long to give here\nthe Japanese names, but in translation they stand in this order:\n\n(1.) The \u201cInvisible Celibate,\u201d which is the Creative Logos of the non\u2010\ncreating \u201cFather,\u201d or the creative potentiality of the latter made\nmanifest.\n\n(2.) The \u201cSpirit [or God] of the rayless Depths [Chaos],\u201d which becomes\ndifferentiated matter, or the world\u2010stuff; also the mineral realm.\n\n(3.) The \u201cSpirit of the Vegetable Kingdom,\u201d of the \u201cAbundant Vegetation.\u201d\n\n(4.) The \u201cSpirit of the Earth\u201d and \u201cthe Spirit of the Sands\u201d; a Being of\ndual nature, the former containing the potentiality of the male element,\nthe latter that of the female element. These two were one, as yet\nunconscious of being two.\n\nIn this duality were contained (_a_) Isu no gai no Kami, the male, dark\nand muscular Being; and (_b_) Eku gai no Kami, the female, fair and weaker\nor more delicate Being. Then:\n\n(5 and 6.) The Spirits who were androgynous or dual\u2010sexed.\n\n(7.) The Seventh Spirit, the last emanated from the \u201cMother,\u201d appears as\nthe first divine human form distinctly male and female. It was the seventh\n\u201ccreation,\u201d as in the _Pur\u00e2nas_, wherein man is the seventh creation of\nBrahm\u00e2.\n\nThese, Tsanagi\u2010Tsanami, descended into the Universe by the Celestial\nBridge, the Milky Way, and \u201cTsanagi, perceiving far below a chaotic mass\nof cloud and water, thrust his jewelled spear into the depths, and dry\nland appeared. Then the two separated to explore Onokoro, the newly\u2010\ncreated island\u2010world.\u201d (Omoie.)\n\nSuch are the Japanese exoteric fables, the rind that conceals the kernel\nof the same one truth of the Secret Doctrine.\n\n(_d_) The _Third Order_ correspond to \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi\u2010Manas, Spirit, Soul and\nIntellect; and are called the \u201cTriads.\u201d\n\n(_e_) The _Fourth Order_ are substantial Entities. This is the highest\nGroup among the R\u00fbpas (Atomic Forms). It is the nursery of the human,\nconscious, spiritual Souls. They are called the \u201cImperishable J\u00eevas,\u201d and\nconstitute, through the Order below their own, the first Group of the\nfirst Septenary Host\u2014the great mystery of human, conscious and\nintellectual Being. For the latter is the field wherein lies concealed,\n_in its privation_, the Germ that will _fall into generation_. That Germ\nwill become the spiritual potency in the physical cell, that guides the\ndevelopment of the embryo, and that is the cause of the hereditary\ntransmission of faculties, and all the inherent qualities in man. The\nDarwinian theory, however, of the transmission of acquired faculties is\nneither taught nor accepted in Occultism. Evolution, in the latter,\nproceeds on quite other lines; the physical, according to Esoteric\nteaching, evolving gradually from the spiritual, mental, and psychic. This\ninner soul of the physical cell\u2014the \u201cspiritual plasm\u201d that dominates the\ngerminal plasm\u2014is the key that must open one day the gates of the _terra\nincognita_ of the Biologist, now called the dark mystery of Embryology. It\nis worthy of notice that Modern Chemistry, while rejecting, as a\nsuperstition of Occultism and Religion as well, the theory of substantial\nand invisible Beings, called Angels, Elementals, etc.\u2014without, of course,\nhaving ever looked into the philosophy of these incorporeal Entities, or\nthought over them\u2014should, owing to observation and discovery, have been\nunconsciously forced to recognize and adopt the same ratio of progression\nand order, in the evolution of chemical atoms, as Occultism does for both\nits Dhy\u00e2nis and Atoms\u2014analogy being its first law. As seen above, the very\nfirst Group of the R\u00fbpa Angels is quaternary, an element being added to\neach in descending order. So also are the atoms, in the phraseology of\nChemistry, monatomic, diatomic, triatomic, tetratomic, etc., progressing\ndownwards.\n\nLet it be remembered that the Fire, Water, and Air of Occultism, or the\n\u201cElements of Primary Creation\u201d so\u2010called, are not the compound elements\nthey are on earth, but noumenal homogeneous Elements\u2014the Spirits of the\nformer. Then follow the Septenary Groups or Hosts. Placed on parallel\nlines with the atoms in a diagram, the natures of these Beings would be\nseen to correspond, in their downward scale of progression, to composite\nelements in a mathematically identical manner as to analogy. This refers,\nof course, only to diagrams made by Occultists; for were the scale of\nAngelic Beings to be placed on parallel lines with the scale of the\nchemical atoms of Science\u2014from the hypothetical Helium down to\nUranium\u2014they would of course be found to differ. For the latter have, as\ncorrespondents on the Astral Plane, only the four lowest orders\u2014the three\nhigher principles in the atom, or rather molecule, or chemical element,\nbeing perceptible to the initiated Dangma\u2019s eye alone. But then, if\nChemistry desired to find itself on the right path, it would have to\ncorrect its tabular arrangement by that of the Occultists\u2014which it might\nrefuse to do. In Esoteric Philosophy, every physical particle corresponds\nto, and depends on, its higher noumenon\u2014the Being to whose essence it\nbelongs; and, above as below, the Spiritual evolves from the Divine, the\nPsycho\u2010mental from the Spiritual\u2014tainted from its lower plane by the\nAstral\u2014the whole animate and (seemingly) inanimate Nature evolving on\nparallel lines, and drawing its attributes from above as well as below.\n\nThe number seven, as applied to the term Septenary Host, above mentioned,\ndoes not imply only seven Entities, but seven Groups or Hosts, as\nexplained before. The highest Group, the Asuras born in Brahm\u00e2\u2019s first\nbody, which turned into \u201cNight,\u201d are septenary, _i.e._, divided like the\nPitris into seven Classes, three of which are bodiless (ar\u00fbpa) and four\nwith bodies.(347) They are in fact more truly our Pitris (Ancestors) than\nthe Pitris who projected the first physical man.\n\n(_f_) The _Fifth Order_ is a very mysterious one, as it is connected with\nthe microcosmic pentagon, the five\u2010pointed star, representing man. In\nIndia and Egypt, these Dhy\u00e2nis were connected with the Crocodile, and\ntheir abode is in Capricornus. But these are convertible terms in Indian\nAstrology, for the tenth sign of the Zodiac, which is called Makara, is\nloosely translated \u201cCrocodile.\u201d The word itself is occultly interpreted in\nvarious ways, as will be shown further on. In Egypt, the Defunct\u2014whose\nsymbol is the pentagram, or the five\u2010pointed star, the points of which\nrepresent the limbs of a man\u2014was shown emblematically transformed into a\ncrocodile. Sebekh, or Sevekh (or \u201cSeventh\u201d), as Mr. Gerald Massey says,\nshowing it to be the type of intelligence, is a dragon in reality, not a\ncrocodile. He is the \u201cDragon of Wisdom,\u201d or Manas, the Human Soul, Mind,\nthe Intelligent Principle, called in our Esoteric Philosophy the _Fifth_\nPrinciple.\n\nSays the defunct \u201cOsirified,\u201d in the _Book of the Dead_, or _Ritual_,\nunder the glyph of a mummiform God with a crocodile\u2019s head:\n\n\n    I am the crocodile presiding at the fear, I am the God\u2010crocodile,\n    at the arrival of his Soul among men. I am the God\u2010crocodile\n    brought for destruction.\n\n\nAn allusion to the destruction of divine spiritual purity when man\nacquires the knowledge of good and evil; also to the \u201cfallen\u201d Gods, or\nAngels of every theogony.\n\n\n    I am the fish of the great Horus. [As Makara is the \u201cCrocodile,\u201d\n    the Vehicle of Varuna.] I am merged in Sekhem.(348)\n\n\nThis last sentence gives the corroboration, and repeats the doctrine of\nesoteric \u201cBuddhism,\u201d for it alludes directly to the Fifth Principle\n(Manas), or the most spiritual part of its essence rather, which merges\ninto, is absorbed by, and made one with \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi, after the death of\nman. For Sekhem is the residence, or Loka, of the God Khem (Horus\u2010Osiris,\nor Father and Son); hence the Devachan of \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi. In the _Book of the\nDead_, the Defunct is shown entering into Sekhem, with Horus\u2010Thot, and\n\u201cemerging from it as pure spirit.\u201d Thus the Defunct says:\n\n\n    I see the forms of [myself, as various] men transforming\n    eternally.... I know this [chapter]. He who knows it ... takes all\n    kinds of living forms.(349)\n\n\nAnd addressing in magic formula that which is called, in Egyptian\nEsotericism, the \u201cancestral heart,\u201d or the re\u00efncarnating principle, the\npermanent Ego, the Defunct says:\n\n\n    O my heart, my ancestral heart, necessary for my transformations,\n    ... do not separate thyself from me before the guardian of the\n    scales. Thou art my personality within my breast, divine companion\n    _watching over my fleshes_ [bodies].(350)\n\n\nIt is in Sekhem that lies concealed the \u201cMysterious Face,\u201d or the real Man\nconcealed under the false personality, the triple\u2010crocodile of Egypt, the\nsymbol of the higher Trinity, or human Triad, \u00c2tm\u00e2, Buddhi and Manas.\n\nOne of the explanations of the real though hidden meaning of this Egyptian\nreligious glyph is easy. The crocodile is the first to await and meet the\ndevouring fires of the morning sun, and very soon came to personify the\nsolar heat. When the sun arose, it was like the arrival on earth, and\namong men, of the \u201cdivine soul which informs the Gods.\u201d Hence the strange\nsymbolism. The mummy donned the head of a crocodile to show that it was a\nSoul arriving from the earth.\n\nIn all the ancient papyri, the crocodile is called Sebekh (Seventh); water\nalso symbolizes the fifth principle esoterically; and, as already stated,\nMr. Gerald Massey shows that the crocodile was the \u201cseventh Soul, the\nsupreme one of seven\u2014the Seer unseen.\u201d Even exoterically Sekhem is the\nresidence of the God Khem, and Khem is Horus avenging the death of his\nfather Osiris, hence punishing the sins of man, when he becomes a\ndisembodied Soul. Thus the defunct Osirified became the God Khem, who\n\u201cgleans the field of Aanroo\u201d; that is, he gleans either his reward or\npunishment, for that field is the celestial locality (Devachan), where the\nDefunct is given _wheat_, the food of divine justice. The Fifth Group of\nCelestial Beings is supposed to contain in itself the dual attributes of\nboth the spiritual and physical aspects of the Universe; the two poles, so\nto say, of Mahat, the Universal Intelligence, and the dual nature of man,\nthe spiritual and the physical. Hence its number Five, doubled and made\ninto Ten, connecting it with Makara, the tenth sign of the Zodiac.\n\n(_g_) The _Sixth_ and _Seventh Orders_ partake of the lower qualities of\nthe Quaternary. They are conscious ethereal Entities, as invisible as\nEther, which are shot out, like the boughs of a tree, from the first\ncentral Group of the Four, and shoot out in their turn numberless side\nGroups, the lower of which are the Nature\u2010Spirits, or Elementals, of\ncountless kinds and varieties; from the formless and unsubstantial\u2014the\nideal Thoughts of their creators\u2014down to atomic, though, to human\nperception, invisible organisms. The latter are considered as the \u201cspirits\nof atoms,\u201d for they are the first remove (backwards) from the physical\natom\u2014sentient, if not intelligent creatures. They are all subject to\nKarma, and have to work it out through every cycle. For, as the Doctrine\nteaches, there are no such privileged Beings in the Universe, whether in\nour own or in other Systems, in the outer or the inner Worlds,(351) as the\nAngels of the Western Religion and the Judean. A Dhy\u00e2n Chohan has to\nbecome one; he cannot be born or appear suddenly on the plane of life as a\nfull\u2010blown Angel. The Celestial Hierarchy of the present Manvantara will\nfind itself transferred, in the next Circle of Life, into higher superior\nWorlds, and will make room for a new Hierarchy, composed of the elect ones\nof our mankind. Being is an endless cycle within the One Absolute\nEternity, wherein move numberless inner cycles finite and conditioned.\nGods, created as such, would evince no personal merit in being Gods. Such\na class of Beings\u2014perfect only by virtue of the special immaculate nature\ninherent in them\u2014in the face of suffering and struggling humanity, and\neven of the lower creation, would be the symbol of an eternal injustice\nquite Satanic in character, an ever present crime. It is an anomaly and an\nimpossibility in Nature. Therefore the \u201cFour\u201d and the \u201cThree\u201d have to\nincarnate as all other beings have. This Sixth Group, moreover, remains\nalmost inseparable from man, who draws from it all but his highest and\nlowest principles, or his spirit and body; the five middle human\nprinciples being the very essence of those Dhy\u00e2nis. Paracelsus calls them\nthe Flag\u00e6; the Christians, the Guardian Angels; the Occultists, the\nAncestors, the Pitris. They are the Six\u2010fold Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, having the six\nspiritual Elements in the composition of their bodies\u2014in fact, men, minus\nthe physical body.\n\nAlone, the Divine Ray, the \u00c2tman, proceeds directly from the One. When\nasked how this can be? How is it possible to conceive that these \u201cGods,\u201d\nor Angels, can be at the same time their own emanations and their personal\nselves? Is it in the same sense as in the material world, where the son\nis, in one way, his father, being his blood, the bone of his bone and the\nflesh of his flesh? To this the Teachers answer: Verily it is so. But one\nhas to go deep into the mystery of Being, before one can fully comprehend\nthis truth.\n\n2. THE ONE RAY MULTIPLIES THE SMALLER RAYS. LIFE PRECEDES FORM, AND LIFE\nSURVIVES THE LAST ATOM.(352) THROUGH THE COUNTLESS RAYS THE LIFE\u2010RAY, THE\nONE, LIKE A THREAD THROUGH MANY BEADS.(353)\n\nThis shloka expresses the conception\u2014a purely Ved\u00e2ntic one, as already\nexplained elsewhere\u2014of a Life\u2010Thread, S\u00fbtr\u00e2tm\u00e2, running through successive\ngenerations. How, then, can this be explained? By resorting to a simile,\nto a familiar illustration, though necessarily imperfect, as all our\navailable analogies must be. Before resorting to it, however, I would ask,\nwhether it seems unnatural, least of all \u201csupernatural,\u201d to any one of us,\nwhen we consider the process of the growth and development of a f\u0153tus into\na healthy baby weighing several pounds? Evolving from what? From the\nsegmentation of an infinitesimally small ovum and a spermatozo\u00f6n! And\nafterwards we see the baby develop into a six\u2010foot man! This refers to the\natomic and physical expansion, from the microscopically small into\nsomething exceedingly large; from the unseen, to the naked eye, into the\nvisible and objective. Science has provided for all this; and, I dare say,\nher theories, embryological, biological and physiological, are correct\nenough, so far as exact observation of the material goes. Nevertheless,\nthe two chief difficulties of the science of Embryology\u2014namely, what are\nthe forces at work in the formation of the f\u0153tus, and the _cause_ of\n\u201chereditary transmission\u201d of likeness, physical, moral or mental\u2014have\nnever been properly answered; nor will they ever be solved, till the day\nwhen Scientists condescend to accept the Occult theories. But if this\nphysical phenomenon astonishes no one, except in so far as it puzzles the\nEmbryologists, why should our intellectual and inner growth, the evolution\nof the Human\u2010Spiritual to the Divine\u2010Spiritual, be regarded as, or seem,\nmore impossible than the other?\n\nThe Materialists and the Evolutionists of the Darwinian school would be\nill\u2010advised to accept the newly worked\u2010out theories of Professor\nWeissmann, the author of _Beitr\u00e4ge zur Descendenzlehre_, with regard to\none of the two mysteries of Embryology, as above specified, which he seems\nto think he has solved; for, when it is fully solved, Science will have\nstepped into the domain of the truly Occult, and passed for ever out of\nthe realm of transformation, as taught by Darwin. The two theories are\nirreconcilable, from the standpoint of Materialism. Regarded from that of\nthe Occultists, however, the new theory solves all these mysteries. Those\nwho are not acquainted with the discovery of Professor Weissmann\u2014at one\ntime a fervent Darwinist\u2014ought to hasten to repair the deficiency. The\nGerman embryologist\u2010philosopher\u2014stepping over the heads of the Greek\nHippocrates and Aristotle, right back into the teachings of the old\n\u00c2ryans\u2014shows one infinitesimal cell, out of millions of others at work in\nthe formation of an organism, alone and unaided determining, by means of\nconstant segmentation and multiplication, the correct image of the future\nman, or animal, in its physical, mental and psychic characteristics. It is\nthis cell which impresses on the face and form of the new individual the\nfeatures of the parents, or of some distant ancestor; it is this cell,\nagain, which transmits to him the intellectual and mental idiosyncracies\nof his sires, and so on. This Plasm is the immortal portion of our bodies,\ndeveloping by means of a process of successive assimilations. Darwin\u2019s\ntheory, viewing the embryological cell as the essence or extract from all\nother cells, is set aside; it is incapable of accounting for hereditary\ntransmission. There are but two ways of explaining the mystery of\nheredity: either the substance of the germinal cell is endowed with the\nfaculty of crossing the whole cycle of transformations that lead to the\nconstruction of a separate organism, and then to the reproduction of\nidentical germinal cells; or, _these germinal cells do not have their\ngenesis at all in the body of the individual, but proceed directly from\nthe ancestral germinal cell passed from father to son through long\ngenerations_. It is the latter hypothesis that Weissmann has adopted and\nworked upon, and it is to this cell that he traces the immortal portion of\nman. So far, so good; and when this almost correct theory is accepted, how\nwill Biologists explain the first appearance of this everlasting cell?\nUnless man \u201cgrew\u201d like the immortal \u201cTopsy,\u201d and was not born at all, but\nfell from the clouds, how was that embryological cell generated in him?\n\nComplete the Physical Plasm, mentioned above, the \u201cGerminal Cell\u201d of man\nwith all its material potentialities, with the \u201cSpiritual Plasm,\u201d so to\nsay, or the fluid that contains the five lower principles of the Six\u2010\nprincipled Dhy\u00e2ni\u2014and you have the secret, if you are spiritual enough to\nunderstand it.\n\nNow to the promised simile.\n\n_When the seed of the animal man is cast into the soil of the animal\nwoman, that seed cannot germinate unless it has been fructified by the\nfive virtues [the fluid of, or the emanation from, the principles] of the\nSix\u2010fold Heavenly Man. Wherefore the Microcosm is represented as a\nPentagon, within the Hexagon Star, the Macrocosm._(_354_)\n\n_The functions of Jiva on this Earth are of a five\u2010fold character. In the\nmineral atom, it is connected with the lowest principles of the Spirits of\nthe Earth (the Six\u2010fold Dhy\u00e2nis); in the vegetable particle, with their __\nsecond\u2014the Pr\u00e2na (Life); in the animal, with all these plus the third and\nthe fourth; in man, the germ must receive the fruitage of all the five.\nOtherwise he will be born no higher than an animal_.(355)\n\nThus in man alone the J\u00eeva is complete. As to his seventh principle, it is\nbut one of the Beams of the Universal Sun, for each rational creature\nreceives the temporary loan only of that which has to return to its\nsource. As to his physical body, it is shaped by the lowest terrestrial\nLives, through physical, chemical and physiological evolution; \u201cthe\nBlessed Ones have nought to do with the purgations of matter,\u201d says the\nKabalah in the Chaldean _Book of Numbers_.\n\nIt comes to this: Mankind, in its first prototypal, shadowy form, is the\noffspring of the Elohim of Life, or Pitris; in its qualitative and\nphysical aspect, it is the direct progeny of the \u201cAncestors,\u201d the lowest\nDhy\u00e2nis, or Spirits of the Earth; for its moral, psychic and spiritual\nnature, it is indebted to a Group of divine Beings, the name and\ncharacteristics of which will be given in Volume II. Collectively, men are\nthe handiwork of Hosts of various Spirits; distributively, the tabernacles\nof those Hosts; and occasionally and individually, the vehicles of some of\nthem. In our present all\u2010material Fifth Race, the earthly Spirit of the\nFourth is still strong in us; but we are approaching the time when the\npendulum of evolution will direct its swing decidedly upwards, bringing\nHumanity back on a parallel line with the primitive Third Root\u2010Race in\nspirituality. During its childhood, mankind was wholly composed of that\nAngelic Host, who were the indwelling Spirits that animated the monstrous\nand gigantic tabernacles of clay of the Fourth Race, built by and composed\nof countless myriads of Lives, as our bodies are also now. This sentence\nwill be explained later on in the present Commentary. Science, dimly\nperceiving the truth, may find bacteria and other infinitesimals in the\nhuman body, and see in them only occasional and abnormal visitors, to\nwhich diseases are attributed. Occultism\u2014which discerns a Life in every\natom and molecule, whether in a mineral or human body, in air, fire or\nwater\u2014affirms that our whole body is built of such Lives; the smallest\nbacterium under the microscope being to them in comparative size like an\nelephant to the tiniest infusoria.\n\nThe \u201ctabernacles\u201d mentioned above have improved in texture and symmetry of\nform, growing and developing with the Globe that bears them; but the\nphysical improvement has taken place at the expense of the spiritual Inner\nMan and of Nature. The three middle principles, in earth and man, became\nwith every Race more material; the Soul stepping back to make room for the\nPhysical Intellect; the essence of the Elements becoming the material and\ncomposite elements now known.\n\nMan is not, nor could he ever be, the complete product of the \u201cLord God\u201d;\nbut he _is_ the child of the Elohim, so arbitrarily changed into the\nsingular number and masculine gender. The first Dhy\u00e2nis, commissioned to\n\u201ccreate\u201d man in their image, could only throw off their Shadows, as a\ndelicate model for the Nature Spirits of matter to work upon. Man is,\nbeyond any doubt, formed physically out of the dust of the Earth, but his\ncreators and fashioners were many. Nor can it be said that the \u201cLord God\nbreathed into his nostrils the Breath of Life,\u201d unless that God is\nidentified with the \u201cOne Life,\u201d omnipresent though invisible, and unless\nthe same operation is attributed to \u201cGod\u201d on behalf of every \u201cLiving\nSoul,\u201d which is the _Vital_ Soul (Nephesh), and not the Divine Spirit\n(Ruach) which ensures to man alone a divine degree of immortality, that no\nanimal, as such, could ever attain in this cycle of incarnation. It is\nowing to the inadequate distinctions made by the Jews, and now by our\nWestern metaphysicians, who are unable to understand, and hence to accept,\nmore than a triune man\u2014Spirit, Soul, Body\u2014that the \u201cBreath of Life\u201d has\nbeen confused with the immortal \u201cSpirit.\u201d This applies also directly to\nthe Protestant theologians, who in translating a certain verse in the\nFourth Gospel(356) have entirely perverted its meaning. This\nmistranslation runs, \u201cthe _wind_ bloweth where it listeth,\u201d instead of\n\u201cthe _spirit_ goeth where it willeth,\u201d as in the original, and also in the\ntranslation of the Greek Eastern Church.\n\nThe learned and very philosophical author of _New Aspects of Life_ would\nimpress upon his reader that the Nephesh Chiah (Living Soul), according to\nthe Hebrews:\n\n\n    Proceeded from, or was produced by, the infusion of the Spirit or\n    Breath of Life into the quickening body of man, and was to\n    supersede and take the place of that Spirit in the thus\n    constituted Self, so that the Spirit passed into, was lost sight\n    of, and disappeared in the Living Soul.\n\n\nThe human body, he thinks, ought to be viewed as a matrix in which, and\nfrom which, the Soul, which he seems to place higher than the Spirit, is\ndeveloped. Considered _functionally_ and from the standpoint of activity,\nthe Soul stands undeniably higher, in this finite and conditioned world of\nM\u00e2y\u00e2. The Soul, he says, \u201cis ultimately produced from the animated body of\nman.\u201d Thus the author identifies \u201cSpirit\u201d (\u00c2tm\u00e2) with the \u201cBreath of Life\u201d\nsimply. The Eastern Occultists will demur to this statement, for it is\nbased on the erroneous conception that Pr\u00e2na and \u00c2tm\u00e2, or J\u00eev\u00e2tm\u00e2, are one\nand the same thing. The author supports the argument, by showing that with\nthe ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and even Latins, Ruach, Pneuma and Spiritus\nmeant Wind\u2014with the Jews undeniably, and with the Greeks and Romans very\nprobably; the Greek word Anemos (Wind) and the Latin Animus (Soul) having\na suspicious relation.\n\nThis is very far fetched. But a legitimate battle\u2010field for deciding this\nquestion is hardly to be found, since Dr. Pratt seems to be a practical,\nmatter\u2010of\u2010fact metaphysician, a kind of Kabalist\u2010Positivist, whereas the\nEastern metaphysicians, especially the Ved\u00e2ntins, are all Idealists. The\nOccultists also are of the extreme Esoteric Ved\u00e2ntin school, and though\nthey call the One Life (Parabrahman) the Great Breath and the Whirlwind,\nthey disconnect the seventh principle entirely from matter, and deny that\nit has any relation to, or connection with it.\n\nThus the philosophy of man\u2019s psychic, spiritual and mental relations with\nhis physical functions is in almost inextricable confusion. Neither the\nold \u00c2ryan nor the Egyptian psychology is now properly understood; nor can\nthey be assimilated, without accepting the Esoteric septenary, or, at any\nrate, the Ved\u00e2ntic quinquepartite division of the human inner principles.\nFailing which, it will be for ever impossible to understand the\nmetaphysical and purely psychic, and even physiological, relations between\nthe Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, or Angels, on the one plane, and Humanity on the other.\nNo Eastern (\u00c2ryan) Esoteric works are so far published, but we possess the\nEgyptian papyri, which speak clearly of the seven principles, or the\n\u201cSeven Souls of Man.\u201d The _Book of the Dead_ gives a complete list of the\n\u201ctransformations\u201d that every Defunct undergoes, while divesting himself,\none by one, of all these principles\u2014materialized for the sake of clearness\ninto ethereal entities or bodies. We must, moreover, remind those who try\nto show that the Ancient Egyptians did not teach Re\u00efncarnation, that the\n\u201cSoul\u201d (the Ego or Self) of the Defunct is said to be living in Eternity:\nit is immortal, \u201cco\u00ebval with, and disappearing with, the Solar Boat,\u201d that\nis, for the Cycle of Necessity. This \u201cSoul\u201d _emerges_ from the Tiaou, the\nRealm of the _Cause of Life_, and joins the living on Earth by _day_, to\nreturn to Tiaou every _night_. This expresses the periodical existences of\nthe Ego.(357)\n\nThe Shadow, the Astral Form, is annihilated, \u201cdevoured by the Ur\u00e6us,\u201d(358)\nthe Manes will be annihilated; the two Twins (the Fourth and Fifth\nPrinciples) will be scattered; but the Soul\u2010Bird, \u201cthe Divine Swallow, and\nthe Ur\u00e6us of Flame\u201d (Manas and \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi) will live in the eternity, for\nthey are their mother\u2019s husbands.\n\nAnother suggestive analogy between the \u00c2ryan, or Br\u00e2hmanical, and the\nEgyptian Esotericism. The former call the Pitris the \u201cLunar Ancestors\u201d of\nmen, and the Egyptians make of the Moon\u2010God, Taht\u2010Esmun, the first human\nancestor.\n\n\n    This Moon\u2010God \u201cexpressed the Seven nature\u2010powers that were prior\n    to himself, and were summed up in him as his seven souls, of which\n    he was the manifestor as the Eighth One. [Hence the eighth\n    sphere.]... The seven rays of the Chaldean ... Heptakis or Iao, on\n    the Gnostic stones, indicate the same septenary of souls.... The\n    first form of the mystical Seven was seen to be figured in heaven,\n    by the seven large stars of the Great Bear, the constellation\n    assigned by the Egyptians to the Mother of Time, and of the seven\n    Elemental Powers.\u201d(359)\n\n\nAs well known to every Hind\u00fb, this same constellation represents in India\nthe Seven Rishis, and is called Riksha, and Chitrashikandinas.\n\nLike alone produces like. The Earth gives Man his body, the Gods (Dhy\u00e2nis)\ngive him his five inner principles, the psychic Shadow, of which these\nGods are often the animating principle. Spirit (\u00c2tman) is one, and\nindiscrete. It is not in the Tiaou.\n\nFor what is the Tiaou? The frequent allusion to it in the _Book of the\nDead_ contains a mystery. Tiaou is the path of the Night\u2010Sun, the inferior\nhemisphere, or the infernal region of the Egyptians, placed by them on the\n_concealed side of the Moon_. The human being, in their Esotericism, came\nout from the Moon\u2014a triple mystery, astronomical, physiological and\npsychical, at once; he crossed the whole cycle of existence, and then\nreturned to his birth\u2010place, before issuing from it again. Thus the\nDefunct is shown arriving in the West, receiving his judgment before\nOsiris, resurrecting as the God Horus, and circling round the sidereal\nheavens, which is an allegorical assimilation to Ra, the Sun; then having\ncrossed the Noot, the Celestial Abyss, returning once more to Tiaou; an\nassimilation to Osiris, who, as the God of life and reproduction, inhabits\nthe Moon. Plutarch(360) shows the Egyptians celebrating a festival called\n\u201cThe Ingress of Osiris into the Moon.\u201d In the _Ritual_,(361) life is\npromised after death; and the renovation of life is placed under the\npatronage of Osiris\u2010Lunus, because the Moon was the symbol of life\u2010\nrenewals or re\u00efncarnations, owing to its growth, waning, dying, and\nre\u00e4ppearance every month. In the _Dankmoe_,(362) it is said: \u201cO Osiris\u2010\nLunus, that renews to thee thy renewal.\u201d And Sabekh says to Seti I:(363)\n\u201cThou renewest thyself as the God Lunus, when a babe.\u201d It is still better\nexplained in a Louvre papyrus:(364) \u201cCouplings and conceptions abound when\nhe [Osiris\u2010Lunus] is seen in heaven on that day.\u201d Says Osiris: \u201cO sole\nradiant beam of the Moon! I issue from the circulating multitudes [of\nstars].... Open me the Tiaou, for Osiris N. I will issue by day to do what\nI have to do amongst the living\u201d(365)\u2014_i.e._, to produce conceptions.\n\nOsiris was \u201cGod manifest in generation,\u201d because the ancients knew, far\nbetter than the moderns, the real occult influences of the lunar body upon\nthe mysteries of conception. In the oldest systems we find the Moon always\nmale. Thus Soma, with the Hind\u00fbs, is a kind of sidereal Don Juan, a\n\u201cKing,\u201d and the father, albeit illegitimate, of Budha\u2014Wisdom. This relates\nto Occult Knowledge, a wisdom gathered through a thorough acquaintance\nwith lunar mysteries, including those of sexual generation. And later,\nwhen the Moon became connected with the female Goddesses, with Diana,\nIsis, Artemis, Juno, etc., this connection was also due to a thorough\nknowledge of physiology and female nature, physical as much as psychic.\n\nIf, instead of being taught in Sunday Schools useless lessons from the\n_Bible_, the armies of the ragged and poor were taught Astrology\u2014so far,\nat any rate, as the occult properties of the Moon and its hidden\ninfluences on generation are concerned\u2014then, there would be little need to\nfear increase of the population, or to resort to the questionable\nliterature of the Malthusians for its arrest. For it is the Moon and her\nconjunctions that regulate conceptions, and every Astrologer in India\nknows it. During the previous Races, and at least at the beginning of the\npresent one, those who indulged in marital relations during certain lunar\nphases that made those relations sterile, were regarded as sorcerers and\nsinners. But now even these sins of old, which arose from the abuse of\nOccult knowledge, would appear preferable to the crimes of to\u2010day, which\nare perpetrated because of the complete ignorance of such Occult\ninfluences.\n\nBut, primarily, the Sun and Moon were the only visible and, by their\neffects, so to say, _tangible_, psychic and physiological deities\u2014the\nFather and the Son\u2014while Space or Air in general, or that expanse of\nheaven called Noot by the Egyptians, was the concealed Spirit or Breath of\nthe two. The Father and Son were interchangeable in their functions, and\nworked together harmoniously in their effects upon terrestrial nature and\nhumanity; hence they were regarded as _one_, though _two_ as personified\nEntities. They were both males, and both had their distinct though\ncollaborative work in the causative generation of humanity. So much from\nthe astronomical and cosmic standpoints, viewed and expressed in\nsymbolical language, which became in our last races theological and\ndogmatic. But behind this veil of cosmic and astrological symbols, there\nwere the occult mysteries of anthropography and the primeval genesis of\nman. And in this, no knowledge of symbols, or even the key to the post\u2010\ndiluvian symbolical language of the Jews, will or can help, save only with\nreference to that which has been laid down in national scriptures for\nexoteric uses; the sum of which, however cleverly veiled, was but the\nsmallest portion of the real primitive history of each people, and often,\nmoreover, as in the Hebrew Scriptures, related merely to the terrestrial\nhuman, and not to the divine life of that nation. That psychic and\nspiritual element belonged to the MYSTERIES and INITIATION. There were\nthings never recorded in scrolls, but which, as in Central Asia, were\nengraved on rocks and in subterranean crypts.\n\nNevertheless, there was a time when the whole world was \u201cof one lip and of\none knowledge,\u201d and man knew more of his origin than he does now; and thus\nknew that the Sun and Moon, however large a part they may play in the\nconstitution, growth and development of the human body, were not the\ndirect causative agents of his appearance on Earth; for these agents, in\ntruth, are the living and intelligent Powers which the Occultists call\nDhy\u00e2n Chohans.\n\nAs to this, a very learned admirer of the Jewish Esotericism tells us\nthat:\n\n\n    The _Kabalah_ says expressly that Elohim is a \u201cgeneral\n    abstraction\u201d; what we call in mathematics \u201ca constant\n    co\u00ebfficient,\u201d or a \u201cgeneral function,\u201d entering into all\n    construction, not particular; that is, by the general ratio 1 to\n    31415, the [Astro\u2010Dhy\u00e2nic and] Elohistic figures.\n\n\nTo this the Eastern Occultist replies: Quite so; they are an abstraction\nto our physical senses. To our spiritual perceptions, however, and to our\ninner spiritual eye, the Elohim, or Dhy\u00e2nis, are no more an abstraction\nthan our soul and spirit are to us. Reject the one and you reject the\nother, since that which is the _surviving_ Entity _in us_, is partly the\ndirect emanation from, and partly those celestial Entities _themselves_.\nOne thing is certain; the Jews were perfectly acquainted with sorcery and\nvarious maleficent forces: but, with the exception of some of their great\nprophets and seers like Daniel and Ezekiel\u2014Enoch belonging to a far\ndistant race, as a generic character, and not to any nation but to\nall\u2014they knew little of, nor would they deal with, the real divine\nOccultism; their national character being averse to anything which had no\ndirect bearing upon their own ethnical, tribal and individual\nbenefits\u2014witness their own prophets, and the curses thundered by them\nagainst the \u201cstiff\u2010necked race.\u201d But even the _Kabalah_ plainly shows the\ndirect relation between the Sephiroth, or Elohim, and men.\n\nTherefore, when it is proved to us that the Kabalistic identification of\nJehovah with Binah, a female Sephira, has still another, a sub\u2010occult,\nmeaning in it, then and then only will Occultists be ready to pass the\npalm of perfection to the Kabalist. Until then, it is asserted that, as\nJehovah, in the abstract sense of a \u201cone living God,\u201d is a single number,\na metaphysical figment, and a reality only when put in his proper place as\nan emanation and a Sephira\u2014we have a right to maintain that the _Zohar_,\nas witnessed by the _Book of Numbers_, at any rate, gave out originally,\nbefore the Christian Kabalists had disfigured it, and still gives out, the\nsame doctrine that we do; that is, it makes Man emanate, not from one\nCelestial Man, but from a Septenary Group of Celestial Men, or Angels,\njust as in _Pymander, the Thought Divine_.\n\n3. WHEN THE ONE BECOMES TWO, THE THREE\u2010FOLD APPEARS (_a_). THE THREE\nARE(366) ONE; AND IT IS OUR THREAD, O LANOO, THE HEART OF THE MAN\u2010PLANT,\nCALLED SAPTAPARNA (_b_).\n\n(_a_) \u201cWhen the One becomes Two, the Three\u2010fold appears\u201d: to wit, when the\nOne Eternal drops its reflection into the region of Manifestation, that\nreflection, the Ray, differentiates the Water of Space; or, in the words\nof the _Book of the Dead_: \u201cChaos ceases, through the effulgence of the\nRay of Primordial Light dissipating total darkness, by the help of the\ngreat magic power of the Word of the [Central] Sun.\u201d Chaos becomes male\u2010\nfemale, and Water, incubated by Light, and the Three\u2010fold Being issues as\nits \u201cFirst\u2010born.\u201d \u201cRa [or Osiris\u2010Ptah] creates his own Limbs [like\nBrahm\u00e2], by creating the Gods destined to personify his phases,\u201d during\nthe Cycle.(367) The Egyptian Ra, issuing from the Deep, is the Divine\nUniversal Soul in its manifested aspect, and so is N\u00e2r\u00e2yana, the Purusha,\n\u201cconcealed in \u00c2k\u00e2sha, and present in Ether.\u201d\n\nThis is the metaphysical explanation, and refers to the very beginning of\nEvolution, or, as we would rather say, of Theogony. The meaning of the\nStanza, when explained from another standpoint in its reference to the\nmystery of man and his origin, is still more difficult to comprehend. In\norder to form a clear conception of what is meant by the One becoming Two,\nand then being transformed into the Three\u2010fold, the student has to make\nhimself thoroughly acquainted with what we call Rounds. If he refers to\n_Esoteric Buddhism_\u2014the first attempt to sketch out an approximate outline\nof archaic cosmogony\u2014he will find that by a Round is meant the serial\nevolution of nascent material Nature, of the seven Globes of our\nChain,(368) with their mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms; man being\nincluded in the latter and standing at the head of it, during the whole\nperiod of a Life\u2010Cycle, which latter would be called by the Br\u00e2hmans a\n\u201cDay of Brahm\u00e2.\u201d It is, in short, one revolution of the \u201cWheel\u201d (our\nPlanetary Chain), which is composed of seven Globes, or seven separate\n\u201cWheels,\u201d in another sense this time. When evolution has run downward into\nmatter from Globe A to Globe G, it is one Round. In the middle of the\nfourth revolution, which is our present Round, \u201cEvolution has reached its\nacme of physical development, crowned its work with the perfect physical\nman, and, from this point, begins its work spirit\u2010ward.\u201d All this needs\nlittle repetition, as it is well explained in _Esoteric Buddhism_. That\nwhich was hardly touched upon, however, and of which the little that was\nsaid has misled many, is the origin of man, and it is upon this that a\nlittle more light may now be thrown, just enough to make the Stanza more\ncomprehensible, as the process will be fully explained only in its\nlegitimate place, in Volume II.\n\nNow every Round, on the descending scale, is but a repetition in a more\nconcrete form of the Round which preceded it, just as every Globe, down to\nour Fourth Sphere the actual Earth, is a grosser and more material copy of\nthe more shadowy Sphere which precedes it, each in order, on the three\nhigher planes.(369) On its way upwards, on the ascending arc, Evolution\nspiritualizes and etherealizes, so to speak, the general nature of all,\nbringing it on to a level with the plane on which the twin Globe on the\nopposite arc is placed; the result being, that when the seventh Globe is\nreached, in whatever Round, the nature of everything that is evolving\nreturns to the condition it was in at its starting point\u2014_plus_, every\ntime, a new and superior degree in the states of consciousness. Thus it\nbecomes clear that the \u201corigin of man,\u201d so\u2010called, in this our present\nRound, or Life\u2010Cycle, on this Planet, must occupy the same place in the\nsame order\u2014save details based on local conditions and time\u2014as in the\npreceding Round. Again, it must be explained and remembered that, as the\nwork of each Round is said to be apportioned to a different Group of so\u2010\ncalled Creators, or Architects, so is that of every Globe; that is, it is\nunder the supervision and guidance of special Builders and Watchers\u2014the\nvarious Dhy\u00e2n Chohans.\n\n\u201cCreators\u201d is an incorrect word to use, as no other religion, not even the\nsect of the Visishthadvait\u00ees in India, one which anthropomorphizes even\nParabrahman, believes in creation _ex nihilo_, as Christians and Jews do,\nbut only in evolution out of pre\u00ebxisting materials.\n\nThe Group of the Hierarchy which is commissioned to \u201ccreate\u201d men is a\nspecial Group, then; yet it evolved shadowy man in this Cycle, just as a\nhigher and still more spiritual Group evolved him in the Third Round. But\nas it is the Sixth, on the downward scale of Spirituality\u2014the last and\nSeventh being the Terrestrial Spirits (Elementals), which gradually form,\nbuild and condense his physical body\u2014this Sixth Group evolves no more than\nthe future man\u2019s shadowy form, a filmy, hardly visible, transparent copy\nof themselves. It becomes the task of the Fifth Hierarchy\u2014the mysterious\nBeings that preside over the constellation Capricornus, Makara, or\n\u201cCrocodile,\u201d in India and in Egypt\u2014to inform the empty and ethereal animal\nform, and make of it the Rational Man. This is one of those subjects upon\nwhich very little may be said to the general public. It is a Mystery\ntruly, but only to him who is prepared to reject the existence of\nintellectual and conscious Spiritual Beings in the Universe, and to limit\nfull Consciousness to man alone, and that only as a \u201cfunction of the\nbrain.\u201d Many are those among the Spiritual Entities, who have incarnated\nbodily in man, since his first appearance, and who, for all that, still\nexist as independently as they did before, in the infinitudes of Space.\n\nTo put it more clearly, such an invisible Entity may be bodily present on\nearth without, however, abandoning its status and functions in the\nsupersensuous regions. If this needs explanation, we can do no better than\nremind the reader of like cases in so\u2010called \u201cSpiritualism\u201d; though such\ncases are very rare, at least as regards the nature of the Entity\nincarnating, or taking temporary possession of a medium. For the so\u2010called\n\u201cspirits\u201d that may occasionally possess themselves of the bodies of\nmediums are not the Monads, or Higher Principles, of disembodied\nPersonalities. Such \u201cspirits\u201d can only be either Elementaries,\nor\u2014Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2yas. Just as certain persons, whether by virtue of a peculiar\norganization, or through the power of acquired mystic knowledge, can be\nseen in their \u201cdouble\u201d in one place, while their body is many miles away;\nso the same thing can occur in the case of superior Beings.\n\nMan, philosophically considered, is, in his outward form, simply an\nanimal, hardly more perfect than his pithecoid\u2010like ancestor of the Third\nRound. He is a living Body, not a living Being, since the realization of\nexistence, the \u201c_Ego Sum_,\u201d necessitates self\u2010consciousness, and an animal\ncan only have direct consciousness, or instinct. This was so well\nunderstood by the ancients, that even the Kabalists made of soul and body\ntwo Lives, independent of each other. In the _New Aspects of Life_, the\nauthor states the Kabalistic teaching:\n\n\n    They held that, functionally, Spirit and Matter, of corresponding\n    opacity and density, tended to coalesce; and that the resultant\n    created Spirits, in the disembodied state, were constituted on a\n    scale in which the differing opacities and transparencies of\n    elemental or uncreated Spirit were reproduced. And that these\n    Spirits, in the disembodied state, attracted, appropriated,\n    digested and assimilated elemental Spirit and elemental Matter\n    whose condition was conformed to their own.... They therefore\n    taught that there was a wide difference in the conditions of\n    created Spirits; and that, in the intimate association between the\n    Spirit\u2010world and the world of Matter, the more opaque Spirits, in\n    the disembodied state, were drawn towards the more dense parts of\n    the material world, and therefore tended towards the centre of the\n    Earth, where they found the conditions most suited to their state;\n    while the more transparent Spirits passed into the surrounding\n    aura of the planet, the most rarefied finding their home in its\n    satellite.(370)\n\n\nThis relates exclusively to our Elemental Spirits, and has naught to do\nwith either the Planetary, Sidereal, Cosmic or Inter\u2010Etheric Intelligent\nForces, or \u201cAngels\u201d as they are termed by the Roman Church. The Jewish\nKabalists, especially the practical Occultists who dealt with Ceremonial\nMagic, busied themselves solely with the Spirits of the Planets and the\n\u201cElementals\u201d so\u2010called. Therefore the above covers only a portion of the\nEsoteric teaching.\n\nThe Soul, whose body\u2010vehicle is the astral, ethereo\u2010substantial envelope,\ncould die and man be still living on earth. That is to say, the Soul could\nfree itself from and quit the tabernacle for various reasons, such as\ninsanity, spiritual and physical depravity, etc. The possibility of the\n\u201cSoul\u201d\u2014that is, the eternal Spiritual Ego\u2014dwelling in the unseen worlds,\nwhile its body goes on living on Earth, is a preeminently Occult doctrine,\nespecially in Chinese and Buddhist philosophy. Many are the _soulless_ men\namong us, for the occurrence is found to take place in wicked materialists\nas well as in persons \u201cwho advance in holiness and never turn back.\u201d\n\nTherefore, that which living men (Initiates) can do, the Dhy\u00e2nis, who have\nno physical body to hamper them, can do still better. This was the belief\nof the antediluvians, and it is fast becoming that of modern intellectual\nsociety in \u201cSpiritualism,\u201d as well as in the Greek and Roman Churches,\nwhich teach the ubiquity of their Angels. The Zoroastrians regarded their\nAmshaspends as dual entities (Ferouers), applying this duality\u2014in Esoteric\nphilosophy, at any rate\u2014to all the spiritual and invisible denizens of the\nnumberless worlds in space, which are visible to our eye. In a note of\nDamascius (sixth century) on the Chaldean Oracles, we have ample evidence\nof the universality of this doctrine, for he says: \u201cIn these Oracles, the\nseven Cosmocratores of the World [\u2018the World\u2010Pillars\u2019], mentioned likewise\nby St. Paul, are double; one set being commissioned to rule the superior\nworlds, the spiritual and the sidereal, and the other to guide and watch\nover the worlds of matter.\u201d Such is also the opinion of Jamblichus, who\nmakes an evident distinction between the Archangels and the\nArchontes.(371)\n\nThe above may be applied, of course, to the distinction made between the\ndegrees or orders of Spiritual Beings, and it is in this sense that the\nRoman Catholic Church tries to interpret and teach the difference; for\nwhile the Archangels are in her teaching divine and holy, she denounces\ntheir \u201cDoubles\u201d as Devils. But the word Ferouer is not to be understood in\nthis sense, for it means simply the reverse or the opposite side of some\nattribute or quality. Thus when the Occultist says that the \u201cDemon is the\ninverse of God\u201d\u2014evil, the reverse of the medal\u2014he does not mean two\nseparate actualities, but two aspects or facets of the same Unity. But the\nbest man living, side by side with an Archangel\u2014as described in\nTheology\u2014would appear a fiend. Hence a certain reason in depreciating a\nlower \u201cDouble,\u201d immersed far deeper in matter than its original. But still\nthere is as little cause to regard them as Devils, and this is precisely\nwhat the Roman Catholics maintain against all reason and logic.\n\nThis identity between the Spirit and its material \u201cDouble\u201d\u2014in man it is\nthe reverse\u2014explains still better the confusion, already alluded to in\nthis work, in the names and individualities, as well as in the numbers, of\nthe Rishis and Praj\u00e2patis; especially of those of the Satya Yuga and the\nMah\u00e2bh\u00e2ratan Period. It also throws additional light on what the Secret\nDoctrine teaches with regard to the Root\u2010 and the Seed\u2010Manus. Not only\nthese Progenitors of our mankind, but every human being, we are taught,\nhas his prototype in the Spiritual Spheres, which prototype is the highest\nessence of his Seventh Principle. Thus the seven Manus become fourteen,\nthe Root\u2010Manu being the Prime Cause, and the Seed\u2010Manu its Effect; and\nfrom the Satya Yuga (the first stage) to the Heroic Period, these Manus or\nRishis become twenty\u2010one in number.\n\n(_b_) The concluding sentence of this shloka shows how archaic is the\nbelief and the doctrine that man is seven\u2010fold in his constitution. The\n\u201cThread\u201d of Being, which animates man, and passes through all his\nPersonalities, or Rebirths on this Earth\u2014an allusion to S\u00fbtr\u00e2tm\u00e2\u2014the\nThread on which moreover all his \u201cSpirits\u201d are strung, is spun from the\nessence of the Three\u2010fold, the Four\u2010fold and the Five\u2010fold which contain\nall the preceding. Panch\u00e2shikha, agreeably to _Padma Pur\u00e2na_,(372) is one\nof the seven _Kum\u00e2ras_ who go to Shveta Dv\u00eepa to worship Vishnu. We shall\nsee, further on, what connection there is between the \u201ccelibate\u201d and\nchaste Sons of Brahm\u00e2, who refuse \u201cto multiply,\u201d and terrestrial mortals.\nMeanwhile, it is evident that the \u201cMan\u2010Plant, Saptaparna,\u201d thus refers to\nthe seven principles, and that man is compared to this seven\u2010leaved plant,\nwhich is so sacred among Buddhists. The Egyptian allegory, in the _Book of\nthe Dead_, that relates to the \u201creward of the Soul,\u201d is as suggestive of\nour septenary doctrine as it is poetical. The Deceased is allotted a piece\nof land in the field of Aanroo, wherein the Manes, the deified shades of\nthe dead, glean, as the harvest they have sown by their actions in life,\nthe corn seven cubits high, which grows in a territory divided into seven\nand fourteen portions. This corn is the food on which they will live and\nprosper, or that will kill them, in Amenti, the realm of which the Aanroo\u2010\nfield is a domain. For, as said in the hymn,(373) the Deceased is either\ndestroyed therein, or becomes pure spirit for the Eternity, in consequence\nof the \u201cseven times seventy\u2010seven lives\u201d passed, or to be passed, on\nEarth. The idea of the corn reaped as the \u201cfruit of our actions\u201d is very\ngraphic.\n\n4. IT IS THE ROOT THAT NEVER DIES, THE THREE\u2010TONGUED FLAME OF THE FOUR\nWICKS (_a_)... THE WICKS ARE THE SPARKS, THAT DRAW FROM THE THREE\u2010TONGUED\nFLAME,(374) SHOT OUT BY THE SEVEN, THEIR FLAME; THE BEAMS AND SPARKS OF\nONE MOON, REFLECTED IN THE RUNNING WAVES OF ALL THE RIVERS OF THE\nEARTH(375) (_b_).\n\n(_a_) The \u201cThree\u2010tongued Flame that never dies\u201d is the immortal spiritual\nTriad, the \u00c2tm\u00e2, Buddhi and Manas, or rather the fruitage of the last,\nassimilated by the first two after every terrestrial life. The \u201cFour\nWicks,\u201d that go out and are extinguished, are the Quaternary, the four\nlower principles, including the body.\n\n\u201cI am the Three\u2010wicked Flame and my Wicks are immortal,\u201d says the Defunct.\n\u201cI enter into the domain of Sekhem [the God whose hand sows the seed of\naction produced by the disembodied soul], and I enter the region of the\nFlames who have destroyed their adversaries [_i.e._, got rid of the sin\u2010\ncreating Four Wicks].\u201d(376)\n\n\u201cThe Three\u2010tongued Flame of the Four Wicks\u201d corresponds to the four\nUnities and the three Binaries of the Sephirothal tree.\n\n(_b_) Just as milliards of bright sparks dance on the waters of an ocean,\nabove which one and the same moon is shining, so our evanescent\nPersonalities\u2014the illusive envelopes of the immortal Monad\u2010Ego\u2014twinkle and\ndance on the waves of M\u00e2y\u00e2. They appear and, as the thousands of sparks\nproduced by the moon\u2010beams, last only so long as the Queen of the Night\nradiates her lustre on the \u201cRunning Waves\u201d of Life, the period of a\nManvantara; and then they disappear, the \u201cBeams\u201d\u2014symbols of our eternal\nSpiritual Egos\u2014alone surviving, remerged in, and being, as they were\nbefore, one with the Mother\u2010Source.\n\n5. THE SPARK HANGS FROM THE FLAME BY THE FINEST THREAD OF FOHAT. IT\nJOURNEYS THROUGH THE SEVEN WORLDS OF M\u00c2Y\u00c2 (_a_). IT STOPS IN THE\nFIRST,(377) AND IS A METAL AND A STONE; IT PASSES INTO THE SECOND,(378)\nAND BEHOLD\u2014A PLANT; THE PLANT WHIRLS THROUGH SEVEN FORMS AND BECOMES A\nSACRED ANIMAL(379) (_b_).\n\nFROM THE COMBINED ATTRIBUTES OF THESE, MANU,(380) THE THINKER, IS FORMED.\n\nWHO FORMS HIM? THE SEVEN LIVES, AND THE ONE LIFE (_c_). WHO COMPLETES HIM?\nTHE FIVE\u2010FOLD LHA. AND WHO PERFECTS THE LAST BODY? FISH, SIN AND SOMA(381)\n(_d_).\n\n(_a_) The phrase, \u201cthrough the Seven Worlds of M\u00e2y\u00e2,\u201d refers here to the\nseven Globes of the Planetary Chain and the seven Rounds, or the forty\u2010\nnine stations of active existence that are before the \u201cSpark,\u201d or Monad,\nat the beginning of every Great Life\u2010Cycle, or Manvantara. The \u201cThread of\nFohat\u201d is the Thread of Life before referred to.\n\nThis relates to the greatest problem of philosophy\u2014the physical and\nsubstantial nature of Life, the independent nature of which is denied by\nModern Science, because that Science is unable to comprehend it. The\nre\u00efncarnationists and believers in Karma alone dimly perceive, that the\nwhole secret of Life is in the unbroken series of its manifestations,\nwhether in, or apart from, the physical body. Because even if:\n\n\n    Life, like a dome of many\u2010coloured glass,\n    Stains the white radiance of Eternity\u2014\n\n\nyet it is itself part and parcel of that Eternity; for Life alone can\nunderstand Life.\n\nWhat is that \u201cSpark\u201d which \u201changs from the Flame\u201d? It is J\u00eeva, the Monad\nin conjunction with Manas, or rather its aroma\u2014that which remains from\neach Personality, when worthy, and hangs from \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi, the Flame, by\nthe Thread of Life. In whatever way it is interpreted, and into whatever\nnumber of principles the human being is divided, it may be easily shown\nthat this doctrine is supported by all the ancient religions, from the\nVedic to the Egyptian, from the Zoroastrian to the Jewish. In the case of\nthe last\u2010mentioned, the Kabalistic works offer abundant proof of this\nstatement. The entire system of the Kabalistic numerals is based on the\ndivine Septenary hanging from the Triad, thus forming the Decad, and its\npermutations 7, 5, 4, and 3, which, finally, all merge into the _One_\nitself; an endless and boundless Circle.\n\nAs says the _Zohar_:\n\n\n    The Deity [the ever invisible Presence] manifests itself through\n    the _ten_ Sephiroth, which are its radiating witnesses. The Deity\n    is like the sea from which outflows a stream called Wisdom, the\n    waters of which fall into a lake named Intelligence. From the\n    basin, like seven channels, issue the Seven Sephiroth.... For\n    _ten_ equal _seven_: the Decad contains _four_ Unities and _three_\n    Binaries.\n\n\nThe Ten Sephiroth correspond to the Limbs of Man.\n\n\n    When I [the Elohim] framed Adam Kadmon, the Spirit of the Eternal\n    shot out of his Body, like a sheet of lightning that radiated at\n    once on the billows of the _seven_ millions of skies, and my _ten_\n    Splendours were his Limbs.\n\n\nBut neither the Head nor the Shoulders of Adam Kadmon can be seen;\ntherefore we read in the _Siphra Dtzenioutha_, the \u201cBook of the Concealed\nMystery\u201d:\n\n\n    In the beginning of Time, after the Elohim [the \u201cSons of Light and\n    Life,\u201d or the Builders] had shaped out of the eternal Essence the\n    Heavens and the Earth, they formed the worlds six by six.\n\n\nThe seventh being Malkuth, which is our Earth(382) on its plane, and the\nlowest on all the other planes of conscious existence. The Chaldean _Book\nof Numbers_ contains a detailed explanation of all this.\n\n\n    The first triad of the Body of Adam Kadmon [the three upper planes\n    of the seven (383)] cannot be seen before the Soul stands in the\n    presence of the Ancient of Days.\n\n\nThe Sephiroth of this upper Triad are: \u201c1. Kether (the Crown), represented\nby the brow of Macroprosopus; 2. Chokmah (Wisdom, a male Principle), by\nhis right shoulder; and 3. Binah (Intelligence, a female Principle), by\nthe left shoulder.\u201d Then come the _seven_ Limbs, or Sephiroth, on the\nplanes of manifestation; the totality of these four planes being\nrepresented by Microprosopus, the Lesser Face, or Tetragrammaton, the\n\u201cfour\u2010lettered\u201d Mystery. \u201cThe _seven_ manifested and the _three_ concealed\nLimbs are the Body of the Deity.\u201d\n\nThus our Earth, Malkuth, is both the _seventh_ and the _fourth_ World; the\nformer when counting from the first Globe above, the latter if reckoned by\nthe planes. It is generated by the sixth Globe or Sephira, called Yezud,\n\u201cFoundation,\u201d or, as said in the _Book of Numbers_, \u201cby Yezud, He [Adam\nKadmon] fecundates the primitive Heva [Eve or our Earth].\u201d Rendered in\nmystic language, this is the explanation why Malkuth, called the Inferior\nMother, Matrona, Queen, and the Kingdom of the Foundation, is shown as the\nBride of Tetragrammaton, or Microprosopus (the Second Logos), the Heavenly\nMan. When free from all impurity, she will become united with the\nSpiritual Logos, _i.e._, in the Seventh Race of the Seventh Round\u2014after\nthe regeneration, on the day of \u201cSabbath.\u201d For the \u201c_Seventh_ Day\u201d again\nhas an occult significance undreamed of by our theologians.\n\n\n    When Matronitha, the Mother, is separated and brought face to face\n    with the King, in the excellence of the Sabbath, all things become\n    one body.(384)\n\n\n\u201cBecome one body\u201d means, that all is re\u00e4bsorbed once more into the One\nElement, the spirits of men becoming Nirv\u00e2n\u00ees, and the elements of\neverything else becoming again what they were before\u2014Protyle or\nUndifferentiated Substance. \u201cSabbath\u201d means Rest, or Nirv\u00e2na. It is not\nthe \u201c_seventh_ day\u201d after _six_ days, but a period the duration of which\nequals that of the seven \u201cdays,\u201d or any period made up of seven parts.\nThus a Pralaya is equal in duration to a Manvantara, or a Night of Brahm\u00e2\nis equal to his Day. If the Christians will follow Jewish customs, they\nought to adopt the spirit and not the dead letter thereof. They should\nwork one week of seven days and _rest_ seven days. That the word \u201cSabbath\u201d\nhad a mystic significance, is disclosed in the contempt shown by Jesus for\nthe Sabbath day, and by what is said in _Luke_.(385) Sabbath is there\ntaken for the _whole week_. See the Greek text where the week is called\n\u201cSabbath.\u201d Literally, \u201cI fast twice in the Sabbath.\u201d Paul, an Initiate,\nknew it well when referring to the eternal rest and felicity in Heaven, as\nSabbath:(386) \u201cand their happiness will be eternal, for they will ever be\n[one] with the Lord, and will enjoy _an eternal Sabbath_.\u201d(387)\n\nThe difference between the Kabalah and the archaic Esoteric Vidy\u00e2\u2014taking\nthe Kabalah as contained in the Chaldean _Book of Numbers_, not as\nmisrepresented by its now disfigured copy, the _Kabalah_ of the Christian\nMystics\u2014is very small indeed, being confined to unimportant divergences of\nform and expression. Thus Eastern Occultism refers to our Earth as the\nFourth World, the lowest of the Chain, above which run upward on both\ncurves the six Globes, three on each side. The _Zohar_, on the other hand,\ncalls the Earth the lower, or the _seventh_, adding that upon the six\ndepend all things which are in it (Microprosopus). The \u201cSmaller Face\n[smaller because manifested and finite] is formed of _six_ Sephiroth,\u201d\nsays the same work. \u201cSeven Kings come and _die in the thrice\u2010destroyed\nWorld_ [Malkuth, our Earth, destroyed after each of the Three Rounds which\nit has gone through]. And their reign [that of the Seven Kings] will be\nbroken up.\u201d(388) This relates to the Seven Races, _five_ of which have\nalready appeared, and _two_ more have still to appear in this Round.\n\nThe Shinto allegorical accounts of cosmogony and the origin of man, in\nJapan, hint at the same belief.\n\nCaptain C. Pfoundes, who studied the religion underlying the various sects\nof the land, for nearly nine years in the monasteries of Japan, says:\n\n\n    The Shinto idea of creation is as follows: Out of Chaos (Konton)\n    the Earth (In) was the sediment precipitated, and the Heavens (Yo)\n    the ethereal essences which ascended: Man (Jin) appeared between\n    the two. The first man was called Kuni\u2010to ko tatchino\u2010mikoto, and\n    _five other names were given to him_, and then the human race\n    appeared, male and female. Isanagi and Isanami begat Tenshoko\n    doijin, the first of the five Gods of the Earth.\n\n\nThese \u201cGods\u201d are simply our Five Races, Isanagi and Isanami being the two\nkinds of \u201cAncestors,\u201d the two preceding Races which give birth to animal\nand to rational man.\n\nIt will be shown in Volume II, that the number seven, as well as the\ndoctrine of the septenary constitution of man, was pre\u00ebminent in all the\nsecret systems. It plays as important a part in Western Kabalah as in\nEastern Occultism. \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi calls the number seven \u201cthe key to the\nMosaic creation and the symbols of every religion.\u201d He shows the Kabalah\nfaithfully following even the septenary division of man, for the diagram\nhe gives in his _Clef des Grands Myst\u00e8res_(389) is septenary. This may be\nseen at a glance, however cleverly the correct thought is veiled. One\nneeds also only to look at the diagram, the \u201cFormation of the Soul,\u201d in\nMathers\u2019 _Kabbalah Unveiled_,(390) from the above mentioned, work of L\u00e9vi,\nto find the same, though with a different interpretation.\n\nThus it stands with both the Kabalistic and Occult names attached:\n\n                               [Diagram IV]\n\nL\u00e9vi calls Nephesh that which we name Manas, and _vice vers\u00e2_. Nephesh is\nthe Breath of (animal) Life in man\u2014the Breath of Life, _instinctual_ in\nthe animal; and Manas is the Third Soul\u2014the human in its light side, and\nanimal, in its connection with Sama\u00ebl or K\u00e2ma. Nephesh is really the\n\u201cBreath of (animal) Life\u201d breathed into Adam, the Man of Dust; it is\nconsequently the Vital Spark, the informing Element. Without Manas, the\n\u201cReasoning Soul,\u201d or Mind, which in L\u00e9vi\u2019s diagram is miscalled Nephesh,\n\u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi is irrational on this plane and cannot act. It is Buddhi which\nis the Plastic Mediator; not Manas, the intelligent medium between the\nupper Triad and the lower Quaternary. But there are many such strange and\ncurious transformations to be found in the Kabalistic works\u2014a convincing\nproof that this literature has become a sad jumble. We do not accept the\nclassification, except in this one particular, in order to show the points\nof agreement.\n\nWe will now give in tabular form what the very cautious \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi says\nin explanation of his diagram, and what the Esoteric Doctrine teaches\u2014and\ncompare the two. L\u00e9vi, too, makes a distinction between Kabalistic and\nOccult Pneumatics.\n\nSays \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi, the Kabalist:   Say the Theosophists:\nKABALISTIC PNEUMATICS.             ESOTERIC PNEUMATICS.\n1. The Soul (or Ego) is a          1. The same; for it is\nclothed light; and this light is   \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi\u2010Manas.\ntriple.\n2. Neshamah\u2014pure Spirit.           2. The same(391).\n3. Ruach\u2014the Soul or Spirit.       3. Spiritual Soul.\n4. Nephesh\u2014Plastic                 4. Mediator between Spirit and\nMediator.(392)                     Man, the Seat of Reason, the\n                                   Mind, in man.\n5. The garment of the Soul is      5. Correct.\nthe rind [body] of the Image\n[Astral Soul].\n6. The Image is double, because    6. Too uselessly apocalyptic.\nit reflects the good and the       Why not say that the Astral\nbad.                               reflects the good as well as the\n                                   bad man; man, who is ever\n                                   tending to the upper Triad, or\n                                   else disappears with the\n                                   Quaternary.\n7. [Image\u2014Body.]                   7. The Earthly Image.\n\nOCCULT PNEUMATICS.                 OCCULT PNEUMATICS.\n(As given by \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi.)        (As given by the Occultists.)\n1. Nephesh is immortal, because    1. Manas is immortal, because\nit renews its life by the          after every new incarnation it\ndestruction of forms. [But         adds to \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi something of\nNephesh, the \u201cBreath of Life,\u201d     itself; and thus, assimilating\nis a misnomer, and a useless       itself to the Monad, shares its\npuzzle to the student.]            immortality.\n2. Ruach progresses by the         2. Buddhi becomes conscious by\nevolution of ideas (!?).           the accretions it gets from\n                                   Manas, on the death of man after\n                                   every new incarnation.\n3. Neshamah is progressive,        3. \u00c2tm\u00e2 neither progresses,\nwithout oblivion and               forgets, nor remembers. It does\ndestruction.                       not belong to this plane; it is\n                                   but the Ray of Light eternal\n                                   which shines upon, and through,\n                                   the darkness of matter\u2014when the\n                                   latter is willing.\n4. The Soul has three dwellings.   4. The Soul\u2014collectively, as the\n                                   Upper Triad\u2014_lives_ on three\n                                   planes, besides its fourth, the\n                                   terrestrial sphere; and it _is_\n                                   eternally on the highest of the\n                                   three.\n5. These dwellings are: the        5. These dwellings are: Earth\nPlane of Mortals; the Superior     for the physical man, or Animal\nEden; and the Inferior Eden.       Soul; K\u00e2ma Loka (Hades, the\n                                   Limbo) for the disembodied man,\n                                   or his Shell; Devachan for the\n                                   Higher Triad.\n\n6. The Image [man] is a sphinx     6. Correct.\nthat offers the riddle of birth.\n7. The fatal Image [the Astral]    7. The Astral, through K\u00e2ma\nendows Nephesh with its            (Desire), is ever drawing Manas\naptitudes; but Ruach is able to    down into the sphere of material\nsubstitute for it the Image        passions and desires. But if the\nconquered in accordance with the   _better_ Man, or Manas, tries to\ninspirations of Neshamah.          escape the fatal attraction, and\n                                   turns its aspirations to \u00c2tm\u00e2\n                                   (Neshamah), then Buddhi (Ruach)\n                                   conquers, and carries Manas with\n                                   it to the realm of eternal\n                                   Spirit.\n\nIt is very evident that the French Kabalist either did not sufficiently\nknow the real tenet, or distorted it to suit himself and his objects. Thus\nhe says again, treating upon the same subject, as follows; and we\nOccultists answer the late Kabalist and his admirers also as follows:\n\n1. The Body is the mould of        1. The Body follows the whims,\nNephesh; Nephesh the mould of      good or bad, of Manas; Manas\nRuach; Ruach the mould of the      tries to follow the Light of\n_garment_ of Neshamah.             Buddhi, but often fails. Buddhi\n                                   is the mould of the \u201cgarments\u201d\n                                   of \u00c2tm\u00e2; for \u00c2tm\u00e2 is no body, or\n                                   shape, or anything, and because\n                                   Buddhi is only _figuratively_\n                                   its Vehicle.\n2. Light [the Soul] personifies    2. The Monad becomes a personal\nitself in clothing itself [with    Ego when it incarnates; and\na Body]; and personality endures   something remains of that\nonly when the garment is           Personality through Manas, when\nperfect.                           the latter is perfect enough to\n                                   assimilate Buddhi.\n3. The Angels aspire to become     3. Correct.\nmen; a Perfect Man, a Man\u2010God,\nis above all the Angels.\n4. Every 14,000 years the soul     4. Within a period, a Great Age,\nrejuvenates, and rests in the      or a Day of Brahm\u00e2, 14 Manus\njubilean sleep of oblivion.        reign; after which comes\n                                   Pralaya, when all the Souls\n                                   (Egos) rest in Nirv\u00e2na.\n\nSuch are the distorted copies of the Esoteric Doctrine in the _Kabalah_.\n\nBut to return to Shloka 5 of Stanza VII.\n\n(_b_) The well\u2010known Kabalistic aphorism runs: \u201cA stone becomes a plant; a\nplant, a beast; the beast, a man; a man, a spirit; and the spirit, a god.\u201d\nThe \u201cSpark\u201d animates all the kingdoms, in turn, before it enters into and\ninforms Divine Man, between whom and his predecessor animal man, there is\nall the difference in the world. _Genesis_ begins its anthropology at the\nwrong end\u2014evidently for a blind\u2014and lands nowhere. The introductory\nchapters of _Genesis_ were never meant to represent even a remote allegory\nof the creation of _our_ Earth. They embrace a metaphysical conception of\nsome indefinite period, in eternity, when successive attempts were being\nmade by the law of evolution at the formation of universes. The idea is\nplainly stated in the _Zohar_:\n\n\n    There were old Worlds, which perished as soon as they came into\n    existence, were formless, and were called Sparks. Thus, the smith,\n    when hammering the iron, lets the sparks fly in all directions.\n    The Sparks are the primordial Worlds, which could not continue\n    because the Sacred Aged (Sephira) had not as yet assumed its form\n    (of androgyne, or opposite sexes) of King and Queen (Sephira and\n    Kadmon), and the Master was not yet at his work.(393)\n\n\nHad _Genesis_ begun as it ought, one would have found in it, first, the\nCelestial Logos, the \u201cHeavenly Man,\u201d which evolves as a Compound Unit of\nLogoi, out of which, after their pralayic sleep\u2014a sleep that gathers the\nNumbers scattered on the m\u00e2y\u00e2vic plane into One, as the separate globules\nof quicksilver on a plate blend into one mass\u2014the Logoi appear in their\ntotality as the first \u201cMale and Female,\u201d or Adam Kadmon, the \u201cFiat Lux\u201d of\nthe _Bible_, as we have already seen. But this transformation did not take\nplace on our Earth, nor on any material plane, but in the Spacial Depths\nof the first differentiation of the eternal Root\u2010Matter. On our nascent\nGlobe, things proceed differently. The Monad or J\u00eeva, as said in _Isis\nUnveiled_,(394) is, first of all, shot down by the Law of Evolution into\nthe lowest form of matter\u2014the mineral. After a sevenfold gyration encased\nin the stone, or that which will become mineral and stone in the Fourth\nRound, it creeps out of it, say, as a lichen. Passing thence, through all\nthe forms of vegetable matter, into what is termed animal matter, it has\nnow reached the point at which it has become the germ, so to speak, of the\nanimal, that will become the physical man. All this, up to the Third\nRound, is formless, as matter, and senseless, as consciousness. For the\nMonad, or J\u00eeva, _per se_, cannot be called even Spirit: it is a Ray, a\nBreath of the Absolute, or the ABSOLUTENESS rather; and the Absolute\nHomogeneity, having no relations with the conditioned and relative\nfiniteness, is unconscious on our plane. Therefore, besides the material\nwhich will be needed for its future human form, the Monad requires (_a_) a\nspiritual model, or prototype, for that material to shape itself into; and\n(_b_) an intelligent consciousness, to guide its evolution and progress,\nneither of which is possessed by the homogeneous Monad, or by senseless\nthough living matter. The Adam of dust requires the Soul of Life to be\nbreathed into him: the two middle Principles, which are the _sentient_\nLife of the irrational animal and the Human Soul, for the former is\nirrational without the latter. It is only when, from a potential\nandrogyne, man has become separated into male and female, that he will be\nendowed with this conscious, rational, individual Soul (Manas), \u201cthe\nprinciple, or the intelligence, of the Elohim,\u201d to receive which, he has\nto eat of the fruit of Knowledge from the Tree of Good and Evil. How is he\nto obtain all this? The Occult Doctrine teaches that while the Monad is\ncycling on downward into matter, these very Elohim, or Pitris\u2014the lower\nDhy\u00e2n Chohans\u2014are evolving, _pari passu_ with it, on a higher and more\nspiritual plane, descending also relatively into matter, on their own\nplane of consciousness, when, after having reached a certain point, they\nwill meet the incarnating senseless Monad, encased in the lowest matter,\nand blending the two potencies, Spirit and Matter, the union will produce\nthat terrestrial symbol of the \u201cHeavenly Man\u201d in space\u2014PERFECT MAN. In the\nS\u00e2nkhya Philosophy, Purusha (Spirit) is spoken of as something impotent\nunless it mounts on the shoulders of Prakriti (Matter), which, left alone,\nis\u2014senseless. But in the Secret Philosophy they are viewed as graduated.\nSpirit and Matter, though one and the same thing in their origin, when\nonce they are on the plane of differentiation, begin each of them their\nevolutionary progress in contrary directions\u2014Spirit falling gradually into\nMatter, and the latter ascending to its original condition, that of a pure\nspiritual Substance. Both are inseparable, yet ever separated. On the\nphysical plane, two like poles will always repel each other, while the\nnegative and the positive are mutually attracted; so do Spirit and Matter\nstand to each other\u2014the two poles of the same homogeneous Substance, the\nRoot\u2010Principle of the Universe.\n\nTherefore, when the hour strikes for Purusha to mount on Prakriti\u2019s\nshoulders for the formation of the Perfect Man\u2014rudimentary man of the\nfirst Two and a Half Races being only the _first_, gradually evolving into\nthe _most perfect, of mammals_\u2014the Celestial Ancestors (Entities from\npreceding Worlds, called in India the Shishta) step in on this our plane,\nand incarnate in the physical or animal man, as the Pitris had stepped in\nbefore them for the formation of the latter. Thus the two processes for\nthe two \u201ccreations\u201d\u2014the animal and the divine man\u2014differ greatly. The\nPitris shoot out from their ethereal bodies still more ethereal and\nshadowy similitudes of themselves, or what we should now call \u201cdoubles,\u201d\nor \u201castral forms,\u201d in their own likeness.(395) This furnishes the Monad\nwith its first dwelling, and blind matter with a model around and upon\nwhich to build henceforth. But _Man is still incomplete_. From Sv\u00e2yambhuva\nManu,(396) from whom descended the seven primitive Manus, or Praj\u00e2patis,\neach of whom gave birth to a primitive Race of men, down to the _Codex\nNazar\u00e6us_, in which Karabtanos, or Fetahil, blind concupiscent Matter,\nbegets on his Mother, Spiritus, seven Figures, each of which stands as the\nprogenitor of one of the primeval seven Races\u2014this doctrine has left its\nimpress on every archaic scripture.\n\n\u201cWho forms Manu [the Man] and who forms his body? The Life and the Lives.\nSin(397) and the Moon.\u201d Here Manu stands for the spiritual, heavenly Man,\nthe real and non\u2010dying Ego in us, which is the direct emanation of the\n\u201cOne Life,\u201d or the Absolute Deity. As to our outward physical bodies, the\nhouse of the tabernacle of the Soul, the Doctrine teaches a strange\nlesson; so strange that unless thoroughly explained, and as thoroughly\ncomprehended, it is only the exact science of the future that is destined\nto fully vindicate the theory.\n\nIt has been stated before now that Occultism does not accept anything\ninorganic in the Kosmos. The expression employed by Science, \u201cinorganic\nsubstance,\u201d means simply that the latent life, slumbering in the molecules\nof so\u2010called \u201cinert matter,\u201d is incognizable. ALL IS LIFE, and every atom\nof even mineral dust is a LIFE, though beyond our comprehension and\nperception, because it is outside the range of the laws known to those who\nreject Occultism. \u201cThe very atoms,\u201d says Tyndall, \u201cseem instinct with a\ndesire for life.\u201d Whence, then, we would ask, comes the tendency \u201cto run\ninto organic form\u201d? Is it in any way explicable except according to the\nteachings of Occult Science?\n\n_The Worlds, to the profane, are built up of the known Elements. To the\nconception of an Arhat, these Elements are themselves, collectively, a\nDivine Life; distributively, on the plane of manifestations, the\nnumberless and countless crores of Lives. Fire alone is_ ONE, _on the\nplane of the One Reality: on that of manifested, hence illusive, Being,\nits particles are fiery Lives which live and have their being at the\nexpense of every other Life that they consume. Therefore they are named\nthe_ \u201cDEVOURERS.\u201d ... _Every visible thing in this Universe was built by\nsuch_ LIVES, _from conscious and divine primordial man down to the\nunconscious agents that construct matter.... From the_ ONE LIFE, _formless\nand uncreate, proceeds the Universe of Lives. First was manifested from\nthe Deep [Chaos] cold luminous Fire [gaseous light?], which formed the\nCurds in Space [irresolvable nebul\u00e6, perhaps?] ... These fought, and a\ngreat heat was developed by the encountering and collision, which produced\nrotation. Then came the first manifested_ MATERIAL _Fire, the hot Flames,\nthe Wanderers in Heaven [Comets]. Heat generates moist vapour; that forms\nsolid water [?]; then dry mist, then liquid mist, watery, that puts out\nthe luminous brightness of the Pilgrims [Comets?], and forms solid watery\nWheels_ [MATTER _Globes]. Bh\u00fcmi [the Earth] appears with six sisters.\nThese produce by their continuous motion the inferior fire, heat, and an\naqueous mist, which yields the third World\u2010Element_\u2014WATER; _and from the\nbreath of all [atmospheric]_ AIR _is born. These four are the four Lives\nof the first four Periods [Rounds] of Manvantara. The three last will\nfollow_.\n\nThe Commentary first speaks of the \u201cnumberless and countless crores of\nLives.\u201d Is Pasteur, then, unconsciously taking the first step toward\nOccult Science, in declaring that, if he dared express his ideas fully\nupon this subject, he would say, that the organic cells are endowed with a\nvital potency that does not cease its activity with the cessation of a\ncurrent of oxygen towards them, and does not, on that account, break off\nits relations with life itself, which is supported by the influence of\nthat gas? \u201cI would add,\u201d continues Pasteur, \u201cthat the evolution of the\ngerm is accomplished by means of complicated phenomena, among which we\nmust class processes of fermentation\u201d; and life, according to Claude\nBernard and Pasteur, is nothing else than a process of fermentation. That\nthere exist in Nature Beings, or Lives, that can live and thrive without\nair, even on our Globe, has been demonstrated by the same Scientists.\nPasteur found that many of the lower lives, such as vibriones, and other\nmicrobes and bacteria, could exist without air, which, on the contrary,\nkilled them. They derived the oxygen necessary for their multiplication\nfrom the various substances that surrounded them. He calls them _\u00e6robes_,\nliving on the tissues of our matter, when the latter has ceased to form a\npart of an integral and living whole (then called very unscientifically by\nScience \u201cdead matter\u201d), and _an\u00e6robes_. The one kind binds oxygen, and\ncontributes greatly to the destruction of animal life and vegetable\ntissues, furnishing to the atmosphere materials which enter, later on,\ninto the constitution of other organisms; the other finally destroys, or\nrather annihilates, the so\u2010called organic substance; ultimate decay being\nimpossible without their participation. Certain germ\u2010cells, such as those\nof yeast, develop and multiply in air, but when deprived of it, they will\nadapt themselves to life without air and become ferments, absorbing oxygen\nfrom substances coming in contact with them, and thereby ruining the\nlatter. The cells in fruit, when lacking free oxygen, act as ferments and\nstimulate fermentation. \u201cTherefore the vegetable cell, in this case,\nmanifests its life as an an\u00e6robic being. Why, then, should an organic cell\nform, in this case, an exception?\u201d asks Professor Bogolubof. Pasteur shows\nthat in the substance of our tissues and organs, the cell, not finding\nsufficient oxygen for itself, stimulates fermentation in the same way as\nthe fruit\u2010cell, and Claude Bernard thought that Pasteur\u2019s idea of the\nformation of ferments found its application and corroboration in the fact\nthat urea increases in the blood during strangulation. LIFE therefore is\neverywhere in the Universe, and, Occultism teaches us, it is also in the\natom.\n\n\u201cBh\u00fbmi appears with six sisters,\u201d says the Commentary. It is a Vedic\nteaching that \u201cthere are three Earths, corresponding to three Heavens, and\nour Earth [the fourth] is called Bh\u00fbmi.\u201d This is the explanation given by\nour exoteric Western Orientalists. But the esoteric meaning, and allusion\nto it in the _Vedas_, is that it refers to our Planetary Chain; \u201cthree\nEarths\u201d on the descending arc, and \u201cthree Heavens,\u201d which are three Earths\nor Globes also, only far more ethereal, on the ascending or spiritual arc.\nBy the first three we descend into Matter, by the other three we ascend\ninto Spirit; the lowest one, Bh\u00fbmi, our Earth, forming the turning point,\nso to say, and containing, _potentially_, as much of Spirit as it does of\nMatter. But we shall treat of this hereafter.\n\nThe general teaching of the Commentary, then, is that every new Round\ndevelops one of the Compound Elements, as now known to Science, which\nrejects the primitive nomenclature, preferring to subdivide them into\nconstituents. If Nature is the \u201cEver\u2010Becoming\u201d on the manifested plane,\nthen these Elements are to be regarded in the same light: they have to\nevolve, progress, and increase to the manvantaric end.\n\nThus the First Round, we are taught, developed but one Element, and a\nnature and humanity in what may be spoken of as one aspect of\nNature\u2014called by some, very unscientifically, though it may be so _de\nfacto_, \u201cone\u2010dimensional space.\u201d\n\nThe Second Round brought forth and developed two Elements, Fire and Earth;\nand _its_ humanity, adapted to this condition of Nature, if we can give\nthe name humanity to beings living under conditions now unknown to men,\nwas\u2014to use again a familiar phrase in a strictly figurative sense, the\nonly way in which it can be used correctly\u2014a \u201ctwo\u2010dimensional\u201d species.\n\nThe processes of natural development which we are now considering will at\nonce elucidate and discredit the fashion of speculating on the attributes\nof _two_, _three_, and _four_ or more _dimensional_ space; but, in\npassing, it is worth while to point out the real significance of the\nsound, but incomplete, intuition that has prompted\u2014among Spiritualists and\nTheosophists, and several great men of Science, for the matter of\nthat(398)\u2014the use of the modern expression, the \u201cfourth dimension of\nspace.\u201d To begin with, the superficial absurdity of assuming that Space\nitself is measurable in any direction is of little consequence. The\nfamiliar phrase can only be an abbreviation of the fuller form\u2014the\n\u201c_fourth dimension of matter, in Space_.\u201d(399) But even thus expanded, it\nis an unhappy phrase, because while it is perfectly true that the progress\nof evolution may be destined to introduce us to new characteristics of\nmatter, those with which we are already familiar are really more numerous\nthan the three dimensions. The qualities, or what is perhaps the best\navailable term, the characteristics of matter, must clearly bear a direct\nrelation always to the senses of man. Matter has extension, colour, motion\n(molecular motion), taste and smell, corresponding to the existing senses\nof man, and the next characteristic it develops\u2014let us call it for the\nmoment \u201cPermeability\u201d\u2014will correspond to the next sense of man, which we\nmay call \u201cNormal Clairvoyance.\u201d Thus, when some bold thinkers have been\nthirsting for a fourth dimension, to explain the passage of matter through\nmatter, and the production of knots upon an endless cord, they have been\nin want of a _sixth characteristic_ of matter. The three dimensions belong\nreally to only one attribute, or characteristic, of matter\u2014extension; and\npopular common sense justly rebels against the idea that, under any\ncondition of things, there can be more than three of such dimensions as\nlength, breadth and thickness. These terms, and the term \u201cdimension\u201d\nitself, all belong to one plane of thought, to one stage of evolution, to\none characteristic of matter. So long as there are foot\u2010rules within the\nresources of cosmos, to apply to matter, so long will they be able to\nmeasure it three ways and no more; just as, from the time the idea of\nmeasurement first occupied a place in the human understanding, it has been\npossible to apply measurement in three directions and no more. But these\nconsiderations do not in any way militate against the certainty that, in\nthe progress of time, as the faculties of humanity are multiplied, so will\nthe characteristics of matter be multiplied also. Meanwhile, the\nexpression is far more incorrect than even the familiar phrase of the\nsun\u2019s \u201crising\u201d or \u201csetting.\u201d\n\nWe now return to the consideration of material evolution through the\nRounds. Matter in the Second Round, it has been stated, may be\nfiguratively referred to as two\u2010dimensional. But here another _caveat_\nmust be entered. This loose and figurative expression may be regarded\u2014on\none plane of thought, as we have just seen\u2014as equivalent to the second\ncharacteristic of matter, corresponding to the second perceptive faculty\nor sense of man. But these two linked scales of evolution are concerned\nwith the processes going on within the limits of a single Round. The\nsuccession of primary aspects of Nature, with which the succession of\nRounds is concerned, has to do, as already indicated, with the development\nof the Elements\u2014in the Occult sense\u2014Fire, Air, Water, Earth. We are only\nin the Fourth Round, and our catalogue so far stops short. The order in\nwhich these Elements are mentioned, in the last sentence but one, is the\ncorrect one for Esoteric purposes and in the Secret Teachings. Milton was\nright when he spoke of the \u201cPowers of Fire, Air, Water, Earth\u201d; the Earth,\nsuch as we know it now, had no existence before the Fourth Round, hundreds\nof millions of years ago, the commencement of our geological Earth. The\nGlobe, says the Commentary, was \u201c_fiery, cool and radiant, as its ethereal\nmen and animals, during the First Round_\u201d\u2014a contradiction or paradox in\nthe opinion of our present Science\u2014\u201c_luminous and more dense and heavy,\nduring the Second Round; watery during the Third_.\u201d Thus are the Elements\nreversed.\n\nThe centres of consciousness of the Third Round, destined to develop into\nhumanity as we know it, arrived at a perception of the third Element,\nWater. If we had to frame our conclusions according to the _data_\nfurnished us by Geologists, then we would say that there was no real\nwater, even during the Carboniferous Period. We are told that gigantic\nmasses of carbon, which existed formerly spread in the atmosphere, as\ncarbonic acid, were absorbed by plants, while a large proportion of that\ngas was mixed in the water. Now, if this be so, and we have to believe\nthat all the carbonic acid which went to compose those plants that formed\nbituminous coal, lignite, etc., and went towards the formation of lime\u2010\nstone, and so on, that all this was at that period in the atmosphere in\ngaseous form, then, there must have been seas and oceans of liquid\ncarbonic acid! But how then could the Carboniferous Period be preceded by\nthe Devonian and Silurian Ages\u2014those of fishes and molluscs\u2014on that\nassumption? Barometric pressure, moreover, must have exceeded several\nhundred times the pressure of our present atmosphere. How could organisms,\neven so simple as those of certain fishes and molluscs, stand that? There\nis a curious work by Blanchard, on the Origin of Life, wherein he shows\nsome strange contradictions and confusions in the theories of his\ncolleagues, and which we recommend to the reader\u2019s attention.\n\nThose of the Fourth Round have added Earth as a state of matter to their\nstock, as well as the three other Elements in their present\ntransformation.\n\nIn short, none of the so\u2010called Elements were, in the three preceding\nRounds, as they are now. For all we know, FIRE may have been _pure_\n\u00c2k\u00e2sha, the First Matter of the \u201cMagnum Opus\u201d of the Creators and\nBuilders, that Astral Light which the paradoxical \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi calls in\none breath the \u201cBody of the Holy Ghost,\u201d and in the next \u201cBaphomet,\u201d the\n\u201cAndrogyne Goat of Mendes\u201d; AIR, simply Nitrogen, the \u201cBreath of the\nSupporters of the Heavenly Dome,\u201d as the Mahometan Mystics call it; WATER,\nthat primordial fluid which was required, according to Moses, to make a\n\u201cLiving Soul.\u201d And this may account for the flagrant discrepancies and\nunscientific statements found in _Genesis_. Separate the first from the\nsecond chapter; read the former as a scripture of the Elohists, and the\nlatter as that of the far later Jehovists; still one finds, if one reads\nbetween the lines, the same order in which created things appear; namely,\nFire (Light), Air, Water, and Man (or Earth). For the sentence of the\nfirst chapter (the Elohistic), \u201cIn the beginning God created the heaven\nand the earth,\u201d is a mistranslation; it is not \u201cthe heaven and the earth,\u201d\nbut the duplex, or dual, Heaven, the _upper_ and the _lower_ Heavens, or\nthe separation of Primordial Substance that was light in its upper, and\ndark in its lower portions (the manifested Universe), in its duality of\nthe _invisible_ (to the senses), and the _visible_ to our perceptions.\n\u201cGod divided the light from the darkness\u201d; and then made the firmament\n(Air). \u201cLet there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it\ndivide the waters from the waters,\u201d _i.e._, \u201cthe waters which were under\nthe firmament [our manifested visible Universe] from the waters which were\n_above_ the firmament [the (to us) invisible planes of being].\u201d In the\nsecond chapter (the Jehovistic), plants and herbs are created before\nwater, just as in the first, _light_ is produced before the _sun_. \u201cGod\nmade the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field _before it\nwas in the earth_, and every herb of the field _before it grew_; for the\nLord God [Elohim] had not caused it to rain upon the earth, etc.\u201d\u2014an\nabsurdity unless the esoteric explanation is accepted. The plants _were_\ncreated before they were in the earth\u2014_for there was no earth then such as\nit is now_; and the herb of the field was in existence before it grew as\nit does now, in the Fourth Round.\n\nDiscussing and explaining the nature of the invisible Elements and the\n\u201cPrimordial Fire\u201d mentioned above, \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi invariably calls it the\n\u201cAstral Light\u201d: with him it is the \u201cGrand Agent Magique.\u201d Undeniably it is\nso, but\u2014only so far as _Black_ Magic is concerned, and on the lowest\nplanes of what we call Ether, the noumenon of which is \u00c2k\u00e2sha; and even\nthis would be held incorrect by orthodox Occultists. The \u201cAstral Light\u201d is\nsimply the older \u201cSidereal Light\u201d of Paracelsus; and to say that\n\u201ceverything which exists has been evolved from it, and it preserves and\nreproduces all forms,\u201d as he does, is to enunciate truth only in the\nsecond proposition. The first is erroneous; for if all that exists was\nevolved _through_ (or _vi\u00e2_) it, this is not the Astral Light, since the\nlatter is not the container of _all_ things but, at best, only the\nreflector of this _all_. \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi very truly shows it \u201ca force in\nNature,\u201d by means of which \u201ca single man who can master it ... might throw\nthe world into confusion and transform its face\u201d; for it is the \u201cGreat\nArcanum of transcendent Magic.\u201d Quoting the words of the great Western\nKabalist in their translated form,(400) we may, perhaps, the better\nexplain them by the occasional addition of a word or two, to show the\ndifference between Western and Eastern explanations of the same subject.\nThe author says of the great Magic Agent:\n\n\n    This ambient and all\u2010penetrating fluid, this ray detached from the\n    [Central or Spiritual] Sun\u2019s splendour ... fixed by the weight of\n    the atmosphere [?!] and the power of central attraction ... the\n    Astral Light, this electro\u2010magnetic ether, this vital and luminous\n    caloric, is represented on ancient monuments by the girdle of\n    Isis, which twines round two poles ... and in ancient theogonies\n    by the serpent devouring its own tail, emblem of prudence and of\n    Saturn [emblem of infinity, immortality, and Cronus\u2014Time\u2014not the\n    God Saturn or the planet]. It is the winged dragon of Medea, the\n    double serpent of the caduceus, and the tempter of Genesis; but it\n    is also the brazen snake of Moses encircling the Tau ... lastly,\n    it is the devil of exoteric dogmatism, and is really the blind\n    force [it is not blind, and L\u00e9vi knew it], which souls must\n    conquer, in order to detach themselves from the chains of Earth;\n    for if they should not, they will be absorbed by the same power\n    which first produced them, and will return to the central and\n    eternal fire.\n\n\nThis great Arch\u00e6us is now publicly discovered by, and _for_, only one\nman\u2014J. W. Keely, of Philadelphia. For others, however, it _is_ discovered,\nyet must remain almost useless. \u201cSo far shalt thou go....\u201d\n\nAll the above is as practical as it is correct, save one error, which we\nhave explained. \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi commits a great blunder in always identifying\nthe Astral Light with what we call \u00c2k\u00e2sha. What it really is will be\nexpounded in Volume II.\n\n\u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi further writes:\n\n\n    The great Magic Agent is the fourth emanation of the life\n    principle [we say\u2014it is the first in the inner, and the second in\n    the outer (our) Universe], of which the Sun is the third form ...\n    for the day\u2010star [the Sun] is only the reflection and material\n    shadow of the Central Sun of truth, which illuminates the\n    intellectual [invisible] world of Spirit, and which itself is but\n    a gleam borrowed from the Absolute.\n\n\nSo far he is right enough. But when the great authority of the Western\nKabalists adds that, nevertheless, \u201cit is not the immortal Spirit, as the\nIndian Hierophants have imagined\u201d\u2014we answer, that he slanders the said\nHierophants, as they have said nothing of the kind; for even the Pur\u00e2nic\nexoteric writings flatly contradict the assertion. No Hind\u00fb has ever\nmistaken Prakriti\u2014the Astral Light being only above the lowest plane of\nPrakriti, the Material Kosmos\u2014for the \u201cimmortal Spirit.\u201d Prakriti is ever\ncalled M\u00e2y\u00e2, Illusion, and is doomed to disappear with the rest, the Gods\nincluded, at the hour of the Pralaya. As it is shown that \u00c2k\u00e2sha is not\neven the Ether, least of all then, we imagine, can it be the Astral Light.\nThose unable to penetrate beyond the dead letter of the _Pur\u00e2nas_, have\noccasionally confused \u00c2k\u00e2sha with Prakriti, with Ether, and even with the\nvisible Sky! It is true also that those who have invariably translated the\nterm \u00c2k\u00e2sha by \u201cEther\u201d\u2014Wilson, for instance\u2014finding it called \u201cthe\nmaterial cause of sound\u201d possessing, moreover, this _one single property_,\nhave ignorantly imagined it to be \u201cmaterial,\u201d in the physical sense. True,\nagain, that if the characteristics are accepted literally, then, since\nnothing material or physical, and therefore conditioned and temporary, can\nbe immortal\u2014according to metaphysics and philosophy\u2014it would follow that\n\u00c2k\u00e2sha is neither infinite nor immortal. But all this is erroneous, since\nboth the words Pradh\u00e2na, Primeval Matter, and Sound, as a property, have\nbeen misunderstood; the former term (Pradh\u00e2na) being certainly synonymous\nwith M\u00fblaprakriti and \u00c2k\u00e2sha, and the latter (Sound) with the Verbum, the\nWord or the Logos. This is easy to demonstrate; for it is shown in the\nfollowing sentence from _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_.(401) \u201cThere was neither day nor\nnight, nor sky, nor earth, nor darkness, nor light, nor any other thing,\nsave only One, unapprehensible by intellect, or that which is Brahman, and\nPums, [Spirit] and Pradh\u00e2na [Primordial Matter].\u201d\n\nNow, what is Pradh\u00e2na, if it is not M\u00fblaprakriti, the Root of All, in\nanother aspect? For though Pradh\u00e2na is said, further on, to merge into the\nDeity, as everything else does, in order to leave the One absolute during\nthe Pralaya, yet is it held as infinite and immortal. The literal\ntranslation is given as: \u201cOne Pr\u00e2dh\u00e2nika Brahma Spirit: THAT was\u201d; and the\nCommentator interprets the compound term as a substantive, not as a\nderivative word used attributively, _i.e._, like something \u201cconjoined with\nPradh\u00e2na.\u201d The student has to note, moreover, that the Pur\u00e2nic is a\ndualistic system, not evolutionary, and that, in this respect, far more\nwill be found, from an Esoteric standpoint, in the S\u00e2nkhya, and even in\nthe _M\u00e2nava\u2010Dharma\u2010Sh\u00e2stra_, however much the latter differs from the\nformer. Hence Pradh\u00e2na, even in the _Pur\u00e2nas_, is an aspect of\nParabrahman, not an evolution, and must be the same as the Ved\u00e2ntic\nM\u00fblaprakriti. \u201cPrakriti, in its _primary_ state, is \u00c2k\u00e2sha,\u201d says a\nVed\u00e2ntin scholar.(402) It is almost abstract Nature.\n\n\u00c2k\u00e2sha, then, is Pradh\u00e2na in another form, and as such cannot be Ether,\nthe ever\u2010invisible agent, courted even by Physical Science. Nor is it\nAstral Light. It is, as said, the _noumenon_ of the seven\u2010fold\ndifferentiated Prakriti(403)\u2014the ever immaculate \u201cMother\u201d of the\n_fatherless_ \u201cSon,\u201d who becomes \u201cFather\u201d on the lower manifested plane.\nFor Mahat is the first product of Pradh\u00e2na, or \u00c2k\u00e2sha; and Mahat\u2014Universal\nIntelligence, \u201cwhose _characteristic property_ is Buddhi\u201d\u2014is no other than\nthe Logos, for he is called \u00ceshvara, Brahm\u00e2, Bh\u00e2va, etc.(404) He is, in\nshort, the \u201cCreator,\u201d or the Divine Mind in creative operation, \u201cthe Cause\nof all things.\u201d He is the \u201cFirst\u2010Born,\u201d of whom the _Pur\u00e2nas_ tell us that\n\u201cEarth and Mahat are the inner and outer boundaries of the Universe,\u201d or,\nin our language, the negative and the positive poles of dual Nature\n(abstract and concrete), for the _Pur\u00e2na_ adds:\n\n\n    In this manner\u2014as were the _seven_ forms [principles] of Prakriti\n    reckoned from Mahat to Earth\u2014so at the (time of elemental)\n    dissolution (_praty\u00e2h\u00e2ra_), these seven successively re\u00ebnter into\n    each other. The Egg of Brahm\u00e2 (_Sarva\u2010mandala_) is dissolved, with\n    its seven zones (_dv\u00eepa_), seven oceans, seven regions, etc.(405)\n\n\nThese are the reasons why the Occultists refuse to give the name of Astral\nLight to \u00c2k\u00e2sha, or to call it Ether. \u201cIn my Father\u2019s house are many\nmansions,\u201d may be contrasted with the Occult saying, \u201cIn our Mother\u2019s\nhouse are seven mansions,\u201d or planes, the lowest of which is above and\naround us\u2014the Astral Light.\n\nThe Elements, whether simple or compound, could not have remained the same\nsince the commencement of the evolution of our Chain. Everything in the\nUniverse progresses steadily in the Great Cycle, while incessantly going\nup and down in the smaller Cycles. Nature is never stationary during\nManvantara, as it is ever _becoming_,(406) not simply _being_; and\nmineral, vegetable, and human life are always adapting their organisms to\nthe then reigning Elements; and therefore _those_ Elements were then\nfitted for them, as they are now for the life of present humanity. It will\nonly be in the next, or Fifth, Round that the fifth Element, Ether\u2014the\ngross body of \u00c2k\u00e2sha, if it can be called even that\u2014will, by becoming a\nfamiliar fact of Nature to all men, as Air is familiar to us now, cease to\nbe, as at present, hypothetical and an \u201cagent\u201d for so many things. And\nonly during that Round will those higher senses, the growth and\ndevelopment of which \u00c2k\u00e2sha subserves, be susceptible of a complete\nexpansion. As already indicated, a _partial_ familiarity with the\ncharacteristic of matter\u2014Permeability\u2014which should be developed\nconcurrently with the sixth sense, may be expected to develop at the\nproper period in this Round. But with the next Element added to our\nresources, in the next Round, Permeability will become so manifest a\ncharacteristic of matter, that the densest forms of this Round will seem\nto man\u2019s perceptions as obstructive to him as a thick fog, and no more.\n\nLet us now return to the Life\u2010Cycle. Without entering at length upon the\ndescription given of the Higher LIVES, we must direct our attention, at\npresent, simply to the earthly Beings and the Earth itself. The latter, we\nare told, is built up for the _First_ Round by the \u201cDevourers,\u201d which\ndisintegrate and differentiate the germs of other Lives in the Elements;\npretty much, it must be supposed, as in the present stage of the world,\nthe _\u00e6robes_ do, when, undermining and loosening the chemical structure in\nan organism, they transform animal matter, and generate substances that\nvary in their constitutions. Thus Occultism disposes of the so\u2010called\nAzoic Age of Science, for it shows that there never was a time when the\nEarth was without life upon it. Wherever there is an atom of matter, a\nparticle, or a molecule, even in its most gaseous condition, there is life\nin it, however latent and unconscious.\n\n_Whatsoever quits the Laya State, becomes active Life; it is drawn into\nthe vortex of_ MOTION _[the Alchemical Solvent of Life]; Spirit and Matter\nare __ the two States of the_ ONE, _which is neither Spirit nor Matter,\nboth being the Absolute Life, latent.... Spirit is the first\ndifferentiation of [and in]_ SPACE; _and Matter the first differentiation\nof Spirit. That, which is neither Spirit nor Matter, That is IT\u2014the\nCauseless_ CAUSE _of Spirit and Matter, which are the Cause of Kosmos. And\nTHAT we call the_ ONE LIFE, _or the Intra\u2010Cosmic Breath_.(407)\n\nOnce more we say\u2014_like must produce like_. Absolute Life cannot produce an\ninorganic atom, whether single or complex, and there is life even in Laya,\njust as a man in a profound cataleptic state\u2014to all appearance a corpse\u2014is\nstill a living being.\n\nWhen the \u201cDevourers\u201d\u2014in whom the men of Science are invited to see, with\nsome show of reason, atoms of the Fire\u2010Mist, if they will, as the\nOccultist will offer no objection to this\u2014when the \u201cDevourers,\u201d we say,\nhave differentiated the \u201cFire Atoms,\u201d by a peculiar process of\nsegmentation, the latter become Life\u2010Germs, which aggregate according to\nthe laws of cohesion and affinity. Then the Life\u2010Germs produce Lives of\nanother kind, which work on the structure of our Globes.\n\nThus, in the First Round, the Globe, having been built by the primitive\nFire\u2010Lives\u2014_i.e._, formed into a sphere\u2014had no solidity, no\nqualifications, save a cold brightness, no form, no colour; it is only\ntowards the end of the First Round that it developed one Element, which,\nfrom its inorganic, so to say, or simple Essence, has become now, in our\nRound, the fire we know throughout the System. The Earth was in her first\nR\u00fbpa, the essence of which is the \u00c2k\u00e2shic Principle named \u2014\u2014, that which\nis now known as, and very erroneously termed, Astral Light, which \u00c9liphas\nL\u00e9vi calls the \u201cImagination of Nature,\u201d probably to avoid giving it its\ncorrect name, as others do.\n\nSpeaking of it, in his Preface to the _Histoire de la Magie_, \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi\nsays:\n\n\n    It is through this Force that all the nervous centres secretly\n    communicate with each other; from it\u2014that sympathy and antipathy\n    are born; from it\u2014that we have our dreams; and that the phenomena\n    of second sight and extra\u2010natural visions take place.... Astral\n    Light [acting under the impulsion of powerful wills] ... destroys,\n    coagulates, separates, breaks, gathers in all things.... God\n    created it on that day when he said: \u201c_Fiat Lux!_\u201d ... It is\n    directed by the Egregores, _i.e._, the chiefs of the souls, who\n    are the spirits of energy and action.(408)\n\n\n\u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi ought to have added that the Astral Light, or Primordial\nSubstance, if matter at all, is that which, called Light, _Lux_\nesoterically explained, _is the body of those Spirits themselves, and\ntheir very essence. Our physical light is the manifestation on our plane_,\nand the reflected radiance, of the Divine Light, emanating from the\ncollective Body of those who are called the \u201cLights\u201d and the \u201cFlames.\u201d But\nno other Kabalist has ever had the talent of heaping up one contradiction\non the other, of making one paradox chase another in the same sentence,\nand in such flowing language, as \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi. He leads his reader through\nthe most lovely valleys, to strand him after all on a desert and barren\nrock.\n\nSays the Commentary:\n\n_It is through and from the radiations of the seven Bodies of the seven\nOrders of Dhy\u00e2nis, that the seven Discrete Quantities [Elements], whose\nMotion and harmonious Union produce the manifested Universe of Matter, are\nborn._\n\nThe _Second_ Round brings into manifestation the second Element\u2014AIR; an\nelement, the purity of which would ensure continuous life to him who would\nuse it. In Europe there have been two Occultists only who have discovered\nand even partially applied it in practice, though its composition has\nalways been known among the highest Eastern Initiates. The ozone of the\nmodern Chemists is poison compared with the real Universal Solvent, which\ncould never be thought of unless it existed in Nature.\n\n_From the Second Round, Earth\u2014hitherto a f\u0153tus in the matrix of\nSpace\u2014began its real existence: it had developed individual sentient Life,\nits second Principle. The second corresponds to the sixth [Principle]; the\nsecond is Life continuous, the other, temporary._\n\nThe _Third_ Round developed the third Principle\u2014WATER; while the _Fourth_\ntransformed the gaseous fluids and plastic form of our Globe into the\nhard, crusted, grossly material sphere we are living on. Bh\u00fbmi has reached\nher fourth Principle. To this it may be objected that the law of analogy,\nso much insisted upon, is broken. Not at all. Earth will reach her true\nultimate form\u2014her body shell\u2014inversely in this to man, only toward the end\nof the Manvantara, after the Seventh Round. Eugenius Philalethes was right\nwhen he assured his readers, \u201con his word of honour,\u201d that no one had yet\nseen the \u201cEarth,\u201d _i.e._, Matter in its essential form. Our Globe is, so\nfar, in its K\u00e2mar\u00fbpic state\u2014the Astral Body of Desires of Ahamk\u00e2ra, dark\nEgotism, the progeny of Mahat, on the lower plane.\n\nIt is not molecularly constituted matter, least of all the human Body,\nSth\u00fbla Shar\u00eera, that is the grossest of all our \u201cPrinciples,\u201d but verily\nthe _middle_ Principle, the real Animal Centre, whereas our Body is but\nits shell, the irresponsible factor and medium through which the beast in\nus acts all its life. Every intellectual Theosophist will understand my\nreal meaning. Thus the idea that the human tabernacle is built by\ncountless Lives, just in the same way as was the rocky crust of our Earth,\nhas nothing repulsive in it for the true Mystic. Nor can Science oppose\nthe Occult teaching, for it is not because the microscope will ever fail\nto detect the ultimate living atom or life, that it can reject the\ndoctrine.\n\n(_c_) Science teaches us that the living as well as the dead organisms of\nboth man and animal are swarming with bacteria of a hundred various kinds;\nthat from without we are threatened with the invasion of microbes with\nevery breath we draw, and from within by leucomaines, \u00e6robes, an\u00e6robes,\nand what not. But Science has never yet gone so far as to assert with the\nOccult doctrine, that our bodies, as well as those of animals, plants, and\nstones, are themselves altogether built up of such beings; which, with the\nexception of the larger species, no microscope can detect. So far as\nregards the purely animal and material portion of man, Science is on its\nway to discoveries that will go far towards corroborating this theory.\nChemistry and Physiology are the two great magicians of the future, which\nare destined to open the eyes of mankind to great physical truths. With\nevery day, the identity between the animal and physical man, between the\nplant and man, and even between the reptile and its nest, the rock, and\nman\u2014is more and more clearly shown. The physical and chemical constituents\nof all being found to be identical, Chemical Science may well say that\nthere is no difference between the matter which composes the ox, and that\nwhich forms man. But the Occult doctrine is far more explicit. It says:\nNot only the chemical compounds are the same, but the same infinitesimal\n_invisible_ Lives compose the atoms of the bodies of the mountain and the\ndaisy, of man and the ant, of the elephant and of the tree which shelters\nit from the sun. Each particle\u2014whether you call it organic or\ninorganic\u2014_is a_ Life. Every atom and molecule in the Universe is both\n_life\u2010giving_ and _death\u2010giving_ to such forms, inasmuch as it builds by\naggregation universes, and the ephemeral vehicles ready to receive the\ntransmigrating soul, and as eternally destroys and changes the _forms_,\nand expels the souls from their temporary abodes. It creates and kills; it\nis self\u2010generating and self\u2010destroying; it brings into being, and\nannihilates, that mystery of mysteries, the _living body_ of man, animal,\nor plant, every second in time and space; and it generates equally life\nand death, beauty and ugliness, good and bad, and even the agreeable and\ndisagreeable, the beneficent and maleficent sensations. It is that\nmysterious LIFE, represented collectively by countless myriads of Lives,\nthat follows in its own sporadic way the hitherto incomprehensible law of\nAtavism; that copies family resemblances, as well as those it finds\nimpressed in the Aura of the generators of every future human being; a\nmystery, in short, that will receive fuller attention elsewhere. For the\npresent, one instance may be cited in illustration. Modern Science is\nbeginning to find out that ptomaine, the alkaloid poison generated by\ndecaying corpses and matter\u2014a Life also, extracted with the help of\nvolatile ether, yields a smell as strong as that of the freshest orange\u2010\nblossoms; but that free from oxygen, such alkaloids yield either a most\nsickening, disgusting smell, or a most agreeable aroma, which recalls that\nof the most delicately scented flowers; and it is suspected that such\nblossoms owe their agreeable smell to the poisonous ptomaine. The venomous\nessence of certain fungi, also, is nearly identical with the venom of the\ncobra of India, the most deadly of serpents. The French savants Arnaud,\nGautier, and Villiers, have found in the saliva of living men the same\nvenomous alkaloid as in that of the toad, the salamander, the cobra, and\nthe trigonocephalus of Portugal. It is proven that venom of the deadliest\nkind, whether called ptomaine, or leucomaine, or alkaloid, is generated by\nliving men, animals and plants. Gautier also discovered an alkaloid in the\nfresh carcase and brains of an ox, and a venom which he calls\nxanthocreatinine, similar to the substance extracted from the poisonous\nsaliva of reptiles. It is the muscular tissues, the most active organs in\nthe animal economy, that are suspected of being the generators or factors\nof venoms, which have the same importance as carbonic acid and urea in the\nfunctions of life, and are the ultimate products of inner combustion. And\nthough it is not yet fully determined whether poisons can be generated by\nthe animal systems of living beings, without the participation and\ninterference of microbes, it is ascertained that the animal does produce\nvenomous substances in its physiological or living state.\n\nThus, having discovered the effects, Science has to find their _primary_\ncauses; and this it can never do without the help of the old sciences, of\nAlchemy, Occult Botany and Physics. We are taught that every physiological\nchange, in addition to pathological phenomena, diseases\u2014nay, life itself,\nor rather the objective phenomena of life, produced by certain conditions\nand changes in the tissues of the body, which allow and force life to act\nin that body\u2014that all this is due to those unseen \u201cCreators\u201d and\n\u201cDestroyers,\u201d which are called, in such a loose and general way, microbes.\nIt might be supposed that these Fiery Lives and the microbes of Science\nare identical. This is not true. The Fiery Lives are the seventh and\nhighest sub\u2010division of the plane of matter, and correspond in the\nindividual with the One Life of the Universe, though only on that plane of\nmatter. The microbes of Science are the first and lowest sub\u2010division on\nthe second plane\u2014that of material Pr\u00e2na, or Life. The physical body of man\nundergoes a complete change of structure every seven years, and its\ndestruction and preservation are due to the alternate functions of the\nFiery Lives, as Destroyers and Builders. They are Builders by sacrificing\nthemselves, in the form of vitality, to restrain the destructive influence\nof the microbes, and, by supplying the microbes with what is necessary,\nthey compel them under that restraint to build up the material body and\nits cells. They are Destroyers also, when that restraint is removed, and\nthe microbes, unsupplied with vital constructive energy, are left to run\nriot as destructive agents. Thus, during the first half of a man\u2019s life,\nthe first _five_ periods of seven years each, the Fiery Lives are\nindirectly engaged in the process of building up man\u2019s material body; Life\nis on the ascending scale, and the force is used in construction and\nincrease. After this period is passed, the age of retrogression commences,\nand, the work of the Fiery Lives exhausting their strength, the work of\ndestruction and decrease also commences.\n\nAn analogy between cosmic events in the descent of Spirit into Matter, for\nthe first half of a Manvantara (planetary as well as human), and its\nascent, at the expense of Matter, in the second half, may here be traced.\nThese considerations have to do solely with the plane of matter, but the\nrestraining influence of the Fiery Lives on the lowest sub\u2010division of the\nsecond plane, the microbes, is confirmed by the fact mentioned in the\ntheory of Pasteur above referred to, that the cells of the organs, when\nthey do not find sufficient oxygen for themselves, adapt themselves to\nthat condition and form _ferments_, which, by absorbing oxygen from\nsubstances which come in contact with them, produce their destruction.\nThus the process is commenced by one cell robbing its neighbour of the\nsource of its vitality, when the supply is insufficient; and the\ndestruction so commenced steadily progresses.\n\nSuch experimenters as Pasteur are the best friends and helpers of the\nDestroyers, and the worst enemies of the Creators\u2014if the latter were not\nat the same time Destroyers also. However it may be, one thing is certain\nin this: the knowledge of these primary causes, and of the ultimate\nessence of every Element, of its Lives, their functions, properties, and\nconditions of change\u2014constitutes the basis of MAGIC. Paracelsus was,\nperhaps, the only Occultist in Europe, during the latter centuries of the\nChristian era, who was versed in this mystery. Had not a criminal hand put\nan end to his life years before the time allotted him by Nature,\nphysiological Magic would have fewer secrets for the civilized world than\nit now has.\n\n(_d_) But what has the Moon to do in all this, we may be asked. What have\n\u201cFish, Sin and Soma [Moon],\u201d in the apocalyptic sentence of the Stanza, to\ndo in company with the Life\u2010microbes? With the latter nothing, except that\nthey avail themselves of the tabernacle of clay prepared by them; with\ndivine perfect Man everything, since \u201cFish, Sin and Moon\u201d conjointly\ncompose the three symbols of the immortal Being.\n\nThis is all that can be given. Nor does the writer pretend to know more of\nthese strange symbols than may be inferred about them from exoteric\nreligions\u2014from the mystery, perhaps, which underlies the Matsya (Fish)\nAvat\u00e2ra of Vishnu, the. Chaldean Oannes, the Man\u2010Fish, recorded in the\nimperishable sign of the Zodiac, Pisces, and running throughout the two\n_Testaments_ in the personages of Joshua \u201cSon of Nun (the Fish)\u201d and\nJesus; from the allegorical \u201cSin,\u201d or Fall of Spirit into Matter; and from\nthe Moon\u2014in so far as it relates to the Lunar Ancestors, the Pitris.\n\nFor the present, it may be as well to remind the reader, that while the\nMoon\u2010Goddesses were connected in every mythology, especially the Grecian,\nwith child\u2010birth, because of the influence of the Moon on women and\nconception, the Occult and actual connection of our satellite with\nfecundation is to this day unknown to Physiology, which regards every\npopular practice in this connection as gross superstition. As it is\nuseless to discuss these in detail, we can only stop for the present to\nnotice the lunar symbology casually, to show that the said superstition\nbelongs to the most ancient beliefs, and even to Judaism\u2014the basis of\nChristianity. With the Israelites, the chief function of Jehovah was\nchild\u2010giving, and the Esotericism of the _Bible_, interpreted\nkabalistically, shows undeniably that the Holy of Holies in the Temple was\nsimply the symbol of the womb. This is now proven beyond doubt and cavil,\nby the _numerical_ reading of the _Bible_ in general, and of _Genesis_\nespecially. This idea must certainly have been borrowed by the Jews from\nthe Egyptians and Indians, whose Holy of Holies is symbolized by the\nKing\u2019s Chamber in the Great Pyramid and the Yoni symbols of exoteric\nHind\u00fbism. To make the matter clearer, and to show at the same time the\nenormous difference in the spirit of interpretation and the original\nmeaning of the same symbols between the ancient Eastern Occultists and the\nJewish Kabalists, we refer the reader to the Section on \u201cThe Holy of\nHolies,\u201d in the second Volume.\n\nPhallic worship has developed only with the loss of the keys to the true\nmeaning of the symbols. It was the last and most fatal turning from the\nhighway of truth and divine knowledge into the side path of fiction,\nraised into dogma through human falsification and hierarchic ambition.\n\n6. FROM THE FIRST\u2010BORN,(409) THE THREAD BETWEEN THE SILENT WATCHER AND HIS\nSHADOW BECOMES MORE STRONG AND RADIANT WITH EVERY CHANGE.(410) THE MORNING\nSUN\u2010LIGHT HAS CHANGED INTO NOON\u2010DAY GLORY....\n\nThis sentence, \u201cthe Thread between the Silent Watcher and his Shadow [Man]\nbecomes more strong with every Change,\u201d is another psychological mystery,\nthat will find its explanation in Volume II. For the present, it will\nsuffice to say that the \u201cWatcher\u201d and his \u201cShadows\u201d\u2014the latter numbering\nas many as there are re\u00efncarnations for the Monad\u2014are one. The Watcher, or\nthe Divine Prototype, is at the upper rung of the Ladder of Being; the\nShadow, at the lower. Withal, the Monad of every living being, unless his\nmoral turpitude breaks the connection, and he runs loose and astray into\nthe \u201cLunar Path\u201d\u2014to use the Occult expression\u2014_is an individual Dhy\u00e2n\nChohan, distinct from others, with a kind of spiritual Individuality of\nits own_, during one special Manvantara. Its Primary, the Spirit (\u00c2tman),\nis one, of course, with the One Universal Spirit (Param\u00e2tm\u00e2), but the\nVehicle (V\u00e2han) it is enshrined in, the Buddhi, is part and parcel of that\nDhy\u00e2n\u2010Chohanic Essence; and it is in this that lies the mystery of that\n_ubiquity_, which was discussed a few pages back. \u201cMy Father, that is in\nHeaven, and I\u2014are one,\u201d says the Christian Scripture; and in this, at any\nrate, it is the faithful echo of the Esoteric tenet.\n\n7. \u201cTHIS IS THY PRESENT WHEEL\u201d\u2014SAID THE FLAME TO THE SPARK. \u201cTHOU ART\nMYSELF, MY IMAGE AND MY SHADOW. I HAVE CLOTHED MYSELF IN THEE, AND THOU\nART MY V\u00c2HAN,(411) TO THE DAY \u2018BE WITH US,\u2019 WHEN THOU SHALT RE\u2010BECOME\nMYSELF AND OTHERS, THYSELF AND I\u201d (_a_). THEN THE BUILDERS, HAVING DONNED\nTHEIR FIRST CLOTHING, DESCEND ON RADIANT EARTH, AND REIGN OVER MEN\u2014WHO ARE\nTHEMSELVES (_b_).\n\n(_a_) The Day when the Spark will re\u2010become the Flame, when Man will merge\ninto his Dhy\u00e2n Chohan, \u201cmyself and others, thyself and I,\u201d as the Stanza\nhas it, means that in Paranirv\u00e2na\u2014when Pralaya will have reduced not only\nmaterial and psychical bodies, but even the spiritual Egos, to their\noriginal principle\u2014the Past, Present, and even Future Humanities, like all\nthings, will be one and the same. Everything will have re\u00ebntered the Great\nBreath. In other words, everything will be \u201cmerged in Brahman,\u201d or the\nDivine Unity.\n\nIs this annihilation, as some think? Or _atheism_, as other critics\u2014the\nworshippers of a _personal_ deity, and believers in an unphilosophical\nparadise\u2014are inclined to suppose? Neither. It is worse than useless to\nreturn to the question of implied atheism, in that which is _spirituality_\nof a most refined character. To see in Nirv\u00e2na annihilation, amounts to\nsaying of a man plunged in a sound _dreamless_ sleep\u2014_one that leaves no\nimpression on the physical memory and brain, because the sleeper\u2019s Higher\nSelf is then in its original state of Absolute Consciousness_\u2014that he,\ntoo, is annihilated. The latter simile answers to one side of the question\nonly\u2014the most material; since _re\u00e4bsorption_ is by no means such a\n\u201cdreamless sleep,\u201d but, on the contrary, _Absolute_ Existence, an\nunconditioned unity, or a state, to describe which human language is\nabsolutely and hopelessly inadequate. The only approach to anything like a\ncomprehensive conception of it can be attempted solely in the panoramic\nvisions of the Soul, through spiritual ideations of the divine Monad. Nor\nis the Individuality\u2014_nor even the essence of the Personality_, if any be\nleft behind\u2014lost, because re\u00e4bsorbed. For, however limitless from a human\nstandpoint, the paranirv\u00e2nic state, yet it has a limit in Eternity. Once\nreached, the same Monad will _re\u00ebmerge_ therefrom, as a still higher\nbeing, on a far higher plane, to recommence its cycle of perfected\nactivity. The human mind, in its present stage of development, cannot\ntranscend, scarcely can it reach this plane of thought. It totters here,\non the brink of incomprehensible Absoluteness and Eternity.\n\n(_b_) The \u201cWatchers\u201d reign over men during the whole period of Satya Yuga\nand the smaller subsequent Yugas, down to the beginning of the Third Root\nRace; after which it is the Patriarchs, Heroes, and the Manes, as in the\nEgyptian Dynasties enumerated by the priests to Solon, the incarnated\nDhy\u00e2nis of a lower order, up to King Menes and the human Kings of other\nnations. All were carefully recorded. In the views of symbologists this\nMythop\u0153ic Age is of course regarded as only a fairy tale. But since\ntraditions and even chronicles of such Dynasties of _Divine_ Kings, of\nGods reigning over men, followed by Dynasties of Heroes or Giants, exist\nin the annals of every nation, it is difficult to understand how all the\npeoples under the sun, some of whom are separated by vast oceans and\nbelong to different hemispheres, such as the ancient Peruvians and\nMexicans, as well as the Chaldeans, could have worked out the same \u201cfairy\ntales\u201d in the same order of events.(412) However, as the Secret Doctrine\nteaches _history_\u2014which, although esoteric and traditional, is, none the\nless, more reliable than profane history\u2014we are entitled to our beliefs as\nmuch as anyone else, whether religionist or sceptic. And that Doctrine\nsays that the Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas of the two higher Groups, namely, the\nWatchers or the Architects, furnished the many and various races with\ndivine kings and leaders. It is the latter who taught humanity their arts\nand sciences, and the former who revealed to the incarnated Monads that\nhad just shaken off their Vehicles of the lower Kingdoms, and who had,\ntherefore, lost every recollection of their divine origin, the great\nspiritual truths of the transcendental Worlds.\n\nThus, as expressed in the Stanza, the Watchers \u201cdescend on radiant Earth\nand reign over men, _who are themselves_.\u201d The reigning Kings had finished\ntheir cycle on Earth and other Worlds, in the preceding Rounds. In the\nfuture Manvantaras they will have risen to higher Systems than our\nplanetary World; and it is the Elect of our Humanity, the Pioneers on the\nhard and difficult path of Progress, who will take the places of their\npredecessors. The next great Manvantara will witness the men of our own\nLife\u2010Cycle becoming the instructors and guides of a Mankind whose Monads\nmay now be still imprisoned\u2014semi\u2010conscious\u2014in the most intellectual of the\nanimal kingdom, while their lower principles may be animating, perhaps,\nthe highest specimens of the vegetable world.\n\nThus proceed the cycles of the septenary evolution, in Seven\u2010fold Nature;\nthe spiritual or divine; the psychic or semi\u2010divine; the intellectual; the\npassional, the instinctual, or _cognitional_; the semi\u2010corporeal; and the\npurely material or physical natures. All these evolve and progress\ncyclically, passing from one into another, in a double, centrifugal and\ncentripetal, way, _one_ in their ultimate essence, _seven_ in their\naspects. The lowest, of course, is that depending upon and subservient to\nour five physical senses, which are in truth _seven_, as shown later, on\nthe authority of the oldest _Upanishads_. Thus far, for individual, human,\nsentient, animal and vegetable life, each the microcosm of its higher\nmacrocosm. The same for the Universe, which manifests periodically, for\npurposes of the collective progress of the countless Lives, the\noutbreathings of the One Life; in order that, through the Ever\u2010Becoming,\nevery cosmic atom in this infinite Universe, passing from the formless and\nthe intangible, through the mixed natures of the semi\u2010terrestrial, down to\nmatter in full generation, and then back again, re\u00e4scending at each new\nperiod higher and nearer the final goal; that each atom, we say, may\nreach, _through individual merits and efforts_, that plane where it re\u2010\nbecomes the One Unconditioned ALL. But between the Alpha and the Omega\nthere is the weary \u201cRoad,\u201d hedged in by thorns, that goes down first,\nthen\u2014\n\n\n    Winds up hill all the way;\n    Yes, to the very end....\n\n\nStarting upon the long journey immaculate, descending more and more into\nsinful matter, and having connected himself with every atom in manifested\nSpace\u2014the Pilgrim, having struggled through, and suffered in, every form\nof Life and Being, is only at the bottom of the valley of matter, and half\nthrough his cycle, when he has identified himself with collective\nHumanity. This, _he has made in his own image_. In order to progress\nupwards and homewards, the \u201cGod\u201d has now to ascend the weary uphill path\nof the Golgotha of Life. It is the martyrdom of self\u2010conscious existence.\nLike Vishvakarman, he has to sacrifice _himself to himself_, in order to\nredeem all creatures, to resurrect from the Many into the One Life. Then\nhe ascends into Heaven indeed; where, plunged into the incomprehensible\nAbsolute Being and Bliss of Paranirv\u00e2na, he reigns unconditionally, and\nwhence he will re\u2010descend again, at the next \u201cComing,\u201d which one portion\nof humanity expects in its dead\u2010letter sense as the \u201cSecond Advent,\u201d and\nthe other as the last \u201cKalk\u00ee Avat\u00e2ra.\u201d\n\n\n\nSumming Up.\n\n\n    The History of Creation and of this World, from its beginning up\n    to the present time, is composed of _seven_ chapters. The\n    _seventh_ chapter is not yet written.\n\n    T. SUBBA ROW.(413)\n\n\nThe first of these \u201cseven chapters\u201d has been attempted and is now\nfinished. However incomplete and feeble as an exposition, it is, at any\nrate, an approximation\u2014using the word in a mathematical sense\u2014to that\nwhich is the oldest basis for all subsequent cosmogonies. The attempt to\nrender in a European tongue the grand panorama of the ever periodically\nrecurring Law, impressed upon the plastic minds of the first Races endowed\nwith Consciousness, by those who reflected the same from the Universal\nMind, is daring; for no human language, save the Sanskrit\u2014which is that\n_of the Gods_\u2014can do so with any degree of adequacy. But the failures in\nthis work must be forgiven for the sake of the motive.\n\nAs a whole, neither the foregoing nor what follows can be found in full\nanywhere. It is not taught in any of the six Indian schools of philosophy,\nfor it pertains to their synthesis, the seventh, which is the Occult\nDoctrine. It is not traced on any crumbling papyrus of Egypt, nor is it\nany longer graven on Assyrian tile or granite wall. The Books of the\nVed\u00e2nta\u2014the \u201clast word of human knowledge\u201d\u2014give out but the metaphysical\naspect of this world\u2010cosmogony; and their priceless thesaurus, the\n_Upanishads_\u2014_Upa\u2010ni\u2010shad_ being a compound word, expressing the conquest\nof ignorance by the revelation of _secret_, _spiritual_ knowledge\u2014now\nrequires the additional possession of a master\u2010key, to enable the student\nto get at their full meaning. The reason for this I venture to state here\nas I learned it from a Master.\n\nThe name _Upanishad_, is usually translated \u201cesoteric doctrine.\u201d These\ntreatises form part of Shruti, or \u201crevealed\u201d Knowledge, Revelation in\nshort, and are generally attached to the Br\u00e2hmana portion of the _Vedas_,\nas their third division.\n\n\n    [Now] the _Vedas_ have a distinct dual meaning\u2014one expressed by\n    the literal sense of the words, the other indicated by the metre\n    and the _svara_ (intonation), which are as the life of the\n    _Vedas_.... Learned pandits and philologists of course deny that\n    _svara_ has anything to do with philosophy or ancient esoteric\n    doctrines; but the mysterious connection between _svara_ and\n    _light_ is one of its most profound secrets.(414)\n\n\nThere are over 150 _Upanishads_ enumerated by Orientalists, who credit the\noldest with being written _probably_ about 600 years B.C.; but of\n_genuine_ texts there does not exist a fifth of the number. The\n_Upanishads_ are to the _Vedas_ what the _Kabalah_ is to the Jewish\n_Bible_. They treat of and expound the secret and mystic meaning of the\nVedic texts. They speak of the origin of the Universe, the nature of\nDeity, and of Spirit and Soul, as also of the metaphysical connection of\nMind and Matter. In a few words: _They_ CONTAIN _the beginning and the end\nof all human knowledge, but they have ceased to_ REVEAL _it_, since the\ndays of Buddha. If it were otherwise, the _Upanishads_ could not be called\n_esoteric_, since they are now openly attached to the Sacred Br\u00e2hmanical\nBooks, which have, in our present age, become accessible even to the\nMlechchhas (out\u2010castes) and the European Orientalists. One thing in\nthem\u2014and this, in all the _Upanishads_\u2014invariably and constantly points to\ntheir ancient origin, and proves (_a_) that they were written, in some of\ntheir portions, _before_ the caste system became the tyrannical\ninstitution which it still is; and (_b_) that half of their contents have\nbeen eliminated, while some of them have been rewritten and abridged. \u201cThe\ngreat Teachers of the higher Knowledge and the Br\u00e2hmans are continually\nrepresented as going to Kshatriya [military\u2010caste] kings to become their\npupils.\u201d As Professor Cowell pertinently remarks, the _Upanishads_\n\u201cbreathe an entirely different spirit [from other Br\u00e2hmanical writings], a\nfreedom of thought unknown in any earlier work, except in the _Rig Veda_\nhymns themselves.\u201d The second fact is explained by a tradition recorded in\none of the MSS. on Buddha\u2019s life. It says that the _Upanishads_ were\noriginally attached to their _Br\u00e2hmanas_ after the beginning of a reform,\nwhich led to the exclusiveness of the present caste system among the\nBr\u00e2hmans, a few centuries after the invasion of India by the \u201cTwice\u2010born.\u201d\nThey were complete in those days, and were used for the instruction of the\nChel\u00e2s who were preparing for Initiation.\n\nThis lasted so long as the _Vedas_ and the _Br\u00e2hmanas_ remained in the\nsole and exclusive keeping of the temple\u2010Br\u00e2hmans\u2014while no one else had\nthe right to study or even read them outside of the _sacred_ caste. Then\ncame Gautama, the Prince of Kapilavastu. After _learning_ the whole of the\nBr\u00e2hmanical wisdom in the _Rahasya_, or the _Upanishads_, and finding that\nthe teachings differed little, if at all, from those of the \u201cTeachers of\nLife\u201d inhabiting the snowy ranges of the Him\u00e2layas,(415) the disciple of\nthe Br\u00e2hmans, feeling indignant because the Sacred Wisdom was thus\nwithheld from all but Br\u00e2hmans, determined, by popularizing it, to save\nthe whole world. Then it was that the Br\u00e2hmans, seeing that their Sacred\nKnowledge and Occult Wisdom was falling into the hands of the Mlechchhas,\nabridged the texts of the _Upanishads_, which originally contained thrice\nthe matter of the _Vedas_ and the _Br\u00e2hmanas_ together, without altering,\nhowever, one word of the texts. They simply detached from the MSS. the\nmost important portions, containing the last word of the Mystery of Being.\nThe key to the Br\u00e2hmanical secret code remained henceforth with the\nInitiates alone, and the Br\u00e2hmans were thus in a position to publicly deny\nthe correctness of Buddha\u2019s teaching by appealing to their _Upanishads_,\nsilenced for ever on the chief questions. Such is the esoteric tradition\nbeyond the Him\u00e2layas.\n\nShr\u00ee Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya, the greatest Initiate living in the historical ages,\nwrote many a Bh\u00e2shya (Commentary) on the _Upanishads_. But his original\ntreatises, as there are reasons to suppose, have not yet fallen into the\nhands of the Philistines, for they are too jealously preserved in his\nmonasteries (mathams). And there are still weightier reasons to believe\nthat the priceless Bh\u00e2shyas on the Esoteric Doctrine of the Br\u00e2hmans, by\ntheir greatest expounder, will remain for ages still a dead letter to most\nof the Hind\u00fbs, except the Sm\u00e2rtava Br\u00e2hmans. This sect, founded by\nShankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya, which is still very powerful in Southern India, is now\nalmost the only one to produce students who have preserved sufficient\nknowledge to comprehend the dead letter of the Bh\u00e2shyas. The reason for\nthis, I am informed, is that they alone have occasionally real Initiates\nat their head in their mathams, as for instance, in the Shringa\u2010giri, in\nthe Western Gh\u00e2ts of Mysore. On the other hand, there is no sect, in that\ndesperately exclusive caste of the Br\u00e2hmans, more exclusive than is the\nSm\u00e2rtava; and the reticence of its followers, to say what they may know of\nthe Occult sciences and the Esoteric Doctrine, is only equalled by their\npride and learning.\n\nTherefore the writer of the present statement must be prepared beforehand\nto meet with great opposition, and even the denial of such statements as\nare brought forward in this work. Not that any claim to infallibility, or\nto perfect correctness in every detail of all which is herein written, has\never been put forward. Facts are there, and they can hardly be denied.\nBut, owing to the intrinsic difficulties of the subjects treated of, and\nthe almost insurmountable limitations of the English tongue, as of all\nother European languages, to express certain ideas, it is more than\nprobable that the writer has failed to present the explanations in the\nbest and the clearest form; yet all that could be done, under every\nadverse circumstance, has been done, and this is the utmost that can be\nexpected of any writer.\n\nLet us recapitulate and, by the vastness of the subjects expounded, show\nhow difficult, if not impossible, it is to do them full justice.\n\n(1) The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages, and its\ncosmogony alone is the most stupendous and elaborate of all systems, even\nas veiled in the exotericism of the _Pur\u00e2nas_. But such is the mysterious\npower of Occult symbolism, that the facts which have actually occupied\ncountless generations of initiated seers and prophets to marshal, set down\nand explain, in the bewildering series of evolutionary progress, are all\nrecorded on a few pages of geometrical signs and glyphs. The flashing gaze\nof those seers has penetrated into the very kernel of matter, and recorded\nthe soul of things there, where an ordinary profane observer, however\nlearned, would have perceived but the external work of form. But Modern\nScience believes not in the \u201csoul of things,\u201d and hence will reject the\nwhole system of ancient cosmogony. It is useless to say that the system in\nquestion is no fancy of one or several isolated individuals; that it is an\nuninterrupted record, covering thousands of generations of seers, whose\nrespective experiences were made to test and verify the traditions, passed\non orally by one early race to another, of the teachings of higher and\nexalted Beings, who watched over the childhood of Humanity; that for long\nages, the \u201cWise Men\u201d of the Fifth Race, of the stock saved and rescued\nfrom the last cataclysm and the shifting of continents, passed their lives\n_in learning, not teaching_. How did they do so? It is answered: by\nchecking, testing, and verifying, in every department of Nature, the\ntraditions of old, by the independent visions of great Adepts; that is to\nsay, men who have developed and perfected their physical, mental, psychic,\nand spiritual organizations, to the utmost possible degree. No vision of\none Adept was accepted till it was checked and confirmed by the visions\u2014so\nobtained as to stand as independent evidence\u2014of other Adepts, and by\ncenturies of experience.\n\n(2) The fundamental law in that system, the central point from which all\nemerges, around and towards which all gravitates, and upon which is hung\nall its philosophy, is the One Homogeneous Divine SUBSTANCE\u2010PRINCIPLE, the\nOne Radical Cause.\n\n\n    ... Some few, whose lamps shone brighter, have been led\n    From cause to cause to nature\u2019s secret head,\n    And found that one first Principle must be....\n\n\nIt is called \u201cSubstance\u2010Principle,\u201d for it becomes \u201cSubstance\u201d on the\nplane of the manifested Universe, an Illusion, while it remains a\n\u201cPrinciple\u201d in the beginningless and endless abstract, visible and\ninvisible, SPACE. It is the omnipresent Reality; impersonal, because it\ncontains all and everything. Its _Impersonality_ is the _fundamental\nconception_ of the System. It is latent in every atom in the Universe, and\nis the Universe itself.\n\n(3) The Universe is the periodical manifestation of this unknown Absolute\nEssence. To call it \u201cEssence,\u201d however, is to sin against the very spirit\nof the philosophy. For though the noun may be derived in this case from\nthe verb _esse_, \u201cto be,\u201d yet IT cannot be identified with a \u201cbeing\u201d of\nany kind, that can be conceived by human intellect. IT is best described\nas neither Spirit nor Matter, but both. Parabrahman and M\u00fblaprakriti are\nOne, in reality, yet TWO in the universal conception of the Manifested,\neven in the conception of the One Logos, the first \u201cManifestation,\u201d to\nwhich, as the able lecturer shows, in the \u201cNotes on the _Bhagavadg\u00eet\u00e2_,\u201d\nIT appears from the objective standpoint as M\u00fblaprakriti, and not as\nParabrahman; as its Veil, and not the One Reality hidden behind, which is\nunconditioned and absolute.\n\n(4) The Universe, with everything in it, is called M\u00e2y\u00e2, because all is\ntemporary therein, from the ephemeral life of a fire\u2010fly to that of the\nsun. Compared to the eternal immutability of the ONE, and the\nchangelessness of that Principle, the Universe, with its evanescent ever\u2010\nchanging forms, must be necessarily, in the mind of a philosopher, no\nbetter than a will\u2010o\u2019\u2010the\u2010wisp. Yet, the Universe is real enough to the\nconscious beings in it, which are as unreal as it is itself.\n\n(5) Everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms, is\n_conscious_: _i.e._, endowed with a consciousness of its own kind and on\nits own plane of perception. We men must remember that, simply because\n_we_ do not perceive any signs of consciousness which we can recognize,\nsay, in stones, we have no right to say that _no consciousness exists\nthere_. There is no such thing as either \u201cdead\u201d or \u201cblind\u201d matter, as\nthere is no \u201cblind\u201d or \u201cunconscious\u201d Law. These find no place among the\nconceptions of Occult Philosophy. The latter never stops at surface\nappearances, and for it the noumenal Essences have more reality than their\nobjective counterparts; wherein it resembles the system of the medi\u00e6val\nNominalists, for whom it was the universals that were the realities, and\nthe particulars which existed only in name and human fancy.\n\n(6) The Universe is worked and _guided_, from _within outwards_. As above\nso it is below, as in heaven so on earth; and man, the microcosm and\nminiature copy of the macrocosm, is the living witness to this Universal\nLaw, and to the mode of its action. We see that every _external_ motion,\nact, gesture, whether voluntary or mechanical, organic or mental, is\nproduced and preceded by _internal_ feeling or emotion, will or volition,\nand thought or mind. As no outward motion or change, when normal, in man\u2019s\nexternal body, can take place unless provoked by an inward impulse, given\nthrough one of the three functions named, so with the external or\nmanifested Universe. The whole Kosmos is guided, controlled, and animated\nby almost endless series of Hierarchies of sentient Beings, each having a\nmission to perform, and who\u2014whether we give them one name or another,\nwhether we call them Dhy\u00e2n Chohans or Angels\u2014are \u201cMessengers,\u201d in the\nsense only that they are the agents of Karmic and Cosmic Laws. They vary\ninfinitely in their respective degrees of consciousness and intelligence;\nand to call them all pure Spirits, without any of the earthly alloy \u201cwhich\ntime is wont to prey upon,\u201d is only to indulge in poetical fancy. For each\nof these Beings either _was_, or prepares to become, a man, if not in the\npresent, then in a past or a coming Manvantara. They are _perfected_, when\nnot _incipient_, men; and in their higher, less material, spheres differ\nmorally from terrestrial human beings only in that they are devoid of the\nfeeling of personality, and of the _human_ emotional nature\u2014two purely\nearthly characteristics. The former, or the \u201cperfected,\u201d have become free\nfrom these feelings, because (_a_) they have no longer fleshly bodies\u2014an\never\u2010numbing weight on the Soul; and (_b_), the pure spiritual element\nbeing left untrammelled and more free, they are less influenced by M\u00e2y\u00e2\nthan man can ever be, unless he is an Adept who keeps his two\npersonalities\u2014the spiritual and the physical\u2014entirely separated. The\nincipient Monads, having never yet had terrestrial bodies, can have no\nsense of personality or _Ego_\u2010ism. That which is meant by \u201cpersonality\u201d\nbeing a limitation and a relation, or, as defined by Coleridge,\n\u201cindividuality existing in itself but with a nature as a ground,\u201d the term\ncannot of course be applied to non\u2010human Entities; but, as a fact insisted\nupon by generations of Seers, none of these Beings, high or low, have\neither individuality or personality as separate Entities, _i.e._, they\nhave no individuality in the sense in which a man says, \u201c_I am myself_ and\nno one else\u201d; in other words, they are conscious of no such distinct\nseparateness as men and things have on earth. Individuality is the\ncharacteristic of their respective Hierarchies, not of their units; and\nthese characteristics vary only with the degree of the plane to which\nthese Hierarchies belong: the nearer to the region of Homogeneity and the\nOne Divine, the purer and the less accentuated is that individuality in\nthe Hierarchy. They are finite in all respects, with the exception of\ntheir higher principles\u2014the immortal Sparks reflecting the Universal\nDivine Flame, individualized and separated only on the spheres of\nIllusion, by a differentiation as illusive as the rest. They are \u201cLiving\nOnes,\u201d because they are the streams projected on the cosmic screen of\nIllusion from the Absolute Life; Beings in whom life cannot become\nextinct, before the fire of ignorance is extinct in those who sense these\n\u201cLives.\u201d Having sprung into being under the quickening influence of the\nuncreated Beam, the reflection of the great Central Sun that radiates on\nthe shores of the River of Life, it is the Inner Principle in them which\nbelongs to the Waters of Immortality, while its differentiated clothing is\nas perishable as man\u2019s body. Therefore Young was right in saying that\n\n\n    Angels are men of a superior kind ...\n\n\nand no more. They are neither \u201cministering\u201d nor \u201cprotecting\u201d Angels, nor\nare they \u201cHarbingers of the Most High\u201d; still less the \u201cMessengers of\nWrath\u201d of any God such as man\u2019s fancy has created. To appeal to their\nprotection is as foolish as to believe that their sympathy may be secured\nby any kind of propitiation; for they are, as much as man himself is, the\nslaves and creatures of immutable Karmic and Cosmic Law. The reason for\nthis is evident. Having no elements of personality in their essence, they\ncan have no personal qualities, such as are attributed by men, in exoteric\nreligions, to their anthropomorphic God\u2014a jealous and exclusive God, who\nrejoices and feels wrathful, is pleased with sacrifice, and is more\ndespotic in his vanity than any finite foolish man. Man, being a compound\nof the essences of all these celestial Hierarchies, may succeed in making\nhimself, as such, superior, in one sense, to any Hierarchy or Class, or\neven combination of them. \u201cMan can neither propitiate nor command the\nDevas,\u201d it is said. But, by paralyzing his lower personality, and arriving\nthereby at the full knowledge of the _non\u2010separateness_ of his Higher Self\nfrom the One Absolute SELF, man can, even during his terrestrial life,\nbecome as \u201cone of us.\u201d Thus it is, by eating of the fruit of knowledge,\nwhich dispels ignorance, that man becomes like one of the Elohim, or the\nDhy\u00e2nis; and once on _their_ plane, the spirit of Solidarity and perfect\nHarmony, which reigns in every Hierarchy, must extend over him, and\nprotect him in every particular.\n\nThe chief difficulty which prevents men of Science from believing in\ndivine as well as in nature spirits is their Materialism. The main\nimpediment before the Spiritualist which hinders him from believing in the\nsame, while preserving a blind belief in the \u201cSpirits\u201d of the Departed, is\nthe general ignorance of all\u2014except some Occultists and Kabalists\u2014about\nthe true essence and nature of Matter. It is on the acceptance or\nrejection of the theory of the _Unity of all in Nature, in its ultimate\nEssence_, that mainly rests the belief or unbelief in the existence around\nus of other conscious Beings, besides the Spirits of the Dead. It is on\nthe right comprehension of the primeval Evolution of Spirit\u2010Matter, and\nits real Essence, that the student has to depend for the further\nelucidation in his mind of the Occult Cosmogony, and for the only sure\nclue which can guide his subsequent studies.\n\nIn sober truth, as just shown, every so\u2010called \u201cSpirit\u201d is either a\n_disembodied or a future man_. As from the highest Archangel (Dhy\u00e2n\nChohan) down to the last conscious Builder (the inferior Class of\nSpiritual Entities), all such are _men_, having lived \u00e6ons ago, in other\nManvantaras, on this or other Spheres; so the inferior, semi\u2010intelligent\nand non\u2010intelligent Elementals are all _future_ men. The fact alone, that\na Spirit is endowed with intelligence, is a proof to the Occultist that\nsuch a Being must have been a _man_, and acquired his knowledge and\nintelligence throughout the human cycle. There is but one indivisible and\nabsolute Omniscience and Intelligence in the Universe, and this thrills\nthroughout every atom and infinitesimal point of the whole Kosmos, which\nhas no bounds, and which people call Space, considered independently of\nanything contained in it. But the first differentiation of its\n_reflection_ in the Manifested World is purely spiritual, and the Beings\ngenerated in it are not endowed with a consciousness that has any relation\nto the one we conceive of. They can have no human consciousness or\nintelligence before they have acquired such, personally and individually.\nThis may be a mystery, yet it is a fact in Esoteric Philosophy, and a very\napparent one too.\n\nThe whole order of Nature evinces a progressive march towards a higher\nlife. There is design in the action of the seemingly blindest forces. The\nwhole process of evolution, with its endless adaptations, is a proof of\nthis. The immutable laws that weed out the weak and feeble species, to\nmake room for the strong, and which ensure the \u201csurvival of the fittest,\u201d\nthough so cruel in their immediate action, all are working toward the\ngrand end. The very _fact_ that adaptations _do_ occur, that the fittest\n_do_ survive in the struggle for existence, shows that what is called\n\u201cunconscious Nature\u201d is in reality an aggregate of forces, manipulated by\nsemi\u2010intelligent beings (Elementals), guided by High Planetary Spirits\n(Dhy\u00e2n Chohans), whose collective aggregate forms the Manifested Verbum of\nthe Unmanifested Logos, and constitutes one and the same time the Mind of\nthe Universe and its immutable Law.\n\nFor Nature, taken in its abstract sense, _cannot_ be \u201cunconscious,\u201d as it\nis the emanation from, and thus an aspect on the manifested plane of, the\nAbsolute Consciousness. Where is that daring man who would presume to deny\nto vegetation and even to minerals _a consciousness of their own_? All he\ncan say is, that this consciousness is beyond his comprehension.\n\nThree distinct representations of the Universe, in its three distinct\naspects, are impressed upon our thoughts by the Esoteric Philosophy: the\n_Pre\u2010existing_, evolved from the _Ever\u2010existing_, and the _Phenomenal_\u2014the\nworld of illusion, the reflection, and shadow thereof. During the great\nmystery and drama of life, known as the Manvantara, real Kosmos is like\nthe objects placed behind the white screen upon which shadows are thrown.\nThe actual figures and things remain invisible, while the wires of\nevolution are pulled by unseen hands. Men and things are thus but the\nreflections, _on_ the white field, of the realities _behind_ the snares of\nMah\u00e2m\u00e2y\u00e2, or the Great Illusion. This was taught in every philosophy, in\nevery religion, ante\u2010 as well as post\u2010diluvian, in India and Chaldea, by\nthe Chinese as by the Grecian Sages. In the former countries these three\nUniverses were allegorized, in exoteric teachings, by the three Trinities,\nemanating from the central eternal Germ, and forming with it a Supreme\nUnity: the _initial_, the _manifested_, and the _creative_ Triad, or the\nThree in One. The last is but the symbol, in its concrete expression, of\nthe first _ideal_ two. Hence Esoteric Philosophy passes over the\nnecessarianism of this purely metaphysical conception, and calls the first\none, only, the Ever\u2010Existing. This is the view of every one of the six\ngreat schools of Indian philosophy\u2014the six principles of that unit body of\nWisdom of which the Gn\u00f4sis, the _hidden_ Knowledge, is the seventh.\n\nThe writer hopes that, however superficially the comments on the Seven\nStanzas may have been handled, enough has been given, in this cosmogonic\nportion of the work, to show the archaic teachings to be on their very\nface more _scientific_ (in the modern sense of the word) than any other\nancient Scriptures left to be judged on their exoteric aspect. Since,\nhowever, as before confessed, this work _withholds far more than it gives\nout_, the student is invited to use his own intuitions. Our chief care is\nto elucidate that which has already been given out, and, to our regret,\nvery incorrectly at times; to supplement the knowledge hinted at\u2014whenever\nand wherever possible\u2014by additional matter; and to bulwark our doctrines\nagainst the too strong attacks of modern Sectarianism, and more especially\nagainst those of our latter\u2010day Materialism, very often miscalled Science,\nwhereas, in reality, the words \u201cScientists\u201d and \u201cSciolists\u201d ought alone to\nbear the responsibility for the many illogical theories offered to the\nworld. In its great ignorance, the public, while blindly accepting\neverything that emanates from \u201cauthorities,\u201d and feeling it to be its duty\nto regard every _dictum_ coming from a man of Science as a proven fact\u2014the\npublic, we say, is taught to scoff at anything brought forward from\n\u201cheathen\u201d sources. Therefore, as materialistic Scientists can be fought\nsolely with their own weapons\u2014those of controversy and argument\u2014an\nAddendum is added to each Volume contrasting the respective views, and\nshowing how even great authorities may often err. We believe that this can\nbe done effectually, by showing the weak points of our opponents, and by\nproving their too frequent sophisms, which are made to pass for scientific\n_dicta_, to be incorrect. We hold to Hermes and his \u201cWisdom,\u201d in its\nuniversal character; they\u2014to Aristotle, as against intuition and the\nexperience of the Ages, fancying that Truth is the exclusive property of\nthe Western world. Hence the disagreement. As Hermes says: \u201cKnowledge\ndiffers much from sense; for sense is of things that surmount it, but\nKnowledge is the end of sense\u201d\u2014_i.e._, of the illusion of our physical\nbrain and its intellect; thus emphasizing the contrast between the\nlaboriously acquired knowledge of the senses and Mind (Manas), and the\nintuitive omniscience of the Spiritual Divine Soul (Buddhi).\n\nWhatever may be the destiny of these actual writings in a remote future,\nwe hope to have so far proven the following facts:\n\n(1) The Secret Doctrine teaches no Atheism, except in the sense underlying\nthe Sanskrit word N\u00e2stika, a rejection of idols, including every\nanthropomorphic God. In this sense every Occultist is a N\u00e2stika.\n\n(2) It admits a Logos, or a Collective \u201cCreator\u201d of the Universe; a\nDemiurge, in the sense implied when one speaks of an \u201cArchitect\u201d as the\n\u201cCreator\u201d of an edifice, whereas that Architect has never touched one\nstone of it, but, furnishing the plan, has left all the manual labour to\nthe masons; in our case the plan was furnished by the Ideation of the\nUniverse, and the constructive labour was left to the Hosts of intelligent\nPowers and Forces. But that Demiurge is no _personal_ deity\u2014_i.e._, an\nimperfect _extra\u2010cosmic God_, but only the aggregate of the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans\nand the other Forces.\n\n(3) The Dhy\u00e2n Chohans are dual in their character; being composed of (_a_)\nthe irrational _brute Energy_, inherent in Matter, and (_b_) the\nintelligent Soul, or cosmic Consciousness, which directs and guides that\nEnergy, and which is the _Dhy\u00e2n Chohanic Thought, reflecting the Ideation\nof the Universal Mind_. This results in a perpetual series of physical\nmanifestations and _moral effects_ on Earth, during manvantaric periods,\nthe whole being subservient to Karma. As that process is not always\nperfect; and since, however many proofs it may exhibit of a guiding\nIntelligence behind the veil, it still shows gaps and flaws, and even very\noften results in evident failures\u2014therefore, neither the collective Host\n(Demiurge), nor any of the working Powers individually, are proper\nsubjects for divine honours or worship. All are entitled to the grateful\nreverence of humanity, however, and man ought to be ever striving to help\nthe divine evolution of _Ideas_, by becoming, to the best of his ability,\na _co\u2010worker with Nature_, in the cyclic task. The ever unknowable and\nincognizable K\u00e2rana alone, the Causeless Cause of all causes, should have\nits shrine and altar on the holy and ever untrodden ground of our\nheart\u2014invisible, intangible, unmentioned, save through the \u201cstill small\nvoice\u201d of our spiritual consciousness. Those who worship before it, ought\nto do so in the silence and the sanctified solitude of their Souls; making\ntheir Spirit the sole mediator between them and the Universal Spirit,\ntheir good actions the only priests, and their sinful intentions the only\nvisible and objective sacrificial victims to the _Presence_.\n\n\u201cWhen thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are ... but enter\ninto _thine inner chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father\nwhich is in secret_.\u201d(416) Our Father is _within us_ \u201cin secret,\u201d our\nSeventh Principle in the \u201cinner chamber\u201d of our soul\u2010perception. \u201cThe\nKingdom of God\u201d and of Heaven is _within_ us, says Jesus, not _outside_.\nWhy are Christians so absolutely blind to the self\u2010evident meaning of the\nwords of wisdom they delight in mechanically repeating?\n\n(4) Matter is Eternal. It is the Up\u00e2dhi, or Physical Basis, for the One\nInfinite Universal Mind to build thereon its ideations. Therefore, the\nEsotericists maintain that there is no inorganic or \u201cdead\u201d matter in\nNature, the distinction between the two made by Science being as unfounded\nas it is arbitrary and devoid of reason. Whatever Science may think,\nhowever\u2014and _exact_ Science is a fickle dame, as we all know by\nexperience\u2014Occultism knows and teaches differently, as it has done from\ntime immemorial, from Manu and Hermes down to Paracelsus and his\nsuccessors.\n\nThus, Hermes, the Thrice Great, says:\n\n\n    Oh, my son, matter _becomes_; formerly it _was_; for matter is the\n    vehicle of becoming. Becoming is the mode of activity of the\n    uncreate and foreseeing God. Having been endowed with the germ of\n    becoming, [objective] matter is brought into birth, for the\n    creative force fashions it _according to the ideal forms_. Matter\n    not yet engendered had no form; it becomes, when it is put into\n    operation.(417)\n\n\nTo this the late Dr. Anna Kingsford, the able translator and compiler of\nthe Hermetic Fragments, remarks in a footnote:\n\n\n    Dr. M\u00e9nard observes that in Greek the same word signifies _to be\n    born_ and _to become_. The idea here is, that the material of the\n    world is in its essence eternal, but that before creation or\n    \u201cbecoming\u201d it is in a passive and motionless condition. Thus it\n    \u201cwas\u201d before being put into operation; now it \u201cbecomes,\u201d that is,\n    it is mobile and progressive.\n\n\nAnd she adds the purely Ved\u00e2ntic doctrine of the Hermetic philosophy that:\n\n\n    Creation is thus the period of activity [Manvantara] of God, who,\n    according to Hermetic thought [or _which_, according to the\n    Ved\u00e2ntin], has two modes\u2014Activity or Existence, God evolved (Deus\n    explicitus); and Passivity of Being [Pralaya], God involved (Deus\n    implicitus). Both modes are perfect and complete, as are the\n    waking and sleeping states of man. Fichte, the German philosopher,\n    distinguished Being (Seyn) as One, which we know only through\n    existence (Daseyn) as the Manifold. This view is thoroughly\n    Hermetic. The \u201cIdeal Forms\u201d ... are the archetypal or formative\n    ideas of the Neo\u2010Platonists; the eternal and subjective concepts\n    of things subsisting in the Divine Mind, prior to \u201ccreation\u201d or\n    becoming.\n\n\nOr, as in the philosophy of Paracelsus:\n\n\n    Everything is the product of one universal creative effort....\n    There is nothing _dead_ in Nature. _Everything is organic and\n    living_, and therefore the whole world appears to be a living\n    organism.(418)\n\n\n(5) The Universe was evolved out of its ideal plan, upheld through\nEternity in the Unconsciousness of that which the Ved\u00e2ntins call\nParabrahman. This is practically identical with the conclusions of the\nhighest Western philosophy, \u201cthe innate, eternal, and self\u2010existing Ideas\u201d\nof Plato, now reflected by Von Hartmann. The \u201cUnknowable\u201d of Herbert\nSpencer bears but a faint resemblance to that transcendental Reality\nbelieved in by Occultists, often appearing merely a personification of a\n\u201cforce behind phenomena\u201d\u2014an infinite and eternal Energy, from which all\nthings proceed, whereas the author of the _Philosophy of the Unconscious_\nhas come (in this respect only) as near to a solution of the great Mystery\nas mortal man can. Few have been those, whether in ancient or medi\u00e6val\nphilosophy, who have dared to approach the subject or even hint at it.\nParacelsus mentions it inferentially, and his ideas are admirably\nsynthesized by Dr. F. Hartmann, F.T.S., in his _Paracelsus_, from which we\nhave just quoted.\n\nAll the Christian Kabalists understood well the Eastern root idea. The\nactive Power, the \u201cPerpetual Motion of the great Breath,\u201d only awakens\nCosmos at the dawn of every new Period, setting it into motion by means of\nthe two contrary Forces, the centripetal and the centrifugal Forces, which\nare male and female, positive and negative, physical and spiritual, the\ntwo being the one _Primordial_ Force, and thus causing it to become\nobjective on the plane of Illusion. In other words, that dual motion\ntransfers Cosmos from the plane of the Eternal Ideal into that of finite\nmanifestation, or from the _noumenal_ to the _phenomenal_ plane.\nEverything that _is_, _was_, and _will be_, eternally IS, even the\ncountless Forms, which are finite and perishable only in their objective,\nbut not in their _ideal_ form. They existed as Ideas, in the Eternity,\nand, when they pass away, will exist as reflections. Occultism teaches\nthat no form can be given to anything, either by Nature or by man, whose\nideal type does not already exist on the subjective plane: more than this;\nthat no form or shape can possibly enter man\u2019s consciousness, or evolve in\nhis imagination, which does not exist in prototype, at least as an\napproximation. Neither the form of man, nor that of any animal, plant or\nstone, has ever been \u201ccreated\u201d; and it is only on this plane of ours that\nit commenced \u201cbecoming,\u201d that is to say, objectivizing into its present\nmateriality, or expanding _from within outwards_, from the most sublimated\nand supersensuous essence into its grossest appearance. Therefore _our_\nhuman forms have existed in the Eternity as astral or ethereal prototypes;\naccording to which models, the Spiritual Beings, or Gods, whose duty it\nwas to bring them into objective being and terrestrial life, evolved the\nprotoplasmic forms of the future Egos from _their own_ essence. After\nwhich, when this human Up\u00e2dhi, or basic mould, was ready, the natural\nterrestrial Forces began to work on these supersensuous moulds, _which\ncontained, besides their own, the elements of all the past vegetable and\nfuture animal forms of this Globe_. Therefore, man\u2019s _outward_ shell\npassed through every vegetable and animal body, before it assumed the\nhuman shape. But as this will be fully described in Volume II, in the\nCommentaries, there is no need to say more of it here.\n\nAccording to the Hermetico\u2010Kabalistic philosophy of Paracelsus, it is\nYliaster\u2014the ancestor of the just\u2010born Protyle, introduced by Mr. Crookes\ninto Chemistry\u2014or primordial Protomateria, that evolved out of itself the\nCosmos.\n\n\n    When creation [evolution] took place, the Yliaster divided itself;\n    it, so to say, melted and dissolved, developed out of [from\n    within] itself the Ideos or Chaos (Mysterium Magnum, Iliados,\n    Limbus Major, or Primordial Matter). This Primordial Essence is of\n    a monistic nature, and manifests itself not only as vital\n    activity, a spiritual force, an invisible, incomprehensible, and\n    indescribable power, but also as vital matter of which the\n    substance of living beings consists. In this Limbus or Ideos of\n    primordial matter, ... the only matrix of all created things, the\n    substance of all things is contained. It is described by the\n    ancients as the Chaos ... out of which the Macrocosmos, and\n    afterwards, by division and evolution in Mysteria Specialia,(419)\n    each separate being came into existence. All things and all\n    elementary substances were contained in it _in potenti\u00e2_ but not\n    _in actu_.(420)\n\n\nThis makes the translator, Dr. F. Hartmann, justly observe that \u201cit seems\nthat Paracelsus anticipated the modern discovery of the \u2018potency of\nmatter\u2019 three hundred years ago.\u201d\n\nThe Magnus Limbus, then, or Yliaster, of Paracelsus is simply our old\nfriend \u201cFather\u2010Mother,\u201d _within_, before it appeared in Space. It is the\nUniversal Matrix of Kosmos, personified in the dual character of Macrocosm\nand Microcosm, or the Universe and our Globe,(421) by Aditi\u2010Prakriti,\nspiritual and physical Nature. For we find it explained in Paracelsus\nthat:\n\n\n    The Magnus Limbus is the nursery out of which all creatures have\n    grown, in the same sense as a tree may grow out of a small seed;\n    with the difference, however, that the great Limbus takes its\n    origin from the Word of God, while the Limbus minor (the\n    terrestrial seed or sperm) takes it from the earth. The great\n    Limbus is the seed out of which all beings have come, and the\n    little Limbus is each ultimate being that reproduces its form, and\n    that has itself been produced by the great. The little Limbus\n    possesses all the qualifications of the great one, in the same\n    sense as a son has an organization similar to that of his\n    father.... As ... Yliaster dissolved, Ares, the dividing,\n    differentiating, and individualizing power [Fohat, another old\n    friend] ... began to act. All production took place in consequence\n    of separation. There were produced out of the Ideos the elements\n    of Fire, Water, Air and Earth, whose birth, however, did not take\n    place in a material mode, or by simple separation, but spiritually\n    and dynamically [not even by complex combinations\u2014_e.g._,\n    mechanical mixture as opposed to chemical combination], just as\n    fire may come out of a pebble, or a tree out of a seed, although\n    there is originally no fire in the pebble, nor a tree in the seed.\n    \u201cSpirit is living, and Life is Spirit, and Life and Spirit\n    [Prakriti, Purusha (?)] produce all things, but they are\n    essentially one and not two.\u201d ... The elements, too, have each one\n    its own Yliaster, because all the activity of matter in every form\n    is only an effluvium of the same fountain. But as from the seed\n    grow the roots with their fibres, afterwards the stalk with its\n    branches and leaves, and lastly the flowers and seeds; likewise\n    all beings were born from the elements, and consist of elementary\n    substances out of which other forms may come into existence,\n    bearing the characteristics of their parents.(422) The elements as\n    the mothers of all creatures _are of an __ invisible, spiritual\n    nature, and have souls_.(423) They all spring from the Mysterium\n    Magnum.\n\n\nCompare this with _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_.\n\n\n    From Pradh\u00e2na [Primordial Substance] presided over by Kshetrajna\n    [\u201cembodied spirit\u201d (?)] proceeds the unequal development\n    [Evolution] of those qualities.... From the great principle\n    (Mahat) [Universal] Intellect [or Mind] ... is produced the origin\n    of the subtle elements and of the organs of sense.(424) ...\n\n\nThus it may be shown that all the fundamental truths of Nature were\nuniversal in antiquity, and that the basic ideas upon Spirit, Matter and\nthe Universe, or upon God, Substance and Man, were identical. Taking the\ntwo most ancient religious philosophies on the globe, Hind\u00fbism and\nHermeticism, from the Scriptures of India and Egypt, the identity of the\ntwo is easily recognizable.\n\nThis becomes apparent to one who reads the latest translation and\nrendering of the \u201cHermetic Fragments\u201d just mentioned, by our late lamented\nfriend, Dr. Anna Kingsford. Disfigured and tortured as these have been in\ntheir passage through sectarian Greek and Christian hands, the translator\nhas most ably and intuitionally seized the weak points and tried to remedy\nthem by means of explanations and footnotes. She says:\n\n\n    The creation of the visible world by the \u201cworking gods\u201d or Titans,\n    as agents of the Supreme God,(425) is a thoroughly Hermetic idea,\n    recognizable _in all religious systems_, and in accordance with\n    modern scientific research [?], which shows us everywhere the\n    Divine Power operating through natural Forces.\n\n\nTo quote from the translation:\n\n\n    That Universal Being, that contains all, and which is all, puts\n    into motion the soul and the world, all that nature comprises. In\n    the manifold unity of universal life, the innumerable\n    individualities distinguished by their variations are,\n    nevertheless, united in such a manner that the whole is one, and\n    that everything proceeds from Unity.(426)\n\n\nAnd again from another translation:\n\n\n    God is not a mind, but the cause that the Mind is; _not a spirit_,\n    but the cause that the Spirit is; not light, but the cause that\n    the Light is.(427)\n\n\nThe above shows plainly that the \u201cDivine Pymander,\u201d however much distorted\nin some passages by Christian \u201csmoothing,\u201d was nevertheless written by a\nphilosopher, while most of the so\u2010called \u201cHermetic Fragments\u201d are the\nproduction of sectarian pagans with a tendency towards an anthropomorphic\nSupreme Being. Yet both are the echo of the Esoteric Philosophy and the\nHind\u00fb _Pur\u00e2nas_.\n\nCompare two invocations, one to the Hermetic \u201cSupreme All,\u201d the other to\nthe \u201cSupreme All\u201d of the later \u00c2ryans. Says a Hermetic Fragment cited by\nSuidas:\n\n\n    I adjure thee, Heaven, holy work of the great God; I adjure thee,\n    Voice of the Father, uttered in the beginning when the universal\n    world was framed; I adjure thee by the Word, only Son of the\n    Father Who upholds all things; be favourable, be favourable.(428)\n\n\nThis is preceded by the following:\n\n\n    Thus the Ideal Light was before the Ideal Light, and the luminous\n    Intelligence of Intelligence was always, _and its unity was\n    nothing else than the Spirit enveloping the Universe. Out of Whom\n    [Which] is neither God nor Angels, nor any other essentials_, for\n    He [It] is the Lord of all things and the Power and the Light; and\n    all depends on Him [It] and is in Him [It].\n\n\nA passage contradicted by the very same Trismegistus, who is made to say:\n\n\n    To speak of God is impossible. For the corporeal cannot express\n    the incorporeal.... That which has not any body nor appearance,\n    nor form, nor matter, cannot be apprehended by sense. I\n    understand, Tatios, I understand, that which it is impossible to\n    define\u2014that is God.(429)\n\n\nThe contradiction between the two passages is evident; and this shows\n(_a_) that Hermes was a generic _nom de plume_ used by a series of\ngenerations of Mystics of every shade, and (_b_) that great discernment\nhas to be used before accepting a Fragment as esoteric teaching only\nbecause it is undeniably ancient. Let us now compare the above with a like\ninvocation in the Hind\u00fb Scriptures\u2014undoubtedly as old, if not far older.\nHere it is. Par\u00e2shara, the \u00c2ryan \u201cHermes,\u201d instructs Maitreya, the Indian\nAsclepios, and calls upon Vishnu in his triple hypostasis:\n\n\n    Glory to the unchangeable, holy, eternal, supreme Vishnu, of one\n    universal nature, the mighty over all; to him who is\n    Hiranyagarbha, Hari, and Shankara [Brahm\u00e2, Vishnu, and Shiva], the\n    creator, the preserver, and destroyer of the world; to V\u00e2sudeva,\n    the liberator (of his worshippers); to him whose essence is both\n    single and manifold; who is both subtile and corporeal, indiscrete\n    and discrete; to Vishnu, the cause of final emancipation. Glory to\n    the supreme Vishnu, the cause of the creation, existence, the end\n    of this world; _who is the root of the world_, and who _consists\n    of the world_.(430)\n\n\nThis is a grand invocation, with a deep philosophical meaning underlying\nit; but, for the profane masses, as suggestive as is the Hermetic prayer\nof an anthropomorphic Being. We must respect the feeling that dictated\nboth; but we cannot help finding it in full disharmony with its inner\nmeaning, even with that which is found in the same Hermetic treatise where\nit is said:\n\n\n    _Trismegistus_: Reality is not upon the earth, my son, and it\n    cannot be thereon.... Nothing on earth is real, there are only\n    appearances.... He [man] is not real, my son, as man. The real\n    consists solely in itself and remains what it is.... Man is\n    transient, therefore he is not real, he is but appearance, and\n    appearance is the supreme illusion.\n\n    _Tatios_: Then the celestial bodies themselves are not real, my\n    father, since they also vary?\n\n    _Trismegistus_: That which is subject to birth and to change is\n    not real ... there is in them a certain falsity, seeing that they\n    too are variable....\n\n    _Tatios_: And what then is the primordial Reality, O my Father?\n\n    _Trismegistus_: He Who [That Which] is one and alone, O Tatios; He\n    Who [That Which] is not made of matter, nor in any body. Who\n    [Which] has neither colour nor form, Who [Which] changes not nor\n    is transmitted, but Who [Which] always IS.(431)\n\n\nThis is quite consistent with the Ved\u00e2ntic teaching. The leading thought\nis Occult; and many are the passages in the Hermetic Fragments that belong\nbodily to the Secret Doctrine.\n\nThis Doctrine teaches that the whole Universe is ruled by intelligent and\nsemi\u2010intelligent Forces and Powers, as stated from the very beginning.\nChristian Theology admits and even _enforces_ belief in such, but makes an\narbitrary division and refers to them as \u201cAngels\u201d and \u201cDevils.\u201d Science\ndenies the existence of both, and ridicules the very idea. Spiritualists\nbelieve in the \u201cSpirits of the Dead,\u201d and outside these deny entirely any\nother kind or class of invisible beings. The Occultists and Kabalists are\nthus the only rational expounders of the ancient traditions, which have\nnow culminated in dogmatic faith on the one hand, and dogmatic denial on\nthe other. For both belief and unbelief each embrace but one small corner\nof the infinite horizons of spiritual and physical manifestations: and\nthus both are right from their respective standpoints, yet both are wrong\nin believing that they can circumscribe the whole within their own special\nand narrow barriers, for\u2014they can never do so. In this respect, Science,\nTheology, and even Spiritualism show little more wisdom than the ostrich,\nwhen it hides its head in the sand at its feet, feeling sure that there\ncan be thus nothing beyond its own point of observation and the limited\narea occupied by its foolish head.\n\nAs the only works now extant upon the subject under consideration, within\nreach of the profane of the Western \u201ccivilized\u201d races, are the above\u2010\nmentioned Hermetic Books, or rather Hermetic Fragments, we may contrast\nthem in the present case with the teachings of Esoteric Philosophy. To\nquote for this purpose from any other would be useless, since the public\nknows nothing of the Chaldean works, which are translated into Arabic and\npreserved by some Sufi Initiates. Therefore the \u201cDefinitions of\nAsclepios,\u201d as lately compiled and glossed by Dr. Anna Kingsford, F.T.S.,\nsome of which sayings are in remarkable agreement with the Eastern\nEsoteric Doctrine, have to be resorted to for comparison. Though not a few\npassages bear a strong impression of some later Christian hand, yet on the\nwhole the characteristics of the Genii and Gods are those of Eastern\nteachings, although concerning other things there are passages which\ndiffer widely in our doctrines.\n\nAs to the Genii, the Hermetic philosophers called Theoi (Gods), Genii and\nDaimones, those Entities whom we call Devas (Gods), Dhy\u00e2n Chohans,\nChitkala (the Kwan\u2010Yin, of the Buddhists), and various other names. The\nDaimones are\u2014in the Socratic sense, and even in the Oriental and Latin\ntheological sense\u2014the guardian spirits of the human race; \u201cthose who dwell\nin the neighbourhood of the immortals, and thence watch over human\naffairs,\u201d as Hermes has it. In Esoteric parlance, they are called\nChitkala, some of which are those who have furnished man with his fourth\nand fifth Principles from their own essence, and others the so\u2010called\nPitris. This will be explained when we come to the production of the\n_complete man_. The root of the name is Chit, \u201cthat by which the\nconsequences of acts and species of knowledge are selected for the use of\nthe soul,\u201d or conscience, the _inner voice_ in man. With the Yogins, Chit\nis a synonym of Mahat, the first and divine Intellect; but in Esoteric\nPhilosophy Mahat is the root of Chit, its germ; and Chit is a quality of\nManas in conjunction with Buddhi, a quality that attracts to itself by\nspiritual affinity a Chitkala, when it develops sufficiently in man. This\nis why it is said that Chit is a voice acquiring mystic life and becoming\nKwan\u2010Yin.\n\n\n\nExtracts From An Eastern Private Commentary, Hitherto Secret.