{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_56880/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_56880","id":"gutenberg_56880","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/56880","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 III.\n\n                    The Theosophical Publishing House\n\n                                  London\n\n                                   1897\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nPreface.\nIntroductory.\nSection I. Preliminary Survey.\nSection II. Modern Criticism and the Ancients.\nSection III. The Origin of Magic.\nSection IV. The Secresy of Initiates.\nSection V. Some Reasons for Secresy.\nSection VI. The Dangers of Practical Magic.\nSection VII. Old Wine in New Bottles.\nSection VIII. The Book of Enoch the Origin and the Foundation of\nChristianity.\nSection IX. Hermetic and Kabalistic Doctrines.\nSection X. Various Occult Systems of Interpretations of Alphabets and\nNumerals.\nSection XI. The Hexagon with the Central Point, or the Seventh Key.\nSection XII. The Duty of the True Occultist toward Religions.\nSection XIII. Post\u2010Christian Adepts and their Doctrines.\nSection XIV. Simon and his Biographer Hippolytus.\nSection XV. St. Paul the real Founder of present Christianity.\nSection XVI. Peter a Jewish Kabalist, not an Initiate.\nSection XVII. Apollonius of Tyana.\nSection XVIII. Facts underlying Adept Biographies.\nSection XIX. St. Cyprian of Antioch.\nSection XX. The Eastern Gupta Vidya & the Kabalah.\nSection XXI. Hebrew Allegories.\nSection XXII. The \u201cZohar\u201d on Creation and the Elohim.\nSection XXIII. What the Occultists and Kabalists have to say.\nSection XXIV. Modern Kabalists in Science and Occult Astronomy.\nSection XXV. Eastern and Western Occultism.\nSection XXVI. The Idols and the Teraphim.\nSection XXVII. Egyptian Magic.\nSection XXVIII. The Origin of the Mysteries.\nSection XXIX. The Trial of the Sun Initiate.\nSection XXX. The Mystery \u201cSun of Initiation.\u201d\nSection XXXI. The Objects of the Mysteries.\nSection XXXII. Traces of the Mysteries.\nSection XXXIII. The Last of the Mysteries in Europe.\nSection XXXIV. The Post\u2010Christian Successors to the Mysteries.\nSection XXXV. Symbolism of Sun and Stars.\nSection XXXVI. Pagan Sidereal Worship, or Astrology.\nSection XXXVII. The Souls of the Stars\u2014Universal Heliolatry.\nSection XXXVIII. Astrology and Astrolatry.\nSection XXXIX. Cycles and Avataras.\nSection XL. Secret Cycles.\nSection XLI. The Doctrine of Avataras.\nSection XLII. The Seven Principles.\nSection XLIII. The Mystery of Buddha.\nSection XLIV. \u201cReincarnations\u201d of Buddha.\nSection XLV. An Unpublished Discourse of Buddha.\nSection XLVI. Nirvana\u2010Moksha.\nSection XLVII. The Secret Books of \u201cLam\u2010Rin\u201d and Dzyan.\nSection XLVIII. Amita Buddha Kwan\u2010Shai\u2010yin, and Kwan\u2010yin.\u2014What the \u201cBook\nof Dzyan\u201d and the Lamaseries of Tsong\u2010Kha\u2010pa say.\nSection XLIX. Tsong\u2010Kha\u2010pa.\u2014Lohans in China.\nSection L. A few more Misconceptions Corrected.\nSection LI. The \u201cDoctrine of the Eye\u201d & the \u201cDoctrine of the Heart,\u201d or\nthe \u201cHeart\u2019s Seal.\u201d\nSome Papers On The Bearing Of Occult Philosophy On Life.\n   Paper I. A Warning.\n   Paper II. An Explanation.\n   Paper III. A Word Concerning the Earlier Papers.\n   Appendix. Notes on Papers I., II. and III.\n   Notes On Some Oral Teachings.\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\n    As for what thou hearest others say, who persuade the many that\n    the soul when once freed from the body neither suffers ... evil\n    nor is conscious, I know that thou art better grounded in the\n    doctrines received by us from our ancestors and in the sacred\n    orgies of Dionysus than to believe them; for the mystic symbols\n    are well known to us who belong to the Brotherhood.\n\n    PLUTARCH.\n\n    The problem of life is man. Magic, or rather Wisdom, is the\n    evolved knowledge of the potencies of man\u2019s interior being, which\n    forces are divine emanations, as intuition is the perception of\n    their origin, and initiation our induction into that knowledge....\n    We begin with instinct; the end is omniscience.\n\n    A. WILDER.\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThe task of preparing this volume for the press has been a difficult and\nanxious one, and it is necessary to state clearly what has been done. The\npapers given to me by H. P. B. were quite unarranged, and had no obvious\norder: I have, therefore, taken each paper as a separate Section, and have\narranged them as sequentially as possible. With the exception of the\ncorrection of grammatical errors and the elimination of obviously un\u2010\nEnglish idioms, the papers are as H. P. B. left them, save as otherwise\nmarked. In a few cases I have filled in a gap, but any such addition is\nenclosed within square brackets, so as to be distinguished from the text.\nIn \u201cThe Mystery of Buddha\u201d a further difficulty arose; some of the\nSections had been written four or five times over, each version containing\nsome sentences that were not in the others; I have pieced these versions\ntogether, taking the fullest as basis, and inserting therein everything\nadded in any other versions. It is, however, with some hesitation that I\nhave included these Sections in the _Secret Doctrine_. Together with some\nmost suggestive thought, they contain very numerous errors of fact, and\nmany statements based on exoteric writings, not on esoteric knowledge.\nThey were given into my hands to publish, as part of the Third Volume of\nthe _Secret Doctrine_, and I therefore do not feel justified in coming\nbetween the author and the public, either by altering the statements, to\nmake them consistent with fact, or by suppressing the Sections. She says\nshe is acting entirely on her own authority, and it will be obvious to any\ninstructed reader that she makes\u2014possibly deliberately\u2014many statements so\nconfused that they are mere blinds, and other statements\u2014probably\ninadvertently\u2014that are nothing more than the exoteric misunderstandings of\nesoteric truths. The reader must here, as everywhere, use his own\njudgment, but feeling bound to publish these Sections, I cannot let them\ngo to the public without a warning that much in them is certainly\nerroneous. Doubtless, had the author herself issued this book, she would\nhave entirely re\u2010written the whole of this division; as it was, it seemed\nbest to give all she had said in the different copies, and to leave it in\nits rather unfinished state, for students will best like to have what she\nsaid as she said it, even though they may have to study it more closely\nthan would have been the case had she remained to finish her work.\n\nThe quotations made have been as far as possible found, and correct\nreferences given; in this most laborious work a whole band of earnest and\npainstaking students, under the guidance of Mrs. Cooper\u2010Oakley, have been\nmy willing assistants. Without their aid it would not have been possible\nto give the references, as often a whole book had to be searched through,\nin order to find a paragraph of a few lines.\n\nThis volume completes the papers left by H. P. B., with the exception of a\nfew scattered articles that yet remain and that will be published in her\nown magazine _Lucifer_. Her pupils are well aware that few will be found\nin the present generation to do justice to the occult knowledge of H. P.\nB. and to her magnificent sweep of thought, but as she can wait to future\ngenerations for the justification of her greatness as a teacher, so can\nher pupils afford to wait for the justification of their trust.\n\nANNIE BESANT.\n\n\n\n\n\nINTRODUCTORY.\n\n\n\u201cPower belongs to him who knows;\u201d this is a very old axiom. Knowledge\u2014the\nfirst step to which is the power of comprehending the truth, of discerning\nthe real from the false\u2014is for those only who, having freed themselves\nfrom every prejudice and conquered their human conceit and selfishness,\nare ready to accept every and any truth, once it is demonstrated to them.\nOf such there are very few. The majority judge of a work according to the\nrespective prejudices of its critics, who are guided in their turn by the\npopularity or unpopularity of the author, rather than by its own faults or\nmerits. Outside the Theosophical circle, therefore, the present volume is\ncertain to receive at the hands of the general public a still colder\nwelcome than its two predecessors have met with. In our day no statement\ncan hope for a fair trial, or even hearing, unless its arguments run on\nthe line of legitimate and accepted enquiry, remaining strictly within the\nboundaries of official Science or orthodox Theology.\n\nOur age is a paradoxical anomaly. It is pre\u00ebminently materialistic and as\npre\u00ebminently pietistic. Our literature, our modern thought and progress,\nso called, both run on these two parallel lines, so incongruously\ndissimilar and yet both so popular and so very orthodox, each in its own\nway. He who presumes to draw a third line, as a hyphen of reconciliation\nbetween the two, has to be fully prepared for the worst. He will have his\nwork mangled by reviewers, mocked by the sycophants of Science and Church,\nmisquoted by his opponents, and rejected even by the pious lending\nlibraries. The absurd misconceptions, in so\u2010called cultured circles of\nsociety, of the ancient Wisdom\u2010Religion (Bodhism) after the admirably\nclear and scientifically\u2010presented explanations in _Esoteric Buddhism_,\nare a good proof in point. They might have served as a caution even to\nthose Theosophists who, hardened in an almost life\u2010long struggle in the\nservice of their Cause, are neither timid with their pen, nor in the least\nappalled by dogmatic assumption and scientific authority. Yet, do what\nTheosophical writers may, neither Materialism nor doctrinal pietism will\never give their Philosophy a fair hearing. Their doctrines will be\nsystematically rejected, and their theories denied a place even in the\nranks of those scientific ephemera, the ever\u2010shifting \u201cworking hypotheses\u201d\nof our day. To the advocate of the \u201canimalistic\u201d theory, our\ncosmogenetical and anthropogenetical teachings are \u201cfairy\u2010tales\u201d at best.\nFor to those who would shirk any moral responsibility, it seems certainly\nmore convenient to accept descent from a common simian ancestor and see a\nbrother in a dumb, tailless baboon, than to acknowledge the fatherhood of\nPitris, the \u201cSons of God,\u201d and to have to recognise as a brother a\nstarveling from the slums.\n\n\u201cHold back!\u201d shout in their turn the pietists. \u201cYou will never make of\nrespectable church\u2010going Christians Esoteric Buddhists!\u201d\n\nNor are we, in truth, in any way anxious to attempt the metamorphosis. But\nthis cannot, nor shall it, prevent Theosophists from saying what they have\nto say, especially to those who, in opposing to our doctrine Modern\nScience, do so not for her own fair sake, but only to ensure the success\nof their private hobbies and personal glorification. If we cannot prove\nmany of our points, no more can they; yet we may show how, instead of\ngiving historical and scientific facts\u2014for the edification of those who,\nknowing less than they, look to Scientists to do their thinking and form\ntheir opinions\u2014the efforts of most of our scholars seem solely directed to\nkilling ancient facts, or distorting them into props to support their own\nspecial views. This will be done in no spirit of malice or even criticism,\nas the writer readily admits that most of those she finds fault with stand\nimmeasurably higher in learning than herself. But great scholarship does\nnot preclude bias and prejudice, nor is it a safeguard against self\u2010\nconceit, but rather the reverse. Moreover, it is but in the legitimate\ndefence of our own statements, _i.e._, the vindication of Ancient Wisdom\nand its great truths, that we mean to take our \u201cgreat authorities\u201d to\ntask.\n\nIndeed, unless the precaution of answering beforehand certain objections\nto the fundamental propositions in the present work be adopted\u2014objections\nwhich are certain to be made on the authority of this, that, or another\nscholar concerning the Esoteric character of all the archaic and ancient\nworks on Philosophy\u2014our statements will be once more contradicted and even\ndiscredited. One of the main points in this Volume is to indicate in the\nworks of the old \u00c2ryan, Greek, and other Philosophers of note, as well as\nin all the world\u2010scriptures, the presence of a strong Esoteric allegory\nand symbolism. Another of the objects is to prove that the key of\ninterpretation, as furnished by the Eastern Hindu\u2010Buddhistic canon of\nOccultism\u2014fitting as well the Christian Gospels as it does archaic\nEgyptian, Greek, Chald\u00e6an, Persian, and even Hebrew\u2010Mosaic Books\u2014must have\nbeen one common to all the nations, however divergent may have been their\nrespective methods and exoteric \u201cblinds.\u201d These claims are vehemently\ndenied by some of the foremost scholars of our day. In his Edinburgh\nLectures, Prof. Max M\u00fcller discarded this fundamental statement of the\nTheosophists by pointing to the Hindu Sh\u00e2stras and Pandits, who know\nnothing of such Esotericism.(1) The learned Sanskrit scholar stated in so\nmany words that there was no hidden meaning, no Esoteric element or\n\u201cblinds,\u201d either in the _Pur\u00e2nas_ or the _Upanishads_. Considering that\nthe word \u201cUpanishad\u201d means, when translated, the \u201cSecret Doctrine,\u201d the\nassertion is, to say the least, extraordinary. Sir M. Monier Williams\nagain holds the same view with regard to Buddhism. To hear him is to\nregard Gautama, the Buddha, as an enemy of every pretence to Esoteric\nteachings. He himself never taught them! All such \u201cpretences\u201d to Occult\nlearning and \u201cmagic powers\u201d are due to the later Arhats, the subsequent\nfollowers of the \u201cLight of Asia\u201d! Prof. B. Jowett, again, as\ncontemptuously passes the sponge over the \u201cabsurd\u201d interpretations of\nPlato\u2019s _Tim\u00e6us_ and the Mosaic Books by the Neoplatonists. There is not a\nbreath of the Oriental (Gnostic) spirit of Mysticism in Plato\u2019s\n_Dialogues_, the Regius Professor of Greek tells us, nor any approach to\nScience, either. Finally, to cap the climax, Prof. Sayce, the\nAssyriologist, although he does not deny the actual presence, in the\nAssyrian tablets and cuneiform literature, of a hidden meaning\u2014\n\n\n    Many of the sacred texts ... so written as to be intelligible only\n    to the initiated\u2014\n\n\nyet insists that the \u201ckeys and glosses\u201d thereof are now in the hands of\nthe Assyriologists. The modern scholars, he affirms, have in their\npossession clues to the interpretation of the Esoteric Records,\n\n\n    Which even the initiated priests [of Chald\u00e6a] did not possess.\n\n\nThus, in the scholarly appreciation of our modern Orientalists and\nProfessors, Science was in its infancy in the days of the Egyptian and\nChald\u00e6an Astronomers. P\u00e2nini, the greatest Grammarian in the world, was\nunacquainted with the art of writing. So was the Lord Buddha, and everyone\nelse in India until 300 B.C. The grossest ignorance reigned in the days of\nthe Indian Rishis, and even in those of Thales, Pythagoras, and Plato.\nTheosophists must indeed be superstitious ignoramuses to speak as they do,\nin the face of such learned evidence to the contrary!\n\nTruly it looks as if, since the world\u2019s creation, there has been but one\nage of real knowledge on earth\u2014the present age. In the misty twilight, in\nthe grey dawn of history, stand the pale shadows of the old Sages of world\nrenown. They were hopelessly groping for the correct meaning of their own\nMysteries, the spirit whereof has departed without revealing itself to the\nHierophants, and has remained latent in space until the advent of the\ninitiates of Modern Science and Research. The noontide brightness of\nknowledge has only now arrived at the \u201cKnow\u2010All,\u201d who, basking in the\ndazzling sun of induction, busies himself with his Penelopeian task of\n\u201cworking hypotheses,\u201d and loudly asserts his rights to universal\nknowledge. Can anyone wonder, then, that according to present views the\nlearning of the ancient Philosopher, and even sometimes that of his direct\nsuccessors in the past centuries, has ever been useless to the world and\nvalueless to himself? For, as explained repeatedly in so many words, while\nthe Rishis and the Sages of old have walked far over the arid fields of\nmyth and superstition, the medi\u00e6val Scholar, and even the average\neighteenth century Scientist, have always been more or less cramped by\ntheir \u201csupernatural\u201d religion and beliefs. True, it is generally conceded\nthat some ancient and also medi\u00e6val Scholars, such as Pythagoras, Plato,\nParacelsus, and Roger Bacon, followed by a host of glorious names, had\nindeed left not a few landmarks over precious mines of Philosophy and\nunexplored lodes of Physical Science. But then the actual excavation of\nthese, the smelting of the gold and silver, and the cutting of the\nprecious jewels they contain, are all due to the patient labours of the\nmodern man of Science. And is it not to the unparalleled genius of the\nlatter that the ignorant and hitherto\u2010deluded world owes a correct\nknowledge of the real nature of the Kosmos, of the true origin of the\nuniverse and man, as revealed in the automatic and mechanical theories of\nthe Physicists, in accordance with strictly scientific Philosophy? Before\nour cultured era, Science was but a name, Philosophy a delusion and a\nsnare. According to the modest claims of contemporary authority on genuine\nScience and Philosophy, the Tree of Knowledge has only now sprung from the\ndead weeds of superstition, as a beautiful butterfly emerges from an ugly\ngrub. We have, therefore, nothing for which to thank our forefathers. The\nAncients have at best prepared and fertilised the soil; it is the Moderns\nwho have planted the seeds of knowledge and reared the lovely plants\ncalled blank negation and sterile agnosticism.\n\nSuch, however, is not the view taken by Theosophists. They repeat what was\nstated twenty years ago. It is not sufficient to speak of the \u201cuntenable\nconceptions of an uncultured past\u201d (Tyndall); of the \u201c_parler enfantin_\u201d\nof the Vaidic poets (Max M\u00fcller); of the \u201cabsurdities\u201d of the\nNeoplatonists (Jowett); and of the ignorance of the Chald\u00e6o\u2010Assyrian\ninitiated Priests with regard to their own symbols, when compared with the\nknowledge thereon of the British Orientalist (Sayce). Such assumptions\nhave to be proven by something more solid than the mere word of these\nscholars. For no amount of boastful arrogance can hide the intellectual\nquarries out of which the representations of so many modern Philosophers\nand Scholars have been carved. How many of the most distinguished European\nScientists have derived honour and credit for the mere dressing\u2010up of the\nideas of these old Philosophers, whom they are ever ready to disparage, is\nleft to an impartial posterity to say. Thus it does seem not altogether\nuntrue as stated in _Isis Unveiled_, to say of certain Orientalists and\nScholars of dead languages, that they will allow their boundless conceit\nand self\u2010opinionatedness to run away with their logic and reasoning\npowers, rather than concede to the ancient Philosophers the knowledge of\nanything the modern do not know.\n\nAs part of this work treats of the Initiates and the secret knowledge\nimparted during the Mysteries, the statements of those who, in spite of\nthe fact that Plato was an Initiate, maintain that no hidden Mysticism is\nto be discovered in his works, have to be first examined. Too many of the\npresent scholars, Greek and Sanskrit, are but too apt to forego facts in\nfavour of their own preconceived theories based on personal prejudice.\nThey conveniently forget, at every opportunity, not only the numerous\nchanges in language, but also that the allegorical style in the writings\nof old Philosophers and the secretiveness of the Mystics had their _raison\nd\u2019\u00eatre_; that both the pre\u2010Christian and the post\u2010Christian classical\nwriters\u2014the great majority at all events\u2014were under the sacred obligation\nnever to divulge the solemn secrets communicated to them in the\nsanctuaries; and that this alone is sufficient to sadly mislead their\ntranslators and profane critics. But these critics will admit nothing of\nthe kind, as will presently be seen.\n\nFor over twenty\u2010two centuries everyone who has read Plato has been aware\nthat, like most of the other Greek Philosophers of note, he had been\ninitiated; that therefore, being tied down by the Sodalian Oath, he could\nspeak of certain things only in veiled allegories. His reverence for the\nMysteries is unbounded; he openly confesses that he writes\n\u201cenigmatically,\u201d and we see him take the greatest precautions to conceal\nthe true meaning of his words. Every time the subject touches the greater\nsecrets of Oriental Wisdom\u2014the cosmogony of the universe, or the ideal\npre\u00ebxisting world\u2014Plato shrouds his Philosophy in the profoundest\ndarkness. His _Tim\u00e6us_ is so confused that no one but an Initiate can\nunderstand the hidden meaning. As already said in _Isis Unveiled_:\n\n\n    The speculations of Plato in the _Banquet_ on the creation, or\n    rather the evolution, of primordial men, and the essay on\n    cosmogony in the _Tim\u00e6us_, must be taken allegorically if we\n    accept them at all. It is this hidden Pythagorean meaning in\n    _Tim\u00e6us_, _Cratylus_, and _Parmenides_, and a few other trilogies\n    and dialogues, that the Neoplatonists ventured to expound, as far\n    as the theurgical vow of secresy would allow them. The Pythagorean\n    doctrine that God is the Universal Mind diffused through all\n    things, and the dogma of the soul\u2019s immortality, are the leading\n    features in these apparently incongruous teachings. His piety and\n    the great veneration he felt for the Mysteries are sufficient\n    warrant that Plato would not allow his indiscretion to get the\n    better of that deep sense of responsibility which is felt by every\n    Adept. \u201cConstantly perfecting himself in perfect Mysteries a man\n    in them alone becomes truly perfect,\u201d says he in the _Ph\u00e6drus_.\n\n    He took no pains to conceal his displeasure that the Mysteries had\n    become less secret than formerly. Instead of profaning them by\n    putting them within the reach of the multitude, he would have\n    guarded them with jealous care against all but the most earnest\n    and worthy of his disciples.(2) While mentioning the Gods on every\n    page, his monotheism is unquestionable, for the whole thread of\n    his discourse indicates that by the term \u201cGods\u201d he means a class\n    of beings lower in the scale than Deities, and but one grade\n    higher than men. Even Josephus perceived and acknowledged this\n    fact, despite the natural prejudice of his race. In his famous\n    onslaught upon Apion, this historian says: \u201cThose, however, among\n    the Greeks who philosophized in accordance with truth were not\n    ignorant of anything, ... nor did they fail to perceive the\n    chilling superficialities of the mythical allegories, on which\n    account they justly despised them.... By which thing Plato, being\n    moved, says it is not necessary to admit any one of the other\n    poets into \u2018the Commonwealth,\u2019 and he dismisses Homer blandly,\n    after having crowned him and pouring unguent upon him, in order\n    that indeed he should not destroy by _his myths_, the orthodox\n    belief respecting one God.\u201d(3)\n\n\nAnd this is the \u201cGod\u201d of every Philosopher, God infinite and impersonal.\nAll this and much more, which there is no room here to quote, leads one to\nthe undeniable certitude that (_a_), as all the Sciences and Philosophies\nwere in the hands of the temple Hierophants, Plato, as initiated by them,\nmust have known them; and (_b_), that logical inference alone is amply\nsufficient to justify anyone in regarding Plato\u2019s writings as allegories\nand \u201cdark sayings,\u201d veiling truths which he had no right to divulge.\n\nThis established, how comes it that one of the best Greek scholars in\nEngland, Prof. Jowett, the modern translator of Plato\u2019s works, seeks to\ndemonstrate that none of the Dialogues\u2014including even the _Tim\u00e6us_\u2014have\nany element of Oriental Mysticism about them? Those who can discern the\ntrue spirit of Plato\u2019s Philosophy will hardly be convinced by the\narguments which the Master of Balliol College lays before his readers.\n\u201cObscure and repulsive\u201d to him, the _Tim\u00e6us_ may certainly be; but it is\nas certain that this obscurity does not arise, as the Professor tells his\npublic, \u201cin the infancy of physical science,\u201d but rather in its days of\nsecresy; not \u201cout of the confusion of theological, mathematical, and\nphysiological notions,\u201d or \u201cout of the desire to conceive the whole of\nNature without any adequate knowledge of the parts.\u201d(4) For Mathematics\nand Geometry were the backbone of Occult cosmogony, hence of \u201cTheology,\u201d\nand the physiological notions of the ancient Sages are being daily\nverified by Science in our age; at least, to those who know how to read\nand understand ancient Esoteric works. The \u201cknowledge of the parts\u201d avails\nus little, if this knowledge only leads us the more to ignorance of the\nWhole, or the \u201cnature and reason of the Universal,\u201d as Plato called Deity,\nand causes us to blunder most egregiously because of our boasted inductive\nmethods. Plato may have been \u201cincapable of induction, or generalization in\nthe modern sense\u201d;(5) he may have been ignorant also, of the circulation\nof the blood, which, we are told, \u201cwas absolutely unknown to him,\u201d(6) but\nthen, there is naught to disprove that he knew what blood _is_\u2014and this is\nmore than any modern Physiologist or Biologist can claim nowadays.\n\nThough a wider and far more generous margin for knowledge is allowed the\n\u201cphysical philosopher\u201d by Prof. Jowett than by nearly any other modern\ncommentator and critic, nevertheless, his criticism so considerably\noutweighs his laudation, that it may be as well to quote his own words, to\nshow clearly his bias. Thus he says:\n\n\n    To bring sense under the control of reason; to find some way\n    through the labyrinth or chaos of appearances, either the highway\n    of mathematics, or more devious paths suggested by the analogy of\n    man with the world and of the world with man; to see that all\n    things have a cause and are tending towards an end\u2014this is the\n    spirit of the ancient physical philosopher.(7) But we neither\n    appreciate the conditions of knowledge to which he was subjected,\n    nor have the ideas which fastened upon his imagination the same\n    hold upon us. For he is hovering between matter and mind; he is\n    under the dominion of abstractions; his impressions are taken\n    almost at random from the outside of nature; he sees the light,\n    but not the objects which are revealed by the light; and he brings\n    into juxtaposition things which to us appear wide as the poles\n    asunder, because he finds nothing between them.\n\n\nThe last proposition but one must evidently be distasteful to the modern\n\u201cphysical philosopher,\u201d who sees the \u201cobjects\u201d before him, but fails to\nsee the light of the Universal Mind, which reveals them, _i.e._, who\nproceeds in a diametrically opposite way. Therefore the learned Professor\ncomes to the conclusion that the ancient Philosopher, whom he now judges\nfrom Plato\u2019s _Tim\u00e6us_, must have acted in a decidedly unphilosophical and\neven irrational way. For:\n\n\n    He passes abruptly from persons to ideas and numbers, and _from\n    ideas and numbers to persons_,(8) he confuses subject and object,\n    _first_ and _final_ causes, and in dreaming of geometrical\n    figures(9) is lost in a flux of sense. And now an effort of mind\n    is required on our parts _in order to understand his double\n    language_, or to apprehend _the twilight character of the\n    knowledge_ and the genius of ancient philosophers which, under\n    such conditions [?], seems by a divine power in many instances to\n    have anticipated the truth.(10)\n\n\nWhether \u201csuch conditions\u201d imply those of ignorance and mental stolidity in\n\u201cthe genius of ancient philosophers\u201d or something else, we do not know.\nBut what we do know is that the meaning of the sentences we have\nitalicized is perfectly clear. Whether the Regius Professor of Greek\nbelieves or disbelieves in a hidden sense of geometrical figures and of\nthe Esoteric \u201cjargon,\u201d he nevertheless admits the presence of a \u201cdouble\nlanguage\u201d in the writings of these Philosophers. Thence he admits a hidden\nmeaning, which must have had an interpretation. Why, then, does he flatly\ncontradict his own statement on the very next page? And why should he deny\nto the _Tim\u00e6us_\u2014that pre\u00ebminently Pythagorean (mystic) Dialogue\u2014any Occult\nmeaning and take such pains to convince his readers that\n\n\n    The influence which the _Tim\u00e6us_ has exercised upon posterity is\n    partly due to a misunderstanding.\n\n\nThe following quotation from his Introduction is in direct contradiction\nwith the paragraph which precedes it, as above quoted:\n\n\n    In the supposed depths of this dialogue the Neo\u2010Platonists found\n    hidden meanings and connections with the Jewish and Christian\n    Scriptures, and out of them they dictated doctrines quite at\n    variance with the spirit of Plato. Believing that he was inspired\n    by the Holy Ghost, or had received his wisdom from Moses,(11) they\n    seemed to find in his writings the Christian Trinity, the Word,\n    the Church ... and the Neo\u2010Platonists had a method of\n    interpretation which could elicit any meaning out of any words.\n    They were really incapable of distinguishing between the opinions\n    of one philosopher and another, or between the serious thoughts of\n    Plato and his passing fancies.(12)... [But] there is no danger of\n    the modern commentators on the _Tim\u00e6us_ falling into the absurdity\n    of the Neo\u2010Platonists.\n\n\nNo danger whatever, of course, for the simple reason that the modern\ncommentators have never had the key to Occult interpretations. And before\nanother word is said in defence of Plato and the Neoplatonists, the\nlearned master of Balliol College ought to be respectfully asked: What\ndoes, or can he know of the Esoteric canon of interpretation? By the term\n\u201ccanon\u201d is here meant that key which was communicated orally from \u201cmouth\nto ear\u201d by the Master to the disciple, or by the Hierophant to the\ncandidate for initiation; this from time immemorial throughout a long\nseries of ages, during which the inner\u2014not public\u2014Mysteries were the most\nsacred institution of every land. Without such a key no correct\ninterpretation of either the _Dialogues_ of Plato or any Scripture, from\nthe _Vedas_ to Homer, from the _Zend Avesta_ to the Mosaic Books, is\npossible. How then can the Rev. Dr. Jowett know that the interpretations\nmade by the Neoplatonists of the various sacred books of the nations were\n\u201cabsurdities?\u201d Where, again, has he found an opportunity of studying these\n\u201cinterpretations\u201d? History shows that all such works were destroyed by the\nChristian Church Fathers and their fanatical catechumens, wherever they\nwere found. To say that such men as Ammonius, a genius and a saint, whose\nlearning and holy life earned for him the title of Theodidaktos (\u201cGod\u2010\ntaught\u201d), such men as Plotinus, Porphyry, and Proclus, were \u201cincapable of\ndistinguishing between the opinions of one philosopher and another, or\nbetween the serious thoughts of Plato and his fancies,\u201d is to assume an\nuntenable position for a Scholar. It amounts to saying that, (_a_) scores\nof the most famous Philosophers, the greatest Scholars and Sages of Greece\nand of the Roman Empire were dull fools, and (_b_) that all the other\ncommentators, lovers of Greek Philosophy, some of them the acutest\nintellects of the age\u2014who do not agree with Dr. Jowett\u2014are also fools and\nno better than those whom they admire. The patronising tone of the last\nabove\u2010quoted passage is modulated with the most _na\u00efve_ conceit,\nremarkable even in our age of self\u2010glorification and mutual\u2010admiration\ncliques. We have to compare the Professor\u2019s views with those of some other\nscholars.\n\nSays Prof. Alexander Wilder of New York, one of the best Platonists of the\nday, speaking of Ammonius, the founder of the Neoplatonic School:\n\n\n    His deep spiritual intuition, his extensive learning, his\n    familiarity with the Christian Fathers, Pant\u00e6nus, Clement, and\n    Athenagoras, and with the most erudite philosophers of the time,\n    all fitted him for the labour which he performed so\n    thoroughly.(13) He was successful in drawing to his views the\n    greatest scholars and public men of the Roman Empire, who had\n    little taste for wasting time in dialectic pursuits or\n    superstitious observances. The results of his ministration are\n    perceptible at the present day in every country of the Christian\n    world; every prominent system of doctrine now bearing the marks of\n    his plastic hand. Every ancient philosophy has had its votaries\n    among the moderns; and even Judaism ... has taken upon itself\n    changes which were suggested by the \u201cGod\u2010taught\u201d Alexandrian....\n    He was a man of rare learning and endowments, of blameless life\n    and amiable disposition. His almost superhuman ken and many\n    excellencies won for him the title of Theodidaktos; but he\n    followed the modest example of Pythagoras, and only assumed the\n    title of Philalethian, or lover of truth.(14)\n\n\nIt would be happy for truth and fact were our modern scholars to follow as\nmodestly in the steps of their great predecessors. But not\nthey\u2014Philalethians!\n\nMoreover, we know that:\n\n\n    Like Orpheus, Pythagoras, Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus\n    himself,(15) Ammonius committed nothing to writing.(16) Instead he\n    ... communicated his most important doctrines to persons duly\n    instructed and disciplined, imposing on them the obligations of\n    secresy, as was done before him by Zoroaster and Pythagoras, and\n    in the Mysteries. Except a few treatises of his disciples we have\n    only the declarations of his adversaries from which to ascertain\n    what he actually taught.(17)\n\n\nIt is from the biassed statements of such \u201cadversaries,\u201d probably, that\nthe learned Oxford translator of Plato\u2019s Dialogues came to the conclusion\nthat:\n\n\n    That which was truly great and truly characteristic of him\n    [Plato], his effort to realise and connect abstractions, _was not\n    understood_ by them [the Neoplatonists] at all [?].\n\n\nHe states, contemptuously enough for the ancient methods of intellectual\nanalysis, that:\n\n\n    In the present day ... an ancient philosopher is to be interpreted\n    from himself and by the contemporary history of thought.(18)\n\n\nThis is like saying that the ancient Greek canon of proportion (if ever\nfound), and the Athena Promachus of Phidias, have to be interpreted in the\npresent day from the contemporary history of architecture and sculpture,\nfrom the Albert Hall and Memorial Monument, and the hideous Madonnas in\ncrinolines sprinkled over the fair face of Italy. Prof. Jowett remarks\nthat \u201cmysticism is not criticism.\u201d No; but neither is criticism always\nfair and sound judgment.\n\n\n    La critique est ais\u00e9e, mais l\u2019art est difficile.\n\n\nAnd such \u201cart\u201d our critic of the Neoplatonists\u2014his Greek scholarship\nnotwithstanding\u2014lacks from _a_ to _z_. Nor has he, very evidently, the key\nto the true spirit of the Mysticism of Pythagoras and Plato, since he\ndenies even in the _Tim\u00e6us_ an element of Oriental Mysticism, and seeks to\nshow Greek Philosophy re\u00e4cting upon the East, forgetting that the truth is\nthe exact reverse; that it is \u201cthe deeper and more pervading spirit of\nOrientalism\u201d that had\u2014through Pythagoras and his own initiation into the\nMysteries\u2014penetrated into the very depths of Plato\u2019s soul.\n\nBut Dr. Jowett does not see this. Nor is he prepared to admit that\nanything good or rational\u2014in accordance with the \u201ccontemporary history of\nthought\u201d\u2014could ever come out of that Nazareth of the Pagan Mysteries; nor\neven that there is anything to interpret of a hidden nature in the\n_Tim\u00e6us_ or any other Dialogue. For him,\n\n\n    The so\u2010called mysticism of Plato is purely Greek, arising out of\n    his imperfect knowledge(19) and high aspirations, and is the\n    growth of an age in which philosophy is not wholly separated from\n    poetry and mythology.(20)\n\n\nAmong several other equally erroneous propositions, it is especially the\nassumptions (_a_) that Plato was entirely free from any element of Eastern\nPhilosophy in his writings, and (_b_) that every modern scholar, without\nbeing a Mystic and a Kabalist himself, can pretend to judge of ancient\nEsotericism\u2014which we mean to combat. To do this we have to produce more\nauthoritative statements than our own would be, and bring the evidence of\nother scholars as great as Dr. Jowett, if not greater, specialists in\ntheir subjects, moreover, to bear on and destroy the arguments of the\nOxford Regius Professor of Greek.\n\nThat Plato was undeniably an ardent admirer and follower of Pythagoras no\none will deny. And it is equally undeniable, as Matter has it, that Plato\nhad inherited on the one hand his doctrines, and on the other had drawn\nhis wisdom, from the same sources as the Samian Philosopher.(21) And the\ndoctrines of Pythagoras are Oriental to the backbone, and even\nBr\u00e2hmanical; for this great Philosopher ever pointed to the far East as\nthe source whence he derived his information and his Philosophy, and\nColebrooke shows that Plato makes the same profession in his Epistles, and\nsays that he has taken his teachings \u201cfrom ancient and sacred\ndoctrines.\u201d(22) Furthermore, the ideas of both Pythagoras and Plato\ncoincide too well with the systems of India and with Zoroastrianism to\nadmit any doubt of their origin by anyone who has some acquaintance with\nthese systems. Again:\n\n\n    Pant\u00e6nus, Athenagoras, and Clement were thoroughly instructed in\n    the Platonic philosophy, and _comprehended_ its essential unity\n    with the Oriental systems.(23)\n\n\nThe history of Pant\u00e6nus and his contemporaries may give the key to the\nPlatonic, and at the same time Oriental, elements that predominate so\nstrikingly in the Gospels over the Jewish Scriptures.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION I. PRELIMINARY SURVEY.\n\n\nInitiates who have acquired powers and transcendental knowledge can be\ntraced back to the Fourth Root Race from our own age. As the multiplicity\nof the subjects to be dealt with prohibits the introduction of such a\nhistorical chapter, which, however historical in fact and truth, would be\nrejected _\u00e0 priori_ as blasphemy and fable by both Church and Science\u2014we\nshall only touch on the subject. Science strikes out, at its own sweet\nwill and fancy, dozens of names of ancient heroes, simply because there is\ntoo great an element of myth in their histories; the Church insists that\nbiblical patriarchs shall be regarded as historical personages, and terms\nher seven \u201cStar\u2010angels\u201d the \u201chistorical channels and agents of the\nCreator.\u201d Both are right, since each finds a strong party to side with it.\nMankind is at best a sorry herd of Panurgian sheep, following blindly the\nleader that happens to suit it at the moment. Mankind\u2014the majority at any\nrate\u2014hates to think for itself. It resents as an insult the humblest\ninvitation to step for a moment outside the old well\u2010beaten tracks, and,\njudging for itself, to enter into a new path in some fresh direction. Give\nit an unfamiliar problem to solve, and if its mathematicians, not liking\nits looks, refuse to deal with it, the crowd, unfamiliar with mathematics,\nwill stare at the unknown quantity, and getting hopelessly entangled in\nsundry _x_\u2019s and _y_\u2019s, will turn round, trying to rend to pieces the\nuninvited disturber of its intellectual Nirv\u00e2na. This may, perhaps,\naccount for the ease and extraordinary success enjoyed by the Roman Church\nin her conversions of nominal Protestants and Free\u2010thinkers, whose name is\nlegion, but who have never gone to the trouble of thinking for themselves\non these most important and tremendous problems of man\u2019s inner nature.\n\nAnd yet, if the evidence of facts, the records preserved in History, and\nthe uninterrupted anathemas of the Church against \u201cBlack Magic\u201d and\nMagicians of the accursed race of Cain, are not to be heeded, our efforts\nwill prove very puny indeed. When, for nearly two millenniums, a body of\nmen has never ceased to lift its voice against _Black_ Magic, the\ninference ought to be irrefutable that if Black Magic exists as a real\nfact, there must be somewhere its counterpart\u2014_White_ Magic. False silver\ncoins could have no existence if there were no genuine silver money.\nNature is dual in whatever she attempts, and this ecclesiastical\npersecution ought alone to have opened the eyes of the public long ago.\nHowever much travellers may be ready to pervert every fact with regard to\nabnormal powers with which certain men are gifted in \u201cheathen\u201d countries;\nhowever eager they may be to put false constructions on such facts, and\u2014to\nuse an old proverb\u2014\u201cto call white swan black goose,\u201d and to kill it, yet\nthe evidence of even Roman Catholic missionaries ought to be taken into\nconsideration, once they swear in a body to certain facts. Nor is it\nbecause they choose to see Satanic agency in manifestations of a certain\nkind, that their evidence as to the existence of such powers can be\ndisregarded. For what do they say of China? Those missionaries who have\nlived in the country for long years, and have seriously studied every fact\nand belief that may prove an obstacle to their success in making\nconversions, and who have become familiar with every exoteric rite of both\nthe official religion and sectarian creeds\u2014all swear to the existence of a\ncertain body of men, whom no one can reach but the Emperor and a select\nbody of high officials. A few years ago, before the war in Tonkin, the\narchbishop in Pekin, on the report of some hundreds of missionaries and\nChristians, wrote to Rome the identical story that had been reported\ntwenty\u2010five years before, and had been widely circulated in clerical\npapers. They had fathomed, it was said, the mystery of certain official\ndeputations, sent at times of danger by the Emperor and ruling powers to\ntheir Sheu and Kiuay, as they are called among the people. These Sheu and\nKiuay, they explained, were the Genii of the mountains, endowed with the\nmost miraculous powers. They are regarded as the protectors of China, by\nthe \u201cignorant\u201d masses; as the incarnation of Satanic power by the good and\n\u201clearned\u201d missionaries.\n\n\n    The Sheu and Kiuay are men belonging to another state of being to\n    that of the ordinary man, or to the state they enjoyed while they\n    were clad in their bodies. They are disembodied spirits, ghosts\n    and larv\u00e6, living, nevertheless, in objective form on earth, and\n    dwelling in the fastnesses of mountains, inaccessible to all but\n    those whom they permit to visit them.(24)\n\n\nIn Tibet certain ascetics are also called Lha, Spirits, by those with whom\nthey do not choose to communicate. The Sheu and Kiuay, who enjoy the\nhighest consideration of the Emperor and Philosophers, and of\nConfucianists who believe in no \u201cSpirits,\u201d are simply Lohans\u2014Adepts who\nlive in the greatest solitude in their unknown retreats.\n\nBut both Chinese exclusiveness and Nature seem to have allied themselves\nagainst European curiosity and\u2014as it is sincerely regarded in\nTibet\u2014desecration. Marco Polo, the famous traveller, was perhaps the\nEuropean who ventured farthest into the interior of these countries. What\nwas said of him in 1876 may now be repeated.\n\n\n    The district of the Gobi wilderness, and, in fact, the whole area\n    of Independent Tartary and Tibet is carefully guarded against\n    foreign intrusion. Those who are permitted to traverse it are\n    under the particular care and pilotage of certain agents of the\n    chief authority, and are in duty bound to convey no intelligence\n    respecting places and persons to the outside world. But for this\n    restriction, many might contribute to these pages accounts of\n    exploration, adventure, and discovery that would be read with\n    interest. The time will come, sooner or later, when the dreadful\n    sand of the desert will yield up its long\u2010buried secrets, and then\n    there will indeed be unlooked\u2010for mortifications for our modern\n    vanity.\n\n    \u201cThe people of Pashai,\u201d(25) says Marco Polo, the daring traveller\n    of the thirteenth century, \u201care great adepts in sorceries and the\n    diabolic arts.\u201d And his learned editor adds: \u201cThis Paschai, or\n    Udyana, was the native country of Padma Sambhava, one of the chief\n    apostles of Lamaism, _i.e._, of Tibetan Buddhism, and a great\n    master of enchantments. The doctrines of Sakya, as they prevailed\n    in Udyana _in old times_, were probably strongly tinged with\n    Siva\u00eftic magic, and the Tibetans still regard the locality as the\n    classic ground of sorcery and witchcraft.\u201d\n\n    The \u201cold times\u201d are just like the \u201cmodern times\u201d; nothing is\n    changed as to magical practices except that they have become still\n    more esoteric and arcane, and that the caution of the adepts\n    increases in proportion to the traveller\u2019s curiosity. Hiouen\u2010\n    Thsang says of the inhabitants: \u201cThe men ... are fond of study,\n    but pursue it with no ardour. _The science of magical formul\u00e6 has\n    become a regular professional business with them._\u201d(26) We will\n    not contradict the venerable Chinese pilgrim on this point, and\n    are willing to admit that in the seventh century _some_ people\n    made \u201ca professional business\u201d of magic; so, also, do _some_\n    people now, but certainly not the true adepts. Moreover, in that\n    century, Buddhism had hardly penetrated into Tibet, and its races\n    were steeped in the sorceries of the Bhon,\u2014the pre\u2010lama\u00efc\n    religion. It is not Hiouen\u2010Thsang, the pious, courageous man who\n    risked his life a hundred times to have the bliss of perceiving\n    Buddha\u2019s shadow in the cave of Peshawur, who would have accused\n    the good lamas and monkish thaumaturgists of \u201cmaking a\n    professional business\u201d of showing it to travellers.\n\n    The injunction of Gautama, contained in his answer to King\n    Prasenajit, his protector, who called on him to perform miracles,\n    must have been ever\u2010present to the mind of Hiouen\u2010Thsang. \u201cGreat\n    king,\u201d said Gautama, \u201cI do not teach the law to my pupils, telling\n    them, \u2018Go, ye saints, and before the eyes of the Br\u00e2hmans and\n    householders perform, by means of your supernatural powers,\n    miracles greater than any man can perform.\u2019 I tell them when I\n    teach them the law, \u2018Live ye saints, _hiding your good works, and\n    showing your sins_.\u2019 \u201d\n\n    Struck with the accounts of magical exhibitions witnessed and\n    recorded by travellers of every age who had visited Tartary and\n    Tibet, Colonel Yule comes to the conclusion that the natives must\n    have had \u201cat their command the whole encyclop\u00e6dia of modern\n    Spiritualists.\u201d Duhalde mentions among their sorceries the art of\n    producing by their invocations the figures of Laotseu(27) and\n    their divinities _in the air_, and \u201c_of making a pencil write\n    answers to questions without anybody touching it_.\u201d(28)\n\n    The former invocations pertain to the religious mysteries of their\n    sanctuaries; if done otherwise, or for the sake of _gain_, they\n    are considered _sorcery_, necromancy, and strictly forbidden. The\n    latter art, that of making a pencil write without contact, was\n    known and practised in China and other countries before the\n    Christian era. It is the A B C of magic in those countries.\n\n    When Hiouen\u2010Thsang desired to adore the shadow of Buddha, it was\n    not to \u201cprofessional magicians\u201d that he resorted, but to the power\n    of his own soul\u2010invocation; the power of prayer, faith, and\n    contemplation. All was dark and dreary near the cavern in which\n    the miracle was alleged to sometimes take place. Hiouen\u2010Thsang\n    entered and began his devotions. He made one hundred salutations,\n    but neither saw nor heard anything. Then, thinking himself too\n    sinful, he cried bitterly and despaired. But as he was about to\n    give up all hope, he perceived on the eastern wall a feeble light,\n    but it disappeared. He renewed his prayers, full of hope this\n    time, and again he saw the light, which flashed and disappeared\n    again. After this he made a solemn vow: he would not leave the\n    cave till he had the rapture to at last see the shadow of the\n    \u201cVenerable of the Age.\u201d He had to wait longer after this, for only\n    after two hundred prayers was the dark cave suddenly \u201cbathed in\n    light, and the shadow of Buddha, of a brilliant white colour, rose\n    majestically on the wall, as when the clouds suddenly open, and\n    all at once display the marvellous image of the \u2018Mountain of\n    Light.\u2019 A dazzling splendour lighted up the features of the divine\n    countenance. Hiouen\u2010Thsang was lost in contemplation and wonder,\n    and would not turn his eyes away from the sublime and incomparable\n    object.\u201d Hiouen\u2010Thsang adds in his own diary, _See\u2010yu\u2010kee_, that\n    it is only when man prays with sincere faith, and if he has\n    received from above a hidden impression, that he sees the shadow\n    clearly, but he cannot enjoy the sight for any length of time.\n    (Max M\u00fcller, _Buddhist Pilgrims_.)\n\n    From one end to the other the country is full of mystics,\n    religious philosophers, Buddhist saints and magicians. Belief in a\n    spiritual world, full of invisible beings who, on certain\n    occasions, appear to mortals objectively, is universal. \u201cAccording\n    to the belief of the nations of Central Asia,\u201d remarks I. J.\n    Schmidt, \u201cthe earth and its interior, as well as the encompassing\n    atmosphere, are filled with spiritual beings, which exercise an\n    influence, partly beneficent, partly malignant, on the whole of\n    organic and inorganic nature.... Especially are deserts, and other\n    wild and uninhabited tracts, or regions in which the influences of\n    nature are displayed on a gigantic and terrible scale, regarded as\n    the chief abode or rendez\u2010vous of evil spirits. And hence the\n    steppes of Turan, and in particular the great sandy desert of\n    Gobi, have been looked on as the dwelling place of malignant\n    beings, from days of hoary antiquity.\u201d\n\n    The treasures exhumed by Dr. Schliemann at Mycen\u00e6, have awakened\n    popular cupidity, and the eyes of adventurous speculators are\n    being turned toward the localities where the wealth of ancient\n    peoples is supposed to be buried, in crypt or cave, or beneath\n    sand or alluvial deposit. Around no other locality, not even Peru,\n    hang so many traditions as around the Gobi Desert. In independent\n    Tartary this howling waste of shifting sand was once, if report\n    speaks correctly, the seat of one of the richest empires the world\n    ever saw. Beneath the surface is said to lie such wealth in gold,\n    jewels, statuary, arms, utensils, and all that indicates\n    civilization, luxury, and fine arts, as no existing capital of\n    Christendom can show to\u2010day. The Gobi sand moves regularly from\n    east to west before terrific gales that blow continually.\n    Occasionally some of the hidden treasures are uncovered, but not a\n    native dare touch them, for the whole district is under the ban of\n    a mighty spell. Death would be the penalty. Bahti\u2014hideous, but\n    faithful gnomes\u2014guard the hidden treasures of this prehistoric\n    people, awaiting the day when the revolution of cyclic periods\n    shall again cause their story to be known for the instruction of\n    mankind.(29)\n\n\nThe above is purposely quoted from _Isis Unveiled_ to refresh the reader\u2019s\nmemory. One of the cyclic periods has just been passed, and we may not\nhave to wait to the end of Mah\u00e2 Kalpa to have revealed something of the\nhistory of the mysterious desert, in spite of the Bahti, and even the\nR\u00e2kshasas of India, not less \u201chideous.\u201d No tales or fictions were given in\nour earlier volumes, their chaotic state notwithstanding, to which chaos\nthe writer, entirely free from vanity, confesses publicly and with many\napologies.\n\nIt is now generally admitted that, from time immemorial, the distant East,\nIndia especially, was the land of knowledge and of every kind of learning.\nYet there is none to whom the origin of all her Arts and Sciences has been\nso much denied as to the land of the primitive \u00c2ryas. From Architecture\ndown to the Zodiac, every Science worthy of the name was imported by the\nGreeks, the mysterious Yavanas\u2014agreeably with the decision of the\nOrientalists! Therefore, it is but logical that even the knowledge of\nOccult Science should be refused to India, since of its general practice\nin that country less is known than in the case of any other ancient\npeople. It is so, simply because:\n\n\n    With the Hindus it was, and is, more esoteric, if possible, than\n    it was even among the Egyptian priests. So sacred was it deemed\n    that its existence was only half admitted, and it was only\n    practised in public emergencies. _It was more than a religious\n    matter, for it was [and is still] considered divine._ The Egyptian\n    hierophants, notwithstanding the practice of a stern and pure\n    morality, could not be compared for one moment with the ascetical\n    Gymnosophists, either in holiness of life or miraculous powers\n    developed in them by the supernatural abjuration of everything\n    earthly. By those who knew them well they were held in still\n    greater reverence than the magians of Chald\u00e6a. \u201cDenying themselves\n    the simplest comforts of life, they dwelt in woods, and led the\n    life of the most secluded hermits,\u201d(30) while their Egyptian\n    brothers at least congregated together. Notwithstanding the slur\n    thrown on all who practised magic and divination, history has\n    proclaimed them as possessing the greatest secrets in medical\n    knowledge and unsurpassed skill in its practice. Numerous are the\n    volumes preserved in Hindu Mathams, in which are recorded the\n    proofs of their learning. To attempt to say whether these\n    Gymnosophists were the real founders of magic in India, or whether\n    they only practised what had passed to them as an inheritance from\n    the earliest Rishis(31)\u2014the seven primeval sages\u2014would be regarded\n    as mere speculation by exact scholars.(32)\n\n\nNevertheless, this must be attempted. In _Isis Unveiled_, all that could\nbe stated about Magic was set down in the guise of hints; and thus, owing\nto the great amount of material scattered over two large volumes, much of\nits importance was lost upon the reader, while it still more failed to\ndraw his attention on account of the faulty arrangement. But hints may now\ngrow into explanations. One can never repeat it too often\u2014_Magic is as old\nas man_. It cannot any longer be called charlatanry or hallucination, when\nits lesser branches\u2014such as mesmerism, now miscalled \u201chypnotism,\u201d \u201cthought\nreading,\u201d \u201caction by suggestion,\u201d and what not else, only to avoid calling\nit by its right and legitimate name\u2014are being so seriously investigated by\nthe most famous Biologists and Physiologists of both Europe and America.\nMagic is indissolubly blended with the Religion of every country and is\ninseparable from its origin. It is as impossible for History to name the\ntime when it was not, as that of the epoch when it sprang into existence,\nunless the doctrines preserved by the Initiates are taken into\nconsideration. Nor can Science ever solve the problem of the origin of man\nif it rejects the evidence of the oldest records in the world, and refuses\nfrom the hand of the legitimate Guardians of the mysteries of Nature the\nkey to Universal Symbology. Whenever a writer has tried to connect the\nfirst foundation of Magic with a particular country or some historical\nevent or character, further research has shown his hypothesis to be\ngroundless. There is a most lamentable contradiction among the\nSymbologists on this point. Some would have it that Odin, the Scandinavian\npriest and monarch, originated the practice of Magic some 70 years B.C.,\nalthough it is spoken of repeatedly in the _Bible_. But as it was proven\nthat the mysterious rites of the priestesses Valas (Voilers) were greatly\nanterior to Odin\u2019s age(33), then Zoroaster came in for an attempt, on the\nground that he was the founder of Magian rites; but Ammianus Marcellinus,\nPliny and Arnobius, with other ancient Historians, have shown that\nZoroaster was but a reformer of Magic as practised by the Chald\u00e6ans and\nEgyptians, and not at all its founder.(34)\n\nWho, then, of those who have consistently turned their faces away from\nOccultism and even Spiritualism, as being \u201cunphilosophical\u201d and therefore\nunworthy of scientific thought, has a right to say that he has studied the\nAncients; or that, if he has studied them, he has understood all they have\nsaid? Only those who claim to be wiser than their generation, who think\nthat they know all that the Ancients knew, and thus, knowing far more to\u2010\nday, fancy that they are entitled to laugh at their ancient simple\u2010\nmindedness and superstition; those, who imagine they have discovered a\ngreat secret by declaring the ancient royal sarcophagus, now empty of its\nKing Initiate, to be a \u201ccorn\u2010bin,\u201d and the Pyramid that contained it, a\ngranary, perhaps a wine\u2010cellar!(35) Modern society, on the authority of\nsome men of Science, calls Magic charlatantry. But there are eight hundred\nmillions on the face of the globe who believe in it to this day; there are\nsaid to be twenty millions of perfectly sane and often very intellectual\nmen and women, members of that same society, who believe in its phenomena\nunder the name of Spiritualism. The whole ancient world, with its Scholars\nand Philosophers, its Sages and Prophets, believed in it. Where is the\ncountry in which it was not practised? At what age was it banished, even\nfrom our own country? In the New World as in the Old Country (the latter\nfar younger than the former), the Science of Sciences was known and\npractised from the remotest antiquity. The Mexicans had their Initiates,\ntheir Priest\u2010Hierophants and Magicians, and their crypts of Initiation. Of\nthe two statues exhumed in the Pacific States, one represents a Mexican\nAdept, in the posture prescribed for the Hindu ascetic, and the other an\nAztec Priestess, in a head\u2010gear which might be taken from the head of an\nIndian Goddess; while the \u201cGuatemalan Medal\u201d exhibits the \u201cTree of\nKnowledge\u201d\u2014with its hundreds of eyes and ears, symbolical of seeing and\nhearing\u2014encircled by the \u201cSerpent of Wisdom\u201d whispering into the ear of\nthe sacred bird. Bernard Diaz de Castilla, a follower of Cortez, gives\nsome idea of the extraordinary refinement, intelligence and civilization,\nand also of the magic arts of the people whom the Spaniards conquered by\nbrute force. Their pyramids are those of Egypt, built according to the\nsame secret canon of proportion as those of the Pharaohs, and the Aztecs\nappear to have derived their civilization and religion in more than one\nway from the same source as the Egyptians and, before these, the Indians.\nAmong all these three peoples arcane Natural Philosophy, or Magic, was\ncultivated to the highest degree.\n\nThat it was natural, not supernatural, and that the Ancients so regarded\nit, is shown by what Lucian says of the \u201claughing Philosopher,\u201d\nDemocritus, who, he tells his readers,\n\n\n    Believed in no [miracles] ... but applied himself to discover the\n    method by which the theurgists could produce them; in a word, his\n    philosophy brought him to the conclusion that magic was entirely\n    confined to the application and the imitation of the laws and the\n    works of nature.\n\n\nWho then can still call the Magic of the Ancients \u201csuperstition\u201d?\n\n\n    In this respect the opinion of Democritus is of the greatest\n    importance to us, since the Magi left by Xerxes, at Abdera, were\n    his instructors, and he had studied magic, moreover, for a\n    considerable time with the Egyptian priests.(36) For nearly ninety\n    years of the one hundred and nine of his life, this great\n    philosopher had made experiments, and noted them down in a book,\n    which, according to Petronius,(37) _treated of nature_\u2014facts that\n    he had verified himself. And we find him not only disbelieving in\n    and utterly rejecting miracles, but asserting that every one of\n    those that were authenticated by eye\u2010witnesses, had, and could\n    have taken place, for all, even the most _incredible_, were\n    produced according to _the _\u201chidden laws of nature\u201d.(38) ... Add\n    to this that Greece, the \u201clater cradle of the arts and sciences,\u201d\n    and India, cradle of religions, were, and one of them still is,\n    devoted to its study and practice\u2014and who shall venture to\n    discredit its dignity as a study, and its profundity as a\n    science?(39)\n\n\nNo true Theosophist will ever do so. For, as a member of our great\nOriental body, he knows indubitably that the Secret Doctrine of the East\ncontains the Alpha and the Omega of Universal Science; that in its obscure\ntexts, under the luxuriant, though perhaps too exuberant, growth of\nallegorical Symbolism, lie concealed the corner\u2010 and the key\u2010stones of all\nancient and modern knowledge. That Stone, brought down by the Divine\nBuilder, is now rejected by the too\u2010human workman, and this because, in\nhis lethal materiality, man has lost every recollection, not only of his\nholy childhood, but of his very adolescence, when he was one of the\nBuilders himself; when \u201cthe morning stars sang together, and the Sons of\nGod shouted for joy,\u201d after they had laid the measures for the foundations\nof the earth\u2014to use the deeply significant and poetical language of Job,\nthe Arabian Initiate. But those who are still able to make room in their\ninnermost selves for the Divine Ray, and who accept, therefore, the data\nof the Secret Sciences in good faith and humility, they know well that it\nis in this Stone that remains buried the absolute in Philosophy, which is\nthe key to all those dark problems of Life and Death, some of which, at\nany rate, may find an explanation in these volumes.\n\nThe writer is vividly alive to the tremendous difficulties that present\nthemselves in the handling of such abstruse questions, and to all the\ndangers of the task. Insulting as it is to human nature to brand truth\nwith the name of imposture, nevertheless we see this done daily and accept\nit. For every occult truth has to pass through such denial and its\nsupporters through martyrdom, before it is finally accepted; though even\nthen it remains but too often\u2014\n\n\n                                      A crown\n    Golden in show, yet but a wreath of thorns.\n\n\nTruths that rest on Occult mysteries will have, for one reader who may\nappreciate them, a thousand who will brand them as impostures. This is\nonly natural, and the only means to avoid it would be for an Occultist to\npledge himself to the Pythagorean \u201cvow of silence,\u201d and renew it every\nfive years. Otherwise, cultured society\u2014two\u2010thirds of which think\nthemselves in duty bound to believe that, since the first appearance of\nthe first Adept, one half of mankind practised deception and fraud on the\nother half\u2014cultured society will undeniably assert its hereditary and\ntraditional right to stone the intruder. Those benevolent critics, who\nmost readily promulgate the now famous axiom of Carlyle with regard to his\ncountrymen, of being \u201cmostly fools,\u201d having taken preliminary care to\ninclude themselves safely in the only fortunate exceptions to this rule,\nwill in this work gain strength and derive additional conviction of the\nsad fact, that the human race is simply composed of knaves and congenital\nidiots. But this matters very little. The vindication of the Occultists\nand their Archaic Science is working itself slowly but steadily into the\nvery heart of society, hourly, daily, and yearly, in the shape of two\nmonster branches, two stray off\u2010shoots of the trunk of Magic\u2014Spiritualism\nand the Roman Church. Fact works its way very often through fiction. Like\nan immense boa\u2010constrictor, Error, in every shape, encircles mankind,\ntrying to smother in her deadly coils every aspiration towards truth and\nlight. But Error is powerful only on the surface, prevented as she is by\nOccult Nature from going any deeper; for the same Occult Nature encircles\nthe whole globe, in every direction, leaving not even the darkest corner\nunvisited. And, whether by phenomenon or miracle, by spirit\u2010hook or\nbishop\u2019s crook, Occultism must win the day, before the present era reaches\n\u201cShani\u2019s (Saturn\u2019s) triple septenary\u201d of the Western Cycle in Europe, in\nother words\u2014before the end of the twenty\u2010first century \u201cA.D.\u201d\n\nTruly the soil of the long by\u2010gone past is not dead, for it has only\nrested. The skeletons of the sacred oaks of the ancient Druids may still\nsend shoots from their dried\u2010up boughs and be reborn to a new life, like\nthat handful of corn, in the sarcophagus of a mummy 4,000 years old,\nwhich, when planted, sprouted, grew, and \u201cgave a fine harvest.\u201d Why not?\nTruth is stranger than fiction. It may any day, and most unexpectedly,\nvindicate its wisdom and demonstrate the conceit of our age, by proving\nthat the Secret Brotherhood did not, indeed, die out with the\nPhilalethians of the last Eclectic School, that the Gnosis flourishes\nstill on earth, and its votaries are many, albeit unknown. All this may be\ndone by one, or more, of the great Masters visiting Europe, and exposing\nin their turn the alleged exposers and traducers of Magic. Such secret\nBrotherhoods have been mentioned by several well\u2010known authors, and are\nspoken of in Mackenzie\u2019s _Royal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia_. The writer now, in\nthe face of the millions who deny, repeats boldly, that which was said in\n_Isis Unveiled_.\n\n\n    If they [the Initiates] have been regarded as mere fictions of the\n    novelist, that fact has only helped the \u201cbrother\u2010adepts\u201d to keep\n    their incognito the more easily....\n\n    The St. Germains and Cagliostros of this century, having learned\n    bitter lessons from the vilifications and persecutions of the\n    past, pursue different tactics now\u2010a\u2010days.(40)\n\n\nThese prophetic words were written in 1876, and verified in 1886.\nNevertheless, we say again,\n\n\n    There are numbers of these mystic Brotherhoods which have naught\n    to do with \u201ccivilized\u201d countries; and it is in their unknown\n    communities that are concealed the skeletons of the past. These\n    \u201cadepts\u201d could, if they chose, lay claim to strange ancestry, and\n    exhibit verifiable documents that would explain many a mysterious\n    page in both sacred and profane history.(41) Had the keys to the\n    hieratic writings and the secret of Egyptian and Hindu symbolism\n    been known to the Christian Fathers, they would not have allowed a\n    single monument of old to stand unmutilated.(42)\n\n\nBut there exists in the world another class of adepts, belonging to a\nbrotherhood also, and mightier than any other of those known to the\nprofane. Many among these are personally good and benevolent, even pure\nand holy occasionally, as individuals. Pursuing collectively, however, and\nas a body, a selfish, one\u2010sided object, with relentless vigour and\ndetermination, they have to be ranked with the adepts of the Black Art.\nThese are our modern Roman Catholic \u201cfathers\u201d and clergy. Most of the\nhieratic writings and symbols have been deciphered by them since the\nMiddle Ages. A hundred times more learned in secret Symbology and the old\nReligions than our Orientalists will ever be, the personification of\nastuteness and cleverness, every such adept in the art holds the keys\ntightly in his firmly clenched hand, and will take care the secret shall\nnot be easily divulged, if he can help it. There are more profoundly\nlearned Kabalists in Rome and throughout Europe and America, than is\ngenerally suspected. Thus are the professedly public \u201cbrotherhoods\u201d of\n\u201cblack\u201d adepts more powerful and dangerous for Protestant countries than\nany host of Eastern Occultists. People laugh at Magic! Men of Science,\nPhysiologists and Biologists, deride the potency and even the belief in\nthe existence of what is called in vulgar parlance \u201cSorcery\u201d and \u201cBlack\nMagic\u201d! The Arch\u00e6ologists have their Stonehenge in England with its\nthousands of secrets, and its twin\u2010brother Karnac of Brittany, and yet\nthere is not one of them who even suspects what has been going on in its\ncrypts, and its mysterious nooks and corners, for the last century. More\nthan that, they do not even know of the existence of such \u201cmagic halls\u201d in\ntheir Stonehenge, where curious scenes are taking place, whenever there is\na new convert in view. Hundreds of experiments have been, and are being\nmade daily at the Salp\u00eatri\u00e8re, and also by learned hypnotisers at their\nprivate houses. It is now proved that certain sensitives\u2014both men and\nwomen\u2014when commanded in trance, by the practitioner, who operates on them,\nto do a certain thing\u2014from drinking a glass of water up to simulated\nmurder\u2014on recovering their normal state lose all remembrance of the order\ninspired\u2014\u201csuggested\u201d it is now called by Science. Nevertheless, at the\nappointed hour and moment, the subject, though conscious and perfectly\nawake, is compelled by an irresistible power within himself to do that\naction which has been suggested to him by his mesmeriser; and that too,\nwhatever it may be, and whatever the period fixed by him who controls the\nsubject, that is to say, holds the latter under the power of his will, as\na snake holds a bird under its fascination, and finally forces it to jump\ninto its open jaws. Worse than this: for the bird is conscious of the\nperil; it resists, however helpless in its final efforts, while the\nhypnotized subject does not rebel, but seems to follow the suggestions and\nvoice of his own free\u2010will and soul. Who of our European men of Science,\nwho believe in such _scientific_ experiments\u2014and very few are they who\nstill doubt them now\u2010a\u2010days, and who do not feel convinced of their actual\nreality\u2014who of them, it is asked, is ready to admit this as being Black\nMagic? Yet it is the _genuine_, undeniable and actual _fascination_ and\n_sorcery_ of old. The Mulu Kurumbas of N\u00eelgiri do not proceed otherwise in\ntheir _envo\u00fbtements_ when they seek to destroy an enemy, nor do the Dugpas\nof Sikkim and Bh\u00fbt\u00e2n know of any more potential agent than their _will_.\nOnly in them that will does not proceed by jumps and starts, but acts with\ncertainty; it does not depend on the amount of receptivity or nervous\nimpressibility of the \u201csubject.\u201d Having chosen his victim and placed\nhimself _en rapport_ with him, the Dugpa\u2019s \u201cfluid\u201d is sure to find its\nway, for his will is immeasurably more strongly developed than the will of\nthe European experimenter\u2014the self\u2010made, untutored, and _unconscious_\nSorcerer for the sake of Science\u2014who has no idea (or belief either) of the\nvariety and potency of the world\u2010old methods used to develop this power,\nby the _conscious_ sorcerer, the \u201cBlack Magician\u201d of the East and West.\n\nAnd now the question is openly and squarely asked: Why should not the\nfanatical and zealous priest, thirsting to convert some selected rich and\ninfluential member of society, use the same means to accomplish his end as\nthe French Physician and experimenter uses in his case with his subject?\nThe conscience of the Roman Catholic priest is most likely at peace. He\nworks _personally_ for no selfish purpose, but with the object of \u201csaving\na soul\u201d from \u201ceternal damnation.\u201d In his view, if Magic there be in it, it\nis holy, meritorious and divine Magic. Such is the power of blind faith.\n\nHence, when we are assured by trustworthy and respectable persons of high\nsocial standing, and unimpeachable character, that there are many well\u2010\norganised societies among the Roman Catholic priests which, under the\npretext and cover of Modern Spiritualism and mediumship, hold _s\u00e9ances_\nfor the purposes of conversion by suggestion, directly and at a\ndistance\u2014we answer: We know it. And when, moreover, we are told that\nwhenever those priest\u2010hypnotists are desirous of acquiring an influence\nover some individual or individuals, selected by them for conversion, they\nretire to an underground place, allotted and consecrated by them for such\npurposes (_viz._, ceremonial Magic); and there, forming a circle, throw\ntheir combined will\u2010power in the direction of that individual, and thus by\nrepeating the process, gain a complete control over their victim\u2014we again\nanswer: Very likely. In fact we know the practice to be so, whether this\nkind of ceremonial Magic and _envo\u00fbtement_ is practised at Stonehenge or\nelsewhere. We know it, we say, through personal experience; and also\nbecause several of the writer\u2019s best and most loved friends have been\nunconsciously drawn into the Romish Church and under her \u201cbenign\u201d\nprotection by such means. And, therefore, we can only laugh in pity at the\nignorance and stubbornness of those deluded men of Science and cultured\nexperimentalists who, while believing in the power of Dr. Charcot and his\ndisciples to \u201cenvo\u00fbte\u201d their subjects, find nothing better than a scornful\nsmile whenever Black Magic and its potency are mentioned before them.\n\u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi, the Abb\u00e9\u2010Kabalist, died before Science and the Facult\u00e9 de\nM\u00e9decine of France had accepted hypnotism and influence _par suggestion_\namong its scientific experiments, but this is what he said twenty\u2010five\nyears ago, in his _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie_, on \u201cLes\nEnvo\u00fbtements et les Sorts\u201d:\n\n\n    That which sorcerers and necromancers sought above all things in\n    their evocations of the Spirit of Evil, was that magnetic potency\n    which is the lawful property of the true Adept, and which they\n    desired to obtain possession of for evil purposes.... One of their\n    chief aims was the power of spells or of deleterious\n    influences.... That power may be compared to real poisonings by a\n    current of astral light. They exalt their will by means of\n    ceremonies to the degree of rendering it venomous at a\n    distance.... We have said in our \u201cDogma\u201d what we thought of magic\n    spells, and how this power was exceedingly real and dangerous. The\n    true Magus throws a spell without ceremony and by his sole\n    disapproval, upon those with whose conduct he is dissatisfied, and\n    whom he thinks it necessary to punish;(43) he casts a spell, even\n    by his pardon, over those who do him injury, and the enemies of\n    Initiates never long enjoy impunity for their wrong\u2010doing. We have\n    ourselves seen proofs of this fatal law in numerous instances. The\n    executioners of martyrs always perish miserably; and the Adepts\n    are the martyrs of intelligence. Providence [Karma] seems to\n    despise those who despise them, and puts to death those who would\n    seek to prevent them from living. The legend of the Wandering Jew\n    is the popular poetry of this arcanum. A people had sent a sage to\n    crucifixion; that people had bidden him \u201cMove on!\u201d when he tried\n    to rest for one moment. Well! that people will become subject,\n    henceforth, to a similar condemnation; it will become entirely\n    proscribed, and for long centuries it will be bidden \u201cMove on!\n    move on!\u201d finding neither rest nor pity.(44)\n\n\n\u201cFables,\u201d and \u201csuperstition,\u201d will be the answer. Be it so. Before the\nlethal breath of selfishness and indifference every uncomfortable fact is\ntransformed into meaningless fiction, and every branch of the once verdant\nTree of Truth has become dried up and stripped of its primeval spiritual\nsignificance. Our modern Symbologist is superlatively clever only at\ndetecting phallic worship and sexual emblems even where none were ever\nmeant. But for the true student of Occult Lore, White or Divine Magic\ncould no more exist in Nature without its counterpart Black Magic, than\nday without night, whether these be of twelve hours or of six months\u2019\nduration. For him everything in that Nature has an occult\u2014a bright and a\nnight side to it. Pyramids and Druid\u2019s oaks, dolmens and Bo\u2010trees, plant\nand mineral\u2014everything was full of deep significance and of sacred truths\nof wisdom, when the Arch\u2010Druid performed his magic cures and incantations,\nand the Egyptian Hierophant evoked and guided Chemnu, the \u201clovely\nspectre,\u201d the female Frankenstein\u2010creation of old, raised for the torture\nand test of the soul\u2010power of the candidate for initiation, simultaneously\nwith the last agonising cry of his terrestrial human nature. True, Magic\nhas lost its name, and along with it its rights to recognition. But its\npractice is in daily use; and its progeny, \u201cmagnetic influence,\u201d \u201cpower of\noratory,\u201d \u201cirresistible fascination,\u201d \u201cwhole audiences subdued and held as\nthough under a spell,\u201d are terms recognised and used by all, generally\nmeaningless though they now are. Its effects, however, are more determined\nand definite among religious congregations such as the Shakers, the Negro\nMethodists, and Salvationists, who call it \u201cthe action of the Holy Spirit\u201d\nand \u201cgrace.\u201d The real truth is that Magic is still in full sway amidst\nmankind, however blind the latter to its silent presence and influence on\nits members, however ignorant society may be, and remain, to its daily and\nhourly beneficent and maleficent effects. The world is full of such\nunconscious magicians\u2014in politics as well as in daily life, in the Church\nas in the strongholds of Free\u2010Thought. Most of those magicians are\n\u201csorcerers\u201d unhappily, not metaphorically but in sober reality, by reason\nof their inherent selfishness, their revengeful natures, their envy and\nmalice. The true student of Magic, well aware of the truth, looks on in\npity, and, if he be wise, keeps silent. For every effort made by him to\nremove the universal cecity is only repaid with ingratitude, slander, and\noften curses, which, unable to reach him, will react on those who wish him\nevil. Lies and calumny\u2014the latter a teething lie, adding actual bites to\nempty harmless falsehoods\u2014become his lot, and thus the well\u2010wisher is soon\ntorn to pieces, as a reward for his benevolent desire to enlighten.\n\nEnough has been given, it is believed, to shew that the existence of a\nSecret Universal Doctrine, besides its practical methods of Magic, is no\nwild romance or fiction. The fact was known to the whole ancient world,\nand the knowledge of it has survived in the East, in India especially. And\nif there be such a Science, there must be naturally, somewhere, professors\nof it, or Adepts. In any case it matters little whether the Guardians of\nthe Sacred Lore are regarded as living, actually existing men, or are\nviewed as myths. It is their Philosophy that will have to stand or fall\nupon its own merits, apart from, and independent of any Adepts. For in the\nwords of the wise Gamaliel, addressed by him to the Synedrion: \u201cIf this\ndoctrine is false it will perish, and fall of itself; but if true,\nthen\u2014_it cannot be destroyed_.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION II. MODERN CRITICISM AND THE ANCIENTS.\n\n\nThe Secret Doctrine of the \u00c2ryan East is found repeated under Egyptian\nsymbolism and phraseology in the Books of Hermes. At, or near, the\nbeginning of the present century, all the books called Hermetic were, in\nthe opinion of the average man of Science, unworthy of serious attention.\nThey were set down and loudly proclaimed as simply a collection of tales,\nof fraudulent pretences and most absurd claims. They \u201cnever existed before\nthe Christian era,\u201d it was said: \u201cthey were all written with the triple\nobject of speculation, deceiving and pious fraud;\u201d they were all, even the\nbest of them, silly apocrypha.(45) In this respect the nineteenth century\nproved a most worthy scion of the eighteenth, for, in the age of Voltaire\nas well as in this century, everything, save what emanated direct from the\nRoyal Academy, was false, superstitious, foolish. Belief in the wisdom of\nthe Ancients was laughed to scorn, perhaps more so even than it is now.\nThe very thought of accepting as authentic the works and vagaries of \u201ca\nfalse Hermes, a false Orpheus, a false Zoroaster,\u201d of false Oracles, false\nSibyls, and a thrice false Mesmer and his absurd fluid, was tabooed all\nalong the line. Thus all that had its genesis outside the learned and\ndogmatic precincts of Oxford and Cambridge,(46) or the Academy of France,\nwas denounced in those days as \u201cunscientific,\u201d and \u201cridiculously absurd.\u201d\nThis tendency has survived to the present day.\n\nNothing can be further from the intention of any true Occultist\u2014who stands\npossessed, by virtue of his higher psychic development, of instruments of\nresearch far more penetrating in their power than any as yet in the hands\nof physical experimentalists\u2014than to look unsympathetically on the efforts\nthat are being made in the area of physical enquiry. The exertions and\nlabours undertaken to solve as many as possible of the problems of Nature\nhave always been holy in his sight. The spirit in which Sir Isaac Newton\nremarked that at the end of all his astronomical work he felt a mere child\npicking up shells beside the Ocean of Knowledge, is one of reverence for\nthe boundlessness of Nature which Occult Philosophy itself cannot eclipse.\nAnd it may freely be recognised that the attitude of mind which this\nfamous simile describes is one which fairly represents that of the great\nmajority of _genuine_ Scientists in regard to all the phenomena of the\nphysical plane of Nature. In dealing with this they are often caution and\nmoderation itself. They observe facts with a patience that cannot be\nsurpassed. They are slow to cast these into theories, with a prudence that\ncannot be too highly commended. And, subject to the limitations under\nwhich they observe Nature, they are beautifully accurate in the record of\ntheir observations. Moreover, it may be conceded further that modern\nScientists are exceedingly careful not to affirm negations. They may say\nit is immensely improbable that any discovery will ever conflict with such\nor such a theory, now supported by such and such an aggregation of\nrecorded facts. But even in reference to the broadest\ngeneralizations\u2014which pass into a dogmatic form only in brief popular text\nbooks of scientific knowledge\u2014the tone of \u201cScience\u201d itself, if that\nabstraction may be held to be embodied in the persons of its most\ndistinguished representatives, is one of reserve and often of modesty.\n\nFar, therefore, from being disposed to scoff at the errors into which the\nlimitations of their methods may betray men of Science, the true Occultist\nwill rather appreciate the pathos of a situation in which great industry\nand thirst for truth are condemned to disappointment, and often to\nconfusion.\n\nThat which is to be deplored, however, in respect to Modern Science, is in\nitself an evil manifestation of the excessive caution which in its most\nfavourable aspect protects Science from over\u2010hasty conclusions: namely,\nthe tardiness of Scientists to recognise that other instruments of\nresearch may be applicable to the mysteries of Nature besides those of the\nphysical plane, and that it may consequently be impossible to appreciate\nthe phenomena of any one plane correctly without observing them as well\nfrom the points of view afforded by others. In so far then as they\nwilfully shut their eyes to evidence which ought to have shown them\nclearly that Nature is more complex than physical phenomena alone would\nsuggest, that there are means by which the faculties of human perception\ncan pass sometimes from one plane to the other, and that their energy is\nbeing misdirected while they turn it exclusively on the minuti\u00e6 of\nphysical structure or force, they are less entitled to sympathy than to\nblame.\n\nOne feels dwarfed and humbled in reading what M. Renan, that learned\nmodern \u201cdestroyer\u201d of every religious belief, past, present and future,\nhas to say of poor humanity and its powers of discernment. He believes\n\n\n    Mankind has but a very narrow mind; and the number of men capable\n    of seizing acutely (_finement_) the true analogy of things, is\n    quite imperceptible.(47)\n\n\nUpon comparing, however, this statement with another opinion expressed by\nthe same author, namely, that:\n\n\n    The mind of the critic should yield to facts, hands and feet\n    bound, to be dragged by them wherever they may lead him,(48)\n\n\none feels relieved. When, moreover, these two philosophical statements are\nstrengthened by a third enunciation of the famous Academician, which\ndeclares that:\n\n\n    _Tout parti pris \u00e0 priori, doit \u00eatre banni de la science_,(49)\n\n\nthere remains little to fear. Unfortunately M. Renan is the first to break\nthis golden rule.\n\nThe evidence of Herodotus\u2014called, sarcastically no doubt, the \u201cFather of\nHistory,\u201d since in every question upon which Modern Thought disagrees with\nhim, his testimony goes for nought\u2014the sober and earnest assurances in the\nphilosophical narratives of Plato and Thucydides, Polybius, and Plutarch,\nand even certain statements of Aristotle himself, are invariably laid\naside whenever they are involved in what modern criticism is pleased to\nregard as a myth. It is some time since Strauss proclaimed that:\n\n\n    The presence of a supernatural element or miracle in a narrative\n    is an infallible sign of the presence in it of a myth;\n\n\nand such is the canon of criticism tacitly adopted by every modern critic.\nBut what is a myth\u2014\u03bc\u1fe6\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2\u2014to begin with? Are we not told distinctly by\nancient writers that the word means tradition? Was not the Latin term\n_fabula_, a fable, synonymous with something told, as having happened in\npre\u2010historic times, and not necessarily an invention. With such autocrats\nof criticism and despotic rulers as are most of the French, English, and\nGerman Orientalists, there may, then, be no end of historical,\ngeographical, ethnological and philological surprises in store for the\ncentury to come. Travesties in Philosophy have become so common of late,\nthat the public can be startled by nothing in this direction. It has\nalready been stated by one learned speculator that Homer was simply \u201ca\nmythical personification of the \u00e9pop\u00e9e\u201d(50); by another, that Hippocrates,\nson of Esculapius \u201ccould only be a chimera\u201d; that the Asclepiades, their\nseven hundred years of duration notwithstanding, might after all prove\nsimply a \u201cfiction\u201d; that \u201cthe city of Troy (Dr. Schliemann to the\ncontrary) existed only on the maps,\u201d etc. Why should not the world be\ninvited after this to regard every hitherto historical character of days\nof old as a myth? Were not Alexander the Great needed by Philology as a\nsledge\u2010hammer wherewith to break the heads of Br\u00e2hmanical chronological\npretensions, he would have become long ago simply \u201ca symbol for\nannexation,\u201d or \u201ca genius of conquest,\u201d as has been already suggested by\nsome French writer.\n\nBlank denial is the only refuge left to the critics. It is the most secure\nasylum for some time to come in which to shelter the last of the sceptics.\nFor one who denies unconditionally, the trouble of arguing is unnecessary,\nand he also thus avoids what is worse, having to yield occasionally a\npoint or two before the irrefutable arguments and facts of his opponent.\nCreuzer, the greatest of all the modern Symbologists, the most learned\namong the masses of erudite German Mythologists, must have envied the\nplacid self\u2010confidence of certain sceptics, when he found himself forced\nin a moment of desperate perplexity to admit that:\n\n\n    We are compelled to return to the theories of trolls and genii, as\n    they were understood by the ancients; [it is a doctrine] without\n    which it becomes absolutely impossible to explain to oneself\n    anything with regard to the Mysteries(51)\n\n\nof the Ancients, which Mysteries are undeniable.\n\nRoman Catholics, who are guilty of precisely the same worship, and to the\nvery letter\u2014having borrowed it from the later Chald\u00e6ans, the Lebanon\nNabath\u00e6ans, and the baptized Sab\u00e6ans,(52) and not from the learned\nAstronomers and Initiates of the days of old\u2014would now, by anathematizing\nit, hide the source from which it came. Theology and Churchianism would\nfain trouble the clear fountain that fed them from the first, to prevent\nposterity from looking into it, and thus seeing their original prototype.\nThe Occultists, however, believe the time has come to give everyone his\ndue. As to our other opponents\u2014the modern sceptic and the Epicurean, the\ncynic and the Sadducee\u2014they may find an answer to their denials in our\nearlier volumes. As to many unjust aspersions on the ancient doctrines,\nthe reason for them is given in these words in _Isis Unveiled_:\n\n\n    The thought of the present\u2010day commentator and critic as to the\n    ancient learning, is limited to and runs round the exoterism of\n    the temples; his insight is either unwilling or unable to\n    penetrate into the solemn adyta of old, where the hierophant\n    instructed the neophyte to regard the public worship in its true\n    light. No ancient sage would have taught that man is the king of\n    creation, and that the starry heaven and our mother earth were\n    created for his sake.(53)\n\n\nWhen we find such works as _Phallicism_(54) appearing in our day in print,\nit is easy to see that the day for concealment and travesty has passed\naway. Science, in Philology, Symbolism and Comparative Religion, has\nprogressed too far to make wholesale denials any longer, and the Church is\ntoo wise and cautious not to be now making the best of the situation.\nMeanwhile, the \u201crhombs of Hecate\u201d and the \u201cwheels of Lucifer,\u201d(55) daily\nexhumed on the sites of Babylonia, can no longer be used as clear evidence\nof a Satan\u2010worship, since the same symbols are shown in the ritual of the\nLatin Church. The latter is too learned to be ignorant of the fact that\neven the later Chald\u00e6ans, who had gradually fallen into dualism, reducing\nall things to two primal Principles, never worshipped Satan or idols, any\nmore than did the Zoroastrians, who now lie under the same accusation, but\nthat their Religion was as highly philosophical as any; their dual and\nexoteric Theosophy became the heirloom of the Jews, who, in their turn,\nwere forced to share it with the Christians. P\u00e2rs\u00ees are to this day\ncharged with Heliolatry, and yet in the Chald\u00e6an Oracles, under the\n\u201cMagical and Philosophical Precepts of Zoroaster\u201d one finds the following:\n\n\n    Direct not thy mind to the vast measures of the earth;\n    For the plant of truth is not upon ground.\n    Nor measure the measures of the sun, collecting rules,\n    For he is carried by the eternal will of the Father, not for your\n                sake.\n    Dismiss the impetuous course of the moon; for she runs always by\n                work of necessity.\n    The progression of the stars was not generated for your sake.\n\n\nThere was a vast difference between the true worship taught to those who\nshowed themselves worthy, and the state religions. The Magians are accused\nof all kinds of superstition, but this is what the same Chald\u00e6an Oracle\nsays:\n\n\n    The wide aerial flight of birds is not true,\n    Nor the dissections of the entrails of victims; they are all mere\n                toys,\n    The basis of mercenary fraud; flee from these\n    If you would open the sacred paradise of piety,\n    Where virtue, wisdom, and equity are assembled.(56)\n\n\nAs we say in our former work:\n\n\n    Surely it is not those who warn people against \u201cmercenary fraud\u201d\n    who can be accused of it; and if they accomplished acts which seem\n    miraculous, who can with fairness presume to deny that it was done\n    merely because they possessed a knowledge of natural philosophy\n    and psychological science to a degree unknown to our schools?(57)\n\n\nThe above quoted stanzas are a rather strange teaching to come from those\nwho are universally believed to have worshipped the sun, and moon, and the\nstarry hosts, as Gods. The sublime profundity of the Magian precepts being\nbeyond the reach of modern materialistic thought, the Chald\u00e6an\nPhilosophers are accused of Sab\u00e6anism and Sun\u2010worship, which was the\nreligion only of the uneducated masses.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION III. THE ORIGIN OF MAGIC.\n\n\nThings of late have changed, true enough. The field of investigation has\nwidened; old religions are a little better understood; and since that\nmiserable day when the Committee of the French Academy, headed by Benjamin\nFranklin, investigated Mesmer\u2019s phenomena only to proclaim them\ncharlatanry and clever knavery, both heathen Philosophy and Mesmerism have\nacquired certain rights and privileges, and are now viewed from quite a\ndifferent standpoint. Is full justice rendered them, however, and are they\nany better appreciated? We are afraid not. Human nature is the same now,\nas when Pope said of the force of prejudice that:\n\n\n    The difference is as great between\n    The optics seeing, as the objects seen.\n    All manners take a tincture from our own,\n    Or some discolour\u2019d through our passions shown,\n    Or fancy\u2019s beam enlarges, multiplies,\n    Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes.\n\n\nThus in the first decades of our century Hermetic Philosophy was regarded\nby both Churchmen and men of Science from two quite opposite points of\nview. The former called it sinful and devilish; the latter denied point\u2010\nblank its authenticity, notwithstanding the evidence brought forward by\nthe most erudite men of every age, including our own. The learned Father\nKircher, for instance, was not even noticed; and his assertion that all\nthe fragments known under titles of works by Mercury Trismegistus,\nBerosus, Pherecydes of Syros, etc., were rolls that had escaped the fire\nwhich devoured 100,000 volumes of the great Alexandrian Library\u2014was simply\nlaughed at. Nevertheless the educated classes of Europe knew then, as they\ndo now, that the famous Alexandrian Library, the \u201cmarvel of the ages,\u201d was\nfounded by Ptolemy Philadelphus; that numbers of its MSS. had been\ncarefully copied from hieratic texts and the oldest parchments, Chald\u00e6an,\nPh\u0153nician, Persian, etc.; and that these transliterations and copies\namounted, in their turn, to another 100,000 rolls, as Josephus and Strabo\nassert.\n\nThere is also the additional evidence of Clemens Alexandrinus, that ought\nto be credited to some extent.(58) Clemens testified to the existence of\nan additional 30,000 volumes of the Books of Thoth, placed in the library\nof the Tomb of Osymandias, over the entrance of which were inscribed the\nwords, \u201cA Cure for the Soul.\u201d\n\nSince then, as all know, entire texts of the \u201capocryphal\u201d works of the\n\u201cfalse\u201d Pymander, and the no less \u201cfalse\u201d Asclepias, have been found by\nChampollion in the most ancient monuments of Egypt.(59) As said in _Isis\nUnveiled_:\n\n\n    After having devoted their whole lives to the study of the records\n    of the old Egyptian wisdom, both Champollion\u2010Fig\u00e9ac and\n    Champollion Junior publicly declared, notwithstanding many biassed\n    judgments hazarded by certain hasty and unwise critics, that the\n    _Books of Hermes_ \u201ctruly contain a mass of Egyptian traditions\n    which are constantly corroborated by the most authentic records\n    and monuments of Egypt of the hoariest antiquity.\u201d(60)\n\n\nThe merit of Champollion as an Egyptologist none will question, and if he\ndeclare that everything demonstrates the accuracy of the writings of the\nmysterious Hermes Trismegistus, and if the assertion that their antiquity\nruns back into the night of time be corroborated by him in minutest\ndetails, then indeed criticism ought to be fully satisfied. Says\nChampollion:\n\n\n    These inscriptions are only the faithful echo and expression of\n    the most ancient verities.\n\n\nSince these words were written, some of the \u201capocryphal\u201d verses by the\n\u201cmythical\u201d Orpheus have also been found copied word for word, in\nhieroglyphics, in certain inscriptions of the Fourth Dynasty, addressed to\nvarious Deities. Finally, Creuzer discovered and immediately pointed out\nthe very significant fact that numerous passages found in Homer and Hesiod\nwere undeniably borrowed by the two great poets from the Orphic Hymns,\nthus proving the latter to be far older than the _Iliad_ or the _Odyssey_.\n\nAnd so gradually the ancient claims come to be vindicated, and modern\ncriticism has to submit to evidence. Many are now the writers who confess\nthat such a type of literature as the Hermetic works of Egypt can never be\ndated too far back into the prehistoric ages. The texts of many of these\nancient works, that of Enoch included, so loudly proclaimed \u201capocryphal\u201d\nat the beginning of this century, are now discovered and recognised in the\nmost secret and sacred sanctuaries of Chald\u00e6a, India, Ph\u0153nicia, Egypt and\nCentral Asia. But even such proofs have failed to convince the bulk of our\nMaterialists. The reason for this is very simple and evident. All these\ntexts\u2014held in universal veneration in Antiquity, found in the secret\nlibraries of all the great temples, studied (if not always mastered) by\nthe greatest statesmen, classical writers, philosophers, kings and laymen,\nas much as by renowned Sages\u2014what were they? Treatises on Magic and\nOccultism, pure and simple; the now derided and tabooed Theosophy\u2014hence\nthe ostracism.\n\nWere people, then, so simple and credulous in the days of Pythagoras and\nPlato? Were the millions of Babylonia and Egypt, of India and Greece, with\ntheir great Sages to lead them, all fools, that during those periods of\ngreat learning and civilization which preceded the year _one_ of our\nera\u2014the latter giving birth but to the intellectual darkness of medi\u00e6val\nfanaticism\u2014so many otherwise great men should have devoted their lives to\na mere illusion, a superstition called Magic? It would seem so, had one to\nremain content with the word and conclusions of modern Philosophy.\n\nEvery Art and Science, however, whatever its intrinsic merit, has had its\ndiscoverer and practitioner, and subsequently its proficients to teach it.\nWhat is the origin of the Occult Sciences, or Magic? Who were its\nprofessors, and what is known of them, whether in history or legend?\nClemens Alexandrinus, one of the most intelligent and learned of the early\nChristian Fathers, answers this question in his _Stromateis_. That ex\u2010\npupil of the Neoplatonic School argues:\n\n\n    If there is instruction, you must seek for the master.(61)\n\n\nAnd so he shows Cleanthes taught by Zeno, Theophrastus by Aristotle,\nMetrodorus by Epicurus, Plato by Socrates, etc. And he adds that when he\nhad looked further back to Pythagoras, Pherecydes, and Thales, he had\nstill to search for their masters. The same for the Egyptians, the\nIndians, the Babylonians, and the Magi themselves. He would not cease\nquestioning, he says, to learn who it was they all had for their masters.\nAnd when he (Clemens) had traced down the enquiry to the very cradle of\nmankind, to the first generation of men, he would reiterate once more his\nquestioning, and ask, \u201cWho is their teacher?\u201d Surely, he argues, their\nmaster could be \u201cno one of men.\u201d And even when we should have reached as\nhigh as the Angels, the same query would have to be offered to them: \u201cWho\nwere their (meaning the \u2018divine\u2019 and the \u2018fallen\u2019 Angels) masters?\u201d\n\nThe aim of the good father\u2019s long argument is of course to discover two\ndistinct masters, one the preceptor of biblical patriarchs, the other the\nteacher of the Gentiles. But the students of the Secret Doctrine need go\nto no such trouble. Their professors are well aware who were the Masters\nof their predecessors in Occult Sciences and Wisdom.\n\nThe two professors are finally traced out by Clemens, and are, as was to\nbe expected, God, and his eternal and everlasting enemy and opponent, the\nDevil; the subject of Clemens\u2019 enquiry relating to the _dual_ aspect of\nHermetic Philosophy, as cause and effect. Admitting the moral beauty of\nthe virtues preached in every Occult work with which he was acquainted,\nClemens desires to know the cause of the apparent contradiction between\nthe doctrine and the practice, good and evil Magic, and he comes to the\nconclusion that Magic has two origins\u2014divine and diabolical. He perceives\nits bifurcation into two channels, hence his deduction and inference.\n\nWe perceive it too, without, however, necessarily designating such\nbifurcation diabolical, for we judge the \u201cleft\u2010hand path\u201d as it issued\nfrom the hands of its founder. Otherwise, judging also by the effects of\nClemens\u2019 own religion and the walk in life of certain of its professors,\nsince the death of their Master, the Occultists would have a right to come\nto somewhat the same conclusion as Clemens. They would have a right to say\nthat while Christ, the Master of all _true_ Christians, was in every way\ngodly, those who resorted to the horrors of the Inquisition, to the\nextermination and torture of heretics, Jews and Alchemists, the Protestant\nCalvin who burnt Servetus, and his persecuting Protestant successors, down\nto the whippers and burners of witches in America, must have had for\n_their_ Master, the Devil. But Occultists, not believing in the Devil, are\nprecluded from retaliating in this way.\n\nClemens\u2019 testimony, however, is valuable in so far as it shows (1) the\nenormous number of works on Occult Sciences in his day; and (2) the\nextraordinary powers acquired through those Sciences by certain men.\n\nHe devotes, for instance, the whole of the sixth book of his _Stromateis_\nto this research for the first two \u201cMasters\u201d of the true and the false\nPhilosophy respectively, both preserved, as he says, in the Egyptian\nsanctuaries. Very pertinently too, he apostrophises the Greeks, asking\nthem why they should not accept the \u201cmiracles\u201d of Moses as such, since\nthey claim the very same privileges for their own Philosophers, and he\ngives a number of instances. It is, as he says, \u00c6achus obtaining through\nhis Occult powers a marvellous rain; it is Arist\u00e6us causing the winds to\nblow; Empedocles quieting the gale, and forcing it to cease, etc.(62)\n\nThe books of Mercurius Trismegistus most attracted his attention.(63) He\nis also warm in his praise of Hystaspes (or Gushtasp), of the Sibylline\nbooks, and even of the right Astrology.\n\nThere have been in all ages use and abuse of Magic, as there are use and\nabuse of Mesmerism or Hypnotism in our own. The ancient world had its\nApollonii and its Pherecyd\u00e6, and intellectual people could discriminate\nthen, as they can now. While no classical or pagan writer has ever found\none word of blame for Apollonius of Tyana, for instance, it is not so with\nregard to Pherecydes. Hesychius of Miletia, Philo of Byblos and\nEusthathius charge the latter unstintingly with having built his\nPhilosophy and Science on demoniacal traditions\u2014_i.e._, on Sorcery. Cicero\ndeclares that Pherecydes is, _potius divinus quam medicus_, \u201crather a\nsoothsayer than a physician,\u201d and Diogenes La\u00ebrtius gives a vast number of\nstories relating to his predictions. One day Pherecydes prophesies the\nshipwreck of a vessel hundreds of miles away from him; another time he\npredicts the capture of the Laced\u00e6monians by the Arcadians; finally, he\nforesees his own wretched end.(64)\n\nBearing in mind the objections that will be made to the teachings of the\nEsoteric Doctrine as herein propounded, the writer is forced to meet some\nof them beforehand.\n\nSuch imputations as those brought by Clemens against the \u201cheathen\u201d Adepts,\nonly prove the presence of clairvoyant powers and prevision in every age,\nbut are no evidence in favour of a Devil. They are, therefore, of no value\nexcept to the Christians, for whom Satan is one of the chief pillars of\nthe faith. Baronius and De Mirville, for instance, find an unanswerable\nproof of Demonology in the belief in the co\u2010eternity of Matter with\nSpirit!\n\nDe Mirville writes that Pherecydes\n\n\n    Postulates in principle the primordiality of Zeus or Ether, and\n    then, on the same plane, a principle, co\u00ebternal and co\u00e4ctive,\n    which he calls the fifth element, or Ogenos.(65)\n\n\nHe then points out that the meaning of Ogenos is given as that which shuts\nup, which holds captive, and that is Hades, \u201cor in a word, hell.\u201d\n\nThe synonyms are known to every schoolboy without the Marquis going to the\ntrouble of explaining them to the Academy; as to the deduction, every\nOccultist will of course deny it and only smile at its folly. And now we\ncome to the theological conclusion.\n\nThe _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_ of the views of the Latin Church\u2014as given by authors of the\nsame character as the Marquis de Mirville\u2014amounts to this: that the\nHermetic Books, their wisdom\u2014fully admitted in Rome\u2014notwithstanding, are\n\u201cthe heirloom left by Cain, the accursed, to mankind.\u201d It is \u201cgenerally\nadmitted,\u201d says that modern memorialist of Satan in History:\n\n\n    That immediately after the Flood Cham and his descendants had\n    propagated anew the ancient teachings of the Cainites and of the\n    submerged Race.(66)\n\n\nThis proves, at any rate, that Magic, or Sorcery as he calls it, is an\nantediluvian Art, and thus one point is gained. For, as he says:\u2014\n\n\n    The evidence of Berosius makes Ham identical with the first\n    Zoroaster, founder of Bactria, the first author of all the magic\n    arts of Babylonia, the _Chemesenua_ or Cham,(67) the\n    _infamous_(68) of the faithful Noachians, finally the object of\n    adoration for Egypt, which having received its name \u03a7\u03b7\u03bc\u03b5\u03af\u03b1, whence\n    chemistry, built in his honour a town called _Choemnis_, or the\n    \u201ccity of fire.\u201d(69) Ham adored it, it is said, whence the name\n    _Chammaim_ given to the pyramids; which in their turn have been\n    vulgarised into our modern noun \u201cchimney.\u201d(70)\n\n\nThis statement is entirely wrong. Egypt was the cradle of Chemistry and\nits birth\u2010place\u2014this is pretty well known by this time. Only Kenrick and\nothers show the root of the word to be _chemi_ or _chem_, which is not\n_Cham_ or Ham, but _Khem_, the Egyptian phallic God of the Mysteries.\n\nBut this is not all. De Mirville is bent upon finding a satanic origin\neven for the now innocent Tarot.\n\nHe goes on to say:\n\n\n    As to the means for the propagation of this evil Magic, tradition\n    points it out, in certain runic characters traced on metallic\n    plates [or leaves, _des lames_] which have escaped destruction by\n    the Deluge.(71) This might have been regarded as legendary, had\n    not subsequent discoveries shown it far from being so. Plates were\n    found covered with curious and utterly undecipherable characters,\n    characters of undeniable antiquity, to which the Chamites\n    [Sorcerers, with the author] attribute the origin of their\n    marvellous and terrible powers.(72)\n\n\nThe pious author may, meanwhile, be left to his own orthodox beliefs. He,\nat any rate, seems quite sincere in his views. Nevertheless, his able\narguments will have to be sapped at their very foundation, for it must be\nshown on mathematical grounds who, or rather what, Cain and Ham really\nwere. De Mirville is only the faithful son of his Church, interested in\nkeeping Cain in his anthropomorphic character and in his present place in\n\u201cHoly Writ.\u201d The student of Occultism, on the other hand, is solely\ninterested in the truth. But the age has to follow the natural course of\nits evolution.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION IV. THE SECRESY OF INITIATES.\n\n\nThe false rendering of a number of parables and sayings of Jesus is not to\nbe wondered at in the least. From Orpheus, the first initiated Adept of\nwhom history catches a glimpse in the mists of the pre\u2010Christian era, down\nthrough Pythagoras, Confucius, Buddha, Jesus, Apollonius of Tyana, to\nAmmonius Saccas, no Teacher or Initiate has ever committed anything to\nwriting for public use. Each and all of them have invariably recommended\nsilence and secresy on certain facts and deeds; from Confucius, who\nrefused to explain publicly and satisfactorily what he meant by his \u201cGreat\nExtreme,\u201d or to give the key to the divination by \u201cstraws,\u201d down to Jesus,\nwho charged his disciples to tell no man that he was Christ(73)\n(Chrestos), the \u201cman of sorrows\u201d and trials, before his supreme and last\nInitiation, or that he had produced a \u201cmiracle\u201d of resurrection.(74) The\nApostles had to preserve silence, so that the left hand should not know\nwhat the right hand did; in plainer words, that the dangerous proficients\nin the Left Hand Science\u2014the terrible enemies of the Right Hand Adepts,\nespecially before their supreme Initiation\u2014should not profit by the\npublicity so as to harm both the healer and the patient. And if the above\nis maintained to be simply an assumption, then what may be the meaning of\nthese awful words:\n\n\n    Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God;\n    but unto them that are without all these things are done in\n    parables; that seeing they may see and not perceive; and hearing,\n    they may hear and not understand; lest at any time they should be\n    converted and their sins should be forgiven them.(75)\n\n\nUnless interpreted in the sense of the law of silence and Karma, the utter\nselfishness and uncharitable spirit of this remark are but too evident.\nThese words are directly connected with the terrible dogma of\npredestination. Will the good and intelligent Christian cast such a slur\nof cruel selfishness on his Saviour?(76)\n\nThe work of propagating such truths in parables was left to the disciples\nof the high Initiates. It was their duty to follow the key\u2010note of the\nSecret Teaching without revealing its mysteries. This is shown in the\nhistories of all the great Adepts. Pythagoras divided his classes into\nhearers of exoteric and esoteric lectures. The Magians received their\ninstructions and were initiated in the far hidden caves of Bactria. When\nJosephus declares that Abraham taught Mathematics he meant by it \u201cMagic,\u201d\nfor in the Pythagorean code Mathematics mean Esoteric Science, or Gnosis.\n\nProfessor Wilder remarks:\n\n\n    The Essenes of Jud\u00e6a and Carmel made similar distinctions,\n    dividing their adherents into neophytes, brethren and the\n    perfect.... Ammonius obligated his disciples by oath not to\n    divulge his higher doctrines, except to those who had been\n    thoroughly instructed and exercised [prepared for initiation].(77)\n\n\nOne of the most powerful reasons for the necessity of strict secresy is\ngiven by Jesus Himself, if one may credit Matthew. For there the Master is\nmade to say plainly:\n\n\n    Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your\n    pearls before swine; lest they trample them under their feet, and\n    turn again and rend you.(78)\n\n\nProfoundly true and wise words. Many are those in our own age, and even\namong us, who have been forcibly reminded of them\u2014often when too late.(79)\n\nEven Maimonides recommends silence with regard to the true meaning of the\n_Bible_ texts. This injunction destroys the usual affirmation that \u201cHoly\nWrit\u201d is the only book in the world whose divine oracles contain plain\nunvarnished truth. It may be so for the learned Kabalists; it is certainly\nquite the reverse with regard to Christians. For this is what the learned\nHebrew Philosopher says:\n\n\n    Whoever shall find out the true sense of the Book of _Genesis_\n    ought to take care not to divulge it. This is a maxim that all our\n    sages repeat to us, and above all respecting the work of the six\n    days. If a person should discover the _true_ meaning of it by\n    himself, or by the aid of another, then he ought to be silent, or\n    if he speaks he ought to speak of it obscurely, in an enigmatical\n    manner, as I do myself, leaving the rest to be guessed by those\n    who can understand me.\n\n\nThe Symbology and Esoterism of the _Old Testament_ being thus confessed by\none of the greatest Jewish Philosophers, it is only natural to find\nChristian Fathers making the same confession with regard to the _New\nTestament_, and the _Bible_ in general. Thus we find Clemens Alexandrinus\nand Origen admitting it as plainly as words can do it. Clemens, who had\nbeen initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries says, that:\n\n\n    The doctrines there taught contained in them _the end of all\n    instructions as they were taken from Moses and the prophets_,\n\n\na slight perversion of facts pardonable in the good Father. The words\nadmit, after all, that the Mysteries of the Jews were identical with those\nof the Pagan Greeks, who took them from the Egyptians, who borrowed them,\nin their turn, from the Chald\u00e6ans, who got them from the \u00c2ryans, the\nAtlanteans and so on\u2014far beyond the days of that Race. The secret meaning\nof the Gospel is again openly confessed by Clemens when he says that the\nMysteries of the Faith are not to be divulged to all.\n\n\n    But since this tradition is not published alone for him who\n    perceives the magnificence of the word; it is requisite,\n    therefore, to hide in a Mystery the wisdom spoken, which the Son\n    of God taught.(80)\n\n\nNot less explicit is Origen with regard to the _Bible_ and its symbolical\nfables. He exclaims:\n\n\n    If we hold to the letter, and must understand what stands written\n    in the law after the manner of the Jews and common people, then I\n    should blush to confess aloud that it is God who has given these\n    laws: then the laws of men appear more excellent and\n    reasonable.(81)\n\n\nAnd well he might have \u201cblushed,\u201d the sincere and honest Father of early\nChristianity in its days of relative purity. But the Christians of this\nhighly literary and civilised age of ours do not blush at all; they\nswallow, on the contrary, the \u201clight\u201d before the formation of the sun, the\nGarden of Eden, Jonah\u2019s whale and all, notwithstanding that the same\nOrigen asks in a very natural fit of indignation:\n\n\n    What man of sense will agree with the statement that the first,\n    second and third days in which the _evening_ is named and the\n    _morning_, were without sun, moon, and stars, and the first day\n    without a heaven? What man is found such an idiot as to suppose\n    that God planted trees in Paradise, in Eden, like a husbandman,\n    etc.? I believe that every man must hold these things for images,\n    under which a hidden sense lies concealed?(82)\n\n\nYet millions of \u201csuch idiots\u201d are found in our age of enlightenment and\nnot only in the third century. When Paul\u2019s unequivocal statement in\n_Galatians_, iv. 22\u201025, that the story of Abraham and his two sons is all\n\u201can allegory,\u201d and that \u201cAgar is Mount Sinai\u201d is added to this, then\nlittle blame, indeed, can be attached to either Christian or Heathen who\ndeclines to accept the _Bible_ in any other light than that of a very\ningenious allegory.\n\nRabbi Simeon Ben\u2010\u201cJochai,\u201d the compiler of the _Zohar_, never imparted the\nmost important points of his doctrine otherwise than orally, and to a very\nlimited number of disciples. Therefore, without the final initiation into\nthe _Mercavah_, the study of the _Kabalah_ will be ever incomplete, and\nthe _Mercavah_ can be taught only \u201cin darkness, in a deserted place, and\nafter many and terrific trials.\u201d Since the death of that great Jewish\nInitiate this hidden doctrine has remained, for the outside world, an\ninviolate secret.\n\n\n    Among the venerable sect of the Tanaim, or rather the Tananim, the\n    wise men, there were those who taught the secrets practically and\n    initiated some disciples into the grand and final Mystery. But the\n    _Mishna Hagiga_, 2nd Section, say that the table of contents of\n    the _Mercaba_ \u201cmust only be delivered to wise old ones.\u201d The\n    _Gemara_ is still more dogmatic. \u201cThe more important secrets of\n    the Mysteries were not even revealed to all priests. Alone the\n    initiates had them divulged.\u201d And so we find the same great\n    secresy prevalent in every ancient religion.(83)\n\n\nWhat says the _Kabalah_ itself? Its great Rabbis actually threaten him who\naccepts their sayings _verbatim_. We read in the _Zohar_:\n\n\n    Woe to the man who sees in the Thorah, _i.e._, Law, only simple\n    recitals and ordinary words! Because if in truth it only contained\n    these, we would even to\u2010day be able to compose a Thorah much more\n    worthy of admiration. For if we find only the simple words, we\n    would only have to address ourselves to the legislators of the\n    earth,(84) to those in whom we most frequently meet with the most\n    grandeur. It would be sufficient to imitate them, and make a\n    Thorah after their words and example. But it is not so; each word\n    of the Thorah contains an elevated meaning and a sublime\n    mystery.... The recitals of the Thorah are the vestments of the\n    Thorah. Woe to him who takes this garment for the Thorah\n    itself.... The simple take notice only of the garments or recitals\n    of the Thorah, they know no other thing, they see not that which\n    is concealed under the vestment. The more instructed men do not\n    pay attention to the vestment, but to the body which it\n    envelops.(85)\n\n\nAmmonius Saccas taught that the Secret Doctrine of the Wisdom\u2010Religion was\nfound complete in the _Books of Thoth_ (Hermes), from which both\nPythagoras and Plato derived their knowledge and much of their Philosophy;\nand these Books were declared by him to be \u201cidentical with the teachings\nof the Sages of the remote East.\u201d Professor A. Wilder remarks:\n\n\n    As the name Thoth means a college or assembly, it is not\n    altogether improbable that the books were so named as being the\n    collected oracles and doctrines of the sacerdotal fraternity of\n    Memphis. Rabbi Wise has suggested the same hypothesis in relation\n    to the divine utterances recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures.(86)\n\n\nThis is very probable. Only the \u201cdivine utterances\u201d have never been, so\nfar, understood by the profane. Philo Jud\u00e6us, a non\u2010initiate, attempted to\ngive their secret meaning and\u2014failed.\n\nBut _Books of Thoth_ or _Bible_, _Vedas_ or _Kabalah_, all enjoin the same\nsecresy as to certain mysteries of nature symbolised in them. \u201cWoe be to\nhim who divulges _unlawfully_ the words whispered into the ear of Manushi\nby the _First Initiator_.\u201d Who that \u201cInitiator\u201d was is made plain in the\n_Book of Enoch_:\n\n\n    From them [the Angels] I heard all things, and understood what I\n    saw; that which will not take place in this generation [Race], but\n    in a generation which is to succeed at a distant period [the 6th\n    and 7th Races] on account of the elect [the Initiates].(87)\n\n\nAgain, it is said with regard to the judgment of those who, when they have\nlearned \u201cevery secret of the angels,\u201d reveal them, that:\n\n\n    They have discovered secrets, and _they are_ those who have been\n    judged; but not thou, my son [Noah] ... thou art pure and good and\n    _free_ from the reproach of _discovering_ [revealing] secrets.(88)\n\n\nBut there are those in our century, who, having \u201cdiscovered secrets\u201d\nunaided and owing to their own learning and acuteness only, and who being,\nnevertheless, honest and straightforward men, undismayed by threats or\nwarning since they have never pledged themselves to secresy, feel quite\nstartled at such revelations. One of these is the learned author and\ndiscoverer of one \u201cKey to the Hebrew\u2010Egyptian Mystery.\u201d As he says, there\nare \u201csome strange features connected with the promulgation and condition\u201d\nof the _Bible_.\n\n\n    Those who compiled this Book were men as we are. They knew, saw,\n    handled and realized, through the key measure,(89) the _law_ of\n    the living, ever\u2010active God.(90) They needed no faith that He was,\n    that He worked, planned, and accomplished, as a mighty mechanic\n    and architect.(91) What was it, then, that reserved to them alone\n    this knowledge, while first as men of God, and second as Apostles\n    of Jesus the Christ, they doled out a blinding ritual service, and\n    an empty teaching of _faith_ and no substance as proof, properly\n    coming through the exercise of just those senses which the Deity\n    has given all men as the essential means of obtaining any right\n    understanding? _Mystery_ and _parable_, and _dark saying_, and\n    _cloaking_ of the true meanings are the burden of the Testaments,\n    Old and New. Take it that the narratives of the _Bible_ were\n    purposed inventions to deceive the ignorant masses, even while\n    enforcing a most perfect code of moral obligations: How is it\n    possible to justify so great frauds, as part of a Divine economy,\n    when to that economy, the attribute of simple and perfect\n    _truthfulness_ must, in the nature of things, be ascribed? What\n    has, or what by possibility ought mystery to have, with the\n    promulgation of the truths of God?(92)\n\n\nNothing whatever most certainly, if those mysteries had been given from\nthe first. And so it was with regard to the first, semi\u2010divine, pure and\nspiritual Races of Humanity. They had the \u201ctruths of God,\u201d and lived up to\nthem, and their ideals. They preserved them, so long as there was hardly\nany evil, and hence scarcely a possible abuse of that knowledge and those\ntruths. But evolution and the gradual fall into materiality is also one of\nthe \u201ctruths\u201d and also one of the laws of \u201cGod.\u201d And as mankind progressed,\nand became with every generation more of the earth, earthly, the\nindividuality of each temporary Ego began to assert itself. It is personal\nselfishness that develops and urges man on to abuse of his knowledge and\npower. And selfishness is a human building, whose windows and doors are\never wide open for every kind of iniquity to enter into man\u2019s soul. Few\nwere the men during the early adolescence of mankind, and fewer still are\nthey now, who feel disposed to put into practice Pope\u2019s forcible\ndeclaration that he would tear out his own heart, if it had no better\ndisposition than to love only himself, and laugh at all his neighbours.\nHence the necessity of gradually taking away from man the divine knowledge\nand power, which became with every new human cycle more dangerous as a\ndouble\u2010edged weapon, whose evil side was ever threatening one\u2019s neighbour,\nand whose power for good was lavished freely only upon self. Those few\n\u201celect\u201d whose inner natures had remained unaffected by their outward\nphysical growth, thus became in time the sole guardians of the mysteries\nrevealed, passing the knowledge to those most fit to receive it, and\nkeeping it inaccessible to others. Reject this explanation from the Secret\nTeachings, and the very name of Religion will become synonymous with\ndeception and fraud.\n\nYet the masses could not be allowed to remain without some sort of moral\nrestraint. Man is ever craving for a \u201cbeyond\u201d and cannot live without an\nideal of some kind, as a beacon and a consolation. At the same time, no\naverage man, even in our age of universal education, could be entrusted\nwith truths too metaphysical, too subtle for his mind to comprehend,\nwithout the danger of an imminent reaction setting in, and faith in Gods\nand Saints making room for an unscientific blank Atheism. No real\nphilanthropist, hence no Occultist, would dream for a moment of a mankind\nwithout one tittle of Religion. Even the modern day Religion in Europe,\nconfined to Sundays, is better than none. But if, as Bunyan put it,\n\u201cReligion is the best armour that a man can have,\u201d it certainly is the\n\u201cworst cloak\u201d; and it is that \u201ccloak\u201d and false pretence which the\nOccultists and the Theosophists fight against. The true ideal Deity, the\none living God in Nature, can never suffer in man\u2019s worship if that\noutward cloak, woven by man\u2019s fancy, and thrown upon the Deity by the\ncrafty hand of the priest greedy of power and domination, is drawn aside.\nThe hour has struck with the commencement of this century to dethrone the\n\u201chighest God\u201d of every nation in favour of One Universal Deity\u2014the God of\nImmutable Law, not charity; the God of Just Retribution, not mercy, which\nis merely an incentive to evil\u2010doing and to a repetition of it. The\ngreatest crime that was ever perpetrated upon mankind was committed on\nthat day when the first priest invented the first prayer with a selfish\nobject in view. A God who may be propitiated by iniquitous prayers to\n\u201cbless the arms\u201d of the worshipper, and send defeat and death to thousands\nof his enemies\u2014his brethren; a Deity that can be supposed not to turn a\ndeaf ear to chants of laudation mixed with entreaties for a \u201cfair\npropitious wind\u201d for self, and as naturally disastrous to the selves of\nother navigators who come from an opposite direction\u2014it is this idea of\nGod that has fostered selfishness in man, and deprived him of his self\u2010\nreliance. Prayer is an ennobling action when it is an intense feeling, an\nardent desire rushing forth from our very heart, for the good of other\npeople, and when entirely detached from any selfish personal object; the\ncraving for a beyond is natural and holy in man, but on the condition of\nsharing that bliss with others. One can understand and well appreciate the\nwords of the \u201cheathen\u201d Socrates, who declared in his profound though\nuntaught wisdom, that:\n\n\n    Our prayers should be for blessings on all, in general, for the\n    Gods know best what is good for us.\n\n\nBut official prayer\u2014in favour of a public calamity, or for the benefit of\none individual irrespective of losses to thousands\u2014is the most ignoble of\ncrimes, besides being an impertinent conceit and a superstition. This is\nthe direct inheritance by spoliation from the Jehovites\u2014the Jews of the\nWilderness and of the Golden Calf.\n\nIt is \u201cJehovah,\u201d as will be presently shown, that suggested the necessity\nof veiling and screening this substitute for the unpronounceable name, and\nthat led to all this \u201cmystery, parables, dark sayings and cloaking.\u201d Moses\nhad, at any rate, initiated his seventy Elders into the hidden truths, and\nthus the writers of the _Old Testament_ stand to a degree justified. Those\nof the _New Testament_ have failed to do even so much, or so little. They\nhave disfigured the grand central figure of Christ by their dogmas, and\nhave led people ever since into millions of errors and the darkest crimes,\nin His holy name.\n\nIt is evident that with the exception of Paul and Clement of Alexandria,\nwho had been both initiated into the Mysteries, none of the Fathers knew\nmuch of the truth themselves. They were mostly uneducated, ignorant\npeople; and if such as Augustine and Lactantius, or again the Venerable\nBede and others, were so painfully ignorant until the time of Galileo(93)\nof the most vital truths taught in the Pagan temples\u2014of the rotundity of\nthe earth, for example, leaving the heliocentric system out of\nquestion\u2014how great must have been the ignorance of the rest! Learning and\nsin were synonymous with the early Christians. Hence the accusations of\ndealing with the Devil lavished on the Pagan Philosophers.\n\nBut truth must out. The Occultists, referred to as \u201cthe followers of the\naccursed Cain,\u201d by such writers as De Mirville, are now in a position to\nreverse the tables. That which was hitherto known only to the ancient and\nmodern Kabalists in Europe and Asia, is now published and shown as being\nmathematically true. The author of the _Key to the Hebrew\u2010Egyptian Mystery\nor the Source of Measures_ has now proved to general satisfaction, it is\nto be hoped, that the two great God\u2010names, Jehovah and Elohim, stood, in\none meaning of their numerical values, for a diameter and a circumference\nvalue, respectively; in other words, that they are numerical indices of\ngeometrical relations; and finally that _Jehovah is Cain_ and _vice\nvers\u00e2_.\n\nThis view, says the author,\n\n\n    Helps also to take the horrid blemish off from the name of Cain,\n    as a put\u2010up job to destroy his character; for even without these\n    showings, by the very text, _he_ [Cain] _was Jehovah_. So the\n    theological schools had better be alive to making the amend\n    honorable, if such a thing is possible, to the good name and fame\n    of the God they worship.(94)\n\n\nThis is not the first warning received by the \u201ctheological schools,\u201d\nwhich, however, no doubt knew it from the beginning, as did Clemens of\nAlexandria and others. But if it be so they will profit still less by it,\nas the admission would involve more for them than the mere sacredness and\ndignity of the established faith.\n\nBut, it may also be asked, why is it that the Asiatic religions, which\nhave nothing of this sort to conceal and which proclaim quite openly the\nEsoterism of their doctrines, follow the same course? It is simply this:\nWhile the present, and no doubt enforced silence of the Church on this\nsubject relates merely to the external or theoretical form of the\n_Bible_\u2014the unveiling of the secrets of which would have involved no\npractical harm, had they been explained from the first\u2014it is an entirely\ndifferent question with Eastern Esoterism and Symbology. The grand central\nfigure of the Gospels would have remained as unaffected by the symbolism\nof the _Old Testament_ being revealed, as would that of the Founder of\nBuddhism had the Br\u00e2hmanical writings of the _Pur\u00e2nas_, that preceded his\nbirth, all been shown to be allegorical. Jesus of Nazareth, moreover,\nwould have gained more than he would have lost had he been presented as a\nsimple mortal left to be judged on his own precepts and merits, instead of\nbeing fathered on Christendom as a God whose many utterances and acts are\nnow so open to criticism. On the other hand the symbols and allegorical\nsayings that veil the grand truths of Nature in the _Vedas_, the\n_Br\u00e2hmanas_, the _Upanishads_ and especially in the Lamaist _Chagpa\nThogmed_ and other works, are quite of a different nature, and far more\ncomplicated in their secret meaning. While the Biblical glyphs have nearly\nall a triune foundation, those of the Eastern books are worked on the\nseptenary principle. They are as closely related to the mysteries of\nPhysics and Physiology, as to Psychism and the transcendental nature of\ncosmic elements and Theogony; unriddled they would prove more than\ninjurious to the uninitiated; delivered into the hands of the present\ngenerations in their actual state of physical and intellectual\ndevelopment, in the absence of spirituality and even of practical\nmorality, they would become absolutely disastrous.\n\nNevertheless the secret teachings of the sanctuaries have not remained\nwithout witness; they have been made immortal in various ways. They have\nburst upon the world in hundreds of volumes full of the quaint, head\u2010\nbreaking phraseology of the Alchemist; they have flashed like\nirrepressible cataracts of Occult mystic lore from the pens of poets and\nbards. Genius alone had certain privileges in those dark ages when no\ndreamer could offer the world even a fiction without suiting his heaven\nand his earth to biblical text. To genius alone it was permitted, in those\ncenturies of mental blindness, when the fear of the \u201cHoly Office\u201d threw a\nthick veil over every cosmic and psychic truth, to reveal unimpeded some\nof the grandest truths of Initiation. Whence did Ariosto, in his _Orlando\nFurioso_, obtain his conception of that valley in the Moon, where after\nour death we can find the ideas and images of all that exists on earth?\nHow came Dante to imagine the many descriptions given in his _Inferno_\u2014a\nnew Johannine Apocalypse, a true Occult Revelation in verse\u2014his visit and\ncommunion with the Souls of the Seven Spheres? In poetry and satire every\nOccult truth has been welcomed\u2014none has been recognised as serious. The\nComte de Gabalis is better known and appreciated than Porphyry and\nIamblichus. Plato\u2019s mysterious Atlantis is proclaimed a fiction, while\nNoah\u2019s Deluge is to this day on the brain of certain Arch\u00e6ologists, who\nscoff at the archetypal world of Marcel Palingenius\u2019 _Zodiac_, and would\nresent as a personal injury being asked to discuss the four worlds of\nMercury Trismegistus\u2014the Archetypal, the Spiritual, the Astral and the\nElementary, with three others behind the opened scene. Evidently civilised\nsociety is still but half prepared for the revelation. Hence, the\nInitiates will never give out the whole secret, until the bulk of mankind\nhas changed its actual nature and is better prepared for truth. Clemens\nAlexandrinus was positively right in saying, \u201cIt is requisite to hide in a\nmystery the wisdom spoken\u201d\u2014which the \u201cSons of God\u201d teach.\n\nThat Wisdom, as will be seen, relates to all the primeval truths delivered\nto the first Races, the \u201cMind\u2010born,\u201d by the \u201cBuilders\u201d of the Universe\nThemselves.\n\n\n    There was in every ancient country having claims to civilisation,\n    an Esoteric Doctrine, a system which was designated WISDOM,(95)\n    and those who were devoted to its prosecution were first\n    denominated sages, or wise men.... Pythagoras termed this system \u1f21\n    \u03b3\u03bd\u1ff6\u03c3\u03b9\u03c2 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f45\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03bd, the Gnosis or Knowledge of things that are.\n    Under the noble designation of WISDOM, the ancient teachers, the\n    sages of India, the magians of Persia and Babylon, the seers and\n    prophets of Israel, the hierophants of Egypt and Arabia, and the\n    philosophers of Greece and the West, included all knowledge which\n    they considered as essentially divine; classifying a part as\n    esoteric and the remainder as exterior. The Rabbis called the\n    exterior and secular series the _Mercavah_, as being the body or\n    vehicle which contained the higher knowledge.(96)\n\n\nLater on, we shall speak of the law of the silence imposed on Eastern\nchel\u00e2s.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION V. SOME REASONS FOR SECRESY.\n\n\nThe fact that the Occult Sciences have been withheld from the world at\nlarge, and denied by the Initiates to Humanity, has often been made matter\nof complaint. It has been alleged that the Guardians of the Secret Lore\nwere selfish in withholding the \u201ctreasures\u201d of Archaic Wisdom; that it was\npositively criminal to keep back such knowledge\u2014\u201cif any\u201d\u2014from the men of\nScience, etc.\n\nYet there must have been some very good reasons for it, since from the\nvery dawn of History such has been the policy of every Hierophant and\n\u201cMaster.\u201d Pythagoras, the first Adept and real Scientist in pre\u2010Christian\nEurope, is accused of having taught in public the immobility of the earth,\nand the rotatory motion of the stars around it, while he was declaring to\nhis privileged Adepts his belief in the motion of the Earth as a planet,\nand in the heliocentric system. The reasons for such secresy, however, are\nmany and were never made a mystery of. The chief cause was given in _Isis\nUnveiled_. It may now be repeated.\n\n\n    From the very day when the first mystic, taught by the first\n    Instructor of the \u201cdivine Dynasties\u201d of the early races, was\n    taught the means of communication between this world and the\n    worlds of the invisible host, between the sphere of matter and\n    that of pure spirit, he concluded that to abandon this mysterious\n    science to the desecration, willing or unwilling, of the profane\n    rabble\u2014was to lose it. An abuse of it might lead mankind to speedy\n    destruction; it was like surrounding a group of children with\n    explosive substances, and furnishing them with matches. The first\n    divine Instructor initiated but a select few, and these kept\n    silence with the multitudes. They recognised _their_ \u201cGod\u201d and\n    each Adept felt the great \u201cSELF\u201d within himself. The \u00c2tman, the\n    Self, the mighty Lord and Protector, once that man knew him as the\n    \u201cI am,\u201d the \u201cEgo Sum,\u201d the \u201cAsmi,\u201d showed his full power to him\n    who could recognise the \u201cstill small voice.\u201d From the days of the\n    primitive man described by the first Vedic poet, down to our\n    modern age, there has not been a philosopher worthy of that name,\n    who did not carry in the silent sanctuary of his heart the grand\n    and mysterious truth. If initiated, he learnt it as a sacred\n    science; if otherwise, then, like Socrates, repeating to himself\n    as well as his fellow\u2010men, the noble injunction, \u201cO man, know\n    thyself,\u201d he succeeded in recognising his God within himself. \u201cYe\n    are Gods,\u201d the king\u2010psalmist tells us, and we find Jesus reminding\n    the scribes that this expression was addressed to other mortal\n    men, claiming for themselves the same privilege without any\n    blasphemy. And as a faithful echo, Paul, while asserting that we\n    are all \u201cthe temple of the living God,\u201d cautiously remarked\n    elsewhere that after all these things are only for the \u201cwise,\u201d and\n    it is \u201cunlawful\u201d to speak of them.(97)\n\n\nSome of the reasons for this secresy may here be given.\n\nThe fundamental law and master\u2010key of practical Theurgy, in its chief\napplications to the serious study of cosmic and sidereal, of psychic and\nspiritual, mysteries was, and still is, that which was called by the Greek\nNeoplatonists \u201cTheophania.\u201d In its generally\u2010accepted meaning this is\n\u201ccommunication between the Gods (or God) and those initiated mortals who\nare spiritually fit to enjoy such an intercourse.\u201d Esoterically, however,\nit signifies more than this. For it is not only the presence of a God, but\nan actual\u2014howbeit temporary\u2014incarnation, the blending, so to say, of the\npersonal Deity, the Higher Self, with man\u2014its representative or agent on\nearth. As a general law, the Highest God, the Over\u2010soul of the human being\n(\u00c2tma\u2010Buddhi), only overshadows the individual during his life, for\npurposes of instruction and revelation; or as Roman Catholics\u2014who\nerroneously call that Over\u2010soul the \u201cGuardian Angel\u201d\u2014would say, \u201cIt stands\noutside and watches.\u201d But in the case of the theophanic mystery, it\nincarnates itself in the Theurgist for purposes of revelation. When the\nincarnation is temporary, during those mysterious trances or \u201cecstasy,\u201d\nwhich Plotinus defined as\n\n\n    The liberation of the mind from its finite consciousness, becoming\n    one and identified with the Infinite,\n\n\nthis sublime condition is very short. The human soul, being the offspring\nor emanation of its God, the \u201cFather and the Son\u201d become one, \u201cthe divine\nfountain flowing like a stream into its human bed.\u201d(98) In exceptional\ncases, however, the mystery becomes complete; the Word is made Flesh in\nreal fact, the individual becoming divine in the full sense of the term,\nsince his personal God has made of him his permanent life\u2010long\ntabernacle\u2014\u201cthe temple of God,\u201d as Paul says.\n\nNow that which is meant here by the _personal_ God of Man is, of course,\nnot his seventh Principle alone, as _per se_ and in essence that is merely\na beam of the infinite Ocean of Light. In conjunction with our Divine\nSoul, the Buddhi, it cannot be called a Duad, as it otherwise might,\nsince, though formed from \u00c2tm\u00e2 and Buddhi (the two higher Principles), the\nformer is no entity but an emanation from the Absolute, and indivisible in\nreality from it. The personal God is not the Monad, but indeed the\nprototype of the latter, what for want of a better term we call the\n_manifested_ K\u00e2ran\u00e2tm\u00e2(99) (Causal Soul), one of the \u201cseven\u201d and chief\nreservoirs of the human Monads or Egos. The latter are gradually formed\nand strengthened during their incarnation\u2010cycle by constant additions of\nindividuality from the personalities in which incarnates that androgynous,\nhalf\u2010spiritual, half\u2010terrestrial principle, partaking of both heaven and\nearth, called by the Ved\u00e2ntins J\u00eeva and Vij\u00f1\u00e2namaya Kosha, and by the\nOccultists the Manas (mind); that, in short, which uniting itself\npartially with the Monad, incarnates in each new birth. In perfect unity\nwith its (seventh) Principle, the Spirit unalloyed, it is the divine\nHigher Self, as every student of Theosophy knows. After every new\nincarnation Buddhi\u2010Manas culls, so to say, the aroma of the flower called\npersonality, the purely earthly residue of which\u2014its dregs\u2014is left to fade\nout as a shadow. This is the most difficult\u2014because so transcendentally\nmetaphysical\u2014portion of the doctrine.\n\nAs is repeated many a time in this and other works, it is not the\nPhilosophers, Sages, and Adepts of antiquity who can ever be charged with\nidolatry. It is they in fact, who, recognising divine unity, were the only\nones, owing to their initiation into the mysteries of Esotericism, to\nunderstand correctly the \u1f51\u03c0\u03cc\u03bd\u03bf\u03b9\u03b1 (hypon\u00e9a), or under\u2010meaning of the\nanthropomorphism of the so\u2010called Angels, Gods, and spiritual Beings of\nevery kind. Each, worshipping the one Divine Essence that pervades the\nwhole world of Nature, reverenced, but never worshipped or idolised, any\nof these \u201cGods,\u201d whether high or low\u2014not even his own personal Deity, of\nwhich he was a Ray, and to whom he appealed.(100)\n\n\n    The holy Triad emanates from the One, and is the Tetraktys; the\n    gods, daimons, and souls are an emanation of the Triad. Heroes and\n    men repeat the hierarchy in themselves.\n\n\nThus said Metrodorus of Chios, the Pythagorean, the latter part of the\nsentence meaning that man has within himself the seven pale reflections of\nthe seven divine Hierarchies; his Higher Self is, therefore, in itself but\nthe refracted beam of the direct Ray. He who regards the latter as an\nEntity, in the usual sense of the term, is one of the \u201cinfidels and\natheists,\u201d spoken of by Epicurus, for he fastens on that God \u201cthe opinions\nof the multitude\u201d\u2014an anthropomorphism of the grossest kind.(101) The Adept\nand the Occultist know that \u201cwhat are styled the Gods are only the first\nprinciples\u201d (Aristotle). None the less they are intelligent, conscious,\nand _living_ \u201cPrinciples,\u201d the Primary Seven Lights _manifested_ from\nLight _unmanifested_\u2014which to us is Darkness. They are the\nSeven\u2014exoterically four\u2014Kum\u00e2ras or \u201cMind\u2010Born Sons\u201d of Brahm\u00e2. And it is\nthey again, the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, who are the prototypes in the \u00e6onic\neternity of lower Gods and hierarchies of divine Beings, at the lowest end\nof which ladder of being are we\u2014men.\n\nThus perchance Polytheism, when philosophically understood, may be a\ndegree higher than even the Monotheism of the Protestant, say, who limits\nand conditions the Deity in whom he persists in seeing the Infinite, but\nwhose supposed actions make of that \u201cAbsolute and Infinite\u201d the most\nabsurd paradox in Philosophy. From this standpoint Roman Catholicism\nitself is immeasurably higher and more logical than Protestantism, though\nthe Roman Church has been pleased to adopt the exotericism of the heathen\n\u201cmultitude\u201d and to reject the Philosophy of pure Esotericism.\n\nThus every mortal has his immortal counterpart, or rather his Archetype,\nin heaven. This means that the former is indissolubly united to the\nlatter, in each of his incarnations, and for the duration of the cycle of\nbirths; only it is by the spiritual and intellectual Principle in him,\nentirely distinct from the lower _self_, never through the earthly\npersonality. Some of these are even liable to break the union altogether,\nin case of absence in the moral individual of binding, _viz._, of\nspiritual ties. Truly, as Paracelsus puts it in his quaint, tortured\nphraseology, man with his three (compound) Spirits is suspended like a\nf\u0153tus by all three to the matrix of the Macrocosm; the thread which holds\nhim united being the \u201cThread\u2010Soul,\u201d S\u00fbtr\u00e2tm\u00e2, and Taijasa (the \u201cShining\u201d)\nof the Ved\u00e2ntins. And it is through this spiritual and intellectual\nPrinciple in man, through Taijasa\u2014the Shining, \u201cbecause it has the\nluminous internal organ as its associate\u201d\u2014that man is thus united to his\nheavenly prototype, never through his lower inner self or Astral Body, for\nwhich there remains in most cases nothing but to fade out.\n\nOccultism, or Theurgy, teaches the means of producing such union. But it\nis the actions of man\u2014his personal merit alone\u2014that can produce it on\nearth, or determine its duration. This lasts from a few seconds\u2014a flash\u2014to\nseveral hours, during which time the Theurgist or Theophanist is that\novershadowing \u201cGod\u201d himself; hence he becomes endowed for the time being\nwith relative omniscience and omnipotence. With such perfect (divine)\nAdepts as Buddha(102) and others such a hypostatical state of avat\u00e2ric\ncondition may last during the whole life; whereas in the case of full\nInitiates, who have not yet reached the perfect state of J\u00eevanmukta,(103)\nTheopneusty, when in full sway, results for the high Adept in a full\nrecollection of everything seen, heard, or sensed.\n\n\n    Taijasa has fruition of the supersensible.(104)\n\n\nFor one less perfect it will end only in a partial, indistinct\nremembrance; while the beginner has to face in the first period of his\npsychic experiences a mere confusion, followed by a rapid and finally\ncomplete oblivion of the mysteries seen during this super\u2010hypnotic\ncondition. The degree of recollection, when one returns to his waking\nstate and physical senses, depends on his spiritual and psychic\npurification, the greatest enemy of spiritual memory being man\u2019s physical\nbrain, the organ of his sensuous nature.\n\nThe above states are described for a clearer comprehension of terms used\nin this work. There are so many and such various conditions and states\nthat even a Seer is liable to confound one with the other. To repeat: the\nGreek, rarely\u2010used word, \u201cTheophania,\u201d meant more with the Neoplatonists\nthan it does with the modern maker of dictionaries. The compound word,\n\u201cTheophania\u201d (from \u201ctheos,\u201d \u201cGod,\u201d and \u201cphainomai,\u201d \u201cto appear\u201d), does not\nsimply mean \u201ca manifestation of God to man by _actual_ appearance\u201d\u2014an\nabsurdity, by the way\u2014but the actual presence of a God in man, a _divine_\nincarnation. When Simon the Magician claimed to be \u201cGod the Father,\u201d what\nhe wanted to convey was just that which has been explained, namely, that\nhe was a _divine_ incarnation of his own Father, whether we see in the\nlatter an Angel, a God, or a Spirit; therefore he was called \u201cthat power\nof God which is called great,\u201d(105) or that power which causes the Divine\nSelf to enshrine itself in its lower self\u2014man.\n\nThis is one of the several mysteries of being and incarnation. Another is\nthat when an Adept reaches during his lifetime that state of holiness and\npurity that makes him \u201cequal to the Angels,\u201d then at death his\napparitional or astral body becomes as solid and tangible as was the late\nbody, and is transformed into the real man.(106) The old physical body,\nfalling off like the cast\u2010off serpent\u2019s skin, the body of the \u201cnew\u201d man\nremains either visible or, at the option of the Adept, disappears from\nview, surrounded as it is by the \u00c2k\u00e2shic shell that screens it. In the\nlatter case there are three ways open to the Adept:\n\n(1.) He may remain in the earth\u2019s sphere (V\u00e2yu or K\u00e2ma\u2010loka), in that\nethereal locality concealed from human sight save during flashes of\nclairvoyance. In this case his astral body, owing to its great purity and\nspirituality, having lost the conditions required for \u00c2k\u00e2shic light (the\nnether or terrestrial ether) to absorb its semi\u2010material particles, the\nAdept will have to remain in the company of disintegrating shells\u2014doing no\ngood or useful work. This, of course, cannot be.\n\n(2.) He can by a supreme effort of will merge entirely into, and get\nunited with, his Monad. By doing so, however, he would (_a_) deprive his\nHigher Self of posthumous Sam\u00e2dhi\u2014a bliss which is not real Nirv\u00e2na\u2014the\nastral, however pure, being too earthly for such state; and (_b_) he would\nthereby open himself to Karmic law; the action being, in fact, the outcome\nof personal selfishness\u2014of reaping the fruits produced by and for\noneself\u2014alone.\n\n(3.) The Adept has the option of renouncing conscious Nirv\u00e2na and rest, to\nwork on earth for the good of mankind. This he can do in a two\u2010fold way:\neither, as above said, by consolidating his astral body into physical\nappearance, he can reassume the self\u2010same personality; or he can avail\nhimself of an entirely new physical body, whether that of a newly\u2010born\ninfant or\u2014as Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya is reported to have done with the body of a\ndead R\u00e2jah\u2014by \u201centering a deserted sheath,\u201d and living in it as long as he\nchooses. This is what is called \u201ccontinuous existence.\u201d The Section\nentitled \u201cThe Mystery about Buddha\u201d will throw additional light on this\ntheory, to the profane incomprehensible, or to the generality simply\n_absurd_. Such is the doctrine taught, everyone having the choice of\neither fathoming it still deeper, or of leaving it unnoticed.\n\nThe above is simply a small portion of what might have been given in _Isis\nUnveiled_, had the time come then, as it has now. One cannot study and\nprofit by Occult Science, unless one gives himself up to it\u2014heart, soul,\nand body. Some of its truths are too awful, too dangerous, for the average\nmind. None can toy and play with such terrible weapons with impunity.\nTherefore it is, as St. Paul has it, \u201cunlawful\u201d to speak of them. Let us\naccept the reminder and talk only of that which is \u201clawful.\u201d\n\nThe quotation on p. 56 relates, moreover, only to psychic or spiritual\nMagic. The practical teachings of Occult Science are entirely different,\nand few are the strong minds fitted for them. As to ecstasy, and such like\nkinds of self\u2010illumination, this may be obtained by oneself and without\nany teacher or initiation, for ecstacy is reached by an inward command and\ncontrol of Self over the physical Ego; as to obtaining mastery over the\nforces of Nature, this requires a long training, or the capacity of one\nborn a \u201cnatural Magician.\u201d Meanwhile, those who possess neither of the\nrequisite qualifications are strongly advised to limit themselves to\npurely spiritual development. But even this is difficult, as the first\nnecessary qualification is an unshakable belief in one\u2019s own powers and\nthe Deity within oneself; otherwise a man would simply develop into an\nirresponsible medium. Throughout the whole mystic literature of the\nancient world we detect the same idea of spiritual Esoterism, that the\npersonal God exists within, nowhere outside, the worshipper. That personal\nDeity is no vain breath, or a fiction, but an immortal Entity, the\nInitiator of the Initiates, now that the heavenly or Celestial Initiators\nof primitive humanity\u2014the Shishta of the preceding cycles\u2014are no more\namong us. Like an under\u2010current, rapid and clear, it runs without mixing\nits crystalline purity with the muddy and troubled waters of dogmatism, an\nenforced anthropomorphic Deity and religious intolerance. We find this\nidea in the tortured and barbarous phraseology of the _Codex Nazar\u00e6us_,\nand in the superb Neoplatonic language of the Fourth Gospel of the later\nReligion, in the oldest _Veda_ and in the _Avesta_, in the _Abhidharma_,\nin Kapila\u2019s _S\u00e2nkhya_, and the _Bhagavad G\u00eet\u00e2_. We cannot attain Adeptship\nand Nirv\u00e2na, Bliss and the \u201cKingdom of Heaven,\u201d unless we link ourselves\nindissolubly with our Rex Lux, the Lord of Splendour and of Light, our\nimmortal God within us. \u201cAham eva param Brahman\u201d\u2014\u201cI am verily the Supreme\nBrahman\u201d\u2014has ever been the one living truth in the heart and mind of the\nAdepts, and it is this which helps the Mystic to become one. One must\nfirst of all recognise one\u2019s own immortal Principle, and then only can one\nconquer, or take the Kingdom of Heaven by violence. Only this has to be\nachieved by the higher\u2014not the middle, nor the third\u2014man, the last one\nbeing of dust. Nor can the second man, the \u201cSon\u201d\u2014on this plane, as his\n\u201cFather\u201d is the Son on a still higher plane\u2014do anything without the\nassistance of the first, the \u201cFather.\u201d But to succeed one has to identify\noneself with one\u2019s divine Parent.\n\n\n    The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second [inner, our\n    higher] man is the Lord from heaven.... Behold, I show you a\n    mystery.(107)\n\n\nThus says Paul, mentioning but the dual and trinitarian man for the better\ncomprehension of the non\u2010initiated. But this is not all, for the Delphic\ninjunction has to be fulfilled: man must know himself in order to become a\nperfect Adept. How few can acquire the knowledge, however, not merely in\nits inner mystical, but even in its literal sense, for there are two\nmeanings in this command of the Oracle. This is the doctrine of Buddha and\nthe Bodhisattvas pure and simple.\n\nSuch is also the mystical sense of what was said by Paul to the\nCorinthians about their being the \u201ctemple of God,\u201d for this meant\nEsoterically:\n\n\n    Ye are the temple of [the, or your] God, and the Spirit of [a, or\n    your] God dwelleth in you.(108)\n\n\nThis carries precisely the same meaning as the \u201cI am verily Brahman\u201d of\nthe Ved\u00e2ntin. Nor is the latter assertion more blasphemous than the\nPauline\u2014if there were any blasphemy in either, which is denied. Only the\nVed\u00e2ntin, who never refers to his body as being himself, or even a part of\nhimself, or aught else but an illusory form for others to see him in,\nconstructs his assertion more openly and sincerely than was done by Paul.\n\nThe Delphic command \u201cKnow thyself\u201d was perfectly comprehensible to every\nnation of old. So it is now, save to the Christians, since, with the\nexception of the Mussulmans, it is part and parcel of every Eastern\nreligion, including the Kabalistically instructed Jews. To understand its\nfull meaning, however, necessitates, first of all, belief in Reincarnation\nand all its mysteries; not as laid down in the doctrine of the French\nReincarnationists of the Allan Kardec school, but as they are expounded\nand taught by Esoteric Philosophy. Man must, in short, know who he was,\nbefore he arrives at knowing what he is. And how many are there among\nEuropeans who are capable of developing within themselves an absolute\nbelief in their past and future reincarnations, in general, even as a law,\nlet alone mystic knowledge of one\u2019s immediately precedent life? Early\neducation, tradition and training of thought, everything is opposing\nitself during their whole lives to such a belief. Cultured people have\nbeen brought up in that most pernicious idea that the wide difference\nfound between the units of one and the same mankind, or even race, is the\nresult of chance; that the gulf between man and man in their respective\nsocial positions, birth, intellect, physical and mental capacities\u2014every\none of which qualifications has a direct influence on every human\nlife\u2014that all this is simply due to blind hazard, only the most pious\namong them finding equivocal consolation in the idea that it is \u201cthe will\nof God.\u201d They have never analysed, never stopped to think of the depth of\nthe opprobrium that is thrown upon their God, once the grand and most\nequitable law of the manifold re\u2010births of man upon this earth is\nfoolishly rejected. Men and women anxious to be regarded as Christians,\noften truly and sincerely trying to lead a Christ\u2010like life, have never\npaused to reflect over the words of their own _Bible_. \u201cArt thou Elias?\u201d\nthe Jewish priests and Levites asked the Baptist.(109) Their Saviour\ntaught His disciples this grand truth of the Esoteric Philosophy, but\nverily, if His Apostles comprehended it, no one else seems to have\nrealised its true meaning. No; not even Nicodemus, who, to the assertion:\n\u201cExcept a man be born again(110) he cannot see the Kingdom of God,\u201d\nanswers: \u201cHow can a man be born when he is old?\u201d and is forthwith reproved\nby the remark: \u201cArt thou a master in Israel and knowest not these\nthings?\u201d\u2014as no one had a right to call himself a \u201cMaster\u201d and Teacher,\nwithout having been initiated into the mysteries (_a_) of a spiritual re\u2010\nbirth through water, fire and spirit, and (_b_) of the re\u2010birth from\nflesh.(111) Then again what can be a clearer expression as to the doctrine\nof manifold re\u2010births than the answer given by Jesus to the Sadducees,\n\u201cwho deny that there is any resurrection,\u201d _i.e._, any re\u2010birth, since the\ndogma of the resurrection in the flesh is now regarded as an absurdity\neven by the intelligent clergy:\n\n\n    They who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world\n    [Nirv\u00e2na](112) ... neither marry ... neither can they die any\n    more,\n\n\nwhich shows that they had already died, and more than once. And again:\n\n\n    Now that the dead are raised even Moses shewed ... he calleth the\n    Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of\n    Jacob, for he is not a God of the dead but of the living.(113)\n\n\nThe sentence \u201cnow that the dead _are raised_\u201d evidently applied to the\nthen actual re\u2010births of the Jacobs and the Isaacs, and not to their\nfuture resurrection; for in such case they would have been still dead in\nthe interim, and could not be referred to as \u201cthe living.\u201d\n\nBut the most suggestive of Christ\u2019s parables and \u201cdark sayings\u201d is found\nin the explanation given by him to his Apostles about the blind man:\n\n\n    Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born\n    blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this [blind, physical] man\n    sinned nor his parents; but that the works of [his] God should be\n    made manifest in him.(114)\n\n\nMan is the \u201ctabernacle,\u201d the \u201cbuilding\u201d only, of his God; and of course it\nis not the temple but its inmate\u2014the vehicle of \u201cGod\u201d(115)\u2014that had sinned\nin a previous incarnation, and had thus brought the Karma of cecity upon\nthe new building. Thus Jesus spoke truly; but to this day his followers\nhave refused to understand the words of wisdom spoken. The Saviour is\nshown by his followers as though he were paving, by his words and\nexplanation, the way to a preconceived programme that had to lead to an\nintended miracle. Verily the Grand Martyr has remained thenceforward, and\nfor eighteen centuries, the Victim crucified daily far more cruelly by his\nclerical disciples and lay followers than he ever could have been by his\nallegorical enemies. For such is the true sense of the words \u201cthat the\nworks of God should be made manifest in him,\u201d in the light of theological\ninterpretation, and a very undignified one it is, if the Esoteric\nexplanation is rejected.\n\nDoubtless the above will be regarded as fresh blasphemy. Nevertheless\nthere are a number of Christians whom we know\u2014whose hearts go out as\nstrongly to their ideal of Jesus, as their souls are repelled from the\ntheological picture of the official Saviour\u2014who will reflect over our\nexplanation and find in it no offence, but perchance a relief.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION VI. THE DANGERS OF PRACTICAL MAGIC.\n\n\nMagic is a dual power: nothing is easier than to turn it into Sorcery; _an\nevil thought suffices for it_. Therefore while theoretical Occultism is\nharmless, and may do good, practical Magic, or the fruits of the Tree of\nLife and Knowledge,(116) or otherwise the \u201cScience of Good and Evil,\u201d is\nfraught with dangers and perils. For the study of theoretical Occultism\nthere are, no doubt, a number of works that may be read with profit,\nbesides such books as the _Finer Forces of Nature_, etc., the _Zohar_,\n_Sepher Jetzirah_, _The Book of Enoch_, Franck\u2019s _Kabalah_, and many\nHermetic treatises. These are scarce in European languages, but works in\nLatin by the medi\u00e6val Philosophers, generally known as Alchemists and\nRosicrucians, are plentiful. But even the perusal of these may prove\ndangerous for the unguided student. If approached without the right key to\nthem, and if the student is unfit, owing to mental incapacity, for Magic,\nand is thus unable to discern the Right from the Left Path, let him take\nour advice and leave this study alone; he will only bring on himself and\non his family unexpected woes and sorrows, never suspecting whence they\ncome, nor what are the powers awakened by his mind being bent on them.\nWorks for advanced students are many, but these can be placed at the\ndisposal of only sworn or \u201cpledged\u201d chel\u00e2s (disciples), those who have\npronounced the ever\u2010binding oath, and who are, therefore, helped and\nprotected. For all other purposes, well\u2010intentioned as such works may be,\nthey can only mislead the unwary and guide him imperceptibly to Black\nMagic or Sorcery\u2014if to nothing worse.\n\nThe mystic characters, alphabets and numerals found in the divisions and\nsub\u2010divisions of the _Great Kabalah_, are, perhaps, the most dangerous\nportions in it, and especially the numerals. We say dangerous, because\nthey are the most prompt to produce effects and results, and this with or\nwithout the experimenter\u2019s will, even without his knowledge. Some students\nare apt to doubt this statement, simply because after manipulating these\nnumerals they have failed to notice any dire physical manifestation or\nresult. Such results would be found the least dangerous: it is the moral\ncauses produced and the various events developed and brought to an\nunforeseen crisis, that would testify to the truth of what is now stated\nhad the lay students only the power of discernment.\n\nThe point of departure of that special branch of the Occult teaching known\nas the \u201cScience of Correspondences,\u201d numerical or literal or alphabetical,\nhas for its epigraph with the Jewish and Christian Kabalists, the two mis\u2010\ninterpreted verses which say that God\n\n\n    ordered all things in number, measure and weight;(117)\n\n\nand:\n\n\n    He created her in the Holy Ghost, and saw her, and numbered her,\n    and measured her.(118)\n\n\nBut the Eastern Occultists have another epigraph: \u201c_Absolute Unity, x_,\nwithin number and plurality.\u201d Both the Western and the Eastern students of\nthe Hidden Wisdom hold to this axiomatic truth. Only the latter are\nperhaps more sincere in their confessions. Instead of putting a mask on\ntheir Science, they show her face openly, even if they do veil carefully\nher heart and soul before the inappreciative public and the profane, who\nare ever ready to abuse the most sacred truths for their own selfish ends.\nBut Unity is the real basis of the Occult Sciences\u2014physical and\nmetaphysical. This is shown even by \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi, the learned Western\nKabalist, inclined as he is to be rather jesuitical. He says:\n\n\n    Absolute Unity is the supreme and final reason of things.\n    Therefore, that reason can be neither one person, nor three\n    persons; it is Reason, and pre\u2010eminently Reason (_raison par\n    excellence_).(119)\n\n\nThe meaning of this Unity in Plurality in \u201cGod\u201d or Nature, can be solved\nonly by the means of transcendental methods, by numerals, as by the\ncorrespondences between soul and the Soul. Names, in the _Kabalah_ as in\nthe _Bible_, such as Jehovah, Adam Kadmon, Eve, Cain, Abel, Enoch, are all\nof them more intimately connected, by geometrical and astronomical\nrelations, with Physiology (or Phallicism) than with Theology or Religion.\nLittle as people are as yet prepared to admit it, this will be shown to be\na fact. If all those names are symbols for things hidden, as well as for\nthose manifested, in the _Bible_ as in the _Vedas_, their respective\nmysteries differ greatly. Plato\u2019s motto \u201cGod geometrises\u201d was accepted by\nboth \u00c2ryans and Jews; but while the former applied their Science of\nCorrespondences to veil the most spiritual and sublime truths of Nature,\nthe latter used their acumen to conceal only one\u2014to them the most\ndivine\u2014of the mysteries of Evolution, namely, that of birth and\ngeneration, and then they deified the organs of the latter.\n\nApart from this, every cosmogony, from the earliest to the latest, is\nbased upon, interlinked with, and most closely related to, numerals and\ngeometric figures. Questioned by an Initiate, these figures and numbers\nwill yield numerical values based on the integral values of the\nCircle\u2014\u201cthe secret habitat of the ever\u2010invisible Deity\u201d as the Alchemists\nhave it\u2014as they will yield every other Occult particular connected with\nsuch mysteries, whether anthropographical, anthropological, cosmic, or\npsychical. \u201cIn reuniting Ideas to Numbers, we can operate upon Ideas in\nthe same way as upon Numbers, and arrive at the Mathematics of Truth,\u201d\nwrites an Occultist, who shows his great wisdom in desiring to remain\nunknown.\n\n\n    Any Kabalist well acquainted with the Pythagorean system of\n    numerals and geometry can demonstrate that the metaphysical views\n    of Plato were based upon the strictest mathematical principles.\n    \u201cTrue mathematics,\u201d says the _Magicon_, \u201cis something with which\n    all higher sciences are connected; common mathematics is but a\n    deceitful phantasmagoria, whose much praised infallibility only\n    arises from this\u2014that materials, conditions and references are\n    made to foundation.\u201d ...\n\n    The cosmological theory of numerals which Pythagoras learned in\n    India, and from the Egyptian Hierophants, is alone able to\n    reconcile the two units, matter and spirit, and cause each to\n    demonstrate the other mathematically. The sacred numbers of the\n    universe in their esoteric combination can alone solve the great\n    problem, and explain the theory of radiation and the cycle of the\n    emanations. The lower orders, before they develop into higher\n    ones, must emanate from the higher spiritual ones, and when\n    arrived at the turning\u2010point, be re\u00e4bsorbed into the\n    infinite.(120)\n\n\nIt is upon these true Mathematics that the knowledge of the Kosmos and of\nall mysteries rests, and to one acquainted with them, it is the easiest\nthing possible to prove that both Vaidic and Biblical structures are based\nupon \u201cGod\u2010in\u2010Nature\u201d and \u201cNature\u2010in\u2010God,\u201d as the radical law. Therefore,\nthis law\u2014as everything else immutable and fixed in eternity\u2014could find a\ncorrect expression only in those purest transcendental Mathematics\nreferred to by Plato, especially in Geometry as transcendentally applied.\n_Revealed_ to men\u2014we fear not and will not retract the expression\u2014in this\ngeometrical and symbolical garb, Truth has grown and developed into\nadditional symbology, invented by man for the wants and better\ncomprehension of the masses of mankind that came too late in their cyclic\ndevelopment and evolution to have shared in the primitive knowledge, and\nwould never have grasped it otherwise. If later on, the clergy\u2014crafty and\nambitious of power in every age\u2014anthropomorphised and degraded abstract\nideals, as well as the real and divine Beings who do exist in Nature, and\nare the Guardians and Protectors of our manvantaric world and period, the\nfault and guilt rests with those would\u2010be leaders, not with the masses.\n\nBut the day has come when the gross conceptions of our forefathers during\nthe Middle Ages can no longer satisfy the thoughtful religionist. The\nmedi\u00e6val Alchemist and Mystic are now transformed into the sceptical\nChemist and Physicist; and most of them are found to have turned away from\ntruth, on account of the purely anthropomorphic ideas, the gross\nMaterialism, of the forms in which it is presented to them. Therefore,\nfuture generations have either to be gradually initiated into the truths\nunderlying Exoteric Religions, including their own, or be left to break\nthe feet of clay of the last of the gilded idols. No educated man or woman\nwould turn away from any of the now called \u201csuperstitions\u201d which they\nbelieve to be based on nursery tales and ignorance, if they could only see\nthe basis of fact that underlies every \u201csuperstition.\u201d But let them once\nlearn for a certainty that there is hardly a claim in the Occult Sciences\nthat is not founded on philosophical and scientific facts in Nature, and\nthey will pursue the study of those Sciences with the same, if not with\ngreater, ardour than that they have expended in shunning them. This cannot\nbe achieved at once, for to benefit mankind such truths have to be\nrevealed gradually and with great caution, the public mind not being\nprepared for them. However much the Agnostics of our age may find\nthemselves in the mental attitude demanded by Modern Science, people are\nalways apt to cling to their old hobbies so long as the remembrance of\nthem lasts. They are like the Emperor Julian\u2014called the Apostate, because\nhe loved truth too well to accept aught else\u2014who, though in his last\nTheophany he beheld his beloved Gods as pale, worn\u2010out, and hardly\ndiscernible shadows, nevertheless clung to them. Let, then, the world\ncling to its Gods, to whatever plane or realm they may belong. The true\nOccultist would be guilty of high treason to mankind, were he to break for\never the old deities before he could replace them with the whole and\nunadulterated truth\u2014and this he cannot do as yet. Nevertheless, the reader\nmay be allowed to learn at least the alphabet of that truth. He may be\nshown, at any rate, what the Gods and Goddesses of the Pagans, denounced\nas demons by the Church, are not, if he cannot learn the whole and final\ntruth as to what they are. Let him assure himself that the Hermetic \u201cTres\nMatres,\u201d and the \u201cThree Mothers\u201d of the _Sepher Jetzirah_ are one and the\nsame thing; that they are no Demon\u2010Goddesses, but Light, Heat, and\nElectricity, and then, perchance, the learned classes will spurn them no\nlonger. After this, the Rosicrucian Illuminati may find followers even in\nthe Royal Academies, which will be more prepared, perhaps, than they are\nnow, to admit the grand truths of archaic Natural Philosophy, especially\nwhen their learned members shall have assured themselves that, in the\ndialect of Hermes, the \u201cThree Mothers\u201d stand as symbols for the whole of\nthe forces or agencies which have a place assigned to them in the modern\nsystem of the \u201ccorrelation of forces.\u201d(121) Even the polytheism of the\n\u201csuperstitious\u201d Br\u00e2hman and idolater shows its _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_, since the\nthree Shaktis of the three great Gods, Brahm\u00e2, Vishnu, and Shiva, are\nidentical with the \u201cThree Mothers\u201d of the monotheistic Jew.\n\nThe whole of the ancient religious and mystical literature is symbolical.\nThe _Books of Hermes_, the _Zohar_, the _Ya\u2010Yakav_, the Egyptian _Book __\nof the Dead_, the _Vedas_, the _Upanishads_, and the _Bible_, are as full\nof symbolism as are the Nabathean revelations of the Chaldaic Q\u00fb\u2010t\u00e2my; it\nis a loss of time to ask which is the earliest; all are simply different\nversions of the one primeval Record of prehistoric knowledge and\nrevelation.\n\nThe first four chapters of _Genesis_ contain the synopsis of all the rest\nof the _Pentateuch_, being only the various versions of the same thing in\ndifferent allegorical and symbolical applications. Having discovered that\nthe Pyramid of Cheops with all its measurements is to be found contained\nin its minutest details in the structure of Solomon\u2019s Temple; and having\nascertained that the biblical names Shem, Ham and Japhet are determinative\n\n\n    of pyramid measures, in connection with the 600\u2010year period of\n    Noah and the 500\u2010year period of Shem, Ham and Japhet; ... the term\n    \u201cSons of Elohim\u201d and \u201cDaughters\u201d of H\u2010Adam, [are] for one thing\n    astronomical terms,(122)\n\n\nthe author of the very curious work already mentioned\u2014a book very little\nknown in Europe, we regret to say\u2014seems to see nothing in his discovery\nbeyond the presence of Mathematics and Metrology in the _Bible_. He also\narrives at most unexpected and extraordinary conclusions, such as are very\nlittle warranted by the facts discovered. His impression seems to be that\nbecause the Jewish biblical names are all astronomical, therefore the\nScriptures of all the other nations can be \u201conly this and nothing more.\u201d\nBut this is a great mistake of the erudite and wonderfully acute author of\n_The Source of Measures_, if he really thinks so. The \u201cKey to the Hebrew\u2010\nEgyptian Mystery\u201d unlocks but a certain portion of the hieratic writings\nof these two nations, and leaves those of other peoples untouched. His\nidea is that the _Kabalah_ \u201cis only that sublime Science upon which\nMasonry is based\u201d; in fact he regards Masonry as the substance of the\n_Kabalah_, and the latter as the \u201crational basis of the Hebrew text of\nHoly Writ.\u201d About this we will not argue with the author. But why should\nall those who may have found in the _Kabalah_ something beyond \u201cthe\nsublime Science\u201d upon which Masonry is alleged to have been built, be held\nup to public contempt?\n\nIn its exclusiveness and one\u2010sidedness such a conclusion is pregnant with\nfuture misconceptions and is absolutely wrong. In its uncharitable\ncriticism it throws a slur upon the \u201cDivine Science\u201d itself.\n\nThe _Kabalah_ is indeed \u201cof the essence of Masonry,\u201d but it is dependent\non Metrology only in one of its aspects, the less Esoteric, as even Plato\nmade no secret that the Deity was ever geometrising. For the uninitiated,\nhowever learned and endowed with genius they may be, the _Kabalah_, which\ntreats only of \u201cthe garment of God,\u201d or the _veil_ and _cloak_ of truth,\n\n\n    is built from the ground upward with a practical application to\n    present uses.(123)\n\n\nOr in other words represents an exact Science only on the terrestrial\nplane. To the initiated, the Kabalistic Lord descends from the primeval\nRace, generated spiritually from the \u201cMind\u2010born Seven.\u201d Having reached the\nEarth the Divine Mathematics\u2014a synonym for Magic in his day, as we are\ntold by Josephus\u2014veiled her face. Hence the most important secret yet\nyielded by her in our modern day is the identity of the old Roman measures\nand the present British measures, of the Hebrew\u2010Egyptian cubit and the\nMasonic inch.(124)\n\nThe discovery is most wonderful, and has led to further and minor\nunveilings of various riddles in reference to Symbology and biblical\nnames. It is thoroughly understood and proven, as shown by Nachanides,\nthat in the days of Moses the initial sentence in _Genesis_ was made to\nread _B\u2019rash ithbara Elohim_, or \u201cIn the head\u2010source [or M\u00fblaprakiti\u2014the\nRootless Root] developed [or evolved] the Gods [Elohim], the heavens and\nthe earth;\u201d whereas it is now, owing to the Massora and theological\ncunning, transformed into _B\u2019rashith bara Elohim_, or, \u201cIn the beginning\nGod created the heavens and the earth\u201d\u2014which word juggling alone has led\nto materialistic anthropomorphism and dualism. How many more similar\ninstances may not be found in the _Bible_, the last and latest of the\nOccult works of antiquity? There is no longer any doubt in the mind of the\nOccultist, that, notwithstanding its form and outward meaning, the\n_Bible_\u2014as explained by the _Zohar_ or _Midrash_, the _Yetzirah_ (Book of\nCreation) and the _Commentary on the Ten Sephiroth_ (by Azariel Ben\nManachem of the XIIth century)\u2014is part and parcel of the Secret Doctrine\nof the \u00c2ryans, which explains in the same manner the _Vedas_ and all other\nallegorical books. The _Zohar_, in teaching that the Impersonal One Cause\nmanifests in the Universe through Its Emanations, the Sephiroth\u2014that\nUniverse being in its totality simply the veil woven from the Deity\u2019s own\nsubstance\u2014is undeniably the copy and faithful echo of the earliest\n_Vedas_. Taken by itself, without the additional help of the Vaidic and of\nBr\u00e2hmanical literature in general, the _Bible_ will never yield the\nuniversal secrets of Occult Nature. The cubits, inches, and measures of\nthis physical plane will never solve the problems of the world on the\nspiritual plane\u2014for Spirit can neither be weighed nor measured. The\nworking out of these problems is reserved for the \u201cmystics and the\ndreamers\u201d who alone are capable of accomplishing it.\n\nMoses was an initiated priest, versed in all the mysteries and the Occult\nknowledge of the Egyptian temples\u2014hence thoroughly acquainted with\nprimitive Wisdom. It is in the latter that the symbolical and astronomical\nmeaning of that \u201cMystery of Mysteries,\u201d the Great Pyramid, has to be\nsought. And having been so familiar with the geometrical secrets that lay\nconcealed for long \u00e6ons in her strong bosom\u2014the measurements and\nproportions of the Kosmos, our little Earth included\u2014what wonder that he\nshould have made use of his knowledge? The Esoterism of Egypt was that of\nthe whole world at one time. During the long ages of the Third Race it had\nbeen the heirloom, in common, of the whole of mankind, received from their\nInstructors, the \u201cSons of Light,\u201d the primeval Seven. There was a time\nalso when the Wisdom\u2010Religion was not symbolical, for it became Esoteric\nonly gradually, the change being necessitated by misuse and by the Sorcery\nof the Atlanteans. For it was the \u201cmisuse\u201d only, and not the use, of the\ndivine gift that led the men of the Fourth Race to Black Magic and\nSorcery, and finally to become \u201cforgetful of Wisdom\u201d; while those of the\nFifth Race, the inheritors of the Rishis of the Tret\u00e2 Yuga, used their\npowers to atrophise such gifts in mankind in general, and then, as the\n\u201cElect Root,\u201d dispersed. Those who escaped the \u201cGreat Flood\u201d preserved\nonly its memory, and a belief founded on the knowledge of their direct\nfathers of one remove, that such a Science existed, and was now jealously\nguarded by the \u201cElect Root\u201d exalted by Enoch. But there must again come a\ntime when man shall once more become what he was during the second Yuga\n(age), when his probationary cycle shall be over and he shall gradually\nbecome what he was\u2014semi\u2010corporeal and pure. Does not Plato, the Initiate,\ntell us in the _Ph\u00e6drus_ all that man once was, and that which he may yet\nagain become:\n\n\n    Before man\u2019s spirit sank into sensuality and became embodied\n    through the loss of his wings, he lived among the Gods in the airy\n    spiritual world where everything is true and pure.(125)\n\n\nElsewhere he speaks of the time when men did not perpetuate themselves,\nbut lived as pure spirits.\n\nLet those men of Science who feel inclined to laugh at this, themselves\nunravel the mystery of the origin of the first man.\n\nUnwilling that his chosen people\u2014chosen by him\u2014should remain as grossly\nidolatrous as the profane masses that surrounded them, Moses utilised his\nknowledge of the cosmogonical mysteries of the Pyramid, to build upon it\nthe Genesiacal Cosmogony in symbols and glyphs. This was more accessible\nto the minds of the _hoi polloi_ than the abstruse truths taught to the\neducated in the sanctuaries. He invented nothing but the outward garb,\nadded not one iota; but in this he merely followed the example of older\nnations and Initiates. If he clothed the grand truths revealed to him by\nhis Hierophant under the most ingenious imagery, he did it to meet the\nrequirements of the Israelites; that stiff\u2010necked race would accept of no\nGod unless He were as anthropomorphic as those of the Olympus; and he\nhimself failed to foresee the times when highly educated statesmen would\nbe defending the husks of the fruit of wisdom that grew and developed in\nhim on Mount Sinai, when communing with his own personal God\u2014his divine\nSelf. Moses understood the great danger of delivering such truths to the\nselfish, for he understood the fable of Prometheus and remembered the\npast. Hence, he veiled them from the profanation of public gaze and gave\nthem out allegorically. And this is why his biographer says of him, that\nwhen he descended from Sinai,\n\n\n    Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone ... and he put a\n    veil upon his face.(126)\n\n\nAnd so he \u201cput a veil\u201d upon the face of his _Pentateuch_; and to such an\nextent that, using orthodox chronology, only 3376 years after the event\npeople begin to acquire a conviction that it is \u201ca veil indeed.\u201d It is not\nthe face of God or even of a Jehovah shining through; not even the face of\nMoses, but verily the faces of the later Rabbis.\n\nNo wonder if Clemens wrote in the _Stromateis_ that:\n\n\n    Similar, then, to the Hebrew enigmas in respect to concealment are\n    those of the Egyptians also.(127)\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION VII. OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES.\n\n\nIt is more than likely, that the Protestants in the days of the\nReformation knew nothing of the true origin of Christianity, or, to be\nmore explicit and correct, of Latin Ecclesiasticism. Nor is it probable\nthat the Greek Church knew much of it, the separation between the two\nhaving occurred at a time when, in the struggle for political power the\nLatin Church was securing, at any cost, the alliance of the highly\neducated, the ambitious and influential Pagans, while these were willing\nto assume the outward appearance of the new worship, provided they were\nthemselves kept in power. There is no need to remind the reader here of\nthe details of that struggle, well\u2010known to every educated man. It is\ncertain that the highly cultured Gnostics and their leaders\u2014such men as\nSaturnilus, an uncompromising ascetic, as Marcion, Valentinus, Basilides,\nMenander and Cerinthus\u2014were not stigmatised by the (now) Latin Church\nbecause they were heretics, nor because their tenets and practices were\nindeed \u201c_ob turpitudinem portentosam nimium et horribilem_,\u201d \u201cmonstrous,\nrevolting abominations,\u201d as Baronius says of those of Carpocrates; but\nsimply because they knew too much of fact and truth. Kenneth R. H.\nMackenzie correctly remarks:\n\n\n    They were stigmatised by the later Roman Church because they came\n    into conflict with the purer Church of Christianity\u2014the possession\n    of which was usurped by the Bishops of Rome, but which original\n    continues in its docility towards the founder, in the Primitive\n    Orthodox Greek Church.(128)\n\n\nUnwilling to accept the responsibility of gratuitous assumptions, the\nwriter deems it best to prove this inference by more than one personal and\ndefiant admission of an ardent Roman Catholic writer, evidently entrusted\nwith the delicate task by the Vatican. The Marquis de Mirville makes\ndesperate efforts to explain in the Catholic interest certain remarkable\ndiscoveries in Arch\u00e6ology and Pal\u00e6ography, though the Church is cleverly\nmade to remain outside of the quarrel and defence. This is undeniably\nshown by his ponderous volumes addressed to the Academy of France between\n1803 and 1865. Seizing the pretext of drawing the attention of the\nmaterialistic \u201cImmortals\u201d to the \u201cepidemic of Spiritualism,\u201d the invasion\nof Europe and America by a numberless host of Satanic forces, he directs\nhis efforts towards proving the same, by giving the full Genealogies and\nthe Theogony of the Christian and Pagan Deities, and by drawing parallels\nbetween the two. All such wonderful likenesses and identities are only\n\u201cseeming and superficial,\u201d he assures the reader. Christian symbols, and\neven characters, Christ, the Virgin, Angels and Saints, he tells them,\nwere all personated centuries beforehand by the fiends of hell, in order\nto discredit eternal truth by their ungodly copies. By their knowledge of\nfuturity the devils anticipated events, having \u201cdiscovered the secrets of\nthe Angels.\u201d Heathen Deities, all the Sun\u2010Gods named Soters\u2014Saviours\u2014born\nof immaculate mothers and dying a violent death, were only\nFerouers(129)\u2014as they were called by the Zoroastrians\u2014the demon\u2010ante\u2010dated\ncopies (_copies anticip\u00e9es_) of the Messiah to come.\n\nThe danger of recognition of such _facsimiles_ had indeed lately become\ndangerously great. It had lingered threateningly in the air, hanging like\na sword of Damocles over the Church, since the days of Voltaire, Dupuis\nand other writers on similar lines. The discoveries of the Egyptologists,\nthe finding of Assyrian and Babylonian pre\u2010Mosaic relics bearing the\nlegend of Moses(130) and especially the many rationalistic works published\nin England, such as _Supernatural Religion_ made recognition unavoidable.\nHence the appearance of Protestant and Roman Catholic writers deputed to\nexplain the inexplicable; to reconcile the fact of Divine Revelation with\nthe mystery that the divine personages, rites, dogmas and symbols of\nChristianity were so often identical with those of the several great\nheathen religions. The former\u2014the Protestant defenders\u2014tried to explain\nit, on the ground of \u201cprophetic, precursory ideas\u201d; the Latinists, such as\nDe Mirville, by inventing a double set of Angels and Gods, the one divine\nand true, the other\u2014the earlier\u2014\u201ccopies ante\u2010dating the originals\u201d and due\nto a clever plagiarism by the Evil One. The Protestant stratagem is an old\none, that of the Roman Catholics is so old that it has been forgotten, and\nis as good as new. Dr. Lundy\u2019s _Monumental Christianity_ and _A Miracle in\nStone_ belong to the first attempts. De Mirville\u2019s _Pneumatologie_ to the\nsecond. In India and China, every such effort on the part of the Scotch\nand other missionaries ends in laughter, and does no harm; the plan\ndevised by the Jesuits is more serious. De Mirville\u2019s volumes are thus\nvery important, as they proceed from a source which has undeniably the\ngreatest learning of the age at its service, and this coupled with all the\ncraft and casuistry that the sons of Loyola can furnish. The Marquis de\nMirville was evidently helped by the acutest minds in the service of Rome.\n\nHe begins by not only admitting the justice of every imputation and charge\nmade against the Latin Church as to the originality of her dogmas, but by\ntaking a seeming delight in anticipating such charges; for he points to\nevery dogma of Christianity as having existed in Pagan rituals in\nAntiquity. The whole Pantheon of Heathen Deities is passed in review by\nhim, and each is shown to have had some point of resemblance with the\nTrinitarian personages and Mary. There is hardly a mystery, a dogma, or a\nrite in the Latin Church that is not shown by the author as having been\n\u201cparodied by the Curvati\u201d\u2014the \u201cCurved,\u201d the Devils. All this being\nadmitted and explained, the Symbologists ought to be silenced. And so they\nwould be, if there were no materialistic critics to reject such\nomnipotency of the Devil in this world. For, if Rome admits the\nlikenesses, she also claims the right of judgment between the true and the\nfalse Avat\u00e2ra, the real and the unreal God, between the original and the\ncopy\u2014though the copy precedes the original by millenniums.\n\nOur author proceeds to argue that whenever the missionaries try to convert\nan idolater, they are invariably answered:\n\n\n    We had our Crucified before yours. What do you come to show\n    us?(131) Again, what should we gain by denying the mysterious side\n    of this copy, under the plea that according to Weber all the\n    present _Pur\u00e2nas_ are remade from older ones, since here we have\n    in the same order of personages a positive precedence which no one\n    would ever think of contesting.(132)\n\n\nAnd the author instances Buddha, Krishna, Apollo, etc. Having admitted all\nthis he escapes the difficulty in this wise:\n\n\n    The Church Fathers, however, who recognized their own property\n    under all such sheep\u2019s clothing ... knowing by means of the Gospel\n    ... all the ruses of the pretended spirits of light; the Fathers,\n    we say, meditating upon the decisive words, \u201call that ever came\n    before me are robbers\u201d (_John_, x. 8), did not hesitate in\n    recognizing the Occult agency at work, the general and superhuman\n    direction given beforehand to falsehood, the universal attribute\n    and environment of all these false Gods of the nations; \u201c_omnes\n    dii gentium d\u00e6monia (elilim)_.\u201d (_Psalm_ xcv.)(133)\n\n\nWith such a policy everything is made easy. There is not one glaring\nresemblance, not one fully proven identity, that could not thus be made\naway with. The above\u2010quoted cruel, selfish, self\u2010glorifying words, placed\nby John in the mouth of Him who was meekness and charity personified,\ncould never have been pronounced by Jesus. The Occultists reject the\nimputation indignantly, and are prepared to defend the man as against the\nGod, by showing whence come the words plagiarised by the author of the\nFourth Gospel. They are taken bodily from the \u201cProphecies\u201d in the _Book of\nEnoch_. The evidence on this head of the learned biblical scholar,\nArchbishop Laurence, and of the author of the _Evolution of Christianity_,\nwho edited the translation, may be brought forward to prove the fact. On\nthe last page of the Introduction to the _Book of Enoch_ is found the\nfollowing passage:\n\n\n    The parable of the sheep rescued by the good Shepherd from\n    hireling guardians and ferocious wolves, is obviously borrowed by\n    the fourth Evangelist from _Enoch_, lxxxix, in which the author\n    depicts the shepherds as killing and destroying the sheep before\n    the advent of their Lord, and thus discloses the true meaning of\n    that hitherto mysterious passage in the Johannine parable\u2014\u201cAll\n    that ever came before me are thieves and robbers\u201d\u2014language in\n    which we now detect an obvious reference to the allegorical\n    shepherds of Enoch.\n\n\n\u201cObvious\u201d truly, and something else besides. For, if Jesus pronounced the\nwords in the sense attributed to him, then he must have read the _Book of\nEnoch_\u2014a purely Kabalistic, Occult work, and he therefore recognised the\nworth and value of a treatise now declared apocryphal by his Churches.\nMoreover, he could not have been ignorant that these words belonged to the\noldest ritual of Initiation.(134) And if he had not read it, and the\nsentence belongs to John, or whoever wrote the Fourth Gospel, then what\nreliance can be placed on the authenticity of other sayings and parables\nattributed to the Christian Saviour?\n\nThus, De Mirville\u2019s illustration is an unfortunate one. Every other proof\nbrought by the Church to show the infernal character of the ante\u2010and\u2010anti\u2010\nChristian copyists may be as easily disposed of. This is perhaps\nunfortunate, but it is a fact, nevertheless\u2014_Magna est veritas et\nprevalebit_.\n\nThe above is the answer of the Occultists to the two parties who charge\nthem incessantly, the one with \u201cSuperstition,\u201d and the other with\n\u201cSorcery.\u201d To those of our Brothers who are Christians, and twit us with\nthe secresy imposed upon the Eastern Chel\u00e2s, adding invariably that their\nown \u201cBook of God\u201d is \u201can open volume\u201d for all \u201cto read, understand, and\n_be saved_,\u201d we would reply by asking them to study what we have just said\nin this Section, and then to refute it\u2014if they can. There are very few in\nour days who are still prepared to assure their readers that the _Bible_\nhad God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any\nmixture of error for its matter.