(432)\n\n\nxvii. _The Initial Existence, in the first Twilight of the Mah\u00e2manvantara\n[after the Mah\u00e2pralaya that follows every Age of Brahm\u00e2], is a_ CONSCIOUS\nSPIRITUAL QUALITY. _In the Manifested Worlds [Solar Systems], it is, in\nits Objective Subjectivity, like the film from a Divine Breath to the gaze\nof the entranced seer. It spreads as it issues from Laya_(_433_)_\nthroughout Infinity as a colourless spiritual fluid. It is on the Seventh\nPlane, and in its Seventh State, in our Planetary World._(434)\n\nxviii. _It is Substance to_ OUR _spiritual sight. It cannot be called so\nby men in their Waking State; therefore they have named it in their\nignorance __\u201c__God\u2010Spirit.__\u201d_\n\nxix. _It exists everywhere and forms the first Up\u00e2dhi [Foundation] on\nwhich our World [Solar System] is built. Outside the latter, it is to be\nfound in its pristine purity only between [the Solar Systems or] the Stars\nof the Universe, the Worlds already formed or forming; those in Laya\nresting meanwhile in its bosom. As its substance is of a different kind\nfrom that known on Earth, the inhabitants of the latter, seeing_ THROUGH\nIT, _believe in their illusion and ignorance that it is empty space. There\nis not one finger\u2019s breadth [angula] of void Space in the whole Boundless\n[Universe]...._\n\nxx. _Matter or Substance is septenary within our World, as it is so beyond\nit. Moreover, each of its states or principles is graduated into seven\ndegrees of density. S\u00fbrya [the Sun], in its visible reflection, exhibits\nthe first or lowest state of the seventh, the highest state of the\nUniversal_ PRESENCE, _the pure of the pure, the first manifested Breath of\nthe Ever\u2010Unmanifested Sat [Be\u2010ness]. All the central physical or objective\nSuns are in their substance the lowest state of the first principle of the\nBreath. Nor are any of these any more than the Reflections of their\nPrimaries, which are concealed from the gaze of all but the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans,\nwhose corporeal substance belongs to the fifth division of the seventh\nprinciple of the Mother\u2010Substance, and is, therefore, four degrees higher\nthan the solar reflected substance. As there are seven Dh\u00e2tu [principal\nsubstances in the human body], so there are seven Forces in Man and in all\nNature._\n\nxxi. _The real substance of the Concealed [Sun] is nucleus of __ Mother\u2010\nSubstance._(_435_)_ It is the Heart and Matrix of all the living and\nexisting Forces in our Solar Universe. It is the Kernel from which proceed\nto spread on their cyclic journeys all the Powers that set in action the\nAtoms, in their functional duties, and the Focus within which they again\nmeet in their Seventh Essence every eleventh year. He who tells thee he\nhas seen the Sun, laugh at him,_(_436_)_ as if he had said that the Sun\nmoves really onward in his diurnal path...._\n\nxxiii. _It is on account of his septenary nature, that the Sun is spoken\nof by the ancients as one who is driven by seven horses equal to the\nmetres of the Vedas; or, again, that, though he is identified with the\nseven Gana [Classes of Being] in his orb, he is distinct from\nthem,_(_437_)_ as he is, indeed; as also that he has Seven Rays, as indeed\nhe has...._\n\nxxv. _The Seven Beings in the Sun are the Seven Holy Ones, self\u2010born from\nthe inherent power in the Matrix of Mother\u2010Substance. It is they who send\nthe seven principal Forces, called Rays, which at the beginning of Pralaya\nwill centre into seven new Suns for the next Manvantara. The energy, from\nwhich they spring into conscious existence in every Sun, is what some\npeople call Vishnu, which is the Breath of the __ABSOLUTENESS__._\n\n_We call it the One Manifested life\u2014itself a reflection of the\nAbsolute...._\n\nxxvii. _The latter must never be mentioned in words or speech_, LEST IT\nSHOULD TAKE AWAY SOME OF OUR SPIRITUAL ENERGIES _that aspire towards_ ITS\n_state, gravitating ever toward unto_ IT _spiritually, as the whole\nphysical universe gravitates towards_ ITS _manifested centre\u2014cosmically._\n\nxxviii. _The former\u2014the Initial Existence\u2014which may be called, while in\nthis state of being, the_ ONE LIFE, _is, as explained, a Film for creative\nor formative purposes. It manifests in seven states, which, with their\nseptenary sub\u2010divisions, are the Forty\u2010nine Fires mentioned in sacred\nbooks...._\n\nxxix. _The first is the ... __\u201c__Mother__\u201d__ [Prima_ MATERIA]. _Separating\nitself into its primary seven states, it proceeds down cyclically; when\nhaving consolidated itself in its_ LAST _principle, as_ GROSS MATTER,(438)\n_it revolves around itself and informs, with the seventh emanation of the\nlast, the first and the lowest element [the serpent biting its own tail].\nIn a Hierarchy, or Order of Being, the seventh emanation of her last\nprinciple is:_\n\n_(a) In the Mineral, the Spark that lies latent in it, and is called to\nits evanescent being by the Positive awakening the Negative [and so\nforth]...._\n\n_(b) In the Plant, it is that vital and intelligent Force which informs\nthe seed and develops it into the blade of grass, or the root and sapling.\nIt is the germ which becomes the Up\u00e2dhi of the seven principles of the\nthing it resides in, shooting them out as the latter grows and develops._\n\n_(c) In every Animal, it does the same. It is its Life\u2010Principle and vital\npower; its instinct and qualities; its characteristics and special\nidiosyncrasies...._\n\n_(d) To Man, it gives all that it bestows on all the rest of the\nmanifested units in Nature; but develops, furthermore, the reflection of\nall its __\u201c__Forty\u2010nine Fires__\u201d__ in him. Each of his seven principles is\nan heir in full to, and a partaker of, the seven principles of the\n__\u201c__Great Mother.__\u201d__ The breath of her first principle is his Spirit\n[\u00c2tm\u00e2]. Her second principle is Buddhi [Soul]. We call it, erroneously,\nthe seventh. The third furnishes him with the Brain Stuff on the physical\nplane, and with the Mind that moves it [which is the Human Soul._\u2014H. P.\nB.]\u2014_according to his organic capacities._\n\n_(e) It is the guiding Force in the cosmic and terrestrial Elements. It\nresides in the Fire provoked out of its latent into active being; for the\nwhole of the seven sub\u2010divisions of the ... principle reside in the\nterrestrial Fire. It whirls in the breeze, blows with the hurricane, and\nsets the air in motion, which element participates in one of its\nprinciples also. Proceeding cyclically, it regulates the motion of the\nwater, attracts and repels the waves,_(_439_)_ according to fixed laws, of\nwhich its seventh principle is the informing soul._\n\n_(f) Its four higher principles contain the Germ that develops into the\nCosmic Gods; its three lower ones breed the Lives of the Elements\n[Elementals]._\n\n_(g) In our Solar World, the One Existence is Heaven and Earth, the Root\nand the Flower, the Action and the Thought. It is in the Sun, and is as\npresent in the glow\u2010worm. Not an atom can escape it. Therefore, the\nancient Sages have wisely called it the manifested God in Nature...._\n\nIt may be interesting, in this connection, to remind the reader of what T.\nSubba Row said of the Forces\u2014mystically defined.\n\n\n    Kany\u00e2 [the sixth sign of the Zodiac, or Virgo] means a virgin, and\n    represents Shakti or Mah\u00e2m\u00e2y\u00e2. The sign in question is the sixth\n    R\u00e2shi or division, and indicates that there are six primary forces\n    in Nature [synthesized by the Seventh]....\n\n\nThese Shaktis stand as follows:\n\n\n    (1) _Par\u00e2shakti._\u2014Literally the great or supreme force or power.\n    It means and includes _the powers of light and heat_.\n\n    (2) _J\u00f1\u00e2nashakti._\u2014Literally the power of intellect, of real\n    wisdom or knowledge. It has two aspects:\n\n    I. The following are _some_ of its manifestations _when placed\n    under the influence or control of material conditions_. (_a_) The\n    power of the mind in interpreting our sensations. (_b_) Its power\n    in recalling past ideas (memory) and raising future expectation.\n    (_c_) Its power as exhibited in what are called by modern\n    psychologists \u201cthe laws of association,\u201d which enables it to form\n    _persisting_ connections between various groups of sensations and\n    possibilities of sensations, and thus generate the notion or idea\n    of an external object. (_d_) Its power in connecting our ideas\n    together by the mysterious link of memory, and thus generating the\n    notion of self or individuality.\n\n    II. The following are _some_ of its manifestations _when liberated\n    from the bonds of matter_:\n\n    (_a_) Clairvoyance. (_b_) Psychometry.\n\n    (3) _Ichchh\u00e2shakti._\u2014Literally _the power of the will_. Its _most\n    ordinary manifestation_ is the generation of certain nerve\n    currents, which set in motion such muscles as are required for the\n    accomplishment of the desired object.\n\n    (4) _Kriy\u00e2shakti._\u2014The mysterious power of thought which enables\n    it to produce external, perceptible, phenomenal results by its own\n    inherent energy. The ancients held that _any idea will manifest\n    itself externally if one\u2019s attention is deeply concentrated upon\n    it_. Similarly _an intense volition will be followed by the\n    desired result_.\n\n    A Yogi generally performs his wonders by means of Ichchh\u00e2shakti\n    and Kriy\u00e2shakti.\n\n    (5) _Kundalin\u00ee Shakti._\u2014The power or force which moves in a\n    serpentine or curved path. It is the universal life\u2010principle\n    which everywhere manifests in Nature. This force includes the two\n    great forces of attraction and repulsion. Electricity and\n    magnetism are but manifestations of it. This is the power which\n    brings about that \u201ccontinuous adjustment of _internal relations to\n    external relations_,\u201d which is the essence of life according to\n    Herbert Spencer, and that \u201ccontinuous adjustment of _external\n    relations to internal relations_,\u201d which is the basis of\n    transmigration of souls, Punarjanman (Re\u2010birth), in the doctrines\n    of the ancient Hind\u00fb philosophers.\n\n    A Yogi must thoroughly subjugate this power or force, before he\n    can attain Moksha....\n\n    (6) _Mantrik\u00e2shakti._\u2014Literally the force or power of letters,\n    speech or music. The whole of the ancient _Mantra Sh\u00e2stra_ has\n    this force or power in all its manifestations for its subject\n    matter.... The influence of its music is one of its ordinary\n    manifestations. The power of the mirific ineffable name is the\n    crown of this Shakti.\n\n    Modern Science has but partly investigated the first, second and\n    fifth of the forces or powers above named, but is altogether in\n    the dark as regards the remaining powers.... The six forces are in\n    their unity represented by the Astral Light [Daiviprakriti, the\n    seventh, the Light of the Logos].(440)\n\n\nThe above is quoted to show the real Hind\u00fb ideas on the subject. It is all\nesoteric, though not covering the tenth part of _what might be said_. For\none thing, the six names of the six Forces mentioned are those of the six\nHierarchies of Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, synthesized by their Primary, the\nseventh\u2014who personify the Fifth Principle of Cosmic Nature, or of the\n\u201cMother\u201d in its mystical sense. The enumeration alone of the Yoga Powers\nwould require ten volumes. Each of these Forces has a living _Conscious\nEntity_ at its head, of which Entity it is an emanation.\n\nBut let us compare with the Commentary above cited the words of Hermes,\nthe Thrice Great:\n\n\n    The creation of life by the sun is as continuous as his light;\n    nothing arrests or limits it. Around him, like an army of\n    satellites, are innumerable _choirs of Genii_. These dwell in the\n    neighbourhood of the Immortals, and thence watch over human\n    things. They fulfil the will of the Gods [Karma] by means of\n    _storms_, _tempests_, _transitions of fire and earthquakes_;\n    likewise by famines and wars, for the punishment of impiety.(441)\n    ...\n\n    It is the sun who preserves and nourishes all creatures; and, even\n    as the Ideal World, which environs the sensible world, fills this\n    last with the plenitude and universal variety of forms, so also\n    the sun, enfolding all in his light, accomplishes everywhere the\n    birth and development of creatures.... \u201c_Under his orders is the\n    choir of the Genii, or rather the choirs, for there are many and\n    diverse, and their number corresponds to that of the stars. Every\n    star has its Genii, good and evil by nature, or rather by their\n    operation, for operation is the essence of the Genii...._ All\n    these Genii _preside over mundane affairs_,(442) they shake and\n    overthrow the constitution of states and of individuals; they\n    _imprint their likeness on our souls_, they are present in our\n    nerves, our marrow, our veins, our arteries, and _our very brain\u2010\n    substance_.... At the moment when each of us receives life and\n    being, he is taken in charge by the Genii [Elementals] who preside\n    over births,(443) and who are classed beneath the astral powers\n    [superhuman astral Spirits]. Perpetually they change, not always\n    identically, but revolving in circles.(444) They permeate by the\n    body two parts of the soul, that it may receive from each the\n    impress of his own energy. But the reasonable part of the soul is\n    not subject to the Genii; it is designed for the reception of\n    [the] God,(445) who enlightens it with a sunny ray. Those who are\n    thus illumined are few in number, and from them the Genii abstain:\n    for neither Genii nor Gods have any power in the presence of a\n    single ray of God.(446) But all other men, both soul and body, are\n    directed by Genii, to whom they cleave, and whose operations they\n    affect.... The Genii have then the control of mundane things and\n    our bodies serve them as instruments.\u201d(447)\n\n\nThe above, save a few sectarian points, represents that which was a\nuniversal belief, common to all nations, till about a century or so back.\nIt is still as orthodox in its broad outlines and features among Pagans\nand Christians alike, if one excepts a handful of Materialists and men of\nScience.\n\nFor whether one calls the Genii of Hermes and his \u201cGods,\u201d \u201cPowers of\nDarkness\u201d and \u201cAngels,\u201d as in the Greek and Latin Churches; or \u201cSpirits of\nthe Dead,\u201d as in Spiritualism; or, again, Bh\u00fbts and Devas, Shaitan or\nDjin, as they are still called in India and Mussulman countries\u2014_they are\nall one and the same thing_\u2014ILLUSION. Let not this, however, be\nmisunderstood in the sense into which the great philosophical doctrine of\nthe Ved\u00e2ntists has been lately perverted by Western schools.\n\nAll that which _is_, emanates from the ABSOLUTE, which, by reason of this\nqualification alone, stands as the One and Only Reality\u2014hence, everything\nextraneous to this Absolute, the generative and causative Element, _must_\nbe an Illusion, most undeniably. But this is only so from the purely\nmetaphysical view. A man who regards himself as mentally sane, and is so\nregarded by his neighbours, calls the visions of an _insane_\nbrother\u2014hallucinations which make the victim either _happy or supremely\nwretched_, as the case may be\u2014likewise illusions and fancies. But, where\nis that madman for whom the hideous shadows in his deranged mind, his\n_illusions_, are not, for the time being, as actual and as real as the\nthings which his physician or keeper may see? Everything is relative in\nthis Universe, everything is an Illusion. But the experience of any plane\nis an actuality for the percipient being, whose consciousness is on that\nplane, though the said experience, regarded from the purely metaphysical\nstandpoint, may be conceived to have no objective reality. But it is not\nagainst Metaphysicians, but against Physicists and Materialists that\nEsoteric teaching has to fight; and for these latter Vital Force, Light,\nSound, Electricity, even to the objectively drawing force of Magnetism,\nhave no objective being, and are said to exist merely as \u201cmodes of\nmotion,\u201d \u201csensations and _affections_ of matter.\u201d\n\nNeither the Occultists generally, nor the Theosophists, reject, as\nerroneously believed by some, the views and theories of the Modern\nScientists only because these views are opposed to Theosophy. The first\nrule of our Society is to render unto C\u00e6sar what is C\u00e6sar\u2019s. Theosophists,\ntherefore, are the first to recognize the intrinsic value of Science. But\nwhen its high priests resolve consciousness into a secretion from the grey\nmatter of the brain, and everything else in Nature into a mode of motion,\nwe protest against the doctrine as being unphilosophical, self\u2010\ncontradictory, and simply absurd, from a _scientific_ point of view, as\nmuch and even more than from the Occult aspect of the Esoteric Knowledge.\n\nFor truly the Astral Light of the derided Kabalists has strange and weird\nsecrets for him who can see in it; and the mysteries concealed within its\nincessantly disturbed waves _are there_, the whole body of Materialists\nand scoffers notwithstanding.\n\nThe Astral Light of the Kabalists is by some very incorrectly translated\n\u201cEther,\u201d the latter is confused with the hypothetical Ether of Science,\nand both are referred to by some Theosophists as synonymous with \u00c2k\u00e2sha.\nThis is a great mistake.\n\nThe author of _A Rational Refutation_ writes, thus unconsciously helping\nOccultism:\n\n\n    A characterization of \u00c2k\u00e2sha will serve to show how inadequately\n    it is represented by \u201cether.\u201d In dimension it is ... infinite; it\n    is not made up of parts; and colour, taste, smell, and tangibility\n    do not appertain to it. So far forth it corresponds exactly to\n    time, space, \u00ceshvara [the \u201cLord,\u201d but rather creative potency and\n    soul\u2014Anima Mundi] and soul. Its speciality, as compared therewith,\n    consists in its being the _material cause of sound_. Except for\n    its being so, one might take it to be one with vacuity.(448)\n\n\nIt is _vacuity_, no doubt, especially for Rationalists. At any rate \u00c2k\u00e2sha\nis sure to produce vacuity in the brain of a Materialist. Nevertheless,\nthough \u00c2k\u00e2sha is certainly not the Ether of Science\u2014not even the Ether of\nthe Occultist who defines the latter as one of the principles of \u00c2k\u00e2sha\nonly\u2014it is as certainly, together with its primary, the cause of sound, a\npsychical and spiritual, not a material cause by any means. The relations\nof Ether to \u00c2k\u00e2sha may be defined by applying to both \u00c2k\u00e2sha and Ether the\nwords used of the God in the _Vedas_, \u201cSo himself was indeed (his own)\nson,\u201d one being the progeny of the other and yet itself. This may be a\ndifficult riddle to the profane, but very easy to understand for any\nHind\u00fb\u2014even though not a Mystic.\n\nThese secrets of the Astral Light, along with many other mysteries, will\nremain non\u2010existent to the Materialists of our age, in the same way as\nAmerica was a non\u2010existent myth for Europeans during the early part of the\nmedi\u00e6val ages, whereas Scandinavians and Norwegians had actually reached\nand settled in that very old \u201cNew World\u201d several centuries before. But, as\na Columbus was born to re\u2010discover, and to force the Old World to believe\nin antipodal countries, so will there be born Scientists who will discover\nthe marvels now claimed by Occultists to exist in the regions of Ether,\nwith their varied and multiform denizens and conscious Entities. Then,\n_nolens volens_, Science will have to accept the old \u201csuperstition,\u201d as it\nhas several others. And having been once forced to accept it, its learned\nprofessors in all probability\u2014judging from past experience, as in the case\nof Mesmerism and Magnetism, now re\u2010baptized Hypnotism\u2014will father the\nthing and reject the name. The choice of the new appellation will, in its\nturn, depend on the \u201cmodes of motion\u201d\u2014the new name for the older\n\u201cautomatic physical processes among the nerve fibrils of the [scientific]\nbrain\u201d of Moleschott\u2014and also, most likely, upon the last meal of the\nnamer, since, according to the founder of the new Hylo\u2010Idealistic Scheme,\n\u201ccerebration is generically the same as chylification.\u201d(449) Thus, were\none to believe this preposterous proposition, the new name of the archaic\ntruth would have to take its chance on the inspiration of the namer\u2019s\nliver, and then only would these truths have a chance of becoming\nscientific!\n\nBut, TRUTH, however distasteful to the generally blind majority, has\nalways had her champions ready to die for her, and it is not the\nOccultists who will protest against its adoption by Science under whatever\nnew name. But until absolutely forced on the notice and acceptance of\nScientists, many an Occult truth will be tabooed, as the phenomena of the\nSpiritualists and other psychic manifestations were, to be finally\nappropriated by its ex\u2010traducers without the least acknowledgment or\nthanks. Nitrogen has added considerably to chemical knowledge, but its\ndiscoverer, Paracelsus, is to this day called a \u201cquack.\u201d How profoundly\ntrue are the words of H. T. Buckle, in his admirable _History of\nCivilization_, when he says:\n\n\n    Owing to circumstances still unknown [Karmic provision] there\n    appear from time to time great thinkers, who, devoting their lives\n    to a single purpose, are able to anticipate the progress of\n    mankind, and to produce a religion or a philosophy by which\n    important effects are eventually brought about. But if we look\n    into history we shall clearly see that, although the origin of a\n    new opinion may be thus due to a single man, the result which the\n    new opinion produces will depend on the condition of the people\n    among whom it is propagated. If either a religion or a philosophy\n    is too much in advance of a nation, it can do no present service,\n    but must bide its time(450) until the minds of men are ripe for\n    its reception.... Every science, every creed has had its martyrs.\n    _According to the ordinary course of affairs, a few generations\n    pass away, and then there comes a period when these very truths\n    are looked upon as commonplace facts, and a little later there\n    comes another period in which they are declared to be necessary,\n    and even the dullest intellect wonders how they could ever have\n    been denied._(451)\n\n\nIt is barely possible that the minds of the present generations are not\nquite ripe for the reception of Occult truths. Such perchance will be the\nretrospect furnished to the advanced thinkers of the Sixth Root\u2010Race of\nthe history of the acceptance of Esoteric Philosophy\u2014fully and\nunconditionally. Meanwhile the generations of our Fifth Race will continue\nto be led away by prejudice and preconceptions. Occult Sciences will have\nthe finger of scorn pointed at them from every street\u2010corner, and everyone\nwill seek to ridicule and crush them in the name, and for the greater\nglory, of Materialism and its so\u2010called Science. The present Volumes,\nhowever, show, in an anticipatory answer to several of the forthcoming\nScientific objections, the true and mutual positions of the defendant and\nplaintiff. The Theosophists and Occultists stand arraigned by public\nopinion, which still holds high the banner of the inductive Sciences. The\nlatter have, then, to be examined; and it must be shown how far their\nachievements and discoveries in the realm of natural law are opposed, not\nso much to our claims, as to facts in nature. The hour has now struck to\nascertain whether the walls of the modern Jericho are so impregnable, that\nno blast of the Occult trumpet is ever likely to make them crumble.\n\nThe so\u2010called \u201cForces,\u201d with Light and Electricity heading them, and the\nconstitution of the Solar orb must be carefully examined; as also\nGravitation and the Nebular theories. The natures of Ether and of other\nElements must be discussed; thus contrasting Scientific with Occult\nteachings, while revealing some of the hitherto secret tenets of the\nlatter.\n\nSome fifteen years ago, the writer was the first to repeat, after the\nKabalists, the wise Commandments in the Esoteric Catechism.\n\n\n    Close thy mouth, lest thou shouldst speak of _this_ [the mystery],\n    and thy heart, lest thou shouldst think aloud; and if thy heart\n    has escaped thee, bring it back to its place, for such is the\n    object of our alliance.(452)\n\n\nAnd again, from the _Rules of Initiation_.\n\n_This is a secret which gives death: close thy mouth lest thou shouldst\nreveal it to the vulgar; compress thy brain lest something should escape\nfrom it and fall outside._\n\nA few years later, a corner of the Veil of Isis had to be lifted; and now\nanother and a larger rent is made.\n\nBut old and time\u2010honoured errors\u2014such as become with every day more\nglaring and self\u2010evident\u2014stand arrayed in battle\u2010order now, as they did\nthen. Marshalled by blind conservatism, conceit and prejudice, they are\nconstantly on the watch, ready to strangle every truth, which, awakening\nfrom its age\u2010long sleep, happens to knock for admission. Such has been the\ncase ever since man became an animal. That this proves in every case\n_moral death_ to the revealers who bring to light any of these old, old\ntruths, is as certain as that it gives _life_ and _regeneration_ to those\nwho are fit to profit even by the little that is now revealed to them.\n\n\n\n\n\nPART II. THE EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM.\n\n\n\n\nSection I. Symbolism and Ideographs.\n\n\n    Is not a symbol ever, to him who has eyes for it, some dimmer or\n    clearer revelation of the God\u2010like?... Through all ... there\n    glimmers something of a Divine Idea. Nay, the highest ensign that\n    men ever met and embraced under, the cross itself, had no meaning,\n    save an accidental extrinsic one.\n\n    CARLYLE.\n\n\nThe study of the hidden meaning in every religious and profane legend, of\nwhatsoever nation, large or small, and pre\u00ebminently in the traditions of\nthe East, has occupied the greater portion of the present writer\u2019s life.\nShe is one of those who feel convinced that no mythological story, no\ntraditional event in the folk\u2010lore of a people, has ever, at any time,\nbeen pure fiction, but that every one of such narratives has an actual\nhistorical lining to it. In this the writer disagrees with those\nsymbologists, however great their reputation, who find in every myth\nnothing more than additional proof of the superstitious bent of mind of\nthe Ancients, and who believe that all mythologies sprang from, and are\nbuilt upon, _solar myths_. Such superficial thinkers have been admirably\ndisposed of by Mr. Gerald Massey, the poet and Egyptologist, in a lecture\non \u201cLuniolatry, Ancient and Modern.\u201d His pointed criticism is worthy of\nreproduction in this part of our work, as it echoes so well our own\nfeelings, expressed openly so far back as 1875, when _Isis Unveiled_ was\nwritten.\n\n\n    For thirty years past Professor Max M\u00fcller has been teaching in\n    his books and lectures, in the _Times_, _Saturday Review_, and\n    various magazines, from the platform of the Royal Institution, the\n    pulpit of Westminster Abbey, and his chair at Oxford, that\n    mythology is a disease of language, and that the ancient symbolism\n    was a result of something like a primitive mental aberration.\n\n    \u201cWe know,\u201d says Renouf, echoing Max M\u00fcller, in his Hibbert\n    lectures, \u201cWe know that mythology _is_ the disease which springs\n    up at a peculiar stage of human culture.\u201d Such is the shallow\n    explanation of the non\u2010evolutionists, and such explanations are\n    still accepted by the British public, that gets its thinking done\n    for it by proxy. Professor Max M\u00fcller, Cox, Gubernatis, and other\n    propounders of the Solar Mythos, have portrayed the primitive\n    myth\u2010maker for us as a sort of Germanised\u2010Hind\u00fb metaphysician,\n    projecting his own shadow on a mental mist, and talking\n    ingeniously concerning smoke, or, at least, _cloud_; the sky\n    overhead becoming like the dome of dreamland, scribbled over with\n    the imagery of aboriginal nightmares! They conceive the early man\n    in their own likeness, and look upon him as perversely prone to\n    self\u2010mystification, or, as Fontenelle has it, \u201csubject to\n    beholding things that are not there\u201d! They have misrepresented\n    primitive or archaic man as having been idiotically misled from\n    the first by an active but untutored imagination into believing\n    all sorts of fallacies, which were directly and constantly\n    contradicted by his own daily experience; a fool of fancy in the\n    midst of those grim realities that were grinding his experiences\n    into him, like the griding icebergs making their imprints upon the\n    rocks submerged beneath the sea. It remains to be said, and will\n    one day be acknowledged, that these accepted teachers have been no\n    nearer to the beginnings of mythology and language than Burns\u2019s\n    poet Willie had been near to Pegasus. My reply is, \u2019Tis but a\n    dream of the metaphysical theorist that mythology was a disease of\n    language, or of anything else except his own brain. The origin and\n    meaning of mythology have been missed altogether by these\n    solarites and weather\u2010mongers! Mythology was a primitive mode of\n    _thinking_ the early thought. It was founded on natural facts, and\n    is still verifiable in phenomena. There is nothing insane, nothing\n    irrational in it, when considered in the light of evolution, and\n    when its mode of expression by sign\u2010language is thoroughly\n    understood. The insanity lies in mistaking it for human history or\n    Divine Revelation.(453) Mythology is the repository of man\u2019s most\n    ancient science, and what concerns us chiefly is this\u2014when truly\n    interpreted once more, it is destined to be the death of those\n    false theologies to which it has unwittingly given birth!(454)\n\n    In modern phraseology a statement is sometimes said to be mythical\n    in proportion to its being untrue; but the ancient mythology was\n    not a system or mode of falsifying in that sense. Its fables were\n    the means of conveying facts; they were neither forgeries nor\n    fictions.... For example, when the Egyptians portrayed the moon as\n    a _cat_, they were not ignorant enough to suppose that the moon\n    was a cat; nor did their wandering fancies see any likeness in the\n    moon to a cat; nor was a cat\u2010myth any _mere expansion of verbal\n    metaphor_; nor had they any intention of making puzzles or\n    riddles.... They had observed the simple fact that the cat saw in\n    the dark, and that her eyes became full\u2010orbed, and grew most\n    luminous by night. The moon was the seer by night in heaven, and\n    the cat was its equivalent on the earth; and so the familiar cat\n    was adopted as a representative, a natural sign, a living\n    pictograph of the lunar orb.... And so it followed that the sun\n    which saw down in the under\u2010world at night could also be called\n    the cat, as it was, because _it also saw_ in the dark. The name of\n    the cat in Egyptian is _mau_, which denotes the seer, from _mau_,\n    to see. One writer on mythology asserts that the Egyptians\n    \u201cimagined a great cat behind the sun, which is the pupil of the\n    cat\u2019s eye.\u201d But this imagining is all modern. It is the M\u00fcllerite\n    stock in trade. The moon, _as cat, was_ the eye of the sun,\n    _because it reflected the solar light_, and because the eye gives\n    back the image in its mirror. In the form of the goddess Pasht,\n    the cat keeps watch for the sun, with her paw holding down and\n    bruising the head of the serpent of darkness, called his eternal\n    enemy!\n\n\nThis is a very correct exposition of the lunar mythos from its\nastronomical aspect. Selenography, however, is the least esoteric of the\ndivisions of lunar Symbology. To master thoroughly\u2014if one is permitted to\ncoin a new word\u2014Selenognosis, one must become proficient in more than its\nastronomical meaning. The Moon is intimately related to the Earth, as\nshown in the Stanzas, and is more directly concerned with all the\nmysteries of our Globe than is even Venus\u2010Lucifer, the occult sister and\n_alter ego_ of the Earth.(455)\n\nThe untiring researches of Western, especially German, symbologists,\nduring the last and the present centuries, have induced the most\nunprejudiced students, and of course every Occultist, to see that without\nthe help of symbology\u2014with its seven departments, of which the moderns\nknow nothing\u2014no ancient Scripture can ever be correctly understood.\nSymbology must be studied from every one of its aspects, for each nation\nhad its own peculiar methods of expression. In short, no Egyptian papyrus,\nno Indian olla, no Assyrian tile, no Hebrew scroll, should be read and\ninterpreted _literally_.\n\nThis every scholar now knows. The able lectures of Mr. Gerald Massey alone\nare sufficient to convince any fair\u2010minded Christian that to accept the\ndead\u2010letter of the _Bible_ is equivalent to falling into a grosser error\nand superstition than any hitherto evolved by the brain of the savage\nSouth Sea Islander. But the fact to which even the most truth\u2010loving and\ntruth\u2010searching Orientalists\u2014whether \u00c2ryanists or Egyptologists\u2014seem to\nremain blind, is that every symbol on papyrus or olla is a many\u2010faced\ndiamond, each of whose facets not only includes several interpretations,\nbut also relates to several sciences. This is instanced in the just quoted\ninterpretation of the cat symbolizing the moon\u2014an example of sidereo\u2010\nterrestrial imagery; for the moon has with other nations many other\nmeanings besides.\n\nAs a learned Mason and Theosophist, the late Kenneth Mackenzie, has shown\nin his _Royal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia_, there is a great difference between\n_emblem_ and _symbol_. The former \u201ccomprises a larger series of thoughts\nthan a symbol, which may be said rather to illustrate some single special\nidea.\u201d Hence, the symbols\u2014lunar, or solar, for example\u2014of several\ncountries, each illustrating such a special idea, or series of ideas, form\ncollectively an esoteric emblem. The latter is \u201ca concrete visible picture\nor sign representing principles, or a series of principles, _recognizable\nby those who have received certain instructions_ [Initiates].\u201d To put it\nstill plainer, an emblem is usually _a series of graphic pictures_ viewed\nand explained allegorically, and unfolding an idea in panoramic views, one\nafter the other. Thus the _Pur\u00e2nas_ are written emblems. So are the Mosaic\nand Christian _Testaments_, or the _Bible_, and all other exoteric\nScriptures. As the same authority shows:\n\n\n    All esoteric societies have made use of emblems and symbols, such\n    as the Pythagorean Society, the Eleusinia, the Hermetic Brethren\n    of Egypt, the Rosicrucians, and the Freemasons. Many of these\n    emblems it is not proper to divulge to the general eye, and _a\n    very minute difference_ may make the emblem or symbol differ\n    widely in its meaning. The magical sigilla, being founded on\n    certain principles of number, partake of this character, and\n    although monstrous or ridiculous in the eyes of the uninstructed,\n    convey a whole body of doctrine to those who have been trained to\n    recognize them.\n\n\nThe above enumerated societies are all comparatively modern, none dating\nback earlier than the Middle Ages. How much more proper, then, that the\nstudents of the oldest archaic school should be careful not to divulge\nsecrets of far more importance to humanity (as being dangerous in ignorant\nhands) than any of the so\u2010called \u201cMasonic Secrets,\u201d which have now become\nthose of Polichinelle, as the French say! But this restriction can apply\nonly to the psychological or rather psycho\u2010physiological and cosmical\nsignificance of symbol and emblem, and even to that only partially. For\nthough an Adept is compelled to refuse to impart the conditions and means\nthat lead to any correlation of Elements\u2014whether psychic or physical\u2014which\nmay produce harmful as well as beneficent results; yet he is ever ready to\nimpart to the earnest student the secret of the ancient thought, in\nanything that has respect to history concealed under mythological\nsymbolism, and thus to furnish a few more land\u2010marks for a retrospective\nview of the past, in so far as it furnishes useful information with regard\nto the origin of man, the evolution of the Races and geognosy. And yet it\nis the crying complaint to\u2010day, not only among Theosophists, but also\namong the few profane interested in the subject: Why do not the Adepts\nreveal that which they know? To this, one might answer: Why should they,\nsince one knows beforehand that no man of Science will accept it, even as\na hypothesis, much less as a theory or axiom. Have you so much as accepted\nor believed in the A B C of the Occult Philosophy contained in the\n_Theosophist_, _Esoteric Buddhism_, and other works and periodicals? Has\nnot even the little which has been given, been ridiculed and derided, and\nmade to face the \u201canimal\u2010\u201d and \u201cape\u2010theory\u201d of Huxley and H\u00e6ckel, on the\none hand, and the rib of Adam and the apple on the other? Notwithstanding\nsuch an unenviable prospect, however, a mass of facts is given in the\npresent work, and the origin of man, the evolution of the Globe and the\nRaces, human and animal, are as fully treated as the writer is able to\ntreat them.\n\nThe proofs brought forward in corroboration of the old teachings are\nscattered widely throughout the old scriptures of ancient civilizations.\nThe _Pur\u00e2nas_, the _Zend Avesta_, and the old classics, are full of such\nfacts; but no one has ever taken the trouble of collecting and collating\nthem together. The reason for this is that all such events were recorded\nsymbolically; and that the best scholars, the most acute minds, among our\n\u00c2ryanists and Egyptologists, have been too often darkened by one or\nanother preconception, and still oftener, by one\u2010sided views of the secret\nmeaning. Yet even a parable is a spoken symbol: a fiction or a fable, as\nsome think; an allegorical representation, we say, of life\u2010realities,\nevents, and facts. And just as a moral was ever drawn from a parable, such\nmoral being an actual truth and fact in human life, so a historical, real\nevent was deduced, by those versed in the hieratic sciences, from emblems\nand symbols recorded in the ancient archives of the temples. The religious\nand esoteric history of every nation was embedded in symbols; it was never\nexpressed literally in so many words. All the thoughts and emotions, all\nthe learning and knowledge, revealed and acquired, of the early Races,\nfound their pictorial expression in allegory and parable. Why? Because\n_the spoken word has a potency not only unknown to, but even unsuspected\nand naturally disbelieved in_, by the modern \u201csages.\u201d Because sound and\nrhythm are closely related to the four Elements of the Ancients; and\nbecause such or another vibration in the air is sure to awaken the\ncorresponding Powers, union with which produces good or bad results, as\nthe case may be. No student was ever allowed to recite historical,\nreligious, or real events of any kind, in so many unmistakable words, lest\nthe Powers connected with the event should be once more attracted. Such\nevents were narrated only during Initiation, and every student had to\nrecord them in corresponding symbols, drawn out of his own mind and\nexamined later by his Master, before they were finally accepted. Thus by\ndegrees was the Chinese Alphabet created, as just before it the hieratic\nsymbols were fixed upon in old Egypt. In the Chinese language, the\ncharacters of which may be read in any language, and which, as just said,\nis only a little less ancient than the Egyptian alphabet of Thoth, every\nword has its corresponding symbol in a pictorial form. This language\npossesses many thousands of such symbol\u2010letters, or logograms, each\nconveying the meaning of a whole word; for letters proper, or an alphabet\nas we understand it, do not exist in the Chinese language, any more than\nthey did in the Egyptian, till a far later period.\n\nThus a Japanese who does not understand one word of Chinese, meeting with\na Chinaman who has never heard the language of the former, will\ncommunicate in writing with him, and they will understand each other\nperfectly\u2014because their writing is symbolical.\n\nThe explanation of the chief symbols and emblems is now attempted, as Book\nII, which treats of Anthropogenesis, would be most difficult to understand\nwithout a preparatory acquaintance with at least the metaphysical symbols.\n\nNor would it be just to enter upon an esoteric reading of symbolism,\nwithout giving due honour to one who has rendered it the greatest service\nin this century, by discovering the chief key to ancient Hebrew symbology,\nstrongly interwoven with metrology, one of the keys to the once universal\nMystery Language. Mr. Ralston Skinner, of Cincinnati, the author of _The\nKey to the Hebrew\u2010Egyptian Mystery in the Source of Measures_, has our\nthanks. A Mystic and a Kabalist by nature, he has laboured for many years\nin this direction, and his efforts have certainly been crowned with great\nsuccess. In his own words:\n\n\n    The writer is quite certain that there was an ancient language\n    which modernly and up to this time appears to have been lost, the\n    vestiges of which, however, abundantly exist.... The author\n    discovered that this geometrical ratio [the integral ratio of the\n    diameter to the circumference of a circle] was the very ancient,\n    and probably the divine origin of ... linear measures.... It\n    appears almost proven that the same system of geometry, numbers,\n    ratio, and measures was known and made use of on the continent of\n    North America, even prior to the knowledge of the same by the\n    descending Semites....\n\n    The peculiarity of this language was that it could be contained in\n    another, concealed and not to be perceived, save through the help\n    of special instruction; letters and syllabic signs possessing at\n    the same time the powers or meanings of numbers, of geometrical\n    shapes, pictures, or ideographs and symbols, the designed scope of\n    which would be determinatively helped out by parables in the shape\n    of narratives or parts of narratives; while also it could be set\n    forth separately, independently, and variously, by pictures, in\n    stone work, or in earth constructions.\n\n    To clear up an ambiguity as to the term language: Primarily the\n    word means the expression of ideas by human speech; but,\n    secondarily, it may mean the expression of ideas by any other\n    instrumentality. This old language is so composed in the Hebrew\n    text, that by the use of the written characters, which uttered\n    shall be the language first defined, a distinctly separated series\n    of ideas may be intentionally communicated, other than those ideas\n    expressed by the reading of the sound\u2010signs. This secondary\n    language sets forth, under a veil, series of ideas, copies in\n    imagination of things sensible, which may be pictured, and of\n    things which may be classed as real without being sensible: as,\n    for instance, the number 9 may be taken as a reality, though it\n    has no sensible existence, so also a revolution of the moon, as\n    separated from the moon itself by which that revolution has been\n    made, may be taken as giving rise to, or causing a real idea,\n    though such a revolution has no substance. This idea\u2010language may\n    consist of symbols restricted to arbitrary terms and signs, having\n    a very limited range of conceptions, and quite valueless, or it\n    may be a reading of nature in some of her manifestations of a\n    value almost immeasurable, as regards human civilization. A\n    picture of something natural may give rise to ideas of\n    co\u00f6rdinating subjects, radiating out in various and even opposing\n    directions, like the spokes of a wheel, and producing natural\n    realities in departments very foreign to the apparent tendency of\n    the reading of the first or starting picture. Notion may give rise\n    to connected notion, but if it does, then, however apparently\n    incongruous, all resulting ideas must spring from the original\n    picture and be harmonically connected, or related the one with the\n    other. Thus with a pictured idea radical enough, the imagination\n    of the cosmos itself, even in its details of construction, might\n    result. Such a use of ordinary language is now obsolete, but it\n    has become a question with the writer whether at one time, far\n    back in the past, it, or such, was not the language of the world\n    and of universal use, possessed, however, as it became more and\n    more moulded into its arcane forms, by a select class or caste. By\n    this I mean that the popular tongue or vernacular commenced even\n    in its origin to be made use of as the vehicle of this peculiar\n    mode of conveying ideas. Of this the evidences are very strong;\n    and, indeed, it would seem that in the history of the human race\n    there happened, from causes which at present, at any rate, we\n    cannot trace, a lapse or loss from an original perfect language\n    and a perfect system of science\u2014shall we say perfect because they\n    were of divine origin and importation?(456)\n\n\n\u201cDivine origin\u201d does not here mean a revelation from an anthropomorphic\nGod on a mount amidst thunder and lightning; but, as we understand it, a\nlanguage and a system of science imparted to early mankind by a more\nadvanced mankind, so much higher as to be _divine_ in the sight of that\ninfant humanity: by a \u201cmankind,\u201d in short, from other spheres; an idea\nwhich contains nothing supernatural in it, but the acceptance or rejection\nof which depends upon the degree of conceit and arrogance in the mind of\nhim to whom it is stated. For, if the professors of modern knowledge would\nonly confess that, though they know nothing of the future of the\ndisembodied man\u2014or rather will accept nothing\u2014yet this future may be\npregnant with surprises and unexpected revelations to them, once their\nEgos are rid of their gross bodies\u2014then materialistic unbelief would have\nfewer chances than it has. Who of them knows, or can tell, what may happen\nwhen once the Life\u2010Cycle of this Globe is run down, and our mother Earth\nherself falls into her last sleep? Who is bold enough to say that the\n_divine_ Egos of our mankind\u2014at least the elect out of the multitudes\npassing on to other spheres\u2014will not become in their turn the \u201cdivine\u201d\ninstructors of a new mankind generated by them on a new Globe, called to\nlife and activity by the disembodied \u201cprinciples\u201d of our Earth? All this\nmay have been the experience of the Past, and these strange records lie\nembedded in the \u201cMystery Language\u201d of the pre\u2010historic ages, the language\nnow called SYMBOLISM.\n\n\n\n\nSection II. The Mystery Language and Its Keys.\n\n\nRecent discoveries made by great mathematicians and Kabalists thus prove,\nbeyond a shadow of doubt, that every theology, from the earliest down to\nthe latest, has sprung, not only from a common source of abstract beliefs,\nbut from one universal Esoteric, or Mystery, Language. These scholars hold\nthe key to the universal language of old, and have turned it successfully,\nthough only _once_, in the hermetically closed door leading to the Hall of\nMysteries. The great archaic system known from prehistoric ages as the\nsacred Wisdom\u2010Science, one that is contained and can be traced in every\nold as well as in every new religion, had, and still has, its universal\nlanguage\u2014suspected by the Mason Ragon\u2014the language of the Hierophants,\nwhich has seven \u201cdialects,\u201d so to speak, each referring, and being\nspecially appropriate, to one of the seven mysteries of Nature. Each had\nits own symbolism. Nature could thus be either read in its fulness, or\nviewed from one of its special aspects.\n\nThe proof of this lies, to this day, in the extreme difficulty which the\nOrientalists in general, and the Indianists and Egyptologists in\nparticular, experience in interpreting the allegorical writings of the\n\u00c2ryans and the hieratic records of old Egypt. This is because they will\nnever remember that all the ancient records were written in a language\nwhich was universal and known to all nations alike in days of old, but\nwhich is now intelligible only to the few. Like the Arabic figures which\nare understandable to men of every nation, or like the English word _and_,\nwhich becomes _et_ for the Frenchman, _und_ for the German, and so on, yet\nwhich may be expressed for all civilized nations in the simple sign &\u2014so\nall the words of that Mystery Language signified the same thing to each\nman, of whatever nationality. There have been several men of note who have\ntried to re\u00ebstablish such a universal and _philosophical_ tongue,\nDelgarme, Wilkins, Leibnitz; but Demaimieux, in his _Pasigraphie_, is the\nonly one who has proven its possibility. The scheme of Valentinius, called\nthe \u201cGreek Kabalah,\u201d based on the combination of Greek letters, might\nserve as a model.\n\nThe many\u2010sided facets of the Mystery Language have led to the adoption of\nwidely varied dogmas and rites in the exotericism of the Church rituals.\nIt is these, again, which are at the origin of most of the dogmas of the\nChristian Church; for instance, the seven Sacraments, the Trinity, the\nResurrection, the seven Capital Sins and the seven Virtues. The Seven Keys\nto the Mystery Tongue, however, having always been in the keeping of the\nhighest among the initiated Hierophants of antiquity; it is only the\npartial use of a few out of the seven which passed, through the treason of\nsome early Church Fathers\u2014ex\u2010Initiates of the Temples\u2014into the hands of\nthe new sect of the Nazarenes. Some of the early Popes were Initiates, but\nthe last fragments of their knowledge have now fallen into the power of\nthe Jesuits, who have turned them into a system of sorcery.\n\nIt is maintained that _India_\u2014not confined to its present limits, but\nincluding its ancient boundaries\u2014is the only country in the world which\nstill has among her sons Adepts, who have the knowledge of all the seven\nsub\u2010systems and the key to the entire system. From the fall of Memphis,\nEgypt began to lose these keys one by one, and Chald\u00e6a had preserved only\nthree in the days of Berosus. As for the Hebrews, in all their writings\nthey show no more than a thorough knowledge of the astronomical,\ngeometrical and numerical systems of symbolizing the human, and especially\nthe physiological functions. They never had the higher keys.\n\nM. Gaston Maspero, the great French Egyptologist and the successor of\nMariette Bey, writes:\n\n\n    Every time I hear people talking of the religion of Egypt, I am\n    tempted to ask _which_ of the Egyptian religions they are talking\n    about? Is it of the Egyptian religion of the fourth dynasty, or of\n    the Egyptian religion of the Ptolemaic period? Is it of the\n    religion of the rabble, or of that of the learned? Of the religion\n    such as was taught in the schools of Heliopolis, or of that which\n    was in the minds and conceptions of the Theban sacerdotal class?\n    For, between the first Memphite tomb, which bears the _cartouche_\n    of a king of the third dynasty, and the last stones engraved at\n    Esneh under C\u00e6sar Philippus, the Arabian, there is an interval of\n    at least five thousand years. Leaving aside the invasion of the\n    Shepherds, the Ethiopian and Assyrian dominions, the Persian\n    conquest, Greek colonization, and the thousand revolutions of its\n    political life, Egypt had passed during those five thousand years\n    through many vicissitudes of life, moral and intellectual. Chapter\n    XVII of the _Book of the Dead_, which seems to contain the\n    exposition of the system of the world, as it was understood at\n    Heliopolis during the time of the first dynasties, is known to us\n    by a few copies of the eleventh and twelfth dynasties. Every one\n    of the verses composing it was already interpreted in three or\n    four different ways; so different, indeed, that according to this\n    or another school, the Demiurge became either the solar fire\u2014Ra\u2010\n    shoo, or the primordial water. Fifteen centuries later, the number\n    of readings had increased considerably. Time, in its course, had\n    modified their ideas about the universe and the forces that ruled\n    it. In the short eighteen centuries that Christianity has existed,\n    it has worked up, developed and transformed most of its dogmas;\n    how many times, then, might not the Egyptian priesthood have\n    altered their dogmas during those fifty centuries that separate\n    Theodosius from the King Builders of the Pyramids.(457)\n\n\nHere we believe the eminent Egyptologist is going too far. The exoteric\ndogmas may often have been altered, the esoteric never. He does not take\ninto account the sacred immutability of the primitive truths, revealed\nonly during the mysteries of Initiation. The Egyptian priests _had\nforgotten much, they altered nothing_. The loss of a great part of the\nprimitive teaching was due to the sudden deaths of the great Hierophants,\nwho passed away before they had time to reveal _all_ to their successors,\nmostly in the absence of worthy heirs to the knowledge. Yet they have\npreserved in their rituals and dogmas the principal teachings of the\nSecret Doctrine.\n\nThus, in the Chapter of the _Book of the Dead_, mentioned by Maspero, we\nfind (1) Osiris saying he is Toom\u2014the creative force in Nature, giving\nform to all beings, spirits and men, self\u2010generated and self\u2010\nexistent\u2014issued from Noon, the celestial river, called Father\u2010Mother of\nthe Gods, the primordial deity, which is Chaos or the Deep, impregnated by\nthe unseen Spirit. (2) He has found Shoo, the solar force, on the Stairway\nin the City of the Eight (the two squares of Good and Evil), and he has\nannihilated the Children of Rebellion, the evil principles in Noon\n(Chaos). (3) He is the Fire and Water, Noon the Primordial Parent, and he\ncreated the Gods out of his Limbs\u2014fourteen Gods (twice seven), seven dark\nand seven light Gods\u2014the seven Spirits of the Presence of the Christians,\nand the seven dark Evil Spirits.\n\n(4) He is the Law of Existence and Being, the Bennoo, or Ph\u0153nix, the Bird\nof Resurrection in Eternity, in whom Night follows Day, and Day Night\u2014an\nallusion to the periodical cycles of cosmic resurrection and human\nre\u00efncarnation. For what else can this mean? \u201cThe Wayfarer who crosses\nmillions of years is the name of one, and the Great Green [Primordial\nWater or Chaos] the name of the other,\u201d one begetting millions of years in\nsuccession, the other engulfing them, to restore them back. (5) He speaks\nof the Seven Luminous Ones who follow their Lord, Osiris, who confers\njustice, in Amenti.\n\nAll this is now shown to have been the source and origin of Christian\ndogmas. That which the Jews had from Egypt, through Moses and other\nInitiates, was confused and distorted enough in later days; but that which\nthe Church got from both, is still more misinterpreted.\n\nYet the system of the former, in this special department of symbology\u2014the\nkey, namely, to the mysteries of astronomy as connected with those of\ngeneration and conception\u2014is now proven identical with those ideas in\nancient religions which have developed the phallic element of theology.\nThe Jewish system of sacred measures, applied to religious symbols, is the\nsame, so far as geometrical and numerical combinations go, as those of\nGreece, Chald\u00e6a and Egypt, for it was adopted by the Israelites during the\ncenturies of their slavery and captivity among the two latter\nnations.(458) What was this system? It is the intimate conviction of the\nauthor of _The Source of Measures_ that: \u201cthe Mosaic Books were intended,\nby a mode of art\u2010speech, to set forth a geometrical and numerical system\nof exact science, which should serve as an origin of measures.\u201d Piazzi\nSmyth believes similarly. This system and these measures are found by some\nscholars to be identical with those used in the construction of the Great\nPyramid: but this is only partially so. \u201cThe foundation of these measures\nwas the Parker ratio,\u201d says Ralston Skinner, in _The Source of Measures_.\n\nThe author of this very extraordinary work has discovered it, he says, in\nthe use of the integral ratio of the diameter to the circumference of a\ncircle, discovered by John A. Parker, of New York. This ratio is 6561 for\ndiameter, and 20612 for circumference. Furthermore, that this geometrical\nratio was the very ancient and probably the divine origin of what have now\nbecome, through exoteric handling and practical application, the British\nlinear measures, \u201cthe underlying unit of which, viz., the _inch_, was\nlikewise the base of one of the royal Egyptian _cubits_, and of the Roman\n_foot_.\u201d\n\n\n    He also discovered that there was a modified form of the ratio,\n    viz., 113 to 355; and that while this last ratio pointed through\n    its origin to the exact integral _pi_, or to 6561 to 20612, it\n    also served as a base for astronomical calculations. The author\n    discovered that a system of _exact science_, geometrical,\n    numerical, and astronomical, founded on these ratios, and to be\n    seen in use in the construction of the Great Egyptian Pyramid, was\n    in part the burden of this _language_, as contained in, and\n    concealed under, the verbiage of the Hebrew text of the Bible. The\n    _inch_ and the two\u2010foot rule of 24 inches, interpreted for use\n    through the elements of the circle and the ratios mentioned, were\n    found to be at the basis or foundation of this natural, and\n    Egyptian, and Hebrew system of science; while, moreover, it seems\n    evident enough that the system itself was looked upon as of divine\n    origin, and of divine revelation.\n\n\nBut let us see what is said by the opponents of Prof. Piazzi Smyth\u2019s\nmeasurements of the Pyramid.\n\nMr. Petrie seems to deny them, and to have made short work altogether of\nPiazzi Smyth\u2019s calculations in their Biblical connection. So does Mr.\nProctor, the champion \u201cCoincidentalist\u201d for many years past in every\nquestion of ancient arts and sciences. Speaking of \u201cthe multitude of\nrelations independent of the Pyramid, which have turned up while the\nPyramidalists have been endeavouring to connect the Pyramid with the solar\nsystem,\u201d he says:\n\n\n    These coincidences [which \u201cwould still remain if the Pyramid had\n    no existence,\u201d] are altogether more curious than any coincidence\n    between the Pyramid and astronomical numbers: the former are as\n    close and remarkable as they are real; the latter, which are only\n    _imaginary_ (?), have only been established by the process which\n    schoolboys call \u201cfudging,\u201d and now new measures have left the work\n    to be done all over again.(459)\n\n\nOn this Mr. C. Staniland Wake justly observes:\n\n\n    They must, however, have been more than _mere coincidences_, if\n    the builders of the Pyramid had the astronomical knowledge\n    displayed in its perfect orientation and in its other admitted\n    astronomical features.(460)\n\n\nThey had it assuredly; and it is on this \u201cknowledge\u201d that the programme of\nthe Mysteries and of the series of Initiations was based: hence, the\nconstruction of the Pyramid, the everlasting record and the indestructible\nsymbol of these Mysteries and Initiations on Earth, as the courses of the\nstars are in Heaven. The cycle of Initiation was a reproduction in\nminiature of that great series of cosmic changes to which astronomers have\ngiven the name of the Tropical or Sidereal Year. Just as, at the close of\nthe cycle of the Sidereal Year (25,868 years), the heavenly bodies return\nto the same relative positions as they occupied at its outset, so at the\nclose of the cycle of Initiation the Inner Man has regained the pristine\nstate of divine purity and knowledge from which he set out on his cycle of\nterrestrial incarnation.\n\nMoses, an Initiate into the Egyptian Mystagogy, based the religious\nmysteries of the new nation which he created, upon the same abstract\nformul\u00e6 derived from this Sidereal Cycle, symbolized by the form and\nmeasurements of the Tabernacle, which he is supposed to have constructed\nin the Wilderness. On these data, the later Jewish High Priests\nconstructed the allegory of Solomon\u2019s Temple\u2014a building which never had a\nreal existence, any more than had King Solomon himself, who is as much a\nsolar myth as is the still later Hiram Abif of the Masons, as Ragon has\nwell demonstrated. Thus, if the measurements of this allegorical Temple,\nthe symbol of the cycle of Initiation, coincide with those of the Great\nPyramid, it is due to the fact that the former were derived from the\nlatter through the Tabernacle of Moses.\n\nThat our author has undeniably discovered _one_ and even _two_ of the\n_keys_, is fully demonstrated in the work just quoted. One has only to\nread it, to feel a growing conviction that the hidden meaning of the\nallegories and parables of both _Testaments_ is now unveiled. But that he\nowes this discovery far more to his own genius than to Parker and Piazzi\nSmyth, is also as certain, if not more so. For, as just shown, it is not\nso certain whether the measures of the Great Pyramid adopted by the\nBiblical Pyramidalists are beyond suspicion. A proof of this is to be\nfound in the work called _The Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh_, by Mr. F.\nPetrie, and also in other works written quite recently to oppose the said\ncalculations, which their authors call \u201cbiassed.\u201d We gather that nearly\nevery one of Piazzi Smyth\u2019s measurements differs from the later and more\ncarefully made measurements of Mr. Petrie, who concludes the Introduction\nto his work with this sentence:\n\n\n    As to the results of the whole investigation, perhaps many\n    theorists will agree with an American who was a warm believer in\n    Pyramid theories when he came to Gizeh. I had the pleasure of his\n    company there for a couple of days, and at our last meal together\n    he said to me in a saddened way: \u201cWell, sir! I feel as if I had\n    been to a funeral. By all means let the old theories have a decent\n    burial, though we should take care that in our haste none of the\n    wounded ones are buried alive.\u201d\n\n\nAs regards the late J. A. Parker\u2019s calculation in general, and his third\nproposition especially, we have consulted some eminent mathematicians, and\nthis is the substance of what they say:\n\nParker\u2019s reasoning rests on sentimental, rather than on mathematical,\nconsiderations, and is logically inconclusive.\n\nProposition III, namely, that:\n\n\n    The circle is the natural basis or beginning of all area, and the\n    square being made so in mathematical science, is artificial and\n    arbitrary.\n\n\n\u2014is an illustration of an arbitrary proposition, and cannot safely be\nrelied upon in mathematical reasoning. The same observation applies, even\nmore strongly, to Proposition VII, which states that:\n\n\n    Because the circle is the primary shape in nature, and hence the\n    basis of area; and because the circle is measured by, and is equal\n    to the square only in ratio of half its circumference by the\n    radius, therefore, circumference and radius, and not the square of\n    diameter, are the only natural and legitimate elements of area, by\n    which all regular shapes are made equal to the square, and equal\n    to the circle.\n\n\nProposition IX is a remarkable example of faulty reasoning, though it is\nthe one on which Mr. Parker\u2019s Quadrature mainly rests. It states that:\n\n\n    The circle and the equilateral triangle are opposite to one\n    another in all the elements of their construction, and hence the\n    fractional diameter of one circle, which is equal to the diameter\n    of one square, is in the opposite duplicate ratio to the diameter\n    of an equilateral triangle whose area is one, etc., etc.\n\n\nGranting, for the sake of argument, that a triangle can be said to have a\nradius, in the sense in which we speak of the radius of a circle\u2014for what\nParker calls the radius of the triangle, is the radius of a circle\ninscribed in a triangle, and therefore not the radius of the triangle at\nall\u2014and granting for the moment the other fanciful and mathematical\npropositions united in his premisses, why must we conclude that, if the\nequilateral triangle and circle are opposite in all the elements of their\nconstruction, the diameter of any defined circle is in the opposite\nduplicate ratio of the diameter of any given equivalent triangle? What\nnecessary connection is there between the premisses and the conclusion?\nThe reasoning is of a kind not known in geometry, and would not be\naccepted by strict mathematicians.\n\nWhether the archaic Esoteric system originated the British inch or not, is\nof little consequence, however, to the strict and true metaphysician. Nor\ndoes Mr. Ralston Skinner\u2019s esoteric reading of the _Bible_ become\nincorrect, merely because the measurements of the Pyramid may not be found\nto agree with those of Solomon\u2019s Temple, the Ark of Noah, etc., or because\nMr. Parker\u2019s Quadrature of the Circle is rejected by mathematicians. For\nMr. Skinner\u2019s reading depends primarily on the Kabalistic methods and the\nRabbinical value of the Hebrew letters. But it is extremely important to\nascertain whether the measures used in the evolution of the symbolic\nreligion of the \u00c2ryans, in the construction of their temples, in the\nfigures given in the _Pur\u00e2nas_, and especially in their chronology, their\nastronomical symbols, the duration of the cycles, and other computations,\nwere, or were not, the same as those used in the Biblical measurements and\nglyphs. For this will prove that the Jews, unless they took their sacred\ncubit and measurements from the Egyptians\u2014Moses being an Initiate of their\nPriests\u2014must have got those notions from India. At any rate they passed\nthem on to the early Christians. Hence, it is the Occultists and Kabalists\nwho are the true heirs to the Knowledge, or the Secret Wisdom, which is\nstill found in the _Bible_; for they alone now understand its real\nmeaning, whereas profane Jews and Christians cling to the husks and dead\nletter thereof. That it was this system of measures which led to the\ninvention of the God\u2010names Elohim and Jehovah, and to their adaptation to\nPhallicism, and that Jehovah is a not very flattering copy of Osiris, is\nnow demonstrated by the author of the _Source of Measures_. But the latter\nand Mr. Piazzi Smyth both seem to labour under the impression that (_a_)\nthe priority of the system belongs to the Israelites, the Hebrew language\nbeing the divine language, and that (_b_) this universal language belongs\nto direct revelation!\n\nThe latter hypothesis is correct only in the sense shown in the last\nparagraph of the preceding Section; but we have yet to agree as to the\nnature and character of the divine \u201cRevealer.\u201d The former hypothesis as to\npriority will for the profane, of course depend on (_a_) the internal and\nexternal evidence of the revelation, and (_b_) on each scholar\u2019s\nindividual preconceptions. This, however, cannot prevent either the\nTheistic Kabalist, or the Pantheistic Occultist, from believing each in\nhis way; neither of the two convincing the other. The data furnished by\nhistory are too meagre and unsatisfactory for either of them to prove to\nthe sceptic which of them is right.\n\nOn the other hand, the proofs afforded by tradition are too constantly\nrejected for us to hope to settle the question in our present age.\nMeanwhile, Materialistic Science will be laughing at both Kabalists and\nOccultists indifferently. But the vexed question of priority once laid\naside, Science, in its departments of Philology and Comparative Religion,\nwill find itself finally taken to task, and be compelled to admit the\ncommon claim.\n\nOne by one the claims become admitted, as one Scientist after another is\ncompelled to recognize the facts given out from the Secret Doctrine;\nthough he rarely, if ever, recognizes that he has been anticipated in his\nstatements. Thus, in the palmy days of Mr. Piazzi Smyth\u2019s authority on the\nPyramid of Gizeh, his theory was, that the porphyry sarcophagus of the\nKing\u2019s Chamber was \u201c_the unit of measure_ for the two most enlightened\nnations of the earth, England and America,\u201d and was no better than a\n\u201ccorn\u2010bin.\u201d This was vehemently denied by us in _Isis Unveiled_, which had\njust been published at that time. Then the New York press arose in arms\n(the _Sun_ and the _World_ newspapers chiefly) against our presuming to\ncorrect or find fault with such a star of learning. In that work, we had\nsaid, that Herodotus, when treating of that Pyramid:\n\n\n    ... might have added that, externally it symbolized _the creative\n    principle of Nature_, and illustrated also the _principles of\n    geometry_, _mathematics_, _astrology_, _and astronomy_.\n    Internally, it was a majestic fane, in whose sombre recesses were\n    performed the Mysteries, and whose walls had often witnessed the\n    initiation\u2010scenes of members of the royal family. The porphyry\n    sarcophagus, which Professor Piazzi Smyth, Astronomer Royal of\n    Scotland, degrades into a corn\u2010bin, was the _baptismal font_, upon\n    emerging from which the neophyte was \u201cborn again\u201d and became an\n    adept.(461)\n\n\nOur statement was laughed at in those days. We were accused of having got\nour ideas from the \u201ccraze\u201d of Shaw, an English writer who had maintained\nthat the sarcophagus had been used for the celebration of the Mysteries of\nOsiris, although we had never heard of that writer. And now, six or seven\nyears later (1882), this is what Mr. Staniland Wake writes:\n\n\n    The so\u2010called King\u2019s Chamber, of which an enthusiastic pyramidist\n    says, \u201cThe polished walls, fine materials, grand proportions, and\n    exalted place, eloquently tell of glories yet to come,\u201d if not\n    \u201cthe chamber of perfections\u201d of Cheops\u2019 tomb, was probably _the\n    place to which the initiant was admitted after he had passed\n    through the narrow upward passage and the grand gallery, with its\n    lowly termination, which gradually prepared him for the final\n    stage of the Sacred Mysteries_.(462)\n\n\nHad Mr. Staniland Wake been a Theosophist, he might have added that the\nnarrow upward passage leading to the King\u2019s Chamber had a \u201cnarrow gate\u201d\nindeed; the same \u201cstrait gate\u201d which \u201cleadeth unto life,\u201d or the new\nspiritual re\u2010birth alluded to by Jesus in Matthew;(463) and that it was of\nthis gate in the Initiation Temple, that the writer, who recorded the\nwords alleged to have been spoken by an Initiate, was thinking.\n\nThus the greatest scholars of Science, instead of pooh\u2010poohing that\nsupposed \u201cfarrago of absurd fiction and superstitions,\u201d as the Br\u00e2hmanical\nliterature is generally termed, will endeavour to learn the symbolical\nuniversal language, with its numerical and geometrical keys. But here,\nagain, they will hardly be successful, if they share the belief that the\nJewish Kabalistic system contains the key to the _whole_ mystery; for it\n_does not_. Nor does any other Scripture at present possess it in its\nentirety, since even the _Vedas_ are not complete. Every old religion is\nbut a chapter or two of the entire volume of archaic primeval mysteries;\nEastern Occultism alone being able to boast that it is in possession of\nthe full secret, with its _seven_ keys. Comparisons will be instituted,\nand as much as possible will be explained in this work; the rest is left\nto the student\u2019s personal intuition. In saying that Eastern Occultism has\nthe secret, it is not as if a \u201ccomplete\u201d or even an approximate knowledge\nwas claimed by the writer, which would be absurd. What I know, I give out;\nthat which I cannot explain, the student must find out for himself.\n\nBut though we may suppose that the entire cycle of the universal Mystery\nLanguage will not be mastered for centuries to come, yet even the little\nwhich has hitherto been discovered in the _Bible_ by some scholars, is\nquite sufficient to demonstrate the claim\u2014mathematically. As Judaism\navailed itself of two keys out of the seven, and as these two keys have\nnow been re\u2010discovered, it becomes no longer a matter of individual\nspeculation and hypothesis, least of all of \u201ccoincidence,\u201d but one of a\ncorrect reading of the Biblical texts, just as anyone acquainted with\narithmetic reads and verifies an addition sum. In fact, all we have said\nin _Isis Unveiled_ is now found corroborated in the _Egyptian Mystery_, or\n_The Source of Measures_, by such readings of the _Bible_ with the\nnumerical and geometrical keys.\n\nA few years longer, and this system will kill the dead\u2010letter reading of\nthe _Bible_, as it will that of all the other exoteric faiths, by showing\nthe dogmas in their real, naked meaning. And then this undeniable meaning,\nhowever incomplete, will unveil the mystery of Being, and will, moreover,\nentirely change the modern scientific systems of Anthropology, Ethnology\nand especially that of Chronology. The element of Phallicism, found in\nevery God\u2010name and narrative in the _Old_, and to some degree in the\n_New_, _Testament_, may also in time considerably change modern\nmaterialistic views on Biology and Physiology.\n\nDivested of their modern repulsive crudeness, such views of Nature and man\nwill, on the authority of the celestial bodies and their mysteries, unveil\nthe evolutions of the human mind and show how natural was such a course of\nthought. The so\u2010called phallic symbols have become offensive only because\nof the element of materiality and animality in them. In the beginning,\nsuch symbols were but natural, as they originated with the archaic races,\nwhich, issuing to their personal knowledge from an androgyne ancestry,\nwere the first phenomenal manifestations in their own sight of the\nseparation of the sexes and the ensuing mystery of creating in their turn.\nIf later races, especially the \u201cchosen people,\u201d have degraded them, this\ndoes not affect the origin of the symbols. This little Semitic tribe\u2014one\nof the smallest branchlets from the commingling of the fourth and fifth\nsub\u2010races, the Mongolo\u2010Turanian and the so\u2010called Indo\u2010European, after the\nsinking of the great Continent\u2014could only accept its symbology in the\nspirit which was given to it by the nations from which it was derived.\nAnd, perchance, in the Mosaic beginnings, the symbology was not so crude\nas it became later under the handling of Ezra, who remodelled the whole\n_Pentateuch_. To take an instance, the glyph of Pharaoh\u2019s daughter (the\nwoman), the Nile (the Great Deep and Water), and the baby\u2010boy found\nfloating therein in the ark of rushes, was not primarily composed for, or\nby, Moses. It was anticipated in the fragments found on the Babylonian\ntiles, in the story of King Sargon, who lived far earlier than Moses.\n\nIn his _Assyrian Antiquities_,(464) Mr. George Smith says: \u201cIn the palace\nof Sennacherib at Kouyunjik, I found another fragment of the curious\nhistory of Sargon ... published in my translation in the _Transactions of\nthe Society of Biblical Archeology_.\u201d(465) The capital of Sargon the\nBabylonian Moses, \u201cwas the great city of Agadi, called by the Semites\nAkkad\u2014mentioned in _Genesis_(466) as the capital of Nimrod.... Akkad lay\nnear the City of Sippara on the Euphrates and North of Babylon.\u201d(467)\nAnother strange \u201ccoincidence\u201d is found in the fact that the name of the\nneighbouring City of Sippara is the same as the name of the wife of\nMoses\u2014Zipporah.(468) Of course the story is a clever addition by Ezra,\n_who could not have been ignorant of the original_. This curious story is\nfound on fragments of tablets from Kouyunjik, and reads as follows:\n\n\n    1. Sargina, the powerful king, the king of Akkad am I.\n\n    2. My mother was a princess, my father I did not know; a brother\n    of my father ruled over the country.\n\n    3. In the city of Azupiranu, which by the side of the river\n    Euphrates is situated,\n\n    4. My mother, the princess, conceived me; in difficulty she\n    brought me forth;\n\n    5. She placed me in an ark of rushes, with bitumen my exit she\n    sealed up;\n\n    6. She launched me in the river, which did not drown me.\n\n    7. The river carried me, to Akki, the water\u2010carrier, it brought\n    me.\n\n    8. Akki, the water\u2010carrier, in tenderness of bowels, lifted\n    me.(469)\n\n\nAnd now let us compare the _Bible_ narrative in _Exodus_:\n\n\n    And when she [Moses\u2019 mother] could not longer hide him, she took\n    for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with\n    pitch, and put the child therein, and she laid it in the flags by\n    the river\u2019s brink.(470)\n\n\nMr. G. Smith then continues:\n\n\n    The story is supposed to have happened about 1600 B.C., rather\n    earlier than the supposed age of Moses; and, as we know that the\n    fame of Sargon reached Egypt, it is quite likely that this account\n    had a connection with the events related in _Exodus_ II, for every\n    action, when once performed, has a tendency to be repeated.\n\n\nBut now that Professor Sayce has had the courage to push back the dates of\nthe Chaldean and Assyrian Kings by two thousand years more, Sargon must\nhave preceded Moses by 2,000 years at the least. The confession is\nsuggestive, but the figures lack a cypher or two.\n\nNow, what is the logical inference? Most assuredly, that which gives us\nthe right to say that the story told of Moses by Ezra had been learned by\nhim while at Babylon, and that he applied the allegory told of Sargon to\nthe Jewish lawgiver. In short, that _Exodus_ was never written by Moses,\nbut was re\u2010fabricated from old materials by Ezra.\n\nAnd if so, then why should not other symbols and glyphs far more crude in\ntheir phallic element have been added by this adept in the later Chaldean\nand Sab\u00e6an phallic worship? We are taught that the primeval faith of the\nIsraelites was quite different from that which was developed centuries\nlater by the Talmudists, and before them by David and Hezekiah.\n\nAll this, notwithstanding the exoteric element, as now found in the two\n_Testaments_, is quite sufficient to class the _Bible_ among esoteric\nworks, and to connect its secret system with Indian, Chaldean, and\nEgyptian symbolism. The whole cycle of Biblical glyphs and numbers, as\nsuggested by astronomical observations\u2014Astronomy and Theology being\nclosely connected\u2014is found in Indian exoteric, as well as esoteric,\nsystems. These figures and their symbols, the signs of the Zodiac, the\nplanets, their aspects and nodes\u2014the last term having now passed even into\nour modern Botany\u2014are known in Astronomy as Sextiles, Quartiles and so on,\nand have been used for ages and \u00e6ons by the archaic nations, and in one\nsense have the same meaning as the Hebrew numerals. The earliest forms of\nelementary geometry must have certainly been suggested by the observation\nof the heavenly bodies and their groupings. Hence, the most archaic\nsymbols in Eastern Esotericism are a circle, a point, a triangle, a\nsquare, a pentagon, and a hexagon, and other plane figures with various\nsides and angles. This shows the knowledge and use of geometrical\nsymbology to be as old as the world.\n\nStarting from this, it becomes easy to understand how Nature herself, even\nwithout the help of their divine instructors, could have taught primeval\nmankind the first principles of a numerical and geometrical symbol\u2010\nlanguage.(471) Hence we find numbers and figures used as an expression and\na record of thought in every archaic symbolical Scripture. They are ever\nthe same, with certain variations only, arising from the first figures.\nThus the evolution and correlation of the mysteries of Kosmos, of its\ngrowth and development\u2014spiritual and physical, abstract and concrete\u2014were\nfirst recorded in geometrical changes of shape. Every Cosmogony began with\na circle, a point, a triangle and a square, up to number 9, when it was\nsynthesized by the first line and a circle\u2014the Pythagorean mystic Decad,\nthe sum of all, involving and expressing the mysteries of the entire\nKosmos; mysteries recorded a hundred times more fully in the Hind\u00fb system\nthan elsewhere, for him who can understand its mystic language. The\nnumbers 3 and 4, in their combination 7, and also 5, 6, 9, and 10, are the\nvery corner\u2010stones of Occult Cosmogonies. This Decad and its thousand\ncombinations are found in every portion of the globe. One recognizes it in\nthe caves and rock\u2010cut temples of Hind\u00fbstan and Central Asia; in the\nPyramids and Lithoi of Egypt and America; in the Catacombs of Ozimandyas;\nin the mounds of the snow\u2010capped Caucasian fastnesses; in the ruins of\nPalenque; in Easter Island; everywhere whither the foot of ancient man has\never journeyed. The 3 and the 4, the triangle and the square, or the\nuniversal male and female glyphs, showing the first aspect of the evolving\ndeity, are stamped for ever in the Southern Cross in the Heavens, as in\nthe Egyptian Crux Ansata. As well expressed by the author of _The Source\nof Measures_:\n\n\n    The Cube unfolded is in display a cross of the Tau, or Egyptian\n    form, or of the Christian cross\u2010form.... A circle attached to the\n    first, gives the Ansated Cross ... numbers 3 and 4, counted on the\n    cross, showing a form of the [Hebrew] golden candlestick [in the\n    Holy of Holies], and of the 3 + 4 = 7, and 6 + 1 = 7, days in the\n    _circle of the week_, as 7 lights of the sun. So also as the week\n    of 7 lights gave origin to the _month_ and _year_, so it is the\n    _time\u2010marker of birth_.... The cross\u2010form being shown, then, by\n    the connected use of the form 113:355, the symbol is completed by\n    the _attachment of a man to the cross_.(472) This kind of measure\n    was made to co\u00f6rdinate with the idea of the _origin_ of human\n    life, and hence the _phallic form_.\n\n\nThe Stanzas show the cross and these numbers playing a prominent part in\narchaic Cosmogony. Meanwhile we may profit by the evidence collected by\nthe same author, in the section which he rightly calls the \u201cPrimordial\nVestiges of these Symbols,\u201d to show the identity of symbols and their\nesoteric meaning all over the globe.\n\n\n    Under the general view taken of the nature of the number\u2010forms ...\n    it becomes a matter of research of the utmost interest as to when\n    and where their existence and their use first became known. Has it\n    been a matter of revelation in what we know as the historic age\u2014a\n    cycle exceedingly modern when the age of the human race is\n    contemplated? It seems, in fact, as to the date of its possession\n    by man, to have been farther removed, in the past, from the old\n    Egyptians than are the old Egyptians from us.\n\n    The Easter Isles in \u201c_mid Pacific_\u201d present the feature of the\n    remaining peaks of the mountains of _a submerged continent_, for\n    the reason that these peaks are thickly studded with cyclopean\n    statues, remnants of the civilization of a dense and cultivated\n    people, who must have, of necessity, occupied a widely extended\n    area. On the backs of these images is to be found the \u201c_ansated\n    cross_\u201d and the same modified to the outlines of the human form. A\n    full description, with plate showing the land with the thickly\n    planted statues, also with copies of the images, is to be found in\n    the January number, 1870, of the _London Builder_....\n\n    In the _Naturalist_, published at Salem, Massachusetts, in one of\n    the early numbers (about 36), is to be found a description of some\n    very ancient and curious carving on the crest walls of the\n    mountains of South America, older by far, it is averred, than the\n    races now living. The strangeness of these tracings is in that\n    they exhibit the outlines of a man stretched out on a cross,(473)\n    by a series of drawings, by which from the form of a _man_ that of\n    a _cross_ springs, but so done that the cross may be taken as the\n    man, or the man as the cross....\n\n    It is known that tradition among the Aztecs has handed down a very\n    perfect account of the _deluge_.... Baron Humboldt says that we\n    are to look for the country of Aztalan, the original country of\n    the Aztecs, as high up, at least, as the 42nd parallel north;\n    whence journeying, they at last arrived in the vale of Mexico. In\n    that vale the earthen mounds of the far north become the elegant\n    stone pyramidal, and other structures, whose remains are now\n    found. The correspondences between the Aztec remains and those of\n    the Egyptians are well known.... Atwater, from examination of\n    hundreds of them, is convinced that they had a knowledge of\n    astronomy. As to one of the most perfect of the pyramidal\n    structures among the Aztecs, Humboldt gives a description to the\n    following effect:\n\n    \u201cThe form of this pyramid [of Papantla] which has _seven_ stories,\n    is more tapering than any other monument of this kind yet\n    discovered, but its height is not remarkable, being but 57 feet,\n    its base but 25 feet on each side. However, it is remarkable on\n    one account: it is built entirely of hewn stones, of an\n    extraordinary size, and very beautifully shaped. _Three_\n    staircases lead to the top, the steps of which were decorated with\n    hieroglyphical sculptures and small _niches_, arranged with great\n    symmetry. The number of these niches seem to allude to the 318\n    _simple and compound signs of the days of their civil calendar_.\u201d\n\n    318 is the Gnostic value of Christ, and the famous number of the\n    trained or circumcized servants of Abram. When it is considered\n    that 318 is an _abstract value_, and _universal_, as expressive of\n    a diameter value to a circumference of _unity_, its use in the\n    composition of a civil calendar becomes manifest.\n\n\nIdentical glyphs, numbers and esoteric symbols are found in Egypt, Peru,\nMexico, Easter Island, India, Chald\u00e6a, and Central Asia\u2014Crucified Men, and\nsymbols of the evolution of races from Gods\u2014and yet behold Science\nrepudiating the idea of a human race other than one made in _our_ image;\nTheology clinging to its 6,000 years of Creation; Anthropology teaching\nour descent from the ape; and the Clergy tracing it from Adam 4,004 years\nB.C.!!\n\nShall one, for fear of incurring the penalty of being called a\nsuperstitious fool, and even a liar, abstain from furnishing proofs\u2014as\ngood as any existent\u2014only because that day, when all the Seven Keys shall\nbe delivered unto Science, or rather the men of learning and research in\nthe department of symbology, has not yet dawned? In the face of the\ncrushing discoveries of Geology and Anthropology with regard to the\nantiquity of man, shall we\u2014in order to avoid the usual penalty that awaits\nevery one who strays outside the beaten paths of either Theology or\nMaterialism\u2014hold to the 6,000 years and \u201cspecial creation\u201d or accept in\nsubmissive admiration our genealogy and descent from the ape? Not so, as\nlong as it is known that the Secret Records hold the said Seven Keys to\nthe mystery of the genesis of man. Faulty, materialistic, and biassed as\nthe scientific theories may be, they are a thousand times nearer the truth\nthan the vagaries of Theology. The latter are in their death agony for\nevery one but the most uncompromising bigot and fanatic. Or rather, some\nof its defenders must have lost their reason. For what can one think when,\nin the face of the dead\u2010letter absurdities of the _Bible_, these are still\npublicly supported, and as fiercely as ever, and one finds the Theologians\nmaintaining that though \u201cthe Scriptures carefully refrain [?] from making\nany direct contribution to scientific knowledge, they have _never_\nstumbled upon any statement _which will not abide the light of_ Advancing\nScience\u201d!!!(474)\n\nHence we have no choice but either to blindly accept the deductions of\nScience, or to cut ourselves adrift from it, and withstand it fearlessly\nto its face, stating what the Secret Doctrine teaches us, and being fully\nprepared to bear the consequences.\n\nBut let us see whether Science, in its materialistic speculations, and\neven Theology, in its death\u2010rattle and supreme struggle to reconcile the\n6,000 years since Adam with Sir Charles Lyell\u2019s _Geological Evidences of\nthe Antiquity of Man_, do not themselves unconsciously give us a helping\nhand. Ethnology, on the confession of some of its most learned votaries,\nfinds it already impossible to account for the varieties in the human\nrace, unless the hypothesis of the _creation of several Adams_ be\naccepted. They speak of \u201ca white Adam and a black Adam, a red Adam and a\nyellow Adam.\u201d(475) Were they Hind\u00fbs enumerating the rebirths of V\u00e2madeva,\nfrom the _Linga Pur\u00e2na_, they could say little more. For, enumerating the\nrepeated births of Shiva, they show him in one Kalpa of a _white_\ncomplexion, in another of a _black_ colour, in still another of a _red_\ncolour, after which the Kum\u00e2ra becomes \u201cfour youths of a _yellow_ colour.\u201d\nThis strange \u201ccoincidence,\u201d as Mr. Proctor would say, speaks only in\nfavour of scientific intuition, as Shiva\u2010Kum\u00e2ra simply represents,\nallegorically, the human Races during the genesis of man. But it has led\nto another intuitional phenomenon\u2014in the theological ranks this time. The\nunknown author of _Primeval Man_, in a desperate effort to screen the\nDivine Revelation from the merciless and eloquent discoveries of Geology\nand Anthropology, remarking that \u201cit would be unfortunate if the defenders\nof the _Bible_ should be driven into the position of either surrendering\nthe inspiration of Scripture, or denying the conclusions of\nGeologists\u201d\u2014finds a compromise. Nay, he devotes a thick volume to proving\nthis fact: \u201cAdam was not the _first man_(476) created upon this earth.\u201d\nThe exhumed relics of pre\u2010Adamic man, \u201cinstead of shaking our confidence\nin Scripture, supply additional proof of its veracity.\u201d(477) How so? In\nthe simplest way imaginable; for the author argues that, henceforth \u201cwe\n[the clergy] are enabled to leave scientific men to pursue their studies\nwithout attempting to co\u00ebrce them by the fear of heresy.\u201d This must be a\nrelief indeed to Messrs. Huxley, Tyndall, and Sir Charles Lyell!\n\n\n    The Bible narrative _does not commence with creation_, as is\n    commonly supposed, but with the formation of Adam and Eve,\n    _millions of years after_ our planet had been created. Its\n    previous history, so far as Scripture is concerned, is yet\n    unwritten.... There may have been not one, but twenty different\n    races upon the earth before the time of Adam, just as there may be\n    twenty different races of men on other worlds.(478)\n\n\nWho, then, or what were those races, since the author still maintains that\nAdam is _the first man of our race_? It was the Satanic Race and Races!\n\u201cSatan [was] never in heaven, Angels and men [being] one species.\u201d It was\nthe pre\u2010Adamic race of \u201cAngels that sinned.\u201d Satan was the \u201cfirst prince\nof this world,\u201d we read. Having died in consequence of his rebellion, he\nremained on earth as a _disembodied Spirit_, and tempted Adam and Eve.\n\n\n    The earlier ages of the Satanic race, and more especially _during\n    the life\u2010time of Satan_ [!!!], may have been a period of\n    patriarchal civilization and comparative repose\u2014a time of Tubal\u2010\n    Cains and Jubals, when both sciences and arts attempted to strike\n    their roots into the accursed ground.... What a subject for an\n    epic!... There are inevitable incidents which must have occurred.\n    We see before us ... the gay primeval lover wooing his blushing\n    bride at dewy eve under the Danish oaks, that then grew where now\n    no oaks will grow ... the grey primeval patriarch ... the primeval\n    offspring innocently gambolling by his side.... A thousand such\n    pictures rise before us!(479)\n\n\nThe retrospective glance at this Satanic \u201cblushing bride,\u201d in the days of\nSatan\u2019s innocence, does not lose in poetry as it gains in originality.\nQuite the reverse. The modern Christian bride\u2014who does not often blush\nnow\u2010a\u2010days before her gay modern lovers\u2014might even derive a moral lesson\nfrom this daughter of Satan, created in the exuberant fancy of her first\nhuman biographer. These pictures\u2014and to appreciate them at their true\nvalue they must be examined in the volume that describes them\u2014are all\nsuggested with a view to reconcile the infallibility of revealed Scripture\nwith Sir Charles Lyell\u2019s _Antiquity of Man_, and other damaging scientific\nworks. But this does not prevent truth and fact appearing at the\nfoundation of these vagaries, which the author has not dared to sign with\nhis own, or even a borrowed, name. For, his pre\u2010Adamic Races\u2014not Satanic\nbut simply Atlantean, and the Hermaphrodites before the latter\u2014are\nmentioned in the _Bible_, if read esoterically, as they are in the Secret\nDoctrine. The Seven Keys open the mysteries, past and future, of the seven\ngreat Root\u2010Races, and of the seven Kalpas. Though the genesis of man, and\neven the geology, of Esotericism will surely be rejected by Science, just\nas much as the Satanic and pre\u2010Adamic Races, yet if the Scientists, having\nno other way out of their difficulties, are compelled to choose between\nthe two, we feel certain that\u2014Scripture notwithstanding\u2014once the Mystery\nLanguage is approximately mastered, it is the archaic teaching that will\nbe accepted.\n\n\n\n\nSection III. Primordial Substance and Divine Thought.\n\n\n    As it would seem irrational to affirm that we already know all\n    existing causes, permission must be given to assume, if need be,\n    _an entirely new agent_.\n\n    Assuming, what is not strictly accurate as yet, that the\n    undulatory hypothesis accounts for all the facts, we are called on\n    to decide whether the existence of an undulating ether is thereby\n    proved. _We cannot positively affirm that no other supposition\n    will explain the facts._ Newton\u2019s corpuscular hypothesis is\n    admitted to have broken down on interference; and there is, at the\n    present day, no rival. Still, it is extremely desirable in all\n    such hypotheses to find some collateral confirmation, some\n    evidence _aliunde_, of _the supposed Ether_.... Some hypotheses\n    consist of assumptions as to the minute structure and operations\n    of bodies. From the nature of the case, these assumptions can\n    never be proved by direct means. Their only merit is _their\n    suitability to express the phenomena_. They are _representative\n    fictions_.\n\n    _Logic_, by ALEXANDER BAIN, L.L.D., Part II, p. 133.\n\n\nEther\u2014this hypothetical Proteus, one of the \u201crepresentative fictions\u201d of\nModern Science, which, nevertheless, was so long accepted\u2014is one of the\nlower \u201cprinciples\u201d of what we call Primordial Substance (\u00c2k\u00e2sha, in\nSanskrit), one of the dreams of old, which has now again become the dream\nof Modern Science. It is the greatest, as it is the boldest, of the\nsurviving speculations of ancient philosophers. For the Occultists,\nhowever, both Ether and the Primordial Substance are realities. To put it\nplainly, Ether is the Astral Light, and the Primordial Substance is\n\u00c2k\u00e2sha, the Up\u00e2dhi of Divine Thought.\n\nIn modern language, the latter would be better named Cosmic Ideation,\nSpirit; the former, Cosmic Substance, Matter. These, the Alpha and the\nOmega of Being, are but the two _facets_ of the one Absolute Existence.\nThe latter was never addressed, or even mentioned, by any name in\nantiquity, except in allegory. In the oldest \u00c2ryan race, the Hind\u00fb, the\nworship of the intellectual classes at no time ever consisted in an\nadoration of marvellous form and art, however fervent, as with the Greeks;\nan adoration, which led later on to anthropomorphism. But while the Greek\nphilosopher adored form, and the Hind\u00fb sage alone \u201cperceived the true\nrelation of earthly beauty and eternal truth\u201d\u2014the uneducated of every\nnation understood neither, at any time.\n\nThey do not understand it even now. The evolution of the God\u2010idea proceeds\napace with man\u2019s own intellectual evolution. So true is it that the\nnoblest ideal to which the religious spirit of one age can soar, will\nappear but a gross caricature to the philosophic mind in a succeeding\nepoch! The philosophers themselves had to be _initiated into perceptive\nmysteries_, before they could grasp the correct idea of the Ancients in\nrelation to this most metaphysical subject. Otherwise\u2014outside such\nInitiation\u2014for every thinker there will be a \u201cthus far shalt thou go and\nno farther\u201d mapped out by his intellectual capacity, as clearly and as\nunmistakably as there is one for the progress of any nation or race in its\ncycle by the law of Karma. Outside of Initiation, the ideals of\ncontemporary religious thought must always have their wings clipped, and\nremain unable to soar higher; for idealistic, as well as realistic,\nthinkers, and even free\u2010thinkers, are but the outcome and the natural\nproduct of their respective environments and periods. The ideals of each\nare but the necessary results of their temperaments, and the outcome of\nthat phase of intellectual progress to which a nation, in its\ncollectivity, has attained. Hence, as already remarked, the highest\nflights of modern Western metaphysics have fallen far short of the truth.\nMuch of current Agnostic speculation on the existence of the \u201cFirst Cause\u201d\nis little better than veiled Materialism\u2014the terminology alone being\ndifferent. Even so great a thinker as Mr. Herbert Spencer speaks of the\n\u201cUnknowable\u201d occasionally in terms that demonstrate the lethal influence\nof materialistic thought, which, like the deadly Sirocco, has withered and\nblighted all current ontological speculation.\n\nFor instance, when he terms the \u201cFirst Cause\u201d the \u201cUnknowable,\u201d a \u201cpower\n_manifesting_ through phenomena,\u201d and \u201can infinite eternal _energy_,\u201d it\nis clear that he has grasped solely the _physical_ aspect of the Mystery\nof Being\u2014the Energies of Cosmic Substance only. The coeternal aspect of\nthe One Reality, Cosmic Ideation, is absolutely omitted from\nconsideration, and as to its Noumenon, it seems non\u2010existent in the mind\nof the great thinker. Without doubt, this one\u2010sided mode of dealing with\nthe problem is due largely to the pernicious Western practice of\nsubordinating Consciousness to Matter, or regarding it as a \u201cbye\u2010product\u201d\nof molecular motion.\n\nFrom the early ages of the Fourth Race, when Spirit alone was worshipped\nand the Mystery was made manifest, down to the last palmy days of Grecian\nart, at the dawn of Christianity, the Hellenes alone had dared publicly to\nraise an altar to the \u201cUnknown God.\u201d Whatever St. Paul may have had in his\nprofound mind, when declaring to the Athenians that this \u201cUnknown,\u201d which\nthey ignorantly worshipped, was the true God announced by himself\u2014that\nDeity _was not_ \u201cJehovah,\u201d nor was he \u201cthe maker of the world and all\nthings.\u201d For it is not the \u201cGod of Israel\u201d but the \u201cUnknown\u201d of the\nancient and modern Pantheist that \u201cdwelleth not in temples _made with\nhands_.\u201d(480)\n\nDivine Thought cannot be defined, nor can its meaning be explained, except\nby the numberless manifestations of Cosmic Substance, in which the former\nis _sensed_ spiritually by those who can do so. To say this, after having\ndefined it as the Unknown Deity, abstract, impersonal, sexless, which must\nbe placed at the root of every Cosmogony and its subsequent evolution, is\nequivalent to saying nothing at all. It is like attempting a\ntranscendental equation of conditions, having in hand for deducing the\ntrue value of its terms only a number of _unknown_ quantities. Its place\nis found in the old primitive symbolic charts, in which, as already shown,\nit is represented by a boundless darkness, on the ground of which appears\nthe first central point in white\u2014thus symbolizing co\u00ebval and co\u00ebternal\nSpirit\u2010Matter making its appearance in the phenomenal world, before its\nfirst differentiation. When \u201cthe One becomes Two,\u201d it may then be referred\nto as Spirit _and_ Matter. To \u201cSpirit\u201d is referable every manifestation of\nConsciousness, reflective or direct, and of \u201cunconscious purposiveness\u201d\u2014to\nadopt a modern expression used in Western _philosophy_, so\u2010called\u2014as\nevidenced in the Vital Principle, and Nature\u2019s submission to the majestic\nsequence of immutable Law. \u201cMatter\u201d must be regarded as objectivity in its\npurest abstraction, the self\u2010existing basis, whose septenary manvantaric\ndifferentiations constitute the objective reality underlying the phenomena\nof each phase of conscious existence. During the period of Universal\nPralaya, Cosmic Ideation is non\u2010existent; and the variously differentiated\nstates of Cosmic Substance are resolved back again into the primary state\nof abstract potential objectivity.\n\nManvantaric impulse commences with the re\u00e4wakening of Cosmic Ideation, the\nUniversal Mind, concurrently with, and parallel to, the primary emergence\nof Cosmic Substance\u2014the latter being the manvantaric vehicle of the\nformer\u2014from its undifferentiated pralayic state. Then, Absolute Wisdom\nmirrors itself in its Ideation; which, by a transcendental process,\nsuperior to and incomprehensible by human Consciousness, results in Cosmic\nEnergy, Fohat. Thrilling through the bosom of inert Substance, Fohat\nimpels it to activity, and guides its primary differentiations on all the\nseven planes of Cosmic Consciousness. There are thus Seven Protyles\u2014as\nthey are now called, whereas \u00c2ryan antiquity named them the Seven\nPrakritis, or Natures\u2014serving, severally, as the _relatively_ homogeneous\nbases, which in the course of the increasing heterogeneity, in the\nevolution of the Universe, differentiate into the marvellous complexity\npresented by phenomena on the planes of perception. The term \u201crelatively\u201d\nis used designedly, because the very existence of such a process,\nresulting in the primary segregations of undifferentiated Cosmic Substance\ninto its septenary bases of evolution, compels us to regard the Protyle of\neach plane as only a _mediate_ phase assumed by Substance in its passage\nfrom abstract, into full objectivity. The term Protyle is due to Mr.\nCrookes, the eminent Chemist, who has given that name to _pre\u2010matter_, if\none may so call primordial and purely homogeneous substance, suspected, if\nnot actually yet found, by Science in the ultimate composition of the\natom. But the incipient segregation of primordial matter into atoms and\nmolecules takes its rise subsequent to the evolution of our Seven\nProtyles. It is the last of these that Mr. Crookes is in search of, having\nrecently detected the possibility of its existence on our plane.\n\nCosmic Ideation is said to be non\u2010existent during pralayic periods, for\nthe simple reason that there is no one, and nothing, to perceive its\neffects. There can be no manifestation of consciousness, semi\u2010\nconsciousness, or even \u201cunconscious purposiveness,\u201d except through a\nvehicle of Matter; that is to say, on this our plane, wherein human\nconsciousness, _in its normal state_, cannot soar beyond what is known as\ntranscendental metaphysics, it is only through some molecular aggregation,\nor fabric, that Spirit wells up in a stream of individual or sub\u2010conscious\nsubjectivity. And as Matter existing apart from perception is a mere\nabstraction, both of these aspects of the Absolute\u2014Cosmic Substance and\nCosmic Ideation\u2014are mutually interdependent. In strict accuracy, to avoid\nconfusion and misconception, the term \u201cMatter\u201d ought to be applied to the\naggregate of objects of possible perception, and the term \u201cSubstance\u201d to\nNoumena; for inasmuch as the phenomena of _our_ plane are the creations of\nthe perceiving Ego\u2014the modifications of its own subjectivity\u2014all the\n\u201cstates of matter representing the aggregate of perceived objects\u201d can\nhave but a relative and purely phenomenal existence for the children of\nour plane. As the modern Idealists would say, the co\u00f6peration of Subject\nand Object results in the sense\u2010object, or phenomenon.\n\nBut this does not necessarily lead to the conclusion that it is the same\non all other planes; that the co\u00f6peration of the two, on the planes of\ntheir septenary differentiation, results in a septenary aggregate of\nphenomena which are likewise non\u2010existent _per se_, though concrete\nrealities for the Entities of whose experience they form a part, in the\nsame manner as the rocks and rivers around us are real from the stand\u2010\npoint of a Physicist, though unreal illusions of sense from that of the\nMetaphysician. It would be an error to say, or even conceive, such a\nthing. From the stand\u2010point of the highest metaphysics, the whole\nUniverse, Gods included, is an Illusion (M\u00e2y\u00e2). But the illusion of him\nwho is in himself an illusion differs on every plane of consciousness; and\nwe have no more right to dogmatize about the possible nature of the\nperceptive faculties of an Ego on, say, the sixth plane, than we have to\nidentify our perceptions with, or make them a standard for, those of an\nant, in _its_ mode of consciousness. Cosmic Ideation focussed in a\nPrinciple, or Up\u00e2dhi (Basis), results as the consciousness of the\nindividual Ego. Its manifestation varies with the degree of the Up\u00e2dhi.\nFor instance, through that known as Manas, it wells up as Mind\u2010\nConsciousness; through the more finely differentiated fabric (sixth state\nof matter) of Buddhi\u2014resting on the experience of Manas as its Basis\u2014as a\nstream of Spiritual Intuition.\n\nThe pure Object apart from consciousness is unknown to us, while living on\nthe plane of our three\u2010dimensional world, for we know only the mental\nstates it excites in the perceiving Ego. And, so long as the contrast of\nSubject and Object endures\u2014to wit, so long as we enjoy our five senses and\nno more, and do not know how to divorce our all\u2010perceiving Ego from the\nthraldom of these senses\u2014so long will it be impossible for the _personal_\nEgo to break through the barrier which separates it from a knowledge of\n\u201cthings in themselves,\u201d or Substance.\n\nThat Ego, progressing in an arc of ascending subjectivity, must exhaust\nthe experience of every plane. But not till the Unit is merged in the ALL,\nwhether on this or any other plane, and Subject and Object alike vanish in\nthe absolute negation of the Nirv\u00e2nic State\u2014negation, again, only _from\nour plane_\u2014not until then, is scaled that peak of Omniscience, the\nKnowledge of Things\u2010in\u2010themselves, and the solution of the yet more awful\nriddle approached, before which even the highest Dhy\u00e2n Chohan must bow in\nsilence and ignorance\u2014the Unspeakable Mystery of that which is called by\nthe Ved\u00e2ntins, Parabrahman.\n\nTherefore, such being the case, all those who have sought to give a name\nto the Incognizable Principle have simply degraded it. Even to speak of\nCosmic Ideation\u2014save in its _phenomenal_ aspect\u2014is like trying to bottle\nup primordial Chaos, or to put a printed label on Eternity.\n\nWhat, then, is the \u201cPrimordial Substance,\u201d that mysterious object of which\nAlchemy was ever talking, and which was the subject of philosophical\nspeculation in every age? What can it be finally, even in its _phenomenal_\npre\u2010differentiation? Even _that_ is the All of manifested Nature\nand\u2014_nothing_ to our senses. It is mentioned under various names in every\ncosmogony, referred to in every philosophy, and shown to be, to this day,\nthe ever grasp\u2010eluding Proteus in Nature. We touch and do not feel it; we\nlook at it without seeing it; we breathe it and do not perceive it; we\nhear and smell it without the smallest cognition that it is there; for it\nis in every molecule of that which, in our illusion and ignorance, we\nregard as Matter in any of its states, or conceive as a feeling, a\nthought, an emotion. In short, it is the Up\u00e2dhi, or Vehicle, of every\npossible phenomenon, whether physical, mental, or psychic. In the opening\nsentences of _Genesis_, and in the Chaldean Cosmogony; in the _Pur\u00e2nas_ of\nIndia, and in the _Book of the Dead_ of Egypt; everywhere it opens the\ncycle of manifestation. It is termed Chaos, and the Face of the Waters,\nincubated by the Spirit, proceeding from the Unknown, whatever that\nSpirit\u2019s name may be.\n\nThe authors of the Sacred Scriptures in India go deeper into the origin of\nthe evolution of things than does Thales or Job, for they say:\n\n\n    From Intelligence [called Mahat, in the _Pur\u00e2nas_], associated\n    with Ignorance [\u00ceshvara, as a _personal_ deity], _attended by its\n    projective power_, in which the quality of dulness [_tamas_,\n    insensibility] predominates, proceeds _Ether_\u2014from ether, air;\n    from air, heat; from heat, water; and from water, earth with\n    everything on it.\n\n\n\u201cFrom This, from this same Self, was the Ether produced,\u201d says the\n_Veda_.(481)\n\nIt thus becomes evident that it is not _this_ Ether\u2014sprung at the fourth\nremove from an _emanation_ of \u201cIntelligence, associated with\nIgnorance\u201d\u2014which is the high Principle, the _deific_ Entity worshipped by\nthe Greeks and Latins under the name of \u201cPater, Omnipotens \u00c6ther,\u201d and\n\u201cMagnus \u00c6ther,\u201d in its collective aggregate. The septenary gradation, and\nthe innumerable sub\u2010divisions and differences, made by the Ancients\nbetween the powers of Ether collectively\u2014from its outward fringe of\neffects, with which our Science is so familiar, up to the \u201cImponderable\nSubstance,\u201d once admitted as the \u201cEther of Space,\u201d but now about to be\nrejected\u2014have been ever a vexing riddle for every branch of knowledge. The\nMythologists and Symbologists of our day, confused by this\nincomprehensible glorification on the one hand, and degradation on the\nother, of the same deified Entity and in the same religious systems, are\noften driven to the most ludicrous mistakes. The Church, firm as a rock in\neach and all of her early errors of interpretation, has made of Ether the\nabode of her Satanic legions. The whole Hierarchy of the \u201cFallen\u201d Angels\nis there; Cosmocratores, the \u201cWorld Bearers,\u201d according to Bossuet; Mundi\nTenentes, the \u201cWorld Holders,\u201d as Tertullian calls them; Mundi Domini,\n\u201cWorld Dominations,\u201d or rather Dominators; the Curbati, or \u201cCurved,\u201d etc.;\nthus making of the stars and celestial orbs in their courses\u2014Devils!\n\nFor it is thus that the Church has interpreted the verse: \u201cFor we wrestle\nnot against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers,\nagainst the rulers of the darkness of this world.\u201d(482) Further, St. Paul\nmentions the spiritual malices (\u201cwickedness,\u201d in English texts), in the\nAir\u2014_spiritualia nequiti\u00e6 c\u0153lestibus_\u2014the Latin texts giving various names\nto these \u201cmalices,\u201d the innocent \u201cElementals.\u201d But the Church is right\nthis time, though wrong in calling them all Devils. The Astral Light, or\nlower Ether, _is_ full of conscious, semi\u2010conscious and unconscious\nentities; only the church has less _power_ over them than over invisible\nmicrobes or mosquitoes.\n\nThe difference made between the seven states of Ether\u2014itself one of the\nSeven Cosmic Principles, whereas the \u00c6ther of the ancients is Universal\nFire\u2014may be seen in the injunctions by Zoroaster and Psellus,\nrespectively. The former said: \u201cConsult it only when it is without form or\nfigure\u201d\u2014_absque form\u00e2 et figur\u00e2_\u2014which means, without flames or burning\ncoals. \u201cWhen it has a form, _heed it not_\u201d; teaches Psellus, \u201cbut when it\nis formless, obey it, for it is then _sacred fire_, and all it will reveal\nthee shall be true.\u201d(483) This proves that Ether, itself an aspect of\n\u00c2k\u00e2sha, has in its turn several aspects or \u201cprinciples.\u201d\n\nAll the ancient nations deified \u00c6ther in its imponderable aspect and\npotency. Virgil calls Jupiter, _Pater Omnipotens \u00c6ther_, and the \u201cGreat\n\u00c6ther.\u201d(484) The Hind\u00fbs have also placed it among their deities, under the\nname of \u00c2k\u00e2sha, the synthesis of Ether. And the author of the Hom\u0153omerian\nSystem of philosophy, Anaxagoras of Clazomen\u00e6, firmly believed that the\nspiritual prototypes of all things, as well as their elements, were to be\nfound in the boundless \u00c6ther, where they were generated, whence they\nevolved, and whither they returned\u2014an Occult teaching.\n\nIt thus becomes clear that it is from \u00c6ther, in its highest synthetic\naspect, once anthropomorphized, that sprang the first idea of a personal\nCreative Deity. With the philosophical Hind\u00fbs the Elements are _t\u00e2masa_,\n_i.e._, \u201cunenlightened by _intellect_, which they obscure.\u201d\n\nWe have now to exhaust the question of the mystical meaning of Primordial\nChaos and of the Root\u2010Principle, and show how they were connected in the\nancient philosophies with \u00c2k\u00e2sha, incorrectly translated Ether, and also\nwith M\u00e2y\u00e2, Illusion, of which \u00ceshvara is the male aspect. We shall speak\nfurther on of the Intelligent Principle, or rather of the invisible\nimmaterial properties, in the visible and material elements, that \u201csprang\nfrom the Primordial Chaos.\u201d\n\nFor \u201cwhat is the primordial Chaos but \u00c6ther?\u201d\u2014it is asked, in _Isis\nUnveiled_. Not the _modern_ Ether; not such as is recognized now, but such\nas _was_ known to the ancient philosophers long before the time of\nMoses\u2014\u00c6ther, with all its mysterious and occult properties, containing in\nitself the germs of universal creation. The Upper \u00c6ther, or \u00c2k\u00e2sha, is the\nCelestial Virgin and Mother of every existing form and being, from whose\nbosom, as soon as \u201cincubated\u201d by the Divine Spirit, are called into\nexistence Matter and Life, Force and Action. \u00c6ther is the Aditi of the\nHind\u00fbs, and it is \u00c2k\u00e2sha. Electricity, magnetism, heat, light, and\nchemical action are so little understood even now, that fresh facts are\nconstantly widening the range of our knowledge. Who knows where ends the\npower of this protean giant\u2014\u00c6ther; or whence its mysterious origin? Who,\nwe mean, that denies the Spirit that works in it, and evolves out of it\nall visible forms?\n\nIt will be an easy task to show that the cosmogonical legends all over the\nworld are based on a knowledge among the Ancients of those sciences, which\nhave, in our days, allied themselves in support of the doctrine of\nevolution; and that further research may demonstrate that these Ancients\nwere far better acquainted with the fact of evolution itself, embracing\nboth its physical and spiritual aspects, than we are now.\n\n\n    With the old philosophers, evolution was a universal theorem, a\n    doctrine embracing the _whole_, and an established principle;\n    whereas our modern evolutionists are enabled to present us merely\n    with speculative theoretics; with _particular_, if not wholly\n    _negative_ theorems. It is idle for the representatives of our\n    modern wisdom to close the debate and pretend that the question is\n    settled, merely because the obscure phraseology of the Mosaic ...\n    account clashes with the definite exegesis of \u201cExact\n    Science.\u201d(485)\n\n\nIf we turn to the _Ordinances of Manu_, we find the prototype of all these\nideas. Mostly lost, to the Western world, in their original form,\ndisfigured by later interpolations and additions, they have, nevertheless,\npreserved quite enough of their ancient spirit to show its character.\n\n\u201cRemoving the darkness, the Self\u2010existent Lord [Vishnu, N\u00e2r\u00e2yana, etc.]\nbecame manifest; and, wishing to produce beings from his Essence, created,\nin the beginning, water alone. In that he cast seed. That became a Golden\nEgg.\u201d\n\nWhence this Self\u2010existent Lord? It is called This, and is spoken of as\n\u201cDarkness, imperceptible, without definite qualities, undiscoverable,\nunknowable, as if wholly in sleep.\u201d Having dwelt in that Egg for a whole\nDivine Year, he \u201cwho is called in the world Brahm\u00e2,\u201d splits that Egg in\ntwo, and from the upper portion he forms the heaven, from the lower the\nearth, and from the middle the sky and \u201cthe perpetual place of\nwaters.\u201d(486)\n\nDirectly following these verses, however, there is something more\nimportant for us, as it entirely corroborates our Esoteric teachings. From\nverse 14 to 36, evolution is given in the order described in the Esoteric\nPhilosophy. This cannot be easily gainsaid. Even Medh\u00e2tithi, the son of\nVirasv\u00e2min, and the author of the Commentary, the _Manubh\u00e2sya_, whose\ndate, according to the western Orientalists, is 1,000 A.D., helps us with\nhis remarks to the elucidation of the truth. He shows himself either\nunwilling to give out more, because he knew what had to be kept from the\nprofane, or else he was really puzzled. Still, what he does give out makes\nthe septenary principle in man and Nature plain enough.\n\nLet us begin with Chapter I of the _Ordinances_, or \u201cLaws,\u201d after the\nSelf\u2010existent Lord, the Unmanifesting Logos of the Unknown \u201cDarkness,\u201d\nbecomes manifested in the Golden Egg. It is from this Egg, from\n\n11. \u201cThat which is the undiscrete [undifferentiated] Cause, eternal, which\n_is_ and _is not_, from It issued that Male who is called in the world\nBrahm\u00e2.\u201d\n\nHere, as in all genuine philosophical systems, we find even the \u201cEgg,\u201d or\nthe Circle, or Zero, Boundless Infinity, referred to as \u201cIt,\u201d(487) and\nBrahm\u00e2, the first Unit only, referred to as the \u201cMale\u201d God, _i.e._, the\nfructifying Principle. It is [circle split by vertical line], or 10 (ten),\nthe Decad. On the plane of the Septenary, or _our_ World, only, it is\ncalled Brahm\u00e2. On that of the Unified Decad, in the realm of Reality, this\nmale Brahm\u00e2 is an Illusion.\n\n14. \u201cFrom Self (_\u00c2tmanah_) he created Mind, _which is and is not_; and\nfrom Mind, Ego\u2010ism [Self\u2010Consciousness] (_a_), the ruler (_b_), the Lord.\u201d\n\n(_a_) The Mind is Manas. Medh\u00e2tithi, the commentator, justly observes here\nthat it is the reverse of this, and shows already interpolation and\nrearranging; for it is Manas that springs from Ahamk\u00e2ra or (Universal)\nSelf\u2010Consciousness, as Manas in the microcosm springs from Mahat, or\nMah\u00e2\u2010Buddhi (Buddhi, in man). For Manas is dual. As shown and translated\nby Colebrooke, \u201cMind, _serving both for sense and action_, is an organ by\naffinity, being cognate with the rest\u201d;(488) \u201cthe rest\u201d here meaning that\nManas, our Fifth Principle (the _fifth_, because the body was named the\n_first_, which is the reverse of the true philosophical order), is in\naffinity both with \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi and with the lower Four Principles. Hence,\nour teaching: namely, that Manas follows \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi to Devachan, and that\nthe Lower Manas, that is to say, the dregs or residue of Manas, remains\nwith K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa, in Limbus, or K\u00e2ma Loka, the abode of the \u201cShells.\u201d\n\n(_b_) Medh\u00e2tithi translates this as \u201cthe one conscious of the I,\u201d or Ego,\nnot \u201cthe ruler,\u201d as do the Orientalists. Thus also they translate the\nfollowing shloka:\n\n16. \u201cHe also, having made the subtile parts of those six [the great Self\nand the five organs of sense], of unmeasured brightness, to enter into the\nelements of self (_\u00e2tmam\u00e2tr\u00e2su_), created all beings.\u201d\n\nWhen, according to Medh\u00e2tithi, it ought to read _m\u00e2tr\u00e2bhih_ instead of\n_\u00e2tmam\u00e2tr\u00e2su_, and thus would read:\n\n\u201cHe having pervaded the subtile parts of those six, of unmeasured\nbrightness, by elements of self, created all beings.\u201d\n\nThe latter reading must be the correct one, since He, the Self, is what we\ncall \u00c2tm\u00e2, and thus constitutes the seventh principle, the synthesis of\nthe \u201csix.\u201d Such is also the opinion of the editor of the _M\u00e2nava Dharma\nSh\u00e2stra_, who seems to have intuitionally entered far deeper into the\nspirit of the philosophy than has the translator, the late Dr. Burnell;\nfor he hesitates little between the text of Kull\u00fbka Bhatta and the\ncommentary of Medh\u00e2tithi. Rejecting the _tanm\u00e2tra_, or subtile elements,\nand the _\u00e2tmam\u00e2tra_ of Kull\u00fbka Bhatta, he says, applying the principles to\nthe Cosmic Self:\n\n\u201cThe six appear rather to be the _manas_ plus the five principles of\nether, air, fire, water, earth; \u2018having united five portions of those six\nwith the spiritual element [the _seventh_] he (thus) created all existing\nthings;\u2019 ... _\u00e2tmam\u00e2tra_ is therefore the spiritual atom as opposed to the\nelementary, not reflexive \u2018elements of himself\u2019.\u201d\n\nThus he corrects the translation of verse 17:\n\n\u201cAs the subtile elements of bodily forms of this One depend on these six,\nso the wise call his form Shar\u00eera.\u201d\n\nAnd he adds that \u201celements\u201d mean here portions, or parts (or principles),\nwhich reading is borne out by verse 19, which says:\n\n\u201cThis non\u2010eternal (Universe) arises then from the Eternal, by means of the\nsubtile elements of forms of _those seven_ very glorious Principles\n(_Purusha_).\u201d\n\nCommenting upon which emendation of Medh\u00e2tithi, the editor remarks: \u201cthe\nfive elements _plus_ mind [_Manas_] and self\u2010consciousness\n[_Ahamk\u00e2ra_](489) are probably meant; \u2018subtile elements,\u2019 as before\n[meaning] \u2018fine portions of form\u2019 [or principles].\u201d Verse 20 shows this,\nwhen saying of these five elements, or \u201cfine portions of form\u201d (R\u00fbpa\n_plus_ Manas and Self\u2010Consciousness) that they constitute the \u201cSeven\nPurusha,\u201d or Principles, called in the _Pur\u00e2nas_ the \u201cSeven Prakritis.\u201d\n\nMoreover, these \u201cfive elements,\u201d or \u201cfive portions,\u201d are spoken of in\nverse 27 as \u201cthose which are called the atomic destructible portions,\u201d and\nwhich are, therefore, \u201cdistinct from the atoms of the Ny\u00e2ya.\u201d\n\nThis creative Brahm\u00e2, issuing from the Mundane or Golden Egg, unites in\nhimself both the male and female principles. He is, in short, the same as\nall the creative Protologoi. Of Brahm\u00e2, however, it could not be said, as\nof Dionysos, \u201c\u03c0\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03cc\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03b9\u03c6\u03c5\u1fc6 \u03c4\u03c1\u03af\u03b3\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03bd \u03b2\u03b1\u03ba\u03c7\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bf\u03bd \u1f0d\u03bd\u03b1\u03ba\u03c4\u03b1 \u1f0c\u03b3\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u1f00\u03c1\u03c1\u03b7\u03c4\u1f78\u03bd\n\u03ba\u03c1\u03cd\u03c6\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u03b4\u03b9\u03ba\u03ad\u03c1\u03c9\u03c4\u03b1 \u03b4\u03af\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u03bf\u03bd\u201d\u2014a lunar Jehovah, Bacchus truly, with David\ndancing nude before his _symbol_ in the ark\u2014because no licentious Dionysia\nwere ever established in his name and honour. All such public worship was\nexoteric, and the great universal symbols were distorted universally, as\nthose of Krishna are now by the Vallab\u00e2ch\u00e2ryas of Bombay, the followers of\nthe \u201cinfant\u201d God. But are these popular Gods the _true_ Deity? Are _they_\nthe apex and synthesis of the sevenfold creation, man included?\nImpossible! Each and all are one of the rungs of that septenary ladder of\nDivine Consciousness, Pagan as Christian. Ain Suph is said to manifest\nthrough the _Seven Letters_ of the Name of Jehovah who, having usurped the\nplace of the Unknown Limitless, was given by his devotees his Seven Angels\nof the Presence\u2014his Seven Principles. But, indeed, they are mentioned in\nalmost every school. In the pure S\u00e2nkhya philosophy Mahat, Ahamk\u00e2ra and\nthe five Tanm\u00e2tras are called the Seven Prakritis, or Natures, and are\ncounted from Mah\u00e2\u2010Buddhi, or Mahat, down to Earth.(490)\n\nNevertheless, however disfigured by Ezra for Rabbinical purposes is the\noriginal Elohistic version, however repulsive at times is even the\n_esoteric_ meaning in the Hebrew scrolls, far more so indeed than its\noutward veil or cloaking may be\u2014once the Jehovistic portions are\neliminated, the Mosaic Books are found full of purely Occult and priceless\nknowledge, especially in the first six chapters.\n\nRead by the aid of the _Kabalah_, one finds a matchless temple of Occult\ntruths, a well of deeply concealed beauty, hidden under a structure, the\n_visible_ architecture of which, notwithstanding its apparent symmetry, is\nunable to stand the criticism of cold reason, or to reveal the age of its\nhidden truth, for it belongs to all the ages. There is more Wisdom\nconcealed under the exoteric _fables_ of the _Pur\u00e2nas_ and _Bible_ than in\nall the exoteric _facts_ and science in the literature of the world, and\nmore Occult true Science, than there is of exact knowledge in all the\nacademies. Or, in plainer and stronger language, there is as much esoteric\nwisdom in some portions of the _exoteric Pur\u00e2nas_ and _Pentateuch_, as\nthere is of nonsense and of designedly childish fancy, when read only in\nthe dead\u2010letter and murderous interpretations of the great dogmatic\nreligions, and especially of their sects.\n\nLet anyone read the first verses of _Genesis_ and reflect upon them.\nThere, \u201cGod\u201d commands _another_ \u201cGod,\u201d _who does his bidding_\u2014even in the\n_cautious_ English Protestant authorized translation of King James I.\n\nIn the \u201cbeginning\u201d\u2014the Hebrew language having no word to express the idea\nof eternity(491)\u2014\u201cGod\u201d fashions the Heaven and the Earth; and the latter\nis \u201cwithout form and void,\u201d while the former is in fact not Heaven, but\nthe \u201cDeep,\u201d Chaos, with darkness upon its face.(492)\n\n\u201cAnd the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the Waters,\u201d or the Great\nDeep of the Infinite Space. And this Spirit is N\u00e2r\u00e2yana, or Vishnu.\n\n\u201cAnd God said, Let there be a firmament....\u201d And \u201cGod,\u201d the second, obeyed\nand \u201c_made_ the firmament.\u201d \u201cAnd God said let there be light.\u201d And \u201cthere\nwas light.\u201d Now the latter does not mean light at all, but, as in the\n_Kabalah_, the androgyne Adam Kadmon, or Sephira (Spiritual Light), for\nthey are one; or, according to the Chaldean _Book of Numbers_, the\n_secondary_ Angels, the first being the Elohim, who are the aggregate of\nthat \u201cfashioning\u201d _God_. For to whom are those words of command addressed?\nAnd who is it who commands? That which commands is the Eternal Law, and he\nwho obeys, the Elohim, the known quantity acting in and with _x_, or the\nco\u00ebfficient of the unknown quantity, the Forces of the One Force. All this\nis Occultism, and is found in the archaic Stanzas. It is perfectly\nimmaterial whether we call these \u201cForces\u201d the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, or the\nAuphanim as Ezekiel does.\n\n\u201cThe one Universal Light, which to man is Darkness, is ever existent,\u201d\nsays the Chaldean _Book of Numbers_. From it proceeds periodically the\nEnergy, which is reflected in the Deep, or Chaos, the store\u2010house of\nfuture Worlds, and, once awakened, stirs up and fructifies the latent\nForces, which are the ever present eternal potentialities in it. Then\nawake anew the Brahm\u00e2s and Buddhas\u2014the co\u2010eternal Forces\u2014and a new\nUniverse springs into being.\n\nIn the _Sepher Yetzirah_, the Kabalistic Book of Creation, the author has\nevidently repeated the words of Manu. In it, the Divine Substance is\nrepresented as having alone existed from the eternity, boundless and\nabsolute; and as having emitted from itself the Spirit.(493) \u201cOne is the\nSpirit of the living God, blessed be Its name, which liveth for ever!\nVoice, Spirit, and Word, this is the Holy Spirit.\u201d(494) And this is the\nKabalistic abstract Trinity, so unceremoniously anthropomorphized by the\nChristian Fathers. From this triple One emanated the whole Kosmos. First\nfrom One emanated number Two, or Air (the Father), the creative Element;\nand then number Three, Water (the Mother), proceeded from Air; Ether or\nFire completes the Mystic Four, the Arbo\u2010al.(495) When the Concealed of\nthe Concealed wanted to reveal Himself, he first made a Point [the\nPrimordial Point, or the first Sephira, Air, or Holy Ghost,] shaped into a\nsacred Form, [the Ten Sephiroth, or the Heavenly Man,] and covered it with\na rich and splendid Garment, _that is the World_.(496)\n\n\u201cHe maketh the Wind His messengers, flaming Fire His servants\u201d;(497) says\nthe _Yetzirah_, showing the cosmical character of the later euhemerized\nElements, and that Spirit permeates every atom in Kosmos.\n\nPaul calls the invisible Cosmic Beings the \u201cElements.\u201d But now the\nElements are degraded into, and limited to, atoms of which nothing is\nknown so far, and which are only \u201cchildren of necessity,\u201d as is Ether\nalso. As we said in _Isis Unveiled_:\n\n\n    The poor primordial Elements have long been exiled, and our\n    ambitious Physicists run races, to determine who shall add one\n    more to the fledgling brood of the sixty and odd elementary\n    substances.\n\n\nMeanwhile there rages a war in modern Chemistry about terms. We are denied\nthe right to call these substances \u201cchemical elements,\u201d for these are not\n\u201cprimordial principles of self\u2010existing essences, out of which the\nuniverse was fashioned,\u201d according to Plato. Such ideas associated with\nthe word \u201celement\u201d were good enough for the old Greek Philosophy, but\nModern Science rejects them; for, as Mr. William Crookes says: \u201cthey are\nunfortunate terms,\u201d and experimental Science will have \u201cnothing to do with\nany kind of essences except those which it can see, smell, or taste. It\nleaves others to the metaphysicians....\u201d We must feel grateful even for so\nmuch!\n\nThis \u201cPrimordial Substance\u201d is called by some Chaos. Plato and the\nPythagoreans named it the Soul of the World, after it had been impregnated\nby the Spirit of that which broods over the Primeval Waters, or Chaos. It\nis by being reflected in it, say the Kabalists, that the brooding\nPrinciple \u201ccreated\u201d the phantasmagoria of a visible, manifested Universe.\nChaos before, Ether after this \u201creflection,\u201d it is still the Deity that\npervades Space and all things. It is the invisible, imponderable Spirit of\nthings, and the invisible, but only too tangible, fluid that radiates from\nthe fingers of the healthy magnetizer, for it is Vital Electricity\u2014Life\nitself. Called in derision, by the Marquis de Mirville, the \u201cNebulous\nAlmighty,\u201d it is to this day termed by the Theurgists and Occultists the\n\u201cLiving Fire\u201d; and there is not a Hind\u00fb who practises at dawn a certain\nkind of meditation but knows its effects. It is the \u201cSpirit of Light\u201d and\nMagnes. As truly expressed by an opponent, Magus and Magnes are two\nbranches growing from the same trunk and shooting forth the same\nresultants. And in this appellation of \u201cLiving Fire\u201d we may also discover\nthe meaning of the puzzling sentence in the _Zend Avesta_: there is \u201ca\nFire that gives knowledge of the future, science and amiable speech\u201d; that\nis to say, which develops an extraordinary eloquence in the sibyl, the\nsensitive, and even some orators. Writing upon this subject, in _Isis\nUnveiled_, we said:\n\n\n    The Chaos of the ancients, the Zoroastrian Sacred Fire, or the\n    Atash\u2010Behram of the Pars\u00ees; the Hermes\u2010fire, the Elmes\u2010fire of the\n    ancient Germans; the Lightning of Cybele; the Burning Torch of\n    Apollo; the Flame on the altar of Pan; the Inextinguishable Fire\n    in the temple on the Acropolis, and in that of Vesta; the Fire\u2010\n    flame of Pluto\u2019s helm; the brilliant Sparks on the caps of the\n    Dioscuri, on the Gorgon\u2019s head, the helm of Pallas, and the staff\n    of Mercury; the Egyptian Ptah\u2010Ra; the Grecian Zeus Cataibates (the\n    Descending) of Pausanias; the Pentecostal Fire\u2010tongues; the\n    Burning Bush of Moses; the Pillar of Fire of _Exodus_, and the\n    Burning Lamp of Abram; the Eternal Fire of the \u201cbottomless pit\u201d;\n    the Delphic oracular vapours; the Sidereal Light of the\n    Rosicrucians; the \u00c2k\u00e2sha of the Hind\u00fb Adepts; the Astral Light of\n    \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi; the Nerve\u2010Aura and the Fluid of the Magnetists; the\n    Od of Reichenbach; the Psychod and Ectenic Force of Thury; the\n    \u201cPsychic Force\u201d of Sergeant Cox, and the atmospheric magnetism of\n    some Naturalists; galvanism; and finally, electricity\u2014all these\n    are but various names for many different manifestations or effects\n    of the same mysterious, all\u2010pervading Cause, the Greek Arch\u00e6us.\n\n\nWe now add\u2014it is all this and much more.\n\nThis \u201cFire\u201d is spoken of in all the Hind\u00fb Sacred Books, as also in the\nKabalistic works. The _Zohar_ explains it as the \u201cWhite Hidden Fire, in\nthe Risha Havurah,\u201d the White Head, whose Will causes the fiery fluid to\nflow in 370 currents in every direction of the Universe. It is identical\nwith the \u201cSerpent that runs with 370 leaps\u201d of the _Siphrah Dtzenioutha_,\nthe Serpent, which, when the \u201cPerfect Man,\u201d the Metatron, _is raised_,\nthat is to say, when the _Divine_ Man indwells in the _animal_ man,\nbecomes _three_ Spirits, or \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi\u2010Manas, in our Theosophical\nphraseology.\n\nSpirit, then, or Cosmic Ideation, and Cosmic Substance\u2014one of whose\n\u201cprinciples\u201d is Ether\u2014are _one_, and include the Elements, in the sense\nSt. Paul attaches to them. These Elements are the veiled Synthesis\nstanding for Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, Devas, Sephiroth, Amshaspends, Archangels,\netc. The Ether of Science\u2014the Ilus of Berosus, or the Protyle of\nChemistry\u2014constitutes, so to speak, the _rude_ material, relatively, out\nof which the above\u2010named Builders, following the plan traced out for them\neternally in the Divine Thought, fashion the Systems in the Kosmos. They\nare \u201cmyths,\u201d we are told. No more so than Ether and the Atoms, we answer.\nThe two latter are absolute necessities of Physical Science, and the\nBuilders are as absolute a necessity of Metaphysics. We are twitted with\nthe objection: You never saw them. And we ask the Materialists: Have you\never seen Ether, or your Atoms, or, again, your Force? Moreover, one of\nthe greatest Western Evolutionists of our modern day, co\u2010\u201cdiscoverer\u201d with\nDarwin, Mr. A. R. Wallace, when discussing the inadequacy of Natural\nSelection alone accounting for the physical form of Man, admits the\nguiding action of \u201chigher intelligences\u201d as a \u201c_necessary_ part of the\ngreat laws which govern the material Universe.\u201d(498)\n\nThese \u201chigher intelligences\u201d are the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans of the Occultists.\n\nIndeed, there are few myths in any religious system worthy of the name,\nbut have a historical as well as a scientific foundation. \u201cMyths,\u201d justly\nobserves Pococke, \u201care now proved to be _fables_, just in proportion as\n_we misunderstand_ them; _truths_, in proportion as _they were once\nunderstood_.\u201d\n\nThe most distinct and the one prevailing idea, found in all ancient\nteaching, with reference to Cosmic Evolution and the first \u201ccreation\u201d of\nour Globe with all its products, organic and _inorganic_\u2014strange word for\nan Occultist to use!\u2014is that the whole Kosmos has sprung from the Divine\nThought. This Thought impregnates Matter, which is co\u2010eternal with the One\nReality; and all that lives and breathes evolves from the Emanations of\nthe One Immutable, Parabrahman\u2010M\u00fblaprakriti, the Eternal One\u2010Root. The\nformer of these, in its aspect of the Central Point turned inward, so to\nsay, into regions quite inaccessible to human intellect, is Absolute\nAbstraction; whereas, in its aspect as M\u00fblaprakriti, the Eternal Root of\nall, it gives one at least some hazy comprehension of the Mystery of\nBeing.\n\n\n    Therefore, it was taught in the _inner_ temples that this visible\n    Universe of Spirit and Matter is but the concrete Image of the\n    ideal Abstraction; it was built on the Model of the first Divine\n    Idea. Thus our Universe existed from eternity in a latent state.\n    The Soul animating this purely spiritual Universe is the Central\n    Sun, the highest Deity Itself. It was not the One who built the\n    concrete form of the idea, but the First\u2010Begotten; and, as it was\n    constructed on the geometrical figure of the dodecahedron,(499)\n    the First\u2010Begotten \u201cwas pleased to employ 12,000 years in its\n    creation.\u201d The latter number is expressed in the Tyrrhenian\n    Cosmogony,(500) which shows man created in the sixth millennium.\n    This agrees with the Egyptian theory of 6,000 \u201cyears,\u201d(501) and\n    with the Hebrew computation. But it is the exoteric form of it.\n    The secret computation explains that the \u201c12,000 and the 6,000\n    years\u201d are Years of Brahm\u00e2, one Day of Brahm\u00e2 being equal to\n    4,320,000,000 years. Sanchuniathon, in his _Cosmogony_,(502)\n    declares that when the Wind (Spirit) became enamoured of its own\n    principles (Chaos), an intimate union took place, which connection\n    was called Pothos (\u03c0\u03bf\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2), and from this sprang the seed of all.\n    And the Chaos knew not its own production, for it was _senseless_;\n    but from its embrace with the Wind was generated M\u00f4t, or the Ilus\n    (Mud).(503) From this proceeded the spores of creation and the\n    generation of the Universe.(504)\n\n    Zeus\u2010Z\u00ean (\u00c6ther), and Chthonia (Chaotic Earth) and Metis (Water),\n    his wives; Osiris\u2014also representing \u00c6ther, the first emanation of\n    the Supreme Deity, Amun, the primeval source of Light\u2014and Isis\u2010\n    Latona, the Goddess Earth and Water again; Mithras,(505) the rock\u2010\n    born God, the symbol of the male Mundane Fire, or the personified\n    Primordial Light, and Mithra, the Fire\u2010Goddess, at once his mother\n    and his wife\u2014the pure element of Fire, the active or male\n    principle, regarded as light and heat, in conjunction with Earth\n    and Water, or matter, the female, or passive, element of cosmical\n    generation\u2014Mithras who is the son of Bordj, the Persian mundane\n    mountain,(506) from which he flashed out as a radiant ray of\n    light; Brahm\u00e2, the Fire\u2010God, and his prolific consort; and the\n    Hind\u00fb Agni, the refulgent Deity from whose body issue a thousand\n    streams of glory and _seven_ tongues of flame, and in whose honour\n    certain Br\u00e2hmans to this day maintain a perpetual fire; Shiva,\n    personated by Meru, the mundane mountain of the Hind\u00fbs, the\n    terrific Fire\u2010God, who is said in the legend to have descended\n    from heaven, like the Jewish Jehovah, \u201cin a pillar of fire\u201d; and a\n    dozen other archaic double\u2010sexed Deities\u2014all loudly proclaim their\n    hidden meaning. And what could be the dual meaning of these myths\n    but the psycho\u2010chemical principle of primordial creation; the\n    First Evolution, in its triple manifestation of Spirit, Force and\n    Matter; the divine _correlation_, at its starting point,\n    allegorized as the marriage of Fire and Water, the products of\n    electrifying Spirit\u2014the union of the male active principle with\n    the female passive element\u2014which become the parents of their\n    tellurian child, Cosmic Matter, the Prima Materia, whose Soul is\n    \u00c6ther, and whose Shadow is the Astral Light!(507)\n\n\nBut the fragments of the cosmogonical systems that have reached us are now\nrejected as absurd fables. Nevertheless, Occult Science\u2014which has survived\neven the Great Flood that submerged the Antediluvian Giants and with them\ntheir very memory, save the record preserved in the Secret Doctrine, the\n_Bible_ and other Scriptures\u2014still holds the Key to all the world\nproblems.\n\nLet us, then, apply this Key to the rare fragments of long\u2010forgotten\nCosmogonies, and by means of their scattered portions endeavour to\nreestablish the once Universal Cosmogony of the Secret Doctrine. The Key\nfits them all. No one can seriously study ancient philosophies without\nperceiving that the striking similitude of conception in all of them, in\ntheir exoteric form very frequently, and in their hidden spirit\ninvariably, is the result of no mere coincidence, but of a concurrent\ndesign; and that, during the youth of mankind, there was but one language,\none knowledge, one universal religion, when there were no churches, no\ncreeds or sects, but when every man was a priest unto himself. And, if it\nis shown that already in those early ages which are shut out from our\nsight by the exuberant growth of tradition, human religious thought\ndeveloped in uniform sympathy in every portion of the globe; then, it\nbecomes evident that that thought, born under whatever latitude, in the\ncold North or the burning South, in the East or West, was inspired by the\nsame revelations, and that man was nurtured under the protecting shadow of\nthe same _Tree of Knowledge_.\n\n\n\n\nSection IV. Chaos: Theos: Kosmos.\n\n\nThese three are the containment of Space; or, as a learned Kabalist has\ndefined it: \u201cSpace, the all\u2010containing uncontained, is the primary\nembodiment of simple Unity ... boundless extension.\u201d(508) But, he asks\nagain: \u201cboundless extension of what?\u201d\u2014and makes the correct reply: \u201cThe\nUnknown Container of All, the _Unknown First Cause_.\u201d This is a most\ncorrect definition and answer; most esoteric and true, from every aspect\nof Occult Teaching.\n\n_Space_, which, in their ignorance and with their iconoclastic tendency to\ndestroy every philosophic idea of old, the modern wiseacres have\nproclaimed \u201can abstract idea\u201d and a \u201cvoid,\u201d is, in reality, the Container\nand the Body of the Universe in its Seven Principles. It is a Body of\nlimitless extent, whose Principles, in Occult phraseology\u2014each being in\nits turn a septenary\u2014manifest in our phenomenal World only the grossest\nfabric of their _sub\u2010divisions_. \u201cNo one has ever seen the Elements in\ntheir fulness,\u201d the Doctrine teaches. We have to search for our Wisdom in\nthe original expressions and synonyms of the primeval peoples. Even the\nJews, the latest of these, show the same idea, in their Kabalistic\nteachings, when they speak of the seven\u2010headed Serpent of Space, called\nthe \u201cGreat Sea.\u201d\n\n\n    In the beginning, the Alhim created the Heavens and the Earth; the\n    Six [Sephiroth].... They created Six, and on these all things are\n    based. And these [Six] depend upon the _seven forms_ of the\n    Cranium up to the Dignity of all Dignities.(509)\n\n\nNow Wind, Air and Spirit have ever been synonymous in every nation. Pneuma\n(Spirit) and Anemos (Wind), with the Greeks, Spiritus and Ventus, with the\nLatins, were convertible terms, even if dissociated from the original idea\nof the Breath of Life. In the \u201cForces\u201d of Science we see but the _material\neffect_ of the _spiritual effect_ of one or other of the four primordial\nElements, transmitted to us by the Fourth Race just as we shall transmit\n\u00c6ther, or rather its gross sub\u2010division, in its fulness to the Sixth Root\u2010\nRace.\n\nChaos was called _senseless_ by the Ancients, because\u2014Chaos and Space\nbeing synonymous\u2014it represented and contained in itself all the Elements\nin their rudimentary, undifferentiated State. They made \u00c6ther, the fifth\nElement, the synthesis of the other four; for the \u00c6ther of the Greek\nphilosophers was not its Dregs, although indeed they knew more than\nScience does now of these Dregs (Ether), which are rightly enough supposed\nto act as an agent for many Forces that manifest on Earth. Their \u00c6ther was\nthe \u00c2k\u00e2sha of the Hind\u00fbs; the Ether accepted in Physics is but one of its\nsub\u2010divisions, on our plane, the Astral Light of the Kabalists with all\nits _evil_ as well as its good effects.\n\nSeeing that the Essence of \u00c6ther, or the Unseen Space, was considered\ndivine, as being the supposed Veil of Deity, it was regarded as the Medium\nbetween this life and the next. The Ancients considered that when the\ndirecting active Intelligences\u2014the Gods\u2014retired from any portion of \u00c6ther\nin _our_ Space, or the four realms which they superintend, then that\nparticular region was left in the possession of _evil_, so called by\nreason of the absence from it of _good_.\n\n\n    The existence of Spirit in the common Mediator, the Ether, is\n    denied by Materialism; while Theology makes of it a Personal God.\n    But the Kabalist holds that both are wrong, saying that in Ether,\n    the elements represent only Matter, the blind Cosmic Forces of\n    Nature; while Spirit represents the Intelligence which directs\n    them. The \u00c2ryan, Hermetic, Orphic, and Pythagorean cosmogonical\n    doctrines, as well as those of Sanchuniathon and Berosus, are all\n    based upon one irrefutable formula, viz., that \u00c6ther and Chaos,\n    or, in the Platonic language, Mind and Matter, were the two\n    primeval and eternal principles of the Universe, utterly\n    independent of anything else. The former was the all\u2010vivifying\n    intellectual principle, while Chaos was a shapeless liquid\n    principle, without \u201cform or sense\u201d; from the union of which two\n    sprang into existence the Universe, or rather the Universal World,\n    the first Androgynous Deity\u2014Chaotic Matter becoming its Body, and\n    Ether its Soul. According to the phraseology of a Fragment of\n    Hermeias: \u201cChaos, from this union with Spirit, obtaining _sense_,\n    shone with pleasure, and thus was produced Protogonos the (First\u2010\n    Born) Light.\u201d(510) This is the universal Trinity, based on the\n    metaphysical conceptions of the Ancients, who, reasoning by\n    analogy, made of man, who is a compound of Intellect and Matter,\n    the Microcosm of the Macrocosm, or Great Universe.(511)\n\n\n\u201cNature abhors Vacuum\u201d said the Peripatetics, who though Materialists in\ntheir way, comprehended perhaps why Democritus, with his instructor\nLeucippus, taught that the first principles of all things contained in the\nUniverse were Atoms and a Vacuum. The latter means simply _latent_ Force\nor Deity, which, before its first manifestation\u2014when it became Will,\ncommunicating the first impulse to these Atoms\u2014was the great Nothingness,\nAin Suph, or No\u2010Thing; and, therefore, to every sense, a Void, or Chaos.\n\nThis Chaos, however, became the \u201cSoul of the World,\u201d according to Plato\nand the Pythagoreans. According to Hind\u00fb teaching, Deity, in the shape of\n\u00c6ther or \u00c2k\u00e2sha, pervades all things. It was called, therefore, by the\nTheurgists the \u201cLiving Fire,\u201d the \u201cSpirit of Light,\u201d and sometimes\n\u201cMagnes.\u201d According to Plato, the highest Deity itself built the Universe\nin the geometrical form of the dodecahedron, and its \u201cFirst\u2010Begotten\u201d was\nborn of Chaos and Primordial Light\u2014the Central Sun. This First\u2010Born,\nhowever, was only the aggregate of the Host of the Builders, the first\nConstructive Forces, who are called in ancient Cosmogonies, the Ancients,\nborn of the Deep or Chaos, and the First Point. He is the Tetragrammaton,\nso\u2010called, at the head of the Seven lower Sephiroth. This was also the\nbelief of the Chaldeans. Philo, the Jew, speaking very flippantly of the\nfirst instructors of his ancestors, writes as follows:\n\n\n    These Chaldeans were of opinion that the Kosmos, _among the things\n    that exist_ [?], is a single Point, either being itself God\n    [Theos] or that in it is God, comprehending the Soul of all\n    things.(512)\n\n\nChaos, Theos, Kosmos are but the three symbols of their synthesis\u2014_Space_.\nOne can never hope to solve the mystery of this Tetraktys, by holding to\nthe dead\u2010letter even of the old philosophies as now extant. But even in\nthese, Chaos, Theos, Kosmos and Space are identified in all Eternity, as\nthe One Unknown Space, the last word on which will never, perhaps, be\nknown, before our Seventh Round. Nevertheless, the allegories and\nmetaphysical symbols about the primeval and _perfect_ Cube, are\nremarkable, even in the exoteric _Pur\u00e2nas_.\n\nThere, also, Brahm\u00e2 is Theos, evolving out of Chaos, or the Great Deep,\nthe Waters, over which Spirit or Space\u2014the Spirit moving over the face of\nthe future boundless Kosmos\u2014is silently hovering, in the first hour of\nre\u00e4wakening. It is also Vishnu, sleeping on Ananta\u2010Shesha, the great\nSerpent of Eternity, of which Western Theology, ignorant of the _Kabalah_,\nthe only key that opens the secrets of the _Bible_, has made\u2014the Devil. It\nis the first Triangle or the Pythagorean Triad, the \u201cGod of the _three_\nAspects,\u201d before it is transformed, through the perfect quadrature of the\nInfinite Circle, into the \u201cfour\u2010faced\u201d Brahm\u00e2. \u201cOf him who is and yet is\nnot, from Non\u2010Being, the Eternal Cause, is born the Being, Purusha,\u201d says\nManu, the legislator.\n\n\n    In the Egyptian mythology, Kneph, the Eternal _Unrevealed_ God, is\n    represented by a snake\u2010emblem of Eternity encircling a water urn,\n    with its head hovering over the waters, which it incubates with\n    its breath. In this case, the Serpent is the Agathodaim\u00f4n, the\n    Good Spirit; in its opposite aspect, it is the Kakodaim\u00f4n, the\n    Evil Spirit. In the Scandinavian _Eddas_, the honey\u2010dew, the fruit\n    of the Gods, and of the creative busy Yggdrasil bees, falls during\n    the hours of night, when the atmosphere is impregnated with\n    humidity; and in the Northern mythologies, as the passive\n    principle of creation, it typifies the creation of the Universe\n    out of Water. This dew is the Astral Light in one of its\n    combinations, and possesses creative as well as destructive\n    properties. In the Chaldean legend of Berosus, Oannes or Dagon,\n    the man\u2010fish, instructing the people, shows the infant World\n    created out of Water, and all beings originating from this Prima\n    Materia. Moses teaches that only Earth and Water can bring into\n    existence a Living Soul: and we read in the Scriptures that herbs\n    could not grow until the Eternal caused it to _rain_ upon Earth.\n    In the Mexican _Popol Vuh_, man is created out of _mud_ or clay\n    (_terre glaise_), taken from under the Water. Brahm\u00e2 creates the\n    great Muni, or first man, seated on his Lotus, only after having\n    called spirits into being, who thus enjoyed over mortals a\n    priority of existence; and he creates him out of Water, Air and\n    Earth. Alchemists claim that the primordial or pre\u2010adamic Earth,\n    when reduced to its first substance, is in its _second_ stage of\n    transformation like clear Water, the first being the Alkahest\n    proper. This primordial substance is said to contain within itself\n    the essence of all that goes to make up man; it contains not only\n    all the elements of his physical being, but even the \u201cbreath of\n    life\u201d in a latent state, ready to be awakened. This it derives\n    from the \u201cincubation\u201d of the \u201cSpirit of God\u201d upon the face of the\n    Waters\u2014Chaos. In fact, this substance is Chaos itself. From this\n    it was that Paracelsus claimed to be able to make his Homunculi;\n    and this is why Thales, the great natural philosopher, maintained\n    that Water was the principle of all things in nature.(513)... Job\n    says that dead _things_ are formed from under the Waters, and the\n    inhabitants thereof.(514) In the original text, instead of \u201cdead\n    _things_,\u201d it is written dead Rephaim, Giants or mighty Primitive\n    Men, from whom Evolution may one day trace our present race.(515)\n\n\n\u201cIn the primordial state of the creation,\u201d says Polier\u2019s _Mythologie des\nIndous_, \u201cthe rudimental Universe, submerged in Water, reposed in the\nbosom of Vishnu. Sprung from this Chaos and Darkness, Brahm\u00e2, the\nArchitect of the World, poised on a lotus\u2010leaf, floated [moved] upon the\nwaters, unable to discern anything but water and darkness.\u201d Perceiving\nsuch a dismal state of things, Brahm\u00e2 soliloquizes in consternation: \u201cWho\nam I? Whence came I?\u201d Then he hears a voice:(516) \u201cDirect your thoughts to\nBhagavat.\u201d Brahm\u00e2, rising from his natatory position, seats himself upon\nthe lotus, in an attitude of contemplation, and reflects upon the Eternal,\nwho, pleased with this evidence of piety, disperses the primeval darkness\nand opens his understanding. \u201cAfter this Brahm\u00e2 issues from the Universal\nEgg [Infinite Chaos] as Light, for his understanding is now opened, and he\nsets himself to work. He moves on the eternal Waters, with the Spirit of\nGod within himself; and in his capacity of Mover of the Waters he is\nVishnu, or N\u00e2r\u00e2yana.\u201d\n\nThis is, of course, exoteric; yet, in its main idea, it is as identical as\npossible with the Egyptian Cosmogony, which, in its opening sentences,\nshows Athtor,(517) or Mother Night, representing Illimitable Darkness, as\nthe Primeval Element which covered the Infinite Abyss, animated by Water\nand the Universal Spirit of the Eternal, dwelling alone in Chaos.\nSimilarly in the Jewish Scriptures, the history of the creation opens with\nthe Spirit of God and his creative Emanation\u2014another Deity.(518)\n\nThe _Zohar_ teaches that it is the Primordial Elements\u2014the trinity of\nFire, Air and Water\u2014the Four Cardinal Points, and all the Forces of\nNature, which form collectively the Voice of the Will, Memrab, or the\nWord, the Logos of the Absolute Silent ALL. \u201cThe indivisible Point,\nlimitless and unknowable,\u201d spreads itself over space, and thus forms a\nVeil, the M\u00fblaprakriti of Parabrahman, which conceals this Absolute Point.\n\nIn the Cosmogonies of all the nations it is the Architects, synthesized by\nthe Demiurge, in the _Bible_ the Elohim, or Alhim, who fashion Kosmos out\nof Chaos, and who are the collective Theos, male\u2010female, Spirit and\nMatter. \u201cBy a series (_yom_) of foundations (_hasoth_), the Alhim caused\nearth and heaven to be.\u201d(519) In _Genesis_, it is first Alhim, then Jahva\u2010\nAlhim, and finally Jehovah\u2014after the separation of the sexes in the fourth\nchapter. It is noticeable that nowhere, except in the later, or rather the\n_last_, Cosmogonies of our Fifth Race does the ineffable and unutterable\nNAME(520)\u2014the symbol of the Unknown Deity, which was used only in the\nMYSTERIES\u2014occur in connection with the \u201cCreation\u201d of the Universe. It is\nthe Movers, the Runners, the Theoi (from \u03b8\u03ad\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd to run), who do the work of\nformation, the Messengers of the Manvantaric Law, who have now become in\nChristianity simply the \u201cMessengers\u201d (Malachim). This seems to be also the\ncase in Hind\u00fbism or early Br\u00e2hmanism. For in the _Rig Veda_, it is not\nBrahm\u00e2 who creates, but the Praj\u00e2patis, the \u201cLords of Being,\u201d who are also\nthe Rishis; the term Rishi, according to Professor Mahadeo Kunte, being\nconnected with the word to move, to lead on, applied to them in their\nterrestrial character, when, as Patriarchs, they lead their Hosts on the\nSeven Rivers.\n\nMoreover, the very word \u201cGod,\u201d in the singular, embracing all the Gods, or\nTheoi, came to the \u201csuperior\u201d civilized nations from a strange source, one\nas entirely and pre\u00ebminently phallic as the sincere outspokenness of the\nIndian Lingham. The attempt to derive _God_ from the Anglo\u2010Saxon synonym\n_Good_ is an abandoned idea, for in no other language, from the Persian\n_Khoda_ down to the Latin _Deus_, has an instance been found of the name\nfor God being derived from the attribute of _Goodness_. To the Latin races\nit comes from the \u00c2ryan _Dyaus_ (the Day); to the Slavonian, from the\nGreek Bacchus (_Bagh\u2010bog_); and to the Saxon races directly from the\nHebrew _Yod_, or _Jod_. The latter is \u05d9 the number\u2010letter 10, male and\nfemale, and Yod is the phallic _hook_. Hence the Saxon _Godh_, the\nGermanic _Gott_, and the English _God_. This symbolic term may be said to\nrepresent the Creator of Physical Humanity, on the _terrestrial_ plane;\nbut surely it had nothing to do with the Formation, or \u201cCreation,\u201d of\neither Spirit, Gods, or Kosmos?\n\nChaos\u2010Theos\u2010Kosmos, the Triple Deity, is _all in all_. Therefore, it is\nsaid to be male and female, good and evil, positive and negative; the\nwhole series of contrasted qualities. When latent, in Pralaya, it is\nincognizable and becomes the Unknowable Deity. It can be known only in its\nactive functions; hence as Matter\u2010Force and _living_ Spirit, the\ncorrelations and outcome, or the expression, on the visible plane, of the\nultimate and ever\u2010to\u2010be unknown Unity.\n\nIn its turn this Triple Unit is the producer of the Four Primary\nElements,(521) which are known, in our visible terrestrial Nature, as the\nseven (so far the five) Elements, each divisible into forty\u2010nine\u2014seven\ntimes seven\u2014sub\u2010elements, with about seventy of which Chemistry is\nacquainted. Every Cosmical Element, such as Fire, Air, Water, Earth,\npartaking of the qualities and defects of its Primaries, is in its nature\nGood and Evil, Force or Spirit, and Matter, etc.; and each, therefore, is\nat one and the same time Life and Death, Health and Disease, Action and\nReaction. They are ever forming Matter, under the never\u2010ceasing impulse of\nthe One Element, the Incognizable, represented in the world of phenomena\nby \u00c6ther. They are \u201cthe immortal Gods who give birth and life to all.\u201d\n\nIn _The Philosophical Writings of Solomon Ben Yehudah Ibn Gebirol_, in\ntreating of the structure of the Universe, it is said:\n\n\n    R. Yehudah began, it is written: \u201cElohim said: Let there be a\n    firmament in the midst of the waters.\u201d Come, see! At the time that\n    the Holy ... created the World, He created 7 heavens Above. He\n    created 7 earths Below, 7 seas, 7 days, 7 rivers, 7 weeks, 7\n    years, 7 times, and 7,000 years that the World has been. The Holy\n    _is in the seventh_ of all.(522)\n\n\nThis, besides showing a strange identity with the Cosmogony of the\n_Pur\u00e2nas_,(523) corroborates all our teachings with regard to number\nseven, as briefly given in _Esoteric Buddhism_.\n\nThe Hind\u00fbs have an endless series of allegories to express this idea. In\nthe Primordial Chaos, before it became developed into the Sapta Samudra,\nor Seven Oceans\u2014emblematical of the Seven Gunas, or conditioned Qualities,\ncomposed of Trigunas (Sattva, Rajas and Tamas)\u2014lie latent both Amrita, or\nImmortality, and Visha, or Poison, Death, Evil. This is to be found in the\nallegorical Churning of the Ocean by the Gods. Amrita is beyond any Guna,\nfor it is _unconditioned_, _per se_; but when once fallen into phenomenal\ncreation, it became mixed with Evil, Chaos, with latent Theos in it,\nbefore Kosmos was evolved. Hence we find Vishnu, the personification of\nEternal Law, periodically calling forth Kosmos into activity, or, in\nallegorical phraseology, churning out of the Primitive Ocean, or Boundless\nChaos, the Amrita of Eternity, reserved only for the Gods and Devas; and\nin the task he has to employ N\u00e2gas and Asuras, or Demons in exoteric\nHind\u00fbism. The whole allegory is highly philosophical, and indeed we find\nit repeated in every ancient system of philosophy. Thus we find it in\nPlato, who having fully embraced the ideas which Pythagoras had brought\nfrom India, compiled and published them in a form more intelligible than\nthe original mysterious numerals of the Samian Sage. Thus the Kosmos is\nthe \u201cSon\u201d with Plato, having for his Father and Mother Divine Thought and\nMatter.(524)\n\n\u201cThe Egyptians,\u201d says Dunlap, \u201cdistinguish between an older and younger\nHorus; the former the _brother_ of Osiris, the latter the _son_ of Osiris\nand Isis.\u201d(525) The first is the Idea of the World remaining in the\nDemiurgic Mind, \u201cborn in Darkness before the Creation of the World.\u201d The\nsecond Horus is this Idea going forth from the Logos, becoming clothed\nwith Matter, and assuming an actual existence.(526)\n\nThe _Chaldean Oracles_ speak of the \u201cMundane God, eternal, boundless,\nyoung and old, of winding form.\u201d(527) This \u201cwinding form\u201d is a figure to\nexpress the vibratory motion of the Astral Light, with which the ancient\npriests were perfectly well acquainted, though the name \u201cAstral Light\u201d was\ninvented by the Martinists.\n\nCosmolatry has the finger of scorn pointed at its superstitions by Modern\nScience. Science, however, before laughing at it, ought, as advised by a\nFrench savant, \u201cto entirely remodel its own system of cosmo\u2010\npneumatological education.\u201d _Satis eloquenti\u00e6, sapienti\u00e6 parum!_\nCosmolatry, like Pantheism, in its ultimate expression, may be made to\nexpress itself in the same words in which the _Pur\u00e2na_ describes Vishnu:\n\n\n    He is only the _ideal cause_ of the _potencies_ to be created in\n    the work of creation; and from him proceed the potencies to be\n    created, after they have become the real cause. _Save that one\n    ideal cause_, there is no other to which the world can be\n    referred.... _Through the potency of that cause_, every created\n    thing comes by its proper nature.(528)\n\n\n\n\nSection V. On the Hidden Deity, Its Symbols and Glyphs.\n\n\nThe Logos, or Creative Deity, the \u201cWord made Flesh,\u201d of every religion,\nhas to be traced to its ultimate source and essence. In India, it is a\nProteus of 1,008 divine names and aspects in each of its _personal_\ntransformations, from Brahm\u00e2\u2010Purusha, through the Seven _Divine_ Rishis\nand Ten _Semi\u2010divine_ Praj\u00e2patis (also Rishis), down to the _Divine\u2010human_\nAvat\u00e2ras. The same puzzling problem of the \u201cOne in Many,\u201d and the\nMultitude in One, is found in other Pantheons; in the Egyptian, the Greek\nand the Chaldeo\u2010Judaic, the latter having made confusion still more\nconfused by presenting its Gods as euhemerizations, in the shapes of\nPatriarchs. And these Patriarchs are now accepted by those who reject\nRomulus as a myth, and are represented as living and _historical_\nEntities. _Verbum satis sapienti!_\n\nIn the _Zohar_, Ain Suph is also the One, the Infinite Unity. This was\nknown to the very few learned Fathers of the Church, who were aware that\nJehovah was no \u201chighest\u201d God, but a _third\u2010rate_ Potency. But while\ncomplaining bitterly of the Gnostics, and saying: \u201cour Heretics hold ...\nthat Propat\u00f4r is known but to the Only\u2010begotten Son(529) [who is Brahm\u00e2],\nthat is to the Mind [Nous],\u201d Iren\u00e6us failed to mention that the Jews did\nthe same in their real _secret_ books. Valentinus, \u201cthe profoundest doctor\nof the Gnosis,\u201d held that \u201cthere was a perfect Ai\u00f4n who existed before\nBythos [the first Father of unfathomable nature, which is the Second\nLogos], called Propat\u00f4r.\u201d It is this Ai\u00f4n who springs as a Ray from Ain\nSuph, which _does not create_, and Ai\u00f4n who creates, or _through_ whom,\nrather, everything is created, or evolves. For, as the Basilidians taught,\n\u201cthere was a Supreme God, Abrasax, by whom was created Mind [Mahat, in\nSanskrit; Nous, in Greek]. From Mind proceeded the Word, Logos; from the\nWord, Providence [Divine Light, rather]; then from it Virtue and Wisdom in\nPrincipalities, Powers, Angels, etc.\u201d By these Angels the 365 \u00c6ons were\ncreated. \u201cAmongst the lowest, indeed, and those who made this world, he\n[Basilides] sets last of all the God of the Jews, whom he denies to be God\n[and very rightly], affirming he is one of the Angels.\u201d\n\nHere, then, we find the same system as in the _Pur\u00e2nas_, wherein the\nIncomprehensible drops a Seed, which becomes the Golden Egg, from which\nBrahm\u00e2 is produced. Brahm\u00e2 produces Mahat, etc. True Esoteric Philosophy,\nhowever, speaks neither of \u201ccreation,\u201d nor of \u201cevolution,\u201d in the sense in\nwhich the exoteric religions do. All these personified Powers are not\nevolutions from one another, but so many aspects of the one and sole\nmanifestation of the Absolute All.\n\nThe same system as that of the Gnostic Emanations prevails in the\nSephirothic aspects of Ain Suph, and, as these aspects are in Space and\nTime, a certain order is maintained in their successive appearances.\nTherefore, it becomes impossible not to take notice of the great changes\nthat the _Zohar_ has undergone under the handling of generations of\nChristian Mystics. For, even in the metaphysics of the _Talmud_, the Lower\nFace or Lesser Countenance, or Microprosopus, could never be placed on the\nsame plane of abstract ideals as the Higher, or Greater Countenance,\nMacroprosopus. The latter is, in the Chaldean _Kabalah_, a pure\nabstraction, the Word or Logos, or Dabar in Hebrew; which Word, though it\nbecomes in fact a plural number, or Words, D(a)B(a)R(i)M, when it reflects\nitself, or falls into the aspect of a Host of Angels, or Sephiroth\u2014the\n\u201cNumber\u201d\u2014is still collectively One, and on the ideal plane a nought,\n[circle], \u201cNothing.\u201d _It_ is without form or being, \u201cwith no likeness with\nanything else.\u201d(530) And even Philo calls the Creator, the Logos who\nstands next God, the \u201cSecond God,\u201d when he speaks of \u201cthe Second God, who\nis his [the Highest God\u2019s] Wisdom.\u201d(531) Deity is not God. It is No\u2010thing,\nand Darkness. It is nameless, and therefore called Ain Suph, the word\n\u201cAyin meaning nothing.\u201d(532) The \u201cHighest God,\u201d the Unmanifested Logos, is\nIts Son.\n\nNor are most of the Gnostic systems which have come down to us, mutilated\nas they are by the Church Fathers, anything better than the distorted\nshells of the original speculations. Nor were they, moreover, ever _open_\nto the public or general reader; for had their hidden meaning or\nesotericism been revealed, it would have been no more an esoteric\nteaching, and this could never have been. Marcus, the chief of the\nMarcosians, who flourished in the middle of the second century, and taught\nthat Deity had to be viewed under the symbol of _four_ syllables, gave out\nmore of the esoteric truths than any other Gnostic. But even he was never\nwell understood. For it is only on the surface or dead\u2010letter of his\n_Revelation_ that it appears that God is a Quaternary, to wit, \u201cthe\nIneffable, the Silence, the Father, and Truth,\u201d since in reality it is\nquite erroneous, and divulges only one more esoteric riddle. This teaching\nof Marcus was that of the early Kabalists and is ours. For he makes of\nDeity the Number 30, in four syllables, which, translated esoterically,\nmeans a Triad or Triangle, and a Quaternary or a Square, in all seven,\nwhich, on the lower plane, made the seven divine or Secret Letters of\nwhich the God\u2010name is composed. This requires demonstration. In his\n_Revelation_, speaking of divine mysteries expressed by means of letters\nand numbers, Marcus narrates how the Supreme \u201cTetrad came down\u201d unto him\n\u201cfrom the region which cannot be seen nor named, _in a female form_,\nbecause _the world would have been unable to bear her appearing in a male\nfigure_,\u201d and revealed to him \u201cthe generation of the universe, _untold\nbefore to either_ Gods or men.\u201d\n\nThe first sentence already contains a double meaning. Why should the\napparition of a female figure be more easily borne, or listened to, by the\nworld than a male figure? On the face of it, this appears nonsensical. But\nto one who is acquainted with the Mystery Language, it is quite clear and\nsimple. Esoteric Philosophy, or the Secret Wisdom, was symbolized by a\nfemale form, while a male figure stood for the Unveiled Mystery. Hence,\nthe world, not being ready to receive it, could not bear it, and the\nRevelation of Marcus had to be given allegorically. Thus he writes:\n\n\n    When first its Father [_sc._ of the Tetrad] ... the Inconceivable,\n    the Beingless, Sexless [the Kabalistic Ain Suph], desired that Its\n    Ineffable [the First Logos, or \u00c6on] should be born, and Its\n    Invisible should be clothed with form, Its mouth opened and\n    uttered the Word like unto Itself. This Word [Logos] standing near\n    showed It what It was, manifesting itself in the form of the\n    Invisible One. Now the uttering of the [Ineffable] Name [through\n    the Word] came to pass in this manner. It [the Supreme Logos]\n    uttered the first Word of its Name, ... which, was a combination\n    [syllable] of _four_ elements [letters]. Then the second\n    combination was added, also of _four_ elements. Then the third,\n    composed of _ten_ elements; and after this the fourth was uttered,\n    which contained _twelve_ elements. The utterance of the whole Name\n    consisted thus of _thirty_ elements and of _four_ combinations.\n    Each element has its own letters and peculiar character, and\n    pronunciation, and groupings and similitudes; but none of them\n    perceives the form of that of which it is the element, nor\n    understands the utterance of its neighbour, but, what each sounds\n    forth itself, as sounding forth all [it can], that it thinks good\n    to call the whole.... And these sounds are they which manifest in\n    form the Beingless and Ingenerable \u00c6on, and these are the forms\n    which are called Angels, perpetually beholding the Face of the\n    Father,(533) the Logos, the \u201cSecond God,\u201d who stands next God the\n    \u201cInconceivable,\u201d according to Philo.(534)\n\n\nThis is as plain as ancient esoteric secresy could make it. It is as\nKabalistic though less veiled than the _Zohar_, in which the mystic names,\nor attributes, are also four syllabled, twelve, forty\u2010two, and even\nseventy\u2010two syllabled words! The Tetrad shows to Marcus the Truth in the\nshape of a naked woman, and letters every limb of that figure, calling her\nhead \u0391 \u03a9, her neck \u0392 \u03a8, shoulders and hands \u0393 \u03a7, etc. In this, Sephira is\neasily recognized; the head, or Crown, Kether, being numbered 1; the\nbrain, or Chokmah, 2; the Heart, or Intelligence, Binah, 3; and the other\nseven Sephiroth representing the limbs of the body. The Sephirothic Tree\nis the Universe, and Adam Kadmon personifies it in the West, as Brahm\u00e2\nrepresents it in India.\n\nThroughout, the Ten Sephiroth are represented as divided into the Three\nhigher, or the spiritual Triad, and the lower Septenary. The true esoteric\nmeaning of the sacred number Seven though cleverly veiled, in the _Zohar_,\nis betrayed by the double way of writing the term, \u201cin the Beginning,\u201d or\n_Be\u2010rasheeth_, and _Be\u2010raishath_, the latter the \u201cHigher, or Upper\nWisdom.\u201d As shown by S. L. MacGregor Mathers(535) and Isaac Myer,(536)\nboth of these Kabalists being supported by the best ancient authorities,\nthese words have a dual and secret meaning. _Braisheeth barah Elohim_\nmeans, that the _six_, over which stands the _seventh_ Sephira, belong to\nthe lower material class, or, as the author says: \u201cSeven ... are applied\nto the Lower Creation, and Three to the Spiritual Man, the Heavenly\nPrototypic or First Adam.\u201d\n\nWhen the Theosophists and Occultists say that God is no Being, for It is\nNothing, No\u2010Thing, they are more reverential and religiously respectful to\nthe Deity than those who call God _He_, and thus make of Him a gigantic\nMale.\n\nHe who studies the _Kabalah_ will soon find the same idea in the ultimate\nthought of its authors, the earlier and great Hebrew Initiates, who got\nthis Secret Wisdom in Babylonia from the Chaldean Hierophants, just as\nMoses got his in Egypt. The Zoharic system cannot very well be judged by\nits translations into Latin and other tongues, when all its ideas were\nsoftened and made to fit in with the views and policy of its Christian\narrangers; for its original ideas are identical with those of all other\nreligious systems. The various Cosmogonies show that the Universal Soul\nwas considered by every archaic nation as the Mind of the Demiurgic\nCreator; and that it was called the Mother, Sophia, or the female Wisdom,\nwith the Gnostics; the Sephira, with the Jews; Sarasvat\u00ee or V\u00e2ch, with the\nHind\u00fbs; the Holy Ghost also being a female Principle.\n\nHence, the Kurios, or Logos, born from it, was, with the Greeks, the God,\nMind (Nous). \u201cNow Koros [Kurios] ... signifies the pure and unmixed nature\nof Intellect\u2014Wisdom,\u201d says Plato, in _Cratylus_;(537) and Kurios is\nMercury (Mercurius, Mar\u2010kurios), the Divine Wisdom, and \u201cMercury is Sol\n[the Sun],\u201d(538) from whom Thot\u2010Hermes received this Divine Wisdom. While,\nthen, the Logoi of all countries and religions are correlative, in their\nsexual aspects, with the female Soul of the World or the Great Deep, the\nDeity, from which these Two in One have their being, is ever concealed and\ncalled the Hidden One, and is connected only indirectly with\n\u201cCreation,\u201d(539) as it can act only through the Dual Force emanating from\nthe Eternal Essence. Even \u00c6sculapius, called the \u201cSaviour of all,\u201d is\nidentical, according to ancient classical writers, with the Egyptian Ptah,\nthe Creative Intellect, or Divine Wisdom, and with Apollo, Baal, Adonis\nand Hercules:(540) and Ptah, in one of its aspects, is the Anima Mundi;\nthe Universal Soul of Plato; the Divine Spirit of the Egyptians; the Holy\nGhost of the early Christians and Gnostics; and the \u00c2k\u00e2sha of the Hind\u00fbs,\nand even, in its lower aspect, the Astral Light. For Ptah was originally\nthe God of the Dead, he into whose bosom they were received, hence the\nLimbus of the Greek Christians, or the Astral Light. It was far later that\nPtah was classed with the Sun\u2010Gods, his name signifying \u201che who opens,\u201d as\nhe is shown to be the first to unveil the face of the dead mummy, to call\nthe Soul to _life in his bosom_. Kneph, the Eternal Unrevealed, is\nrepresented by the snake\u2010emblem of eternity encircling a water\u2010urn, with\nits head hovering over the \u201cWaters,\u201d which it incubates with its\nbreath\u2014another form of the one original idea of \u201cDarkness,\u201d with its Ray\nmoving on the Waters, etc. As the Logos\u2010Soul, this _permutation_ is called\nPtah; as the Logos\u2010Creator, he becomes Imhotep, his Son, the \u201cGod of the\nhandsome face.\u201d In their primitive characters, these two were the first\nCosmic Duad, Noot, Space or \u201cSky,\u201d and Noon, the \u201cPrimordial Waters,\u201d the\nAndrogyne Unity, above whom was the Concealed Breath of Kneph. And all of\nthem had the aquatic animals and plants sacred to them, the ibis, the\nswan, the goose, the crocodile, and the lotus.\n\nReturning to the Kabalistic Deity, this Concealed Unity is then Ain Suph\n(\u05d0\u05d9\u05df \u05e1\u05d5\u05e3, \u03c4\u1f78 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd, \u03c4\u03cc \u1f04\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd), Endless, Boundless, Non\u2010Existent (\u05d0\u05d9\u05df), so\nlong as the Absolute is within Oulom,(541) the Boundless and Termless\nTime; as such, Ain Suph cannot be the Creator or even the Modeller of the\nUniverse, nor can It be Aur (Light). Therefore Ain Suph is also Darkness.\nThe _immutably_ Infinite, and the _absolutely_ Boundless, can neither\nwill, think, nor act. To do this, it has to become Finite, and _it_ does\nso by its Ray penetrating into the Mundane Egg, or Infinite Space, and\nemanating from it as a Finite God. All this is left to the Ray latent in\nthe One. When the period arrives, the Absolute Will expands naturally the\nForce within it, according to the Law of which it is the inner and\nultimate Essence. The Hebrews did not adopt the Egg as a symbol, but they\nsubstituted for it the \u201cDuplex Heavens,\u201d for, translated correctly, the\nsentence \u201cGod made the heavens and the earth\u201d would read: \u201cIn and out of\nhis own Essence, as a Womb [the Mundane Egg], God created the Two\nHeavens.\u201d The Christians, however, have chosen the Dove, the bird and not\nthe egg, as the symbol of their Holy Ghost.\n\n\u201cWhoever acquaints himself with Hud, the Mercabah and the Lahgash [secret\nspeech or incantation], will learn the secret of secrets.\u201d Lahgash is\nnearly identical in meaning with V\u00e2ch, the hidden power of the Mantras.\n\nWhen the active period has arrived, from within the Eternal Essence of Ain\nSuph, comes forth Sephira, the Active Power, called the Primordial Point\nand the Crown, Kether. It is only through her that the \u201cUn\u2010bounded Wisdom\u201d\ncould give a Concrete Form to the Abstract Thought. Two sides of the Upper\nTriangle, by which the Ineffable Essence and its Manifested Body, the\nUniverse, are symbolized, the right side and the base, are composed of\nunbroken lines; the third, the left side, is dotted. It is through the\nlatter that emerges Sephira. Spreading in every direction, she finally\nencompasses the whole Triangle. In this emanation the triple Triad is\nformed. From the invisible Dew falling from the higher Uni\u2010triad, the\n\u201cHead,\u201d\u2014thus leaving 7 Sephiroth only\u2014Sephira _creates_ Primeval Waters,\nor in other words, Chaos takes shape. It is the first stage towards the\nsolidification of Spirit which, through various modifications, will\nproduce Earth. \u201cIt requires Earth and Water to make a Living Soul,\u201d says\nMoses. It requires the image of an aquatic bird to connect it with Water,\nthe female element of procreation, with the egg and the bird that\nfecundates it.\n\nWhen Sephira emerges as an Active Power from within the Latent Deity, she\nis female; when she assumes the office of a Creator, she becomes a male;\nhence, she is androgyne. She is the \u201cFather and Mother, Aditi,\u201d of the\nHind\u00fb Cosmogony and of the Secret Doctrine. If the oldest Hebrew scrolls\nhad been preserved, the modern Jehovah\u2010worshipper would have found that\nmany and uncomely were the symbols of the \u201cCreative God.\u201d The frog in the\nmoon, typical of his generative character, was the most frequent. All the\nbirds and animals now called \u201cunclean\u201d in the _Bible_ have been the\nsymbols of this Deity, in days of old. A mask of uncleanness was placed\nover them, in order to preserve them from destruction, because they were\nso sacred. The brazen serpent is not a bit more poetical than the goose or\nswan, if symbols are to be accepted _\u00e0 la lettre_.\n\nIn the words of the _Zohar_:\n\n\n    The Indivisible Point, which has no limit and cannot be\n    comprehended because of Its purity and brightness, expanded _from\n    without_, forming a brightness that served the Indivisible Point\n    as a Veil; [yet the latter also] _could not be viewed in_\n    consequence of its immeasurable Light. It too _expanded from\n    without_, and this expansion was its Garment. Thus through a\n    constant _upheaving_ [motion] finally the world originated.(542)\n\n\nThe Spiritual Substance sent forth by the Infinite Light is the First\nSephira or Shekinah. Sephira, _exoterically_, contains all the other nine\nSephiroth in her: _esoterically_, she contains but two, Chokmah or Wisdom,\n\u201ca masculine, _active_ potency whose divine name is Jah (\u05d9\u05d4),\u201d and Binah,\nor Intelligence, a feminine passive potency, represented by the divine\nname Jehovah (\u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4); which two potencies form, with Sephira the third, the\nJewish Trinity or the Crown, Kether. These two Sephiroth, called Abba,\nFather, and Amona, Mother, are the Duad, or the double\u2010sexed Logos, from\nwhich issued the other seven Sephiroth. Thus, the first Jewish Triad,\nSephira, Chokmah and Binah, is the Hind\u00fb Trim\u00fbrti.(543) However veiled\neven in the _Zohar_, and still more in the exoteric Pantheon of India,\nevery particular connected with one is reproduced in the other. The\nPraj\u00e2patis are the Sephiroth. Ten with Brahm\u00e2, they dwindle to seven when\nthe Trim\u00fbrti, or the Kabalistic Triad, are separated from the rest. The\nseven Builders, or \u201cCreators,\u201d become the seven Praj\u00e2pati, or the seven\nRishis, in the same order as the Sephiroth become the Creators, then the\nPatriarchs, etc. In both Secret Systems, the One Universal Essence is\nincomprehensible and inactive, in its Absoluteness, and can be connected\nwith the Building of the Universe only in an indirect way. In both, the\nprimeval Male\u2010female, or Androgynous, Principle and its ten and seven\nEmanations\u2014Brahm\u00e2\u2010Vir\u00e2j and Aditi\u2010V\u00e2ch, on the one hand; and the Elohim\u2010\nJehovah, or Adam\u2010Adami (Adam Kadmon) and Sephira\u2010Eve, on the other; with\ntheir Praj\u00e2patis and Sephiroth\u2014in their totality, represent primarily the\nArchetypal Man, the Protologos; and it is only in their secondary aspect\nthat they become cosmic powers, and astronomical or sidereal bodies. If\nAditi is the Mother of the Gods, Deva\u2010M\u00e2tri, Eve is the Mother of All\nLiving; both are the Shakti, or Generative Power, in their female aspect,\nof the Heavenly Man, and they are both compound Creators. Says a Gupt\u00e2\nVidy\u00e2 S\u00fbtra:\n\n_In the beginning, a Ray, issuing from Param\u00e2rthika [the one and only True\nExistence], became manifested in Vy\u00e2vah\u00e2rika [Conventional Existence],\nwhich was used as a V\u00e2hana to descend with into the Universal Mother, and\nto cause her to expand [swell, brih]._\n\nAnd in the _Zohar_ it is stated:\n\n\n    The Infinite Unity, formless and without similitude, after the\n    Form of the Heavenly Man was created, used it. The Unknown\n    Light(544) [Darkness] used the Heavenly Form (\u05d0\u05d3\u05dd \u05e2\u05d9\u05dc\u05d0\u05d4\u2014Adam\n    Oilah) as a Chariot (\u05de\u05e8\u05db\u05d1\u05d4\u2014Mercabah), through which to descend,\n    and wished to be called by this Form, which is the sacred name\n    Jehovah.\n\n\nAs the _Zohar_ again says:\n\n\n    In the beginning was the Will of the King, prior to any other\n    existence.... It [the Will] sketched the forms of all things that\n    had been concealed but now came into view. And there went forth as\n    a sealed secret, from the head of Ain Suph, a nebulous spark of\n    matter, without shape or form.... Life is drawn from below, and\n    from above the source renews itself, the sea is always full and\n    spreads its waters everywhere.\n\n\nThus the Deity is compared to a shoreless sea, to Water which is \u201cthe\nfountain of life.\u201d(545) \u201cThe seventh palace, the fountain of life, is the\nfirst in the order from above.\u201d(546) Hence the Kabalistic tenet on the\nlips of the very Kabalistic Solomon, who says in _Proverbs_: \u201cWisdom hath\nbuilded her house; it hath hewn out its _seven_ pillars.\u201d(547)\n\nWhence, then, all this identity of ideas, if there were no primeval\nUniversal Revelation? The few points so far brought out are like a few\nstraws in a stack, in comparison to that which will be disclosed as the\nwork proceeds. If we turn to the Chinese Cosmogony, the most hazy of all,\neven there the same idea is found. Tsi\u2010tsai, the Self\u2010Existent, is the\nUnknown Darkness, the Root of the Wu\u2010liang\u2010sheu, Boundless Age; Amit\u00e2bha,\nand Tien, Heaven, come later on. The \u201cGreat Extreme\u201d of Confucius gives\nthe same idea, his \u201cstraws\u201d notwithstanding. The latter are a source of\ngreat amusement to the missionaries, who laugh at every \u201cheathen\u201d\nreligion, despise and hate that of their brother Christians of other\ndenominations, and yet one and all accept their own _Genesis_,\n_literally_.\n\nIf we turn to the Chaldean we find in it Anu, the Concealed Deity, the\nOne, whose name, moreover, shows it to be of Sanskrit origin; for Anu in\nSanskrit means Atom, An\u00eey\u00e2msam\u2010an\u00eeyas\u00e2m, smallest of the small, being a\nname of Parabrahman, in the Ved\u00e2ntic philosophy, in which Parabrahman is\ndescribed as smaller than the smallest atom, and greater than the greatest\nsphere or universe, Anagr\u00e2n\u00eeyas and Mahatoruvat. In the first verses of\nthe Akkadian _Genesis_, as found in the cuneiform texts on the Babylonian\ntiles or Lateres Coctiles, and as translated by George Smith, we find Anu,\nthe Passive Deity, or Ain Suph; Bel, the Creator, the Spirit of God, or\nSephira, moving on the Face of the Waters, hence Water itself; and Hea,\nthe Universal Soul, or Wisdom of the Three combined.\n\nThe first eight verses read as follows:\n\n\n    1. When above, were not raised the heavens:\n    2. and below on the earth a plant had not grown up;\n    3. the abyss had not broken open their boundaries.\n    4. The Chaos (or Water) Tiamat (the Sea) was the producing\u2010mother\n                of the whole of them. [This is the Cosmical Aditi and\n                Sephira.]\n    5. Those waters at the beginning were ordained; but\n    6. a tree had not grown, a flower had not unfolded.\n    7. When the Gods had not sprung up, any one of them;\n    8. a plant had not grown, and order did not exist.(548)\n\n\nThis was the Chaotic or Ante\u2010genetic Period; the double Swan, and the Dark\nSwan which becomes white, when Light is created.(549)\n\nThe symbol chosen for the majestic ideal of the Universal Principle may\nperhaps seem little calculated to answer its sacred character. A goose, or\neven a swan, will, no doubt, be thought an unfit symbol to represent the\ngrandeur of the Spirit. Nevertheless, it must have had some deep Occult\nmeaning, since it figures not only in every Cosmogony and World\u2010religion,\nbut was also chosen by the Crusaders, among the medi\u00e6val Christians, as\nthe Vehicle of the Holy Ghost, which was supposed to be leading the army\nto Palestine, to wrench the tomb of the Saviour from the hands of the\nSaracen. If we are to credit Professor Draper\u2019s statement, in his\n_Intellectual Development of Europe_, the Crusaders, under Peter the\nHermit, were preceded, at the head of the army, by the Holy Ghost, under\nthe shape of a white gander in the company of a goat. Seb, the Egyptian\nGod of Time, carries a goose on his head; Jupiter assumes the form of a\nswan, and so also does Brahm\u00e2; and the root of all this is that mystery of\nmysteries\u2014the Mundane Egg. One should learn the reason of a symbol before\ndepreciating it. The dual element of Air and Water is that of the ibis,\nswan, goose and pelican, of crocodiles and frogs, lotus flowers and water\nlilies, etc.; and the result is the choice of the most unseemly symbols by\nthe modern as much as by the ancient Mystics. Pan, the great God of\nNature, was generally figured in company with aquatic birds, geese\nespecially, and so were other Gods. If later on, with the gradual\ndegeneration of religion, the Gods to whom geese were sacred, became\npriapic deities, it does not, therefore, follow that water\u2010fowls were made\nsacred to Pan and other phallic deities, as some scoffers even of\nantiquity would have it,(550) but that the abstract and divine power of\nProcreative Nature had become grossly anthropomorphized. Nor does the swan\nof Leda show \u201cpriapic doings and her enjoyment thereof,\u201d as Mr. Hargrave\nJennings chastely expresses it; for the myth is but another version of the\nsame philosophical idea of Cosmogony. Swans are frequently found\nassociated with Apollo, as they are the emblems of Water and Fire, and\nalso of the Sun\u2010light, before the separation of the Elements.\n\nOur modern symbologists might profit by some remarks made by a well\u2010known\nwriter, Mrs. Lydia Maria Child, who says:\n\n\n    From time immemorial an emblem has been worshipped in Hind\u00fbstan as\n    the type of creation, or the origin of life.... Shiva, or the\n    Mah\u00e2deva, being not only the reproducer of human forms, but also\n    the fructifying principle, the generative power that pervades the\n    Universe. The maternal emblem is likewise a religious type. This\n    reverence for the production of life introduced into the worship\n    of Osiris the sexual emblems. Is it strange that they regarded\n    with reverence the great mystery of human birth? Were they impure\n    thus to regard it? Or are _we_ impure that we do not so regard it?\n    But _no clean and thoughtful mind_ could so regard them.... We\n    have travelled far, and unclean have been the paths, since those\n    old anchorites first spoke of God and the soul in the solemn\n    depths of their first sanctuaries. Let us not smile at their mode\n    of tracing the infinite and the incomprehensible Cause throughout\n    all the mysteries of nature, lest by so doing we cast the shadow\n    of our own grossness on their patriarchal simplicity.(551)\n\n\n\n\nSection VI. The Mundane Egg.\n\n\nWhence this universal symbol? The Egg was incorporated as a sacred sign in\nthe Cosmogony of every people on the earth, and was revered both on\naccount of its form and of its inner mystery. From the earliest mental\nconceptions of man, it has been known as that which represented most\nsuccessfully the origin and secret of Being. The gradual development of\nthe imperceptible germ within the closed shell; the inward working,\nwithout any apparent outward interference of force, which from a latent\n_nothing_ produced an active _something_, needing naught save heat; and\nwhich, having gradually evolved into a concrete, living creature, broke\nits shell, appearing to the outward senses of all as a self\u2010generated and\nself\u2010created being; all this must have been a standing miracle from the\nbeginning.\n\nThe Secret Teaching explains the reason for this reverence by the\nsymbolism of the prehistoric races. In the beginnings, the \u201cFirst Cause\u201d\nhad no name. Later it was pictured in the fancy of the thinkers as an ever\ninvisible, mysterious Bird that dropped an Egg into Chaos, which Egg\nbecame the Universe. Hence Brahm\u00e2 was called K\u00e2lahansa, the \u201cSwan in\n[Space and] Time.\u201d Becoming the Swan of Eternity, Brahm\u00e2, at the beginning\nof each Mah\u00e2manvantara, lays a Golden Egg, which typifies the great\nCircle, or [circle] itself a symbol for the Universe and its spherical\nbodies.\n\nA second reason for the Egg having been chosen as the symbolical\nrepresentation of the Universe, and of our Earth, was its form. It was a\nCircle and a Sphere; and the ovi\u2010form shape of our Globe must have been\nknown from the beginning of symbology, since it was so universally\nadopted. The first manifestation of the Kosmos in the form of an Egg was\nthe most widely diffused belief of Antiquity. As Bryant shows,(552) it was\na symbol adopted among the Greeks, the Syrians, Persians, and Egyptians.\nIn the Egyptian _Ritual_, Seb, the God of Time and of the Earth, is spoken\nof as having laid an Egg, or the Universe, an \u201cEgg conceived at the hour\nof the Great One of the Dual Force.\u201d(553)\n\nRa is shown like Brahm\u00e2 gestating in the Egg of the Universe. The Deceased\nis \u201cresplendent in the Egg of the Land of Mysteries.\u201d(554) For, this is\n\u201cthe Egg to which is given Life among the Gods.\u201d(555) \u201cIt is the Egg of\nthe great clucking Hen, the Egg of Seb, who issues from it like a\nhawk.\u201d(556)\n\nAmong the Greeks the Orphic Egg is described by Aristophanes, and was part\nof the Dionysiac and other Mysteries, during which the Mundane Egg was\nconsecrated and its significance explained; Porphyry also shows it to be a\nrepresentation of the world: \u201c\u1f19\u03c1\u03bc\u03b7\u03bd\u03b5\u03cd\u03b5\u03b9 \u03b4\u1f72 \u03c4\u1f78 \u1f60\u1f78\u03bd \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd.\u201d Faber and\nBryant have tried to show that the Egg typified the Ark of Noah\u2014a wild\nbelief, unless the latter is accepted as purely allegorical and\nsymbolical. It can only have typified the Ark as a synonym of the Moon,\nthe Argha which carries the universal seed of life; but had surely nothing\nto do with the Ark of the _Bible_. Anyhow, the belief that the Universe\nexisted in the beginning in the shape of an Egg was general. And as Wilson\nsays:\n\n\n    A similar account of the first aggregation of the elements in the\n    form of an Egg is given in all the _Pur\u00e2nas_, with the usual\n    epithet Haima or Hiranya, \u201cgolden,\u201d as it occurs in _Manu_, I.\n    9.(557)\n\n\nHiranya, however, means \u201cresplendent,\u201d \u201cshining,\u201d rather than \u201cgolden,\u201d as\nis proven by the great Indian scholar, the late Sv\u00e2mi Dayanand Sarasvat\u00ee,\nin his unpublished polemics with Professor Max M\u00fcller. As said in the\n_Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_:\n\n\n    Intellect [Mahat] ... the [unmanifested] gross elements inclusive,\n    formed an Egg ... and the Lord of the Universe himself abided in\n    it, in the character of Brahm\u00e2. In that Egg, O Br\u00e2hmana, were the\n    continents, and seas and mountains, the planets and divisions of\n    the planets, the gods, the demons and mankind.(558)\n\n\nBoth in Greece and in India the first visible male Being, who united in\nhimself the nature of either sex, abode in the Egg and issued from it.\nThis \u201cFirst\u2010born of the World\u201d was Dionysus, with some Greeks; the God who\nsprang from the Mundane Egg, and from whom the Mortals and Immortals were\nderived. The God Ra is shown, in the _Book of the Dead_, beaming in his\nEgg [the Sun], and the stars off as soon as the God Shoo [the Solar\nEnergy] awakens and gives him the impulse.(559) \u201cHe is in the Solar Egg,\nthe Egg to which is given Life among the Gods.\u201d(560) The Solar God\nexclaims: \u201cI am the Creative Soul of the Celestial Abyss. None sees my\nNest, none can break my Egg, I am the Lord!\u201d(561)\n\nIn view of this circular form, the \u201c[vertical bar]\u201d issuing from the\n\u201c[circle],\u201d or the Egg, or the male from the female in the androgyne, it\nis strange to find a scholar saying, on the ground that the most ancient\nIndian MSS. show no trace of it, that the ancient \u00c2ryans were ignorant of\nthe decimal notation. The 10, being the sacred number of the Universe, was\nsecret and esoteric, both as regards the unit and cipher, or zero, the\ncircle. Moreover, Professor Max M\u00fcller tells that \u201cthe two words _cipher_\nand _zero_, which are but one, are sufficient to prove that our figures\nare borrowed from the Arabs.\u201d(562) Cipher is the Arabic _cifron_, and\nmeans \u201cempty,\u201d a translation of the Sanskrit _sunyan_, or \u201cnought,\u201d says\nthe Professor.(563) The Arabs had their figures from Hind\u00fbstan, and never\nclaimed the discovery for themselves. As to the Pythagoreans, we need but\nturn to the ancient manuscripts of Boethius\u2019 treatise, _De Arithmetica_,\ncomposed in the sixth century, to find among the Pythagorean numerals the\n\u201c1\u201d and the \u201c0,\u201d as the first and final figures.(564) And Porphyry, who\nquotes from the Pythagorean Moderatus,(565) says that the numerals of\nPythagoras were \u201chieroglyphical symbols, by means whereof he explained\nideas concerning the nature of things,\u201d or the origin of the Universe.\n\nNow, if, on the one hand, the most ancient Indian MSS. show as yet no\ntrace of decimal notation in them, and Max M\u00fcller states very clearly that\nuntil now he has found but nine letters, the initials of the Sanskrit\nnumerals; on the other hand, we have records as ancient, to supply the\nwanted proof. We speak of the sculptures and the sacred imagery in the\nmost ancient temples of the far East. Pythagoras derived his knowledge\nfrom India; and we find Professor Max M\u00fcller corroborating this statement,\nat least so far as to allow that the Neo\u2010Pythagoreans were the first\nteachers of \u201cciphering,\u201d among the Greeks and Romans; that they \u201cat\nAlexandria, or in Syria, became acquainted with the Indian figures, and\nadapted them to the Pythagorean Abacus.\u201d This cautious admission implies\nthat Pythagoras himself was acquainted with only _nine_ figures. Thus we\nmight reasonably answer that, although we possess no certain proof,\nexoterically, that the decimal notation was known to Pythagoras, who lived\nat the very close of the archaic ages,(566) yet we have sufficient\nevidence to show that the full numbers, as given by Boethius, were known\nto the Pythagoreans, even before Alexandria was built.(567) This evidence\nwe find in Aristotle, who says that \u201csome philosophers hold that ideas and\nnumbers are of the same nature, and amount to _ten_ in all.\u201d(568) This, we\nbelieve, will be sufficient to show that the decimal notation was known\namong them at least as early as four centuries B.C., for Aristotle does\nnot seem to treat the question as an innovation of the Neo\u2010Pythagoreans.\n\nBut we know more than this; _we know_ that the decimal system must have\nbeen used by the mankind of the earliest archaic ages, since the whole\nastronomical and geometrical portion of the secret sacerdotal language was\nbuilt upon the number 10, or the combination of the male and female\nprinciples, and since the \u201cPyramid of Cheops,\u201d so\u2010called, is built upon\nmeasures of this decimal notation, or rather upon the digits and their\ncombinations with the _nought_. Of this, however, sufficient has been said\nin _Isis Unveiled_, and it is useless to repeat it.\n\nThe symbolism of the Lunar and Solar Deities is so inextricably mixed up,\nthat it is next to impossible to separate from each other such glyphs as\nthe Egg, the Lotus, and the \u201cSacred\u201d Animals. The Ibis, for instance, was\nheld in the greatest veneration in Egypt. It was sacred to Isis, who is\noften represented with the head of that bird, and also sacred to Mercury\nor Thoth, who is said to have assumed its form while escaping from Typhon.\nThere were two kinds of Ibises in Egypt, Herodotus(569) tells us; one\n_quite black_, the other black and white. The former is credited with\nfighting and exterminating the winged serpents which came every spring\nfrom Arabia, and infested the country. The other was sacred to the Moon,\nbecause the latter planet is white and brilliant on her external side,\ndark and black on that side which she never turns to the Earth. Moreover,\nthe Ibis kills land serpents, and makes the most terrible havoc amongst\nthe eggs of the crocodile, and thus saves Egypt from having the Nile over\u2010\ninfested by those horrible saurians. The bird is credited with doing this\nin the moonlight, and thus being helped by Isis, whose sidereal symbol is\nthe Moon. But the more correct esoteric truth underlying these popular\nmyths is, that Hermes, as shown by Abenephius,(570) watched over the\nEgyptians under the form of that bird, and taught them the Occult arts and\nsciences. This simply means that the _ibis religiosa_ had, and has,\n\u201cmagical\u201d properties in common with many other birds, the albatross\npre\u00ebminently, and the mythical white swan, the Swan of Eternity or Time,\nthe K\u00e2lahansa.\n\nWere it otherwise, indeed, why should all the ancient peoples, who were no\nmore fools than we are, have had such a superstitious dread of killing\ncertain birds? In Egypt, he who killed an Ibis, or the Golden Hawk, the\nsymbol of the Sun and Osiris, risked death, and could hardly escape it.\nThe veneration of some nations for birds was such that Zoroaster, in his\nprecepts, forbids their slaughter as a heinous crime. In our age, we laugh\nat every kind of divination. Yet why should so many generations have\nbelieved in divination by birds, and even in O\u00f6mancy, which is said by\nSuidas to have been imparted by Orpheus, who taught how, under certain\nconditions, to perceive in the yolk and white of an egg, that which the\nbird born from it would have seen around it during its short life. This\nOccult art, which, 3,000 years ago, demanded the greatest learning and the\nmost abstruse mathematical calculations, has now fallen into the depths of\ndegradation; and to\u2010day it is the old cooks and fortune\u2010tellers who read\nthe future for servant\u2010girls in search of husbands, from the white of an\negg in a glass.\n\nNevertheless, even Christians have to this day their sacred birds; for\ninstance, the Dove, the symbol of the Holy Ghost. Nor have they neglected\nthe sacred animals; and the evangelical zo\u00f6latry, with its Bull, Eagle,\nDion, and Angel\u2014in reality the Cherub, or Seraph, the fiery\u2010winged\nSerpent\u2014is as much Pagan as that of the Egyptians or the Chaldeans. These\nfour animals are, in reality, the symbols of the four Elements, and of the\nfour _lower_ Principles in man. Nevertheless, they correspond physically\nand materially to the four constellations that form, so to speak, the\n_suite_ or _cort\u00e8ge_ of the Solar God, and which, during the winter\nsolstice, occupy the four cardinal points of the zodiacal circle. These\nfour \u201canimals\u201d may be seen in many of the Roman Catholic _New Testaments_\nin which the \u201cportraits\u201d of the Evangelists are given. They are the\nanimals of Ezekiel\u2019s Mercabah.\n\nAs truly stated by Ragon:\n\n\n    The ancient Hierophants have combined so cleverly the dogmas and\n    symbols of their religious philosophies, that these symbols can be\n    fully explained only by the combination and knowledge of _all_ the\n    keys.\n\n\nThey can be only _approximately_ interpreted, even if one discovers three\nout of these seven systems, viz., the anthropological, the psychic and the\nastronomical. The two chief interpretations, the highest and the lowest,\nthe spiritual and the physiological, were preserved in the greatest\nsecrecy, until the latter fell into the dominion of the profane. Thus far,\nwith regard only to the pre\u2010historic Hierophants, with whom that which has\nnow become purely\u2014or impurely\u2014phallic, was a science as profound and as\nmysterious as Biology and Physiology are now. This was their exclusive\nproperty, the fruit of their studies and discoveries. The other two were\nthose which dealt with the Creative Gods, or Theogony, and with creative\nman; that is to say, with the ideal and the practical Mysteries. These\ninterpretations were so cleverly veiled and combined, that many were those\nwho, while arriving at the discovery of one meaning, were baffled in\nunderstanding the significance of the others, and could never unriddle\nthem sufficiently to commit dangerous indiscretions. The highest, the\nfirst and the fourth\u2014Theogony in relation to Anthropogony\u2014were almost\nimpossible to fathom. We find the proofs of this in the Jewish \u201cHoly\nWrit.\u201d\n\nIt is owing to the serpent being oviparous, that it became a symbol of\nWisdom and an emblem of the Logoi, or the Self\u2010Born. In the temple of\nPhil\u00e6, in Upper Egypt, an egg was artificially prepared of clay mixed with\nvarious incenses. This was hatched by a peculiar process, and a cerastes\nor horned viper was produced. The same was done in the Indian temples, in\nantiquity, in the case of the cobra. The Creative God emerges from the Egg\nthat issues from the mouth of Kneph, as a winged Serpent, for the Serpent\nis the symbol of the All\u2010Wisdom. With the Hebrews the same Deity is\nglyphed by the Flying or \u201cFiery Serpents\u201d of Moses in the Wilderness; and\nwith the Alexandrian Mystic she becomes the Orphio\u2010Christos, the Logos of\nthe Gnostics. The Protestants try to show that the allegory of the Brazen\nSerpent and of the Fiery Serpents has a direct reference to the mystery of\nthe Christ and the Crucifixion, whereas, in truth, it has a far nearer\nrelation to the _mystery of generation_, when dissociated from the Egg\nwith the Central Germ, or the _Circle with its Central Point_. Protestant\nTheologians would have us believe their interpretation _only_ because the\nBrazen Serpent was lifted on a pole! Whereas it had rather a reference to\nthe Egyptian Egg standing upright supported by the sacred Tau; since the\nEgg and the Serpent are in\u2010separable in the old worship and symbology of\nEgypt, and since both the Brazen and Fiery Serpents were Seraphs, the\nburning \u201cFiery\u201d Messengers, or the Serpent Gods, the N\u00e2gas of India.\nWithout the Egg it was a purely phallic symbol, but when associated\ntherewith, it related to cosmic creation. The Brazen Serpent had no such\nholy meaning as the Protestants would ascribe to it; nor was it, in fact,\nglorified above the Fiery Serpents, _for the bite of which it was only a\nnatural remedy_; the symbological meaning of the word \u201cBrazen\u201d being the\nfeminine principle, and that of \u201cFiery,\u201d or \u201cGold,\u201d the masculine\nprinciple.\n\n\n    Brass was a metal symbolizing the _nether world_ ... that of the\n    womb where life should be given.... The word for serpent in Hebrew\n    was _Nachash_, but this is also the term for _brass_.\n\n\nIt is said in _Numbers_ that the Jews complained of the Wilderness _where\nthere was no water_,(571) after which \u201cthe Lord sent fiery serpents\u201d to\nbite them, and then, to oblige Moses, he gave him as a remedy the Brazen\nSerpent on a pole for them to look at; after which \u201cany man when he beheld\nthe serpent of brass ... _lived_\u201d (?). After that the \u201cLord,\u201d gathering\nthe people together at the well of Beer, gave them water, and grateful\nIsrael sang this song, \u201cSpring up, O well.\u201d When, after studying\nsymbology, the Christian reader comes to understand the innermost meaning\nof these three symbols, Water, Brazen, and Serpent, and a few more, _in\nthe sense given to them in the Holy Bible_, he will hardly like to connect\nthe sacred name of his Saviour with the Brazen Serpent incident. The\nSeraphim (\u05e9\u05e8\u05e4\u05d9\u05dd) or Fiery Winged Serpents, are no doubt connected with,\nand inseparable from, the idea of the \u201cSerpent of Eternity\u2014God,\u201d as\nexplained in Kenealy\u2019s _Apocalypse_; but the word Cherub also meant\nSerpent, in one sense, though its direct meaning is different, for the\nCherubim and the Persian Winged Griffins (\u0393\u03c1\u03cd\u03c0\u03b5\u03c2), the guardians of the\nGolden Mountain, are the same, and the compound name of the former shows\ntheir character, as it is formed of _kr_ (\u05db\u05e8), a circle, and _aub_ or _ob_\n(\u05d0\u05d5\u05d1), a serpent, and therefore means a \u201cserpent in a circle.\u201d And this\nsettles the phallic character of the Brazen Serpent, and justifies\nHezekiah for breaking it.(572) _Verbum satis sapienti!_\n\nIn the _Book of the Dead_, as just shown,(573) reference is often made to\nthe Egg. Ra, the Mighty One, remains in his Egg, during the struggle\nbetween the \u201cChildren of the Rebellion\u201d and Shoo, the Solar Energy and the\nDragon of Darkness. The Deceased is resplendent in his Egg when he crosses\nto the Land of Mystery. He is the Egg of Seb. The Egg was the symbol of\nLife in Immortality and Eternity; and also the glyph of the generative\nmatrix; whereas the Tau, which was associated with it, was only the symbol\nof life and birth in _generation_. The Mundane Egg was placed in Khoom,\nthe Water of Space, or the feminine _abstract_ Principle; Khoom becoming,\nwith the \u201cfall\u201d of mankind into generation and phallicism, Ammon the\nCreative God. When Ptah, the \u201cFiery God,\u201d carries the Mundane Egg in his\nhand, then the symbolism becomes quite terrestrial and concrete in its\nsignificance. In conjunction with the Hawk, the symbol of Osiris\u2010Sun, the\nsymbol is dual, and relates to both Lives\u2014the mortal and the immortal. The\nengraving of a papyrus in Kircher\u2019s _\u0152dipus Egyptiacus_,(574) shows an egg\nfloating above the mummy. This is the symbol of hope and the promise of a\nSecond Birth for the Osirified Dead; his Soul, after due purification in\nthe Amenti, will gestate in this Egg of Immortality, to be reborn\ntherefrom into a new life on earth. For this Egg, in the Esoteric\nDoctrine, is Devachan, the Abode of Bliss; the Winged Scarab\u00e6us also being\nanother symbol of it. The Winged Globe is but another form of the Egg, and\nhas the same significance as the Scarab\u00e6us, the Khopiroo\u2014from the Root\n_khoproo_, to become, to be reborn\u2014which relates to the rebirth of man, as\nwell as to his spiritual regeneration.\n\nIn the _Theogony_ of Mochus, we find \u00c6ther first, and then Air, the two\nprinciples from which Ulom, the Intelligible (\u039d\u03bf\u03b7\u03c4\u1f78\u03c2) Deity, the visible\nUniverse of Matter, is born, out of the Mundane Egg.(575)\n\nIn the _Orphic Hymns_, Eros\u2010Phanes evolves from the Divine Egg, which the\n\u00c6thereal Winds impregnate, Wind being the \u201cSpirit of God,\u201d or rather the\n\u201cSpirit of the Unknown Darkness\u201d\u2014the Divine Idea of Plato\u2014which is said to\nmove in \u00c6ther.(576) In the Hind\u00fb _Kathopanishad_, Purusha, the Divine\nSpirit, already stands before the Original Matter, \u201cfrom whose union\nsprings the Great Soul of the World,\u201d Mah\u00e2\u2010\u00c2tm\u00e2, Brahm\u00e2, the Spirit of\nLife,(577) etc.; the latter appellations being all identical with Anima\nMundi, or the \u201cUniversal Soul,\u201d the Astral Light of the Kabalist and the\nOccultist, or the \u201cEgg of Darkness.\u201d Besides this there are many charming\nallegories on this subject, scattered through the Sacred Books of the\nBr\u00e2hmans. In one place, it is the female creator who is first a germ, then\na drop of heavenly dew, a pearl, and then an Egg. In such cases, of which\nthere are too many to enumerate separately, the Egg gives birth to the\nfour Elements within the fifth, \u00c6ther, and is covered with seven\ncoverings, which become later on the seven upper and the seven lower\nworlds. Breaking in two, the shell becomes the Heaven, and the contents\nthe Earth, the white forming the Terrestrial Waters. Then, again, it is\nVishnu who emerges from within the Egg, with a Lotus in his hand. Vinat\u00e2,\na daughter of Daksha and wife of Kashyapa, \u201cthe Self\u2010born, sprung from\nTime,\u201d one of the seven \u201cCreators\u201d of our World, brought forth an Egg from\nwhich was born Garuda, the Vehicle of Vishnu; the latter allegory having a\nrelation to our Earth, as Garuda is the Great Cycle.\n\nThe Egg was sacred to Isis; and therefore the priests of Egypt never ate\neggs.\n\nIsis is almost always represented holding a Lotus in one hand, and in the\nother a Circle and a Cross (_crux ansata_).\n\nDiodorus Siculus states that Osiris was born from an Egg, like Brahm\u00e2.\nFrom Leda\u2019s Egg, Apollo and Latona were born, and also Castor and Pollux,\nthe bright Gemini. And though the Buddhists do not attribute the same\norigin to their Founder, yet, no more than the ancient Egyptians or the\nmodern Br\u00e2hmans, do they eat eggs, lest they should destroy the germ of\nlife latent in them, and thereby commit sin. The Chinese believe that\ntheir First Man was born from an Egg, which Tien dropped down from Heaven\nto Earth into the Waters.(578) This egg\u2010symbol is still regarded by some\nas representing the idea of the origin of life, which is a scientific\ntruth, though the human _ovum_ is invisible to the naked eye. Therefore we\nsee respect shown to it from the remotest antiquity, by the Greeks,\nPh\u0153nicians, Romans, the Japanese, and the Siamese, the North and South\nAmerican tribes, and even the savages of the remotest islands.\n\nWith the Egyptians, the Concealed God was Ammon or Mon, the \u201cHidden\u201d, the\nSupreme Spirit. All their Gods were dual\u2014the scientific _Reality_ for the\nsanctuary; its double, the fabulous and mythical Entity, for the masses.\nFor instance, as observed in the Section \u201cChaos, Theos, Kosmos,\u201d the Elder\nHorus was the Idea of the World remaining in the Demiurgic Mind, \u201cborn in\nDarkness before the Creation of the World\u201d; the Second Horus was the same\nIdea going forth from the Logos, becoming clothed with matter and assuming\nan actual existence.(579) Horus, the \u201cElder,\u201d or Haroiri, is an ancient\naspect of the Solar God, contemporary with Ra and Shoo; Haroiri is often\nmistaken for Hor (Horsusi), Son of Osiris and Isis. The Egyptians very\noften represented the rising Sun under the form of Hor, the Elder, rising\nfrom a full\u2010blown Lotus, the Universe, when the solar disk is always found\non the hawk\u2010head of that God. Haroiri is Khnoom. The same with Khnoom and\nAmmon, both are represented as ram\u2010headed, and both are often confused,\nthough their functions are different. Khnoom is the \u201cmodeller of men,\u201d\nfashioning men and things out of the Mundane Egg, on a potter\u2019s wheel;\nAmmon\u2010Ra, the Generator, is the secondary aspect of the Concealed Deity.\nKhnoom was adored at Elephanta and Phil\u00e6,(580) Ammon at Thebes. But it is\nEmepht, the One, Supreme Planetary Principle, who blows the Egg out of his\nmouth, and who is, therefore, Brahm\u00e2. The Shadow of the Deity, Kosmic and\nUniversal, of that which broods over and permeates the Egg with its\nvivifying Spirit, until the Germ contained in it is ripe, was the Mystery\nGod whose name was unpronounceable. It is Ptah, however, \u201che who opens,\u201d\nthe opener of Life and Death,(581) who proceeds from the Egg of the World\nto begin his dual work.(582)\n\nAccording to the Greeks, the phantom form of the Chemis (Chemi, ancient\nEgypt) which floats on the Ethereal Waves of the Empyrean Sphere, was\ncalled into being by Horus\u2010Apollo, the Sun\u2010God, who caused it to evolve\nout of the Mundane Egg.\n\nThe _Brahm\u00e2nda Pur\u00e2na_ contains fully the mystery about Brahm\u00e2\u2019s Golden\nEgg; and this is why, perhaps, it is inaccessible to the Orientalists, who\nsay that this _Pur\u00e2na_, like the _Skanda_, is \u201cno longer procurable in a\ncollective body,\u201d but \u201cis represented by a variety of Khandas and\nM\u00e2h\u00e2tmyas professing to be derived from it.\u201d The _Brahm\u00e2nda Pur\u00e2na_ is\ndescribed as \u201cthat which has declared in 12,200 verses, the magnificence\nof the Egg of Brahm\u00e2, and in which an account of the future Kalpas is\ncontained, as revealed by Brahm\u00e2.\u201d(583) Quite so, and much more,\nperchance.\n\nIn the Scandinavian Cosmogony, placed by Professor Max M\u00fcller, in point of\ntime, as \u201cfar anterior to the _Vedas_,\u201d in the poem of W\u00f6luspa, the Song\nof the Prophetess, the Mundane Egg is again discovered in the Phantom\u2010Germ\nof the Universe, which is represented as lying in the Ginnungagap, the Cup\nof Illusion, M\u00e2y\u00e2, the Boundless and Void Abyss. In this World\u2019s Matrix,\nformerly a region of night and desolation, Nefelheim, the Mist\u2010Place, the\n_nebular_, as it is called now, in the Astral Light, dropped a _Ray of\nCold Light_ which overflowed this cup and froze in it. Then the Invisible\nblew a scorching Wind which dissolved the frozen Waters and cleared the\nMist. These Waters (Chaos), called the Streams of Eliwagar, distilling in\nvivifying drops, fell down and created the Earth and the Giant Ymir, who\nhad only the \u201csemblance of man\u201d (the Heavenly Man), and the Cow, Audumla\n(the \u201cMother,\u201d Astral Light or Cosmic Soul), from whose udder flowed\n_four_ streams of milk\u2014the four cardinal points; the four heads of the\nfour rivers of Eden, etc.\u2014which \u201cfour\u201d are symbolized by the Cube in all\nits various and mystical meanings.\n\nThe Christians\u2014especially the Greek and Latin Churches\u2014have fully adopted\nthe symbol, and see in it a commemoration of life eternal, of salvation\nand of resurrection. This is found in, and corroborated by, the time\u2010\nhonoured custom of exchanging \u201cEaster Eggs.\u201d From the Anguinum, the \u201cEgg\u201d\nof the Pagan Druid, whose name alone made Rome tremble with fear, to the\nred Easter Egg of the Slavonian peasant, a cycle has passed. And yet,\nwhether in civilized Europe, or among the abject savages of Central\nAmerica, we find the same archaic, primitive thought, if we will only\nsearch for it, and do not\u2014in the haughtiness of our fancied mental and\nphysical superiority\u2014disfigure the original idea of the symbol.\n\n\n\n\nSection VII. The Days and Nights of Brahm\u00e2.\n\n\nThis is the name given to the Periods called Manvantara (Manuantara, or\nbetween the Manus) and Pralaya, or Dissolution; one referring to the\nActive Periods of the Universe; the other to its times of relative and\ncomplete Rest, whether they occur at the end of a Day or an Age, or Life,\nof Brahm\u00e2. These Periods, which follow each other in regular succession,\nare also called Small and Great Kalpas, the Minor and the Mah\u00e2 Kalpas;\nthough, properly speaking, the Mah\u00e2 Kalpa is never a Day, but a whole Life\nor Age of Brahm\u00e2, for it is said in the _Brahma Vaivarta_: \u201cChronologers\ncompute a Kalpa by the Life of Brahm\u00e2. Minor Kalpas, as Samvarta and the\nrest, are numerous.\u201d In sober truth they are infinite; for they have never\nhad a commencement; or, in other words, there never was a _first_ Kalpa,\nnor will there ever be a _last_, in Eternity.\n\nOne Par\u00e2rdha, or half of the existence of Brahm\u00e2, in the ordinary\nacceptation of this measure of time, has already expired in the present\nMah\u00e2 Kalpa; the last Kalpa was the Padma, or that of the Golden Lotus; the\npresent one is the Var\u00e2ha,(584) the \u201cBoar\u201d Incarnation, or Avat\u00e2ra.\n\nOne thing is to be especially noted by the scholar who studies the Hind\u00fb\nreligion from the _Puran\u00e2s_. He must never take the statements found\ntherein literally, and in one sense only; and those especially, which\nconcern the Manvantaras, or Kalpas, have to be understood in their several\nreferences. Thus these Ages relate, in the same language, to both the\ngreat and the small periods, to Mah\u00e2 Kalpas and to Minor Cycles. The\nMatsya, or Fish Avat\u00e2ra, happened before the Var\u00e2ha or Boar Avat\u00e2ra; the\nallegories, therefore, must relate to both the Padma and the present\nManvantara, and also to the Minor Cycles which have occurred since the\nre\u00e4ppearance of our Chain of Worlds and the Earth. And as the Matsya\nAvat\u00e2ra of Vishnu and Vaivasvata\u2019s Deluge are correctly connected with an\nevent that happened on our Earth during this Round, it is evident that,\nwhile it may relate to pre\u2010cosmic events, pre\u2010cosmic in the sense of _our_\nCosmos, or Solar System, it has reference, in our case, to a distant\ngeological period. Not even Esoteric Philosophy can claim to know, except\nby analogical inference, that which took place before the re\u00e4ppearance of\nour Solar System, and previous to the last Mah\u00e2 Pralaya. But it teaches\ndistinctly, that after the first geological disturbance of the Earth\u2019s\naxis, which ended in the sweeping down to the bottom of the seas of the\nwhole Second Continent, with its primeval races\u2014of which successive\nContinents, or \u201cEarths,\u201d Atlantis was the fourth\u2014there came another\ndisturbance owing to the axis again resuming its previous degree of\ninclination as rapidly as it had changed it: when the Earth was indeed\nonce more _raised_ out of the waters\u2014as above, so below, and _vice vers\u00e2_.\nThere were \u201cGods\u201d on Earth in those days; Gods, and not men, as we know\nthem now, says the tradition. As will be shown in Volume II, the\ncomputation of periods, in exoteric Hind\u00fbism, refers to both the great\ncosmic and the small terrestrial events and cataclysms, and the same may\nbe demonstrated in respect to names. For instance, the name\nYudishthira\u2014the first king of the Sacae or Shakas, who opens the Kali Yuga\nEra, which has to last 432,000 years, \u201can actual king who lived 3,102\nyears B.C.\u201d\u2014applies also to the Great Deluge, at the time of the first\nsinking of Atlantis. He is the \u201cYudishthira,(585) born on the mountain of\nthe hundred peaks, at the extremity of the world, _beyond which nobody can\n__ go_\u201d and \u201cimmediately after the flood.\u201d(586) We know of no \u201cFlood\u201d\n3,102 years B.C., not even that of Noah, for, agreeably with Jud\u00e6o\u2010\nChristian chronology, it took place 2,349 years B.C.\n\nThis relates to an esoteric division of time and a mystery explained\nelsewhere, and may therefore be left aside for the present. Suffice it to\nremark, at this juncture, that all the efforts of imagination of the\nWilfords, Bentleys, and other would\u2010be \u0152dipuses of esoteric Hind\u00fb\nChronology, have sadly failed. No computation of either the Four Ages, or\nthe Manvantaras, has ever yet been unriddled by our very learned\nOrientalists, who have therefore cut the Gordian Knot by proclaiming the\nwhole \u201ca figment of the Br\u00e2hmanical brain.\u201d So be it, and may the great\nscholars rest in peace! This \u201cfigment\u201d is given at the end of the\nCommentaries on Stanza II of the Anthropogenesis, in Volume II, with\nEsoteric additions.\n\nLet us see, however, what were the three kinds of Pralayas, and what is\nthe _popular_ belief about them. For once it agrees with Esotericism.\n\nOf the Pralaya, before which fourteen Manvantaras elapse, having over them\nas many presiding Manus, and at whose close occurs the Incidental, or\nBrahm\u00e2\u2019s Dissolution, it is said in _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, in condensed\nparaphrase:\n\n\n    At the end of a thousand Periods of Four Ages, which complete a\n    day of Brahm\u00e2, the earth is almost exhausted. The Eternal (Avyaya)\n    Vishnu then assumes the character of Rudra, the Destroyer (Shiva),\n    and re\u00fcnites all his creatures to himself. He enters the Seven\n    Rays of the Sun and drinks up all the Waters of the Globe; he\n    causes the moisture to evaporate, thus drying up the whole Earth.\n    Oceans and rivers, torrents and small streams, are all exhaled.\n    Thus fed with abundant moisture the Seven Solar Rays become Seven\n    Suns, by dilation, and they finally set the World on fire. Hari,\n    the destroyer of all things, who is the Flame of Time, K\u00e2l\u00e2gni,\n    finally consumes the Earth. Then Rudra, becoming Jan\u00e2rdana,\n    breathes clouds and rain.(587)\n\n\nThere are many kinds of Pralaya, but three chief periods are specially\nmentioned in old Hind\u00fb books. The first of these, as Wilson shows, is\ncalled Naimittika,(588) \u201cOccasional\u201d or \u201cIncidental,\u201d caused by the\nintervals of Brahm\u00e2\u2019s Days; it is the destruction of creatures, of all\nthat lives and has a form, but not of the substance, which remains in\n_statu quo_ till the new Dawn after that Night. The second is called\nPr\u00e2kritika, and occurs at the end of the Age or Life of Brahm\u00e2, when\neverything that exists is resolved into the Primal Element, to be\nremodelled at the end of that longer Night. The third, \u00c2tyantika, does not\nconcern the Worlds, or the Universe, but only the Individualities of some\npeople. It is thus the Individual Pralaya, or Nirv\u00e2na, after having\nreached which, there is no more future existence possible, no rebirth till\nafter the Mah\u00e2 Pralaya. The latter Night\u2014lasting as it does\n311,040,000,000,000 years, with the possibility also of being almost\ndoubled in the case of the lucky J\u00eevanmukta who reaches Nirv\u00e2na at an\nearly period of a Manvantara\u2014is long enough to be regarded as _eternal_,\nif not endless. The _Bh\u00e2gavata Pur\u00e2na_(589) speaks of a fourth kind of\nPralaya, the Nitya, or Constant Dissolution, and explains it as the change\nwhich takes place imperceptibly in everything in this Universe from the\nglobe down to the atom, without cessation. It is growth and decay\u2014life and\ndeath.\n\nWhen the Mah\u00e2 Pralaya arrives, the inhabitants of Svar\u2010loka, the Upper\nSphere, disturbed by the conflagration, seek refuge \u201cwith the Pitris,\ntheir Progenitors, the Manus, the Seven Rishis, the various orders of\nCelestial Spirits and the Gods, in Mahar\u2010loka.\u201d When the latter is reached\nalso, the whole of the above enumerated beings migrate in their turn from\nMahar\u2010loka, and repair to Jana\u2010loka, \u201c_in their subtile forms, destined to\nbecome re\u00ebmbodied, in similar capacities as their former, when the world\nis renewed at the beginning of the succeeding Kalpa_.\u201d(590)\n\n\n    Clouds, mighty in size, and loud in thunder, fill up all Space\n    [Nabhas\u2010tala]. Showering down torrents of water, these clouds\n    quench the dreadful fires, ... and then they rain uninterruptedly\n    for a hundred [divine] Years, and deluge the whole World [Solar\n    System]. Pouring down, in drops as large as dice, these rains\n    overspread the Earth, and fill the Middle Region (Bhuvo\u2010loka) and\n    inundate Heaven. The World is now enveloped in darkness; and all\n    things, animate or inanimate, having perished, the clouds continue\n    to pour down their Waters, ... and the Night of Brahm\u00e2 reigns\n    supreme over the scene of desolation.(591)\n\n\nThis is what we call in the Esoteric Doctrine a Solar Pralaya. When the\nWaters have reached the region of the Seven Rishis, and the World, our\nSolar System, is one Ocean, they stop. The Breath of Vishnu becomes a\nstrong Wind, which blows for another hundred Divine Years until all clouds\nare dispersed. The wind is then re\u00e4bsorbed: and That\u2014\n\n\n    Of which all things are made, the Lord by whom all things exist,\n    He who is inconceivable, without beginning, the beginning of the\n    Universe, reposes, sleeping upon Shesha [the Serpent of Infinity]\n    in the midst of the Deep. The Creator [(?) \u00c2dikrit] Hari, sleeps\n    upon the Ocean [of Space] in the form of Brahm\u00e2\u2014glorified by\n    Sanaka(592) and the Saints (Siddhas) of Jana\u2010loka, and\n    contemplated by the holy denizens of Brahma\u2010loka, anxious for\n    final liberation\u2014involved in mystic slumber, the celestial\n    personification of his own illusions.... This is the Dissolution\n    [(?) Pratisanchara] termed Incidental because Hari is its\n    Incidental [Ideal] Cause.(593) When the Universal Spirit wakes,\n    the World revives; when he closes his eyes, all things fall upon\n    the bed of mystic slumber. In like manner, as a thousand Great\n    Ages constitute a Day of Brahm\u00e2 [in the original it is Padmayoni,\n    the same as Abjayoni, \u201cLotus\u2010born,\u201d not Brahm\u00e2], so his Night\n    consists of the same period.... Awaking at the end of his Night,\n    the Unborn ... creates the Universe anew.(594)\n\n\nThis is \u201cIncidental\u201d Pralaya; what is the Elemental (Pr\u00e2kritika)\nDissolution? Par\u00e2shara describes it to Maitreya as follows:\n\n\n    When, by dearth and fire all the Worlds and P\u00e2t\u00e2las [Hells] are\n    withered up(595) ... the progress of Elemental Dissolution is\n    begun. Then, first, the Waters swallow up the property of Earth\n    (which is the rudiment of Smell), and Earth deprived of this\n    property proceeds to destruction ... and becomes one with\n    Water.... When the Universe is, thus, pervaded by the waves of the\n    watery Element, its rudimentary flavour is licked up by the\n    Element of Fire ... and the Waters themselves are destroyed ...\n    and become one with Fire; and the Universe is, therefore, entirely\n    filled with [ethereal] Flame, which ... gradually overspreads the\n    whole World. While Space is [one] Flame, ... the Element of Wind\n    seizes upon the rudimental property, or form, which is the Cause\n    of Light, and that being withdrawn (pral\u00eena), all becomes of the\n    nature of Air. The rudiment of form being destroyed, and Fire [(?)\n    Vibh\u00e2vasu] deprived of its rudiment, Air extinguishes Fire and\n    spreads ... over Space, which is deprived of Light, when Fire\n    merges into Air. Air, then, accompanied by Sound, which is the\n    source of Ether, extends everywhere throughout the ten regions ...\n    until Ether seizes upon Contact [(?) Sparsha, Cohesion\u2014Touch?],\n    its rudimental property, by the loss of which, Air is destroyed,\n    and Ether [(?) Kha] remains unmodified; devoid of Form, Flavour,\n    Touch (Sparsha), and Smell, it exists [un]embodied [m\u00fbrttimat] and\n    vast, and pervades the whole of Space. Ether [\u00c2k\u00e2sha], whose\n    characteristic property and rudiment is Sound [the \u201cWord\u201d] exists\n    alone, occupying all the vacuity of Space [or rather, occupying\n    the whole containment of Space]. Then the Origin [Noumenon?] of\n    the Elements (Bh\u00fbt\u00e2di) devours Sound [the collective Demiurgos];\n    [and the hosts of Dhy\u00e2n Chohans] and all the [existing]\n    Elements(596) are, at once, merged into their original. This\n    Primary Element is Consciousness, combined with the Property of\n    Darkness [T\u00e2masa\u2014Spiritual Darkness rather], and is, itself,\n    swallowed up [disintegrated] by Mahat [the Universal Intellect],\n    whose characteristic property is Intelligence [Buddhi], and Earth\n    and Mahat are the inner and outer boundaries of the Universe. In\n    this manner, as [in the Beginning] were the seven forms of Nature\n    [Prakriti] reckoned from Mahat to Earth, so ... _these seven_\n    successively re\u00ebnter into each other.(597)\n\n    The Egg of Brahm\u00e2 (Sarva\u2010mandala) is dissolved in the Waters that\n    surround it, with its seven zones (dv\u00eepas), seven oceans, seven\n    regions, and their mountains. The investure of Water is drunk by\n    Fire; the (stratum of) Fire is absorbed by (that of) Air; Air\n    blends itself with Ether [\u00c2k\u00e2sha]; the Primary Element [Bh\u00fbt\u00e2di,\n    the origin, or rather the _cause_, of the Primary Element] devours\n    the Ether, and is (itself) destroyed by Intellect [Mahat, the\n    Great, the Universal Mind], which, along with all these, is seized\n    upon by Nature [Prakriti] and disappears. This Prakriti is,\n    essentially, the same, whether discrete or indiscrete; only that\n    which is discrete is, finally, lost or absorbed in the indiscrete.\n    Spirit [Pums] also, which is one, pure, imperishable, eternal,\n    all\u2010pervading, is a portion of that Supreme Spirit which is all\n    things. That Spirit [Sarvesha] which is other than (embodied)\n    Spirit, and in which there are no attributes of name, species\n    [n\u00e2man and j\u00e2ti, or r\u00fbpa, hence body rather than species], or the\n    like ... [remains] as the (sole) Existence [Satt\u00e2]. Nature\n    [Prakriti] and Spirit [Purusha] both resolve [finally] into\n    Supreme Spirit.(598)\n\n\nThis is the final Pralaya(599)\u2014the Death of Kosmos; after which its Spirit\nrests in Nirv\u00e2na, or in _That_ for which there is neither Day nor Night.\nAll the other Pralayas are periodical, and follow the Manvantaras in\nregular succession, as the night follows the day of every human creature,\nanimal, and plant. The Cycle of Creation of the Lives of Kosmos is run\ndown; the energy of the Manifested \u201cWord\u201d having its growth, culmination,\nand decrease, as have all things temporary, however long their duration.\nThe Creative Force is Eternal as noumenal; as a phenomenal manifestation,\nin its aspects, it has a beginning and must, therefore, have an end.\nDuring that interval, it has its Periods of Activity and its Periods of\nRest. And these are the Days and Nights of Brahm\u00e2. But Brahman, the\nNoumenon, never rests, as _It_ never changes, but ever _is_, though It\ncannot be said to be anywhere.\n\nThe Jewish Kabalists felt the necessity of this _immutability_ in an\neternal, infinite Deity, and therefore applied the same thought to the\nanthropomorphic God. The idea is poetical, and very appropriate in its\napplication. In the _Zohar_ we read as follows:\n\n\n    As Moses was keeping a vigil on Mount Sinai, in company with the\n    Deity, who was concealed from his sight by a cloud, he felt a\n    great fear overcome him, and suddenly asked: \u201cLord, where art thou\n    ... sleepest thou, O Lord? ...\u201d And the Spirit answered him; \u201cI\n    never sleep: were I to fall asleep for a moment _before my time_,\n    all the creation would crumble into dissolution in one instant.\u201d\n\n\n\u201cBefore my time\u201d is very suggestive. It shows the God of Moses to be only\na temporary substitute, like Brahm\u00e2, the male, a substitute and an aspect\nof THAT which is immutable, and which, therefore, can take no part in the\nDays, or Nights, nor have any concern whatever with re\u00e4ction or\ndissolution.\n\nWhile the Eastern Occultists have seven modes of interpretation, the Jews\nhave only four; namely, the real\u2010mystical, the allegorical, the moral, and\nthe literal or Pashut. The latter is the key of the exoteric Churches and\nnot worth discussion. Here are several sentences, which, read in the\nfirst, or mystical key, show the identity of the foundations of\nconstruction in every Scripture. They are given in Isaac Myer\u2019s excellent\nbook on the Kabalistic works, which he seems to have well studied. I quote\n_verbatim_.\n\n\n    \u201c_B\u2019raisheeth barah elohim ath hashama\u2019 yem v\u2019ath haa\u2019retz_,\n    _i.e._, \u2018In the beginning the God(s) created the heavens and the\n    earth\u2019; (the meaning of which is;) the six (Sephiroth of\n    Construction),(600) over which _B\u2019raisheeth_ stands, _all belong\n    Below_. It created six, (and) on these stand (exist) all Things.\n    And those depend upon the _seven forms of the Cranium_ up to the\n    Dignity of all Dignities. And the second \u2019Earth\u2019 does not come\n    into calculation, therefore it has been said: \u2018And from it (that\n    Earth) which underwent the curse; came it forth.\u2019 ... \u2018It (the\n    Earth) was without form and void; and darkness was over the face\n    of the Abyss, and the Spirit of Elohim ... was breathing\n    (_me\u2019racha\u2019pheth_, _i.e._, hovering, brooding over, moving, ...)\n    over the waters.\u2019 Thirteen depend on thirteen (forms) of the most\n    worthy Dignity. Six thousand years hang (are referred to) in the\n    first six words. The seventh (thousand, the millennium) above it\n    (the cursed Earth) is that which is strong by Itself. And it was\n    rendered entirely desolate during twelve hours (one ... day ...).\n    In the thirteenth, It (the Deity) shall restore them ... and\n    everything shall be renewed as before; and all those six shall\n    continue.\u201d(601)\n\n\nThe \u201cSephiroth of Construction\u201d are the six Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, or Manus, or\nPraj\u00e2patis, synthesized by the seventh \u201cB\u2019raisheeth,\u201d the First Emanation,\nor Logos, and who are called, therefore, the Builders of the Lower or\nPhysical Universe, all belonging Below. These Six [6\u2010pointed star with\nmiddle dot], whose essence is of the _Seventh_, are the Up\u00e2dhi, the Base\nor Fundamental Stone, on which the Objective Universe is built, the\nNoumenoi of all things. Hence they are, at the same time, the Forces of\nNature; the Seven Angels of the Presence; the Sixth and Seventh Principles\nin Man; the spirito\u2010psycho\u2010physical Spheres of the Septenary Chain, the\nRoot Races, etc. They all \u201cdepend upon the Seven Forms of the Cranium\u201d up\nto the Highest. The \u201c_Second_ \u2018Earth\u2019 does not come into calculation,\u201d\nbecause it is _no Earth_, but the Chaos, or Abyss of Space, in which\nrested the Paradigmatic, or Model Universe, in the Ideation of the Over\u2010\nSoul, brooding over it. The term \u201cCurse\u201d is here very misleading, for it\nmeans simply Doom or Destiny, or _that fatality which sent it forth_ into\nthe objective state. This is shown by that \u201cEarth,\u201d under the \u201cCurse,\u201d\nbeing described as \u201cwithout form and void,\u201d in whose abysmal depths the\n\u201cBreath\u201d of the Elohim, or collective Logoi, produced, or so to say\nphotographed, the first Divine Ideation of the _things to be_. This\nprocess is repeated after every Pralaya before the beginnings of a new\nManvantara, or Period of sentient individual Being. \u201cThirteen depend on\nthirteen Forms,\u201d refers to the thirteen Periods, personified by the\nthirteen Manus, with Sv\u00e2yambhuva, the fourteenth\u201413, instead of 14, being\nan additional veil\u2014those fourteen Manus who reign within the term of a\nMah\u00e2 Yuga, a Day of Brahm\u00e2. These thirteen\u2010fourteen of the objective\nUniverse depend on the thirteen\u2010fourteen paradigmatic, ideal Forms. The\nmeaning of the \u201csix thousand Years\u201d which \u201chang in the first six Words,\u201d\nhas again to be sought in the Indian Wisdom. They refer to the primordial\nsix (seven) \u201cKings of Edom,\u201d who typify the Worlds, or Spheres, of our\nChain, during the First Round, as well as the primordial men of this\nRound. They are the septenary pre\u2010Adamic First Root\u2010Race, or they who\nexisted before the Third, _Separated_ Race. As they were Shadows, and\nsenseless, for they had not yet eaten of the fruit of the Tree of\nKnowledge, they could not see the Parzuphim, or \u201cFace could not see Face\u201d;\nthat is to say, primeval men were \u201cunconscious.\u201d \u201cTherefore, the\nprimordial (seven) Kings died,\u201d _i.e._, were destroyed.(602) Now, who are\nthese Kings? They are the Kings who are the \u201cSeven Rishis, certain\n(secondary) divinities, Indra [Shakra], Manu, and the Kings his Sons [who]\n_are created and perish at one period_\u201d as _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_ tells us.(603)\nFor the seventh \u201cthousand,\u201d which is not the millennium of exoteric\nChristianity, but that of Anthropogenesis, represents both the \u201cSeventh\nPeriod of Creation,\u201d that of physical man, according to _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_,\nand the Seventh Principle, both macrocosmic and microcosmic, and also the\nPralaya after the Seventh Period, the Night, which has the same duration\nas the Day, of Brahm\u00e2. \u201cIt was rendered entirely desolate during twelve\nhours.\u201d It is in the Thirteenth (twice six and the synthesis) that\neverything shall be restored, and the \u201c_six_ shall continue.\u201d\n\nThus, the author of the _Qabbalah_ remarks quite truly that:\n\n\n    Long before his [Ibn Gebirol\u2019s] time ... many centuries before the\n    Christian era, there was in Central Asia a \u201cWisdom Religion\u201d,\n    fragments of which subsequently existed among the learned men of\n    the archaic Egyptians, the ancient Chinese, Hind\u00fbs, etc.... [And\n    that] the _Qabbalah_ most likely originally came from \u00c2ryan\n    sources, through Central Asia, Persia, India and Mesopotamia, for\n    from Ur and Haran came Abraham and many others, into\n    Palestine.(604)\n\n\nSuch was also the firm conviction of C. W. King, the author of _The\nGnostics and Their Remains_.\n\nV\u00e2madeva Modelyar describes the coming Night most poetically. Though it is\ngiven in _Isis Unveiled_, it is worthy of repetition.\n\n\n    Strange noises are heard, proceeding from every point.... These\n    are the precursors of the Night of Brahm\u00e2; _dusk rises at the\n    horizon_, and the Sun passes away behind the thirteenth degree of\n    Makara [the tenth sign of the Zodiac], and will reach no more the\n    sign of the M\u00eena [the Zodiacal sign Pisces, or the Fish]. The\n    Gurus of the Pagodas, appointed to watch the R\u00e2shichakram\n    [Zodiac], may now break their circle and instruments, for they are\n    henceforth useless.\n\n    Gradually light pales, heat diminishes, uninhabited spots multiply\n    on the earth, the air becomes more and more rarefied; the springs\n    of waters dry up, the great rivers see their waves exhausted, the\n    ocean shows its sandy bottom and plants die. Men and animals\n    decrease in size daily. Life and motion lose their force, planets\n    can hardly gravitate in space; they are extinguished one by one,\n    like a lamp which the hand of the Chokra [servant] neglects to\n    replenish. S\u00fbrya [the Sun] flickers and goes out, matter falls\n    into Dissolution [Pralaya], and Brahm\u00e2 merges back into Dyaus, the\n    Unrevealed God, and, his task being accomplished, he falls asleep.\n    Another Day is passed, Night sets in, and continues until the\n    future Dawn.\n\n    And now again re\u00ebnter into the Golden Egg of his Thought the germs\n    of all that exist, as the divine Manu tells us. During His\n    peaceful rest, the animated beings, endowed with the principles of\n    action, cease their functions, and all feeling [Manas] becomes\n    dormant. When they are all absorbed in the Supreme Soul, this Soul\n    of all the beings sleeps in complete repose, till the Day when it\n    resumes its form, and awakes again from its primitive\n    darkness.(605)\n\n\nAs the Satya Yuga is always the first in the series of the Four Ages or\nYugas, so the Kali ever comes the last. The Kali Yuga now reigns supreme\nin India, and it seems to coincide with that of the Western Age. Anyhow,\nit is curious to see how prophetic in almost all things was the writer of\n_Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, when foretelling to Maitreya some of the dark influences\nand sins of this Kali Yuga. For after saying that the \u201cbarbarians\u201d will be\nmasters of the banks of the Indus, of Chandrabh\u00e2g\u00e2 and K\u00e2shm\u00eera, he adds:\n\n\n    There will be contemporary monarchs, reigning over the earth,\n    kings of churlish spirit, violent temper, and ever addicted to\n    falsehood and wickedness. They will inflict death on women,\n    children, and cows; they will seize upon the property of their\n    subjects [or, according to another reading, _be intent upon the\n    wives of others_]; they will be of limited power ... their lives\n    will be short, their desires insatiable.... People of various\n    countries intermingling with them will follow their example; and,\n    the barbarians being powerful [in India] in the patronage of the\n    princes, whilst pure tribes are neglected, the people will perish\n    [or, as the Commentator has it: \u201cthe Mlechchhas will be in the\n    centre, and the \u00c2ryas in the end\u201d].(606) Wealth and piety will\n    decrease day by day, until the world will be wholly depraved....\n    Property alone will confer rank; wealth will be the only source of\n    devotion; passion will be the sole bond of union between the\n    sexes; falsehood will be the only means of success in litigation;\n    and women will be objects merely of sensual gratification....\n    _External types will be the only distinction of the several orders\n    of life_; dishonesty [any\u00e2ya] will be the (universal) means of\n    subsistence; weakness the cause of dependence; menace and\n    presumption will be substituted for learning; liberality will be\n    devotion; a man if rich will be reputed pure; mutual assent will\n    be marriage; fine clothes will be dignity.... He who is the\n    strongest will reign ... the people, unable to bear the heavy\n    burthens [khara\u2010bh\u00e2ra, load of taxes], will take refuge among the\n    valleys.... Thus, in the Kali Age, will decay constantly proceed,\n    until the human race approaches its annihilation [pralaya]. When\n    ... the close of the Kali age shall be nigh, a portion of that\n    divine Being which exists, of its own spiritual nature [Kalk\u00ee\n    Avat\u00e2ra] ... shall descend upon Earth, ... endowed with the eight\n    superhuman faculties.... He will re\u00ebstablish righteousness upon\n    earth; and the minds of those who live at the end of Kali Yuga\n    shall be awakened, and shall be as pellucid as crystal. The men\n    who are, thus, changed ... shall be as _the seeds of human\n    beings_, and shall give birth to a race who shall follow the laws\n    of the Krita Age (or Age of Purity). As it is said: \u201cWhen the Sun\n    and Moon and (the Lunar Asterism) Tishya, and the planet Jupiter\n    are in one mansion, the Krita [or Satya] Age shall\n    return....\u201d(607)\n\n\nTwo persons, Dev\u00e2pi, of the race of Kuru, and Maru [Moru], of the family\nof Ikshv\u00e2ku, ... continue alive throughout the Four Ages, residing at ...\nKal\u00e2pa.(608) They will return hither, in the beginning of the Krita\nAge(609) ... Maru [Moru](610) the son of Sh\u00eeghra, through the power of\ndevotion (Yoga) is still living ... and will be the restorer of the\nKshattriya race of the Solar Dynasty.(611)\n\nWhether right or wrong with regard to the latter prophecy, the \u201cblessings\u201d\nof Kali Yuga are well described, and fit in admirably even with that which\none sees and hears in Europe and other civilized and Christian lands in\nthe full XIXth, and at the dawn of the XXth century of our great \u201cEra of\nEnlightenment.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nSection VIII. The Lotus, as a Universal Symbol.\n\n\nThere are no ancient symbols without a deep and philosophical meaning\nattached to them, their importance and significance increasing with their\nantiquity. Such is the Lotus. It is the flower sacred to Nature and her\nGods, and represents the Abstract and the Concrete Universes, standing as\nthe emblem of the productive powers of both Spiritual and Physical Nature.\nIt was held as sacred from the remotest antiquity by the \u00c2ryan Hind\u00fbs, the\nEgyptians, and by the Buddhists after them. It was revered in China and\nJapan, and adopted as a Christian emblem by the Greek and Latin Churches,\nwho made of it a messenger, as do now the Christians, who have replaced it\nwith the water\u2010lily.\n\nIn the Christian religion, in every picture of the Annunciation, Gabriel,\nthe Archangel, appears to the Virgin Mary, holding in his hand a spray of\nwater\u2010lilies. This spray, typifying Fire and Water, or the idea of\ncreation and generation, symbolizes _precisely the same idea_ as the\nLotus, in the hand of the Bodhisattva who announces to Mah\u00e2\u2010M\u00e2y\u00e2,\nGautama\u2019s mother, the birth of Buddha, the world\u2019s Saviour. Thus also,\nwere Osiris and Horus constantly represented by the Egyptians in\nassociation with the Lotus\u2010flower, both being Sun\u2010Gods or Gods of Fire;\njust as the Holy Ghost is still typified by \u201ctongues of fire,\u201d in the\n_Acts_.\n\nIt had, and still has, its mystic meaning, which is identical in every\nnation on earth. We refer the reader to Sir William Jones.(612) With the\nHind\u00fbs, the Lotus is the emblem of the productive power of Nature, through\nthe agency of Fire and Water, or Spirit and Matter. \u201cO Thou Eternal! I see\nBrahm, the Creator, enthroned in thee above the Lotus!\u201d says a verse in\nthe _Bhagavad G\u00eet\u00e2_. And Sir W. Jones shows, as already noted in the\nStanzas, that the seeds of the Lotus, even before they germinate, contain\nperfectly\u2010formed leaves, the miniature shapes of what they will become one\nday, as perfected plants. The Lotus, in India, is the symbol of prolific\nEarth and, what is more, of Mount Meru. The four Angels or Genii of the\nfour quarters of Heaven, the Mah\u00e2r\u00e2jahs of the Stanzas, stand each on a\nLotus. The Lotus is the two\u2010fold type of the Divine and Human\nHermaphrodite, being so to say, of dual sex.\n\nWith the Hind\u00fbs, the Spirit of Fire or Heat\u2014which stirs up, fructifies,\nand develops into concrete form, from its ideal prototype, everything\nwhich is born of Water, or Primordial Earth\u2014evolved Brahm\u00e2. The Lotus\u2010\nflower, represented as growing out of Vishnu\u2019s navel, the God who rests in\nthe Waters of Space on the Serpent of Infinity, is the most graphic symbol\never yet made. It is the Universe evolving from the Central Sun, the\nPoint, the ever\u2010concealed Germ. Lakshm\u00ee, who is the female aspect of\nVishnu, and who is also called Padma, the Lotus, in the _R\u00e2m\u00e2yana_, is\nlikewise shown floating on a Lotus\u2010flower, at the \u201cCreation,\u201d and during\nthe \u201cChurning of the Ocean\u201d of Space, as also springing from the \u201cSea of\nMilk,\u201d like Venus\u2010Aphrodite from the Foam of the Ocean.\n\n\n    ... Then, seated on a lotus,\n    Beauty\u2019s bright Goddess, peerless Shr\u00ee, arose\n    Out of the waves ...\n\n\nsings an English Orientalist and poet, Sir Monier Williams.\n\nThe underlying idea, in this symbol, is very beautiful, and, furthermore,\nshows an identical parentage in all the religious systems. Whether as the\nLotus or water\u2010lily, it signifies one and the same philosophical idea;\nnamely, the Emanation of the Objective from the Subjective, Divine\nIdeation passing from the abstract into the concrete, or visible form.\nFor, as soon as Darkness, or rather that which is \u201cDarkness\u201d for\nignorance, has disappeared in its own realm of Eternal Light, leaving\nbehind itself only its Divine Manifested Ideation, the Creative Logoi have\ntheir understanding opened, and they see in the Ideal World, hitherto\nconcealed in the Divine Thought, the archetypal forms of all, and proceed\nto copy and build, or fashion, upon these models, forms evanescent and\ntranscendent.\n\nAt this stage of Action, the Demiurge is not yet the Architect. Born in\nthe Twilight of Action, he has yet to first perceive the Plan, to realize\nthe Ideal Forms, which lie buried in the Bosom of Eternal Ideation, just\nas the future lotus\u2010leaves, the immaculate petals, are concealed within\nthe seed of that plant.\n\nIn Esoteric Philosophy the Demiurge, or Logos, regarded as the Creator, is\nsimply an abstract term, an idea, like the word \u201carmy.\u201d As the latter is\nthe all\u2010embracing term for a body of active forces, or working\nunits\u2014soldiers, so is the Demiurge the qualitative compound of a multitude\nof Creators or Builders. Burnouf, the great Orientalist, seized the idea\nperfectly, when he said that Brahm\u00e2 does _not_ create the Earth, any more\nthan the rest of the Universe.\n\n\n    Having evolved himself from the Soul of the World, once separated\n    from the First Cause, he evaporates with, and emanates, all Nature\n    out of himself. He does not stand above it, but is mixed up with\n    it; Brahm\u00e2 and the Universe form one Being, each particle of which\n    is in its essence Brahm\u00e2 himself, who proceeded out of himself.\n\n\nIn a chapter of the _Book of the Dead_, called \u201cTransformation into the\nLotus,\u201d the God, figured as a head emerging from this flower, exclaims:\n\n\n    I am the pure Lotus, emerging from the Luminous Ones.... I carry\n    the messages of Horus. I am the pure Lotus which comes from the\n    Solar Fields.(613)\n\n\nThe lotus\u2010idea may be traced even in the Elohistic first chapter of\n_Genesis_, as stated in _Isis Unveiled_. It is to this idea that we must\nlook for the origin and explanation of the verse in the Jewish Cosmogony\nwhich reads: \u201cAnd God said, Let the earth bring forth ... the fruit\u2010tree\nyielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself.\u201d(614) In all the\nprimitive religions, the Creative God is the \u201cSon of the Father,\u201d that is\nto say, his Thought made visible; and before the Christian era, from the\nTrim\u00fbrti of the Hind\u00fbs down to the three Kabalistic Heads of the\nscriptures, as explained by the Jews, the Triune Godhead of each nation\nwas fully defined and substantiated, in its allegories.\n\nSuch is the cosmic and ideal significance of this great symbol with the\nEastern peoples. But when applied to practical and exoteric worship, which\nhad also its esoteric symbology, the Lotus, in time, became the carrier\nand container of a more terrestrial idea. No dogmatic religion has ever\nescaped having the sexual element in it; and to this day it soils the\nmoral beauty of the root idea of symbology. The following is quoted from\nthe same Kabalistic MS. which we have already cited on several occasions:\n\n\n    Pointing to like signification was the Lotus growing in the waters\n    of the Nile. Its mode of growth peculiarly fitted it as a symbol\n    of the generative activities. The flower of the Lotus, which is\n    the bearer of the seed for reproduction, as the result of its\n    maturing, is connected by its placenta\u2010like attachment to mother\u2010\n    earth, or the womb of Isis, through the water of the womb, that\n    is, the river Nile, by the long cord\u2010like stalk, the umbilicus.\n    Nothing can be plainer than the symbol, and to make it perfect in\n    its intended signification, a child is sometimes represented as\n    seated in or issuing from the flower.(615) Thus Osiris and Isis,\n    the children of Cronus, or time without end, in the development of\n    their nature\u2010forces, in this picture become the parents of man\n    under the name Horus.\n\n    We cannot lay too great stress upon the use of this generative\n    function as a basis for a symbolical language, and a scientific\n    art\u2010speech. Thought upon the idea leads at once to reflection upon\n    the subject of creative cause. In its workings Nature is observed\n    to have fashioned a wonderful piece of living mechanism, governed\n    by an added living soul; the life development and history of which\n    soul, as to its whence, its present, and its whither, surpass all\n    efforts of the human intellect.(616) The new\u2010born is an ever\u2010\n    recurring miracle, an evidence that within the workshop of the\n    womb an intelligent creative power has intervened to fasten a\n    living soul to a physical machine. The amazing wonderfulness of\n    the fact attaches a holy sacredness to all connected with the\n    organs of reproduction, as the dwelling and place of evident\n    constructive intervention of deity.\n\n\nThis is a correct rendering of the underlying ideas of old, of the purely\npantheistic conceptions, _impersonal_ and reverential, of the archaic\nphilosophers of the prehistoric ages. It is not so, however, when applied\nto sinful humanity, to the gross ideas attached to _personality_.\nTherefore, no pantheistic philosopher would fail to find the remarks that\nfollow the above, and which represent the anthropomorphism of Judean\nsymbology, other than dangerous for the sacredness of true religion, and\nfitting only for our materialistic age, which is the direct outcome and\nresult of that anthropomorphic character. For this is the key\u2010note to the\nentire spirit and essence of the _Old __ Testament_, as the MS. states,\ntreating of the symbolism of the art\u2010speech of the _Bible_:\n\n\n    Therefore the locality of the womb is to be taken as the Most Holy\n    Place, the Sanctum Sanctorum, and the veritable Temple of the\n    Living God.(617) With man, the possession of the woman has always\n    been considered as an essential part of himself, to make one out\n    of two, and jealously guarded as sacred. Even the part of the\n    ordinary house or home consecrated to the dwelling of the wife was\n    called the _penetralia_, the secret or sacred, and hence the\n    metaphor of the Holy of Holies, of sacred constructions taken from\n    the idea of the sacredness of the organs of generation. Carried to\n    the extreme of description(618) by metaphor, this part of the\n    house is described in the Sacred Books as the \u201cbetween the thighs\n    of the house,\u201d and sometimes the idea is carried out\n    constructively in the great door\u2010opening of Churches placed inward\n    between flanking buttresses.\n\n\nNo such thought, \u201ccarried to the extreme,\u201d ever existed among the old\nprimitive \u00c2ryans. This is proven by the fact that, in the Vedic period,\ntheir women were not placed apart from men in _penetralia_, or Zenanas.\nThis seclusion began when the Mahommedans\u2014the next heirs to Hebrew\nsymbolism, after Christian ecclesiasticism\u2014had conquered the land and\ngradually enforced their ways and customs upon the Hind\u00fbs. The pre\u2010 and\npost\u2010Vedic woman was as free as man; and no impure terrestrial thought was\never mixed with the religious symbology of the early \u00c2ryans. The idea and\napplication are purely Semitic. This is corroborated by the writer of the\nsaid intensely learned and Kabalistic revelation, when he closes the\nabove\u2010quoted passages by adding:\n\n\n    If to these organs as symbols of creative cosmic agencies the idea\n    of the origin of measures as well as of time\u2010periods can be\n    attached, then indeed, in the constructions of the Temples as\n    Dwellings of Deity, or of Jehovah, that part designated as the\n    Holy of Holies, or the Most Holy Place, should borrow its title\n    from the recognized sacredness of the generative organs,\n    considered as symbols of measures as well as of creative cause.\n    With the ancient _wise, there was no name, and no idea, and no\n    symbol_ of a First Cause.\n\n\nMost decidedly not. Rather never give a thought to it and leave it for\never nameless, as the early Pantheists did, than degrade the sacredness of\nthat Ideal of Ideals, by dragging down its symbols into such\nanthropomorphic forms! Here again one perceives the immense chasm between\n\u00c2ryan and Semitic religious thought, the two opposite poles, Sincerity and\nConcealment. With the Br\u00e2hmans, who have never invested the natural\nprocreative functions of mankind with an \u201coriginal sin\u201d element, it is a\n_religious duty_ to have a son. A Br\u00e2hman, in days of old, having\naccomplished his mission of human creator, retired to the jungle, and\npassed the rest of his days in religious meditation. He had accomplished\nhis duty to nature, as mortal man and its co\u2010worker, and henceforth gave\nall his thoughts to the spiritual and immortal portion of himself,\nregarding the terrestrial as a mere illusion, an evanescent dream\u2014which,\nindeed it is. With the Semite, it was different. He invented a temptation\nof flesh in a garden of Eden, and showed his God\u2014esoterically, the Tempter\nand the Ruler of Nature\u2014_cursing for ever_ an act, which was in the\nlogical programme of that Nature.(619) All this exoterically, as in the\n_cloak_ and dead\u2010letter of _Genesis_ and the rest. At the same time,\n_esoterically_, he regarded the supposed _sin_ and _fall_ as an act so\nsacred, as to choose the organ, the perpetrator of the _original sin_, as\nthe fittest and most sacred symbol to represent that God, who is shown as\nbranding its entering into function as disobedience and everlasting _sin!_\n\nWho can ever fathom the paradoxical depths of the Semitic mind! And this\nparadoxical element, _minus_ its innermost significance, has now passed\nentirely into Christian theology and dogma!\n\nWhether the early Fathers of the Church knew the esoteric meaning of the\nHebrew _Testament_, or whether only a few of them were aware of it, while\nthe others remained ignorant of the secret, is for posterity to decide.\nOne thing, at any rate, is certain. As the Esotericism of the _New\nTestament_ agrees perfectly with that of the Hebrew Mosaic Books; and\nsince, at the same time, a number of purely Egyptian symbols and Pagan\ndogmas in general\u2014the Trinity, for example\u2014have been copied by, and\nincorporated into, the Synoptics and St. John, it becomes evident that the\nidentity of those symbols was known to the writers of the _New Testament_,\nwhoever they may have been. They must have been also aware of the priority\nof the Egyptian Esotericism, since they have adopted several symbols which\ntypify purely Egyptian conceptions and beliefs, in their outward and\ninward meaning, and which are not to be found in the Jewish Canon. One of\nthese is the water\u2010lily in the hands of the Archangel, in the early\nrepresentations of his appearance to the Virgin Mary; and these symbolical\nimages are preserved to this day in the iconography of the Greek and Roman\nChurches. Thus Water, Fire and the Cross, as well as the Dove, the Lamb\nand other Sacred Animals, with all their combinations, esoterically yield\nan identical meaning, and must have been accepted as an improvement upon\nJudaism pure and simple.\n\nFor the Lotus and Water are among the oldest symbols, and in their origin\nare purely \u00c2ryan, though they became common property during the branching\noff of the Fifth Race. To give an example; letters, as well as numbers,\nwere all mystic, whether in combination, or taken separately. The most\nsacred of all is the letter M. It is both feminine and masculine, or\nandrogyne, and is made to symbolize Water in its origin, the Great Deep.\nIt is a mystic letter in all languages, Eastern and Western, and stands as\na glyph for the waves, thus [three triangles]. In the \u00c2ryan Esotericism,\nas in the Semitic, this letter has always stood for the Waters. In\nSanskrit, for instance, Makara, the tenth sign of the Zodiac, means a\nCrocodile, or rather an aquatic monster associated always with Water. The\nletter Ma is equivalent to, and corresponds with, the number 5, which is\ncomposed of a Binary, the symbol of the two sexes separated, and of the\nTernary, the symbol of the Third Life, the progeny of the Binary. This,\nagain, is often symbolized by a Pentagon, the latter being a sacred sign,\na divine Monogram. Maitreya is the secret name of the Fifth Buddha, and\nthe Kalk\u00ee Avat\u00e2ra of the Br\u00e2hmans, the last Messiah who will come at the\nculmination of the Great Cycle. It is also the initial letter of the Greek\nMetis, or Divine Wisdom; of Mimra, the Word, or Logos; and of Mithras, the\nMihr, the Monad Mystery. All these are born in, and from, the Great Deep,\nand are the Sons of M\u00e2y\u00e2, the \u201cMother\u201d; in Egypt, Moot; in Greece,\nMinerva, Divine Wisdom; of Mary, or Miriam, Myrrha, etc., the Mother of\nthe Christian Logos; and of M\u00e2y\u00e2, the Mother of Buddha. M\u00e2dhava and\nM\u00e2dhav\u00ee are the titles of the most important Gods and Goddesses of the\nHind\u00fb Pantheon. Finally, Mandala is, in Sanskrit, a \u201cCircle,\u201d or an Orb,\nalso the ten divisions of the _Rig Veda_. The most sacred names in India\ngenerally begin with this letter, from Mahat, the first manifested\nIntellect, and Mandara, the great mountain used by the Gods to churn the\nOcean, down to Mand\u00e2kin\u00ee, the heavenly Gang\u00e2, or Ganges, Manu, etc., etc.\n\nWill this be called a coincidence? A strange one is it then, indeed, when\nwe see even Moses, found in the Water of the Nile, with the symbolical\nconsonant in his name. And Pharaoh\u2019s daughter \u201ccalled his name Moses; and\nshe said, Because I drew him out of the Water.\u201d(620) Besides which, the\nHebrew sacred name of God, applied to this letter M, is Meborach, the\n\u201cHoly\u201d or the \u201cBlessed,\u201d and the name for the Water of the Flood is Mbul.\nA reminder of the \u201cThree Maries\u201d at the Crucifixion, and their connection\nwith Mare, the Sea, or Water, may close these examples. This is why, in\nJudaism and Christianity, the Messiah is always connected with Water,\nBaptism; and also with the Fishes, the sign of the Zodiac called M\u00eenam in\nSanskrit, and even with the Matsya (Fish) Avat\u00e2ra, and the Lotus, the\nsymbol of the womb, or with the water\u2010lily, which has the same\nsignification.\n\nIn the relics of ancient Egypt, the greater the antiquity of the votive\nsymbols and emblems of the objects exhumed, the oftener are Lotus\u2010flowers\nand Water found in connection with the Solar Gods. The God Khnoom, the\nMoist Power, or Water, as Thales taught, being the principle of all\nthings, sits on a throne enshrined in a Lotus. The God Bes stands on a\nLotus, ready to devour his progeny. Thot, the God of Mystery and Wisdom,\nthe sacred Scribe of Amenti, wearing the solar disk as head gear, sits\nwith a bull\u2019s head\u2014the sacred bull of Mendes being a form of Thot\u2014and a\nhuman body, on a full blown Lotus. Finally, it is the Goddess Hiqit, under\nher shape of a frog, who rests on the Lotus, thus showing her connection\nwith water. And it is from the unpoetical shape of this frog\u2010symbol,\nundeniably the glyph of the most ancient of the Egyptian Deities, that the\nEgyptologists have been vainly trying to unravel the mystery and functions\nof the Goddess. Its adoption in the Church, by the early Christians, shows\nthat they knew it better than our modern Orientalists. The \u201cfrog or toad\nGoddess\u201d was one of the chief Cosmic Deities connected with Creation, on\naccount of this animal\u2019s amphibious nature, and chiefly because of its\napparent resurrection, after long ages of solitary life, enshrined in old\nwalls, in rocks, etc. She not only participated in the organization of the\nWorld, together with Khnoom, but was also connected with _the dogma of\nresurrection_.(621) There must have been some very profound and sacred\nmeaning attached to this symbol, since, notwithstanding the risk of being\ncharged with a disgusting form of zo\u00f6latry, the early Egyptian Christians\nadopted it in their Churches. A frog or toad, enshrined in a Lotus\u2010flower,\nor simply without the latter emblem, was the form chosen for the _Church\u2010\nlamps_, on which were engraved the words, \u201c\u1f18\u03b3\u03ce \u03b5\u1f30\u03bc\u03b9 \u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03c3\u03c4\u03ac\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2\u201d\u2014I am the\nresurrection.(622) These frog\u2010Goddesses are also found on all the mummies.\n\n\n\n\nSection IX. The Moon; Deus Lunus, Ph\u0153be.\n\n\nThis archaic symbol is the most poetical of all symbols, as also the most\nphilosophical. The ancient Greeks brought it into prominence, and the\nmodern poets have worn it threadbare. The Queen of Night, riding in the\nmajesty of her peerless light in Heaven, throwing all, even Hesperus, into\ndarkness, and spreading her silver mantle over the whole Sidereal World,\nhas ever been a favourite theme with all the poets of Christendom, from\nMilton and Shakespeare down to the latest versifier. But the refulgent\nlamp of night, with her suite of stars unnumbered, spoke only to the\nimagination of the profane. Until lately, Religion and Science had nought\nto do with the beautiful mythos. Yet, the cold chaste Moon, she, who, in\nthe words of Shelley:\n\n\n    ... makes all beautiful on which she smiles,\n    That wandering shrine of soft, yet icy flame\n    Which ever is transformed, yet still the same,\n    And warms not, but illumes....\n\n\nstands in closer relations to Earth than any other sidereal orb. The Sun\nis the Giver of Life to the whole Planetary System; the Moon is the Giver\nof Life to our Globe; and the early races understood and knew it, even in\ntheir infancy. She is the Queen, and she is the King. She was King Soma\nbefore she became transformed into Ph\u0153be and the chaste Diana. She is\npre\u00ebminently the Deity of the Christians, through the Mosaic and\nKabalistic Jews, though the civilized world may have remained ignorant of\nthe fact for long ages; in fact, ever since the last initiated Father of\nthe Church died, carrying with him into his grave the secrets of the Pagan\nTemples. For such Fathers as Origen or Clemens Alexandrinus, the Moon was\nJehovah\u2019s living symbol; the Giver of Life and the Giver of Death, the\nDisposer of Being\u2014in _our_ World. For, if Artemis was Luna in Heaven, and,\nwith the Greeks, Diana on Earth, who presided over child\u2010birth and life;\nwith the Egyptians, she was Hekat (Hecate) in Hell, the Goddess of Death,\nwho ruled over magic and enchantments. More than this; as the personified\nMoon, whose phenomena are triadic, Diana\u2010Hecate\u2010Luna is the _three in\none_. For she is _Diva triformis_, _tergemina_, _triceps_, three heads on\none neck,(623) like Brahm\u00e2\u2010Vishnu\u2010Shiva. Hence she is the prototype of our\nTrinity, which has not always been entirely male. The number seven, so\nprominent in the _Bible_, so sacred in the seventh day, or Sabbath, came\nto the Jews from antiquity, deriving its origin from the four\u2010fold number\n7 contained in the 28 days of the lunar month, each septenary portion\nthereof being typified by one quarter of the Moon.\n\nIt is worth the trouble of presenting, in this work, a bird\u2019s\u2010eye view of\nthe origin and development of the lunar myth and worship, in historical\nantiquity, on our side of the globe. Its earlier origin is untraceable by\n_exact_ Science, which rejects all tradition; while for Theology, which,\nunder the guidance of the crafty Popes, has put a brand on every fragment\nof literature that does not bear the _imprimatur_ of the Church of Rome,\nits archaic history is a sealed book. Whether the Egyptian or the \u00c2ryan\nHind\u00fb religious philosophy is the more ancient\u2014the Secret Doctrine says it\nis the latter\u2014does not much matter, in this instance, as the Lunar and\nSolar \u201cworship\u201d are the most ancient in the world. Both have survived, and\nprevail to this day throughout the whole world; with some openly, with\nothers\u2014as, for instance, in Christian symbology\u2014secretly. The cat, a lunar\nsymbol, was sacred to Isis, who was the Moon in one sense, just as Osiris\nwas the Sun, and is often seen on the top of the Sistrum in the hand of\nthe Goddess. This animal was held in great veneration in the city of\nBubastis, which went into deep mourning on the death of the sacred cats,\nbecause Isis, as the Moon, was particularly worshipped in that city of\nmysteries. The astronomical symbolism connected with it has already been\ngiven in Section I, and no one has better described it than Mr. Gerald\nMassey, in his _Lectures_ and in _The Natural Genesis_. The eye of the\ncat, it is said, seems to follow the lunar phases in their growth and\ndecline, and its orbs shine like two stars in the darkness of night. Hence\nthe mythological allegory which shows Diana hiding in the Moon, under the\nshape of a cat, when she was seeking, in company with other Deities, to\nescape the pursuit of Typhon, as related in the _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid.\nThe Moon, in Egypt, was both the \u201cEye of Horns\u201d and the \u201cEye of Osiris,\u201d\nthe Sun.\n\nThe same with the Cynocephalus. The dog\u2010headed ape was a glyph to\nsymbolize the Sun and Moon, in turn, though the Cynocephalus is really\n_more a Hermetic than a religious symbol_. For it is the hieroglyph of\nMercury, the planet, and of the Mercury of the Alchemical philosophers,\nwho say that:\n\n\n    Mercury has to be ever _near_ Isis, as her _minister_, for without\n    Mercury neither Isis nor Osiris can accomplish anything in the\n    Great Work.\n\n\nThe Cynocephalus, whenever represented with the caduceus, the crescent, or\nthe lotus, is a glyph of the \u201cphilosophical\u201d Mercury; but when seen with a\nreed, or a roll of parchment, he stands for Hermes, the secretary and\nadviser of Isis, as Hanum\u00e2na filled the same office with R\u00e2ma.\n\nThough the regular Sun\u2010Worshippers, the Pars\u00ees, are few, yet not only is\nthe bulk of the Hind\u00fb mythology and history based upon, and interblended\nwith, these two worships, but so is even the Christian religion itself.\nFrom their origin down to our modern day, it has coloured the theologies\nof both the Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches. Indeed, the difference\nbetween the Aryan Hind\u00fb and the \u00c2ryan European faiths is very small, if\nonly the fundamental ideas of both are taken into consideration. Hind\u00fbs\nare proud of calling themselves S\u00fbryavanshas and Chandravanshas, of the\n_Solar_ and _Lunar_ Dynasties. The Christians pretend to regard this as\nidolatry, and yet they adhere to a religion entirely based upon Solar and\nLunar worship. It is vain and useless for the Protestants to exclaim\nagainst the Roman Catholics for their \u201cMariolatry,\u201d based on the ancient\ncult of lunar Goddesses, when they themselves worship Jehovah,\npre\u00ebminently a _lunar_ God; and when both Churches have accepted in their\ntheologies the _Sun_\u2010Christ and the _Lunar_ Trinity.\n\nWhat is known of Chaldean Moon\u2010Worship, of the Babylonian God, Sin, called\nby the Greeks Deus Lunus, is very little; and that little is apt to\nmislead the profane student, who fails to grasp the esoteric significance\nof the symbols. As popularly known to the ancient profane philosophers and\nwriters\u2014for those who were initiated were pledged to silence\u2014the Chaldeans\nwere the worshippers of the Moon under _her_, and _his_, various names,\njust as were the Jews, who came after them.\n\nIn the unpublished MS. on the Art\u2010Speech, already mentioned, giving a key\nto the formation of the ancient symbolical language, a logical _raison\nd\u2019\u00eatre_ is brought forward for this double worship. It is written by a\nwonderfully well\u2010informed and acute scholar and Mystic, who gives it in\nthe comprehensive form of a hypothesis. The latter, however, forcibly\nbecomes a proven fact in the history of religious evolution in human\nthought, to anyone who has ever had a glimpse into the secret of ancient\nsymbology. Thus, he says:\n\n\n    One of the first occupations among men, connected with those of\n    actual necessity, would be the perception of time periods,(624)\n    marked on the vaulted arch of the heavens, sprung and rising over\n    the level floor of the horizon, or the plain of still water. These\n    would come to be marked as those of day and night, of the phases\n    of the moon, of its stellar or synodic revolutions, and of the\n    period of the solar year with recurrence of the seasons, and with\n    the application to such periods of the natural measure of day or\n    night, or of the day divided into the light and the dark. It would\n    also be discovered that there was a longest and shortest solar\n    day, and two solar days of equal day and night, within the period\n    of the solar year; and the points in the year of these could be\n    marked with the greatest precision in the starry groups of the\n    heavens or the constellations, subject to that retrograde movement\n    thereof, which in time would require a correction by\n    intercalation, as was the case in the description of the Flood,\n    where correction of 150 days was made for a period of 600 years,\n    during which confusion of landmarks had increased.... This would\n    naturally come to pass with all races in all time; and such\n    knowledge must be taken to have been inherent in the human race,\n    prior to what we call the historic period as during the same.\n\n\nOn this basis, the author seeks for some natural physical function,\npossessed in common by the human race, and connected with the periodical\nmanifestations, such that \u201cthe connection between the two kinds of\nphenomena ... became fixed in common or popular usage.\u201d He finds it in:\n\n\n    (_a_) The feminine physiological phenomena every lunar month of 28\n    days, or 4 weeks of 7 days each, so that 13 occurrences of the\n    period should happen in 364 days, which is the solar week\u2010year of\n    52 weeks of 7 days each. (_b_) The quickening of the f\u0153tus is\n    marked by a period of 126 days, or 18 weeks of 7 days each. (_c_)\n    That period which is called \u201cthe period of viability\u201d is one of\n    210 days, or 30 weeks of 7 days each. (_d_) The period of\n    parturition is accomplished in 280 days, or a period of 40 weeks\n    of 7 days each, or 10 lunar months of 28 days each, or of 9\n    calendar months of 31 days each, counting on the royal arch of\n    heavens for the measure of the period of traverse from the\n    darkness of the womb to the light and glory of conscious\n    existence, that continuing inscrutable mystery and miracle....\n    Thus the observed periods of time marking the workings of the\n    birth function would naturally become a basis of astronomical\n    calculation.... We may almost affirm ... that this was the mode of\n    reckoning among all nations, either independently, or\n    intermediately and indirectly by tuition. It was the mode with the\n    Hebrews, for even to\u2010day they calculate the calendar by means of\n    the 354 and 355 of the lunar year, and we possess a special\n    evidence that it was the mode with the ancient Egyptians, as to\n    which this is the proof:\n\n    The basic idea underlying the religious philosophy of the Hebrews\n    was that God contained all things within himself,(625) and that\n    man was his image, man including woman.... The place of the man\n    and woman with the Hebrews was among the Egyptians occupied by the\n    bull and the cow, sacred to Osiris and Isis,(626) who were\n    represented, respectively, by a man having a bull\u2019s head, and a\n    woman having the head of a cow; which symbols were worshipped.\n    Notoriously Osiris was the Sun and the river Nile, the tropical\n    year of 365 days, which number is the value of the word Neilos,\n    and the bull, as he was also the principle of fire and of life\u2010\n    giving force; while Isis was the moon, the bed of the river Nile,\n    or the Mother Earth, for the parturient energies of which water\n    was a necessity, the lunar year of 354\u2010364 days, the time\u2010maker of\n    the periods of gestation, and the cow marked by, or with, the\n    crescent new moon....\n\n    But the use of the cow of the Egyptians for the woman of the\n    Hebrews was not intended as of any radical difference of\n    signification, but a concurrence in the teaching, intended, and\n    merely as the substitution of a symbol of common import, which was\n    this, viz., the period of parturition with the cow and the woman\n    was held to be the same, or 280 days, or ten lunar months of 4\n    weeks each. And in this period consisted the essential value of\n    this animal symbol, whose mark was that of the crescent\n    moon.(627)... These parturient and natural periods are found to\n    have been subjects of symbolism all over the world. They were thus\n    used by the Hind\u00fbs, and are found to be most plainly set forth by\n    the ancient Americans, in the Richardson and Gest tablets, in the\n    Palenque Cross and elsewhere, and manifestly lay at the base of\n    the formation of the calendar forms of the Mayas of Yucatan, the\n    Hind\u00fbs, the Assyrians, and the ancient Babylonians, as well as the\n    Egyptians and old Hebrews. The natural symbols ... would be either\n    the phallus or the phallus and yoni, ... _male_ and _female_.\n    Indeed, the words translated by the generalizing terms male and\n    female, in the 27th verse of the 1st chapter of Genesis are ...\n    _sacr_ and _n\u2019cabvah_ or, literally, phallus and yoni.(628) While\n    the representation of the phallic emblems would barely indicate\n    the genital members of the human body, when their functions and\n    the development of the seed\u2010vesicles emanating from them were\n    considered, there would come into indication a mode of measures of\n    lunar time, and through lunar, of solar time.\n\n\nThis is the physiological or anthropological key to the Moon symbol. The\nkey that opens the mystery of Theogony, or the evolution of the\nmanvantaric Gods, is more complicated, and has nothing phallic in it.\nThere, all is mystical and divine. But the Jews, beyond connecting Jehovah\ndirectly with the Moon as a generative God, preferred to ignore the higher\nHierarchies, and have made their Patriarchs of some of these zodiacal\nconstellations and planetary Gods, thus euhemerizing the purely\ntheosophical idea and dragging it down to the level of sinful humanity.\nThe MS., from which the above is extracted, explains very clearly to what\nHierarchy of Gods Jehovah belonged, and who this Jewish God was; for it\nshows, in clear language, that which the writer has always insisted upon,\nnamely, that the God with which the Christians have burdened themselves,\nwas no better than the lunar symbol of the reproductive or generative\nfaculty in Nature. They have ever ignored even the Hebrew secret God of\nthe Kabalists, Ain Suph, a conception as grand as Parabrahman in the\nearliest Kabalistic and mystical ideas. But it is not the _Kabalah_ of\nRosenroth that can ever give the true original teachings of Shimeon Ben\nYocha\u00ef, which were as metaphysical and philosophical as any could be. And\nhow many are there among the students of the _Kabalah_ who know anything\nof them except in their distorted Latin translations? Let us glance at the\nidea which led the ancient Jews to adopt a substitute for the Ever\u2010\nUnknowable, and which has misled the Christians into mistaking the\nsubstitute for the reality.\n\n\n    If to these organs [phallus and yoni] as symbols of creative\n    cosmic agencies the idea of ... time periods can be attached,\n    then, indeed, in the construction of Temples as Dwellings of\n    Deity, or of Jehovah, that part designated as the Holy of Holies,\n    or The Most Holy Place, should borrow its title from the\n    recognized sacredness of the generative organs, considered as\n    symbols of measures as well as of creative cause.\n\n    With the ancient Wise, there was no name, and no idea, and no\n    symbol, of a First Cause.(629) With the Hebrews, the indirect\n    conception of such was couched in a term of negation of\n    comprehension, viz., Ain Suph, or the Without Bounds. But the\n    symbol of _its first comprehensible manifestation_ was the\n    conception of a circle with its diameter line, to at once carry a\n    geometric, phallic, and astronomic idea; ... for the one takes its\n    birth from the 0, or the circle, without which it could not be,\n    and from the 1, or primal one, spring the 9 digits, and,\n    geometrically, all plane shapes. So in Kabalah this circle, with\n    its diameter line, is the picture of the 10 Sephiroth, or\n    Emanations, composing the Adam Kadmon, or the Archetypal Man, the\n    creative origin of all things.... This idea of connecting the\n    picture of the circle and its diameter line, that is, the number\n    10, with the signification of the reproductive organs, and the\n    Most Holy Place ... was carried out constructively in the King\u2019s\n    Chamber, or Holy of Holies, of the great Pyramid, in the\n    Tabernacle of Moses, and in the Holy of Holies of the Temple of\n    Solomon.... It is _the picture of a double womb_, for in Hebrew\n    the letter _H\u00e9_ (\u05d4) is at the same time the number 5, and the\n    symbol of the womb, and twice 5 is 10, or the phallic number.\n\n\nThis \u201cdouble womb\u201d also shows the duality of the idea carried from the\nhighest or spiritual down to the lowest or terrestrial plane; and limited\nby the Jews to the latter. With them, therefore, the number seven has\nacquired the most prominent place in their exoteric religion, a cult of\nexternal forms and empty rituals; take, for instance, their Sabbath, the\nseventh day sacred to their Deity, the Moon, symbolical of the generative\nJehovah. But, with other nations, the number seven was typical of\ntheogonic evolution, of Cycles, Cosmic Planes, and the Seven Forces and\nOccult Powers in Kosmos, as a Boundless Whole, whose first upper Triangle\nwas unreachable to the finite intellect of man. While other nations,\ntherefore, busied themselves, in their forcible limitation of Kosmos in\nSpace and Time, only with its septenary manifested plane, the Jews centred\nthis number solely in the Moon, and based all their sacred calculations\nthereupon. Hence we find the thoughtful author of the MS. just quoted,\nremarking, in reference to the metrology of the Jews, that:\n\n\n    If 20,612 be multiplied by 4/3, _the product will afford a base\n    for the ascertainment of the mean revolution of the moon_; and if\n    this product be again multiplied by 4/3, this continued product\n    will afford a base for finding the exact period of the mean solar\n    year, ... this form ... becoming, for the finding of astronomical\n    periods of time, of very great service.\n\n\nThis double number\u2014male and female\u2014is symbolized also in some well\u2010known\nidols; for instance:\n\n\n    Ardhan\u00e2r\u00ee\u2010\u00ceshvara, the Isis of the Hind\u00fbs, Eridanus, or Ardan, or\n    the Hebrew Jordan, or _source of descent_. She is standing on a\n    lotus\u2010leaf floating on the water. But the signification is, that\n    it is androgyne or hermaphrodite, that is phallus and yoni\n    combined, the number 10, the Hebrew letter _Yod_ (\u05d9), the\n    _containment of Jehovah_. She, or rather she\u2010he, gives the minutes\n    of the same circle of 360 degrees.\n\n\n\u201cJehovah,\u201d in its best aspect is Binah, the \u201cUpper mediating Mother, the\nGreat Sea or Holy Spirit,\u201d and therefore rather a synonym of Mary, the\nMother of Jesus, than of his Father; that \u201cMother, being the Latin Mare,\u201d\nthe Sea, is here, also, Venus, the Stella del Mare, or \u201cStar of the Sea.\u201d\n\nThe ancestors of the mysterious Akkadians\u2014the Chandravanshas or\nIndovanshas, the Lunar Kings, whom tradition shows reigning at Pray\u00e2ga\n(Allahabad), ages before our era\u2014had come from India, and brought with\nthem the worship of their forefathers, of Soma, and his son Budha, which\nafterwards became that of the Chaldeans. Yet such adoration, apart from\npopular Astrolatry and Heliolatry, was in no sense _idolatry_. No more, at\nany rate, than the modern Roman Catholic symbolism which connects the\nVirgin Mary, the Magna Mater of the Syrians and Greeks, with the Moon.\n\nOf this worship, the most pious Roman Catholics feel quite proud, and\nloudly confess to it. In a _M\u00e9moire_ to the French Academy, the Marquis De\nMirville says:\n\n\n    It is only natural that, as an unconscious prophecy, Ammon\u2010R\u00e2\n    should be his mother\u2019s husband, since the Magna Mater of the\n    Christians _is precisely the spouse of that son she conceives_....\n    We [Christians] can understand now _why Ne\u00efth throws radiance on\n    the Sun, while remaining the Moon_, since the Virgin, who is the\n    Queen of Heaven, _as was Ne\u00efth_, clothes the Christ\u2010Sun, as does\n    Ne\u00efth, and is clothed by him; \u201c_Tu vestis solem et te sol vestit_\u201d\n    [as is sung by the Roman Catholics during their service].\n\n    We [Christians] understand also how it is that the famous\n    inscription at Sa\u00efs should have stated that \u201cnone has ever lifted\n    my veil [peplum],\u201d considering that this sentence, literally\n    translated, _is the summary of what is sung in the Church on the\n    Day of the Immaculate Conception_.(630)\n\n\nSurely nothing could be more sincere than this! It justifies entirely what\nMr. Gerald Massey has said in his Lecture on \u201cLuniolatry, Ancient and\nModern\u201d:\n\n\n    The man in the moon [Osiris\u2010Sut, Jehovah\u2010Satan, Christ\u2010Judas, and\n    other Lunar Twins] is often charged with bad conduct.... In the\n    lunar phenomena the moon was one, as _the_ moon, which was two\u2010\n    fold in sex, and three\u2010fold in character, as mother, child, and\n    adult male. Thus the child of the moon became the consort of his\n    own mother! It could not be _helped_ if there was to be any\n    reproduction. He was compelled to be his own father! These\n    relationships were repudiated by later sociology, and the\n    primitive man in the moon got tabooed. Yet in its latest, most\n    inexplicable phase, this has become the central doctrine of the\n    grossest superstition the world has seen, for these lunar\n    phenomena and their humanly represented relationships, the\n    incestuous included, are the very foundations of the Christian\n    Trinity in Unity. Through ignorance of the symbolism, the simple\n    representation of early time has become the most profound\n    religious mystery in modern Luniolatry. The Roman Church, without\n    being in any wise ashamed of the proof, portrays the Virgin Mary\n    arrayed with the sun, and the horned moon at her feet, holding the\n    lunar infant in her arms\u2014as child and consort of the mother moon!\n    The mother, child, and adult male, are fundamental....\n\n    In this way it can be proved that our Christology is mummified\n    mythology, and legendary lore, which have been palmed off upon us\n    in the _Old Testament_ and the _New_, as divine revelation uttered\n    by the very voice of God.(631)\n\n\nA charming allegory is found in the _Zohar_, one which unveils better than\nanything else ever did the true character of Jehovah, or YHVH, in the\nprimitive conception of the Hebrew Kabalists. It is now found in the\nphilosophy of Ibn Gebirol\u2019s _Kabalah_, translated by Isaac Myer.\n\n\n    In the introduction written by R. \u2019Hiz\u2019qee\u2010yah, which is very old,\n    and forms part of our Brody edition of the _Zohar_ (1. 5b. _sq._)\n    is an account of a journey taken by R. El\u2019azar, son of R. Shim\u2010on\n    b. Yo\u2019ha\u00ef, and R. Abbah.... They met a man bearing a heavy\n    burden.... They conversed together ... and the explanations of the\n    Thorah, by the man with the burden, were so wonderful, that they\n    asked him for his name; he replied: \u201cDo not ask me who I am; but\n    we will all proceed with the explanation of the Thorah [Law].\u201d\n    They asked: \u201cWho caused thee thus to walk and carry such a heavy\n    load?\u201d He answered: \u201cThe letter \u05d9 (Yod, which = 10, and is the\n    symbolical letter of Kether and the essence and germ of the Holy\n    Name \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4, YHVH) made war, etc.\u201d.... They said to him: \u201cIf thou\n    wilt tell us the name of thy father, we will kiss the dust of thy\n    feet.\u201d He replied: \u201c... As to my father, _he had his dwelling in\n    the Great Sea, and was a fish therein_ [like Vishnu and Dagon or\n    Oannes]; which [first] destroyed the Great Sea ... and he was\n    great and mighty and \u2018Ancient of Days,\u2019 until he swallowed all the\n    other fishes in the (Great) Sea.\u201d ... R. El\u2019azar listened to his\n    words and said to him: \u201cThou art the Son of the Holy Flame, thou\n    art the Son of Rab Ham\u2010\u2019_nun_\u2010ah Sabah (the old) [the _fish_ in\n    Aramaic or Chaldee is _nun_ (_noon_)], thou art the Son of the\n    Light of the Thorah [Dharma], etc.\u201d(632)\n\n\nThen the author explains that the feminine Sephira, Binah, is termed by\nthe Kabalists the Great Sea: therefore Binah, whose divine names are\nJehovah, Yah, and Elohim, is simply the Chaldean Tiamat, the Female Power,\nthe Thalatth of Berosus, who presides over the Chaos, and was made out\nlater by Christian Theology to be the Serpent and the Devil. She\u2010He (Yah\u2010\nhovah) is the supernal H\u00e9, and Eve. This Yah\u2010hovah then, or Jehovah, is\nidentical with our Chaos\u2014Father, Mother, Son\u2014on the material plane, and in\nthe purely physical World; Deus and Demon, at one and the same time; the\nSun and Moon, Good and Evil, God and Demon.\n\nLunar magnetism generates life, preserves and destroys it, psychically as\nwell as physically. And if, astronomically, the Moon is one of the seven\nplanets of the Ancient World, in Theogony she is one of the Regents\nthereof\u2014with Christians now as much as with Pagans, the former referring\nto her under the name of one of their Archangels, and the latter under\nthat of one of their Gods.\n\nTherefore the meaning of the \u201cfairy tale,\u201d translated by Chwolsohn from\nthe Arabic translation of an old Chaldean MS., of Q\u00fb\u2010t\u00e2my being instructed\nby the _idol_ of the Moon, is easily understood. Seldenus tells us the\nsecret, as well as Maimonides in his _Guide to the Perplexed_.(633) The\nworshippers of the Teraphim, or the Jewish Oracles, \u201ccarved images, and\nclaimed that the light of the principal stars [planets] permeating these\nthrough and through, the Angelic Virtues [or the Regents of the stars and\nplanets] conversed with them, teaching them many most useful things and\narts.\u201d And Seldenus explains that the Teraphim were built and composed\nafter the position of certain planets, those which the Greeks called\n\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c7\u03b5\u1fd6\u03b1, and according to figures that were located in the sky, and\ncalled \u1f00\u03bb\u03b5\u03be\u03b7\u03c4\u03ae\u03c1\u03b9\u03bf\u03b9, or the Tutelary Gods. Those who traced out the\n\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c7\u03b5\u1fd6\u03b1 were called \u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c9\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u03af, or diviners by the \u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c7\u03b5\u1fd6\u03b1.(634)\n\nIt is such sentences, however, in the _Nabathean Agriculture_, which have\nfrightened the men of Science, and made them proclaim the work \u201ceither an\napocryphon, or a fairy tale, unworthy of the notice of an Academician.\u201d At\nthe same time, as shown, zealous Roman Catholics and Protestants\nmetaphorically tore it to pieces; the former because \u201cit described the\nworship of demons,\u201d the latter because it was \u201cungodly.\u201d Once more, all\nare wrong. It is _not_ a fairy tale; and, as far as the pious Churchmen\nare concerned, the same worship may be shown in their Scriptures, however\ndisfigured by translation. Solar and Lunar worship and also the worship of\nthe Stars and Elements can be traced, and figure in Christian Theology.\nThese are defended by Papists, and can be stoutly denied by the\nProtestants only at their own risk and peril. Two instances may be given.\n\nAmmianus Marcellinus teaches that ancient divinations were always\naccomplished with the help of the Spirits of the Elements (_Spiritus\nElementorum_, and in Greek \u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c7\u03b5\u03af\u03c9\u03bd).(635)\n\nBut it is found now that the Planets, the Elements, and the Zodiac, were\nfigured not only at Heliopolis by the twelve stones called \u201cMysteries of\nthe Elements\u201d (_Elementorum Arcana_), but also in Solomon\u2019s Temple, and,\nas pointed out by various writers, in several old Italian churches and\neven at _Notre Dame de Paris_, where they can be seen to this day.\n\nNo symbol, even including the Sun, was more complex in its manifold\nmeanings than the lunar symbol. The sex was, of course, dual. With some it\nwas male; as, for instance, the Hind\u00fb \u201cKing Soma,\u201d and the Chaldean Sin;\nwith other nations it was female, the beauteous Goddesses Diana\u2010Luna,\nIlithyia, Lucina. With the Tauri, human victims were sacrificed to\nArtemis, a form of the lunar Goddess; the Cretans called her Dictynna, and\nthe Medes and Persians Ana\u00eftis, as shown by an inscription of Col\u0153:\n\u1f08\u03c1\u03c4\u03ad\u03bc\u03b9\u03b4\u03b9 \u1f08\u03bd\u03ac\u03b5\u03b9\u03c4\u03b9. But, we are now concerned chiefly with the most chaste\nand pure of the virgin Goddesses, Luna\u2010Artemis, to whom Pamph\u00f4s was the\nfirst to give the surname of \u039a\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7, and of whom Hippolytus wrote:\n\u039a\u03b1\u03bb\u03bb\u03af\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u1f7a \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b8\u03ad\u03bd\u03c9\u03bd.(636) This Artemis\u2010Lochia, the Goddess that\npresided at conception and childbirth, is, in her functions and as the\ntriple Hecate, the Orphic Deity, the predecessor of the God of the Rabbins\nand pre\u2010Christian Kabalists, and his lunar type. The Goddess \u03a4\u03c1\u03af\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u03bf\u03c2 was\nthe personified symbol of the various and successive aspects represented\nby the Moon in each of her three phases; and this interpretation was\nalready that of the Stoics,(637) while the Orpheans explained the epithet\n\u03a4\u03c1\u03af\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u03bf\u03c2 by the three kingdoms of Nature over which she reigned. Jealous,\nbloodthirsty, revengeful and exacting, Hecate\u2010Luna is a worthy counterpart\nof the \u201cjealous God\u201d of the Hebrew prophets.\n\nThe whole riddle of the Solar and Lunar worship, as now traced in the\nchurches, hangs indeed on this world\u2010old mystery of lunar phenomena. The\ncorrelative forces in the \u201cQueen of Night,\u201d that lie latent for Modern\nScience, but are fully active to the knowledge of Eastern Adepts, explain\nwell the thousand and one images under which the Moon was represented by\nthe Ancients. It also shows how much more profoundly learned in the\nSelenic Mysteries were the Ancients than are now our modern Astronomers.\nThe whole Pantheon of the lunar Gods and Goddesses, Nephtys or Ne\u00efth,\nProserpina, Melitta, Cybele, Isis, Astarte, Venus, and Hecate, on the one\nhand, and Apollo, Dionysus, Adonis, Bacchus, Osiris, Atys, Thammuz, etc.,\non the other, all show on the face of their names and titles\u2014those of\n\u201cSons\u201d and \u201cHusbands\u201d of their \u201cMothers\u201d\u2014their identity with the Christian\nTrinity. In every religious system, the Gods were made to merge their\nfunctions, as Father, Son, and Husband, into one, and the Goddesses were\nidentified as Wife, Mother, and Sister of the male God; the former\nsynthesizing the human attributes as the \u201cSun, the Giver of Life,\u201d the\nlatter merging all the other titles in the grand synthesis known as Maia,\nMaya, Maria, etc., a generic name. Maia, in its forced derivation, has\ncome to mean with the Greeks, \u201cmother,\u201d from the root _ma_ (nurse), and\neven gave its name to the month of May, which was sacred to all these\nGoddesses before it became consecrated to Mary.(638) Its primitive\nmeaning, however, was M\u00e2y\u00e2, Durg\u00e2, translated by the Orientalists as\n\u201cinaccessible,\u201d but meaning in truth the \u201cunreachable,\u201d in the sense of\nillusion and unreality, as being the source and cause of spells, the\npersonification of illusion.\n\nIn religious rites, the Moon served a dual purpose. Personified as a\nfemale Goddess for exoteric purposes, or as a male God in allegory and\nsymbol, in Occult Philosophy our satellite was regarded as a sexless\nPotency to be well studied, because it was to be dreaded. With the\ninitiated \u00c2ryans, Chaldeans, Greeks and Romans, Soma, Sin, Artemis Soteira\n(the hermaphrodite Apollo, whose attribute is the lyre, and the bearded\nDiana of the bow and arrow), Deus Lunus, and especially Osiris\u2010Lunus and\nThot\u2010Lunus,(639) were the Occult potencies of the Moon. But whether male\nor female, whether Thot or Minerva, Soma or Astoreth, the Moon is the\nOccult Mystery of Mysteries, and more a symbol of evil than of good. Her\nseven phases, in the original Esoteric division, are divided into three\nastronomical phenomena and four purely psychic phases. That the Moon was\nnot always reverenced is shown in the Mysteries, in which the death of the\nMoon\u2010God\u2014the three phases of gradual waning and final disappearance\u2014was\nallegorized by the Moon standing for the Genius of Evil that, for the\ntime, triumphs over the Light and Life\u2010giving God, the Sun; and all the\nskill and learning of the ancient Hierophants in Magic were required to\nturn this triumph into a defeat.\n\nIt was the most ancient worship of all, that of the Third Race of our\nRound, the Hermaphrodites, in which the _male_ Moon became sacred, when,\nafter the so\u2010called Fall, the sexes had become separated. Deus Lunus then\nbecame an androgyne, male and female in turn; to finally serve, _for\npurposes of sorcery_, as a dual power for the Fourth Root Race, the\nAtlanteans. With the Fifth, our own Race, the Lunar\u2010solar worship divided\nthe nations into two distinct, antagonistic camps. It led to events\ndescribed \u00e6ons later in the Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2ratan War, which to the Europeans is\nthe fabulous, to the Hind\u00fbs and Occultists the historical, strife between\nthe S\u00fbryavanshas and the Indovanshas. Originating in the dual aspect of\nthe Moon, the worship of the female and the male principles respectively,\nit ended in distinct Solar and Lunar cults. Among the Semitic races, the\nSun was for a very long time feminine and the Moon masculine; the latter\nnotion being adopted by them from the Atlantean traditions. The Moon was\ncalled the \u201cLord of the Sun,\u201d Bel\u2010Shemesh, before the Shemesh worship. The\nignorance of the incipient reasons for such a distinction, and of Occult\nprinciples, led the nations into anthropomorphic idol\u2010worship. During that\nperiod which is absent from the Mosaic books, viz., from the exile from\nEden to the allegorical Flood, the Jews, with the rest of the Semites,\nworshipped Dayanisi, \u05d3\u05d9\u05e0\u05d0\u05d9\u05e9\u05d9, the \u201cRuler of Men,\u201d the \u201cJudge,\u201d or the Sun.\nThough the Jewish canon and Christianism have made the Sun to become the\n\u201cLord God\u201d and \u201cJehovah\u201d in the _Bible_, yet the same _Bible_ is full of\nindiscreet traces of the androgyne Deity, which was Jehovah, the Sun, and\nAstoreth, the Moon in its female aspect, and quite free from the present\nmetaphorical element given to it. God is a \u201cconsuming fire,\u201d appears _in_,\nand \u201cis encompassed _by_ fire.\u201d It was not only in vision that Ezekiel saw\nthe Jews \u201cworshipping the Sun.\u201d(640) The Baal of the Israelites\u2014the\nShemesh of the Moabites and the Moloch of the Ammonites\u2014was the identical\n\u201cSun\u2010Jehovah,\u201d and he is till now the \u201cKing of the Host of Heaven,\u201d the\nSun, as much as Astoreth was the \u201cQueen of Heaven,\u201d or the Moon. The \u201cSun\nof Righteousness\u201d has _only now_ become a _metaphorical_ expression. But\nthe religion of every ancient nation had been primarily based upon the\nOccult manifestations of a purely abstract Force or Principle now called\n\u201cGod.\u201d The very establishment of such worship shows, in its details and\nrites, that the philosophers who evolved such systems of Nature,\nsubjective and objective, possessed profound knowledge, and were\nacquainted with many facts of a scientific nature. For besides being\npurely Occult, the rites of Lunar worship were based, as just shown, upon\na knowledge of Physiology\u2014quite a modern science with us\u2014Psychology,\nsacred Mathematics, Geometry and Metrology, in their right applications to\nsymbols and figures, which are but glyphs recording observed natural and\nscientific _facts_; in short upon a most minute and profound knowledge of\nNature. As we have just said, lunar magnetism generates life, preserves\nand destroys it; and Soma embodies the triple power of the Trim\u00fbrti,\nthough it remains unrecognized by the profane to this day. The allegory\nthat makes Soma, the Moon, produced by the Churning of the Ocean of Life\n(Space) by the Gods in another Manvantara, that is, in the pre\u2010genetic day\nof our Planetary System, and the myth, which represents \u201cthe Rishis\nmilking the Earth, whose calf was Soma, the Moon,\u201d have a deep\ncosmographical meaning; for it is neither _our_ Earth which is milked, nor\nwas the Moon which we know the calf.(641) Had our wise men of Science\nknown as much of the mysteries of Nature as the ancient \u00c2ryans did, they\nwould surely never have imagined that the Moon was projected from the\nEarth. Once more, the oldest of permutations in Theogony, the Son becoming\nhis own Father and the Mother generated by the Son, has to be remembered\nand taken into consideration if the symbolical language of the Ancients is\nto be understood by us. Otherwise mythology will be ever haunting the\nOrientalists as simply \u201cthe disease which springs up at a peculiar stage\nof human culture!\u201d\u2014as Renouf gravely observes.\n\nThe Ancients taught the auto\u2010generation, so to speak, of the Gods: the One\nDivine Essence, _unmanifested_, perpetually begetting a Second\u2010Self,\n_manifested_, which Second\u2010Self, androgynous in its nature, _gives birth,\nin an immaculate way_, to everything macrocosmical and microcosmical in\nthis Universe. This was shown in the Circle and the Diameter, or the\nSacred Ten (10), a few pages back.\n\nBut our Orientalists, notwithstanding their extreme desire to discover one\nhomogeneous Element in Nature, _will not_ see it. Cramped in their\nresearches by such ignorance, the \u00c2ryanists and Egyptologists are\nconstantly led astray from truth in their speculations. Thus, de Roug\u00e9 is\nunable to understand, in the text which he translates, the meaning of\nAmmon\u2010Ra saying to King Amenophes, who is supposed to be Memnon: \u201cThou art\nmy Son, I have begotten thee.\u201d And, finding the same idea in many a text\nand under various forms, this very Christian Orientalist is finally\ncompelled to exclaim:\n\n\n    For this idea to have entered the mind of a hierogrammatist, there\n    must have been in their religion a more or less defined doctrine,\n    _indicating as a possible fact that might come to pass, a divine\n    and immaculate incarnation under a human form._\n\n\nPrecisely. But why throw the explanation on to an impossible prophecy,\nwhen the whole secret is explained by the later religion copying the\nearlier?\n\nThis doctrine was universal, nor was it the mind of any one\nhierogrammatist that evolved it; for the Indian Avat\u00e2ras are a proof to\nthe contrary. After which, having come \u201cto realize more clearly\u201d(642) what\nthe \u201cDivine Father and Son\u201d were with the Egyptians, de Roug\u00e9 still fails\nto account for, and to perceive what were the functions attributed to, the\n_feminine_ Principle in that primordial generation. He does not find it in\nthe Goddess Ne\u00efth, of Sa\u00efs. Yet he quotes the sentence of the Commander to\nCambyses, when introducing that king into the Sa\u00eftic temple: \u201cI made known\nto his Majesty the dignity of Sa\u00efs, which is the abode of Ne\u00efth, the great\n[female] producer, _genitrix of the Sun_, who is the _first\u2010born, and who\nis not begotten, but only brought forth_\u201d\u2014and hence is the fruit of an\nImmaculate Mother.\n\nHow much more grandiose, philosophical and poetical\u2014for whoever is able to\nunderstand and appreciate it\u2014is the real distinction made between the\nImmaculate Virgin of the ancient Pagans and the modern Papal conception.\nWith the former, the ever\u2010youthful Mother Nature, the antitype of her\nprototypes, the Sun and Moon, _generates_ and _brings forth_ her \u201cmind\u2010\nborn\u201d Son, the Universe. The Sun and Moon, as male\u2010female deities,\nfructify the Earth, the microcosmical Mother, and the latter conceives and\nbrings forth, in her turn. With the Christians, the \u201cFirst\u2010born\u201d\n(_primogenitus_) is indeed generated, _i.e._, begotten (_genitus, non\nfactus_), and positively _conceived and brought forth_: \u201c_Virgo pariet_,\u201d\nexplains the Latin Church. Thus does that Church drag down the noble\nspiritual ideal of the Virgin Mary to the earth, and, making her \u201cof the\nearth earthy,\u201d degrades the ideal she portrays to the lowest of the\nanthropomorphic Goddesses of the rabble.\n\nTruly, Ne\u00efth, Isis, Diana, etc., by whatever name she was called, was \u201ca\ndemiurgical Goddess, at once visible and invisible, having her place in\nHeaven, and _helping on the generation of species_\u201d\u2014the Moon, in short.\nHer occult aspects and powers are numberless, and, in one of them, the\nMoon becomes with the Egyptians Hathor, another aspect of Isis,(643) and\nboth of these Goddesses are shown suckling Horus. Behold in the Egyptian\nHall of the British Museum, Hathor worshipped by Pharaoh Thotmes, who\nstands between her and the Lord of Heavens. The monolith was taken from\nKarnac. The same Goddess has the following legend inscribed on her throne:\n\u201c_The Divine Mother and Lady, or Queen of Heaven_\u201d; also the \u201c_Morning\nStar_,\u201d and the \u201c_Light of the Sea_\u201d\u2014_Stella Matutina_ and _Lux Maris_.\nAll the Lunar Goddesses had a dual aspect; one _divine_, the other\n_infernal_. All were the Virgin Mothers of an _immaculately_ born Son\u2014the\nSun. Raoul Rochette shows the Moon\u2010Goddess of the Athenians, Pallas, or\nCybele, Minerva, or again Diana, holding her child\u2010son on her lap, invoked\nin her festivals as \u039c\u03bf\u03bd\u03bf\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u1f74\u03c2 \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1fe6, the \u201cOne Mother of God,\u201d sitting on a\nlion, and surrounded by twelve personages; in whom the Occultist\nrecognizes the twelve great Gods, and the pious Christian Orientalist the\nApostles, or rather the Grecian Pagan prophecy thereof.\n\nThey are both right, for the Immaculate Goddess of the Latin Church is a\nfaithful copy of the older Pagan Goddesses; the number of the Apostles is\nthat of the twelve Tribes, and the latter are a personification of the\ntwelve great Gods, and of the twelve Signs of the Zodiac. Almost every\ndetail in the Christian dogma is borrowed from the Heathens. Semele, the\nWife of Jupiter and Mother of Bacchus, the Sun, is, according to Nonnus,\nalso \u201ccarried,\u201d or made to ascend to Heaven after her death, where she\npresides between Mars and Venus, under the name of the \u201cQueen of the\nWorld,\u201d or the Universe, \u03c0\u03b1\u03bd\u03b2\u03b1\u03c3\u03af\u03bb\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1; \u201cat the name of which,\u201d as at the\nnames of Hathor, Hecate, and other infernal Goddesses, \u201call the demons\ntremble.\u201d(644)\n\n\u201c\u03a3\u03b5\u03bc\u03ad\u03bb\u03b7\u03bd \u03c4\u03c1\u03ad\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9 \u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u03c2.\u201d This Greek inscription on a small temple,\nreproduced on a stone that was found by Beger, and copied by Montfaucon,\nas De Mirville tells us, informs us of the stupendous fact, that the Magna\nMater of the old world was an impudent \u201cplagiarism\u201d of the Immaculate\nVirgin Mother of his Church, perpetrated by the Demon. Whether so, or\n_vice vers\u00e2_, is of no importance. That which is interesting to note is\nthe perfect identity between the _archaic copy_ and the _modern original_.\n\nDid space permit we might show the inconceivable coolness and unconcern\nexhibited by certain followers of the Roman Catholic Church, when they are\nmade to face the revelations of the Past. To Maury\u2019s remark that \u201cthe\nVirgin took possession of all the Sanctuaries of Ceres and Venus, and that\nthe Pagan rites, proclaimed and practised in honour of those Goddesses,\nwere in a great measure transferred to the Mother of Christ,\u201d(645) the\nadvocate of Rome answers, that such _is_ the fact, and that it is just as\nit should be, and quite natural.\n\n\n    As the dogma, the liturgy, and the rites professed by the Roman\n    Apostolical Church in 1862 are found engraved on monuments,\n    inscribed on papyri, and cylinders _hardly posterior to the\n    Deluge_, it does seem impossible to deny the existence of a _first\n    ante\u2010historical_ [Roman] _Catholicism of which our own is but the\n    faithful continuation_.... [But while the former was the\n    culmination, the \u201c_summum_ of the impudence of demons and go\u00ebtic\n    necromancy\u201d ... the latter is _divine_.] If in _our_ [Christian]\n    _Revelation_ [_l\u2019Apocalypse_], Mary, clothed with the Sun and\n    having the Moon under her feet, has no longer anything in common\n    _with the humble servant_ [servante] _of Nazareth_ [_sic_], it is\n    because she has now become the greatest of theological and\n    cosmological powers in _our_ universe.(646)\n\n\nVerily so, since Pindar thus sings of her \u201cassumption\u201d: \u201cShe sits _at the\nright hand_ of her Father [Jupiter], ... and is more powerful than all the\nother (Angels or) Gods\u201d(647)\u2014a hymn likewise applied to the Virgin. St.\nBernard also, quoted by Cornelius \u00e0 Lapide, is made to address the Virgin\nMary in this wise: \u201cThe Sun\u2010Christ lives in thee and thou livest in\nhim.\u201d(648)\n\nAgain the Virgin is admitted to be the Moon by the same unsophisticated\nholy man. Being the Lucina of the Church, in childbirth the verse of\nVirgil, \u201c_Casta fove Lucina, tuus jam regnat Apollo_,\u201d is applied to her.\n\u201cLike the Moon, the Virgin is the Queen of Heaven,\u201d adds the innocent\nsaint.(649)\n\nThis settles the question. According to such writers as De Mirville, the\nmore similarity there exists between the Pagan conceptions and the\nChristian dogmas, the more divine appears the Christian religion, and the\nmore is it seen to be the only truly inspired one, especially in its Roman\nCatholic form. The unbelieving Scientists and Academicians who think they\nsee in the Latin Church quite the opposite of divine inspiration, and who\nwill not believe in the Satanic tricks of plagiarism by anticipation, are\nseverely taken to task. But then \u201cthey believe in nothing and reject even\nthe _Nabathean Agriculture_ as a romance and a pack of superstitious\nnonsense,\u201d complains the memorialist. \u201cIn their perverted opinion\nQ\u00fb\u2010t\u00e2my\u2019s \u2018idol of the Moon\u2019 and the statue of the Madonna are one!\u201d A\nnoble Marquis, twenty\u2010five years ago, wrote six huge volumes, or, as he\ncalls them \u201cM\u00e9moires to the French Academy,\u201d with the sole object of\nproving Roman Catholicism to be an inspired and revealed faith. As a proof\nthereof, he furnishes numberless facts, all tending to show that the\nentire Ancient World, ever since the Deluge, had, with the help of the\nDevil, been systematically plagiarizing the rites, ceremonies, and dogmas\nof the future Holy Church, which was to be born ages later. What would\nthat faithful son of Rome have said had he heard his co\u2010religionist, M.\nRenouf, the distinguished Egyptologist of the British Museum, declaring in\none of his learned lectures, that neither \u201cHebrews nor Greeks borrowed any\nof their ideas from Egypt\u201d?\n\nBut perhaps M. Renouf intended to say that it was the Egyptians, the\nGreeks, and the \u00c2ryans, who borrowed their ideas from the Latin Church?\nAnd if so, why, in the name of logic, do the Papists reject the additional\ninformation which the Occultists may give them on Moon\u2010worship, since it\nall tends to show that the worship of the Roman Catholic Church is as old\nas the world\u2014_of Sab\u00e6anism and Astrolatry_?\n\nThe reason of early Christian and later Roman Catholic Astrolatry, or the\nsymbolical worship of Sun and Moon, a worship identical with that of the\nGnostics, though less philosophical and pure than the \u201cSun\u2010worship\u201d of the\nZoroastrians, is a natural consequence of its birth and origin. The\nadoption by the Latin Church of such symbols as Water, Fire, Sun, Moon and\nStars, and many others, is simply a continuation by the early Christians\nof the old worship of Pagan nations. Thus, Odin got his wisdom, power, and\nknowledge, by sitting at the feet of Mimir, the thrice\u2010wise Jotun, who\npassed his life by the fountain of primeval Wisdom, the crystalline Waters\nof which increased his knowledge daily. \u201cMimir drew the highest knowledge\nfrom the fountain, because the World was born of Water; hence primeval\nWisdom was to be found in that mysterious element.\u201d The eye which Odin had\nto pledge to acquire that knowledge may be \u201cthe Sun, which enlightens and\npenetrates all things; his other eye being the Moon, whose reflection\ngazes out of the deep, and which at last, when setting, sinks into the\nOcean.\u201d(650) But it is something more than this. Loki, the Fire\u2010God, is\nsaid to have hidden in the Water, as well as in the Moon, the light\u2010giver,\nwhose reflection he found therein. This belief that the Fire finds refuge\nin the Water was not limited to the old Scandinavians. It was shared by\nall nations and was finally adopted by the early Christians, who\nsymbolized the Holy Ghost under the shape of Fire, \u201ccloven tongues like as\nof fire\u201d\u2014the breath of the Father\u2010Sun. This Fire descends also into the\nWater, or the Sea\u2014Mare, Mary. The Dove was the symbol of the Soul with\nseveral nations; it was sacred to Venus, the Goddess born from the sea\u2010\nfoam, and it became later the symbol of the Christian Anima Mundi, or Holy\nSpirit.\n\nOne of the most occult chapters in the _Book of the Dead_ is that\nentitled, \u201cThe transformation into the God giving Light to the Path of\nDarkness,\u201d wherein \u201cWoman\u2010Light of the Shadow\u201d serves Thot in his retreat\nin the Moon. Thot\u2010Hermes is said to hide therein, because he is the\nrepresentative of the Secret Wisdom. He is the manifested Logos of its\nlight side; the concealed Deity or \u201cDark Wisdom\u201d when he is supposed to\nretire to the opposite hemisphere. Speaking of her power, the Moon calls\nherself repeatedly: \u201cThe Light which shineth in Darkness,\u201d the \u201cWoman\u2010\nLight.\u201d Hence it became the accepted symbol of all the Virgin\u2010Mother\nGoddesses. As the wicked \u201cevil\u201d Spirits warred against the Moon in days of\nyore, so they are supposed to war now, without, however, being able to\nprevail against the actual Queen of Heaven, Mary, the Moon. Hence, also,\nthe Moon was intimately connected in all the Pagan Theogonies with the\nDragon, her eternal enemy. The Virgin, or Madonna, stands on the mythical\nSatan thus symbolized, who lies crushed and powerless, under her feet.\nThis, because the head and tail of the Dragon, which, to this day in\nEastern Astronomy, represent the ascending and descending nodes of the\nMoon, were also symbolized in ancient Greece by the two serpents. Hercules\nkills them on the day of his birth, and so does the Babe in his Virgin\u2010\nMother\u2019s arms. As Mr. Gerald Massey aptly observes in this connection:\n\n\n    All such symbols figured their own facts from the first, and did\n    not pre\u2010figure others of a totally different order. The\n    iconography [and dogmas, too] had survived in Rome from a period\n    remotely pre\u2010Christian. _There was neither forgery nor\n    interpolation of types; nothing but a continuity of imagery with a\n    perversion of its meaning._\n\n\n\n\nSection X. Tree, Serpent, and Crocodile Worship.\n\n\n    Object of horror or of adoration, men have for the serpent an\n    implacable hatred, or prostrate themselves before its genius. Lie\n    calls it, Prudence claims it, Envy carries it in its heart, and\n    Eloquence on its caduceus. In Hell it arms the whip of the Furies;\n    in Heaven Eternity makes of it its symbol.\n\n    DE CH\u00c2TEAUBRIAND.\n\n\nThe Ophites asserted that there were several kinds of Genii, from God to\nman; that the relative superiority of these was decided by the degree of\nLight that was accorded to each; and they maintained that the Serpent had\nto be constantly called upon and to be thanked for the signal service it\nhad rendered humanity. For it taught Adam that if he ate of the fruit of\nthe Tree of Knowledge of good and evil, he would raise his Being immensely\nby the learning and wisdom he would thus acquire. Such was the exoteric\nreason given.\n\nIt is easy to see whence is the primal idea of the dual, Janus\u2010like\ncharacter of the Serpent\u2014the good and the bad. This symbol is one of the\nmost ancient, because the reptile preceded the bird, and the bird the\nmammal. Hence the belief, or rather the superstition, of the savage tribes\nwho think that the souls of their ancestors live under this form, and the\ngeneral association of the Serpent with the Tree. The legends about the\nvarious meanings it represents are numberless; but, as most of them are\nallegorical, they have now passed into the class of fables based on\nignorance and dark superstition. For instance, when Philostratus narrates\nthat the natives of India and Arabia fed on the heart and liver of\nSerpents in order to learn the language of all the animals, the Serpent\nbeing credited with that faculty, he certainly never meant his words to be\naccepted literally.(651) As will be found more than once as we proceed,\nSerpent and Dragon were names given to the Wise Ones, the Initiated Adepts\nof olden times. It was their wisdom and their learning that were devoured\nor assimilated by their followers, whence the allegory. When the\nScandinavian Sigurd is fabled to have roasted the heart of Fafnir, the\nDragon, whom he had slain, and thence to have become the wisest of men,\nthe meaning is the same. Sigurd had become learned in the runes and\nmagical charms; he had received the \u201cWord\u201d from an Initiate of the name of\nFafnir, or from a sorcerer, after which the latter died, as do many, after\n\u201cpassing the word.\u201d Epiphanius lets out a secret of the Gnostics in trying\nto expose their \u201cheresies.\u201d The Gnostic Ophites, he says, had a reason for\nhonouring the Serpent: _it was because he taught the primeval men the\nMysteries_.(652) Verily so; but they did not have Adam and Eve in the\nGarden in their minds when teaching this dogma, but simply that which is\nstated above. The N\u00e2gas of the Hind\u00fb and Tibetan Adepts were human N\u00e2gas\n(Serpents), not reptiles. Moreover, the Serpent has ever been the type of\nconsecutive or serial rejuvenation, of Immortality and Time.\n\nThe numerous and extremely interesting readings, the interpretations and\nfacts about Serpent worship, given in Mr. Gerald Massey\u2019s _Natural\nGenesis_, are very ingenious and scientifically correct. But they are far\nfrom covering the _whole_ of the meanings implied. They divulge only the\nastronomical and physiological mysteries, with the addition of some cosmic\nphenomena. On the lowest plane of materiality, the Serpent was, no doubt,\nthe \u201cgreat emblem of Mystery in the Mysteries,\u201d and was, very likely,\n\u201cadopted as a type of feminine pubescence, on account of its sloughing and\nself\u2010renewal.\u201d It was so, however, only with regard to mysteries\nconcerning terrestrial _animal_ life, for as the symbol of \u201c_re\u2010clothing_\nand re\u2010birth in the [universal] mysteries,\u201d its \u201cfinal phase,\u201d(653) or\nshall we rather say its incipient and culminating phases, was not of this\nplane. These phases were generated in the pure realm of Ideal Light, and\nhaving accomplished the round of the whole cycle of adaptations and\nsymbolism, the Mysteries returned from whence they had come, into the\nessence of _immaterial_ causality. They belonged to the highest Gn\u00f4sis.\nAnd surely this could have never obtained its name and fame solely on\naccount of its penetration into physiological and especially feminine\nfunctions!\n\nAs a symbol, the Serpent had as many aspects and occult meanings as the\nTree itself; the \u201cTree of Life,\u201d with which it was emblematically and\nalmost indissolubly connected. Whether viewed as a metaphysical or a\nphysical symbol, the Tree and Serpent, jointly, or separately, have never\nbeen so degraded by antiquity as they are now, in this our age of the\nbreaking of idols, not for truth\u2019s sake, but to glorify the most gross\nmatter. The revelations and interpretations in General Forlong\u2019s _Rivers\nof Life_ would have astounded the worshippers of the Tree and Serpent in\nthe days of archaic Chaldean and Egyptian wisdom; and even the early\nShaivas would have recoiled in horror at the theories and suggestions of\nthe author of the said work. \u201cThe notion of Payne Knight and Inman that\nthe Cross or Tau is simply a copy of the male organs in a triadic form is\nradically false,\u201d writes Mr. G. Massey, who proves what he says. But this\nis a statement that could be as justly applied to almost all the modern\ninterpretations of ancient symbols. _The Natural Genesis_, a monumental\nwork of research and thought, the most complete on that subject that has\never been published, covering as it does a wider field, and explaining\nmuch more than all the Symbologists who have hitherto written, does not\nyet go beyond the \u201cpsycho\u2010theistic\u201d stage of ancient thought. Nor were\nPayne Knight and Inman altogether wrong; except in entirely failing to see\nthat their interpretations of the Tree of Life, as the Cross and Phallus,\nfitted the symbol only in the lowest and latest stage of the evolutionary\ndevelopment of the idea of the Giver of Life. It was the last and the\ngrossest physical transformation of Nature, in animal, insect, bird and\neven plant; for bi\u2010une, creative magnetism, in the form of the attraction\nof contraries, or sexual polarization, acts in the constitution of reptile\nand bird as it does in that of man. Moreover, the modern Symbologists and\nOrientalists, from first to last, being ignorant of the real Mysteries\nrevealed by Occultism, can necessarily see but this last stage. If told\nthat this mode of procreation, which the whole world of being has now in\ncommon on this Earth, is but a passing phase, a physical means of\nfurnishing the conditions to and producing the phenomena of life, and that\nit will alter with this and disappear with the next Root\u2010Race, they would\nlaugh at such a superstitious and unscientific idea. But the most learned\nOccultists assert this because _they know it_. The universe of living\nbeings, of all those which procreate their species, is the living witness\nto the various modes of procreation in the evolution of animal and human\nspecies and races; and the Naturalist ought to sense this truth\nintuitionally, even though he is yet unable to demonstrate it. How could\nhe, indeed, with the present modes of thought! The landmarks of the\narchaic history of the Past are few and scarce, and those that men of\nScience come across are mistaken for finger\u2010posts of our little era. Even\nso\u2010called \u201cuniversal (?) history\u201d embraces but a tiny field in the almost\nboundless space of the unexplored regions of our latest, Fifth Root\u2010Race.\nHence, every fresh sign\u2010post, every new glyph of the hoary Past that is\ndiscovered, is added to the old stock of information, to be interpreted on\nthe same lines of pre\u00ebxisting conceptions, and without any reference to\nthe special cycle of thought which that particular glyph may belong to.\nHow can Truth ever come to light if this method is never changed!\n\nThus, in the beginning of their joint existence as a glyph of Immortal\nBeing, the Tree and Serpent were divine imagery, truly. The Tree was\n_reversed_, and its roots were generated in Heaven and grew out of the\nRootless Root of All\u2010Being. Its trunk grew and developed; crossing the\nplanes of the Pler\u00f4ma, it shot out crossways its luxuriant branches, first\non the plane of hardly differentiated matter, and then downward till they\ntouched the terrestrial plane. Thus, the Ashvattha Tree of Life and Being,\nwhose destruction alone leads to immortality, is said in the\n_Bhagavadg\u00eet\u00e2_ to grow with its roots above and its branches below.(654)\nThe roots represent the Supreme Being, or First Cause, the Logos; but one\nhas to go beyond those roots to _unite oneself with Krishna_, who, says\nArjuna, is \u201cgreater than Brahman, and First Cause ... the indestructible,\nthat which is, that which is not, and what is beyond them.\u201d(655) Its\nboughs are Hiranyagarbha (Brahm\u00e2 or Brahman in its highest manifestations,\nsay Shr\u00eedhara Sv\u00e2min and Madhus\u00fbdana), the highest Dhy\u00e2n Chohans or Devas.\nThe _Vedas_ are its leaves. He only who goes _beyond_ the roots shall\nnever return; that is to say, shall re\u00efncarnate no more during this Age of\nBrahm\u00e2.\n\nIt is only when its pure boughs had touched the terrestrial mud of the\nGarden of Eden, of our Adamic Race, that this Tree became soiled by the\ncontact and lost its pristine purity; and that the Serpent of Eternity,\nthe Heaven\u2010Born Logos, was finally degraded. In days of old, of the Divine\nDynasties on Earth, the now dreaded reptile was regarded as the first beam\nof light that radiated from the abyss of Divine Mystery. Various were the\nforms which it was made to assume, and numerous the natural symbols\nadapted to it, as it crossed the \u00e6ons of Time; as from Infinite Time\n(K\u00e2la) itself it fell into the space and time evolved out of human\nspeculation. These forms were cosmic and astronomical, theistic and\npantheistic, abstract and concrete. They became in turn the Polar Dragon\nand the Southern Cross, the Alpha Draconis of the Pyramid, and the\nHind\u00fb\u2010Buddhist Dragon, which ever threatens, yet never swallows the Sun\nduring its eclipses. Till then, the Tree remained ever green, for it was\nsprinkled by the Waters of Life; the Great Dragon remained ever divine, so\nlong as it was kept within the precincts of the sidereal fields. But the\nTree grew and its lower boughs at last touched the Infernal Regions\u2014our\nEarth. Then the Great Serpent Nidh\u00f6gg\u2014he who devours the corpses of the\nevil\u2010doers in the \u201cHall of Misery\u201d (human life), so soon as they are\nplunged into Hwergelmir, the roaring cauldron (of human passions)\u2014gnawed\nthe reversed World\u2010Tree. The worms of materiality covered the once healthy\nand mighty roots, and are now ascending higher and higher along the trunk;\nwhile the Midgard Snake coiled at the bottom of the Seas, encircles the\nEarth, and, through its venomous breath, makes her powerless to defend\nherself.\n\nThe Dragons and Serpents of Antiquity are all seven\u2010headed\u2014one head for\neach Race, and \u201cevery head with seven hairs on it,\u201d as the allegory has\nit. Aye, from Ananta, the Serpent of Eternity, which carries Vishnu\nthrough the Manvantara; from the original primordial Shesha, whose seven\nheads become \u201cone thousand heads\u201d in the Pur\u00e2nic fancy, down to the seven\u2010\nheaded Akkadian Serpent. This typifies the Seven Principles throughout\nNature and in man; the highest or middle head being the seventh. It is not\nof the Mosaic, Jewish Sabbath that Philo speaks, in his _Creation of the\nWorld_, when saying that the world was completed \u201caccording to the perfect\nnature of number 6.\u201d For:\n\n\n    _When that Reason_ [_Nous_] _which is holy in accordance with the\n    number 7, has entered the soul_ [the living body rather], the\n    number 6 is thus arrested and all the mortal things which that\n    number makes.\n\n\nAnd again:\n\n\n    Number 7 is the festival day of all the earth, the _birthday of\n    the world_. I know not whether any one would be able to celebrate\n    the number 7 in adequate terms.(656)\n\n\nThe author of _The Natural Genesis_ thinks that:\n\n\n    The septenary of stars seen in the Great Bear [the Saptarshis] and\n    seven\u2010headed Dragon furnished a visible origin for the symbolic\n    seven of time above. The goddess of the seven stars was the mother\n    of time, as Kep; whence Kepti and Sebti for the two times and\n    number 7. So this is the star of the Seven by name. Sevekh\n    (Kronus), the son of the goddess, has the name of the seven or\n    seventh. So has Sefekh Abu who builds the house on high, as Wisdom\n    (Sophia) built hers with seven pillars.... The primary kronotypes\n    were seven, and thus the beginning of time in heaven is based on\n    the number and the name of seven, on account of the starry\n    demonstrators. The seven stars as they turned round annually kept\n    pointing, as it were, with the forefinger of the right hand, and\n    describing a circle in the upper and lower heaven.(657) The number\n    7 naturally suggested a measure by seven, that led to what may be\n    termed _Sevening_, and to the marking and mapping out of the\n    circle in seven corresponding divisions which were assigned to the\n    seven great constellations; and thus was formed the celestial\n    heptanomis of Egypt in the heavens.\n\n    When the stellar heptanomis was broken up and divided into four\n    quarters, it was multiplied by four, and the twenty\u2010eight signs\n    took the place of the primary seven constellations; the lunar\n    zodiac of twenty\u2010eight signs being the registered result of\n    reckoning twenty\u2010eight days to the moon, or a lunar month.(658) In\n    the Chinese arrangement, the four sevens are given to four Genii\n    that preside over the four cardinal points,(659) or rather the\n    seven northern constellations make up the Black Warrior; the seven\n    eastern (Chinese autumn) constitute the White Tiger; the seven\n    southern are the Vermilion Bird; and the seven western (called\n    vernal) are the Azure Dragon. Each of these four spirits presides\n    over its heptanomis during one lunar week. The genitrix of the\n    first heptanomis (Typhon of the seven stars) now took a lunar\n    character.... In this phase we find the goddess Sefekh, whose name\n    signifies number 7, is the feminine word, or logos in place of the\n    mother of time, who was the earlier _Word_, as goddess of the\n    Seven Stars.(660)\n\n\nThe author shows that it was the Goddess of the Great Bear and Mother of\nTime who was in Egypt from the earliest times the \u201cLiving Word,\u201d and that\nSevekh\u2010Kronus, whose type was the Crocodile\u2010Dragon, the pre\u2010planetary form\nof Saturn, was called her son and consort; he was her Word\u2010Logos.(661)\n\nThe above is quite plain, but it was not the knowledge of astronomy only\nthat led the Ancients to the process of _Sevening_. The primal cause goes\nfar deeper and will be explained in its place.\n\nThe above quotations are no digressions. They are brought forward as\nshowing (_a_) the reason why a full Initiate was called a Dragon, a Snake,\na N\u00e2ga; and (_b_) that our septenary division was used by the priests of\nthe earliest dynasties in Egypt, for the same reason, and on the same\nbasis, as by us. This needs further elucidation, however. As already\nstated, what Mr. Gerald Massey calls the Four Genii of the four cardinal\npoints; and the Chinese, the Black Warrior, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird,\nand Azure Dragon, are called in the Secret Books, the \u201cFour Hidden Dragons\nof Wisdom\u201d and the \u201cCelestial N\u00e2gas.\u201d Now, the seven\u2010headed or septenary\nDragon\u2010Logos is shown to have, in course of time, been split up, so to\nspeak, into _four_ heptanomic parts or twenty\u2010eight portions. Each week\nhas a distinct Occult character in the lunar month; each day of the\ntwenty\u2010eight has its special characteristics; for each of the twelve\nconstellations, whether separately or in combination with other signs, has\nan Occult influence either for good or for evil. This represents the sum\nof knowledge that men can acquire on this earth; yet few are those who\nacquire it, and still fewer are the wise men who get to the root of\nknowledge symbolized by the great Root\u2010Dragon, the Spiritual Logos of\nthese visible signs. But those who do, receive the name of Dragons, and\nthey are the \u201cArhats of the Four Truths of the Twenty\u2010eight Faculties,\u201d or\nattributes, and have always been so called.\n\nThe Alexandrian Neo\u2010Platonists asserted that to become real Chaldees or\nMagi, one had to master the science or knowledge of the periods of the\nSeven Rectors of the World, in whom is all wisdom. And Jamblichus is\ncredited with another version, which does not, however, alter the meaning,\nfor he says:\n\n\n    The Assyrians have not only preserved the records of seven and\n    twenty myriads of years, as Hipparchus says they have, but\n    likewise of the whole apocatastases and periods of the Seven\n    Rulers of the World.(662)\n\n\nThe legends of every nation and tribe, whether civilized or savage, point\nto the once universal belief in the great wisdom and cunning of the\nSerpents. They are \u201ccharmers.\u201d They hypnotize the bird with their eye, and\nman himself very often does not overcome their fascinating influence;\ntherefore the symbol is a most fitting one.\n\nThe Crocodile is the Egyptian Dragon. It was the dual symbol of Heaven and\nEarth, of Sun and Moon, and was made sacred, in consequence of its\namphibious nature, to Osiris and Isis. According to Eusebius, the\nEgyptians represented the Sun in a Ship as its pilot, this ship being\ncarried along by a Crocodile, \u201cto show the motion of the Sun in the Moist\n(Space).\u201d(663) The Crocodile was, moreover, the symbol of Lower Egypt\nherself, the Lower being the more swampy of the two countries. The\nAlchemists claim another interpretation. They say that the symbol of the\nSun in the Ship on the Ether of Space meant that the Hermetic Matter is\nthe principle, or basis, of Gold, or again the _philosophical_ Sun; the\nWater, within which the Crocodile is swimming, is that Water, or Matter,\nmade liquid; the Ship herself, finally, representing the Vessel of Nature,\nin which the Sun, or the sulphuric, igneous principle, acts as a pilot,\nbecause it is the Sun which conducts the work by his action upon the Moist\nor Mercury. The above is only for the Alchemists.\n\nThe Serpent became the type and symbol of evil, and of the Devil, only\nduring the Middle Ages. The early Christians as well as the Ophite\nGnostics, had their dual Logos: the Good and the Bad Serpent, the\nAgathod\u00e6mon and the Kakod\u00e6mon. This is demonstrated by the writings of\nMarcus, Valentinus, and many others, and especially in _Pistis\u2010\nSophia_\u2014certainly a document of the earliest centuries of Christianity. On\nthe marble sarcophagus of a tomb, discovered in 1852 near the Porta Pia,\none sees the scene of the adoration of the Magi, \u201cor else,\u201d remarks the\nlate C. W. King, in _The Gnostics and their Remains_, \u201cthe prototype of\nthat scene, the \u2018Birth of the New Sun\u2019.\u201d The mosaic floor exhibited a\ncurious design which might have represented either Isis suckling the babe\nHarpocrates, or the Madonna nursing the infant Jesus. In the smaller\nsarcophagi that surrounded the larger one, many leaden plates rolled like\nscrolls were found, eleven of which can still be deciphered. The contents\nof these ought to be regarded as final proof of a much\u2010vexed question, for\nthey show that either the early Christians, up to the VIth Century, were\n_bon\u00e2 fide_ Pagans, or that dogmatic Christianity was borrowed wholesale,\nand passed in full into the Christian Church\u2014Sun, Tree, Serpent, Crocodile\nand all.\n\n\n    On the first is seen Anubis ... holding out a scroll; at his feet\n    are two female busts: below all are two serpents entwined about\n    ... a corpse swathed up like a mummy. In the second scroll ... is\n    Anubis, holding out a cross, the \u201cSign of Life.\u201d Under his feet\n    lies the corpse encircled in the numerous folds of a huge serpent,\n    the Agathod\u00e6mon, guardian of the deceased.... In the third scroll\n    ... the same Anubis bears on his arm an oblong object, ... held so\n    as to convert the outline of the figure into a complete Latin\n    cross. ... At the god\u2019s foot is a rhomboid, the Egyptian \u201cEgg of\n    the World,\u201d towards which crawls a serpent coiled into a\n    circle.... Under the ... busts ... is the letter \u03c9, repeated\n    _seven_ times in a line, reminding one of the \u201cNames.\u201d ... Very\n    remarkable also is the line of characters, apparently Palmyrene,\n    upon the legs of the first Anubis. As for the figure of the\n    _serpent_, supposing these talismans to emanate not from the Isiac\n    but the newer Ophite creed, it may well stand for that \u201cTrue and\n    perfect Serpent,\u201d who \u201cleads forth the souls of all that put their\n    trust in him out of the Egypt of the body, and through the Red Sea\n    of Death into the Land of Promise, saving them on their way from\n    the Serpents of the Wilderness, that is, from the Rulers of the\n    Stars.\u201d(664)\n\n\nAnd this \u201ctrue and perfect Serpent\u201d is the seven\u2010lettered God who is now\ncredited with being Jehovah, and Jesus _one with him_. To this seven\u2010\nvowelled God the candidate for Initiation is sent by the \u201cFirst Mystery,\u201d\nin the _Pistis\u2010Sophia_, a work earlier than St. John\u2019s _Revelation_, and\nevidently of the same school. \u201cThe (Serpent of the) Seven Thunders uttered\nthese seven vowels,\u201d but \u201cseal up those things which the Seven Thunders\nuttered, and write them not,\u201d says _Revelation_. \u201cDo ye seek after these\nmysteries?\u201d\u2014inquires Jesus in _Pistis\u2010Sophia_. \u201cNo mystery is more\nexcellent than they [the seven vowels]; for they shall bring your souls\nunto the Light of Lights\u201d\u2014_i.e._, true Wisdom. \u201cNothing, therefore, is\nmore excellent than the mysteries which ye seek after, saving only the\nmystery of the _Seven Vowels_ and their _forty and nine_ Powers, and the\nnumbers thereof.\u201d\n\nIn India, it was the mystery of the _Seven Fires_ and their Forty\u2010nine\nFires or aspects, or \u201cthe numbers thereof.\u201d\n\nThese Seven Vowels are represented by the Svastika signs on the crowns of\nthe seven heads of the Serpent of Eternity, in India, among Esoteric\n\u201cBuddhists,\u201d in Egypt, in Chald\u00e6a, etc., and among the Initiates of every\nother country. They are the Seven Zones of _post mortem_ ascent, in the\nHermetic writings, in each of which the \u201cMortal\u201d leaves one of his Souls,\nor Principles; until arrived on the plane above all Zones, he remains as\nthe great Formless Serpent of Absolute Wisdom, or the Deity Itself. The\nseven\u2010headed Serpent has more than one signification in the arcane\nteachings. It is the seven\u2010headed Draco, each of whose heads is a star of\nthe Lesser Bear; but it was also, and pre\u00ebminently, the Serpent of\nDarkness, inconceivable and incomprehensible, whose seven heads were the\nseven Logoi, the reflections of the one and first\u2010manifested Light\u2014the\nUniversal Logos.\n\n\n\n\nSection XI. Demon est Deus Inversus.\n\n\nThis symbolical sentence, in its many\u2010sided forms, is certainly most\ndangerous and iconoclastic in the face of all the dualistic later\nreligions, or rather theologies, and especially so in the light of\nChristianity. Yet it is neither just nor correct to say that it is\nChristianity which has conceived and brought forth Satan. As an\n\u201cAdversary,\u201d the opposing Power required by the equilibrium and harmony of\nthings in Nature, as Shadow is required to make still brighter the Eight,\nas Night to bring into greater relief the Day, and as Cold to make one\nappreciate the more the comfort of Heat, so has Satan ever existed.\nHomogeneity is one and indivisible. But if the homogeneous One and\nAbsolute is no mere figure of speech, and if Heterogeneity, in its\ndualistic aspect, is its offspring, its bifurcous shadow or reflection,\nthen even that divine Homogeneity must contain in itself the essence of\nboth good and evil. If \u201cGod\u201d is Absolute, Infinite, and the Universal Root\nof all and everything in Nature and its Universe, whence comes Evil or\nD\u2019Evil if not from the same Golden Womb of the Absolute? Thus we are\nforced either to accept the emanation of good and evil, of Agathod\u00e6mon and\nKakod\u00e6mon, as offshoots from the same trunk of the Tree of Being, or to\nresign ourselves to the absurdity of believing in two eternal Absolutes!\n\nHaving to trace the origin of the idea to the very beginnings of the human\nmind, it is but just, meanwhile, to give his due even to the proverbial\nDevil. Antiquity knew of no isolated, thoroughly and absolutely bad \u201cGod\nof evil.\u201d Pagan thought represented good and evil as twin brothers, born\nfrom the same mother\u2014Nature; so soon as that thought ceased to be archaic,\nWisdom passed into Philosophy. In the beginning the symbols of good and\nevil were mere abstractions, Light and Darkness; later their types were\nchosen among the most natural and ever\u2010recurrent periodical cosmic\nphenomena\u2014the Day and Night, or the Sun and Moon. Then the Hosts of the\nSolar and Lunar Deities were made to represent them, and the Dragon of\nDarkness was contrasted with the Dragon of Light. The Host of Satan is a\nSon of God, no less than the Host of the B\u2019ne Alhim, the Children of God\nwho came to \u201cpresent themselves before the Lord,\u201d their Father.(665) \u201cThe\nSons of God\u201d become the \u201cFallen Angels\u201d only after perceiving that the\ndaughters of men _were fair_.(666) In the Indian philosophy, the Suras are\namong the earliest and the brightest Gods, and become Asuras only when\ndethroned by Br\u00e2hmanical fancy, Satan never assumed an anthropomorphic,\nindividualized shape, until the creation by man, of a \u201cone _living_\npersonal God,\u201d had been accomplished; and then merely as a matter of prime\nnecessity. A screen was needed; a scape\u2010goat to explain the cruelty,\nblunders, and but too\u2010evident injustice, perpetrated by him for whom\nabsolute perfection, mercy and goodness were claimed. This was the first\nKarmic effect of abandoning a philosophical and logical Pantheism, to\nbuild, as a prop for lazy man, \u201ca merciful Father in Heaven,\u201d whose daily\nand hourly actions, as Natura Naturans, the \u201ccomely Mother but stone\ncold,\u201d belie the assumption. This led to the primal twins, Osiris\u2010Typhon,\nOrmazd\u2010Ahriman, and finally Cain\u2010Abel and the _tutti quanti_ of\ncontraries.\n\nHaving commenced by being synonymous with Nature, \u201cGod,\u201d the Creator,\nended by being made its author. Pascal settles the difficulty very\ncunningly by saying:\n\n\n    Nature has perfections, in order to show that she is the image of\n    God; and defects, in order to show that she is _only_ his image.\n\n\nThe further back one recedes into the darkness of the prehistoric ages,\nthe more philosophical does the prototypic figure of the later Satan\nappear. The first \u201cAdversary,\u201d in individual human form, that one meets\nwith in old Pur\u00e2nic literature, is one of her greatest Rishis and\nYogis\u2014N\u00e2rada, surnamed the \u201cStrife\u2010maker.\u201d\n\nAnd he is a Brahmaputra, a son of Brahm\u00e2, the male. But of him later on.\nWho the great \u201cDeceiver\u201d really is, one can ascertain by searching for\nhim, _with open eyes_ and an unprejudiced mind, in every old Cosmogony and\nScripture.\n\nIt is the anthropomorphized Demiurge, the Creator of Heaven and Earth,\nwhen separated from the collective Hosts of his Fellow\u2010Creators, whom, so\nto speak, he represents and synthesizes. It is _now_ the God of\nTheologies. \u201cThe wish is father to the thought.\u201d Once upon a time, a\nphilosophical symbol left to perverse human fancy; afterwards, fashioned\ninto a fiendish, deceiving, cunning, and jealous God.\n\nAs the Dragons and other Fallen Angels are described in other parts of\nthis work, a few words upon the much\u2010slandered Satan will be sufficient.\nThe student will do well to remember that, with every people, except the\nChristian nations, the Devil is to this day no worse an entity than the\nopposite aspect, in the dual nature of the so\u2010called Creator. This is only\nnatural. One cannot claim God as the synthesis of the whole Universe, as\nOmnipresent and Omniscient and Infinite, and then divorce him from Evil.\nAs there is far more Evil than Good in the world, it follows on logical\ngrounds that either God must include Evil, or stand as the direct cause of\nit, or else surrender his claims to Absoluteness. The Ancients understood\nthis so well that their philosophers, now followed by the Kabalists,\ndefined Evil as the \u201clining\u201d of God or Good; _Demon est Deus inversus_,\nbeing a very old adage. Indeed, Evil is but an antagonizing blind force in\nNature; it is re\u00e4ction, opposition, and contrast\u2014evil for some, good for\nothers. There is no _malum in se_; only the Shadow of Light, without which\nLight could have no existence, even in our perceptions. If Evil\ndisappeared, Good would disappear along with it from Earth. The \u201cOld\nDragon\u201d was pure Spirit before he became Matter, _passive_ before he\nbecame _active_. In the Syro\u2010Chaldean Magic both Ophis and Ophiomorphos\nare joined in the Zodiac in the sign of the Androgyne Virgo\u2010Scorpio.\nBefore its fall on earth the Serpent was Ophis\u2010Christos, and after its\nfall it became Ophiomorphos\u2010Chrestos. Everywhere the speculations of the\nKabalists treat of Evil as a _Force_, which is antagonistic, but at the\nsame time essential, to Good, as giving it vitality and existence, which\nit could never have otherwise. There would be no _Life_ possible (in the\nm\u00e2y\u00e2vic sense) without _Death_; no regeneration and reconstruction without\ndestruction. Plants would perish in eternal sunlight, and so would man,\nwho would become an automaton without the exercise of his free will, and\nhis aspiring towards that sunlight, which would lose its being and value\nfor him had he nothing but light. Good is infinite and eternal only in the\neternally concealed from us, and this is why we imagine it eternal. On the\nmanifested planes, one equilibrates the other. Few are those Theists,\nbelievers in a Personal God, who do not make of Satan the shadow of God;\nor who, confounding both, do not believe they have a right to pray to\ntheir idol, asking its help and protection for the exercise of and\nimmunity for their evil and cruel deeds. \u201cLead us not into temptation\u201d is\naddressed daily to \u201cour Father, in Heaven,\u201d and not to the Devil, by\nmillions of Christian hearts. This they do, repeating the very words put\ninto the mouth of their Saviour, and yet do not give one thought to the\nfact that their meaning is contradicted point blank by James, \u201cthe brother\nof the Lord\u201d:\n\n\n    Let do man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God\n    cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.(667)\n\n\nWhy, then, say that it is the Devil who tempts us, when the Church teaches\nus, _on the authority of Christ_, that it is God who does so? Open any\npious volume in which the word \u201ctemptation\u201d is defined in its theological\nsense, and forthwith you find two definitions:\n\n\n    (1) Those afflictions and troubles _whereby God tries his people_;\n    (2) Those means and enticements which the Devil makes use of to\n    _ensnare_ and allure mankind.(668)\n\n\nAccepted literally, the teachings of Christ and James contradict each\nother, and what dogma can reconcile the two if the Occult meaning is\nrejected?\n\nBetween the alternative allurements, wise will be that philosopher who\nwill be able to decide where God disappears to make room for the Devil!\nTherefore, when we read that \u201cthe Devil is a liar and the father of it,\u201d\nthat is an _incarnate lie_, and are also told in the same breath that\nSatan, the Devil, was a Son of God and the most beautiful of his\nArchangels, rather than believe that Father and Son are a gigantic,\npersonified and eternal Lie, we prefer to turn to Pantheism and to Pagan\nphilosophy for information.\n\nOnce that the key to _Genesis_ is in our hands, the scientific and\nsymbolical Kabalah unveils the secret. The Great Serpent of the Garden of\nEden and the \u201cLord God\u201d are identical, and so are Jehovah and Cain\u2014that\nCain who is referred to in Theology as the \u201cmurderer\u201d and the Liar to God!\nJehovah tempts the King of Israel to number the people, and Satan tempts\nhim to do the same in another place. Jehovah turns into the Fiery Serpents\nto bite those he is displeased with; and Jehovah informs the Brazen\nSerpent that heals them.\n\nThese short, and seemingly contradictory, statements in the _Old\nTestament_\u2014contradictory because the two Powers are separated instead of\nbeing regarded as the two faces of one and the same thing\u2014are the echoes,\ndistorted out of recognition by exotericism and theology, of the universal\nand philosophical dogmas in Nature, so well understood by the primitive\nSages. We find the same groundwork in several personifications in the\n_Pur\u00e2nas_, only far more ample and philosophically suggestive.\n\nThus Pulastya, a \u201cSon of God,\u201d one of the first progeny, is made the\nprogenitor of Demons, the R\u00e2kshasas, the tempters and the devourers of\nmen. Pish\u00e2ch\u00e2, a female Demon, is a daughter of Daksha, a \u201cSon of God\u201d\ntoo, and a God, and the mother of all the Pish\u00e2chas.(669) The Demons, so\u2010\ncalled in the _Pur\u00e2nas_, are very extraordinary Devils when judged from\nthe standpoint of European and orthodox views, since all of them, D\u00e2navas,\nDaityas, Pish\u00e2chas, and R\u00e2kshasas, are represented as extremely pious,\nfollowing the precepts of the _Vedas_, some of them even being great\nYogins. But they oppose the clergy and ritualism, sacrifices and forms,\njust as the head Yogins do to this day in India, and are no less respected\nfor it, though they are permitted to follow neither caste nor ritual;\nhence all those Pur\u00e2nic Giants and Titans are called Devils. The\nmissionaries, ever on the watch to show, if they can, that the Hind\u00fb\ntraditions are nothing better than a reflection of the Jewish _Bible_,\nhave evolved a whole romance on the alleged identity of Pulastya with\nCain, and of the R\u00e2kshasas with the Cainites, the \u201cAccursed,\u201d the cause of\nthe \u201cNoachian\u201d Deluge. (See the work of Abb\u00e9 Gorresio, who \u201cetymologizes\u201d\nPulastya\u2019s name as meaning the \u201crejected,\u201d hence Cain, if you please).\nPulastya dwells in Kedara, he says, which means a \u201cdug\u2010up place,\u201d a\n\u201cmine,\u201d and Cain is shown, in tradition and the _Bible_, as the first\nworker in metals and a miner thereof!\n\nWhile it is very probable that the Gibborim, or Giants, of the _Bible_ are\nthe R\u00e2kshasas of the Hind\u00fbs, it is still more certain that both are\nAtlanteans, and belong to the submerged races. However it may be, no Satan\ncould be more persistent in slandering his enemy, or more spiteful in his\nhatred, than the Christian Theologians are in cursing him as the father of\nevery evil. Compare their vituperation and their opinions about the Devil\nwith the philosophical views of the Pur\u00e2nic Sages and their Christ\u2010like\nmansuetude. When Par\u00e2shara, whose father was devoured by a R\u00e2kshasa, was\npreparing himself to destroy, by magic arts, the whole race, his\ngrandsire, Vasishtha, after showing the irate Sage, on his own confession,\nthat there is Evil and Karma, but no \u201cevil Spirits\u201d speaks the following\nsuggestive words:\n\n\n    Let thy wrath be appeased: the R\u00e2kshasas are not culpable; thy\n    father\u2019s death _was the work of Destiny_ [_Karma_]. Anger is the\n    passion of fools; it becometh not a wise man. _By whom, it may be\n    asked, is any one killed?_ Every man _reaps the consequences of\n    his own acts_. Anger, my son, is the destruction of all that man\n    obtains ... and prevents the attainment ... of emancipation. The\n    ... sages shun wrath: be not thou, my child, subject to its\n    influence. Let no more of those _unoffending_ spirits of darkness\n    be consumed; let this thy sacrifice cease. Mercy is the might of\n    the righteous.(670)\n\n\nThus, every such \u201csacrifice\u201d or prayer to God for help is no better than\n_an act of Black Magic_. That which Par\u00e2shara prayed for, was the\ndestruction of the Spirits of Darkness, for his personal revenge. He is\ncalled a Pagan, and the Christians have doomed him, as such, to Eternal\nHell. Yet, in what respect is the prayer of sovereigns and generals, who\npray before every battle for the destruction of their enemy, any better?\nSuch a prayer is in every case Black Magic of the worst kind, concealed\nlike a demon \u201cMr. Hyde\u201d under a sanctimonious \u201cDr. Jekyll.\u201d\n\nIn human nature, evil denotes only the polarity of Matter and Spirit, a\n\u201cstruggle for life\u201d between the two manifested Principles in Space and\nTime, which Principles are one _per se_, inasmuch as they are rooted in\nthe Absolute. In Cosmos, the equilibrium must be preserved. The operations\nof the two contraries produce harmony, like the centripetal and\ncentrifugal forces, which, being mutually inter\u2010dependent, are necessary\nto each other, \u201cin order that both should live.\u201d If one should be\narrested, the action of the other would become immediately self\u2010\ndestructive.\n\nSince the personification called Satan has been amply analyzed from its\ntriple aspect, in the _Old Testament_, Christian Theology and the ancient\nGentile attitude of thought, those who would learn more of the subject are\nreferred to _Isis Unveiled_(671) and the Second Part of Volume II of the\npresent work. The subject is here touched upon, and fresh explanations are\nattempted, for a very good reason. Before we can approach the evolution of\nPhysical and Divine Man, we have first to master the idea of Cyclic\nEvolution, to acquaint ourselves with the philosophies and beliefs of the\nfour Races which preceded our present Race, and to learn what were the\nideas of those Titans and Giants\u2014Giants, verily, mentally, as well as\nphysically. The whole of antiquity was imbued with that philosophy which\nteaches the involution of Spirit into Matter, the progressive, downward\ncyclic descent, or active, self\u2010conscious evolution. The Alexandrian\nGnostics have sufficiently divulged the secrets of Initiations, and their\nrecords are full of the \u201cfalling down of the \u00c6ons,\u201d in their double\nqualification of Angelic Beings and Periods; the one the natural evolution\nof the other. On the other hand, Oriental traditions on both sides of the\n\u201cBlack Water,\u201d the Oceans that separate the two \u201cEasts,\u201d are equally full\nof allegories about the downfall of the Pler\u00f4ma, or that of the Gods and\nDevas. One and all, they allegorized and explained the Fall as _the desire\nto learn and acquire knowledge\u2014the desire to know_. This is the natural\nsequence of mental evolution, the Spiritual becoming transmuted into the\nMaterial or Physical. The same law of descent into Materiality and of\nre\u00e4scent into Spirituality asserted itself during the Christian era, the\nre\u00e4ction having only stopped just now, in our own special Sub\u2010race.\n\nThat which was allegorized in _Pymander_, perhaps ten millenniums ago, for\na triune mode of interpretation, and intended for a record of an\nastronomical, anthropological, and even alchemical fact, namely, the\nallegory of the Seven Rectors breaking through the Seven Circles of Fire,\nwas dwarfed into one material and anthropomorphic interpretation\u2014the\nRebellion and Fall of the Angels. The multivocal, profoundly philosophical\nnarrative, under its poetical form of the \u201cMarriage of Heaven with Earth,\u201d\nthe love of Nature for Divine Form, and the Heavenly Man enraptured with\nhis own beauty mirrored in Nature, that is to say, Spirit attracted into\nMatter, has now become, under theological handling, the Seven Rectors\ndisobeying Jehovah, self\u2010admiration generating Satanic pride, followed by\ntheir Fall, Jehovah permitting no worship to be lost save upon himself. In\nshort, the beautiful Planet\u2010Angels, the glorious Cyclic \u00c6ons of the\nAncients, have become synthesized in their most orthodox shape in Samael,\nthe Chief of the Demons in the _Talmud_, \u201cthat Great Serpent with Twelve\nWings that draws down after himself, in his Fall, the Solar System, or the\nTitans.\u201d But Schemal\u2014the _alter ego_ and the Sabean type of Samael\u2014in his\nphilosophical and esoteric aspect, meant the \u201cYear,\u201d in its astrological\nevil aspect, with its twelve months or \u201cWings\u201d of unavoidable evils, in\nNature. In Esoteric Theogony both Schemal and Samael represented a\nparticular divinity.(672) With the Kabalists they are the \u201cSpirit of the\nEarth,\u201d the Personal God that governs it, and therefore _de facto_\nidentical with Jehovah. For the Talmudists themselves admit that Samael is\na god\u2010name of one of the seven Elohim. The Kabalists, moreover, show the\ntwo, Schemal and Samael, as a symbolical form of Saturn, Cronus; the\n\u201cTwelve Wings\u201d standing for the twelve months, and the symbol in its\ncollectivity representing _a racial cycle_. Jehovah and Saturn are also\nglyphically identical.\n\nThis leads, in its turn, to a very curious deduction from a Roman Catholic\ndogma. Many renowned writers belonging to the Latin Church admit that a\ndifference exists, and should be made, between the Uranian Titans, the\nantediluvian Giants, who were also Titans, and those post\u2010diluvian Giants,\nin whom the Roman Catholics persist in seeing the descendants of the\nmythical Ham. In clearer words, there is a difference to be made between\nthe cosmic, _primordial_ opposing Forces, guided by Cyclic Law, the\nAtlantean human Giants, and the post\u2010diluvian great Adepts, whether of the\nRight or the Left\u2010hand. At the same time they show that Michael, \u201cthe\n_generalissimo_ of the fighting Celestial Host, the _bodyguard of\nJehovah_,\u201d as it would seem, according to de Mirville, is also a Titan,\nonly with the adjective of \u201cdivine\u201d before the cognomen. Thus those\n\u201cUranides\u201d who are called everywhere \u201cDivine Titans\u201d\u2014and who, having\nrebelled against Cronus, or Saturn, are therefore also shown to be the\nenemies of Samael, also one of the Elohim, and synonymous with Jehovah in\nhis collectivity\u2014are identical with Michael and his Host. In short, the\n_r\u00f4les_ are reversed, all the combatants are confused, and no student is\nable to distinguish clearly which is which. Esoteric explanation may,\nhowever, bring some order into this confusion, in which Jehovah becomes\nSaturn, and Michael and his Army, Satan and the Rebellious Angels, owing\nto the indiscreet endeavours of the too faithful zealots to see a Devil in\nevery Pagan God. The true meaning is far more philosophical, and the\nlegend of the first \u201cFall\u201d of the Angels assumes a scientific colouring\nwhen correctly understood.\n\nCronus stands for endless, and hence immovable Duration, without\nbeginning, without end, beyond divided Time and beyond Space. Those\nAngels, Genii, or Devas, who were born _to act in space and time_, that\nis, to break through the _Seven Circles_ of the super\u2010spiritual planes\ninto the phenomenal, or circumscribed, super\u2010terrestrial regions, are said\nallegorically to have _rebelled_ against Cronus, and fought the Lion who\nwas then the one living and highest God. When Cronus, in his turn, is\nrepresented as mutilating Uranus, his father, the meaning of the allegory\nis very simple. Absolute Time is made to become the finite and\nconditioned; a portion is robbed from the whole, thus showing that Saturn,\nthe Father of the Gods, has been transformed from Eternal Duration into a\nlimited period. Cronus with his scythe cuts down even the longest and, to\nus, seemingly endless cycles, which, for all that, are limited in\nEternity, and with the same scythe destroys the mightiest rebels. Aye, not\none will escape the scythe of Time! Praise the God or Gods, or flout one\nor both, that scythe will not tremble one millionth of a second in its\nascending or descending course.\n\nThe Titans of Hesiod\u2019s _Theogony_ were copied in Greece from the Suras and\nAsuras of India. These Hesiodic Titans, the Uranides, which were once upon\na time numbered as only six, have been recently discovered, in an old\nfragment relating to the Greek myth, to be _seven_, the seventh being\ncalled Phoreg. Thus their identity with the Seven Rectors is fully\ndemonstrated. The origin of the War in Heaven and the Fall has, in our\nmind, to be traced unavoidably to India, and perhaps far earlier than the\nPur\u00e2nic accounts thereof. For the T\u00e2rak\u00e2maya was in a later age, and there\nare accounts of three distinct Wars to be traced in almost every\nCosmogony.\n\nThe first War happened in the night of time, between the Gods and\n(A)\u2010suras, and lasted for the period of one Divine Year.(673) On this\noccasion the Deities were defeated by the Daityas, under the leadership of\nHr\u00e2da. But afterwards, owing to a device of Vishnu, to whom the conquered\nGods applied for help, the latter defeated the Asuras. In the _Vishnu\nPur\u00e2na_ no interval is found between the two Wars. In the Esoteric\nDoctrine, however, one War takes place before the building of the Solar\nSystem; another, on Earth, at the \u201ccreation\u201d of man; and a third War is\nmentioned as taking place at the close of the Fourth Race, between its\nAdepts and those of the Fifth Race; that is, between the Initiates of the\n\u201cSacred Island\u201d and the Sorcerers of Atlantis. We shall notice the first\ncontest, as recounted by Par\u00e2shara, and endeavour to separate the two\naccounts, which are purposely blended together.