\n\nCould Locke be asked the question now, he would perhaps be unwilling to\nrepeat again that the _Bible_ is\n\n\n    all pure, all sincere, nothing too much, nothing wanting.\n\n\nThe _Bible_, if it is not to be shown to be the very reverse of all this,\nsadly needs an interpreter acquainted with the doctrines of the East, as\nthey are to be found in its secret volumes; nor is it safe now, after\nArchbishop Laurence\u2019s translation of the _Book of Enoch_, to cite Cowper\nand assure us that the _Bible_\n\n\n    ... gives a light to every age,\n    It gives, but borrows none.\n\n\nfor it does borrow, and that very considerably; especially in the opinion\nof those who, ignorant of its symbolical meaning and of the universality\nof the truths underlying and concealed in it, are able to judge only from\nits dead\u2010letter appearance. It is a grand volume, a master\u2010piece composed\nof clever, ingenious fables containing great verities; but it reveals the\nlatter only to those who, like the Initiates, have a key to its inner\nmeaning; a tale sublime in its morality and didactics truly\u2014still a tale\nand an allegory; a repertory of invented personages in its older Jewish\nportions, and of dark sayings and parables in its later additions, and\nthus quite misleading to anyone ignorant of its Esotericism. Moreover it\nis Astrolatry and Sab\u00e6an worship, pure and simple, that is to be found in\nthe _Pentateuch_ when it is read exoterically, and Archaic Science and\nAstronomy to a most wonderful degree, when interpreted\u2014Esoterically.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION VIII. THE BOOK OF ENOCH THE ORIGIN AND THE FOUNDATION OF\nCHRISTIANITY.\n\n\nWhile making a good deal of the _Mercavah_, the Jews, or rather their\nsynagogues, rejected the _Book of Enoch_, either because it was not\nincluded from the first in the Hebrew Canon, or else, as Tertullian\nthought, it was\n\n\n    Disavowed by the Jews like all other Scripture which speaks of\n    Christ.(135)\n\n\nBut neither of these reasons was the real one. The Synedrion would have\nnothing to do with it, simply because it was more of a magic than a purely\nkabalistic work. The present day Theologians of both Latin and Protestant\nChurches class it among apocryphal productions. Nevertheless the _New\nTestament_, especially in the _Acts_ and _Epistles_, teems with ideas and\ndoctrines, now accepted and established as dogmas by the infallible Roman\nand other Churches, and even with whole sentences taken bodily from Enoch,\nor the \u201cpseudo\u2010Enoch,\u201d who wrote under that name in Aramaic or Syro\u2010\nChaldaic, as asserted by Bishop Laurence, the translator of the Ethiopian\ntext.\n\nThe plagiarisms are so glaring that the author of _The Evolution of\nChristianity_, who edited Bishop Laurence\u2019s translation, was compelled to\nmake some suggestive remarks in his Introduction. On internal\nevidence(136) this book is found to have been written before the Christian\nperiod (whether two or twenty centuries does not matter). As correctly\nargued by the Editor, it is\n\n\n    Either the inspired forecast of a great Hebrew prophet, predicting\n    with miraculous accuracy the future teaching of Jesus of Nazareth,\n    or the Semitic romance from which the latter borrowed His\n    conceptions of the triumphant return of the Son of man, to occupy\n    a judicial throne in the midst of rejoicing saints and trembling\n    sinners, expectant of everlasting happiness or eternal fire; and\n    whether these celestial visions be accepted as human or Divine,\n    they have exercised so vast an influence on the destinies of\n    mankind for nearly two thousand years that candid and impartial\n    seekers after religious truth can no longer delay enquiry into the\n    relationship of the _Book of Enoch_ with the revelation, or the\n    evolution, of Christianity.(137)\n\n\nThe _Book of Enoch_\n\n\n    Also records the supernatural control of the elements, through the\n    action of individual angels presiding over the winds, the sea,\n    hail, frost, dew, the lightning\u2019s flash, and reverberating\n    thunder. The names of the principal fallen angels are also given,\n    among whom we recognize some of the invisible powers named in the\n    incantations [magical] inscribed on the terra\u2010cotta cups of\n    Hebrew\u2010Chaldee conjurations.(138)\n\n\nWe also find on these cups the word \u201cHalleluiah,\u201d showing that\n\n\n    A word with which ancient Syro\u2010Chald\u00e6ans conjured has become,\n    through the vicissitudes of language, the Shibboleth of modern\n    Revivalists.(139)\n\n\nThe Editor proceeds after this to give fifty\u2010seven verses from various\nparts of the _Gospels_ and _Acts_, with parallel passages from the _Book\nof Enoch_, and says:\n\n\n    The attention of theologians has been concentrated on the passage\n    in the _Epistle of Jude_, because the author specifically names\n    the prophet; but the cumulative coincidence of language and ideas\n    in Enoch and the authors of the _New Testament_ Scripture, as\n    disclosed in the parallel passages which we have collated, clearly\n    indicates that the work of the Semitic Milton was the\n    inexhaustible source from which Evangelists and Apostles, or the\n    men who wrote in their names, borrowed their conceptions of the\n    resurrection, judgment, immortality, perdition, and of the\n    universal reign of righteousness, under the eternal dominion of\n    the Son of man. This evangelical plagiarism culminates in the\n    Revelation of John, which adapts the visions of Enoch to\n    Christianity, with modifications in which we miss the sublime\n    simplicity of the great master of apocalyptic prediction, who\n    prophesied in the name of the antediluvian patriarch.(140)\n\n\nIn fairness to truth, the hypothesis ought at least to have been\nsuggested, that the _Book of Enoch_ in its present form is simply a\ntranscript\u2014with numerous pre\u2010Christian and post\u2010Christian additions and\ninterpolations\u2014from far older texts. Modern research went so far as to\npoint out that Enoch is made, in Chapter lxxi, to divide the day and night\ninto eighteen parts, and to represent the longest day in the year as\nconsisting of twelve out of these eighteen parts, while a day of sixteen\nhours in length could not have occurred in Palestine. The translator,\nArchbishop Laurence, remarks thus:\n\n\n    The region in which the author lived must have been situated not\n    lower than forty\u2010five degrees north latitude, where the longest\n    day is fifteen hours and a\u2010half, nor higher perhaps than forty\u2010\n    nine degrees, where the longest day is precisely sixteen hours.\n    This will bring the country where he wrote as high up at least as\n    the northern districts of the Caspian and Euxine Seas ... the\n    author of the _Book of Enoch_ was perhaps a member of one of the\n    tribes which Shalmaneser carried away, and placed \u201cin Halah and in\n    Habor by the river Goshen, and in the cities of the Medes.\u201d(141)\n\n\nFurther on, it is confessed that:\n\n\n    It cannot be said that internal evidence attests the superiority\n    of the _Old Testament_ to the _Book of Enoch_.... The _Book of\n    Enoch_ teaches the pre\u00ebxistence of the Son of man, the Elect One,\n    the Messiah, who \u201cfrom the beginning existed in secret,(142) and\n    whose name was invoked in the presence of the Lord of Spirits,\n    before the sun and the signs were created.\u201d The author also refers\n    to the \u201cother Power who was upon Earth over the water on that\n    day\u201d\u2014an apparent reference to the language of _Genesis_, i.\n    2.(143) [We maintain that it applies as well to the Hindu\n    N\u00e2r\u00e2yana\u2014the \u201cmover on the waters.\u201d] We have thus the Lord of\n    Spirits, the Elect One, and a third Power, seemingly foreshadowing\n    this Trinity [as much as the Trim\u00fbrti] of futurity; but although\n    Enoch\u2019s ideal Messiah doubtless exercised an important influence\n    on primitive conceptions of the Divinity of the Son of man, we\n    fail to identify his obscure reference to another \u201cPower\u201d with the\n    Trinitarianism of the Alexandrine school; more especially as\n    \u201cangels of power\u201d abound in the visions of Enoch.(144)\n\n\nAn Occultist would hardly fail to identify the said \u201cPower.\u201d The Editor\nconcludes his remarkable reflections by adding:\n\n\n    Thus far we learn that the _Book of Enoch_ was published before\n    the Christian Era by some great Unknown of Semitic [?] race, who,\n    believing himself to be inspired in a post\u2010prophetic age, borrowed\n    the name of an antediluvian patriarch(145) to authenticate his own\n    enthusiastic forecast of the Messianic kingdom. And as the\n    contents of his marvellous book enter freely into the composition\n    of the _New Testament_, it follows that if the author was not an\n    inspired prophet, who predicted the teachings of Christianity, he\n    was a visionary enthusiast whose illusions were accepted by\n    Evangelists and Apostles as revelation\u2014alternative conclusions\n    which involve the Divine or human origin of Christianity.(146)\n\n\nThe outcome of all of which is, in the words of the same Editor:\n\n\n    The discovery that the language and ideas of alleged revelation\n    are found in a pre\u00ebxistent work, accepted by Evangelists and\n    Apostles as inspired, but classed by modern theologians among\n    apocryphal productions.(147)\n\n\nThis accounts also for the unwillingness of the reverend librarians of the\nBodleian Library to publish the Ethiopian text of the _Book of Enoch_.\n\nThe prophecies of the _Book of Enoch_ are indeed prophetic, but they were\nintended for, and cover the records of, the five Races out of the\nseven\u2014everything relating to the last two being kept secret. Thus the\nremark made by the Editor of the English translation, that:\n\n\n    Chapter xcii. records a series of prophecies extending from\n    Enoch\u2019s own time to about one thousand years beyond the present\n    generation,(148)\n\n\nis faulty. The prophecies extend to the end of our present Race, not\nmerely to a \u201cthousand years\u201d hence. Very true that:\n\n\n    In the system of [Christian] chronology adopted, a day stands\n    [occasionally] for a hundred, and a week for seven hundred\n    years.(149)\n\n\nBut this is an arbitrary and fanciful system adopted by Christians to make\nBiblical chronology fit with facts or theories, and does not represent the\noriginal thought. The \u201cdays\u201d stand for the undetermined periods of the\nSide\u2010Races, and the \u201cweeks\u201d for the Sub\u2010Races, the Root\u2010Races being\nreferred to by an expression that is not even found in the English\ntranslation. Moreover the sentence at the bottom of page 150:\n\n\n    Subsequently, in the fourth week ... the visions of the holy and\n    the righteous shall be seen, the order of generation after\n    generation shall take place,(150)\n\n\nis quite wrong. It stands in the original: \u201cthe order of generation after\ngeneration had taken place on the earth,\u201d etc.; that is, after the first\nhuman race procreated in the truly human way had sprung up in the Third\nRoot\u2010Race; a change which entirely alters the meaning. Then all that is\ngiven in the translation\u2014as very likely also in the Ethiopic text, since\nthe copies have been sorely tampered with\u2014as about things which were to\nhappen in the future, is, we are informed, in the past tense in the\noriginal Chald\u00e6an MSS., and is not prophecy, but a narrative of what had\nalready come to pass. When Enoch begins \u201cto speak from a book\u201d(151) he is\nreading the account given by a great Seer, and the prophecies are not his\nown, but are from the Seer. Enoch or Enoichion means \u201cinternal eye\u201d or\nSeer. Thus every Prophet and Adept may be called \u201cEnoichion,\u201d without\nbecoming a pseudo\u2010Enoch. But here, the Seer who compiled the present _Book\nof Enoch_ is distinctly shown as reading out from a book:\n\n\n    I have been born the seventh in the first week [the seventh\n    branch, or Side\u2010Race, of the first Sub\u2010Race, after physical\n    generation had begun, namely, in the third Root\u2010Race].... But\n    after me, in the second week [second Sub\u2010Race] great wickedness\n    shall arise [arose, rather] and in that week the end of the first\n    shall take place, in which mankind shall be safe. But when the\n    first is completed iniquity shall grow up.(152)\n\n\nAs translated it has no sense. As it stands in the Esoteric text, it\nsimply means, that the First Root\u2010Race shall come to an end during the\nsecond Sub\u2010Race of the Third Root\u2010Race, in the period of which time\nmankind will be safe; all this having no reference whatever to the\nbiblical Deluge. Verse 10th speaks of the sixth week [sixth Sub\u2010Race of\nthe Third Root\u2010Race] when\n\n\n    All those who are in it shall be darkened, the hearts of all of\n    them shall be forgetful of wisdom [the divine knowledge will be\n    dying out] and in it shall a man ascend.\n\n\nThis \u201cman\u201d is taken by the interpreters, for some mysterious reasons of\ntheir own, to mean Nebuchadnezzar; he is in reality the first Hierophant\nof the purely human Race (after the allegorical Fall into generation)\nselected to perpetuate the dying Wisdom of the Devas (Angels or Elohim).\nHe is the first \u201cSon of Man\u201d\u2014the mysterious appellation given to the\ndivine Initiates of the first human school of the M\u00e2nushi (men), at the\nvery close of the Third Root\u2010Race. He is also called the \u201cSaviour,\u201d as it\nwas He, with the other Hierophants, who saved the Elect and the Perfect\nfrom the geological conflagration, leaving to perish in the cataclysm of\nthe Close(153) those who forgot the primeval wisdom in sexual sensuality.\n\n\n    And during its completion [of the \u201csixth week,\u201d or the sixth Sub\u2010\n    Race] he shall burn the house of dominion [the half of the globe\n    or the then inhabited continent] with fire, and all the race of\n    the elect root shall be dispersed.(154)\n\n\nThe above applies to the Elect Initiates, and not at all to the Jews, the\nsupposed chosen people, or to the Babylonian captivity, as interpreted by\nthe Christian theologians. Considering that we find Enoch, or his\nperpetuator, mentioning the execution of the \u201cdecree upon sinners\u201d in\nseveral different weeks,(155) saying that \u201cevery work of the ungodly shall\ndisappear from the whole earth\u201d during this fourth time (the Fourth Race),\nit surely can hardly apply to the one solitary Deluge of the _Bible_,\nstill less to the Captivity.\n\nIt follows, therefore, that as the _Book of Enoch_ covers the five Races\nof the Manvantara, with a few allusions to the last two, it does not\ncontain \u201cBiblical prophecies,\u201d but simply facts taken out of the Secret\nBooks of the East. The editor, moreover, confesses that:\n\n\n    The preceding six verses, _viz._, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th,\n    and 18th, are taken from between the 14th and 15th verses of the\n    nineteenth chapter, where they are to be found in the MSS.(156)\n\n\nBy this arbitrary transposition, he has made confusion still more\nconfused. Yet he is quite right in saying that the doctrines of the\n_Gospels_, and even of the _Old Testament_, have been taken bodily from\nthe _Book of Enoch_, for this is as evident as the sun in heaven. The\nwhole of the _Pentateuch_ was adapted to fit in with the facts given, and\nthis accounts for the Hebrews refusing to give the book a place in their\nCanon, just as the Christians have subsequently refused to admit it among\ntheir canonical works. The fact that the Apostle Jude and many of the\nChristian Fathers referred to it as a revelation and a sacred volume, is,\nhowever, an excellent proof that the early Christians accepted it; among\nthese the most learned\u2014as, for instance, Clement of Alexandria\u2014understood\nChristianity and its doctrines in quite a different light from their\nmodern successors, and viewed Christ under an aspect that Occultists only\ncan appreciate. The early Nazarenes and Chrestians, as Justin Martyr calls\nthem, were the followers of Jesus, of the true Chrestos and Christos of\nInitiation; whereas, the modern Christians, especially those of the West,\nmay be Papists, Greeks, Calvinists, or Lutherans, but can hardly be called\nChristians, _i.e._, the followers of Jesus, the Christ.\n\nThus the _Book of Enoch_ is entirely symbolical. It relates to the history\nof the human Races and of their early relation to Theogony, the symbols\nbeing interblended with astronomical and cosmic mysteries. One chapter is\nmissing, however, in the Noachian records (from both the Paris and the\nBodleian MSS.), namely, Chapter lviii. in Sect. X; this could not be\nremodelled, and therefore it had to disappear, disfigured fragments alone\nhaving been left of it. The dream about the cows, the black, red and white\nheifers, relates to the first Races, their division and disappearance.\nChapter lxxxviii, in which one of the four Angels \u201cwent to the white cows\nand taught them a mystery,\u201d after which, the mystery being born \u201cbecame a\nman,\u201d refers to (_a_) the first group evolved of primitive \u00c2ryans, and\n(_b_) to the \u201cmystery of the Hermaphrodite\u201d so called, having reference to\nthe birth of the first human Races as they are now. The well\u2010known rite in\nIndia, one that has survived in that patriarchal country to this day,\nknown as the passage, or rebirth through the cow\u2014a ceremony to which those\nof lower castes who are desirous of becoming Br\u00e2hmans have to submit\u2014has\noriginated in this mystery. Let any Eastern Occultist read with careful\nattention the above\u2010named chapter in the _Book of Enoch_, and he will find\nthat the \u201cLord of the Sheep,\u201d in whom Christians and European Mystics see\nChrist, is the Hierophant Victim whose name in Sanskrit we dare not give.\nAgain, that while the Western Churchmen see Egyptians and Israelites in\nthe \u201csheep and wolves,\u201d all these animals relate in truth to the trials of\nthe Neophyte and the mysteries of initiation, whether in India or Egypt,\nand to that most terrible penalty incurred by the \u201cwolves\u201d\u2014those who\nreveal indiscriminately that which is only for the knowledge of the Elect\nand the \u201cPerfect.\u201d\n\nThe Christians who, thanks to later interpolations,(157) have made out in\nthat chapter a triple prophecy relating to the Deluge, Moses and Jesus,\nare mistaken, as in reality it bears directly on the punishment and loss\nof Atlantis and the penalty of indiscretion. The \u201cLord of the sheep\u201d is\nKarma and the \u201cHead of the Hierophants\u201d also, the Supreme Initiator on\nearth. He says to Enoch, who implores him to save the leaders of the sheep\nfrom being devoured by the beasts of prey:\n\n\n    I will cause a recital to be made before me ... how many they have\n    delivered up to destruction, and ... what they will do; whether\n    they will act as I have commanded them or not.\n\n    Of this, however, they shall be ignorant; neither shalt thou make\n    any explanation to them, neither shalt thou reprove them; but\n    there shall be an account of all the destruction done by them in\n    their respective seasons.(158)\n\n    ... He looked in silence, rejoicing they were devoured, swallowed\n    up, and carried off, and leaving them in the power of every beast\n    for food....(159)\n\n\nThose who labour under the impression that the Occultists of any nation\nreject the _Bible_, in its original text and meaning, are wrong. As well\nreject the _Books of Thoth_, the Chald\u00e6an _Kabalah_ or the _Book of Dzyan_\nitself. Occultists only reject the one\u2010sided interpretations and the human\nelement in the _Bible_, which is an Occult, and therefore a sacred, volume\nas much as the others. And terrible indeed is the punishment of all those\nwho transgress the permitted limits of secret revelations. From Prometheus\nto Jesus, and from Him to the highest Adept as to the lowest disciple,\nevery revealer of mysteries has had to become a Chrestos, a \u201cman of\nsorrow\u201d and a martyr. \u201cBeware,\u201d said one of the greatest Masters, \u201cof\nrevealing the Mystery to those without\u201d\u2014to the profane, the Sadducee and\nthe unbeliever. All the great Hierophants in history are shown ending\ntheir lives by violent deaths\u2014Buddha,(160) Pythagoras, Zoroaster, most of\nthe great Gnostics, the founders of their respective schools; and in our\nown more modern epoch a number of Fire\u2010Philosophers, of Rosicrucians and\nAdepts. All of these are shown\u2014whether plainly or under the veil of\nallegory\u2014as paying the penalty for the revelations they had made. This may\nseem to the profane reader only coincidence. To the Occultist, the death\nof every \u201cMaster\u201d is significant, and appears pregnant with meaning. Where\ndo we find in history that \u201cMessenger\u201d grand or humble, an Initiate or a\nNeophyte, who, when he was made the bearer of some hitherto concealed\ntruth or truths, was not crucified and rent to shreds by the \u201cdogs\u201d of\nenvy, malice and ignorance? Such is the terrible Occult law; and he who\ndoes not feel in himself the heart of a lion to scorn the savage barking,\nand the soul of a dove to forgive the poor ignorant fools, let him give up\nthe Sacred Science. To succeed, the Occultist must be fearless; he has to\nbrave dangers, dishonour and death, to be forgiving, and to be silent on\nthat which cannot be given. Those who have vainly laboured in that\ndirection must wait in these days\u2014as the _Book of Enoch_ teaches\u2014\u201cuntil\nthe evil\u2010doers be consumed\u201d and the power of the wicked annihilated. It is\nnot lawful for the Occultist to seek or even to thirst for revenge: let\nhim\n\n\n    Wait until sin pass away; for their [the sinners\u2019] names shall be\n    blotted out of the holy books [the astral records], their seed\n    shall be destroyed and their spirits slain.(161)\n\n\nEsoterically, Enoch is the \u201cSon of man,\u201d the first; and symbolically, the\nfirst Sub\u2010Race of the _Fifth_ Root Race.(162) And if his name yields for\npurposes of numerical and astronomical glyphs the meaning of the solar\nyear, or 365, in conformity to the age assigned to him in _Genesis_, it is\nbecause, being the seventh, he is, for Occult purposes, the personified\nperiod of the two preceding Races with their fourteen Sub\u2010Races.\nTherefore, he is shown in the Book as the great grandfather of Noah who,\nin his turn, is the personification of the mankind of the Fifth,\nstruggling with that of the Fourth Root\u2010Race\u2014the great period of the\nrevealed and profaned Mysteries, when the \u201csons of God\u201d coming down on\nEarth took for wives the daughters of men, and taught them the secrets of\nthe Angels; in other words, when the \u201cmind\u2010born\u201d men of the Third Race\nmixed themselves with those of the Fourth, and the divine Science was\ngradually brought down by men to Sorcery.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION IX. HERMETIC AND KABALISTIC DOCTRINES.\n\n\nThe cosmogony of Hermes is as veiled as the Mosaic system, only it is upon\nits face far more in harmony with the doctrines of the Secret Sciences and\neven of Modern Science. Says the thrice great Trismegistus, \u201cthe hand that\nshaped the world out of formless pre\u2010existent matter is no hand\u201d; to which\n_Genesis_ is made to reply, \u201cThe world was created out of nothing,\u201d\nalthough the _Kabalah_ denies such a meaning in its opening sentences. The\nKabalists have never, any more than have the Indian \u00c2ryans, admitted such\nan absurdity. With them, Fire, or Heat, and Motion(163) were chiefly\ninstrumental in the formation of the world out of pre\u00ebxisting Matter. The\nParabrahman and M\u00fblaprakriti of the Ved\u00e2ntins are the prototypes of the En\nSuph and Shekinah of the Kabalists. Aditi is the original of Sephira, and\nthe Praj\u00e2patis are the elder brothers of the Sephiroth. The nebular theory\nof Modern Science, with all its mysteries, is solved in the cosmogony of\nthe Archaic Doctrine; and the paradoxical though very scientific\nenunciation, that \u201ccooling causes contraction and contraction causes heat;\ntherefore cooling causes heat,\u201d is shown as the chief agency in the\nformation of the worlds, and especially of our sun and solar system.\n\nAll this is contained within the small compass of _Sepher Jetzirah_ in its\nthirty\u2010two wonderful Ways of Wisdom, signed \u201cJah Jehovah Sabaoth,\u201d for\nwhomsoever has the key to its hidden meaning. As to the dogmatic or\ntheological interpretation of the first verses in _Genesis_ it is\npertinently answered in the same book, where speaking of the Three\nMothers, Air, Water and Fire, the writer describes them as a balance with\n\n\n    The good in one scale, the evil in the other, and the oscillating\n    tongue of the Balance between them.(164)\n\n\nOne of the secret names of the One Eternal and Ever\u2010Present Deity, was in\nevery country the same, and it has preserved to this day a phonetic\nlikeness in the various languages. The Aum of the Hindus, the sacred\nsyllable, had become the \u1f08\u03b9\u03ce\u03bd with the Greeks, and the \u00c6vum with the\nRomans\u2014the Pan or All. The \u201cthirtieth way\u201d is called in the _Sepher\nJetzirah_ the \u201cgathering understanding,\u201d because\n\n\n    Thereby gather the celestial adepts judgments of the stars and\n    celestial signs, and their observations of the orbits are the\n    perfection of science.(165)\n\n\nThe thirty\u2010second and last is called therein the \u201cserving understanding,\u201d\nand it is so\u2010called because it is\n\n\n    A disposer of all those that are serving in the work of the Seven\n    Planets, according to their Hosts.(166)\n\n\nThe \u201cwork\u201d was Initiation, during which all the mysteries connected with\nthe \u201cSeven Planets\u201d were divulged, and also the mystery of the \u201cSun\u2010\nInitiate\u201d with his seven radiances or beams cut off\u2014the glory and triumph\nof the anointed, the Christos; a mystery that makes plain the rather\npuzzling expression of Clemens:\n\n\n    For we shall find that very many of the dogmas that are held by\n    such sects [of Barbarian and Hellenic Philosophy] as have not\n    become utterly senseless, and are not cut out from the order of\n    nature [\u201cby cutting off Christ,\u201d(167) or rather Chrestos] ...\n    correspond in their origin and with the truth as a whole.(168)\n\n\nIn _Isis Unveiled_,(169) the reader will find fuller information than can\nbe given here on the _Zohar_ and its author, the great Kabalist, Simeon\nBen Jochai. It is said there that on account of his being known to be in\npossession of the secret knowledge and of the Mercaba, which insured the\nreception of the \u201cWord,\u201d his very life was endangered, and he had to fly\nto the wilderness, where he lived in a cave for twelve years surrounded by\nfaithful disciples, and finally died there amid signs and wonders.(170)\nHis teachings on the origin of the Secret Doctrine, or, as he also calls\nit, the Secret Wisdom, are the same as those found in the East, with the\nexception that in place of the Chief of a Host of Planetary Spirits he\nputs \u201cGod,\u201d saying that this Wisdom was first taught by God himself to a\ncertain number of Elect Angels; whereas in the Eastern Doctrine the saying\nis different, as will be seen.\n\nSome synthetic and kabalistic studies on the sacred _Book of Enoch_ and\nthe Taro (Rota) are before us. We quote from the MS. copy of a Western\nOccultist, which is prefaced by these words:\n\n\n    There is but one Law, one Principle, one Agent, one Truth and one\n    Word. That which is above is analogically as that which is below.\n    All that which is, is the result of quantities and of\n    equilibriums.\n\n\nThe axiom of \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi and this triple epigraph show the identity of\nthought between the East and the West with regard to the Secret Science\nwhich, as the same MS. tells us, is:\n\n\n    The key of things concealed, the key of the sanctuary. This is the\n    Sacred Word which gives to the Adept the supreme reason of\n    Occultism and its Mysteries. It is the Quintessence of\n    Philosophies and of Dogmas; it is the Alpha and Omega; it is the\n    Light, Life and Wisdom Universal.\n\n\nThe Taro of the sacred _Book of Enoch_, or Rota, is prefaced, moreover,\nwith this explanation:\n\n\n    The antiquity of this Book is lost in the night of time. It is of\n    _Indian origin_, and goes back to an epoch long before Moses....\n    It is written upon detached leaves, which at the first were of\n    fine gold and precious metals.... It is symbolical, and its\n    combinations adapt themselves to all the wonders of the Spirit.\n    Altered by its passage across the Ages, it is nevertheless\n    preserved\u2014thanks to the ignorance of the curious\u2014in its types and\n    its most important primitive figures.\n\n\nThis is the Rota of Enoch, now called Taro of Enoch, to which De Mirville\nalludes, as we saw, as the means used for \u201cevil Magic,\u201d the \u201cmetallic\nplates [or leaves] escaped from destruction during the Deluge\u201d and which\nare attributed by him to Cain. They have escaped the Deluge for the simple\nreason that this Flood was not \u201cUniversal.\u201d And it is said to be \u201cof\nIndian origin,\u201d because its origin is with the Indian \u00c2ryans of the first\nSub\u2010Race of the Fifth Root\u2010Race, before the final destruction of the last\nstronghold of Atlantis. But, if it originated with the forefathers of the\nprimitive Hindus, it was not in India that it was first used. Its origin\nis still more ancient and must be traced beyond and into the Himaleh,(171)\nthe Snowy Range. It was born in that mysterious locality which no one is\nable to locate, and which is the despair of both Geographers and Christian\nTheologians\u2014the region in which the Br\u00e2hman places his Kail\u00e2sa, the Mount\nSumeru, and the P\u00e2rvat\u00ee Pam\u00eer, transformed by the Greeks into Paropamisus.\n\nRound this locality, which still exists, the traditions of the Garden of\nEden were built. From these regions the Greeks obtained their\nParnassus(172); and thence proceeded most of the biblical personages, some\nof them in their day men, some demi\u2010gods and heroes, some\u2014though very\nfew\u2014myths, the astronomical doubles of the former. Abram was one of them\u2014a\nChald\u00e6an Br\u00e2hman,(173) says the legend, transformed later, after he had\nrepudiated his Gods and left his Ur (_pur_, \u201ctown\u201d?) in Chald\u00e6a, into A\u2010\nbrahm(174) (or A\u2010braham) \u201cno\u2010br\u00e2hman\u201d who emigrated. Abram becoming the\n\u201cfather of many nations\u201d is thus explained. The student of Occultism has\nto bear in mind that every God and hero in ancient Pantheons (that of the\n_Bible_ included), has three biographies in the narrative, so to say,\nrunning parallel with each other and each connected with one of the\naspects of the hero\u2014historical, astronomical and perfectly mythical, the\nlast serving to connect the other two together and smooth away the\nasperities and discordancies in the narrative, and gathering into one or\nmore symbols the verities of the first two. Localities are made to\ncorrespond with astronomical and even with psychic events. History was\nthus made captive by ancient Mystery, to become later on the great Sphynx\nof the nineteenth century. Only, instead of devouring her too dull\nquerists who will unriddle her whether she acknowledges it or not, she is\ndesecrated and mangled by the modern \u0152dipus, before he forces her into the\nsea of speculations in which the Sphynx is drowned and perishes. This has\nnow become self\u2010evident, not only through the Secret Teachings,\nparsimoniously as they may be given, but by earnest and learned\nSymbologists and even Geometricians. The _Key to the Hebrew Egyptian\nMystery_, in which a learned Mason of Cincinnati, Mr. Ralston Skinner,\nunveils the riddle of a God, with such ungodly ways about him as the\nBiblical Jah\u2010ve, is followed by the establishment of a learned society\nunder the presidentship of a gentleman from Ohio and four vice\u2010presidents,\none of whom is Piazzi Smyth, the well\u2010known Astronomer and Egyptologist.\nThe Director of the Royal Observatory in Scotland and author of _The Great\nPyramid, Pharaonic by name, Humanitarian by fact, its Marvels, Mysteries,\nand its Teachings_, is seeking to prove the same problem as the American\nauthor and Mason: namely, that the English system of measurement is the\nsame as that used by the ancient Egyptians in the construction of their\nPyramid, or in Mr. Skinner\u2019s own words that the Pharaonic \u201csource of\nmeasures\u201d originated the \u201cBritish inch and the ancient cubit.\u201d It\n\u201coriginated\u201d much more than this, as will be fully demonstrated before the\nend of the next century. Not only is everything in Western religion\nrelated to measures, geometrical figures, and time\u2010calculations, the\nprincipal period\u2010durations being founded on most of the historical\npersonages,(175) but the latter are also connected with heaven and earth\ntruly, only with the Indo\u2010\u00c2ryan heaven and earth, not with those of\nPalestine.\n\nThe prototypes of nearly all the biblical personages are to be sought for\nin the early Pantheon of India. It is the \u201cMind\u2010born\u201d Sons of Brahm\u00e2, or\nrather of the Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Pitara (the \u201cFather\u2010Gods\u201d), the \u201cSons of Light,\u201d who\nhave given birth to the \u201cSons of Earth\u201d\u2014the Patriarchs. For if the _Rig\nVeda_ and its three sister _Vedas_ have been \u201cmilked out from fire, air\nand sun,\u201d or Agni, Indra, and S\u00fbrya, as _Manu\u2010Smriti_ tells us, the _Old\nTestament_ was most undeniably \u201cmilked out\u201d of the most ingenious brains\nof Hebrew Kabalists, partly in Egypt and partly in Babylonia\u2014\u201cthe seat of\nSanskrit literature and Br\u00e2hman learning from her origin,\u201d as Colonel Vans\nKennedy truly declared. One of such copies was Abram or Abraham, into\nwhose bosom every orthodox Jew hopes to be gathered after death, that\nbosom being localised as \u201cheaven in the clouds\u201d or Abhra.(176)\n\nFrom Abraham to Enoch\u2019s Taro there seems to be a considerable distance,\nyet the two are closely related by more than one link. Gaffarel has shown\nthat the four symbolical animals on the twenty\u2010first key of the Taro, at\nthe third septenary, are the Teraphim of the Jews invented and worshipped\nby Abram\u2019s father Terah, and used in the oracles of the Urim and Thummim.\nMoreover, astronomically Abraham is the sun\u2010measure and a portion of the\nsun, while Enoch is the solar year, as much as are Hermes or Thot; and\nThot, numerically, \u201cwas the equivalent of Moses, or Hermes,\u201d \u201cthe lord of\nthe lower realms, also esteemed as a teacher of wisdom,\u201d the same Mason\u2010\nmathematician tells us; and the Taro being, according to one of the latest\nbulls of the Pope, \u201can invention of Hell,\u201d the same \u201cas Masonry and\nOccultism,\u201d the relation is evident. The Taro contains indeed the mystery\nof all such transmutations of personages into sidereal bodies and _vice\nvers\u00e2_. The \u201cwheel of Enoch\u201d is an archaic invention, the most ancient of\nall, for it is found in China. \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi says there was not a nation\nbut had it, its real meaning being preserved in the greatest secresy. It\nwas a universal heirloom.\n\nAs we see, neither the _Book of Enoch_ (his \u201cWheel\u201d), nor the _Zohar_, nor\nany other kabalistic volume, contains merely Jewish wisdom.\n\n\n    The doctrine itself being the result of whole millenniums of\n    thought, is therefore the joint property of Adepts of every nation\n    under the sun. Nevertheless, the _Zohar_ teaches practical\n    Occultism more than any other work on that subject; not as it is\n    translated and commented upon by its various critics though, but\n    with the secret signs on its margins. These signs contain the\n    hidden instructions, apart from the metaphysical interpretations\n    and apparent absurdities so fully credited by Josephus, who was\n    never initiated and gave out the _dead letter_ as he had received\n    it.(177)\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION X. VARIOUS OCCULT SYSTEMS OF INTERPRETATIONS OF ALPHABETS AND\nNUMERALS.\n\n\nThe transcendental methods of the _Kabalah_ must not be mentioned in a\npublic work; but its various systems of arithmetical and geometrical ways\nof unriddling certain symbols may be described. The _Zohar_ methods of\ncalculation, with their three sections, the Gematria, Notaricon and\nTemura, also the Albath and Algath, are extremely difficult to practise.\nWe refer those who would learn more to Cornelius Agrippa\u2019s works.(178) But\nnone of those systems can ever be understood unless a Kabalist becomes a\nreal Master in his Science. The Symbolism of Pythagoras requires still\nmore arduous labour. His symbols are very numerous, and to comprehend even\nthe general gist of his abstruse doctrines from his Symbology would\nnecessitate years of study. His chief figures are the square (the\nTetraktys), the equilateral triangle, the point within a circle, the cube,\nthe triple triangle, and finally the forty\u2010seventh proposition of Euclid\u2019s\nElements, of which proposition Pythagoras was the inventor. But with this\nexception, none of the foregoing symbols originated with him, as some\nbelieve. Millenniums before his day, they were well known in India, whence\nthe Samian Sage brought them, not as a speculation, but as a demonstrated\nScience, says Porphyry, quoting from the Pythagorean Moderatus.\n\n\n    The numerals of Pythagoras were hieroglyphical symbols by means\n    whereof he explained _all_ ideas concerning the nature of\n    things.(179)\n\n\nThe fundamental geometrical figure of the _Kabalah_, as given in the _Book\nof Numbers_,(180) that figure which tradition and the Esoteric Doctrines\ntell us was given by the Deity Itself to Moses on Mount Sinai,(181)\ncontains the key to the universal problem in its grandiose, because\nsimple, combinations. This figure contains in itself all the others.\n\nThe Symbolism of numbers and their mathematical inter\u2010relations is also\none of the branches of Magic, especially of mental Magic, divination and\ncorrect perception in clairvoyance. Systems differ, but the root idea is\neverywhere the same. As shown in the _Royal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia_, by\nKenneth R. H. Mackenzie:\n\n\n    One system adopts unity, another trinity, a third quinquinity;\n    again we have sexagons, heptagons, novems, and so on, until the\n    mind is lost in the survey of the materials alone of a science of\n    numbers.(182)\n\n\nThe Devan\u00e2gar\u00ee characters in which Sanskrit is generally written, have all\nthat the Hermetic, Chald\u00e6an and Hebrew alphabets have, and in addition the\nOccult significance of the \u201ceternal sound,\u201d and the meaning given to every\nletter in its relation to spiritual as well as terrestrial things. As\nthere are only twenty\u2010two letters in the Hebrew alphabet and ten\nfundamental numbers, while in the Devan\u00e2gar\u00ee there are thirty\u2010five\nconsonants and sixteen vowels, making altogether fifty\u2010one simple letters,\nwith numberless combinations in addition, the margin for speculation and\nknowledge is in proportion considerably wider. Every letter has its\nequivalent in other languages, and its equivalent in a figure or figures\nof the calculation table. It has also numerous other significations, which\ndepend upon the special idiosyncrasies and characteristics of the person,\nobject, or subject to be studied. As the Hindus claim to have received the\nDevan\u00e2gar\u00ee characters from Sarasvat\u00ee, the inventress of Sanskrit, the\n\u201clanguage of the Devas\u201d or Gods (in their exoteric pantheon), so most of\nthe ancient nations claimed the same privilege for the origin of their\nletters and tongue. The _Kabalah_ calls the Hebrew alphabet the \u201cletters\nof the Angels,\u201d which were communicated to the Patriarchs, just as the\nDevan\u00e2gar\u00ee was to the Rishis by the Devas. The Chald\u00e6ans found their\nletters traced in the sky by the \u201cyet unsettled stars and comets,\u201d says\nthe _Book of Numbers_; while the Ph\u0153nicians had a sacred alphabet formed\nby the twistings of the sacred serpents. The Natar Khari (hieratic\nalphabet) and secret (sacerdotal) speech of the Egyptians is closely\nrelated to the oldest \u201cSecret Doctrine Speech.\u201d It is a Devan\u00e2gar\u00ee with\nmystical combinations and additions, into which the Senzar largely enters.\n\nThe power and potency of numbers and characters are well known to many\nWestern Occultists as being compounded from all these systems, but are\nstill unknown to Hindu students, if not to their Occultists. In their turn\nEuropean Kabalists are generally ignorant of the alphabetical secrets of\nIndian Esoterism. At the same time the general reader in the West knows\nnothing of either; least of all how deep are the traces left by the\nEsoteric numeral systems of the world in the Christian Churches.\n\nNevertheless this system of numerals solves the problem of cosmogony for\nwhomsoever studies it, while the system of geometrical figures represents\nthe numbers objectively.\n\nTo realise the full comprehension of the Deific and the Abstruse enjoyed\nby the Ancients, one has to study the origin of the figurative\nrepresentations of their primitive Philosophers. The _Books of Hermes_ are\nthe oldest repositories of numerical Symbology in Western Occultism. In\nthem we find that the number _ten_(183) is the Mother of the Soul, Life\nand Light being therein united. For as the sacred anagram Teruph shows in\nthe _Book of the Keys_ (Numbers), the number 1 (one) is born from Spirit,\nand the number 10 (ten) from Matter; \u201cthe unity has made the ten, the ten,\nthe unity\u201d; and this is only the Pantheistic axiom, in other words \u201cGod in\nNature and Nature in God.\u201d\n\nThe kabalistic Gematria is arithmetical, not geometrical. It is one of the\nmethods for extracting the hidden meaning from letters, words, and\nsentences. It consists in applying to the letters of a word the sense they\nbear as numbers, in outward shape as well as in their individual sense. As\nillustrated by Ragon:\n\n\n    The figure I signified the living man (a body erect), man being\n    the only living being enjoying this faculty. A head being added to\n    it, the glyph (or letter) P was obtained, meaning paternity,\n    creative potency; the R signifying the walking man (with his foot\n    forward) going, _iens_, _iturus_.(184)\n\n    The characters were also made supplementary to speech, every\n    letter being at once a figure representing a sound for the ear, an\n    idea to the mind; as, for instance, the letter F, which is a\n    cutting sound like that of air rushing quickly through space;\n    fury, fusee, fugue, all words expressive of, and depicting what\n    they signify.(185)\n\n\nBut the above pertains to another system, that of the primitive and\nphilosophical formation of the letters and their outward glyphic form\u2014not\nto Gematria. The Temura is another kabalistic method, by which any word\ncould be made to yield its mystery out of its anagram. So in _Sepher\nJetzirah_ we read \u201cOne\u2014the Spirit of the Alahim of Lives.\u201d In the oldest\nkabalistic diagrams the Sephiroth (the seven and the three) are\nrepresented as wheels or circles, and Adam Kadmon, the primitive Man, as\nan upright pillar. \u201cWheels and seraphim and the holy creatures\u201d (Chioth)\nsays Rabbi Akiba. In still another system of the symbolical _Kabalah_\ncalled Albath\u2014which arranges the letters of the alphabet by pairs in three\nrows\u2014all the couples in the first row bear the numerical value ten; and in\nthe system of Simeon Ben Shetah (an Alexandrian Neoplatonist under the\nfirst Ptolemy) the uppermost couple\u2014the most sacred of all\u2014is preceded by\nthe Pythagorean cypher: one, and a nought\u201410.\n\nAll beings, from the first divine emanation, or \u201cGod manifested,\u201d down to\nthe lowest atomic existence, \u201chave their particular number which\ndistinguishes each of them and becomes the source of their attributes and\nqualities as of their destiny.\u201d Chance, as taught by Cornelius Agrippa, is\nin reality only an unknown progression; and time but a succession of\nnumbers. Hence, futurity being a compound of chance and time, these are\nmade to serve Occult calculations in order to find the result of an event,\nor the future of one\u2019s destiny. Said Pythagoras:\n\n\n    There is a mysterious connection between the Gods and numbers, on\n    which the science of arithmancy is based. The soul is a world that\n    is self\u2010moving; the soul contains in itself, and is, the\n    quaternary, the tetraktys [the perfect cube].\n\n\nThere are lucky and unlucky, or beneficent and maleficent numbers. Thus\nwhile the ternary\u2014the first of the odd numbers (the one being the perfect\nand standing by itself in Occultism)\u2014is the divine figure or the triangle;\nthe duad was disgraced by the Pythagoreans from the first. It represented\nMatter, the passive and evil principle\u2014the number of M\u00e2y\u00e2, illusion.\n\n\n    While the number _one_ symbolized harmony, order or the good\n    principle (the one God expressed in Latin by Solus, from which the\n    word Sol, the Sun, the symbol of the Deity), number two expressed\n    a contrary idea. The science of good and evil began with it. All\n    that is double, false, opposed to the only reality, was depicted\n    by the binary. It also expressed the contrasts in Nature which are\n    always double: night and day, light and darkness, cold and heat,\n    dampness and dryness, health and sickness, error and truth, male\n    and female, etc.... The Romans dedicated to Pluto the second month\n    of the year, and the second day of that month to expiations in\n    honour of the Manes. Hence the same rite established by the Latin\n    Church, and faithfully copied. Pope John XIX. instituted in 1003\n    the Festival of the Dead, which had to be celebrated on the 2nd of\n    November, the second month of autumn.(186)\n\n\nOn the other hand the triangle, a purely geometrical figure, had great\nhonour shewn it by every nation, and for this reason:\n\n\n    In geometry a straight line cannot represent an absolutely perfect\n    figure, any more than two straight lines. Three straight lines, on\n    the other hand, produce by their junction a triangle, or the first\n    absolutely perfect figure. Therefore, it symbolized from the first\n    and to this day the Eternal\u2014the first perfection. The word for\n    deity in Latin, as in French, begins with D, in Greek the delta or\n    triangle, \u0394, whose three sides symbolize the trinity, or the three\n    kingdoms, or, again, divine nature. In the middle is the Hebrew\n    Yod, the initial of Jehovah [see \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi\u2019s _Dogme et Rituel_,\n    i. 154], the animating spirit or fire, the generating principle\n    represented by the letter G, the initial of \u201cGod\u201d in the northern\n    languages, whose philosophical significance is generation.(187)\n\n\nAs stated correctly by the famous Mason Ragon, the Hindu Trim\u00fbrti is\npersonified in the world of ideas by Creation, Preservation and\nDestruction, or Brahm\u00e2, Vishnu and Shiva; in the world of matter by Earth,\nWater and Fire, or the Sun, and symbolised by the Lotus, a flower that\nlives by earth, water, and the sun.(188) The Lotus, sacred to Isis, had\nthe same significance in Egypt, whereas in the Christian symbol, the\nLotus, not being found in either Jud\u00e6a or Europe, was replaced by the\nwater\u2010lily. In every Greek and Latin Church, in all the pictures of the\nAnnunciation, the Archangel Gabriel is depicted with this trinitarian\nsymbol in his hand standing before Mary, while above the chief altar or\nunder the dome, the Eye of the Eternal is painted within a triangle, made\nto replace the Hebrew Yod or God.\n\nTruly, says Ragon, there was a time when numbers and alphabetical\ncharacters meant something more than they do now\u2014the images of a mere\ninsignificant sound.\n\n\n    Their mission was nobler then. Each of them represented by its\n    form a complete sense, which, besides the meaning of the word, had\n    a double(189) interpretation adapted to a dual doctrine. Thus when\n    the sages desired to write something to be understood only by the\n    savants, they confabulated a story, a dream, or some other\n    fictitious subject with personal names of men and localities, that\n    revealed by their lettered characters the true meaning of the\n    author by that narrative. Such were all their religious\n    creations.(190)\n\n\nEvery appellation and term had its _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_. The name of a plant or\nmineral denoted its nature to the Initiate at the first glance. The\nessence of everything was easily perceived by him once that it was figured\nby such characters. The Chinese characters have preserved much of this\ngraphic and pictorial character to this day, though the secret of the full\nsystem is lost. Nevertheless, even now, there are those among that nation\nwho can write a long narrative, a volume, on one page; and the symbols\nthat are explained historically, allegorically and astronomically, have\nsurvived until now.\n\nMoreover, there exists a universal language among the Initiates, which an\nAdept, and even a disciple, of any nation may understand by reading it in\nhis own language. We Europeans, on the contrary, possess only one graphic\nsign common to all, & (and); there is a language richer in metaphysical\nterms than any on earth, whose every word is expressed by like common\nsigns. The Litera Pythagor\u00e6, so called, the Greek \u03a5 (the English capital\nY) if traced alone in a message, was as explicit as a whole page filled\nwith sentences, for it stood as a symbol for a number of things\u2014for white\nand black Magic, for instance.(191) Suppose one man enquired of another:\nTo what School of Magic does so and so belong? and the answer came back\nwith the letter traced with the right branch thicker than the left, then\nit meant \u201cto right hand or divine Magic;\u201d but if the letter were traced in\nthe usual way, with the left branch thicker than the right, then it meant\nthe reverse, the right or left branch being the whole biography of a man.\nIn Asia, especially in the Devan\u00e2gar\u00ee characters, every letter had several\nsecret meanings.\n\nInterpretations of the hidden sense of such apocalyptic writings are found\nin the keys given in the _Kabalah_, and they are among its most sacred\nlore. St. Hieronymus assures us that they were known to the School of the\nProphets and taught therein, which is very likely. Molitor, the learned\nHebraist, in his work on tradition says that:\n\n\n    The two and twenty letters of the Hebrew alphabet were regarded as\n    an emanation, or the visible expression of the divine forces\n    inherent in the ineffable name.\n\n\nThese letters find their equivalent in, and are replaced by numbers, in\nthe same way as in the other systems. For instance, the twelfth and the\nsixth letter of the alphabet yield eighteen in a name; the other letters\nof that name added being always exchanged for that figure which\ncorresponds to the alphabetical letter; then all those figures are\nsubjected to an algebraical process which transforms them again into\nletters; after which the latter yield to the enquirer \u201cthe most hidden\nsecrets of divine Permanency (eternity in its immutability) in the\nFuturity.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XI. THE HEXAGON WITH THE CENTRAL POINT, OR THE SEVENTH KEY.\n\n\nArguing upon the virtue in names (Baalshem), Molitor thinks it impossible\nto deny that the _Kabalah_\u2014its present abuses notwithstanding\u2014has some\nvery profound and scientific basis to stand upon. And if it is claimed, he\nargues,\n\n\n    That before the Name of Jesus every other Name must bend, why\n    should not the Tetragrammaton have the same power?(192)\n\n\nThis is good sense and logic. For if Pythagoras viewed the hexagon formed\nof two crossed triangles as the symbol of creation, and the Egyptians, as\nthat of the union of fire and water (or of generation), the Essenes saw in\nit the Seal of Solomon, the Jews the Shield of David, the Hindus the Sign\nof Vishnu (to this day); and if even in Russia and Poland the double\ntriangle is regarded as a powerful talisman\u2014then so widespread a use\nargues that there is something in it. It stands to reason, indeed, that\nsuch an ancient and universally revered symbol should not be merely laid\naside to be laughed at by those who know nothing of its virtues or real\nOccult significance. To begin with, even the known sign is merely a\nsubstitute for the one used by the Initiates. In a T\u00e2ntrika work in the\nBritish Museum, a terrible curse is called down upon the head of him who\nshall ever divulge to the profane the real Occult hexagon known as the\n\u201cSign of Vishnu,\u201d \u201cSolomon\u2019s Seal,\u201d etc.\n\nThe great power of the hexagon\u2014with its central mystic sign the T, or the\nSvastika, a septenary\u2014is well explained in the seventh key of _Things\nConcealed_, for it says:\n\n\n    The seventh key is the hieroglyph of the sacred septenary, of\n    royalty, of the priesthood [the Initiate], of triumph and true\n    result by struggle. It is magic power in all its force, the true\n    \u201cHoly Kingdom.\u201d In the Hermetic Philosophy it is the quintessence\n    resulting from the union of the two forces of the great Magic\n    Agent [\u00c2k\u00e2sha, Astral Light.].... It is equally Jakin and Boaz\n    bound by the will of the Adept and overcome by his omnipotence.\n\n\nThe force of this key is absolute in Magic. All religions have consecrated\nthis sign in their rites.\n\nWe can only glance hurriedly at present at the long series of antediluvian\nworks in their postdiluvian and fragmentary, often disfigured, form.\nAlthough all of these are the inheritance from the Fourth Race\u2014now lying\nburied in the unfathomed depths of the ocean\u2014still they are not to be\nrejected. As we have shown, there was but one Science at the dawn of\nmankind, and it was entirely divine. If humanity on reaching its adult\nperiod has abused it\u2014especially the last Sub\u2010Races of the Fourth Root\u2010\nRace\u2014it has been the fault and sin of the practitioners who desecrated the\ndivine knowledge, not of those who remained true to its pristine dogmas.\nIt is not because the modern Roman Catholic Church, faithful to her\ntraditional intolerance, is now pleased to see in the Occultist, and even\nin the innocent Spiritualist and Mason, the descendants of \u201cthe Kischuph,\nthe Hamite, the Kasdim, the Cephene, the Ophite and the Khartumim\u201d\u2014all\nthese being \u201cthe followers of Satan,\u201d that they are such indeed. The State\nor National Religion of every country has ever and at all times very\neasily disposed of rival schools by professing to believe they were\ndangerous heresies\u2014the old Roman Catholic State Religion as much as the\nmodern one.\n\nThe anathema, however, has not made the public any the wiser in the\nMysteries of the Occult Sciences. In some respects the world is all the\nbetter for such ignorance. The secrets of Nature generally cut both ways,\nand in the hands of the undeserving they are more than likely to become\nmurderous. Who in our modern day knows anything of the real significance\nof, and the powers contained in, certain characters and\nsigns\u2014talismans\u2014whether for beneficent or evil purposes? Fragments of the\nRunes and the writing of the Kischuph, found scattered in old medi\u00e6val\nlibraries; copies from the Ephesian and Milesian letters or characters;\nthe thrice famous _Book of Thoth_, and the terrible treatises (still\npreserved) of Targes, the Chald\u00e6an, and his disciple Tarchon, the\nEtruscan\u2014who flourished long before the Trojan War\u2014are so many names and\nappellations void of sense (though met with in classical literature) for\nthe educated modern scholar. Who, in the nineteenth century, believes in\nthe art, described in such treatises as those of Targes, of evoking and\ndirecting thunder\u2010bolts? Yet the same is described in the Br\u00e2hmanical\nliterature, and Targes copied his \u201cthunder\u2010bolts\u201d from the Astra,(193)\nthose terrible engines of destruction known to the Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2ratan \u00c2ryans. A\nwhole arsenal of dynamite bombs would pale before this art\u2014if it ever\nbecomes understood by the Westerns. It is from an old fragment that was\ntranslated to him, that the late Lord Bulwer Lytton got his idea of Vril.\nIt is a lucky thing, indeed, that, in the face of the virtues and\nphilanthropy that grace our age of iniquitous wars, of anarchists and\ndynamiters, the secrets contained in the books discovered in Numa\u2019s tomb\nshould have been burnt. But the science of Circe and Medea is not lost.\nOne can discover it in the apparent gibberish of the T\u00e2ntrika S\u00fbtras, the\n_Kuku\u2010ma_ of the Bh\u00fbt\u00e2n\u00ee and the Sikhim Dugpas and \u201cRed\u2010caps\u201d of Tibet,\nand even in the sorcery of the N\u00eelgiri Mula Kurumbas. Very luckily few\noutside the high practitioners of the Left Path and of the Adepts of the\nRight\u2014in whose hands the weird secrets of the real meaning are\nsafe\u2014understand the \u201cblack\u201d evocations. Otherwise the Western as much as\nthe Eastern Dugpas might make short work of their enemies. The name of the\nlatter is legion, for the direct descendants of the antediluvian sorcerers\nhate all those who are not with them, arguing that, therefore, they are\nagainst them.\n\nAs for the \u201cLittle Albert\u201d\u2014though even this small half\u2010esoteric volume has\nbecome a literary relic\u2014and the \u201cGreat Albert\u201d or the \u201cRed Dragon,\u201d\ntogether with the numberless old copies still in existence, the sorry\nremains of the mythical Mother Shiptons and the Merlins\u2014we mean the false\nones\u2014all these are vulgarised imitations of the original works of the same\nnames. Thus the \u201cPetit Albert\u201d is the disfigured imitation of the great\nwork written in Latin by Bishop Adalbert, an Occultist of the eighth\ncentury, sentenced by the second Roman Concilium. His work was reprinted\nseveral centuries later and named _Alberti Parvi Lucii Libellus de\nMirabilibus Natur\u00e6 Arcanis_. The severities of the Roman Church have ever\nbeen spasmodic. While one learns of this condemnation, which placed the\nChurch, as will be shown, in relation to the Seven Archangels, the Virtues\nor Thrones of God, in the most embarrassing position for long centuries,\nit remains a wonder indeed, to find that the Jesuits have not destroyed\nthe archives, with all their countless chronicles and annals, of the\nHistory of France and those of the Spanish Escurial, along with them. Both\nhistory and the chronicles of the former speak at length of the priceless\ntalisman received by Charles the Great from a Pope. It was a little volume\non Magic\u2014or Sorcery, rather\u2014all full of kabalistic figures, signs,\nmysterious sentences and invocations to the stars and planets. These were\ntalismans against the enemies of the King (_les ennemis de Charlemagne_),\nwhich talismans, the chronicler tells us, proved of great help, as \u201cevery\none of them [the enemies] died a violent death.\u201d The small volume,\n_Enchiridium Leonis Pap\u00e6_, has disappeared and is very luckily out of\nprint. Again the Alphabet of Thoth can be dimly traced in the modern Tarot\nwhich can be had at almost every bookseller\u2019s in Paris. As for its being\nunderstood or utilised, the many fortune\u2010tellers in Paris, who make a\nprofessional living by it, are sad specimens of failures of attempts at\nreading, let alone correctly interpreting, the symbolism of the Tarot\nwithout a preliminary philosophical study of the Science. The real Tarot,\nin its complete symbology, can be found only in the Babylonian cylinders,\nthat any one can inspect and study in the British Museum and elsewhere.\nAny one can see these Chald\u00e6an, antediluvian rhombs, or revolving\ncylinders, covered with sacred signs; but the secrets of these divining\n\u201cwheels,\u201d or, as de Mirville calls them, \u201cthe rotating globes of Hecate,\u201d\nhave to be left untold for some time to come. Meanwhile there are the\n\u201cturning\u2010tables\u201d of the modern medium for the babes, and the _Kabalah_ for\nthe strong. This may afford some consolation.\n\nPeople are very apt to use terms which they do not understand, and to pass\njudgments on _prim\u00e2 facie_ evidence. The difference between White and\nBlack Magic is very difficult to realise fully, as both have to be judged\nby their motive, upon which their ultimate though not their immediate\neffects depend, even though these may not come for years. Between the\n\u201cright and the left hand [Magic] there is but a cobweb thread,\u201d says an\nEastern proverb. Let us abide by its wisdom and wait till we have learned\nmore.\n\nWe shall have to return at greater length to the relation of the _Kabalah_\nto Gupta Vidy\u00e2, and to deal further with esoteric and numerical systems,\nbut we must first follow the line of Adepts in post\u2010Christian times.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XII. THE DUTY OF THE TRUE OCCULTIST TOWARD RELIGIONS.\n\n\nHaving disposed of pre\u2010Christian Initiates and their Mysteries\u2014though more\nhas to be said about the latter\u2014a few words must be given to the earliest\npost\u2010Christian Adepts, irrespective of their personal beliefs and\ndoctrines, or their subsequent places in History, whether sacred or\nprofane. Our task is to analyse this adeptship with its abnormal\nthaumaturgical, or, as now called, psychological powers; to give each of\nsuch Adepts his due, by considering, firstly, what are the historical\nrecords about them that have reached us at this late day, and secondly, to\nexamine the laws of probability with regard to the said powers.\n\nAnd at the outset the writer must be allowed a few words in justification\nof what has to be said. It would be most unfair to see in these pages any\ndefiance to, or disrespect for, the Christian religion\u2014least of all, a\ndesire to wound anyone\u2019s feelings. The Theosophist believes in neither\nDivine nor Satanic miracles. At such a distance of time he can only obtain\n_prim\u00e2 facie_ evidence and judge of it by the results claimed. There is\nneither Saint nor Sorcerer, Prophet nor Soothsayer for him; only Adepts,\nor proficients in the production of feats of a phenomenal character, to be\njudged by their words and deeds. The only distinction he is now able to\ntrace depends on the results achieved\u2014on the evidence whether they were\nbeneficent or maleficent in their character as affecting those for or\nagainst whom the powers of the Adept were used. With the division so\narbitrarily made between proficients in \u201cmiraculous\u201d doings of this or\nthat Religion by their respective followers and advocates, the Occultist\ncannot and _must not_ be concerned. The Christian whose Religion commands\nhim to regard Peter and Paul as Saints, and divinely inspired and\nglorified Apostles, and to view Simon and Apollonius as Wizards and\nNecromancers, helped by, and serving the ends of, supposed Evil Powers\u2014is\nquite justified in thus doing if he be a sincere orthodox Christian. But\nso also is the Occultist justified, if he would serve truth and only\ntruth, in rejecting such a one\u2010sided view. The student of Occultism must\nbelong to no special creed or sect, yet he is bound to show outward\nrespect to every creed and faith, if he would become an Adept of the Good\nLaw. He must not be bound by the pre\u2010judged and sectarian opinions of\nanyone, and he has to form his own opinions and to come to his own\nconclusions in accordance with the rules of evidence furnished to him by\nthe Science to which he is devoted. Thus, if the Occultist is, by way of\nillustration, a Buddhist, then, while regarding Gautama Buddha as the\ngrandest of all the Adepts that lived, and the incarnation of unselfish\nlove, boundless charity, and moral goodness, he will regard in the same\nlight Jesus\u2014proclaiming Him another such incarnation of every divine\nvirtue. He will reverence the memory of the great Martyr, even while\nrefusing to recognise in Him the incarnation on earth of the One Supreme\nDeity, and the \u201cVery God of Gods\u201d in Heaven. He will cherish the ideal man\nfor his personal virtues, not for the claims made on his behalf by\nfanatical dreamers of the early ages, or by a shrewd calculating Church\nand Theology. He will even believe in most of the \u201casserted miracles,\u201d\nonly explaining them in accordance with the rules of his own Science and\nby his psychic discernment. Refusing them the term \u201cmiracle\u201d\u2014in the\ntheological sense of an event \u201ccontrary to the established laws of\nnature\u201d\u2014he will nevertheless view them as a deviation from the laws known\n(so far) to Science, quite another thing. Moreover the Occultist will, on\nthe _prim\u00e2 facie_ evidence of the _Gospels_\u2014whether proven or not\u2014class\nmost of such works as beneficent, divine Magic, though he will be\njustified in regarding such events as casting out devils into a herd of\nswine(194) as allegorical, and as pernicious to true faith in their dead\u2010\nletter sense. This is the view a genuine, impartial Occultist would take.\nAnd in this respect even the fanatical Mussulmans who regard Jesus of\nNazareth as a great Prophet, and show respect to Him, are giving a\nwholesome lesson in charity to Christians, who teach and accept that\n\u201creligious tolerance is impious and absurd,\u201d(195) and who will never refer\nto the prophet of Islam by any other term but that of a \u201cfalse prophet.\u201d\nIt is on the principles of Occultism, then, that Peter and Simon, Paul and\nApollonius, will now be examined.\n\nThese four Adepts are chosen to appear in these pages with good reason.\nThey are the first in post\u2010Christian Adeptship\u2014as recorded in profane and\nsacred writings\u2014to strike the key\u2010note of \u201cmiracles,\u201d that is of psychic\nand physical phenomena. It is only theological bigotry and intolerance\nthat could so maliciously and arbitrarily separate the two harmonious\nparts into two distinct manifestations of Divine and Satanic Magic, into\n\u201cgodly\u201d and \u201cungodly\u201d works.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XIII. POST\u2010CHRISTIAN ADEPTS AND THEIR DOCTRINES.\n\n\nWhat does the world at large know of Peter and Simon, for example? Profane\nhistory has no record of these two, while that which the so\u2010called sacred\nliterature tells us of them is scattered about, contained in a few\nsentences in the _Acts_. As to the _Apocrypha_, their very name forbids\ncritics to trust to them for information. The Occultists, however, claim\nthat, one\u2010sided and prejudiced as they may be, the apocryphal _Gospels_\ncontain far more historically true events and facts than does the _New\nTestament_, the _Acts_ included. The former are crude tradition, the\nlatter (the official _Gospels_) are an elaborately made up legend. The\nsacredness of the _New Testament_ is a question of private belief and of\nblind faith, and while one is bound to respect the private opinion of\none\u2019s neighbour, no one is forced to share it.\n\nWho was Simon Magus, and what is known of him? One learns in the _Acts_\nsimply that on account of his remarkable magical Arts he was called \u201cthe\nGreat Power of God.\u201d Philip is said to have baptised this Samaritan; and\nsubsequently he is accused of having offered money to Peter and John to\nteach him the power of working true \u201cmiracles,\u201d false ones, it is\nasserted, being of the Devil.(196) This is all, if we omit the words of\nabuse freely used against him for working \u201cmiracles\u201d of the latter kind.\nOrigen mentions him as having visited Rome during the reign of Nero,(197)\nand Mosheim places him among the open enemies of Christianity;(198) but\nOccult tradition accuses him of nothing worse than refusing to recognise\n\u201cSimeon\u201d as a Vicegerent of God, whether that \u201cSimeon\u201d was Peter or anyone\nelse being still left an open question with the critic.\n\nThat which Iren\u00e6us(199) and Epiphanius(200) say of Simon Magus\u2014namely,\nthat he represented himself as the incarnated trinity; that in Samaria he\nwas the Father, in Jud\u00e6a the Son, and had given himself out to the\nGentiles as the Holy Spirit\u2014is simply backbiting. Times and events change;\nhuman nature remains the same and unaltered under every sky and in every\nage. The charge is the result and product of the traditional and now\nclassical _odium theologicum_. No Occultists\u2014all of whom have experienced\npersonally, more or less, the effects of theological rancour\u2014will ever\nbelieve such things merely on the word of an Iren\u00e6us, if, indeed, he ever\nwrote the words himself. Further on it is narrated of Simon that he took\nabout with him a woman whom he introduced as Helen of Troy, who had passed\nthrough a hundred reincarnations, and who, still earlier, in the beginning\nof \u00e6ons, was Sophia, Divine Wisdom, an emanation of his own (Simon\u2019s)\nEternal Mind, when he (Simon) was the \u201cFather\u201d; and finally, that by her\nhe had \u201cbegotten the Archangels and Angels, by whom this world was\ncreated,\u201d etc.\n\nNow we all know to what a degree of transformation and luxuriant growth\nany bare statement can be subjected and forced, after passing through only\nhalf a dozen hands. Moreover, all these claims may be explained and even\nshown to be true at bottom. Simon Magus was a Kabalist and a Mystic, who,\nlike so many other reformers, endeavoured to found a new Religion based on\nthe fundamental teachings of the Secret Doctrine, yet without divulging\nmore than necessary of its mysteries. Why then should not Simon, a Mystic,\ndeeply imbued with the fact of serial incarnations (we may leave out the\nnumber \u201cone hundred,\u201d as a very probable exaggeration of his disciples),\nspeak of any one whom he knew psychically as an incarnation of some\nheroine of that name, and in the way he did\u2014if he ever did so? Do we not\nfind in our own century some ladies and gentlemen, not charlatans but\nintellectual persons highly honoured in society, whose inner conviction\nassures them that they were\u2014one Queen Cleopatra, another one Alexander the\nGreat, a third Joan of Arc, and who or what not? This is a matter of inner\nconviction, and is based on more or less familiarity with Occultism and\nbelief in the modern theory of reincarnation. The latter differs from the\none genuine doctrine of old, as will be shown, but there is no rule\nwithout its exception.\n\nAs to the Magus being \u201cone with God the Father, God the Son, and God the\nHoly Ghost,\u201d this again is quite reasonable, if we admit that a Mystic and\nSeer has a right to use allegorical language; and in this case, moreover,\nit is quite justified by the doctrine of Universal Unity taught in\nEsoteric Philosophy. Every Occultist will say the same, on (to him)\nscientific and logical grounds, in full accordance with the doctrine he\nprofesses. Not a Ved\u00e2ntin but says the same thing daily: he is, of course,\nBrahman, and he is Parabrahman, once that he rejects the individuality of\nhis personal spirit, and recognises the Divine Ray which dwells in his\nHigher Self as only a reflection of the Universal Spirit. This is the echo\nin all times and ages of the primitive doctrine of Emanations. The first\nEmanation from the Unknown is the \u201cFather,\u201d the second the \u201cSon,\u201d and all\nand everything proceeds from the One, or that Divine Spirit which is\n\u201cunknowable.\u201d Hence, the assertion that by her (Sophia, or Minerva, the\nDivine Wisdom) he (Simon), when yet in the bosom of the Father, himself\nthe Father (or the first collective Emanation), begot the Archangels\u2014the\n\u201cSon\u201d\u2014who were the creators of this world.\n\nThe Roman Catholics themselves, driven to the wall by the irrefutable\narguments of their opponents\u2014the learned Philologists and Symbologists who\npick to shreds Church dogmas and their authorities, and point out the\nplurality of the Elohim in the _Bible_\u2014admit to\u2010day that the first\n\u201ccreation\u201d of God, the Tsaba, or Archangels, must have participated in the\ncreation of the Universe. Might not we suppose:\n\n\n    Although \u201cGod alone created the heaven and the earth\u201d ... that\n    however unconnected they [the Angels] may have been with the\n    primordial _ex nihilo_ creation, they may have received a mission\n    to achieve, to continue, and to sustain it?(201)\n\n\nexclaims De Mirville, in answer to Renan, Lacour, Maury and the _tutti\nquanti_ of the French Institute. With certain alterations it is precisely\nthis which is claimed by the Secret Doctrine. In truth there is not a\nsingle doctrine preached by the many Reformers of the first and the\nsubsequent centuries of our era, that did not base its initial teachings\non this universal cosmogony. Consult Mosheim and see what he has to say of\nthe many \u201cheresies\u201d he describes. Cerinthus, the Jew,\n\n\n    Taught that the Creator of this world ... the Sovereign God of the\n    Jewish people, was a Being ... who derived his birth from the\n    Supreme God;\n\n\nthat this Being, moreover,\n\n\n    Fell by degrees from his native virtue and primitive dignity.\n\n\nBasilides, Carpocrates and Valentinus, the Egyptian Gnostics of the second\ncentury, held the same ideas with a few variations. Basilides preached\nseven \u00c6ons (Hosts or Archangels), who issued from the substance of the\nSupreme. Two of them, Power and Wisdom, begot the heavenly hierarchy of\nthe first class and dignity; this emanated a second; the latter a third,\nand so on; each subsequent evolution being of a nature less exalted than\nthe precedent, and each creating for itself a Heaven as a dwelling, the\nnature of each of these respective Heavens decreasing in splendour and\npurity as it approached nearer to the earth. Thus the number of these\nDwellings amounted to 365; and over all presided the Supreme Unknown\ncalled Abraxas, a name which in the Greek method of numeration yields the\nnumber 365, which in its mystic and numerical meaning contains the number\n355, or the man value.(202) This was a Gnostic Mystery based upon that of\nprimitive Evolution, which ended with \u201cman.\u201d\n\nSaturnilus of Antioch promulgated the same doctrine slightly modified. He\ntaught two eternal principles, Good and Evil, which are simply Spirit and\nMatter. The seven Angels who preside over the seven Planets are the\nBuilders of our Universe\u2014a purely Eastern doctrine, as Saturnilus was an\nAsiatic Gnostic. These Angels are the natural Guardians of the seven\nRegions of our Planetary System, one of the most powerful among these\nseven creating Angels of the _third_ order being \u201cSaturn,\u201d the presiding\ngenius of the Planet, and the God of the Hebrew people: namely, Jehovah,\nwho was venerated among the Jews, and to whom they dedicated the seventh\nday or Sabbath, Saturday\u2014\u201cSaturn\u2019s day\u201d among the Scandinavians and also\namong the Hindus.\n\nMarcion, who also held the doctrine of the two opposed principles of Good\nand Evil, asserted that there was a third Deity between the two\u2014one of a\n\u201cmixed nature\u201d\u2014the God of the Jews, the Creator (with his Host) of the\nlower, or our, World. Though ever at war with the Evil Principle, this\nintermediate Being was nevertheless also opposed to the Good Principle,\nwhose place and title he coveted.\n\nThus Simon was only the son of his time, a religious Reformer like so many\nothers, and an Adept among the Kabalists. The Church, to which a belief in\nhis actual existence and great powers is a necessity\u2014in order the better\nto set off the \u201cmiracle\u201d performed by Peter and his triumph over\nSimon\u2014extols unstintingly his wonderful magic feats. On the other hand,\nScepticism, represented by scholars and learned critics, tries to make\naway with him altogether. Thus, after denying the very existence of Simon,\nthey have finally thought fit to merge his individuality entirely in that\nof Paul. The anonymous author of _Supernatural Religion_ assiduously\nendeavoured to prove that by Simon Magus we must understand the Apostle\nPaul, whose _Epistles_ were secretly as well as openly calumniated and\nopposed by Peter, and charged with containing \u201cdysno\u00ebtic learning.\u201d Indeed\nthis seems more than probable when we think of the two Apostles and\ncontrast their characters.\n\n\n    The Apostle of the Gentiles was brave, outspoken, sincere, and\n    very learned; the Apostle of Circumcision, cowardly, cautious,\n    insincere, and very ignorant. That Paul had been, partially at\n    least, if not completely, initiated into the theurgic mysteries,\n    admits of little doubt. His language, the phraseology so peculiar\n    to the Greek philosophers, certain expressions used only by the\n    Initiates, are so many sure ear\u2010marks to that supposition. Our\n    suspicion has been strengthened by an able article entitled \u201cPaul\n    and Plato,\u201d by Dr. A. Wilder, in which the author puts forward one\n    remarkable and, for us, very precious observation. In the\n    _Epistles to the Corinthians_, he shows Paul abounding with\n    \u201cexpressions suggested by the initiations of Sabazius and Eleusis,\n    and the lectures of the (Greek) philosophers. He (Paul) designates\n    himself an _idiotes_\u2014a person unskilful in the Word, but not in\n    the _gnosis_ or philosophical learning. \u2018We speak wisdom among the\n    perfect or initiated,\u2019 he writes, _even_ the _hidden wisdom_, \u2018not\n    the wisdom of this world, nor of the Archons of this world, but\n    divine wisdom in a mystery, secret\u2014which _none of the Archons of\n    this world knew_.\u2019 \u201d(203)\n\n    What else can the Apostle mean by those unequivocal words, but\n    that he himself, as belonging to the Myst\u00e6 (Initiated), spoke of\n    things shown and explained only in the Mysteries? The \u201cdivine\n    wisdom in a mystery which none of the _Archons of this world\n    knew_,\u201d has evidently some direct reference to the Basileus of the\n    Eleusinian Initiation who did know. The Basileus belonged to the\n    staff of the great Hierophant, and was an Archon of Athens; and as\n    such was one of the chief Myst\u00e6, belonging to the _interior_\n    Mysteries, to which a very select and small number obtained an\n    entrance.(204) The magistrates supervising the Eleusinia were\n    called Archons.(205)\n\n\nWe will deal, however, first with Simon the Magician.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XIV. SIMON AND HIS BIOGRAPHER HIPPOLYTUS.\n\n\nAs shown in our earlier volumes, Simon was a pupil of the Tanaim of\nSamaria, and the reputation he left behind him, together with the title of\n\u201cthe Great Power of God,\u201d testify in favour of the ability and learning of\nhis Masters. But the Tanaim were Kabalists of the same secret school as\nJohn of the _Apocalypse_, whose careful aim it was to conceal as much as\npossible the real meaning of the names in the Mosaic Books. Still the\ncalumnies so jealously disseminated against Simon Magus by the unknown\nauthors and compilers of the _Acts_ and other writings, could not cripple\nthe truth to such an extent as to conceal the fact that no Christian could\nrival him in thaumaturgic deeds. The story told about his falling during\nan aerial flight, breaking both his legs and then committing suicide, is\nridiculous. Posterity has heard but one side of the story. Were the\ndisciples of Simon to have a chance, we might perhaps find that it was\nPeter who broke both his legs. But as against this hypothesis we know that\nthis Apostle was too prudent ever to venture himself in Rome. On the\nconfession of several ecclesiastical writers, no Apostle ever performed\nsuch \u201csupernatural wonders,\u201d but of course pious people will say this only\nthe more proves that it was the Devil who worked through Simon. He was\naccused of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, only because he introduced as\nthe \u201cHoly Spiritus\u201d the Mens (Intelligence) or \u201cthe Mother of all.\u201d But we\nfind the same expression used in the _Book of Enoch_, in which, in\ncontradistinction to the \u201cSon of Man,\u201d he speaks of the \u201cSon of the\nWoman.\u201d In the _Codex_ of the Nazarenes, and in the _Zohar_, as well as in\nthe _Books of Hermes_, the same expression is used; and even in the\napocryphal _Evangelium of the Hebrews_ we read that Jesus admitted the\nfemale sex of the Holy Ghost by using the expression \u201cMy Mother, the Holy\nPneuma.\u201d\n\nAfter long ages of denial, however, the actual existence of Simon Magus\nhas been finally demonstrated, whether he was Saul, Paul or Simon. A\nmanuscript speaking of him under the last name has been discovered in\nGreece and has put a stop to any further speculation.\n\nIn his _Histoire des Trois Premiers Si\u00e8cles de l\u2019\u00c9glise_(206) M. de\nPressens\u00e9 gives his opinion on this additional relic of early\nChristianity. Owing to the numerous myths with which the history of Simon\nabounds\u2014he says\u2014many Theologians (among Protestants, he ought to have\nadded) have concluded that it was no better than a clever tissue of\nlegends. But he adds:\n\n\n    It contains positive facts, it seems, now warranted by the\n    unanimous testimony of the Fathers of the Church and the narrative\n    of Hippolytus recently discovered.(207)\n\n\nThis MS. is very far from being complimentary to the alleged founder of\nWestern Gnosticism. While recognising great powers in Simon, it brands him\nas a priest of Satan\u2014which is quite enough to show that it was written by\na Christian. It also shows that, like another \u201cservant of the Evil One\u201d\u2014as\nManes is called by the Church\u2014Simon was a _baptised_ Christian; but that\nboth, being too well versed in the mysteries of true _primitive_\nChristianity, were persecuted for it. The secret of such persecution was\nthen, as it is now, quite transparent to those who study the question\nimpartially. Seeking to preserve his independence, Simon could not submit\nto the leadership or authority of any of the Apostles, least of all to\nthat of either Peter or John, the fanatical author of the _Apocalypse_.\nHence charges of heresy followed by \u201canathema maranatha.\u201d The persecutions\nby the Church were never directed against Magic, when it was orthodox; for\nthe new Theurgy, established and regulated by the Fathers, now known to\nChristendom as \u201cgrace\u201d and \u201cmiracles,\u201d was, and is still, when it does\nhappen, only Magic\u2014whether conscious or unconscious. Such phenomena as\nhave passed to posterity under the name of \u201cdivine miracles\u201d were produced\nthrough powers acquired by great purity of life and ecstasy. Prayer and\ncontemplation added to asceticism are the best means of discipline in\norder to become a Theurgist, where there is no regular initiation. For\nintense prayer for the accomplishment of some object is only intense\n_will_ and desire, resulting in unconscious Magic. In our own day George\nM\u00fcller of Bristol has proved it. But \u201cdivine miracles\u201d are produced by the\nsame causes that generate effects of Sorcery. The whole difference rests\non the good or evil effects aimed at, and on the actor who produces them.\nThe thunders of the Church were directed only against those who dissented\nfrom the formul\u00e6 and attributed to themselves the production of certain\nmarvellous effects, instead of fathering them on a personal God; and thus,\nwhile those Adepts in Magic Arts who acted under her direct instructions\nand auspices were proclaimed to posterity and history as saints and\nfriends of God, all others were hooted out of the Church and sentenced to\neternal calumny and curses from their day to this. Dogma and authority\nhave ever been the curse of humanity, the great extinguishers of light and\ntruth.(208)\n\nIt was perhaps the recognition of a germ of that which, later on, in the\nthen nascent Church, grew into the virus of insatiate power and ambition,\nculminating finally in the dogma of infallibility, that forced Simon, and\nso many others, to break away from her at her very birth. Sects and\ndissensions began with the first century. While Paul rebukes Peter to his\nface, John slanders under the veil of vision the Nicolaitans, and makes\nJesus declare that he hates them.(209) Therefore we pay little attention\nto the accusations against Simon in the MS. found in Greece.\n\nIt is entitled _Philosophumena_. Its author, regarded as Saint Hippolytus\nby the Greek Church, is referred to as an \u201cunknown heretic\u201d by the\nPapists, only because he speaks in it \u201cvery slanderously\u201d of Pope\nCallistus, also a Saint. Nevertheless, Greeks and Latins agree in\ndeclaring the _Philosophumena_ to be an extraordinary and very erudite\nwork. Its antiquity and genuineness have been vouched for by the best\nauthorities of T\u00fcbingen.\n\nWhoever the author may have been, he expresses himself about Simon in this\nwise:\n\n\n    Simon, a man well versed in magic arts, deceived many persons\n    partly by the art of Thrasymedes,(210) and partly _with the help\n    of demons_.(211)... He determined to pass himself off as a god....\n    Aided by his wicked arts, he turned to profit not only the\n    teachings of Moses, but those of the poets.... His disciples use\n    to this day his charms. Thanks to incantations, to philtres, to\n    their attractive caresses(212) and what they call \u201csleeps,\u201d they\n    send demons to influence all those whom they would fascinate. With\n    this object they employ what they call \u201cfamiliar demons.\u201d(213)\n\n\nFurther on the MS. reads:\n\n\n    The Magus (Simon) made those who wished to enquire of the demon,\n    write what their question was on a leaf of parchment; this, folded\n    in four, was thrown into a burning brazier, in order that the\n    smoke should reveal the contents of the writing to the Spirit\n    (demon) (_Philos._, IV. iv.). Incense was thrown by handfuls on\n    the blazing coals, the Magus adding, on pieces of papyrus, the\n    Hebrew names of the Spirits he was addressing, and the flame\n    devoured all. Very soon the _divine_ Spirit seemed to overwhelm\n    the Magician, who uttered unintelligible invocations, and plunged\n    in such a state he answered every question\u2014phantasmal apparitions\n    being often raised over the flaming brazier (_ibid._, iii.); at\n    other times fire descended from heaven upon objects previously\n    pointed out by the Magician (_ibid._); or again the deity evoked,\n    crossing the room, would trace fiery orbs in its flight (_ibid._,\n    ix.).(214)\n\n\nSo far the above statements agree with those of Anastasius the Sina\u00efte:\n\n\n    People saw Simon causing statues to walk; precipitating himself\n    into the flames without being burnt; metamorphosing his body into\n    that of various animals [lycanthropy]; raising at banquets\n    phantoms and spectres; _causing the furniture in the rooms to move\n    about_, by invisible _spirits_. He gave out that he was escorted\n    by a number of shades to whom he gave the name of \u201csouls of the\n    dead.\u201d Finally, he used to fly in the air ... (Anast., _Patrol.\n    Grecque_, vol. lxxxix., col. 523, qu\u00e6st. xx.).(215)\n\n\nSuetonius says in his _Nero_,\n\n\n    In those days an Icarus fell at his first ascent near Nero\u2019s box\n    and covered it with his blood.(216)\n\n\nThis sentence, referring evidently to some unfortunate acrobat who missed\nhis footing and tumbled, is brought forward as a proof that it was Simon\nwho fell.(217) But the latter\u2019s name is surely too famous, if one must\ncredit the Church Fathers, for the historian to have mentioned him simply\nas \u201can Icarus.\u201d The writer is quite aware that there exists in Rome a\nlocality named Simonium, near the Church of SS. Cosmas and Daimanus (Via\nSacra), and the ruins of the ancient temple of Romulus, where the broken\npieces of a stone, on which it is alleged the two knees of the Apostle\nPeter were impressed in thanksgiving after his supposed victory over\nSimon, are shown to this day. But what does this exhibition amount to? For\nthe broken fragments of one stone, the Buddhists of Ceylon show a whole\nrock on Adam\u2019s Peak with another imprint upon it. A crag stands upon its\nplatform, a terrace of which supports a huge boulder, and on the boulder\nrests for nearly three thousand years the sacred foot\u2010print, of a foot\nfive feet long. Why not credit the legend of the latter, if we have to\naccept that of St. Peter? \u201cPrince of Apostles,\u201d or \u201cPrince of Reformers,\u201d\nor even the \u201cFirst\u2010born of Satan,\u201d as Simon is called, all are entitled to\nlegends and fictions. One may be allowed to discriminate, however.\n\nThat Simon could fly, _i.e._, raise himself in the air for a few minutes,\nis no impossibility. Modern mediums have performed the same feat supported\nby a force that Spiritualists persist in calling \u201cspirits.\u201d But if Simon\ndid so, it was with the help of a self\u2010acquired blind power that heeds\nlittle the prayers and commands of rival Adepts, let alone Saints. The\nfact is that logic is against the supposed fall of Simon at the prayer of\nPeter. For had he been defeated publicly by the Apostle, his disciples\nwould have abandoned him after such an evident sign of inferiority, and\nwould have become orthodox Christians. But we find even the author of\n_Philosophumena_, just such a Christian, showing otherwise. Simon had lost\nso little credit with his pupils and the masses, that he went on daily\npreaching in the Roman Campania after his supposed fall from the clouds\n\u201cfar above the Capitolium,\u201d in which fall he broke his legs only! Such a\nlucky fall is in itself sufficiently miraculous, one would say.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XV. ST. PAUL THE REAL FOUNDER OF PRESENT CHRISTIANITY.\n\n\nWe may repeat with the author of _Phallicism_:\n\n\n    We are all for _construction_\u2014even for _Christian_, although of\n    course philosophical _construction_. We have nothing to do with\n    reality, in man\u2019s limited, mechanical, scientific sense, or with\n    _realism_. We have undertaken to show that mysticism is the very\n    life and soul of religion;(218) ... that _the Bible is only\n    misread and misrepresented when rejected as advancing supposed\n    fabulous and contradictory things_; that Moses did not make\n    mistakes, but spoke to the \u201cchildren of men\u201d in the only way in\n    which _children_ in their nonage can be addressed; that the world\n    is, indeed, a very different place from that which it is assumed\n    to be; that what is derided as superstition is the only true and\n    the only scientific _knowledge_, and moreover that modern\n    knowledge and modern science are to a great extent not only\n    _superstition_, but superstition of a very destructive and deadly\n    kind.(219)\n\n\nAll this is perfectly true and correct. But it is also true that the _New\nTestament_, the _Acts_ and the _Epistles_\u2014however much the historical\nfigure of Jesus may be true\u2014are all symbolical and allegorical sayings,\nand that \u201cit was not Jesus but Paul who was the real founder of\nChristianity;\u201d(220) but it was not the official Church Christianity, at\nany rate. \u201cThe disciples were called Christians first in Antioch,\u201d the\n_Acts of the Apostles_ tell us,(221) and they were not so called before,\nnor for a long time after, but simply Nazarenes.\n\nThis view is found in more than one writer of the present and the past\ncenturies. But, hitherto, it has always been laid aside as an unproven\nhypothesis, a blasphemous assumption; though, as the author of _Paul, the\nFounder of Christianity_(222) truly says:\n\n\n    Such men as Iren\u00e6us, Epiphanius and Eusebius have transmitted to\n    posterity a reputation for such untruth and dishonest practices\n    that the heart sickens at the story of the crimes of that period.\n\n\nThe more so, since the whole Christian scheme rests upon _their_ sayings.\nBut we find now another corroboration, and this time on the perfect\nreading of biblical glyphs. In _The Source of Measures_ we find the\nfollowing:\n\n\n    It must be borne in mind that our present Christianity is\n    _Pauline_, not _Jesus_. Jesus, in his life, was a Jew, conforming\n    to the law; even more, He says: \u201cThe scribes and pharisees sit in\n    Moses\u2019 seat; whatsoever therefore they command you to do, that\n    observe and do.\u201d And again: \u201cI did not come to destroy but to\n    fulfil the law.\u201d Therefore, He was under the law to the day of his\n    death, and could not, while in life, abrogate one jot or tittle of\n    it. He was circumcised and commanded circumcision. But Paul said\n    of circumcision that it availed nothing, and _he_ (Paul) abrogated\n    the law. _Saul_ and _Paul_\u2014that is, Saul, under the law, and Paul,\n    freed from the obligations of the law\u2014were in one man, but\n    parallelisms _in the flesh_, of Jesus the man under the law as\n    observing it, who thus died in _Chr\u00e9stos_ and arose, freed from\n    its obligations, in the spirit world as _Christos_, or the\n    triumphant Christ. It was the Christ who was freed, but Christ was\n    in the Spirit. Saul in the flesh was the function of, and parallel\n    of Chr\u00e9stos. Paul in the flesh was the function and parallel of\n    Jesus become Christ in the spirit, as an early reality to answer\n    to and act for the _apotheosis_; and so armed with all authority\n    in the flesh to abrogate human law.(223)\n\n\nThe real reason why Paul is shown as \u201cabrogating the law\u201d can be found\nonly in India, where to this day the most ancient customs and privileges\nare preserved in all their purity, notwithstanding the abuse levelled at\nthe same. There is only one class of persons who can disregard the law of\nBr\u00e2hmanical institutions, caste included, with impunity, and that is the\n_perfect_ \u201cSv\u00e2m\u00ees,\u201d the Yog\u00ees\u2014who have reached, or are supposed to have\nreached, the first step towards the J\u00eevanmukta state\u2014or the full\nInitiates. And Paul was undeniably an Initiate. We will quote a passage or\ntwo from _Isis Unveiled_, for we can say now nothing better than what was\nsaid then:\n\n\n    Take Paul, read the little of original that is left of him in the\n    writings attributed to this brave, honest, sincere man, and see\n    whether anyone can find a word therein to show that Paul meant by\n    the word Christ anything more than the abstract ideal of the\n    personal divinity indwelling in man. For Paul, Christ is not a\n    person, but an embodied idea. \u201cIf any man is in Christ he is a new\n    creation,\u201d _he is reborn_, as after initiation, for the Lord is\n    spirit\u2014the spirit of man. Paul was the only one of the apostles\n    who had understood the secret ideas underlying the teachings of\n    Jesus, although he had never met him.\n\n\nBut Paul himself was not infallible or perfect.\n\n\n    Bent upon inaugurating a new and broad reform, one embracing the\n    whole of humanity, he sincerely set his own doctrines far above\n    the wisdom of the ages, above the ancient Mysteries and final\n    revelation to the Epopt\u00e6.\n\n    Another proof that Paul belonged to the circle of the \u201cInitiates\u201d\n    lies in the following fact. The apostle had his head shorn at\n    Ceuchre\u00e6, where Lucius (_Apuleius_) was initiated, because \u201che had\n    a vow.\u201d The Nazars\u2014or set apart\u2014as we see in the Jewish\n    Scriptures, had to cut their hair, which they wore long, and which\n    \u201cno razor touched\u201d at any other time, and sacrifice it on the\n    altar of initiation. And the Nazars were a class of Chald\u00e6an\n    Theurgists or Initiates.\n\n\nIt is shown in _Isis Unveiled_ that Jesus belonged to this class.\n\n\n    Paul declares that: \u201cAccording to the grace of God which is given\n    unto me, as a wise _master\u2010builder_, I have laid the foundation.\u201d\n    (_I. Corinth._, iii. 10.)\n\n    This expression, master\u2010builder, used only _once_ in the whole\n    _Bible_, and by Paul, may be considered as a whole revelation. In\n    the Mysteries, the third part of the sacred rites was called\n    Epopteia, or revelation, reception into the secrets. In substance\n    it means the highest stage of clairvoyance\u2014the divine; ... but the\n    real significance of the word is \u201coverseeing,\u201d from \u1f44\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9\u2014\u201cI see\n    myself.\u201d In Sanskrit the root _\u00e2p_ had the same meaning\n    originally, though now it is understood as meaning \u201cto\n    obtain.\u201d(224)\n\n    The word _epopteia_ is compound, from \u1f10\u03c0\u1f76 \u201cupon,\u201d and \u1f44\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03bc\u03b1\u03b9 \u201cto\n    look,\u201d or an overseer, an inspector\u2014also used for a master\u2010\n    builder. The title of master\u2010mason, in Freemasonry, is derived\n    from this, in the sense used in the Mysteries. Therefore, when\n    Paul entitles himself a \u201cmaster\u2010builder,\u201d he is using a word pre\u2010\n    eminently kabalistic, theurgic, and masonic, and one which no\n    other apostle uses. He thus declares himself an _adept_, having\n    the right to initiate others.\n\n    If we search in this direction, with those sure guides, the\n    Grecian Mysteries and the _Kabalah_, before us, it will be easy to\n    find the secret reason why Paul was so persecuted and hated by\n    Peter, John, and James. The author of the _Revelation_ was a\n    Jewish Kabalist, _pur sang_, with all the hatred inherited by him\n    from his forefathers toward the pagan Mysteries.(225) His jealousy\n    during the life of Jesus extended even to Peter; and it is but\n    after the death of their common master that we see the two\n    apostles\u2014the former of whom wore the Mitre and the Petaloon of the\n    Jewish Rabbis\u2014preach so zealously the rite of circumcision. In the\n    eyes of Peter, Paul, who had humiliated him, and whom he felt so\n    much his superior in \u201cGreek learning\u201d and philosophy, must have\n    naturally appeared as a magician, a man polluted with the\n    \u201cGnosis,\u201d with the \u201cwisdom\u201d of the Greek Mysteries\u2014hence, perhaps,\n    \u201cSimon the Magician\u201d as a comparison, not a nickname.(226)\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XVI. PETER A JEWISH KABALIST, NOT AN INITIATE.\n\n\nAs to Peter, biblical criticism has shown that in all probability he had\nno more to do with the foundation of the Latin Church at Rome than to\nfurnish the pretext, so readily seized upon by the cunning Iren\u00e6us, of\nendowing the Church with a new name for the Apostle\u2014Petra or Kiffa\u2014a name\nwhich, by an easy play upon words, could be readily connected with\nPetroma. The Petroma was a pair of stone tablets used by the Hierophants\nat the Initiations, during the final Mystery. In this lies concealed the\nsecret of the Vatican claim to the seat of Peter. As already quoted in\n_Isis Unveiled_, ii. 92:\n\n\n    In the Oriental countries the designation Peter (in Ph\u0153nician and\n    Chaldaic an interpreter), appears to have been the title of this\n    personage.(227)\n\n\nSo far, and as the \u201cinterpreters\u201d of _Neo_\u2010Christianism, the Popes have\nmost undeniably the right to call themselves successors to the title of\nPeter, but hardly the successors to, least of all the interpreters of, the\ndoctrines of Jesus, the Christ; for there is the Oriental Church, older\nand far purer than the Roman hierarchy, which, having ever faithfully held\nto the primitive teachings of the Apostles, is known historically to have\nrefused to follow the Latin seceders from the original Apostolic Church,\nthough, curiously enough, she is still referred to by her Roman sister as\nthe \u201cSchismatic\u201d Church. It is useless to repeat the reasons for the\nstatements above made, as they may all be found in _Isis Unveiled_,(228)\nwhere the words, Peter, Patar, and Pitar, are explained, and the origin of\nthe \u201cSeat of Pitah\u201d is shown. The reader will find upon referring to the\nabove pages that an inscription was found on the coffin of Queen Mentuhept\nof the Eleventh Dynasty (2250 B.C. according to Bunsen), which in its turn\nwas shown to have been transcribed from the Seventeenth Chapter of the\n_Book of the Dead_, dating certainly not later than 4500 B.C. or 496 years\nbefore the World\u2019s Creation, in the Genesiacal chronology. Nevertheless,\nBaron Bunsen shows the group of the hieroglyphics given (_Peter\u2010ref\u2010su_,\nthe \u201cMystery Word\u201d) and the sacred formulary mixed up with a whole series\nof glosses and various interpretations on a monument 4,000 years old.\n\n\n    This is identical with saying that the record (the true\n    interpretation) was at that time no longer intelligible.... We beg\n    our readers to understand that a sacred text, a hymn, containing\n    the words of a departed spirit, existed in such a state, about\n    4,000 years ago, as to be all but unintelligible to royal\n    scribes.(229)\n\n\n\u201cUnintelligible\u201d to the non\u2010initiated\u2014this is certain; and it is so proved\nby the confused and contradictory glosses. Yet there can be no doubt that\nit was\u2014for it _still is_\u2014a mystery word. The Baron further explains:\n\n\n    It appears to me that our PTR is literally the old Aramaic and\n    Hebrew \u201cPatar,\u201d which occurs in the history of Joseph as the\n    specific word for _interpreting_, whence also Pitrum is the term\n    for interpretation of a text, a dream.(230)\n\n\nThis word, PTR, was partially interpreted owing to another word similarly\nwritten in another group of hieroglyphics, on a stele, the glyph used for\nit being an opened eye, interpreted by De Roug\u00e9(231) as \u201cto appear,\u201d and\nby Bunsen as \u201cilluminator,\u201d which is more correct. However it may be, the\nword Patar, or Peter, would locate both master and disciple in the circle\nof initiation, and connect them with the Secret Doctrine; while in the\n\u201cSeat of Peter\u201d we can hardly help seeing a connection with Petroma, the\ndouble set of stone tablets used by the Hierophant at the Supreme\nInitiation during the final Mystery, as already stated, also with the\nP\u00eetha\u2010sth\u00e2na (seat, or the place of a seat), a term used in the Mysteries\nof the T\u00e2ntriks in India, in which the limbs of Sat\u00ee are scattered and\nthen united again, as those of Osiris by Isis.(232) P\u00eetha is a Sanskrit\nword, and is also used to designate the seat of the initiating Lama.\n\nWhether all the above terms are due simply to \u201ccoincidences\u201d or otherwise\nis left to the decision of our learned Symbologists and Philologists. We\nstate facts\u2014and nothing more. Many other writers, far more learned and\nentitled to be heard than the author has ever claimed to be, have\nsufficiently demonstrated that Peter never had anything to do with the\nfoundation of the Latin Church; that his supposed name Petra or Kiffa,\nalso the whole story of his Apostleship at Rome, are simply a play on the\nterm, which meant in every country, in one or another form, the Hierophant\nor Interpreter of the Mysteries; and that finally, far from dying a martyr\nat Rome, where he had probably never been, he died at a good old age at\nBabylon. In _Sepher Toldoth Jeshu_, a Hebrew manuscript of great\nantiquity\u2014evidently an original and very precious document, if one may\njudge from the care the Jews took to hide it from the Christians\u2014Simon\n(Peter) is referred to as \u201ca faithful servant of God,\u201d who passed his life\nin austerities and meditation, a Kabalist and a Nazarene who lived at\nBabylon \u201cat the top of a tower, composed hymns, preached charity,\u201d and\ndied there.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XVII. APOLLONIUS OF TYANA.\n\n\nIt is said in _Isis Unveiled_ that the greatest teachers of divinity agree\nthat nearly all ancient books were written symbolically and in a language\nintelligible only to the Initiated. The biographical sketch of Apollonius\nof Tyana affords an example. As every Kabalist knows, it embraces the\nwhole of the Hermetic Philosophy, being a counterpart in many respects of\nthe traditions left us of King Solomon. It reads like a fairy story, but,\nas in the case of the latter, sometimes facts and historical events are\npresented to the world under the colours of fiction. The journey to India\nrepresents in its every stage, though of course allegorically, the trials\nof a Neophyte, giving at the same time a geographical and topographical\nidea of a certain country as it is even now, if one knows where to look\nfor it. The long discourses of Apollonius with the Br\u00e2hmans, their sage\nadvice, and the dialogues with the Corinthian Menippus would, if\ninterpreted, give the Esoteric Catechism. His visit to the empire of the\nwise men, his interview with their king Hiarchas, the oracle of\nAmphiaraus, explain symbolically many of the secret dogmas of Hermes\u2014in\nthe generic sense of the name\u2014and of Occultism. Wonderful is this to\nrelate, and were not the statement supported by numerous calculations\nalready made, and the secret already half revealed, the writer would never\nhave dared to say it. The travels of the great Magus are correctly, though\nallegorically described\u2014that is to say, all that is related by Damis had\nactually taken place\u2014but the narrative is based upon the Zodiacal signs.\nAs _transliterated_ by Damis under the guidance of Apollonius and\n_translated_ by Philostratus, it is a marvel indeed. At the conclusion of\nwhat may now be related of the wonderful Adept of Tyana our meaning will\nbecome clearer. Suffice it to say for the present that the dialogues\nspoken of would disclose, if correctly understood, some of the most\nimportant secrets of Nature. \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi points out the great resemblance\nwhich exists between King Hiarchus and the fabulous Hiram, from whom\nSolomon procured the cedars of Lebanon and the gold of Ophir. But he keeps\nsilent as to another resemblance of which, as a learned Kabalist, he could\nnot be ignorant. Moreover, according to his invariable custom, he\nmystifies the reader more than he teaches him, divulging nothing and\nleading him off the right track.\n\nLike most of the historical heroes of hoary antiquity, whose lives and\nworks strongly differ from those of commonplace humanity, Apollonius is to\nthis day a riddle, which has, so far, found no \u0152dipus. His existence is\nsurrounded with such a veil of mystery that he is often mistaken for a\nmyth. But according to every law of logic and reason, it is quite clear\nthat Apollonius should never be regarded in such a light. If the Tyanean\nTheurgist may be put down as a fabulous character, then history has no\nright to her C\u00e6sars and Alexanders. It is quite true that this Sage, who\nstands unrivalled in his thaumaturgical powers to this day\u2014on evidence\nhistorically attested\u2014came into the arena of public life no one seems to\nknow whence, and disappeared from it, no one seems to know whither. But\nthe reasons for this are evident. Every means was used\u2014especially during\nthe fourth and fifth centuries of our era\u2014to sweep from people\u2019s minds the\nremembrance of this great and holy man. The circulation of his\nbiographies, which were many and enthusiastic, was prevented by the\nChristians, and for a very good reason, as we shall see. The diary of\nDamis survived most miraculously, and remained alone to tell the tale. But\nit must not be forgotten that Justin Martyr often speaks of Apollonius,\nand the character and truthfulness of this good man are unimpeachable, the\nmore in that he had good reasons to feel bewildered. Nor can it be denied\nthat there is hardly a Church Father of the first six centuries that left\nApollonius unnoticed. Only, according to invariable Christian customs of\ncharity, their pens were dipped as usual in the blackest ink of _odium\ntheologicum_, intolerance and one\u2010sidedness. St. Jerome (Hieronymus) gives\nat length the story of St. John\u2019s alleged contest with the Sage of Tyana\u2014a\ncompetition of \u201cmiracles\u201d\u2014in which, of course, the truthful saint(233)\ndescribes in glowing colours the defeat of Apollonius, and seeks\ncorroboration in St. John\u2019s _Apocrypha_ proclaimed doubtful _even_ by the\nChurch.(234)\n\nTherefore it is that nobody can say where or when Apollonius was born, and\neveryone is equally ignorant of the date at which, and of the place where\nhe died. Some think he was eighty or ninety years old at the time of his\ndeath, others that he was one hundred or even one hundred and seventeen.\nBut, whether he ended his days at Ephesus in the year 96 A.D., as some\nsay, or whether the event took place at Lindus in the temple of Pallas\u2010\nAthene, or whether again he disappeared from the temple of Dictynna, or\nwhether, as others maintain, he did not die at all, but when a hundred\nyears old renewed his life by Magic, and went on working for the benefit\nof humanity, no one can tell. The Secret Records alone have noted his\nbirth and subsequent career. But then\u2014\u201cwho hath believed in _that_\nreport?\u201d\n\nAll that history knows is that Apollonius was the enthusiastic founder of\na new school of contemplation. Perhaps less metaphorical and more\npractical than Jesus, he nevertheless inculcated the same quintessence of\nspirituality, the same high moral truths. He is accused of having confined\nthem to the higher classes of society instead of doing what Buddha and\nJesus did, instead of preaching them to the poor and the afflicted. Of his\nreasons for acting in such an exclusive way it is impossible to judge at\nso late a date. But Karmic law seems to be mixed up with it. Born, as we\nare told, among the aristocracy, it is very likely that he desired to\nfinish the work undone in this particular direction by his predecessor,\nand sought to offer \u201cpeace on earth and good will\u201d to _all_ men, and not\nalone to the outcast and the criminal. Therefore he associated with the\nkings and the mighty ones of the age. Nevertheless, the three \u201cmiracle\u2010\nworkers\u201d exhibited striking similarity of purpose. Like Jesus and like\nBuddha, Apollonius was the uncompromising enemy of all outward show of\npiety, all display of useless religious ceremonies, bigotry and hypocrisy.\nThat his \u201cmiracles\u201d were more wonderful, more varied, and far better\nattested in History than any others, is also true. Materialism denies; but\nevidence, and the affirmations of even the Church herself, however much he\nis branded by her, show this to be the fact.(235)\n\n\n    The calumnies set afloat against Apollonius were as numerous as\n    they were false. So late as eighteen centuries after his death he\n    was defamed by Bishop Douglas in his work against miracles. In\n    this the Right Reverend bishop crushed himself against historical\n    facts. For it is not in the _miracles_, but in the identity of\n    ideas and doctrines preached that we have to look for a similarity\n    between Buddha, Jesus and Apollonius. If we study the question\n    with a dispassionate mind, we shall soon perceive that the ethics\n    of Gautama, Plato, Apollonius, Jesus, Ammonius Sakkas, and his\n    disciples, were all based on the same mystic philosophy\u2014that all\n    worshipped one divine Ideal, whether they considered it as the\n    \u201cFather\u201d of humanity, who lives in man, as man lives in Him, or as\n    the Incomprehensible Creative Principle. All led God\u2010like lives.\n    Ammonius, speaking of his philosophy, taught that their school\n    dated from the days of Hermes, who brought his wisdom from India.\n    It was the same mystical contemplation throughout as that of the\n    Yogin: the communion of the Br\u00e2hman with his own luminous Self\u2014the\n    \u201c\u00c2tman.\u201d(236)\n\n\nThe groundwork of the Eclectic School is thus shown to be identical with\nthe doctrines of the Yog\u00ees\u2014the Hindu Mystics; it is proved that it had a\ncommon origin, from the same source as the earlier Buddhism of Gautama and\nof his Arhats.\n\n\n    The _Ineffable Name_ in the search for which so many\n    Kabalists\u2014unacquainted with any Oriental or even European\n    Adepts\u2014vainly consume their knowledge and lives, dwells latent in\n    the heart of every man. This mirific name which, according to the\n    most ancient oracles, \u201crushes into the infinite worlds,\n    \u1f00\u03c6\u03bf\u03b9\u03c4\u03ae\u03c4\u1ff3\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u03bf\u03c6\u03ac\u03bb\u03b9\u03b3\u03b3\u03b9,\u201d can be obtained in a twofold way: by regular\n    initiation, and through the \u201csmall voice\u201d which Elijah heard in\n    the cave of Horeb, the mount of God. And \u201cwhen Elijah heard it he\n    wrapped his _face in his mantle_ and stood in the entering of the\n    cave. And behold there came _the_ voice.\u201d\n\n    When Apollonius of Tyana desired to hear the \u201csmall voice,\u201d he\n    used to wrap himself up entirely in a mantle of fine wool, on\n    which he placed both his feet, after having performed certain\n    magnetic passes, and pronounced not the \u201cname\u201d but an invocation\n    well known to every adept. Then he drew the mantle over his head\n    and face, and his translucid or astral spirit was free. On\n    ordinary occasions he no more wore wool than the priests of the\n    temples. The possession of the secret combination of the \u201cname\u201d\n    gave the Hierophant supreme power over every being, human or\n    otherwise, inferior to himself in soul\u2010strength.(237)\n\n\nTo whatever school he belonged, this fact is certain, that Apollonius of\nTyana left an imperishable name behind him. Hundreds of works were written\nupon this wonderful man; historians have seriously discussed him;\npretentious fools, unable to come to any conclusion about the Sage, have\ntried to deny his very existence. As to the Church, although she execrates\nhis memory, she has ever tried to present him in the light of a historical\ncharacter. Her policy now seems to be to direct the impression left by him\ninto another channel\u2014a well known and a very old stratagem. The Jesuits,\nfor instance, while admitting his \u201cmiracles,\u201d have set going a double\ncurrent of thought, and they have succeeded, as they succeed in all they\nundertake. Apollonius is represented by one party as an obedient \u201cmedium\nof Satan,\u201d surrounding his theurgical powers by a most wonderful and\ndazzling light; while the other party professes to regard the whole matter\nas a clever romance, written with a predetermined object in view.\n\nIn his voluminous Memoirs of Satan, the Marquis de Mirville, in the course\nof his pleading for the recognition of the enemy of God as the producer of\nspiritual phenomena, devotes a whole chapter to this great Adept. The\nfollowing translation of passages in his book unveils the whole plot. The\nreader is asked to bear in mind that the Marquis wrote every one of his\nworks under the auspices and authorisation of the Holy See of Rome.\n\n\n    It would be to leave the first century incomplete and to offer an\n    insult to the memory of St. John, to pass over in silence the name\n    of one who had the honour of being his special antagonist, as\n    Simon was that of St. Peter, Elymas that of Paul, etc. In the\n    first years of the Christian era, ... there appeared at Tyana in\n    Cappadocia one of those extraordinary men of whom the Pythagorean\n    School was so very lavish. As great a traveller as was his master,\n    initiated in all the secret doctrines of India, Egypt and Chald\u00e6a,\n    endowed, therefore, with all the theurgic powers of the ancient\n    Magi, he bewildered, each in its turn, all the countries which he\n    visited, and which all\u2014we are obliged to admit\u2014seem to have\n    blessed his memory. We could not doubt this fact without\n    repudiating real historical records. The details of his life are\n    transmitted to us by a historian of the fourth century\n    (Philostratus), himself the translator of a diary that recorded\n    day by day the life of the philosopher, written by Damis, his\n    disciple and intimate friend.(238)\n\n\nDe Mirville admits the possibility of _some_ exaggerations in both\nrecorder and translator; but he \u201cdoes not believe they hold a very wide\nspace in the narrative.\u201d Therefore, he regrets to find the Abb\u00e9 Freppel\n\u201cin his eloquent _Essays_,(239) calling the diary of Damis a romance.\u201d\nWhy?\n\n\n    [Because] the orator bases his opinion on the perfect similitude,\n    calculated as he imagines, of that legend with the life of the\n    Saviour. But in studying the subject more profoundly, he [Abb\u00e9\n    Freppel] can convince himself that neither Apollonius, nor Damis,\n    nor again Philostratus ever claimed a greater honour than a\n    likeness to St. John. This programme was in itself sufficiently\n    fascinating, and the travesty as sufficiently scandalous; for\n    owing to magic arts Apollonius had succeeded in counterbalancing,\n    in appearance, several of the miracles at Ephesus [produced by St.\n    John], etc.(240)\n\n\nThe _anguis in herba_ has shown its head. It is the perfect, the wonderful\nsimilitude of the life of Apollonius with that of the Saviour that places\nthe Church between Scylla and Charybdis. To deny the life and the\n\u201cmiracles\u201d of the former, would amount to denying the trustworthiness of\nthe same Apostles and patristic writers on whose evidence is built the\nlife of Jesus himself. To father the Adept\u2019s beneficent deeds, his\nraisings of the dead, acts of charity, healing powers, etc., on the \u201cold\nenemy\u201d would be rather dangerous at this time. Hence the stratagem to\nconfuse the ideas of those who rely upon authorities and criticisms. The\nChurch is far more clear\u2010sighted than any of our great historians. The\nChurch _knows_ that to deny the existence of that Adept would lead her to\ndenying the Emperor Vespasian and _his_ Historians, the Emperors Alexander\nSeverus and Aurelianus and _their_ Historians, and finally to deny Jesus\nand every evidence about Him, thus preparing the way to her flock for\nfinally denying _herself_. It becomes interesting to learn what she says\nin this emergency, through her chosen speaker, De Mirville. It is as\nfollows:\n\nWhat is there so new and so impossible in the narrative of Damis\nconcerning their voyages to the countries of the Chaldees and the\nGymnosophists?\u2014he asks. Try to recall, before denying, what were in those\ndays those countries of marvels _par excellence_, as also the testimony of\nsuch men as Pythagoras, Empedocles and Democritus, who ought to be allowed\nto have known what they were writing about. With what have we finally to\nreproach Apollonius? Is it for having made, as the Oracles did, a series\nof prophecies and predictions wonderfully verified? No: because, better\nstudied now, we _know_ what they are.(241) The Oracles have now become to\nus, what they were to every one during the past century, from Van Dale to\nFontenelle. Is it for having been endowed with second sight, and having\nhad visions at a distance?(242) No; for such phenomena are at the present\nday endemical in half Europe. Is it for having boasted of his knowledge of\nevery existing language under the sun, without having ever learned one of\nthem? But who can be ignorant of the fact that this is the best\ncriterion(243) of the presence and assistance of a spirit of whatever\nnature it may be? Or is it for having believed in transmigration\n(reincarnation)? It is still believed in (by millions) in our day. No one\nhas any idea of the number of the men of Science who long for the re\u2010\nestablishment of the Druidical Religion and of the Mysteries of\nPythagoras. Or is it for having exorcised the demons and the plague? The\nEgyptians, the Etruscans and all the Roman Pontiffs had done so long\nbefore.(244) For having conversed with the dead? We do the same to\u2010day, or\nbelieve we do so\u2014which is all the same. For having believed in the\nEmpuses? Where is the Demonologist that does not know that the Empuse is\nthe \u201csouth demon\u201d referred to in David\u2019s _Psalms_, and dreaded then as it\nis feared even now in all Northern Europe?(245) For having made himself\ninvisible at will? It is one of the achievements of mesmerism. For having\nappeared after his (supposed) death to the Emperor Aurelian above the city\nwalls of Tyana, and for having compelled him thereby to raise the siege of\nthat town? Such was the mission of every hero beyond the tomb, and the\nreason of the worship vowed to the Manes.(246) For having descended into\nthe famous den of Trophonius, and taken from it an old book preserved for\nyears after by the Emperor Adrian in his Antium library? The trustworthy\nand sober Pausanias had descended into the same den before Apollonius, and\ncame back no less a believer. For having disappeared at his death? Yes,\nlike Romulus, like Votan, like Lycurgus, like Pythagoras,(247) always\nunder the most mysterious circumstances, ever attended by apparitions,\nrevelations, etc. Let us stop here and repeat once more: had the life of\nApollonius been simple _romance_, he would never have attained such a\ncelebrity during his lifetime or created such a numerous sect, one so\nenthusiastic after his death.\n\nAnd, to add to this, had all this been a romance, never would a Caracalla\nhave raised a hero\u00f6n to his memory(248) or Alexander, Severus have placed\nhis bust between those of two Demi\u2010Gods and of the true God,(249) or an\nEmpress have corresponded with him. Hardly rested from the hardships of\nthe siege at Jerusalem, Titus would not have hastened to write to\nApollonius a letter, asking to meet him at Argos and adding that his\nfather and himself (Titus) owed all to him, the great Apollonius, and\nthat, therefore, his first thought was for their benefactor. Nor would the\nEmperor Aurelian have built a temple and a shrine to that great Sage, to\nthank him for his apparition and communication at Tyana. That _posthumous_\nconversation, as all knew, saved the city, inasmuch as Aurelian had in\nconsequence raised the siege. Furthermore, had it been a romance, History\nwould not have had Vopiscus,(250) one of the most trustworthy Pagan\nHistorians, to certify to it. Finally, Apollonius would not have been the\nobject of the admiration of such a noble character as Epictetus, and even\nof several of the Fathers of the Church; Jerome for instance, in his\nbetter moments, writing thus of Apollonius:\n\n\n    This travelling philosopher found something to learn wherever he\n    went; and profiting everywhere thus improved with every day.(251)\n\n\nAs to his prodigies, without wishing to fathom them, Jerome most\nundeniably admits them as such; which he would assuredly never have done,\nhad he not been compelled to do so by facts. To end the subject, had\nApollonius been a simple hero of a romance, dramatised in the fourth\ncentury, the Ephesians would not, in their enthusiastic gratitude, have\nraised to him a golden statue for all the benefits he had conferred upon\nthem.(252)\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XVIII. FACTS UNDERLYING ADEPT BIOGRAPHIES.\n\n\nThe tree is known by its fruits; the nature of the Adept by his words and\ndeeds. These words of charity and mercy, the noble advice put into the\nmouth of Apollonius (or of his sidereal phantom), as given by Vopiscus,\nshow the Occultists who Apollonius was. Why then call him the \u201cMedium of\nSatan\u201d seventeen centuries later? There must be a reason, and a very\npotent reason, to justify and explain the secret of such a strong animus\nof the Church against one of the noblest men of his age. There is a reason\nfor it, and we give it in the words of the author of the _Key to the\nHebrew\u2010Egyptian Mystery in the Source of Measures_, and of Professor\nSeyffarth. The latter analyses and explains the salient dates in the life\nof Jesus, and thus throws light on the conclusions of the former. We quote\nboth, blending the two.\n\n\n    According to solar months (of thirty days, one of the calendars in\n    use among the Hebrews) all remarkable events of the _Old\n    Testament_ happened on the days of the equinoxes and the\n    solstices; for instance, the foundations and dedications of the\n    temples and altars [and consecration of the tabernacle]. On the\n    same cardinal days, the most remarkable events of the _New\n    Testament_ happened; for instance, the annunciation, the birth,\n    the resurrection of Christ, and the birth of John the Baptist. And\n    thus we learn that all remarkable epochs of the _New Testament_\n    were typically sanctified a long time before by the _Old\n    Testament_, beginning at the day succeeding the end of the\n    Creation, which was the day of the vernal equinox. During the\n    crucifixion, on the 14th day of Nisan, Dionysius Areopagita saw,\n    in Ethiopia, an eclipse of the sun, and he said, \u201cNow the Lord\n    (Jehovah) is suffering something.\u201d Then Christ arose from the dead\n    on the 22d March, 17 _Nisan_, Sunday, the day of the vernal\n    equinox (Seyf., quoting Philo de Septen)\u2014that is, on Easter, or on\n    the day when the sun gives new life to the earth. The words of\n    John the Baptist \u201cHe must increase, but I must decrease,\u201d serve to\n    prove, as is affirmed by the fathers of the church, that John was\n    born on the longest day of the year, and Christ, who was six\n    months younger, on the shortest, 22d June and 22d December, the\n    solstices.\n\n    This only goes to show that, as to another phase, John and Jesus\n    were but epitomisers of the history of the same sun, under\n    differences of aspect or condition; and one condition following\n    another, of necessity, the statement, _Luke_, ix. 7, was not only\n    not an empty one, but it was true, that which \u201cwas said of some,\n    that (in Jesus) John was risen from the dead.\u201d (And this\n    consideration serves to explain why it has been that the _Life of\n    Apollonius of Tyana_, by Philostratus, has been so persistently\n    kept back from translation and from popular reading. Those who\n    have studied it in the original have been forced to the comment\n    that either the _Life of Apollonius_ has been taken from the _New\n    Testament_, or that the _New Testament_ narratives have been taken\n    from the _Life of Apollonius_, because of the manifest sameness of\n    the _means of construction_ of the narratives. The explanation is\n    simple enough, when it is considered that the names of _Jesus_,\n    Hebrew \u05d9\u05e9, and Apollonius, or Apollo, are alike names of _the sun\n    in the heavens_; and necessarily the history of the one, as to his\n    travels through _the signs_, with the personifications of his\n    sufferings, triumphs and miracles, could be but the _history of\n    the other_, where there was a widespread, common method of\n    describing those travels by personification.) It seems also that,\n    for long afterward, all this was known to rest upon an\n    astronomical basis; for the secular church, so to speak, was\n    founded by Constantine, and the objective condition of the worship\n    established was that part of his decree, in which it was affirmed\n    that the venerable day of the _sun_ should be the day set apart\n    for the worship of Jesus Christ, as _Sun_\u2010day. There is something\n    weird and startling in some other facts about this matter. The\n    prophet Daniel (_true prophet_, as says Graetz),(253) by use of\n    the pyramid numbers, or astrological numbers, foretold the cutting\n    off of the _M\u00e9shiac_, as it happened (which would go to show the\n    accuracy of his astronomical knowledge, if there was an eclipse of\n    the sun at that time).... Now, however, the temple was destroyed\n    in the year 71, in the month Virgo, and 71 is the Dove number, as\n    shown, or 71 \u00d7 5 = 355, and with _the fish_, a Jehovah number.\n\n\n\u201cIs it possible,\u201d queries further on the author, thus answering the\nintimate thought of every Christian and Occultist who reads and studies\nhis work:\n\n\n    Is it possible that the events of humanity do run co\u2010ordinately\n    with these number forms? If so, while Jesus Christ, as an\n    astronomical figure, was true to all that has been advanced, and\n    more, possibly, He may, as a man, have filled up, under the\n    numbers, answers in the sea of life to predestined type. The\n    personality of Jesus does not appear to have been destroyed,\n    because, _as a condition_, he was answering to astronomical forms\n    and relations. The Arabian says, \u201cYour destiny is written in the\n    stars.\u201d(254)\n\n\nNor is the \u201cpersonality\u201d of Apollonius \u201cdestroyed\u201d for the same reason.\nThe case of Jesus covers the ground for the same possibility in the cases\nof all Adepts and Avat\u00e2ras\u2014such as Buddha, Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya, Krishna,\netc.\u2014all of these as great and as historical for their respective\nfollowers and in their countries, as Jesus of Nazareth is now for\nChristians and in this land.\n\nBut there is something more in the old literature of the early centuries.\nIamblichus wrote a biography of the great Pythagoras.\n\n\n    The latter so closely resembles the life of Jesus that it may be\n    taken for a travesty. Diogenes La\u00ebrtius and Plutarch relate the\n    history of Plato according to a similar style.(255)\n\n\nWhy then wonder at the doubts that assail every scholar who studies all\nthese lives? The Church herself knew all these doubts in her early stages;\nand though only one of her Popes has been known publicly and openly as a\nPagan, how many more were there who were too ambitious to reveal the\ntruth?\n\nThis \u201cmystery,\u201d for mystery indeed it is to those who, not being\nInitiates, fail to find the key of the perfect similitude between the\nlives of Pythagoras, Buddha, Apollonius, etc.\u2014is only a natural result for\nthose who know that all these great characters were Initiates of the same\nSchool. For them there is neither \u201ctravesty\u201d nor \u201ccopy\u201d of one from the\nother; for them they are all \u201coriginals,\u201d only painted to represent one\nand the same subject: the mystic, and at the same time the public, life of\nthe Initiates sent into the world to save portions of humanity, if they\ncould not save the whole bulk. Hence, the same programme for all. The\nassumed \u201cimmaculate origin\u201d for each, referring to their \u201cmystic birth\u201d\nduring the Mystery of Initiation, and accepted literally by the\nmultitudes, encouraged in this by the better informed but ambitious\nclergy. Thus, the mother of each one of them was declared a virgin,\nconceiving her son directly by the Holy Spirit of God; and the Sons, in\nconsequence, were the \u201cSons of God,\u201d though in truth, none of them was any\nmore entitled to such recognition than were the rest of his brother\nInitiates, for they were all\u2014so far as their mystic lives were\nconcerned\u2014only \u201cthe epitomisers of the history of the same Sun,\u201d which\nepitome is another mystery within the Mystery. The biographies of the\nexternal personalities bearing the names of such heroes have nothing to do\nwith, and are quite independent of the private lives of the heroes, being\nonly the mystic records of their public and, parallel therewith, of their\n_inner_ lives, in their characters as Neophytes and Initiates. Hence, the\nmanifest sameness of the means of construction of their respective\nbiographies. From the beginning of Humanity the Cross, or Man, with his\narms stretched out horizontally, typifying his kosmic origin, was\nconnected with his psychic nature and with the struggles which lead to\nInitiation. But, if it is once shown that (_a_) every true Adept had, and\nstill has, to pass through the seven and the twelve trials of Initiation,\nsymbolised by the twelve labours of Hercules; (_b_) that the day of his\nreal birth is regarded as that day when he is born into the world\nspiritually, his very age being counted from the hour of his second birth,\nwhich makes of him a \u201ctwice\u2010born,\u201d a Dvija or Initiate, on which day he is\nindeed born of a God and from an immaculate Mother; and (_c_) that the\ntrials of all these personages are made to correspond with the Esoteric\nsignificance of initiatory rites\u2014all of which corresponded to the twelve\nzodiacal signs\u2014then every one will see the meaning of the travels of all\nthose heroes through the signs of the Sun in Heaven; and that they are in\neach individual case a personification of the \u201csufferings, triumphs and\nmiracles\u201d of an Adept, before and after his Initiation. When to the world\nat large all this is explained, then also the mystery of all those lives,\nso closely resembling each other that the history of one seems to be the\nhistory of the other, and _vice vers\u00e2_, will, like everything else, become\nplain.\n\nTake an instance: The legends\u2014for they are _all_ legends for exoteric\npurposes, whatever may be the denials in one case\u2014of the lives of Krishna,\nHercules, Pythagoras, Buddha, Jesus, Apollonius, Chaitanya. On the worldly\nplane, their biographies, if written by one outside the circle, would\ndiffer greatly from what we read of them in the narratives that are\npreserved of their mystic lives. Nevertheless, however much masked and\nhidden from profane gaze, the chief features of such lives will all be\nfound there in common. Each of those characters is represented as a\ndivinely begotten Sot\u0113r (Saviour), a title bestowed on deities, great\nkings and heroes; everyone of them, whether at their birth or afterwards,\nis searched for, and threatened with death (yet never killed) by an\nopposing power (the world of Matter and Illusion), whether it be called a\nking Kansa, king Herod, or king M\u00e2ra (the Evil Power). They are all\ntempted, persecuted and finally said to have been murdered at the end of\nthe rite of Initiation, _i.e._, in their _physical_ personalities, of\nwhich they are supposed to have been rid for ever after _spiritual_\n\u201cresurrection\u201d or \u201cbirth.\u201d And having thus come to an end by this supposed\nviolent death, they all descend to the Nether World, the Pit or Hell\u2014the\nKingdom of Temptation, Lust and Matter, therefore of Darkness, whence\nreturning, having overcome the \u201cChrest\u2010condition,\u201d they are glorified and\nbecome \u201cGods.\u201d\n\nIt is not in the course of their everyday life, then, that the great\nsimilarity is to be sought, but in their inner state and in the most\nimportant events of their career as religious teachers. All this is\nconnected with, and built upon, an astronomical basis, which serves, at\nthe same time, as a foundation for the representation of the degrees and\ntrials of Initiation: descent into the Kingdom of Darkness and Matter,\n_for the last time_, to emerge therefrom as \u201cSuns of Righteousness,\u201d is\nthe most important of these and, therefore, is found in the history of all\nthe Sot\u0113rs\u2014from Orpheus and Hercules, down to Krishna and Christ. Says\nEuripides:\n\n\n    Heracles, who has gone from the chambers of earth,\n    Leaving the nether home of Pluto.(256)\n\n\nAnd Virgil writes:\n\n\n    At Thee the Stygian lakes trembled; Thee the janitor of Orcus\n    Feared.... Thee not even Typhon frightened....\n    Hail, _true son of Jove_, glory added to the Gods.(257)\n\n\nOrpheus seeks, in the kingdom of Pluto, Eurydice, his lost Soul; Krishna\ngoes down into the infernal regions and rescues therefrom his six\nbrothers, he being the seventh Principle; a transparent allegory of his\nbecoming a \u201cperfect Initiate,\u201d the whole of the six Principles merging\ninto the seventh. Jesus is made to descend into the kingdom of Satan to\nsave the soul of Adam, or the symbol of material physical humanity.\n\nHave any of our learned Orientalists ever thought of searching for the\norigin of this allegory, for the parent \u201cSeed\u201d of that \u201cTree of Life\u201d\nwhich bears such verdant boughs since it was first planted on earth by the\nhand of its \u201cBuilders\u201d? We fear not. Yet it is found, as is now shown,\neven in the exoteric, distorted interpretations of the _Vedas_\u2014of the _Rig\nVeda_, the oldest, the most trustworthy of all the four\u2014this root and seed\nof all future Initiate\u2010Saviours being called in it the Visvakarm\u00e2, the\n\u201cFather\u201d Principle, \u201cbeyond the comprehension of mortals;\u201d in the _second_\nstage S\u00fbrya, the \u201cSon,\u201d who offers Himself as a sacrifice to Himself; in\nthe third, the Initiate, who sacrifices His _physical_ to His _spiritual_\nSelf. It is in Visvakarm\u00e2, the \u201comnificent,\u201d who becomes (mystically)\nVikkartana, the \u201csun shorn of his beams,\u201d who suffers for his too ardent\nnature, and then becomes glorified (by purification), that the keynote of\nthe Initiation into the greatest Mystery of Nature was struck. Hence the\nsecret of the wonderful \u201csimilarity.\u201d\n\nAll this is allegorical and mystical, and yet perfectly comprehensible and\nplain to any student of Eastern Occultism, even superficially acquainted\nwith the Mysteries of Initiation. In our objective Universe of Matter and\nfalse appearances the Sun is the most fitting emblem of the life\u2010giving,\nbeneficent Deity. In the subjective, boundless World of Spirit and Reality\nthe bright luminary has another and a mystical significance, which cannot\nbe fully given to the public. The so\u2010called \u201cidolatrous\u201d P\u00e2rs\u00ees and Hindus\nare certainly nearer the truth in their religious reverence for the Sun,\nthan the cold, ever\u2010analysing, and as ever\u2010mistaken, public is prepared to\nbelieve, at present. The Theosophists, who will be alone able to take in\nthe meaning, may be told that the Sun is the external manifestation of the\nSeventh Principle of our Planetary System, while the Moon is its Fourth\nPrinciple, shining in the borrowed robes of her master, saturated with and\nreflecting every passionate impulse and evil desire of her grossly\nmaterial body, Earth. The whole cycle of Adeptship and Initiation and all\nits mysteries are connected with, and subservient to, these two and the\nSeven Planets. Spiritual clairvoyance is derived from the Sun; all psychic\nstates, diseases, and even lunacy, proceed from the Moon.\n\nAccording even to the data of History\u2014her conclusions being remarkably\nerroneous while her premises are mostly correct\u2014there is an extraordinary\nagreement between the \u201clegends\u201d of every Founder of a Religion (and also\nbetween the rites and dogmas of all) and the names and course of\nconstellations headed by the Sun. It does not follow, however, because of\nthis, that both Founders and their Religions should be, the one myths, and\nthe other superstitions. They are, one and all, the different versions of\nthe same natural primeval Mystery, on which the Wisdom\u2010Religion was based,\nand the development of its Adepts subsequently framed.\n\nAnd now once more we have to beg the reader not to lend an ear to the\ncharge\u2014against Theosophy in general and the writer in particular\u2014of\ndisrespect toward one of the greatest and noblest characters in the\nHistory of Adeptship\u2014Jesus of Nazareth\u2014nor even of hatred to the Church.\nThe expression of truth and fact can hardly be regarded, with any\napproximation to justice, as blasphemy or hatred. The whole question hangs\nupon the solution of that one point: Was Jesus as \u201cSon of God\u201d and\n\u201cSaviour\u201d of Mankind, unique in the World\u2019s annals? Was His case\u2014among so\nmany similar claims\u2014the only exceptional and unprecedented one; His birth\nthe sole supernaturally immaculate; and were all others, as maintained by\nthe Church, but blasphemous Satanic copies and plagiarisms by\nanticipation? Or was He only the \u201cson of his deeds,\u201d a pre\u2010eminently holy\nman, and a reformer, one of many, who paid with His life for the\npresumption of endeavouring, in the face of ignorance and despotic power,\nto enlighten mankind and make its burden lighter by His Ethics and\nPhilosophy? The first necessitates a blind, all\u2010resisting faith; the\nlatter is suggested to every one by reason and logic. Moreover, has the\nChurch always believed as she does now\u2014or rather, as she pretends she\ndoes, in order to be thus justified in directing her anathema against\nthose who disagree with her\u2014or has she passed through the same throes of\ndoubt, nay, of secret denial and unbelief, suppressed only by the force of\nambition and love of power?\n\nThe question must be answered in the affirmative as to the second\nalternative. It is an irrefutable conclusion, and a natural inference\nbased on facts known from historical records. Leaving for the present\nuntouched the lives of many Popes and Saints that loudly belied their\nclaims to infallibility and holiness, let the reader turn to\nEcclesiastical History, the records of the growth and progress of the\nChristian Church (not of Christianity), and he will find the answer on\nthose pages. Says a writer:\n\n\n    The Church has known too well the suggestions of freethought\n    created by enquiry, as also all those doubts that provoke her\n    anger to\u2010day; and the \u201csacred truths\u201d she would promulgate have\n    been in turn admitted and repudiated, transformed and altered,\n    amplified and curtailed, by the dignitaries of the Church\n    hierarchy, even as regards the most fundamental dogmas.\n\n\nWhere is that God or Hero whose origin, biography, and genealogy were more\nhazy, or more difficult to define and finally agree upon than those of\nJesus? How was the now irrevocable dogma with regard to His true nature\nsettled at last? By His mother, according to the Evangelists, He was a\nman\u2014a simple mortal man; by His Father He is God! But how? Is He then man\nor God, or is He both at the same time? asks the perplexed writer. Truly\nthe propositions offered on this point of the doctrine have caused floods\nof ink and blood to be shed, in turn, on poor Humanity, and still the\ndoubts are not at rest. In this, as in everything else, the wise Church\nCouncils have contradicted themselves and changed their minds a number of\ntimes. Let us recapitulate and throw a glance at the texts offered for our\ninspection. This is History.\n\nThe Bishop Paul of Samosata denied the divinity of Christ at the first\nCouncil of Antioch; at the very origin and birth of theological\nChristianity, He was called \u201cSon of God\u201d merely on account of His holiness\nand good deeds. His blood was corruptible in the Sacrament of the\nEucharist.\n\nAt the Council of Nic\u00e6a, held A.D. 325, Arius came out with his premisses,\nwhich nearly broke asunder the Catholic Union.\n\nSeventeen bishops defended the doctrines of Arius, who was exiled for\nthem. Nevertheless, thirty years after, A.D. 355, at the Council of Milan,\nthree hundred bishops signed a letter of adherence to the Arian views,\nnotwithstanding that ten years earlier, A.D. 345, at a new Council of\nAntioch, the Eusebians had proclaimed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God\nand One with His Father.\n\nAt the Council of Sirmium, A.D. 357, the \u201cSon\u201d had become no longer\nconsubstantial. The Anom\u00e6ans, who denied that consubstantiality, and the\nArians were triumphant. A year later, at the second Council of Ancyra, it\nwas decreed that the \u201cSon was not consubstantial but only similar to the\nFather in his substance.\u201d Pope Liberius ratified the decision.\n\nDuring several centuries the Councils fought and quarrelled, supporting\nthe most contradictory and opposite views, the fruit of their laborious\ntravail being the Holy Trinity, which, Minerva\u2010like, issued forth from the\ntheological brain, armed with all the thunders of the Church. The new\nmystery was ushered into the world amid some terrible strifes, in which\nmurder and other crimes had a high hand. At the Council of Saragossa, A.D.\n380, it was proclaimed that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one and\nthe same Person, Christ\u2019s human nature being merely an \u201cillusion\u201d\u2014an echo\nof the Avat\u00e2ric Hindu doctrine. \u201cOnce upon this slippery path the Fathers\nhad to slide down _ad absurdum_\u2014which they did not fail of doing.\u201d How\ndeny human nature in him who was born of a woman? The only wise remark\nmade during one of the Councils of Constantinople came from Eutyches, who\nwas bold enough to say: \u201cMay God preserve me from reasoning on the nature\nof my God\u201d\u2014for which he was excommunicated by Pope Flavius.\n\nAt the Council of Ephesus, A.D. 449, Eutyches had his revenge. As\nEusebius, the veracious Bishop of C\u00e6sarea, was forcing him into the\nadmission of _two_ distinct natures in Jesus Christ, the Council rebelled\nagainst him and it was proposed that Eusebius should be burned alive. The\nbishops arose like one man, and with fists clenched, foaming with rage,\ndemanded that Eusebius should be torn into two halves, and be dealt by as\nhe would deal with Jesus, whose nature he divided. Eutyches was re\u2010\nestablished in his power and office, Eusebius and Flavius deposed. Then\nthe two parties attacked each other most violently and fought. St. Flavius\nwas so ill\u2010treated by Bishop Diodorus, who assaulted and kicked him, that\nhe died a few days later from the injuries inflicted.\n\nEvery incongruity was courted in these Councils, and the result is the\npresent living paradoxes called Church dogmas. For instance, at the first\nCouncil of Ancyra, A.D. 314, it was asked, \u201cIn baptizing a woman with\nchild, is the unborn baby also baptized by the fact?\u201d The Council answered\nin the negative; because, as was alleged, \u201cthe person thus receiving\nbaptism must be a consenting party, which is impossible to the child in\nits mother\u2019s womb.\u201d Thus then unconsciousness is a canonical obstacle to\nbaptism, and thus no child baptised nowadays is baptised at all in fact.\nAnd then what becomes of the tens of thousands of starving heathen babies\nbaptised by the missionaries during famines, and otherwise surreptitiously\n\u201csaved\u201d by the too zealous Padres? Follow one after another the debates\nand decisions of the numberless Councils, and behold on what a jumble of\ncontradictions the present infallible and Apostolic Church is built!\n\nAnd now we can see how greatly paradoxical, when taken literally, is the\nassertion in _Genesis_: \u201cGod created man in his own image.\u201d Besides the\nglaring fact that it is not the Adam of dust (of Chapter ii.), who is thus\nmade in the divine image, but the Divine Androgyne (of Chapter i.), or\nAdam Kadmon, one can see for oneself that God\u2014the God of the Christians at\nany rate\u2014was created by man in his own image, amid the kicks, blows and\nmurders of the early Councils.\n\nA curious fact, one that throws a flood of light on the claim that Jesus\nwas an Initiate and a martyred Adept, is given in the work, (already so\noften referred to) which may be called \u201ca mathematical revelation\u201d.\u2014_The\nSource of Measures._\n\n\n    Attention is called to the part of the 46th verse of the 27th\n    Chapter of Matthew, as follows: \u201cEli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani?\u2014that\n    is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?\u201d Of course,\n    our versions are taken from the original _Greek_ manuscripts (the\n    reason why we have no original Hebrew manuscripts concerning these\n    occurrences being because the enigmas in Hebrew would betray\n    themselves on comparison with the sources of their derivation, the\n    _Old Testament_). The Greek manuscripts, without exception, give\n    these words as\u2014\n\n    \u1f28\u03bb\u03af \u1f28\u03bb\u03af \u03bb\u03b1\u03bc\u1f70 \u03c3\u03b1\u03b2\u03b1\u03c7\u03b8\u03b1\u03bd\u03af\n\n    They are _Hebrew words_, rendered into the _Greek_, and in Hebrew\n    are as follows:\n\n    \u05d0\u05dc\u05d9 \u05d0\u05dc\u05d9 \u05dc\u05de\u05d7 \u05e9\u05d1\u05d7\u05ea\u05e0\u05d9\n\n    The Scripture of these words says, \u201cthat is to say, My God, my\n    God, why hast thou forsaken me?\u201d as their proper translation. Here\n    then are the words, beyond all dispute; and beyond all question,\n    such is the interpretation given of them by Scripture. Now the\n    words will not bear this interpretation, and it is a false\n    rendering. The true meaning is _just the opposite of the one\n    given_, and is\u2014\n\n    _My God, my God, how thou dost glorify me!_\n\n    But even more, for while _lama_ is _why_, or _how_, as a verbal it\n    connects the idea of _to dazzle_, or adverbially, it could run\n    \u201c_how dazzlingly_,\u201d and so on. To the unwary reader this\n    interpretation is enforced, and made to answer, as it were, to the\n    fulfilment of a prophetic utterance, by a marginal reference to\n    the _first_ verse of the _twenty\u2010second_ Psalm, which reads:\n\n    \u201cMy God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?\u201d\n\n    The Hebrew of this verse for these words is\u2014\n\n    \u05d0\u05dc\u05d9 \u05d0\u05dc\u05d9 \u05dc\u05de\u05d4 \u05e2\u05d6\u05d1\u05ea\u05e0\u05d9\n\n    as to which the reference is correct, and the interpretation sound\n    and good, but with an utterly different word. The words are\u2014\n\n    _Eli, Eli, lamah azabvtha\u2010ni?_\n\n    No wit of man, however scholarly, can save this passage from\n    _falseness of rendering_ on its face; and as so, it becomes a most\n    terrible blow upon the proper first\u2010face sacredness of the\n    recital.(258)\n\n\nFor ten years or more, sat the revisers (?) of the _Bible_, a most\nimposing and solemn array of the learned of the land, the greatest Hebrew\nand Greek scholars of England, purporting to correct the mistakes and\nblunders, the sins of omission and of commission of their less learned\npredecessors, the translators of the Bible. Are we going to be told that\nnone of them saw the glaring difference between the Hebrew words in\n_Psalm_ xxii., _azabvtha\u2010ni_, and _sabachthani_ in _Matthew_; that they\nwere not aware of the deliberate falsification?\n\nFor \u201cfalsification\u201d it was. And if we are asked the reason why the early\nChurch Fathers resorted to it, the answer is plain: Because the\n_Sacramental_ words belonged in their true rendering to Pagan temple\nrites. They were pronounced after the terrible trials of Initiation, and\nwere still fresh in the memory of some of the \u201cFathers\u201d when the _Gospel\nof Matthew_ was edited into the Greek language. Because, finally, many of\nthe Hierophants of the Mysteries, and many more of the Initiates were\nstill living in those days, and the sentence rendered in its true words\nwould class Jesus directly with the simple Initiates. The words \u201cMy God,\nmy Sun, thou hast poured thy radiance upon me!\u201d were the final words that\nconcluded the thanksgiving prayer of the Initiate, \u201cthe Son and the\nglorified Elect of the Sun.\u201d In Egypt we find to this day carvings and\npaintings that represent the rite. The candidate is between two divine\nsponsors; one \u201cOsiris\u2010Sun\u201d with the head of a hawk, representing life, the\nother Mercury\u2014the ibis\u2010headed, psychopompic genius, who guides the Souls\nafter death to their new abode, Hades\u2014standing for the death of the\nphysical body, figuratively. Both are shown pouring the \u201cstream of life,\u201d\nthe water of purification, on the head of the Initiate, the two streams of\nwhich, interlacing, form a cross. The better to conceal the truth, this\n_basso\u2010relievo_ has also been explained as a \u201cPagan presentment of a\nChristian truth.\u201d The Chevalier des Mousseaux calls this Mercury:\n\n\n    The assessor of Osiris\u2010Sol, as St. Michael is the assessor,\n    Ferouer, of the Word.\n\n\nThe monogram of Chrestos and the Labarum, the standard of Constantine\u2014who,\nby the by, died a Pagan and was never baptised\u2014is a symbol derived from\nthe above rite and also denotes \u201clife and death.\u201d Long before the sign of\nthe Cross was adopted as a Christian symbol, it was employed as a secret\nsign of recognition among Neophytes and Adepts. Say \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi:\n\n\n    The sign of the cross adopted by the Christians does not belong\n    exclusively to them. It is kabalistic, and represents the\n    oppositions and quaternary equilibrium of the elements. We see by\n    the occult verse of the _Pater_, to which we have called attention\n    in another work, that there were originally two ways of making it,\n    or, at least, two very different formulas to express its meaning:\n    one reserved for priests and initiates; the other given to\n    neophytes and the profane.(259)\n\n\nOne can understand now why the _Gospel of Matthew_, the Evangel of the\nEbionites, has been for ever excluded in its Hebrew form from the world\u2019s\ncurious gaze.\n\n\n    Jerome found the authentic and original Evangel written in Hebrew,\n    by Matthew the Publican, at the library collected at C\u00e6sarea by\n    the martyr Pamphilius. \u201c_I received permission from the\n    Nazar\u00e6ans_, who at Ber\u0153a of Syria used this (gospel) to translate\n    it,\u201d he writes toward the end of the fourth century.(260) \u201cIn the\n    Evangel which the _Nazarenes_ and _Ebionites_ use,\u201d said Jerome,\n    \u201cwhich recently I translated from Hebrew into Greek, and which is\n    called by most persons the _genuine_ gospel of Matthew,\u201d etc.(261)\n\n    That the apostles had received a \u201csecret doctrine\u201d from Jesus, and\n    that he himself taught one, is evident from the following words of\n    Jerome, who confessed it in an unguarded moment. Writing to the\n    Bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, he complains that \u201ca difficult\n    work is enjoined, since this (translation) has been commanded me\n    by your Felicities, which _St. Matthew himself_, the Apostle and\n    Evangelist, _did not wish to be openly written_. For if this had\n    not been _secret_, he (Matthew) would have added to the Evangel\n    that what he gave forth _was his_; but he made up this book\n    _sealed up in the Hebrew characters_, which he put forth _even in\n    such a way_ that the book, written in Hebrew letters and by the\n    hand of himself, might be possessed _by the men most religious_;\n    who also, in the course of time, received it from those who\n    preceded them. But this very book they never gave to any one to be\n    transcribed, and _its text_ they related some one way and some\n    another.\u201d(262) And he adds further on the same page: \u201cAnd it\n    happened that this book, having been published by a disciple of\n    Manich\u00e6us, named Seleucus, who also wrote falsely _The Acts of the\n    Apostles_, exhibited matter not for edification, but for\n    destruction; and that this (book) was _approved in a synod_ which\n    the ears of the Church properly refused to listen to.\u201d(263)\n\n    Jerome admits, himself, that the book which he authenticates as\n    being written \u201cby the hand of Matthew,\u201d was nevertheless a book\n    which, notwithstanding that he translated it twice, was nearly\n    unintelligible to him, for it was arcane. Nevertheless, Jerome\n    coolly sets down every commentary upon it but his own as\n    _heretical_. More than that, Jerome knew that this Gospel was the\n    only _original_ one, yet he becomes more zealous than ever in his\n    persecution of the \u201cHeretics.\u201d Why? Because to accept it was\n    equivalent to reading the death sentence of the established\n    Church. _The Gospel according to the Hebrews_ was well known to\n    have been the only one accepted for four centuries by the Jewish\n    Christians, the Nazarenes and the Ebionites. And neither of the\n    latter accepted the _divinity of_ Christ.(264)\n\n\nThe Ebionites were the first, the earliest Christians, whose\nrepresentative was the Gnostic author of the _Clementine Homilies_, and as\nthe author of _Supernatural Religion_ shows,(265) Ebionitic Gnosticism had\nonce been the purest form of Christianity. They were the pupils and\nfollowers of the early Nazarenes\u2014the kabalistic Gnostics. They believed in\nthe \u00c6ons, as the Cerinthians did, and that \u201cthe world was put together by\nAngels\u201d (Dhy\u00e2n Chohans), as Epiphanius complains (_Contra Ebionitas_):\n\u201cEbion had the opinion of the Nazarenes, the form of Cerinthians.\u201d \u201cThey\ndecided that Christ was of the seed of a man,\u201d he laments.(266) Thus\nagain:\n\n\n    The badge of Dan\u2010Scorpio is _death\u2010life_, in the symbol \u2627 as\n    _cross\u2010bones and skull_, ... or _life\u2010death_ ... the standard of\n    Constantine, the Roman Emperor. Abel has been shown to be Jesus,\n    and Cain\u2010Vulcain, or Mars, pierced him. Constantine was the Roman\n    Emperor, whose warlike god was Mars, and a Roman soldier pierced\n    Jesus on the cross....\n\n    But the piercing of Abel was the consummation of his marriage with\n    Cain, and this was proper under the form of Mars Generator; hence\n    the double glyph, one of Mars\u2010Generator [Osiris\u2010Sun] and Mars\u2010\n    Destroyer [Mercury the God of Death in the Egyptian _basso\u2010\n    relievo_] in one; significant, again, of the primal idea of the\n    living cosmos, or of birth and death, as necessary to the\n    continuation of the stream of life.(267)\n\n\nTo quote once more from _Isis Unveiled_:\n\n\n    A Latin cross of a perfect Christian shape was found hewn upon the\n    granite slabs of the Adytum of the Serapeum; and the monks did not\n    fail to claim that the cross had been hallowed by the Pagans in a\n    \u201cspirit of prophecy.\u201d At least, Sozomen, with an air of triumph,\n    records the fact.(268) But arch\u00e6ology and symbolism, those\n    tireless and implacable enemies of clerical false pretences, have\n    found in the hieroglyphics of the legend running round the design\n    at least a partial interpretation of its meaning.\n\n    According to King and other numismatists and arch\u00e6ologists, the\n    cross was placed there as the symbol of eternal life. Such a Tau,\n    or Egyptian cross, was used in the Bacchic and Eleusinian\n    Mysteries. Symbol of the dual generative power, it was laid upon\n    the breast of the Initiate, after his \u201cnew birth\u201d was\n    accomplished, and the Myst\u00e6 had returned from their baptism in the\n    sea. It was a mystic sign that his spiritual birth had regenerated\n    and united his astral soul with his divine spirit, and that he was\n    ready to ascend in spirit to the blessed abodes of light and\n    glory\u2014the Eleusinia. The Tau was a magic talisman at the same time\n    as a religious emblem. It was adopted by the Christians through\n    the Gnostics and Kabalists, who used it largely, as their numerous\n    gems testify. These in turn had the Tau (or handled cross) from\n    the Egyptians, and the Latin Cross from the Buddhist missionaries,\n    who brought it from India (where it can be found even now) two or\n    three centuries B.C. The Assyrians, Egyptians, ancient Americans,\n    Hindus and Romans had it in various, but very slight modifications\n    of shape. Till very late in the middle ages, it was considered a\n    potent spell again at epilepsy and demoniacal possession, and the\n    \u201csignet of the living God\u201d brought down in St. John\u2019s vision by\n    the angel ascending from the east to \u201cseal the servants of our God\n    in the foreheads,\u201d was but the same mystic Tau\u2014the Egyptian Cross.\n    In the painted glass of St. Denis (France) this angel is\n    represented as stamping this sign on the forehead of the elect;\n    the legend reads, SIGNUM TAY. In King\u2019s _Gnostics_, the author\n    reminds us that \u201cthis mark is commonly borne by St. Anthony, an\n    _Egyptian_ recluse.\u201d(269) What the real meaning of the Tau was, is\n    explained to us by the Christian St. John, the Egyptian Hermes,\n    and the Hindu Brahmans. It is but too evident that, with the\n    Apostle at least, it meant the \u201cIneffable Name,\u201d as he calls this\n    \u201csignet of the living God\u201d a few chapters further on(270) the\n    \u201c_Father\u2019s name written in their foreheads_.\u201d\n\n    The Brahm\u00e2tm\u00e2, the chief of the Hindu Initiates, had on his head\u2010\n    gear two keys, symbol of the revealed mystery of life and death,\n    placed cross\u2010like; and in some Buddhist pagodas of Tartary and\n    Mongolia, the entrance of a chamber within the temple, generally\n    containing the staircase which leads to the inner dagoba,(271) and\n    the porticos of some _Prachidas_(272) are ornamented with a cross\n    formed of two fishes, as found on some of the zodiacs of the\n    Buddhists. We should not wonder at all at learning that the sacred\n    device in the tombs in the catacombs at Rome, the \u201cVesica Piscis,\u201d\n    was derived from the said Buddhist zodiacal sign. How general must\n    have been that geometrical figure in the world\u2010symbols, may be\n    inferred from the fact that there is a Masonic tradition that\n    Solomon\u2019s temple was built on three foundations, forming the\n    \u201ctriple Tau\u201d or three crosses.\n\n    In its mystical sense, the Egyptian cross owes its origin, as an\n    emblem, to the realisation by the earliest philosophy of an\n    _androgynous dualism of every manifestation in nature_, which\n    proceeds from the abstract ideal of a likewise androgynous deity,\n    while the Christian emblem is simply due to chance. Had the Mosaic\n    law prevailed, Jesus should have been lapidated.(273) The crucifix\n    was an instrument of torture, and utterly common among Romans as\n    it was unknown among Semitic nations. It was called the \u201cTree of\n    Infamy.\u201d It is but later that it was adopted as a Christian\n    symbol; but during the first two decades the apostles looked upon\n    it with horror.(274) It is certainly not the Christian Cross that\n    John had in mind when speaking of the \u201csignet of the living God,\u201d\n    but the _mystic_ Tau\u2014the Tetragrammaton, or mighty name, which, on\n    the most ancient Kabalistic talismans, was represented by the four\n    Hebrew letters composing the Holy Word.\n\n    The famous Lady Ellenborough, known among the Arabs of Damascus,\n    and in the desert, after her last marriage, as _Hanoum Medjouye_,\n    had a talisman in her possession, presented to her by a Druse from\n    Mount Lebanon. It was recognised by a certain sign on its left\n    corner as belonging to that class of gems which is known in\n    Palestine as a \u201c_Messianic_\u201d amulet, of the second or third\n    century B.C. It is a green stone of a pentagonal form; at the\n    bottom is engraved a fish; higher, Solomon\u2019s Seal;(275) and still\n    higher, the four Chaldaic letters\u2014Jod, He, Vau, He, IAHO, which\n    form the name of the Deity. These are arranged in quite an unusual\n    way, running from below upward, in reversed order, and forming the\n    Egyptian Tau. Around these there is a legend which, as the gem is\n    not our property, we are not at liberty to give. The Tau, in its\n    mystical sense, as well as the _Crux ansata_, is the _Tree of\n    Life_.\n\n    It is well known that the earliest Christian emblems\u2014before it was\n    ever attempted to represent the bodily appearance of Jesus\u2014were\n    the Lamb, the Good Shepherd, and _The Fish_. The origin of the\n    latter emblem, which has so puzzled the arch\u00e6ologists, thus\n    becomes comprehensible. The whole secret lies in the easily\n    ascertained fact that, while in the _Kabalah_ the King Messiah is\n    called \u201cInterpreter,\u201d or Revealer of the Mystery, and shown to be\n    the _fifth_ emanation, in the _Talmud_\u2014for reasons we will now\n    explain\u2014the Messiah is very often designated as \u201cDAG,\u201d or the\n    Fish. This is an inheritance from the Chaldees, and relates\u2014as the\n    very name indicates\u2014to the Babylonian Dagon, the man\u2010fish, who was\n    the instructor and interpreter of the people, to whom he appeared.\n    Abarbanel explains the name, by stating that the sign of his\n    (Messiah\u2019s) coming is the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the\n    sign _Pisces_.(276) Therefore, as the Christians were intent upon\n    identifying their Christos with the Messiah of the _Old\n    Testament_, they adopted it so readily as to forget that its true\n    origin might be traced still further back than the Babylonian\n    Dagon. How eagerly and closely the ideal of Jesus was united, by\n    the early Christians, with every imaginable kabalistic and pagan\n    tenet, may be inferred from the language of Clemens, of\n    Alexandria, addressed to his co\u2010religionists.\n\n    When they were debating upon the choice of the most appropriate\n    symbol to remind them of Jesus, Clemens advised them in the\n    following words: \u201cLet the engraving upon the gem of your ring be\n    either _a dove_, or _a ship running before the wind_ (the Argha),\n    or a _fish_.\u201d Was the good father, when writing this sentence,\n    labouring under the recollection of Joshua, son of Nun (called\n    _Jesus_ in the Greek and Slavonian versions); or had he forgotten\n    the real interpretation of these pagan symbols?(277)\n\n\nAnd now, with the help of all these passages scattered hither and thither\nin _Isis_ and other works of this kind, the reader will see and judge for\nhimself which of the two explanations\u2014the Christian or that of the\nOccultist\u2014is the nearer to truth. If Jesus were not an Initiate, why\nshould all these _allegorical_ incidents of his life be given? Why should\nsuch extreme trouble be taken, so much time wasted trying to make the\nabove: (_a_) answer and dovetail with purposely picked out sentences in\nthe _Old Testament_, to show them as _prophecies_; and (_b_) to preserve\nin them the initiatory symbols, the emblems so pregnant with Occult\nmeaning and all of these belonging to Pagan _mystic_ Philosophy? The\nauthor of the _Source of Measures_ gives out that _mystical_ intent; but\nonly once now and again, in its one\u2010sided, numerical and kabalistic\nmeaning, without paying any attention to, or having concern with, the\nprimeval and more spiritual origin, and he deals with it only so far as it\nrelates to the _Old Testament_. He attributes the _purposed_ change in the\nsentence \u201cEli, Eli, lama sabachthani\u201d to the principle already mentioned\nof the crossed bones and skull in the Labarum,\n\n\n    As an emblem of death, being placed over the door of life and\n    signifying _birth_, or of the intercontainment of two opposite\n    principles in one, just as, mystically, the Saviour was held to be\n    man\u2010woman.(278)\n\n\nThe author\u2019s idea is to show the mystic blending by the Gospel writers of\nJehovah, Cain, Abel, etc., with Jesus (in accordance with Jewish\nkabalistic numeration); the better he succeeds, the more clearly he shows\nthat it was a _forced_ blending, and that we have not a record of the real\nevents of the life of Jesus, narrated by eye\u2010witnesses or the Apostles.\nThe narrative is all based on the signs of the Zodiac:\n\n\n    Each a double sign or male\u2010female [in ancient astrological\n    Magic]\u2014viz: it was Taurus\u2010Eve, and Scorpio was Mars\u2010Lupa, or Mars\n    with the female wolf [in relation to Romulus]. So, as these signs\n    were opposites of each other, yet _met in the centre_, they were\n    connected; and so in fact it was, and in a double sense, the\n    conception of the year was in Taurus, as the conception of Eve by\n    Mars, her opposite, in Scorpio. The birth would be at the winter\n    solstice, or Christmas. On the contrary, by conception in\n    Scorpio\u2014_viz._, of Lupa by Taurus\u2014birth would be in Leo. Scorpio\n    was Chr\u0113stos in _humiliation_, while Leo was Christos in\n    _triumph_. While Taurus\u2010Eve fulfilled astronomical functions,\n    Mars\u2010Lupa fulfilled spiritual ones by type.(279)\n\n\nThe author bases all this on Egyptian correlations and meanings of Gods\nand Goddesses, but ignores the \u00c2ryan, which are far earlier.\n\n\n    _Mooth_ or _Mouth_, was the Egyptian cognomen of Venus, (Eve,\n    mother of all living) [as _Vach_, mother of all living, a\n    permutation of _Aditi_, as Eve was one of Sephira] _or the moon_.\n    Plutarch (_Isis_, 374) hands it down that Isis was sometimes\n    called _Muth_, which word means _mother_ ... (Issa, \u05d0\u05e9\u05d4, woman).\n    (_Isis_, p. 372). Isis, he says is that part of Nature, which, as\n    feminine, contains in herself, as (nutrix) nurse, all things to be\n    born.... \u201cCertainly the moon,\u201d speaking astronomically, \u201cchiefly\n    exercises this function in Taurus, Venus being the house (in\n    opposition to Mars, _generator_, in Scorpio), because the sign is\n    luna, hypsoma. Since ... Isis Metheur differs from Isis _Muth_ and\n    that in the vocable _Muth_ the _notion of bringing forth_ may be\n    concealed, and since fructification must take place, _Sol_ being\n    joined with _Luna_ in _Libra_, it is not improbable that Muth\n    first indeed signifies Venus in Libra; hence Luna in Libra.\u201d\n    (Beitr\u00e4ge zur Kenntniss, pars. 11, S. 9, under _Muth_.)(280)\n\n\nThen Fuerst, under _Bohu_, is quoted to show\n\n\n    The double play upon the word _Muth_ by help of which the real\n    intent is produced in the occult way ... _sin_, _death_, and\n    _woman_ are one in the glyph, and correlatively connected with\n    _intercourse_ and _death_.(281)\n\n\nAll this is applied by the author _only_ to the exoteric and Jewish\neuhemerised symbols, whereas they were meant, first of all, to conceal\ncosmogonical mysteries, and then, those of anthropological evolution with\nreference to the Seven Races, already evoluted and to come, and especially\nas regards the last branch races of the third Root\u2010Race. However, the word\n_void_ (primeval Chaos) is shown to be taken for Eve\u2010Venus\u2010Naamah,\nagreeably with Fuerst\u2019s definition; for as he says:\n\n\n    In this primitive signification [of void] was \u05d1\u05d4\u05d5 [bohu] taken in\n    the Biblical cosmogony, and used in establishing the dogma \u05d9\u05e9 \u05de\u05d0\u05d9\u05df\n    _Jes_ (us) _m\u2019aven_, (_Jes\u2010us from nothing_), respecting creation.\n    [Which shows the writers of the _New Testament_ considerably\n    skilled in the _Kabalah_ and Occult Sciences, and corroborates\n    still more our assertion.] Hence Aquila translates \u03bf\u1f54\u03b4\u03b5\u03bd vulg.\n    vacua (hence _vacca_, _cow_) [hence also the horns of Isis\u2014Nature,\n    Earth, and the Moon\u2014taken from V\u00e2ch, the Hindu \u201cMother of all that\n    lives,\u201d identified with Vir\u00e2j and called in Atharvaveda the\n    daughter of K\u00e2ma, the _first_ desires: \u201cThat daughter of thine, O\n    K\u00e2ma, is _called __ the cow_, she whom Sages name _V\u00e2ch\u2010Vir\u00e2j_,\u201d\n    who was _milked_ by Brihaspati, the Rishi, which is another\n    mystery] Onkelos and Samarit. \u05e8\u05d9\u05e7\u05d1\u05d9.\n\n    The Ph\u0153nician cosmogony has connected _Bohu_ \u05d1\u05d4\u05d5 \u0392\u03b1\u03b1\u03c5 into a\n    personified expression denoting the _primitive substance_, and as\n    a deity, the _mother of races of the gods_ [which is Aditi and\n    V\u00e2ch]. The Aramean name \u05d1\u05d4\u05d5\u2010\u05ea\u05d0, \u05d1\u05d4\u05d5\u2010\u05ea, \u05d1\u05d4\u05d5\u2010\u05ea, \u0392\u03b1\u03ce\u03b8, \u0392\u03c5\u03b8\u2010\u03cc\u03c2, Buto,\n    for the _mother of the gods_, which passed over to the Gnostics,\n    Babylonians and Egyptians, _is identical then with M\u00f4t_ (\u05de\u05d5\u05ea, our\n    _Muth_) properly, (\u0392\u03ce\u03b8) _originated in Ph\u0153nician_ from an\n    interchange of _b_ with _m_.(282)\n\n\nRather, one would say, go to the origin. The mystic euhemerisation of\nWisdom and Intelligence, operating in the work of cosmic evolution, or\n_Buddhi_ under the names of Brahm\u00e2, Purusha, etc., as male power, and\nAditi\u2010V\u00e2ch, etc., as female, whence Sarasvat\u00ee, Goddess of Wisdom, who\nbecame under the veils of Esoteric concealment, Butos, _Bythos_\u2014Depth, the\ngrossly material, personal female, called Eve, the \u201cprimitive woman\u201d of\nIren\u00e6us, and the world springing out of _Nothing_.\n\n\n    The workings out of this glyph of 4th _Genesis_ help to the\n    comprehension of the division of one character into the forms of\n    two persons; as Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abram and Isaac,\n    Jacob and Esau, and so on [all male and female].... Now, as\n    linking together several great salient points in the Biblical\n    structure: (_1_) as to the _Old_ and _New Testaments_; with also\n    (_2_) as to the Roman Empire; (_3_) as to confirming the meanings\n    and uses of symbols; and (_4_) as to confirming the entire\n    explanation and reading of the glyphs; as (_5_) recognising and\n    laying down the base of the great pyramid as the _foundation\n    square_ of the Bible construction; (_6_) as well as the new Roman\n    adoption under Constantine\u2014the following given:(283)\n\n    Cain has been shown to be ... the 360 circle of the Zodiac, the\n    perfect and exact standard, by a squared division; hence his name\n    of Melchizadik.... [The geometrical and numerical demonstrations\n    here follow.] It has been repeatedly stated that the object of the\n    Great Pyramid construction was to measure the _heavens and the\n    earth_ ... [the objective spheres as evoluting from the\n    subjective, purely spiritual Kosmos, we beg leave to add];\n    therefore, its measuring containment would indicate all the\n    substance of measure of _the heavens and the earth_, or agreeably\n    to ancient recognition, _Earth_, _Air_, _Water_ and _Fire_.(284)\n    (The base side of this pyramid was diameter to a circumference _in\n    feet_ of 2400. The characteristic of this is 24 feet, or 6 \u00d7 4 =\n    24, or this very Cain\u2010Adam square.) Now, by the restoration of the\n    encampment of the Israelites, as initiated by Moses, by the great\n    scholar, Father Athanasius Kircher, the Jesuit priest, the above\n    is precisely, by Biblical record and traditionary sources, the\n    method of laying off this encampment. The _four interior squares_\n    were devoted to (1) Moses and Aaron; (2) Kohath; (3) Gershom; and\n    (4) Merari\u2014the last three being the heads of the Levites. The\n    attributes of these squares were the _primal_ attributes of Adam\u2010\n    Mars and were concreted of the elements, _Earth_, _Air_, _Fire_,\n    _Water_, or \u05d9\u05dd = Iam = _Water_, \u05e0\u05d5\u05e8 = Nour = _Fire_, \u05e8\u05d5\u05d7 = Rouach\n    = _Air_, and \u05d9\u05d1\u05e9\u05c2\u05c2\u05e9\u05c2\u05d4 = I\u0101beshah = _Earth_. The initial letters of\n    these words are INRI\u2014the symbol usually translated as _I_esus\n    _N_azarenus _R_ex _I_ud\u00e6orum\u2014\u201cJesus of Nazareth, King of the\n    Jews.\u201d This square of INRI is the _Adam square_, which was\n    extended from, as a foundation, into four others of 144 \u00d7 2 = 288,\n    to the side of the large square of 288 \u00d7 4 = 1152, = the whole\n    circumference. But this square is the display of also circular\n    elements and 115\u00b72 can denote this. Put _INRI_ into a circle, or\n    read it as the letters stand in the square, as to its values of\n    1521, and we have [Symbol: circle with numbers inside: 1, 1, 2, 5]\n    which reads 115\u00b72.\n\n    But as seen Cain denotes this as, or in, the 115 of his name:\n    which 115 was the very complement to make up the 360 day year, to\n    agree with the balances of the standard circle, which were Cain.\n    The corner squares of the larger square are, A = Leo, and B = Dan\n    Scorpio; and it is seen that Cain pierces Abel at the intersection\n    of the equinoctial with the solstice cross lines, referred to from\n    Dan\u2010Scorpio on the celestial circle. But Dan\u2010Scorpio borders on\n    Libra, the scales, whose sign is \u264e (which sign is that of the\n    ancient _pillow_ on which _the back of the head to the ears_(285)\n    rested, the pillow of Jacob), and is represented for one symbol as\n    [Symbol: Letters X, P, and S, with Libra symbol atop them]....\n    Also the badge of Dan\u2010Scorpio is death\u2010life, in the symbol \u2627. Now\n    the cross is the emblem of the _origin of measures_, in the\n    _Jehovah_ form of a _straight line one of a denomination of 20612,\n    the perfect circumference_; hence Cain was this as Jehovah, for\n    the text says that _he was_ Jehovah. But the attachment of a man\n    to this cross was that of 113: 355 to 6561: 5153 \u00d7 4 = 20612, as\n    shown. Now, over the _head_ of Jesus crucified was placed the\n    inscription, of which the initial letters of the words have always\n    been retained as symbolic, and handed down and used as a monogram\n    of Jesus Chrestos\u2014_viz._, INRI or _Jesus Nazarenus Rex Jud\u00e6orum_;\n    but they are located on the _Cross_, or the cubed _form_ of the\n    circular origin of measures which measure the substance of\n    _Earth_, _Air_, _Fire_ and _Water_, or INRI = 1152, as shown. Here\n    is the _man_ on the _cross_, or 113: 355 combined with 6561: 5153\n    \u00d7 4 = 20612. These are the _pyramid\u2010base_ numbers as coming from\n    113: 355 as the Hebrew source; whence the Adam\u2010square, which is\n    the pyramid base, and the centre one to the larger square of the\n    _encampment_. Bend INRI into a circle, and we have 1152, or the\n    circumference of the latter. But Jesus dying (or Abel married)\n    made use of the very words needed to set forth all. He says, _Eli,\n    Eli, Lama Sabachthani_.... Read them by their power values, in\n    _circular form_, as produced from the Adam form as shown, and we\n    have \u05d0\u05dc\u05d9 = 113, \u05d0\u05dc\u05d9 = 113, or 113\u2014311: \u05dc\u05e4\u05d4 = 345, or Moses in the\n    Cain\u2010Adam pyramid circle: \u05e9\u05db\u05d7\u05ea = 710, equals Dove, or Jonah and\n    710 \u00f7 2 = 355, or 355\u2014553; and finally, as determinative of all \u05d9\u05d1\n    or _ni_, where \u05d1 = _nun_, fish = 565, and \u05d9 = 1 or 10; together\n    565 \u05d9 = \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 or the Christ value....\n\n    [All of the above] throws light on the transfiguration scene on\n    the mount. There were present there Peter and James and John with\n    Jesus; or \u05d9\u05dd Iami, James, _Water_; \u05d9\u05d1\u05e9\u05d4, Peter, _Earth_; \u05d3\u05e8\u05d4,\n    John, _Spirit_, _Air_, and \u05d9\u05d1\u05d5\u05e8 Jesus, _Fire_, _Life_\u2014together\n    INRI. But behold Eli and Moses met them there, or \u05d0\u05dc\u05d9 and \u05dc\u05de\u05d4 or\n    _Eli_ and _Lamah_, or 113 and 345. And this shows that the scene\n    of transfiguration was connected with the one above set\n    forth.(286)\n\n\nThis kabalistical reading of the Gospel narratives\u2014hitherto supposed to\nrecord the most important, the most mystically awful, yet most real events\nof the life of Jesus\u2014must fall with terrible weight upon some Christians.\nEvery honest trusting believer who has shed tears of reverential emotion\nover the events of the short period of the public life of Jesus of\nNazareth, has to choose one of the two ways opening before him after\nreading the aforesaid: either his faith has to render him quite impervious\nto any light coming from human reasoning and evident fact; or he must\nconfess that he has lost his Saviour. The One whom he had hitherto\nconsidered as the unique incarnation on this earth of the One Living God\nin heaven, fades into thin air, on the authority of the properly read and\ncorrectly interpreted _Bible_ itself. Moreover, since on the authority of\nJerome himself and his accepted and authentic confession, the book written\nby the hand of Matthew \u201cexhibits matter not for _edification_ but for\n_destruction_\u201d (of Church and _human_ Christianity, and only that) what\ntruth can be expected from his famous _Vulgate_? _Human_ mysteries,\nconcocted by generations of Church Fathers bent upon evolving a religion\nof their own invention, are seen instead of a _divine_ Revelation; and\nthat this was so is corroborated by a prelate of the Latin Church. Saint\nGregory Nazianzen wrote to his friend and confidant, Saint Jerome:\n\n\n    Nothing can impose better on a people than verbiage; the less they\n    understand the more they admire.... Our fathers and doctors have\n    often said, not what they thought, but that to which circumstances\n    and necessity forced them.\n\n\nWhich then of the two\u2014the clergy, or the Occultists and Theosophists\u2014are\nthe more blasphemous and dangerous? Is it those who would impose upon the\nworld\u2019s acceptance a Saviour of their own fashioning, a God with human\nshortcomings, and who therefore is certainly not a perfect divine Being;\nor those others who say: Jesus of Nazareth was an Initiate, a holy, grand\nand noble character, but withal human, though truly \u201ca Son of God\u201d?\n\nIf Humanity is to accept a so\u2010called supernatural Religion, how far more\nlogical to the Occultist and the Psychologist seems the transparent\nallegory given of Jesus by the Gnostics. They, as Occultists, and with\nInitiates for their Chiefs, differed only in their renderings of the story\nand in their symbols, and not at all in substance. What say the Ophites,\nthe Nazarenes, and other \u201cheretics\u201d? Sophia, \u201cthe Celestial Virgin,\u201d is\nprevailed upon to send Christos, her emanation, to the help of perishing\nhumanity, from whom Ilda\u2010Baoth (the Jehovah of the Jews) and his six Sons\nof Matter (the lower terrestrial Angels) are shutting out the divine\nlight. Therefore, Christos, the perfect,(287)\n\n\n    Uniting himself with Sophia [divine wisdom] descended through the\n    seven planetary regions, assuming in each an analogous form ...\n    [and] entered into the man Jesus at the moment of his baptism in\n    the Jordan. From this time forth Jesus began to work miracles;\n    before that he had been entirely ignorant of his own mission.\n\n\nIlda\u2010Baoth, discovering that Christos was bringing to an end his kingdom\nof Matter, stirred up the Jews, his own people, against Him, and Jesus was\nput to death. When Jesus was on the Cross Christos and Sophia left His\nbody, and returned to Their own sphere. The material body of Jesus was\nabandoned to the earth, but He Himself, the Inner Man, was clothed with a\nbody made up of _\u00e6ther_.(288)\n\n\n    Thenceforth he consisted merely of soul and spirit.... During his\n    sojourn upon earth of _eighteen_ months after he had risen, he\n    received from Sophia that perfect knowledge, that true Gnosis,\n    which he communicated to the small portion of the Apostles who\n    were capable of receiving the same.(289)\n\n\nThe above is transparently Eastern and Hindu; it is the Esoteric Doctrine\npure and simple, save for the names and the allegory. It is, more or less,\nthe history of every Adept who obtains Initiation. The Baptism in the\nJordan is the Rite of Initiation, the final purification; whether in\nsacred pagoda, tank, river, or temple lake in Egypt or Mexico. The perfect\nChristos and Sophia\u2014divine Wisdom and Intelligence\u2014enter the Initiate at\nthe moment of the mystic rite, by transference from Guru to Chel\u00e2, and\nleave the physical body, at the moment of the death of the latter, to re\u2010\nenter the Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2ya, or the astral Ego of the Adept.\n\n\n    The spirit of Buddha [collectively] overshadows the Bodhisattvas\n    of his Church\n\n\nsays the Buddhist Ritual of \u00c2ry\u00e2sangha.\n\nSays the Gnostic teaching:\n\n\n    When he [the spirit of Christos] shall have collected all the\n    Spiritual, all the Light [that exists in matter], out of\n    Ilbadaoth\u2019s empire, Redemption is accomplished and the end of the\n    world arrived.(290)\n\n\nSay the Buddhists:\n\n\n    When Buddha [the Spirit of the Church] hears the hour strike, he\n    will send Maitreya Buddha\u2014after whom the old world wall be\n    destroyed.\n\n\nThat which is said of Basilides by King may be applied as truthfully to\nevery innovator, so called, whether of a Buddhist or of a Christian\nChurch. In the eyes of Clemens Alexandrinus, he says, the Gnostics taught\nvery little that was blameable in their mystical transcendental views.\n\n\n    In his eyes the latter [Basilides], was not a _heretic_, that is\n    an innovator upon the accepted doctrines of the Catholic Church,\n    but only a theosophic speculator who sought to express old truths\n    by new formul\u00e6.(291)\n\n\nThere was a Secret Doctrine preached by Jesus; and \u201csecresy\u201d in those days\nmeant Secrets, or Mysteries of Initiation, all of which have been either\nrejected or disfigured by the Church. In the Clementine _Homilies_ we\nread:\n\n\n    And Peter said: \u201cWe remember that our Lord and Teacher, commanding\n    us, said \u2018Guard the mysteries for me and the sons of my house.\u2019 \u201d\n    Wherefore also he explained to His disciples privately the\n    Mysteries of the Kingdom of the Heavens.(292)\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XIX. ST. CYPRIAN OF ANTIOCH.\n\n\nThe \u00c6ons (Stellar Spirits)\u2014emanated from the Unknown of the Gnostics, and\nidentical with the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans of the Esoteric Doctrine\u2014and their\nPleroma, having been transformed into Archangels and the \u201cSpirits of the\nPresence\u201d by the Greek and Latin Churches, the prototypes have lost caste.\nThe Pleroma(293) was now called the \u201cHeavenly Host,\u201d and therefore the old\nname had to become identified with Satan and his \u201cHost.\u201d Might is right in\nevery age, and History is full of contrasts. Manes had been called the\n\u201cParaclete\u201d(294) by his followers. He was an Occultist, but passed to\nposterity, owing to the kind exertions of the Church, as a Sorcerer, so a\nmatch had to be found for him by way of contrast. We recognise this match\nin St. Cyprianus of Antioch, a self\u2010confessed if not a real \u201cBlack\nMagician,\u201d it seems, whom the Church\u2014as a reward for his contrition and\nhumility\u2014subsequently raised to the high rank of Saint and Bishop.\n\nWhat history knows of him is not much, and it is mostly based on his own\nconfession, the truthfulness of which is warranted, we are told, by St.\nGregory, the Empress Eudoxia, Photius and the Holy Church. This curious\ndocument was ferreted out by the Marquis de Mirville,(295) in the Vatican,\nand by him translated into French for the first time, as he assures the\nreader. We beg his permission to re\u2010translate a few pages, not for the\nsake of the penitent Sorcerer, but for that of some students of Occultism,\nwho will thus have an opportunity of comparing the methods of ancient\nMagic (or as the Church calls it, Demonism) with those of modern Theurgy\nand Occultism.\n\nThe scenes described took place at Antioch about the middle of the third\ncentury, 252 A.D., says the translator. This Confession was written by the\npenitent Sorcerer after his conversion; therefore, we are not surprised to\nfind how much room he gives in his lamentations to reviling his Initiator\n\u201cSatan,\u201d or the \u201cSerpent Dragon,\u201d as he calls him. There are other and\nmore modern instances of the same trait in human nature. Converted Hindus,\nP\u00e2rs\u00ees and other \u201cheathen\u201d of India are apt to denounce their forefathers\u2019\nreligions at every opportunity. Thus runs the Confession:\n\n\n    O all of you who reject the real mysteries of Christ, see my\n    tears!... You who wallow in your demoniacal practices, learn by my\n    sad example all the vanity of their [the demons\u2019] baits ... I am\n    that Cyprianus, who, vowed to Apollo from his infancy, was early\n    initiated into all the arts of the dragon.(296) Even before the\n    age of seven I had already been introduced into the temple of\n    Mithra: three years later, my parents taking me to Athens to be\n    received as citizen, I was permitted likewise to penetrate the\n    mysteries of Ceres lamenting her daughter,(297) and I also became\n    the guardian of the Dragon in the Temple of Pallas.\n\n    Ascending after that to the summit of Mount Olympus, the Seat of\n    the Gods, as it is called, there too I was initiated into the\n    sense, and the _real_ meaning of their [the Gods\u2019] speeches and\n    their clamorous manifestations (_strepituum_). It is there that I\n    was made to see in imagination (_phantasia_) [or _m\u00e2y\u00e2_] those\n    trees and all those herbs that operate such prodigies with the\n    help of demons; ... and I saw their dances, their warfares, their\n    snares, illusions and promiscuities. I heard their singing.(298) I\n    saw finally, for forty consecutive days, the phalanx of the Gods\n    and Goddesses, sending from Olympus, as though they were Kings,\n    spirits to represent them on earth and act in their name among all\n    the nations.(299)\n\n    At that time I lived entirely on fruit, eaten only after sunset,\n    the virtues of which were explained to me by the seven priests of\n    the sacrifices.(300)\n\n    When I was fifteen my parents desired that I should be made\n    acquainted, not only with all the natural laws in connection with\n    the generation and corruption of bodies on earth, in the air and\n    in the seas, but also with all the other forces _grafted_(301)\n    (_insitas_) on these by the Prince of the World in order to\n    counteract their primal and divine constitution.(302) At twenty I\n    went to Memphis, where, penetrating into the Sanctuaries, I was\n    taught to discern all that pertains to the communications of\n    demons [Daimones or Spirits] with terrestrial matters, their\n    aversion for certain places, their sympathy and attraction for\n    others, their expulsion from certain planets, certain objects and\n    laws, their persistence in preferring darkness and their\n    resistance to light.(303) There I learned the number of the fallen\n    Princes,(304) that which takes place in human souls and the bodies\n    they enter into communication with.\n\n    I learnt the analogy that exists between earthquakes and the\n    rains, between the motion of the earth(305) and the motion of the\n    seas; I saw the spirits of the Giants plunged in subterranean\n    darkness and seemingly supporting the earth like a man carrying a\n    burden on his shoulders.(306)\n\n    When thirty I travelled to Chald\u00e6a to study there the true power\n    of the air, placed by some in the fire and by the more learned in\n    light [\u00c2k\u00e2sha]. I was taught to see that the planets were in their\n    variety as dissimilar as the plants on earth, and the stars were\n    like armies ranged in battle order. I knew the Chald\u00e6an division\n    of Ether into 365 parts,(307) and I perceived that every one of\n    the demons who divide it among themselves(308) was endowed with\n    that material force that permitted him to execute the orders of\n    the Prince and guide all the movements therein [in the\n    Ether].(309) They [the Chaldees] explained to me how those Princes\n    had become participants in the Council of Darkness, ever in\n    opposition to the Council of Light.\n\n    I got acquainted with the Mediatores [surely not mediums as De\n    Mirville explains!],(310) and upon seeing the covenants they were\n    mutually bound by, I was struck with wonder upon learning the\n    nature of their oaths and observances.(311)\n\n    Believe me, I saw the Devil; believe me I have embraced him(312)\n    [like the witches at the Sabbath (?)] when I was yet quite young,\n    and he saluted me by the title of the new Jambres, declaring me\n    worthy of my ministry (initiation). He promised me continual help\n    during life and a principality after death.(313) Having become in\n    great honour [an Adept] under his tuition, he placed under my\n    orders a phalanx of demons, and when I bid him good\u2010bye, \u201cCourage,\n    good success, excellent Cyprian,\u201d he exclaimed, rising up from his\n    seat to see me to the door, plunging thereby those present into a\n    profound admiration.(314)\n\n\nHaving bidden farewell to his Chald\u00e6an Initiator, the future Sorcerer and\nSaint went to Antioch. His tale of \u201ciniquity\u201d and subsequent repentance is\nlong but we will make it short. He became \u201can accomplished Magician,\u201d\nsurrounded by a host of disciples and \u201ccandidates to the perilous and\nsacrilegious art.\u201d He shows himself distributing love\u2010philtres and dealing\nin deathly charms \u201cto rid young wives of old husbands, and to ruin\nChristian virgins.\u201d Unfortunately Cyprianus was not above love himself. He\nfell in love with the beautiful Justine, a converted maiden, after having\nvainly tried to make her share the passion one named Aglaides, a\nprofligate, had for her. His \u201cdemons failed\u201d he tells us, and he got\ndisgusted with them. This disgust brings on a quarrel between him and his\nHierophant, whom he insists on identifying with the Demon; and the dispute\nis followed by a tournament between the latter and some Christian\nconverts, in which the \u201cEvil One\u201d is, of course, worsted. The Sorcerer is\nfinally baptised and gets rid of his enemy. Having laid at the feet of\nAnthimes, Bishop of Antioch, all his books on Magic, he became a Saint in\ncompany with the beautiful Justine, who had converted him; both suffered\nmartyrdom under the Emperor Diocletian; and both are buried side by side\nin Rome, in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, near the Baptistery.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XX. THE EASTERN GUPTA VIDYA & THE KABALAH.\n\n\nWe now return to the consideration of the essential identity between the\nEastern Gupta Vidy\u00e2 and the Kabalah as a system, while we must also show\nthe dissimilarity in their philosophical interpretations since the Middle\nAges.\n\nIt must be confessed that the views of the Kabalists\u2014meaning by the word\nthose students of Occultism who study the Jewish _Kabalah_ and who know\nlittle, if anything, of any other Esoteric literature or of its\nteachings\u2014are as varied in their synthetic conclusions upon the nature of\nthe mysteries taught even in the _Zohar_ alone, and are as wide of the\ntrue mark, as are the _dicta_ upon it of exact Science itself. Like the\nmedi\u00e6val Rosicrucian and the Alchemist\u2014like the Abbot Trithemius, John\nReuchlin, Agrippa, Paracelsus, Robert Fludd, Philalethes, etc.\u2014by whom\nthey swear, the continental Occultists see in the Jewish _Kabalah_ alone\nthe universal well of wisdom; they find in it the secret lore of nearly\nall the mysteries of Nature\u2014metaphysical and divine\u2014some of them including\nherein, as did Reuchlin, those of the Christian _Bible_. For them the\n_Zohar_ is an Esoteric Thesaurus of all the mysteries of the Christian\nGospel; and the _Sepher Yetzirah_ is the light that shines in every\ndarkness, and the container of the keys to open every secret in Nature.