\n\nIt is there stated that as the Daityas and Asuras were engaged in the\nduties of their respective Orders (Varnas) and followed the paths\nprescribed by holy writ, practising also religious penance\u2014a queer\nemployment for _Demons_ if they are identical with our _Devils_, as it is\nclaimed\u2014it was impossible for the Gods to destroy them. The prayers\naddressed by the Gods to Vishnu are curious, as showing the ideas involved\nin an anthropomorphic Deity. Having, after their defeat, \u201cfled to the\nnorthern shore of the Milky Ocean [Atlantic Ocean],\u201d(674) the discomfited\nGods address many supplications \u201cto the first of Beings, the divine\nVishnu,\u201d and among others the following:\n\n\n    Glory to thee, who art one with the Saints, whose perfect nature\n    is ever blessed, and traverses, unobstructed, all permeable\n    elements. Glory to thee, _who art one with the Serpent\u2010Race,\n    double\u2010tongued, impetuous, cruel, insatiate of enjoyment_ and\n    abounding with wealth.... Glory to thee, ... O Lord, _who hast\n    neither colour nor extension_, nor bulk (_ghana_), _nor any\n    predicable qualities_, and whose essence (_r\u00fbpa_), purest of the\n    pure, is appreciable only by holy Paramarshis [the greatest of\n    Sages or Rishis]. We bow to thee, in the nature of Brahma,\n    uncreated, undecaying (_avyaya_); who _art in our bodies_, and _in\n    all other bodies, and in all living creatures_; and beside whom\n    nothing exists. We glorify that V\u00e2sudeva, the lord (of all), who\n    is without soil, the seed of all things, exempt from dissolution,\n    unborn, eternal; being, in essence, Paramapad\u00e2tmavat [beyond the\n    condition of Spirit], and, in substance (_r\u00fbpa_), the whole of\n    this (Universe).(675)\n\n\nThe above is quoted as an illustration of the vast field offered by the\n_Pur\u00e2nas_ to adverse and erroneous criticism, by every European bigot who\nforms an estimate of an alien religion on mere external evidence. Any man\naccustomed to subject what he reads to thoughtful analysis, will see at a\nglance the incongruity of addressing the accepted \u201cUnknowable,\u201d the\nformless, and attributeless Absolute, such as the Ved\u00e2ntins define\nBrahman, as being \u201cone with the Serpent\u2010Race, double\u2010tongued, cruel and\ninsatiable,\u201d thus associating the abstract with the concrete, and\nbestowing adjectives on that which is free from any limitations, and\nconditionless. Even Professor Wilson, who, after living surrounded by\nBr\u00e2hmans and Pandits in India for so many years, ought to have known\nbetter\u2014even that scholar lost no opportunity of criticizing the Hind\u00fb\nScriptures on this account. Thus, he exclaims:\n\n\n    The _Pur\u00e2nas_ constantly teach incompatible doctrines! According\n    to this passage,(676) the Supreme Being is not the inert cause of\n    creation only, but exercises the functions of an active\n    providence. The Commentator quotes a text of the _Veda_ in support\n    of this view: \u201cUniversal Soul entering into men, governs their\n    conduct.\u201d Incongruities, however, are as frequent in the _Vedas_\n    as in the _Pur\u00e2nas_.\n\n\nLess frequent, in sober truth, than in the Mosaic _Bible_. But prejudice\nis great in the hearts of our Orientalists, especially in those of\n\u201creverend\u201d scholars. Universal Soul is _not_ the inert Cause of Creation\nor (Para) Brahman, but simply that which we call the Sixth Principle of\n_Intellectual_ Kosmos, on the manifested plane of being. It is Mahat, or\nMah\u00e2buddhi, the Great Soul, the Vehicle of Spirit, the first primeval\nreflection of the formless CAUSE, and that which is even _beyond_ Spirit.\nSo much for Professor Wilson\u2019s uncalled\u2010for fling at the _Pur\u00e2nas_. As for\nthe apparently incongruous appeal to Vishnu by the defeated Gods, the\nexplanation is there, in the text of _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, if Orientalists\nwould only notice it. There is Vishnu as Brahm\u00e2, and Vishnu _in his two\naspects_, philosophy teaches. There is but one Brahman, \u201cessentially\nPrakriti and Spirit.\u201d\n\nThis ignorance is truly and beautifully expressed in the praise of the\nYogins to Brahm\u00e2, \u201cthe upholder of the earth,\u201d when they say:\n\n\n    Those who have not practised devotion conceive erroneously of the\n    nature of the world. The ignorant, who do not perceive that this\n    Universe is of the nature of Wisdom, and judge of it as an object\n    of perception only, are lost in the ocean of spiritual ignorance.\n    But they who know true Wisdom, and whose minds are pure, behold\n    this whole world _as one with Divine Knowledge_, as one with thee,\n    O God! Be favourable, O universal Spirit!(677)\n\n\nTherefore, it is not Vishnu, \u201cthe inert cause of creation,\u201d which\nexercised the functions of an _Active_ Providence, but the Universal Soul,\nthat which, in its material aspect, \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi calls Astral Light. And\nthis Soul is, in its dual aspect of Spirit and Matter, the true\nanthropomorphic God of the Theists; for this God is a _personification_ of\nthat Universal Creative Agent, both pure and impure, owing to its\nmanifested condition and differentiation in this M\u00e2y\u00e2vic World\u2014_God_ and\n_Devil_, truly. But Professor Wilson failed to see how Vishnu, in this\ncharacter, closely resembles the Lord God of Israel, \u201cespecially in his\npolicy of deception, temptation, and cunning.\u201d\n\nIn the _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_ this is made as plain as can be. For it is said\nthere, that:\n\n\n    At the conclusion of their prayers (_stotra_) the Gods beheld the\n    Sovereign Deity Hari (Vishnu) armed with the shell, the discus,\n    and the mace, _riding on Garuda._\n\n\nNow Garuda is the Manvantaric Cycle, as will be shown in its place.\nVishnu, therefore, is the Deity _in Space and Time_, the peculiar God of\nthe Vaishnavas. Such Gods are called in Esoteric Philosophy _tribal_ or\n_racial_; that is to say, one of the many Dhy\u00e2nis or Gods, or Elohim, one\nof whom was generally chosen for some special reason by a nation or a\ntribe, and thus became gradually a \u201cGod _above all_ Gods,\u201d(678) the\n\u201chighest God,\u201d as Jehovah, Osiris, Bel, or any other of the Seven Regents.\n\n\u201cThe tree is known by its fruit\u201d; the nature of a God by his actions. We\nmust either judge these actions by the dead\u2010letter narratives, or must\naccept them allegorically. If we compare the two\u2014Vishnu, as the defender\nand champion of the defeated Gods; and Jehovah, the defender and champion\nof the \u201cchosen\u201d people, so called by antiphrasis, no doubt, as it is the\nJews who had chosen that \u201cjealous\u201d God\u2014we shall find that both use deceit\nand cunning. They do so on the principle of \u201cthe end justifying the\nmeans,\u201d in order to have the best of their respective opponents and\nfoes\u2014the Demons. Thus while, according to the Kabalists, Jehovah assumes\nthe shape of the tempting Serpent in the Garden of Eden, sends Satan with\na special mission to tempt Job, harasses and wearies Pharaoh with Sara\u00ef,\nAbraham\u2019s wife, and \u201chardens\u201d another Pharaoh\u2019s heart against Moses, lest\nthere should be no opportunity for plaguing his victims \u201cwith great\nplagues,\u201d Vishnu is made in his _Pur\u00e2na_ to resort to a trick no less\nunworthy of any respectable God.\n\nThe defeated Gods addressed Vishnu as follows:\n\n\n    Have compassion upon us, O Lord, and protect us, who have come to\n    thee for succour from the Daityas (Demons)! They have seized upon\n    the three worlds, and appropriated the offerings which are our\n    portion, _taking care not to transgress the precepts of the Veda_.\n    Although _we, as well as they, are parts of thee_(679) ... engaged\n    [as they are] ... in the paths prescribed by the holy writ ... it\n    is impossible for us to destroy them. Do thou, whose wisdom is\n    immeasurable (Amey\u00e2tman) instruct us _in some device_ by which we\n    may be able to exterminate the enemies of the Gods!\n\n    When the mighty Vishnu heard their request, he emitted from his\n    body an _illusory_ form (M\u00e2y\u00e2moha, the \u201cdeluder by illusion\u201d)\n    which he gave to the Gods and thus spake: \u201cThis M\u00e2y\u00e2moha shall\n    _wholly beguile_ the Daityas, so that, being led astray from the\n    path of the _Vedas_, they may be put to death.... Go then and fear\n    not. Let this delusive vision precede you. It shall this day be of\n    great service unto you, O Gods!\u201d\n\n    After this, the great Delusion (M\u00e2y\u00e2moha) having proceeded (to\n    earth), beheld the Daityas, engaged in ascetic penances, and\n    approaching them, in the semblance of a Digambara (naked\n    mendicant) with his head shaven ... he thus addressed them, in\n    gentle accents: \u201cHo, lords of the Daitya race, wherefore is it\n    that you practise these acts of penances?\u201d etc.(680)\n\n\nFinally the Daityas were seduced by the wily talk of M\u00e2y\u00e2moha, as Eve was\nseduced by the advice of the Serpent. They became apostates to the\n_Vedas_. As Dr. Muir translates the passage:\n\n\n    The great Deceiver, practising illusion, next beguiled other\n    Daityas, by means of many other sorts of heresy. In a very short\n    time, these Asuras (Daityas), deluded by the Deceiver [_who was\n    Vishnu_] abandoned the entire system founded on the ordinances of\n    the triple _Veda_. Some reviled the _Vedas_; others, the\n    ceremonial of sacrifice; and others, the Br\u00e2hmans. This (they\n    exclaimed), is a doctrine which will not bear discussion: the\n    slaughter (of animals, in sacrifice), is not conducive to\n    religious merit. (To say, that) oblations of butter consumed in\n    the fire produce any future reward, is the assertion of a\n    child.... If it be a fact that a beast slain in sacrifice is\n    exalted to heaven, why does not the worshipper slaughter his own\n    father?... Infallible utterances do not, great Asuras, fall from\n    the skies; it is only assertions founded on reasoning that are\n    accepted by me and by other [intelligent] persons like yourselves!\n    Thus by numerous methods the Daityas were unsettled by the great\n    Deceiver [_Reason_].... When the Daityas had entered on the path\n    of error, the Deities mustered all their energies and approached\n    to battle. Then followed a combat between the Gods and the Asuras;\n    and the latter, who had abandoned the right road, were smitten by\n    the former. In previous times they had been defended by the armour\n    of righteousness which they bore; but, when that had been\n    destroyed, they, also, perished.(681)\n\n\nWhatever may be thought of the Hind\u00fbs, no enemy of theirs can regard them\nas fools. A people, whose holy men and sages have left to the world the\ngreatest and most sublime philosophies that ever emanated from the minds\nof men, must have known the difference between right and wrong. Even a\nsavage can discern white from black, good from bad, and deceit from\nsincerity and truthfulness. Those who had narrated this event in the\nbiography of their God, must have seen that in this case it was that God\nwho was the Arch\u2010Deceiver, and the Daityas, who \u201cnever transgressed the\nprecepts of the _Vedas_,\u201d who had the sunny side in the transaction, and\nwho were the true \u201cGods.\u201d Thence there must have been, and _there is_ a\nsecret meaning hidden under this allegory. In no class of society, in no\nnation, are deceit and craft considered as _divine_ virtues\u2014except perhaps\nin the clerical classes of Theologians and modern Jesuitism.\n\nThe _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_,(682) like all other works of this kind, passed at a\nlater period into the hands of the Temple\u2010Br\u00e2hmans, and the old MSS. have,\nno doubt, been further tampered with by sectarians. But there was a time\nwhen the _Pur\u00e2nas_ were esoteric works, and so they are still for the\nInitiates who can read them with the key that is in their possession.\n\nWhether the Br\u00e2hman Initiates will ever give out the full meaning of these\nallegories, is a question with which the writer is not concerned. The\npresent object is to show that, while honouring the _Creative Powers_ in\ntheir multiple forms, no philosopher could have, or ever has, accepted the\nallegory for its true spirit, except, perhaps, some philosophers belonging\nto the present \u201csuperior and civilized\u201d Christian races. For, as shown,\nJehovah is not one whit the superior of Vishnu on the plane of ethics.\nThis is why the Occultists, and even some Kabalists, whether or not they\nregard those creative Forces _as living and conscious Entities_\u2014and one\ndoes not see why they should not be so accepted\u2014will never confuse the\nCause with the Effect, and accept the Spirit of the Earth for Parabrahman,\nor Ain Suph. At all events they know well the true nature of what was\ncalled by the Greeks Father\u2010\u00c6ther, Jupiter\u2010Titan, etc. They know that the\nSoul of the Astral Light is divine, and its Body\u2014the Light\u2010waves on the\nlower planes\u2014infernal. This Light is symbolized by the \u201cMagic Head\u201d in the\n_Zohar_, the Double Face on the Double Pyramid; the black Pyramid rising\nagainst a pure white ground, with _a white Head and Face within its black\nTriangle_; the White Pyramid, inverted\u2014the reflection of the first in the\ndark Waters\u2014showing the _black reflection of the white Face_.\n\nThis is the Astral Light, or _Demon est Deus Inversus_.\n\n\n\n\nSection XII. The Theogony of the Creative Gods.\n\n\nTo thoroughly comprehend the idea underlying every ancient Cosmology\nnecessitates the study and comparative analysis of all the great religions\nof antiquity; for it is only by this method that the root\u2010idea can be made\nplain. Exact Science, could it soar so high, in tracing the operations of\nNature to their ultimate and original sources, would call this idea the\nHierarchy of Forces. The original, transcendental and philosophical\nconception was one. But as systems began to reflect more and more with\nevery age the idiosyncrasies of nations, and as the latter, after\nseparating, settled into distinct groups, each evolving along its own\nnational or tribal groove, the main idea gradually became veiled by the\novergrowth of human fancy. While in some countries the Forces, or rather\nthe intelligent Powers of Nature, received divine honours to which they\nwere hardly entitled, in others\u2014as now in Europe and the other _civilized_\nlands\u2014the very thought of such Forces being endowed with intelligence\nseems absurd, and is proclaimed _unscientific_. Therefore one finds relief\nin such statements as are found in the Introduction to _Asgard and the\nGods_; \u201cTales and Traditions of our Northern Ancestors,\u201d edited by W. S.\nW. Anson, who says:\n\n\n    Although in Central Asia, or on the banks of the Indus, in the\n    Land of the Pyramids, and in the Greek and Italian peninsulas, and\n    even in the North, whither Kelts, Teutons and Slavs wandered, the\n    religious conceptions of the people have taken different forms,\n    _yet their common origin_ is still perceptible. We point out this\n    connection between the stories of the Gods, and the deep thought\n    contained in them, and their importance, in order that the reader\n    may see that _it is not a magic world of erratic fancy_ which\n    opens out before him, but that ... _Life and Nature_ formed the\n    basis of the existence and action of these divinities.(683)\n\n\nAnd though it is impossible for any Occultist or student of Eastern\nEsotericism to concur in the strange idea that, \u201cthe religious conceptions\nof the most famous nations of antiquity are connected with the beginnings\nof civilization amongst the Germanic races,\u201d(684) he is yet glad to find\nsuch truths expressed as that: \u201cThese fairy tales are not senseless\nstories written for the amusement of the idle; they embody the profound\nreligion of our forefathers.\u201d(685)\n\nPrecisely so. Not only their Religion, but likewise their History. For a\nmyth, in Greek \u03bc\u1fe6\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2, means oral tradition, passed from mouth to mouth\nfrom one generation to the other; and even in the modern etymology the\nterm stands for a _fabulous_ statement conveying some important truth; a\ntale of some extraordinary personage whose biography has become overgrown,\nowing to the veneration of successive generations, with rich popular\nfancy, but which is no _wholesale_ fable. Like our ancestors, the\nprimitive \u00c2ryans, we believe firmly in the personality and intelligence of\nmore than one phenomenon\u2010producing Force in Nature.\n\nAs time rolled on, the archaic teaching grew dimmer; and the nations more\nor less lost sight of the Highest and One Principle of all things, and\nbegan to transfer the abstract attributes of the Causeless Cause to the\ncaused effects, which became in their turn causative, the Creative Powers\nof the Universe; the great nations thus acted from fear of profaning the\nIdea; the smaller, because they either failed to grasp it, or lacked the\npower of philosophic conception needed to preserve it in all its\nimmaculate purity. But one and all, with the exception of the latest\n\u00c2ryans, now become Europeans and Christians, show this veneration in their\nCosmogonies. As Thomas Taylor,(686) the most intuitional of all the\ntranslators of the Greek Fragments, shows, no nation has ever conceived\nthe One Principle as the immediate creator of the visible Universe, for no\nsane man would credit a planner and architect with having built with his\nown hands the edifice he admires. On the testimony of Damascius in his\nwork, _On First Principles_ (\u03a0\u03b5\u03c1\u1f76 \u03a0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd \u1f08\u03c1\u03c7\u1ff6\u03bd), they referred to it as\nthe \u201cUnknown Darkness.\u201d The Babylonians passed over this principle in\nsilence. \u201cTo that God,\u201d says Porphyry, in his _On Abstinence_ (\u03a0\u03b5\u03c1\u03af \u1f00\u03c0\u03bf\u03c7\u1fc6\u03c2\n\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f10\u03bc\u03c8\u03cd\u03c7\u03c9\u03bd), \u201cwho is above all things, neither external speech ought to\nbe addressed, nor yet that which is inward.\u201d Hesiod begins his _Theogony_\nwith the words, \u201cChaos of all things was the first produced,\u201d(687) thus\nallowing the inference that its Cause or Producer must be passed over in\nreverential silence. Homer in his poems ascends no higher than Night,\nwhich he represents Zeus as reverencing. According to all the ancient\ntheologists, and the doctrines of Pythagoras and Plato, Zeus, or the\nimmediate Artificer of the Universe, _is not the highest God_; any more\nthan Sir Christopher Wren in his physical, human aspect is the Mind in him\nwhich produced his great works of art. Homer, therefore, is not only\nsilent with respect to the First Principle, but likewise with respect to\nthose two Principles immediately posterior to the First, the \u00c6ther and\nChaos of Orpheus and Hesiod, and the Bound and Infinity of Pythagoras and\nPlato.(688) Proclus says of this Highest Principle that it is \u201cthe Unity\nof Unities, and beyond the first Adyta ... more ineffable than all\nSilence, and more occult than all Essence ... concealed amidst the\nintelligible Gods.\u201d(689)\n\nTo what was written by Thomas Taylor in 1797\u2014namely, that the \u201cJews appear\nto have ascended no higher ... than the _immediate_ Artificer of the\nUniverse,\u201d as \u201cMoses introduces a darkness on the face of the deep,\nwithout even insinuating that there was any cause of its existence,\u201d(690)\none might add something more. Never have the Jews in their _Bible_\u2014a\npurely esoteric, symbolical work\u2014so profoundly degraded their metaphorical\ndeity as have the Christians, by accepting Jehovah as their one living yet\n_personal_ God.\n\nThis First, or rather One, Principle was called the \u201cCircle of Heaven,\u201d\nsymbolized by the hierogram of a Point within a Circle or Equilateral\nTriangle, the Point being the Logos. Thus, in the _Rig Veda_, wherein\nBrahm\u00e2 is not even named. Cosmogony is preluded with the Hiranyagarbha,\nthe \u201cGolden Egg,\u201d and Praj\u00e2pati (later on Brahm\u00e2), from whom emanate all\nthe Hierarchies of \u201cCreators.\u201d The Monad, or Point, is the original and is\nthe Unit from which follows the entire numeral system. This Point is the\nFirst Cause, but THAT from which it emanates, or of which, rather, it is\nthe expression, the Logos, is passed over in silence. In its turn, the\nuniversal symbol, the _Point __ within the Circle_, was not yet the\nArchitect, but the Cause of that Architect; and the latter stood to it in\nprecisely the same relation as the Point itself stood to the Circumference\nof the Circle, which cannot be defined, according to Hermes Trismegistus.\nPorphyry shows that the Monad and the Duad of Pythagoras are identical\nwith Plato\u2019s Infinite and Finite, in _Philebus_, or what Plato calls the\n\u1f04\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd and \u03c0\u03ad\u03c1\u03b1\u03c2. It is the latter only, the Mother, which is\nsubstantial, the former being the \u201cCause of all Unity and measure of all\nthings\u201d;(691) the Duad, M\u00fblaprakriti, the Veil of Parabrahman, being thus\nshown to be the Mother of the Logos and, at the same time, his\nDaughter\u2014that is to say, the object of his perception\u2014the produced\nproducer and the secondary cause of it. With Pythagoras, the Monad returns\ninto Silence and Darkness, as soon as it has evolved the Triad, from which\nemanate the remaining 7 numbers of the 10 numbers which are at the base of\nthe Manifested Universe.\n\nIn the Norse Cosmogony it is again the same.\n\n\n    In the beginning was a great Abyss (Chaos), neither Day nor Night\n    existed; the Abyss was Ginnungagap, the yawning gulf, without\n    beginning, without end. All\u2010Father, the Uncreated, the Unseen,\n    dwelt in the Depth of the Abyss (Space) and _willed_, and what was\n    willed came into being.(692)\n\n\nAs in the Hind\u00fb Cosmogony, the evolution of the Universe is divided into\ntwo acts, which are called in India the Pr\u00e2krita and P\u00e2dma Creations.\nBefore the warm rays pouring from the Home of Brightness awaken life in\nthe Great Waters of Space, the Elements of the First Creation come into\nview, and from them is formed the Giant Ymir, or \u00d6rgelmir (literally,\nSeething Clay), Primordial Matter differentiated from Chaos. Then comes\nthe Cow Audumla, the Nourisher,(693) from whom is born Buri, the Producer,\nwhose son B\u00f6r (Born), by Bestla, the daughter of the Frost\u2010Giants, the\nsons of Ymir, had three sons, Odin, Willi and We, or Spirit, Will, and\nHoliness. This was when Darkness still reigned throughout Space, when the\nAses, the Creative Powers, or Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, were not yet evolved, and the\nYggdrasil, the Tree of the Universe of Time and of Life, had not yet\ngrown, and there was, as yet, no Walhalla, or Hall of Heroes. The\nScandinavian legends of Creation, of our Earth and World, begin with Time\nand human Life. All that precedes it is for them Darkness, wherein All\u2010\nFather, the Cause of all, dwells. As observed by the editor of _Asgard and\nthe Gods_, though these legends have in them the idea of that All\u2010Father,\nthe original cause of all, \u201che is scarcely more than mentioned in the\npoems,\u201d not, as he thinks, because before the preaching of the Gospel, the\nidea \u201ccould not rise to distinct conceptions of the Eternal,\u201d but on\naccount of its deep esoteric character. Therefore, all the Creative Gods,\nor _Personal_ Deities, begin at the secondary stage of Cosmic Evolution.\nZeus is born _in_, and _out_ of Cronus\u2014Time. So is Brahm\u00e2 the production\nand emanation of K\u00e2la, \u201cEternity and Time,\u201d K\u00e2la being one of the names of\nVishnu. Hence we find Odin, the Father of _the Gods and of the Ases_, as\nBrahm\u00e2 is the Father of _the Gods and of the Asuras_; and hence also the\nandrogyne character of all the chief Creative Gods, from the second Monad\nof the Greeks down to the Sephira Adam Kadmon, the Brahm\u00e2 or Praj\u00e2pati\u2010\nV\u00e2ch of the _Vedas_, and the androgyne of Plato, which is but another\nversion of the Indian symbol.\n\nThe best metaphysical definition of primeval Theogony, in the spirit of\nthe Ved\u00e2ntins, may be found in the \u201cNotes on the _Bhagavad G\u00eet\u00e2_\u201d, by T.\nSubba Row. Parabrahman, the Unknown and the Incognizable, as the lecturer\ntells his audience:\n\n\n    Is not Ego, it is not Non\u2010Ego, nor is it consciousness ... it is\n    not even \u00c2tm\u00e2 ... but though not itself an object of knowledge, it\n    is yet capable of supporting and giving rise to every kind of\n    object and every kind of existence which becomes an object of\n    knowledge.... [It is] the one essence from which starts into\n    existence a centre of energy ... [which he calls the Logos].(694)\n\n\nThis Logos is the Shabda Brahman of the Hind\u00fbs, which he will not even\ncall \u00ceshvara (the \u201cLord\u201d God), lest the term should create confusion in\nthe people\u2019s minds. It is the Avalokiteshvara of the Buddhists, the Verbum\nof the Christians in its real _esoteric_ meaning, not in its theological\ndisfigurement.\n\n\n    It is, the first J\u00f1\u00e2ta, or the Ego in the Kosmos, and every other\n    Ego ... is but its reflection and manifestation.... It exists in a\n    latent condition in the bosom of Parabrahman, at the time of\n    Pralaya.... [During Manvantara] it has a consciousness and an\n    individuality of its own.... [It is a centre of energy, but] such\n    centres of energy are almost innumerable in the bosom of\n    Parabrahman. It must not be supposed, that [even] this Logos is\n    [_the_ Creator, or that it is] but a single centre of energy....\n    Their number is almost infinite.... [This] is the first Ego that\n    appears in Kosmos, and is the end of all evolution. [It is the\n    abstract Ego].... This is the _first_ manifestation [or aspect] of\n    Parabrahman.... When once it starts into existence as a conscious\n    being, ... from its objective standpoint, Parabrahman appears to\n    it as M\u00fblaprakriti. Please bear this in mind ... for here is the\n    root of the whole difficulty about Purusha and Prakriti felt by\n    the various writers on Ved\u00e2ntic philosophy.... This M\u00fblaprakriti\n    is material to it [the Logos], as any material object is material\n    to us. This M\u00fblaprakriti is no more Parabrahman than the bundle of\n    attributes of a pillar is the pillar itself; Parabrahman is an\n    unconditioned and absolute reality, and M\u00fblaprakriti is a sort of\n    veil thrown over it. Parabrahman by itself cannot be seen as it\n    is. It is seen by the Logos with a veil thrown over it, and that\n    veil is the mighty expanse of Cosmic Matter.... Parabrahman, after\n    having appeared on the one hand as the Ego, and on the other as\n    M\u00fblaprakriti, acts as the one energy through the Logos.(695)\n\n\nAnd the lecturer explains what he means by this acting of Something which\nis _Nothing_, though it is the ALL, by a fine simile. He compares the\nLogos to the Sun through which light and heat radiate, but whose energy,\nlight and heat, exist in some unknown condition in Space and are diffused\nin Space only as _visible_ light and heat, the Sun being only the agent\nthereof. This is the first triadic hypostasis. The quaternary is made up\nby the _energizing light_ shed by the Logos.\n\nThe Hebrew Kabalists stated it in a manner which is esoterically identical\nwith the Ved\u00e2ntic. Ain Suph, they taught, could not be comprehended, could\nnot be located, nor named, though the Causeless Cause of all. Hence its\nname, Ain Suph, is a term of negation, \u201cthe Inscrutable, the Incognizable,\nand the Unnameable.\u201d They made of it, therefore, a Boundless Circle, a\nSphere, of which human intellect, with the utmost stretch, could only\nperceive the vault. In the words of one who has unriddled much in the\nKabalistical system most thoroughly, in one of its meanings, in its\nnumerical and geometrical esotericism:\n\n\n    Close your eyes, and from your own consciousness of perception try\n    and think outward to the extremest limits in every direction. You\n    will find that equal lines or rays of perception extend out evenly\n    in all directions, so that the utmost effort of perception will\n    terminate in the _vault of a sphere_. The limitation of this\n    sphere will, of necessity, be a great Circle, and the direct rays\n    of thought in any and every direction must be right line radii of\n    the circle. This, then, _must_ be, humanly speaking, the extremest\n    all\u2010embracing conception of the Ain Suph _manifest_, which\n    formulates itself as a geometrical figure, viz., of a circle, with\n    its elements of curved circumference and right line diameter\n    divided into radii. Hence, a geometrical shape is the first\n    recognizable means of connection between the Ain Suph and the\n    intelligence of man.(696)\n\n\nThis Great Circle, which Eastern Esotericism reduces to the Point within\nthe Boundless Circle, is the Avalokiteshvara, the Logos, or Verbum, of\nwhich T. Subba Row speaks. But this Circle or manifested God is as unknown\nto us, except through its _manifested_ Universe, as is the ONE, though\neasier, or rather more possible to our highest conceptions. This Logos\nwhich sleeps in the bosom of Parabrahman, during Pralaya, as our \u201cEgo is\nlatent [in us] at the time of Sushupti,\u201d or sleep, which cannot cognize\nParabrahman otherwise than as M\u00fblaprakriti\u2014the latter being a Cosmic Veil\nwhich is \u201cthe mighty expanse of Cosmic Matter\u201d\u2014is thus only an organ in\nCosmic Creation, through which radiate the Energy and Wisdom of\nParabrahman, _unknown to the Logos, as it is to ourselves_. Moreover, as\nthe Logos is as unknown to us as Parabrahman is unknown in reality to the\nLogos, both Eastern Esotericism and the Kabalah, in order to bring the\nLogos within the range of our conceptions, have resolved the abstract\nsynthesis into concrete images; viz., into the reflections or multiplied\naspects of that Logos, or Avalokiteshvara, Brahm\u00e2 Ormazd, Osiris, Adam\nKadmon, call it by any of such names you will; which aspects, or\nmanvantaric emanations, are the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, the Elohim, the Devas, the\nAmshaspends, etc. Metaphysicians explain the root and germ of the latter,\naccording to T. Subba Row, as the first manifestation of Parabrahman, \u201cthe\nhighest trinity that we are capable of understanding,\u201d which is\nM\u00fblaprakriti, the Veil, the Logos, and the Conscious Energy of the latter,\nor its Power and Light, called in the _Bhagavad G\u00eet\u00e2_, Daiviprakriti; or\n\u201cMatter, Force and the Ego, or the one root of Self, of which every other\nkind of self is but a manifestation or a reflection.\u201d It is then only in\nthis Light of consciousness, of mental and physical perception, that\n_practical_ Occultism can throw the Logos into visibility by geometrical\nfigures, which, when closely studied, will yield not only a scientific\nexplanation of the real, objective, existence(697) of the \u201cSeven Sons of\nthe Divine Sophia,\u201d which is this Light of the Logos, but will show, by\nmeans of other yet undiscovered keys, that, with regard to Humanity, these\n\u201cSeven Sons\u201d and their numberless emanations, centres of energy\npersonified, are an absolute necessity. Make away with them, and the\nMystery of Being and Mankind _will never be unriddled, nor even closely\napproached_.\n\nIt is through this Light that everything is created. This Root of mental\nSELF is also the root of physical _Self_, for this Light is the\npermutation, in our manifested world, of M\u00fblaprakriti, called Aditi in the\n_Vedas_. In its third aspect it becomes V\u00e2ch,(698) the Daughter and the\nMother of the Logos, as Isis is the Daughter and the Mother of Osiris, who\nis Horns, and Moot, the Daughter, Wife, and Mother, of Ammon, in the\nEgyptian Moon\u2010glyph. In the _Kabalah_, Sephira is the same as Shekinah,\nand is, in another synthesis, the Wife, Daughter, and Mother of the\nHeavenly Man, Adam Kadmon, and is even identical with him, just as V\u00e2ch is\nidentical with Brahm\u00e2, and is called the female Logos. In the _Rig Veda_,\nV\u00e2ch is \u201cMystic Speech,\u201d by whom Occult Knowledge and Wisdom are\ncommunicated to man, and thus V\u00e2ch is said to have \u201centered the Rishis.\u201d\nShe is \u201cgenerated by the Gods\u201d; she is the Divine V\u00e2ch, the \u201cQueen of\nGods\u201d; and she is associated, like Sephira with the Sephiroth, with the\nPraj\u00e2patis in their work of creation. Moreover, she is called the \u201cMother\nof the _Vedas_,\u201d \u201csince it is through her powers, [as Mystic _Speech_]\nthat Brahm\u00e2 revealed them, and also owing to her power that he produced\nthe Universe\u201d; that is to say, through Speech, and words, synthesized by\nthe \u201cWord\u201d and numbers.(699)\n\nBut when V\u00e2ch is also spoken of as the daughter of Daksha, \u201cthe God who\nlives in all the Kalpas,\u201d her m\u00e2y\u00e2vic character is shown; during the\nPralaya she disappears, absorbed in the One, all\u2010devouring Ray.\n\nBut there are two distinct aspects in universal Esotericism, Eastern and\nWestern, in all these personations of the female Power in Nature, or\nNature the _noumenal_ and the _phenomenal_. One is its purely metaphysical\naspect, as described by the learned lecturer in his \u201cNotes on the\n_Bhagavad G\u00eet\u00e2_\u201d; the other terrestrial and physical, and at the same time\n_divine_ from the stand\u2010point of practical human conception and Occultism.\nThey are all the symbols and personifications of Chaos, the Great Deep, or\nthe Primordial Waters of Space, the impenetrable Veil between the\nINCOGNIZABLE and the Logos of Creation. \u201cConnecting himself through his\nmind with V\u00e2ch, Brahm\u00e2 [the Logos] created the Primordial Waters.\u201d In the\n_Katha Upanishad_ it is stated still more clearly:\n\n\n    Praj\u00e2pati was this Universe. _V\u00e2ch was a second to him._ He\n    associated with her ... she produced these creatures and again\n    re\u00ebntered Praj\u00e2pati.\n\n\nThis connects V\u00e2ch and Sephira with the Goddess Kwan\u2010Yin, the \u201cMerciful\nMother,\u201d the Divine Voice of the Soul, even in exoteric Buddhism, and with\nthe female aspect of Kwan\u2010Shai\u2010Yin, the Logos, the Verbum of Creation, and\nat the same time with the Voice that speaks audibly to the Initiate,\naccording to Esoteric Budhism. Bath Kol, the Filia Vocis, the Daughter of\nthe Divine Voice of the Hebrews, responding from the Mercy Seat within the\nVeil of the Temple is\u2014a result.\n\nAnd here we may incidentally point out one of the many unjust slurs thrown\nby the \u201cgood and pious\u201d missionaries in India on the religion of the land.\nThe allegory, in the _Shatapatha Br\u00e2hmana_, that Brahm\u00e2, as the Father of\nmen, performed the work of procreation by incestuous intercourse with his\nown daughter V\u00e2ch, also called Sandhy\u00e2, Twilight, and Shatar\u00fbp\u00e2, of a\nhundred forms, is incessantly thrown in the teeth of the Br\u00e2hmans, as\ncondemning their \u201cdetestable, false religion.\u201d Besides the fact,\nconveniently forgotten by the Europeans, that the Patriarch Lot is shown\nguilty of the same crime under the _human form_, whereas it was under the\nform of a buck that Brahm\u00e2, or rather Praj\u00e2pati, accomplished the incest\nwith his daughter, who had that of a hind (_rohit_), the esoteric reading\nof the third chapter of _Genesis_ shows the same. Moreover, there is\ncertainly a _cosmic_, and not a physiological, meaning attached to the\nIndian allegory, since V\u00e2ch is a permutation of Aditi and M\u00fblaprakriti, or\nChaos, and Brahm\u00e2 a permutation of N\u00e2r\u00e2yana, the Spirit of God entering\ninto, and fructifying Nature; and, therefore, there is nothing phallic in\nthe conception at all.\n\nAs already stated, Aditi\u2010V\u00e2ch is the female Logos, or Verbum, the Word;\nand Sephira in the _Kabalah_ is the same. These feminine Logoi are all\ncorrelations, in their _noumenal_ aspect, of Light, and Sound, and \u00c6ther,\nshowing how well\u2010informed were the Ancients both in Physical Science, as\nnow known to the moderns, and also as to the birth of that Science in the\nSpiritual and Astral spheres.\n\n\n    Our old writers said that V\u00e2ch is of four kinds. These are called\n    Par\u00e2, Pashyant\u00ee, Madhyam\u00e2, Vaikhar\u00ee. This statement you will find\n    in the _Rig Veda_ itself and in several of the _Upanishads_.\n    Vaikhar\u00ee V\u00e2ch is what we utter.\n\n\nIt is Sound, _Speech_, that again which becomes comprehensive and\nobjective to one of our physical senses and may be brought under the laws\nof perception. Hence:\n\n\n    Every kind of Vaikhar\u00ee V\u00e2ch exists in its Madhyam\u00e2 ... Pashyant\u00ee\n    and ultimately in its Par\u00e2 form.... The reason why this\n    Pranava(700) is called V\u00e2ch is this, that these four principles of\n    the great Kosmos correspond to these four forms of V\u00e2ch.... The\n    whole Kosmos in its objective form is Vaikhar\u00ee V\u00e2ch; the Light of\n    the Logos is the Madhyam\u00e2 form; and the Logos itself the Pasyant\u00ee\n    form; while Parabrahman is the Par\u00e2 [beyond the Noumenon of all\n    Noumena] aspect of that V\u00e2ch.(701)\n\n\nThus V\u00e2ch, Shekinah, or the \u201cMusic of the Spheres\u201d of Pythagoras, are one,\nif we take for our example instances in the three most (apparently)\ndissimilar religious philosophies in the world, the Hind\u00fb, the Greek and\nthe Chaldean Hebrew. These personations and allegories may be viewed under\n_four_ chief and _three_ lesser aspects, or _seven_ in all, as in\nEsotericism. The Par\u00e2 form is the ever subjective and latent Light and\nSound, which exist eternally in the bosom of the INCOGNIZABLE; when\ntransferred into the ideation of the Logos, or its latent Light, it is\ncalled Pasyant\u00ee, and when it becomes that Light _expressed_, it is\nMadhyam\u00e2.\n\nNow the _Kabalah_ gives the definition thus:\n\n\n    There are three kinds of Light, and that [the fourth] which\n    interpenetrates the others; (1) the clear and the penetrating, the\n    _objective_ Light, (2) the _reflected_ Light, and (3) the\n    _abstract_ Light.\n\n\nThe ten Sephiroth, the Three and the Seven, are called in the _Kabalah_\nthe Ten Words, DBRIM (Dabarim), the Numbers and the Emanations of the\nHeavenly Light, which is both Adam Kadmon and Sephira, Praj\u00e2pati\u2010V\u00e2ch, or\nBrahm\u00e2. Light, Sound, Number, are the three factors of creation in the\n_Kabalah_. Parabrahman cannot be known except through the luminous Point,\nthe Logos, which knows not Parabrahman but only M\u00fblaprakriti. Similarly\nAdam Kadmon knew only Shekinah, though he was the Vehicle of Ain Suph.\nAnd, as Adam Kadmon, he is, in the Esoteric interpretation, the total of\nthe Number Ten, the Sephiroth, himself being a Trinity, or the three\nattributes of the Incognizable Deity in One.(702) \u201cWhen the Heavenly Man\n(or Logos) first assumed the form of the Crown(703) [Kether] and\nidentified himself with Sephira, he caused Seven splendid Lights to\nemanate from it [the Crown],\u201d which made in their totality Ten; so\nBrahm\u00e2\u2010Praj\u00e2pati, once he became separated from, yet identical with V\u00e2ch,\ncaused the seven Rishis, the seven Manus or Praj\u00e2patis, to issue from that\nCrown. In _exotericism_ one will always find 10 and 7, of either Sephira\nor Praj\u00e2pati; in _esoteric_ rendering always 3 and 7, which yield also 10.\nOnly when divided, in the manifested sphere, into 3 and 7, they form\n[circle with vertical line], the androgyne, and [circle containing an X],\nor the figure X manifested and differentiated.\n\nThis will help the student to understand why Pythagoras esteemed the\nDeity, the Logos, to be the Centre of Unity and Source of Harmony. We say\nthis Deity was the Logos, not the Monad that dwelleth in Solitude and\nSilence, because Pythagoras taught that Unity being indivisible is _no\nnumber_. And this is also why it was required of the candidate, who\napplied for admittance into his school, that he should have already\nstudied as a preliminary step, the sciences of Arithmetic, Astronomy,\nGeometry and _Music_, which were held to be the four divisions of\nMathematics.(704) Again, this explains why the Pythagoreans asserted that\nthe doctrine of Numbers, the chief of all in Esotericism, had been\nrevealed to man by the Celestial Deities; that the World had been called\nforth out of Chaos by Sound, or Harmony, and constructed according to the\nprinciples of musical proportion; that the seven planets which rule the\ndestiny of mortals have a harmonious motion and, as Censorinus says:\n\n\n    Intervals corresponding to musical diastemes, rendering various\n    sounds, so perfectly consonant, that they produce the sweetest\n    melody, which is inaudible to us, only by reason of the greatness\n    of the sound, which our ears are incapable of receiving.\n\n\nIn the Pythagorean Theogony, the Hierarchies of the Heavenly Host and Gods\nwere numbered, and also expressed numerically. Pythagoras had studied\nEsoteric Science in India; therefore we find his pupils saying:\n\n\n    The Monad [the manifested One] is the principle of all things.\n    From the Monad and the indeterminate Duad (Chaos), Numbers; from\n    Numbers, Points; from Points, Lines; from Lines, Superficies; from\n    Superficies, Solids; from these, Solid Bodies, whose elements are\n    four, Fire, Water, Air, Earth; of all which transmuted\n    [correlated], and totally changed, the World consists.(705)\n\n\nAnd this, if it does not unriddle the mystery altogether, may at any rate\nlift a corner of the veil off those wondrous allegories that have been\nthrown over V\u00e2ch, the most mysterious of all the Br\u00e2hmanical Goddesses;\nshe who is termed \u201cthe _melodious_ Cow who milked forth sustenance and\nWater\u201d\u2014the Earth with all her mystic powers; and again she \u201cwho yields us\nnourishment and sustenance\u201d\u2014the physical Earth. Isis is also mystic Nature\nand also Earth; and her cow\u2019s horns identify her with V\u00e2ch, who, after\nbeing recognized in her highest form as Par\u00e2, becomes, at the lower or\nmaterial end of creation, Vaikhar\u00ee. Hence she is mystic, though physical,\nNature, with all her magic ways and properties.\n\nAgain, as Goddess of Speech and of Sound, and a permutation of Aditi, she\nis Chaos, in one sense. At any rate, she is the \u201cMother of the Gods,\u201d and\nit is from Brahm\u00e2, \u00ceshvara or the Logos, and V\u00e2ch, as from Adam Kadmon and\nSephira, that the real _manifested_ Theogony has to start. Beyond, all is\nDarkness and abstract speculation. With the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans or the Gods, the\nSeers, the Prophets and the Adepts in general are on firm ground. Whether\nas Aditi, or the Divine Sophia of the Greek Gnostics, she is the mother of\nthe Seven Sons, the Angels of the Face, of the Deep, or the Great Green\nOne of the _Book of the Dead_. Says the _Book of Dzyan_, or Real\nKnowledge, obtained through meditation:\n\n\n    _The Great Mother lay with the [triangle], and the |, and the\n    [square], the second | and the [five\u2010pointed star],_(_706_)_ in\n    her Bosom, ready to bring them forth, the valiant Sons of the\n    [square] [triangle] || [or 4,320,000, the Cycle], whose two Elders\n    are the [circle] [Circle] and the \u00b7 [Point]._\n\n\nAt the beginning of every Cycle of 4,320,000, the Seven, or as some\nnations had it Eight, Great Gods, descend to establish the new order of\nthings and to give the impetus to the new cycle. That _eighth_ God was the\nunifying Circle, or Logos, separated and made distinct from its Host, in\nexoteric dogma, just as the three divine _hypostases_ of the ancient\nGreeks are now considered in the Churches as three distinct _person\u00e6_. As\na Commentary says:\n\n\n    _The Mighty Ones perform their great works, and leave behind them\n    __ everlasting monuments to commemorate their visit, every time\n    they penetrate within our m\u00e2y\u00e2vic veil [atmosphere]._(707)\n\n\nThus we are taught that the great Pyramids were built under their direct\nsupervision, \u201cwhen Dhruva [the then Pole\u2010star], was at his lowest\nculmination, and the Krittik\u00e2s [Pleiades] looked over his head [were on\nthe same meridian but above] to watch the work of the Giants.\u201d Thus, as\nthe first Pyramids were built at the beginning of a Sidereal Year, under\nDhruva (Alpha Polaris), it must have been over 31,000 years (31,105) ago.\nBunsen was right in admitting for Egypt an antiquity of over 21,000 years,\nbut this concession hardly exhausts truth and fact in this question. As\nMr. Gerald Massey says:\n\n\n    The stories told by Egyptian priests and others of time\u2010keeping in\n    Egypt are now beginning to look less like lies in the sight of all\n    who have escaped from biblical bondage. Inscriptions have lately\n    been found at Sakkarah, making mention of two Sothiac cycles ...\n    registered at that time, now some 6,000 years ago. Thus when\n    Herodotus was in Egypt, the Egyptians had\u2014as now known\u2014observed at\n    least five different Sothiac cycles of 1,461 years....\n\n    The priests informed the Greek enquirer that time had been\n    reckoned by them for so long that the sun had twice risen where it\n    then set, and twice set where it then arose. This ... can only be\n    realized as a fact in nature by means of two cycles of Precession,\n    or a period of 51,736 years.(708)\n\n\nMor Isaac(709) shows the ancient Syrians defining their World of the\n\u201cRulers\u201d and \u201cActive Gods\u201d in the same way as the Chaldeans. The lowest\nWorld was the Sublunary\u2014our own\u2014watched by the _Angels_ of the first or\nlower order; the one that came next in rank, was Mercury, ruled by the\n_Archangels_: then came Venus, whose Gods were the _Principalities_; the\nfourth was that of the Sun, the domain and region of the highest and\nmightiest Gods of our system, the solar Gods of all nations; the fifth was\nMars, ruled by the _Virtues_; the sixth, that of Bel or Jupiter, was\ngoverned by the _Dominions_; the seventh, the World of Saturn, by the\n_Thrones_. These are the Worlds of Form. Above come the Four higher ones,\nmaking Seven again, since the Three _highest_ are \u201cunmentionable and\nunpronounceable.\u201d The eighth, composed of 1,122 stars, is the domain of\nthe _Cherubs_; the ninth, belonging to the _walking_ and numberless stars\non account of their distance, has the _Seraphs_; as to the tenth, Kircher,\nquoting Mor Isaac, says that it is composed \u201cof invisible stars that could\nbe taken, they said, for clouds, so massed are they in the zone that we\ncall Via Straminis, the Milky Way\u201d; and he hastens to explain that \u201cthese\nare the stars of Lucifer, engulfed with him in his terrible shipwreck.\u201d\nThat which comes after and beyond the ten Worlds (our Quaternary), or the\nAr\u00fbpa World, the Syrians could not tell. \u201cAll they knew was that it is\nthere that begins the vast and incomprehensible Ocean of the Infinite, the\nabode of the True Divinity, without boundary or end.\u201d\n\nChampollion shows the same belief among the Egyptians. Hermes having\nspoken of the Father\u2010Mother and Son, whose Spirit\u2014collectively the Divine\nFiat\u2014shapes the Universe, says: \u201cSeven Agents [Media] were also formed, to\ncontain the Material [or manifested] Worlds within their respective\nCircles, and the action of these Agents was named Destiny.\u201d He further\nenumerates seven and ten and twelve orders, but it would take too long to\ndetail them here.\n\nAs the _Rig Vidh\u00e2na_ together with the _Brahm\u00e2nda Pur\u00e2na_ and all such\nworks, whether describing the magic efficacy of the Rig Vedic _Mantras_,\nor the future Kalpas, are declared by Dr. Weber and others to be modern\ncompilations \u201cbelonging probably only to the time of the _Pur\u00e2nas_,\u201d it is\nuseless to refer the reader to their mystic explanations; and one may as\nwell simply quote from the archaic books utterly unknown to the\nOrientalists. These works explain that which so puzzles the scholars,\nnamely that the Saptarshis, the \u201cMind\u2010born Sons\u201d of Brahm\u00e2, are referred\nto in the _Shatapatha Br\u00e2hmana_ under one set of names; in the\n_Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata_ under another set; and that the _V\u00e2yu Pur\u00e2na_ makes even\n_nine_ instead of _seven_ Rishis, by adding the names of Bhrigu and Daksha\nto the list. But the same occurs in every exoteric Scripture. The Secret\nDoctrine gives a long genealogy of Rishis, but separates them into many\nclasses. Like the Gods of the Egyptians, who were divided into seven, and\neven twelve, Classes, so are the Indian Rishis in their Hierarchies. The\nfirst three Groups are the Divine, the Cosmical and the Sublunary. Then\ncome the Solar Gods of our System, the Planetary, the Submundane, and the\npurely Human\u2014the Heroes and the M\u00e2nushi.\n\nAt present, however, we are only concerned with the Pre\u2010cosmic, Divine\nGods, the Praj\u00e2patis, or the Seven Builders. This Group is found\nunmistakably in every Cosmogony. Owing to the loss of Egyptian archaic\ndocuments, since, according to M. Maspero, \u201cthe materials and historical\ndata on hand to study the history of the religious evolution in Egypt are\nneither complete nor very often intelligible,\u201d the ancient Hymns and\ninscriptions on the tombs must be appealed to, in order to have the\nstatements brought forward from the Secret Doctrine partially and\nindirectly corroborated. One such shows that Osiris, like\nBrahm\u00e2\u2010Praj\u00e2pati, Adam Kadmon, Ormazd, and so many other Logoi, was the\nchief and synthesis of the Group of \u201cCreators\u201d or Builders. Before Osiris\nbecame the \u201cOne\u201d and the _Highest_ God of Egypt, he was worshipped at\nAbydos as the Head, or Leader, of the Heavenly Host of the Builders\nbelonging to the higher of the three Orders. The Hymn engraved on the\nvotive stele of a tomb from Abydos (3rd register) addresses Osiris thus:\n\n\n    Salutations to thee, O Osiris, elder son of Seb; thou the greatest\n    over the six Gods issued from the Goddess Noo [Primordial Water],\n    thou the great favourite of thy father Ra; Father of Fathers, King\n    of Duration, Master in the Eternity ... who, as soon as these\n    issued from thy Mother\u2019s Bosom, gathered all the Crowns and\n    attached the Ur\u00e6us [serpent or _naja_](710) on thy head; multiform\n    God, _whose name is unknown_ and who has many names in towns and\n    provinces.\n\n\nComing out from the Primordial Water crowned with the Ur\u00e6us, which is the\nserpent\u2010emblem of Cosmic Fire, and himself the _seventh_ over the six\nPrimary Gods, issued from Father\u2010Mother, Noo and Noot, the Sky, who can\nOsiris be, but the chief Praj\u00e2pati, the chief Sephira, the chief\nAmshaspend, Ormazd! That this latter Solar and Cosmic God stood, in the\nbeginning of religious evolution, in the same position as the Archangel,\n\u201cwhose name was secret,\u201d is certain. This Archangel was Michael, the\nrepresentative on earth of the _Hidden_ Jewish God; in short, it is his\n\u201cFace\u201d that is said to have gone before the Jews like a \u201cPillar of Fire.\u201d\nBurnouf says: \u201cThe seven Amshaspends, who are most assuredly our\nArchangels, designate also the personifications of the Divine\nVirtues.\u201d(711) And these Archangels, therefore, are as certainly the\nSaptarshis of the Hindus, though it is next to impossible to class each\nwith its Pagan prototype and parallel, since, as in the case of Osiris,\nthey have all so \u201cmany names in towns and provinces.\u201d Some of the most\nimportant, however, will be shown in their order.\n\nOne thing is thus undeniably proven. The more we study their Hierarchies\nand find out their identity, the more proofs we acquire that there is not\none of the past or present _personal_ Gods, known to us from the earliest\ndays of history, that does not belong to the third stage of cosmic\nmanifestation. In every religion we find the Concealed Deity forming the\nground work; then the Ray therefrom, that falls into primordial Cosmic\nMatter, the _first_ manifestation; then the Androgyne result, the dual\nMale and Female abstract Force personified, the _second_ stage; this\nfinally separates itself, in the _third_, into Seven Forces, called the\nCreative Powers by all the ancient religions, and the Virtues of God by\nthe Christians. The later explanations and abstract metaphysical\nqualifications have not prevented the Roman and Greek Churches from\nworshipping these \u201cVirtues\u201d under the personifications and distinct names\nof the Seven Archangels. In the _Book of Druschim_,(712) in the _Talmud_,\na distinction between these groups is given which is the correct\nKabalistical explanation. It says:\n\n\n    There are three Groups (or Orders) of Sephiroth. 1st. The\n    Sephiroth called the \u201cDivine Attributes\u201d [abstract]. 2nd. The\n    Physical or Sidereal Sephiroth [personal]\u2014one group of _seven_,\n    the other of _ten_. 3rd. The metaphysical Sephiroth, or\n    periphrasis of Jehovah, who are the first three Sephiroth [Kether,\n    Chokmah and Binah], the rest of the seven being the (personal)\n    seven Spirits of the Presence [also of the planets].\n\n\nThe same division has to be applied to the primary, secondary and tertiary\nevolution of Gods in every Theogony, if one wishes to translate the\nmeaning esoterically. We must not confuse the purely metaphysical\npersonifications of the _abstract_ attributes of Deity, with their\nreflection\u2014the Sidereal Gods. This reflection, however, is in reality the\nobjective expression of the abstraction; _living_ Entities and the models\nformed on that divine Prototype. Moreover, the three metaphysical\nSephiroth, or the \u201cperiphrasis of Jehovah,\u201d are _not_ Jehovah. It is the\nlatter himself, with the additional titles of Adonai, Elohim, Sabbaoth,\nand the numerous names lavished on him, who is the periphrasis of the\nShaddai (\u05e9\u05d3\u05d9), the Omnipotent. The name is a circumlocution, indeed, a too\nabundant figure of Jewish rhetoric, and has always been denounced by the\nOccultists. To the Jewish Kabalists, and even the Christian Alchemists and\nRosicrucians, Jehovah was a convenient _screen_, unified by the folding of\nits many panels, and adopted as a substitute; one name of an individual\nSephira being as good as another name, for those who had the secret. The\nTetragrammaton, the Ineffable, the Sidereal \u201cSum Total,\u201d was invented for\nno other purpose than to mislead the profane and to symbolize life and\ngeneration.(713) The real secret and _unpronounceable_ Name, the \u201cWord\nthat is no word,\u201d has to be sought in the seven names of the first Seven\nEmanations, or the \u201cSons of the Fire,\u201d in the secret Scriptures of all the\ngreat nations, and even in the _Zohar_, the Kabalistic lore of the\nsmallest of all of them, viz., the Jewish. This word, composed of seven\nletters in every tongue, is found embodied in the architectural remains of\nevery great sacred building in the world; from the Cyclopean remains on\nEaster Island\u2014part of a Continent buried under the seas nearer 4,000,000\nyears ago(714) than 20,000\u2014down to the earliest Egyptian pyramids.\n\nWe shall have to enter more fully into this subject later on, and to bring\npractical illustrations to prove the statements made in the text.\n\nFor the present it is sufficient to show, by a few instances, the truth of\nwhat has been asserted at the beginning of this work, namely, that no\nCosmogony, the world over, with the sole exception of the Christian, has\never attributed to the One Highest Cause, the Universal Deific Principle,\nthe immediate creation of our earth, or man, or anything connected with\nthese. This statement holds as well for the Hebrew or Chaldean _Kabalah_\nas it does for _Genesis_, had the latter been ever thoroughly understood\nand, what is still more important, correctly translated.(715) Everywhere\nthere is either a Logos\u2014a \u201cLight shining in Darkness,\u201d truly\u2014or the\nArchitect of the Worlds is esoterically in the plural number. The Latin\nChurch, paradoxical as ever, while applying the epithet of Creator to\nJehovah alone, adopts a whole Kyriel of names for the _working_ Forces of\nthe latter, names which betray the secret. For if the said Forces had\nnought to do with \u201cCreation\u201d so\u2010called, why call them Elohim (Alhim), a\nplural word; Divine Workmen and Energies (\u1f18\u03bd\u03ad\u03c1\u03b3\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1\u03b9), incandescent\ncelestial stones (_lapides igniti c\u0153lorum_); and especially Supporters of\nthe World (\u039a\u03bf\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03ba\u03c1\u03ac\u03c4\u03bf\u03c1\u03b5\u03c2), Governors or Rulers of the World (Rectores\nMundi), Wheels of the World (Rot\u00e6), Auphanim, Flames and Powers, Sons of\nGod (B\u2019ne Alhim), Vigilant Counsellors, etc.?\n\nIt is often asserted, and unjustly, as usual, that China, nearly as old a\ncountry as India, had no Cosmogony. It was unknown to Confucius, and the\nBuddhists extended their Cosmogony without introducing a Personal\nGod,(716) it is complained. The _Yi\u2010King_, \u201cthe very essence of ancient\nthought and the combined work of the most venerated sages,\u201d fails to show\na distinct Cosmogony. Nevertheless, one existed, and a very distinct one.\nOnly as Confucius did not admit of a future life(717) and the Chinese\nBuddhists reject the idea of _One_ Creator, accepting one Cause and its\nnumberless effects, they are misunderstood by the believers in a Personal\nGod. The \u201cGreat Extreme,\u201d as the commencement of \u201cchanges\u201d\n(transmigrations), is the shortest and, perhaps, the most suggestive of\nall Cosmogonies for those who, like the Confucianists, love virtue for its\nown sake and try to do good unselfishly without perpetually looking to\nreward and profit. The \u201cGreat Extreme\u201d of Confucius produces \u201cTwo\nFigures.\u201d These Two produce in their turn the \u201cFour Images\u201d; these again\nthe \u201cEight Symbols.\u201d It is complained that though the Confucianists see in\nthem \u201cheaven, earth and man in miniature,\u201d we can see in them anything we\nlike. No doubt, and so it is with regard to many symbols, especially those\nof the latest religions. But they who know something of Occult numerals,\nsee in these \u201cFigures\u201d the symbol, however rude, of a harmonious\nprogressive Evolution of Kosmos and its Beings, both Heavenly and\nTerrestrial. And any one who has studied the numerical evolution in the\nprimeval Cosmogony of Pythagoras\u2014a contemporary of Confucius\u2014can never\nfail to find in his Triad, Tetraktys and Decad, emerging from the One and\nsolitary Monad, the same idea. Confucius is laughed at by his Christian\nbiographer for \u201ctalking of divination,\u201d before and after this passage, and\nis represented as saying:\n\n\n    The eight symbols determine good and ill fortune, and these lead\n    to great deeds. There are no imitable images greater than heaven\n    and earth. There are no changes greater than the four seasons\n    [meaning North, South, East and West, etc.]. There are no\n    suspended images brighter than the sun and moon. In preparing\n    things for use, there is none greater than the sage. In\n    determining good and ill\u2010luck there is nothing greater than the\n    _divining straws_ and the _tortoise_.(718)\n\n\nTherefore, the \u201cdivining straws\u201d and the \u201ctortoise,\u201d the \u201csymbolic sets of\nlines,\u201d and the great sage who looks at them as they become one and two,\nand two become four, and four become eight, and the other sets \u201cthree and\nsix,\u201d are laughed to scorn, only because his wise symbols are\nmisunderstood.\n\nSo the author of the volume cited and his colleagues will no doubt scoff\nat the Stanzas given in our text, for they represent _precisely the same\nidea_. The old archaic map of Cosmogony is full of lines in the Confucian\nstyle, of concentric circles and dots. Yet all these represent the most\nabstract and philosophical conceptions of the Cosmogony of our Universe.\nAt all events it may, perhaps, answer better to the requirements and the\nscientific purposes of our age, than the cosmogonical essays of St.\nAugustine and the Venerable Bede, though these were published over a\nmillennium later than the Confucian.\n\nConfucius, one of the greatest sages of the ancient world, believed in\nancient magic, and practised it himself, \u201cif we take for granted the\nstatements of _Ki\u00e0\u2010y\u00fc_\u201d and \u201che praised it to the skies in the _Yi\u2010king_,\u201d\nwe are told by his reverend critic. Nevertheless, even in his age, 600\nB.C., Confucius and his school taught the sphericity of the earth and even\nthe heliocentric system; while, at about thrice 600 years after the\nChinese philosopher, the Popes of Rome threatened and even burnt\n\u201cheretics\u201d for asserting the same. He is laughed at for speaking of the\n\u201cSacred Tortoise.\u201d No unprejudiced person can see any great difference\nbetween a Tortoise and a Lamb as candidates for sacredness, as both are\nsymbols and no more. The Ox, the Eagle,(719) and the Lion, and\noccasionally the Dove are the \u201csacred animals\u201d of the Western _Bible_; the\nfirst three are found grouped round the Evangelists; the fourth,\nassociated with these, a human face, is a Seraph, _i.e._, a \u201cfiery\nserpent,\u201d the Gnostic Agathod\u00e6mon probably.\n\nThe choice is curious, and shows how paradoxical were the first Christians\nin their selections. For why should they have chosen these symbols of\nEgyptian Paganism, when the Eagle is never mentioned in the _New\nTestament_ save once, when Jesus refers to it as a _carrion_ eater,(720)\nand in the _Old Testament_ it is called _unclean_; when the Lion is made a\npoint of comparison with Satan, both roaring for men to devour; and the\nOxen are driven out of the Temple? On the other hand the Serpent, brought\nin as an exemplar of wisdom, is now regarded as the symbol of the Devil.\nThe esoteric pearl of Christ\u2019s religion, degraded into Christian theology,\nmay indeed be said to have chosen a strange and unfitting _shell_ to be\nborn in and evolved from.\n\nAs explained, the Sacred Animals and the Flames or Sparks, within the Holy\nFour, refer to the Prototypes of all that is found in the Universe in the\nDivine Thought, in the Root, which is the Perfect Cube, or the Foundation\nof the Kosmos, collectively and individually. They have all an occult\nreference to primordial Cosmic Forms, and the first concretions, work, and\nevolution of Kosmos.\n\nIn the earliest Hind\u00fb exoteric Cosmogonies, it is not even the Demiurge\nwho creates. For it is said in one of the _Pur\u00e2nas_:\n\n\n    The great Architect of the World gives the first impulse to the\n    rotatory motion of our planetary system by stepping in turn over\n    each planet and body.\n\n\nIt is this action \u201cthat causes each sphere to turn around itself, and all\naround the Sun.\u201d After which action, \u201cit is the Brahm\u00e2ndika,\u201d the Solar\nand Lunar Pitris, the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, \u201cwho take charge of their respective\nspheres [earths and planets], to the end of the Kalpa.\u201d The Creators are\nthe Rishis, most of whom are credited with the authorship of the Mantras,\nor Hymns, of the _Rig Veda_. They are sometimes _seven_, sometimes _ten_,\nwhen they become Praj\u00e2pati, the Lord of Beings; then they rebecome the\n_seven_ and the _fourteen_ Manus, as the representatives of the seven and\nfourteen Cycles of Existence, or Days of Brahm\u00e2, thus answering to the\nseven \u00c6ons, when, at the end of the first stage of Evolution, they are\ntransformed into the seven stellar Rishis, the Saptarshis; while their\n_human_ Doubles appear as Heroes, Kings and Sages on this earth.\n\nThe Esoteric Doctrine of the East having thus furnished and struck the\nkey\u2010note, which, under its allegorical garb, is, as may be seen, as\nscientific as it is philosophical and poetical, every nation has followed\nits lead. It is from the exoteric religions that we have to dig out the\nroot\u2010idea before we turn to esoteric truths, lest the latter should be\nrejected. Furthermore, every symbol, in _every_ national religion, may be\nread esoterically; and the proof of its being correctly read when\ntransliterated into its corresponding numerals and geometrical forms, may\nbe obtained from the extraordinary agreement of all glyphs and symbols,\nhowever much they may externally vary among themselves. For in the origin\nthose symbols were all identical. Take, for instance, the opening\nsentences in various Cosmogonies; in every case it is a Circle, an Egg, or\na Head. Darkness is always associated with this first symbol and surrounds\nit, as is shown in the Hind\u00fb, the Egyptian, the Chaldeo\u2010Hebrew and even\nthe Scandinavian systems. Hence black ravens, black doves, black waters\nand even black flames; the seventh tongue of Agni, the Fire\u2010God being\ncalled K\u00e2l\u00ee, the \u201cBlack,\u201d since it was a black flickering flame. Two\n\u201cblack\u201d doves flew from Egypt and, settling on the oaks of Dodona, gave\ntheir names to the Grecian Gods. Noah sends out a \u201cblack\u201d raven after the\nDeluge, which is a symbol for the Cosmic Pralaya, after which began the\nreal creation or evolution of our Earth and Humanity. Odin\u2019s \u201cblack\u201d\nravens fluttered round the Goddess Saga and \u201cwhispered to her of the past\nand of the future.\u201d Now what is the inner meaning of all those black\nbirds? It is that they are all connected with the primeval Wisdom, which\nflows out of the pre\u2010cosmic Source of All, symbolized by the Head, the\nCircle or the Egg; and they all have an identical meaning and relate to\nthe primordial Archetypal Man, Adam Kadmon, the Creative Origin of all\nthings, which is composed of the Host of Cosmic Powers\u2014the Creative Dhy\u00e2n\nChohans, beyond which all is Darkness.\n\nLet us enquire of the wisdom of the Kabalah, even veiled and distorted as\nit now is, to explain in its numerical language an approximate meaning, at\nleast of the word \u201craven.\u201d This is its number value as given in the\n_Source of Measures_:\n\n\n    The term Raven is used but once, and taken as Eth\u2010h\u2019 orebv\n    \u05d0\u05ea\u05be\u05d4\u05e2\u05e8\u05d1=678, or 113 \u00d7 6; while the Dove is mentioned five times.\n    Its value is 71, and 71 \u00d7 5=355. Six diameters, or the Raven,\n    crossing, would divide the circumference of a circle of 355 into\n    12 parts or compartments; and 355 subdivided for each unit by 6,\n    would equal 213\u20100, or the Head [\u201cbeginning\u201d] in the first verse of\n    _Genesis_. This divided, or subdivided, after the same fashion, by\n    2, or the 355 by 12, would give 213\u20102, or the word B\u2019r\u00e2sh, \u05d1\u05be\u05e8\u05d0\u05e9,\n    or the first word of _Genesis_, with its prepositional prefix,\n    signifying the same concreted general form, astronomically, with\n    the one here intended.\n\n\nNow the secret reading of the first verse in _Genesis_ being: \u201cIn R\u00e2sh\n(B\u2019r\u00e2sh) or Head, developed Gods, the Heavens and the Earth\u201d\u2014it is easy to\ncomprehend the esoteric meaning of the Raven, once that the like meaning\nof the Flood, or Noah\u2019s Deluge, is ascertained. Whatever the many other\nmeanings of this emblematical allegory may be, its _chief_ meaning is that\nof a new Cycle and a new Round\u2014our Fourth Round.(721) The Raven, or the\nEth\u2010h\u2019 orebv, yields the same numerical value as the Head, and returned\nnot to the Ark, while the Dove returned, carrying the olive\u2010branch; when\nNoah, the new man of the new Race\u2014whose prototype is Vaivasvata Manu,\nprepared to leave the Ark, the Womb, or Argha, of terrestrial Nature, he\nis the symbol of the purely spiritual, sexless and androgyne man of the\nfirst three Races, who vanished from Earth for ever. Numerically, in the\n_Kabalah_, Jehovah, Adam, Noah, are one. At best, then, it is Deity\ndescending on Ararat and later, on Sinai, to incarnate henceforth in man,\nhis _image_, through the natural process, the mother\u2019s womb, whose symbols\nare the Ark, the Mount (Sinai), etc., in _Genesis_. The Jewish allegory is\nastronomical and physiological, rather than anthropomorphic.\n\nAnd here lies the abyss between the \u00c2ryan and Semitic systems, though both\nare built on the same foundation. As shown by an expounder of the\n_Kabalah_:\n\n\n    The basic idea underlying the philosophy of the Hebrews was that\n    God contained all things within himself and that man was _his\n    image_; man, including woman [as androgynes; and that] geometry\n    (and numbers and measures applicable to astronomy) are contained\n    in the terms _man_ and _woman_; and the apparent incongruity of\n    such a mode was eliminated by showing the connection of man and\n    woman with a particular system of numbers and measures and\n    geometry, by the parturient time\u2010periods, which furnished the\n    connecting link between the terms used and the facts shown, and\n    perfected the mode used.(722)\n\n\nIt is argued that, the primal cause being absolutely incognizable, \u201cthe\nsymbol of its first _comprehensible manifestation_ was the conception of a\ncircle with its diameter line, so as at once to carry the idea of\ngeometry, phallicism, and astronomy\u201d; and this was finally applied to the\n\u201csignification of simply human generative organs.\u201d Hence the whole cycle\nof events from Adam and the Patriarchs down to Noah is made to apply to\nphallic and astronomical uses, the one regulating the other, as the lunar\nperiods, for instance. Hence, too, the _Genesis_ of the Hebrews begins\nafter their coming out of the Ark, and the end of the Flood, _i.e._, at\nthe Fourth Race. With the Aryan people it is different.\n\nEastern Esotericism has never degraded the One Infinite Deity, the\nContainer of all things, to such uses; and this is shown by the absence of\nBrahm\u00e2 from the _Rig Veda_ and the modest positions occupied therein by\nRudra and Vishnu, who became the powerful and great Gods, the \u201cInfinites\u201d\nof the exoteric creeds, ages later. But even they, \u201cCreators\u201d as they all\nthree maybe, are not the direct \u201cCreators\u201d and \u201cforefathers of men.\u201d The\nlatter are shown occupying a still lower scale, and are called the\nPraj\u00e2patis, the Pitris, our Lunar Ancestors, etc., but never the One\nInfinite God. Esoteric Philosophy shows only _physical_ man as created in\nthe _image_ of the Deity; which Deity, however, is only the \u201c_minor\nGods_.\u201d It is the HIGHER\u2010SELF, the real EGO, who alone is divine and GOD.\n\n\n\n\nSection XIII. The Seven Creations.\n\n\n    There was neither day nor night, nor sky nor earth, nor darkness\n    nor light, nor any other thing save only One, unapprehensive by\n    intellect, or That which is Brahma and Pums (Spirit) and Pradh\u00e2na\n    ([crude] Matter).(723)\n\n    VISHNU PUR\u00c2NA (I. ii.)\n\n\nIn _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, Par\u00e2shara says to Maitreya, his pupil:\n\n\n    I have thus explained to you, excellent Muni, six creations ...\n    the creation of the Arv\u00e2ksrotas beings was the seventh, and was\n    that of man.(724)\n\n\nThen he proceeds to speak of two additional and very mysterious creations,\nvariously interpreted by the commentators.\n\nOrigen, commenting upon the books written by Celsus, his Gnostic\nopponent\u2014books which were all destroyed by the prudent Church\nFathers\u2014evidently answers the objections of his contradictor and reveals\nhis system at the same time. This was clearly _septenary_. But the\ntheogony of Celsus, the genesis of the stars or planets, and of sound and\ncolour, found as an answer satire, and no more. Celsus, you see, \u201cdesiring\nto exhibit his learning,\u201d speaks of a ladder of creation with _seven\ngates_, and on the top of it the eighth, ever closed. The mysteries of the\nPersian Mithras are explained and \u201cmusical reasons, moreover, are added.\u201d\nAnd to these again he strives \u201cto add a second explanation connected also\nwith musical considerations,\u201d(725) that is to say with the seven notes of\nthe scale, the seven Spirits of the Stars, etc.\n\nValentinus expatiates upon the power of the great Seven, who were summoned\nto bring forth this universe after Ar(r)hetos, or the Ineffable, whose\nname is composed of seven letters, had represented the first Hebdomad. The\nname Ar(r)hetos indicates the sevenfold nature of the One, the Logos. \u201cThe\nGoddess Rhea,\u201d says Proclus, \u201cis a Monad, Duad, and Heptad,\u201d comprehending\nin herself all the Titanid\u00e6, \u201cwho are seven.\u201d(726)\n\nThe Seven Creations are found in almost every _Pur\u00e2na_. They are all\npreceded by what Wilson translates as the \u201cIndiscrete Principle,\u201d Absolute\nSpirit, independent of any relation with objects of sense.\n\nThey are: (1) Mahattattva, the Universal Soul, Infinite Intellect, or\nDivine Mind; (2) Tanm\u00e2tras, Bh\u00fbta or Bh\u00fbtasarga, Elemental Creation the\nfirst differentiation of Universal Indiscrete Substance; (3) Indriya or\nAindriyaka, Organic Evolution. \u201cThese three were the Pr\u00e2krita Creations,\nthe _developments of indiscrete nature_, preceded by the Indiscrete\nPrinciple\u201d; (4) Mukhya, \u201cthe Fundamental Creation (of perceptible things)\nwas that of inanimate bodies\u201d;(727) (5) Tairyagyonya or Tiryaksrotas, was\nthat of animals; (6) \u00dbrdhvasrotas, or that of divinities(?);(728) (7)\nArv\u00e2ksrotas, was that of man.(729)\n\nThis is the order given in the _exoteric_ texts. According to esoteric\nteaching there are seven Primary, and seven Secondary \u201cCreations\u201d; the\nformer being the Forces _self\u2010evolving_ from the one _causeless_ FORCE;\nthe latter showing the manifested Universe emanating from the already\ndifferentiated _divine_ Elements.\n\nEsoterically, as well as exoterically, all the above enumerated Creations\nstand for the seven periods of Evolution, whether after an Age or a Day of\nBrahm\u00e2. This is the teaching _par excellence_ of Occult Philosophy, which,\nhowever, never uses the term \u201ccreation,\u201d nor even that of evolution, with\nregard to _Primary_ \u201cCreation\u201d; but calls all such Forces the \u201c_aspects_\nof the Causeless Force.\u201d In the _Bible_, the seven periods are dwarfed\ninto the six Days of Creation and the seventh Day of Rest, and the\nWesterns adhere to the letter. In the Hind\u00fb Philosophy, when the active\nCreator has produced the World of Gods, the _Germs_ of all the\nundifferentiated Elements, and the Rudiments of future Senses\u2014the World of\nNoumena, in short\u2014the Universe remains unaltered for a Day of Brahm\u00e2, a\nperiod of 4,320,000,000 years. This is the _seventh_ passive Period, or\nthe \u201cSabbath\u201d of Eastern Philosophy, following six periods of active\nevolution. In the _Shatapatha Br\u00e2hmana_, Brahma (neuter), the Absolute\nCause of all Causes, _radiates_ the Gods. Having radiated the Gods,\nthrough its inherent nature, the work is interrupted. In the First Book of\n_Manu_ it is said:\n\n\n    At the expiration of each Night (Pralaya), Brahma, having been\n    asleep, awakes, and, _through the sole energy of the motion_,\n    causes to emanate from _itself_ the Spirit [or mind], which in its\n    essence is, and yet is not.\n\n\nIn the _Sepher Yetzirah_, the Kabalistic \u201cBook of Creation,\u201d the author\nhas evidently re\u00ebchoed the words of Manu. In it the Divine Substance is\nrepresented as having alone existed from the eternity, boundless and\nabsolute; and as having emitted from itself the Spirit.\n\n\n    One is the Spirit of the living God, blessed be his Name, who\n    liveth for ever! Voice, Spirit, and Word, this is the Holy\n    Spirit.(730)\n\n\nAnd this is the Kabalistic abstract Trinity, so unceremoniously\nanthropomorphized by the Fathers. From this triple One emanated the whole\nKosmos. First from One emanated number Two, or Air, the creative element;\nand then number Three, Water, proceeded from the Air; Ether or Fire\ncompletes the mystic Four, the Arba\u2010il. In the Eastern doctrine, Fire is\nthe first Element\u2014Ether, synthesizing the whole, since it contains all of\nthem.\n\nIn the _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, the whole seven periods are given; and the\nprogressive Evolution of the \u201cSpirit\u2010Soul,\u201d and of the seven Forms of\nMatter, or Principles, is shown. It is impossible to enumerate them in\nthis work. The reader is asked to peruse one of the _Pur\u00e2nas_.\n\n\n    R. Yehudah began, it is written: \u201cElohim said: Let there be a\n    firmament, in the midst of waters.\u201d Come, see! At the time that\n    the Holy ... created the world, He [they] created 7 heavens Above.\n    He created 7 earths Below, 7 seas, 7 days, 7 rivers, 7 weeks, 7\n    years, 7 times, and 7,000 years that the world has been, ... the\n    seventh of all (the millennium).... So here are 7 earths Below,\n    they are all inhabited except those which are above, and those\n    which are below. And ... between each earth, a heaven (firmament)\n    is spread out between each other.... And there are in them [these\n    earths] creatures who look different one from the other; ... but\n    if you object and say that all the children of the world came out\n    from Adam, it is not so.... And the lower earths, where do they\n    come from? They are from _the chain of the earth_, and from the\n    Heaven above.(731)\n\n\nIren\u00e6us also is our witness\u2014and a very unwilling one\u2014that the Gnostics\ntaught the same system, veiling very carefully the true esoteric meaning.\nThis \u201cveiling,\u201d however, is identical with that of the _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_ and\nothers. Thus Iren\u00e6us writes of the Marcosians:\n\n\n    They maintain that first of all the four elements, fire, water,\n    earth and air, were produced after the image of the primary Tetrad\n    above, and that then if we add their operations, namely, heat,\n    cold, moisture and dryness, an exact likeness of the Ogdoad is\n    presented.(732)\n\n\nOnly this \u201clikeness\u201d and the Ogdoad itself is a blind, just as in the\nseven creations of the _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, to which two more are added, of\nwhich the eighth, termed Anugraha, \u201cpossesses both the qualities of\ngoodness and darkness,\u201d a S\u00e2nkhyan more than a Pur\u00e2nic idea. For Iren\u00e6us\nsays again, that:\n\n\n    They [the Gnostics] had a like eighth creation which was good and\n    bad, divine and human. They affirm that man was formed on the\n    _eighth day_. Sometimes they affirm that he was made on the\n    _sixth_ day, and at others on the eighth; unless, perchance, they\n    mean that his earthly part was formed on the sixth day and his\n    fleshly part [?] on the eighth day; these two being distinguished\n    by them.(733)\n\n\nThey were so \u201cdistinguished,\u201d but not as Iren\u00e6us gives it. The Gnostics\nhad a superior, and an inferior Hebdomad in Heaven; and a third\nterrestrial Hebdomad, on the plane of matter. Ia\u00f4, the Mystery God and the\nRegent of the Moon, as given in Origen\u2019s Chart, was the chief of these\nsuperior \u201cSeven Heavens,\u201d(734) hence identical with the chief of the Lunar\nPitris, that name being given by them to the Lunar Dhy\u00e2n Chohans. \u201cThey\naffirm that these seven heavens are intelligent, and _speak of them as\nbeing angels_,\u201d writes the same Iren\u00e6us; and adds that on this account\nthey termed Ia\u00f4 Hebdomas, while his mother was called Ogdoas, because, as\nhe explains, \u201cshe preserved the number of _the first begotten and primary\nOgdoad of the Pler\u00f4ma_.\u201d(735)\n\nThis \u201cfirst begotten Ogdoad\u201d was in Theogony the Second Logos, the\nManifested, because it was born of the Seven\u2010fold First Logos, hence it is\nthe eighth on this manifested plane; and in Astrolatry, it was the Sun,\nM\u00e2rtt\u00e2nda, the eighth Son of Aditi, whom she rejects while preserving her\nSeven Sons, _the planets_. For the Ancients have never regarded the Sun as\na planet, but as _a central and fixed Star_. This, then, is the second\nHebdomad born of the Seven\u2010rayed One, Agni, the Sun and what not, only not\nthe seven planets, which are S\u00fbrya\u2019s _Brothers_, not his _Sons_. With the\nGnostics, these Astral Gods were the Sons of Ialdabaoth(736) (from _ilda_,\nchild, and _baoth_ egg), the Son of Sophia Acham\u00f4th, the daughter of\nSophia or Wisdom, whose region is the Pler\u00f4ma. Ialdabaoth produces from\nhimself these six stellar Spirits: Ia\u00f4 (Jehovah), Saba\u00f4th, Adoneus,\nElo\u00e6us, Oreus, Astaph\u00e6us,(737) and it is they who are the second, or\ninferior Hebdomad. As to the third, it is composed of the seven primeval\nmen, the shadows of the Lunar Gods, projected by the first Hebdomad. In\nthis the Gnostics did not, as seen, differ much from the Esoteric\nDoctrine, except that they veiled it. As to the charge made by Iren\u00e6us,\nwho was evidently ignorant of the true tenets of the \u201cHeretics,\u201d with\nregard to man being created on the _sixth_ day, and man being created on\nthe _eighth_, this relates to the mysteries of the _inner_ man. It will\nbecome comprehensible to the reader only after he has read Volume II, and\nunderstood well the Anthropogenesis of the Esoteric Doctrine.\n\nIaldabaoth is a copy of Manu, who boasts:\n\n\n    O best of twice\u2010born men! Know that I (Manu) am he, the creator of\n    all this world, whom that male Vir\u00e2j ... spontaneously\n    produced.(738)\n\n\nHe first creates the ten Lords of Being, the Praj\u00e2patis, who, as verse 36\ntells us, \u201cproduce seven other Manus.\u201d Ialdabaoth boasts likewise: \u201cI am\nFather and God, and there is no one above me,\u201d he exclaims. For which his\nMother coolly puts him down by saying: \u201cDo not lie, Ialdabaoth, for the\nFather of all, the _First_ Man (Anthr\u00f4pos) is above thee, and so is\nAnthr\u00f4pos, the Son of Anthr\u00f4pos.\u201d(739) This is a good proof that there\nwere three Logoi\u2014besides the Seven born of the First\u2014one of these being\nthe Solar Logos. And, again, who was that Anthr\u00f4pos himself, so much\nhigher than Ialdabaoth? The Gnostic records alone can solve this riddle.\nIn _Pistis\u2010Sophia_ the four\u2010vowelled name Ieou is generally accompanied by\nthe epithet of \u201cthe Primal, or First Man.\u201d This shows again that the\nGn\u00f4sis was but an echo of our Archaic Doctrine. The names answering to\nParabrahman, to Brahm\u00e2, and Manu, the first _thinking_ Man, are composed\nof one\u2010vowelled, three\u2010vowelled and seven\u2010vowelled sounds. Marcus, whose\nphilosophy was certainly more Pythagorean than anything else, speaks of a\nrevelation to him of the seven Heavens sounding each one vowel, as they\npronounced the seven names of the seven Angelic Hierarchies.\n\nWhen Spirit has permeated every minutest atom of the Seven Principles of\nKosmos, then the _Secondary_ Creation, after the above\u2010mentioned period of\nrest, begins.\n\n\u201cThe Creators [Elohim] outline in the _second_ \u2018Hour\u2019 the shape of man,\u201d\nsays Rabbi Simeon in _The Nuchthemeron of the Hebrews_. \u201cThere are twelve\nhours in the day,\u201d says the _Mishna_, \u201cand it is during these that\ncreation is accomplished.\u201d The \u201ctwelve hours of the day\u201d are again the\ndwarfed copy, the faint, yet faithful, echo of primitive Wisdom. They are\nlike the 12,000 Divine Years of the Gods, a cyclic blind. Every Day of\nBrahm\u00e2 has 14 Manus, which the Hebrew Kabalists, following, however, in\nthis the Chaldeans, have disguised into 12 \u201cHours.\u201d(740) The\n_Nuchthemeron_ of Apollonius of Tyana is the same thing. \u201cThe Dodecahedron\nlies concealed in the perfect Cube,\u201d say the Kabalists. The mystic meaning\nof this is, that the twelve great transformations of Spirit into\nMatter\u2014the 12,000 Divine Years\u2014take place during the four great Ages, or\nthe first Mah\u00e2yuga. Beginning with the metaphysical and the supra\u2010human,\nit ends in the physical and purely human natures of Kosmos and Man.\nEastern Philosophy can give the number of mortal years that run along the\nline of spiritual and physical evolutions of the seen and the unseen, if\nWestern Science fails to do so.\n\nPrimary Creation is called the Creation of Light (Spirit); and the\nSecondary, that of Darkness (Matter).(741) Both are found in\n_Genesis_.(742) The first is the emanation of self\u2010born Gods (Elohim); the\nsecond of physical Nature.\n\nThis is why it is said in the _Zohar_:\n\n\n    Oh, companions, companions, man as emanation was both man and\n    woman; as well on the side of the Father as on the side of the\n    Mother. And this is the sense of the words: And Elohim spake: \u201cLet\n    there be Light and it was Light!\u201d ... And this is the \u201ctwo\u2010fold\n    Man\u201d!\n\n\nLight, however, on our plane, is Darkness in the higher spheres.\n\n\u201cMan and woman ... on the side of the FATHER\u201d (Spirit) refers to Primary\nCreation; and on the side of the Mother (Matter), to the Secondary. The\ntwo\u2010fold Man is Adam Kadmon, the male and female abstract prototype and\nthe differentiated Elohim. Man proceeds from the Dhy\u00e2n Chohan, and is a\n\u201cFallen Angel,\u201d a God in exile, as will be shown.\n\nIn India these creations were described as follows:(743)\n\n(I) _The First Creation_: Mahattattva Creation, so\u2010called because it was\nthe primordial self\u2010evolution of that which had to become Mahat, the\n\u201cDivine Mind, conscious and intelligent\u201d; esoterically, the \u201cSpirit of the\nUniversal Soul.\u201d\n\n\n    Worthiest of ascetics, through its potency (_the potency of that\n    cause_), every _produced_ cause comes by its proper nature.\n\n\nAnd again:\n\n\n    Seeing that the potencies of all beings are understood _only_\n    through the knowledge of That (Brahma), which is beyond reasoning,\n    creation, and the like, such potencies are referable to Brahma.\n\n\nTHAT, then precedes the manifestation. \u201cThe first was Mahat,\u201d says _Linga\nPur\u00e2na_; for the One (the That) is neither _first_ nor _last_, but _all_.\nExoterically, however, this manifestation is the _work_ of the \u201cSupreme\nOne\u201d\u2014a natural _effect_, rather, of an Eternal Cause; or, as the\nCommentator says, it might have been understood to mean that Brahm\u00e2 was\nthen _created_ (?), being identified with Mahat, active intelligence, or\nthe operating will of the Supreme. Esoteric Philosophy renders it the\n\u201coperating _Law_.\u201d\n\nIt is on the right comprehension of this tenet in the _Br\u00e2hmanas_ and\n_Pur\u00e2nas_ that hangs, we believe, the apple of discord between the three\nVed\u00e2ntin Sects: the Advaita, Dvaita, and the Vishishth\u00e2dvaita. The first\nargues rightly that Parabrahman, having no relation, as the absolute ALL,\nto the manifested World, the Infinite having no connection with the\nFinite, can neither _will_ nor _create_; that, therefore, Brahm\u00e2, Mahat,\n\u00ceshvara, or whatever name the Creative Power may be known by, Creative\nGods and all, are simply an illusive aspect of Parabrahman in the\nconception of the conceivers; while the other sects identify the\nImpersonal Cause with the Creator, or \u00ceshvara.\n\nMahat, or Mah\u00e2\u2010Buddhi, is, with the Vaishnavas, however, Divine Mind, _in\nactive operation_, or, as Anaxagoras has it, \u201can ordering and disposing\nMind, which was the cause of all things\u201d\u2014\u039d\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2 \u1f41 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b1\u03ba\u03bf\u03c3\u03bc\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c4\u03b5 \u03ba\u03b1\u1f76 \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd\n\u1f00\u03af\u03c4\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2.\n\nWilson saw at a glance the suggestive connection between Mahat and the\nPh\u0153nician M\u00f4t, or Mut, who was female with the Egyptians, the Goddess\nMoot, the Mother, \u201cwhich, like Mahat,\u201d he says, \u201cwas the first product of\nthe mixture(?) of Spirit and Matter, and the first rudiment of Creation.\u201d\n\u201cEx connexione autem ejus Spiritus prodidit M\u00f4t.... Hinc ... seminium\nomnis creatur\u00e6 et omnium rerum creatio,\u201d says Brucker,(744) giving it a\nstill more materialistic and anthropomorphic colouring.\n\nNevertheless, the esoteric sense of the doctrine is seen, through every\nexoteric sentence, on the very face of the old Sanskrit texts that treat\nof primordial Creation.\n\n\n    The Supreme Soul, the _All\u2010permeant_ (Sarvaga) Substance of the\n    World, having entered [been drawn] into Matter [Prakriti] and\n    Spirit [Purusha], _agitated_ the _mutable and the immutable\n    principles_, the season of Creation [Manvantara] being arrived.\n\n\nThe Nous of the Greeks, which is (spiritual or divine) Mind, or Mens,\nMahat, operates upon Matter in the same way; it \u201centers into\u201d and\n\u201c_agitates_\u201d it:\n\n\n    Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus,\n    Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.\n\n\nIn the Ph\u0153nician Cosmogony also, \u201cSpirit mixing with its own principles\ngives rise to creation\u201d;(745) the Orphic Triad shows an identical\ndoctrine; for there Phanes, or Er\u00f4s, Chaos, containing crude\n_undifferentiated_ Cosmic Matter, and Chronos, Time, are the three co\u2010\noperating principles, emanating from the Concealed and Unknowable Point,\nwhich produce the work of \u201cCreation.\u201d And they are the Hind\u00fb Purusha\n(Phanes), Pradh\u00e2na (Chaos) and K\u00e2la (Chronos). The good Professor Wilson\ndoes not like the idea, as no Christian clergyman, however liberal, would.\nHe remarks that: \u201cthe _mixture_ [of the Supreme Spirit or Soul with its\nown principles] _is not mechanical_; it is _an influence or effect exerted\nupon intermediate agents_ which produce effects.\u201d The sentence in _Vishnu\nPur\u00e2na_, \u201cas fragrance affects the mind from its proximity merely, _and\nnot from any immediate operation upon mind itself_, so the Supreme\ninfluenced the elements of creation,\u201d the reverend and erudite Sanskritist\ncorrectly explains by: \u201cas perfumes do not delight the mind by actual\ncontact, but by the impression they make upon the sense of smelling, which\ncommunicates it to the mind\u201d; adding, \u201cthe entrance of the Supreme ...\ninto Spirit, as well as Matter, _is less intelligible_ than the view\nelsewhere taken of it, as the _infusion_ of Spirit, identified with the\nSupreme, into Prakriti or Matter alone.\u201d He prefers the verse in _P\u00e2dma\nPur\u00e2na_: \u201cHe who is called the _male_ (spirit) of Prakriti ... that same\ndivine Vishnu entered into Prakriti.\u201d This view is certainly more akin to\nthe plastic character of certain verses in the _Bible_ concerning the\nPatriarchs, such as Lot and even Adam,(746) and others of a still more\nanthropomorphic nature. But it is just that which led Humanity to\n_Phallicism_; the Christian religion being honeycombed with it, from the\nfirst chapter of _Genesis_ down to the _Revelation_.\n\nThe Esoteric Doctrine teaches that the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans are the collective\naggregate of Divine Intelligence or Primordial Mind, and that the first\nManus, the seven \u201cmind\u2010born\u201d Spiritual Intelligences, are identical with\nthe former. Hence the Kwan\u2010Shi\u2010Yin, the \u201c_Golden Dragon in whom are the\nSeven_,\u201d of Stanza III, is the Primordial Logos, or Brahm\u00e2, the first\nmanifested Creative Power; and the Dhy\u00e2nic Energies are the Manus, or Manu\nSv\u00e2yambhuva _collectively_. The direct connection, moreover, between the\nManus and Mahat is easy to see. Manu is from the root _man_, to think; and\nthinking proceeds from the mind. It is, in Cosmogony, the Pre\u2010nebular\nPeriod.\n\n(II) _The Second Creation_, Bh\u00fbta, was of the Rudimental Principles or\nTanm\u00e2tras; thence termed the Elemental Creation or Bh\u00fbtasarga. It is the\nperiod of the first breath of the differentiation of the Pre\u2010cosmic\nElements, or Matter. Bh\u00fbt\u00e2di means the \u201corigin of the Elements,\u201d and\nprecedes Bh\u00fbtasarga, the \u201ccreation,\u201d or differentiation, of those Elements\nin Primordial \u00c2k\u00e2sha, Chaos or Vacuity.(747) In the _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_ it is\nsaid to proceed along, and belong to, the triple aspect of Ahank\u00e2ra,\ntranslated Egotism, but meaning rather that untranslatable term \u201cI\u2010am\u2010\nness,\u201d that which first issues from Mahat, or Divine Mind; the first\nshadowy outline of Self\u2010hood, for \u201cpure\u201d Ahank\u00e2ra becomes \u201cpassionate\u201d and\nfinally \u201crudimental\u201d or initial: it is \u201cthe origin of conscious as of all\n_unconscious_ being,\u201d though the Esoteric school rejects the idea of\nanything being \u201cunconscious,\u201d save on our plane of illusion and ignorance.\nAt this stage of the Second Creation, the Second Hierarchy of the Manus\nappear, the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans or Devas, who are the origin of Form (R\u00fbpa), the\nChitrashikhandinas, \u201cBright\u2010crested,\u201d or Rikshas; those Rishis who have\nbecome the informing Souls of the Seven Stars (of the Great Bear).(748) In\nastronomical and cosmogonical language, this Creation relates to the Fire\u2010\nMist Period, the first stage of Cosmic Life, after its Chaotic state,(749)\nwhen Atoms issue from Laya.\n\n(III) _The Third Creation_: the Third or Indriya Creation was the modified\nform of Ahank\u00e2ra, the conception of \u201cI\u201d (from Aham, \u201cI\u201d), termed the\nOrganic Creation, or Creation of the Senses, Aindriyaka. \u201cThese three were\nthe Pr\u00e2krita Creation, the [discrete] developments of indiscrete nature\npreceded by the indiscrete principle.\u201d \u201cPreceded by,\u201d ought to be replaced\nhere with \u201cbeginning with Buddhi\u201d; for the latter is neither a discrete\nnor an indiscrete quantity, but partakes of the nature of both, in man as\nin Kosmos. A unit or human Monad on the plane of illusion, when once freed\nfrom the three forms of Ahank\u00e2ra and liberated from its terrestrial Manas,\nBuddhi indeed becomes a continued quantity, both in duration and\nextension, for it is eternal and immortal. Earlier it is stated, that the\nThird Creation \u201cabounding with the quality of goodness,\u201d is termed\n\u00dbrdhvasrotas; and a page or two further the \u00dbrdhvasrotas Creation is\nreferred to as \u201cthe sixth creation ... or that of the divinities.\u201d This\nshows plainly that earlier as well as later Manvantaras have been\npurposely confused, to prevent the profane from perceiving the truth. This\nis called \u201cincongruity\u201d and \u201ccontradictions\u201d by the Orientalists. \u201cThe\nthree creations beginning with Intelligence are elemental, but the six\ncreations which proceed from the series of which Intellect is the first,\nare the work of Brahm\u00e2.\u201d(750) Here \u201ccreations\u201d mean everywhere _stages of\nevolution_. Mahat, \u201cIntellect\u201d or Mind, which corresponds with Manas, the\nformer being on the cosmic, and the latter on the human plane, stands\nhere, too, lower than Buddhi or supra\u2010divine Intelligence. Therefore, when\nwe read in _Linga Pur\u00e2na_ that \u201cthe first Creation was that of Mahat,\nIntellect being the first in manifestation,\u201d we must refer that\n(specified) creation to the first evolution of our System or even our\nEarth, none of the preceding ones being discussed in the _Pur\u00e2nas_, but\nonly occasionally hinted at.\n\nThis Creation of the first Immortals, or Devasarga, is the last of the\nseries, and has a universal meaning; it refers, namely, to Evolution in\ngeneral, and not specifically to our Manvantara, which begins with the\nsame over and over again, thus showing that it refers to several distinct\nKalpas. For it is said \u201cat the close of the past [P\u00e2dma] Kalpa the divine\nBrahm\u00e2 awoke from his night of sleep and beheld the Universe void.\u201d Then\nBrahm\u00e2 is shown going once more over the \u201cSeven Creations,\u201d in the\nsecondary stage of evolution, repeating the first three on the objective\nplane.\n\n(IV) _The Fourth Creation_: the Mukhya or Primary, as it begins the series\nof four. Neither the term \u201cinanimate\u201d bodies nor \u201cimmovable things,\u201d as\ntranslated by Wilson, gives a correct idea of the Sanskrit words used.\nEsoteric Philosophy is not alone in rejecting the idea of any atom being\n\u201cinorganic,\u201d for it is found also in orthodox Hind\u00fbism. Moreover, Wilson\nhimself says: \u201cAll the Hind\u00fb systems consider vegetable bodies as endowed\nwith life.\u201d(751) Char\u00e2chara, or the synonymous sth\u00e2vara and jangama, is,\ntherefore, inaccurately rendered by \u201canimate and inanimate,\u201d \u201csentient\nbeings\u201d and \u201cunconscious,\u201d or \u201cconscious and unconscious beings,\u201d etc.\n\u201cLocomotive and fixed\u201d would be better, \u201csince trees are considered to\npossess souls.\u201d The Mukhya is the \u201ccreation,\u201d or rather organic evolution,\nof the vegetable kingdom. In this Secondary Period, the three degrees of\nthe elemental or rudimental kingdoms are evolved in this World,\ncorresponding, _inversely_ in order, to the three Pr\u00e2kritic Creations,\nduring the Primary Period of Brahm\u00e2\u2019s activity. As in that Period, in the\nwords of _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, \u201cthe first creation was that of Mahat or\nIntellect.... The second was that of the Rudimental Principles\n(Tanm\u00e2tras).... The third was ... the creation of the senses\n(Aindriyaka)\u201d; so in this one, the order of the Elemental Forces stands\nthus: (1) the _nascent_ Centres of Force, intellectual and physical; (2)\nthe Rudimentary Principles, _nerve force_, so to say; and (3) nascent\nApperception, which is the Mahat of the lower kingdoms, and is especially\ndeveloped in the third order of Elementals; these are succeeded by the\nobjective kingdom of minerals, in which this \u201capperception\u201d is entirely\nlatent, to re\u2010develop only in the plants. The Mukhya Creation, then, is\nthe middle point between the three lower and the three higher kingdoms,\nwhich represent the seven esoteric kingdoms of Kosmos, and of Earth.\n\n(V) _The Fifth Creation_: the Tiryaksrotas or Tairyagyonya Creation,(752)\nthat of the \u201c(sacred) animals,\u201d corresponding on Earth only to the dumb\nanimal creation. That which is meant by \u201canimals,\u201d in the Primary\nCreation, is the germ of awakening consciousness, or of \u201capperception,\u201d\nthat which is faintly traceable in some sensitive plants on Earth and more\ndistinctly in the protistic Monera.(753) On our Globe, during the First\nRound, animal \u201ccreation\u201d precedes that of man, while the mammalian animals\nevolve from man in our Fourth Round, on the physical plane. In the First\nRound, the animal atoms are drawn into a cohesion of human physical form;\nwhile in the Fourth, the reverse occurs according to magnetic conditions\ndeveloped during life. And this is \u201cmetempsychosis.\u201d(754) This fifth Stage\nof Evolution, called exoterically \u201cCreation,\u201d may be viewed in both the\nPrimary and Secondary Periods, one as the spiritual and cosmic, the other\nas the material and terrestrial. It is archebiosis, or life\u2010origination;\n\u201corigination,\u201d so far, of course, as the _manifestation_ of life on all\nthe seven planes is concerned. It is at this period of evolution that the\nabsolutely eternal universal motion, or vibration, that which is called in\nEsoteric language the \u201cGreat Breath,\u201d differentiates into the primordial,\nfirst manifested Atom. More and more, as chemical and physical sciences\nprogress, does this Occult axiom find its corroboration in the world of\nknowledge; the scientific hypothesis, that even the simplest elements of\nmatter are identical in their nature, and differ from each other only in\nconsequence of the various distributions of atoms in the molecule or speck\nof substance, or of the modes of its atomic vibration, gains more ground\nevery day.\n\nThus, as the differentiation of the primordial germ of life has to precede\nthe evolution of the Dhy\u00e2n Chohan of the _Third_ Group or Hierarchy of\nBeing in Primary Creation, before those Gods can become embodied in their\nfirst ethereal form (r\u00fbpa), so animal creation has for the same reason to\n_precede_ \u201cdivine man\u201d on Earth. And this is why we find in the _Pur\u00e2nas_,\n\u201cthe fifth, the Tairyagyonya Creation, was that of animals.\u201d\n\n(VI) _The Sixth Creation_: the \u00dbrdhvasrotas Creation, or that of\nDivinities. But these Divinities are simply the Prototypes of the First\nRace, the Fathers of their \u201cmind\u2010born\u201d progeny with the \u201csoft bones.\u201d It\nis these who became the Evolvers of the \u201cSweat\u2010born\u201d\u2014an expression\nexplained in Volume II.\n\n\u201cCreated beings,\u201d explains the _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, \u201calthough they are\ndestroyed [in their individual forms] at the periods of dissolution, yet\nbeing affected by the good or evil acts of _former existences_, are never\nexempted from their consequences. And when Brahm\u00e2 produces the world anew,\nthey are the progeny of his will.\u201d\n\n\u201c_Collecting his mind into itself_ [yoga\u2010willing], Brahm\u00e2 creates the four\nOrders of Beings, termed Gods, Demons, Progenitors, and Men\u201d; Progenitors\nhere meaning the Prototypes and Evolvers of the first Root\u2010Race of men.\nThe Progenitors are the Pitris, and are of Seven Classes. They are said,\nin _exoteric_ mythology, to be born of \u201cBrahm\u00e2\u2019s side,\u201d like Eve from the\nrib of Adam.\n\nFinally, the Sixth Creation is followed, and \u201cCreation\u201d in general closed\nby:\n\n(VII) _The Seventh Creation_: the evolution of the Arv\u00e2ksrotas Beings,\n\u201cwhich was ... that of man.\u201d\n\nThe \u201cEighth Creation\u201d mentioned is no Creation at all: it is a \u201cblind,\u201d\nfor it refers to a purely mental process, the cognition of the \u201cNinth\nCreation,\u201d which, in its turn, is an effect, manifesting in the Secondary,\nof that which was a \u201cCreation\u201d in the Primary (Pr\u00e2krita) Creation.(755)\nThe Eighth, then, called Anugraha, the Pratyayasarga or Intellectual\nCreation of the S\u00e2nkhyas,(756) is \u201cthe creation of which _we have a\nnotion_ [in its esoteric aspect], or to which we give intellectual assent\n(Anugraha), in contradistinction to _organic creation_.\u201d It is the correct\nperception of our relations to the whole range of \u201cGods,\u201d and especially\nof those we bear to the Kum\u00e2ras, the so\u2010called \u201cNinth Creation,\u201d which is\nin reality an aspect, or reflection, of the Sixth in our Manvantara (the\nVaivasvata). \u201cThere is a _ninth_, the Kaum\u00e2ra Creation, which is both\nprimary and secondary,\u201d says the _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, the oldest of such\ntexts.(757) As an Esoteric text explains:\n\n_The Kum\u00e2ras, are the Dhy\u00e2nis, derived immediately from the Supreme\nPrinciple, who re\u00e4ppear in the Vaivasvata Manu period, for the progress of\nmankind._(758)\n\nThe translator of the _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_ corroborates it, by remarking that\n\u201cthese sages ... live as long as Brahm\u00e2; and they are only created by him\nin the _First_ Kalpa, although their generation is very commonly, but\ninconsistently, introduced in the [_Secondary_] V\u00e2r\u00e2ha, or P\u00e2dma Kalpa.\u201d\nThus, the Kum\u00e2ras are, exoterically, \u201cthe creation of Rudra or N\u00eelalohita,\na form of Shiva, by Brahm\u00e2 ... and of certain other mind\u2010born sons of\nBrahm\u00e2.\u201d But, in the Esoteric teaching, they are the Progenitors of the\ntrue spiritual Self in the physical man, the higher Praj\u00e2patis, while the\nPitris, or lower Praj\u00e2patis, are no more than the Fathers of the model, or\ntype of his physical form, made \u201cin _their_ image.\u201d Four (and occasionally\n_five_) are mentioned freely in the exoteric texts, three of the Kum\u00e2ras\nbeing secret.\n\n\u201cThe four Kum\u00e2ras [are] the mind\u2010born Sons of Brahm\u00e2. Some specify\n_seven_.\u201d(759) All these seven Vaidh\u00e2tra, the patronymic of the Kum\u00e2ras,\nthe \u201cMaker\u2019s Sons,\u201d are mentioned and described in \u00ceshvara Krishna\u2019s\n_S\u00e2nkhya K\u00e2rik\u00e2_ with the Commentary of Gaudap\u00e2d\u00e2ch\u00e2rya (Shankar\u00e2chvrya\u2019s\nParaguru) attached to it. It discusses the nature of the Kum\u00e2ras, though\nit refrains from mentioning _by name_ all the seven Kum\u00e2ras, but calls\nthem instead the \u201cseven sons of Brahm\u00e2,\u201d which they are, as they are\ncreated by Brahm\u00e2 in Rudra. The list of names it gives us is: Sanaka,\nSanandana, San\u00e2tana, Kapila, Ribhu, and Panchashikha. But these again are\nall _aliases_.\n\nThe exoteric four are Sanatkum\u00e2ra, Sananda, Sanaka, and San\u00e2tana; and the\nesoteric three Sana, Kapila, and Sanatsuj\u00e2ta. Special attention is once\nmore drawn to this class of Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, for herein lies the mystery of\ngeneration and heredity hinted at in the Commentary on Stanza VII, in\ntreating of the Four Orders of Angelic Beings. Volume II explains their\nposition in the Divine Hierarchy. Meanwhile, let us see what the exoteric\ntexts say about them.\n\nThey say little; and to him who fails to read between the lines\u2014nothing.\n\u201cWe must have recourse, here, to other _Pur\u00e2nas_ for the elucidation of\nthis term,\u201d remarks Wilson, who does not suspect for one moment that he is\nin the presence of the \u201cAngels of Darkness,\u201d the mythical \u201cgreat enemy\u201d of\nhis Church. Therefore, he contrives to \u201celucidate\u201d no more than that\n\u201cthese [Divinities] _declining to create progeny_, [and thus rebelling\nagainst Brahm\u00e2], remained, as the name of the first [Sanatkum\u00e2ra] implies,\never boys, Kum\u00e2ras; that is, ever pure and innocent, whence their creation\nis called the Kaum\u00e2ra.\u201d The _Pur\u00e2nas_, however, may afford a little more\nlight. \u201cBeing ever as he was born, he is here called a youth; and hence\nhis name is well known as Sanatkum\u00e2ra.\u201d(760) In the _Shaiva Pur\u00e2nas_, the\nKum\u00e2ras are always described as Yogins. The _Kurma Pur\u00e2na_, after\nenumerating them, says: \u201cThese five, O Br\u00e2hmans, were Yogins, who acquired\nentire exemption from passion.\u201d They are _five_, because two of the\nKum\u00e2ras _fell_.\n\nSo untrustworthy are some translations of the Orientalists that in the\nFrench translation of the _Hari Vamsha_, it is said: \u201cThe seven Praj\u00e2pati,\nRudra, Skanda (his son) and Sanatkum\u00e2ra proceeded to create beings.\u201d\nWhereas, as Wilson shows, the original is: \u201cThese seven ... created\nprogeny; and so did Rudra, but Skanda and Sanatkum\u00e2ra, _restraining their\npower, abstained_ (from creation).\u201d The \u201cfour orders of beings\u201d are\nreferred to sometimes as Ambh\u00e2msi, which Wilson renders as \u201cliterally\nWaters\u201d and believes it \u201ca mystic term.\u201d It is one, no doubt; but he\nevidently failed to catch the _real_ Esoteric meaning. \u201cWaters\u201d and\n\u201cWater\u201d stand as the symbol for \u00c2k\u00e2sha, the \u201cPrimordial Ocean of Space,\u201d\non which N\u00e2r\u00e2yana, the self\u2010born Spirit, moves, reclining on that _which\nis its progeny_.(761) \u201cWater is the body of Nara; thus we have heard the\nname of Water explained. Since Brahm\u00e2 rests on the Water, therefore he is\ntermed N\u00e2r\u00e2yana.\u201d(762) \u201cPure, Purusha created the Waters pure.\u201d At the\nsame time Water is the _Third_ Principle in material Kosmos, and the third\nin the realm of the Spiritual: _Spirit_ of Fire, Flame, \u00c2k\u00e2sha, Ether,\nWater, Air, Earth, are the cosmic, sidereal, psychic, spiritual and mystic\nprinciples, _pre\u00ebminently occult_, on every _plane_ of being. \u201cGods,\nDemons, Pitris and Men,\u201d are the four orders of beings to whom the term\nAmbh\u00e2msi is applied, because they are all the product of _Waters_\n(mystically), of the \u00c2k\u00e2shic Ocean, and of the _Third_ principle in\nNature. In the _Vedas_ it is a synonym of Gods. Pitris and Men on Earth\nare the transformations or rebirths of Gods and Demons (Spirits) on a\nhigher plane. Water is, in another sense, the feminine principle. Venus\nAphrodite is the personified Sea, and the Mother of the God of Love, the\nGeneratrix of all the Gods, as much as the Christian Virgin Mary is Mare,\nthe Sea, the Mother of the Western God of Love, Mercy and Charity. If the\nstudent of Esoteric Philosophy thinks deeply over the subject, he is sure\nto find out all the suggestiveness of the term Ambh\u00e2msi, in its manifold\nrelations to the Virgin in Heaven, to the Celestial Virgin of the\nAlchemists, and even to the \u201cWaters of Grace\u201d of the modern Baptist.\n\nOf all the seven great divisions of Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, or Devas, there is none\nwith which humanity is more concerned than with the Kum\u00e2ras. Imprudent are\nthe Christian Theologians who have degraded them into _Fallen_ Angels, and\nnow call them Satan and Demons; as among these heavenly denizens who\n\u201crefuse to create,\u201d the Archangel Michael, the greatest patron Saint of\nthe Western and Eastern Churches, under his double name of St. Michael and\nhis supposed copy on earth, St. George conquering the Dragon, has to be\ngiven one of the most prominent places.\n\nThe Kum\u00e2ras, the Mind\u2010born Sons of Brahm\u00e2\u2010Rudra, or Shiva, mystically the\nhowling and terrific _destroyer of human passions and physical senses_,\nwhich are ever in the way of the development of the higher spiritual\nperceptions and the growth of the _inner_ eternal man, are the progeny of\nShiva, the Mah\u00e2yog\u00ee, the great patron of all the Yog\u00ees and Mystics of\nIndia.\n\nShiva\u2010Rudra is the Destroyer, as Vishnu is the Preserver; and both are the\nRegenerators of spiritual as well as of physical Nature. To live as a\nplant, the _seed_ must die. To live as a conscious entity in the Eternity,\nthe passions and senses of man must die before his body does. \u201cThat to\nlive is to die and to die is to live,\u201d has been too little understood in\nthe West. Shiva, the Destroyer, is the Creator and the Saviour of\nSpiritual Man, as he is the good gardener of Nature. He weeds out the\nplants, human and cosmic, and kills the passions of the physical, to call\nto life the perceptions of the spiritual, man.\n\nThe Kum\u00e2ras, themselves then, being the \u201cvirgin ascetics,\u201d refuse to\ncreate the _material_ being Man. Well may they be suspected of a direct\nconnection with the Christian Archangel Michael, the \u201cvirgin combatant\u201d of\nthe Dragon Apophis, whose victim is every Soul united too loosely to its\nimmortal Spirit, the Angel who, as shown by the Gnostics, _refused to\ncreate_ just as the Kum\u00e2ras did. Does not that patron Angel of the Jews\n_preside_ over Saturn (Shiva or Rudra), and the Sabbath, the day of\nSaturn? Is he not shown of the same essence with his Father (Saturn), and\ncalled the Son of Time, Cronus, or K\u00e2la, a form of Brahm\u00e2 (Vishnu and\nShiva)? And is not Old Time of the Greeks, with its scythe and sand\u2010glass,\nidentical with the Ancient of Days of the Kabalists; the latter \u201cAncient\u201d\nbeing one with the Hind\u00fb Ancient of Days, Brahm\u00e2, in his _triune_ form,\nwhose name is also Sanat, the Ancient? Every Kum\u00e2ra bears the prefix of\nSanat and Sana. And Shanaishchara is Saturn, the planet Shani, the King\nSaturn, whose Secretary in Egypt was Thot\u2010Hermes the first. They are thus\nidentified both with the planet and the God (Shiva), who are, in their\nturn, shown to be the prototypes of Saturn, who is the same as Bel, Baal,\nShiva, and Jehovah Sabbaoth, the Angel of the Face of whom is\nMikael\u2014\u05de\u05d9\u05db\u05d0\u05dc, \u201cwho [is] as God.\u201d He is the patron, and guardian Angel of\nthe Jews, as Daniel tells us; and, before the Kum\u00e2ras were degraded, by\nthose who were ignorant of their very name, into Demons and Fallen Angels,\nthe Greek Ophites, the occultly inclined predecessors and precursors of\nthe Roman Catholic Church after its secession and separation from the\nprimitive Greek Church, had identified Michael with their Ophiomorphos,\nthe rebellious and opposing spirit. This means nothing more than the\nreverse aspect, symbolically, of Ophis, the Divine Wisdom or Christos. In\nthe _Talmud_, Mikael is \u201cPrince of Water\u201d and the chief of the Seven\nSpirits, for the same reason that one of his many prototypes, Sanatsuj\u00e2ta,\nthe chief of the Kum\u00e2ras, is called Ambh\u00e2msi, \u201cWaters,\u201d according to the\ncommentary on _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_. Why? Because the Waters is another name of\nthe Great Deep, the Primordial Waters of Space, or Chaos, and also means\nMother, Amb\u00e2, meaning Aditi and Ak\u00e2sha, the Celestial Virgin\u2010Mother of the\nvisible Universe. Furthermore, the \u201cWaters of the Flood\u201d are also called\nthe \u201cGreat Dragon,\u201d or Ophis, Ophiomorphos.\n\nThe Rudras will be noticed in their septenary character of \u201cFire\u2010Spirits\u201d\nin the \u201cSymbolism\u201d attached to the Stanzas in Volume II. There we shall\nalso consider the Cross (3 + 4) under its primeval and later forms, and\nshall use for purposes of comparison the Pythagorean numbers side by side\nwith Hebrew metrology. The immense importance of the number _seven_ will\nthus become evident, as the root number of Nature. We shall examine it\nfrom the standpoint of the _Vedas_ and the Chaldean Scriptures; as it\nexisted in Egypt thousands of years B.C., and as treated in the Gnostic\nrecords; we shall show how its importance as a basic number has gained\nrecognition in Physical Science; and we shall endeavour to prove that the\nimportance attached to the number _seven_ throughout all antiquity was due\nto no fanciful imaginings of uneducated priests, but to a profound\nknowledge of Natural Law.\n\n\n\n\nSection XIV. The Four Elements.\n\n\nMetaphysically and esoterically, there is but _One Element_ in Nature, and\nat the root of it is the Deity; and the so\u2010called _seven_ Elements, of\nwhich _five_ have already manifested and asserted their existence, are the\ngarment, the veil, of that Deity, direct from the essence whereof comes\nMan, whether considered physically, psychically, mentally or spiritually.\nFour Elements only are generally spoken of in later antiquity, while five\nonly are admitted in philosophy. For the body of Ether is not fully\nmanifested yet, and its noumenon is still the \u201cOmnipotent Father \u00c6ther,\u201d\nthe synthesis of the rest. But what are these Elements, whose compound\nbodies have now been discovered by Chemistry and Physics to contain\nnumberless sub\u2010elements, even the sixty or seventy of which no longer\nembrace the whole number suspected? Let us follow their evolution from the\n_historical_ beginnings, at any rate.\n\nThe Four Elements were fully characterized by Plato when he said that they\nwere _that_ \u201cwhich _composes_ and _decomposes_ the _compound bodies_.\u201d\nHence Cosmolatry was never, even in its worst aspect, the fetichism which\nadores or worships the passive external form and matter of any object, but\nlooked ever to the Noumenon therein. Fire, Air, Water, Earth, were but the\nvisible garb, the symbols of the informing, invisible Souls or Spirits,\nthe Cosmic Gods, to whom worship was offered by the ignorant, and simple,\nbut respectful, recognition by the wiser. In their turn, the phenomenal\nsubdivisions of the noumenal Elements were informed by the Elementals, so\u2010\ncalled, the \u201cNature Spirits\u201d of lower grades.\n\nIn the Theogony of M\u00f4chus, we find Ether first, and then the Air; the two\nprinciples from which Ulom, the Intelligible (\u03bd\u03bf\u03b7\u03c4\u1f78\u03c2) God, the visible\nUniverse of Matter, is born.(763)\n\nIn the Orphic hymns, the Er\u00f4s\u2010Phanes evolves from the Spiritual Egg, which\nthe \u00c6thereal Winds impregnate, Wind being the \u201cSpirit of God,\u201d which is\nsaid to move in \u00c6ther, \u201cbrooding over the Chaos,\u201d the Divine Idea. In the\nHind\u00fb _Kathopanishad_, Purusha, the Divine Spirit, already stands before\nthe Original Matter, and from their union springs the great Soul of the\nWorld, \u201cMah\u00e2\u2010\u00c2tm\u00e2, Brahman, the Spirit of Life\u201d;(764) these latter\nappellations being again identical with the Universal Soul, or Anima\nMundi; the Astral Light of the Theurgists and Kabalists being its last and\nlowest division.\n\nThe Elements (\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c7\u03b5\u1fd6\u03b1) of Plato and Aristotle were thus the _incorporeal\nprinciples_ attached to the four great divisions of our Cosmic World, and\nit is with justice that Creuzer defines these primitive beliefs as \u201ca\n_species of magism_, a _psychic paganism_, and a _deification of\npotencies_; a _spiritualization_ which placed the believers in a close\ncommunity with these potencies.\u201d(765) So close, indeed, that the\nHierarchies of these Potencies, or Forces, have been classified on a\ngraduated scale of seven from the ponderable to the imponderable. They are\nseptenary, not as an artificial aid to facilitate their comprehension, but\nin their real _cosmic_ gradation, from their chemical, or physical, to\ntheir purely spiritual composition. Gods with the ignorant masses; Gods\nindependent and supreme; Demons with the fanatics, who, intellectual as\nthey often may be, are unable to understand the _spirit_ of the\nphilosophical sentence, _in pluribus unum_. With the Hermetic philosopher\nthey are Forces _relatively_ \u201cblind\u201d or \u201cintelligent,\u201d according to which\nof the principles in them he deals with. It required long millenniums\nbefore they found themselves finally, in our cultured age, degraded into\nsimple chemical elements.\n\nAt any rate, good Christians, and especially the Biblical Protestants,\nought to show more reverence for the Four Elements, if they would maintain\nany for Moses. For the _Bible_ manifests the consideration and mystic\nsignificance in which they were held by the Hebrew Lawgiver, on every page\nof the _Pentateuch_. The tent which contained the Holy of Holies was a\nCosmic Symbol, sacred, in one of its meanings, to the Elements, the four\ncardinal points, and Ether. Josephus shows it built in white, the colour\nof Ether. And this explains also why, in the Egyptian and the Hebrew\ntemples, according to Clemens Alexandrinus,(766) a gigantic curtain,\nsupported by five pillars, separated the _sanctum sanctorum_\u2014now\nrepresented by the altar in Christian churches\u2014wherein the priests alone\nwere permitted to enter, from the part accessible to the profane. By its\n_four_ colours this curtain symbolized the four principal Elements, and\nwith the five pillars signified the knowledge of the divine that the\n_five_ senses can enable man to acquire with the help of the _four_\nElements.\n\nIn Cory\u2019s _Ancient Fragments_, one of the \u201cChaldean Oracles\u201d expresses\nideas about the elements and Ether in language singularly like that of\n_The Unseen Universe_, written by two eminent Scientists of our day.\n\nIt states that from Ether have come all things, and to it all will return;\nthat the images of all things are indelibly impressed upon it; and that it\nis the store\u2010house of the germs, or of the remains of all visible forms,\nand even ideas. It appears as if this case strangely corroborates our\nassertion that whatever discoveries may be made in our days will be found\nto have been anticipated by many thousand years by our \u201csimple\u2010minded\nancestors.\u201d\n\nWhence came the Four Elements and the Malachim of the Hebrews? They have\nbeen made to merge, by a theological sleight of hand on the part of the\nRabbins and the later Fathers of the Church, into Jehovah, but their\norigin is identical with that of the Cosmic Gods of all other nations.\nTheir symbols, whether born on the shores of the Oxus, on the burning\nsands of Upper Egypt, or in the wild forests, weird and glacial, which\ncover the slopes and peaks of the sacred snowy mountains of Thessaly, or\nagain, in the pampas of America\u2014their symbols, we repeat, when traced to\ntheir source, are ever one and the same. Whether Egyptian or Pelasgian,\n\u00c2ryan or Semitic, the Genius Loci, the Local God, embraced in its unity\nall Nature; but not especially the four elements any more than one of\ntheir creations, such as trees, rivers, mounts or stars. The Genius Loci,\na very late afterthought of the last sub\u2010races of the Fifth Root\u2010Race,\nwhen the primitive and grandiose meaning had become nearly lost, was ever\nthe representative, in his accumulated titles, of all his colleagues. It\nwas the God of Fire, symbolized by thunder, as Jove or Agni; the God of\nWater, symbolized by the fluvial bull, or some sacred river or fountain,\nas Varuna, Neptune, etc.; the God of Air, manifesting in the hurricane and\ntempest, as V\u00e2yu and Indra; and the God or Spirit of the Earth, who\nappeared in earthquakes, like Pluto, Yama, and so many others.\n\nThese were the Cosmic Gods, ever synthesizing all in one, as found in\nevery cosmogony or mythology. Thus, the Greeks had their Dodonean Jupiter,\nwho included in himself the four Elements and the four cardinal points,\nand who was recognized, therefore, in old Rome under the pantheistic title\nof Jupiter Mundus; and who now, in modern Rome, has become the Deus\nMundus, the one Mundane God, who is made to swallow all others, in the\nlatest theology, by the arbitrary decision of his special ministers.\n\nAs Gods of Fire, Air, and Water, they were _Celestial_ Gods; as Gods of\nthe Lower Region, they were _Infernal_ Deities; the latter adjective\napplying simply to the _Earth_. They were \u201cSpirits of the Earth\u201d under\ntheir respective names of Yama, Pluto, Osiris, the \u201cLord of the Lower\nKingdom,\u201d etc., and their tellurial character sufficiently proves it. The\nAncients knew of no worse abode after death than the K\u00e2ma Loka, the Limbus\non this Earth.(767) If it is argued that the Dodonean Jupiter was\nidentified with Dis, or the Roman Pluto with the Dionysus Chthonius, the\nSubterranean, and with A\u00efdoneus, the King of the Subterranean World,\nwherein, according to Creuzer,(768) oracles were rendered, then it will\nbecome the pleasure of the Occultists to prove that both A\u00efdoneus and\nDionysus are the bases of Adona\u00ef, or Iurbo\u2010Adona\u00ef, as Jehovah is called in\nthe _Codex Nazar\u00e6us_. \u201cThou shalt not worship the Sun, who is named\nAdona\u00ef, whose name is also Kadush and El\u2010El,\u201d(769) and also \u201cLord\nBacchus.\u201d Baal\u2010Adonis of the S\u00f4ds, or Mysteries, of the pre\u2010Babylonian\nJews became the Adona\u00ef by the Massorah, the later vowelled Jehovah. Hence\nthe Roman Catholics are right. All these Jupiters are of the same family;\nbut Jehovah has to be included therein to make it complete. The Jupiter\nA\u00ebrius or Pan, the Jupiter\u2010Ammon, and the Jupiter\u2010Bel\u2010Moloch, are all\ncorrelations and one with Iurbo\u2010Adona\u00ef, because they are all one Cosmic\nNature. It is that Nature and Power which creates the specific terrestrial\nsymbol, and the physical and material fabric of the latter, which proves\nthe Energy manifesting through it as _extrinsic_.\n\nFor primitive religion was something better than simple pre\u00f6ccupation\nabout physical phenomena, as remarked by Schelling; and principles, more\nelevated than we modern Sadducees know of, \u201cwere hidden under the\ntransparent veil of such merely natural divinities as thunder, the winds,\nand rain.\u201d The Ancients knew and could distinguish the _corporeal_ from\nthe _spiritual_ Elements in the Forces of Nature.\n\nThe four\u2010fold Jupiter, as the four\u2010faced Brahm\u00e2, the a\u00ebrial, the\nfulgurant, the terrestrial, and the marine God, the lord and master of the\nfour Elements, may stand as a representative for the great Cosmic Gods of\nevery nation. Although deputing power over the fire to Heph\u00e6stus\u2010Vulcan,\nover the sea to Poseidon\u2010Neptune, and over the Earth to Pluto\u2010A\u00efdoneus,\nthe A\u00ebrial Jove was still all these; for \u00c6ther, from the first, had\npre\u00ebminence over, and was the synthesis of, all the Elements.\n\nTradition tells of a grotto, a vast cave in the deserts of Central Asia,\nwhereinto light pours, through four seemingly natural apertures, or clefts\nplaced crossways at the four cardinal points. From noon till an hour\nbefore sunset the light streams in, of four different colours, as averred,\nred, blue, orange\u2010gold, and white, owing to some either natural or\nartificially prepared conditions of vegetation and soil. The light\nconverges in the centre round a pillar of white marble with a globe upon\nit, which represents our earth. It is named the \u201cGrotto of Zarathustra.\u201d\n\nIncluded under the arts and sciences of the Fourth Race, the Atlanteans,\nthe phenomenal manifestation of the Four Elements, which were justly\nattributed by these believers to the intelligent interference of the\nCosmic Gods, assumed a scientific character. The Magic of the ancient\npriests consisted, in those days, in addressing _their Gods in their own\nlanguage_.\n\n_The speech of the men of the Earth cannot reach the Lords. Each must be\naddressed in the language of his respective Element._\n\nSo says _The Book of Rules_, in a sentence which will be shown pregnant\nwith meaning, adding as an explanation of the nature of that\n_element_\u2010language:\n\n_It is composed of_ SOUNDS, _not words; of sounds, numbers and figures. He\nwho knows how to blend the three, will call forth the response of the\nsuperintending Power_ [_the Regent\u2010God of the specific Element needed_].\n\nThus this \u201clanguage\u201d is that of _incantations_ or of _mantras_, as they\nare called in India; sound being _the most potent and effectual magic\nagent, and the first of the keys which opens the door of communication\nbetween Mortals and Immortals_. He who believes in the words and teachings\nof St. Paul, has no right to pick out from the latter those sentences only\nwhich he chooses to accept, to the rejection of others; and St. Paul\nteaches most undeniably the existence of Cosmic Gods and their presence\namong us. Paganism preached a dual and simultaneous evolution, a\n\u201ccreation\u201d _spiritualem ac mundanum_, as the Roman Church has it, ages\nbefore the advent of that Roman Church. Exoteric phraseology has changed\nlittle with respect to Divine Hierarchies since the most palmy days of\nPaganism, or \u201cIdolatry.\u201d Names alone have changed, together with claims\nwhich have now become false pretences. For when, for instance, Plato put\nin the mouth of the Highest Principle (Father \u00c6ther or Jupiter) the words,\n\u201cthe Gods of the Gods of whom I am the _maker_, as I am the father of all\ntheir works,\u201d he knew the spirit of this sentence as fully, we suspect, as\nSt. Paul did, when saying: \u201cFor though there be that are called Gods,\nwhether in Heaven or in Earth, as there be Gods many and Lords\nmany....\u201d(770) Both knew the sense and the meaning of what they put\nforward in such guarded terms.\n\nWe cannot be taken to task by the Protestants for interpreting the verse\nfrom the _Corinthians_ as we do; for, if the translation in the English\n_Bible_ is made ambiguous, it is not so in the original texts, and the\nRoman Catholic Church accepts the words of the Apostle in their true\nsense. For a proof see St. Dionysius, the Areopagite, who was \u201c_directly\ninspired_ by the Apostle,\u201d and \u201cwho wrote under his dictation,\u201d as we are\nassured by the Marquis de Mirville, whose works are approved by Rome, and\nwho says, commenting on that special verse: \u201cAnd, though there are (in\nfact) they who are called Gods, for it seems there are really _several\nGods_, withal and for all that, the _God\u2010Principle_ and the Superior God\nceases not to remain essentially _one_ and indivisible.\u201d(771) Thus spoke\nthe old Initiates also, knowing that the worship of minor Gods could never\naffect the \u201c_God Principle_.\u201d (772)\n\nSays Sir W. Grove, F.R.S., speaking of the correlation of forces:\n\n\n    The ancients when they witnessed a natural phenomenon, removed\n    from ordinary analogies, and unexplained by any mechanical action\n    known to them, referred it to a soul, a spiritual or preternatural\n    power.... Air and gases were also at first deemed spiritual, but\n    subsequently they became invested with a more material character;\n    and the same words \u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u1fe6\u03bc\u03b1, spirit, etc., were used to signify the\n    soul or a gas; the very word gas, from _geist_, a ghost or spirit,\n    affords us an instance of the gradual transmutation of a spiritual\n    into a physical conception.(773)\n\n\nThis, the great man of Science, in his preface to the sixth edition of his\nwork, considers to be the _only_ concern of exact Science, which has no\nbusiness to meddle with the _causes_.\n\n\n    Cause and effect are, therefore, in their abstract relation to\n    these forces, words solely of convenience. We are totally\n    unacquainted _with the ultimate generating power_ of each and all\n    of them, and probably shall ever remain so; we can only ascertain\n    the normal of their actions; we must humbly refer their causation\n    to one omnipresent influence, and content ourselves with studying\n    their effects and developing, by experiment, their mutual\n    relations.(774)\n\n\nThis policy once accepted, and the system virtually admitted in the above\u2010\nquoted words, namely, the _spirituality_ of the \u201cultimate generating\npower,\u201d it would be more than illogical to refuse to recognize this\nquality which is inherent in the _material elements_, or rather, in their\ncompounds, as present in the fire, air, water or earth. The Ancients knew\nthese powers so well, that, while concealing their true nature under\nvarious allegories, for the benefit, or to the detriment, of the\nuneducated rabble, they never departed from the multiple object in view,\nwhile inverting them. They contrived to throw a thick veil over the\nnucleus of truth concealed by the symbol, but they ever tried to preserve\nthe latter as a _record_ for future generations, sufficiently transparent\nto allow their wise men to discern the truth behind the fabulous form of\nthe glyph or allegory. These ancient sages are accused of _superstition_\nand _credulity_; and this too by the very nations, which, though learned\nin all the modern arts and sciences, and cultured and wise in their\ngeneration, accept to this day as their one living and infinite God, the\nanthropomorphic \u201cJehovah\u201d of the Jews!\n\nWhat were some of these alleged \u201csuperstitions\u201d? Hesiod believed, for\ninstance, that \u201cthe winds were the sons of the Giant Typh\u00f4eus,\u201d who were\nchained and unchained at will by \u00c6olus, and the polytheistic Greeks\naccepted it along with Hesiod. Why should they not, since the monotheistic\nJews had the same beliefs, with other names for their _dramatis person\u00e6_,\nand since Christians believe in the same to this day? The Hesiodic \u00c6olus,\nBoreas, etc., were named Kedem, Tzephum, Derum, and Ruach Hayum by the\n\u201cchosen people\u201d of Israel. What is, then, the fundamental difference?\nWhile the Hellenes were taught that \u00c6olus tied and untied the winds, the\nJews believed as fervently that their Lord God, _with __\u201c__smoke__\u201d__\ncoming __\u201c__out of his nostrils and fire out of his mouth, ... rode upon a\ncherub and did fly; and he was seen upon the wings of the wind__\u201d_.(775)\nThe expressions of the two nations are either both figures of speech, or\nboth _superstitions_. We think they are neither; but only arise from a\nkeen sense of oneness with Nature, and a perception of the mysterious and\nthe intelligent behind every natural phenomenon, which the moderns no\nlonger possess. Nor was it \u201csuperstitious\u201d in the Greek Pagans to listen\nto the oracle of Delphi, when, at the approach of the fleet of Xerxes,\nthat oracle advised them to \u201csacrifice to the winds,\u201d if the same has to\nbe regarded as _divine_ worship in the Israelites, who sacrificed as often\nto the wind and also especially to the fire. Do they not say that their\n\u201cGod is a consuming fire,\u201d(776) who appeared generally as fire and\n\u201cencompassed by fire\u201d? and did not Elijah seek for the \u201cLord\u201d in the\n\u201cgreat strong wind, and in the earthquake\u201d? Do not the Christians repeat\nthe same after them? Do not they, moreover, sacrifice to this day, to the\nsame \u201cGod of Wind and Water\u201d? They do; because special prayers for rain,\ndry weather, trade\u2010winds and the calming of storms on the seas, exist to\nthis hour in the prayer\u2010books of the three Christian Churches; and the\nseveral hundred sects of the Protestant religion offer them to their God\nupon every threat of calamity. The fact that they are no more answered by\nJehovah, than they were, probably, by Jupiter Pluvius, does not alter the\nfact of these prayers being addressed to the Power, or Powers, supposed to\nrule over the Elements, or of these Powers being identical in Paganism and\nChristianity; or have we to believe that such prayers are crass idolatry\nand absurd \u201csuperstition\u201d _only_ when addressed by a Pagan to his \u201cidol,\u201d\nand that the same superstition is suddenly transformed into \u201cpraiseworthy\npiety\u201d and \u201creligion\u201d whenever the name of the celestial addressee is\nchanged? But the tree _is_ known by its fruit. And the fruit of the\nChristian tree being no better than that of the tree of Paganism, why\nshould the former command more reverence than the latter?\n\nThus, when we are told by the Chevalier Drach, a converted Jew, and by the\nMarquis de Mirville, a Roman Catholic fanatic of the French aristocracy,\nthat in Hebrew \u201clightning\u201d is a synonym of \u201cfury,\u201d and is always handled\nby the \u201cevil\u201d Spirit; that Jupiter Fulgur or Fulgurans is also called by\nthe Christians Elicius, and denounced as the \u201csoul of lightning,\u201d its\nD\u00e6mon;(777) we have either to apply the same explanation and definitions\nto the \u201cLord God of Israel,\u201d under the same circumstances, or renounce our\nright of abusing the Gods and creeds of other nations.\n\nThe foregoing statements, emanating as they do from two ardent and learned\nRoman Catholics, are, to say the least, _dangerous_, in the presence of\nthe _Bible_ and its prophets. Indeed, if Jupiter, the \u201cchief D\u00e6mon of the\nPagan Greeks,\u201d hurled his deadly thunder\u2010bolts and lightnings at those who\nexcited his wrath, so did the Lord God of Abraham and Jacob. For we read\nthat:\n\n\n    The Lord thundered from heaven, and the most High uttered his\n    voice. And he sent out arrows [thunder\u2010bolts] and scattered them\n    [Saul\u2019s armies]; lightning, and discomfited them.(778)\n\n\nThe Athenians are accused of having sacrificed to Boreas; and this \u201cD\u00e6mon\u201d\nis charged with having submerged and wrecked 400 ships of the Persian\nfleet on the rocks of Mount Pelion, and of having become so furious that\nall the Magi of Xerxes could hardly counteract him by offering contra\u2010\nsacrifices to Thetis.(779) Very fortunately, no authenticated instance is\non the records of Christian wars, showing a like catastrophe on the same\nscale happening to one Christian fleet, owing to the \u201cprayers\u201d of its\nenemy\u2014another Christian nation. But this is from no fault of theirs, for\neach prays as ardently to Jehovah for the destruction of the other, as the\nAthenians prayed to Boreas. Both resorted to a neat little piece of black\nmagic _con amore_. Such abstinence from divine interference being hardly\ndue to lack of prayers, sent to a _common_ Almighty God for mutual\ndestruction, where, then, shall we draw the line between Pagan and\nChristian? And who can doubt that all Protestant England would rejoice and\noffer thanks to the Lord, if during some future war, 400 ships of the\nhostile fleet were to be wrecked owing to such holy prayers? What is,\nthen, the difference, we ask again, between a Jupiter, a Boreas, and a\nJehovah? No more than this: The crime of one\u2019s own next\u2010of\u2010kin, say of\none\u2019s father, is always excused and often exalted, whereas the crime of\nour neighbour\u2019s parent is ever gladly punished by hanging. Yet the crime\nis the same.\n\nSo far the \u201cblessings of Christianity\u201d do not seem to have made any\nappreciable advance on the morals of the converted Pagans.\n\nThe above is not a defence of Pagan Gods, nor is it an attack on the\nChristian Deity, nor does it mean belief in either. The writer is quite\nimpartial, and rejects the testimony in favour of both, neither praying\nto, believing in, nor dreading any such \u201cpersonal\u201d and anthropomorphic\nGod. The parallels are brought forward simply as one more curious\nexhibition of the illogical and blind fanaticism of the civilized\ntheologian. For, so far, there is not a very great difference between the\ntwo beliefs, and there is none in their respective effects upon\n_morality_, or spiritual nature. The \u201clight of Christ\u201d shines upon as\nhideous features of the animal man now, as the \u201clight of Lucifer\u201d did in\ndays of old. Says the missionary Lavoisier, in the _Journal des Colonies_:\n\n\n    These unfortunate heathens in their superstition regard even the\n    Elements as something that has comprehension!... They still have\n    faith in their idol V\u00e2yu\u2014the God or, rather, Demon of the Wind and\n    Air ... they firmly believe in the efficacy of their prayers, and\n    in the powers of their Br\u00e2hmans over the winds and storms.\n\n\nIn reply to this, we may quote from _Luke_: \u201cAnd he [Jesus] arose and\n_rebuked the wind and the raging of the water, and they ceased and there\nwas a calm_.\u201d(780) And here is another quotation from a Prayer Book: \u201cO\nVirgin of the Sea, blessed Mother and Lady of the Waters, stay thy waves.\u201d\nThis prayer of the Neapolitan and Proven\u00e7al sailors, is copied textually\nfrom that of the Ph\u0153nician mariners to their Virgin\u2010Goddess Astarte. The\nlogical and irrepressible conclusion arising from the parallels brought\nforward, and the denunciation of the missionary, is that the _commands_ of\nthe Br\u00e2hmans to their Element\u2010Gods _not remaining_ \u201cineffectual,\u201d the\npower of the Br\u00e2hmans is thus placed on a par with that of Jesus.\nMoreover, Astarte is shown not a whit weaker in potency than the \u201cVirgin\nof the Sea\u201d of Christian sailors. It is not enough to give a dog a bad\nname, and then hang him; the dog has to be proven guilty. Boreas and\nAstarte may be \u201cDevils\u201d in theological fancy, but, as just remarked, the\ntree has to be judged by its fruit. And once the Christians are shown to\nbe as immoral and as wicked as the Pagans ever were, what benefit has\nHumanity derived from its change of Gods and Idols?\n\nThat which God and the Christian Saints are justified in doing, becomes in\nsimple mortals a crime, if successful. Sorcery and incantations are now\nregarded as fables; yet from the Institutes of Justinian down to the laws\nof England and America against witchcraft\u2014obsolete but not repealed to\nthis day\u2014such incantations, even when only suspected, were punished as\ncriminal. Why punish a chimera? And still we read of Constantine, the\nEmperor, sentencing to death the philosopher Sopatrus for \u201cunchaining the\nwinds,\u201d and thus preventing ships laden with grain from arriving in time\nto put an end to famine. Pausanias is derided when he affirms that he saw\nwith his own eyes \u201cmen who by simple prayers and incantations\u201d stopped a\nstrong hail\u2010storm. This does not prevent modern Christian writers from\nadvising prayer during storm and danger, and believing in its efficacy.\nHoppo and Stadlein, two magicians and sorcerers, were sentenced to death\nfor \u201cthrowing charms on fruit\u201d and transferring a harvest by magic arts\nfrom one field to another, hardly a century ago, if we can believe\nSprenger, the famous writer, who vouches for it: \u201c_Qui fruges excantassent\nsegetem pellicentes incantando_.\u201d\n\nLet us close by reminding the reader that, without the smallest shadow of\nsuperstition, one may believe in the dual nature of every object on Earth,\nin spiritual and material, in visible and invisible Nature, and that\nScience virtually proves this, while denying its own demonstration. For\nif, as Sir William Grove says, the electricity we handle is but the\n_result_ of ordinary matter affected by something invisible, the\n\u201c_ultimate_ generating power\u201d of every Force, the \u201cone omnipresent\ninfluence,\u201d then it only becomes natural that one should believe as the\nAncients did; namely, that every Element is _dual_ in its nature.\n\u201cEthereal Fire is the emanation of the Kabir proper; the A\u00ebrial is but the\nunion [correlation] of the former with Terrestrial Fire, and its guidance\nand application on our earthly plane belongs to a Kabir of a lesser\ndignity\u201d\u2014an Elemental, perhaps, as an Occultist would call it; and the\nsame may be said of every Cosmic Element.\n\nNo one will deny that the human being is possessed of various forces,\nmagnetic, sympathetic, antipathetic, nervous, dynamical, occult,\nmechanical, mental, in fact of every kind of force; and that the physical\nforces are all biological in their essence, seeing that they intermingle\nwith, and often merge into, those forces that we have named intellectual\nand moral, the first being the vehicles, so to say, the up\u00e2dhis, of the\nsecond. No one, who does not deny soul in man, would hesitate in saying\nthat their presence and commingling are the very essence of our being;\nthat they constitute the Ego in man, in fact. These potencies have their\nphysiological, physical, mechanical, as well as their nervous, ecstatic,\nclairaudient, and clairvoyant phenomena, which are now regarded and\nrecognized as perfectly natural, even by Science. Why should man be the\nonly exception in Nature, and why cannot even the Elements have their\nVehicles, their V\u00e2hanas, in what we call the Physical Forces? And why,\nabove all, should such beliefs be called \u201csuperstition\u201d along with the\nreligions of old?\n\n\n\n\nSection XV. On Kwan\u2010Shi\u2010Yin and Kwan\u2010Yin.\n\n\nLike Avalokiteshvara, Kwan\u2010Shi\u2010Yin has passed through several\ntransformations, but it is an error to say of him that he is a modern\ninvention of the Northern Buddhists, for under another appellation he has\nbeen known from the earliest times. The Secret Doctrine teaches that: \u201c_He\nwho is the first to appear at Renovation will be the last to come before\nRe\u00e4bsorption_ [_Pralaya_]\u201d. Thus the Logoi of all nations, from the Vedic\nVishvakarman of the Mysteries down to the Saviour of the present civilized\nnations, are the \u201cWord\u201d who was in the \u201cBeginning,\u201d or the re\u00e4wakening of\nthe energizing Powers of Nature, with the One ABSOLUTE. Born of Fire and\nWater, before these became distinct Elements, It was the \u201cMaker,\u201d the\nfashioner or modeller, of all things. \u201cWithout him was not anything made\nthat was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men,\u201d who\nfinally may be called as he ever has been, the Alpha and the Omega of\nManifested Nature. \u201cThe great Dragon of Wisdom is born of Fire and Water,\nand into Fire and Water will all be re\u00e4bsorbed with him.\u201d(781) As this\nBodhisattva is said \u201cto assume any form he pleases,\u201d from the beginning of\na Manvantara to its end, though his special birthday, or memorial day, is\ncelebrated according to the _Kin\u2010kwang\u2010ming\u2010King_, or \u201cLuminous S\u00fbtra of\nGolden Light,\u201d in the second month on the nineteenth day, and that of\nMaitreya Buddha, in the first month on the first day, yet the two are one.\nHe will appear as Maitreya Buddha, the last of the Avat\u00e2ras and Buddhas,\nin the Seventh Race. This belief and expectation are universal throughout\nthe East. Only it is not in the Kali Yuga, our present terrifically\nmaterialistic age of Darkness, the \u201cBlack Age,\u201d that a new Saviour of\nHumanity can ever appear. The Kali Yuga is \u201cl\u2019Age d\u2019Or\u201d (!) only in the\n_mystic_ writings of some French pseudo\u2010Occultists.(782)\n\nHence the ritual in the exoteric worship of this Deity was founded on\nmagic. The Mantras are all taken from special books kept secret by the\npriests, and each is said to work a magical effect; as the reciter or\nreader, by simply chanting them, produces a secret causation which results\nin immediate effects. Kwan\u2010Shi\u2010Yin is Avalokiteshvara, and both are forms\nof the Seventh Universal Principle; while in its highest metaphysical\ncharacter this Deity is the synthetic aggregation of all the Planetary\nSpirits, Dhy\u00e2n Chohans. He is the \u201cSelf\u2010Manifested\u201d; in short, the \u201cSon of\nthe Father.\u201d Crowned with seven dragons, above his statue there appears\nthe inscription Pu\u2010tsi\u2010k\u2019iun\u2010ling, \u201cthe universal Saviour of all living\nbeings.\u201d\n\nOf course the name given in the archaic volume of the Stanzas is quite\ndifferent, but Kwan\u2010Yin is a perfect equivalent. In a temple of P\u2019u\u2010to,\nthe sacred island of the Buddhists in China, Kwan\u2010Shi\u2010Yin is represented\nfloating on a black aquatic bird (K\u00e2lahamsa), and pouring on the heads of\nmortals the elixir of life, which, as it flows, is transformed into one of\nthe chief Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas, the Regent of a star called the \u201cStar of\nSalvation.\u201d In his third transformation Kwan\u2010Yin is the informing Spirit\nor Genius of Water. In China the Dala\u00ef\u2010Lama is believed to be an\nincarnation of Kwan\u2010Shi\u2010Yin, who in his third terrestrial appearance was a\nBodhisattva, while the Teshu Lama is an incarnation of Amit\u00e2bha Buddha, or\nGautama.\n\nIt may be remarked _en passant_ that a writer must indeed have a diseased\nimagination to discover phallic worship everywhere, as do McClatchey and\nHargrave Jennings. The first discovers \u201cthe old phallic gods, represented\nunder two evident symbols, the Kheen or Yang, which is the _membrum\nvirile_, and the Khw\u2010an or Yin, the _pudendum muliebre_.\u201d(783) Such a\nrendering seems the more strange as Kwan\u2010Shi\u2010Yin (Avalokiteshvara) and\nKwan\u2010Yin, besides being now the patron Deities of the Buddhist ascetics,\nthe Yog\u00ees of Tibet, are the Gods of chastity, and are, in their esoteric\nmeaning, not even that which is implied in the rendering of Mr. Rhys\nDavids\u2019 _Buddhism_: \u201cThe name Avalokiteshvara ... means \u2018the Lord who\nlooks down from on high\u2019.\u201d(784) Nor is Kwan\u2010Shi\u2010Yin the \u201cSpirit of the\nBuddhas present in the Church,\u201d but, literally interpreted, it means \u201cthe\nLord that is seen.\u201d and in one sense, \u201cthe Divine Self perceived by\nSelf\u201d\u2014the human Self\u2014that is, the \u00c2tman or Seventh Principle, merged in\nthe Universal, perceived by, or the object of perception to, Buddhi, the\nSixth Principle, or Divine Soul in man. In a still higher sense,\nAvalokiteshvara\u2010Kwan\u2010Shi\u2010Yin, referred to as the seventh Universal\nPrinciple, is the Logos perceived by the Universal Buddhi, or Soul, as the\nsynthetic aggregate of the Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas; and is not the \u201cSpirit of\nBuddha present in the Church,\u201d but the Omnipresent Universal Spirit\nmanifested in the temple of Kosmos or Nature. This Orientalistic etymology\nof Kwan and Yin is on a par with that of Yogin\u00ee, which, we are told by Mr.\nHargrave Jennings, is a Sanskrit word, \u201cin the dialects pronounced Jogi or\nZogee (!), and is ... equivalent with Sena, and exactly the same as Duti\nor Dutica,\u201d _i.e._, a sacred prostitute of the temple, worshipped as Yoni\nor Shakti.(785) \u201cThe books of morality [in India] direct a faithful wife\nto shun the society of Yogini or females who have been adored as\nSacti.\u201d(786) Nothing should surprise us after this. And it is, therefore,\nwith hardly a smile that we find another preposterous absurdity quoted\nabout \u201cBudh,\u201d as being a name \u201cwhich signifies not only the sun as the\nsource of generation but also the male organ.\u201d(787) Max M\u00fcller, in\ntreating of \u201cFalse Analogies,\u201d says that \u201cthe most celebrated Chinese\nscholar of his time, Abel R\u00e9musat ... maintains that the three syllables I\nHi Wei [in the fourteenth chapter of the _Tao\u2010te\u2010King_] were meant for Je\u2010\nho\u2010vah\u201d;(788) and again, Father Amyot \u201cfelt certain that the three persons\nof the Trinity could be recognized\u201d in the same work. And if Abel R\u00e9musat,\nwhy not Hargrave Jennings? Every scholar will recognize the absurdity of\never seeing in Budh, the \u201cenlightened\u201d and the \u201cawakened,\u201d a \u201cphallic\nsymbol.\u201d\n\nKwan\u2010Shi\u2010Yin, then, is \u201cthe Son identical with his Father,\u201d mystically, or\nthe Logos, the Word. He is called the \u201cDragon of Wisdom,\u201d in Stanza III,\nfor all the Logoi of all the ancient religious systems are connected with,\nand symbolized by, serpents. In old Egypt, the God Nahbkoon, \u201che who\nunites the doubles,\u201d was represented as a serpent on human legs, either\nwith or without arms. This was the Astral Light re\u00fcniting by its dual\nphysiological and spiritual potency the Divine\u2010Human to its purely Divine\nMonad, the Prototype in \u201cHeaven\u201d or Nature. It was the emblem of the\nresurrection of Nature; of Christ with the Ophites; and of Jehovah as the\nbrazen serpent healing those who looked at him. The serpent was also an\nemblem of Christ with the Templars, as is shown by the Templar degree in\nMasonry. The symbol of Knooph (Khnoom also), or the Soul of the World,\nsays Champollion, \u201cis represented among other forms under that of a huge\nserpent on human legs; this reptile, being the emblem of the Good Genius\nand the veritable Agathod\u00e6mon, is sometimes bearded.\u201d(789) This sacred\nanimal is thus identical with the serpent of the Ophites, and is figured\non a great number of engraved stones, called Gnostic or Basilidean gems.\nIt appears with various heads, human and animal, but its gems are always\nfound inscribed with the name \u03a7\u039d\u039f\u03a5\u0392\u0399\u03a3 (ChNOUBIS). This symbol is identical\nwith one which; according to Jamblichus and Champollion, was called the\n\u201cFirst of the Celestial Gods,\u201d the God Hermes, or Mercury, with the\nGreeks, to which God Hermes Trismegistus attributes the invention of, and\nthe first initiation of men into, Magic; and Mercury is Budh, Wisdom,\nEnlightenment, or \u201cRe\u00e4wakening\u201d into the divine Science.\n\nTo close, Kwan\u2010Shi\u2010Yin and Kwan\u2010Yin are the two aspects, male and female,\nof the same principle in Kosmos, Nature and Man, of Divine Wisdom and\nIntelligence. They are the Christos\u2010Sophia of the mystic Gnostics, the\nLogos and its Shakti. In their longing for the expression of some\nmysteries never to be wholly comprehended by the profane, the Ancients,\nknowing that nothing could be preserved in human memory without some\noutward symbol, have chosen the, to us, often ridiculous images of the\nKwan\u2010Yins to remind man of his origin and inner nature. To the impartial,\nhowever, the Madonnas in crinolines and the Christs in white kid gloves\nmust appear far more absurd than the Kwan\u2010Shi\u2010Yin and Kwan\u2010Yin in their\ndragon\u2010garb. The subjective can hardly be expressed by the objective.\nTherefore, since the symbolic formula attempts to characterize that which\nis above scientific reasoning, and is as often far beyond our intellects,\nit must needs go beyond that intellect in some shape or other, or else it\nwill fade out from human remembrance.\n\n\n\n\n\nPART III. ADDENDA. ON OCCULT AND MODERN SCIENCE.\n\n\nThe knowledge of this nether world\u2014\n  Say, friend, what is it, false or true?\nThe false, what mortal cares to know?\n  The true, what mortal ever knew?\n\n\n\n\nSection I. Reasons for These Addenda.\n\n\nMany of the doctrines contained in the foregoing seven Stanzas and\nCommentaries having been studied and critically examined by some Western\nTheosophists, certain of the Occult Teachings have been found wanting from\nthe ordinary stand\u2010point of modern scientific knowledge. They seemed to\nencounter insuperable difficulties in the way of their acceptance, and to\nrequire reconsideration in view of scientific criticism. Some friends have\nalready been tempted to regret the necessity of so often calling in\nquestion the assertions of Modern Science. It appeared to them\u2014and I here\nrepeat only their arguments\u2014that \u201cto run counter to the teachings of its\nmost eminent exponents, was to court a premature discomfiture in the eyes\nof the Western World.\u201d\n\nIt is, therefore, desirable to define, once and for all, the position\nwhich the writer, who does not in this agree with her friends, intends to\nmaintain. So far as Science remains what in the words of Prof. Huxley it\nis, viz., \u201corganized common sense\u201d; so far as its inferences are drawn\nfrom accurate premisses, its generalizations resting on a purely inductive\nbasis, every Theosophist and Occultist welcomes respectfully and with due\nadmiration its contributions to the domain of cosmological law. There can\nbe no possible conflict between the teachings of Occult and so\u2010called\nexact Science, wherever the conclusions of the latter are grounded on a\nsubstratum of unassailable fact. It is only when its more ardent\nexponents, over\u2010stepping the limits of observed phenomena in order to\npenetrate into the arcana of Being, attempt to wrench the formation of\nKosmos and its _living_ Forces from Spirit, and to attribute all to blind\nMatter, that the Occultists claim the right of disputing and calling in\nquestion their theories. Science cannot, owing to the very nature of\nthings, unveil the mystery of the Universe around us. Science can, it is\ntrue, collect, classify, and generalize upon phenomena; but the Occultist,\narguing from admitted metaphysical data, declares that the daring\nexplorer, who would probe the inmost secrets of Nature, must transcend the\nnarrow limitations of sense, and transfer his consciousness into the\nregion of Noumena and the sphere of Primal Causes. To effect this, he must\ndevelop faculties which, save in a few rare and exceptional cases, are\nabsolutely dormant, in the constitution of the off\u2010shoots of our present\nFifth Root\u2010Race in Europe and America. He can in no other conceivable\nmanner collect the facts on which to base his speculations. Is this not\napparent on the principles of Inductive Logic and Metaphysics alike?\n\nOn the other hand, whatever the writer may do, she will never be able to\nsatisfy both Truth and Science. To offer the reader a systematic and\nuninterrupted version of the Archaic Stanzas is impossible. A gap of 43\nverses or shlokas has to be left between the 7th, already given, and the\n51st, which is the subject of Book II, though the latter are made to run\nas from 1 onwards, for easier reading and reference. The mere appearance\nof man on Earth occupies an equal number of Stanzas, which minutely\ndescribe his primal evolution from the human Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, the state of\nthe Globe at that time, etc., etc. A great number of names referring to\nchemical substances and other compounds, which have now ceased to combine\ntogether, and are therefore unknown to the later offshoots of our Fifth\nRace, occupy a considerable space. As they are simply untranslatable, and\nwould remain in every case inexplicable, they are omitted, along with\nthose which cannot be made public. Nevertheless, even the little that is\ngiven will irritate every follower and defender of dogmatic materialistic\nScience who happens to read it.\n\nIn view of the criticism offered, it is proposed, before proceeding to the\nremaining Stanzas, to defend those already given. That they are not in\nperfect accord or harmony with Modern Science, we all know. But had they\nbeen as much in agreement with the views of modern knowledge as is a\nlecture by Sir William Thomson, they would have been rejected all the\nsame. For they teach belief in conscious Powers and Spiritual Entities; in\nterrestrial, semi\u2010intelligent, and highly intellectual Forces on other\nplanes;(790) and in Beings that dwell around us in spheres imperceptible,\nwhether through telescope or microscope. Hence the necessity of examining\nthe beliefs of materialistic Science, of comparing its views about the\n\u201cElements\u201d with the opinions of the Ancients, and of analysing the\nphysical Forces as they exist in modern conceptions, before the Occultists\nadmit themselves to be in the wrong. We shall touch upon the constitution\nof the Sun and planets, and the Occult characteristics of what are called\nDevas and Genii, and are now termed by Science, Forces, or \u201cmodes of\nmotion,\u201d and see whether Esoteric belief is defensible or not.\nNotwithstanding the efforts made to the contrary, an unprejudiced mind\nwill discover that under Newton\u2019s \u201cagent, material or immaterial,\u201d(791)\nthe agent which _causes gravity_, and in his personal _working_ God, there\nis just as much of the metaphysical Devas and Genii, as there is in\nKepler\u2019s Angelus Rector conducting each planet, and in the _species\nimmateriata_ by which the celestial bodies were carried along in their\ncourses, according to that Astronomer.\n\nIn Volume II, we shall have to openly approach dangerous subjects. We must\nbravely face Science and declare, in the teeth of materialistic learning,\nof Idealism, Hylo\u2010Idealism, Positivism and all\u2010denying modern Psychology,\nthat the true Occultist believes in \u201cLords of Light\u201d; that he believes in\na Sun, which\u2014far from being simply a \u201clamp of day\u201d moving in accordance\nwith physical law, and far from being merely one of those Suns, which,\naccording to Richter, \u201care sun\u2010flowers of a higher light\u201d\u2014is, like\nmilliards of other Suns, the dwelling or the vehicle of a God, and of a\nhost of Gods.\n\nIn this dispute, of course, it is the Occultists who will be worsted. They\nwill be considered, on the _prim\u00e2 facie_ aspect of the question, to be\nignoramuses, and will be labelled with more than one of the usual epithets\ngiven to those whom the superficially judging public, itself ignorant of\nthe great underlying truths in Nature, accuses of believing in medi\u00e6val\nsuperstitions. Let it be so. Submitting beforehand to every criticism in\norder to go on with their task, they only claim the privilege of showing\nthat the Physicists are as much at loggerheads among themselves in their\nspeculations, as these speculations are with the teachings of Occultism.\n\nThe Sun is Matter, and the Sun is Spirit. Our ancestors, the \u201cHeathen,\u201d\nlike their modern successors, the Pars\u00ees, were, and are, wise enough in\ntheir generation to see in it the symbol of Divinity, and at the same time\nto sense within, concealed by the physical symbol, the bright God of\nSpiritual and Terrestrial Light. Such belief can be regarded as a\nsuperstition only by rank Materialism, which denies Deity, Spirit, Soul,\nand admits no intelligence outside the mind of man. But if too much wrong\nsuperstition bred by \u201cChurchianity,\u201d as Laurence Oliphant calls it,\n\u201crenders a man a fool,\u201d too much scepticism makes him mad. We prefer the\ncharge of folly in believing too much, to that of a madness which denies\neverything, as do Materialism and Hylo\u2010Idealism. Hence, the Occultists are\nfully prepared to receive their dues from Materialism, and to meet the\nadverse criticism which will be poured on the author of this work, not for\nwriting it, but for believing in that which it contains.\n\nTherefore the discoveries, hypotheses, and unavoidable objections which\nwill be brought forward by the scientific critics must be anticipated and\ndisposed of. It has also to be shown how far the Occult Teachings depart\nfrom Modern Science, and whether the ancient or the modern theories are\nthe more logically and philosophically correct. The unity and mutual\nrelations of all parts of Kosmos were known to the Ancients, before they\nbecame evident to modern Astronomers and Philosophers. And even if the\nexternal and visible portions of the Universe, and their mutual relations,\ncannot be explained in Physical Science, in any other terms than those\nused by the adherents of the mechanical theory of the Universe, it does\nnot follow that the Materialist, who denies that the Soul of Kosmos (which\nappertains to Metaphysical Philosophy) exists, has the right to trespass\nupon that metaphysical domain. That Physical Science is trying to, and\nactually does, encroach upon it, is only one more proof that \u201cmight is\nright\u201d; it does not justify the intrusion.\n\nAnother good reason for these Addenda is this. Since only a certain\nportion of the Secret Teachings can be given out in the present age, the\ndoctrines would never be understood even by Theosophists, if they were\npublished without any explanations or commentary. Therefore they must be\ncontrasted with the speculations of Modern Science. Archaic Axioms must be\nplaced side by side with Modern Hypotheses, and the comparison of their\nvalue must be left to the sagacious reader.\n\nOn the question of the \u201cSeven Governors\u201d\u2014as Hermes calls the \u201cSeven\nBuilders,\u201d the Spirits which guide the operations of Nature, the animated\natoms of which are the shadows, in their own world, of their Primaries in\nthe Astral Realms\u2014this work will, of course, have every Materialist\nagainst it, as well as the men of Science. But this opposition can, at\nmost, be only temporary. People have laughed at everything unusual, and\nhave scouted every unpopular idea at first, and have then ended by\naccepting it. Materialism and Scepticism are evils that must remain in the\nworld so long as man has not quitted his present gross form to don the one\nhe had during the First and Second Races of this Round. Unless Scepticism\nand our present natural ignorance are equilibrated by Intuition and a\nnatural Spirituality, every being afflicted with such feelings will see in\nhimself nothing better than a bundle of flesh, bones, and muscles, with an\nempty garret inside, which serves the purpose of storing his sensations\nand feelings. Sir Humphrey Davy was a great Scientist, as deeply versed in\nPhysics as any theorist of our day, yet he loathed Materialism. He says:\n\n\n    I heard with disgust, in the dissecting\u2010rooms, the plan of the\n    Physiologist, of the gradual secretion of matter, and its becoming\n    endued with irritability, ripening into sensibility, and acquiring\n    such organs as were necessary, by its own inherent forces, and at\n    last rising into intellectual existence.\n\n\nNevertheless, Physiologists are not those who should be most blamed for\nspeaking of that only which they can see by, and estimate on the evidence\nof, their physical senses. Astronomers and Physicists are, we consider,\nfar more illogical in their materialistic views than are even\nPhysiologists, and this has to be proved. Milton\u2019s\n\n\n    ... Light\n    Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure,\n\n\nhas become with the Materialists only\n\n\n    ... Prime cheerer, light,\n    Of all material beings, first and best.\n\n\nFor the Occultists it is both Spirit and Matter. Behind the \u201cmode of\nmotion,\u201d now regarded as the \u201cproperty of matter\u201d and nothing more, they\nperceive the radiant Noumenon. It is the \u201cSpirit of Light,\u201d the first\u2010born\nof the Eternal pure Element, whose energy, or emanation, is stored in the\nSun, the great Life\u2010Giver of the Physical World, as the hidden concealed\nSpiritual Sun is the Light\u2010 and Life\u2010Giver of the Spiritual and Psychic\nRealms. Bacon was one of the first to strike the key\u2010note of Materialism,\nnot only by his inductive method\u2014renovated from ill\u2010digested Aristotle\u2014but\nby the general tenor of his writings. He inverts the order of mental\nEvolution when saying:\n\n\n    The first creation of God was the light of the sense; the last was\n    the light of the reason; and his Sabbath work ever since is the\n    illumination of the Spirit.\n\n\nIt is just the reverse. The light of Spirit is the eternal Sabbath of the\nMystic or Occultist, and he pays little attention to that of mere sense.\nThat which is meant by the allegorical sentence, \u201c_Fiat Lux_,\u201d is, when\nesoterically rendered, \u201cLet there be the \u2018Sons of Light\u2019,\u201d or the Noumena\nof all phenomena. Thus the Roman Catholics rightly interpret the passage\nas referring to Angels, but wrongly as meaning Powers created by an\nanthropomorphic God, whom they personify in the ever thundering and\npunishing Jehovah.\n\nThese beings are the \u201cSons of Light,\u201d because they emanate from, and are\nself\u2010generated in, that infinite Ocean of Light, whose one pole is pure\n_Spirit_ lost in the absoluteness of Non\u2010Being, and the other pole, the\n_Matter_ in which it condenses, \u201ccrystallizing\u201d into a more and more gross\ntype as it descends into manifestation. Therefore Matter, though it is, in\none sense, but the illusive dregs of that Light whose Rays are the\nCreative Forces, yet has in it the full presence of the Soul thereof, of\nthat Principle, which none\u2014not even the \u201cSons of Light,\u201d evolved from its\nABSOLUTE DARKNESS\u2014will ever know. The idea is as beautifully, as it is\ntruthfully, expressed by Milton, who hails the holy Light, which is the\n\n\n    ... Offspring of Heaven, first\u2010born,\n    Or of th\u2019 Eternal co\u00ebternal beam;\n    ... Since God is Light,\n    And never but in unapproached Light\n    Dwelt from Eternity, dwelt then in thee,\n    Bright effluence of bright essence increate.\n\n\n\n\nSection II. Modern Physicists are Playing at Blind Man\u2019s Buff.\n\n\nAnd now Occultism puts to Science the question: Is light a body, or is it\nnot? Whatever the answer of the latter, the former is prepared to show\nthat, to this day, the most eminent Physicists have no real knowledge on\nthe subject. To know what light is, and whether it is an actual substance\nor a mere undulation of the \u201cethereal medium,\u201d Science has first to learn\nwhat Matter, Atom, Ether, Force, are in reality. Now, the truth is, that\nit knows nothing of any of these, and admits its ignorance. It has not\neven agreed what to believe in, as dozens of hypotheses on the same\nsubject, emanating from various and very eminent Scientists, are\nantagonistic to each other and often self\u2010contradictory. Thus their\nlearned speculations may, with a stretch of good\u2010will, be accepted as\n\u201cworking hypotheses\u201d in a secondary sense, as Stallo puts it. But being\nradically inconsistent with each other, they must finally end by mutually\ndestroying themselves. As declared by the author of _Concepts of Modem\nPhysics_:\n\n\n    It must not be forgotten that the several departments of science\n    are simply arbitrary divisions of science at large. In these\n    several departments the same physical object may be considered\n    under different aspects. The physicist may study its molecular\n    relations, while the chemist determines its atomic constitution.\n    But when they both deal with the same element or agent, it cannot\n    have one set of properties in physics, and another set\n    contradictory of them, in chemistry. If the physicist and chemist\n    alike assume the existence of ultimate atoms absolutely invariable\n    in bulk and weight, the atom cannot be a cube or oblate spheroid\n    for physical, and a sphere for chemical purposes. A group of\n    constant atoms cannot be an aggregate of extended and absolutely\n    inert and impenetrable masses in a crucible or retort, and a\n    system of mere centres of force as part of a magnet or of a\n    Clamond battery. The universal \u00e6ther cannot be soft and mobile to\n    please the chemist, and rigid\u2010elastic to satisfy the physicist; it\n    cannot be continuous at the command of Sir William Thomson and\n    discontinuous on the suggestion of Cauchy or Fresnel.(792)\n\n\nThe eminent Physicist, G. A. Hirn, may likewise be quoted as saying the\nsame thing in the 43rd Volume of the _M\u00e9moires de l\u2019Acad\u00e9mie Royale de\nBelgique_, which we translate from the French, as cited:\n\n\n    When one sees the assurance with which to\u2010day are affirmed\n    doctrines which attribute the collectivity, the universality of\n    the phenomena to the motions alone of the atom, one has a right to\n    expect to find likewise unanimity in the qualities assigned to\n    this unique being, the foundation of all that exists. Now, from\n    the first examination of the particular systems proposed, one\n    finds the strangest deception; one perceives that the atom of the\n    chemist, the atom of the physicist, that of the metaphysician, and\n    that of the mathematician ... have absolutely nothing in common\n    but the name! The inevitable result is the existing subdivision of\n    our sciences, each of which, in its own little pigeon\u2010hole,\n    constructs an atom which satisfies the requirements of the\n    phenomena it studies, without troubling itself in the least about\n    the requirements proper to the phenomena of the neighbouring\n    pigeon\u2010hole. The metaphysician banishes the principles of\n    attraction and repulsion as dreams; the mathematician, who\n    analyses the laws of elasticity and those of the propagation of\n    light, admits them implicitly, without even naming them.... The\n    chemist cannot explain the grouping of the atoms, in his often\n    complicated molecules, without attributing to his atoms specific\n    distinguishing qualities; _for the physicist and the\n    metaphysician, partisans of the modern doctrines, the atom is, on\n    the contrary, always and everywhere the same_. What am I saying?\n    There is no agreement even in one and the same science as to the\n    properties of the atom. Each constructs an atom to suit his own\n    fancy, in order to explain some special phenomenon with which he\n    is particularly concerned.(793)\n\n\nThe above is the photographically correct image of Modern Science and\nPhysics. The \u201cpre\u2010requisite of that incessant play of the \u2019scientific\nimagination\u2019,\u201d which is so often found in Professor Tyndall\u2019s eloquent\ndiscourses, is vivid indeed, as is shown by Stallo, and for contradictory\nvariety it leaves far behind it any \u201cphantasies\u201d of Occultism. However\nthat may be, if physical theories are confessedly \u201cmere formal,\nexplanatory, didactic devices,\u201d and if, to use the words of a critic of\nStallo, \u201catomism is only a symbolical graphic system,\u201d(794) then the\nOccultist can hardly be regarded as assuming too much, when he places\nalongside of these \u201cdevices\u201d and \u201csymbolical systems\u201d of Modern Science,\nthe symbols and devices of Archaic Teachings.\n\n\n\n\u201cAn Lumen Sit Corpus, Nec Non?\u201d\n\n\nMost decidedly light is not a body, we are told. Physical Sciences say\nlight is a force, a vibration, the undulation of Ether. It is the property\nor quality of Matter, or even an affection thereof\u2014never _a body_!\n\nJust so. For this discovery, the knowledge, whatever it may be worth, that\nlight or caloric is not a motion of _material particles_, Science is\nchiefly, if not solely indebted, to Sir William Grove. It was he who in a\nlecture at the London Institution, in 1842, was the first to show that\n\u201cheat, light,(795) may be considered as affections of matter itself, and\nnot of a distinct ethereal, \u2018imponderable,\u2019 fluid [a state of matter\n_now_] permeating it.\u201d(796) Yet, perhaps, for some Physicists\u2014as for\n\u0152rsted, a very eminent Scientist\u2014Force and Forces were tacitly \u201cSpirit\n[and hence Spirits] in Nature.\u201d What several rather mystical Scientists\ntaught was that light, heat, magnetism, electricity and gravity, etc.,\nwere not the final Causes of the visible phenomena, including planetary\nmotion, but were themselves the secondary _effects of other Causes_, for\nwhich Science in our day cares very little, but in which Occultism\nbelieves; for the Occultists have exhibited proofs of the validity of\ntheir claims in every age. And in what age were there no Occultists and no\nAdepts?\n\nSir Isaac Newton held to the Pythagorean corpuscular theory, and was also\ninclined to admit its consequences; which made the Comte de Maistre hope,\nat one time, that Newton would ultimately lead Science back to the\nrecognition of the fact that Forces and the Celestial Bodies _were\npropelled and guided by Intelligences_.(797) But de Maistre counted\nwithout his host. The innermost thoughts and ideas of Newton were\nperverted, and of his great mathematical learning only the mere physical\nhusk was turned to account.\n\nAccording to one atheistic Idealist, Dr. Lewins:\n\n\n    When Sir Isaac, in 1687 ... showed mass and atom acted upon ... by\n    innate activity ... he effectually disposed of Spirit, Anima, or\n    Divinity, as supererogatory.\n\n\nHad poor Sir Isaac foreseen to what use his successors and followers would\napply his \u201cgravity,\u201d that pious and religious man would surely have\nquietly eaten his apple, and never have breathed a word about any\nmechanical ideas connected with its fall.\n\nGreat contempt is shown by Scientists for Metaphysics generally and for\nOntological Metaphysics especially. But whenever the Occultists are bold\nenough to raise their diminished heads, we see that Materialistic,\nPhysical Science is honey\u2010combed with Metaphysics;(798) that its most\nfundamental principles, while inseparably wedded to transcendentalism, are\nnevertheless, in order to show Modern Science divorced from such \u201cdreams,\u201d\ntortured and often ignored in the maze of contradictory theories and\nhypotheses. A very good corroboration of this charge lies in the fact that\nScience finds itself absolutely compelled to accept the \u201chypothetical\u201d\nEther, and to try to explain it on the materialistic grounds of atomo\u2010\nmechanical laws. This attempt has led directly to the most fatal\ndiscrepancies and radical inconsistencies between the assumed nature of\nEther and its physical behaviour. A second proof is found in the many\ncontradictory statements made about the Atom\u2014the most metaphysical object\nin creation.\n\nNow, what does the modern science of Physics know of Ether, the first\nconcept of which belongs undeniably to ancient Philosophers, the Greeks\nhaving borrowed it from the \u00c2ryans, and the origin of modern Ether being\nfound in, and disfigured from, \u00c2k\u00e2sha? This disfigurement is claimed as a\nmodification and refinement of the idea of Lucretius. Let us then examine\nthe modern concept, from several scientific volumes containing the\nadmissions of the Physicists themselves.\n\nAs Stallo shows, the existence of Ether is accepted in Physical Astronomy,\nin ordinary Physics, and in Chemistry.\n\n\n    By the astronomers, this \u00e6ther was originally regarded as a fluid\n    of extreme tenuity and mobility, offering no sensible resistance\n    to the motions of celestial bodies, and the question of its\n    continuity or discontinuity was not seriously mooted. Its main\n    function in modern astronomy has been to serve as a basis for\n    hydro\u2010dynamical theories of gravitation. In physics this fluid\n    appeared for some time in several _r\u00f4les_ in connection with the\n    \u201cimponderables\u201d [so cruelly put to death by Sir William Grove],\n    some physicists going so far as to identify it with one or more of\n    them.(799)\n\n\nStallo then points out the change caused by the kinetic theories; that\nfrom the date of the dynamical theory of heat, Ether was chosen in Optics\nas a substratum for luminous undulations. Next, in order to explain the\ndispersion and polarization of light, Physicists had to resort once more\nto their \u201cscientific imagination,\u201d and forthwith endowed the Ether with\n(_a_) atomic or molecular structure, and (_b_) with an enormous\nelasticity, \u201cso that its resistance to deformation far exceeded that of\nthe most rigid elastic bodies.\u201d This necessitated the _theory of the\nessential discontinuity of Matter_, hence of Ether. After having accepted\nthis discontinuity, in order to account for dispersion and polarization,\ntheoretical impossibilities were discovered with regard to such\ndispersion. Cauchy\u2019s \u201cscientific imagination\u201d saw in Atoms \u201cmaterial\npoints without extension,\u201d and he proposed, in order to obviate the most\nformidable obstacles to the undulatory theory (namely, some well\u2010known\nmechanical theorems which stood in the way), to assume that the ethereal\nmedium of propagation, instead of being continuous, should consist of\nparticles separated by sensible distances. Fresnel rendered the same\nservice to the phenomena of polarization. E. B. Hunt upset the theories of\nboth.(800) There are now men of Science who proclaim them \u201cmaterially\nfallacious,\u201d while others\u2014the \u201catomo\u2010mechanicalists\u201d\u2014cling to them with\ndesperate tenacity. The supposition of an _atomic_ or _molecular\nconstitution_ of Ether is upset, moreover, by thermo\u2010dynamics, for Clerk\nMaxwell showed that such a medium would be simply _gas_.(801) The\nhypothesis of \u201cfinite intervals\u201d is thus proven of no avail as a\nsupplement to the undulatory theory. Besides, eclipses fail to reveal any\nsuch variation of colour as is supposed by Cauchy, on the assumption that\nthe chromatic rays are propagated with different velocities. Astronomy has\npointed out more than one phenomenon absolutely at variance with this\ndoctrine.\n\nThus, while in one department of Physics the atomo\u2010molecular constitution\nof the Ether is accepted in order to account for one special set of\nphenomena, in another department such a constitution is found to be quite\nsubversive of a number of well\u2010ascertained facts; and Hirn\u2019s charges are\nthus justified. Chemistry deemed it\n\n\n    Impossible to concede the enormous elasticity of the \u00e6ther without\n    depriving it of those properties, upon which its serviceableness\n    in the construction of chemical theories mainly depended.\n\n\nThis ended in a final transformation of Ether.\n\n\n    The exigencies of the atomo\u2010mechanical theory have led\n    distinguished mathematicians and physicists to attempt a\n    substitution for the traditional atoms of matter, of peculiar\n    forms of vortical motion in a universal, homogeneous,\n    incompressible, and _continuous_ material medium [Ether].(802)\n\n\nThe present writer\u2014claiming no great scientific education, but only a\ntolerable acquaintance with modern theories, and a better one with Occult\nSciences\u2014picks up weapons against the detractors of the Esoteric Teaching\nin the very arsenal of Modern Science. The glaring contradictions, the\nmutually\u2010destructive hypotheses of world\u2010renowned Scientists, their\ndisputes, their accusations and denunciations of each other, show plainly\nthat, whether accepted or not, the Occult Theories have as much right to a\nhearing as any of the so\u2010called learned and academical hypotheses. Thus,\nwhether the followers of the Royal Society choose to accept Ether as a\n_continuous_ or as a _discontinuous_ fluid matters little, and is\nindifferent for the present purpose. It simply points to one certainty:\nOfficial Science _knows nothing to this day of the constitution of Ether_.\nLet Science call it Matter, if it likes; only neither as \u00c2k\u00e2sha, nor as\nthe one sacred \u00c6ther of the Greeks, is it to be found in any of the states\nof Matter known to modern Physics. It is Matter on quite another plane of\nperception and being, and it can neither be analyzed by scientific\napparatus, nor appreciated or even conceived by the \u201cscientific\nimagination,\u201d unless the possessors thereof study the Occult Sciences.\nThat which follows proves this statement.\n\nIt is clearly demonstrated by Stallo as regards the crucial problems of\nmodern Physics, as was done by De Quatrefages and several others in those\nof Anthropology, Biology, etc., that, in their efforts to support their\nindividual hypotheses and systems, most of the eminent and learned\nMaterialists very often utter the greatest fallacies. Let us take the\nfollowing case. Most of them reject _actio in distans_\u2014one of the\nfundamental principles in the question of \u00c6ther or \u00c2k\u00e2sha in\nOccultism\u2014while, as Stallo justly observes, there is no physical action\n\u201cwhich, on close examination, does not resolve itself into _actio in\ndistans_\u201d; and he proves it.\n\nNow, metaphysical arguments, according to Professor Lodge,(803) are\n\u201cunconscious appeals to experience.\u201d And he adds that if such an\nexperience _is not conceivable_, then it does not exist. In his own words:\n\n\n    If a highly\u2010developed mind or set of minds, find a doctrine about\n    some comparatively simple and fundamental matter absolutely\n    unthinkable, it is an evidence ... that the unthinkable state of\n    things has no existence.\n\n\nAnd thereupon, toward the end of his lecture, the Professor indicates that\nthe explanation of cohesion, as well as of gravity, \u201cis to be looked for\nin the vortex\u2010atom theory of Sir William Thomson.\u201d\n\nIt is needless to stop to inquire whether it is to this vortex\u2010atom\ntheory, also, that we have to look for the dropping down on earth of the\nfirst life\u2010germ by a passing meteor or comet\u2014Sir William Thomson\u2019s\nhypothesis. But Prof. Lodge might be reminded of the wise criticism on his\nlecture in Stallo\u2019s _Concepts of Modem Physics_. Noticing the above\u2010quoted\ndeclaration by the Professor, the author asks\n\n\n    Whether ... the elements of the vortex\u2010atom theory are familiar,\n    or even possible, facts of experience? For, if they are not,\n    clearly that theory is obnoxious to the same criticism which is\n    said to invalidate the assumption of _actio in distans_.(804)\n\n\nAnd then the able critic shows clearly what the Ether is not, nor can ever\nbe, notwithstanding all scientific claims to the contrary. And thus he\nopens widely, if unconsciously, the entrance door to our Occult Teachings.\nFor, as he says:\n\n\n    The medium in which the vortex\u2010movements arise is, according to\n    Professor Lodge\u2019s own express statement (_Nature_, vol. xxvii. p.\n    305), \u201ca perfectly homogeneous, incompressible, continuous body,\n    incapable of being resolved into simple elements or atoms; it is,\n    in fact, continuous, not molecular.\u201d And after making this\n    statement Professor Lodge adds: \u201c_There is no other body of which\n    we can say this, and hence the properties of the \u00e6ther must be\n    somewhat different from those of ordinary matter_.\u201d It appears,\n    then, that the whole vortex\u2010atom theory, which is offered to us as\n    a substitute for the \u201cmetaphysical theory\u201d of _actio in distans_,\n    rests upon the hypothesis of the existence of a material medium\n    which is utterly unknown to experience, and which has properties\n    _somewhat_ different(805) from those of ordinary matter. Hence\n    this theory, instead of being, as is claimed, a reduction of an\n    unfamiliar fact of experience to a familiar fact, is, on the\n    contrary, a reduction of a fact which is perfectly familiar, to a\n    fact which is not only unfamiliar, but wholly unknown, unobserved\n    and unobservable. Furthermore, the alleged vortical motion of, or\n    rather in, the assumed ethereal medium is ... _impossible_,\n    because \u201cmotion in a perfectly homogeneous, incompressible, and\n    therefore continuous fluid, is not sensible motion.\u201d... It is\n    manifest, therefore ... that, wherever the vortex\u2010atom theory may\n    land us, it certainly does not land us anywhere in the region of\n    physics, or in the domain of _ver\u00e6 caus\u00e6_.(806) And I may add\n    that, inasmuch as the hypothetical undifferentiated(807) and\n    undifferentiable medium is clearly an involuntary re\u00effication of\n    the old ontological concept _pure being_, the theory under\n    discussion has all the attributes of an inapprehensible\n    metaphysical phantom.(808)\n\n\nA \u201cphantom,\u201d indeed, which can be made apprehensible only by Occultism.\nFrom such scientific Metaphysics to Occultism there is hardly one step.\nThose Physicists who hold the view that the atomic constitution of Matter\nis consistent with its penetrability, need not go far out of their way to\nbe able to account for the greatest phenomena of Occultism, now so derided\nby Physical Scientists and Materialists. Cauchy\u2019s \u201cmaterial points without\nextension\u201d are Leibnitz\u2019s Monads, and at the same time are the materials\nout of which the \u201cGods\u201d and other invisible Powers clothe themselves in\nbodies. The disintegration and re\u00efntegration of \u201cmaterial\u201d particles\nwithout extension, as a chief factor in phenomenal manifestations, ought\nto suggest themselves very easily as a clear possibility, at any rate to\nthose few scientific minds which accept M. Cauchy\u2019s views. For, disposing\nof that property of Matter which they call impenetrability, by simply\nregarding the Atoms as \u201cmaterial points exerting on each other attractions\nand repulsions which vary with the distances that separate them,\u201d the\nFrench theorist explains that:\n\n\n    From this it follows that, if it pleased the author of nature\n    simply to modify the laws according to which the atoms attract or\n    repel each other, we might instantly see the hardest bodies\n    penetrating each other, the smallest particles of matter occupying\n    immense spaces, or the largest masses reducing themselves to the\n    smallest volumes, the entire universe concentrating itself, as it\n    were, in a single point.(809)\n\n\nAnd that \u201cpoint,\u201d _invisible on our plane of perception and matter_, is\nquite visible to the eye of the Adept who can follow and see it present on\nother planes. For the Occultists, who say that the author of Nature _is\nNature itself_, something indistinct and inseparable from the Deity, it\nfollows that those who are conversant with the Occult laws of Nature, and\nknow how to change and provoke new conditions in Ether, may\u2014_not_ modify\nthe laws, but work and do the same in accordance with these immutable\nlaws.\n\n\n\n\nSection III. Is Gravitation a Law?\n\n\nThe corpuscular theory has been unceremoniously put aside; but\ngravitation\u2014the principle that all bodies attract each other with a force\nproportional directly to their masses, and inversely to the squares of the\ndistances between them\u2014survives to this day and reigns, supreme as ever,\nin the alleged ethereal waves of Space. As a hypothesis, it had been\nthreatened with death for its inadequacy to embrace all the facts\npresented to it; as a physical law, it is the King of the late and once\nall\u2010potent \u201cImponderables.\u201d \u201cIt is little short of blasphemy ... an insult\nto Newton\u2019s grand memory to doubt it!\u201d\u2014is the exclamation of an American\nreviewer of _Isis Unveiled_. Well; what is finally that invisible and\nintangible God in whom we should believe on blind faith? Astronomers who\nsee in gravitation an easy\u2010going solution for many things, and a universal\nforce which allows them to calculate planetary motions, care little about\nthe Cause of Attraction. They call Gravity a law, a cause in itself. We\ncall the forces acting under that name effects, and very secondary\neffects, too. One day it will be found that the scientific hypothesis does\nnot answer after all; and then it will follow the corpuscular theory of\nlight, and be consigned to rest for many scientific \u00e6ons in the archives\nof all exploded speculations. Has not Newton himself expressed grave\ndoubts about the nature of Force and the corporeality of the \u201cAgents,\u201d as\nthey were then called? So has Cuvier, another scientific light shining in\nthe night of research. He warns his readers, in the _R\u00e9volution du Globe_,\nabout the doubtful nature of the so\u2010called Forces, saying that \u201cit is not\nso sure whether those agents were not after all Spiritual Powers [_des\nagents spirituels_].\u201d At the outset of his _Principia_, Sir Isaac Newton\ntook the greatest care to impress upon his school that he did not use the\nword \u201cattraction,\u201d with regard to the mutual action of bodies in a\nphysical sense. To him it was, he said, a purely mathematical conception,\ninvolving no consideration of real and primary physical causes. In a\npassage of his _Principia_,(810) he tells us plainly that, physically\nconsidered, attractions are rather impulses. In Section xi (Introduction),\nhe expresses the opinion that \u201cthere is some subtle spirit by the force\nand action of which all movements of matter are determined\u201d;(811) and in\nhis _Third Letter_ to Bentley he says:\n\n\n    It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, without\n    the mediation of something else _which is not material_, operate\n    upon and affect other matter, without mutual contact, as it must\n    do if gravitation, in the sense of Epicurus, be essential and\n    inherent in it.... That gravity should be innate, inherent and\n    essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a\n    distance, through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else\n    by and through which their action may be conveyed from one to\n    another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man, who\n    has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking, can\n    ever fall into it. Gravity must be caused by an agent acting\n    constantly according to certain laws; but _whether this agent be\n    material or immaterial_ I have left to the consideration of my\n    readers.\n\n\nAt this, even Newton\u2019s contemporaries got frightened\u2014at the apparent\nreturn of Occult Causes into the domain of Physics. Leibnitz called his\nprinciple of attraction \u201can incorporeal and inexplicable power.\u201d The\nsupposition of an attractive faculty and a perfect void was characterized\nby Bernoulli as \u201crevolting,\u201d the principle of _actio in distans_ finding\nthen no more favour than it does now. Euler, on the other hand, thought\nthe action of gravity was due to either a _Spirit_ or some subtle medium.\nAnd yet Newton knew of, if he did not accept, the Ether of the Ancients.\nHe regarded the intermediate space between the sidereal bodies as vacuum.\nTherefore he believed in \u201csubtle Spirit\u201d and Spirits as we do, guiding the\nso\u2010called attraction. The above\u2010quoted words of the great man have\nproduced poor results. The \u201cabsurdity\u201d has now become a dogma in the case\nof pure Materialism, which repeats: \u201cNo Matter without Force, no Force\nwithout Matter; Matter and Force are inseparable, eternal and\nindestructible [_true_]; there can be no independent Force, since all\nForce is an inherent and necessary property of Matter [_false_];\nconsequently, there is no immaterial Creative Power.\u201d Oh, poor Sir Isaac!\n\nIf, leaving aside all the other eminent men of Science who agreed in\nopinion with Euler and Leibnitz, the Occultists claim as their authorities\nand supporters Sir Isaac Newton and Cuvier only, as above cited, they need\nfear little from Modern Science, and may loudly and proudly proclaim their\nbeliefs. But the hesitation and doubts of the above cited authorities, and\nof many others, too, whom we could name, did not in the least prevent\nscientific speculation from wool\u2010gathering in the fields of brute matter\njust as before. First it was matter and an imponderable fluid distinct\nfrom it; then came the imponderable fluid so much criticized by Grove;\nthen Ether, which was at first discontinuous and then became continuous;\nafter which came the \u201cmechanical\u201d Forces. These have now settled in life\nas \u201cmodes of motion,\u201d and the Ether has become more mysterious and\nproblematical than ever. More than one man of Science objects to such\ncrude materialistic views. But then, from the days of Plato, who\nrepeatedly asks his readers not to confuse _incorporeal_ Elements with\ntheir Principles\u2014the transcendental or spiritual Elements; from those of\nthe great Alchemists, who, like Paracelsus, made a great difference\nbetween a phenomenon and its cause, or the Noumenon; to Grove, who, though\nhe sees \u201cno reason to divest universally diffused matter of the functions\ncommon to all matter,\u201d yet uses the term Forces where his critics, \u201cwho do\nnot attach to the word any idea of a specific action,\u201d say Force; from\nthose days to this, nothing has proved competent to stem the tide of\nbrutal Materialism. Gravitation is the sole cause, the acting God, and\nMatter is its prophet, said the men of Science only a few years ago.\n\nThey have changed their views several times since then. But do the men of\nScience understand the innermost thought of Newton, one of the most\nspiritual\u2010minded and religious men of his day, any better now than they\ndid then? It is certainly to be doubted. Newton is credited with having\ngiven the death\u2010blow to the Elemental Vortices of Descartes\u2014the idea of\nAnaxagoras, resurrected, by the bye\u2014though the last modern \u201cvortical\natoms\u201d of Sir William Thomson do not, in truth, differ much from the\nformer. Nevertheless, when his disciple Forbes wrote in the Preface to the\nchief work of his master a sentence declaring that \u201cattraction was the\ncause of the system,\u201d Newton was the first to solemnly protest. That which\nin the mind of the great mathematician assumed the shadowy, but firmly\nrooted image of God, as the Noumenon of all,(812) was called more\nphilosophically by ancient and modern Philosophers and Occultists\u2014\u201cGods,\u201d\nor the creative fashioning Powers. The modes of expression may have been\ndifferent, and the ideas more or less philosophically enunciated by all\nsacred and profane Antiquity; but the fundamental thought was the\nsame.(813) For Pythagoras the Forces were Spiritual Entities, Gods,\nindependent of planets and Matter as we see and know them on Earth, who\nare the rulers of the Sidereal Heaven. Plato represented the planets as\nmoved by an intrinsic Rector, one with his dwelling, like \u201ca boatman in\nhis boat.\u201d As for Aristotle, he called those rulers \u201c_immaterial_\nsubstances\u201d;(814) though as one who had never been initiated, he rejected\nthe Gods as Entities.(815) But this did not prevent him from recognizing\nthe fact that the stars and planets \u201cwere not inanimate masses but acting\nand living bodies indeed.\u201d As if sidereal spirits were the \u201cdiviner\nportions of their phenomena (\u03c4\u1f70 \u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03cc\u03c4\u03b5\u03c1\u03b1 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u1ff6\u03bd).\u201d(816)\n\nIf we look for corroboration in more modern and scientific times, we find\nTycho Brahe recognizing in the stars a triple force, divine, spiritual and\nvital. Kepler, putting together the Pythagorean sentence, \u201cthe Sun,\nguardian of Jupiter,\u201d and the verses of David, \u201cHe placed his throne in\nthe Sun,\u201d and \u201cthe Lord is the Sun,\u201d etc., said that he understood\nperfectly how the Pythagoreans could believe that all the Globes\ndisseminated through Space were rational Intelligences (_facultates\nratiocinativ\u00e6_), circulating round the Sun, \u201cin which resides a pure\nspirit of fire; the source of the general harmony.\u201d(817)\n\nWhen an Occultist speaks of Fohat, the energizing and guiding Intelligence\nin the Universal Electric or Vital Fluid, he is laughed at. Withal, as now\nshown, the nature neither of electricity, nor of life, nor even of light,\nis to this day understood. The Occultist sees in the manifestation of\nevery force in Nature, the action of the quality, or the special\ncharacteristic of its Noumenon; which Noumenon is a distinct and\nintelligent Individuality _on the other side of the manifested mechanical\nUniverse_. Now the Occultist does not deny\u2014on the contrary he will support\nthe view\u2014that light, heat, electricity and so on are affections, not\nproperties or qualities, of Matter. To put it more clearly: Matter is the\ncondition, the necessary basis or vehicle, a _sine qu\u00e2 non_, for the\nmanifestation of these Forces, or Agents, on this plane.\n\nBut in order to gain the point, the Occultists have to examine the\ncredentials of the law of gravity, first of all, of \u201cGravitation, the King\nand Ruler of Matter,\u201d under every form. To do so effectually, the\nhypothesis, in its earliest appearance, has to be recalled to mind. To\nbegin with, is it Newton who was the first to discover it? The _Athen\u00e6um_\nof Jan. 26, 1867, has some curious information upon this subject. It says:\n\n\n    Positive evidence can be adduced that Newton derived all his\n    knowledge of Gravitation and its laws from B\u0153hme, with whom\n    Gravitation or Attraction is the first property of Nature.... For\n    with him, his [B\u0153hme\u2019s] system shows us the inside of things,\n    while modern physical science is content with looking at the\n    outside.\n\n\nThen again:\n\n\n    The science of electricity, which was not yet in existence when he\n    [B\u0153hme] wrote, is there anticipated [in his writings]; and not\n    only does B\u0153hme describe all the now known phenomena of that\n    force, but he even gives us the origin, generation, and birth of\n    electricity, itself.\n\n\nThus Newton, whose profound mind easily read between the lines, and\nfathomed the spiritual thought of the great Seer, in its mystic rendering,\nowes his great discovery to Jacob B\u0153hme, the nursling of the Genii,\nNirm\u00e2nak\u00e2yas who watched over and guided him, of whom the author of the\narticle in question so truly remarks:\n\n\n    Every new scientific discovery goes to prove his profound and\n    intuitive insight into the most secret workings of Nature.\n\n\nAnd having _discovered_ gravity, Newton, in order to render possible the\naction of attraction in space, had, so to speak, to annihilate every\nphysical obstacle capable of impeding its free action; Ether among others,\nthough he had more than a presentiment of its existence. Advocating the\ncorpuscular theory, he made an _absolute vacuum_ between the heavenly\nbodies. Whatever may have been his suspicions and inner convictions about\nEther; however many friends he may have unbosomed himself to\u2014as in the\ncase of his correspondence with Bentley\u2014his teachings never showed that he\nhad any such belief. If he was \u201cpersuaded that the power of attraction\ncould not be exerted by matter across a vacuum,\u201d(818) how is it that so\nlate as 1860, French astronomers, Le Couturier, for instance, combated\n\u201cthe _disastrous_ results of the theory of vacuum established by the great\nman\u201d? Le Couturier says:\n\n\n    Il n\u2019est plus possible aujourd\u2019hui, de soutenir comme Newton, que\n    les corps c\u00e9lestes se mouvent au milieu du vide immense des\n    espaces.... Parmi les cons\u00e9quences de la th\u00e9orie du vide \u00e9tablie\n    par Newton, il ne reste plus debout que le mot \u201cattraction.\u201d...\n    Nous voyous venir le jour ou le mot attraction dispara\u00eetra du\n    vocabulaire scientifique.(819)\n\n\nProfessor Winchell writes:\n\n\n    These passages [Letter to Bentley] show what were his views\n    respecting the nature of the interplanetary medium of\n    communication. Though declaring that the heavens \u201care void of\n    sensible matter,\u201d he elsewhere excepted \u201cperhaps some very thin\n    vapours, steams, and effluvia, arising from the atmospheres of the\n    earth, planets, and comets, and from such an exceedingly rare\n    ethereal medium as we have elsewhere described.\u201d(820)\n\n\nThis only shows that even such great men as Newton have not always the\ncourage of their opinions. Dr. T. S. Hunt\n\n\n    Called attention to some long\u2010neglected passages in Newton\u2019s\n    works, from which it appears that a belief in such universal,\n    intercosmical medium gradually took root in his mind.(821)\n\n\nBut such attention was never called to the said passages before Nov. 28,\n1881, when Dr. Hunt read his \u201cCelestial Chemistry, from the time of\nNewton.\u201d As Le Couturier says:\n\n\n    Till then the idea was universal, even among the men of Science,\n    that Newton had, while advocating the corpuscular theory, preached\n    a _void_.\n\n\nThe passages had been \u201clong neglected,\u201d no doubt because they contradicted\nand clashed with the preconceived pet theories of the day, till finally\nthe undulatory theory imperiously required the presence of an \u201cethereal\nmedium\u201d to explain it. This is the whole secret.\n\nAnyhow, it is from this theory of Newton of a universal void, taught, if\nnot believed in by himself, that dates the immense scorn now shown by\nmodern Physics for ancient. The old sages had maintained that \u201cNature\nabhorred a vacuum,\u201d and the greatest mathematicians of the world\u2014read of\nthe Western races\u2014had discovered the antiquated \u201cfallacy\u201d and exposed it.\nAnd now Modern Science, however ungracefully, vindicates Archaic\nKnowledge, and has, moreover, to vindicate Newton\u2019s character and powers\nof observation at this late hour, after having neglected, for one century\nand a half, to pay any attention to such very important\npassages\u2014perchance, because it was wiser not to attract any notice to\nthem. Better late than never!\n\nAnd now Father \u00c6ther is _re\u2010welcomed_ with open arms and wedded to\ngravitation, linked to it for weal or woe, until the day when it, or both,\nshall be replaced by something else. Three hundred years ago it was\n_plenum_ everywhere, then it became one dismal _vacuity_; later still the\nsidereal ocean\u2010beds, dried up by Science, rolled onward once more their\nethereal waves. _Recede ut procedas_ must become the motto of exact\nScience\u2014\u201cexact,\u201d chiefly, in finding itself inexact every leap\u2010year.\n\nBut we will not quarrel with the great men. They had to go back to the\nearliest \u201cGods of Pythagoras and old Kan\u00e2da\u201d for the very backbone and\nmarrow of their correlations and \u201cnewest\u201d discoveries, and this may well\nafford good hope to the Occultists for their minor Gods. For we believe in\nLe Couturier\u2019s prophecy about gravitation. We know the day is approaching\nwhen an absolute reform will be demanded in the present modes of Science\nby the Scientists themselves, as was done by Sir William Grove, F.R.S.\nTill that day there is nothing to be done. For if gravitation were\ndethroned to\u2010morrow, the Scientists would discover some other new mode of\nmechanical motion the day after.(822) Rough and up\u2010hill is the path of\ntrue Science, and its days are full of vexation of spirit. But in the face\nof its \u201cthousand\u201d contradictory hypotheses offered as explanations of\nphysical phenomena, there has been no better hypothesis than\n\u201cmotion\u201d\u2014however paradoxically interpreted by Materialism. As may be found\nin the first pages of this Volume, Occultists have nothing to say against\nMotion,(823) the Great Breath of Mr. Herbert Spencer\u2019s \u201cUnknowable.\u201d But,\nbelieving that everything on Earth is the shadow of something in Space,\nthey believe in smaller \u201cBreaths,\u201d which, living, intelligent and\nindependent of all but Law, blow in every direction during manvantaric\nperiods. These Science will reject. But whatever may be made to replace\nattraction, _alias_ gravitation, the result will be the same. Science will\nbe as far then from the solution of its difficulties as it is now, unless\nit comes to some compromise with Occultism, and even with Alchemy\u2014a\nsupposition which will be regarded as an impertinence, but remains,\nnevertheless, a fact. As Faye says:\n\n\n    Il manque quelque chose aux g\u00e9ologues pour faire la g\u00e9ologie de la\n    Lune; c\u2019est d\u2019\u00eatre astronomes. \u00c0 la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, il manque aussi\n    quelque chose aux astronomes pour aborder avec fruit cette \u00e9tude,\n    c\u2019est d\u2019\u00eatre g\u00e9ologues.(824)\n\n\nBut he might have added, with still more pointedness:\n\n\n    Ce qui manque \u00e0 tous les deux, c\u2019est l\u2019intuition du mystique.\n\n\nLet us remember Sir William Grove\u2019s wise \u201cconcluding remarks,\u201d on the\nultimate structure of Matter, or the minuti\u00e6 of molecular actions, which,\nhe thought, man will never know.\n\n\n    Much harm has already been done by attempting hypothetically to\n    dissect matter and to discuss the shapes, sizes, and numbers of\n    atoms, and their atmospheres of heat, ether, or electricity.\n    Whether the regarding electricity, light, magnetism, etc., as\n    simply motions of ordinary matter, be or be not admissible,\n    certain it is that all past theories have resolved, and all\n    existing theories do resolve, the action of these forces into\n    motion. Whether it be that, on account of our familiarity with\n    motion, we refer other affections to it, as to a language which is\n    most easily construed, and most capable of explaining them, or\n    whether it be that it is in reality the only mode in which our\n    minds, as contra\u2010distinguished from our senses, are able to\n    conceive material agencies, certain it is that since the period at\n    which the mystic notions of spiritual or preternatural powers were\n    applied to account for physical phenomena, all hypotheses framed\n    to explain them have resolved them into motion.\n\n\nAnd then the learned gentleman states a purely Occult tenet:\n\n\n    The term perpetual motion, which I have not infrequently used in\n    these pages, is itself equivocal. If the doctrines here advanced\n    be well founded, all motion is, in one sense, perpetual. In\n    masses, whose motion is stopped by mutual concussion, heat or\n    motion of the particles is generated; and thus the motion\n    continues, so that if we could venture to extend such thoughts to\n    the universe, we should assume the same amount of motion affecting\n    the same amount of matter for ever.(825)\n\n\nThis is precisely what Occultism maintains, and on the same principle,\nthat:\n\n\n    Where force is made to oppose force, and produce static\n    equilibrium, the balance of pre\u00ebxisting equilibrium is affected,\n    and fresh motion is started equivalent to that which is withdrawn\n    into a state of abeyance.\n\n\nThis process finds intervals in the Pralaya, but is eternal and ceaseless\nas the \u201cBreath,\u201d even when the manifested Kosmos rests.\n\nThus, supposing attraction or gravitation should be given up in favour of\nthe Sun being a huge magnet\u2014a theory already accepted by some Physicists\u2014a\nmagnet that acts on the planets as attraction is now supposed to do,\nwhereto, or how much farther, would it lead the Astronomers from where\nthey are now? Not an inch farther. Kepler came to this \u201ccurious\nhypothesis\u201d nearly 300 years ago. He had not discovered the theory of\nattraction and repulsion in Kosmos, for it was known from the days of\nEmpedocles, by whom the two opposite forces were called \u201clove\u201d and\n\u201chate\u201d\u2014words implying the same idea. But Kepler gave a pretty fair\ndescription of cosmic magnetism. That such magnetism exists in Nature, is\nas certain as that gravitation does not; not at any rate, in the way in\nwhich it is taught by Science, which has never taken into consideration\nthe different modes in which the dual Force, that Occultism calls\nattraction and repulsion, may act within our Solar System, the Earth\u2019s\natmosphere and beyond in the Kosmos.\n\nAs the great Humboldt writes:\n\n\n    Trans\u2010solar space has not hitherto shown any phenomenon analogous\n    to our solar system. It is a peculiarity of _our_ system, that\n    matter should have condensed within it in nebulous rings, the\n    nuclei of which condense into earths and moons. I say again,\n    heretofore, _nothing of the kind has ever been observed beyond our\n    planetary system_.(826)\n\n\nTrue, that since 1860 the Nebular Theory has sprung up, and being better\nknown, a few identical phenomena were supposed to be observed beyond the\nSolar System. Yet the great man is quite right; and no _earths_ or _moons_\ncan be found, _except in appearance_, beyond, or of the same order of\nMatter as found in, our System. Such is the Occult Teaching.\n\nThis was proven by Newton himself; for there are many phenomena in our\nSolar System, which he confessed his inability to explain by the law of\ngravitation; \u201csuch were the uniformity in the directions of planetary\nmovements, the nearly circular forms of the orbits, and their remarkable\nconformity to one plane.\u201d(827) And if there is one single exception, then\nthe law of gravitation has no right to be referred to as a universal law.\n\u201cThese adjustments,\u201d we are told, \u201cNewton, in his general Scholium,\npronounces to be \u2018the work of an intelligent and all\u2010powerful Being\u2019.\u201d\nIntelligent that \u201cBeing\u201d may be; as to \u201call\u2010powerful,\u201d there would be\nevery reason to doubt the claim. A poor \u201cGod\u201d he, who would work upon\nminor details and leave the most important to secondary forces! The\npoverty of this argument and logic is surpassed only by that of Laplace,\nwho, seeking very correctly to substitute Motion for Newton\u2019s \u201call\u2010\npowerful Being,\u201d and ignorant of the true nature of that Eternal Motion,\nsaw in it a blind physical law. \u201cMight not those arrangements be an effect\nof the laws of motion?\u201d he asks, forgetting, as do all our modern\nScientists, that this law and this motion are a vicious circle, so long as\nthe _nature of both_ remains unexplained. His famous answer to Napoleon:\n\u201c_Dieu est devenu une hypoth\u00e8se inutile_,\u201d could be correctly made only by\none who adhered to the philosophy of the Ved\u00e2ntins. It becomes a pure\nfallacy, if we exclude the interference of operating, intelligent,\npowerful (never \u201call\u2010powerful\u201d) Beings, who are called \u201cGods.\u201d\n\nBut we would ask the critics of the medi\u00e6val Astronomers, why should\nKepler be denounced as most unscientific, for offering just the same\nsolution as did Newton, only showing himself more sincere, more consistent\nand even more logical? Where may be the difference between Newton\u2019s \u201call\u2010\npowerful Being\u201d and Kepler\u2019s Rectores, his Sidereal and Cosmic Forces, or\nAngels? Kepler again is criticized for his \u201ccurious hypothesis which made\nuse of a vortical movement within the solar system,\u201d for his theories in\ngeneral, and for favouring Empedocles\u2019 idea of attraction and repulsion,\nand \u201csolar magnetism\u201d in particular. Yet several modern men of Science, as\nwill be shown\u2014Hunt, if Metcalfe is to be excluded, Dr. Richardson,\netc.\u2014very strongly favour the same idea. He is half excused, however, on\nthe plea that:\n\n\n    To the time of Kepler no interaction between masses of matter had\n    been distinctly recognized which was generically different from\n    magnetism.(828)\n\n\nIs it _distinctly_ recognized now? Does Professor Winchell claim for\nScience any serious knowledge whatever of the nature of either electricity\nor magnetism\u2014except that both seem to be the effects of some result\narising from an undetermined cause.\n\nThe ideas of Kepler, when their theological tendencies are weeded out, are\npurely Occult. He saw that:\n\n(I) The Sun is a great Magnet.(829) This is what some eminent modern\nScientists and also the Occultists believe in.\n\n(II) The Solar substance is immaterial.(830) In the sense, of course, of\nMatter existing in states unknown to Science.\n\n(III) For the constant motion and restoration of the Sun\u2019s energy and\nplanetary motion, he provided the perpetual care of a Spirit, or Spirits.\nThe whole of Antiquity believed in this idea. The Occultists do not use\nthe word Spirit, but say Creative Forces, which they endow with\nintelligence. But we may call them Spirits also. We shall be taken to task\nfor contradiction. It will be said that while we deny God, we admit Souls\nand operative Spirits, and quote from bigoted Roman Catholic writers in\nsupport of our argument. To this we reply: We deny the anthropomorphic God\nof the Monotheists, but never the Divine Principle in Nature. We combat\nProtestants and Roman Catholics on a number of dogmatic theological\nbeliefs of human and sectarian origin. We agree with them in their belief\nin Spirits and intelligent operative Powers, though we do not worship\n\u201cAngels\u201d as the Roman Latinists do.\n\nThis theory is tabooed a great deal more on account of the \u201cSpirit\u201d that\nis given room in it, than of anything else. Herschell, the elder, believed\nin it likewise, and so do several modern Scientists. Nevertheless\nProfessor Winchell declares that \u201ca hypothesis more fanciful, and less in\naccord with the requirements of physical principles, has not been offered\nin ancient or modern times.\u201d(831)\n\nThe same was said, once upon a time, of the universal Ether, and now it is\nnot only accepted perforce, but is advocated as the only possible theory\nto explain certain mysteries.\n\nGrove\u2019s ideas, when he first enunciated them in London about 1840, were\ndenounced as unscientific; nevertheless, his views on the Correlation of\nForces are now universally accepted. It would, very likely, require one\nmore conversant with Science than is the writer, to combat with any\nsuccess some of the now prevailing ideas about gravitation and other\nsimilar \u201csolutions\u201d of cosmic mysteries. But, let us recall a few\nobjections that came from recognized men of Science; from Astronomers and\nPhysicists of eminence, who rejected the theory of rotation, as well as\nthat of gravitation. Thus one reads in the _French Encyclop\u00e6dia_ that\n\u201cScience agrees, in the face of all its representatives, that it is\n_impossible_ to explain the _physical_ origin of the rotatory motion of\nthe solar system.\u201d\n\nIf the question is asked: \u201cWhat causes rotation?\u201d We are answered: \u201cIt is\nthe centrifugal force.\u201d \u201cAnd this force, what is it that produces it?\u201d\n\u201cThe force of rotation,\u201d is the grave answer.(832) It will be well,\nperhaps, to examine both these theories as being directly or indirectly\nconnected.\n\n\n\n\nSection IV. The Theories of Rotation in Science.\n\n\nConsidering that \u201cfinal cause is pronounced a chimera, and the First Great\nCause is remanded to the sphere of the Unknown,\u201d as a reverend gentleman\njustly complains, the number of hypotheses put forward, a nebula of them,\nis most remarkable. The profane student is perplexed, and does not know in\nwhich of the theories of _exact_ Science he has to believe. We give below\nhypotheses enough for every taste and power of brain. They are all\nextracted from a number of scientific volumes.\n\n\n\nCurrent Hypotheses explaining the Origin of Rotation.\n\n\nRotation has originated:\n\n(_a_) By the collision of nebular masses wandering aimlessly in Space; or\nby attraction, \u201cin cases where no actual impact takes place.\u201d\n\n(_b_) By the tangential action of currents of nebulous matter (in the case\nof an amorphous nebula) descending from higher to lower levels,(833) or\nsimply by the action of the central gravity of the mass.(834)\n\n\u201cIt is a fundamental principle in physics that _no rotation could be\ngenerated in such a mass by the action of its own parts_. As well attempt\nto change the course of a steamer by pulling at the deck railing,\u201d remarks\non this Prof. Winchell in _World\u2010Life_.(835)\n\n\n\nHypotheses of the Origin of Planets and Comets.\n\n\n(_a_) We owe the birth of the planets (1) to an explosion of the Sun\u2014a\nparturition of its central mass;(836) or (2) to some kind of disruption of\nthe nebular rings.\n\n(_b_) \u201cThe comets are strangers to the planetary system.\u201d(837) \u201cThe comets\nare undeniably generated in our solar system.\u201d(838)\n\n(_c_) The \u201c_fixed_ stars are motionless,\u201d says one authority. \u201cAll the\nstars are actually in motion,\u201d answers another authority. \u201cUndoubtedly\nevery star is in motion.\u201d(839)\n\n(_d_) \u201cFor over 350,000,000 years, the slow and majestic movement of the\nsun around its axis has never for a moment ceased.\u201d(840)\n\n(_e_) \u201cMaedler believes that ... our sun has Alcyone in the Pleiades for\nthe centre of its orbit, and consumes 180,000,000 of years in completing a\nsingle revolution.\u201d(841)\n\n(_f_) \u201cThe sun has existed no more than 15,000,000 of years, and will emit\nheat for no longer than 10,000,000 years more.\u201d(842)\n\nA few years ago this eminent Scientist was telling the world that the time\nrequired for the Earth to cool from incipient incrustation to its present\nstate, could not exceed 80,000,000 years.(843) the encrusted age of the\nworld is only 40,000,000, or half the duration once allowed, and the Sun\u2019s\nage is only 15,000,000, have we to understand that the Earth was at one\ntime independent of the Sun?\n\nSince the ages of the Sun, of the planets, and of the Earth, as they are\nstated in the various scientific hypotheses of the Astronomers and\nPhysicists, are given elsewhere below, we have said enough to show the\ndisagreement between the ministers of Modern Science. Whether we accept\nthe _fifteen_ million years of Sir William Thomson or the _thousand_\nmillions of Mr. Huxley, for the rotational evolution of our Solar System,\nit will always come to this; that by accepting self\u2010generated rotation for\nthe heavenly bodies composed of inert Matter and yet moved by their own\ninternal motion, for millions of years, this teaching of Science amounts\nto:\n\n(_a_) An evident denial of that fundamental physical law, which states\nthat \u201ca body in motion tends constantly to inertia, _i.e._, to continue in\nthe same state of motion or rest, unless it is stimulated into further\naction by a superior active force.\u201d\n\n(_b_) An original impulse, which culminates in an unalterable motion,\nwithin a resisting Ether that Newton had declared incompatible with that\nmotion.\n\n(_c_) Universal gravity, which, we are taught, always tends to a centre in\nrectilinear descent\u2014alone the cause of the revolution of the whole Solar\nSystem, which is performing an eternal double gyration, each body around\nits axis and orbit. Another occasional version is:\n\n(_d_) A magnet in the Sun; or, that the said revolution is due to a\nmagnetic force, which acts, just as gravitation does, in a straight line,\nand varies inversely as the square of the distance.(844)\n\n(_e_) The whole acting under invariable and changeless laws, which are,\nnevertheless, often shown variable, as during some well\u2010known freaks of\nplanets and other bodies, as also when the comets approach or recede from\nthe Sun.\n\n(_f_) A Motor Force always proportionate to the mass it is acting upon;\nbut independent of the specific nature of that mass, to which it is\nproportionate; which amounts to saying, as Le Couturier does, that:\n\n\n    Without that force independent from, and of quite another nature\n    than, the said mass, the latter, were it as huge as Saturn, or as\n    tiny as Ceres, would always fall with the same rapidity.(845)\n\n\nA mass, furthermore, which derives its weight from the body on which it\nweighs.\n\nThus neither Laplace\u2019s perceptions of a solar atmospheric fluid, which\nwould extend beyond the orbits of the planets, nor Le Couturier\u2019s\nelectricity, nor Foucault\u2019s heat,(846) nor this, nor the other, can ever\nhelp any of the numerous hypotheses about the origin and permanency of\nrotation to escape from this squirrel\u2019s wheel, any more than can the\ntheory of gravity itself. This mystery is the Procrustean bed of Physical\nScience. If Matter is passive, as we are now taught, the simplest movement\ncannot be said to be an essential property of Matter\u2014the latter being\nconsidered simply as an inert mass. How, then, can such a complicated\nmovement, compound and multiple, harmonious and equilibrated, lasting in\nthe eternities for millions and millions of years, be attributed simply to\nits own inherent force, unless the latter is an Intelligence? A physical\nwill is something new\u2014a conception that the Ancients would never have\nentertained, indeed! For over a century all distinction between body and\nforce has been made away with. \u201cForce is but the property of a body in\nmotion,\u201d say the Physicists; \u201clife\u2014the property of our animal organs\u2014is\nbut the result of their molecular arrangement,\u201d answer the Physiologists.\nAs Littr\u00e9 teaches:\n\n\n    In the bosom of that aggregate which is named planet, are\n    developed all the forces immanent in matter ... _i.e._, that\n    matter possesses _in itself_ and _through itself_ the forces that\n    are proper to it ... and which are _primary_, not _secondary_.\n    Such forces are the property of weight, the property of\n    electricity, of terrestrial magnetism, the property of life....\n    Every planet can develop life ... as earth, for instance, which\n    had not always mankind on it, and now bears (_produit_) men.(847)\n\n\nAn Astronomer says:\n\n\n    We talk of the weight of the heavenly bodies, but since it is\n    recognized that weight decreases in proportion to the distance\n    from the centre, it becomes evident that, at a certain distance,\n    that weight must be forcibly reduced to zero. Were there any\n    _attraction_ there would be equilibrium.... And since the modern\n    school recognizes neither a _beneath_ nor an _above_ in universal\n    space, it is not clear what should cause the earth to fall, were\n    there even no gravitation, nor attraction.(848)\n\n\nMethinks the Count de Maistre was right in solving the question in his own\ntheological way. He cuts the Gordian knot by saying:\u2014\u201cThe planets rotate\nbecause they are made to rotate ... and the modern physical system of the\nuniverse is a physical impossibility.\u201d(849) For did not Herschell say the\nsame thing when he remarked that there is a Will needed to impart a\ncircular motion, and another Will to restrain it?(850) This shows and\nexplains how a retarded planet is cunning enough to calculate its time so\nwell as to hit off its arrival at the fixed minute. For, if Science\nsometimes succeeds, with great ingenuity, in explaining some of such\nstoppages, retrograde motions, angles outside the orbits, etc., by\nappearances resulting from the inequality of their progress and ours in\nthe course of our mutual and respective orbits, we still know that there\nare others, and \u201cvery real and considerable deviations,\u201d according to\nHerschell, \u201cwhich cannot be explained except by the mutual and irregular\naction of those planets and by the perturbing influence of the sun.\u201d\n\nWe understand, however, that there are, besides those little and\naccidental perturbations, continuous perturbations called\n\u201csecular\u201d\u2014because of the extreme slowness with which the irregularity\nincreases and affects the relations of the elliptic movement\u2014and that\nthese perturbations can be corrected. From Newton, who found that this\nworld needed repairing very often, down to Reynaud, all say the same. In\nhis _Ciel et Terre_, the latter says:\n\n\n    The orbits described by the planets are far from immutable, and\n    are, on the contrary, subject to a perpetual mutation in their\n    position and form.(851)\n\n\nProving gravitation and the peripatetic laws to be as negligent as they\nare quick to repair their mistakes. The charge as it stands seems to be\nthat:\n\n\n    These orbits are alternately widening and narrowing, their great\n    axis lengthens and diminishes, or oscillates at the same time from\n    right to left around the sun, the plane itself, in which they are\n    situated, raising and lowering itself periodically while pivoting\n    around itself with a kind of tremor.\n\n\nTo this, De Mirville, who believes in intelligent \u201cworkmen\u201d invisibly\nruling the Solar System\u2014as we do\u2014observes very wittily:\n\n\n    _Voil\u00e0, certes_, a voyage which has little in it of mechanical\n    precision; at the utmost, one could compare it to a steamer,\n    pulled to and fro and tossed on the waves, retarded or\n    accelerated, all and each of which impediments might put off its\n    arrival indefinitely, were there not the intelligence of a pilot\n    and engineers to catch up the time lost, and to repair the\n    damages.(852)\n\n\nThe law of gravity, however, seems to be becoming an obsolete law in\nstarry heaven. At any rate those long\u2010haired sidereal Radicals, called\ncomets, appear to be very poor respecters of the majesty of that law, and\nto beard it quite impudently. Nevertheless, and though presenting in\nnearly every respect \u201cphenomena not yet fully understood,\u201d comets and\nmeteors are credited by the believers in Modern Science with obeying the\nsame laws and consisting of the same Matter, \u201cas the suns, stars and\nnebul\u00e6,\u201d and even \u201cthe earth and its inhabitants.\u201d(853)\n\nThis is what one might call taking things on trust, aye, even to blind\nfaith. But exact Science is not to be questioned, and he who rejects the\nhypotheses imagined by her students\u2014gravitation, for instance\u2014would be\nregarded as an ignorant fool for his pains; yet we are told by the just\ncited author a queer legend from the scientific annals.\n\n\n    The comet of 1811 had a tail 120 millions of miles in length and\n    25 millions of miles in diameter at the widest part, while the\n    diameter of the nucleus was about 127,000 miles, more than ten\n    times that of the earth.\n\n\nHe tells us that:\n\n\n    In order that bodies of this magnitude, passing near the earth,\n    should not affect its motion or change the length of the year by\n    even a single second, their actual substance must be inconceivably\n    rare.\n\n\nIt must be so indeed, yet:\n\n\n    The extreme tenuity of a comet\u2019s mass is also proved by the\n    phenomenon of the tail, which, as the comet approaches the sun, is\n    thrown out sometimes to a length of 90 millions of miles in a few\n    hours. And what is remarkable, this tail is thrown out against the\n    force of gravity by some repulsive force, probably electrical, so\n    that it always points away from the sun [!!!].... And yet, thin as\n    the matter of comets must be, it obeys the common Law of Gravity\n    [!?], and whether the comet revolves in an orbit within that of\n    the outer planets, or shoots off into the abysses of space, and\n    returns only after hundreds of years, its path is, at each\n    instant, regulated by the same force as that which causes an apple\n    to fall to the ground.(854)\n\n\nScience is like C\u00e6sar\u2019s wife, and must not be suspected\u2014this is evident.\nBut it can be respectfully criticized, nevertheless, and at all events, it\nmay be reminded that the \u201capple\u201d is a dangerous fruit. For the second time\nin the history of mankind, it may become the cause of the Fall\u2014this time,\nof \u201cexact\u201d Science. A comet whose tail defies the law of gravity right in\nthe Sun\u2019s face can hardly be credited with obeying that law.\n\nIn a series of scientific works on Astronomy and the Nebular Theory,\nwritten between 1865 and 1866, the present writer, a poor tyro in Science,\nhas counted in a few hours, no less than thirty\u2010nine contradictory\nhypotheses offered as explanations for the self\u2010generated, primitive\nrotatory motion of the heavenly bodies. The writer is no Astronomer, no\nMathematician, no Scientist; but she was obliged to examine these errors\nin defence of Occultism, in general, and what is still more important, in\norder to support the Occult Teachings concerning Astronomy and Cosmology.\nOccultists were threatened with terrible penalties for questioning\nscientific truths. But now they feel braver; Science is less secure in its\n\u201cimpregnable\u201d position than they were led to expect, and many of its\nstrongholds are built on very shifting sands.\n\nThus, even this poor and unscientific examination of it has been useful,\nand it has certainly been very instructive. We have learned a good many\nthings, in fact, having especially studied with particular care those\nastronomical data, that would be the most likely to clash with our\nheterodox and \u201csuperstitious\u201d beliefs.\n\nThus, for instance, we have found there, concerning gravitation, the axial\nand orbital motions, that synchronous movement having been once overcome,\nin the early stage, this was enough to originate a rotatory motion till\nthe end of Manvantara. We have also come to know, in all the aforesaid\ncombinations of possibilities with regard to incipient rotation, most\ncomplicated in every case, some of the causes to which it may have been\ndue, as well as some others to which it ought and should have been due,\nbut, in some way or other, was not. Among other things, we are informed\nthat incipient rotation may be provoked with equal ease in a mass in\nigneous fusion, and in one that is characterized by glacial opacity.(855)\nThat gravitation is a law which nothing can overcome, but which is,\nnevertheless, overcome, in and out of season, by the most ordinary\ncelestial or terrestrial bodies\u2014the tails of impudent comets, for\ninstance. That we owe the universe to the holy Creative Trinity, called\nInert Matter, Senseless Force and Blind Chance. Of the real essence and\nnature of any of these three, Science knows nothing, but this is a\ntrifling detail. Ergo, we are told that, when a mass of cosmic or nebular\nMatter\u2014whose nature is entirely unknown, and which may be in a state of\nfusion (Laplace), or dark and cold (Thomson), for \u201cthis intervention of\nheat is itself a pure hypothesis\u201d (Faye)\u2014decides to exhibit its mechanical\nenergy under the form of rotation, it acts in this wise. It (the mass)\neither bursts into spontaneous conflagration, or it remains inert,\ntenebrous, and frigid, both states being equally capable of sending it,\nwithout any adequate cause, spinning through Space for millions of years.\nIts movements may be retrograde, or they may be direct, about a hundred\nvarious reasons being offered for both motions, in about as many\nhypotheses; anyhow, it joins the maze of stars, whose origin belongs to\nthe same miraculous and spontaneous order\u2014for:\n\n\n    _The nebular theory does not profess to discover the_ ORIGIN _of\n    things, but only a stadium in material history._(856)\n\n\nThose millions of suns, planets, and satellites, composed of inert matter,\nwill whirl on in most impressive and majestic symmetry round the\nfirmament, moved and guided only, notwithstanding their inertia, \u201cby their\nown internal motion.\u201d\n\nShall we wonder, after this, if learned Mystics, pious Roman Catholics,\nand even such learned Astronomers as were Chaubard and Godefroy,(857) have\npreferred the _Kabalah_ and the ancient systems to the modern dreary and\ncontradictory exposition of the Universe? The _Zohar_ makes a distinction,\nat any rate, between \u201cthe Hajaschar [the \u2018Light Forces\u2019], the Hachoser\n[\u2018Reflected Lights\u2019], and the simple _phenomenal exteriority_ of their\nspiritual types.\u201d(858)\n\nThe question of \u201cgravity\u201d may now be dismissed, and other hypotheses\nexamined. That Physical Science knows nothing of \u201cForces\u201d is clear. We may\nclose the argument, however, by calling to our help one more man of\nScience\u2014Professor Jaumes, Member of the Academy of Medicine at\nMontpellier. Says this learned man, speaking of Forces:\n\n\n    A cause is that which is essentially acting in the genealogy of\n    phenomena, in every production as in every modification. I said\n    that activity (or force) was invisible.... To suppose it corporeal\n    and _residing in the properties of matter_ would be a gratuitous\n    hypothesis.... To reduce all the causes to God, ... would amount\n    to embarrassing oneself with a hypothesis hostile to many\n    verities. But to speak of _a plurality of forces_ proceeding from\n    the Deity and possessing inherent powers of their own, is not\n    unreasonable, ... and I am disposed to admit phenomena produced by\n    intermediate agents called Forces or Secondary Agents. The\n    _distinction_ of Forces is the principle of the division of\n    Sciences; so many real and separate Forces, so many mother\u2010\n    Sciences.... No; Forces are not suppositions and abstractions, but\n    realities, and the only acting realities whose attributes can be\n    determined with the help of direct observation and induction.(859)\n\n\n\n\nSection V. The Masks of Science. Physics Or Metaphysics?\n\n\nIf there is anything like progress on earth, Science will some day have to\ngive up, _nolens volens_, such monstrous ideas as her physical, self\u2010\nguiding laws, void of Soul and Spirit, and will then have to turn to the\nOccult Teachings. It has already done so, however altered may be the\ntitle\u2010pages and revised editions of the Scientific Catechism. It is now\nover half a century since, in comparing modern with ancient thought, it\nwas found that, however different our Philosophy may appear from that of\nour ancestors, it is, nevertheless, composed only of additions and\nsubtractions taken from the old Philosophy and transmitted drop by drop\nthrough the filter of antecedents.\n\nThis fact was well known to Faraday, and to other eminent men of Science.\nAtoms, Ether, Evolution itself\u2014all come to Modern Science from ancient\nnotions, all are based on the conceptions of the archaic nations.\n\u201cConceptions\u201d for the profane, under the shape of allegories; plain truths\ntaught during the Initiations to the Elect, which truths have been\npartially divulged through Greek writers and have descended to us. This\ndoes not mean that Occultism has ever had the same views on Matter, Atoms\nand Ether as may be found in the exotericism of the classical Greek\nwriters. Yet, if we may believe Mr. Tyndall, even Faraday was an\nAristotelean, and was more an Agnostic than a Materialist. In his\n_Faraday, as a Discoverer_,(860) the author shows the great Physicist\nusing \u201cold reflections of Aristotle\u201d which are \u201cconcisely found in some of\nhis works.\u201d Faraday, Boscovitch, and all others, however, who see, in the\nAtoms and molecules, \u201ccentres of force,\u201d and in the corresponding element,\nForce, an Entity by itself, are far nearer the truth, perchance, than\nthose, who, denouncing them, denounce at the same time the \u201cold\ncorpuscular Pythagorean theory\u201d\u2014one, by the way, which never passed to\nposterity as the great Philosopher really taught it\u2014on the ground of its\n\u201cdelusion that the conceptual elements of matter can be grasped as\nseparate and real entities.\u201d\n\nThe chief and most fatal mistake and fallacy made by Science, in the view\nof the Occultists, lies in the idea of the possibility of such a thing\nexisting in Nature as inorganic, or dead Matter. Is anything dead or\ninorganic which is capable of transformation or change?\u2014Occultism asks.\nAnd is there anything under the sun which remains immutable or changeless?\n\nFor a thing to be _dead_ implies that it had been at some time _living_.\nWhen, at what period of cosmogony? Occultism says that in all cases Matter\nis the most active, when it appears inert. A wooden or a stone block is\nmotionless and impenetrable to all intents and purposes. Nevertheless, and\n_de facto_, its particles are in ceaseless eternal vibration which is so\nrapid that to the physical eye the body seems absolutely devoid of motion;\nand the spacial distance between those particles in their vibratory motion\nis\u2014considered from another plane of being and perception\u2014as great as that\nwhich separates snow flakes or drops of rain. But to Physical Science this\nwill be an absurdity.\n\nThis fallacy is nowhere better illustrated than in the scientific work of\na German _savant_, Professor Philip Spiller. In this cosmological\ntreatise, the author attempts to prove that:\n\n\n    No material constituent of a body, no atom, is in itself\n    originally endowed with force, but that every such atom is\n    absolutely dead, and without any inherent power to act at a\n    distance.(861)\n\n\nThis statement, however, does not prevent Spiller from enunciating an\nOccult doctrine and principle. He asserts _the independent substantiality\nof Force_, and shows it as an \u201cincorporeal stuff\u201d (_unk\u00f6rperlicher Stoff_)\nor Substance. Now _Substance_ is not _Matter_ in Metaphysics, and for\nargument\u2019s sake it may be granted that it is a wrong expression to use.\nBut this is due to the poverty of European languages, and especially to\nthe paucity of scientific terms. Then this \u201cstuff\u201d is identified and\nconnected by Spiller with the \u00c6ther. Expressed in Occult language it might\nbe said with more correctness that this \u201cForce\u2010Substance\u201d is the ever\u2010\nactive phenomenal positive Ether\u2014Prakriti; while the omnipresent all\u2010\npervading \u00c6ther is the Noumenon of the former, the substratum of all, or\n\u00c2k\u00e2sha. Nevertheless, Stallo falls foul of Spiller, as he does of the\nMaterialists. He is accused of \u201cutter disregard of the fundamental\ncorrelation of Force and Matter,\u201d of neither of which Science knows\nanything certain. For this \u201chypostasized half\u2010concept\u201d is, in the view of\nall other Physicists, not only _imponderable_, but destitute of cohesive,\nchemical, thermal, electric, and magnetic forces, of all of which\nforces\u2014according to Occultism\u2014\u00c6ther is the Source and Cause.\n\nTherefore Spiller, with all his mistakes, exhibits more intuition than\ndoes any other modern Scientist, with the exception, perhaps, of Dr.\nRichardson, the theorist on \u201cNerve\u2010Force,\u201d or Nervous Ether, also on \u201cSun\u2010\nForce and Earth\u2010Force.\u201d(862) For \u00c6ther, in Esotericism, is the very\nquintessence of all possible energy, and it is certainly to this Universal\nAgent (composed of many agents) that are due all the manifestations of\nenergy in the material, psychic and spiritual worlds.\n\nWhat, in fact, are electricity and light? How can Science know that one is\na fluid and the other a \u201cmode of motion\u201d? Why is no reason given why a\ndifference should be made between them, since both are considered as\nforce\u2010correlations? Electricity is a fluid, we are told, immaterial and\nlion\u2010molecular\u2014though Helmholtz thinks otherwise\u2014and the proof of it is\nthat we can bottle it up, accumulate it and store it away. Then, it must\nbe simply Matter, and no peculiar \u201cfluid.\u201d Nor is it only \u201ca mode of\nmotion,\u201d for motion could hardly be stored in a Leyden jar. As for light,\nit is a still more extraordinary \u201cmode of motion\u201d; since, \u201cmarvellous as\nit may appear, light [also] can _actually be stored up for use_,\u201d as was\ndemonstrated by Grove nearly half a century ago.\n\n\n    Take an engraving which has been kept for some days in the dark,\n    expose it to full sunshine\u2014that is, insulate it for 15 minutes;\n    lay it on sensitive paper in a dark place, and at the end of 24\n    hours it will have left an impression of itself on the sensitive\n    paper, the whites coming out as blacks.... There seems to be no\n    limit for the reproduction of engravings.(863)\n\n\nWhat is it that remains fixed, nailed, so to say, on the paper? It is a\nForce certainly that fixed the thing, but what is _that thing_, the\nresidue of which remains on the paper?\n\nOur learned men will get out of this by some scientific technicality; but\nwhat is it that is intercepted, so as to imprison a certain quantity of it\non glass, paper, or wood? Is it \u201cMotion\u201d or is it \u201cForce\u201d? Or shall we be\ntold that what remains behind is only the effect of the Force or Motion?\nThen what is this Force? Force or Energy is a quality; but every quality\nmust belong to a something, or a somebody. In Physics, Force is defined as\n\u201cthat which changes or tends to change any physical relation between\nbodies, whether mechanical, thermal, chemical, electrical, magnetic, etc.\u201d\nBut it is not that Force or that Motion which remains behind on the paper,\nwhen the Force or Motion has ceased to act; and yet something, which our\nphysical senses cannot perceive, has been left there, to become a cause in\nits turn and to produce effects. What is it? It is not Matter, as defined\nby Science\u2014_i.e._, Matter in any of its known states. An Alchemist would\nsay it was a spiritual secretion\u2014and he would be laughed at. But yet, when\nthe Physicist said that electricity, stored up, is a fluid, or that light\nfixed on paper is still sunlight\u2014that was _Science_. The newest\nauthorities have, indeed, rejected these explanations as \u201cexploded\ntheories,\u201d and have now deified \u201cMotion\u201d as their sole idol. But, surely,\nthey and their idol will one day share the fate of their predecessors! An\nexperienced Occultist, one who has verified the whole series of Nid\u00e2nas,\nof causes and effects, that finally project their last effect on to this\nour plane of manifestations, one who has traced Matter back to its\nNoumenon, holds the opinion that the explanation of the Physicist is like\ncalling anger, or its effects\u2014the exclamation provoked by it\u2014a secretion\nor a fluid, and man, the cause of it, its _material_ conductor. But, as\nGrove prophetically remarked, the day is fast approaching when it will be\nconfessed that the Forces we know are but the phenomenal manifestations of\nRealities we know nothing about\u2014but which were known to the Ancients, and\nby them worshipped.\n\nHe made one still more suggestive remark which ought to have become the\nmotto of Science, but has not. Sir William Grove said that: \u201c_Science\nshould have neither desires nor prejudices. Truth should be her sole\naim_.\u201d\n\nMeanwhile, in our days, Scientists are more self\u2010opinionated and bigoted\nthan even the Clergy. For they minister to, if they do not actually\nworship, \u201cForce\u2010Matter,\u201d which is their _Unknown God_. And how unknown it\nis, may be inferred from the many confessions of the most eminent\nPhysicists and Biologists, with Faraday at their head. Not only, he said,\ncould he never presume to pronounce whether Force was a property or\nfunction of Matter, but he actually did not know what was meant by the\nword Matter.\n\nThere was a time, he added, when he believed he knew something of Matter.\nBut the more he lived, and the more carefully he studied it, the more he\nbecame convinced of his utter ignorance of the nature of Matter.(864)\n\nThis ominous confession was made, we believe, at a Scientific Congress at\nSwansea. Faraday held a similar opinion, however, as stated by Tyndall:\n\n\n    What do we know of the atom apart from its force? You imagine a\n    nucleus which maybe called _a_ and surround it by forces which may\n    be called _m_; to my mind the _a_ or nucleus vanishes and the\n    substance consists of the powers _m_. And, indeed, what notion can\n    we form of the nucleus independent of its powers? What thought\n    remains on which to hang the imagination of an _a_ independent of\n    the acknowledged forces?\n\n\nThe Occultists are often misunderstood because, for lack of better terms,\nthey apply to the Essence of Force, _under certain aspects_, the\ndescriptive epithet of _Substance_. Now the names for the varieties of\nSubstance on different planes of perception and being are legion. Eastern\nOccultism has a special appellation for each kind; but Science\u2014like\nEngland, in the recollection of a witty Frenchman, blessed with thirty\u2010six\nreligions and only one fish\u2010sauce\u2014has but one name for all, namely\n\u201cSubstance.\u201d Moreover, neither the orthodox Physicists nor their critics\nseem to be very certain of their premisses, and are as apt to confuse the\neffects as they are the causes. It is incorrect, for instance, to say, as\nStallo does, that \u201cMatter can no more be realized or conceived as mere\npositive spatial presence than as a concretion of forces,\u201d or that \u201cForce\nis nothing without mass, and mass is nothing without force\u201d\u2014for one is the\nNoumenon and the other the phenomenon. Again; Schelling, when saying that\n\n\n    It is a mere delusion of the phantasy that something, we know not\n    what, remains after we have denuded an object of all the\n    predicates belonging to it,(865)\n\n\ncould never have applied the remark to the realm of transcendental\nMetaphysics. It is true that pure Force is _nothing_ in the world of\nPhysics; it is All in the domain of Spirit. Says Stallo:\n\n\n    If we reduce the mass upon which a given force, however small,\n    acts to its limit zero\u2014or, mathematically expressed, until it\n    becomes infinitely small\u2014the consequence is that the velocity of\n    the resulting motion is infinitely great, and that the \u201cthing\u201d ...\n    is at any given moment neither here nor there, but everywhere\u2014that\n    there is no real presence; it is impossible, therefore, to\n    construct matter by a synthesis of forces.(866)\n\n\nThis may be true in the phenomenal world, inasmuch as the illusive\nreflection of the One Reality of the supersensual world may appear true to\nthe dwarfed conceptions of a Materialist. It is absolutely incorrect when\nthe argument is applied to things in what the Kabalists call the\nsupermundane spheres. Inertia, so\u2010called, is Force, according to\nNewton,(867) and for the student of Esoteric Sciences the greatest of the\nOccult Forces. A body can only conceptually, only on this plane of\nillusion, be considered divorced from its relations with other\nbodies\u2014which, according to the physical and mechanical sciences, give rise\nto its attributes. In fact, it can never be so detached; death itself\nbeing unable to detach it from its relation with the Universal Forces, of\nwhich the One Force, or Life, is the synthesis: the inter\u2010relation simply\ncontinues on another plane. But what, if Stallo is right, can Dr. James\nCroll mean when, in speaking \u201cOn the Transformation of Gravity,\u201d he brings\nforward the views advocated by Faraday, Waterston, and others? For he says\nvery plainly that gravity\n\n\n    Is a force pervading Space external to bodies, and that, on the\n    mutual approach of the bodies, the force is not increased, as is\n    generally supposed, but the bodies merely pass into a place where\n    the force exists with greater intensity.(868)\n\n\nNo one will deny that a Force, whether gravity, electricity, or any other\nForce, which exists _outside_ bodies and in open Space\u2014be it Ether or a\nvacuum\u2014must be _something_, and not a pure _nothing_, when conceived apart\nfrom a mass. Otherwise it could hardly exist in one place with a greater\nand in another with reduced \u201cintensity.\u201d G. A. Hirn declares the same in\nhis _Th\u00e9orie M\u00e9canique de l\u2019Univers_. He tries to demonstrate:\n\n\n    That the atom of the chemists is not an entity of pure convention,\n    or simply an explicative device, but that it exists really, that\n    its volume is unalterable, and that consequently it is _not_\n    elastic [!!]. Force, therefore, is not in the atom; it is _in the\n    space_ which separates the atoms from each other.\n\n\nThe above\u2010cited views, expressed by two men of Science of great eminence\nin their respective countries, show that it is not in the least\n_unscientific_ to speak of the substantiality of the so\u2010called Forces.\nSubject to some future specific name, this Force is Substance of some\nkind, and can be nothing else; and perhaps one day Science will be the\nfirst to re\u00e4dopt the derided name of phlogiston. Whatever may be the\nfuture name given to it, to maintain that Force does not reside in the\nAtoms, but only in the \u201cspace between them,\u201d may be scientific enough;\nnevertheless it is not true. To the mind of an Occultist it is like saying\nthat water does not reside in the drops of which the ocean is composed,\nbut only in the space between those drops!\n\nThe objection that there are two distinct schools of Physicists, by one of\nwhich\n\n\n    This force is assumed to be an independent substantial entity,\n    which is not a property of matter nor essentially related to\n    matter,(869)\n\n\nis hardly likely to help the profane to any clearer understanding. It is,\non the contrary, more calculated to throw the question into still greater\nconfusion than ever. For Force is, then, neither this nor the other. By\nviewing it as \u201can independent substantial entity,\u201d the theory extends the\nright hand of fellowship to Occultism, while the strange contradictory\nidea that it is not \u201crelated to Matter otherwise than by its power to act\nupon it,\u201d(870) leads Physical Science to the most absurd contradictory\nhypotheses. Whether \u201cForce\u201d or \u201cMotion\u201d (Occultism, seeing no difference\nbetween the two, never attempts to separate them), it cannot act for the\nadherents of the atomo\u2010mechanical theory in one way, and for those of the\nrival school in another. Nor can the Atoms be, in one case, absolutely\nuniform in size and weight, and in another, vary in their weight\n(Avogadro\u2019s law). For, in the words of the same able critic:\n\n\n    While the absolute equality of the primordial units of mass is\n    thus an essential part of the very foundations of the mechanical\n    theory, the whole modern science of chemistry is based upon a\n    principle directly subversive of it\u2014a principle of which it has\n    recently been said that \u201cit holds the same place in chemistry that\n    the law of gravitation does in astronomy.\u201d(871) This principle is\n    known as the law of Avogadro or Amp\u00e8re.(872)\n\n\nThis shows that either modern Chemistry, or modern Physics, is entirely\nwrong in the respective fundamental principles. For if the assumption of\nAtoms of different specific gravities is deemed absurd, on the basis of\nthe atomic theory in Physics; and if Chemistry, nevertheless, on this very\nassumption, meets with \u201cunfailing experimental verification,\u201d in the\nformation and transformation of chemical compounds; then it becomes\napparent that it is the atomo\u2010mechanical theory which is untenable. The\nexplanation of the latter, that \u201cthe differences of weight are only\ndifferences of density, and differences of density are differences of\ndistance between the particles contained in a given space,\u201d is not really\nvalid, because, before a Physicist can argue in his defence that \u201cas in\nthe atom there is no multiplicity of particles and no void space, hence\ndifferences of density or weight are impossible in the case of atoms,\u201d he\nmust first know what an Atom is, in reality, and that is just what he\ncannot know. He must bring it under the observation of at least one of his\nphysical senses\u2014and that he cannot do: for the simple reason that no one\nhas ever seen, smelt, heard, touched or tasted an Atom. The Atom belongs\nwholly to the domain of Metaphysics. It is an entified abstraction\u2014at any\nrate for Physical Science\u2014and has nought to do with Physics, strictly\nspeaking, as it can never be brought to the test of retort or balance. The\nmechanical conception, therefore, becomes a jumble of the most conflicting\ntheories and dilemmas, in the minds of the many Scientists who disagree on\nthis, as on other subjects; and its evolution is beheld with the greatest\nbewilderment by the Eastern Occultist, who follows this scientific strife.\n\nTo conclude, on the question of gravity. How can Science presume to know\nanything certain of it? How can it maintain its position and its\nhypotheses against those of the Occultists, who see in gravity only\nsympathy and antipathy, or attraction and repulsion, caused by physical\npolarity on our terrestrial plane, and by spiritual causes outside its\ninfluence? How can they disagree with the Occultists before they agree\namong themselves? Indeed one hears of the Conservation of Energy, and in\nthe same breath of the perfect hardness and inelasticity of the Atoms; of\nthe kinetic theory of gases being identical with \u201cpotential energy,\u201d so\ncalled, and, at the same time, of the elementary units of mass being\nabsolutely hard and inelastic! An Occultist opens a scientific work and\nreads as follows:\n\n\n    Physical atomism derives all the qualitative properties of matter\n    from the forms of atomic motion. The _atoms themselves remain as\n    elements utterly devoid of quality_.(873)\n\n\nAnd further:\n\n\n    Chemistry in its ultimate form must be atomic mechanics.(874)\n\n\nAnd a moment after he is told that:\n\n\n    Gases consist of atoms which behave like solid, _perfectly\n    elastic_ spheres.(875)\n\n\nFinally, to crown all, Sir W. Thomson is found declaring that:\n\n\n    We are forbidden by the modern theory of the conservation of\n    energy to assume inelasticity, or anything short of perfect\n    elasticity of the ultimate molecules whether of ultra\u2010mundane or\n    mundane matter.(876)\n\n\nBut what do the men of true Science say to all this? By the \u201cmen of true\nScience\u201d we mean those who care too much for truth and too little for\npersonal vanity to dogmatize on anything, as do the majority. There are\nseveral among them\u2014perhaps more than dare openly publish their secret\nconclusions, for fear of the cry \u201cStone him to death!\u201d\u2014men, whose\nintuitions have made them span the abyss that lies between the terrestrial\naspect of Matter, and the, to us, on our plane of illusion, subjective,\n_i.e._, transcendentally objective Substance, and have led them to\nproclaim the existence of the latter. Matter, to the Occultist, it must be\nremembered, is that totality of existences in the Kosmos, which falls\nwithin any of the planes of possible perception. We are but too well aware\nthat the orthodox theories of sound, heat and light, are against the\nOccult Doctrines. But, it is not enough for the men of Science, or their\ndefenders, to say that they do not deny dynamic power to light and heat,\nand to urge, as a proof, the fact that Mr. Crookes\u2019 radiometer has\nunsettled no views. If they would fathom the ultimate nature of these\nForces, they have first to admit their _substantial_ nature, however\n_supersensuous_ that nature may be. Neither do the Occultists deny the\ncorrectness of the vibratory theory.(877) Only they limit its functions to\nour Earth\u2014declaring its inadequacy on other planes than ours, since\nMasters in the Occult Sciences perceive the Causes that produce ethereal\nvibrations. Were all these only the fictions of the Alchemists, or dreams\nof the Mystics, such men as Paracelsus, Philalethes, Van Helmont, and so\nmany others, would have to be regarded as worse than visionaries; they\nwould become impostors and deliberate mystificators.\n\nThe Occultists are taken to task for calling the Cause of light, heat,\nsound, cohesion, magnetism, etc., etc., a Substance.(878) Mr. Clerk\nMaxwell has stated that the pressure of strong sunlight on a square mile\nis about 3\u2010\u00bc lbs. It is, they are told, \u201cthe energy of the myriad ether\nwaves\u201d; and when they call it a Substance impinging on that area, their\nexplanation is proclaimed unscientific.\n\nThere is no justification for such an accusation. In no way\u2014as already\nmore than once stated\u2014do the Occultists dispute the explanations of\nScience, as affording a solution of the immediate objective agencies at\nwork. Science only errs in believing that, because it has detected in\nvibratory waves the _proximate_ cause of these phenomena, it has,\ntherefore, revealed _all_ that lies beyond the threshold of Sense. It\nmerely traces the sequence of phenomena on a plane of effects, illusory\nprojections from the region that Occultism has long since penetrated. And\nthe latter maintains that those etheric tremors are not set up, as\nasserted by Science, by the vibrations of the molecules of known bodies,\nthe Matter of our terrestrial objective consciousness, but that we must\nseek for the ultimate Causes of light, heat, etc., in Matter existing in\nsupersensuous states\u2014states, however, as fully objective to the spiritual\neye of man, as a horse or a tree is to the ordinary mortal. Light and heat\nare the ghost or shadow of Matter in motion. Such states can be perceived\nby the Seer or the Adept during the hours of trance, under the Sushumn\u00e2\nRay\u2014the first of the Seven Mystic Rays of the Sun.(879)\n\nThus, we put forward the Occult teaching which maintains the reality of a\nsupersubstantial and supersensible essence of that \u00c2k\u00e2sha\u2014not Ether, which\nis only an aspect of the latter\u2014the nature of which cannot be inferred\nfrom its remoter manifestations, its merely phenomenal phalanx of effects,\non this terrene plane. Science, on the contrary, informs us that heat can\nnever be regarded as Matter in any conceivable state. To cite a most\nimpartial critic, one whose authority no one can call in question, as a\nreminder to Western dogmatists, that the question cannot be in any way\nconsidered as settled:\n\n\n    There is no fundamental difference between light and heat ... each\n    is merely a metamorphosis of the other.... Heat is light in\n    complete repose. Light is heat in rapid motion. Directly light is\n    combined with a body, it becomes heat; but when it is thrown off\n    from that body it again becomes light.(880)\n\n\nWhether this is true or false we cannot tell, and many years, perhaps many\ngenerations, will have to elapse before we shall be able to tell.(881) We\nare also told that the two great obstacles to the fluid (?) theory of heat\nundoubtedly are:\n\n(1) The production of heat by friction\u2014excitation of molecular motion.\n\n(2) The conversion of heat into mechanical motion.\n\nThe answer given is: There are fluids of various kinds. Electricity is\ncalled a fluid, and so was heat quite recently, but it was on the\nsupposition that heat was some imponderable substance. This was during the\nsupreme and autocratic reign of Matter. When Matter was dethroned, and\nMotion was proclaimed the sole sovereign ruler of the Universe, heat\nbecame a \u201cmode of motion.\u201d We need not despair; it may become something\nelse to\u2010morrow. Like the Universe itself, Science is ever becoming, and\ncan never say, \u201cI am that I am.\u201d On the other hand, Occult Science has its\nchangeless traditions from prehistoric times. It may err in particulars;\nit can never become guilty of a mistake in questions of Universal Law,\nsimply because that Science, justly referred to by Philosophy as the\nDivine, was born on higher planes, and was brought to Earth by Beings who\nwere wiser than man will be, even in the Seventh Race of his Seventh\nRound. And _that_ Science maintains that Forces are not what modern\nlearning would have them; _e.g._, magnetism is not a \u201cmode of motion\u201d;\nand, in this particular case, at least, exact Modern Science is sure to\ncome to grief some day. Nothing, at the first blush, can appear more\nridiculous, more outrageously absurd than to say, for instance: The Hind\u00fb\ninitiated Yog\u00ee knows really ten times more than the greatest European\nPhysicist of the ultimate nature and constitution of light, both solar and\nlunar. Yet why is the Sushumn\u00e2 Ray believed to be that Ray which furnishes\nthe Moon with its borrowed light? Why is it \u201cthe Ray cherished by the\ninitiated Yog\u00ee\u201d? Why is the Moon considered as the Deity of the Mind, by\nthose Yog\u00ees? We say, because light, or rather all its Occult properties,\nevery combination and correlation of it with other forces, mental,\npsychic, and spiritual, was perfectly known to the old Adepts.\n\nTherefore, although Occult Science may be less well\u2010informed than modern\nChemistry as to the behaviour of compound elements in various cases of\nphysical correlation, yet it is immeasurably higher in its knowledge of\nthe ultimate Occult states of Matter, and of the true nature of Matter,\nthan all the Physicists and Chemists of our modern day put together.\n\nNow, if we state the truth openly and in full sincerity, namely, that the\nancient Initiates had a far wider knowledge of Physics, as a Science of\nNature, than is possessed by our Academies of Science, all taken together,\nthe statement will be characterized as an impertinence and an absurdity;\nfor Physical Sciences are considered to have been carried in our age to\nthe apex of perfection. Hence, the twitting query: Can the Occultists meet\nsuccessfully the two points, namely (_a_) the production of heat by\nfriction\u2014excitation of molecular motion; and (_b_) the conversion of heat\ninto mechanical force, if they hold to the old exploded theory of heat\nbeing a substance or a fluid?\n\nTo answer the question, it must first be observed that the Occult Sciences\ndo not regard either electricity, or any of the Forces supposed to be\ngenerated by it, as Matter in any of the states known to Physical Science;\nto put it more clearly, none of these Forces, so\u2010called, is a solid, gas,\nor fluid. If it did not look pedantic, an Occultist would even object to\nelectricity being called a fluid\u2014as it is an effect and not a cause. But\nits Noumenon, he would say, is a Conscious Cause. The same in the cases of\n\u201cForce\u201d and the \u201cAtom.\u201d Let us see what an eminent Academician, Butlerof,\nthe Chemist, had to say about these two abstractions. This great man of\nScience argues:\n\n\n    What is Force? What is it from a strictly scientific stand\u2010point,\n    and as warranted by the law of conservation of energy? Conceptions\n    of Force are resumed by our conceptions of this, that, or another\n    mode of motion. Force is thus simply the passage of one state of\n    motion into another state of the same; of electricity into heat\n    and light, of heat into sound or some mechanical function, and so\n    on.(882) The first time electric fluid was produced by man on\n    earth it must have been by friction; hence, as well known, it is\n    heat that produces it by disturbing its zero state,(883) and\n    electricity exists no more on earth _per se_ than heat or light,\n    or any other force. They are all correlations, as Science says.\n    When a given quantity of heat, assisted by a steam engine, is\n    transformed into mechanical work, we speak of steam power (or\n    force). When a falling body strikes an obstacle in its way,\n    thereby generating heat and sound\u2014we call it the power of\n    collision. When electricity decomposes water or heats a platinum\n    wire, we speak of the force of the electric fluid. When the rays\n    of the sun are intercepted by the thermometer bulb and its\n    quicksilver expands, we speak of the calorific energy of the sun.\n    In short, when one state of a determined quantity of motion\n    ceases, another state of motion equivalent to the preceding takes\n    its place, and the result of such a transformation or correlation\n    is\u2014Force. In all cases where such a transformation, or the passage\n    of one state of motion into another, is entirely absent, there no\n    force is possible. Let us admit for a moment an absolutely\n    homogeneous state of the Universe, and our conception of Force\n    falls down to nought.\n\n    Therefore it becomes evident that the Force, which Materialism\n    considers as the cause of the diversity that surrounds us, is in\n    sober reality only an effect, a result of that diversity. From\n    such point of view Force is not the cause of motion, but a result,\n    while the cause of that Force, or forces, is not the Substance or\n    Matter, but Motion itself. Matter thus must be laid aside, and\n    with it the basic principle of Materialism, which has become\n    unnecessary, as Force brought down to a state of motion can give\n    no idea of the Substance. If Force is the result of motion, then\n    it becomes incomprehensible why that motion should become witness\n    to Matter and not to Spirit or a Spiritual essence. True, our\n    reason cannot conceive of a motion minus something moving (and our\n    reason is right); but the nature or _esse_ of that something\n    moving remains to Science entirely unknown; and the Spiritualist,\n    in such case, has as much right to attribute it to a \u201cSpirit,\u201d as\n    a Materialist to creative and all\u2010potential Matter. A Materialist\n    has no special privileges in this instance, nor can he claim any.\n    The law of the conservation of energy, as thus seen, is shown to\n    be illegitimate in its pretensions and claims in this case. The\n    \u201cgreat dogma\u201d\u2014_no force without matter and no matter without\n    force_\u2014falls to the ground, and loses entirely the solemn\n    significance with which Materialism has tried to invest it. The\n    conception of Force still gives no idea of Matter, and compels us\n    in no way to see in it \u201cthe origin of all origins.\u201d(884)\n\n\nWe are assured that Modern Science is not Materialistic; and our own\nconviction tells us that it cannot be so, when its learning is real. There\nis good reason for this, well defined by some Physicists and Chemists\nthemselves. Natural Sciences cannot go hand in hand with Materialism. To\nbe at the height of their calling, men of Science have to reject the very\npossibility of Materialistic doctrines having aught to do with the Atomic\nTheory; and we find that Lange, Butlerof, Du Bois Reymond\u2014the last\nprobably unconsciously\u2014and several others, have proved it. And this is,\nfurthermore, demonstrated by the fact, that Kan\u00e2da in India, and Leucippus\nand Democritus in Greece, and after them Epicurus\u2014the earliest Atomists in\nEurope\u2014while propagating their doctrine of definite proportions, believed\nin Gods or supersensuous Entities, at the same time. Their ideas upon\nMatter thus differed from those now prevalent. We must be allowed to make\nour statement clearer by a short synopsis of the ancient and modern views\nof Philosophy upon Atoms, and thus prove that the Atomic Theory kills\nMaterialism.\n\nFrom the standpoint of Materialism, which reduces the beginnings of all to\nMatter, the Universe consists, in its fulness, of Atoms and vacuity. Even\nleaving aside the axiom taught by the Ancients, and now absolutely\ndemonstrated by telescope and microscope, that Nature abhors a vacuum,\nwhat is an Atom? Professor Butlerof writes:\n\n\n    It is, we are answered by Science, the limited division of\n    Substance, the indivisible particle of Matter. To admit the\n    divisibility of the atom, amounts to an admission of an infinite\n    divisibility of Substance, which is equivalent to reducing\n    Substance to _nihil_, or nothingness. Owing to a feeling of self\u2010\n    preservation alone, Materialism cannot admit infinite\n    divisibility; otherwise, it would have to bid farewell for ever to\n    its basic principle and thus sign its own death\u2010warrant.(885)\n\n\nB\u00fcchner, for instance, like a true dogmatist in Materialism declares that:\n\n\n    To accept infinite divisibility is absurd, and amounts to doubting\n    the very existence of Matter.\n\n\nThe Atom is indivisible then, saith Materialism? Very well. Butlerof\nanswers:\n\n\n    See now what a curious contradiction this fundamental principle of\n    the Materialists is leading them into. The atom is _indivisible_,\n    and at the same time we know it to be _elastic_. An attempt to\n    deprive it of elasticity is unthinkable; it would amount to an\n    absurdity. Absolutely non\u2010elastic atoms could never exhibit a\n    single one of those numerous phenomena that are attributed to\n    their correlations. Without any elasticity, the atoms could not\n    manifest their energy, and the Substance of the Materialists would\n    remain weeded of every force. Therefore, if the Universe is\n    composed of atoms, then those atoms must be elastic. It is here\n    that we meet with an insuperable obstacle. For, what are the\n    conditions requisite for the manifestation of elasticity? An\n    elastic ball, when striking against an obstacle, is flattened and\n    contracts, which it would be impossible for it to do, were not\n    that ball to consist of particles, the relative position of which\n    experiences at the time of the blow a temporary change. This may\n    be said of elasticity in general; no elasticity is possible\n    without change with respect to the position of the compound\n    particles of an elastic body. This means that the elastic body is\n    changeful and consists of particles, or, in other words, that\n    elasticity can pertain only to those bodies that are divisible.\n    And the atom _is_ elastic.(886)\n\n\nThis is sufficient to show how absurd are the simultaneous admissions of\nthe non\u2010divisibility and of the elasticity of the Atom. The Atom is\nelastic, _ergo_, the Atom is divisible, and must consist of particles, or\nof sub\u2010atoms. And these sub\u2010atoms? They are either non\u2010elastic, and in\nsuch case they represent no dynamic importance, or, they are elastic also;\nand in that case, they, too, are subject to divisibility. And thus _ad\ninfinitum_. But infinite divisibility of Atoms resolves Matter into simple\ncentres of Force, _i.e._, precludes the possibility of conceiving Matter\nas an objective substance.\n\nThis vicious circle is fatal to Materialism. It finds itself caught in its\nown nets, and no issue out of the dilemma is possible for it. If it says\nthat the Atom is indivisible, then it will have Mechanics asking it the\nawkward question:\n\n\n    How does the Universe move in this case, and how do its forces\n    correlate? A world built on absolutely non\u2010elastic atoms, is like\n    an engine without steam, it is doomed to eternal inertia.(887)\n\n\nAccept the explanations and teachings of Occultism, and\u2014the blind inertia\nof Physical Science being replaced by the intelligent active Powers behind\nthe veil of Matter\u2014motion and inertia become subservient to those Powers.\nIt is on the doctrine of the illusive nature of Matter, and the infinite\ndivisibility of the Atom, that the whole Science of Occultism is built. It\nopens limitless horizons to Substance, informed by the divine breath of\nits Soul in every possible state of tenuity, states still undreamed of by\nthe most spiritually disposed Chemists and Physicists.\n\nThe above views were enunciated by an Academician, the greatest Chemist in\nRussia, and a recognized authority even in Europe, the late Professor\nButlerof. True, he was defending the phenomena of the Spiritualists, the\nmaterializations, so\u2010called, in which he believed, as Professors Z\u00f6llner\nand Hare did, as Mr. A. Russel Wallace, Mr. W. Crookes, and many another\nFellow of the Royal Society, do still, whether openly or secretly. But his\nargument with regard to the nature of the Essence that acts behind the\nphysical phenomena of light, heat, electricity, etc., is no less\nscientific and authoritative for all that, and applies admirably to the\ncase in hand. Science has no right to deny to the Occultists their claim\nto a more profound knowledge of the so\u2010called Forces, which, they say, are\nonly the effects of causes generated by Powers, substantial, yet\nsupersensuous, and beyond any kind of Matter with which Scientists have\nhitherto become acquainted. The most Science can do is to assume and to\nmaintain the attitude of Agnosticism. Then it can say: Your case is no\nmore proven than is ours; but we confess to knowing nothing in reality\neither about Force or Matter, or about that which lies at the bottom of\nthe so\u2010called correlation of Forces. Therefore, time alone can prove who\nis right and who is wrong. Let us wait patiently, and meanwhile show\nmutual courtesy, instead of scoffing at each other.\n\nBut to do this requires a boundless love of truth and the surrender of\nthat prestige\u2014however false\u2014of infallibility, which the men of Science\nhave acquired among the ignorant and flippant, though cultured, masses of\nthe profane. The blending of the two Sciences, the Archaic and the Modern,\nrequires first of all the abandonment of the actual Materialistic lines.\nIt necessitates a kind of religious Mysticism and even the study of old\nMagic, which our Academicians will never take up. The necessity is easily\nexplained. Just as in old Alchemical works the real meaning of the\nSubstances and Elements mentioned is concealed under the most ridiculous\nmetaphors, so are the physical, psychic, and spiritual natures of the\nElements (say of Fire) concealed in the _Vedas_;, and especially in the\n_Pur\u00e2nas_, under allegories comprehensible only to the Initiates. Had they\nno meaning, then indeed all these long legends and allegories about the\nsacredness of the three types of Fire, and the _Forty\u2010Nine original\nFires_\u2014personified by the Sons of Daksha\u2019s Daughters and the Rishis, their\nHusbands, \u201cwho with the first Son of Brahm\u00e2 and his three descendants\nconstitute the Forty\u2010nine Fires\u201d\u2014would be idiotic verbiage and no more.\nBut it is not so. Every Fire has a distinct function and meaning in the\nworlds of the physical and the spiritual. It has, moreover, in its\nessential nature a corresponding relation to one of the human psychic\nfaculties, besides its well determined chemical and physical potencies\nwhen coming in contact with terrestrially differentiated Matter. Science\nhas no speculations to offer upon Fire _per se_; Occultism and ancient\nreligious Science have. This is shown even in the meagre and purposely\nveiled phraseology of the _Pur\u00e2nas_, where, as in the _V\u00e2yu Pur\u00e2na_, many\nof the qualities of the personified Fires are explained. Thus, P\u00e2vaka is\nElectric Fire, or Vaidyuta; Pavam\u00e2na, the Fire produced by Friction, or\nNirmathya: and Shuchi is Solar Fire, or Saura(888)\u2014all these three being\nthe sons of Abhim\u00e2nin, the Agni (Fire), eldest son of Brahm\u00e2 and of Sv\u00e2h\u00e2.\nP\u00e2vaka, moreover, is made parent to Kavyav\u00e2hana, the Fire of the Pitris:\nShuchi to Havyav\u00e1hana, the Fire of the Gods; and Pavam\u00e2na to Saharaksha,\nthe Fire of the Asuras. Now all this shows that the writers of the\n_Pur\u00e2nas_ were perfectly conversant with the Forces of Science and their\ncorrelations, as well as with the various qualities of the latter in their\nbearing upon those psychic and physical phenomena which receive no credit\nand are now unknown to Physical Science. Very naturally, when an\nOrientalist, especially one with materialistic tendencies, reads that\nthese are only appellations of Fire employed in the invocations and\nrituals, he calls this \u201cT\u00e2ntrika superstition and mystification\u201d; and he\nbecomes more careful to avoid errors in spelling than to give attention to\nthe secret meaning attached to the personifications, or to seek their\nexplanation in the physical correlations of Forces, so far as these are\nknown. So little credit, indeed, is given to the ancient \u00c2ryans for\nknowledge, that even such glaring passages as that in _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, are\nleft without any notice. Nevertheless, what can this sentence mean?\n\n\n    Then ether, air, light, water, and earth, severally united with\n    the properties of sound and the rest, existed as distinguishable\n    according to their qualities, ... but, possessing many and various\n    energies and being unconnected, they could not, without\n    combination, create living beings, not having blended with each\n    other. Having combined therefore with one another, they assumed\n    through their mutual association, the character of one mass of\n    entire unity; and, from the direction of Spirit, etc.(889)\n\n\nThis means, of course, that the writers were perfectly acquainted with\ncorrelation, and were well posted about the origin of Kosmos from the\n\u201cIndiscrete Principle,\u201d Avyakt\u00e2nugrahena, as applied to Parabrahman and\nM\u00fblaprakriti conjointly, and not to \u201cAvyakta, either First Cause, or\nMatter,\u201d as Wilson gives it. The old Initiates knew of no \u201cmiraculous\ncreation,\u201d but taught the evolution of Atoms, on our physical plane, and\ntheir first differentiation from Laya into Protyle, as Mr. Crookes has\nsuggestively named Matter, or primordial substance, _beyond_ the zero\u2010\nline\u2014there where we place M\u00fblaprakriti, the Root\u2010Principle of the World\u2010\nStuff and of all in the World.\n\nThis can be easily demonstrated. Take, for instance, the newly\u2010published\ncatechism of the Vishishth\u00e2dvaita Ved\u00e2ntins, an orthodox and exoteric\nsystem, yet fully enunciated and taught in the XIth century(890) at a time\nwhen European \u201cScience\u201d still believed in the squareness and flatness of\nthe Earth of Cosmas Indicopleustes of the VIth century. It teaches that\nbefore Evolution began, Prakriti, Nature, was in a condition of Laya, or\nof absolute homogeneity, as \u201cMatter exists in two conditions, the S\u00fbkshma,\nor latent and undifferentiated, and the Sth\u00fbla, or differentiated,\ncondition.\u201d Then it became Anu, atomic. It teaches of Suddasattva\u2014\u201ca\nsubstance not subject to the qualities of Matter, from which it is quite\ndifferent,\u201d and adds that out of that Substance the bodies of the Gods,\nthe inhabitants of Vaikunthaloka, the Heaven of Vishnu, are formed. That\nevery particle or atom of Prakriti contains J\u00eeva (divine life), and is the\nShar\u00eera (body) of that J\u00eeva which it contains, while every J\u00eeva is in its\nturn the Shar\u00eera of the Supreme Spirit, as \u201cParabrahman pervades every\nJ\u00eeva, as well as every particle of Matter.\u201d Dualistic and anthropomorphic\nas may be the philosophy of the Vishishth\u00e2dvaita, when compared with that\nof the Advaita\u2014the non\u2010dualists\u2014it is yet supremely higher in logic and\nphilosophy than the Cosmogony accepted either by Christianity or by its\ngreat opponent, Modern Science. The followers of one of the greatest minds\nthat ever appeared on Earth, the Advaita Ved\u00e2ntins are called Atheists,\nbecause they regard all save Parabrahman, the Secondless, or the Absolute\nReality as an illusion. Yet the wisest Initiates came from their ranks, as\nalso the greatest Yog\u00ees. The _Upanishads_ show that they most assuredly\nknew not only what is the causal substance in the effects of friction, and\nthat their forefathers were acquainted with the conversion of heat into\nmechanical force, but that they were also acquainted with the Noumenon of\nevery spiritual as well as of every cosmic phenomenon.\n\nTruly the young Br\u00e2hman who graduates in the Universities and Colleges of\nIndia with the highest honours; who starts in life as an M.A. and an\nLL.B., with a tail initialed from Alpha to Omega after his name, and a\ncontempt for his national Gods proportioned to the honours received in his\neducation in Physical Science; truly he has but to read in the light of\nthe latter, and with an eye to the correlation of physical Forces, certain\npassages in his _Pur\u00e2nas_, if he would learn how much more his ancestors\nknew than he will ever know\u2014unless he becomes an Occultist. Let him turn\nto the allegory of Pur\u00fbravas and the celestial Gandharva,(891) who\nfurnished the former with a vessel full of heavenly fire. The primeval\nmode of obtaining fire by friction has its scientific explanation in the\n_Vedas_, and is pregnant with meaning for him who reads between the lines.\nThe Tret\u00e2gni (sacred triad of fires) obtained by the attrition of sticks\nmade of the wood of the Ashvattha tree, the Bo\u2010tree of Wisdom and\nKnowledge, sticks \u201cas many finger\u2010breadths long as there are syllables in\nthe G\u00e2yatr\u00ee,\u201d must have a secret meaning, or else the writers of the\n_Vedas_ and _Pur\u00e2nas_ were no sacred writers but mystificators. That it\nhas such a meaning, the Hindu Occultists are a proof, and they alone are\nable to enlighten Science, as to why and how the Fire, that was primevally\nOne, was made three\u2010fold (tret\u00e2) in our present Manvantara, by the Son of\nIl\u00e2 (V\u00e2ch), the Primeval Woman after the Deluge, the wife and daughter of\nVaivasvata Manu. The allegory is suggestive, in whatever _Pur\u00e2na_ it may\nbe read and studied.\n\n\n\n\nSection VI. An Attack on the Scientific Theory of Force by a Man of\nScience.\n\n\nThe wise words of several English men of Science have now to be quoted in\nour favour. Ostracized for \u201cprinciple\u2019s sake\u201d by the few, they are tacitly\napproved of by the many. That one of them preaches almost Occult\ndoctrines\u2014in some things identical with, and often amounting to a public\nrecognition of, our \u201cFohat and his seven Sons,\u201d the Occult Gandharva of\nthe _Vedas_\u2014will be recognized by every Occultist, and even by some\nprofane readers.\n\nIf such readers will open Volume V of the _Popular Science Review_,(892)\nthey will find in it an article on \u201cSun\u2010Force and Earth\u2010Force,\u201d by Dr. E.\nW. Richardson, F.R.S., which reads as follows:\n\n\n    At this moment, when the theory of mere motion as the origin of\n    all varieties of force is again becoming the prevailing thought,\n    it were almost heresy to re\u00f6pen a debate, which for a period\n    appears, by general consent, to be virtually closed; but I accept\n    the risk, and shall state, therefore, what were the precise views\n    of the immortal heretic, whose name I have whispered to the\n    readers, (Samuel Metcalfe,) respecting Sun\u2010Force. Starting with\n    the argument on which nearly all physicists are agreed, that there\n    exist in nature two agencies\u2014matter which is ponderable, visible,\n    and tangible, and a something which is imponderable, invisible,\n    and appreciable only by its influence on matter\u2014Metcalfe maintains\n    that the imponderable and active agency which he calls \u201ccaloric\u201d\n    is _not a mere form of motion_, not a vibration amongst the\n    particles of ponderable matter, but _itself a material substance\n    flowing from the sun_ through space,(893) filling the voids\n    between the particles of solid bodies, and conveying by sensation\n    the property called heat. The nature of caloric, or Sun\u2010Force, is\n    contended for by him on the following grounds:\n\n    (i) That it may be added to, and abstracted from other bodies and\n    measured with mathematical precision.\n\n    (ii) That it augments the volume of bodies, which are again\n    reduced in size by its abstraction.\n\n    (iii) That it modifies the forms, properties, and conditions of\n    all other bodies.\n\n    (iv) That _it passes by radiation through the most perfect\n    vacuum_(894) that can be formed, in which it produces the same\n    effects on the thermometer as in the atmosphere.\n\n    (v) That it exerts mechanical and chemical forces which nothing\n    can restrain, as in volcanoes, the explosion of gunpowder, and\n    other fulminating compounds.\n\n    (vi) That it operates in a sensible manner on the nervous system,\n    producing intense pain; and when in excess, disorganization of the\n    tissues.\n\n    As against the vibratory theory, Metcalfe further argues that if\n    caloric were a _mere property or quality_, it could not augment\n    the volume of other bodies; for this purpose it must itself have\n    volume, it must occupy space, and it must, therefore, be a\n    material agent. If caloric were _only the effect of vibratory\n    motion_ amongst the particles of ponderable matter, _it could not\n    radiate from hot bodies_ without the simultaneous transition of\n    the vibrating particles; but the fact stands out that heat can\n    radiate from material ponderable substance without loss of weight\n    of such substance.... With this view as to the material nature of\n    caloric or sun\u2010force; with the impression firmly fixed on his mind\n    that \u201ceverything in Nature is composed of two descriptions of\n    matter, the one essentially active and ethereal, the other passive\n    and motionless,\u201d(895) Metcalfe based the hypothesis that the sun\u2010\n    force, or caloric, is a self\u2010active principle. For its own\n    particles, he holds, it has repulsion; for the particles of all\n    ponderable matter it has affinity; it attracts the particles of\n    ponderable matter with forces which vary inversely as the squares\n    of the distance. It thus acts _through_ ponderable matter. If\n    universal space were filled with caloric, sun\u2010force, alone\n    (without ponderable matter), caloric would also be inactive and\n    would constitute a boundless ocean of powerless or quiescent\n    ether, because it would then have nothing on which to act, while\n    ponderable matter, however inactive of itself, has \u201ccertain\n    properties by which it modifies and controls the actions of\n    caloric, both of which are governed by immutable laws that have\n    their origin in the mutual relations and specific properties of\n    each.\u201d\n\n    And he lays down a law which he believes is absolute, and which is\n    thus expressed:\n\n    \u201cBy the attraction of caloric for ponderable matter, it unites and\n    holds together all things; by its self\u2010repulsive energy it\n    separates and expands all things.\u201d\n\n\nThis, of course, is almost the Occult explanation of cohesion. Dr.\nRichardson continues:\n\n\n    As I have already said, _the tendency of modern teaching is to\n    rest upon the hypothesis __ ... that heat is motion_, or, as it\n    would, perhaps, be better stated, a specific force or form of\n    motion.(896)\n\n    But this hypothesis, popular as it is, is not one that ought to be\n    accepted to the exclusion of the simpler views of the material\n    nature of sun\u2010force, and of its influence in modifying the\n    conditions of matter. _We do not yet know sufficient to be\n    dogmatic._(897)\n\n    The hypothesis of Metcalfe respecting sun\u2010force and earth\u2010force is\n    not only very simple, but most fascinating.... Here are two\n    elements in the universe, the one is ponderable matter.... The\n    second element is the all\u2010pervading ether, solar fire. It is\n    _without weight, substance, form, or colour; it is matter\n    infinitely divisible_, and its particles repel each other; its\n    rarity is such that we have no word, except ether,(898) by which\n    to express it. It pervades and fills space, but alone it too is\n    quiescent\u2014dead.(899) We bring together the two elements, the inert\n    matter, the self\u2010repulsive ether [?] and thereupon dead [?]\n    ponderable matter is vivified; [_Ponderable matter may be inert\n    but never dead\u2014this is Occult Law._] ... through the particles of\n    the ponderable substance the ether [_Ether\u2019s second principle_]\n    penetrates, and, so penetrating, it combines with the ponderable\n    particles and holds them in mass, holds them together in bond of\n    union; they are dissolved in the ether.\n\n    This distribution of solid ponderable matter through ether\n    extends, according to the theory before us, to everything that\n    exists at this moment. The ether is all\u2010pervading. The human body\n    itself is charged with the ether [_Astral Light rather_]; its\n    minute particles are held together by it; the plant is in the same\n    condition; the most solid earth, rock, adamant, crystal, metal,\n    all are the same. But there are differences in the capacities of\n    different kinds of ponderable matter to receive sun\u2010force, and\n    upon this depends the various changing conditions of matter; the\n    solid, the liquid, the gaseous condition. Solid bodies have\n    attracted caloric in excess over fluid bodies, and hence their\n    firm _cohesion_; when a portion of molten zinc is poured upon a\n    plate of solid zinc, the molten zinc becomes as solid because\n    there is a rush of caloric from the liquid to the solid, and in\n    the equalization the particles, previously loose or liquid, are\n    more closely brought together.... Metcalfe himself, dwelling on\n    the above\u2010named phenomena, and accounting for them by the unity of\n    principle of action, which has already been explained, sums up his\n    argument in very clear terms, in a comment on the densities of\n    various bodies. \u201cHardness and softness,\u201d he says, \u201csolidity and\n    liquidity, are not essential conditions of bodies, but depend on\n    the relative proportions of ethereal and ponderable matter of\n    which they are composed. The most elastic gas may be reduced to\n    the liquid form by the abstraction of caloric, and again converted\n    into a firm solid, the particles of which would cling together\n    with a force proportional to their augmented affinity for caloric.\n    On the other hand, by adding a sufficient quantity of the same\n    principle to the densest metals, their attraction for it is\n    diminished when they are expanded into the gaseous state, and\n    their cohesion is destroyed.\u201d\n\n\nHaving thus quoted at length the heterodox views of the great\n\u201cheretic\u201d\u2014views that to be correct, need only a little alteration of terms\nhere and there\u2014Dr. Richardson, undeniably an original and liberal thinker,\nproceeds to sum up these views, and continues:\n\n\n    I shall not dwell at great length on this unity of sun\u2010force and\n    earth\u2010force, which this theory implies. But I may add that out of\n    it, or out of the hypothesis of mere motion as force, and of\n    virtue without substance, we may gather, as the nearest possible\n    approach to the truth on this, the most complex and profound of\n    all subjects, the following inferences:\n\n    (_a_) Space, inter\u2010stellary, inter\u2010planetary, inter\u2010material,\n    inter\u2010organic, is not a vacuum, but is filled with a subtle fluid\n    or gas, which for want of a better term(900) we may still call, as\n    the ancients did, _Aith\u2010ur_\u2014Solar Fire\u2014\u00c6ther. This fluid,\n    unchangeable in composition, indestructible, invisible,(901)\n    pervades everything and all [_ponderable_] matter,(902) the pebble\n    in the running brook, the tree overhanging, the man looking on, is\n    charged with the ether in various degrees; the pebble less than\n    the tree, the tree less than man. All in the planet is in like\n    manner so charged! A world is built up in ethereal fluid, and\n    moving through a sea of it.\n\n    (_b_) The ether, whatever its nature is, is from the sun and from\n    the suns:(903) the suns are the generators of it, the store\u2010houses\n    of it, the diffusers of it.(904)\n\n    (_c_) Without the ether there could be no motion; without it\n    particles of ponderable matter could not glide over each other;\n    without it there could be no impulse to excite those particles\n    into action.\n\n    (_d_) Ether determines the constitution of bodies. Were there no\n    ether there could be no change of constitution in substance;\n    water, for instance, could only exist as a substance, compact and\n    insoluble beyond any conception we could form of it. It could\n    never even be ice, never fluid, never vapour, except for ether.\n\n    (_e_) Ether connects sun with planet, planet with planet, man with\n    planet, man with man. Without ether there could be no\n    communication in the Universe; no light, no heat, no phenomenon of\n    motion.\n\n\nThus we find that Ether and elastic Atoms are, in the alleged mechanical\nconception of the Universe, the Spirit and Soul of Kosmos, and that the\ntheory\u2014put it in any way and under any disguise\u2014always leaves a more\nwidely opened issue for men of Science to speculate upon beyond the line\nof modern Materialism(905) than the majority avails itself of. Atoms,\nEther, or both, modern speculation cannot get out of the circle of ancient\nthought; and the latter was soaked through with archaic Occultism.\nUndulatory or corpuscular theory\u2014it is all one. It is speculation from the\naspects of phenomena, not from the knowledge of the essential nature of\nthe cause and causes. When Modern Science has explained to its audience\nthe late achievements of Bunsen and Kirchoff; when it has shown the seven\ncolours, the primary of a ray which is decomposed in a fixed order on a\nscreen; and has described the respective lengths of luminous waves, what\nhas it proved? It has justified its reputation for exactness in\nmathematical achievement by measuring even the length of a luminous\nwave\u2014\u201cvarying from about seven hundred and sixty millionths of a\nmillim\u00e8tre at the red end of the spectrum to about three hundred and\nninety\u2010three millionths of a millim\u00e8tre at the violet end.\u201d But when the\nexactness of the calculation with regard to the effect on the light\u2010wave\nis thus vindicated, Science is forced to admit that the Force, which is\nthe supposed cause, is _believed_ to produce \u201cinconceivably minute\nundulations\u201d in some medium\u2014\u201cgenerally regarded as identical with the\nethereal medium\u201d(906)\u2014and that medium itself is still only\u2014a \u201chypothetical\nagent\u201d!\n\nAuguste Comte\u2019s pessimism with respect to the possibility of knowing some\nday the chemical composition of the Sun, has not, as has been averred,\nbeen belied thirty years later by Kirchoff. The spectroscope has helped us\nto see that the elements, with which the modern Chemist is familiar, must\nin all probability be present in the Sun\u2019s outward \u201crobes\u201d\u2014_not in the Sun\nitself_; and, taking these \u201crobes,\u201d the solar cosmic veil, for the Sun\nitself, the Physicists have declared its luminosity to be due to\ncombustion and flame, and mistaking the vital principle of that luminary\nfor a purely material thing, have called it \u201cchromosphere.\u201d(907) We have\nonly hypotheses and theories so far, not law\u2014by any means.\n\n\n\n\nSection VII. Life, Force, or Gravity.\n\n\nThe imponderable fluids have had their day; mechanical Forces are less\ntalked about; Science has put on a new face for this last quarter of a\ncentury; but gravitation has remained, owing its life to new combinations\nafter the old ones had nearly killed it. It may answer scientific\nhypotheses very well, but the question is whether it answers as well to\ntruth, and represents a fact in nature. Attraction by itself is not\nsufficient to explain even planetary motion; how can it then presume to\nexplain the rotatory motion in the infinitudes of Space? Attraction alone\nwill never fill all the gaps, unless a special impulse is admitted for\nevery sidereal body, and the rotation of every planet with its satellites\nis shown to be due to some one cause combined with attraction. And even\nthen, says an Astronomer,(908) Science would have to name that cause.\n\nOccultism has named it for ages, and so have all the ancient Philosophers;\nbut then all such beliefs are now proclaimed exploded superstitions. The\nextra\u2010cosmic God has killed every possibility of belief in intra\u2010cosmic\nintelligent Forces; yet who, or what, is the original \u201cpusher\u201d in that\nmotion? Says Franc\u0153ur:(909)\n\n\n    When we have learned the cause, _unique et speciale_, that pushes,\n    we will be ready to combine it with the one which attracts.\n\n\nAnd again:\n\n\n    Attraction between the celestial bodies is only repulsion: it is\n    the sun that drives them incessantly onward; for otherwise, their\n    motion would stop.\n\n\nIf ever this theory of the Sun\u2010Force being the primal cause of all life on\nearth, and of all motion in heaven, is accepted, and if that other far\nbolder theory of Herschell, about certain organisms in the Sun, is\naccepted even as a provisional hypothesis, then will our teachings be\nvindicated, and Esoteric allegory will be shown to have anticipated Modern\nScience by millions of years, probably, for such are the Archaic\nTeachings. M\u00e2rtt\u00e2nda, the Sun, watches and threatens his seven brothers,\nthe planets, without abandoning the central position to which his Mother,\nAditi, relegated him. The Commentary(910) says:\n\n\n    _He pursues them, turning slowly around himself, ... following\n    from afar the direction in which his brothers move, on the path\n    that encircles their houses_\u2014or the orbit.\n\n\nIt is the sun\u2010fluids or emanations that impart all motion, and awaken all\ninto life, in the Solar System. It is attraction and repulsion, but not as\nunderstood by modern Physics or according to the law of gravity, but in\nharmony with the laws of _manvantaric motion_ designed from the early\nSandhy\u00e2, the Dawn of the rebuilding and higher reformation of the System.\nThese laws are immutable; but the motion of all the bodies\u2014which motion is\ndiverse and alters with every minor Kalpa\u2014is regulated by the Movers, the\nIntelligences within the Cosmic Soul. Are we so very wrong in believing\nall this? Well, here is a great and modern man of Science who, speaking of\nvital electricity, uses language far more akin to Occultism than to modern\nMaterialistic thought. We refer the sceptical reader to an article on \u201cThe\nSource of Heat in the Sun,\u201d by Robert Hunt, F.R.S.,(911) who, speaking of\nthe luminous envelope of the Sun and its \u201cpeculiar curdy appearance,\u201d\nsays:\n\n\n    Arago proposed that this envelope should be called the\n    Photosphere, a name now generally adopted. By the elder Herschell,\n    the surface of this photosphere was compared to mother\u2010of\u2010\n    pearl.... It resembles the ocean on a tranquil summer\u2010day, when\n    its surface is slightly crisped by a gentle breeze.... Mr. Nasmyth\n    has discovered a more remarkable condition than any that had\n    previously been suspected, ... objects which are peculiarly lens\u2010\n    shaped ... like \u201cwillow leaves,\u201d ... different in size ... not\n    arranged in any order, ... crossing each other in all directions\n    ... with an irregular motion among themselves.... They are seen\n    approaching to and receding from each other, and sometimes\n    assuming new angular positions, so that the appearance ... has\n    been compared to a dense shoal of fish, which, indeed, they\n    resemble in shape.... The size of these objects gives a grand idea\n    of the gigantic scale upon which physical (?) operations are\n    carried out in the sun. They cannot be less than 1,000 miles in\n    length, and from two to three hundred miles in breadth. The most\n    probable conjecture which has been offered respecting those leaf\n    or lens\u2010like objects, is that the photosphere(912) is an immense\n    ocean of gaseous matter [what kind of \u201cmatter\u201d?] ... in a state of\n    intense [apparent] incandescence, and that they are perspective\n    projections of the sheets of flame.\n\n\nSolar \u201cflames\u201d seen through telescopes are reflections, says Occultism.\nBut the reader has already seen what Occultists have to say to this.\n\n\n    Whatever they [those sheets of flame] may be, it is evident they\n    are the immediate sources of solar heat and light. Here we have a\n    surrounding envelope of photogenic matter,(913) which pendulates\n    with mighty energies, and by communicating its motion to the\n    ethereal medium in stellar space, produces heat and light in far\n    distant worlds. We have said that those forms have been compared\n    to certain organisms, and Herschell says, \u201cThough it would be too\n    daring to speak of such organizations as _partaking of life_ [why\n    not?],(914) yet we do not know that vital action is competent to\n    develop heat, light, and electricity.\u201d... Can it be that there is\n    truth in this fine thought? May the pulsing of vital matter in the\n    central sun of our system be the source of all that life which\n    crowds the earth, and without doubt overspreads the other planets,\n    to which the sun is the mighty minister?\n\n\nOccultism answers these queries in the affirmative; and Science will find\nthis to be the case, one day.\n\nAgain, Mr. Hunt writes:\n\n\n    But regarding Life\u2014Vital Force\u2014as a power far more exalted than\n    either light, heat, or electricity, and indeed capable of exerting\n    a controlling power over them all [this is absolutely Occult] ...\n    we are certainly disposed to view with satisfaction that\n    speculation which supposes the photosphere to be the primary seat\n    of vital power, and to regard with a poetic pleasure that\n    hypothesis which refers the solar energies to Life.(915)\n\n\nThus, we have an important scientific corroboration for one of our\nfundamental dogmas\u2014namely, that (_a_) the Sun is the store\u2010house of Vital\nForce, which is the Noumenon of Electricity; and (_b_) that it is from its\nmysterious, never\u2010to\u2010be\u2010fathomed depths, that issue those life\u2010currents\nwhich thrill through Space, as through the organisms of every living thing\non Earth. For see what another eminent Physician says, who calls this, our\nlife\u2010fluid, \u201cNervous Ether.\u201d Change a few sentences in the article,\nextracts from which now follow, and you have another quasi\u2010Occult treatise\non Life\u2010Force. It is again Dr. B. W. Richardson, F.R.S., who gives his\nviews as follows on \u201cNervous Ether,\u201d as he has on \u201cSun\u2010Force\u201d and \u201cEarth\u2010\nForce\u201d:\n\n\n    The idea attempted to be conveyed by the theory is, that between\n    the molecules of the matter, solid or fluid, of which the nervous\n    organisms, and, indeed, of which all the organic parts of a body\n    are composed, there exists a refined subtle medium, vaporous or\n    gaseous, which holds the molecules in a condition for motion upon\n    each other, and for arrangement and re\u00e4rrangement of form; a\n    medium by and through which all motion is conveyed; by and through\n    which the one organ or part of the body is held in communion with\n    the other parts, by which and through which the outer living world\n    communicates with the living man; a medium, which, being present,\n    enables the phenomena of life to be demonstrated, and which, being\n    universally absent, leaves the body actually dead.\n\n\nAnd the whole Solar System falls into Pralaya\u2014the author might have added.\nBut let us read further:\n\n\n    I use the word ether in its general sense as meaning a very light,\n    vaporous or gaseous matter; I use it, in short, as the astronomer\n    uses it when he speaks of the ether of Space, by which he means a\n    subtle but material medium.... When I speak of a _nervous_ ether,\n    I do not convey that the ether is existent in nervous structure\n    only: I believe truly that it is a special part of the nervous\n    organization; but, as nerves pass into all structures that have\n    capacities for movement and sensibilities, so the nervous ether\n    passes into all such parts; and as the nervous ether is, according\n    to my view, a direct product from blood, so we may look upon it as\n    a part of the atmosphere of the blood.... The evidence in favour\n    of the existence of an elastic medium pervading the nervous matter\n    and capable of being influenced by simple pressure is all\u2010\n    convincing.... In nervous structure there is, unquestionably, a\n    true nervous fluid, as our predecessors taught.(916) The precise\n    chemical (?)(917) composition of this fluid is not yet well known;\n    the physical characters of it have been little studied. Whether it\n    moves in currents, we do not know; whether it circulates, we do\n    not know; whether it is formed in the centres and passes from them\n    to the nerves, or whether it is formed everywhere where blood\n    enters nerve, we do not know. The exact uses of the fluid we do\n    not consequently know. It occurs to my mind, however, that the\n    veritable fluid of nervous matter is not of itself sufficient to\n    act as the subtle medium that connects the outer with the inner\n    universe of man and animal. I think\u2014and this is the modification I\n    suggest to the older theory\u2014there must be another form of matter\n    present during life; a matter which exists in the condition of\n    vapour or gas, which pervades the whole nervous organism,\n    surrounds as an enveloping atmosphere(918) each molecule of\n    nervous structure, and is the medium of all motion, communicated\n    to and from the nervous centres.... When it is once fairly\n    presented to the mind that during life _there is in the animal\n    body a finely diffused form of matter_, a vapour filling every\n    part\u2014and even stored in some parts; a matter constantly renewed by\n    the vital chemistry; a matter as easily disposed of as the breath,\n    after it has served its purpose\u2014a new flood of light breaks on the\n    intelligence.(919)\n\n\nA new flood of light is certainly thrown on the wisdom of ancient and\nmedi\u00e6val Occultism and its votaries. For Paracelsus wrote the same thing\nmore than three hundred years ago, in the sixteenth century, as follows:\n\n\n    The whole of the Microcosm is potentially contained in the Liquor\n    Vit\u00e6, a nerve fluid ... in which is contained the nature, quality,\n    character, and essence of beings.(920)\n\n    The Arch\u00e6us is an essence that is equally distributed in all parts\n    of the human body.... The Spiritus Vit\u00e6 takes its origin from the\n    Spiritus Mundi. Being an emanation of the latter, it contains the\n    elements of all cosmic influences, and is therefore the cause by\n    which the action of the stars [cosmic forces] upon the invisible\n    body of man [his vital _Linga Shar\u00eera_] may be explained.(921)\n\n\nHad Dr. Richardson studied all the secret works of Paracelsus, he would\nnot have been obliged to confess so often, \u201cwe do not know,\u201d \u201cit is not\nknown to us,\u201d etc. Nor would he ever have written the following sentence,\nrecanting the best portions of his independent rediscovery.\n\n\n    It may be urged that in this line of thought is included no more\n    than the theory of the existence of the ether ... supposed to\n    pervade space.... It may be said that this universal ether\n    pervades all the organism of the animal body as from without, and\n    as part of every organization. This view would be Pantheism\n    physically discovered, _if it were true_ [!!]. It fails to be true\n    because it would destroy the individuality of every individual\n    sense.(922)\n\n\nWe fail to see this, and we _know_ it is not so. Pantheism _may_ be\n\u201cphysically rediscovered.\u201d It was known, seen, and felt by the whole of\nantiquity. Pantheism manifests itself in the vast expanse of the starry\nheavens, in the breathing of the seas and oceans, and in the quiver of\nlife of the smallest blade of grass. Philosophy rejects one _finite_ and\n_imperfect_ God in the universe, the anthropomorphic deity of the\nMonotheist as represented by his followers. It repudiates, in its name of\n_Philo\u2010theo\u2010sophia_, the grotesque idea that Infinite, Absolute Deity\nshould, or rather could, have any direct or indirect relation to finite\nillusive evolutions of Matter, and therefore it cannot imagine a universe\n_outside_ that Deity, or the absence of that Deity from the smallest speck\nof animate or inanimate Substance. This does not mean that every bush,\ntree or stone is God or _a_ God; but only that every speck of the\nmanifested material of Kosmos belongs to, and is the Substance of, God,\nhowever low it may have fallen in its cyclic gyration through the\nEternities of the Ever\u2010Becoming; and also that every such speck\nindividually, and Kosmos collectively, is an aspect and a reminder of that\nuniversal One Soul\u2014which Philosophy refuses to call God, thus limiting the\neternal and ever\u2010present Root and Essence.\n\nWhy either the Ether of Space or \u201cNervous Ether\u201d should \u201cdestroy the\nindividuality of every sense,\u201d seems incomprehensible to one acquainted\nwith the real nature of that \u201cNervous Ether\u201d under its Sanskrit, or rather\nEsoteric and Kabalistic name. Dr. Richardson agrees that:\n\n\n    If we did not individually produce the medium of communication\n    between ourselves and the outer world, if it were produced from\n    without and adapted to one kind of vibration alone, there were\n    fewer senses required than we possess: for, taking two\n    illustrations only\u2014ether of light is not adapted for sound, and\n    yet we hear as well and see; while air, the medium of motion of\n    sound, is not the medium of light, and yet we see and hear.\n\n\nThis is not so. The opinion that Pantheism \u201cfails to be true because it\nwould destroy the individuality of every individual sense\u201d shows that all\nthe conclusions of the learned doctor are based on the modern physical\ntheories, though he would fain reform them. But he will find it impossible\nto do this unless he allows the existence of spiritual senses to replace\nthe gradual atrophy of the physical. \u201cWe see and hear,\u201d in accordance (of\ncourse, in Dr. Richardson\u2019s mind) with the explanations of the phenomena\nof sight and hearing, afforded by that same Materialistic Science which\npostulates that we cannot see and hear otherwise. The Occultists and\nMystics know better. The Vedic \u00c2ryans were as familiar with the mysteries\nof sound and colour on the physical plane as are our Physiologists, but\nthey had also mastered the secrets of both on planes inaccessible to the\nMaterialist. They knew of a double set of senses; spiritual and material.\nIn a man who is deprived of one or more senses, the remaining senses\nbecome the more developed; for instance, the blind man will recover his\nsight through the senses of touch, of hearing, etc., and he who is deaf\nwill be able to hear through sight, by seeing _audibly_ the words uttered\nby the lips and mouth of the speaker. But these are cases that belong to\nthe world of Matter still. The spiritual senses, those that act on a\nhigher plane of consciousness, are rejected _\u00e0 priori_ by Physiology,\nbecause the latter is ignorant of the Sacred Science. It limits the action\nof Ether to vibrations, and, dividing it from air\u2014though air is simply\ndifferentiated and compound Ether\u2014makes it assume functions to fit in with\nthe special theories of the Physiologist. But there is more real Science\nin the teachings of the _Upanishads_, when these are correctly understood,\nthan the Orientalists, who do not understand them at all, are ready to\nadmit. Mental as well as physical correlations of the seven senses\u2014seven\non the physical and seven on the mental planes\u2014are clearly explained and\ndefined in the _Vedas_, and especially in the _Upanishad_ called\n_Anug\u00eet\u00e2_:\n\n\n    The indestructible and the destructible, such is the double\n    manifestation of the Self. Of these the indestructible is the\n    existent [the true essence or nature of Self, the underlying\n    principles], the manifestation as an individual (entity) is called\n    the destructible.(923)\n\n\nThus speaks the Ascetic in the _Anug\u00eet\u00e2_, and also:\n\n\n    Every one who is twice\u2010born [initiated] knows such is the teaching\n    of the ancients.... Space is the first entity.... Now Space\n    [\u00c2k\u00e2sha, or the Noumenon of Ether] has one quality ... and that is\n    stated to be sound only ... [and the] qualities of sound [are]\n    Shadja, Rishabha, together with G\u00e2ndh\u00e2ra, Madhyama, Panchama, and\n    beyond these [should be understood to be] Nish\u00e2da and Dhaivata\n    [the Hind\u00fb gamut].(924)\n\n\nThese seven notes of the scale are the principles of sound. The qualities\nof every Element, as of every sense, are septenary, and to judge and\ndogmatize on them from their manifestation on the material or objective\nplane\u2014likewise sevenfold in itself\u2014is quite arbitrary. For it is only by\nthe SELF emancipating itself from these seven causes of illusion, that we\ncan acquire the knowledge (Secret Wisdom) of the qualities of objects of\nsense on their dual plane of manifestation, the visible and the invisible.\nThus it is said:\n\n\n    Hear me ... state this wonderful mystery.... Hear also the\n    assignment of causes exhaustively. The nose, and the tongue, and\n    the eye, and the skin, and the ear as the fifth [organ of sense]\n    mind and understanding,(925) these seven [senses] should be\n    understood to be the causes of (the knowledge of) qualities.\n    Smell, and taste, and colour, sound, and touch as the fifth, the\n    object of the mental operation, and the object of the\n    understanding [the highest spiritual sense or perception], these\n    seven are causes of action. He who smells, he who eats, he who\n    sees, he who speaks, and he who hears as the fifth, he who thinks,\n    and he who understands, these seven should be understood to be the\n    causes of the agents. These [the agents] being possessed of\n    qualities (sattva, rajas, tamas), enjoy their own qualities,\n    agreeable and disagreeable.(926)\n\n\nThe modern commentators, failing to comprehend the subtle meaning of the\nancient Scholiasts, take the sentence, \u201ccauses of the agents,\u201d to mean\n\u201cthat the powers of smelling, etc., when attributed to the Self, make him\nappear as an agent, as an active principle\u201d (!), which is entirely\nfanciful. These \u201cseven\u201d are understood to be the causes of the agents,\nbecause \u201cthe objects are causes, as their enjoyment causes an impression.\u201d\nIt means esoterically that they, these seven senses, are caused by the\nagents, which are the \u201cdeities,\u201d for otherwise what does, or can, the\nfollowing sentence mean? \u201cThus,\u201d it is said, \u201cthese seven [senses] are the\ncauses of emancipation\u201d\u2014_i.e._, when these causes are made ineffectual.\nAnd, again, the sentence, \u201camong the learned [the wise Initiates] who\nunderstand everything, the qualities _which are in the position_ [in the\nnature, rather] _of the deities_, each in its place,\u201d etc., means simply\nthat the \u201clearned\u201d understand the nature of the Noumena of the various\nphenomena; and that \u201cqualities,\u201d in this instance, mean the qualities of\nthe high Planetary or Elementary Gods or Intelligences, which rule the\nelements and their products, and not at all the \u201csenses,\u201d as the modern\ncommentator thinks. For the learned do not suppose their senses to have\naught to do with them, any more than with their SELF.\n\nThen we read in the _Bhagavadg\u00eet\u00e2_ of _Krishna_, the Deity, saying:\n\n\n    Only some know me truly. Earth, water, fire, air, space [or\n    \u00c2k\u00e2sha, \u00c6ther], mind, understanding and egoism [or the perception\n    of all the former on the illusive plane], ... this is a lower form\n    of my nature. Know (that there is) another (form of my) nature,\n    and higher than this, which is animate, O you of mighty arms! and\n    by which this universe is upheld.... All this is woven upon me,\n    like numbers of pearls upon a thread.(927) I am the taste in the\n    water, O son of Kunt\u00ee! I am the light of the sun and moon. I am\n    ... sound (\u201c_i.e._, the occult essence which underlies all these\n    and the other qualities of the various things mentioned\u201d\u2014Transl.),\n    in space ... the fragrant smell in the earth, refulgence in the\n    fire ... etc.(928)\n\n\nTruly, then, one should study Occult Philosophy before one begins to seek\nfor and verify the mysteries of Nature on its surface alone, as he alone\n\u201cwho knows the truth about the qualities of Nature, who understands the\ncreation of all entities ... is emancipated\u201d from error. Says the\nPreceptor:\n\n\n    Accurately understanding the great (tree) of which the unperceived\n    [Occult Nature, the root of all] is the sprout from the seed\n    [Parabrahman], which consists of the understanding [Mahat, or the\n    Universal Intelligent Soul] as its trunk, the branches of which\n    are the great egoism,(929) in the holes of which are the sprouts,\n    namely, the senses, of which the great [occult, or invisible]\n    elements are the flower\u2010bunches,(930) the gross elements [the\n    gross objective matter], the smaller boughs, which are always\n    possessed of leaves, always possessed of flowers ... which is\n    eternal and the seed of which is the Brahman [the Deity]; and\n    cutting it with that excellent sword\u2014knowledge [Secret Wisdom]\u2014one\n    attains immortality and casts off birth and death.(931)\n\n\nThis is the Tree of Life, the Ashvattha tree, after the cutting of which\nonly, Man, the slave of life and death, can be emancipated.\n\nBut the men of Science know nought, nor will they hear of the \u201cSword of\nKnowledge\u201d used by the Adepts and Ascetics. Hence the one\u2010sided remarks of\neven the most liberal among them, based on and flowing from undue\nimportance given to the arbitrary divisions and classification of Physical\nScience. Occultism heeds them very little, and Nature heeds them still\nless. The whole range of physical phenomena proceeds from the Primary of\n\u00c6ther\u2014\u00c2k\u00e2sha, as dual\u2010natured \u00c2k\u00e2sha proceeds from undifferentiated Chaos,\nso\u2010called, the latter being the primary aspect of M\u00fblaprakriti, the Root\u2010\nMatter and the first abstract Idea one can form of Parabrahman. Modern\nScience may divide its hypothetically conceived Ether in as many ways as\nit likes; the real \u00c6ther of Space will remain as it is throughout. It has\nits seven \u201cprinciples,\u201d as all the rest of Nature has, and where there was\nno \u00c6ther there would be _no_ \u201csound,\u201d as it is the vibrating sounding\u2010\nboard in Nature in all its seven differentiations. This is the first\nmystery the Initiates of old have learned. Our present normal physical\nsenses were, from our present point of view, abnormal in those days of\nslow and progressive downward evolution and fall into Matter. And there\nwas a day when all that in our modern times is regarded as exceptional, so\npuzzling to the Physiologists now compelled to believe in them\u2014such as\nthought\u2010transference, clairvoyance, clairaudience, etc.; in short, all\nthat is now called \u201cwonderful and abnormal\u201d\u2014when all that and much more\nbelonged to the senses and faculties common to all humanity. We are,\nhowever, cycling back and cycling forward; that is to say, that having\nlost in spirituality what we acquired in physical development until almost\nthe end of the Fourth Race, we are now as gradually and imperceptibly\nlosing in the physical all that we regain once more in the spiritual\nre\u00ebvolution. This process must go on, until the period which will bring\nthe Sixth Root\u2010Race on a line parallel with the spirituality of the Second\nRace, a long extinct mankind.\n\nBut this will hardly be understood at present. We must return to Dr.\nRichardson\u2019s hopeful, though somewhat incorrect hypothesis about \u201cNervous\nEther.\u201d Under the misleading translation of the word as \u201cSpace,\u201d \u00c2k\u00e2sha\nhas just been shown in the ancient Hind\u00fb system as the \u201cfirst born\u201d of the\nOne, having but one quality, \u201cSound,\u201d which is septenary. In Esoteric\nlanguage this One is the Father\u2010Deity, and Sound is synonymous with the\nLogos, Verbum, or Son. Whether consciously or otherwise, it must be the\nlatter; and Dr. Richardson, while preaching an Occult doctrine, chooses\nthe lowest form of the septenary nature of that Sound, and speculates upon\nit, adding:\n\n\n    The theory, I offer, is that the nervous ether is an _animal\n    product_. In different classes of animals it may differ in\n    physical quality so as to be adapted to the special wants of the\n    animal, but essentially it plays one part in all animals, and is\n    produced, in all, in the same way.\n\n\nHerein lies the nucleus of error leading to all the resultant mistaken\nviews. This \u201cNervous Ether\u201d is the lowest principle of the Primordial\nEssence which is Life. It is Animal Vitality diffused in all Nature, and\nacting according to the conditions it finds for its activity. It is not an\n\u201canimal product,\u201d but the living animal, the living flower and plant, are\nits products. The animal tissues only absorb it according to their more or\nless morbid or healthy state\u2014as do physical materials and structures (in\ntheir primogenial state, _nota bene_)\u2014and, from the moment of the birth of\nthe Entity, are regulated, strengthened, and fed by it. It descends in a\nlarger supply to vegetation in the Sushumn\u00e2 Sun\u2010Ray which lights and feeds\nthe Moon, and it is through her beams that it pours its light upon, and\npenetrates man and animal, more during their sleep and rest, than when\nthey are in full activity. Therefore Dr. Richardson errs again in stating\nthat:\n\n\n    The nervous ether is not, according to my idea of it, _in itself\n    active, nor an excitant of animal motion in the sense of a force_;\n    but it is essential as supplying the conditions by which the\n    motion is rendered possible. [It is _just the reverse_.].... It is\n    the conductor of all vibrations of heat, of light, of sound, of\n    electrical action, of mechanical friction.(932) It holds the\n    nervous system throughout in perfect tension, during states of\n    life [true]. By exercise it is disposed of [_rather generated_]\n    ... and when demand for it is greater than the supply, its\n    deficiency is indicated by nervous collapse or exhaustion.(933) It\n    accumulates in the nervous centres during sleep, bringing them, if\n    I may so speak, to their due tone, and therewith raising the\n    muscles to awakening and renewed life.\n\n\nJust so; this is quite correct and comprehensible. Therefore:\n\n\n    The body fully renewed by it, presents capacity for motion,\n    fulness of form, _life_. The body bereft of it presents inertia,\n    the configuration of shrunken death, _the evidence of having lost\n    something physical that was in it when it lived_.\n\n\nModern Science denies the existence of a \u201cvital principle.\u201d This extract\nis a clear proof of its grand mistake. But this \u201cphysical something,\u201d that\nwe call life\u2010fluid\u2014the Liquor Vit\u00e6 of Paracelsus\u2014has not deserted the\nbody, as Dr. Richardson thinks. It has only changed its state from\nactivity to passivity, and has become latent, owing to the too morbid\nstate of the tissues, on which it has hold no longer. Once the _rigor\nmortis_ is absolute, the Liquor Vit\u00e6 will re\u00e4waken into action, and will\nbegin its work on the atoms _chemically_. Brahm\u00e2\u2010Vishnu, the Creator and\nthe Preserver of Life, will have transformed himself into Shiva the\nDestroyer.\n\nLastly Dr. Richardson writes:\n\n\n    The nervous ether may be poisoned; it may, I mean, have diffused\n    through it, by simple gaseous diffusion, other gases or vapours\n    derived from without; it may derive from within products of\n    substances swallowed and ingested, or gases of decomposition\n    produced during disease in the body itself.(934)\n\n\nAnd the learned gentleman might have added on the same Occult principle:\nThat the \u201cNervous Ether\u201d of one person can be poisoned by the \u201cNervous\nEther\u201d of another person or by his \u201cauric emanations.\u201d But see what\nParacelsus said of this \u201cNervous Ether\u201d:\n\n\n    The Arch\u00e6us is of a magnetic nature, and attracts or repulses\n    other sympathetic or antipathetic forces belonging to the same\n    plane. The less power of resistance for astral influences a person\n    possesses, the more will he be subject to such influences. The\n    vital force is not enclosed in man, but radiates [within and]\n    around him like a luminous sphere [aura] and it may be made to act\n    at a distance.... It may poison the essence of life [_blood_] and\n    cause diseases, or it may purify it after it has been made impure,\n    and restore the health.(935)\n\n\nThat the two, \u201cArch\u00e6us\u201d and \u201cNervous Ether,\u201d are identical, is shown by\nthe English Scientist, who says that _generally_ the tension of it may be\ntoo high or too low; that it may be so:\n\n\n    Owing to local changes in the nervous matter it invests.... Under\n    sharp excitation it may vibrate as if in a storm and plunge every\n    muscle under cerebral or spinal control into uncontrolled\n    motion\u2014unconscious convulsions.\n\n\nThis is called nervous excitation, but no one, except the Occultist, knows\nthe reason of such nervous perturbation, or explains the primary causes of\nit. The principle of Life may kill when too exuberant, as much as when\nthere is too little of it. But this \u201cprinciple\u201d on the manifested plane,\nthat is to say, our plane, is but the effect and the result of the\nintelligent action of the \u201cHost,\u201d or collective Principle, the manifesting\nLife and Light. It is itself subordinate to, and emanates from, the ever\u2010\ninvisible, eternal and Absolute One Life, in a descending and re\u00e4scending\nscale of hierarchic degrees, a true septenary ladder, with Sound, the\nLogos, at the upper end, and the Vidy\u00e2dharas(936), the inferior Pitris, at\nthe lower.\n\nOf course, the Occultists are fully aware of the fact that the vitalist\n\u201cfallacy,\u201d so derided by Vogt and Huxley, is, nevertheless, still\ncountenanced in very high scientific quarters, and, therefore, they are\nhappy to feel that they do not stand alone. Thus, Professor de Quatrefages\nwrites:\n\n\n    It is very true that we do not know _what_ life _is_; but no more\n    do we know _what_ the force _is_ that set the stars in motion....\n    Living beings are heavy, and therefore subject to gravitation;\n    they are the seat of numerous and various physico\u2010chemical\n    phenomena which are indispensable to their existence, and which\n    must be referred to the action of etherodynamy [electricity, heat,\n    etc.]. But these phenomena are here manifested under the influence\n    of another force.... Life is not antagonistic to the inanimate\n    forces, but it governs and rules their action by its laws.(937)\n\n\n\n\nSection VIII. The Solar Theory.\n\n\n    A SHORT ANALYSIS OF THE COMPOUND AND SINGLE ELEMENTS OF SCIENCE AS\n    AGAINST THE OCCULT TEACHINGS. HOW FAR THIS THEORY, AS GENERALLY\n    ACCEPTED, IS SCIENTIFIC.\n\n\nIn his reply to Dr. Gull\u2019s attack on the theory of Vitality, which is\ninseparably connected with the Elements of the Ancients in the Occult\nPhilosophy, Professor Beale, the great Physiologist, has a few words as\nsuggestive as they are beautiful:\n\n\n    There is a mystery in life\u2014a mystery which has never been\n    fathomed, and which appears greater, the more deeply the phenomena\n    of life are studied and contemplated. In living centres\u2014far more\n    central than the centres seen by the highest magnifying powers, in\n    centres of living matter, where the eye cannot penetrate, but\n    towards which the understanding may tend\u2014proceed changes of the\n    nature of which the most advanced physicists and chemists fail to\n    afford us the conception: nor is there the slightest reason to\n    think that the nature of these changes will ever be ascertained by\n    physical investigation, inasmuch as they are certainly of an order\n    or nature totally distinct from that to which any other phenomenon\n    known to us can be relegated.\n\n\nThis \u201cmystery,\u201d or the origin of the Life Essence, Occultism locates in\nthe same Centre as the nucleus of _prima materia_ of our Solar System, for\nthey are one.\n\nAs says the Commentary:\n\n_The Sun is the heart of the Solar World [System] and its brain is hidden\nbehind the [visible] Sun. Thence, sensation is radiated into every nerve\u2010\ncentre of the great body, and the waves of the life\u2010essence flow into each\nartery and vein.... The planets are its limbs and pulses._\n\nIt has been stated elsewhere(938) that Occult philosophy denies that the\nSun is a globe in combustion, but defines it simply as a world, a glowing\nsphere, the real Sun being hidden behind, and the visible Sun being only\nits reflection, its shell. The Nasmyth willow leaves, mistaken by Sir John\nHerschell for \u201csolar inhabitants,\u201d are the reservoirs of solar vital\nenergy; \u201cthe vital electricity that feeds the whole system; the sun _in\nabscondito_ being thus the storehouse of our little Cosmos, self\u2010\ngenerating its vital fluid, and ever receiving as much as it gives out,\u201d\nand the visible Sun only a window cut into the real solar palace and\npresence, which, however, shews without distortion the interior work.\n\nThus, during the manvantaric solar period, or life, there is a regular\ncirculation of the vital fluid throughout our System, of which the Sun is\nthe heart\u2014like the circulation of the blood in the human body; the Sun\ncontracting as rhythmically as the human heart does at every return of it.\nOnly, instead of performing the round in a second or so, it takes the\nsolar blood ten of its years to circulate, and a whole year to pass\nthrough its auricle and ventricle before it washes the lungs, and passes\nthence back to the great arteries and veins of the System.\n\nThis, Science will not deny, since Astronomy knows of the fixed cycle of\neleven years when the number of solar spots increases,(939) the increase\nbeing due to the contraction of the Solar Heart. The Universe, our World\nin this case, breathes, just as man and every living creature, plant, and\neven mineral does upon the Earth; and as our Globe itself breathes every\ntwenty\u2010four hours. The dark region is not due to the \u201cabsorption exerted\nby the vapours issuing from the bosom of the sun, and interposed between\nthe observer and the photosphere,\u201d as Father Secchi would have it,(940)\nnor are the spots formed \u201cby the matter [heated gaseous matter] itself\nwhich the irruption projects upon the solar disk.\u201d The phenomenon is\nsimilar to the regular and healthy pulsation of the heart, as the life\nfluid passes through its hollow muscles. Could the human heart be made\nluminous, and the living and throbbing organ made visible, so as to have\nit reflected upon a screen, such as is used by lecturers on Astronomy to\nshow the moon, for instance, then every one would see the sun\u2010spot\nphenomena repeated every second, and that they were due to contraction and\nthe rushing of the blood.\n\nWe read in a work on Geology that it is the dream of Science that:\n\n\n    All the recognized chemical elements will one day be found but\n    modifications of a single material element.(941)\n\n\nOccult Philosophy has taught this since the existence of human speech and\nlanguage, adding, however, on the principle of the immutable law of\nanalogy, \u201cas it is above, so it is below,\u201d another of its axioms, that\nthere is neither Spirit nor Matter, in reality, but only numberless\naspects of the One ever\u2010hidden Is, or Sat. The homogeneous primordial\nElement is simple and single, _only on the terrestrial plane_ of\nconsciousness and sensation, since Matter, after all, is nothing more than\nthe sequence of our own states of consciousness, and Spirit an idea of\npsychic intuition. Even on the next higher plane, that single element\nwhich is defined on our Earth by current Science, as the ultimate\nundecomposable constituent of some kind of Matter, would be pronounced in\nthe world of a higher spiritual perception to be something very complex\nindeed. Our purest water would be found to yield, instead of its two\ndeclared simple elements of oxygen and hydrogen, many other constituents,\nundreamed of by our modern terrestrial Chemistry. As in the realm of\nMatter, so in the realm of Spirit, the shadow of that which is cognized on\nthe plane of objectivity exists on that of pure subjectivity. The speck of\nthe perfectly homogeneous Substance, the sarcode of the H\u00e6ckelian Moneron,\nis now viewed as the archebiosis of terrestrial existence (Mr. Huxley\u2019s\nprotoplasm)(942); and Bathybius H\u00e6ckelii has to be traced to its pre\u2010\nterrestrial archebiosis. This is first perceived by the Astronomers at its\nthird stage of evolution, and in the \u201csecondary creation,\u201d so\u2010called. But\nthe students of Esoteric Philosophy understand well the secret meaning of\nthe Stanza:\n\n\n    Brahm\u00e2 ... has essentially the _aspect of_ Prakriti, both evolved\n    and unevolved.... Spirit, O Twice\u2010born [Initiate], is the leading\n    _aspect_ of Brahm\u00e2. The next is a two\u2010fold aspect [of Prakriti and\n    Purusha] ... both evolved and unevolved; and Time is the\n    last!(943)\n\n\nAnu is one of the names of Brahm\u00e2, as distinct from Brahman, and it means\n\u201catom\u201d; an\u00eey\u00e2msam an\u00eeyas\u00e2m, \u201cthe most atomic of the atomic,\u201d the\n\u201cimmutable and imperishable (achyuta) Purushottama.\u201d\n\nSurely, then, the elements now known to us\u2014be their number whatever it\nmay\u2014as they are understood and defined at present, are not, nor can they\nbe, the _primordial_ Elements. Those were formed from \u201cthe _curds of the\ncold radiant Mother_\u201d and \u201c_the fire\u2010seed of the hot Father_,\u201d who \u201care\none,\u201d or, to express it in the plainer language of Modern Science, those\nElements had their genesis in the depths of the primordial Fire\u2010mist, the\nmasses of incandescent vapour of the irresolvable nebul\u00e6; for, as\nProfessor Newcomb shows,(944) resolvable nebul\u00e6 do not constitute a class\nof proper nebul\u00e6. More than half of those, he thinks, which were at first\nmistaken for nebul\u00e6, are what he calls \u201cstarry clusters.\u201d\n\nThe elements now known have arrived at their state of permanency in this\nFourth Round and Fifth Race. They have a short period of rest before they\nare propelled once more on their upward spiritual evolution, when the\n\u201cliving fire of Orcus\u201d will dissociate the most irresolvable, and scatter\nthem again into the primordial One.\n\nMeanwhile the Occultist goes further, as has been shown in the\nCommentaries on the Seven Stanzas. Hence he can hardly hope for any help\nor recognition from Science, which will reject both his \u201can\u00eey\u00e2msam\nan\u00eeyas\u00e2m,\u201d the absolutely spiritual Atom, and his M\u00e2nasaputras or Mind\u2010\nborn Men. In resolving the \u201csingle material element\u201d into one absolute\nirresolvable Element, Spirit, or Root\u2010Matter, thus placing it at once\noutside the reach and province of Physical Philosophy\u2014he has, of course\nbut little in common with the orthodox men of Science. He maintains that\nSpirit and Matter are two Facets of the unknowable Unity, their apparently\ncontrasted aspects depending, (_a_) on the various degrees of\ndifferentiation of Matter, and (_b_) on the grades of consciousness\nattained by man himself. This is, however, Metaphysics, and has little to\ndo with Physics\u2014however great in its own terrestrial limitation that\nphysical Philosophy may now be.\n\nNevertheless, once that Science admits, if not the actual existence, at\nany rate, the possibility of the existence, of a Universe with its\nnumberless forms, conditions, and aspects built out of a \u201csingle\nSubstance,\u201d(945) it has to go further. Unless it also admits the\npossibility of One Element, or the One Life of the Occultists, it will\nhave to hang up that \u201csingle Substance,\u201d especially if limited to only the\nsolar nebul\u00e6, in mid air, like the coffin of Mahomet, though minus the\nattractive magnet that sustained that coffin. Fortunately for the\nspeculative Physicists, if we are unable to state with any degree of\nprecision what the nebular theory does imply, we have, thanks to Professor\nWinchell, and several dissident Astronomers, been able to learn what it\ndoes not imply.\n\nUnfortunately, this is far from clearing even the most simple of the\nproblems that have vexed, and do still vex, the men of learning in their\nsearch after truth. We have to proceed with our enquiries, starting with\nthe earliest hypotheses of Modern Science, if we would discover _where_\nand _why_ it sins. Perchance it may be found that Stallo is right, after\nall, and that the blunders, contradictions and fallacies made by the most\neminent men of learning are simply due to their abnormal attitude. They\nare, and want to remain Materialistic _quand m\u00eame_, and yet \u201cthe general\nprinciples of the atomo\u2010mechanical theory\u2014the basis of modern Physics\u2014are\nsubstantially identical with the cardinal doctrines of ontological\nMetaphysics.\u201d Thus, \u201cthe fundamental errors of ontology become apparent in\nproportion to the advance of physical science.\u201d(946) Science is\nhoneycombed with metaphysical conceptions, but the Scientists will not\nadmit the charge, and fight desperately to put atomo\u2010mechanical masks on\npurely incorporeal and spiritual laws in Nature, on our plane\u2014refusing to\nadmit their substantiality even on other planes, the bare existence of\nwhich they reject _\u00e0 priori_.\n\nIt is easy to show, however, how Scientists, wedded to their materialistic\nviews, have, ever since the days of Newton, endeavoured to put false masks\non fact and truth. But their task is becoming every year more difficult;\nand every year also, Chemistry, beyond all the other sciences, approaches\nnearer and nearer the realm of the Occult in Nature. It is assimilating\nthe very truths taught by the Occult Sciences for ages, but hitherto\nbitterly derided. \u201cMatter is eternal,\u201d says the Esoteric Doctrine. But the\nMatter the Occultists conceive of in its _laya_, or _zero_ state, is not\nthe matter of Modern Science, not even in its most rarefied gaseous state.\nMr. Crookes\u2019 \u201cradiant matter\u201d would appear Matter of the grossest kind in\nthe realm of the beginnings, as it becomes pure Spirit before it returns\nback even to its first point of differentiation. Therefore, when the Adept\nor Alchemist adds that, though Matter is eternal, for it is Pradh\u00e2na, yet\nAtoms are born at every new Manvantara, or reconstruction of the universe,\nit is no such contradiction as a Materialist, who believes in nothing\nbeyond the Atom, might think. There is a difference between _manifested_\nand _unmanifested_ Matter, between Pradh\u00e2na, the beginningless and endless\ncause, and Prakriti, or the manifested effect. Says the Shloka:\n\n\n    That which is the unevolved cause is emphatically called by the\n    most eminent sages, Pradh\u00e2na, original base, which is subtile\n    Prakriti, _viz._, that which is eternal and which at once is, and\n    is not, a mere process.(947)\n\n\nThat which in modern phraseology is referred to as Spirit and Matter, is\nONE in eternity as the Perpetual Cause, and it is neither Spirit nor\nMatter, but IT\u2014rendered in Sanskrit by TAD, \u201cthat\u201d\u2014all that is, was, or\nwill be, all that the imagination of man is capable of conceiving. Even\nthe exoteric Pantheism of Hind\u00fbism renders it as no monotheistic\nPhilosophy ever did, for in superb phraseology its Cosmogony begins with\nthe well\u2010known words:\n\n\n    There was neither day nor night, neither heaven nor earth, neither\n    darkness nor light. And there was not aught else apprehensible by\n    the senses or by the mental faculties. There was then, however,\n    one Brahma, essentially Prakriti [Nature] and Spirit. For the two\n    aspects of Vishnu which are other than his supreme essential\n    aspect are Prakriti and Spirit, O Br\u00e2hman. _When_ these two other\n    _aspects_ of his no longer subsist, but are dissolved, _then_ that\n    _aspect_ whence form and the rest, _i.e._, _creation_, proceed\n    _anew_, is denominated time, O twice\u2010born.\n\n\nIt is that which is dissolved, or the illusionary _dual_ aspect of That,\nthe essence of which is eternally One, that we call Eternal Matter, or\nSubstance, formless, sexless, inconceivable, even to our sixth sense or\nmind,(948) in which, therefore, we refuse to see that which Monotheists\ncall a personal, anthropomorphic God.\n\nHow are these two propositions\u2014that \u201cMatter is eternal,\u201d and that \u201cthe\nAtom is periodical, and not eternal\u201d\u2014viewed by exact Modern Science? The\nmaterialistic Physicist will criticize and laugh them to scorn. The\nliberal and progressive man of Science, however, the true and earnest\nscientific searcher after truth, such as the eminent Chemist, Mr. Crookes,\nwill corroborate the probability of the two statements. For hardly had the\necho of his lecture on the \u201cGenesis of the Elements\u201d died away\u2014the lecture\nwhich, delivered by him before the Chemical Section of the British\nAssociation, at the Birmingham meeting in 1887, so startled every\nevolutionist who heard or read it\u2014than there came another in March, 1888.\nOnce more the President of the Chemical Society brought before the world\nof Science and the public the fruits of some new discoveries in the realm\nof Atoms, and these discoveries justified the Occult Teachings in every\nway. They are more startling even than the statements made by him in the\nfirst lecture, and well deserve the attention of every Occultist,\nTheosophist, and Metaphysician. This is what he says in his \u201cElements and\n_Meta_\u2010Elements,\u201d thus justifying Stallo\u2019s charges and prevision, with the\nfearlessness of a scientific mind which loves Science for truth\u2019s sake,\nregardless of any consequences to his own glory and reputation. We quote\nhis own words:\n\n\n    Permit me, gentlemen, now to draw your attention for a short time\n    to a subject which concerns the fundamental principles of\n    chemistry, a subject which may lead us to admit the possible\n    existence of bodies which, though neither compounds nor mixtures,\n    are not elements in the strictest sense of the word\u2014bodies which I\n    venture to call \u201cmeta\u2010elements.\u201d To explain my meaning it is\n    necessary for me to revert to our conception of an element. What\n    is the criterion of an element? Where are we to draw the line\n    between distinct existence and identity? No one doubts that\n    oxygen, sodium, chlorine, sulphur are separate elements; and when\n    we come to such groups as chlorine, bromine, iodine, etc., we\n    still feel no doubt, although were degrees of \u201celementicity\u201d\n    admissible\u2014and to that we may ultimately have to come\u2014it might be\n    allowed that chlorine approximates much more closely to bromine\n    than to oxygen, sodium, or sulphur. Again, nickel and cobalt are\n    near to each other, very near, though no one questions their claim\n    to rank as distinct elements. Still I cannot help asking what\n    would have been the prevalent opinion among chemists had the\n    respective solutions of these bodies and their compounds presented\n    identical colours, instead of colours which, approximately\n    speaking, are mutually complementary. Would their distinct nature\n    have even now been recognized? When we pass further and come to\n    the so\u2010called rare earths the ground is less secure under our\n    feet. Perhaps we may admit scandium, ytterbium, and others of the\n    like sort to elemental rank; but what are we to say in the case of\n    praseo\u2010 and neo\u2010dymium, between which there may be said to exist\n    no well\u2010marked chemical difference, their chief claim to separate\n    individuality being slight differences in basicity and\n    crystallizing powers, though their physical distinctions, as shown\n    by spectrum observations, are very strongly marked? Even here we\n    may imagine the disposition of the majority of chemists would\n    incline toward the side of leniency, so that they would admit\n    these two bodies within the charmed circle. Whether in so doing\n    they would be able to appeal to any broad principle is an open\n    question. If we admit these candidates how in justice are we to\n    exclude the series of elemental bodies or meta\u2010elements made known\n    to us by Kr\u00fcss and Nilson? Here the spectral differences are well\n    marked, while my own researches on didymium show also a slight\n    difference in basicity between some at least of these doubtful\n    bodies. In the same category must be included the numerous\n    separate \u201celements\u201d\u2014commonly so\u2010called\u2014have been and are being\n    split up. Where then are we to draw the line? The different\n    groupings shade off so imperceptibly the one into the other that\n    it is impossible to erect a definite boundary between any two\n    adjacent bodies and to say that the body on this side of the line\n    is an element, while the one on the other side is non\u2010elementary,\n    or merely something which simulates or approximates to an element.\n    Wherever an apparently reasonable line might be drawn it would no\n    doubt be easy at once to assign most bodies to their proper side,\n    as in all cases of classification the real difficulty comes in\n    when the border\u2010line is approached. Slight chemical differences,\n    of course, are admitted, and, up to a certain point, so are well\u2010\n    marked physical differences. What are we to say, however, when the\n    only chemical difference is an almost imperceptible tendency for\n    the one body\u2014of a couple or of a group\u2014to precipitate before the\n    other? Again, there are cases where the chemical differences reach\n    the vanishing point, although well\u2010marked physical differences\n    still remain. Here we stumble on a new difficulty: in such\n    obscurities what is chemical and what is physical? Are we not\n    entitled to call a slight tendency of a nascent amorphous\n    precipitate to fall down in advance of another a \u201cphysical\n    difference\u201d? And may we not call coloured reactions depending on\n    the amount of some particular acid present and varying, according\n    to the concentration of the solution and to the solvent employed,\n    \u201cchemical differences\u201d? I do not see how we can deny elementary\n    character to a body which differs from another by well\u2010marked\n    colour, or spectrum\u2010reactions, while we accord it to another body\n    whose only claim is a very minute difference in basic powers.\n    Having once opened the door wide enough to admit some spectrum\n    differences, we have to inquire how minute a difference qualifies\n    the candidate to pass? I will give instances from my own\n    experience of some of these doubtful candidates.\n\n\nHere the great Chemist gives several cases of the very extraordinary\nbehaviour of molecules and earths, apparently the same, but which yet,\nwhen examined very closely, were found to exhibit differences which,\nhowever minute, still show that none of them are simple bodies, and that\nthe 60 or 70 elements accepted in chemistry can no longer cover the\nground. Their name, apparently, is legion, but as the so\u2010called \u201cperiodic\ntheory\u201d stands in the way of an unlimited multiplication of elements, Mr.\nCrookes is obliged to find some means of reconciling the new discovery\nwith the old theory. \u201cThat theory,\u201d he says:\n\n\n    Has received such abundant verification that we cannot lightly\n    accept any interpretation of phenomena which fails to be in\n    accordance with it. But if we suppose the elements re\u00efnforced by a\n    vast number of bodies slightly differing from each other in their\n    properties, and forming, if I may use the expression, aggregations\n    of nebul\u00e6 where we formerly saw, or believed we saw, separate\n    stars, the periodic arrangement can no longer be definitely\n    grasped. No longer, that is, if we retain our usual conception of\n    an element. Let us, then, modify this conception. For \u201celement\u201d\n    read \u201celementary group\u201d\u2014such elementary groups taking the place of\n    the old elements in the periodic scheme\u2014and the difficulty falls\n    away. In defining an element, let us take not an external\n    boundary, but an internal type. Let us say, _e.g._, the smallest\n    ponderable quantity of yttrium is an assemblage of ultimate atoms\n    almost infinitely more like each other than they are to the atoms\n    of any other approximating element. It does not necessarily follow\n    that the atoms shall all be absolutely alike among themselves. The\n    atomic weight which we ascribed to yttrium, therefore, merely\n    represents a mean value around which the actual weights of the\n    individual atoms of the \u201celement\u201d range within certain limits. But\n    if my conjecture is tenable, could we separate atom from atom, we\n    should find them varying within narrow limits on each side of the\n    mean. The very process of fractionation implies the existence of\n    such differences in certain bodies.\n\n\nThus fact and truth have once more forced the hand of \u201cexact\u201d Science, and\ncompelled it to enlarge its views and change its terms, which, masking the\nmultitude, reduced them to one body\u2014like the Septenary Elohim and their\nhosts transformed by the materialistic religionists into one Jehovah.\nReplace the chemical terms \u201cmolecule,\u201d \u201catom,\u201d \u201cparticle,\u201d etc., by the\nwords \u201cHosts,\u201d \u201cMonads,\u201d \u201cDevas,\u201d etc., and one might think the genesis of\nGods, the primeval evolution of manvantaric _intelligent_ Forces, was\nbeing described. But the learned lecturer adds to his descriptive remarks\nsomething still more suggestive; whether consciously or unconsciously, who\nknoweth? For he says:\n\n\n    Until lately such bodies passed muster as elements. They had\n    definite properties, chemical and physical; they had recognized\n    atomic weights. If we take a pure dilute solution of such a body,\n    yttrium for instance, and if we add to it an excess of strong\n    ammonia, we obtain a precipitate which appears perfectly\n    homogeneous. But if instead we add very dilute ammonia in quantity\n    sufficient only to precipitate one\u2010half of the base present, we\n    obtain no immediate precipitate. If we stir up the whole\n    thoroughly so as to insure a uniform mixture of the solution and\n    the ammonia, and set the vessel aside for an hour, carefully\n    excluding dust, we may still find the liquid clear and bright,\n    without any vestige of turbidity. After three or four hours,\n    however, an opalescence will declare itself, and the next morning\n    a precipitate will have appeared. Now let us ask ourselves, What\n    can be the meaning of this phenomenon? The quantity of precipitant\n    added was insufficient to throw down more than half the yttria\n    present, therefore a process akin to selection has been going on\n    for several hours. The precipitation has _evidently not been\n    effected at random_, those molecules of the base being decomposed\n    which happened to come in contact with a corresponding molecule of\n    ammonia, for we have taken care that the liquids should be\n    uniformly mixed, so that one molecule of the original salt would\n    not be more exposed to decomposition than any other. If, further,\n    we consider the time which elapses before the appearance of a\n    precipitate, we _cannot avoid coming to the conclusion that the\n    action which has been going on for the first few hours is of a\n    selective character_. The problem is not why a precipitate is\n    produced, but what determines or directs some atoms to fall down\n    and others to remain in solution. Out of the multitude of atoms\n    present, _what power is it that directs each atom to choose the\n    proper path? We may picture to ourselves some directive force\n    passing the atoms one by one in review, selecting one for\n    precipitation and another for solution till all have been\n    adjusted._\n\n\nThe italics in the above passage are ours. Well may a man of Science ask\nhimself: What power is it that directs each Atom? and what is the meaning\nof its character being _selective_? Theists would solve the question by\nanswering \u201cGod\u201d; and would thereby solve nothing philosophically.\nOccultism answers on its own Pantheistic grounds, and teaches the student\nabout Gods, Monads, and Atoms. The learned lecturer sees in it that which\nis his chief concern: the finger\u2010posts and the traces of a path which may\nlead to the discovery, and the full and complete demonstration, of an\nhomogeneous element in Nature. He remarks:\n\n\n    In order that such a selection can be effected there evidently\n    must be some slight differences between which it is possible to\n    select, and this difference almost certainly must be one of\n    basicity, so slight as to be imperceptible by any test at present\n    known, but susceptible of being nursed and encouraged to a point\n    when the difference can be appreciated by ordinary tests.\n\n\nOccultism, which knows of the existence and presence in Nature of the One\nEternal Element, at the first differentiation of which the roots of the\nTree of Life are periodically struck, needs no scientific proofs. It says:\nAncient Wisdom has solved the problem ages ago. Aye; earnest, as well as\nmocking reader, Science is slowly but surely approaching our domains of\nthe Occult. It is forced by its own discoveries to adopt _nolens volens_\nour phraseology and symbols. Chemical Science is now compelled, by the\nvery force of things, to accept even our illustration of the evolution of\nthe Gods and Atoms, so suggestively and undeniably figured in the Caduceus\nof Mercury, the God of Wisdom, and in the allegorical language of the\nArchaic Sages. Says a Commentary in the Esoteric Doctrine:\n\n_The trunk of the_ ASVATTHA (the tree of Life and Being, the ROD of the\nCaduceus) _grows from and descends at every Beginning_ (every new\nManvantara) _from the two dark wings of the Swan_ (HANSA) _of Life. The\ntwo Serpents, the ever\u2010living and its illusion_ (Spirit and matter) _whose\ntwo heads grow from the one head between the wings, descend along the\ntrunks interlaced in close embrace. The two tails join on earth_ (the\nmanifested Universe) _into one, and this is the great illusion, O Lanoo!_\n\nEvery one knows what the Caduceus is, modified considerably by the Greeks.\nThe original symbol\u2014with the triple head of the serpent\u2014became altered\ninto a rod with a knob, and the two lower heads were separated, thus\ndisfiguring somewhat the original meaning. Yet it is as good an\nillustration as can be for our purpose, this laya rod, entwined by two\nserpents. Verily the wonderful powers of the magic Caduceus were sung by\nall the ancient poets, with a very good reason for those who understood\nthe secret meaning.\n\nNow what says the learned President of the Chemical Society of Great\nBritain, in that same lecture, which has any reference to, or bearing\nupon, our above\u2010mentioned doctrine? Very little; only this\u2014and nothing\nmore:\n\n\n    In the Birmingham address already referred to I asked my audience\n    to picture the action of two forces on the original protyle\u2014one\n    being time, accompanied by a lowering of temperature; the other,\n    swinging to and fro like a mighty pendulum, having periodic cycles\n    of ebb and swell, rest and activity, being intimately connected\n    with the imponderable matter, essence, or source of energy we call\n    electricity. Now, a simile like this effects its object if it\n    fixes in the mind the particular fact it is intended to emphasize,\n    but it must not be expected necessarily to run parallel with all\n    the facts. Besides the lowering of temperature with the periodic\n    ebb and flow of electricity, positive or negative, requisite to\n    confer on the newly\u2010born elements their particular atomicity, it\n    is evident that a third factor must be taken into account. Nature\n    does not act on a flat plane; she demands space for her cosmogenic\n    operations, and if we introduce space as the third factor, all\n    appears clear. Instead of a pendulum, which, though to a certain\n    extent a good illustration, is impossible as a fact, let us seek\n    some more satisfactory way of representing what I conceive may\n    have taken place. Let us suppose the zigzag diagram not drawn upon\n    a plane, but projected in space of three dimensions. What figure\n    can we best select to meet all the conditions involved? Many of\n    the facts can be well explained by supposing the projection in\n    space of Professor Emerson Reynolds\u2019 zigzag curve to be a spiral.\n    This figure is, however, inadmissible, inasmuch as the curve has\n    to pass through a point neutral as to electricity and chemical\n    energy twice in each cycle. We must, therefore, adopt some other\n    figure. A figure of eight (8), or lemniscate, will foreshorten\n    into a zigzag just as well as a spiral, and it fulfils every\n    condition of the problem.\n\n\nA lemniscate for the evolution downward, from Spirit into Matter; another\nform of a spiral, perhaps, in its reinvolutionary path onward, from Matter\ninto Spirit; and the necessary gradual and final reabsorption into the\n_laya_ state, that which Science calls, in her own way, \u201cthe point neutral\nas to electricity,\u201d or the _zero_ point. Such are the Occult facts and\nstatement. They may be left with the greatest security and confidence to\nScience, to be justified some day. Let us hear some more, however, about\nthis primordial genetic type of the symbolical Caduceus.\n\n\n    Such a figure will result from three very simple simultaneous\n    motions. First, a simple oscillation backwards and forwards\n    (suppose east and west); secondly, a simple oscillation at right\n    angles to the former (suppose north and south) of half the\n    periodic time\u2014_i.e._, twice as fast; and thirdly, a motion at\n    right angles to these two (suppose downwards), which, in its\n    simplest form, would be with unvarying velocity. If we project\n    this figure in space we find on examination that the points of the\n    curves, where chlorine, bromine, and iodine are formed, come close\n    under each other; so also will sulphur, selenium, and tellurium;\n    again, phosphorus, arsenic, and antimony; and in like manner other\n    series of analogous bodies. It may be asked whether this scheme\n    explains how and why the elements appear in this order? Let us\n    imagine a cyclical translation in space, each evolution witnessing\n    the genesis of the group of elements which I previously\n    represented as produced during one complete vibration of the\n    pendulum. Let us suppose that one cycle has thus been completed,\n    the centre of the unknown creative force in its mighty journey\n    through space having scattered along its track the primitive\n    atoms\u2014the seeds, if I may use the expression\u2014which presently are\n    to coalesce and develop into the groupings now known as lithium,\n    beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, sodium,\n    magnesium, aluminium, silicon, phosphorus, sulphur, and chlorine.\n    What is most probably the form of track now pursued? Were it\n    strictly confined to the same plane of temperature and time, the\n    next elementary groupings to appear would again have been those of\n    lithium, and the original cycle would have been eternally\n    repeated, producing again and again the same 14 elements. The\n    conditions, however, are not quite the same. Space and electricity\n    are as at first, but temperature has altered, and thus, instead of\n    the atoms of lithium being supplemented with atoms in all respects\n    analogous with themselves, the atomic groupings which come into\n    being when the second cycle commences form, not lithium, but its\n    lineal descendant, potassium. Suppose, therefore, the _vis\n    generatrix_ travelling to and fro in cycles along a lemniscate\n    path, as above suggested, while simultaneously temperature is\n    declining and time is flowing on\u2014variations which I have\n    endeavoured to represent by the downward sink\u2014each coil of the\n    lemniscate track crosses the same vertical line at lower and lower\n    points. Projected in space, the curve shows a central line neutral\n    as far as electricity is concerned, and neutral in chemical\n    properties\u2014positive electricity on the north, negative on the\n    south. Dominant atomicities are governed by the distance east and\n    west from the neutral centre line, monatomic elements being one\n    remove from it, diatomic two removes, and so on. In every\n    successive coil the same law holds good.\n\n\nAnd, as if to prove the postulate of Occult Science and Hind\u00fb philosophy,\nthat, at the hour of the Pralaya, the two aspects of the Unknowable Deity,\n\u201cthe Swan in darkness,\u201d Prakriti and Purusha, Nature or Matter in all its\nforms and Spirit, no longer subsist but are absolutely dissolved, we learn\nthe conclusive scientific opinion of the great English Chemist, who caps\nhis proofs by saying:\n\n\n    We have now traced the formation of the chemical elements from\n    knots and voids in a primitive, formless fluid. We have shown the\n    possibility, nay, the probability that the atoms are not eternal\n    in existence, but share with all other created beings the\n    attributes of decay and death.\n\n\nOccultism says _amen_ to this, as the scientific \u201cpossibility\u201d and\n\u201cprobability\u201d are for it facts, demonstrated beyond the necessity for\nfurther proof, or for any extraneous physical evidence. Nevertheless, it\nrepeats with as much assurance as ever: \u201cMATTER IS ETERNAL, becoming\natomic (its aspect) only periodically.\u201d This is as sure as that the other\nproposition, which is almost unanimously accepted by Astronomers and\nPhysicists\u2014namely, that the wear and tear of the body of the Universe is\nsteadily going on, and that it will finally lead to the extinction of the\nSolar Fires and the destruction of the Universe\u2014is quite erroneous on the\nlines traced by men of Science. There will be, as there ever were in time\nand eternity, periodical dissolutions of the manifested Universe, such as\na partial Pralaya after every Day of Brahm\u00e2; and a Universal Pralaya\u2014the\nMah\u00e2\u2010Pralaya\u2014only after the lapse of every Age of Brahm\u00e2. But the\nscientific causes for such dissolution, as brought forward by exact\nScience, have nothing to do with the true causes. However that may be,\nOccultism is once more justified by Science, for Mr. Crookes said:\n\n\n    We have shown, from arguments drawn from the chemical laboratory,\n    that in matter which has responded to every test of an element,\n    there are minute shades of difference which may admit of\n    selection. We have seen that the time\u2010honoured distinction between\n    elements and compounds no longer keeps pace with the developments\n    of chemical science, but must be modified to include a vast array\n    of intermediate bodies\u2014\u201cmeta\u2010elements.\u201d We have shown how the\n    objections of Clerk\u2010Maxwell, weighty as they are, may be met; and\n    finally, we have adduced reasons for believing that primitive\n    matter was formed by the act of a generative force, throwing off\n    at intervals of time atoms endowed with varying quantities of\n    primitive forms of energy. If we may hazard any conjectures as to\n    the source of energy embodied in a chemical atom, we may, I think,\n    premise that the heat radiations propagated outwards through the\n    ether from the ponderable matter of the universe, by some process\n    of nature not yet known to us, are transformed at the confines of\n    the universe into the primary\u2014the essential\u2014motions of chemical\n    atoms, which, the instant they are formed, gravitate inwards, and\n    thus restore to the universe the energy which otherwise would be\n    lost to it through radiant heat. If this conjecture be well\n    founded, Sir William Thomson\u2019s startling prediction of the final\n    decrepitude of the universe through the dissipation of its energy\n    falls to the ground. In this fashion, gentlemen, it seems to me\n    that the question of the elements may be provisionally treated.\n    Our slender knowledge of these first mysteries is extending\n    steadily, surely, though slowly.\n\n\nBy a strange and curious coincidence even our Septenary doctrine seems to\nforce the hand of Science. If we understand rightly, Chemistry speaks of\nfourteen groupings of primitive atoms\u2014lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon,\nnitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, sodium, magnesium, aluminium, silicon,\nphosphorus, sulphur and chlorine; and Mr. Crookes, speaking of the\n\u201cdominant atomicities,\u201d enumerates seven groups of these, for he says:\n\n\n    As the mighty focus of creative energy goes round, we see it in\n    successive cycles sowing in one tract of space seeds of lithium,\n    potassium, rubidium, and c\u00e6sium; in another tract, chlorine,\n    bromine, and iodine; in a third, sodium, copper, silver, and gold;\n    in a fourth, sulphur, selenium, and tellurium; in a fifth,\n    beryllium, calcium, strontium, and barium; in a sixth, magnesium,\n    zinc, cadmium, and mercury; in a seventh, phosphorus, arsenic,\n    antimony, and bismuth [which makes seven groupings on the one\n    hand. And after showing] ... in other tracts the other\n    elements\u2014namely, aluminium, gallium, indium, and thallium;\n    silicon, germanium, and tin; carbon, titanium, and zirconium ...\n    [he adds] while a natural position near the neutral axis is found\n    for the three groups of elements relegated by Professor Mendeleeff\n    to a sort of Hospital for Incurables\u2014his eighth family.