\nWhether many of our modern followers of the medi\u00e6val Kabalists have an\nidea of the real meaning of the symbology of their chosen Masters is\nanother question. Most of them have probably never given even a passing\nthought to the fact that the Esoteric language used by the Alchemists was\ntheir own, and that it was given out as a blind, necessitated by the\ndangers of the epoch they lived in, and not as the Mystery\u2010language, used\nby the Pagan Initiates, which the Alchemists had re\u2010translated and re\u2010\nveiled once more.\n\nAnd now the situation stands thus: as the old Alchemists have not left a\nkey to their writings, the latter have become a mystery within an older\nmystery. The _Kabalah_ is interpreted and checked only by the light which\nmedi\u00e6val Mystics have thrown upon it, and they, in their forced\nChristology, had to put a theological dogmatic mask on every ancient\nteaching, the result being that each Mystic among our modern European and\nAmerican Kabalists interprets the old symbols in his own way, and each\nrefers his opponents to the Rosicrucian and the Alchemist of three and\nfour hundred years ago. Mystic Christian dogma is the central ma\u00eblstrom\nthat engulfs every old Pagan symbol, and Christianity\u2014Anti\u2010Gnostic\nChristianity, the modern retort that has replaced the alembic of the\nAlchemists\u2014has distilled out of all recognition the _Kabalah_, _i.e._, the\nHebrew _Zohar_ and other rabbinical mystic works. And now it has come to\nthis: The student interested in the Secret Sciences has to believe that\nthe whole cycle of the symbolical \u201cAncient of Days,\u201d every hair of the\nmighty beard of Macroprosopos, refers only to the history of the earthly\ncareer of Jesus of Nazareth! And we are told that the _Kabalah_ \u201cwas first\ntaught to a select company of angels\u201d by Jehovah himself\u2014who, out of\nmodesty, one must think, made himself only the third Sephiroth in it, and\na female one into the bargain. So many Kabalists, so many explanations.\nSome believe\u2014perchance with more reason than the rest\u2014that the substance\nof the _Kabalah_ is the basis upon which Masonry is built, since modern\nMasonry is undeniably the dim and hazy reflection of primeval Occult\nMasonry, of the teaching of those divine Masons who established the\nMysteries of the prehistoric and prediluvian Temples of Initiation, raised\nby truly superhuman Builders. Others declare that the tenets expounded in\nthe _Zohar_ relate merely to mysteries terrestrial and profane, having no\nmore concern with metaphysical speculations\u2014such as the soul, or the\n_post\u2010mortem_ life of man\u2014than have the Mosaic books. Others, again\u2014and\nthese are the real, genuine Kabalists, who had their instructions from\ninitiated Jewish Rabbis\u2014affirm that if the two most learned Kabalists of\nthe medi\u00e6val period, John Reuchlin and Paracelsus, differed in their\nreligious professions\u2014the former being the Father of the Reformation and\nthe latter a Roman Catholic, at least in appearance\u2014the _Zohar_ cannot\ncontain much of Christian dogma or tenet, one way or the other. In other\nwords, they maintain that the numerical language of the Kabalistic works\nteaches universal truths\u2014and not any one Religion in particular. Those who\nmake this statement are perfectly right in saying that the Mystery\u2010\nlanguage used in the _Zohar_ and in other Kabalistic literature was once,\nin a time of unfathomable antiquity, the universal language of Humanity.\nBut they become entirely wrong if to this fact they add the untenable\ntheory that _this language was invented by, or was the original property\nof, the Hebrews, from whom all the other nations borrowed it_.\n\nThey are wrong, because, although the _Zohar_ (\u05d6\u05d4\u05e8 ZHR), _The Book of\nSplendour_ of Rabbi Simeon Ben Iochai, did indeed originate with him\u2014his\nson, Rabbi Eleazar, helped by his secretary, Rabbi Abba, compiling the\nKabalistic teachings of his deceased father into a work called the\n_Zohar_\u2014those teachings were not Rabbi Simeon\u2019s, as the Gupta Vidy\u00e2 shows.\nThey are as old as the Jewish nation itself, and far older. In short, the\nwritings which pass at present under the title of the _Zohar_ of Rabbi\nSimeon are about as original as were the Egyptian synchronistic Tables\nafter being handled by Eusebius, or as St. Paul\u2019s _Epistles_ after their\nrevision and correction by the \u201cHoly Church.\u201d(315)\n\nLet us throw a rapid retrospective glance at the history and the\ntribulations of that very same _Zohar_, as we know of them from\ntrustworthy tradition and documents. We need not stop to discuss whether\nit was written in the first century B.C. or in the first century A.D.\nSuffice it for us to know that there was at all times a Kabalistic\nliterature among the Jews; that though historically it can be traced only\nfrom the time of the Captivity, yet from the _Pentateuch_ down to the\n_Talmud_ the documents of that literature were ever written in a kind of\nMystery\u2010language, were, in fact, a series of symbolical records which the\nJews had copied from the Egyptian and the Chald\u00e6an Sanctuaries, only\nadapting them to their own national history\u2014if history it can be called.\nNow that which we claim\u2014and it is not denied even by the most prejudiced\nKabalist, is that although Kabalistic lore had passed orally through long\nages down to the latest Pre\u2010Christian Tanaim, and although David and\nSolomon may have been great Adepts in it, as is claimed, yet no one dared\nto write it down till the days of Simeon Ben Iochai. In short, the lore\nfound in Kabalistic literature was never recorded in writing before the\nfirst century of the modern era.\n\nThis brings the critic to the following reflection: While in India we find\nthe _Vedas_ and the Br\u00e2hmanical literature written down and edited ages\nbefore the Christian era\u2014the Orientalists themselves being obliged to\nconcede a couple of millenniums of antiquity to the older manuscripts;\nwhile the most important allegories in _Genesis_ are found recorded on\nBabylonian tiles centuries B.C.; while the Egyptian sarcophagi yearly\nyield proofs of the origin of the doctrines borrowed and copied by the\nJews; yet the Monotheism of the Jews is exalted and thrown into the teeth\nof all the Pagan nations, and the so\u2010called Christian Revelation is placed\nabove all others, like the sun above a row of street gas\u2010lamps. Yet it is\nperfectly well known, having been ascertained beyond doubt or cavil, that\nno manuscript, whether Kabalistic, Talmudistic, or Christian, which has\nreached our present generation, is of earlier date than the first\ncenturies of our era, whereas this can certainly never be said of the\nEgyptian papyri or the Chald\u00e6an tiles, or even of some Eastern writings.\n\nBut let us limit our present research to the _Kabalah_, and chiefly to the\n_Zohar_\u2014called also the _Midrash_. This book, whose teachings were edited\nfor the first time between 70 and 110 A.D., is known to have been lost,\nand its contents to have been scattered throughout a number of minor\nmanuscripts, until the thirteenth century. The idea that it was the\ncomposition of Moses de Leon of Valladolid, in Spain who passed it off as\na pseudograph of Simeon Ben Iochai, is ridiculous and was well disposed of\nby Munk\u2014though he does point to more than one modern interpolation in the\n_Zohar_. At the same time it is more than certain that the present _Book\nof Zohar_ was written by Moses de Leon, and, owing to joint editorship, is\nmore Christian in its colouring than is many a genuine Christian volume.\nMunk gives the reason why, saying that it appears evident that the author\nmade use of ancient documents, and among these of certain _Midraschim_, or\ncollections of traditions and Biblical expositions, which we do not now\npossess.\n\nAs a proof, also, that the knowledge of the Esoteric system taught in the\n_Zohar_ came to the Jews very late indeed\u2014at any rate, that they had so\nfar forgotten it that the innovations and additions made by de Leon\nprovoked no criticism, but were thankfully received\u2014Munk quotes from\nTholuck, a Jewish authority, the following information: Haya Gaon, who\ndied in 1038, is to our knowledge the first author who developed (and\nperfected) the theory of the Sephiroth, and he gave them names which we\nfind again among the Kabalistic names used by Dr. Jellinek. Moses Ben\nSchem\u2010Tob de Leon, who held intimate intercourse with the Syrian and\nChald\u00e6an Christian learned scribes, was enabled through the latter to\nacquire a knowledge of some of the Gnostic writings.(316)\n\nAgain, the _Sepher Jetzirah_ (_Book of Creation_)\u2014though attributed to\nAbraham and though very archaic as to its contents\u2014is first mentioned in\nthe eleventh century by Jehuda Ho Levi (Chazari). And these two, the\n_Zohar_ and _Jetzirah_, are the storehouse of all the subsequent\nKabalistic works. Now let us see how far the Hebrew sacred canon itself is\nto be trusted.\n\nThe word \u201cKabalah\u201d comes from the root \u201cto receive,\u201d and has a meaning\nidentical with the Sanskrit \u201cSmriti\u201d (\u201creceived by tradition\u201d)\u2014a system of\noral teaching, passing from one generation of priests to another, as was\nthe case with the Br\u00e2hmanical books before they were embodied in\nmanuscript. The Kabalistic tenets came to the Jews from the Chald\u00e6ans; and\nif Moses knew the primitive and universal language of the Initiates, as\ndid every Egyptian priest, and was thus acquainted with the numerical\nsystem on which it was based, he may have\u2014and we say he has\u2014written\n_Genesis_ and other \u201cscrolls.\u201d The five books that now pass current under\nhis name, the _Pentateuch_, are _not_ withal the original Mosaic\nRecords.(317) Nor were they written in the old Hebrew square letters, nor\neven in the Samaritan characters, for both alphabets belong to a date\nlater than that of Moses, and Hebrew\u2014as it is now known\u2014did not exist in\nthe days of the great lawgiver, either as a language or as an alphabet.\n\nAs no statements contained in the records of the Secret Doctrine of the\nEast are regarded as of any value by the world in general, and since to be\nunderstood by and convince the reader one has to quote names familiar to\nhim, and use arguments and proofs out of documents which are accessible to\nall, the following facts may perhaps demonstrate that our assertions are\nnot merely based on the teachings of Occult Records:\n\n(1) The great Orientalist and scholar, Klaproth, denied positively the\nantiquity of the so\u2010called Hebrew alphabet, on the ground that the square\nHebrew characters in which the Biblical manuscripts are written, and which\nwe use in printing, were probably derived from the Palmyrene writing, or\nsome other Semitic alphabet, so that the Hebrew _Bible_ is written merely\nin the Chaldaic phonographs of Hebrew words.\n\nThe late Dr. Kenealy pertinently remarked that the Jews and Christians\nrely on\n\n\n    A phonograph of a dead and almost unknown language, as abstruse as\n    the cuneiform letters on the mountains of Assyria.(318)\n\n\n(2) The attempts made to carry back the square Hebrew character to the\ntime of Esdras (B.C. 458) have all failed.\n\n(3) It is asserted that the Jews took their alphabet from the Babylonians\nduring their captivity. But there are scholars who do not carry the now\u2010\nknown Hebrew square letters beyond the late period of the fourth century,\nA.D.(319)\n\n\n    The Hebrew Bible is precisely as if Homer were printed, not in\n    Greek, but in English letters; or as if Shakespeare\u2019s works were\n    phonographed in Burmese.(320)\n\n\n(4) Those who maintain that the ancient Hebrew is the same as the Syraic\nor Chaldaic have to see what is said in _Jeremiah_, wherein the Lord is\nmade to threaten the house of Israel with bringing against it the mighty\nand ancient nation of the Chald\u00e6ans:\n\n\n    A nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest\n    what they say.(321)\n\n\nThis is quoted by Bishop Walton(322) against the assumption of the\nidentity of Chaldaic and Hebrew, and ought to settle the question.\n\n(5) The real Hebrew of Moses was lost after the seventy years\u2019 captivity,\nwhen the Israelites brought back Chaldaic with them and grafted it on\ntheir own language, the fusion resulting in a dialectical variety of\nChaldaic, the Hebrew tincturing it very slightly and ceasing from that\ntime to be a spoken language.(323)\n\nAs to our statement that the present _Old Testament_ does not contain the\noriginal Books of Moses, this is proven by the facts that:\n\n(1) The Samaritans repudiated the Jewish canonical books and _their_ \u201cLaw\nof Moses.\u201d They will have neither the _Psalms_ of David, nor the Prophets,\nnor the _Talmud_ and _Mishna_: nothing but the real Books of Moses, and in\nquite a different edition.(324) The Books of Moses and of Joshua are\ndisfigured out of recognition by the Talmudists, they say.\n\n(2) The \u201cblack Jews\u201d of Cochin, Southern India\u2014who know nothing of the\nBabylonian Captivity or of the _ten_ \u201clost tribes\u201d (the latter a pure\ninvention of the Rabbis), proving that these Jews must have come to India\nbefore the year 600 B.C.\u2014have their Books of Moses which they will show to\nno one. And these Books and Laws differ greatly from the present scrolls.\nNor are they written in the square Hebrew characters (semi\u2010Chaldaic and\nsemi\u2010Palmyrean) but in the archaic letters, as we were assured by one of\nthem\u2014letters entirely unknown to all but themselves and a few Samaritans.\n\n(3) The Karaim Jews of the Crimea\u2014who call themselves the descendants of\nthe true children of Israel, _i.e._, of the Sadducees\u2014reject the _Torah_\nand the _Pentateuch_ of the Synagogue, reject the Sabbath of the Jews\n(keeping Friday), will have neither the Books of the Prophets nor the\n_Psalms_\u2014nothing but their own Books of Moses and what they call his one\nand real Law.\n\nThis makes it plain that the _Kabalah_ of the Jews is but the distorted\necho of the Secret Doctrine of the Chald\u00e6ans, and that the real _Kabalah_\nis found only in the Chald\u00e6an _Book of Numbers_ now in the possession of\nsome Persian Sufis. Every nation in antiquity had its traditions based on\nthose of the \u00c2ryan Secret Doctrine; and each nation points to this day to\na Sage of its own race who had received the primordial revelation from,\nand had recorded it under the orders of, a more or less divine Being. Thus\nit was with the Jews, as with all others. They had received their Occult\nCosmogony and Laws from their Initiate, Moses, and they have now entirely\nmutilated them.\n\n\u00c2di is the generic name in our Doctrine of all the first men, _i.e._, the\nfirst speaking races, in each of the seven zones\u2014hence probably \u201cAd\u2010am.\u201d\nAnd such first men, in every nation, are credited with having been taught\nthe divine mysteries of creation. Thus, the Sab\u00e6ans (according to a\ntradition preserved in the Sufi works) say that when the \u201cThird First Man\u201d\nleft the country adjacent to India for Babel, a tree(325) was given to\nhim, then another and a third tree, whose leaves recorded the history of\nall the races; the \u201cThird First Man\u201d meant one who belonged to the Third\nRoot\u2010Race, and yet the Sab\u00e6ans call him Adam. The Arabs of Upper Egypt,\nand the Mohammedans generally, have recorded a tradition that the Angel\nAzaz\u2010el brings a message from the Wisdom\u2010Word of God to Adam whenever he\nis reborn; this the Sufis explain by adding that this book is given to\nevery Seli\u2010Allah (\u201cthe chosen one of God\u201d) for his wise men. The story\nnarrated by the Kabalists\u2014namely, that the book given to Adam before his\nFall (a book full of mysteries and signs and events which either had been,\nwere, or were to be) was taken away by the Angel Raziel after Adam\u2019s Fall,\nbut again restored to him lest men might lose its wisdom and instruction;\nthat this book was delivered by Adam to Seth, who passed it to Enoch, and\nthe latter to Abraham, and so on in succession to the most wise of every\ngeneration\u2014relates to all nations, and not to the Jews alone. For Berosus\nnarrates in his turn that Xisuthrus compiled a book, writing it at the\ncommand of his deity, which book was buried in Zipara(326) or Sippara, the\nCity of the Sun, in Ba\u2010bel\u2010on\u2010ya, and was dug up long afterwards and\ndeposited in the temple of Belos; it is from this book that Berosus took\nhis history of the antediluvian dynasties of Gods and Heroes. \u00c6lian (in\n_Nimrod_) speaks of a Hawk (emblem of the Sun), who in the days of the\nbeginnings brought to the Egyptians a book containing the wisdom of their\nreligion. The _Sam\u2010Sam_ of the Sab\u00e6ans is also a _Kabalah_, as is the\nArabic _Zem\u2010Zem_ (_Well of Wisdom_).(327)\n\nWe are told by a very learned Kabalist that Seyffarth asserts that the old\nEgyptian tongue was only old Hebrew, or a Semitic dialect; and he proves\nthis, our correspondent thinks, by sending him \u201csome 500 words in common\u201d\nin the two languages. This proves very little to our mind. It only shows\nthat the two nations lived together for centuries, and that before\nadopting the Chald\u00e6an for their phonetic tongue the Jews had adopted the\nold Coptic or Egyptian. The Israelitish Scriptures drew their hidden\nwisdom from the primeval Wisdom\u2010Religion that was the source of other\nScriptures, only it was sadly degraded by being applied to things and\nmysteries of this Earth, instead of to those in the higher and ever\u2010\npresent, though invisible, spheres. Their national history, if they can\nclaim any autonomy before their return from the Babylonian captivity,\ncannot be carried back one day earlier than the time of Moses. The\nlanguage of Abraham\u2014if Zeruan (Saturn, the emblem of time\u2014the \u201cSar,\u201d\n\u201cSaros,\u201d a \u201ccycle\u201d) can be said to have any language\u2014was not Hebrew, but\nChaldaic, perhaps Arabic, and still more likely some old Indian dialect.\nThis is shown by numerous proofs, some of which we give here; and unless,\nindeed, to please the tenacious and stubborn believers in _Bible_\nchronology, we cripple the years of our globe to the Procrustean bed of\n7,000 years, it becomes self\u2010evident that the Hebrew cannot be called an\nold language, merely because Adam is supposed to have used it in the\nGarden of Eden. Bunsen says in _Egypt\u2019s Place in Universal History_ that\nin the\n\n\n    Chald\u00e6an tribe immediately connected with Abraham, we find\n    reminiscences of dates disfigured and misunderstood as genealogies\n    of single men, or figures of epochs. The Abrahamic recollections\n    go back at least three millennia beyond the grandfather of\n    Jacob.(328)\n\n\nThe _Bible_ of the Jews has ever been an Esoteric Book in its hidden\nmeaning, but this meaning has not remained one and the same throughout\nsince the days of Moses. It is useless, considering the limited space we\ncan give to this subject, to attempt anything like the detailed history of\nthe vicissitudes of the so\u2010called _Pentateuch_, and besides, the history\nis too well known to need lengthy disquisitions. Whatever was, or was not,\nthe Mosaic _Book of Creation_\u2014from _Genesis_ down to the Prophets\u2014the\n_Pentateuch_ of to\u2010day is not the same. It is sufficient to read the\ncriticisms of Erasmus, and even of Sir Isaac Newton, to see clearly that\nthe Hebrew Scriptures had been tampered with and remodelled, had been lost\nand rewritten, a dozen times before the days of Ezra. This Ezra himself\nmay yet one day turn out to have been Azara, the Chald\u00e6an priest of the\nFire and Sun\u2010God, a renegade who, through his desire of becoming a ruler,\nand in order to create an Ethnarchy, restored the old lost Jewish Books in\nhis own way. It was an easy thing for one versed in the secret system of\nEsoteric numerals, or Symbology, to put together events from the stray\nbooks that had been preserved by various tribes, and make of them an\napparently harmonious narrative of creation and of the evolution of the\nJud\u00e6an race. But in its hidden meaning, from _Genesis_ to the last word of\n_Deuteronomy_, the Pentateuch is the symbolical narrative of the sexes,\nand is an apotheosis of Phallicism, under astronomical and physiological\npersonations.(329) Its co\u00f6rdination, however, is only apparent; and the\nhuman hand appears at every moment, is found everywhere in the \u201cBook of\nGod.\u201d Hence the Kings of Edom discuss in _Genesis_ before any king had\nreigned in Israel; Moses records his own death, and Aaron dies twice and\nis buried in two different places, to say nothing of other trifles. For\nthe Kabalist they are trifles, for he knows that all these events are not\nhistory, but are simply the cloak designed to envelope and hide various\nphysiological peculiarities; but for the sincere Christian, who accepts\nall these \u201cdark sayings\u201d in good faith, it matters a good deal. Solomon\nmay very well be regarded as a myth(330) by the Masons, as they lose\nnothing by it, for all their secrets are Kabalistic and allegorical\u2014for\nthose few, at any rate, who understand them. For the Christian, however,\nto give up Solomon, the son of David\u2014from whom Jesus is made to\ndescend\u2014involves a real loss. But how even the Kabalists can claim great\nantiquity for the Hebrew texts of the old Biblical scrolls now possessed\nby the scholars is not made at all apparent. For it is certainly a fact of\nhistory, based on the confessions of the Jews themselves, and of\nChristians likewise, that:\n\n\n    The Scriptures having perished in the captivity of Nabuchodonozar,\n    Esdras, the Levite, the priest, in the times of Artaxerxes, king\n    of the Persians, having become inspired, in the exercise of\n    prophecy restored again the whole of the ancient Scriptures.(331)\n\n\nOne must have a strong belief in \u201cEsdras,\u201d and especially in his good\nfaith, to accept the now\u2010existing copies as genuine Mosaic Books; for:\n\n\n    Assuming that the copies, or rather phonographs which had been\n    made by Hilkiah and Esdras, and the various anonymous editors,\n    were really true and genuine, they must have been wholly\n    exterminated by Antiochus; and the versions of the Old Testament\n    which now subsist must have been made by Judas, or by some unknown\n    compilers, probably from the Greek of the Seventy, long after the\n    appearance and death of Jesus.(332)\n\n\nThe _Bible_, therefore, as it is now (the Hebrew texts, that is), depends\nfor its accuracy on the genuineness of the _Septuagint_; this, we are\nagain told, was written miraculously by the Seventy, in Greek, and the\noriginal copy having been lost since that time, our texts are re\u2010\ntranslated back into Hebrew from that language. But in this vicious circle\nof proofs we once more have to rely upon the good faith of two\nJews\u2014Josephus and Philo Jud\u00e6us of Alexandria\u2014these two Historians being\nthe only witnesses that the Septuagint was written under the circumstances\nnarrated. And yet it is just these circumstances that are very little\ncalculated to inspire one with confidence. For what does Josephus tell us?\nHe says that Ptolemy Philadelphus, desiring to read the Hebrew Law in\nGreek, wrote to Eleazar, the high\u2010priest of the Jews, begging him _to send\nhim six men from each of the twelve tribes_, who should make a translation\nfor him. Then follows a truly miraculous story, vouchsafed by Aristeas, of\nthese seventy\u2010two men from the twelve tribes of Israel, who, shut up in an\nisland, compiled their translation in exactly seventy\u2010two days, etc.\n\nAll this is very edifying, and one might have had very little reason to\ndoubt the story, had not the \u201cten lost tribes\u201d been made to play their\npart in it. How could these tribes, lost between 700 and 900 B.C., each\nsend six men some centuries later, to satisfy the whim of Ptolemy, and to\ndisappear once more immediately afterwards from the horizon? A miracle,\nverily.\n\nWe are expected, nevertheless, to regard such documents as the\n_Septuagint_ as containing direct divine revelation: Documents originally\nwritten in a tongue about which nobody now knows anything; written by\nauthors that are practically mythical, and at dates as to which no one is\nable even to make a defensible surmise; documents of the original copies\nof which there does not now remain a shred. Yet people will persist in\ntalking of the ancient Hebrew, as if there were any man left in the world\nwho now knows one word of it. So little, indeed, was Hebrew known that\nboth the Septuagint and the _New Testament_ had to be written in a\n_heathen_ language (the Greek), and no better reasons for it given than\nwhat Hutchinson says, namely, that the Holy Ghost chose to write the New\nTestament in Greek.\n\nThe Hebrew language is considered to be very old, and yet there exists no\ntrace of it anywhere on the old monuments, not even in Chald\u00e6a. Among the\ngreat number of inscriptions of various kinds found in the ruins of that\ncountry:\n\n\n    One in the Hebrew Chaldee letter and language _has never been\n    found_; nor has a single authentic medal or gem in this new\u2010\n    fangled character been ever discovered, which could carry it even\n    to the days of Jesus.(333)\n\n\nThe original _Book of Daniel_ is written in a dialect which is a mixture\nof Hebrew and Aramaic; it is not even in Chaldaic, with the exception of a\nfew verses interpolated later on. According to Sir W. Jones and other\nOrientalists, the oldest discoverable languages of Persia are the Chaldaic\nand Sanskrit, and there is no trace of the \u201cHebrew\u201d in these. It would be\nvery surprising if there were, since the Hebrew known to the Philologists\ndoes not date earlier than 500 B.C., and its characters belong to a far\nlater period still. Thus, while the real Hebrew characters, if not\naltogether lost are nevertheless so hopelessly transformed\u2014\n\n\n    A mere inspection of the alphabet showing that it has been shaped\n    and made regular, in doing which the characteristic marks of some\n    of the letters _have been retrenched_ in order to make them more\n    square and uniform\u2014(334)\n\n\nthat no one but an initiated Rabbi of Samaria or a \u201cJain\u201d could read them,\nthe new system of the masoretic points has made them a sphinx\u2010riddle for\nall. Punctuation is now to be found everywhere in all the later\nmanuscripts, and by means of it anything can be made of a text; a Hebrew\nscholar can put on the texts any interpretation he likes. Two instances\ngiven by Kenealy will suffice:\n\n\n    In _Genesis_, xlix. 21, we read:\n\n    Naphtali is a _hind let loose_; he _giveth goodly words_.\n\n    By only a slight alteration of the points Bochart changes this\n    into:\n\n    Naphtali is a _spreading tree, shooting forth beautiful branches_.\n\n    So again, in _Psalms_ (xxix. 9), instead of:\n\n    The voice of the Lord _maketh the hind to calve_, and discovereth\n    the forests;\n\n    Bishop Lowth gives:\n\n    The voice of the Lord _striketh the oak_, and discovereth the\n    forests.\n\n    The same word in Hebrew signifies \u201cGod\u201d and \u201cnothing,\u201d etc.(335)\n\n\nWith regard to the claim made by some Kabalists that there was in\nantiquity one knowledge and one language, this claim is also our own, and\nit is very just. Only it must be added, to make the thing clear, that this\nknowledge and language have both been esoteric ever since the submersion\nof the Atlanteans. The Tower of Babel myth relates to that enforced\nsecrecy. Men falling into sin were regarded as no longer trustworthy for\nthe reception of such knowledge, and, from being universal, it became\nlimited to the few. Thus, the \u201cone\u2010lip\u201d\u2014or the Mystery\u2010language\u2014being\ngradually denied to subsequent generations, all the nations became\nseverally restricted to their own national tongue; and forgetting the\nprimeval Wisdom\u2010language, they stated that the Lord\u2014one of the chief Lords\nor Hierophants of the Mysteries of the Java Aleim\u2014had confounded the\nlanguages of all the earth, so that the sinners could understand one\nanother\u2019s speech no longer. But Initiates remained in every land and\nnation, and the Israelites, like all others, had their learned Adepts. One\nof the keys to this Universal Knowledge is a pure geometrical and\nnumerical system, the alphabet of every great nation having a numerical\nvalue for every letter,(336) and, moreover, a system of permutation of\nsyllables and synonyms which is carried to perfection in the Indian Occult\nmethods, and which the Hebrew certainly has not. This one system,\ncontaining the elements of Geometry and Numeration, was used by the Jews\nfor the purpose of concealing their Esoteric creed under the mask of a\npopular and national monotheistic Religion. The last who knew the system\nto perfection were the learned and \u201catheistical\u201d Sadducees, the greatest\nenemies of the pretensions of the Pharisees and of their confused notions\nbrought from Babylon. Yes, the Sadducees, the Illusionists, who maintained\nthat the Soul, the Angels, and all similar Beings, were illusions because\nthey were temporary\u2014thus showing themselves at one with Eastern\nEsotericism. And since they rejected every book and Scripture, with the\nexception of the Law of Moses, it seems that the latter must have been\nvery different from what it is now.(337)\n\nThe whole of the foregoing is written with an eye to our Kabalists. Great\nscholars as some of them undoubtedly are, they are nevertheless wrong to\nhang the harps of their faith on the willows of Talmudic growth\u2014on the\nHebrew scrolls, whether in square or pointed characters, now in our public\nlibraries, museums, or even in the collections of Paleographers. There do\nnot remain half\u2010a\u2010dozen copies from the true Mosaic Hebrew scrolls in the\nwhole world. And those who are in possession of these\u2014as we indicated a\nfew pages back\u2014would not part with them, or even allow them to be\nexamined, on any consideration whatever. How then can any Kabalist claim\npriority for Hebrew Esotericism, and say, as does one of our\ncorrespondents, that \u201cthe Hebrew has come down from a far remoter\nantiquity than any of them [whether Egyptian or even Sanskrit!], and that\nit was the source, or nearer to the old original source, than any of\nthem\u201d?(338)\n\nAs our correspondent says: \u201cIt becomes more convincing to me every day\nthat in a far past time there was _a mighty civilization with __ enormous\nlearning, which had a common language over the earth, as to which its\nessence can be recovered from the fragments which now exist_.\u201d\n\nAye, there existed indeed a mighty civilization, and a still mightier\nsecret learning and knowledge, the entire scope of which can never be\ndiscovered by Geometry and the _Kabalah_ alone: for there are seven keys\nto the large entrance\u2010door, and not one, nor even two, keys can ever open\nit sufficiently to allow more than glimpses of what lies within.\n\nEvery scholar must be aware that there are two distinct styles\u2014_two\nschools_, so to speak\u2014plainly traceable in the Hebrew Scriptures: the\nElohistic and the Jehovistic. The portions belonging to these respectively\nare so blended together, so completely mixed up by later hands, that often\nall external characteristics are lost. Yet it is also known that the two\nschools were antagonistic; that the one taught esoteric, the other\nexoteric, or theological doctrines; that the one, the Elohists, were Seers\n(Roch), whereas the other, the Jehovists, were prophets (Nabhi),(339) and\nthat the latter\u2014who later became Rabbis\u2014were generally only nominally\nprophets by virtue of their official position, as the Pope is called the\ninfallible and inspired vicegerent of God. That, again, the Elohists meant\nby \u201cElohim\u201d \u201cforces,\u201d identifying their Deity, as in the Secret Doctrine,\nwith Nature; while the Jehovists made of Jehovah a personal God\nexternally, and used the term simply as a phallic symbol\u2014a number of them\nsecretly disbelieving even in metaphysical, abstract Nature, and\nsynthesizing all on the terrestrial scale. Finally, the Elohists made of\nman the divine incarnate image of the Elohim, emanated first in all\nCreation; and the Jehovists show him as the last, the crowning glory of\nthe animal creation, instead of his being the head of all the sensible\nbeings on earth. (This is reversed by some Kabalists, but the reversion is\ndue to the designedly\u2010produced confusion in the texts, especially in the\nfirst four chapters of _Genesis_.)\n\nTake the _Zohar_ and find in it the description relating to Ain\u2010Suph, the\nWestern or Semitic Parabrahman. What passages have come so nearly up to\nthe Ved\u00e2ntic ideal as the following:\n\n\n    The creation [the evolved Universe] is the garment of that which\n    has no name, the garment _woven from the Deity\u2019s own\n    substance_.(340)\n\n\nBetween that which is Ain or \u201cnothing,\u201d and the Heavenly Man, there is an\nImpersonal First Cause, however, of which it is said:\n\n\n    Before It gave any shape to this world, before It produced any\n    form, It was alone, without form or similitude to anything else.\n    Who, then, can comprehend It, how It was before the creation,\n    since It was formless? Hence it is forbidden to represent It by\n    any form, similitude, or even by Its sacred name, by a single\n    letter or a single point.(341)\n\n\nThe sentence that follows, however, is an evident later interpolation; for\nit draws attention to a complete contradiction:\n\n\n    And to this the words (_Deut._ iv. 15), refer\u2014\u201cYe saw no manner of\n    similitude on the day the Lord spake unto you.\u201d\n\n\nBut this reference to Chapter iv. of _Deuteronomy_, when in Chapter v. God\nis mentioned as speaking \u201cface to face\u201d with the people, is very clumsy.\n\nNot one of the names given to Jehovah in the _Bible_ has any reference\nwhatever to either Ain\u2010Suph or the Impersonal First\u2010Cause (which is the\nLogos) of the _Kabalah_; but they all refer to the _Emanations_.\n\nIt says\n\n\n    For although to reveal itself to us, the concealed of all the\n    concealed sent forth the Ten Emanations [Sephiroth] called the\n    Form of God, Form of the Heavenly Man, yet since even this\n    luminous form was too dazzling for our vision, it had to assume\n    another form, or had to put on another garment, _which is the\n    Universe_. The Universe, therefore, or the visible world, is a\n    farther expansion of the Divine Substance, and is called in the\n    Kabalah \u201cThe Garment of God.\u201d(342)\n\n\nThis is the doctrine of all the Hindu Pur\u00e2nas, especially that of the\n_Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_. Vishnu pervades the Universe and is that Universe; Brahm\u00e2\nenters the Mundane Egg, and issues from it as the Universe; Brahm\u00e2 even\ndies with it and there remains only Brahman, the impersonal, the eternal,\nthe unborn, and the unqualifiable. The Ain\u2010Suph of the Chald\u00e6ans and later\nof the Jews is assuredly a copy of the Vaidic Deity; while the \u201cHeavenly\nAdam,\u201d the Macrocosm which unites in itself the totality of beings and is\nthe _Esse_ of the visible Universe, finds his original in the Pur\u00e2nic\nBrahm\u00e2. In _S\u00f4d_, \u201cthe Secret of the Law,\u201d one recognizes the expressions\nused in the oldest fragments of the Gupta Vidy\u00e2, the Secret Knowledge. And\nit is not venturing too much to say that even a Rabbi quite familiar with\nhis own special Rabbinical _Hebrew_ would only comprehend its secrets\nthoroughly if he added to his learning a serious knowledge of the Hindu\nphilosophies. Let us turn to Stanza I. of the _Book of Dzyan_ for an\nexample.\n\nThe _Zohar_ premises, as does the Secret Doctrine, a universal, eternal\nEssence, passive\u2014because absolute\u2014in all that men call attributes. The\npregenetic or pre\u2010cosmical Triad is a pure metaphysical abstraction. The\nnotion of a triple hypostasis in one Unknown Divine Essence is as old as\nspeech and thought. Hiranyagarbha, Hari, and Shankara\u2014the Creator, the\nPreserver, and the Destroyer\u2014are the three manifested attributes of it,\nappearing and disappearing with Kosmos; the visible Triangle, so to speak,\non the plane of the ever\u2010invisible Circle. This is the primeval root\u2010\nthought of thinking Humanity; the Pythagorean Triangle emanating from the\never\u2010concealed Monad, or the Central Point.\n\nPlato speaks of it and Plotinus calls it an ancient doctrine, on which\nCudworth remarks that:\n\n\n    Since Orpheus, Pythagoras, and Plato, who all of them asserted a\n    Trinity of divine hypostases, unquestionably derived their\n    doctrine from the Egyptians, it may be reasonably suspected that\n    the Egyptians did the like before them.(343)\n\n\nThe Egyptians certainly derived their Trinity from the Indians. Wilson\njustly observes:\n\n\n    As, however, the Grecian accounts and those of the Egyptians are\n    much more perplexed and unsatisfactory than those of the Hindus,\n    it is most probable that we find amongst them the doctrine in its\n    most original, as well as most methodical and significant\n    form.(344)\n\n\nThis, then, is the meaning:\n\n\u201c_Darkness alone filled the Boundless All, for Father, Mother and Son were\nonce more One._\u201d(345)\n\nSpace was, and is ever, as it is between the Manvantaras. The Universe in\nits pre\u2010kosmic state was once more homogeneous and one\u2014outside its\naspects. This was a Kabalistic, and is now a Christian teaching.\n\nAs is constantly shown in the _Zohar_, the Infinite Unity, or Ain\u2010Suph, is\never placed outside human thought and appreciation; and in _Sepher\nJetzirah_ we see the Spirit of God\u2014the Logos, not the Deity itself\u2014called\nOne.\n\n\n    One is the Spirit of the living God, ... who liveth for ever.\n    Voice, Spirit, [of the Spirit], and Word: this is the Holy\n    Spirit,(346)\n\n\n\u2014and the Quaternary. From this Cube emanates the whole Kosmos.\n\nSays the Secret Doctrine:\n\n\u201c_It is called to life. The mystic Cube in which rests the Creative Idea,\nthe manifesting Mantra_ [or articulate speech\u2014V\u00e2ch] _and the holy Purusha_\n[both radiations of prima materia] _exist in the Eternity in the Divine\nSubstance in their latent state_\u201d\n\n\u2014during Pralaya.\n\nAnd in the _Sepher Jetzirah_, when the Three\u2010in\u2010One are to be called into\nbeing\u2014by the manifestation of Shekinah, the first effulgency or radiation\nin the manifesting Kosmos\u2014the \u201cSpirit of God,\u201d or Number One,(347)\nfructifies and awakens the dual Potency, Number Two, Air, and Number\nThree, Water; in these \u201care darkness and emptiness, slime and dung\u201d\u2014which\nis Chaos, the Tohu\u2010Vah\u2010Bohu. The Air and Water emanate Number Four, Ether\nor Fire, the Son. This is the Kabalistic Quaternary. This Fourth Number,\nwhich in the manifested Kosmos is the One, or the Creative God, is with\nthe Hindus the \u201cAncient,\u201d Sanat, the Praj\u00e2pati of the _Vedas_ and the\nBrahm\u00e2 of the Br\u00e2hmans\u2014the heavenly Androgyne, as he becomes the male only\nafter separating himself into two bodies, V\u00e2ch and Vir\u00e2j. With the\nKabalists, he is at first the Jah\u2010Havah, only later becoming Jehovah, like\nVir\u00e2j, his prototype; after separating himself as Adam\u2010Kadmon into Adam\nand Eve in the formless, and into Cain\u2010Abel in the semi\u2010objective, world,\nhe became finally the Jah\u2010Havah, or man and woman, in Enoch, the son of\nSeth.\n\nFor, the true meaning of the compound name of Jehovah\u2014of which, unvoweled,\nyou can make almost anything\u2014is: men and women, or humanity composed of\nits two sexes. From the first chapter to the end of the fourth chapter of\n_Genesis_ every name is a permutation of another name, and every personage\nis at the same time somebody else. A Kabalist traces Jehovah from the Adam\nof earth to Seth, the third son\u2014or rather race\u2014of Adam.(348) Thus Seth is\nJehovah male; and Enos, being a permutation of Cain and Abel, is Jehovah\nmale and female, or our mankind. The Hindu Brahm\u00e2\u2010Vir\u00e2j, Vir\u00e2j\u2010Manu, and\nManu\u2010Vaivasvata, with his daughter and wife, V\u00e2ch, present the greatest\nanalogy with these personages\u2014for anyone who will take the trouble of\nstudying the subject in both the _Bible_ and the _Pur\u00e2nas_. It is said of\nBrahm\u00e2 that he created himself as Manu, and that he was born of, and was\nidentical with, his original self, while he constituted the female portion\n\u201cShata\u2010r\u00fbp\u00e2\u201d (hundred\u2010formed). In this Hindu Eve, \u201cthe mother of all\nliving beings,\u201d Brahm\u00e2 created Vir\u00e2j, who is himself, but on a lower\nscale, as Cain is Jehovah on an inferior scale: both are the first males\nof the Third Race. The same idea is illustrated in the Hebrew name of God\n(\u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4) Read from right to left \u201cJod\u201d (\u05d9) is the father, \u201cHe\u201d (\u05d4) the\nmother, \u201cVau\u201d (\u05d5) the son, and \u201cHe\u201d (\u05d4), repeated at the end of the word,\nis generation, the act of birth, materiality. This is surely a sufficient\nreason why the God of the Jews and Christians should be personal, as much\nas the male Brahm\u00e2, Vishnu, or Shiva of the orthodox, exoteric Hindu.\n\nThus the term of Jhvh alone\u2014now accepted as the name of \u201cOne living [male]\nGod\u201d\u2014will yield, if seriously studied, not only the whole mystery of\n_Being_ (in the Biblical sense,) but also that of the Occult Theogony,\nfrom the highest divine Being, the third in order, down to man. As shown\nby the best Hebraists:\n\n\n    The verbal \u05d4\u05d9\u05d4, or H\u00e2y\u00e2h, or E\u2010y\u2010e, means _to be_, _to exist_,\n    while \u05d7\u05d9\u05d4 or Ch\u00e2y\u00e2h, or H\u2010y\u2010e, means _to live_, as _motion of\n    existence_.(349)\n\n\nHence Eve stands as the evolution and the never\u2010ceasing \u201cbecoming\u201d of\nNature. Now if we take the almost untranslatable Sanskrit word Sat, which\nmeans the quintessence of absolute immutable Being, or Be\u2010ness\u2014as it has\nbeen rendered by an able Hindu Occultist\u2014we shall find no equivalent for\nit in any language; but it may be regarded as most closely resembling\n\u201cAin,\u201d or \u201cEn\u2010Suph,\u201d Boundless Being. Then the term H\u00e2y\u00e2h, \u201cto be,\u201d as\npassive, changeless, yet manifested existence may perhaps be rendered by\nthe Sanskrit J\u00eev\u00e2tm\u00e2, universal life or soul, in its secondary and cosmic\nmeaning; while \u201cCh\u00e2y\u00e2h,\u201d \u201cto live,\u201d as \u201cmotion of existence,\u201d is simply\nPr\u00e2na, the ever\u2010changing life in its objective sense. It is at the head of\nthis third category that the Occultist finds Jehovah\u2014the Mother, Binah,\nand the Father, Arelim. This is made plain in the _Zohar_, when the\nemanation and evolution of the Sephiroth are explained: First, Ain\u2010Suph,\nthen Shekinah, the Garment or Veil of Infinite Light, then Sephira or the\nKadmon, and, thus making the fourth, the spiritual Substance sent forth\nfrom the Infinite Light. This Sephira is called the Crown, Kether, and has\nbesides, six other names\u2014in all seven. These names are: 1. Kether; 2. the\nAged; 3. the Primordial Point; 4. the White Head; 5. the Long Face; 6. the\nInscrutable Height; and 7. Ehejeh (\u201cI am\u201d.)(350) This septenary Sephira is\nsaid to contain in itself the nine Sephiroth. But before showing how she\nbrought them forth, let us read an explanation about the Sephiroth in the\n_Talmud_, which gives it as an archaic tradition, or Kabalah.\n\nThere are three groups (or orders) of Sephiroth: 1. The Sephiroth called\n\u201cdivine attributes\u201d (the Triad in the Holy Quaternary); 2. the sidereal\n(personal) Sephiroth; 3. the metaphysical Sephiroth, or a periphrasis of\nJehovah, who are the first three Sephiroth (Kether, Chokmah and Binah),\nthe rest of the seven being the personal \u201cSeven Spirits of the Presence\u201d\n(also of the planets, therefore). Speaking of these, the angels are meant,\nthough not because they are seven, but because they represent the seven\nSephiroth which contain in them the universality of the Angels.\n\nThis shows (_a_) that, when the first four Sephiroth are separated, as a\nTriad\u2010Quaternary\u2014Sephira being its synthesis\u2014there remain only seven\nSephiroth, as there are seven Rishis; these become ten when the\nQuaternary, or the first divine Cube, is scattered into units; and (_b_)\nthat while Jehovah might have been viewed as the Deity, if he be included\nin the three divine groups or orders of the Sephiroth, the collective\nElohim, or the quaternary indivisible Kether, once that he becomes a male\nGod, he is no more than one of the Builders of the lower group\u2014a Jewish\nBrahm\u00e2.(351) A demonstration is now attempted.\n\nThe first Sephira, containing the other nine, brought them forth in this\norder: (2) Hokmah (Chokmah, or Wisdom), a masculine active potency\nrepresented among the divine names as Jah; and, as a permutation or an\nevolution into lower forms in this instance\u2014becoming the Auphanim (or the\nWheels\u2014cosmic rotation of matter) among the army, or the angelic hosts.\nFrom this Chokmah emanated a feminine passive potency called (3)\nIntelligence, Binah, whose divine name is Jehovah, and whose angelic name,\namong the Builders and Hosts, is _Arelim_.(352) It is from the union of\nthese two potencies, male and female (or Chokmah and Binah) that emanated\nall the other Sephiroth, the seven orders of the Builders. Now if we call\nJehovah by his divine name, then he becomes at best and forthwith \u201ca\nfemale passive\u201d potency in Chaos. And if we view him as a male God, he is\nno more than one of many, an Angel, Arelim. But straining the analysis to\nits highest point, and if his male name Jah, that of Wisdom, be allowed to\nhim, still he is not the \u201cHighest and the one Living God;\u201d for he is\ncontained with many others within Sephira, and Sephira herself is a third\nPotency in Occultism, though regarded as the first in the exoteric\n_Kabalah_\u2014and is one, moreover, of lesser importance than the Vaidic\nAditi, or the Primordial Water of Space, which becomes after many a\npermutation the Astral Light of the Kabalist.\n\nThus the _Kabalah_, as we have it now, is shown to be of the greatest\nimportance in explaining the allegories and \u201cdark sayings\u201d of the _Bible_.\nAs an Esoteric work upon the mysteries of creation, however, it is almost\nworthless as it is now disfigured, unless checked by the Chald\u00e6an _Book of\nNumbers_ or by the tenets of the Eastern Secret Science, or Esoteric\nWisdom. The Western nations have neither the original _Kabalah_, nor yet\nthe Mosaic _Bible_.\n\nFinally, it is demonstrated by internal as well as by external evidence,\non the testimony of the best European Hebraists, and the confessions of\nthe learned Jewish Rabbis themselves, that \u201can ancient document forms the\nessential basis of the _Bible_, which received very considerable\ninsertions and supplements;\u201d and that \u201cthe Pentateuch arose out of the\nprimitive or older document by means of a supplementary one.\u201d Therefore in\nthe absence of the _Book of Numbers_,(353) the Kabalists of the West are\nonly entitled to come to definite conclusions, when they have at hand some\ndata at least from that \u201cancient document\u201d\u2014data now found scattered\nthroughout Egyptian papyri, Assyrian tiles, and the traditions preserved\nby the descendants of the disciples of the last Nazars. Instead of that,\nmost of them accept as their authorities and infallible guides Sabre\nd\u2019Olivet\u2014who was a man of immense erudition and of speculative mind, but\nneither a Kabalist nor an Occultist, either Western or Eastern\u2014and the\nMason Ragon, the greatest of the \u201cWidow\u2019s sons,\u201d who was even less of an\nOrientalist than d\u2019Olivet, for Sanskrit learning was almost unknown in the\ndays of both these eminent scholars.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXI. HEBREW ALLEGORIES.\n\n\nHow can any Kabalist, acquainted with the foregoing, deduce his\nconclusions with regard to the true Esoteric beliefs of the primitive\nJews, from that only which he now finds in the Jewish scrolls? How can any\nscholar\u2014even though one of the keys to the universal language be now\npositively discovered, the true key to the numerical reading of a pure\ngeometrical system\u2014give out anything as his _final_ conclusion? Modern\nKabalistic speculation is on a par now with modern \u201cspeculative Masonry;\u201d\nfor as the latter tries vainly to link itself with the ancient\u2014or rather\nthe archaic\u2014Masonry of the Temples, failing to make the link because all\nits claims have been shown to be inaccurate from an arch\u00e6ological\nstandpoint, so fares it also with Kabalistic speculation. As no mystery of\nNature worth running after can be revealed to humanity by settling whether\nHiram Abif was a living Sidonian builder, or a solar myth, so no fresh\ninformation will be added to Occult Lore by the details of the exoteric\nprivileges conferred on the Collegia Fabrorum by Numa Pompilius. Rather\nmust the symbols used in it be studied in the \u00c2ryan light, since all the\nSymbolism of the ancient Initiations came to the West with the light of\nthe Eastern Sun. Nevertheless, we find the most learned Masons and\nSymbologists declaring that all these weird symbols and glyphs, that run\nback to a common origin of immense antiquity, were nothing more than a\ndisplay of cunning natural phallicism, or emblems of primitive typology.\nHow much nearer the truth is the author of _The Source of Measures_, who\ndeclares that the elements of human and numerical construction in the\n_Bible_ do not shut out the spiritual elements in it, albeit so few now\nunderstand them. The words we quote are as suggestive as they are true:\n\n\n    How desperately blinding becomes a superstitious use, through\n    ignorance, of such emblems, when they are made to possess the\n    power of bloodshed and torture, through orders of propaganda of\n    any species of religious cultus. When one thinks of the horrors of\n    a _Moloch_, or _Baal_, or _Dagon_ worship; of the correlated\n    blood\u2010deluges under the Cross baptized in gore by Constantine, at\n    the initiative of the secular Church; ... when one thinks of all\n    this and then that the cause of all has been simply ignorance of\n    the real radical reading of the _Moloch_, and _Baal_, and _Dagon_,\n    and the _Cross_ and the _T\u2019phillin_, all running back to a common\n    origin, and after all being nothing more than a display of pure\n    and natural mathematics, ... one is apt to feel like cursing\n    ignorance, and to lose confidence in what are called _intuitions_\n    of religion; one is apt to wish for a return of the day when all\n    the world was of one _lip_ and of one _knowledge_.... But while\n    these elements [of the construction of the pyramid] are rational\n    and scientific, ... let no man consider that with this discovery\n    comes a cutting\u2010off of the _spirituality_(354) of the _Bible_\n    intention, or of man\u2019s relation to this spiritual foundation. Does\n    one wish to build a house? No house was ever actually built with\n    tangible material _until first the architectural design of\n    building had been accomplished_, no matter whether the structure\n    was palace or hovel. So with these elements and numbers. They are\n    not of man, nor are they of his invention. They have been revealed\n    to him to the extent of his ability to realize a system, which is\n    _the creative system_ of the eternal God.... But _spiritually_, to\n    man the value of this matter is that he can actually in\n    contemplation, bridge over all material construction of the\n    cosmos, and pass into the very _thought_ and _mind_ of God, to the\n    extent of recognizing this _system of design_ for cosmic\n    creation\u2014yea, even before the words went forth: \u201c_Let there\n    be_.\u201d(355)\n\n\nBut true as the above words may be, when coming from one who has re\u2010\ndiscovered, more completely than anyone else has done during the past\ncenturies, one of the keys to the universal Mystery Language, it is\nimpossible for an Eastern Occultist to agree with the conclusion of the\nable author of _The Source of Measures_. He \u201chas set out to find the\ntruth,\u201d and yet he still believes that:\n\n\n    The best and most authentic vehicle of communication from [the\n    creative] God to man ... is to be found in the Hebrew Bible.\n\n\nTo this we must and shall demur, giving our reasons for it in a few words.\nThe \u201cHebrew _Bible_\u201d exists no more, as has been shown in the foregoing\npages, and the garbled accounts, the falsified and pale copies we have of\nthe real Mosaic _Bible_ of the Initiates, warrant the making of no such\nsweeping assertion and claim. All that the scholar can fairly claim is\nthat the Jewish _Bible_, as now extant\u2014in its latest and final\ninterpretation, and according to the newly\u2010discovered key\u2014may give a\npartial presentment of the truths it contained before it was mangled. But\nhow can he tell what the _Pentateuch_ contained before it had been re\u2010\ncomposed by Esdras; then corrupted still more by the ambitious Rabbis in\nlater times, and otherwise remodelled and interfered with? Leaving aside\nthe opinion of the declared enemies of the Jewish Scriptures, one may\nquote simply what their most devoted followers say.\n\nTwo of these are Horne and Prideaux. The avowals of the former will be\nsufficient to show how much now remains of the original Mosaic books,\nunless indeed we accept his sublimely blind faith in the inspiration and\neditorship of the Holy Ghost. He writes that when a Hebrew scribe found a\nwriting of any author he was entitled, if he thought fit, being \u201cconscious\nof the aid of the Holy Spirit,\u201d to do exactly as he pleased with it\u2014to cut\nit up, or copy it, or use as much of it as he deemed right, and so to\nincorporate it with his own manuscript. Dr. Kenealy aptly remarks of\nHorne, that it is almost impossible to get any admission from him\n\n\n    That makes against his church, so remarkably guarded is he [Horne]\n    in his phraseology and so wonderfully discreet in the use of words\n    that his language, like a diplomatic letter, perpetually suggests\n    to the mind ideas other than those which he really means; I defy\n    any unlearned person to read his chapter on \u201cHebrew characters\u201d\n    and to derive _any knowledge_ from it whatever on the subject on\n    which he professes to treat.(356)\n\n\nAnd yet this same Horne writes:\n\n\n    We are persuaded that the things to which reference is made\n    proceeded from the original writers or _compilers_ of the books\n    [_Old Testament_]. Sometimes they took other writings, annals,\n    genealogies, and such like, with which they _incorporated\n    additional matter_, or which they put together with greater or\n    less condensation. The _Old Testament_ authors used the sources\n    they employed (that is, the writing of other people) with freedom\n    and independence. Conscious of the aid of the Divine Spirit, _they\n    adapted_ their own productions, or the productions of others, to\n    the wants of the times. But in these respects they cannot be said\n    to have corrupted the text of Scripture. _They made the\n    text._(357)\n\n\nBut of what did they make it? Why, of the writings of other persons,\njustly observes Kenealy:\n\n\n    And this is Horne\u2019s notion of what the _Old Testament_ is\u2014a cento\n    from the writings of unknown persons collected and put together by\n    those who, he says, were divinely inspired. No infidel that I know\n    of has ever made so damaging a charge as this against the\n    authenticity of the _Old Testament_.(358)\n\n\nThis is quite sufficient, we think, to show that no key to the universal\nlanguage\u2010system can ever open the mysteries of Creation in a work in\nwhich, whether through design or carelessness, nearly every sentence has\nbeen made to apply to the latest outcome of religious views\u2014to Phallicism,\nand to nothing else. There are a sufficient number of stray bits in the\nElohistic portions of the _Bible_ to warrant the inference that the\nHebrews who wrote it were Initiates; hence the mathematical co\u00f6rdinations\nand the perfect harmony between the measures of the Great Pyramid and the\nnumerals of the Biblical glyphs. But surely if one borrowed from the\nother, it cannot be the architects of the Pyramid who borrowed from\nSolomon\u2019s Temple, if only because the former exists to this day as a\nstupendous living monument of Esoteric records, while the famous temple\nhas never existed outside of the far later Hebrew scrolls.(359) Hence\nthere is a great distance between the admission that some Hebrews were\nInitiates, and the conclusion that because of this the Hebrew _Bible_ must\nbe the best standard, as being the highest representative of the archaic\nEsoteric System.\n\nNowhere does the _Bible_ say, moreover, that the Hebrew is the language of\nGod; of this boast, at any rate, the authors are not guilty. Perhaps\nbecause in the days when the _Bible_ was last edited the claim would have\nbeen too preposterous\u2014hence dangerous. The _compilers_ of the _Old\nTestament_, as it exists in the Hebrew canon, knew well that the language\nof the Initiates in the days of Moses was identical with that of the\nEgyptian Hierophants; and that none of the dialects that had sprung from\nthe old Syriac and the pure old Arabic of Yarab\u2014the father and progenitor\nof the primitive Arabians, long before the time of Abraham, in whose days\nthe ancient Arabic had already become vitiated\u2014that none of those\nlanguages was the one sacerdotal universal tongue. Nevertheless all of\nthem included a number of words which could be traced to common roots. And\nto do this is the business of modern Philology, though to this day, with\nall the respect due to the labours of the eminent Philologists of Oxford\nand Berlin, that Science seems to be hopelessly floundering in the\nCimmerian darkness of mere hypothesis.\n\nAhrens, when speaking of the letters as arranged in the Hebrew sacred\nscrolls, and remarking that they were musical notes, had probably never\nstudied \u00c2ryan Hindu music. In the Sanskrit language letters are\ncontinually arranged in the sacred Ollas so that they may become musical\nnotes. For the whole Sanskrit alphabet and the _Vedas_, from the first\nword to the last, are musical notations reduced to writing; the two are\ninseparable.(360) As Homer distinguished between the \u201clanguage of Gods\u201d\nand the \u201clanguage of men,\u201d(361) so did the Hindus. The Devan\u00e2gar\u00ee, the\nSanskrit characters, are the \u201cspeech of the Gods,\u201d and Sanskrit is the\ndivine language.\n\nIt is argued in defence of the present version of the Mosaic Books that\nthe mode of language adopted was an \u201caccommodation\u201d to the ignorance of\nthe Jewish people. But the said \u201cmode of language\u201d drags down the \u201csacred\ntext\u201d of Esdras and his colleagues to the level of the most unspiritual\nand gross phallic religions. This plea confirms the suspicions entertained\nby some Christian Mystics and many philosophical critics, that:\n\n(_a_) Divine Power as an Absolute Unity had never anything more to do with\nthe Biblical Jehovah and the \u201cLord God\u201d than with any other Sephiroth or\nNumber. The Ain\u2010Suph of the _Kabalah_ of Moses is as independent of any\nrelation with the created Gods as is Parabrahman Itself.\n\n(_b_) The teachings veiled in the _Old Testament_ under allegorical\nexpressions are all copied from the Magical Texts of Babylonia, by Esdras\nand others, while the earlier Mosaic Text had its source in Egypt.\n\nA few instances known to almost all Symbologists of note, and especially\nto the French Egyptologists, may help to prove the statement. Furthermore,\nno ancient Hebrew Philosopher, Philo no more than the Sadducees, claimed,\nas do now the ignorant Christians, that the events in the _Bible_ should\nbe taken literally. Philo says most explicitly:\n\n\n    The verbal statements are fabulous [in the Book of the Law]: it is\n    in the allegory that we shall find the truth.\n\n\nLet us give a few instances, beginning with the latest narrative, the\nHebrew, and thus if possible trace the allegories to their origin.\n\n1. Whence the Creation in six days, the seventh day as day of rest, the\nseven Elohim,(362) and the division of space into heaven and earth, in the\nfirst chapter of _Genesis_?\n\nThe division of the vault above from the Abyss, or Chaos, below is one of\nthe first acts of creation or rather of evolution, in every cosmogony.\nHermes in _Pymander_ speaks of a heaven seen in seven circles with seven\nGods in them. We examine the Assyrian tiles and find the same on them\u2014the\nseven creative Gods busy each in his own sphere. The cuneiform legends\nnarrate how Bel prepared the seven mansions of the Gods; how heaven was\nseparated from the earth. In the Br\u00e2hmanical allegory everything is\nseptenary, from the seven zones, or envelopes, of the Mundane Egg down to\nthe seven continents, islands, seas, etc. The six days of the week and the\nseventh, the Sabbath, are based primarily on the seven creations of the\nHindu Brahm\u00e2, the seventh being that of man; and secondarily on the number\nof generation. It is pre\u00ebminently and most conspicuously phallic. In the\nBabylonian system the seventh day, or period, was that in which man and\nthe animals were created.\n\n2. The Elohim make a woman out of Adam\u2019s rib.(363) This process is found\nin the Magical Texts translated by G. Smith.\n\n\n    The seven Spirits bring forth the woman from the loins of the man,\n\n\nexplains Mr. Sayce in his _Hibbert Lectures_.(364)\n\nThe mystery of the woman who was made from the man is repeated in every\nnational religion, and in Scriptures far antedating the Jewish. You find\nit in the Avestan fragments, in the Egyptian _Book of the Dead_, and\nfinally in Brahm\u00e2, the male, separating from himself, as a female self,\nV\u00e2ch, in whom he creates Vir\u00e2j.\n\n3. The two Adams of the first and second chapters in _Genesis_ originated\nfrom garbled exoteric accounts coming from the Chald\u00e6ans and the Egyptian\nGnostics, revised later from the Persian traditions, most of which are old\n\u00c2ryan allegories. As Adam Kadmon is the seventh creation,(365) so the Adam\nof dust is the eighth; and in the Pur\u00e2nas one finds an eighth, the\nAnugraha creation, and the Egyptian Gnostics had it. Iren\u00e6us, complaining\nof the heretics, says of the Gnostics:\n\n\n    Sometimes they will have him [man] to have been made on the sixth\n    day, and sometimes on the eighth.(366)\n\n\nThe author of _The Hebrew and Other Creations_ writes:\n\n\n    These two creations of man on the sixth day and on the eighth were\n    those of the Adamic, or fleshly man, and of the spiritual man, who\n    were known to Paul and the Gnostics as the first and second Adam,\n    the man of earth and the man of Heaven. Iren\u00e6us also says they\n    insisted that Moses began with the Ogdoad of the Seven Powers and\n    their mother, Sophia (the old Kefa of Egypt, who is the _Living\n    Word_ at Ombos).(367)\n\n\nSophia is also Aditi with her seven sons.\n\nOne might go on enumerating and tracing the Jewish \u201crevelations\u201d _ad\ninfinitum_ to their original sources, were it not that the task is\nsuperfluous, since so much is already done in that direction by others\u2014and\ndone thoroughly well, as in the case of Gerald Massey, who has sifted the\nsubject to the very bottom. Hundreds of volumes, treatises, and pamphlets\nare being written yearly in defence of the \u201cdivine\u2010inspiration\u201d claim for\nthe _Bible_; but symbolical and arch\u00e6ological research is coming to the\nrescue of truth and fact\u2014therefore of the Esoteric Doctrine\u2014upsetting\nevery argument based on faith and breaking it as an idol with feet of\nclay. A curious and learned book, _The Approaching End of the Age_, by H.\nGrattan Guinness, professes to solve the mysteries of the _Bible_\nchronology and to prove thereby God\u2019s direct revelation to man. Among\nother things its author thinks that:\n\n\n    It is impossible to deny that _a septiform chronology was divinely\n    appointed_ in the elaborate ritual of Judaism.\n\n\nThis statement is innocently accepted and fervently believed in by\nthousands and tens of thousands, only because they are ignorant of the\nBibles of other nations. Two pages from a small pamphlet, a lecture by Mr.\nGerald Massey,(368) so upset the arguments and proofs of the enthusiastic\nMr. Grattan Guinness, spread over 760 pages of small print, as to prevent\nthem from ever raising their heads any more. Mr. Massey treats of the\nFall, and says:\n\n\n    Here, as before, the genesis does not begin at the beginning.\n    There was an earlier Fall than that of the Primal Pair. In this\n    the number of those who failed and fell was seven. We meet with\n    those seven in Egypt\u2014eight with the Mother\u2014where they are called\n    the \u201cChildren of Inertness,\u201d who were cast out from Am\u2010Smen, the\n    Paradise of the Eight; also in a Babylonian legend of Creation, as\n    the Seven Brethren, who were Seven Kings, like the Seven Kings in\n    the _Book of Revelation_; and the Seven Non\u2010Sentient Powers, who\n    became the Seven Rebel Angels that made war in heaven. The Seven\n    Kronid\u00e6, described as the Seven Watchers, who in the beginning\n    were formed in the interior of heaven. The heaven, like a vault,\n    they extended or hollowed out; that which was not visible they\n    raised, and that which had no _exit_ they opened; their work of\n    creation being exactly identical with that of the Elohim in the\n    _Book of Genesis_. These are the Seven elemental Powers of space,\n    who were continued as Seven Timekeepers. It is said of them: \u201cIn\n    watching was their office, but among the stars of heaven their\n    watch they kept not,\u201d and their failure was the Fall. In the _Book\n    of Enoch_ the same Seven Watchers in heaven are stars which\n    transgressed the commandment of God before their time arrived, for\n    they came not in their proper season, therefore was he offended\n    with them, and bound them until the period of the consummation of\n    their crimes, at the end of the _secret_, or great year of the\n    World, _i.e._, the Period of Precession, when there was to be\n    restoration and rebeginning. The Seven deposed constellations are\n    seen by Enoch, looking like seven great blazing mountains\n    overthrown\u2014the seven mountains in _Revelation_, on which the\n    Scarlet Lady sits.(369)\n\n\nThere are seven keys to this, as to every other allegory, whether in the\n_Bible_ or in pagan religions. While Mr. Massey has hit upon the key in\nthe mysteries of cosmogony, John Bentley in his _Hindu Astronomy_ claims\nthat the Fall of the Angels, or _War in Heaven_, as given by the Hindus,\nis but a figure of the calculations of time\u2010periods, and goes on to show\nthat among the Western nations the same war, with like results, took the\nform of the war of the Titans.\n\nIn short, he makes it _astronomical_. So does the author of _The Source of\nMeasures_:\n\n\n    The celestial sphere with the earth, was divided into twelve\n    compartments [astronomically], and these compartments were\n    esteemed as _sexed_, the _lords_ or _husbands_ being respectively\n    the planets presiding over them. This being the settled scheme,\n    want of proper correction would bring it to pass, after a time,\n    that error and confusion would ensue by the compartments coming\n    under the lordship of the wrong planets. Instead of lawful\n    wedlock, there would be illegal intercourse, as between the\n    planets, \u201c_sons of Elohim_\u201d and these compartments, \u201cdaughters of\n    H\u2010Adam,\u201d or the _earth_\u2010man; and in fact the fourth verse of sixth\n    _Genesis_ will bear _this_ interpretation for the usual one,\n    _viz._, \u201cIn the same days, or periods, there were untimely births\n    in the earth; and also behind that, when the sons of Elohim came\n    to the daughters of H\u2010Adam, they begat to them the offspring of\n    harlotry,\u201d etc., astronomically indicating this confusion.(370)\n\n\nDo any of these learned explanations explain anything except a possible\ningenious allegory, and a personification of the celestial bodies, by the\nancient Mythologists and Priests? Carried to their last word they would\nundeniably explain much, and would thus furnish one of the right seven\nkeys, fitting a great many of the Biblical puzzles yet opening none\nnaturally and entirely, instead of being scientific and cunning master\u2010\nkeys. But they yet prove one thing\u2014that neither the septiform chronology\nnor the septiform theogony and evolution of all things is of divine origin\nin the _Bible_. For let us see the sources at which the _Bible_ sipped its\ndivine inspiration with regard to the sacred number seven. Says Mr. Massey\nin the same lecture:\n\n\n    The _Book of Genesis_ tells us nothing about the nature of these\n    Elohim, erroneously rendered \u201cGod,\u201d who are creators of the Hebrew\n    beginning, and who are themselves pre\u00ebxtant and seated when the\n    theatre opens and the curtain ascends. It says that in the\n    beginning the Elohim created the heaven and the earth. In\n    thousands of books the Elohim have been discussed, but ... with no\n    conclusive result.... The Elohim are Seven in number, whether as\n    nature\u2010powers, gods of constellations, or planetary gods, ... as\n    the Pitris and Patriarchs, Manus and Fathers of earlier times. The\n    Gnostics, however, and the Jewish _Kabalah_ preserve an account of\n    the Elohim of _Genesis_ by which we are able to identify them with\n    other forms of the seven primordial powers.... Their names are\n    Ildabaoth, Jehovah (or Jao), Sabaoth, Adonai, Eloeus, Oreus, and\n    Astanph\u00e6us. Ildabaoth signifies the Lord God of the fathers, that\n    is the fathers who preceded the Father; and thus the seven are\n    identical with the seven Pitris or Fathers of India (Iren\u00e6us, B.\n    I., xxx., 5). Moreover, the Hebrew Elohim were pre\u00ebxtant by name\n    and nature as Ph\u0153nician divinities or powers. Sanchoniathon\n    mentions them by name, and describes them as Auxiliaries of Kronos\n    or Time. In this phase, then, the Elohim are time\u2010keepers in\n    heaven! In the Ph\u0153nician mythology the Elohim are the Seven sons\n    of Sydik [Melchizedek], identical with the Seven Kabiri, who in\n    Egypt are the Seven sons of Ptah, and the Seven Spirits of Ra in\n    _The Book of the Dead_; ... in America with the seven Hohgates,\n    ... in Assyria with the seven Lumazi.... They are always seven in\n    number ... who _Kab_\u2014that is, turn round, together, whence the\n    \u201cKab\u2010iri.\u201d... They are also the Ili or Gods, in Assyrian, who were\n    seven in number!... They were first born of the Mother in\n    Space,(371) and then the Seven Companions passed into the sphere\n    of time as auxiliaries of Kronus, or Sons of the Male Parent. As\n    Damascius says in his _Primitive Principles_, the Magi consider\n    that space and time were the source of all; and from being powers\n    of the air the gods were promoted to become time\u2010keepers for men.\n    Seven constellations were assigned to them.... As the seven turned\n    round in the ark of the sphere they were designated the Seven\n    Sailors\u2019 Companions, Rishis, or Elohim. The first \u201cSeven Stars\u201d\n    are not planetary. They are the leading stars of seven\n    constellations which turned round with the Great Bear in\n    describing the circle of the year.(372) These the Assyrians called\n    the seven Lumazi, or leaders of the flocks of stars, designated\n    sheep. On the Hebrew line of descent or development, these Elohim\n    are identified for us by the Kabalists and Gnostics, who retained\n    the hidden wisdom or gnosis, the clue of which is absolutely\n    essential to any proper understanding of mythology or theology....\n    There were two constellations with seven stars each. _We_ call\n    them the Two Bears. But the seven stars of the Lesser Bear were\n    once considered to be the seven heads of the Polar Dragon, which\n    we meet with\u2014as the beast with seven heads\u2014in the Akkadian Hymns\n    and in _Revelation_. The mythical dragon originated in the\n    crocodile, which is the dragon of Egypt.... Now in one particular\n    cult, the Sut\u2010Typhonian, the first god was Sevekh [the seven\u2010\n    fold], who wears the crocodile\u2019s head, as well as the Serpent, and\n    who is the Dragon, or whose constellation was the Dragon.... In\n    Egypt the Great Bear was the constellation of Typhon, or _Kepha_,\n    the old genetrix, called the Mother of the Revolutions; and the\n    Dragon with seven heads was assigned to her son, Sevekh\u2010Kronus, or\n    Saturn, called the Dragon of Life. That is, the typical dragon or\n    serpent with seven heads was female at first, and then the type\n    was continued, as male in her son Sevekh, the Sevenfold Serpent,\n    in Ea the Sevenfold, ... Iao Chnubis, and others. We find these\n    two in _The Book of Revelation_. One is the Scarlet Lady, the\n    mother of mystery, the great harlot, who sat on a scarlet\u2010coloured\n    beast with seven heads, which is the Red Dragon of the Pole. She\n    held in her hand the unclean things of her fornication. That means\n    the emblems of the male and female, imaged by the Egyptians at the\n    Polar Centre, the very uterus of creation, as was indicated by the\n    Thigh constellation, called the Khepsh of Typhon, the old Dragon,\n    in the northern birthplace of Time in heaven. The two revolved\n    about the _pole of heaven_, or the Tree, as it was called, which\n    was figured at the centre of the starry motion. In _The Book of\n    Enoch_ these two constellations are identified as Leviathan and\n    Behemoth\u2010Bekhmut, or the Dragon and Hippopotamus = Great Bear, and\n    they are the primal pair that were first created in the Garden of\n    Eden. So that the Egyptian first mother, Kefa [or Kepha] whose\n    name signifies \u201cmystery,\u201d was the original of the Hebrew Chavah,\n    our Eve; and therefore Adam is one with Sevekh the sevenfold one,\n    the solar dragon in whom the powers of light and darkness were\n    combined, and the sevenfold nature was shown in the seven rays\n    worn by the Gnostic Iao\u2010Chnubis, god of the number seven, who is\n    Sevekh by name and a form of the first father as head of the\n    Seven.(373)\n\n\nAll this gives the key to the astronomical prototype of the allegory in\n_Genesis_, but it furnishes no other key to the mystery involved in the\nsevenfold glyph. The able Egyptologist shows also that Adam himself\naccording to Rabbinical and Gnostic tradition, was the chief of the Seven\nwho fell from Heaven, and he connects these with the Patriarchs, thus\nagreeing with the Esoteric Teaching. For by mystic permutation and the\nmystery of primeval rebirths and adjustment, the Seven Rishis are in\nreality identical with the seven Praj\u00e2patis, the fathers and creators of\nmankind, and also with the Kum\u00e2ras, the first sons of Brahm\u00e2, who refused\nto procreate and multiply. This apparent contradiction is explained by the\nseven\u2010fold nature\u2014make it four\u2010fold on metaphysical principles and it will\ncome to the same thing\u2014of the celestial men, the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans. This\nnature is made to divide and separate; and while the higher principles\n(\u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi) of the \u201cCreators of Men\u201d are said to be the Spirits of the\nseven constellations, their middle and lower principles are connected with\nthe earth and are shown\n\n\n    Without desire or passion, inspired with holy wisdom, estranged\n    from the Universe and undesirous of progeny,(374)\n\n\nremaining Kaum\u00e2ric (virgin and undefiled); therefore it is said they\nrefused to create. For this they are cursed and sentenced to be born and\nreborn \u201cAdams,\u201d as the Semites would say.\n\nMeanwhile let me quote a few lines more from Mr. G. Massey\u2019s lecture, the\nfruit of his long researches in Egyptology and other ancient lore, as it\nshows that the septenary division was at one time a universal doctrine:\n\n\n    Adam as the father among the Seven is identical with the Egyptian\n    Atum, ... whose other name of Adon is identical with the Hebrew\n    Adonai. In this way the second Creation in _Genesis_ reflects and\n    continues the later creation in the mythos which explains it. The\n    Fall of Adam to the lower world led to his being humanised on\n    earth, by which process the celestial was turned into the mortal,\n    and this, which belongs to the astronomical allegory, got\n    literalised as the Fall of Man, or descent of the soul into\n    matter, and the conversion of the angelic into an earthly\n    being.... It is found in the [Babylonian] texts, when Ea, the\n    first father, is said to \u201cgrant forgiveness to the conspiring\n    gods,\u201d for whose \u201credemption did he create mankind.\u201d (Sayce; _Hib.\n    Lec._, p. 140) ... The Elohim, then, are the Egyptian, Akkadian,\n    Hebrew, and Ph\u0153nician form of the Universal Seven Powers, who are\n    Seven in Egypt, Seven in Akkad, Babylon, Persia, India, Britain,\n    and Seven among the Gnostics and Kabalists. They were the Seven\n    fathers who preceded the Father in Heaven, because they were\n    earlier than the individualised fatherhood on earth.... When the\n    Elohim said: \u201cLet us make man in our image, after our likeness,\u201d\n    there were seven of them who represented the seven elements,\n    powers, or souls that went to the making of the human being who\n    came into existence before the Creator was represented\n    anthropomorphically, or could have conferred the human likeness on\n    the Adamic man. It was in the sevenfold image of the Elohim that\n    man was first created, with his seven elements, principles or\n    souls,(375) and therefore he could not have been formed in the\n    image of the one God. The seven Gnostic Elohim tried to make a man\n    in their own image, but could not for lack of virile power.(376)\n    Thus their creation in earth and heaven was a failure ... because\n    they themselves were lacking in the soul of the fatherhood! When\n    the Gnostic Ildabaoth,(377) chief of the Seven, cried: \u201cI am the\n    father and God,\u201d his mother Sophia [Achamoth] replied: \u201cDo not\n    tell lies, Ildabaoth, for the first man (Anthropos, son of\n    Anthropos)(378) is above thee.\u201d That is, man who had now been\n    created in the image of the fatherhood was superior to the gods\n    who were derived from the Mother\u2010Parent alone!(379) For, as it had\n    been first on earth, so was it afterwards in heaven [the Secret\n    Doctrine teaches the reverse]; and thus the primary gods were held\n    to be soulless like the earliest races of men.... The Gnostics\n    taught that the Spirits of Wickedness, the inferior Seven, derived\n    their origin from the great Mother alone, who produced without the\n    fatherhood! It was in the image, then, of the sevenfold Elohim\n    that the seven races were formed which we sometimes hear of as the\n    Pre\u2010Adamite races of men, because they were earlier than the\n    fatherhood, which was individualised only in the second Hebrew\n    Creation.(380)\n\n\nThis shows sufficiently how the echo of the Secret Doctrine\u2014of the Third\nand Fourth Races of men, made complete by the incarnation in humanity of\nthe M\u00e2nasa Putra, Sons of Intelligence or Wisdom\u2014reached every corner of\nthe globe. The Jews, however, although they borrowed of the older nations\nthe groundwork on which to build their revelation, never had more than\nthree keys out of the seven in their mind, while composing their national\nallegories\u2014the astronomical, the numerical (metrology), and above all the\npurely anthropological, or rather physiological key. This resulted in the\nmost phallic religion of all, and has now passed, part and parcel, into\nChristian theology, as is proved by the lengthy quotations made from a\nlecture of an able Egyptologist, who can make naught of it save\nastronomical myths and phallicism, as is implied by his explanations of\n\u201cfatherhood\u201d in the allegories.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXII. THE \u201cZOHAR\u201d ON CREATION AND THE ELOHIM.\n\n\nThe opening sentence in _Genesis_, as every Hebrew scholar knows, is:\n\n\u05d1\u05e8\u05d0\u05e9\u05d9\u05ea \u05d1\u05e8\u05d0 \u05d0\u05dc\u05d4\u05d9\u05dd \u05d0\u05ea \u05d4\u05e9\u05de\u05d9\u05dd \u05d5\u05d0\u05ea \u05d4\u05d0\u05e8\u05e5\n\nNow there are two well\u2010known ways of rendering this line, as any other\nHebrew writing: one exoteric, as read by the orthodox _Bible_ interpreters\n(Christian), and the other Kabalistic, the latter, moreover, being divided\ninto the Rabbinical and the purely Kabalistic or Occult method. As in\nSanskrit writing, the words are not separated in the Hebrew, but are made\nto run together\u2014especially in the old systems. For instance, the above,\ndivided, would read: \u201c_B\u2019rashith bara Elohim eth hashamayim v\u2019eth\nh\u2019areths_;\u201d and it can be made to read thus: \u201c_B\u2019rash ithbara Elohim\nethhashamayim v\u2019eth\u2019arets_,\u201d thus changing the meaning entirely. The\nlatter means, \u201cIn the beginning _God made the heavens_ and the earth,\u201d\nwhereas the former, precluding the idea of any beginning, would simply\nread that \u201cout of the ever\u2010existing Essence [divine] [or out of the\n_womb_\u2014also head\u2014thereof] the dual [or androgyne] Force [Gods] shaped the\ndouble heaven;\u201d the upper and the lower heaven being generally explained\nas heaven and earth. The latter word means Esoterically the \u201cVehicle,\u201d as\nit gives the idea of an empty globe, within which the manifestation of the\nworld takes place. Now, according to the rules of Occult symbolical\nreading as established in the old _Sepher Jetzirah_ (in the Chald\u00e6an _Book\nof Numbers_(381)) the initial fourteen letters (or \u201cB\u2019rasitb\u2019 raalaim\u201d)\nare in themselves quite sufficient to explain the theory of \u201ccreation\u201d\nwithout any further explanation or qualification. Every letter of them is\na sentence; and, placed side by side with the hieroglyphic or pictorial\ninitial version of \u201ccreation\u201d in the _Book of Dzyan_, the origin of the\nPh\u0153nician and Jewish letters would soon be found out. A whole volume of\nexplanations would give no more to the student of primitive Occult\nSymbology than this: the head of a bull within a circle, a straight\nhorizontal line, a circle or sphere, then another one with three dots in\nit, a triangle, then the Svastika (or Jaina cross); after these come an\nequilateral triangle within a circle, seven small bulls\u2019 heads standing in\nthree rows, one over the other; a black round dot (an opening), and then\nseven lines, meaning Chaos or Water (feminine).\n\nAnyone acquainted with the symbolical and numerical value of the Hebrew\nletters will see at a glance that this glyph and the letters of \u201cB\u2019rasith\u2019\nraalaim\u201d are identical in meaning. \u201cBeth\u201d is \u201cabode\u201d or \u201cregion;\u201d \u201cResh,\u201d\na \u201ccircle\u201d or \u201chead;\u201d \u201cAleph,\u201d \u201cbull\u201d (the symbol of generative or\ncreative power(382)); \u201cShin,\u201d a \u201ctooth\u201d (300 exoterically\u2014a trident or\n_three in one_ in its Occult meaning); \u201cJodh,\u201d the perfect unity or\n\u201cone\u201d(383); \u201cTau,\u201d the \u201croot\u201d or \u201cfoundation\u201d (the same as the cross with\nthe Egyptians and \u00c2ryans): again, \u201cBeth,\u201d \u201cResh,\u201d and \u201cAleph.\u201d Then\n\u201cAleph,\u201d or seven bulls for the seven Alaim; an ox\u2010goad, \u201cLamedh,\u201d active\nprocreation; \u201cHe,\u201d the \u201copening\u201d or \u201cmatrix;\u201d \u201cYodh,\u201d the organ of\nprocreation; and \u201cMem,\u201d \u201cwater\u201d or \u201cchaos,\u201d the female Power near the male\nthat precedes it.\n\nThe most satisfactory and scientific exoteric rendering of the opening\nsentence of _Genesis_\u2014on which was hung in blind faith the whole Christian\nreligion, synthesized by its fundamental dogmas\u2014is undeniably the one\ngiven in the Appendix to _The Source of Measures_ by Mr. Ralston Skinner.\nHe gives, and we must admit in the ablest, clearest, and most scientific\nway, the numerical reading of this first sentence and chapter in\n_Genesis_. By the means of number 31, or the word \u201cEl\u201d (1 for \u201cAleph\u201d and\n30 for \u201cLamedh\u201d), and other numerical _Bible_ symbols, compared with the\nmeasures used in the great pyramid of Egypt, he shows the perfect identity\nbetween its measurements\u2014inches, cubits, and plan\u2014and the numerical values\nof the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, and the Patriarchs. In short, the\nauthor shows that the pyramid contains in itself architecturally the whole\nof _Genesis_, and discloses the astronomical, and even the physiological,\nsecrets in its symbols and glyphs; yet he will not admit, it would seem,\nthe psycho\u2010cosmical and spiritual mysteries involved in these. Nor does\nthe author apparently see that the root of all this has to be sought in\nthe archaic legends and the Pantheon of India.(384) Failing this, whither\ndoes his great and admirable labour lead him? Not further than to find out\nthat Adam, the earth, and Moses or Jehovah \u201care the same\u201d\u2014or to the a\u2010b\u2010c\nof comparative Occult Symbology\u2014and that the days in _Genesis_ being\n\u201ccircles\u201d \u201cdisplayed by the Hebrews as squares,\u201d the result of the sixth\u2010\nday\u2019s labour culminates in the fructifying principle. Thus the _Bible_ is\nmade to yield Phallicism, and that alone.\n\nNor\u2014read in this light, and as its Hebrew texts are interpreted by Western\nscholars\u2014can it ever yield anything higher or more sublime than such\nphallic elements, the root and the corner\u2010stone of its dead\u2010letter\nmeaning. Anthropomorphism and Revelation dig the impassable chasm between\nthe material world and the ultimate spiritual truths. That creation is not\nthus described in the Esoteric Doctrine is easily shown. The Roman\nCatholics give a reading far more approaching the true Esoteric meaning\nthan that of the Protestant. For several of their saints and doctors admit\nthat the formation of heaven and earth, of the celestial bodies, etc.,\nbelongs to the work of the \u201cSeven Angels of the Presence.\u201d St. Denys calls\nthe \u201cBuilders\u201d \u201cthe co\u00f6perators of God,\u201d and St. Augustine goes even\nfarther, and credits the Angels with the possession of the divine thought,\nthe prototype, as he says, of everything created.(385) And, finally, St.\nThomas Aquinas has a long dissertation upon this topic, calling God the\nprimary, and the Angels the secondary, cause of all visible effects. In\nthis, with some dogmatic differences of form, the \u201cAngelic Doctor\u201d\napproaches very nearly the Gnostic ideas. Basilides speaks of the lowest\norder of Angels as the Builders of our material world, and Saturnilus\nheld, as did the Sab\u00e6ans, that the Seven Angels who preside over the\nplanets are the real creators of the world; the Kabalist\u2010monk, Trithemius,\nin his _De Secundis Deis_, taught the same.\n\nThe eternal _Kosmos_, the Macrocosm, is divided in the Secret Doctrine,\nlike man, the Microcosm, into three Principles and four Vehicles,(386)\nwhich in their collectivity are the seven Principles. In the Chald\u00e6an or\nJewish _Kabalah_, the Kosmos is divided into seven worlds: the Original,\nthe Intelligible, the Celestial, the Elementary, the Lesser (Astral), the\nInfernal (K\u00e2ma\u2010loka or Hades), and the Temporal (of man). In the Chald\u00e6an\nsystem it is in the Intelligible World, the second, that appear the \u201cSeven\nAngels of the Presence,\u201d or the Sephiroth (the three higher ones being, in\nfact, one, and also the sum total of all). They are also the \u201cBuilders\u201d of\nthe Eastern Doctrine: and it is only in the third, the celestial world,\nthat the seven planets and our solar system are built by the seven\nPlanetary Angels, the planets becoming their visible bodies. Hence\u2014as\ncorrectly stated\u2014if the universe as a whole is formed out of the Eternal\n_One_ Substance or Essence, it is not that everlasting Essence, the\nAbsolute Deity, that builds it into shape; this is done by the first Rays,\nthe Angels or Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, that emanate from the One Element, which\nbecoming periodically Light and Darkness, remains eternally, in its Root\u2010\nPrinciple, the one unknown yet existing Reality.\n\nA learned Western Kabalist, Mr. S. L. MacGregor Mathers, whose reasoning\nand conclusions will be the more above suspicion since he is untrained in\nEastern Philosophy and unacquainted with its Secret Teachings, writes on\nthe first verse of _Genesis_ in an unpublished essay:\n\n\n    _Berashith Bara_ Elohim\u2014\u201cIn the beginning the Elohim created!\u201d Who\n    are these Elohim of _Genesis_?\n\n    _Va\u2010Yivra Elohim Ath Ha\u2010Adam Be\u2010Tzalmo, Be\u2010Tzelem Elohim Bara\n    Otho, Zakhar Vingebah Bara Otham_\u2014\u201cAnd the Elohim created the Adam\n    in Their own Image, in the Image of the Elohim created They them,\n    Male and Female created They them!\u201d Who are they, the Elohim? The\n    ordinary English translation of the _Bible_ renders the word\n    Elohim by \u201cGod:\u201d it translates a _plural_ noun by a _singular_\n    one. The only excuse brought forward for this is the somewhat lame\n    one that the word is certainly plural, but is not to be used in a\n    plural sense: that it is \u201ca plural denoting excellence.\u201d But this\n    is only an assumption whose value may be justly gauged by\n    _Genesis_ i. 26, translated in the orthodox Biblical version thus:\n    \u201cAnd God [Elohim] said, \u2018Let us make man in our own image, after\n    our likeness.\u2019 \u201d Here is a distinct admission of the fact that\n    \u201cElohim\u201d is _not_ a \u201cplural of excellence,\u201d but a plural noun\n    denoting more than one being.(387)\n\n    What, then, is the proper translation of \u201cElohim,\u201d and to whom is\n    it referable? \u201cElohim\u201d is not only a plural, but a _feminine\n    plural_! And yet the translators of the _Bible_ have rendered it\n    by a _masculine singular_! Elohim is the plural of the feminine\n    noun El\u2010h, for the final letter, \u2010h, marks the gender. It,\n    however, instead of forming the plural in \u2010oth, takes the usual\n    termination of the masculine plural, which is \u2010im.\n\n    Although in the great majority of cases the nouns of both genders\n    take the terminations appropriated to them respectively, there are\n    yet many masculines which form the plural in \u2010oth, as well as\n    feminine which form it in \u2010im while some nouns of each gender take\n    alternately both. It must be observed, however, that the\n    termination of the plural does not affect its gender, which\n    remains the same as in the singular....\n\n    To find the real meaning of the symbolism involved in this word\n    Elohim we must go to that key of Jewish Esoteric Doctrine, the\n    little\u2010known and less\u2010understood _Kabalah_. There we shall find\n    that this word represents two united masculine and feminine\n    Potencies, co\u2010equal and co\u2010eternal, conjoined in everlasting union\n    for the maintenance of the Universe\u2014the great Father and Mother of\n    Nature, into whom the Eternal One conforms himself before the\n    Universe can subsist. For the teaching of the _Kabalah_ is that\n    before the Deity conformed himself thus\u2014_i.e._ as male and\n    female\u2014the Worlds of the Universe could not subsist; or in the\n    words of _Genesis_, that \u201cthe earth was formless and void.\u201d Thus,\n    then, is the conformation of the Elohim, the end of the Formless\n    and the Void and the Darkness, for only after that conformation\n    can the _Ruach Elohim_\u2014the \u201cSpirit of the Elohim\u201d\u2014vibrate upon the\n    countenance of the Waters. But this is a very small part of the\n    information which the Initiate can derive from the _Kabalah_\n    concerning this word _Elohim_.\n\n\nAttention must here be called to the confusion\u2014if not worse\u2014which reigns\nin the Western interpretations of the _Kabalah_. The Eternal _One_ is said\nto conform himself into two: the Great Father and Mother of Nature. To\nbegin with, it is a horribly anthropomorphic conception to apply terms\nimplying sexual distinction to the earliest and first differentiations of\nthe One. And it is even more erroneous to identify these first\ndifferentiations\u2014the Purusha and Prakriti of Indian Philosophy\u2014with the\nElohim, the creative powers here spoken of; and to ascribe to these (to\nour intellects) unimaginable abstractions, the formation and construction\nof this visible world, full of pain, sin, and sorrow. In truth, the\n\u201ccreation by the Elohim\u201d spoken of here is but a much later \u201ccreation,\u201d\nand the Elohim far from being supreme, or even exalted powers in Nature,\nare only lower Angels. This was the teaching of the Gnostics, the most\nphilosophical of all the early Christian Churches. They taught that the\nimperfections of the world were due to the imperfection of its Architects\nor Builders\u2014the imperfect, and therefore inferior, Angels. The Hebrew\nElohim correspond to the Praj\u00e2pati of the Hindus, and it is shown\nelsewhere from the Esoteric interpretation of the Pur\u00e2nas that the\nPraj\u00e2pati were the fashioners of man\u2019s material and astral form _only_:\nthat they could not give him intelligence or reason, and therefore in\nsymbolical language they \u201cfailed to create man.\u201d But, not to repeat what\nthe reader can find elsewhere in this work, his attention needs only to be\ncalled to the fact that \u201ccreation\u201d in this passage is not the Primary\nCreation, and that the Elohim are not \u201c_God_,\u201d nor even the higher\nPlanetary Spirits, but the Architects of this visible physical planet and\nof man\u2019s material body, or encasement.\n\n\n    A fundamental doctrine of the _Kabalah_ is that the gradual\n    development of the Deity from negative to positive Existence is\n    symbolized by the gradual development of the Ten Numbers of the\n    denary scale of numeration, from the Zero, through the Unity, into\n    the Plurality. This is the doctrine of the Sephiroth, or\n    Emanations.\n\n    For the inward and concealed Negative Form concentrates a centre\n    which is the primal Unity. But the Unity is one and indivisible:\n    it can neither be increased by multiplication nor decreased by\n    division, for 1 \u00d7 1 = 1, and no more; and 1 \u00f7 1 = 1, and no less.\n    And it is this changelessness of the Unity, or Monad, which makes\n    it a fitting type of the One and Changeless Deity. It answers thus\n    to the Christian idea of God the Father, for as the Unity is the\n    parent of the other numbers, so is the Deity the Father of All.\n\n\nThe philosophical Eastern mind would never fall into the error which the\n_connotation_ of these words implies. With them the \u201cOne and\nChangeless\u201d\u2014Parabrahman\u2014the Absolute All and One, cannot be conceived as\nstanding in any _relation_ to things finite and conditioned, and hence\nthey would never use such terms as these, which in their very essence\nimply such a relation. Do they, then, absolutely sever man from God? On\nthe contrary. They feel a closer union than the Western mind has done in\ncalling God the \u201cFather of All,\u201d for they know that in his immortal\nessence man _is_ himself the Changeless, Secondless One.\n\n\n    But we have just said that the Unity is one and changeless by\n    either multiplication or division; how then is two, the Duad,\n    formed? By reflection. For, unlike Zero, the Unity is partly\n    definable\u2014that is, in its positive aspect; and the definition\n    creates an Eikon or Eidolon of itself which, together with itself,\n    forms a Duad; and thus the number two is to a certain extent\n    analogous to the Christian idea of the Son as the Second Person.\n    And as the Monad vibrates, and recoils into the Darkness of the\n    Primary Thought, so is the Duad left as its vice\u2010gerent and\n    representative, and thus co\u2010equal with the Positive Duad is the\n    Triune Idea, the number three, co\u2010equal and co\u2010eternal with the\n    Duad in the bosom of the Unity, yet, as it were, proceeding\n    therefrom in the numerical conception of its sequence.\n\n\nThis explanation would seem to imply that Mr. Mathers is aware that this\n\u201ccreation\u201d is not the truly divine or primary one, since the Monad\u2014the\nfirst manifestation on _our_ plane of objectivity\u2014\u201crecoils into the\nDarkness of the Primal Thought,\u201d _i.e._, into the subjectivity of the\nfirst divine Creation.\n\n\n    And this, again, also partly answers to the Christian idea of the\n    Holy Ghost, and of the whole three forming a Trinity in unity.\n    This also explains the fact in geometry of the three right lines\n    being the smallest number which will make a plane rectilineal\n    figure, while two can never enclose a space, being powerless and\n    without effect till completed by the number Three. These three\n    first numbers of the decimal scale the Qabalists call by the names\n    of Kether, the Crown, Chokmah, Wisdom, and Binah, Understanding;\n    and they furthermore associate with them these divine names: with\n    the Unity, Eheich, \u201cI exist;\u201d with the Duad, Yah; and with the\n    Triad, Elohim; they especially also call the Duad, Abba\u2014the\n    Father, and the Triad, Aima\u2014the Mother, whose eternal conjunction\n    is symbolized in the word Elohim.\n\n    But what especially strikes the student of the _Kabalah_ is the\n    malicious persistency with which the translators of the _Bible_\n    have jealously crowded out of sight and suppressed every reference\n    to the feminine form of the Deity. They have, as we have just\n    seen, translated the feminine plural \u201cElohim,\u201d by the masculine\n    singular, \u201cGod.\u201d But they have done more than this: they have\n    carefully hidden the fact that the word Ruach\u2014the \u201cSpirit\u201d\u2014is\n    feminine, and that consequently the Holy Ghost of the _New\n    Testament_ is a feminine Potency. How many Christians are\n    cognizant of the fact that in the account of the Incarnation in\n    _Luke_ (i. 35) _two_ divine Potencies are mentioned?\n\n    \u201cThe Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the Power of the Highest\n    shall overshadow thee.\u201d The Holy Ghost (the feminine Potency)\n    descends, and the Power of the Highest (the masculine Potency) is\n    united therewith. \u201cTherefore also that holy thing which shall be\n    born of thee shall be called the Son of God\u201d\u2014of the Elohim namely,\n    seeing that these two Potencies descend.\n\n    In the _Sepher Yetzirah_, or _Book of Formation_, we read:\n\n    \u201cOne is She the Ruach Elohim Ch\u00fcm\u2014(Spirit of the Living\n    Elohim).... Voice, Spirit, and Word; and this is She, the Spirit\n    of the Holy One.\u201d Here again we see the intimate connection which\n    exists between the Holy Spirit and the Elohim. Furthermore,\n    farther on in this same _Book of Formation_\u2014which, is, be it\n    remembered, one of the oldest of the Kabalistical Books, and whose\n    authorship is ascribed to Abraham the Patriarch\u2014we shall find the\n    idea of a Feminine Trinity in the first place, from whom a\n    masculine Trinity proceeds; or, as it is said in the text: \u201cThree\n    Mothers whence proceed three Fathers.\u201d And yet this double Triad\n    forms, as it were, but one complete Trinity. Again it is worthy of\n    note that the Second and Third Sephiroth (Wisdom and\n    Understanding) are both distinguished by feminine names, Chokmah\n    and Binah, notwithstanding that to the former more particularly\n    the masculine idea, and to the latter the feminine, are\n    attributed, under the titles of Abba and Aima (or Father and\n    Mother). This Aima (the Great Mother) is magnificently symbolized\n    in the twelfth chapter of the _Apocalypse_, which is undoubtedly\n    one of the most Kabalistical books in the _Bible_. In fact,\n    without the Kabalistical keys its meaning is utterly\n    unintelligible.\n\n    Now, in the Hebrew, as in the Greek, alphabet, there are no\n    distinct numeral characters, and consequently each letter has a\n    certain numerical value attached to it. From this circumstance\n    results the important fact that every Hebrew word constitutes a\n    number, and every number a word. This is referred to in the\n    _Revelations_ (xiii. 18) in mentioning the \u201cnumber of the beast\u201d!\n    In the _Kabalah_ words of equal numerical values are supposed to\n    have a certain explanatory connection with each other. This forms\n    the science of Gematria, which is the first division of the\n    Literal _Kabalah_. Furthermore, each letter of the Hebrew alphabet\n    had for the Initiates of the _Kabalah_ a certain hieroglyphical\n    value and meaning which, rightly applied, gave to each word the\n    value of a mystical sentence; and this again was variable\n    according to the relative positions of the letters with regard to\n    each other. From these various Kabalistical points of view let us\n    now examine this word Elohim.\n\n    First then we can divide the word into the two words, which\n    signify \u201cThe Feminine Divinity of the Waters;\u201d compare with the\n    Greek Aphrodite. \u201csprung from the foam of the sea.\u201d Again it is\n    divisible into the \u201cMighty One, Star of the Sea,\u201d or \u201cthe Mighty\n    One breathing forth the Spirit upon the Waters.\u201d Also by\n    combination of the letters we get \u201cthe Silent Power of Iah.\u201d And\n    again, \u201cMy God, the Former of the Universe,\u201d for _Mah_ is a secret\n    Kabalistical name applied to the idea of Formation. Also we obtain\n    \u201cWho is my God.\u201d Furthermore \u201cthe Mother in Iah.\u201d\n\n    The total number is 1 + 30 + 5 + 10 + 40 = 86 = \u201cViolent heat,\u201d or\n    \u201cthe Power of Fire.\u201d If we add together the three middle letters\n    we obtain 45, and the first and last letters yield 41, making thus\n    \u201cthe Mother of Formation.\u201d Lastly, we shall find the two divine\n    names \u201cEl\u201d and \u201cYah,\u201d together with the letter _m_, which\n    signifies \u201cWater,\u201d for Mem, the name of this letter, means\n    \u201cwater.\u201d\n\n    If we divide it into its component letters and take them as\n    hieroglyphical signs we shall have:\n\n    \u201cWill perfected through Sacrifice progressing through successive\n    Transformation by Inspiration.\u201d\n\n\nThe last few paragraphs of the above, in which the word \u201cElohim\u201d is\nKabalistically analyzed, show conclusively enough that the Elohim are not\none, nor two, nor even a trinity, but a Host\u2014the army of the creative\npowers.\n\nThe Christian Church, in making of Jehovah\u2014one of these very Elohim\u2014the\none Supreme God, has introduced hopeless confusion into the celestial\nhierarchy, in spite of the volumes written by Thomas Aquinas and his\nschool on the subject. The only explanation to be found in all their\ntreatises on the nature and essence of the numberless classes of celestial\nbeings mentioned in the _Bible_\u2014Archangels, Thrones, Seraphim, Cherubim,\nMessengers, etc.\u2014is that \u201cThe angelic host is God\u2019s militia.\u201d They are\n\u201cGods _the creatures_,\u201d while he is \u201cGod _the Creator_;\u201d but of their true\nfunctions\u2014of their actual place in the economy of Nature\u2014not one word is\nsaid. They are\n\n\n    More brilliant than the flames, more rapid than the wind, and they\n    live in love and harmony, mutually enlightening each other,\n    feeding on bread and a mystic beverage\u2014the communion wine and\n    water?\u2014surrounding as with a _river of fire_ the throne of the\n    Lamb, and veiling their faces with their wings. This throne of\n    love and glory they leave only to carry to the stars, the earth,\n    the kingdoms and all the sons of God, their brothers and pupils,\n    in short, to all creatures _like themselves_ the divine\n    influence.... As to their number, it is that of the great army of\n    Heaven (Sabaoth), more numerous than the stars.... Theology shows\n    us these rational luminaries, each constituting a species, and\n    containing in their natures such or another position of Nature:\n    covering immense space, though of a determined area;\n    residing\u2014incorporeal though they are\u2014within circumscribed limits;\n    ... more rapid than light or thunderbolt, disposing of all the\n    elements of Nature, providing at will inexplicable mirages\n    [illusions?], objective and subjective in turn, speaking to men a\n    language at one time articulate, at another purely spiritual.(388)\n\n\nWe learn farther on in the same work that it is these Angels and their\nhosts who are referred to in the sentence of verse I, chapter ii, of\n_Genesis_: \u201cIgitur perfecti sunt c\u0153li et terra et omnis ornatus eorum:\u201d\nand that the Vulgate has peremptorily substituted for the Hebrew word\n\u201ctsaba\u201d (\u201chost\u201d) that of \u201cornament;\u201d Munck shows the mistake of\nsubstitution and the derivation of the compound title, \u201cTsabaoth\u2010Elohim,\u201d\nfrom \u201ctsaba.\u201d Moreover, Cornelius \u00e0 Lapide, \u201cthe master of all Biblical\ncommentators,\u201d says de Mirville, shows us that such was the real meaning.\nThose Angels are stars.\n\nAll this, however, teaches us very little as to the true functions of this\ncelestial army, and nothing at all as to its place in evolution and its\nrelation to the earth we live on. For an answer to the question, \u201cWho are\nthe true Creators?\u201d we must go to the Esoteric Doctrine, since there only\ncan the key be found which will render intelligible the Theogonies of the\nvarious world\u2010religions.\n\nThere we find that the real creator of the Kosmos, as of all visible\nNature\u2014if not of all the invisible hosts of Spirits not yet drawn into the\n\u201cCycle of Necessity,\u201d or evolution\u2014is \u201cthe Lord\u2014the Gods,\u201d or the \u201cWorking\nHost,\u201d the \u201cArmy\u201d collectively taken, the \u201cOne in many.\u201d\n\nThe One is infinite and unconditioned. It cannot create, for It can have\nno relation to the finite and conditioned. If everything we see, from the\nglorious suns and planets down to the blades of grass and the specks of\ndust, had been created by the Absolute Perfection and were the direct work\nof even the _First_ Energy that proceeded from It,(389) then every such\nthing would have been perfect, eternal, and unconditioned, like its\nauthor. The millions upon millions of imperfect works found in Nature\ntestify loudly that they are the products of finite, conditioned\nbeings\u2014though the latter were and are Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, Archangels, or what\never else they may be named. In short, these imperfect works are the\nunfinished production of evolution, under the guidance of the imperfect\nGods. The _Zohar_ gives us this assurance as well as the Secret Doctrine.\nIt speaks of the auxiliaries of the \u201cAncient of Days,\u201d the \u201cSacred Aged,\u201d\nand calls them Auphanim, or the living Wheels of the celestial orbs, who\nparticipate in the work of the creation of the Universe.\n\nThus it is not the \u201cPrinciple,\u201d One and Unconditioned, nor even Its\nreflection, that creates, but only the \u201cSeven Gods\u201d who fashion the\nUniverse out of the eternal Matter, vivified into objective life by the\nreflection into it of the One Reality.\n\nThe Creator is they\u2014\u201cGod the Host\u201d\u2014called in the Secret Doctrine the Dhy\u00e2n\nChohans; with the Hindus the Praj\u00e2patis; with the Western Kabalists the\nSephiroth; and with the Buddhist the Devas\u2014impersonal because blind\nforces. They are the Amshaspends with the Zoroastrians, and while with the\nChristian Mystic the \u201cCreator\u201d is the \u201cGods of the God,\u201d with the dogmatic\nChurchman he is the \u201cGod of the Gods,\u201d the \u201cLord of lords,\u201d etc.\n\n\u201cJehovah\u201d is only the God who is greater than all Gods in the eyes of\nIsrael.\n\n\n    I know, that the Lord [of Israel] is great and that our Lord is\n    above all gods.(390)\n\n\nAnd again:\n\n\n    For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the\n    heavens.(391)\n\n\nThe Egyptian Neteroo, translated by Champollion \u201c_the other Gods_\u201d are the\nElohim of the Biblical writers, behind which stands concealed the One God,\nconsidered in the diversity of his powers.(392) This One is not\nParabrahman, but the Unmanifested Logos, the Demiurgos, the real Creator\nor Fashioner, that follows him, standing for the Demiurgi collectively\ntaken. Further on the great Egyptologist adds:\n\n\n    We see Egypt concealing and hiding, so to say, _the_ God of Gods\n    behind the _agents_ she surrounds him with; she gives the\n    precedence to her great gods before the one and sole Deity, so\n    that the attributes of that God become their property. Those great\n    Gods proclaim themselves uncreate.... Neith is \u201c_that which is_,\u201d\n    as Jehovah;(393) Thoth is self\u2010created(394) without having been\n    begotten, etc. Judaism annihilating these potencies before the\n    grandeur of its God, they cease to be simply Powers, like Philo\u2019s\n    Archangels, like the Sephiroth of the _Kabalah_, like the Ogdoades\n    of the Gnostics\u2014they merge together and become transformed into\n    God himself.(395)\n\n\nJehovah is thus, as the _Kabalah_ teaches, at best but the \u201cHeavenly Man,\u201d\nAdam Kadmon, used by the self\u2010created Spirit, the Logos, as a chariot, a\nvehicle in His descent towards manifestation in the phenomenal world.\n\nSuch are the teachings of the Archaic Wisdom, nor can they be repudiated\neven by the orthodox Christian, if he be sincere and open\u2010minded in the\nstudy of his own Scripture. For if he reads St. Paul\u2019s _Epistles_\ncarefully he will find that the Secret Doctrine and the _Kabalah_ are\nfully admitted by the \u201cApostle of the Gentiles.\u201d The Gnosis which he\nappears to condemn is no less for him than for Plato \u201cthe supreme\nknowledge of the truth and of the One Being;\u201d(396) for what St. Paul\ncondemns is not the true, but only the false, Gnosis and its abuses:\notherwise how could he use the language of a Platonist _pur sang_? The\nIdeas, types (Archai), of the Greek Philosopher; the Intelligences of\nPythagoras; the \u00c6ons or Emanations of the Pantheist; the Logos or Word,\nChief of these Intelligences; the Sophia or Wisdom; the Demiurgos, the\nBuilder of the world under the direction of the Father, the Unmanifested\nLogos, from which He emanates; Ain\u2010Suph, the Unknown of the Infinite; the\nangelic Periods; the _Seven_ Spirits who are the representatives of the\n_Seven_ of all the older cosmogonies\u2014are all to be found in his writings,\nrecognized by the Church as canonical and divinely inspired. Therein, too,\nmay be recognized the Depths of Ahriman, Rector of this our World, the\n\u201cGod of this World;\u201d the Pleroma of the Intelligences; the Archontes of\nthe air; the Principalities, the Kabalistic Metatron; and they can easily\nbe identified again in the Roman Catholic writers when read in the\noriginal Greek and Latin texts, English translations giving but a very\npoor idea of the real contents of these.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXIII. WHAT THE OCCULTISTS AND KABALISTS HAVE TO SAY.\n\n\nThe _Zohar_, an unfathomable store of hidden wisdom and mystery, is very\noften appealed to by Roman Catholic writers. A very learned Rabbi, now the\nChevalier Drach, having been converted to Roman Catholicism, and being a\ngreat Hebraist, thought fit to step into the shoes of Picus de Mirandola\nand John Reuchlin, and to assure his new co\u2010religionists that the _Zohar_\ncontained in it pretty nearly all the dogmas of Catholicism. It is not our\nprovince to show here how far he has succeeded or failed; only to bring\none instance of his explanations and preface it with the following:\n\nThe _Zohar_, as already shown, is not a genuine production of the Hebrew\nmind. It is the repository and compendium of the oldest doctrines of the\nEast, transmitted orally at first, and then written down in independent\ntreatises during the Captivity at Babylon, and finally brought together by\nRabbi Simeon Ben Iochai, toward the beginning of the Christian era. As\nMosaic cosmogony was born under a new form in Mesopotamian countries, so\nthe _Zohar_ was a vehicle in which were focussed rays from the light of\nUniversal Wisdom. Whatever likenesses are found between it and the\nChristian teachings, the compilers of the _Zohar_ never had Christ in\ntheir minds. Were it otherwise there would not be one single Jew of the\nMosaic law left in the world by this time. Again, if one is to accept\nliterally what the _Zohar_ says, then any religion under the sun may find\ncorroboration in its symbols and allegorical sayings; and this, simply\nbecause this work is the echo of the primitive truths, and every creed is\nfounded on some of these; the _Zohar_ being but a veil of the Secret\nDoctrine. This is so evident that we have only to point to the said ex\u2010\nRabbi, the Chevalier Drach, to prove the fact.\n\nIn Part III, fol. 87 (col. 346th) the _Zohar_ treats of the Spirit guiding\nthe Sun, its Rector, explaining that it is not the Sun itself that is\nmeant thereby, but the Spirit \u201con, or _under_\u201d the Sun. Drach is anxious\nto show that it was Christ who was meant by that \u201cSun,\u201d or the Solar\nSpirit therein. In his comment upon that passage which refers to the Solar\nSpirit as \u201cthat stone which the builders rejected,\u201d he asserts most\npositively that this\n\n\n    Sun\u2010stone (_pierre soleil_) is identical with Christ, who was that\n    stone,\n\n\nand that therefore\n\n\n    The sun is undeniably (_sans contredit_) the second hypostasis of\n    the Deity,(397) or Christ.\n\n\nIf this be true, then the Vaidic or pre\u2010Vaidic \u00c2ryans, Chald\u00e6ans and\nEgyptians, like all Occultists past, present, and future, Jews included,\nhave been Christians from all eternity. If this be not so, then modern\nChurch Christianity is Paganism pure and simple exoterically, and\ntranscendental and practical Magic, or Occultism, Esoterically.\n\nFor this \u201cstone\u201d has a manifold significance, a dual existence, with\ngradations, a regular progression and retrogression. It is a \u201cmystery\u201d\nindeed.\n\nThe Occultists are quite ready to agree with St. Chrysostom, that the\ninfidels\u2014the _profane_, rather\u2014\n\n\n    Being blinded by sun\u2010light, thus lose sight of the true Sun in the\n    contemplation of the false one.\n\n\nBut if that Saint, and along with him now the Hebraist Drach, chose to see\nin the _Zohar_ and the Kabalistic Sun \u201cthe _second_ hypostasis,\u201d this is\nno reason why all others should be blinded by them. The mystery of the Sun\nis the grandest perhaps, of all the innumerable mysteries of Occultism. A\nGordian knot, truly, but one that cannot be severed with the double\u2010edged\nsword of scholastic casuistry. It is a true _deo dignus vindice nodus_,\nand can be untied only by the _Gods_. The meaning of this is plain, and\nevery Kabalist will understand it.\n\n_Contra solem ne loquaris_ was not said by Pythagoras with regard to the\nvisible Sun. It was the \u201cSun of Initiation\u201d that was meant, in its triple\nform\u2014two of which are the \u201cDay\u2010Sun\u201d and the \u201cNight\u2010Sun.\u201d\n\nIf behind the physical luminary there were no mystery that people sensed\ninstinctively, why should every nation, from the primitive peoples down to\nthe Pars\u00ees of to\u2010day, have turned towards the Sun during prayers? The\nSolar Trinity is not Mazdean, but is universal, and is as old as man. All\nthe temples in Antiquity were invariably made to face the Sun, their\nportals to open to the East. See the old temples of Memphis and Baalbec,\nthe Pyramids of the Old and of the New (?) Worlds, the Round Towers of\nIreland, and the Serapeum of Egypt. The Initiates alone could give a\nphilosophical explanation of this, and a reason for it\u2014its mysticism\nnotwithstanding\u2014were only the world ready to receive it, which alas! it is\nnot. The last of the Solar Priests in Europe was the Imperial Initiate,\nJulian, now called the Apostate.(398) He tried to benefit the world by\nrevealing at least a portion of the great mystery of the \u03c4\u03c1\u03b5\u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03c3\u03b9\u03bf\u03c2\nand\u2014_he died_. \u201cThere are three in one,\u201d he said of the Sun\u2014the central\nSun(399) being a precaution of Nature: the first is the universal cause of\nall, Sovereign Good and perfection; the Second Power is paramount\nIntelligence, having dominion over all reasonable beings, \u03bd\u03bf\u03b5\u03c1\u03bf\u1fd6\u03c2; the\nthird is the visible Sun. The pure energy of solar intelligence proceeds\nfrom the luminous seat occupied by our Sun in the centre of heaven, that\npure energy being the Logos of our system; the \u201cMysterious Word Spirit\nproduces all through the Sun, and never operates through any other\nmedium,\u201d says Hermes Trismegistus. For it is _in_ the Sun, more than in\nany other heavenly body that the [unknown] Power placed the seat of its\nhabitation. Only neither Hermes Trismegistus nor Julian (an initiated\nOccultist), nor any other, meant by this Unknown Cause Jehovah, or\nJupiter. They referred to the cause that produced all the manifested\n\u201cgreat Gods\u201d or Demiurgi (the Hebrew God included) of our system. Nor was\nour visible, _material_ Sun meant, for the latter was only the manifested\nsymbol. Philolaus the Pythagorean, explains and completes Trismegistus by\nsaying:\n\n\n    The Sun is a mirror of fire, the splendour of whose flames by\n    their reflection in that mirror [the Sun] is poured upon us, and\n    that splendour we call image.\n\n\nIt is evident that Philolaus referred to the central spiritual Sun, whose\nbeams and effulgence are only mirrored by our central Star, the Sun. This\nis as clear to the Occultists as it was to the Pythagoreans. As for the\nprofane of pagan antiquity, it was, of course, the physical Sun that was\nthe \u201chighest God\u201d for them, as it seems\u2014if Chevalier Drach\u2019s view be\naccepted\u2014to have now virtually become for the modern Roman Catholics. If\nwords mean anything, the statement made by the Chevalier Drach that \u201cthis\nsun is, undeniably, the second hypostasis of the Deity,\u201d imply what we\nsay; as \u201cthis Sun\u201d refers to the Kabalistic Sun, and \u201chypostasis\u201d means\nsubstance or subsistence of the Godhead or Trinity\u2014distinctly personal. As\nthe author, being an ex\u2010Rabbi, thoroughly versed in Hebrew, and in the\nmysteries of the _Zohar_, ought to know the value of words; and as,\nmoreover, in writing this, he was bent upon reconciling \u201cthe seeming\ncontradictions,\u201d as he puts it, between Judaism and Christianity\u2014the fact\nbecomes quite evident.\n\nBut all this pertains to questions and problems which will be solved\nnaturally and in the course of the development of the doctrine. The Roman\nCatholic Church stands accused, not of worshipping under other names the\nDivine Beings worshipped by all nations in antiquity, but of declaring\nidolatrous, not only the Pagans ancient and modern, but every Christian\nnation that has freed itself from the Roman yoke. The accusation brought\nagainst herself by more than one man of Science, of worshipping the stars\nlike true Sab\u00e6ans of old, stands to this day uncontradicted, yet no star\u2010\nworshipper has ever addressed his adoration to the material stars and\nplanets, as will be shown before the last page of this work is written;\nnone the less is it true that those Philosophers alone who studied\nAstrology and Magic knew that the last word of those sciences was to be\nsought in, and expected from, the Occult forces emanating from those\nconstellations.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXIV. MODERN KABALISTS IN SCIENCE AND OCCULT ASTRONOMY.\n\n\nThere is a physical, an astral, and a super\u2010astral Universe in the three\nchief divisions of the _Kabalah_; as there are terrestrial, super\u2010\nterrestrial, and spiritual Beings. The \u201cSeven Planetary Spirits\u201d may be\nridiculed by Scientists to their hearts\u2019 content, yet the need of\nintelligent ruling and guiding Forces is so much felt to this day that\nscientific men and specialists, who will not hear of Occultism or of\nancient systems, find themselves obliged to generate in their inner\nconsciousness some kind of semi\u2010mystical system. Metcalf\u2019s \u201csun\u2010force\u201d\ntheory, and that of Zaliwsky, a learned Pole, which made Electricity the\nUniversal Force and placed its storehouse in the Sun,(400) were revivals\nof the Kabalistic teachings. Zaliwsky tried to prove that Electricity,\nproducing \u201cthe most powerful, attractive, calorific, and luminous\neffects,\u201d was present in the physical constitution of the Sun and\nexplained its peculiarities. This is very near the Occult teaching. It is\nonly by admitting the gaseous nature of the Sun\u2010reflector, and the\npowerful Magnetism and Electricity of the solar attraction and repulsion,\nthat one can explain (_a_) the evident absence of any waste of power and\nluminosity in the Sun\u2014inexplicable by the ordinary laws of combustion; and\n(_b_) the behaviour of the planets, so often contradicting every accepted\nrule of weight and gravity. And Zaliwsky makes this \u201csolar electricity\u201d\n\u201c_differ from anything known on earth_.\u201d\n\nFather Secchi may be suspected of having sought to introduce\n\n\n    _Forces of quite a new order_ and quite foreign to gravitation,\n    which he had discovered in Space,(401)\n\n\nin order to reconcile Astronomy with theological Astronomy. But Nagy, a\nmember of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, was no clerical, and yet he\ndevelops a theory on the necessity of intelligent Forces whose complacency\n\u201cwould lend itself to all the whims of the comets.\u201d He suspects that:\n\n\n    Notwithstanding all the actual researches on the rapidity of\n    light\u2014that _dazzling product of an unknown force_ ... which we see\n    too frequently to understand\u2014_that light is motionless_ in\n    reality.(402)\n\n\nC. E. Love, the well\u2010known railway builder and engineer in France, tired\nof blind forces, made all the (then) \u201cimponderable agents\u201d\u2014now called\n\u201cforces\u201d\u2014subordinates of Electricity, and declares the latter to be an\n\n\n    Intelligence\u2014albeit molecular in nature and material.(403)\n\n\nIn the author\u2019s opinion these Forces are atomistic agents, endowed with\nintelligence, spontaneous will, and motion,(404) and he thus, like the\nKabalists, makes the causal Forces substantial, while the Forces that act\non this plane are only the effects of the former, as with him matter is\neternal, and the Gods also;(405) so is the Soul likewise, though it has\ninherent in itself a still higher Soul [Spirit], pre\u00ebxistent, endowed with\nmemory, and superior to Electric Force; the latter is subservient to the\nhigher Souls, those superior Souls forcing it to act according to the\neternal laws. The concept is rather hazy, but is evidently on the Occult\nlines. Moreover, the system proposed is entirely pantheistic, and is\nworked out in a purely scientific volume. Monotheists and Roman Catholics\nfall foul of it, of course; but one who believes in the Planetary Spirits\nand who endows Nature with living Intelligences, must always expect this.\n\nIn this connection, however, it is curious that after the moderns have so\nlaughed at the ignorance of the ancients,\n\n\n    Who, knowing only of seven planets [yet having an ogdoad which\n    _did not_ include the earth!], invented therefore seven Spirits to\n    fit in with the number,\n\n\nBabinet should have vindicated the \u201csuperstition\u201d unconsciously to\nhimself. In the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ this eminent French Astronomer\nwrites:\n\n\n    The ogdoad of the Ancients included the earth [which is an error],\n    _i.e._, eight or seven according to whether or not the earth was\n    comprised in the number.(406)\n\n\nDe Mirville assures his readers that:\n\n\n    M. Babinet was telling me but a few days ago that we had in\n    reality only eight big planets, including the earth, and so many\n    small ones between Mars and Jupiter.... Herschel offering to call\n    all those beyond the seven primary planets asteroids!(407)\n\n\nThere is a problem to be solved in this connection. How do Astronomers\nknow that Neptune is a planet, or even that it is a body belonging to our\nsystem? Being found on the very confines of our Planetary World, so\ncalled, the latter was arbitrarily expanded to receive it; but what really\nmathematical and infallible proof have Astronomers that it is (_a_) a\nplanet, and (_b_) one of _our_ planets? None at all! It is at such an\nimmeasurable distance from us, the\n\n\n    Apparent diameter of the sun being to Neptune but one\u2010fortieth of\n    the sun\u2019s apparent diameter to us,\n\n\nand it is so dim and hazy when seen through the best telescope that it\nlooks like an astronomical romance to call it one of our planets.\nNeptune\u2019s heat and light are reduced to 1/900 part of the heat and light\nreceived by the earth. His motion and that of his satellites have always\nlooked suspicious. They do not agree\u2014in appearance, at least\u2014with those of\nthe other planets. His system is retrograde, etc. But even the latter\nabnormal fact resulted only in the creation of new hypotheses by our\nAstronomers, who forthwith suggested a probable overturn of Neptune, his\ncollision with another body, etc. Was Adams\u2019 and Leverrier\u2019s discovery so\nwelcomed because Neptune was as necessary as was Ether to throw a new\nglory upon astronomical prevision, upon the certitude of modern scientific\ndata, and principally upon the power of mathematical analysis? It would so\nappear. A new planet that widens our planetary domain by more than four\nhundred million leagues is worthy of annexation. Yet, as in the case of\nterrestrial annexation, scientific authority may be proved \u201cright\u201d only\nbecause it has \u201cmight.\u201d Neptune\u2019s motion happens to be dimly perceived:\nEureka! it is a planet! A mere motion, however, proves very little. It is\nnow an ascertained fact in Astronomy that there are no absolutely fixed\nstars in Nature,(408) even though such stars should continue to exist in\nastronomical parlance, while they have passed from the scientific\nimagination. Occultism, however, has a strange theory of its own with\nregard to Neptune.\n\nOccultism says that if several hypotheses resting on mere assumption\u2014which\nhave been accepted only because they have been taught by eminent men of\nlearning\u2014are taken away from the Science of Modern Astronomy, to which\nthey serve as props, then even the presumably universal law of gravitation\nwill be found to be contrary to the most ordinary truths of mechanics. And\nreally one can hardly blame Christians\u2014foremost of all the Roman\nCatholics\u2014however scientific some of these may themselves be, for refusing\nto quarrel with their Church for the sake of scientific beliefs. Nor can\nwe even blame them for accepting in the secresy of their hearts\u2014as some of\nthem do\u2014the theological \u201cVirtues\u201d and \u201cArchons\u201d of Darkness, instead of\nall the blind forces offered them by Science.\n\n\n    Never can there be intervention of any sort in the marshalling and\n    the regular precession of the celestial bodies! The law of\n    gravitation is the law of laws; who ever witnessed a stone rising\n    in the air against gravitation? The permanence of the universal\n    law is shown in the behaviour of the sidereal worlds and globes\n    eternally faithful to their primitive orbits; never wandering\n    beyond their respective paths. Nor is there any intervention\n    needed, as it could only be disastrous. Whether the first sidereal\n    incipient rotation took place owing to an intercosmic chance, or\n    to the spontaneous development of latent primordial forces; or\n    again, whether that impulse was given once for all by God or\n    Gods\u2014it does not make the slightest difference. At this stage of\n    cosmic evolution no intervention, superior or inferior, is\n    admissible. Were any to take place, the universal clock\u2010work would\n    stop, and Kosmos would fall into pieces.\n\n\nSuch are stray sentences, pearls of wisdom, fallen from time to time from\nscientific lips, and now chosen at random to illustrate a query. We lift\nour diminished heads and look heavenward. Such seems to be the fact:\nworlds, suns, and stars, the shining myriads of the heavenly hosts, remind\nthe Poet of an infinite, shoreless ocean, whereon move swiftly numberless\nsquadrons of ships, millions upon millions of cruisers, large and small,\ncrossing each other, whirling and gyrating in every direction; and Science\nteaches us, that though they be without rudder or compass or any beacon to\nguide them, they are nevertheless secure from collision\u2014almost secure, at\nany rate, save in chance accidents\u2014as the whole celestial machine is built\nupon and guided by an immutable, albeit blind, law, and by constant and\naccelerating force or forces. \u201cBuilt upon\u201d by whom? \u201cBy self\u2010evolution,\u201d\nis the answer. Moreover, as dynamics teach that\n\n\n    A body in motion tends to continue in the same state of relative\n    rest or motion unless acted upon by some external force,\n\n\nthis force has to be regarded as self\u2010generated\u2014even if not eternal, since\nthis would amount to the recognition of perpetual motion\u2014and so well self\u2010\ncalculated and self\u2010adjusted as to last from the beginning to the end of\nKosmos. But \u201cself\u2010generation\u201d has still to generate from something,\ngeneration _ex\u2010nihilo_ being as contrary to reason as it is to Science.\nThus we are placed once more between the horns of a dilemma: are we to\nbelieve in perpetual motion or in self\u2010generation _ex\u2010nihilo_? And if in\nneither, who or what is that something, which first produced that force or\nthose forces?\n\nThere are such things in mechanics as superior levers, which give the\nimpulse and act upon secondary or inferior levers. The former, however,\nneed an impulse and occasional renovation, otherwise they would themselves\nvery soon stop and fall back into their original status. What is the\nexternal force which puts and retains them in motion? Another dilemma!\n\nAs to the law of cosmical _non\u2010intervention_, it could be justified only\nin one case, namely, if the celestial mechanism were perfect; but it is\nnot. The so\u2010called unalterable motions of celestial bodies alter and\nchange incessantly; they are very often disturbed, and the wheels of even\nthe sidereal locomotive itself occasionally jump off their invisible\nrails, as may be easily proved. Otherwise why should Laplace speak of the\nprobable occurrence at some future time of an out\u2010and\u2010out reform in the\narrangement of the planets;(409) or Lagrange maintain the gradual\nnarrowing of the orbits; or our modern Astronomers, again, declare that\nthe fuel in the sun is slowly disappearing? If the laws and forces which\ngovern the behaviour of the celestial bodies are immutable, such\nmodifications and wearing\u2010out of substance or fuel, of force and fluids,\nwould be impossible; yet they are not denied. Therefore one has to suppose\nthat such modifications will have to rely upon the laws of forces, which\nwill have to self\u2010regenerate themselves once more on such occasions, thus\nproducing an astral antinomy, and a kind of physical palinomy, since, as\nLaplace says, one would then see fluids disobeying themselves and re\u00e4cting\nin a way contrary to all their attributes and properties.\n\nNewton felt very uncomfortable about the moon. Her behaviour in\nprogressively narrowing the circumference of her orbit around the earth\nmade him nervous, lest it should end one day in our satellite falling upon\nthe earth. The world, he confessed, needed repairing, and that very\noften.(410) In this he was corroborated by Herschel.(411) He speaks of\nreal and quite considerable deviations, besides those which are only\napparent, but gets some consolation from his conviction that somebody or\nsomething will probably see to things.\n\nWe may be answered that the personal beliefs of some pious Astronomers,\nhowever great they may be as scientific characters, are no proofs of the\nactual existence and presence in space of intelligent supramundane Beings,\nof either Gods or Angels. It is the behaviour of the stars and planets\nthemselves that has to be analysed and inferences must be drawn therefrom.\nRenan asserts that nothing that we know of the sidereal bodies warrants\nthe idea of the presence of any Intelligence, whether internal or external\nto them.\n\nLet us see, says Reynaud, if this is a fact, or only one more empty\nscientific assumption.\n\n\n    The orbits traversed by the planets are far from being immutable.\n    They are, on the contrary, subject to perpetual mutation in\n    position, as in form. Elongations, contractions, and orbital\n    widenings, oscillations from right to left, slackening and\n    quickening of speed ... and all this on a plane which seems to\n    vacillate.(412)\n\n\nAs is very pertinently observed by des Mousseux:\n\n\n    Here is a path having little of the mathematical and mechanical\n    precision claimed for it; for we know of no clock which, having\n    gone slow for several minutes should catch up the right time _of\n    itself_ and _without a turn of the key_.\n\n\nSo much for blind law and force. As for the physical impossibility\u2014a\nmiracle indeed in the sight of Science\u2014of a stone raised in the air\nagainst the law of gravitation, this is what Babinet\u2014the deadliest enemy\nand opponent of the phenomena of levitation\u2014(cited by Arago) says:\n\n\n    Everyone knows the theory of _bolides_ [meteors] and\n    aerolithes.... In Connecticut an immense aerolith was seen [a mass\n    of eighteen hundred feet in diameter], bombarding a whole American\n    zone and returning to the spot [in mid\u2010air] from which it had\n    started.(413)\n\n\nThus we find in both of the cases above cited\u2014that of self\u2010correcting\nplanets and of meteors of gigantic size flying back into the air\u2014a \u201cblind\nforce\u201d regulating and resisting the natural tendencies of \u201cblind matter,\u201d\nand even occasionally repairing its mistakes and correcting its failures.\nThis is far more miraculous and even \u201cextravagant,\u201d one would say, than\nany \u201cAngel\u2010guided\u201d Element.\n\nBold is he who laughs at the idea of Von Haller, who declares that:\n\n\n    The stars are perhaps an abode of glorious Spirits; as here Vice\n    reigns, there is Virtue master.(414)\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXV. EASTERN AND WESTERN OCCULTISM.\n\n\nIn _The Theosophist_ for March, 1886,(415) in an answer to the \u201cSolar\nSphinx,\u201d a member of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society wrote as\nfollows:\n\n\n    We hold and believe that the revival of Occult Knowledge now in\n    progress will some day demonstrate that the Western system\n    represents ranges of perceptions which the Eastern\u2014at least as\n    expounded in the pages of _The Theosophist_\u2014has yet to\n    attain.(416)\n\n\nThe writer is not the only person labouring under this erroneous\nimpression. Greater Kabalists than he had said the same in the United\nStates. This only proves that the knowledge possessed by Western\nOccultists of the true Philosophy, and the \u201cranges of perceptions\u201d and\nthought of the Eastern doctrines, is very superficial. This assertion will\nbe easily demonstrated by giving a few instances, instituting comparisons\nbetween the two interpretations of one and the same doctrine\u2014the Hermetic\nUniversal Doctrine. It is the more needed since, were we to neglect\nbringing forward such comparisons, our work would be left incomplete.\n\nWe may take the late \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi, rightly referred to by another Western\nMystic, Mr. Kenneth Mackenzie, as \u201cone of the greatest representatives of\nmodern Occult Philosophy,\u201d(417) as presumably the best and most learned\nexpounder of the Chald\u00e6an _Kabalah_, and compare his teaching with that of\nEastern Occultists. In his unpublished manuscripts and letters, lent to us\nby a Theosophist, who was for fifteen years his pupil, we had hoped to\nfind that which he was unwilling to publish. What we do find, however,\ndisappoints us greatly. We will take these teachings, then, as containing\nthe essence of Western or Kabalistic Occultism, analyzing and comparing\nthem with the Eastern interpretation as we go on.\n\n\u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi teaches correctly, though in language rather too\nrhapsodically rhetorical to be sufficiently clear to the beginner, that\n\n\n    Eternal life is Motion equilibrated by the alternate\n    manifestations of force.\n\n\nBut why does he not add that this perpetual motion is independent of the\nmanifested Forces at work? He says:\n\n\n    Chaos is the Tohu\u2010vah\u2010bohu of perpetual motion and the sum total\n    of primordial matter;\n\n\nand he fails to add that Matter is \u201cprimordial\u201d only at the beginning of\nevery new reconstruction of the Universe, matter _in abscondito_, as it is\ncalled by the Alchemists, is eternal, indestructible, without beginning or\nend. It is regarded by Eastern Occultists as the eternal Root of all, the\nM\u00fblaprakriti of the Ved\u00e2ntin, and the Svabh\u00e2vat of the Buddhist, the\nDivine Essence, in short, or Substance; the radiations from This are\nperiodically aggregated into graduated forms, from pure Spirit to gross\nMatter; the Root, or Space, is in its abstract presence the Deity Itself,\nthe Ineffable and Unknown One Cause.\n\nAin\u2010Suph with him also is the Boundless, the infinite and One Unity,\nsecondless and causeless as Parabrahman. Ain\u2010Suph is the indivisible\npoint, and therefore, as \u201cbeing everywhere and nowhere,\u201d is the absolute\nAll. It is also \u201cDarkness\u201d because it is absolute Light, and the Root of\nthe seven fundamental Cosmic Principles. Yet \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi, by simply\nstating that \u201cDarkness was upon the face of the Earth,\u201d fails to show\n(_a_) that \u201cDarkness\u201d in this sense is Deity Itself, and he is therefore\nwithholding the only philosophical solution of this problem for the human\nmind; and (_b_) he allows the unwary student to believe that by \u201cEarth\u201d\nour own little globe\u2014an atom in the Universe\u2014is meant. In short, this\nteaching does not embrace the Occult Cosmogony, but deals simply with\nOccult Geology and the formation of our cosmic speck. This is further\nshown by his making a _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_ of the Sephirothal Tree in this wise:\n\n\n    God is harmony, the astronomy of Powers and Unity outside of the\n    World.\n\n\nThis seems to suggest (_a_) that he teaches the existence of an extra\u2010\ncosmic God, thus limiting and conditioning both the Kosmos and the divine\nInfinity and Omnipresence, which cannot be extraneous to or outside of one\nsingle atom; and (_b_) that by skipping the whole of the pre\u2010cosmic\nperiod\u2014the manifested Kosmos here being meant\u2014the very root of Occult\nteaching, he explains only the Kabalistic meaning of the dead\u2010letter of\nthe _Bible_ and _Genesis_, leaving its spirit and essence untouched.\nSurely the \u201cranges of perception\u201d of the Western mind will not be greatly\nenlarged by such a limited teaching.\n\nHaving said a few words on Tohu\u2010vah\u2010bohu\u2014the meaning of which Wordsworth\nrendered graphically as \u201chiggledy\u2010piggledy\u201d\u2014and having explained that this\nterm denoted Cosmos, he teaches that:\n\n\n    Above the dark abyss [Chaos] were the Waters; ... the earth [_la\n    terre!_] was Tohu\u2010vah\u2010bohu, _i.e._, in confusion, and darkness\n    covered the face of the Deep, and vehement Breath moved on the\n    Waters when the Spirit exclaimed [?], \u201cLet there be light,\u201d and\n    there was light. Thus the earth [our globe, of course] was in a\n    state of cataclysm; _thick_ vapours veiled the immensity of the\n    sky, the earth was covered with waters and a violent wind was\n    agitating this dark ocean, when at a given moment the equilibrium\n    revealed itself and light re\u00e4ppeared; the letters that compose the\n    Hebrew word \u201cBereshith\u201d (the first word of _Genesis_) are \u201cBeth,\u201d\n    the binary, the verb manifested by the act, a _feminine_ letter;\n    then \u201cResch,\u201d the Verbum and Life, number 20, the disc multiplied\n    by 2; and \u201cAleph,\u201d the spiritual principle, the Unit, a masculine\n    letter.\n\n    Place these letters in a triangle and you have the absolute Unity,\n    that without being included into numbers creates the number, the\n    first manifestation, which is 2, and these two united by harmony\n    resulting from the analogy of contraries [opposites], make 1,\n    only. This is why God is called Elohim (plural).\n\n\nAll this is very ingenious, but is very puzzling, besides being incorrect.\nFor owing to the first sentence, \u201cAbove the dark abyss were the Waters,\u201d\nthe French Kabalist leads the student away from the right track. This an\nEastern Chela will see at a glance, and even one of the profane may see\nit. For if the Tohu\u2010vah\u2010bohu is \u201cunder\u201d and the Waters are \u201cabove,\u201d then\nthese two are quite distinct from each other, and this is not the case.\nThis statement is a very important one, inasmuch as it entirely changes\nthe spirit and nature of Cosmogony, and brings it down to a level with\nexoteric _Genesis_\u2014perhaps it was so stated with an eye to this result.\nThe Tohu\u2010vah\u2010bohu is the \u201cGreat Deep\u201d and is identical with \u201cthe Waters of\nChaos,\u201d or the primordial Darkness. By stating the fact otherwise it makes\nboth \u201cthe Great Deep\u201d and the \u201cWaters\u201d\u2014which cannot be separated except in\nthe phenomenal world\u2014limited as to space and conditioned as to their\nnature. Thus \u00c9liphas in his desire to conceal the last word of Esoteric\nPhilosophy, fails\u2014whether intentionally or otherwise does not matter\u2014to\npoint out the fundamental principle of the one true Occult Philosophy,\nnamely, the unity and absolute homogeneity of the One Eternal Divine\nElement, and he makes of the Deity a male God. Then he says:\n\n\n    Above the Waters was the powerful Breath of the Elohim [the\n    creative Dhy\u00e2n Chohans]. Above the Breath appeared the Light, and\n    above the Light the Word ... that created it.\n\n\nNow the fact is quite the reverse of this: it is the Primeval Light that\ncreates the Word or Logos, Who in His turn creates physical light. For the\nSecret Doctrine teaches us that the reconstruction of the Universe takes\nplace in this wise: At the periods of new generation, perpetual Motion\nbecomes Breath; from the Breath comes forth primordial Light, through\nwhose radiance manifests the Eternal Thought concealed in darkness, and\nthis becomes the Word (Mantra).(418) It is _That_ (the Mantra or Word)\nfrom which all This (the Universe) sprang into being.\n\nFurther on \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi says:\n\n\n    This [the concealed Deity] radiated a ray into the Eternal Essence\n    [Waters of Space] and, fructifying thereby the primordial germ,\n    the Essence expanded,(419) giving birth to the Heavenly Man from\n    whose mind were born all forms.\n\n\nThe _Kabalah_ states very nearly the same. To learn what it really teaches\none has to reverse the order in which \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi gives it, replacing the\nword \u201cabove\u201d by that of \u201cin,\u201d as there cannot surely be any \u201cabove\u201d or\n\u201cunder\u201d in the Absolute. This is what he says:\n\n\n    Above the waters the powerful breath of the Elohim; above the\n    Breath the Light; above Light the Word, or the Speech that created\n    it. We see here the spheres of evolution: the souls [?] driven\n    from the dark centre (Darkness) toward the luminous circumference.\n    At the bottom of the lowest circle is the Tohu\u2010vah\u2010bohu, or the\n    chaos which precedes all manifestation [_Naissances_\u2014generation];\n    then the region of Water; then Breath; then Light; and, lastly,\n    the Word.\n\n\nThe construction of the above sentences shows that the learned Abb\u00e9 had a\ndecided tendency to anthropomorphize creation, even though the latter has\nto be shaped out of pre\u00ebxisting material, as the _Zohar_ shows plainly\nenough.\n\nThis is how the \u201cgreat\u201d Western Kabalist gets out of the difficulty: he\nkeeps silent on the first stage of evolution and imagines a second Chaos.\nThus he says:\n\n\n    The Tohu\u2010vah\u2010bohu is the Latin Limbus, or twilight of the morning\n    and evening of life.(420) It is in perpetual motion,(421) it\n    decomposes continually,(422) and the work of putrefaction\n    accelerates, because the world is advancing towards\n    regeneration.(423) The Tohu\u2010vah\u2010bohu of the Hebrews is not exactly\n    the confusion of things called Chaos by the Greeks, and which is\n    found described in the commencement of the Metamorphosis of Ovid;\n    it is something greater and more profound; it is the foundation of\n    religion, it is the philosophical affirmation of the immateriality\n    of God.\n\n\nRather an affirmation of the materiality of a personal God. If a man has\nto seek his Deity in the Hades of the ancients\u2014for the Tohu\u2010vah\u2010bohu, or\nthe Limbus of the Greeks, is the Hall of Hades\u2014then one can wonder no\nlonger at the accusations brought forward by the Church against the\n\u201cwitches\u201d and sorcerers versed in Western Kabalism, that they adored the\ngoat Mendes, or the devil personified by certain spooks and Elementals.\nBut in face of the task \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi had set before himself\u2014that of\nreconciling Jewish Magic with Roman ecclesiasticism\u2014he could say nothing\nelse.\n\nThen he explains the first sentence in _Genesis_:\n\n\n    Let us put on one side the vulgar translation of the sacred texts\n    and see what is hidden in the first chapter of _Genesis_.\n\n\nHe then gives the Hebrew text quite correctly, but transliterates it:\n\n\n    Bereschith Bara Eloim uth aschamam ouatti aares ouares ayete Tohu\u2010\n    vah\u2010bohu.... Ouimas Eloim rai avur ouiai aour.\n\n\nAnd he then explains:\n\n\n    The first word, \u201cBereschith,\u201d signifies \u201cgenesis,\u201d a word\n    equivalent to \u201cnature.\u201d\n\n\n\u201cThe act of generation or production,\u201d we maintain; not \u201cnature.\u201d He then\ncontinues:\n\n\n    The phrase, then, is incorrectly translated in the _Bible_. It is\n    not \u201cin the beginning,\u201d for it should be at the stage of the\n    _generating force_,(424) which would thus exclude every idea of\n    the _ex\u2010nihilo_ ... as _nothing_ cannot produce something. The\n    word \u201cEloim\u201d or \u201cElohim\u201d signifies the generating Powers, and such\n    is the Occult sense of the first verse.... \u201cBereschith\u201d (\u201cnature\u201d\n    or \u201cgenesis\u201d), \u201cBara\u201d (\u201ccreated\u201d) \u201cEloim\u201d (\u201cthe forces\u201d) \u201cAthat\u2010\n    ashamaim\u201d (\u201cheavens\u201d) \u201couath\u201d and \u201coaris\u201d (\u201cthe earth\u201d); that is\n    to say, \u201cThe generative potencies created indefinitely\n    (eternally(425)) those forces that are the equilibrated opposites\n    that we call heaven and earth, meaning the space and the bodies,\n    the volatile and the fixed, the movement and the weight.\u201d\n\n\nNow this, if it be correct, is too vague to be understood by any one\nignorant of the Kabalistic teaching. Not only are his explanations\nunsatisfactory and misleading\u2014in his published works they are still\nworse\u2014but his Hebrew transliteration is entirely wrong: it precludes the\nstudent, who would compare it for himself with the equivalent symbols and\nnumerals of the words and letters of the Hebrew alphabet, from finding\nanything of that he might have found were the words correctly spelt in the\nFrench transliteration.\n\nCompared even with exoteric Hindu Cosmogony, the philosophy which \u00c9liphas\nL\u00e9vi gives out as Kabalistic is simply mystical Roman Catholicism adapted\nto the Christian _Kabalah_. His _Histoire de la Magie_ shows it plainly,\nand reveals also his object, which he does not even care to conceal. For,\nwhile stating with his Church, that\n\n\n    The Christian religion has imposed silence on the lying oracles of\n    the Gentiles and put an end to the prestige of the false\n    gods,(426)\n\n\nhe promises to prove in his work that the real Sanctum Regnum, the great\nMagic Art, is in that Star of Bethlehem which led the three Magi to adore\nthe Saviour of the World. He says:\n\n\n    We will prove that the study of the sacred Pentagram had to lead\n    all the Magi to know the new name which should be raised above all\n    names, and before which every being capable of worship has to bend\n    his knee.(427)\n\n\nThis shows that L\u00e9vi\u2019s _Kabalah_ is mystic Christianity, and not\nOccultism; for Occultism is universal and knows no difference between the\n\u201cSaviours\u201d (or great Avat\u00e2ras) of the several old nations. \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi\nwas not an exception in preaching Christianity under a disguise of\nKabalism. He was undeniably \u201cthe greatest representative of modern Occult\nPhilosophy,\u201d as it is studied in Roman Catholic countries generally, where\nit is fitted to the preconceptions of Christian students. But he never\ntaught the real universal _Kabalah_, and least of all did he teach Eastern\nOccultism. Let the student compare the Eastern and Western teaching, and\nsee whether the philosophy of the _Upanishads_ \u201chas yet to attain the\nranges of perception\u201d of this Western system. Everyone has the right to\ndefend the system he prefers, but in doing this, there is no need to throw\nslurs upon the system of one\u2019s brother.\n\nIn view of the great resemblance between many of the fundamental \u201ctruths\u201d\nof Christianity and the \u201cmyths\u201d of Br\u00e2hmanism, there have been serious\nattempts made lately to prove that the _Bhagavad G\u00eet\u00e2_ and most of the\n_Br\u00e2hmanas_ and the _Pur\u00e2nas_ are of a far later date than the Mosaic\nBooks and even than the _Gospels_. But were it possible that an enforced\nsuccess should be obtained in this direction, such argument cannot achieve\nits object, since the _Rig Veda_ remains. Brought down to the most modern\nlimits of the age assigned to it, its date cannot be made to overlap that\nof the _Pentateuch_, which is admittedly later.\n\nThe Orientalists know well that they cannot make away with the landmarks,\nfollowed by all subsequent religions, set up in that \u201cBible of Humanity\u201d\ncalled the _Rig Veda_. It is there that at the very dawn of intellectual\nhumanity were laid the foundation\u2010stones of all the faiths and creeds, of\nevery fane and church built from first to last; and they are still there.\nUniversal \u201cmyths,\u201d personifications of Powers divine and cosmic, primary\nand secondary, and historical personages of all the now\u2010existing as well\nas of extinct religions are to be found in the seven chief Deities and\ntheir 330,000,000 correlations of the _Rig Veda_, and those Seven, with\nthe odd millions, are the Rays of the one boundless Unity.\n\nBut to THIS can never be offered profane worship. It can only be the\n\u201cobject of the most abstract meditation, which Hindus practise in order to\nobtain absorption in it.\u201d At the beginning of every \u201cdawn\u201d of \u201cCreation,\u201d\neternal Light\u2014which is darkness\u2014assumes the aspect of so\u2010called Chaos:\nchaos to the human intellect; the eternal Root to the superhuman or\nspiritual sense.\n\n\u201cOsiris is a black God.\u201d These were the words pronounced at \u201clow breath\u201d\nat Initiation in Egypt, because Osiris Noumenon is darkness to the mortal.\nIn this Chaos are formed the \u201cWaters,\u201d Mother Isis, Aditi, etc. They are\nthe \u201cWaters of Life,\u201d in which primordial germs are created\u2014or rather\nre\u00e4wakened\u2014by the primordial Light. It is Purushottama, or the Divine\nSpirit, which in its capacity of N\u00e2r\u00e2yana, the Mover on the Waters of\nSpace, fructifies and infuses the Breath of life into that germ which\nbecomes the \u201cGolden Mundane Egg,\u201d in which the male Brahm\u00e2 is\ncreated;(428) and from this the first Praj\u00e2pati, the Lord of Beings,\nemerges, and becomes the progenitor of mankind. And though it is not he,\nbut the Absolute, that is said to contain the Universe in Itself, yet it\nis the duty of the male Brahm\u00e2 to manifest it in a visible form. Hence he\nhas to be connected with the procreation of species, and assumes, like\nJehovah and other male Gods in subsequent anthropomorphism, a phallic\nsymbol. At best every such male God, the \u201cFather\u201d of all, becomes the\n\u201cArchetypal Man.\u201d Between him and the Infinite Deity stretches an abyss.\nIn the theistic religions of personal Gods the latter are degraded from\nabstract Forces into physical potencies. The Water of Life\u2014the \u201cDeep\u201d of\nMother Nature\u2014is viewed in its terrestrial aspect in anthropomorphic\nreligions. Behold, how holy it has become by theological magic! It is held\nsacred and is deified now as of old in almost every religion. But if\nChristians use it as a means of spiritual purification in baptism and\nprayer; if Hindus pay reverence to their sacred streams, tanks, and\nrivers; if P\u00e2rs\u00ee, Mahommedan and Christian alike believe in its efficacy,\nsurely that element must have some great and Occult significance. In\nOccultism it stands for the Fifth Principle of Kosmos, in the lower\nseptenary: for the whole visible Universe was built by Water, say the\nKabalists who know the difference between the two waters\u2014the \u201cWaters of\nLife\u201d and those of Salvation\u2014so confused together in dogmatic religions.\nThe \u201cKing\u2010Preacher\u201d says of himself:\n\n\n    I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem, and I gave my\n    heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all _things_\n    that are done under heaven.(429)\n\n\nSpeaking of the great work and glory of the Elohim(430)\u2014unified into the\n\u201cLord God\u201d in the English _Bible_, whose garment, he tells us, is light\nand heaven the curtain\u2014he refers to the builder\n\n\n    Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters,(431)\n\n\nthat is, the divine Host of the Sephiroth, who have constructed the\nUniverse out of the Deep, the Waters of Chaos. Moses and Thales were right\nin saying that only earth and water can bring forth a living Soul, water\nbeing on this plane the principle of all things. Moses was an Initiate,\nThales a Philosopher\u2014_i.e._, a Scientist, for the words were synonymous in\nhis day.\n\nThe secret meaning of this is that water and earth stand in the Mosaic\nBooks for the prima materia and the creative (feminine) Principle on our\nplane. In Egypt Osiris was Fire, and Isis was the Earth or its synonym\nWater; the two opposing elements\u2014just because of their opposite\nproperties\u2014being necessary to each other for a common object: that of\nprocreation. The earth needs solar heat and rain to make her throw out her\ngerms. But these procreative properties of Fire and Water, or Spirit and\nMatter, are symbols but of physical generation. While the Jewish Kabalists\nsymbolized these elements only in their application to manifested things,\nand reverenced them as the emblems for the production of terrestrial life,\nthe Eastern Philosophy noticed them only as an illusive emanation from\ntheir spiritual prototypes, and no unclean or unholy thought marred its\nEsoteric religious symbology.\n\nChaos, as shown elsewhere, is Theos, which becomes Kosmos: it is Space,\nthe container of everything in the Universe. As Occult Teachings assert,\nit is called by the Chald\u00e6ans, Egyptians, and every other nation Tohu\u2010vah\u2010\nbohu, or Chaos, Confusion, because Space is the great storehouse of\nCreation, whence proceed not forms alone, but also ideas, which could\nreceive their expression only through the Logos, the Word, Verbum, or\nSound.\n\n_The numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 are the successive emanations from Mother [Space]\nas she forms running downward her garment, spreading it upon the seven\nsteps of Creation._(_432_)_ The roller returns upon itself, as one end\njoins the other __ in infinitude, and the numbers 4, 3, and 2 are\ndisplayed, as it is the only side of the veil that we can perceive, the\nfirst number being lost in its inaccessible solitude._\n\n... _Father, which is Boundless Time, generates Mother, which is infinite\nSpace, in Eternity; and Mother generates Father in Manvantaras, which are\ndivisions of durations, that Day when that world becomes one ocean. Then\nthe Mother becomes N\u00e2r\u00e2 [Waters\u2014the Great Deep] for Nara [the Supreme\nSpirit] to rest\u2014or move\u2014upon, when, it is said, that 1, 2, 3, 4 descend\nand abide in the world of the unseen, while the 4, 3, 2, become the limits\nin the visible world to deal with the manifestations of Father\n[Time]._(433)\n\nThis relates to the Mah\u00e2yugas which in figures become 432, and with the\naddition of noughts, 4,320,000.\n\nNow it is surpassingly strange, if it be a mere coincidence, that the\nnumerical value of Tohu\u2010vah\u2010bohu, or \u201cChaos,\u201d in the _Bible_\u2014which Chaos,\nof course, is the \u201cMother\u201d Deep, or the Waters of Space\u2014should yield the\nsame figures. For this is what is found in a Kabalist manuscript:\n\n\n    It is said of the Heavens and the Earth in the second verse of\n    _Genesis_ that they were \u201cChaos and Confusion\u201d\u2014that is, they were\n    \u201cTohu\u2010vah\u2010bohu;\u201d \u201cand _darkness_ was upon the face of the deep,\u201d\n    _i.e._, \u201cthe perfect material out of which construction was to be\n    made lacked organization.\u201d The order of the digits of these words\n    as they stand\u2014_i.e._,(434) the letters rendered by their numerical\n    value\u2014is 6,526,654 and 2,386. By art speech these are key\u2010working\n    numbers loosely shuffled together, the germs and keys of\n    construction, but to be recognized, one by one, as used and\n    required. They follow symmetrically in the work as immediately\n    following the first sentence of grand enunciation: \u201cIn Rash\n    developed itself Gods, the heavens and the earth.\u201d\n\n    Multiply the numbers of the letters of \u201cTohu\u2010vah\u2010bohu\u201d together\n    continuously from right to left, placing the consecutive single\n    products as we go, and we will have the following series of\n    values, _viz._, (_a_) 30, 60, 360, 2,160, 10,800, 43,200, or as by\n    the characterizing digits; 3, 6, 36, 216, 108, and 432; (_b_) 20,\n    120, 720, 1,440, 7,200, or 2, 12, 72, 144, 72, 432, the series\n    closing in 432, one of the most famous numbers of antiquity, and\n    which, though obscured, crops out in the chronology up to the\n    Flood.(435)...\n\n\nThis shows that the Hebrew usage of play upon the numbers must have come\nto the Jews from India. As we have seen, the final series yields, besides\nmany another combination, the figures 108 and 1008\u2014the number of the names\nof Vishnu, whence the 108 grains of the Yog\u00ee\u2019s rosary\u2014and close with 432,\nthe truly \u201cfamous\u201d number in Indian and Chald\u00e6an antiquity, appearing in\nthe cycle of 4,320,000 years in the former, and in the 432,000 years, the\nduration of the Chald\u00e6an divine dynasties.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXVI. THE IDOLS AND THE TERAPHIM.\n\n\nThe meaning of the \u201cfairy\u2010tale\u201d told by the Chald\u00e6an Q\u00fb\u2010t\u00e2my is easily\nunderstood. His _modus operandi_ with the \u201cidol of the moon\u201d was that of\nall the Semites, before Terah, Abraham\u2019s father, made images\u2014the Teraphim,\ncalled after him\u2014or the \u201cchosen people\u201d of Israel ceased divining by them.\nThese teraphim were just as much \u201cidols\u201d as is any pagan image or\nstatue.(436) The injunction \u201cThou shalt not bow to a graven image,\u201d or\nteraphim, must have either come at a later date, or have been disregarded,\nsince the bowing\u2010down to and the divining by the teraphim seem to have\nbeen so orthodox and general that the \u201cLord\u201d actually threatens the\nIsraelites, through Hosea, to deprive them of their teraphim.\n\n\n    For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king,\n    ... without a sacrifice, and without an image.\n\n\nMatzebah, or statue, or pillar, is explained in the _Bible_ to mean\n\u201cwithout an ephod and without teraphim.\u201d(437)\n\nFather Kircher supports very strongly the idea that the statue of the\nEgyptian Serapis was identical in every way with those of the seraphim, or\nteraphim, in the temple of Solomon. Says Louis de Dieu:\n\n\n    They were, perhaps, images of angels, or statues dedicated to the\n    angels, the presence of one of these spirits being thus attracted\n    into a teraphim and answering the inquirers [consultans]; and even\n    in this hypothesis the word \u201cteraphim\u201d would become the equivalent\n    of \u201cseraphim\u201d by changing the \u201ct\u201d into \u201cs\u201d in the manner of\n    Syrians.(438)\n\n\nWhat says the _Septuagint_? The teraphim are translated successively by\n\u1f10\u03af\u03b4\u03c9\u03bb\u03b1\u2014forms in someone\u2019s likeness; eidolon, an \u201castral body;\u201d \u03b3\u03bb\u03c5\u03c0\u03c4\u1f70\u2014the\nsculptured; \u03ba\u03b5\u03bd\u03bf\u03c4\u03ac\u03c6\u03b9\u03b1\u2014sculptures in the sense of containing something\nhidden, or receptacles; \u03b8\u1f74\u03bb\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2\u2014manifestations; \u1f00\u03bb\u03ae\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9\u03b1\u03c2\u2014truths or\nrealities; \u03bc\u03bf\u03c1\u03c6\u03ce\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 or \u03c6\u03c9\u03c4\u03b9\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2\u2014luminous, shining likenesses. The latter\nexpression shows plainly what the teraphim were. The _Vulgate_ translates\nthe term by \u201cannuntientes,\u201d the \u201cmessengers who announce,\u201d and it thus\nbecomes certain that the teraphim were the oracles. They were the animated\nstatues, the Gods who revealed themselves to the masses through the\nInitiated Priests and Adepts in the Egyptian, Chald\u00e6an, Greek, and other\ntemples.\n\nAs to the way of divining, or learning one\u2019s fate, and of being instructed\nby the teraphim,(439) it is explained quite plainly by Maimonides and\nSeldenus. The former says:\n\n\n    The worshippers of the teraphim claimed that the light of the\n    principal stars [planets], penetrating into and filling the carved\n    statue through and through, the angelic virtue [of the regents, or\n    animating principle in the planets] conversed with them, teaching\n    them many most useful arts and sciences.(440)\n\n\nIn his turn Seldenus explains the same, adding that the teraphim(441) were\nbuilt and fashioned in accordance with the position of their respective\nplanets, each of the teraphim being consecrated to a special \u201cstar\u2010angel,\u201d\nthose that the Greeks called stoich\u00e6, as also according to figures located\nin the sky and called the \u201ctutelary Gods\u201d:\n\n\n    Those who traced out the \u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c7\u03b5\u1fd6\u03b1 were called \u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c9\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b9\u03ba\u03bf\u1f76 [or\n    the diviners by the planets] and the \u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c7\u03b5\u1fd6\u03b1.(442)\n\n\nAmmianus Marcellinus states that the ancient divinations were always\naccomplished with the help of the \u201cspirits\u201d of the elements (spiritus\nelementorum), or as they are called in Greek \u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u03cd\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c7\u03b5\u03af\u03c9\u03bd. Now\nthe latter are not the \u201cspirits\u201d of the stars (planets), nor are they\ndivine Beings; they are simply the creatures inhabiting their respective\nelements, called by the Kabalists, elementary spirits, and by the\nTheosophists elementals.(443) Father Kircher, the Jesuit, tells the\nreader:\n\n\n    Every god had such instruments of divination to speak through.\n    Each had his speciality.\n\n\nSerapis gave instruction on agriculture; Anubis taught sciences; Horus\nadvised upon psychic and spiritual matters; Isis was consulted on the\nrising of the Nile, and so on.(444)\n\nThis historical fact, furnished by one of the ablest and most erudite\namong the Jesuits, is unfortunate for the prestige of the \u201cLord God of\nIsrael\u201d with regard to his claims to priority and to his being the _one_\nliving God. Jehovah, on the admission of the _Old Testament_ itself,\nconversed with his elect in no other way, and this places him on a par\nwith every other Pagan God, even of the inferior classes. In _Judges_,\nxvii., we read of Micah having an ephod and a teraphim fabricated, and\nconsecrating them to Jehovah (see the _Septuagint_ and the _Vulgate_);\nthese objects were made by a founder from the two hundred shekels of\nsilver given to him by his mother. True, King James\u2019 \u201cHoly Bible\u201d explains\nthis little bit of idolatry by saying:\n\n\n    In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that\n    which was right in his own eyes.\n\n\nYet the act must have been orthodox, since Micah, after hiring a priest, a\ndiviner, for his ephod and teraphim, declares: \u201cNow know I that the Lord\nwill do me good.\u201d And if Micah\u2019s act\u2014who\n\n\n    Had an house of Gods, and made an ephod and teraphim and\n    consecrated one of his sons\n\n\nto their service, as also to that of the \u201cgraven image\u201d dedicated \u201cunto\nthe Lord\u201d by his mother\u2014now seems prejudicial, it was not so in those days\nof one religion and one lip. How can the Latin Church blame the act, since\nKircher, one of her best writers, calls the teraphim \u201cthe holy instruments\nof primitive revelations;\u201d since _Genesis_ shows us Rebecca going \u201cto\nenquire of the Lord,\u201d(445) and the Lord answering her (certainly through\nhis teraphim), and delivering to her several prophecies? And if this be\nnot sufficient, there is Saul, who deplores the silence of the ephod,(446)\nand David who consults the thummim, and receives oral advice from the Lord\nas to the best way of killing his enemies.\n\nThe thummim and urim, however\u2014the object in our days of so much conjecture\nand speculation\u2014was not an invention of the Jews, nor had it originated\nwith them, despite the minute instruction given about it by Jehovah to\nMoses. For the priest\u2010hierophant of the Egyptian temples wore a\nbreastplate of precious stones, in every way similar to that of the high\npriest of the Israelites.\n\n\n    The high\u2010priests of Egypt wore suspended on their necks an image\n    of sapphire, called _Truth_, the manifestation of truth becoming\n    evident in it.\n\n\nSeldenus is not the only Christian writer who assimilates the Jewish to\nthe Pagan teraphim, and expressed a conviction that the former had\nborrowed them from the Egyptians. Moreover, we are told by D\u00f6llinger, a\npre\u00ebminently Roman Catholic writer:\n\n\n    The teraphim were used and remained in many Jewish families to the\n    days of Josiah.(447)\n\n\nAs to the personal opinion of D\u00f6llinger, a Papist, and of Seldenus, a\nProtestant\u2014both of whom trace Jehovah in the teraphim of the Jews and\n\u201cevil spirits\u201d in those of the Pagans\u2014it is the usual one\u2010sided judgment\nof _odium theologicum_ and sectarianism. Seldenus is right, however, in\narguing that in the days of old, all such modes of communication had been\nprimarily established for purposes of divine and angelic communications\nonly. But\n\n\n    The holy Spirit (spirits, rather) spake [not] to the children of\n    Israel [alone] by urim and thummim, while the tabernacle remained,\n\n\nas Dr. A. Cruden would have people believe. Nor had the Jews alone need of\na \u201ctabernacle\u201d for such a kind of theophanic, or divine communication; for\nno Bath\u2010Kol (or \u201cDaughter of the divine Voice\u201d), called thummim, could be\nheard whether by Jew, Pagan, or Christian, were there not a fit tabernacle\nfor it. The \u201ctabernacle\u201d was simply the archaic telephone of those days of\nMagic when Occult powers were acquired by Initiation, just as they are\nnow. The nineteenth century has replaced with an electric telephone the\n\u201ctabernacle\u201d of specified metals, wood, and special arrangements, and has\nnatural mediums instead of high priests and hierophants. Why should people\nwonder, then, that instead of reaching Planetary Spirits and Gods,\nbelievers should now communicate with no greater beings than elementals\nand animated shells\u2014the demons of Porphyry? Who these were, he tells us\ncandidly in his work _On the Good and Bad Demons_:\n\n\n    They whose ambition is to be taken for Gods, and whose leader\n    demands to be recognized as the Supreme God.\n\n\nMost decidedly\u2014and it is not the Theosophists who will ever deny the\nfact\u2014there are good as well as bad spirits, beneficent and malevolent\n\u201cGods\u201d in all ages. The whole trouble was, and still is, to know which is\nwhich. And this, we maintain, the Christian Church knows no more than her\nprofane flock. If anything proves this, it is, most decidedly, the\nnumberless theological blunders made in this direction. It is idle to call\nthe Gods of the heathen \u201cdevils,\u201d and then to copy their symbols in such a\nservile manner, enforcing the distinction between the good and the bad\nwith no weightier proof than that they are respectively Christian and\nPagan. The planets\u2014the elements of the Zodiac\u2014have not figured only at\nHeliopolis as the twelve stones called the \u201cmysteries of the elements\u201d\n(elementorum arcana). On the authority of many an orthodox Christian\nwriter they were found also in Solomon\u2019s temple, and may be seen to this\nday in several old Italian churches, and even in Notre Dame of Paris.\n\nOne would really say that the warning in Clement\u2019s _Stromateis_ has been\ngiven in vain, though he is supposed to quote words pronounced by St.\nPeter. He says:\n\n\n    Do not adore God as the Jews do, who think they are the only ones\n    to know Deity and fail to perceive that, instead of God, they are\n    worshipping angels, the lunar months, and the moon.(448)\n\n\nWho after reading the above can fail to feel surprise that,\nnotwithstanding such understanding of the Jewish mistake, the Christians\nare still worshipping the Jewish Jehovah, the Spirit who spoke through his\nteraphim! That this is so, and that Jehovah was simply the \u201ctutelary\ngenius,\u201d or spirit, of the people of Israel\u2014only one of the pneumata t\u014dn\nstoichei\u014dn (or \u201cgreat spirits of the elements\u201d), not even a high\n\u201cPlanetary\u201d\u2014is demonstrated on the authority of St. Paul and of Clemens\nAlexandrinus, if the words they use have any meaning. With the latter, the\nword \u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c7\u03b5\u1fd6\u03b1 signifies not only elements, but also\n\n\n    Generative cosmological principles, and notably the signs [or\n    constellations] of the Zodiac, of the months, days, the sun and\n    the moon.(449)\n\n\nThe expression is used by Aristotle in the same sense. He says, \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u1f00\u03c3\u03c4\u03c1\u1ff6\u03bd\n\u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c7\u03b5\u1fd6\u03b1,(450) while Diogenes Laertius calls \u03b4\u03ce\u03b4\u03b5\u03ba\u03b1 \u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c7\u03b5\u03af\u03b1, the twelve\nsigns of the Zodiac.(451) Now having the positive evidence of Ammianus\nMarcellinus to the effect that\n\n\n    Ancient divination was always accomplished with the help of the\n    spirits of the elements,\n\n\nor the same \u03c0\u03bd\u03b5\u03ac\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd \u03c3\u03c4\u03bf\u03b9\u03c7\u03b5\u03af\u03c9\u03bd, and seeing in the _Bible_ numerous\npassages that (_a_) the Israelites, including Saul and David, resorted to\nthe same divination, and used the same means; and (_b_) that it was their\n\u201cLord\u201d\u2014namely, Jehovah\u2014who answered them, what else can we believe Jehovah\nto be than a \u201cspiritus elementorum\u201d?\n\nHence one sees no great difference between the \u201cidol of the moon\u201d\u2014the\nChald\u00e6an teraphim through which spoke Saturn\u2014and the idol of urim and\nthummim, the organ of Jehovah. Occult rites, scientific at the\nbeginning\u2014and forming the most solemn and sacred of sciences\u2014have fallen\nthrough the degeneration of mankind into Sorcery, now called\n\u201csuperstition.\u201d As Diogenes explains in his _History_:\n\n\n    The Kaldhi, having made long observations on the planets and\n    knowing better than anyone else the meaning of their motions and\n    their influences, predict to people their futurity. They regard\n    their doctrine of the _five_ great orbs\u2014which they call\n    interpreters, and we, planets\u2014as the most important. And though\n    they allege that it is the _sun_ that furnishes them with most of\n    the predictions for great forthcoming events, yet they worship\n    more particularly Saturn. Such predictions made to a number of\n    kings, especially to Alexander, Antigonus, Seleucus, Nicanor,\n    etc., ... have been so marvellously realised that people were\n    struck with admiration.(452)\n\n\nIt follows from the above that the declaration made by Q\u00fb\u2010t\u00e2my, the\nChald\u00e6an Adept\u2014to the effect that all that he means to impart in his work\nto the profane had been told by Saturn to the moon, by the latter to her\nidol, and by that idol, or teraphim, to himself, the scribe\u2014no more\nimplied idolatry than did the practice of the same method by King David.\nOne fails to perceive in it, therefore, either an apocrypha or a \u201cfairy\u2010\ntale.\u201d The above\u2010named Chald\u00e6an Initiate lived at a period far anterior to\nthat ascribed to Moses, in whose day the Sacred Science of the sanctuary\nwas still in a flourishing condition. It began to decline only when such\nscoffers as Lucian had been admitted, and the pearls of the Occult Science\nhad been too often thrown to the hungry dogs of criticism and ignorance.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXVII. EGYPTIAN MAGIC.\n\n\nFew of our students of Occultism have had the opportunity of examining\nEgyptian papyri\u2014those living, or rather re\u2010arisen witnesses that Magic,\ngood and bad, was practised many thousands of years back into the night of\ntime. The use of the papyrus prevailed up to the eighth century of our\nera, when it was given up, and its fabrication fell into disuse. The most\ncurious of the exhumed documents were immediately purchased and taken away\nfrom the country. Yet there are a number of beautifully\u2010preserved papyri\nat Bulak, Cairo, though the greater number have never been yet properly\nread.(453)\n\nOthers\u2014those that have been carried away and may be found in the museums\nand public libraries of Europe\u2014have fared no better. In the days of the\nVicomte de Roug\u00e9, some twenty\u2010five years ago, only a few of them \u201cwere\ntwo\u2010thirds deciphered;\u201d and among those some most interesting legends,\ninserted parenthetically and for purposes of explaining royal expenses,\nare in the Register of the Sacred Accounts.\n\nThis may be verified in the so\u2010called \u201cHarris\u201d and Anastasi collections,\nand in some papyri recently exhumed; one of these gives an account of a\nwhole series of magic feats performed before the Pharaohs Ramses II. and\nIII. A curious document, the first\u2010mentioned, truly. It is a papyrus of\nthe fifteenth century B.C., written during the reign of Ramses V., the\nlast king of the eighteenth dynasty, and is the work of the scribe\nThoutmes, who notes down some of the events with regard to defaulters\noccurring on the twelfth and thirteenth days of the month of Paophs. The\ndocument shows that in those days of \u201cmiracles\u201d in Egypt the taxpayers\nwere not found among the living alone, but every mummy was included. All\nand everything was taxed; and the Khou of the mummy, in default, was\npunished \u201cby the priest\u2010exorciser, who deprived it of the liberty of\naction.\u201d Now what was the Khou? Simply the astral body, or the aerial\nsimulacrum of the corpse or the mummy\u2014that which in China is called the\nHauen, and in India the Bh\u00fbt.\n\nUpon reading this papyrus to\u2010day, an Orientalist is pretty sure to fling\nit aside in disgust, attributing the whole affair to the crass\nsuperstition of the ancients. Truly phenomenal and inexplicable must have\nbeen the dullness and credulity of that otherwise highly philosophical and\ncivilized nation if it could carry on for so many consecutive ages, for\nthousands of years, such a system of mutual deception! A system whereby\nthe people were deceived by the priests, the priests by their King\u2010\nHierophants, and the latter themselves were cheated by the ghosts, which\nwere, in their turn, but \u201cthe fruits of hallucination.\u201d The whole of\nantiquity, from Menes to Cleopatra, from Manu to Vikramaditya, from\nOrpheus down to the last Roman augur, were hysterical, we are told. This\nmust have been so, if the whole were not a system of fraud. Life and death\nwere guided by, and were under the sway of, sacred \u201cconjuring.\u201d For there\nis hardly a papyrus, though it be a simple document of purchase and sale,\na deed belonging to daily transactions of the most ordinary kind, that has\nnot Magic, white or black, mixed up in it. It looks as though the sacred\nscribes of the Nile had purposely, and in a prophetic spirit of race\u2010\nhatred, carried out the (to them) most unprofitable task of deceiving and\npuzzling the generations of a future white race of unbelievers yet unborn!\nAnyhow, the papyri are full of Magic, as are likewise the stel\u00e6. We learn,\nmoreover, that the papyrus was not merely a smooth\u2010surfaced parchment, a\nfabric made of\n\n\n    Ligneous matter from a shrub, the pellicles of which superposed\n    one over the other formed a kind of writing\u2010paper;\n\n\nbut that the shrub itself, the implements and tools for fabricating the\nparchment, etc., were all previously subjected to a process of magical\npreparation\u2014according to the ordinance of the Gods, who had taught that\nart, as they had all others, to their Priest\u2010Hierophants.\n\nThere are, however, some modern Orientalists who seem to have an inkling\nof the true nature of such things, and especially of the analogy and the\nrelations that exist between the Magic of old and our modern\u2010day\nphenomena. Chabas is one of these, for he indulges, in his translation of\nthe \u201cHarris\u201d papyrus, in the following reflections:\n\n\n    Without having recourse to the imposing ceremonies of the wand of\n    Hermes, or to the obscure formul\u00e6 of an unfathomable mysticism, a\n    mesmerizer in our own day will, by means of a few passes, disturb\n    the organic faculties of a subject, inculcate the knowledge of\n    foreign languages, transport him to a far\u2010distant country, or into\n    secret places, make him guess the thoughts of those absent, read\n    in closed letters, etc.... The antre of the modern sybil is a\n    modest\u2010looking room, the tripod has made room for a small round\n    table, a hat, a plate, a piece of furniture of the most vulgar\n    kind; only the latter is even superior to the oracle of antiquity\n    [how does M. Chabas know?], inasmuch as the latter only\n    spoke,(454) while the oracle of our day writes its answers. At the\n    command of the medium the spirits of the dead descend to make the\n    furniture creak, and the authors of bygone centuries deliver to us\n    works written by them beyond the grave. Human credulity has no\n    narrower limits to\u2010day than it had at the dawn of historical\n    times.... As teratology is an essential part of general physiology\n    now, so the _pretended_ Occult Sciences occupy in the annals of\n    humanity a place which is not without its importance, and deserve\n    for more than one reason the attention of the philosopher and the\n    historian.(455)\n\n\nSelecting the two Champollions, Lenormand, Bunsen, Vicomte de Roug\u00e9, and\nseveral other Egyptologists to serve as our witnesses, let us see what\nthey say of Egyptian Magic and Sorcery. They may get out of the difficulty\nby accounting for each \u201csuperstitious belief\u201d and practice by attributing\nthem to a chronic psychological and physiological derangement, and to\ncollective hysteria, if they like; still facts are there, staring us in\nthe face, from the hundreds of these mysterious papyri, exhumed after a\nrest of four, five, and more thousands of years, with their magical\ncontainments and evidence of antediluvian Magic.\n\nA small library, found at Thebes, has furnished fragments of every kind of\nancient literature, many of which are dated, and several of which have\nthus been assigned to the accepted age of Moses. Books or manuscripts on\nethics, history, religion and medicine, calendars and registers, poems and\nnovels\u2014everything\u2014may be had in that precious collection; and old\nlegends\u2014traditions of long forgotten ages (please to remark this: legends\nrecorded during the Mosaic period)\u2014are already referred to therein as\nbelonging to an immense antiquity, to the period of the dynasties of Gods\nand Giants. Their chief contents, however, are formul\u00e6 of exorcisms\nagainst black Magic, and funeral rituals: true breviaries, or the _vade\nmecum_ of every pilgrim\u2010traveller in eternity. These funeral texts are\ngenerally written in hieratic characters. At the head of the papyrus is\ninvariably placed a series of scenes, showing the defunct appearing before\na host of Deities successively, who have to examine him. Then comes the\njudgment of the Soul, while the third act begins with the launching of\nthat Soul into the divine light. Such papyri are often forty feet\nlong.(456)\n\nThe following is extracted from general descriptions. It will show how the\nmoderns understand and interpret Egyptian (and other) Symbology.\n\nThe papyrus of the priest Nevo\u2010loo (or Nevolen), at the Louvre, may be\nselected for one case. First of all there is the bark carrying the coffin,\na black chest containing the defunct\u2019s mummy. His mother, Ammenbem\u2010Heb,\nand his sister, Hooissanoob, are near; at the head and feet of the corpse\nstand Nephtys and Isis clothed in red, and near them a priest of Osiris\nclad in his panther\u2019s skin, his censer in his right hand, and four\nassistants carrying the mummy\u2019s intestines. The coffin is received by the\nGod Anubis (of the jackal\u2019s head), from the hands of female weepers. Then\nthe Soul rises from its mummy and the Khou (astral body) of the defunct.\nThe former begins its worship of the four genii of the East, of the sacred\nbirds, and of Ammon as a ram. Brought into the \u201cPalace of Truth,\u201d the\ndefunct is before his judges. While the Soul, a scarab\u00e6us, stands in the\npresence of Osiris, his astral Khou is at the door. Much laughter is\nprovoked in the West by the invocations to various Deities, presiding over\neach of the limbs of the mummy, and of the living human body. Only judge:\nin the papyrus of the mummy Petamenoph \u201cthe anatomy becomes\ntheographical,\u201d \u201castrology is applied to physiology,\u201d or rather \u201cto the\nanatomy of the human body, the heart and the soul.\u201d The defunct\u2019s \u201chair\nbelongs to the Nile, his eyes to Venus (Isis), his ears to Macedo, the\nguardian of the tropics; his nose to Anubis, his left temple to the Spirit\ndwelling in the sun.... What a series of intolerable absurdities and\nignoble prayers ... to Osiris, imploring him to give the defunct in the\nother world, geese, eggs, pork, etc.\u201d(457)\n\nIt might have been prudent, perhaps, to have waited to ascertain whether\nall these terms of \u201cgeese, eggs, and pork\u201d had not some other Occult\nmeaning. The Indian Yog\u00ee who, in an _exoteric_ work, is invited to drink a\ncertain intoxicating liquor till he loses his senses, was also regarded as\na drunkard representing his sect and class, until it was found that the\nEsoteric sense of that \u201cspirit\u201d was quite different: that it meant divine\nlight, and stood for the ambrosia of Secret Wisdom. The symbols of the\ndove and the lamb which abound now in Eastern and Western Christian\nChurches may also be exhumed long ages hence, and speculated upon as\nobjects of present\u2010day worship. And then some \u201cOccidentalist\u201d in the\nforthcoming ages of high Asiatic civilization and learning, may write\nkarmically upon the same as follows: \u201cThe ignorant and superstitious\nGnostics and Agnostics of the sects of \u2018Pope\u2019 and \u2018Calvin\u2019 (the two\nmonster Gods of the Dynamite\u2010Christian period) adored a pigeon and a\nsheep!\u201d There will be portable hand\u2010fetishes in all and every age for the\nsatisfaction and reverence of the rabble, and the Gods of one race will\nalways be degraded into devils by the next one. The cycles revolve within\nthe depths of Lethe, and Karma shall reach Europe as it has Asia and her\nreligions.\n\nNevertheless,\n\n\n    This grand and dignified language [in the _Book of the Dead_],\n    these pictures full of majesty, this orthodoxy of the whole\n    evidently proving a very precise doctrine concerning the\n    immortality of the soul and its personal survival,\n\n\nas shown by De Roug\u00e9 and the Abb\u00e9 Van Drival, have charmed some\nOrientalists. The psychostasy (or judgment of the Soul) is certainly a\nwhole poem to him who can read it correctly and interpret the images\ntherein. In that picture we see Osiris, the horned, with his sceptre\nhooked at the end\u2014the original of the pastoral bishop\u2019s crook or\ncrosier\u2014the Soul hovering above, encouraged by Tmei, daughter of the Sun\nof Righteousness and Goddess of Mercy and Justice; Horus and Anubis,\nweighing the deeds of the soul. One of these papyri shows the Soul found\nguilty of gluttony sentenced to be re\u2010born on earth as a hog; forthwith\ncomes the learned conclusion of an Orientalist, \u201cThis is an indisputable\nproof of belief in _metempsychosis_, of transmigration _into animals_,\u201d\netc.\n\nPerchance the Occult law of Karma might explain the sentence otherwise. It\nmay, for all our Orientalists know, refer to the physiological vice in\nstore for the Soul when re\u2010incarnated\u2014a vice that will lead that\npersonality into a thousand and one scrapes and misadventures.\n\n\n    Tortures to begin with, then metempsychosis _during_ 3,000 _years_\n    as a hawk, an angel, a lotus\u2010flower, a heron, a stork, a swallow,\n    a serpent, and a crocodile: one sees that the consolation of such\n    a progress was far from being satisfactory,\n\n\nargues De Mirville, in his work on the Satanic character of the Gods of\nEgypt.(458) Again, a simple suggestion may throw on this a great light.\nAre the Orientalists quite sure they have read correctly the\n\u201cmetempsychosis during 3,000 years\u201d? The Occult Doctrine teaches that\nKarma waits at the threshold of Devachan (the Amenti of the Egyptians) for\n3,000 years; that then the eternal _Ego_ is reincarnated _de novo_, to be\npunished in its new temporary personality for sins committed in the\npreceding birth, and the suffering for which, in one shape or another,\nwill atone for past misdeeds. And the hawk, the lotus\u2010flower, the heron,\nserpent, or bird\u2014every object in Nature, in short\u2014had its symbolical and\nmanifold meaning in ancient religious emblems. The man who all his life\nacted hypocritically and passed for a good man, but had been in sober\nreality watching like a bird of prey his chance to pounce upon his fellow\u2010\ncreatures, and had deprived them of their property, will be sentenced by\nKarma to bear the punishment for hypocrisy and covetousness in a future\nlife. What will it be? Since every human unit has ultimately to progress\nin its evolution, and since that \u201cman\u201d will be reborn at some future time\nas a good, sincere, well\u2010meaning man, his sentence to be re\u2010incarnated as\na hawk may simply mean that he will then be regarded metaphorically as\nsuch. That, notwithstanding his real, good, intrinsic qualities, he will,\nperhaps during a long life, be unjustly and falsely charged with and\nsuspected of greed and hypocrisy and of secret exactions, all of which\nwill make him suffer more than he can bear. The law of retribution can\nnever err, and yet how many such innocent victims of false appearance and\nhuman malice do we not meet in this world of incessant illusion, of\nmistake and deliberate wickedness. We see them every day, and they may be\nfound within the personal experience of each of us. What Orientalist can\nsay with any degree of assurance that he has understood the religions of\nold? The metaphorical language of the priests has never been more than\nsuperficially revealed, and the hieroglyphics have been very poorly\nmastered to this day.(459)\n\nWhat says _Isis Unveiled_ on this question of Egyptian rebirth and\ntransmigration, and does it clash with anything that we say now?\n\n\n    It will be observed that this philosophy of cycles, which was\n    allegorized by the Egyptian Hierophants in the \u201ccycle of\n    necessity,\u201d explains at the same time the allegory of the \u201cFall of\n    Man.\u201d According to the Arabian descriptions, each of the seven\n    chambers of the pyramids\u2014those grandest of all cosmic symbols\u2014was\n    known by the name of a planet. The peculiar architecture of the\n    pyramids shows in itself the drift of the metaphysical thought of\n    their builders. The apex is lost in the clear blue sky of the land\n    of the Pharaohs, and typifies the primordial point lost in the\n    unseen Universe from whence started the first race of the\n    spiritual prototypes of man. Each mummy from the moment that it\n    was embalmed lost its physical individuality in one sense: it\n    symbolised the human race. Placed in such a way as was best\n    calculated to aid the exit of the \u201cSoul,\u201d the latter had to pass\n    through the seven planetary chambers before it made its exit\n    through the symbolical apex. Each chamber typified, at the same\n    time, one of the seven spheres [of our Chain] and one of the seven\n    higher types of physico\u2010spiritual humanity alleged to be above our\n    own. Every 3000 years the soul, representative of its race, had to\n    return to its primal point of departure before it underwent\n    another evolution into a more perfected spiritual and physical\n    transformation. We must go deep indeed into the abstruse\n    metaphysics of Oriental mysticism before we can realise fully the\n    infinitude of the subjects that were embraced at one sweep by the\n    majestic thought of its exponents.(460)\n\n\nThis is all Magic when once the details are given; and it relates at the\nsame time to the evolution of our seven Root\u2010Races, each with the\ncharacteristics of its special guardian or \u201cGod,\u201d and his Planet. The\nastral body of each Initiate, after death, had to re\u00ebnact in its funeral\nmystery the drama of the birth and death of each Race\u2014the past and the\nfuture\u2014and pass through the seven \u201cplanetary chambers,\u201d which, as said\nabove, typified also the seven spheres of our Chain.\n\nThe mystic doctrine of Eastern Occultism teaches that\n\n_\u201c__The Spiritual Ego [not the astral Khou] has to revisit, before it\nincarnates into a new body, the scenes it left at its last disincarnation.\nIt __ has to see for itself and take cognizance of all the effects\nproduced by the causes [the Nid\u00e2nas] generated by its actions in a\nprevious life; that, seeing, it should recognize the justice of the\ndecree, and help the law of Retribution [Karma] instead of impeding\nit.__\u201d_(461)\n\nThe translations by Vicomte de Roug\u00e9 of several Egyptian papyri, imperfect\nas they may be, give us one advantage: they show undeniably the presence\nin them of white, divine Magic, as well as of Sorcery, and the practice of\nboth throughout all the dynasties. The _Book of the Dead_, far older than\n_Genesis_(462) or any other book of the _Old Testament_, shows it in every\nline. It is full of incessant prayers and exorcisms against the Black Art.\nTherein Osiris is the conqueror of the \u201caerial demons.\u201d The worshipper\nimplores his help against Matat, \u201cfrom whose eye proceeds the invisible\narrow.\u201d This \u201cinvisible arrow\u201d that proceeds from the eye of the Sorcerer\n(whether living or dead) and that \u201ccirculates throughout the world,\u201d is\nthe evil eye\u2014cosmic in its origin, terrestrial in its effects on the\nmicrocosmical plane. It is not the Latin Christians whom it behoves to\nview this as a superstition. Their Church indulges in the same belief, and\nhas even a prayer against the \u201carrow circulating in darkness.\u201d\n\nThe most interesting of all those documents, however, is the \u201cHarris\u201d\npapyrus, called in France \u201c_le papyrus magique_ de Chabas,\u201d as it was\nfirst translated by the latter. It is a manuscript written in hieratic\ncharacters, translated, commented upon, and published in 1860 by M.\nChabas, but purchased at Thebes in 1855 by Mr. Harris. Its age is given at\nbetween twenty\u2010eight and thirty centuries. We quote a few extracts from\nthese translations:\n\n\n    Calendar of lucky and unlucky days: ... He who makes a bull work\n    on the 20th of the month of Pharmuths will surely die; he who on\n    the 24th day of the same month pronounces the name of Seth aloud\n    will see trouble reigning in his house from that day; ... he who\n    on the 5th day of Patchous leaves his house falls sick and dies.