\n\n\nIt might be interesting to compare these seven, and the eighth family of\n\u201cincurables,\u201d with the allegories concerning the seven primitive sons of\n\u201cMother, Infinite Space,\u201d or Aditi, and the eighth son rejected by her.\nMany a strange coincidence may thus be found between \u201cthose intermediate\nlinks ... named meta\u2010elements\u201d or elementoids, and those whom Occult\nScience names their Noumenoi, the intelligent Minds and Rulers of those\ngroupings of Monads and Atoms. But this would lead us too far. Let us be\ncontent with finding the confession of the fact that:\n\n\n    This deviation from absolute homogeneity should mark the\n    constitution of these molecules or aggregations of matter which we\n    designate elements and will perhaps be clearer if we return in\n    imagination to the earliest dawn of our material universe, and,\n    face to face with the Great Secret, try to consider the processes\n    of elemental evolution.\n\n\nThus finally Science, in the person of its highest representatives, in\norder to make itself clearer to the profane, adopts the phraseology of\nsuch old Adepts as Roger Bacon, and returns to the \u201cprotyle.\u201d All this is\nhopeful and suggestive of the \u201csigns of the times.\u201d\n\nIndeed these \u201csigns\u201d are many and multiply daily; but none are more\nimportant than those just quoted. For now the chasm between the Occult\n\u201csuperstitious and unscientific\u201d teachings and those of \u201cexact\u201d Science is\ncompletely bridged, and one, at least, of the few eminent Chemists of the\nday is in the realm of the infinite possibilities of Occultism. Every new\nstep he will take will bring him nearer and nearer to that mysterious\nCentre, from which radiate the innumerable paths that lead down Spirit\ninto Matter, and which transform the Gods and the living Monads into man\nand sentient Nature.\n\nBut we have something more to say on this subject in the following\nSection.\n\n\n\n\nSection IX. The Coming Force. Its Possibilities And Impossibilities.\n\n\nShall we say that Force is \u201cmoving Matter,\u201d or \u201cMatter in motion,\u201d and a\nmanifestation of Energy; or that Matter and Force are the phenomenal\ndifferentiated aspects of the one primary, undifferentiated Cosmic\nSubstance?\n\nThis query is made with regard to that Stanza which treats of FOHAT and\nhis \u201cSeven brothers or Sons,\u201d in other words, of the _cause_ and the\n_effects_ of Cosmic Electricity, the Brothers or Sons of Occult parlance\nbeing the seven primary forces of Electricity, whose purely phenomenal,\nand hence grossest, effects are alone cognizable by Physicists on the\ncosmic and especially on the terrestrial plane. These include, among other\nthings, Sound, Light, Colour, etc. Now what does Physical Science tell us\nof these \u201cForces\u201d? SOUND, it says, is a sensation produced by the impact\nof atmospheric molecules on the tympanum, which, by setting up delicate\ntremors in the auditory apparatus, thus communicate their vibrations to\nthe brain. LIGHT is the sensation caused by the impact of inconceivably\nminute vibrations of ether on the retina of the eye.\n\nSo, too, say we. But these are simply the effects produced in our\natmosphere and its immediate surroundings, all, in fact, which falls\nwithin the range of our terrestrial consciousness. Jupiter Pluvius sent\nhis symbol in drops of rain, of water composed, as is believed, of two\n\u201celements,\u201d which Chemistry dissociates and recombines. The compound\nmolecules are in its power, but their atoms still elude its grasp.\nOccultism sees in all these Forces and manifestations a ladder, the lower\nrungs of which belong to exoteric Physics, and the higher are traced to a\nliving, intelligent, invisible Power, which is, as a rule, the\nunconcerned, but, exceptionally, the conscious, Cause of the sense\u2010born\nphenomena designated as this or that natural law.\n\nWe say and maintain that SOUND, for one thing, is a tremendous Occult\npower; that it is a stupendous force, of which the electricity generated\nby a million of Niagaras could never counteract the smallest potentiality\nwhen directed with Occult Knowledge. Sound may be produced of such a\nnature that the pyramid of Cheops would be raised in the air, or that a\ndying man, nay, one at his last breath, would be revived and filled with\nnew energy and vigour.\n\nFor Sound generates, or rather attracts together, the elements that\nproduce an _ozone_ the fabrication of which is beyond Chemistry, but is\nwithin the limits of Alchemy. It may even _resurrect_ a man or an animal\nwhose astral \u201cvital body\u201d has not been irreparably separated from the\nphysical body by the severance of the magnetic or odic chord. _As one\nsaved thrice from death_ by that power, the writer ought to be credited\nwith personally knowing something about it.\n\nAnd if all this appears too _unscientific_ to be even noticed, let Science\nexplain to what mechanical and physical laws, known to it, are due the\nrecently produced phenomena of the so\u2010called Keely motor. What is it that\nacts as the formidable generator of invisible but tremendous force, of\nthat power which is not only capable of driving an engine of 25 horse\u2010\npower, but has even been employed to bodily lift the machinery? Yet this\nis done simply by drawing a fiddle\u2010bow across a tuning fork, as has been\nrepeatedly proven. For the Etheric Force, discovered by John Worrell\nKeely, of Philadelphia, well\u2010known in America and Europe, is no\nhallucination. Notwithstanding his failure to utilize it\u2014a failure\nprognosticated and maintained by some Occultists from the first\u2014the\nphenomena exhibited by the discoverer during the last few years have been\nwonderful, almost miraculous, not in the sense of the _supernatural_(949)\nbut of the _superhuman_. Had Keely been permitted to succeed, he might\nhave reduced a whole army to atoms in the space of a few seconds, as\neasily as he reduced a dead ox to that condition.\n\nThe reader is now asked to give serious attention to that newly\u2010discovered\npotency, which the discoverer has named Inter\u2010Etheric Force, and Forces.\n\nIn the humble opinion of the Occultists, as of his immediate friends, Mr.\nKeely was, and still is, at the threshold of some of the greatest secrets\nof the Universe; of that chiefly on which is built the whole mystery of\nphysical Forces, and the Esoteric significance of the \u201cMundane Egg\u201d\nsymbolism. Occult Philosophy, viewing the manifested and the unmanifested\nKosmos as a UNITY, symbolizes the ideal conception of the former by that\n\u201cGolden Egg\u201d with two poles in it. It is the positive pole that acts in\nthe manifested World of Matter, while the negative loses itself in the\nunknowable Absoluteness of SAT\u2014_Be\u2010ness_.(950) Whether this agrees with\nthe philosophy of Mr. Keely, we cannot tell, nor does it really much\nmatter. Nevertheless, his ideas about the ethero\u2010material construction of\nthe Universe look strangely like our own, being _in this respect_ nearly\nidentical. This is what we find him saying in an able pamphlet compiled by\nMrs. Bloomfield\u2010Moore, an American lady of wealth and position, whose\nincessant efforts in the pursuit of truth can never be too highly\nappreciated:\n\n\n    Mr. Keely, in explanation of the working of his engine, says: \u201cIn\n    the conception of any machine heretofore constructed, the medium\n    for inducing a neutral centre has never been found. If it had, the\n    difficulties of perpetual\u2010motion seekers would have ended, and\n    this problem would have become an established and operating fact.\n    It would only require an introductory impulse of a few pounds, on\n    such a device, to cause it to run for centuries. In the conception\n    of my vibratory engine, I did not seek to attain perpetual motion;\n    but a circuit is formed that actually has _a neutral centre_,\n    which is in a condition to be vivified by my vibratory ether, and,\n    while under operation by said substance, is really a machine that\n    is virtually independent of the mass (or globe),(951) and it is\n    the wonderful velocity of the vibratory circuit which makes it so.\n    Still, with all its perfection, it requires to be fed with the\n    vibratory ether to make it an independent motor.... All structures\n    require a foundation in strength according to the weight of the\n    mass they have to carry, but the foundations of the universe rest\n    on a vacuous point far more minute than a molecule; in fact, to\n    express this truth properly, on an _inter\u2010etheric point_, which\n    requires an infinite mind to understand it. To look down into the\n    depths of an etheric centre is precisely the same as it would be\n    to search into the broad space of heaven\u2019s ether to find the end,\n    with this difference: that one is the positive field, while the\n    other is the negative field.\u201d\n\n\nThis is, as may easily be seen, precisely the Eastern Doctrine. Mr.\nKeely\u2019s inter\u2010etheric point is the laya\u2010point of the Occultists; this,\nhowever, does not require \u201can infinite mind to understand it,\u201d but only a\nspecific intuition and ability to trace its hiding\u2010place in this World of\nMatter. Of course, the _laya centre_ cannot be produced, but an _inter\u2010\netheric vacuum_ can be\u2014as is proved by the production of bell\u2010sounds in\nspace. Mr. Keely speaks as an unconscious Occultist, nevertheless, when he\nremarks, in his theory of planetary suspension:\n\n\n    As regards planetary volume, we would ask in a scientific point of\n    view, How can the immense difference of volume in the planets\n    exist without disorganizing the harmonious action that has always\n    characterized them? I can only answer this question properly by\n    entering into a progressive analysis, starting on the rotating\n    etheric centres that were fixed by the Creator(952) with their\n    attractive or accumulative power. If you ask what power it is that\n    gives to each etheric atom its inconceivable velocity of rotation\n    (or introductory impulse), I must answer that no finite mind will\n    ever be able to conceive what it is. The philosophy of\n    accumulation is the only proof that such a power has been given.\n    The area, if we can so speak, of such an atom presents to the\n    attractive or magnetic, the elective or propulsive, all the\n    receptive force and all the antagonistic force that characterize a\n    planet of the largest magnitude; consequently, as the accumulation\n    goes on, the perfect equation remains the same. When this minute\n    centre has once been fixed, the power to rend it from its position\n    would necessarily have to be so great as to displace the most\n    immense planet that exists. When this atomic neutral centre is\n    displaced, the planet must go with it. The neutral centre carries\n    the full load of any accumulation from the start, and remains the\n    same, for ever balanced in the eternal space.\n\n\nMr. Keely illustrates his idea of \u201ca neutral centre\u201d in this way:\n\n\n    We will imagine that, after an accumulation of a planet of any\n    diameter, say, 20,000 miles, more or less, for the size has\n    nothing to do with the problem, there should be a displacement of\n    all the material, with the exception of a crust 5,000 miles thick,\n    leaving an intervening void between this crust and a centre of the\n    size of an ordinary billiard ball, it would then require a force\n    as great to move this small central mass as it would to move the\n    shell of 5,000 miles thickness. Moreover, this small central mass\n    would carry the load of this crust for ever, keeping it\n    equidistant; and there could be no opposing power, however great,\n    that could bring them together. The imagination staggers in\n    contemplating the immense load which bears upon this point of\n    centre, where weight ceases.... This is what we understand by a\n    neutral centre.\n\n\nAnd this is what Occultists understand by a laya centre.\n\nThe above is pronounced to be \u201cunscientific\u201d by many. But so is everything\nthat is not sanctioned and kept on the strictly orthodox lines of Physical\nScience. Unless the explanation given by the inventor himself is\naccepted\u2014and his explanations, being quite _orthodox_ from the Spiritual\nand the Occult standpoints, if not from that of materialistic speculative\nScience, called _exact_, are therefore ours in this particular\u2014what can\nScience answer to facts already seen, which it is no longer possible for\nanyone to deny? Occult Philosophy divulges few of its most important vital\nmysteries. It drops them like precious pearls, one by one, far and wide\napart, and even this only when forced to do so by the evolutionary tidal\nwave that carries on Humanity slowly, silently, but steadily, toward the\ndawn of the Sixth Race mankind. For once out of the safe custody of their\nlegitimate heirs and keepers, those mysteries cease to be Occult: they\nfall into the public domain, and have to run the risk of becoming curses\nmore often than blessings in the hands of the selfish\u2014of the Cains of the\nhuman race. Nevertheless, whenever such individuals as the discoverer of\nEtheric Force are born, men with peculiar psychic and mental\ncapacities,(953) they are generally and more frequently helped, than\nallowed to go unassisted, groping on their way; if left to their own\nresources, they very soon fall victims to martyrdom or become the prey of\nunscrupulous speculators. But they are helped only on the condition that\nthey should not become, whether consciously or unconsciously, an\nadditional peril to their age: _a danger to the poor_, now offered in\ndaily holocaust by the less wealthy to the very wealthy.(954) This\nnecessitates a short digression and an explanation.\n\nSome twelve years back, during the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, the\nwriter, in answering the earnest queries of a Theosophist, one of the\nearliest admirers of Mr. Keely, repeated to him what she had heard in\nquarters, information from which she could never doubt.\n\nIt had been stated that the inventor of the \u201cSelf\u2010Motor\u201d was what is\ncalled, in the jargon of the Kabalists, a \u201c_natural\u2010born_ magician.\u201d That\nhe was and would remain unconscious of the full range of his powers, and\nwould work out merely those which he had found out and ascertained in his\nown nature\u2014_firstly_, because, attributing them to a wrong source, he\ncould never give them full sway; and _secondly_, because it was beyond his\npower to pass to others that which was _a capacity inherent in his own\nspecial nature_. Hence, the whole secret could not be made over\npermanently to anyone, for practical purposes or use.(955)\n\nIndividuals born with such a capacity are not very rare. That they are not\nheard of more frequently is due to the fact that they live and die, in\nalmost every case, in utter ignorance that they are possessed of abnormal\npowers. Mr. Keely possesses powers which are called abnormal, just because\nthey happen to be as little known, in our day, as was the circulation of\nthe blood before Harvey\u2019s time. Blood existed, and it behaved as it does\nat present in the first man born from woman; and so exists and has existed\nin man that _principle_ which can control and guide etheric vibratory\nForce. At any rate, it exists in all those mortals whose _Inner Selves_\nare _primordially connected, by reason of their direct descent, with that\ngroup of Dhy\u00e2n\u2010Chohans_ who are called \u201cthe first\u2010born of \u00c6ther.\u201d Mankind,\npsychically considered, is divided into various groups, each group being\nconnected with one of the Dhy\u00e2nic Groups that first formed _psychic_ man\n(see paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the Commentary to Stanza VII.). Mr.\nKeely\u2014being greatly favoured in this respect, and besides his psychic\ntemperament, being, moreover, intellectually a genius in mechanics\u2014may\nachieve most wonderful results. He has achieved some already\u2014more than any\nmortal man, _not initiated into the final Mysteries_, has achieved in this\nage up to the present day. What he has done is\u2014as his friends justly say\nof him\u2014certainly quite sufficient \u201cto demolish with the hammer of Science\nthe idols of Science\u201d\u2014the idols of matter with the feet of clay. Nor would\nthe writer for a moment think of contradicting Mrs. Bloomfield\u2010Moore,\nwhen, in her paper on \u201cPsychic Force and Etheric Force,\u201d she states that\nMr. Keely, as a Philosopher:\n\n\n    Is great enough in soul, wise enough in mind, and sublime enough\n    in courage to overcome all difficulties, and to stand at last\n    before the world as the greatest discoverer and inventor in the\n    world.\n\n\nAnd again she writes:\n\n\n    Should Keely do no more than lead scientists from the dreary\n    realms where they are groping into the open field of elemental\n    force, where gravity and cohesion are disturbed in their haunts\n    and diverted to use; where, from unity of origin, emanates\n    infinite energy in diversified forms, he will achieve immortal\n    fame. Should he demonstrate, to the destruction of materialism,\n    that the universe is animated by a mysterious principle to which\n    matter, however perfectly organized, is absolutely subservient, he\n    will be a greater spiritual benefactor to our race than the modern\n    world has yet found in any man. Should he be able to substitute,\n    in the treatment of disease, the finer forces of nature for the\n    grossly material agencies which have sent more human beings to\n    their graves than war, pestilence and famine combined, he will\n    merit and receive the gratitude of mankind. All this and more will\n    he do, if he and those who have watched his progress, day by day\n    for years, are not too sanguine in their expectations.\n\n\nThe same lady, in her pamphlet, _Keely\u2019s Secrets_,(956) brings forward the\nfollowing passage from an article, written in the _Theosophist_ a few\nyears ago, by the writer of the present volume:\n\n\n    The author of No. 5 of the pamphlets issued by the Theosophical\n    Publication Society, _What is Matter and What is Force_, says\n    therein: \u201cThe men of science have just found out \u2018a fourth state\n    of matter,\u2019 whereas the Occultists have penetrated years ago\n    beyond the sixth, and therefore do not infer, but know of, the\n    existence of the seventh, the last.\u201d This knowledge comprises one\n    of the secrets of Keely\u2019s so\u2010called \u201ccompound secret.\u201d It is\n    already known to many that his secret includes \u201cthe augmentation\n    of energy,\u201d the insulation of the ether, and the adaptation of\n    dynaspheric force to machinery.\n\n\nIt is just because Keely\u2019s discovery would lead to a knowledge of one of\nthe most Occult secrets, a secret which can never be allowed to fall into\nthe hands of the masses, that his failure to push his discoveries to their\nlogical end seems certain to Occultists. But of this more presently. Even\nin its limitations this discovery may prove of the greatest benefit. For:\n\n\n    Step by step, with a patient perseverance which some day the world\n    will honour, this man of genius has made his researches,\n    overcoming the colossal difficulties which again and again raised\n    up in his path what seemed to be (to all but himself)\n    insurmountable barriers to further progress: but never has the\n    world\u2019s index finger so pointed to an hour when all is making\n    ready for the advent of the new form of force that mankind is\n    waiting for. Nature, always reluctant to yield her secrets, is\n    listening to the demands made upon her by her master, necessity.\n    The coal mines of the world cannot long afford the increasing\n    drain made upon them. Steam has reached its utmost limits of\n    power, and does not fulfil the requirements of the age. It knows\n    that its days are numbered. Electricity holds back, with bated\n    breath, dependent upon the approach of her sister colleague. Air\n    ships are riding at anchor, as it were, waiting for the force\n    which is to make a\u00ebrial navigation something more than a dream. As\n    easily as men communicate with their offices from their homes by\n    means of the telephone, so will the inhabitants of separate\n    continents talk across the ocean. Imagination is palsied when\n    seeking to foresee the grand results of this marvellous discovery,\n    when once it is applied to art and mechanics. In taking the throne\n    which it will force steam to abdicate, dynaspheric force will rule\n    the world with a power so mighty in the interests of civilization,\n    that no finite mind can conjecture the results. Laurence Oliphant,\n    in his preface to _Scientific Religion_, says: \u201cA new moral future\n    is dawning upon the human race\u2014one, certainly, of which it stands\n    much in need.\u201d In no way could this new moral future be so widely,\n    so universally, commenced as by the utilizing of dynaspheric force\n    to beneficial purposes in life.\n\n\nThe Occultists are ready to admit all this with the eloquent writer.\nMolecular vibration is, undeniably, \u201cKeely\u2019s legitimate field of\nresearch,\u201d and the discoveries made by him will prove wonderful\u2014yet _only\nin his hands_ and _through himself_. The world so far will get but that\nwith which it can be safely entrusted. The truth of this assertion has,\nperhaps, not yet quite dawned upon the discoverer himself, since he writes\nthat he is absolutely certain that he will accomplish all that he has\npromised, and that he will then give it out to the world; but it must dawn\nupon him, and at no very far distant date. And what he says in reference\nto his work is a good proof of it:\n\n\n    In considering the operation of my engine, the visitor, in order\n    to have even an approximate conception of its _modus operandi_,\n    must discard _all thought of engines that are operated upon the\n    principle of pressure and exhaustion, by the expansion of steam or\n    other analogous gas which impinges upon an abutment, such as the\n    piston of a steam\u2010engine_. My engine has neither piston nor\n    eccentrics, nor is there one grain of pressure exerted in the\n    engine, whatever may be the size or capacity of it. My system, in\n    every part and detail, both in the developing of my power and in\n    every branch of its utilization, _is based and founded on\n    sympathetic vibration_. In no other way would it be possible to\n    awaken or develop my force, and equally impossible would it be to\n    operate my engine upon any other principle.... This, however, is\n    the true system; and henceforth all my operations will be\n    conducted in this manner\u2014that is to say, my power will be\n    generated, my engines run, my cannon operated, _through a wire_.\n    It has been only after years of incessant labour, and the making\n    of almost innumerable experiments, involving not only the\n    construction of a great many most peculiar mechanical structures,\n    and the closest investigation and study of the phenomenal\n    properties of the substance \u201cether,\u201d _per se_, produced, that I\n    have been able to dispense with complicated mechanism, and to\n    obtain, as I claim, _mastery over the subtle and strange force\n    with which I am dealing_.\n\n\nThe passages underlined by us, are those which bear directly on the Occult\nside of the application of the vibratory Force, that which Mr. Keely calls\n\u201csympathetic vibration.\u201d The \u201cwire\u201d is already a step below, or downward\nfrom the pure Etheric plane into the Terrestrial. The discoverer has\nproduced marvels\u2014the word \u201cmiracle\u201d is not too strong\u2014when acting through\nthe inter\u2010etheric Force alone, the fifth and sixth principles of \u00c2k\u00e2sha.\nFrom a generator six feet long, he has come down to one \u201cno larger than an\nold\u2010fashioned silver watch\u201d; and this by itself is a miracle of\n_mechanical_, but not of spiritual, genius. As was well said by his great\npatroness and defender, Mrs. Bloomfield\u2010Moore:\n\n\n    The two forms of force which he has been experimenting with, and\n    the phenomena attending them, are the very antithesis of each\n    other.\n\n\nOne was generated and acted upon by and through himself. No one, who\nshould have repeated the thing done by himself, _could have produced the\nsame results_. It was truly Keely\u2019s Ether that acted, while Smith\u2019s or\nBrown\u2019s Ether would have remained for ever barren of results. For Keely\u2019s\ndifficulty has hitherto been to produce a machine which would develop and\nregulate the Force without the intervention of any \u201cwill power\u201d or\npersonal influence of the operator, whether conscious or unconscious. In\nthis he has failed, so far as others were concerned, for _no one but\nhimself_ could operate on his \u201cmachines.\u201d Occultly this was a far more\nadvanced achievement than the \u201csuccess\u201d which he anticipates from his\nwire, but the results obtained from the fifth and sixth planes of the\nEtheric, or Astral, Force, _will never be permitted to serve for purposes\nof commerce and traffic_. That Keely\u2019s organism is directly connected with\nthe production of his marvellous results is proven by the following\nstatement, emanating from one who knows the great discoverer intimately.\n\n\n    At one time the shareholders of the \u201cKeely Motor Co.\u201d put a man in\n    his workshop for the express purpose of discovering his secret.\n    After six months of close watching, he said to J. W. Keely one\n    day: \u201cI know how it is done, now.\u201d They had been setting up a\n    machine together, and Keely was manipulating the stop\u2010cock which\n    turned the force on and off. \u201cTry it, then,\u201d was the answer. The\n    man turned the cock, and nothing came. \u201cLet me see you do it\n    again,\u201d the man said to Keely. The latter complied, and the\n    machinery operated at once. Again the other tried, but without\n    success. Then Keely put his hand on his shoulder and told him to\n    try once more. He did so, with the result of an instantaneous\n    production of the current.\n\n\nThis fact, if true, settles the question.\n\nWe are told that Mr. Keely defines electricity \u201cas a certain form of\natomic vibration.\u201d In this he is quite right; but this is Electricity on\nthe terrestrial plane, and through terrestrial correlations. He estimates\u2014\n\nMolecular vibrations at 100,000,000 per second.\nInter\u2010molecular vibrations at 300,000,000 per second.\nAtomic vibrations at 900,000,000 per second.\nInter\u2010atomic vibrations at 2,700,000,000 per second.\n\u00c6theric vibrations at 8,100,000,000 per second.\nInter\u2010\u00c6theric vibrations at 24,300,000,000 per second.\n\nThis proves our point. There are no vibrations that could be counted or\neven estimated at an _approximate_ rate beyond \u201cthe realm of the fourth\nSon of Fohat,\u201d to use an Occult phrase, or that motion which corresponds\nto the formation of Mr. Crookes\u2019 radiant matter, lightly called some years\nago the \u201cfourth state of matter\u201d\u2014_on this our plane_.\n\nIf the question is asked why Mr. Keely was not allowed to pass a certain\nlimit, the answer is easy; it was because that, which he has unconsciously\ndiscovered, is the terrible sidereal Force, known to, and named by the\nAtlanteans Mash\u2010mak, and by the \u00c2ryan Rishis in their Astra Vidy\u00e2 by a\nname that we do not like to give. It is the Vril of Bulwer Lytton\u2019s\n_Coming Race_, and of the coming Races of our mankind. The name Vril may\nbe a fiction; the Force itself is a fact, as little doubted in India as is\nthe existence of the Rishis, since it is mentioned in all the secret\nbooks.\n\nIt is this vibratory Force, which, when aimed at an army from an Agni\u2010\nratha, fixed on a flying vessel, a balloon, according to the instructions\nfound in Astra Vidy\u00e2, would reduce to ashes 100,000 men and elephants, as\neasily as it would a dead rat. It is allegorized in the _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_,\nin the _R\u00e2m\u00e2yana_ and other works, in the fable about the sage Kapila\nwhose \u201cglance made a mountain of ashes of King Sagara\u2019s 60,000 sons,\u201d and\nwhich is explained in the Esoteric Works, and referred to as the\nKapil\u00e2ksha\u2014Kapila\u2019s Eye.\n\nAnd is it this Satanic Force that our generations are to be allowed to add\nto their stock of Anarchist\u2019s baby\u2010toys, known as melenite, dynamite\nclock\u2010work, explosive oranges, \u201cflower baskets,\u201d and such other innocent\nnames? Is it this destructive agency, which, once in the hands of some\nmodern Attila, a bloodthirsty Anarchist, for instance, would in a few days\nreduce Europe to its primitive chaotic state, with no man left alive to\ntell the tale\u2014is it this Force which is to become the common property of\nall men alike?\n\nWhat Mr. Keely has already done is grand and wonderful in the extreme;\nthere is enough work before him in the demonstration of his new system to\n\u201chumble the pride of those scientists who are materialistic, by revealing\nthose mysteries which lie behind the world of matter,\u201d without, _nolens\nvolens_, revealing it to all. For surely Psychics and Spiritualists, of\nwhom there are a good number in European armies, would be the first to\npersonally experience the fruits of the revelation of such mysteries.\nThousands of them would speedily find themselves in blue Ether, perhaps\nwith the populations of whole countries to keep them company, were such a\nForce to be even entirely discovered, let alone made publicly known. The\ndiscovery in its completeness is by several thousand\u2014or shall we say\nhundred thousand\u2014years too premature. It will be in its appointed place\nand time only when the great roaring flood of starvation, misery, and\nunderpaid labour ebbs back again\u2014as it will when the just demands of the\nmany are at last happily attended to; when the proletariat exists but in\nname, and the pitiful cry for bread, that rings unheeded throughout the\nworld, has died away. This may be hastened by the spread of learning, and\nby new openings for work and emigration, with better prospects than now\nexist, _and on some new continent that may appear_. Then only will Keely\u2019s\nMotor and Force, as originally contemplated by himself and his friends, be\nin demand, because it will then be more needed by the poor than by the\nwealthy.\n\nMeanwhile the Force he has discovered will work through wires, and, if he\nsucceeds, this will be quite sufficient to make of him the greatest\ndiscoverer of the age in the present generation.\n\nWhat Mr. Keely says of _Sound_ and _Colour_ is also correct from the\nOccult standpoint. Hear him talk as though he were the nursling of the\n\u201cGods\u2010Revealers,\u201d and as if he had gazed all his life into the depths of\nFather\u2010Mother \u00c6ther.\n\nIn comparing the tenuity of the atmosphere with that of the etheric flows,\nobtained by his invention for breaking up the molecules of air by\nvibration, Keely says:\n\n\n    It is as platinum to hydrogen gas. Molecular separation of air\n    brings us to the first sub\u2010division only; inter\u2010molecular, to the\n    second; atomic, to the third; inter\u2010atomic, to the fourth;\n    etheric, to the fifth; and inter\u2010etheric, to the sixth sub\u2010\n    division, or positive association with luminiferous ether.(957) In\n    my introductory argument I have contended that this is the\n    vibratory envelope of all atoms. In my definition of atom I do not\n    confine myself to the sixth sub\u2010division where this luminiferous\n    ether is developed in its crude form, as far as my researches\n    prove.(958) I think this idea will be pronounced by the physicists\n    of the present day, a wild freak of the imagination. Possibly, in\n    time, a light may fall upon this theory that will bring its\n    simplicity forward for scientific research. At present I can only\n    compare it to some planet in a dark space, where the light of the\n    sun of science has not yet reached it.... I assume that sound,\n    like odour, is a real substance of unknown and wonderful tenuity,\n    emanating from a body where it has been induced by percussion and\n    throwing out absolute corpuscles of matter, inter\u2010atomic\n    particles, with velocity of 1,120 feet per second; _in vacuo_\n    20,000. The substance which is thus disseminated is a part and\n    parcel of the mass agitated, and, if kept under this agitation\n    continuously, would, in the course of a certain cycle of time,\n    become thoroughly absorbed by the atmosphere; or, more truly,\n    would pass through the atmosphere to an elevated point of tenuity\n    corresponding to the condition of sub\u2010division that governs its\n    liberation from its parent body.... The sounds from vibratory\n    forks, set so as to produce etheric chords, while disseminating\n    their tones (compound), permeate most thoroughly all substances\n    that come under the range of their atomic bombardment. The\n    clapping of a bell _in vacuo_ liberates these atoms with the same\n    velocity and volume as one in the open air; and were the agitation\n    of the bell kept up continuously for a few millions of centuries\n    it would thoroughly return to its primitive element; and, if the\n    chamber were hermetically sealed, and strong enough, the vacuous\n    volume surrounding the bell would be brought to a pressure of many\n    thousands of pounds to the square inch, by the tenuous substance\n    evolved. In my estimation, sound truly defined is the disturbance\n    of atomic equilibrium, rupturing actual atomic corpuscles; and the\n    substance thus liberated must certainly be a certain order of\n    etheric flow. Under these conditions, is it unreasonable to\n    suppose that, if this flow were kept up, and the body thus robbed\n    of its element, it would in time disappear entirely? All bodies\n    are formed primitively from this highly tenuous ether, animal,\n    vegetable, and mineral, and they are only returned to their high\n    gaseous condition when brought under a state of differential\n    equilibrium.... As regards odour, we can only get some definite\n    idea of its extreme and wondrous tenuity by taking into\n    consideration that a large area of atmosphere can be impregnated\n    for a long series of years from a single grain of musk; which, if\n    weighed after that long interval, will be found to be not\n    appreciably diminished. The great paradox attending the flow of\n    odorous particles is that they can be held under confinement in a\n    glass vessel! Here is a substance of much higher tenuity than the\n    glass that holds it, and yet it cannot escape. It is as a sieve\n    with its meshes large enough to pass marbles, and yet holding fine\n    sand which cannot pass through; in fact, a molecular vessel\n    holding an atomic substance. This is a problem that would confound\n    those who stop to recognize it. But infinitely tenuous as odour\n    is, it holds a very crude relation to the substance of sub\u2010\n    division that governs a magnetic flow (a flow of sympathy, if you\n    please to call it so). This sub\u2010division comes next to sound, but\n    is above sound. The action of the flow of a magnet coincides\n    somewhat to the receiving and distributing portion of the human\n    brain, giving off at all times a depreciating ratio of the amount\n    received. It is a grand illustration of the control of mind over\n    matter, which gradually depreciates the physical till dissolution\n    takes place. The magnet on the same ratio gradually loses its\n    power and becomes inert. If the relations that exist between mind\n    and matter could be equated and so held, we would live on in our\n    physical state eternally, as there would be no physical\n    depreciation. But this physical depreciation leads, at its\n    terminus, to the source of a much higher development\u2014viz., the\n    liberation of the pure ether from the crude molecular; which, in\n    my estimation, is to be much desired.(959)\n\n\nIt may be remarked that, save for a few small divergencies, no Adept nor\nAlchemist could have better explained these theories, in the light of\nModern Science, however much the latter may protest against these novel\nviews. In all its fundamental principles, if not in its details, this is\nOccultism pure and simple; and moreover, it is modern Natural Philosophy\nas well.\n\nThis new Force, or whatever Science may call it, the effects of which are\nundeniable\u2014as is admitted by more than one Naturalist and Physicist who\nhas visited Mr. Keely\u2019s laboratory and personally witnessed its tremendous\neffects\u2014what is it? Is it a \u201cmode of motion,\u201d also, _in vacuo_, since\nthere is no Matter to generate it except Sound\u2014another \u201cmode of motion,\u201d\nno doubt, a _sensation_ caused, like Colour, by vibrations? Fully as we\nbelieve in these vibrations as the proximate, the immediate, cause of such\nsensations, we as absolutely reject the one\u2010sided scientific theory that\nthere is _no factor_ to be considered as external to us, other than\netheric or atmospheric vibrations.\n\nIn this case the American Substantialists are not wrong, though they are\ntoo anthropomorphic and material in their views for these to be accepted\nby Occultists, when they argue through Mrs. M. S. Organ, M.D., that:\n\n\n    There must be positive entitative properties in objects which have\n    a constitutional relation to the nerves of animal sensations, or\n    there can be no perception. No impression of any kind can be made\n    upon brain, nerve, or mind\u2014no stimulus to action\u2014unless there is\n    an actual and direct communication of a substantial force.\n    [\u201cSubstantial\u201d as far as it appears, in the usual sense of the\n    word, in this universe of Illusion and M\u00e2y\u00e2, of course; not in\n    reality.] That force may be the most refined and sublimated\n    immaterial Entity [?]. Yet it must exist; for no sense, element,\n    or faculty of the human being can have a perception, or be\n    stimulated into action, without some substantial force coming in\n    contact with it. This is the fundamental law pervading the whole\n    organic and mental world. In the true philosophical sense there is\n    no such thing as independent action: for every force or substance\n    is correlated to some other force or substance. We can with just\n    as much truth and reason assert that no substance possesses any\n    inherent gustatory property or any olfactory property\u2014that taste\n    and odour are simply sensations caused by vibrations; and hence\n    mere illusions of animal perceptions.\n\n\nThere _is_ a transcendental set of causes put in motion, so to speak, in\nthe occurrence of these phenomena, which, _not being in relation to our\nnarrow range of cognition_, can only be understood and traced to their\nsource and their nature, by the spiritual faculties of the Adept. They\nare, as Asclepios puts it to the King, \u201cincorporeal corporealities,\u201d such\nas \u201cappear in the mirror,\u201d and \u201cabstract forms\u201d that we see, hear, and\nsmell, in our dreams and visions. What have the \u201cmodes of motion,\u201d light,\nand ether to do with these? Yet we see, hear, smell and touch them, _ergo_\nthey are as much _realities_ to us in our dreams, as any other thing on\nthis plane of M\u00e2y\u00e2.\n\n\n\n\nSection X. On the Elements and Atoms.\n\n\nWhen the Occultist speaks of Elements, and of human Beings who lived\nduring those geological ages, the duration of which it is found as\nimpossible to determine\u2014according to the opinion of one of the best\nEnglish Geologists(960)\u2014as the nature of Matter, it is because he knows\nwhat he is talking about. When he says Man and Elements, he means neither\nman in his present physiological and anthropological form, nor the\nelemental Atoms, those hypothetical conceptions, existing at present in\nscientific minds, the entitative abstractions of Matter in its highly\nattenuated state; nor, again, does he mean the compound Elements of\nAntiquity. In Occultism the word Element in every case means _Rudiment_.\nWhen we say \u201cElementary Man,\u201d we mean either the pro\u00ebmial, incipient\nsketch of man, in its unfinished and undeveloped condition, hence in that\nform which now lies latent in physical man during his life\u2010time, and takes\nshape only occasionally and under certain conditions; or, that form which\nfor a time survives the material body, and which is better known as an\nElementary.(961) With regard to Element, when the term is used\nmetaphysically, it means, in distinction to the mortal, the incipient\nDivine Man; and, in its physical usage, it means inchoate Matter in its\nfirst undifferentiated condition, or in the Laya state, the eternal and\nnormal condition of Substance, which differentiates only periodically;\nduring that differentiation, Substance is really in an abnormal state\u2014in\nother words, it is but a transitory illusion of the senses.\n\nAs to the Elemental Atoms, so\u2010called, the Occultists refer to them by that\nname with a meaning analogous to that which is given by the Hind\u00fb to\nBrahm\u00e2, when he calls him Anu, the Atom. Every Elemental Atom, in search\nof which more than one Chemist has followed the path indicated by the\nAlchemists, is, in their firm belief, when not _knowledge_, a Soul; not\nnecessarily a disembodied Soul, but a J\u00eeva, as the Hind\u00fbs call it, a\ncentre of Potential Vitality, with latent intelligence in it, and, in the\ncase of compound Souls, an intelligent active Existence, from the highest\nto the lowest order, a form composed of more or less differentiations. It\nrequires a Metaphysician\u2014and an Eastern Metaphysician\u2014to understand our\nmeaning. All those Atom\u2010Souls are differentiations from the One, and are\nin the same relation to it as is the Divine Soul, Buddhi, to its informing\nand inseparable Spirit, \u00c2tm\u00e2.\n\nModern Physics, in borrowing from the Ancients their Atomic Theory, forgot\none point, the most important point of the doctrine; hence they have got\nonly the husks and will never be able to get the kernel. In adopting\nphysical Atoms, they omitted the suggestive fact that, from Anaxagoras to\nEpicurus, to the Roman Lucretius, and finally even to Galileo, all these\nPhilosophers believed more or less in _animated_ Atoms, not in invisible\nspecks of so\u2010called \u201cbrute\u201d matter. According to them, rotatory motion was\ngenerated by larger (read, more divine and pure) Atoms forcing other Atoms\ndownwards; the lighter ones being simultaneously thrust upward. The\nEsoteric meaning of this is the ever cyclic curve of differentiated\nElements downward and upward through intercyclic phases of existence,\nuntil each again reaches its starting\u2010point or birthplace. The idea was\nmetaphysical as well as physical; the hidden interpretation embracing Gods\nor Souls, in the shape of Atoms, as the _causes_ of all the _effects_\nproduced on Earth by the _secretions_ from the divine bodies.(962) No\nAncient Philosopher, not even the Jewish Kabalists, ever dissociated\nSpirit from Matter, or Matter from Spirit. Everything originated in the\nOne, and, proceeding from the One, must finally return to the One.\n\n\n    Light becomes heat, and consolidates into fiery particles; which,\n    from being ignited, become cold, hard particles, round and smooth.\n    And this is called Soul, imprisoned in its robe of matter.(963)\n\n\nAtoms and Souls were synonymous in the language of the Initiates. The\ndoctrine of \u201cwhirling Souls,\u201d Gilgoolem, in which so many learned Jews\nhave believed,(964) had no other meaning esoterically. The learned Jewish\nInitiates never meant Palestine alone by the Promised Land, but they meant\nthe same Nirv\u00e2na as do the learned Buddhist and Brahman\u2014the bosom of the\nEternal ONE, symbolized by that of Abraham, and by Palestine as its\nsubstitute on Earth.\n\nSurely no educated Jew ever believed this allegory in its literal sense,\nthat the bodies of Jews contain within them a principle of Soul which\ncannot rest, if the bodies are deposited in a foreign land, until, by a\nprocess called the \u201cwhirling of the Soul\u201d the immortal particle reaches\nonce more the sacred soil of the \u201cPromised Land.\u201d(965) The meaning of this\nis evident to an Occultist. The process was supposed to be accomplished by\na kind of metempsychosis, the psychic spark being conveyed through bird,\nbeast, fish, and the most minute insect.(966) The allegory relates to the\n_Atoms of the body_, each of which has to pass through every form, before\nall reach the final state, which is the first starting\u2010point of the\ndeparture of every Atom\u2014its primitive Laya state. But the primitive\nmeaning of Gilgoolem, or the \u201cRevolution of Souls,\u201d was the idea of the\nre\u00efncarnating Souls or Egos. \u201cAll the Souls go into the Gilgoolah,\u201d into a\ncyclic or revolving process; _i.e._, they all proceed on the cyclic path\nof re\u2010births. Some Kabalists interpret this doctrine to mean only a kind\nof purgatory for the souls of the wicked. But this is not so.\n\nThe passage of the Soul\u2010Atom \u201cthrough the seven Planetary Chambers\u201d had\nthe same metaphysical and physical meaning. It had the latter when it was\nsaid to dissolve into Ether. Even Epicurus, the model Atheist and\nMaterialist, knew so much and believed so much in the ancient Wisdom, that\nhe taught that the Soul\u2014entirely distinct from immortal Spirit, when the\nformer is enshrined _latent_ in it, as it is in every atomic speck\u2014was\ncomposed of a fine, tender essence, formed from the _smoothest, roundest,\nand finest atoms_.(967)\n\nAnd this shows that the ancient Initiates, who were followed more or less\nclosely by all profane Antiquity, meant by the term Atom, a Soul, a Genius\nor Angel, the first\u2010born of the ever\u2010concealed Cause of all causes; and in\nthis sense their teachings become comprehensible. They asserted, as do\ntheir successors, the existence of Gods and Genii, Angels or Demons, not\noutside, nor independent of, the Universal Plenum, but within it. Only\nthis Plenum, during the life\u2010cycles, is infinite. They admitted and taught\na good deal of that which modern Science now teaches\u2014namely, the existence\nof a primordial World\u2010Stuff or Cosmic Substance, eternally homogeneous,\nexcept during its periodic existence; then, universally diffused\nthroughout infinite Space, it differentiates, and gradually forms sidereal\nbodies from itself. They taught the revolution of the Heavens, the Earth\u2019s\nrotation, the Heliocentric System, and the Atomic Vortices\u2014Atoms being in\nreality Souls and Intelligences. These \u201cAtomists\u201d were spiritual, most\ntranscendental, and philosophical Pantheists. It is not they who would\nhave ever conceived or dreamed that monstrous contrasted progeny, the\nnightmare of our modern civilized race: inanimate material and self\u2010\nguiding Atoms, on the one hand, and an extra\u2010cosmic God on the other.\n\nIt may be useful to show what the Monad was, and what its origin, in the\nteachings of the old Initiates.\n\nModern exact Science, as soon as it began to grow out of its teens,\nperceived the great, and to it hitherto esoteric, axiom, that nothing,\nwhether in the spiritual, psychic, or physical realm of Being, could come\ninto existence out of nothing. There is no cause in the manifested\nUniverse without its adequate effects, whether in Space or Time; nor can\nthere be an effect without its primal cause, which itself owes its\nexistence to a still higher one\u2014the final and absolute Cause having to\nremain to man for ever an incomprehensible Causeless Cause. But even this\nis no solution, and must be viewed, if at all, from the highest\nphilosophical and metaphysical standpoints, otherwise the problem had\nbetter be left unapproached. It is an abstraction, on the verge of which\nhuman reason\u2014however trained in metaphysical subtleties\u2014trembles,\nthreatening to collapse. This may be demonstrated to any European, who\nwould undertake to solve the problem of existence, by the articles of\nfaith of the true Ved\u00e2ntin for instance. Let him read and study the\nsublime teachings of Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya, on the subject of Soul and Spirit,\nand the reader will realize what is now said.(968)\n\nWhile the Christian is taught that the human Soul is a breath of God,\nbeing created by him for sempiternal existence, having a beginning, but no\nend\u2014and therefore never to be called eternal\u2014the Occult Teaching says:\nNothing is created, it is only transformed. Nothing can manifest itself in\nthis Universe\u2014from a globe down to a vague, rapid thought\u2014that was not in\nthe Universe already; everything on the subjective plane is an eternal\n_is_; as everything on the objective plane is an _ever\u2010becoming_\u2014because\nall is transitory.\n\nThe Monad\u2014a truly \u201cindivisible thing,\u201d as defined by Good, who did not\ngive it the sense we now do\u2014is here rendered as the \u00c2tm\u00e2, in conjunction\nwith Buddhi and the higher Manas. This trinity is one and eternal, the\nlatter being absorbed in the former at the termination of all conditioned\nand illusive life. The Monad, then, can be traced through the course of\nits pilgrimage and in its changes of transitory vehicles, only from the\nincipient stage of the manifested Universe. In Pralaya, the intermediate\nperiod between two Manvantaras, it loses its name, as it loses it when the\nreal One Self of man merges into Brahman, in cases of high Sam\u00e2dhi (the\nTur\u00eeya state), or final Nirv\u00e2na; in the words of Shankara:\n\n\n    When the disciple having attained that primeval consciousness,\n    absolute bliss, of which the nature is truth, which is without\n    form and action, abandons this illusive body that has been assumed\n    by the _\u00c2tm\u00e2_ just as an actor (abandons) the dress (put on).\n\n\nFor Buddhi, the Anandamaya Sheath, is but a mirror which reflects absolute\nbliss; and, moreover, that reflection itself is yet not free from\nignorance, and is _not_ the Supreme Spirit, since it is subject to\nconditions, is a spiritual modification of Prakriti, and is an effect;\n\u00c2tm\u00e2 alone is the one real and eternal substratum of all, the Essence and\nAbsolute Knowledge, the Kshetraj\u00f1a. Now that the Revised Version of the\nGospels has been published and the most glaring mistranslations of the old\nversions are corrected, one can understand better the words in 1 _John_ v.\n6: \u201cIt is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth.\u201d\nThe words that follow in the mistranslated version about the \u201cthree\nwitnesses,\u201d hitherto supposed to stand for \u201cthe Father, the Word, and the\nHoly Ghost,\u201d show the real meaning of the writer very clearly, thus still\nmore forcibly identifying his teaching in this respect with that of\nShankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya. For what can the sentence mean, \u201cthere are three that bear\nwitness ... the Spirit and the Water and the Blood\u201d\u2014if it bears no\nrelation to, nor connection with, the more philosophical statement of the\ngreat Ved\u00e2ntin teacher, who, speaking of the Sheaths\u2014the principles in\nman\u2014J\u00eeva, Vij\u00f1\u00e2namaya, etc., which _are_, in their physical manifestation,\n\u201cWater and Blood\u201d or Life, adds that \u00c2tm\u00e2, Spirit, alone is what remains\nafter the subtraction of the Sheaths and that it is the Only Witness, or\nsynthesized unity. The less spiritual and philosophical school, solely\nwith an eye to a Trinity, made three witnesses out of \u201cone,\u201d thus\nconnecting it more with Earth than with Heaven. It is called in Esoteric\nPhilosophy the \u201cOne Witness,\u201d and, while it rests in Devachan, is referred\nto as the \u201cThree Witnesses to Karma.\u201d\n\n\u00c2tm\u00e2, our seventh principle, being identical with the Universal Spirit,\nand man being one with it in his essence, what is then the Monad proper?\nIt is that homogeneous spark which radiates in millions of rays from the\nprimeval Seven;\u2014of which Seven something will be said further on. It is\nthe EMANATING SPARK FROM THE UNCREATED RAY\u2014a mystery. In the esoteric, and\neven exoteric Buddhism of the North, \u00c2di\u2010Buddha (Chogi Dangpoi Sangye),\nthe One Unknown, without beginning or end, identical with Parabrahman and\nAin Suph, emits a bright Ray from its Darkness.\n\nThis is the Logos, the First, or Vajradhara, the Supreme Buddha, also\ncalled Dorjechang. As the Lord of all Mysteries he cannot manifest, but\nsends into the world of manifestation his Heart\u2014the \u201cDiamond Heart,\u201d\nVajrasattva or Dorjesempa. This is the Second Logos of Creation, from whom\nemanate the seven\u2014in the exoteric blind the five\u2014Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas, called\nthe Anup\u00e2daka, the \u201cParentless.\u201d These Buddhas are the primeval Monads\nfrom the World of Incorporeal Being, the Ar\u00fbpa World, wherein the\nIntelligences (on that plane only) have neither shape nor name, in the\nexoteric system, but have their distinct seven names in the Esoteric\nPhilosophy. These Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas emanate, or create from themselves, by\nvirtue of Dhy\u00e2na, celestial Selves\u2014the super\u2010human Bodhisattvas. These,\nincarnating at the beginning of every human cycle on Earth as mortal men,\nbecome occasionally, owing to their personal merit, Bodhisattvas among the\nSons of Humanity, after which they may re\u00e4ppear as M\u00e2nushi, or Human,\nBuddhas. The Anup\u00e2daka, or Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas, are thus identical with the\nBr\u00e2hmanical M\u00e2nasaputra, Mind\u2010born Sons\u2014whether of Brahm\u00e2, or of either of\nthe other two Trim\u00fbrtian Hypostases; they are identical also with the\nRishis and Praj\u00e2patis. Thus, a passage is found in _Anug\u00eet\u00e2_, which, read\nesoterically, shows plainly, though under another imagery, the same idea\nand system. It says:\n\n\n    Whatever entities there are in this world, moveable or immoveable,\n    they are the very first to be dissolved [at Pralaya]; and next the\n    developments produced from the elements [from which the visible\n    universe is fashioned]; and (after) these developments [evolved\n    entities], all the elements. Such is the upward gradation among\n    entities. Gods, Men, Gandharvas, Pish\u00e2chas, Asuras, R\u00e2kshasas, all\n    have been created by Nature [Svabh\u00e2va, or Prakriti, plastic\n    Nature], not by actions, nor by a cause [not by any physical\n    cause]. These Br\u00e2hmanas [the Rishi Praj\u00e2pati?], the creators of\n    the world, are born here (on earth) again and again. And whatever\n    is produced from them is dissolved in due time in those very five\n    great elements [the five, or rather seven, Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas, also\n    called \u201cElements\u201d of Mankind], like billows in the ocean. These\n    great elements are in every way (beyond) the elements that make up\n    the world [the gross elements]. And he who is released, even from\n    these five elements [the Tanm\u00e2tras],(969) goes to the highest\n    goal. The Lord Praj\u00e2pati [Brahm\u00e2] created all this by the mind\n    only [by Dhy\u00e2na, or abstract meditation and mystic powers, like\n    the Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas].(970)\n\n\nEvidently then, these Br\u00e2hmanas are identical with the terrestrial\nBodhisattvas of the heavenly Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas. Both, as primordial,\nintelligent \u201cElements,\u201d become the Creators or the Emanators of the Monads\ndestined to become human in that cycle; after which they evolve\nthemselves, or, so to say, expand into their own Selves as Bodhisattvas or\nBr\u00e2hmanas, in heaven and earth, to become at last simple men. \u201cThe\ncreators of the world are born here, on earth again and again\u201d\u2014truly. In\nthe Northern Buddhist system, or the popular exoteric religion, it is\ntaught that every Buddha, while preaching the Good Law on Earth, manifests\nhimself simultaneously in three Worlds: in the Formless World as a Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010\nBuddha, in the World of Forms as a Bodhisattva, and in the World of\nDesire, the lowest or our World, as a man. Esoterically the teaching\ndiffers. The divine, purely \u00c2di\u2010Buddhic Monad manifests as the universal\nBuddhi, the Mah\u00e2\u2010Buddhi or Mahat, in Hind\u00fb philosophies, the spiritual,\nomniscient and omnipotent Root of divine Intelligence, the highest Anima\nMundi or the Logos. This descends \u201clike a flame spreading from the eternal\nFire, immoveable, without increase or decrease, ever the same to the end\u201d\nof the cycle of existence, and becomes Universal Life on the Mundane\nPlane. From this Plane of conscious Life shoot out, like seven fiery\ntongues, the Sons of Light, the Logoi of Life; then the Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas of\ncontemplation, the concrete forms of their formless Fathers, the Seven\nSons of Light, _still themselves_, to whom maybe applied the Br\u00e2hmanical\nmystic phrase: \u201cThou art THAT\u201d\u2014Brahman. It is from these Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas\nthat emanate their Chh\u00e2y\u00e2s or Shadows, the Bodhisattvas of the celestial\nrealms, the prototypes of the super\u2010terrestrial Bodhisattvas, and of the\nterrestrial Buddhas, and finally of men. The Seven Sons of Light are also\ncalled Stars.\n\nThe star under which a human Entity is born, says the Occult Teaching,\nwill remain for ever its star, throughout the whole cycle of its\nincarnations in one Manvantara. _But this is not his astrological star._\nThe latter is concerned and connected with the _Personality_; the former\nwith the _Individuality_. The Angel of that Star, or the Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddha\nconnected with it, will be either the guiding, or simply the presiding,\nAngel, so to say, in every new rebirth of the Monad, _which is part of his\nown essence_, though his vehicle, man, may remain for ever ignorant of\nthis fact. The Adepts have each their Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddha, their elder \u201cTwin\u2010\nSoul,\u201d and they know it, calling it \u201cFather\u2010Soul,\u201d and \u201cFather\u2010Fire.\u201d It\nis only at the last and supreme Initiation, however, when placed face to\nface with the bright \u201cImage\u201d that they learn to recognize it. How much did\nBulwer Lytton know of this mystic fact, when describing, in one of his\nhighest inspirational moods, Zanoni face to face with his Augoeides?\n\nThe Logos, or both the unmanifested and the manifested Word, is called by\nthe Hind\u00fbs, \u00ceshvara, the Lord, though the Occultists give it another name.\n\u00ceshvara, say the Ved\u00e2ntins, is the highest consciousness in Nature. \u201cThis\nhighest consciousness,\u201d answer the Occultists, \u201cis only a synthetic unit\nin the World of the manifested Logos\u2014or on the plane of illusion; for it\nis the sum total of Dhy\u00e2n Chohanic consciousness.\u201d \u201cO wise man, remove the\nconception that _Not\u2010Spirit is Spirit_\u201d\u2014says Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya. \u00c2tm\u00e2 is Not\u2010\nSpirit in its final Parabrahmic state; \u00ceshvara, or Logos, is Spirit; or,\nas Occultism explains, it is a compound unity of manifested living\nSpirits, the parent\u2010source and nursery of all the mundane and terrestrial\nMonads, _plus_ their divine Reflection, which emanate from, and return\ninto, the Logos, each in the culmination of its time. There are seven\nchief Groups of such Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, which groups will be found and\nrecognized in every religion, for they are the primeval Seven Rays.\nHumanity, Occultism teaches us, is divided into seven distinct Groups,\nwith their sub\u2010divisions, mental, spiritual, and physical. Hence there are\nseven chief planets, the spheres of the indwelling seven Spirits, under\neach of which is born one of the human Groups which is guided and\ninfluenced thereby. There are only seven planets _specially_ connected\nwith Earth, and twelve houses, but the possible combinations of their\naspects are countless. As each planet can stand to each of the others in\ntwelve different aspects, their combinations must be almost infinite; as\ninfinite, in fact, as the spiritual, psychic, mental, and physical\ncapacities in the numberless varieties of the _genus homo_, each of which\nvarieties is born under one of the seven planets and one of the said\ncountless planetary combinations.(971)\n\nThe Monad, then, viewed as One, is above the seventh principle in Kosmos\nand man; and as a Triad, it is the direct radiant progeny of the said\ncompound Unit, not the Breath of \u201cGod,\u201d as that Unit is called, nor\ncreating out of _nihil_; for such an idea is quite unphilosophical, and\ndegrades Deity, dragging It down to a finite, attributive condition. As\nwell expressed by the translator of the _Crest\u2010Jewel of Wisdom_\u2014though\n\u00ceshvara is \u201cGod.\u201d\n\n\n    Unchanged in the profoundest depths of Pralayas and in the\n    intensest activity of Manvantaras, [still] beyond [him] is \u00c2TM\u00c2,\n    round whose pavilion is the darkness of eternal M\u00c2Y\u00c2.(972)\n\n\nThe \u201cTriads\u201d born under the same Parent\u2010Planet, or rather the Radiations\nof one and the same Planetary Spirit or Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddha are, in all their\nafter lives and rebirths, sister, or \u201ctwin\u201d souls, on this Earth. The idea\nis the same as that of the Christian Trinity, the \u201cThree in One,\u201d only it\nis still more metaphysical: the Universal \u201cOver\u2010Spirit,\u201d manifesting on\nthe two higher planes, those of Buddhi and Mahat. These are the three\nHypostases, metaphysical, but never personal.\n\nThis was known to every high Initiate in every age and in every country:\n\u201cI and my Father are one,\u201d said Jesus.(973) When he is made to say,\nelsewhere: \u201cI ascend to _my_ Father and _your_ Father,\u201d(974) it meant that\nwhich has just been stated. The identity, and at the same time the\nillusive differentiation of the _Angel_\u2010Monad and the _Human_\u2010Monad is\nshown in the sentences: \u201cMy Father is _greater_ than I\u201d;(975) \u201cGlorify\n_your_ Father _which is in Heaven_\u201d;(976) \u201cThen shall the righteous shine\nforth as the sun in the kingdom of _their_ Father\u201d (not _our_\nFather).(977) So again Paul asks: \u201cKnow ye not ye are the _temple_ of God,\nand that the _Spirit of God dwelleth_ in you?\u201d(978) All this was simply\nmeant to show that the group of disciples and followers attracted to him\nbelonged to the same Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddha, Star, or Father, and that this again\nbelonged to the same planetary realm and division as he did. It is the\n_knowledge_ of this Occult Doctrine that found expression in the review of\n_The Idyll of the White Lotus_, when T. Subba Row wrote:\n\n\n    Every Buddha meets at his last Initiation all the great Adepts who\n    reached Buddhahood during the preceding ages ... every class of\n    Adepts has its own bond of spiritual communion which knits them\n    together.... The only possible and effectual way of entering into\n    such brotherhood ... is by bringing oneself within the influence\n    of the Spiritual light which radiates from one\u2019s own Logos. I may\n    further point out here ... that such communion is only possible\n    between persons whose souls derive their life and sustenance from\n    the same divine Ray, and that, as seven distinct Rays radiate from\n    the \u201cCentral Spiritual Sun,\u201d all Adepts and Dhy\u00e2n Chohans are\n    divisible into seven classes, each of which is guided, controlled,\n    and overshadowed by one of the seven forms or manifestations of\n    the divine Wisdom.(979)\n\n\nIt is then the Seven Sons of Light,\u2014called after their planets and often\nidentified with them by the rabble, namely, Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury,\nMars, Venus, and _presumably_ the Sun and Moon, for the modern critic, who\ngoes no deeper than the surface of old religions(980)\u2014which are, according\nto the Occult Teachings, our heavenly Parents, or synthetically our\n\u201cFather.\u201d Hence, as already remarked, Polytheism is really more\nphilosophical and correct, as to fact and Nature, than is anthropomorphic\nMonotheism. Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, and Venus, the four exoteric\nplanets, and the three others, which must remain unnamed, were the\nheavenly bodies in direct astral and psychic communication, morally and\nphysically, with the Earth, its Guides, and Watchers; the visible orbs\nfurnishing our Humanity with its outward and inward characteristics, and\ntheir Regents or Rectors with our Monads and spiritual faculties. In order\nto avoid creating new misconceptions, let it be stated that among the\nthree Secret Orbs, or Star\u2010Angels, neither Uranus nor Neptune were\nincluded; not only because they were unknown under these names to the\nancient Sages, but because they, like all other planets, however many\nthere may be, are the Gods and Guardians of other septenary Chains of\nGlobes within our System.\n\nNor do the two great planets last discovered depend entirely on the Sun,\nas do the rest of the planets. Otherwise, how can we explain the fact that\nUranus receives 1/390th part of the light received by our Earth, while\nNeptune receives only 1/900th part; and that their satellites show a\npeculiarity of inverse rotation found in no other planets of the Solar\nSystem? At any rate, what we say applies to Uranus, though the fact has\nagain been disputed recently.\n\nThis subject will, of course, be considered as a mere vagary, by all those\nwho confuse the universal order of Being with their own systems of\nclassification. Here, however, simple facts from Occult Teachings are\nstated, to be either accepted or rejected, as the case may be. There are\ndetails which, on account of their great metaphysical abstraction,\n_cannot_ be entered upon. Hence, we merely state that only seven of our\nplanets are as intimately related to our Globe, as the Sun is to all the\nbodies subject to him in his System. Of these bodies the poor little\nnumber of _primary_ and _secondary_ planets known to Astronomy, looks\nwretched enough, in truth.(981) Therefore, it stands to reason that there\nare a great number of planets, small and large, that have not been\ndiscovered yet, but of the existence of which ancient Astronomers\u2014all of\nthem initiated Adepts\u2014must certainly have been aware. But, as the relation\nof these to the Gods was sacred, it had to remain arcane, as did also the\nnames of various other planets and stars.\n\nBesides this, even the Roman Catholic Theology speaks of \u201c_seventy_\nplanets that preside over the destinies of the nations of this globe;\u201d\nand, save the erroneous application, there is more truth in this tradition\nthan in exact modern Astronomy. The seventy planets are connected with the\nseventy elders of the people of Israel,(982) and the Regents of these\nplanets are meant, not the orbs themselves; the word seventy is a play and\na blind upon the 7 \u00d7 7 of the subdivisions. Each people and nation, as we\nhave already said, has its _direct_ Watcher, Guardian and Father in\nHeaven\u2014a Planetary Spirit. We are willing to leave their own national God,\nJehovah, to the descendants of Israel, the worshippers of Sabaoth or\nSaturn; for, indeed, the Monads of the people chosen by him are his own,\nand the _Bible_ has never made any secret of it. Only the text of the\nProtestant English _Bible_ is, as usual, in disagreement with those of the\nSeptuagint and the Vulgate. Thus, while in the former we read:\n\n\n    When the Most High [not Jehovah] divided to the nations their\n    inheritance ... he set the bounds of the people according to the\n    number of the children of Israel.(983)\n\n\nIn the _Septuagint_ the text reads \u201caccording to the number of the\nAngels,\u201d Planet\u2010Angels, a version more concordant with truth and fact.\nMoreover, all the texts agree that \u201cthe Lord\u2019s [Jehovah\u2019s] portion is his\npeople; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance\u201d;(984) and this settles the\nquestion. The \u201cLord\u201d Jehovah took Israel _for his portion_; what have\nother nations to do with that particular national Deity? Let then, the\n\u201cAngel Gabriel\u201d watch over Iran and \u201cMikael\u2010Jehovah\u201d over the Hebrews.\nThese are not the Gods of other nations, and it is difficult to see why\nChristians should have selected a God against whose commandments Jesus was\nthe first to rise in rebellion.\n\nThe planetary origin of the Monad, or Soul, and of its faculties was\ntaught by the Gnostics. On its way to the Earth, as on its way back from\nthe Earth, each soul born in, and from, the \u201cBoundless Light,\u201d(985) had to\npass through the seven planetary regions either way. The pure Dhy\u00e2ni and\nDevas of the oldest religions had become, in course of time, with the\nZoroastrians, the Seven Devs, the ministers of Ahriman, \u201ceach chained to\nhis planet\u201d;(986) with the Br\u00e2hmans, the Asuras and some of the\nRishis\u2014good, bad and indifferent; among the Egyptian Gnostics it was\nThoth, or Hermes, who was the chief of the Seven whose names are given by\nOrigen as Adonai, genius of the Sun; Tao, of the Moon; Eloi, of Jupiter;\nSabaoth, of Mars; Orai, of Venus; Astaphai, of Mercury; and Ildabaoth\n(Jehovah), of Saturn. Finally, the _Pistis\u2010Sophia_, which the greatest\nmodern authority on exoteric Gnostic beliefs, the late Mr. C. W. King,\nrefers to as \u201cthat precious monument of Gnosticism\u201d\u2014this old document\nechoes the archaic belief of the ages, while distorting it to suit\nsectarian purposes. The Astral Rulers of the Spheres, the planets, create\nthe Monads, or Souls, from their own substance out of \u201cthe tears of their\neyes, and the sweat of their torments,\u201d endowing the Monads with a spark\nof their substance which is the Divine Light. It will be shown in Volume\nII why these \u201cLords of the Zodiac and Spheres\u201d have been transformed by\nsectarian Theology into the Rebellious Angels of the Christians, who took\nthem from the Seven Devs of the Magi, without understanding the\nsignificance of the allegory.(987)\n\nAs usual, that which _is_, and _was_ from its beginning, divine, pure, and\nspiritual in its earliest unity, became\u2014by reason of its differentiation\nthrough the distorted prism of man\u2019s conceptions\u2014human and impure, as\nreflecting man\u2019s own sinful nature. Thus, in time, the planet Saturn\nbecame reviled by the worshippers of other Gods. The nations born under\nSaturn\u2014the Jewish, for instance, with whom he became Jehovah, after being\nconsidered as a son of Saturn, or Ilda\u2010Baoth, by the Ophites, and in the\nBook of Jasher\u2014were eternally fighting with those born under Jupiter,\nMercury, or any other planet, except Saturn\u2010Jehovah; genealogies and\nprophecies notwithstanding, Jesus _the Initiate_ (or Jehoshua)\u2014the type\nfrom whom the \u201chistorical\u201d Jesus was copied\u2014was not of pure Jewish blood,\nand thus recognized no Jehovah; nor did he worship any planetary God\nbeside his own \u201cFather,\u201d whom he knew, and with whom he communed, as every\nhigh Initiate does, \u201cSpirit to Spirit and Soul to Soul.\u201d This can hardly\nbe taken exception to, unless the critic explains to every one\u2019s\nsatisfaction the strange sentences put into the mouth of Jesus during his\ndisputes with the Pharisees by the author of the Fourth Gospel:\n\n\n    I know that ye are Abraham\u2019s seed(988).... I speak that which I\n    have seen with my Father; and ye do that which ye have seen with\n    your Father.... Ye do the deeds of your Father.... Ye are of your\n    Father, the Devil.... He was a murderer from the beginning, and\n    abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he\n    speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the\n    father of it.(989)\n\n\nThis \u201cFather\u201d of the Pharisees was Jehovah, for he was identical with\nCain, Saturn, Vulcan, etc.\u2014the planet under which they were born, and the\nGod whom they worshipped. Evidently there must be an Occult meaning sought\nin these words and admonitions, however mistranslated, since they are\npronounced by one who threatened with hell\u2010fire anyone who says to his\nbrother simply Raca, fool.(990) And evidently, again, the planets are not\nmerely spheres, twinkling in Space, and made to shine for no purpose, but\nthey are the domains of various Beings with whom the uninitiated are so\nfar unacquainted, but who have, nevertheless, a mysterious, unbroken, and\npowerful connection with men and globes. Every heavenly body is the temple\nof a God, and these Gods themselves are the temples of God, the Unknown\n\u201c_Not_ Spirit.\u201d There is nothing profane in the Universe. All Nature is a\nconsecrated place, as Young says:\n\n\n    Each of these Stars is a religious house.\n\n\nThus can all exoteric religions be shown to be the falsified copies of the\nEsoteric Teaching. It is the priesthood which has to be held responsible\nfor the reaction of our day in favour of Materialism. It is by worshipping\nand enforcing on the masses the worship of the shells of pagan\nideals\u2014personified for purposes of allegory\u2014that the latest exoteric\nreligion has made of Western lands a Pandemonium, in which the higher\nclasses worship the golden calf, and the lower and ignorant masses are\nmade to worship an idol with feet of clay.\n\n\n\n\nSection XI. Ancient Thought in Modern Dress.\n\n\nModern _Science is Ancient Thought distorted_, and no more. We have seen,\nhowever, what intuitional Scientists think, and are busy about; and now\nthe reader shall be given a few more proofs of the fact that more than one\nF.R.S. is unconsciously approaching the derided Secret Sciences.\n\nWith regard to Cosmogony and primeval matter, modern speculations are\nundeniably ancient thought, \u201cimproved\u201d by contradictory theories of recent\norigin. The whole foundation belongs to Grecian and Indian Archaic\nAstronomy and Physics, in those days called always Philosophy. In all the\n\u00c2ryan and Greek speculations, we meet with the conception of an all\u2010\npervading, unorganized, and homogeneous Matter, or Chaos, re\u2010named by\nmodern Scientists \u201cnebular condition of the world\u2010stuff.\u201d What Anaxagoras\ncalled Chaos in his _Homoiomeria_ is now called \u201cprimitive fluid\u201d by Sir\nWilliam Thomson. The Hind\u00fb and Greek Atomists\u2014Kan\u00e2da, Leucippus,\nDemocritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, etc.\u2014are now reflected, as in a clear\nmirror, in the supporters of the Atomic Theory of our modern days,\nbeginning with Leibnitz\u2019s Monads, and ending with the Vortical Atoms of\nSir William Thomson.(991) True, the corpuscular theory of old is rejected,\nand the undulatory theory has taken its place. But the question is,\nwhether the latter is so firmly established as not to be liable to be\ndethroned like its predecessor? Light, from its metaphysical aspect, has\nbeen fully treated in _Isis Unveiled_:\n\n\n    Light is the first begotten, and the first emanation of the\n    Supreme, and Light is Life, says the Evangelist [and the\n    Kabalist]. Both are electricity\u2014the life principle, the Anima\n    Mundi\u2014pervading the Universe, the electric vivifier of all things.\n    Light is the great Protean magician, and under the divine Will of\n    the Architect(992) [or rather the _Architects_, the \u201cBuilders,\u201d\n    called _One_ collectively], its multifarious, omnipotent waves\n    gave birth to every form as well as to every living being. From\n    its swelling electric bosom, spring _Matter_ and _Spirit_. Within\n    its beams lie the beginnings of all physical and chemical action,\n    and of all cosmic and spiritual phenomena; it vitalizes and\n    disorganizes; it gives life and produces death, and from its\n    Primordial Point gradually emerged into existence the myriads of\n    worlds, visible and invisible celestial bodies. It was at the ray\n    of this First Mother, one in three, that \u201cGod,\u201d according to\n    Plato, \u201clighted a Fire which we now call the Sun,\u201d(993) and which\n    is _not_ the cause of either light or heat, but merely the focus,\n    or, as we might say, the lens, by which the Rays of the Primordial\n    Light become materialized, are concentrated upon our Solar System,\n    and produce all the correlations of forces.(994)\n\n\nThis is the Ether, as just explained in the views of Metcalfe, repeated by\nDr. Richardson, save for the submission of the former to some details of\nthe modern undulatory theory. We do not say that we deny the theory; we\nassert only that it needs completion and re\u00e4rrangement. But the Occultists\nare by no means the only heretics in this respect; for Mr. Robert Hunt,\nF.R.S. finds that:\n\n\n    The undulatory theory does not account for the results of his\n    experiments.(995) Sir David Brewster, in his _Treatise on Optics_,\n    showing \u201cthat the colours of vegetable life arise ... from a\n    specific attraction which the particles of these bodies exercise\n    over the differently\u2010coloured rays of light,\u201d and that \u201cit is by\n    the light of the sun that the coloured juices of plants are\n    elaborated, that the colours of bodies are changed, etc.,\u201d remarks\n    that it is not easy to allow \u201cthat such effects can be produced by\n    the mere vibration of an ethereal medium.\u201d And he is _forced_, he\n    says, \u201cby this class of facts, to reason as if light was\n    _material_\u201d [?]. Professor Josiah P. Cooke, of Harvard University,\n    says that he \u201ccannot agree ... with those who regard the wave\u2010\n    theory of light as an established principle of science.\u201d(996)\n    Herschell\u2019s doctrine, that the intensity of light, in effect of\n    each undulation, \u201cis inversely as the square of the distance from\n    the luminous body,\u201d if correct, damages a good deal, if it does\n    not kill, the undulatory theory. That he is right, was proved\n    repeatedly by experiments with photometers; and though it begins\n    to be much doubted, the undulatory theory is still alive.(997)\n\n\nTo this remark of Sir David Brewster\u2014\u201cforced to reason as if light was\nmaterial\u201d\u2014there is a good deal to reply. Light, in one sense, is certainly\nas material as is electricity itself. And if electricity is not material,\nif it is only a \u201cmode of motion,\u201d how is it that it can be _stored up_ in\nFaure\u2019s accumulators? Helmholtz says that electricity must be as atomic as\nmatter; and Mr. W. Crookes, F.R.S., supported the view in his address at\nBirmingham, in 1886, to the Chemical Section of the British Association,\nof which he was President. This is what Helmholtz says:\n\n\n    If we accept the hypothesis that the elementary substances are\n    composed of atoms, we cannot avoid concluding that electricity\n    also, positive as well as negative, is divided into definite\n    elementary portions, which behave like atoms of electricity.(998)\n\n\nHere we have to repeat that which was already said in Section VIII, that\nthere is but one science that can henceforth direct modern research into\nthe one path which will lead to the discovery of the whole, hitherto\nOccult, truth, and it is the youngest of all\u2014Chemistry, as it now stands\nreformed. There is no other, not excluding Astronomy, that can so\nunerringly guide scientific intuition, as can Chemistry. Two proofs of\nthis are to be found in the world of Science\u2014two great Chemists, each\namong the greatest in his own country, namely, Mr. Crookes and the late\nProfessor Butlerof: the one is a thorough believer in abnormal phenomena;\nthe other was as fervid a Spiritualist, as he was great in the natural\nsciences. It becomes evident that, while pondering over the ultimate\ndivisibility of Matter, and in the hitherto fruitless chase after the\nelement of negative atomic weight, the scientifically trained mind of the\nChemist must feel irresistibly drawn towards those ever\u2010shrouded worlds,\nto that mysterious Beyond, whose measureless depths seem to close against\nthe approach of the too materialistic hand that would fain draw aside its\nveil. \u201cIt is the unknown and the ever\u2010unknowable,\u201d warns the Monist\u2010\nAgnostic. \u201cNot so,\u201d answers the persevering Chemist. \u201cWe are on the track\nand we are not daunted, and fain would we enter the mysterious region\nwhich ignorance tickets unknown.\u201d\n\nIn his Presidential Address at Birmingham Mr. Crookes said:\n\n\n    There is but one unknown\u2014the ultimate substratum of Spirit\n    [Space]. That which is not the Absolute and the One is, in virtue\n    of that very differentiation, however far removed from the\n    physical senses, always accessible to the spiritual human mind,\n    which is a coruscation of the undifferentiable Integral.\n\n\nTwo or three sentences, at the very close of his lecture on the _Genesis\nof the Elements_, showed the eminent Scientist to be on the royal road to\nthe greatest discoveries. He has been for some time overshadowing \u201cthe\noriginal protyle,\u201d and he has come to the conclusion that \u201che who grasps\nthe Key will be permitted to unlock some of the deepest mysteries of\ncreation.\u201d Protyle, as the great Chemist explains:\n\n\n    ... is a word analogous to protoplasm, to express the idea of the\n    original primal matter existing before the evolution of the\n    chemical elements. The word I have ventured to use for this\n    purpose is compounded of \u03c0\u03c1\u1f78 (earlier than) and \u1f55\u03bb\u03b7 (the stuff of\n    which things are made). The word is scarcely a new coinage, for\n    600 years ago Roger Bacon wrote in his _Arte Chymiae_, \u201cThe\n    elements are made out of \u1f55\u03bb\u03b7 and every element is converted into\n    the nature of another element.\u201d\n\n\nThe _knowledge_ of Roger Bacon did not come to this wonderful old\nmagician(999) by inspiration, but because he studied ancient works on\nMagic and Alchemy, and had a key to the real meaning of their language.\nBut see what Mr. Crookes says of Protyle, next neighbour to the\nunconscious M\u00fblaprakriti of the Occultists:\n\n\n    Let us start at the moment when the first element came into\n    existence. Before this time, matter, as we know it, was not. It is\n    equally impossible to conceive of matter without energy, as of\n    energy without matter; from one point of view both are convertible\n    terms. Before the birth of atoms, all those forms of energy, which\n    become evident when matter acts upon matter, could not have\n    existed(1000)\u2014they were locked up in the protyle as latent\n    potentialities only. Coincident with the creation of atoms, all\n    those attributes and properties, which form the means of\n    discriminating one chemical element from another, start into\n    existence fully endowed with energy.(1001)\n\n\nWith every respect due to the great knowledge of the lecturer, the\nOccultist would put it otherwise. He would say that no Atom is ever\n\u201ccreated,\u201d for the Atoms are eternal within the bosom of the One Atom\u2014\u201cthe\nAtom of Atoms\u201d\u2014viewed during Manvantara as the Jagad\u2010Yoni, the material\ncausative womb of the World. Pradh\u00e2na, unmodified Matter\u2014that which is the\nfirst form of Prakriti, or material, visible, as well as invisible\nNature\u2014and Purusha, Spirit, are eternally one; and they are Nirup\u00e2dhi,\nwithout adventitious qualities or attributes, only during Pralaya, and\nwhen beyond any of the planes of consciousness of existence. The Atom, as\nknown to modern science, is inseparable from Purusha, which is Spirit, but\nis now called \u201cenergy\u201d in Science. The Protyle Atom has not been\ncomminuted or subtilized: it has simply passed into that plane, which is\nno plane, but the eternal state of everything beyond the planes of\nillusion. Both Purusha and Pradh\u00e2na are immutable and unconsumable, or\nAparin\u00e2min and Avyaya, in eternity; and both may be referred to during the\nM\u00e2y\u00e2vic periods as Vyaya and Parin\u00e2min, or that which can expand, pass\naway and disappear, and which is \u201cmodifiable.\u201d In this sense Purusha,\nmust, of course, be held distinct in our conceptions from Parabrahman.\nNevertheless that, which is called \u201cenergy\u201d or \u201cforce\u201d in Science, and\nwhich has been explained as a dual force by Metcalfe, is never, in fact,\nand cannot be, energy alone; for it is the Substance of the World, its\nSoul, the All\u2010permeant, Sarvaga, in conjunction with K\u00e2la, Time. The three\nare the trinity in one, during Manvantara, the all\u2010potential Unity, which\nacts as three distinct things on M\u00e2y\u00e2, the plane of illusion. In the\nOrphic philosophy of ancient Greece they were called Phanes, Chaos, and\nChronos\u2014the triad of the Occult Philosophers of that period.\n\nBut see how closely Mr. Crookes brushes the \u201cUnknowable,\u201d and what\npotentialities there are for the acceptance of Occult truths in his\ndiscoveries. He continues, speaking of the evolution of Atoms:\n\n\n    Let us pause at the end of the first complete vibration and\n    examine the result. We have already found the elements of water,\n    ammonia, carbonic acid, the atmosphere, plant and animal life,\n    phosphorus for the brain, salt for the seas, clay for the solid\n    earth ... phosphates and silicates sufficient for a world and\n    inhabitants not so very different from what we enjoy at the\n    present day. True the human inhabitants would have to live in a\n    state of more than Arcadian simplicity, and the absence of calcic\n    phosphate would be awkward as far as the bone is\n    concerned.(1002)... At the lower end of our curve ... we see a\n    great hiatus.... This oasis, and the blanks which precede and\n    follow it, may be referred with much probability to the particular\n    way in which our earth developed into a member of our solar\n    system. If this be so, it may be that on our earth only these\n    blanks occur, and not generally throughout the universe.\n\n\nThis justifies several assertions in the Occult works.\n\nFirstly, that neither the stars nor the Sun can be said to be constituted\nof those terrestrial elements with which the Chemist is familiar, though\nthey are all present in the Sun\u2019s outward robes\u2014as well as a host more of\nelements so far unknown to Science.\n\nSecondly, that our globe has its own special laboratory on the far\u2010away\noutskirts of its atmosphere, crossing which, every Atom and molecule\nchanges and differentiates from its primordial nature.\n\nAnd thirdly, that though no element present on our Earth could ever\npossibly be found wanting in the Sun, there are many others there which\nhave either not reached, or not as yet been discovered on our globe.\n\n\n    Some may be missing in certain stars and heavenly bodies in the\n    process of formation; or, though present in them, these elements,\n    on account of their present state, may not respond as yet to the\n    usual scientific tests.(1003)\n\n\nMr. Crookes speaks of helium, an element of still lower atomic weight than\nhydrogen, an _element purely hypothetical_ as far as our earth is\nconcerned, though existing in abundance in the chromosphere of the Sun.\nOccult Science adds that not one of the elements regarded as such by\nChemistry really deserves the name.\n\nAgain we find Mr. Crookes speaking with approbation of\n\n\n    Dr. Carnelly\u2019s weighty argument in favour of the compound nature\n    of the so\u2010called elements, from their analogy to the compound\n    radicles.\n\n\nHitherto, Alchemy alone, within the historical period, and in the so\u2010\ncalled civilized countries, has succeeded in obtaining a real _element_,\nor a particle of homogeneous Matter, the _Mysterium Magnum_ of Paracelsus.\nBut then that was before Lord Bacon\u2019s day.(1004)\n\n\n    ... Let us now turn to the upper portion of the scheme. With\n    hydrogen of atomic weight = 1, there is little room for other\n    elements, save, perhaps, for hypothetical _Helium_. But what if we\n    get \u201cthrough the looking\u2010glass,\u201d and cross the zero line in search\n    of new principles\u2014what shall we find on the other side of zero?\n    Dr. Carnelly asks for an element of negative atomic weight; here\n    is ample room and verge enough for a shadow series of such\n    unsubstantialities. Helmholtz says that electricity is probably as\n    atomic as matter; is electricity one of the negative elements, and\n    the luminiferous ether another? Matter, as we now know it, does\n    not here exist; the forms of energy which are apparent in the\n    motions of matter are as yet only latent possibilities. _A\n    substance of negative weight is not inconceivable._(1005) But can\n    we form a clear conception of a body which combines with other\n    bodies in proportions expressible by negative qualities?(1006)\n\n    A genesis of the elements such as is here sketched out would not\n    be confined to our little solar system, but would probably follow\n    the same general sequence of events in every centre of energy now\n    visible as a star.\n\n    Before the birth of atoms to gravitate towards one another, no\n    pressure could be exercised; but at the outskirts of the fire\u2010mist\n    sphere, within which all is protyle\u2014at the shell on which the\n    tremendous forces involved in the birth of a chemical element\n    exert full sway\u2014the fierce heat would be accompanied by\n    gravitation sufficient to keep the newly\u2010born elements from flying\n    off into space. As temperature increases, expansion and molecular\n    motion increase, molecules tend to fly asunder, and their chemical\n    affinities become deadened; but the enormous: pressure of the\n    gravitation of the mass of atomic matter, outside what I may for\n    brevity call the birth\u2010shell, would counteract the action of heat.\n\n    Beyond the birth\u2010shell would be a space in which no chemical\n    action could take place, owing to the temperature there being\n    above what is called the dissociation\u2010point for compounds. In this\n    space the lion and the lamb would lie down together: phosphorus\n    and oxygen would mix without union; hydrogen and chlorine would\n    show no tendency to closer bonds; and even fluorine, that\n    energetic gas which chemists have only isolated within the last\n    month or two, would float about free and uncombined.\n\n    Outside this space of free atomic matter would be another shell,\n    in which the formed chemical elements would have cooled down to\n    the combination point, and the sequence of events so graphically\n    described by Mr. Mattieu Williams in _The Fuel of the Sun_ would\n    now take place, culminating in the solid earth and the\n    commencement of geological time (p. 19).\n\n\nThis is, in strictly scientific, but beautiful language, the description\nof the evolution of the differentiated Universe in the Secret Teachings.\nThe learned gentleman closes his address in words, every sentence of which\nis like a flash of light from beyond the dark veil of materiality,\nhitherto thrown upon the exact sciences, and is a step forward towards the\n_Sanctum Sanctorum_ of the Occult. Thus he says:\n\n\n    We have glanced at the difficulty of defining an element; we have\n    noticed, too, the revolt of many leading physicists and chemists\n    against the ordinary acceptation of the term element; we have\n    weighed the improbability of their eternal existence,(1007) or\n    _their origination by chance_. As a remaining alternative, we have\n    suggested their origin by a process of evolution like that of the\n    heavenly bodies according to Laplace, and the plants and animals\n    of our globe according to Lamarck, Darwin, and Wallace.(1008) In\n    the general array of the elements, as known to us, we have seen a\n    striking approximation to that of the organic world.(1009) In lack\n    of direct evidence of the decomposition of any element, we have\n    sought and found indirect evidence.... We have next glanced at the\n    view of the genesis of the elements; and lastly we have reviewed a\n    scheme of their origin suggested by Professor Reynolds\u2019 method of\n    illustrating the periodic classification(1010).... Summing up all\n    the above considerations we cannot, indeed, venture to assert\n    positively _that our so\u2010called elements have been evolved from one\n    primordial matter; but we may contend that the balance of\n    evidence, I think, fairly weighs in favour of this speculation_.\n\n\nThus inductive Science, in its branches of Astronomy, Physics, and\nChemistry, while advancing timidly towards the conquest of Nature\u2019s\nsecrets in her final effects on our terrestrial plane, recedes to the days\nof Anaxagoras and the Chaldees in its discoveries of (_a_) the origin of\nour phenomenal world, and (_b_) the modes of formation of the bodies that\ncompose the Universe. And having, for their cosmogonical hypotheses to\nturn back to the beliefs of the earliest philosophers, and the systems of\nthe latter\u2014systems that were all based on the teachings of a universal\nSecret Doctrine with regard to primeval Matter, with its properties,\nfunctions, and laws\u2014have we not the right to hope that the day is not far\noff when Science will show a better appreciation of the Wisdom of the\nAncients than it has hitherto done?\n\nNo doubt Occult Philosophy could learn a good deal from exact Modern\nScience; but the latter, on the other hand, might profit by ancient\nlearning in more than one way, and chiefly in Cosmogony. It might learn,\nfor instance, the mystical signification, alchemical and transcendental,\nof the many _imponderable_ substances that fill interplanetary space, and\nwhich, interpenetrating each, are the direct cause, at the lower end, of\nthe production of natural phenomena manifesting through so\u2010called\nvibration. The knowledge of the _real_, not the hypothetical, nature of\nEther, or rather of the \u00c2k\u00e2sha, and other mysteries, in short, can alone\nlead to the knowledge of Forces. It is that Substance against which the\nMaterialistic school of the Physicists rebels with such fury, especially\nin France,(1011) and which exact Science has to advocate notwithstanding.\nThey cannot make away with it without incurring the risk of pulling down\nthe pillars of the Temple of Science, like a modern Samson, and of getting\nburied under its roof.\n\nThe theories built upon the rejection of Force, outside and independent of\nMatter pure and simple, have all been shown to be fallacious. They do not,\nand cannot, cover the ground, and many of the scientific data are thus\nproved to be unscientific. \u201cEther produced Sound\u201d is said in the\n_Pur\u00e2nas_, and the statement is laughed at. Sound is the result of the\nvibrations of the _air_, we are corrected. And what is air? Could it exist\nif there were no etheric medium in Space to buoy up its molecules? The\ncase stands simply thus. Materialism cannot admit the existence of\nanything outside Matter, because with the acceptance of an imponderable\nForce\u2014the source and head of all the physical Forces\u2014other _intelligent_\nForces would have to be virtually admitted, and that would lead Science\nvery far. For it would have to accept as a sequel the presence in Man of a\nstill more spiritual power\u2014entirely independent, for once, of any kind of\nMatter about which Physicists know anything. Hence, apart from a\nhypothetical Ether of Space and gross physical bodies, the whole sidereal\nand unseen Space is, in the sight of Materialists, one boundless _void_ in\nNature\u2014blind, unintelligent, useless.\n\nAnd now the next question is: What is that Cosmic Substance, and how far\ncan one go in suspecting its nature or in wrenching from it its secrets,\nthus feeling justified in giving it a name? How far, especially, has\nModern Science gone in the direction of those secrets, and what is it\ndoing to solve them? The latest hobby of Science, the Nebular Theory, may\nafford us some answer to this question. Let us then examine the\ncredentials of this Nebular Theory.\n\n\n\n\nSection XII. Scientific and Esoteric Evidence for, and Objections to, the\nModern Nebular Theory.\n\n\nOf late, Esoteric Cosmogony has been frequently opposed by the phantom of\nthis theory and its ensuing hypotheses. \u201cCan this most scientific teaching\nbe denied by your Adepts?\u201d it is asked. \u201cNot entirely,\u201d is the reply, \u201cbut\nthe admissions of the men of Science themselves _kill_ it; and there\nremains nothing for the Adepts to deny.\u201d\n\nTo make of Science an integral _whole_ necessitates, indeed, the study of\nspiritual and psychic, as well as of physical, Nature. Otherwise it will\never be like the anatomy of man, discussed of old by the profane from the\npoint of view of his shell\u2010side, and in ignorance of the interior work.\nEven Plato, the greatest Philosopher of his country, was guilty, before\nhis Initiation, of such statements as that liquids pass into the stomach\nthrough the lungs. Without metaphysics, as Mr. H. J. Slack says, _real_\nScience is inadmissible.\n\nThe nebul\u00e6 exist; yet the Nebular Theory is wrong. A nebula exists in a\nstate of entire elemental dissociation. It is gaseous and\u2014something else\nbesides, which can hardly be connected with gases as these are known to\nPhysical Science; and it is self\u2010luminous. But that is all. The sixty\u2010two\n\u201ccoincidences\u201d enumerated by Professor Stephen Alexander,(1012) confirming\nthe Nebular Theory, may all be explained by Esoteric Science; though, as\nthis is not an astronomical work, the refutations are not attempted at\npresent. Laplace and Faye come nearer to the correct theory than any; but\nof the speculations of Laplace there remains little in the present theory\nbeyond its general features.\n\nNevertheless, says John Stuart Mill:\n\n\n    There is in Laplace\u2019s theory nothing hypothetical; it is an\n    example of legitimate reasoning from present effect to its past\n    cause; it assumes nothing more than that objects which really\n    exist obey the laws which are known to be obeyed by all\n    terrestrial objects resembling them.(1013)\n\n\nFrom such an eminent logician as was Mill, this would be valuable, if it\ncould only be proved that \u201cterrestrial objects resembling\u201d celestial\nobjects at such a distance as are the nebul\u00e6, _resemble those objects in\nreality, and not only in appearance_.\n\nAnother of the fallacies, from the Occult standpoint, embodied in the\nmodern theory as it now stands, is the hypothesis that the Planets were\nall detached from the Sun; that they are bone of his bone, and flesh of\nhis flesh; whereas the Sun and the Planets are only co\u2010uterine brothers,\nhaving the same nebular origin, but in a different mode from that\npostulated by modern Astronomy.\n\nThe many objections raised by some opponents of the modern Nebular Theory\nagainst the homogeneity of original diffuse Matter, on the ground of the\nuniformity in the composition of the fixed Stars, do not affect the\nquestion of that homogeneity at all, but only the theory itself. Our solar\nnebula may not be completely homogeneous, or, rather, it may fail to\nreveal itself as such to the Astronomers, and yet be _de facto_\nhomogeneous. The Stars do differ in their constituent materials, and even\nexhibit elements quite unknown on Earth; nevertheless, this does not\naffect the point that Primeval Matter\u2014Matter as it appeared even in its\nfirst differentiation from its laya\u2010condition(1014)\u2014is yet to this day\nhomogeneous, at immense distances, in the depths of infinitude, and\nlikewise at points not far removed from the outskirts of our Solar System.\n\nFinally, there does not exist one single fact brought forward by the\nlearned objectors against the Nebular Theory (false as it is, and hence,\nillogically enough, fatal to the hypothesis of the homogeneity of Matter),\nthat can withstand criticism. One error leads to another. A false premiss\nwill naturally lead to a false conclusion, although an inadmissible\ninference does not necessarily affect the validity of the major\nproposition of the syllogism. Thus, one may leave every side\u2010issue and\ninference from the evidence of spectra and lines, as simply provisional\nfor the present, and abandon all matters of detail to Physical Science.\nThe duty of the Occultist lies with the _Soul_ and _Spirit_ of Cosmic\nSpace, not merely with its illusive appearance and behaviour. That of\nofficial Physical Science is to analyze and study its _shell_\u2014the Ultima\nThule of the Universe and Man, in the opinion of Materialism.\n\nWith the latter, Occultism has nought to do. It is only with the theories\nof such men of learning as Kepler, Kant, Oersted, and Sir William\nHerschell, who believed in a Spiritual World, that Occult Cosmogony might\ntreat, and attempt a satisfactory compromise. But the views of those\nPhysicists differed vastly from the latest modern speculations. Kant and\nHerschell had in their mind\u2019s eye speculations upon the origin and the\nfinal destiny, as well as upon the present aspect, of the Universe, from a\nfar more philosophical and psychic standpoint; whereas modern Cosmology\nand Astronomy now repudiate anything like research into the mysteries of\nBeing. The result is what might be expected: complete failure and\ninextricable contradictions in the thousand and one varieties of so\u2010called\nScientific Theories, and in this Theory as in all others.\n\nThe nebular hypothesis, involving the theory of the existence of a\nPrimeval Matter, diffused in a nebulous condition, is of no modern date in\nAstronomy, as everyone knows. Anaximenes, of the Ionian school, had\nalready taught that the sidereal bodies were formed through the\nprogressive condensation of a primordial _pregenetic_ Matter, which had\nalmost a negative weight, and was spread out through Space in an extremely\nsublimated condition.\n\nTycho Brah\u00e9, who viewed the Milky Way as an ethereal substance, thought\nthe new star that appeared in Cassiopeia, in 1572, had been formed out of\nthat Matter.(1015) Kepler believed that the star of 1606 had likewise been\nformed out of the ethereal substance that fills the universe.(1016) He\nattributed to that same Ether the apparition of a luminous ring round the\nMoon, during the total eclipse of the Sun observed at Naples in\n1605.(1017) Still later, in 1714 the existence of a self\u2010luminous Matter\nwas recognized by Halley in the _Philosophical Transactions_. Finally, the\njournal of this name published in 1811 the famous hypothesis of the\neminent Astronomer, Sir William Herschell, on the transformation of the\nnebul\u00e6 into Stars,(1018) and after this the Nebular Theory was accepted by\nthe Royal Academies.\n\nIn _Five Years of Theosophy_, on p. 245, may be read an article headed,\n\u201cDo the Adepts deny the Nebular Theory?\u201d The answer there given is:\n\n_No; they do not deny its general propositions, nor the approximative\ntruth of the scientific hypotheses. They only deny the completeness of the\npresent, as well as the entire error of the many so\u2010called\n__\u201c__exploded__\u201d__ old theories, which, during the last century, have\nfollowed each other in such rapid succession._\n\nThis was asserted at the time to be \u201can evasive answer.\u201d Such disrespect\nto official Science, it was argued, must be justified by the replacement\nof the _orthodox_ speculation by another theory more complete, and having\na firmer ground to stand upon. To this there is but one reply: It is\nuseless to give out isolated theories with regard to things embodied in a\ncomplete and consecutive system, for, when separated from the main body of\nthe teaching, they would necessarily lose their vital coherence and would\nthus do no good when studied independently. To be able to appreciate and\naccept the Occult views on the Nebular Theory, we must study the whole\nEsoteric cosmogonical system. And the time has hardly arrived for the\nAstronomers to be asked to accept Fohat and the Divine Builders. Even the\nundeniably correct surmises of Sir William Herschell, which had nothing\n\u201csupernatural\u201d in them, as to the Sun\u2019s being called a \u201cglobe of fire,\u201d\nperhaps metaphorically, and his early speculations about the nature of\nthat which is now called the Nasmyth Willow\u2010leaf Theory, only caused that\nmost eminent of all Astronomers to be smiled at by other, far less\neminent, colleagues, who saw and now see in his ideas purely \u201cimaginative\nand fanciful theories.\u201d Before the whole Esoteric System could be given\nout and appreciated by the Astronomers, the latter would have to return to\nsome of those \u201cantiquated ideas,\u201d not only to those of Herschell, but also\nto the dreams of the oldest Hind\u00fb Astronomers, and thus abandon their own\ntheories, which are none the less \u201cfanciful\u201d because they have appeared\nnearly eighty years later than the one, and many thousands of years later\nthan the others. Foremost of all they would have to repudiate their ideas\nof the Sun\u2019s solidity and incandescence; the Sun \u201cglowing\u201d most\nundeniably, but not \u201cburning.\u201d Then the Occultists state, with regard to\nthe \u201cwillow\u2010leaves,\u201d that those \u201cobjects,\u201d as Sir William Herschell called\nthem, are the immediate sources of the solar light and heat. And though\nthe Esoteric Teaching does not regard these as he did\u2014namely, as\n\u201corganisms\u201d partaking of the nature of life, for the Solar \u201cBeings\u201d will\nhardly place themselves within telescopic focus\u2014yet it asserts that the\nwhole Universe is full of such \u201corganisms,\u201d conscious and active according\nto the proximity or distance of their planes to, or from, our plane of\nconsciousness; and finally that the great Astronomer was right while\nspeculating on those supposed \u201corganisms,\u201d in saying that \u201cwe do not know\nthat vital action is incompetent to develop at once heat, light, and\nelectricity.\u201d For, at the risk of being laughed at by the whole world of\nPhysicists, the Occultists maintain that all the \u201cForces\u201d of the\nScientists have their origin in the Vital Principle, the One Life\ncollectively of our Solar System\u2014that \u201cLife\u201d being a portion, or rather\none of the _aspects_, of the One Universal LIFE.\n\nWe may, therefore\u2014as in the article under consideration, wherein, on the\nauthority of the Adepts, it was maintained that it is \u201csufficient to make\na _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_ of what the solar Physicists do not know\u201d\u2014we may, we maintain,\ndefine our position with regard to the modern Nebular Theory and its\nevident incorrectness, by simply pointing out facts diametrically opposed\nto it in its present form. And to begin with, what does it teach?\n\nSummarizing the aforesaid hypotheses, it becomes plain that Laplace\u2019s\ntheory\u2014now made quite unrecognizable, moreover\u2014was an unfortunate one. He\npostulates in the first place Cosmic Matter, existing in a state of\ndiffuse nebulosity \u201cso fine that its presence could hardly have been\nsuspected.\u201d No attempt is made by him to penetrate into the Arcana of\nBeing, except as regards the immediate evolution of our small Solar\nSystem.\n\nConsequently, whether one accepts or rejects his theory in its bearing\nupon the immediate cosmological problems presented for solution, he can\nonly be said to have thrown back the mystery a little further. To the\neternal query: \u201cWhence Matter itself; whence the evolutionary impetus\ndetermining its cyclic aggregations and dissolutions; whence the exquisite\nsymmetry and order into which the primeval Atoms arrange and group\nthemselves?\u201d no answer is attempted by Laplace. All we are confronted\nwith, is a sketch of the _probable_ broad principles on which the actual\nprocess is assumed to be based. Well, and what is this now celebrated note\non the said process? What has he given so wonderfully new and original,\nthat its ground\u2010work, at any rate, should have served as a basis for the\nmodern Nebular Theory? The following is what one gathers from various\nastronomical works.\n\nLaplace thought that, in consequence of the condensation of the atoms of\nthe primeval nebula, according to the \u201claw\u201d of gravity, the now gaseous,\nor perhaps, partially liquid mass, acquired a rotatory motion. As the\nvelocity of this rotation increased, it assumed the form of a thin disc;\nfinally, the centrifugal force overpowering that of cohesion, huge rings\nwere detached from the edge of the whirling incandescent masses, and these\nrings contracted necessarily by gravitation (as accepted) into spheroidal\nbodies, which would necessarily still continue to preserve the orbit\npreviously occupied by the outer zone from which they were\nseparated.(1019) The velocity of the outer edge of each nascent planet, he\nsaid, exceeding that of the inner, there results a rotation on its axis.\nThe more dense bodies would be thrown off last; and finally, during the\npreliminary state of their formation, the newly\u2010segregated orbs in their\nturn throw off one or more satellites. In formulating the history of the\nrupture and planetation of rings Laplace says:\n\n\n    Almost always each ring of vapours must have broken up into\n    numerous masses, which, moving with a nearly uniform velocity,\n    must have continued to circulate at the same distance around the\n    sun. These masses must have taken a spheroidal form with a motion\n    of rotation in the same direction as their revolution, since the\n    inner molecules (those nearest the sun) would have less actual\n    velocity than the exterior ones. They must then have formed as\n    many planets in a state of vapour. But, if one of them was\n    sufficiently powerful to unite successively, by its attraction,\n    all the others around its centre, the ring of vapours must have\n    been thus transformed into a single spheroidal mass of vapours\n    circulating around the sun with a rotation in the same direction\n    as its revolution. The latter case has been the more common, but\n    the solar system presents us the first case, in the four small\n    planets which move between Jupiter and Mars.\n\n\nWhile few will be found to deny the \u201cmagnificent audacity of this\nhypothesis,\u201d it is impossible not to recognize the insurmountable\ndifficulties with which it is attended. Why, for instance, do we find that\nthe satellites of Neptune and Uranus display a retrograde motion? Why, in\nspite of its closer proximity to the Sun, is Venus less dense than the\nEarth? Why, again, is the more distant Uranus denser than Saturn? How is\nit that there are so many variations in the inclination of their axes and\norbits in the supposed progeny of the central orb; that such startling\nvariations in the size of the Planets are noticeable; that the satellites\nof Jupiter are more dense by \u00b7288 than their primary; that the phenomena\nof meteoric and cometary systems still remain unaccounted for? To quote\nthe words of a Master:\n\n_They_ [the Adepts] _find that the centrifugal theory of Western birth is\nunable to cover all the ground. That, unaided, it can neither account for\nevery oblate spheroid, nor explain away such evident difficulties as are\npresented by the relative density of some planets. How, indeed, can any\ncalculation of centrifugal force explain to us, for instance, why Mercury,\nwhose rotation is, we are told, only __\u201c__about one\u2010third that of the\nEarth, and its density only about one\u2010fourth greater than the Earth,__\u201d__\nshould have a polar compression more than ten times greater than the\nlatter? And again, why Jupiter, whose equatorial rotation is said to be\n__\u201c__twenty\u2010seven times greater, and its density only about one\u2010fifth that\nof the Earth__\u201d__ should have its polar compression seventeen times\ngreater than that of the Earth? Or why Saturn, with an equatorial velocity\nfifty\u2010five times greater than Mercury for centripetal force to contend\nwith, should have its polar compression only three times greater than\nMercury\u2019s? To crown the above contradictions, we are asked to believe in\nthe Central Forces, as taught by Modern Science, even when told that the\nequatorial matter of the Sun, with more than four times the centrifugal\nvelocity of the Earth\u2019s equatorial surface, and only about one\u2010fourth part\nof the gravitation of the equatorial matter, has not manifested any\ntendency to bulge at the solar equator, nor shown the least flattening at\nthe poles of the solar axis. In other and clearer words, the Sun, with\nonly one\u2010fourth of our Earth\u2019s density for the centrifugal force to work\nupon, has no polar compression at all! We find this objection made by more\nthan one astronomer, yet never explained away satisfactorily, so far as\nthe __\u201c__Adepts__\u201d__ are aware._\n\n_Therefore, do they_ [the Adepts] _say, that the great men of Science of\nthe West, knowing ... next to nothing either about cometary matter,\ncentrifugal and centripetal forces, the nature of the nebul\u00e6, or the\nphysical constitution of the Sun, the Stars, or even the Moon, are\nimprudent to speak so confidently as they do about the __\u201c__central mass\nof the Sun,__\u201d__ whirling out into space planets, comets, and what not....\nWe maintain that it_ [the Sun] _evolves out only the life\u2010principle, the\nSoul of these __ bodies, giving and receiving it back, in our little Solar\nSystem, as the __\u201c__Universal Life\u2010Giver__\u201d__ ... in the Infinitude and\nEternity; that the Solar System is as much the Microcosm of the One\nMacrocosm as man is the former when compared with his own little Solar\nCosmos._(1020)\n\nThe essential power of all the cosmic and terrestrial Elements to generate\nwithin themselves a regular and harmonious series of results, a\nconcatenation of causes and effects, is an irrefutable proof that they are\neither animated by an _Intelligence_, _ab extr\u00e2_ or _ab intr\u00e2_, or conceal\nsuch within or behind the \u201cmanifested veil.\u201d Occultism does not deny the\ncertainty of the mechanical origin of the Universe; it only claims the\nabsolute necessity of mechanicians of some sort behind or within those\nElements\u2014a dogma with us. It is not the fortuitous assistance of the Atoms\nof Lucretius, as he himself knew well, that built the Kosmos and all in\nit. Nature herself contradicts such a theory. Celestial Space, containing\nMatter so attenuated as Ether, cannot be called on, with or without\nattraction, to explain the common motion of the sidereal hosts. Although\nthe perfect accord of their inter\u2010revolution indicates clearly the\npresence of a mechanical cause in Nature, Newton, who of all men had most\nright to trust to his deductions, was nevertheless forced to abandon the\nidea of ever explaining the original impulse given to the millions of\norbs, by merely the laws of _known_ Nature and its material Forces. He\nrecognized fully the limits that separate the action of natural Forces\nfrom that of the _Intelligences_ that set the immutable laws in order and\naction. And if a Newton had to renounce such hope, which of the modern\nmaterialistic pigmies has the right of saying: \u201cI know better?\u201d\n\nA cosmogonical theory, to become complete and comprehensible, has to start\nwith a Primordial Substance diffused throughout boundless Space, _of an\nintellectual and divine nature_. That Substance must be the Soul and\nSpirit, the Synthesis and Seventh Principle of the manifested Kosmos, and,\nto serve as a spiritual Up\u00e2dhi to this, there must be the sixth, its\nvehicle\u2014Primordial Physical Matter, so to speak, though its nature must\nescape for ever our limited _normal_ senses. It is easy for an Astronomer,\nif endowed with an imaginative faculty, to build a theory of the emergence\nof the Universe out of Chaos, by simply applying to it the principles of\nmechanics. But such a Universe will always prove a Frankenstein\u2019s monster\nwith respect to its scientific human creator; it will lead him into\nendless perplexities. The application of mechanical laws only can never\ncarry the speculator beyond the objective world; nor will it unveil to men\nthe origin and final destiny of Kosmos. This is whither the Nebular Theory\nhas led Science. In sober fact and truth this Theory is twin sister to\nthat of Ether, and both are the offspring of necessity; one is as\nindispensable to account for the transmission of light, as is the other to\nexplain the problem of the origin of the Solar Systems. The question with\nScience is, how the same homogeneous Matter(1021) could, obeying the laws\nof Newton, give birth to bodies\u2014Sun, Planets, and their satellites\u2014subject\nto conditions of identity of motion, and formed of such heterogeneous\nelements.\n\nHas the Nebular Theory helped to solve the problem, even if applied solely\nto bodies considered as inanimate and material? We say: most decidedly\nnot. What progress has it made since 1811, when first Sir William\nHerschell\u2019s paper, with its facts based on observation and showing the\nexistence of nebular matter, made the sons of the Royal Society \u201cshout for\njoy\u201d? Since then a still greater discovery, through spectrum analysis, has\npermitted the verification and corroboration of Sir William Herschell\u2019s\nconjecture. Laplace demanded some kind of primitive \u201cworld\u2010stuff\u201d to prove\nthe idea of progressive world\u2010evolution and growth. Here it is, as offered\ntwo millenniums ago.\n\nThe \u201cworld\u2010stuff,\u201d now called nebul\u00e6, was known from the highest\nantiquity. Anaxagoras taught that, upon differentiation, the resulting\ncommixture of heterogeneous substances remained motionless and\nunorganized, until finally the \u201cMind\u201d\u2014the collective body of Dhy\u00e2n\nChohans, we say\u2014began to work upon, and communicated to, them motion and\norder.(1022) This theory is now taken up, so far as concerns its first\nportion; the last, that of any \u201cMind\u201d interfering, being rejected.\nSpectrum analysis reveals the existence of nebul\u00e6 formed entirely of gases\nand luminous vapours. Is this the primitive nebular Matter? The spectra\nreveal, it is said, the physical conditions of the Matter which emits\ncosmic light. The spectra of the resolvable and the irresolvable nebul\u00e6\nare shown to be entirely different, the spectra of the latter showing\ntheir physical state to be that of glowing gas or vapour. The bright lines\nof one nebula reveal the existence of hydrogen, and of other material\nsubstances known and unknown. The same as to the atmospheres of the Sun\nand Stars. This leads to the direct inference that a Star is formed by the\ncondensation of a nebula; hence that even the metals themselves are formed\non earth by the condensation of hydrogen or of some other primitive\nmatter, some ancestral cousin to helium, perhaps, or some yet unknown\nstuff. _This does not clash with the Occult Teachings._ And this is the\nproblem that Chemistry is trying to solve; and it must succeed sooner or\nlater in the task, accepting _nolens volens_, when it does, the Esoteric\nTeaching. But when this does happen, it will kill the Nebular Theory as it\nnow stands.\n\nMeanwhile Astronomy cannot accept in any way, if it is to be regarded as\nan _exact_ Science, the present theory of the filiation of Stars\u2014even if\nOccultism does so in its own way, seeing that it explains this filiation\ndifferently\u2014because Astronomy has _not one single physical datum_ to show\nfor it. Astronomy could anticipate Chemistry in proving the existence of\nthe fact, if it could show a planetary nebula exhibiting a spectrum of\nthree or four bright lines, gradually condensing and transforming into a\nStar, with a spectrum all covered with a number of dark lines. But\n\n\n    The question of the variability of the nebul\u00e6, even as to their\n    form, is yet one of the mysteries of Astronomy. The data of\n    observation possessed so far are of too recent an origin, too\n    uncertain, to permit us to affirm anything.(1023)\n\n\nSince its discovery, the magic power of the spectroscope has revealed to\nits adepts only one single transformation of a Star of this kind; and even\nthat showed directly the reverse of what is needed as proof in favour of\nthe Nebular Theory; for it revealed _a Star transforming itself into a\nplanetary nebula_. As related in _The Observatory_,(1024) the temporary\nStar, discovered by J. F. J. Schmidt in the constellation Cygnus, in\nNovember, 1876, exhibited a spectrum broken by very brilliant lines.\nGradually, the continuous spectrum and most of the lines disappeared,\nleaving finally one single brilliant line, which appeared to coincide with\nthe green line of the nebula.\n\nThough this metamorphosis is not irreconcileable with the hypothesis of\nthe nebular origin of the Stars, nevertheless this single solitary case\nrests on no observation whatever, least of all on direct observation. The\noccurrence may have been due to several other causes. Since Astronomers\nare inclined to think our Planets are tending toward precipitation into\nthe Sun, why should not that Star have blazed up owing to a collision of\nsuch precipitated Planets, or, as many suggest, the appulse of a Comet? Be\nthat as it may, the only known instance of star\u2010transformation since 1811\nis not favourable to the Nebular Theory. Moreover, on the question of this\nTheory, as on all others, Astronomers disagree.\n\nIn our own age, and before Laplace ever thought of it, Buffon, being very\nmuch struck by the identity of motion in the Planets, was the first to\npropose the hypothesis that the Planets and their satellites originated in\nthe bosom of the Sun. Forthwith and for this purpose, he invented a\nspecial Comet, supposed to have torn out, by a powerful oblique blow, the\nquantity of matter necessary for their formation. Laplace gave its dues to\nthe \u201cComet\u201d in his _Exposition du Syst\u00e8me du Monde_.(1025) But the idea\nwas seized and even improved upon by a conception of the alternate\nevolution, from the Sun\u2019s central mass, of Planets _apparently_ without\nweight or influence on the motion of the visible Planets\u2014and as evidently\nwithout any more existence than the likeness of Moses in the Moon.\n\nBut the modern theory is also a variation on the systems elaborated by\nKant and Laplace. The idea of both was that, at the origin of things, all\nthat Matter which now enters into the composition of the planetary bodies\nwas spread over all the space comprized in the Solar System\u2014and even\nbeyond. It was a nebula of extremely small density, and its condensation\ngradually gave birth, by a mechanism that has hitherto never been\nexplained, to the various bodies of our System. This is the original\nNebular Theory, an _incomplete_ yet faithful repetition\u2014a short chapter\nout of the large volume of universal Esoteric Cosmogony\u2014of the teachings\nof the Secret Doctrine. And both systems, Kant\u2019s and Laplace\u2019s, differ\ngreatly from the modern Theory, redundant with conflicting _sub_\u2010theories\nand fanciful hypotheses. Say the Teachers:\n\n\n    _The essence of cometary matter_ [and of that which composes the\n    Stars] ... _is totally different from any of the chemical or\n    physical characteristics with which the greatest Chemists and\n    Physicists of the earth are familiar.... While the spectroscope\n    has shown the probable similarity_ [owing to the chemical action\n    of terrestrial light upon the intercepted rays] _of terrestrial\n    and sidereal substance, the chemical actions peculiar to the\n    variously progressed orbs of space, have not been detected, nor\n    proven to be identical with those observed on our own\n    planet._(1026)\n\n\nMr. Crookes says almost the same in the fragment quoted from his lecture,\n_Elements and Meta\u2010Elements_. C. Wolf, Member of the Institute, Astronomer\nof the Observatory, Paris, observes:\n\n\n    At the utmost the nebular hypothesis can only show in its favour,\n    with W. Herschell, the existence of planetary nebul\u00e6 in various\n    degrees of condensation, and of spiral nebul\u00e6, with nuclei of\n    condensation on the branches and centre.(1027) But, in fact, the\n    knowledge of the bond that unites the nebul\u00e6 to the stars is yet\n    denied to us; and lacking as we do direct observation, we are even\n    debarred from establishing it on the analogy of chemical\n    composition.(1028)\n\n\nEven if the men of Science\u2014leaving aside the difficulty arising out of\nsuch undeniable variety and heterogeneity of matter in the constitution of\nnebul\u00e6\u2014did admit, with the Ancients, that the origin of all the visible\nand invisible heavenly bodies must be sought for in one primordial\nhomogeneous world\u2010stuff, in a kind of _Pre_\u2010Protyle,(1029) it is evident\nthat this would not put an end to their perplexities. Unless they admit\nalso that our actual visible Universe is merely the Sth\u00fbla Shar\u00eera, the\ngross body, of the sevenfold Kosmos, they will have to face another\nproblem; especially if they venture to maintain that its now visible\nbodies are the result of the condensation of that one and single\nPrimordial Matter. For mere observation shows them that the operations\nwhich produced the actual Universe are far more complex than could ever be\nembraced in that theory.\n\nFirst of all, there are two distinct classes of \u201cirresolvable\u201d nebul\u00e6, as\nScience itself teaches.\n\nThe telescope is unable to distinguish between these two classes, but the\nspectroscope can do so, and notices an essential difference between their\nphysical constitutions.\n\n\n    The question of the resolvability of the nebul\u00e6 has been often\n    presented in too affirmative a manner and quite contrary to the\n    ideas expressed by the illustrious experimenter with the spectra\n    of these constellations\u2014Mr. Huggins. Every nebula whose spectrum\n    contains only bright lines is gaseous, it is said, and hence is\n    irresolvable; every nebula with a continuous spectrum must end by\n    resolving into stars with an instrument of sufficient power. This\n    assumption is contrary at once to the results obtained, and to\n    spectroscopic theory. The \u201cLyra\u201d nebula, the \u201cDumb\u2010bell\u201d nebula,\n    the central region of the nebula of Orion, appear resolvable, and\n    show a spectrum of bright lines; the nebula of Canes Venatici is\n    not resolvable, and gives a continuous spectrum. Because, indeed,\n    the spectroscope informs us of the physical state of the\n    constituent matter of the stars, but affords us no notions of\n    their modes of aggregation. A nebula formed of gaseous globes (or\n    even of nuclei, faintly luminous, surrounded by a powerful\n    atmosphere) would give a spectrum of lines and be still\n    resolvable; such seems to be the state of Huggins\u2019 region in the\n    Orion nebula. A nebula formed of solid or fluidic particles in a\n    state of incandescence, a true cloud, will give a continuous\n    spectrum and will be irresolvable.\n\n\nSome of these nebul\u00e6, Wolf tells us,\n\n\n    Have a spectrum of three or four bright lines, others a continuous\n    spectrum. The first are gaseous, the others formed of a\n    pulverulent matter. The former must constitute a veritable\n    atmosphere: it is among these that the solar nebula of Laplace has\n    to be placed. The latter form an _ensemble_ of particles that may\n    be considered as independent, and the rotation of which obeys the\n    laws of internal weight: such are the nebul\u00e6 adopted by Kant and\n    Faye. Observation allows us to place the one as the other at the\n    very origin of the planetary world. But when we try to go beyond\n    and ascend to the primitive chaos which has produced the totality\n    of the heavenly bodies, we have first to account for the actual\n    existence of these two classes of nebul\u00e6. If the primitive chaos\n    were a cold luminous gas,(1030) one could understand how the\n    contraction resulting from attraction could have heated it and\n    made it luminous. We have to explain the condensation of this gas\n    to the state of incandescent particles, the presence of which is\n    revealed to us in certain nebul\u00e6 by the spectroscope. If the\n    original chaos was composed of such particles, how did certain of\n    their portions pass into the gaseous state, while others have\n    preserved their primitive condition?\n\n\nSuch is the synopsis of the objections and difficulties in the way of the\nacceptance of the Nebular Theory, brought forward by the French _savant_,\nwho concludes this interesting argument by declaring that:\n\n\n    The first part of the cosmogonical problem\u2014what is the primitive\n    matter of chaos; and how did that matter give birth to the sun and\n    stars?\u2014thus remains to this day in the domain of romance and of\n    mere imagination.(1031)\n\n\nIf this is the last word of Science upon the subject, whither then should\nwe turn in order to learn what the Nebular Theory is supposed to teach?\nWhat, in fact, is this theory? What it _is_, no one seems to know for\ncertain. What it is not\u2014we learn from the erudite author of _World\u2010Life_.\nHe tells us that it:\n\n\n    i. Is not a theory of the evolution of the Universe. It is\n    primarily a genetic explanation of the phenomena of the solar\n    system, and accessorily a co\u2010ordination in a common conception of\n    the principal phenomena in the stellar and nebular firmament, as\n    far as human vision has been able to penetrate.\n\n    ii. It does not regard the comets as involved in that particular\n    evolution which has produced the Solar System. [The Esoteric\n    Doctrine does, because it, too, \u201crecognizes the comets as forms of\n    cosmic existence co\u2010ordinated with earlier stages of nebular\n    evolution\u201d; and it actually assigns _to them chiefly_ the\n    formation of all worlds.]\n\n    iii. _It does not deny an antecedent history of the luminous fire\n    mist_\u2014[the _secondary_ stage of evolution in the Secret Doctrine]\n    [and] ... makes no claim to having reached an absolute beginning.\n    [And even it allows that this] fire mist may have previously\n    existed in a cold, non\u2010luminous and invisible condition.\n\n    iv. [And that finally] _it does not profess to discover the_\n    ORIGIN _of things, but only a stadium in material history_....\n    [leaving] the philosopher and the theologian as free as they ever\n    were to seek the origin of the modes of being.(1032)\n\n\nBut this is not all. Even the greatest philosopher of England\u2014Mr. Herbert\nSpencer\u2014arrayed himself against this fantastic theory by saying that (_a_)\n\u201cThe problem of existence is not resolved\u201d by it; (_b_) the nebular\nhypothesis \u201cthrows no light upon the origin of diffused matter\u201d; and (_c_)\nthat \u201cthe nebular hypothesis (as it now stands) implies a First\nCause.\u201d(1033)\n\nThe latter, we are afraid, is more than our modern Physicists have\nbargained for. Thus, it seems that the poor \u201chypothesis\u201d can hardly expect\nto find help or corroboration even in the world of the Metaphysicians.\n\nConsidering all this, the Occultists believe they have a right to present\n_their_ Philosophy, however misunderstood and ostracized it may be at\npresent. And they maintain that this failure of the Scientists to discover\nthe truth is entirely due to their Materialism and their contempt for\ntranscendental Sciences. Yet although the scientific minds in our century\nare as far from the true and correct doctrine of Evolution as ever, there\nmay be still some hope left for the future, for even now we find another\nScientist giving us a faint glimmer of it.\n\nIn an article in the _Popular Science Review_ on \u201cRecent Researches in\nMinute Life,\u201d we find Mr. H. J. Slack, F.C.S., Sec. R.M.S., saying:\n\n\n    There is an evident convergence of all sciences, from physics to\n    chemistry and physiology, toward some doctrine of evolution and\n    development, of which the facts of Darwinism will form part, but\n    what ultimate aspect this doctrine will take, there is little, if\n    any, evidence to show, and perhaps it will not be shaped by the\n    human mind until metaphysical as well as physical inquiries are\n    much more advanced.(1034)\n\n\nThis is a happy forecast indeed. The day _may_ come, then, when \u201cNatural\nSelection,\u201d as taught by Mr. Darwin and Mr. Herbert Spencer, will, in its\nultimate modification, form only _a part_ of our Eastern doctrine of\nEvolution, which will be Manu and Kapila _Esoterically explained_.\n\n\n\n\nSection XIII. Forces\u2014Modes of Motion or Intelligences?\n\n\nThis is, then, the last word of Physical Science up to the present year,\n1888. Mechanical laws will never be able to prove the homogeneity of\nPrimeval Matter, except inferentially and as a desperate necessity, when\nthere will remain no other issue\u2014as in the case of Ether. Modern Science\nis secure only in its own domain and region; within the physical\nboundaries of our Solar System, beyond which everything, every particle of\nMatter, is different from the Matter it knows, and where Matter exists in\nstates of which Science can form no idea. _This_ Matter, which is truly\nhomogeneous, is beyond human perception, if perception is tied down merely\nto the five senses. We feel its effects through those INTELLIGENCES which\nare the results of its primeval differentiation, whom we name Dhy\u00e2n\nChohans, called in the Hermetic works the \u201cSeven Governors\u201d; those to whom\nPymander, the \u201cThought Divine,\u201d refers as the \u201cBuilding Powers,\u201d and whom\nAsklepios calls the \u201cSupernal Gods.\u201d This Matter\u2014the real Primordial\nSubstance, the Noumenon of all the \u201cmatter\u201d we know of\u2014some of our\nAstronomers even have been led to believe in, for they despair of the\npossibility of ever accounting for rotation, gravitation, and the origin\nof any mechanical physical laws, unless these INTELLIGENCES be admitted by\nScience. In the above\u2010quoted work upon Astronomy by Wolf,(1035) the author\nendorses fully the theory of Kant, and the latter theory, if not in its\ngeneral aspect, at any rate in some of its features, reminds one strongly\nof certain Esoteric Teachings. Here we have the world\u2019s system \u201creborn\nfrom its ashes,\u201d through a nebula\u2014the emanation from the bodies, dead and\ndissolved in Space, resultant of the _incandescence_ of the Solar\nCentre\u2014re\u00e4nimated by the combustible matter of the Planets. In this\ntheory, generated and developed in the brain of a young man hardly twenty\u2010\nfive years of age, who had never left his native place, K\u00f6nigsberg, a\nsmall town of Northern Prussia, one can hardly fail to recognize either\nthe presence of an inspiring external power, or an evidence of the\n_re\u00efncarnation_ which the Occultists see in it. It fills a gap which\nNewton, with all his genius, failed to bridge. And surely it is our\nPrimeval Matter, \u00c2k\u00e2sha, that Kant had in view, when he postulated a\nuniversally pervading primordial Substance, in order to solve Newton\u2019s\ndifficulty, and his failure to explain, by natural forces alone, the\nprimitive impulse imparted to the Planets. For, as he remarks in Chapter\nviii, if it is once admitted that the perfect harmony of the Stars and\nPlanets and the coincidence of their orbital planes prove the existence of\na natural Cause, which would thus be the Primal Cause, \u201cthat Cause cannot\nreally be the matter which fills to\u2010day the heavenly spaces.\u201d It must be\nthat which filled Space\u2014was Space\u2014originally, whose motion in\ndifferentiated Matter was the origin of the actual movements of the\nsidereal bodies; and which, \u201cin condensing itself in those very bodies,\nthus abandoned the space that is to\u2010day found void.\u201d In other words, it is\nof that same Matter that are now composed the Planets, Comets, and the Sun\nhimself, and that Matter, having originally formed itself into those\nbodies, has preserved its inherent quality of motion; which quality, now\ncentred in their nuclei, directs all motion. A very slight alteration of\nwords in this is needed, and a few additions, to make of it our Esoteric\nDoctrine.\n\nThe latter teaches that it is this original, primordial Prima Materia,\ndivine and intelligent, the direct emanation of the Universal Mind, the\nDaiviprakriti\u2014the Divine Light(1036) emanating from the Logos\u2014which formed\nthe nuclei of all the \u201cself\u2010moving\u201d orbs in Kosmos. It is the informing,\never\u2010present moving\u2010power and life\u2010principle, the Vital Soul of the Suns,\nMoons, Planets, and even of our Earth; the former latent, the latter\nactive\u2014the invisible Ruler and Guide of the gross body attached to, and\nconnected with, its Soul, which is the spiritual emanation, after all, of\nthese respective Planetary Spirits.\n\nAnother quite Occult Doctrine is the theory of Kant, that the Matter of\nwhich the inhabitants and the animals of other Planets are formed is of _a\nlighter and more subtle nature and of a more perfect conformation, in\nproportion to their distance from the Sun_. The latter is too full of\nVital Electricity, of the physical, life\u2010giving principle. Therefore, the\nmen on Mars are more ethereal than we are, while those on Venus are more\ngross, though far more intelligent, if less spiritual.\n\nThe last doctrine is not quite ours\u2014yet these Kantian theories are as\nmetaphysical, and as transcendental as any Occult Doctrines; and more than\none man of Science would, if he but _dared_ speak his mind, accept them as\nWolf does. From this Kantian Mind and Soul of the Suns and Stars to the\nMahat (Mind) and Prakriti of the _Pur\u00e2nas_ there is but a step. After all,\nthe admission of this by Science would be only the admission of a natural\ncause, whether it would or would not stretch its belief to such\nmetaphysical heights. But then Mahat, the Mind, is a \u201cGod,\u201d and Physiology\nadmits \u201cmind\u201d only as a temporary function of the material brain, and no\nmore.\n\nThe Satan of Materialism now laughs at all alike, and denies the visible\nas well as the invisible. Seeing in light, heat, electricity, and even in\nthe phenomenon of _life_, only properties inherent in Matter, it laughs\nwhenever life is called the _Vital Principle_, and derides the idea of its\nbeing independent of and distinct from the organism.\n\nBut here again scientific opinions differ as in everything else, and there\nare several men of Science who accept views very similar to ours.\nConsider, for instance, what Dr. Richardson, F.R.S. (elsewhere quoted at\nlength) says of that \u201cVital Principle,\u201d which he calls \u201cNervous Ether\u201d:\n\n\n    I speak only of a veritable _material agent_, refined, it may be,\n    to the world at large, but _actual and substantial_: an agent\n    having quality of weight and of volume, an agent susceptible of\n    chemical combination, and thereby of change of physical state and\n    condition, an agent passive in its action, moved always, that is\n    to say, by influences apart from itself,(1037) obeying other\n    influences, an agent possessing no initiative power, no _vis_ or\n    _energeia natur\u00e6_,(1038) but still playing a most important, if\n    not a primary part in the production of the phenomena resulting\n    from the action of the _energeia_ upon visible matter.(1039)\n\n\nAs Biology and Physiology now deny, _in toto_, the existence of a Vital\nPrinciple, this extract, together with De Quatrefages\u2019 admission, is a\nclear confirmation that there are men of Science who take the same views\nabout \u201cthings Occult\u201d as do Theosophists and Occultists. These recognize a\ndistinct Vital Principle independent of the organism\u2014material, of course,\n_as physical Force cannot be divorced from Matter_, but of a Substance\nexisting in a state unknown to Science. _Life for them is something more\nthan the mere interaction of molecules and atoms._ There is a Vital\nPrinciple without which no molecular combinations could ever have resulted\nin a living organism, least of all in the so\u2010called \u201cinorganic\u201d Matter of\nour plane of consciousness.\n\nBy \u201cmolecular combinations\u201d are meant, of course, those of the Matter of\nour present illusive perceptions, which Matter energizes only on this, our\nplane. And this is the chief point at issue.(1040)\n\nThus the Occultists are not alone in their beliefs. Nor are they so\nfoolish, after all, in rejecting even the \u201cgravity\u201d of Modern Science\nalong with other _physical_ laws, and in accepting instead _attraction_\nand _repulsion_. They see, moreover, in these two opposite Forces only the\ntwo _aspects_ of the Universal Unit, called _Manifesting Mind_; in which\naspects, Occultism, through its great Seers, perceives an innumerable Host\nof operative Beings: cosmic Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, Entities, whose essence, in its\n_dual_ nature, is the Cause of all terrestrial phenomena. For that essence\nis con\u2010substantial with the universal Electric Ocean, which is LIFE; and\nbeing dual, as said\u2014positive and negative\u2014it is the emanations of that\nduality that act now on Earth under the name of \u201cmodes of motion\u201d; even\nForce having now become objectionable as a word, for fear it should lead\nsomeone, even in thought, to separate it from Matter! It is, as Occultism\nsays, the dual _effects_ of that dual essence, which have now been called\ncentripetal and centrifugal forces, now negative and positive poles, or\npolarity, heat and cold, light and darkness, etc.\n\nAnd it is further maintained that even the Greek and Roman Catholic\nChristians are wiser in believing, as they do\u2014even if blindly connecting\nand tracing them all to an anthropomorphic God\u2014in Angels, Archangels,\nArchons, Seraphs, and Morning Stars, in all those theological _delici\u00e6\nhumani generis_, in short, that rule the Cosmic Elements, than Science is,\nin disbelieving in them altogether, and in advocating its mechanical\nForces. For these act very often with more than human intelligence and\npertinency. Nevertheless, that intelligence is denied and attributed to\nblind chance. But, as De Maistre was right in calling the law of\ngravitation merely a _word_ which replaced \u201cthe thing unknown,\u201d so are we\nright in applying the same remark to all the other Forces of Science. And\nif it is objected that the Count was an ardent Roman Catholic, then we may\ncite Le Couturier, as ardent a Materialist, who said the same thing, as\ndid also Herschell and many others.(1041)\n\nFrom Gods to men, from Worlds to atoms, from a Star to a rush\u2010light, from\nthe Sun to the vital heat of the meanest organic being\u2014the world of Form\nand Existence is an immense chain, the links of which are all connected.\nThe Law of Analogy is the first key to the world\u2010problem, and these links\nhave to be studied co\u00f6rdinately in their Occult relations to each other.\n\nWhen, therefore, the Secret Doctrine\u2014postulating that conditioned or\nlimited space (location) has no real being except in this world of\nillusion, or, in other words, in our perceptive faculties\u2014teaches that\nevery one of the higher, as of the lower worlds, is interblended with our\nown objective world; that millions of things and beings are, in point of\nlocalization, around and _in_ us, as we are around, with, and in them;\nthis is no mere metaphysical figure of speech, but a sober fact in Nature,\nhowever incomprehensible to our senses.\n\nBut one has to understand the phraseology of Occultism before criticizing\nwhat it asserts. For example, the Doctrine refuses\u2014as Science does, in one\nsense\u2014to use the words \u201cabove\u201d and \u201cbelow,\u201d \u201chigher\u201d and \u201clower,\u201d in\nreference to _invisible_ spheres, since here they are without meaning.\nEven the terms \u201cEast\u201d and \u201cWest\u201d are merely conventional, necessary only\nto aid our human perceptions. For though the Earth has its two fixed\npoints in the poles, North and South, yet both East and West are variable\nrelatively to our own position on the Earth\u2019s surface, and in consequence\nof its rotation from West to East. Hence, when \u201cother worlds\u201d are\nmentioned\u2014whether better or worse, more spiritual or still more material,\nthough both invisible\u2014the Occultist does not locate these spheres either\noutside or inside our Earth, as the theologians and the poets do; for\ntheir location is nowhere in the space known to, or conceived by, the\nprofane. They are, as it were, blended with our world\u2014interpenetrating it\nand interpenetrated by it. There are millions and millions of worlds and\nfirmaments visible to us; there are still greater numbers beyond those\nvisible to the telescope, and many of the latter kind do not belong to our\n_objective_ sphere of existence. Although as invisible as if they were\nmillions of miles beyond our Solar System, they are yet with us, near us,\n_within_ our own world, as objective and material to their respective\ninhabitants as ours is to us. But, again, the relation of these worlds to\nours is not that of a series of egg\u2010shaped boxes enclosed one within the\nother, like the toys called Chinese nests; each is entirely under its own\nspecial laws and conditions, having no direct relation to our sphere. The\ninhabitants of these, as already said, may be, for all we know, or feel,\npassing _through_ and _around_ us as if through empty space, their very\nhabitations and countries being interblended with ours, though not\ndisturbing our vision, because we have not yet the faculties necessary for\ndiscerning them. Yet by their spiritual sight the Adepts, and even some\nseers and sensitives, are always able to discern, whether in a greater or\nsmaller degree, the presence and close proximity to us of Beings\npertaining to other spheres of life. Those of the spiritually higher\nworlds communicate only with those terrestrial mortals who ascend to them,\nthrough individual efforts, on to the higher plane they are occupying.\n\n_The sons of Bh\u00fbmi_ [Earth] _regard the Sons of Deva\u2010lokas_ [Angel\u2010\nspheres] _as their Gods; and the Sons of lower kingdoms look up to the men\nof Bh\u00fbmi as to their Devas_ [Gods]; _men remaining unaware of it in their\nblindness.... They_ [men] _tremble before them while using them_ [for\nmagical purposes].... _The First Race of Men were the __\u201c__Mind\u2010born\nSons__\u201d__ of the former. They_ [the Pitris and Devas] _are our\nprogenitors_.(1042)\n\n\u201cEducated people,\u201d so\u2010called, deride the idea of Sylphs, Salamanders,\nUndines, and Gnomes; the men of Science regard any mention of such\nsuperstitions as an insult; and with a contempt of logic and common good\nsense, that is often the prerogative of \u201caccepted authority,\u201d they allow\nthose, whom it is their duty to instruct, to labour under the absurd\nimpression that in the whole Kosmos, or at any rate in our own atmosphere,\nthere are no other conscious, intelligent beings, save ourselves.(1043)\nAny other humanity (composed of distinct _human_ beings) save a mankind\nwith two legs, two arms, and a head with man\u2019s features on it, would not\nbe called human; though the etymology of the word would seem to have\nlittle to do with the general appearance of a creature. Thus, while\nScience sternly rejects even the possibility of there being such (to us,\ngenerally) invisible creatures, Society, while believing in it all\n_secretly_, is made to deride the idea openly. It hails with mirth such\nworks as the _Comte de Gabalis_, and fails to understand that _open satire\nis the securest mask_.\n\nNevertheless, such invisible worlds do exist. Inhabited as thickly as is\nour own, they are scattered throughout apparent Space in immense numbers;\nsome far more material than our own world, others gradually etherealizing\nuntil they become formless and are as \u201cbreaths.\u201d The fact that our\nphysical eye does not see them, is no reason for disbelieving in them.\nPhysicists cannot see their Ether, Atoms, \u201cmodes of motion,\u201d or Forces.\nYet they accept and teach them.\n\nIf we find, even in the natural world with which we are acquainted, Matter\naffording a partial analogy to the difficult conception of such invisible\nworlds, there seems little difficulty in recognizing the possibility of\nsuch a presence. The tail of a Comet, which, though attracting our\nattention by virtue of its luminosity, yet does not disturb or impede our\nvision of objects, which we perceive through and beyond it, affords the\nfirst stepping\u2010stone toward a proof of the same. The tail of a Comet\npasses rapidly across our horizon, and we should neither feel it, nor be\ncognizant of its passage, but for the brilliant coruscation, often\nperceived only by a few interested in the phenomenon, while everyone else\nremains ignorant of its presence and of its passage _through_, or across,\na portion of our globe. This tail may, or may not, be an integral portion\nof the being of the Comet, but its tenuity subserves our purpose as an\nillustration. Indeed, it is no question of superstition, but simply a\nresult of transcendental Science, and of logic still more, to admit the\nexistence of worlds formed of even far more attenuated Matter than the\ntail of a Comet. By denying such a possibility, Science has for the last\ncentury played into the hands of neither Philosophy nor true Religion, but\nsimply into those of Theology. To be able to dispute the better the\nplurality of even material worlds, a belief thought by many churchmen\nincompatible with the teachings and doctrines of the _Bible_,(1044)\nMaxwell had to calumniate the memory of Newton, and to try and convince\nhis public that the principles contained in the Newtonian philosophy are\nthose \u201cwhich lie at the foundation of all atheistical systems.\u201d(1045)\n\n\u201cDr. Whewell disputed the plurality of worlds by appeal to scientific\nevidence,\u201d writes Professor Winchell.(1046) And if even the habitability\nof physical worlds, of Planets, and distant Stars which shine in myriads\nover our heads is so disputed, how little chance is there for the\nacceptance of invisible worlds within the apparently transparent space of\nour own!\n\nBut, if we can conceive of a world composed of Matter still more\nattenuated to _our_ senses than the tail of a Comet, hence of inhabitants\nin it who are as ethereal, in proportion to _their_ Globe, as we are in\ncomparison with _our_ rocky, hard\u2010crusted Earth, no wonder if we do not\nperceive them, nor sense their presence or even existence. Only, in what\nis the idea contrary to Science? Cannot men and animals, plants and rocks,\nbe supposed to be endowed with quite a different set of senses from those\nwe possess? Cannot their organisms be born, develop, and exist, under\nother laws of being than those that rule our little world? Is it\nabsolutely necessary that every corporeal being should be clothed in\n\u201ccoats of skin\u201d like those that Adam and Eve were provided with in the\nlegend of Genesis? Corporeality, we are told, however, by more than one\nman of Science, \u201cmay exist under very divergent conditions.\u201d Professor A.\nWinchell\u2014arguing upon the plurality of worlds\u2014makes the following remarks:\n\n\n    It is not at all improbable that substances of a refractory nature\n    might be so mixed with other substances, known or unknown to us,\n    as to be capable of enduring vastly greater vicissitudes of heat\n    and cold than is possible with terrestrial organisms. The tissues\n    of terrestrial animals are simply suited to terrestrial\n    conditions. Yet even here we find different types and species of\n    animals adapted to the trials of extremely dissimilar\n    situations.... That an animal should be a quadruped or a biped is\n    something not depending on the necessities of organization, or\n    instinct, or intelligence. That an animal should possess just five\n    senses is not a necessity of percipient existence. There may be\n    animals on the earth with neither smell nor taste. There may be\n    beings on other worlds, and even on this, who possess more\n    numerous senses than we. The possibility of this is apparent when\n    we consider the high probability that other properties and other\n    modes of existence lie among the resources of the Cosmos, and even\n    of terrestrial matter. There are animals which subsist where\n    rational man would perish\u2014in the soil, in the river, and the sea\n    ... [and why not _human_ beings of different organizations, in\n    such case?].... Nor is incorporated rational existence conditioned\n    on warm blood, nor on any temperature which does not change the\n    forms of matter of which the organism may be composed. There may\n    be intelligences corporealized after some concept not involving\n    the processes of injection, assimilation, and reproduction. Such\n    bodies would not require daily food and warmth. They might be lost\n    in the abysses of the ocean, or laid up on a stormy cliff through\n    the tempests of an Arctic winter, or plunged in a volcano for a\n    hundred years, and yet retain consciousness and thought. It is\n    conceivable. Why might not psychic natures be enshrined in\n    indestructible flint and platinum? These substances are no further\n    from the nature of intelligence than carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and\n    lime. But, not to carry the thought to such an extreme [?], might\n    not high intelligence be embodied in frames as indifferent to\n    external conditions as the sage of the western plains, or the\n    lichens of Labrador, the rotifers which remain dried for years, or\n    the bacteria which pass living through boiling water.... These\n    suggestions are made simply to remind the reader how little can be\n    argued respecting the necessary conditions of intelligent,\n    organized existence, from the standard of corporeal existence\n    found upon the earth. Intelligence is, from its nature, as\n    universal and as uniform as the laws of the universe. Bodies are\n    merely the local fitting of intelligence to particular\n    modifications of universal matter or force.(1047)\n\n\nDo not we know through the discoveries of that same all\u2010denying Science\nthat we are surrounded by myriads of invisible lives? If these microbes,\nbacteria and the _tutti quanti_ of the infinitesimally small, are\ninvisible to us by virtue of their minuteness, cannot there be, at the\nother pole, beings as invisible owing to the quality of their texture or\nmatter\u2014to its tenuity, in fact? Conversely, as to the effects of cometary\nmatter, have we not another example of a half visible form of Life and\nMatter? The ray of sunlight entering our apartment reveals in its passage\nmyriads of tiny beings living their little life and ceasing to be,\nindependent and heedless of whether they are or are not perceived by our\ngrosser materiality. And so again, of the microbes and bacteria and such\u2010\nlike unseen beings in other elements. We passed them by, during those long\ncenturies of dreary ignorance, after the lamp of knowledge in the heathen\nand highly philosophical systems had ceased to throw its bright light on\nthe ages of intolerance and bigotry of early Christianity; and we would\nfain pass them by again now.\n\nAnd yet these lives surrounded us _then_ as they do now. They have worked\non, obedient to their own laws, and it is only as they have been gradually\nrevealed by Science that we have begun to take cognizance of them and of\nthe effects produced by them.\n\nHow long has it taken the world to become what it now is? If it can be\nsaid that even up to the present day cosmic dust, \u201cwhich has never\nbelonged to the earth before,\u201d(1048) reaches our Globe, how much more\nlogical is it to believe\u2014as the Occultists do\u2014that through the countless\nmillions of years that have rolled away since that dust aggregated and\nformed the Globe we live in round its nucleus of _intelligent_ Primeval\nSubstance, many humanities\u2014differing from our present mankind as greatly\nas the humanity which will evolve millions of years hence will differ from\nour races\u2014appeared but to disappear from the face of the Earth, as will\nour own. These primitive and far\u2010distant humanities are denied, because,\nas Geologists think, they have left no tangible relics of themselves. All\ntrace of them is swept away, and therefore they have never existed. Yet\ntheir relics\u2014though very few of them, truly\u2014are to be found, and they must\nbe discovered by geological research. But, even if they were never to be\nmet with, there would be no reason to say that no men could have ever\nlived in the geological periods to which their presence on earth is\nassigned. For their organisms needed no warm blood, no atmosphere, no\nfeeding; the author of _World\u2010Life_ is right, and there is no extravagance\nin believing as we do, that as, on scientific hypotheses, there may be to\nthis day \u201cpsychic natures enshrined in indestructible flint and platinum,\u201d\nso there were psychic natures enshrined in forms of equally indestructible\nPrimeval Matter\u2014the real forefathers of our Fifth Race.\n\nWhen, therefore, as in Volume II, we speak of men who inhabited this Globe\n18,000,000 years ago, we have in mind neither the men of our present\nraces, nor the present atmospheric laws, thermal conditions, etc. The\nEarth and Mankind, like the Sun, Moon, and Planets, all have their growth,\nchanges, development, and gradual evolution in their life\u2010periods; they\nare born, become infants, then children, adolescent, grown\u2010up, they grow\nold, and finally die. Why should not Mankind be also under this universal\nlaw? Says Uriel to Enoch:\n\n\n    Behold, I have showed thee all things, O Enoch.... Thou seest the\n    sun, the moon, and those which conduct the stars of heaven, which\n    cause all their operations, seasons, and arrivals to return. In\n    the days of sinners the years shall be shortened ... everything\n    done on earth shall be subverted ... the moon shall change its\n    laws.(1049)\n\n\nThe \u201cdays of sinners\u201d meant the days when Matter would be in its full sway\non Earth, and man would have reached the apex of physical development in\nstature and animality. That came to pass during the period of the\nAtlanteans, about the middle point of their Race, the Fourth, which was\ndrowned, as prophesied by Uriel. Since then man has been decreasing in\nphysical stature, strength, and years, as will be shown in Volume II. But\nas we are at the mid\u2010point of our sub\u2010race of the Fifth Root\u2010Race\u2014the acme\nof materiality in each\u2014the animal propensities, though more refined, are\nnone the less developed; and this is most marked in civilized countries.\n\n\n\n\nSection XIV. Gods, Monads and Atoms.\n\n\nSome years ago we remarked that:\n\n\n    The Esoteric Doctrine may well be called ... the \u201cThread\n    Doctrine,\u201d since, like S\u00fbtr\u00e2tm\u00e2 [in the Ved\u00e2nta Philosophy](1050),\n    it passes through and strings together all the ancient\n    philosophical religious systems, and ... reconciles and explains\n    them.(1051)\n\n\nWe now say it does more. It not only reconciles the various and apparently\nconflicting systems, but it checks the discoveries of modern exact\nScience, showing some of them to be necessarily correct, since they are\nfound corroborated in the Ancient Records. All this will, no doubt, be\nregarded as terribly impertinent and disrespectful, a veritable crime of\n_l\u00e8se\u2010science_; nevertheless, it is a fact.\n\nScience is, undeniably, ultra\u2010materialistic in our days; but it finds, in\none sense, its justification. Nature behaving ever esoterically _in actu_,\nand being, as the Kabalists say, _in abscondito_, can only be judged by\nthe profane through her appearance, and that appearance is always\ndeceitful on the physical plane. On the other hand, the Naturalists refuse\nto blend Physics with Metaphysics, the Body with its informing Soul and\nSpirit. They prefer to ignore the latter. This is a matter of choice with\nsome, while the minority very sensibly strive to enlarge the domain of\nPhysical Science by trespassing on the forbidden grounds of Metaphysics,\nso distasteful to some Materialists. These Scientists are wise in their\ngeneration. For all their wonderful discoveries will go for nothing, and\nremain for ever _headless_ bodies, unless they lift the veil of Matter and\nstrain their eyes to see _beyond_. Now that they have studied Nature in\nthe length, breadth, and thickness of her physical frame, it is time to\nremove the skeleton to the second plane, and search within the unknown\ndepths for the living and real entity, for its _sub_\u2010stance\u2014the noumenon\nof evanescent Matter.\n\nIt is only by acting along such lines that some truths, now called\n\u201cexploded superstitions,\u201d will be discovered to be facts, and the relics\nof ancient knowledge and wisdom.\n\nOne of such \u201cdegrading\u201d beliefs\u2014degrading in the opinion of the all\u2010\ndenying Sceptic\u2014is found in the idea that Kosmos, besides its objective\nplanetary inhabitants, its humanities in other inhabited worlds, is full\nof invisible, intelligent _Existences_. The so\u2010called Arch\u2010Angels, Angels\nand Spirits, of the West, copies of their prototypes, the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans,\nthe Devas and Pitris, of the East, are not real Beings, but fictions. On\nthis point materialistic Science is inexorable. To support its position,\nit upsets its own axiomatic law of uniformity and of continuity in the\nlaws of Nature, and all the logical sequence of analogies in the evolution\nof Being. The masses of the profane are asked, and are made to believe\nthat the accumulated testimony of History\u2014which shows even the \u201cAtheists\u201d\nof old, such men as Epicurus and Democritus, as believers in _Gods_\u2014is\nfalse; and that Philosophers like Socrates and Plato, asserting such\nexistences, were mistaken enthusiasts and fools. If we hold our opinions\nmerely on historical grounds, on the authority of legions of the most\neminent Sages, Neo\u2010Platonists, and Mystics in all ages, from Pythagoras\ndown to the eminent Scientists and Professors of the present century, who,\nif they reject \u201cGods,\u201d believe in \u201cSpirits,\u201d are we to consider such\nauthorities to be as weak\u2010minded and foolish as any Roman Catholic\npeasant, who believes in and prays to his once human Saint, or the\nArchangel St. Michael? But is there no difference between the belief of\nthe peasant and that of the Western heirs of the Rosicrucians and\nAlchemists of the Middle Ages? Is it the Van Helmonts, the Khunraths, the\nParacelsuses and Agrippas, from Roger Bacon down to St. Germain, who were\nall blind enthusiasts, hysteriacs or cheats, or is it the handful of\nmodern Sceptics\u2014the \u201cleaders of thought\u201d\u2014who are struck with the cecity of\nnegation? The latter is the case, we opine. It would indeed be a\n_miracle_, quite an abnormal fact in the realm of probabilities and logic,\nwere that handful of negators to be the sole custodians of _truth_, while\nthe million\u2010strong hosts of believers in Gods, Angels, and Spirits\u2014in\nEurope and America alone\u2014namely, Greek and Latin Christians, Theosophists,\nSpiritualists, Mystics, etc., should be no better than deluded fanatics\nand hallucinated mediums, and often no higher than the victims of\ndeceivers and impostors! However varying in their external presentations\nand dogmas, beliefs in the Hosts of invisible Intelligences of various\ngrades have all the same foundation. Truth and error are mixed in all. The\nexact extent, depth, breadth, and length of the mysteries of Nature are to\nbe found only in Eastern Esoteric Science. So vast and so profound are\nthese that scarcely even a few, a very few of the highest Initiates\u2014those\n_whose very existence is known but to a small number of Adepts_\u2014are\ncapable of assimilating the knowledge. Yet it is all there, and one by one\nfacts and processes in Nature\u2019s workshops are permitted to find their way\ninto exact Science, while mysterious help is given to rare individuals in\nunravelling its arcana. It is at the close of great Cycles, in connection\nwith racial development, that such events generally take place. We are at\nthe very close of the cycle of 5,000 years of the present \u00c2ryan Kali Yuga;\nand between this time and 1897 there will be a large rent made in the Veil\nof Nature, and materialistic Science will receive a death\u2010blow.\n\nWithout throwing any discredit upon time\u2010honoured beliefs, in any\ndirection, we are forced to draw a marked line between blind faith,\nevolved by theologies, and knowledge due to the independent researches of\nlong generations of Adepts; between, in short, faith and Philosophy. There\nhave been, in all ages, undeniably learned and good men who, having been\nreared in sectarian beliefs, died in their crystallized convictions. For\nProtestants, the garden of Eden is the primeval point of departure in the\ndrama of Humanity, and the solemn tragedy on the summit of Calvary is the\nprelude to the hoped\u2010for Millennium. For Roman Catholics, Satan is at the\nfoundation of Kosmos, Christ in its centre, and Antichrist at its apex.\nFor both, the Hierarchy of Being begins and ends within the narrow frames\nof their respective theologies: one self\u2010created _personal_ God, and an\nempyrean ringing with the Hallelujas of _created_ Angels; the rest,\n_false_ Gods, Satan and fiends.\n\nTheo\u2010Philosophy proceeds on broader lines. From the very beginning of\n\u00e6ons\u2014in time and space in our Round and Globe\u2014the mysteries of Nature (at\nany rate, those which it is lawful for our Races to know) were recorded by\nthe pupils of those same, now invisible, \u201cHeavenly Men,\u201d in geometrical\nfigures and symbols. The keys thereto passed from one generation of \u201cWise\nMen\u201d to another. Some of the symbols thus passed from the East to the\nWest, brought from the Orient by Pythagoras, who was not the inventor of\nhis famous \u201cTriangle.\u201d The latter figure, along with the square and\ncircle, are more eloquent and scientific descriptions of the order of the\nevolution of the Universe, spiritual and psychic, as well as physical,\nthan volumes of descriptive Cosmogonies and revealed \u201cGeneses.\u201d The ten\nPoints inscribed within that \u201cPythagorean Triangle\u201d are worth all the\ntheogonies and angelologies ever emanated from the theological brain. For\nhe who interprets these seventeen points (the seven Mathematical Points\nhidden)\u2014on their very face, and in the order given\u2014will find in them the\nuninterrupted series of the genealogies from the first Heavenly to\nTerrestrial Man. And, as they give the order of Beings, so they reveal the\norder in which were evolved the Kosmos, our Earth, and the primordial\nElements by which the latter was generated. Begotten in the invisible\n\u201cDepths,\u201d and in the Womb of the same \u201cMother\u201d as its fellow\u2010globes\u2014he who\nmasters the mysteries of our own Earth will have mastered those of all\nothers.\n\nWhatever ignorance, pride or fanaticism may suggest to the contrary,\nEsoteric Cosmology can be shown to be inseparably connected with both\nPhilosophy and Modern Science. The Gods and Monads of the Ancients\u2014from\nPythagoras down to Leibnitz\u2014and the Atoms of the present materialistic\nschools (as borrowed by them from the theories of the old Greek Atomists)\nare only a compound unit, or a graduated unity like the human frame, which\nbegins with body and ends with Spirit. In the Occult Sciences they can be\nstudied separately, but they can never be mastered unless they are viewed\nin their mutual correlations during their life\u2010cycle, and as a Universal\nUnity during Pralayas.\n\nLa Pluche shows sincerity, but gives a poor idea of his philosophical\ncapacities, when declaring his personal views on the Monad or the\nMathematical Point. He says:\n\n\n    A point is enough to put all the schools in the world in a\n    combustion. But what need has man to know that point, since the\n    creation of such a small being is beyond his power? _\u00c0 fortiori_,\n    philosophy acts against probability when, from that point which\n    absorbs and disconcerts all her meditations, she presumes to pass\n    on to the generation of the world.\n\n\nPhilosophy, however, could never have formed its conception of a logical,\nuniversal, and absolute Deity, if it had had no Mathematical Point within\nthe Circle upon which to base its speculations. It is only the manifested\nPoint, lost to our senses after its pregenetic appearance in the\ninfinitude and incognizability of the Circle, that makes a reconciliation\nbetween Philosophy and Theology possible\u2014on condition that the latter\nshould abandon its crude materialistic dogmas. And it is because Christian\ntheology has so unwisely rejected the Pythagorean Monad and geometrical\nfigures, that it has evolved its self\u2010created human and personal God, the\nmonstrous Head whence flow in two streams the dogmas of Salvation and\nDamnation. This is so true, that even those clergymen who are Masons, and\nwho would be Philosophers, have, in their arbitrary interpretations,\nfathered upon the Ancient Sages the queer idea that:\n\n\n    The Monad represented [with them] the throne of the Omnipotent\n    Deity, placed in the centre of the empyrean to indicate\n    T.G.A.O.T.U. [_read_ the \u201cGreat Architect of the Universe\u201d].(1052)\n\n\nA curious explanation this, more Masonic than strictly Pythagorean.\n\nNor did the \u201cHierogram within a Circle, or equilateral Triangle,\u201d ever\nmean \u201cthe exemplification of the unity of the divine Essence\u201d; for this\nwas exemplified by the plane of the boundless Circle. What it really meant\nwas the triune co\u00ebqual Nature of the first differentiated Substance, or\nthe con\u2010substantiality of the (manifested) Spirit, Matter and the\nUniverse\u2014their \u201cSon\u201d\u2014which proceeds from the Point, the real, Esoteric\nLogos, or Pythagorean Monad. For the Greek Monas signifies \u201cUnity\u201d in its\nprimary sense. Those unable to seize the difference between the Monad\u2014the\nUniversal Unit\u2014and the Monads or the manifested Unity, as also between the\never\u2010hidden and the revealed Logos, or the Word, ought never to meddle\nwith Philosophy, let alone with the Esoteric Sciences. It is needless to\nremind the educated reader of Kant\u2019s Thesis to demonstrate his second\nAntinomy.(1053) Those who have read and understood it will see clearly the\nline we draw between the _absolutely ideal_ Universe and the invisible\nthough manifested Kosmos. Our Gods and Monads are not the Elements of\nextension itself, but only those of the invisible Reality which is the\nbasis of the manifested Kosmos. Neither Esoteric Philosophy, nor Kant, to\nsay nothing of Leibnitz, would ever admit that extension can be composed\nof simple or unextended parts. But theologian\u2010philosophers will not grasp\nthis. The Circle and the Point\u2014the latter retiring into and merging with\nthe former, after having emanated the first three Points and connected\nthem with lines, thus forming the first noumenal basis of the Second\nTriangle in the Manifested World\u2014have ever been an insuperable obstacle to\ntheological flights into dogmatic empyreans. On the authority of this\nArchaic Symbol, a male, personal God, the Creator and Father of all,\nbecomes a third\u2010rate emanation, the Sephira standing fourth in descent,\nand on the left hand of Ain Suph, in the Kabalistic Tree of Life. Hence,\nthe Monad is degraded into a Vehicle\u2014a \u201cThrone\u201d!\n\nThe Monad\u2014the emanation and reflection only of the Point, or Logos, in the\nphenomenal World\u2014becomes, as the apex of the manifested equilateral\nTriangle, the \u201cFather.\u201d The left side or line is the Duad, the \u201cMother,\u201d\nregarded as the evil, counteracting principle;(1054) the right side\nrepresents the \u201cSon,\u201d \u201chis Mother\u2019s Husband\u201d in _every_ Cosmogony, as\nbeing one with the apex; the base line is the universal plane of\nproductive Nature, unifying on the phenomenal plane Father\u2010Mother\u2010Son, as\nthese were unified in the apex, in the supersensuous World.(1055) By\nmystic transmutation they became the Quaternary\u2014the Triangle became the\nTetraktys.\n\nThis transcendental application of geometry to cosmic and divine\ntheogony\u2014the Alpha and the Omega of mystical conception\u2014was dwarfed after\nPythagoras by Aristotle. By omitting the Point and the Circle, and taking\nno account of the apex, he reduced the metaphysical value of the idea, and\nthus limited the doctrine of magnitude to a simple Triad\u2014the _line_, the\n_surface_, and the _body_. His modern heirs, who play at Idealism, have\ninterpreted these three geometrical figures as Space, Force, and\nMatter\u2014\u201cthe potencies of an interacting Unity.\u201d Materialistic Science,\nperceiving but the base line of the _manifested_ Triangle\u2014the plane of\nMatter\u2014translates it practically as (Father)\u2010_Matter_, (Mother)\u2010_Matter_,\nand (Son)\u2010_Matter_, and theoretically as Matter, Force, and Correlation.\n\nBut to the average Physicist, as remarked by a Kabalist:\n\n\n    Space, and Force, and Matter, are what signs in Algebra are to the\n    Mathematician, merely conventional symbols, or Force as Force, and\n    Matter as Matter, are as absolutely unknowable as is the assumed\n    empty space in which they are held to interact.(1056)\n\n\nSymbols represent abstractions, and on these\n\n\n    The physicist bases reasoned hypotheses of the origin of things\n    ... he sees three needs in what he terms creation: A place wherein\n    to create. A medium by which to create. A material from which to\n    create. And in giving a logical expression to this hypothesis\n    through the terms space, force, matter, he believes he has proved\n    the existence of that which each of these represents as he\n    conceives it to be.(1057)\n\n\nThe Physicist who regards Space merely as a representation of our mind, or\nextension unrelated to things in it, which Locke defined as capable of\nneither resistance nor motion; the paradoxical Materialist, who would have\na _void_ there, where he can see no Matter, would reject with the utmost\ncontempt the proposition that Space is\n\n\n    A substantial though [apparently an absolutely] unknowable living\n    Entity.(1058)\n\n\nSuch is, nevertheless, the Kabalistic teaching, and it is that of Archaic\nPhilosophy. Space is the _real_ World, while our world is an artificial\none. It is the One Unity throughout its infinitude: in its bottomless\ndepths as on its illusive surface; a surface studded with countless\nphenomenal Universes, Systems and mirage\u2010like Worlds. Nevertheless, to the\nEastern Occultist, who is an objective Idealist at bottom, in the _real_\nWorld, which is a Unity of Forces, there is \u201ca connection of all Matter in\nthe Plenum,\u201d as Leibnitz would say. This is symbolized in the Pythagorean\nTriangle.\n\nIt consists of Ten Points inscribed pyramid\u2010like (from one to four) within\nits three sides, and it symbolizes the Universe in the famous Pythagorean\nDecad. The upper single point is a Monad, and represents a Unit\u2010Point,\nwhich is _the_ Unity whence all proceeds. All is of the same essence with\nit. While the ten points within the equilateral Triangle represent the\nphenomenal world, the three sides enclosing the pyramid of points are the\nbarriers of _noumenal_ Matter, or Substance, that separate it from the\nworld of Thought.\n\n\n    Pythagoras considered a _point_ to correspond in proportion to\n    unity; a _line_ to 2; a _superfice_ to 3; a _solid_ to 4; and he\n    defined a point as a monad having position, and the beginning of\n    all things; a line was thought to correspond with duality, because\n    it was produced by the first motion from indivisible nature, and\n    formed the junction of two points. A superfice was compared to the\n    number three because it is the first of all causes that are found\n    in figures; for a circle, which is the principal of all round\n    figures, comprises a triad, in centre\u2014space\u2014circumference. But a\n    triangle, which is the first of all rectilineal figures, is\n    included in a ternary, and receives its form according to that\n    number; and was considered by the Pythagoreans to be the author of\n    all sublunary things. The four points at the base of the\n    Pythagorean triangle correspond with a solid or cube, which\n    combines the principles of length, breadth, and thickness, for no\n    solid can have less than four extreme boundary points.(1059)\n\n\nIt is argued that \u201cthe human mind cannot conceive an indivisible unit\nshort of the annihilation of the idea with its subject.\u201d This is an error,\nas the Pythagoreans have proved, and a number of Seers before them,\nalthough there is a special training needed for the conception, and\nalthough the profane mind can hardly grasp it. But there are such things\nas \u201c_Meta\u2010mathematics_\u201d and \u201c_Meta\u2010geometry_.\u201d Even Mathematics pure and\nsimple proceed from the universal to the particular, from the mathematical\nindivisible point to solid figures. The teaching originated in India, and\nwas taught in Europe by Pythagoras, who, throwing a veil over the Circle\nand the Point\u2014which no living man can define except as incomprehensible\nabstractions\u2014laid the origin of the differentiated cosmic Matter in the\nbase of the Triangle. Thus the latter became the earliest of geometrical\nfigures. The author of _New Aspects of Life_, dealing with the Kabalistic\nMysteries, objects to the objectivization, so to speak, of the Pythagorean\nconception and the use of the equilateral triangle, and calls it a\n\u201cmisnomer.\u201d His argument that a solid equilateral body\u2014\n\n\n    One whose base, as well as each of its sides, form equal\n    triangles\u2014must have four co\u2010equal sides or surfaces, while a\n    triangular plane will as necessarily possess five,(1060)\n\n\n\u2014demonstrates on the contrary the grandeur of the conception in all its\nEsoteric application to the idea of the _pregenesis_, and the genesis of\nKosmos. Granted, that an ideal Triangle, depicted by mathematical,\nimaginary lines,\n\n\n    Can have no sides at all, being simply a phantom of the mind to\n    which, if sides be imputed, these must be the sides of the object\n    it constructively represents.(1061)\n\n\nBut in such case most of the scientific hypotheses are no better than\n\u201cphantoms of the mind\u201d; they are unverifiable, except on inference, and\nhave been adopted merely to answer scientific necessities. Furthermore,\nthe ideal Triangle\u2014\u201cas the abstract idea of a triangular body, and,\ntherefore, as the type of an abstract idea\u201d\u2014accomplished and carried out\nto perfection the double symbolism intended. As an emblem applicable to\nthe objective idea, the simple triangle became a solid. When repeated in\nstone, facing the four cardinal points, it assumed the shape of the\nPyramid\u2014the symbol of the phenomenal merging into the noumenal Universe of\nthought, at the apex of the four triangles; and, as an \u201cimaginary figure\nconstructed of three mathematical lines,\u201d it symbolized the subjective\nspheres\u2014these lines \u201cenclosing a mathematical space\u2014which is equal to\nnothing enclosing nothing.\u201d And this because, to the senses and the\nuntrained consciousness of the Profane and the Scientist, everything\nbeyond the line of differentiated Matter\u2014_i.e._, outside of, and beyond\nthe realm of even the most Spiritual _Substance_\u2014has to remain for ever\n_equal to nothing_. It is the Ain Suph\u2014the _No Thing_.\n\nYet these \u201cphantoms of the mind\u201d are in truth no greater abstractions than\nthe abstract ideas in general as to evolution and physical\ndevelopment\u2014_e.g._, Gravity, Matter, Force, etc.\u2014on which the exact\nSciences are based. Our most eminent Chemists and Physicists are earnestly\npursuing the not hopeless attempt of finally tracing to its hiding\u2010place\nthe Protyle, or the basic line of the Pythagorean Triangle. The latter is,\nas we have said, the grandest conception imaginable, for it symbolizes\nboth the ideal and the visible universes.(1062) For if\n\n\n    _The possible unit is only a possibility as an actuality of\n    nature, as an individual of any kind_, [and as] every individual\n    natural object is capable of division, and by division loses its\n    unity, or ceases to be a unit,(1063)\n\n\nthis is true only of the realm of exact Science in a world as deceptive as\nit is illusive. In the realm of Esoteric Science the Unit divided _ad\ninfinitum_, instead of losing its unity, approaches with every division\nthe planes of the only eternal REALITY. The eye of the Seer can follow it\nand behold it in all its pregenetic glory. This same idea of the reality\nof the subjective, and the unreality of the objective Universe, is found\nat the bottom of the Pythagorean and Platonic Teachings\u2014limited to the\nElect alone; for Porphyry, speaking of the Monad and the Duad, says that\nthe former only was considered substantial and real, \u201cthat most simple\nBeing, the cause of all unity and the measure of all things.\u201d\n\nBut the Duad, although the origin of Evil, or Matter\u2014hence _unreal_ in\nPhilosophy\u2014is still Substance during Manvantara, and is often called the\nThird Monad, in Occultism, and the connecting line as between two Points,\nor Numbers, which proceeded from THAT, \u201cwhich was before all Numbers,\u201d as\nexpressed by Rabbi Barahiel. And from this Duad proceeded all the\nScintillas of the three Upper and the four Lower Worlds or Planes\u2014which\nare in constant interaction and correspondence. This is a teaching which\nthe Kabalah has in common with Eastern Occultism. For in the Occult\nPhilosophy there is the \u201cONE Cause\u201d and the \u201cPrimal Cause,\u201d the latter\nthus becoming, paradoxically, the Second, as is clearly expressed by the\nauthor of the _Qabbalah, from the Philosophical Writings of Ibn Gabirol_,\nwho says:\n\n\n    In the treatment of the Primal Cause, two things must be\n    considered, the Primal Cause _per se_, and the relation and\n    connection of the Primal Cause with the visible and unseen\n    universe.