\n\n\nExclaims the translator, whose cultured instincts are revolted:\n\n\n    If one had not these words under our eyes, one could never believe\n    in such servitude at the epoch of the Ramessides.(463)\n\n\nWe belong to the nineteenth century of the Christian era, and are\ntherefore at the height of civilization, and under the benign sway and\nenlightening influence of the Christian Church, instead of being subject\nto the Pagan Gods of old. Nevertheless we personally know dozens, and have\nheard of hundreds, of educated, highly\u2010intellectual persons who would as\nsoon think of committing suicide as of starting on any business on a\nFriday, of dining at a table where thirteen sit down, or of beginning a\nlong journey on a Monday. Napoleon the Great became pale when he saw three\ncandles lit on a table. Moreover, we may gladly concur with De Mirville in\nthis, at any rate, that such \u201csuperstitions\u201d are \u201cthe outcome of\nobservation and experience.\u201d If the former had never agreed with facts,\nthe authority of the _Calendar_, he thinks, would not have lasted for a\nweek. But to resume:\n\n\n    _Genethliacal influences_: The child born on the 5th day of Paophi\n    will be killed by a bull; on the 27th by a serpent. Born on the\n    4th of the month of Athyr, he will succumb to blows.\n\n\nThis is a question of horoscopic predictions; judiciary astrology is\nfirmly believed in in our own age, and has been proven to be\nscientifically possible by Kepler.\n\nOf the Khous two kinds were distinguished: first, the justified Khous,\n_i.e._, those who had been absolved from sin by Osiris when they were\nbrought before his tribunal; these lived a second life. Secondly, there\nwere the guilty Khous, \u201cthe Khous dead a second time;\u201d these were the\ndamned. Second death did not annihilate them, but they were doomed to\nwander about and to torture people. Their existence had phases analogous\nto those of the living man, a bond so intimate between the dead and the\nliving that one sees how the observation of religious funeral rites and\nexorcisms and prayers (or rather magic incantations) should have become\nnecessary.(464) Says one prayer:\n\n\n    Do not permit that the venom should master his limbs [of the\n    defunct], ... that he should be penetrated by any male dead, or\n    any female dead; or that the shadow of any spirit should haunt him\n    (or her).(465)\n\n\nM. Chabas adds:\n\n\n    These Khous were beings of that kind to which human beings belong\n    after their death; they were exorcised in the name of the god\n    Chons.... The Manes then could enter the bodies of the living,\n    haunt and obsess them. Formul\u00e6 and talismans, and especially\n    statues or _divine figures_, were used against such _formidable_\n    invasions.(466)... They were combated by the help of the divine\n    power, the god Chons being famed for such deliverances. The Khou,\n    in obeying the orders of the god, none the less preserved the\n    precious faculty inherent in him of accommodating himself in any\n    other body at will.\n\n\nThe most frequent formula of exorcism is as follows. It is very\nsuggestive:\n\n\n    Men, gods, elect, dead spirits, amous, negroes, menti\u2010u, do not\n    look at this soul to show cruelty toward it.\n\n\nThis is addressed to all who were acquainted _with Magic_.\n\n\u201cAmulets and mystic names.\u201d This chapter is called \u201cvery mysterious,\u201d and\ncontains invocations to Penhakahakaherher and Uranaokarsankrobite, and\nother such easy names. Says Chabas:\n\n\n    We have proofs that mystic names similar to these were in common\n    use during the stay of the Israelites in Egypt.\n\n\nAnd we may add that, whether got from the Egyptians or the Hebrews, these\nare sorcery names. The student can consult the works of \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi, such\nas his _Grimoire des Sorciers_. In these exorcisms Osiris is called\nMamuram\u2010Kahab, and is implored to prevent the twice\u2010dead Khou from\nattacking the justified Khou and his next of kin, since the accursed\n(astral spook)\n\n\n    Can take any form he likes and penetrate at will into any locality\n    or body.\n\n\nIn studying Egyptian papyri, one begins to find that the subjects of the\nPharaohs were not very much inclined to the Spiritism or Spiritualism of\ntheir day. They dreaded the \u201cblessed spirit\u201d of the dead more than a Roman\nCatholic dreads the devil!\n\nBut how uncalled\u2010for and unjust is the charge against the Gods of Egypt\nthat they are these \u201cdevils,\u201d and against the priests of exercising their\nmagic powers with the help of \u201cthe fallen angels,\u201d may be seen in more\nthan one papyrus. For one often finds in them records of Sorcerers\nsentenced to the death penalty, as though they had been living under the\nprotection of the holy Christian Inquisition. Here is one case during the\nreign of Ramses III., quoted by De Mirville from Chabas.\n\n\n    The first page begins with these words: \u201cFrom the place where I am\n    to the people of my country.\u201d There is reason to suppose, as one\n    will see, that the person who wrote this, in the first personal\n    pronoun, is a magistrate making a report, and attesting it before\n    men, after an accustomed formula, for here is the main part of\n    this accusation: \u201cThis Hai, a bad man, was an overseer [or perhaps\n    keeper] of sheep: he said: \u2018Can I have a book that will give me\n    great power?\u2019... And a book was given him with the formul\u00e6 of\n    Ramses\u2010Meri\u2010Amen, the great God, his royal master; and he\n    succeeded in getting a divine power enabling him to fascinate men.\n    He also succeeded in building a place and in finding a very _deep\n    place_, and produced men of Menh [magical homunculi?] and ...\n    love\u2010writings ... stealing them from the Khen [the occult library\n    of the palace] by the hand of the stonemason Atirma, ... by\n    forcing one of the supervisors to go aside, and acting magically\n    on the others. Then he sought to read futurity by them and\n    succeeded. All the horrors and abominations he had conceived in\n    his heart, he did them really, he practised them all, and other\n    great crimes as well, such as _the horror_ [?] of all the Gods and\n    Goddesses. Likewise let the prescriptions _great_ [_severe?_]\n    _unto death_ be done unto him, such as the divine words order to\n    be done to him.\u201d The accusation does not stop there, it specifies\n    the crimes. The first line speaks of a hand paralysed by means of\n    the _men of Menh_, to whom it is simply said, \u201c_Let such an effect\n    be produced_,\u201d and it is produced. Then come the _great\n    abominations_, such as deserve death.... The judges who had\n    examined him (the culprit) reported saying, \u201cLet him die according\n    to the order of Pharaoh, and according to what is written in the\n    lines of the divine language.\u201d\n\n\nM. Chabas remarks:\n\n\n    Documents of this kind abound, but the task of analysing them all\n    cannot be attempted with the limited means we possess.(467)\n\n\nThen there is an inscription taken in the temple of Khous, the God who had\npower over the elementaries, at Thebes. It was presented by M. Prisse\nd\u2019Avenne to the Imperial\u2014now National\u2014Library of Paris, and was translated\nfirst by Mr. S. Birch. There is in it a whole romance of Magic. It dates\nfrom the day of Ramses XII.(468) of the twentieth dynasty; it is from the\nrendering of M. de Roug\u00e9 as quoted by De Mirville, that we now translate\nit.\n\n\n    This monument tells us that one of the Ramses of the twentieth\n    dynasty, while collecting at Naharain the tributes paid to Egypt\n    by the Asiatic nations, fell in love with a daughter of the chief\n    of Bakhten, one of his tributaries, married her and, bringing her\n    to Egypt with him, raised her to the dignity of Queen, under the\n    royal name of Ranefrou. Soon afterwards the chief of Bakhten\n    dispatched a messenger to Ramses, praying the assistance of\n    Egyptian science for Bent\u2010Rosh, a young sister of the queen,\n    attacked with illness in all her limbs.\n\n    The messenger asked expressly that a \u201cwise\u2010man\u201d [an Initiate\u2014Reh\u2010\n    Het] should be sent. The king gave orders that all the\n    hierogrammatists of the palace and the guardians of the secret\n    books of the Khen should be sent for, and choosing from among them\n    the royal scribe Thoth\u2010em\u2010Hebi, an intelligent man, well versed in\n    writing, charged him to examine the sickness.\n\n    Arrived at Bakhten, Thoth\u2010em\u2010Hebi found that Bent\u2010Rosh was\n    possessed by a Khou (Em\u2010seh\u2010\u2019eru ker h\u2019ou), but declared himself\n    too weak to engage in a struggle with him.(469)\n\n    Eleven years elapsed, and the young girl\u2019s state did not improve.\n    The chief of Bakhten again sent his messenger, and on his formal\n    demand Khons\u2010peiri\u2010Seklerem\u2010Zam, one of the divine forms of\n    Chons\u2014God the Son in the Theban Trinity\u2014was dispatched to\n    Bakhten....\n\n    The God [incarnate] having saluted (_besa_) the patient, she felt\n    immediately relieved, and the Khou who was in her manifested\n    forthwith his intention of obeying the orders of the God. \u201cO great\n    God, who forcest the phantom to vanish,\u201d said the Khou, \u201cI am thy\n    slave and I will return whence I came!\u201d(470)\n\n\nEvidently Khons\u2010peiri\u2010Seklerem\u2010Zam was a real Hierophant of the class\nnamed the \u201cSons of God,\u201d since he is said to be one of the forms of the\nGod Khons; which means either that he was considered as an incarnation of\nthat God\u2014an Avat\u00e2ra\u2014or that he was a full Initiate. The same text shows\nthat the temple to which he belonged was one of those to which a School of\nMagic was attached. There was a Khen in it, or that portion of the temple\nwhich was inaccessible to all but the highest priest, the library or\ndepository of secret works, to the study and care of which special priests\nwere appointed (those whom all the Pharaohs consulted in cases of great\nimportance), and wherein they communicated with the Gods and obtained\nadvice from them. Does not Lucian tell his readers in his description of\nthe temple of Hierapolis, of \u201cGods who manifest their presence\nindependently?\u201d(471) And further on that he once travelled with a priest\nfrom Memphis, who told him he had passed twenty\u2010three years in the\nsubterranean crypts of his temple, receiving instructions on Magic from\nthe Goddess Isis herself. Again we read that it was by Mercury himself\nthat the great Sesostris (Ramses II.) was instructed in the Sacred\nSciences. On which Jablonsky remarks that we have here the reason why Amun\n(Ammon)\u2014whence he thinks our \u201cAmen\u201d is derived\u2014was a real evocation to the\nlight.(472)\n\nIn the Papyrus Anastasi, which teems with various formul\u00e6 for the\nevocation of Gods, and with exorcisms against Khous and the elementary\ndemons, the seventh paragraph shows plainly the difference made between\nthe real Gods, the Planetary Angels, and those shells of mortals which are\nleft behind in K\u00e2ma\u2010loka, as though to tempt mankind and to puzzle it the\nmore hopelessly in its vain search after the truth, outside the Occult\nSciences and the veil of Initiation. This seventh verse says with regard\nto such divine evocations or theomantic consultations:\n\n\n    One must invoke that divine and great name(473) only in cases of\n    absolute necessity, and when one feels absolutely pure and\n    irreproachable.\n\n\nNot so in the formula of black Magic. Reuvens, speaking of the two rituals\nof Magic of the Anastasi collection, remarks that they\n\n\n    Undeniably form the most instructive commentary upon the _Egyptian\n    mysteries_ attributed to Jamblichus, and the best pendant to that\n    classical work, for understanding the thaumaturgy of the\n    philosophical sects, thaumaturgy based on ancient Egyptian\n    religion. According to Jamblichus, thaumaturgy was exercised by\n    the ministry of secondary genii.(474)\n\n\nReuvens closes with a remark which is very suggestive and is very\nimportant to the Occultists who defend the antiquity and genuineness of\ntheir documents, for he says:\n\n\n    All that he [Jamblichus] gives out as theology we find as history\n    in our papyri.\n\n\nBut then how deny the authenticity, the credibility, and, beyond all, the\ntrustworthiness of those classical writers, who all wrote about Magic and\nits Mysteries in a most worshipful spirit of admiration and reverence?\nListen to Pindarus, who exclaims:\n\n\n    Happy he who descends into the grave thus initiated, for he knows\n    the end of his life and the kingdom(475) given by Jupiter.(476)\n\n\nOr to Cicero:\n\n\n    Initiation not only teaches us to feel happy in this life, but\n    also to die with better hope.(477)\n\n\nPlato, Pausanias, Strabo, Diodorus and dozens of others bring their\nevidence as to the great boon of Initiation; all the great as well as the\npartially\u2010initiated Adepts, share the enthusiasm of Cicero.\n\n\n    Does not Plutarch, thinking of what he had learned in his\n    initiation, console himself for the loss of his wife? Had he not\n    obtained the certitude at the Mysteries of Bacchus that \u201cthe soul\n    [spirit] remains incorruptible, and that there is a hereafter\u201d?...\n    Aristophanes went even farther: \u201cAll those who participated in the\n    Mysteries,\u201d he says, \u201cled an innocent, calm, and holy life; they\n    died looking for the light of the Eleusinian Fields [Devachan],\n    while the rest could never expect anything but eternal darkness\n    [ignorance?].\n\n    \u201c... And when one thinks about the importance attached by the\n    States to the principle and the correct celebration of the\n    Mysteries, to the stipulations made in their treaties for the\n    security of their celebration, one sees to what degree those\n    Mysteries had so long occupied their first and their last thought.\n\n    \u201cIt was the greatest among public as well as private\n    preoccupations, and this is only natural, since according to\n    D\u00f6llinger, \u2018the Eleusinian Mysteries were viewed as the\n    efflorescence of all the Greek religion, as the purest essence of\n    all its conceptions.\u2019 \u201d(478)\n\n    Not only conspirators were refused admittance therein, but those\n    who had not denounced them; traitors, perjurers, debauchees,(479)\n    ... so that Porphyry could say that: \u201cOur soul has to be at the\n    moment of death as it was during the Mysteries, _i.e._, exempt\n    from any blemishes, passion, envy, hatred, or anger.\u201d(480)\n\n\nTruly,\n\n\n    Magic was considered a Divine Science which led to a participation\n    in the attributes of the Divinity itself.(481)\n\n\nHerodotus, Thales, Parmenides, Empedocles, Orpheus, Pythagoras, all went,\neach in his day, in search of the wisdom of Egypt\u2019s great Hierophants, in\nthe hope of solving the problems of the universe.\n\nSays Philo:\n\n\n    The Mysteries were known to unveil the secret operations of\n    Nature.(482)\n\n    The prodigies accomplished by the priests of theurgic magic are so\n    well authenticated and the evidence\u2014if human testimony is worth\n    anything at all\u2014is so overwhelming that, rather than confess that\n    the pagan theurgists far outrivalled the Christians in miracles,\n    Sir David Brewster conceded to the former the greatest proficiency\n    in physics and everything that pertains to natural philosophy.\n    Science finds herself in a very disagreeable dilemma....\n\n    \u201cMagic,\u201d says Psellus, \u201cformed the last part of the sacerdotal\n    science. It investigated the nature, power, and quality of\n    everything sublunary; of the elements and their parts, of animals,\n    of various plants and their fruits, of stones and herbs. In short,\n    it explored the essence and power of everything. From hence,\n    therefore, it produced its effects. And it formed _statues_\n    [magnetized] which procure health, and made all various figures\n    and things [talismans], which could equally become the instruments\n    of disease as well as of health. Often, too, celestial fire is\n    made to appear through magic, and then statues laugh and lamps are\n    spontaneously enkindled.\u201d(483)\n\n\nThis assertion of Psellus that Magic \u201cmade statues which procure health,\u201d\nis now proven to the world to be no dream, no vain boast of a hallucinated\nTheurgist. As Reuvens says, it becomes \u201chistory.\u201d For it is found in the\n_Papyrus Magique_ of Harris and on the votive stele just mentioned. Both\nChabas and De Roug\u00e9 state that:\n\n\n    On the eighteenth line of this very mutilated monument is found\n    the formula with regard to the acquiescence of the God (Chons) who\n    made his consent known by a motion he imparted to his statue.(484)\n\n\nThere was even a dispute over it between the two Orientalists. While M. de\nRoug\u00e9 wanted to translate the word \u201cHan\u201d by \u201cfavour\u201d or \u201cgrace,\u201d M. Chabas\ninsisted that \u201cHan\u201d meant a \u201cmovement\u201d or \u201c_a sign_\u201d made by the statue.\n\nExcesses of power, abuse of knowledge and personal ambition very often led\nselfish and unscrupulous Initiates to black Magic, just as the same causes\nled to precisely the same thing among Christian popes and cardinals; and\nit was black Magic that led finally to the abolition of the Mysteries, and\nnot Christianity, as is often erroneously thought. Read Mommsen\u2019s _Roman\nHistory_, vol. i., and you will find that it was the Pagans themselves who\nput an end to the desecration of the Divine Science. As early as 560 B.C.\nthe Romans had discovered an Occult association, a school of black Magic\nof the most revolting kind; it celebrated mysteries brought from Etruria,\nand very soon the moral pestilence had spread all over Italy\n\n\n    More than seven thousand Initiates were prosecuted, and most of\n    them were sentenced to death....\n\n    Later on, Titus\u2010Livius shows us another three thousand Initiates\n    sentenced during a single year for the crime of poisoning.(485)\n\n\nAnd yet black Magic is derided and denied!\n\nPaulthier may or may not be too enthusiastic in saying that India appears\nto him as\n\n\n    The grand and primitive hearth of human thought, that has ended by\n    embracing the whole ancient world,\n\n\nbut he was right in his idea. That primitive thought led to Occult\nknowledge, which in our Fifth Race is reflected from the earliest days of\nthe Egyptian Pharaohs down to our modern times. Hardly a hieratic papyrus\nis exhumed with the tightly swathed\u2010up mummies of kings and high priests\nthat does not contain some interesting information for the modern students\nof Occultism.\n\nAll that is, of course, derided Magic, the outcome of primitive knowledge\nand of revelation, though it was practised in such ungodly ways by the\nAtlantean Sorcerers that it has since become necessary for the subsequent\nRace to draw a thick veil over the practices which were used to obtain so\u2010\ncalled magical effects on the psychic and on the physical planes. In the\nletter no one in our century will believe the statements, with the\nexception of the Roman Catholics, and these will give the acts a satanic\norigin. Nevertheless, Magic is so mixed up with the history of the world,\nthat if the latter is ever to be written it has to rely upon the\ndiscoveries of Arch\u00e6ology, Egyptology, and hieratic writings and\ninscriptions; if it insists that they must be free from that \u201csuperstition\nof the ages\u201d it will never see the light. One can well imagine the\nembarrassing position in which serious Egyptologists, Assyriologists,\nsavants and academicians find themselves. Forced to translate and\ninterpret the old papyri and the archaic inscriptions on stel\u00e6 and\nBabylonian cylinders, they find themselves compelled from first to last to\nface the distasteful, and to them repulsive, subject of Magic, with its\nincantations and paraphernalia. Here they find sober and grave narratives\nfrom the pens of learned scribes, made up under the direct supervision of\nChald\u00e6an or Egyptian Hierophants, the most learned among the Philosophers\nof antiquity. These statements were written at the solemn hour of the\ndeath and burial of Pharaohs, High Priests, and other mighty ones of the\nland of Chemi; their purpose was the introduction of the newly\u2010born,\nOsirified Soul before the awful\u2010tribunal of the \u201cGreat Judge\u201d in the\nregion of Amenti\u2014there where a _lie_ was said to outweigh the greatest\ncrimes. Were the Scribes and Hierophants, Pharaohs, and King\u2010Priests all\nfools or frauds to have either believed in, or tried to make others\nbelieve in, such \u201ccock\u2010and bull stories\u201d as are found in the most\nrespectable papyri? Yet there is no help for it. Corroborated by Plato and\nHerodotus, by Manetho and Syncellus, as by all the greatest and most\ntrustworthy authors and philosophers who wrote upon the subject, those\npapyri note down\u2014as seriously as they note any history, or any fact so\nwell known and accepted as to need no commentary\u2014whole royal dynasties of\nManes, to wit, of shadows and phantoms (astral bodies), and such feats of\nmagic skill and such Occult phenomena, that the most credulous Occultist\nof our own times would hesitate to believe them to be true.\n\nThe Orientalists have found a plank of salvation, while yet publishing and\ndelivering the papyri to the criticism of literary Sadducees: they\ngenerally call them \u201cromances of the days of Pharaoh So\u2010and\u2010So.\u201d The idea\nis ingenious, if not absolutely fair.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXVIII. THE ORIGIN OF THE MYSTERIES.\n\n\nAll that is explained in the preceding Sections and a hundredfold more was\ntaught in the Mysteries from time immemorial. If the first appearance of\nthose institutions is a matter of historical tradition with regard to some\nof the later nations, their origin must certainly be assigned to the time\nof the Fourth Root Race. The Mysteries were imparted to the elect of that\nRace when the average Atlantean had begun to fall too deeply into sin to\nbe trusted with the secrets of Nature. Their establishment is attributed\nin the Secret Works to the King\u2010Initiates of the divine dynasties, when\nthe \u201cSons of God\u201d had gradually allowed their country to become Kookarma\u2010\ndes (the land of vice).\n\nThe antiquity of the Mysteries may be inferred from the history of the\nworship of Hercules in Egypt. This Hercules, according to what the priests\ntold Herodotus, was not Grecian, for he says:\n\n\n    Of the Grecian Hercules I could in no part of Egypt procure any\n    knowledge: ... the name was never borrowed by Egypt from\n    Greece.... Hercules, ... as they [the priests] affirm, is one of\n    the twelve (great Gods), who were reproduced from the earlier\n    eight Gods 17,000 years before the year of Amasis.\n\n\nHercules is of Indian origin, and\u2014his Biblical chronology put\naside\u2014Colonel Tod was quite right in his suggestion that he was Balar\u00e2ma\nor Baladeva. Now one must read the _Pur\u00e2nas_ with the Esoteric key in\none\u2019s hand in order to find out how on almost every page they corroborate\nthe Secret Doctrine. The ancient classical writers so well understood this\ntruth that they unanimously attributed to Asia the origin of Hercules.\n\n\n    A section of the Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata is devoted to the history of the\n    Herc\u00fbla, of which race was Vyasa.... Diodorus has the same legend\n    with some variety. He says: \u201cHercules was born amongst the Indians\n    and, like the Greeks, they furnish him with a club and lion\u2019s\n    hide.\u201d Both [Krishna and Baladeva] are (lords) of the race (c\u00fbla)\n    of Heri (Heri\u2010cul\u2010es) of which the Greeks might have made the\n    compound Hercules.(486)\n\n\nThe Occult Doctrine explains that Hercules was the last incarnation of one\nof the seven \u201cLords of the Flame,\u201d as Krishna\u2019s brother, Baladeva. That\nhis incarnations occurred during the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Root\u2010Races,\nand that his worship was brought into Egypt from Lanka and India by the\nlater immigrants. That he was borrowed by the Greeks from the Egyptians is\ncertain, the more so as the Greeks place his birth at Thebes, and only his\ntwelve labours at Argos. Now we find in the _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_ a complete\ncorroboration of the statement made in the Secret Teachings, of which\nPur\u00e2nic allegory the following is a short summary:\n\nRaivata, a grandson of Shary\u00e2ti, Manu\u2019s fourth son, finding no man worthy\nof his lovely daughter, repaired with her to Brahm\u00e2\u2019s region to consult\nthe God in this emergency. Upon his arrival, H\u00e2h\u00e2 H\u00fbh\u00fb, and other\nGandharvas were singing before the throne, and Raivata, waiting till they\nhad done, imagined that but one Muh\u00fbrta (instant) had passed, whereas long\nages had elapsed. When they had finished Raivata prostrated himself and\nexplained his perplexity. Then Brahm\u00e2 asked him whom he wished for a son\u2010\nin\u2010law, and upon hearing a few personages named, the Father of the World\nsmiled and said: \u201cOf those whom you have named the third and fourth\ngeneration [Root\u2010Races] no longer survive, for many successions of ages\n[Chatur\u2010Yuga, or the four Yuga cycles] have passed away while you were\nlistening to our songsters. Now on earth the twenty\u2010eighth great age of\nthe present Manu is nearly finished and the Kali period is at hand. You\nmust therefore bestow this virgin\u2010gem upon some other husband. For you are\nnow alone.\u201d\n\nThen the R\u00e2ja Raivata is told to proceed to Kushasthal\u00ee, his ancient\ncapital, which was now called Dv\u00e2rak\u00e2, and where reigned in his stead a\nportion of the divine being (Vishnu) in the person of Baladeva, the\nbrother of Krishna, regarded as the seventh incarnation of Vishnu whenever\nKrishna is taken as a full divinity.\n\n\u201cBeing thus instructed by the Lotus\u2010born [Brahm\u00e2], Raivata returned with\nhis daughter to earth, where he found the race of men dwindled in stature\n[see what is said in the Stanzas and Commentaries of the races of mankind\ngradually decreasing in stature]; ... reduced in vigour, and enfeebled in\nintellect. Repairing to the city of Kushasthal\u00ee, he found it much\naltered,\u201d because, according to the allegorical explanation of the\ncommentator, \u201cKrishna had reclaimed from the sea a portion of the\ncountry,\u201d which means in plain language that the continents had all been\nchanged meanwhile\u2014and \u201chad renovated the city\u201d\u2014or rather built a new one,\nDv\u00e2rak\u00e2; for one reads in the _Bhagavad Pur\u00e2na_(487) that Kushasthal\u00ee was\nfounded and built by Raivata within the sea; and subsequent discoveries\nshowed that it was the same, or on the same spot, as Dv\u00e2rak\u00e2. Therefore it\nwas on an island before. The allegory in _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_ shows King\nRaivata giving his daughter to \u201cthe wielder of the ploughshare\u201d\u2014or rather\n\u201cthe plough\u2010bannered\u201d\u2014Baladeva, who \u201cbeholding the damsel of excessively\nlofty height ... shortened her with the end of his ploughshare, and she\nbecame his wife.\u201d(488)\n\nThis is a plain allusion to the Third and Fourth Races\u2014to the Atlantean\ngiants and the successive incarnations of the \u201cSons of the Flame\u201d and\nother orders of Dhy\u00e2n Chohans in the heroes and kings of mankind, down to\nthe Kali Yuga, or Black Age, the beginning of which is within historical\ntimes. Another _coincidence_: Thebes is the city of a hundred gates, and\nDv\u00e2rak\u00e2 is so called from its many gateways or doors, from the word\n\u201cDv\u00e2ra,\u201d \u201cgateway.\u201d Both Hercules and Baladeva are of a passionate, hot\ntemper, and both are renowned for the fairness of their white skins. There\nis not the slightest doubt that Hercules is Baladeva in Greek dress.\nArrian notices the great similarity between the Theban and the Hindu\nHercules, the latter being worshipped by the Suraseni who built Methorea,\nor Math\u00fbr\u00e2, Krishna\u2019s birthplace. The same writer places Sandracottus\n(Chandragupta, the grandfather of King Asoka, of the clan of Morya) in the\ndirect line of the descendants of Baladeva.\n\nThere were no Mysteries in the beginning, we are taught. Knowledge (Vidy\u00e2)\nwas common property, and it reigned universally throughout the Golden Age\n(Satya Yuga). As says the Commentary:\n\n_Men had not created evil yet in those days of bliss and purity, for they\nwere of God\u2010like more than of human nature._\n\nBut when mankind, rapidly increasing in numbers, increased also in variety\nof idiosyncrasies of body and mind, then incarnated Spirit showed its\nweakness. Natural exaggerations, and along with these superstitions, arose\nin the less cultured and healthy minds. Selfishness was born out of\ndesires and passions hitherto unknown, and but too often knowledge and\npower were abused, until finally it became necessary to limit the number\nof those _who knew_. Thus arose Initiation.\n\nEvery separate nation now arranged for itself a religious system,\naccording to its enlightenment and spiritual wants. Worship of mere form\nbeing discarded by the wise men, these confined true knowledge to the very\nfew. The need of veiling truth to protect it from desecration becoming\nmore apparent with every generation, a thin veil was used at first, which\nhad to be gradually thickened according to the spread of personality and\nselfishness, and this led to the Mysteries. They came to be established in\nevery country and among every people, while to avoid strife and\nmisunderstanding exoteric beliefs were allowed to grow up in the minds of\nthe profane masses. Inoffensive and innocent in their incipient stage\u2014like\na historical event arranged in the form of a fairy tale, adapted for and\ncomprehensible to the child\u2019s mind\u2014in those distant ages such beliefs\ncould be allowed to grow and make the popular faith without any danger to\nthe more philosophical and abstruse truths taught in the sanctuaries.\nLogical and scientific observation of the phenomena in Nature, which alone\nleads man to the knowledge of eternal truths\u2014provided he approaches the\nthreshold of observation unbiassed by preconception and sees with his\nspiritual eye before he looks at things from their physical aspect\u2014does\nnot lie within the province of the masses. The marvels of the One Spirit\nof Truth, the ever\u2010concealed and inaccessible Deity, can be unravelled and\nassimilated only through Its manifestations by the secondary \u201cGods,\u201d Its\nacting powers. While the One and Universal Cause has to remain for ever\n_in abscondito_, Its manifold action may be traced through the effects in\nNature. The latter alone being comprehensible and manifest to average\nmankind, the Powers causing those effects were allowed to grow in the\nimagination of the populace. Ages later in the Fifth, the \u00c2ryan, Race some\nunscrupulous priests began to take advantage of the too\u2010easy beliefs of\nthe people in every country, and finally raised those secondary Powers to\nthe rank of God and Gods, thus succeeding in isolating them altogether\nfrom the One Universal Cause of all causes.(489)\n\nHenceforward the knowledge of the primeval truths remained entirely in the\nhands of the Initiates.\n\nThe Mysteries had their weak points and their defects, as every\ninstitution welded with the human element must necessarily have. Yet\nVoltaire has characterised their benefits in a few words:\n\n\n    In the chaos of popular superstitions there existed an institution\n    which has ever prevented man from falling into absolute brutality:\n    it was that of the Mysteries.\n\n\nVerily, as Ragon puts it of Masonry;\n\n\n    Its temple has Time for duration, the Universe for space.... \u201cLet\n    us divide that we may rule,\u201d have said the crafty; \u201cLet us unite\n    to resist,\u201d have said the first Masons.(490)\n\n\nOr rather, the Initiates whom the Masons have never ceased to claim as\ntheir primitive and direct Masters. The first and fundamental principle of\nmoral strength and power is association and solidarity of thought and\npurpose. \u201cThe Sons of Will and Yoga\u201d united in the beginning to resist the\nterrible and ever\u2010growing iniquities of the left\u2010hand Adepts, the\nAtlanteans. This led to the foundation of still more Secret Schools,\ntemples of learning, and of Mysteries inaccessible to all except after the\nmost terrible trials and probations.\n\nAnything that might be said of the earliest Adepts and their divine\nMasters would be regarded as fiction. It is necessary, therefore, if we\nwould know something of the primitive Initiates to judge of the tree by\nits fruits; to examine the bearing and the work of their successors in the\nFifth Race as reflected in the works of the classic writers and the great\nPhilosophers. How were Initiation and the Initiates regarded during some\n2,000 years by the Greek and Roman writers? Cicero informs his readers in\nvery clear terms. He says:\n\n\n    An Initiate must practise all the virtues in his power: justice,\n    fidelity, liberality, modesty, temperance; these virtues cause men\n    to forget the talents that he may lack.(491)\n\n\nRagon says:\n\n\n    When the Egyptian priests said: \u201cAll for the people, nothing\n    through the people,\u201d they were right: in an ignorant nation truth\n    must be revealed only to trustworthy persons.... We have seen in\n    our days, \u201call through the people, nothing for the people,\u201d a\n    false and dangerous system. The real axiom ought to be: \u201cAll for\n    the people and _with_ the people.\u201d(492)\n\n\nBut in order to achieve this reform the masses have to pass through a dual\ntransformation: (_a_) to become divorced from every element of exoteric\nsuperstition and priestcraft, and (_b_) to become educated men, free from\nevery danger of being enslaved whether by a man or an idea.\n\nThis, in view of the preceding, may seem paradoxical. The Initiates were\n\u201cpriests,\u201d we may be told\u2014at any rate, all the Hindu, Egyptian, Chald\u00e6an,\nGreek, Ph\u0153nician, and other Hierophants and Adepts were priests in the\ntemples, and it was they who invented their respective exoteric creeds. To\nthis the answer is possible: \u201cThe cowl does not make the friar.\u201d If one\nmay believe tradition and the unanimous opinion of ancient writers, added\nto the examples we have in the \u201cpriests\u201d of India, the most conservative\nnation in the world, it becomes quite certain that the Egyptian priests\nwere no more priests in the sense we give to the word than are the temple\nBr\u00e2hmans. They could never be regarded as such if we take as our standard\nthe European clergy. Laurens observes very correctly that:\n\n\n    The priests of Egypt were not, strictly speaking, ministers of\n    religion. The word \u201cpriest,\u201d which translation has been badly\n    interpreted, had an acceptation very different from the one that\n    is applied to it among us. In the language of antiquity, and\n    especially in the sense of the initiation of the priests of\n    ancient Egypt, the word \u201cpriest\u201d is synonymous with that of\n    \u201cphilosopher.\u201d... The institution of the Egyptian priests seems to\n    have been really a confederation of sages gathered to study the\n    art of ruling men, to centre the domain of truth, modulate its\n    propagation, and arrest its too dangerous dispersion.(493)\n\n\nThe Egyptian Priests, like the Br\u00e2hmans of old, held the reins of the\ngoverning powers, a system that descended to them by direct inheritance\nfrom the Initiates of the great Atlantis. The pure cult of Nature in the\nearliest patriarchal days\u2014the word \u201cpatriarch\u201d applying in its first\noriginal sense to the Progenitors of the human race,(494) the Fathers,\nChiefs, and Instructors of primitive men\u2014became the heirloom of those\nalone who could discern the noumenon beneath the phenomenon. Later, the\nInitiates transmitted their knowledge to the human kings, as their divine\nMasters had passed it to their forefathers. It was their prerogative and\nduty to reveal the secrets of Nature that were useful to mankind\u2014the\nhidden virtues of plants, the art of healing the sick, and of bringing\nabout brotherly love and mutual help among mankind. No Initiate was one if\nhe could not heal\u2014aye, recall to life from apparent death (coma) those\nwho, too long neglected, would have indeed died during their\nlethargy.(495) Those who showed such powers were forthwith set above the\ncrowds, and were regarded as Kings and Initiates. Gautama Buddha was a\nKing\u2010Initiate, a healer, and recalled to life those who were in the hands\nof death. Jesus and Apollonius were healers, and were both addressed as\nKings by their followers. Had they failed to raise those who were to all\nintents and purposes the dead, none of their names would have passed down\nto posterity; for this was the first and crucial test, the certain sign\nthat the Adept had upon Him the invisible hand of a primordial divine\nMaster, or was an incarnation of one of the \u201cGods.\u201d\n\nThe later royal privilege descended to our Fifth Race kings through the\nkings of Egypt. The latter were all initiated into the mysteries of\nmedicine, and they healed the sick, even when, owing to the terrible\ntrials and labours of final Initiation, they were unable to become full\nHierophants. They were healers by privilege and by tradition, and were\nassisted in the healing art by the Hierophants of the temples, when they\nthemselves were ignorant of Occult curative Science. So also in far later\nhistorical times we find Pyrrhus curing the sick by simply touching them\nwith his foot; Vespasian and Hadrian needed only to pronounce a few words\ntaught to them by their Hierophants, in order to restore sight to the\nblind and health to the cripple. From that time onward history has\nrecorded cases of the same privilege conferred on the emperors and kings\nof almost every nation.(496)\n\nThat which is known of the Priests of Egypt and of the ancient Br\u00e2hmans,\ncorroborated as it is by all the ancient classics and historical writers,\ngives us the right to believe in that which is only traditional in the\nopinion of sceptics. Whence the wonderful knowledge of the Egyptian\nPriests in every department of Science, unless they had it from a still\nmore ancient source? The famous \u201cFour,\u201d the seats of learning in old\nEgypt, are more historically certain than the beginnings of modern\nEngland. It was in the great Theban sanctuary that Pythagoras upon his\narrival from India studied the Science of Occult numbers. It was in\nMemphis that Orpheus popularized his too\u2010abstruse Indian metaphysics for\nthe use of Magna Grecia; and thence Thales, and ages later Democritus,\nobtained all they knew. It is to Sa\u00efs that all the honour must be given of\nthe wonderful legislation and the art of ruling people, imparted by its\nPriests to Lycurgus and Solon, who will both remain objects of admiration\nfor generations to come. And had Plato and Eudoxus never gone to worship\nat the shrine of Heliopolis, most probably the one would have never\nastonished future generations with his ethics, nor the other with his\nwonderful knowledge of mathematics.(497)\n\nThe great modern writer on the Mysteries of Egyptian Initiation\u2014one,\nhowever, who knew nothing of those in India\u2014the late Ragon, has not\nexaggerated in maintaining that:\n\n\n    All the notions possessed by Hindustan, Persia, Syria, Arabia,\n    Chald\u00e6a, Sydonia, and the priests of Babylonia, [on the secrets of\n    Nature], was known to the Egyptian priests. It is thus Indian\n    philosophy, without mysteries, which, having penetrated into\n    Chald\u00e6a and ancient Persia, gave rise to the doctrine of Egyptian\n    Mysteries.(498)\n\n\nThe Mysteries preceded the hieroglyphics.(499) They gave birth to the\nlatter, as permanent records were needed to preserve and commemorate their\nsecrets. It is primitive Philosophy(500) that has served as the\nfoundation\u2010stone for modern Philosophy; only the progeny, while\nperpetuating the features of the external body, has lost on its way the\nSoul and Spirit of its parent.\n\nInitiation, though it contained neither rules and principles, nor any\nspecial teaching of Science\u2014as now understood\u2014was nevertheless Science,\nand the Science of sciences. And though devoid of dogma, of physical\ndiscipline, and of exclusive ritual, it was yet the one true Religion\u2014that\nof eternal truth. Outwardly it was a school, a college, wherein were\ntaught sciences, arts, ethics, legislation, philanthropy, the cult of the\ntrue and real nature of cosmic phenomena; secretly, during the Mysteries,\npractical proofs of the latter were given. Those who could learn truth on\nall things\u2014_i.e._, those who could look the great Isis in her unveiled\nface and bear the awful majesty of the Goddess\u2014became Initiates. But the\nchildren of the Fifth Race had fallen too deeply into matter always to do\nso with impunity. Those who failed disappeared from the world, without\nleaving a trace behind. Which of the highest kings would have dared to\nclaim any individual, however high his social standing, from the stern\npriests, once that the victim had crossed the threshold of their sacred\nAdytum?\n\nThe noble precepts taught by the Initiates of the early races passed to\nIndia, Egypt, and Greece, to China and Chald\u00e6a, and thus spread all over\nthe world. All that is good, noble, and grand in human nature, every\ndivine faculty and aspiration, were cultured by the Priest\u2010Philosophers\nwho sought to develop them in their Initiates. Their code of ethics, based\non altruism, has become universal. It is found in Confucius, the\n\u201catheist,\u201d who taught that \u201che who loves not his brother has no virtue in\nhim,\u201d and in the _Old Testament_ precept, \u201cThou shalt love thy neighbour\nas thyself.\u201d(501) The greater Initiates became like unto Gods, and\nSocrates, in Plato\u2019s _Ph\u00e6do_, is represented as saying:\n\n\n    The Initiates are sure to come into the company of the Gods.\n\n\nIn the same work the great Athenian Sage is made to say:\n\n\n    It is quite apparent that those who have established the\n    Mysteries, or the secret assemblies of the Initiates, were no mean\n    persons, but powerful genii, who from the first ages had\n    endeavoured to make us understand under those enigmas that he who\n    will reach the invisible regions unpurified will be hurled into\n    the abyss [the Eighth Sphere of the Occult Doctrine; that is, he\n    will lose his personality for ever], while he who will attain them\n    purged of the maculations of this world, and accomplished in\n    virtues, will be received in the abode of the Gods.\n\n\nSaid Clemens Alexandrinus, referring to the Mysteries:\n\n\n    Here ends all teaching. One sees Nature and all things.\n\n\nA Christian Father of the Church speaks then as did the Pagan Pretextatus,\nthe pro\u2010consul of Achaia (fourth century A.D.), \u201ca man of eminent\nvirtues,\u201d who remarked that to deprive the Greeks of \u201cthe sacred Mysteries\nwhich bind in one the whole of mankind,\u201d was to render their very lives\nworthless to them. Would the Mysteries have ever obtained the highest\npraise from the noblest men of antiquity had they not been of more than\nhuman origin? Read all that is said of this unparalleled institution, as\nmuch by those who had never been initiated, as by the Initiates\nthemselves. Consult Plato, Euripides, Socrates, Aristophanes, Pindar,\nPlutarch, Isocrates, Diodorus, Cicero, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, not to\nname dozens of other famous Sages and writers. That which the Gods and\nAngels had _revealed_, exoteric religions, beginning with that of Moses,\n_reveiled_ and hid for ages from the sight of the world. Joseph, the son\nof Jacob, was an Initiate, otherwise he would not have married Aseneth,\nthe daughter of Petephre (\u201cPotiphar\u201d\u2014\u201che who belongs to Phre,\u201d the Sun\u2010\nGod), priest of Heliopolis and governor of On.(502) Every truth _revealed_\nby Jesus, and which even the Jews and early Christians understood, was\n_reveiled_ by the Church that pretends to serve Him. Read what Seneca\nsays, as quoted by Dr. Kenealy:\n\n\n    \u201cThe world being melted and having re\u00ebntered the bosom of Jupiter\n    [or Parabrahman], this God continues for some time totally\n    concentred in himself and remains concealed, as it were, wholly\n    immersed in the contemplation of his own ideas. Afterwards we see\n    a new world spring from him.... An innocent race of men is\n    formed.\u201d And again, speaking of a mundane dissolution as involving\n    the destruction or death of all, he [Seneca] teaches us that when\n    the laws of Nature shall be buried in ruin and the last day of the\n    world shall come, the Southern Pole shall crush, as it falls, all\n    the regions of Africa; and the North Pole shall overwhelm all the\n    countries beneath its axis. _The affrighted sun shall be deprived\n    of its light_; the palace of heaven, falling to decay, shall\n    produce at once both life and death, and some kind of dissolution\n    shall equally seize upon all the deities, who thus shall return to\n    their original chaos.(503)\n\n\nOne might fancy oneself reading the Pur\u00e2nic account by Par\u00e2shara of the\ngreat Pralaya. It is nearly the same thing, idea for idea. Has\nChristianity nothing of the kind? Let the reader open any English _Bible_\nand read chapter iii. of the _Second Epistle of Peter_, and he will find\nthere the same ideas.\n\n\n    There shall come in the last days scoffers, ... saying, Where is\n    the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all\n    things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.\n    For this they willingly are ignorant of that by the word of God\n    the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water\n    and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being\n    overflowed with water, perished. But the heavens and the earth,\n    which are now, by the same word are ... reserved unto fire, ... in\n    the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the\n    elements shall melt with fervent heat.... Nevertheless we ... look\n    for new heavens and a new earth.\n\n\nIf the interpreters chose to see in this a reference to a creation, a\ndeluge, and a promised coming of Christ, when they will live in a New\nJerusalem in heaven, that is no fault of Peter. What he meant was the\ndestruction of the Fifth Race and the appearance of a new continent for\nthe Sixth Race.\n\nThe Druids understood the meaning of the Sun in Taurus, therefore when all\nthe fires were extinguished on the 1st of November their sacred and\ninextinguishable fire remained alone to illumine the horizon like those of\nthe Magi and the modern Zoroastrian. And like the early Fifth Race and the\nlater Chald\u00e6ans and Greeks, and again like the Christians (who do it to\nthis day without suspecting the real meaning), they greeted the \u201cMorning\u2010\nStar,\u201d the beautiful Venus\u2010Lucifer.(504) Strabo speaks of an island near\nBritannia where Ceres and Persephone were worshipped with the same rites\nas in Samothrace, and this was the sacred Ierna, where a perpetual fire\nwas lit. The Druids believed in the rebirth of man, not, as Lucian\nexplains,\n\n\n    That the same _Spirit_ shall animate a new body, not here, but in\n    a different world,\n\n\nbut in a series of re\u00efncarnations in this same world; for as Diodorus\nsays, they declared that the souls of men after a determinate period would\npass into other bodies.(505)\n\nThese tenets came to the Fifth Race \u00c2ryans from their ancestors of the\nFourth Race, the Atlanteans. They piously preserved the teachings, while\ntheir parent Root\u2010Race, becoming with every generation more arrogant,\nowing to the acquisition of superhuman powers, were gradually approaching\ntheir end.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXIX. THE TRIAL OF THE SUN INITIATE.\n\n\nWe will begin with the ancient Mysteries\u2014those received from the\nAtlanteans by the primitive \u00c2ryans\u2014whose mental and intellectual state\nProfessor Max M\u00fcller has described with such a masterly hand, yet left so\nincomplete withal.\n\n\n    He says: We have in it [in the _Rig Veda_] a period of the\n    intellectual life of man to which there is no parallel in any\n    other part of the world. In the hymns of the _Veda_ we see man\n    left to himself to solve the riddle of this world.... He invokes\n    the gods around him, he praises, he worships them. But still with\n    all these gods ... beneath him, and above him, the early poet\n    seems ill at rest within himself. There, too, in his own breast,\n    he has discovered a power that is never mute when he prays, never\n    absent when he fears and trembles. It seems to inspire his prayers\n    and yet to listen to them; it seems to live in him, and yet to\n    support him and all around him. The only name he can find for this\n    mysterious power is \u201cBrahman;\u201d for brahman meant originally force,\n    will, wish, and the propulsive power of creation. But this\n    impersonal brahman too, as soon as it is named, grows into\n    something strange and divine. It ends by being one of many gods,\n    one of the great triad, worshipped to the present day. And still\n    the thought within him has no real name; that power which is\n    nothing but itself, which supports the gods, the heavens, and\n    every living being, floats before his mind, conceived but not\n    expressed. At last he calls it \u201c\u00c2tman,\u201d for \u00e2tman, originally\n    breath or spirit, comes to mean Self and Self alone, Self, whether\n    divine or human; Self, whether creating or suffering; Self,\n    whether One or All; but always Self, independent and free. \u201cWho\n    has seen the first\u2010born?\u201d says the poet, \u201cwhen he who had no bones\n    (_i.e._, form) bore him that had bones? Where was the life, the\n    blood, the Self of the world? Who went to ask this from any one\n    who knew it? (_Rig Veda_, I, 164, 4.) This idea of a divine Self\n    once expressed, everything else must acknowledge its supremacy;\n    _Self_ is the Lord of all things; it is the King of all things; as\n    all the spokes of a wheel are contained in the nave and\n    circumference, all things are contained in this Self; all selves\n    are contained in this _Self_.\u201d (Brihad\u00e2ranyaka, IV. v. 15).(506)\n\n\nThis Self, the highest, the one, and the universal, was symbolised on the\nplane of mortals by the Sun, its life\u2010giving effulgence being in its turn\nthe emblem of the Soul\u2014killing the terrestrial passions which have ever\nbeen an impediment to the re\u2010union of the Unit Self (the Spirit) with the\nAll\u2010Self. Hence the allegorical mystery, only the broad features of which\nmay be given here. It was enacted by the \u201cSons of the Fire\u2010Mist\u201d and of\n\u201cLight.\u201d The second Sun (the \u201csecond hypostasis\u201d of Rabbi Drach) appeared\nas put on his trial, Vishvakarma, the Hierophant, cutting off seven of his\nbeams, and replacing them with a crown of brambles, when the \u201cSun\u201d became\nVikarttana, shorn of his beams or rays. After that, the Sun\u2014enacted by a\nneophyte ready to be initiated\u2014was made to descend into P\u00e2t\u00e2la, the nether\nregions, on a trial of Tantalus. Coming out of it triumphant, he emerged\nfrom this region of lust and iniquity, to re\u2010become Karmas\u00e2kshin, witness\nof the Karma of men,(507) and arose once more triumphant in all the glory\nof his regeneration, as the Graha\u2010R\u00e2jah, King of the Constellations, and\nwas addressed as Gabhastiman, \u201cre\u2010possessed of his rays.\u201d\n\nThe \u201cfable\u201d in the popular Pantheon of India, founded upon, and born out\nof the poetical mysticism of the _Rig\u2010Veda_\u2014the sayings of which were\nmostly all dramatised during the religious Mysteries\u2014grew in the course of\nits exoteric evolution into the following allegory. It may be found now in\nseveral of the _Pur\u00e2nas_ and in other Scriptures. In the _Rig\u2010Veda_ and\nits Hymns, Vishvakarma, a Mystery\u2010God, is the Logos, the Demiurgos, one of\nthe greatest Gods, and spoken of in two of the hymns as the highest. He is\nthe Omnificent (Vishvakarma), called the \u201cGreat Architect of the\nUniverse,\u201d the\n\n\n    All seeing God, ... the father, the generator, the disposer, who\n    gives the gods their names, and is beyond the comprehension of\n    mortals,\n\n\nas is every Mystery\u2010God. Esoterically, He is the personification of the\ncreative manifested Power: and mystically He is the seventh principle in\nman, in its collectivity. For He is the son of Bhuvana, the self\u2010created,\nluminous Essence, and of the virtuous, chaste and lovely Yoga\u2010Siddh\u00e2, the\nvirgin Goddess, whose name speaks for itself, since it personified Yoga\u2010\npower, the \u201cchaste mother\u201d that creates the Adepts. In the Rig\u2010Vaidic\nHymns, Vishvakarma performs the \u201cgreat sacrifice,\u201d _i.e._, sacrifices\nhimself for the world; or, as the _Nirukta_ is made to say, translated by\nthe Orientalists:\n\n\n    Vishvakarma first of all offers up all the world in a sacrifice,\n    and then ends by sacrificing himself.\n\n\nIn the mystical representations of his character, Vishvakarma is often\ncalled Vittoba, and is pictured as the \u201cVictim,\u201d the \u201cMan\u2010God,\u201d or the\nAvat\u00e2ra crucified in space.\n\n[Of the true Mysteries, the real Initiations, nothing of course can be\nsaid in public; they can be known only to those who are able to experience\nthem. But a few hints can be given of the great ceremonial Mysteries of\nAntiquity, which stood to the public as the real Mysteries, and into which\ncandidates were initiated with much ceremony and display of Occult Arts.\nBehind these, in silence and darkness, were the true Mysteries, as they\nhave always existed and continue to exist. In Egypt, as in Chald\u00e6a and\nlater in Greece, the Mysteries were celebrated at stated times, and the\nfirst day was a public holiday, on which, with much pomp, the candidates\nwere escorted to the Great Pyramid and passed thereinto out of sight. The\nsecond day was devoted to ceremonies of purification, at the close of\nwhich the candidate was presented with a white robe; on the third\nday](508) he was tried and examined as to his proficiency in Occult\nlearning. On the fourth day, after another ceremony symbolical of\npurification, he was sent alone to pass through various trials, finally\nbecoming entranced in a subterranean crypt, in utter darkness, for two\ndays and two nights. In Egypt, the entranced neophyte was placed in an\nempty sarcophagus in the Pyramid, where the initiatory rites took place.\nIn India and Central Asia, he was bound on a lathe, and when his body had\nbecome like that of one dead (entranced), he was carried into the crypt.\nThen the Hierophant kept watch over him \u201cguiding the apparitional soul\n(astral body) from this world of Sams\u00e2ra (or delusion) to the _nether_\nkingdoms, from which, if successful, he had the right of releasing _seven\nsuffering souls_\u201d (Elementaries). Clothed with his Anandamayakosha, the\nbody of bliss\u2014the Srot\u00e2panna remained there where we have no right to\nfollow him, and upon returning\u2014received the _Word_, with or without the\n\u201cheart\u2019s blood\u201d of the Hierophant.(509)\n\nOnly in truth the Hierophant was never killed\u2014neither in India nor\nelsewhere, the murder being simply feigned\u2014unless the Initiator had chosen\nthe Initiate for his successor and had decided to pass to him the last and\nsupreme Word, after which he had to die\u2014only one man in a nation having\nthe right to know that word. Many are those grand Initiates who have thus\npassed out of the world\u2019s sight, disappearing\n\n\n    As mysteriously from the sight of men as Moses from the top of\n    Mount Pisgah (_Nebo_, oracular Wisdom), after he had laid his\n    hands upon Joshua, who thus became \u201cfull of the spirit of wisdom,\u201d\n    _i.e._, initiated.\n\n\nBut he died, he was not killed. For killing, if really done, would belong\nto black, not to divine Magic. It is the transmission of light, rather\nthan a transfer of life, of life spiritual and divine, and it is the\nshedding of Wisdom, not of blood. But the uninitiated inventors of\ntheological Christianity took the allegorical language _\u00e0 la lettre_; and\ninstituted a dogma, the crude, misunderstood expression of which horrifies\nand repels the spiritual \u201cheathen.\u201d\n\nAll these Hierophants and Initiates were types of the Sun and of the\nCreative Principle (spiritual potency) as were Vishvakarma and Vikarttana,\nfrom the origin of the Mysteries. Ragon, the famous Mason, gives curious\ndetails and explanations with regard to the Sun rites. He shows that the\nbiblical Hiram, the great hero of Masonry (the \u201cwidow\u2019s son\u201d) a type taken\nfrom Osiris, is the Sun\u2010God, the inventor of arts, and the \u201carchitect,\u201d\nthe name Hiram meaning the _elevated_, a title belonging to the Sun. Every\nOccultist knows how closely related to Osiris and the Pyramids are the\nnarratives in _Kings_ concerning Solomon, his Temple and its construction;\nhe knows also that the whole of the Masonic rite of Initiation is based\nupon the Biblical allegory of the construction of that Temple, Masons\nconveniently forgetting, or perhaps ignoring, the fact that the latter\nnarrative is modelled upon Egyptian and still earlier symbolisms. Ragon\nexplains it by showing that the three companions of Hiram, the \u201cthree\nmurderers,\u201d typify the three last months of the year; and that Hiram\nstands for the Sun\u2014from its summer solstice downwards, when it begins\ndecreasing\u2014the whole rite being an astronomical allegory.\n\n\n    During the summer solstice, the Sun provokes songs of gratitude\n    from all that breathes; hence Hiram, who represents it, can give\n    to whomsoever has the right to it, the sacred Word, that is to say\n    life. When the Sun descends to the inferior signs all Nature\n    becomes mute, and Hiram can no longer give the sacred Word to the\n    companions, who represent the three inert months of the year. The\n    first companion strikes Hiram feebly with a rule twenty\u2010four\n    inches long, symbol of the twenty\u2010four hours which make up each\n    diurnal revolution; it is the first distribution of time, which\n    after the exaltation of the mighty star, feebly assails his\n    existence, giving him the first blow. The second companion strikes\n    him with an _iron square_, symbol of the last season, figured by\n    the intersections of two right lines, which would divide into four\n    equal parts the Zodiacal circle, whose centre symbolises Hiram\u2019s\n    heart, where it touches the point of the four squares representing\n    the four seasons: second distribution of time, which at that\n    period strikes a heavier blow at the solar existence. The third\n    companion strikes him mortally on his forehead with a heavy blow\n    of his mallet, whose cylindrical form symbolises the year, the\n    ring or circle: third distribution of time, the accomplishment of\n    which deals the last blow to the existence of the _expiring_ Sun.\n    From this interpretation it has been inferred that _Hiram_, a\n    _founder_ of metals, the hero of the new legend with the title of\n    _architect_, is Osiris (the Sun) of modern initiation; that\n    _Isis_, his widow, is the _Lodge_, the emblem of the Earth (_loka_\n    in Sanskrit, the world) and that _Horus_, son of Osiris (or of\n    light) and the widow\u2019s son, is the _free Mason_, that is to say,\n    the _Initiate_ who inhabits the terrestrial lodge (_the child of\n    the Widow, and of Light_.)(510)\n\n\nAnd here again, our friends the Jesuits have to be mentioned, for the\nabove rite is of their making. To give one instance of their success in\nthrowing dust into the eyes of ordinary individuals to prevent their\nseeing the truths of Occultism, we will point out what they did in what is\nnow called Freemasonry.\n\nThis Brotherhood does possess a considerable portion of the symbolism,\nformul\u00e6, and ritual of Occultism, handed down from time immemorial from\nthe primeval Initiations. To render this Brotherhood a mere harmless\nnegation, the Jesuits sent some of their most able emissaries into the\nOrder, who first made the simple brethren believe that the true secret was\nlost with Hiram Abiff; and then induced them to put this belief into their\nformularies. They then invented specious but spurious higher degrees,\npretending to give further light upon this lost secret, to lead the\ncandidate on and amuse him with forms borrowed from the real thing but\ncontaining no substance, and all artfully contrived to lead the aspiring\nNeophyte to nowhere. And yet men of good sense and abilities, in other\nrespects, will meet at intervals, and with solemn face, zeal and\nearnestness, go through the mockery of revealing \u201csubstituted secrets\u201d\ninstead of the real thing.\n\nIf the reader turns to a very remarkable and very useful work called _The\nRoyal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia_, Art. \u201cRosicrucianism,\u201d he will find its author,\na high and learned Mason, showing what the Jesuits have done to destroy\nMasonry. Speaking of the period when the existence of this mysterious\nBrotherhood (of which many pretend to know \u201csomething\u201d if not a good deal,\nand know in fact nothing) was first made known, he says:\n\n\n    There was a dread among the great masses of society in byegone\n    days of the unseen\u2014a dread, as recent events and phenomena show\n    very clearly, not yet overcome in its entirety. Hence students of\n    Nature and mind were forced into an obscurity not altogether\n    unwelcome.... The Kabalistic reveries of a Johann Reuchlin led to\n    the fiery action of a Luther, and the patient labours of\n    Trittenheim produced the modern system of diplomatic cipher\n    writing.... It is very worthy of remark, that one particular\n    century, and that in which the Rosicrucians first showed\n    themselves, is distinguished in history as the era in which most\n    of these efforts at throwing off the trammels of the past [Popery\n    and Ecclesiasticism] occurred. Hence the opposition of the losing\n    party, and their virulence against anything mysterious or unknown.\n    They freely organised pseudo\u2010Rosicrucian and Masonic societies in\n    return; and these societies were instructed to irregularly entrap\n    the weaker brethren of the True and Invisible Order, and then\n    triumphantly betray anything they might be so inconsiderate as to\n    communicate to the superiors of these transitory and unmeaning\n    associations. Every wile was adopted by the authorities, fighting\n    in self\u2010defence against the progress of truth, to engage, by\n    persuasion, interest or terror, such as might be cajoled into\n    receiving the Pope as Master\u2014when gained, as many converts to that\n    faith know, but dare not own, they are treated with neglect, and\n    left to fight the battle of life as best they may, not even being\n    admitted to the knowledge of such miserable aporrheta as the\n    Romish faith considers itself entitled to withhold.\n\n\nBut if Masonry has been spoiled, none is able to crush the real, invisible\nRosicrucian and the Eastern Initiate. The symbolism of Vishvakarma and\nS\u00fbrya Vikarttana has survived, where Hiram Abiff was indeed murdered, and\nwe will now return to it. It is not simply an astronomical, but is the\nmost solemn rite, an inheritance from the Archaic Mysteries that has\ncrossed the ages and is used to this day. It typifies a whole drama of the\nCycle of Life, of progressive incarnations, and of psychic as well as of\nphysiological secrets, of which neither the Church nor Science knows\nanything, though it is this rite that has led the former to the greatest\nof its Christian Mysteries.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXX. THE MYSTERY \u201cSUN OF INITIATION.\u201d\n\n\nThe antiquity of the Secret Doctrine may be better realised when it is\nshown at what point of history its Mysteries had already been desecrated,\nby being made subservient to the personal ambition of despot\u2010ruler and\ncrafty priest. These profoundly philosophical and scientifically composed\nreligious dramas, in which were enacted the grandest truths of the Occult\nor Spiritual Universe and the hidden lore of learning, had become subject\nto persecution long before the days when Plato and even Pythagoras\nflourished. Withal, primal revelations given to Mankind have not died with\nthe Mysteries; they are still preserved as heirlooms for future and more\nspiritual generations.\n\nIt has been already stated in _Isis Unveiled_,(511) that so far back as in\nthe days of Aristotle, the great Mysteries had already lost their\nprimitive grandeur and solemnity. Their rites had fallen into desuetude,\nand they had to a great degree degenerated into mere priestly speculations\nand had become religious shams. It is useless to state when they first\nappeared in Europe and Greece, since recognised history may almost be said\nto begin with Aristotle, everything before him appearing to be in an\ninextricable chronological confusion. Suffice it to say, that in Egypt the\nMysteries had been known since the days of Menes, and that the Greeks\nreceived them only when Orpheus introduced them from India. In an article\n\u201cWas writing known before P\u00e2nini?\u201d(512) it is stated that the P\u00e2ndus had\nacquired universal dominion and had taught the \u201csacrificial\u201d Mysteries to\nother races as far back as 3,300 B.C. Indeed, when Orpheus, the son of\nApollo or Helios, received from his father the phorminx\u2014the seven\u2010stringed\nlyre, symbolical of the sevenfold mystery of Initiation\u2014these Mysteries\nwere already hoary with age in Central Asia and India. According to\nHerodotus it was Orpheus who brought them from India, and Orpheus is far\nanterior to Homer and Hesiod. Thus even in the days of Aristotle few were\nthe true Adepts left in Europe and even in Egypt. The heirs of those who\nhad been dispersed by the conquering swords of various invaders of old\nEgypt had been dispersed in their turn. As 8,000 or 9,000 years earlier\nthe stream of knowledge had been slowly running down from the tablelands\nof Central Asia into India and towards Europe and Northern Africa, so\nabout 500 years B.C. it had begun to flow backward to its old home and\nbirthplace. During the two thousand subsequent years the knowledge of the\nexistence of great Adepts nearly died out in Europe. Nevertheless, in some\nsecret places the Mysteries were still enacted in all their primitive\npurity. The \u201cSun of Righteousness\u201d still blazed high on _the midnight\nsky_; and, while darkness was upon the face of the profane world, there\nwas the eternal light in the Adyta on the nights of Initiation. The _true_\nMysteries were never made public. Eleusinia and Agr\u00e6 for the multitudes;\nthe God \u0395\u1f50\u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u1fc6 \u201cof the good counsel,\u201d the great Orphic Deity, for the\nneophyte.\n\nThis mystery God\u2014mistaken by our Symbologists for the Sun\u2014who was He?\nEveryone who has any idea of the ancient Egyptian exoteric faith is quite\naware that for the multitudes Osiris was the Sun in Heaven, \u201cthe Heavenly\nKing,\u201d Ro\u2010Imphab; that by the Greeks the Sun was called the \u201cEye of\nJupiter,\u201d as for the modern orthodox P\u00e2rs\u00ee he is \u201cthe Eye of Ormuzd:\u201d that\nthe Sun, moreover, was addressed as the \u201cAll\u2010seeing God\u201d (\u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03c5\u03cc\u03c6\u03b8\u03b1\u03bb\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2) as\nthe \u201cGod Saviour,\u201d and the \u201csaving God\u201d (\u0391\u1f34\u03c4\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd \u03c4\u1fc6\u03c2 \u03c3\u03c9\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1\u03af\u03b1\u03c2). Read the\npapyrus of Papheronmes at Berlin, and the stela as rendered by Mariette\nBey,(513) and see what they say:\n\n\n    Glory to thee, O Sun, divine child! ... thy rays carry life to the\n    pure and to those ready.... The Gods [the \u201cSons of God\u201d] who\n    approach thee tremble with delight and awe.... Thou art the first\n    born, the Son of God, the Word.(514)\n\n\nThe Church has now seized upon these terms and sees presentments of the\ncoming Christ in these expressions in the initiatory rites and prophetic\nutterances of the Pagan Oracles. They are nothing of the kind, for they\nwere applied to every worthy Initiate. If the expressions that were used\nin hieratic writings and glyphs thousands of years before our era are now\nfound in the laudatory hymns and prayers of Christian Churches, it is\nsimply because they have been unblushingly appropriated by the Latin\nChristians, in the full hope of never being detected by posterity.\nEverything that could be done had been done to destroy the original Pagan\nmanuscripts and the Church felt secure. Christianity has undeniably had\nher great Seers and Prophets, like every other religion; but their claims\nare not strengthened by denying their predecessors.\n\nListen to Plato:\n\n\n    Know then, Glaucus, that when I speak of the production of good,\n    it is the Sun I mean. The Son has a perfect analogy with his\n    Father.\n\n\nIamblichus calls the Sun \u201cthe image of divine intelligence or Wisdom.\u201d\nEusebius, repeating the words of Philo, calls the rising Sun (\u1f00\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03bb\u1f74) the\nchief Angel, the most ancient, adding that the Archangel who is\n_polyonymous_ (of many names) is the Verbum or Christ. The word Sol (Sun)\nbeing derived from _solus_, the One, or the \u201cHe alone,\u201d and its Greek name\nHelios meaning the \u201cMost High,\u201d the emblem becomes comprehensible.\nNevertheless, the Ancients made a difference between the Sun and its\nprototype.\n\nSocrates saluted the rising Sun as does a true P\u00e2rs\u00ee or Zoroastrian in our\nown day; and Homer and Euripides, as Plato did after them several times,\nmention the Jupiter\u2010Logos, the \u201cWord\u201d or the Sun. Nevertheless, the\nChristians maintain that since the oracle consulted on the God Iao\nanswered: \u201cIt is the Sun,\u201d therefore\n\n\n    The Jehovah of the Jews was well known to the Pagans and\n    Greeks;(515)\n\n\nand \u201cIao is our Jehovah.\u201d The first part of the proposition has nothing,\nit seems, to do with the second part, and least of all can the conclusion\nbe regarded as correct. But if the Christians are so anxious to prove the\nidentity, Occultists have nothing against it. Only, in such case, Jehovah\nis also Bacchus. It is very strange that the people of civilised\nChristendom should until now hold on so desperately to the skirts of the\nidolatrous Jews\u2014Sab\u00e6ans and Sun worshippers as they were,(516) like the\nrabble of Chald\u00e6a\u2014and that they should fail to see that the later Jehovah\nis but a Jewish development of the Ja\u2010va, or the Iao, of the Ph\u0153nicians;\nthat this name, in short, was the secret name of a Mystery\u2010God, one of the\nmany Kabiri. \u201cHighest God\u201d as He was for one little nation, he never was\nso regarded by the Initiates who conducted the Mysteries; for them he was\nbut a Planetary Spirit attached to the visible Sun; and the visible Sun is\nonly the central Star, not the central spiritual Sun.\n\n\n    And the Angel of the Lord said unto him [Manoah] \u201cWhy askest thou\n    thus after my name, seeing it is secret.\u201d(517)\n\n\nHowever this may be, the identity of the Jehovah of Mount Sinai with the\nGod Bacchus is hardly disputable, and he is surely\u2014as already shown in\n_Isis Unveiled_\u2014Dionysos.(518) Wherever Bacchus was worshipped there was a\ntradition of Nyssa,(519) and a cave where he was reared. Outside Greece,\nBacchus was the all\u2010powerful \u201cZagreus, the highest of Gods,\u201d in whose\nservice was Orpheus, the founder of the Mysteries. Now, unless it be\nconceded that Moses was an initiated Priest, an Adept, whose actions are\nall narrated allegorically, then it must be admitted that he personally,\ntogether with his hosts of Israelites, worshipped Bacchus.\n\n\n    And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it _Jehovah\n    Nissi_ [or, Iao\u2010nisi, or again Dionisi].(520)\n\n\nTo strengthen the statement we have further to remember that the place\nwhere Osiris, the Egyptian Zagreus or Bacchus, was born, was Mount Sinai,\nwhich is called by the Egyptians Mount Nissa. The brazen serpent was a\nnis, \u05db\u05d4\u05e9, and the month of the Jewish Passover is Nisan.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXXI. THE OBJECTS OF THE MYSTERIES.\n\n\nThe earliest Mysteries recorded in history are those of Samothrace. After\nthe distribution of pure Fire, a new life began. This was the new birth of\nthe Initiate, after which, like the Br\u00e2hmans of old in India, he became a\ndwija\u2014a \u201ctwice born,\u201d\n\n\n    Initiated into that which may be rightly called the most blessed\n    of all Mysteries ... being ourselves pure,(521)\n\n\nsays Plato. Diodorus Siculus, Herodotus, and Sanchoniathon the\nPh\u0153nician\u2014the oldest of Historians\u2014say that these Mysteries originated in\nthe night of time, thousands of years probably before the historical\nperiod. Iamblichus informs us that Pythagoras\n\n\n    Was initiated in all the Mysteries of Byblus and Tyre, in the\n    sacred operations of the Syrians, and in the Mysteries of the\n    Ph\u0153nicians.(522)\n\n\nAs was said in _Isis Unveiled_:\n\n\n    When men like Pythagoras, Plato and Iamblichus, renowned for their\n    severe morality, took part in the Mysteries and spoke of them with\n    veneration, it ill behoves our modern critics to judge them [and\n    their Initiates] upon their merely external aspect.\n\n\nYet this is what has been done until now, especially by the Christian\nFathers. Clement Alexandrinus stigmatises the Mysteries as \u201cindecent and\ndiabolical\u201d though his words, showing that the Eleusinian Mysteries were\nidentical with, and even, as he would allege, borrowed from, those of the\nJews, are quoted elsewhere in this work. The Mysteries were composed of\ntwo parts, of which the Lesser were performed at Agr\u00e6, and the Greater at\nEleusis, and Clement had been himself initiated. But the Katharsis, or\ntrials of purification, have ever been misunderstood. Iamblichus explains\nthe worst; and his explanation ought to be perfectly satisfactory, at any\nrate for every unprejudiced mind.\n\nHe says:\u2014\n\n\n    Exhibitions of this kind in the Mysteries were designed to free us\n    from licentious passions, by gratifying the sight, and at the same\n    time vanquishing all evil thought, through the awful sanctity with\n    which these rites were accompanied.\n\n\nDr. Warburton remarks:\n\n\n    The wisest and best men in the Pagan world are unanimous in this,\n    that the Mysteries were instituted pure, and proposed the noblest\n    ends by the worthiest means.\n\n\nAlthough persons of both sexes and all classes were allowed to take part\nin the Mysteries, and a participation in them was even obligatory, very\nfew indeed attained the higher and final Initiation in these celebrated\nrites. The gradation of the Mysteries is given us by Proclus in the fourth\nbook of his _Theology of Plato_.\n\n\n    The perfective rite, precedes in order the initiation Telete,\n    _Muesis_, and the initiation, _Epopteia_, or the final apocalypse\n    [revelation].\n\n\nTheon of Smyrna, in _Mathematica_, also divides the mystic rites into five\nparts:\n\n\n    The first of which is the previous purification; for neither are\n    the Mysteries communicated to all who are willing to receive them;\n    but there are certain persons who are prevented by the voice of\n    the crier ... since it is necessary that such as are not expelled\n    from the Mysteries should first be refined by certain\n    purifications: but after purification the reception of the sacred\n    rites succeeds. The third part is denominated _epopteia_ or\n    reception. And the fourth, which is the end and design of the\n    revelation, is (the investiture) the binding of the head and\n    fixing of the crowns(523) ... whether after this he [the initiated\n    person] becomes a torchbearer, or an hierophant of the Mysteries,\n    or sustains some other part of the sacerdotal office. But the\n    fifth, which is produced from all these, _is friendship and\n    interior communion with God_. And this was the last and most awful\n    of all the Mysteries.(524)\n\n\nThe chief objects of the Mysteries, represented as diabolical by the\nChristian Fathers and ridiculed by modern writers, were instituted with\nthe highest and the most moral purpose in view. There is no need to repeat\nhere that which has been already described in _Isis Unveiled_(525) that\nwhether through temple Initiation or the private study of Theurgy, every\nstudent obtained the proof of the immortality of his Spirit, and the\nsurvival of his Soul. What the last _epopteia_ was is alluded to by Plato\nin _Ph\u00e6drus_:\n\n\n    Being _initiated_ in those _Mysteries_, which it is lawful to call\n    the most blessed of all mysteries ... we were freed from the\n    molestations of evils, which otherwise await us in a future period\n    of time. Likewise in consequence of this divine _initiation_, we\n    became spectators of entire, simple, immoveable, and blessed\n    visions, resident in a pure light.(526)\n\n\nThis veiled confession shows that the Initiates enjoyed Theophany\u2014saw\nvisions of Gods and of real immortal Spirits. As Taylor correctly infers:\n\n\n    The most sublime part of the _epopteia_ or final revealing,\n    consisted in beholding the Gods [the high Planetary Spirits]\n    themselves, invested with a resplendent light.(527)\n\n\nThe statement of Proclus upon the subject is unequivocal:\n\n\n    In all the Initiations and Mysteries, the Gods exhibit many forms\n    of themselves, and appear in a variety of shapes; and sometimes\n    indeed a formless light of themselves is held forth to the view;\n    sometimes this light is according _to a human form_ and sometimes\n    it proceeds into a different shape.(528)\n\n\nAgain we have\n\n\n    Whatever is on earth is the resemblance and shadow of something\n    that is in the sphere, while that resplendent thing [the prototype\n    of the Soul\u2010Spirit] remaineth in _unchangeable_ condition, it is\n    well also with its shadow. When that resplendent one removeth far\n    from its shadow life removeth [from the latter] to a distance.\n    Again that light is the shadow of something more resplendent than\n    itself.(529)\n\n\nThus speaks the _Desatir_, in the _Book of Shet_ (the prophet Zirtusht),\nthereby showing the identity of its Esoteric doctrines with those of the\nGreek Philosophers.\n\nThe second statement of Plato confirms the view that the Mysteries of the\nAncients were identical with the Initiations practised even now among the\nBuddhist and the Hindu Adepts. The higher visions, the most truthful, were\nproduced through a regular discipline of gradual Initiations, and the\ndevelopment of psychical powers. In Europe and Egypt the Myst\u00e6 were\nbrought into close union with those whom Proclus calls \u201cmystical natures,\u201d\n\u201cresplendent Gods,\u201d because, as Plato says:\n\n\n    [We] were ourselves pure and immaculate, being liberated from this\n    surrounding vestment, which we denominate body, and to which we\n    are now bound like an oyster to its shell.(530)\n\n\nAs to the East,\n\n\n    The doctrine of planetary and terrestrial Pitris was revealed\n    _entirely_ in ancient India, as well as now, only at the last\n    moment of initiation, and to the adepts of superior degrees.(531)\n\n\nThe word _Pitris_ may now be explained and something else added. In India\nthe chela of the third degree of Initiation has two Gurus: One, the living\nAdept; the other the disembodied and glorified Mah\u00e2tm\u00e2, Who remains the\nadviser or instructor of even the high Adepts. Few are the accepted chelas\nwho even see their living Master, their Guru, till the day and hour of\ntheir final and for ever binding vow. It is this that was meant in _Isis\nUnveiled_, when it was stated that few of the _fakirs_ (the word _chela_\nbeing unknown to Europe and America in those days) however\n\n\n    Pure, and honest, and self\u2010devoted, have yet ever seen the astral\n    form of a purely _human pitar_ (an ancestor or father), otherwise\n    than at the solemn moment of their first and last initiation. It\n    is in the presence of his instructor, the Guru, and just before\n    the _vatou_\u2010fakir [the just initiated chela] is despatched into\n    the world of the living, with his seven\u2010knotted bamboo wand for\n    all protection, that he is suddenly placed face to face with the\n    unknown PRESENCE [of his Pitar or Father, the glorified invisible\n    Master, or disembodied Mah\u00e2tm\u00e2]. He sees it, and falls prostrate\n    at the feet of the evanescent form, but is not entrusted with the\n    great secret of its evocation, for it is the supreme mystery of\n    the holy syllable.\n\n\nThe Initiate, says \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi, _knows_; therefore, \u201che dares all and\nkeeps silent.\u201d Says the great French Kabalist:\n\n\n    You may see him often sad, never discouraged or desperate; often\n    poor, never humbled or wretched; often persecuted, never cowed\n    down or vanquished. For he remembers the widowhood and the murder\n    of Orpheus, the exile and solitary death of Moses, the martyrdom\n    of the prophets, the tortures of Apollonius, the Cross of the\n    Saviour. He knows in what forlorn state died Agrippa, whose memory\n    is slandered to this day; he knows the trials that broke down the\n    great Paracelsus, and all that Raymond Lully had to suffer before\n    he arrived at a bloody death. He remembers Swedenborg having to\n    feign insanity, and losing even his reason before his knowledge\n    was forgiven to him; St. Martin, who had to hide himself all his\n    life; Cagliostro, who died forsaken in the cells of the\n    Inquisition(532); Cazotte, who perished on the guillotine.\n    Successor of so many victims, he dares, nevertheless, but\n    understands the more the necessity to keep silent.(533)\n\n\nMasonry\u2014not the political institution known as the Scotch Lodge, but real\nMasonry, some rites of which are still preserved in the Grand Orient of\nFrance, and that Elias Ashmole, a celebrated English Occult Philosopher of\nthe XVIIth century, tried in vain to remodel, after the manner of the\nIndian and Egyptian Mysteries\u2014Masonry rests, according to Ragon, the great\nauthority upon the subject, upon three fundamental degrees: the triple\nduty of a Mason is to study _whence he comes_, _what he is_, and _whither\nhe goes_; the study that is, of God, of himself, and of the future\ntransformation.(534) Masonic Initiation was modelled on that in the lesser\nMysteries. The third degree was one used in both Egypt and India from time\nimmemorial, and the remembrance of it lingers to this day in every Lodge,\nunder the name of the death and resurrection of Hiram Abiff, the \u201cWidow\u2019s\nSon.\u201d In Egypt the latter was called \u201cOsiris;\u201d in India \u201cLoka\u2010chakshu\u201d\n(Eye of the World), ind \u201cDinakara\u201d (day\u2010maker) or the Sun\u2014and the rite\nitself was everywhere named the \u201cgate of death.\u201d The coffin, or\nsarcophagus, of Osiris, killed by Typhon, was brought in and placed in the\nmiddle of the Hall of the Dead, with the Initiates all around it and the\ncandidate near by. The latter was asked whether he had participated in the\nmurder, and notwithstanding his denial, and after sundry and very hard\ntrials, the Initiator feigned to strike him on the head with a hatchet; he\nwas thrown down, swathed in bandages like a mummy, and wept over. Then\ncame lightning and thunder, the supposed corpse was surrounded with fire,\nand was finally raised.\n\nRagon speaks of a rumour that charged the Emperor Commodus\u2014when he was at\none time enacting the part of the Initiator\u2014with having played this part\nin the initiatory drama so seriously that he actually killed the postulant\nwhen dealing him the blow with the hatchet. This shows that the _lesser_\nMysteries had not quite died out in the second century A.D.\n\nThe Mysteries were carried into South and Central America, Northern Mexico\nand Peru by the Atlanteans in those days when\n\n\n    A pedestrian from the North [of what was once upon a time also\n    India] might have reached\u2014hardly wetting his feet\u2014the Alaskan\n    Peninsula, through Manchooria, across the _future_ Gulf of\n    Tartary, the Kurile and Aleutian Islands; while another traveller,\n    furnished with a canoe and starting from the South, could have\n    walked over from Siam, crossed the Polynesian Islands and trudged\n    into any part of the continent of South America.(535)\n\n\nThey continued to exist down to the day of the Spanish invaders. These\ndestroyed the Mexican and Peruvian records, but were prevented from laying\ntheir desecrating hands upon the many Pyramids\u2014the lodges of an ancient\nInitiation\u2014whose ruins are scattered over Puente Nacional, Cholula, and\nTeotihuacan. The ruins of Palenque, of Ococimgo in Chiapas, and others in\nCentral America are known to all. If the pyramids and temples of Guiengola\nand Mitla ever betray their secrets, the present Doctrine will then be\nshown to have been a forerunner of the grandest truths in Nature.\nMeanwhile they have all a claim to be called Mitla, \u201cthe place of sadness\u201d\nand \u201cthe abode of the (desecrated) dead.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXXII. TRACES OF THE MYSTERIES.\n\n\nSays the _Royal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia_, art. \u201cSun:\u201d\n\n\n    In all times, the Sun has necessarily played an important part as\n    a symbol, and especially in Freemasonry. The W.M. represents the\n    rising sun, the J.W. the sun at the meridian, and the S.W. the\n    setting sun. In the Druidical rites, the Arch\u2010Druid represented\n    the sun, and was aided by two other officers, one representing the\n    Moon in the West, and the other the Sun at the South in its\n    meridian. It is quite unnecessary to enter into any lengthened\n    discussion on this symbol.\n\n\nIt is the more \u201cunnecessary\u201d since J. M. Ragon has discussed it very\nfully, as one may find at the end of Section XXIX., where part of his\nexplanations have been quoted. Freemasonry derived her rites from the\nEast, as we have said. And if it be true to say of the modern Rosicrucians\nthat \u201cthey are invested with a knowledge of chaos, not perhaps a very\ndesirable acquisition,\u201d the remark is still more true when applied to all\nthe other branches of Masonry, since the knowledge of their members about\nthe full signification of their symbols is _nil_. Dozens of hypotheses are\nresorted to, one more unlikely than the other, as to the \u201cRound Towers\u201d of\nIreland; one fact is enough to show the ignorance of the Masons, namely,\nthat, according to the _Royal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia_, the idea that they are\nconnected with Masonic Initiation may be at once dismissed as unworthy of\nnotice. The \u201cTowers,\u201d which are found throughout the East in Asia, were\nconnected with the Mystery\u2010Initiations, namely, with the Vishvakarma and\nthe Vikarttana rites. The candidates for Initiation were placed in them\nfor three days and three nights, wherever there was no temple with a\nsubterranean crypt close at hand. These round towers were built for no\nother purposes. Discredited as are all such monuments of Pagan origin by\nthe Christian clergy, who thus \u201csoil their own nest,\u201d they are still the\nliving and indestructible relics of the Wisdom of old. Nothing exists in\nthis objective and illusive world of ours that cannot be made to serve two\npurposes\u2014a good and a bad one. Thus in later ages, the Initiates of the\n_Left_ Path and the anthropomorphists took in hand most of those venerable\nruins, then silent and deserted by their first wise inmates, and turned\nthem indeed into phallic monuments. But this was a deliberate, wilful, and\nvicious misinterpretation of their real meaning, a deflection from their\nfirst use. The Sun\u2014though ever, even for the multitudes, \u03bc\u1f78\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bf\u1f50\u03c1\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\n\u03b8\u03b5\u1f78\u03c2, \u201cthe only and one King and God in Heaven,\u201d and the \u0395\u1f50\u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u1fc6, \u201cthe God\nof Good Counsel\u201d of Orpheus\u2014had in every exoteric popular religion a dual\naspect which was anthropomorphised by the profane. Thus the Sun was\nOsiris\u2010_Typhon_, Ormuzd\u2010_Ahriman_, Bel\u2010Jupiter and _Baal_, the life\u2010giving\nand the _death_\u2010giving luminary. And thus one and the same monolith,\npillar, pyramid, tower or temple, originally built to glorify the first\nprinciple or aspect, might become in time an idol\u2010fane, or worse, a\nphallic emblem in its crude and brutal form. The Lingam of the Hindus has\na spiritual and highly philosophical meaning, while the missionaries see\nin it but an \u201cindecent emblem;\u201d it has just the meaning which is to be\nfound in all those baalim, chammanim, and the bamoth with the pillars of\nunhewn stone of the Bible, set up for the glorification of the male\nJehovah. But this does not alter the fact that the pureia of the Greeks,\nthe nur\u2010hags of Sardinia, the teocalli of Mexico, etc., were all in the\nbeginning of the same character as the \u201cRound Towers\u201d of Ireland. They\nwere sacred places of Initiation.\n\nIn 1877, the writer, quoting the authority and opinions of some most\neminent scholars, ventured to assert that there was a great difference\nbetween the terms _Chrestos_ and _Christos_, a difference having a\nprofound and Esoteric meaning. Also that while _Christos_ means \u201cto live\u201d\nand \u201cto be born into a new life,\u201d _Chrestos_, in \u201cInitiation\u201d phraseology,\nsignified the death of the inner, lower, or personal nature in man; thus\nis given the key to the Br\u00e2hmanical title, the twice\u2010born; and finally,\n\n\n    There were _Chrestians_ long before the era of Christianity, and\n    the Essenes belonged to them.(536)...\n\n\nFor this epithets sufficiently opprobrious to characterise the writer\ncould hardly be found. And yet then as well as now, the author never\nattempted a statement of such a serious nature without showing as many\nlearned authorities for it as could be mustered. Thus on the next page it\nwas said:\n\n\n    Lepsius shows that the word _Nofre_ means Chrestos, \u201cgood,\u201d and\n    that one of the titles of Osiris, \u201cOnnofre,\u201d must be translated\n    \u201cthe goodness of God made manifest.\u201d \u201cThe worship of Christ was\n    not universal at this early date,\u201d explains Mackenzie, \u201cby which I\n    mean that Christolatry had not been introduced; but the worship of\n    _Chrestos_\u2014the Good Principle\u2014had preceded it by many centuries,\n    and even survived the general adoption of Christianity, as shown\n    on monuments still in existence....\u201d Again, we have an inscription\n    which is pre\u2010Christian on an epitaphial tablet (Spon. _Misc.\n    Erud._, Ant., x. xviii. 2). \u03a5\u03b1\u03c7\u03b9\u03bd\u03b8\u03b5 \u039b\u03b1\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03b1\u03b9\u03c9\u03bd \u0394\u03b7\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c3\u03b9\u03b5 \u03a0\u03c1\u03c9\u03c2 \u03a7\u03c1\u03b7\u03c3\u03c4\u03b5\n    \u03a7\u03b1\u03b9\u03c1\u03b5, and de Rossi (_Roma Sotteranea_, tome i., tav. xxi.) gives\n    us another example from the catacombs\u2014\u201c\u00c6lia Chreste, in\n    Pace.\u201d(537)\n\n\nTo\u2010day the writer is able to add to all those testimonies the\ncorroboration of an erudite author, who proves whatever he undertakes to\nshow on the authority of geometrical demonstration. There is a most\ncurious passage with remarks and explanations in the _Source of Measures_,\nwhose author has probably never heard of the \u201cMystery\u2010God\u201d Visvakarma of\nthe early \u00c2ryans. Treating on the difference between the terms Chrest and\nChrist, he ends by saying that:\n\n\n    There were two Messiahs: one who went down into the pit for the\n    salvation of this world; this was the Sun shorn of his golden\n    rays, and crowned with blackened ones (symbolising this loss), as\n    the thorns: the other was the triumphant Messiah mounting up to\n    the summit of the arch of heaven, and _personified as the Lion of\n    the Tribe of Judah_. In both instances he had the cross; once in\n    humiliation and once holding it in his control as the law of\n    creation, He being Jehovah.\n\n\nAnd then the author proceeds to give \u201cthe fact\u201d that \u201cthere were two\nMessiahs,\u201d etc., as quoted above. And this\u2014leaving the divine and mystic\ncharacter and claim for Jesus entirely independent of this event of His\nmortal life\u2014shows Him, beyond any doubt, as an Initiate of the Egyptian\nMysteries, where the same rite of Death and of spiritual Resurrection for\nthe neophyte, or the suffering Chrestos on his trial and new birth by\nRegeneration, was enacted\u2014for this was a universally adopted rite.\n\nThe \u201cpit\u201d into which the Eastern Initiate was made to descend was, as\nshown before, P\u00e2t\u00e2la, one of the seven regions of the nether world, over\nwhich ruled V\u00e2suki, the great \u201csnake God.\u201d This pit, P\u00e2t\u00e2la, has in the\nEastern Symbolism precisely the same manifold meaning as is found by Mr.\nRalston Skinner in the Hebrew word _shiac_ in its application to the case\nin hand. For it was the synonym of Scorpio\u2014P\u00e2t\u00e2la\u2019s depths being\n\u201cimpregnated with the brightness of the new Sun\u201d\u2014represented by the \u201cnewly\nborn\u201d into the glory; and P\u00e2t\u00e2la was and is in a sense, \u201ca pit, a grave,\nthe place of death, and the door of Hades or Sheol\u201d\u2014as, in the partially\nexoteric Initiations in India, the candidate had to pass through the\nmatrix of the heifer before proceeding to P\u00e2t\u00e2la. In its non\u2010mystic sense\nit is the Antipodes\u2014America being referred to in India as P\u00e2t\u00e2la. But in\nits symbolism it meant all that, and much more. The fact alone that\nV\u00e2suki, the ruling Deity of P\u00e2t\u00e2la, is represented in the Hindu Pantheon\nas the great N\u00e2ga (Serpent)\u2014who was used by the Gods and Asuras as a rope\nround the mountain Mandara, at the churning of the ocean for Amrita, the\nwater of immortality\u2014connects him directly with Initiation.\n\nFor he is Shesha N\u00e2ga also, serving as a couch for Vishnu, and upholding\nthe seven worlds; and he is also Ananta, \u201cthe endless,\u201d and the symbol of\neternity\u2014hence the \u201cGod of Secret Wisdom,\u201d degraded by the Church to the\n_r\u00f4le_ of the tempting Serpent, of Satan. That what is now said is correct\nmay be verified by the evidence of even the exoteric rendering of the\nattributes of various Gods and Sages both in the Hindu and the Buddhist\nPantheons. Two instances will suffice to show how little our best and most\nerudite Orientalists are capable of dealing correctly and fairly with the\nsymbolism of Eastern nations, while remaining ignorant of the\ncorresponding points to be found only in Occultism and the Secret\nDoctrine.\n\n(1) The learned Orientalist and Tibetan traveller, Professor Emil\nSchlagintweit, mentions in one of his works on Tibet, a national legend to\nthe effect that\n\n\n    N\u00e2g\u00e2rjuna [a \u201cmythological\u201d personage \u201cwithout any real\n    existence,\u201d the learned German scholar thinks] received the book\n    Param\u00e2rtha, or according to others, the book _Avatamsaka_, from\n    the N\u00e2gas, fabulous creatures of the nature of serpents, who\n    occupy a place among the beings superior to man, and are regarded\n    as protectors of the law of Buddha. To these spiritual beings\n    Sh\u00e2kyamuni is said to have taught a more philosophical religious\n    system than to men, who were not sufficiently advanced to\n    understand it at the time of his appearance.(538)\n\n\nNor are men sufficiently advanced for it now; for \u201cthe more philosophical\nreligious system\u201d is the Secret Doctrine, the Occult Eastern Philosophy,\nwhich is the corner\u2010stone of all sciences rejected by the unwise builders\neven at this day, and more to\u2010day perhaps than ever before, in the great\nconceit of our age. The allegory means simply that N\u00e2g\u00e2rjuna having been\ninitiated by the \u201cSerpents\u201d\u2014the Adepts, \u201cthe wise ones\u201d\u2014and driven out\nfrom India by the Br\u00e2hmans, who dreaded to have their Mysteries and\nsacerdotal Science divulged (the real cause of their hatred of Buddhism),\nwent away to China and Tibet, where he initiated many into the truths of\nthe hidden Mysteries taught by Gautama Buddha.\n\n(2) The hidden symbolism of N\u00e2rada\u2014the great Rishi and the author of some\nof the Rig\u2010Vaidic hymns, who incarnated again later on during Krishna\u2019s\ntime\u2014has never been understood. Yet, in connection with the Occult\nSciences, N\u00e2rada, the son of Brahm\u00e2, is one of the most prominent\ncharacters; he is directly connected in his first incarnation with the\n\u201cBuilders\u201d\u2014hence with the seven \u201cRectors\u201d of the Christian Church, who\n\u201chelped God in the work of creation.\u201d This grand personification is hardly\nnoticed by our Orientalists, who refer only to that which he is alleged to\nhave said of P\u00e2t\u00e2la, namely, \u201cthat it is a place of sexual and sensual\ngratifications.\u201d This is thought to be amusing, and the reflection is\nsuggested that N\u00e2rada, no doubt, \u201cfound the place delightful.\u201d Yet this\nsentence simply shows him to have been an Initiate, connected directly\nwith the Mysteries, and walking, as all the other neophytes, before and\nafter him, had to walk, in \u201cthe pit among the thorns\u201d in the \u201csacrificial\n_Chrest_ condition,\u201d as the suffering victim made to descend thereinto\u2014a\nmystery, truly!\n\nN\u00e2rada is one of the seven Rishis, the \u201cmind\u2010born sons\u201d of Brahm\u00e2. The\nfact of his having been during his incarnation a high Initiate\u2014he, like\nOrpheus, being the founder of the Mysteries\u2014is corroborated, and made\nevident by his history. The _Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata_ states that N\u00e2rada, having\nfrustrated the scheme formed for peopling the universe, in order to remain\ntrue to his vow of chastity, was cursed by Daksha, and sentenced to be\nborn once more. Again, when born during Krishna\u2019s time, he is accused of\ncalling his father Brahm\u00e2 \u201ca false teacher,\u201d because the latter advised\nhim to get married, and he refused to do so. This shows him to have been\nan Initiate, going against the orthodox worship and religion. It is\ncurious to find this Rishi and leader among the \u201cBuilders\u201d and the\n\u201cHeavenly Host\u201d as the prototype of the Christian \u201cleader\u201d of the same\n\u201cHost\u201d\u2014the Archangel Mikael. Both are the male \u201cVirgins,\u201d and both are the\nonly ones among their respective \u201cHosts\u201d who refuse to create. N\u00e2rada is\nsaid to have dissuaded the Hari\u2010ashvas, the five thousand sons of Daksha,\nbegotten by him for the purpose of peopling the Earth, from producing\noffspring. Since then the Hari\u2010ashvas have \u201cdispersed themselves through\nthe regions, and have never returned.\u201d The Initiates are, perhaps, the\nincarnations of these Hari\u2010ashvas?\n\nIt was on the seventh day, the third of his ultimate trial, that the\nneophyte arose, a regenerated man, who, having passed through his second\nspiritual birth, returned to earth a glorified and triumphant conqueror of\nDeath, a Hierophant.\n\nAn Eastern neophyte in his Chrest condition may be seen in a certain\nengraving in Moor\u2019s _Hindu Pantheon_, whose author mistook another form of\nthe crucified Sun or Vishnu, Vittoba, for Krishna, and calls it \u201cKrishna\ncrucified in Space.\u201d The engraving is also given in Dr. Lundy\u2019s\n_Monumental Christianity_, in which work the reverend author has collected\nas many proofs as his ponderous volume could hold of \u201cChristian symbols\n_before_ Christianity,\u201d as he expresses it. Thus he shows us Krishna and\nApollo as good shepherds, Krishna holding the cruciform Conch and the\nChakra, and Krishna \u201ccrucified in Space,\u201d as he calls it. Of this figure\nit may be truly said, as the author says of it himself:\n\n\n    This representation I believe to be anterior to Christianity....\n    It looks like a Christian crucifix in many respects.... The\n    drawing, the attitude, the nail\u2010marks in hands and feet, indicate\n    a Christian origin, while the Parthian coronet of seven points,\n    the absence of the wood, and of the usual inscription, and the\n    rays of glory above, would seem to point to some other than a\n    Christian origin. Can it be the victim\u2010man, or the priest and\n    victim both in one, of the Hindu Mythology, who offered himself a\n    sacrifice before the worlds were?\n\n\nIt is surely so.\n\n\n    Can it be Plato\u2019s Second God who impressed himself on the universe\n    in the form of the cross? Or is it his divine man, who would be\n    scourged, tormented, fettered, have his eyes burnt out; and lastly\n    ... _would be crucified_?\n\n\nIt is all that and much more; archaic religious Philosophy was universal,\nand its Mysteries are as old as man. It is the eternal symbol of the\npersonified Sun\u2014astronomically purified\u2014in its mystic meaning regenerated,\nand symbolised by all the Initiates in memory of a sinless Humanity when\nall were \u201cSons of God.\u201d Now, mankind has become the \u201cSon of Evil\u201d truly.\nDoes all this take anything away from the dignity of Christ as an ideal,\nor of Jesus as a divine man? Not at all. On the contrary, made to stand\nalone, glorified above all other \u201cSons of God,\u201d He can only foment evil\nfeelings in all those many millioned nations who do not believe in the\nChristian system, provoking their hatred and leading to iniquitous wars\nand strifes. If, on the other hand, we place Him among a long series of\n\u201cSons of God\u201d and Sons of divine Light, every man may then be left to\nchoose for himself, among those many ideals, which he will choose as a God\nto call to his help, and worship on earth as in Heaven.\n\nMany among those called \u201cSaviours\u201d were \u201cgood shepherds,\u201d as was Krishna\nfor one, and all of them are said to have \u201ccrushed the serpent\u2019s head\u201d\u2014in\nother words to have conquered their sensual nature and to have mastered\ndivine and Occult Wisdom. Apollo killed Python, a fact which exonerates\nhim from the charge of being himself the great Dragon, Satan: Krishna slew\nthe snake Kalin\u00e2ga, the Black Serpent; and the Scandinavian Thor bruised\nthe head of the symbolical reptile with his crucifixion mace.\n\nIn Egypt every city of importance was separated from its burial\u2010place by a\nsacred lake. The same ceremony of judgment, as is described in _The Book\nof the Dead_\u2014\u201cthat precious and mysterious book\u201d (Bunsen)\u2014as taking place\nin the world of Spirit, took place on earth during the burial of the\nmummy. Forty\u2010two judges or assessors assembled on the shore and judged the\ndeparted \u201cSoul\u201d according to its actions when in the body. After that the\npriests returned within the sacred precincts and instructed the neophytes\nupon the probable fate of the Soul, and the solemn drama that was then\ntaking place in the invisible realm whither the Soul had fled. The\nimmortality of the Spirit was strongly inculcated on the neophytes by the\n_Al\u2010om\u2010jah_\u2014the name of the highest Egyptian Hierophant. In the Crata\nNepoa\u2014the priestly Mysteries in Egypt\u2014the following are described as four\nout of the seven degrees of Initiation.\n\nAfter a preliminary trial at Thebes, where the neophyte had to pass\nthrough many probations, called the \u201cTwelve Tortures,\u201d he was commanded,\nin order that he might come out triumphant, to govern his passions and\nnever lose for a moment the idea of his inner God or seventh Principle.\nThen, as a symbol of the wanderings of the unpurified Soul, he had to\nascend several ladders and wander in darkness in a cave with many doors,\nall of which were locked. Having overcome all, he received the degree of\nPastophoris, after which he became, in the second and third degrees, the\nNeocoris and Melancphoris. Brought into a vast subterranean chamber,\nthickly furnished with mummies lying in state, he was placed in presence\nof the coffin which contained the mutilated body of Osiris. This was the\nhall called the \u201cGates of Death,\u201d whence the verse in Job:\n\n\n    Have the gates of Death been opened to thee,\n    Hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?\n\n\nThus asks the \u201cLord,\u201d the Hierophant, the Al\u2010om\u2010jah, the Initiator of Job,\nalluding to this third degree of Initiation. For the _Book of Job_ is the\npoem of Initiation _par excellence_.\n\nWhen the neophyte had conquered the terrors of this trial, he was\nconducted to the \u201cHall of Spirits,\u201d to be judged by them. Among the rules\nin which he was instructed, he was commanded:\n\n\n    Never to either desire or seek revenge; to be always ready to help\n    a brother in danger, even unto the risk of his own life; to bury\n    every dead body; to honour his parents above all; to respect old\n    age, and protect those weaker than himself; and, finally, to ever\n    bear in mind the hour of death, and that of resurrection in a new\n    and imperishable body.\n\n\nPurity and chastity were highly recommended, and adultery was threatened\nwith death. Thus the Egyptian neophyte was made a Kristophoros. In this\ndegree the mystery\u2010name of IAO was communicated to him.\n\nLet the reader compare the above sublime precepts with the precepts of\nBuddha, and the noble commandments in the \u201cRule of Life\u201d for the ascetics\nof India, and he will understand the unity of the Secret Doctrine\neverywhere.\n\nIt is impossible to deny the presence of a sexual element in many\nreligious symbols, but this fact is not in the least open to censure, once\nit becomes generally known that\u2014in the religious traditions of every\ncountry\u2014man was not born in the first \u201chuman\u201d race from father and mother.\nFrom the bright \u201cmind\u2010born Sons of Brahm\u00e2,\u201d the Rishis, and from Adam\nKadmon with his Emanations, the Sephiroth, down to the \u201cparentless,\u201d the\nAnup\u00e2daka, or the Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas, from whom sprang the Bodhisattvas and\nManushi\u2010Buddhas, the earthly Initiates\u2014men\u2014the first race of men was with\nevery nation held as being born without father or mother. Man, the\n\u201cManushi\u2010Buddha,\u201d the Manu, the \u201cEnosh,\u201d son of Seth, or the \u201cSon of Man\u201d\nas he is called\u2014is born in the present way only as the consequence, the\nunavoidable fatality, of the law of natural evolution. Mankind\u2014having\nreached the last limit, and that turning point where its spiritual nature\nhad to make room for mere physical organisation\u2014had to \u201cfall into matter\u201d\nand generation. But man\u2019s evolution and involution are cyclic. He will end\nas he began. Of course to our grossly material minds even the sublime\nsymbolism of Kosmos conceived in the matrix of Space after the divine Unit\nhad entered into and fructified it with Its holy fiat, will no doubt\nsuggest materiality. Not so with primitive mankind. The initiatory rite in\nthe Mysteries of the self\u2010sacrificing Victim that dies a spiritual death\nto save the world from destruction\u2014really from depopulation\u2014was\nestablished during the Fourth Race, to commemorate an event, which,\nphysiologically, has now become the Mystery of Mysteries among the world\u2010\nproblems. In the Jewish script it is Cain and the female Abel who are the\nsacrificed and sacrificing couple\u2014both immolating themselves (as\npermutations of Adam and Eve, or the dual Jehovah) and shedding their\nblood \u201cof separation and union,\u201d for the sake of and to save mankind by\ninaugurating a new physiological race. Later still, when the neophyte, as\nalready mentioned, in order to be re\u2010born once more into his lost\nspiritual state, had to pass through the entrails (the womb) of a _virgin_\nheifer(539) killed at the moment of the rite, it involved again a mystery\nand one as great, for it referred to the process of birth, or rather the\nfirst entrance of man on to this earth, through V\u00e2ch\u2014\u201cthe melodious cow\nwho milks forth sustenance and water\u201d\u2014and who is the female Logos. It had\nalso reference to the same self\u2010sacrifice of the \u201cdivine Hermaphrodite\u201d\u2014of\nthe third Root\u2010Race\u2014the transformation of Humanity into truly physical\nmen, after the loss of spiritual potency. When, the fruit of evil having\nbeen tasted along with the fruit of good, there was as a result the\ngradual atrophy of spirituality and a strengthening of the materiality in\nman, then he was doomed to be born thenceforth through the present\nprocess. This is the Mystery of the Hermaphrodite, which the Ancients kept\nso secret and veiled. It was neither the absence of moral feeling, nor the\npresence of gross sensuality in them that made them imagine their Deities\nunder a dual aspect; but rather their knowledge of the mysteries and\nprocesses of primitive Nature. The Science of Physiology was better known\nto them than it is to us now. It is in this that lies buried the key to\nthe Symbolism of old, the true focus of national thought, and the strange\ndual\u2010sexed images of nearly every God and Goddess in both pagan and\nmonotheistic Pantheons.\n\nSays Sir William Drummond in _\u0152dipus Juda\u00efcus_:\n\n\n    The truths of science were the arcana of the priests because these\n    truths were the foundations of religion.\n\n\nBut why should the missionaries so cruelly twit the Vaishnavas and Krishna\nworshippers for the supposed grossly indecent meaning of their symbols,\nsince it is made clear beyond the slightest doubt, and by the most\nunprejudiced writers, that Chrestos in the pit\u2014whether the pit be taken as\nmeaning the grave or hell\u2014had likewise a sexual element in it, from the\nvery origin of the symbol.\n\nThis fact is no longer denied to\u2010day. The \u201cBrothers of the Rosy Cross\u201d of\nthe Middle Ages were as good Christians as any to be found in Europe,\nnevertheless, all their rites were based on symbols whose meaning was pre\u2010\neminently phallic and sexual. Their biographer, Hargrave Jennings, the\nbest modern authority on Rosicrucianism, speaking of this mystic\nBrotherhood, describes how\n\n\n    The tortures and the sacrifice of Calvary, the Passion of the\n    Cross, were, in their [the Rose\u2010Croix\u2019s] glorious blessed magic\n    and triumph, the protest and appeal.\n\n\nProtest\u2014by whom? The answer is, the protest of the crucified Rose, the\ngreatest and the most unveiled of all sexual symbols\u2014the Yoni and Lingam,\nthe \u201cvictim\u201d and the \u201cmurderer,\u201d the female and male principles in Nature.\nOpen the last work of that author, _Phallicism_, and see in what glowing\nterms he describes the sexual symbolism in that which is most sacred to\nthe Christian:\n\n\n    The flowing blood streamed from the crown, or the piercing circlet\n    of the thorns of Hell. The Rose is feminine. Its lustrous carmine\n    petals are guarded with thorns. The Rose is the most beautiful of\n    flowers. The Rose is the Queen of God\u2019s Garden (Mary, the Virgin).\n    It is not the Rose alone which is the magical idea, or truth. But\n    it is the \u201ccrucified rose,\u201d or the \u201cmartyred rose\u201d (by the grand\n    mystic apocalyptic figure) which is the talisman, the standard,\n    the object of adoration of all the \u201cSons of Wisdom\u201d or the true\n    Rosicrucians.(540)\n\n\nNot of _all_ the \u201cSons of Wisdom,\u201d by any means, not even of the _true_\nRosicrucian. For the latter would never put in such sickening relievo, in\nsuch a purely sensual and terrestrial, not to say animal light, the\ngrandest, the noblest of Nature\u2019s symbols. To the Rosicrucian, the \u201cRose\u201d\nwas the symbol of Nature, of the ever prolific and virgin Earth, or Isis,\nthe mother and nourisher of man, considered as feminine and represented as\na virgin woman by the Egyptian Initiates. Like every other personification\nof Nature and the Earth she is the sister and wife of Osiris, as the two\ncharacters answer to the personified symbol of the Earth, both she and the\nSun being the progeny of the same mysterious Father, because the Earth is\nfecundated by the Sun\u2014according to the earliest Mysticism\u2014by divine\ninsufflation. It was the pure ideal of mystic Nature that was personified\nin the \u201cWorld Virgins,\u201d the \u201cCelestial Maidens,\u201d and later on by the human\nVirgin, Mary, the Mother of the Saviour, the _Salvator Mundi_ now chosen\nby the Christian World. And it was the character of the Jewish maiden that\nwas adapted by Theology to archaic Symbolism,(541) and not the Pagan\nsymbol that was modelled for the new occasion.\n\nWe know through Herodotus that the Mysteries were brought from India by\nOrpheus\u2014a hero far anterior to both Homer and Hesiod. Very little is\nreally known of him, and till very lately Orphic literature, and even the\nArgonauts, were attributed to Onamacritus, a contemporary of Pisistratus,\nSolon and Pythagoras\u2014who was credited with their compilation in the\npresent form toward the close of the sixth century B.C., or 800 years\nafter the time of Orpheus. But we are told that in the days of Pausanias\nthere was a sacerdotal family, who, like the Br\u00e2hmans with the _Vedas_,\nhad committed to memory all the Orphic Hymns, and that they were usually\nthus transmitted from one generation to another. By placing Orpheus so far\nback as 1200 B.C., official Science\u2014so careful in her chronology to choose\nin each case as late a period as possible\u2014admits that the Mysteries, or in\nother words Occultism dramatised, belong to a still earlier epoch than the\nChald\u00e6an and Egyptians.\n\nThe downfall of the Mysteries in Europe may now be mentioned.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXXIII. THE LAST OF THE MYSTERIES IN EUROPE.\n\n\nAs was predicted by the great Hermes in his dialogue with \u00c6sculapius, the\ntime had indeed come when impious foreigners accused Egypt of adoring\nmonsters, and naught but the letters engraved in stone upon her monuments\nsurvived\u2014enigmas unintelligible to posterity. Her sacred Scribes and\nHierophants became wanderers upon the face of the earth. Those who had\nremained in Egypt found themselves obliged for fear of a profanation of\nthe sacred Mysteries to seek refuge in deserts and mountains, to form and\nestablish secret societies and brotherhoods\u2014such as the Essenes; those who\nhad crossed the oceans to India and even to the (now\u2010called) New World,\nbound themselves by solemn oaths to keep silent, and to preserve secret\ntheir Sacred Knowledge and Science; thus these were buried deeper than\never out of human sight. In Central Asia and on the northern borderlands\nof India, the triumphant sword of Aristotle\u2019s pupil swept away from his\npath of conquest every vestige of a once pure Religion: and its Adepts\nreceded further and further from that path into the most hidden spots of\nthe globe. The cycle of \u2014\u2014 being at its close, the first hour for the\ndisappearance of the Mysteries struck on the clock of the Races, with the\nMacedonian conqueror. The first strokes of its last hour sounded in the\nyear 47 B.C. Alesia(542) the famous city in Gaul, the Thebes of the Kelts,\nso renowned for its ancient rites of Initiation and Mysteries, was, as J.\nM. Ragon well describes it:\n\n\n    The ancient metropolis and the tomb of Initiation, of the religion\n    of the Druids and of the freedom of Gaul.(543)\n\n\nIt was during the first century before our era, that the last and supreme\nhour of the great Mysteries had struck. History shows the populations of\nCentral Gaul revolting against the Roman yoke. The country was subject to\nC\u00e6sar, and the revolt was crushed; the result was the slaughter of the\ngarrison at Alesia (or Alisa), and of all its inhabitants, including the\nDruids, the college\u2010priests and the neophytes; after this the whole city\nwas plundered and razed to the ground.\n\nBibractis, a city as large and as famous, not far from Alesia, perished a\nfew years later. J. M. Ragon describes her end as follows:\n\n\n    Bibractis, the mother of sciences, the soul of the early nations\n    [in Europe], a town equally famous for its sacred college of\n    Druids, its civilisation, its schools, in which 40,000 students\n    were taught philosophy, literature, grammar, jurisprudence,\n    medicine, astrology, occult sciences, architecture, etc. Rival of\n    Thebes, of Memphis, of Athens and of Rome, it possessed an\n    amphitheatre, surrounded with colossal statues, and accommodating\n    100,000 spectators, gladiators, a capitol, temples of Janus,\n    Pluto, Proserpine, Jupiter, Apollo, Minerva, Cybele, Venus and\n    Anubis; and in the midst of those sumptuous edifices the Naumachy,\n    with its vast basin, an incredible construction, a gigantic work\n    wherein floated boats and galleys devoted to naval games; then a\n    _Champ de Mars_, an aqueduct, fountains, public baths; finally\n    fortifications and walls, the construction of which dated from the\n    heroic ages.(544)\n\n\nSuch was the last city in Gaul wherein died for Europe the secrets of the\nInitiations of the Great Mysteries, the Mysteries of Nature, and of her\nforgotten Occult truths. The rolls and manuscripts of the famous\nAlexandrian Library were burned and destroyed by the same C\u00e6sar,(545) but\nwhile History deprecates the action of the Arab general, Amrus, who gave\nthe final touch to this act of vandalism perpetrated by the great\nconqueror, it has not a word to say to the latter for his destruction of\nnearly the same amount of precious rolls in Alesia, nor to the destroyer\nof Bibractis. While Sacrovir\u2014chief of the Gauls, who revolted against\nRoman despotism under Tiberius, and was defeated by Silius in the year 21\nof our era\u2014was burning himself alive with his fellow conspirators on a\nfuneral pyre before the gates of the city, as Ragon tells us, the latter\nwas sacked and plundered, and all her treasures of literature on the\nOccult Sciences perished by fire. The once majestic city, Bibractis, has\nnow become Autun, Ragon explains.\n\n\n    A few monuments of glorious antiquity are still there, such as the\n    temples of Janus and of Cybele.\n\n\nRagon goes on:\n\n\n    Arles, founded two thousand years before Christ, was sacked in\n    270. This metropolis of Gaul, restored 40 years later by\n    Constantine, has preserved to this day a few remains of its\n    ancient splendour; amphitheatre, capitol, an obelisk, a block of\n    granite 17 metres high, a triumphal arch, catacombs, etc. Thus\n    ended Kelto\u2010Gaulic civilisation. C\u00e6sar, as a barbarian worthy of\n    Rome, had already accomplished the destruction of the ancient\n    Mysteries by the sack of the temples and their initiatory\n    colleges, and by the massacre of the Initiates and the Druids.\n    Remained Rome; but she never had but the lesser Mysteries, shadows\n    of the Secret Sciences. The Great Initiation was extinct.(546)\n\n\nA few further extracts may be given from his _Occult Masonry_, as they\nbear directly upon our subject. However learned and erudite, some of the\nchronological mistakes of that author are very great. He says:\n\n\n    After deified man (Hermes) came the King\u2010Priest [the Hierophant]\n    Menes was the first legislator and the founder of Thebes of the\n    hundred palaces. He filled that city with magnificent splendour;\n    it is from his day that the sacerdotal epoch of Egypt dates. The\n    priests reigned, for it is they who made the laws. It is said that\n    there have been three hundred and twenty\u2010nine [Hierophants] since\n    his time\u2014all of whom have remained unknown.\n\n\nAfter that, genuine Adepts having become scarce, the author shows the\nPriests choosing false ones from the midst of slaves, whom they exhibited,\nhaving crowned and deified them, for the adoration of the ignorant masses.\n\n\n    Tired of reigning in such a servile way, the kings rebelled and\n    freed themselves. Then came Sesostris, the founder of Memphis\n    (1613, they say, before our era). To the sacerdotal election to\n    the throne succeeded that of the warriors.... Cheops who reigned\n    from 1178 to 1122 built the great Pyramid which bears his name. He\n    is accused of having persecuted theocracy and closed the temples.\n\n\nThis is utterly incorrect, though Ragon repeats \u201cHistory.\u201d The Pyramid\ncalled by the name of Cheops is the Great Pyramid, the building of which\neven Baron Bunsen assigned to 5,000 B.C. He says in _Egypt\u2019s Place in\nUniversal History_:\n\n\n    The Origines of Egypt go back to the ninth millennium before\n    Christ.(547)\n\n\nAnd as the Mysteries were performed and the Initiations took place in that\nPyramid\u2014for indeed it was built for that purpose\u2014it looks strange and an\nutter contradiction with known facts in the history of the Mysteries, to\nsuppose that Cheops, if the builder of that Pyramid, ever turned against\nthe initiated Priests and their temples. Moreover, as far as the Secret\nDoctrine teaches, it was not Cheops who built the Pyramid of that name,\nwhatever else he might have done.\n\nYet, it is quite true that\n\n\n    Owing to an Ethiopian invasion and the federated government of\n    twelve chiefs, royalty fell into the hands of Amasis, a man of low\n    birth.\n\n\nThis was in 570 B.C., and it is Amasis who destroyed priestly power. And\n\n\n    Thus perished that ancient theocracy which showed its crowned\n    priests for so many centuries to Egypt and the whole world.\n\n\nEgypt had gathered the students of all countries around her Priests and\nHierophants before Alexandria was founded. Ennemoser asks:\n\n\n    How comes it that so little has become known of the Mysteries and\n    of their particular contents, through so many ages, and amongst so\n    many different times and people? The answer is that it is again\n    owing to the universally strict silence of the initiated. Another\n    cause may be found in the destruction and total loss of all the\n    written memorials of the secret knowledge of the remotest\n    antiquity.\n\n    Numa\u2019s books, described by Livy, consisting of natural philosophy,\n    were found in his tomb; but they were not allowed to be made\n    known, lest they should reveal the most secret mysteries of the\n    state religion.... The senate and the tribunes of the people\n    determined ... that the books themselves should be burned, which\n    was done.(548)\n\n\nCassain mentions a treatise, well\u2010known in the fourth and fifth centuries,\nwhich was accredited to Ham, the son of Noah, who in his turn was reputed\nto have received it from Jared, the fourth generation from Seth, the son\nof Adam.\n\nAlchemy also was first taught in Egypt by her learned Priests, though the\nfirst appearance of this system is as old as man. Many writers have\ndeclared that Adam was the first Adept; but that was a blind and a pun\nupon the name, which is \u201cred earth\u201d in one of its meanings. The correct\ninformation\u2014under its allegorical veil\u2014is found in the sixth chapter of\nGenesis, which speaks of the \u201cSons of God\u201d who took wives of the daughters\nof men, after which they communicated to these wives many a mystery and\nsecret of the phenomenal world. The cradle of Alchemy, says Olaus\nBorrichius, is to be sought in the most distant times. Democritus of\nAbdera was an Alchemist, and a Hermetic Philosopher. Clement of Alexandria\nwrote considerably upon the Science, and Moses and Solomon are called\nproficients in it. We are told by W. Godwin:\n\n\n    The first authentic record on this subject is an edict of\n    Diocletian about 300 years A.D., ordering a diligent search to be\n    made in Egypt for all the ancient books which treated of the art\n    of making gold and silver, that they might, without distinction,\n    be consigned to the flames.\n\n\nThe Alchemy of the Chald\u00e6ans and the old Chinamen is not even the parent\nof that Alchemy which revived among the Arabians many centuries later.\nThere is a spiritual Alchemy and a physical transmutation. The knowledge\nof both was imparted at the Initiations.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXXIV. THE POST\u2010CHRISTIAN SUCCESSORS TO THE MYSTERIES.\n\n\nThe Eleusinian Mysteries were no more. Yet it was these which gave their\nprincipal features to the Neo\u2010platonic school of Ammonius Saccas, for the\nEclectic System was chiefly characterised by its Theurgy and ecstasis. It\nwas Iamblichus who added to it the Egyptian doctrine of Theurgy with its\npractices, and Porphyry, the Jew, who opposed this new element. The\nschool, however, with but few exceptions, practised asceticism and\ncontemplation, its mystics passing through a discipline as rigorous as\nthat of the Hindu devotee. Their efforts never tended so much to develop\nthe successful practice of thaumaturgy, necromancy or sorcery\u2014such as they\nare now accused of\u2014as to evolve the higher faculties of the inner man, the\nSpiritual Ego. The school held that a number of spiritual beings, denizens\nof spheres quite independent of the earth and of the human cycle, were\nmediators between the \u201cGods\u201d and men, and even between man and the Supreme\nSoul. To put it in plainer language, the soul of man became, owing to the\nhelp of the Planetary Spirits, \u201crecipient of the soul of the world\u201d as\nEmerson puts it. Apollonius of Tyana asserted his possession of such a\npower in these words (quoted by Professor Wilder in his _Neo\u2010Platonism_):\n\n\n    I can see the present and the future in a clear mirror. The sage\n    [Adept] need not wait for the vapours of the earth and the\n    corruption of the air to foresee plagues and fevers; he must know\n    them later than God, but earlier than the people. The _theoi_ or\n    gods see the future; common men, the present; sages, that which is\n    about to take place. My peculiar abstemious mode of living\n    produces such an acuteness of the senses, or creates some other\n    faculty, so that the greatest and most remarkable things may be\n    performed.(549)\n\n\nProfessor A. Wilder\u2019s comment thereupon is remarkable:\n\n\n    This is what may be termed _spiritual photography_. The soul is\n    the camera in which facts and events, future, past, and present,\n    are alike fixed; and the mind becomes conscious of them. Beyond\n    our everyday world of limits, all is as one day or state\u2014the past\n    and future comprised in the present. Probably this is the \u201cgreat\n    day,\u201d the \u201c_last_ day,\u201d the \u201cday of the Lord,\u201d of the Bible\n    writers\u2014the day into which everyone passes by death or _ecstasis_.\n    Then the soul is freed from the constraint of the body, and its\n    nobler part is united to higher nature and becomes partaker in the\n    wisdom and foreknowledge of the higher beings.(550)\n\n\nHow far the system practised by the Neo\u2010Platonists was identical with that\nof the old and the modern Ved\u00e2ntins may be inferred from what Dr. A.\nWilder says of the Alexandrian Theosophists.\n\n\n    The anterior idea of the New Platonists was that of a single\n    Supreme Essence.... All the old philosophies contained the\n    doctrine that \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1f76, _theoi_, gods or disposers, angels, demons,\n    and other spiritual agencies, emanated from the Supreme Being.\n    Ammonius accepted the doctrine of the Books of Hermes, that from\n    the divine All proceeded the Divine Wisdom or Amun; that from\n    Wisdom proceeded the Demiurge or Creator; and from, the Creator,\n    the subordinate spiritual beings; the world and its peoples being\n    the last. The first is contained in the second, the first and\n    second in the third, and so on through the entire series.(551)\n\n\nThis is a perfect echo of the belief of the Ved\u00e2ntins, and it proceeds\ndirectly from the secret teachings of the East. The same author says:\n\n\n    Akin to this is the doctrine of the Jewish Kabala which was taught\n    by the Pharsi or Pharisees, who probably borrowed it, as their\n    sectarian designation would seem to indicate, from the Magians of\n    Persia. It is substantially embodied in the following synopsis.\n\n    The Divine Being is the All, the source of all existence, the\n    Infinite; and He cannot be known. The Universe reveals Him, and\n    subsists by Him. At the beginning His effulgence went forth\n    everywhere.(552) Eventually He retired within Himself and so\n    formed around Him a vacant space. Into this He transmitted His\n    first Emanation, a Ray, containing in it the generative and\n    conceptive power, and hence the name IE, or Jah. This in its turn\n    produced the _tikkun_, the _pattern_ or idea of form; and in this\n    emanation, which also contained the male and female, or generative\n    and conceptive potencies, were the three primitive forces of\n    Light, Spirit and Life. This Tikkun is united to the Ray, or first\n    emanation, and pervaded by it: and by that union is also in\n    perpetual communication with the infinite source. It is the\n    pattern, the primitive man, the Adam Kadmon, the _macrocosm_ of\n    Pythagoras and other philosophers. From it proceeded the\n    _Sephiroth_.... From the Sephiroth in turn emanated the four\n    worlds, each proceeding out of the one immediately above it, and\n    the lower one enveloping its superior. These worlds became less\n    pure as they descended in the scale, the lowest of all being the\n    material world.(553)\n\n\nThis veiled enunciation of the Secret Teaching will be clear to our\nreaders by this time. These worlds are:\n\n\n    _Aziluth_ is peopled with the purest emanations [the First, almost\n    spiritual, Race of the human beings that were to inhabit] the\n    Fourth; the second, _Beriah_, by a lower order, the servants of\n    the former [the second Race]; the third, _Jesirah_, by the\n    cherubim and seraphim, the Elohim and B\u2019ni Elohim [\u201cSons of Gods\u201d\n    or _Elohim_, our Third Race]. The fourth world, _Asiah_, is\n    inhabited by the Klipputh, of whom Belial is chief [the Atlantean\n    Sorcerers].(554)\n\n\nThese worlds are all the earthly duplicates of their heavenly prototypes,\nthe mortal and temporary reflections and shadows of the more durable, if\nnot eternal, races dwelling in other, to us, invisible worlds. The souls\nof the men of our Fifth Race derive their elements from these four\nworlds\u2014Root Races\u2014that preceded ours: namely, our intellect, Manas, the\nfifth principle, our passions and mental and corporeal appetites. A\nconflict having arisen, called \u201cwar in heaven,\u201d among our prototypical\nworlds, war came to pass, \u00e6ons later, between the Atlanteans(555) of\nAsiah, and those of the third Root Race, the B\u2019ni Elohim or the \u201cSons of\nGod,\u201d(556) and then evil and wickedness were intensified. Mankind (in the\nlast sub\u2010race of the third Root Race) having\n\n\n    Sinned in their first parent [a physiological allegory, truly!]\n    from whose soul every human soul is an emanation,\n\n\nsays the _Zohar_, men were \u201cexiled\u201d into more material bodies to\n\n\n    Expiate that sin and become proficient in goodness.\n\n\nTo accomplish the cycle of necessity, rather, explains the doctrine; to\nprogress on their task of evolution, from which task none of us can be\nfreed, neither by death nor suicide, for each of us have to pass through\nthe \u201cValley of Thorns\u201d before he emerges into the plains of divine light\nand rest. And thus men will continue to be born in new bodies\n\n\n    Till they have become sufficiently pure to enter a higher form of\n    existence.\n\n\nThis means only that Mankind, from the First down to the last, or Seventh\nRace, is composed of one and the same company of actors, who have\ndescended from higher spheres to perform their artistic tour on this our\nplanet, Earth. Starting as pure spirits on our downward journey around the\nworld (verily!) with the knowledge of truth\u2014now feebly echoed in the\nOccult Doctrines\u2014inherent in us, cyclic law brings us down to the reversed\napex of matter, which is lost down here on earth and the bottom of which\nwe have already struck; and then, the same law of spiritual gravity will\nmake us slowly ascend to still higher, still purer spheres than those we\nstarted from.\n\nForesight, prophecy, oracular powers! Illusive fancies of man\u2019s dwarfed\nperceptions, which see actual images in reflections and shadows, and\nmistake past actualities for prophetic images of a future that has no room\nin Eternity. Our macrocosm and its smallest microcosm, man, are both\nrepeating the same play of universal and individual events at each\nstation, as on every stage on which Karma leads them to enact their\nrespective dramas of life. False prophets could have no existence had\nthere been no true prophets. And so there were, and many of both classes,\nand in all ages. Only, none of these ever saw anything but that which had\nalready come to pass, and had been before prototypically enacted in higher\nspheres\u2014if the event foretold related to national or public weal or woe\u2014or\nin some preceding life, if it concerned only an individual, for every such\nevent is stamped as an indelible record of the Past and Future, which are\nonly, after all, the ever Present in Eternity. The \u201cworlds\u201d and the\npurifications spoken of in the _Zohar_ and other Kabalistic books, relate\nto our globe and races no more and no less than they relate to other\nglobes and other races that have preceded our own in the great cycle. It\nwas such fundamental truths as these that were performed in allegorical\nplays and images during the Mysteries, the last Act of which, the Epilogue\nfor the Myst\u00e6, was the _anastasis_ or \u201ccontinued existence,\u201d as also the\n\u201cSoul transformation.\u201d\n\nHence, the author of _Neo\u2010platonism and Alchemy_ shows us that all such\nEclectic doctrines were strongly reflected in the _Epistles_ of Paul, and\nwere\n\n\n    Inculcated more or less among the Churches. Hence, such passages\n    as these \u201cYe were dead in errors and sins; ye walked according to\n    the _\u00e6on_ of this world, according to the _archon_ that has the\n    domination of the air.\u201d \u201cWe wrestle not against flesh and blood,\n    but against the dominations, against potencies, against the lords\n    of darkness, and against the mischievousness of spirits in the\n    empyrean regions.\u201d But Paul was evidently hostile to the effort to\n    blend his gospel with the gnostic ideas of the Hebrew\u2010Egyptian\n    school, as seems to have been attempted at Ephesus; and\n    accordingly, wrote to Timothy, his favourite disciple, \u201cKeep safe\n    the precious charge entrusted to thee; and reject the new\n    doctrines and the antagonistic principles of the gnosis, falsely\n    so\u2010called, of which some have made profession and gone astray from\n    the faith.\u201d(557)\n\n\nBut as the Gnosis is the Science pertaining to our Higher Self, as blind\nfaith is a matter of temperament and emotionalism, and as Paul\u2019s doctrine\nwas still newer and his interpretations far more thickly veiled, to keep\nthe inner truths hidden far away from the Gnostic, preference has been\ngiven to the former by every earnest seeker after truth.\n\nBesides this, the great Teachers who professed the so\u2010called \u201cfalse\nGnosis\u201d were very numerous in the days of the Apostles, and were as great\nas any converted Rabbi could be. If Porphyry, the Jew Malek, went against\nTheurgy on account of old traditional recollections, there were other\nteachers who practised it. Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus were all\nthaumaturgists, and the latter\n\n\n    Elaborated the entire theosophy and theurgy of his predecessors\n    into a complete system. (558)\n\n\nAs to Ammonius,\n\n\n    Countenanced by Clemens and Athenagoras, in the Church, and by\n    learned men of the Synagogue, the Academy, and the Grove, he\n    fulfilled his labour by teaching a common doctrine for all.(559)\n\n\nThus it is not Judaism and Christianity that re\u2010modelled the ancient Pagan\nWisdom, but rather the latter that put its heathen curb, quietly and\ninsensibly, on the new faith; and this, moreover, was still further\ninfluenced by the Eclectic Theosophical system, the direct emanation of\nthe Wisdom Religion. All that is grand and noble in Christian theology\ncomes from Neo\u2010Platonism. It is too well\u2010known to now need much repetition\nthat Ammonius Saccas, the God\u2010taught (_theodidaktos_) and the lover of the\ntruth (_philalethes_), in establishing his school, made a direct attempt\nto benefit the world by teaching those portions of the Secret Science that\nwere permitted by its direct guardians to be revealed in those days.(560)\nThe modern movement of our own Theosophical Society was begun on the same\nprinciples; for the Neo\u2010Platonic school of Ammonius aimed, as we do, at\nthe reconcilement of all sects and peoples, under the once common faith of\nthe Golden Age, trying to induce the nations to lay aside their\ncontentions\u2014in religious matters at any rate\u2014by proving to them that their\nvarious beliefs are all the more or less legitimate children of one common\nparent, the Wisdom Religion.\n\nNor was the Eclectic Theosophical system\u2014as some writers inspired by Rome\nwould make the world believe\u2014developed only during the third century of\nour era; but it belongs to a much earlier age, as has been shown by\nDiogenes Laertius. He traces it to the beginning of the dynasty of the\nPtolemies; to the great seer and prophet, the Egyptian Priest Pot\u2010Amun, of\nthe temple of the God of that name\u2014for Amun is the God of Wisdom. Unto\nthat day the communication between the Adepts of Upper India and Bactria\nand the Philosophers of the West had never ceased.\n\n\n    Under Philadelphus ... the Hellenic teachers became rivals of the\n    College of Rabbis of Babylon. The Buddhistic, Ved\u00e2ntic and Magian\n    systems were expounded along with the philosophies of Greece....\n    Aristobulus, the Jew, declared that the ethics of Aristotle were\n    derived from the law of Moses (!); and Philo, after him, attempted\n    to interpret the Pentateuch in accordance with the doctrines of\n    Pythagoras and the Academy. In Josephus it is said that, in the\n    Book of the Genesis, Moses wrote philosophically\u2014that is, in the\n    figurative style; and the Essenes of Carmel were reproduced in the\n    Therapeut\u00e6 of Egypt, who, in turn, were declared by Eusebius to be\n    identical with the Christians, though they actually existed long\n    before the Christian era. Indeed, in its turn, Christianity also\n    was taught at Alexandria, and underwent an analogous\n    metamorphosis. Pant\u00e6nus, Athenagoras and Clement were thoroughly\n    instructed in the Platonic philosophy, and comprehended its\n    essential unity with the oriental systems.(561)\n\n\nAmmonius, though the son of Christian parents, was a _lover_ of the truth,\na true Philaletheian foremost of all. He set his heart upon the work of\nreconciling the different systems into a harmonious whole, for he had\nalready perceived the tendency of Christianity to raise itself on the\nhecatomb which it had constructed out of all other creeds and faiths. What\nsays history?\n\nThe ecclesiastical historian, Mosheim, declares that\n\n\n    Ammonius, conceiving that not only the philosophers of Greece, but\n    also all those of the different barbarous nations, were perfectly\n    in unison with each other with regard to every essential point,\n    made it his business so to temper and expound the tenets of all\n    these various sects, as to make it appear they had all of them\n    originated from one and the same source, and all tended to one and\n    the same end. Again, Mosheim says that Ammonius taught that the\n    religion of the multitude went hand in hand with philosophy, and\n    with her had shared the fate of being by degrees corrupted and\n    obscured with mere human conceits, superstition, and lies; that it\n    ought, therefore, to be brought back to its original purity by\n    purging it of this dross and expounding it upon philosophical\n    principles; and that the whole which Christ had in view was to\n    reinstate and restore to its primitive integrity the Wisdom of the\n    Ancients.(562)\n\n\nNow what was that \u201cWisdom of the Ancients\u201d that the Founder of\nChristianity \u201chad in view\u201d? The system taught by Ammonius in his Eclectic\nTheosophical School was made of the crumbs permitted to be gathered from\nthe antediluvian lore; those Neo\u2010Platonic teachings are described in the\n_Edinburgh Encyclop\u00e6dia_ as follows:\n\n\n    He [Ammonius] adopted the doctrines which were received in Egypt\n    concerning the Universe and the Deity, considered as constituting\n    one great whole; concerning the eternity of the world, the nature\n    of souls, the empire of Providence [Karma] and the government of\n    the world by demons [_daimons_ or spirits, archangels]. He also\n    established a system of moral discipline which allowed the people\n    in general to live according to the laws of their country and the\n    dictates of nature; but required the wise to exalt their minds by\n    contemplation, and to mortify the body,(563) so that they might be\n    capable of enjoying the presence and assistance of the demons\n    [including their own _daimon_ or Seventh Principle] ... and\n    ascending after death to the presence of the Supreme [Soul]\n    Parent. In order to reconcile the popular religions, and\n    particularly the Christian, with this new system, he made the\n    whole history of the heathen gods an allegory, maintaining that\n    they were only celestial ministers(564) entitled to an inferior\n    kind of worship; and he acknowledged that Jesus Christ was an\n    excellent man and the friend of God, but alleged that it was not\n    his design entirely to abolish the worship of demons,(565) and\n    that his only intention was to purify the ancient religion.\n\n\nNo more could be declared except for those Philaletheians who were\ninitiated, \u201cpersons duly instructed and disciplined\u201d to whom Ammonius\ncommunicated his more important doctrines,\n\n\n    Imposing on them the obligations of secrecy, as was done before\n    him by Zoroaster and Pythagoras, and in the Mysteries [where an\n    oath was required from the neophytes or catechumens not to divulge\n    what they had learned]. The great Pythagoras divided his teachings\n    into exoteric and esoteric.(566)\n\n\nHas not Jesus done the same, since He declared to His disciples that to\nthem it was given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, whereas\nto the multitudes it was not given, and therefore He spoke in parables\nwhich had a two\u2010fold meaning?\n\nDr. A. Wilder proceeds:\n\n\n    Thus Ammonius found his work ready to his hand. His deep spiritual\n    intuition, his extensive learning, and his familiarity with the\n    Christian fathers, Pant\u00e6nus, Clement and Athenagoras, and with the\n    most erudite philosophers of the time, all fitted him for the\n    labour he performed so thoroughly.... The results of his\n    ministration are perceptible at the present day in every country\n    of the Christian world; every prominent system of doctrine now\n    bearing the marks of his plastic hand. Every ancient philosophy\n    has had its votaries among the moderns; and even Judaism, oldest\n    of them all, has taken upon itself changes which were suggested by\n    the \u201cGod\u2010taught\u201d Alexandrian.(567)\n\n\nThe Neo\u2010Platonic School of Alexandria founded by Ammonius\u2014the prototype\nproposed for the Theosophical Society\u2014taught Theurgy and Magic, as much as\nthey were taught in the days of Pythagoras, and by others far earlier than\nhis period. For Proclus says that the doctrines of Orpheus, who was an\nIndian and came from India, were the origin of the systems afterwards\npromulgated.\n\n\n    What Orpheus delivered in hidden allegories, Pythagoras learned\n    when he was initiated into the Orphic Mysteries; and Plato next\n    received a perfect knowledge of them from Orphic and Pythagorean\n    writings.(568)\n\n\nThe Philaletheians had their division into neophytes (_chelas_) and\nInitiates, or Masters; and the eclectic system was characterised by three\ndistinct features, which are purely Ved\u00e2ntic; a Supreme Essence, One and\nUniversal; the eternity and indivisibility of the human spirit; and\nTheurgy, which is Mantricism. So also, as we have seen, they had their\nsecret or Esoteric teachings like any other mystic school. Nor were they\nallowed to reveal anything of their secret tenets, any more than were the\nInitiates of the Mysteries. Only the penalties incurred by the revealers\nof the secrets of the latter were far more terrible, and this prohibition\nhas survived to this day, not only in India, but even among the Jewish\nKabalists in Asia.(569)\n\nOne of the reasons for such secrecy may be the undoubtedly serious\ndifficulties and hardships of chelaship, and the dangers attending\nInitiation. The modern candidate has, like his predecessor of old, to\neither conquer or die; when, which is still worse, he does not lose his\nreason. There is no danger to him who is true and sincere, and,\nespecially, unselfish. For he is thus prepared beforehand to meet any\ntemptation.\n\n\n    He, who fully recognised the power of his immortal spirit, and\n    never doubted for one moment its omnipotent protection, had naught\n    to fear. But woe to the candidate in whom the slightest physical\n    fear\u2014sickly child of matter\u2014made him lose sight and faith in his\n    own invulnerability. He who was not wholly confident of his moral\n    fitness to accept the burden of these tremendous secrets was\n    doomed.(570)\n\n\nThere were no such dangers in Neo\u2010Platonic Initiations. The selfish and\nthe unworthy failed in their object, and in the failure was the\npunishment. The chief aim was \u201creunion of the part with the _all_.\u201d This\nAll was One, with numberless names. Whether called _Dui_, the \u201cbright Lord\nof Heaven\u201d by the \u00c2ryan; _Iao_, by the Chald\u00e6an and Kabalist; _Iabe_ by\nthe Samaritan; the _Tiu_ or _Tuisco_ by the Northman; _Duw_ by the Briton;\n_Zeus_, by the Thracian or _Jupiter_ by the Roman\u2014it was _the_ Being, the\n_Facit_, One and Supreme,(571) the unborn and the inexhaustible source of\nevery emanation, the fountain of life and light eternal, a Ray of which\nevery one of us carries in him on this earth. The knowledge of this\nMystery had reached the Neo\u2010Platonists from India through Pythagoras, and\nstill later through Apollonius of Tyana and the rules and methods for\nproducing ecstasy had come from the same lore of the divine Vidy\u00e2, the\nGnosis. For \u00c2ryavarta, the bright focus into which had been poured in the\nbeginning of time the flames of Divine Wisdom, had become the centre from\nwhich radiated the \u201ctongues of fire\u201d into every portion of the globe. What\nwas Sam\u00e2dhi but that\n\n\n    Sublime ecstasy, in which state things divine and the mysteries of\n    Nature are revealed to us,\n\n\nof which Porphyry speaks?\n\n\n    The efflux from the divine soul is imparted to the human spirit in\n    unreserved abundance, accomplishing for the soul a union with the\n    divine, and enabling it while in the body to be partaker of the\n    life which is not in the body,\n\n\nhe explains elsewhere.\n\nThus under the title of Magic was taught every Science, physical and\nmetaphysical, natural or deemed supernatural by those who are ignorant of\nthe omnipresence and universality of Nature.\n\n\n    Divine Magic makes of man a God; human magic creates a new fiend.\n\n\nWe wrote in _Isis Unveiled_:\n\n\n    In the oldest documents now in the possession of the World\u2014the\n    _Vedas_ and the older laws of Manu\u2014we find many magical rites\n    practised and permitted by the Br\u00e2hmans.(572) Tibet, Japan, and\n    China, teach in the present age that which was taught by the\n    oldest Chald\u00e6ans. The clergy of these respective countries prove\n    moreover what they teach\u2014namely, that the practice of moral and\n    physical purity, and of certain austerities, developes the vital\n    soul\u2010power of self\u2010illumination. Affording to man the control over\n    his own immortal spirit, it gives him truly magical powers over\n    the elementary spirits inferior to himself. In the West we find\n    magic of as high an antiquity as in the East. The Druids of Great\n    Britain practised it in the silent crypts of their deep caves; and\n    Pliny devotes many a chapter to the \u201cwisdom\u201d(573) of the leaders\n    of the Celts. The Semothees\u2014the Druids of the Gauls\u2014expounded the\n    physical as well as the spiritual sciences. They taught the\n    secrets of the universe, the harmonious progress of the heavenly\n    bodies, the formation of the earth, and above all\u2014the immortality\n    of the Soul.(574) In their sacred groves\u2014natural academies built\n    by the hand of the Invisible Architect\u2014the initiates assembled at\n    the still hour of midnight, to learn about what man once was, and\n    what he will be.(575) They needed no artificial illumination, nor\n    life\u2010drawing gas, to light up their temples, for the chaste\n    goddess of night beamed her most silvery rays on their oak\u2010crowned\n    heads; and their white\u2010robed sacred bards knew how to converse\n    with the solitary queen of the starry vault.(576)\n\n\nDuring the palmy days of Neo\u2010Platonism these Bards were no more, for their\ncycle had run its course, and the last of the Druids had perished at\nBibractis and Alesia. But the Neo\u2010Platonic school was for a long time\nsuccessful, powerful and prosperous. Still, while adopting \u00c2ryan Wisdom in\nits doctrines, the school failed to follow the wisdom of the Br\u00e2hmans in\npractice. It showed its moral and intellectual superiority too openly,\ncaring too much for the great and powerful of this earth. While the\nBr\u00e2hmans and their great Yog\u00ees\u2014experts in matters of philosophy,\nmetaphysics, astronomy, morals and religion\u2014preserved their dignity under\nthe sway of the most powerful princes, remained aloof from the world and\nwould not condescend to visit them or ask for the slightest favour,(577)\nthe Emperors Alexander, Severus, and Julian, and the greatest among the\naristocracy of the land, embraced the tenets of the Neo\u2010Platonists, who\nmixed freely with the world. The system flourished for several centuries\nand comprised within the ranks of its followers the ablest and most\nlearned among the men of the time; Hypatia, the teacher of the Bishop\nSynesius, was one of the ornaments of the School until the fatal and\nshameful day when she was murdered by the Christian mob at the instigation\nof Bishop Cyril of Alexandria. The school was finally removed to Athens,\nand closed by order of the Emperor Justinian.\n\nHow accurate is Dr. Wilder\u2019s remark that\n\n\n    Modern writers have commented upon the peculiar views of the Neo\u2010\n    Platonists upon these [metaphysical] subjects, seldom representing\n    them correctly, even if this was desired or intended.(578)\n\n\nThe few speculations on the sublunary, material, and spiritual universes\nthat they did put into writing\u2014Ammonius never having himself written a\nline, after the wont of reformers\u2014could not enable posterity to judge them\nrightly, even had not the early Christian Vandals, the later crusaders,\nand the fanatics of the Middle Ages, destroyed three parts of that which\nremained of the Alexandrian Library and its later schools.\n\nProfessor Draper shows that Cardinal Ximenes alone\n\n\n    Delivered to the flames in the squares of Granada eighty thousand\n    Arabic manuscripts, many of them translations of classical\n    authors.\n\n\nIn the Vatican Library, whole passages in the most rare and precious\ntreatises of the Ancients were found erased and blotted out, \u201cfor the sake\nof interlining them with absurd psalmodies!\u201d Moreover it is well known\nthat over thirty\u2010six volumes written by Porphyry were burnt and otherwise\ndestroyed by the \u201cFathers.\u201d Most of the little that is known of the\ndoctrines of the Eclectics is found in the writings of Plotinus and of\nthose same Church Fathers.\n\nSays the author of _Neo\u2010Platonism_:\n\n\n    What Plato was to Socrates, and the Apostle John to the head of\n    the Christian faith, Plotinus became to the God\u2010taught Ammonius.\n    To Plotinus, Origenes, and Longinus we are indebted for what is\n    known of the Philaletheian system. They were duly instructed,\n    initiated and entrusted with the interior doctrines.(579)\n\n\nThis accounts marvellously for Origen\u2019s calling people \u201cidiots\u201d who\nbelieve in the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve fables; as also for the\nfact that so few of the writings of that Church Father have passed to\nposterity. Between the secrecy imposed, the vows of silence and that which\nwas maliciously destroyed by every foul means, it is indeed miraculous\nthat even so much of the Philaletheian tenets has reached the world.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXXV. SYMBOLISM OF SUN AND STARS.\n\n\n    And the Heaven was visible in Seven Circles and the planets\n    appeared with all their signs, in star\u2010form, and the stars were\n    divided and numbered with the rulers that were in them, and their\n    revolving course, through the agency of the divine Spirit.(580)\n\n\nHere Spirit denotes Pneuma, collective Deity, manifested in its\n\u201cBuilders,\u201d or, as the Church has it, \u201cthe seven Spirits of the Presence,\u201d\nthe _mediantibus angelis_ of whom Thomas Aquinas says that \u201cGod never\nworks but through them.\u201d\n\nThese seven \u201crulers\u201d or mediating Angels were the Kabiri Gods of the\nAncients. This was so evident, that it forced from the Church, together\nwith the admission of the fact, an explanation and a theory, whose\nclumsiness and evident sophistry are such that it must fail to impress.\nThe world is asked to believe, that while the Planetary Angels of the\nChurch are divine Beings, the genuine \u201cSeraphim,\u201d(581) these very same\nangels, under identical names and planets, were and are \u201cfalse\u201d\u2014as Gods of\nthe ancients. They are no better than pretenders; the cunning copies of\nthe real Angels, produced beforehand through the craft and power of\nLucifer and of the fallen Angels. Now, what are the Kabiri?\n\nKabiri, as a name, is derived from Habir \u05d7\u05d1\u05e8, great, and also from Venus,\nthis Goddess being called to the present day Kabar, as is also her star.\nThe Kabiri were worshipped at Hebron, the city of the Anakim, or anakas\n(kings, princes). They are the highest Planetary Spirits, the \u201cgreatest\nGods\u201d and \u201cthe powerful.\u201d Varro, following Orpheus, calls these Gods\n\u03b5\u1f50\u03b4\u03c5\u03bd\u03b1\u03c4\u03bf\u03af, \u201cdivine Powers.\u201d The word Kabirim when applied to men, and the\nwords Heber, Gheber (with reference to Nimrod, or the \u201cgiants\u201d of\n_Genesis_, vi.) and Kabir, are all derived from the \u201cmysterious Word\u201d\u2014the\nIneffable and the \u201cUnpronounceable.\u201d Thus it is they who represent\n_tsaba_, the \u201chost of heaven.\u201d The Church, however, bowing before the\nangel Anael (the regent of Venus),(582) connects the planet Venus with\nLucifer, the chief of the rebels under Satan\u2014so poetically apostrophized\nby the prophet Isaiah as \u201cO Lucifer, son of the morning.\u201d(583) All the\nMystery Gods were Kabiri. As these \u201cseven lictors\u201d relate directly to the\nSecret Doctrine their real status is of the greatest importance.\n\nSuidas defines the Kabiri as the Gods who command all the other d\u00e6mons\n(Spirits), \u03ba\u03b1\u03b2\u03b5\u03af\u03c1\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03bc\u03bf\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2. Macrobius introduces them as\n\n\n    Those Penates and tutelary deities, through whom we live and learn\n    and know (_Saturn_, I. iii. ch. iv.).\n\n\nThe teraphim through which the Hebrews consulted the oracles of the Urim\nand the Thummim, were the symbolical hieroglyphics of the Kabiri.\nNevertheless, the good Fathers have made of Kibir the synonym, of devil\nand of daimon (spirit) a demon.\n\nThe Mysteries of the Kabiri at Hebron (Pagan and Jewish) were presided\nover by the seven Planetary Gods, among the rest by Jupiter and Saturn\nunder their mystery names, and they are referred to as \u1f00\u03be\u03b9\u03cc\u03c7\u03c1\u03c3\u03bf\u03c2 and\n\u1f00\u03be\u03b9\u03cc\u03c7\u03b5\u03c1\u03c3\u03b1, and by Euripides as \u1f00\u03be\u03b9\u03cc\u03c7\u03c1\u03b5\u03c9\u03c2 \u1f41 \u03b8\u03b5\u1f78\u03c2. Creuzer, moreover, shows\nthat whether in Ph\u0153nicia or in Egypt, the Kabiri were always the seven\nplanets as known in antiquity, who, together with their Father the\nSun\u2014referred to elsewhere as their \u201celder brother\u201d\u2014composed a powerful\nogdoad;(584) the eight superior powers, as \u03c0\u03b1\u03c1\u03b5\u03b4\u03bf\u1f76, or solar assessors,\ndanced around him the sacred circular dance, the symbol of the rotation of\nthe planets around the Sun. Jehovah and Saturn, moreover, are one.\n\nIt is quite natural, therefore, to find a French writer, D\u2019Anselme,\napplying the same terms of \u1f00\u03be\u03b9\u03cc\u03c7\u03b5\u03c1\u03c3\u03bf\u03c2 and \u1f00\u03be\u03b9\u03cc\u03c7\u03b5\u03c1\u03c3\u03b1 to Jehovah and his\nword, and they are correctly so applied. For if the \u201ccircle dance\u201d\nprescribed by the Amazons for the Mysteries\u2014being the \u201ccircle dance\u201d of\nthe planets, and characterised as \u201cthe motion of the divine Spirit carried\non the waves of the great Deep\u201d\u2014can now be called \u201cinfernal\u201d and\n\u201clascivious\u201d when performed by the Pagans, then the same epithets ought to\nbe applied to David\u2019s dance;(585) and to the dance of the daughters of\nShiloh,(586) and to the leaping of the prophets of Baal;(587) they were\nall identical and all belonged to Sab\u00e6an worship. King David\u2019s dance,\nduring which he uncovered himself before his maid\u2010servants in a public\nthoroughfare, saying:\n\n\n    I will _play_ (act wantonly) before \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 (Jehovah), and I will yet\n    be more vile than this,\n\n\nwas certainly more reprehensible than any \u201ccircle dance\u201d during the\nMysteries, or even than the modern R\u00e2sa Mandala in India,(588) which is\nthe same thing. It was David who introduced Jehovistic worship into Judea,\nafter sojourning so long among the Tyrians and Philistines, where these\nrites were common.\n\n\n    David knew nothing of Moses; and if he introduced the Jehovah\u2010\n    worship, it was not in its monotheistic character, but simply as\n    that of one of the many (_Kabirean_) gods of the neighbouring\n    nations, a tutelary deity of his own, \u05d9\u05d4\u05d5\u05d4 to whom he had given\n    the preference\u2014whom he had chosen among \u201call other (Kabeiri)\n    gods,\u201d(589)\n\n\nand who was one of the \u201cassociates,\u201d Chabir, of the Sun. The Shakers dance\nthe \u201ccircle dance\u201d to this day when turning round for the Holy Ghost to\nmove them. In India it is N\u00e2r\u00e2\u2010yana who is \u201cthe mover on the waters;\u201d and\nN\u00e2r\u00e2yana is Vishnu in his secondary form, and Vishnu has Krishna for an\nAvat\u00e2ra, in whose honour the \u201ccircle dance\u201d is still enacted by the\nNautch\u2010girls of the temples, he being the Sun\u2010God and they the planets as\nsymbolised by the gopis.\n\nLet the reader turn to the works of De Mirville, a Roman Catholic writer,\nor to _Monumental Christianity_, by Dr. Lundy, a Protestant divine, if he\nwants to appreciate to any degree the subtlety and casuistry of their\nreasonings. No one ignorant of the occult versions can fail to be\nimpressed with the proofs brought forward to show how cleverly and\nperseveringly \u201cSatan has worked for long millenniums to tempt a humanity\u201d\nunblessed with an infallible Church, in order to have himself recognised\nas the \u201cOne living God,\u201d and his fiends as holy Angels. The reader must be\npatient, and study with attention what the author says on behalf of his\nChurch. To compare it the better with the version of the Occultists, a few\npoints may be quoted here verbatim.\n\n\n    St. Peter tells us: \u201cMay the divine Lucifer arise in your\n    hearts\u201d(590) [Now the Sun is Christ].... \u201cI will send my Son from\n    the Sun,\u201d said the Eternal through the voice of prophetic\n    traditions; and prophecy having become history the Evangelists\n    repeated in their turn: The _Sun rising_ from on high visited\n    us.(591)\n\n\nNow God says, through Malachi, that the Sun shall arise for those who fear\nhis name. What Malachi meant by \u201cthe Sun of Righteousness\u201d the Kabalists\nalone can tell; but what the Greek, and even the Protestant, theologians\nunderstood by the term is of course Christ, referred to metaphorically.\nOnly, as the sentence, \u201cI will send my Son from the Sun,\u201d is borrowed\nverbatim from a Sibylline Book, it becomes very hard to understand how it\ncan be attributed to, or classed with any prophecy relating to the\nChristian Saviour, unless, indeed, the latter is to be identified with\nApollo. Virgil, again, says, \u201cHere comes the Virgin\u2019s and Apollo\u2019s reign,\u201d\nand Apollo, or Apollyon, is to this day viewed as a form of Satan, and is\ntaken to mean the Antichrist. If the Sibylline promise, \u201cHe will send his\nSon from the Sun\u201d applies to Christ, then either Christ and Apollo are\none\u2014and then why call the latter a demon?\u2014or the prophecy had nothing to\ndo with the Christian Saviour, and, in such a case, why appropriate it at\nall?\n\nBut De Mirville goes further. He shows us St. Denys, the Areopagite,\naffirming that\n\n\n    The Sun is the special signification, and the statue of\n    God(592).... It is by the Eastern door that the glory of the Lord\n    penetrated into the temples [of the Jews and Christians, that\n    divine glory being Sun\u2010light.]... \u201cWe build our churches towards\n    the east,\u201d says in his turn St. Ambrose, \u201cfor during the Mysteries\n    we begin by renouncing him who is in the west.\u201d\n\n\n\u201cHe who is in the west\u201d is Typhon, the Egyptian god of darkness\u2014the west\nhaving been held by them as the \u201cTyphonic Gate of Death.\u201d Thus, having\nborrowed Osiris from the Egyptians, the Church Fathers thought little of\nhelping themselves to his brother Typhon. Then again:\n\n\n    The prophet Baruch(593) speaks of the stars that rejoice in their\n    _vessels_ and _citadels_ (Chap. iii.); and _Ecclesiastes_ applies\n    the same terms to the sun, which is said to be \u201cthe admirable\n    vessel of the most High,\u201d and the \u201ccitadel of the Lord\u201d\n    \u03c6\u03c5\u03bb\u03b1\u03c7\u03b7.(594)\n\n    In every case there is no doubt about the thing, for the sacred\n    writer says, It is a _Spirit_ who rules the sun\u2019s course. Hear\n    what he says (in _Eccles._, i. 6), \u201cThe sun also ariseth\u2014and its\n    spirit lighting all in its circular path (gyrat gyrans) returneth\n    according to his circuits.\u201d(595)\n\n\nDe Mirville seems to quote from texts either rejected by or unknown to\nProtestants, in whose bible there is no forty\u2010third chapter of\n_Ecclesiastes_; nor is the sun made to go \u201cin circuits\u201d in the latter, but\nthe wind. This is a question to be settled between the Roman and the\nProtestant Churches. Our point is the strong element of Sab\u00e6anism or\nHeliolatry present in Christianity.\n\nAn \u0152cumenical Council having authoritatively put a stop to Christian\nAstrolatry by declaring that there were no sidereal Souls in sun, moon, or\nplanets, St. Thomas took upon himself to settle the point in dispute. The\n\u201cangelic doctor\u201d announced that such expressions did not mean a \u201csoul,\u201d\nbut only an Intelligence, not resident in the sun or stars, but one that\nassisted them, \u201ca guiding and directing intelligence.\u201d(596)\n\nThereupon the author, comforted by the explanation, quotes Clement the\nAlexandrian, and reminds the reader of the opinion of that philosopher,\nthe inter\u2010relation that exists \u201cbetween the seven branches of the\ncandlestick\u2014the seven stars of the Revelation,\u201d and the sun:\n\n\n    The six branches (says Clement) fixed to the central candlestick\n    have lamps, but the sun placed in the midst of the wandering ones\n    (\u03c0\u03bb\u03b1\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u1ff6\u03bd) pours his beams on them all; this golden candlestick\n    hides one more mystery: it is the sign of Christ, not only in\n    shape, but because he sheds his light through the ministry of the\n    seven spirits primarily created, and who are the Seven Eyes of the\n    Lord. Therefore the principal planets are to the seven primeval\n    spirits, according to St. Clement, that which the candlestick\u2010sun\n    is to Christ Himself, namely\u2014their vessels, their \u03c6\u03c5\u03bb\u03b1\u03c7\u03b1\u1f76.\n\n\nPlain enough, to be sure; though one fails to see that this explanation\neven helps the situation. The seven\u2010branched chandelier of the Israelites,\nas well as the \u201cwanderers\u201d of the Greeks, had a far more natural meaning,\na purely astrological one to begin with. In fact from Magi and Chald\u00e6ans\ndown to the much\u2010laughed\u2010at Zadkiel, every astrological work will tell its\nreader that the Sun placed in the midst of the planets, with Saturn,\nJupiter and Mars on one side, and Venus, Mercury and the Moon on the\nother, the planets\u2019 line crossing through the whole Earth, has always\nmeant what Hermes tells us, namely, the thread of destiny, or that whose\naction (influence) is called destiny.(597) But symbol for symbol we prefer\nthe sun to a candlestick. One can understand how the latter came to\nrepresent the sun and planets, but no one can admire the chosen symbol.\nThere is poetry and grandeur in the sun when it is made to symbolize the\n\u201cEye of Ormuzd,\u201d or of Osiris, and is regarded as the V\u00e2han (vehicle) of\nthe highest Deity. But one must for ever fail to perceive that any\nparticular glory is rendered to Christ by assigning to him the trunk of a\ncandlestick,(598) in a Jewish synagogue, as a mystical seat of honour.\n\nThere are then positively two suns, a sun adored and a sun adoring. The\n_Apocalypse_ proves it.\n\n\n    The Word is found in Chap. vii., in the angel who ascends with the\n    rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God.... While\n    commentators differ on the personality of this angel, St. Ambrose\n    and many other theologians see in him Christ himself.... He is the\n    _Sun adored_. But in Chap. xix. we find an angel standing _in_ the\n    sun, inviting all the nations to gather to the great supper of the\n    Lamb. This time it is literally and simply the angel of the\n    sun\u2014who cannot be mistaken for the \u201cWord,\u201d since the prophet\n    distinguishes him from the Word, the King of Kings and the Lord of\n    Lords.... The angel _in_ the sun seems to be an adoring sun. Who\n    may be the latter? And who else can he be but the Morning Star,\n    the guardian angel of the Word, his _ferouer_, or _angel of the\n    face_, as the Word is the angel of the Face (presence) of his\n    Father, his principal attribute and strength, as his name itself\n    implies (Mikael), the powerful rector glorified by the Church, the\n    _Rector potens_ who will fell the Antichrist, the Vice\u2010Word, in\n    short, who represents his master, and seems to be _one with\n    him_.(599)\n\n\nYes, Mikael is the alleged conqueror of Ormuzd, Osiris, Apollo, Krishna,\nMithra, etc., of all the Solar Gods, in short, known and unknown, now\ntreated as demons and as \u201cSatan.\u201d Nevertheless, the \u201cConqueror\u201d has not\ndisdained to don the war\u2010spoils of the vanquished foes\u2014their\npersonalities, attributes, even their names\u2014to become the _alter ego_ of\nthese demons.\n\n\n    Thus the Sun\u2010God here is _Honover_ or the Eternal. The prince is\n    Ormuzd, since he is the first of the seven Amshaspends [the demon\n    copies of the seven original angels] (_capul angelorum_); the lamb\n    (_hamal_), the Shepherd of the Zodiac and the antagonist of the\n    snake. But the Sun (the Eye of Ormuzd) has also his rector,\n    Korshid or the _Mitraton_, who is the _Ferouer_ of the face of\n    Ormuzd, his Ized, or the morning star. The Mazdeans had a triple\n    Sun.... For us this _Korshid\u2010Mitraton_ is the first of the\n    _psychopompian_ genii, and the guide of the sun, the immolator of\n    the terrestrial Bull [or lamb] whose wounds are licked by the\n    serpent [on the famous Mithraic monument].(600)\n\n\nSt. Paul, in speaking of the rulers of this world, the Cosmocratores, only\nsaid what was said by all the primitive Philosophers of the ten centuries\nbefore the Christian era, only he was scarcely understood, and was often\nwilfully misinterpreted. Damascius repeats the teachings of the Pagan\nwriters when he explains that\n\n\n    There are seven series of cosmocratores or cosmic forces, which\n    are double: the higher ones commissioned to support and guide the\n    superior world; the lower ones, the inferior world [our own].\n\n\nAnd he is but saying what the ancients taught. Iamblichus gives this dogma\nof the duality of all the planets and celestial bodies, of gods and\ndaimons (spirits). He also divides the Archontes into two classes\u2014the more\nand the less spiritual; the latter more connected with and clothed with\nmatter, as having a _form_, while the former are bodiless (_ar\u00fbpa_). But\nwhat have Satan and his angels to do with all this? Perhaps only that the\nidentity of the Zoroastrian dogma with the Christian, and of Mithra,\nOrmuzd, and Ahriman with the Christian Father, Son, and Devil, might be\naccounted for. And when we say \u201cZoroastrian dogmas\u201d we mean the exoteric\nteaching. How explain the same relations between Mithra and Ormuzd as\nthose between the Archangel Mikael and Christ?\n\n\n    Ahura Mazda says to holy Zaratushta: \u201cWhen I _created_ [emanated]\n    Mithra ... I created him that he should be invoked and adored\n    equally with myself.\u201d\n\n\nFor the sake of necessary reforms, the Zoroastrian \u00c2ryans transformed the\nDevas, the bright Gods of India, into devs or devils. It was their Karma\nthat in their turn the Christians should vindicate on this point the\nHindus. Now Ormuzd and Mithra have become the devs of Christ and Mikael,\nthe dark lining and aspect of the Saviour and Angel. The day of the Karma\nof Christian theology will come in its turn. Already the Protestants have\nbegun the first chapter of the religion that will seek to transform the\n\u201cSeven Spirits\u201d and the host of the Roman Catholics into demons and idols.\nEvery religion has its Karma, as has every individual. That which is due\nto human conception and is built on the abasement of our brothers who\ndisagree with us, must have its day. \u201cThere is no religion higher than\ntruth.\u201d\n\nThe Zoroastrians, Mazdeans, and Persians borrowed their conceptions from\nIndia; the Jews borrowed their theory of angels from Persia; the\nChristians borrowed from the Jews.\n\nHence the latest interpretation by Christian theology\u2014to the great disgust\nof the synagogue, forced to share the symbolical candlestick with the\nhereditary enemy\u2014that the seven\u2010branched candlestick represents the seven\nChurches of Asia and the seven planets which are the angels of those\nChurches. Hence also, the conviction that the Mosaic Jews, the inventors\nof that symbol for their tabernacle, were a kind of Sab\u00e6ans, who blended\ntheir planets and the spirits thereof into one, and called them\u2014only far\nlater\u2014Jehovah. For this we have the testimony of Clemens Alexandrinus, St.\nHieronymus and others.\n\nAnd Clement, as an Initiate of the Mysteries\u2014at which the secret of the\nheliocentric system was taught several thousands of years before Galileo\nand Copernicus\u2014proves it by explaining that\n\n\n    By these various symbols connected with (sidereal) phenomena the\n    totality of all the creatures which bind heaven with earth, are\n    figured.... The chandelier represented the motion of the seven\n    luminaries, describing their astral revolution. To the right and\n    the left of that candelabrum projected the six branches, each of\n    which had its lamp, because the Sun placed as a candelabrum in the\n    middle of other planets distributes light to them.(601) ... As to\n    the cherubs having twelve wings between the two, they represent to\n    us the sensuous world in the twelve zodiacal signs.(602)\n\n\nAnd yet, in the face of all this evidence, sun, moon, planets, all are\nshown as being demoniacal before, and divine only after, the appearance of\nChrist. All know the Orphic verse: \u201cIt is Zeus, it is Adas, it is the Sun,\nit is Bacchus,\u201d these names having been all synonymous for classic poets\nand writers. Thus for Democritus \u201cDeity is but a soul in an orbicular\nfire,\u201d and that fire is the Sun. For Iamblichus the sun was \u201cthe image of\ndivine intelligence\u201d; for Plato \u201can immortal living Being.\u201d Hence the\noracle of Claros when asked to say who was the Jehovah of the Jews,\nanswered, \u201cIt is the Sun.\u201d We may add the words in _Psalm_ xix. 4\n\n\n    In the sun hath he placed a tabernacle for himself(603) ... his\n    going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto\n    the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.\n\n\nJehovah then is the sun, and thence also the Christ of the Roman Church.\nAnd now the criticism of Dupuis on that verse becomes comprehensible, as\nalso the despair of the Abb\u00e9 Foucher. \u201cNothing is more favourable to\nSab\u00e6ism than this text of the Vulgate!\u201d he exclaims. And, however\ndisfigured may be the words and sense in the English authorised bible, the\nVulgate and the Septuagint both give the correct text of the original, and\ntranslate the latter: \u201cIn the sun he established his abode\u201d; while the\nVulgate regards the \u201cheat\u201d as coming direct from God and not from the sun\nalone, since it is God who issues forth from, and dwells in the sun and\nperforms the circuit: _in sole posuit ... et ipse exultavit_. From these\nfacts it will be seen that the Protestants were right in charging St.\nJustin with saying that\n\n\n    God has permitted us to worship the sun.\n\n\nAnd this, notwithstanding the lame excuses that what was really meant was\nthat\n\n\n    God permitted himself to be worshipped in, or within, the sun,\n\n\nwhich is all the same.\n\nIt will be seen from the above, that while the Pagans located in the sun\nand planets only the inferior powers of Nature, the representative\nSpirits, so to say, of Apollo, Bacchus, Osiris, and other solar gods, the\nChristians, in their hatred of Philosophy, appropriated the sidereal\nlocalities, and now limit them to the use of their anthropomorphic deity\nand his angels\u2014new transformations of the old, old gods. Something had to\nbe done in order to dispose of the ancient tenants, so they were disgraced\ninto \u201cdemons,\u201d wicked devils.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXXVI. PAGAN SIDEREAL WORSHIP, OR ASTROLOGY.\n\n\nThe Teraphim of Abram\u2019s father _Terah_, the \u201cmaker of images,\u201d and the\nKabiri Gods are directly connected with ancient Sab\u00e6an worship or\nAstrolatry. Kiyun, or the God Kivan, worshipped by the Jews in the\nwilderness, is Saturn and Shiva, later on called Jehovah. Astrology\nexisted before astronomy, and _Astronomus_ was the title of the highest\nhierophant in Egypt.(604) One of the names of the Jewish Jehovah,\n\u201cSabaoth,\u201d or the \u201cLord of Hosts\u201d (_tsabaoth_), belongs to the Chald\u00e6an\nSab\u00e6ans (or _Tsab\u00e6ans_), and has for its root the word _tsab_, meaning a\n\u201ccar,\u201d a \u201cship,\u201d and \u201can army\u201d; sabaoth thus meaning literally the _army\nof the ship_, the _crew_, or a _naval host_, the sky being metaphorically\nreferred to as the \u201cupper ocean\u201d in the doctrine.\n\nIn his interesting volumes, _The God of Moses_, Lacour explains that all\nsuch words as\n\n\n    The celestial armies or the hosts of heaven, signify not only the\n    totality of the heavenly constellations, but also the Aleim on\n    whom they are dependent; the _aleitzbaout_ are the forces or\n    _souls_ of the constellations, the potencies that maintain and\n    guide the planets in this order and procession; ... the Jae\u2010va\u2010\n    Tzbaout signifies Him, the supreme chief of those celestial\n    bodies.\n\n\nIn his collectivity, as the chief \u201cOrder of Spirits,\u201d not a chief Spirit.\n\nThe Sab\u00e6ans having worshipped in the _graven_ images only the celestial\nhosts\u2014angels and gods whose habitations were the planets, never in truth\nworshipped the stars. For on Plato\u2019s authority, we know that among the\nstars and constellations, the planets alone had a right to the title of\n_theoi_ (Gods), as that name was derived from the verb \u03b8\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd, to run or to\ncirculate. Seldenus also tells us that they were likewise called\n\n\n    \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u1f76 \u03b2\u03bf\u03c5\u03bb\u03b1\u03b9\u03bf\u1f76 (God\u2010Councillors) and \u1fe5\u03b1\u03b2\u03b4\u03bf\u03c6\u03cc\u03c1\u03bf\u03b9 (_lictors_) as they\n    (the planets) were present at the sun\u2019s consistory, _solis\n    consistoris adstantes_.\n\n\nSays the learned Kircher:\n\n\n    The sceptres the seven presiding angels were armed with, explain\n    these names of Rhabdophores and lictors given to them.\n\n\nReduced to its simplest expression and popular meaning, this is of course\nfetish worship. Yet esoteric astrolatry was not at all the worship of\nidols, since under the names of \u201cCouncillors\u201d and \u201cLictors,\u201d present at\nthe \u201cSun\u2019s consistory,\u201d it was not the planets in their material bodies\nthat were meant, but their Regents or \u201cSouls\u201d (Spirits). If the prayer\n\u201cOur Father in heaven,\u201d or \u201cSaint\u201d so\u2010and\u2010so in \u201cHeaven\u201d is not an\nidolatrous invocation, then \u201cOur Father in Mercury,\u201d or \u201cOur Lady in\nVenus,\u201d \u201cQueen of Heaven,\u201d etc., is no more so; for it is precisely the\nsame thing, the name making no difference in the act. The word used in the\nChristian prayers, \u201cin heaven\u201d cannot mean anything abstract. A\ndwelling\u2014whether of Gods, angels or Saints (every one of these being\nanthropomorphic individualities and beings)\u2014must necessarily mean a\nlocality, some defined spot in that \u201cheaven\u201d; hence it is quite immaterial\nfor purposes of worship whether that spot be considered as \u201cheaven\u201d in\ngeneral, meaning nowhere in particular, or in the Sun, Moon or Jupiter.\n\nThe argument is futile that there were\n\n\n    Two deities, and two distinct hierarchies or _tsabas_ in heaven,\n    in the ancient world as in our modern times ... the one, the\n    living God and his host, and the other, _Satan_, Lucifer with his\n    councillors and lictors, or the _fallen_ angels.\n\n\nOur opponents say that it is the latter which Plato with the whole of\nantiquity worshipped, and which two\u2010thirds of humanity worship to this\nday. \u201cThe whole question is to know how to discern between the two.\u201d\n\nProtestant Christians fail to find any mention of angels in the\nPentateuch, we may therefore leave them aside. The Roman Catholics and the\nKabalists find such mention; the former, because they have accepted Jewish\nangelology, without suspecting that the \u201ctsab\u00e6an Hosts\u201d were colonists and\nsettlers on Jud\u00e6an territory from the lands of the Gentiles; the latter,\nbecause they accepted the bulk of the Secret Doctrine, keeping the kernel\nfor themselves and leaving the husks to the unwary.\n\nCornelius a Lapide points out and proves the meaning of the word _tsaba_\nin the first verse of Chapter ii. of _Genesis_; and he does so correctly,\nguided, as he probably was, by learned Kabalists. The Protestants are\ncertainly wrong in their contention, for angels _are_ mentioned in the\nPentateuch under the word _tsaba_, which means \u201chosts\u201d of angels. In the\nVulgate the word is translated _ornatus_, meaning the \u201csidereal army,\u201d the\n_ornament_ also of the sky\u2014kabalistically. The biblical scholars of the\nProtestant Church, and the _savants_ among the materialists, who failed to\nfind \u201cangels\u201d mentioned by Moses, have thus committed a serious error. For\nthe verse reads:\n\n\n    Thus the heaven and the earth were finished and all the host of\n    them,\n\n\nthe \u201chost\u201d meaning \u201cthe army of stars and angels\u201d; the last two words\nbeing, it seems, convertible terms in Church phraseology. A Lapide is\ncited as an authority for this; he says that\n\n\n    _Tsaba_ does not mean _either one_ or the other but \u201c_the one and\n    the other_,\u201d or both, _siderum ac angelorum_.\n\n\nIf the Roman Catholics are right on this point, so are the Occultists when\nthey claim that the angels worshipped in the Church of Rome are none else\nthan their \u201cSeven Planets,\u201d the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans of Buddhistic Esoteric\nPhilosophy, or the Kum\u00e2ras, \u201cthe mind\u2010born sons of Brahm\u00e2,\u201d known under\nthe patronymic of Vaidh\u00e2tra. The identity between the Kum\u00e2ras, the\nBuilders or cosmic Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, and the Seven Angels of the Stars, will\nbe found without one single flaw if their respective biographies are\nstudied, and especially the characteristics of their chiefs, Sanat\u2010Kum\u00e2ra\n(Sanat Suj\u00e2ta), and Michael the Archangel. Together with the Kabirim\n(Planets), the name of the above in Chald\u00e6a, they were all \u201c_divine_\nPowers\u201d (Forces). Fuerot says that the name Kabiri was used to denote the\n_seven_ sons of \u05d9\u05e6\u05d3\u05d9\u05e7 meaning Pater Sadic, Cain, or Jupiter, or again of\nJehovah. There are seven Kum\u00e2ras\u2014four exoteric and three secret\u2014the names\nof the latter being found in the _S\u00e2nkhya Bh\u00e2shya_, by\nGaudap\u00e2d\u00e2ch\u00e2rya.(605) They are all \u201cVirgin Gods,\u201d who remain eternally\npure and innocent and decline to create progeny. In their primitive\naspect, these \u00c2ryan seven \u201cmind\u2010born sons\u201d of God are not the regents of\nthe planets, but dwell far beyond the planetary region. But the same\nmysterious transference from one character or dignity to another is found\nin the Christian Angel\u2010scheme. The \u201cSeven Spirits of the Presence\u201d attend\nperpetually on God, and yet we find them under the same names of Mikael,\nGabriel, Raphael, etc., as \u201cStar\u2010regents\u201d or the informing deities of the\nseven planets. Suffice it to say that the Archangel Michael is called \u201cthe\ninvincible virgin combatant\u201d as he \u201crefused to create,\u201d(606) which would\nconnect him with both Sana Suj\u00e2ta and the Kum\u00e2ra who is the God of War.\n\nThe above has to be demonstrated by a few quotations. Commenting upon St.\nJohn\u2019s \u201cSeven Golden Candlesticks,\u201d Cornelius a Lapide says:\n\n\n    These seven lights relate to the seven branches of the candlestick\n    by which were represented the seven [principal] planets in the\n    temples of Moses and Solomon ... or, better still, to the seven\n    principal Spirits, commissioned to watch over the salvation of men\n    and churches.\n\n\nSt. Jerome says:\n\n\n    In truth the candlestick with the seven branches was the type of\n    the world and its planets.\n\n\nSt. Thomas Aquinas, the great Roman Catholic doctor writes:\n\n\n    I do not remember having ever met in the works of saints or\n    philosophers a denial that the planets are guided by spiritual\n    beings.... It seems to me that it may be proved to demonstration\n    that the celestial bodies are guided by some intelligence, either\n    directly by God, or by the mediation of angels. But the latter\n    opinion seems to be far more consonant with the order of things\n    asserted by St. Denys to be without exception, that everything on\n    earth is, as a rule, governed by God through intermediary\n    agencies.(607)\n\n\nAnd now let the reader recall what the Pagans say of this. All the\nclassical authors and philosophers who have treated the subject, repeat\nwith Hermes Trismegistus, that the seven Rectors\u2014the planets including the\nsun\u2014were the associates, or the co\u2010workers, of the Unknown All represented\nby the Demiurgos\u2014commissioned to contain the Cosmos\u2014our planetary\nworld\u2014within seven circles. Plutarch shows them representing \u201cthe circle\nof the celestial worlds.\u201d Again, Denys of Thracia and the learned Clemens\nof Alexandria both describe the Rectors as being shown in the Egyptian\ntemples in the shape of mysterious wheels or spheres always in motion,\nwhich made the Initiates affirm that the problem of perpetual motion had\nbeen solved by the celestial wheels in the Initiation Adyta.(608) This\ndoctrine of Hermes was that of Pythagoras and of Orpheus before him. It is\ncalled by Proclus \u201cthe God\u2010given\u201d doctrine. Iamblichus speaks of it with\nthe greatest reverence. Philostratus tells his readers that the whole\nsidereal court of the Babylonian heaven was represented in the temples\n\n\n    In globes made of sapphires and supporting the golden images of\n    their respective gods.\n\n\nThe temples of Persia were especially famous for these representations. If\nCedrenus can be credited\n\n\n    The Emperor Heraclius on his entry into the city of Bazaeum was\n    struck with admiration and wonder before the immense machine\n    fabricated for King Chosroes, which represented the night\u2010sky with\n    the planets and all their revolutions, with the angels presiding\n    over them.(609)\n\n\nIt was on such \u201cspheres\u201d that Pythagoras studied Astronomy in the _adyta\narcana_ of the temples to which he had access. And it was there on his\nInitiation, that the eternal rotation of those spheres\u2014\u201cthe mysterious\nwheels\u201d as they are called by Clemens and Denys, and which Plutarch calls\n\u201cworld\u2010wheels\u201d\u2014demonstrated to him the verity of what had been divulged to\nhim, namely, the heliocentric system, the great secret of the Adyta. All\nthe discoveries of modern astronomy, like all the secrets that can be\nrevealed to it in future ages, were contained in the secret observatories\nand Initiation Halls of the temples of old India and Egypt. It is in them\nthat the Chald\u00e6an made his calculations, revealing to the world of the\nprofane no more than it was fit to receive.\n\nWe may, and shall be told, no doubt, that Uranus was unknown to the\nancients, and that they were forced to reckon the sun amongst the planets\nand as their chief. How does anyone know? Uranus is a modern name; but one\nthing is certain: the ancients had a planet, \u201ca mystery planet,\u201d that they\nnever named and that the highest Astronomus, the Hierophant, alone could\n\u201cconfabulate with.\u201d But this seventh planet was not the sun, but the\nhidden Divine Hierophant, who was said to have a crown, and to embrace\nwithin its wheel \u201cseventy\u2010seven smaller wheels.\u201d In the archaic secret\nsystem of the Hindus, the sun is the visible Logos \u201cS\u00fbrya\u201d; over him there\nis another, the divine or heavenly Man\u2014who, after having established the\nsystem of the world of matter on the archetype of the Unseen Universe, or\nMacrocosm, conducted during the Mysteries the heavenly R\u00e2sa Mandala; when\nhe was said:\n\n\n    To give with his right foot the impulse to _Tyam_ or Bh\u00fbmi [Earth]\n    that makes her rotate in a double revolution.\n\n\nWhat says Hermes again? When explaining Egyptian Cosmology he exclaims:\n\n\n    Listen, O my son ... the Power has also formed seven agents, who\n    contain within their circles the material world, and whose action\n    is called destiny.... When all became subject to man, the Seven,\n    willing to favour human intelligence, communicated to him their\n    powers. But as soon as man knew their true essence and his own\n    nature, he desired to penetrate within and beyond the circles and\n    thus break their circumference by usurping the power of him who\n    has dominion over the Fire [Sun] itself; after which, having\n    robbed one of the Wheels of the Sun of the sacred fire, he fell\n    into slavery.(610)\n\n\nIt is _not_ Prometheus who is meant here. Prometheus is a symbol and a\npersonification of the whole of mankind in relation to an event which\noccurred during its childhood, so to say\u2014the \u201cBaptism by Fire\u201d\u2014which is a\nmystery within the great Promethean Mystery, one that may be at present\nmentioned only in its broad general features. By reason of the\nextraordinary growth of human intellect and the development in our age of\nthe fifth principle (Manas) in man, its rapid progress has paralysed\nspiritual perceptions. It is at the expense of wisdom that intellect\ngenerally lives, and mankind is quite unprepared in its present condition\nto comprehend the awful drama of human disobedience to the laws of Nature\nand the subsequent Fall, as a result. It can only be hinted at in its\nplace.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXXVII. THE SOULS OF THE STARS\u2014UNIVERSAL HELIOLATRY.\n\n\nIn order to show that the Ancients have never \u201cmistaken stars for Gods,\u201d\nor Angels and the sun for the highest Gods and God, but have worshipped\nonly the Spirit of all, and have reverenced the minor Gods supposed to\nreside in the sun and planets\u2014the difference between these two worships\nhas to be pointed out. Saturn, \u201cthe Father of Gods\u201d must not be confused\nwith his namesake\u2014the planet of the same name with its eight moons and\nthree rings. The two\u2014though in one sense identical, as are, for instance,\nphysical man and his soul\u2014must be separated in the question of worship.\nThis has to be done the more carefully in the case of the seven planets\nand their Spirits, as the whole formation of the universe is attributed to\nthem in the Secret Teachings. The same difference has to be shown again\nbetween the stars of the Great Bear, the Riksha and the Chitra\nShikhandina, \u201cthe bright\u2010crested,\u201d and the Rishis\u2014the mortal Sages who\nappeared on earth during the Satya Yuga. If all of these have been so far\nclosely united in the visions of the seers of every age\u2014the bible seers\nincluded\u2014there must have been a reason for it. Nor need one go back so far\nas into the periods of \u201csuperstition\u201d and \u201cunscientific fancies\u201d to find\ngreat men in our epoch sharing in them. It is well known that Kepler, the\neminent astronomer, in common with many other great men who believed that\nthe heavenly bodies ruled favourably or adversely the fates of men and\nnations\u2014fully credited besides this the fact that all heavenly bodies,\neven our own earth, are endowed with living and thinking souls.\n\nLe Couturier\u2019s opinion is worthy of notice in this relation:\n\n\n    We are too inclined to criticize unsparingly everything concerning\n    astrology and its ideas; nevertheless our criticism, to be one,\n    ought at least to know, lest it should be proved aimless, what\n    those ideas in truth are. And when among the men we thus\n    criticize, we find such names as those of Regiomontanus, Tycho\n    Brahe, Kepler, etc., there is reason why we should be careful.\n    Kepler was an astrologer by profession, and became an astronomer\n    in consequence. He was earning his livelihood by genethliac\n    figures, which, indicating the state of the heavens at the moment\n    of the birth of individuals, were a means to which everyone\n    resorted for horoscopes. That great man was a believer in the\n    principles of astrology, without accepting all its foolish\n    results.(611)\n\n\nBut astrology is nevertheless proclaimed as a sinful science, and together\nwith Occultism is tabooed by the Churches. It is very doubtful, however,\nwhether mystic \u201cstar worship\u201d can be so easily laughed down as people\nimagine\u2014at any rate by Christians. The hosts of Angels, Cherubs and\nPlanetary Archangels are identical with the minor Gods of the Pagans. As\nto their \u201cgreat Gods,\u201d if Mars has been shown\u2014on the admission of even the\nenemies of the Pagan astrologers\u2014to have been regarded by the latter\nsimply as the personified strength of the one highest impersonal Deity,\nMercury being personified as its omniscience, Jupiter as its omnipotency,\nand so on, then the \u201csuperstition\u201d of the Pagan has indeed become the\n\u201creligion\u201d of the masses of the civilized nations. For with the latter,\nJehovah is the synthesis of the seven Elohim, the eternal centre of all\nthose attributes and forces, the Alei of the Aleim, and the Adonai of the\nAdonim. And if with them Mars is now called St. Michael, the \u201c_strength_\nof God,\u201d Mercury Gabriel, the \u201comniscience and fortitude of the Lord,\u201d and\nRaphael \u201cthe blessing or healing power of God,\u201d this is simply a change of\nnames, the characters behind the masks remaining the same.\n\nThe Dalai\u2010lama\u2019s mitre has seven ridges in honour of the seven chief\nDhy\u00e2ni Buddhas. In the funeral ritual of the Egyptians the defunct is made\nto exclaim:\n\n\n    Salutation to you, O Princes, who stand in the presence of\n    Osiris.... Send me the grace to have my sins destroyed, as you\n    have done for the seven spirits who follow their Lord!(612)\n\n\nBrahm\u00e2\u2019s head is ornamented with seven rays, and he is followed by the\nseven Rishis, in the seven Svargas. China has her seven Pagodas; the\nGreeks had their seven Cyclopes, seven Demiurgi, and the Mystery Gods, the\nseven Kabiri, whose chief was Jupiter\u2010Saturn, and with the Jews, Jehovah.\nNow the latter Deity has become chief of all, the highest and the one God,\nand his old place is taken by Mikael (Michael). He is the \u201cChief of the\nHost\u201d (_tsaba_); the \u201cArchistrategus of the Lord\u2019s army\u201d; the \u201cConqueror\nof the Devil\u201d\u2014Victor diaboli\u2014and the \u201cArchisatrap of the Sacred Militia,\u201d\nhe who slew the \u201cGreat Dragon.\u201d Unfortunately astrology and symbology,\nhaving no inducement to veil old things with new masks, have preserved the\nreal name of Mikael\u2014\u201cthat was Jehovah\u201d\u2014Mikael being the Angel of the face\nof the Lord,(613) \u201cthe guardian of the planets,\u201d and the living image of\nGod. He represents the Deity in his visits to earth, for as it is well\nexpressed in Hebrew, he is one \u05de\u05d9\u05db\u05d0\u05dc, who is as God, or who is like unto\nGod. It is he who cast out the serpent.(614)\n\nMikael, being the regent of the planet Saturn, is\u2014_Saturn_.(615) His\nmystery\u2010name is Sabbathiel, because he presides over the Jewish Sabbath,\nas also over the astrological Saturday. Once identified, the reputation of\nthe Christian conqueror of the devil is in still greater danger from\nfurther identifications. Biblical angels are called Malachim, the\nmessengers between God (or rather _the gods_) and men. In Hebrew \u05de\u05db\u05d0\u05dc\nMalach, is also \u201ca King,\u201d and Malech or Melech was likewise Moloch, or\nagain Saturn, the Seb of Egypt, to whom _Dies Saturni_, or the Sabbath,\nwas dedicated. The Sab\u00e6ans separated and distinguished the planet Saturn\nfrom its God far more than the Roman Catholics do their angels from their\nstars; and the Kabalists make of the Archangel Mikael the patron of the\nseventh work of magic.\n\n\n    In theological symbolism ... Jupiter [the Sun] is the risen and\n    glorious Saviour, and Saturn, God the Father, or the Jehovah of\n    Moses,(616)\n\n\nsays \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi, who _ought_ to know. Jehovah and the Saviour, Saturn\nand Jupiter, being thus one, and Mikael being called the living image of\nGod, it does seem dangerous for the Church to call Saturn, Satan\u2014_le dieu\nmauvais_. However, Rome is strong in casuistry and will get out of this as\nshe got out of every other identification, with glory to herself and to\nher own full satisfaction. Nevertheless all her dogmas and rituals seem\nlike so many pages torn out from the history of Occultism, and then\ndistorted. The extremely thin partition that separates the Kabalistic and\nChald\u00e6an Theogony from the Roman Catholic Angelology and Theodicy is now\nconfessed by at least one Roman Catholic writer. One can hardly believe\none\u2019s eyes in finding the following (the passages italicized by us should\nbe carefully noticed):\n\n\n    One of the most characteristic features of our Holy Scriptures is\n    _the calculated discretion used in the enunciation of the\n    mysteries less directly useful to salvation_.... Thus, beyond\n    those \u201cmyriads of myriads\u201d of angelic creatures just noticed(617)\n    and all these prudently elementary divisions, there are certainly\n    many others, whose very names have not yet reached us.(618) \u201cFor,\u201d\n    excellently says St. John Chrysostom, \u201cthere are doubtless, (_sine\n    dubio_,) many other _Virtues_ [celestial beings] whose\n    denominations we are yet far from knowing.... The nine orders are\n    not by any means the only populations in heaven, where, on the\n    contrary, _are to be found numberless tribes_ of inhabitants\n    infinitely varied, and of which it would be impossible _to give\n    the slightest idea_ through human tongue.... Paul, who _had\n    learned their names_, reveals to us their existence.\u201d (_De\n    Incomprehensibili Natura Dei_, Bk. IV.)....\n\n    It would thus amount _to a gross mistake to see merely errors_ in\n    the Angelology of the Kabalists and Gnostics, so severely treated\n    by the Apostle of the Gentiles, for his imposing censure reached\n    _only their exaggerations and vicious interpretations_, and still\n    more, _the application of those noble_ titles _to the miserable\n    personalities of demoniacal usurpers_.(619) Often nothing so\n    resemble each other as _the language of the judges and that of the\n    convicts_ [of saints and Occultists]. One has to penetrate deeply\n    into this _dual_ study [of creed and profession] and what is still\n    better, _to trust blindly to the authority of the tribunal_ [the\n    Church of Rome, of course] to enable oneself to seize precisely\n    the point of the error. The _Gnosis_ condemned by St. Paul\n    remains, nevertheless, for him as for Plato the supreme knowledge\n    of all truths, and of the _Being par excellence_, \u1f41 \u1f44\u03bd\u03c4\u03c9\u03c2 \u1f64\u03bd\n    (_Republ._ Bk. VI). The Ideas, _types_, \u1f00\u03c1\u03c7\u1f70\u03b9 of the Greek\n    philosopher, the _Intelligences_ of Pythagoras, the _aeons_ or\n    _emanations_, the occasion of so much reproach to the first\n    heretics, the Logos or Word, Chief of these Intelligences, the\n    _Demiurgos_, the architect of the world under his father\u2019s\n    direction [of the Pagans], the unknown God, the _En\u2010soph_, or the\n    _It of the Infinite_ [of the Kabalists], the angelical\n    periods,(620) the _seven_ spirits, the Depths of _Ahriman_, the\n    World\u2019s _Rectors_, the _Archontes_ of the air, the _God of this\n    world_, the _pleroma_ of the intelligences, down to _Metatron_ the\n    angel of the Jews, _all this is found word for word, as so many\n    truths, in the works of our greatest doctors, and in St.\n    Paul_.(621)\n\n\nIf an Occultist, eager to charge the Church with a numberless series of\nplagiarisms were to write the above, could he have written more strongly?\nAnd have we, or have we not, the right, after such a complete confession,\nto reverse the tables and to say of Roman Catholics and others what is\nsaid of the Gnostics and Occultists. \u201cThey used our expressions and\nrejected our doctrines.\u201d For it is not the \u201cpromoters of the false\nGnosis\u201d\u2014who had all those expressions from their archaic ancestors\u2014who\nhelped themselves to Christian expressions, but verily the Christian\nFathers and Theologians, who helped themselves to our nest, and have tried\never since to soil it.\n\nThe words above quoted will explain much to those who are searching for\ntruth and for truth only. They will show the origin of certain rites in\nthe Church inexplicable hitherto to the simple\u2010minded, and will give the\nreason why such words as \u201cOur Lord the Sun\u201d were used in prayer by\nChristians up to the fifth and even sixth century of our era, and embodied\nin the Liturgy, until altered into \u201cOur Lord, the God.\u201d Let us remember\nthat the early Christians painted Christ on the walls of their\nsubterranean necropolis, as a shepherd in the guise of, and invested with\nall the attributes of Apollo, driving away the wolf, Fenris, who seeks to\ndevour the Sun and his Satellites.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXXVIII. ASTROLOGY AND ASTROLATRY.\n\n\nThe books of Hermes Trismegistus contain the exoteric meaning, still\nveiled for all but the Occultist, of the Astrology and Astrolatry of the\nKhaldi. The two subjects are closely connected. Astrolatry, or the\nadoration of the heavenly host, is the natural result of only half\u2010\nrevealed Astrology, whose Adepts carefully concealed from the non\u2010\ninitiated masses its Occult principles and the wisdom imparted to them by\nthe Regents of the Planets\u2014the \u201cAngels.\u201d Hence, divine Astrology for the\nInitiates; superstitious Astrolatry for the profane. St. Justin asserts\nit:\n\n\n    From the first invention of the hieroglyphics it was not the\n    vulgar, but the distinguished and select men who became initiated\n    in the secrecy of the temples into the science of every kind of\n    Astrology\u2014even into its most abject kind: that Astrology which\n    later on found itself prostituted in the public thoroughfares.\n\n\nThere was a vast difference between the Sacred Science taught by Petosiris\nand Necepso\u2014the first Astrologers mentioned in the Egyptian manuscripts,\nbelieved to have lived during the reign of Ramses II. (Sesostris)(622)\u2014and\nthe miserable charlatanry of the quacks called Chald\u00e6ans, who degraded the\nDivine Knowledge under the last Emperors of Rome. Indeed, one may fairly\ndescribe the two as the \u201chigh ceremonial Astrology\u201d and \u201castrological\nAstrolatry.\u201d The first depended on the knowledge by the Initiates of those\n(to us) immaterial Forces or Spiritual Entities that affect matter and\nguide it. Called by the ancient Philosophers the Archontes and the\nCosmocratores, they were the types or paradigms on the higher planes of\nthe lower and more material beings on the scale of evolution, whom we call\nElementals and Nature\u2010Spirits, to whom the Sab\u00e6ans bowed and whom they\nworshipped, without suspecting the essential difference. Hence the latter\nkind when not a mere pretence, degenerated but too often into Black Magic.\nIt was the favourite form of popular or exoteric Astrology, entirely\nignorant of the apotelesmatic principles of the primitive Science, the\ndoctrines of which were imparted only at Initiation. Thus, while the real\nHierophants soared like Demi\u2010Gods to the very summit of spiritual\nknowledge, the _hoi polloi_ among the Sab\u00e6ans crouched, steeped in\nsuperstition\u2014ten millenniums back, as they do now\u2014in the cold and lethal\nshadow of the valleys of matter. Sidereal influence is dual. There is the\nphysical and physiological influence, that of exotericism; and the high\nspiritual, intellectual, and moral influence, imparted by the knowledge of\nthe planetary Gods. Bailly, speaking with only an imperfect knowledge of\nthe former, called Astrology, so far back as the eighteenth century, \u201cThe\nvery foolish mother of a very wise daughter\u201d\u2014Astronomy. On the other hand,\nArago, a luminary of the nineteenth century, supports the reality of the\nsidereal influence of the Sun, Moon and Planets. He asks:\n\n\n    Where do we find lunar influences refuted by arguments that\n    science would dare to avow?\n\n\nBut even Bailly, having, as he thought, put down Astrology as publicly\npractised, dares not do the same with the real Astrology. He says:\n\n\n    Judiciary Astrology was at its origin the result of a profound\n    system, the work of an enlightened nation that would wander too\n    far into the mysteries of God and Nature.\n\n\nA Scientist of a more recent date, a member of the Institute of France,\nand a professor of History, Ph. Lebas, discovers (unconsciously to\nhimself) the very root of Astrology in his able article on the subject in\nthe _Dictionnaire Encyclop\u00e9dique de France_. He well understands, he tells\nhis readers, that the adhesion to that Science of such a number of highly\nintellectual men should be in itself a sufficient motive for believing\nthat all Astrology is not folly:\n\n\n    While proclaiming in politics the sovereignty of the people and of\n    public opinion can we admit, as heretofore, that mankind allowed\n    itself to be radically deceived in this only: that an absolute and\n    gross absurdity reigned in the minds of whole nations for so many\n    centuries without being based on anything save\u2014on one hand human\n    imbecility, and on the other charlatanry? How for fifty centuries\n    and more can most men have been either dupes or knaves? ... Even\n    though we may find it impossible to decide between and separate\n    the realities of Astrology from the elements of invention and\n    empty dreaming in it, ... let us, nevertheless, repeat with\n    Bossuet and all modern philosophers, that \u201cnothing that has been\n    dominant could be absolutely false.\u201d Is it not true, at all\n    events, that there is a physical reaction on one another among the\n    planets? Is it not again true, that the planets have an influence\n    on the atmosphere, and consequently at any rate a mediate action\n    on vegetation and animals? Has not modern science demonstrated now\n    these two points beyond any doubt?... Is it any less true that\n    human liberty of action is not absolute: that all is bound, that\n    all weighs, planets as the rest, on each individual will; that\n    Providence [_or Karma_] acts on us and directs men through those\n    relations that it has established between them and the visible\n    objects and the whole universe?... Astrolatry, in its essence, is\n    nothing but that; we are bound to recognise that an instinct\n    superior to the age they lived in guided the efforts of the\n    ancient Magi. As to the materialism and annihilation of human\n    moral freedom with which Bailly charges their theory (Astrology),\n    the reprobate has no sense whatever. All the great astrologers\n    admitted, without one single exception, that man could react\n    against the influence of the stars. This principle is established\n    in the Ptolem\u0153ian _Tetrabiblos_, the true astrological Scriptures,\n    in chapters ii. and iii. of book i.(623)\n\n\nThomas Aquinas had corroborated Lebas in anticipation; he says:\n\n\n    The celestial bodies are _the cause of all that happens in this\n    sublunary world_, they act indirectly on human actions; but not\n    all the effects produced by them are unavoidable.(624)\n\n\nThe Occultists and Theosophists are the first to confess that there is\nwhite and black Astrology. Nevertheless, Astrology has to be studied in\nboth aspects by those who wish to become proficient in it; and the good or\nbad results obtained do not depend upon the principles, which are the same\nin both kinds, but in the Astrologer himself. Thus Pythagoras, who\nestablished the whole Copernican system by the Books of Hermes 2,000 years\nbefore Galileo\u2019s predecessor was born, found and studied in them the whole\nScience of divine Theogony, of the communication with, and the evocation\nof, the world\u2019s Rectors\u2014the Princes of the \u201cPrincipalities\u201d of St.\nPaul\u2014the nativity of each Planet and of the Universe itself, the formul\u00e6\nof incantations and the consecration of each portion of the human body to\nthe respective Zodiacal sign corresponding to it. All this cannot be\nregarded as childish and absurd\u2014still less \u201cdevilish\u201d\u2014save by those who\nare, and wish to remain, tyros in the Philosophy of the Occult Sciences.\nNo true thinker\u2014no one who recognises the presence of a common bond\nbetween man and visible, as well as invisible, Nature\u2014would see in the old\nrelics of Archaic Wisdom\u2014such as the _Petemenoph Papyrus_, for\ninstance\u2014\u201cchildish nonsense and absurdity,\u201d as many Academicians and\nScientists have done. But upon finding in such ancient documents the\napplication of the Hermetic rules and laws, such as\n\n\n    The consecration of one\u2019s hair to the celestial Nile; of the left\n    temple to the living Spirit in the sun, and in the right one to\n    the spirit of Ammon,\n\n\nhe will endeavour to study and comprehend better the \u201claws of\ncorrespondences.\u201d Nor will he disbelieve in the antiquity of Astrology on\nthe plea that some Orientalists have thought fit to declare that the\nZodiac was not very ancient, being only the invention of the Greeks of the\nMacedonian period. For this statement, besides having been shown to be\nentirely erroneous by a number of other reasons, may be entirely disproved\nby facts relating to the latest discoveries in Egypt, and by the more\naccurate readings of hieroglyphics and inscriptions of the earliest\ndynasties. The published polemics on the contents of the so\u2010called \u201cMagic\u201d\nPapyri of the Anastasi collection indicate the antiquity of the Zodiac. As\nthe _Lettres \u00e0 Lettrone_ say: The papyri discourse at length upon the four\nbases or\n\n\n    Foundations of the world, the identity of which it is impossible,\n    according to Champollion, to mistake, as one is forced to\n    recognise in them the Pillars of the World of St. Paul. It is they\n    who are invoked with the gods of all the celestial zones, quite\n    analogous, once more, to the _Spiritualia nequiti\u00e6 in c\u00e6lestibus_\n    of the same Apostle.(625)\n\n    That invocation was made in the proper terms ... of the formula,\n    reproduced far too faithfully by Jamblichus for it to be possible\n    to refuse him any longer the merit of having transmitted to\n    posterity the ancient and primitive spirit of the Egyptian\n    Astrologers.(626)\n\n\nAs Letronne had tried to prove that all the genuine Egyptian Zodiacs had\nbeen manufactured during the Roman period, the Sensaos mummy is brought\nforward to show that:\n\n\n    All the Zodiacal monuments in Egypt were chiefly astronomical.\n    Royal tombs and funereal rituals are so many tables of\n    constellations and of their influences for all the hours of every\n    month.\n\n    Thus the genethliac tables themselves prove that they are far\n    older than the period assigned to their origin; all the Zodiacs of\n    the sarcophagi of later epochs being simple reminiscences of the\n    Zodiacs belonging to the mythological [archaic] period.\n\n\nPrimitive Astrology was as far above modern judiciary Astrology, so\u2010\ncalled, as the guides (the Planets and Zodiacal signs) are above the lamp\u2010\nposts. Berosus shows the sidereal sovereignty of Bel and Mylitta (Sun and\nMoon), and only \u201cthe twelve lords of the Zodiacal Gods,\u201d the \u201cthirty\u2010six\nGods Counsellors\u201d and the \u201ctwenty\u2010four Stars, judges of this world,\u201d which\nsupport and guide the Universe (our solar system), watch over mortals and\nreveal to mankind its fate and their own decrees. Judiciary Astrology as\nit is now known, is correctly denominated by the Latin Church the\n\n\n    Materialistic and pantheistic prophesying by the objective planet\n    itself, independently of its Rector [the Mlac of the Jews, the\n    ministers of the Eternal commissioned by him to announce his will\n    to mortals]; the ascension or conjunction of the planet at the\n    moment of the birth of an individual deciding his fortune and the\n    moment and mode of his death.(627)\n\n\nEvery student of Occultism knows that the heavenly bodies are closely\nrelated during each Manvantara with the mankind of that special cycle; and\nthere are some who believe that each great character born during that\nperiod has\u2014as every other mortal has, only in a far stronger degree\u2014his\ndestiny outlined within his proper constellation or star, traced as a\nself\u2010prophecy, an anticipated autobiography, by the indwelling Spirit of\nthat particular star. The human Monad in its first beginning is that\nSpirit, or the Soul of that star (Planet) itself. As our Sun radiates its\nlight and beams on every body in space within the boundaries of its\nsystem, so the Regent of every Planet\u2010star, the Parent\u2010monad, shoots out\nfrom itself the Monad of every \u201cpilgrim\u201d Soul born under its house within\nits own group. The Regents are esoterically seven, whether in the\nSephiroth, the \u201cAngels of the Presence,\u201d the Rishis, or the Amshaspends.\n\u201cThe One is no number\u201d is said in all the esoteric works.\n\nFrom the Kasdim and Gazzim (Astrologers) the noble primitive science\npassed to the Khartumim Asaphim (or Theologians) and the Hakamim (or\nscientists, the Magicians of the lower class), and from these to the Jews\nduring their captivity. The Books of Moses had been buried in oblivion for\ncenturies, and when re\u2010discovered by Hilkiah had lost their true sense for\nthe people of Israel. Primitive Occult Astrology was on the decline when\nDaniel, the last of the Jewish Initiates of the old school, became the\nchief of the Magi and Astrologers of Chald\u00e6a. In those days even Egypt,\nwho had her wisdom from the same source as Babylon, had degenerated from\nher former grandeur, and her glory had begun to fade out. Still, the\nscience of old had left her eternal imprint on the world, and the seven\ngreat Primitive Gods reigned for ever in the Astrology and in the division\nof time of every nation upon the face of the earth. The names of the days\nof our (Christian) week are those of the Gods of the Chald\u00e6ans, who\ntranslated them from those of the \u00c2ryans; the uniformity of these\nantediluvian names in every nation, from the Goths back to the Indians,\nwould remain inexplicable, as Sir W. Jones thought, had not the riddle\nbeen explained to us by the invitation made by the Chald\u00e6an oracles,\nrecorded by Porphyry and quoted by Eusebius:\n\n\n    To carry those names first to the Egyptian and Ph\u0153nician colonies,\n    then to the Greeks, with the express recommendation that each God\n    should be invoked only on that day that had been called by his\n    name....\n\n    Thus Apollo says in those oracles: \u201cI must be invoked on the day\n    of the _sun_; Mercury after his directions, then Chronos [Saturn],\n    then Venus, and do not fail to call seven times each of those\n    gods.\u201d(628)\n\n\nThis is slightly erroneous. Greece did not get her astrological\ninstruction from Egypt or from Chald\u00e6a, but direct from Orpheus, as Lucian\ntells us.(629) It was Orpheus, as he says, who imparted the Indian\nSciences to nearly all the great monarchs of antiquity; and it was they,\nthe ancient kings favoured by the Planetary Gods, who recorded the\nprinciples of Astrology\u2014as did Ptolemus, for instance. Thus Lucian writes:\n\n\n    The B\u0153otian Tiresias acquired the greatest reputation in the art\n    of predicting futurity.... In those days divination was not as\n    slightly treated as it is now; and nothing was ever undertaken\n    without previous consultation with diviners, whose oracles were\n    all directed by astrology.... At Delphos the virgin commissioned\n    to announce futurity was the symbol of the Heavenly Virgin, ...\n    and Our Lady.\n\n\nOn the sarcophagus of an Egyptian Pharaoh, Neith, mother of Ra, the heifer\nthat brings forth the Sun, her body spangled with stars, and wearing the\nsolar and lunar discs, is equally referred to as the \u201cHeavenly Virgin\u201d and\n\u201cOur Lady of the Starry Vault.\u201d\n\nModern judiciary Astrology in its present form began only during the time\nof Diodorus, as he apprises the world.(630) But Chald\u00e6an Astrology was\nbelieved in by most of the great men in History, such as C\u00e6sar, Pliny,\nCicero\u2014whose best friends, Nigidius Figulus and Lucius Tarrutius, were\nthemselves Astrologers, the former being famous as a prophet. Marcus\nAntonius never travelled without an Astrologer recommended to him by\nCleopatra. Augustus, when ascending the throne, had his horoscope drawn by\nTheagenes. Tiberius discovered pretenders to his throne by means of\nAstrology and divination. Vitellius dared not exile the Chald\u00e6ans, as they\nhad announced the day of their banishment as that of his death. Vespasian\nconsulted them daily; Domitian would not move without being advised by the\nprophets; Adrian was a learned Astrologer himself; and all of them, ending\nwith Julian (called the _Apostate_ because he would not become one),\nbelieved in, and addressed their prayers to, the Planetary \u201cGods.\u201d The\nEmperor Adrian, moreover, \u201cpredicted from the January calends up to\nDecember 31st, every event that happened to him daily.\u201d Under the wisest\nemperors Rome had a School of Astrology, wherein were secretly taught the\noccult influences of the Sun, Moon, and Saturn.(631) Judiciary Astrology\nis used to this day by the Kabalists; and \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi, the modern French\nMagus, teaches its rudiments in his _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie_.\nBut the key to ceremonial or ritualistic Astrology, with the teraphim and\nthe urim and thummim of Magic, is lost to Europe. Hence our century of\nMaterialism shrugs its shoulders and sees in Astrology\u2014a pretender.\n\nNot all scientists scoff at it, however, and one may rejoice in reading in\nthe _Mus\u00e9e des Sciences_(632) the suggestive and fair remarks made by Le\nCouturier, a man of science of no mean reputation. He thinks it curious to\nnotice that while the bold speculations of Democritus are found vindicated\nby Dalton,\n\n\n    The reveries of the alchemists are also on their way to a certain\n    rehabilitation. They receive renewed life from the minute\n    investigations of their successors, the chemists; a very\n    remarkable thing indeed is to see how much modern discoveries have\n    served to vindicate, of late, the theories of the Middle Ages from\n    the charge of absurdity laid at their door. Thus, if, as\n    demonstrated by Col. Sabine, the direction of a piece of steel,\n    hung a few feet above the soil, may be influenced by the position\n    of the moon, whose body is at a distance of 240,000 miles from our\n    planet, who then could accuse of extravagance the belief of the\n    ancient astrologers [or the modern, either] in the influence of\n    the stars on human destiny.(633)\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XXXIX. CYCLES AND AVATARAS.\n\n\nWe have already drawn attention to the facts that the record of the life\nof a World\u2010Saviour is emblematical, and must be read by its mystic\nmeaning, and that the figures 432 have a cosmic evolutionary significance.\nWe find these two facts throwing light on the origin of the exoteric\nChristian religion, and clearing away much of the obscurity surrounding\nits beginnings. For is it not clear that the names and characters in the\nSynoptical Gospels and in that of St. John are not historical? Is it not\nevident that the compilers of the life of Christ, desirous to show that\nthe birth of their Master was a cosmic, astronomical, and divinely\u2010\npre\u00f6rdained event, attempted to co\u00f6rdinate the same with the end of the\nsecret cycle, 4,320? When facts are collated this answers to them as\nlittle as does the other cycle of \u201cthirty\u2010three solar years, seven months,\nand seven days,\u201d which has also been brought forward as supporting the\nsame claim, the soli\u2010lunar cycle in which the Sun gains on the Moon one\nsolar year. The combination of the three figures, 4, 3, 2, with cyphers\naccording to the cycle and Manvantara concerned, was, and is, pre\u00ebminently\nHindu. It will remain a secret even though several of its significant\nfeatures are revealed. It relates, for instance, to the Pralaya of the\nraces in their periodical dissolution, before which events a special\nAvat\u00e2ra has always to descend and incarnate on earth. These figures were\nadopted by all the older nations, such as those of Egypt and Chald\u00e6a, and\nbefore them were current among the Atlanteans. Evidently some of the more\nlearned among the early Church Fathers who had dabbled, whilst Pagans, in\ntemple secrets, knew them to relate to the Avat\u00e2ric or Messianic mystery,\nand tried to apply this cycle to the birth of their Messiah; they failed\nbecause the figures relate to the respective ends of the Root\u2010Races and\nnot to any individual. In their badly\u2010directed efforts, moreover, an error\nof five years occurred. Is it possible, if their claims as to the\nimportance and universality of the event were correct, that such a vital\nmistake should have been allowed to creep into a chronological computation\npre\u00f6rdained and traced in the heavens by the finger of God? Again, what\nwere the Pagan and even Jewish Initiates doing, if this claim as to Jesus\nbe correct? Could they, the custodians of the key to the secret cycles and\nAvat\u00e2ras, the heirs of all the \u00c2ryan, Egyptian, and Chald\u00e6an wisdom, have\nfailed to recognise their great \u201cGod\u2010Incarnate,\u201d one with Jehovah,(634)\ntheir Saviour of the latter days, him whom all the nations of Asia still\nexpect as their Kalki Avat\u00e2ra, Maitreya Buddha, Sosiosh, Messiah, etc.?\n\nThe simple secret is this: There are cycles within greater cycles, which\nare all contained in the one Kalpa of 4,320,000 years. It is at the end of\nthis cycle that the Kalki Avat\u00e2ra is expected\u2014the Avat\u00e2ra Whose name and\ncharacteristics are secret, Who will come forth from Shamballa, the \u201cCity\nof Gods,\u201d which is in the West for some nations, in the East for others,\nin the North or South for yet others. And this is the reason why, from the\nIndian Rishi to Virgil, and from Zoroaster down to the latest Sibyl, all\nhave, since the beginning of the Fifth Race, prophesied, sung, and\npromised the cyclic return of the Virgin\u2014Virgo, the constellation\u2014and the\nbirth of a divine child who should bring back to our earth the Golden Age.\n\nNo one, however fanatical, would have sufficient hardihood to maintain\nthat the Christian era has ever been a return to the Golden Age\u2014Virgo\nhaving actually entered into Libra since then. Let us trace as briefly as\npossible the Christian traditions to their true origin.\n\nFirst of all, they discover in a few lines from Virgil a direct prophecy\nof the birth of Christ. Yet it is impossible to detect in this prophecy\nany feature of the present age. It is in the famous fourth Eclogue in\nwhich, half a century before our era, Pollio is made to ask the Muses of\nSicily to sing to him about greater events.\n\n\n    The last era of Cum\u00e6an song is now arrived and the grand series of\n    ages [that series which recurs again and again in the course of\n    our mundane revolution] begins afresh. Now the Virgin Astr\u00e6a\n    returns, and the reign of Saturn recommences. Now a new progeny\n    _descends from the celestial realms_. Do thou, chaste Lucina,\n    smile propitious to the infant Boy who will bring to a close the\n    present Age of Iron,(635) and introduce throughout the whole world\n    the Age of Gold.... He shall share the life of Gods and shall see\n    heroes mingled in society with Gods, himself be seen by them and\n    all the peaceful world.... Then shall the herds no longer dread\n    the huge lion, the serpent also shall die: and the poison\u2019s\n    deceptive plant shall perish. Come then, dear child of the Gods,\n    great descendant of Jupiter!... The time is near. See, the world\n    is shaken with its globe saluting thee: the earth, the regions of\n    the sea, and the heavens sublime.(636)\n\n\nIt is in these few lines, called the \u201cSibylline prophecy about the coming\nof Christ,\u201d that his followers now see a direct foretelling of the event.\nNow who will presume to maintain that either at the birth of Jesus or\nsince the establishment of the so\u2010called Christian religion, any portion\nof the above\u2010quoted sentences can be shown as prophetic? Has the \u201clast\nage\u201d\u2014the Age of Iron, or Kali Yuga\u2014closed since then? Quite the reverse,\nsince it is shown to be in full sway just now, not only because the Hindus\nuse the name, but by universal personal experience. Where is that \u201cnew\nrace that has descended from the celestial realms\u201d? Was it the race that\nemerged from Paganism into Christianity? Or is it our present race, with\nnations ever red\u2010hot for fight, jealous and envious, ready to pounce upon\neach other, showing mutual hatred that would put to blush cats and dogs,\never lying and deceiving one another? Is it this age of ours that is the\npromised \u201cGolden Age\u201d\u2014in which neither the venom of the serpent nor of any\nplant is any longer lethal, and in which we are all secure under the mild\nsway of God\u2010chosen sovereigns? The wildest fancy of an opium\u2010eater could\nhardly suggest a more inappropriate description, if it is to be applied to\nour age or to any age since the year one of our era. What of the mutual\nslaughter of sects, of Christians by Pagans, and of Pagans and Heretics by\nChristians; the horrors of the Middle Ages and of the Inquisition;\nNapoleon, and since his day, an \u201carmed peace\u201d at best\u2014at the worst,\ntorrents of blood, shed for supremacy over acres of land, and a handful of\nheathen: millions of soldiers under arms, ready for battle; a diplomatic\nbody playing at Cains and Judases; and instead of the \u201cmild sway of a\ndivine sovereign\u201d the universal, though unrecognised, sway of C\u00e6sarism, of\n\u201cmight\u201d in lieu of \u201cright,\u201d and the breeding therefrom of anarchists,\nsocialists, p\u00e9troleuses, and destroyers of every description?\n\nThe Sibylline prophecy and Virgil\u2019s inspirational poetry remain\nunfulfilled in every point, as we see.\n\n\n    The fields are yellow with soft ears of corn;\n\n\nbut so they were before our era:\n\n\n    The blushing grapes shall hang from the rude brambles, and dewy\n    honey shall [or may] distil from the rugged oak;\n\n\nbut they have not thus done, so far. We must look for another\ninterpretation. What is it? The Sibylline Prophetess spoke, as thousands\nof other Prophets and Seers have spoken, though even the few such records\nthat have survived are rejected by Christian and infidel, and their\ninterpretations are only allowed and accepted among the Initiated. The\nSibyl alluded to cycles in general and to the great cycle especially. Let\nus remember how the Pur\u00e2nas corroborate the above, among others the\n_Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_:\n\n\n    When the practices taught by the Vedas, and the Institutes of Law\n    shall have nearly ceased, and the close of the Kali Yuga [the\n    \u201cIron Age\u201d of Virgil] shall be nigh, an aspect of that divine\n    Being who exists of his own spiritual nature in the character of\n    Brahm\u00e2 and even is the beginning and the end [_Alpha and Omega_],\n    ... shall descend upon earth: he will be born in the family of\n    Vishnuyashas, an eminent Br\u00e2hman of Shamballah ... endowed with\n    the eight superhuman powers. By his irresistible might he will\n    destroy ... all whose minds are devoted to iniquity. He will then\n    re\u00ebstablish righteousness upon earth; and the minds of those who\n    live at the end of the [Kali] Age shall be awakened, and shall be\n    as pellucid as crystal.(637) The men who are thus changed by\n    virtue of that peculiar time shall be as the seeds of human beings\n    [the Shistha, the survivors of the future cataclysm], and shall\n    give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita [or\n    Satya] Yuga [the age of purity, or the \u201cGolden Age\u201d]. For it is\n    said: \u201cWhen the sun and moon and Tishya [asterisms] and the planet\n    Jupiter are in one mansion the Krita Age [the Golden] shall\n    return.\u201d(638)\n\n\nThe astronomical cycles of the Hindus\u2014those taught publicly\u2014have been\nsufficiently well understood, but the esoteric meaning thereof, in its\napplication to transcendental subjects connected with them, has ever\nremained a dead\u2010letter. The number of cycles was enormous; it ranged from\nthe Mah\u00e2 Yuga cycle of 4,320,000 years down to the small septenary and\nquinquennial cycles, the latter being composed of the five years called\nrespectively the Samvatsara, Parivatsara, Idvatsara, Anuvatsara, and\nVatsara, each having secret attributes or qualities attached to them.\nVriddhagarga gives these in a treatise, now the property of a Trans\u2010\nHim\u00e2layan Matham (or temple); and describes the relation between this\nquinquennial and the Brihaspati cycle, based on the conjunction of the Sun\nand Moon every sixtieth year: a cycle as mysterious\u2014for national events in\ngeneral and those of the \u00c2ryan Hindu nation especially\u2014as it is important.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XL. SECRET CYCLES.\n\n\nThe former five\u2010year cycle comprehends sixty solar\u2010sidereal months of 1800\ndays, sixty\u2010one solar months (or 1830 days); sixty\u2010two lunar months (or\n1860 lunations), and sixty\u2010seven lunar\u2010asterismal months (or 1809 such\ndays).\n\nIn his _K\u00e2la Sankalita_, Col. Warren very properly regards these years as\ncycles; this they are, for each year has its own special importance as\nhaving some bearing upon, and connection with, specified events in\nindividual horoscopes. He writes that in the cycle of sixty there\n\n\n    Are contained five cycles of twelve years, each supposed equal to\n    one year of the planet (Brihaspati, or Jupiter) ... I mention this\n    cycle because I found it mentioned in some books, but I know of no\n    nation or tribe that reckons time after that account.(639)\n\n\nThe ignorance is very natural, since Col. Warren could know nothing of the\nsecret cycles and their meanings. He adds:\n\n\n    The names of the five cycles or Yugas are: ... (1) Samvatsara, (2)\n    Parivatsara, (3) Idvatsara, (4) Anuvatsara, (5) Udravatsara.\n\n\nThe learned Colonel might, however, have assured himself that there were\n\u201cother nations\u201d which had the same secret cycle, if he had but remembered\nthat the Romans also had their _lustrum_ of five years (from the Hindus\nundeniably) which represented the same period if multiplied by 12.(640)\nNear Benares there are still the relics of all these cycle\u2010records, and of\nastronomical instruments cut out of solid rock, the everlasting records of\nArchaic Initiation, called by Sir W. Jones (as suggested by the prudent\nBr\u00e2hmans who surrounded him) old \u201cback records\u201d or reckonings. But in\nStonehenge they exist to this day. Higgins says that Waltire found the\nbarrows of tumuli surrounding this giant\u2010temple represented accurately the\nsituation and magnitude of the fixed stars, forming a complete orrery or\nplanisphere. As Colebrooke found out, it is the cycle of the _Vedas_,\nrecorded in the _Jyotisha_, one of the Ved\u00e2ngas, a treatise on Astronomy,\nwhich is the basis of calculation for all other cycles, larger or\nsmaller;(641) and the _Vedas_ were written in characters, archaic though\nthey be, long after those natural observations, made by the aid of their\ngigantic mathematical and astronomical instruments, had been recorded by\nthe men of the Third Race, who had received their instruction from the\nDhy\u00e2n Chohans. Maurice speaks truly when he observes that all such\n\n\n    Circular stone monuments were intended as durable symbols of\n    astronomical cycles by a race who, not having, or for political\n    reasons, forbidding the use of letters, had no other permanent\n    method of instructing their disciples or handing down their\n    knowledge to posterity.\n\n\nHe errs only in the last idea. It was to conceal their knowledge from\nprofane posterity, leaving it as an heirloom only to the Initiates, that\nsuch monuments, at once rock observatories and astronomical treatises,\nwere cut out.\n\nIt is no news that as the Hindus divided the earth into seven zones, so\nthe more western peoples\u2014Chald\u00e6ans, Ph\u0153nicians, and even the Jews, who got\ntheir learning either directly or indirectly from the Br\u00e2hmans\u2014made all\ntheir secret and sacred numerations by 6 and 12, though using the number 7\nwhenever this would not lend itself to handling. Thus the numerical base\nof 6, the exoteric figure given by \u00c2rya Bhatta, was made good use of. From\nthe first secret cycle of 600\u2014the Naros, transformed successively into\n60,000 and 60 and 6, and, with other noughts added into other secret\ncycles\u2014down to the smallest, an Arch\u00e6ologist and Mathematician can easily\nfind it repeated in every country, known to every nation. Hence the globe\nwas divided into 60 degrees, which, multiplied by 60, became 3,600 the\n\u201cgreat year.\u201d Hence also the hour with its 60 minutes of 60 seconds each.\nThe Asiatic people count a cycle of 60 years also, after which comes the\nlucky seventh decad, and the Chinese have their small cycle of 60 days,\nthe Jews of 6 days, the Greeks of 6 centuries\u2014the Naros again. The\nBabylonians had a great year of 3,600, being the Naros multiplied by 6.\nThe Tartar cycle called Van was 180 years, or three sixties; this\nmultiplied by 12 times 12 = 144, makes 25,920 years, the exact period of\nrevolution of the heavens.\n\nIndia is the birthplace of arithmetic and mathematics; as \u201cOur Figures,\u201d\nin _Chips from a German Workshop_, by Prof. Max M\u00fcller, shows beyond a\ndoubt. As well explained by Krishna Sh\u00e2stri Godbole in _The Theosophist_:\n\n\n    The Jews ... represented the units (1\u20109) by the first nine letters\n    of our alphabet; the tens (10\u201090) by the next nine letters; the\n    first four hundreds (100\u2010400) by the last four letters, and the\n    remaining ones (500\u2010900) by the second forms of the letters \u201ck\u00e2f\u201d\n    (11th), \u201cm\u00eem\u201d (13th), \u201cn\u00fbn\u201d (14th), \u201cpe\u201d (17th), and \u201cs\u00e2d\u201d (18th);\n    and they represented other numbers by combining these letters\n    according to their value.... The Jews of the present period still\n    adhere to this practice of notation in their Hebrew books. The\n    Greeks had a numerical system similar to that used by the Jews,\n    but they carried it a little farther by using letters of the\n    alphabet with a dash or slant\u2010line behind, to represent thousands\n    (1000\u20109000), tens of thousands (10,000\u201090,000) and one hundred of\n    thousands (100,000) the last, for instance, being represented by\n    \u201crho\u201d with a dash behind, while \u201crho\u201d singly represented 100. The\n    Romans represented all numerical values by the combination\n    (additive when the second letter is of equal or less value) of six\n    letters of their alphabet: i (= 1), v (= 5), x (= 10), c (for\n    \u201ccentum\u201d = 100), d (= 500), and m (= 1000): thus 20 = xx, 15 = xv,\n    and 9 = ix. These are called the Roman numerals, and are adopted\n    by all European nations when using the Roman alphabet. The Arabs\n    at first followed their neighbours, the Jews, in their method of\n    computation, so much so that they called it Abjad from the first\n    four Hebrew letters\u2014\u201calif,\u201d \u201cbeth,\u201d \u201cgimel\u201d\u2014or rather \u201cjimel,\u201d\n    that is, \u201cjim\u201d (Arabic being wanting in \u201cg\u201d), and \u201cdaleth,\u201d\n    representing the first four units. But when in the early part of\n    the Christian era they came to India as traders, they found the\n    country already using for computation the decimal scale of\n    notation, which they forthwith borrowed literally; _viz._, without\n    altering its method of writing from left to right, at variance\n    with their own mode of writing, which is from right to left. They\n    introduced this system into Europe through Spain and other\n    European countries lying along the coast of the Mediterranean and\n    under their sway, during the dark ages of European history. It has\n    thus become evident that the \u00c2ryas knew well mathematics or the\n    science of computation at a time when all other nations knew but\n    little, if anything, of it. It has also been admitted that the\n    knowledge of arithmetic and algebra was first introduced from the\n    Hindus by the Arabs, and then taught by them to the Western\n    nations. This fact convincingly proves that the \u00c2ryan civilisation\n    is older than that of any other nation in the world; and as the\n    _Vedas_ are avowedly proved the oldest work of that civilisation,\n    a presumption is raised in favour of their great antiquity.(642)\n\n\nBut while the Jewish nation, for instance\u2014regarded so long as the first\nand oldest in the order of creation\u2014knew nothing of arithmetic and\nremained utterly ignorant of the decimal scale of notation\u2014the latter\nexisted for ages in India before the actual era.\n\nTo become certain of the immense antiquity of the \u00c2ryan Asiatic nations\nand of their astronomical records one has to study more than the _Vedas_.\nThe secret meaning of the latter will never be understood by the present\ngeneration of Orientalists; and the astronomical works which give openly\nthe real dates and prove the antiquity of both the nation and its science,\nelude the grasp of the collectors of ollas and old manuscripts in India,\nthe reason being too obvious to need explanation. Yet there are\nAstronomers and Mathematicians to this day in India, humble Sh\u00e2stris and\nPandits, unknown and lost in the midst of that population of phenomenal\nmemories and metaphysical brains, who have undertaken the task and have\nproved to the satisfaction of many that the _Vedas_ are the oldest works\nin the world. One of such is the Sh\u00e2stri just quoted, who published in\n_The Theosophist_(643) an able treatise proving astronomically and\nmathematically that:\n\n\n    If the Post\u2010Vaidika works alone, the Upanishads, the Br\u00e2hmanas,\n    etc., down to the Pur\u00e2nas, when examined critically carry us back\n    to 20,000 B.C., then the time of the composition of the _Vedas_\n    themselves cannot be less than 30,000 B.C., in round numbers, a\n    date which we may take at present as the age of that Book of\n    books.(644)\n\n\nAnd what are his proofs?\n\nCycles and the evidence yielded by the asterisms. Here are a few extracts\nfrom his rather lengthy treatise, selected to give an idea of his\ndemonstrations and bearing directly on the quinquennial cycle spoken of\njust now. Those who feel interested in the demonstrations and are advanced\nmathematicians can turn to the article itself, \u201cThe Antiquity of the\n_Vedas_,\u201d(645) and judge for themselves.\n\n\n    10. Som\u00e2kara in his commentary on the _Shesha Jyotisha_ quotes a\n    passage from the _Satapatha Br\u00e2hmana_, which contains an\n    observation on the change of the tropics, and which is also found\n    in the _S\u00e2kh\u00e2yana Br\u00e2hmana_, as has been noticed by Prof. Max\n    M\u00fcller in his preface to _Rigveda Samhit\u00e2_ (p. xx. foot\u2010note, vol.\n    iv.). The passage is this: ... \u201cThe full\u2010moon night in Ph\u00e2lguna is\n    the first night of Samvatsara, the first year of the quinquennial\n    age.\u201d This passage clearly shows that the quinquennial age which,\n    according to the sixth verse of the _Jyotisha_, begins on the 1st\n    of M\u00e2gha (January\u2010February), once began on the 15th of Ph\u00e2lguna\n    (February\u2010March). Now when the 15th of Ph\u00e2lguna of the first year\n    called Samvatsara of the quinquennial age begins, the moon,\n    according to the _Jyotisha_, is in 3/4th of the Uttar Ph\u00e2lgun\u00ee,\n    and the sun in 1/4th of P\u00fbrva Bh\u00e2drapad\u00e2. Hence the position of\n    the four principal points on the ecliptic was then as follows:\n\n    The winter solstice in 3\u00b029\u2019 of Purva Bh\u00e2drapad\u00e2.\n\n    The vernal equinox in the beginning of Mrigash\u00eersha.\n\n    The summer solstice in 10 of Purva Ph\u00e2lgun\u00ee.\n\n    The autumnal equinox in the middle of Jyeshtha.\n\n    The vernal equinoctial point, we have seen, coincided with the\n    beginning of Krittik\u00e2 in 1421 B.C.; and from the beginning of\n    Krittik\u00e2 to that of Mrigash\u00eersha, was, in consequence, 1421 +\n    26\u20102/3 x 72 = 1421 + 1920 = 3341 B.C., supposing the rate of\n    _precession_ to be 50\u00b0 a year. When we take the rate to be 3\u00b020\"\n    in 247 years, the time comes up to 1516 + 1960\u00b77 = 3476\u00b77 B.C.\n\n    When the winter solstice by its retrograde motion coincided after\n    that with the beginning of P\u00fbrva Bh\u00e2drapad\u00e2, then the commencement\n    of the quinquennial age was changed from the 15th to the 1st of\n    Ph\u00e2lguna (February\u2010March). This change took place 240 years after\n    the date of the above observation, that is, in 3101 B.C. This date\n    is most important, as from it an era was reckoned in after times.\n    The commencement of the Kali or Kali Yuga (derived from \u201ckal,\u201d \u201cto\n    reckon\u201d), though said by European scholars to be an imaginary\n    date, becomes thus an astronomical fact.\n\n    INTERCHANGE OF KRITTIK\u00c2 AND ASHVIN\u00ce.(646)\n\n    We thus see that the asterisms, twenty\u2010seven in number, were\n    counted from the Mrigash\u00eersha when the vernal equinox was in its\n    beginning, and that the practice of thus counting was adhered to\n    till the vernal equinox retrograded to the beginning of Krittik\u00e2,\n    when it became the first of the asterisms. For then the winter\n    solstice had changed, receding from Ph\u00e2lguna (February\u2010March) to\n    M\u00e2gha (January\u2010February), one complete lunar month. And, in like\n    manner, the place of Krittik\u00e2 was occupied by Ashvin\u00ee, that is,\n    the latter became the first of the asterisms, heading all others,\n    when its beginning coincided with the vernal equinoctial point,\n    or, in other words, when the winter solstice was in Pansha\n    (December\u2010February). Now from the beginning of Krittik\u00e2 to that of\n    Ashvin\u00ee there are two asterisms, or 26\u20102/3\u00b0, and the time the\n    equinox takes to retrograde this distance at the rate of 1 in 72\n    years is 1920 years; and hence the date at which the vernal\n    equinox coincided with the commencement of Ashvin\u00ee or with the end\n    of Revat\u00ee is 1920 \u2010 1421 = 499 A.D.\n\n    BENTLEY\u2019S OPINION.\n\n    12. The next and equally\u2010important observation we have to record\n    here is one discussed by Mr. Bentley in his researches into the\n    Indian antiquities. \u201cThe first lunar asterism,\u201d he says, \u201cin the\n    division of twenty\u2010eight was called M\u00fbla, that is to say, the root\n    or origin. In the division of twenty\u2010seven the first lunar\n    asterism was called Jyeshtha, that is to say, the eldest or first,\n    and consequently of the same import as the former\u201d (_vide_ his\n    _Historical View of the Hindu Astronomy_, p. 4). From this it\n    becomes manifest that the vernal equinox was once in the beginning\n    of M\u00fbla, and M\u00fbla was reckoned the first of the asterisms when\n    they were twenty\u2010eight in number, including Adhijit. Now there are\n    fourteen asterisms, or 180\u00b0, from the beginning of Mrigash\u00eersha to\n    that of M\u00fbla, and hence the date at which the vernal equinox\n    coincided with the beginning of M\u00fbla was at least 3341 + 180 \u00d7 72\n    = 16,301 B.C. The position of the four principal points on the\n    ecliptic was then as given below:\n\n    The winter solstice in the beginning of Uttara Ph\u00e2lgun\u00ee in the\n    month of Shr\u00e2vana.\n\n    The vernal equinox in the beginning of M\u00fbla in K\u00e2rttika.\n\n    The summer solstice in the beginning of P\u00fbrva Bh\u00e2drapad\u00e2 in M\u00e2gha.\n\n    The autumnal equinox in the beginning of Mrigash\u00eersha in\n    Vaish\u00e2kha.\n\n    A PROOF FROM THE BHAGAVAD G\u00ceT\u00c2.\n\n    13. The _Bhagavad G\u00eet\u00e2_, as well as the _Bh\u00e2gavata_, makes mention\n    of an observation which points to a still more remote antiquity\n    than the one discovered by Mr. Bentley. The passages are given in\n    order below:\n\n    \u201cI am the M\u00e2rgash\u00eersha [_viz._ the first among the months] and the\n    spring [_viz._ the first among the seasons].\u201d\n\n    This shows that at one time the first month of spring was\n    M\u00e2rgash\u00eersha. A season includes two months, and the mention of a\n    month suggests the season.\n\n    \u201cI am the Samvatsara among the years [which are five in number]\n    and the spring among the seasons, and the M\u00e2rgash\u00eersha among the\n    months and the Abhijit among the asterisms [which are twenty\u2010eight\n    in number].\u201d\n\n    This clearly points out that at one time in the first year called\n    Samvatsara, of the quinquennial age, the Madhu, that is, the first\n    month of spring, was M\u00e2rgash\u00eersha, and Abhijit was the first of\n    the asterisms. It then coincided with the vernal equinoctial\n    point, and thence from it the asterisms were counted. To find the\n    date of this observation: There are three asterisms from the\n    beginning of M\u00fbla to the beginning of Abhijit, and hence the date\n    in question is at least 16,301 + 3/7 \u00d7 90 \u00d7 72 = 19,078 or about\n    20,000 B.C. The Samvatsara at this time began in Bh\u00e2drapad\u00e2, the\n    winter solstitial month.\n\n\nSo far then 20,000 years are mathematically proven for the antiquity of\nthe _Vedas_. And this is simply exoteric. Any mathematician, provided he\nbe not blinded by preconception and prejudice, can see this, and an\nunknown but very clever amateur Astronomer, S. A. Mackey, has proved it\nsome sixty years back.\n\nHis theory about the Hindu Yugas and their length is curious\u2014as being so\nvery near the correct doctrine.\n\n\n    It is said in volume ii. p. 131, of _Asiatic Researches_ that:\n    \u201cThe great ancestor of Yudhister reigned 27,000 years ... at the\n    end of the brazen age.\u201d In volume ix. p. 364, we read:\n\n    \u201cIn the _beginning of the Cali Yuga_, in the reign of Yudhister.\n    And Yudhister ... began his reign immediately after the flood\n    called Pralaya.\u201d\n\n    Here we find three different statements concerning Yudhister ...\n    to explain these seeming differences we must have recourse to\n    their books of science, where we find the heavens and the earth\n    divided into _five parts_ of unequal dimensions, by circles\n    parallel to the equator. Attention to these divisions will be\n    found to be of the utmost importance ... as it will be found that\n    from them arose the division of their Maha\u2010Yuga into its four\n    component parts. Every astronomer knows that there is a point in\n    the heavens called the pole, round which the whole seems to turn\n    in twenty\u2010four hours; and that at ninety degrees from it they\n    imagine a _circle_ called the _equator_, which divides the heavens\n    and the earth into two equal parts, the north and the south.\n    Between this circle and the pole there is another imaginary circle\n    called the circle of _perpetual apparition_: between which and the\n    equator there is a point in the heavens called the zenith, through\n    which let another imaginary circle pass, parallel to the other\n    two; and then there wants but the circle of perpetual occultation\n    to complete the round.... No astronomer of Europe besides myself\n    has ever applied them to the development of the Hindu mysterious\n    numbers. We are told in the _Asiatic Researches_ that Yudhister\n    brought Vicram\u00e2ditya to reign in Cassimer, which is in the\n    latitude of 36 degrees. And in that latitude the circle of\n    perpetual apparition would extend up to 72 degrees altitude, and\n    from that to the zenith there are but 18 degrees, but from the\n    zenith to the equator in that latitude there are 36 degrees, and\n    from the equator to the circle of perpetual occultation there are\n    54 degrees. Here we find the semi\u2010circle of 180 degrees divided\n    into four parts, in the proportion of 1, 2, 3, 4, _i.e._, 18, 36,\n    54, 72. Whether the Hindu astronomers were acquainted with the\n    motion of the earth or not is of no consequence, since the\n    appearances are the same; and if it will give those gentlemen of\n    _tender consciences_ any pleasure I am willing to admit that they\n    imagined the heavens rolled round the earth, but they had observed\n    the stars in the path of the sun to move _forward_ through the\n    equinoctial points, at the rate of fifty\u2010four seconds of a degree\n    in a year, which carried the whole zodiac round in 24,000 years;\n    in which time they also observed that the angle of obliquity\n    varied, so as to _extend_ or _contract_ the width of the tropics 4\n    degrees on each side, which rate of motion would carry the tropics\n    from the equator to the poles in 540,000 years: in which time the\n    Zodiac would have made twenty\u2010two and a half revolutions, which\n    are expressed by the parallel circles from the equator to the\n    poles ... or what amounts to the same thing, the north pole of the\n    ecliptic would have moved from the north pole of the earth to the\n    equator.... Thus the poles become inverted in 1,080,000 years,\n    which is their Maha Yuga, and which they had divided into four\n    unequal parts, in the proportions of 1, 2, 3, 4, for the reasons\n    mentioned above; which are 108,000, 216,000, 324,000, and 432,000.\n    Here we have the most positive proofs that the above numbers\n    originated in _ancient astronomical observations_, and\n    consequently are not deserving of those epithets which have been\n    bestowed upon them by the Essayist, echoing the voice of Bentley,\n    Wilford, Dupuis, etc.\n\n    I have now to show that the reign of Yudhister for 27,000 years is\n    neither _absurd nor disgusting_, but perhaps the Essayist is not\n    aware that there were several Yudhisters or Judhisters. In volume\n    ii. p. 131, _Asiatic Researches_: \u201cThe great ancestor of Yudhister\n    reigned 27,000 years at the end of the brazen or third age.\u201d Here\n    I must again beg your attention to this projection. This is a\n    plane of that machine which the second gentleman thought so very\n    clumsy; it is that of a _prolong spheroid_, called by the ancients\n    an atroscope. Let the longest axis represent the poles of the\n    earth, making an angle of 28 degrees with the horizon; then will\n    the seven divisions above the horizon to the North Pole, the\n    temple of Buddha, and the seven from the North Pole to the circle\n    of perpetual apparition represent the fourteen Manvantaras, or\n    very long periods of time, each of which, according to the third\n    volume of _Asiatic Researches_, p. 258 or 259, was the reign of a\n    Menu. But Capt. Wilford, in volume v. p. 243, gives us the\n    following information: \u201cThe Egyptians had fourteen dynasties, and\n    the Hindus had fourteen dynasties, the _rulers_ of which are\n    called Menus.\u201d ...\n\n    Who can here mistake the fourteen very long periods of time for\n    those which constituted the Cali Yuga of Delhi, or any other place\n    in the latitude of 28 degrees, where the blank space from the foot\n    of Meru to the seventh circle from the equator, constitutes the\n    part passed over by the tropic in the next age; which proportions\n    differ considerably from those in the latitude of 36; and because\n    the numbers in the Hindu books differ, Mr. Bentley asserts that:\n    \u201cThis shows what little dependence is to be put in them.\u201d But, on\n    the contrary, it shows with what accuracy the Hindus had\n    _observed_ the motions of the heavens in different latitudes.\n\n    Some of the Hindus inform us that \u201cthe earth has _two spindles_\n    which are surrounded by _seven tiers of heavens and hells_ at the\n    distance of _one Raju_ each.\u201d This needs but little explanation\n    when it is understood that the seven divisions from the equator to\n    their zenith are called _Rishis_ or _Rashas_. But what is most to\n    our present purpose to know is that they had given names to each\n    of those divisions which the tropics passed over during each\n    revolution of the Zodiac. In the latitude of 36 degrees where the\n    Pole or Meru was nine steps high at Cassimere, they were called\n    _Shastras_; in latitude 28 degrees at Delhi, where the Pole or\n    Meru was seven steps high, they were called Menus; but in 24\n    degrees, at Cacha, where the Pole or Meru was but six steps high,\n    they were called Sacas. But in the ninth volume (_Asiatic\n    Researches_) Yudhister, the son of Dherma, or _Justice_, was the\n    first of the six Sacas; the name implies the _end_, and as\n    everything has two ends, Yudhister is as applicable to the first\n    as to the last. And as the division on the north of the circle of\n    perpetual apparition is the first of the Cali Yuga, supposing the\n    tropics to be ascending, it was called the division or reign of\n    Yudhister. But the division which immediately precedes the circle\n    of perpetual apparition is the last of the third or _brazen age_,\n    and was therefore called Yudhister, and as his reign preceded the\n    reign of the other, as the tropic ascended to the Pole or Meru, he\n    was called _the father_ of the other\u2014\u201cthe great ancestor of\n    Yudhister, who reigned _twenty\u2010seven thousand years, at the end_\n    of the brazen age.\u201d (Vol. ii. _Asiatic Researches_.)\n\n    The ancient Hindus observed that the Zodiac went forward at about\n    the rate of fifty\u2010four seconds a year, and to avoid greater\n    fractions, stated it at that, which would make a complete round in\n    24,000 years; and observing the angle of the poles to vary nearly\n    4 degrees each round, stated the three numbers as such, which\n    would have given _forty\u2010five rounds of the Zodiac_ to half a\n    revolution of the poles; but finding that forty\u2010five rounds would\n    not bring the northern tropic to coincide with the circle of\n    perpetual apparition by thirty minutes of a degree, which required\n    the Zodiac to move one sign and a half more, which we all know it\n    could not do in less than 3,000 years, they were, in the case\n    before us, added to the end of the _brazen age_; which lengthen\n    the reign of _that_ Yudhister to 27,000 years instead of 24,000,\n    but, at another time they did not alter the regular order of\n    24,000 years to the reign of each of these long\u2010winded monarchs,\n    but rounded up the time by allowing a _regency_ to continue three\n    or four thousand years. In volume ii. p. 134, _Asiatic\n    Researches_, we are told that: \u201cParicshit, the great nephew and\n    successor of Yudhister, is allowed without controversy to have\n    reigned in the interval between the _brazen and earthen_, or Cali\n    Ages, and to have died at the setting\u2010in of the Cali Yug.\u201d Here we\n    find an _interregnum_ at the _end_ of the _brazen_ age, and\n    _before_ the setting\u2010in of the Cali Yug: and as there can be but\n    one brazen or Treta Yug, _i.e._, the third age, in a Maha Yuga of\n    1,080,000 years: the reign of this Paricshit must have been in the\n    second Maha Yuga, when the pole had returned to its original\n    position, which must have taken 2,160,000 years: and this is what\n    the Hindus call the Prajanatha Yuga. Analogous to this custom is\n    that of some nations more modern, who, fond of even numbers, have\n    made the common year to consist of twelve months of thirty days\n    each, and the five days and odd measure have been represented as\n    the reign of a little serpent biting his tail, and divided into\n    five parts, etc.\n\n    But \u201cYudhister began his reign immediately _after the flood called\n    Pralaya_,\u201d _i.e._, at the end of the Cali Yug (or age of heat),\n    when the tropic had passed from the pole to the other side of the\n    circle of perpetual apparition, which coincides with the northern\n    horizon; here the tropics or summer solstice would be again in the\n    same parallel of north declination, at the _commencement_ of their\n    first age, as he was at the _end_ of their _third age_, or Treta\n    Yug, called the brazen age....\n\n    Enough has been said to prove that the Hindu books of science are\n    not disgusting absurdities, originated in ignorance, vanity, and\n    credulity; but books containing the most profound knowledge of\n    astronomy and geography.\n\n    What, therefore, can induce those gentlemen of tender consciences\n    to insist that Yudhister was a real mortal man I have no guess;\n    unless it be that they fear for the fate of Jared and his\n    grandfather, Methuselah?\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XLI. THE DOCTRINE OF AVATARAS.\n\n\nA strange story\u2014a legend rather\u2014is persistently current among the\ndisciples of some great Him\u00e2layan Gurus, and even among laymen, to the\neffect that Gautama, the Prince of Kapilavastu, has never left the\nterrestrial regions, though his body died and was burnt, and its relics\nare preserved to this day. There is an oral tradition among the Chinese\nBuddhists, and a written statement among the secret books of the Lamaists\nof Tibet, as well as a tradition among the \u00c2ryans, that Gautama BUDDHA had\ntwo doctrines: one for the masses and His lay disciples, the other for His\n\u201celect,\u201d the Arhats. His policy and after Him that of His Arhats was, it\nappears, to refuse no one admission into the ranks of candidates for\nArhatship, but never to divulge the final mysteries except to those who\nhad proved themselves, during long years of probation, to be worthy of\nInitiation. These once accepted were consecrated and initiated without\ndistinction of race, caste or wealth, as in the case of His western\nsuccessor. It is the Arhats who have set forth and allowed this tradition\nto take root in the people\u2019s mind, and it is the basis, also, of the later\ndogma of Lamaic reincarnation or the succession of human Buddhas.\n\nThe little that can be said here upon the subject may or may not help to\nguide the psychic student in the right direction. It being left to the\noption and responsibility of the writer to tell the facts as she\n_personally_ understood them, the blame for possible misconceptions\ncreated must fall only upon her. She has been taught the doctrine, but it\nwas left to her sole intuition\u2014as it is now left to the sagacity of the\nreader\u2014to group the mysterious and perplexing facts together. The\nincomplete statements herein given are fragments of what is contained in\ncertain secret volumes, but it is not lawful to divulge the details.\n\nThe esoteric version of the mystery given in the secret volumes may be\ntold very briefly. The Buddhists have always stoutly denied that their\nBuddha was, as alleged by the Br\u00e2hmans, an Avat\u00e2ra of Vishnu in the same\nsense as a man is an incarnation of his Karmic ancestor. They deny it\npartly, perhaps, because the esoteric meaning of the term \u201cMah\u00e2 Vishnu\u201d is\nnot known to them in its full, impersonal, and general meaning. There is a\nmysterious Principle in Nature called \u201cMah\u00e2 Vishnu,\u201d which is not the God\nof that name, but a principle which contains B\u00eeja, the seed of Avat\u00e2rism\nor, in other words, is the potency and cause of such divine incarnations.\nAll the World\u2010Saviours, the Bodhisattvas and the Avat\u00e2ras, are the trees\nof salvation grown out from the one seed, the B\u00eeja or \u201cMah\u00e2 Vishnu.\u201d\nWhether it be called \u00c2di\u2010Buddha (Primeval Wisdom) or Mah\u00e2 Vishnu, it is\nall the same. Understood esoterically, Vishnu is both Saguna and Nirguna\n(with and without attributes). In the first aspect, Vishnu is the object\nof exoteric worship and devotion; in the second, as Nirguna, he is the\nculmination of the totality of spiritual wisdom in the\nUniverse\u2014Nirv\u00e2na,(647) in short\u2014and has as worshippers all philosophical\nminds. In this esoteric sense the Lord BUDDHA _was_ an incarnation of Mah\u00e2\nVishnu.\n\nThis is from the philosophical and purely spiritual standpoint. From the\nplane of illusion, however, as one would say, or from the terrestrial\nstandpoint, those initiated _know_ that He was a direct incarnation of one\nof the primeval \u201cSeven Sons of Light\u201d who are to be found in every\nTheogony\u2014the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans whose mission it is, from one eternity (\u00e6on) to\nthe other, to watch over the spiritual welfare of the regions under their\ncare. This has been already enunciated in _Esoteric Buddhism_.\n\nOne of the greatest mysteries of speculative and philosophical\nMysticism\u2014and it is one of the mysteries now to be disclosed\u2014is the _modus\noperandi_ in the degrees of such hypostatic transferences. As a matter of\ncourse, divine as well as human incarnations must remain a closed book to\nthe theologian as much as to the physiologist, unless the esoteric\nteachings be accepted and become the religion of the world. This teaching\nmay never be fully explained to an unprepared public; but one thing is\ncertain and may be said now: that between the dogma of a newly\u2010created\nsoul for each new birth, and the physiological assumption of a temporary\nanimal soul, there lies the vast region of Occult teaching(648) with its\nlogical and reasonable demonstrations, the links of which may all be\ntraced in logical and philosophical sequence in nature.\n\nThis \u201cMystery\u201d is found, for him who understands its right meaning, in the\ndialogue between Krishna and Arjuna, in the _Bhagavad Gita_, chapter iv.\nSays the Avat\u00e2ra:\n\n\n    Many births of mine have passed, as also of yours, O Arjuna! All\n    those I know, but you do not know yours, O harasser of your\n    enemies.\n\n    Although I am unborn, with exhaustless \u00c2tm\u00e2, and am the Lord of\n    all that is; yet, taking up the domination of my nature I am born\n    by the power of illusion.(649)\n\n    Whenever, O son of Bh\u00e2rata, there is decline of Dharma [the right\n    law] and the rise of Adharma [the opposite of Dharma] there I\n    manifest myself.\n\n    For the salvation of the good and the destruction of wickedness,\n    for the establishment of the law, _I am born_ in every yuga.\n\n    Whoever comprehends truly my divine birth and action, he, O\n    Arjuna, having abandoned the body does not receive re\u2010birth; he\n    comes to me.\n\n\nThus, all the Avat\u00e2ras are one and the same: the Sons of their \u201cFather,\u201d\nin a direct descent and line, the \u201cFather,\u201d or one of the seven Flames\nbecoming, for the time being, the Son, and these two being one\u2014in\nEternity. What is the Father? Is it the absolute Cause of all?\u2014the\nfathomless Eternal? No; most decidedly. It is K\u00e2ran\u00e2tm\u00e2, the \u201cCausal Soul\u201d\nwhich, in its general sense, is called by the Hindus \u00ceshvara, the Lord,\nand by Christians, \u201cGod,\u201d the One and Only. From the standpoint of unity\nit is so; but then the lowest of the Elementals could equally be viewed in\nsuch case as the \u201cOne and Only.\u201d Each human being has, moreover, his own\ndivine Spirit or personal God. That divine Entity or Flame from which\nBuddhi emanates stands in the same relation to man, though on a lower\nplane, as the Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddha to his human Buddha. Hence monotheism and\npolytheism are not irreconcilable; they exist in Nature.\n\nTruly, \u201cfor the salvation of the good and the destruction of wickedness,\u201d\nthe personalities known as Gautama, Shankara, Jesus and a few others were\nborn each in his age, as declared\u2014\u201cI am born in every Yuga\u201d\u2014and they were\nall born through the same Power.\n\nThere is a great mystery in such incarnations and they are outside and\nbeyond the cycle of general re\u2010births. Rebirths may be divided into three\nclasses: the divine incarnations called Avat\u00e2ras; those of Adepts who give\nup Nirv\u00e2na for the sake of helping on humanity\u2014the Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2yas; and the\nnatural succession of rebirths for all\u2014the common law. The Avat\u00e2ra is an\nappearance, one which may be termed a special illusion within the natural\nillusion that reigns on the planes under the sway of that power, M\u00e2y\u00e2; the\nAdept is re\u2010born consciously, at his will and pleasure;(650) the units of\nthe common herd unconsciously follow the great law of dual evolution.\n\nWhat _is_ an Avat\u00e2ra? for the term before being used ought to be well\nunderstood. It is a descent of the manifested Deity\u2014whether under the\nspecific name of Shiva, Vishnu, or \u00c2di\u2010Buddha\u2014into an illusive form of\nindividuality, an appearance which to men on this illusive plane is\nobjective, but is not so in sober fact. That illusive form, having neither\npast nor future, because it had neither previous incarnation nor will have\nsubsequent rebirths, has naught to do with Karma, which has therefore no\nhold on it.\n\nGautama BUDDHA was born an Avat\u00e2ra in one sense. But this, in view of\nunavoidable objections on dogmatic grounds, necessitates explanation.\nThere is a great difference between an Avat\u00e2ra and a J\u00eevanmukta: one, as\nalready stated, is an illusive appearance, Karma\u2010less, and having never\nbefore incarnated; and the other, the J\u00eevanmukta, is one who obtains\nNirv\u00e2na by his individual merits. To this expression again an\nuncompromising, philosophical Ved\u00e2ntin would object. He might say that as\nthe condition of the Avat\u00e2ra and the J\u00eevanmukta are one and the same\nstate, no amount of personal merit, in howsoever many incarnations, can\nlead its possessor to Nirv\u00e2na. Nirv\u00e2na, he would say, is actionless; how\ncan, then, any action lead to it? It is neither a result nor a cause, but\nan ever\u2010present, eternal _Is_, as N\u00e2gasena defined it. Hence it can have\nno relation to, or concern with, action, merit, or demerit, since these\nare subject to Karma. All this is very true, but still to our mind there\nis an important difference between the two. An Avat\u00e2ra _is_; a J\u00eevanmukta\n_becomes_ one. If the state of the two is identical, not so are the causes\nwhich lead to it. An Avat\u00e2ra is a descent of a God into an illusive form;\na J\u00eevanmukta, who may have passed through numberless incarnations and may\nhave accumulated merit in them, certainly does not become a Nirv\u00e2n\u00ee\nbecause of that merit, but only because of the Karma generated by it,\nwhich leads and guides him in the direction of the Guru who will initiate\nhim into the mystery of Nirv\u00e2na and who alone can help him to reach this\nabode.\n\nThe Sh\u00e2stras say that from our works alone we obtain Moksha, and if we\ntake no pains there will be no gain and we shall be neither assisted nor\nbenefited by Deity [the Mah\u00e2\u2010Guru]. Therefore it is maintained that\nGautama, though an Avat\u00e2ra in one sense, is a true human J\u00eevanmukta, owing\nhis position to his personal merit, and thus more than an Avat\u00e2ra. It was\nhis personal merit that enabled him to achieve Nirv\u00e2na.\n\nOf the voluntary and conscious incarnations of Adepts there are two\ntypes\u2014those of Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2yas, and those undertaken by the probationary\nchel\u00e2s who are on their trial.\n\nThe greatest, as the most puzzling mystery of the first type lies in the\nfact, that such re\u2010birth in a human body of the personal Ego of some\nparticular Adept\u2014when it has been dwelling in the M\u00e2y\u00e2vi or the K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa,\nand remaining in the K\u00e2ma Loka\u2014may happen even when his \u201cHigher\nPrinciples\u201d are in the state of Nirv\u00e2na.(651) Let it be understood that\nthe above expressions are used for popular purposes, and therefore that\nwhat is written does not deal with this deep and mysterious question from\nthe _highest_ plane, that of absolute spirituality, nor again from the\nhighest philosophical point of view, comprehensible but to the very few.\nIt must not be supposed that anything can go into Nirv\u00e2na which is not\neternally there; but human intellect in conceiving the Absolute must put\nIt as the highest term in an indefinite series. If this be borne in mind a\ngreat deal of misconception will be avoided. The content of this spiritual\nevolution is the material on various planes with which the Nirv\u00e2n\u00ee was in\ncontact prior to his attainment of Nirv\u00e2na. The plane on which this is\ntrue, being in the series of illusive planes, is undoubtedly not the\nhighest. Those who search for that must go to the right source of study,\nthe teachings of the _Upanishads_, and must go in the right spirit. Here\nwe attempt only to indicate the direction in which the search is to be\nmade, and in showing a few of the mysterious Occult possibilities we do\nnot bring our readers actually to the goal. The ultimate truth can be\ncommunicated only from Guru to initiated pupil.\n\nHaving said so much, the statement still will and must appear\nincomprehensible, if not absurd, to many. Firstly, to all those who are\nunfamiliar with the doctrine of the manifold nature and various aspects of\nthe human Monad; and secondly to those who view the septenary division of\nthe human entity from a too materialistic standpoint. Yet the intuitional\nOccultist, who has studied thoroughly the mysteries of Nirv\u00e2na\u2014who knows\nit to be identical with Parabrahman, and hence unchangeable, eternal and\nno Thing but the Absolute All\u2014will seize the possibility of the fact. They\nknow that while a Dharmak\u00e2ya\u2014a Nirv\u00e2n\u00ee \u201cwithout remains,\u201d as our\nOrientalists have translated it, being absorbed into that Nothingness,\nwhich is the one real, because Absolute, Consciousness\u2014cannot be said to\nreturn to incarnation on Earth, the Nirv\u00e2n\u00ee being no longer a he, a she,\nor even an it, the Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2ya\u2014or he who has obtained Nirv\u00e2na \u201cwith\nremains,\u201d _i.e._, who is clothed in a subtle body, which makes him\nimpervious to all outward impressions and to every mental feeling, and in\nwhom the notion of his Ego has not entirely ceased\u2014can do so. Again, every\nEastern Occultist is aware of the fact that there are two kinds of\nNirm\u00e2nak\u00e2yas\u2014the natural, and the assumed; that the former is the name or\nepithet given to the condition of a high ascetic, or Initiate, who has\nreached a stage of bliss second only to Nirv\u00e2na; while the latter means\nthe self\u2010sacrifice of one who voluntarily gives up the absolute Nirv\u00e2na,\nin order to help humanity and be still doing it good, or, in other words,\nto save his fellow\u2010creatures by guiding them. It may be objected that the\nDharmak\u00e2ya, being a Nirv\u00e2n\u00ee or J\u00eevanmukta, can have no \u201cremains\u201d left\nbehind him after death, for having attained that state from which no\nfurther incarnations are possible, there is no need for him of a subtle\nbody, or of the individual Ego that reincarnates from one birth to\nanother, and that therefore the latter disappears of logical necessity; to\nthis it is answered: it is so for all exoteric purposes and as a general\nlaw. But the case with which we are dealing is an exceptional one, and its\nrealization lies within the Occult powers of the high Initiate, who,\nbefore entering into the state of Nirv\u00e2na, can cause his \u201cremains\u201d\n(sometimes, though not very well, called his M\u00e2y\u00e2vi R\u00fbpa), to remain\nbehind,(652) whether he is to become a Nirv\u00e2n\u00ee, or to find himself in a\nlower state of bliss.\n\nNext, there are cases\u2014rare, yet more frequent than one would be disposed\nto expect\u2014which are the voluntary and conscious reincarnations of\nAdepts(653) on their trial. Every man has an Inner, a \u201cHigher Self,\u201d and\nalso an Astral Body. But few are those who, outside the higher degrees of\nAdeptship, can guide the latter, or any of the principles that animate it,\nwhen once death has closed their short terrestrial life. Yet such\nguidance, or their transference from the dead to a living body, is not\nonly possible, but is of frequent occurrence, according to Occult and\nKabalistic teachings. The degrees of such power of course vary greatly. To\nmention but three: the lowest of these degrees would allow an Adept, who\nhas been greatly trammelled during life in his study and in the use of his\npowers, to choose after death another body in which he could go on with\nhis interrupted studies, though ordinarily he would lose in it every\nremembrance of his previous incarnation. The next degree permits him, in\naddition to this, to transfer the memory of his past life to his new body;\nwhile the highest has hardly any limits in the exercise of that wonderful\nfaculty.\n\nAs an instance of an Adept who enjoyed the first mentioned power some\nmedi\u00e6val Kabalists cite a well\u2010known personage of the fifteenth\ncentury\u2014Cardinal de Cusa; Karma, due to his wonderful devotion to Esoteric\nstudy and the _Kabalah_, led the suffering Adept to seek intellectual\nrecuperation and rest from ecclesiastical tyranny in the body of\nCopernicus. _Se non e vero e ben trovato_; and the perusal of the lives of\nthe two men might easily lead a believer in such powers to a ready\nacceptance of the alleged fact. The reader having at his command the means\nto do so is asked to turn to the formidable folio in Latin of the\nfifteenth century, called _De Docta Ignorantia_, written by the Cardinal\nde Cusa, in which all the theories and hypotheses\u2014all the ideas\u2014of\nCopernicus are found as the key\u2010notes to the discoveries of the great\nastronomer.(654) Who was this extraordinarily learned Cardinal? The son of\na poor boatman, owing all his career, his Cardinal\u2019s hat, and the\nreverential awe rather than friendship of the Popes Eugenius IV., Nicholas\nV., and Pius II., to the extraordinary learning which seemed innate in\nhim, since he had studied nowhere till comparatively late in life. De Cusa\ndied in 1473; moreover, his best works were written before he was forced\nto enter orders\u2014to escape persecution. Nor did the Adept escape it.\n\nIn the voluminous work of the Cardinal above\u2010quoted is found a very\nsuggestive sentence, the authorship of which has been variously attributed\nto Pascal, to Cusa himself, and to the _Zohar_, and which belongs by right\nto the Books of Hermes:\n\n\n    The world is an infinite sphere, whose centre is everywhere and\n    whose circumference is nowhere.\n\n\nThis is changed by some into: \u201cThe centre being nowhere, and the\ncircumference everywhere,\u201d a rather heretical idea for a Cardinal, though\nperfectly orthodox from a Kabalistic standpoint.\n\nThe theory of rebirth must be set forth by Occultists, and then applied to\nspecial cases. The right comprehension of this psychic fact is based upon\na correct view of that group of celestial Beings who are universally\ncalled the seven Primeval Gods or Angels\u2014our Dhy\u00e2n Chohans\u2014the \u201cSeven\nPrimeval Rays\u201d or Powers, adopted later on by the Christian Religion as\nthe \u201cSeven Angels of the Presence.\u201d Ar\u00fbpa, formless, at the upper rung of\nthe ladder of Being, materializing more and more as they descend in the\nscale of objectivity and form, ending in the grossest and most imperfect\nof the Hierarchy, man\u2014it is the former purely spiritual group that is\npointed out to us, in our Occult teaching, as the nursery and fountain\u2010\nhead of human beings. Therein germinates that consciousness which is the\nearliest manifestation from causal Consciousness\u2014the Alpha and the Omega\nof divine being and life for ever. And as it proceeds downward through\nevery phase of existence descending through man, through animal and plant,\nit ends its descent only in the mineral. It is represented by the double\ntriangle\u2014the most mysterious and the most suggestive of all mystic signs,\nfor it is a double glyph, embracing spiritual and physical consciousness\nand life, the former triangle running upwards, and the lower downwards,\nboth interlaced, and showing the various planes of the twice\u2010seven modes\nof consciousness, the fourteen spheres of existence, the Lokas of the\nBr\u00e2hmans.\n\nThe reader may now be able to obtain a clearer comprehension of the whole\nthing. He will also see what is meant by the \u201cWatchers,\u201d there being one\nplaced as the Guardian or Regent over each of the seven divisions or\nregions of the earth, according to old traditions, as there is one to\nwatch over and guide every one of the fourteen worlds or Lokas.(655) But\nit is not with any of these that we are at present concerned, but with the\n\u201cSeven Breaths,\u201d so\u2010called, that furnish man with his immortal Monad in\nhis cyclic pilgrimage.\n\nThe Commentary on the _Book of Dzyan_ says:\n\n_Descending on his region first as Lord of Glory, the Flame (or Breath),\nhaving called into conscious being the highest of the Emanations of that\nspecial region, ascends from it again to Its primeval seat, whence It\nwatches __ over and guides Its countless Beams (Monads). It chooses as Its\nAvat\u00e2ras only those who had the Seven Virtues in them_(_656_)_ in their\nprevious incarnation. As for the rest, It overshadows each with one of Its\ncountless beams.... Yet even the __\u201c__beam__\u201d__ is a part of the Lord of\nLords._(657)\n\nThe septenary principle in man\u2014who can be regarded as dual only as\nconcerns psychic manifestation on this gross earthly plane\u2014was known to\nall antiquity, and may be found in every ancient Scripture. The Egyptians\nknew and taught it, and their division of principles is in every point a\ncounterpart of the \u00c2ryan Secret Teaching. It is thus given in _Isis\nUnveiled_:\n\n\n    In the Egyptian notions, as in those of all other faiths founded\n    on philosophy, man was not merely ... a union of soul and body: he\n    was a trinity when Spirit was added to it. Besides, that doctrine\n    made him consist of Kha (body), Khaba (astral form or shadow), Ka\n    (animal soul or life\u2010principle), Ba (the higher soul), and Akh\n    (terrestrial intelligence). They had also a sixth principle, named\n    Sah (or mummy), but the functions of this one commenced after the\n    death of the body.(658)\n\n\nThe seventh principle being of course the highest, uncreated Spirit was\ngenerically called Osiris, therefore every deceased person became\nOsirified\u2014or an Osiris\u2014after death.\n\nBut in addition to reiterating the old ever\u2010present fact of reincarnation\nand Karma\u2014not as taught by the Spiritists, but as by the most Ancient\nScience in the world\u2014Occultists must teach cyclic and evolutionary\nreincarnation: that kind of re\u2010birth, mysterious and still\nincomprehensible to many who are ignorant of the world\u2019s history, which\nwas cautiously mentioned in _Isis Unveiled_. A general re\u2010birth for every\nindividual with interlude of K\u00e2ma Loka and Devachan, and a cyclic\nconscious reincarnation with a grand and divine object for the few. Those\ngreat characters who tower like giants in the history of mankind like\nSidd\u00e2rtha BUDDHA and Jesus in the realm of the spiritual, and Alexander\nthe Macedonian and Napoleon the Great in the realm of physical conquests\nare but the reflected images of human types which had existed\u2014not ten\nthousand years before, as cautiously put forward in _Isis Unveiled_, but\nfor millions of consecutive years from the beginning of the Manvantara.\nFor\u2014with the exception of real Avat\u00e2ras, as above explained\u2014they are the\nsame unbroken Rays (Monads), each respectively of its own special Parent\u2010\nFlame\u2014called Devas, Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, or Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas, or again, Planetary\nAngels, etc.\u2014shining in \u00e6onic eternity as their prototypes. It is in their\nimage that some men are born, and when some specific humanitarian object\nis in view, the latter are hypostatically animated by their divine\nprototypes reproduced again and again by the mysterious Powers that\ncontrol and guide the destinies of our world.\n\nNo more could be said at the time when _Isis Unveiled_ was written; hence\nthe statement was limited to the single remark that\n\n\n    There is no prominent character in all the annals of sacred or\n    profane history whose prototype we cannot find in the half\n    fictitious and half real traditions of bygone religions and\n    mythologies. As the star, glimmering at an immeasurable distance\n    above our heads, in the boundless immensity of the sky, reflects\n    itself in the smooth waters of a lake, so does the imagery of men\n    of the antediluvian ages reflect itself in the periods we can\n    embrace in a historical retrospect.\n\n\nBut now that so many publications have been brought out, stating much of\nthe doctrine, and several of them giving many an erroneous view, this\nvague allusion may be amplified and explained. Not only does this\nstatement apply to prominent characters in history in general, but also to\nmen of genius, to every remarkable man of the age, who soars beyond the\ncommon herd with some abnormally developed special capacity in him,\nleading to the progress and good of mankind. Each is a reincarnation of an\nindividuality that has gone before him with capacities in the same line,\nbringing thus as a dowry to his new form that strong and easily re\u2010\nawakened capacity or quality which had been fully developed in him in his\npreceding birth. Very often they are ordinary mortals, the Egos of natural\nmen in the course of their cyclic development.\n\nBut it is with \u201cspecial cases\u201d that we are now concerned. Let us suppose\nthat a person during his cycle of incarnations is thus selected for\nspecial purposes\u2014the vessel being sufficiently clean\u2014by his personal God,\nthe Fountain\u2010head (on the plane of the manifested) of his Monad, who thus\nbecomes his in\u2010dweller. That God, his own prototype or \u201cFather in Heaven,\u201d\nis, in one sense, not only the image in which he, the spiritual man, is\nmade, but in the case we are considering, it is that spiritual, individual\nEgo himself. This is a case of permanent, life\u2010long Theophania. Let us\nbear in mind that this is neither Avat\u00e2rism, as it is understood in\nBr\u00e2hmanical Philosophy, nor is the man thus selected a J\u00eevanmukta or\nNirv\u00e2n\u00ee, but that it is a wholly exceptional case in the realm of\nMysticism. The man may or may not have been an Adept in his previous\nlives; he is so far, and simply, an extremely pure and spiritual\nindividual\u2014or one who was all that in his preceding birth, if the vessel\nthus selected is that of a newly\u2010born infant. In this case, after the\nphysical translation of such a saint or Bodhisattva, his astral principles\ncannot be subjected to a natural dissolution like those of any common\nmortal. They remain in our sphere and within human attraction and reach;\nand thus it is that not only a Buddha, a Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya, or a Jesus can be\nsaid to animate several persons at one and the same time, but even the\nprinciples of a high Adept may be animating the outward tabernacles of\ncommon mortals.\n\nA certain Ray (principle) from Sanat Kum\u00e2ra spiritualized (animated)\nPradyumna, the son of Krishna during the great Mah\u00e2bh\u00e2rata period, while\nat the same time, he, Sanat Kum\u00e2ra, gave spiritual instruction to King\nDhritar\u00e2shtra. Moreover, it is to be remembered that Sanat\u2010Kum\u00e2ra is \u201can\neternal youth of sixteen,\u201d dwelling in Jana Loka, his own sphere or\nspiritual state.\n\nEven in ordinary _mediumistic_ life, so\u2010called, it is pretty well\nascertained that while the body is acting\u2014even though only mechanically\u2014or\nresting in one place, its astral double may be appearing and acting\nindependently in another, and very often distant place. This is quite a\ncommon occurrence in mystic life and history, and if this be so with\necstatics, Seers and Mystics of every description, why cannot the same\nthing happen on a higher and more spiritually developed plane of\nexistence? Admit the possibility on the lower psychic plane, then why not\non a higher plane? In the cases of higher Adeptship, when the body is\nentirely at the command of the Inner Man, when the Spiritual Ego is\ncompletely re\u00fcnited with its seventh principle even during the life\u2010time\nof the personality, and the Astral Man or personal Ego has become so\npurified that he has gradually assimilated all the qualities and\nattributes of the middle nature (Buddhi and Manas in their terrestrial\naspect) that personal Ego substitutes itself, so to say, for the spiritual\nHigher Self, and is thenceforth capable of living an independent life on\nearth; when corporeal death takes place the following mysterious event\noften happens. As a Dharmak\u00e2ya, a Nirv\u00e2n\u00ee \u201cwithout remains\u201d entirely free\nfrom terrestrial admixture, the Spiritual Ego cannot return to reincarnate\non earth. But in such cases, it is affirmed, the personal Ego of even a\nDharmak\u00e2ya can remain in our sphere as a whole, and return to incarnation\non earth if need be. For now it can no longer be subject, like the astral\nremains of any ordinary man, to gradual dissolution in the K\u00e2ma Loka (the\n_limbus_ or purgatory of the Roman Catholic, and the \u201cSummer\u2010land\u201d of the\nSpiritualist); it cannot die a second death, as such disintegration is\ncalled by Proclus.(659) It has become too holy and pure, no longer by\nreflected but its own natural light and spirituality, either to sleep in\nthe unconscious slumber of a lower Nirv\u00e2nic state, or to be dissolved like\nany ordinary astral shell and disappear in its entirety.\n\nBut in that condition known as the Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2ya [the Nirv\u00e2n\u00ee \u201cwith\nremains,\u201d] he can still help humanity.\n\n\u201cLet me suffer and bear the sins of all [be reincarnated unto new misery]\nbut let the world be saved!\u201d was said by Gautama BUDDHA: an exclamation\nthe real meaning of which is little understood now by his followers. \u201cIf I\nwill that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?\u201d(660) asks the\nastral Jesus of Peter. \u201cTill I come\u201d means \u201ctill I am reincarnated again\u201d\nin a physical body. Yet the Christ of the old crucified body could truly\nsay: \u201cI am with my Father and one with Him,\u201d which did not prevent the\nastral from taking a form again nor John from tarrying indeed till his\nMaster had come; nor hinder John from failing to recognize him when he did\ncome, or from then opposing him. But in the Church that remark generated\nthe absurd idea of the millennium or chiliasm, in its physical sense.\n\nSince then the \u201cMan of Sorrows\u201d has returned perchance, more than once,\nunknown to, and undiscovered by, his blind followers. Since then also,\nthis grand \u201cSon of God\u201d has been incessantly and most cruelly crucified\ndaily and hourly by the Churches founded in his name. But the Apostles,\nonly half\u2010initiated, failed to tarry for their Master, and not recognizing\nhim, spurned him every time he returned.(661)\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XLII. THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES.\n\n\nThe \u201cMystery of Buddha\u201d is that of several other Adepts\u2014perhaps of many.\nThe whole trouble is to understand correctly that other mystery: that of\nthe real fact, so abstruse and transcendental at first sight, about the\n\u201cSeven Principles\u201d in man, the reflections in man of the seven powers in\nNature, physically, and of the seven Hierarchies of Being, intellectually\nand spiritually. Whether a man\u2014material, ethereal, and spiritual\u2014is for\nthe clearer comprehension of his (broadly\u2010speaking) triple nature, divided\ninto groups according to one or another system, the foundation and the\napex of that division will be always the same. There being only three\nUp\u00e2dhis (bases) in man, any number of Koshas (sheaths) and their aspects\nmay be built on these without destroying the harmony of the whole. Thus,\nwhile the Esoteric System accepts the septenary division, the Ved\u00e2ntic\nclassification gives five Koshas, and the T\u00e2raka R\u00e2ja Yoga simplifies them\ninto four\u2014the three Up\u00e2dhis synthesized by the highest principle, \u00c2tm\u00e2.\n\nThat which has just been stated will, of course, suggest the question:\n\u201cHow can a spiritual (or semi\u2010spiritual) personality lead a triple or even\na dual life, shifting respective \u2018Higher Selves\u2019 _ad libitum_, and be\nstill the one eternal Monad in the infinity of a Manvantara?\u201d The answer\nto this is easy for the true Occultist, while for the uninitiated profane\nit must appear absurd. The \u201cSeven Principles\u201d are, of course, the\nmanifestation of one indivisible Spirit, but only at the end of the\nManvantara, and when they come to be re\u2010united on the plane of the One\nReality does the unity appear; during the \u201cPilgrim\u2019s\u201d journey the\nreflections of that indivisible One Flame, the aspects of the one eternal\nSpirit, have each the power of action on one of the manifested planes of\nexistence\u2014the gradual differentiations from the one unmanifested plane\u2014on\nthat plane namely to which it properly belongs. Our earth affording every\nM\u00e2y\u00e2vic condition, it follows that the purified Egotistical Principle, the\nastral and personal Self of an Adept, though forming in reality one\nintegral whole with its Highest Self (\u00c2tm\u00e2 and Buddhi) may, nevertheless,\nfor purposes of universal mercy and benevolence, so separate itself from\nits divine Monad as to lead on this plane of illusion and temporary being\na distinct independent conscious life of its own under a borrowed illusive\nshape, thus serving at one and the same time a double purpose: the\nexhaustion of its own individual Karma, and the saving of millions of\nhuman beings less favoured than itself from the effects of mental\nblindness. If asked: \u201cWhen the change described as the passage of a Buddha\nor a J\u00eevanmukta into Nirv\u00e2na takes place, where does the original\nconsciousness which animated the body continue to reside\u2014in the Nirv\u00e2n\u00ee or\nin the subsequent reincarnations of the latter\u2019s \u2018remains\u2019 (the\nNirm\u00e2nak\u00e2ya)?\u201d the answer is that _imprisoned_ consciousness may be a\n\u201ccertain knowledge from observation and experience,\u201d as Gibbon puts it,\nbut _disembodied_ consciousness is not an effect, but a cause. It is a\npart of the whole, or rather a Ray on the graduated scale of its\nmanifested activity, of the one all\u2010pervading, limitless Flame, the\nreflections of which alone can differentiate; and, as such, consciousness\nis ubiquitous, and can be neither localized nor centred on or in any\nparticular subject, nor can it be limited. Its effects alone pertain to\nthe region of matter, for thought is an energy that affects matter in\nvarious ways, but consciousness _per se_, as understood and explained by\nOccult philosophy, is the highest quality of the sentient spiritual\nprinciple in us, the Divine Soul (or Buddhi) and our Higher Ego, and does\nnot belong to the plane of materiality. After the death of the physical\nman, if he be an Initiate, it becomes transformed from a human quality\ninto the independent principle itself; the conscious Ego becoming\nConsciousness _per se_ without any Ego, in the sense that the latter can\nno longer be limited or conditioned by the senses, or even by space or\ntime. Therefore it is capable, without separating itself from or\nabandoning its possessor, Buddhi, of reflecting itself at the same time in\nits astral man that was, without being under any necessity for localizing\nitself. This is shown at a far lower stage in our dreams. For if\nconsciousness can display activity during our visions, and while the body\nand its material brain are fast asleep\u2014and if even during those visions it\nis all but ubiquitous\u2014how much greater must be its power when entirely\nfree from, and having no more connection with, our physical brain.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XLIII. THE MYSTERY OF BUDDHA.\n\n\nNow the mystery of Buddha lies in this: Gautama, an incarnation of pure\nWisdom, had yet to learn in His human body and to be initiated into the\nworld\u2019s secrets like any other mortal, until the day when He emerged from\nHis secret recess in the Him\u00e2layas and preached for the first time in the\ngrove of Benares. The same with Jesus: from the age of twelve to thirty\nyears, when He is found preaching the Sermon on the Mount, nothing is\npositively said or known of Him. Gautama had sworn inviolable secrecy as\nto the Esoteric Doctrines imparted to Him. In His immense pity for the\nignorance\u2014and as its consequence the sufferings\u2014of mankind, desirous\nthough He was to keep inviolate His sacred vows, He failed to keep within\nthe prescribed limits. While constructing His Esoteric Philosophy (the\n\u201cEye\u2010Doctrine\u201d) on the foundations of eternal Truth, He failed to conceal\ncertain dogmas, and trespassing beyond the lawful lines, caused those\ndogmas to be misunderstood. In His anxiety to make away with the false\nGods, He revealed in the \u201cSeven Paths to Nirv\u00e2na\u201d some of the mysteries of\nthe Seven Lights of the Ar\u00fbpa (formless) World. A little of the truth is\noften worse than no truth at all.\n\n\n    Truth and fiction are like oil and water: they will never mix.\n\n\nHis new doctrine, which represented the outward dead body of the Esoteric\nTeaching without its vivifying Soul, had disastrous effects: it was never\ncorrectly understood, and the doctrine itself was rejected by the Southern\nBuddhists. Immense philanthropy, a boundless love and charity for all\ncreatures, were at the bottom of His unintentional mistake; but Karma\nlittle heeds intentions, whether good or bad, if they remain fruitless. If\nthe \u201cGood Law\u201d as preached resulted in the most sublime code of ethics and\nthe unparalleled philosophy of things external in the visible Kosmos, it\nbiassed and misguided immature minds into believing there was nothing more\nunder the outward mantle of the system, and its dead\u2010letter only was\naccepted. Moreover, the new teaching unsettled many great minds which had\npreviously followed the orthodox Br\u00e2hmanical lead.\n\nThus, fifty odd years after his death \u201cthe great Teacher\u201d(662) having\nrefused full Dharmak\u00e2ya and Nirv\u00e2na, was pleased, for purposes of Karma\nand philanthropy, to be reborn. For Him death had been no death, but as\nexpressed in the \u201cElixir of Life,\u201d(663) He changed\n\n\n    A sudden plunge into darkness to a transition into a brighter\n    light.\n\n\nThe shock of death was broken, and like many other Adepts, He threw off\nthe mortal coil and left it to be burnt, and its ashes to serve as relics,\nand began interplanetary life, clothed in His subtle body. He was reborn\nas Shankara, the greatest Ved\u00e2ntic teacher of India, whose\nphilosophy\u2014based as it is entirely on the fundamental axioms of the\neternal Revelation, the Shruti, or the primitive Wisdom\u2010Religion, as\nBuddha from a different point of view had before based His\u2014finds itself in\nthe middle\u2010ground between the too exuberantly veiled metaphysics of the\northodox Br\u00e2hmans and those of Gautama, which, stripped in their exoteric\ngarb of every soul\u2010vivifying hope, transcendental aspiration and symbol,\nappear in their cold wisdom like crystalline icicles, the skeletons of the\nprimeval truths of Esoteric Philosophy.\n\nWas Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya Gautama the Buddha, then, under a new personal form? It\nmay perhaps only puzzle the reader the more if he be told that there was\nthe \u201castral\u201d Gautama inside the outward Shankara, whose higher principle,\nor \u00c2tman, was, nevertheless, his own divine prototype\u2014the \u201cSon of Light,\u201d\nindeed\u2014the heavenly, mind\u2010born son of Aditi.\n\nThis fact is again based on that mysterious transference of the divine ex\u2010\npersonality merged in the impersonal Individuality\u2014now in its full\ntrinitarian form of the Monad as \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi\u2010Manas\u2014to a new body, whether\nvisible or subjective. In the first case it is a Manushya\u2010Buddha; in the\nsecond it is a Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2ya. The Buddha is in Nirv\u00e2na, it is said, though\nthis once mortal vehicle\u2014the subtle body\u2014of Gautama is still present among\nthe Initiates; nor will it leave the realm of conscious Being so long as\nsuffering mankind needs its divine help\u2014not to the end of this Root Race,\nat any rate. From time to time He, the \u201castral\u201d Gautama, associates\nHimself, in some most mysterious\u2014to us quite incomprehensible\u2014manner, with\nAvat\u00e2ras and great saints, and works through them. And several such are\nnamed.\n\nThus it is averred that Gautama Buddha was reincarnated in\nShankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya\u2014that, as is said in _Esoteric Buddhism_:\n\n\n    Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya simply _was_ Buddha in all respects in a new\n    body.(664)\n\n\nWhile the expression in its mystic sense is true, the way of putting it\nmay be misleading until explained. Shankara was a Buddha, most assuredly,\nbut he never was a reincarnation of the Buddha, though Gautama\u2019s \u201cAstral\u201d\nEgo\u2014or rather his Bodhisattva\u2014may have been associated in some mysterious\nway with Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya. Yes, it was perhaps the Ego, Gautama, under a new\nand better adapted casket\u2014that of a Br\u00e2hman of Southern India. But the\n\u00c2tman, the Higher Self that overshadowed both, was distinct from the\nHigher Self of the translated Buddha, which was now in Its own sphere in\nKosmos.\n\nShankara was an Avat\u00e2ra in the full sense of the term. According to\nSayan\u00e2ch\u00e2rya, the great commentator on the _Vedas_, he is to be held as an\nAvat\u00e2ra, or direct incarnation of Shiva\u2014the Logos, the Seventh Principle\nin Nature\u2014Himself. In the Secret Doctrine Shri Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya is regarded\nas the abode\u2014for the thirty\u2010two years of his mortal life\u2014of a Flame, the\nhighest of the manifested Spiritual Beings, one of the Primordial Seven\nRays.\n\nAnd now what is meant by a \u201cBodhisattva\u201d? Buddhists of the Mah\u00e2y\u00e2na mystic\nsystem teach that each BUDDHA manifests Himself (hypostatically or\notherwise) simultaneously in three worlds of Being, namely, in the world\nof K\u00e2ma (concupiscence or desire\u2014the sensuous universe or our earth) in\nthe shape of a man; in the world of R\u00fbpa (form, yet supersensuous) as a\nBodhisattva; and in the highest Spiritual World (that of purely\nincorporeal existences) as a Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddha. The latter prevails eternally\nin space and time, _i.e._, from one Mah\u00e2\u2010Kalpa to the other\u2014the synthetic\nculmination of the three being \u00c2di\u2010Buddha,(665) the Wisdom\u2010Principle,\nwhich is Absolute, and therefore out of space and time. Their inter\u2010\nrelation is the following: The Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddha, when the world needs a human\nBuddha, \u201ccreates\u201d through the power of Dhy\u00e2na (meditation, omnipotent\ndevotion), a mind\u2010born son\u2014a Bodhisattva\u2014whose mission it is after the\nphysical death of his human, or Manushya\u2010Buddha, to continue his work on\nearth till the appearance of the subsequent Buddha. The Esoteric meaning\nof this teaching is clear. In the case of a simple mortal, the principles\nin him are only the more or less bright reflections of the seven cosmic,\nand the seven celestial Principles, the Hierarchy of supersensual Beings.\nIn the case of a Buddha, they are almost the principles _in esse_\nthemselves. The Bodhisattva replaces in him the K\u00e2rana Sharira, the Ego\nprinciple, and the rest correspondingly; and it is in this way that\nEsoteric Philosophy explains the meaning of the sentence that \u201cby virtue\nof Dhy\u00e2na [or abstract meditation] the Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddha [the Buddha\u2019s Spirit\nor Monad] creates a Bodhisattva,\u201d or the astrally clothed Ego within the\nManushya\u2010Buddha. Thus, while the Buddha merges back into Nirv\u00e2na whence it\nproceeded, the Bodhisattva remains behind to continue the Buddha\u2019s work\nupon earth. It is then this Bodhisattva that may have afforded the lower\nprinciples in the apparitional body of Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya, the Avat\u00e2ra.\n\nNow to say that Buddha, after having reached Nirv\u00e2na, returned thence to\nre\u00efncarnate in a new body, would be uttering a heresy from the\nBr\u00e2hmanical, as well as from the Buddhistic standpoint. Even in the\nMah\u00e2y\u00e2na exoteric School in the teaching as to the three \u201cBuddhic\u201d\nbodies,(666) it is said of the Dharmak\u00e2ya\u2014the ideal formless Being\u2014that\nonce it is taken, the Buddha in it abandons the world of sensuous\nperceptions for ever, and has not, nor can he have, any more connection\nwith it. To say, as the Esoteric or Mystic School teaches, that though\nBuddha is in Nirv\u00e2na he has left behind him the Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2ya (the\nBodhisattva) to work after him, is quite orthodox and in accordance with\nboth the Esoteric Mah\u00e2y\u00e2na and the Prasanga M\u00e2dhy\u00e2mika Schools, the latter\nan anti\u2010esoteric and most rationalistic system. For in the _K\u00e2la Chakra_\nCommentary it is shown that there is: (1) \u00c2di\u2010Buddha, eternal and\nconditionless; then (2) come Sambhogak\u00e2ya\u2010Buddhas, or Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas,\nexisting from (\u00e6onic) eternity and never disappearing\u2014the _Causal_ Buddhas\nso to say; and (3) the Manushya\u2010Bodhisattvas. The relation between them is\ndetermined by the definition given. \u00c2di\u2010Buddha is Vajradhara, and the\nDhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddhas are Vajrasattva; yet though these two are different Beings\non their respective planes, They are identical in fact, one acting through\nthe other, as a Dhy\u00e2ni through a human Buddha. One is \u201cEndless\nIntelligence;\u201d the other only \u201cSupreme Intelligence.\u201d It is said of Phra\nBodhisattva\u2014who was subsequently on earth Buddha Gautama:\n\n\n    Having fulfilled all the conditions for the immediate attainment\n    of perfect Buddhaship, the Holy One preferred, from unlimited\n    charity towards living beings, _once more_ to reincarnate for the\n    benefit of man.\n\n\nThe Nirv\u00e2na of the Buddhists is only the threshold of Paranirv\u00e2na,\naccording to the Esoteric Teaching: while with the Br\u00e2hmans, it is the\n_summum bonum_, that final state from which there is no more return\u2014not\ntill the next Mah\u00e2\u2010Kalpa, at all events. And even this last view will be\nopposed by some too orthodox and dogmatic Philosophers who will not accept\nthe Esoteric Doctrine. With them Nirv\u00e2na is absolute nothingness, in which\nthere is nothing and no one: only an unconditioned All. To understand the\nfull characteristics of that Abstract Principle one must sense it\nintuitionally and comprehend fully the \u201cone permanent condition in the\nUniverse,\u201d which the Hind\u00fbs define so truly as\n\n\n    The state of perfect unconsciousness\u2014bare Chid\u00e2k\u00e2sham (field of\n    consciousness) in fact,\n\n\nhowever paradoxical it may seem to the profane reader.(667)\n\nShankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya was reputed to be an Avat\u00e2ra, an assertion the writer\nimplicitly believes in, but which other people are, of course, at liberty\nto reject. And as such he took the body of a southern Indian, newly\u2010born\nBr\u00e2hman baby; that body, for reasons as important as they are mysterious\nto us, is said to have been animated by Gautama\u2019s astral personal remains.\nThis divine Non\u2010Ego chose as its own Up\u00e2dhi (physical basis), the\nethereal, human Ego of a great Sage in this world of forms, as the fittest\nvehicle for Spirit to descend into.\n\nSaid Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya:\n\n\n    Parabrahman is Kart\u00e2 [Purusha], as there is no other\n    Adhisht\u00e2th\u00e2,(668) and Parabrahman is Prakriti, there being no\n    other substance.(669)\n\n\nNow what is true of the Macrocosmical is also true of the Microcosmical\nplane. It is therefore nearer the truth to say\u2014when once we accept such a\npossibility\u2014that the \u201castral\u201d Gautama, or the Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2ya, was the Up\u00e2dhi\nof Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya\u2019s spirit, rather than that the latter was a\nreincarnation of the former.\n\nWhen a Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya has to be born, naturally every one of the\nprinciples in the manifested mortal man must be the purest and finest that\nexist on earth. Consequently those principles that were once attached to\nGautama, who was the direct great predecessor of Shankara, were naturally\nattracted to him, the economy of Nature forbidding the re\u2010evolution of\nsimilar principles from the crude state. But it must be remembered that\nthe higher ethereal principles are not, like the lower more material ones,\nvisible sometimes to man (as astral bodies), and they have to be regarded\nin the light of separate or independent Powers or Gods, rather than as\nmaterial objects. Hence the right way of representing the truth would be\nto say that the various principles, the Bodhisattva, of Gautama Buddha,\nwhich did not go to Nirv\u00e2na, re\u2010united to form the middle principles of\nShankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya, the earthly Entity.(670)\n\nIt is absolutely necessary to study the doctrine of the Buddhas\nesoterically and understand the subtle differences between the various\nplanes of existence to be able to comprehend correctly the above. Put more\nclearly, Gautama, the human Buddha, who had, exoterically, Amit\u00e2bha for\nhis Bodhisattva and Avalokiteshvara for his Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddha\u2014the triad\nemanating directly from \u00c2di\u2010Buddha\u2014assimilated these by his \u201cDhy\u00e2na\u201d\n(meditation) and thus become a Buddha (\u201cenlightened\u201d). In another manner\nthis is the case with all men; everyone of us has his Bodhisattva\u2014the\nmiddle principle, if we hold for a moment to the trinitarian division of\nthe septenary group\u2014and his Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddha, or Chohan, the \u201cFather of the\nSon.\u201d Our connecting link with the higher Hierarchy of Celestial Beings\nlies here in a nutshell, only we are too sinful to assimilate them.\n\nSix centuries after the translation of the human Buddha (Gautama) another\nReformer, as noble and as loving, though less favoured by opportunity,\narose in another part of the world, among another and a less spiritual\nrace. There is a great similarity between the subsequent opinions of the\nworld about the two Saviours, the Eastern and the Western. While millions\nbecame converted to the doctrines of the two Masters, the enemies of\nboth\u2014sectarian opponents, the most dangerous of all\u2014tore both to shreds by\ninsinuating maliciously\u2010distorted statements based on Occult truths, and\ntherefore doubly dangerous. While of Buddha it is said by the Br\u00e2hmans\nthat He was truly an Avat\u00e2ra of Vishnu, but that He had come to tempt the\nBr\u00e2hmans from their faith, and was therefore the evil aspect of the God;\nof Jesus the Bardesanian Gnostics and others asserted that He was Nebu,\nthe false Messiah, the destroyer of the old orthodox religion. \u201cHe is the\nfounder of a new sect of Nazars,\u201d said other sectarians. In Hebrew the\nword \u201cNaba\u201d means \u201cto speak by inspiration,\u201d (\u05e0\u05d1\u05d0, and \u05e0\u05d1\u05d5 is Nebo, the\nGod of wisdom). But Nebo is also Mercury, who is Buddha in the Hindu\nmonogram of planets. And this is shown by the fact that the Talmudists\nhold that Jesus was inspired by the Genius (or Regent) of Mercury\nconfounded by Sir William Jones with Gautama Buddha. There are many other\nstrange points of similarity between Gautama and Jesus, which cannot be\nnoticed here.(671)\n\nIf both the Initiates, aware of the danger of furnishing the uncultured\nmasses with the powers acquired by ultimate knowledge, left the innermost\ncorner of the sanctuary in profound darkness, who, acquainted with human\nnature, can blame either of them for this? Yet although Gautama, actuated\nby prudence, left the Esoteric and most dangerous portions of the Secret\nKnowledge untold, and lived to the ripe old age of eighty\u2014the Esoteric\nDoctrine says one hundred\u2014years, dying with the certainty of having taught\nits essential truths, and of having sown the seeds for the conversion of\none\u2010third of the world, He yet perhaps revealed more than was strictly\ngood for posterity. But Jesus, who had promised His disciples the\nknowledge which confers upon man the power of producing \u201cmiracles\u201d far\ngreater than He had ever produced Himself, died, leaving but a few\nfaithful disciples\u2014men only half\u2010way to knowledge. They had therefore to\nstruggle with a world to which they could impart only what they but half\u2010\nknew themselves, and\u2014no more. In later ages the exoteric followers of both\nmangled the truths given out, often out of recognition. With regard to the\nadherents of the Western Master, the proof of this lies in the very fact\nthat none of them can now produce the promised \u201cmiracles.\u201d They have to\nchoose: either it is they who have blundered, or it is their Master who\nmust stand arraigned for an empty promise, an uncalled\u2010for boast.(672) Why\nsuch a difference in the destiny of the two? For the Occultist this enigma\nof the unequal favour of Karma or Providence is unriddled by the Secret\nDoctrine.\n\nIt is \u201cnot lawful\u201d to speak of such things publicly, as St. Paul tells us.\nOne more explanation only may be given in reference to this subject. It\nwas said a few pages back that an Adept who thus sacrifices himself to\nlive, giving up full Nirv\u00e2na, though he can never lose the knowledge\nacquired by him in previous existences, yet can never rise higher in such\nborrowed bodies. Why? Because he becomes simply the vehicle of a \u201cSon of\nLight\u201d from a still higher sphere, Who being Ar\u00fbpa, has no personal astral\nbody of His own fit for this world. Such \u201cSons of Light,\u201d or Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010\nBuddhas, are the Dharmak\u00e2yas of preceding Manvantaras, who have closed\ntheir cycles of incarnations in the ordinary sense and who, being thus\nKarmaless, have long ago dropped their individual R\u00fbpas, and have become\nidentified with the first Principle. Hence the necessity of a sacrificial\nNirm\u00e2nak\u00e2ya, ready to suffer for the misdeeds or mistakes of the new body\nin its earth\u2010pilgrimage, without any future reward on the plane of\nprogression and rebirth, since there are no rebirths for him in the\nordinary sense. The Higher Self, or Divine Monad, is not in such a case\nattached to the lower Ego; its connection is only temporary, and in most\ncases it acts through decrees of Karma. This is a real, genuine sacrifice,\nthe explanation of which pertains to the highest Initiation of G\u00f1\u00e2na\n(Occult Knowledge). It is closely linked, by a direct evolution of Spirit\nand involution of Matter, with the primeval and great Sacrifice at the\nfoundation of the manifested Worlds, the gradual smothering and death of\nthe spiritual in the material. The seed \u201cis not quickened except it\ndie.\u201d(673) Hence in the Purusha S\u00fbkta of the _Rig Veda_,(674) the mother\u2010\nfount and source of all subsequent religions, it is stated allegorically\nthat \u201cthe thousand\u2010headed Purusha\u201d was slaughtered at the foundation of\nthe World, that from his remains the Universe might arise. This is nothing\nmore nor less than the foundation\u2014the seed, truly\u2014of the later many\u2010formed\nsymbol in various religions, including Christianity, of the sacrificial\nlamb. For it is a play upon the words. \u201cAja\u201d (Purusha), \u201cthe unborn,\u201d or\neternal Spirit, means also \u201clamb,\u201d in Sanskrit. Spirit disappears\u2014dies,\nmetaphorically\u2014the more it gets involved in matter, and hence the\nsacrifice of the \u201cunborn,\u201d or the \u201clamb.\u201d\n\nWhy the BUDDHA chose to make this sacrifice will be plain only to those\nwho, to the minute knowledge of His earthly life, add that of a thorough\ncomprehension of the laws of Karma. Such occurrences, however, belong to\nthe most exceptional cases.\n\nAs tradition goes, the Br\u00e2hmans had committed a heavy sin by persecuting\nGautama BUDDHA and His teachings instead of blending and reconciling them\nwith the tenets of pure Vaidic Br\u00e2hmanism, as was done later by\nShankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya. Gautama had never gone against the _Vedas_, only against\nthe exoteric growth of preconceived interpretations. The Shruti\u2014divine\noral revelation, the outcome of which was the _Veda_\u2014is eternal. It\nreached the ear of Gautama Siddartha as it had those of the Rishis who had\nwritten it down. He accepted the revelation, while rejecting the later\novergrowth of Br\u00e2hmanical thought and fancy, and built His doctrines on\none and the same basis of imperishable truth. As in the case of His\nWestern successor, Gautama, the \u201cMerciful,\u201d the \u201cPure,\u201d and the \u201cJust,\u201d\nwas the first found in the Eastern Hierarchy of historical Adepts, if not\nin the world\u2010annals of divine mortals, who was moved by that generous\nfeeling which locks the whole of mankind within one embrace, with no petty\ndifferences of race, birth, or caste. It was He who first enunciated that\ngrand and noble principle, and He again who first put it into practice.\nFor the sake of the poor and the reviled, the outcast and the hapless,\ninvited by Him to the king\u2019s festival table, He had excluded those who had\nhitherto sat alone in haughty seclusion and selfishness, believing that\nthey would be defiled by the very shadow of the disinherited ones of the\nland\u2014and these non\u2010spiritual Br\u00e2hmans turned against Him for that\npreference. Since then such as these have never forgiven the prince\u2010\nbeggar, the son of a king, who, forgetting His rank and station, had flung\nwidely open the doors of the forbidden sanctuary to the pariah and the man\nof low estate, thus giving precedence to personal merit over hereditary\nrank or fortune. The sin was theirs\u2014the cause nevertheless Himself: hence\nthe \u201cMerciful and the Blessed One\u201d could not go out entirely from this\nworld of illusion and created causes without atoning for the sin of\nall\u2014therefore of these Br\u00e2hmans also. If \u201cman afflicted by man\u201d found safe\nrefuge with the Tath\u00e2gata, \u201cman afflicting man\u201d had also his share in His\nself\u2010sacrificing, all\u2010embracing and forgiving love. It is stated that He\ndesired to atone for the sin of His enemies. Then only was He willing to\nbecome a full Dharmak\u00e2ya, a Jivanmukta \u201cwithout remains.\u201d\n\nThe close of Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya\u2019s life brings us face to face with a fresh\nmystery. Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya retires to a cave in the Him\u00e2layas, permitting\nnone of his disciples to follow him, and disappears therein for ever from\nthe sight of the profane. Is he dead? Tradition and popular belief answer\nin the negative, and some of the local Gurus, if they do not emphatically\ncorroborate, do not deny the rumour. The truth with its mysterious details\nas given in the Secret Doctrine is known but to them; it can be given out\nfully only to the direct followers of the great Dravidian Guru, and it is\nfor them alone to reveal of it as much as they think fit. Still it is\nmaintained that this Adept of Adepts lives to this day in his spiritual\nentity as a mysterious, unseen, yet overpowering presence among the\nBrotherhood of Shamballa, beyond, far beyond, the snowy\u2010capped Him\u00e2layas.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XLIV. \u201cREINCARNATIONS\u201d OF BUDDHA.\n\n\nEvery section in the chapter on \u201cDezhin Shegpa\u201d(675) (Tath\u00e2gata) in the\nCommentaries represents one year of that great Philosopher\u2019s life, in its\ndual aspect of public and private teacher, the two being contrasted and\ncommented upon. It shows the Sage reaching Buddha\u2010hood through a long\ncourse of study, meditation, and Initiations, as any other Adept would\nhave to do, not one rung of the ladder up to the arduous \u201cPath of\nPerfection\u201d being missed. The Bodhisattva became a Buddha and a Nirv\u00e2n\u00ee\nthrough personal effort and merit, after having had to undergo all the\nhardships of every other neophyte\u2014not by virtue of a divine birth, as\nthought by some. It was only the reaching of Nirv\u00e2na while still living in\nthe body and on this earth that was due to His having been in previous\nbirths high on the \u201cPath of Dzyan\u201d (knowledge, wisdom). Mental or\nintellectual gifts and abstract knowledge follow an Initiate in his new\nbirth, but he has to acquire phenomenal powers anew, passing through all\nthe successive stages. He has to acquire Rinchen\u2010na\u2010dun (\u201cthe seven\nprecious gifts\u201d)(676) one after the other. During the period of meditation\nno worldly phenomena on the physical plane must be allowed to enter into\nhis mind or cross his thoughts. Zhine\u2010Ihagthong (Sanskrit: Vipashya,\nreligious abstract meditation) will develop in him most wonderful\nfaculties independently of himself. The four degrees of contemplation, or\nSam\u2010tan (Sanskrit: Dhy\u00e2na), once acquired, everything becomes easy. For,\nonce that man has entirely got rid of the idea of individuality, merging\nhis Self in the Universal Self, becoming, so to say, the bar of steel to\nwhich the properties inherent in the loadstone (\u00c2di Buddha, or Anima\nMundi) are imparted, powers hitherto dormant in him are awakened,\nmysteries in invisible Nature are unveiled, and becoming a Thonglam\u2010pa (a\nSeer) he becomes a Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddha. Every Zung (Dh\u00e2ran\u00ee, a mystic word or\nmantra) of the Lokottaradharma (the highest world of causes) will be known\nto him.\n\nThus, after His outward death, twenty years later, Tath\u00e2gata in His\nimmense love and \u201cpitiful mercy\u201d for erring and ignorant humanity, refused\nParanirv\u00e2na(677) in order that He might continue to help men.\n\nSays a Commentary:\n\n_Having reached the Path of Deliverance [Thar\u2010lam] from transmigration,\none cannot perform Tulpa_(_678_)_ any longer, for to become a Paranirv\u00e2n\u00ee\nis to close the circle of the Septenary Ku\u2010Sum._(_679_)_ He has merged his\nborrowed Dorjesempa [Vajrasattva] into the Universal and become one with\nit._\n\nVajradhara, also Vajrasattva (Tibetan: Dorjechang and Dorjedzin, or\nDorjosampa), is the regent or President of all the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans or Dhy\u00e2ni\nBuddhas, the highest, the Supreme Buddha; personal, yet never manifested\nobjectively; the \u201cSupreme Conqueror,\u201d the \u201cLord of all Mysteries,\u201d the\n\u201cOne without Beginning or End\u201d\u2014in short, the Logos of Buddhism. For, as\nVajrasattva, He is simply the Tsovo (Chief) of the Dhy\u00e2ni Buddhas or Dhy\u00e2n\nChohans, and the Supreme Intelligence in the Second World; while as\nVajradhara (Dorjechang), He is all that which was enumerated above. \u201cThese\ntwo are one, and yet two,\u201d and over them is \u201cChang, the Supreme\nUnmanifested and Universal Wisdom that has no name.\u201d As two in one He\n(They) is the Power that subdued and conquered Evil from the beginning,\nallowing it to reign only over willing subjects on earth, and having no\npower over those who despise and hate it. Esoterically the allegory is\neasily understood; exoterically Vajradhara (Vajrasattva) is the God to\nwhom all the evil spirits swore that they would not impede the propagation\nof the Good Law (Buddhism), and before whom all the demons tremble.\nTherefore, we say this dual personage has the same _r\u00f4le_ assigned to it\nin canonical and dogmatic Tibetan Buddhism as have Jehovah and the\nArchangel Mikael, the Metatron of the Jewish Kabalists. This is easily\nshown. Mikael is \u201cthe angel of the face of God,\u201d or he who represents his\nMaster. \u201cMy face shall go with thee\u201d (in English, \u201cpresence\u201d), before the\nIsraelites, says God to Moses (_Exodus_, xxxiii. 14). \u201cThe angel of my\npresence\u201d (Hebrew: \u201cof my face\u201d) (_Isaiah_, lxiii. 9), etc. The Roman\nCatholics identify Christ with Mikael, who is also his ferouer, or \u201cface,\u201d\nmystically. This is precisely the position of Vajradhara, or Vajrasattva,\nin Northern Buddhism. For the latter, in His Higher Self as Vajradhara\n(Dorjechang), is _never_ manifested, except to the seven Dhy\u00e2n Chohans,\nthe primeval Builders. Esoterically, it is the Spirit of the \u201cSeven\u201d\ncollectively, their seventh principle, or \u00c2tman. Exoterically, any amount\nof fables may be found in _K\u00e2la Chakra_, the most important work in the\nGyut [or (D)gyu] division of the Kanjur, the division of mystic knowledge\n[(D)gyu]. Dorjechang (wisdom) Vajradhara, is said to live in the second\nAr\u00fbpa World, which connects him with Metatron, in the first world of pure\nSpirits, the Briatic world of the Kabalists, who call this angel El\u2010\nShaddai, the Omnipotent and Mighty One. Metatron is in Greek \u1f04\u03b3\u03b3\u03b5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2\n(Messenger), or the Great Teacher. Mikael fights Satan, the Dragon, and\nconquers him and his Angels. Vajrasattva, who is one with Vajrap\u00e2ni, the\nSubduer of the Evil Spirits, conquers R\u00e2hu, the Great Dragon who is always\ntrying to devour the sun and moon (eclipses). \u201cWar in Heaven\u201d in the\nChristian legend is based upon the bad angels having discovered the\nsecrets (magical wisdom) of the good ones (Enoch), and the mystery of the\n\u201cTree of Life.\u201d Let anyone read simply the exoteric accounts in the Hindu\nand Buddhist Pantheons\u2014the latter version being taken from the former\u2014and\nhe will find both resting on the same primeval, archaic allegory from the\nSecret Doctrine. In the exoteric texts (Hindu and Buddhist), the Gods\nchurn the ocean to extract from it the Water of Life\u2014Amrita\u2014or the Elixir\nof Knowledge. In both the Dragon steals some of this, and is exiled from\nheaven by Vishnu, or Vajradhara, or the chief God, whatever may be his\nname. We find the same in the Book of _Enoch_, and it is poetized in St.\nJohn\u2019s _Revelation_. And now the allegory, with all its fanciful\nornamentations, has become a dogma!\n\nAs will be found mentioned later, the Tibetan Lamaseris contain many\nsecret and semi\u2010secret volumes, detailing the lives of great Sages. Many\nof the statements in them are purposely confused, and in others the reader\nbecomes bewildered, unless a clue be given him, by the use of one name to\ncover many individuals who follow the same line of teaching. Thus there is\na succession of \u201cliving Buddhas\u2019\u201d and the name \u201cBuddha\u201d is given to\nteacher after teacher. Schlagintweit writes:\n\n\n    To each human Buddha belongs a Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddha, and a Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010\n    Bodhisattva, and the unlimited number of the former also involves\n    an equally unlimited number of the latter.(680)\n\n\n[But if this be so\u2014and the exoteric and semi\u2010exoteric use of the name\njustify the statement\u2014the reader must depend on his own intuition to\ndistinguish between the Dhy\u00e2ni Buddhas and the human Buddhas, and must not\napply to the great BUDDHA of the Fifth Race all that is ascribed to \u201cthe\nBuddha\u201d in books where, as said, blinds are constantly introduced.\n\nIn one of these books some strange and obscure statements are made which\nthe writer gives, as before, entirely on her own responsibility, since a\nfew may sense a meaning hidden under words misleading in their surface\nmeaning.](681) It is stated that at the age of thirty\u2010three,\nShankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya, tired of his mortal body, \u201cput it off\u201d in the cave he had\nentered, and that the Bodhisattva, that served as his lower personality,\nwas freed\n\n\n    With the burden of a sin upon him which he had not committed.\n\n\nAt the same time it is added:\n\n\n    At whatever age one puts off his outward body by free will, at\n    that age will he be made to die a violent death against his will\n    in his next rebirth.\n\n\nNow, Karma could have no hold on \u201cMah\u00e2 Shankara\u201d (as Shankara is called in\nthe secret work), as he had, as Avat\u00e2ra, no Ego of his own, but a\nBodhisattva\u2014a willing sacrificial victim. Neither had the latter any\nresponsibility for the deed, whether sinful or otherwise. Therefore we do\nnot see the point, since Karma cannot act unjustly. There is some terrible\nmystery involved in all this story, one that no uninitiated intellect can\never unravel. Still, there it is, suggesting the natural query, \u201cWho,\nthen, was punished by Karma?\u201d and leaving it to be answered.\n\nA few centuries later Buddha tried one more incarnation, it is said, in *\n* *, and again, fifty years subsequent to the death of this Adept, in one\nwhose name is given as Tiani\u2010Tsang.(682) No details, no further\ninformation or explanation is given. It is simply stated that the last\nBuddha had to work out the remains of his Karma, which none of the Gods\nthemselves can escape, forced as he was to bury still deeper certain\nmysteries half revealed by him\u2014hence misinterpreted. The words used would\nstand when translated:(683)\n\n\n    Born fifty\u2010two years too early as Shramana Gautama, the son of\n    King Zastang; then retiring fifty\u2010seven years too soon as Mah\u00e2\n    Shankara, who got tired of his outward form. This wilful act\n    aroused and attracted King Karma, who killed the new form of * * *\n    at thirty\u2010three,(684) the age of the body that was put off. [At\n    whatever age one puts off his outward body by free will, at that\n    age will he be made to die in his next incarnation _against his\n    will_\u2014Commentary.] He died in his next (body) at thirty\u2010two and a\n    little over, and again in his next at eighty\u2014a M\u00e2y\u00e2, and at one\n    hundred, in reality. The Bodhisattva chose Tiani\u2010Tsang,(685) then\n    again the Sugata became Tsong\u2010Kha\u2010pa, who became thus Dezhin\u2010\n    Shegpa [Tath\u00e2gata\u2014\u201cone who follows in the way and manner of his\n    predecessors\u201d]. The Blessed One could do good to his generation as\n    * * * but none to posterity, and so as Tiani\u2010Tsaug he became\n    incarnated only for the \u201c_remains_\u201d [of his precedent Karma, as we\n    understand it]. The Seven Ways and the Four Truths were once more\n    hidden out of sight. The Merciful One confined since then his\n    attention and fatherly care to the heart of Bodyul, the nursery\u2010\n    grounds of the seeds of truth. The blessed \u201cremains\u201d since then\n    have overshadowed and rested in many a holy body of human\n    Bodhisattvas.\n\n\nNo further information is given, least of all are there any details or\nexplanations to be found in the secret volume. All is darkness and mystery\nin it, for it is evidently written but for those who are already\ninstructed. Several flaming red asterisks are placed instead of names, and\nthe few facts given are abruptly broken off. The key of the riddle is left\nto the intuition of the disciple, unless the \u201cdirect followers\u201d of Gautama\nthe Buddha\u2014\u201cthose who are to be denied by His Church for the next\ncycle\u201d\u2014and of Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya, are pleased to add more.\n\nThe final section gives a kind of summary of the seventy sections\u2014covering\nseventy\u2010three years of Buddha\u2019s life(686)\u2014from which the last paragraph is\nsummarized as follows:\n\n\n    Emerging from \u2014\u2014, the most excellent seat of the three secrets\n    [Sang\u2010Sum], the Master of incomparable mercy, after having\n    performed on all the anchorites the rite of \u2014\u2014, and each of these\n    having been cut off,(687) perceived through [the power of] Hlun\u2010\n    Chub(688) what was his next duty. The Most\u2010Illustrious meditated\n    and asked himself whether this would help [the future]\n    generations. What they needed was the sight of M\u00e2y\u00e2 in a body of\n    illusion. Which?... The great conqueror of pains and sorrows arose\n    and proceeded back to his birthplace. There Sugata was welcomed by\n    the few, for they did not know Shramana Gautama. \u201cSh\u00e2kya [the\n    Mighty] is in Nirv\u00e2na.... He has given the Science to the Shuddhas\n    [Sh\u00fbdra],\u201d said they of Damze Yul [the country of Br\u00e2hmans:\n    India].... It was for that, born of pity, that the All\u2010Glorious\n    One had to retire to \u2014\u2014, and then appear [karmically] as Mah\u00e2\n    Shankara; and out of pity as \u2014\u2014, and again as \u2014\u2014, and again as\n    Tsong\u2010Kha\u2010pa.... For, he who chooses in humiliation must go down,\n    and he who _loves not_ allows Karma to raise him.(689)\n\n\nThis passage is confessedly obscure and written for the few. It is not\nlawful to say any more, for the time has not yet come when nations are\nprepared to hear the whole truth. The old religions are full of mysteries,\nand to demonstrate some of them would surely lead to an explosion of\nhatred, followed, perhaps, by bloodshed and worse. It will be sufficient\nto know that while Gautama Buddha is merged in Nirv\u00e2na ever since his\ndeath, Gautama Sh\u00e2kyamuni may have had to reincarnate\u2014this dual inner\npersonality being one of the greatest mysteries of Esoteric psychism.\n\n\u201cThe seat of the three secrets\u201d refers to a place inhabited by high\nInitiates and their disciples. The \u201csecrets\u201d are the three mystic powers\nknown as Gopa, Yasodhara, and Uptala Varna, that Csomo de K\u00f6ros mistook\nfor Buddha\u2019s three wives, as other Orientalists have mistaken Shakti (Yoga\npower) personified by a female deity for His wife; or the Draupad\u00ee\u2014also a\nspiritual power\u2014for the wife in common of the five brothers P\u00e2ndava.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XLV. AN UNPUBLISHED DISCOURSE OF BUDDHA.\n\n\n(It is found in the second _Book of Commentaries_ and is addressed to the\nArhats.)\n\nSaid the All\u2010Merciful: Blessed are ye, O Bhikshus, happy are ye who have\nunderstood the mystery of Being and _Non\u2010Being_ explained in Bas\u2010pa\n[Dharma, Doctrine], and have given preference to the latter, for ye are\nverily my Arhats.... The elephant, who sees his form mirrored in the lake,\nlooks at it, and then goes away, taking it for the real body of another\nelephant, is wiser than the man who beholds his face in the stream, and,\nlooking at it, says, \u201cHere am I.... I am I\u201d: for the \u201cI,\u201d his Self, is not\nin the world of the twelve Nid\u00e2nas and mutability, but in that of Non\u2010\nBeing, the only world beyond the snares of M\u00e2y\u00e2.... That alone, which has\nneither cause nor author, which is self\u2010existing, eternal, far beyond the\nreach of mutability, is the true \u201cI\u201d [Ego], the Self of the Universe. The\nUniverse of Nam\u2010Kha says: \u201cI am the world of Sien\u2010Chan\u201d;(690) the four\nillusions laugh and reply, \u201cVerily so.\u201d But the truly wise man knows that\nneither man, nor the Universe that he passes through like a flitting\nshadow, is any more a real Universe than the dewdrop that reflects a spark\nof the morning sun is that sun.... There are three things, Bhikshus, that\nare everlastingly the same, upon which no vicissitude, no modification can\never act: these are the Law, Nirv\u00e2na, and Space,(691) and those three are\nOne, since the first two are within the last, and that last one a M\u00e2y\u00e2, so\nlong as man keeps within the whirlpool of sensuous existences. One need\nnot have his mortal body die to avoid the clutches of concupiscence and\nother passions. The Arhat who observes the seven hidden precepts of Bas\u2010pa\nmay become Dang\u2010ma and Lha.(692) He may hear the \u201choly voice\u201d of ...\n[Kwan\u2010yin],(693) and find himself within the quiet precincts of his\nSangharama(694) transferred into Amit\u00e2bha Buddha.(695) Becoming one with\nAnuttara Samyak Sambodhi,(696) he may pass through all the six worlds of\nBeing (R\u00fbpaloka) and get into the first three worlds of Ar\u00fbpa.(697)... He\nwho listens to my secret law, preached to my select Arhats, will arrive\nwith its help at the knowledge of Self, and thence at perfection.\n\nIt is due to entirely erroneous conceptions of Eastern thought and to\nignorance of the existence of an Esoteric key to the outward Buddhist\nphrases that Burnouf and other great scholars have inferred from such\npropositions\u2014held also by the Ved\u00e2ntins\u2014as \u201cmy body is not body\u201d and\n\u201cmyself is no self of mine,\u201d that Eastern psychology was all based upon\nnon\u2010permanency. Cousin, for instance, lecturing upon the subject, brings\nthe two following propositions to prove, on Burnouf\u2019s authority, that,\nunlike Br\u00e2hmanism, Buddhism rejects the perpetuity of the thinking\nprinciple. These are:\n\n\n    1. Thought or Spirit(698)\u2014for the faculty is not distinguished\n    from the subject\u2014appears only with sensation and does not survive\n    it.\n\n    2. The Spirit cannot itself lay hold of itself, and in directing\n    attention to itself it draws from it only the conviction of its\n    powerlessness to see itself otherwise than as successive and\n    transitory.\n\n\nThis all refers to Spirit embodied, not to the freed Spiritual Self on\nwhom M\u00e2y\u00e2 has no more hold. Spirit is no body; therefore have the\nOrientalists made of it \u201cnobody\u201d and nothing. Hence they proclaim\nBuddhists to be Nihilists, and Ved\u00e2ntins to be the followers of a creed in\nwhich the \u201cImpersonal [God] turns out on examination to be a myth\u201d; their\ngoal is described as\n\n\n    The complete extinction of all spiritual, mental, and bodily\n    powers by absorption into the Impersonal.(699)\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XLVI. NIRVANA\u2010MOKSHA.\n\n\nThe few sentences given in the text from one of Gautama Buddha\u2019s secret\nteachings show how uncalled for is the epithet of \u201cMaterialist\u201d when\napplied to One Whom two\u2010thirds of those who are looked upon as great\nAdepts and Occultists in Asia recognize as their Master, whether under the\nname of Buddha or that of Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya. The reader will remember the\njust\u2010quoted words are what Buddha Sanggyas (or Pho) is alleged by the\nTibetan Occultists to have taught: there are three eternal things in the\nUniverse\u2014the Law, Nirv\u00e2na, and Space. The Buddhists of the Southern Church\nclaim, on the other hand, that Buddha held only two things as\neternal\u2014\u00c2k\u00e2sha and Nirv\u00e2na. But \u00c2k\u00e2sha being the same as Aditi,(700) and\nboth being translated \u201cSpace,\u201d there is no discrepancy so far, since\nNirv\u00e2na as well as Moksha, is a state. Then in both cases the great\nKapilavastu Sage unifies the two, as well as the three, into one eternal\nElement, and ends by saying that even \u201cthat One is a M\u00e2y\u00e2\u201d to one who is\nnot a Dang\u2010ma, a perfectly purified Soul.\n\nThe whole question hangs upon materialistic misconceptions and ignorance\nof Occult Metaphysics. To the man of Science who regards Space as simply a\nmental representation, a conception of something existing _pro form\u00e2_, and\nhaving no real being outside our mind, Space _per se_ is verily an\nillusion. He may fill the boundless interstellar space with an \u201cimaginary\u201d\nether, nevertheless Space for him is an abstraction. Most of the\nMetaphysicians of Europe are so wide of the mark, from the purely Occult\nstandpoint, of a correct comprehension of \u201cSpace,\u201d as are the\nMaterialists, though the erroneous conceptions of both of course differ\nwidely.\n\nIf, bearing in mind the philosophical views of the Ancients upon this\nquestion, we compare them with what is now termed exact physical Science,\nit will be found that the two disagree only in inferences and names, and\nthat their postulates are the same when reduced to their most simple\nexpression. From the beginning of the human \u00c6ons, from the very dawn of\nOccult Wisdom, the regions that the men of Science fill with ether have\nbeen explored by the Seers of every age. That which the world regards\nsimply as cosmic Space, an abstract representation, the Hindu Rishi, the\nChald\u00e6an Magus, the Egyptian Hierophant held, each and all, as the one\neternal Root of all, the playground of all the Forces in Nature. It is the\nfountain\u2010head of all terrestrial life, and the abode of those (to us)\ninvisible swarms of existences\u2014of real beings, as of the shadows only\nthereof, conscious and unconscious, intelligent and senseless\u2014that\nsurround us on all sides, that interpenetrate the atoms of our Kosmos, and\nsee us not, as we do not either see or sense them through our physical\norganisms. For the Occultist \u201cSpace\u201d and \u201cUniverse\u201d are synonyms. In Space\nthere is not Matter, Force, nor Spirit, but all that and much more. It is\nthe One Element, and that one the Anima Mundi\u2014Space, \u00c2k\u00e2sha, Astral\nLight\u2014the Root of Life which, in its eternal, ceaseless motion, like the\nout\u2010 and in\u2010breathing of one boundless ocean, evolves but to reabsorb all\nthat lives and feels and thinks and has its being in it. As said of the\nUniverse in _Isis Unveiled_, it is:\n\n\n    The combination of a thousand elements and yet the expression of a\n    single Spirit\u2014a chaos to the sense, a Kosmos to the reason.\n\n\nSuch were the views upon the subject of all the great ancient\nPhilosophers, from Manu down to Pythagoras, from Plato to Paul.\n\n\n    When the dissolution [Pralaya] had arrived at its term the great\n    Being [Para\u2010\u00c2tm\u00e2, or Para\u2010Purusha], the Lord existing through\n    himself, out of whom and through whom all things were, and are,\n    and will be, ... resolved to emanate from his own substance the\n    various creatures.(701)\n\n    The mystic Decad [of Pythagoras] (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10) is a way of\n    expressing this idea. The One is God;(702) the Two, matter; the\n    Three, combining Monad and Duad and partaking of the nature of\n    both, is the phenomenal world; the Tetrad, or form of perfection,\n    expresses the emptiness of all; and the Decad, or sum of all,\n    involves the entire Cosmos.(703)\n\n\nPlato\u2019s \u201cGod\u201d is the \u201cUniversal Ideation,\u201d and Paul saying \u201cOut of him,\nand through him, and in him, all things are,\u201d had surely a Principle\u2014never\na Jehovah\u2014in his profound mind. The key to the Pythagorean dogmas is the\nkey to every great Philosophy. It is the general formula of unity in\nmultiplicity, the One evolving the many and pervading the All. It is the\narchaic doctrine of Emanation in a few words.\n\nSpeusippus and Xenocrates held, like their great Master, Plato, that:\n\n\n    The Anima Mundi (or \u201cworld\u2010soul\u201d) was not the Deity, but a\n    manifestation. Those philosophers never conceived of the One as an\n    _animate nature_. The original One did not _exist_, as we\n    understand the term. Not till he (it) had united with the many\n    emanated existences (the Monad and Duad), was a being produced.\n    The \u03c4\u03af\u03bc\u03b9\u03bf\u03bd (\u201chonoured\u201d), the something manifested, dwells in the\n    centre as in the circumference, but it is only the reflection of\n    the Deity\u2014the World\u2010Soul. In this doctrine we find the spirit of\n    Esoteric Buddhism.(704)\n\n\nAnd it is that of Esoteric Br\u00e2hmanism and of the Ved\u00e2ntin Adwait\u00ees. The\ntwo modern philosophers, Schopenhauer and von Hartmann, teach the same\nideas. The Occultists say that:\n\n\n    The psychic and ectenic forces, the \u201cideo\u2010motor\u201d and \u201celectro\u2010\n    biological powers,\u201d \u201clatent thought,\u201d and even \u201cunconscious\n    cerebration\u201d theories can be condensed in two words: the\n    Kabalistic Astral Light.(705)\n\n\nSchopenhauer only synthesized all this by calling it Will, and\ncontradicted the men of Science in their materialistic views, as von\nHartmann did later on. The author of the _Philosophy of the Unconscious_\ncalls their views \u201can instinctual prejudice.\u201d\n\n\n    Furthermore, he demonstrates that no experimenter can have\n    anything to do with matter properly so termed, but only with the\n    forces into which he divides it. The visible effects of matter are\n    but the effects of force. He concludes thereby that that which is\n    now called matter is nothing but the aggregation of atomic forces,\n    to express which the word \u201cmatter\u201d is used; outside of that, for\n    science, matter is but a word void of sense.(706)\n\n\nAs much, it is to be feared, as those other terms with which we are now\nconcerned, \u201cSpace,\u201d \u201cNirv\u00e2na,\u201d and so on.\n\n\n    The bold theories and opinions expressed in Schopenhauer\u2019s works\n    differ widely from those of the majority of our orthodox\n    scientists.(707) \u201cIn reality,\u201d remarks this daring speculator,\n    \u201cthere is neither _Matter_ nor _Spirit_. The tendency to\n    gravitation in a stone is as unexplainable as thought in the human\n    brain.... If matter can\u2014no one knows why\u2014fall to the ground, then\n    it can also\u2014no one knows why\u2014think.... As soon, even in mechanics,\n    as we trespass beyond the purely mathematical, as soon as we reach\n    the inscrutable adhesion, gravitation, and so on we are faced by\n    phenomena which are to our senses as mysterious as the _will_ and\n    _thought_ in man: we find ourselves facing the incomprehensible,\n    for such is every force in nature. Where is, then, that _matter_\n    which you all pretend to know so well, and from which\u2014being so\n    familiar with it\u2014you draw all your conclusions and explanations,\n    and attribute to it all things?... That which can be fully\n    realized by our reason and senses is but the superficial; they can\n    never reach the true inner substance of things. Such was the\n    opinion of Kant. If you consider that there is in a human head\n    some sort of a _spirit_, then you are obliged to concede the same\n    to a stone. If your dead and utterly\u2010passive matter can manifest a\n    tendency toward gravitation or, like electricity, attract and\n    repel and send out sparks then as well as the brain it can also\n    think. In short, every particle of the so\u2010called spirit we can\n    replace with an equivalent of matter, and every particle of matter\n    replace with spirit.... Thus, it is not the Christian division of\n    all things into matter and spirit that can ever be found\n    philosophically exact; but only if we divide them into _will_ and\n    _manifestation_, which form of division has naught to do with the\n    former, for it spiritualizes everything: all that which is in the\n    first instance real and objective\u2014body and matter\u2014it transforms\n    into a representation, and every manifestation into will.\u201d(708)\n\n\nThe _matter_ of science may be for all objective purposes a \u201cdead and\nutterly\u2010passive matter\u201d; to the Occultist not an atom of it can be\ndead\u2014\u201cLife is ever present in it.\u201d We send the reader who would know more\nabout it to our article, \u201cTransmigration of Life\u2010Atoms.\u201d(709) What we are\nnow concerned with is the doctrine of Nirv\u00e2na.\n\nA \u201csystem of atheism\u201d it may be justly called, since it recognizes neither\nGod nor Gods\u2014least of all a Creator, as it entirely rejects creation. The\n_Fecit ex nihilo_ is as incomprehensible to the Occult metaphysical\nScientist as it is to the scientific Materialist. It is at this point that\nall agreement stops between the two. But if such be the sin of the\nBuddhist and Br\u00e2hman Occultist, then Pantheists and Atheists, and also\ntheistical Jews\u2014the Kabalists\u2014must also plead \u201cguilty\u201d to it; yet no one\nwould ever think of calling the Hebrews of the Kabalah \u201cAtheists.\u201d Except\nthe Talmudistic and Christian exoteric systems there never was a religious\nPhilosophy, whether in the ancient or modern world, but rejected _\u00e0\npriori_ the _ex nihilo_ hypothesis, simply because Matter was always co\u2010\neternalized with Spirit.\n\nNirv\u00e2na, as well as the Moksha of the Ved\u00e2ntins, is regarded by most of\nthe Orientalists as a synonym of annihilation; yet no more glaring\ninjustice could be done, and this capital error must be pointed out and\ndisproved. On this most important tenet of the Br\u00e2hmo\u2010Buddhistic\nsystem\u2014the Alpha and the Omega of \u201cBeing\u201d or \u201cNon\u2010Being\u201d\u2014rests the whole\nedifice of Occult Metaphysics. Now the rectification of the great error\nconcerning Nirv\u00e2na may be very easily accomplished with relation to the\nphilosophically inclined, to those who,\n\n\n    In the glass of things temporal see the image of things spiritual.\n\n\nOn the other hand, to that reader who could never soar beyond the details\nof tangible material form, our explanation will appear meaningless. He may\ncomprehend and even accept the logical inferences from the reasons\ngiven\u2014the true spirit will ever escape his intuitions. The word \u201cnihil\u201d\nhaving been misconceived from the first, it is continually used as a\nsledge\u2010hammer in the matter of Esoteric Philosophy. Nevertheless it is the\nduty of the Occultist to try and explain it.\n\nNirv\u00e2na and Moksha, then, as said before, have their being in non\u2010being,\nif such a paradox be permitted to illustrate the meaning the better.\nNirv\u00e2na, as some illustrious Orientalists have attempted to prove, does\nmean the \u201cblowing\u2010out\u201d(710) of all sentient existence. It is like the\nflame of a candle burnt out to its last atom, and then suddenly\nextinguished. Quite so. Nevertheless, as the old Arhat N\u00e2gasena affirmed\nbefore the king who taunted him: \u201cNirv\u00e2na _is_\u201d\u2014and Nirv\u00e2na is eternal.\nBut the Orientalists deny this, and say it is not so. In their opinion\nNirv\u00e2na is not a re\u2010absorption in the Universal Force, not eternal bliss\nand rest, but it means literally \u201cthe blowing\u2010out, the extinction,\ncomplete annihilation, and not absorption.\u201d The _Lankavatara_ quoted in\nsupport of their arguments by some Sanskritists, and which gives the\ndifferent interpretations of Nirv\u00e2na by the T\u00eerthika Br\u00e2hmans, is no\nauthority to one who goes to primeval sources for information, namely, to\nthe Buddha who taught the doctrine. As well quote the Ch\u00e2rv\u00e2ka\nMaterialists in their support.\n\nIf we bring as an argument the sacred Jaina books, wherein the dying\nGautama Buddha is thus addressed: \u201cArise into Nirvi [Nirv\u00e2na] from this\ndecrepit body into which thou hast been sent.... Ascend into thy former\nabode, O blessed Avat\u00e2ra\u201d; and if we add that this seems to us the very\nopposite of nihilism, we may be told that so far it may only prove a\ncontradiction, one more discrepancy in the Buddhist faith. If again we\nremind the reader that since Gautama is believed to appear occasionally,\nre\u2010descending from his \u201cformer abode\u201d for the good of humanity and His\nfaithful congregation, thus making it incontestable that Buddhism does not\nteach final annihilation, we shall be referred to authorities to whom such\nteaching is ascribed. And let us say at once: Men are no authority for us\nin questions of conscience, nor ought they to be for anyone else. If\nanyone holds to Buddha\u2019s Philosophy, let him do and say as Buddha did and\nsaid; if a man calls himself a Christian, let him follow the commandments\nof Christ\u2014not the interpretations of His many dissenting priests and\nsects.\n\nIn _A Buddhist Catechism_ the question is asked:\n\n\n    Are there any dogmas in Buddhism which we are required to accept\n    on faith?\n\n    A. No. We are earnestly enjoined to accept nothing whatever on\n    faith, whether it be written in books, handed down from our\n    ancestors, or taught by sages. Our Lord Buddha has said that we\n    must not believe in a thing said merely because it is said; nor\n    traditions because they have been handed down from antiquity; nor\n    rumours, as such; nor writings by sages, because sages wrote them:\n    nor fancies that we may suspect to have been inspired in us by a\n    Deva (that is, in presumed spiritual inspiration); nor from\n    inferences drawn from some haphazard assumption we may have made;\n    nor because of what seems an analogical necessity; nor on the mere\n    authority of our teachers or masters. But we are to believe when\n    the writing, doctrine, or saying is corroborated by our own reason\n    and consciousness. \u201cFor this,\u201d says he in concluding, \u201cI taught\n    you not to believe merely because you have heard, but when you\n    believed of your consciousness, then to act accordingly and\n    abundantly.\u201d(711)\n\n\nThat Nirv\u00e2na, or rather, that state in which we are in Nirv\u00e2na, is quite\nthe reverse of annihilation is suggested to us by our \u201creason and\nconsciousness,\u201d and that is sufficient for us personally. At the same\ntime, this fact being inadequate and very ill\u2010adapted for the general\nreader, something more efficient may be added.\n\nWithout resorting to sources unsympathetic to Occultism, the _Kabalah_\nfurnishes us with the most luminous and clear proofs that the term \u201cnihil\u201d\nin the minds of the Ancient Philosophers had a meaning quite different\nfrom that it has now received at the hands of Materialists. It means\ncertainly \u201cnothing\u201d\u2014or \u201cno\u2010thing.\u201d F. Kircher, in his work on the\n_Kabalah_ and the Egyptian Mysteries(712) explains the term admirably. He\ntells his readers that in the _Zohar_ the first of the Sephiroth(713) has\na name the significance of which is \u201cthe _Infinite_,\u201d but which was\ntranslated indifferently by the Kabalists as \u201cEns\u201d and \u201cNon\u2010Ens\u201d (\u201cBeing\u201d\nand \u201cNon\u2010Being\u201d); a _Being_, inasmuch as it is the _root_ and source of\nall other beings; _Non\u2010Being_ because Ain Soph\u2014the Boundless and the\nCauseless, the Unconscious and the Passive Principle\u2014resembles nought else\nin the Universe.\n\nThe author adds:\n\n\n    This is the reason why St. Denys did not hesitate to call it\n    Nihil.\n\n\n\u201cNihil\u201d therefore stands\u2014even with some Christian theologians and\nthinkers, especially with the earlier ones who lived but a few removes\nfrom the profound Philosophy of the initiated Pagans\u2014as a synonym for the\nimpersonal, divine Principle, the Infinite All, which is no Being or\nthing\u2014the En or Ain Soph, the Parabrahman of the Ved\u00e2nta. Now St. Denys\nwas a pupil of St. Paul\u2014an Initiate\u2014and this fact makes everything clear.\n\nThe \u201cNihil\u201d is _in esse_ the Absolute Deity itself, the hidden Power or\nOmnipresence degraded by Monotheism into an anthropomorphic Being, with\nall the passions of a mortal on a grand scale. Union with That is not\nannihilation in the sense understood in Europe.(714) In the East\nannihilation in Nirv\u00e2na refers but to matter: that of the visible as well\nas the invisible body, for the astral body, the personal double, is still\nmatter, however sublimated. Buddha taught that the primitive Substance is\neternal and unchangeable. Its vehicle is the pure, luminous ether, the\nboundless, infinite Space,\n\n\n    Not a void resulting from the absence of forms, but on the\n    contrary, the foundation of all forms.... [This] denotes it to be\n    the creation of M\u00e2y\u00e2, all the works of which are as nothing before\n    the uncreated Form [Spirit], in whose profound and sacred depths\n    all motion must cease for ever.(715)\n\n\nMotion here refers only to illusive objects, to their change as opposed to\nperpetuity, rest\u2014perpetual motion being the Eternal Law, the ceaseless\nBreath of the Absolute.\n\nThe mastery of Buddhistic dogmas can be attained only according to the\nPlatonic method: from universals to particulars. The key to it lies in the\nrefined and mystical tenets of spiritual influx and divine life.\n\nSaith Buddha:\n\n_Whosoever is unacquainted with my Law,_(_716_)_ and dies in that state\nmust return to earth until he becomes a perfect Samano [ascetic]. To\nachieve this object he must destroy within himself the trinity of\nM\u00e2y\u00e2._(_717_)_ He must extinguish his passions, unite and identify himself\nwith the Law [the teaching of the Secret Doctrine], and comprehend the\nphilosophy of annihilation._(718)\n\nNo, it is not in the dead\u2010letter of Buddhistical literature that scholars\nmay ever hope to find the true solution of its metaphysical subtleties.\nAlone in all antiquity the Pythagoreans understood them perfectly, and it\nis on the (to the average Orientalist and the Materialist)\nincomprehensible abstractions of Buddhism that Pythagoras grounded the\nprincipal tenets of his Philosophy.\n\nAnnihilation means with the Buddhistical Philosophy only a dispersion of\nmatter, in whatever form or _semblance_ of form it may be, for everything\nthat bears a shape was created, and thus must sooner or later perish,\n_i.e._, change that shape; therefore, as something temporal, though\nseeming to be permanent, it is but an illusion, M\u00e2y\u00e2; for as eternity has\nneither beginning nor end, the more or less prolonged duration of some\nparticular form passes, as it were, like an instantaneous flash of\nlightning. Before we have the time to realize that we have seen it, it is\ngone and passed for ever; hence even our astral bodies, pure ether, are\nbut illusions of matter so long as they retain their terrestrial outline.\nThe latter changes, says the Buddhist, according to the merits or demerits\nof the person during his lifetime, and this is metempsychosis. When the\nspiritual Entity breaks loose for ever from every particle of matter, then\nonly it enters upon the eternal and unchangeable Nirv\u00e2na. He exists in\nSpirit, in nothing; as a form, a shape, a semblance, he is completely\nannihilated, and thus will die no more, for Spirit alone is no M\u00e2y\u00e2, but\nthe only Reality in an illusionary universe of ever\u2010passing forms.\n\n\n    It is upon this Buddhist doctrine that the Pythagoreans grounded\n    the principal tenets of their philosophy. \u201cCan that Spirit which\n    gives life and motion, and partakes of the nature of light, be\n    reduced to nonentity?\u201d they ask. \u201cCan that sensitive Spirit in\n    brutes which exercises memory, one of the rational faculties, die\n    and become nothing?\u201d And Whitelock Bulstrode in his able defence\n    of Pythagoras expounds this doctrine by adding:\n\n    \u201cIf you say they [the brutes] breathe their Spirits into the air,\n    and there vanish, that is all that I contend for. The air indeed\n    is the proper place to receive them, being according to Laertius\n    full of souls; and according to Epicurus full of atoms, the\n    principles of all things; for even this place wherein we walk and\n    birds fly has so much of a spiritual nature that it is invisible,\n    and therefore may well be the receiver of forms, since the forms\n    of all bodies are so; we can only see and hear its effects; the\n    air itself is too fine and above the capacity of the age. What\n    then is the ether in the region above, and what are the influences\n    of forms that descend from thence?\u201d The _Spirits_ of creatures,\n    the Pythagoreans hold, who are emanations of the most sublimated\n    portions of ether\u2014emanations, _breaths, but not forms_. Ether is\n    corruptible\u2014all philosophers agree in that;\u2014and what is\n    incorruptible _is so far from being annihilated_ when it gets rid\n    of the _form_ that it lays a good claim to _immortality_.\n\n    \u201cBut what is that which has no body, no _form_; which is\n    imponderable, invisible, and indivisible\u2014that which exists, and\n    yet _is not_?\u201d ask the Buddhists. \u201cIt is Nirv\u00e2na,\u201d is the answer.\n    It is _nothing_\u2014not a region, but rather a state.(719)\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XLVII. THE SECRET BOOKS OF \u201cLAM\u2010RIN\u201d AND DZYAN.\n\n\nThe _Book of Dzyan_\u2014from the Sanskrit word \u201cDhy\u00e2n\u201d (mystic meditation)\u2014is\nthe first volume of the Commentaries upon the seven secret folios of Kiu\u2010\nte, and a Glossary of the public works of the same name. Thirty\u2010five\nvolumes of Kiu\u2010te for exoteric purposes and the use of the laymen may be\nfound in the possession of the Tibetan Gelugpa Lamas, in the library of\nany monastery; and also fourteen books of Commentaries and Annotations on\nthe same by the initiated Teachers.\n\nStrictly speaking, those thirty\u2010five books ought to be termed \u201cThe\nPopularised Version\u201d of the Secret Doctrine, full of myths, blinds, and\nerrors; the fourteen volumes of _Commentaries_, on the other hand\u2014with\ntheir translations, annotations, and an ample glossary of Occult terms,\nworked out from one small archaic folio, the _Book of the Secret Wisdom of\nthe World_(720)\u2014contain a digest of all the Occult Sciences. These, it\nappears, are kept secret and apart, in the charge of the Teshu Lama of\nTji\u2010gad\u2010je. The Books of Kiu\u2010te are comparatively modern, having been\nedited within the last millennium, whereas, the earliest volumes of the\n_Commentaries_ are of untold antiquity, some fragments of the original\ncylinders having been preserved. With the exception that they explain and\ncorrect some of the too fabulous, and to every appearance, grossly\u2010\nexaggerated accounts in the Books of Kiu\u2010te(721)\u2014properly so\u2010called\u2014the\n_Commentaries_ have little to do with these. They stand in relation to\nthem as the Chald\u00e6o\u2010Jewish _Kabalah_ stands to the Mosaic Books. In the\nwork known as the _Avatumsaka S\u00fbtra_, in section: \u201cThe Supreme \u00c2tman\n[Soul] as manifested in the character of the Arhats and Pratyeka Buddhas,\u201d\nit is stated that:\n\n\n    Because from the beginning all sentient creatures have confused\n    the truth and embraced the false, therefore there came into\n    existence a hidden knowledge called Alaya Vij\u00f1\u00e2na.\n\n\n\u201cWho is in possession of the true knowledge?\u201d is asked. \u201cThe great\nTeachers of the Snowy Mountain,\u201d is the response.\n\nThese \u201cgreat Teachers\u201d have been known to live in the \u201cSnowy Range\u201d of the\nHim\u00e2layas for countless ages. To deny in the face of millions of Hindus\nthe existence of their great Gurus, living in the \u00c2shrams scattered all\nover the Trans\u2010 or the Cis\u2010Him\u00e2layan slopes is to make oneself ridiculous\nin their eyes. When the Buddhist Saviour appeared in India, their\n\u00c2shrams\u2014for it is rarely that these great Men are found in Lamaseries,\nunless on a short visit\u2014were on the spots they now occupy, and that even\nbefore the Br\u00e2hmans themselves came from Central Asia to settle on the\nIndus. And before that more than one \u00c2ryan Dvija of fame and historical\nrenown had sat at their feet, learning that which culminated later on in\none or another of the great philosophical schools. Most of these Him\u00e2layan\nBhante were \u00c2ryan Br\u00e2hmans and ascetics.\n\nNo student, unless very advanced, would be benefited by the perusal of\nthose exoteric volumes.(722) They must be read with a key to their\nmeaning, and that key can only be found in the _Commentaries_. Moreover\nthere are some comparatively modern works that are positively injurious so\nfar as a fair comprehension of even exoteric Buddhism is concerned. Such\nare the _Buddhist Cosmos_, by Bonze Jin\u2010ch\u2019on of Pekin; the _Shing\u2010Tau\u2010ki_\n(or _The Records of the Enlightenment of Tath\u00e2gata_), by Wang Puk\u2014seventh\ncentury; _Hisai S\u00fbtra_ (or _Book of Creation_), and some others.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XLVIII. AMITA BUDDHA KWAN\u2010SHAI\u2010YIN, AND KWAN\u2010YIN.\u2014WHAT THE \u201cBOOK\nOF DZYAN\u201d AND THE LAMASERIES OF TSONG\u2010KHA\u2010PA SAY.\n\n\nAs a supplement to the _Commentaries_ there are many secret folios on the\nlives of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and among these there is one on\nPrince Gautama and another on His reincarnation in Tsong\u2010Kha\u2010pa. This\ngreat Tibetan Reformer of the fourteenth century, said to be a direct\nincarnation of Amita Buddha, is the founder of the secret School near Tji\u2010\ngad\u2010je, attached to the private retreat of the Teshu Lama. It is with Him\nthat began the regular system of Lamaic incarnations of Buddhas (Sang\u2010\ngyas), or of Sh\u00e2kya\u2010Thub\u2010pa (Shakya\u2010muni). Amida or Amita Buddha is called\nby the author of _Chinese Buddhism_, a mythical being. He speaks of\n\n\n    Amida Buddha (_Ami\u2010to Fo_) a fabulous personage, worshipped\n    assiduously\u2014like Kwan\u2010yin\u2014by the Northern Buddhists, but unknown\n    in Siam, Burmah, and Ceylon.(723)\n\n\nVery likely. Yet Amida Buddha is not a \u201cfabulous\u201d personage, since (_a_)\n\u201cAmida\u201d is the Senzar form of \u201c\u00c2di\u201d; \u201c\u00c2di\u2010Buddhi\u201d and \u201c\u00c2di\u2010Buddha,\u201d(724)\nas already shown, existed ages ago as a Sanskrit term for \u201cPrimeval Soul\u201d\nand \u201cWisdom\u201d; and (_b_) the name was applied to Gautama Sh\u00e2kyamuni, the\nlast Buddha in India, from the seventh century, when Buddhism was\nintroduced into Tibet. \u201cAmit\u00e2bha\u201d (in Chinese, \u201cWu\u2010liang\u2010sheu\u201d) means\nliterally \u201cBoundless Age,\u201d a synonym of \u201cEn,\u201d or \u201cAin\u2010Suph,\u201d the \u201cAncient\nof Days,\u201d and is an epithet that connects Him directly with the Boundless\n\u00c2di\u2010Buddhi (primeval and Universal Soul) of the Hindus, as well as with\nthe Anima Mundi of all the ancient nations of Europe and the Boundless and\nInfinite of the Kabalists. If Amit\u00e2bha be a fiction of the Tibetans, or a\nnew form of Wu\u2010liang\u2010sheu, \u201ca fabulous personage,\u201d as the author\u2010compiler\nof _Chinese Buddhism_ tells his readers, then the \u201cfable\u201d must be a very\nancient one. For on another page he says himself that the addition to the\ncanon, of the books containing the\n\n\n    Legends of Kwan\u2010yin and of the Western heaven with its Buddha,\n    Amit\u00e2bha, was also previous to the Council of Kashmere, a little\n    before the beginning of our era,(725)\n\n\nand he places\n\n\n    the origin of the primitive Buddhist books which are common to the\n    Northern and Southern Buddhists before 246 B.C.\n\n\nSince Tibetans accepted Buddhism only in the seventh century A.D., how\ncomes it that they are charged with inventing Amita\u2010Buddha? Besides which,\nin Tibet, Amit\u00e2bha is called Odpag\u2010med, which shows that it is not the\nname but the abstract idea that was first accepted of an unknown,\ninvisible, and Impersonal Power\u2014taken, moreover, from the Hindu \u201c\u00c2di\u2010\nBuddhi,\u201d and not from the Chinese \u201cAmit\u00e2bha.\u201d(726) There is a great\ndifference between the popular Odpag\u2010med (Amit\u00e2bha) who sits enthroned in\nDevachan (Sukh\u00e2vat\u00ee), according to the _Mani Kambum_ Scriptures\u2014the oldest\n_historical_ work in Tibet, and the philosophical abstraction called Amida\nBuddha, the name being passed now to the earthly Buddha, Gautama.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION XLIX. TSONG\u2010KHA\u2010PA.\u2014LOHANS IN CHINA.\n\n\nIn an article, \u201cReincarnation in Tibet,\u201d everything that could be said\nabout Tsong\u2010Kha\u2010pa was published.(727) It was stated that this reformer\nwas not, as is alleged by P\u00e2rs\u00ee scholars, an incarnation of one of the\ncelestial Dhy\u00e2nis, or the five heavenly Buddhas, said to have been created\nby Sh\u00e2kyamuni after he had risen to Nirv\u00e2na, but that he was an\nincarnation of Amita Buddha Himself. The records preserved in the Gon\u2010pa,\nthe chief Lamasery of Tda\u2010shi\u2010Hlumpo, show that Sang\u2010gyas left the regions\nof the \u201cWestern Paradise\u201d to incarnate Himself in Tsong\u2010Kha\u2010pa, in\nconsequence of the great degradation into which His secret doctrines had\nfallen.\n\n\n    Whenever made too public, the Good Law of Cheu [magical powers]\n    fell invariably into sorcery or \u201cblack magic.\u201d The Dwijas, the\n    Hoshang [Chinese monks] and the Lamas could alone be entrusted\n    safely with the formul\u00e6.\n\n\nUntil the Tsong\u2010Kha\u2010pa period there had been no Sang\u2010gyas (Buddha)\nincarnations in Tibet.\n\nTsong\u2010Kha\u2010pa gave the signs whereby the presence of one of the twenty\u2010five\nBodhisattvas(728) or of the Celestial Buddhas (Dhy\u00e2n Chohans) in a human\nbody might be recognized, and He strictly forbade necromancy. This led to\na split amongst the Lamas, and the malcontents allied themselves with the\naboriginal Bhons against the reformed Lamaism. Even now they form a\npowerful sect, practising the most disgusting rites all over Sikkhim,\nBhutan, Nepaul, and even on the borderlands of Tibet. It was worse then.\nWith the permission of the Tda\u2010shu or Teshu Lama,(729) some hundred Lohans\n(Arhats), to avert strife, went to settle in China in the famous monastery\nnear Tien\u2010t\u2019\u2010ai, where they soon became subjects for legendary lore, and\ncontinue to be so to this day. They had been already preceded by other\nLohans,\n\n\n    The world\u2010famous disciples of Tath\u00e2gata, called the \u201csweet\u2010voiced\u201d\n    on account of their ability to chant the Mantras with magical\n    effect.(730)\n\n\nThe first ones came from Kashmir in the year 3,000 of Kali Yuga (about a\ncentury before the Christian era),(731) while the last ones arrived at the\nend of the fourteenth century, 1,500 years later; and, finding no room for\nthemselves at the lamasery of Yihigching, they built for their own use the\nlargest monastery of all on the sacred island of Pu\u2010to (Buddha, or Put, in\nChinese), in the province of Chusan. There the Good Law, the \u201cDoctrine of\nthe Heart,\u201d flourished for several centuries. But when the island was\ndesecrated by a mass of Western foreigners, the chief Lohans left for the\nmountains of \u2014\u2014. In the Pagoda of Pi\u2010yun\u2010ti, near Pekin, one can still see\nthe \u201cHall of the Five\u2010hundred Lohans.\u201d There the statues of the first\u2010\ncomers are arranged below, while one solitary Lohan is placed quite under\nthe roof of the building, which seems to have been built in commemoration\nof their visit.\n\nThe works of the Orientalists are full of the direct landmarks of Arhats\n(Adepts), possessed of thaumaturgic powers, but these are spoken\nof\u2014whenever the subject cannot be avoided\u2014with unconcealed scorn. Whether\ninnocently ignorant of, or purposely ignoring, the importance of the\nOccult element and symbology in the various Religions they undertake to\nexplain, short work is generally made of such passages, and they are left\nuntranslated. In simple justice, however, it should be allowed that much\nas all such miracles may have been exaggerated by popular reverence and\nfancy, they are neither less credible nor less attested in \u201cheathen\u201d\nannals than are those of the numerous Christian Saints in the church\nchronicles. Both have an equal right to a place in their respective\nhistories.\n\nIf, after the beginning of persecution against Buddhism, the Arhats were\nno more heard of in India, it was because, their vows prohibiting\nretaliation, they had to leave the country and seek solitude and security\nin China, Tibet, Japan, and elsewhere. The sacerdotal powers of the\nBr\u00e2hmans being at that time unlimited, the Simons and Apolloniuses of\nBuddhism had as much chance of recognition and appreciation by the\nBr\u00e2hmanical Iren\u00e6uses and Tertullians as had their successors in the\nJud\u00e6an and Roman worlds. It was a historical rehearsal of the dramas that\nwere enacted centuries later in Christendom. As in the case of the so\u2010\ncalled \u201cHeresiarchs\u201d of Christianity, it was not for rejecting the _Vedas_\nor the sacred Syllable that the Buddhist Arhats were persecuted, but for\nunderstanding too well the secret meaning of both. It was simply because\ntheir knowledge was regarded as dangerous and their presence in India\nunwelcome, that they had to emigrate.\n\nNor were there a smaller number of Initiates among the Br\u00e2hmans\nthemselves. Even to\u2010day one meets most wonderfully\u2010gifted S\u00e2ddhus and\nYog\u00ees, obliged to keep themselves unnoticed and in the shadow, not only\nowing to the absolute secresy imposed upon them at their Initiation but\nalso for fear of the Anglo\u2010Indian tribunals and courts of law, wherein\njudges are determined to regard as charlatanry, imposition, and fraud, the\nexhibition of, or claim to, any abnormal powers, and one may judge of the\npast by the present. Centuries after our era the Initiates of the inner\ntemples and the Mathams (monastic communities) chose a superior council,\npresided over by an all\u2010powerful Brahm\u2010\u00c2tm\u00e2, the Supreme Chief of all\nthose Mah\u00e2tm\u00e2s. This pontificate could be exercised only by a Br\u00e2hman who\nhad reached a certain age, and he it was who was the sole guardian of the\nmystic formula, and he was the Hierophant who created great Adepts. He\nalone could explain the meaning of the sacred word, AUM, and of all the\nreligious symbols and rites. And whosoever among those Initiates of the\nSupreme Degree revealed to a profane a single one of the truths, even the\nsmallest of the secrets entrusted to him, had to die; and he who received\nthe confidence was put to death.\n\nBut there existed, and still exists to this day, a Word far surpassing the\nmysterious monosyllable, and which renders him who comes into possession\nof its key nearly the equal of Brahman. The Brahm\u00e2tm\u00e2s alone possess this\nkey, and we know that to this day there are two great Initiates in\nSouthern India who possess it. It can be passed only at death, for it is\nthe \u201cLost Word.\u201d No torture, no human power, could force its disclosure by\na Br\u00e2hman who knows it; and it is well guarded in Tibet.\n\nYet this secresy and this profound mystery are indeed disheartening, since\nthey alone\u2014the Initiates of India and Tibet\u2014could thoroughly dissipate the\nthick mists hanging over the history of Occultism, and force its claims to\nbe recognized. The Delphic injunction, \u201c_Know thyself_,\u201d seems for the few\nin this age. But the fault ought not to be laid at the door of the Adepts,\nwho have done all that could be done, and have gone as far as Their rules\npermitted, to open the eyes of the world. Only while the European shrinks\nfrom public obloquy and the ridicule unsparingly thrown on Occultists, the\nAsiatic is being discouraged by his own Pandits. These profess to labour\nunder the gloomy impression that no B\u00eega Vidy\u00e2, no Arhatship (Adeptship),\nis possible during the Kali Yuga (the \u201cBlack Age\u201d) we are now passing\nthrough. Even the Buddhists are taught that the Lord Buddha is alleged to\nhave prophesied that the power would die out in \u201cone millennium after His\ndeath.\u201d But this is an entire mistake. In the _D\u00eegha Nik\u00e2ya_ the Buddha\nsays:\n\n\n    Hear, Subhadra! The world will never be without Rahats, if the\n    ascetics in my congregations well and truly keep my precepts.\n\n\nA similar contradiction of the view brought forward by the Br\u00e2hmans is\nmade by Krishna in the _Bhagavad G\u00eet\u00e2_, and there is further the actual\nappearance of many S\u00e2ddhus and miracle\u2010workers in the past, and even in\nthe present age. The same holds good for China and Tibet. Among the\ncommandments of Tsong\u2010Kha\u2010pa there is one that enjoins the Rahats (Arhats)\nto make an attempt to enlighten the world, including the \u201cwhite\nbarbarians,\u201d every century, at a certain specified period of the cycle. Up\nto the present day none of these attempts has been very successful.\nFailure has followed failure. Have we to explain the fact by the light of\na certain prophecy? It is said that up to the time when Pban\u2010chhen\u2010rin\u2010po\u2010\nchhe (the Great Jewel of Wisdom)(732) condescends to be reborn in the land\nof the P\u2019helings (Westerners), and appearing as the Spiritual Conqueror\n(Chom\u2010den\u2010da), destroys the errors and ignorance of the ages, it will be\nof little use to try to uproot the misconceptions of P\u2019heling\u2010pa (Europe):\nher sons will listen to no one. Another prophecy declares that the Secret\nDoctrine shall remain in all its purity in Bhod\u2010yul (Tibet), only to the\nday that it is kept free from foreign invasion. The very visits of Western\nnatives, however friendly, would be baneful to the Tibetan populations.\nThis is the true key to Tibetan exclusiveness.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION L. A FEW MORE MISCONCEPTIONS CORRECTED.\n\n\nNotwithstanding widespread misconceptions and errors\u2014often most amusing to\none who has a certain knowledge of the true doctrines\u2014about Buddhism\ngenerally, and especially about Buddhism in Tibet, all the Orientalists\nagree that the Buddha\u2019s foremost aim was to lead human beings to salvation\nby teaching them to practise the greatest purity and virtue, and by\ndetaching them from the service of this illusionary world, and the love of\none\u2019s still more illusionary\u2014because so evanescent and unreal\u2014body and\nphysical self. And what is the good of a virtuous life, full of privations\nand suffering, if the only result of it is to be annihilation at the end?\nIf even the attainment of that supreme perfection which leads the Initiate\nto remember the whole series of his past lives, and to foresee that of the\nfuture ones, by the full development of that inner, divine eye in him, and\nto acquire the knowledge that unfolds the causes(733) of the ever\u2010\nrecurring cycles of existence, brings him finally to non\u2010being, and\nnothing more\u2014then the whole system is idiotic, and Epicureanism is far\nmore philosophical than _such_ Buddhism. He who is unable to comprehend\nthe subtle, and yet so potent, difference between existence in a material\nor physical state and a purely spiritual existence\u2014Spirit or \u201cSoul\u2010\nlife\u201d\u2014will never appreciate at their full value the grand teachings of the\nBuddha, even in their exoteric form. Individual or personal existence is\nthe cause of pains and sorrows; collective and impersonal life\u2010eternal is\nfull of divine bliss and joy for ever, with neither causes nor effects to\ndarken its light. And the hope for such a life\u2010eternal is the keynote of\nthe whole of Buddhism. If we are told that impersonal existence is no\nexistence at all, but amounts to annihilation, as was maintained by some\nFrench reincarnationists, then we would ask: What difference can it make\nin the spiritual perceptions of an Ego whether he enter Nirv\u00e2na loaded\nwith the recollections only of his own personal lives\u2014tens of thousands\naccording to the modern reincarnationists\u2014or whether, merged entirely in\nthe Parabr\u00e2hmic state it becomes one with the All, with the absolute\nknowledge and the absolute feeling of representing collective humanities?\nOnce that an Ego lives only ten distinct individual lives he must\nnecessarily lose his one self, and become mixed up\u2014merged, so to say\u2014with\nthese ten selves. It really seems that so long as this great mystery\nremains a dead\u2010letter to the world of Western thinkers, and especially to\nthe Orientalists, the less the latter undertake to explain it the better\nfor Truth.\n\nOf all the existing religious Philosophies, Buddhism is the least\nunderstood. The Lassens, Webers, Wassiljows, the Burnoufs and Juliens, and\neven such \u201ceye\u2010witnesses\u201d of Tibetan Buddhism as Csoma de K\u00f6ros and the\nSchlagintweits, have hitherto only added perplexity to confusion. None of\nthese has ever received his information from a genuine Gelugpa source: all\nhave judged Buddhism from the bits of knowledge picked up at Tibetan\nfrontier lamaseries, in countries thickly populated by Bhutanese and\nLeptchas, Bhons, and red\u2010capped Dugpas, along the line of the Him\u00e2layas.\nHundreds of volumes purchased from Burats, Shamans, and Chinese Buddhists,\nhave been read and translated, glossed and misinterpreted according to\ninvariable custom. Esoteric Schools would cease to be worthy of their name\nwere their literature and doctrines to become the property of even their\nprofane co\u2010religionists\u2014still less of the Western public. This is simple\ncommon\u2010sense and logic. Nevertheless this is a fact which our Orientalists\nhave ever refused to recognize: hence they have gone on, gravely\ndiscussing the relative merits and absurdities of idols, \u201csooth\u2010saying\ntables,\u201d and \u201cmagical figures of Phurbu\u201d on the \u201csquare tortoise.\u201d None of\nthese have anything to do with the real philosophical Buddhism of the\nGelugpa, or even of the most educated among the Sakyapa and Kadampa sects.\nAll such \u201cplates\u201d and sacrificial tables, Chinsreg magical circles, etc.,\nwere avowedly got from Sikkhim, Bhutan, and Eastern Tibet, from Bhons and\nDugpas. Nevertheless, these are given as characteristics of Tibetan\nBuddhism! It would be as fair to judge the unread Philosophy of Bishop\nBerkeley after studying Christianity in the clown\u2010worship of Neapolitan\nlazzaroni, dancing a mystic jig before the idol of St. Pip, or carrying\nthe _ex\u2010voto_ in wax of the phallus of SS. Cosmo and Domiano, at Tsernie.\n\nIt is quite true that the primitive Shr\u00e2vakas (listeners or hearers) and\nthe Shramanas (the \u201cthought\u2010restrainers\u201d and the \u201cpure\u201d) have degenerated,\nand that many Buddhist sects have fallen into mere dogmatism and\nritualism. Like every other Esoteric, half\u2010suppressed teaching, the words\nof the Buddha convey a double meaning, and every sect has gradually come\nto claim to be the only one knowing the correct meaning, and thus to\nassume supremacy over the rest. Schism has crept in, and has fastened,\nlike a hideous cancer, on the fair body of early Buddhism. N\u00e2g\u00e2rjuna\u2019s\nMah\u00e2y\u00e2na (\u201cGreat Vehicle\u201d) School was opposed by the H\u00eenay\u00e2na (or \u201cLittle\nVehicle\u201d) System, and even the Yog\u00e2ch\u00e2rya of \u00c2ry\u00e2sanga became disfigured\nby the yearly pilgrimage from India to the shores of Mansarovara, of hosts\nof vagabonds with matted locks who play at being Yog\u00ees and Fakirs,\npreferring this to work. An affected detestation of the world, and the\ntedious and useless practice of the counting of inhalations and\nexhalations as a means to produce absolute tranquillity of mind or\nmeditation, have brought this school within the region of Hatha Yoga, and\nhave made it heir to the Br\u00e2hmanical T\u00eerthikas. And though its Srot\u00e2patti,\nits Sakrid\u00e2g\u00e2min, An\u00e2g\u00e2min, and Arhats,(734) bear the same names in almost\nevery school, yet the doctrines of each differ greatly, and none of these\nis likely to gain real Abhij\u00f1\u00e2s (the supernatural abnormal five powers).\n\nOne of the chief mistakes of the Orientalists when judging on \u201cinternal\n(?) evidence,\u201d as they express it, was that they assumed that the Pratyeka\nBuddhas, the Bodhisattvas, and the \u201cPerfect\u201d Buddhas were a later\ndevelopment of Buddhism. For on these three chief degrees are based the\nseven and twelve degrees of the Hierarchy of Adeptship. The first are\nthose who have attained the Bodhi (wisdom) of the Buddhas, but do not\nbecome Teachers.(735) The human Bodhisattvas are candidates, so to say,\nfor perfect Buddhaship (in Kalpas to come), and with the option of using\ntheir powers now if need be. \u201cPerfect\u201d Buddhas are simply \u201cperfect\u201d\nInitiates. All these are men, and not disembodied Beings, as is given out\nin the H\u00eenay\u00e2na exoteric books. Their correct character may be found only\nin the secret volumes of Lugrub or N\u00e2g\u00e2rjuna, the founder of the Mah\u00e2y\u00e2na\nsystem, who is said to have been initiated by the N\u00e2gas (fabulous\n\u201cSerpents,\u201d the veiled name for an Initiate or Mah\u00e2tm\u00e2). The fabled report\nfound in Chinese records that N\u00e2g\u00e2rjuna considered his doctrine to be in\nopposition to that of Gautama Buddha, until he discovered from the N\u00e2gas\nthat it was precisely the doctrine that had been secretly taught by\nSh\u00e2kyamuni Himself, is an allegory, and is based upon the reconciliation\nbetween the old Br\u00e2hmanical secret Schools in the Him\u00e2layas and Gautama\u2019s\nEsoteric teachings, both parties having at first objected to the rival\nschools of the other. The former, the parent of all others, had been\nestablished beyond the Him\u00e2layas for ages before the appearance of\nSh\u00e2kyamuni. Gautama was a pupil of this; and it was with them, those\nIndian Sages, that He had learned the truths of the Sungata, the emptiness\nand impermanence of every terrestrial, evanescent thing, and the mysteries\nof Praj\u00f1\u00e2 P\u00e2ramit\u00e2, or \u201cknowledge across the River,\u201d which finally lands\nthe \u201cPerfect One\u201d in the regions of the One Reality. But His Arhats were\nnot Himself. Some of them were ambitious, and they modified certain\nteachings after the great councils, and it is on account of these\n\u201cheretics\u201d that the Mother\u2010School at first refused to allow them to blend\ntheir schools, when persecution began driving away the Esoteric\nBrotherhood from India. But when finally most of them submitted to the\nguidance and control of the chief \u00c2shrams, then the Yog\u00e2ch\u00e2rya of\n\u00c2ry\u00e2sanga was merged into the oldest Lodge. For it is _there_ from time\nimmemorial that has lain concealed the final hope and light of the world,\nthe salvation of mankind. Many are the names of that School and land, the\nname of the latter being now regarded by the Orientalists as the mythic\nname of a fabulous country. It is from this mysterious land, nevertheless,\nthat the Hindu expects his Kalki Avat\u00e2ra, the Buddhist his Maitreya, the\nP\u00e2rs\u00ee his Sosiosh, and the Jew his Messiah, and so would the Christian\nexpect thence his Christ\u2014if he only knew of it.\n\nThere, and there alone, reigns Paranishpanna (Gunggrub), the absolutely\nperfect comprehension of Being and Non\u2010Being, the changeless true\nExistence in Spirit, even while the latter is seemingly still in the body,\nevery inhabitant thereof being a Non\u2010Ego because he has become the Perfect\nEgo. Their voidness is \u201cself\u2010existent and perfect\u201d\u2014if there were profane\neyes to sense and perceive it\u2014because it has become absolute; the unreal\nbeing transformed into conditionless Reality, and the realities of this,\nour world, having vanished in their own nature into thin (non\u2010existing)\nair. The \u201cAbsolute Truth\u201d (Dondam\u2010pay\u2010den\u2010pa; Sanskrit: Param\u00e2rthasatya),\nhaving conquered \u201crelative truth\u201d (Kunza\u2010bchi\u2010den\u2010pa; Sanskrit:\nSamvritisatya), the inhabitants of the mysterious region are thus supposed\nto have reached the state called in mystic phraseology Svasamvedan\u00e2\n(\u201cself\u2010analyzing reflection\u201d) and Param\u00e2rtha, or that absolute\nconsciousness of the personal merged into the impersonal Ego, which is\nabove all, hence above illusion in every sense. Its \u201cPerfect\u201d Buddhas and\nBodhisattvas may be on every nimble Buddhist tongue as celestial\u2014therefore\nunreachable Beings, while these names may suggest and say nothing to the\ndull perceptions of the European profane. What matters it to Those who,\nbeing in this world, yet live outside and far beyond our illusive earth!\nAbove Them there is but one class of Nirv\u00e2n\u00ees, namely, the Chos\u2010ku\n(Dharmak\u00e2ya), or the Nirv\u00e2n\u00ees \u201cwithout remains\u201d\u2014the pure Ar\u00fbpa, the\nformless Breaths.(736)\n\nThence emerge occasionally the Bodhisattvas in their Prul\u2010pai\u2010ku (or\nNirm\u00e2nak\u00e2ya) body and, assuming an ordinary appearance, they teach men.\nThere are conscious, as well as unconscious, incarnations.\n\nMost of the doctrines contained in the Yog\u00e2ch\u00e2rya, or Mah\u00e2y\u00e2na systems are\nEsoteric, like the rest. One day the profane Hindu and Buddhist may begin\nto pick the _Bible_ to pieces, taking it literally. Education is fast\nspreading in Asia, and already there have been made some attempts in this\ndirection, so that the tables may then be cruelly turned on the\nChristians. Whatever conclusions the two may arrive at, they will never be\nhalf as absurd and unjust as some of the theories launched by Christians\nagainst their respective Philosophies. Thus, according to Spence Hardy, at\ndeath the Arhat enters Nirv\u00e2na:\n\n\n    That is, he ceases to exist.\n\n\nAnd, agreeably to Major Jacob, the J\u00eevanmukta,\n\n\n    Absorbed into Brahma, enters upon an unconscious and stonelike\n    existence.(737)\n\n\nShankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya is shown as saying in his prolegomena to the\n_Shvet\u00e2shvatara:_\n\n\n    Gnosis, once arisen, requires nothing farther for the realization\n    of its result: it needs _subsidia_ only that it may arise.\n\n\nThe Theosophist, it has been argued, as long as he lives, may do good and\nevil as he chooses, and incur no stain, such is the efficacy of gnosis.\nAnd it is further alleged that the doctrine of Nirv\u00e2na lends itself to\nimmoral inferences, and that the Quietists of all ages have been taxed\nwith immorality.(738)\n\nAccording to Wassilyew(739) and Csoma de K\u00f6ros,(740) the Prasanga School\nadopted a peculiar mode of\n\n\n    Deducing the absurdity and erroneousness of every esoteric\n    opinion.(741)\n\n\nCorrect interpretations of Buddhist Philosophy are crowned by that gloss\non a thesis from the Prasanga School, that\n\n\n    Even an Arhat goes to hell in case he doubt anything,(742)\n\n\nthus making of the most free\u2010thinking religion in the world a blind\u2010faith\nsystem. The \u201cthreat\u201d refers simply to the well\u2010known law that even an\nInitiate may fail, and thus have his object utterly ruined, if he doubt\nfor one moment the efficacy of his psychic powers\u2014the alphabet of\nOccultism, as every Kabalist well knows.\n\nThe Tibetan sect of the Ngo\u2010vo\u2010nyid\u2010med par Mraba (\u201cthey who deny\nexistence,\u201d or \u201cregard nature as M\u00e2y\u00e2\u201d)(743) can never be contrasted for\none moment with some of the nihilistic or materialistic schools of India,\nsuch as the Ch\u00e2rv\u00e2ka. They are pure Ved\u00e2ntins\u2014if anything\u2014in their views.\nAnd if the Yog\u00e2ch\u00e2ryas may be compared with, or called the Tibetan\nVishishtadwait\u00ees, the Prasanga School is surely the Adwaita Philosophy of\nthe land. It was divided into two: one was originally founded by Bhavya,\nthe Svantatra Madhyamika School, and the other by Buddhap\u00e2lita; both have\ntheir exoteric and esoteric divisions. It is necessary to belong to the\nlatter to know anything of the esoteric doctrines of that sect, the most\nmetaphysical and philosophical of all. Chandrakirti (Dava Dagpa) wrote his\ncommentaries on the Prasanga doctrines and taught publicly; and he\nexpressly states that there are two ways of entering the \u201cPath\u201d to\nNirv\u00e2na. Any virtuous man can reach by Naljorngonsum (\u201cmeditation by self\u2010\nperception\u201d), the intuitive comprehension of the four Truths, without\neither belonging to a monastic order or having been initiated. In this\ncase it was considered as a heresy to maintain that the visions which may\narise in consequence of such meditation, or Vishn\u00e2 (internal knowledge),\nare not susceptible of errors (Namtog or false visions), for they are.