(1064)\n\n\nThus he shows the early Hebrews, as the later Arabians, following in the\nsteps of the Oriental Philosophy, such as the Chaldean, Persian, Hind\u00fb,\netc. Their Primal Cause was designated at first,\n\n\n    By the triadic \u05e9\u05d3\u05d9 Shadda\u00ef, the [triune] Almighty, subsequently by\n    the Tetragrammaton, \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4, YHVH symbol of the Past, Present, and\n    Future,(1065)\n\n\nand, let us add, of the eternal IS, or the I AM. Moreover, in the Kabalah\nthe name YHVH (or Jehovah) expresses a He and a She, male and female, two\nin one, or Chokmah and Binah, and his, or rather their Shekinah or\nsynthesizing Spirit (or Grace), which again makes of the Duad a Triad.\nThis is demonstrated in the Jewish Liturgy for Pentecost, and the prayer:\n\n\n    \u201cIn the name of Unity, of the Holy and Blessed H\u00fb [He], and His\n    She\u2019keenah, the Hidden and Concealed H\u00fb, blessed be YHVH [the\n    Quaternary] for ever.\u201d H\u00fb is said to be masculine and YaH\n    feminine, together they make the \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 \u05d0\u05d7\u05d3 _i.e._, one YHVH. One,\n    but of a male\u2010female nature. The She\u2019keenah is always considered\n    in the Qabbalah as feminine.(1066)\n\n\nAnd so it is considered in the exoteric _Pur\u00e2nas_, for Shekinah is no more\nthan Shakti\u2014the female double of any God\u2014in such case. And so it was with\nthe early Christians, whose Holy Spirit was feminine, as Sophia was with\nthe Gnostics. But in the transcendental Chaldean Kabalah, or _Book of\nNumbers_, Shekinah is sexless, and the purest abstraction, a state, like\nNirv\u00e2na, neither subject nor object, nor anything except an absolute\nPRESENCE.\n\nThus it is only in the anthropomorphized systems\u2014such as the Kabalah has\nnow for the most part become\u2014that Shekinah\u2010Shakti is feminine. As such she\nbecomes the Duad of Pythagoras, the two straight lines which can form no\ngeometrical figure and are the symbol of Matter. Out of this Duad, when\nunited in the basic line of the Triangle on the lower plane (the upper\nTriangle of the Sephirothal Tree), emerge the Elohim, or Deity in Cosmic\nNature, with the true Kabalists the _lowest_ designation, translated in\nthe _Bible_ \u201cGod.\u201d(1067) Out of these (the Elohim) issue the Scintillas.\n\nThe Scintillas are the \u201cSouls,\u201d and these Souls appear in the three\u2010fold\nform of Monads (Units), Atoms and Gods\u2014according to our Teaching. As says\nthe _Esoteric Catechism_:\n\n_Every Atom becomes a visible complex unit_ [a molecule], _and once\nattracted into the sphere of terrestrial activity, the Monadic Essence,\npassing through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, becomes man_.\n\nAgain:\n\n_God, Monad, and Atom are the correspondences of Spirit, Mind, and Body_\n[\u00c2tm\u00e2, Manas, and Sth\u00fbla Shar\u00eera] _in man_.\n\nIn their septenary aggregation they are the \u201cHeavenly Man,\u201d in the\nKabalistic sense; thus, terrestrial man is the provisional reflection of\nthe Heavenly. Once again:\n\n_The Monads_ [J\u00eevas] _are the Souls of the Atoms; both are the fabric in\nwhich the Chohans_ [Dhy\u00e2n\u00ees, Gods] _clothe themselves when a form is\nneeded_.\n\nThis relates to cosmic and sub\u2010planetary Monads, not to the super\u2010cosmic\nMonads, the Pythagorean Monad, as it is called, in its synthetic\ncharacter, by the Pantheistical Peripatetics. The Monads of the present\ndissertation are treated, from the standpoint of their individuality, as\n_Atomic Souls_, before these Atoms descend into pure terrestrial form. For\nthis descent into _concrete_ Matter marks the medial point of their own\nindividual pilgrimage. Here, losing in the mineral kingdom their\nindividuality, they begin to ascend through the seven states of\nterrestrial evolution to that point where a correspondence is firmly\nestablished between the human and Deva (divine) consciousness. At present,\nhowever, we are not concerned with their terrestrial metamorphoses and\ntribulations, but with their life and behaviour in Space, on planes\nwherein the eye of the most intuitional Chemist and Physicist cannot reach\nthem\u2014unless, indeed, he develops in himself highly clairvoyant faculties.\n\nIt is well known that Leibnitz came very near the truth several times, but\nhe defined Monadic Evolution incorrectly, a thing not to be wondered at,\nsince he was not an Initiate, nor even a Mystic, but only a very\nintuitional Philosopher. Yet no Psycho\u2010physicist ever came nearer than has\nhe to the Esoteric general outline of evolution. This evolution\u2014viewed\nfrom its several standpoints, _i.e._, as the _Universal_ and the\n_Individualized_ Monad, and the chief aspects of the Evolving Energy after\ndifferentiation, the purely Spiritual, the Intellectual, the Psychic and\nthe Physical\u2014may be thus formulated as an invariable law: a descent of\nSpirit into Matter, equivalent to an ascent in physical evolution; a\nre\u00e4scent from the depths of materiality towards its _status quo ante_,\nwith a corresponding dissipation of concrete form and substance up to the\nLaya\u2010state, or what Science calls the \u201czero\u2010point,\u201d and beyond.\n\nThese states\u2014once the spirit of Esoteric Philosophy is grasped\u2014become\nabsolutely necessary from simple logical and analogical considerations.\nPhysical Science having now ascertained, through its department of\nChemistry, the invariable law of this evolution of Atoms\u2014from their\n\u201cprotylean\u201d state down to that of a physical and then a chemical particle,\nor molecule\u2014cannot well reject these states as a general law. And once it\nis forced by its enemies\u2014Metaphysics and Psychology(1068)\u2014out of its\nalleged impregnable strongholds, it will find it more difficult than it\nnow appears to refuse room in the Spaces of SPACE to Planetary Spirits\n(Gods), Elementals, and even the Elementary Spooks or Ghosts, and others.\nAlready Figuier and Paul D\u2019Assier, two Positivists and Materialists, have\nsuccumbed before this logical necessity. Other and still greater\nScientists will follow in that intellectual \u201cFall.\u201d They will be driven\nout of their position not by spiritual, theosophical, or any other\nphysical or even mental phenomena, but simply by the enormous _gaps_ and\n_chasms_ that open daily and will still be opening before them, as one\ndiscovery follows the other, until they are finally knocked off their feet\nby the ninth wave of simple common sense.\n\nWe may take as an example, Mr. W. Crookes\u2019 latest discovery of what he has\nnamed Protyle. In the _Notes on the Bhagavad G\u00eet\u00e2_, by one of the best\nmetaphysicians and Ved\u00e2ntic scholars in India, the lecturer, referring\ncautiously to \u201cthings Occult\u201d in that great Indian Esoteric work, makes a\nremark as suggestive as it is strictly correct. He says:\n\n\n    Into the details of the evolution of the solar system itself, it\n    is not necessary for me to enter. You may gather some idea _as to\n    the way_ in which the various elements start into existence from\n    these three principles into which M\u00fblaprakriti [the Pythagorean\n    Triangle] is differentiated, by examining the lecture delivered by\n    Professor Crookes a short time ago upon the so\u2010called elements of\n    modern chemistry. This lecture will give you some idea of the way\n    in which these so\u2010called elements spring from Vishv\u00e2nara,(1069)\n    the most objective of these three principles, which seems to stand\n    in the place of the _protyle_ mentioned in that lecture. Except in\n    a few particulars, this lecture seems to give the outlines of the\n    theory of physical evolution on the plane of Vishv\u00e2nara, and is,\n    so far as I know, the nearest approach made by modern\n    investigators to the real occult theory on the subject.(1070)\n\n\nThese words will be re\u00ebchoed and approved by every Eastern Occultist. Much\nfrom the lectures by Mr. Crookes has already been quoted in Section XI. A\nsecond lecture has been delivered by him, as remarkable as the first, on\nthe \u201cGenesis of the Elements,\u201d(1071) and also a third one. Here we have\nalmost a corroboration of the teachings of Esoteric Philosophy concerning\nthe mode of primeval evolution. It is, indeed, as near an approach, made\nby a great scholar and specialist in Chemistry,(1072) to the Secret\nDoctrine, as could be made apart from the application of the Monads and\nAtoms to the dogmas of pure transcendental Metaphysics, and their\nconnection and correlation with \u201cGods and intelligent conscious Monads.\u201d\nBut Chemistry is now on its ascending plane, thanks to one of its highest\nEuropean representatives. It is impossible for it to go back to that day\nwhen Materialism regarded its _sub_\u2010elements as absolutely simple and\nhomogeneous bodies, which it had raised, in its blindness, to the rank of\nElements. The mask has been snatched off by too clever a hand for there to\nbe any fear of a new disguise. And after years of pseudology, of bastard\nmolecules parading under the name of Elements, behind and beyond which\nthere could be nought but void, a great professor of Chemistry asks once\nmore:\n\n\n    What are these elements, whence do they come, what is their\n    signification?... These elements perplex us in our researches,\n    baffle us in our speculations, and haunt us in our very dreams.\n    They stretch like an unknown sea before us\u2014mocking, mystifying,\n    and murmuring strange revelations and possibilities.(1073)\n\n\nThose who are heirs to primeval revelations have taught these\n\u201cpossibilities\u201d in every century, but have never found a fair hearing. The\ntruths inspired into Kepler, Leibnitz, Gassendi, Swedenborg, etc., were\never alloyed with their own speculations in one or another predetermined\ndirection\u2014hence were distorted. But now one of the great truths has dawned\nupon an eminent professor of exact Modern Science, and he fearlessly\nproclaims as a fundamental axiom that Science has not made itself\nacquainted, so far, with real simple Elements. For Mr. Crookes tells his\naudience:\n\n\n    If I venture to say that our commonly received elements are not\n    simple and primordial, that they have _not_ arisen by chance or\n    have _not_ been created in a desultory and mechanical manner, but\n    have been evolved from simpler matters\u2014or perhaps, indeed, from\n    one sole kind of matter\u2014I do but give formal utterance to an idea\n    which has been, so to speak, for some time \u201cin the air\u201d of\n    science. Chemists, physicists, philosophers of the highest merit,\n    declare explicitly their belief that the seventy (or thereabouts)\n    elements of our text\u2010books are not the pillars of Hercules which\n    we must never hope to pass.... Philosophers in the present as in\n    the past\u2014men who certainly have not worked in the laboratory\u2014have\n    reached the same view from another side. Thus Mr. Herbert Spencer\n    records his conviction that \u201cthe chemical atoms are produced from\n    the true or physical atoms by processes of evolution under\n    conditions which chemistry has not yet been able to produce.\u201d...\n    And the poet has forestalled the philosopher. Milton (_Paradise\n    Lost_, Book V.) makes the Archangel Raphael say to Adam instinct\n    with the evolutionary idea, that the Almighty had created\n\n    ... \u201cOne first matter, all\n    Indued with various forms, various degrees\n    Of substance.\u201d\n\n\nNevertheless, the idea would have remained crystallized \u201cin the air of\nScience,\u201d and would not have descended into the thick atmosphere of\nMaterialism and profane mortals for years to come, perhaps, had not Mr.\nCrookes bravely and fearlessly reduced it to its simple constituents, and\nthus publicly forced it on scientific notice. Says Plutarch:\n\n\n    An idea is a Being incorporeal, which has no subsistence by\n    itself, but gives figure and form unto shapeless matter, and\n    becomes the cause of the manifestation.(1074)\n\n\nThe revolution produced in old Chemistry by Avogadro was the first page in\nthe volume of \u201cNew Chemistry.\u201d Mr. Crookes has now turned the second page,\nand is boldly pointing _to what may be the last_. For Protyle once\naccepted and recognized\u2014as invisible Ether was, both being logical and\nscientific necessities\u2014Chemistry will have virtually ceased to live: it\nwill re\u00e4ppear in its re\u00efncarnation as\u2014\u201cNew Alchemy,\u201d or \u201cMeta\u2010chemistry.\u201d\nThe discoverer of radiant matter will have vindicated in time the Archaic\n\u00c2ryan works on Occultism, and even the _Vedas_ and _Pur\u00e2nas_. For what are\nthe manifested \u201cMother,\u201d the \u201cFather\u2010Son\u2010Husband\u201d (Aditi and Daksha, a\nform of Brahm\u00e2, as Creators), and the \u201cSon\u201d\u2014the three \u201cFirst\u2010born\u201d\u2014but\nsimply Hydrogen, Oxygen, and that which in its terrestrial manifestation\nis called Nitrogen. Even the exoteric descriptions of the \u201cFirst\u2010born\u201d\nTriad give all the characteristics of these three \u201cgases.\u201d Priestley, the\n\u201cdiscoverer\u201d of Oxygen, or of that which was known in the highest\nantiquity!\n\nYet all the ancient, medi\u00e6val, and modern Poets and Philosophers have been\nanticipated even in the exoteric Hind\u00fb books as to the Elemental Vortices\ninaugurated by the Universal Mind\u2014Descartes\u2019 \u201cPlenum\u201d of Matter\ndifferentiated into particles; Leibnitz\u2019s \u201cethereal fluid\u201d; and Kant\u2019s\n\u201cprimitive fluid\u201d dissolved into its elements; Kepler\u2019s solar vortex and\nsystemic vortices; in short, through Anaxagoras, down to Galileo,\nTorricelli, and Swedenborg, and after them to the latest speculations by\nEuropean Mystics\u2014all this is found in the Hind\u00fb Hymns, or Mantras, to the\n\u201cGods, Monads and Atoms,\u201d in their Fulness, for they are inseparable. In\nEsoteric Teachings, the most transcendental conceptions of the Universe\nand its mysteries, as also the most seemingly materialistic speculations,\nare found reconciled, because these Sciences embrace the whole scope of\nevolution from Spirit to Matter. As declared by an American Theosophist:\n\n\n    The Monads [of Leibnitz] may from one point of view be called\n    _force_, from another _matter_. To Occult Science, _force_ and\n    _matter_ are only two sides of the same substance.(1075)\n\n\nLet the reader remember these \u201cMonads\u201d of Leibnitz, every one of which is\na living mirror of the Universe, every Monad reflecting every other, and\ncompare this view and definition with certain Sanskrit Shlokas translated\nby Sir William Jones, in which it is said that the creative source of the\nDivine Mind,\n\n\n    Hidden in a veil of thick darkness, formed mirrors of the atoms of\n    the world, and cast reflection from its own face on every atom.\n\n\nWhen, therefore, Mr. Crookes declares that:\n\n\n    If we can show how the so\u2010called chemical elements might have been\n    generated we shall be able to fill up a formidable gap in our\n    knowledge of the universe,\n\n\nthe answer is ready. The theoretical knowledge is contained in the\nEsoteric meaning of every Hind\u00fb cosmogony in the _Pur\u00e2nas_; the practical\ndemonstration thereof\u2014is in the hands of those who will not be recognized\nin _this_ century, save by the very few. The scientific possibilities of\nvarious discoveries, that must inexorably lead exact Science into the\nacceptation of Eastern Occult views, which contain all the requisite\nmaterial for the filling of those \u201cgaps,\u201d are, so far, at the mercy of\nModern Materialism. It is only by working in the direction taken by Mr.\nWilliam Crookes that there is any hope for the recognition of a few,\nhitherto Occult, truths.\n\nMeanwhile, any one thirsting to have a glimpse at a practical diagram of\nthe evolution of primordial Matter\u2014which, separating and differentiating\nunder the impulse of cyclic law, divides itself on a general view into a\nseptenary gradation of _Substance_\u2014can do no better than examine the\nplates attached to Mr. Crookes\u2019 lecture, _Genesis of the Elements_, and\nponder well over some passages of the text. In one place he says:\n\n\n    Our notions of a chemical element have expanded. Hitherto the\n    molecule has been regarded as an aggregate of two or more atoms,\n    and no account has been taken of the architectural design on which\n    these atoms have been joined. We may consider that the structure\n    of a chemical element is more complicated than has hitherto been\n    supposed. Between the molecules we are accustomed to deal with in\n    chemical reactions and ultimate atoms as first created, come\n    smaller molecules or aggregates of physical atoms; these sub\u2010\n    molecules differ one from the other, according to the position\n    they occupy in the yttrium edifice.\n\n    Perhaps this hypothesis can be simplified if we imagine yttrium to\n    be represented by a five\u2010shilling piece. By chemical fractionation\n    I have divided it into five separate shillings, and find that\n    these shillings are not counterparts, but like the carbon atoms in\n    the benzol ring, have the impress of their position, 1, 2, 3, 4,\n    5, stamped on them.... If I throw my shillings into the melting\u2010\n    pot or dissolve them chemically, the mint stamp disappears and\n    they all turn out to be silver.(1076)\n\n\nThis will be the case with all the Atoms and molecules when they have\nseparated from their compound forms and bodies\u2014when Pralaya sets in.\nReverse the case, and imagine the dawn of a new Manvantara. The pure\n\u201csilver\u201d of the absorbed material will once more separate into SUBSTANCE,\nwhich will generate \u201cDivine Essences\u201d whose \u201cPrinciples\u201d(1077) are the\nPrimary Elements, the Sub\u2010elements, the Physical Energies, and subjective\nand objective Matter; or, as these are epitomized\u2014GODS, MONADS, and ATOMS.\nIf leaving for one moment the metaphysical or transcendental side of the\nquestion\u2014dropping out of the present consideration the supersensuous and\nintelligent Beings and Entities believed in by the Kabalists and\nChristians\u2014we turn to the theory of atomic evolution, the Occult Teachings\nare still found corroborated by exact Science and its confessions, so far,\nat least, as regards the supposed \u201csimple\u201d Elements, now suddenly degraded\ninto poor and distant relatives, not even second cousins to the latter.\nFor we are told by Mr. Crookes that:\n\n\n    Hitherto, it has been considered that if the atomic weight of a\n    metal, determined by different observers, setting out from\n    different compounds, was always found to be constant ... then such\n    metal must rightly take rank among the simple or elementary\n    bodies. We learn ... that this is no longer the case. Again, we\n    have here wheels within wheels. Gadolinium is not an element but a\n    compound. ... We have shown that yttrium is a complex of five or\n    more new constituents. And who shall venture to gainsay that each\n    of these constituents, if attacked in some different manner, and\n    if the result were submitted to a test more delicate and searching\n    than the radiant\u2010matter test, might not be still further\n    divisible? Where, then, is the actual ultimate element? As we\n    advance it recedes like the tantalizing mirage lakes and groves\n    seen by the tired and thirsty traveller in the desert. Are we in\n    our quest for truth to be thus deluded and baulked? The very idea\n    of an element, as something absolutely primary and ultimate, seems\n    to be growing less and less distinct.(1078)\n\n\nIn _Isis Unveiled_, we said:\n\n\n    This mystery of first creation, which was ever the despair of\n    Science, is unfathomable unless we accept the doctrine of Hermes.\n    Could he [Darwin] remove his quest from the visible universe into\n    the invisible, he might find himself on the right path. But then,\n    he would be following in the footsteps of the Hermetists.(1079)\n\n\nOur prophecy begins to assert itself.\n\nBut between Hermes and Huxley there is a middle course and point. Let the\nmen of Science only throw a bridge half\u2010way, and think seriously over the\ntheories of Leibnitz. We have shown _our_ theories with regard to the\nevolution of Atoms\u2014their last formation into compound chemical molecules\nbeing produced within our terrestrial workshops in the Earth\u2019s atmosphere\nand not elsewhere\u2014as strangely agreeing with the evolution of Atoms shown\non Mr. Crookes\u2019 plates. Several times already it has been stated in this\nvolume that M\u00e2rtt\u00e2nda, the Sun, had evolved and aggregated, together with\nhis seven smaller Brothers, from his Mother Aditi\u2019s bosom, that bosom\nbeing Prima _Mater_\u2010ia\u2014the lecturer\u2019s primordial Protyle. Esoteric\nDoctrines teach the existence of\n\n\n    An antecedent form of energy having periodic cycles of ebb and\n    swell, rest and activity.(1080)\n\n\nAnd behold a great scholar in Science now asking the world to accept this\nas one of his postulates! We have shown the \u201cMother,\u201d fiery and hot,\nbecoming gradually cool and radiant, and this same Scientist claims as his\nsecond postulate\u2014a _scientific necessity_, it would seem\u2014\n\n\n    An internal action, akin to cooling, operating slowly in the\n    protyle.\n\n\nOccult Science teaches that the \u201cMother\u201d lies stretched in Infinity,\nduring Pralaya, as the great Deep, the \u201c_dry_ Waters of Space,\u201d according\nto the quaint expression in the _Catechism_, and becomes _wet_ only after\nthe separation and the moving over its face of N\u00e2r\u00e2yana, the\n\n_Spirit which is invisible Flame, which never burns, but sets on fire all\nthat it touches, and gives it life and generation._(1081)\n\nAnd now Science tells us that \u201cthe first\u2010born element ... most nearly\nallied to protyle\u201d would be \u201c_hydrogen_ ... which for some time would be\nthe only existing form of matter\u201d in the Universe. What says _Old_\nScience? It answers: Just so; but we would call Hydrogen (and Oxygen),\nwhich\u2014in the pre\u2010geological and even pre\u2010genetic ages\u2014instils the fire of\nlife into the \u201cMother\u201d by incubation, the _spirit_, the _noumenon_, of\nthat which becomes in its grossest form Oxygen and Hydrogen and Nitrogen\non Earth\u2014Nitrogen being of no divine origin, but merely an earth\u2010born\ncement for uniting other gases and fluids, and serving as a sponge to\ncarry in itself the Breath of Life, pure air.(1082) Before these gases and\nfluids become what they are in _our_ atmosphere, they are interstellar\nEther; still earlier and on a _deeper_ plane\u2014something else, and so on _in\ninfinitum_. The eminent and learned gentleman must pardon an Occultist for\nquoting him at such length; but such is the penalty of a Fellow of the\nRoyal Society who approaches so near the precincts of the Sacred Adytum of\nOccult Mysteries as virtually to overstep the forbidden boundaries.\n\nBut it is time to leave Modern Physical Science and turn to the\npsychological and metaphysical side of the question. We would only remark\nthat to the \u201ctwo very reasonable postulates\u201d required by the eminent\nlecturer, \u201cto get a glimpse of some few of the secrets so darkly hidden\u201d\nbehind \u201cthe door of the Unknown,\u201d a third should be added(1083)\u2014lest no\nbattering at it should avail; the postulate that Leibnitz stood on a firm\ngroundwork of fact and truth in his speculations. The admirable and\nthoughtful synopsis of these speculations\u2014as given by John Theodore Mertz\nin his \u201cLeibnitz\u201d\u2014shows how nearly he has brushed the hidden secrets of\nEsoteric Theogony in his _Monadologie_. And yet this philosopher has\nhardly risen in his speculations above the first planes, the lower\nprinciples of the Cosmic Great Body. His theory soars to no loftier\nheights than those of the _manifested_ life, self\u2010consciousness and\nintelligence, leaving the regions of the earlier post\u2010genetic mysteries\nuntouched, as his ethereal fluid is post\u2010planetary.\n\nBut this third postulate will hardly be accepted by the modern men of\nScience; and, like Descartes, they will prefer keeping to the properties\nof external things, which, like extension, are incapable of explaining the\nphenomenon of motion, rather than accept the latter as an independent\nForce. They will never become anti\u2010Cartesian in this generation; nor will\nthey admit that:\n\n\n    This property of inertia is not a purely geometrical property;\n    that it points to the existence of something in external bodies\n    which is not extension merely.\n\n\nThis is Leibnitz\u2019s idea as analyzed by Mertz, who adds that he called this\n\u201csomething\u201d Force, and maintained that external things were endowed with\nForce, and that in order to be the bearers of this Force they must have a\nSubstance, for they are not lifeless and inert masses, but the centres and\nbearers of Form\u2014a purely Esoteric claim, since Force was with Leibnitz an\n_active_ principle\u2014the division between Mind and Matter disappearing by\nthis conclusion.\n\n\n    The mathematical and dynamical enquiries of Leibnitz would not\n    have led to the same result in the mind of a purely scientific\n    enquirer. But Leibnitz was not a scientific man in the modern\n    sense of the word. Had he been so, he might have worked out the\n    conception of energy, defined mathematically the ideas of force\n    and mechanical work, and arrived at the conclusion that even for\n    purely scientific purposes it is desirable to look upon force, not\n    as a primary quantity, but as a quantity derived from some other\n    value.\n\n\nBut, luckily for truth:\n\n\n    Leibnitz was a philosopher; and as such he had certain primary\n    principles, which biassed him in favour of certain conclusions,\n    and his discovery that external things were substances endowed\n    with force was at once used for the purpose of applying these\n    principles. One of these principles was the law of continuity, the\n    conviction that all the world was connected, that there were no\n    gaps and chasms which could not be bridged over. The contrast of\n    extended thinking substances was unbearable to him. The definition\n    of the extended substances had already become untenable: it was\n    natural that a similar enquiry was made into the definition of\n    mind, the thinking substance.\n\n\nThe divisions made by Leibnitz, however incomplete and faulty from the\nstandpoint of Occultism, show a spirit of metaphysical intuition to which\nno man of Science, not Descartes, not even Kant, has ever reached. With\nhim there existed ever an infinite gradation of thought. Only a small\nportion of the contents of our thoughts, he said, rises into the clearness\nof apperception, \u201cinto the light of perfect consciousness.\u201d Many remain in\na confused or obscure state, in the state of \u201cperceptions\u201d; but they are\nthere. Descartes denied soul to the animal. Leibnitz, as do the\nOccultists, endowed \u201cthe whole creation with mental life, this being,\naccording to him, capable of infinite gradations.\u201d And this, as Mertz\njustly observes:\n\n\n    At once widened the realm of mental life, destroying the contrast\n    of _animate_ and _inanimate matter_; it did yet more\u2014it re\u00e4cted on\n    the conception of matter, of the extended substance. For it became\n    evident that external or material things presented the property of\n    extension to our senses only, not to our thinking faculties. The\n    mathematician, in order to calculate geometrical figures, had been\n    obliged to divide them into an infinite number of infinitely small\n    parts, and the physicist saw no limit to the divisibility of\n    matter into atoms. The bulk through which external things seemed\n    to fill space was a property which they acquired only through the\n    coarseness of our senses.... Leibnitz followed these arguments to\n    some extent, but he could not rest content in assuming that matter\n    was composed of a finite number of very small parts. His\n    mathematical mind forced him to carry out the argument _in\n    infinitum_. And what became of the atoms then? They lost their\n    extension and they retained only their property of resistance;\n    they were the centres of force. They were reduced to mathematical\n    points.... But if their extension in space was nothing, _so much\n    fuller was their inner life_. Assuming that inner existence, such\n    as that of the human mind, is a new dimension, not a geometrical\n    but a metaphysical dimension, ... having reduced the geometrical\n    extension of the atoms to nothing, Leibnitz endowed them with an\n    infinite extension in the direction of their metaphysical\n    dimension. After having lost sight of them in the world of space,\n    the mind has, as it were, to dive into a metaphysical world to\n    find and grasp the real essence of what appears in space merely as\n    a mathematical point.... As a cone stands on its point, or a\n    perpendicular straight line cuts a horizontal plane only in one\n    mathematical point, but may extend infinitely in height and depth,\n    so the essences of _things real_ have only a punctual existence in\n    this physical world of space; but have an infinite depth of inner\n    life in the metaphysical world of thought.(1084)\n\n\nThis is the spirit, the very root of Occult doctrine and thought. The\n\u201cSpirit\u2010Matter\u201d and \u201cMatter\u2010Spirit\u201d extend infinitely _in depth_, and like\nthe \u201cessence of things\u201d of Leibnitz, our essence of _things real_ is at\nthe _seventh depth_; while the _unreal_ and gross matter of Science and\nthe external world, is at the lowest extreme of our perceptive senses. The\nOccultist knows the worth or worthlessness of the latter.\n\nThe student must now be shown the fundamental distinction between the\nsystem of Leibnitz(1085) and that of Occult Philosophy, on the question of\nthe Monads, and this may be done with his _Monadologie_ before us. It may\nbe correctly stated that were Leibnitz\u2019 and Spinoza\u2019s systems reconciled,\nthe essence and spirit of Esoteric Philosophy would be made to appear.\nFrom the shock of the two\u2014as opposed to the Cartesian system\u2014emerge the\ntruths of the Archaic Doctrine. Both oppose the Metaphysics of Descartes.\nHis idea of the contrast of two Substances\u2014Extension and Thought\u2014radically\ndiffering from each other and mutually irreducible, is too arbitrary and\ntoo un\u2010philosophical for them. Thus Leibnitz made of the two Cartesian\nSubstances two attributes of one universal Unity, in which he saw God.\nSpinoza recognized but one universal indivisible Substance, an absolute\nALL, like Parabrahman. Leibnitz, on the contrary, perceived the existence\nof a plurality of Substances. There was but One for Spinoza; for Leibnitz\nan infinitude of Beings, _from_, and _in_, the One. Hence, though both\nadmitted but _One Real Entity_, while Spinoza made it impersonal and\nindivisible, Leibnitz divided his personal Deity into a number of divine\nand semi\u2010divine Beings. Spinoza was a _subjective_, Leibnitz an\n_objective_ Pantheist, yet both were great Philosophers in their intuitive\nperceptions.\n\nNow, if these two teachings were blended together and each corrected by\nthe other\u2014and foremost of all the One Reality weeded of its\npersonality\u2014there would remain as sum total a true spirit of Esoteric\nPhilosophy in them; the impersonal, attributeless, absolute Divine\nEssence, which is no \u201cbeing\u201d but the root of all Being. Draw a deep line\nin your thought between that ever\u2010incognizable Essence, and the as\ninvisible, yet comprehensible Presence, M\u00fblaprakriti or Shekinah, _from\nbeyond_ and _through which_ vibrates the Sound of the Verbum, and from\nwhich evolve the numberless Hierarchies of intelligent Egos, of conscious\nas of semi\u2010conscious, \u201capperceptive\u201d and \u201cperceptive\u201d Beings, whose\nEssence is spiritual Force, whose Substance is the Elements, and whose\nBodies (when needed) are the Atoms\u2014and our Doctrine is there. For, says\nLeibnitz:\n\n\n    The primitive element of every material body being force, which\n    has none of the characteristics of [objective] matter\u2014it can be\n    conceived but can never be the object of any imaginative\n    representation.\n\n\nThat which was for him the primordial and ultimate element in everybody\nand object was thus not the material atoms, or molecules, necessarily more\nor less extended, as those of Epicurus and Gassendi, but, as Mertz shows,\nimmaterial and metaphysical Atoms, \u201cmathematical points,\u201d or _real\nsouls_\u2014as explained by Henri Lachelier (Professeur Agr\u00e9g\u00e9 de Philosophie),\nhis French biographer.\n\n\n    That which exists outside of us in an absolute manner, are Souls\n    whose essence is force.(1086)\n\n\nThus, _reality_ in the manifested world is composed of a _unity of units_,\nso to say, immaterial\u2014from our standpoint\u2014and infinite. These Leibnitz\ncalls Monads, Eastern Philosophy J\u00eevas, while Occultism, with the\nKabalists and all the Christians, gives them a variety of names. With us,\nas with Leibnitz, they are \u201cthe expression of the universe,\u201d(1087) and\nevery physical point is but the phenomenal expression of the noumenal,\nmetaphysical Point. His distinction between \u201cperception\u201d and\n\u201capperception\u201d is the philosophical though dim expression of the Esoteric\nTeachings. His \u201creduced universes,\u201d of which \u201cthere are as many as there\nare Monads\u201d\u2014is the chaotic representation of our Septenary System with its\ndivisions and sub\u2010divisions.\n\nAs to the relation his Monads bear to our Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, Cosmic Spirits,\nDevas, and Elementals, we may reproduce briefly the opinion of a learned\nand thoughtful Theosophist, Mr. C. H. A. Bjerregaard, on the subject. In\nan excellent paper, \u201cOn the Elementals, the Elementary Spirits, and the\nRelationship between Them and Human Beings,\u201d read by him before the \u00c2ryan\nTheosophical Society of New York, Mr. Bjerregaard thus distinctly\nformulates his opinion:\n\n\n    To Spinoza, substance is dead and inactive, but to Leibnitz\u2019s\n    penetrating powers of mind everything is living activity and\n    active energy. In holding this view, he comes infinitely nearer\n    the Orient than any other thinker of his day, or after him. His\n    discovery that _an active energy forms the essence of substance_\n    is a principle that places him in direct relationship to the Seers\n    of the East.(1088)\n\n\nAnd the lecturer proceeds to show that to Leibnitz Atoms and Elements are\n_Centres of Force_, or rather \u201cspiritual beings whose very nature it is to\nact,\u201d for the\n\n\n    Elementary particles are vital forces, not acting mechanically,\n    but from an internal principle. They are incorporeal spiritual\n    units [\u201csubstantial,\u201d however, but not \u201cimmaterial\u201d in our sense]\n    inaccessible to all change from without ... [and] indestructible\n    by any external force. Leibnitz\u2019 monads differ from atoms in the\n    following particulars, which are very important for us to\n    remember, otherwise we shall not be able to see the difference\n    between Elementals and mere matter. Atoms are not distinguished\n    from each other, they are qualitatively alike; but one monad\n    differs from every other monad qualitatively; and every one is a\n    peculiar world to itself. Not so with the atoms; they are\n    absolutely alike quantitatively and qualitatively, and possess no\n    individuality of their own.(1089) Again, the atoms [molecules,\n    rather] of materialistic philosophy can be considered as extended\n    and divisible, while the monads are mere \u201cmetaphysical points\u201d and\n    indivisible. Finally, and this is a point where these monads of\n    Leibnitz closely resemble the Elementals of mystic philosophy,\n    these monads are representative beings. Every monad reflects every\n    other. Every monad is a living mirror of the Universe within its\n    own sphere. And mark this, for upon it depends the power possessed\n    by these monads, and upon it depends the work they can do for us;\n    in mirroring the world, the monads are not mere passive reflective\n    agents, but _spontaneously self active_; they produce the images\n    spontaneously, as the soul does a dream. In every monad,\n    therefore, the adept may read everything, even the future. Every\n    monad\u2014or Elemental\u2014is a looking\u2010glass that can speak.\n\n\nIt is at this point that Leibnitz\u2019s philosophy breaks down. There is no\nprovision made, nor any distinction established, between the \u201cElemental\u201d\nMonad and that of a high Planetary Spirit, or even the Human Monad or\nSoul. He even goes so far as to sometimes doubt whether\n\n\n    God has ever made anything but monads or substances without\n    extension.(1090)\n\n\nHe draws a distinction between Monads and Atoms,(1091) because, as he\nrepeatedly states:\n\n\n    Bodies with all their qualities are only phenomenal, like the\n    rainbow. _Corpora omnia cum omnibus qualitatibus suis non sunt\n    aliud quam phenomena bene fundata, ut Iris._(1092)\n\n\nBut soon after he finds a provision for this in a substantial\ncorrespondence, a certain metaphysical bond between the Monads\u2014_vinculum\nsubstantiale_. Esoteric Philosophy, teaching an _objective_\nIdealism\u2014though it regards the objective Universe and all in it as M\u00e2y\u00e2,\nTemporary Illusion\u2014draws a practical distinction between Collective\nIllusion, Mah\u00e2m\u00e2y\u00e2, from the purely metaphysical standpoint, and the\nobjective relations in it between various conscious Egos so long as this\nIllusion lasts. The Adept, therefore, _may_ read the future in an\nElemental Monad, but he has to draw together for this object a great\nnumber of them, as each Monad represents only a portion of the Kingdom it\nbelongs to.\n\n\n    It is not in the object, but in the modification of the cognition\n    of the object that the monads are limited. They all tend\n    (confusedly) to the infinite, to the whole, but they are limited\n    and distinguished by the degrees of distinctness in their\n    perception.(1093)\n\n\nAnd as Leibnitz explains:\n\n\n    All the portions of the universe are distinctly represented in the\n    monads, but some are reflected in one monad, some in another.\n\n\nA number of Monads could represent simultaneously the thoughts of the two\nmillion inhabitants of Paris.\n\nBut what say the Occult Sciences to this, and what do they add?\n\nThey say that what is called collectively Monads by Leibnitz\u2014roughly\nviewed, and leaving every subdivision out of calculation, for the\npresent\u2014may be separated into three distinct Hosts,(1094) which, counted\nfrom the highest planes, are, firstly, \u201cGods,\u201d or conscious, spiritual\nEgos; the intelligent Architects, who work after the plan in the Divine\nMind. Then come the Elementals, or \u201cMonads,\u201d who form collectively and\nunconsciously the grand Universal Mirrors of everything connected with\ntheir respective realms. Lastly, the \u201cAtoms,\u201d or material molecules, which\nare informed in their turn by their \u201cperceptive\u201d Monads, just as every\ncell in a human body is so informed. There are shoals of such _informed_\nAtoms which, in their turn, inform the molecules; an infinitude of Monads,\nor Elementals proper, and countless spiritual Forces\u2014Monadless, for they\nare pure incorporealities,(1095) except under certain laws, when they\nassume a form\u2014not _necessarily_ human. Whence the substance that clothes\nthem\u2014the apparent organism they evolve around their centres? The Formless\n(Ar\u00fbpa) Radiations, existing in the harmony of Universal Will, and being\nwhat we term the collective or the aggregate of Cosmic Will on the plane\nof the subjective Universe, unite together an infinitude of Monads\u2014each\nthe mirror of its own Universe\u2014and thus individualize for the time being\nan independent Mind, omniscient and universal; and by the same process of\nmagnetic aggregation they create for themselves objective, visible bodies,\nout of the interstellar Atoms. For Atoms and Monads, associated or\ndissociated, simple or complex, are, from the moment of the first\ndifferentiation, but the \u201cprinciples,\u201d corporeal, psychic and spiritual,\nof the \u201cGods\u201d\u2014themselves the Radiations of Primordial Nature. Thus, to the\neye of the Seer, the higher Planetary Powers appear under two aspects: the\nsubjective\u2014as _influences_, and the objective\u2014as mystic _forms_, which,\nunder Karmic law, become a _Presence_, Spirit and Matter being One, as\nrepeatedly stated. Spirit is Matter _on the seventh plane_; Matter is\nSpirit at the lowest point of its cyclic activity; and both are\u2014M\u00e2y\u00e2.\n\nAtoms are called Vibrations in Occultism; also Sound\u2014collectively. This\ndoes not interfere with Mr. Tyndall\u2019s scientific discovery. He traced, on\nthe lower rung of the ladder of monadic being, the whole course of the\n_atmospheric_ Vibrations\u2014and this constitutes the _objective_ part of the\nprocess in Nature. He has traced and recorded the rapidity of their motion\nand transmission; the force of their impact; their setting up vibrations\nin the tympanum and their transmission of these to the otoliths, etc.,\ntill the vibration of the auditory nerve commences\u2014and a new phenomenon\nnow takes place: the _subjective_ side of the process or the _sensation_\nof sound. Does he perceive or see it? No; for his specialty is to discover\nthe behaviour of Matter. But why should not a Psychic see it, a spiritual\nSeer, whose inner Eye is opened, one who can see through the veil of\nMatter? The waves and undulations of Science are all produced by Atoms\npropelling their molecules into activity _from within_. Atoms fill the\nimmensity of Space, and by their continuous vibration _are_ that MOTION\nwhich keeps the wheels of Life perpetually going. It is that inner work\nthat produces the natural phenomenon called the correlation of Forces.\nOnly, at the origin of every such \u201cForce,\u201d there stands the _conscious_\nguiding Noumenon thereof\u2014Angel or God, Spirit or Demon, ruling powers, yet\nthe same.\n\nAs described by Seers\u2014those who can see the motion of the interstellar\nshoals, and follow them clairvoyantly in their evolution\u2014they are\ndazzling, like specks of virgin snow in radiant sunlight. Their velocity\nis swifter than thought, quicker than any mortal physical eye can follow,\nand, as well as can be judged from the tremendous rapidity of their\ncourse, the motion is circular. Standing on an open plain, on a mountain\nsummit especially, and gazing into the vast vault above and the spatial\ninfinitudes around, the whole atmosphere seems ablaze with them, the air\nsoaked through with these dazzling coruscations. At times, the intensity\nof their motion produces flashes like the Northern Lights in the Aurora\nBorealis. The sight is so marvellous, that, as the Seer gazes into this\ninner world, and feels the scintillating points shoot past him, he is\nfilled with awe at the thought of other, still greater mysteries, that lie\nbeyond, and within, this radiant ocean.\n\nHowever imperfect and incomplete this explanation on \u201cGods, Monads and\nAtoms,\u201d it is hoped that some students and Theosophists, at least, will\nfeel that there may indeed be a close relation between Materialistic\nScience and Occultism, which is the complement and missing soul of the\nformer.\n\n\n\n\nSection XV. Cyclic Evolution and Karma.\n\n\nIt is the spiritual evolution of the _inner_, immortal Man that forms the\nfundamental tenet of the Occult Sciences. To realize even distantly such a\nprocess, the student has to believe (_a_) in the One Universal Life,\nindependent of Matter (or what Science regards as Matter); and (_b_) in\nthe individual Intelligences that animate the various manifestations of\nthis Principle. Mr. Huxley does not believe in Vital Force; others\nScientists do. Dr. J. H. Hutchinson Stirling\u2019s work _As regards\nProtoplasm_ has made no small havoc of this dogmatic negation. Professor\nBeale\u2019s decision also is in favour of a Vital Principle; and Dr. B. W.\nRichardson\u2019s lectures on Nervous Ether have been sufficiently quoted.\nThus, opinions are divided.\n\nThe One Life is closely related to the One Law which governs the World of\nBeing\u2014KARMA. Exoterically, this is simply and literally \u201caction,\u201d or\nrather an \u201ceffect\u2010producing cause.\u201d Esoterically, it is quite a different\nthing in its far\u2010reaching moral effects. It is the unerring LAW OF\nRETRIBUTION. To say to those ignorant of the real significance,\ncharacteristics, and awful importance of this eternal immutable Law, that\nno theological definition of a Personal Deity can give an idea of this\nimpersonal, yet ever present and active Principle, is to speak in vain.\nNor can it be called Providence. For Providence, with the Theists\u2014the\nProtestant Christians, at any rate\u2014rejoices in a personal male gender,\nwhile with the Roman Catholics it is a female potency. \u201cDivine Providence\ntempers His blessings to secure their better effects,\u201d Wogan tells us.\nIndeed \u201cHe\u201d tempers them, which Karma\u2014a sexless principle\u2014does not.\n\nThroughout the first two Parts, it has been shown that, at the first\nflutter of renascent life, Svabh\u00e2vat, \u201c_the Mutable Radiance of the\nImmutable Darkness unconscious in Eternity_,\u201d passes, at every new rebirth\nof Kosmos, from an inactive state into one of intense activity; that it\ndifferentiates, and then begins its work through that differentiation.\nThis work is KARMA.\n\nThe Cycles are also subservient to the effects produced by this activity.\n\n_The one Cosmic Atom becomes seven Atoms on the plane of Matter, and each\nis transformed into a centre of energy; that same Atom becomes seven Rays\non the plane of Spirit; and the seven creative Forces of Nature, radiating\nfrom the Root\u2010Essence ... follow, one the right, the other the left path,\nseparate till the end of the Kalpa, and yet in close embrace. What unites\nthem? Karma._\n\nThe Atoms emanated from the Central Point emanate in their turn new\ncentres of energy, which, under the potential breath of Fohat, begin their\nwork from within without, and multiply other minor centres. These, in the\ncourse of evolution and involution, form in their turn the roots or\ndeveloping causes of new effects, from worlds and \u201cman\u2010bearing\u201d globes,\ndown to the genera, species, and classes of all the seven kingdoms, of\nwhich we know only _four_. For as says the _Book of the Aphorisms of Tson\u2010\nka\u2010pa_:\n\n\n    The blessed workers have received the Thyan\u2010kam, in the eternity.\n\n\nThyan\u2010kam is the power or knowledge of guiding the impulses of Cosmic\nEnergy in the right direction.\n\nThe true Buddhist, recognizing no \u201cpersonal God,\u201d nor any \u201cFather\u201d and\n\u201cCreator of Heaven and Earth,\u201d still believes in an _Absolute\nConsciousness_, Adi\u2010Buddhi; and the Buddhist Philosopher _knows_ that\nthere are Planetary Spirits, the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans. But though he admits of\n\u201cSpiritual Lives,\u201d yet, as they are temporary in eternity, even they,\naccording to his Philosophy, are \u201cthe M\u00e2y\u00e2 of the Day,\u201d the Illusion of a\n\u201cDay of Brahm\u00e2,\u201d a short Manvantara of 4,320,000,000 years. The Yin\u2010Sin is\nnot for the speculations of men, for the Lord Buddha has strongly\nprohibited all such enquiry. If the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans and all the Invisible\nBeings\u2014the Seven Centres and their direct Emanations, the minor centres of\nEnergy\u2014are the direct reflex of the One Light, yet men are far removed\nfrom these, since the whole of the visible Kosmos consists of \u201c_self\u2010\nproduced_ beings, the creatures of Karma.\u201d Thus regarding a personal God\n\u201cas only a gigantic shadow thrown upon the void of space by the\nimagination of ignorant men,\u201d(1096) they teach that only \u201ctwo things are\n[objectively] eternal, namely \u00c2k\u00e2sha and Nirv\u00e2na\u201d; and that these are\n_one_ in reality, and but a M\u00e2y\u00e2 when divided.\n\n\n    Everything has come out of \u00c2k\u00e2sha [or Svabh\u00e2vat on our earth] in\n    obedience to a law of motion inherent in it, and after a certain\n    existence passes away. No thing ever came out of nothing. We do\n    not believe in miracles; hence we deny creation and cannot\n    conceive of a creator.(1097)\n\n\nIf a Ved\u00e2ntic Brahman of the Advaita Sect, were asked whether he believed\nin the existence of God, he would probably answer, as Jacolliot was\nanswered\u2014\u201cI am myself \u2018God\u2019;\u201d while a Buddhist (a Sinhalese especially)\nwould simply laugh, and say in reply, \u201cThere is no God; no Creation.\u201d Yet\nthe root Philosophy of both Advaita and Buddhist scholars is _identical_,\nand both have the same respect for animal life, for both believe that\nevery creature on Earth, however small and humble, \u201cis an immortal portion\nof the immortal Matter\u201d\u2014Matter having with them quite another significance\nfrom that which it has with either Christian or Materialist\u2014and that every\ncreature is subject to Karma.\n\nThe answer of the Br\u00e2hman would have suggested itself to every ancient\nPhilosopher, Kabalist, and Gnostic of the early days. It contains the very\nspirit of the Delphic and Kabalistic commandments, for Esoteric Philosophy\nsolved, ages ago, the problem of what man _was_, _is_, and _will be_; his\norigin, life\u2010cycle\u2014interminable in its duration of successive incarnations\nor rebirths\u2014and his final absorption into the Source from which he\nstarted.\n\nBut it is not Physical Science that we can ever ask to read man for us, as\nthe riddle of the Past, or of the Future; since no Philosopher can tell us\neven what man is, as known to both Physiology and Psychology. In doubt\nwhether man was a God or a beast, Science has now connected him with the\nlatter and derives him from an animal. Certainly the task of analyzing and\nclassifying the human being as a _terrestrial animal_ may be left to\nScience, which Occultists, of all men, regard with veneration and respect.\nThey recognize its ground and the wonderful work it has done, the progress\nachieved in Physiology, and even\u2014to a degree\u2014in Biology. But man\u2019s\n_inner_, spiritual, psychic, or even moral, nature cannot be left to the\ntender mercies of an ingrained Materialism; for not even the higher\npsychological Philosophy of the West is able, in its present\nincompleteness and tendency towards a decided Agnosticism, to do justice\nto the inner man; especially to his higher capacities and perceptions, and\nto those states of consciousness, across the road to which such\nauthorities as Mill draw a strong line, saying \u201cSo far, and no farther\nshalt thou go.\u201d\n\nNo Occultist would deny that man\u2014together with the elephant and the\nmicrobe, the crocodile and the lizard, the blade of grass and the\ncrystal\u2014is, in his physical formation, the simple product of the\nevolutionary forces of Nature through a numberless series of\ntransformations; but he puts the case differently.\n\nIt is not against zo\u00f6logical and anthropological discoveries, based on the\nfossils of man and animal, that every Mystic and believer in a Divine Soul\ninwardly revolts, but only against the uncalled\u2010for conclusions built on\npreconceived theories and made to fit in with certain prejudices. The\npremisses of Scientists may or may not be always true; and as some of\nthese theories live but a short life, the deductions therefrom must ever\nbe one\u2010sided with materialistic Evolutionists. Yet it is on the strength\nof such very ephemeral authority, that most of the men of Science\nfrequently receive honours where they deserve them the least.(1098)\n\nTo make the working of Karma\u2014in the periodical renovations of the\nUniverse\u2014more evident and intelligible to the student when he arrives at\nthe origin and evolution of man, he has now to examine with us the\nEsoteric bearing of the Karmic Cycles upon Universal Ethics. The question\nis, do those mysterious divisions of time, called Yugas and Kalpas by the\nHind\u00fbs, and so very graphically, \u03ba\u03cd\u03ba\u03bb\u03bf\u03b9, cycles, rings or circles, by the\nGreeks, have any bearing upon, or any direct connection with, human life?\nEven exoteric Philosophy explains that these perpetual circles of time are\never returning on themselves, periodically and intelligently, in Space and\nEternity. There are \u201cCycles of Matter,\u201d(1099) and there are \u201cCycles of\nSpiritual Evolution,\u201d and racial, national, and individual Cycles. May not\nEsoteric speculation allow us a still deeper insight into their workings?\n\nThis idea is beautifully expressed in a very clever scientific work.\n\n\n    The possibility of rising to a comprehension of a system of\n    co\u00f6rdination so far outreaching in time and space all range of\n    human observations, is a circumstance which signalizes the power\n    of man to transcend the limitations of changing and inconsistent\n    matter, and assert his superiority over all insentient and\n    perishable forms of being. There is a method in the succession of\n    events, and in the relation of co\u00ebxistent things, which the mind\n    of man seizes hold of; and by means of this as a clue, he runs\n    back or forward over \u00e6ons of material history of which human\n    experience can never testify. Events germinate and unfold. They\n    have a past which is connected with their present, and we feel a\n    well\u2010justified confidence that a future is appointed which will be\n    similarly connected with the present and the past. This continuity\n    and unity of history repeat themselves before our eyes in all\n    conceivable stages of progress. The phenomena furnish us the\n    grounds for the generalization of two laws which are truly\n    _principles of scientific divination_, by which alone the human\n    mind penetrates the sealed records of the past and the unopened\n    pages of the future. The first of these is the law of evolution,\n    or, to phrase it for our purpose, _the law of correlated\n    successiveness or organized history in the individual_,\n    illustrated in the changing phases of every single maturing system\n    of results.... These thoughts summon into our immediate presence\n    the measureless past and the measureless future of material\n    history. They seem almost to open vistas through infinity, and to\n    endow the human intellect with an existence and a vision exempt\n    from the limitations of time and space and finite causation, and\n    lift it up towards a sublime apprehension of the Supreme\n    Intelligence whose dwelling place is eternity.(1100)\n\n\nAccording to the teachings, M\u00e2y\u00e2\u2014the illusive appearance of the\nmarshalling of events and actions on this Earth\u2014changes, varying with\nnations and places. But the chief features of one\u2019s life are always in\naccordance with the \u201cConstellation\u201d under which one is born, or, we should\nsay, with the characteristics of its animating principle or the Deity that\npresides over it, whether we call it a Dhy\u00e2n Chohan, as in Asia, or an\nArchangel, as with the Greek and Latin Churches. In ancient Symbolism it\nwas always the Sun\u2014though the Spiritual, not the visible, Sun was\nmeant\u2014that was supposed to send forth the chief Saviours and Avat\u00e2ras.\nHence the connecting link between the Buddhas, the Avat\u00e2ras, and so many\nother incarnations of the highest Seven. The closer the approach to one\u2019s\nPrototype, in \u201cHeaven,\u201d the better for the mortal whose Personality was\nchosen, by his own _personal_ Deity (the Seventh Principle), as its\nterrestrial abode. For, with every effort of will toward purification and\nunity with that \u201cSelf\u2010God,\u201d one of the lower Rays breaks, and the\nspiritual entity of man is drawn higher and ever higher to the Ray that\nsupersedes the first, until, from Ray to Ray, the Inner Man is drawn into\nthe one and highest Beam of the Parent\u2010Sun. Thus, \u201cthe events of humanity\n_do_ run co\u00f6rdinately with the number forms,\u201d since the single units of\nthat humanity proceed one and all from the same source\u2014the Central Sun and\nits _shadow_, the visible. For the equinoxes and solstices, the periods\nand various phases of the solar course, astronomically and numerically\nexpressed, are only the concrete symbols of the eternally living verity,\nthough they do seem _abstract ideas_ to uninitiated mortals. And this\nexplains the extraordinary numerical coincidences with geometrical\nrelations, shown by several authors.\n\nYes; \u201cour destiny _is_ written in the stars\u201d! Only, the closer the union\nbetween the mortal reflection Man and his celestial Prototype, the less\ndangerous the external conditions and subsequent re\u00efncarnations\u2014which\nneither Buddhas nor Christs can escape. This is not superstition, least of\nall is it _fatalism_. The latter implies a blind course of some still\nblinder power, but man is a free agent during his stay on earth. He cannot\nescape his _ruling_ Destiny, but he has the choice of two paths that lead\nhim in that direction, and he can reach the goal of misery\u2014if such is\ndecreed to him\u2014either in the snowy white robes of the martyr, or in the\nsoiled garments of a volunteer in the iniquitous course; for there are\n_external_ and _internal conditions_ which affect the determination of our\nwill upon our actions, and it is in our power to follow either of the two.\nThose who believe in Karma have to believe in Destiny, which, from birth\nto death, every man weaves thread by thread round himself, as a spider his\nweb; and this Destiny is guided either by the heavenly voice of the\ninvisible Prototype outside of us, or by our more intimate _astral_, or\ninner man, who is but too often the evil genius of the embodied entity\ncalled man. Both these lead on the outward man, but one of them must\nprevail; and from the very beginning of the invisible affray the stern and\nimplacable _Law of Compensation_ steps in and takes its course, faithfully\nfollowing the fluctuations of the fight. When the last strand is woven,\nand man is seemingly enwrapped in the network of his own doing, then he\nfinds himself completely under the empire of this _self\u2010made_ Destiny. It\nthen either fixes him like the inert shell against the immovable rock, or\ncarries him away like a feather in a whirlwind raised by his own actions,\nand this is\u2014KARMA.\n\nA Materialist, treating of the periodical creations of our globe, has\nexpressed it in a single sentence:\n\n\n    The whole _past_ of the earth is nothing but an unfolded\n    _present_.\n\n\nThe writer was B\u00fcchner, who little suspected that he was repeating an\naxiom of the Occultists. It is quite true also, as Burmeister remarks,\nthat:\n\n\n    The historical investigation of the development of the earth has\n    proved that _now_ and _then_ rest upon the same base; that the\n    past has been developed in the same manner as the present rolls\n    on; and that the forces which were in action ever remained the\n    same.(1101)\n\n\nThe Forces\u2014their Noumena rather\u2014are the same, of course; therefore, the\nphenomenal Forces must be the same also. But how can any one feel so sure\nthat the attributes of Matter have not altered under the hand of Protean\nEvolution? How can any Materialist assert with such confidence, as is done\nby Rossmassler, that:\n\n\n    This eternal conformity in the essence of phenomena renders it\n    certain that fire and water possessed at all times the same powers\n    and ever will possess them.\n\n\nWho are they \u201cthat darken counsel with words without knowledge,\u201d and where\nwere the Huxleys and B\u00fcchners when the foundations of the Earth were laid\nby the Great Law? This same homogeneity of Matter and immutability of\nnatural laws, which are so much insisted upon by Materialism, are a\nfundamental principle of the Occult Philosophy; but this unity rests upon\nthe inseparability of Spirit from Matter, and, if the two were once\ndivorced, the whole Kosmos would fall back into Chaos and Non\u2010being.\nTherefore, it is absolutely _false_, and but an additional demonstration\nof the great conceit of our age, to assert, as men of Science do, that all\nthe great geological changes and terrible convulsions of the past have\nbeen produced _by ordinary and known physical Forces_. For these Forces\nwere but the tools and final means for the accomplishment of certain\npurposes, acting periodically, and apparently mechanically, through an\ninward impulse mixed up with, but beyond their material nature. There is a\npurpose in every important act of Nature, whose acts are all cyclic and\nperiodical. But spiritual Forces having been usually confused with the\npurely physical, the former are denied by, and therefore, because left\nunexamined, have to remain unknown to Science.(1102) Says Hegel:\n\n\n    The history of the World begins with its general aim, the\n    realization of the Idea of Spirit\u2014only in an _implicit_ form (_an\n    sich_), that is, as Nature; a hidden, most profoundly hidden\n    unconscious instinct, and the whole process of History ... is\n    directed to rendering this unconscious impulse a conscious one.\n    Thus appearing in the form of merely natural existence, natural\n    will\u2014that which has been called the subjective side\u2014physical\n    craving, instinct, passion, private interest, as also opinion and\n    subjective conception\u2014spontaneously present themselves at the very\n    commencement. This vast congeries of volitions, interests and\n    activities constitute the instruments and means of the World\u2010\n    Spirit for attaining its object; bringing it to consciousness and\n    realizing it. And this aim is none other than finding\n    itself\u2014coming to itself\u2014and contemplating itself in concrete\n    actuality. But that those manifestations of vitality on the part\n    of individuals and peoples, in which they seek and satisfy their\n    own purposes, are at the same time the means and instruments of a\n    higher and broader purpose of which they know nothing\u2014which they\n    realize unconsciously\u2014might be made a matter of question; rather\n    has been questioned ... on this point I announced my view at the\n    very outset, and asserted our hypothesis ... and our belief that\n    Reason governs the World and has consequently governed its\n    history. In relation to this independently universal and\n    substantial existence\u2014all else is subordinate, subservient to it,\n    and the means for its development.(1103)\n\n\nNo Metaphysician or Theosophist could demur to these truths, which are all\nembodied in Esoteric Teachings. There _is_ a predestination in the\ngeological life of our globe, as in the history, past and future, of races\nand nations. This is closely connected with what we call Karma, and what\nWestern Pantheists called Nemesis and Cycles. The law of evolution is now\ncarrying us along the ascending arc of _our_ cycle, when the effects will\nbe once more re\u2010merged into, and re\u2010become the now neutralized causes, and\nall things affected by the former will have regained their original\nharmony. This will be the cycle of our special Round, a moment in the\nduration of the Great Cycle, or Mah\u00e2yuga.\n\nThe fine philosophical remarks of Hegel are found to have their\napplication in the teachings of Occult Science, which shows Nature ever\nacting with a given purpose, whose results are always dual. This was\nstated in our first Occult volumes, in the following words:\n\n\n    As our Planet revolves once every year around the Sun, and at the\n    same time turns once in every twenty\u2010four hours upon its own axis,\n    thus traversing minor circles within a larger one, so is the work\n    of the smaller cyclic periods accomplished and recommenced within\n    the Great Saros. The revolution of the physical world, according\n    to the ancient doctrine, is attended by a like revolution in the\n    world of intellect\u2014the spiritual evolution of the world proceeding\n    in cycles, like the physical one. Thus we see in history a regular\n    alternation of ebb and flow in the tide of human progress. The\n    great kingdoms and empires of the world, after reaching the\n    culmination of their greatness, descend again, in accordance with\n    the same law by which they ascended; till, having reached the\n    lowest point, humanity re\u00e4sserts itself and mounts up once more,\n    the height of its attainment being, by this law of ascending\n    progression by cycles, somewhat higher than the point from which\n    it had before descended.(1104)\n\n\nBut these cycles\u2014wheels within wheels, so comprehensively and ingeniously\nsymbolized by the various Manus and Rishis in India, and by the Kabiri in\nthe West(1105)\u2014_do not affect all mankind at one and the same time_.\nHence, as we see, the difficulty of comprehending, and of discriminating\nbetween them, with regard to their physical and spiritual effects, without\nhaving thoroughly mastered their relations with, and action upon, the\nrespective positions of nations and races, in their destiny and evolution.\nThis system cannot be comprehended if the spiritual action of these\nperiods\u2014_pre\u00f6rdained_, so to say, by Karmic law\u2014is separated from their\nphysical course. The calculations of the best Astrologers would fail, or\nat any rate remain imperfect, unless this dual action is thoroughly taken\ninto consideration and mastered upon these lines. And this mastery can be\nachieved only through INITIATION.\n\nThe Grand Cycle includes the progress of mankind from the appearance of\nprimordial man of ethereal form. It runs through the inner Cycles of man\u2019s\nprogressive evolution from the ethereal down to the semi\u2010ethereal and\npurely physical; down to the redemption of man from his \u201ccoat of skin\u201d and\nmatter, after which it continues running its course downward and then\nupward again, to meet at the culmination of a Round, when the Manvantaric\nSerpent \u201cswallows its tail\u201d and seven Minor Cycles are passed. These are\nthe great Racial Cycles which affect equally all the nations and tribes\nincluded in that special Race; but there are minor and national, as well\nas tribal, Cycles within these, which run their course independently of\neach other. They are called in Eastern Esotericism the Karmic Cycles. In\nthe West\u2014since Pagan Wisdom has been repudiated as having grown from and\nbeen developed by the Dark Powers, supposed to be at constant war with and\nin opposition to the little tribal Jehovah\u2014the full and awful significance\nof the Greek Nemesis, or Karma, has been entirely forgotten. Otherwise\nChristians would have better realized the profound truth that Nemesis is\nwithout attributes; that while the dreaded Goddess is absolute and\nimmutable as a Principle, it is we ourselves\u2014nations and individuals\u2014who\npropel it to action and give the impulse to its direction. Karma\u2010Nemesis\nis the creator of nations and mortals, but once created, it is they who\nmake of her either a Fury or a rewarding Angel. Yea\u2014\n\n\n    Wise are they who worship Nemesis(1106)\n\n\n\u2014as the Chorus tells Prometheus. And as unwise they, who believe that the\nGoddess may be propitiated by any sacrifices and prayers, or have her\nwheel diverted from the path it has once taken. \u201cThe triform Fates and\never mindful Furies\u201d are her attributes only on Earth, and begotten by\nourselves. There is no return from the paths she cycles over; yet those\npaths are of our own making, for it is we, collectively or individually,\nwho prepare them. Karma\u2010Nemesis is the synonym of Providence, _minus_\ndesign, goodness, and every other _finite_ attribute and qualification, so\nunphilosophically attributed to the latter. An Occultist or a Philosopher\nwill not speak of the goodness or cruelty of Providence; but, identifying\nit with Karma\u2010Nemesis, he will nevertheless teach that it guards the good\nand watches over them in this, as in future lives; and that it punishes\nthe evil\u2010doer\u2014aye, even to his seventh rebirth\u2014so long, indeed, as the\neffect of his having thrown into perturbation even the smallest atom in\nthe Infinite World of Harmony has not been finally re\u00e4djusted. For the\nonly decree of Karma\u2014an eternal and immutable decree\u2014is absolute Harmony\nin the world of Matter as it is in the world of Spirit. It is not,\ntherefore, Karma that rewards or punishes, but it is we who reward or\npunish ourselves, according as we work with, through and along with\nNature, abiding by the laws on which that harmony depends, or\u2014breaking\nthem.\n\nNor would the ways of Karma be inscrutable were men to work in union and\nharmony, instead of disunion and strife. For our ignorance of these\nways\u2014which one portion of mankind calls the ways of Providence, dark and\nintricate, while another sees in them the action of blind Fatalism, and a\nthird, simple Chance, with neither Gods nor Devils to guide them\u2014would\nsurely disappear, if we would but attribute all of them to their correct\ncause. With right knowledge, or at any rate with a confident conviction\nthat our neighbours would no more work to hurt us than we would think of\nharming them, two\u2010thirds of the world\u2019s evil would vanish into thin air.\nWere no man to hurt his brother, Karma\u2010Nemesis would have neither cause to\nwork for, nor weapons to act through. It is the constant presence in our\nmidst of every element of strife and opposition, and the division of\nraces, nations, tribes, societies and individuals into Cains and Abels,\nwolves and lambs, that is the chief cause of the \u201cways of Providence.\u201d We\ncut these numerous windings in our destinies daily with our own hands,\nwhile we imagine that we are pursuing a track on the royal high road of\nrespectability and duty, and then we complain because these windings are\nso intricate and so dark. We stand bewildered before the mystery of our\nown making, and the riddles of life that _we will not_ solve, and then\naccuse the great Sphinx of devouring us. But verily there is not an\naccident in our lives, not a misshapen day, or a misfortune, that could\nnot be traced back to our own doings in this or in another life. If one\nbreaks the laws of Harmony, or, as a theosophical writer expresses it, the\n\u201claws of life,\u201d one must be prepared to fall into the chaos oneself has\nproduced. For, according to the same writer:\n\n\n    The only conclusion one can come to is that these laws of life are\n    their own avengers; and consequently that every avenging angel is\n    only a typified representation of their re\u00e4ction.\n\n\nTherefore, if any one is helpless before these immutable laws, it is not\nourselves, the artificers of our destinies, but rather those Angels, the\nguardians of Harmony. Karma\u2010Nemesis is no more than the spiritual\ndynamical effect of causes produced, and forces awakened into activity, by\nour own actions. It is a law of Occult dynamics that \u201ca given amount of\nenergy expended on the spiritual or astral plane is productive of far\ngreater results than the same amount expended on the physical objective\nplane of existence.\u201d\n\nThis condition of things will last till man\u2019s spiritual intuitions are\nfully opened, and this will not be until we fairly cast off our thick\ncoats of Matter; until we begin acting from _within_, instead of ever\nfollowing impulses from _without_, impulses produced by our physical\nsenses and gross selfish body. Until then the only palliatives for the\nevils of life are union and harmony\u2014a Brotherhood _in actu_, and Altruism\nnot simply in name. The suppression of one single bad _cause_ will\nsuppress not one, but many bad effects. And if a Brotherhood, or even a\nnumber of Brotherhoods, may not be able to prevent nations from\noccasionally cutting each other\u2019s throats, still unity in thought and\naction, and philosophical research into the mysteries of being, will\nalways prevent some persons, who are trying to comprehend that which has\nhitherto remained to them a riddle, from creating additional causes of\nmischief in a world already so full of woe and evil. Knowledge of Karma\ngives the conviction that if\n\n\n    ... virtue in distress, and vice in triumph\n    Make atheists of mankind,(1107)\n\n\nit is only because mankind has ever shut its eyes to the great truth that\nman is himself his own saviour and his own destroyer. He need not accuse\nHeaven and the Gods, Fates and Providence, of the apparent injustice that\nreigns in the midst of humanity. But let him rather remember and repeat\nthis fragment of Grecian wisdom, which warns man to forbear accusing\n_That_ which\n\n\n    Just, though mysterious, leads us on unerring\n    Through ways unmark\u2019d from guilt to punishment;\n\n\nand such are now the ways on which the great European nations move onward.\nEvery nation and tribe of the Western \u00c2ryans, like their Eastern brethren\nof the Fifth Race, has had its Golden and its Iron Age, its period of\ncomparative irresponsibility, or its Satya Age of purity, and now, several\nof them have reached their Iron Age, the Kali Yuga, an age black with\nhorrors.\n\nOn the other hand, it is true that the exoteric Cycles of every nation\nhave been rightly derived from, and shown to depend on, sidereal motions.\nThe latter are inseparably blended with the destinies of nations and men.\nBut, in the purely physical sense, Europe knows of no Cycles other than\nthe astronomical, and it makes its computations accordingly. Nor will it\nhear of any other than _imaginary_ circles or circuits in the starry\nheavens that gird them,\n\n\n    With centric and eccentric scribbled o\u2019er\n    Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb.\n\n\nBut with the Pagans\u2014of whom Coleridge rightly says, \u201cTime, cyclical time,\nwas their abstraction of the Deity,\u201d that \u201cDeity\u201d manifesting co\u00f6rdinately\nwith, and only through, Karma, and being that Karma\u2010Nemesis itself\u2014the\nCycles meant something more than a mere succession of events, or a\nperiodical space of time of more or less prolonged duration. For they were\ngenerally marked with recurrences of a more varied and intellectual\ncharacter than are exhibited in the periodical return of seasons or of\ncertain constellations. Modern wisdom is satisfied with astronomical\ncomputations and prophecies, based on unerring mathematical laws. Ancient\nWisdom added to the cold shell of Astronomy the vivifying elements of its\nsoul and spirit\u2014Astrology. And, as the sidereal motions _do_ regulate and\ndetermine other events on Earth besides potatoes and the periodical\ndiseases of that useful vegetable\u2014a statement which, not being amenable to\nscientific explanation, is merely derided, while none the less\naccepted\u2014these events have to submit to predetermination, by simple\nastronomical computations. Believers in Astrology will understand our\nmeaning, sceptics will laugh at the belief and mock the idea. Thus they\nshut their eyes, ostrich\u2010like, to their own fate.(1108)\n\nThis because their little _historical_ period, so called, allows them no\nmargin for comparison. Sidereal heaven is before them; and though their\nspiritual vision is still unopened, and the atmospheric dust of\nterrestrial origin seals their sight and chains it within the limits of\nphysical systems, still they do not fail to perceive the movements and\nnote the behaviour of meteors and comets. They record the periodical\nadvents of those wanderers and \u201cflaming messengers,\u201d and prophesy, in\nconsequence, earthquakes, meteoric showers, the apparition of certain\nstars, comets, etc. Are they, then, soothsayers after all? No; they are\nlearned Astronomers.\n\nWhy, then, should Occultists and Astrologers, as learned as these\nAstronomers, be disbelieved when they prophesy the return of some cyclic\nevent on the same mathematical principles? Why should the claim that they\n_know_ this return be ridiculed? Their forefathers and predecessors,\nhaving recorded the recurrence of such events in their time and day,\nthroughout a period embracing hundreds of thousands of years, the\nconjunction of the same constellations must necessarily produce, if not\nquite the same, at any rate similar, effects. Are the prophecies to be\nderided, because of the claim made for hundreds of thousands of years of\nobservation, and for millions of years for the human Races? In its turn,\nModern Science is laughed at by those who hold to Biblical chronology, for\nits far more modest geological and anthropological figures. Thus Karma\nadjusts even human laughter, at the mutual expense of sects, learned\nsocieties, and individuals. Yet in the prognostication of _such_ future\nevents, at any rate, all foretold on the authority of cyclic recurrences,\nno psychic phenomenon is involved. It is neither _prevision_, nor\n_prophecy_; any more than is the signalling of a comet or star, several\nyears before its appearance. It is simply knowledge, and mathematically\ncorrect computations, which enable the _Wise Men of the East_ to foretell,\nfor instance, that England is on the eve of such or another catastrophe;\nthat France is nearing such a point of her Cycle; and that Europe in\ngeneral is threatened with, or rather is on the eve of, a cataclysm, to\nwhich her own Cycle of racial Karma _has led her_. Our view of the\nreliability of the information depends, of course, on our acceptation or\nrejection of the claim for a tremendous period of historical observation.\nEastern Initiates maintain that they have preserved records of racial\ndevelopment and of events of universal import ever since the beginning of\nthe Fourth Race\u2014their knowledge of events preceding that epoch being\ntraditional. Moreover, those who believe in Seership and in Occult Powers\nwill have no difficulty in crediting the general character, at least, of\nthe information given, even if it be traditional, once the tradition is\nchecked and corrected by clairvoyance and Esoteric Knowledge. But in the\npresent case no such metaphysical belief is claimed as our chief\ndependence, for proof is given\u2014on what, to every Occultist, is quite\nscientific evidence\u2014the records preserved through the Zodiac for\nincalculable ages.\n\nIt is now amply proved that even horoscopes and judiciary Astrology are\nnot quite based on fiction, and that Stars and Constellations,\nconsequently, have an occult and mysterious influence on, and connection\nwith, individuals. And if with the latter, why not with nations, races,\nand mankind as a whole? This, again, is a claim made on the authority of\nthe Zodiacal records. We shall then enquire how far the Zodiac was known\nto the Ancients, and how far it is forgotten by the Moderns.\n\n\n\n\nSection XVI. The Zodiac and its Antiquity.\n\n\n\u201cAll men are apt to have a high conceit of their own understanding, and to\nbe tenacious of the opinions they profess,\u201d said Jordan, justly adding to\nthis\u2014\u201cand yet almost all men are guided by the understandings of others,\nnot by their own; and may be said more truly to adopt, than to beget,\ntheir opinions.\u201d\n\nThis is doubly true in regard to scientific opinions upon hypotheses\noffered for consideration\u2014the prejudice and preconceptions of\n\u201cauthorities,\u201d so called, often deciding upon questions of the most vital\nimportance for history. There are several such predetermined opinions held\nby our learned Orientalists, and few are more unjust or illogical than the\ngeneral error with regard to the antiquity of the Zodiac. Thanks to the\nhobby of some German Orientalists, English and American Sanskritists have\naccepted Professor Weber\u2019s opinion that the peoples of India had no idea\nor knowledge of the Zodiac prior to the Macedonian invasion, and that it\nis from the Greeks that the ancient Hind\u00fbs imported it into their country.\nWe are further told, by several other \u201cauthorities,\u201d that no Eastern\nnation knew of the Zodiac before the Hellenes kindly acquainted their\nneighbours with their invention. And _this_, in the face of the _Book of\nJob_, which is declared, even by themselves, to be the oldest in the\nHebrew canon, and certainly prior to Moses; a book which speaks of the\n_making_ of \u201cArcturus, Orion, and Pleiades [Osh, Kesil, and Kimah] and the\nchambers of the South\u201d(1109); of Scorpio and the Mazaruth\u2014the _twelve\nsigns_(1110); words which, if they mean anything, imply knowledge of the\nZodiac even among the nomadic Arabian tribes. The _Book of Job_ is alleged\nto have preceded Homer and Hesiod by at least one thousand years\u2014the two\nGreek poets having themselves flourished some eight centuries before the\nChristian era (!!). Though, by the bye, one who prefers to believe\nPlato\u2014who shows Homer flourishing far earlier\u2014could point to a number of\nZodiacal signs mentioned in the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, in the Orphic\npoems, and elsewhere. But since the cock\u2010and\u2010bull hypothesis of some\nmodern critics that, so far from Orpheus, not even Homer or Hesiod has\never existed, it would seem time lost to mention these archaic authors at\nall. The Arabian Job will suffice; unless, indeed, his volume of\nlamentations, along with the poems of the two Greeks, to which we may add\nthose of Linus, should now also be declared to be the patriotic forgery of\nthe Jew Aristobulus. But if the Zodiac was known in the days of Job, how\ncould the civilized and philosophical Hind\u00fbs have remained ignorant of it?\n\nRisking the arrows of modern criticism\u2014rather blunted by misuse\u2014the reader\nmay make himself acquainted with Bailly\u2019s learned opinion upon the\nsubject. Inferred speculations may be shown to be erroneous. Mathematical\ncalculations stand on more secure grounds. Taking as a starting point\nseveral astronomical references in _Job_, Bailly devised a very ingenious\nmeans of proving that the earliest founders of the Science of the Zodiac\nbelonged to an antediluvian, primitive people. The fact that he seems\nwilling to see some of the Biblical patriarchs in Thoth, Seth, and in the\nChinese Fohi, does not interfere with the validity of his proof as to the\nantiquity of the Zodiac.(1111) Even accepting, for argument\u2019s sake, his\ncautious 3700 years B.C. as the correct age of the Zodiacal Science, this\ndate proves in the most irrefutable way that it was not the Greeks who\ninvented the Zodiac, for the simple reason that they did not exist as a\nnation thirty\u2010seven centuries B.C.\u2014at any rate not as a _historical_ race\nadmitted by the critics. Bailly then calculated the period at which the\nconstellations manifested the atmospheric influence called by Job the\n\u201csweet influences of the Pleiades,\u201d(1112) in Hebrew Kimah; that of Orion,\nKesil; and that of the desert rains with reference to Scorpio, the eighth\nconstellation; and found that in presence of the eternal conformity of\nthese divisions of the Zodiac, and of the names of the Planets applied in\nthe same order everywhere and always, and in presence of the impossibility\nof attributing it all to chance and \u201ccoincidence\u201d\u2014\u201cwhich never creates\nsuch similarities\u201d\u2014a very great antiquity indeed must be allowed for the\nZodiac.(1113)\n\nAgain, if the _Bible_ is supposed to be an authority on any matter\u2014and\nthere are some who still regard it as such, whether from Christian or\nKabalistical considerations\u2014then the Zodiac is clearly mentioned in _II\nKings_, xxiii. 5. Before the \u201cbook of the law\u201d was \u201cfound\u201d by Hilkiah, the\nhigh priest, the signs of the Zodiac were known and worshipped. These were\nheld in the same adoration as the Sun and Moon, since the\n\n\n    priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense ...\n    unto Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to\n    all the host of heaven,\n\n\nor to the \u201ctwelve signs or constellations,\u201d as the marginal note in the\nEnglish _Bible_ explains, had followed the injunction for centuries. They\nwere stopped in their idolatry only by King Josiah, 624 B.C.\n\nThe _Old Testament_ is full of allusions to the twelve zodiacal signs, and\nthe whole scheme is built upon it\u2014heroes, personages, and events. Thus in\nthe dream of Joseph, who saw eleven \u201cStars\u201d bowing to the twelfth, which\nwas _his_ \u201cStar,\u201d the Zodiac is referred to. The Roman Catholics have\ndiscovered in it, moreover, a prophecy of Christ, who is that twelfth\nStar, they say, and the others the eleven apostles; the absence of the\ntwelfth being also regarded as a prophetic allusion to the treachery of\nJudas. The twelve sons of Jacob, again, are a reference to the same, as is\njustly pointed out by Villapandus.(1114) Sir James Malcolm, in his\n_History of Persia_,(1115) shows the _Dabistan_ echoing all such\ntraditions about the Zodiac. He traces the invention of it to the palmy\ndays of the Golden Age of Iran, remarking that one of the said traditions\nmaintains that the Genii of the Planets are represented under the same\nshapes and figures they had assumed when _they showed themselves to\nseveral holy prophets_, and thus led to the establishment of the rites\nbased on the Zodiac.\n\nPythagoras, and after him Philo Jud\u00e6us, held the number 12 as very sacred.\n\n\n    This duodenary number is _perfect_. It is that of the signs of the\n    Zodiac, which the sun visits in twelve months, and it is to honour\n    that number that Moses divided his nation into twelve tribes,\n    established the twelve cakes of the shew\u2010bread, and placed twelve\n    precious stones upon the breast\u2010plate of the pontiffs.(1116)\n\n\nAccording to Seneca, Berosus taught prophecy of every future event and\ncataclysm by the Zodiac; and the times fixed by him for the conflagration\nof the World\u2014Pralaya\u2014and for a deluge, are found to answer to the times\ngiven in an ancient Egyptian papyrus. Such a catastrophe comes at every\nrenewal of the cycle of the Sidereal Year of 25,868 years. The names of\nthe Akkadian months were called by, and derived from, the names of the\nsigns of the Zodiac, and the Akkadians are far earlier than the Chald\u00e6ans.\nMr. Proctor shows, in his _Myths and Marvels of Astronomy_, that the\nancient Astronomers had acquired a system of the most accurate Astronomy\n2,400 years B.C.; the Hind\u00fbs date their Kali Yuga from a great periodical\nconjunction of the Planets thirty\u2010one centuries B.C.; but, withal, it was\nthe Greeks, belonging to the expedition of Alexander the Great, who were\nthe instructors of the \u00c2ryan Hind\u00fbs in Astronomy!\n\nWhether the origin of the Zodiac is \u00c2ryan or Egyptian, it is still of an\nimmense antiquity. Simplicius, in the sixth century A.D., writes that he\nhad always heard that the Egyptians had kept astronomical observations and\nrecords for a period of 630,000 years. This statement appears to frighten\nMr. Gerald Massey, who remarks on it that:\n\n\n    If we read this number of years by the month which Euxodus said\n    the Egyptians termed a year, _i.e._, a course of time, that would\n    still yield the length of two cycles of precession [51,736\n    years].(1117)\n\n\nDiogenes La\u00ebrtius carried back the astronomical calculations of the\nEgyptians to 48,863 years before Alexander the Great.(1118) Martianus\nCapella corroborates this by telling posterity that the Egyptians had\nsecretly studied Astronomy for over 40,000 years, before they imparted\ntheir knowledge to the world.(1119)\n\nSeveral valuable quotations are made in _Natural Genesis_ with the view of\nsupporting the author\u2019s theories, but they justify the teaching of the\nSecret Doctrine far more. For instance, Plutarch is quoted from his _Life\nof Sulla_, saying:\n\n\n    One day when the sky was serene and clear, there was heard in it\n    the sound of a trumpet, so loud, shrill, and mournful, that it\n    affrighted and astonished the world. The Tuscan sages said that it\n    portended a new race of men, and a renovation of the world; for\n    they affirmed that there were eight several kinds of men, all\n    being different in life and manners; and that Heaven had allotted\n    each its time, which was limited by the circuit of the great year\n    [25,868 years].(1120)\n\n\nThis reminds one strongly of our Seven Races of men, and of the eighth\u2014the\n\u201canimal man\u201d\u2014descended from the later Third Race; as also of the\nsuccessive submersions and destruction of the continents which finally\ndisposed of almost all that Race. Says Iamblichus:\n\n\n    The Assyrians have not only preserved the memorials of seven\u2010and\u2010\n    twenty myriads of years [270,000 years], as Hipparchus says they\n    have, but likewise of the whole apocatastases and periods of the\n    Seven Rulers of the World.(1121)\n\n\nThis is as nearly as possible the calculation of the Esoteric Doctrine.\nFor 1,000,000 years are allowed for our present Root\u2010Race (the Fifth), and\nabout 850,000 years have passed since the submersion of the last large\nisland\u2014part of the continent of Atlantis\u2014the Ruta of the Fourth Race, the\nAtlanteans; while Daitya, a small island inhabited by a mixed race, was\ndestroyed about 270,000 years ago, during the Glacial Period or\nthereabouts. But the Seven Rulers, or the seven great Dynasties of the\nDivine Kings, belong to the traditions of every great people of antiquity.\nWherever twelve are mentioned, they are invariably the twelve signs of the\nZodiac.\n\nSo patent is this fact, that the Roman Catholic writers\u2014especially among\nthe French Ultramontanes\u2014have tacitly agreed to connect the twelve Jewish\nPatriarchs with the Signs of the Zodiac. This is done in a kind of\nprophetico\u2010mystic way, which sounds to pious and ignorant ears like a\nportentous token, a tacit divine recognition of the \u201cchosen people of\nGod,\u201d whose finger has purposely traced in heaven, from the beginning of\ncreation, the numbers of these patriarchs. For instance, curiously enough,\nthese writers, De Mirville among others, recognize all the characteristics\nof the twelve Signs of the Zodiac, in the words addressed by the dying\nJacob to his Sons, and in his definitions of the future of each\nTribe.(1122) Moreover, the respective banners of the same tribes are said\nto have exhibited the same symbols and the same names as the Signs,\nrepeated in the twelve stones of the Urim and Thummim, and on the twelve\nwings of the two Cherubs. Leaving to the said Mystics the proof of\nexactitude in the alleged correspondence, we quote it as follows: Man, or\nAquarius, is in the sphere of Reuben, who is declared as \u201cunstable as\nwater\u201d (the Vulgate has it, \u201c_rushing_ like water\u201d); Gemini, in that of\nSimeon and Levi, because of their strong fraternal association; Leo, in\nthat of Judah, \u201cthe strong Lion\u201d of his tribe, \u201cthe lion\u2019s whelp\u201d; Pisces,\nin Zabulon, who \u201cshall dwell at the haven of the sea\u201d; Taurus, in\nIssachar, because he is \u201ca strong ass couching down,\u201d etc., and therefore\nassociated with the stables; (Virgo\u2010) Scorpio, in Dan, who is described as\n\u201ca serpent, an adder in the path that biteth,\u201d etc.; Capricornus in\nNaphtali, who is \u201ca hind (a deer) let loose\u201d; Cancer, in Benjamin, for he\nis \u201cravenous\u201d; Libra, the Balance, in Asher, whose \u201cbread shall be fat\u201d;\nSagittarius in Joseph, because \u201chis bow abode in strength.\u201d To make up for\nthe twelfth Sign, Virgo, made independent of Scorpio, we have Dinah, the\nonly daughter of Jacob. Tradition shows the _alleged_ tribes carrying the\ntwelve signs on their banners. But indeed the _Bible_, in addition to the\nabove, is filled with theo\u2010cosmological and astronomical symbols and\npersonifications.\n\nIt remains to wonder, and to query\u2014if the actual, living Patriarchs\u2019\ndestiny was so indissolubly wound up with the Zodiac\u2014how it is that, after\nthe loss of the ten tribes, the ten signs also out of the twelve have not\nmiraculously disappeared from the sidereal fields? But this is of no great\nconcern. Let us rather busy ourselves with the history of the Zodiac\nitself.\n\nThe reader may be reminded of some opinions expressed as to the Zodiac by\nseveral of the highest authorities in Science.\n\nNewton believed that the invention of the Zodiac could be traced as far\nback as the expedition of the Argonauts; and Dulaure fixed its origin at\n6,500 years B.C., just 2,496 years before the creation of the world,\naccording to the _Bible_ chronology.\n\nCreuzer thought that it was very easy to show that most of the Theogonies\nwere intimately connected with religious calendars, and were related to\nthe Zodiac as to their prime origin; if not to the Zodiac known to us now,\nthen to something very analogous with it. He felt certain that the Zodiac\nand its mystic relations are at the bottom of all the mythologies, under\none form or another, and that it had existed in the old form for ages,\nbefore it was brought out in the present defined astronomical garb, owing\nto some singular co\u00f6rdination of events.(1123)\n\nWhether the \u201cgenii of the planets,\u201d our Dhy\u00e2n Chohans of supra\u2010mundane\nspheres, showed themselves to \u201choly prophets,\u201d or not, as claimed in the\n_Dabistan_, it would seem that great laymen and warriors were favoured in\nthe same way in days of old in Chald\u00e6a, when astrological Magic and\nTheophania went hand in hand.\n\n\n    Xenophon, no ordinary man, narrates of Cyrus ... that at the\n    moment of his death he thanked the Gods and heroes, for having so\n    often instructed him themselves about the signs in heaven\u2014\u1f10\u03bd\n    \u03bf\u1f50\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03af\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c3\u03b7\u03bc\u03b5\u03af\u03bf\u03b9\u03c2.(1124)\n\n\nUnless the Science of the Zodiac is admitted to be of the highest\nantiquity and universality, how can we account for its Signs being traced\nin the oldest Theogonies? Laplace is said to have felt struck with\namazement at the idea of the days of Mercury (Wednesday), Venus (Friday),\nJupiter (Thursday), Saturn (Saturday), and others, being related to the\ndays of the week in the same order and with the same names in India as in\nNorthern Europe.\n\n\n    Try, if you can, with the present system of autochthonous\n    civilizations, so much in fashion in our day, to explain how\n    nations with no ancestry, no traditions or birthplace in common,\n    could have succeeded in inventing a kind of celestial\n    phantasmagoria, a veritable _imbroglio_ of sidereal denominations,\n    without sequence or object, having no figurative relation with the\n    constellations they represent, and still less, apparently, with\n    the phases of our terrestrial life they are made to signify,\n\n\n\u2014had there not been a _general_ intention and a _universal_ cause and\nbelief, at the root of all this!(1125) Most truly has Dupuis asserted the\nsame:\n\n\n    Il est impossible de d\u00e9couvrir le moindre trait de ressemblance\n    entre les parties du ciel et les figures que les astronomes y ont\n    _arbitrairement_ trac\u00e9es; et de l\u2019autre c\u00f4t\u00e9, _le hasard est\n    impossible_.(1126)\n\n\nMost certainly chance is \u201c_impossible_.\u201d There is no \u201cchance\u201d in Nature,\nwherein everything is mathematically co\u00f6rdinate, and inter\u2010related in its\nunits. Says Coleridge:\n\n\n    Chance is but the pseudonym of God [or Nature], for those\n    particular cases which He does not choose to subscribe openly with\n    His sign manual.\n\n\nReplace the word \u201cGod\u201d by Karma, and it will become an Eastern axiom.\nTherefore, the sidereal \u201cprophecies\u201d of the Zodiac, as they are called by\nChristian Mystics, never point to any one particular event, however solemn\nand sacred it may be for some one portion of humanity, but to ever\u2010\nrecurrent, periodical laws in Nature, understood only by the Initiates of\nthe Sidereal Gods themselves.\n\nNo Occultist, no Astrologer of Eastern birth, will ever agree with\nChristian Mystics, or even with Kepler\u2019s mystical Astronomy, his great\nscience and erudition notwithstanding; and this because, if his premisses\nare quite correct, his deductions therefrom are one\u2010sided and biassed by\nChristian preconceptions. Where Kepler finds a prophecy directly pointing\nto the Saviour, other nations see a symbol of an eternal law, decreed for\nthe actual Manvantara. Why see in Pisces a direct reference to Christ\u2014one\nof the several world\u2010reformers, a Saviour for his direct followers, but\nonly a great and glorious Initiate for all the rest\u2014when that\nconstellation shines as a symbol of all the past, present, and future\nSpiritual Saviours, who dispense light and dispel mental darkness?\nChristian symbologists have tried to prove that this sign belonged to\nEphraim, Joseph\u2019s son, the _elect_ of Jacob, and that therefore, it was at\nthe moment of the Sun\u2019s entering into the sign of Pisces, the Fish, that\nthe \u201cElect Messiah,\u201d the \u1f38\u03c7\u03b8\u1f7a\u03c2 of the first Christians, had to be born.\nBut if Jesus of Nazareth was that Messiah, was he really born at that\n\u201cmoment,\u201d or was his birth\u2010hour thus fixed by the adaptation of\nTheologians, who sought only to make their preconceived ideas fit in with\nsidereal facts and popular belief? Everyone is aware that the real time\nand year of the birth of Jesus are totally unknown. And it is the\nJews\u2014whose forefathers made the word Dag signify both \u201cFish\u201d and \u201cMessiah\u201d\nduring the forced development of their rabbinical language\u2014who are the\nfirst to deny this Christian claim. And what of the further facts that\nBr\u00e2hmans connect their \u201cMessiah,\u201d the eternal Avat\u00e2ra Vishnu, with a Fish\nand the Deluge, and that the Babylonians also made a Fish and a Messiah of\ntheir Dag\u2010On, the Man\u2010Fish and Prophet?\n\nThere are learned iconoclasts among Egyptologists, who say that:\n\n\n    When the Pharisees sought a \u201csign from heaven,\u201d Jesus said, \u201cthere\n    shall no sign be given .... but the sign of the prophet Jonas.\u201d\n    (_Mat._, xvi. 4.).... The sign of Jonas is that of the Oan or\n    Fish\u2010Man of Nineveh.... Assuredly there was no other sign than\n    that of the Sun reborn in Pisces. The voice of the Secret Wisdom\n    says those who are looking for signs can have no other than that\n    of the returning Fish\u2010Man Ichthys, Oannes, or Jonas\u2014who could not\n    be made flesh.\n\n\nIt would appear that Kepler maintained it as a positive fact that, at the\nmoment of the \u201cincarnation,\u201d all the planets were in conjunction in the\nsign Pisces, called by the Jewish Kabbalists the \u201cconstellation of the\nMessiah.\u201d Kepler averred:\n\n\n    It is in this constellation that the star of the Magi is to be\n    found.\n\n\nThis statement, quoted from Dr. Sepp(1127) by De Mirville, emboldened the\nlatter to remark that:\n\n\n    All the Jewish traditions, while announcing that star that many\n    nations have seen [!],(1128) further added that it would absorb\n    the seventy planets that preside over the destinies of various\n    nations on this globe.(1129) \u201cIn virtue of those natural\n    prophecies,\u201d says Dr. Sepp, \u201cit was written in the stars of the\n    firmament that the Messiah would be born in the lunar year of the\n    world 4320, in that memorable year when the entire choir of the\n    planets would be celebrating its jubilee.\u201d(1130)\n\n\nThere was indeed a rage, at the beginning of the present century, for\nclaiming restoration from the Hind\u00fbs for an alleged robbery from the Jews\nof their \u201cGods,\u201d patriarchs, and chronology. It was Wilford who recognized\nNoah in Prith\u00ee and in Satyavrata, Enos in Dhruva, and even Assur in\n\u00ceshvara. After being residents for so many years in India, some\nOrientalists, at least, ought to have known that it was not the Br\u00e2hmans\nalone who had these figures, or who had divided their Great Age into four\nminor ages. Nevertheless writers in the _Asiatic Researches_ indulged in\nthe most extravagant speculations. S. A. Mackey, the Norwich \u201cphilosopher,\nastronomer, and shoemaker,\u201d argues very pertinently:\n\n\n    Christian theologians think it their duty to write against the\n    long periods of Hind\u00fb chronology, and in them it may be\n    pardonable: but when a man of learning crucifies the names and the\n    numbers of the ancients, and wrings and twists them into a form,\n    which means something quite foreign to the intention of the\n    ancient authors; but which, so mutilated, fits in with the _birth_\n    of some _maggot_ pre\u00ebxisting in his own brain with so much\n    exactness that he _pretends_ to be amazed at the discovery, I\n    cannot think him quite so pardonable.(1131)\n\n\nThis is intended to apply to Captain (later Colonel) Wilford, but the\nwords may fit more than one of our modern Orientalists. Colonel Wilford\nwas the first to crown his unlucky speculations on Hind\u00fb chronology and\nthe _Pur\u00e2nas_ by connecting the 4,320,000 years with biblical chronology,\nby simply dwarfing the figures to 4,320 years\u2014the supposed lunar year of\nthe Nativity\u2014and Dr. Sepp has simply plagiarized the idea from this\ngallant officer. Moreover, he persisted in seeing in them Jewish property,\nas well as Christian prophecy, thus accusing the \u00c2ryans of having helped\nthemselves to Semitic revelation, whereas the reverse was the case. The\nJews, moreover, need not be accused of directly despoiling the Hind\u00fbs, of\nwhose figures Ezra probably knew nothing. They had evidently and\nundeniably borrowed them from the Chaldeans, along with the Chaldean Gods.\nThey turned the 432,000 years of the Chaldean Divine Dynasties(1132) into\n4,320 lunar years from the world\u2019s creation to the Christian era; as to\nthe Babylonian and Egyptian Gods, they quietly and modestly transformed\nthem into Patriarchs. Every nation was more or less guilty of such\nrefashioning and adaptation of a Pantheon\u2014once common to all\u2014of universal\ninto national and tribal Gods and Heroes. It was Jewish property in its\nnew Pentateuchal garb, and no one of the Israelites has ever forced it\nupon any other nation\u2014least of all upon the European.\n\nWithout stopping to notice this very unscientific chronology more than is\nnecessary, we may yet make a few remarks that may be found to the point.\nThe 4,320 _lunar_ years of the world\u2014in the _Bible_ the _solar_ years are\nused\u2014are not fanciful, as such, even if their application is quite\nerroneous; for they are only the distorted echo of the primitive Esoteric,\nand later of the Br\u00e2hmanical doctrine concerning the Yugas. A Day of\nBrahm\u00e2 equals 4,320,000,000 years, as also does a Night of Brahm\u00e2, or the\nduration of Pralaya, after which a _new_ \u201csun\u201d rises triumphantly over a\n_new_ Manvantara, for the Septenary Chain it illuminates. The teaching had\npenetrated into Palestine and Europe centuries before the Christian\nera,(1133) and was present in the minds of the Mosaic Jews, who based upon\nit their small Cycle, though it received full expression only through the\nChristian chronologers of the _Bible_, who adopted it, as also the 25th of\nDecember, the day on which all the _solar_ Gods were said to have been\nincarnated. What wonder, then, that the Messiah was _made_ to be born in\n\u201cthe _lunar_ year of the world 4,320\u201d? The \u201cSun of Righteousness and\nSalvation\u201d had once more arisen and had dispelled the pralayic darkness of\nChaos and Nonbeing on the plane of our objective little Globe and Chain.\nOnce the subject of the adoration was settled upon, it was easy to make\nthe supposed events of his birth, life, and death, fit in with the\nZodiacal exigencies and the old traditions, though they had to be somewhat\nremodelled for the occasion.\n\nThus what Kepler said, as a great Astronomer, becomes comprehensible. He\nrecognized the grand and universal importance of all such planetary\nconjunctions, \u201ceach of which\u201d\u2014as he has well said\u2014\u201cis a _climacteric_ year\nof Humanity.\u201d(1134) The rare conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars has\nits significance and importance on account of its certain great results,\nin India and China as much as it has in Europe, for the respective Mystics\nof these countries. And it is certainly now no better than a mere\nassumption to maintain that Nature had only Christ in view, in building\nher (to the profane) fantastic and meaningless constellations. If it is\nclaimed that it was no hazard that could lead the archaic architects of\nthe Zodiac, thousands of years ago, to mark the figure of Taurus with the\nasterisk _a_, with no better or more valid proof of it being _prophetic_\nof the Verbum or Christ than that the _aleph_ of Taurus means the \u201cone\u201d\nand the \u201cfirst,\u201d and that Christ was also the _alpha_ or the \u201cone,\u201d then\nthis \u201cproof\u201d may be shown to be strangely invalidated in more than one\nway. To begin with, the Zodiac existed before the Christian era, at all\nevents; further, all the Sun\u2010Gods\u2014Osiris, for instance\u2014had been mystically\nconnected with the constellation Taurus and were all called by their\nrespective votaries the \u201cFirst.\u201d Further, the compilers of the mystical\nepithets given to the Christian Saviour were all more or less acquainted\nwith the significance of the Zodiacal signs; and it is easier to suppose\nthat they should have arranged their claims so as to match the mystic\nsigns, than that the latter should have shone as a prophecy for one\nportion of humanity, for millions of years, taking no heed of the\nnumberless generations that had gone before, and of those that were to be\nborn hereafter.\n\nWe are told:\n\n\n    It is not simple chance that, in certain spheres, has placed on a\n    throne the head of this bull [Taurus] trying to push back a Dragon\n    with the ansated _cross_; we should know that this constellation\n    of Taurus was called \u201c_the great city of God_ and _the mother of\n    revelations_,\u201d and also \u201c_the interpreter of the divine voice_,\u201d\n    the Apis Pacis of Hermontis, in Egypt, which [as the patristic\n    fathers would assure the world] is said to have proffered oracles\n    that related to the birth of the Saviour.(1135)\n\n\nTo this theological assumption there are several answers. Firstly, the\nansated Egyptian cross, or Tau, the Jaina cross, or Svastika, and the\nChristian cross, have all the same meaning. Secondly, no peoples or\nnations except the Christians gave the significance to the Dragon that is\ngiven to it now. The Serpent was the symbol of WISDOM; and the Bull,\nTaurus, the symbol of physical or terrestrial _generation_. Thus the Bull,\npushing off the Dragon, or spiritual Divine Wisdom, with the Tau, or\nCross\u2014which is esoterically \u201cthe foundation and framework of all\nconstruction\u201d\u2014would have an entirely phallic, physiological meaning, had\nit not had yet another significance unknown to our Biblical scholars and\nsymbologists. At any rate, it has no special reference to the Verbum of\nSt. John, except, perhaps, in a general sense. The Taurus\u2014which, by the\nway, is no lamb, but a bull\u2014was sacred in every Cosmogony, with the Hind\u00fbs\nas with the Zoroastrians, with the Chaldees as with the Egyptians. So\nmuch, every schoolboy knows.\n\nIt may perhaps help to refresh the memory of our Theosophists if we refer\nthem to what was said of the Virgin and the Dragon, and the universality\nof periodical births and re\u2010births of World\u2010Saviours\u2014Solar Gods\u2014in _Isis\nUnveiled,_(1136) with regard to certain passages in _Revelation_.\n\nIn 1853, the savant known as Erard\u2010Mollien read before the Institute of\nFrance a paper tending to prove the antiquity of the Indian Zodiac, in the\nsigns of which were found the root and philosophy of all the most\nimportant religious festivals of that country; the lecturer tried to\ndemonstrate that the origin of these religious ceremonies goes back into\nthe night of time to at least 3,000 B.C. The Zodiac of the Hind\u00fbs, he\nthought, was long anterior to the Zodiac of the Greeks, and differed from\nit much in some particulars. In it one sees the Dragon on a Tree, at the\nfoot of which the Virgin, Kany\u00e2\u2010Durg\u00e2, one of the most ancient Goddesses,\nis placed on a Lion dragging after it the solar car. He said:\n\n\n    This is the reason why this Virgin Durg\u00e2 is not the simple\n    _memento_ of an astronomical fact, but verily the most ancient\n    divinity of the Indian Olympus. She is evidently the same whose\n    return was announced in all the Sibylline books\u2014the source of the\n    inspiration of Virgil\u2014an epoch of universal renovation.... And\n    why, since the months are still named after this Indian solar\n    Zodiac, by the Malayalim\u2010speaking people [of southern India],\n    should that people have abandoned it to take that of the Greeks?\n    Everything proves, on the contrary, that these zodiacal figures\n    were transmitted to the Greeks by the Chaldeans, who got them from\n    the Br\u00e2hmans.(1137)\n\n\nBut all this is very poor testimony. Let us, however, remember also that\nwhich was said and accepted by the contemporaries of Volney, who remarks\nthat as Aries was in its fifteenth degree 1,447 B.C., it follows that the\nfirst degree of Libra could not have coincided with the vernal equinox\nlater than 15,194 years B.C.; if we add to this, he argues, the 1,790\nyears that have passed since the birth of Christ, it appears that 16,984\nyears must have elapsed since the origin of the Zodiac.(1138)\n\nDr. Schlegel, moreover, in his _Uranographie Chinoise_, assigns to the\nChinese Astronomical Sphere an antiquity of 18,000 years.(1139)\n\nNevertheless, as opinions quoted without adequate proofs are of little\navail, it may be more useful to turn to scientific evidence. M. Bailly,\nthe famous French Astronomer of the last century, Member of the Academy,\netc., asserts that the Hind\u00fb systems of Astronomy are by far the oldest,\nand that from them the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and even the Jews\nderived their knowledge. In support of these views he says:\n\n\n    The astronomers who preceded the epoch 1491 are, first, the\n    Alexandrian Greeks; Hipparchus, who flourished 125 years before\n    our era, and Ptolemy, 260 years after Hipparchus. Following these\n    were the Arabs, who revived the study of astronomy in the ninth\n    century. These were succeeded by the Persians and the Tartars, to\n    whom we owe the tables of Nassireddin in 1269, and those of Ulug\u2010\n    beg in 1437. Such is the succession of events in Asia as known\n    prior to the Indian epoch 1491. What, then, is an epoch? It is the\n    observation of the longitude of a star at a given moment, the\n    place in the sky where it was seen, and which serves as a point of\n    reference, a starting\u2010point from which to calculate both the past\n    and future positions of the star from its observed motion. But an\n    epoch is useless unless the motion of the star has been\n    determined. A people, new to science and obliged to borrow a\n    foreign astronomy, finds no difficulty in fixing an epoch, since\n    the only observation needed is one which can be made at any\n    moment. But what it needs above all, what it is obliged to borrow,\n    are those elements which depend on accurate determination, and\n    which require continuous observation; above all, those motions\n    which depend on time, and which can only be accurately determined\n    by centuries of observation. These motions, then, must be borrowed\n    from a nation which has made such observations, and has behind it\n    the labours of centuries. We conclude, therefore, that a new\n    people will not borrow the epochs of an ancient one, without also\n    borrowing from them the \u201caverage motions.\u201d Starting from this\n    principle we shall find that the Hind\u00fb epochs 1491 and 3102 could\n    not have been derived from those of either Ptolemy or Ulug\u2010beg.\n\n    There remains the supposition that the Hind\u00fbs, comparing their\n    observations in 1491 with those previously made by Ulug\u2010beg and\n    Ptolemy, used the intervals between these observations to\n    determine the average motions. The date of Ulug\u2010beg is too recent\n    for such a determination; while those of Ptolemy and Hipparchus\n    were barely remote enough. But if the Hind\u00fb motions had been\n    determined from these comparisons, the epochs would be connected\n    together. Starting from the epochs of Ulug\u2010beg and Ptolemy we\n    should arrive at all those of the Hind\u00fbs. Hence foreign epochs\n    were either unknown or useless to the Hind\u00fbs.(1140)\n\n    We may add to this another important consideration. When a nation\n    is obliged to borrow from its neighbours the methods or the\n    average motions of its astronomical tables, it has even greater\n    need to borrow, besides these, the knowledge of the inequalities\n    of the motions of the heavenly bodies, the motions of the apogee,\n    of the nodes, and of the inclination of the ecliptic; in short,\n    all those elements the determination of which requires the art of\n    observing, some instrumental appliances, and great industry. All\n    these astronomical elements, differing more or less with the\n    Greeks of Alexandria, the Arabs, the Persians and the Tartars,\n    exhibit no resemblance whatever with those of the Hind\u00fbs. The\n    latter, therefore, borrowed nothing from their neighbours.\n\n    If the Hind\u00fbs did not borrow their epoch, they must have possessed\n    a real one of their own, based on their own observations; and this\n    must be either the epoch of the year 1491 after, or that of the\n    year 3102 before our era, the latter preceding by 4,592 years the\n    epoch 1491. We have to choose between these two epochs and to\n    decide which of them is based on observation. But before stating\n    the arguments which can and must decide the question, we may be\n    permitted to make a few remarks to those who may be inclined to\n    believe that it is modern observations and calculations which have\n    enabled the Hind\u00fbs to determine the past positions of the heavenly\n    bodies. It is far from easy to determine the celestial movements\n    with sufficient accuracy to ascend the stream of time for 4,592\n    years, and to describe the phenomena which must have occurred at\n    that period. We possess to\u2010day excellent instruments; exact\n    observations have been made for some two or three centuries, which\n    already permit us to calculate with considerable accuracy the\n    average motions of the Planets; we have the observations of the\n    Chaldeans, of Hipparchus and of Ptolemy, which, owing to their\n    remoteness from the present time, permit us to fix these motions\n    with greater certainty. Still we cannot undertake to represent\n    with invariable accuracy the observations throughout the long\n    period intervening between the Chaldeans and ourselves; and still\n    less can we undertake to determine with exactitude events\n    occurring 4,592 years before our day. Cassini and Maier have each\n    determined the secular motion of the moon, and they differ by 3m.\n    43s. This difference would give rise in forty\u2010six centuries to an\n    uncertainty of nearly three degrees in the moon\u2019s place. Doubtless\n    one of these determinations is more accurate than the other; and\n    it is for observations of very great antiquity to decide between\n    them. But in very remote periods, where observations are lacking,\n    it follows that we are uncertain as to the phenomena. How, then,\n    could the Hind\u00fbs have calculated back from the year 1491 A.D. to\n    the year 3102 before our era, if they were only recent students of\n    Astronomy?\n\n    The Orientals have never been what we are. However high an opinion\n    of their knowledge we may form from the examination of their\n    Astronomy, we cannot suppose them ever to have possessed that\n    great array of instruments which distinguishes our modern\n    observatories, and which is the product of simultaneous progress\n    in various arts, nor could they have possessed that genius for\n    discovery, which has hitherto seemed to belong exclusively to\n    Europe, and which, supplying the place of time, causes the rapid\n    progress of science and of human intelligence. If the Asiatics\n    have been powerful, learned and wise, it is power and time which\n    have produced their merit and success of all kinds. Power has\n    founded or destroyed their empires; now it has erected edifices\n    imposing by their bulk, now it has reduced them to venerable\n    ruins; and while these vicissitudes alternated with each other,\n    patience accumulated knowledge; and prolonged experience produced\n    wisdom. It is the antiquity of the nations of the East which has\n    erected their scientific fame.\n\n    If the Hind\u00fbs possessed in 1491 a knowledge of the heavenly\n    motions sufficiently accurate to enable them to calculate\n    backwards for 4592 years, it follows that they could only have\n    obtained this knowledge from very ancient observations. To grant\n    them such knowledge, while refusing them the observations from\n    which it is derived, is to suppose an impossibility; it would be\n    equivalent to assuming that at the outset of their career they had\n    already reaped the harvest of time and experience. While on the\n    other hand, if their epoch of 3102 is assumed to be real, it would\n    follow that the Hind\u00fbs had simply kept pace with successive\n    centuries down to the year 1491 of our era. Thus, time itself was\n    their teacher; they knew the motions of the heavenly bodies during\n    these periods, because they had seen them; and the duration of the\n    Hind\u00fb people on earth is the cause of the fidelity of its records\n    and the accuracy of its calculations.\n\n    It would seem that the problem as to which of the two epochs of\n    3102 and 1491 is the real one ought to be solved by one\n    consideration, viz., that the ancients in general, and\n    particularly the Hind\u00fbs, as we may see by the arrangement of their\n    Tables, calculated, and therefore observed, eclipses only. Now,\n    there was no eclipse of the sun at the moment of the epoch 1491;\n    and no eclipse of the moon either fourteen days before or after\n    that moment. Therefore the epoch 1491 is not based on an\n    observation. As regards the epoch 3102, the Br\u00e2hmans of Tirvaloor\n    place it at sunrise on February 18th. The sun was then in the\n    first point of the Zodiac according to its true longitude. The\n    other Tables show that at the preceding midnight the moon was in\n    the same place, but according to its average longitude. The\n    Br\u00e2hmans tell us also that this first point, the origin of their\n    Zodiac, was, in the year 3102, 54 degrees behind the equinox. It\n    follows that the origin\u2014the first point of their Zodiac\u2014was\n    therefore in the sixth degree of Aquarius.\n\n    There occurred, therefore, about this time and place an average\n    conjunction; and indeed this conjunction is given in our best\n    Tables: La Caille\u2019s for the sun and Maier\u2019s for the moon. There\n    was no eclipse of the sun, the moon being too distant from her\n    node; but fourteen days later, the moon having approached the\n    node, must have been eclipsed. Maier\u2019s tables, used without\n    correction for acceleration, give this eclipse; but they place it\n    during the day when it could not have been observed in India.\n    Cassini\u2019s tables give it as occurring at night, which shows that\n    Maier\u2019s motions are too rapid for distant centuries, when the\n    acceleration is not allowed for; and which also proves that in\n    spite of the improvement of our knowledge we can still be\n    uncertain as to the actual aspect of the heavens in past times.\n\n    Therefore we believe that, as between the two Hind\u00fb epochs, the\n    real one is the year 3102, because it was accompanied by an\n    eclipse which could be observed, and which must have served to\n    determine it. This is a first proof of the truth of the longitude\n    assigned by the Hind\u00fbs to the sun and the moon at this instant;\n    and this proof would perhaps be sufficient, were it not that this\n    ancient determination becomes of the greatest importance for the\n    verification of the motions of these bodies, and must therefore be\n    borne out by every possible proof of its authenticity.\n\n    We notice, 1st, that the Hind\u00fbs seem to have combined two epochs\n    together into the year 3102. The Tirvaloor Br\u00e2hmans reckon\n    primarily from the first moment of the Kali Yuga; but they have a\n    second epoch placed 2d. 3h. 32m. 30s. later. The latter is the\n    true astronomical epoch, while the former seems to be a civil era.\n    But if this epoch of the Kali Yuga had no reality, and was the\n    mere result of a calculation, why should it be thus divided? Their\n    calculated astronomical epoch would have become that of the Kali\n    Yuga, which would have been placed at the conjunction of the sun\n    and the moon, as is the case with the epochs of the three other\n    Tables. They must have had some reason for distinguishing between\n    the two; and this reason can only be due to the circumstances and\n    the time of the epoch; which therefore could not be the result of\n    calculation. This is not all; starting from the solar epoch\n    determined by the rising of the sun on February 18th, 3102, and\n    tracing back events 2d. 3h. 32m. 30s., we come to 2h. 27m. 30s.\n    a.m. of February 16th, which is the instant of the beginning of\n    Kali Yuga. It is curious that this age has not been made to\n    commence at one of the four great divisions of the day. It might\n    be suspected that the epoch should be midnight, and that the 2h.\n    27m. 30s. are a meridian correction. But whatever may have been\n    the reason for fixing on this moment, it is plain that were this\n    epoch the result of calculation, it would have been just as easy\n    to carry it back to midnight, so as to make the epoch correspond\n    to one of the chief divisions of the day, instead of placing it at\n    a moment fixed by the fraction of a day.\n\n    2nd. The Hind\u00fbs assert that at the first moment of Kali Yuga there\n    was a conjunction of all the planets; and their Tables show this\n    conjunction while ours indicate that it might actually have\n    occurred. Jupiter and Mercury were in exactly the same degree of\n    the ecliptic; Mars being 8\u00b0 and Saturn 17\u00b0 distant from it. It\n    follows that about this time, or some fifteen days after the\n    commencement of Kali Yuga, and as the sun advanced in the Zodiac,\n    the Hind\u00fbs saw four planets emerge successively from the Sun\u2019s\n    rays; first Saturn, then Mars, then Jupiter and Mercury, and these\n    planets appeared united in a somewhat small space. Although Venus\n    was not among them, the taste for the marvellous caused it to be\n    called a general conjunction of all the planets. The testimony of\n    the Br\u00e2hmans here co\u00efncides with that of our Tables; and this\n    evidence, the result of a tradition, must be founded on actual\n    observation.\n\n    3rd. We may remark that this phenomenon was visible about a\n    fortnight after the epoch, and exactly at the time when the\n    eclipse of the moon must have been observed, which served to fix\n    the epoch. The two observations mutually confirm each other; and\n    whoever made the one must have made the other also.\n\n    4th. We may believe also that the Hind\u00fbs made at the same time a\n    determination of the place of the moon\u2019s node; this seems\n    indicated by their calculation. They give the longitude of this\n    point of the lunar orbit for the time of their epoch, and to this\n    they add as a constant 40m., which is the node\u2019s motion in 12d.\n    14h. It is as if they stated that this determination was made\n    thirteen days after their epoch, and that to make it correspond to\n    that epoch, we must add the 40m. through which the node has\n    retrograded in the interval. This observation is, therefore, of\n    the same date as that of the lunar eclipse; thus giving three\n    observations, which are mutually confirmatory.\n\n    5th. It appears from the description of the Hind\u00fb Zodiac given by\n    M. C. Gentil, that on it the places of the stars named the Eye of\n    Taurus and the Wheat\u2010ear of Virgo, can be determined for the\n    commencement of the Kali Yuga. Now, comparing these places with\n    the actual positions, reduced by our precession of the equinoxes\n    to the moment in question, we see that the point of origin of the\n    Hind\u00fb Zodiac must lie between the fifth and sixth degree of\n    Aquarius. The Br\u00e2hmans, therefore, were right in placing it in the\n    sixth degree of that sign, the more so since this small difference\n    may be due to the proper motion of the stars, which is unknown.\n    Thus it was yet another observation which guided the Hind\u00fbs in\n    this fairly accurate determination of the first point of their\n    movable Zodiac.\n\n    It does not seem possible to doubt the existence in antiquity of\n    observations of this date. The Persians say that four beautiful\n    stars were placed as guardians at the four corners of the world.\n    Now it so happens that at the commencement of Kali Yuga, 3,000 or\n    3,100 years before our era, the Eye of the Bull and the Heart of\n    the Scorpion were exactly at the equinoctial points, while the\n    Heart of the Lion and the Southern Fish were pretty near the\n    solstitial points. An observation of the rising of the Pleiades in\n    the evening, seven days before the autumnal equinox, also belongs\n    to the year 3000 before our era. This and similar observations are\n    collected in Ptolemy\u2019s calendars, though he does not give their\n    authors; and these, which are older than those of the Chaldeans,\n    may well be the work of the Hind\u00fbs. They are well acquainted with\n    the constellation of the Pleiades, and while we call it vulgarly\n    the \u201cPoussini\u00e8re,\u201d they name it Pillaloo\u2010codi\u2014the \u201cHen and\n    chickens.\u201d This name has, therefore, passed from people to people,\n    and comes to us from the most ancient nations of Asia. We see that\n    the Hind\u00fbs must have observed the rising of the Pleiades, and have\n    made use of it to regulate their years and their months; for this\n    constellation is also called Krittik\u00e2. Now they have a month of\n    the same name, and this co\u00efncidence can only be due to the fact\n    that this month was announced by the rising or setting of the\n    constellation in question.\n\n    But what is even more decisive as showing that the Hind\u00fbs observed\n    the stars, and in the same way that we do, marking their position\n    by their longitude, is a fact mentioned by Augustinus Riccius\n    that, according to observations attributed to Hermes, and made\n    1,985 years before Ptolemy, the brilliant star in the Lyre and\n    that in the heart of the Hydra were each seven degrees in advance\n    of their respective positions as determined by Ptolemy. This\n    determination seems very extraordinary. The stars advance\n    regularly with respect to the equinox: and Ptolemy ought to have\n    found the longitudes 28 degrees in excess of what they were 1,985\n    years before his time. Besides, there is a remarkable peculiarity\n    about this fact, the same error or difference being found in the\n    positions of both stars; therefore the error was due to some cause\n    affecting both stars equally. It was to explain this peculiarity\n    that the Arab Thebith imagined the stars to have an oscillatory\n    movement, causing them to advance and recede alternately. This\n    hypothesis was easily disproved; but the observations attributed\n    to Hermes remained unexplained. Their explanation, however, is\n    found in Hind\u00fb Astronomy. At the date fixed for these\n    observations, 1,985 years before Ptolemy, the first point of the\n    Hind\u00fb Zodiac was 35 degrees in advance of the equinox; therefore\n    the longitudes reckoned for this point are 35 degrees in excess of\n    those reckoned from the equinox. But after the lapse of 1,985\n    years the stars would have advanced 28 degrees, and there would\n    remain a difference of only 7 degrees between the longitudes of\n    Hermes and those of Ptolemy, and the difference would be the same\n    for the two stars, since it is due to the difference between the\n    starting\u2010points of the Hind\u00fb Zodiac and that of Ptolemy, which\n    reckons from the equinox. This explanation is so simple and\n    natural that it must be true. We do not know whether Hermes, so\n    celebrated in antiquity, was a Hind\u00fb, but we see that the\n    observations attributed to him are reckoned in the Hind\u00fb manner,\n    and we conclude that they were made by the Hind\u00fbs, who, therefore,\n    were able to make all the observations we have enumerated, and\n    which we find noted in their Tables.\n\n    6th. The observation of the year 3102, which seems to have fixed\n    their epoch, was not a difficult one. We see that the Hind\u00fbs,\n    having once determined the moon\u2019s daily motion of 13\u00b0 10\u00b4 35\u00b4\u00b4,\n    made use of it to divide the Zodiac into 27 constellations,\n    related to the period of the moon, which takes about 27 days to\n    describe it.\n\n    It was by this method that they determined the positions of the\n    stars in this Zodiac; it was thus they found that a certain star\n    of the Lyre was in 8s 24\u00b0, the Heart of the Hydra in 4s 7\u00b0,\n    longitudes which are ascribed to Hermes, but which are calculated\n    on the Hind\u00fb Zodiac. Similarly, they discovered that the Wheat\u2010ear\n    of Virgo forms the commencement of their fifteenth constellation,\n    and the Eye of Taurus the end of the fourth; these stars being the\n    one in 6s 6\u00b0 40\u00b4, the other in 1s 23\u00b0 20\u00b4 of the Hind\u00fb Zodiac.\n    This being so, the eclipse of the moon which occurred fifteen days\n    after the Kali Yuga epoch, took place at a point between the\n    Wheat\u2010ear of Virgo and the star \u03b8 of the same constellation. These\n    stars are very approximately a constellation apart, the one\n    beginning the fifteenth, the other the sixteenth. Thus it would\n    not be difficult to determine the moon\u2019s place by measuring her\n    distance from one of these stars; from this they deduced the\n    position of the sun, which is opposite to the moon, and then,\n    knowing their average motions, they calculated that the moon was\n    at the first point of the Zodiac according to her average\n    longitude at midnight on the 17th\u201018th February of the year 3102\n    before our era, and that the sun occupied the same place six hours\n    later according to his true longitude; an event which fixes the\n    commencement of the Hind\u00fb year.\n\n    7th. The Hind\u00fbs state that 20,400 years before the age of Kali\n    Yuga, the first point of their Zodiac coincided with the vernal\n    equinox, and that the sun and moon were in conjunction there. This\n    epoch is obviously fictitious;(1141) but we may enquire from what\n    point, from what epoch, the Hind\u00fbs set out in establishing it.\n    Taking the Hind\u00fb values for the revolution of the sun and moon,\n    viz., 363d. 6h. 12m. 30s., and 27d. 7h. 43m. 13s., we have\u2014\n\n    20,400 revolutions of the sun = 7,451,277d. 2h.\n    272,724 revolutions of the moon = 7,451,277d. 7h.\n\n    Such is the result obtained by starting from the Kali Yuga epoch;\n    and the assertion of the Hind\u00fbs, that there was a conjunction at\n    the time stated, is founded on their Tables; but if, using the\n    same elements, we start from the era of the year 1491, or from\n    another placed in the year 1282, of which we shall speak later,\n    there will always be a difference of almost one or two days. It is\n    both just and natural, in verifying the Hind\u00fb calculations, to\n    take those among their elements which give the same result as they\n    had themselves arrived at, and to set out from that one among\n    their epochs which enables us to arrive at the fictitious epoch in\n    question. Hence, since to make this calculation they must have set\n    out from their real epoch, the one which was founded on an\n    observation and not from any of those which were derived by this\n    very calculation from the former, it follows that their real epoch\n    was that of the year 3102 before our era.\n\n    8th. The Tirvaloor Br\u00e2hmans give the moon\u2019s motion as 7s 20\u00b0 0\u00b4\n    7\u00b4\u00b4 on the movable Zodiac, and as 9k 7\u00b0 45\u00b4 1\u00b4\u00b4 as referred to the\n    equinox in a great period of 1,600,984 days, or 4,386 years and 94\n    days. We believe this motion to have been determined by\n    observation; and we must state at the outset that this period is\n    of an extent which renders it but ill suited to the calculation of\n    the mean motions.\n\n    In their astronomical calculations the Hind\u00fbs make use of periods\n    of 248, 3,031, and 12,372 days; but, apart from the fact that\n    these periods, though much too short, do not present the\n    inconvenience of the former, they contain an exact number of\n    revolutions of the moon referred to its apogee. They are in\n    reality mean motions. The great period of 1,600,984 days is not a\n    sum of accumulated revolutions; there is no reason why it should\n    contain 1,600,984 rather than 1,600,985 days. It would seem that\n    observation alone must have fixed the number of days and marked\n    the beginning and end of the period. This period ends on the 21st\n    of May, 1282 of our era, at 5h. 15m. 30s. at Benares. The moon was\n    then in apogee, according to the\n\n    Hind\u00fbs, and her longitude was .. 7B 13\u00b0 45\u00b4 1\u00b4\u00b4\n    Maier gives the longitude as .. 7 13 53 48\n    And places the apogee at .. .. 7 14 6 54\n\n    The determination of the moon\u2019s place by the Br\u00e2hmans thus differs\n    only by nine minutes from ours, and that of the apogee by twenty\u2010\n    two minutes, and it is very evident that they could only have\n    obtained this agreement with our best Tables and this exactitude\n    in the celestial positions by observation. If then, observation\n    fixed the end of this period, there is every reason to believe\n    that it determined its commencement. But then this motion,\n    determined directly, and from nature, would of necessity be in\n    close agreement with the true motions of the heavenly bodies.\n\n    And in fact the Hind\u00fb motion during this long period of 4,883\n    years, does not differ by a minute from that of Cassini, and\n    agrees equally with that of Maier. Thus two peoples, the Hind\u00fbs\n    and the Europeans, placed at the two extremities of the world, and\n    perhaps as distant by their institutions, have obtained precisely\n    the same results as regards the moon\u2019s motions; and an agreement\n    which would be inconceivable, if it were not based on the\n    observation and mutual imitation of nature. We must remark that\n    the four Tables of the Hind\u00fbs are all copies of the same\n    Astronomy. It cannot be denied that the Siamese Tables existed in\n    1687, when they were brought from India by M. de la Loub\u00e8re. At\n    that time the tables of Cassini and Maier were not in existence,\n    and thus the Hind\u00fbs were already in possession of the exact motion\n    contained in these Tables, while we did not yet possess it. It\n    must, therefore, be admitted that the accuracy of this Hind\u00fb\n    motion is the point of observation. It is exact throughout this\n    period of 4,383 years, because it was taken from the sky itself;\n    and if observation determined its close, it fixed its commencement\n    also. It is the longest period which has been observed and of\n    which the recollection is preserved in the annals of Astronomy. It\n    has its origin in the epoch of the year 3102 B.C., and it is a\n    demonstrative proof of the reality of that epoch.(1142)\n\n\nBailly is referred to at such length, as he is one of the few scientific\nmen who have tried to do full justice to the Astronomy of the \u00c2ryans. From\nJohn Bentley down to Burgess\u2019 _S\u00fbrya\u2010Siddh\u00e2nta_, not one Astronomer has\nbeen fair enough to the most learned people of Antiquity. However\ndistorted and misunderstood the Hind\u00fb Symbology may be, no Occultist can\nfail to do it justice once that he knows something of the Secret Sciences;\nnor will he turn away from their metaphysical and mystical interpretation\nof the Zodiac, even though the whole Pleiades of Royal Astronomical\nSocieties rise in arms against their mathematical rendering of it. The\ndescent and re\u00e4scent of the Monad or Soul cannot be disconnected from the\nZodiacal signs, and it looks more natural, in the sense of the fitness of\nthings, to believe in a mysterious sympathy between the metaphysical Soul\nand the bright constellations, and in the influence of the latter on the\nformer, than in the absurd notion that the creators of Heaven and Earth\nhave placed in Heaven the types of twelve vicious Jews. And if, as the\nauthor of _The Gnostics and their Remains_ asserts, the aim of all the\nGnostic schools and the later Platonists\n\n\n    was to accommodate the old faith to the influence of Buddhistic\n    theosophy, the very essence of which was that the innumerable gods\n    of the Hind\u00fb mythology were but names for the Energies of the\n    First Triad in its successive Avat\u00e2rs or manifestations unto man,\n\n\nwhither can we better turn to trace these theosophic ideas to their very\nroot, than to the old Indian wisdom? We say again: Archaic Occultism would\nremain incomprehensible to all, if it were to be rendered otherwise than\nthrough the more familiar channels of Buddhism and Hind\u00fbism. For the\nformer is the emanation of the latter; and both are children of one\nmother\u2014ancient Lemuro\u2010Atlantean Wisdom.\n\n\n\n\nSection XVII. Summary of the Position.\n\n\nThe reader has had the whole case presented to him from both sides, and it\nremains with him to decide whether its summary stands in our favour or\nnot. If there were such a thing as a void, a vacuum in Nature, one ought\nto find it produced, according to a physical law, in the minds of helpless\nadmirers of the \u201clights\u201d of Science, who pass their time in mutually\ndestroying their teachings. If ever the theory that \u201ctwo lights make\ndarkness\u201d found its application it is in this case, where one\u2010half of the\n\u201clights\u201d imposes its forces and \u201cmodes of motion\u201d on the belief of the\nfaithful, and the other half opposes the very existence of the same.\n\u201cEther, Matter, Energy\u201d\u2014the sacred hypostatical trinity, the three\nprinciples of the truly _unknown_ God of Science, called by them PHYSICAL\nNATURE!\n\nTheology is taken to task and ridiculed for believing in the union of\nthree persons in one Godhead\u2014one God as to substance, three persons as to\nindividuality; and we are laughed at for our belief in unproved and\nunprovable doctrines, in Angels and Devils, Gods and Spirits. And, indeed,\nthat which made the Scientists win the day over Theology in the Great\n\u201cConflict between Religion and Science,\u201d was precisely the argument that\nneither the identity of that substance, nor the triple individuality\nclaimed\u2014after having been conceived, invented, and worked out in the\ndepths of Theological Consciousness\u2014could be proved to exist by any\nscientific inductive process of reasoning, least of all by the evidence of\nour senses. Religion must perish, it is said, because it teaches\n\u201cmysteries.\u201d \u201cMystery is the negation of Common Sense,\u201d and Science repels\nit. According to Mr. Tyndall, Metaphysics is \u201cfiction,\u201d like poetry. The\nman of Science \u201ctakes nothing on trust\u201d; rejects everything \u201cthat is not\nproven to him,\u201d while the Theologian accepts \u201ceverything on blind faith.\u201d\nThe Theosophist and the Occultist, who take nothing on trust, not even\n_exact_ Science, the Spiritualist who denies dogma but believes in Spirits\nand in _invisible but potent influences_, all share in the same contempt.\nVery well, then; what we have to do now, is to examine for the last time\nwhether _exact_ Science does not act precisely in the same way as do\nTheosophy, Spiritualism, and Theology.\n\nIn a work by Mr. S. Laing, considered a standard book on Science, _Modern\nScience and Modern Thought_, the author of which, according to the\nlaudatory review of the _Times_, \u201cexhibits with much power and effect the\nimmense discoveries of Science, and its numerous victories over old\nopinions, whenever they have the rashness to challenge conclusions with\nit,\u201d we read as follows:\n\n\n    What is the material universe composed of? Ether, Matter, Energy.\n\n\nWe stop to ask, What is Ether? And Mr. Laing answers in the name of\nScience:\n\n\n    Ether is not actually known to us by any test of which the senses\n    can take cognizance, but is a sort of mathematical substance which\n    we are compelled to assume in order to account for the phenomena\n    of light and heat.(1143)\n\n\nAnd what is Matter? Do you know more about it than you do about the\n\u201chypothetical\u201d agent, Ether?\n\n\n    In perfect strictness, it is true that chemical investigations can\n    tell us ... nothing directly of the composition of living matter,\n    and ... it is also in strictness true, that we know nothing about\n    the compositions of any [material] body whatever as it is.(1144)\n\n\nAnd Energy? Surely you can define the third person of the Trinity of your\nMaterial Universe? We can take the answer from any book on Physics:\n\n\n    Energy is that which is only known to us by its effects.\n\n\nPray explain, for this is rather hazy.\n\n\n    [In mechanics there is actual and potential energy: work actually\n    performed, and the capacity for performing it. As to the nature of\n    molecular Energy or Forces], the various phenomena which bodies\n    present show that their molecules are under the influence of two\n    contrary forces, one which tends to bring them together, and the\n    other to separate them.... The first force ... is called\n    _molecular attraction_ ... the second force is due to the _vis\n    viva_, or moving force.(1145)\n\n\nJust so: it is the nature of this _moving force_, of this _vis viva_, that\nwe want to know. What is it?\n\n\u201cWe do not know!\u201d is the invariable answer. \u201cIt is an empty shadow of my\nimagination,\u201d explains Mr. Huxley in his _Physical Basis of Life_.\n\nThus the whole structure of Modern Science is built on a kind of\n\u201cmathematical abstraction,\u201d on a Protean \u201cSubstance which eludes the\nsenses\u201d (Dubois Reymond), and on _effects_, the shadowy and illusive will\u2010\no\u2019\u2010the wisps of a _something_ entirely unknown to, and beyond the reach\nof, Science. \u201c_Self\u2010moving_\u201d Atoms! _Self\u2010moving_ Suns, Planets, and\nStars! But who, then, or _what_ are they all, if they are self\u2010endowed\nwith motion? Why then should you, Physicists, laugh at and deride our\n\u201cSelf\u2010moving Arch\u00e6us\u201d? Mystery is rejected and scorned by Science, and as\nFather Felix has truly said:\n\n\n    She cannot escape it. Mystery is the fatality of Science.\n\n\nThe language of the French preacher is ours, and we quote it in _Isis\nUnveiled_. Who\u2014he asks\u2014who of you, men of Science:\n\n\n    Has been able to penetrate the secret of the formation of a body,\n    the generation of a single atom? What is there, I will not say at\n    the centre of a sun, but at the centre of an atom? Who has sounded\n    to the bottom the abyss in a grain of sand? The grain of sand,\n    gentlemen, has been studied four thousand years by science; she\n    has turned and returned it; she divides it and subdivides it; she\n    torments it with her experiments; she vexes it with her questions\n    to snatch from it the final word as to its secret constitution;\n    she asks it, with an insatiable curiosity: \u201cShall I divide thee\n    infinitesimally?\u201d Then suspended over this abyss, science\n    hesitates, she stumbles, she feels dazzled, she becomes dizzy, and\n    in despair says: \u201cI DO NOT KNOW.\u201d\n\n    But if you are so fatally ignorant of the genesis and hidden\n    nature of a grain of sand, how should you have an intuition as to\n    the generation of a single living being? Whence in the living\n    being does life come? Where does it commence? What is the life\n    principle?(1146)\n\n\nDo the men of Science deny all these charges? By no means: for here is a\nconfession of Tyndall, which shows how powerless is Science, even over the\nworld of Matter.\n\n\n    The first marshalling of the atoms, on which all subsequent action\n    depends, baffles a keener power than that of the microscope....\n    Through pure excess of complexity, and long before observation can\n    have any voice in the matter, the most highly trained intellect,\n    the most refined and disciplined imagination, retires in\n    bewilderment from the contemplation of the problem. We are struck\n    dumb by an astonishment which no microscope can relieve, doubting\n    not only the power of our instrument, but even whether we\n    ourselves possess the intellectual elements which will ever enable\n    us to grapple with the ultimate structural energies of nature.\n\n\nHow little is known of the material Universe, indeed, has now been\nsuspected for years, on the very admissions of these men of Science\nthemselves. And now there are some Materialists who would even make away\nwith Ether\u2014or whatever Science calls the infinite Substance, the noumenon\nof which the Buddhists call Svabh\u00e2vat\u2014as well as with Atoms, too dangerous\nboth on account of their ancient philosophical, and their present\nChristian and theological, associations. From the earliest Philosophers,\nwhose records passed to posterity, down to our present age\u2014which, if it\ndenies Invisible Beings in Space, can never be so insane as to deny a\nPlenum of some sort\u2014the Fulness of the Universe has been an accepted\nbelief. And what it was said to contain, one learns from Hermes\nTrismegistus (in Dr. Anna Kingsford\u2019s able rendering), who is made to say:\n\n\n    Concerning the void ... my judgment is that it does not exist,\n    that it never has existed, and that it never will exist, for all\n    the various parts of the universe are filled, as the earth also is\n    complete and full of bodies, differing in quality and in form,\n    having their species and their magnitude, one larger, one smaller,\n    one solid, one tenuous. The larger ... are easily perceived; the\n    smaller ... are difficult to apprehend, or altogether invisible.\n    We know only of their existence by the sensation of feeling,\n    wherefore many persons deny such entities to be bodies, and regard\n    them as simply spaces,(1147) but it is impossible there should be\n    such spaces. For if indeed there should be anything outside the\n    universe ... then it would be a space occupied by intelligible\n    beings analogous to its [the universe\u2019s] Divinity.... I speak of\n    the genii, for I hold they dwell with us, and of the heroes who\n    dwell above us, between the earth and the higher airs; wherein are\n    neither clouds nor any tempest.(1148)\n\n\nAnd we \u201chold\u201d it too. Only, as already remarked, no Eastern Initiate would\nspeak of spheres \u201c_above_ us, between the earth and the airs,\u201d even the\nhighest, as there is no such division or measurement in Occult speech, no\n_above_, as no _below_, but an eternal _within, within two other withins_,\nor the planes of subjectivity merging gradually into that of terrestrial\nobjectivity\u2014this being for _man_ the last one, his own plane. This\nnecessary explanation may be closed here by giving, in the words of\nHermes, the belief on this particular point of the whole world of Mystics:\n\n\n    There are many orders of the Gods; and in all there is an\n    intelligible part. It is not to be supposed they do not come\n    within the range of our senses; on the contrary, we perceive them,\n    better even than those which are called visible.... There are then\n    Gods, superior to all appearances; after them come the Gods whose\n    principle is spiritual; these Gods being sensible, in conformity\n    with their double origin, manifest all things by a sensible\n    nature, each of them illuminating his works one by another.(1149)\n    The supreme Being of heaven, or of all that is comprehended under\n    this name, is Zeus, for it is by heaven that Zeus gives life to\n    all things. The supreme Being of the sun is light, for it is by\n    the disk of the sun that we receive the benefit of the light. The\n    thirty\u2010six horoscopes of the fixed stars have for supreme Being,\n    or prince, him whose name is _Pantomorphos_, or having all forms,\n    because he gives divine forms to divers types. The seven planets,\n    or wandering spheres, have for supreme Spirits Fortune and\n    Destiny, who uphold the eternal stability of the laws of Nature\n    throughout incessant transformation and perpetual agitation. The\n    ether is the instrument or medium by which all is produced.(1150)\n\n\nThis is quite philosophical and in accordance with the spirit of Eastern\nEsotericism: for all the Forces, such as Light, Heat, Electricity, etc.,\nare called the \u201cGods\u201d\u2014Esoterically.\n\nThis, indeed, must be so, since the Esoteric Teachings in Egypt and India\nwere identical. And, therefore, the personification of Fohat, synthesizing\nall the manifesting Forces in Nature is a legitimate result. Moreover, as\nwill be shown later, the real and Occult Forces in Nature only now begin\nto be known\u2014and even in this case, by heterodox, not orthodox,\nScience,(1151) though their existence, in one instance at any rate, is\ncorroborated and certified by an immense number of educated people, and\neven by some official men of Science.\n\nThe statement, moreover, in Stanza VI\u2014that Fohat sets in motion the\nprimordial World\u2010Germs, or the aggregation of Cosmic Atoms and Matter,\n\u201csome one way, some the other way,\u201d in the opposite direction\u2014looks\northodox and scientific enough. For there is, at all events, in support of\nthis position, one fact fully recognized by Science, and it is this. The\nmeteoric showers, periodical in November and August, belong to a system\nmoving in an elliptical orbit around the Sun. The aphelion of this ring is\n1,732 millions of miles beyond the orbit of Neptune, its plane is inclined\nto the Earth\u2019s orbit at an angle of 64\u00b0 3\u00b4, and the direction of the\nmeteoric swarm moving round this orbit _is contrary to that of the Earth\u2019s\nrevolution_.\n\nThis fact, recognized only in 1833, shows it to be the modern rediscovery\nof what was very anciently known. Fohat turns with his two hands in\ncontrary directions the \u201cseed\u201d and the \u201ccurds,\u201d or Cosmic Matter; in\nclearer language, is turning particles in a highly attenuated condition,\nand nebul\u00e6.\n\nOutside the boundaries of the Solar System, it is other Suns, and\nespecially the mysterious Central Sun\u2014the \u201cAbode of the Invisible Deity\u201d\nas some reverend gentlemen have called it\u2014that determines the motion and\nthe direction of bodies. That motion serves also to differentiate the\nhomogeneous Matter, round and between the several bodies, into Elements\nand Sub\u2010elements unknown to our Earth, and these are regarded by Modern\nScience as distinct individual Elements, whereas they are merely temporary\nappearances, changing with every small cycle within the Manvantara, some\nEsoteric works calling them \u201cKalpic Masks.\u201d\n\nFohat is the key in Occultism which opens and unriddles the multiform\nsymbols and allegories in the so\u2010called mythology of every nation;\ndemonstrating the wonderful Philosophy and the deep insight into the\nmysteries of Nature, contained in the Egyptian and Chaldean as well as in\nthe \u00c2ryan religions. Fohat, shown in his true character, proves how deeply\nversed were all those prehistoric nations in every Science of Nature, now\ncalled the physical and chemical branches of Natural Philosophy. In India,\nFohat is the scientific aspect of both Vishnu and Indra, the latter older\nand more important in the _Rig Veda_ than his sectarian successor; while\nin Egypt, Fohat was known as Toom issued of Noot,(1152) or Osiris in his\ncharacter of a primordial God, creator of heaven and of beings.(1153) For\nToom is spoken of as the Protean God who _generates other Gods_ and gives\nhimself the form he likes; the \u201cMaster of Life, giving their vigour to the\nGods.\u201d(1154) He is the _overseer_ of the Gods, and he \u201cwho creates spirits\nand gives them shape and life\u201d; he is \u201cthe North Wind and the Spirit of\nthe West\u201d; and finally the \u201cSetting Sun of Life,\u201d or the vital electric\nforce that leaves the body at death; wherefore the Defunct begs that Toom\nshould give him the breath from his _right_ nostril (positive electricity)\nthat he might live in his _second_ form. Both the hieroglyph, and the text\nof chapter xlii in the _Book of the Dead_, show the identity of Toom and\nFohat. The former represents a man standing erect with the hieroglyph of\nthe _breaths_ in his hands. The latter says:\n\n\n    I open to the chief of An (Heliopolis). I am Toom. I cross the\n    water spilt by Thot\u2010Hapi, the lord of the horizon, and am the\n    divider of the earth [Fohat divides Space and, with his Sons, the\n    Earth into seven zones]....\n\n    I cross the heavens; I am the two Lions. I am Ra, I am Aam, I eat\n    my heir.(1155).... I glide on the soil of the field of\n    Aanroo,(1156) given me by the master of limitless eternity. I am a\n    germ of eternity. I am Toom, to whom eternity is accorded.\n\n\nThe very words used by Fohat in the XIth Book, and the very titles given\nhim. In the Egyptian Papyri the whole Cosmogony of the Secret Doctrine is\nfound scattered about in isolated sentences, even in the _Book of the\nDead_. Number seven is quite as much insisted upon and emphasized therein\nas in the _Book of Dzyan_. \u201cThe Great Water [the Deep or Chaos] is said to\nbe seven cubits deep\u201d\u2014\u201ccubits\u201d standing here of course for divisions,\nzones, and principles. Therein, \u201cin the great Mother, all the Gods, and\nthe Seven Great Ones are born.\u201d Both Fohat and Toom are addressed as the\n\u201cGreat Ones of the Seven Magic Forces,\u201d who, \u201cconquer the Serpent Apap\u201d or\nMatter.(1157)\n\nNo student of Occultism, however, ought to be betrayed, by the usual\nphraseology used in the translations of Hermetic Works, into believing\nthat the ancient Egyptians or Greeks spoke of, and referred, monk\u2010like, at\nevery moment in conversation, to a Supreme Being, God, the \u201cOne Father and\nCreator of all,\u201d etc., in the way found on every page of such\ntranslations. No such thing indeed; and those texts _are not the original\nEgyptian_ texts. They are Greek compilations, the earliest of which does\nnot go beyond the early period of Neo\u2010Platonism. No Hermetic work written\nby Egyptians\u2014as we may see by the _Book of the Dead_\u2014would speak of the\none universal God of the Monotheistic systems; the one _Absolute_ Cause of\nall, was as unnameable and unpronounceable in the mind of the ancient\nPhilosopher of Egypt, as it is for ever _Unknowable_ in the conception of\nMr. Herbert Spencer. As for the Egyptian in general, as M. Maspero well\nremarks, whenever he\n\n\n    Arrived at the notion of divine Unity, the God One was never \u201cGod\u201d\n    simply. M. Lepage\u2010Renouf very justly observed that the word\n    Nouter, Nouti, \u201cGod\u201d had never ceased to be _a generic name_ to\n    become a personal one.\n\n\nEvery God was the \u201cone living and unique God\u201d with them. Their\n\n\n    Monotheism was purely geographical. If the Egyptian of Memphis\n    proclaimed the Unity of Phtah to the exclusion of Ammon, the\n    Thebeian Egyptian proclaimed the unity of Ammon to the exclusion\n    of Phtah [as we now see done in India in the case of the Shaivas\n    and the Vaishnavas]. Ra, the \u201cOne God\u201d at Heliopolis is not the\n    same as Osiris, the \u201cOne God\u201d at Abydos, and can be worshipped\n    side by side with him, without being absorbed by him. The one God\n    is but the God of the nome or the city, Nouter Nouti, and does not\n    exclude the existence of the one God of the neighbouring town or\n    nome. In short, whenever we are speaking of Egyptian Monotheism,\n    we ought to speak of the Gods One of Egypt, and not of the One\n    God.(1158)\n\n\nIt is by this feature, pre\u00ebminently Egyptian, that the authenticity of the\nvarious so\u2010called _Hermetic Books_, ought to be tested; and it is totally\nabsent from the Greek fragments known under this name. This proves that a\nGreek Neo\u2010Platonic, or perhaps a Christian hand, had no small share in the\nediting of such works. Of course the fundamental Philosophy is there, and\nin many a place\u2014intact. But the style has been altered and smoothed in a\nmonotheistic direction, as much, if not more than that of the Hebrew\nGenesis in its Greek and Latin translations. They _may_ be _Hermetic_\nworks, but not works written by either of the two Hermes\u2014or rather, by\nThot Hermes, the directing Intelligence of the Universe(1159) or by Thot\nhis terrestrial incarnation called Trismegistus, of the Rosetta stone.\n\nBut all is doubt, negation, iconoclasm and brutal indifference, in our age\nof a hundred \u201cisms\u201d and no religion. Every idol is broken save the Golden\nCalf.\n\nUnfortunately, no nation or nations can escape their Karmic fate, any more\nthan can units and individuals. History itself is dealt with by the so\u2010\ncalled historians as unscrupulously as legendary lore. For this, Augustin\nThierry has made the _amende honorable_, if one may believe his\nbiographers. He deplored the erroneous principle that made all the _would\u2010\nbe_ historiographers lose their way, and each presume to correct\ntradition, \u201cthat _vox populi_ which nine times out of ten is _vox Dei_\u201d;\nand he finally admitted that _in legend alone rests real history_; for he\nadds:\n\n\n    Legend is living tradition, and three times out of four it is\n    truer than what we call History.(1160)\n\n\nWhile Materialists deny everything in the Universe, save Matter,\nArch\u00e6ologists are trying to dwarf Antiquity, and seek to destroy every\nclaim of Ancient Wisdom by tampering with Chronology. Our present\u2010day\nOrientalists and historical writers are to Ancient History that which the\nwhite ants are to the buildings in India. More dangerous even than those\nTermites, the modern Arch\u00e6ologists\u2014the \u201cauthorities\u201d of the future in the\nmatter of Universal History\u2014are preparing for the history of past nations\nthe fate of certain edifices in tropical countries. As said Michelet:\n\n\n    History will tumble down and break into atoms in the lap of the\n    twentieth century, devoured to its foundations by her annalists.\n\n\nVery soon, indeed, under their combined efforts, it will share the fate of\nthose ruined cities in both Americas, which lie deeply buried under\nimpassable virgin forests. Historical facts will remain concealed from\nview by the inextricable jungles of modern hypotheses, denials and\nscepticism. But very happily _actual_ History repeats herself, for she\nproceeds, like everything else, in cycles; and dead facts, and events\ndeliberately drowned in the sea of modern scepticism, will ascend once\nmore and reappear on the surface.\n\nIn Volume II, the very fact that a work with pretensions to Philosophy,\nwhich is also an exposition of the most abstruse problems, has to be\ncommenced by tracing the evolution of mankind from what are regarded as\nsupernatural beings\u2014Spirits\u2014will arouse the most malevolent criticism.\nBelievers in, and the defenders of, the Secret Doctrine, however, will\nhave to bear the accusation of madness _and worse_, as philosophically as\nfor long years already the writer has done. Whenever a Theosophist is\ntaxed with insanity, he ought to reply by quoting from Montesquieu\u2019s\n_Lettres Persanes_:\n\n\n    By opening so freely their lunatic asylums to their supposed\n    madmen, men only seek to assure each other that they are not\n    themselves mad.\n\n\n\n\n\n[Transcriber\u2019s Note: Obvious printer\u2019s errors have been corrected.]\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n    1 See _Theosophist_, June, 1883.\n\n    2 _Preface_ to the original edition.\n\n    3 _Dan_, in modern Chinese and Tibetan phonetics _Chhan_, is the\n      general term for the esoteric schools and their literature. In the\n      old books, the word _Janna_ is defined as \u201creforming one\u2019s self by\n      meditation and knowledge,\u201d a second _inner_ birth. Hence _Dzan_,\n      _Djan_ phonetically; the _Book of Dzyan_. See Edkins, _Chinese\n      Buddhism_, p. 129, note.\n\n    4 Mr. Beglor, the chief engineer at Buddhag\u00e2ya, and a distinguished\n      arch\u00e6ologist, was the first, we believe, to discover it.\n\n    5 See _Isis Unveiled_, Vol. II, p. 27.\n\n    6 _Introduction to the Science of Religion_, p. 23.\n\n    7 _Ain \u00ed Akbari_, translated by Dr. Blochmann, quoted by Max M\u00fcller,\n      _op. cit._\n\n    8 _Tao\u2010te\u2010King_, p. xxvii.\n\n    9 Max M\u00fcller, _op. cit._, p. 114.\n\n   10 Found out and proven only _now_, through the discoveries made by\n      George Smith (see his _Chaldean Account of Genesis_), and which,\n      thanks to this Armenian forger, have misled all the \u201ccivilized\n      nations\u201d for over 1,500 years into accepting Jewish derivations for\n      direct _Divine_ Revelation.\n\n   11 _Egypt\u2019s Place in History_, i. 200.\n\n   12 Spence Hardy, _The Legends and Theories of the Buddhists_, p. 66.\n\n   13 E. Schlagintweit, _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 77.\n\n   14 Lassen (_Ind. Althersumkunde_, II, 1,072) shows a Buddhist monastery\n      erected in the Kail\u00e2s. Range in 137 B.C.; and General Cunningham,\n      one earlier than that.\n\n   15 Rev. J. Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 87.\n\n   16 See, for example, Max M\u00fcller\u2019s _Lectures_.\n\n   17 _Op. cit._, p. 118.\n\n   18 _Op. cit._, p. 318.\n\n   19 _Asiatic Researches_, I, 272.\n\n   20 See Max M\u00fcller, _op. cit._, pp. 288 _et seq._ This relates to the\n      clever forgery, on leaves inserted in old Pur\u00e2nic MSS., and written\n      in correct and archaic Sanskrit, of all that the Pandits had heard\n      from Colonel Wilford about Adam and Abraham, Noah and his three\n      sons, etc., etc.\n\n   21 From a lecture by N. M. Prjevalsky.\n\n   22 L\u00fcn\u2010Y\u00fc (\u00a7 I a); Schott, _Chinesische Literatur_, p. 7; quoted by Max\n      M\u00fcller.\n\n   23 _Life and Teachings of Confucius_, p. 96.\n\n   24 Op. cit., p. 257.\n\n   25 The name is used in the sense of the Greek word \u1f05\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03c2.\n\n   26 Rabbi Jehoshua Ben Chananea, who died about A.D. 72, openly declared\n      that he had performed \u201cmiracles\u201d by means of the book _Sepher\n      Jetzirah_, and challenged every sceptic. Franck, quoting from the\n      Babylonian _Talmud_, names two other thaumaturgists, Rabbis Chanina\n      and Oshoi. (See _Jerusalem Talmud_, _Sanhedrin_, c. 7, etc.; and\n      Franck, _Die Kabbalah_, pp. 55, 56). Many of the medi\u00e6val\n      Occultists, Alchemists, and Kabalists have made the same claim; and\n      even the late modern Magus, \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi, publicly asserts it in his\n      books on Magic.\n\n   27 It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that the term Divine\n      Thought, like that of Universal Mind, must not be regarded as even\n      vaguely shadowing forth an intellectual process akin to that\n      exhibited by man. The \u201cUnconscious,\u201d according to von Hartmann,\n      arrived at the vast creative, or rather evolutionary plan, \u201cby a\n      clairvoyant wisdom superior to all consciousness,\u201d which in Ved\u00e2ntic\n      language would mean absolute Wisdom. Only those who realize how far\n      intuition soars above the tardy processes of ratiocinative thought\n      can form the faintest conception of that absolute Wisdom which\n      transcends the ideas of Time and Space. Mind, as we know it, is\n      resolvable into states of consciousness, of varying duration,\n      intensity, complexity, etc., all, in the ultimate, resting on\n      sensation, which is again M\u00e2y\u00e2. Sensation, again, necessarily\n      postulates limitation. The Personal God of orthodox Theism\n      perceives, thinks, and is affected by emotion; he repents and feels\n      \u201cfierce anger.\u201d But the notion of such mental states clearly\n      involves the unthinkable postulate of the externality of the\n      exciting stimuli, to say nothing of the impossibility of ascribing\n      changelessness to a being whose emotions fluctuate with events in\n      the worlds he presides over. The conceptions of a Personal God as\n      changeless and infinite are thus unpsychological and, what is worse,\n      unphilosophical.\n\n   28 Plato proves himself an Initiate, when saying in _Cratylus_ that\n      \u03b8\u03b5\u03cc\u03c2 is derived from \u03b8\u03ad\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd, to move, to run, for the first\n      astronomers who observed the motions of the heavenly bodies called\n      the planets \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03af, gods. Later the word produced another term,\n      \u1f00\u03bb\u03ae\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1\u2014the breath of God.\n\n   29 Nominalists, arguing with Berkeley that \u201cit is impossible ... to\n      form the abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving\u201d\n      (_Principles of Human Knowledge_, Introd., par. 10), may put the\n      question, What is that body, the producer of that motion? Is it a\n      substance? Then you are believers in a Personal God? etc., etc. This\n      will be answered farther on, in a further part of this work;\n      meanwhile, we claim our rights of Conceptionalists as against\n      Roscelini\u2019s materialistic views of Realism and Nominalism. \u201cHas\n      science,\u201d says one of its ablest advocates, Edward Clodd, \u201crevealed\n      anything that weakens or opposes itself to the ancient words in\n      which the essence of all religion, past, present, and to come, is\n      given; to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly before thy God?\u201d\n      And we agree, provided we connote by the word God, not the crude\n      anthropomorphism which is still the backbone of our current\n      theology, but the symbolic conception of that which is the Life and\n      Motion of the Universe, to know which in the physical order is to\n      know time past, present, and to come, in the existence of\n      successions of phenomena; to know which, in the moral, is to know\n      what has been, is, and will be, within human consciousness. (See\n      _Science and the Emotions_, a Discourse delivered at South Place\n      Chapel, Finsbury, London, December 27th, 1885.)\n\n   30 _Isis Unveiled_, II, 264\u20105.\n\n   31 Rig Veda.\n\n   32 We are told by the Western mathematicians and some American\n      Kabalists, that in the _Kabalah_ also \u201cthe value of the Jehovah name\n      is that of the diameter of a circle.\u201d Add to this the fact that\n      Jehovah is the third of the Sephiroth, Binah, a feminine word, and\n      you have the key to the mystery. By certain Kabalistic\n      transformations this name, which is androgynous in the first\n      chapters of _Genesis_, becomes in its transformations entirely\n      masculine, Cainite and phallic. The choosing of a deity among the\n      pagan gods and making of it a special national God, to call upon it\n      as the \u201cOne Living God,\u201d the \u201cGod of Gods,\u201d and then proclaiming\n      this worship monotheistic, does not change it into the One Principle\n      whose \u201cUnity admits not of multiplication, change, or form,\u201d\n      especially in the case of a priapic deity, as Jehovah is now\n      demonstrated to be.\n\n   33 See that suggestive work, _The Source of Measures_, where the author\n      explains the real meaning of the word _Sacr\u2019_ from which \u201csacred,\u201d\n      \u201csacrament,\u201d are derived, words which have now become synonyms of\n      holiness, though purely phallic!\n\n   34 _M\u00e2nd\u00fbkya Upanishad_, I. 28.\n\n   35 _Bodhim\u00fcr_, Book II.\n\n   36 See the _Ved\u00e2nta S\u00e2ra_, by Major G. A. Jacob; and also _The\n      Aphorisms of Sh\u00e2ndilya_, translated by Cowell, p. 42.\n\n   37 _Aitareya Upanishad._\n\n   38 Nevertheless, prejudiced and rather fanatical Christian Orientalists\n      would like to prove this to be pure Atheism. For proof of this,\n      compare Major Jacob\u2019s _Ved\u00e2nta S\u00e2ra_. Yet, the whole of antiquity\n      echoes the thought:\n\n      Omnis enim per se divom natura necesse est\n      Immortali \u00e6vo summa cum pace fruatur\u2014\n\n      as Lucretius has it\u2014a purely Ved\u00e2ntic conception.\n\n   39 The very names of the two chief deities, Brahm\u00e2 and Vishnu, ought to\n      have long ago suggested their esoteric meanings. Brahman, or Brahm,\n      is derived by some from the root _brih_, to grow or to expand (see\n      _Calcutta Review_, vol. lxvi., p. 14); Vishnu, from the root _vish_,\n      to pervade, to enter into the nature of the essence; Brahm\u00e2\u2010Vishnu\n      thus being infinite Space, of which the Gods, the Rishis, the Manus,\n      and all in this Universe are simply the Potencies (Vibh\u00fbtayah).\n\n   40 See Manu\u2019s account of Brahm\u00e2 separating his body into male and\n      female, the latter the female V\u00e2ch, in whom he creates Vir\u00e2j, and\n      compare this with the esotericism of Chapters II, III, and IV of\n      _Genesis_.\n\n   41 Occultism is indeed \u201cin the air\u201d at the close of this our century.\n      Among many other works recently published, we would recommend\n      especially to students of theoretical Occultism who would not\n      venture beyond the realm of our special human plane, _New Aspects of\n      Life and Religion_, by Henry Pratt, M.D. It is full of esoteric\n      dogmas and philosophy, the latter, however, in the concluding\n      chapters, rather limited by what seems to be a spirit of conditioned\n      positivism. Nevertheless, what is said of Space as \u201cthe Unknown\n      First Cause,\u201d merits quotation.\n\n      \u201cThis unknown something, thus recognized as, and identified with,\n      the primary embodiment of Simple Unity, is invisible and impalpable\n      [as _abstract_ space, granted]: and because invisible and\n      impalpable, therefore incognizable. And this incognizability has led\n      to the error of supposing it to be a simple void, a mere receptive\n      capacity. But, even viewed as an absolute void, space must be\n      admitted to be either self\u2010existent, infinite, and eternal, or to\n      have had a first cause outside, behind, and beyond itself.\n\n      \u201cAnd yet could such a cause be found and defined, this would only\n      lead to the transferring thereto of the attributes otherwise\n      accruing to space, and thus merely throw the difficulty of\n      origination a step farther back, without gaining additional light as\n      to primary causation.\u201d (_Op. cit._, p. 5.)\n\n      This is precisely what has been done by the believers in an\n      anthropomorphic creator, an extra\u2010cosmic, instead of an intra\u2010cosmic\n      God. Many of Dr. Pratt\u2019s subjects\u2014most of them we may say\u2014are old\n      Kabalistic ideas and theories which he presents in quite a new\n      garb\u2014\u201cNew Aspects\u201d of the Occult in Nature, indeed. Space, however,\n      viewed as a Substantial Unity\u2014the living Source of Life\u2014is, as the\n      Unknown Causeless Cause, the oldest dogma in Occultism, millenniums\n      earlier than the Pater\u2010\u00c6ther of the Greeks and Latins. So are \u201cForce\n      and Matter, as Potencies of Space, inseparable, and the unknown\n      revealers of the Unknown.\u201d They are all found in \u00c2ryan philosophy\n      personified as Vishvakarman, Indra, Vishnu, etc., etc. Still they\n      are expressed very philosophically, and under many unusual aspects,\n      in the work referred to.\n\n   42 In contradistinction to the manifested Universe of matter, the term\n      M\u00fblaprakriti (from _m\u00fbla_, root, and prakriti, nature), or the\n      unmanifested primordial Matter\u2014called by Western Alchemists Adam\u2019s\n      Earth\u2014is applied by the Ved\u00e2ntins to _Parabrahman_. Matter is dual\n      in religious metaphysics, and in esoteric teachings septenary, like\n      everything else in the Universe. As M\u00fblaprakriti, it is\n      undifferentiated and eternal: as Vyakta, it becomes differentiated\n      and conditioned, according to _Shvet\u00e2shvatara Upanishad_, I, 8, and\n      _Dev\u00ee Bh\u00e2gavata Pur\u00e2na_. The author of the Four lectures on the\n      _Bhagavad G\u00eet\u00e2_, in speaking of M\u00fblaprakriti, says: \u201cFrom its [the\n      Logos\u2019] objective standpoint, Parabrahman appears to it as\n      M\u00fblaprakriti.... Of course this M\u00fblaprakriti is material to it, as\n      any material object is material to us.... Parabrahman is an\n      unconditioned and absolute reality, and M\u00fblaprakriti is a sort of\n      veil thrown over it.\u201d (_Theosophist_, VIII, 304.)\n\n   43 Esoteric Philosophy, regarding every finite thing as M\u00e2y\u00e2 (or the\n      illusion of ignorance), must necessarily view in the same light\n      every intra\u2010cosmic planet and body, seeing that it is something\n      organized, hence finite. The sentence, therefore, \u201cit proceeds from\n      without inwardly, etc.\u201d, in its first clause, refers to the dawn of\n      the Mah\u00e2manvantara, or the great re\u00ebvolution after one of the\n      complete periodical dissolutions of every compound form in Nature,\n      from planet to molecule, into its ultimate essence or element; and\n      in its second clause, to the partial or local Manvantara, which may\n      be a solar or even a planetary one.\n\n   44 By Centre, a centre of energy or a cosmic focus is meant; when the\n      so\u2010called \u201ccreation,\u201d or formation, of a planet, is accomplished by\n      that force which is designated by Occultists Life and by Science\n      Energy, then the process takes place from within outwardly, every\n      atom being said to contain in itself the creative energy of the\n      divine Breath. And, whereas after an Absolute Pralaya, when the\n      pre\u00ebxisting material consists but of One Element, and Breath \u201cis\n      everywhere,\u201d the latter acts from without inwardly; after a Minor\n      Pralaya, when everything having remained _in statu quo_\u2014in a\n      refrigerated state, so to say, like the moon\u2014then at the first\n      flutter of Manvantara, the planet or planets begin their\n      resurrection to life from within outwardly.\n\n   45 In the evolutionary cycles of ideas, it is curious to notice how\n      ancient thought seems to be reflected in modern speculation. Had Mr.\n      Herbert Spencer read and studied ancient Hind\u00fb philosophers when he\n      wrote a certain passage in his _First Principles_ (p. 482)? Or is it\n      an independent flash of inner perception that made him say half\n      correctly, half incorrectly, \u201cmotion as well as matter, being fixed\n      in quantity [?], it would seem that the change in the distribution\n      of matter which motion effects, coming to a limit in whichever\n      direction it is carried [?], the indestructible motion thereupon\n      necessitates a reverse distribution. Apparently, the universally\n      co\u00ebxistent forces of attraction and repulsion which, as we have\n      seen, necessitate rhythm in all minor changes throughout the\n      Universe, also necessitate rhythm in the totality of its\n      changes\u2014produce now an immeasurable period during which the\n      attracting forces predominating, cause universal concentration, and\n      then an immeasurable period, during which the repulsive forces\n      predominating, cause universal diffusion\u2014alternate eras of evolution\n      and dissolution.\u201d\n\n   46 Whatever the news of Physical Science upon the subject, Occult\n      Science has been teaching for ages that \u00c2k\u00e2sha (of which Ether is\n      the grossest form), the Fifth universal cosmic Principle\u2014to which\n      corresponds and from which proceeds human Manas\u2014is, cosmically, a\n      radiant, cool, diathermanous plastic matter, creative in its\n      physical nature, correlative in its grossest aspects and portions,\n      immutable in its higher principles. In the creative condition it is\n      called the Sub\u2010Root; and in conjunction with radiant heat, it\n      recalls \u201cdead worlds to life.\u201d In its higher aspect it is the Soul\n      of the World; in its lower\u2014the Destroyer.\n\n   47 _Hypoth._, 1675.\n\n   48 The \u201cFirst\u201d presupposes necessarily something which is the \u201cfirst\n      brought forth,\u201d \u201cthe first in time, space, and rank\u201d\u2014and therefore\n      finite and conditioned. The \u201cfirst\u201d _cannot be Absolute_ for it is a\n      manifestation. Therefore, Eastern Occultism calls the Abstract All\n      the One Causeless Cause, the Rootless Root, and limits the \u201cFirst\n      Cause\u201d to the Logos, in the sense that Plato gives to this term.\n\n   49 See T. Subba Row\u2019s four able lectures on the _Bhagavad G\u00eet\u00e2_, in\n      _The Theosophist_, Feb. 1887.\n\n   50 Called by Christian theology, Archangels, Seraphs, etc., etc.\n\n   51 \u201cPilgrim\u201d is the appellation given to our Monad (the Two in one)\n      during its cycle of incarnations. It is the only immortal and\n      eternal Principle in us, being an indivisible part of the integral\n      whole\u2014the Universal Spirit, from which it emanates, and into which\n      it is absorbed at the end of the cycle. When it is said to emanate\n      from the One Spirit, an awkward and incorrect expression has to be\n      used for lack of appropriate words in English. The Ved\u00e2ntins call it\n      S\u00fbtr\u00e2tm\u00e2 (Thread\u2010Soul), but their explanation differs somewhat from\n      that of the Occultists; to explain which difference, however, is\n      left to the Ved\u00e2ntins themselves.\n\n   52 It is not the physical organisms that remain _in statu quo_, least\n      of all their psychic principles, during the great Cosmic or even\n      Solar Pralayas, but only their \u00e2k\u00e2shic or astral \u201cphotographs.\u201d But\n      during the Minor Pralayas, once overtaken by the \u201cNight,\u201d the\n      planets remain intact, though dead, just as a huge animal, caught\n      and embedded in the polar ice, remains the same for ages.\n\n   53 Thus Spencer, who, nevertheless, like Schopenhauer and von Hartmann,\n      only reflects an aspect of the old esoteric philosophers, and hence\n      lands his readers on the bleak shore of Agnostic despair\u2014reverently\n      formulates the grand mystery; \u201cthat which persists unchanging in\n      quantity, but ever changing in form, under these sensible\n      appearances which the Universe presents to us, is an unknown and\n      unknowable power, which we are obliged to recognize as without limit\n      in Space and without beginning or end in Time.\u201d It is only daring\n      Theology\u2014never Science or Philosophy\u2014which seeks to gauge the\n      Infinite and unveil the Fathomless and Unknowable.\n\n   54 Space.\n\n   55 It is stated in Book II, ch. viii, of _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_: \u201cBy\n      immortality is meant existence to the end of the Kalpa\u201d; and Wilson,\n      the translator, remarks in a foot\u2010note: \u201cThis, according to the\n      _Vedas_, is all that is to be understood of the immortality [or\n      eternity] of the gods; they perish at the end of universal\n      dissolution [or Pralaya].\u201d And Esoteric Philosophy says: \u201cThey\n      \u2018perish\u2019 not, but are _re\u00e4bsorbed_.\u201d\n\n   56 Celestial Beings.\n\n   57 And hence to manifest it.\n\n   58 Nirv\u00e2na. Nippang in Chinese; Neibban in Burmese; Moksha in India.\n\n   59 Nid\u00e2na and M\u00e2y\u00e2. The \u201cTwelve\u201d Nid\u00e2nas (in Tibetan Ten\u2010brel Chug\u2010nyi)\n      are the chief causes of existence, effects generated by a\n      concatenation of causes produced.\n\n   60 See Wassilief, _Der Buddhismus_, pp. 97\u2010128.\n\n   61 The term \u201cWheel\u201d is the symbolical expression for a world or globe,\n      which shows that the ancients were aware that our Earth was a\n      revolving globe, not a motionless square as some Christian Fathers\n      taught. The \u201cGreat Wheel\u201d is the whole duration of our Cycle of\n      Being, or Mah\u00e2kalpa, _i.e._, the whole revolution of our special\n      Chain of seven Globes or Spheres from beginning to end; the \u201cSmall\n      Wheels\u201d meaning the Rounds, of which there are also seven.\n\n   62 Absolute Perfection, Paranirv\u00e2na, which is Yong\u2010Grub.\n\n   63 See Dzungarian _Mani Kumbum_, the \u201cBook of the 10,000 Precepts.\u201d\n      Also consult Wassilief\u2019s _Der Buddhismus_, pp. 327 and 357, etc.\n\n   64 In clearer words: One has to acquire true Self\u2010Consciousness in\n      order to understand Samvriti, or the \u201corigin of delusion.\u201d\n      Param\u00e2rtha is the synonym of the term Svasamvedan\u00e2, or the\n      \u201creflection which analyses itself.\u201d There is a difference in the\n      interpretation of the meaning of Param\u00e2rtha between the Yog\u00e2ch\u00e2ryas\n      and the Madhyamikas, neither of whom, however, explain the real and\n      true esoteric sense of the expression.\n\n   65 In India it is called the \u201cEye of Shiva,\u201d but beyond the Great Range\n      it is known in Esoteric phraseology as \u201cDangma\u2019s Opened Eye.\u201d Dangma\n      means a purified soul, one who has become a J\u00eevanmukta, the highest\n      Adept, or rather a Mah\u00e2tm\u00e2 so\u2010called. His \u201cOpened Eye\u201d is the inner\n      spiritual eye of the seer; and the faculty which manifests through\n      it, is not clairvoyance as ordinarily understood, _i.e._, the power\n      of seeing at a distance, but rather the faculty of spiritual\n      intuition, through which direct and certain knowledge is obtainable.