\nAlaya alone having an absolute and eternal existence, can alone have\nabsolute knowledge; and even the Initiate, in his Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2ya(744) body\nmay commit an occasional mistake in accepting the false for the true in\nhis explorations of the \u201cCauseless\u201d World. The Dharmak\u00e2ya Bodhisattva is\nalone infallible, when in real Sam\u00e2dhi. \u00c2laya, or Nying\u2010po, being the root\nand basis of all, invisible and incomprehensible to human eye and\nintellect, it can reflect only its reflection\u2014not Itself. Thus that\nreflection will be mirrored like the moon in tranquil and clear water only\nin the passionless Dharmak\u00e2ya intellect, and will be distorted by the\nflitting image of everything perceived in a mind that is itself liable to\nbe disturbed.\n\nIn short, this doctrine is that of the R\u00e2j\u2010Yoga in its practice of the two\nkinds of the Sam\u00e2dhi state; one of the \u201cPaths\u201d leading to the sphere of\nbliss (Sukh\u00e2vat\u00ee or Devachan), where man enjoys perfect, unalloyed\nhappiness, but is yet still connected with personal existence; and the\nother the Path that leads to entire emancipation from the worlds of\nillusion, self, and unreality. The first one is open to all and is reached\nby merit simply; the second\u2014a hundredfold more rapid\u2014is reached through\nknowledge (Initiation). Thus the followers of the Prasanga School are\nnearer to Esoteric Buddhism than are the Yog\u00e2ch\u00e2ryas; for their views are\nthose of the most secret Schools, and only the echo of these doctrines is\nheard in the _Yamyangshapda_ and other works in public circulation and\nuse. For instance, the unreality of two out of the three divisions of time\nis given in public works, namely (_a_) that there is neither past nor\nfuture, both of these divisions being correlative to the present; and\n(_b_) that the reality of things can never be sensed or perceived except\nby him who has obtained the Dharmak\u00e2ya body; here again is a difficulty,\nsince this body \u201cwithout remains\u201d carries the Initiate to full\nParanirv\u00e2na, if we accept the exoteric explanation verbally, and can\ntherefore neither sense nor perceive. But evidently our Orientalists do\nnot feel the _caveat_ in such incongruities, and they proceed to speculate\nwithout pausing to reflect over it. Literature on Mysticism being\nenormous, and Russia, owing to the free intercourse with the Burats,\nShamans, and Mongolians, having alone purchased whole libraries on Tibet,\nscholars ought to know better by this time. It suffices to read, however,\nwhat Csoma wrote on the origin of the K\u00e2la Chakra System,(745) or\nWassilyew on Buddhism, to make one give up every hope of seeing them go\nbelow the rind of the \u201cforbidden fruit.\u201d When Schlagintweit is found\nsaying that Tibetan Mysticism is not Yoga\u2014\n\n\n    That abstract devotion by which supernatural powers are\n    acquired,(746)\n\n\nas Yoga is defined by Wilson, but that it is closely related to Siberian\nShamanism, and is \u201calmost identical with the T\u00e2ntrika ritual\u201d; and that\nthe Tibetan _Zung_ is the \u201c_Dh\u00e2ran\u00ees_,\u201d and the _Gyut_ only the\n_Tantras_\u2014pre\u2010Christian Tantra being judged by the ritual of the modern\nT\u00e2ntrikas\u2014one seems almost justified in suspecting our materialistic\nOrientalists of acting as the best friends and allies of the missionaries.\nWhatever is not known to our geographers seems to be a non\u2010existent\nlocality. Thus:\n\n\n    Mysticism is reported to have originated in the fabulous country,\n    Sambhala.... Csoma, from _careful_ investigations, places this\n    [fabulous?] country beyond the Sir Daria [Yaxartes] between 45\u00b0\n    and 50\u00b0 north latitude. It was first known in India in the year\n    965 A.D., and was introduced ... into Tibet from India, _vi\u00e2_\n    Kashmir, in the year 1025 A.D.(747)\n\n\n\u201cIt\u201d meaning the \u201cDus\u2010kyi Khorlo,\u201d or Tibetan Mysticism. A system as old\nas man, known in India and practised before Europe had become a continent,\n\u201cwas first known,\u201d we are told, only nine or ten centuries ago! The text\nof its books in its present form may have \u201coriginated\u201d even later, for\nthere are numerous such texts that have been tampered with by sects to\nsuit the fancies of each. But who has read the original book on Dus\u2010Kyi\nKhorlo, re\u2010written by Tsong\u2010Kha\u2010pa, with his Commentaries? Considering\nthat this grand Reformer burnt every book on Sorcery on which he could lay\nhis hands in 1387, and that he has left a whole library of his own\nworks\u2014not a tenth part of which has ever been made known\u2014such statements\nas those above\u2010quoted are, to say the least, premature. The idea is also\ncherished\u2014from a happy hypothesis offered by Abb\u00e9 Huc\u2014that Tsong\u2010Kha\u2010pa\nderived his wisdom and acquired his extraordinary powers from his\nintercourse with a stranger from the West, \u201cremarkable for a long nose.\u201d\nThis stranger is believed by the good Abb\u00e9 \u201cto have been a European\nmissionary\u201d; hence the remarkable resemblance of the religious ritual in\nTibet to the Roman Catholic service. The sanguine \u201cLama of Jehovah\u201d does\nnot say, however, who were the five foreigners who appeared in Tibet in\nthe year 371 of our era, to disappear as suddenly and mysteriously as they\ncame, after leaving with King Thothori\u2010Nyang\u2010tsan instructions how to use\ncertain things in a casket that \u201chad fallen from heaven\u201d in his presence\nprecisely fifty years before, or in the year A.D. 331.(748)\n\nThere is generally a hopeless confusion about Eastern dates among European\nscholars, but nowhere is this so great as in the case of Tibetan Buddhism.\nThus, while some, correctly enough, accept the seventh century as the date\nof the introduction of Buddhism, there are others\u2014such as Lassen and\nKoeppung, for instance\u2014who show on good authority, the one, the\nconstruction of a Buddhist monastery on the slopes of the Kailas Range so\nfar back as the year 137 B.C.,(749) and the other, Buddhism established in\nand north of the Punjab, as early as the year 292 B.C. The difference\nthough trifling\u2014only just one thousand years\u2014is nevertheless puzzling. But\neven this is easily explained on Esoteric grounds. Buddhism\u2014the veiled\nEsotericism of Buddha\u2014was established and took root in the seventh century\nof the Christian era; while true Esoteric Buddhism, or the kernel, the\nvery spirit of Tath\u00e2gata\u2019s doctrines, was brought to the place of its\nbirth, the cradle of humanity, by the chosen Arhats of Buddha, who were\nsent to find for it a secure refuge, as\n\n\n    The Sage had perceived the dangers ever since he had entered upon\n    Thonglam (\u201cthe Path of seeing,\u201d or clairvoyance).\n\n\nAmidst populations deeply steeped in Sorcery the attempt proved a failure;\nand it was not until the School of the \u201cDoctrine of the Heart\u201d had merged\nwith its predecessor, established ages earlier on the slope facing Western\nTibet, that Buddhism was finally engrafted, with its two distinct\nSchools\u2014the Esoteric and the exoteric divisions\u2014in the land of the Bhon\u2010\npa.\n\n\n\n\n\nSECTION LI. THE \u201cDOCTRINE OF THE EYE\u201d & THE \u201cDOCTRINE OF THE HEART,\u201d OR\nTHE \u201cHEART\u2019S SEAL.\u201d\n\n\nProf. Albrecht Weber was right when he declared that the Northern\nBuddhists\n\n\n    Alone possess these [Buddhist] Scriptures complete.\n\n\nFor, while the Southern Buddhists have no idea of the existence of an\nEsoteric Doctrine\u2014enshrined like a pearl within the shell of every\nreligion\u2014the Chinese and the Tibetans have preserved numerous records of\nthe fact. Degenerate, fallen as is now the Doctrine publicly preached by\nGautama, it is yet preserved in those monasteries in China that are placed\nbeyond the reach of visitors. And though for over two millennia every new\n\u201creformer,\u201d taking something out of the original has replaced it by some\nspeculation of his own, still truth lingers even now among the masses. But\nit is only in the Trans\u2010Him\u00e2layan fastnesses\u2014loosely called Tibet\u2014in the\nmost inaccessible spots of desert and mountain, that the Esoteric \u201cGood\nLaw\u201d\u2014the \u201cHeart\u2019s Seal\u201d\u2014lives to the present day in all its pristine\npurity.\n\nWas Emanuel Swedenborg wrong when he remarked of the forgotten, long\u2010lost\nWord:\n\n\n    Seek for it in China; peradventure you may find it in Great\n    Tartary.\n\n\nHe had obtained this information, he tells his readers, from certain\n\u201cSpirits,\u201d who told him that they performed their worship according to\nthis (lost) ancient Word. On this it was remarked in _Isis Unveiled_ that\n\n\n    Other students of Occult Sciences had more than the word of\n    \u201cspirits\u201d to rely upon in this special case: they have seen the\n    books\n\n\nthat contain the \u201cWord.\u201d(750) Perchance the names of those \u201cSpirits\u201d who\nvisited the great Swedish Theosophist were Eastern. The word of a man of\nsuch undeniable and recognised integrity, of one whose learning in\nMathematics, Astronomy, the natural Sciences and Philosophy was far in\nadvance of his age, cannot be trifled with or rejected as unceremoniously\nas if it were the statement of a modern Theosophist; further, he claimed\nto pass at will into that state when the Inner Self frees itself entirely\nfrom every physical sense, and lives and breathes in a world where every\nsecret of Nature is an open book to the Soul\u2010eye.(751) Unfortunately two\u2010\nthirds of his public writings are also allegorical in one sense; and, as\nthey have been accepted literally, criticism has not spared the great\nSwedish Seer any more than other Seers.\n\nHaving taken a panoramic view of the hidden Sciences and Magic with their\nAdepts in Europe, Eastern Initiates must now be mentioned. If the presence\nof Esotericism in the Sacred Scriptures of the West only now begins to be\nsuspected, after nearly two thousand years of blind faith in their\n_verbatim_ wisdom, the same may well be granted as to the Sacred Books of\nthe East. Therefore neither the Indian nor the Buddhist system can be\nunderstood without a key, nor can the study of comparative Religion become\na \u201cScience\u201d until the symbols of every Religion yield their final secrets.\nAt the best such a study will remain a loss of time, a playing at hide\u2010\nand\u2010seek.\n\nOn the authority of a Japanese _Encyclop\u00e6dia_, Remusat shows the Buddha,\nbefore His death, committing the secrets of His system to His disciple,\nK\u00e2syapa, to whom alone was entrusted the sacred keeping of the Esoteric\ninterpretation. It is called in China _Ching\u2010fa\u2010yin\u2010Tsang_ (\u201cthe Mystery\nof the Eye of the Good Doctrine\u201d). To any student of Buddhist Esotericism\nthe term, \u201cthe Mystery of the Eye,\u201d would show the absence of any\nEsotericism. Had the word \u201cHeart\u201d stood in its place, then it would have\nmeant what it now only professes to convey. The \u201cEye Doctrine\u201d means dogma\nand dead\u2010letter form, church ritualism intended for those who are content\nwith exoteric formul\u00e6. The \u201cHeart Doctrine,\u201d or the \u201cHeart\u2019s Seal\u201d (the\nSin Yin), is the only real one. This may be found corroborated by Hiuen\nTsang. In his translation of _Mah\u00e2\u2010Prajn\u00e2\u2010P\u00e2ramit\u00e2_ (_Ta\u2010poh\u2010je\u2010King_), in\none hundred and twenty volumes, it is stated that it was Buddha\u2019s\n\u201cfavourite disciple \u00c2nanda,\u201d who, after his great Master had gone into\nNirv\u00e2na, was commissioned by K\u00e2syapa to promulgate \u201cthe Eye of the\nDoctrine,\u201d the \u201cHeart\u201d of the Law having been left with the Arhats alone.\n\nThe essential difference that exists between the two\u2014the \u201cEye\u201d and the\n\u201cHeart,\u201d or the outward form and the hidden meaning, the cold metaphysics\nand the Divine Wisdom\u2014is clearly demonstrated in several volumes on\n\u201cChinese Buddhism,\u201d written by sundry missionaries. Having lived for years\nin China, they still know no more than they have learned from pretentious\nschools calling themselves esoteric, yet freely supplying the open enemies\nof their faith with professedly ancient manuscripts and esoteric works!\nThis ludicrous contradiction between profession and practice has never, as\nit seems, struck any of the western and reverend historians of other\npeoples\u2019 secret tenets. Thus many esoteric schools are mentioned in\n_Chinese Buddhism_ by the Rev. Joseph Edkins, who believes quite sincerely\nthat he has made \u201ca minute examination\u201d of the secret tenets of Buddhists\nwhose works \u201cwere until lately inaccessible in their original form.\u201d It\nreally will not be saying too much to state at once that the genuine\nEsoteric literature is \u201cinaccessible\u201d to this day, and that the\nrespectable gentleman who was inspired to state that\n\n\n    It does not appear that there was any secret doctrine which those\n    who knew it would not divulge,\n\n\nmade a great mistake if he ever believed in what he says on page 161 of\nhis work. Let him know at once that all those Y\u00fb\u2010luh (\u201cRecords of the\nSayings\u201d) of celebrated teachers are simply blinds, as complete\u2014if not\nmore so\u2014than those in the Pur\u00e2nas of the Br\u00e2hmans. It is useless to\nenumerate an endless string of the finest Oriental scholars or to bring\nforward the researches of Remusat, Burnouf, Koeppen, St. Hilaire, and St.\nJulian, who are credited with having exposed to view the ancient Hindu\nworld, by revealing the sacred and secret books of Buddhism: the world\nthat they reveal has never been veiled. The mistakes of all the\nOrientalists may be judged by the mistake of one of the most popular, if\nnot the greatest among them all\u2014Prof. Max M\u00fcller. It is made with\nreference to what he laughingly translates as the \u201cgod Who\u201d (Ka).\n\n\n    The authors of the Br\u00e2hmanas had so completely broken with the\n    past, that, forgetful of the poetical character of the hymns and\n    the yearning of the poets after the Unknown God, they exalted the\n    interrogative pronoun itself into a deity, and acknowledged a god\n    Ka (or Who?)... Wherever interrogative verses occur the author\n    states that Ka is Praj\u00e2pati, or the Lord of Creatures. Nor did\n    they stop here. Some of the hymns in which the interrogative\n    pronoun occurred were called Kadvat, _i.e._, having Kad or Quid.\n    But soon a new adjective was formed, and not only the hymns but\n    the sacrifice also offered to the god were called Kaya, or\n    \u201cWho\u201d\u2010ish.... At the time of P\u00e2nini this word acquired such\n    legitimacy as to call for a separate rule explaining its\n    formation. The Commentator here explains Ka by Brahman.\n\n\nHad the commentator explained It even by Parabrahman he would have been\nstill more in the right than he was by rendering It as \u201cBrahman.\u201d One\nfails to see why the secret and sacred Mystery\u2010Name of the highest,\nsexless, formless Spirit, the Absolute,\u2014Whom no one would have dared to\nclassify with the rest of the manifested Deities, or even to name during\nthe primitive nomenclature of the symbolical Panthenon, should not be\nexpressed by an interrogative pronoun. Is it those who belong to the most\nanthropomorphic Religion in the world who have a right to take ancient\nPhilosophers to task for even an exaggerated religious awe and veneration?\n\nBut we are now concerned with Buddhism. Its Esotericism and oral\ninstruction, which is written down and preserved in single copies by the\nhighest chiefs in genuine Esoteric Schools, is shown by the author San\u2010\nKian\u2010yi\u2010su. Contrasting Bodhidharma with Buddha, he exclaims:\n\n\n    \u201cJulai\u201d (Tath\u00e2gata) taught great truths and the causes of things.\n    He became the instructor of men and Devas. He saved multitudes,\n    and spoke the contents of more than five hundred works. Hence\n    arose the Kiau\u2010men, or exoteric branch of the system, and it was\n    believed to be the tradition of the _words_ of Buddha. Bodhidharma\n    brought from the Western Heaven [Shamballa] the \u201cSeal of Truth\u201d\n    (true seal) and opened the fountain of contemplation in the East.\n    He pointed directly to Buddha\u2019s heart and nature, swept away the\n    parasitic and alien growth of book\u2010instruction, and thus\n    established the Tsung\u2010men, or Esoteric branch of the system\n    containing the tradition of the heart of Buddha.(752)\n\n\nA few remarks made by the author of _Chinese Buddhism_ throw a flood of\nlight on the universal misconceptions of Orientalists in general, and of\nthe missionaries in the \u201clands of the Gentiles\u201d in particular. They appeal\nvery forcibly to the intuition of Theosophists\u2014more particularly of those\nin India. The sentences to be noticed are italicized.\n\n\n    The common [Chinese] word for the esoteric Schools is _dan_, the\n    Sanskrit _Dhy\u00e2na_.... Orthodox Buddhism has in China slowly but\n    steadily _become heterodox_. The Buddhism of books and ancient\n    traditions _has become the Buddhism of mystic contemplation_....\n    The history of ancient schools springing up long ago in the\n    Buddhist communities of India _can now be only very partially\n    recovered_. Possibly some light may be thrown back by China upon\n    the religious history of the country from which Buddhism\n    came.(753) In no part of the story is aid to the recovery of the\n    lost knowledge more likely to be found than in the accounts of the\n    patriarchs, the line of whom was completed by Bodhidharma. In\n    seeking the best explanation of the Chinese and Japanese narrative\n    of the patriarchs, and the _seven Buddhas_ terminating in Gautama,\n    or Sh\u00e2kyamuni, it is important to know the Jain traditions as they\n    were early in the sixth century of our era, when the Patriarch\n    Bodhidharma removed to China....\n\n    In tracing the rise of the various schools of esoteric Buddhism it\n    must be kept in mind that a principle somewhat similar to the\n    dogma of apostolical succession belongs to them all. They all\n    profess _to derive their doctrines through a succession of\n    teachers, each instructed personally by his predecessor, till the\n    time of Bodhidharma, and so further up in the series to Sh\u00e2kyamuni\n    himself and the earlier Buddhas_.(754)\n\n\nIt is complained further on, and is mentioned as a falling away from\nstrict orthodox Buddhism, that _the Lamas of Tibet are received in Pekin\nwith the utmost respect_ by the Emperor.\n\nThe following passages, taken from different parts of the book, summarise\nMr. Edkins\u2019 views:\n\n\n    Hermits are not uncommonly met with in the vicinity of large\n    Buddhist temples ... their hair being allowed to grow unshorn....\n    The doctrine of metempsychosis is rejected. Buddhism is one form\n    of Pantheism on the ground that the doctrine of metempsychosis\n    makes all nature instinct with life, and that that life is the\n    Deity assuming different forms of personality, that Deity not\n    being a self\u2010conscious, free\u2010acting Self\u2010Cause, but an all\u2010\n    pervading Spirit. The esoteric Buddhists of China, keeping rigidly\n    to their one doctrine,(755) say nothing of the metempsychosis, ...\n    or any other of the more material parts of the Buddhist system....\n    The Western paradise promised to the worshippers of Amida Buddha\n    is ... inconsistent with the doctrine of Nirvana [?].(756)... _It\n    promises immortality_ instead of annihilation. The great antiquity\n    of this School is evident from the early date of the translation\n    of the _Amida S\u00fbtra_, which came from the hands of Kum\u00e2raj\u00eeva, and\n    the _Ku\u2010liang\u2010sheu\u2010King_, dating from the Han dynasty. Its extent\n    of influence is seen in the attachment of the Tibetans and Moguls\n    to the worship of this Buddha, and in the fact that the name of\n    this fictitious personage [?] is more commonly heard in China than\n    that of the historical Sh\u00e2kyamuni.\n\n\nWe fear the learned writer is on a false track as to Nirv\u00e2na and Amita\nBuddha. However, here we have the evidence of a missionary to show that\nthere are several schools of Esoteric Buddhism in the Celestial Empire.\nWhen the misuse of dogmatical orthodox Buddhist Scriptures had reached its\nclimax, and the true spirit of the Buddha\u2019s Philosophy was nearly lost,\nseveral reformers appeared from India, who established an oral teaching.\nSuch were Bodhidharma and N\u00e2g\u00e2rjuna, the authors of the most important\nworks of the contemplative School in China during the first centuries of\nour era. It is known, moreover, as is said in _Chinese Buddhism_, that\nBodhidharma became the chief founder of the Esoteric Schools, which were\ndivided into five principal branches. The data given are correct enough,\nbut every conclusion, without one single exception, is wrong. It was said\nin _Isis Unveiled_ that\u2014\n\n\n    Buddha teaches the doctrine of a new birth as plainly as Jesus\n    does. Desiring to break with the ancient Mysteries, to which it\n    was impossible to admit the ignorant masses, the Hindu reformer,\n    though generally silent upon more than one secret dogma, clearly\n    states his thought in several passages. Thus, he says: \u201c_Some\n    people are born again_; evil\u2010doers go to hell [Avitchi]; righteous\n    people go to heaven [Devachan]; those who are free from all\n    worldly desires enter Nirv\u00e2na\u201d (_Precepts of the Dhammapada_, v.\n    126). Elsewhere Buddha states that \u201cit is better to believe in a\n    future life, in which happiness or misery can be felt: for if the\n    heart believes therein it will abandon sin and act virtuously; and\n    even if there is no resurrection [rebirth], such a life will bring\n    a good name and the reward of men. But those who believe in\n    extinction at death will not fail to commit any sin that they may\n    choose, because of their disbelief in a future.\u201d (See _Wheel of\n    the Law_.)\n\n\nHow is immortality, then, \u201cinconsistent with the doctrine of Nirv\u00e2na?\u201d The\nabove are only a few of Buddha\u2019s openly\u2010expressed thoughts to his chosen\nArhats; the great Saint said much more. As a comment upon the mistaken\nviews held in our century by the Orientalists, \u201cwho vainly try to fathom\nTath\u00e2gata\u2019s thoughts,\u201d and those of Br\u00e2hmans, \u201cwho repudiate the great\nTeacher to this day,\u201d here are some original thoughts expressed in\nrelation to the Buddha and the study of the Secret Sciences. They are from\na work written in Chinese by a Tibetan, and published in the monastery of\nTienta\u00ef for circulation among the Buddhists\n\n\n    Who live in foreign lands, and are in danger of being spoiled by\n    missionaries,\n\n\nas the author truly says, every convert being not only \u201cspoiled\u201d for his\nown creed, but being also a sorry acquisition for Christianity. A\ntranslation of a few passages, kindly made from that work for the present\nvolumes is now given.\n\n\n    No profane ears having heard the mighty Chau\u2010yan [secret and\n    enlightening _precepts_] of Vu\u2010vei\u2010Tchen\u2010jen [Buddha _within_\n    Buddha],(757) of our beloved Lord and Bodhisattva, how can one\n    tell what his thoughts really were? The holy Sang\u2010gyas\u2010\n    Panchhen(758) never offered an insight into the _One Reality_ to\n    the unreformed [uninitiated] Bhikkus. Few are those even among the\n    Tu\u2010fon [Tibetans] who knew it; as for the Tsung\u2010men(759) Schools,\n    they are going with every day more down hill.... Not even the Fa\u2010\n    siong\u2010Tsung(760) can give one the wisdom taught in real Naljor\u2010\n    chod\u2010pa [Sanskrit:(761) Yog\u00e2ch\u00e2rya]: ... it is all \u201cEye\u201d Doctrine,\n    and no more. The loss of a restraining guidance is felt, since the\n    Tch\u2019\u2010an\u2010si [teachers] of inward meditation [self\u2010contemplation or\n    Tchung\u2010kwan] have become rare, and the Good Law is replaced by\n    idol\u2010worship [Siang\u2010kyan]. It is of this [idol\u2010 or image\u2010worship]\n    that the Barbarians [Western people] have heard, and know nothing\n    of Bas\u2010pa\u2010Dharma [the secret Dharma or doctrine]. Why has truth to\n    hide like a tortoise within its shell? Because it is now found to\n    have become like the Lama\u2019s tonsure knife,(762) a weapon too\n    dangerous to use even for the Lanoo. Therefore no one can be\n    entrusted with the knowledge [Secret Science] before his time. The\n    Chagpa\u2010Thog\u2010mad have become rare, and the best have retired to\n    Tushita the Blessed.(763)\n\n\nFurther on, a man seeking to master the mysteries of Esotericism before he\nhad been declared by the initiated Tch\u2019\u2010an\u2010si (teachers) to be ready to\nreceive them, is likened to\n\n\n    One who would, without a lantern and on a dark night, proceed to a\n    place full of scorpions, determined to feel on the ground for a\n    needle his neighbour has dropped.\n\n\nAgain:\n\n\n    He who would acquire the Sacred Knowledge should, before he goes\n    any farther \u201c_trim his lamp_ of inner understanding,\u201d and then\n    \u201cwith the help of such good light\u201d use his meritorious actions as\n    a dust\u2010cloth to remove every impurity from his mystic mirror,(764)\n    so that he should be enabled to see in its lustre the faithful\n    reflection of Self.... First, this; then Tong\u2010pa\u2010nya,(765) lastly;\n    Samma Sambuddha.(766)\n\n\nIn _Chinese Buddhism_ a corroboration of these statements is to be found\nin the aphorisms of Lin\u2010tsi:\n\n\n    Within the body which admits sensations, acquires knowledge,\n    thinks, and acts, there is the \u201ctrue man without a position\u201d Wu\u2010\n    wei\u2010chen\u2010jen. He makes himself clearly visible; not the thinnest\n    separating film hides him. Why do you not recognise him?... If the\n    mind does not come to conscious existence, there is deliverance\n    everywhere.... What is Buddha? _Ans._ A mind clear and at rest.\n    What is the Law? _Ans._ A mind clear and enlightened. What is\n    _Tau_? _Ans._ In every place absence of impediments and pure\n    enlightenment. These three are one.\n\n\nThe reverend author of _Chinese Buddhism_ makes merry over the symbolism\nof Buddhist discipline. Yet the self\u2010inflicted \u201cslaps on the cheek\u201d and\n\u201cblows under the ribs\u201d find their pendants in the mortifications of the\nbody and self\u2010flagellation\u2014\u201cthe discipline of the scourge\u201d\u2014of the\nChristian monks, from the first centuries of Christianity down to our own\nday. But then the said author is a Protestant, who substitutes for\nmortification and discipline\u2014good living and comfort. The sentence in the\nLin\u2010tsi,\n\n\n    The \u201ctrue man, without a position,\u201d Wu\u2010wei\u2010chen\u2010jen, is wrapped in\n    a prickly shell, like the chestnut. He cannot be approached. This\n    is Buddha\u2014the Buddha within you,\n\n\nis laughed at. Truly\n\n\n    An infant cannot understand the seven enigmas!\n\n\n\n\n\nSOME PAPERS ON THE BEARING OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY ON LIFE.\n\n\nNOTE.\n\nPapers I. II. III. of the following were written by H. P. B. and were\ncirculated privately during her lifetime, but they were written with the\nidea that they would be published after a time. They are papers intended\nfor students rather than for the ordinary reader, and will repay careful\nstudy and thought. The \u201cNotes of some Oral Teaching\u201d were written down by\nsome of her pupils and were partially corrected by her, but no attempt has\nbeen made to relieve them of their fragmentary character. She had intended\nto make them the basis for written papers similar to the first three, but\nher failing health rendered this impossible, and they are published with\nher consent, the time for restricting them to a limited circle having\nexpired.\n\nANNIE BESANT.\n\n\n\n\nPaper I. A Warning.\n\n\nThere is a strange law in Occultism which has been ascertained and proven\nby thousands of years of experience; nor has it failed to demonstrate\nitself, almost in every case, during the years that the Theosophical\nSociety has been in existence. As soon as anyone pledges himself as a\n\u201cProbationer,\u201d certain Occult effects ensue. Of these the first is the\n_throwing outward_ of everything latent in the nature of the man; his\nfaults, habits, qualities or subdued desires, whether good, bad or\nindifferent.\n\nFor instance, if a man be vain or a sensualist, or ambitious, whether by\natavism or by karmic heirloom, those vices are sure to break out, even if\nhe has hitherto successfully concealed and repressed them. They will come\nto the front irrepressibly, and he will have to fight a hundred times\nharder than before, until he kills all such tendencies in himself.\n\nOn the other hand, if he be good, generous, chaste and abstemious, or has\nany virtue hitherto latent and concealed in him, it will work its way out\nas irrepressibly as the rest. Thus a civilized man who hates to be\nconsidered a saint, and therefore assumes a mask, will not be able to\nconceal his true nature, whether base or noble.\n\nTHIS IS AN IMMUTABLE LAW IN THE DOMAIN OF THE OCCULT.\n\nIts action is the more marked, the more earnest and sincere the desire of\nthe candidate, and the more deeply he has felt the reality and importance\nof his pledge.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nThe ancient occult axiom, \u201cKnow Thyself,\u201d must be familiar to every\nstudent; but few if any have apprehended the real meaning of this wise\nexhortation of the Delphic Oracle. You all know your earthly pedigree, but\nwho of you has ever traced all the links of heredity, astral, psychic and\nspiritual, which go to make you what you are? Many have written and\nexpressed their desire to unite themselves with their Higher Ego, yet none\nseem to know the indissoluble link connecting their \u201cHigher Egos\u201d with the\nOne Universal SELF.\n\nFor all purposes of Occultism, whether practical or purely metaphysical,\nsuch knowledge is absolutely requisite. It is proposed, therefore, to\nbegin these papers by showing this connection in all directions with the\nworlds: Absolute, Archetypal, Spiritual, M\u00e2nasic, Psychic, Astral, and\nElemental. Before, however, we can touch upon the higher\nworlds\u2014Archetypal, Spiritual and M\u00e2nasic\u2014we must master the relations of\nthe seventh, the terrestrial world, the lower Prakriti, or Malkuth as in\nthe Kabalah, to the worlds or planes which immediately follow it.\n\nOM.\n\n\u201cOM,\u201d says the \u00c2ryan Adept, the son of the Fifth Race, who with this\nsyllable begins and ends his salutation to the human being, his\nconjuration of, or appeal to, non\u2010human PRESENCES.\n\n\u201cOM\u2010MANI,\u201d murmurs the Turanian Adept, the descendant of the Fourth Race;\nand after pausing he adds, \u201cPADME\u2010HUM.\u201d\n\nThis famous invocation is very erroneously translated by the Orientalists\nas meaning, \u201cOh the Jewel in the Lotus.\u201d For although, literally, OM is a\nsyllable sacred to the Deity, PADME means \u201cin the Lotus,\u201d and MANI is any\nprecious stone, still neither the words themselves, nor their symbolical\nmeaning, are thus really correctly rendered.\n\nIn this, the most sacred of all Eastern formulas, not only has every\nsyllable a secret potency producing a definite result, but the whole\ninvocation has seven different meanings and can produce seven distinct\nresults, each of which may differ from the others.\n\nThe seven meanings and the seven results depend upon the intonation which\nis given to the whole formula and to each of its syllables; and even the\nnumerical value of the letters is added to or diminished according as such\nor another rhythm is made use of. Let the student remember that number\nunderlies form, and number guides sound. Number lies at the root of the\nmanifested Universe: numbers and harmonious proportions guide the first\ndifferentiations of homogeneous substance into heterogeneous elements; and\nnumber and numbers set limits to the formative hand of Nature.\n\nKnow the corresponding numbers of the fundamental principle of every\nelement and its sub\u2010elements, learn their interaction and behaviour on the\noccult side of manifesting Nature, and the law of correspondences will\nlead you to the discovery of the greatest mysteries of macrocosmical life.\n\nBut to arrive at the macrocosmical, you must begin by the microcosmical,\n_i.e._, you must study MAN, the microcosm\u2014in this case as physical science\ndoes\u2014inductively, proceeding from particulars to universals. At the same\ntime, however, since a key\u2010note is required to analyze and comprehend any\ncombination of differentiations of sound, we must never lose sight of the\nPlatonic method, which starts with one general view of all, and descends\nfrom the universal to the individual. This is the method adopted in\nMathematics\u2014the only _exact_ science that exists in our day.\n\nLet us study Man, therefore; but if we separate him for one moment from\nthe Universal Whole, or view him in isolation, from a single aspect, apart\nfrom the \u201cHeavenly Man\u201d\u2014the Universe symbolized by Adam Kadmon or his\nequivalents in every Philosophy\u2014we shall either land in Black Magic or\nfail most ingloriously in our attempt.\n\nThus the mystic sentence, \u201c_Om Mani Padme Hum_,\u201d when rightly understood,\ninstead of being composed of the almost meaningless words, \u201cOh the Jewel\nin the Lotus,\u201d contains a reference to this indissoluble union between Man\nand the Universe, rendered in seven different ways, and having the\ncapability of seven different applications to as many planes of thought\nand action.\n\nFrom whatever aspect we examine it, it means: \u201cI am that I am\u201d: \u201cI am in\nthee and thou art in me.\u201d In this conjunction and close union the good and\npure man becomes a God. Whether consciously or unconsciously, he will\nbring about, or innocently cause to happen, unavoidable results. In the\nfirst case, if an Initiate (of course an Adept of the Right\u2010hand Path\nalone is meant), he can guide a beneficent or a protecting current, and\nthus benefit and protect individuals and even whole nations. In the second\ncase, although quite unaware of what he is doing, the good man becomes a\nshield to whomsoever he is with.\n\nSuch is the fact; but its how and why have to be explained, and this can\nbe done only when the actual presence and potency of numbers in sounds,\nand hence in words and letters, have been rendered clear. The formula,\n\u201c_Om Mani Padme Hum_,\u201d has been chosen as an illustration on account of\nits almost infinite potency in the mouth of an Adept, and of its\npotentiality when pronounced by any man. Be careful, all you who read\nthis: do not use these words in vain, or when in anger, lest you become\nyourself the first sacrificial victim, or, what is worse, endanger those\nwhom you love.\n\nThe profane Orientalist, who all his life skims mere externals, will tell\nyou flippantly, and laughing at the superstition, that in Tibet this\nsentence is the most powerful six\u2010syllabled incantation and is said to\nhave been delivered to the nations of Central Asia by Padmap\u00e2ni, the\nTibetan Chenresi.(767)\n\nBut who is Padmap\u00e2ni, in reality? Each of us must recognize him for\nhimself, whenever he is ready. Each of us has within himself the \u201cJewel in\nthe Lotus,\u201d call it Padmap\u00e2ni, Krishna, Buddha, Christ, or whatever name\nwe may give to our Divine Self. The exoteric story runs thus:\n\nThe supreme Buddha, or Amit\u00e2bha, they say, at the hour of the creation of\nman, caused a rosy ray of light to issue from his right eye. The ray\nemitted a sound and became Padmap\u00e2ni Bodhisattva. Then the Deity allowed\nto stream forth from his left eye a blue ray of light, which, becoming\nincarnate in the two virgins Dolma, acquired the power to enlighten the\nminds of living beings. Amit\u00e2bha then called the combination, which\nforthwith took up its abode in man, \u201c_Om Mani Padme Hum_,\u201d \u201cI am the Jewel\nin the Lotus and in it I will remain.\u201d Then Padmap\u00e2ni, \u201cthe One in the\nLotus\u201d vowed never to cease working until he had made Humanity feel his\npresence in itself and had thus saved it from the misery of rebirth. He\nvowed to perform the feat before the end of the Kalpa, adding that, in\ncase of failure, he wished that his head should split into numberless\nfragments. The Kalpa closed; but Humanity felt him not within its cold,\nevil heart. Then Padmap\u00e2ni\u2019s head split and was shattered into a thousand\nfragments. Moved with compassion, the Deity re\u2010formed the pieces into\n_ten_ heads, three white, and seven of various colours. And since that day\nman has become a perfect number, or TEN.\n\nIn this allegory the potency of SOUND, COLOUR, and NUMBER is so\ningeniously introduced as to veil the real Esoteric meaning. To the\noutsider it reads like one of the many meaningless fairy\u2010tales of\ncreation; but it is pregnant with spiritual and divine, physical and\nmagical meaning. From Amit\u00e2bha\u2014_no colour_, or the _white glory_\u2014are born\nthe seven differentiated colours of the prism. These each emit a\ncorresponding sound, forming the seven of the _musical scale_. As\nGeometry, among the Mathematical Sciences, is specially related to\nArchitecture, and also (proceeding to Universals) to Cosmogony, so the ten\nJods of the Pythagorean Tetrad, or Tetraktys, being made to symbolize the\nMacrocosm, the Microcosm, or man, its image, had also to be divided into\nten points. For this Nature herself has provided, as will be seen.\n\nBut before this statement can be proved and the perfect correspondences\nbetween the Macrocosm and the Microcosm demonstrated, a few words of\nexplanation are necessary.\n\nTo the learner who would study the Esoteric Sciences with their double\nobject: (_a_) of proving Man to be identical in spiritual and physical\nessence with both the Absolute Principle and with God in Nature; and (_b_)\nof demonstrating the presence in him of the same potential powers as exist\nin the creative forces in Nature\u2014to such a one a perfect knowledge of the\ncorrespondences between Colours, Sounds, and Numbers is the first\nrequisite. As already said, the sacred formula of the far East, \u201c_Om Mani\nPadme Hum_,\u201d is the one best calculated to make these correspondential\nqualities and functions clear to the learner.\n\nIn the allegory of Padmap\u00e2ni, the Jewel (or Spiritual Ego) in the Lotus,\nor the symbol of androgynous man, the numbers 3, 4, 7, 10, as synthesizing\nthe _Unit_, Man, are prominent, as I have already said. It is on the\nthorough knowledge and comprehension of the meaning and potency of these\nnumbers, in their various and multiform combinations, and in their mutual\ncorrespondence with sounds or words, and colours or rates of motion\n(represented in physical science by vibrations), that the progress of a\nstudent in Occultism depends. Therefore we must begin with the first,\ninitial word, OM, or AUM. OM is a \u201cblind.\u201d The sentence \u201c_Om Mani Padme\nHum_\u201d is not a six\u2010 but a seven\u2010syllabled phrase, as the first syllable is\ndouble in its right pronunciation, and triple in its essence, A\u2010UM. It\nrepresents the for ever concealed primeval triune differentiation, not\n_from_ but _in_ the ONE Absolute, and is therefore symbolized by the 4, or\nthe Tetraktys, in the metaphysical world. It is the Unit\u2010ray, or \u00c2tman.\n\nIt is the \u00c2tman, this highest Spirit in man, which, in conjunction with\nBuddhi and Manas, is called the upper Triad, or Trinity. This Triad with\nits four lower human principles, is, moreover, enveloped with an auric\natmosphere, like the yolk of an egg (the future embryo) by the albumen and\nshell. This, to the perceptions of higher Beings from other planes, makes\nof each individuality an oval sphere of more or less radiancy.\n\nTo show the student the perfect correspondence between the birth of\nKosmos, a World, a Planetary Being, or a Child of Sin and Earth, a more\ndefinite and clear description must be given. Those acquainted with\nPhysiology will understand it better than others.\n\nWho, having read say the _Vishnu_ or other _Pur\u00e2na_, is not familiar with\nthe exoteric allegory of the birth of Brahm\u00e2 (male\u2010female) in the Egg of\nthe World, Hiranyagarbha, surrounded by its seven zones, or rather planes,\nwhich in the world of form and matter become seven and fourteen Lokas; the\nnumbers seven and fourteen re\u00e4ppearing as occasion requires.\n\nWithout giving out the secret analysis, the Hindus have from time\nimmemorial compared the matrix of the Universe, and also the solar matrix,\nto the female uterus. It is written of the former: \u201cIts womb is vast as\nthe Meru,\u201d and\n\n\n    The future mighty oceans lay asleep in the waters that filled its\n    cavities, the continents, seas and mountains, the stars, planets,\n    the gods, demons and mankind.\n\n\nThe whole resembled, in its inner and outer coverings, the cocoanut filled\ninteriorly with pulp, and covered externally with husk and rind. \u201cVast as\nMeru,\u201d say the texts.\n\n\n    Meru was its Amnion, and the other mountains were its Chorion,\n\n\nadds a verse in _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_.(768)\n\nIn the same way is man born in his mother\u2019s womb. As Brahm\u00e2 is surrounded,\nin exoteric traditions, by seven layers within and seven without the\nMundane Egg, so is the embryo (the first or the seventh layer, according\nto the end from which we begin to count). Thus, just as Esotericism in its\nCosmogony enumerates seven inner and seven outer layers, so Physiology\nnotes the contents of the uterus as seven also, although it is completely\nignorant of this being a copy of what takes place in the Universal Matrix.\nThese contents are:\n\n1. _Embryo._ 2. _Amniotic Fluid_, immediately surrounding the Embryo. 3.\n_Amnion_, a membrane derived from the F\u0153tus, which contains the fluid. 4.\n_Umbilical Vesicle_, which serves to convey nourishment originally to the\nEmbryo and to nourish it. 5. _Allantois_, a protrusion from the Embryo in\nthe form of a closed bag, which spreads itself between 3 and 7, in the\nmidst of 6, and which, after being specialized into the Placenta, serves\nto conduct nourishment to the Embryo. 6. _Interspace_ between 3 and 7 (the\nAmnion and Chorion), filled with an albuminous fluid. 7. _Chorion_, or\nouter layer.\n\nNow, each of these seven contents severally corresponds with, and is\nformed after, an antetype, one on each of the seven planes of being, with\nwhich in their turn correspond the seven states of Matter and all other\nforces, sensational or functional, in Nature.\n\nThe following is a bird\u2019s\u2010eye view of the seven correspondential contents\nof the wombs of Nature and of Woman. We may contrast them thus:\n\n\n    (1) Cosmic Process: The mathematical Point, called the \u201cCosmic\n    Seed,\u201d the Monad of Leibnitz; which contains the whole Universe,\n    as the acorn the oak. This is the first bubble on the surface of\n    boundless homogeneous Substance, or Space, the bubble of\n    differentiation in its incipient stage. It is the beginning of the\n    Orphic or Brahm\u00e2\u2019s Egg. It corresponds in Astrology and Astronomy\n    to the Sun.\n\n    Human Process: The terrestrial Embryo, which contains in it the\n    future man with all his potentialities. In the series of\n    principles of the human system it is the \u00c2tman, or the super\u2010\n    spiritual principle, just as in the physical Solar System it is\n    the Sun.\n\n    (2) Cosmic Process: The _vis vit\u00e6_ of our solar system exudes from\n    the Sun. Human Process: The Amniotic Fluid exudes from the Embryo.\n\n    (_a_) Cosmic Process: It is called, when referred to the higher\n    planes, \u00c2k\u00e2sha. Human Process: It is called, on the plane of\n    matter, Pr\u00e2na.(769)\n\n    (_b_) Cosmic Process: It proceeds from the ten \u201cdivinities,\u201d the\n    ten numbers of the Sun, which is itself the \u201cPerfect Number.\u201d\n    These are called Dis\u2014in reality Space\u2014the forces spread in Space,\n    three of which are contained in the Sun\u2019s \u00c2tman, or seventh\n    principle, and seven are the rays shot out by the Sun.\n\n    Human Process: It proceeds, taking its source in the universal One\n    Life, from the heart of man and Buddhi, over which the Seven Solar\n    Rays (Gods) preside.\n\n    (3) Cosmic Process: The Ether of Space, which, in its external\n    aspect, is the plastic crust which is supposed to envelope the\n    Sun. On the higher plane it is the whole Universe, as the third\n    differentiation of evolving Substance, M\u00fblaprakriti becoming\n    Prakriti.\n\n    Human Process: The Amnion, the membrane containing the Amniotic\n    Fluid and enveloping the Embryo. After the birth of man it becomes\n    the third layer, so to say, of his magneto\u2010vital aura.\n\n    (_a_) Cosmic Process: It corresponds mystically to the manifested\n    Mahat, or the Intellect or Soul of the World. Human Process:\n    Manas, the third principle (counting from above), or the Human\n    Soul in Man.\n\n    (4) Cosmic Process: The sidereal contents of Ether, the\n    substantial parts of it, unknown to Modern Science, represented as\n    follows. Human Process: Umbilical Vesicle, serving, as Science\n    teaches, to nourish the Embryo originally, but, as Occult Science\n    avers, to carry to the F\u0153tus by osmosis the cosmic influences\n    extraneous to the mother.\n\n    (_a_) Cosmic Process: In Occult and Kabalistic Mysteries, by\n    Elementals. Human Process: In the grown man these become the\n    feeders of K\u00e2ma, over which they preside.\n\n    (_b_) Cosmic Process: In physical Astronomy, by meteors, comets,\n    and all kinds of casual and phenomenal cosmic bodies. Human\n    Process: In the physical man, his passions and emotions, the moral\n    meteors and comets of human nature.\n\n    (5) Cosmic Process: Life currents in Ether, having their origin in\n    the Sun: the canals through which the vital principle of that\n    Ether (the blood of the Cosmic Body) passes to nourish everything\n    on the Earth and on the other Planets: from the minerals, which\n    are thus made to grow and become specialized, from the plants,\n    which are thus fed, to animal and man, to whom life is thus\n    imparted.\n\n    Human Process: The Allantois, a protrusion from the Embryo, which\n    spreads itself between the Amnion and Chorion; it is supposed to\n    conduct the nourishment from the mother to the Embryo. It\n    corresponds to the life\u2010principle, Pr\u00e2na or J\u00eeva.\n\n    (6) Cosmic Process: The double radiation, psychic and physical,\n    which radiates from the Cosmic Seed and expands around the whole\n    Kosmos, as well as around the Solar System and every Planet. In\n    Occultism it is called the upper divine, and the lower material,\n    Astral Light.\n\n    Human Process: The Allantois is divided into two layers. The\n    interspace between the Amnion and the Chorion contains the\n    Allantois and also an albuminous fluid.(770)\n\n    (7) Cosmic Process: The outer crust of every sidereal body, the\n    Shell of the Mundane Egg, or the sphere of our Solar System, of\n    our Earth, and of every man and animal. In sidereal space, Ether\n    proper; on the terrestrial plane, Air, which again is built in\n    seven layers.\n\n    Human Process: The Chorion, or the _Zona Pellucida_, the globular\n    object called Blastodermic Vesicle, the outer and the inner layers\n    of the membrane of which go to form the physical man. The outer,\n    or ectoderm, forms his epidermis; the inner, or endoderm, his\n    muscles, bones, etc. Man\u2019s skin, again, is composed of seven\n    layers.\n\n    (_a_) Cosmic Process: The primordial potential world\u2010stuff becomes\n    (for the Manvantaric period) the permanent globe or globes. Human\n    Process: The \u201cprimitive\u201d becomes the \u201cpermanent\u201d Chorion.\n\n\nEven in the evolution of the Races we see the same order as in Nature and\nMan.(771) Placental animal\u2010man became such only after the separation of\nsexes in the Third Root\u2010Race. In the physiological evolution, the placenta\nis fully formed and functional only after the third month of uterine life.\n\nLet us put aside such human conceptions as a personal God, and hold to the\npurely divine, to that which underlies all and everything in boundless\nNature. It is called by its Sanskrit Esoteric name in the _Vedas_, TAT (or\nTHAT), a term for the unknowable Rootless Root. If we do so, we may answer\nthese seven questions of the _Esoteric Catechism_ thus:\n\n\n    (1) Q.\u2014What is the Eternal Absolute?\n\n    A.\u2014THAT.\n\n    (2) Q.\u2014How came Kosmos into being?\n\n    A.\u2014Through THAT.\n\n    (3) Q.\u2014How, or what will it be when it falls back into Pralaya?\n\n    A.\u2014In THAT.\n\n    (4) Q.\u2014Whence all the animate, and suppositionally, the\n    \u201cinanimate\u201d nature?\n\n    A.\u2014From THAT.\n\n    (5) Q.\u2014What is the Substance and Essence of which the Universe is\n    formed?\n\n    A.\u2014THAT.\n\n    (6) Q.\u2014Into what has it been and will be again and again resolved?\n\n    A.\u2014Into THAT.\n\n    (7) Q.\u2014Is THAT then both the instrumental and material cause of\n    the Universe?\n\n    A.\u2014What else is it or can it be than THAT?\n\n\nAs the Universe, the Macrocosm and the Microcosm,(772) are _ten_, why\nshould we divide Man into _seven_ \u201cprinciples\u201d? This is the reason why the\nperfect number ten is divided into two: in their completeness, _i.e._,\nsuper\u2010spiritually and physically, the forces are TEN: to wit, three on the\nsubjective and inconceivable, and seven on the objective plane. Bear in\nmind that I am now giving you the description of the two opposite poles:\n(_a_) the primordial Triangle, which, as soon as it has reflected itself\nin the \u201cHeavenly Man,\u201d the highest of the lower seven\u2014disappears,\nreturning into \u201cSilence and Darkness\u201d; and (_b_) the astral paradigmatic\nman, whose Monad (\u00c2tm\u00e2) is also represented by a triangle, as it has to\nbecome a ternary in conscious Devachanic interludes. The purely\nterrestrial man being reflected in the universe of Matter, so to say,\nupside down, the upper Triangle, wherein the creative ideation and the\nsubjective potentiality of the formative faculty resides, is shifted in\nthe man of clay below the seven. Thus three of the ten, containing in the\narchetypal world only ideative and paradigmatical potentiality, _i.e._,\nexisting in possibility, not in action, are in fact one. The potency of\nformative creation resides in the Logos, the synthesis of the seven Forces\nor Rays, which becomes forthwith the Quaternary, the sacred Tetraktys.\nThis process is repeated in man, in whom the lower physical triangle\nbecomes, in conjunction with the female One, the male\u2010female creator, or\ngenerator. The same on a still lower plane in the animal world. A mystery\nabove, a mystery below, truly.\n\nThis is how the upper and highest, and the lower and most animal, stand in\nmutual relation.\n\nDiagram I\n\n1st\u2014Macrocosm and Its 3, 7, or 10 Centres of Creative Forces\n\n                   [Illustration: Triangle with A B C]\n\nA. B. C. The Unknowable\nA. Sexless, Unmanifested Logos\nB. Potential Wisdom\nC. Universal Ideation\n\n                 [Illustration: Circle with a through g]\n\na. Creative Logos\nb. Eternal Substance\nc. Spirit\n\na. b. c. This is Pradh\u00e2na, undifferentiated matter in S\u00e2nkhya philosophy,\nor Good, Evil and Chaotic Darkness (Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas),\nneutralizing each other. When differentiated, they become the Seven\nCreative Potencies: Spirit, Substance and Fire stimulating Matter to form\nitself.\n\nD. The Spiritual Forces acting in Matter\n\n2nd.\u2014Microcosm (the Inner Man) and his 3, 7, or 10 Centres of Potential\nForces\n\n                 [Illustration: Circle with 1 through 6]\n\n(\u00c2TMAN, although exoterically reckoned as the seventh principle, is no\nindividual principle at all, and belongs to the Universal Soul; 7 is the\nAURIC EGG, the Magnetic Sphere round every human and animal being.)\n\n1. BUDDHI, the vehicle of \u00c2TM\u00c2.\n\n2. MANAS, the vehicle of BUDDHI.\n\n3. LOWER MANAS (the Upper and Lower MANAS are two aspects of one and the\nsame principle) and\n\n4. K\u00c2MA R\u00dbPA, its vehicle.\n\n5. PR\u00c2NA, Life, and\n\n6. LINGA SHARIRA, its vehicle\n\nI. II. III. are the Three Hypostases of \u00c2TMAN, its contact with Nature and\nMan being the Fourth, making it a Quaternary, or Tetraktys, the Higher\nself.\n\n1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. These six principles, acting on four different planes,\nand having their AURIC ENVELOPE on the seventh (_vide infra_), are those\nused by the Adepts of the Right\u2010Hand, or White Magicians.\n\n3rd.\u2014Microcosm (the Physical Man) and his 10 Orifices, or centres of\nAction\n\n                 [Illustration: Circle with 1 through 10]\n\n1. (BUDDHI) Right Eye\n\n3. (LOWER MANAS) Right Ear\n\n5. (LIFE PRINCIPLE) Right Nostril\n\n7. The Organ of the CREATIVE LOGOS, the Mouth\n\n8. 9. 10. As this Lower Ternary has a direct connection with the Higher\n\u00c2tmic Triad and its three aspects (creative, preservative and destructive,\nor rather regenerative), the abuse of the corresponding functions is the\nmost terrible of Karmic Sins\u2014the Sin against the Holy Ghost with the\nChristians.\n\n2. (MANAS) Left Eye\n\n4. (K\u00c2MA R\u00dbPA) Left Ear\n\n6. (LIFE VEHICLE) Left Nostril\n\n7. The Paradigm of the 10th (creative) orifice in the Lower Triad.\n\nThese Physical Organs are used only by Dugpas in Black Magic.\n\nIn this diagram, we see that physical man (or his body) does not share in\nthe _direct_ pure waves of the divine Essence which flows from the _One in\nThree_, the Unmanifested, through the Manifested Logos (the upper face in\nthe diagram). Purusha, the primeval Spirit, touches the human head and\nstops there. But the Spiritual Man (the synthesis of the seven principles)\nis directly connected with it. And here a few words ought to be said about\nthe usual exoteric enumeration of the principles. At first an approximate\ndivision only was made and given out. _Esoteric Buddhism_ begins with\n\u00c2tm\u00e2, the seventh, and ends with the Physical Body, the first. Now neither\n\u00c2tm\u00e2, which is no individual \u201cprinciple,\u201d but a radiation _from_ and _one\nwith_ the Unmanifested Logos; nor the Body, which is the material rind, or\nshell, of the Spiritual Man, can be, in strict truth, referred to as\n\u201cprinciples.\u201d Moreover, the chief \u201cprinciple\u201d of all, one not even\nmentioned heretofore, is the \u201cLuminous Egg\u201d (Hiranyagarbha), or the\ninvisible magnetic sphere in which every man is enveloped.(773) It is the\ndirect emanation: (_a_) from the \u00c2tmic Ray in its triple aspect of\nCreator, Preserver and Destroyer (Regenerator); and (_b_) from Buddhi\u2010\nManas. The _seventh_ aspect of this individual Aura is the faculty of\nassuming the form of its body and becoming the \u201cRadiant,\u201d the Luminous\nAugoeides. It is this, strictly speaking, which at times becomes the form\ncalled M\u00e2y\u00e2vi R\u00fbpa. Therefore, as explained in the second face of the\ndiagram (the astral man), the Spiritual Man consists of only five\nprinciples, as taught by the Ved\u00e2ntins,(774) who substitute, tacitly, for\nthe physical this sixth, or Auric, Body, and merge the dual Manas (the\ndual mind, or consciousness) into one. Thus they speak of five Koshas\n(sheaths or principles), and call \u00c2tm\u00e2 the sixth yet no \u201cprinciple.\u201d This\nis the secret of the late Subba Row\u2019s criticism of the division in\n_Esoteric Buddhism_. But let the student now learn the true Esoteric\nenumeration.\n\nThe reason why public mention of the Auric Body was not permitted was on\naccount of its being so sacred. It is this Body which, at death,\nassimilates the essence of Buddhi and Manas and becomes the vehicle of\nthese spiritual principles, _which are not objective_, and then, with the\nfull radiation of \u00c2tm\u00e2 upon it ascends as Manas\u2010Taijasi into the\nDevachanic state. Therefore is it called by many names. It is the\nS\u00fbtr\u00e2tm\u00e2, the silver \u201cthread\u201d which \u201cincarnates\u201d from the beginning of\nManvantara to the end, stringing upon itself the pearls of human\nexistence, in other words, the spiritual aroma of every personality it\n_follows_ through the pilgrimage of life.(775) It is also the material\nfrom which the Adept forms his Astral Bodies, from the Augoeides and the\nM\u00e2y\u00e2vi R\u00fbpa downwards. After the death of man, when its most ethereal\nparticles have drawn into themselves the spiritual principles of Buddhi\nand the Upper Manas, and are illuminated with the radiance of \u00c2tm\u00e2, the\nAuric Body remains either in the Devachanic state of consciousness, or, in\nthe case of a full Adept, prefers the state of a Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2ya, that is, one\nwho has so purified his whole system that he is above even the divine\nillusion of a Devachan\u00ee. Such an Adept remains in the astral (invisible)\nplane connected with our earth, and henceforth moves and lives in the\npossession of all his principles except the K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa and Physical Body.\nIn the case of the Devachan\u00ee, the Linga Shar\u00eera\u2014the _alter ego_ of the\nbody, which during life is within the physical envelope while the radiant\naura is without\u2014strengthened by the material particles which this aura\nleaves behind, remains close to the dead body and outside it, and soon\nfades away. In the case of the full Adept, the body alone becomes subject\nto dissolution, while the centre of that force which was the seat of\ndesires and passions, disappears with its cause\u2014the animal body. But\nduring the life of the latter all these centres are more or less active\nand in constant correspondence with their prototypes, the cosmic centres,\nand their microcosms, the principles. It is only through these cosmic and\nspiritual centres that the physical centres (the upper seven orifices and\nthe lower triad) can benefit by their Occult interaction, for these\norifices, or openings, are channels conducting into the body the\ninfluences that _the will of man_ attracts and uses, _viz._, the cosmic\nforces.\n\nThis will has, of course, to act primarily through the spiritual\nprinciples. To make this clearer, let us take an example. In order to stop\npain, let us say in the right eye, you have to attract to it the potent\nmagnetism from that cosmic principle which corresponds to this eye and\nalso to Buddhi. Create, by a powerful will effort, an imaginary line of\ncommunication between the right eye and Buddhi, locating the latter as a\n_centre_ in the same part of the head. This line, though you may call it\n\u201cimaginary,\u201d is, once you succeed in seeing it with your mental eye and\ngive it a shape and colour, in truth as good as real. A rope in a dream\n_is not_ and yet _is_. Moreover, according to the prismatic colour with\nwhich you endow your line, so will the influence act. Now Buddhi and\nMercury correspond with each other, and both are yellow, or radiant and\ngolden coloured. In the human system, the right eye corresponds with\nBuddhi and Mercury; and the left with Manas and Venus or Lucifer. Thus, if\nyour line is golden or silvery, it will stop the pain; if red, it will\nincrease it, for red is the colour of K\u00e2ma and corresponds with Mars.\nMental or Christian Scientists have stumbled upon the _effects_ without\nunderstanding the _causes_. Having found by chance the secret of producing\nsuch results owing to mental abstraction, they attribute them to their\nunion with God (whether a personal or impersonal God they know best),\nwhereas it is simply the effect of one or another principle. However it\nmay be, they are on the path of discovery, although they must remain\nwandering for a long time to come.\n\nLet not Esoteric students commit the same mistake. It has often been\nexplained that neither the cosmic planes of substance nor even the human\nprinciples\u2014with the exception of the lowest material plane or world and\nthe physical body, which, as has been said, are no \u201cprinciples,\u201d\u2014can be\nlocated or thought of as being in Space and Time. As the former are seven\nin ONE, so are we seven in ONE\u2014that same absolute Soul of the World, which\nis both Matter and non\u2010Matter, Spirit and non\u2010Spirit, Being and non\u2010Being.\nImpress yourselves well with this idea, all those of you who would study\nthe mysteries of SELF.\n\nRemember that with our physical senses alone at our command, none of us\ncan hope to reach beyond gross Matter. We can do so only through one or\nanother of our seven _spiritual_ senses, either by training, or if one is\na born Seer. Yet even a clairvoyant possessed of such faculties, if not an\nAdept, no matter how honest and sincere he may be, will, through his\nignorance of the truths of Occult Science, be led by the visions he sees\nin the Astral Light only to mistake for God or Angels the denizens of\nthose spheres of which he may occasionally catch a glimpse, as witness\nSwedenborg and others.\n\nThese seven senses of ours correspond with every other septenate in nature\nand in ourselves. Physically, though invisibly, the human Auric Envelope\n(the amnion of the physical man in every age of life) has seven layers,\njust as Cosmic Space and our physical epidermis have. It is this Aura\nwhich, according to our mental and physical state of purity or impurity,\neither opens for us vistas into other worlds, or shuts us out altogether\nfrom anything but this three\u2010dimensional world of Matter.\n\nEach of our seven physical senses (two of which are still unknown to\nprofane Science), and also of our seven states of consciousness\u2014_viz._:\n(1) waking; (2) waking\u2010dreaming; (3) natural sleeping; (4) induced or\ntrance\u2010sleep; (5) psychic; (6) super\u2010psychic; and (7) purely\nspiritual\u2014corresponds with one of the seven Cosmic Planes, develops and\nuses one of the seven super\u2010senses, and is connected directly, in its use\non the terrestro\u2010spiritual plane, with the cosmic and divine centre of\nforce that gave it birth, and which is its direct creator. Each is also\nconnected with, and under the direct influence of, one of the seven sacred\nPlanets.(776) These belonged to the Lesser Mysteries, whose followers were\ncalled Mystai (the veiled), seeing that they were allowed to perceive\nthings only through a mist, as it were \u201cwith the eyes closed\u201d; while the\nInitiates or \u201cSeers\u201d of the Greater Mysteries were called Epoptai (those\nwho see things unveiled). It was the latter only who were taught the true\nmysteries of the Zodiac and the relations and correspondences between its\ntwelve signs (two secret) and the ten human orifices. The latter are now\nof course ten in the female, and only nine in the male; but this is merely\nan external difference. In the second volume of this work it is stated\nthat till the end of the Third Root\u2010Race (when androgynous man separated\ninto male and female) the ten orifices existed in the hermaphrodite, first\npotentially, then functionally. The evolution of the human embryo shows\nthis. For instance, the only opening formed at first is the buccal cavity,\n\u201ca _cloaca_ communicating with the anterior extremity of the intestine.\u201d\nThese become later the mouth and the posterior orifice: the Logos\ndifferentiating and emanating gross matter on the lower plane, in Occult\nparlance. The difficulty which some students will experience in\nreconciling the correspondences between the Zodiac and the orifices can be\neasily explained. Magic is co\u00ebval with the Third Root\u2010Race, which began by\ncreating through Kriy\u00e2shakti and ended by generating its species in the\npresent way.(777) Woman, being left with the full or perfect cosmic number\n10 (the divine number of Jehovah), was deemed higher and more spiritual\nthan man. In Egypt, in days of old, the marriage service contained an\narticle that the woman should be the \u201clady of the lord,\u201d and real lord\nover him, the husband pledging himself to be \u201cobedient to his wife\u201d for\nthe production of alchemical results such as the Elixir of Life and the\nPhilosopher\u2019s Stone, for the _spiritual_ help of the woman was needed by\nthe male Alchemist. But woe to the Alchemist who should take this in the\ndead\u2010letter sense of _physical_ union. Such sacrilege would become Black\nMagic and be followed by certain failure. The true Alchemist of old took\n_aged_ women to help him, carefully avoiding the young ones; and if any of\nthem happened to be married they treated their wives for months both\nbefore and during their operations as sisters.\n\nThe error of crediting the Ancients with knowing only ten of the zodiacal\nsigns is explained in _Isis Unveiled_.(778) The Ancients did know of\ntwelve, but viewed these signs differently from ourselves. They took\nneither Virgo nor Scorpio singly into consideration, but regarded them as\ntwo in one, since they were made to refer directly and symbolically to the\nprimeval dual man and his separation into sexes. During the reformation of\nthe Zodiac, Libra was added as the twelfth sign, though it is simply an\nequilibrating sign, at the turning point\u2014the mystery of separated man.\n\nLet the student learn all this well. Meanwhile we have to recapitulate\nwhat has been said.\n\n(1) Each human being is an incarnation of his God, in other words, one\nwith his \u201cFather in Heaven,\u201d just as Jesus, an Initiate, is made to say.\nAs many men on earth, so many Gods in Heaven; and yet these Gods are in\nreality ONE, for at the end of every period of activity, they are\nwithdrawn, like the rays of the setting sun, into the Parent Luminary, the\nNon\u2010Manifested Logos, which in its turn is merged into the One Absolute.\nShall we call these \u201cFathers\u201d of ours, whether individually or\ncollectively, and under any circumstances, our _personal God_? Occultism\nanswers, _Never_. All that an average man can know of his \u201cFather\u201d is what\nhe knows of himself, through and within himself. The Soul of his \u201cHeavenly\nFather\u201d is incarnated in him. This Soul is himself, if he be successful in\nassimilating the Divine Individuality while in his physical, animal shell.\nAs to the Spirit thereof, as well expect to be heard by the Absolute. Our\nprayers and supplications are vain, unless to potential words we add\npotent acts, and make the Aura which surrounds each one of us so pure and\ndivine that the God within us may act outwardly, or in other words, become\nas it were an extraneous Potency. Thus have Initiates, Saints, and very\nholy and pure men been enabled to help others as well as themselves in the\nhour of need, and produce what are foolishly called \u201cmiracles,\u201d each by\nthe help and with the aid of the God within himself, which he alone has\nenabled to act on the outward plane.\n\n(2) The word AUM or OM, which corresponds to the upper Triangle, if\npronounced by a very holy and pure man, will draw out, or awaken, not only\nthe less exalted Potencies residing in the planetary spaces and elements,\nbut even his Higher Self, or the \u201cFather\u201d within him. Pronounced by an\naveragely good man, in the correct way, it will help to strengthen him\nmorally, especially if between two \u201cAUMS\u201d he meditates intently upon the\nAUM within him, concentrating all his attention upon the ineffable glory.\nBut woe to the man who pronounces it after the commission of some far\u2010\nreaching sin: he will only thereby attract to his own impure photosphere\ninvisible Presences and Forces which could not otherwise break through the\nDivine Envelope.\n\nAUM is the original of Amen. Now, Amen is not a Hebrew term, but, like the\nword Halleluiah, was borrowed by the Jews and Greeks from the Chaldees.\nThe latter word is often found repeated in certain magical inscriptions\nupon cups and urns among the Babylonian and Ninevean relics. Amen does not\nmean \u201cso be it,\u201d or \u201cverily,\u201d but signified in hoary antiquity almost the\nsame as AUM. The Jewish Tana\u00efm (Initiates) used it for the same reason as\nthe \u00c2ryan Adepts use AUM, and with a like success, the numerical value of\n_AMeN_ in Hebrew letters being 91, the same as the full value of\n_YHVH_,(779) 26, and _ADoNaY_, 65, or 91. Both words mean the affirmation\nof the being, or existence, of the sexless \u201cLord\u201d within us.\n\n(3) Esoteric Science teaches that every sound in the visible world awakens\nits corresponding sound in the invisible realms, and arouses to action\nsome force or other on the Occult side of Nature. Moreover, every sound\ncorresponds to a colour and a number (a potency spiritual, psychic or\nphysical) and to a sensation on some plane. All these find an echo in\nevery one of the so\u2010far developed elements, and even on the terrestrial\nplane, in the Lives that swarm in the terrene atmosphere, thus prompting\nthem to action.\n\nThus a prayer, unless pronounced _mentally_ and addressed to one\u2019s\n\u201cFather\u201d in the silence and solitude of one\u2019s \u201ccloset,\u201d must have more\nfrequently disastrous than beneficial results, seeing that the masses are\nentirely ignorant of the potent effects which they thus produce. To\nproduce good effects, the prayer must be uttered by \u201cone who knows how to\nmake himself heard in silence,\u201d when it is no longer a prayer, but becomes\na command. Why is Jesus shown to have forbidden his hearers to go to the\npublic synagogues? Surely every praying man was not a hypocrite and a\nliar, nor a Pharisee who loved to be seen praying by people! He had a\nmotive, we must suppose: the same motive which prompts the experienced\nOccultist to prevent his pupils from going into crowded places now as\nthen, from entering churches, s\u00e9ance rooms, etc., unless they are in\nsympathy with the crowd.\n\nThere is one piece of advice to be given to beginners, who cannot help\ngoing into crowds\u2014one which may appear superstitious, but which in the\nabsence of Occult knowledge will be found efficacious. As well known to\ngood Astrologers, the days of the week are not in the order of those\nplanets whose names they bear. The fact is that the ancient Hindus and\nEgyptians divided the day into four parts, each day being under the\nprotection (as ascertained by practical magic) of a planet; and every day,\nas correctly asserted by Dion Cassius, received the name of the planet\nwhich ruled and protected its first portion. Let the student protect\nhimself from the \u201cPowers of the Air\u201d (Elementals) which throng public\nplaces, by wearing either a ring containing some jewel of the colour of\nthe presiding planet, or else of the metal sacred to it. But the best\nprotection is a clear conscience and a firm desire to benefit Humanity.\n\n\n\nThe Planets, The Days of the Week and Their Corresponding Colours and\nMetals.\n\n\n[Transcriber\u2019s Note: This table was a wide pull\u2010out insert into the book,\nwith more columns than modern readers can display. It has been reformatted\ninto several tables of more manageable width.]\n\nThese Correspondences are from the Objective, Terrestrial Plane.\n\n\u00c2tman is no Number, and corresponds to no visible Planet, for it proceeds\nfrom the Spiritual Sun; nor does it bear any relation either to Sound,\nColour, or the rest, for it includes them all.\n\nAs the Human Principles have no Numbers per se, but only correspond to\nNumbers, Sounds, Colours, etc., they are not enumerated here in the order\nused for exoteric purposes.\n\n_NUMBERS_              _METALS._              _PLANETS._\n1 and 10. Physical     Iron.                  Mars. The Planet of\nMan\u2019s Key\u2010note.                               Generation.\n2. Life Spiritual      Gold.                  The Sun. The Giver\nand Life Physical.                            of Life physically.\n                                              Spiritually and\n                                              esoterically the\n                                              substitute for the\n                                              inter\u2010Mercurial\n                                              Planet, a sacred and\n                                              secret planet with\n                                              the ancients.\n3. Because Buddhi is   Mercury. Mixes with    Mercury. The\n(so to speak)          Sulphur, as Buddhi     Messenger and the\nbetween \u00c2tm\u00e2 and       is mixed with the      Interpreter of the\nManas, and forms       Flame of Spirit (See   Gods.\nwith the seventh, or   Alchemical\nAuric Envelope, the    Definitions.)\nDevachanic Triad.\n4. The middle          Lead.                  Saturn.\nprinciple\u2014between\nthe purely material\nand purely spiritual\ntriads. The\nconscious part of\n_animal_ man.\n5.                     Tin.                   Jupiter.\n6.                     Copper. When alloyed   Venus. The Morning\n                       becomes Bronze (the    and the Evening\n                       _dual_ principle).     Star.\n7. Contains in         Silver.                The Moon. The Patent\nitself the                                    of the Earth.\nreflection of\nSeptenary Man.\n\n_NUMBERS_              _THE HUMAN             _DAYS OF THE WEEK._\n                       PRINCIPLES._\n1 and 10.              K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa. The         Tuesday. _Dies\n                       vehicle or seat of     Martis_, or Tiw.\n                       the Animal Instincts\n                       and Passions.\n2.                     Pr\u00e2na or J\u00eeva. Life.   Sunday. _Dies\n                                              Solss_, or Sun.\n3.                     Buddhi. Spiritual      Wednesday. _Dies\n                       Soul, or \u00c2tmic Ray;    Mercurii_, or Woden.\n                       vehicle of \u00c2tm\u00e2.       Day of Buddha in the\n                                              South, end of Woden\n                                              in the North\u2014Gods of\n                                              Wisdom.\n4.                     K\u00e2ma Manas. The        Saturday. _Dies\n                       Lower Mind, or         Saturns_, or Saturn.\n                       Animal Soul.\n5.                     Auric Envelope.        Thursday. _Dies\n                                              Jovis_, or Thor.\n6.                     Manas. The Higher      Friday. _Dies\n                       Mind, or Human Soul.   Veneris_, or Friga.\n7.                     Linga Shar\u00eera. The\n                       Astral Double of\n                       Man, the Parent of\n                       the Physical Man.\n\n_NUMBERS_              _COLOURS._             _SOUND._ MUSICAL\n                                              SCALE..\n1 and 10.              1 Red.                 Sa or Do.\n2.                     2 Orange.              Ri or Re.\n3.                     3. Yellow.             Ga or Mi.\n4.                     4. Green.              Ma or Fa.\n5.                     5. Blue.               Pa or Sol.\n6.                     6. Indigo or Dark      Da or La.\n                       Blue.\n7.                     7. Violet.             Ni or Si.\n\nIn the accompanying diagram the days of the week do not stand in their\nusual order, though they are placed in their correct sequence as\ndetermined by the order of the colours in the solar spectrum and the\ncorresponding colours of their ruling planets. The fault of the confusion\nin the order of the days revealed by this comparison lies at the door of\nthe early Christians. Adopting from the Jews their lunar months, they\ntried to blend them with the solar planets, and so made a mess of it; for\nthe order of the days of the week as it now stands does not follow the\norder of the planets.\n\nNow, the Ancients arranged the planets in the following order: Moon,\nMercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, counting the Sun as a planet\nfor exoteric purposes. Again, the Egyptians and Indians, the two oldest\nnations, divided their day into four parts, each of which was under the\nprotection and rule of a planet. In course of time each day came to be\ncalled by the name of that planet which ruled its first portion\u2014the\nmorning. Now, when they arranged their week, the Christians proceeded as\nfollows: they wanted to make the day of the Sun, or Sunday, the seventh,\nso they named the days of the week by taking every fourth planet in turn;\n_e.g._, beginning with the Moon (Monday), they counted thus: Moon,\nMercury, Venus, Sun, _Mars_; thus Tuesday, the day whose first portion was\nruled by Mars, became the second day of the week; and so on. It should be\nremembered also that the Moon, like the Sun, is a substitute for a secret\nplanet.\n\nThe present division of the solar year was made several centuries later\nthan the beginning of our era; and our week is not that of the Ancients\nand the Occultists. The septenary division of the four parts of the lunar\nphases is as old as the world, and originated with the people who reckoned\ntime by the lunar months. The Hebrews never used it, for they counted only\nthe seventh day, the Sabbath, though the second chapter of _Genesis_ seems\nto speak of it. Till the days of the C\u00e6sars there is no trace of a week of\nseven days among any nation save the Hindus. From India it passed to the\nArabs, and reached Europe with Christianity. The Roman week consisted of\neight days, and the Athenian of ten.(780) Thus one of the numberless\ncontradictions and fallacies of Christendom is the adoption of the Indian\nseptenary week of the lunar reckoning, and the preservation at the same\ntime of the mythological names of the planets.\n\nNor do modern Astrologers give the correspondences of the days and planets\nand their colours correctly; and while Occultists can give good reason for\nevery detail of their own tables of colours, etc., it is doubtful whether\nthe Astrologers can do the same.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nTo close this first Paper, let me say that the readers must in all\nnecessity be separated into two broad divisions: those who have not quite\nrid themselves of the usual sceptical doubts, but who long to ascertain\nhow much truth there may be in the claims of the Occultists; and those\nothers who, having freed themselves from the trammels of Materialism and\nRelativity, feel that true and real bliss must be sought only in the\nknowledge and personal experience of that which the Hindu Philosopher\ncalls the Brahmavidy\u00e2, and the Buddhist Arhat the realization of\n\u00c2dibuddha, the primeval Wisdom. Let the former pick out and study from\nthese Papers only those explanations of the phenomena of life which\nprofane Science is unable to give them. Even with such limitations, they\nwill find by the end of a year or two that they will have learned more\nthan all their Universities and Colleges can teach them. As to the sincere\nbelievers, they will be rewarded by seeing their faith transformed into\nknowledge. True knowledge is of Spirit and in Spirit alone, and cannot be\nacquired in any other way except through the region of the higher mind,\nthe only plane from which we can penetrate the depths of the all\u2010pervading\nAbsoluteness. He who carries out only those laws established by human\nminds, who lives that life which is prescribed by the code of mortals and\ntheir fallible legislation, chooses as his guiding star a beacon which\nshines on the ocean of M\u00e2y\u00e2, or of temporary delusions, and lasts for but\none incarnation. These laws are necessary for the life and welfare of\nphysical man alone. He has chosen a pilot who directs him through the\nshoals of one existence, a master who parts with him, however, on the\nthreshold of death. How much happier that man who, while strictly\nperforming on the temporary objective plane the duties of daily life,\ncarrying out each and every law of his country, and rendering, in short,\nto C\u00e6sar what is C\u00e6sar\u2019s, leads in reality a spiritual and permanent\nexistence, a life with no breaks of continuity, no gaps, no interludes,\nnot even during those periods which are the halting\u2010places of the long\npilgrimage of purely spiritual life. All the phenomena of the lower human\nmind disappear like the curtain of a proscenium, allowing him to live in\nthe region beyond it, the plane of the noumenal, the one reality. If man\nby suppressing, if not destroying, his selfishness and personality, only\nsucceeds in knowing himself as he is behind the veil of physical M\u00e2y\u00e2, he\nwill soon stand beyond all pain, all misery, and beyond all the wear and\ntear of change, which is the chief originator of pain. Such a man will be\nphysically of Matter, he will move surrounded by Matter, and yet he will\nlive beyond and outside it. His body will be subject to change, but he\nhimself will be entirely without it, and will experience everlasting life\neven while in temporary bodies of short duration. All this may be achieved\nby the development of unselfish universal love of Humanity, and the\nsuppression of personality, or _selfishness_, which is the cause of all\nsin, and consequently of all human sorrow.\n\n\n\n\nPaper II. An Explanation.\n\n\nIn view of the abstruse nature of the subjects dealt with, the present\nPaper will begin with an explanation of some points which remained obscure\nin the preceding one, as well as of some statements in which there was an\nappearance of contradiction.\n\nAstrologers, of whom there are many among the Esotericists, are likely to\nbe puzzled by some statements distinctly contradicting their teachings;\nwhilst those who know nothing of the subject may perhaps find themselves\nopposed at the outset by those who have studied the exoteric systems of\nthe Kabalah and Astrology. For let it be distinctly known, nothing of that\nwhich is printed broadcast, and available to every student in public\nlibraries or museums, is really Esoteric, but is either mixed with\ndeliberate \u201cblinds,\u201d or cannot be understood and studied with profit\nwithout a complete glossary of Occult terms.\n\nThe following teachings and explanations, therefore, may be useful to the\nstudent in assisting him to formulate the teaching given in the preceding\nPaper.\n\nIn Diagram I. it will be observed that the 3, 7, and 10 centres are\nrespectively as follows:\n\n(_a_) The 3 pertain to the spiritual world of the Absolute, and therefore\nto the three higher principles in Man.\n\n(_b_) The 7 belong to the spiritual, psychic, and physical worlds and to\nthe body of man. Physics, metaphysics and hyper\u2010physics are the triad that\nsymbolizes man on this plane.\n\n(_c_) The 10, or the sum total of these, is the Universe as a whole, in\nall its aspects, and also its Microcosm\u2014Man, with his ten orifices.\n\nLaying aside, for the moment, the Higher Decad (Kosmos) and the Lower\nDecad (Man), the first three numbers of the separate sevens have a direct\nreference to the Spirit, Soul and Auric Envelope of the human being, as\nwell as to the higher supersensual world. The lower four, or the four\naspects, belong to Man also, as well as to the Universal Kosmos, the whole\nbeing synthesized by the Absolute.\n\nIf these three discrete or distributive degrees of Being be conceived,\naccording to the Symbology of all the Eastern Religions, as contained in\none Ovum, or EGG, the name of that EGG will be Svabh\u00e2vat, or the ALL\u2010BEING\non the manifested plane. This Universe has, in truth, neither centre nor\nperiphery; but in the individual and finite mind of man it has such a\ndefinition, the natural consequence of the limitations of human thought.\n\nIn Diagram II., as already stated therein, no notice need be taken of the\nnumbers used in the left\u2010hand column, as these refer only to the\nHierarchies of the Colours and Sounds on the metaphysical plane, and are\nnot the characteristic numbers of the human principles or of the planets.\nThe human principles elude enumeration, because each man differs from\nevery other, just as no two blades of grass on the whole earth are\nabsolutely alike. Numbering is here a question of spiritual progress and\nthe natural predominance of one principle over another. With one man it\nmay be Buddhi that stands as number one; with another, if he be a bestial\nsensualist, the Lower Manas. With one the physical body, or perhaps Pr\u00e2na,\nthe life principle, will be on the first and highest plane, as would be\nthe case in an extremely healthy man, full of vitality; with another it\nmay come as the sixth or even seventh downward. Again, the colours and\nmetals corresponding to the planets and human principles, as will be\nobserved, are not those known exoterically to modern Astrologers and\nWestern Occultists.\n\nLet us see whence the modern Astrologer got his notions about the\ncorrespondence of planets, metals and colours. And here we are reminded of\nthe modern Orientalist, who, judging by appearances credits the ancient\nAkkadians (and also the Chald\u00e6ans, Hindus and Egyptians) with the crude\nnotion that the Universe, and in like manner the earth, was like an\ninverted, bell\u2010shaped bowl! This he demonstrates by pointing to the\nsymbolical representations of some Akkadian inscriptions and to the\nAssyrian carvings. It is, however, no place here to explain how mistaken\nis the Assyriologist, for all such representations are simply symbolical\nof the _Khargakkurra_, the World\u2010Mountain, or Meru, and relate only to the\nNorth Pole, the Land of the Gods. Now, the Assyrians arranged their\n_exoteric_ teaching about the planets and their correspondences as\nfollows:\n\nDiagram II.\n\n_Numbers._   _Planets._   _Metals._      _Colours._   _Solar\n                                                      Days of\n                                                      Week._\n1.           Saturn.      Lead.          Black.       Saturday.\n                                                      (Whence\n                                                      Sabbath,(781)\n                                                      in honour\n                                                      of\n                                                      Jehovah.)\n2.           Jupiter.     Tin.           White, but   Thursday.\n                                         as often\n                                         Purple or\n                                         Orange.\n3.           Mars.        Iron.          Red.         Tuesday.\n4.           Sun.         Gold.          Yellow\u2010      Sunday.\n                                         golden.\n5.           Venus.       Copper.        Green or     Friday.\n                                         Yellow.\n6.           Mercury.     Quicksilver.   Blue.        Wednesday.\n7.           Moon.        Silver.        Silver\u2010      Monday.\n                                         white.\n\nThis is the arrangement now adopted by Christian Astrologers, with the\nexception of the order of the days of the week, of which, by associating\nthe solar planetary names with the lunar weeks, they have made a sore\nmess, as has been already shown in Paper I. This is the Ptolemaic\ngeocentric system, which represents the Universe as in the following\ndiagram, showing our Earth in the centre of the Universe, and the Sun a\nPlanet, the fourth in number.\n\nAnd if the Christian chronology and order of the days of the week are\nbeing daily denounced as being based on an entirely wrong astronomical\nfoundation, it is high time to begin a reform also in Astrology built on\nsuch lines, and coming to us entirely from the Chald\u00e6an and Assyrian\nexoteric mob.\n\nBut the correspondences given in these Papers are purely Esoteric. For\nthis reason it follows that when the Planets of the Solar System are named\nor symbolized (as in Diagram II.) it must not be supposed that the\nplanetary bodies themselves are referred to, except as types on a purely\nphysical plane of the septenary nature of the psychic and spiritual\nworlds. A material planet can correspond only to a material something.\nThus when Mercury is said to correspond to the right eye, it does not mean\nthat the objective planet has any influence on the right optic organ, but\nthat both stand rather as corresponding mystically through Buddhi. Man\nderives his Spiritual Soul (Buddhi) from the essence of the M\u00e2nasa Putra,\nthe Sons of Wisdom, who are the Divine Beings (or Angels) ruling and\npresiding over the planet Mercury.\n\nIn the same way Venus, Manas and the left eye are set down as\ncorrespondences. Exoterically, there is, in reality, no such association\nof physical eyes and physical planets; but Esoterically there is; for the\nright eye is the \u201cEye of Wisdom,\u201d _i.e._, it corresponds magnetically with\nthat Occult centre in the brain which we call the \u201cThird Eye\u201d;(782) while\nthe left corresponds with the intellectual brain, or those cells which are\nthe organ on the physical plane of the thinking faculty. The kabalistic\ntriangle of Kether, Chokmah and Binah shows this. Chokmah and Binah, or\nWisdom and Intelligence, the Father and Mother, or, again, the Father and\nSon, are on the same plane and re\u00e4ct mutually on one another.\n\nWhen the individual consciousness is turned inward, a conjunction of Manas\nand Buddhi takes place. In the spiritually regenerated man this\nconjunction is permanent, the Higher Manas clinging to Buddhi beyond the\nthreshold of Devachan, and the Soul, or rather the Spirit, which should\nnot be confounded with \u00c2tm\u00e2, the Super\u2010Spirit, is then said to have the\n\u201cSingle Eye.\u201d Esoterically, in other words, the \u201cThird Eye\u201d is active. Now\nMercury is called Hermes, and Venus, Aphrodite, and thus their conjunction\nin man on the psycho\u2010physical plane gives him the name of the\nHermaphrodite, or Androgyne. The absolutely Spiritual Man is, however,\nentirely disconnected from sex. The Spiritual Man corresponds directly\nwith the higher \u201ccoloured circles,\u201d the Divine Prism which emanates from\nthe One Infinite White Circle; while physical man emanates from the\nSephiroth, which are the Voices or Sounds of Eastern Philosophy. And these\n\u201cVoices\u201d are lower than the \u201cColours,\u201d for they are the seven lower\nSephiroth, or the objective Sounds, seen, not heard, as the _Zohar_\nshows,(783) and even the Old Testament also. For, when properly\ntranslated, verse 18 of chapter xx. _Exodus_ would read: \u201cAnd the people\nsaw the Voices\u201d (or Sounds, not the \u201cthunderings\u201d as now translated); and\nthese Voices, or Sounds, are the Sephiroth.(784)\n\nIn the same way the right and left nostrils, into which is breathed the\n\u201cBreath of Lives\u201d(785) are here said to correspond with Sun and Moon, as\nBrahm\u00e2\u2010Praj\u00e2pati and V\u00e2ch, or Osiris and Isis, are the parents of the\nnatural life. This Quaternary, _viz._: the two eyes and two nostrils,\nMercury and Venus, Sun and Moon, constitutes the Kabalistic Guardian\u2010\nAngels of the Four Corners of the Earth. It is the same in the Eastern\nEsoteric Philosophy, which, however, adds that the Sun is not a planet,\nbut the central star of our system, and the Moon a dead planet, from which\nall the principles are gone, both being substitutes, the one for an\ninvisible inter\u2010Mercurial planet, and the other for a planet which seems\nto have now altogether disappeared from view. These are the Four\nMah\u00e2r\u00e2jahs,(786) the \u201cFour Holy Ones\u201d connected with Karma and Humanity,\nKosmos and Man, in all their aspects. They are: the Sun, or its substitute\nMichael; Moon, or substitute Gabriel; Mercury, Raphael; and Venus, Uriel.\nIt need hardly be said here again that the planetary bodies themselves,\nbeing only physical symbols, are not often referred to in the Esoteric\nSystem, but, as a rule, their cosmic, psychic, physical and spiritual\nforces are symbolized under these names. In short, it is the seven\nphysical planets which are the lower Sephiroth of the _Kabalah_, and our\ntriple physical Sun whose reflection only we see, which is symbolized, or\nrather personified, by the Upper Triad, or Sephirothal Crown.(787)\n\nThen, again, it will be well to point out that the numbers attached to the\npsychic principles in Diagram I. appear the reverse of those in exoteric\nwritings. This is because numbers in this connection are purely arbitrary,\nchanging with every school. Some schools count three, some four, some six,\nand others seven, as do all the Buddhist Esotericists. As said\nbefore,(788) the Esoteric School has been divided into two departments\nsince the fourteenth century, one for the inner Lanoos, or higher Chel\u00e2s,\nthe other for the outer circle, or lay Chel\u00e2s. Mr. Sinnett was distinctly\ntold in the letters he received from one of the Gurus that he could not be\ntaught the real Esoteric Doctrine given out only to the pledged disciples\nof the Inner Circle. The numbers and principles do not go in regular\nsequence, like the skins of an onion, but the student must work out for\nhimself the number appropriate to each of his principles, when the time\ncomes for him to enter upon practical study. The above will suggest to the\nstudent the necessity of knowing the principles by their names and their\nappropriate faculties apart from any system of enumeration, or by\nassociation with their corresponding centres of actions, colours, sounds,\netc., until these become inseparable.\n\nThe old and familiar mode of reckoning the principles, given in the\n_Theosophist_ and _Esoteric Buddhism_, leads to another apparently\nperplexing contradiction, though it is really none at all. The principles\nnumbered 3 and 2, _viz._: Linga Shar\u00eera and Pr\u00e2na, or J\u00eeva, stand in the\nreverse order to that given in Diagram I. A moment\u2019s consideration will\nsuffice to explain the apparent discrepancy between the exoteric\nenumeration, and the Esoteric order given in Diagram I. For in Diagram I.\nthe Linga Shar\u00eera is defined as the vehicle of Pr\u00e2na, or J\u00eeva, the life\nprinciple, and as such must of necessity be inferior to Pr\u00e2na, not\nsuperior as the exoteric enumeration would suggest. The principles do not\nstand one above the other, and thus cannot be taken in numerical sequence;\ntheir order depends upon the superiority and predominance of one or\nanother principle, and therefore differs in every man.\n\nThe Linga Shar\u00eera is the double, or protoplasmic antetype of the body,\nwhich is its image. It is in this sense that it is called in Diagram II.\nthe parent of the physical body, _i.e._, the mother by conception of\nPr\u00e2na, the father. This idea is conveyed in the Egyptian mythology by the\nbirth of Horus, the child of Osiris and Isis, although, like all sacred\nMythoi, this has both a threefold spiritual, and a sevenfold psycho\u2010\nphysical application. To close the subject, Pr\u00e2na, the life principle,\ncan, in sober truth, have no number, as it pervades every other principle,\nor the human total. Each number of the seven would thus be naturally\napplicable to Pr\u00e2na\u2010J\u00eeva exoterically as it is to the Auric Body\nEsoterically. As Pythagoras showed, Kosmos was produced not _through_ or\n_by_ number, but geometrically, _i.e._, following the proportions of\nnumbers.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nTo those who are unacquainted with the exoteric astrological natures\nascribed in practice to the planetary bodies, it may be useful if we set\nthem down here after the manner of Diagram II., in relation to their\ndominion over the human body, colours, metals, etc., and explain at the\nsame time why genuine Esoteric Philosophy differs from the astrological\nclaims.\n\n_Planets._   _Days._      _Metals._      _Parts of    _Colours._\n                                         the Body._\nSaturn.      Saturday.    Lead.          Right Ear,   Black.(789)\n                                         Knees and\n                                         Bony\n                                         System.\nJupiter.     Thursday.    Tin.           Left Ear,    Purple.(790)\n                                         Thighs,\n                                         Feet and\n                                         Arterial\n                                         System.\nMars.        Tuesday.     Iron.          Forehead     Red.\n                                         and Nose,\n                                         the Skull,\n                                         Sex\u2010\n                                         function\n                                         and\n                                         Muscular\n                                         System.\nSun.         Sunday.      Gold.          Right Eye,   Orange.(791)\n                                         Heart and\n                                         Vital\n                                         Centres.\nVenus.       Friday.      Copper.        Chin and     Yellow.(792)\n                                         Cheeks,\n                                         Neck and\n                                         Reins and\n                                         the Venous\n                                         System.\nMercury.     Wednesday.   Quicksilver.   Mouth,       Dove or\n                                         Hands,       Cream.(793)\n                                         Abdominal\n                                         Viscera\n                                         and\n                                         Nervous\n                                         System.\nMoon.        Monday.      Silver.        Breasts,     White.(794)\n                                         Left Eye,\n                                         the\n                                         Fluidic\n                                         System,\n                                         Saliva,\n                                         Lymph,\n                                         etc.\n\nThus it will be seen that the influence of the solar system in the\nexoteric kabalistic Astrology is by this method distributed over the\nentire human body, the primary metals, and the gradations of colour from\nblack to white; but that Esotericism recognizes neither black nor white as\ncolours, because it holds religiously to the seven solar or natural\ncolours of the prism. Black and white are artificial tints. They belong to\nthe Earth, and are only perceived by virtue of the special construction of\nour physical organs. White is the absence of all colours, and therefore no\ncolour; black is simply the absence of light, and therefore the negative\naspect of white. The seven prismatic colours are direct emanations from\nthe Seven Hierarchies of Being, each of which has a direct bearing upon\nand relation to one of the human principles, since each of these\nHierarchies is, in fact, the creator and source of the corresponding human\nprinciple. Each prismatic colour is called in Occultism the \u201cFather of the\nSound\u201d which corresponds to it; Sound being the Word, or the Logos, of its\nFather\u2010Thought. This is the reason why sensitives connect every colour\nwith a definite sound, a fact well recognized in Modern Science (_e.g._,\nFrancis Galton\u2019s _Human Faculty_). But black and white are entirely\nnegative colours, and have no representatives in the world of subjective\nbeing.\n\nKabalistic Astrology says that the dominion of the planetary bodies in the\nhuman brain also is defined thus: there are seven primary groups of\nfaculties, six of which function through the cerebrum, and the seventh\nthrough the cerebellum. This is perfectly correct Esoterically. But when\nit is further said that: Saturn governs the devotional faculties; Mercury,\nthe intellectual; Jupiter, the sympathetic; the Sun, the governing\nfaculties; Mars, the selfish; Venus, the tenacious; and the Moon, the\ninstincts;\u2014we say that the explanation is incomplete and even misleading.\nFor, in the first place, the physical planets can rule only the physical\nbody and the purely physical functions. All the mental, emotional, psychic\nand spiritual faculties, are influenced by the Occult properties of the\nscale of causes which emanate from the Hierarchies of the Spiritual Rulers\nof the planets, and not by the planets themselves. This scale, as given in\nDiagram II., leads the student to perceive in the following order: (1)\ncolour; (2) sound; (3) the sound materializes into the spirit of the\nmetals, _i.e._, the metallic Elementals; (4) these materialize again into\nthe physical metals; (5) then the harmonial and vibratory radiant essence\npasses into the plants, giving them colour and smell, both of which\n\u201cproperties\u201d depend upon the rate of vibration of this energy per unit of\ntime; (6) from plants it passes into the animals; (7) and finally\nculminates in the \u201cprinciples\u201d of man.\n\nThus we see the Divine Essence of our Progenitors in Heaven circling\nthrough seven stages; Spirit becoming Matter, and Matter returning to\nSpirit. As there is sound in Nature which is inaudible, so there is colour\nwhich is invisible, but which can be heard. The creative force, at work in\nits incessant task of transformation, produces colour, sound and numbers,\nin the shape of rates of vibration which compound and dissociate the atoms\nand molecules. Though invisible and inaudible to us in detail, yet the\nsynthesis of the whole becomes audible to us on the material plane. It is\nthat which the Chinese call the \u201cGreat Tone,\u201d or _Kung_. It is, even by\nscientific confession, the actual tonic of Nature, held by musicians to be\nthe middle Fa on the keyboard of a piano. We hear it distinctly in the\nvoice of Nature, in the roaring of the ocean, in the sound of the foliage\nof a great forest, in the distant roar of a great city, in the wind, the\ntempest and the storm; in short, in everything in Nature which has a voice\nor produces sound. To the hearing of all who hearken, it culminates in a\nsingle definite tone, of an unappreciable pitch, which, as said, is the F,\nor Fa, of the diatonic scale. From these particulars, that wherein lies\nthe difference between the exoteric and the Esoteric nomenclature and\nsymbolism will be evident to the student of Occultism. In short,\nkabalistic Astrology, as practised in Europe, is the semi\u2010esoteric Secret\nScience, adapted for the outer and not for the inner circle. It is,\nfurthermore, often left incomplete and not infrequently distorted to\nconceal the real truth. While it symbolizes and adapts its correspondences\non the mere appearances of things, Esoteric Philosophy, which concerns\nitself pre\u2010eminently with the essence of things, accepts only such symbols\nas cover the whole ground, _i.e._, such symbols as yield a spiritual as\nwell as a psychic and physical meaning. Yet even Western Astrology has\ndone excellent work, for it has helped to carry the knowledge of the\nexistence of a Secret Wisdom throughout the dangers of the Medi\u00e6val Ages\nand their dark bigotry up to the present day, when all danger has\ndisappeared.\n\nThe order of the planets in exoteric practice is that defined by their\ngeocentric radii, or the distance of their several orbits from the Earth\nas a centre, _viz._, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and Moon.\nIn the first three of these we find symbolized the celestial Triad of\nsupreme power in the physical, manifested universe, or Brahm\u00e2, Vishnu and\nShiva; while in the last four we recognize the symbols of the terrestrial\nquaternary ruling over all natural and physical revolutions of the\nseasons, quarters of the day, points of the compass, and elements. Thus:\n\nSpring.     Summer.         Autumn.      Winter.\nMorning.    Noon.           Evening.     Night.\nYouth.      Adolescence.    Manhood.     Age.\nFire.       Air.            Water.       Earth.\nEast.       South.          West.        North.\n\nBut Esoteric Science is not content with analogies on the purely objective\nplane of the physical senses, and therefore it is absolutely necessary to\npreface further teachings in this direction with a clear explanation of\nthe real meaning of the word Magic.\n\n\n\nWhat Magic Is, In Reality.\n\n\nEsoteric Science is, above all, the knowledge of our relations with and in\nDivine Magic,(795) inseparableness from our divine _Selves_\u2014the latter\nmeaning something else besides our own higher Spirit. Thus, before\nproceeding to exemplify and explain these relations, it may perhaps be\nuseful to give the student a correct idea of the full meaning of this most\nmisunderstood word \u201cMagic.\u201d Many are those willing and eager to study\nOccultism, but very few have even an approximate idea of the Science\nitself. Now, very few of our American and European students can derive\nbenefit from Sanskrit works or even their translations, as these\ntranslations are, for the most part, merely blinds to the uninitiated. I\ntherefore propose to offer to their attention demonstrations of the\naforesaid drawn from Neo\u2010Platonic works. These are accessible in\ntranslation; and in order to throw light on that which has hitherto been\nfull of darkness, it will suffice to point to a certain key in them. Thus\nthe Gnosis, both pre\u2010Christian and post\u2010Christian, will serve our purpose\nadmirably.\n\nThere are millions of Christians who know the name of Simon Magus, and the\nlittle that is told about him in the _Acts_; but very few who have even\nheard of the many motley, fantastic and contradictory details which\ntradition records about his life. The story of his claims and his death is\nto be found only in the prejudiced, half\u2010fantastic records about him in\nthe works of the Church Fathers, such as Iren\u00e6us, Epiphanius and St.\nJustin, and especially in the anonymous _Philosophumena_. Yet he is a\nhistorical character, and the appellation of \u201cMagus\u201d was given to him and\nwas accepted by all his contemporaries, including the heads of the\nChristian Church, as a qualification indicating the miraculous powers he\npossessed, and irrespective of whether he was regarded as a white (divine)\nor a black (infernal) Magician. In this respect, opinion has always been\nmade subservient to the Gentile or Christian proclivities of his\nchronicler.\n\nIt is in his system and in that of Menander, his pupil and successor, that\nwe find what the term \u201cMagic\u201d meant for Initiates in those days.\n\nSimon, as all the other Gnostics, taught that our world was created by the\n_lower_ angels, whom he called \u00c6ons. He mentions only three degrees of\nsuch, because it was and is useless, as we have before explained, to teach\nanything about the four higher ones, and he therefore begins at the plane\nof globes A and G. His system is as near to Occult Truth as any, so that\nwe may examine it, as well as his own and Menander\u2019s claims about \u201cMagic,\u201d\nto find out what they meant by the term. Now, for Simon, the summit of all\nmanifested creation was Fire. It was, with him as with us, the Universal\nPrinciple, the Infinite Potency, born from the concealed Potentiality.\nThis Fire was the primeval cause of the manifested world of being, and was\ndual, having a manifested and a concealed, or secret, side.\n\n\n    The secret side of the Fire is concealed in its evident [or\n    objective] side, and the objective is produced from the secret\n    side,(796)\n\n\nhe writes, which amounts to saying that the visible is ever present in the\ninvisible, and the invisible in the visible. This was but a new form of\nstating Plato\u2019s idea of the Intelligible (_No\u00eaton_) and the Sensible\n(_Aisth\u00eaton_), and Aristotle\u2019s teaching on the Potency (_Dunamis_) and the\nAct (_Energeia_). For Simon, all that can be thought of, all that can be\nacted upon, was perfect intelligence. Fire contained _all_. And thus all\nthe parts of that Fire, being endowed with intelligence and reason, were\nsusceptible of development by extension and emanation. This is our\nteaching of the Manifested Logos, and these parts in their primordial\nemanation are our Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, the \u201cSons of Flame and Fire,\u201d or higher\n\u00c6ons. This \u201cFire\u201d is the symbol of the active and living side of Divine\nNature. Behind it lay \u201cinfinite Potentiality in Potentiality,\u201d which Simon\nnamed \u201cthat which has stood, stands and will stand,\u201d or permanent\nstability and personified immutability.\n\nFrom the Potency of Thought, Divine Ideation thus passed to Action. Hence\nthe series of primordial emanations through Thought begetting the Act, the\nobjective side of Fire being the Mother, the sacred side of it being the\nFather. Simon called these emanations Syzygies (a united pair, or couple),\nfor they emanated two\u2010by\u2010two, one as an active, and the other as a passive\n\u00c6on. Three couples thus emanated (or six in all, the Fire being the\nseventh), to which Simon gave the following names: \u201cMind and Thought;\nVoice and Name; Reason and Reflection,\u201d(797) the first in each pair being\nmale, the last female. From these primordial six emanated the six \u00c6ons of\nthe Middle World. Let us see what Simon himself says:\n\n\n    Each of these six primitive beings contained the entire infinite\n    Potency [of its parent]; but it was there only in Potency, and not\n    in Act. That Potency had to be called forth [or conformed] through\n    an _image_ in order that it should manifest in all its essence,\n    virtue, grandeur and effects; for only then could the emanated\n    Potency become similar to its parent, the eternal and infinite\n    Potency. If, on the contrary, it remained simply potentially in\n    the six Potencies and failed to be conformed through an image,\n    then the Potency would not pass into action, but would get\n    lost,(798)\n\n\nin clearer terms, it would become atrophied, as the modern expression\ngoes.\n\nNow, what do these words mean if not that to be equal in all things to the\nInfinite Potency the \u00c6ons had to imitate it in its action, and become\nthemselves, in their turn, emanative Principles, as was their Parent,\ngiving life to new beings, and becoming Potencies _in actu_ themselves? To\nproduce emanations, or to have acquired the gift of Kriy\u00e2\u2010shakti.(799) is\nthe direct result of that power, an effect which depends on our own\naction. That power, then, is inherent in man, as it is in the primordial\n\u00c6ons and even in the secondary Emanations, by the very fact of their and\nour descent from the One Primordial Principle, the Infinite Power, or\nPotency. Thus we find in the system of Simon Magus that the first six\n\u00c6ons, synthesized by the seventh, the Parent Potency, passed into Act, and\nemanated, in their turn, six secondary \u00c6ons, which were each synthesized\nby their respective Parents. In the _Philosophumena_ we read that Simon\ncompared the \u00c6ons to the \u201cTree of Life.\u201d Said Simon in the\n_Revelation_:(800)\n\n\n    It is written that there are two ramifications of the universal\n    \u00c6ons, having neither beginning nor end, issued both from the same\n    Root, the invisible and incomprehensible Potentiality, Sig\u00ea\n    [Silence]. One of these [series of \u00c6ons] appears from above. This\n    is the Great Potency, Universal Mind [or Divine Ideation, the\n    Mahat of the Hindus]; it orders all things and is male. The other\n    is from below, for it is the Great [manifested] Thought, the\n    female \u00c6on, generating all things. These [two kinds of \u00c6ons]\n    corresponding(801) with each other, have conjunction and manifest\n    the middle distance [the intermediate sphere, or plane], the\n    incomprehensible Air which has neither beginning nor end.(802)\n\n\nThis female \u201cAir\u201d is our Ether, or the kabalistic Astral Light. It is,\nthen, the Second World of Simon, born of Fire, the principle of\neverything. We call it the ONE LIFE, the Intelligent, Divine Flame,\nomnipresent and infinite. In Simon\u2019s system this Second World was ruled by\na Being, or Potency, both male and female, or active and passive, good and\nbad. This Parent\u2010Being, like the primordial infinite Potency, is also\ncalled \u201cthat which has stood, stands and will stand,\u201d so long as the\nmanifested Kosmos shall last. When it emanated _in actu_ and became like\nunto its own Parent, it was not dual or androgyne. It is the Thought\n(Sig\u00ea) that emanated from it which became as itself (the Parent), having\nbecome like unto its image (or antetype); the second had now become in its\nturn the first (on its own plane or sphere). As Simon has it:\n\n\n    It [the Parent or Father] was one. For having it [the Thought] in\n    itself, it was alone. It was not, however, first, though it was\n    pre\u00ebxisting; but manifesting itself to itself from itself, it\n    became the second (or dual). Nor was it called Father before it\n    [the Thought] gave it that name. As, therefore, itself developing\n    itself by itself, manifested to itself its own Thought, so also\n    the Thought being manifested did not act, but seeing the Father\n    hid it in itself, that is, (hid) that Potency (in itself). And the\n    Potency [_Dunamis_, _viz._: _Nous_] and Thought [_Epinoia_] are\n    male\u2010female. Whence they correspond with one another\u2014for Potency\n    in no way differs from Thought\u2014being one. So from the things above\n    is found Potency, and from those below, Thought. It comes to pass,\n    therefore, that that which is manifested from them, although being\n    one, yet is found to be twofold, the androgyne having the female\n    in itself. So is Mind in Thought, things inseparable from each\n    other which though being one are yet found dual.(803)\n\n    He [Simon] calls the first Syzygy of the six Potencies and of the\n    seventh, which is with it, Nous and Epinoia, Heaven and Earth: the\n    male looks down from on high and takes thought for his Syzygy [or\n    spouse], for the Earth below receives those intellectual fruits\n    which are brought down from Heaven and are cognate to the\n    Earth.(804)\n\n\nSimon\u2019s Third World with its third series of six \u00c6ons and the seventh, the\nParent, is emanated in the same way. It is this same note which runs\nthrough every Gnostic system\u2014gradual development downward into Matter by\nsimilitude; and it is a law which is to be traced down to primordial\nOccultism, or Magic. With the Gnostics, as with us, this seventh Potency,\nsynthesizing all, is the Spirit brooding over the dark waters of\nundifferentiated Space, N\u00e2r\u00e2yana, or Vishnu, in India; the Holy Ghost in\nChristianity. But while in the latter the conception is conditioned and\ndwarfed by limitations necessitating faith and grace, Eastern Philosophy\nshows it pervading every atom, conscious or unconscious. Iren\u00e6us\nsupplements the information on the further development of these six \u00c6ons.\nWe learn from him that Thought, having separated itself from its Parent,\nand knowing through its identity of Essence with the latter what it had to\nknow, proceeded on the second or intermediate plane, or rather World (each\nof such Worlds consisting of two planes, the superior and inferior, male\nand female, the latter assuming finally both Potencies and becoming\nandrogyne), to create inferior Hierarchies, Angels and Powers, Dominions\nand Hosts, of every description, which in their turn created, or rather\nemanated out of their own Essence, our world with its men and beings, over\nwhich they watch.\n\nIt thus follows that every rational being\u2014called Man on Earth\u2014is of the\nsame essence and possesses potentially all the attributes of the higher\n\u00c6ons, the primordial Seven. It is for him to develope, \u201cwith the image\nbefore him of the highest,\u201d by imitation _in actu_, the Potency with which\nthe highest of his Parents, or Fathers, is endowed. Here we may again\nquote with advantage from the _Philosophumena_:\n\n\n    So then, according to Simon, this blissful and imperishable\n    [principle] is concealed in everything in potency, not in act.\n    This is \u201cthat which has stood, stands and will stand,\u201d _viz._,\n    that which has stood above in ingenerable Potency; that which\n    stands below in the stream of the waters generated in an image;\n    that which will stand above, beside the blissful infinite Potency,\n    if it makes itself like unto this image. For three, he says, are\n    they that stand, and without these three \u00c6ons of stability, there\n    is no adornment of the generable which, according to them [the\n    Simonians], is borne on the water, and being moulded according to\n    the similitude is a perfect and celestial (\u00c6on), in no manner of\n    thinking inferior to the ingenerable Potency. Thus they say: \u201cI\n    and thou [are] one; before me [wast] thou; that which is after\n    thee [is] I.\u201d This, he says, is the one Potency, divided into\n    above and below, generating itself, nourishing itself, seeking\n    itself, finding itself; its own mother, father, brother, spouse,\n    daughter and son, one, for it is the Root of all.(805)\n\n\nThus of this triple \u00c6on, we learn the first exists as \u201cthat which has\nstood, stands and will stand,\u201d or the uncreate Power, \u00c2tman; the second is\ngenerated in the dark waters of Space (Chaos, or undifferentiated\nSubstance, our Buddhi), from or through the image of the former reflected\nin those waters, the image of Him, or It, which moves on them; the third\nWorld (or, in man, Manas) will be endowed with every power of that eternal\nand omnipresent Image if it but assimilates it to itself. For,\n\n\n    All that is eternal, pure and incorruptible is concealed in\n    everything that is,\n\n\nif only potentially, not actually. And\n\n\n    Everything is that image, provided the lower image (man) ascends\n    to that highest Source and Root in Spirit and Thought.\n\n\nMatter as Substance is eternal and has never been created. Therefore Simon\nMagus, with all the great Gnostic Teachers and Eastern Philosophers, never\nspeaks of its beginning. \u201cEternal Matter\u201d receives its various forms in\nthe lower \u00c6on from the Creative Angels, or Builders, as we call them. Why,\nthen, should not Man, the direct heir of the highest \u00c6on, do the same, by\nthe potency of his thought, which is born from Spirit? This is\nKriy\u00e2shakti, the power of producing forms on the objective plane through\nthe potency of Ideation and Will, from invisible, indestructible Matter.\n\nTruly says Jeremiah,(806) quoting the \u201cWord of the Lord\u201d:\n\n\n    Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou\n    camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee,\n\n\nfor Jeremiah stands here for Man when he was yet an \u00c6on, or Divine Man,\nboth with Simon Magus and Eastern Philosophy. The first three chapters of\n_Genesis_ are as Occult as that which is given in Paper I. For the\nterrestrial Paradise is the Womb, says Simon,(807) Eden the region\nsurrounding it. The river which went out of Eden to water the garden is\nthe Umbilical Cord; this cord is divided into four Heads, the streams that\nflowed out of it, the four canals which serve to carry nutrition to the\nF\u0153tus, _i.e._, the two arteries and the two veins which are the channels\nfor the blood and convey the breathing air, the unborn child, according to\nSimon, being entirely enveloped by the Amnion, fed through the Umbilical\nCord and given vital air through the Aorta.(808)\n\nThe above is given for the elucidation of that which is to follow. The\ndisciples of Simon Magus were numerous, and were instructed by him in\nMagic. They made use of so\u2010called \u201cexorcisms\u201d (as in the _New Testament_),\nincantations, philtres; believed in dreams and visions, and produced them\nat will; and finally forced the lower orders of spirits to obey them.\nSimon Magus was called \u201cthe Great Power of God,\u201d literally \u201cthe Potency of\nthe Deity which is called Great.\u201d That which was then termed Magic we now\ncall Theosophia, or Divine Wisdom, Power and Knowledge.\n\nHis direct disciple, Menander, was also a great Magician. Says Iren\u00e6us,\namong other writers:\n\n\n    The successor of Simon was Menander, a Samaritan by birth, who\n    reached the highest summits in the Science of Magic.\n\n\nThus both master and pupil are shown as having attained the highest powers\nin the art of enchantments, powers which can be obtained only through \u201cthe\nhelp of the Devil,\u201d as Christians claim; and yet their \u201cworks\u201d were\nidentical with those spoken of in the _New Testament_, wherein such\nphenomenal results are called divine miracles, and are, therefore,\nbelieved in and accepted as coming from and through God. But the question\nis, have these so\u2010called \u201cmiracles\u201d of the \u201cChrist\u201d and the Apostles ever\nbeen explained any more than the magical achievements of so\u2010called\nSorcerers and Magicians? I say, never. We Occultists do not believe in\nsupernatural phenomena, and the Masters laugh at the word \u201cmiracle.\u201d Let\nus see, then, what is really the sense of the word Magic.\n\nThe source and basis of it lie in Spirit and Thought, whether on the\npurely divine or the terrestrial plane. Those who know the history of\nSimon have the two versions before them, that of White and of Black Magic,\nat their option, in the much talked of union of Simon with Helena, whom he\ncalled his Epinoia (Thought). Those who, like the Christians, had to\ndiscredit a dangerous rival, talk of Helena as being a beautiful and\nactual woman, whom Simon had met in a house of ill\u2010fame at Tyre, and who\nwas, according to those who wrote his life, the reincarnation of Helen of\nTroy. How, then, was she \u201cDivine Thought\u201d? The lower angels, Simon is made\nto say in _Philosophumena_, or the third \u00c6ons, being so material, had more\nbadness in them than all the others. Poor man, created or emanated from\nthem, had the vice of his origin. What was it? Only this: when the third\n\u00c6ons possessed themselves, in their turn, of the Divine Thought through\nthe transmission into them of Fire, instead of making of man a complete\nbeing, according to the universal plan, they at first detained from him\nthat Divine Spark (Thought, on Earth Manas); and that was the cause and\norigin of senseless man\u2019s committing the original sin as the angels had\ncommitted it \u00e6ons before by refusing to create.(809) Finally, after\ndetaining Epinoia prisoner amongst them and having subjected the Divine\nThought to every kind of insult and desecration, they ended by shutting it\ninto the already defiled body of man. After this, as interpreted by the\nenemies of Simon, she passed from one female body into another through\nages and races, until Simon found and recognized her in the form of\nHelena, the \u201cprostitute,\u201d the \u201clost sheep\u201d of the parable. Simon is made\nto represent himself as the Saviour descended on Earth to rescue this\n\u201clamb\u201d and those men in whom Epinoia is still under the dominion of the\nlower angels. The greatest magical feats are thus attributed to Simon\nthrough his sexual union with Helena, hence Black Magic. Indeed, the chief\nrites of this kind of Magic are based on such disgusting literal\ninterpretation of noble myths, one of the noblest of which was thus\ninvented by Simon as a symbolical mark of his own teaching. Those who\nunderstood it correctly knew what was meant by \u201cHelena.\u201d It was the\nmarriage of Nous (\u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi) with Manas, the union through which Will\nand Thought become one and are endowed with divine powers. For \u00c2tman in\nman, being of an unalloyed essence, the primordial Divine Fire (or the\neternal and universal \u201cthat which has stood, stands and will stand\u201d), is\nof all the planes; and Buddhi is its vehicle or Thought, generated by and\ngenerating the \u201cFather\u201d in her turn, and also Will. She is \u201cthat which has\nstood, stands and will stand,\u201d thus becoming, in conjunction with Manas,\nmale\u2010female, in this sphere only. Hence, when Simon spoke of himself as\nthe Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and of Helena as his Epinoia,\nDivine Thought, he meant the marriage of his Buddhi with Manas. Helena was\nthe Shakti of the inner man, the female potency.\n\nNow, what says Menander? The lower angels, he taught, were the emanations\nof Ennoia (Designing Thought). It was Ennoia who taught the Science of\nMagic and imparted it to him, together with the art of conquering the\ncreative angels of the lower world. The latter stand for the passions of\nour lower nature. His pupils, after receiving baptism from him (_i.e._,\nafter Initiation), were said to \u201cresurrect from the dead\u201d and, \u201cgrowing no\nolder,\u201d became \u201cimmortal.\u201d(810) This \u201cresurrection\u201d promised by Menander\nmeant, of course, simply the passage from the darkness of ignorance into\nthe light of truth, the awakening of man\u2019s immortal Spirit to inner and\neternal life. This is the Science of the R\u00e2ja Yog\u00ees\u2014Magic.\n\nEvery person who has read Neo\u2010Platonic Philosophy knows how its chief\nAdepts, such as Plotinus, and especially Porphyry, fought against\nphenomenal Theurgy. But, beyond all of them, Jamblichus, the author of the\n_De Mysteriis_, lifts high the veil from the real term Theurgy, and shows\nus therein the true Divine Science of R\u00e2ja Yoga.\n\nMagic, he says, is a lofty and sublime Science, Divine, and exalted above\nall others.\n\n\n    It is the great remedy for all.... It neither takes its source in,\n    nor is it limited to, the body or its passions, to the human\n    compound or its constitution; but all is derived by it from our\n    upper Gods,\n\n\nour divine Egos, which run like a silver thread from the Spark in us up to\nthe primeval divine Fire.(811)\n\nJamblichus execrates physical phenomena, produced, as he says, by the bad\ndemons who deceive men (the spooks of the s\u00e9ance room), as vehemently as\nhe exalts Divine Theurgy. But to exercise the latter, he teaches, the\nTheurgist must imperatively be \u201ca man of high morality and a chaste Soul.\u201d\nThe other kind of Magic is used only by impure, selfish men, and has\nnothing of the Divine in it. No real Vates would ever consent to find in\nits communications anything coming from our higher Gods. Thus one\n(Theurgy) is the knowledge of our Father (the Higher Self); the other,\nsubjection to our lower nature. One requires holiness of the Soul, a\nholiness which rejects and excludes everything corporeal; the other, the\ndesecration of it (the Soul). One is the union with the Gods (with one\u2019s\nGod), the source of all Good; the other intercourse with demons\n(Elementals), which, unless we subject them, will subject us, and lead us\nstep by step to moral ruin (mediumship). In short:\n\n\n    Theurgy unites us most strongly to divine nature. This nature\n    begets itself through itself, moves through its own powers,\n    supports all, and is intelligent. Being the ornament of the\n    Universe, it invites us to intelligible truth, to perfection and\n    imparting perfection to others. It unites us so intimately to all\n    the creative actions of the Gods, according to the capacity of\n    each of us, that the soul having accomplished the sacred rites is\n    consolidated in their [the Gods\u2019] actions and intelligences, until\n    it launches itself into and is absorbed by the primordial divine\n    essence. This is the object of the sacred Initiations of the\n    Egyptians.(812)\n\n\nNow, Jamblichus shows us how this union of our Higher Soul with the\nUniversal Soul, with the Gods, is to be effected. He speaks of Manteia,\nwhich is Sam\u00e2dhi, the highest trance.(813) He speaks also of dream which\nis divine vision, when man re\u2010becomes again a God. By Theurgy, or R\u00e2ja\nYoga, a man arrives at: (1) Prophetic Discernment through our God (the\nrespective Higher Ego of each of us) revealing to us the truths of the\nplane on which we happen to be acting; (2) Ecstacy and Illumination; (3)\nAction in Spirit (in Astral Body or through Will); (4) and Domination over\nthe minor, senseless demons (Elementals) by the very nature of our\npurified Egos. But this demands the complete purification of the latter.\nAnd this is called by him Magic, through initiation into Theurgy.\n\nBut Theurgy has to be preceded by a training of our senses and the\nknowledge of the human Self in relation to the Divine SELF. So long as man\nhas not thoroughly mastered this preliminary study, it is idle to\nanthropomorphize the formless. By \u201cformless\u201d I mean the higher and the\nlower Gods, the supermundane as well as mundane Spirits, or Beings, which\nto beginners can be revealed only in Colours and Sounds. For none but a\nhigh Adept can perceive a \u201cGod\u201d in its true transcendental form, which to\nthe untrained intellect, to the Chel\u00e2, will be visible only by its Aura.\nThe visions of full figures casually perceived by sensitives and mediums\nbelong to one or another of the only three categories they can see: (_a_)\nAstrals of living men; (_b_) Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2yas (Adepts, good or bad, whose\nbodies are dead, but who have learned to live in the invisible space in\ntheir ethereal personalities); and (_c_) Spooks, Elementaries and\nElementals masquerading in shapes borrowed from the Astral Light in\ngeneral, or from figures in the \u201cmind\u2019s eye\u201d of the audience, or of the\nmedium, which are immediately reflected in their respective Auras.\n\nHaving read the foregoing, students will now better comprehend the\nnecessity of first studying the correspondences between our\n\u201cprinciples\u201d\u2014which are but the various aspects of the triune (spiritual\nand physical) man\u2014and our Paradigm, the direct roots of these in the\nUniverse. In view of this, we must resume our teaching about the\nHierarchies directly connected and for ever linked with man.\n\n                  \u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\u2010\n\nEnough has been said to show that while for the Orientalists and profane\nmasses the sentence, \u201c_Om Mani Padme Hum_,\u201d means simply \u201cOh the Jewel in\nthe Lotus,\u201d Esoterically it signifies \u201cOh my God within me.\u201d Yes; there is\na God in each human being, for man was, and will re\u2010become, God. The\nsentence points to the indissoluble union between Man and the Universe.\nFor the Lotus is the universal symbol of Kosmos as the absolute totality,\nand the Jewel is Spiritual Man, or God.\n\nIn the preceding Paper, the correspondences between Colours, Sounds, and\n\u201cPrinciples\u201d were given; and those who have read our second volume will\nremember that these seven principles are derived from the seven great\nHierarchies of Angels, or Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, which are, in their turn,\nassociated with Colours and Sounds, and form collectively the Manifested\nLogos.\n\nIn the eternal music of the spheres we find the perfect scale\ncorresponding to the colours, and in the number, determined by the\nvibrations of colour and sound, which \u201cunderlies every form and guides\nevery sound,\u201d we find the summing\u2010up of the Manifested Universe.\n\nWe may illustrate these correspondences by showing the relation of colour\nand sound to the geometrical figures which(814) express the progressive\nstages in the manifestation of Kosmos.\n\nBut the student will certainly be liable to confusion if, in studying the\nDiagrams, he does not remember two things: (1) That, our plane being a\nplane of reflection, and therefore illusionary, _the various notations are\nreversed and must be counted from below upwards_. The musical scale begins\nfrom below upwards, commencing with the deep Do and ending with the far\nmore acute Si. (2) That K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa (corresponding to Do in the musical\nscale), containing as it does all potentialities of Matter, is necessarily\nthe starting\u2010point on our plane. Further, it commences the notation on\nevery plane, as corresponding to the \u201cmatter\u201d of that plane. Again, the\nstudent must also remember that these notes have to be arranged in a\ncircle, thus showing how Fa is the middle note of Nature. In short,\nmusical notes, or Sounds, Colours and Numbers proceed from one to seven,\nand not from seven to one as erroneously shown in the spectrum of the\nprismatic colours, in which Red is counted first: a fact which\nnecessitated my putting the principles and the days of the week at random\nin Diagram II. The musical scale and colours, according to the number of\nvibrations, proceed from the world of gross Matter to that of Spirit thus:\n\n_Principles._   _Colours._   _Notes._     _Numbers._   _States of\n                                                       Matter._\nChh\u00e2y\u00e2,         Violet.      Si.          7.           Ether.\nShadow or\nDouble.\nHigher Manas,   Indigo.      La.          6.           Critical\nSpiritual                                              State,\nIntelligence.                                          called Air\n                                                       in\n                                                       Occultism.\nAuric           Blue.        Sol.         5.           Steam or\nEnvelope.                                              Vapour.\nLower Manas,    Green.       Fa.          4.           Critical\nor Animal                                              State.\nSoul.\nBuddhi, or      Yellow.      Mi.          3.           Water.\nSpiritual\nSoul.\nPr\u00e2na, or       Orange.      Re.          2.           Critical\nLife                                                   State.\nPrinciple.\nK\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa,      Red.         Do.          1.           Ice.\nthe Seat of\nAnimal Life.\n\nHere again the student is asked to dismiss from his mind any\ncorrespondence between \u201cprinciples\u201d and numbers, for reasons already\ngiven. The Esoteric enumeration cannot be made to correspond with the\nconventional exoteric. The one is the reality, the other is classified\naccording to illusive appearances. The human principles, as given in\n_Esoteric Buddhism_, were tabulated for beginners, so as not to confuse\ntheir minds. It was half a blind.\n\n\n\nColours, Sounds and Forms.\n\n\nTo proceed:\n\n                          [Illustration: Square]\n\nThe Point in the Circle is the Unmanifested Logos, corresponding to\nAbsolute Life and Absolute Sound.\n\nThe first geometrical figure after the Circle or the Spheroid is the\nTriangle. It corresponds to Motion, Colour and Sound. Thus the Point in\nthe Triangle represents the Second Logos, \u201cFather\u2010Mother,\u201d or the White\nRay which is no colour, since it contains potentially all colours. It is\nshown radiating from the Unmanifested Logos, or the Unspoken Word. Around\nthe first Triangle is formed on the plane of Primordial Substance in this\norder (_reversed_ as to our plane):\n\n                          [Illustration: Square]\n\n                   [Illustration: Triangle and Square]\n\n                   [Illustration: Triangle and Square]\n\nA.\n\n(_a_) The Astral Double of Nature, or the Paradigm of all Forms.\n\n(_b_) Divine Ideation, or Universal Mind.\n\n(_c_) The Synthesis of Occult Nature, the Egg of Brahm\u00e2, containing all\nand radiating all.\n\n(_d_) Animal or Material Soul of Nature, source of animal and vegetable\nintelligence and instinct.\n\n(_e_) The aggregate of Dhy\u00e2n Chohanic Intelligences, Fohat.\n\n(_f_) Life Principle in Nature.\n\n(_g_) The Life Procreating Principle in Nature. That which, on the\nspiritual plane, corresponds to sexual affinity on the lower.\n\nMirrored on the plane of Gross Nature, the World of Reality is reversed,\nand becomes on Earth and our plane:\n\nB.\n\n(_a_) Red is the colour of manifested dual, or male and female. In man it\nis shown in its lowest animal form.\n\n(_b_) Orange is the colour of the robes of the Yog\u00ees and Buddhist Priests,\nthe colour of the Sun and Spiritual Vitality, also of the Vital Principle.\n\n(_c_) Yellow or radiant Golden is the colour of the Spiritual, Divine Ray\nin every atom; in man of Buddhi.\n\n(_d_) Green and Red are, so to speak, interchangeable colours, for Green\nabsorbs the Red, as being threefold stronger in its vibrations than the\nlatter; and Green is the complementary colour of extreme Red. This is why\nthe Lower Manas and K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa are respectively shown as Green and Red.\n\n(_e_) The Astral Plane, or Auric Envelope in Nature and Man.\n\n(_f_) The Mind or rational element in Man and Nature.\n\n(_g_) The most ethereal counterpart of the Body of man, the opposite pole,\nstanding in point of vibration and sensitiveness as the Violet stands to\nthe Red.\n\nThe above is on the manifested plane; after which we get the seven and the\nManifested Prism, or Man on Earth. With the latter, the Black Magician\nalone is concerned.\n\nIn Kosmos, the gradations and correlations of Colours and Sounds, and\ntherefore of Numbers are infinite. This is suspected even in Physics, for\nit is ascertained that there exist slower vibrations than those of the\nRed, the slowest perceptible to us, and far more rapid vibrations than\nthose of the Violet, the most rapid that our senses can perceive. But on\nEarth, in our physical world, the range of perceptible vibrations is\nlimited. Our physical senses cannot take cognizance of vibrations above\nand below the septenary and limited gradations of the prismatic colours,\nfor such vibrations are incapable of causing in us the sensation of colour\nor sound. It will always be the graduated septenary and no more, unless we\nlearn to paralyze our Quaternary and discern both the superior and\ninferior vibrations with our spiritual senses seated in the upper\nTriangle.\n\nNow, on this plane of illusion, there are three fundamental colours, as\ndemonstrated by Physical Science, Red, Blue and Yellow (or rather Orange\u2010\nYellow). Expressed in terms of the human principles they are: (1) K\u00e2ma\nR\u00fbpa, the seat of the animal sensations, welded to, and serving as a\nvehicle for the Animal Soul or Lower Manas (Red and Green, as said, being\ninterchangeable); (2) Auric Envelope, or the essence of man; and (3)\nPr\u00e2na, or Life Principle. But if from the realm of illusion, or the living\nman as he is on our Earth, subject to his sensuous perceptions only, we\npass to that of semi\u2010illusion, and observe the natural colours themselves,\nor those of the principles, that is, if we try to find out which are those\nthat in the perfect man absorb all others, we shall find that the colours\ncorrespond and become complementary in the following way:\n\n             Violet.\n(1) Red               Green.\n(2) Orange            Blue.\n(3) Yellow            Indigo.\n             Violet.\n\nA faint violet, mist\u2010like form represents the Astral Man within an oviform\nbluish circle, over which radiate in ceaseless vibrations the prismatic\ncolours. That colour is predominant, of which the corresponding principle\nis the most active generally, or at the particular moment when the\nclairvoyant perceives it. Such man appears during his waking states; and\nit is by the predominance of this or that colour, and by the intensity of\nits vibrations, that a clairvoyant, _if_ he be acquainted with\ncorrespondences, can judge of the inner state or character of a person,\nfor the latter is an open book to every practical Occultist.\n\nIn the trance state the Aura changes entirely, the seven prismatic colours\nbeing no longer discernible. In sleep also they are not all \u201cat home.\u201d For\nthose which belong to the spiritual elements in the man, _viz._, Yellow,\nBuddhi; Indigo, Higher Manas; and the Blue of the Auric Envelope will be\neither hardly discernible, or altogether missing. The Spiritual Man is\nfree during sleep, and though his physical memory may not become aware of\nit, lives, robed in his highest essence, in realms on other planes, in\nrealms which are the land of reality, called dreams on our plane of\nillusion.\n\nA good clairvoyant, moreover, if he had an opportunity of seeing a Yog\u00ee in\nthe trance state and a mesmerized subject, side by side, would learn an\nimportant lesson in Occultism. He would learn to know the difference\nbetween self\u2010induced trance and a hypnotic state resulting from extraneous\ninfluence. In the Yog\u00ee, the \u201cprinciples\u201d of the lower Quaternary disappear\nentirely. Neither Red, Green, Red\u2010Violet nor the Auric Blue of the Body\nare to be seen; nothing but hardly perceptible vibrations of the golden\u2010\nhued Pr\u00e2na principle and a violet flame streaked with gold rushing upwards\nfrom the head, in the region where the Third Eye rests, and culminating in\na point. If the student remembers that the true Violet, or the extreme end\nof the spectrum, is no compound colour of Red and Blue, but a homogeneous\ncolour with vibrations seven times more rapid than those of the Red,(815)\nand that the golden hue is the essence of the three yellow hues from\nOrange Red to Yellow\u2010Orange and Yellow, he will understand the reason why:\nhe lives in his own Auric Body, now become the vehicle of Buddhi\u2010Manas. On\nthe other hand, in a subject in an artificially produced hypnotic or\nmesmeric trance, an effect of unconscious when not of conscious Black\nMagic, unless produced by a high Adept, the whole set of the principles\nwill be present, with the Higher Manas paralyzed, Buddhi severed from it\nthrough that paralysis, and the red\u2010violet Astral Body entirely subjected\nto the Lower Manas and K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa (the green and red animal monsters in\nus).\n\nOne who comprehends well the above explanations will readily see how\nimportant it is for every student, whether he is striving for practical\nOccult powers or only for the purely psychic and spiritual gifts of\nclairvoyance and metaphysical knowledge, to master thoroughly the right\ncorrespondences between the human, or nature principles, and those of\nKosmos. It is ignorance which leads materialistic Science to deny the\ninner man and his Divine powers; knowledge and personal experience that\nallow the Occultist to affirm that such powers are as natural to man as\nswimming to fishes. It is like a Laplander, in all sincerity, denying the\npossibility of the catgut, strung loosely on the sounding\u2010board of a\nviolin producing comprehensive sounds or melody. Our principles are the\nSeven\u2010Stringed Lyre of Apollo, truly. In this our age, when oblivion has\nshrouded ancient knowledge, men\u2019s faculties are no better than the loose\nstrings of the violin to the Laplander. But the Occultist who knows how to\ntighten them and tune his violin in harmony with the vibrations of colour\nand sound, will extract divine harmony from them. The combination of these\npowers and the attuning of the Microcosm and the Macrocosm will give the\ngeometrical equivalent of the invocation \u201c_Om Mani Padme Hum_.\u201d\n\nThis was why the previous knowledge of music and geometry was obligatory\nin the School of Pythagoras.\n\n\n\nThe Roots Of Colour And Sound.\n\n\nFurther, each of the Primordial Seven, the first Seven Rays forming the\nManifested Logos, is again sevenfold. Thus, as the seven colours of the\nsolar spectrum correspond to the seven Rays, or Hierarchies, so each of\nthese latter has again its seven divisions corresponding to the same\nseries of colours. But in this case one colour, _viz._, that which\ncharacterizes the particular Hierarchy as a whole, is predominant and more\nintense than the others.\n\nThese Hierarchies can only be symbolized as concentric circles of\nprismatic colours; each Hierarchy being represented by a series of seven\nconcentric circles, each circle representing one of the prismatic colours\nin their natural order. But in each of these \u201cwheels\u201d one circle will be\nbrighter and more vivid in colour than the rest, and the wheel will have a\nsurrounding Aura (a fringe, as the physicists call it) of that colour.\nThis colour will be the characteristic colour of that Hierarchy as a\nwhole. Each of these Hierarchies furnishes the essence (the Soul) and is\nthe \u201cBuilder\u201d of one of the seven kingdoms of Nature which are the three\nelemental kingdoms, the mineral, the vegetable, the animal, and the\nkingdom of spiritual man.(816) Moreover, each Hierarchy furnishes the Aura\nof one of the seven principles in man with its specific colour. Further,\nas each of these Hierarchies is the Ruler of one of the Sacred Planets, it\nwill easily be understood how Astrology came into existence, and that real\nAstrology has a strictly scientific basis.\n\nThe symbol adopted in the Eastern School to represent the Seven\nHierarchies of creative Powers is a wheel of seven concentric circles,\neach circle being coloured with one of the seven colours; call them\nAngels, if you will, or Planetary Spirits, or, again, the Seven Rulers of\nthe Seven Sacred Planets of our system, as in our present case. At all\nevents, the concentric circles stand as symbols for Ezekiel\u2019s Wheels with\nsome Western Occultists and Kabalists, and for the \u201cBuilders\u201d or Praj\u00e2pati\nwith us.\n\nDIAGRAM III.\n\nThe student should carefully examine the following Diagram.\n\n                              [Diagram III]\n\nThus the Linga Shar\u00eera is derived from the Violet sub\u2010ray of the Violet\nHierarchy; the Higher Manas is similarly derived from the Indigo sub\u2010ray\nof the Indigo Hierarchy, and so on. Every man being born under a certain\nplanet, there will always be a predominance of that planet\u2019s colour in\nhim, because that \u201cprinciple\u201d wall rule in him which has its origin in the\nHierarchy in question. There will also be a certain amount of the colour\nderived from the other planets present in his Aura, but that of the ruling\nplanet will be strongest. Now a person in whom, say, the Mercury principle\nis predominant, will, by acting upon the Mercury principle in another\nperson born under a different planet, be able to get him entirely under\nhis control. For the stronger Mercury principle in him will overpower the\nweaker Mercurial element in the other. But he will have little power over\npersons born under the same planet as himself. This is the key to the\nOccult Sciences of Magnetism and Hypnotism.\n\nThe student will understand that the Orders and Hierarchies are here named\nafter their corresponding colours, so as to avoid using numerals, which\nwould be confusing in connection with the human principles, as the latter\nhave no proper numbers of their own. The real Occult names of these\nHierarchies cannot now be given.\n\nThe student must, however remember that the colours which we see with our\nphysical eyes are not the true colours of Occult Nature, but are merely\nthe effects produced on the mechanism of our physical organs by certain\nrates of vibration. For instance, Clerk Maxwell has demonstrated that the\nretinal effects of any colour may be imitated by properly combining three\nother colours. It follows, therefore, that our retina has only three\ndistinct colour sensations, and we therefore do not perceive the seven\ncolours which really exist, but only their \u201cimitations,\u201d so to speak, in\nour physical organism.\n\nThus, for instance, the Orange\u2010Red of the first \u201cTriangle\u201d is not a\ncombination of Orange and Red, but the true \u201cspiritual\u201d Red, if the term\nmay be allowed, while the Red (blood\u2010red) of the spectrum is the colour of\nK\u00e2ma, animal desire, and is inseparable from the material plane.\n\n\n\nThe Unity Of Deity.\n\n\nEsotericism, pure and simple, speaks of no personal God; therefore are we\nconsidered as Atheists. But, in reality, Occult Philosophy, as a whole, is\nbased absolutely on the ubiquitous presence of God, the Absolute Deity;\nand if IT Itself is not speculated upon, as being too sacred and yet\nincomprehensible as a Unit to the finite intellect, yet the entire\nPhilosophy is based upon Its Divine Powers as being the Source of all that\nbreathes and lives and has existence. In every ancient Religion the ONE\nwas demonstrated by the many. In Egypt and India, in Chald\u00e6a and Ph\u0153nicia,\nand finally in Greece, the ideas about Deity were expressed by multiples\nof three, five and seven; and also by eight, nine and twelve great Gods,\nwhich symbolized the powers and properties of the One and Only Deity. This\nwas related to that infinite subdivision by irregular and odd numbers to\nwhich the metaphysics of these nations subjected their ONE DIVINITY. Thus\nconstituted, the cycle of the Gods had all the qualities and attributes of\nthe ONE SUPREME AND UNKNOWABLE; for in this collection of divine\nPersonalities, or rather of Symbols personified, dwells the ONE GOD, the\nGOD ONE, that God which, in India, is said to have no Second.\n\n\n    O God Ani [the Spiritual Sun], thou residest in the agglomeration\n    of thy divine personages.(817)\n\n\nThese words show the belief of the ancients that all manifestation\nproceeds from one and the same Source, all emanating from the one\nidentical Principle which can never be completely developed except in and\nthrough the collective and entire aggregate of Its emanations.\n\nThe Pleroma of Valentinus is absolutely the Space of Occult Philosophy;\nfor Pleroma means the \u201cFullness,\u201d the superior regions. It is the sum\ntotal of all the Divine manifestations and emanations expressing the\n_plenum_ or totality of the rays proceeding from the ONE, differentiating\non all the planes, and transforming themselves into Divine Powers, called\nAngels and Planetary Spirits in the Philosophy of every nation. The\nGnostic \u00c6ons and Powers of the Pleroma are made to speak as the Devas and\nSiddhas of the _Pur\u00e2nas_. The Epinoia, the first female manifestation of\nGod, the \u201cPrinciple\u201d of Simon Magus and Saturninus, holds the same\nlanguage as the Logos of Basilides; and each of these is traced to the\npurely esoteric Al\u00eatheia, the TRUTH of the Mysteries. All of them, we are\ntaught, repeat at different times and in different languages the\nmagnificent hymn of the Egyptian papyrus, thousands of years old:\n\n\n    The Gods adore thee, they greet thee, O the One Dark Truth.\n\n\nAnd addressing Ra, they add:\n\n\n    The Gods bow before thy Majesty, by exalting the Souls of that\n    which produces them ... and say to thee, Peace to all emanations\n    from the Unconscious Father of the Conscious Fathers of the\n    Gods.... Thou producer of beings, we adore the souls which emanate\n    from thee. Thou begettest us, O thou Unknown, and we greet thee in\n    worshipping each God\u2010Soul which descendeth from thee and liveth in\n    us.\n\n\nThis is the source of the assertion:\n\n\n    Know ye not that ye are Gods and the temple of God.\n\n\nThis is shown in the \u201cRoots of Ritualism in Church and Masonry,\u201d in\n_Lucifer_ for March, 1889. Truly then, as said seventeen centuries ago,\n\u201cMan cannot possess Truth (Al\u00eatheia) except he participate in the Gnosis.\u201d\nSo we may say now: No man can know the Truth unless he studies the secrets\nof the Pleroma of Occultism; and these secrets are all in the Theogony of\nthe ancient Wisdom\u2010Religion, which is the Al\u00eatheia of Occult Science.\n\n\n\n\nPaper III. A Word Concerning the Earlier Papers.\n\n\nAs many have written and almost complained to me that they could find no\npractical clear application of certain diagrams appended to the first two\nPapers, and others have spoken of their abstruseness, a short explanation\nis necessary.\n\nThe reason of this difficulty in most cases has been that the point of\nview taken was erroneous; the purely abstract and metaphysical was\nmistaken for, and confused with, the concrete and the physical. Let us\ntake for example the diagrams on page 477 (Paper II.,) and say that these\nare entirely macrocosmic and ideal. It must be remembered that the study\nof Occultism proceeds from Universals to Particulars and not the reverse\nway, as accepted by Science. As Plato was an Initiate, he very naturally\nused the former method, while Aristotle, never having been initiated,\nscoffed at his master, and, elaborating a system of his own, left it as an\nheirloom to be adopted and improved by Bacon. Of a truth the aphorism of\nHermetic Wisdom, \u201cAs above, so below,\u201d applies to all Esoteric\ninstruction; but we must begin with the above; we must learn the formula\nbefore we can sum the series.\n\nThe two figures, therefore, are not meant to represent any two particular\nplanes, but are the abstraction of a pair of planes, explanatory of the\nlaw of reflection, just as the Lower Manas is a reflection of the Higher.\nThey must therefore be taken in the highest metaphysical sense.\n\nThe diagrams are only intended to familiarize students with the leading\nideas of Occult correspondences, the very genius of metaphysical, or\nmacrocosmic and spiritual Occultism forbidding the use of figures or even\nsymbols further than as temporary aids. Once define an idea in words, and\nit loses its reality; once figure a metaphysical idea, and you materialize\nits spirit. Figures must be used only as ladders to scale the battlements,\nladders to be disregarded when once the foot is set upon the rampart.\n\nLet students, therefore, be very careful to spiritualize the Papers and\navoid materializing them; let them always try to find the highest meaning\npossible, confident that in proportion as they approach the material and\nvisible in their speculations on the Papers, so far are they from the\nright understanding of them. This is especially the case with these first\nPapers and Diagrams, for as in all true arts, so in Occultism, we must\nfirst learn the theory before we are taught the practice.\n\n\n\nConcerning Secrecy.\n\n\nStudents ask: Why such secrecy about the details of a doctrine the body of\nwhich has been publicly revealed, as in _Esoteric Buddhism_ and the\n_Secret Doctrine_?\n\nTo this Occultism would reply: for two reasons:\u2014\n\n(_a_) The whole truth is too sacred to be given out promiscuously.\n\n(_b_) The knowledge of all the details and missing links in the exoteric\nteachings is too dangerous in profane hands.\n\nThe truths revealed to man by the \u201cPlanetary Spirits\u201d\u2014the highest Kum\u00e2ras,\nthose who incarnate no longer in the Universe during this\nMah\u00e2manvantara\u2014who will appear on earth as Avat\u00e2ras only at the beginning\nof every new human Race, and at the junctions or close of the two ends of\nthe small and great cycles\u2014in time, as man became more animalized, were\nmade to fade away from his memory. Yet, though these Teachers remain with\nman no longer than the time required to impress upon the plastic minds of\nchild\u2010humanity the eternal verities they teach, Their Spirit remains vivid\nthough latent in mankind. And the full knowledge of the primitive\nrevelation has remained always with a few elect, and has been transmitted\nfrom that time up to the present, from one generation of Adepts to\nanother. As the Teachers say in the Occult Primer:\n\n_This is done so as to ensure them_ [the eternal truths] _from being\nutterly lost or forgotten in ages hereafter by the forthcoming\ngenerations._\n\nThe mission of the Planetary Spirit is but to strike the key\u2010note of\nTruth. When once He has directed the vibration of the latter to run its\ncourse uninterruptedly along the concatenation of the race to the end of\nthe cycle, He disappears from our earth until the following Planetary\nManvantara. The mission of any teacher of Esoteric truths, whether he\nstands at the top or the foot of the ladder of knowledge, is precisely the\nsame; as above, so below. I have only orders to strike the key\u2010note of the\nvarious Esoteric truths among the learners as a body. Those units among\nyou who will have raised themselves on the \u201cPath\u201d over their fellow\u2010\nstudents, in their Esoteric sphere, will, as the \u201cElect\u201d spoken of did and\ndo in the Parent Brotherhoods, receive the last explanatory details and\nthe ultimate key to what they learn. No one, however, can hope to gain\nthis privilege before the MASTERS\u2014not my humble self\u2014find him or her\nworthy.\n\nIf you wish to know the real _raison d\u2019\u00eatre_ for this policy, I now give\nit to you. No use my repeating and explaining what all of you know as well\nas myself; at the very beginning, events have shown that no caution can be\ndispensed with. Of our body of several hundred men and women, many did not\nseem to realize either the awful sacredness of the pledge (which some took\nat the end of their pen), or the fact that their _personality_ has to be\nentirely disregarded, when brought face to face with their HIGHER SELF; or\nthat all their words and professions went for naught unless corroborated\nby actions. This was human nature, and no more; therefore it was passed\nleniently by, and a new lease accorded by the MASTER. But apart from this\nthere is a danger lurking in the nature of the present cycle itself.\nCivilized humanity, however carefully guarded by its invisible Watchers,\nthe Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2yas, who watch over our respective races and nations, is yet,\nowing to its collective Karma, terribly under the sway of the traditional\nopposers of the Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2yas\u2014the \u201cBrothers of the Shadow,\u201d embodied and\ndisembodied; and this, as has already been told you, will last to the end\nof the first Kali Yuga cycle (1897), and a few years beyond, as the\nsmaller dark cycle happens to overlap the great one. Thus, notwithstanding\nall precautions, terrible secrets are often revealed to entirely unworthy\npersons by the efforts of the \u201cDark Brothers\u201d and their working on human\nbrains. This is entirely owing to the simple fact that in certain\nprivileged organisms, vibrations of the primitive truth put in motion by\nthe Planetary Beings are set up, in what Western philosophy would term\ninnate ideas, and Occultism \u201cflashes of genius.\u201d(818) Some such idea based\non eternal truth is awakened, and all that the watchful Powers can do is\nto prevent its entire revelation.\n\nEverything in this Universe of differentiated matter has its two aspects,\nthe light and the dark side, and these two attributes applied practically,\nlead the one to use, the other to abuse. Every man may become a Botanist\nwithout apparent danger to his fellow\u2010creatures; and many a Chemist who\nhas mastered the science of essences knows that every one of them can both\nheal and kill. Not an ingredient, not a poison, but can be used for both\npurposes\u2014aye, from harmless wax to deadly prussic acid, from the saliva of\nan infant to that of the cobra di capella. This every tyro in medicine\nknows\u2014theoretically, at any rate. But where is the learned Chemist in our\nday who has been permitted to discover the \u201cnight side\u201d of an attribute of\nany substance in the three kingdoms of Science, let alone in the seven of\nthe Occultists? Who of them has penetrated into its Arcana, into the\ninnermost Essence of things and its primary correlations? Yet it is this\nknowledge alone which makes of an Occultist a genuine practical Initiate,\nwhether he turn out a Brother of Light or a Brother of Darkness. The\nessence of that subtle, traceless poison, the most potent in nature, which\nentered into the composition of the so\u2010called Medici and Borgia poisons,\nif used with discrimination by one well versed in the septenary degrees of\nits potentiality on each of the planes accessible to man on earth\u2014could\nheal or kill every man in the world; the result depending, of course, on\nwhether the operator was a Brother of the Light or a Brother of the\nShadow. The former is prevented from doing the good he might, by racial,\nnational, and individual Karma; the second is impeded in his fiendish work\nby the joint efforts of the human \u201cStones\u201d of the \u201cGuardian Wall.\u201d(819)\n\nIt is incorrect to think that there exists any special \u201cpowder of\nprojection\u201d or \u201cphilosopher\u2019s stone,\u201d or \u201celixir of life.\u201d The latter\nlurks in every flower, in every stone and mineral throughout the globe. It\nis the ultimate essence of _everything on its way to higher and higher\nevolution_. As there is no good or evil _per se_, so there is neither\n\u201celixir of life\u201d nor \u201celixir of death,\u201d nor poison, _per se_, but all this\nis contained in one and the same universal Essence, this or the other\neffect, or result, depending on the degree of its differentiation and its\nvarious correlations. The _light side_ of it produces life, health, bliss,\ndivine peace, etc.; the _dark side_ brings death, disease, sorrow and\nstrife. This is proven by the knowledge of the nature of the most violent\npoisons; of some of them even a large quantity will produce no evil effect\non the organism, whereas a grain of the same poison kills with the\nrapidity of lightning; while the same grain, again, altered by a certain\ncombination, though its quantity remains almost identical, will heal. The\nnumber of the degrees of its differentiation is septenary, as are the\nplanes of its action, each degree being either beneficent or maleficent in\nits effects, according to the system into which it is introduced. He who\nis skilled in these degrees is on the high road to practical Adeptship; he\nwho acts at hap\u2010hazard\u2014as do the enormous majority of the \u201cMind Curers,\u201d\nwhether \u201cMental\u201d or \u201cChristian Scientists\u201d\u2014is likely to rue the effects on\nhimself as well as on others. Put on the track by the example of the\nIndian Yog\u00ees, and of their broadly but incorrectly outlined practices,\nwhich they have only read about, but have had no opportunity to\nstudy\u2014these new sects have rushed headlong and guideless into the practice\nof _denying_ and _affirming_. Thus they have done more harm than good.\nThose who are successful owe it to their innate magnetic and healing\npowers, which very often counteract that which would otherwise be\nconducive to much evil. Beware, I say; Satan and the Archangel are more\nthan twins; they are one body and one mind\u2014_Deus est Demon inversus_.\n\n\n\nIs The Practice Of Concentration Beneficent?\n\n\nSuch is another question often asked. I answer: Genuine concentration and\nmeditation, _conscious and cautious_, upon one\u2019s lower self in the light\nof the inner divine man and the P\u00e2ramit\u00e2s, is an excellent thing. But to\n\u201csit for Yoga,\u201d with only a superficial and often distorted knowledge of\nthe real practice, is almost invariably fatal; for ten to one the student\nwill either develop mediumistic powers in himself or lose time and get\ndisgusted both with practice and theory. Before one rushes into such a\ndangerous experiment and seeks to go beyond a minute examination of one\u2019s\nlower self and _its_ walk in life, or that which is called in our\nphraseology, \u201cThe Chel\u00e2\u2019s Daily Life Ledger,\u201d he would do well to learn at\nleast the difference between the two aspects of \u201cMagic,\u201d the White or\nDivine, and the Black or Devilish, and assure himself that by \u201csitting for\nYoga,\u201d with no experience, as well as with no guide to show him the\ndangers, he does not daily and hourly cross the boundaries of the Divine\nto fall into the Satanic. Nevertheless, the way to learn the difference is\nvery easy; one has only to remember that _no Esoteric truths entirely\nunveiled will ever be given in public print_, in book or magazine.\n\nI ask students to turn to the _Theosophist_ of November, 1887. On page 98\nthey will find the beginning of an excellent article by Mr. R\u00e2ma Pras\u00e2d on\n\u201cNature\u2019s Finer Forces.\u201d(820) The value of this work is not so much in its\nliterary merit, though it gained its author the gold medal of the\n_Theosophist_, as in its exposition of tenets hitherto concealed in a rare\nand ancient Sanskrit work on Occultism. But Mr. R\u00e2ma Pras\u00e2d is not an\nOccultist, only an excellent Sanskrit scholar, a university graduate and a\nman of remarkable intelligence. His essays are almost entirely based on\nT\u00e2ntra works, which, if read indiscriminately by a tyro in Occultism, will\nlead to the practice of most unmitigated Black Magic. Now, since the\ndifference of primary importance between Black and White Magic is the\nobject with which it is practised, and that of secondary importance the\nnature of the agents used for the production of phenomenal results, the\nline of demarcation between the two is very\u2014_very_ thin. The danger is\nlessened only by the fact that every _Occult_ book, so\u2010called, is Occult\nonly in a certain sense: that is, the text is Occult merely by reason of\nits blinds. The symbolism has to be thoroughly understood before the\nreader can get at the correct sense of the teaching. Moreover, it is never\ncomplete, its several portions each being under a different title, and\neach containing a portion of some other work; so that without a key to\nthese no such work divulges the whole truth. Even the famous _Shiv\u00e2gama_,\non which _Natures Finer Forces_ is based, \u201cis nowhere to be found in\ncomplete form,\u201d as the author tells us. Thus, like all others, it treats\nof only five Tattvas instead of the seven as in Esoteric teachings.\n\nNow, the Tattvas being simply the substratum of the seven forces of\nNature, how can this be? There are seven forms of Prakriti, as Kapila\u2019s\nS\u00e2nkhya, the _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, and other works teach. Prakriti is Nature,\nMatter (primordial and elemental); therefore logic demands that the\nTattvas also should be seven. For whether Tattvas mean, as Occultism\nteaches, \u201cforces of Nature,\u201d or, as the learned R\u00e2ma Pr\u00e2sad explains, \u201cthe\nsubstance out of which the universe is formed\u201d and \u201cthe power by which it\nis sustained,\u201d it is all one; they are Force, Purusha, and _Matter_,\nPrakriti. And if the _forms_, or rather planes, of the latter are seven,\nthen its forces must be seven also. In other words, the degrees of the\nsolidity of matter and the degrees of the power that ensouls it must go\nhand in hand.\n\n\n    The Universe is made out of the Tattva, it is sustained by the\n    Tattva, and it disappears into the Tattva,\n\n\nsays Shiva, as quoted from the _Shiv\u00e2gama_ in _Nature\u2019s Finer Forces_.\nThis settles the question; if Prakriti is septenary, then the Tattvas must\nbe seven, for, as said, they are both Substance and Force, or atomic\nMatter and the Spirit that ensoule it.\n\nThis is explained here to enable the student to read between the lines of\nthe so\u2010called Occult articles on Sanskrit Philosophy, by which they must\nnot be misled. The doctrine of the seven Tattvas (the principles of the\nUniverse and also of man) was held in great sacredness and therefore\nsecrecy, in days of old, by the Br\u00e2hmans, who have now almost forgotten\nthe teaching. Yet it is taught to this day in the Schools beyond the\nHim\u00e2layan Range, though now hardly remembered or heard of in India except\nthrough rare Initiates. The policy has, however, been changed gradually;\nChel\u00e2s began to be taught the broad outlines of it, and at the advent of\nthe T. S. in India in 1879, I was ordered to teach it in its exoteric form\nto one or two. I now give it out Esoterically.\n\nKnowing that some students try to follow a system of Yoga in their own\nfashion, guided only by the rare hints they find in Theosophical books and\nmagazines, which must naturally be incomplete, I chose one of the best\nexpositions upon ancient Occult works, _Nature\u2019s Finer Forces_, in order\nto point out how very easily one can be misled by their blinds.\n\nThe author seems to have been himself deceived. The Tantras read\nEsoterically are as full of wisdom as the noblest Occult works. Studied\nwithout a guide and applied to practice, they may lead to the production\nof various phenomenal results, on the moral and physiological planes. But\nlet anyone accept their dead\u2010letter rules and practices, let him try with\nsome selfish motive in view to carry out the rites prescribed therein,\nand\u2014he is lost. Followed with pure heart and unselfish devotion merely for\nthe sake of experiment, either no results will follow, or such as can only\nthrow back the performer. But woe to the selfish man who seeks to develop\nOccult powers only to attain earthly benefits or revenge, or to satisfy\nhis ambition; the separation of the Higher from the Lower Principles and\nthe severing of Buddhi\u2010Manas from the T\u00e2ntrist\u2019s personality will speedily\nfollow, the terrible Karmic results to the _dabbler_ in Magic.\n\nIn the East, in India and China, _soulless_ men and women are as\nfrequently met with as in the West, though vice is, in truth, far less\ndeveloped there than it is here.\n\nIt is Black Magic and oblivion of their ancestral wisdom that lead them\nthereunto. But of this I will speak later, now merely adding: you have to\nbe warned and know the danger.\n\nMeanwhile, in view of what follows, the real Occult division of the\nPrinciples in their correspondences with the Tattvas and other minor\nforces has to be well studied.\n\n\n\nAbout \u201cPrinciples\u201d And \u201cAspects.\u201d\n\n\nSpeaking metaphysically and philosophically, on strict Esoteric lines, man\nas a complete unit is composed of Four basic Principles and their Three\nAspects on this earth. In the semi\u2010esoteric teachings, these Four and\nThree have been called Seven Principles, to facilitate the comprehension\nof the masses.\n\nThe Eternal Basic Principles.\n\n1. _\u00c2tm\u00e2_, or _J\u00eeva_, \u201cthe One Life,\u201d which permeates the _Monadic Trio_.\n(One in three and three in One.)\n\n2. _Auric Envelope_; because the substratum of the Aura around man is the\nuniversally diffused primordial and pure Ak\u00e2sha, the first film on the\nboundless and shoreless expanse of J\u00eeva, the immutable Root of all.\n\n3. _Buddhi_; for Buddhi is a ray of the Universal Spiritual Soul (ALAYA).\n\n4. _Manas_ (the Higher Ego); for it proceeds from Mahat, the first product\nor emanation of Pradh\u00e2na which contains _potentially_ all the Gunas\n(attributes). Mahat is Cosmic Intelligence, called the \u201cGreat\nPrinciple.\u201d(821)\n\nTransitory Aspects Produced by the Principles.\n\n1. _Pr\u00e2na_, the Breath of Life, the same as _Nephesh_. At the death of a\nliving being, Pr\u00e2na re\u2010becomes J\u00eeva.(822)\n\n2. _Linga Shar\u00eera_, the Astral Form, the transitory emanation of the Auric\nEgg. This form precedes the formation of the living Body, and after death\nclings to it, dissipating only with the disappearance of its last atom\n(the skeleton excepted).\n\n3. Lower Manas, the Animal Soul, the reflection or shadow of the Buddhi\u2010\nManas, having the potentialitie of both, but conquered generally by its\nassociation with the K\u00e2ma elements.\n\nAs the lower man is the combined product of two aspects\u2014physically, of his\nAstral Form, and psycho\u2010physiologically of K\u00e2ma\u2010Manas\u2014he is not looked\nupon even as an aspect, but as an illusion.\n\nThe Auric Egg, on account of its nature and manifold functions, has to be\nwell studied. As Hiranyagarbha, the Golden Womb or Egg, contains Brahm\u00e2,\nthe collective symbol of the Seven Universal Forces, so the Auric Egg\ncontains, and is directly related to, both the divine and the physical\nman. In its essence, as said, it is eternal; in its constant correlations\nand transformations, during the reincarnating progress of the Ego on this\nearth, it is a kind of perpetual motion machine.\n\nAs given out in our second volume, the Egos or Kum\u00e2ras, incarnating in\nman, at the end of the Third Root\u2010Race, are not human Egos of this earth\nor plane, but become such only from the moment they ensoul the Animal Man,\nthus endowing him with his Higher Mind. Each is a \u201cBreath\u201d or Principle,\ncalled the Human Soul, or Manas, the Mind. As the teachings say:\n\n_\u201c__Each is a pillar of light. Having chosen its vehicle, it expanded,\nsurrounding with an \u00c2k\u00e2shic Aura the human animal, while the Divine\n(M\u00e2nasic) Principle settled within that human form.__\u201d_\n\nAncient Wisdom teaches us, moreover, that from this first incarnation, the\nLunar Pitris, who had made men out of their Chh\u00e2y\u00e2s or Shadows, are\nabsorbed by this Auric Essence, and a distinct Astral Form is now produced\nfor each forthcoming personality of the reincarnating series of each Ego.\n\nThus the Auric Egg, reflecting all the thoughts, words and deeds of man,\nis:\n\n(_a_) The preserver of every Karmic record.\n\n(_b_) The storehouse of all the good and evil powers of man, receiving and\ngiving out at his will\u2014nay, at his very thought\u2014every potentiality, which\nbecomes, then and there, an acting potency: this Aura is the mirror in\nwhich sensitives and clairvoyants sense and perceive the real man, and see\nhim _as he is_, not as he appears.\n\n(_c_) As it furnishes man with his Astral Form, around which the physical\nentity models itself, first as a f\u0153tus, then as a child and man, the\nastral growing apace with the human being, so it furnishes him during\nlife, if an Adept, with his M\u00e2y\u00e2vi R\u00fbpa, or Illusion Body, which is not\nhis _Vital_\u2010Astral Body; and after death, with his Devachanic Entity and\nK\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa, or Body of Desire (the Spook).(823)\n\nIn the case of the Devachanic Entity, the Ego, in order to be able to go\ninto a state of bliss, as the \u201cI\u201d of its immediately preceding\nincarnation, has to be clothed (metaphorically speaking) with the\nspiritual elements of the ideas, aspirations and thoughts of the now\ndisembodied personality; otherwise what is it that enjoys bliss and\nreward? Surely not the impersonal Ego, the Divine Individuality. Therefore\nit must be the good Karmic records of the deceased, impressed upon the\nAuric Substance, which furnish the Human Soul with just enough of the\nspiritual elements of the ex\u2010personality, to enable it to still believe\nitself that body from which it has just been severed, and to receive its\nfruition, during a more or less prolonged period of \u201cspiritual gestation.\u201d\nFor Devachan is a \u201cspiritual gestation\u201d within an ideal matrix state, a\nbirth of the Ego into the world of effects, which ideal, subjective birth\nprecedes its next terrestrial birth, the latter being determined by its\nbad Karma, into the world of causes.(824)\n\nIn the case of the Spook, the K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa is furnished from the animal dregs\nof the Auric Envelope, with its daily Karmic record of animal life, so\nfull of animal desires and selfish aspirations.(825)\n\nNow the Linga Shar\u00eera remains with the Physical Body, and fades out along\nwith it. An astral entity then has to be created, a new Linga Shar\u00eera\nprovided, to become the bearer of all the past Tanhas and future Karma.\nHow is this accomplished? The mediumistic Spook, the \u201cdeparted angel,\u201d\nfades out and vanishes also in its turn(826) as an entity or full image of\nthe personality that was, and leaves in the K\u00e2malokic world of effects\nonly the record of its misdeeds and sinful thoughts and acts, known in the\nphraseology of Occultists as T\u00e2nhic or human Elementals. Entering into the\ncomposition of the Astral Form of the new body, into which the Ego, upon\nits quitting the Devachanic state, is to enter according to Karmic decree,\nthe Elementals form that new astral entity which is born within the Auric\nEnvelope, and of which it is often said:\n\n\n    Bad Karma waits at the threshold of Devachan, with its army of\n    Skandhas.(827)\n\n\nFor no sooner is the Devachanic state of reward ended, than the Ego is\nindissolubly united with (or rather follows in the track of) the new\nAstral Form. Both are Karmically propelled towards the family or woman\nfrom whom is to be born the _animal child_ chosen by Karma to become the\nvehicle of the Ego which has just awakened from the Devachanic state. Then\nthe _new_ Astral Form, composed partly of the pure Ak\u00e2shic Essence of the\nAuric Egg, and partly of the terrestrial elements of the punishable sins\nand misdeeds of the last personality, is drawn into the woman. Once there,\nNature models the f\u0153tus of flesh around the Astral, out of the growing\nmaterials of the male seed in the female soil. Thus grows out of the\nessence of a decayed seed the fruit or eidolon of the dead seed, the\nphysical fruit producing in its turn within itself another, and other\nseeds for future plants.\n\nAnd now we may return to the Tattvas, and see what they mean in nature and\nman, showing thereby the great danger of indulging in fancy, amateur Yoga,\nwithout knowing what we are about.\n\n\n\nThe T\u00e2ttvic Correlations and Meaning.\n\n\nIn Nature, then, we find seven Forces, or seven Centres of Force, and\neverything seems to respond to that number, as for instance, the septenary\nscale in music, or Sounds, and the septenary spectrum in Colours. I have\nnot exhausted its nomenclature and proofs in the earlier volumes, yet\nenough is given to show every thinker that the facts adduced are no\ncoincidences, but very weighty testimony.\n\nThere are several reasons why only five Tattvas are given in the Hindu\nsystems. One of these I have already mentioned; another is that owing to\nour having reached only the Fifth Race, and being (so far as Science is\nable to ascertain) endowed with only five senses, the two remaining senses\nthat are still latent in man can have their existence proven only on\nphenomenal evidence which to the Materialist is no evidence at all. The\nfive physical senses are made to correspond with the five lower Tattvas,\nthe two yet undeveloped senses in man; and the two forces, or Tattvas,\nforgotten by Br\u00e2hmans and still unrecognized by Science, being so\nsubjective and the highest of them so sacred, that they can only be\nrecognized by, and known through, the highest Occult Sciences. It is easy\nto see that these two Tattvas and the two senses (the sixth and the\nseventh) correspond to the two highest human principles, Buddhi and the\nAuric Envelope, impregnated with the light of \u00c2tm\u00e2. Unless we open in\nourselves, by Occult training, the sixth and seventh senses, we can never\ncomprehend correctly their corresponding types. Thus the statement in\n_Nature\u2019s Finer Forces_ that, in the T\u00e2ttvic scale, the highest Tattva of\nall is \u00c2k\u00e2sha(828) (followed by [only] four, each of which becomes grosser\nthan its predecessor), if made from the Esoteric standpoint, is erroneous.\nFor once \u00c2k\u00e2sha, an almost homogeneous and certainly universal Principle,\nis translated Ether, then \u00c2k\u00e2sha is dwarfed and limited to our visible\nUniverse, for assuredly it is not the Ether of Space. Ether, whatever\nModern Science makes of it, is differentiated Substance; \u00c2k\u00e2sha, having no\nattributes save one\u2014SOUND, _of which it is the substratum_\u2014is no substance\neven exoterically and in the minds of some Orientalists,(829) but rather\nChaos, or the Great Spatial Void.(830)\n\nEsoterically, \u00c2k\u00e2sha alone is _Divine_ Space, and becomes Ether only on\nthe lowest and last plane, or our visible Universe and Earth. In this case\nthe blind is in the word \u201cattribute,\u201d which is said to be Sound. But Sound\nis no attribute of \u00c2k\u00e2sha, but its primary correlation, its primordial\nmanifestation, the LOGOS, or Divine Ideation made Word, and that \u201cWORD\u201d\nmade \u201cFlesh.\u201d Sound may be considered an \u201cattribute\u201d of \u00c2k\u00e2sha only on the\ncondition of anthropomorphizing the latter. It is not a characteristic of\nit, though it is certainly as innate in it as the idea \u201cI am _I_\u201d is\ninnate in our thoughts.\n\nOccultism teaches that \u00c2k\u00e2sha contains and includes the seven Centres of\nForce, therefore the six Tattvas, of which it is the seventh, or rather\ntheir synthesis. But if \u00c2k\u00e2sha be taken, as we believe it is in this case,\nto represent only the exoteric idea, then the author is right; because,\nseeing that \u00c2k\u00e2sha is universally omnipresent, following the Paur\u00e2nic\nlimitation, _for the better comprehension of our finite intellects_, he\nplaces its commencement only beyond the four planes of our Earth\nChain,(831) the two higher Tattvas being as concealed to the average\nmortal as the sixth and seventh senses are to the materialistic mind.\n\nTherefore, while Sanskrit and Hindu Philosophy generally speak of five\nTattvas only, Occultists name seven, thus making them correspond with\nevery septenary in Nature. The Tattvas stand in the same order as the\nseven macro\u2010 and micro\u2010cosmic Forces: and as taught in Esotericism, are as\nfollows:\n\n(1) \u00c2DI TATTVA, the primordial universal Force, issuing at the beginning\nof manifestation, or of the \u201ccreative\u201d period, from the eternal immutable\nSat, the substratum of ALL. It corresponds with the Auric Envelope or\nBrahm\u00e2\u2019s Egg, which surrounds every globe, as well as every man, animal\nand thing. It is the vehicle containing potentially everything\u2014Spirit and\nSubstance, Force and Matter. \u00c2di Tattva, in Esoteric Cosmogony, is the\nForce which we refer to as proceeding from the First or Unmanifested\nLOGOS.\n\n(2) ANUP\u00c2DAKA TATTVA,(832) the first differentiation on the plane of\nbeing\u2014the first being an ideal one\u2014or that which is born by transformation\nfrom something higher than itself. With the Occultists, this Force\nproceeds from the Second LOGOS.\n\n(3) \u00c2K\u00c2SHA TATTVA, this is the point from which all _exoteric_\nPhilosophies and Religions start. \u00c2k\u00e2sha Tattva is explained in them as\nEtheric Force, Ether. Hence Jupiter, the \u201chighest\u201d God, was named after\nPater \u00c6ther; Indra, once the highest God in India, is the etheric or\nheavenly expanse, and so with Uranus, etc. The Christian biblical God,\nalso, is spoken of as the Holy Ghost, Pneuma, rarefied wind or air. This\nthe Occultists call the Force of the Third LOGOS, the Creative Force in\nthe already Manifested Universe.\n\n(4) V\u00c2YU TATTVA, the a\u00ebrial plane where substance is gaseous.\n\n(5) TAIJAS TATTVA, the plane of our atmosphere, from _tejas_, luminous.\n\n(6) \u00c2PAS TATTVA, watery or liquid substance or force.\n\n(7) PRITHIV\u00ce TATTVA, solid earthly substance, the terrestrial spirit or\nforce, the lowest of all.\n\nAll these correspond to our Principles, and to the seven senses and forces\nin man. According to the Tattva or Force generated or induced in us, so\nwill our bodies act.\n\nNow, what I have to say here is addressed especially to those members who\nare anxious to develop powers by \u201csitting for Yoga.\u201d You have seen, from\nwhat has been already said, that in the development of R\u00e2ja Yoga, no\nextant works made public are of the least good; they can at best give\ninklings of Hatha Yoga, something that may develop mediumship at best, and\nin the worst case\u2014consumption. If those who practice \u201cmeditation,\u201d and try\nto learn \u201cthe Science of Breath,\u201d will read attentively _Nature\u2019s Finer\nForces_, they will find that it is by utilizing the five Tattvas only that\nthis dangerous science is acquired. For in the exoteric Yoga Philosophy,\nand the Hatha Yoga practice, \u00c2k\u00e2sha Tattva is placed in the head (or\nphysical brain) of man; Tejas Tattva in the shoulders; V\u00e2yu Tattva in the\nnavel (the seat of all the phallic Gods, \u201ccreators\u201d of the universe and\nman); \u00c2pas Tattva in the knees; and Prithiv\u00ee Tattva in the feet. Hence the\ntwo higher Tattvas and their correspondences are ignored and excluded;\nand, as these are the chief factors in R\u00e2ja Yoga, no spiritual or\nintellectual phenomena of a high nature can take place. The best results\nobtainable will be physical phenomena and no more. As the \u201cFive Breaths,\u201d\nor rather the five states of the human breath, in Hatha Yoga correspond to\nthe above _terrestrial_ planes and colours, what spiritual results can be\nobtained? On the contrary, they are the very reverse of the plane of\nSpirit, or the higher macrocosmic plane, reflected as they are upside\ndown, in the Astral Light. This is proven in the T\u00e2ntra work, _Shiv\u00e2gama_,\nitself. Let us compare.\n\nFirst of all, remember that the Septenary of visible and also invisible\nNature is said in Occultism to consist of the _three_ (and four) Fires,\nwhich grow into the forty\u2010nine Fires. This shows that as the Macrocosm is\ndivided into seven great planes of various differentiations of\nSubstance\u2014from the spiritual or subjective, to the fully objective or\nmaterial, from Ak\u00e2sha down to the sin\u2010laden atmosphere of our earth\u2014so, in\nits turn, each of these great planes has three aspects, based on four\nPrinciples, as already shown above. This seems to be quite natural, as\neven modern Science has her three states of matter and what are generally\ncalled the \u201ccritical\u201d or intermediate states between the solid, the\nfluidic, and the gaseous.\n\nNow, the Astral Light is not a universally diffused stuff, but pertains\nonly to our earth and all other bodies of the system on the same plane of\nmatter with it. Our Astral Light is, so to speak, the Linga Shar\u00eera of our\nearth; only instead of being its primordial prototype, as in the case of\nour Chh\u00e2y\u00e2, or Double, it is the reverse. Human and animal bodies grow and\ndevelop on the model of their antetypal Doubles; whereas the Astral Light\nis born from the terrene emanations, grows and develops after its\nprototypal parent, and in its treacherous waves everything from the upper\nplanes and from the lower solid plane, the earth, both ways, is reflected\n_reversed_. Hence the confusion of its colours and sounds in the\nclairvoyance and clairaudience of the sensitive who trusts to its records,\nbe that sensitive a Hatha Yog\u00ee or a medium.\n\nSuch, then, is the Occult Science on which the modern Ascetics and Yog\u00ees\nof India base their Soul development and powers. They are known as the\nHatha Yog\u00ees. Now, the science of Hatha Yoga rests upon the \u201csuppression of\nbreath,\u201d or Pr\u00e2n\u00e2y\u00e2ma, to which exercise our Masters are unanimously\nopposed. For what is Pr\u00e2n\u00e2y\u00e2ma? Literally translated, it means the \u201cdeath\nof (vital) breath.\u201d Pr\u00e2na, as said, is not J\u00eeva, the eternal fount of life\nimmortal; nor is it connected in any way with Pranava, as some think, for\nPranava is a synonym of AUM in a mystic sense. As much as has ever been\ntaught publicly and clearly about it is to be found in _Nature\u2019s Finer\nForces_. If such directions, however, are followed, they can only lead to\nBlack Magic and mediumship. Several impatient Chel\u00e2s, whom we knew\npersonally in India, went in for the practice of Hatha Yoga,\nnotwithstanding our warnings. Of these, two developed consumption, of\nwhich one died; others became almost idiotic; another committed suicide;\nand one developed into a regular T\u00e2ntrika, a Black Magician, but his\ncareer, fortunately for himself, was cut short by death.\n\nThe science of the Five Breaths, the moist, the fiery, the airy, etc., has\na twofold significance and two applications. The T\u00e2ntrikas take it\nliterally, as relating to the regulation of the vital, lung breath,\nwhereas the ancient R\u00e2ja Yog\u00ees understood it as referring to the mental or\n\u201cwill\u201d breath, which alone leads to the highest clairvoyant powers, to the\nfunction of the Third Eye, and the acquisition of the true R\u00e2ja Yoga\nOccult powers. The difference between the two is enormous. The former, as\nshown, use the five lower Tattvas; the latter begin by using the three\nhigher alone, for mental and will development, and the rest only when they\nhave completely mastered the three; hence, they use only one (\u00c2k\u00e2sha\nTattva) out of the T\u00e2ntric five. As well said in the above stated work,\n\u201cTattvas are the modifications of Svara.\u201d Now, the Svara is the root of\nall sound, the substratum of the Pythagorean music of the spheres, Svara\nbeing that which is _beyond_ Spirit, in the modern acceptation of the\nword, the Spirit within Spirit, or as very properly translated, the\n\u201ccurrent of the life\u2010wave,\u201d the emanation of the One Life. The Great\nBreath spoken of in our first volume is \u00c2TM\u00c2, the etymology of which is\n\u201c_eternal motion_.\u201d Now while the ascetic Chel\u00e2 of our school, for his\nmental development, follows carefully the process of the evolution of the\nUniverse, that is, proceeds from universals to particulars, the Hatha Yog\u00ee\nreverses the conditions and begins by sitting for the suppression of his\n(vital) breath. And if, as Hindu philosophy teaches, at the beginning of\nkosmic evolution, \u201cSvara threw itself into the form of \u00c2k\u00e2sha,\u201d and thence\nsuccessively into the forms of V\u00e2yu (air), Agni (fire), \u00c2pas (water), and\nPrithiv\u00ee (solid matter),(833) then it stands to reason that we have to\nbegin by the higher _supersensuous_ Tattvas. The R\u00e2ja Yog\u00ee does not\ndescend on the planes of substance beyond S\u00fbkshma (subtle matter), while\nthe Hatha Yog\u00ee develops and uses his powers only on the material plane.\nSome T\u00e2ntrikas locate the three Nad\u00ees, Sushumn\u00e2, \u00ced\u00e2 and Pingal\u00e2, in the\nmedulla oblongata, the central line of which they call Sushumn\u00e2, and the\nright and left divisions, Pingal\u00e2 and \u00ced\u00e2, and also in the heart, to the\ndivisions of which they apply the same names. The Trans\u2010Him\u00e2layan school\nof the ancient Indian R\u00e2ja Yog\u00ees, with which the modern Yog\u00ees of India\nhave little to do, locates Sushumn\u00e2, the chief seat of these three Nad\u00ees,\nin the central tube of the spinal cord, and \u00ced\u00e2 and Pingal\u00e2 on its left\nand right sides. Sushumn\u00e2 is the Brahmadanda. It is that canal (of the\nspinal cord), of the use of which Physiology knows no more than it does of\nthe spleen and the pineal gland. \u00ce\u00e2 and Pingal\u00e2 are simply the sharps and\nflats of that _Fa_ of human nature, the keynote and the middle key in the\nscale of the septenary harmony of the Principles, which, when struck in a\nproper way, awakens the sentries on either side, the spiritual Manas and\nthe physical K\u00e2ma, and subdues the lower through the higher. But this\neffect has to be produced by the exercise of will\u2010power, not through the\nscientific or trained suppression of the breath. Take a transverse section\nof the spinal region, and you will find sections across three columns, one\nof which columns transmits the volitional orders, and a second a life\ncurrent of J\u00eeva\u2014not of Pr\u00e2na, which animates the body of man\u2014during what\nis called Sam\u00e2dhi and like states.\n\nHe who has studied both systems, the Hatha and the R\u00e2ja Yoga, finds an\nenormous difference between the two: one is purely psycho\u2010physiological,\nthe other purely psycho\u2010spiritual. The T\u00e2ntrists do not seem to go higher\nthan the six visible and known plexuses, with each of which they connect\nthe Tattvas; and the great stress they lay on the chief of these, the\nM\u00fbladh\u00e2ra Chakra (the sacral plexus), shows the material and selfish bent\nof their efforts towards the acquisition of powers. Their five Breaths and\nfive Tattvas are chiefly concerned with the prostatic, epigastric,\ncardiac, and laryngeal plexuses. Almost ignoring the \u00c2j\u00f1\u00e2, they are\npositively ignorant of the synthesizing laryngeal plexus. But with the\nfollowers of the old school it is different. We begin with the mastery of\nthat organ which is situated at the base of the brain, in the pharynx, and\ncalled by Western Anatomists the Pituitary Body. In the series of the\nobjective cranial organs, corresponding to the subjective T\u00e2ttvic\nprinciples, it stands to the Third Eye (Pineal Gland) as Manas stands to\nBuddhi; the arousing and awakening of the Third Eye must be performed by\nthat vascular organ, that insignificant little body, of which, once again,\nPhysiology knows nothing at all. The one is the Energizer of Will, the\nother that of Clairvoyant Perception.\n\nThose who are Physicians, Physiologists, Anatomists, etc., will understand\nme better than the rest in the following explanation.\n\nNow, as to the functions of the Pineal Gland, or Conarium, and of the\nPituitary Body, we find no explanations vouchsafed by the standard\nauthorities. Indeed, on looking through the works of the greatest\nspecialists, it is curious to observe how much confused ignorance on the\nhuman vital economy, physiological as well as psychological, is openly\nconfessed. The following is all that can be gleaned from the authorities\nupon these two important organs.\n\n(1) The Pineal Gland, or Conarium, is a rounded, oblong body, from three\nto four lines long, of a deep reddish grey, connected with the posterior\npart of the third ventricle of the brain. It is attached at its base by\ntwo thin medullary cords, which diverge forward to the Optic Thalami.\nRemember that the latter are found by the best Physiologists to be the\norgans of reception and condensation of the most sensitive and sensorial\nincitations from the periphery of the body (according to Occultism, from\nthe periphery of the Auric Egg, which is our point of communication with\nthe higher, universal planes). We are further told that the two bands of\nthe Optic Thalami, which are inflected to meet each other, unite on the\nmedian line, where they become the two peduncles of the Pineal Gland.\n\n(2) The Pituitary Body, or Hypophysis Cerebri, is a small and hard organ,\nabout six lines broad, three long and three high. It is formed of an\nanterior bean\u2010shaped, and of a posterior and more rounded lobe, which are\nuniformly united. Its component parts, we are told, are almost identical\nwith those of the Pineal Gland; yet not the slightest connection can be\ntraced between the two centres. To this, however, Occultists take\nexception; they _know_ that there is a connection, and this even\nanatomically and physically. Dissectors, on the other hand, have to deal\nwith corpses; and, as they themselves admit, brain\u2010matter, of all tissues\nand organs, collapses and changes form the soonest\u2014in fact, a few minutes\nafter death. When, then, the pulsating life which expanded the mass of the\nbrain, filled all its cavities and energized all its organs, vanishes, the\ncerebral mass shrinks into a sort of pasty condition, and once open\npassages become closed. But the contraction and even interblending of\nparts in this process of shrinking, and the subsequent pasty state of the\nbrain, do not imply that there is no connection between these two organs\nbefore death. In point of fact, as Professor Owen has shown, a connection\nas objective as a groove and tube exists in the crania of the human f\u0153tus\nand of certain fishes. When a man is in his normal condition, an Adept can\nsee the golden Aura pulsating in both the centres, like the pulsation of\nthe heart, which never ceases throughout life. This motion, however, under\nthe abnormal condition of effort to develop clairvoyant faculties, becomes\nintensified, and the Aura takes on a stronger vibratory or swinging\naction. The arc of the pulsation of the Pituitary Body mounts upward, more\nand more, until, just as when the electric current strikes some solid\nobject, the current finally strikes the Pineal Gland, and the dormant\norgan is awakened and set all glowing with the pure \u00c2k\u00e2shic Fire. This is\nthe psycho\u2010physiological illustration of two organs on the physical plane,\nwhich are, respectively, the concrete symbols of the metaphysical concepts\ncalled Manas and Buddhi. The latter, in order to become conscious on this\nplane, needs the more differentiated fire of Manas; _but once the sixth\nsense has awakened the seventh_, the light which radiates from this\nseventh sense illumines the fields of infinitude. For a brief space of\ntime man becomes omniscient; the Past and the Future, Space and Time,\ndisappear and become for him the Present. If an Adept, he will store the\nknowledge he thus gains in his physical memory, and nothing, save the\ncrime of indulging in Black Magic, can obliterate the remembrance of it.\nIf only a Chel\u00e2, portions alone of the whole truth will impress themselves\non his memory, and he will have to repeat the process for years, never\nallowing one speck of impurity to stain him mentally or physically, before\nhe becomes a fully initiated Adept.\n\nIt may seem strange, almost incomprehensible, that the chief success of\nGupta Vidy\u00e2, or Occult Knowledge, should depend upon such flashes of\nclairvoyance, and that the latter should depend in man on two such\ninsignificant excrescences in his cranial cavity, \u201ctwo horny _warts_\ncovered with grey sand (acervulus cerebri),\u201d as expressed by Bichat in his\n_Anatomie Descriptive_; yet so it is. But this sand is not to be despised;\nnay, in truth, it is only this landmark of the internal, independent\nactivity of the Conarium that prevents Physiologists from classifying it\nwith the absolutely useless atrophied organs, the relics of a previous and\nnow utterly changed anatomy of man during some period of his unknown\nevolution. This \u201csand\u201d is very mysterious, and baffles the inquiry of\nevery Materialist. In the cavity on the anterior surface of this gland, in\nyoung persons, and in its substance, in people of advanced years, is found\n\n\n    A yellowish substance, semi\u2010transparent, brilliant and hard, the\n    diameter of which does not exceed half a line.(834)\n\n\nSuch is the acervulus cerebri.\n\nThis brilliant \u201csand\u201d is the concretion of the gland itself, so say the\nPhysiologists. Perhaps not, we answer. The Pineal Gland is that which the\nEastern Occultist calls Dev\u00e2ksha, the \u201cDivine Eye.\u201d To this day, it is the\nchief organ of spirituality in the human brain, the seat of genius, the\nmagical Sesame uttered by the purified will of the Mystic, which opens all\nthe avenues of truth for him who knows how to use it. The Esoteric Science\nteaches that Manas, the Mind Ego, does not accomplish its full union with\nthe child before he is six or seven years of age, before which period,\neven according to the canon of the Church and Law, no child is deemed\nresponsible.(835) Manas becomes a prisoner, one with the body, only at\nthat age. Now a strange thing was observed in several thousand cases by\nthe famous German anatomist, Wengel. With a few extremely rare exceptions,\nthis \u201csand,\u201d or golden\u2010coloured concretion, is found only in subjects\nafter the completion of their seventh year. In the case of fools these\ncalculi are very few; in congenital idiots they are completely absent.\nMorgagni,(836) Grading,(837) and Gum(838) were wise men in their\ngeneration, and are wise men to\u2010day, since they are the only\nPhysiologists, so far, who connect the calculi with mind. For, sum up the\nfacts, that they are absent in young children, in very old people, and in\nidiots, and the unavoidable conclusion will be that they must be connected\nwith mind.\n\nNow since every mineral, vegetable and other atom is only a concretion of\ncrystallized Spirit, or \u00c2k\u00e2sha, the Universal Soul, why, asks Occultism,\nshould the fact that these concretions of the Pineal Gland, are, upon\nanalysis, found to be composed of animal matter, phosphate of lime and\ncarbonate, serve as an objection to the statement that they are the result\nof the work of mental electricity upon surrounding matter?\n\nOur seven Chakras are all situated in the head, and it is these Master\nChakras which govern and rule the seven (for there are seven) principal\nplexuses in the body, besides the forty\u2010two minor ones to which Physiology\nrefuses that name. The fact that no microscope can detect such centres on\nthe objective plane goes for nothing; no microscope has ever yet detected,\nnor ever will, the difference between the motor and sensory nerve\u2010tubes,\nthe conductors of all our bodily and psychic sensations; and yet logic\nalone would show that such difference exists. And if the term plexus, in\nthis application, does not represent to the Western mind the idea conveyed\nby the term of the Anatomist, then call them Chakras or Padmas, or the\nWheels, the Lotus Heart and Petals. Remember that Physiology, imperfect as\nit is, shows septenary groups all over the exterior and interior of the\nbody; the seven head orifices, the seven \u201corgans\u201d at the base of the\nbrain, the seven plexuses, the pharyngeal, laryngeal, cavernous, cardiac,\nepigastric, prostatic, and sacral, etc.\n\nWhen the time comes, advanced students will be given the minute details\nabout the Master Chakras and taught the use of them; till then, less\ndifficult subjects have to be learned. If asked whether the seven\nplexuses, or T\u00e2ttvic centres of action, are the centres where the seven\nRays of the Logos vibrate, I answer in the affirmative, simply remarking\nthat the rays of the Logos vibrate in every atom, for the matter of that.\n\nIn these volumes it is almost revealed that the \u201cSons of Fohat\u201d are the\npersonified Forces known in a general way as Motion, Sound, Heat, Light,\nCohesion, Electricity or Electric Fluid, and Nerve\u2010Force or Magnetism.\nThis truth, however, cannot teach the student to attune and moderate the\nKundalin\u00ee of the cosmic plane with the _vital_ Kundalin\u00ee, the Electric\nFluid with the Nerve\u2010Force, and unless he does so, he is sure to kill\nhimself; for the one travels at the rate of about 90 feet, and the other\nat the rate of 115,000 leagues a second. The seven Shaktis respectively\ncalled Para Shakti, J\u00f1\u00e2na Shakti, etc., are synonymous with the \u201cSons of\nFohat,\u201d for they are their female aspects. At the present stage, however,\nas their names would only be confusing to the Western student, it is\nbetter to remember the English equivalents as translated above. As each\nForce is septenary, their sum is, of course, forty\u2010nine.\n\nThe question now mooted in Science, whether a sound is capable of calling\nforth impressions of light and colour in addition to its natural sound\nimpressions, has been answered by Occult Science ages ago. Every impulse\nor vibration of a physical object producing a certain vibration of the\nair, that is, causing the collision of physical particles, the sound of\nwhich is capable of affecting the ear, produces at the same time a\ncorresponding flash of light, which will assume some particular colour.\nFor, in the realm of hidden Forces, an _audible_ sound is but a subjective\ncolour; and a perceptible colour, but an _inaudible_ sound; both proceed\nfrom the same potential substance, which Physicists used to call ether,\nand now refer to under various other names; but which we call plastic,\nthrough invisible SPACE. This may appear a paradoxical hypothesis, but\nfacts are there to prove it. Complete deafness, for instance, does not\npreclude the possibility of discerning sounds; medical science has several\ncases on record which prove that these sounds are received by, and\nconveyed to, the patient\u2019s organ of sight, through the mind, under the\nform of chromatic impressions. The very fact that the intermediate tones\nof the chromatic musical scale were formerly written in colours shows an\nunconscious reminiscence of the ancient Occult teaching that colour and\nsound are two out of the seven correlative aspects, _on our plane_, of one\nand the same thing, _viz._, Nature\u2019s first differentiated Substance.\n\nHere is an example of the relation of colour to vibration well worthy of\nthe attention of Occultists. Not only Adepts and advanced Chel\u00e2s, but also\nthe lower order of Psychics, such as clairvoyants and psychometrists, can\nperceive a psychic Aura of various colours around every individual,\ncorresponding to the temperament of the person within it. In other words,\nthe mysterious records within the Auric Egg are not the heirloom of\ntrained Adepts alone, but sometimes also of natural Psychics. Every human\npassion, every thought and quality, is indicated in this Aura by\ncorresponding colours and shades of colour, and certain of these are\nsensed and felt rather than perceived. The best of such Psychics, as shown\nby Galton, can also perceive colours produced by the vibrations of musical\ninstruments, every note suggesting a different colour. As a string\nvibrates and gives forth an audible note, so the nerves of the human body\nvibrate and thrill in correspondence with various emotions under the\ngeneral impulse of the circulating vitality of Pr\u00e2na, thus producing\nundulations in the psychic Aura of the person which result in chromatic\neffects.\n\nThe human nervous system as a whole, then, may be regarded as an \u00c6olian\nHarp, responding to the impact of the vital force, which is no\nabstraction, but a dynamic reality, and manifests the subtlest shades of\nthe individual character in colour phenomena. If these nerve vibrations\nare made intense enough and brought into vibratory relation with an astral\nelement, the result is\u2014sound. How, then, can anyone doubt the relation\nbetween the microcosmic and macrocosmic forces?\n\nAnd now that I have shown that the T\u00e2ntric works as explained by R\u00e2ma\nPr\u00e2sad, and other Yoga treatises of the same character which have appeared\nfrom time to time in Theosophical journals\u2014for note well that those of\ntrue R\u00e2ja Yoga are never published\u2014tend to Black Magic and are most\ndangerous to take for guides in self\u2010training, I hope that students will\nbe on their guard.\n\nFor, considering that no two authorities up to the present day agree as to\nthe real location of the Chakras and Padmas in the body, and, seeing that\nthe colours of the Tattvas as given are reversed, _e.g._:\n\n(_a_) \u00c2k\u00e2sha is made black or colourless, whereas corresponding to Manas,\nit is indigo;\n\n(_b_) V\u00e2yu is made blue, whereas, corresponding to the Lower Manas, it is\ngreen;\n\n(_c_) \u00c2pas is made white, whereas, corresponding to the Astral Body, it is\nviolet, with a silver, moonlike white substratum;\n\nTejas, red, is the only colour given correctly\u2014from such considerations, I\nsay, it is easy to see that these disagreements are dangerous blinds.\n\nFurther, the practice of the Five Breaths results in deadly injury, both\nphysiologically and psychically, as already shown. It is indeed that which\nit is called, Pr\u00e2n\u00e2y\u00e2ma, or the death of the breath, for it results, for\nthe practiser, in death\u2014in moral death always, and in physical death very\nfrequently.\n\n\n\nOn Exoteric \u201cBlinds\u201d and \u201cthe Death of the Soul.\u201d\n\n\nAs a corollary to this, and before going into still more abstruse\nteachings, I must redeem the promise already given. I have to illustrate\nby tenets you already know, the awful doctrine of personal annihilation.\nBanish from your minds all that you have hitherto read in such works as\n_Esoteric Buddhism_, and thought you understood, of such hypotheses as the\neighth sphere and the moon, and that man shares a common ancestor with the\nape. Even the details occasionally given out by myself in the\n_Theosophist_ and _Lucifer_ were nothing like the whole truth, but only\nbroad general ideas, hardly touched upon in their details. Certain\npassages, however, give out hints, especially my foot\u2010notes on articles\ntranslated from \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi\u2019s _Letters on Magic_.(839)\n\nNevertheless, personal immortality is conditional, for there are such\nthings as \u201csoulless men,\u201d a teaching barely mentioned, although it is\nspoken of even in _Isis Unveiled_;(840) and there is an Av\u00eetchi, rightly\ncalled Hell, though it has no connection with, or similitude to, the good\nChristian\u2019s Hell, either geographically or psychically. The truth known to\nOccultists and Adepts in every age could not be given out to a promiscuous\npublic; hence, though almost every mystery of Occult Philosophy lies half\nconcealed in _Isis_ and the two earlier volumes of the present work, I had\nno right to amplify or correct the details of others. Readers may now\ncompare those four volumes and such books as _Esoteric Buddhism_ with the\ndiagrams and explanations in these Papers, and see for themselves.\n\nParam\u00e2tm\u00e2, the Spiritual Sun, may be thought of as outside the human Auric\nEgg, as it is also outside the Macrocosmic or Brahm\u00e2\u2019s Egg. Why? Because,\nthough every particle and atom are, so to speak, cemented with and soaked\nthrough by this Param\u00e2tmic essence, yet it is wrong to call it a \u201chuman\u201d\nor even a \u201cuniversal\u201d Principle, for the term is very likely to give rise\nto naught but an erroneous idea of the philosophical and purely\nmetaphysical concept; it is not a Principle, but the cause of every\nPrinciple, the latter term being applied by Occultists only to its\nshadow\u2014the Universal Spirit that ensouls the boundless Kosmos whether\nwithin or beyond Space and Time.\n\nBuddhi serves as a vehicle for that Param\u00e2tmic shadow. This Buddhi is\nuniversal, and so also is the human \u00c2tm\u00e2. Within the Auric Egg is the\nmacracosmic pentacle of LIFE, Pr\u00e2na, containing within itself the\npentagram which represents man. The universal pentacle must be pictured\nwith its point soaring upwards, the sign of White Magic\u2014in the human\npentacle it is the lower limbs which are upward, forming the \u201cHorns of\nSatan,\u201d as the Christian Kabbalists call them. This is the symbol of\nMatter, that of the personal man, and the recognized pentacle of the Black\nMagician. For this reversed pentacle does not stand only for K\u00e2ma, the\nfourth Principle exoterically, but it also represents physical man, the\nanimal of flesh with its desires and passions.\n\nNow, mark well, in order to understand that which follows, that Manas may\nbe pictured as an upper triangle connected with the lower Manas by a thin\nline which binds the two together. This is the Antah\u2010karana, that path or\nbridge of communication which serves as a link between the personal being\nwhose physical brain is under the sway of the lower animal mind, and the\nreincarnating Individuality, the spiritual Ego, Manas, Manu, the \u201cDivine\nMan.\u201d This thinking Manu alone is that which reincarnates. In truth and in\nnature, the two Minds, the spiritual and the physical or animal, are one,\nbut separate into two at reincarnation. For while that portion of the\nDivine which goes to animate the personality, consciously separating\nitself, like a dense but pure shadow, from the Divine Ego,(841) wedges\nitself into the brain and senses(842) of the f\u0153tus, at the completion of\nits seventh month, the Higher Manas does not unite itself with the child\nbefore the completion of the first seven years of its life. This detached\nessence, or rather the reflection or shadow of the Higher Manas, becomes,\nas the child grows, a distinct thinking Principle in man, its chief agent\nbeing the physical brain. No wonder the Materialists, who perceive only\n_this_ \u201crational soul,\u201d or mind, will not disconnect it with the brain and\nmatter. But Occult Philosophy has ages ago solved the problem of mind, and\ndiscovered the duality of Manas. The Divine Ego tends with its point\nupwards towards Buddhi, and the human Ego gravitates downwards, immersed\nin Matter, connected with its higher, subjective half only by the\nAntahkarana. As its derivation suggests, this is the only connecting link\nduring life between the two minds\u2014the higher consciousness of the Ego and\nthe human intelligence of the lower mind.\n\nTo understand this abstruse metaphysical doctrine fully and correctly, one\nhas to be thoroughly impressed with an idea, which I have in vain\nendeavoured to impart to Theosophists at large, namely, the great\naxiomatic truth that the only eternal and living Reality is that which the\nHindus call Param\u00e2tm\u00e2 and Parabrahman. This is the one ever\u2010existing Root\nEssence, immutable and unknowable to our physical senses, but manifest and\nclearly perceptible to our spiritual natures. Once imbued with that basic\nidea and the further conception that if It is omnipresent, universal and\neternal, like abstract Space itself, we must have emanated from It and we\nmust, some day, return into It, and all the rest becomes easy.\n\nIf so, then it stands to reason that life and death, good and evil, past\nand future, are all empty words, or at best, figures of speech. If the\nobjective Universe itself is but a passing illusion on account of its\nbeginning and finitude, then both life and death must also be aspects and\nillusions. They are changes of state, in fact, and no more. Real life is\nin the spiritual consciousness of that life, _in a conscious existence in\nSpirit, not Matter_; and real death is the limited perception of life, the\nimpossibility of sensing conscious or even individual existence outside of\nform, or at least, of some form of Matter. Those who sincerely reject the\npossibility of conscious life divorced from Matter and brain\u2010substance,\nare _dead units_. The words of Paul, an Initiate, become comprehensible.\n\u201cYe are dead, and your _life_ is hid with Christ in God;\u201d which is to say:\nYe are personally dead matter, unconscious of its own spiritual essence,\nand your real life is hid with your Divine Ego (Christos) in, or merged\nwith, God (\u00c2tm\u00e2); now has it departed from you, ye soulless people.\nSpeaking on Esoteric lines, every irrevocably materialistic person is a\n_dead Man_, a living automaton, in spite of his being endowed with great\nbrain power. Listen to what Aryasangha says, stating the same fact:\n\n\n    That which is neither Spirit nor Matter, neither Light nor\n    Darkness, but is verily the container and root of these, that thou\n    art. The Root projects at every Dawn its shadow on ITSELF, and\n    that shadow thou callest Light and Life, O poor dead Form. (This)\n    Life\u2010Light streameth downward through the stairway of the seven\n    worlds, the stairs of which each step become denser and darker. It\n    is of this seven\u2010times\u2010seven scale that thou art the faithful\n    climber and mirror, O little man! Thou art this, but thou knowest\n    it not.\n\n\nThis is the first lesson to learn. The second is to study well the\nPrinciples of both the Kosmos and ourselves, dividing the group into the\npermanent and the impermanent, the higher and immortal and the lower and\nmortal, for thus only can we master and guide, first the lower cosmic and\npersonal, then the higher cosmic and impersonal.\n\nOnce we can do that we have secured our immortality. But some may say:\n\u201cHow few are those who can do so. All such are great Adepts, and none can\nreach such Adeptship in one short life.\u201d Agreed; but there is an\nalternative. \u201cIf the Sun thou canst not be, then be the humble Planet,\u201d\nsays the _Book of the Golden Precepts_. And if even that is beyond our\nreach, then let us at least endeavour to keep within the ray of some\nlesser star, so that its silvery light may penetrate the murky darkness,\nthrough which the stony path of life trends onward; for without this\ndivine radiance we risk losing more than we imagine.\n\nWith regard, then, to \u201csoulless\u201d men, and the \u201csecond death\u201d of the\n\u201cSoul,\u201d mentioned in the second volume of _Isis Unveiled_, you will there\nfind that I have spoken of such soulless people, and even of Av\u00eetchi,\nthough I leave the latter unnamed. Read from the last paragraph on page\n367 to the end of the first paragraph on page 370, and then collate what\nis there said with what I have now to say.\n\nThe higher triad, \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi\u2010Manas, may be recognized from the first\nlines of the quotation from the Egyptian papyrus. In the _Ritual_, now the\n_Book of the Dead_, the purified Soul, the dual Manas, appears as \u201cthe\nvictim of the dark influence of the Dragon Apophis,\u201d the physical\npersonality of K\u00e2mar\u00fbpic man, with his passions. \u201cIf it has attained the\nfinal knowledge of the heavenly and infernal Mysteries, the Gnosis\u201d\u2014the\ndivine and the terrestrial Mysteries, of White and Black Magic\u2014then the\ndefunct personality \u201cwill triumph over its enemy\u201d\u2014death. This alludes to\nthe case of a complete re\u2010union, at the end of earth life, of the lower\nManas, full of \u201cthe harvest of life,\u201d with its Ego. But if Apophis\nconquers the Soul, then it \u201ccannot escape a _second_ death.\u201d\n\nThese few lines from a papyrus, many thousands of years old, contain a\nwhole revelation, known, in those days, only to the Hierophants and the\nInitiates. The \u201charvest of life\u201d consists of the finest spiritual\nthoughts, of the memory of the noblest and most unselfish deeds of the\npersonality, and the constant presence during its bliss after death of all\nthose it loved with divine, spiritual devotion.(843) Remember the\nteaching: The Human Soul, lower Manas, is the _only_ and direct mediator\nbetween the personality and the Divine Ego. That which goes to make up on\nthis earth the _personality_ miscalled _individuality_ by the majority, is\nthe sum of all its mental, physical, and spiritual characteristics, which,\nbeing impressed on the Human Soul, produces the _man_. Now, of all these\ncharacteristics it is the purified thoughts alone which can be impressed\non the higher, immortal Ego. This is done by the Human Soul merging again,\nin its essence, into its parent source, commingling with its Divine Ego\nduring life, and re\u2010uniting itself entirely with it after the death of the\nphysical man. Therefore, unless K\u00e2ma\u2010Manas transmits to Buddhi\u2010Manas such\npersonal ideations, and such consciousness of its \u201cI\u201d as can be\nassimilated by the Divine Ego, nothing of that \u201cI\u201d or personality can\nsurvive in the Eternal. Only that which is worthy of the immortal God\nwithin us, and identical in its nature with the divine quintessence, can\nsurvive; for in this case it is its own, the Divine Ego\u2019s, \u201cshadows\u201d or\nemanations which ascend to it and are indrawn by it into itself again, to\nbecome once more part of its own Essence. No noble thought, no grand\naspiration, desire, or divine immortal love, can come into the brain of\nthe man of clay and settle there, except as a direct emanation from the\nHigher to, and through, the lower Ego; all the rest, intellectual as it\nmay seem, proceeds from the \u201cshadow,\u201d the _lower mind_, in its association\nand commingling with K\u00e2ma, and passes away and disappears for ever. But\nthe mental and spiritual ideations of the personal \u201cI\u201d return to it, as\nparts of the Ego\u2019s Essence, and can never fade out. Thus of the\npersonality that was, only its spiritual experiences, the memory of all\nthat is good and noble, with the consciousness of its \u201cI\u201d blended with\nthat of all the other personal \u201cI\u2019s\u201d that preceded it, survive and become\nimmortal. There is no distinct or separate immortality for the men of\nearth outside of the Ego which informed them. That Higher Ego is the sole\nbearer of all its _alter egos_ on earth and their sole representative in\nthe mental state called Devachan. As the last embodied personality,\nhowever, has a right to its own special state of bliss, unalloyed and free\nfrom the memories of all others, it is the _last life only which is fully\nand realistically vivid_. Devachan is often compared to the happiest day\nin a series of many thousands of other \u201cdays\u201d in the life of a person. The\nintensity of its happiness makes the man entirely forget all others, his\npast becoming obliterated.\n\nThis is what we call the Devachanic state, the reward of the personality,\nand it is on this old teaching that the hazy Christian notion of Paradise\nwas built, borrowed with many other things from the Egyptian Mysteries,\nwherein the doctrine was enacted. And this is the meaning of the passage\nquoted in _Isis_. The Soul has triumphed over Apophis, the Dragon of\nFlesh. Henceforth, the personality will live in eternity, in its highest\nand noblest elements, the memory of its past deeds, while the\n\u201ccharacteristics\u201d of the \u201cDragon\u201d will be fading out in K\u00e2ma Loka. If the\nquestion be asked, \u201cHow live in eternity, when Devachan lasts but from\n1,000 to 2,000 years,\u201d the answer is: \u201cIn the same way as the recollection\nof each day which is worth remembering lives in the memory of each one of\nus.\u201d For the sake of an example, the days passed in one personal life may\nbe taken as an illustration of each personal life, and this or that person\nmay stand for the Divine Ego.\n\nTo obtain the key which will open the door of many a psychological mystery\nit is sufficient to understand and remember that which precedes and that\nwhich follows. Many a Spiritualist has felt terribly indignant on being\ntold that personal immortality was _conditional_; and yet such is the\nphilosophical and logical fact. Much has been said already on the subject,\nbut no one to this day seems to have fully understood the doctrine.\nMoreover, it is not enough to know that such a fact is said to exist. All\nOccultist, or he who would become one, must know _why_ it is so; for\nhaving learned and comprehended the _raison d\u2019\u00e9tre_, it becomes easier to\nset others right in their erroneous speculations, and, most important of\nall, it affords one an opportunity, without saying too much, to teach\nother people to avoid a calamity which, sad to say, occurs in our age\nalmost daily. This calamity will now be explained at length.\n\nOne must know little indeed of the Eastern modes of expression to fail to\nsee in the passage quoted from the _Book of the Dead_, and the pages of\n_Isis_, (_a_) an allegory for the uninitiated, containing our Esoteric\nteaching; and (_b_) that the two terms \u201csecond death\u201d and \u201cSoul\u201d are, in\none sense, blinds. \u201cSoul\u201d refers indifferently to Buddhi\u2010Manas and K\u00e2ma\u2010\nManas. As to the term \u201csecond death,\u201d the qualification \u201csecond\u201d applies\nto several deaths which have to be undergone by the \u201cPrinciples\u201d during\ntheir incarnation, Occultists alone understanding fully the sense in which\nsuch a statement is made. For we have (1) the death of the Body; (2) the\ndeath of the Animal Soul in K\u00e2ma Loka; (3) the death of the Astral Linga\nShar\u00eera, following that of the Body; (4) the metaphysical death of the\nHigher Ego, the _immortal_, every time it \u201cfalls into matter,\u201d or\nincarnates in a new personality. The Animal Soul, or lower Manas, that\nshadow of the Divine Ego which separates from it to inform the\npersonality, cannot by any possible means _escape death_ in K\u00e2ma Loka, at\nany rate that portion of this reflection which remains as a terrestrial\nresidue and cannot be impressed on the Ego. Thus the chief and most\nimportant secret with regard to that \u201csecond death,\u201d in the Esoteric\nteaching, was and is to this day the terrible possibility of the _death_\nof the Soul, that is, its severance from the Ego on earth during a\nperson\u2019s lifetime. This is a _real_ death (though with chances of\nresurrection), which shows no traces in a person and yet leaves him\nmorally a living corpse. It is difficult to see why this teaching should\nhave been preserved until now with such secrecy, when, by spreading it\namong people, at any rate among those who believe in reincarnation, so\nmuch good might be done. But so it was, and I had no right to question the\nwisdom of the prohibition, but have given it hitherto, as it was given to\nmyself, _under pledge_ not to reveal it to the world at large. But now I\nhave permission to give it to all, revealing its tenets first to the\nEsotericists, and then when they have assimilated them thoroughly it will\nbe their duty to teach others this special tenet of the \u201csecond death,\u201d\nand warn all the Theosophists of its dangers.\n\nTo make the teaching clearer, I shall seemingly have to go over old\nground; in reality, however, it is given out with new light and new\ndetails. I have tried to hint at it in the _Theosophist_ as I have done in\n_Isis_, but have failed to make myself understood. I will now explain it,\npoint by point.\n\n\n\nThe Philosophical Rationale of the Tenet.\n\n\n(1) Imagine, for illustration\u2019s sake, the one homogeneous, absolute and\nomnipresent Essence, above the upper step of the \u201cstair of the seven\nplanes of worlds,\u201d ready to start on its evolutionary journey. As its\ncorrelating reflection gradually descends, it differentiates and\ntransforms into subjective, and finally into objective matter. Let us call\nit at its north pole Absolute Light; at its south pole, which to us would\nbe the fourth or middle step, or plane, counting either way, we know it\nEsoterically as the One and Universal Life. Now mark the difference.\nAbove, LIGHT; below, _Life_. The former is ever immutable, the latter\nmanifests under the aspects of countless differentiations. According to\nthe Occult law, all potentialities included in the higher become\ndifferentiated reflections in the lower; and according to the same law,\nnothing which is differentiated can be blended with the homogeneous.\n\nAgain, nothing can endure of that which lives and breathes and has its\nbeing in the seething waves of the world, or plane of differentiation.\nThus Buddhi and Manas being both primordial rays of the One Flame, the\nformer the vehicle, the up\u00e2dhi or v\u00e2hana, of the one eternal Essence, the\nlatter the vehicle of Mahat or Divine Ideation (Mah\u00e2\u2010Buddhi in the\n_Pur\u00e2nas_), the Universal Intelligent Soul\u2014neither of them, as such, can\nbecome extinct or be annihilated, either in essence or consciousness. But\nthe physical personality with its Linga Shar\u00eera, and the animal soul, with\nits K\u00e2ma,(844) can and do become so. They are born in the realm of\nillusion, and must vanish like a fleecy cloud from the blue and eternal\nsky.\n\nHe who has read these volumes with any degree of attention, must know the\norigin of the human Egos, called Monads, generically, and what they were\nbefore they were forced to incarnate in the human animal. The divine\nbeings whom Karma led to act in the drama of Manvantaric life, are\nentities from higher and earlier worlds and planets, whose Karma had not\nbeen exhausted when their world went into Pralaya. Such is the teaching;\nbut whether it is so or not, the Higher Egos are\u2014as compared to such forms\nof transitory, terrestrial mud as ourselves\u2014Divine Beings, Gods, immortal\nthroughout the Mah\u00e2manvantara, or the 311,040,000,000,000 years during\nwhich the Age of Brahm\u00e2 lasts. And as the Divine Egos, in order to re\u2010\nbecome the One Essence, or be indrawn again into the AUM, have to purify\nthemselves in the fire of suffering and individual experience, so also\nhave the terrestrial Egos, the personalities, to do likewise, if they\nwould partake of the immortality of the Higher Egos. This they can achieve\nby crushing in themselves all that benefits only the lower personal nature\nof their \u201cselves\u201d and by aspiring to transfuse their thinking K\u00e2mic\nPrinciple into that of the Higher Ego. We (_i.e._, our personalities)\nbecome immortal by the mere fact of our thinking moral nature being\ngrafted on our Divine Triune Monad, \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi\u2010Manas, the three in one\nand one in three (aspects). For the Monad manifested on earth by the\nincarnating Ego is that which is called the Tree of Life Eternal, that can\nonly be approached by eating the fruit of knowledge, the Knowledge of Good\nand Evil, or of GNOSIS, Divine Wisdom.\n\nIn the Esoteric teachings, this Ego is the fifth Principle in man. But the\nstudent who has read and understood the first two Papers, knows something\nmore. He is aware that the seventh is not a human, but a universal\nPrinciple in which man participates; but so does equally every physical\nand subjective atom, and also every blade of grass and everything that\nlives or is in Space, whether it be sensible of it or not. He knows,\nmoreover, that if man is more closely connected with it, and assimilates\nit with a hundredfold more power, it is simply because he is endowed with\nthe highest consciousness on this earth; that man, in short, may become a\nSpirit, a Deva, or a God, in his next transformation, whereas neither a\nstone nor a vegetable, nor an animal, can do so before they become men in\ntheir proper turn.\n\n(2) Now what are the functions of Buddhi? On this plane it has none,\nunless it is united with Manas, the conscious Ego. Buddhi stands to the\ndivine Root Essence in the same relation as M\u00fblaprakriti to Parabrahman,\nin the Ved\u00e2nta School; or as Alaya the Universal Soul to the One Eternal\nSpirit, or that which is beyond Spirit. It is its human vehicle, one\nremove from that Absolute, which can have no relation whatever to the\nfinite and the conditioned.\n\n(3) What, again, is Manas and its functions? In its purely metaphysical\naspect, Manas, though one remove on the downward plane from Buddhi, is\nstill so immeasurably higher than the physical man, that it cannot enter\ninto direct relation with the personality, except through its reflection,\nthe lower mind. Manas is _Spiritual Self\u2010Consciousness_ in itself, and\nDivine Consciousness when united with Buddhi, which is the true \u201cproducer\u201d\nof that \u201cproduction\u201d (vik\u00e2ra), or Self\u2010Consciousness, through Mahat.\nBuddhi\u2010Manas, therefore, is entirety unfit to manifest during its\nperiodical incarnations, except through the human mind or lower Manas.\nBoth are linked together and are inseparable, and can have as little to do\nwith the lower Tanm\u00e2tras,(845) or rudimentary atoms, as the homogeneous\nwith the heterogeneous. It is, therefore, the task of the lower Manas, or\nthinking personality, if it would blend itself with its God, the Divine\nEgo, to dissipate and paralyze the Tanm\u00e2tras, or properties of the\nmaterial form. Therefore, Manas is shown double, as the Ego and Mind of\nMan. It is K\u00e2ma\u2010Manas, or the lower Ego, which, deluded into a notion of\nindependent existence, as the \u201cproducer\u201d in its turn and the sovereign of\nthe five Tanm\u00e2tras, becomes _Ego\u2010ism_, the selfish Self, in which case it\nhas to be considered as Mah\u00e2bh\u00fbtic and finite, in the sense of its being\nconnected with Ahank\u00e2ra, the personal \u201cI\u2010creating\u201d faculty. Hence\n\n\n    Manas has to be regarded as eternal and non\u2010eternal; eternal in\n    its atomic nature (paramanu r\u00fbpa), as eternal substance (dravya),\n    finite (k\u00e2rya r\u00fbpa) when linked as a duad with K\u00e2ma (animal desire\n    or human _egoistic_ volition), a lower production, in short.(846)\n\n\nWhile, therefore, the INDIVIDUAL EGO, owing to its essence and nature, is\nimmortal throughout eternity, with a form (r\u00fbpa), which prevails during\nthe whole life cycles of the Fourth Round, its _Sosie_, or resemblance,\nthe personal Ego, has to win its immortality.\n\n(4) Antahkarana is the name of that imaginary bridge, the _path_ which\nlies between the Divine and the human Egos, for they are _Egos_, during\nhuman life, to re\u2010become _one_ Ego in Devachan or Nirv\u00e2na. This may seem\ndifficult to understand, but in reality, with the help of a familiar,\nthough fanciful illustration, it becomes quite simple. Let us figure to\nourselves a bright lamp in the middle of a room, casting its light upon\nthe wall. Let the lamp represent the Divine Ego, and the light thrown on\nthe wall the lower Manas, and let the wall stand for the body. That\nportion of the atmosphere which transmits the ray from the lamp to the\nwall, will then represent the Antahkarana. We must further suppose that\nthe light thus cast is endowed with reason and intelligence, and\npossesses, moreover, the faculty of dissipating all the evil shadows which\npass across the wall, and of attracting all brightnesses to itself,\nreceiving their indelible impressions. Now, it is in the power of the\nhuman Ego to chase away the shadows, or sins, and multiply the\nbrightnesses, or good deeds, which make these impressions, and thus\nthrough Antahkarana, ensure its own permanent connection, and its final\nre\u2010union, with the Divine Ego. Remember that the latter cannot take place\nwhile there remains a single taint of the terrestrial, or of matter, in\nthe purity of that light. On the other hand, the connection cannot be\nentirely ruptured, and final re\u2010union prevented, so long as there remains\none spiritual deed, or potentiality to serve as a thread of union; but the\nmoment this last spark is extinguished, and the last potentiality\nexhausted, then comes the severance. In an Eastern parable, the Divine Ego\nis likened to the Master who sends out his labourers to till the ground\nand to gather in the harvest, and who is content to keep the field so long\nas it can yield even the smallest return. But when the ground becomes\nabsolutely sterile, not only is it abandoned, but the labourer also (the\nlower Manas) perishes.\n\nOn the other hand, however, still using our simile, when the light thrown\non the wall, or the rational human Ego, reaches the point of actual\nspiritual exhaustion, the Antahkarana disappears, no more light is\ntransmitted, and the lamp becomes non\u2010existent to the ray. The light which\nhas been absorbed gradually disappears and \u201cSoul eclipse\u201d occurs; the\nbeing lives on earth and then passes into K\u00e2ma Loka as a mere surviving\ncongeries of material qualities; it can never pass onwards towards\nDevachan, but is reborn immediately, a human animal and scourge.\n\nThis simile, however fantastic, will help us to seize the correct idea.\nSave through the blending of the moral nature with the Divine Ego, there\nis no immortality for the personal Ego. It is only the most spiritual\nemanations of the personal Human Soul which survive. Having, during a\nlifetime, been imbued with the notion and feeling of the \u201cI am I\u201d of its\npersonality, the Human Soul, the bearer of the very essence of the Karmic\ndeeds of the physical man, becomes, after the death of the latter, part\nand parcel of the Divine Flame, the Ego. It becomes immortal through the\nmere fact that it is now strongly grafted on the Monad, which is the \u201cTree\nof Life Eternal.\u201d\n\nAnd now we must speak of the tenet of the \u201csecond death.\u201d What happens to\nthe K\u00e2mic Human Soul, which is always that of a debased and wicked man or\nof a soulless person? This mystery will now be explained.\n\nThe personal Soul in this case, _viz._, in that of one who has never had a\nthought not concerned with the animal self, having nothing to transmit to\nthe Higher, or to add to the sum of the experiences gleaned from past\nincarnations which its memory is to preserve throughout eternity\u2014this\npersonal Soul becomes separated from the Ego. It can graft nothing of self\non that eternal trunk whose sap throws out millions of personalities, like\nleaves from its branches, leaves which wither, die and fall at the end of\ntheir season. These personalities bud, blossom forth and expire, some\nwithout leaving a trace behind, others after commingling their own life\nwith that of the parent stem. It is the Souls of the former class that are\ndoomed to annihilation, or Av\u00eetchi, a state so badly understood, and still\nworse described by some Theosophical writers, but which is not only\nlocated on our earth, but is in fact this very earth itself.\n\nThus we see that Antahkarana has been destroyed before the lower man has\nhad an opportunity of assimilating the Higher and becoming at one with it;\nand therefore the K\u00e2mic \u201cSoul\u201d becomes a separate entity, to live\nhenceforth, for a short or long period according to its Karma, as a\n\u201csoulless\u201d creature.\n\nBut before I elaborate this question, I must explain more clearly the\nmeaning and functions of the Antahkarana. As already said, it may be\nrepresented as a narrow bridge connecting the Higher and the lower Manas.\nIf you look at the Glossary of the _Voice of the Silence_, pp. 88 and 89,\nyou will find that it is a projection of the lower Manas, or, rather, the\nlink between the latter and the Higher Ego, or, between the Human and the\nDivine or Spiritual Soul.(847)\n\n\n    At death it is destroyed as a path, or medium of communication,\n    and its remains survive as K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa,\n\n\nthe \u201cshell.\u201d It is this which the Spiritualists see sometimes appearing in\nthe s\u00e9ance rooms as materialized \u201cforms,\u201d which they foolishly mistake for\nthe \u201cSpirits of the Departed.\u201d(848) So far is this from being the case,\nthat in dreams, though Antahkarana is there, the personality is only half\nawake; therefore, Antahkarana is said to be _drunk_ or _insane_ during our\nnormal sleeping state. If such is the case during the periodical death, or\nsleep, of the living body, one may judge what the consciousness of\nAntahkarana is like when it has been transformed after the \u201ceternal sleep\u201d\ninto K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa.\n\nBut to return. In order not to confuse the mind of the Western student\nwith the abstruse difficulties of Indian metaphysics, let him view the\nlower Manas, or Mind, as the personal Ego during the waking state, and as\nAntahkarana only during those moments when it aspires towards its Higher\nEgo, and thus becomes the medium of communication between the two. It is\nfor this reason that it is called the \u201cPath.\u201d Now, when a limb or organ\nbelonging to the physical organism is left in disuse, it becomes weak and\nfinally atrophies. So also is it with mental faculties; and hence the\natrophy of the lower mind\u2010function, called Antahkarana, becomes\ncomprehensible in both completely materialistic and depraved natures.\n\nAccording to Esoteric Philosophy, however, the teaching is as follows:\nSeeing that the faculty and function of Antahkarana is as necessary as the\nmedium of the ear for hearing, or that of the eye for seeing; then so long\nas the feeling of Ahank\u00e2ra, that is, of the personal \u201cI\u201d or selfishness,\nis not entirely crushed out in a man, and the lower mind not entirely\nmerged into and become one with the Higher Buddhi\u2010Manas, it stands to\nreason that to destroy Antahkarana is like destroying a bridge over an\nimpassable chasm; _the traveller can never reach the goal on the other\nshore_. And here lies the difference between the exoteric and Esoteric\nteaching. The former makes the Ved\u00e2nta state that so long as Mind (the\nlower) clings through Antahkarana to Spirit (Buddhi\u2010Manas) it is\nimpossible for it to acquire true Spiritual Wisdom, Gny\u00e2na, and that this\ncan only be attained by seeking to come _en rapport_ with the Universal\nSoul (\u00c2tm\u00e2); that, in fact, it is by ignoring the Higher Mind altogether\nthat one reaches R\u00e2ja Yoga. We say it is not so. No single rung of the\nladder leading to knowledge can be skipped. No personality can ever reach\nor bring itself into communication with \u00c2tm\u00e2, except through Buddhi\u2010Manas;\nto try and become a J\u00eevanmukta or a Mah\u00e2tm\u00e2, before one has become an\nAdept or even a Narjol (a sinless man) is like trying to reach Ceylon from\nIndia without crossing the sea. Therefore we are told that if we destroy\nAntahkarana before the personal is absolutely under the control of the\nimpersonal Ego, we risk to lose the latter and be severed for ever from\nit, unless indeed we hasten to re\u2010establish the communication by a supreme\nand final effort.\n\nIt is only when we are indissolubly linked with the essence of the Divine\nMind, that we have to destroy Antahkarana.\n\n\n    Like as a solitary warrior pursued by an army, seeks refuge in a\n    stronghold; to cut himself off from the enemy, he first destroys\n    the drawbridge, and then only commences to destroy the pursuer; so\n    must the Srot\u00e2patti act before he slays Antahkarana.\n\n\nOr as an Occult axiom has it:\n\n\n    _The Unit becomes Three, and Three generate Four. It is for the\n    latter [the Quaternary] to rebecome Three, and for the Divine\n    Three to expand into the Absolute One._\n\n\nMonads, which become Duads on the differentiated plane, to develop into\nTriads during the cycle of incarnations, even when incarnated know neither\nspace nor time, but are diffused through the lower Principles of the\nQuaternary, being omnipresent and omniscient in their nature. But this\nomniscience is innate, and can manifest its reflected light only through\nthat which is at least semi\u2010terrestrial or material; even as the physical\nbrain which, in its turn, is the vehicle of the lower Manas enthroned in\nK\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa. And it is this which is gradually annihilated in cases of\n\u201csecond death.\u201d\n\nBut such annihilation\u2014which is in reality the absence of the slightest\ntrace of the doomed Soul from the eternal MEMORY, and therefore signifies\nannihilation in eternity\u2014does not mean simply discontinuation of human\nlife on earth, for earth is Av\u00eetchi, and the worst Av\u00eetchi possible.\nExpelled for ever from the consciousness of the Individuality, the\nreincarnating Ego, the physical atoms and psychic vibrations of the now\nseparate personality are immediately reincarnated on the same earth, only\nin a lower and still more abject creature, a human being only in form,\ndoomed to Karmic torments during the whole of its new life. Moreover, if\nit persists in its criminal or debauched course, it will suffer a long\nseries of immediate reincarnations.\n\nHere two questions present themselves: (1) What becomes of the Higher Ego\nin such cases? (2) What kind of an animal is a human creature born\nsoulless?\n\nBefore answering these two very natural queries, I have to draw the\nattention of all of you who are born in Christian countries to the fact\nthat the romance of the vicarious atonement and the mission of Jesus, as\nit now stands, was drawn or borrowed by some too liberal Initiates from\nthe mysterious and weird tenet of the earthly experience of the\nreincarnating Ego. The latter is indeed the sacrificial victim of, and\nthrough, its own Karma in previous Manvantaras, which takes upon itself\nvoluntarily the duty of saving what would be otherwise soulless men or\npersonalities. Eastern truth is thus more philosophical and logical than\nWestern fiction. The Christos, or Buddhi\u2010Manas of each man is not quite an\ninnocent and sinless God, though in one sense it is the \u201cFather,\u201d being of\nthe same essence with the Universal Spirit, and at the same time the\n\u201cSon,\u201d for Manas is the second remove from the \u201cFather.\u201d By incarnation\nthe Divine Son makes itself responsible for the sins of all the\npersonalities which it will inform. This it can do only through its proxy\nor reflection, the lower Manas. The only case in which the Divine Ego can\nescape individual penalty and responsibility as a guiding Principle, is\nwhen it has to break off from the personality, because matter, with its\npsychic and astral vibrations, is then, by the very intensity of its\ncombinations, placed beyond the control of the Ego. Apophis, the Dragon,\nhaving become the conqueror, the reincarnating Manas, separating itself\ngradually from its tabernacle, breaks finally asunder from the psycho\u2010\nanimal Soul.\n\nThus, in answer to the first question, I say:\n\n(1) The Divine Ego does one of two things: either (_a_) it recommences\nimmediately under its own Karmic impulses a fresh series of incarnations;\nor (_b_) it seeks and finds refuge in the bosom of the Mother, Alaya, the\nUniversal Soul, of which the Manvantaric aspect is Mahat. Freed from the\nlife\u2010impressions of the personality, it merges into a kind of Nirv\u00e2nic\ninterlude, wherein there can be nothing but the eternal Present, which\nabsorbs the Past and Future. Bereft of the \u201clabourer,\u201d both field and\nharvest now being lost, the Master, in the infinitude of his thought,\nnaturally preserves no recollection of the finite and evanescent illusion\nwhich had been his last personality. And then, indeed, is the latter\nannihilated.\n\n(2) The future of the lower Manas is more terrible, and still more\nterrible to humanity than to the now animal man. It sometimes happens that\nafter the separation the exhausted Soul, now become supremely animal,\nfades out in K\u00e2ma Loka, as do all other animal souls. But seeing that the\nmore material is the human mind, the longer it lasts, even in the\nintermediate stage, it frequently happens that after the present life of\nthe soulless man is ended, he is again and again reincarnated into new\npersonalities, each one more abject than the other. The impulse of _animal\nlife_ is too strong; it cannot wear itself out in one or two lives only.\nIn rarer cases, however, when the lower Manas is doomed to exhaust itself\nby _starvation_; when there is no longer hope that even a remnant of a\nlower light will, owing to favourable conditions\u2014say, even a short period\nof spiritual aspiration and repentance\u2014attract back to itself its Parent\nEgo, and Karma leads the Higher Ego back to new incarnations, then\nsomething far more dreadful may happen. The K\u00e2ma\u2010M\u00e2nasic spook may become\nthat which is called in Occultism the \u201cDweller on the Threshold.\u201d This\nDweller is not like that which is described so graphically in _Zanoni_,\nbut an actual fact in Nature and not a fiction in romance, however\nbeautiful the latter may be. Bulwer, however, must have got the idea from\nsome Eastern Initiate. This Dweller, led by affinity and attraction,\nforces itself into the astral current, and through the Auric Envelope, of\nthe new tabernacle inhabited by the Parent Ego, and declares war to the\nlower light which has replaced it. This, of course, can only happen in the\ncase of the moral weakness of the personality so obsessed. No one strong\nin virtue, and righteous in his walk of life, can risk or dread any such\nthing; but only those depraved in heart. Robert Louis Stevenson had a\nglimpse of a true vision indeed when he wrote his _Strange Case of Dr.\nJekyll and Mr. Hyde_. His story is a true allegory. Every Chel\u00e2 will\nrecognise in it a substratum of truth, and in Mr. Hyde a Dweller, an\nobsessor of the personality, the tabernacle of the Parent Spirit.\n\n\u201cThis is a nightmare tale!\u201d I was often told by one, now no more in our\nranks, who had a most pronounced \u201cDweller,\u201d a \u201cMr. Hyde,\u201d as an almost\nconstant companion. \u201cHow can such a process take place without one\u2019s\nknowledge?\u201d It can and does so happen, and I have almost described it once\nbefore in the _Theosophist_.\n\n\n    The Soul, the lower Mind, becomes as a half animal principle\n    almost paralyzed with daily vice, and grows gradually unconscious\n    of its subjective half, the Lord, one of the mighty Host; [and] in\n    proportion to the rapid sensuous development of the brain and\n    nerves, sooner or later, it (the personal Soul) finally loses\n    sight of its divine mission on earth.\n\n\nTruly,\n\n\n    Like the vampire, the brain feeds and lives and grows in strength\n    at the expense of its spiritual parent ... and the personal half\u2010\n    unconscious Soul becomes senseless, beyond hope of redemption. It\n    is powerless to discern the voice of its God. It aims but at the\n    development and fuller comprehension of natural, earthly life; and\n    thus can discover but the mysteries of physical nature.... It\n    begins by becoming virtually dead, during the life of the body;\n    and ends by dying completely\u2014that is, by being _annihilated as a\n    complete immortal Soul_. Such a catastrophe may often happen long\n    years before one\u2019s physical death: \u201cWe elbow soulless men and\n    women at every step in life.\u201d And when death arrives ... there is\n    no more a Soul (the reincarnating Spiritual Ego) to liberate ...\n    for _it has fled years before_.\n\n\n_Result_: Bereft of its guiding Principles, but strengthened by the\nmaterial elements, K\u00e2ma\u2010Manas, from being a \u201cderived light\u201d now becomes an\nindependent Entity. After thus suffering itself to sink lower and lower on\nthe animal plane, when the hour strikes for its earthly body to die, one\nof two things happens: either K\u00e2ma\u2010Manas is immediately reborn in Myalba,\nthe state of Av\u00eetchi on earth,(849) or, if it become too strong in\nevil\u2014\u201cimmortal in Satan\u201d is the Occult expression\u2014it is sometimes allowed,\nfor Karmic purposes, to remain in an active state of Av\u00eetchi in the\nterrestrial Aura. Then through despair and loss of all hope it becomes\nlike the mythical \u201cdevil\u201d in its endless wickedness; it continues in its\nelements, which are imbued through and through with the essence of Matter;\nfor evil is coeval with Matter rent asunder from Spirit. And when its\nHigher Ego has once more reincarnated, evolving a new reflection, or K\u00e2ma\u2010\nManas, the doomed lower Ego, like a Frankenstein\u2019s monster, will ever feel\nattracted to its Father, who repudiates his son, and will become a regular\n\u201cDweller on the Threshold\u201d of terrestrial life. I gave the outlines of the\nOccult doctrine in the _Theosophist_ of October, 1881, and November, 1882,\nbut could not go into details, and therefore got very much embarrassed\nwhen called upon to explain. Yet I have written there plainly enough about\n\u201cuseless drones,\u201d those who refuse to become co\u2010workers with Nature and\nwho perish by millions during the Manvantaric life\u2010cycle; those, as in the\ncase in hand, who prefer to be ever suffering in Av\u00eetchi under Karmic law\nrather than give up their lives \u201cin evil,\u201d and finally, those who are co\u2010\nworkers with Nature for destruction. These are thoroughly wicked and\ndepraved men, but yet as highly intellectual and acutely _spiritual_ for\nevil, as those who are spiritual for good.\n\n\n    The (lower) Egos of these may escape the law of final destruction\n    or annihilation for ages to come.\n\n\nThus we find two kinds of soulless beings on earth: those who have lost\ntheir Higher Ego in the present incarnation, and those who are born\nsoulless, having been severed from their Spiritual Soul in the preceding\nbirth. The former are candidates for Av\u00eetchi; the latter are \u201cMr. Hydes,\u201d\nwhether _in_ or _out_ of human bodies, whether incarnated or hanging about\nas invisible though potent ghouls. In such men, cunning develops to an\nenormous degree, and no one except those who are familiar with the\ndoctrine would suspect them of being soulless, for neither Religion nor\nScience has the least suspicion that such facts actually exist in Nature.\n\nThere is, however, still hope for a person who has lost his Higher Soul\nthrough his vices, while he is yet in the body. He may be still redeemed\nand made to turn on his material nature. For either an intense feeling of\nrepentance, or one single earnest appeal to the Ego that has fled, or best\nof all, an active effort to amend one\u2019s ways, may bring the Higher Ego\nback again. The thread of connection is not altogether broken, though the\nEgo is now beyond forcible reach, for \u201cAntahkarana is destroyed,\u201d and the\npersonal Entity has one foot already in Myalba;(850) yet it is not\nentirely beyond hearing a strong spiritual appeal. There is another\nstatement made in _Isis Unveiled_(851) on this subject. It is said that\nthis terrible death may be sometimes avoided by the knowledge of the\nmysterious NAME, the \u201cWORD.\u201d(852) What this \u201cWORD,\u201d which is not a \u201cWord\u201d\nbut a _Sound_, is, you all know. Its potency lies in the rhythm or the\naccent. This means simply that even a bad person may, by the study of the\nSacred Science, be redeemed and stopped on the path of destruction. But\nunless he is in thorough union with his Higher Ego, he may repeat it,\nparrot\u2010like, ten thousand times a day, and the \u201cWord\u201d will not help him.\nOn the contrary, if not entirely at one with his Higher Triad, it may\nproduce quite the reverse of a beneficent effect, the Brothers of the\nShadow using it very often for malicious objects; in which case it awakens\nand stirs up naught but the evil, material elements of Nature. But if\none\u2019s nature is good, and sincerely strives towards the HIGHER SELF, which\nis that Aum, through one\u2019s Higher Ego, which is its third letter, and\nBuddhi the second, there is no attack of the Dragon Apophis which it will\nnot repel. From those to whom much is given much is expected. He who\nknocks at the door of the Sanctuary in full knowledge of its sacredness,\nand after obtaining admission, departs from the threshold, or turns round\nand says, \u201cOh, there\u2019s nothing in it!\u201d and thus loses his chance of\nlearning the whole truth\u2014can but await his Karma.\n\nSuch are then the Esoteric explanations of that which has perplexed so\nmany who have found what they thought contradictions in various\nTheosophical writings, including \u201cFragments of Occult Truth,\u201d in vols.\niii. and iv. of _The Theosophist_, etc. Before finally dismissing the\nsubject, I must add a caution, which pray keep well in mind. It will be\nvery natural for those of you who are Esotericists to hope that none of\nyou belong so far to the soulless portion of mankind, and that you can\nfeel quite easy about Av\u00eetchi, even as the good citizen is about the penal\nlaws. Though not, perhaps, exactly on the Path as yet, you are skirting\nits border, and many of you in the right direction. Between such venal\nfaults as are inevitable under our social environment, and the blasting\nwickedness described in the Editor\u2019s note on \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi\u2019s \u201cSatan,\u201d(853)\nthere is an abyss. If not become \u201cimmortal in good by identification with\n(our) God,\u201d or AUM, \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi\u2010Manas, we have surely not made ourselves\n\u201cimmortal in evil\u201d by coalescing with Satan, the lower Self. You forget,\nhowever, that everything must have a beginning; that the first step on a\nslippery mountain slope is the necessary antecedent to one\u2019s falling\nprecipitately to the bottom and into the arms of death. Be it far from me\nthe suspicion that any of the Esoteric students have reached to any\nconsiderable point down the plane of spiritual descent. All the same I\nwarn you to avoid taking the first step. You may not reach the bottom in\nthis life or the next, but you may now generate causes which will insure\nyour spiritual destruction in your third, fourth, fifth, or even some\nsubsequent birth. In the great Indian epic you may read how a mother whose\nwhole family of warrior sons were slaughtered in battle, complained to\nKrishna that though she had the spiritual vision to enable her to look\nback fifty incarnations, yet she could see no sin of hers that could have\nbegotten so dreadful a Karma; and Krishna answered her: \u201cIf thou could\u2019st\nlook back to thy fifty\u2010first anterior birth, as I can, thou would\u2019st see\nthyself killing in wanton cruelty the same number of ants as that of the\nsons thou hast now lost.\u201d This, of course, is only a poetical\nexaggeration; yet it is a striking image to show how great results come\nfrom apparently trifling causes.\n\nGood and evil are relative, and are intensified or lessened according to\nthe conditions by which man is surrounded. One who belongs to that which\nwe call the \u201cuseless portion of mankind,\u201d that is to say, the lay\nmajority, is in many cases irresponsible. Crimes committed in Avidy\u00e2, or\nignorance, involve physical but not moral responsibilities or Karma. Take,\nfor example, the case of idiots, children, savages, and people who know no\nbetter. But the case of each who is pledged to the HIGHER SELF is quite\nanother matter. _You cannot invoke this Divine Witness with impunity_, and\nonce that you have put yourselves under its tutelage, you have asked the\nRadiant Light to shine and search through all the dark corners of your\nbeing; consciously you have invoked the Divine Justice of Karma to take\nnote of your motive, to scrutinize your actions, and to enter up all in\nyour account. The step is irrevocable as that of the infant taking birth.\nNever again can you force yourselves back into the matrix of Avidy\u00e2 and\nirresponsibility. Though you flee to the uttermost parts of the earth, and\nhide yourselves from the sight of men, or seek oblivion in the tumult of\nthe social whirl, that Light will find you out and lighten your every\nthought, word and deed. All H. P. B. can do is to send to each earnest one\namong you a most sincerely fraternal sympathy and hope for a good outcome\nto your endeavours. Nevertheless, be not discouraged, but try, ever keep\ntrying;(854) twenty failures are not irremediable if followed by as many\nundaunted struggles upward. Is it not so that mountains are climbed? And\nknow further, that if Karma relentlessly records in the Esotericist\u2019s\naccount, bad deeds that in the ignorant would be overlooked, yet, equally\ntrue is it that each of his good deeds is, by reason of his association\nwith the Higher Self, a hundredfold intensified as a potentiality for\ngood.\n\nFinally, keep ever in mind the consciousness that though you see no Master\nby your bedside, nor hear one audible whisper in the silence of the still\nnight, yet the Holy Power is about you, the Holy Light is shining into\nyour hour of spiritual need and aspirations, and it will be no fault of\nthe MASTERS, or of their humble mouthpiece and servant, if through\nperversity or moral feebleness some of you cut yourselves off from these\nhigher potencies, and step upon the declivity that leads to Av\u00eetchi.\n\n\n\n\nAppendix. Notes on Papers I., II. and III.\n\n\n\nPage 436.\n\n\nStudents in the west have little or no idea of the forces that lie latent\nin Sound, the \u00c2k\u00e2shic vibrations that may be set up by those who\nunderstand how to pronounce certain words. The Om, or the \u201c_Om mani padme\nhum_\u201d are in spiritual affinity with cosmic forces, but without a\nknowledge of the natural arrangement, or of the order in which the\nsyllables stand, very little can be achieved. \u201cOm\u201d is, of course, Aum,\nthat may be pronounced as two, three or seven syllables, setting up\ndifferent vibrations.\n\nNow, letters, as vocal sounds, cannot fail to correspond with musical\nnotes, and therefore with numbers and colours; hence also with Forces and\nTattvas. He who remembers that the Universe is built up from the Tattvas\nwill readily understand something of the power that may be exercised by\nvocal sounds. Every letter in the alphabet, whether divided into three,\nfour, or seven septenaries, or forty\u2010nine letters, has its own colour, or\nshade of colour. He who has learnt the colours of the alphabetical\nletters, and the corresponding numbers of the seven, and the forty\u2010nine\ncolours and shades on the scale of planes and forces, and knows their\nrespective order in the seven planes, will easily master the art of\nbringing them into affinity or interplay. But here a difficulty arises.\nThe Senzar and Sanskrit alphabets, and other Occult tongues, besides other\npotencies, have a number, colour, and distinct syllable for every letter,\nand so had also the old Mosaic Hebrew. But how many students know any of\nthese tongues? When the time comes, therefore, it must suffice to teach\nthe students the numbers and colours attached to the Latin letters only\n(N.B. as pronounced in Latin, not in Anglo\u2010Saxon, Scotch, or Irish). This,\nhowever, would be at present premature.\n\nThe colour and number of not only the planets but also the zodiacal\nconstellations corresponding to every letter of the alphabet, are\nnecessary to make any special syllable, and even letter, _operative_.(855)\nTherefore if a student would make Buddhi operative, for instance, he would\nhave to intone the first words of the Mantra on the note _mi_. But he\nwould have still further to accentuate the _mi_, and produce mentally the\nyellow colour corresponding to this sound and note, on every letter M in\n\u201c_Om mani padme hum_\u201d; this, not because the note bears the same name in\nthe vernacular, Sanskrit, or even the Senzar, for it does not\u2014but because\nthe letter M follows the first letter, and is in this sacred formula also\nthe seventh and the fourth. As Buddhi it is second; as Buddhi\u2010Manas it is\nthe second and third combined.\n\nH. P. B.\n\n\n\nPage 439.(856)\n\n\nThe Pythagorean Four, or Tetraktys, was the symbol of the Kosmos, as\ncontaining within itself, the point, the line, the superficies, the solid;\nin other words, the essentials of all forms. Its mystical representation\nis the point within the triangle. The Decad or perfect number is contained\nin the Four; thus, 1+2+3+4=10.\n\n\n\nPage 477.\n\n\nThe difficult passage: \u201cBear in mind ... a mystery below truly,\u201d(857) may\nbecome a little more clear to the student if slightly amplified. The\n\u201cprimordial Triangle\u201d is the Second Logos, which reflects itself as a\nTriangle in the Third Logos, or Heavenly Man, and then disappears. The\nThird Logos, containing the \u201cpotency of formative creation,\u201d develops the\nTetraktys from the Triangle, and so becomes the Seven, the Creative Force,\nmaking a Decad with the primordial Triangle which originated it. When this\nheavenly Triangle and Tetraktys are reflected in the Universe of Matter,\nas the astral paradigmatic man, they are reversed, and the Triangle, or\nformative potency, is thrown below the Quaternary, with its apex pointing\ndownwards: the Monad of this astral paradigmatic man is itself a Triangle,\nbearing to the Quaternary and Triangle the relation borne by the\nprimordial Triangle to the Heavenly Man. Hence the phrase, \u201cthe upper\nTriangle ... is shifted in the man of clay below _the seven_.\u201d Here again\nthe Point tracing the Triangle, the Monad becoming the Ternary, with the\nQuaternary and the lower creative triangle, make up the Decad, the perfect\nnumber. \u201cAs above, so below.\u201d\n\nThe student will do well to relate the knowledge here acquired to that\ngiven on p. 477. Here the upper Triangle is given as Violet, Indigo, Blue,\nassociating Violet as the paradigm of all forms with Indigo as Mahat, and\nblue as the \u00c2tmic Aura. In the Quaternary, Yellow, as substance, is\nassociated with Yellow\u2010Orange, Life, and Red\u2010Orange, the creative potency.\nGreen is the plane between.\n\nThe next stage is not explained. Green passes upwards to Violet, Indigo,\nBlue, the Triangle opening out to receive it, and so forming the square,\nViolet, Indigo, Blue, Green. This leaves the Red\u2010Orange, Yellow\u2010Orange,\nand Yellow, and these, having thus lost their fourth member, can only form\na triangle. This triangle revolves, to point downwards for the descent\ninto matter, and \u201cmirrored on the plane of gross nature, it is reversed.\u201d\n\nIn the perfect man the Red will be absorbed by the Green; Yellow will\nbecome one with Indigo; Yellow\u2010Orange will be absorbed in Blue; Violet\nwill remain outside the True Man, though connected with him. Or, to\ntranslate the colours: K\u00e2ma will be absorbed in the Lower Manas; Buddhi\nwill become one with Manas; Pr\u00e2na will be absorbed in the Auric Egg; the\nphysical body remains, connected but outside the real life.\n\nA. B.\n\n\n\nPage 481.\n\n\nTo the five senses at present the property of mankind two more on this\nglobe are to be added. The sixth sense is the psychic sense of colour. The\nseventh is that of spiritual sound. In the second instruction, the\ncorrected rates of vibration for the seven primary colours and their\nmodulations are given. Inspecting these, it appears that each colour\ndiffers from the proceeding one by a step of 42, or 6 \u00d7 7.\n\n462 Red     + 42 = 504\n504 Orange  + 42 = 546\n546 Yellow  + 42 = 588\n588 Green   + 42 = 630\n630 Blue    + 42 = 672\n672 Indigo  + 42 = 714\n714 Violet  + 42 = 756\n756 Red\n\nCarrying the process backward, and subtracting 42, we find that the first\nor ground colour is green, for this globe.\n\n\u2014\u2014 Green\n42 Blue\n84 Indigo\n126 Violet (end of First semi\u2010octave)\n168 Red (start of Second octave)\n210 Orange\n252 Yellow\n294 Green\n336 Blue\n378 Indigo\n420 Violet\n462 Red\n\nThe second and fourth octaves would be heat and actinic rays, and are\ninvisible to our present perception.\n\nThe seventh sense is that of spiritual sound; and, since the vibrations of\nthe sixth progress by steps of 6 \u00d7 7, those of the seventh progress by\nsteps of 7 \u00d7 7. This is their table:\n\n\u2014\u2014 Fa ... Green Sound (start of First semi\u2010octave)\n49 Sol ...  Blue\n98 La ...  Indigo\n147 Si ...  Violet\n196 Do ... Red\n245 Re ... Orange (start of Second Octave)\n294 Mi ...  Yellow\n343 Fa ... Green\n392 Sol ...  Blue\n441 La ... Indigo\n490 Si ... Violet\n539 Do ...  Red\nEtc., etc.\n\nThe fifth sense is in our possession: it is possibly that of geometrical\nform, and its steps of progression would be 5 \u00d7 7, or 35.\n\nThe fourth sense is that of physical hearing, music, and its progressions\nare 28, or 4 \u00d7 7. The truth of this is demonstrated by the fact that it is\nin accord with the theories of Science as to the vibrations of musical\nnotes. Our scale is as follows:\n\n\u2014, 28, 56, 84, 112, 140, 168, 196, 224, 252, 280, 308, 336, 364, 392, 420,\n448, 476, 504, 532, 560, 588, 616, 644, 672, 700.\n\nAccording to musical science, the notes C, E, G, are as 4, 5, 6, in their\nratios of vibrations. The same ratio obtains between the notes of the\ntriplet G, B, D, and F, A, C.\n\nH. C.\n\n\n\n\nNotes On Some Oral Teachings.\n\n\n\nThe Three Vital Airs.\n\n\nIt is the pure \u00c2k\u00e2sha that passes up Sushumn\u00e2: its two aspects flow in Id\u00e2\nand Pingal\u00e2. These are the three vital airs, and are symbolized by the\nBr\u00e2hmanical thread. They are ruled by the Will. Will and Desire are the\nhigher and lower aspects of one and the same thing. Hence the importance\nof the purity of the canals; for if they soil the vital airs energized by\nthe Will, Black Magic results. This is why all sexual intercourse is\nforbidden in practical Occultism.\n\nFrom Sushumn\u00e2, Id\u00e2 and Pingal\u00e2 a circulation is set up, and from the\ncentral canal passes into the whole body. (Man is a tree; he has in him\nthe macrocosm and the microcosm. Hence the trees used as symbols; the\nDhy\u00e2n\u2010Chohanic body is thus figured.)\n\n\n\nThe Auric Egg.\n\n\nThe Auric Egg is formed in curves, which may be conceived from the curves\nformed by sand on a vibrating metal disk. Each atom, as each body, has its\nAuric Egg, each centre forming its own. This Auric Egg, with the\nappropriate materials thrown into it, is a defence; no wild animal,\nhowever ferocious, will approach the Yog\u00ee thus guarded: it flings back\nfrom its surface all malign influences. No Will power is manifested\nthrough the Auric Egg.\n\n_Q. What is the connection between the circulation of the vital airs and\nthe power of the Yog\u00ee to make his Auric Egg a defence against aggression?_\n\n_A._ It is impossible to answer this question. The knowledge is the last\nword of Magic. It is connected with Kundalin\u00ee, that can as easily destroy\nas preserve. The ignorant tyro might kill himself.\n\n_Q. Is the Auric Egg of a child a differentiation of Ak\u00e2sha, into which\nmay be thrown by the Adept the materials he needs for special\npurposes_\u2014_e.g._, _the M\u00e2y\u00e2vi R\u00fbpa?_\n\n[The question was somewhat obscurely worded. Evidently what the questioner\nwanted to know was if the Auric Egg was a differentiation of Ak\u00e2sha, into\nwhich, as the child became a man, he might, if an Adept, weave the\nmaterials needed for special purposes, etc.]\n\n_A._ Taking the question in the sense of an Adept putting something into\nor acting on the Auric Egg of a child, then this could not be done, as the\nAuric Egg is Karmic, and not even an Adept must interfere with such Karmic\nrecord. If the Adept were to put anything into the Auric Egg of another,\nfor which the person is not responsible, or which does not come from the\nHigher Self of that personality, how could Karmic justice be maintained?\n\nThe Adept can draw into his own Auric Egg from his planet, or even from\nthat of the globe or of the universe, according to his degree. This\nenvelope is the receptacle of all Karmic causes, and photographs all\nthings like a sensitive plate.\n\nThe child has a very small Auric Egg which is in colour almost pure white.\nAt birth the Auric Egg consists of almost pure Ak\u00e2sha plus the Tanh\u00e2s,\nwhich, until the seventh year, remain potential or in latency.\n\nThe Auric Egg of an idiot cannot be said to be human, that is, it is not\ntinged with Manas. It is Ak\u00e2shic vibrations rather than an Auric Egg\u2014the\nmaterial envelope, such as that of the plant, the mineral or other object.\n\nThe Auric Egg is the transmitter from the periodical lives to the Life\neternal, _i.e._, from Pr\u00e2na to J\u00eeva. It disappears, but remains.\n\nThe reason why the confession of the Roman Catholic and Greek Churches is\nso great a sin is because the confessor interferes with the Auric Egg of\nthe penitent by means of his will power, engrafting artificially\nemanations from his own Auric Egg and casting seeds for germination into\nthe Auric Egg of his subject. It is on the same lines as hypnotic\nsuggestion.\n\nThe above remarks apply equally to Hypnotism, although the latter is a\npsycho\u2010physical force, and it is this which constitutes one of its many\nserious dangers. At the same time \u201ca good thing may pass through dirty\nchannels,\u201d as in the case of the breaking by suggestion of the alcohol or\nopium habit. Mesmerism may be used by the Occultist to remove evil habits,\nif the intention be perfectly pure; as on the higher plane intention is\neverything, and good intention must work for good.\n\n_Q. Is the Auric Egg the expansion of the __\u201c__Pillar of Light,__\u201d__ the\nM\u00e2nasic Principle, and so not surrounding the child till its seventh\nyear?_\n\n_A._ It is the Auric Egg. The Auric Egg is quite pure at birth, but it is\na question whether the higher or lower Manas will colour it at the seventh\nyear. The M\u00e2nasic expansion is pure \u00c2k\u00e2sha. The ray of Manas is let down\ninto the vortex of the lower Principles, and being discoloured, and so\nlimited by the K\u00e2mic Tanh\u00e2s and by the defects of the bodily organism,\nforms the personality. Hereditary Karma can reach the child before the\nseventh year, but no individual Karma can come into play till the descent\nof the Manas.\n\n\n    The Auric Egg is to the Man\n    As the Astral Light is to the Earth\n    As the Ether is to the Astral Light\n    As the Ak\u00e2sha is to the Ether\n\n\nThe critical states are left out in the enumeration. They are the Lava\nCentres, or missing links in our consciousness, and separate these four\nplanes from one another.\n\n\n\nThe Dweller.\n\n\nThe \u201cDweller on the Threshold\u201d is found in two cases: (_a_) In the case of\nthe separation of the Triangle from the Quaternary; (_b_) When K\u00e2mic\ndesires and passions are so intense that the K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa persists in K\u00e2ma\nLoka beyond the Devachanic period of the Ego, and thus survives the\nreincarnation of the Devachanic Entity (_e.g._, when reincarnation occurs\nwithin two hundred or three hundred years). The \u201cDweller\u201d being drawn by\naffinity towards the Reincarnating Ego to whom it had belonged, and being\nunable to reach it, fastens on the K\u00e2ma of the new personality, and\nbecomes the Dweller on the Threshold, strengthening the K\u00e2mic element and\nthus lending it a dangerous potency. Some become mad from this cause.\n\n\n\nIntellect.\n\n\nThe white Adept is not always at first of powerful intellect. In fact, H.\nP. B. had known Adepts whose intellectual powers were originally below the\naverage. It is the Adept\u2019s purity, his equal love to all, his working with\nNature, with Karma, with his \u201cInner God,\u201d that give him his power.\nIntellect by itself alone will make the Black Magician. For intellect\nalone is accompanied with pride and selfishness: it is the intellectual\n_plus_ the spiritual that raises man. For spirituality prevents pride and\nvanity.\n\nMetaphysics are the domain of the Higher Manas; whereas Physics are that\nof K\u00e2ma\u2010Manas, which does the thinking in Physical Science and on material\nthings. K\u00e2ma\u2010Manas, like every other Principle, is of seven degrees. The\nMathematician without spirituality, however great he may be, will not\nreach Metaphysics; but the Metaphysician will master the highest\nconceptions of Mathematics, and will apply them, without learning the\nlatter. To a born Metaphysician the Psychic Plane will not be of much\naccount: he will see its errors immediately he enters it, inasmuch as it\nis not the thing he seeks. With respect to Music and other Arts, they are\nthe children of either the M\u00e2nasic or K\u00e2ma\u2010M\u00e2nasic Principle,\nproportionately as Soul or technicality predominates.\n\n\n\nKarma.\n\n\nAfter each incarnation, when the M\u00e2nasic Ray returns to its Father, the\nEgo, some of its atoms remain behind and scatter. These M\u00e2nasic atoms,\nT\u00e2nhic and other \u201ccauses,\u201d being of the same nature as the Manas, are\nattracted to it by strong bonds of affinity, and on the reincarnation of\nthe Ego are unerringly attracted to it and constitute its Karma. Until\nthese are all gathered up, the individuality is not free from rebirth. The\nHigher Manas is responsible for the Ray it sends forth. If the Ray be not\nsoiled, no bad Karma is generated.\n\n\n\nThe Tur\u00eeya State.\n\n\nYou should bear in mind that, in becoming Karma\u2010less, good Karma, as well\nas bad, has to be gotten rid of, and that Nid\u00e2nas, started towards the\nacquisition of good Karma, are as binding as those induced in the other\ndirection. For both are Karma.\n\nYog\u00ees cannot attain the Tur\u00eeya state unless the Triangle is separated from\nthe Quaternary.\n\n\n\nMahat.\n\n\nMahat is the manifested universal Parabr\u00e2hmic Mind (for one Manvantara) on\nthe Third Plane [of Kosmos]. It is the Law whereby the Light falls from\nplane to plane and differentiates. The M\u00e2nasaputras are its emanations.\n\nMan alone is capable of conceiving the Universe on this plane of\nexistence.\n\nExistence _is_; but when the entity does not feel it, for that entity it\nis not. The pain of an operation exists, though the patient does not feel\nit, and for the patient it is not.\n\n\n\nHow To Advance.\n\n\n_Q. What is the correct pronunciation of AUM?_\n\n_A._ It should first be practised physically, always at the same pitch,\nwhich must be discovered in the same way as the particular colour of the\nstudent is found, for each has his own tone.\n\nAUM consists of two vowels and one semi\u2010vowel, which latter must be\nprolonged. Just as Nature has its Fa, so each man has his: man being\ndifferentiated from Nature. The body may be compared to an instrument and\nthe Ego to the player. You begin by producing effects on yourself; then\nlittle by little you learn to play on the Tattvas and Principles; learn\nfirst the notes, then the chords, then the melodies. Once the student is\nmaster of every chord, he may begin to be a co\u2010worker with Nature and for\nothers. He may then, by the experience he has gained of his own nature,\nand by the knowledge of the chords, strike such as will be beneficial in\nanother, and so will serve as a keynote for beneficial results.\n\nTry to have a clear representation of the geometrical triangle on every\nplane, the conception gradually growing more metaphysical, and ending with\nthe subjective Triangle, \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi\u2010Manas. It is only by the knowledge of\nthis Triangle under all forms that you can succeed, _e.g._ in enclosing\nthe past and the future in the present. Remember that you have to merge\nthe Quaternary in the Triangle. The Lower Manas is drawn upwards, with the\nK\u00e2ma, Pr\u00e2na and Linga, leaving only the physical body behind, the lower\nreinforcing the higher.\n\nAdvance may be made in Occultism even in Devachan, if the Mind and Soul be\nset thereon during life; but it is only as in a dream, and the knowledge\nwill fade away as memory of a dream fades, unless it be kept alive by\nconscious study.\n\n\n\nFear And Hatred.\n\n\nFear and hatred are essentially one and the same. He who fears nothing\nwill never hate, and he who hates nothing will never fear.\n\n\n\nThe Triangle.\n\n\n_Q. What is the meaning of the phrase: __\u201c__Form a clear image of the\nTriangle on every plane;__\u201d_ _e.g._, _on the Astral Plane, what should one\nthink of as the Triangle?_\n\n_A._ [H. P. B. asked whether the question signified the meaning of the\nTriangle or the way to represent the Triangle on the \u201cscreen of light.\u201d\nThe questioner explaining that the latter was the meaning, H. P. B. said\nthat] it was only in the Tur\u00eeya state, the fourth of the seven steps of\nR\u00e2ja Yoga that the Yog\u00ee can represent to himself that which is abstract.\nBelow this state, the perceptive power, being conditioned, must have some\nform to contemplate; it cannot represent to itself the Ar\u00fbpa. In the\nTur\u00eeya state the Triangle is in yourself and is felt. Below the Tur\u00eeya\nstate there must be a symbol to represent \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi\u2010Manas. It is not a\nmere geometrical Triangle, but the Triad imaged, to make thought possible.\nOf this Triad, we can make some kind of representation of Manas, however\nindistinct; while of \u00c2tm\u00e2 no image can be formed. We must try to represent\nthe Triangle to ourselves on higher and higher planes. We must figure\nManas as overshadowed by Buddhi, and immersed in \u00c2tm\u00e2. Only Manas, the\nHigher Ego, can be represented; we may think it as the Augoeides, the\nradiant figure in _Zanoni_. A very good Psychic might see this.\n\n\n\nPsychic Vision.\n\n\nPsychic vision, however, is not to be desired, since Psyche is earthly and\nevil. More and more as Science advances, the psychic will be reached and\nunderstood; Psychism has in it nothing that is spiritual. Science is right\non its own plane, from its own standpoint. The law of the Conservation of\nEnergy implies that psychic motion is generated by motion. Psychic motion\nbeing only motion on the Psychic Plane, a material plane, the Psychologist\nis right who sees in it nothing beyond matter. Animals have no Spirit, but\nthey have psychic vision, and are sensitive to psychic conditions; observe\nhow these react on their health, their bodily state.\n\nMotion is the abstract Deity; on the highest plane it is Ar\u00fbpa, absolute;\nbut on the lowest it is merely mechanical. Psychic action is within the\nsphere of physical motion. Ere psychic action can be developed in the\nbrain and nerves, there must be adequate action which generates it on the\nPhysical Plane. The paralyzed animal that cannot generate action in the\nphysical body, cannot think. Psychics merely see on a plane of different\nmaterial density; the spiritual glimpses sometimes obtained by them come\nfrom a plane beyond. A Psychic\u2019s vision is that of one coming, as it were,\ninto a lighted room, and seeing everything there by an artificial light:\nwhen the light is extinguished, vision is lost. Spiritual vision sees by\nthe light within, the light hidden beneath the bushel of the body, by\nwhich we can see clearly and independently of all outside. The Psychic\nseeing by an external light, the vision is coloured by the nature of that\nlight.\n\nX. saying that she felt as though she saw on three planes, H. P. B.\nanswered that each plane was sevenfold, the Astral as every other. She\ngave as an example on the Physical Plane the vision of a table with the\nsense of sight; seeing it still, with the eyes closed, by retinal\nimpression; the image of it conserved in the brain; it can be recalled by\nmemory; it can be seen in dream; or as an aggregate of atoms; or as\ndisintegrated. All these are on the Physical Plane. Then we can begin\nagain on the Astral Plane, and obtain another septenary. This hint should\nbe followed and worked out.\n\n\n\nTriangle And Quaternary.\n\n\n_Q.  Why is the violet, the color of the Linga Shar\u00eera, placed at the apex\nof the triangle, when the Macrocosm is figured as a triangle over a\nsquare, thus throwing the yellow, Buddhi, into the lower Quaternary?_\n\n_A._ It is wrong to speak of the \u201clower Quaternary\u201d in the Macrocosm. It\nis the Tetraktys, the highest, the most sacred of all symbols. There comes\na moment when, in the highest meditation, the Lower Manas is withdrawn\ninto the Triad, which thus becomes the Quaternary, the Tetraktys of\nPythagoras, leaving what was the Quaternary as the lower Triad, which is\nthen reversed. The Triad is reflected in the Lower Manas. The Higher Manas\ncannot reflect itself, but when the Green passes upward it becomes a\nmirror for the Higher; it is then no more Green, having passed from its\nassociations. The Psyche then becomes spiritual, the Ternary is reflected\nin the Fourth, and the Tetraktys is formed. So long as you are not dead,\nthere must be something to reflect the Higher Triad; for there must be\nsomething to bring back to the waking consciousness the experiences passed\nthrough on the higher plane. The Lower Manas is as a tablet which retains\nthe impressions made on it during trance.\n\nThe Tur\u00eeya state is entered on the Fourth Path; it is figured in the\ndiagram on p. 478, in the Second Paper.\n\n_Q. What is the meaning of a triangle formed of lines of light appearing\nin the midst of intense vibrating blue?_\n\n_A._ Seeing the Triangle outside is nothing; it is merely a reflection of\nthe Triad on the Auric Envelope, and proves that the seer is outside the\nTriangle. It should be seen in quite another way. You must endeavour to\nmerge yourself in it, to assimilate yourself with it. You are merely\nseeing things in the Astral. \u201cWhen the Third Eye is opened in any one of\nyou, you will have something very different to tell me.\u201d\n\n_Q. With reference to the __\u201c__Pillar of Light__\u201d__ in a previous\nquestion, is the Auric Envelope the Higher Ego, and does it correspond to\nthe Ring Pass\u2010Not?_\n\n[This question was not answered, as going too far. The Ring Pass\u2010Not is at\nthe circumference of the manifested Universe.]\n\n\n\nNid\u00e2nas.\n\n\n_Q. The root of the Nid\u00e2nas is Avidy\u00e2. How does this differ from M\u00e2y\u00e2? How\nmany Nid\u00e2nas are there Esoterically?_\n\n_A._ Again too much is asked. The Nid\u00e2nas, the concatenations of causes\nand effects (not in the sense of the Orientalists), are not caused by\nignorance. They are produced by Dhy\u00e2n Chohans and Devas, who certainly\ncannot be said to act in ignorance. We produce Nid\u00e2nas in ignorance. Each\ncause started on the Physical Plane sets up action on every plane to all\neternity. They are eternal effects reflected from plane to plane on to the\n\u201cscreen of eternity.\u201d\n\n\n\nManas.\n\n\n_Q. What is the septenary classification of Manas? There are seven degrees\nof the Lower Manas, and presumably there are seven degrees of the Higher.\nAre there then fourteen degrees of Manas, or is Manas, taken as a whole,\ndivided into forty\u2010nine M\u00e2nasic fires?_\n\n_A._ Certainly there are fourteen, but you want to run before you can\nwalk. First learn the three, and then go on to the forty\u2010nine. There are\nthree Sons of Agni; they become seven, and then evolve to the forty\u2010nine.\nBut you are still ignorant how to produce the three. Learn first how to\nproduce the \u201cSacred Fire,\u201d spoken of in the _Pur\u00e2nas_. The forty\u2010nine\nfires are all states of Kundalin\u00ee, to be produced in ourselves by the\nfriction of the Triad. First learn the septenary of the body, and then\nthat of each Principle. But first of all learn the first Triad (the three\nvital airs).\n\n\n\nThe Spinal Cord.\n\n\n_Q. What is the sympathetic nerve and its function in Occultism? It is\nfound only after a certain stage of animal evolution, and would seem to be\nevolving in complexity towards a second spinal cord._\n\n_A._ At the end of the next Round, Humanity will again become male\u2010female,\nand then there will be two spinal cords. In the Seventh Race the two will\nmerge into the one. The evolution corresponds to the Races, and with the\nevolution of the Races the sympathetic developes into a true spinal cord.\nWe are returning up the arc only with self\u2010consciousness added. The Sixth\nRace will correspond to the \u201cpudding bags,\u201d but will have the perfection\nof form with the highest intelligence and spirituality.\n\nAnatomists are beginning to find new ramifications and new modifications\nin the human body. They are in error on many points, _e.g._, as to the\nspleen, which they call the manufactory of white blood corpuscles, but\nwhich is really the vehicle of the Linga Shar\u00eera. Occultists know each\nminute portion of the heart, and have a name for each. They call them by\nthe names of the Gods, as Brahm\u00e2\u2019s Hall, Vishnu\u2019s Hall, etc. They\ncorrespond with parts of the brain. The very atoms of the body are the\nthirty\u2010three crores of Gods.\n\nThe sympathetic nerve is played on by the T\u00e2ntrikas, who call it Shiva\u2019s\nV\u00een\u00e2.\n\n\n\nPr\u00e2na.\n\n\n_Q. What is the relation of man to Pr\u00e2na\u2014the periodical life?_\n\n_A._ J\u00eeva becomes Pr\u00e2na only when the child is born and begins to breathe.\nIt is the breath of life, Nephesh. There is no Pr\u00e2na on the Astral Plane.\n\n\n\nAntahkarana.\n\n\n_Q. The Antahkarana is the link between the Higher and the Lower Egos;\ndoes it correspond to the umbilical cord in projection?_\n\n_A._ No; the umbilical cord joining the astral to the physical body is a\nreal thing. Antahkarana is imaginary, a figure of speech, and is only the\nbridging over from the Higher to the Lower Manas. Antahkarana only exists\nwhen you commence to \u201cthrow your thought upwards and downwards.\u201d The\nM\u00e2y\u00e2vi R\u00fbpa, or M\u00e2nasic body, has no material connection with the physical\nbody, no umbilical cord. It is spiritual and ethereal, and passes\neverywhere without let or hindrance. It entirely differs from the astral\nbody, which, if injured, acts by repercussion on the physical body. The\nDevachanic entity, even previous to birth, can be affected by the\nSkandhas, but these have nothing to do with the Antahkarana. It is\naffected, _e.g._, by the desire for reincarnation.\n\n_Q. We are told in_ The Voice of the Silence _that we have to become __\n__\u201c__the path itself,__\u201d__ and in another passage that Antahkarana is that\npath. Does this mean anything more than that we have to bridge over the\ngap between the consciousness of the Lower and the Higher Egos?_\n\n_A._ That is all.\n\n_Q. We are told that there are seven portals on the Path: is there then a\nsevenfold division of Antahkarana? Also, is Antahkarana the battlefield?_\n\n_A._ It is the battlefield. There are seven divisions in the Antahkarana.\nAs you pass from each to the next you approach the Higher Manas. When you\nhave bridged the fourth you may consider yourself fortunate.\n\n\n\nMiscellaneous.\n\n\n_Q. We are told that_ AUM _\u201c__should be practised physically.__\u201d__ Does\nthis mean that, colour being more differentiated than sound, it is only\nthrough the colours that we shall get at the real sound of each of us? and\nthat_ AUM _can only have its Spiritual and Occult signification when\nturned to the \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi\u2010Manas of each person?_\n\n_A._ AUM means good action, not merely lip\u2010sound. You must say it in\ndeeds.\n\n_Q. With reference to the triangle, is not the \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi\u2010Manas different\nfor each entity, according to the plane on which he is?_\n\n_A._ Each Principle is on a different plane. The Chel\u00e2 must rise to one\nafter the other, assimilating each, until the three are one. This is the\nreal root of the Trinity.\n\n_Q. In_ The Secret Doctrine _we are told that \u00c2k\u00e2sha is the same as\nPradh\u00e2na. \u00c2k\u00e2sha is the Auric Egg of the earth, and yet \u00c2k\u00e2sha is Mahat.\nWhat that is the relation of Manas to the Auric Egg?_\n\n_A._ M\u00fblaprakriti is the same as \u00c2k\u00e2sha (seven degrees). Mahat is the\npositive aspect of \u00c2k\u00e2sha, and is the Manas of the Kosmic Body. Mahat is\nto \u00c2k\u00e2sha as Manas is to Buddhi, and Pradh\u00e2na is but another name for\nM\u00fblaprakriti.\n\nThe Auric Egg is \u00c2k\u00e2sha and has seven degrees. Being pure abstract\nsubstance, it reflects abstract ideas, but also reflects lower concrete\nthings.\n\nThe Third Logos and Mahat are one, and are the same as the Universal Mind,\nAlaya.\n\nThe Tetraktys is the Chatur Vidy\u00e2, or the fourfold knowledge in one, the\nfour\u2010faced Brahm\u00e2.\n\n\n\nN\u00e2dis.\n\n\n_Q. Have the N\u00e2d\u00ees any fixed relationship to the vertebr\u00e6; can they be\nlocated opposite to or between any vertebr\u00e6? can they be regarded as\noccupying each a given and fixed extent in the cord? Do they correspond to\nthe divisions of the cord known to Anatomists?_\n\n_A._  H. P. B. believed that the N\u00e2d\u00ees corresponded to regions of the\nspinal cord known to Anatomists. There are thus six or seven N\u00e2d\u00ees or\nplexuses along the spinal cord. The term, however, is not technical but\ngeneral, and applies to any knot, centre, ganglion, etc. The sacred N\u00e2d\u00ees\nare those which run along or above Sushumn\u00e2. Six are known to Science, and\none (near the atlas) unknown. Even the T\u00e2raka R\u00e2ja Yog\u00ees speak only of\nsix, and will not mention the sacred seventh.\n\nId\u00e2 and Pingal\u00e2 play along the curved wall of the cord in which is\nSushumn\u00e2. They are semi\u2010material, positive and negative, sun and moon, and\nstart into action the free and spiritual current of Sushumn\u00e2. They have\ndistinct paths of their own, otherwise they would radiate all over the\nbody. By concentration on Id\u00e2 and Pingal\u00e2 is generated the \u201csacred fire.\u201d\n\nAnother name for Shiva\u2019s V\u00een\u00e2 (sympathetic system) is K\u00e2l\u00ee\u2019s V\u00een\u00e2.\n\nThe sympathetic cords and Id\u00e2 and Pingal\u00e2 start from a sacred spot above\nthe medulla oblongata, called Triveni. This is one of the sacred centres,\nanother of which is Brahmarandra, which is, if you like, the grey matter\nof the brain. It is also the anterior fontanelle in the new\u2010born child.\n\nThe spinal column is called Brahmadanda, the stick of Brahm\u00e2. This is\nagain symbolized by the bamboo rod carried by Ascetics. The Yog\u00ees on the\nother sides of the Him\u00e2layas, who assemble regularly at Lake M\u00e2nsarovara,\ncarry a triple knotted bamboo stick, and are called Tridandins. This has\nthe same signification as the Br\u00e2hmanical cord, which has many other\nmeanings besides the three vital airs: _e.g._, it symbolizes the three\ninitiations of a Br\u00e2hman, taking place: (_a_) at birth, when he receives\nhis mystery name from the family Astrologer, who is supposed to have\nreceived it from the Devas (he is also thus said to be initiated by the\nDevas); a Hindu will sooner die than reveal this name; (_b_) at seven,\nwhen he receives the cord; and (_c_) at eleven or twelve, when he is\ninitiated into his caste.\n\n_Q. If it is right to study the body and its organs, with their\ncorrespondences, will you give the main outline of these in connection\nwith the N\u00e2d\u00ees and with the diagram of the orifices._\n\n\n    _A._ The Spleen corresponds to the Linga Shar\u00eera\n    The  Liver to K\u00e2ma\n    The Heart to Pr\u00e2na\n    The Corpora\u2010quadrigemina to K\u00e2ma\u2010Manas\n    The Pituitary body to Manas\u2010Antahkarana\n    The Pineal gland to Manas\n\n\nuntil it is touched by the vibrating light of Kundalin\u00ee, which proceeds\nfrom Buddhi, when it becomes Buddhi\u2010Manas.\n\nThe pineal gland corresponds with Divine Thought. The pituitary body is\nthe organ of the Psychic Plane. Psychic vision is caused by the molecular\nmotion of this body, which is directly connected with the optic nerve, and\nthus affects the sight and gives rise to hallucinations. Its motion may\nreadily cause flashes of light, such as may be obtained by pressing the\neyeballs. Drunkenness and fever produce illusions of sight and hearing by\nthe action of the pituitary body. This body is sometimes so affected by\ndrunkenness that it is paralyzed. If an influence on the optic nerve is\nthus produced and the current thus reversed, the colour will probably be\ncomplementary.\n\n\n\nSevens.\n\n\n_Q. If the physical body is no part of the real human septenary, is the\nphysical material world one of the seven planes of the Kosmic septenary?_\n\n_A._ It is. The body is not a Principle in Esoteric parlance, because the\nbody and the Linga are both on the same plane; then the Auric Egg makes\nthe seventh. The body is an Up\u00e2dhi rather than a Principle. The earth and\nits astral light are as closely related to each other as the body and its\nLinga, the earth being the Up\u00e2dhi. Our plane in its lowest division is the\nearth, in its highest the astral. The terrestrial astral light should of\ncourse not be confounded with the universal Astral Light.\n\n_Q. A physical object was spoken of as a septenary on the physical plane,\ninasmuch as we could (1) directly contact it; (2) retinally reproduce it;\n(3) remember it; (4) dream of it; (5) view it atomically; (6) view it\ndisintegrated; (7)\u2014What is the seventh?_\n\n_These are seven ways in which we view it: the septenary is our way of\nseeing one thing. Is it objectively septenary?_\n\n_A._ The seventh bridges across from one plane to another. The last is the\nidea, the privation of matter, and carries you to the next plane. The\nhighest of one plane touches the lowest of the next. Seven is a factor in\nnature, as in colours and sounds. There are seven degrees in the same\npiece of wood, each perceived by one of the seven senses. In wood the\nsmell is the most material degree, while in other substances it may be the\nsixth. Substances are septenary apart from the consciousness of the\nviewer.\n\nThe psychometer, seeing a morsel, say of a table a thousand years hence,\nwould see the whole; for every atom reflects the whole body to which it\nbelongs, just as with the Monads of Leibnitz.\n\nAfter the seven material subdivisions are the seven divisions of the\nAstral, which is its second Principle. The disintegrated matter\u2014the\nhighest of the material subdivisions\u2014is the privation of the idea of\nit\u2014the fourth.\n\nThe number fourteen is the first step between seven and forty\u2010nine. Each\nseptenary is really a fourteen, because each of the seven has its two\naspects. Thus fourteen signifies the inter\u2010relation of two planes in its\nturn. The septenary is to be clearly traced in the lunar months, fevers,\ngestations, etc. On it is based the week of the Jews and the septenary\nHierarchies of the Lord of Hosts.\n\n\n\nSounds.\n\n\n_Q. Sound is an attribute of \u00c2k\u00e2sha; but we cannot cognize anything on the\n\u00c2k\u00e2shic plane; on what plane then do we recognize sound? On what plane is\nsound produced by the physical contact of bodies? Is there sound on seven\nplanes, and is the physical plane one of them?_\n\n_A._ The physical plane is one of them. You cannot see \u00c2k\u00e2sha, but you can\nsense it from the Fourth Path. You may not be fully conscious of it, and\nyet you may sense it. \u00c2k\u00e2sha is at the root of the manifestation of all\nsounds. Sound is the expression and manifestation of that which is behind\nit, and which is the parent of many correlations. All Nature is a\nsounding\u2010board; or rather \u00c2k\u00e2sha is the sounding\u2010board of Nature. It is\nthe Deity, the one Life, the one Existence. (Hearing is the vibration of\nmolecular particles; the order is seen in the sentence, \u201cThe disciple\nfeels, hears, sees.\u201d)\n\nSound can have no end. H. P. B. remarked with regard to a tap made by a\npencil on the table: \u201cBy this time it has affected the whole universe. The\nparticle which has had its wear and tear destroys something which passes\ninto something else. It is eternal in the Nid\u00e2nas it produces.\u201d A sound,\nif not previously produced on the Astral Plane, and before that on the\n\u00c2k\u00e2shic, could not be produced at all. \u00c2k\u00e2sha is the bridge between nerve\ncells and mental powers.\n\n_Q. __\u201c__Colours are psychic, and sounds are spiritual.__\u201d__ What,\nassuming that these are vibrations, is the successive order (these\ncorresponding to sight and hearing) of the other senses?_\n\n_A._ This phrase was not to be taken out of its context, otherwise\nconfusion would arise. All are on all planes. The First Race had touch all\nover like a sounding board; this touch differentiated into the other\nsenses, which developed with the Races. The \u201csense\u201d of the First Race was\nthat of touch, meaning the power of their atoms to vibrate in unison with\nexternal atoms. The \u201ctouch\u201d would be almost the same as sympathy.\n\nThe senses were on a different plane with each Race; _e.g._, the Fourth\nRace had very much more developed senses than ourselves, but on another\nplane. It was also a very material Race. The sixth and seventh senses will\nmerge into the \u00c2k\u00e2shic Sound. \u201cIt depends to what degree of matter the\nsense of touch relates itself as to what we call it.\u201d\n\n\n\nPr\u00e2na.\n\n\n_Q. Is Pr\u00e2na the production of the countless __\u201c__lives__\u201d__ of the human\nbody, and therefore, to some extent, of the congeries of the cells or\natoms of the body?_\n\n_A._ No; Pr\u00e2na is the parent of the \u201clives.\u201d As an example, a sponge may\nbe immersed in an ocean. The water in the sponge\u2019s interior may be\ncompared to Pr\u00e2na; outside is J\u00eeva. Pr\u00e2na is the motor\u2010principle in life.\nThe \u201clives\u201d leave Pr\u00e2na; Pr\u00e2na does not leave them. Take out the sponge\nfrom the water, and it becomes dry, thus symbolizing death. Every\nprinciple is a differentiation of J\u00eeva, but the life\u2010motion in each is\nPr\u00e2na, the \u201cbreath of life.\u201d K\u00e2ma depends on Pr\u00e2na, without which there\nwould be no K\u00e2ma. Pr\u00e2na wakes the K\u00e2mic germs to life; it makes all\ndesires vital and living.\n\n\n\nThe Second Spinal Cord.\n\n\n_Q. With reference to the answer to the question on the second cord, what\nis it that will become a second spinal cord in the Sixth Race? Will Id\u00e2\nand Pingal\u00e2 have separate physical ducts?_\n\n_A._ It is the sympathetic cords which will grow together and form another\nspinal cord. Id\u00e2 and Pingal\u00e2 will be joined with Sushumn\u00e2, and they will\nbecome one. Id\u00e2 is on the left side of the cord, and Pingal\u00e2 on the right.\n\n\n\nInitiates.\n\n\nPythagoras was an Initiate, one of the grandest of Scientists. His\ndisciple, Archytas, was marvellously apt in applied Science. Plato and\nEuclid were Initiates, but not Socrates. No real Initiates were married.\nEuclid learned his Geometry in the Mysteries. Modern men of Science only\nrediscover the old truths.\n\n\n\nKosmic Consciousness.\n\n\nH. P. B. proceeded to explain Kosmic Consciousness, which is, like all\nelse, on seven planes, of which three are inconceivable, and four are\ncognizable by the highest Adept.\n\nTaking the lowest only, the Terrestrial (it was afterwards decided to call\nthis plane Pr\u00e2kritic), it is divisible, into seven planes, and these again\ninto seven, making the forty\u2010nine.\n\nShe then took the lowest plane of Pr\u00e2kriti, or the true Terrestrial.\n\nIts objective or sensuous plane is that which is sensed by the five\nphysical senses.\n\nOn its second plane things are reversed.\n\nIts third plane is psychic: here is the instinct which prevents a kitten\ngoing into the water and getting drowned.\n\nThen objective consciousness was given.\n\nThe three lower Pr\u00e2kritic are related to the three lower of the Astral\nPlane immediately succeeding.\n\nWith regard to the first division of the second plane, H. P. B. reminded\nher pupils that all seen on it must be reversed in translating it, _e.g._,\nwith numbers which appeared backwards. The Astral Objective corresponds in\neverything to the Terrestrial Objective.\n\nThe second division corresponds to the second of the lower plane, but the\nobjects are of extreme tenuity, an astralized Astral. This plane is the\nlimit of the ordinary medium, beyond which he cannot go. A non\u2010mediumistic\nperson to reach it must be asleep or in a trance, or under the influence\nof laughing\u2010gas; or in ordinary delirium people pass on to this plane.\n\nThe third, the Pr\u00e2nic, is of an intensely vivid nature. Extreme delirium\ncarries the patient to this plane. In delirium tremens the sufferer passes\nto this and to the one above it. Lunatics are often conscious on this\nplane, where they see terrible visions. It runs into the\u2014\n\nFourth division, the worst of the astral planes, K\u00e2mic and terrible. Hence\ncome the images that tempt; images of drunkards in K\u00e2ma Loka impelling\nothers to drink; images of all vices inoculating men with the desire to\ncommit crimes. The weak imitate these images in a kind of monkeyish\nfashion, so falling beneath their influence. This is also the cause of\nepidemics of vices, and cycles of disaster, of accidents of all kinds\ncoming in groups. Extreme delirium tremens is on this plane.\n\nThe fifth division is that of premonitions in dreams, of reflections from\nthe lower mentality, glimpses into the past and future, the plane of\nthings mental and not spiritual. The mesmerized clairvoyant can reach this\nplane, and even, if good, may go higher.\n\nThe sixth is the plane from which come all beautiful inspirations of art,\npoetry, and music; high types of dreams, flashes of genius. Here we have\nglimpses of past incarnations, without being able to locate or analyze\nthem.\n\nWe are on the seventh plane at the moment of death or in exceptional\nvisions. The drowning man is here when he remembers his past life. The\nmemory of events of this plane must be centred in the heart, \u201cthe seat of\nBuddha.\u201d There it will remain, but impressions from this plane are not\nmade on the physical brain.\n\n\n\nGeneral Notes.\n\n\nThe two planes above dealt with are the only two used in the Hatha Yoga.\n\nPr\u00e2na and the Auric Envelope are essentially the same, and again, as J\u00eeva,\nit is the same as the Universal Deity. This, in its Fifth Principle, is\nMahat, in its Sixth, Alaya. (The Universal Life is also seven\u2010principled.)\nMahat is the highest _Entity_ in Kosmos; beyond this is no diviner Entity;\nit is of subtlest matter, S\u00fbkshma. In us this is Manas, and the very Logoi\nare less high, not having gained experience. The M\u00e2nasic Entity will not\nbe destroyed, even at the end of the Mah\u00e2manvantara, when all the Gods are\nabsorbed, but will re\u2010emerge from Parabr\u00e2hmic latency.\n\nConsciousness is the Kosmic seed of superkosmic omniscience. It has the\npotentiality of budding into the Divine Consciousness.\n\nRude physical health is a drawback to seership. This was the case with\nSwedenborg.\n\nFohat is everywhere: it runs like a thread through all, and has its own\nseven divisions.\n\nAuric Envelope or \u00c2tmic Elements of Manifested Kosmos.\nAlaya. Buddhi.\nMahat. Manas.\nFohat. K\u00e2ma\u2010Manas.\nJ\u00eeva. K\u00e2ma\u2010Prana.\nAstral. Linga.\nPr\u00e2kriti. Body.\n\nIn the Kosmic Auric Envelope is all the Karma of the manifesting Universe.\nThis is the Hiranyagarbha. J\u00eeva is everywhere, and so with the other\nPrinciples.\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\nThe above diagram represents the type of all the Solar Systems.\n\nMahat, single before informing the Universe, differentiates when informing\nit, as does Manas in man.\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\nTaking this figure to represent the human Principles and planes of\nconsciousness, then 7, 6, 5 represent respectively, Shiva, Vishnu, Brahm\u00e2,\nBrahm\u00e2 being the lowest.\n\nShiva is the four\u2010faced Brahm\u00e2; the Creator, Preserver, Destroyer, and\nRegenerator.\n\nBetween 5 and 4 comes the Antahkarana.  The triangle represents the\nChristos, the Sacrificial Victim crucified between the thieves: this is\nthe double\u2010faced entity. The Ved\u00e2ntins make this a quaternary for a blind:\nAntahkarana, Chit, Buddhi, and Manas.\n\nMANVANTARIC ASPECT OF PARABRAHMAN AND M\u00dbLAPRAKRITI.\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\n[N.B.\u2014The number of Rays is arbitrary and without significance.]\n\nPerceptive life begins with the Astral: it is not our physical atoms which\nsee, etc.\n\nConsciousness proper begins between K\u00e2ma and Manas. \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi acts more\nin the atoms of the body, in the bacilli, microbes, etc., than in Man\nhimself.\n\n\n\nObjective Consciousness.\n\n\nSensuous objective consciousness includes all that pertains to the five\nphysical senses in man, and rules in animals, birds, fishes and some\ninsects. Here are the \u201cLives\u201d; their consciousness is in \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi;\nthese are entirely without Manas.\n\n\n\nAstral Consciousness.\n\n\nThat of some plants (_e.g._, sensitive), of ants, spiders, and some night\u2010\nflies (Indian), but not of bees.\n\nThe vertebrate animals in general are without this consciousness, but the\nplacental Mammals have all the potentialities of human consciousness,\nthough at present, of course, dormant.\n\nIdiots are on this plane. The common expression \u201che has lost his mind\u201d is\nan Occult truth. For when through fright or other cause the lower mind\nbecomes paralyzed, then the consciousness is on the Astral Plane. The\nstudy of lunacy will throw much light on these points. This may be called\nthe \u201cnerve plane.\u201d It is cognized by our \u201cnervous centres\u201d of which\nPhysiology knows nothing, _e.g._, the clairvoyant reading with the eyes\nbandaged, reading with the tips of the fingers, the pit of the stomach,\netc. This sense is greatly developed in the deaf and dumb.\n\n\n\nK\u00e2ma\u2010Pr\u00e2nic Consciousness.\n\n\nThe general life\u2010consciousness which belongs to all the objective world,\neven to the stones; for if stones were not living they could not decay,\nemit a spark, etc. Affinity between chemical elements is a manifestation\nof this K\u00e2mic consciousness.\n\n\n\nK\u00e2ma\u2010M\u00e2nasic Consciousness.\n\n\nThe instinctual consciousness of animals and idiots in its lowest degrees,\nthe planes of sensation: in man these are rationalized, _e.g._, a dog shut\nin a room has the instinct to get out, but cannot because its instinct is\nnot sufficiently rationalized to take the necessary means; whereas a man\nat once takes in the situation and extricates himself. The highest degree\nof this K\u00e2ma\u2010M\u00e2nasic consciousness is the psychic. Thus there are seven\ndegrees from the instinctual animal to the rationalized instinctual and\npsychic.\n\n\n\nM\u00e2nasic Consciousness.\n\n\nFrom this plane Manas stretches upwards to Mahat.\n\n\n\nBuddhic Consciousness.\n\n\nThe plane of Buddhi and the Auric Envelope. From here it goes to the\nFather in heaven, \u00c2tm\u00e2, and reflects all that is in the Auric Envelope.\nFive and six therefore cover the planes from the psychic to the divine.\n\n\n\nMiscellaneous.\n\n\nReason is a thing that oscillates between right and wrong. But\nIntelligence\u2014Intuition\u2014is higher, it is the clear vision.\n\nTo get rid of K\u00e2ma we must crush out all our material instincts\u2014\u201ccrush out\nmatter.\u201d The flesh is a thing of habit; it will repeat mechanically a good\nimpulse as well as a bad one. It is not the flesh which is always the\ntempter; in nine cases out of ten it is the Lower Manas, which, by its\nimages, leads the flesh into temptation.\n\nThe highest Adept begins his Sam\u00e2dhi on the Fourth Solar Plane, but cannot\ngo outside the Solar System. When he begins Sam\u00e2dhi he is on a par with\nsome of the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, but he transcends them as he rises to the\nseventh plane (Nirv\u00e2na).\n\nThe Silent Watcher is on the Fourth Kosmic Plane.\n\nThe higher Mind directs the Will: the lower turns it into selfish Desire.\n\nThe head should not be covered in meditation. It is covered in Sam\u00e2dhi.\n\nThe Dhy\u00e2n Chohans are passionless, pure and mindless. They have no\nstruggle, no passions to crush.\n\nThe Dhy\u00e2n Chohans are made to pass through the School of Life. \u201cGod goes\nto School.\u201d\n\nThe best of us in the future will be M\u00e2nasaputras; the lowest will be\nPitris. We are seven intellectual Hierarchies here. This earth becomes the\nmoon of the next earth.\n\nThe \u201cPitris\u201d are the Astral overshadowed by \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi, falling into\nmatter. The \u201cPudding\u2010bags\u201d had Life and \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi, but no Manas. They\nwere therefore senseless. The reason for all evolution is the gaining of\nexperience.\n\nIn the Fifth Round all of us will play the part of Pitris. We shall have\nto go and shoot out our Chh\u00e2y\u00e2s into another humanity, and remain until\nthat humanity is perfected. The Pitris have finished their office in this\nRound and have gone into Nirv\u00e2na; but they will return to do the same\noffice up to the middle point of the Fifth Round. The Fourth or K\u00e2mic\nHierarchy of the Pitris becomes the \u201cman of flesh.\u201d\n\nThe astral body is first in the womb; then comes the germ that fructifies\nit. It is then clothed with matter, as were the Pitris.\n\nThe Chh\u00e2y\u00e2 is really the lower Manas, the shadow of the higher Mind. This\nChh\u00e2y\u00e2 makes the M\u00e2y\u00e2vi R\u00fbpa. The Ray clothes itself in the highest degree\nof the Astral Plane. The M\u00e2y\u00e2vi R\u00fbpa is composed of the astral body as\nUp\u00e2dhi, the guiding intelligence from the heart, the attributes and\nqualities from the Auric Envelope.\n\nThe Auric Envelope takes up the light of \u00c2tm\u00e2, and overshadows the\ncoronal, circling round the head.\n\nThe Auric Fluid is a combination of the Life and Will principles, the life\nand the will being one and the same in Kosmos. It emanates from the eyes\nand hands, when directed by the will of the operator.\n\nThe Auric Light surrounds all bodies: it is the \u201caura\u201d emanating from\nthem, whether they be animal, vegetable, or mineral. It is the light,\n_e.g._, seen round magnets.\n\n\u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi\u2010Manas in man corresponds to the three Logoi in Kosmos. They\nnot only correspond, but each is the radiation from Kosmos to Microcosmos.\nThe third Logos, Mahat, becomes Manas in man, Manas being only Mahat\nindividualized, as the sun\u2010rays are individualized in bodies that absorb\nthem. The sun\u2010rays give life, they fertilize what is already there, and\nthe individual is formed. Mahat, so to say, fertilizes, and Manas is the\nresult.\n\nBuddhi\u2010Manas is the Kshetraj\u00f1a.\n\nThere are seven planes of Mahat, as of all else.\n\n\n\nThe Human Principles.\n\n\nHere H. P. B. drew two diagrams, illustrating different ways of\nrepresenting the human principles. In the first\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\nthe two lower are disregarded; they go out, disintegrate, are of no\naccount. Remain five, under the radiation of \u00c2tm\u00e2.\n\nIn the second:\n\n                              [Illustration]\n\nthe lower Quaternary is regarded as mere matter, objective illusion, and\nthere remain Manas and the Auric Egg, the higher Principles being\nreflected in the Auric Egg. In all these systems remember the main\nprinciple, the descent and re\u2010ascent of the Spirit, in man as in Kosmos.\nThe Spirit is drawn downwards as by spiritual gravitation.\n\nSeeking further for the cause of this, the students were checked, H. P. B.\ngiving only a suggestion on the three Logoi:\n\n1. Potentiality of Mind (Absolute Thought).\n\n2. Thought in Germ.\n\n3. Ideation in Activity.\n\n\n\nNotes.\n\n\nProtective variation, _e.g._, identity of colouring of insects and of that\non which they feed, was explained to be the work of Nature Elementals.\n\nForm is on different planes, and the forms of one plane may be formless to\ndwellers on another. The Kosmocratores build on planes in the Divine Mind,\nvisible to them though not to us. The principle of limitation\u2014_principium\nindividuationis_\u2014is Form: this principle is Divine Law manifested in\nKosmic Matter, which, in its essence, is limitless. The Auric Egg is the\nlimit of man as Hiranyagarbha of the Kosmos.\n\nThe first step towards the accomplishment of Kriy\u00e2shakti is the use of the\nImagination. To imagine a thing is to firmly create a model of what you\ndesire, perfect in all its details. The Will is then brought into action,\nand the form is thereby transferred to the objective world. This is\ncreation by Kriy\u00e2shakti.\n\n\n\nSuns And Planets.\n\n\nA comet partially cools and settles down as a sun. It then gradually\nattracts round it planets that are as yet unattached to any centre, and\nthus, in millions of years, a Solar System is formed. The worn\u2010out planet\nbecomes a moon to the planet of another system.\n\nThe sun we see is a reflection of the true Sun: this reflection, as an\noutward concrete thing, is a K\u00e2ma\u2010R\u00fbpa, all the suns forming the K\u00e2ma\u2010R\u00fbpa\nof Kosmos. To its own system the sun is Buddhi, as being the reflection\nand vehicle of the true Sun, which is \u00c2tm\u00e2, invisible on this plane. All\nthe Fohatic forces\u2014electricity, etc.\u2014are in this reflection.\n\n\n\nThe Moon.\n\n\nAt the beginning of the evolution of our globe, the moon was much nearer\nto the earth, and larger than it is now. It has retreated from us, and\nshrunk much in size. (The moon gave all her Principles to the earth, while\nthe Pitris gave only their Chh\u00e2y\u00e2s to man.)\n\nThe influences of the moon are wholly psycho\u2010physiological. It is dead,\nsending out injurious emanations like a corpse. It vampirizes the earth\nand its inhabitants, so that anyone sleeping in its rays suffers, losing\nsome of his life\u2010force. A white cloth is a protection, the rays not\npassing through it, and the head especially should be thus guarded. It has\nmost power when it is full. It throws off particles which we absorb, and\nis gradually disintegrating. Where there is snow the moon looks like a\ncorpse, being unable, through the white snow, to vampirize effectually.\nHence snow\u2010covered mountains are free from its bad influences. The moon is\nphosphorescent.\n\nThe R\u00e2kshakas of Lanka and the Atlanteans are said to have subjected the\nmoon. The Thessalians learned from them their Magic.\n\nEsoterically, the moon is the symbol of the Lower Manas; it is also the\nsymbol of the Astral.\n\nPlants which under the sun\u2019s rays are beneficent are maleficent under\nthose of the moon. Herbs containing poisons are most active when gathered\nunder the moon\u2019s rays.\n\nA new moon will appear during the Seventh Round, and our moon will finally\ndisintegrate and disappear. There is now a planet, the \u201cMystery Planet,\u201d\nbehind the moon, and it is gradually dying. Finally the time will come for\nit to send its Principles to a new Laya Centre, and there a new planet\nwill form, to belong to another Solar System, the present Mystery Planet\nthen functioning as moon to that new globe. This moon will have nothing to\ndo with our earth, though it will come within our range of vision.\n\n\n\nThe Solar System.\n\n\nAll the visible planets placed in our Solar System by Astronomers belong\nto it, except Neptune. There are also some others not known to Science,\nbelonging to it, and \u201call moons which are not yet visible for next\nthings.\u201d\n\nThe planets only move in our consciousness. The Rulers of the seven Secret\nPlanets have no influence on this earth, as this earth has on other\nplanets. It is the sun and moon which really have not only a mental, but\nalso a physical effect. The effect of the sun on humanity is connected\nwith K\u00e2ma\u2010Pr\u00e2na, with the most physical K\u00e2mic elements in us; it is the\nvital principle which helps growth. The effect of the moon is chiefly\nK\u00e2ma\u2010M\u00e2nasic or psycho\u2010physiological; it acts on the psychological brain,\non the brain\u2010mind.\n\n\n\nPrecious Stones.\n\n\nIn answer to a question, H. P. B. said that the diamond and the ruby were\nunder the sun, the sapphire under the moon\u2014\u201cbut what does it matter to\nyou?\u201d\n\n\n\nTime.\n\n\nWhen once out of the body, and not subject to the habit of consciousness\nformed by others, time does not exist.\n\nCycles and epochs depend on consciousness: we are not here for the first\ntime; the cycles return because we come back into conscious existence.\nCycles are measured by the consciousness of humanity and not by Nature. It\nis because we are the same people as in past epochs that these events\noccur to us.\n\n\n\nDeath.\n\n\nThe Hindus look upon death as impure, owing to the disintegration of the\nbody and the passing from one plane to another. \u201cI believe in\ntransformation, not in death.\u201d\n\n\n\nAtoms.\n\n\nThe Atom is the Soul of the molecule. It is the six Principles, and the\nmolecule is the body thereof. The Atom is the \u00c2tman of the objective\nKosmos, _i.e._, it is on the seventh plane of the lowest Prakriti.\n\n\n\nTerms.\n\n\nH. P. B. began by saying that students ought to know the correct meaning\nof the Sanskrit terms used in Occultism, and should learn the Occult\nSymbology. To begin with one had better learn the correct Esoteric\nclassification and names of the fourteen (7 \u00d7 2) and seven (Sapta) Lokas\nfound in the exoteric texts. These are given there in a very confused\nmanner, and are full of \u201cblinds.\u201d To illustrate this three classifications\nare given below.\n\n\n\nLokas.\n\n\n1. The general exoteric, orthodox and t\u00e2ntric category:\n      Bh\u00fbr\u2010loka.\n      Bhuvar\u2010loka.\n      Swar\u2010loka.\n      Mahar\u2010loka.       The second seven are reflected.\n      Janar\u2010loka.\n      Tapar\u2010loka.\n      Satya\u2010loka.\n\n2. The S\u00e2nkhya category, and that of some Ved\u00e2ntins\n      Brahm\u00e2\u2010loka.\n      Pitri\u2010loka.\n      Soma\u2010loka.\n      Indra\u2010loka.\n      Gandharva\u2010loka.\n      R\u00e2kshasa\u2010loka\n      Yaksha\u2010loka.\n\nAnd an eighth.\n\n3. The Ved\u00e2ntic, the nearest approach to the Esoteric:\n      Atala.\n      Vitala.\n      Sutala.\n      Tal\u00e2tala (or Karatala).\n      Ras\u00e2tala.\n      Mah\u00e2tala.\n      P\u00e2t\u00e2la.\n\nEach and all correspond Esoterically to the Kosmic or Dhy\u00e2n Chohanic\nHierarchies, and to the human States of Consciousness and their\nsubdivisions (forty\u2010nine). To appreciate this the meanings of the terms\nused in the Ved\u00e2ntic classification must be first understood.\n\n_Tala_     means _place_.\n\nAtala      means no place.\n\nVitala     means some change for the better: _i.e._, better for matter in\nthat more matter enters into it, or, in other words, it becomes more\ndifferentiated. This is an ancient Occult term.\n\nSutala     means good, excellent, place.\n\nKaratala   means something that can be grasped or touched (from kara, a\nhand): _i.e._, the state in which matter becomes tangible.\n\nRas\u00e2tala   means place of taste; a place you can sense with one of the\norgans of sense.\n\nMah\u00e2tala   means exoterically \u201cgreat place\u201d; but, Esoterically, a place\nincluding all others subjectively, and potentially including all that\nprecedes it.\n\nP\u00e2t\u00e2la     means something under the feet (from pada, foot), the up\u00e2dhi,\nor basis, of anything, the antipodes, America, etc.\n\nEach of the Lokas, places, worlds, states, etc., corresponds with and is\ntransformed into five (exoterically) and seven (Esoterically) states or\nTattvas, for which there are no definite names. These in the main\ndivisions cited below make up the forty\u2010nine Fires:\n\n\n    5 and 7 Tanm\u00e2tras, outer and inner senses.\n    5 and 7 Bh\u00fbtas, or elements.\n    5 and 7 Gny\u00e2nendryas, or organs of sensation.\n    5 and 7 Karmendryas, or organs of action.\n\n\nThese correspond in general to States of Consciousness, to the Hierarchies\nof Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, to the Tattvas, etc. These Tattvas transform themselves\ninto the whole Universe. The fourteen Lokas are made of seven with seven\nreflections: above, below; within, without; subjective, objective; pure,\nimpure; positive, negative; etc.\n\n\n\nExplanation of the States of Consciousness Corresponding to the Ved\u00e2ntic\nClassification of Lokas.\n\n\n7. _Atala._ The \u00c2tmic or Auric state or locality: it emanates directly\nfrom ABSOLUTENESS, and is the first something in the Universe. Its\ncorrespondence is the Hierarchy of non\u2010substantial primordial Beings, in a\nplace which is no place (for us), a state which is no state. This\nHierarchy contains the primordial plane, all that was, is, and will be,\nfrom the beginning to the end of the Mah\u00e2manvantara; all is there. This\nstatement should not, however, be taken to imply Kismet: the latter is\ncontrary to all the teachings of Occultism.\n\nHere are the Hierarchies of the Dhy\u00e2ni Buddhas. Their state is that of\nParasam\u00e2dhi, of the Dharmak\u00e2ya; a state where no progress is possible. The\nentities there may be said to be crystallized in purity, in homogeneity.\n\n6. _Vitala._ Here are the Hierarchies of the celestial Buddhas, or\nBodhisattvas, who are said to emanate from the seven Dhy\u00e2ni Buddhas. It is\nrelated on earth to Sam\u00e2dhi, to the Buddhic consciousness in man. No\nAdept, save one, can be higher than this and live; if he passes into the\n\u00c2tmic or Dharmak\u00e2ya state (Alaya) he can return to earth no more. These\ntwo states are purely hyper\u2010metaphysical.\n\n5. _Sutala._ A differential state corresponding on earth with the Higher\nManas, and therefore with Shabda (Sound), the Logos, our Higher Ego; and\nalso to the Manushi Buddha state, like that of Gautama, on earth. This is\nthe third stage of Sam\u00e2dhi (which is septenary). Here belong the\nHierarchies of the Kum\u00e2ras\u2014the Agnishvattas, etc.\n\n4. _Karatala_ corresponds with Sparsha (touch) and to the Hierarchies of\nethereal, semi\u2010objective Dhy\u00e2n Chohans of the astral matter of the M\u00e2nasa\u2010\nManas, or the pure ray of Manas, that is the Lower Manas before it is\nmixed with K\u00e2ma (as in the young child). They are called Sparsha Devas,\nthe Devas endowed with touch. These Hierarchies of Devas are progressive:\nthe first have one sense; the second two; and so on to seven: each\ncontaining all the senses potentially, but not yet developed. Sparsha\nwould be rendered better by affinity, contact.\n\n3. _Ras\u00e2tala_, or R\u00fbpatala: corresponds to the Hierarchies of R\u00fbpa or\nSight Devas, possessed of three senses, sight, hearing, and touch. These\nare the K\u00e2ma\u2010M\u00e2nasic entities, and the higher Elementals. With the\nRosicrucians they were the Sylphs and Undines. It corresponds on earth\nwith an artificial state of consciousness, such as that produced by\nhypnotism and drugs (morphia, etc.).\n\n2. _Mah\u00e2tala._ Corresponds to the Hierarchies of Rasa or Taste Devas, and\nincludes a state of consciousness embracing the lower five senses and\nemanations of life and being. It corresponds to K\u00e2ma and Pr\u00e2na in man, and\nto Salamanders and Gnomes in nature.\n\n1. _P\u00e2t\u00e2la._ Corresponds to the Hierarchies of Gandha or Smell Devas, the\nunderworld or antipodes: Myalba. The sphere of irrational animals, having\nno feeling save that of self\u2010preservation and gratification of the senses:\nalso of intensely selfish human beings, waking or sleeping. This is why\nN\u00e2rada is said to have visited P\u00e2t\u00e2la when he was cursed to be reborn. He\nreported that life there was very pleasant for those \u201cwho had never left\ntheir birth\u2010place\u201d; they were very happy. It is the earthly state, and\ncorresponds with the sense of smell. Here are also animal Dugpas,\nElementals of animals, and Nature Spirits.\n\n\n\nFurther Explanations of the Same Classifications.\n\n\n7. Auric, \u00c2tmic, Alayic, sense or state. One of full potentiality, but not\nof activity.\n\n6. Buddhic; the sense of being one with the universe; the impossibility of\nimagining oneself apart from it.\n\n(It was asked why the term Alayic was here given to the \u00c2tmic and not to\nthe Buddhic state. _Ans._ These classifications are not hard and fast\ndivisions. A term may change places according as the classification is\nexoteric, Esoteric or practical. For students the effort should be to\nbring all things down to states of consciousness. Buddhi is really one and\nindivisible. It is a feeling within, absolutely inexpressible in words.\nAll cataloguing is useless to explain it.)\n\n5. Sh\u00e2bdic, sense of hearing.\n\n4. Sp\u00e2rshic, sense of touch.\n\n3. R\u00fbpic, the state of feeling oneself a body and perceiving it (r\u00fbpa =\nform).\n\n2. R\u00e2sic, sense of taste.\n\n1. G\u00e2ndhic, sense of smell.\n\nAll the Kosmic and anthropic states and senses correspond with our organs\nof sensation, Gny\u00e2nendryas, rudimentary organs for receiving knowledge\nthrough direct contact, sight, etc. These are the faculties of Shar\u00eera,\nthrough Netra (eyes), nose, speech, etc., and also with the organs of\naction, Karmendryas, hands, feet, etc.\n\nExoterically, there are five sets of five, giving twenty\u2010five. Of these\ntwenty are facultative and five Buddhic. Exoterically Buddhi is said to\nperceive; Esoterically it reaches perception only through the Higher\nManas. Each of these twenty is both positive and negative, thus making\nforty in all. There are two subjective states answering to each of the\nfour sets of five, hence eight in all. These being subjective cannot be\ndoubled. Thus we have 40 + 8 = 48 \u201ccognitions of Buddhi.\u201d These with M\u00e2y\u00e2,\nwhich includes them all, make 49. (Once that you have reached the\ncognition of M\u00e2y\u00e2, you are an Adept.)\n\n\n\nThe Lokas.\n\n\nIn their exoteric blinds the Br\u00e2hmans count fourteen Lokas (earth\nincluded), of which seven are objective, though not apparent, and seven\nsubjective, yet fully demonstrable to the Inner Man. There are seven\nDivine Lokas and seven infernal (terrestrial) Lokas.\n\nSEVEN DIVINE LOKAS.              SEVEN INFERNAL (TERRESTRIAL)\n                                 LOKAS.\n1. Bh\u00fbrloka (the earth).         1. P\u00e2t\u00e2la (our earth).\n2. Bhuvarloka (between the       2. Mah\u00e2tala.\nearth and the sun [Munis]).\n3. Svarloka (between the sun     3. Ras\u00e2tala.\nand and Pole Star [Yog\u00ees]).\n4. Maharloka (between the        4. Tal\u00e2tala (or Karatala).\nearth and the utmost limit of\nthe Solar System).(858)\n5. Janarloka (beyond the Solar   5. Sutala.\nSystem, the abode of the\nKum\u00e2ras, who do not belong to\nthis plane).\n6. Taparloka (still beyond the   6. Vitala.\nMah\u00e2tmic region, the dwelling\nof the Vair\u00e2ja deities).\n7. Satyaloka (the abode of the   7. Atala.\nNirvan\u00ees).\n\nThese the Br\u00e2hmans read from the bottom.\n\nNow all these fourteen are planes from without within, and (the seven\nDivine) States of Consciousness through which man can pass\u2010\u2010and must pass,\nonce he is determined to go through the seven paths and portals of Dhy\u00e2ni;\none need not be disembodied for this, and all this is reached on earth,\nand in one or many of the incarnations.\n\nSee the order: the four lower ones (1, 2, 3, 4), are _r\u00fbpa_; _i.e._, they\nare performed by the Inner Man with the full concurrence of the diviner\nportions, or, elements, of the Lower Manas, and consciously by the\npersonal man. The three higher states cannot be reached and remembered by\nthe latter, unless he is a fully initiated Adept. A Hatha Yog\u00ee will never\npass beyond the Maharloka, psychically, and the Tal\u00e2tala (double or dual\nplace), physico\u2010mentally. To become a R\u00e2ja Yog\u00ee, one has to ascend up to\nthe seventh portal, the Satyaloka. For such, the Master Yog\u00ees tell us, is\nthe fruition of Yajna, or sacrifice. When the Bh\u00fbr, Bhuvar and Svarga\n(states) are once passed, and the Yog\u00ee\u2019s consciousness centred in\nMaharloka, it is in the last plane and state between entire identification\nof the Personal and the Higher Manas.\n\nOne thing to remember: while the infernal (or terrestrial) states are also\nthe seven divisions of the earth, for planes and states, as much as they\nare Kosmic divisions, the divine Saptaloka are purely subjective, and\nbegin with the psychic Astral Light plane, ending with the Satya or\nJ\u00eevanmukta state. These fourteen Lokas, or spheres, form the extent of the\nwhole Brahm\u00e2nda (world). The four lower are transitory, with all their\ndwellers, and the three higher eternal; _i.e._, the former states, planes\nand subjects, to these, last only a Day of Brahm\u00e2, changing with every\nKalpa: the latter endure for an Age of Brahm\u00e2.\n\nStudents must learn the correspondences: then concentrate on the organs\nand so reach their corresponding states of consciousness. Take them in\norder beginning with the lowest, and working steadily upwards. A medium\nmight irregularly catch glimpses of higher, but would not thus gain\norderly development.\n\nThe greatest phenomena are produced by touching and centering the\nattention upon the little finger.\n\nThe Lokas and Talas are reflections the one of the other. So also are the\nHierarchies in each, in pairs of opposites, at the two poles of the\nsphere. Everywhere are such opposites: good and evil, light and darkness,\nmale and female.\n\nH. P. B. could not say why blue was the colour of the earth. Blue is a\ncolour by itself, a primary. Indigo is a colour, not a shade of blue, so\nis violet.\n\nThe Vair\u00e2jas belong to, are the fiery Egos of, other Manvantaras. They\nhave already been purified in the fire of passions. It is they who refused\nto create. They have reached the Seventh Portal, and have refused Nirv\u00e2na,\nremaining for succeeding Manvantaras.\n\nThe seven steps of Antahkarana correspond with the Lokas.\n\nSam\u00e2dhi is the highest state on earth that can be reached in the body.\nBeyond that the Initiate must have become a Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2ya.\n\nPurity of mind is of greater importance than purity of body. If the Up\u00e2dhi\nbe not perfectly pure, it cannot preserve recollections coming from a\nhigher state. An act may be performed to which little or no attention is\npaid, and it is of comparatively small importance. But if thought of,\ndwelt on in the mind, the effect is a thousand times greater. The thoughts\nmust be kept pure.\n\nRemember that K\u00e2ma, while having bad passions and emotions, helps you to\nevolve by giving also the desire and impulse necessary for rising.\n\nThe flesh, the body, the human being in his material part, is, on this\nplane, the most difficult thing to subject. The highest Adept, put into a\nnew body, has to struggle against it and subdue it, and finds its\nsubjugation difficult.\n\nThe Liver is the General, the Spleen is the Aide\u2010de\u2010Camp. All that the\nLiver does not accomplish is taken up and completed by the Spleen.\n\nH. P. B. was asked whether each person must pass through the fourteen\nstates, and answered that the Lokas and Talas represented planes on this\nearth, through some of which all must pass, and through all of which the\ndisciple must pass, on his way to Adeptship. Everyone passes through the\nlower Lokas, but not necessarily through the corresponding Talas. There\nare two poles in everything: seven states in every state.\n\nVitala represents a sublime as well as an infernal state. That state which\nfor the mortal is a complete separation of the Ego from the personality is\nfor a Buddha a mere temporary separation. For the Buddha it is a Kosmic\nstate.\n\nThe Br\u00e2hmans and Buddhists regard the Talas as hells, but in reality the\nterm is figurative. We are in hell whenever we are in misery, suffer\nmisfortune and so on.\n\n\n\nForms In The Astral Light.\n\n\nThe Elementals in the Astral light are reflections. Everything on earth is\nreflected there. It is from these that photographs are sometimes obtained\nthrough mediums. The mediums unconsciously produce them as forms. The\nAdepts produce them consciously through Kriy\u00e2shakti, bringing them down by\na process that may be compared to the focussing of rays of light by a\nburning glass.\n\n\n\nStates Of Consciousness.\n\n\nBh\u00fbrloka is the waking state in which we normally live; it is the state in\nwhich animals also are, when they sense food, a danger, etc. To be in\nSvarloka is to be completely abstracted on this plane, leaving only\ninstinct to work, so that on the material plane you would behave as an\nanimal. Yog\u00ees are known who have become crystallized in this state, and\nthen they must be nourished by others. A Yog\u00ee near Allahabad had been for\nfifty\u2010three years sitting on a stone; his Chel\u00e2s plunge him into the river\nevery night and then replace him. During the day his consciousness returns\nto Bh\u00fbrloka, and he talks and teaches. A Yog\u00ee was found on an island near\nCalcutta round whose limbs the roots of trees had grown. He was cut out,\nand in the endeavour to awaken him so many outrages were inflicted on him\nthat he died.\n\n_Q. Is it possible to be in more than one state of consciousness at once?_\n\n_A._ The consciousness cannot be entirely on two planes at once. The\nhigher and lower states are not wholly incompatible, but if you are on the\nhigher you will wool\u2010gather on the lower. In order to remember the higher\nstate on returning to the lower, the memory must be carried upwards to the\nhigher. An Adept may apparently enjoy a dual consciousness; when he\ndesires not to see he can abstract himself: he may be in a higher state\nand yet return answers to questions addressed to him. But in this case he\nwill momentarily return to the material plane, shooting up again to the\nhigher plane. This is his only salvation in adverse conditions.\n\nThe lower you go in the Talas the more intellectual you become and the\nless spiritual. You may be a morally good man but not spiritual. Intellect\nmay remain very closely related to K\u00e2ma. A man may be in a Loka and visit\none and all the Talas, his condition depending on the Loka to which he\nbelongs. Thus a man in Bh\u00fbrloka only may pass into the Talas and go to the\ndevil. If he dwells in Bhuvarloka he cannot become as bad. If he has\nreached the Satya state he can go into any Tala without danger; buoyed up\nby his own purity he can never be engulfed. The Talas are brain intellect\nstates, while the Lokas\u2014or more accurately the three higher\u2014are spiritual.\n\nManas absorbs the light of Buddhi. Buddhi is Ar\u00fbpa, and can absorb\nnothing. When the Ego takes all the light of Buddhi, it takes that of\n\u00c2tm\u00e2, Buddhi being the vehicle, and thus the three become one. This done,\nthe _full_ Adept is one spiritually, but has a body. The fourfold Path is\nfinished and he is one. The Masters\u2019 bodies are, as far as they are\nconcerned, illusionary, and hence do not grow old, become wrinkled, etc.\n\nThe student, who is not naturally psychic, should fix the fourfold\nconsciousness in a higher plane and nail it there. Let him make a bundle\nof the four lower and pin them to a higher state. He should centre on this\nhigher, trying not to permit the body and intellect to draw him down and\ncarry him away. Play ducks and drakes with the body, eating, drinking and\nsleeping, but living always on the ideal.\n\n\n\nMother\u2010Love.\n\n\nMother\u2010love is an instinct, the same in the human being and in the animal,\nand often stronger in the latter. The continuance of this love in human\nbeings is due to association, to blood magnetism and to psychic affinity.\nFamilies are sometimes formed of those who have lived together before, but\noften not. The causes at work are very complex and have to be balanced.\nSometimes when a child with very bad Karma is to be born, parents of a\ncallous type are chosen, or they may die before the Karmic results appear.\nOr the suffering through the child may be their own Karma. Mother\u2010love as\nan instinct is between Ras\u00e2tala and Tal\u00e2tala.\n\nThe Lipikas keep man\u2019s Karmic record, and impress it on the Astral Light.\n\nVacillating people pass from one state of consciousness to another.\n\nThought arises before desire. The thought acts on the brain, the brain on\nthe organ, and then desire awakes. It is not the outer stimulus that\narouses the organ. Thought therefore must be slain ere desire can be\nextinguished. The student must guard his thoughts. Five minutes\u2019 thought\nmay undo the work of five years; and though the five years\u2019 work will be\nrun through more rapidly the second time, yet time is lost.\n\n\n\nConsciousness.\n\n\nH. P. B. began by challenging the views of consciousness in the West,\ncommenting on the lack of definition in the leading Philosophies. No\ndistinction was made between consciousness and self\u2010consciousness, and yet\nin this lay the difference between man and the animal. The animal was\nconscious only, not self\u2010conscious; the animal does not know the Ego as\nSubject, as does man. There is therefore an enormous difference between\nthe consciousness of the bird, the insect, the beast, and that of man.\n\nBut the full consciousness of man is self\u2010consciousness\u2014that which makes\nus say, \u201c_I_ do that.\u201d If there is pleasure it must be traced to some one\nexperiencing it. Now the difference between the consciousness of man and\nof animals is that while there is a Self in the animal, the animal is not\nconscious of the Self. Spencer reasons on consciousness, but when he comes\nto a gap he merely jumps over it. So again Hume, when he says that on\nintrospection he sees merely feelings and can never find any \u201cI,\u201d forgets\nthat without an \u201cI\u201d no seeing of feelings would be possible. What is it\nthat studies the feelings? The animal is not conscious of the feeling \u201cI\nam I.\u201d It has instinct, but instinct is not self\u2010consciousness. Self\u2010\nconsciousness is an attribute of the mind, not of the soul, the _anima_,\nwhence the very name _animal_ is taken. Humanity had no self\u2010consciousness\nuntil the coming of the M\u00e2nasaputras in the Third Race. Consciousness,\nbrain\u2010consciousness, is the field of the light of the Ego, of the Auric\nEgg, of the Higher Manas. The cells of the leg are conscious, but they are\nthe slaves of the idea; they are not self\u2010conscious, they cannot originate\nan idea, although when they are tired they can convey to the brain an\nuneasy sensation, and so give rise to the idea of fatigue. Instinct is the\nlower state of consciousness. Man has consciousness running through the\nfour lower keys of his septenary consciousness; there are seven scales of\nconsciousness in his consciousness, which is none the less essentially and\npre\u2010eminently one, a unit. There are millions and millions of states of\nconsciousness, as there are millions and millions of leaves; but as you\ncannot find two leaves alike, so you cannot find two states of\nconsciousness alike; a state is never exactly repeated.\n\nIs memory a thing born in us that it can give birth to the Ego? Knowledge,\nfeeling, volition, are colleagues of the mind, not faculties of it. Memory\nis an artificial thing, an adjunct of relativeness; it can be sharpened or\nleft dull, and it depends on the condition of the brain\u2010cells which store\nall impressions; knowledge, feeling, volition, cannot be correlated, do\nwhat you will. They are not produced from each other, nor produced from\nmind, but are principles, colleagues. You cannot have knowledge without\nmemory, for memory stores all things, garnishing and furnishing. If you\nteach a child nothing, it will know nothing. Brain\u2010consciousness depends\non the intensity of the light shed by the Higher Manas on the Lower, and\nthe extent of affinity between the brain and this light. Brain\u2010mind is\nconditioned by the responsiveness of the brain to this light; it is the\nfield of consciousness of the Manas. The animal has the Monad and the\nManas latent, but its brain cannot respond. All potentialities are there,\nbut are dormant. There are certain accepted errors in the West which\nvitiate all their theories.\n\nHow many impressions can a man receive simultaneously into his\nconsciousness and record? The Westerns say one: Occultists say normally\nseven, and abnormally fourteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty\u2010one, up to\nforty\u2010nine, impressions can be simultaneously received. Occultism teaches\nthat the consciousness always receives a sevenfold impression and stores\nit in the memory. You can prove it by striking at once the seven notes of\nthe musical scale: the seven sounds reach the consciousness\nsimultaneously, but the untrained ear can only recognize them one after\nanother, and if you choose you can measure the intervals. The trained ear\nwill hear the seven notes at once, simultaneously. And experiment has\nshown that in two or three weeks a man may be trained to receive seventeen\nor eighteen impressions of colour, the intervals decreasing with practice.\n\nMemory is acquired for this life, and can be expanded. Genius is the\ngreatest responsiveness of the brain and brain\u2010memory to the Higher Manas.\nImpressions on any sense are stored in the memory.\n\nBefore a physical sense is developed there is a mental feeling which\nproceeds to become a physical sense. Fishes who are blind, living in the\ndeep sea, or subterranean waters, if they are put into a pond will in a\nfew generations develop eyes. But in their previous state there is a sense\nof seeing, though no physical sight; how else should they in the darkness\nfind their way, avoid dangers, etc.? The mind will take in and store all\nkinds of things mechanically and unconsciously, and will throw them into\nthe memory as unconscious perceptions. If the attention is greatly\nengrossed in any way, the sense perception of any injury is not felt at\nthe time, but later the suffering enters into consciousness. So, returning\nto our example of the seven notes struck simultaneously, we have one\nimpression, but the ear is affected in succession by the notes one after\nanother, so that they are stored in the brain\u2010mind in order, for the\nuntrained consciousness cannot register them simultaneously. All depends\non training and on attention. Thus the transference of a sensation passing\nfrom any organ to the consciousness is almost simultaneous if your\nattention is fixed on it, but if any noise distracts your attention, then\nit will take a fraction more of a second before it reaches your\nconsciousness. The Occultist should train himself to receive and transmit\nalong the line of the seven scales of his consciousness every impression,\nor impressions, simultaneously. He who reduces the intervals of physical\ntime the most has made the most progress.\n\n\n\nConsciousness, Its Seven Scales.\n\n\nThere are seven scales or shades of consciousness, of the Unit; _e.g._, in\na moment of pleasure or pain; four lower and three higher.\n\n1. Physical sense\u2010perception: Perception of the cell (if paralyzed, the\nsense is there, though _you_ do not feel it).\n\n2. Self\u2010perception or apperception: _I.e._, self\u2010perception of cell.\n\n3. Psychic apperception: Of astral double, d\u00f6ppelganger, carrying it\nhigher to the:\n\n4. Vital perception: Physical feeling, sensations of pleasure and pain, of\nquality.\n\nThese are the four lower scales, and belong to the psycho\u2010physiological\nman.\n\n5. M\u00e2nasic discernment of the M\u00e2nasic self\u2010perception. Lower Manas:\n\n6. Will perception: Volitional perception, the voluntary taking in of an\nidea; you can regard or disregard physical pain.\n\n7. Spiritual, entirely conscious apperception:   Because it reaches the\nHigher, self\u2010conscious Manas.\n\n[Apperception means self\u2010perception, conscious action, not as with\nLeibnitz, but when attention is fixed on the perception.]\n\nYou can take these on any planes: _e.g._, bad news passes through the four\nlower stages before coming to the heart.\n\nOr take Sound:\n\n\n    1. It strikes the ear.\n\n    2. Self\u2010perception of the ear.\n\n    3. On the psychic or mental, which carries it to\n\n    4. Vital (harsh, soft; strong, weak; etc.).\n\n\n\nThe Ego.\n\n\nOne of the best proofs that there is an Ego, a true Field of\nConsciousness, is the fact already mentioned, that a state of\nconsciousness is never exactly reproduced, though you should live a\nhundred years, and pass through milliards and milliards. In an active day,\nhow many states and substates there are; it would be impossible to have\ncells enough for all. This will help you to understand why some mental\nstates and abstract things follow the Ego into Devachan, and why others\nmerely scatter in space. That which touches the Entity has an affinity for\nit, as a noble action, is immortal and goes with it into Devachan, forming\npart and parcel of the biography of the personality which is\ndisintegrating. A lofty emotion runs through the seven stages, and touches\nthe Ego, the mind that plays its tunes in the mind\u2010cells. We can analyze\nthe work of consciousness and describe it; but we cannot define\nconsciousness unless we postulate a Subject.\n\n\n\nBh\u00fbrloka.\n\n\nThe Bh\u00fbrloka begins with the Lower Manas. Animals do not feel as do men.\nThe dog thinks more of his master being angry than of the actual pain of\nthe lash. The animal does not suffer in memory and in imagination, feeling\npast and future as well as actual present pain.\n\n\n\nPineal Gland.\n\n\nThe special physical organ of perception is the brain, and perception is\nlocated in the aura of the pineal gland. This aura answers in vibrations\nto any impressions, but it can only be sensed, not perceived, in the\nliving man. During the process of thought manifesting in consciousness, a\nconstant vibration occurs in the light of this aura, and a clairvoyant\nlooking at the brain of a living man may almost count, see with the\nspiritual eye, the seven scales, the seven shades of light, passing from\nthe dullest to the brightest. You touch your hand; before you touch it the\nvibration is already in the aura of the pineal gland, and has its own\nshade of colour. It is this aura which causes the wear and tear of the\norgan, by the vibrations it sets up. The brain, set vibrating, conveys the\nvibrations to the spinal cord, and so to the rest of the body. Happiness\nas well as sorrow sets up these strong vibrations, and so wears out the\nbody. Powerful vibrations of joy or sorrow may thus kill.\n\n\n\nThe Heart.\n\n\nThe septenary disturbance and play of light around the pineal gland are\nreflected in the heart, or rather the aura of the heart, which vibrates\nand illumines the seven brains of the heart, just as does the aura round\nthe pineal gland. This is the exoterically four\u2010 but Esoterically seven\u2010\nleaved lotus, the Saptaparna, the cave of Buddha, with its seven\ncompartments.\n\n\n\nAstral And Ego.\n\n\nThere is a difference between the nature and the essence of the Astral\nBody and the Ego. The Astral Body is molecular, however etherealized it\nmay be: the Ego is atomic, spiritual. The Atoms are spiritual, and are for\never invisible on this plane; molecules form around them, they remaining\nas the higher invisible principles of the molecules. The eyes are the most\nOccult of our senses: close them and you pass to the mental plane. Stop\nall the senses and you are entirely on another plane.\n\n\n\nIndividuality.\n\n\nIf twelve people are smoking together, the smoke of their cigarettes may\nmingle, but the molecules of the smoke from each have an affinity with\neach other, and they remain distinct for ever and ever, no matter how the\nwhole mass may interblend. So a drop of water, though it fall into the\nocean retains its individuality. It has become a drop with a life of its\nown, like a man, and cannot be annihilated. Any group of people would\nappear as a group in the Astral Light, but would not be permanent; but a\ngroup meeting to study Occultism would cohere, and the impression would be\nmore permanent. The higher and the more spiritual the affinity, the more\npermanent the cohesion.\n\n\n\nLower Manas.\n\n\nThe Lower Manas is an emanation from the Higher Manas, and is of the same\nnature as the Higher. This nature can make no impression on this plane,\nnor receive any: an Archangel, having no experience, would be senseless on\nthis plane, and could neither give nor receive impressions. So the Lower\nManas clothes itself with the essence of the Astral Light; this astral\nenvelope shuts it out from its Parent, except through the Antahkarana\nwhich is its only salvation. Break this and you become an animal.\n\n\n\nK\u00e2ma.\n\n\nK\u00e2ma is life, it is the essence of the blood. When this leaves the blood\nthe latter congeals. Pr\u00e2na is universal on this plane; it is in us the\nvital principle, Pr\u00e2nic, rather than Pr\u00e2na.\n\n\n\nSelf\u2010Hood.\n\n\nQualities determine the properties of \u201cSelf\u2010hood.\u201d As, for instance, two\nwolves placed in the same environment would probably not act differently.\n\nThe field of the consciousness of the Higher Ego is never reflected in the\nAstral Light. The Auric Envelope receives the impressions of both the\nHigher and the Lower Manas, and it is the latter impressions that are also\nreflected in the Astral Light. Whereas the essence of all things\nspiritual, all that which reaches, or is not rejected by, the Higher Ego\nis not reflected in the Astral Light, because it is on too low a plane.\nBut during the life of a man, this essence, with a view to Karmic ends, is\nimpressed on the Auric Envelope, and after death and the separation of the\nPrinciples is united with the Universal Mind (that is to say, those\n\u201cimpressions\u201d which are superior to even the Devachanic Plane), to await\nthere Karmically until the day when the Ego is to be reincarnated. [There\nare thus three sets of impressions, which we may call the K\u00e2mic,\nDevachanic and M\u00e2nasic.] For the entities, no matter how high, must have\ntheir Karmic rewards and punishments on earth. These spiritual impressions\nare made more or less on the brain, otherwise the Lower Ego would not be\nresponsible. There are some impressions, however, received through the\nbrain, which are not of our previous experience. In the case of the Adept\nthe brain is trained to retain these impressions.\n\nThe Reincarnating Ray may, for convenience, be separated into two aspects:\nthe lower K\u00e2mic Ego is scattered in K\u00e2ma Loka; the M\u00e2nasic part\naccomplishes its cycle and returns to the Higher Ego. It is, in reality,\nthis Higher Ego which is, so to speak, punished, which suffers. This is\nthe true crucifixion of the Christos\u2014the most abstruse but yet the most\nimportant mystery of Occultism; all the cycle of our lives hangs on it. It\nis indeed the Higher Ego that is the sufferer; for remember that the\nabstract consciousness of the higher personal consciousness will remain\nimpressed on the Ego, since it must be part and parcel of its eternity.\nAll our grandest impressions are impressed on the Higher Ego, because they\nare of the same nature as itself.\n\nPatriotism and great actions in national service are not altogether good,\nfrom the point of view of the highest. To benefit a portion of humanity is\ngood; but to do so at the expense of the rest is bad. Therefore, in\npatriotism, etc., the venom is present with the good. For though the inner\nessence of the Higher Ego is unsoilable, the outer garment may be soiled.\nThus both the bad and the good of such thoughts and actions are impressed\non the Auric Envelope and the Karma of the bad is taken up by the Higher\nEgo, though it is perfectly guiltless of it. Thus both sets of\nimpressions, after death, scatter in the Universal Mind, and at\nreincarnation the Ego sends out a Ray which is itself, into a new\npersonality, and there suffers. It suffers in the Self\u2010consciousness that\nit has created by its own accumulated experiences.\n\nEvery one of our Egos has the Karma of past Manvantaras behind. There are\nseven Hierarchies of Egos, some of which, _e.g._, in inferior tribes, may\nbe said to be only just beginning the present cycle. The Ego starts with\nDivine Consciousness; no past, no future, no separation. It is long before\nrealizing that it is itself. Only after many births does it begin to\ndiscern, by this collectivity of experience, that it is individual. At the\nend of its cycle of reincarnation it is still the same Divine\nConsciousness, but it has now become individualized Self\u2010consciousness.\n\nThe feeling of responsibility is inspired by the presence of the Light of\nthe Higher Ego. As the Ego in its cycle of re\u2010birth becomes more and more\nindividualized, it learns more and more by suffering to recognize its own\nresponsibility, by which it finally gains Self\u2010consciousness, the\nconsciousness of all the Egos of the whole Universe. Absolute Being, to\nhave the idea or sensation of all this, must pass through all experience\nindividually, not universally, so that when it returns it should be of the\nsame omniscience as the Universal Mind _plus_ the memory of all that it\nhas passed through.\n\nAt the Day \u201cBe with us\u201d every Ego has to remember all the cycles of its\npast reincarnations for Manvantaras. The Ego comes in contact with this\nearth, all seven Principles become one, it sees all that it has done\ntherein. It sees the stream of its past reincarnations by a certain divine\nlight. It sees all humanity at once, but still there is ever, as it were,\na stream which is always the \u201cI.\u201d\n\nWe should therefore always endeavour to accentuate our responsibility.\n\nThe Higher Ego is, as it were, a globe of pure divine light, a Unit from a\nhigher plane, on which is no differentiation. Descending to a plane of\ndifferentiation it emanates a Ray, which it can only manifest through the\npersonality which is already differentiated. A portion of this Ray, the\nLower Manas, during life, may so crystallize itself and become one with\nK\u00e2ma that it will remain assimilated with Matter. That portion which\nretains its purity forms Antahkarana. The whole fate of an incarnation\ndepends on whether Antahkarana will be able to restrain the K\u00e2ma\u2010Manas or\nnot. After death the higher light (Antahkarana) which bears the\nimpressions and memory of all good and noble aspirations, assimilates\nitself with the Higher Ego, the bad is dissociated in space, and comes\nback as bad Karma awaiting the personality.\n\nThe feeling of responsibility is the beginning of Wisdom, a proof that\nAhank\u00e2ra is beginning to fade out, the beginning of losing the sense of\nseparateness.\n\n\n\nK\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa.\n\n\nThe K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa eventually breaks up and goes into animals. All red\u2010blooded\nanimals come from man. The cold\u2010blooded are from the matter of the past.\nThe blood is the K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa.\n\nThe white corpuscles are the scavengers, \u201cdevourers\u201d; they are oozed out\nof the Astral through the spleen, and are of the same essence as the\nAstral. They are the sweat\u2010born of the Chh\u00e2y\u00e2. K\u00e2ma is everywhere in the\nbody. The red cells are drops of electrical fluid, the perspiration of all\nthe organs oozed out from every cell. They are the progeny of the Fohatic\nPrinciple.\n\n\n\nHeart.\n\n\nThere are seven brains in the heart, the Up\u00e2dhis and symbols of the seven\nHierarchies.\n\n\n\nThe Fires.\n\n\nThe fires are always playing round the pineal gland, but when Kundalin\u00ee\nilluminates them for a brief instant the whole universe is seen. Even in\ndeep sleep the Third Eye opens. This is good for Manas, who profits by it,\nthough we ourselves do not remember.\n\n\n\nPerception.\n\n\nIn answer to a question on the seven stages of perception, H. P. B. said\nthat thought should be centred on the highest, the seventh, and then an\nattempt to transcend this will prove that it is impossible to go beyond it\non this plane. There is nothing in the brain to carry the thinker on, and\nif thought is to rise yet further it must be thought without a brain. Let\nthe eyes be closed, the will set not to let the brain work, and then the\npoint may be transcended and the student will pass to the next plane. All\nthe seven stages of perception come before Antahkarana; if you can pass\nbeyond them you are on the M\u00e2nasic Plane.\n\nTry to imagine something which transcends your power of thought, say, the\nnature of the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans. Then make the brain passive, and pass beyond;\nyou will see a white radiant light, like silver, but opalescent as mother\nof pearl; then waves of colour will pass over it, beginning in the\ntenderest violet, and through bronze shades of green to indigo with\nmetallic lustre, and that colour will remain. If you see this you are on\nanother plane. You should pass through seven stages.\n\nWhen a colour comes, glance at it, and if it is not good reject it. Let\nyour attention be arrested only on the green, indigo and yellow. These are\ngood colours. The eyes being connected with the brain, the colour you see\nmost easily will be the colour of the personality. If you see red, it is\nmerely physiological, and is to be disregarded. Green\u2010bronze is the Lower\nManas, yellow\u2010bronze the Antahkarana, indigo\u2010bronze is Manas. These are to\nbe observed, and when the yellow\u2010bronze merges into the indigo you are on\nthe M\u00e2nasic Plane.\n\nOn the M\u00e2nasic Plane you see the Noumena, the essence of phenomena. You do\nnot see people or other consciousnesses, but have enough to do to keep\nyour own. The trained Seer can see Noumena always. The Adept sees the\nNoumena on this plane, the reality of things, so cannot be deceived.\n\nIn meditation the beginner may waver backwards and forwards between two\nplanes. You hear the ticking of a clock on this plane, then on the\nastral\u2014the soul of the ticking. When clocks are stopped here the ticking\ngoes on on higher planes, in the astral, and then in the ether, until the\nlast bit of the clock is gone. It is the same as with a dead body, which\nsends out emanations until the last molecule is disintegrated.\n\nThere is no time in meditation, because there is no succession of states\nof consciousness on this plane.\n\nViolet is the colour of the Astral. You begin with it, but should not stay\nin it; try to pass on. When you see a sheet of violet, you are beginning\nunconsciously to form a M\u00e2y\u00e2vi R\u00fbpa. Fix your attention, and if you go\naway keep your consciousness firmly to the M\u00e2y\u00e2vic Body; do not lose sight\nof it, hold on like grim death.\n\n\n\nConsciousness.\n\n\nThe consciousness which is merely the animal consciousness is made up of\nthe consciousness of all the cells in the body except those of the heart.\nThe heart is the king, the most important organ in the body of man. Even\nif the head be severed from the body, the heart will continue to beat for\nthirty minutes. It will beat for some hours if wrapped in cotton wool and\nput in a warm place. The spot in the heart which is the last of all to die\nis the seat of life, the centre of all, Brahm\u00e2, the first spot that lives\nin the f\u0153tus and the last that dies. When a Yog\u00ee is buried in a trance it\nis this spot that lives, though the rest of the body be dead, and as long\nas this is alive the Yog\u00ee can be resurrected. This spot contains\npotentially mind, life, energy, and will. During life it radiates\nprismatic colours, fiery and opalescent. The heart is the centre of\nspiritual consciousness, as the brain is the centre of intellectual. But\nthis consciousness cannot be guided by a person, nor its energy directed\nby him until he is at one with Buddhi\u2010Manas; until then it guides him\u2014if\nit can. Hence the pangs of remorse, the prickings of conscience; they come\nfrom the heart, not the head. In the heart is the only manifested God, the\nother two are invisible, and it is this which represents the Triad,\n\u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi\u2010Manas.\n\nIn reply to a question whether the consciousness might not be concentrated\nin the heart, and so the promptings of the Spirit caught, H. P. B. said\nthat any one who could thus concentrate would be at one with Manas, would\nhave united K\u00e2ma\u2010Manas to the Higher Manas. The Higher Manas could not\ndirectly guide man, it could only act through the Lower Manas.\n\nThere are three principal centres in man, Heart, Head, and Navel: any two\nof which may be + or \u2010 to each other, according to the relative\npredominance of the centres.\n\nThe heart represents the Higher Triad; the liver and spleen represent the\nQuaternary. The solar plexus is the brain of the stomach.\n\nH. P. B. was asked if the three centres above\u2010named would represent the\nChristos, crucified between two thieves; she said it might serve as an\nanalogy, but these figures must not be over\u2010driven. It must never be\nforgotten that the Lower Manas is the same in its essence as the Higher,\nand may become one with it by rejecting K\u00e2mic impulses. The crucifixion of\nthe Christos represents the self\u2010sacrifice of the Higher Manas, the Father\nthat sends his only begotten Son into the world to take upon him our sins:\nthe Christ\u2010myth came from the Mysteries. So also did the life of\nApollonius of Tyana; this was suppressed by the Fathers of the Church\nbecause of its striking similarity to the life of Christ.\n\nThe psycho\u2010intellectual man is all in the head with its seven gateways;\nthe spiritual man is in the heart. The convolutions are formed by thought.\n\nThe third ventricle in life is filled with light, and not with a liquid as\nafter death.\n\nThere are seven cavities in the brain which are quite empty during life,\nand it is in these that visions must be reflected if they are to remain in\nthe memory. These centres are, in Occultism, called the seven harmonies,\nthe scale of the divine harmonies. They are filled with \u00c2k\u00e2sha, each with\nits own colour, according to the state of consciousness in which you are.\nThe sixth is the pineal gland, which is hollow and empty during life; the\nseventh is the whole; the fifth is the third ventricle; the fourth the\npituitary body. When Manas is united to \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi, or when \u00c2tm\u00e2\u2010Buddhi\nis centred in Manas, it acts in the three higher cavities, radiating,\nsending forth a halo of light, and this is visible in the case of a very\nholy person.\n\nThe cerebellum is the centre, the storehouse, of all the forces; it is the\nK\u00e2ma of the head. The pineal gland corresponds to the uterus; its\npeduncles to the Fallopian tubes. The pituitary body is only its servant,\nits torch\u2010bearer, like the servants bearing lights that used to run before\nthe carriage of a princess. Man is thus androgyne so far as his head is\nconcerned.\n\nMan contains in himself every element that is found in the Universe. There\nis nothing in the Macrocosm that is not in the Microcosm. The pineal\ngland, as was said, is quite empty during life; the pituitary contains\nvarious essences. The granules in the pineal gland are precipitated after\ndeath within the cavity.\n\nThe cerebellum furnishes the materials for ideation; the frontal lobes of\nthe cerebrum are the finishers and polishers of the materials, but they\ncannot create of themselves.\n\nClairvoyant perception is the consciousness of touch: thus reading\nletters, psychometrizing substances, etc., may be done at the pit of the\nstomach. Every sense has its consciousness, and you can have consciousness\nthrough every sense. There may be consciousness on the plane of sight,\nthough the brain be paralyzed; the eyes of a paralyzed person will show\nterror. So with the sense of hearing. Those who are physically blind, deaf\nor dumb, are still possessed of the psychic counterparts of these senses.\n\n\n\nWill And Desire.\n\n\nEros in man is the will of the genius to create great pictures, great\nmusic, things that will live and serve the race. It has nothing in common\nwith the animal desire to create. Will is of the Higher Manas. It is the\nuniversal harmonious tendency acting by the Higher Manas. Desire is the\noutcome of separateness, aiming at the satisfaction of Self in Matter. The\npath opened between the Higher Ego and the Lower enables the Ego to act on\nthe personal self.\n\n\n\nConversion.\n\n\nIt is not true that a man powerful in evil can suddenly be converted and\nbecome as powerful for good. His vehicle is too defiled, and he can at\nbest but neutralize the evil, balancing up the bad Karmic causes he has\nset in motion, at any rate for this incarnation. You cannot take a herring\nbarrel and use it for attar of roses: the wood is too soaked through with\nthe drippings. When evil impulses and tendencies have become impressed on\nthe physical nature, they cannot at once be reversed. The molecules of the\nbody have been set in a K\u00e2mic direction, and though they have sufficient\nintelligence to discern between things on their own plane, _i.e._, to\navoid things harmful to themselves, they cannot understand a change of\ndirection, the impulse to which is from another plane. If they are forced\ntoo violently, disease, madness or death will result.\n\n\n\nOrigines.\n\n\nAbsolute eternal motion, Parabrahman, which is nothing and everything,\nmotion inconceivably rapid, in this motion throws off a film, which is\nEnergy, Eros. It thus transforms itself to M\u00fblaprakriti, primordial\nSubstance which is still Energy. This Energy, still transforming itself in\nits ceaseless and inconceivable motion, becomes the Atom, or rather the\ngerm of the Atom, and then it is on the Third Plane.\n\nOur Manas is a Ray from the World\u2010Soul and is withdrawn at Pralaya; \u201cit is\nperhaps the Lower Manas of Parabrahman,\u201d that is, of the Parabrahman of\nthe manifested Universe. The first film is Energy, or motion on the\nmanifested plane; Alaya is the Third Logos, Mah\u00e2\u2010Buddhi, Mahat. We always\nbegin on the Third Plane; beyond that all is inconceivable. \u00c2tm\u00e2 is\nfocussed in Buddhi, but is embodied only in Manas, these being the Spirit,\nSoul and Body of the Universe.\n\n\n\nDreams.\n\n\nWe may have evil experiences in dreams as well as good. We should,\ntherefore, train ourselves so as to awaken directly we tend to do wrong.\n\nThe Lower Manas is asleep in sense\u2010dreams, the animal consciousness being\nthen guided towards the Astral Light by K\u00e2ma; the tendency of such sense\u2010\ndreams is always towards the animal.\n\nIf we could remember our dreams in deep sleep, then we should be able to\nremember all our past incarnations.\n\n\n\nNid\u00e2nas.\n\n\nThere are twelve Nid\u00e2nas, exoteric and Esoteric, the fundamental doctrine\nof Buddhism.\n\nSo also there are twelve exoteric Buddhist S\u00fbttas called Nid\u00e2nas, each\ngiving one Nid\u00e2na.\n\nThe Nid\u00e2nas have a dual meaning. They are:\n\n(1) The twelve causes of sentient existence, through the twelve links of\nsubjective with objective Nature, or between the subjective and objective\nNatures.\n\n(2) A concatenation of causes and effects.\n\nEvery cause produces an effect, and this effect becomes in its turn a\ncause. Each of these has as Up\u00e2dhi (basis), one of the sub\u2010divisions of\none of the Nid\u00e2nas, and also an effect or consequence.\n\nBoth bases and effects belong to one or another Nid\u00e2na, each having from\nthree to seventeen, eighteen and twenty\u2010one sub\u2010divisions.\n\nThe names of the twelve Nid\u00e2nas are:\n\n(1) Jar\u00e2marana.\n(2) J\u00e2ti.\n(3) Bhava.\n(4) Up\u00e2d\u00e2na.\n(5) Trishn\u00e2.\n(6) Vedan\u00e2.\n(7) Sparsha.\n(8) Chaday\u00e2tana.\n(9) N\u00e2mar\u00fbpa.\n(10) Vign\u00e2na.\n(11) Samsk\u00e2ra.\n(12) Avidy\u00e2.(859)\n\n(1) JAR\u00c2MARANA, lit. death in consequence of decrepitude. Notice that\ndeath and not life comes as the first of the Nid\u00e2nas. This is the first\nfundamental in Buddhist Philosophy; every Atom, at every moment, as soon\nas it is born begins dying.\n\nThe five Skandhas are founded on it; they are its effects or product.\nMoreover, in its turn, it is based on the five Skandhas. They are mutual\nthings, one gives to the other.\n\n(2) J\u00c2TI, lit. Birth.\n\nThat is to say, Birth according to one of the four modes of Chaturyoni\n(the four wombs), _viz._:\n\n(i) Through the womb, like Mammalia.\n\n(ii) Through Eggs.\n\n(iii) Ethereal or liquid Germs\u2014fish spawn, pollen, insects, etc.\n\n(iv) Anup\u00e2daka\u2014Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2yas, Gods, etc.\n\nThat is to say that birth takes place by one of these modes. You must be\nborn in one of the six objective modes of existence, or in the seventh\nwhich is subjective. These four are within six modes of existence, _viz._:\n\n_Exoterically_:\u2014\n\n(i) Devas; (ii) Men; (iii) Asuras; (iv) Men in Hell; (v) Pretas, devouring\ndemons on earth; (vi) animals.\n\n_Esoterically_:\u2014\n\n(i) Higher Gods; (ii) Devas or Pitris (all classes); (iii) Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2yas;\n(iv) Bodhisattvas; (v) Men in Myalba; (vi) K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpic existences, whether\nof men or animals, in K\u00e2ma Loka or the Astral Light; (vii) Elementals\n(Subjective Existences).\n\n(3) BHAVA = Karmic existence, not life existence, but as a moral agent\nwhich determines _where_ you will be born, _i.e._, in which of the\nTriloka, Bh\u00fbr, Bhuvar or Svar (seven Lokas in reality).\n\nThe cause or Nid\u00e2na of Bhava is Up\u00e2d\u00e2na, that is, the clinging to\nexistence, that which makes us desire life in whatever form.\n\nIts effect is J\u00e2ti in one or another of the Triloka and under whatever\nconditions.\n\nNid\u00e2nas are the detailed expression of the law of Karma under twelve\naspects; or we might say the law of Karma under twelve Nid\u00e2nic aspects.\n\n\n\nSkandhas.\n\n\nSkandhas are the germs of life on all the seven planes of Being, and make\nup the totality of the subjective and objective man. Every vibration we\nhave made is a Skandha. The Skandhas are closely united to the pictures in\nthe Astral Light, which is the medium of impressions, and the Skandhas, or\nvibrations, connected with subjective or objective man, are the links\nwhich attract the Reincarnating Ego, the germs left behind when it went\ninto Devachan which have to be picked up again and exhausted by a new\npersonality. The exoteric Skandhas have to do with the physical atoms and\nvibrations, or objective man; the Esoteric with the internal and\nsubjective man.\n\nA mental change, or a glimpse of spiritual truth, may make a man suddenly\nchange to the truth even at his death, thus creating good Skandhas for the\nnext life. The last acts or thoughts of a man have an enormous effect upon\nhis future life, but he would still have to suffer for his misdeeds, and\nthis is the basis of the idea of a death\u2010bed repentance. But the Karmic\neffects of the past life must follow, for the man in his next birth must\npick up the Skandhas or vibratory impressions that he left in the Astral\nLight, since nothing comes from nothing in Occultism, and there must be a\nlink between the lives. New Skandhas are born from their old parents.\n\nIt is wrong to speak of Tanh\u00e2s in the plural; there is only one Tanh\u00e2,\n_the desire to live_. This develops into a multitude or one might say a\ncongeries of ideas. The Skandhas are Karmic and non\u2010Karmic. Skandhas may\nproduce Elementals by unconscious Kriy\u00e2shakti. Every Elemental that is\nthrown out by man must return to him sooner or later, since it is his own\nvibration. They thus become his Frankenstein. Elementals are simply\neffects producing effects. They are disembodied thoughts, good and bad.\nThey remain crystallized in the Astral Light and are attracted by affinity\nand galvanized back into life again, when their originator returns to\nearth\u2010life. You can paralyze them by reverse effects. Elementals are\ncaught like a disease and hence are dangerous to ourselves and to others.\nThis is why it is dangerous to influence others. The Elementals which live\nafter your death are those which you implant in others: the rest remain\nlatent till you are reincarnated, when they come to life in you. \u201cThus,\u201d\nH. P. B. said, \u201cif you are badly taught by me or incited thereby to do\nsomething wrong, you would go on after my death and sin through me, but I\nshould have to bear the Karma. Calvin, for instance, will have to suffer\nfor all the wrong teaching he has given, though he gave it with good\nintentions. The worst * * * * does is to arrest the progress of truth.\nEven Buddha made mistakes. He applied his teaching to people who were not\nready; and this has produced Nid\u00e2nas.\u201d\n\n\n\nSubtle Bodies.\n\n\nWhen a man visits another in his Astral Body, it is the Linga Shar\u00eera\nwhich goes, but this cannot happen at any great distance. When a man\n_thinks_ of another at a distance very intently, he sometimes appears to\nthat person.\n\nIn this case it is the M\u00e2y\u00e2vi R\u00fbpa, which is created by unconscious\nKriy\u00e2shakti, and the man himself is not conscious of appearing. If he\nwere, and projected his M\u00e2y\u00e2vi R\u00fbpa consciously, he would be an\nAdept.(860) No two persons can be simultaneously conscious of one\nanother\u2019s presence, unless one be an Adept. Dugpas use the M\u00e2y\u00e2vi R\u00fbpa and\nsorcerers also. Dugpas work on the Linga Shar\u00eera of other people.\n\nThe Linga Shar\u00eera in the spleen is the perfect picture of the man, and is\ngood or bad, according to his own nature. The Astral Body is the\nsubjective image of the man which is to be, the first germ in the matrix,\nthe model of the physical body in which the child is formed and developed.\nThe Linga Shar\u00eera may be hurt by a sharp instrument, and would not face a\nsword or bayonet, although it would easily pass through a table or other\npiece of furniture.\n\nNothing however can hurt the M\u00e2y\u00e2vi R\u00fbpa or thought\u2010body, since it is\npurely subjective. When swords are struck at shades, it is the sword\nitself, not its Linga Shar\u00eera or Astral that cuts. Sharp instruments alone\ncan penetrate Astrals, _e.g._, under water, a blow will not affect you,\nbut a cut will.\n\nThe projection of the Astral Body should not be attempted, but the power\nof Kriy\u00e2shakti should be exercised in the projection of the M\u00e2y\u00e2vi R\u00fbpa.\n\n\n\nFire.\n\n\nFire is not an Element but a divine thing. The physical flame is the\nobjective vehicle of the highest Spirit. The Fire Elementals are the\nhighest. Everything in this world has its Aura and its Spirit. The flame\nyou apply to the candle has nothing to do with the candle itself. The Aura\nof the object comes into conjunction with the lowest part of the other.\nGranite cannot burn because its Aura is Fire. Fire Elementals have no\nconsciousness on this plane, they are too high, reflecting the divinity of\ntheir own source. Other Elementals have consciousness on this plane as\nthey reflect man and his nature. There is a very great difference between\nthe mineral and vegetable kingdoms. The wick of the lamp, for instance, is\nnegative. It is made positive by fire, the oil being the medium. \u00c6ther is\nFire. The lowest part of \u00c6ther is the flame which you see. Fire is\nDivinity in its subjective presence throughout the universe. Under other\nconditions, this Universal Fire manifests as water, air and earth. It is\nthe one Element in our visible Universe which is the Kriy\u00e2shakti of all\nforms of life. It is that which gives light, heat, death, life, etc. It is\neven the blood. In all its various manifestations it is essentially _one_.\n\nIt is the \u201cseven Cosmocratores.\u201d\n\nEvidence of the esteem in which Fire was held are to be found in the _Old\nTestament_. The Pillar of Fire, the Burning Bush, the Shining Face of\nMoses\u2014all Fire. Fire is like a looking\u2010glass in its nature, and reflects\nthe beams of the first order of subjective manifestations which are\nsupposed to be thrown on to the screen of the first outlines of the\ncreated universe; in their lower aspect these are the creations of Fire.\n\nFire in the grossest aspect of its essence is the first form and reflects\nthe lower forms of the first subjective beings which are in the universe.\nThe first divine chaotic thoughts are the Fire Elementals. When on earth\nthey take form and come flitting in the flame in the form of the\nSalamanders or lower Fire Elementals. In the air you have millions of\nliving and conscious beings, besides our thoughts which they catch up. The\nFire Elementals are related to the sense of sight and absorb the\nElementals of all the other senses. Thus through sight you can have the\nconsciousness of feeling, hearing, tasting, etc., since all are included\nin the sense of sight.\n\n\n\nHints On The Future.\n\n\nAs time passes on there will be more and more ether in the air. When ether\nfills the air, then will be born children without fathers. In Virginia\nthere is an apple tree of a special kind. It does not blossom but bears\nfruit from a kind of berry without any seeds. This will gradually extend\nto animals and then to men. Women will bear children without impregnation,\nand in the Seventh Round there will appear men who can reproduce\nthemselves. In the Seventh Race of the Fourth Round, men will change their\nskins every year and will have new toe and finger nails. People will\nbecome more psychic, then spiritual. Last of all in the Seventh Round,\nBuddhas will be born without sin. The Fourth Round is the longest in the\nKali Yuga, then the Fifth, then the Sixth, and the Seventh Round will be\nvery short.\n\n\n\nThe Egos.\n\n\nOn the separation of the Principles at death the Higher Ego may be said to\ngo to Devachan by reason of the experiences of the Lower. The Higher Ego\nin its own plane is the Kum\u00e2ra.\n\nThe Lower Quaternary dissolves; the body rots, the Linga Shar\u00eera fades\nout.\n\nAt reincarnation the Higher Ego shoots out a Ray, the Lower Ego. Its\nenergies are upward and downward. The upward tendencies become its\nDevachanic experiences; the lower are K\u00e2mic. The Higher Manas stands to\nBuddhi as the Lower Manas to the Higher.\n\nAs to the question of responsibility, it may be understood by an example.\nIf you take the form of Jack the Ripper, you must suffer for its misdeeds,\nfor the law will punish the murderer and hold him responsible. You are the\nsacrificial victim. In the same way the Higher Ego is the Christos, the\nsacrificial victim for the Lower Manas. The Ego takes the responsibility\nof every body it informs.\n\nYou borrow some money to lend it to another; the other runs away, but it\nis you who are responsible. The mission of the Higher Ego is to shoot out\na Ray to be a Soul in a child.\n\nThus the Ego incarnates in a thousand bodies, taking upon itself the sins\nand responsibilities of each body. At every incarnation a new Ray is\nemitted, and yet it is the same Ray in essence, the same in you and me and\nevery one. The dross of the incarnation disintegrates, the good goes to\nDevachan.\n\nThe Flame is eternal. From the Flame of the Higher Ego, the Lower is\nlighted, and from this a lower vehicle, and so on.\n\nAnd yet the Lower Manas is such as it makes itself. It is possible for it\nto act differently in like conditions, for it has reason and self\u2010\nconscious knowledge of right and wrong, and good and evil, given to it. It\nis in fact endowed with all the attributes of the Divine Soul. In this the\nRay is the Higher Manas, the speck of responsibility on earth.\n\nThe part of the essence is the essence, but while it is out of itself, so\nto say, it can get soiled and polluted. The Ray can be manifested on this\nearth because it can send forth its M\u00e2y\u00e2vi R\u00fbpa. But the Higher cannot, so\nit has to send forth a Ray. We may look upon the Higher Ego as the Sun,\nand the personal Manases as its Rays. If we take away the surrounding air\nand light the Ray may be said to return to the Sun, so with the Lower\nManas and Lower Quaternary.\n\nThe Higher Ego can only manifest through its attributes.\n\nIn cases of sudden death, the Lower Manas no more disappears than does the\nK\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa after death. After the severance the Ray may be said to snap or\nbe dropped. After death such a man cannot go to Devachan, nor yet remain\nin K\u00e2ma Loka; his fate is to reincarnate immediately. Such an entity is\nthen an animal Soul _plus_ the intelligence of the severed Ray. The\nmanifestation of this intelligence in the next birth will depend entirely\non the physical formation of the brain and on education.\n\nSuch a Soul may be re\u2010united with its Higher Ego in the next birth, if the\nenvironment is such as to give it a chance of aspiration (this is the\n\u201cgrace\u201d of the Christians); or it may go on for two or three incarnations,\nthe Ray becoming weaker and weaker, and gradually dissipating, until it is\nborn a congenital idiot and then finally dissipated in lower forms.\n\nThere are enormous mysteries connected with the Lower Manas.\n\nWith regard to some intellectual giants, they are in somewhat the same\ncondition as smaller men, for their Higher Ego is paralyzed, that is to\nsay, their spiritual nature is atrophied.\n\nThe Manas can pass its essence to several vehicles, _e.g._, the M\u00e2y\u00e2vi\nR\u00fbpa, etc., and even to Elementals which it can ensoul, as the\nRosicrucians taught.\n\nThe M\u00e2y\u00e2vi R\u00fbpa may be sometimes so vitalized that it goes on to another\nplane and unites with the beings of that plane and so ensouls them.\n\nPeople who bestow great affection upon animal pets are ensouling them to a\ncertain extent, and such animal Souls progress very rapidly; in return\nsuch persons get back the animal vitality and magnetism. It is, however,\nagainst Nature to thus accentuate animal evolution, and on the whole is\nbad.\n\n\n\nMonadic Evolution.\n\n\nThe Kum\u00e2ras do not direct the evolution of the Lunar Pitris. To understand\nthe latter, we might take the analogy of the blood.\n\nThe blood may be compared to the universal Life Principle, the corpuscles\nto the Monads. The different kinds of corpuscles are the same as the\nvarious classes of Monads and various kingdoms, not, however, because of\ntheir essence being different, but because of the environment in which\nthey are. The Chh\u00e2y\u00e2 is the permanent seed, and Weissmann in his\nhereditary germ theory is very near truth.\n\nH. P. B. was asked whether there was one Ego to one permanent Chh\u00e2y\u00e2 seed,\noversouling it in a series of incarnations; her answer was: \u201cNo, it is\nHeaven and Earth kissing each other.\u201d\n\nThe animal Souls are in temporary forms and shells in which they gain\nexperience, and in which they prepare materials for higher evolution.\n\nUntil the age of seven the astral atavic germ forms and moulds the body;\nafter that the body forms the Astral.\n\nThe Astral and the Mind mutually react on each other.\n\nThe meaning of the passage in the _Upanishads_, where it says that the\nGods feed on men, is that the Higher Ego obtains its earth experience\nthrough the Lower.\n\n\n\nAstral Body.\n\n\nThe Astral can get out unconsciously to the person and wander about.\n\nThe Chh\u00e2y\u00e2 is the same as the Astral Body.\n\nThe germ or life essence of it is in the spleen.\n\n\u201cThe Chh\u00e2y\u00e2 is coiled up in the spleen.\u201d It is from this that the Astral\nis formed; it evolves in a shadowy curling or gyrating essence like smoke,\ngradually taking form as it grows. But it is not projected from the\nphysical, atom for atom. This latter intermolecular form is the K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa.\nAt death every cell and molecule gives out its essence, and from it is\nformed the Astral of the K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa; but this can never come out during\nlife.\n\nThe Chh\u00e2y\u00e2 in order to become visible draws upon the surrounding\natmosphere, attracting the atoms to itself; the Linga Shar\u00eera could not\nform _in vacuo_. The fact of the Astral Body accounts for the Arabian and\nEastern tales of Djins and bottle imps, etc.\n\nIn spiritualistic phenomena, the resemblance to deceased persons is mostly\ncaused by the imagination. The clothing of such phantoms is formed from\nthe living atoms of the medium, and is no real clothing, and has nothing\nto do with the clothing of the medium. \u201cAll the clothing of a\nmaterialization has been paid for.\u201d\n\nThe Astral supports life; it is the reservoir or sponge of life, gathering\nit up from all the natural kingdoms around, and is the intermediary\nbetween the kingdoms of Pr\u00e2nic and physical life.\n\nLife cannot come immediately from the subjective to the objective, for\nNature goes gradually through each sphere. Therefore the Linga Shar\u00eera is\nthe intermediary between Pr\u00e2na and our physical body, and pumps in the\nlife.\n\nThe spleen is consequently a very delicate organ, but the physical spleen\nis only a cover for the real spleen.\n\nNow Life is in reality Divinity, Parabrahman. But in order to manifest on\nthe Physical Plane it must be assimilated; and as the purely physical is\ntoo gross, it must have a medium, _viz._, the Astral. Astral matter is not\nhomogeneous, and the Astral Light is nothing but the shadow of the real\nDivine Light; it is however not molecular.\n\nThose (K\u00e2mar\u00fbpic) entities which are below the Devachanic Plane are in\nK\u00e2ma Loka and only possess intelligence like monkeys. There are no\nentities in the four lower kingdoms possessing intelligence which can\ncommunicate with men, but the Elementals have instincts like animals. It\nis, however, possible for the Sylphs (the Air Elementals, the wickedest\nthings in the world) to communicate, but they require to be propitiated.\n\nSpooks (K\u00e2mar\u00fbpic entities) can only give the information they see\nimmediately before them. They see things in the Aura of people, although\nthe people may not be aware of them themselves.\n\nEarth\u2010bound spirits are K\u00e2malokic entities that have been so materialistic\nthat they cannot be dissolved for a long time. They have only a glimmering\nof consciousness and do not know why they are held, some sleep, some\npreserve a glimmering of consciousness and suffer torture.\n\nIn the case of people who have very little Devachan, the greater part of\nthe consciousness remains in K\u00e2ma Loka, and may last far beyond the normal\nperiod of one hundred and fifty years and remain over until the next\nreincarnation of the Spirit. This then becomes the Dweller on the\nThreshold and fights with the new Astral.\n\nThe acme of K\u00e2ma is the sexual instinct, _e.g._, idiots have such desires\nand also food appetites, etc., and nothing else.\n\nDevachan is a state on a plane of spiritual consciousness; K\u00e2ma Loka is a\nplace of physical consciousness. It is the shadow of the animal world and\nthat of instinctual feelings. When the consciousness thinks of spiritual\nthings, it is on a spiritual plane.\n\nIf one\u2019s thoughts are of nature, flowers, etc., then the consciousness is\non the material plane.\n\nBut if thoughts are about eating, drinking, etc., and the passions, then\nthe consciousness is in the K\u00e2malokic plane, which is the plane of animal\ninstincts pure and simple.\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 The majority of the Pandits know nothing of the Esoteric Philosophy\n      now, because they have lost the key to it; yet not one of these, if\n      honest, would deny that the _Upanishads_, and especially the\n      _Pur\u00e2nas_, are allegorical and symbolical; nor that there still\n      remain in India a few great scholars who could, if they would, give\n      them the key to such interpretations. Nor do they reject the actual\n      existence of Mah\u00e2tm\u00e2s\u2014initiated Yogis and Adepts\u2014even in this age of\n      Kali Yuga.\n\n    2 This assertion is clearly corroborated by Plato himself, who writes:\n      \u201cYou say that in my former discourse I have not sufficiently\n      explained to you the nature of the First. I purposely spoke\n      enigmatically, that in case the tablet should have happened with any\n      accident, either by sea or land, a person without some previous\n      knowledge of the subject might not be able to understand its\n      contents.\u201d (Plato, _Ep._, ii. 312; Cory, _Ancient Fragments_, p.\n      304.)\n\n    3 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 287, 288.\n\n    4 _The Dialogues of Plato_, translated by B. Jowett, Regius Professor\n      of Greek at the University of Oxford, iii. 523.\n\n    5 _Op. cit._, p. 561.\n\n    6 _Op. cit._, p. 591.\n\n    7 This definition places (unwittingly, of course), the ancient\n      \u201cphysical philosopher\u201d many cubits higher than his modern \u201cphysical\u201d\n      _confr\u00e8re_, since the _ultima thule_ of the latter is to lead\n      mankind to believe that neither universe nor man have any cause at\n      all\u2014not an intelligent one at all events\u2014and that they have sprung\n      into existence owing to blind chance and a senseless whirling of\n      atoms. Which of the two hypotheses is the more rational and logical\n      is left to the impartial reader to decide.\n\n    8 Italics are mine. Every tyro in Eastern Philosophy, every Kabalist,\n      will see the reason for such an association of persons with ideas,\n      numbers, and geometrical figures. For number, says Philolaus, \u201cis\n      the dominant and self\u2010produced bond of the eternal continuance of\n      things.\u201d Alone the modern Scholar remains blind to the grand truth.\n\n    9 Here again the ancient Philosopher seems to be ahead of the modern.\n      For he only \u201cconfuses ... first and final causes\u201d (which confusion\n      is denied by those who know the spirit of ancient scholarship),\n      whereas his modern successor is confessedly and absolutely ignorant\n      of both. Mr. Tyndall shows Science \u201cpowerless\u201d to solve a single one\n      of the final problems of Nature and \u201cdisciplined [read, modern\n      materialistic], imagination retiring in bewilderment from the\n      contemplation of the problems\u201d of the world of matter. He even\n      doubts whether the men of present Science possess \u201cthe intellectual\n      elements which would enable them to grapple with the ultimate\n      structural energies of Nature.\u201d But for Plato and his disciples, the\n      lower types were but the concrete images of the higher abstract\n      ones; the immortal Soul has an arithmetical, as the body has a\n      geometrical, beginning. This beginning, as the reflection of the\n      great universal Arch\u00e6us (_Anima Mundi_), is self\u2010moving, and from\n      the centre diffuses itself over the whole body of the Macrocosm.