\n      This faculty is intimately connected with the \u201cthird eye,\u201d which\n      mythological tradition ascribes to certain races of men.\n\n   66 _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, I. 21.\n\n   67 And yet, one, _claiming authority_, namely, Sir Monier Williams,\n      Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, has just denied the fact.\n      This is what he taught his audience, on June the 4th, 1888, in his\n      annual address before the Victoria Institute of Great Britain:\n      \u201cOriginally, Buddhism set its face against all solitary asceticism\n      ... to attain sublime heights of knowledge. It had no occult, no\n      esoteric system of doctrine ... withheld from ordinary men\u201d (!!).\n      And, again: \u201c... When Gautama Buddha began his career, the later and\n      lower form of Yoga seems to have been little known.\u201d And then,\n      contradicting himself, the learned lecturer forthwith informs his\n      audience that \u201cwe learn from _Lalita\u2010Vistara_ that various forms of\n      bodily torture, self\u2010maceration, and austerity were common in\n      Gautama\u2019s time.\u201d (!!) But the lecturer seems quite unaware that this\n      kind of torture and self\u2010maceration is precisely the lower form of\n      Yoga, _Hatha_ Yoga, which was \u201clittle known\u201d and yet so \u201ccommon\u201d in\n      Gautama\u2019s time.\n\n   68 It is even argued that all the Six Darshanas, or Schools of\n      Philosophy, show traces of Buddha\u2019s influence, being either taken\n      from Buddhism or due to Greek teaching! (See Weber, Max M\u00fcller,\n      etc.) We labour under the impression that Colebrooke, \u201cthe highest\n      authority\u201d in such matters, had long ago settled the question by\n      showing that \u201cthe Hind\u00fbs were in this instance the teachers, not the\n      learners.\u201d\n\n   69 Soul, as the basis of all, Anima Mundi.\n\n   70 Absolute Being and Consciousness, which are Absolute Non\u2010Being and\n      Unconsciousness.\n\n   71 \u201cParam\u00e2rthasatya\u201d is self\u2010consciousness; Svasamvedan\u00e2, or self\u2010\n      analyzing reflection\u2014from _parama_, above everything, and _artha_,\n      comprehension; _satya_ meaning absolute true being, or _esse_. In\n      Tibetan Param\u00e2rthasatya is Dondampaidenpa. The opposite of this\n      absolute reality, or actuality, is Samvritisatya\u2014the relative truth\n      only\u2014Samvriti meaning \u201cfalse conception\u201d and being the origin of\n      Illusion, M\u00e2y\u00e2; in Tibetan Kundzabchidenpa, \u201cillusion\u2010creating\n      appearance.\u201d\n\n   72 _Aphorisms of the Bodhisattvas._\n\n   73 \u00c2ry\u00e2sanga was a pre\u2010Christian Adept and founder of a Buddhist\n      esoteric school, though Csoma de K\u00f6r\u00f6s places him, for some reasons\n      of his own, in the seventh century A.D. There was another Ary\u00e2sanga,\n      who lived during the first centuries of our era, and the Hungarian\n      scholar most probably confuses the two.\n\n   74 _V\u00e2yu Pur\u00e2na_.\n\n   75 _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, Wilson, I. 20.\n\n   76 Finite self\u2010consciousness, I mean. For how can the _Absolute_ attain\n      this otherwise than simply as an _aspect_, the highest of which\n      aspects known to us is human consciousness?\n\n   77 See Schwegler\u2019s _Handbook of the History of Philosophy_, in\n      Sterling\u2019s translation, p. 28.\n\n   78 Vajrap\u00e2ni or Vajradhara means the diamond\u2010holder; in Tibetan\n      Dorjesempa, _sempa_ meaning the soul; its adamantine quality\n      referring to its indestructibility in the hereafter. The explanation\n      with regard to the Anup\u00e2daka given in the _K\u00e2la Chakra_, the first\n      in the Gyut division of the _Kanjur_, is half esoteric. It has\n      misled the Orientalists into erroneous speculations with respect to\n      the Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas and their earthly correspondencies, the M\u00e2nushi\u2010\n      Buddhas. The real tenet is hinted at in a subsequent volume, and\n      will be more fully explained in its proper place.\n\n   79 To quote Hegel again, who with Schelling practically accepted the\n      Pantheistic conception of periodical Avat\u00e2ras (special incarnations\n      of the World\u2010Spirit in Man, as seen in the case of all the great\n      religious reformers): \u201cThe essence of man is spirit ... only by\n      stripping himself of his finiteness and surrendering himself to pure\n      self\u2010consciousness does he attain the truth. Christ\u2010man, as man in\n      whom the Unity of God\u2010man [identity of the individual with the\n      universal Consciousness as taught by the Ved\u00e2ntins and some\n      Advaitees] appeared, has, in his death and history generally,\n      himself presented the eternal history of Spirit\u2014a history which\n      every man has to accomplish in himself, in order to exist as\n      Spirit.\u201d\u2014_Philosophy of History_, Sibree\u2019s English Translation, p.\n      340.\n\n   80 Chohanic, Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhic.\n\n   81 R\u00fbpa.\n\n   82 Ar\u00fbpa.\n\n   83 \u201cMother of the Gods,\u201d Aditi, or Cosmic Space. In the _Zohar_, she is\n      called Sephira, the Mother of the Sephiroth, and Shekinah in her\n      primordial form, _in abscondita_.\n\n   84 Hence Non\u2010Being is \u201cAbsolute Being,\u201d in Esoteric Philosophy. In the\n      tenets of the latter even \u00c2di\u2010Buddha (the First or Primeval Wisdom)\n      is, while manifested, in one sense an Illusion, M\u00e2y\u00e2, since all the\n      gods, including Brahm\u00e2, have to die at the end of the Age of Brahm\u00e2;\n      the abstraction called Parabrahman\u2014whether we call it Ain Suph, or\n      with Herbert Spencer the Unknowable\u2014alone being the One Absolute\n      Reality. The One Secondless Existence is Advaita, \u201cWithout a\n      Second,\u201d and all the rest is M\u00e2y\u00e2, so teaches the Advaita\n      Philosophy.\n\n   85 Motion.\n\n   86 Wilson, I. iv.\n\n   87 Mother\u2010Lotus.\n\n   88 An unpoetical term, yet still very graphic.\n\n   89 Gross, _The Heathen Religion_, p. 195.\n\n   90 _Precepts for Yoga_.\n\n   91 A Ved\u00e2ntin of the Visishthadvaita Philosophy would say that, though\n      the only independent Reality, Parabrahman is inseparable from His\n      Trinity. That He is three, \u201cParabrahman, Chit, and Achit,\u201d the last\n      two being dependent Realities unable to exist separately; or, to\n      make it clearer, Parabrahman is the Substance\u2014changeless, eternal,\n      and incognizable\u2014and Chit (\u00c2tm\u00e2) and Achit (An\u00e2tm\u00e2) and its\n      qualities, as form and colour are the qualities of any object. The\n      two are the garment, or body, or rather aspect (shar\u00eera) of\n      Parabrahman. But an Occultist would find much to say against this\n      claim, and so would the Advaiti Ved\u00e2ntin.\n\n   92 _Sc._, Sons.\n\n   93 Simultaneously.\n\n   94 Moves.\n\n   95 Periodical.\n\n   96 Wilson, _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, I. 40.\n\n   97 Triangle.\n\n   98 Quaternary.\n\n   99 Hiranyagarbha.\n\n  100 The three hypostases of Brahm\u00e2, or Vishnu, the three Avasth\u00e2s.\n\n  101 Number, truly; but never Motion. It is Motion which begets the\n      Logos, the Word, in Occultism.\n\n  102 The \u201cfourteen precious things.\u201d The narrative or allegory is found\n      in the _Shatapatha Br\u00e2manah_ and others. The Japanese Secret Science\n      of the Buddhist Mystics, the Yamabooshi, has \u201cseven precious\n      things.\u201d We will speak of them, hereafter.\n\n  103 \u201cThe original for Understanding is Sattva, which Shankara renders\n      Antaskarana. \u2018Refined,\u2019 he says, \u2018by sacrifices and other\n      sanctifying operations.\u2019 In the _Katha_, at p. 148, Sattva is\n      rendered by Shankara to mean Buddhi\u2014a common use of the word.\u201d\n      (_Bhagavadg\u00eet\u00e2_, etc., translated by K\u00e2shin\u00e2th Trimbak Telang, M.A.;\n      edited by Max M\u00fcller, p. 193.) Whatever meaning various schools may\n      give the term, Sattva is the name given among Occult students of the\n      \u00c2ry\u00e2sanga School to the dual Monad, or \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi, and \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi\n      on this plane corresponds to Parabrahman and M\u00fblaprakriti on the\n      higher plane.\n\n  104 Amrita.\n\n  105 Cory\u2019s _Ancient Fragments_, p. 314.\n\n  106 On Rosenkranz.\n\n  107 i. 2.\n\n  108 _John_, i. 4.\n\n  109 Lanoo is a student, a Chel\u00e2 who studies practical Esotericism.\n\n  110 \u201cWhom thou knowest now as Kwan\u2010Shai\u2010Yin.\u201d\u2014_Comment._\n\n  111 Eka is One; Chatur, Four; Tri, Three; and Sapta, Seven.\n\n  112 \u201cTridasha,\u201d or Thirty, three times ten, alludes to the Vedic deities\n      in round numbers, or more accurately 33\u2014a sacred number. They are\n      the 12 \u00c2dityas, the 8 Vasus, the 11 Rudras, and the 2 Ashvins\u2014the\n      twin sons of the Sun and Sky. This is the root\u2010number of the Hind\u00fb\n      Pantheon, which enumerates 33 crores, or three hundred and thirty\n      millions of gods and goddesses.\n\n  113 Stars.\n\n  114 The Upper Space.\n\n  115 Element.\n\n  116 The Gnostic Sophia, \u201cWisdom,\u201d who is the \u201cMother\u201d of the Ogdoad\n      (Aditi, in a certain sense, with her eight sons), is the Holy Ghost\n      and the Creator of all, as in the ancient systems. The \u201cFather\u201d is a\n      far later invention. The earliest manifested Logos was female\n      everywhere\u2014the mother of the seven planetary powers.\n\n  117 See _Chinese Buddhism_, by the Rev. Joseph Edkins, who always gives\n      correct facts, although his conclusions are very frequently\n      erroneous.\n\n  118 _Book of Sarpar\u00e2jni_.\n\n  119 By \u201cGod, the Father,\u201d the seventh principle in Man and Kosmos are\n      here unmistakably meant, this principle being inseparable in its\n      Esse and Nature from the seventh cosmic principle. In one sense it\n      is the Logos of the Greeks and the Avalokiteshvara of the Esoteric\n      \u201cBuddhists.\u201d\n\n  120 Fitzedward Hall\u2019s edition, in the _Bibliotheca Indica_, p. 16.\n\n  121 _Anug\u00eet\u00e2_, ch. xxvi, K. T. Telang\u2019s Translation, p. 333.\n\n  122 See Mariette\u2019s _Abydos_, II. 63, and III. 413, 414, No. 1,122.\n\n  123 _Book of Dzyan_, III.\n\n  124 Od is the pure life\u2010giving Light, or magnetic fluid; Ob the\n      messenger of death used by sorcerers, the nefarious evil fluid; Aour\n      is the synthesis of the two, Astral Light proper. Can the\n      Philologists tell why Od\u2014a term used by Reichenbach to denominate\n      the vital fluid\u2014is also a Tibetan word meaning light, brightness,\n      radiancy? It also means \u201csky\u201d in an Occult sense. Whence the root of\n      the word? But \u00c2k\u00e2sha is not quite Ether, but far higher than that,\n      as will be shown.\n\n  125 This is again similar to the doctrine of Fichte and German\n      Pantheists. The former reveres Jesus as the great teacher who\n      inculcated the unity of the spirit of man with the God\u2010Spirit or\n      Universal Principle (the Advaita doctrine). It is difficult to find\n      a single speculation in Western metaphysics which has not been\n      anticipated by archaic Eastern philosophy. From Kant to Herbert\n      Spencer, it is all a more or less distorted echo of the Dvaita,\n      Advaita, and Ved\u00e2ntic doctrines generally.\n\n  126 Compare Dowson\u2019s _Dictionary of Hind\u00fb Mythology_, p. 57.\n\n  127 Whether the genus of the bird be _cygnus_, _anser_, or _pelecanus_,\n      it is no matter, as it is an aquatic bird floating or moving on the\n      waters like the Spirit, and then issuing from those waters to give\n      birth to other beings. The true significance of the symbol of the\n      Eighteenth Degree of the Rosecroix is precisely this, though it was\n      later on poetised into the motherly feeling of the pelican rending\n      its bosom to feed its seven little ones with its blood.\n\n  128 The reason why Moses forbids eating the pelican and swan\n      (_Deuteronomy_, xiv. 16, 17), classing the two among the unclean\n      fowls, and permits eating \u201cthe bald locusts, beetles, and the\n      grasshopper after his kind\u201d (_Leviticus_ xi. 22.), is a purely\n      physiological one, and has to do with mystic symbology only in so\n      far as the word \u201cunclean,\u201d like every other word, ought not to be\n      understood literally; for it is esoteric like all the rest, and may\n      as well mean \u201choly\u201d as not. It is a very suggestive blind in\n      connection with certain superstitions\u2014_e.g._, that of the Russian\n      people, who will not use the pigeon for food; not because it is\n      \u201cunclean\u201d but because the \u201cHoly Ghost\u201d is credited with having\n      appeared under the form of a dove.\n\n  129 Chaos.\n\n  130 Not the Medi\u00e6val Alchemists, but the Magi and Fire\u2010Worshippers, from\n      whom the Rosicrucians, or the Philosophers _per ignem_, the\n      successors of the Theurgists, borrowed all their ideas concerning\n      Fire, as a mystic and divine element.\n\n  131 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 146.\n\n  132 \u201cPara\u201d gives the force of beyond, outside.\n\n  133 Purusha.\n\n  134 Prakriti.\n\n  135 I, I. 7.\n\n  136 The Web.\n\n  137 The Father.\n\n  138 The Root of Matter.\n\n  139 The Elements, with their respective Powers, or Intelligences.\n\n  140 The Web.\n\n  141 _Popular Astronomy_, pp. 507, 508.\n\n  142 _American Journal of Science_, July, 1870.\n\n  143 Winchell, _World\u2010Life_, pp. 83\u20105.\n\n  144 Of the Atoms.\n\n  145 The Universe.\n\n  146 Primeval Light.\n\n  147 This is said in view of the fact that the flame from a fire is\n      inexhaustible, and that the lights of the whole Universe could be\n      lit from one simple rush\u2010light without diminishing the flame.\n\n  148 Chap. viii., p. 80, Telang\u2019s Translation.\n\n  149 _Deuteronomy_, iv 24.\n\n  150 _Thess._, i. 7, 8.\n\n  151 _Acts_, ii. 3.\n\n  152 _Rev._, xix. 13.\n\n  153 Telang\u2019s Translation, _Sacred Books of the East_, viii. 278.\n\n  154 Dhy\u00e2n Chohans.\n\n  155 Formless.\n\n  156 With Bodies.\n\n  157 Pitris.\n\n  158 The Four, represented in the Occult numerals by the Tetraktys, the\n      Sacred or Perfect Square, is a Sacred Number with the Mystics of\n      every nation and race. It has one and the same significance in\n      Br\u00e2hmanism, Buddhism, in Kabalism and in the Egyptian, Chaldean and\n      other numerical systems.\n\n  159 In the _Kabalah_, the same numbers, viz., 1065 are a value of\n      Jehovah, since the numerical values of the three letters which\n      compose his name\u2014Jod, Vau and twice H\u00e9\u2014are respectively 10 (\u05d9), 6\n      (\u05d5) and 5 (\u05d4); or again thrice seven, 21. \u201cTen is the Mother of the\n      Soul, for Life and Light are therein united,\u201d says Hermes. \u201cFor\n      number one is born of the Spirit and the number ten from Matter\n      [Chaos, feminine]; the unity has made the ten, the ten the unity.\u201d\n      (_Book of the Keys_.) By means of Temura, the anagrammatical method\n      of the _Kabalah_, and the knowledge of 1065 (21), a universal\n      science may be obtained regarding Cosmos and its mysteries (Rabbi\n      Yogel). The Rabbis regard the numbers 10, 6, and 5 as the most\n      sacred of all.\n\n  160 The reader may be told that an American Kabalist has now discovered\n      the same number for the Elohim. It came to the Jews from Chald\u00e6a.\n      See \u201cHebrew Metrology,\u201d in _The Masonic Review_, July, 1885,\n      McMillan Lodge, No. 141.\n\n  161 We find the same expression in Egypt. Mout signifies, for one thing,\n      \u201cMother,\u201d and shows the character assigned to her in the triad of\n      that country. She was no less the mother than the wife of Ammon, one\n      of the principal titles of the god being \u201cthe husband of his\n      mother.\u201d The goddess Mout, or M\u00fbt, is addressed as \u201cOur Lady,\u201d the\n      \u201cQueen of Heaven\u201d and \u201cof the Earth,\u201d thus \u201csharing these titles\n      with the other mother goddesses, Isis, Hathor, etc.\u201d (Maspero).\n\n  162 The Sparks.\n\n  163 The permutation of Oeaohoo. The literal signification of the word\n      is, among the Eastern Occultists of the North, a circular wind,\n      whirlwind; but in this instance, it is a term to denote the\n      ceaseless and eternal Cosmic Motion, or rather the Force that moves\n      it, which Force is tacitly accepted as the Deity, but never named.\n      It is the eternal K\u00e2rana, the ever\u2010acting Cause.\n\n  164 vi. 15. The _Anug\u00eet\u00e2_ forms part of the Ashvamedha Parvan of the\n      _Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata_. The translator of the _Bhagavadg\u00eet\u00e2_, edited by Max\n      M\u00fcller, regards it as a continuation of the _Bhagavadg\u00eet\u00e2_. Its\n      original is one of the oldest _Upanishads_.\n\n  165 This shows the modern metaphysicians, added to all past and present\n      Hegels, Berkeleys, Schopenhauers, Hartmanns, Herbert Spencers, and\n      even the modern Hylo\u2010Idealists to boot, no better than the pale\n      copyists of hoary antiquity.\n\n  166 It is the knowledge of this law that permits and helps the Arhat to\n      perform his Siddhis, or various phenomena, such as the\n      disintegration of matter, the transport of objects from one place to\n      another, etc.\n\n  167 These are ancient Commentaries attached with modern Glossaries to\n      the Stanzas, for the Commentaries in their symbolical language are\n      usually as difficult to understand as the Stanzas themselves.\n\n  168 In a polemical scientific work, _The Modern Genesis_ (p. 48), the\n      Rev. W. B. Slaughter, criticizing the position assumed by the\n      astronomers, says: \u201cIt is to be regretted that the advocates of this\n      [nebular] theory have not entered more largely into the discussion\n      of it [the beginning of rotation] No one condescends to give us the\n      _rationale_ of it. How does the process of cooling and contracting\n      the mass impart to it a rotatory motion?\u201d (Quoted by Winchell,\n      _World\u2010Life_, p. 94.) It is not materialistic Science that can ever\n      solve it. \u201c_Motion is eternal in the unmanifested, and periodical in\n      the manifest_,\u201d says an Occult teaching. It is \u201c_when heat caused by\n      the descent of Flame into primordial matter causes its particles to\n      move, which motion becomes the Whirlwind_.\u201d A drop of liquid assumes\n      a spheroidal form owing to its atoms moving around themselves in\n      their ultimate, unresolvable, and noumenal essence; unresolvable for\n      Physical Science, at any rate. The question is amply treated later\n      on.\n\n  169 The x, the unknown quantity.\n\n  170 Which makes Ten, or the perfect number, applied to the \u201cCreator,\u201d\n      the name given to the totality of the Creators blended by the\n      Monotheists into One, as the \u201cElohim,\u201d Adam Kadmon or Sephira, the\n      Crown\u2014are the androgyne synthesis of the ten Sephiroth, who stand\n      for the symbol of the manifested Universe in the popularized\n      _Kabalah_. The Esoteric Kabalists, however, following the Eastern\n      Occultists, divide the upper Sephirothal triangle (or Sephira,\n      Chokmah and Binah) from the rest, which leaves seven Sephiroth. As\n      for Svabh\u00e2vat, the Orientalists explain the term as meaning the\n      universal plastic matter diffused through space, with, perhaps, half\n      an eye to the Ether of Science. But the Occultists identify it with\n      \u201cFather\u2010Mother\u201d on the mystic plane.\n\n  171 Ar\u00fbpa.\n\n  172 Boundless Circle.\n\n  173 Subjective, Formless.\n\n  174 Bh\u00e2skara.\n\n  175 This refers to the Abstract Thought and concrete Voice, or the\n      manifestation thereof, the effect of the Cause. Adam Kadmon, or\n      Tetragrammaton, is the Logos in the _Kabalah_. Therefore this Triad\n      answers in the latter to the highest Triangle of Kether, Chokmah and\n      Binah, the last a female potency, and at the same time the male\n      Jehovah, as partaking of the nature of Chokmah, or the male Wisdom.\n\n  176 The Secret Doctrine teaches that the Sun is a central star and not a\n      planet. Yet the ancients knew of and worshipped seven great gods,\n      excluding the Sun and Earth. Which was that \u201cMystery God\u201d they set\n      apart? Of course not Uranus, only discovered by Herschel in 1781.\n      But could it not be known by another name? Says Ragon: \u201cOccult\n      Sciences having discovered through astronomical calculations that\n      the number of the planets must be seven, the ancients were led to\n      introduce the Sun into the scale of the celestial harmonies, and\n      make him occupy the vacant place. Thus, every time they perceived an\n      influence that pertained to none of the six planets known, they\n      attributed it to the Sun.... The error seems important, but was not\n      so in practical results, if the astrologers replaced Uranus by the\n      Sun, which ... is a central Star relatively motionless, turning only\n      on its axis and regulating time and measure; and which cannot be\n      turned aside from its true functions.\u201d (_Ma\u00e7onnerie Occulte_, p.\n      447.) The nomenclature of the days of the week is also faulty. \u201cThe\n      Sun\u2010day ought to be Uranus\u2010day (Urani dies, Urandi),\u201d adds the\n      learned writer.\n\n  177 Planetary System.\n\n  178 \u201cThe Sun rotates on its axis always in the same direction in which\n      the planets revolve in their respective orbits,\u201d astronomy teaches\n      us.\n\n  179 See _Anug\u00eet\u00e2_, Telang, x. 9; and _Aitareya Br\u00e2hmana_, Haug, p. 1.\n\n  180 This essence of cometary matter, Occult Science teaches, is totally\n      different from any of the chemical or physical characteristics with\n      which Modern Science is acquainted. It is homogeneous in its\n      primitive form beyond the Solar Systems, and differentiates entirely\n      once it crosses the boundaries of our Earth\u2019s region; vitiated by\n      the atmospheres of the planets and the already compound matter of\n      the interplanetary stuff, it is heterogeneous only in our manifested\n      world.\n\n  181 Manas\u2014the Mind\u2010Principle, or the Human Soul.\n\n  182 Buddhi\u2014the Divine Soul.\n\n  183 See _Correlation of Physical Forces_, 1843, p. 81; and _Address to\n      the British Association_, 1866.\n\n  184 Very similar ideas were those of W. Mattieu Williams, in _The Fuel\n      of the Sun_; of Dr. C. William Siemens, _On the Conservation of\n      Solar Energy_ (_Nature_, XXV, 440\u2010444, March 9, 1882); and also of\n      Dr. P. Martin Duncan in an _Address_, as the President of the\n      Geological Society, London, May, 1877. See _World\u2010Life_, by\n      Alexander Winchell, LL.D., p. 53, _et seq_.\n\n  185 When we speak of Neptune, it is not as an Occultist but as a\n      European. The true Eastern Occultist will maintain that, whereas\n      there are many yet undiscovered planets in our system, Neptune does\n      not really belong to it, in spite of its _apparent_ connection with\n      our Sun and the influence of the latter upon it. This connection is\n      m\u00e2y\u00e2vic, imaginary, they say.\n\n  186 Word, Voice and Spirit.\n\n  187 These are the four \u201cImmortals,\u201d which are mentioned in the _Atharva\n      Veda_ as the \u201cWatchers\u201d or Guardians of the four quarters of the\n      sky. (See Ch. lxxvi., 1\u20104, _et seq_.)\n\n  188 _Conflict between Religion and Science_, pp. 132 and 133.\n\n  189 _Principles of Science_, II. 455.\n\n  190 _Les Myst\u00e8res de l\u2019Horoscope_, Ely Star, p. xi.\n\n  191 _Psalms_, civ. 4.\n\n  192 The difference between the Builders, the Planetary Spirits, and the\n      Lipika must not be lost sight of. (See Shlokas 5 and 6 of this\n      Commentary.)\n\n  193 That is, he is under the influence of their guiding thought.\n\n  194 Cosmic mists.\n\n  195 The World to be.\n\n  196 Atoms.\n\n  197 See A. P. Sinnett\u2019s _Esoteric Buddhism_, 5th annotated edition, pp.\n      171\u2010173.\n\n  198 The first and greatest Tibetan Reformer who founded the \u201cYellow\u2010\n      Caps,\u201d Gelukpas. He was born in the year 1355 A.D., in the district\n      of Amdo, and was the Avat\u00e2ra of Amit\u00e2bha, the celestial name of\n      Gautama Buddha.\n\n  199 T. Subba Row seems to identify him with, and to call him, the Logos.\n      (See his _Lectures on the Bhagavadg\u00eet\u00e2_, in the _Theosophist_, vol.\n      ix.)\n\n  200 Helmholtz, _Faraday Lecture_, 1881.\n\n  201 It is well known that sand, when placed on a metal plate in\n      vibration, assumes a series of regular figures of various\n      descriptions. Can Science give a _complete_ explanation of this\n      fact?\n\n  202 See _The Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia_, Mackenzie; and _The Pythagorean\n      Triangle_, Oliver.\n\n  203 Ormazd is the Logos, the \u201cFirst Born,\u201d and the Sun.\n\n  204 _Against Apion_, I, 25.\n\n  205 See _Isis Unveiled_, II., 430\u2010438.\n\n  206 See Dowson\u2019s _Hind\u00fb Classical Dictionary_.\n\n  207 The mineral atoms.\n\n  208 Gaseous clouds.\n\n  209 See _Kabbalah Denudata_, \u201cDe Anima,\u201d p. 113.\n\n  210 \u201cThe doctrine of the rotation of the earth about an axis was taught\n      by the Pythagorean Hicetas, probably as early as 500 B.C. It was\n      also taught by his pupil Ecphantus, and by Heraclides, a pupil of\n      Plato. The immobility of the sun and the orbital rotation of the\n      earth were shown by Aristarchus of Samos as early as 281 B.C. to be\n      suppositions accordant with facts of observation. The heliocentric\n      theory was also taught about 150 B.C., by Seleucus of Seleucia on\n      the Tigris. [It was taught 500 B.C. by Pythagoras.\u2014H.P.B.] It is\n      said also that Archimedes, in a work entitled _Psammites_,\n      inculcated the heliocentric theory. The sphericity of the earth was\n      distinctly taught by Aristotle, who appealed for proof to the figure\n      of the earth\u2019s shadow on the moon in eclipses. (Aristotle, _De\n      C\u00e6lo_, lib. II., cap, XIV.) The same idea was defended by Pliny.\n      (_Nat. Hist._, II., 65.) These views seem to have been lost from\n      knowledge for more than a thousand years....\u201d (Winchell, _World\u2010\n      Life_, 551\u20102.)\n\n  211 _On Vortex Atoms_.\n\n  212 _Op. cit._, 567.\n\n  213 Abridged from _Principia Rerum Naturalium_.\n\n  214 The Lipika.\n\n  215 That is: the First is now the Second World.\n\n  216 The Formless Universe of Thought.\n\n  217 The Shadowy World of Primal Form, or the Intellectual.\n\n  218 In the _Rig Veda_, we find the names Brahmanaspati and Brihaspati\n      alternating with, and equivalent to, each other. Also see\n      _Brihad\u00e2ranyaka Upanishad_; Brihaspati is a deity called the \u201cFather\n      of the Gods.\u201d\n\n  219 _Logic_, II. 125.\n\n  220 Having already taken the first three.\n\n  221 Hosts.\n\n  222 The four Aspects are the body, its life or vitality, and the\n      \u201cdouble\u201d of the body\u2014the triad which disappears with the death of\n      the person\u2014and the K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa which disintegrates in K\u00e2ma Loka.\n\n  223 _On Amos_, iv.\n\n  224 _Theol. Cir._, I. vii.\n\n  225 See _The Occult World_, pp. 89, 90.\n\n  226 Thus the sentence, \u201cNatura Elementorum obtinet revelationem Dei\u201d\n      (Clemens, _Stromata_, IV. 6), is applicable to both or neither.\n      Consult the _Zends_, II. 228, and Plutarch _De Iside_, as compared\n      by Layard, _Acad\u00e9mie des Inscriptions_, 1854, Vol. XV.\n\n  227 _Exodus_ xxvi, xxvii.\n\n  228 _Antiquities_, I. VIII, ch. xxii.\n\n  229 _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 216.\n\n  230 \u201cMan\u201d was here substituted for \u201cDragon.\u201d Compare the Ophite Spirits.\n      The Angels recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, who correspond\n      to these \u201cFaces,\u201d were with the Ophites: Dragon\u2014Raphael;\n      Lion\u2014Michael; Bull, or Ox\u2014Uriel; and Eagle\u2014Gabriel. The four keep\n      company with the four Evangelists, and preface the Gospels.\n\n  231 _Ezekiel_, i.\n\n  232 The Jews, save the Kabalists, having no names for East, West, South,\n      and North, expressed the idea by words signifying before, behind,\n      right and left, and very often confounded the terms exoterically,\n      thus making the blinds in the _Bible_ more confused and difficult to\n      interpret. Add to this the fact that out of the forty\u2010seven\n      translators of King James\u2019 Bible \u201conly three understood Hebrew, and\n      of these two died before the Psalms were translated\u201d (_Royal Masonic\n      Cyclop\u00e6dia_), and one may easily understand what reliance can be\n      placed on the English version of the _Bible_. In this work the Douay\n      Roman Catholic version is generally followed.\n\n  233 The vertical line or the figure 1.\n\n  234 Circle.\n\n  235 Also for those who, etc.\n\n  236 The Formless World and the World of Forms.\n\n  237 _Theosophist_, Feb., 1877, p. 303.\n\n  238 These voluntary re\u00efncarnations are referred to in our Doctrine as\n      Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2yas\u2014the surviving spiritual principles of men.\n\n  239 S\u00fbkshma Shar\u00eera, \u201cdream\u2010like\u201d illusive body, with which are clothed\n      the inferior Dhy\u00e2nis of the celestial Hierarchy.\n\n  240 Compare this Esoteric tenet with the Gnostic doctrine found in\n      _Pistis\u2010Sophia_ (Knowledge\u2010Wisdom), in which treatise Sophia\n      (Acham\u00f4th) is shown lost in the waters of Chaos (Matter), on her way\n      to the Supreme Light, and Christos delivering and helping her on the\n      right Path. Note well, that \u201cChristos\u201d with the Gnostics meant the\n      Impersonal Principle, the \u00c2tman of the Universe, and the \u00c2tm\u00e2 within\n      every man\u2019s soul\u2014and not Jesus; though in the old Coptic MS., in the\n      British Museum, \u201cChristos\u201d is replaced by \u201cJesus\u201d and other terms.\n\n  241 _A Catechism of the Visishthadvaita Philosophy_, by N.\n      Bh\u00e2shiyacharya, F.T.S., late Pandit of the Adyar Library.\n\n  242 _Tr\u00e4ume eines Geistersehers_, quoted by C. C. Massey, in his preface\n      to Von Hartmann\u2019s _Spiritismus_.\n\n  243 _Le Livre des Morts_, Paul Pierret, Chap. xvii. p. 61.\n\n  244 See also for other data on this peculiar expression, the Day of\n      \u201cCome To Us,\u201d _The Funerary Ritual of the Egyptians_, by Viscount de\n      Roug\u00e9.\n\n  245 Chaos.\n\n  246 Our Universe.\n\n  247 _The Theosophist_, Feb., 1887, p. 305.\n\n  248 _Op. cit._, p. 306.\n\n  249 Madhya is said of something whose commencement and end are unknown,\n      and Para means infinite. These expressions all relate to infinitude\n      and to division of time.\n\n  250 _Op. cit._, p. 307.\n\n  251 From the Sanskrit _Laya_, the point of matter where every\n      differentiation has ceased.\n\n  252 _Five Years of Theosophy_, Art., \u201cPersonal and Impersonal God,\u201d p.\n      200.\n\n  253 Elements.\n\n  254 Fraction.\n\n  255 Presidential Address before the Royal Society of Chemists, March,\n      1888.\n\n  256 P. 242.\n\n  257 Worlds.\n\n  258 A period of 311,040,000,000,000 years, according to Br\u00e2hmanical\n      calculations.\n\n  259 See the _Scientific Arena_, a monthly journal devoted to current\n      philosophical teaching and its bearing upon the religious thought of\n      the age. New York: A. Wilford Hall, Ph.D., LL.D., Editor, July,\n      August, and September, 1886.\n\n  260 Such, we believe, is the name applied to what he also calls \u201cEtheric\n      Centres,\u201d by J. W. Keely, of Philadelphia, the inventor of the\n      famous \u201cMotor\u201d\u2014destined, as his admirers have hoped, to\n      revolutionize the motor power of the world.\n\n  261 The moon is _dead_ only so far as regards her _inner_\n      principles\u2014_i.e._, _psychically_ and _spiritually_, however absurd\n      the statement may seem. Physically, she is only as a semi\u2010paralysed\n      body may be. She is aptly referred to in Occultism as the \u201cInsane\n      Mother,\u201d the great sidereal _lunatic_.\n\n  262 Occultists, however, having the most perfect faith in their own\n      exact records, astronomical and mathematical, calculate the age of\n      humanity, and assert that men (as separate sexes) have existed in\n      this Round just 18,618,727 years, as the Br\u00e2hmanical teachings and\n      even some Hind\u00fb calendars declare.\n\n  263 The commentaries on the Stanzas are resumed on p. 213.\n\n  264 In _Esoteric Buddhism_ and _Man: Fragments of Forgotten History_.\n\n  265 Many more planets are enumerated in the Secret Books than in modern\n      astronomical works.\n\n  266 p. 48.\n\n  267 See, in _Esoteric Buddhism_, \u201cThe Constitution of Man,\u201d and the\n      \u201cPlanetary Chain.\u201d\n\n  268 Winchell\u2019s _World\u2010Life_.\n\n  269 P. 113 (5th edition).\n\n  270 pp. 185\u20106.\n\n  271 Kosha is \u201csheath\u201d literally, the sheath of every principle.\n\n  272 Sth\u00fbla\u2010up\u00e2dhi, or basis of the principle.\n\n  273 Life.\n\n  274 The Astral Body, or Linga Shar\u00eera.\n\n  275 Buddhi.\n\n  276 See Diagram II, p. 195.\n\n  277 Extract from the Teacher\u2019s letters on various topics.\n\n  278 We are not concerned with the other Globes in this work except\n      incidentally.\n\n  279 _Esoteric Buddhism_, p. 136.\n\n  280 _Lucifer_, May, 1888.\n\n  281 _Esoteric Buddhism_ (5th ed.), p. 46.\n\n  282 _Op. cit._, p. 49.\n\n  283 _Op. cit._, p. 140.\n\n  284 p. 177 _supra_.\n\n  285 Occultism divides the periods of Rest (Pralaya) into several kinds:\n      there is the _Individual_ Pralaya of each Globe, as humanity and\n      life pass on to the next\u2014seven minor Pralayas in each Round; the\n      _Planetary_ Pralaya, when seven Rounds are completed; the _Solar_\n      Pralaya, when the whole system is at an end; and finally the\n      _Universal_ Pralaya, Mah\u00e2 or Brahm\u00e2 Pralaya, at the close of the Age\n      of Brahm\u00e2. These are the chief Pralayas or \u201cdestruction periods.\u201d\n      There are many other minor ones, but with these we are not concerned\n      at present.\n\n  286 Pp. 48, 49.\n\n  287 _Ibid._\n\n  288 \u201cPhysical\u201d here means differentiated for cosmical purposes and work;\n      that \u201cphysical side,\u201d nevertheless, if objective to the apperception\n      of beings from other planes, is yet quite subjective to us on our\n      plane.\n\n  289 Pp. 276 _et seq_.\n\n  290 _Ibid._\n\n  291 See diagram, _op. cit._, p. 277.\n\n  292 _Op. cit._, pp. 273\u20104.\n\n  293 _Op. cit._, p. 274\u20105.\n\n  294 II. 278\u20109.\n\n  295 P. 48.\n\n  296 The _Natures_ of the seven Hierarchies or Classes of Pitris and\n      Dhy\u00e2n Chohans which compose our nature and bodies are here meant.\n\n  297 Round, or revolution of Life and Being round the seven smaller\n      Wheels.\n\n  298 Thirds.\n\n  299 Race.\n\n  300 P. 235.\n\n  301 _Rev._, xii. 7\u20109.\n\n  302 See Vol. II, Shloka 17.\n\n  303 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 299, 300. Compare also Dunlap, _S\u00f4d: the Son of\n      the Man_, pp. 51 _et seq._\n\n  304 On the authority of Iren\u00e6us, of Justin Martyr and of the _Codex_\n      itself, Dunlap shows that the Nazarenes regarded \u201cSpirit\u201d as a\n      _female and evil_ Power, in its connection with our Earth.\n\n  305 Fetahil is identical with the host of the Pitris, who \u201ccreated man\u201d\n      as a \u201cshell\u201d only. He was, with the Nazarenes, the King of Light,\n      and the Creator; but in this instance he is the unlucky Prometheus,\n      who fails to get hold of the Living Fire necessary for the formation\n      of the Divine Soul, as he is ignorant of the secret name, the\n      ineffable or incommunicable name of the Kabalists.\n\n  306 The spirit of Matter and Concupiscence; K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa _minus_ Manas,\n      Mind.\n\n  307 _Codex Nazar\u00e6us_, ii. 233.\n\n  308 This Mano of the Nazarenes strangely resembles the Hind\u00fb Manu, the\n      Heavenly Man of the _Rig Veda_.\n\n  309 \u201cI am the true _Vine_, and my father is the husbandman.\u201d (_John_,\n      xv. 1.)\n\n  310 With the Gnostics, Christ, as well as Michael who is identical with\n      him in some respects, was the \u201cChief of the \u00c6ons.\u201d\n\n  311 _Codex Nazar\u00e6us_, i. 135.\n\n  312 See the Cosmogony of Pherecydes.\n\n  313 I. 301, note.\n\n  314 They are found, however, in the Chaldean _Book of Numbers_.\n\n  315 _Op. cit._, II. 183 _et seq._\n\n  316 For the difference between _nous_, the higher divine Wisdom, and\n      psyche, the lower and terrestrial, see _St. James_, iii. 15\u201017.\n\n  317 Jehovah\u2019s connection with the Moon in the _Kabalah_ is well known to\n      students.\n\n  318 For the Nazarenes, see _Isis Unveiled_, II. 131 and 132. The true\n      followers of the true Christos were all Nazarenes and _Christians_,\n      and were the opponents of the later Christians.\n\n  319 See the diagram of the Lunar Chain of seven worlds, p. 195, where,\n      as in our own or any other Chain, the upper worlds are spiritual,\n      while the lowest, whether Moon, Earth, or any other planet, is dark\n      with matter.\n\n  320 The whole Kosmos. The reader is reminded that in the Stanzas Kosmos\n      often means only our own Solar System, not the Infinite Universe.\n\n  321 This is purely astronomical.\n\n  322 For a clearer explanation of the above, see \u201cSaptaparna\u201d in the\n      Index.\n\n  323 _Op. cit._, III. 346.\n\n  324 _Book of Dzyan_.\n\n  325 See _Index_, at the words \u201cEvolution,\u201d \u201cDarwin,\u201d \u201cKapila,\u201d \u201cBattle\n      of Life,\u201d etc.\n\n  326 _Isis Unveiled_, II. 260.\n\n  327 _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_.\n\n  328 Chain.\n\n  329 Earth.\n\n  330 Kenealy, _Book of God_, p. 118.\n\n  331 Acosta, vi. 14.\n\n  332 Kenealy, _Ibid._\n\n  333 I, 587\u201093.\n\n  334 That which was _natural_ in the sight of primitive man, has only now\n      become _miracle_ to us; and that which was to him a miracle, could\n      never be expressed in our language.\n\n  335 There is no nation in the world in which the feeling of devotion, or\n      of religious mysticism, is more developed and prominent than in the\n      Hind\u00fb people. See what Max M\u00fcller says of this idiosyncrasy and\n      national feature in his works. This is a direct inheritance from the\n      primitive _conscious_ men of the Third Race.\n\n  336 _Lectures on Heroes_.\n\n  337 Vehicle.\n\n  338 \u00c2tman.\n\n  339 \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi, Spirit\u2010Soul. This relates to the cosmic principles.\n\n  340 Again.\n\n  341 Avalokiteshvara.\n\n  342 Builders. The seven creative Rishis, now connected with the\n      constellation of the Great Bear.\n\n  343 Earth.\n\n  344 Rosenroth, _Liber Mysterii_ IV. 1.\n\n  345 _Genesis_ i.\n\n  346 _Ausz\u00fcge aus dem Zohar_, pp. 13\u201015.\n\n  347 See _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, Book I.\n\n  348 Ch. lxxxviii.\n\n  349 Ch. lxiv. 29, 30.\n\n  350 _Ibid._, 34, 35.\n\n  351 A World, when called a \u201chigher World,\u201d is not higher by reason of\n      its location, but because it is superior in quality or essence. Yet\n      such a World is generally understood by the profane as \u201cHeaven,\u201d and\n      located above our heads.\n\n  352 Of Form, the Sth\u00fbla Shar\u00eera, External Body.\n\n  353 Pearls.\n\n  354 \u1f0c\u03bd\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03c2, a work on Occult Embryology, Book I.\n\n  355 Namely, a congenital idiot.\n\n  356 _John_ iii, 8.\n\n  357 Ch. cxlviii.\n\n  358 _Ibid._, cxlix. 51.\n\n  359 _The Seven Souls of Man_, p. 2; a Lecture by Gerald Massey.\n\n  360 _De Iside et Osiride_, xliii.\n\n  361 Ch. xli.\n\n  362 iv. 5.\n\n  363 Mariette\u2019s _Abydos_, plate 51.\n\n  364 P. Pierret, _\u00c9tudes \u00c9gyptologiques_.\n\n  365 _Ritual_, ch. ii.\n\n  366 Linked into.\n\n  367 _Op. cit._, xvii. 4.\n\n  368 Several inimical critics are anxious to prove that no Seven\n      Principles of Man, or Septenary Constitution of our Chain, were\n      taught in our earlier volumes, _Isis Unveiled_. Though in that work\n      the doctrine could only be hinted at, there are many passages,\n      nevertheless, in which the Septenary Constitution of both Man and\n      the Chain is openly mentioned. Speaking of the Elohim (II. 420), it\n      is said: \u201cThey remain over the seventh heaven (or spiritual world),\n      for it is they who, according to the Kabalists, formed in succession\n      the six material worlds, or rather, attempts at worlds, that\n      preceded our own, which, they say, is the seventh.\u201d Our Globe, in\n      the diagram representing the Chain, is, of course, the seventh and\n      lowest; though, as the evolution on these Globes is cyclic, it is\n      the fourth, on the descending arc of matter. And again (II. 367) it\n      is written: \u201cIn the Egyptian notions, _as in those of all other\n      faiths founded on philosophy_, man was not merely ... a union of\n      soul and body; he was a trinity, when spirit was added to it.\n      Besides, that doctrine made him consist of ... body, ... astral\n      form, or shadow, ... animal soul, ... the higher soul, and ...\n      terrestrial intelligence ... [and] a sixth principle, etc.,\n      etc.\u201d\u2014the seventh\u2014SPIRIT. So clearly are these principles mentioned,\n      that even in the _Index_ (II. 683), one finds \u201cSix Principles of\n      Man,\u201d the seventh being, in strict truth, the synthesis of the six,\n      and _not_ a principle but a ray of the Absolute ALL.\n\n  369 See Diagram III, p. 221.\n\n  370 pp. 340\u2010351, \u201cGenesis of the Soul.\u201d\n\n  371 _De Mysteriis_, ii. 3.\n\n  372 _Asiatic Researches_, xi. 99, 100.\n\n  373 Ch. xxxii. 9.\n\n  374 Their Upper Triad.\n\n  375 Bh\u00fbmi or Prithiv\u00ee.\n\n  376 _Book of the Dead_, i. 7. Compare also _Mysteries of Rostan_.\n\n  377 Kingdom.\n\n  378 Kingdom.\n\n  379 The first Shadow of the Physical Man.\n\n  380 Man.\n\n  381 The Moon.\n\n  382 See _Mantuan Codex_.\n\n  383 The formation of the \u201cLiving Soul,\u201d or Man, would render the idea\n      more clearly. A \u201cLiving Soul\u201d is a synonym of Man in the _Bible_.\n      These are our seven \u201cPrinciples.\u201d\n\n  384 _Ha Idra Zuta Kadisha_, xxii. 746.\n\n  385 xviii. 12.\n\n  386 _Hebrews_, iv.\n\n  387 Cruden, _sub voce_.\n\n  388 _Book of Numbers_, 1. viii. 3.\n\n  389 p. 389.\n\n  390 Plate VII. p. 37.\n\n  391 Esotericism teaches the same. But Manas is not Nephesh; nor is the\n      latter the Astral, but the Fourth Principle, and also the Second,\n      Pr\u00e2na, for Nephesh is the \u201cBreath of Life\u201d in man, as in beast or\n      insect; of physical, material life, which has no spirituality in it.\n\n  392 \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi, whether purposely or otherwise, has confused the\n      numbers: with us his No. 2 is No. 1 (Spirit); and by making of\n      Nephesh both the Plastic Mediator and Life, he thus makes in reality\n      only six principles, because he repeats the first two.\n\n  393 _Zohar_, \u201cIdra Suta,\u201d Book iii., p. 292b.\n\n  394 1. 302.\n\n  395 Read, in _Isis Unveiled_ (ii. 297\u2010303), the doctrine of the _Codex\n      Nazar\u00e6us_. Every tenet of our teaching is found there under a\n      different form and allegory.\n\n  396 _Manu_, Bk. I.\n\n  397 The word \u201cSin\u201d is curious, but has a particular Occult relation to\n      the Moon, besides being its Chaldean equivalent.\n\n  398 Professor Z\u00f6llner\u2019s theory has been more than welcomed by several\n      Scientists, who are also Spiritualists; Professors Butlerof and\n      Wagner, of St. Petersburg, for instance.\n\n  399 \u201cThe giving reality to abstractions is the error of Realism. Space\n      and Time are frequently viewed as separated from all the concrete\n      experiences of the mind, instead of being generalizations of these\n      in certain aspects.\u201d (Bain, _Logic_, Part II. p. 389.)\n\n  400 _The Mysteries of Magic_, by A. E. Waite.\n\n  401 Wilson, I. 23, 24.\n\n  402 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 169.\n\n  403 In the S\u00e2nkhya philosophy, the seven Prakritis, or \u201cproductive\n      productions,\u201d are Mahat, Ahamk\u00e2ra, and the _five_ Tanm\u00e2tras. See\n      _S\u00e2nkhya K\u00e2rik\u00e2_, III., and the Commentary thereon.\n\n  404 See _Linga Pur\u00e2na_, Prior Section, lxx. 12 _et seq._; and _V\u00e2yu\n      Pur\u00e2na_, ch. iv., but especially the former _Pur\u00e2na_\u2014Prior Section,\n      viii. 67\u201074.\n\n  405 _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, Book vi., ch. iv. No use to say so to the Hind\u00fbs,\n      who know their _Pur\u00e2nas_ by heart, but very useful to remind our\n      Orientalists and those Westerns who regard Wilson\u2019s translations as\n      authoritative, that, in his English translation of the _Vishnu\n      Pur\u00e2na_, he is guilty of the most ludicrous contradictions and\n      errors. So on this identical subject of the seven Prakritis, or the\n      seven zones of Brahm\u00e2\u2019s Egg, the two accounts differ totally. In\n      Vol. i. p. 40, the Egg is said to be externally invested by seven\n      envelopes. Wilson comments: \u201cby Water, Air, Fire, Ether, and\n      Ahamk\u00e2ra\u201d\u2014which last word does not exist in the Sanskrit texts. And\n      in Vol. v. p. 198, of the same _Pur\u00e2na_, it is written: \u201cin this\n      manner were the seven forms of nature (Prakriti) reckoned from Mahat\n      to Earth\u201d (?). Between Mahat, or Mah\u00e2\u2010Buddhi, and \u201cWater, etc.\u201d, the\n      difference is very considerable.\n\n  406 According to the great metaphysician Hegel also. For him Nature was\n      a _perpetual becoming_. A purely Esoteric conception. Creation or\n      Origin, in the Christian sense of the term, is absolutely\n      unthinkable. As the above\u2010quoted thinker said: \u201cGod (the Universal\n      Spirit) _objectivizes himself as Nature_, and again rises out of\n      it.\u201d\n\n  407 _Book of Dzyan_, Comm. III, par. 18.\n\n  408 P. 19.\n\n  409 Primitive, or First Man.\n\n  410 Re\u00efncarnation.\n\n  411 Vehicle.\n\n  412 See, for example, _Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and the\n      Quich\u00e9s_, by Augustus le Plongeon, who shows the identity between\n      the Egyptian rites and beliefs and those of the people he describes.\n      The ancient hieratic alphabets of the Mayas and the Egyptians are\n      almost identical.\n\n  413 In _The Theosophist_, 1881.\n\n  414 T. Subba Row, _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 154.\n\n  415 Also called the \u201cSons of Wisdom\u201d and of the \u201cFire\u2010Mist,\u201d and the\n      \u201cBrothers of the Sun,\u201d in the Chinese records. Si\u2010dzang (Tibet) is\n      mentioned, in the MSS. of the sacred library of the province of Fo\u2010\n      Kien, as the great seat of Occult learning from time immemorial,\n      ages before Buddha. The Emperor Yu, the \u201cGreat\u201d (2,207 B.C.), a\n      pious Mystic and great Adept, is said to have obtained his Knowledge\n      from the \u201cGreat Teachers of the Snowy Range\u201d in Si\u2010dzang.\n\n  416 _Matt._ vi. 5, 6.\n\n  417 _The Virgin of the World_, pp. 134\u20105.\n\n  418 _Paracelsus_, Franz Hartmann, M.D., p. 44.\n\n  419 This word is explained by Dr. Hartmann, from the original texts of\n      Paracelsus before him, as follows. According to this great\n      Rosicrucian; \u201cMysterium is everything out of which something may be\n      developed, which is only germinally contained in it. A seed is the\n      \u2018Mysterium\u2019 of a plant, an egg that of a living bird, etc.\u201d\n\n  420 _Op. cit._, pp. 41, 42.\n\n  421 It is only the medi\u00e6val Kabalists who, following the Jewish and one\n      or two Neo\u2010Platonists, applied the term Microcosm to man. Ancient\n      philosophy called the Earth the Microcosm of the Macrocosm, and man\n      the outcome of the two.\n\n  422 \u201cThis doctrine, preached 300 years ago,\u201d remarks the translator, \u201cis\n      identical with the one that has revolutionized modern thought, after\n      having been put into new shape and elaborated by Darwin. It is still\n      more elaborated by Kapila in the S\u00e2nkhya philosophy.\u201d\n\n  423 The Eastern Occultist says that they are guided and informed by\n      Spiritual Beings, the Workmen in the invisible Worlds, and behind\n      the veil of Occult Nature, or Nature _in abscondito_.\n\n  424 Wilson, I. ii., (Vol. I. 35).\n\n  425 A frequent expression in the said \u201cFragments,\u201d to which we take\n      exception. The _Universal Mind_ is not a _Being_ or \u201cGod.\u201d\n\n  426 _The Virgin of the World_, p. 47. \u201cAsclepios,\u201d Pt. I.\n\n  427 _Divine Pymander_, ix. 64.\n\n  428 _The Virgin of the World_, p. 153.\n\n  429 _Op. cit._, pp. 139, 140. Fragments from the \u201cPhysical Eclogues\u201d and\n      \u201cFlorilegium\u201d of Stob\u00e6us.\n\n  430 _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, I. ii, Wilson, I. 13\u201015.\n\n  431 _Op. cit._, pp. 135\u2010138.\n\n  432 This teaching does not refer to Prakriti\u2010Purusha beyond the\n      boundaries of our small universe.\n\n  433 The ultimate quiescent state; the Nirv\u00e2nic condition of the Seventh\n      Principle.\n\n  434 The teaching is all given from our plane of consciousness.\n\n  435 Or the \u201cdream of Science,\u201d the primeval really homogeneous matter,\n      which no mortal can make objective in this Race, or Round either.\n\n  436 \u201cVishnu, in the form of his active energy, neither ever rises nor\n      sets, and is at once, the _seven\u2010fold sun_ and distinct from it,\u201d\n      says _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, II. xi., (Wilson, II. 296).\n\n  437 \u201cIn the same manner as a man approaching a mirror placed upon a\n      stand, beholds in it his own image, so the energy (or reflection) of\n      Vishnu [the Sun] is never disjoined but remains ... in the Sun (as\n      in a mirror), that is there stationed.\u201d (_Ibid._, _loc. cit._)\n\n  438 Compare the Hermetic \u201cNature\u201d \u201cgoing down cyclically into matter\n      when she meets the \u2018Heavenly Man\u2019.\u201d\n\n  439 The writers of the above knew perfectly well the physical cause of\n      the tides, of the waves, etc. It is the informing Spirit of the\n      whole cosmic solar body that is meant here, and which is referred to\n      whenever such expressions are used from the mystic point of view.\n\n  440 _Five Years of Theosophy_, pp. 110, 111, art., \u201cThe Twelve Signs of\n      the Zodiac.\u201d\n\n  441 See Stanzas III and IV, and the Commentaries thereupon, and\n      especially compare the comments on Stanza IV, concerning the Lipika\n      and the four Mah\u00e2r\u00e2jahs, the agents of Karma.\n\n  442 And \u201cGods\u201d or Dhy\u00e2nis, too, not only the Genii or \u201cguided Forces.\u201d\n\n  443 The meaning of this is that as man is composed of all the Great\n      Elements\u2014Fire, Air, Water, Earth and Ether\u2014the Elementals which\n      respectively belong to these Elements feel attracted to man by\n      reason of their co\u00ebssence. That Element which predominates in a\n      certain constitution will be the ruling Element throughout life. For\n      instance, if man has a preponderance of the earthly, gnomic Element,\n      the Gnomes will lead him towards assimilating metals\u2014money and\n      wealth, and so on. \u201cAnimal man is the son of the animal elements out\n      of which his Soul [life] was born, and animals are the mirrors of\n      man,\u201d says Paracelsus. (_De Fundamento Sapienti\u00e6._) Paracelsus was\n      cautious, and wanted the _Bible_ to agree with what he said, and\n      therefore did not say all.\n\n  444 Cyclic progress in development.\n\n  445 The God in man and often the incarnation of a God, a highly\n      Spiritual Dhy\u00e2n Chohan in him, besides the presence of his own\n      Seventh Principle.\n\n  446 Now, what \u201cGod\u201d is meant here? Not God the \u201cFather,\u201d the\n      anthropomorphic fiction; for that God is the Elohim collectively,\n      and has no being apart from the Host. Besides, such a God is finite\n      and imperfect. It is the high Initiates and Adepts who are meant\n      here by the \u201cfew in number.\u201d And it is precisely such men who\n      believe in \u201cGods\u201d, and know no \u201cGod\u201d but one Universal unrelated and\n      unconditioned Deity.\n\n  447 _The Virgin of the World_, pp. 104\u20105, \u201cThe Definitions of\n      Asclepios.\u201d\n\n  448 P. 120.\n\n  449 _National Reformer_, January 9th, 1887. Article \u201cPhreno\u2010Kosmo\u2010\n      Biology,\u201d by Dr. Lewins.\n\n  450 This is Cyclic law; but this law itself is often defied by human\n      stubbornness.\n\n  451 Vol. I. p. 256.\n\n  452 _Sepher Jetzirah._\n\n  453 As far as \u201cDivine Revelation\u201d is concerned, we agree. Not so with\n      regard to \u201chuman history.\u201d For there is \u201chistory\u201d in most of the\n      allegories and \u201cmyths\u201d of India; and events, real actual events, are\n      concealed under them.\n\n  454 When the \u201cfalse theologies\u201d disappear, then true prehistoric\n      realities will be found, contained especially in the mythology of\n      the \u00c2ryans and ancient Hind\u00fbs, and even the pre\u2010Homeric Hellenes.\n\n  455 See Section VII, \u201cDeus Lunus.\u201d\n\n  456 From an MS.\n\n  457 _Guide au Mus\u00e9e de Boulaq_, pp. 148, 149.\n\n  458 As we said in _Isis Unveiled_ (II. 438\u20109): \u201cTo the present moment,\n      in spite of all controversies and researches, History and Science\n      remain as much as ever in the dark as to the origin of the Jews.\n      They may as well be the exiled Chand\u00e2las of old India, the\n      \u2018bricklayers\u2019 mentioned by Veda\u2010Vy\u00e2sa and Manu, as the Ph\u0153nicians of\n      Herodotus, or the Hyksos of Josephus, or the descendants of Pali\n      shepherds, or a mixture of all these. The _Bible_ names the Tyrians\n      as a kindred people and claims dominion over them.... Yet whatever\n      they may have been, they became a hybrid people, not long after the\n      time of Moses, for the _Bible_ shows them freely intermarrying not\n      alone with the Canaanites, but with every other nation or race they\n      came in contact with.\u201d\n\n  459 _Knowledge_, Vol. I; see also Petrie\u2019s letter to _The Academy_, Dec.\n      17, 1881.\n\n  460 _The Origin and Significance of the Great Pyramid_, p. 9.\n\n  461 _Op. cit._, I. 519.\n\n  462 _The Origin and Significance of the Great Pyramid_, p. 93.\n\n  463 vii. 13 _et seq._\n\n  464 P. 224.\n\n  465 Vol. I. Part I. 46.\n\n  466 x. 10.\n\n  467 See _Isis Unveiled_, II. 442\u20103.\n\n  468 _Exodus_, 11. 21.\n\n  469 George Smith, _Chaldean Account of Genesis_, pp. 299, 300.\n\n  470 II. 3.\n\n  471 As a reminder how the _esoteric_ religion of Moses was crushed\n      several times, and the worship of Jehovah, as re\u00ebstablished by\n      David, put in its place, by Hezekiah for instance, compare _Isis\n      Unveiled_ (II. 436\u201042). Surely there must have been some very good\n      reasons why the Sadducees, who furnished almost all the High Priests\n      of Jud\u00e6a, held to the Laws of Moses and spurned the alleged \u201cBooks\n      of Moses,\u201d the _Pentateuch_ of the Synagogue and the _Talmud_?\n\n  472 Once more, remember the Hind\u00fb Wittoba crucified in space; the\n      significance of the \u201csacred sign,\u201d the Svastika; Plato\u2019s Decussated\n      Man in Space, etc.\n\n  473 See farther on the description given of the early \u00c2ryan Initiation:\n      of Vishvakarman crucifying the Sun, Vikarttana, shorn of his\n      beams\u2014on a cruciform lathe.\n\n  474 _Primeval Man Unveiled; or the Anthropology of the Bible_, by the\n      author (unknown) of _The Stars and the Angels_, 1870, p. 14.\n\n  475 _Op. cit._, p. 195.\n\n  476 Especially in the face of the evidence furnished by the authorized\n      _Bible_ itself in _Genesis_ (iv. 16, 17), which shows Cain going to\n      the land of Nod and there marrying a wife.\n\n  477 _Ibid._, p. 194.\n\n  478 _Ibid._, p. 55.\n\n  479 _Ibid._, pp. 206\u20107.\n\n  480 _Acts_, xvii. 23, 24.\n\n  481 _Taittir\u00eeyaka Upanishad_, Second Vall\u00ee, First Anuv\u00e2ka.\n\n  482 _Ephesians_, vi, 12.\n\n  483 _Oracles of Zoroaster_, \u201cEffatum,\u201d xvi.\n\n  484 _Georgica_, Book II. 325.\n\n  485 _Isis Unveiled._\n\n  486 _Op. cit._, I. 5\u201013, Burnell\u2019s translation.\n\n  487 The ideal apex of the Pythagorean Triangle.\n\n  488 See A. Coke Burnell\u2019s translation, edited by Ed. W. Hopkins, Ph. D.\n\n  489 Ahamk\u00e2ra, as universal Self\u2010Consciousness, has a triple aspect, as\n      has also Manas. For this \u201cconception of I,\u201d or the Ego, is either\n      _sattva_, \u201cpure quietude,\u201d or appears as _rajas_, \u201cactive,\u201d or\n      remains _tamas_, \u201cstagnant,\u201d in darkness. It belongs to Heaven and\n      Earth, and assumes the properties of Ether.\n\n  490 See _S\u00e2nkhya K\u00e2rik\u00e2_ III, and Commentaries.\n\n  491 The word \u201ceternity,\u201d by which Christian theologians interpret the\n      term \u201cfor ever and ever,\u201d does not exist in the Hebrew tongue.\n      \u201cOulam,\u201d says Le Clerc, only imports a time when beginning or end is\n      not known. It does not mean \u201cinfinite duration,\u201d and the term \u201cfor\n      ever,\u201d in the _Old Testament_, only signifies a \u201clong time.\u201d Nor is\n      the word \u201ceternity\u201d used in the Christian sense in the _Pur\u00e2nas_.\n      For in _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, it is clearly stated that by \u201ceternity\u201d and\n      \u201cimmortality\u201d only \u201cexistence to the end of the Kalpa\u201d is meant.\n      (Book II. chap. viii.)\n\n  492 Orphic Theogony is purely Oriental and Indian in its spirit. The\n      successive transformations it has undergone, have now separated it\n      widely from the spirit of ancient Cosmogony, as may be seen by\n      comparing it even with Hesiod\u2019s _Theogony_. Yet the truly \u00c2ryan\n      Hind\u00fb spirit breaks forth everywhere in both the Hesiodic and Orphic\n      systems. (See the remarkable work of James Darmesteter, \u201cCosmogonies\n      \u00c2ryennes,\u201d in his _Essais Orientaux_.) Thus the original Greek\n      conception of Chaos is that of the Secret Wisdom Religion. In\n      Hesiod, therefore, Chaos is infinite, boundless, endless and\n      beginningless in duration, an abstraction and a visible presence at\n      the same time, Space filled with darkness, which is primordial\n      matter in its _pre\u2010cosmic_ state. For in its etymological sense,\n      Chaos is Space, according to Aristotle, and Space is the ever Unseen\n      and Unknowable Deity, in our philosophy.\n\n  493 The _manifested_ Spirit: Absolute, Divine Spirit is one with\n      absolute Divine Substance; Parabrahman and M\u00fblaprakriti are one in\n      essence. Therefore, Cosmic Ideation and Cosmic Substance, in their\n      primal character, are one also.\n\n  494 _Sepher Yetzirah_, Chap. I. Mishna ix.\n\n  495 _Ibid._ It is from \u201cArba\u201d that Abram is derived.\n\n  496 _Zohar_, I. 2a.\n\n  497 _Sepher Yetzirah_, Mishna ix. 10.\n\n  498 _Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection_.\n\n  499 Plato, _Tim\u00e6us_.\n\n  500 Suidas, _sub voc._ \u201cTyrrhenia.\u201d See Cory\u2019s _Ancient Fragments_, p.\n      309, 2nd ed.\n\n  501 The reader will understand that by \u201cyears\u201d is meant \u201cages,\u201d not mere\n      periods of 13 lunar months each.\n\n  502 See the Greek translation by Philon Byblius.\n\n  503 Cory, _Op. cit._, p. 3.\n\n  504 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 342.\n\n  505 Mithras was regarded among the Persians as the _theos ek petras_\u2014the\n      God from the rock.\n\n  506 Bordj is called a fire\u2010mountain, a volcano: therefore it contains\n      fire, rock, earth and water; the male, or active, and the female, or\n      passive, elements. The myth is suggestive.\n\n  507 _Op. cit._, I. 156.\n\n  508 Henry Pratt, M.D., _New Aspects of Life_.\n\n  509 _Siphrah Dtzenioutha_, i. 16.\n\n  510 Damascius, in his Theogony, calls it Dis, \u201cthe disposer of all\n      things.\u201d Cory, _Ancient Fragments_, p. 314.\n\n  511 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 341.\n\n  512 \u201cMigration of Abraham,\u201d 32.\n\n  513 With the Greeks, the River\u2010Gods, all of them the Sons of the\n      Primeval Ocean\u2014Chaos, in its masculine aspect\u2014were the respective\n      ancestors of the Hellenic races. For them the Ocean was the Father\n      of the Gods; and thus in this connection they had anticipated the\n      theories of Thales, as rightly observed by Aristotle. (_Metaph._ I.\n      3\u20105.)\n\n  514 xxvi. 5.\n\n  515 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 133\u20104.\n\n  516 The Spirit, or hidden voice of the Mantras; the active manifestation\n      of the latent force, or Occult potency.\n\n  517 Orthography of the _Archaic Dictionary_.\n\n  518 We do not mean the current or accepted _Bible_, but the _real_\n      Jewish Scripture, now kabatistically explained.\n\n  519 See _Genesis_, ii. 4.\n\n  520 It is \u201cunutterable\u201d for the simple reason that it is non\u2010existent.\n      It _never_ was either a _name_, or any _word_ at all, but an _idea_\n      that could not be expressed. A substitute was created for it in the\n      century preceding our era.\n\n  521 The Cosmic Tabernacle of Moses, erected by him in the Desert, was\n      _square_, representing the four Cardinal Points and the four\n      Elements, as Josephus tells his readers. (_Antiq._ I. viii. ch.\n      xxii.) The idea was taken from the pyramids in Egypt, and also in\n      Tyre, where the pyramids became pillars. The Genii, or Angels, have\n      their abodes in these four points respectively.\n\n  522 Isaac Myer\u2019s _Qabbalah_, published 1888, p. 415.\n\n  523 As, for instance, in _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, Bk. I.\n\n  524 Plutarch, _De Iside et Osiride_, lvi.\n\n  525 _Spirit History of Man_, p. 88.\n\n  526 Movers, _Phoinizer_, 268.\n\n  527 Cory, _Ancient Fragments_, 240.\n\n  528 _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, Bk. I. Ch. iv., Fitzedward Hall\u2019s rendering.\n\n  529 Just as M\u00fblaprakriti is known only to \u00ceshvara, the Logos, as he is\n      called by T. Subba Row.\n\n  530 Franck, _Die Kabbala_, 126.\n\n  531 Philo, _Qu\u00e6st. et Solut._\n\n  532 Franck, _Op. cit._, 153.\n\n  533 The \u201cSeven Angels of the Face,\u201d with the Christians.\n\n  534 _Philosophumena_, vi. 42.\n\n  535 _The Kabbalah Unveiled_, 47.\n\n  536 _Qabbalah_, 233.\n\n  537 p. 79.\n\n  538 Arnobius, VI. xii.\n\n  539 We employ the term as one accepted and sanctioned by use, and\n      therefore more comprehensible to the reader.\n\n  540 See Dunlap, _S\u00f4d: the Mysteries of Adoni_, 23.\n\n  541 With the ancient Jews, as shown by Le Clerc, the word Oulom meant\n      simply a time whose beginning or end was not known. The term\n      \u201cEternity,\u201d properly speaking, did not exist in the Hebrew tongue\n      with the meaning applied by Ved\u00e2ntins to Parabrahman, for instance.\n\n  542 _Zohar_, Part I. fol. 20a.\n\n  543 In the Indian Pantheon the double\u2010sexed Logos is Brahm\u00e2, the\n      Creator, whose seven \u201cMind\u2010born\u201d Sons are the primeval Rishis\u2014the\n      Builders.\n\n  544 Says Rabbi Simeon: \u201cOh, companions, companions, man as an emanation\n      was both man and woman, as well on the side of the \u2018Father\u2019 as on\n      the side of the \u2018Mother.\u2019 And this is the sense of the words: \u2018And\n      Elohim spake, Let there be Light, and it was Light\u2019; ... and this is\n      the _two\u2010fold man_.\u201d (_Ausz\u00fcge ans dem Sohar_, 13, 15.) Light, then,\n      in _Genesis_, stood for the Androgyne Ray, or \u201cHeavenly Man.\u201d\n\n  545 _Zohar_, iii. 290.\n\n  546 _Op. cit._, ii. 261.\n\n  547 ix. 1.\n\n  548 _Chaldean Account of Genesis_, 62, 63.\n\n  549 The Seven Swans that are believed to descend from Heaven on Lake\n      M\u00e2nsarovara, are in the popular fancy the Seven Rishis of the Great\n      Bear, who assume that form to visit the locality where the _Vedas_\n      were written.\n\n  550 See Petronius, _Satyricon_, cxxxvi.\n\n  551 _Progress of Religious Ideas_, I. 17 _et seq._\n\n  552 iii. 165.\n\n  553 Ch. liv. 3.\n\n  554 Ch. xxii. 1.\n\n  555 Ch. xlii. 13.\n\n  556 Ch. liv. 1, 2; ch. lxxvii. i.\n\n  557 _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, I. 39.\n\n  558 _Op. cit._, _ibid._\n\n  559 Ch. xvii. 50, 51.\n\n  560 Ch. xlii. 13.\n\n  561 Ch. lxxx. 9.\n\n  562 See Max M\u00fcller\u2019s \u201cOur Figures.\u201d\n\n  563 A Kabalist would be rather inclined to believe that as the Arabic\n      _cifron_ was taken from the Indian _sunyan_, nought, so the Jewish\n      Kabalistic Sephiroth (_Sephrim_) were taken from the word _cipher_,\n      not in the sense of emptiness, but in that of creation by number and\n      degrees of evolution. And the Sephiroth are 10 or [circle split by\n      vertical line].\n\n  564 See King\u2019s _Gnostics and their Remains_, 370 (2nd ed.).\n\n  565 _De Vita Pithag._\n\n  566 The year of his birth is given as 608 B.C.\n\n  567 That is to say 332 B.C.\n\n  568 _Metaphysics_, vii., F.\n\n  569 _Euterpe_, 75, 76.\n\n  570 _De Cultu Egypt._\n\n  571 xxi. 5 _et seq._\n\n  572 II _Kings_, xviii. 4.\n\n  573 _Supra_, pp. 386, 387.\n\n  574 III. 124.\n\n  575 Movers, _Phoinizer_, 282.\n\n  576 See _Isis Unveiled_, I. 56.\n\n  577 Weber, _Akad\u2010Vorles_, 213, _et seq._\n\n  578 The Chinese seem to have thus anticipated Sir William Thomson\u2019s\n      theory that the first living germ had dropped to the earth from some\n      passing comet. Query: Why should this be called _scientific_ and the\n      Chinese idea a superstitious, foolish theory?\n\n  579 Compare Movers, _Phoinizer_, 268.\n\n  580 His triadic Goddesses are Sati and Anouki.\n\n  581 Ptah was originally the god of Death, of Destruction, like Shiva. He\n      is a Solar God only by virtue of the Sun\u2019s fire killing as well as\n      vivifying. He was the national God of Memphis, the radiant and\n      \u201cfair\u2010faced\u201d God.\n\n  582 _Book of Numbers._\n\n  583 Wilson, _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, I. Pref. lxxxiv\u2010v.\n\n  584 There is a curious piece of information in the Buddhist esoteric\n      traditions. The exoteric or allegorical biography of Gautama Buddha\n      shows this great Sage dying of an indigestion of \u201cpork and rice\u201d; a\n      very prosaic end, indeed, with little of the solemn element in it!\n      This is explained as an allegorical reference to his having been\n      born in the \u201cBoar\u201d or Var\u00e2ha Kalpa, when Vishnu assumed the form of\n      that animal to raise the Earth out of the \u201cWaters of Space.\u201d Now as\n      the Br\u00e2hmans descend direct from Brahm\u00e2 and are, so to speak,\n      identified with him; and as they are at the same time the mortal\n      enemies of Buddha and Buddhism, we have this curious allegorical\n      hint and combination. The Br\u00e2hmanism of the Boar or Var\u00e2ha Kalpa has\n      slaughtered the religion of Buddha in India, swept it from its face.\n      Therefore Buddha, who is identified with his philosophy, is said to\n      have died from the effects of eating of the flesh of a wild hog. The\n      very idea of one who established the most rigorous vegetarianism and\n      respect for animal life\u2014even to refusing to eat eggs as being\n      vehicles of latent life\u2014dying of an indigestion of meat, is absurdly\n      contradictory and has puzzled more than one Orientalist. But the\n      present explanation, however, unveils the allegory, and makes clear\n      all the rest. The Var\u00e2ha, however, is no simple Boar, but seems to\n      have meant at first some antediluvian lacustrine animal \u201cdelighting\n      to sport in water.\u201d (_V\u00e2yu Pur\u00e2na._)\n\n  585 According to Colonel Wilford, the conclusion of the \u201cGreat War\u201d took\n      place in 1370 B.C., (_Asiatic Researches_, xi. 116.); according to\n      Bentley, 575 B.C.!! We may yet hope, before the end of this century,\n      to see the Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2ratan epic proclaimed identical with the wars of\n      the great Napoleon.\n\n  586 See _Royal Asiat. Soc._ ix. 364.\n\n  587 Bk. vi. ch. iii.\n\n  588 In the Ved\u00e2nta and Ny\u00e2ya, Nimitta, from which Naimittika, is\n      rendered as the Efficient Cause, when antithesized with Up\u00e2d\u00e2na, the\n      Physical or Material Cause. In the S\u00e2nkhya, Pradh\u00e2na is a cause\n      inferior to Brahm\u00e2, or rather Brahm\u00e2 being himself a cause, is\n      superior to Pradh\u00e2na. Hence \u201cIncidental\u201d is a wrong translation, and\n      ought to be rendered, as shown by some scholars, \u201cIdeal\u201d Cause: even\n      Real Cause would have been better.\n\n  589 XII. iv, 35.\n\n  590 _V\u00e2yu Pur\u00e2na._\n\n  591 Wilson, _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, VI, iii.\n\n  592 The chief Kum\u00e2ra, or Virgin\u2010God, a Dhy\u00e2n Chohan who refuses to\n      create. A prototype of St. Michael, who also refuses to do so.\n\n  593 See concluding lines in Section, \u201cChaos: Theos: Kosmos.\u201d\n\n  594 _Ibid._, iv.\n\n  595 This prospect would hardly suit Christian theology, which prefers an\n      eternal, everlasting Hell for its followers.\n\n  596 The term \u201cElements\u201d must be here understood to mean not only the\n      visible and physical elements, but also that which St. Paul calls\n      Elements\u2014the Spiritual, Intelligent Potencies\u2014Angels and Demons in\n      their manvantaric forms.\n\n  597 When this description is correctly understood by Orientalists, in\n      its esoteric significance, then it will be found that this cosmic\n      correlation of World\u2010Elements may explain the correlation of\n      physical forces better than those now known. At any rate,\n      Theosophists will perceive that Prakriti has _seven forms_, or\n      principles, \u201creckoned from Mahat to Earth.\u201d The \u201cWaters\u201d mean here\n      the mystic \u201cMother\u201d; the Womb of Abstract Nature, in which the\n      Manifested Universe is conceived. The seven \u201czones\u201d have reference\n      to the Seven Divisions of that Universe, or the Noumena of the\n      Forces that bring it into being. It is all allegorical.\n\n  598 _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, Bk. VI. Ch. iv., Wilson\u2019s mistakes being corrected\n      and the original terms put in brackets.\n\n  599 As it is the Mah\u00e2, the Great, or so\u2010called Final, Pralaya which is\n      here described, every thing is re\u00e4bsorbed into its original One\n      Element; the \u201cGods themselves, Brahm\u00e2 and the rest\u201d being said to\n      die and disappear during that long \u201cNight.\u201d\n\n  600 The \u201cBuilders\u201d of the Stanzas.\n\n  601 From the _Siphra Dtzenioutha_, c. i. \u00a7 16 _et seq._; as quoted in\n      Myer\u2019s _Qabbalah_, 232\u20103.\n\n  602 Compare the _Siphra Dtzenioutha_.\n\n  603 Bk. I. Ch. iii.\n\n  604 pp. 219, 221.\n\n  605 See Jacolliot\u2019s _Les Fils de Dieu_, and _L\u2019Inde des Brahmes_, p.\n      230.\n\n  606 If this is not prophetic, what is?\n\n  607 Wilson, _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, Bk. IV. Ch. xxiv.\n\n  608 The _Matsya Pur\u00e2na_ gives Kat\u00e2pa.\n\n  609 _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, _Ibid._\n\n  610 Max M\u00fcller translates the name as Morya, of the Morya dynasty, to\n      which Chandragupta belonged. (See _History of Ancient Sanskrit\n      Literature_). In _Matsya Pur\u00e2na_, chapter cclxxii, the dynasty of\n      ten Moryas, or Maureyas, is spoken of. In the same chapter, it is\n      stated that the Moryas will one day reign over India, after\n      restoring the Kshattriya race many thousand years hence. Only that\n      reign will be purely spiritual and \u201cnot of this world.\u201d It will be\n      the kingdom of the next Avat\u00e2ra. Colonel Tod believes the name\n      Morya, or Maurya, a corruption of Mori, a Rajp\u00fbt tribe, and the\n      commentary on the _Mah\u00e2vanso_ thinks that some princes have taken\n      their name Maurya from their town called Mori, or as Professor Max\n      M\u00fcller gives it, Morya\u2010N\u00e2gara, which is more correct, after the\n      original _Mah\u00e2vanso_. The Sanskrit Encyclopedia, _V\u00e2chaspattya_, we\n      are informed by our Brother, Devan B\u00e2dh\u00e2dur R. Ragoonath Rao, of\n      Madras, places Kat\u00e2pa (Kal\u00e2pa) on the northern side of the\n      Him\u00e2layas, hence in Tibet. The same is stated in the _Bh\u00e2gavata\n      Pur\u00e2na_, Skanda xii.\n\n  611 _Ibid._, ch. iv. The _Vayu Pur\u00e2na_ declares that Moru will\n      re\u00ebstablish the Kshattriyas in the Nineteenth coming Yuga. (See\n      _Five Years of Theosophy_, 483, art. \u201cThe Moryas and Koothoomi.\u201d)\n\n  612 See _Dissertations Relating to Asia_.\n\n  613 Ch. lxxxi.\n\n  614 I. 11.\n\n  615 In the Indian _Pur\u00e2nas_, it is Vishnu, the First, and Brahm\u00e2, the\n      Second Logos, or the Ideal and Practical Creators, who are\n      respectively represented, one as manifesting the Lotus, the other as\n      issuing from it.\n\n  616 Not the efforts, however, of the trained psychic faculties of an\n      Initiate into Eastern Metaphysics, and the Mysteries of Creative\n      Nature. It is the Profane of the past ages, who have degraded the\n      pure ideal of cosmic creation into an emblem of mere human\n      reproduction and sexual functions: it is the Esoteric Teachings, and\n      the Initiates of the Future, whose mission it is, and will be, to\n      redeem and ennoble once more the primitive conception, so sadly\n      profaned by its crude and gross application to exoteric dogmas and\n      personations, by theological and ecclesiastical religionists. The\n      silent worship of abstract or noumenal Nature, the only divine\n      manifestation, is the one ennobling religion of Humanity.\n\n  617 Surely the words of the old Initiate into the _primitive_ Mysteries\n      of Christianity, \u201cKnow ye not ye are the Temple of God\u201d (1\n      _Corinth_, iii. 16), could not be applied in _this_ sense to _men_;\n      though the meaning _was_, undeniably, so stated, in the minds of the\n      Hebrew compilers of the _Old Testament_. And here is the abyss that\n      lies between the symbolism of the _New Testament_ and the Jewish\n      canon. This gulf would have remained, and have ever widened, had not\n      Christianity, especially and most glaringly the Latin Church, thrown\n      a bridge over it. Modern Popery has now spanned it entirely, by its\n      dogma of the two immaculate conceptions, and the anthropomorphic\n      and, at the same time idolatrous, character it has conferred upon\n      the Mother of its God.\n\n  618 It was so carried _only_ in the Hebrew _Bible_, and its servile\n      copyist, Christian theology.\n\n  619 The same idea is carried out exoterically in the incidents of the\n      exodus from Egypt. The Lord God tempts Pharaoh sorely, and \u201cplagues\n      him with great plagues,\u201d lest the king should escape punishment, and\n      thus afford no pretext for one more triumph to his \u201cchosen people.\u201d\n\n  620 _Exodus_, ii. 10. Even to the seven daughters of the Midianite\n      priest, who came to draw _water_, and whom Moses helped to _water_\n      their flock; for which service the Midian gives Moses his daughter\n      Zipporah, or Sippara, the _shining_ Wave, as wife. (_Exod._ ii.\n      16\u201021.) All this has the same secret meaning.\n\n  621 With the Egyptians it was the resurrection in rebirth, after 3,000\n      years of purification, either in Devachan or the \u201cFields of Bliss.\u201d\n\n  622 Such \u201cfrog\u2010Goddesses\u201d may be seen at Boulak, in the Cairo Museum.\n      For the statement about the Church\u2010lamps and inscriptions, the\n      learned ex\u2010director of the Boulak Museum, M. Gaston Maspero, must be\n      held responsible. (See his _Guide au Mus\u00e9e de Boulaq_, p. 146.)\n\n  623 The Goddess \u03a4\u03c1\u03af\u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u03bf\u03c2 in the statuary of Alcamenes.\n\n  624 Ancient Mythology includes ancient Astronomy as well as Astrology.\n      The planets were the hands pointing out, on the dial of our Solar\n      System, the hours of certain periodical events. Thus, Mercury was\n      the _messenger_, appointed to keep time during the daily solar and\n      lunar phenomena, and was otherwise connected with the God and\n      Goddess of Light.\n\n  625 A caricatured and dwarfed Ved\u00e2ntin notion of Parabrahman containing\n      within _itself_ the whole Universe, as being that boundless Universe\n      itself, and _nothing existing outside of itself_.\n\n  626 Just as they are to this day in India; the bull of Shiva, and the\n      cow representing several Shaktis or Goddesses.\n\n  627 Hence the worship of the Moon by the Hebrews.\n\n  628 \u201c_Male_ and _female_, created he them.\u201d\n\n  629 Because it was too sacred. It is referred to as THAT in the _Vedas_.\n      It is the \u201cEternal Cause,\u201d and cannot, therefore, be spoken of as a\n      \u201cFirst Cause,\u201d a term implying the absence of Cause, at one time.\n\n  630 _Pneumatologie: Des Esprits_, tom. III. p. 117; \u201cArch\u00e9ologie de la\n      Vierge M\u00e8re.\u201d\n\n  631 p. 23.\n\n  632 Myer\u2019s _Qabbalah_, 335\u20106.\n\n  633 _Moreh Nebhuchim_, III. xxx.\n\n  634 See _De Diis Syriis_, Teraph., II. Synt. p. 31.\n\n  635 I. i. 21.\n\n  636 See _Pausanias_, viii. 35\u20108.\n\n  637 Cornutus, _De Natura Deorum_, xxxiv. 1.\n\n  638 The Roman Catholics are indebted for the idea of consecrating the\n      month of May to the Virgin to the pagan Plutarch, who shows that\n      \u201cMay is sacred to Maia (\u039c\u03b1\u1fd6\u03b1) or Vesta\u201d (Aulus Gellius, _sub voc._\n      Maia), our mother\u2010earth, our nurse and nourisher, personified.\n\n  639 Thot\u2010Lunus is the Budha\u2010Soma of India, or Mercury and the Moon.\n\n  640 _Ezekiel_, viii. 16.\n\n  641 The Earth flees for her life, in the allegory, before Prithu, who\n      pursues her. She assumes the shape of a cow, and, trembling with\n      terror, runs away and hides even in the regions of Brahm\u00e2.\n      Therefore, it is _not_ our Earth. Again, in every _Pur\u00e2na_, the calf\n      changes name. In one it is Manu Sv\u00e2yambhuva, in another Indra, in a\n      third the Himavat (Him\u00e2layas) itself, while Meru was the milker.\n      This is a deeper allegory than one may be inclined to think.\n\n  642 His _clear_ realization is, that the Egyptians _prophesied_ Jehovah\n      (!) and his incarnated Redeemer (the good serpent), etc.; even to\n      identifying Typhon with the _wicked_ dragon of the garden of Eden.\n      And this passes as serious and sober _science_!\n\n  643 Hathor is the _infernal_ Isis, the Goddess pre\u00ebminently of the West\n      or the Nether World.\n\n  644 This is from De Mirville, who proudly confesses the similarity, and\n      he _ought to know_. See \u201cArch\u00e9ologie de la Vierge M\u00e8re,\u201d in his _Des\n      Esprits_, pp. 111\u2010113.\n\n  645 _Magie_, p. 153.\n\n  646 De Mirville, _Ibid._, pp. 116 and 119.\n\n  647 _Hymns to Minerva_, p. 19.\n\n  648 _Sermon sur la Sainte Vierge._\n\n  649 _Apoc._, ch. xii.\n\n  650 W\u00e4gner and McDowall, _Asgard and the Gods_, p. 86.\n\n  651 See _De Vit\u00e2 Apollionii_, I. xiv.\n\n  652 _Adv. H\u00e6res._ xxxvii.\n\n  653 Gerald Massey, _The Natural Genesis_, I. 340.\n\n  654 Ch. xv.\n\n  655 Ch. xi.\n\n  656 _De Mundi Opif._, _Par._, pp. 30 and 419.\n\n  657 For the same reason the division of the principles in man into seven\n      is thus reckoned, as they describe the same circle in the higher and\n      lower human nature.\n\n  658 Thus the septenary division is the oldest and preceded the four\u2010fold\n      division. It is the root of archaic classification.\n\n  659 In Chinese Buddhism and Esotericism, the Genii are represented by\n      four Dragons\u2014the Mah\u00e2r\u00e2jahs of the Stanzas.\n\n  660 _Op. cit._, II. 312\u201013.\n\n  661 _Ibid._, I. 321.\n\n  662 Proclus, _Tim._, I.\n\n  663 _Prep. Evang._, I. iii. 3.\n\n  664 _Op. cit._, pp. 366\u20108.\n\n  665 _Job_, ii.\n\n  666 _Genesis_, vi.\n\n  667 _James_, i. 13.\n\n  668 _James_, i. 2, 12; _Matth._, vi. 13. See Cruden, _sub voc._\n\n  669 _Padma Pur\u00e2na._\n\n  670 _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, I. i.\n\n  671 Vol. II. ch. x.\n\n  672 See Chwolsohn, _Nabathean Agriculture_, II. 217.\n\n  673 One Day of Brahm\u00e2 lasts 4,320,000,000 years\u2014multiply this by 360!\n      The A\u2010suras (No\u2010gods, or Demons) are here still Suras, Gods higher\n      in hierarchy than such secondary Gods as are not even mentioned in\n      the _Vedas_. The duration of the War shows its significance, and\n      also shows that the combatants are only the personified Cosmic\n      Powers. It is evidently for sectarian purposes and out of _odium\n      theologicum_ that the illusive form M\u00e2y\u00e2moha, assumed by Vishnu, was\n      attributed in later re\u00e4rrangements of old texts to Buddha and the\n      Daityas, as in the _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, unless it was a fancy of Wilson\n      himself. He also fancied he found an allusion to Buddhism in the\n      _Bhagavadg\u00eet\u00e2_, whereas, as proved by K. T. Telang, he had only\n      confused the Buddhists and the older Ch\u00e2rv\u00e2ka materialists. The\n      version exists nowhere in other _Pur\u00e2nas_ if the inference does, as\n      Professor Wilson claims, in the _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_; the translation of\n      which, especially of Book III. ch. xviii, where the reverend\n      Orientalist arbitrarily introduces Buddha, and shows him teaching\n      Buddhism to Daityas, led to another \u201cgreat war\u201d between himself and\n      Col. Vans Kennedy. The latter charged him publicly with wilfully\n      distorting Pur\u00e2nic texts. \u201cI affirm,\u201d wrote the Colonel at Bombay,\n      in 1840, \u201cthat the _Pur\u00e2nas_ do not contain what Professor Wilson\n      has stated is contained in them; ... until such passages are\n      produced I may be allowed to repeat my former conclusions that\n      Professor Wilson\u2019s opinion, that the _Pur\u00e2nas_ as now extant are\n      compilations made between the eighth and seventeenth centuries\n      [A.D.!], rests solely _on gratuitous assumptions and unfounded\n      assertions_, and that his reasoning in support of it is either\n      futile, fallacious, contradictory, or improbable.\u201d (See _Vishnu\n      Pur\u00e2na_, trans. by Wilson, edit, by Fitzedward Hall, Vol. V,\n      Appendix.)\n\n  674 This statement belongs to the _third_ War, since the terrestrial\n      continents, seas and rivers are mentioned in connection with it.\n\n  675 _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, III. xvii (Wilson, Vol. III. 204\u20105).\n\n  676 Book I. chap. xvii (Wilson, Vol. II. 36), in the story of\n      Prahl\u00e2da\u2014the Son of Hiranyakashipu, the Pur\u00e2nic Satan, the great\n      enemy of Vishnu, and the King of the Three Worlds\u2014into whose heart\n      Vishnu entered.\n\n  677 _Ibid._, I. iv (Wilson, Vol. I. 64).\n\n  678 II _Chronicles_, ii. 5.\n\n  679 \u201cThere was a day when the _Sons of God_ came before the Lord, and\n      Satan came _with his brothers_, also before the Lord.\u201d (_Job_ ii.,\n      Abyss., Ethiopic text.)\n\n  680 _Ibid._, Vol. III. 205\u20107.\n\n  681 _Journal of the Royal Asiat. Society_, xix. 302.\n\n  682 Wilson\u2019s opinion that the _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_ is a production _of our\n      era_, and that in its present form it is not earlier than between\n      the VIIIth and the XVIIth (!!) century, is absurd beyond noticing.\n\n  683 P. 3.\n\n  684 _Ibid._, p. 2.\n\n  685 _Ibid._, p. 21.\n\n  686 See _The Monthly Magazine_, for April, 1797.\n\n  687 \u1f2c\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9 \u03bc\u1f72\u03bd \u03c0\u03c1\u03ce\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03c4\u03b1 \u03a7\u03ac\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b3\u2019e\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u1fbd (l. 166); \u03b3\u03ad\u03bd\u03b5\u03c4\u03bf being considered in\n      antiquity as meaning: \u201cwas _generated_\u201d and not simply \u201c_was_.\u201d (See\n      Taylor\u2019s \u201cIntrod. to the _Parmenides_ of Plato,\u201d p. 260.)\n\n  688 It is the confusion between the \u201cBound,\u201d and the \u201cInfinite,\u201d that\n      Kapila overwhelms with sarcasms in his disputations with the Br\u00e2hman\n      Yogis, who claim in their mystical visions to see the \u201cHighest One.\u201d\n\n  689 _Ibid._\n\n  690 See T. Taylor\u2019s article in his _Monthly Magazine_, quoted in the\n      _Platonist_ of Feb., 1887, edited by T. M. Johnson, F.T.S., Osceola,\n      Missouri.\n\n  691 _Vit. Pythag._, p. 47.\n\n  692 _Asgard and the Gods_, 22.\n\n  693 V\u00e2ch\u2014the \u201cmelodious cow, who milks sustenance and Water,\u201d and yields\n      us \u201cnourishment and sustenance,\u201d as described in the _Rig Veda_.\n\n  694 _The Theosophist_, Feb., 1887, pp. 302\u20103.\n\n  695 _Ibid._, p. 304.\n\n  696 _The Masonic Review_, June, 1886.\n\n  697 Objective\u2014in the world of M\u00e2y\u00e2, of course; still as real as we are.\n\n  698 \u201cIn the course of cosmic manifestation, this Daiviprakriti, instead\n      of being the Mother of the Logos, should, strictly speaking, be\n      called his Daughter.\u201d (\u201cNotes on the _Bhagavad G\u00eet\u00e2_,\u201d _op. cit._,\n      p. 305.)\n\n  699 The wise men who, like Stanley Jevons amongst the moderns, invented\n      a method to make the incomprehensible assume a tangible form, could\n      only do so by resorting to numbers and geometrical figures.\n\n  700 The Pranava, Om, is a mystic term pronounced by the Yogis during\n      meditation; of the terms called, according to exoteric commentators,\n      Vy\u00e2kritis, or Aum, Bh\u00fbh, Bhuvah, Svah, (Om, Earth, Sky, Heaven),\n      Pranava is, perhaps, the most sacred. They are pronounced with\n      breath suppressed. See _Manu_ II. 76\u201081, and Mitakshara commenting\n      on the _Y\u00e2jnav\u00e2khya\u2010Smriti_, I. 23. But the esoteric explanation\n      goes a great deal further.\n\n  701 \u201cLectures on the _Bhagavad G\u00eet\u00e2_,\u201d _ibid._, p. 307.\n\n  702 It is this Trinity that is allegorized by the \u201cThree Steps of\n      Vishnu,\u201d which mean\u2014Vishnu being considered as the Infinite in\n      exotericism\u2014that from Parabrahman issued M\u00fblaprakriti, Purusha (the\n      Logos) and Prakriti; the four forms\u2014with itself, the synthesis\u2014of\n      V\u00e2ch. And in the _Kabalah_, Ain Suph, Shekinah, Adam Kadmon and\n      Sephira, the four, or the three, emanations being distinct\u2014yet One.\n\n  703 Chaldean _Book of Numbers_. In the current _Kabalah_ the name\n      Jehovah replaces that of Adam Kadmon.\n\n  704 Justin Martyr tells us that, owing to his ignorance of these four\n      sciences, he was rejected by the Pythagoreans as a candidate for\n      admission into their school.\n\n  705 Diogenes La\u00ebrtius, in _Vit. Pythag._\n\n  706 31415, or \u03c0, the synthesis, or the Host _unified_ in the Logos and\n      the Point, called in Roman Catholicism the \u201cAngel of the Face,\u201d and\n      in Hebrew, Michael, \u05de\u05d9\u05db\u05d0\u05dc, \u201cwho [is like unto, or the same] as God,\u201d\n      the manifested representation.\n\n  707 Appearing at the beginning of Cycles, as also of every Sidereal\n      Year, of 25,868 years. Therefore, the Kabeira or Kabarim received\n      their name in Chald\u00e6a, for it means the Measures of Heaven, from\n      _Kob_, \u201cmeasure of,\u201d and _Urim_, \u201cHeavens.\u201d\n\n  708 _The Natural Genesis_, II. 316.\n\n  709 See Kircher\u2019s _\u0152dipus \u00c6gypt._, II. 423.\n\n  710 This Egyptian word Naja reminds one a good deal of the Indian N\u00e2ga,\n      the Serpent\u2010God. Brahm\u00e2 and Shiva and Vishnu are all crowned and\n      connected with N\u00e2gas\u2014a sign of their cyclic and cosmic character.\n\n  711 _Comment. on the Yashna_, 174.\n\n  712 First Treatise, p. 59.\n\n  713 Says the translator of Avicebron\u2019s _Qabbalah_ of this \u201cSum Total\u201d:\n      \u201cThe letter of Kether is \u05d9 (Yod), of Binah \u05d4 (Heh), together YaH,\n      the feminine Name; the third letter, that of \u2019Hokhmah, is \u05d5 (Vav),\n      making together \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5 YHV of \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 YHVH, the Tetragrammaton, and really\n      the complete symbols of its efficaciousness. The last \u05d4 (Heh) of\n      this Ineffable Name _being always applied to the Six Lower and the\n      last, together the Seven_ remaining Sephiroth.\u201d (Myer\u2019s _Qabbalah_,\n      p. 263). Thus the Tetragrammaton is holy only in its abstract\n      synthesis. As a Quaternary containing the lower Seven Sephiroth, _it\n      is phallic_.\n\n  714 The statement will, of course, be found preposterous and absurd, and\n      simply laughed at. But if one believes in the final submersion of\n      Atlantis, 850,000 years ago, as taught in _Esoteric Buddhism_\u2014the\n      gradual first sinking having begun during the Eocene Age\u2014one has\n      also to accept the statement for the so\u2010called Lemuria, the\n      continent of the Third Root\u2010Race, which was first nearly destroyed\n      by combustion, and then submerged. As the Commentary teaches: \u201c_The\n      First Earth having been purified by the Forty\u2010nine Fires, her\n      people, born of Fire and Water, could not die ...; the Second Earth\n      [with its Race] disappeared as vapour vanishes in the air ...; the\n      Third Earth had everything consumed on it after the Separation, and\n      went down into the lower Deep [the Ocean]. This was twice eighty\u2010two\n      Cyclic Years ago._\u201d Now a Cyclic Year is what we call a Sidereal\n      Year, and is founded on the Precession of the Equinoxes. The length\n      of this Sidereal Year is 25,868 years, and the period mentioned in\n      the Commentary is, therefore, in all equal to 4,242,352 years. More\n      details will be found in Volume II. Meanwhile, this doctrine is\n      embodied in the \u201cKings of Edom.\u201d\n\n  715 The same reserve is found in the _Talmud_ and in every national\n      system of religion whether monotheistic or exoterically\n      polytheistic. From the superb religious poem by the Kabalist Rabbi\n      Solomon ben Yehudah Ibn Gabirol, the \u201cKether Malchuth,\u201d we select a\n      few definitions given in the prayers of Kipp\u00fbr: \u201cThou art One, the\n      beginning of all numbers, and the foundation of all edifices; Thou\n      art One, and in the secret of Thy unity the wisest of men are lost,\n      because they know it not. Thou art One, and Thy Unity is never\n      diminished, never extended, and cannot be changed. Thou art One, but\n      _not as an element of numeration; for Thy Unity admits not of\n      multiplication, change or form_. Thou art Existent; but the\n      understanding and vision of mortals cannot attain to thy existence,\n      nor determine for thee the Where, the How, and the Why. Thou art\n      Existent, but in thyself alone, there being none other that can\n      exist with thee. Thou art Existent, before all time and without\n      place. Thou art Existent, and thy existence is so profound and\n      secret that none can penetrate and discover thy secrecy. Thou art\n      living, but within no time that can be fixed or known; Thou art\n      living, but not by a spirit or a soul, for _Thou art Thyself_, the\n      Soul of all Souls.\u201d There is a distance between this Kabalistical\n      Deity and the Biblical Jehovah, the spiteful and revengeful God of\n      Abram, Isaac, and Jacob, who tempted the first and wrestled with the\n      last. No Ved\u00e2ntin but would repudiate such a Parabrahman!\n\n  716 Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism_, ch. xx. And very wisely have they acted.\n\n  717 If he rejected it, it was on the ground of what he calls the\n      \u201cchanges,\u201d in other words, rebirths of man, and constant\n      transformations. He denied immortality to the Personality of man, as\n      we do, not to Man.\n\n  718 He may be laughed at by the Protestants; but the Roman Catholics\n      have no right to mock him, without becoming guilty of blasphemy and\n      sacrilege. For it is over 200 years since Confucius was canonized as\n      a Saint in China by the Roman Catholics, who have thereby obtained\n      many converts among the ignorant Confucianists.\n\n  719 The animals regarded as sacred in the _Bible_ are by no means few in\n      number; as, for instance, the Goat, the Azaz\u2010el, or God of Victory.\n      As Aben Ezra says: \u201cIf thou art capable of comprehending the mystery\n      of Azazel, thou wilt learn the mystery of His [God\u2019s] name, for it\n      has similar associates in Scriptures. I will tell thee by allusion\n      one portion of the mystery; when thou shalt have _thirty three years\n      of age_ thou wilt comprehend me.\u201d So with the mystery of the\n      Tortoise. Rejoicing over the poetry of biblical metaphors,\n      associating \u201cincandescent stones,\u201d \u201csacred animals,\u201d etc., with the\n      name of Jehovah, and quoting from the _Bible de Vence_ (XIX. 318) a\n      pious French writer says: \u201cIndeed all of them are Elohim, _like\n      their God_\u201d; for, these Angels, \u201c \u2018assume,\u2019 _through a holy\n      usurpation_, \u2018the very divine name of Jehovah each time they\n      represent him\u2019.\u201d (De Mirville, _Des Esprits_.) No one ever doubted\n      that the Name must have been _assumed_, when under the guise of the\n      Infinite, One Incognizable, the Malachim, or Messengers, descended\n      to eat and drink with men. But if the Elohim and even lower Beings,\n      _assuming_ the God\u2010name, were and are still worshipped, why should\n      the same Elohim be called Devils, when appearing under the names of\n      other Gods?\n\n  720 _Matth._, xxiv. 28.\n\n  721 Bryant is right in saying \u201cDruid bardism says of Noah that when he\n      came out of the ark (the birth of a new cycle), after a stay therein\n      of a year and a day, that is 364 + 1=365 days, he was congratulated\n      by Neptune upon his birth from the waters of the Flood, who wished\n      him a _Happy New Year_.\u201d The \u201cYear,\u201d or cycle, esoterically, was the\n      new race of men, _born from woman_, after the Separation of the\n      Sexes, which is the secondary meaning of the allegory; its primary\n      meaning being the beginning of the Fourth Round, or the _new_\n      Creation.\n\n  722 From an unpublished MS.\n\n  723 Or literally: \u201cOne Pr\u00e2dh\u00e2nika Brahma Spirit: THAT was.\u201d The\n      \u201cPr\u00e2dh\u00e2nika Brahma Spirit\u201d is M\u00fblaprakriti and Parabrahman.\n\n  724 Wilson, _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, I. 73\u20105.\n\n  725 Origen, _Contra Celsum_, VI. xxii.\n\n  726 _Tim\u00e6us._\n\n  727 \u201cAnd the fourth creation is _here_ the primary, for _things_\n      immovable are emphatically known as primary\u201d\u2014according to a\n      commentary translated by Fitzedward Hall in his editing of Wilson\u2019s\n      translation.\n\n  728 How can \u201cdivinities\u201d have been created _after_ the animals? The\n      esoteric meaning of the expression \u201canimals\u201d is the _germs of all\n      animal life_, including man. Man is called a _sacrificial animal_,\n      that is, the only one among the animal creation who sacrifices to\n      the Gods. Moreover, by \u201csacred animals\u201d the twelve Signs of the\n      Zodiac are often meant in the sacred texts, as already stated.\n\n  729 _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, _ibid._\n\n  730 _Op. cit._, I. ix.\n\n  731 Myer\u2019s _Qabbalah_, 415\u201016.\n\n  732 _Contra H\u00e6r._, I. xvii. 1.\n\n  733 _Ibid._, I. xxx.\n\n  734 Superior to the Spirits, or \u201cHeavens,\u201d of the Earth only.\n\n  735 _Ibid._, I. v. 2.\n\n  736 See _Isis Unveiled_, II. 183.\n\n  737 See also King\u2019s _Gnostics and their Remains_, p. 97. Other sects\n      regarded Jehovah as Ialdabaoth himself. King identifies him with\n      Saturn.\n\n  738 _Ordinances of Manu_, I. 33.\n\n  739 _Iren\u00e6us_, _op. cit._, I. xxx. 6.\n\n  740 Elsewhere, however, the identity is revealed. See _supra_ the\n      quotation from Iba Gabirol and his 7 heavens, 7 earths, etc.\n\n  741 This must not be confused with _precosmic_ \u201cDARKNESS,\u201d the Divine\n      ALL.\n\n  742 I. 2; and also at the beginning of II.\n\n  743 The quotations that follow in treating of the seven Creations,\n      except when otherwise stated, are all from _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, Bk. I.\n      Ch. i\u2010v.\n\n  744 I. 240.\n\n  745 Brucker, _ibid._\n\n  746 Compare _Genesis_ xix. 34\u20108 and iv. 1.\n\n  747 Vishnu is both Bh\u00fbtesha, \u201cLord of the Elements,\u201d and of all things,\n      and Vishvar\u00fbpa, \u201cUniversal Substance\u201d or Soul.\n\n  748 Compare, for their \u201cpost\u2010types,\u201d the Treatise written by Trithemius,\n      Agrippa\u2019s master, in the sixteenth century, \u201cConcerning the Seven\n      Secondaries, or Spiritual Intelligences, who, after God, actuate the\n      Universe,\u201d which, in addition to secret cycles and several\n      prophecies, discloses certain facts and beliefs about the Genii, or\n      the Elohim, which preside over and guide the septenary stages of the\n      World\u2019s Course.\n\n  749 From the first, the Orientalists have found themselves beset with\n      great difficulties in regard to any possible order in the Pur\u00e2nic\n      \u201cCreations.\u201d Brahman is very often confused by Wilson with Brahm\u00e2,\n      for which he is criticized by his successors. The _Original Sanscrit\n      Texts_ are preferred by Mr. Fitzedward Hall for the translation of\n      the _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, to the text used by Wilson. \u201cHad Professor\n      Wilson enjoyed the advantages which are now at the command of the\n      student of Indian philosophy, unquestionably he would have expressed\n      himself differently,\u201d says the editor of his work. This reminds one\n      of the answer given by one of Thomas Taylor\u2019s admirers to those\n      scholars who criticized his translations of Plato: \u201cTaylor might\n      have known less Greek than his critics, but he knew more Plato.\u201d Our\n      present Orientalists disfigure the _mystic_ sense of the Sanskrit\n      texts far more than Wilson ever did, though the latter is undeniably\n      guilty of very gross errors.\n\n  750 _V\u00e2yu Pur\u00e2na._\n\n  751 _Collected Works_, III. 381.\n\n  752 Professor Wilson translates as though animals were higher in the\n      scale of \u201ccreation\u201d than divinities, or angels, although the truth\n      about the Devas is very plainly stated further on. This \u201cCreation,\u201d\n      says the text, is both Primary (Pr\u00e2krita) and Secondary (Vaikrita).\n      It is the Secondary, as regards the origin of the Gods from Brahm\u00e2,\n      the _personal_ anthropomorphic _creator_ of our material universe;\n      it is the Primary as affecting Rudra, who is the immediate\n      production of the First Principle. The term Rudra is not only a\n      title of Shiva, but embraces agents of creation, angels and men, as\n      will be shown further on.\n\n  753 Neither plant nor animal, but an existence between the two.\n\n  754 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 276, art., \u201cMineral Monad.\u201d\n\n  755 \u201cThese notions,\u201d remarks Professor Wilson, \u201cthe birth of Rudra and\n      the saints, seem to have been _borrowed_ from the Shaivas, and to\n      have been awkwardly engrafted upon the Vaishnava system.\u201d The\n      esoteric meaning ought to have been consulted before venturing such\n      a hypothesis.\n\n  756 See _S\u00e2nkhya K\u00e2rik\u00e2_, v. 46. p. 146.\n\n  757 Par\u00e2shara, the Vedic Rishi, who received the _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_ from\n      Pulastya and taught it to Maitreya, is placed by the Orientalists at\n      various epochs. As correctly observed, in the _Hind\u00fb Classical\n      Dictionary_: \u201cSpeculations as to his era differ widely, from 575\n      B.C. to 1391 B.C., and _cannot be trusted_.\u201d Quite so; but they are\n      no more untrustworthy than any other date, as assigned by the\n      Sanskritists, so famous in the department of arbitrary fancy.\n\n  758 They may indeed mark a \u201cspecial\u201d or extra \u201ccreation,\u201d since it is\n      they who, by incarnating themselves within the senseless human\n      shells of the two first Root\u2010Races, and a great portion of the Third\n      Root\u2010Race, create, so to speak, a _new race_: that of thinking,\n      self\u2010conscious and _divine_ men.\n\n  759 _Hind\u00fb Classical Dictionary._\n\n  760 _Linga Pur\u00e2na_, Prior Section, lxx. 174.\n\n  761 See _Manu_, I. 10.\n\n  762 See _Linga_, _V\u00e2yu_ and _M\u00e2rkandeya Pur\u00e2nas_.\n\n  763 Movers, _Phoinizer_, 282.\n\n  764 Weber, _Akad. Vorles_, 213, 214, etc.\n\n  765 IX. 850.\n\n  766 _Stromata_, I. v. 6.\n\n  767 The Gehenna of the _Bible_ was a valley near Jerusalem, where the\n      monotheistic Jews immolated their children to Moloch, if the word of\n      the prophet Jeremiah is to be believed. The Scandinavian Abode of\n      Hel or Hela was a frigid region\u2014K\u00e2ma Loka again\u2014and the Egyptian\n      Amenti a place of purification. (See _Isis Unveiled_, II. 11.)\n\n  768 I. vi. i.\n\n  769 _Cod. Naz._, I. 47; see also _Psalms_, lxxxix. 18.\n\n  770 I _Cor._, viii. 5.\n\n  771 _Concerning Divine Names_, traduction Darboy, 364.\n\n  772 See de Mirville, _Des Esprits_, ii. 322.\n\n  773 _The Correlation of Physical Forces_, p. 89.\n\n  774 _Ibid._, xiv.\n\n  775 II _Sam._, xxii. 9, 11.\n\n  776 _Deut._, iv. 24.\n\n  777 _Op. cit._, III. 415.\n\n  778 II _Sam._, xxii. 14, 15.\n\n  779 Herodotus, _Polymnia_, 190, 191.\n\n  780 viii. 24.\n\n  781 _Fa\u2010hwa\u2010King._\n\n  782 See _La Mission des Juifs_.\n\n  783 _China Revealed_, as quoted in Hargrave Jennings\u2019 _Phallicism_, p.\n      273.\n\n  784 p. 202.\n\n  785 _Op. cit._, p. 60.\n\n  786 _Ibid._\n\n  787 O\u2019Brien, _Round Towers of Ireland_, p. 61, quoted by Hargrave\n      Jennings in his _Phallicism_, p. 246.\n\n  788 _Introduction to the Science of Religion_, p. 332.\n\n  789 _Pantheon_, text 3.\n\n  790 Their intellection, of course, being of quite a different nature to\n      any we can conceive of on Earth.\n\n  791 See his Third Letter to Bentley.\n\n  792 _Concepts of Modern Physics_, pp. xi, xii, Introd. to 2nd Ed.\n\n  793 \u201cRecherches exp\u00e9rimentales sur la relation qui existe entre la\n      r\u00e9sistance de l\u2019air et sa temp\u00e9rature,\u201d p. 68, translated from\n      Stallo\u2019s quotation.\n\n  794 From the criticism of _Concepts of Modern Physics_, in _Nature_. See\n      Stallo\u2019s work, p. xvi of Introduction.\n\n  795 Mr. Robert Ward, discussing the questions of Heat and Light in the\n      November _Journal of Science_, 1881, shows us how utterly ignorant\n      is Science about one of the commonest facts of Nature\u2014the heat of\n      the Sun. He says: \u201cThe question of the temperature of the sun has\n      been the subject of investigation with many scientists: Newton, one\n      of the first investigators of this problem, tried to determine it,\n      and after him all the scientists who have been occupied with\n      calorimetry have followed his example. All have believed themselves\n      successful, and have formulated their results with great confidence.\n      The following, in the chronological order of the publication of the\n      results, are the temperatures (in centigrade degrees) found by each\n      of them: Newton, 1,699,300\u00b0; Pouillet, 1,461\u00b0; Tollner, 102,200\u00b0;\n      Secchi, 5,344,840\u00b0; Ericsson, 2,726,700\u00b0; Fizeau, 7,500\u00b0; Waterston,\n      9,000,000\u00b0; Spo\u00ebren, 27,000\u00b0; Deville, 9,500\u00b0; Soret, 5,801,846\u00b0;\n      Vicaire, 1,500\u00b0; Rosetti, 20,000\u00b0. The difference is as 1,400\u00b0\n      against 9,000,000\u00b0, or no less than 8,998,600\u00b0!! There probably does\n      not exist in science a more astonishing contradiction than that\n      revealed in these figures.\u201d And yet without doubt if an Occultist\n      were to give out an estimate, each of these gentlemen would\n      vehemently protest in the name of \u201cexact\u201d Science at the rejection\n      of his special result.\n\n  796 See _Correlation of the Physical Forces_, Preface.\n\n  797 _Soir\u00e9es_, vol. ii.\n\n  798 Stallo\u2019s above\u2010cited work, _Concepts of Modern Physics_, a volume\n      which has called forth the liveliest protests and criticisms, is\n      recommended to anyone inclined to doubt this statement. \u201cThe\n      professed antagonism of science to metaphysical speculation,\u201d he\n      writes, \u201chas led the majority of scientific specialists to assume\n      that the methods and results of empirical research are wholly\n      independent of the control of the laws of thought. They either\n      silently ignore, or openly repudiate, the simplest canons of logic,\n      including the laws of non\u2010contradiction, and ... resent with the\n      utmost vehemence every application of the rule of consistency to\n      their hypotheses and theories ... and they regard an examination (of\n      them) ... in the light of these laws as an impertinent intrusion of\n      \u2018_\u00e0 priori_ principles and methods\u2019 into the domains of empirical\n      science. Persons of this cast of mind find no difficulty in holding\n      that atoms are absolutely inert, and at the same time asserting that\n      these atoms are perfectly elastic; or in maintaining that the\n      physical universe, in its last analysis, resolves itself into \u2018dead\u2019\n      matter and motion, and yet denying that all physical energy is in\n      reality kinetic; or in proclaiming that all phenomenal differences\n      in the objective world are ultimately due to the various motions of\n      absolutely simple material units, and, nevertheless, repudiating the\n      proposition that these units are equal.\u201d (p. xix.) The blindness of\n      eminent Physicists to some of the most obvious consequences of their\n      own theories is marvellous. \u201cWhen Prof. Tait, in conjunction with\n      Prof. Stewart, announces that \u2018matter is simply passive\u2019 (_The\n      Unseen Universe_, sec. 104), and then, in connection with Sir\n      William Thomson, declares that \u2018matter has an innate power of\n      resisting external influences\u2019 (_Treat. on Nat. Phil._, Vol. I. sec.\n      216), it is hardly impertinent to inquire how these statements are\n      to be reconciled. When Prof. Du Bois Reymond ... insists upon the\n      necessity of reducing all the processes of nature to motions of a\n      substantial, indifferent substratum, _wholly destitute of quality_\n      (_Ueber die Grenzen des Naturerkennens_, p. 5), having declared\n      shortly before in the same lecture that \u2018resolution of all changes\n      in the material world into motions of atoms _caused by their\n      constant central forces_ would be the completion of natural\n      science,\u2019 we are in a perplexity from which we have the right to be\n      relieved.\u201d (Pref. xliii.)\n\n  799 Stallo, _loc. cit._, p. x.\n\n  800 _Silliman\u2019s Journal_, vol. viii. pp. 364 _et seq._\n\n  801 See Clerk Maxwell\u2019s _Treatise on Electricity_, and compare with\n      Cauchy\u2019s _M\u00e9moire sur la Dispersion de la Lumi\u00e8re_.\n\n  802 Stallo, _loc. cit._, p. x.\n\n  803 _Nature_, vol. xxvii. p. 304.\n\n  804 _Op. cit._, p. xxiv.\n\n  805 \u201c_Somewhat_ different!\u201d exclaims Stallo. \u201cThe real import of this\n      \u2018somewhat\u2019 is, that the medium in question _is not, in any\n      intelligible sense, material at all_, having none of the properties\n      of matter.\u201d All the properties of matter depend upon differences and\n      changes, and the \u201chypothetical\u201d Ether here defined is not only\n      destitute of differences, but incapable of difference and change\u2014in\n      the physical sense let us add. This proves that if Ether is\n      \u201cmatter,\u201d it is so only as something visible, tangible and existing,\n      for _spiritual_ senses alone; that it is a Being indeed\u2014but not of\n      our plane\u2014Pater \u00c6ther, or \u00c2k\u00e2sha.\n\n  806 _Ver\u00e6 caus\u00e6_ for Physical Science are m\u00e2y\u00e2vic or illusionary causes\n      for the Occultist, and _vice vers\u00e2_.\n\n  807 Very much \u201cdifferentiated,\u201d on the contrary, since the day it left\n      its _laya_ condition.\n\n  808 _Op. cit._, pp. xxiv\u2010xxvi.\n\n  809 _Sept Le\u00e7ons de Physique G\u00e9n\u00e9rale_, p. 38, _et seq._, Ed. Moigno.\n\n  810 Defin. 8, B. I. Prop. 69, \u201cScholium.\u201d\n\n  811 See _Modern Materialism_, by the Rev. W. F. Wilkinson.\n\n  812 \u201cAttraction,\u201d Le Couturier, a Materialist, writes, \u201chas now become\n      for the public that which it was for Newton himself\u2014a simple word,\n      an Idea\u201d (_Panorama des Mondes_), since its cause is unknown.\n      Herschell virtually says the same, when remarking, that whenever\n      studying the motion of the heavenly bodies, and the phenomena of\n      attraction, he feels penetrated at every moment with the idea of\n      \u201cthe existence of causes that act for us under a veil, disguising\n      their direct action.\u201d (_Mus\u00e9e des Sciences_, August, 1856.)\n\n  813 If we are taken to task for believing in operating Gods and Spirits\n      while rejecting a personal God, we answer to the Theists and\n      Monotheists: Admit that your Jehovah is _one of the Elohim_, and we\n      are ready to recognize him. Make of him, as you do, the Infinite,\n      the ONE and the Eternal God, and we will never accept him in this\n      character. Of tribal Gods there were many; the One Universal Deity\n      is a principle, an abstract Root\u2010Idea, which has nought to do with\n      the unclean work of finite Form. We do not worship the Gods, we only\n      honour Them, as beings superior to ourselves. In this we obey the\n      Mosaic injunction, while Christians disobey their\n      _Bible_\u2014missionaries foremost of all. \u201cThou shalt not revile the\n      Gods,\u201d says one of them\u2014Jehovah\u2014in _Exodus_, xxii. 28; but at the\n      same time in verse 20 it is commanded: \u201cHe that sacrificeth to any\n      God, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed.\u201d Now in\n      the original texts it is not \u201cGod\u201d but Elohim\u2014and we challenge\n      contradiction\u2014and Jehovah is one of the Elohim, as proved by his own\n      words in _Genesis_, iii. 22, when \u201cthe Lord God said: Behold the Man\n      is become as one of us.\u201d Hence both those who worship and sacrifice\n      to the Elohim, the Angels, and to Jehovah, and those who revile the\n      Gods of their fellowmen, are far greater transgressors than the\n      Occultists or than any Theosophist. Meanwhile many of the latter\n      prefer believing in some one \u201cLord\u201d or other, and are quite welcome\n      to do as they like.\n\n  814 To liken the \u201cimmateriate species to wooden iron,\u201d and to laugh at\n      Spiller for referring to them as \u201cincorporeal matter\u201d does not solve\n      the mystery. (See _Concepts of Modern Physics_, p. 165 _et infra_.)\n\n  815 See _Vossius_, Vol. II. p. 528.\n\n  816 _De Carlo_, I. 9.\n\n  817 _De Motibus Planetarum Harmonicis_, p. 248.\n\n  818 _World\u2010Life_, Prof. Winchell, LL.D., pp. 49 and 50.\n\n  819 _Panorama des Mondes_, pp. 47 and 53.\n\n  820 Newton, _Optics_, III. Query 28, 1704; quoted in _World\u2010Life_, p.\n      50.\n\n  821 _Ibid._\n\n  822 When read in a fair and unprejudiced spirit, Sir Isaac Newton\u2019s\n      works are an ever ready witness to show how he must have hesitated\n      between gravitation and attraction, impulse, and some other _unknown\n      cause_, to explain the regular course of the planetary motion. But\n      see his _Treatise on Colour_ (Vol. III. Question 31). We are told by\n      Herschell that Newton left with his successors the duty of drawing\n      all the scientific conclusions from his discovery. How Modern\n      Science has abused the privilege of building its newest theories\n      upon the law of gravitation, may be realized when one remembers how\n      profoundly religious was that great man.\n\n  823 The materialistic notion that because, in Physics, real or sensible\n      motion is impossible in pure space or vacuum, therefore, the eternal\n      Motion of and in Cosmos\u2014regarded as infinite Space\u2014is a _fiction_,\n      only shows once more that such expressions of Eastern metaphysics as\n      \u201cpure Space,\u201d \u201cpure Being,\u201d the \u201cAbsolute\u201d etc., have never been\n      understood in the West.\n\n  824 From Winchell\u2019s _World\u2010Life_, p. 379.\n\n  825 _Correl. Phys. Forces_, p. 173.\n\n  826 See _Revue Germanique_ of the 31st Dec. 1860, art., \u201cLettres et\n      Conversations d\u2019Alexandre Humboldt.\u201d\n\n  827 Prof. Winchell.\n\n  828 _World\u2010Life_, p. 553.\n\n  829 But see _Astronomie du Moyen Age_, by Delambre.\n\n  830 See _Isis Unveiled_, I. 270, 271.\n\n  831 _World\u2010Life_, 554.\n\n  832 Godefroy, _Cosmogonie de la R\u00e9v\u00e9lation_.\n\n  833 The terms \u201chigh\u201d and \u201clow\u201d being only relative to the position of\n      the observer in Space, any use of those terms tending to convey the\n      impression that they stand for abstract realities, is necessarily\n      fallacious.\n\n  834 Jacob Ennis, _The Origin of the Stars_.\n\n  835 P. 99, note.\n\n  836 If such is the case, how does Science explain the comparatively\n      small size of the planets nearest the Sun? The theory of meteoric\n      aggregation is only a step farther from truth than the nebular\n      conception, and has not even the quality of the latter\u2014its\n      metaphysical element.\n\n  837 Laplace, _Syst\u00e8me du Monde_, p. 414, ed. 1824.\n\n  838 Faye, _Comptes Rendus_, t. xc. pp. 640\u20102.\n\n  839 Wolf.\n\n  840 _Panorama des Mondes_, Le Couturier.\n\n  841 _World\u2010Life_, Winchell, p. 140.\n\n  842 Sir William Thomson\u2019s lecture on \u201cThe latent dynamical theory\n      regarding the probable origin, total amount of heat, and duration of\n      the Sun,\u201d 1887.\n\n  843 Thomson and Tait, _Natural Philosophy_. And even on these figures\n      Bischof disagrees with Thomson, and calculates that 350,000,000\n      years would be required for the Earth to cool from a temperature of\n      20,000\u00b0 to 200\u00b0 centigrade. This is, also, the opinion of Helmholtz.\n\n  844 Coulomb\u2019s Law.\n\n  845 _Mus\u00e9e des Sciences_, 15 August, 1857.\n\n  846 _Panorama des Mondes_, p. 55.\n\n  847 _Revue des Deux Mondes_, July 15, 1860.\n\n  848 _Cosmographie._\n\n  849 _Soir\u00e9es._\n\n  850 _Discours_, 165.\n\n  851 p. 28.\n\n  852 _Des Esprits_, III. 155, Deuxi\u00e8me M\u00e9moire.\n\n  853 Laing\u2019s _Modern Science and Modern Thought_.\n\n  854 _Ibid._, p. 17.\n\n  855 _Heaven and Earth._\n\n  856 Winchell, _World\u2010Life_, p. 196.\n\n  857 _L\u2019Univers expliqu\u00e9 par la R\u00e9v\u00e9lation_, and _Cosmogonie de la\n      R\u00e9v\u00e9lation_. But see De Mirville\u2019s _Deuxi\u00e8me M\u00e9moire_. The author, a\n      terrible enemy of Occultism, was yet one who wrote great truths.\n\n  858 See _Kabbala Denudata_, II. 67.\n\n  859 \u201cSur la Distinction des Forces,\u201d published in the _M\u00e9moires de\n      l\u2019Acad\u00e9mie des Sciences de Montpellier_, Vol. II. fasc. i, 1854.\n\n  860 P. 123.\n\n  861 _Der Welt\u00e6ther als Kosmische Kraft_, p. 4.\n\n  862 See _Popular Science Review_, Vol. V. pp. 329\u201034.\n\n  863 See _Correlation of Physical Forces_, p. 110.\n\n  864 See Buckwell\u2019s _Electric Science_.\n\n  865 Schelling, _Ideen_, etc., p. 18.\n\n  866 _Op. cit._, p. 161.\n\n  867 _Princ._, Def. iii.\n\n  868 _Philosophical Magazine_, Vol. II. p. 252.\n\n  869 _Concepts of Modern Physics_, xxxi., Introductory to the 2nd\n      Edition.\n\n  870 _Loc. cit._\n\n  871 J. P. Cooke, _The New Chemistry_, p. 13.\n\n  872 \u201cIt imports that equal volumes of all substances, when in the\n      gaseous state, and under like conditions of pressure and\n      temperature, contain the same number of molecules\u2014whence it follows\n      that the weights of the molecules are proportional to the specific\n      gravities of the gases; that therefore, these being different, the\n      weights of the molecule are different also; and inasmuch as the\n      molecules of certain elementary substances are monatomic (consist of\n      but one atom each) while the molecules of various other substances\n      contain the same number of atoms, that the ultimate atoms of such\n      substances are of different weights.\u201d (_Concepts of Modern Physics_,\n      p. 34.) As shown further on in the same volume, this cardinal\n      principle of modern theoretical chemistry is in utter and\n      irreconcilable conflict with the first proposition of the atomo\u2010\n      mechanical theory\u2014namely, the absolute equality of the primordial\n      units of mass.\n\n  873 Wundt, _Die Theorie der Materie_, p. 381.\n\n  874 Nazesmann, _Thermochemie_, p. 150.\n\n  875 Kr\u0153nig, Clausius, Maxwell, etc., _Philosophical Magazine_, Vol. XIX.\n      p. 18.\n\n  876 _Philosophical Magazine_, Vol. XIV. p. 321.\n\n  877 Referring to the \u201cAura,\u201d one of the Masters says in the _Occult\n      World_: \u201cHow could you make yourself understood by, command in fact,\n      those semi\u2010intelligent Forces, whose means of communication with us\n      are not through spoken words, but through sounds and colours in\n      correlation between the vibrations of the two.\u201d It is this\n      \u201ccorrelation\u201d that is unknown to Modern Science, although it has\n      been many times explained by the Alchemists.\n\n  878 The Substance of the Occultist, however, is to the most refined\n      Substance of the Physicist, what Radiant Matter is to the leather of\n      the Chemist\u2019s boots.\n\n  879 The names of the Seven Rays\u2014which are, Sushumn\u00e2, Harikesha,\n      Vishvakarman, Vishvatryarch\u00e2s, Sannaddha, Sarv\u00e2vasu and Svar\u00e2j\u2014are\n      all mystical, and each has its distinct application in a distinct\n      state of consciousness, for Occult purposes. The Sushumn\u00e2, which, as\n      said in the Nirukta (11, 6), is only to light up the Moon, is the\n      Ray nevertheless cherished by the initiated Yog\u00ees. The totality of\n      the Seven Rays spread through the Solar System constitutes, so to\n      say, the physical Up\u00e2dhi (Basis) of the Ether of Science; in which\n      Up\u00e2dhi, light, heat, electricity, etc., the Forces of orthodox\n      Science, correlate to produce their terrestrial effects. As psychic\n      and spiritual effects, they emanate from, and have their origin in,\n      the supra\u2010solar Up\u00e2dhi, in the \u00c6ther of the Occultist\u2014or \u00c2k\u00e2sha.\n\n  880 Leslie\u2019s _Fluid Theory of Light and Heat_.\n\n  881 Buckle\u2019s _History of Civilization_, Vol. III. p. 384.\n\n  882 On the plane of manifestation and illusionary matter it may be so;\n      not that it is nothing more, for it is vastly more.\n\n  883 Neutral, or Laya.\n\n  884 _Scientific Letters_, Professor Butlerof.\n\n  885 _Ibid._\n\n  886 _Ibid._\n\n  887 _Ibid._\n\n  888 Called the \u201cdrinker of waters,\u201d solar heat causing water to\n      evaporate.\n\n  889 I. ii. (Wilson, I. 38.)\n\n  890 Its founder, R\u00e2m\u00e2nuj\u00e2ch\u00e2rya, was born A.D. 1017.\n\n  891 The Gandharva of the _Veda_ is the deity who knows and reveals the\n      secrets of heaven and divine truths to mortals. Cosmically, the\n      Gandharvas are the aggregate Powers of the Solar Fire, and\n      constitute its Forces; psychically, the Intelligence residing in the\n      Sushumn\u00e2, the Solar Ray, the highest of the Seven Rays; mystically,\n      the Occult Force in the Soma, the Moon, or lunar plant, and the\n      drink made of it; physically, the phenomenal, and spiritually, the\n      noumenal, causes of Sound and the \u201cVoice of Nature.\u201d Hence, they are\n      called the 6,333 heavenly singers, and musicians of Indra\u2019s Loka,\n      who personify, even in number, the various and manifold sounds in\n      Nature, both above and below. In the later allegories they are said\n      to have mystic power over women, and to be fond of them. The\n      Esoteric meaning is plain. They are one of the forms, if not the\n      prototypes, of Enoch\u2019s Angels, the Sons of God, who saw that the\n      daughters of men were fair (_Gen._, vi.), who married them, and\n      taught the daughters of Earth the secrets of Heaven.\n\n  892 Pp. 329\u2010334.\n\n  893 Not only \u201cthrough space,\u201d but filling every point of our Solar\n      System, for it is the physical residue, so to say, of Ether, its\n      \u201clining\u201d (envelope) on our plane; Ether having to serve other cosmic\n      and terrestrial purposes besides being the \u201cagent\u201d for transmitting\n      light. It is the Astral Fluid or Light of the Kabalists, and the\n      Seven Rays of Sun\u2010Vishnu.\n\n  894 What need, then, of etheric waves for the transmission of light,\n      heat, etc., if _this_ substance can pass through vacuum.\n\n  895 And how can it be otherwise? Gross ponderable matter is the body,\n      the shell, of Matter or Substance, the female passive principle; and\n      this Fohatic Force is the second principle, Pr\u00e2na\u2014the male and the\n      active. On our globe this Substance is the second principle of the\n      septenary Element\u2014Earth; in the atmosphere, it is that of Air, which\n      is the cosmic gross body; in the Sun it becomes the Solar Body and\n      that of the Seven Rays; in Sidereal Space it corresponds with\n      another principle, and so on. The whole is a homogeneous Unity\n      alone, the parts are all differentiations.\n\n  896 Or the reverberation, and for Sound repercussion, _on our plane_ of\n      that which is a perpetual motion of that Substance on higher planes.\n      Our world and senses are ceaselessly victims of M\u00e2y\u00e2.\n\n  897 An honest admission, this.\n\n  898 Yet it is not Ether, but only one of the principles of Ether, the\n      latter being itself one of the principles of \u00c2k\u00e2sha.\n\n  899 And so does Pr\u00e2na (J\u00eeva) pervade the whole living body of man; but\n      alone, without having an atom to act upon, it would be\n      quiescent\u2014dead; _i.e._, would be in Laya, or, as Mr. Crookes has it,\n      \u201clocked in Protyle.\u201d It is the action of Fohat upon a compound or\n      even upon a simple, body that produces life. When a body dies, it\n      passes into the same polarity as its male energy, and repels\n      therefore the active agent, which, losing hold of the whole, fastens\n      on the parts or molecules, this action being called chemical.\n      Vishnu, the Preserver, transforms himself into Rudra\u2010Shiva, the\n      Destroyer\u2014a correlation seemingly unknown to Science.\n\n  900 Verily, unless the Occult terms of the Kabalists are adopted!\n\n  901 \u201cUnchangeable\u201d only during manvantaric periods, after which it\n      merges once more into M\u00fblaprakriti; \u201cinvisible\u201d for ever, in its own\n      essence, but seen in its reflected coruscations, called the Astral\n      Light by the modern Kabalists. Yet, conscious and grand Beings,\n      clothed in that same Essence, move in it.\n\n  902 One has to add ponderable, to distinguish it from that Ether which\n      is Matter still, though a substratum.\n\n  903 The Occult Sciences reverse the statement, and say that it is the\n      Sun, and all the Suns that are from it, which emanate at the\n      manvantaric dawn from the Central Sun.\n\n  904 Here, we decidedly beg to differ from the learned gentleman. Let us\n      remember that this Ether\u2014whether \u00c2k\u00e2sha, or its lower principle,\n      Ether, is meant by the term\u2014is septenary. \u00c2k\u00e2sha is Aditi in the\n      allegory, and the mother of M\u00e2rtt\u00e2nda, the Sun, the Devam\u00e2tri,\n      Mother of the Gods. In the Solar System, the Sun is her Buddhi and\n      V\u00e2hana, the Vehicle, hence the sixth principle; in Kosmos all the\n      Suns are the K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa of \u00c2k\u00e2sha and so is ours. It is only when\n      regarded as an individual Entity in his own Kingdom, that S\u00fbrya, the\n      Sun, is the seventh principle of the great body of Matter.\n\n  905 To be more correct, let us rather call it Agnosticism. Brutal but\n      frank Materialism is more honest than Janus\u2010faced Agnosticism in our\n      days. Western Monism, so\u2010called, is the Pecksniff of modern\n      Philosophy, turning a pharisaical face to Psychology and Idealism,\n      and its natural face of a Roman Augur, swelling his cheek with his\n      tongue, to Materialism. Such Monists are worse than Materialists;\n      because, while looking at the Universe and at psycho\u2010spiritual man\n      from the same negative stand\u2010point, the latter put their case far\n      less plausibly than do sceptics of Mr. Tyndall\u2019s or even of Mr.\n      Huxley\u2019s stamp. Herbert Spencer, Bain and Lewes are more dangerous\n      to universal truths than is B\u00fcchner.\n\n  906 _Geology_, by Professor A. Winchell.\n\n  907 See _Five Years of Theosophy_, pp. 245\u2010262\u2014Arts. \u201cDo the Adepts deny\n      the Nebular Theory?\u201d and \u201cIs the Sun merely a Cooling Mass?\u201d\u2014for the\n      true Occult teaching.\n\n  908 _Philosophie Naturelle_, art. 142.\n\n  909 _Astronomie_, p. 342.\n\n  910 Commentary on Stanza IV, _ante_, pp. 126\u20107.\n\n  911 _Popular Science Review_, Vol. IV. p. 148.\n\n  912 And the _central mass_, too, as will be found, or rather the centre\n      of the reflection.\n\n  913 This \u201cmatter\u201d is just like the reflection in a mirror of the flame\n      from a \u201cphotogenic\u201d lamp\u2010wick.\n\n  914 See _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 258, for an answer to this\n      speculation of Herschell.\n\n  915 _Ibid._, p. 156.\n\n  916 Paracelsus for one, who called it Liquor Vit\u00e6, and Arch\u00e6us.\n\n  917 _Alchemical_ \u201ccomposition,\u201d rather.\n\n  918 \u201cThis vital force ... radiates around man like a luminous sphere,\u201d\n      says Paracelsus in _Paragranum_.\n\n  919 _Popular Science Review_, Vol. X. pp. 380\u20103.\n\n  920 _De Generatione Hominis._\n\n  921 _De Viribus Membrorum_. See _Life of Paracelsus_, by Franz Hartmann,\n      M.D., F.T.S.\n\n  922 P. 384.\n\n  923 Ch. xiii; Telang\u2019s translation, p. 292.\n\n  924 _Ibid._, ch. xxxvi; p. 385.\n\n  925 The division of the physical senses into five, comes to us from a\n      great antiquity. But while adopting the number, no modern\n      Philosopher has asked himself how these senses could exist, _i.e._,\n      be perceived and used in a self\u2010conscious way, unless there were the\n      _sixth_ sense, mental perception, to register and record them;\n      and\u2014this for the Metaphysicians and Occultists\u2014the _seventh_ to\n      preserve the spiritual fruitage and remembrance thereof, as in a\n      Book of Life which belongs to Karma. The Ancients divided the senses\n      into five, simply because their teachers, the Initiates, stopped at\n      _hearing_, as being that sense which developed on the physical\n      plane, or rather, got dwarfed and limited to this plane, only at the\n      beginning of the Fifth Race. The Fourth Race already had begun to\n      lose the _spiritual_ condition, so pre\u00ebminently developed in the\n      Third Race.\n\n  926 _Ibid._, ch. x: pp. 277, 278.\n\n  927 _Mundakopanishad_, p. 298.\n\n  928 _Bhagavadg\u00eet\u00e2_, ch. vii; _ibid._, pp. 73, 74.\n\n  929 Ahamk\u00e2ra, I suppose, that \u201cEgoship,\u201d or \u201cAhamship,\u201d which leads to\n      every error.\n\n  930 The Elements are the five Tanm\u00e2tras of earth, water, fire, air and\n      ether, the producers of the grosser elements.\n\n  931 _Anug\u00eet\u00e2_, ch. xx; _ibid._, p. 313.\n\n  932 The conductor in the sense of Up\u00e2dhi\u2014a material or physical basis;\n      but, as the second principle of the universal Soul and Vital Force\n      in Nature, it is intelligently guided by the fifth principle\n      thereof.\n\n  933 And too great an exuberance of it in the nervous system leads as\n      often to disease and death. If it were the animal system which\n      generated it, such would not be the case, surely. Hence, the latter\n      emergency shows its independence of the system, and its connection\n      with the Sun\u2010Force, as Metcalfe and Hunt explain.\n\n  934 P. 387.\n\n  935 _Paragranum; Life of Paracelsus_, by Dr. F. Hartmann.\n\n  936 In a recent work on Symbolism in Buddhism and Christianity\u2014in\n      Buddhism and Roman Catholicism, rather, many later rituals and\n      dogmas in Northern Buddhism, in its popular exoteric form, being\n      identical with those of the Latin Church\u2014some curious facts are to\n      be found. The author of this volume, with more pretensions than\n      erudition, has indiscriminately crammed into his work ancient and\n      modern Buddhist teachings, and has sorely confused Lama\u00efsm with\n      Buddhism. On page 404 of this volume, called _Buddhism in\n      Christendom, or Jesus the Essene_, our _pseudo_\u2010Orientalist devotes\n      himself to criticizing the \u201cSeven Principles\u201d of the \u201cEsoteric\n      Buddhists,\u201d and attempts to ridicule them. On page 405, the closing\n      page, he speaks enthusiastically of the Vidy\u00e2dharas, \u201cthe seven\n      great legions of dead men made wise.\u201d Now, these Vidy\u00e2dharas, whom\n      some Orientalists call \u201cdemi\u2010gods,\u201d are in fact, exoterically, a\n      kind of Siddhas, \u201caffluent in devotion,\u201d and, esoterically, they are\n      identical with the seven classes of Pitris, one class of which endow\n      man in the Third Race with Self\u2010consciousness, by incarnating in the\n      human shells. The \u201cHymn to the Sun,\u201d at the end of his queer volume\n      of mosaic, which endows Buddhism with a Personal God (!!), is an\n      unfortunate thrust at the very proofs so elaborately collected by\n      the unlucky author.\n\n      Theosophists are fully aware that Mr. Rhys Davids has likewise\n      expressed his opinion on their beliefs. He said that the theories\n      propounded by the author of _Esoteric Buddhism_ \u201cwere not Buddhism,\n      and were not esoteric.\u201d The remark is the result of (_a_) the\n      unfortunate mistake of writing \u201cBuddhism\u201d instead of \u201cBudha\u00efsm,\u201d or\n      \u201cBudhism,\u201d _i.e._, of connecting the system with Gautama\u2019s religion\n      instead of with the Secret Wisdom taught by Krishna, Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya,\n      and many others, as much as by Buddha; and (_b_) of the\n      impossibility of Mr. Rhys Davids knowing anything of the true\n      Esoteric Teachings. Nevertheless as he is the greatest P\u00e2li and\n      Buddhist scholar of the day, whatever he may say is entitled to\n      respectful hearing. But when one who knows no more of exoteric\n      Buddhism on Scientific and Materialistic lines, than he knows of\n      Esoteric Philosophy, defames those whom he honours with his spite,\n      and assumes with the Theosophists the airs of a profound scholar,\n      one can only smile or\u2014heartily laugh at him.\n\n  937 _The Human Species_, pp. 10, 11.\n\n  938 _The Theosophist._\n\n  939 Not only does it not deny the occurrence, though attributing it to a\n      wrong cause, as always, each theory contradicting every other (see\n      the theories of Secchi, of Faye, and of Young), the spots depending\n      on the superficial accumulation of vapours cooler than the\n      photosphere (?), etc., etc., but we have men of Science who\n      _astrologize_ upon the spots. Professor Jevons attributes all the\n      great periodical commercial crises to the influence of the sun\u2010spots\n      every eleventh cyclic year. (See his _Investigations into Currency\n      and Finance_.) This is worthy of praise and encouragement surely.\n\n  940 _Le Soleil_, II. 184.\n\n  941 _World\u2010Life_, p. 48.\n\n  942 Unfortunately, as these pages are being written, the \u201carchebiosis of\n      terrestrial existence\u201d has turned, under a somewhat stricter\n      chemical analysis, into a simple precipitate of sulphate of\n      lime\u2014hence, from the scientific standpoint, not even an organic\n      substance! _Sic transit gloria mundi!_\n\n  943 _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, Wilson, I. 16, Fitzedward Hall\u2019s rendering.\n\n  944 _Popular Astronomy_, p. 444.\n\n  945 In his _World\u2010Life_ (page 48), in the appended footnotes, Professor\n      Winchell says, \u201cIt is generally admitted that at excessively high\n      temperatures matter exists in a state of dissociation\u2014that is, no\n      chemical combination can exist\u201d; and, to prove the unity of Matter,\n      would appeal to the spectrum, which in every case of homogeneity\n      will show a _bright_ line, whereas in the case of several molecular\n      arrangements existing\u2014in the nebul\u00e6 say, or a star\u2014\u201cthe spectrum\n      should consist of two or three bright lines\u201d! This would be no proof\n      either way to the Physicist\u2010Occultist, who maintains that beyond a\n      certain limit of visible Matter, no spectrum, no telescope and no\n      microscope are of any use. The unity of Matter, of that which is\n      real cosmic Matter to the Alchemist, or \u201cAdam\u2019s Earth\u201d as the\n      Kabalists call it, can hardly be proved or disproved, by either the\n      French _savant_ Dumas, who suggests \u201cthe composite nature\u201d of the\n      \u201celements\u201d on \u201ccertain relations of atomic weights,\u201d or even by Mr.\n      Crookes\u2019 \u201cradiant matter,\u201d though his experiments may seem \u201cto be\n      best understood on the hypothesis of the homogeneity of the elements\n      of matter, and the continuity of the states of matter.\u201d For all this\n      does not go beyond _material_ Matter, so to say, even in what is\n      shown by the spectrum, that modern \u201ceye of Shiva\u201d of physical\n      experiments. It is only of this Matter, that H. St. Claire Deville\n      could say that \u201cwhen bodies, deemed to be simple, combine with one\n      another, they vanish, they are individually annihilated\u201d; simply\n      because he could not follow those bodies in their further\n      transformation in the world of spiritual cosmic Matter. Verily\n      Modern Science will never be able to dig deep enough into the\n      cosmological formations to find the Roots of the World\u2010Stuff or\n      Matter, unless she works on the same lines of thought as the\n      medi\u00e6val Alchemist did.\n\n  946 _Concepts of Modern Physics_, p. vi.\n\n  947 Book I. ch. II. p. 25. _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, Fitzedward Hall\u2019s\n      Translation.\n\n  948 _Vide_ in preceding Section VII., \u201cLife, Force, or Gravity,\u201d\n      quotation from _Anugit\u00e2_.\n\n  949 The word \u201csupernatural\u201d implies _above or outside_ nature. Nature\n      and Space are one. Now Space for the metaphysician exists outside\n      any act of sensation, and is a purely subjective representation,\n      notwithstanding the contention of Materialism, which would connect\n      it forcibly with one or another datum of sensation. For our senses,\n      it is fairly subjective when independent of anything within it. How\n      then can any phenomenon, or anything else, step outside, or be\n      performed beyond, that which has no limits? But when spatial\n      extension becomes simply conceptual, and is thought of in an idea\n      connected with certain actions, as by the Materialists and the\n      Physicists, then again they have hardly a right to define and claim\n      that which can, or cannot, be produced by Forces generated within\n      even limited spaces, as they have not even an approximate idea of\n      what those Forces are.\n\n  950 It is not correct, when speaking of Idealism, to show it based upon\n      \u201cthe old ontological assumptions that things or entities exist\n      independently of each other, and otherwise than as terms of\n      relations\u201d (Stallo). At any rate, it is incorrect to say so of\n      Idealism in Eastern Philosophy and _its_ cognition, for it is just\n      the reverse.\n\n  951 Independent, in a certain sense, but not _disconnected_ with it.\n\n  952 \u201cBy Fohat, more likely,\u201d would be an Occultist\u2019s reply.\n\n  953 The reason for such psychic capacities is given farther on.\n\n  954 The above was written in 1886, at a time when hopes of success for\n      the \u201cKeely Motor\u201d were at their highest. Every word then said by the\n      writer proved true, and now only a few remarks are added with regard\n      to the failure of Mr. Keely\u2019s expectations, so far, a failure now\n      admitted by the discoverer himself. Though, however, the word\n      _failure_ is here used, the reader should understand it in a\n      relative sense, for, as Mrs. Bloomfield\u2010Moore explains: \u201cWhat Mr.\n      Keely does admit is that, baffled in applying vibratory force to\n      mechanics, upon his first and second lines of experimental research,\n      he was obliged either to confess a _commercial_ failure, or to try a\n      third departure from his base or principle, seeking success through\n      another channel.\u201d And this \u201cchannel\u201d is on the _physical_ plane.\n\n  955 We learn that these remarks are not applicable to Mr. Keely\u2019s latest\n      discovery; time alone can show the exact limit of his achievements.\n\n  956 _Theosophical Siftings_, No. 9.\n\n  957 This is also the division made by the Occultists, under other names.\n\n  958 Quite so, since there is the _seventh_ beyond, which begins the same\n      enumeration from the first to the last, on another and higher plane.\n\n  959 From Mrs. Bloomfield\u2010Moore\u2019s paper, _The New Philosophy_.\n\n  960 In answer to a friend, that eminent Geologist writes: \u201cI can only\n      say, in reply to your letter, that it is at present, and perhaps\n      always will be, impossible to reduce, even approximately, geological\n      time into years, or even into millenniums.\u201d (Signed, William\n      Pengelly, F.R.S.)\n\n  961 Plato, in speaking of the irrational, turbulent Elements, \u201ccomposed\n      of fire, air, water, and earth,\u201d means Elementary D\u00e6mons. (See\n      _Tim\u00e6us_.)\n\n  962 Plato in the _Tim\u00e6us_ uses the word \u201csecretions\u201d of turbulent\n      Elements.\n\n  963 Valentinus\u2019 _Esoteric Treatise on the Doctrine of Gilgul_.\n\n  964 See Mackenzie\u2019s _Royal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia_.\n\n  965 See _Isis Unveiled_, II. 152.\n\n  966 See Mackenzie, _ibid._, _sub voc._\n\n  967 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 317.\n\n  968 _Viveka Chudamani_, translated by Mohini M. Chatterji, as \u201cThe Crest\n      Jewel of Wisdom.\u201d See _Theosophist_, July and August, 1886.\n\n  969 The Tanm\u00e2tras are literally the type or rudiment of an element\n      devoid of qualities; but esoterically, they are the primeval Noumena\n      of that which becomes in the progress of evolution, a Cosmic\n      Element, in the sense given to the term in Antiquity, not in that of\n      Physics. They are the Logoi, the seven emanations or rays of the\n      Logos.\n\n  970 Ch. xxxvi; Telang\u2019s translation, pp. 387\u20108.\n\n  971 See _Theosophist_, August, 1886.\n\n  972 The now universal error of attributing to the Ancients the knowledge\n      of only seven planets, simply because they mentioned no others, is\n      based on the same general ignorance of their Occult doctrines. The\n      question is not whether they were, or were not, aware of the\n      existence of the later discovered planets; but whether the reverence\n      paid by them to the four exoteric and three secret Great Gods\u2014the\n      Star\u2010Angels, had not some special reason. The writer ventures to say\n      there was such a reason, and it is this. Had they known of as many\n      planets as we do now\u2014and this question can hardly be decided at\n      present, either way\u2014they would still have only connected the seven\n      with their religious worship, because these seven are directly and\n      specially connected with our Earth, or, using esoteric phraseology,\n      with our septenary Ring of Spheres.\n\n  973 _John_, x. 30.\n\n  974 _Ibid._, xx. 17.\n\n  975 _Ibid._, xiv. 28.\n\n  976 _Matt._, v. 16.\n\n  977 _Ibid._, xiii. 43.\n\n  978 1 _Cor._, iii. 16.\n\n  979 _Theosophist_, Aug., 1886.\n\n  980 These are planets accepted for purposes of Judicial Astrology only.\n      The astro\u2010theogonical division differed from the above. The Sun,\n      being a central _star_ and not a planet, stands, with _its_ seven\n      planets, in more occult and mysterious relations to _our_ Globe than\n      is generally known. The Sun was, therefore, considered the great\n      Father of all the Seven \u201cFathers,\u201d and this accounts for the\n      variations found between the Seven and Eight Great Gods of Chaldean\n      and other countries. Neither the Earth, nor the Moon, its satellite,\n      nor yet the stars, for another reason, were anything more than\n      _substitutes used for Esoteric purposes_. Yet, even with the\n      exclusion of the Sun and the Moon from the calculation, the Ancients\n      seem to have known of _seven_ planets. How many more are known to\n      us, so far, if we throw out the Earth and Moon? _Seven_, and no\n      more: Seven primary or principal planets, the rest _planetoids_\n      rather than planets.\n\n  981 When one remembers that under the powerful telescope of Sir William\n      Herschell, that eminent Astronomer\u2014gauging merely that portion of\n      heaven in the equatorial plane, the approximate centre of which is\n      occupied by our Earth\u2014saw in one quarter of an hour, 16,000 stars\n      pass; and applying this calculation to the totality of the \u201cMilky\n      Way\u201d he found in it no less than eighteen millions of Suns, one\n      wonders no longer that Laplace, in conversation with Napoleon I,\n      should have called God a _hypothesis_\u2014perfectly useless to speculate\n      upon for _exact_ Physical Science, at any rate. Occult Metaphysics\n      and transcendental Philosophy will alone be able to lift the\n      smallest corner of the impenetrable veil in this direction.\n\n  982 _Numb._, xi. 16.\n\n  983 _Deut._, xxxii. 8, 9.\n\n  984 _Ibid._, 9.\n\n  985 C. W. King in _The Gnostics and their Remains_ (p. 344), identifies\n      it with \u201cthat _summum bonum_ of Oriental aspiration, the Buddhist\n      Nirv\u00e2na, \u2018perfect repose, the Epicurean _Indolentia_\u2019;\u201d a view that\n      looks flippant enough in its expression, though not quite untrue.\n\n  986 See Origen\u2019s Copy of the Chart, or Diagramma of the Ophites.\n\n  987 See also Section XIV.\n\n  988 Abraham and Saturn are identical in astro\u2010symbology, and he is the\n      forefather of the Jehovistic Jews.\n\n  989 _John_, viii. 37, 38, 41, 44.\n\n  990 _Matthew_, v. 22.\n\n  991 The Elemental Vortices inaugurated by the \u201cMind\u201d have not been\n      improved by their modern transformation.\n\n  992 I have often been taken to task for using expressions in _Isis_\n      denoting belief in a _personal_ and anthropomorphic God. This is\n      _not_ my idea. Kabalistically speaking, the \u201cArchitect\u201d is the\n      generic name for the Sephiroth, the Builders of the Universe, as the\n      \u201cUniversal Mind\u201d represents the collectivity of the Dhy\u00e2n Chohanic\n      Minds.\n\n  993 _Tim\u00e6us._\n\n  994 I. 258.\n\n  995 _Researches on Light in its Chemical Relations_.\n\n  996 _Modern Chemistry._\n\n  997 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 137.\n\n  998 _Faraday Lectures_, 1881.\n\n  999 Thus, what the writer of the present work said ten years ago in\n      _Isis Unveiled_ was, it seems, prophetic. These are the words: \u201cMany\n      of these mystics, by following what they were taught by some\n      treatises, secretly preserved from one generation to another,\n      achieved discoveries which would not be despised even in our modern\n      days of exact sciences. Roger Bacon, the friar, was laughed at as a\n      quack, and is now generally numbered among \u2018pretenders\u2019 to magic\n      art; but his discoveries were nevertheless accepted, and are now\n      used by those who ridicule him the most. Roger Bacon belonged by\n      right, if not by fact, to that Brotherhood which includes all those\n      who study the Occult Sciences. Living in the thirteenth century,\n      almost a contemporary, therefore, of Albertus Magnus and Thomas\n      Aquinas, his discoveries\u2014such as gunpowder and optical glasses, and\n      his mechanical achievements\u2014were considered by everyone as so many\n      miracles. He was accused of having made a compact with the Evil\n      One.\u201d (Vol. I, pp. 64, 65.)\n\n 1000 Just so; \u201cthose forms of energy ... _which become evident_ ...\u201d in\n      the laboratory of the Chemist and Physicist; but _there are other\n      forms of energy_ wedded to _other forms_ of matter, _which are\n      supersensuous_, yet are known to the Adepts.\n\n 1001 _Presidential Address_, p. 16.\n\n 1002 It is just the existence of such worlds on other planes of\n      consciousness that is asserted by the Occultist. The Secret Science\n      teaches that the primitive race was boneless, and that there are\n      worlds invisible to us, peopled as our own, besides the\n      _populations_ of Dhy\u00e2n Chohans.\n\n 1003 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 258 _et seq._\n\n 1004 Says Mr. Crookes in the same address: \u201cThe first riddle which we\n      encounter in chemistry is: \u2018What are the elements?\u2019 Of the attempts\n      hitherto made to define or explain an element, none satisfy the\n      demands of the human intellect. The text books tell us that an\n      element is \u2018a body which has not been decomposed;\u2019 that it is \u2018a\n      something to which we can add, but from which we can take nothing,\u2019\n      or \u2018a body which increases in weight with every chemical change.\u2019\n      Such definitions are doubly unsatisfactory: they are provisional,\n      and may cease to\u2010morrow to be applicable in any given case. They\n      take their stand, not on any attribute of the things to be defined,\n      but on the limitations of human power: they are confessions of\n      intellectual impotence.\u201d\n\n 1005 And the lecturer quotes Sir George Airy, who says (in _Faraday\u2019s\n      Life and Letters_, Vol. II., p. 354): \u201cI can easily conceive that\n      there are plenty of bodies about us not subject to this intermutual\n      action, and therefore not subject to the law of gravitation.\u201d\n\n 1006 The Ved\u00e2ntic philosophy conceives of such; but then it is not\n      physics, but metaphysics, called by Mr. Tyndall \u201cpoetry\u201d and\n      \u201cfiction.\u201d\n\n 1007 In the form they are now, we conceive?\n\n 1008 And to Kapila and Manu\u2014especially and originally.\n\n 1009 Here is a scientific corroboration of the eternal law of\n      correspondences and analogy.\n\n 1010 This method of illustrating the periodic law in the classification\n      of elements is, in the words of Mr. Crookes, proposed by Professor\n      Emerson Reynolds, of Dublin University, who ... \u201cpoints out that in\n      each period, the general properties of the elements vary from one to\n      another, with approximate regularity until we reach the _seventh\n      member_, which is in more or less striking contrast with the first\n      element of the same period, as well as with the first of the next.\n      Thus chlorine, the seventh member of Mendeleef\u2019s third period,\n      contrasts sharply with both sodium, the first member of the same\n      series, and with potassium, the first member of the next series;\n      whilst on the other hand, sodium and potassium are closely\n      analogous. The six elements, whose atomic weights intervene between\n      sodium and potassium, vary in properties, step by step, until\n      chlorine, the contrast to sodium, is reached. But from chlorine to\n      potassium, the analogue of sodium, there is a change in properties\n      _per saltum_..... If we thus recognize a contrast in properties\u2014more\n      or less decided\u2014between the first and the last members of each\n      series, we can scarcely help admitting the existence of a point of\n      mean variation within each system. In general the _fourth_ element\n      of each series possesses the property we might expect a transition\u2010\n      element to exhibit.... Thus for the purpose of graphic translation,\n      Professor Reynolds considers that the fourth member of a\n      period\u2014silicon, for example\u2014may be placed at the apex of a\n      symmetrical curve, which shall represent for that particular period,\n      the direction in which the properties of the series of elements vary\n      with rising atomic weights.\u201d\n\n      Now, the writer humbly confesses complete ignorance of modern\n      Chemistry and its mysteries. But she is pretty well acquainted with\n      the Occult Doctrine with regard to _correspondences of types and\n      antetypes_ in nature, and to perfect analogy as a fundamental law in\n      Occultism. Hence she ventures on a remark which will strike every\n      Occultist, however it may be derided by orthodox Science. This\n      method of illustrating the periodic law in the behaviour of\n      elements, whether or not still a hypothesis in Chemistry, _is a law\n      in Occult Sciences_. Every well\u2010read Occultist knows that the\n      _seventh_ and _fourth_ members\u2014whether in a septenary chain of\n      worlds, the septenary hierarchy of angels, or in the constitution of\n      man, animal, plant, or mineral atom\u2014that the _seventh_ and _fourth_\n      members, we say, in the geometrically and mathematically uniform\n      workings of the immutable laws of Nature, always play a distinct and\n      specific part in the septenary system. From the stars twinkling high\n      in heaven, to the sparks flying asunder from the rude fire built by\n      the savage in his forest; from the hierarchies and the essential\n      constitution of the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans\u2014organized for diviner\n      apprehensions and a loftier range of perception than the greatest\n      Western Psychologist ever dreamed of, down to Nature\u2019s\n      _classification_ of species among the humblest insects; finally from\n      Worlds to Atoms, everything in the Universe, from great to small,\n      proceeds in its spiritual and physical evolution, cyclically and\n      septennially, showing its seventh and fourth number (the latter the\n      turning point) behaving in the same way as is shown in that periodic\n      law of Atoms. Nature never proceeds _per saltum_. Therefore, when\n      Mr. Crookes remarks on this that he does not \u201cwish to infer that the\n      gaps in Mendeleef\u2019s table, and in this graphic representation of it\n      [the diagram showing the evolution of Atoms] necessarily mean that\n      there are elements actually existing to fill up the gaps; these gaps\n      may only mean that at the birth of the elements there was an easy\n      potentiality of the formation of an element which would fit into the\n      place\u201d\u2014an Occultist would respectfully remark to him that the latter\n      hypothesis can only hold good, if the septenary arrangement of Atoms\n      is not interfered with. This is _the one law_, and an infallible\n      method that must always lead one who follows it to success.\n\n 1011 A group of electricians has just protested against the new theory of\n      Clausius, the famous professor of the University of Bonn. The\n      character of the protest is shown in the signature, which has \u201cJules\n      Bourdin, in the name of the group of Electricians, which had the\n      honour of being introduced to Professor Clausius in 1881, and whose\n      war\u2010cry (_cri de ralliement_) is _\u00c0 bas l\u2019Ether_\u201d\u2014down with Ether,\n      even; they want Universal _Void_, you see!\n\n 1012 _Smithsonian Contributions_, xxi., Art. 1. pp. 79\u201097.\n\n 1013 _System of Logic_, p. 229.\n\n 1014 Beyond the zero\u2010line of action.\n\n 1015 _Progymnasmata_, p. 795.\n\n 1016 _De Stell\u00e2 Nov\u00e2 in Pede Serpentarii_, p. 115.\n\n 1017 _Hypoth\u00e8ses Cosmogoniques_, p. 2, C. Wolf, 1886.\n\n 1018 See _Philosophical Transactions_, p. 269, _et seq._\n\n 1019 Laplace conceived that the external and internal zones of the ring\n      would rotate with the same angular velocity, which would be the case\n      with a solid ring; but the principle of equal areas requires the\n      inner zones to rotate more rapidly than the outer. (_World\u2010Life_, p.\n      121.) Prof. Winchell points out a good many mistakes of Laplace; but\n      as a geologist he is not infallible himself in his \u201castronomical\n      speculations.\u201d\n\n 1020 _Five Years of Theosophy_, pp. 249\u2010251, Art. \u201cDo the Adepts deny the\n      Nebular Theory?\u201d\n\n 1021 Had Astronomers, in their present state of knowledge, merely held to\n      the hypothesis of Laplace, which was simply the formation of the\n      Planetary System, it might in time have resulted in something like\n      an approximate truth. But the two parts of the general problem\u2014that\n      of the formation of the Universe, or the formation of the Suns and\n      Stars from the Primitive Matter, and then the development of the\n      Planets round their Sun\u2014rest on quite different facts in Nature and\n      are even so viewed by Science itself. They are at the opposite poles\n      of Being.\n\n 1022 Aristotle\u2019s _Physica_, viii. 1.\n\n 1023 _Hypoth\u00e8ses Cosmogoniques_, p. 3, Wolf.\n\n 1024 Vol. I., p. 185, quoted by Wolf, p. 3. Wolf\u2019s argument is here\n      summarised.\n\n 1025 Note vii. Summarized from Wolf, p. 6.\n\n 1026 _Five Years of Theosophy_, pp. 241, 242, and 239.\n\n 1027 But the spectra of these nebul\u00e6 have never yet been ascertained.\n      When they _are_ found with bright lines, then only may they be\n      cited.\n\n 1028 _Hypoth\u00e8ses Cosmogoniques_, p. 3.\n\n 1029 Mr. Crookes\u2019 Protyle must not be regarded as the _primary_ stuff,\n      out of which the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, in accordance with the immutable\n      laws of Nature, wove our Solar System. This Protyle cannot even be\n      the Prima Materia of Kant, which that great mind saw used up in the\n      formation of the worlds, and thus existing no longer in a diffused\n      state. Protyle is a _mediate_ phase in the progressive\n      differentiation of Cosmic Substance from its normal undifferentiated\n      state. It is, then, the aspect assumed by Matter in its middle\n      passage into full objectivity.\n\n 1030 See Stanza III, Commentary 9, (p. 109) about \u201cLight,\u201d or \u201c_Cold_\n      Flame,\u201d where it is explained that the \u201cMother\u201d\u2014Chaos\u2014is a cold\n      Fire, a cool Radiance, colourless, formless, devoid of every\n      quality. \u201c_Motion as the One Eternal_ IS, _and contains the\n      potentialities of every quality in the Manvantaric Worlds_,\u201d it is\n      said.\n\n 1031 _Hypoth\u00e8ses Cosmogoniques_, pp. 4, 5.\n\n 1032 _World\u2010Life_, p. 196.\n\n 1033 _Westminster Review_, XX., July 27, 1868.\n\n 1034 Vol. XIV. p. 252.\n\n 1035 _Hypoth\u00e8ses Cosmogoniques._\n\n 1036 Which \u201cLight\u201d we call Fohat.\n\n 1037 This is a mistake, which implies a material agent, distinct from the\n      influences which move it, _i.e._, blind matter and perhaps \u201cGod\u201d\n      again, whereas this One Life is the very God and Gods \u201cItself.\u201d\n\n 1038 The same error.\n\n 1039 _Popular Science Review_, Vol. X.\n\n 1040 \u201cIs the J\u00eeva a myth, as Science says, or is it not?\u201d ask some\n      Theosophists, wavering between materialistic and idealistic Science.\n      The difficulty of really grasping Esoteric problems concerning the\n      \u201cultimate state of Matter\u201d is again the old crux of the _objective_\n      and the _subjective_. What is Matter? Is the Matter of our present\n      objective consciousness anything but our _sensations_? True, the\n      sensations we receive come _from without_, but can we really\u2014except\n      in terms of phenomena\u2014speak of the \u201cgross matter\u201d of this plane as\n      an entity apart from and independent of us? To all such arguments\n      Occultism answers: True, in _reality_ Matter is not independent of,\n      or existent outside, our perceptions. Man is an _illusion_: granted.\n      But the existence and actuality of other, still more illusive, but\n      not less _actual_, entities than we are, is not a claim which is\n      lessened, but rather strengthened, by this doctrine of Ved\u00e2ntic and\n      even Kantian Idealism.\n\n 1041 See _Mus\u00e9e des Sciences_, August, 1856.\n\n 1042 Book II. of the _Commentary on the Book of Dzyan_.\n\n 1043 Even the question of the plurality of worlds inhabited by sentient\n      creatures is rejected, or is approached with the greatest caution!\n      And yet see what the great astronomer, Camille Flammarion, says in\n      his _Pluralit\u00e9 des Mondes_.\n\n 1044 Nevertheless, it may be shown on the testimony of the _Bible_\n      itself, and of such good Christian theologians as Cardinal Wiseman,\n      that this plurality is taught in both the _Old_ and the _New\n      Testaments_.\n\n 1045 See _Plurality of Worlds_, Vol. II.\n\n 1046 See on this _La Pluralit\u00e9 des Mondes Habit\u00e9s_, par C. Flammarion,\n      wherein is given a list of the many men of Science who have written\n      to prove the theory.\n\n 1047 _World\u2010Life_, pp. 496\u2010498, _et seq._\n\n 1048 _World\u2010Life._\n\n 1049 _The Book of Enoch._ Trans. by Archbishop Laurence, Ch. LXXIX.\n\n 1050 The \u00c2tm\u00e2, or Spirit, the Spiritual SELF, passing like a thread\n      through the five Subtle Bodies, or Principles, Koshas, is called\n      \u201cThread\u2010soul,\u201d or S\u00fbtr\u00e2tm\u00e2 in Ved\u00e2ntic Philosophy.\n\n 1051 \u201cThe Septenary Principle,\u201d _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 197.\n\n 1052 _Pythagorean Triangle_, by the Rev. G. Oliver, p. 36.\n\n 1053 See Kant\u2019s _Critique de la Raison Pure_, Barui\u2019s transl., II. 54.\n\n 1054 Plutarch, _De Placitis Philosophorum_.\n\n 1055 In the Greek and Latin Churches\u2014which regard marriage as one of the\n      sacraments\u2014the officiating priest during the marriage ceremony\n      represents the apex of the triangle; the bride, its left feminine\n      side, and the bridegroom the right side, while the base line is\n      symbolized by the row of witnesses, the bridesmaids and best men.\n      But behind the priest there is the Holy of Holies, with its\n      mysterious containments and symbolic meaning, inside of which no one\n      but the consecrated priests should enter. In the early days of\n      Christianity the marriage ceremony was a mystery and a true symbol.\n      Now, however, even the Churches have lost the true meaning of this\n      symbolism.\n\n 1056 _New Aspects of Life and Religion_, by Henry Pratt, M.D., p. 7. Ed.\n      1886.\n\n 1057 _Ibid._, pp. 7, 8.\n\n 1058 _Ibid._, p. 9.\n\n 1059 _Pythagorean Triangle_, by the Rev. G. Oliver, pp. 18, 19.\n\n 1060 P. 387.\n\n 1061 P. 387.\n\n 1062 In the World of Form, symbolism finding expression in the Pyramids,\n      has in them both triangle and square, four co\u2010equal triangles or\n      surfaces, four basic points, and the fifth\u2014the apex.\n\n 1063 Pp. 385, 386.\n\n 1064 _Op. cit._ By Isaac Myer. P. 174.\n\n 1065 P. 175.\n\n 1066 P. 175.\n\n 1067 \u201cThe lowest designation, or the Deity in Nature, the more general\n      term Elohim, is translated God.\u201d (P. 175.) Such recent works as the\n      _Qabbalah_ of Mr. Isaac Myer, and of Mr. S. L. MacGregor Mathers,\n      fully justify our attitude towards the Jehovistic Deity. It is not\n      the transcendental, philosophical, and highly metaphysical\n      abstraction of the original Kabalistic thought\u2014Ain\u2010Suph\u2010Shekinah\u2010\n      Adam\u2010Kadmon, and all that follows\u2014that we oppose, but the\n      crystallization of all these into the highly unphilosophical,\n      repulsive, and anthropomorphic Jehovah, the androgynous and _finite_\n      deity, for which eternity, omnipotence, and omniscience are claimed.\n      We do not war against the _Ideal Reality_, but the hideous\n      theological _Shadow_.\n\n 1068 Let not the word \u201cPsychology\u201d cause the reader, by association of\n      ideas, to carry his thought to modern \u201cPsychologists,\u201d so\u2010called,\n      whose _Idealism_ is another name for uncompromising Materialism, and\n      whose pretended Monism is no better than a mask to conceal the void\n      of final annihilation\u2014even of consciousness. Here _spiritual_\n      Psychology is meant.\n\n 1069 \u201cVishv\u00e2nara is not merely the manifested objective world, but the\n      one physical basis [the horizontal line of the triangle] from which\n      the whole objective world starts into existence.\u201d And this is the\n      Cosmic Duad, the Androgynous Substance. Only beyond this is the true\n      Protyle.\n\n 1070 T. Subba Row. See _Theosophist_, Feb. 1887.\n\n 1071 By W. Crookes, F.R.S., V.P.C.S., delivered at the Royal Institution,\n      London, on Friday, February 18th, 1887.\n\n 1072 How true it is will be fully demonstrated only on that day when Mr.\n      Crookes\u2019 discovery of radiant matter will have resulted in a further\n      elucidation with regard to the true source of light, and will have\n      revolutionized all the present speculations. Further familiarity\n      with the northern streamers of the _aurora borealis_ may help the\n      recognition of this truth.\n\n 1073 _Genesis of the Elements_, p. 1.\n\n 1074 _De Placit. Philos._\n\n 1075 _The Path_, I. 10, p. 297.\n\n 1076 P. 11.\n\n 1077 Corresponding on the cosmic scale with the Spirit, Soul, Mind, Life,\n      and the three Vehicles\u2014the Astral, the M\u00e2y\u00e2vic and the Physical\n      Bodies (of mankind), whatever division is made.\n\n 1078 _Ibid._ p. 16.\n\n 1079 Vol. I, p. 429.\n\n 1080 _Ibid._, p. 21.\n\n 1081 \u201cThe Lord is a consuming _fire_.\u201d \u201cIn him was _life_, and the life\n      was the light of men.\u201d\n\n 1082 Which if separated _alchemically_ would yield the Spirit of Life,\n      and its Elixir.\n\n 1083 Foremost of all, the postulate that there is no such thing in Nature\n      as _inorganic_ substances or bodies. Stones, minerals, rocks, and\n      even chemical \u201catoms\u201d are simply organic units in profound lethargy.\n      Their coma has an end and their inertia becomes activity.\n\n 1084 _Ibid._, p. 144.\n\n 1085 The orthography of the name\u2014as spelt by himself\u2014is Leibniz. He was\n      of Slavonian descent though born in Germany.\n\n 1086 _Monadologie_, Introd.\n\n 1087 \u201cLeibnitz\u2019s dynamism,\u201d says Professor Lachelier, \u201cwould offer but\n      little difficulty if, with him, the monad had remained a simple atom\n      of _blind force_. But....\u201d One perfectly understands the perplexity\n      of Modern Materialism!\n\n 1088 _The Path_, I. 10, p. 297.\n\n 1089 Leibnitz was an _absolute_ Idealist in maintaining that \u201cmaterial\n      atoms are contrary to reason.\u201d (_Syst\u00e8me Nouveau_, Erdmann, p. 126,\n      col. 2.) For him Matter was a simple representation of the Monad,\n      whether human or atomic. Monads, he thought (as do we), are\n      everywhere. Thus the human soul is a Monad, and every cell in the\n      human body has its Monad, as has every cell in animal, vegetable,\n      and even in the so\u2010called _inorganic_ bodies. His Atoms are the\n      molecules of modern Science, and his Monads those _simple atoms_\n      that Materialistic Science takes on faith, though it will never\n      succeed in _interviewing_ them\u2014except in imagination. But Leibnitz\n      is rather contradictory in his views about Monads. He speaks of his\n      \u201cMetaphysical Points\u201d and \u201cFormal Atoms,\u201d at one time as\n      _realities_, occupying space; at another as pure spiritual _ideas_;\n      then he again endows them with objectivity and aggregates and\n      positions in their co\u2010relations.\n\n 1090 _Examen des Principes du P. Malebranche._\n\n 1091 The Atoms of Leibnitz have, in truth, nothing but the name in common\n      with the atoms of the Greek Materialists, or even the molecules of\n      Modem Science. He calls them \u201cFormal Atoms,\u201d and compares them to\n      the \u201cSubstantial Forms\u201d of Aristotle. (See _Syst\u00e8me Nouveau_, \u00a7 3.)\n\n 1092 Letter to Father Desbosses, _Correspondence_, xviii.\n\n 1093 _Monadologie_, \u00a7 60. Leibnitz, like Aristotle, calls the \u201ccreated\u201d\n      or _emanated_ Monads (the Elementals issued from Cosmic Spirits or\n      Gods)\u2014Entelechies, \u1f18\u03bd\u03c4\u03b5\u03bb\u03ad\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1\u03b9, and \u201cincorporeal automata.\u201d\n      (_Monadologie_ \u00a7 18.)\n\n 1094 These three \u201crough divisions\u201d correspond to Spirit, Mind (or Soul),\n      and Body, in the human constitution.\n\n 1095 Brother C. H. A. Bjerregaard, in the lecture already mentioned,\n      warns his audience not to regard the Sephiroth too much as\n      _individualities_, but to avoid at the same time seeing in them\n      _abstractions_. \u201cWe shall never arrive at the truth,\u201d he says, \u201cmuch\n      less the power of associating with these celestials, until we return\n      to the simplicity and fearlessness of the primitive ages, when men\n      mixed freely with the gods, and the gods descended among men and\n      guided them in truth and holiness.\u201d (P. 296.) \u201cThere are several\n      designations for \u2018angels\u2019 in the Bible, which clearly show that\n      beings like the elementals of the Kabbala and the monads of\n      Leibnitz, must be understood by that term rather than that which is\n      commonly understood. They are called \u2018morning stars,\u2019 \u2018flaming\n      fires,\u2019 \u2018the mighty ones,\u2019 and St. Paul sees them in his cosmogonic\n      vision as \u2018Principalities and Powers.\u2019 Such names as these preclude\n      the idea of personality, and we find ourselves compelled to think of\n      them as impersonal existences ... as an _influence_, a spiritual\n      substance, or _conscious_ force.\u201d (Pp. 321, 322.)\n\n 1096 _Buddhist Catechism_, by H. S. Olcott, President of the Theosophical\n      Society, p. 51.\n\n 1097 _Ibid._ 51, 52.\n\n 1098 We refer those who would regard the statement as an impertinence or\n      irreverence levelled at accepted Science, to Dr. James Hutchinson\n      Stirling\u2019s work _As regards Protoplasm_, which is a defence of a\n      Vital Principle _versus_ the Molecularists\u2014Huxley, Tyndall, Vogt,\n      and Co.\u2014and request them to examine whether it is true or not to say\n      that, though the scientific premisses may not be always correct,\n      they are, nevertheless, accepted, to fill up a gap or a hole in some\n      beloved materialistic hobby. Speaking of protoplasm and the organs\n      of man, as \u201cviewed by Mr. Huxley,\u201d the author says: \u201cProbably then,\n      in regard to any continuity in protoplasm of power, of form, or of\n      substance, we have seen _lacun\u00e6_ enow. Nay, Mr. Huxley himself can\n      be adduced in evidence on the same side. Not rarely do we find in\n      his essay admissions of _probability_, where it is _certainty_ that\n      is alone in place. He says, for example: \u2018It is more than probable\n      that _when_ the vegetable world is thoroughly explored we _shall_\n      find all plants in possession of the same powers.\u2019 When a conclusion\n      is decidedly announced, it is rather disappointing to be told, as\n      here, that the premisses are still to collect [!!].... Again, here\n      is a passage in which he is seen to cut his own \u2018_basis_\u2019 from\n      beneath his own feet. After telling us that all forms of protoplasm\n      consist of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen \u2018in very complex\n      union,\u2019 he continues: \u2018To this complex combination, _the nature of\n      which has never been determined with exactness_ [!!], the name of\n      _protein_ has been applied.\u2019 This, plainly, is an identification, on\n      Mr. Huxley\u2019s own part, of protoplasm and _protein_; and what is said\n      of one, being necessarily true of the other, it follows that he\n      admits the nature of protoplasm never to have been determined with\n      exactness, and that even in his eyes the _lis_ is still _sub\n      judice_. This admission is strengthened by the words, too, \u2018If we\n      use this term (protein) with such _caution_ as may properly arise\n      out of our _comparative ignorance_ of the things for which it\n      stands\u2019 \u201d ... etc. (pp. 33 and 34, ed. 1872, in reply to Mr. Huxley\n      in _Yeast_).\n\n      This is the eminent Huxley, the king of physiology and biology, who\n      is proven playing at blind man\u2019s buff with _premisses_ and _facts_!\n      What may not the \u201csmaller fry\u201d of Science do after this!\n\n 1099 \u201cThe Cycles of Matter,\u201d a name given by Professor Winchell to an\n      Essay written in 1860.\n\n 1100 _World\u2010Life_, pp. 535, 548.\n\n 1101 Quoted in B\u00fcchner\u2019s _Force and Matter_.\n\n 1102 Men of Science will say: We deny, because nothing of the kind has\n      ever come within the scope of our experience. But, as argued by\n      Charles Richet, the Physiologist: \u201cSo be it, but have you at least\n      demonstrated the contrary?... Do not, at any rate, deny _\u00e0 priori_.\n      Actual Science is not sufficiently advanced to give you such\n      right.\u201d\u2014_La Suggestion Mentale et le Calcul des Probabilit\u00e9s._\n\n 1103 _Lectures on the Philosophy of History_, p. 26. Sibree\u2019s Eng.\n      Transl.\n\n 1104 _Isis Unveiled_, Vol. 1, p. 34.\n\n 1105 This symbolism does not prevent these now seemingly mythic\n      personages from having ruled the Earth once upon a time under the\n      human form of actual living, though truly divine and god\u2010like Men.\n      The opinion of Colonel Vallancey\u2014and also of Count de Gebelin\u2014that\n      the \u201cnames of the Kabiri appear to be all allegorical, and to have\n      signified no more [?] than an almanac of the vicissitudes of the\n      seasons\u2014calculated for the operations of agriculture\u201d (_Collect. de\n      Reb. Hibern._, No. 13, Pr\u00e6f. Sect. 5), is as absurd as his assertion\n      that \u00c6on, Cronus, Saturn and Dagon are all one, namely, the\n      \u201cPatriarch Adam.\u201d The Kabiri were the instructors of mankind in\n      agriculture, because they were the Regents over the seasons and\n      Cosmic Cycles. Hence it was they who regulated, as Planetary Spirits\n      or Angels (Messengers), the _mysteries_ of the _art_ of agriculture.\n\n 1106 \u201cWho dread Karma\u2010Nemesis,\u201d would be better.\n\n 1107 Dryden.\n\n 1108 Not all, however, for there are men of Science awakening to truth.\n      This is what we read: \u201cWhatever way we turn our eyes we encounter a\n      mystery ... all in Nature for us is the unknown.... Yet they are\n      numerous, those superficial minds for whom nothing can be produced\n      by natural forces outside of facts observed long ago, consecrated in\n      books and grouped more or less skilfully with the help of theories\n      whose ephemeral duration ought, by this time, to have demonstrated\n      their insufficiency, .... I do not pretend to contest the\n      possibility of invisible beings, of a nature different from ours and\n      capable of moving matter to action. Profound philosophers have\n      admitted this in all epochs, as a consequence of the great law of\n      continuity which rules the universe. That intellectual life, which\n      we see starting in some way from non\u2010being (_n\u00e9ant_) and gradually\n      reaching man, can it stop abruptly at man to re\u00e4ppear only in the\n      infinite, in the sovereign regulator of the world? This is little\n      probable.\u201d Therefore, \u201cI no more deny the existence of spirits than\n      I deny soul, while I yet try to explain certain facts without this\n      hypothesis.\u201d _The Non\u2010Defined Forces, Historical and Experimental\n      Researches_, p. 3. (Paris, 1877.) The author is A. de Rochas, a\n      well\u2010known man of Science in France, and his work is one of the\n      signs of the time.\n\n 1109 ix. 9.\n\n 1110 xxxviii. 31, 32.\n\n 1111 _Astronomie Antique._\n\n 1112 The Pleiades, as all know, are the seven stars beyond the Bull,\n      which appear at the beginning of spring. They have a very Occult\n      meaning in the Hind\u00fb Esoteric Philosophy, and are connected with\n      _Sound_ and other mystic principles in Nature.\n\n 1113 See _Astronomie Antique_, pp. 63 to 74.\n\n 1114 _Temple de Jerusalem_, Vol. II, Part II, Chap. xxx.\n\n 1115 Ch. vii.\n\n 1116 Quoted by De Mirville, _Des Esprits_, iv. p. 58.\n\n 1117 _Natural Genesis_, ii. p. 318.\n\n 1118 _Pro\u0153m_, 2.\n\n 1119 _Astronomy of the Ancients_, Lewis, p. 264.\n\n 1120 _Natural Genesis_, ii. p. 319.\n\n 1121 Proclus, _In Tim\u00e6um_, i.\n\n 1122 _Genesis_, xlix.\n\n 1123 Creuzer, iii. p. 930.\n\n 1124 _Cyrop\u00e6dia_, viii. p. 7, as quoted in _Des Esprits_, iv. p. 55.\n\n 1125 _Des Esprits_, iv. pp. 59, 60.\n\n 1126 _Origine de tous les Cultes_, \u201cZodiaque.\u201d\n\n 1127 _Vie de Notre Seigneur J\u00e9sus Christ_, I. p. 9.\n\n 1128 Whether many nations have seen that identical star, or not, we all\n      know that the sepulchres of the \u201cthree Magi\u201d\u2014who rejoice in the\n      quite Teutonic names of Kaspar and Melchior, Balthazar being the\n      only exception, and the two having little of the Chaldean ring in\n      them\u2014are shown by the priests in the famous cathedral of Cologne,\n      where the Magian bodies are not only supposed, but firmly believed\n      to have been buried.\n\n 1129 This tradition about the \u201cseventy planets\u201d that preside over the\n      destinies of nations, is based on the Occult cosmogonical teaching\n      that besides our own septenary chain of World\u2010Planets, there are\n      many more in the Solar System.\n\n 1130 _Des Esprits_, iv. p. 67.\n\n 1131 _The Mythological Astronomy of the Ancients Demonstrated_; Part the\n      Second, or The Key of Urania: pp. 23, 24. Ed. 1823.\n\n 1132 Every scholar is aware, of course, that the Chaldeans claimed the\n      same digits (432), or 432,000, for their Divine Dynasties as the\n      Hind\u00fbs do for their Mah\u00e2yuga, namely 4,320,000. Therefore has Dr.\n      Sepp, of Munich, undertaken to support Kepler and Wilford in their\n      charge that the Hind\u00fbs borrowed them from the Christians, and the\n      Chaldeans from the Jews, who, it is claimed, expected their Messiah\n      in the lunar year of the world 4,320!!! As these figures, according\n      to ancient writers, were based by Berosus on the 120 Saroses\u2014each of\n      the divisions meaning six Neroses of 600 years each, making a sum\n      total of 432,000 years\u2014they would appear to be peremptory, remarks\n      De Mirville (_Des Esprits_, iii. p. 24). So the pious professor of\n      Munich undertook to explain them _in the correct way_. He claims to\n      have solved the riddle by showing that \u201cthe saros being composed,\n      according to Pliny, of 222 synodial months, to wit, 18 years 6/10,\u201d\n      the calculator naturally fell back on the figures \u201cgiven by Suidas,\u201d\n      who affirmed that the \u201c120 saroses made 2,222 sacerdotal and cyclic\n      years, which equalled 1,656 solar years.\u201d (_Vie de Notre Seigneur\n      J\u00e9sus Christ_, ii. p. 417.)\n\n      But Suidas said nothing of the kind; and, even supposing he had, he\n      would prove little, if anything, by such a statement. The Neroses\n      and Saroses were the same thorn in the side of _uninitiated_ ancient\n      writers as the apocalyptic 666 of the \u201cGreat Beast\u201d is in that of\n      the modern, and the former figures have found their unlucky Newtons,\n      as have the latter.\n\n 1133 See _Isis Unveiled_, ii. p. 132.\n\n 1134 The reader has to bear in mind that the phrase \u201cclimacteric year\u201d\n      has more than the usual significance, when used by Occultists and\n      Mystics. It is not only a critical period, during which some great\n      change is periodically expected, whether in human or cosmic\n      constitution, but it likewise pertains to universal spiritual\n      changes. The Europeans called every 63rd year the \u201cgrand\n      climacteric,\u201d and perhaps justly supposed those years to be the\n      years produced by multiplying 7 into the odd numbers 3, 5, 7 and 9.\n      But 7 is the real scale of Nature, in Occultism, and 7 has to be\n      multiplied in quite a different way and method than is as yet known\n      to European nations.\n\n 1135 _Des Espirits_; iv. p. 61.\n\n 1136 ii. p. 490.\n\n 1137 See _Recueil de l\u2019Acad\u00e9mie des Inscriptions_, 1853, quoted in _Des\n      Esprits_, iv. p. 62.\n\n 1138 _Ruins of Empires_, p. 360.\n\n 1139 See pp. 54, 196, _et seqq_.\n\n 1140 For a detailed scientific proof of this conclusion, see page 121 of\n      M. Bailly\u2019s work, where the subject is discussed technically.\n\n 1141 Why it should be \u201cfictitious\u201d can never be made plain by European\n      Scientists.\n\n 1142 Bailly\u2019s _Trait\u00e9 de l\u2019Astronomie Indienne et Orientale_, pp. xx. _et\n      seq._ Ed. 1787.\n\n 1143 Ch. III. \u201cOn Matter.\u201d\n\n 1144 _Lecture on Protoplasm_, by Mr. Huxley.\n\n 1145 Ganot\u2019s _Physics_, p. 68, Atkinson\u2019s Translation.\n\n 1146 See Vol. I. pp. 338, 339, quoted from _Le Myst\u00e8re et la Science_,\n      Conf\u00e9rences, P\u00e8re F\u00e9lix de Notre Dame.\n\n 1147 Behold the work of Cycles and their periodical return! Those who\n      denied such \u201cEntities\u201d (Forces) to be bodies, and called them\n      \u201cSpaces,\u201d were the prototypes of our modern \u201cscience\u2010struck\u201d public,\n      and their official teachers, who speak of the Forces of Nature as\n      the imponderable energy of Matter and as modes of motion, and yet\n      hold electricity, for one, as being as _atomic as Matter_\n      itself\u2014(Helmholtz). Inconsistency and contradiction reign as much in\n      official as in heterodox Science.\n\n 1148 _The Virgin of the World_ of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, rendered\n      into English by Dr. Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland. Pp. 83, 84.\n\n 1149 \u201cHermes here includes as Gods the sensible Forces of Nature, the\n      elements and phenomena of the Universe,\u201d remarks Dr. A. Kingsford in\n      a foot\u2010note explaining it very correctly. So does Eastern\n      Philosophy.\n\n 1150 _Ibid._, pp. 64, 65.\n\n 1151 See also Section IX, THE COMING FORCE.\n\n 1152 \u201cO Toom, Toom! issued from the great [female] which is in the bosom\n      of the waters [the great Deep or Space], luminous through the two\n      Lions,\u201d the dual Force, or power of the two _solar eyes_, or the\n      electro\u2010positive and the electro\u2010negative forces. See _Book of the\n      Dead_, ch. iii.\n\n 1153 See _Book of the Dead_, chapter xvii.\n\n 1154 Chapter lxxix.\n\n 1155 An image expressing the succession of divine functions, the\n      transmutation of one form into another, or the correlation of\n      forces. Aam is the electro\u2010positive force, devouring all others, as\n      Saturn devoured his progeny.\n\n 1156 Aanroo is in the domain of Osiris, a field divided into _fourteen_\n      sections, \u201csurrounded with an _iron_ enclosure, within which grows\n      the _corn of life seven_ cubits high,\u201d the K\u00e2ma Loka of the\n      Egyptians. Those only of the dead, who know the names of the\n      janitors of the \u201cseven halls,\u201d will be admitted into Amenti _for\n      ever_; _i.e._, those who have passed through the Seven Races of each\n      Round\u2014otherwise they will rest in the _lower fields_; and it\n      represents also the seven successive Devachans, or Lokas. In Amenti\n      one becomes pure spirit for the eternity (xxx. 4); while in Aanroo\n      the \u201csoul of the spirit,\u201d or the Defunct, is _devoured_ each time by\n      Ur\u00e6us\u2014the Serpent, Son of the Earth (in another sense the primordial\n      vital principles in the Sun), _i.e._, the Astral Body of the\n      deceased or the \u201cElementary\u201d fades out and disappears in the \u201cSon of\n      the Earth,\u201d _limited_ time. The soul quits the fields of Aanroo and\n      goes on earth under any shape it likes to assume. (See chapter\n      xcix., _Book of the Dead_.)\n\n 1157 See _Book of the Dead_, chapter cviii. 4.\n\n 1158 Maspero in the _Guide au Mus\u00e9e de Boulaq_, p. 152. Ed. 1883.\n\n 1159 See _Book of the Dead_, ch. xciv.\n\n 1160 _Revue des Deux Mondes_, 1865, pp. 157 and 158.","title":"The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1 of 4: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":316542}