\n\n   10 _Op. cit._, p. 523.\n\n   11 Nowhere are the Neoplatonists guilty of such an absurdity. The\n      learned Professor of Greek must have been thinking of two spurious\n      works attributed by Eusebius and St. Jerome to Ammonius Saccas, who\n      wrote nothing; or must have confused the Neoplatonists with Philo\n      Jud\u00e6us. But then Philo lived over 130 years before the birth of the\n      founder of Neoplatonism. He belonged to the School of Aristobulus\n      the Jew, who lived under Ptolemy Philometer (150 years B.C.), and is\n      credited with having inaugurated the movement which tended to prove\n      that Plato and even the Peripatetic Philosophy were derived from the\n      \u201crevealed\u201d Mosaic Books. Valckenaer tries to show that the author of\n      the _Commentaries on the Books of Moses_, was not Aristobulus, the\n      sycophant of Ptolemy. But whatever he was, he was not a\n      Neoplatonist, but lived before, or during the days of Philo Jud\u00e6us,\n      since the latter seems to know his works and follow his methods.\n\n   12 Only Clemens Alexandrinus, a Christian Neoplatonist and a very\n      fantastic writer.\n\n   13 The labour of reconciling the different systems of religion.\n\n   14 _New Platonism and Alchemy_, by Alex. Wilder, M.D. pp. 7, 4.\n\n   15 It is well\u2010known that, though born of Christian parents, Ammonius\n      had renounced the tenets of the Church\u2014Eusebius and Jerome\n      notwithstanding. Porphyry, the disciple of Plotinus, who had lived\n      with Ammonius for eleven years together, and who had no interest for\n      stating an untruth, positively declares that he had renounced\n      Christianity entirely. On the other hand, we know that Ammonius\n      believed in the bright Gods, Protectors, and that the Neoplatonic\n      Philosophy was as \u201cpagan\u201d as it was mystical. But Eusebius, the most\n      unscrupulous forger and falsifier of old texts, and St. Jerome, an\n      out\u2010and\u2010out fanatic, who had both an interest in denying the fact,\n      contradict Porphyry. We prefer to believe the latter, who has left\n      to posterity an unblemished name and a great reputation for honesty.\n\n   16 Two works are falsely attributed to Ammonius. One, now lost, called\n      _De Consensu Moysis et Jesu_, is mentioned by the same \u201ctrustworthy\u201d\n      Eusebius, the Bishop of C\u00e6sar\u00e6a, and the friend of the Christian\n      Emperor Constantine, who died, however, a heathen. All that is known\n      of this pseudo\u2010work is that Jerome bestows great praise upon it\n      (_Vir. Illust._, \u00a7 55; and Euseb., _H. E._, vi. 19). The other\n      spurious production is called the _Diatesseron_ (or the \u201cHarmony of\n      the Gospels\u201d). This is partially extant. But then, again, it exists\n      only in the Latin version of Victor, Bishop of Capua (sixth\n      century), who attributed it himself to Tatian, and as wrongly,\n      probably, as later scholars attributed the _Diatesseron_ to\n      Ammonius. Therefore no great reliance can be placed upon it, nor on\n      its \u201cesoteric\u201d interpretation of the Gospels. Is it this work, we\n      wonder, which led Prof. Jowett to regard the Neo\u2010platonic\n      interpretations as \u201cabsurdities\u201d?\n\n   17 _Op. cit._, p. 7.\n\n   18 _Op. cit._, iii, 524.\n\n   19 \u201cImperfect knowledge\u201d of what? That Plato was ignorant of many of\n      the modern \u201cworking hypotheses\u201d\u2014as ignorant as our immediate\n      posterity is sure to be of the said hypotheses when they in their\n      turn after exploding join the \u201cgreat majority\u201d\u2014is perhaps a blessing\n      in disguise.\n\n   20 _Op. cit._, p. 524.\n\n   21 _Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme_, by M. J. Matter, Professor of\n      the Royal Academy of Strasburg, \u201cIt is in Pythagoras and Plato that\n      we find, in Greece, the first elements of [Oriental] Gnosticism,\u201d he\n      says. (Vol. i, pp. 48 and 50.)\n\n   22 _Asiat. Trans._, i, 579.\n\n   23 _New Platonism and Alchemy_, p. 4.\n\n   24 This fact and others may be found in Chinese Missionary Reports, and\n      in a work by Monseigneur Delaplace, a Bishop in China. _Annales de\n      la Propagation de la Foi._\n\n   25 The regions somewhere about Udyana and Kashmir, as the translator\n      and editor of Marco Polo (Colonel Yule) believes (i. 175).\n\n   26 _Voyage des P\u00e9lerins Bouddhistes_, Vol. I.; _Histoire de la Vie de\n      Hiouen\u2010Thsang_, etc., traduit du chinois en fran\u00e7ais, par Stanislas\n      Julien.\n\n   27 Lao\u2010tse, the Chinese philosopher.\n\n   28 _The Book of Ser Marco Polo_, i. 318.\n\n   29 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 599\u2010601, 603, 598.\n\n   30 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 6.\n\n   31 The Rishis\u2014the first group of seven in number\u2014lived in days\n      preceding the Vedic period. They are now known as Sages and held in\n      reverence like demigods. But they may now be shown as something more\n      than merely mortal Philosophers. There are other groups of ten,\n      twelve and even twenty\u2010one in number. Haug shows that they occupy in\n      the Br\u00e2hmanical religion a position answering to that of the twelve\n      sons of Jacob in the Jewish _Bible_. The Br\u00e2hmans claim to descend\n      directly from the Rishis.\n\n   32 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 90.\n\n   33 See M\u00fcnter \u201cOn the most Ancient Religions of the North before Odin.\u201d\n      _M\u00e9moires de la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 des Antiquaires de France_, ii. 230.\n\n   34 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxvi. 6.\n\n   35 \u201cThe date of the hundreds of pyramids in the Valley of the Nile is\n      impossible to fix by any of the rules of modern science; Herodotus\n      informs us that each successive king erected one to commemorate his\n      reign, and serve as his sepulchre. But, Herodotus did not tell all,\n      although he knew that the real purpose of the pyramid was very\n      different from that which he assigns to it. Were it not for his\n      religious scruples, he might have added that, externally, it\n      symbolized the creative principle of Nature, and illustrated also\n      the principles of 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 scenes 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 \u2018born again,\u2019 and became an\n      adept.\u201d (_Isis Unveiled_, i. 518, 519.)\n\n   36 Diog. La\u00ebrt., in \u201cDemocrit. Vit.\u201d\n\n   37 _Satyric_, ix. 3.\n\n   38 Pliny, _Hist. Nat._\n\n   39 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 512.\n\n   40 _Op. cit._, ii. 403.\n\n   41 This is precisely what some of them are preparing to do, and many a\n      \u201cmysterious page\u201d in sacred and profane history are touched on in\n      these pages. Whether or not their explanations will be accepted\u2014is\n      another question.\n\n   42 _Ibid._\n\n   43 This is incorrectly expressed. The true Adept of the \u201cRight Hand\u201d\n      never punishes anyone, not even his bitterest and most dangerous\n      enemy; he simply leaves the latter to his Karma, and Karma never\n      fails to do so, sooner or later.\n\n   44 _Op. cit._, ii. 239, 241, 240.\n\n   45 See, in this connection, _Pneumatologie des Esprits_, by the Marquis\n      de Mirville, who devotes six enormous volumes to show the absurdity\n      of those who deny the reality of Satan and Magic, or the Occult\n      Sciences\u2014the two being with him synonymous.\n\n   46 We think we see the sidereal phantom of the old Philosopher and\n      Mystic\u2014once of Cambridge University\u2014Henry More, moving about in the\n      astral mist over the old moss\u2010covered roofs of the ancient town in\n      which he wrote his famous letter to Glanvil about \u201cwitches.\u201d The\n      \u201csoul\u201d seems restless and indignant, as on that day of May, 1678,\n      when the doctor complained so bitterly to the author of _Sadducismus\n      Triumphatus_ of Scot, Adie and Webster. \u201cOur new inspired saints,\u201d\n      the soul is heard to mutter, \u201csworn advocates of the witches ... who\n      against all sense and reason ... will have no Samuel but a\n      confederate knave ... these in\u2010blown buffoons, puffed up with ...\n      ignorance, vanity and stupid infidelity!\u201d (See \u201cLetter to Glanvil,\u201d\n      and _Isis Unveiled_, i. 205, 206.)\n\n   47 _\u00c9tudes Religieuses._\n\n   48 _\u00c9tudes Historiques._\n\n   49 _M\u00e9moire_ read at the Acad\u00e9mie des Inscriptions des Belles Lettres,\n      in 1859.\n\n   50 See Alfred Maury\u2019s _Histoire des Religions de la Gr\u00e8ce_, i. 248; and\n      the speculations of Holzmann in _Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Vergleichende\n      Sprach forschung_, ann. 1852, p. 487, _sq._\n\n   51 Creuzer\u2019s _Introduction des Myst\u00e8res_, iii. 456.\n\n   52 The later Nabath\u00e6ans adhered to the same belief as the Nazarenes and\n      the Sab\u00e6ans, honoured John the Baptist, and used Baptism. (See _Isis\n      Unveiled_, ii. 127; Munck, _Palestine_, p. 525; Dunlap, _Sod, the\n      Son of Man_, etc.)\n\n   53 i. 535.\n\n   54 By Hargrave Jennings.\n\n   55 See De Mirville\u2019s _Pneumatologie_, iii. 267 _et seq._\n\n   56 Psellus, 4: in Cory\u2019s _Ancient Fragments_, 269.\n\n   57 _Isis Unveiled_, i, 535, 536.\n\n   58 The forty\u2010two Sacred Books of the Egyptians, mentioned by Clement of\n      Alexandria as having existed in his time, were but a portion of the\n      Books of Hermes. Iamblichus, on the authority of the Egyptian priest\n      Abammon, attributes 1,200 of such books to Hermes, and Manetho\n      36,000. But the testimony of Iamblichus as a Neoplatonist and\n      Theurgist is of course rejected by modern critics. Manetho, who is\n      held by Bunsen in the highest consideration as a \u201cpurely historical\n      personage,\u201d with whom \u201cnone of the later native historians can be\n      compared\u201d (see _\u00c9gypte_, i. 97), suddenly becomes a Pseudo\u2010Manetho,\n      as soon as the ideas propounded by him clash with the scientific\n      prejudices against Magic and the Occult knowledge claimed by the\n      ancient priests. However, none of the Arch\u00e6ologists doubt for a\n      moment the almost incredible antiquity of the Hermetic books.\n      Champollion shows the greatest regard for their authenticity and\n      truthfulness, corroborated as it is by many of the oldest monuments.\n      And Bunsen brings irrefutable proofs of their age. From his\n      researches, for instance, we learn that there was a line of sixty\u2010\n      one kings before the days of Moses, who preceded the Mosaic period\n      by a clearly\u2010traceable civilization of several thousand years. Thus\n      we are warranted in believing that the works of Hermes Trismegistus\n      were extant many ages before the birth of the Jewish law\u2010giver.\n      \u201cStyli and inkstands were found on monuments of the fourth Dynasty,\n      the oldest in the world,\u201d says Bunsen. If the eminent Egyptologist\n      rejects the period of 48,863 years before Alexander, to which\n      Diogenes La\u00ebrtius carries back the records of the priests, he is\n      evidently more embarrassed with the ten thousand of astronomical\n      observations, and remarks that \u201cif they were actual observations,\n      they _must have_ extended over 10,000 years\u201d (p. 14). \u201cWe learn,\n      however,\u201d he adds, \u201cfrom one of their own old chronological works\n      ... that the genuine Egyptian traditions concerning the mythological\n      period treated of _myriads_ of years.\u201d (_\u00c9gypte_, i. 15; _Isis\n      Unveiled_, i. 33.)\n\n   59 These details are taken from _Pneumatologie_, iii. pp. 204, 205.\n\n   60 _\u00c9gypte_, p. 143; _Isis Unveiled_, i. 625.\n\n   61 _Strom._, VI. vii. The following paragraph is paraphrased from the\n      same chapter.\n\n   62 See _Pneumatologie_, iii. 207. Therefore Empedocles is called\n      \u03ba\u03c9\u03bb\u03c5\u03b8\u03ac\u03bd\u03b5\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2, the \u201cdominator of the wind.\u201d _Strom._, VI. iii.\n\n   63 _Ibid._, iv.\n\n   64 Summarised from _Pneumatologie_, iii. 209.\n\n   65 _Loc. cit._\n\n   66 _Op. cit._, iii. 208.\n\n   67 The English speaking people who spell the name of Noah\u2019s\n      disrespectful son \u201cHam\u201d have to be reminded that the right spelling\n      is \u201cKham\u201d or \u201cCham.\u201d\n\n   68 Black Magic, or Sorcery, is the _evil_ result obtained in any shape\n      or way through the practice of Occult Arts; hence it has to be\n      judged only by its effects. The name of neither Ham nor Cain, when\n      pronounced, has ever killed any one; whereas, if we have to believe\n      that same Clemens Alexandrinus who traces the teacher of every\n      Occultist, outside of Christianity, to the Devil, the name of\n      Jehovah (pronounced Jevo and in a peculiar way) had the effect of\n      killing a man at a distance. The mysterious Schemham\u2010phorasch was\n      not always used for holy purposes by the Kabalists, especially since\n      the Sabbath or Saturday, sacred to Saturn or the evil Shani,\n      became\u2014with the Jews\u2014sacred to \u201cJehovah.\u201d\n\n   69 Khoemnis, the pre\u2010historic city, may or may not have been built by\n      Noah\u2019s son, but it was not his name that was given to the town, but\n      that of the Mystery Goddess Khoemnu or Khoemnis (Greek form); the\n      deity that was created by the ardent fancy of the neophyte, who was\n      thus tantalised during his \u201ctwelve labours\u201d of probation before his\n      final initiation. Her male counterpart is Khem. The city of Choemnis\n      or Khemmis (to\u2010day Akhmem) was the chief seat of the God Khem. The\n      Greeks identifying Khem with Pan, called this city \u201cPanopolis.\u201d\n\n   70 _Pneumatologie_, iii. 210. This looks more like pious vengeance than\n      philology. The picture, however, seems incomplete, as the author\n      ought to have added to the \u201cchimney\u201d a witch flying out of it on a\n      broomstick.\n\n   71 How could they escape from the Deluge unless God so willed it? This\n      is scarcely logical.\n\n   72 _Loc. cit._, p. 210.\n\n   73 _Matthew_, xvi. 20.\n\n   74 _Mark_, v. 43.\n\n   75 _Mark_, iv. 11, 12.\n\n   76 Is it not evident that the words: \u201clest at any time they should be\n      converted (or: \u2018lest haply they should turn again\u2019\u2014as in the revised\n      version) and their sins be forgiven them\u201d\u2014do not at all mean to\n      imply that Jesus feared that through repentance any outsider, or\n      \u201cthem that are without,\u201d should escape damnation, as the literal\n      dead\u2010letter sense plainly shows\u2014but quite a different thing? Namely,\n      \u201clest any of the profane should by understanding his preaching,\n      undisguised by parable, get hold of some of the secret teachings and\n      mysteries of Initiation\u2014and even of Occult powers? \u2018Be converted\u2019\n      is, in other words, to obtain a knowledge belonging exclusively to\n      the Initiated: \u2018and their sins be forgiven them,\u2019 that is, their\n      sins would fall upon the illegal revealer, on those who had helped\n      the unworthy to reap there where they have never laboured to sow,\n      and had given them, thereby, the means of escaping on this earth\n      their deserved Karma, which must thus re\u2010act on the revealer, who,\n      instead of good, did harm and failed.\u201d\n\n   77 _New Platonism and Alchemy_, 1869, pp. 7, 9.\n\n   78 vii. 6.\n\n   79 History is full of proofs of the same. Had not Anaxagoras enunciated\n      the great truth taught in the Mysteries, _viz._, that the sun was\n      surely larger than the Peloponnesus, he would not have been\n      persecuted and nearly put to death by the fanatical mob. Had that\n      other rabble which was raised against Pythagoras understood what the\n      mysterious Sage of Crotona meant by giving out his remembrance of\n      having been the \u201cSon of Mercury\u201d\u2014God of the Secret Wisdom\u2014he would\n      not have been forced to fly for his life; nor would Socrates have\n      been put to death, had he kept secret the revelations of his divine\n      Daimon. He knew how little his century\u2014save those initiated\u2014would\n      understand his meaning, had he given out all he knew of the moon.\n      Thus he limited his statement to an allegory, which is now proven to\n      have been more scientific than was hitherto believed. He maintained\n      that the moon was inhabited and that the lunar beings lived in\n      profound, vast and dark valleys, our satellite being airless and\n      without any atmosphere outside such profound valleys; this,\n      disregarding the revelation full of meaning for the few only, must\n      be so of necessity, if there is any atmosphere on our bright Selene\n      at all. The facts recorded in the secret annals of the Mysteries had\n      to remain veiled under penalty of death.\n\n   80 _Stromateis_, xii.\n\n   81 See _Homilies_ 7, in _Levit._, quoted in the _Source of Measures_,\n      p. 307.\n\n   82 Origen: Huet., _Origeniana_, 167; Franck, 121; quoted from Dunlap\u2019s\n      _S\u00f4d_, p. 176.\n\n   83 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 350.\n\n   84 The materialistic \u201claw\u2010givers,\u201d the critics and Sadducees who have\n      tried to tear to shreds the doctrines and teachings of the great\n      Asiatic Masters past and present\u2014no scholars in the modern sense of\n      the word\u2014would do well to ponder over these words. No doubt that\n      doctrines and secret teachings had they been invented and written in\n      Oxford and Cambridge would be more brilliant outwardly. Would they\n      equally answer to universal truths and facts, is the next question\n      however.\n\n   85 iii. fol. 1526, quoted in Myer\u2019s _Qabbalah_, p. 102.\n\n   86 _New\u2010Platonism and Alchemy_, p. 6.\n\n   87 i. 2.\n\n   88 lxiv. 10.\n\n   89 The _key_ is shown to be \u201cin the source of measures originating the\n      British inch and the ancient cubit\u201d as the author tries to prove.\n\n   90 The word as a plural might have better solved the mystery. God is\n      _ever\u2010present_; if he were _ever\u2010active_ he could no longer be an\n      infinite God\u2014nor ever\u2010present in his limitation.\n\n   91 The author is evidently a Mason of the way of thinking of General\n      Pike. So long as the American and English Masons will reject the\n      \u201cCreative Principle\u201d of the \u201cGrand Orient\u201d of France they will\n      remain in the dark.\n\n   92 _Source of Measures_, pp. 308, 309.\n\n   93 In his _Pneumatologie_, in Vol. iv., pp. 105\u2010112, the Marquis de\n      Mirville claims the knowledge of the heliocentric system\u2014earlier\n      than Galileo\u2014for Pope Urban VIII. The author goes further. He tries\n      to show that famous Pope, not as the persecutor but as one\n      persecuted by Galileo, and calumniated by the Florentine Astronomer\n      into the bargain. If so, so much the worse for the Latin Church,\n      since her Popes, knowing of it, still preserved silence upon this\n      most important fact, either to screen Joshua or their own\n      infallibility. One can understand well that the _Bible_ having been\n      so exalted over all the other systems, and its alleged monotheism\n      depending upon the silence preserved, nothing remained of course but\n      to keep quiet over its symbolism, thus allowing all its blunders to\n      be fathered on its God.\n\n   94 _Op. cit._, App. vii. p. 296. The writer feels happy to find this\n      fact now mathematically demonstrated. When it was stated in _Isis\n      Unveiled_ that Jehovah and Saturn were one and the same with Adam\n      Kadmon, Cain, Adam and Eve, Abel, Seth, etc., and that all were\n      convertible symbols in the Secret Doctrine (see Vol. ii. pp. 446,\n      448, 464 _et seq._); that they answered, in short, to secret\n      numerals and stood for more than one meaning in the _Bible_ as in\n      other doctrines\u2014the author\u2019s statements remained unnoticed. _Isis_\n      had failed to appear under a scientific form, and by giving too\n      much, in fact, gave very little to satisfy the enquirer. But now, if\n      mathematics and geometry, besides the evidence of the _Bible_ and\n      _Kabalah_ are good for anything, the public must find itself\n      satisfied. No fuller, more scientifically given proof can be found\n      to show that Cain is the transformation of an Elohim (the Sephira\n      Binah) into Jah\u2010Veh (or God\u2010Eve) androgyne, and that Seth is the\n      Jehovah male, than in the combined discoveries of Seyffarth, Knight,\n      etc., and finally in Mr. Ralston Skinner\u2019s most erudite work. The\n      further relations of these personifications of the first human\n      races, in their gradual development, will be given later on in the\n      text.\n\n   95 The writings extant in olden times often personified Wisdom as an\n      emanation and associate of the Creator. Thus we have the Hindu\n      Buddha, the Babylonian Nebo, the Thoth of Memphis, the Hermes of\n      Greece; also the female divinities, Ne\u00eftha, Metis, Athena, and the\n      Gnostic potency Achamoth or Sophia. The Samaritan _Pentateuch_\n      denominated the _Book of Genesis_, Akamouth, or Wisdom, and two\n      remnants of old treatises, the _Wisdom of Solomon_ and the _Wisdom\n      of Jesus_, relate to the same matters. The _Book of Mashalim_\u2014the\n      _Discourses_ or _Proverbs_ of Solomon\u2014thus personifies Wisdom as the\n      auxiliary of the Creator. In the Secret Wisdom of the East that\n      auxiliary is found collectively in the first emanations of Primeval\n      Light, the Seven Dhy\u00e1ni\u2010Chohans, who have been shown to be identical\n      with the \u201cSeven Spirits of the Presence\u201d of the Roman Catholics.\n\n   96 _New Platonism and Alchemy_, p. 6.\n\n   97 ii. 317. 318. Many verbal alterations from the original text of\n      _Isis Unveiled_ were made by H. P. B. in her quotations therefrom,\n      and these are followed throughout.\n\n   98 Proclus claims to have experienced this sublime ecstasy six times\n      during his mystic life; Porphyry asserts that Apollonius of Tyana\n      was thus united four times to his deity\u2014a statement which we believe\n      to be a mistake, since Apollonius was a Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2ya (divine\n      incarnation\u2014not Avat\u00e2ra)\u2014and he (Porphyry) only once, when over\n      sixty years of age. Theophany (or the actual appearance of a God to\n      man), Theopathy (or \u201cassimilation of divine nature\u201d), and\n      Theopneusty (inspiration, or rather the mysterious power to hear\n      orally the teachings of a God) have never been rightly understood.\n\n   99 K\u00e2rana Shar\u00eera is the \u201ccausal\u201d body and is sometimes said to be the\n      \u201cpersonal God.\u201d And so it is, in one sense.\n\n  100 This would be in one sense Self\u2010worship.\n\n  101 \u201cThe Gods exist,\u201d said Epicurus, \u201cbut they are not what the _hoi\n      polloi_ [the multitude] suppose them to be. He is not an infidel or\n      atheist who denies the existence of Gods whom the multitude worship,\n      but he is such who fastens on the Gods the opinions of the\n      multitude.\u201d\n\n  102 Esoteric, as exoteric, Buddhism rejects the theory that Gautama was\n      an incarnation or Avat\u00e2ra of Vishnu, but teaches the doctrine as\n      herein explained. Every man has in him the materials, if not the\n      conditions, for theophanic intercourse and Theopneusty, the\n      inspiring \u201cGod\u201d being, however, in every case, his own Higher Self,\n      or divine prototype.\n\n  103 One entirely and absolutely purified, and having nothing in common\n      with earth except his body.\n\n  104 _M\u00e2nd\u00fbkyopanishad_, 4.\n\n  105 Acts, viii. 10 (Revised Version).\n\n  106 See the explanations given on the subject in \u201cThe Elixir of Life,\u201d\n      by G. M. (From a Chel\u00e2\u2019s Diary), _Five Years of Theosophy_.\n\n  107 _I. Cor._, xv. 47, 50.\n\n  108 _I. Cor._, iii. 16. Has the reader ever meditated upon the\n      suggestive words, often pronounced by Jesus and his Apostles? \u201cBe ye\n      therefore perfect as your Father ... is perfect\u201d (_Matt._, v. 48),\n      says the Great Master. The words are, \u201cas perfect as your Father\n      which is in heaven,\u201d being interpreted as meaning God. Now the utter\n      absurdity of any man becoming as perfect as the infinite, all\u2010\n      perfect omniscient and omnipresent Deity, is too apparent. If you\n      accept it in such a sense, Jesus is made to utter the greatest\n      fallacy. What was Esoterically meant is, \u201cYour Father who is above\n      the material and astral man, the highest Principle (save the Monad)\n      within man, his own personal God, or the God of his own personality,\n      of whom he is the \u2018prison\u2019 and the \u2018temple.\u2019 \u201d \u201cIf thou wilt be\n      perfect (_i.e._, an Adept and Initiate) go and sell that thou hast\u201d\n      (_Matt._, xix. 21). Every man who desired to become a neophyte, a\n      chel\u00e2, then, as now, had to take the vow of poverty. The \u201cPerfect,\u201d\n      was the name given to the Initiates of every denomination. Plato\n      calls them by that term. The Essenes had their \u201cPerfect,\u201d and Paul\n      plainly states that they, the Initiates, can only speak before other\n      Adepts. \u201cWe speak wisdom among them [only] that are perfect\u201d (_I.\n      Cor._ ii. 6.)\n\n  109 _John_, i. 21.\n\n  110 _John_, iii. \u201cBorn\u201d from above, _viz._, from his Monad or divine\n      EGO, the seventh Principle, which remains till the end of the Kalpa,\n      the nucleus of, and at the same time the overshadowing Principle, as\n      the K\u00e2ran\u00e2tm\u00e2 (Causal Soul) of the personality in every rebirth. In\n      this sense, the sentence \u201cborn anew\u201d means \u201cdescends from above,\u201d\n      the last two words having no reference to heaven or space, neither\n      of which can be limited or located, since one is a state and the\n      other infinite, hence having no cardinal points. (See _New\n      Testament, Revised Version_, _loc. cit._)\n\n  111 This can have no reference to Christian Baptism, since there was\n      none in the days of Nicodemus and he could not therefore know\n      anything of it, even though a \u201cMaster.\u201d\n\n  112 This word, translated in the _New Testament_ \u201cworld\u201d to suit the\n      official interpretation, means rather an \u201cage\u201d (as shown in the\n      _Revised Version_) or one of the periods during the Manvantara, a\n      Kalpa, or \u00c6on. Esoterically the sentence would read: \u201cHe who shall\n      reach, through a series of births and Karmic law, that state in\n      which Humanity shall find itself after the Seventh Round and the\n      Seventh Race, when comes Nirv\u00e2na, Moksha, and when man becomes\n      \u2018equal unto the Angels\u2019 or Dhy\u00e2n Chohans, is a \u2018son of the\n      resurrection\u2019 and \u2018can die no more\u2019; then there will be no marriage,\n      as there will be no difference of sexes\u201d\u2014a result of our present\n      materiality and animalism.\n\n  113 _Luke_, xx. 27\u201038.\n\n  114 _John_, ix. 2, 3.\n\n  115 The conscious Ego, or Fifth Principle Manas, the vehicle of the\n      divine Monad or \u201cGod.\u201d\n\n  116 Some Symbologists, relying on the correspondence of numbers and the\n      symbols of certain things and personages, refer these \u201csecrets\u201d to\n      the mystery of generation. But it is more than this. The glyph of\n      the \u201cTree of Knowledge of Good and Evil\u201d has no doubt a phallic and\n      sexual element in it, as has the \u201cWoman and the Serpent\u201d; but it has\n      also a psychical and spiritual significance. Symbols are meant to\n      yield more than one meaning.\n\n  117 _Wisdom_, xi. 21. Douay version.\n\n  118 _Ecclesiasticus_, i. 9. Douay version.\n\n  119 _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie_, i. 361.\n\n  120 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 6, 7.\n\n  121 \u201cSynesius mentions books of stone which he found in the temple of\n      Memphis, on one of which was engraved the following sentence: \u2018One\n      _nature_ delights in another, one nature overcomes another, one\n      nature overrules another, and the whole of them are _one_\u2019.\u201d\n\n      \u201cThe inherent restlessness of matter is embodied in the saying of\n      Hermes: \u2018Action is the life of Phta\u2019; and Orpheus calls nature\n      \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03c5\u03bc\u03ae\u03c7\u03b1\u03bd\u03bf\u03c2 \u03bc\u03ac\u03c4\u03b7\u03c1, \u2018the mother that makes many things,\u2019 or the\n      ingenious, the contriving, the inventive mother.\u201d\u2014_Isis Unveiled_,\n      i. 257.\n\n  122 _Source of Measures_, p. x.\n\n  123 _Masonic Review_, July, 1886.\n\n  124 See _Source of Measures_, pp. 47\u201050, _et pass._\n\n  125 See Cary\u2019s translation, pp. 322, 323.\n\n  126 _Exodus_, xxxiv. 29, 33.\n\n  127 _Op. cit._, V. vii.\n\n  128 _The Royal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia_, under \u201cGnosticism.\u201d\n\n  129 In the Ferouers and Devs of Jacobi (Letters F. and D.) the word\n      \u201cferouer\u201d is explained in the following manner: The Ferouer is a\n      part of the creature (whether man or animal) of which it is the type\n      and which it survives. It is the Nous of the Greeks, therefore\n      divine and immortal, and thus can hardly be the Devil or the satanic\n      copy De Mirville would represent it (see _M\u00e9moires de l\u2019Acad\u00e9mie des\n      Inscriptions_, Vol. XXXVII. p. 623, and chap. xxxix. p. 749).\n      Foucher contradicts him entirely. The Ferouer was never the\n      \u201cprinciple of sensations,\u201d but always referred to the most divine\n      and pure portion of Man\u2019s Ego\u2014the spiritual principle. Anquetil says\n      that the Ferouer is the purest portion of man\u2019s soul. The Persian\n      Dev is the antithesis of the Ferouer, for the Dev has been\n      transformed by Zoroaster into the Genius of Evil (whence the\n      Christian Devil), but even the Dev is only finite; for having become\n      possessed of the soul of man by _usurpation_, it will have to leave\n      it at the great day of Retribution. The Dev obsesses the soul of the\n      defunct for three days, during which the soul wanders about the spot\n      at which it was forcibly separated from its body; the Ferouer\n      ascends to the region of eternal Light. It was an unfortunate idea\n      that made the noble Marquis de Mirville imagine the Ferouer to be a\n      \u201csatanic copy\u201d of a _divine_ original. By calling all the Gods of\n      the Pagans\u2014Apollo, Osiris, Brahm\u00e2, Ormazd, Bel, etc., the \u201cFerouers\n      of Christ and of the chief Angels,\u201d he merely exhibits the God and\n      the Angels he would honour as inferior to the Pagan Gods, as man is\n      inferior to his Soul and Spirit; since the Ferouer is the immortal\n      part of the mortal being of which it is the type and which it\n      survives. Perchance the poor author is unconsciously prophetic; and\n      Apollo, Brahm\u00e2, Ormazd, Osiris, etc., are destined to survive and\n      replace\u2014as eternal cosmic verities\u2014the evanescent fictions about the\n      God, Christ and Angels of the Latin Church!\n\n  130 See George Smith\u2019s _Babylon_ and other works.\n\n  131 This is as fanciful as it is arbitrary. Where is the Hindu or\n      Buddhist who would speak of his \u201cCrucified\u201d?\n\n  132 _Op. cit._, iv. 237.\n\n  133 _Loc. cit._, 250.\n\n  134 \u201c_Q._: Who knocks at the door?\n\n      _A._: The good cowherd.\n\n      _Q._: Who preceded thee?\n\n      _A._: The three robbers.\n\n      _Q._: Who follows thee?\n\n      _A._: The three murderers,\u201d etc., etc.\n\n      Now this is the conversation that took place between the priest\u2010\n      initiators and the candidates for initiation during the mysteries\n      enacted in the oldest sanctuaries of the Him\u00e2layan fastnesses. The\n      ceremony is still performed to this day in one of the most ancient\n      temples in a secluded spot of Nepaul. It originated with the\n      Mysteries of the first Krishna, passed to the First Tirthankara and\n      ended with Buddha, and is called the Kurukshetra rite, being enacted\n      as a memorial of the great battle and death of the divine Adept. It\n      is not Masonry, but an initiation into the Occult teachings of that\n      Hero\u2014Occultism, pure and simple.\n\n  135 _Book of Enoch_, Archbishop Laurence\u2019s translation. Introduction, p.\n      v.\n\n  136 _The Book of Enoch_ was unknown to Europe for a thousand years, when\n      Bruce found in Abyssinia some copies of it in Ethiopic; it was\n      translated by Archbishop Laurence in 1821, from the text in the\n      Bodleian Library, Oxford.\n\n  137 _Op. cit._, p. xx.\n\n  138 _Loc. cit._\n\n  139 _Op. cit._, p. xiv., note.\n\n  140 _Op. cit._, p. xxxv.\n\n  141 _Op. cit._, p. xiii.\n\n  142 The Seventh Principle, the First Emanation.\n\n  143 _Op. cit._, pp. xxxvii. and xl.\n\n  144 _Op. cit._, pp. xl. and li.\n\n  145 Who stands for the \u201cSolar\u201d or Manvantaric Year.\n\n  146 _Op. cit._, pp. xli., xlii.\n\n  147 _Op. cit._, p. xlviii.\n\n  148 _Op. cit._, p. xxiii.\n\n  149 _Loc. cit._\n\n  150 xcii. 9.\n\n  151 _Op. cit._, xcii. 4.\n\n  152 _Op. cit._, xcii. 4\u20107.\n\n  153 At the close of every Root\u2010Race there comes a cataclysm, in turn by\n      fire or water. Immediately after the \u201cFall into generation\u201d the\n      dross of the third Root\u2010Race\u2014those who fell into sensuality by\n      falling off from the teaching of the Divine Instructors\u2014were\n      destroyed, after which the Fourth Root\u2010Race originated, at the end\n      of which took place the last Deluge. (See the \u201cSons of God\u201d\n      mentioned in _Isis Unveiled_, 593 _et seq._)\n\n  154 _Op. cit._, xcii. 11.\n\n  155 _Op. cit._, xcii. 7, 11, 13, 15.\n\n  156 _Op. cit._, note, p. 152.\n\n  157 Those interpolations and alterations are found almost in every case\n      where figures are given\u2014especially whenever the numbers eleven and\n      twelve come in\u2014as these are all made (by the Christians) to relate\n      to the numbers of Apostles, and Tribes, and Patriarchs. The\n      translator of the Ethiopic text\u2014Archbishop Laurence\u2014attributes them\n      generally to \u201cmistakes of the transcriber\u201d whenever the two texts,\n      the Paris and the Bodleian MSS., differ. We fear it is no mistake,\n      in most cases.\n\n  158 _Op. cit._, lxxxviii. 99, 100.\n\n  159 _Loc. cit._, 94. This passage, as will be presently shown, has led\n      to a very curious discovery.\n\n  160 In the profane history of Gautama Buddha he dies at the good old age\n      of eighty, and passes off from life to death peacefully with all the\n      serenity of a great saint, as Barth\u00e9lemy St. Hilaire has it. Not so\n      in the Esoteric and true interpretation which reveals the real sense\n      of the profane and allegorical statement that makes Gautama, the\n      Buddha, die very unpoetically from the effects of too much pork,\n      prepared for him by Tsonda. How one who preached that the killing of\n      animals was the greatest sin, and who was a perfect vegetarian,\n      could die from eating pork, is a question that is never asked by our\n      Orientalists, some of whom made (as now do many charitable\n      missionaries in Ceylon) great fun at the alleged occurrence. The\n      simple truth is that the said rice and pork are purely allegorical.\n      Rice stands for \u201cforbidden fruit,\u201d like Eve\u2019s \u201capple,\u201d and means\n      Occult knowledge with the Chinese and Tibetans; and \u201cpork\u201d for\n      Br\u00e2hmanical teachings\u2014Vishnu having assumed in his first Avat\u00e2ra the\n      form of a boar, in order to raise the earth on the surface of the\n      waters of space. It is not, therefore, from \u201cpork\u201d that Buddha died,\n      but for having divulged some of the Br\u00e2hmanical mysteries, after\n      which, seeing the bad effects brought on some unworthy people by the\n      revelation, he preferred, instead of availing himself of Nirv\u00e2na, to\n      leave his earthly form, remaining still in the sphere of the living,\n      in order to help humanity to progress. Hence his constant\n      reincarnations in the hierarchy of the Dalai and Teshu Lamas, among\n      other bounties. Such is the Esoteric explanation. The life of\n      Gautama will be more fully discussed later on.\n\n  161 _Op. cit._, cv. 21.\n\n  162 In the _Bible_ (_Genesis_, iv and v) there are three distinct Enochs\n      (Kanoch or Chanoch)\u2014the son of Cain, the son of Seth, and the son of\n      Jared; but they are all identical, and two of them are mentioned for\n      purposes of misleading. The years of only the last two are given,\n      the first one being left without further notice.\n\n  163 The eternal and incessant \u201cin\u2010breathing and out\u2010breathing of\n      Parabrahman\u201d or Nature, the Universe in Space, whether during\n      Manvantara or Pralaya.\n\n  164 _Op. cit._, iii. 1.\n\n  165 _Op. cit._, 30.\n\n  166 _Op. cit._, 32.\n\n  167 Those who are aware that the term Christos was applied by the\n      Gnostics to the Higher Ego (the ancient Pagan Greek Initiates doing\n      the same), will readily understand the allusion. Christos was said\n      to be cut off from the lower Ego, Chrestos, after the final and\n      supreme Initiation, when the two became blended in one; Chrestos\n      being conquered and resurrected in the glorified Christos.\u2014Franck,\n      _Die Kabbala_, 75; Dunlap, _S\u00f4d_, Vol. II.\n\n  168 _Stromateis_, I. xiii.\n\n  169 _Op. cit._, II. viii.\n\n  170 Many are the marvels recorded as having taken place at his death, or\n      we should rather say his translation; for he did not die as others\n      do, but having suddenly disappeared, while a dazzling light filled\n      the cavern with glory, his body was again seen upon its subsidence.\n      When this heavenly light gave place to the habitual semi\u2010darkness of\n      the gloomy cave\u2014then only, says Ginsburg, \u201cthe disciples of Israel\n      perceived that the lamp of Israel was extinguished.\u201d His biographers\n      tell us that there were voices heard from Heaven during the\n      preparation for his funeral, and at his interment, when the coffin\n      was lowered into the deep cave prepared for it, a flame broke forth\n      and a voice mighty and majestic pronounced these words: \u201cThis is he\n      who caused the earth to quake, and the kingdoms to shake!\u201d\n\n  171 Pockocke, maybe, was not altogether wrong in deriving the German\n      Heaven, Himmel, from Him\u00e2laya; nor can it be denied that it is the\n      Hindu Kail\u00e2sa (Heaven) that is the father of the Greek Heaven\n      (Koilon), and of the Latin C\u0153lum.\n\n  172 See Pockocke\u2019s _India in Greece_, and his derivation of Mount\n      Parnassus from Parnasa, the leaf and branch huts of the Hindu\n      ascetics, half shrine and half habitation. \u201cPart of the Par\u2010o\u2010\n      Pamisus (the hill of Bamian), is called Parnassus. \u2018These mountains\n      are called Devanica, because they are so full of Devas or Gods,\n      called \u201cGods of the Earth,\u201d Bhu Devas. They lived, according to the\n      Pur\u00e2nas, in bowers or huts, called Parnasas, because they were made\n      of leaves\u2019 (Parnas),\u201d p. 302.\n\n  173 Rawlinson is justly very confident of an \u00c2ryan and Vedic influence\n      on the early mythology and history of Babylon and Chald\u00e6a.\n\n  174 This is a Secret Doctrine affirmation, and may or may not be\n      accepted. Only Abrahm, Isaac and Judah resemble terribly the Hindu\n      Brahm\u00e2 Ikshv\u00e2ku and Yadu.\n\n  175 It is said in _The Gnostics and their Remains_, by C. W. King (p.\n      13), with regard to the names of Brahm\u00e2 and Abram; \u201cThis figure of\n      the _man_, Seir Aupin, consists of 243 numbers, being the numerical\n      value of the letters in the name \u2018Abram\u2019 signifying the different\n      orders in the celestial Hierarchies. In fact the names Abram and\n      Brahm\u00e2 are equivalent in numerical value.\u201d Thus to one acquainted\n      with Esoteric Symbolism, it does not seem at all strange to find in\n      the Loka\u2010p\u00e2las (the four cardinal and intermediate points of the\n      compass personified by eight Hindu Gods) Indra\u2019s elephant, named\n      Abhra\u2014(m\u00e2tanga) and his wife Abhramu. Abhra is in a way a Wisdom\n      Deity, since it is this elephant\u2019s head that replaced that of\n      Ganesha (Ganapati) the God of Wisdom, cut off by Shiva. Now Abhra\n      means \u201ccloud,\u201d and it is also the name of the city where Abram is\n      supposed to have resided\u2014when read backwards\u2014\u201cArba (Kirjath) the\n      city of four ... Abram is Abra with an appended _m_ final, and Abra\n      read backward is Arba\u201d (_Key to the Hebrew Egyptian Mystery_). The\n      author might have added that Abra meaning in Sanskrit \u201cin, or of,\n      the clouds,\u201d the cosmo\u2010astronomical symbol of Abram becomes still\n      plainer. All of these ought to be read in their originals, in\n      Sanskrit.\n\n  176 Before these theories and speculations\u2014we are willing to admit they\n      are such\u2014are rejected, the following few points ought to be\n      explained, (1) Why, after leaving Egypt, was the patriarch\u2019s name\n      changed by Jehovah from Abram to Abraham. (2) Why Sarai becomes on\n      the same principle Sarah (_Gen._, xvii.). (3) Whence the strange\n      coincidence of names? (4) Why should Alexander Polyhistor say that\n      Abraham was born at Kamarina or Uria, a city of soothsayers, and\n      invented Astronomy? (5) \u201cThe Abrahamic recollections go back at\n      least three millenniums beyond the grandfather of Jacob,\u201d says\n      Bunsen (_Egypt\u2019s Place in History_, v. 35.)\n\n  177 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 35.\n\n  178 See _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 218\u2010300. Gematria is formed by a metathesis\n      from the Greek word \u03b3\u03c1\u03b1\u03bc\u03bc\u03b1\u03c4\u03b5\u03af\u03b1; Notaricon may be compared to\n      stenography; Temura is permutation\u2014a way of dividing the alphabet\n      and shifting letters.\n\n  179 _De Vita Pythag._\n\n  180 We are not aware that a copy of this ancient work is embraced in the\n      catalogue of any European library; but it is one of the \u201cBooks of\n      Hermes,\u201d and it is referred to and quotations are made from it in\n      the works of a number of ancient and medi\u00e6val philosophical authors.\n      Among these authorities are Arnoldo di Villanova\u2019s _Rosarium\n      Philosoph._, Francesco Arnuphi\u2019s _Opus de Lapide_, Hermes\n      Trismegistus\u2019 _Tractatus de Transmutatione Metallorum_ and _Tabula\n      Smaragdina_, and above all the treatise of Raymond Lully, _Ab\n      Angelis Opus Divinum de Quinta Essentia_.\n\n  181 _Exodus_, xxv. 40.\n\n  182 _Sub voce_ \u201cNumbers.\u201d\n\n  183 See Johannes Meursius, _Denarius Pythagoricus_.\n\n  184 Ragon, _Ma\u00e7onnerie Occulte_, p. 426, note.\n\n  185 _Ibid._, p. 432, note.\n\n  186 Extracted from Ragon, _Ma\u00e7onnerie Occulte_, p. 427, note.\n\n  187 Summarised from Ragon, _ibid._, p. 428, note.\n\n  188 Ragon mentions the curious fact that the first four numbers in\n      German are named after the elements.\n\n      \u201cEin, or one, means the air, the element which, ever in motion,\n      penetrates matter throughout, and whose continual ebb and tide is\n      the universal vehicle of life.\n\n      \u201cZwei, two, is derived from the old German Zweig, signifying germ,\n      fecundity; it stands for earth the fecund mother of all.\n\n      \u201cDrei, three, is the _trienos_ of the Greeks, standing for water,\n      whence the Sea\u2010gods, Tritons; and trident, the emblem of Neptune\u2014the\n      water, or sea, in general being called Amphitrite (surrounding\n      water).\n\n      \u201cVier, four, a number meaning in Belgian fire.... It is in the\n      quaternary that the first solid figure is found, the universal\n      symbol of immortality, the Pyramid, \u2018whose first syllable means\n      fire.\u2019 Lysis and Tim\u00e6us of Locris claimed that there was not a thing\n      one could name that had not the quaternary for its root.... The\n      ingenious and mystical idea which led to the veneration of the\n      ternary and the triangle was applied to number four and its figure:\n      it was said to express a living being, 1, the vehicle of the\n      triangle 4, vehicle of God, or man carrying in him the divine\n      principle.\u201d\n\n      Finally, \u201cthe Ancients represented the world by the number five.\n      Diodorus explains it by saying that this number represents earth,\n      fire, water, air and ether or spiritus. Hence, the origin of Pente\n      (five) and of Pan (the God) meaning in Greek all.\u201d (Compare Ragon,\n      _op. cit._, pp. 428\u2010430.) It is left with the Hindu Occultists to\n      explain the relation this Sanskrit word Pancha (five) has to the\n      elements, the Greek Pente having for its root the Sanskrit term.\n\n  189 The system of the so\u2010called Senzar characters is still more\n      wonderful and difficult, since each letter is made to yield several\n      meanings, a sign placed at the commencement showing the true\n      meaning.\n\n  190 Ragon, _op. cit._, p. 431, note.\n\n  191 The Y exoterically signifies only the two paths of virtue or vice,\n      and stands also for the numeral 150 and with a dash over the letter\n      Y for 150,000.\n\n  192 _Tradition_, chap. on \u201cNumbers.\u201d\n\n  193 This is a kind of magical bow and arrow calculated to destroy in one\n      moment whole armies; it is mentioned in the _R\u00e2m\u00e2yana_, the\n      _Pur\u00e2nas_ and elsewhere.\n\n  194 _Matthew_, viii. 30\u201034.\n\n  195 _Dogmatic Theology_, iii. 345.\n\n  196 viii. 9, 10.\n\n  197 _Adv. Celsum._\n\n  198 _Eccles. Hist._, i. 140.\n\n  199 _Contra H\u00e6reses_, I. xxiii. 1\u20104.\n\n  200 _Contra H\u00e6reses_, ii. 1\u20106.\n\n  201 _Op. cit._, ii. 337.\n\n  202 Ten is the perfect number of the Supreme God among the \u201cmanifested\u201d\n      deities, for number 1 is the symbol of the Universal Unit, or male\n      principle in Nature, and number O the feminine symbol Chaos, the\n      Deep, the two forming thus the symbol of Androgyne nature as well as\n      the full value of the solar year, which was also the value of\n      Jehovah and Enoch. Ten, with Pythagoras, was the symbol of the\n      Universe; also of Enos, the Son of Seth, or the \u201cSon of Man\u201d who\n      stands as the symbol of the solar year of 365 days, and whose years\n      are therefore given as 365 also. In the Egyptian Symbology Abraxas\n      was the Sun, the \u201cLord of the Heavens.\u201d\n\n      The circle is the symbol of the one Unmanifesting Principle, the\n      plane of whose figure is infinitude eternally, and this is crossed\n      by a diameter only during Manvantaras.\n\n  203 _I. Cor._, ii. 6\u20108.\n\n  204 Compare Taylor\u2019s _Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries_.\n\n  205 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 89.\n\n  206 _Op. cit._, ii. 395.\n\n  207 Quoted by De Mirville, _Op. cit._, vi. 41 and 42.\n\n  208 Mr. St. George Lane\u2010Fox has admirably expressed the idea in his\n      eloquent appeal to the many rival schools and societies in India. \u201cI\n      feel sure,\u201d he said, \u201cthat the prime motive, however dimly\n      perceived, by which you, as the promoters of these movements, were\n      actuated, was a revolt against the tyrannical and almost universal\n      establishment throughout all existing social and so\u2010called religious\n      institutions of a usurped authority in some external form\n      supplanting and obscuring the only real and ultimate authority, the\n      indwelling spirit of truth revealed to each individual soul, true\n      conscience in fact, that supreme source of all human wisdom and\n      power which elevates man above the level of the brute.\u201d (_To the\n      Members of the \u00c2rya Sam\u00e2j, the Theosophical Society, Brahmo and\n      Hindu Sam\u00e2j and other Religious and Progressive Societies in\n      India._)\n\n  209 _Revelation_, ii. 6.\n\n  210 This \u201cart\u201d is not common jugglery, as some define it now: it is a\n      kind of psychological jugglery, if jugglery at all, where\n      fascination and glamour are used as means of producing illusions. It\n      is hypnotism on a large scale.\n\n  211 The author asserts in this his Christian persuasion.\n\n  212 Magnetic passes, evidently, followed by a trance and sleep.\n\n  213 \u201cElementals\u201d used by the highest Adept to do mechanical, not\n      intellectual work, as a physicist uses gases and other compounds.\n\n  214 Quoted from De Mirville, _op. cit._, vi. 43.\n\n  215 _Ibid._, vi. 45.\n\n  216 _Ibid._, p. 46.\n\n  217 Am\u00e9d\u00e9e Fleury, _Rapports de St. Paul avec S\u00e9n\u00e8que_, ii. 100. The\n      whole of this is summarised from De Mirville.\n\n  218 But we can never agree with the author \u201cthat rites and ritual and\n      formal worship and prayers are of the absolute necessity of things,\u201d\n      for the external can develop and grow and receive worship only at\n      the expense of, and to the detriment of, the internal, the only real\n      and true.\n\n  219 H. Jennings, _op. cit._, pp. 37, 38.\n\n  220 See _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 574.\n\n  221 xi. 26.\n\n  222 Art., by Dr. A. Wilder, in _Evolution_.\n\n  223 _Op. cit._, p. 262.\n\n  224 In its most extensive meaning, the Sanskrit word has the same\n      literal sense as the Greek term; both imply \u201crevelation,\u201d by no\n      human agent, but through the \u201creceiving of the sacred drink.\u201d In\n      India the initiated received the \u201cSoma,\u201d sacred drink, which helped\n      to liberate his soul from the body; and in the Eleusinian Mysteries\n      it was the sacred drink offered at the Epopteia. The Grecian\n      Mysteries are wholly derived from the Br\u00e2hmanical Vaidic rites, and\n      the latter from the Ante\u2010Vaidic religious Mysteries\u2014primitive Wisdom\n      Philosophy.\n\n  225 It is needless to state that the _Gospel according to John_ was not\n      written by John, but by a Platonist or a Gnostic belonging to the\n      Neoplatonic school.\n\n  226 _Ibid._, _loc. cit._ The fact that Peter persecuted the \u201cApostle to\n      the Gentiles\u201d under that name, does not necessarily imply that there\n      was no Simon Magus individually distinct from Paul. It may have\n      become a generic name of abuse. Theodoret and Chrysostom, the\n      earliest and most prolific commentators on the Gnosticism of those\n      days, seem actually to make of Simon a rival of Paul and to state\n      that between them passed frequent messages. The former, as a\n      diligent propagandist of what Paul terms the \u201cantithesis of the\n      Gnosis\u201d (_1. Epistle to Timothy_), must have been a sore thorn in\n      the side of the apostle. There are sufficient proofs of the actual\n      existence of Simon Magus.\n\n  227 Taylor\u2019s _Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries_, Wilder\u2019s ed., p. x.\n\n  228 ii. 91\u201094.\n\n  229 Bunsen, _Egypt\u2019s Place in History_, v. 90.\n\n  230 _Ibid._\n\n  231 _Stele_, p. 44.\n\n  232 See Dowson\u2019s _Hindu Classical Dict._, _sub voc._, \u201cP\u00eetha\u2010sth\u00e2naru.\u201d\n\n  233 See _Preface to St. Matthew\u2019s Gospel_, Baronius, i. 752, quoted in\n      De Mirville, vi. 63. Jerome is the Father who having found the\n      authentic and original _Evangel_ (the Hebrew text), by Matthew the\n      Apostle\u2010publican, in the library of C\u00e6sarea, \u201c_written by the hand_\n      of Matthew\u201d (Hieronymus: _De Viris_, Illust. Chap. iii.)\u2014as he\n      himself admits\u2014set it down as heretical, and substituted for it his\n      own Greek text. And it is also he who perverted the text in the\n      _Book of Job_ to enforce belief in the resurrection in flesh (see\n      _Isis Unveiled_, Vol. ii. pp. 181 and 182, _et seq._), quoting in\n      support the most learned authorities.\n\n  234 De Mirville gives the following thrilling account of the \u201ccontest.\u201d\n\n      \u201cJohn, pressed, as St. Jerome tells us, by all the churches of Asia\n      to proclaim more solemnly [in the face of the miracles of\n      Apollonius] the divinity of Jesus Christ, after a long prayer with\n      his disciples on the Mount of Patmos and being in ecstasy by the\n      divine Spirit, made heard amid thunder and lightning his famous _In\n      Principio erat Verbum_. When that sublime extasis, that caused him\n      to be named the \u2018Son of Thunder,\u2019 had passed, Apollonius was\n      compelled to retire and to disappear. Such was his defeat, less\n      bloody but as hard as that of Simon, the Magician.\u201d (\u201cThe Magician\n      Theurgist,\u201d vi. 63) For our part we have never heard of extasis\n      producing thunder and lightning and we are at a loss to understand\n      the meaning.\n\n  235 This is the old, old story. Who of us, Theosophists, but knows by\n      bitter personal experience what clerical hatred, malice and\n      persecution can do in this direction; to what an extent of\n      falsehood, calumny and cruelty these feelings can go, even in our\n      modern day, and what exemplars of _Christ\u2010like_ charity His alleged\n      and self\u2010constituted servants have shown themselves to be!\n\n  236 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 342.\n\n  237 _Loc. cit._, ii. 343, 344.\n\n  238 _Pneumatologie_, vi. 62.\n\n  239 _Les Apologistes Chr\u00e9tiens au Second Si\u00e8cle_, p. 106.\n\n  240 _Pneumatologie_, vi, 62.\n\n  241 Many are they who _do not know_: hence, they do not believe in them.\n\n  242 Just so. Apollonius, during a lecture he was delivering at Ephesus\n      before an audience of many thousands, perceived the murder of the\n      Emperor Domitian in Rome and notified it at the very moment it was\n      taking place, to the whole town; and Swedenborg, in the same manner,\n      saw from Gothenburg the great fire at Stockholm and told it to his\n      friends, no telegraph being in use in those days.\n\n  243 No criterion at all. The Hindu S\u00e2ddhus and Adepts acquire the gift\n      by the holiness of their lives. The Yoga\u2010Vidy\u00e2 teaches it, and no\n      \u201cspirits\u201d are required.\n\n  244 As to the Pontiffs, the matter is rather doubtful.\n\n  245 But this alone is no reason why people should believe in this class\n      of spirits. There are better authorities for such belief.\n\n  246 De Mirville\u2019s aim is to show that all such apparitions of the Manes\n      or disembodied Spirits are the work of the Devil, \u201cSatan\u2019s\n      simulacra.\u201d\n\n  247 He might have added: like the great Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya, Tsong\u2010Kha\u2010Pa,\n      and so many other real Adepts\u2014even his own Master, Jesus; for this\n      is indeed a criterion of true Adeptship, though \u201cto disappear\u201d one\n      need not fly up in the clouds.\n\n  248 See _Dion Cassius_, XXVII. xviii. 2.\n\n  249 Lampridius, _Adrian_, xxix. 2.\n\n  250 The passage runs as follows: \u201cAurelian had determined to destroy\n      Tyana, and the town owed its salvation only to a miracle of\n      Apollonius; this man so famous and so wise, this great friend of the\n      Gods, appeared suddenly before the Emperor, as he was returning to\n      his tent, in his own figure and form, and said to him in the\n      Pannonian language: \u2018Aurelian, if thou wouldst conquer, abandon\n      these evil designs against my fellow\u2010citizens: if thou wouldst\n      command, abstain from shedding innocent blood; and if thou wouldst\n      live, abstain from injustice.\u2019 Aurelian, familiar with the face of\n      Apollonius, whose portraits he had seen in many temples, struck with\n      wonder, immediately vowed to him (Apollonius) statue, portrait and\n      temple, and returned completely to ideas of mercy.\u201d And then\n      Vopiscus adds: \u201cIf I have believed more and more in the virtues of\n      the _majestic_ Apollonius, it is because, after gathering my\n      information from the most serious men, I have found all these facts\n      corroborated in the Books of the Ulpian Library.\u201d (See Flavius\n      Vopiscus, _Aurelianus_). Vopiscus wrote in 250 and consequently\n      preceded Philostratus by a century.\n\n  251 _Ep. ad Paulinum._\n\n  252 The above is mostly summarised from De Mirville, _loc. cit._, pp.\n      66\u201069.\n\n  253 A \u201ctrue prophet\u201d because an Initiate, one perfectly versed in Occult\n      astronomy.\n\n  254 _Key to Hebrew\u2010Egyptian Mystery_, p. 259 _et seq._ Astronomy and\n      physiology are the bodies, astrology and psychology their informing\n      souls; the former being studied by the eye of sensual perception,\n      the latter by the inner or \u201csoul\u2010eye\u201d; and both are _exact_\n      sciences.\n\n  255 _New Platonism and Alchemy_, p. 12\n\n  256 _Heracles_, 807.\n\n  257 _\u00c6neid_, viii., 274 ff.\n\n  258 App., vii., p. 301.\n\n  259 _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie_, ii. 88.\n\n  260 (Hieronymus, _De Viris Illust._, iii.) \u201cIt is remarkable that, while\n      all Church Fathers say that _Matthew_ wrote in _Hebrew_, the whole\n      of them use the _Greek_ text as the genuine apostolic writing,\n      without mentioning what relation the _Hebrew_ Matthew has to our\n      _Greek_ one! It had many _peculiar additions_ which are wanting in\n      our (Greek) Evangel\u201d (Olshausen, _Nachweis der Echtheit der\n      S\u00e4mmtlichen Schriften des Neuen Test._, p. 32; Dunlap, _S\u00f4d, the Son\n      of the Man_, p. 44.)\n\n  261 _Commen. to Matthew_ (xii. 13) Book II. Jerome adds that it was\n      written in the Chaldaic language, but with Hebrew letters.\n\n  262 \u201cSt. Jerome,\u201d v. 445; Dunlap, _S\u00f4d, the Son of Man_, p. 46.\n\n  263 This accounts also for the rejection of the works of Justin Martyr,\n      who used only this \u201cGospel according to the Hebrews,\u201d as also did\n      most probably Tatian, his disciple. At what a late period the\n      divinity of Christ was fully established we can judge by the mere\n      fact that even in the fourth century Eusebius did not denounce this\n      book as spurious, but only classed it with such as the _Apocalypse_\n      of John; and Credner (_Zur Gesch. des Kan_, p. 120) shows Nicephorus\n      inserting it, together with the _Revelation_, in his _Stichometry_,\n      among the Antilegomena. The Ebionites, the _genuine_ primitive\n      Christians, rejecting the rest of the Apostolic writings, make use\n      only of this Gospel (_Adv. H\u00e6r._, i. 26) and the Ebionites, as\n      Epiphanius declares, firmly believed, with the Nazarenes, that Jesus\n      was but a man, \u201cof the seed of a man.\u201d\n\n  264 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 182\u20103.\n\n  265 _Op. cit._, ii. 5.\n\n  266 See also _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 180, to end of chapter.\n\n  267 _Source of Measures_, p. 299. This \u201cstream of life\u201d being\n      emblematised in the Philloc _basso\u2010relievo_ just mentioned, by the\n      water poured in the shape of a Cross on the initiated candidate by\n      Osiris\u2014_Life_ and the Sun\u2014and Mercury\u2014_Death_. It was the _finale_\n      of the rite of Initiation after the _seven_ and the _twelve_\n      tortures in the Crypts of Egypt were passed through successfully.\n\n  268 Another untrustworthy, untruthful and ignorant writer, an\n      ecclesiastical historian of the fifth century. His alleged history\n      of the strife between the Pagans, Neoplatonists, and the Christians\n      of Alexandria and Constantinople, which extends from the year 324 to\n      439, dedicated by him to Theodosius, the younger, is full of\n      deliberate falsifications.\n\n  269 _Gems of the Orthodox Christians_, vol. I., p. 135.\n\n  270 _Revelation_, xiv. 1.\n\n  271 A Dagoba is a small temple of globular form, in which are preserved\n      the relics of Gautama.\n\n  272 Prachidas are buildings of all sizes and forms, like our mausoleums,\n      and are sacred to votive offerings to the dead.\n\n  273 The Talmudistic records claim that, after having been hanged, he was\n      lapidated and buried under the water at the junction of two streams.\n      _Mishna Sanhedrin_, Vol. VI., p. 4; _Talmud_, of Babylon, same\n      article, 43 a, 67 a.\n\n  274 _Coptic Legends of the Crucifixion_, MSS. XI.\n\n  275 We are at a loss to understand why King, in his _Gnostic Gems_,\n      represents Solomon\u2019s Seal as a five\u2010pointed star, whereas it is six\u2010\n      pointed, and is the signet of Vishnu in India.\n\n  276 King (_Gnostics_) gives the figure of a Christian symbol, very\n      common during the middle ages, of three fishes interlaced into a\n      triangle, and having the FIVE letters (a most sacred Pythagorean\n      number) \u0399\u03a7\u0398\u03a5\u03a3 engraved on it. The number five relates to the same\n      kabalistic computation.\n\n  277 _Op. cit._, ii., 253\u2010256.\n\n  278 _Op. cit._, 301. All this connects Jesus with great Initiates and\n      solar heroes; all this is purely Pagan, under a newly\u2010evolved\n      variation, the Christian scheme.\n\n  279 _Op. cit._, 296.\n\n  280 Pp. 294, 295.\n\n  281 P. 295\n\n  282 Pp. 295, 296.\n\n  283 Had we known the learned author before his book was printed, he\n      might have been perchance prevailed upon to add a seventh link from\n      which all others, far preceding those enumerated in point of time,\n      and surpassing them in universally philosophical meaning, have been\n      derived, aye, even to the great pyramid, whose foundation square\n      was, in its turn, the great \u00c2ryan Mysteries.\n\n  284 We would say cosmic Matter, Spirit, Chaos, and Divine Light, for the\n      Egyptian idea was identical in this with the \u00c2ryan. However, the\n      author is right with regard to the Occult Symbology of the Jews.\n      They were a remarkably matter of fact, unspiritual people at all\n      times; yet even with them \u201cRuach\u201d was Divine Spirit, not \u201cair.\u201d\n\n  285 Mr. Ralston Skinner shows that the symbol \u2627, the crossed bones and\n      skull, has the letter \u05e7 _Koph_, the half of the head behind the\n      ears.\n\n  286 Pp. 296\u2010302. By these numbers, explains the author, \u201cEli is 113 (by\n      placing the word in a circle); _amah_ being 345, is by change of\n      letters to suit the same value \u05de\u05e9\u05ea (in a circle) or Moses, while\n      Sabachth is John or the dove, or Holy Spirit, because (in a circle)\n      it is 710 (or 355 \u00d7 2). The termination _ni_, as _meni_ or 5651,\n      becomes Jehovah.\u201d\n\n  287 The Western personification of that power, which the Hindus call the\n      _Vija_, the \u201cone seed,\u201d or _Mah\u00e2 Vishnu_\u2014a power, not the God\u2014or\n      that mysterious Principle that contains in Itself the Seed of\n      Avat\u00e2rism.\n\n  288 \u201cArise into Nervi from this decrepit body into which thou hast been\n      sent. Ascend into thy former abode, O blessed Avat\u00e2r!\u201d\n\n  289 _The Gnostics and their Remains_, King, pp. 100, 101.\n\n  290 _Loc cit._\n\n  291 _Op. cit._ 258.\n\n  292 _Homilies_ XIX., xx. 1.\n\n  293 The Pleroma constituted the synthesis or entirety of all the\n      spiritual entities. St. Paul still used the name in his Epistles.\n\n  294 The \u201cComforter,\u201d second Messiah, intercessor. \u201cA term applied to the\n      Holy Ghost.\u201d Manes was the disciple of Terebinthus, an Egyptian\n      Philosopher, who, according to the Christian Socrates (I. i., cited\n      by Tillemont, iv. 584), \u201cwhile invoking one day the demons of the\n      air, fell from the roof of his house and was killed.\u201d\n\n  295 _Cf._ _op. cit._, vi. 169\u2010183.\n\n  296 \u201cThe _great serpent_ placed to _watch the temple_,\u201d comments De\n      Mirville. \u201cHow often have we repeated that it was no _symbol_, no\n      personification but really a serpent occupied by a god!\u201d\u2014he\n      exclaims; and we answer that at Cairo in a Mussulman, not a\n      _heathen_ temple, we have seen, as thousands of other visitors have\n      also seen, a huge serpent that lived there for centuries, we were\n      told, and was held in great respect. Was it also \u201coccupied by a\n      God,\u201d or possessed, in other words?\n\n  297 The Mysteries of Demeter, or the \u201cafflicted mother.\u201d\n\n  298 By the satyrs.\n\n  299 This looks rather suspicious and seems interpolated. De Mirville\n      tries to have what he says of Satan and his Court sending their imps\n      on earth to tempt humanity and masquerade at _s\u00e9ances_, corroborated\n      by the ex\u2010sorcerer.\n\n  300 This does not look like sinful food. It is the diet of Chel\u00e2s to\n      this day.\n\n  301 \u201cGrafted\u201d is the correct expression. \u201cThe seven Builders graft the\n      divine and the beneficent forces on to the gross material nature of\n      the vegetable and mineral kingdoms every Second Round\u201d\u2014says the\n      _Catechism of Lanoos_.\n\n  302 Only the Prince of the World is not Satan, as the translator would\n      make us believe, but the collective Host of the Planetary. This is a\n      little theological back\u2010biting.\n\n  303 Here the Elemental and Elementary Spirits are evidently meant.\n\n  304 The reader has already learned the truth about them in the course of\n      the present work.\n\n  305 Pity the penitent _Saint_ had not imparted his knowledge of the\n      rotation of the earth and helio\u2010centric system earlier to his\n      Church. That might have saved more than one human life\u2014that of Bruno\n      for one.\n\n  306 Chel\u00e2s in their trials of initiation, also see _in trances\n      artificially generated for them_, the vision of the Earth supported\n      by an elephant on the top of a tortoise standing on nothing\u2014and\n      this, to teach them to discern the true from the false.\n\n  307 Relating to the days of the year, also to 7 \u00d7 7 divisions of the\n      earth\u2019s sublunary sphere, divided into seven upper and seven lower\n      spheres with their respective Planetary Hosts or \u201carmies.\u201d\n\n  308 Daimon is not \u201cdemon,\u201d as translated by De Mirville, but Spirit.\n\n  309 All this is to corroborate his dogmatic assertions that Pater \u00c6ther\n      or Jupiter is Satan! and that pestilential diseases, cataclysms, and\n      even thunderstorms that prove disastrous, come from the Satanic Host\n      dwelling in Ether\u2014a good warning to the men of Science!\n\n  310 The translator replaces the word Mediators by mediums, excusing\n      himself in a foot\u2010note by saying that Cyprian _must_ have meant\n      modern mediums!\n\n  311 Cyprianus simply meant to hint at the rites and mysteries of\n      Initiation, and the pledge of secresy and oaths that bound the\n      Initiates together. His translator, however, has made a Witches\u2019\n      Sabbath of it instead.\n\n  312 \u201cTwelve centuries later, in full renaissance and reform, the world\n      saw Luther do the same [embrace the Devil he means?]\u2014according to\n      his own confession and in the same conditions,\u201d explains De Mirville\n      in a foot\u2010note, showing thereby the brotherly love that binds\n      Christians. Now Cyprianus meant by the Devil (if the word is really\n      in the original text) his Initiator and Hierophant. No Saint\u2014even a\n      penitent Sorcerer\u2014would be so silly as to speak of his (the Devil\u2019s)\n      rising from his seat to see him to the door, were it otherwise.\n\n  313 Every Adept has \u201ca principality after his death.\u201d\n\n  314 Which shows that it was the Hierophant and his disciples. Cyprianus\n      shows himself as grateful as most of the other converts (the modern\n      included) to his Teachers and Instructors.\n\n  315 This is proved if we take but a single recorded instance. J. Picus\n      de Mirandola, finding that there was more Christianity than Judaism\n      in the _Kabalah_, and discovering in it the doctrines of the\n      Trinity, the Incarnation, the Divinity of Jesus, etc., wound up his\n      proofs of this with a challenge to the world at large from Rome. As\n      Ginsburg shows: \u201cIn 1486, when only twenty\u2010four years old, he\n      [Picus] published nine hundred [Kabalistic] _theses_, which were\n      placarded in Rome, and undertook to defend them in the presence of\n      all European scholars whom he invited to the Eternal City, promising\n      to defray their travelling expenses.\u201d\n\n  316 This account is summarised from Isaac Myer\u2019s _Qabbalah_, p. 10, _et\n      seq._\n\n  317 There is not in the decalogue one idea that is not the counterpart,\n      or the paraphrase, of the dogmas and ethics current among the\n      Egyptians long before the time of Moses and Aaron. (The Mosaic Law a\n      transcript from Egyptian Sources; vide _Geometry in Religion_,\n      1890.)\n\n  318 _Book of God._ Kenealy, p. 383. The reference to Klaproth is also\n      from this page.\n\n  319 See _Asiat. Jour._, N.S. vii., p. 275, quoted by Kenealy.\n\n  320 _Book of God_, _loc. cit._\n\n  321 _Op. cit._, v. 15.\n\n  322 _Prolegomena_, iii. 13, quoted by Kenealy, p. 385.\n\n  323 See _Book of God_, p. 385. \u201cCare should be taken,\u201d says Butler\n      (quoted by Kenealy, p. 489), \u201cto distinguish between the Pentateuch\n      in the Hebrew language but in the letters of the Samaritan alphabet,\n      and the version of the Pentateuch in the Samaritan language. One of\n      the most important differences between the Samaritan and the Hebrew\n      text respects the duration of the period between the deluge and the\n      birth of Abraham. The Samaritan text makes it longer by some\n      centuries than the Hebrew text; and the Septuagint makes it longer\n      by some centuries than the Samaritan.\u201d It is observable that in the\n      authentic translation of the Latin Vulgate, the Roman Church follows\n      the computation expressed in the Hebrew text; and in her Martyrology\n      follows that of the Seventy, both texts being inspired, as she\n      claims.\n\n  324 See Rev. Joseph Wolff\u2019s _Journal_, p. 200.\n\n  325 A tree is symbolically a book\u2014as \u201cpillar\u201d is another synonym of the\n      same.\n\n  326 The wife of Moses, one of the seven daughters of a Midian priest, is\n      called Zipora. It was Jethro, the priest of Midian, who initiated\n      Moses, Zipora, one of the seven daughters, being simply one of the\n      seven Occult powers that the Hierophant was and is supposed to pass\n      to the initiated novice.\n\n  327 See for these details the _Book of God_, pp. 244, 250.\n\n  328 _Op. cit._ v. 85.\n\n  329 As is fully shown in the _Source of Measures_ and other works.\n\n  330 Surely even Masons would never claim the _actual_ existence of\n      Solomon? As Kenealy shows, he is not noticed by Herodotus, nor by\n      Plato, nor by any writer of standing. It is most extraordinary, he\n      says, \u201cthat the Jewish nation, over whom but a few years before the\n      mighty Solomon had reigned in all his glory, with a magnificence\n      scarcely equalled by the greatest monarchs, spending nearly _eight\n      thousand millions_ of gold on a temple, was overlooked by the\n      historian Herodotus, writing of Egypt on the one hand, and of\n      Babylon on the other\u2014visiting both places, and of course passing\n      almost necessarily within a few miles of the splendid capital of the\n      national Jerusalem? How can this be accounted for?\u201d he asks (p.\n      457). Nay, not only are there no proofs of the twelve tribes of\n      Israel having ever existed, but Herodotus, the most accurate of\n      historians, who was in Assyria when Ezra flourished, never mentions\n      the Israelites at all; and Herodotus was born in 484 B.C. How is\n      this?\n\n  331 Clement, _Stromateis_, xxii.\n\n  332 _Book of God_, p. 408.\n\n  333 _Book of God_, p. 453.\n\n  334 _Asiatic Journal_, vii., p. 275, quoted by Kenealy.\n\n  335 _Book of God_, p. 385.\n\n  336 Speaking of the hidden meaning of the Sanskrit words, Mr. T. Subba\n      Row, in his able article on \u201cThe Twelve Signs of the Zodiac,\u201d gives\n      some advice as to the way in which one should proceed to find out\n      \u201cthe deep significance of ancient Sanskrit nomenclature in the old\n      \u00c2ryan myths. 1. Find out the synonyms of the word used which have\n      other meanings. 2. Find out the numerical value of the letters\n      composing the word according to the methods of the ancient T\u00e2ntrik\n      works [_T\u00e2ntrika Sh\u00e2stra_\u2014works on Incantation and Magic]. 3.\n      Examine the ancient myths or allegories, if there are any, which\n      have any special connection with the word in question. 4. Permute\n      the different syllables composing the word and examine the new\n      combinations that will thus be formed and their meanings,\u201d etc. But\n      he does not give the principal rule. And no doubt he is quite right.\n      The T\u00e2ntrika _Sh\u00e2stras_ are as old as Magic itself. Have they also\n      borrowed their Esotericism from the Hebrews?\n\n  337 Their founder, Sadoc, was the pupil, through Antigonus Saccho, of\n      Simon the Just. They had their own secret _Book of the Law_ ever\n      since the foundation of their sect (about 400 B.C.) and this volume\n      was unknown to the masses. At the time of the Separation the\n      Samaritans recognised only the _Book of the Law of Moses_ and the\n      _Book of Joshua_, and their _Pentateuch_ is far older, and is\n      different from the Septuagint. In 168 B.C. Jerusalem had its temple\n      plundered, and its Sacred Books\u2014namely, the _Bible_ made up by Ezra\n      and finished by Judas Maccabeus\u2014were lost (see Burder\u2019s _Josephus_,\n      vol. ii. pp. 331\u2010335); after which the _Massorah_ completed the work\n      of destruction (even of Ezra\u2019s once\u2010more adjusted _Bible_) begun by\n      the change into square from horned letters. Therefore the later\n      _Pentateuch_ accepted by the Pharisees was rejected and laughed at\n      by the Sadducees. They are generally called atheists; yet, since\n      those learned men, who made no secret of their freethought,\n      furnished from among their number the most eminent of the Jewish\n      high\u2010priests, this seems impossible. How could the Pharisees and the\n      other two believing and pious sects allow notorious atheists to be\n      selected for such posts? The answer is difficult to find for bigotry\n      and for believers in a personal, anthropomorphic God, but very easy\n      for those who accept facts. The Sadducees were called atheists\n      because they believed as the initiated Moses believed, thus\n      differing very widely from the latter made\u2010up Jewish legislator and\n      hero of Mount Sinai.\n\n  338 The measurements of the Great Pyramid being those of the temple of\n      Solomon, of the Ark of the Covenant, etc., according to Piazzi\n      Smythe and the author of the _Source of Measures_, and the Pyramid\n      of Gizeh being shown on astronomical calculations to have been built\n      4950 B.C., and Moses having _written_ his books\u2014for the sake of\n      argument\u2014not even half that time before our era, how can this be?\n      Surely if any one borrowed from the other, it is not the Pharaohs\n      from Moses. Even philology shows not only the Egyptian, but even the\n      Mongolian, older than the Hebrew.\n\n  339 This alone shows how the Books of Moses were tampered with. In\n      _Samuel_ (ix. 9), it is said: \u201cHe that is now a prophet [Nabhi] was\n      beforetime called a Seer [Roch].\u201d Now since before _Samuel_, the\n      word \u201cRoch\u201d is met nowhere in the _Pentateuch_, but its place is\n      always taken by that of \u201cNabhi,\u201d this proves clearly that the Mosaic\n      text has been replaced by that of the later Levites. (See for fuller\n      details _Jewish Antiquities_, by the Rev. D. Jennings, D.D.)\n\n  340 _Zohar_, i, 2a.\n\n  341 _Zohar_, 42b.\n\n  342 _Zohar_, i, 2a. See Dr. Ch. Ginsburg\u2019s essay on _The Cabbalah, its\n      Doctrines, Developments and Literature_.\n\n  343 Cudworth, I. iii, quoted by Wilson, _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, i. 14, note.\n\n  344 _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, i. 14.\n\n  345 Stanza i, 4.\n\n  346 _Mishna_, i. 9.\n\n  347 In its manifested state it becomes Ten, the Universe. In the\n      Chald\u00e6an _Kabalah_ it is sexless. In the Jewish, Shekinah is female,\n      and the early Christians and Gnostics regarded the Holy Ghost as a\n      female potency. In the _Book of Numbers_ \u201cShekina\u201d is made to drop\n      the final \u201ch\u201d that makes it a feminine name. N\u00e2r\u00e2yana, the Mover on\n      the Waters, is also sexless; but it is our firm belief that Shekinah\n      and Daiviprakriti, the \u201cLight of the Logos,\u201d are one and the same\n      thing philosophically.\n\n  348 The Elohim create the Adam of dust, and in him Jehovah\u2010Binah\n      separates himself into Eve, after which the male portion of God\n      becomes the Serpent, tempts himself in Eve, then creates himself in\n      her as Cain, passes into Seth, and scatters from Enoch, the Son of\n      Man, or Humanity, as Jodheva.\n\n  349 _The Source of Measures_, p. 8.\n\n  350 This identifies Sephira, the third potency, with Jehovah the Lord,\n      who says to Moses out of the burning bush: \u201c(Here) I am.\u201d (_Exodus_,\n      iii, 4.) At this time the \u201cLord\u201d had not yet become Jehovah. It was\n      not the one Male God who spoke, but the Elohim manifested, or the\n      Sephiroth in their manifested collectivity of seven, contained in\n      the triple Sephira.\n\n  351 The Br\u00e2hmans were wise in their generation when they gradually, for\n      no other reason than this, abandoned Brahm\u00e2, and paid less attention\n      to him individually than to any other deity. As an abstract\n      synthesis they worshipped him collectively and in every God, each of\n      which represents him. As Brahm\u00e2, the male, he is far lower than\n      Shiva, the Lingam, who personates universal generation, or Vishnu,\n      the preserver\u2014both Shiva and Vishnu being the regenerators of life\n      after destruction. The Christians might do worse than follow their\n      example, and worship God in Spirit, and not in the male Creator.\n\n  352 A plural word, signifying a collective host generically; literally,\n      the \u201cstrong lion.\u201d\n\n  353 The writer possesses only a few extracts, some dozen pages in all,\n      verbatim quotations from that priceless work, of which but two or\n      three copies, perhaps, are still extant.\n\n  354 Aye; but that _spirituality_ can never be discovered, far less\n      proved, unless we turn to the \u00c2ryan Scriptures and Symbology. For\n      the Jews it was lost, save for the Sadducees, from the day that the\n      \u201cchosen people\u201d reached the Promised Land, the national Karma\n      preventing Moses from reaching it.\n\n  355 _Op. cit._, pp. 317\u2010319.\n\n  356 _The Book of God_, pp. 388, 389.\n\n  357 See Horne\u2019s _Introduction_ (10th edition), vol. ii, p. 33, as quoted\n      by Dr. Kenealy, p. 389.\n\n  358 See Horne\u2019s _Introduction_ (10th edition), vol. ii, p. 33, as quoted\n      by Dr. Kenealy, p. 389.\n\n  359 The author says that Parker\u2019s _quadrature_ is \u201cthat identical\n      measure which was used anciently as the perfect measure, by the\n      Egyptians, in the construction of the Great Pyramid, which was built\n      to _monument it and its uses_,\u201d and that \u201cfrom it the _sacred cubit\u2010\n      value was derived_, which was the cubit\u2010value used in the\n      construction of the Temple of Solomon, the Ark of Noah, and the Ark\n      of the Covenant\u201d (p. 22). This is a grand discovery, no doubt, but\n      it only shows that the Jews profited well by their captivity in\n      Egypt, and that Moses was a great Initiate.\n\n  360 See _Theosophist_, November, 1879, art. \u201cHindu Music,\u201d p. 47.\n\n  361 The Sanskrit letters are far more numerous than the poor twenty\u2010two\n      letters of the Hebrew alphabet. They are all musical, and they are\n      read\u2014or rather chanted\u2014according to a system given in very old\n      T\u00e2ntrika works, and are called Devan\u00e2gar\u00ee, the speech, or language,\n      of the Gods. And since each letter answers to a numeral, the\n      Sanskrit affords a far larger scope for expression, and it must\n      necessarily be far more perfect than the Hebrew, which followed the\n      same system but could apply it only in a very limited way. If either\n      of these two languages, were taught to humanity by the Gods, surely\n      it would more likely be the Sanskrit, the perfect form of the most\n      perfect language on earth, than the Hebrew, the roughest and the\n      poorest. For once anyone believes in a language of divine origin, he\n      can hardly believe at the same time that Angels or Gods or any\n      divine Messengers have had to develop it from a rough monosyllabic\n      form into a perfect one, as we see in terrestrial linguistic\n      evolution.\n\n  362 In the first chapter of _Genesis_ the word \u201cGod\u201d represents the\n      Elohim\u2014Gods in the plural, not one God. This is a cunning and\n      dishonest translation. For the whole _Kabalah_ explains sufficiently\n      that the Alhim (Elohim) are seven; each creates one of the seven\n      things enumerated in the first chapter, and these answer\n      allegorically to the seven creations. To make this clear, count the\n      verses in which it is said \u201cAnd God saw that it was good,\u201d and you\n      will find that this is said seven times\u2014in verses 4, 10, 12, 18, 21,\n      25, and 31. And though the compilers cunningly represent the\n      creation of man as occurring on the sixth day, yet, having made man\n      \u201cmale and female in the image of God,\u201d the Seven Elohim repeat the\n      sacramental sentence, \u201cIt was good,\u201d for the seventh time, thus\n      making of man the seventh creation, and showing the origin of this\n      bit of cosmogony to be in the Hindu creations. The Elohim are, of\n      course, the seven Egyptian Khn\u00fbm\u00fb, the \u201cassistant\u2010architects\u201d; the\n      seven Amshaspends of the Zoroastrians; the Seven Spirits subordinate\n      to Ildabaoth of the Nazareans; the seven Praj\u00e2pati of the Hindus,\n      etc.\n\n  363 _Gen._, ii. 21, 22.\n\n  364 _Op. cit._, p. 395, note.\n\n  365 The seventh esoterically, exoterically the sixth.\n\n  366 _Contra Hereses_, I, xviii, 2.\n\n  367 _Op. cit._ by Gerald Massey, p. 19.\n\n  368 _Op cit._, p. 278.\n\n  369 _The Hebrew and other Creations: with a reply to Professor A. H.\n      Sayce_, p. 19.\n\n  370 _Op. cit._, p. 243.\n\n  371 When they are the Anup\u00e2dakas (Parentless) of the Secret Doctrine.\n      See Stanzas, i, 9, Vol. i, 56.\n\n  372 These originated with the \u00c2ryans, who placed therein their \u201cbright\u2010\n      crested\u201d (Chitra\u2010Shikhandan) Seven Rishis. But all this is far more\n      Occult than appears on the surface.\n\n  373 _Op. cit._, pp. 19\u201022.\n\n  374 _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, Wilson\u2019s Trans., i, 101. The period of these\n      Kum\u00e2ras is Pre\u2010Adamic, _i.e._, before the separation of sexes, and\n      before humanity had received the creative, or sacred, fire of\n      Prometheus.\n\n  375 The Secret Doctrine says that this was the second creation, not the\n      first, and that it took place during the Third Race, when men\n      separated, _i.e._, began to be born as distinct men and women. See\n      Vol. ii. of this work, Stanzas and Commentaries.\n\n  376 This is a Western mangling of the Indian doctrine of the Kum\u00e2ras.\n\n  377 He was regarded by several Gnostic sects as one with Jehovah. See\n      _Isis Unveiled_, vol. ii. p. 184.\n\n  378 Or \u201cman, son of man.\u201d The Church found in this a _prophecy_ and a\n      confession of Christ, the \u201cSon of Man!\u201d\n\n  379 See Stanza ii. 5, Secret Doctrine, ii. 16.\n\n  380 _Op. cit._, pp. 23, 24.\n\n  381 The _Sepher Jetzirah_ now known is but a portion of the original one\n      incorporated in the Chald\u00e6an _Book of Numbers_. The fragment now in\n      possession of the Western Kabalists is one greatly tampered with by\n      the Rabbis of the Middle Ages, as its masoretic points show. The\n      \u201cMasorah\u201d scheme is a modern blind, dating after our era and\n      perfected in Tiberias. (See _Isis Unveiled_, vol. ii, pp. 430\u2010431.)\n\n  382 In the oldest symbolism\u2014that used in the Egyptian hieroglyphics\u2014when\n      the bull\u2019s head only is found it means the Deity, the Perfect\n      Circle, with the procreative power latent in it. When the whole bull\n      is represented, a solar God, a _personal_ deity is meant, for it is\n      then the symbol of the acting generative power.\n\n  383 It took three Root\u2010Races to degrade the symbol of the One Abstract\n      Unity manifested in Nature as a Ray emanating from infinity (the\n      Circle) into a phallic symbol of generation, as it was even in the\n      _Kabalah_. This degradation began with the Fourth Race, and had its\n      _raison d\u2019etre_, in Polytheism, as the latter was invented to screen\n      the One Universal Deity from profanation. The Christians may plead\n      ignorance of its meaning as an excuse for its acceptance. But why\n      sing never\u2010ceasing laudations to the Mosaic Jews who repudiated all\n      the other Gods, preserved the most phallic, and then most impudently\n      proclaimed themselves Monotheists? Jesus ever steadily ignored\n      Jehovah. He went against the Mosaic commandments. He recognized his\n      Heavenly Father alone, and prohibited public worship.\n\n  384 Is it everything to have found out that the celestial circle of 360\u00b0\n      is determined by \u201cthe full word\u2010form of Elohim,\u201d and that this\n      yields, when the word is placed in a circle, \u201c3.1415, or the\n      relation of circumference to a diameter of _one_.\u201d This is only its\n      astronomical or mathematical aspect. To know the full _septenary_\n      significance of the \u201cPrimordial Circle,\u201d the pyramid and the\n      Kabalistic _Bible_ must be read in the light of the figure on which\n      the temples of India are built. The mathematical squaring of the\n      circle is only the terrestrial _r\u00e9sum\u00e9_ of the problem. The Jews\n      were content with the six days of activity and the seventh of rest.\n      The progenitors of mankind solved the greatest problems of the\n      Universe with their seven Rays or Rishis.\n\n  385 _Genesis_ begins with the _third_ stage of \u201ccreation,\u201d skipping the\n      preliminary two.\n\n  386 The three _root_\u2010principles are, exoterically: Man, Soul, and Spirit\n      (meaning by \u201cman\u201d the intelligent personality), and esoterically:\n      Life, Soul, and Spirit; the four vehicles are Body, Astral double,\n      Animal (or human) Soul, and Divine Soul (Sth\u00fbla\u2010Shar\u00eera, Linga\u2010\n      Shar\u00eera, K\u00e2ma\u2010r\u00fbpa, and Buddhi, the vehicle of \u00c2tma or Spirit). Or,\n      to make it still clearer: (1) the _Seventh_ Principle has for its\n      vehicle the Sixth (Buddhi); (2) the vehicle of Manas is K\u00e2ma\u2010r\u00fbpa;\n      (3) that of J\u00eeva or Pr\u00e2na (life) is the Linga\u2010Shar\u00eera (the \u201cdouble\u201d\n      of man; the Linga\u2010Shar\u00eera proper can never leave the body till\n      death; that which appears is an astral body, reflecting the physical\n      body and serving as a vehicle for the human soul, or intelligence);\n      and (4) the Body, the physical vehicle of all the above\n      collectively. The Occultist recognizes the same order as existing\n      for the cosmical totality, the _psycho_\u2010cosmical Universe.\n\n  387 St. Denys, the Areopagite, the supposed contemporary of St. Paul,\n      his co\u2010disciple, and first Bishop of St. Denis, near Paris, teaches\n      that the bulk of the \u201cwork of creation\u201d was performed by the\n      \u201c_Seven_ Spirits of the Presence\u201d\u2014God\u2019s _co\u2010operators_, owing to a\n      participation of the divinity in them. (_Hierarch._, p. 196.) And\n      Saint Augustine also thinks that \u201cthings were rather created in the\n      angelic minds than in Nature, that is to say, that the angels\n      perceived and knew them (all things) in their thoughts before they\n      could spring forth into actual existence.\u201d (_Vid. De Genesis ad\n      Litteram_ p. II.) (Summarized from De Mirville, Vol. II., pp.\n      337\u2010338.) Thus the early Christian Fathers, even a non\u2010initiate like\n      St. Augustine, ascribed the creation of the visible world to Angels,\n      or Secondary Powers, while St. Denys not only specifies these as the\n      \u201c_Seven_ Spirits of the Presence,\u201d but shows them owing their power\n      to the informing divine energy\u2014Fohat in the Secret Doctrine. But the\n      egotistical darkness which caused the Western races to cling so\n      desperately to the _Geo_\u2010centric System, made them also neglect and\n      despise all those fragments of the true Religion which would have\n      deprived them and the little globe they took for the centre of the\n      Universe of the signal honour of having been expressly \u201ccreated\u201d by\n      the One, Secondless, Infinite God!\n\n  388 De Mirville, ii. 295.\n\n  389 To the Occultist and Chel\u00e2 the difference made between _Energy_ and\n      Emanation need not be explained. The Sanskrit word \u201cSakti\u201d is\n      untranslatable. It may be Energy, but it is one that proceeds\n      through itself, not being due to the active or conscious will of the\n      one that produces it. The \u201cFirst\u2010Born,\u201d or Logos, is not an\n      Emanation, but an Energy inherent in and co\u2010eternal with\n      Parabrahman, the One. The _Zohar_ speaks of emanations, but reserves\n      the word for the seven Sephiroth emanated from the first three\u2014which\n      form one triad\u2014Kether, Chokmah, and Binah. As for these three, it\n      explains the difference by calling them \u201cimmanations,\u201d something\n      inherent to and co\u00ebval with the subject postulated, or in other\n      words, \u201cEnergies.\u201d\n\n      It is these \u201cAuxiliaries,\u201d the Auphanim, the half\u2010human Praj\u00e2patis,\n      the Angels, the Architects under the leadership of the \u201cAngel of the\n      Great Council,\u201d with the rest of the Kosmos\u2010Builders of other\n      nations, that can alone explain the imperfection of the Universe.\n      This imperfection is one of the arguments of the Secret Science in\n      favour of the existence and activity of these \u201cPowers.\u201d And who know\n      better than the few philosophers of our civilised lands how near the\n      truth Philo was in ascribing the origin of evil to the admixture of\n      inferior potencies in the arrangement of matter, and even in the\n      formation of man\u2014a task entrusted to the divine Logos.\n\n  390 _Psalms_ cxxxv. 5.\n\n  391 _Psalms_ xcvi. 5.\n\n  392 Rather as Ormazd or Ahura\u2010Mazda, Vit\u2010nam\u2010Ahmi, and all the\n      unmanifested Logoi. Jehovah is the manifested Vir\u00e2j, corresponding\n      to Binah, the third Sephira in the _Kabalah_, a female Power which\n      would find its prototype rather in the Praj\u00e2pati, than in Brahm\u00e2,\n      the Creator.\n\n  393 Neith is Aditi, evidently.\n\n  394 The Self\u2010created Logos, N\u00e2r\u00e2yana, Purushottama, and others.\n\n  395 _M\u00e8re d\u2019Apis_, pp. 32\u201035. Quoted by De Mirville.\n\n  396 See _Republic_, I. vi.\n\n  397 _Harmonie entre l\u2019\u00c9glise et la Synagogue_, t. II., p. 427, by the\n      Chevalier Drach. See De Mirville iv. 38, 39.\n\n  398 Julian died for the same crime as Socrates. Both divulged a portion\n      of the solar mystery, the heliocentric system being only a part of\n      what was given during Initiation\u2014one consciously, the other\n      unconsciously, the Greek Sage never having been initiated. It was\n      not the real solar system that was preserved in such secrecy, but\n      the mysteries connected with the Sun\u2019s constitution. Socrates was\n      sentenced to death by earthly and worldly judges; Julian died a\n      violent death because the hitherto protecting hand was withdrawn\n      from him, and, no longer shielded by it, he was simply left to his\n      destiny or Karma. For the student of Occultism there is a suggestive\n      difference between the two kinds of death. Another memorable\n      instance of the unconscious divulging of secrets pertaining to\n      mysteries is that of the poet, P. Ovidius Naso, who, like Socrates,\n      had not been initiated. In his case, the Emperor Augustus, who was\n      an Initiate, mercifully changed the penalty of death into banishment\n      to Tomos on the Euxine. This sudden change from unbounded royal\n      favour to banishment has been a fruitful scheme of speculation to\n      classical scholars not initiated into the Mysteries. They have\n      quoted Ovid\u2019s own lines to show that it was some great and heinous\n      immorality of the Emperor of which Ovid had become unwillingly\n      cognizant. The inexorable law of the death penalty, always following\n      upon the revelation of any portion of the Mysteries to the profane,\n      was unknown to them. Instead of seeing the amiable and merciful act\n      of the Emperor in its true light, they have made it an occasion for\n      traducing his moral character. The poet\u2019s own words can be no\n      evidence, because as he was not an Initiate, it could not be\n      explained to him in what his offence consisted. There have been\n      comparatively modern instances of poets unconsciously revealing in\n      their verses so much of the hidden knowledge as to make even\n      Initiates suppose them to be fellow\u2010Initiates, and come to talk to\n      them on the subject. This only shows that the sensitive poetic\n      temperament is sometimes so far transported beyond the bounds of\n      ordinary sense as to get glimpses into what has been impressed on\n      the Astral Light. In the _Light of Asia_ there are two passages that\n      might make an Initiate of the first degree think that Mr. Edwin\n      Arnold had been initiated himself in the Him\u00e2lyan _\u00e2shrams_, but\n      this is not so.\n\n  399 A proof that Julian was acquainted with the heliocentric system.\n\n  400 _La Gravitation par l\u2019Electricit\u00e9_, p. 7, quoted by De Mirville; iv.\n      156.\n\n  401 De Mirville, iv. 157.\n\n  402 _Memoir on the Solar System_, p. 7, De Mirville, iv. 157.\n\n  403 _Essai sur l\u2019 Identit\u00e9 des Agents Producteurs du Son, de la\n      Lumi\u00e8re_, etc., p. 15, _Ibid._\n\n  404 _Ibid._, p. 218.\n\n  405 Summarised from _Ibid._, p. 213. De Mirville, iv. 158.\n\n  406 May, 1855. _Ibid._, p. 139.\n\n  407 _La Terre et notre Syst\u00e8me solaire._ De Mirville, iv. 139.\n\n  408 If, as Sir W. Herschel thought, the so\u2010called fixed stars have\n      resulted from, and owe their origin to nebular combustion, they\n      cannot be fixed any more than is our sun, which was believed to be\n      motionless and is now found to rotate around its axis every twenty\u2010\n      five days. As the fixed star nearest to the sun, however, is eight\u2010\n      thousand times farther away from him than is Neptune, the illusions\n      furnished by the telescopes must be also eight\u2010thousand times as\n      great. We will therefore leave the question at rest, repeating only\n      what A. Maury said in his work (_La Terre et l\u2019Homme_, published in\n      1858): \u201cIt is utterly impossible, so far, to decide anything\n      concerning Neptune\u2019s constitution, analogy alone authorising us to\n      ascribe to him a rotary motion like that of other planets\u201d (De\n      Mirville, iv. 140).\n\n  409 _Exposition du vrai Syst\u00e8me du Monde_, p. 282.\n\n  410 See the passage quoted by Herschel in _Natural Philosophy_, p. 165.\n      De Mirville, iv. 105.\n\n  411 _Loc. cit._\n\n  412 _Terre et Ciel_, p. 28. _Ibid._\n\n  413 _\u0152uvres d\u2019Arago_, vol. i., p. 219; quoted by De Mirville, iii. 462.\n\n  414 \u201c_Die Sterne sind vielleicht ein Sitz verklarter Geister;_\n      _Wie hier das Laster herrscht, ist dort die Tugend Meister._\u201d\n\n  415 _Op. cit._, p. 411.\n\n  416 Whenever Occult doctrines were expounded in the pages of _The\n      Theosophist_, care was taken each time to declare a subject\n      incomplete when the whole could not be given in its fulness, and no\n      writer has ever tried to mislead the reader. As to the Western\n      \u201cranges of perception\u201d concerning doctrines really Occult, the\n      Eastern Occultists have been made acquainted with them for some time\n      past. Thus they are enabled to assert with confidence that the West\n      may be in possession of Hermetic philosophy as a speculative system\n      of dialectics, the latter being used in the West admirably well, but\n      it lacks entirely the knowledge of Occultism. The genuine Eastern\n      Occultist keeps silent and unknown, never publishes what he knows,\n      and rarely even speaks of it, as he knows too well the penalty of\n      indiscretion.\n\n  417 See _The Royal Masonic Cyclop\u00e6dia_, art. \u201cSepher Jetzirah.\u201d\n\n  418 In the exoteric sense, the Mantra (or that psychic faculty or power\n      that conveys perception or thought) is the older portion of the\n      _Vedas_, the second part of which is composed of the _Br\u00e2hmanas_. In\n      Esoteric phraseology Mantra is the Word made flesh, or rendered\n      objective, through divine magic.\n\n  419 The secret meaning of the word \u201cBrahm\u00e2\u201d is \u201cexpansion,\u201d \u201cincrease,\u201d\n      or \u201cgrowth.\u201d\n\n  420 Why not give at once its theological meaning, as we find it in\n      Webster? With the Roman Catholics it means simply \u201cpurgatory,\u201d the\n      borderland between heaven and hell (_Limbus patrum_ and _Limbus\n      infantum_), the one for all men, whether good, bad or indifferent;\n      the other for the souls of unbaptized children! With the ancients it\n      meant simply that which in _Esoteric Buddhism_ is called the K\u00e2ma\n      Loka, between Devachan and Avitchi.\n\n  421 As Chaos, the eternal Element, not as the K\u00e2ma Loka surely.\n\n  422 A proof that by this word \u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi means the lowest region of\n      the terrestrial \u00c2k\u00e2sha.\n\n  423 Evidently he is concerned only with our periodical world, or the\n      terrestrial globe.\n\n  424 In the \u201cre\u00e4wakening\u201d of the Forces would be more correct.\n\n  425 An action which is incessant in eternity cannot be called\n      \u201ccreation;\u201d it is evolution, and the eternally or ever\u2010becoming of\n      the Greek Philosopher and the Hindu Ved\u00e2ntin; it is the Sat and the\n      one Beingness of Parmenides, or the Being identical with Thought.\n      Now how can the Potencies be said to \u201ccreate movement,\u201d once it is\n      seen movement never had any beginning, but existed in the Eternity?\n      Why not say that the reawakened Potencies transferred motion from\n      the eternal to the temporal plane of being? Surely this is not\n      Creation.\n\n  426 _Histoire de la Magie._ Int., p. 1.\n\n  427 _Histoire de la Magie._ Int., p. 2.\n\n  428 The Vaishnavas, who regard Vishnu as the Supreme God and the\n      fashioner of the Universe, claim that Brahm\u00e2 sprang from the navel\n      of Vishnu, the \u201cimperishable,\u201d or rather from the lotus that grew\n      from it. But the \u201cnavel\u201d here means the Central Point, the\n      mathematical symbol of infinitude, or Parabrahman, the One and the\n      Secondless.\n\n  429 _Ecclesiastes_, i. 12, 13.\n\n  430 It is probably needless to say here what everyone knows. The\n      translation of the Protestant _Bible_ is not a word for word\n      rendering of the earlier Greek and Latin _Bibles_: the sense is very\n      often disfigured, and \u201cGod\u201d is put where \u201cJahve\u201d and \u201cElohim\u201d stand.\n\n  431 _Psalms_, civ. 2, 3.\n\n  432 To avoid misunderstanding of the word \u201ccreation\u201d so often used by\n      us, the remarks of the author of _Through the Gates of Gold_ may be\n      quoted owing to their clearness and simplicity. \u201cThe words \u2018to\n      create\u2019 are often understood by the ordinary mind to convey the idea\n      of evolving something out of nothing. This is clearly not its\n      meaning. We are mentally obliged to provide our Creator with chaos\n      from which to produce the worlds. The tiller of the soil, who is the\n      typical producer of social life, must have his material: his earth,\n      his sky, rain and sun, and the seeds to place within the earth. Out\n      of nothing he can produce nothing. Out of a void nature cannot\n      arise; there is that material beyond, behind, or within, from which\n      she is shaped by our desire for a Universe.\u201d (P. 72.)\n\n  433 Commentary on Stanza ix. on Cycles.\n\n  434 Or, read from right to left, the letters and their corresponding\n      numerals stand thus: \u201ct,\u201d 4; \u201ch,\u201d 5; \u201cbh,\u201d 2; \u201cv,\u201d 6; \u201cv,\u201d 6; \u201ch,\u201d\n      5; \u201cv\u201d or \u201cw,\u201d 6; which yields \u201cthuvbhu,\u201d 4566256, or \u201cTohu\u2010vah\u2010\n      bohu.\u201d\n\n  435 Mr. Ralston Skinner\u2019s MSS.\n\n  436 That the teraphim was a statue, and no small article either, is\n      shown in _Samuel_ xix., where Michal takes a teraphim (\u201cimage,\u201d as\n      it is translated) and puts it in bed to represent David, her\n      husband, who ran away from Saul (see verse 13, _et seq._). It was\n      thus of the size and shape of a human figure\u2014a statue or real\n      _idol_.\n\n  437 _Op. cit._, iii. 4\n\n  438 Louis de Dieu, _Genesis_, xxxi. 19. See De Mirville, iii. 257.\n\n  439 \u201cThe teraphim of Abram\u2019s father, Terah, the \u2018maker of images,\u2019 were\n      the Kabeiri Gods, and we see them worshipped by Micah, by the\n      Danites, and others. (_Judges_, xvii.\u2010xviii., etc.) Teraphim were\n      identical with seraphim, and these were serpent images, the origin\n      of which is in the Sanskrit \u2018Sarpa\u2019 (the \u2018serpent\u2019) a symbol sacred\n      to all the deities as a symbol of immortality. Kiyun, or the God\n      Kivan, worshipped by the Hebrews in the wilderness, is Shiva, the\n      Hindu Saturn. (The Zendic \u2018h\u2019 is \u2018s\u2019 in India; thus, \u2018Hapta\u2019 is\n      \u2018Sapta;\u2019 \u2018Hindu\u2019 is \u2018Sindbaya.\u2019 (A. Wilder)) \u2018The \u201cs\u201d continually\n      softens to \u201ch\u201d from Greece to Calcutta, from the Caucasus to Egypt,\u2019\n      says Dunlap. Therefore the letters \u2018k,\u2019 \u2018h,\u2019 and \u2018s\u2019 are\n      interchangeable. The Greek story shows that Dardanus, the Arcadian,\n      having received them as a dowry, carried them to Samothrace, and\n      thence to Troy; and they were worshipped long before the days of\n      glory of Tyre or Sidon, though the former had been built 2760 B.C.\n      From where did Dardanus derive them?\u201d _Isis Unveiled_, i. 570.\n\n  440 Maimon, _More Nevochim_, III. xxx.\n\n  441 Those dedicated to the sun were made in gold, and those to the moon\n      in silver.\n\n  442 _De Diis Syriis, Teraph._ II. Syat, p. 31.\n\n  443 Those that the Kabalists call _elementary_ spirits are sylphs,\n      gnomes, undines and salamanders, nature\u2010spirits, in short. The\n      spirits of the angels formed a distinct class.\n\n  444 _\u0152dipus_, ii. 444.\n\n  445 _Op. cit._, xxv. 22 _et seq._\n\n  446 The ephod was a linen garment worn by the high priest, but as the\n      thummim was attached to it, the entire paraphernalia of divination\n      was often comprised in that single word, ephod. See I. _Sam._,\n      xxviii. 6, and xxx. 7, 8.\n\n  447 _Paganism and Judaism_, iv. 197.\n\n  448 _Op. cit._, I. vi. 5.\n\n  449 _Discourse to the Gentiles_, p. 146.\n\n  450 _De Gener._, I, II. iv.\n\n  451 See _Cosmos_, by M\u00e9nage, I., vi., \u00a7 101.\n\n  452 _Op. cit._, I. ii.\n\n  453 \u201cThe characters employed on those parchments,\u201d writes De Mirville,\n      \u201care sometimes hieroglyphics, placed perpendicularly, a kind of\n      lineary tachygraphy (abridged characters), where the image is often\n      reduced to a simple stroke; at other times placed in horizontal\n      lines; then the hieratic or sacred writing, going from right to left\n      as in all Semitic languages; lastly, the characters of the country,\n      used for official documents, mostly contracts, etc., but which since\n      the Ptolemies has been also adopted for the monuments,\u201d v. 81, 82. A\n      copy of the Harris papyrus, translated by Chabas\u2014_Papyrus\n      magique_\u2014may be studied at the British Museum.\n\n  454 And what of the \u201cMene, mene, tekel, upharsin,\u201d the words that \u201cthe\n      fingers of a man\u2019s hand,\u201d whose body and arm remained invisible,\n      wrote on the walls of Belshazzar\u2019s palace? (_Daniel_, v.) What of\n      the writings of Simon the Magician, and the magic characters on the\n      walls and in the air of the crypts of Initiation, without mentioning\n      the tables of stone on which the finger of God wrote the\n      commandments? Between the writing of one God and other Gods the\n      difference, if any, lies only in their respective natures; and if\n      the tree is to be known by its fruits, then preference would have to\n      be given always to the Pagan Gods. It is the immortal \u201cTo be or not\n      to be.\u201d Either all of them are\u2014or at any rate, may be\u2014true, or all\n      are surely pious frauds and the result of credulity.\n\n  455 _Papyrus Magique_, p. 186.\n\n  456 See Maspero\u2019s _Guide to the Bulak Museum_, among others.\n\n  457 De Mirville (from whom much of the preceding is taken), v. 81, 85.\n\n  458 See De Mirville, v. 84, 85.\n\n  459 One sees this difficulty arise even with a perfectly known language\n      like Sanskrit, the meaning of which is far easier to comprehend than\n      the hieratic writings of Egypt. Everyone knows how hopelessly the\n      Sanskritists are often puzzled over the real meaning and how they\n      fail in rendering the meaning correctly in their respective\n      translations, in which one Orientalist contradicts the other.\n\n  460 _Op. cit._, i. 297.\n\n  461 Book II., Commentary.\n\n  462 Bunsen and Champollion so declare, and Dr. Carpenter says that the\n      _Book of the Dead_, sculptured on the oldest monuments, with \u201cthe\n      very phrases we find in the _New Testament_ in connection with the\n      Day of Judgment ... was engraved probably 2,000 years before the\n      time of Christ.\u201d (See _Isis Unveiled_, i., 518.)\n\n  463 De Mirville, v. 88. Just such a calendar and horoscope interdictions\n      exist in India in our day, as well as in China and all the Buddhist\n      countries.\n\n  464 See De Mirville, iii. 65.\n\n  465 _Pap. Mag._, p. 163.\n\n  466 _Ibid._, p. 168.\n\n  467 Maimonides in his _Treatise on Idolatry_ says, speaking of the\n      Jewish teraphim: \u201cThey talked with men.\u201d To this day Christian\n      Sorcerers in Italy, and negro Voodoos at New Orleans fabricate small\n      wax figures in the likeness of their victims, and transpierce them\n      with needles, the _wound_, as on the teraphim or Menh, being\n      repercussed on the living, often killing them. Mysterious deaths are\n      still many, and not all are traced to the guilty hand.\n\n  468 The Ramses of Lepsius, who reigned some 1300 years before our era.\n\n  469 One may judge how trustworthy are the translations of such Egyptian\n      documents when the sentence is rendered in three different ways by\n      three Egyptologists. Roug\u00e9 says: \u201cHe found her in a state _to fall\n      under the power of spirits_,\u201d or \u201cwith her limbs quite stiff,\u201d (?)\n      another version; and Chabas translates: \u201cAnd the Scribe found the\n      Khou too wicked.\u201d Between her being in possession of an evil Khou\n      and \u201cwith her limbs quite stiff,\u201d there is a difference.\n\n  470 De Mirville, v. 247, 248.\n\n  471 Some translators would have Lucian speak of the inhabitants of the\n      city, but they fail to show that this view is maintainable.\n\n  472 De Mirville, v. 256, 257.\n\n  473 How can de Mirville see Satan in the Egyptian God of the great\n      divine Name, when he himself admits that nothing was greater than\n      the name of the oracle of Dodona, as it was that of the God of the\n      Jews, IAO, or Jehovah? That oracle had been brought by the\n      Pelasgians to Dodona more than fourteen centuries B.C. and left with\n      the forefathers of the Hellenes, and its history is well\u2010known and\n      may be read in Herodotus. Jupiter, who loved the fair nymph of the\n      ocean, Dodona, had ordered Pelasgus to carry his cult to Thessaly.\n      The name of the God of that oracle at the temple of Dodona was Zeus\n      Pelasgicos, the Zeuspater (God the Father), or as De Mirville\n      explains: \u201cIt was the name _par excellence_, the name that the Jews\n      held as the ineffable, the unpronounceable Name\u2014in short, _Jaoh\u2010\n      pater_, _i.e._, \u2018he who was, who is, and who will be,\u2019 otherwise the\n      Eternal.\u201d And the author admits that Maury is right \u201cin discovering\n      in the name of the Vaidic Indra the Biblical Jehovah,\u201d and does not\n      even attempt to deny the etymological connection between the two\n      names\u2014\u201cthe _great_ and the _lost_ name with the sun and the thunder\u2010\n      bolts.\u201d Strange confessions, and still stranger contradictions.\n\n  474 Reuvens\u2019 _Letter to Letronne on the 75th number of the Papyri\n      Anastasi_. See De Mirville. v. 258.\n\n  475 The Eleusinian Fields.\n\n  476 _Fragments_, ix.\n\n  477 _De Legibus_, II. iv.\n\n  478 _Judaism and Paganism_, i. 184.\n\n  479 _Frag. of Styg., ap. Stob._\n\n  480 _De Special. Legi._\n\n  481 De Mirville, v. 278, 279.\n\n  482 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 25.\n\n  483 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 282, 283.\n\n  484 De Mirville, v. 248.\n\n  485 De Mirville, v. 281.\n\n  486 Tod\u2019s Rajasthan, i. 28.\n\n  487 _Op. cit._, ix. iii. 28.\n\n  488 _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, iv. i. Wilson\u2019s translation, iii. 248\u2010254.\n\n  489 There were no Br\u00e2hmans as a hereditary caste in days of old. In\n      those long\u2010departed ages a man became a Br\u00e2hman through personal\n      merit and Initiation. Gradually, however, despotism crept in, and\n      the son of a Br\u00e2hman was created a Br\u00e2hman by right of protection\n      first, then by that of heredity. The rights of blood replaced those\n      of real merit, and thus arose the body of Br\u00e2hmans, which was soon\n      changed into a powerful caste.\n\n  490 _Des Initiations Anciennes and Modernes._ \u201cThe mysteries,\u201d says\n      Ragon, \u201cwere the gift of India.\u201d In this he is mistaken, for the\n      \u00c2ryan race had brought the mysteries of Initiation from Atlantis.\n      Nevertheless he is right in saying that the mysteries preceded all\n      civilisations, and that by polishing the mind and morals of the\n      peoples they served as a base for all the laws\u2014civil, political, and\n      religious.\n\n  491 _De Off._, i. 33.\n\n  492 _Des Initiations_, p. 22.\n\n  493 _Essais Historiques sur la Franc\u2010Ma\u00e7onnerie_, pp. 142, 143.\n\n  494 The word \u201cpatriarch\u201d is composed of the Greek word \u201cPatria\u201d\n      (\u201cfamily,\u201d \u201ctribe,\u201d or \u201cnation\u201d) and \u201cArchos\u201d (a \u201cchief\u201d), the\n      paternal principle. The Jewish Patriarchs who were pastors, passed\n      their name to the Christian Patriarchs; yet they were no priests,\n      but were simply the heads of their tribes, like the Indian Rishis.\n\n  495 There is no need to observe here that the resurrection of a really\n      dead body is an impossibility in Nature.\n\n  496 The kings of Hungary claimed that they could cure the jaundice; the\n      Dukes of Burgundy were credited with preserving people from the\n      plague; the kings of Spain delivered those possessed by the devil.\n      The prerogative of curing the king\u2019s evil was given to the kings of\n      France, in reward for the virtues of good King Robert. Francis the\n      First, during a short stay at Marseilles for his son\u2019s wedding,\n      touched and cured of that disease upwards of 500 persons. The kings\n      of England had the same privilege.\n\n  497 See Laurens\u2019 _Essais Historiques_ for further information as to the\n      world\u2010wide, universal knowledge of the Egyptian Priests.\n\n  498 _Des Initiations_, p. 24.\n\n  499 The word comes from the Greek \u201chieros\u201d (\u201csacred\u201d) and \u201cglupho\u201d (\u201cI\n      grave\u201d). The Egyptian characters were sacred to the Gods, as the\n      Indian Devan\u00e2gar\u00ee is the language of the Gods.\n\n  500 The same author had (as Occultists have) a very reasonable objection\n      to the modern etymology of the word \u201cphilosophy,\u201d which is\n      interpreted \u201clove of wisdom,\u201d and is nothing of the kind. The\n      philosophers were scientists, and philosophy was a real science\u2014not\n      simply verbiage, as it is in our day. The term is composed of two\n      Greek words whose meaning is intended to convey its secret sense,\n      and ought to be interpreted as \u201cwisdom of love.\u201d Now it is in the\n      last word, \u201clove,\u201d that lies hidden the esoteric significance: for\n      \u201clove\u201d does not stand here as a noun, nor does it mean \u201caffection\u201d\n      or \u201cfondness,\u201d but is the term used for Eros, that primordial\n      principle in divine creation, synonymous with \u03c0\u03cc\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2, the abstract\n      desire in Nature for procreation, resulting in an everlasting series\n      of phenomena. It means \u201cdivine love,\u201d that universal element of\n      divine omnipresence spread throughout Nature and which is at once\n      the chief cause and effect. The \u201cwisdom of love\u201d (or \u201cphilosophia,\u201d)\n      meant attraction to and love of everything hidden beneath objective\n      phenomena and the knowledge thereof. Philosophy meant the highest\n      Adeptship\u2014love of and assimilation with Deity. In his modesty\n      Pythagoras even refused to be called a Philosopher (or one who knows\n      every hidden thing in things visible; cause and effect, or absolute\n      truth), and called himself simply a Sage an aspirant to philosophy,\n      or to Wisdom of Love\u2014love in its exoteric meaning being as degraded\n      by men then as it is now by its purely terrestrial application.\n\n  501 _Lev._, xix. 18.\n\n  502 \u201cOn,\u201d the \u201cSun,\u201d the Egyptian name of Heliopolis (the \u201cCity of the\n      Sun\u201d).\n\n  503 _Book of God_, p. 160.\n\n  504 Mr. Kenealy quotes, in his _Book of God_, Vallancey, who says: \u201cI\n      had not been a week landed in Ireland from Gibraltar, where I had\n      studied Hebrew and Chaldaic under Jews of various countries, when I\n      heard a peasant girl say to a boor standing by her \u2018_Feach an Maddin\n      Nag_\u2019 (\u2018Behold the morning star\u2019), pointing to the planet Venus, the\n      Maddena Nag of the Chaldeans.\u201d\n\n  505 There was a time when the whole world, the totality of mankind, had\n      one religion, as they were of \u201cone lip.\u201d \u201cAll the religions of the\n      earth were at first one, and emanated from one centre,\u201d says Faber.\n\n  506 _Chips from a German Workshop_, i. 69, 70.\n\n  507 S\u00fbrya, the Sun, is one of the nine divinities that witness all human\n      actions.\n\n  508 [There is a gap in H. P. B.\u2019s MS., and the paragraph in brackets\n      supplies what was missing.\u2014A. B.]\n\n  509 In _Isis Unveiled_, Vol. II., pp. 41, 42, a portion of this rite is\n      referred to. Speaking of the dogma of Atonement, it is traced to\n      ancient \u201cheathendom\u201d again. We say: \u201cThis cornerstone of a church\n      which had believed herself built on a firm rock for long centuries,\n      is now excavated by science and proved to come from the Gnostics.\n      Professor Draper shows it as hardly known in the days of Tertullian,\n      and as having \u2018originated among the Gnostic heretics\u2019 (see _Conflict\n      Between Religion and Science_, p. 224).... But there are sufficient\n      proofs to show that it _originated_ among them no more than did\n      their anointed Christos and Sophia. The former they modelled on the\n      original of the King Messiah, the male principle of wisdom, and the\n      latter on the third Sephiroth, from the Chald\u00e6an _Kabalah_, and even\n      from the Hindu Brahm\u00e2 and Sarasvat\u00ee, and the Pagan Dionysius and\n      Demeter. And here we are on firm ground, if it were only because it\n      is now proved that the _New Testament_ never appeared in its\n      complete form, such as we find it now, till 300 years after the\n      period of the apostles, and the _Zohar_ and other Kabalistic books\n      are found to belong to the first century before our era, if not to\n      be far older still.\n\n      \u201cThe Gnostics entertained many of the Essenean ideas; and the\n      Essenes had their greater and minor Mysteries at least two centuries\n      before our era. They were the _Isarim_ or _Initiates_, the\n      descendants of the Egyptian hierophants, in whose country they had\n      been settled for several centuries before they were converted to\n      Buddhistic monasticism by the missionaries of King Asoka, and\n      amalgamated later with the earliest Christians: and they existed,\n      probably, before the old Egyptian temples were desecrated and ruined\n      in the incessant invasions of Persians, Greeks, and other conquering\n      hordes. The hierophants had their atonement enacted in the Mystery\n      of Initiation ages before the Gnostics, or even the Essenes, had\n      appeared. It was known among hierophants as the Baptism of Blood,\n      and was considered not as an atonement for the \u2018fall of man\u2019 in\n      Eden, but simply as an expiation for the past, present, and future\n      sins of ignorant, but nevertheless polluted mankind. The hierophant\n      had the option of either offering his pure and sinless life as a\n      sacrifice for his race to the gods whom he hoped to rejoin, or an\n      animal victim. The former depended entirely on their own will. At\n      the last moment of the solemn \u2018new birth,\u2019 the Initiator passed \u2018the\n      word\u2019 to the initiated, and immediately after the latter had a\n      weapon placed in his right hand, and was ordered _to strike_. This\n      is the true origin of the Christian dogma of atonement.\u201d\n\n      As Ballanche says, quoted by Ragon: \u201cDestruction is the great God of\n      the World,\u201d justifying therefore the philosophical conception of the\n      Hindu Sh\u00eeva. According to this immutable and sacred law, \u201cthe\n      Initiate was compelled to kill the Initiator; otherwise initiation\n      remained incomplete.... It is death that generates life.\u201d\n      _Orthodoxie ma\u00e7onnique_, p. 104. All that, however, was emblematic\n      and exoteric. Weapon and killing must be understood in their\n      allegorical sense.\n\n  510 _Orthodoxie ma\u00e7onnique_, pp. 102\u2010104.\n\n  511 _Op. cit._, i. 15.\n\n  512 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 258. A curious question to start and\n      to deny, when it is well\u2010known even to the Orientalists that, to\n      take but one case, there is Yaska, who was a predecessor of P\u00e2nini,\n      and his work still exists; there are seventeen writers of Nirukta\n      (glossary) known to have preceded Yaska.\n\n  513 _La M\u00e8re d\u2019Apis_, p. 47.\n\n  514 One just initiated is called the \u201cfirst\u2010born,\u201d and in India he\n      becomes dwija, \u201ctwice born,\u201d only after his final and supreme\n      Initiation. Every Adept is a \u201cSon of God\u201d and a \u201cSon of Light\u201d after\n      receiving the \u201cWord,\u201d when he becomes the \u201cWord\u201d himself, after\n      receiving the seven divine attributes or the \u201clyre of Apollo.\u201d\n\n  515 See De Mirville, iv. 15.\n\n  516 II. _Kings_, xxiii. 4\u201013.\n\n  517 _Judges_, xiii. 18. Samson, Manoah\u2019s son, was an Initiate of that\n      \u201cMystery\u201d Lord, Ja\u2010va; he was consecrated before his birth to become\n      a \u201cNazarite\u201d (a chela) an Adept. His sin with Dalilah, and the\n      cropping of his long hair that \u201cno razor was to touch\u201d shows how\n      well he kept his sacred vow. The allegory of Samson proves the\n      Esotericism of the _Bible_, as also the character of the \u201cMystery\n      Gods\u201d of the Jews. True, M\u00f4vers gives a definition of the Ph\u0153nician\n      idea of the ideal sunlight as a spiritual influence issuing from the\n      highest God, Iao, \u201cthe light conceivable only by intellect\u2014the\n      physical and spiritual Principle of all things; out of which the\n      soul emanates.\u201d It was the male Essence, or Wisdom, while the\n      primitive matter or _Chaos_ was the female. Thus the first two\n      principles, co\u2010eternal and infinite, were already with the primitive\n      Ph\u0153nicians, spirit and matter. But this is the echo of Jewish\n      thought, not the opinion of Pagan Philosophers.\n\n  518 See _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 526.\n\n  519 Beth\u2010San or Scythopolis in Palestine had that designation; so had a\n      spot on Mount Parnassus. But Diodorus declares that Nyssa was\n      between Ph\u0153nicia and Egypt; Euripides states that Dionysos came to\n      Greece from India; and Diodorus adds his testimony: \u201cOsiris was\n      brought up in Nyssa, in Arabia the Happy; he was the son of Zeus,\n      and was named from his father (nominative Zeus, genitive _Dios_) and\n      the place Dio\u2010Nysos\u201d\u2014the Zeus or Jove of Nyssa. This identity of\n      name or title is very significant. In Greece Dionysos was second\n      only to Zeus, and Pindar says: \u201cSo Father Zeus governs all things,\n      and Bacchus he governs also.\u201d\n\n  520 _Ex._, xvii. 15.\n\n  521 _Ph\u00e6drus_, Cary\u2019s translation, p. 326.\n\n  522 _Life of Pythagoras_, p. 297. \u201cSince Pythagoras,\u201d he adds, \u201calso\n      spent two and twenty years in the adyta of the temples in Egypt,\n      associated with the Magians in Babylon, and was instructed by them\n      in their venerable knowledge, it is not at all wonderful that he was\n      skilled in Magic or Theurgy, and was therefore able to perform\n      things which surpass merely human power, and which appear to be\n      perfectly incredible to the vulgar\u201d (p. 298).\n\n  523 This expression must not be understood simply literally; for, as in\n      the initiation of certain Brotherhoods, it has a secret meaning that\n      we have just explained; it was hinted at by Pythagoras, when he\n      describes his feelings after the Initiation, and says that he was\n      crowned by the Gods in whose presence he had drunk \u201cthe waters of\n      life\u201d\u2014in the Hindu Mysteries there was the fount of life, and\n      _soma_, the sacred drink.\n\n  524 _Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries_, T. Taylor, p. 46, 47.\n\n  525 ii. 111, 113.\n\n  526 _Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries_, p. 63.\n\n  527 _Op. cit._, p. 65.\n\n  528 Quoted by Taylor, p. 66.\n\n  529 Verses 35\u201038.\n\n  530 _Ph\u00e6drus_, 64, quoted by Taylor, p. 64.\n\n  531 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 114.\n\n  532 This is false, and the Abb\u00e9 Constant (\u00c9liphas L\u00e9vi) _knew_ it was\n      so. Why did he promulgate the untruth?\n\n  533 _Dogme de la Haute Magie_, i. 219, 220.\n\n  534 _Orthodoxie Ma\u00e7onnique_, p. 99.\n\n  535 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 214.\n\n  536 In I. _Peter_, ii. 3, Jesus is called \u201cthe Lord Chrestos.\u201d\n\n  537 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 323.\n\n  538 _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 31.\n\n  539 The \u00c2ryans replaced the living cow by one made of gold, silver or\n      any other metal, and the rite is preserved to this day, when one\n      desires to become a Br\u00e2hman, a twice\u2010born, in India.\n\n  540 _Op. cit._, p. 141.\n\n  541 In Ragon\u2019s _Orthodoxie Ma\u00e7onnique_, p. 105, _note_, we find the\n      following statement\u2014borrowed from Albumazar the Arabian, probably:\n      \u201c_The Virgin of the Magi and Chald\u00e6ans._ The Chald\u00e6an sphere [globe]\n      showed in its heavens a newly\u2010born babe, called _Christ and Jesus_;\n      it was placed in the arms of the Celestial Virgin. It was to this\n      Virgin that Eratosthenes, the Alexandrian Librarian, born 276 years\n      before our era, gave the name of Isis, mother of Horus.\u201d This is\n      only what Kircher gives (in _\u00c6dipus \u00c6gypticus_, iii. 5), quoting\n      Albumazar: \u201cIn the first decan of the Virgin rises a maid, called\n      Aderenosa, that is pure, immaculate virgin ... sitting upon an\n      embroidered throne nursing a boy...; a boy, named Jessus ... which\n      signifies Issa, whom they also call Christ in Greek.\u201d (See _Isis\n      Unveiled_, ii. 491.)\n\n  542 Now called _St. Reine_ (C\u00f4te d\u2019Or) on the two streams, the Ose and\n      the Oserain. Its fall is a historical fact in Keltic Gaulish\n      History.\n\n  543 _Orthodoxie Ma\u00e7onnique_, p. 22.\n\n  544 _Op. cit._, p. 22.\n\n  545 The Christian mob in 389 of our era completed the work of\n      destruction upon what remained; most of the priceless works were\n      saved for students of Occultism, but lost to the world.\n\n  546 _Op. cit._ p. 23. J. M. Ragon, a Belgian by birth, and a Mason, knew\n      more about Occultism than any other non\u2010initiated writer. For fifty\n      years he studied the ancient Mysteries wherever he could find\n      accounts of them. In 1805, he founded at Paris the Brotherhood of\n      _Les Trinosophes_, in which Lodge he delivered for years lectures on\n      Ancient and Modern Initiation (in 1818 and again in 1841), which\n      were published, and now are lost. Then he became the writer in chief\n      of _Hermes_, a masonic paper. His best works were _La Ma\u00e7onnerie\n      Occulte_ and the _Fastes Initiatiques_. After his death, in 1866, a\n      number of his MSS. remained in the possession of the Grand Orient of\n      France. A high Mason told the writer that Ragon had corresponded for\n      years with two Orientalists in Syria and Egypt, one of whom is a\n      Kopt gentleman.\n\n  547 _Op. cit._, iv. 462.\n\n  548 _History of Magic_, ii. 11.\n\n  549 _Neo\u2010Platonism and Alchemy_, p. 15.\n\n  550 _Loc. cit._\n\n  551 _Op. cit._, pp. 9, 10.\n\n  552 This Divine Effulgence and Essence is the light of the Logos; only\n      the Ved\u00e2ntin would not use the pronoun \u201cHe,\u201d but would say \u201cIt.\u201d\n\n  553 _Loc. cit._, _note_, p. 10.\n\n  554 _Loc. cit._, _note_.\n\n  555 See _Esoteric Buddhism_, by A. P. Sinnett, Fifth Edition.\n\n  556 See _Isis Unveiled_, Vol. I., pp. 589\u2010595. The \u201cSons of God\u201d and\n      their war with the giants and magicians.\n\n  557 _Loc. cit._, _note_.\n\n  558 _Op. cit._, p. 18.\n\n  559 _Op. cit._, p. 8.\n\n  560 No orthodox Christian has ever equalled, far less surpassed, in the\n      practice of true Christ\u2010like virtues and ethics, or in the beauty of\n      his moral nature, Ammonius, the Alexandrian pervert from\n      Christianity (he was born from Christian parents).\n\n  561 _Op. cit._, pp. 3, 4.\n\n  562 Quoted by Dr. Wilder, p. 5.\n\n  563 \u201cMortification\u201d is here meant in the moral, not the physical sense;\n      to restrain every lust and passion, and live on the simplest diet\n      possible.\n\n  564 This is the Neo\u2010Platonic teaching adopted as a doctrine in the Roman\n      Catholic Church, with its worship of the Seven Spirits.\n\n  565 The Church has made of it the worship of devils. \u201cDaimon\u201d is Spirit,\n      and relates to our divine Spirit, the seventh Principle and to the\n      Dhy\u00e2n Chohans. Jesus prohibited going to the temple or church \u201cas\n      Pharisees do\u201d but commanded that man should retire for prayer\n      (communion with his God) into a private closet. Is it Jesus who\n      would have countenanced in the face of the starving millions, the\n      building of the most gorgeous churches?\n\n  566 _Op. cit._, p. 7.\n\n  567 _Op. cit._, p. 7.\n\n  568 _Op. cit._, p. 18.\n\n  569 The _Talmud_ gives the story of the four Tanaim, who are made, in\n      allegorical terms, to enter into _the garden of delights_, _i.e._,\n      to be initiated into the occult and final science.\n\n      \u201cAccording to the teaching of our holy masters the names of the four\n      who entered the garden of delight, are: Ben Asai, Ben Zoma, Acher,\n      and Rabbi Akiba....\n\n      \u201cBen Asai looked and\u2014lost his sight.\n\n      \u201cBen Zoma looked and\u2014lost his reason.\n\n      \u201cAcher made depredations in the plantation\u201d (mixed up the whole and\n      failed). \u201cBut Akiba, who had entered in peace came out of it in\n      peace; for the saint, whose name he blessed, had said, \u2018This old man\n      is worthy of serving us with glory.\u2019 \u201d\n\n      \u201cThe learned commentators of the _Talmud_, the Rabbis of the\n      synagogue, explain that the _garden of delight_, in which those four\n      personages are made to enter, is but that mysterious science, the\n      most terrible of sciences for weak intellects, which it leads\n      directly to insanity,\u201d says A. Franck, in his _Kabbalah_. It is not\n      the pure at heart and he who studies but with a view to perfecting\n      himself and so more easily acquiring the promised immortality, who\n      need have any fear; but rather he who makes of the science of\n      sciences a sinful pretext for worldly motives, who should tremble.\n      The latter will never understand the kabalistic evocations of the\n      supreme initiation.\u2014_Isis Unveiled_, ii. 119.\n\n  570 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 119.\n\n  571 See _Neo\u2010Platonism_, p. 9.\n\n  572 See the Code published by Sir William Jones, Chapter ix. p. 11.\n\n  573 Pliny: _Hist. Nat._, xxx. 1; _Ib._, xvi. 14; xxv. 9, etc.\n\n  574 Pomponius ascribes to them the knowledge of the highest sciences.\n\n  575 C\u00e6sar, iii. 14.\n\n  576 Pliny, xxx. _Isis Unveiled_, i. 18.\n\n  577 \u201cThe care which they took in educating youth, in familiarizing it\n      with generous and virtuous sentiments, did them peculiar honour, and\n      their maxims and discourses, as recorded by historians, prove that\n      they were expert in matters of philosophy, metaphysics, astronomy,\n      morality and religion,\u201d says a modern writer. \u201cIf kings or princes\n      desired the advice or the blessings of the holy men, they were\n      either obliged to go themselves, or to send messengers. To these men\n      no secret power of either plant or mineral was unknown. They had\n      fathomed nature to its depths, while psychology and physiology were\n      to them open books, and the result was that science that is now\n      termed, so superciliously, _magic_.\u201d\n\n  578 _Op. cit._, p. 9.\n\n  579 _Op. cit._, p. 11.\n\n  580 _Hermes_, iv. 6.\n\n  581 From _Saraph_ \u05e9\u05e8\u05e3 \u201cfiery, burning,\u201d plural (see _Isaiah_, vi. 2\u20106).\n      They are regarded as the personal attendants of the Almighty, \u201chis\n      messengers,\u201d angels or metatrons. In _Revelation_ they are the\n      \u201cseven burning lamps\u201d in attendance before the throne.\n\n  582 Venus with the Chald\u00e6ans and Egyptians was the wife of _Proteus_,\n      and is regarded as the mother of the Kabiri, the sons of Phta or\n      Emepth\u2014the divine light or the Sun. The angels answer to the stars\n      in the following order: The Sun, the Moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury,\n      Jupiter, and Saturn; Michael, Gabriel, Samael, Anael, Raphael,\n      Zachariel, and Orifiel; this is in religion and Christian Kabalism;\n      astrologically and esoterically the places of the \u201cregents\u201d stand\n      otherwise, as also in the Jewish, or rather the real Chald\u00e6an\n      _Kabalah_.\n\n  583 _Loc. cit._, xiv. 12.\n\n  584 This is one more proof that the Ancients knew of seven planets\n      besides the Sun; for otherwise which is the eighth in such a case?\n      The seventh, with two others, as stated, were \u201cmystery\u201d planets,\n      whether Uranus or any other.\n\n  585 II. _Sam._, vi. 20\u201022.\n\n  586 _Judges_, xxi. 21, _et seq._\n\n  587 I. _Kings_, xviii. 26.\n\n  588 This dance\u2014the R\u00e2sa Mandala, enacted by the Gop\u00ees or shepherdesses\n      of Krishna, the Sun\u2010God, is enacted to this day in R\u00e2jput\u00e2na in\n      India, and is undeniably the same theo\u2010astronomical and symbolical\n      dance of the planets and the Zodiacal signs, that was danced\n      thousands of years before our era.\n\n  589 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 45.\n\n  590 II. _Epistle_, i. 19. The English text says: \u201cUntil the day\u2010star\n      arise in your heart,\u201d a trifling alteration which does not really\n      matter\u2014as _Lucifer_ is the day as well as the \u201cmorning\u201d star\u2014and it\n      is less shocking to pious ears. There are a number of such\n      alterations in the Protestant bibles.\n\n  591 Again the English translation changes the word \u201cSun\u201d into \u201cday\u2010\n      spring.\u201d The Roman Catholics are decidedly braver and more sincere\n      than the Protestant theologians. De Mirville: iv. 34, 38.\n\n  592 Thus said the Egyptians and the Sab\u00e6ans in days of old, the symbol\n      of whose manifested gods, Osiris and Bel, was the sun. But they had\n      a higher deity.\n\n  593 Exiled from the Protestant bible but left in the _Apocrypha_ which,\n      according to Article VI. of the Church of England, \u201cshe doth read\n      for example of life and instruction of manners\u201d (?), but not to\n      establish any doctrine.\n\n  594 _Cornelius a Lapide_, v. 248.\n\n  595 _Ecclesiastes_, xliii. The above quotations are taken from De\n      Mirville\u2019s chapter \u201cOn Christian and Jewish Solar Theology,\u201d iv.\n      35\u201038.\n\n  596 Nevertheless the Church has preserved in her most sacred rites the\n      \u201cstar\u2010rites\u201d of the Pagan Initiates. In the pre\u2010Christian Mithraic\n      Mysteries, the candidate who overcame successfully the \u201ctwelve\n      Tortures\u201d which preceded the final Initiation, received a small\n      round cake or wafer of unleavened bread, symbolising in one of its\n      meanings, the solar disc, and known as the manna (heavenly\n      bread).... A lamb, or a bull even, was killed, and with the blood\n      the candidate had to be sprinkled, as in the case of the Emperor\n      Julian\u2019s initiation. The seven rules or mysteries that are\n      represented in the _Revelation_ as the seven seals which are opened\n      in order were then delivered to the newly born.\n\n  597 Truly says S. T. Coleridge: \u201cInstinctively the reason has always\n      pointed out to men the ultimate end of various sciences.... There is\n      no doubt but that astrology of some sort or other will be the last\n      achievement of astronomy; there must be chemical relations between\n      the planets ... the difference of their magnitude compared with that\n      of their distances is not explicable otherwise.\u201d Between planets and\n      our earth with its mankind, we may add.\n\n  598 \u201cChrist then,\u201d the author says (p. 40), \u201cis represented by the trunk\n      of the candlestick.\u201d\n\n  599 De Mirville, iv. 41, 42.\n\n  600 De Mirville, iv. 42.\n\n  601 Notwithstanding the above, written in the earliest Christian period\n      by the renegade Neo\u2010Platonist, the Church persists to this day in\n      her wilful error. Helpless against Galileo, she now tries to throw a\n      doubt even on the heliocentric system!\n\n  602 _Stromateis_, V., vi.\n\n  603 The English bible has: \u201cIn them (the Heavens) hath he set a\n      tabernacle for the sun,\u201d which is incorrect and has no sense in view\n      of the verse that follows, for there _are_ things \u201chid from the heat\n      thereof\u201d if the latter word is to be applied to the sun.\n\n  604 When the hierophant took his last degree, he emerged from the sacred\n      recess called _Manneras_ and was given the golden _Tau_, the\n      Egyptian Cross, which was subsequently placed on his breast, and\n      buried with him.\n\n  605 The three secret names are \u201cSana, Sanat Suj\u00e2ta, and Kapila;\u201d while\n      the four exoteric Gods are called, Sanat Kum\u00e2ra, Sananda, Sanaka and\n      San\u00e2tana.\n\n  606 Another Kum\u00e2ra, the \u201cGod of War\u201d is called in the Hindu system the\n      \u201ceternal celibate\u201d\u2014\u201cthe virgin warrior.\u201d He is the \u00c2ryan St.\n      Michael.\n\n  607 We give the original: \u201cCoelestia corpora moveri a spirituali\n      creatura, a _nemine_ Sanctorum vel philosophorum, negatum, legisse\n      me memini. (_Opusc._ X. art. iii.).... Mihi autam videtur, quod\n      _Demonstrative_ probari posset, quod ab aliquo intellectu corpora\n      coelestia moveantur, vel a Deo immediate, vel a mediantibus angelis.\n      Sed quod mediantibus angelis ca moveat, congruit rerum ordine, quem\n      Dionysius infallibilem asserit, ut inferiora a Deo per _Media_\n      secundum cursum communem administrentur\u201d (_Opusc._ II. art. ii.),\n      and if so, and God _never_ meddles with the once for ever\n      established laws of Nature, leaving it to his administrators, why\n      should their being called Gods by the \u201cheathen\u201d be deemed\n      idolatrous?\n\n  608 In one of Des Mousseaux\u2019s volumes on Demonology (_\u0152uvres des\n      Demons_) if we do not mistake the statement of the Abb\u00e9 Huc is\n      found, and the author testifies to having heard the following story\n      repeatedly from the Abb\u00e9 himself. In a lamasery of Tibet, the\n      missionary found the following:\n\n      It is a simple canvas without the slightest mechanical apparatus\n      attached, as the visitor may prove by examining it at his leisure.\n      It represents a moonlit landscape, but the moon is not at all\n      motionless and dead; quite the reverse, for, according to the Abb\u00e9,\n      one would say that our moon herself, or at least her living double,\n      lighted the picture. Each phase, each aspect, each movement of our\n      satellite, is repeated in her facsimile, in the movement and\n      progress of the moon in the sacred picture. \u201cYou see this planet in\n      the painting ride as a crescent, or full, shine brightly, pass\n      behind the clouds, peep out or set, in a manner corresponding in the\n      most extraordinary way with the real luminary. It is, in a word, a\n      most perfect and resplendent reproduction of the pale queen of the\n      night, which received the adoration of so many people in the days of\n      old.\u201d We know from the most reliable sources and numerous eye\u2010\n      witnesses, that such \u201cmachines\u201d\u2014not canvas paintings\u2014do exist in\n      certain temples of Tibet; as also the \u201csidereal wheels\u201d representing\n      the planets, and kept for the same purposes\u2014astrological and\n      magical. Huc\u2019s statement was translated in _Isis Unveiled_ from Des\n      Mousseaux\u2019s volume.\n\n  609 Cedrenus, p. 338. Whether produced by _clockwork_ or _magic_ power,\n      such machines\u2014whole celestial spheres with planets rotating\u2014were\n      found in the Sanctuaries, and some exist to this day in Japan, in a\n      secret subterranean temple of the old Mikados, as well as in two\n      other places.\n\n  610 Champollion\u2019s _\u00c9gypte Moderne_, p. 42.\n\n  611 _Mus\u00e9e des Sciences_, p. 230.\n\n  612 Translated by the Vicomte de Rougemont. See _Les Annales de\n      Philosophie Chr\u00e9tienne_, 7th year, 1861.\n\n  613 _Isaiah_, lxiii. 9.\n\n  614 Chapter xii. of _Revelation_: \u201cThere was war in heaven, Mikael and\n      his angels fought against the Dragon,\u201d etc. (7) and the great dragon\n      was cast out (9).\n\n  615 He is also the informing Spirit of the Sun and Jupiter, and even of\n      Venus.\n\n  616 _Dogme et Rituel_, ii. 116.\n\n  617 If enumerated, they will be found to be the Hindu \u201cdivisions\u201d and\n      choirs of Devas, and the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans of Esoteric Buddhism.\n\n  618 But this fact has not prevented the Roman Church from adopting them\n      all the same, accepting them from ignorant, though perchance sincere\n      Church Fathers, who had borrowed them from Kaballists\u2014Jews and\n      Pagans.\n\n  619 To call \u201cusurpers\u201d those who preceded the Christian Beings for whose\n      benefit these same titles were borrowed, is carrying paradoxical\n      anachronism a little too far!\n\n  620 Or the _divine ages_, the \u201cdays and years of Brahm\u00e2.\u201d\n\n  621 De Mirville, ii. 325, 326. So we say too. And this shows that it is\n      to the Kabalists and _Magicians_ that the Church is indebted for her\n      dogmas and names. Paul never condemned _real_ Gnosis, but the\n      _false_ one, now accepted by the Church.\n\n  622 Sesostris, or Pharaoh Ramses II., whose mummy was unswathed in 1886\n      by Maspero of the Bulak Museum, and recognised as that of the\n      greatest king of Egypt, whose grandson, Ramses III. was the last\n      king of an ancient kingdom.\n\n  623 _Op. cit._, p. 422.\n\n  624 _Summa_, Quest. xv. Art. v., upon Astrologers, and Vol. III. pp.\n      2\u201029.\n\n  625 \u201cThe principalities and powers [born] in heavenly places\u201d (_Ephes._,\n      iii. 10). The verse, \u201cFor though there be that are called Gods,\n      whether in heaven or on earth, as there be Gods many and lords many\u201d\n      (I. _Corinth._, viii. 5), shows, at any rate, the recognition by\n      Paul of a plurality of \u201cGods\u201d whom he calls \u201cd\u00e6mons\u201d\n      (\u201cspirits\u201d\u2014never _devils_). Principalities, Thrones, Dominions,\n      Rectors, etc. are all Jewish and Christian names for the Gods of the\n      ancients\u2014the Archangels and Angels of the former being in every case\n      the Devas and the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans of the more ancient religions.\n\n  626 Answer by Reuvens to Letronne with regard to his mistaken notions\n      about the Zodiac of Dendera.\n\n  627 St. Augustine (_De Gen._, I. iii.) and Delrio (_Disquisit._, Vol.\n      IV., chap. iii.) are quoted by De Mirville, to show that \u201cthe more\n      astrologers speak the truth and the better they prophesy it, the\n      more one has to feel diffident, seeing that their agreement with the\n      devil becomes thereby the more apparent.\u201d The famous statement made\n      by Juvenal (_Satires_, vi.) to the effect that \u201cnot one single\n      astrologer could be found who did not pay dearly for the help he\n      received from his genius\u201d\u2014no more proves the latter to be a devil\n      than the death of Socrates proves his daimon to have been a native\n      from the nether world\u2014if such there be. Such argument only\n      demonstrates human stupidity and wickedness, once reason is made\n      subservient to prejudice and fanaticism of every sort. \u201cMost of the\n      great writers of antiquity, Cicero and Tacitus among them, believed\n      in Astrology and the realization of its prophecies;\u201d and \u201cthe\n      penalty of death decreed nearly everywhere against those\n      mathematicians [astrologers] who happened to predict falsely\n      diminished neither their number nor their tranquillity of mind.\u201d\n\n  628 _Preparatio Evangelica_, I. xiv.\n\n  629 _Ast._, iv. 60.\n\n  630 _Hist._, I. ii.\n\n  631 All these particulars may be found more fully and far more\n      completely in Champollion Figeac\u2019s _\u00c9gypte_.\n\n  632 _Op. cit._, p. 230.\n\n  633 _Op. cit._, p. 230.\n\n  634 In the 1,326 places in the _New Testament_ where the word \u201cGod\u201d is\n      mentioned nothing signifies that in God are included more beings\n      than God. On the contrary in 17 places God is called the only God.\n      The places where the Father is so\u2010called amount to 320. In 105\n      places God is addressed with high\u2010sounding titles. In 90 places all\n      prayers and thanks are addressed to the Father; 300 times in the\n      _New Testament_ is the Son declared to be inferior to the Father; 85\n      times is Jesus called the \u201cSon of Man;\u201d 70 times is he called a man.\n      In not one single place in the bible is it said that God holds\n      within him three different Beings or Persons, and yet is one Being\n      or Person.\u2014Dr. Karl von Bergen\u2019s _Lectures in Sweden_.\n\n  635 Kali Yuga, the Black or Iron Age.\n\n  636 Virgil, _Eclogue_, iv.\n\n  637 At the close of our Race, people, it is said, through suffering and\n      discontent will become more spiritual. Clairvoyance will become a\n      general faculty. We shall be approaching the spiritual state of the\n      Third and Second Races.\n\n  638 _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_, IV., xxiv. 228, Wilson\u2019s translation.\n\n  639 _Op. cit._, p. 212.\n\n  640 At any rate, the temple secret meaning was the same.\n\n  641 _Asiat. Res._, vol. viii. p. 470, _et seq._\n\n  642 _Theosophist_, August, 1881.\n\n  643 Aug., 1881 to Feb., 1882.\n\n  644 _Loc. cit._, iv. 127.\n\n  645 _Theosophist_, vol. iii. p. 22.\n\n  646 The impartial study of Vaidic and Post\u2010Vaidic works shows that the\n      ancient \u00c2ryans knew well the precession of the equinoxes, and \u201cthat\n      they changed their position from a certain asterism to two\n      (occasionally three) asterisms back whenever the precession amounted\n      to two, properly speaking, to 2 11/61 asterisms or about 29\u00b0, being\n      the motion of the sun in a lunar month, and so caused the seasons to\n      fall back a complete lunar month.... It appears certain that at the\n      date of _S\u00fbrya Siddh\u00e2nta_, _Brahm\u00e2 Sidd\u00e2nta_, and other ancient\n      treatises on astronomy, the vernal equinoctial point had not\n      actually reached the beginning of Ashvin\u00ee, but was a few degrees\n      east of it.... The astronomers of Europe change westward the\n      beginning of Aries and of all other signs of the Zodiac every year\n      by about 50\" 25, and thus make the names of the signs meaningless.\n      But these signs are as much fixed as the asterisms themselves, and\n      hence the Western astronomers of the present day appear to us in\n      this respect less wary and scientific in their observations than\n      their very ancient brethren\u2014the \u00c2ryas.\u201d\u2014_Theosophist_, iii. 23.\n\n  647 A great deal of misconception is raised by a confusion of planes of\n      being and misuse of expressions. For instance, certain spiritual\n      states have been confounded with the Nirv\u00e2na of BUDDHA. The Nirv\u00e2na\n      of BUDDHA is totally different from any other spiritual state of\n      Sam\u00e2dhi or even the highest Theophania enjoyed by lesser Adepts.\n      After physical death the kinds of spiritual states reached by Adepts\n      differ greatly.\n\n  648 This region is the one possible point of conciliation between the\n      two diametrically opposed poles of religion and science, the one\n      with its barren fields of dogmas on faith, the other over\u2010running\n      with empty hypotheses, both overgrown with the weeds of error. They\n      will never meet. The two are at feud, at an everlasting warfare with\n      each other, but this does not prevent them from uniting against\n      Esoteric Philosophy, which for two millenniums has had to fight\n      against infallibility in both directions, or \u201cmere vanity and\n      pretence\u201d as Antoninus defined it, and now finds the materialism of\n      Modern Science arrayed against its truths.\n\n  649 Whence some of the Gnostic ideas? Cerinthus taught that the world\n      and Jehovah having fallen off from virtue and primitive dignity the\n      Supreme permitted one of his glorious \u00c6ons, whose name was the\n      \u201cAnointed\u201d (Christ) to incarnate in the man Jesus. Basilides denied\n      the reality of the body of Jesus, and calling it an \u201cillusion\u201d held\n      that it was Simon of Cyrene who suffered on the Cross in his stead.\n      All such teachings are echoes of the Eastern Doctrines.\n\n  650 A genuine initiated Adept will retain his Adeptship, though there\n      may be for our world of illusion numberless incarnations of him. The\n      propelling power that lies at the root of a series of such\n      incarnations is not Karma, as ordinarily understood, but a still\n      more inscrutable power. During the period of his lives the Adept\n      does not lose his Adeptship, though he cannot rise in it to a higher\n      degree.\n\n  651 From the so\u2010called Brahm\u00e2 Loka\u2014the seventh and higher world, beyond\n      which all is ar\u00fbpa, formless, purely spiritual\u2014to the lowest world\n      and insect, or even to an object such as a leaf, there is perpetual\n      revolution of the condition of existence, evolution and re\u2010birth.\n      Some human beings attain states or spheres from which there is only\n      a return in a new Kalpa (a day of Brahm\u00e2); there are other states or\n      spheres from which there is only return after 100 years of Brahm\u00e2\n      (Mah\u00e2\u2010Kalpa, a period covering 311,040,000,000,000 years). Nirv\u00e2na,\n      it is said, is a state from which there is no return. Yet it is\n      maintained that there may be, as exceptional cases, re\u2010incarnation\n      from that state; only such incarnations are illusion, like\n      everything else on this plane, as will be shown.\n\n  652 This fact of the disappearance of the vehicle of Egotism in the\n      fully developed Yog\u00ee, who is supposed to have reached Nirv\u00e2na on\n      earth, years before his corporeal death, has led to the law in Manu,\n      sanctioned by millenniums of Br\u00e2hmanical authority, that such a\n      Param\u00e2tm\u00e2 should be held as absolutely blameless and free from sin\n      or responsibility, do whatever he may (see last chapter of the _Laws\n      of Manu_). Indeed, caste itself\u2014that most despotic, uncompromising\n      and autocratic tyrant in India\u2014can be broken with impunity by the\n      Yog\u00ee, who is above caste. This will give the key to our statements.\n\n  653 [The word \u201cAdept\u201d is very loosely used by H. P. B., who often seems\n      to have implied by it no more than the possession of special\n      knowledge of some kind. Here it seems to mean first an uninitiated\n      disciple and then an initiated one.\u2014EDS.]\n\n  654 About fifty years before the birth of Copernicus, de Cusa wrote as\n      follows: \u201cThough the world may not be absolutely infinite, no one\n      can represent it to himself as finite, since human reason is\n      incapable of assigning to it any term.... For in the same way that\n      our earth cannot be in the centre of the Universe, as thought, no\n      more could the sphere of the fixed stars be in it.... Thus this\n      world is like a vast machine, having its centre [Deity] everywhere,\n      and its circumference nowhere [_machina mundi, quasi habens ubique\n      centrum, et nullibi circumferentiam_].... Hence, the earth not being\n      in the centre, cannot therefore be motionless ... and though it is\n      far smaller than the sun, one must not conclude for all that, that\n      she is worse [_vilior_\u2014more vile].... One cannot see whether its\n      inhabitants are superior to those who dwell nearer to the sun, or in\n      other stars, as sidereal space cannot be deprived of inhabitants....\n      The earth, very likely [_fortasse_] one of the smallest globes, is\n      nevertheless the cradle of intelligent beings, most noble and\n      perfect.\u201d One cannot fail to agree with the biographer of Cardinal\n      de Cusa, who, having no suspicion of the Occult truth, and the\n      reason of such erudition in a writer of the fourteenth and fifteenth\n      centuries, simply marvels at such a miraculous foreknowledge, and\n      attributes it to God, saying of him that he was a man incomparable\n      in every kind of philosophy, by whom many a theological mystery\n      inaccessible to the human mind (!), veiled and neglected for\n      centuries (_velata et neglecta_) were once more brought to light.\n      \u201cPascal might have read De Cusa\u2019s works; but whence could the\n      Cardinal have borrowed his ideas?\u201d asks Moreri. Evidently from\n      Hermes and the works of Pythagoras, even if the mystery of his\n      incarnation and re\u2010incarnation be dismissed.\n\n  655 This is the secret meaning of the statements about the Hierarchy of\n      Praj\u00e2patis or Rishis. First seven are mentioned, then ten, then\n      twenty\u2010one, and so on. They are \u201cGods\u201d and creators of men\u2014many of\n      them the \u201cLords of Beings\u201d; they are the \u201cMind\u2010born Sons\u201d of Brahm\u00e2,\n      and then they became mortal heroes, and are often shown as of a very\n      sinful character. The Occult meaning of the Biblical Patriarchs,\n      their genealogy, and their descendants dividing among themselves the\n      earth, is the same. Again, Jacob\u2019s dream has the same significance.\n\n  656 He \u201cof the Seven Virtues\u201d is one who, without the benefit of\n      Initiation, becomes as pure as any Adept by the simple exertion of\n      his own merit. Being so holy, his body at his next incarnation\n      becomes the Avat\u00e2ra of his \u201cWatcher\u201d or Guardian Angel, as the\n      Christian would put it.\n\n  657 The title of the highest Dhy\u00e2n Chohans.\n\n  658 _Op. cit._, ii. 367.\n\n  659 \u201cAfter death, the soul continueth in the aerial (astral) body, till\n      it is entirely purified from all angry, sensual passions; then doth\n      it put off by a _second death_ [when arising to Devachan] the aerial\n      body as it did the earthly one. Wherefore the ancients say that\n      there is a celestial body always joined with the soul, which is\n      immortal, luminous and star\u2010like.\u201d It becomes natural then, that the\n      \u201caerial body\u201d of an Adept should have no such second dying, since it\n      has been cleansed of all its natural impurity before its separation\n      from the physical body. The high Initiate is a \u201cSon of the\n      Resurrection,\u201d \u201cbeing equal unto the angels,\u201d and cannot die any\n      more (see _Luke_, xx. 36).\n\n  660 _St. John_, xxi. 21.\n\n  661 See the extract made in the _Theosophist_ from a glorious novel by\n      Dostoievsky\u2014a fragment entitled \u201cThe Great Inquisitor.\u201d It is a\n      fiction, naturally, still a sublime fiction of Christ returning in\n      Spain during the palmy days of the Inquisition, and being imprisoned\n      and put to death by the Inquisitor, who fears lest Christ should\n      ruin the work of Jesuit hands.\n\n  662 When we say the \u201cgreat Teacher,\u201d we do not mean His Buddhic Ego, but\n      that principle in Him which was the vehicle of His personal or\n      terrestrial Ego.\n\n  663 _Five Years of Theosophy_, New Edition, p. 3.\n\n  664 _Op. cit._, p. 175, Fifth Edition.\n\n  665 It would be useless to raise objections from exoteric works to\n      statements in this, which aims to expound, however superficially,\n      the Esoteric Teachings alone. It is because they are misled by the\n      exoteric doctrine that Bishop Bigandet and others aver that the\n      notion of a supreme eternal \u00c2di\u2010Buddha is to be found only in\n      writings of comparatively recent date. What is given here is taken\n      from the secret portions of Dus Kyi Khorlo (K\u00e2la Chakra, in\n      Sanskrit, or the \u201cWheel of Time,\u201d or duration).\n\n  666 The three bodies are (1) the Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2ya (Pru\u2010lpai\u2010Ku in Tibetan),\n      in which the Bodhisattva after entering by the six P\u00e2ramit\u00e2s the\n      Path to Nirv\u00e2na, appears to men in order to teach them; (2)\n      Sambhogak\u00e2ya (Dzog\u2010pai\u2010Ku), the, body of bliss impervious to all\n      physical sensations, received by one who has fulfilled the three\n      conditions of moral perfection; and (3) Dharmak\u00e2ya (in Tibetan,\n      Chos\u2010Ku), the Nirv\u00e2nic body.\n\n  667 _Five Years of Theosophy_, art. \u201cPersonal and Impersonal God,\u201d p.\n      129.\n\n  668 Adhisht\u00e2th\u00e2, the active or working agent in Prakriti (or matter).\n\n  669 _Ved\u00e2nta\u2010S\u00fbtras_, Ad. I. P\u00e2da iv. Shi. 23. Commentary. The passage\n      is given as follows in Thibaut\u2019s translation (Sacred Books of the\n      East, xxxiv.), p. 286: \u201cThe Self is thus the operative cause,\n      because there is no other ruling principle, and the material cause\n      because there is no other substance from which the world could\n      originate.\u201d\n\n  670 In _Five Years of Theosophy_ (art. \u201cSh\u00e2kya Muni\u2019s Place in History,\u201d\n      p. 234, note) it is stated that one day when our Lord sat in the\n      Sattapanni Cave (Saptaparna) he compared man to a Saptaparna (seven\n      leaved) plant.\n\n      \u201cMendicants,\u201d he said, \u201cthere are seven Buddhas in every Buddha, and\n      there are _six_ Bhikshus and but one Buddha in each mendicant. What\n      are the _seven_? The seven branches of complete knowledge. What are\n      the _six_? The six organs of sense. What are the five? The five\n      elements of illusive being. And the One which is also ten? He is a\n      true Buddha who develops in him the ten forms of holiness and\n      subjects them all to the One.\u201d Which means that every principle in\n      the Buddha was the highest that could be evolved on this earth;\n      whereas in the case of other men who attain to Nirv\u00e2na this is not\n      necessarily the case. Even as a mere human (Manushya) Buddha Gautama\n      was a pattern for all men. But his Arhats were not necessarily so.\n\n  671 See _Isis Unveiled_, ii., 132.\n\n  672 \u201cBefore one becomes a Buddha he must be a Bodhisattva; before\n      evolving into a Bodhisattva he must be a Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Buddha.... A\n      Bodhisattva is the way and Path to his Father, and thence to the One\n      Supreme Essence\u201d (_Descent of Buddhas_, p. 17, from \u00c2ry\u00e2sanga). \u201cI\n      am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father\n      but by me\u201d (_St. John_, xiv. 6). The \u201cway\u201d is not the goal. Nowhere\n      throughout the _New Testament_ is Jesus found calling himself God,\n      or anything higher than \u201ca son of God,\u201d the son of a \u201cFather\u201d common\n      to all, synthetically. Paul never said (I. _Tim._, iii. 10), \u201cGod\n      was manifest in the flesh,\u201d but \u201cHe who was manifested in the flesh\u201d\n      (Revised Edition). While the common herd among the Buddhists\u2014the\n      Burmese especially\u2014regard Jesus as an incarnation of Devadatta, a\n      relative who opposed the teachings of Buddha, the students of\n      Esoteric Philosophy see in the Nazarene Sage a Bodhisattva with the\n      spirit of Buddha Himself in Him.\n\n  673 I. _Corinth._, xv. 36.\n\n  674 _Op. cit._, Mandala x., hymn 90.\n\n  675 Literally, \u201che who walks [or follows] in the way [or path] of his\n      predecessors.\u201d\n\n  676 Schmidt, in _Slanong Seetsen_, p. 471, and Schlagintweit, in\n      _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 53, accept these precious things\n      _literally_, enumerating them as \u201cthe wheel, the precious stone, the\n      royal consort, the best treasurer, the best horse, the elephant, the\n      best leader.\u201d After this one can little wonder if \u201cbesides a Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010\n      Buddhi and a Dhy\u00e2ni\u2010Bodhisattva\u201d each human Buddha is furnished with\n      \u201ca female companion, a Shakti\u201d\u2014when in truth \u201cShakti\u201d is simply the\n      Soul\u2010power, the psychic energy of the God as of the Adept. The\n      \u201croyal consort,\u201d the third of the \u201cseven precious gifts,\u201d very\n      likely led the learned Orientalist into this ludicrous error.\n\n  677 A Bodhisattva can reach Nirv\u00e2na and live, as Buddha did, and after\n      death he can either refuse objective reincarnation or accept and use\n      it at his convenience for the benefit of mankind whom he can\n      instruct in various ways while he remains in the Devachanic regions\n      within the attraction of our earth. But having once reached\n      Paranirv\u00e2na or \u201cNirv\u00e2na without remains\u201d\u2014the highest Dharmak\u00e2ya\n      condition, in which state he remains entirely outside of every\n      earthly condition\u2014he will return no more until the commencement of a\n      new Manvantara, since he has crossed beyond the cycle of births.\n\n  678 Tulpa is the voluntary incarnation of an Adept into a living body,\n      whether of an adult, child, or new\u2010born babe.\n\n  679 Ku\u2010sum is the triple form of the Nirv\u00e2na state and its respective\n      duration in the \u201ccycle of Non\u2010Being.\u201d The number seven here refers\n      to the seven Rounds of our septenary System.\n\n  680 _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 52. This same generic use of a name is found\n      among Hindus with that of Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya, to take but one instance.\n      All His successors bear his name, but are not reincarnations of Him.\n      So with the \u201cBuddhas.\u201d\n\n  681 [The words within brackets are supplied to introduce the following\n      statements that are confused and contradictory as they stand, and\n      which H. P. B. had probably intended to elucidate to some slight\n      extent, as they are written two or three times with different\n      sentences following them. The MS. is exceedingly confused, and\n      everything H. P. B. said is here pieced together, the addition above\n      made being marked in brackets to distinguish it from hers.\u2014A. B.]\n\n  682 King Suddhodana.\n\n  683 There are several names marked simply by asterisks.\n\n  684 Shankar\u00e2ch\u00e2rya died also at thirty\u2010two years of age, or rather\n      disappeared from the sight of his disciples, as the legend goes.\n\n  685 Does \u201cTiani\u2010Tsang\u201d stand for Apollonius of Tyana? This is a simple\n      surmise. Some things in the life of that Adept would seem to tally\n      with the hypothesis\u2014others to go against it.\n\n  686 According to Esoteric teaching Buddha lived one hundred years in\n      reality, though having reached Nirv\u00e2na in his eightieth year he was\n      regarded as one dead to the world of the living. See article\n      \u201cSh\u00e2kyamuni\u2019s Place in History\u201d in _Five Years of Theosophy_.\n\n  687 It is a _secret_ rite, pertaining to high Initiation, and has the\n      same significance as the one to which Clement of Alexandria alludes\n      when he speaks of \u201cthe token of recognition being in common with us,\n      as by cutting off Christ\u201d (Strom., 13). Schlagintweit wonders what\n      it may be. \u201cThe typical representation of a hermit,\u201d he says, \u201cis\n      always that of a man with long, uncut hair and beard.... A rite very\n      often selected, though I am unable to state for what reason, is that\n      of Chod (\u2018to cut\u2019 or \u2018to destroy\u2019) the meaning of which is anxiously\n      kept a profound secret by the Lamas.\u201d (_Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 163.)\n\n  688 Hlun\u2010Chub is the divining spirit in man, the highest degree of\n      seership.\n\n  689 The secret meaning of this sentence is that Karma exercises its sway\n      over the Adept as much as over any other man; \u201cGods\u201d can escape it\n      as little as simple mortals. The Adept who, having reached the Path\n      and won His Dharmak\u00e2ya\u2014the Nirv\u00e2na from which there is no return\n      until the new grand Kalpa\u2014prefers to use His right of choosing a\n      condition inferior to that which belongs to Him, but that will leave\n      him free to return whenever He thinks it advisable and under\n      whatever personality He may select, must be prepared to take all the\n      chances of failure\u2014possibly\u2014and a lower condition than was His\n      lot\u2014for a certainty\u2014as it is an occult law. Karma alone is absolute\n      justice and infallible in its selections. He who uses his rights\n      with it (Karma) must bear the consequences\u2014if any. Thus Buddha\u2019s\n      first reincarnation was produced by Karma\u2014and it led Him higher than\n      ever; the two following were \u201cout of pity\u201d and * * *.\n\n  690 The Universe of Brahm\u00e2 (Sien\u2010Chan; Nam\u2010Kha) is Universal Illusion,\n      or our phenomenal world.\n\n  691 \u00c2k\u00e2sha. It is next to impossible to render the mystic word \u201cTho\u2010og\u201d\n      by any other term than \u201cSpace,\u201d and yet, unless coined on purpose,\n      no new appellation can render it so well to the mind of the\n      Occultist. The term \u201cAditi\u201d is also translated \u201cSpace,\u201d and there is\n      a world of meaning in it.\n\n  692 Dang\u2010ma, a purified soul, and Lha, a freed spirit within a living\n      body; an Adept or Arhat. In the popular opinion in Tibet, a Lha is a\n      disembodied spirit, something similar to the Burmese Nat\u2014only\n      higher.\n\n  693 Kwan\u2010yin is a synonym, for in the original another term is used, but\n      the meaning is identical. It is the divine voice of Self, or the\n      \u201cSpirit\u2010voice\u201d in man, and the same as V\u00e2ch\u00eeshvara (the \u201cVoice\u2010\n      deity\u201d) of the Br\u00e2hmans. In China, the Buddhist ritualists have\n      degraded its meaning by anthropomorphizing it into a Goddess of the\n      same name, with one thousand hands and eyes, and they call it Kwan\u2010\n      shai\u2010yin\u2010Bodhisat. It is the Buddhist \u201cda\u00efmon\u201d\u2010voice of Socrates.\n\n  694 Sangharama is the _sanctum sanctorum_ of an ascetic, a cave or any\n      place he chooses for his meditation.\n\n  695 Amit\u00e2bha Buddha is in this connection the \u201cboundless light\u201d by which\n      things of the subjective world are perceived.\n\n  696 Esoterically, \u201cthe unsurpassingly merciful and enlightened heart,\u201d\n      said of the \u201cPerfect Ones,\u201d the J\u00eevan\u2010muktas, collectively.\n\n  697 These six worlds\u2014seven with us\u2014are the worlds of Nats or Spirits,\n      with the Burmese Buddhists, and the seven higher worlds of the\n      Ved\u00e2ntins.\n\n  698 Two things entirely distinct from each other. The \u201cfaculty is not\n      distinguished from the subject\u201d only on this material plane, while\n      thought generated by our physical brain, one that has never\n      impressed itself at the same time on the spiritual counterpart,\n      whether through the atrophy of the latter or the intrinsic weakness\n      of that thought, can never survive our body; this much is sure.\n\n  699 _Ved\u00e2nta S\u00e2ra_, translated by Major Jacob, p. 123.\n\n  700 Aditi is, according to the _Rig Veda_, \u201cthe Father and Mother of all\n      the Gods\u201d; and \u00c2k\u00e2sha is held by Southern Buddhism as the Root of\n      all, whence everything in the Universe came out, in obedience to a\n      law of motion inherent in it; and this is the Tibetan \u201cSpace\u201d (Tho\u2010\n      og).\n\n  701 _M\u00e2nava\u2010Dharma\u2010Sh\u00e2stra_, i. 6, 7.\n\n  702 The \u201cGod\u201d of Pythagoras, the disciple of the \u00c2ryan Sages, is no\n      personal God. Let it be remembered that he taught as a cardinal\n      tenet that there exists a permanent Principle of Unity beneath all\n      forms, changes, and other phenomena of the Universe.\n\n  703 _Isis Unveiled_, i. xvi.\n\n  704 _Isis Unveiled_, i. xviii.\n\n  705 _Isis Unveiled_ i. 58.\n\n  706 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 59.\n\n  707 While they are to a great extent identical with those of Esoteric\n      Buddhism, the Secret Doctrine of the East.\n\n  708 _Parerga_, II. iii. 112; quoted in _Isis Unveiled_, i. 58.\n\n  709 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 338, _et seq._\n\n  710 Prof. Max M\u00fcller, in a letter to _The Times_ (April, 1857),\n      maintained most vehemently that Nirv\u00e2na meant _annihilation_ in the\n      fullest sense of the word. (_Chips from a German Workshop_, i. 287.)\n      But in 1869, in a lecture before the General Meeting of the\n      Association of German Philologists at Kiel, \u201che distinctly declares\n      his belief that the Nihilism attributed to Buddha\u2019s teaching forms\n      no part of his doctrine, and that it is wholly wrong to suppose that\n      Nirv\u00e2na means annihilation.\u201d (Trubner\u2019s _Amer. and Oriental Lit.\n      Rec._, Oct. 16th, 1869.)\n\n  711 See the _Kalama Sutta_ of the _Anguttaranikayo_, as quoted in _A\n      Buddhist Catechism_, by H. S. Olcott, President of the Theosophical\n      Society, pp. 55, 56.\n\n  712 _\u0152dipus \u00c6gypt._, II. i. 291.\n\n  713 Sephir, or Aditi (mystic Space). The Sephiroth, be it understood,\n      are identical with the Hindu Praj\u00e2patis, the Dhy\u00e2n Chohans of\n      Esoteric Buddhism, the Zoroastrian Amshaspends, and finally with the\n      Elohim\u2014the \u201cSeven Angels of the Presence\u201d of the Roman Catholic\n      Church.\n\n  714 According to the Eastern idea, the All comes out from the One, and\n      returns to it again. Absolute annihilation is simply unthinkable.\n      Nor can eternal Matter be annihilated. Form may be annihilated: co\u2010\n      relations may change. That is all. There can be no such thing as\n      annihilation\u2014in the European sense\u2014in the Universe.\n\n  715 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 289.\n\n  716 The Secret Law, the \u201cDoctrine of the Heart,\u201d so called in contrast\n      to the \u201cDoctrine of the Eye,\u201d or exoteric Buddhism.\n\n  717 \u201cIllusive matter in its triple manifestation in the earthly, and the\n      astral or fontal Soul (the body), and the Platonian dual Soul\u2014the\n      rational and the irrational one.\u201d\n\n  718 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 289.\n\n  719 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 290.\n\n  720 It is from the texts of all these works that the Secret Doctrine has\n      been given. The original matter would not make a small pamphlet, but\n      the explanations and notes from the Commentaries and Glossaries\n      might be worked into ten volumes as large as _Isis Unveiled_.\n\n  721 The monk Della Penna makes considerable fun in his _Memoirs_ (see\n      Markham\u2019s _Tibet_) of certain statements in the Books of Kiu\u2010te. He\n      brings to the notice of the Christian public \u201cthe great mountain\n      160,000 leagues high\u201d (a Tibetan league consisting of five miles) in\n      the Him\u00e2layan Range. \u201cAccording to their law,\u201d he says, \u201cin the west\n      of this world is an eternal world ... a paradise, and in it a Saint\n      called Hopahma, which means \u2018Saint of Splendour and Infinite Light.\u2019\n      This Saint has many disciples who are all Chang\u2010chub,\u201d which means,\n      he adds in a footnote, \u201cthe Spirits of those who, on account of\n      their perfection, do not care to become saints, and train and\n      instruct the bodies of the reborn Lamas ... so that they may help\n      the living.\u201d Which means that the presumably \u201cdead\u201d Yang\u2010Chhub (not\n      \u201cChang\u2010chub\u201d) are simply living Bodhisattvas, some of those known as\n      Bhante (\u201cthe Brothers\u201d). As to the \u201cmountain 160,000 leagues high,\u201d\n      the _Commentary_ which gives the key to such statements explains\n      that according to the code used by the writers, \u201cto the west of the\n      \u2018Snowy Mountain\u2019 160 leagues [the cyphers being a blind] from a\n      certain spot and by a direct road, is the Bhante Yul [the country or\n      \u2018Seat of the Brothers\u2019], the residence of Mah\u00e2\u2010Chohan ...\u201d etc. This\n      is the real meaning. The \u201cHopahma\u201d of Della Penna is\u2014the\n      Mah\u00e2\u2010Chohan, the Chief.\n\n  722 In some MSS. notes before us, written by Gelung (priest) Thango\u2010pa\n      Chhe\u2010go\u2010mo, it is said: \u201cThe few Roman Catholic missionaries who\n      have visited our land (under protest) in the last century and have\n      repaid our hospitality by turning our sacred literature into\n      ridicule, have shown little discretion and still less knowledge. It\n      is true that the Sacred Canon of the Tibetans, the _Kahgyur_ and\n      _Bstanhgyur_, comprises 1707 distinct works\u20141083 public and 624\n      secret volumes, the former being composed of 350 and the latter of\n      77 volumes folio. May we humbly invite the good missionaries,\n      however, to tell us when they ever succeeded in getting a glimpse of\n      the last\u2010named secret folios? Had they even by chance seen them I\n      can assure the Western Pandits that these manuscripts and folios\n      could never be understood even by a born Tibetan without a key (_a_)\n      to their peculiar characters, and (_b_) to their hidden meaning. In\n      our system every description of locality is figurative, every name\n      and word purposely veiled; and one has first to study the mode of\n      deciphering and then to learn the equivalent secret terms and\n      symbols for nearly every word of the religious language. The\n      Egyptian enchorial or hieratic system is child\u2019s play to our\n      sacerdotal puzzles.\u201d\n\n  723 _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 171.\n\n  724 \u201cBuddhi\u201d is a Sanskrit term for \u201cdiscrimination\u201d or intellect (the\n      sixth principle), and \u201cBuddha\u201d is \u201cwise,\u201d \u201cwisdom,\u201d and also the\n      planet Mercury.\n\n  725 This curious contradiction may be found in _Chinese Buddhism_, pp.\n      171, 273. The reverend author assures his readers that \u201cto the\n      philosophic Buddhists ... Amit\u00e2bha Yoshi Fo, and the others are\n      nothing but the signs of ideas\u201d (p. 236). Very true. But so should\n      be all other deific names, such as Jehovah, Allah, etc., and if they\n      are not simply \u201csigns of ideas\u201d this would only show that minds that\n      receive them otherwise are not \u201cphilosophic\u201d; it would not at all\n      afford serious proof that there are personal, living Gods of these\n      names in reality.\n\n  726 The Chinese Amit\u00e2bha (Wu\u2010liang\u2010sheu) and the Tibetan Amit\u00e2bha\n      (Odpag\u2010med) have now become personal Gods, ruling over and living in\n      the celestial region of Sukh\u00e2vat\u00ee, or Tushita (Tibetan: Devachan);\n      while \u00c2di\u2010Buddhi, of the philosophic Hindu, and Amita Buddha of the\n      philosophic Chinaman and Tibetan, are names for universal, primeval\n      ideas.\n\n  727 See _Theosophist_ for March, 1882.\n\n  728 The intimate relation of the twenty\u2010five Buddhas (Bodhisattvas) with\n      the twenty\u2010five Tattvas (the Conditioned or Limited) of the Hindus\n      is interesting.\n\n  729 It is curious to note the great importance given by European\n      Orientalists to the Dala\u00ef Lamas of Lhassa, and their utter ignorance\n      as to the Tda\u2010shu (or Teshu) Lamas, while it is the latter who began\n      the hierarchical series of Buddha\u2010incarnations, and are _de facto_\n      the \u201cpopes\u201d in Tibet; the Dala\u00ef Lamas are the creations of Nabang\u2010\n      lob\u2010Sang, the Tda\u2010shu Lama, who was Himself the sixth incarnation of\n      Amita, through Tsong Kha\u2010pa, though very few seem to be aware of\n      that fact.\n\n  730 The chanting of a Mantra is not a prayer, but rather a magical\n      sentence in which the law of Occult causation connects itself with,\n      and depends on, the will and acts of its singer. It is a succession\n      of Sanskrit sounds, and when its string of words and sentences is\n      pronounced according to the magical formul\u00e6 in the _Atharva Veda_,\n      but understood by the few, some Mantras produce an instantaneous and\n      very wonderful effect. In its esoteric sense it contains the V\u00e2ch\n      (the \u201cmystic speech\u201d), which resides in the Mantra, or rather in its\n      sounds, since it is according to the vibrations, one way or the\n      other, of ether that the effect is produced. The \u201csweet singers\u201d\n      were called by that name because they were experts in Mantras. Hence\n      the legend in China that the singing and melody of the Lohans are\n      heard at dawn by the priests from their cells in the monastery of\n      Fang\u2010Kwang. (See _Biography of Chi\u2010Kai_ in Tien\u2010tai\u2010nan\u2010tchi.)\n\n  731 The celebrated Lohan, M\u00e2dhyantika, who converted the king and whole\n      country of Kashmir to Buddhism, sent a body of Lohans to preach the\n      Good Law. He was the sculptor who raised to Buddha the famous statue\n      one hundred feet high, which Hiuen\u2010Tsaung saw at Dardu, to the north\n      of the Punjab. As the same Chinese traveller mentions a temple ten\n      Li from Peshawur\u2014350 feet round and 850 feet high\u2014which was at his\n      time (A.D. 550) already 850 years old, Koeppen thinks that so far\n      back as 292 B.C. Buddhism was the prevalent religion in the Punjab.\n\n  732 A title of the Tda\u2010shu\u2010Hlum\u2010po Lama.\n\n  733 The twelve Nid\u00e2was, called in Tibetan Tin\u2010brel Chug\u2010nyi, which are\n      based upon the \u201cFour Truths.\u201d\n\n  734 The Srot\u00e2patti is one who has attained the _first_ Path of\n      comprehension in the real and the unreal; the Sakrid\u00e2g\u00e2min is the\n      candidate for one of the higher Initiations: \u201cone who is to receive\n      birth once more;\u201d the An\u00e2g\u00e2min is he who has attained the \u201cthird\n      Path,\u201d or literally, \u201che who will not be reborn again\u201d _unless he so\n      wishes it_, having the option of being reborn in any of the \u201cworlds\n      of the Gods,\u201d or of remaining in Devachan, or of choosing an earthly\n      body with a philanthropic object. An Arhat is one who has reached\n      the highest Path; he may merge into Nirv\u00e2na at will, while here on\n      earth.\n\n  735 [The Pratyeka Buddha stands on the level of the Buddha, but His work\n      for the world has nothing to do with its teaching, and His office\n      has always been surrounded with mystery. The preposterous view that\n      He, at such superhuman height of power, wisdom and love could be\n      selfish, is found in the exoteric books, though it is hard to see\n      how it can have arisen. H. P. B. charged me to correct the mistake,\n      as she had, in a careless moment, copied such a statement\n      elsewhere.\u2014A. B.]\n\n  736 It is an erroneous idea which makes the Orientalists take literally\n      the teaching of the Mah\u00e2y\u00e2na School about the three different kinds\n      of bodies, namely, the Prulpa\u2010ku, the Longehod\u2010drocpaig\u2010ku, and the\n      Chos\u2010ku, as all pertaining to the Nirv\u00e2nic condition. There are two\n      kinds of Nirv\u00e2na: the earthly, and that of the purely disembodied\n      Spirits. These three \u201cbodies\u201d are the three envelopes\u2014all more or\n      less physical\u2014which are at the disposal of the Adept who has entered\n      and crossed the six P\u00e2ramit\u00e2s, or \u201cPaths\u201d of Buddha. Once He enters\n      upon the seventh, He can return no more to earth. See Cosma, _Jour.\n      As. Soc. Beng._, vii. 142; and Schott, _Buddhismus_, p. 9, who give\n      it otherwise.\n\n  737 _Ved\u00e2nta S\u00e2ra_, translated by Major Jacob, p. 119.\n\n  738 _Ibid._, p. 122.\n\n  739 _Der Buddhismus_, pp. 327, 357, _et seq._, quoted by Schlagintweit.\n\n  740 _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 41.\n\n  741 _Jour. of As. Soc. Bengal_, vii. 144, quoted as above.\n\n  742 _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 44.\n\n  743 They maintain also the existence of One Absolute pure Nature,\n      Parabrahman; the illusion of everything outside of it; the leading\n      of the individual Soul\u2014a Ray of the \u201cUniversal\u201d\u2014into the true nature\n      of existence and things by Yoga alone.\n\n  744 Nirm\u00e2nak\u00e2ya (also Nirv\u00e2nak\u00e2ya, vulg.) is the body or Self \u201cwith\n      remains,\u201d or the influence of terrestrial attributes, however\n      spiritualized, clinging yet to that Self. An Initiate in Dharmak\u00e2ya,\n      or in Nirv\u00e2na \u201cwithout remains,\u201d is the Jivanmukta, the Perfect\n      Initiate, who separates his Higher Self entirely from his body\n      during Sam\u00e2dhi. [It will be noticed that these two words are here\n      used in a sense other than that previously given.\u2014A. B.]\n\n  745 The \u201cSacred\u201d Books of Dus\u2010Kyi Khorlo (\u201cTime Circle\u201d). See _Jour. As.\n      Soc._, ii. 57. These works were abandoned to the Sikkhim Dugpas,\n      from the time of Tsong\u2010Kha\u2010pa\u2019s reform.\n\n  746 _Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms_, art. \u201cYoga,\u201d quoted in\n      _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 47.\n\n  747 _Buddhism in Tibet_, pp. 47, 48.\n\n  748 _Buddhism in Tibet_, pp. 63, 64. The objects found in the casket, as\n      enumerated in the exoteric legend, are of course symbolical. They\n      may be found mentioned in the _Kanjur_. They were said to be: (1)\n      two hands joined; (2) a miniature Choten (St\u00fbpa, or reliquary); (3)\n      a talisman with \u201cOm mani padme hum\u201d inscribed on it; (4) a religious\n      book, _Zamatog_ (\u201ca constructed vehicle\u201d).\n\n  749 _Alterthumskunde_, ii. 1072.\n\n  750 _Op. cit._, ii. 470.\n\n  751 Unless one obtains exact information and the right method, one\u2019s\n      visions, however correct and true in Soul\u2010life, will ever fail to\n      get photographed in our human memory, and certain cells of the brain\n      are sure to play havoc with our remembrances.\n\n  752 _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 158. The Rev. Joseph Edkins either ignores,\n      or\u2014which is more probable\u2014is utterly ignorant of the real existence\n      of such Schools, and judges by the Chinese travesties of these,\n      calling such Esotericism \u201cheterodox Buddhism.\u201d And so it is, in one\n      sense.\n\n  753 That country\u2014India\u2014has lost the records of such Schools and their\n      teachings only so far as the general public, and especially the\n      inappreciative Western Orientalists, are concerned. It has preserved\n      them in full in some Mathams (refuges for mystic contemplation). But\n      it may perhaps be better to seek them with, and from, their rightful\n      owners, the so\u2010called \u201cmythical\u201d Adepts, or Mah\u00e2tm\u00e2s.\n\n  754 _Chinese Buddhism_, pp. 155\u2010159.\n\n  755 They certainly reject most emphatically the popular theory of the\n      transmigration of human entities or Souls _into_ animals, but not\n      the evolution of men _from_ animals\u2014so far, at least, as their lower\n      principles are concerned.\n\n  756 It is quite consistent, on the contrary, when explained in the light\n      of the Esoteric Doctrine. The \u201cWestern paradise,\u201d or Western heaven,\n      is no fiction located in transcendental space. It is a _bon\u00e2\u2010fide_\n      locality in the mountains, or, to be more correct, one encircled in\n      a desert within mountains. Hence it is assigned for the residence of\n      those students of Esoteric Wisdom\u2014disciples of Buddha\u2014who have\n      attained the rank of Lohans and An\u00e2g\u00e2mins (Adepts). It is called\n      \u201cWestern\u201d simply from geographical considerations; and \u201cthe great\n      iron mountain girdle\u201d that surrounds the Avitchi, and the seven\n      Lokas that encircle the \u201cWestern paradise\u201d are a very exact\n      representation of well\u2010known localities and things to the Eastern\n      student of Occultism.\n\n  757 The word is translated by the Orientalists as \u201ctrue man without a\n      position,\u201d (?) which is very misleading. It simply means the true\n      inner man, or Ego, \u201cBuddha _within_ Buddha\u201d meaning that there was a\n      Gautama _inwardly_ as well as _outwardly_.\n\n  758 One of the titles of Gautama Buddha in Tibet.\n\n  759 The \u201cEsoteric\u201d Schools, or sects, of which there are many in China.\n\n  760 A school of contemplation founded by Hiuen\u2010Tsang, the traveller,\n      nearly extinct. Fa\u2010siong\u2010Tsung means \u201cthe School that unveils the\n      inner nature of things.\u201d\n\n  761 Esoteric, or hidden, teaching of Yoga (Chinese: Yogi\u2010mi\u2010kean).\n\n  762 The \u201ctonsure knife\u201d is made of _meteoric_ iron, and is used for the\n      purpose of cutting off the \u201cvow\u2010lock,\u201d or hair from the novice\u2019s\n      head during his first ordination. It has a double\u2010edged blade, is\n      sharp as a razor, and lies concealed within a hollow handle of horn.\n      By touching a spring the blade jerks out like a flash of lightning,\n      and recedes back with the same rapidity. A great dexterity is\n      required in using it without wounding the head of the young Gelung\n      and Gelung\u2010ma (candidates to become priests and nuns) during the\n      preliminary rites, which are public.\n\n  763 Chagpa\u2010Thog\u2010mad is the Tibetan name of \u00c2ry\u00e2sanga, the founder of the\n      Yog\u00e2ch\u00e2rya or Naljorchodpa School. This Sage and Initiate is said to\n      have been taught \u201cWisdom\u201d by Maitreya Buddha Himself, the Buddha of\n      the Sixth Race, at Tushita (a celestial region presided over by\n      Him), and as having received from Him the five books of\n      _Champaitehos\u2010nga_. The Secret Doctrine teaches, however, that he\n      came from Dejung, or Shambhalla, called the \u201csource of happiness\u201d\n      (\u201cwisdom\u2010acquired\u201d) and declared by some Orientalists to be a\n      \u201cfabulous\u201d place.\n\n  764 It may not be, perhaps, amiss to remind the reader of the fact that\n      the \u201cmirror\u201d was a part of the symbolism of the Thesmophoria, a\n      portion of the Eleusinian Mysteries; and that it was used in the\n      search for Atmu, the \u201cHidden One,\u201d or \u201cSelf.\u201d In his excellent paper\n      on the above\u2010named mysteries, Dr. Alexander Wilder of New York says:\n      \u201cDespite the assertion of Herodotus and others that the Bacchic\n      Mysteries were Egyptian, there exists strong probability that they\n      came originally from India, and were Shaivitic or Buddhistical.\n      Kore\u2010Persep\u2010honeia was but the goddess Parasu\u2010pani, or Bhavani, and\n      Zagreus is from Chakra, a country extending from ocean to ocean. If\n      this is a Turanian story we can easily recognise the \u2018horns\u2019 as the\n      crescent worn by Lama\u2010priests, and assume the whole legend [the\n      fable of Dionysus\u2010Zagreus] to be based on Lama\u2010succession and\n      transmigration.... The whole story of Orpheus ... has a Hindu ring\n      all through.\u201d The tale of \u201cLama\u2010succession and transmigration\u201d did\n      not originate with the Lamas, who date themselves only so far back\n      as the seventh century, but with the Chald\u00e6ans and the Br\u00e2hmans,\n      still earlier.\n\n  765 The state of absolute freedom from any sin or desire.\n\n  766 The state during which an Adept sees the long series of his past\n      births, and lives through all his previous incarnations in this and\n      the other worlds. (See the admirable description in the _Light of\n      Asia_, p. 166, 1884 ed.)\n\n  767 See _supra_, ii. 188, 189.\n\n  768 Wilson\u2019s translation, as amended by Fitzedward Hall, i. 40.\n\n  769 Pr\u00e2na is in reality the universal Life Principle.\n\n  770 All the uterine contents, having a direct spiritual connection with\n      their cosmic antetypes, are, on the physical plane, potent objects\n      in Black Magic, and are therefore considered unclean.\n\n  771 See _supra_, ii. Part I.\n\n  772 The Solar System or the Earth, as the case may be.\n\n  773 So are the animals, the plants, and even the minerals. Reichenbach\n      never understood what he learned through his sensitives and\n      clairvoyants. It _is_ the odic, or rather the auric or magnetic\n      fluid which emanates from man, but it is also something more.\n\n  774 See _supra_, i. 181, for the Ved\u00e2ntic exoteric enumeration.\n\n  775 See _Lucifer_, January, 1889, \u201cDialogue upon the Mysteries of After\u2010\n      Life.\u201d\n\n  776 See _supra_, i, 626\u2010629.\n\n  777 See _supra_, i, 228, _et seq._, and ii. _passim_.\n\n  778 _Op. cit._, ii, 456, 461, 465 _et seq._\n\n  779 _Jod\u2010Hevah_, or male\u2010female on the terrestrial plane, as invented by\n      the Jews, and now made out to mean Jehovah; but signifying in\n      reality and literally, \u201cgiving being\u201d and \u201creceiving life.\u201d\n\n  780 See _Notice sur le Calendrier_, J. H. Ragon.\n\n  781 See _supra_, ii. 373; and 152, _et seq._\n\n  782 See _supra_, ii. 302, _et seq._\n\n  783 _Op. cit._, ii. 81, 6.\n\n  784 See Frank\u2019s _Die Kabbala_, p. 314, _et seq._\n\n  785 _Genesis_, ii. 7.\n\n  786 _Supra_, i. 147.\n\n  787 We may refer for confirmation to Origen\u2019s works, who says that \u201cthe\n      seven ruling daimons\u201d (genii or planetary rulers) are Michael, the\n      Sun (the lion\u2010like); the second in order, the Bull, Jupiter or\n      Suriel, etc.; and all these, the \u201cSeven of the Presence,\u201d are the\n      Sephiroth. The Sephirothal Tree is the Tree of the Divine Planets as\n      given by Porphyry, or Porphyry\u2019s Tree, as it is usually called.\n\n  788 _Supra_, i, 147.\n\n  789 Esoterically, green, there being no black in the prismatic ray.\n\n  790 Esoterically, light blue. As a pigment, purple is a compound of red\n      and blue, and in Eastern Occultism blue is the spiritual essence of\n      the colour purple, while red is its material basis. In reality,\n      Occultism makes Jupiter blue because he is the son of Saturn, which\n      is green, and light blue as a prismatic colour contains a great deal\n      of green. Again, the Auric Body will contain much of the colour of\n      the Lower Manas if the man is a material sensualist, just as it will\n      contain much of the darker hue if the Higher Manas has preponderance\n      over the Lower.\n\n  791 Esoterically, the Sun cannot correspond with the eye, nose, or any\n      other organ, since, as explained, it is no planet, but a central\n      star. It was adopted as a planet by the post\u2010Christian Astrologers,\n      who had never been initiated. Moreover, the true colour of the Sun\n      is blue, and it appears yellow only owing to the effect of the\n      absorption of vapours (chiefly metallic) by its atmosphere. All is\n      M\u00e2y\u00e2 on our Earth.\n\n  792 Esoterically, indigo, or dark blue, which is the complement of\n      yellow in the prism. Yellow is a simple or primitive colour. Manas\n      being dual in its nature\u2014as is its sidereal symbol, the planet\n      Venus, which is both the morning and evening star\u2014the difference\n      between the higher and the lower principles of Manas, whose essence\n      is derived from the Hierarchy ruling Venus, is denoted by the dark\n      blue and green. Green, the Lower Manas, resembles the colour of the\n      solar spectrum which appears between the yellow and the dark blue,\n      the Higher Spiritual Manas. Indigo is the intensified colour of the\n      heaven or sky, to denote the upward tendency of Manas toward Buddhi,\n      or the heavenly Spiritual Soul. This colour is obtained from the\n      _indigofera tinctoria_, a plant of the highest occult properties in\n      India, much used in White Magic, and occultly connected with copper.\n      This is shown by the indigo assuming a copper lustre, especially\n      when rubbed on any hard substance. Another property of the dye is\n      that it is insoluble in water and even in ether, being lighter in\n      weight than any known liquid. No symbol has ever been adopted in the\n      East without being based upon a logical and demonstrable reason.\n      Therefore Eastern Symbologists, from the earliest ages, have\n      connected the spiritual and the animal minds of man, the one with\n      dark blue (Newton\u2019s indigo), or true blue, free from green; and the\n      other with pure green.\n\n  793 Esoterically, yellow, because the colour of the Sun is orange, and\n      Mercury now stands next to the Sun in distance, as it does in\n      colour. The planet for which the Sun is a substitute was still\n      nearer the Sun than Mercury now is, and was one of the most secret\n      and highest planets. It is said to have become invisible at the\n      close of the Third Race.\n\n  794 Esoterically, violet, because, perhaps, violet is the colour assumed\n      by a ray of sunlight when transmitted through a very thin plate of\n      silver, and also because the Moon shines upon the Earth with light\n      borrowed from the Sun, as the human body shines with qualifications\n      borrowed from its double\u2014the a\u00ebrial man. As the astral shadow starts\n      the series of principles in man, on the terrestrial plane, up to the\n      lower, animal Manas, so the violet ray starts the series of\n      prismatic colours from its end up to green, both being, the one as a\n      principle and the other as a colour, the most refrangible of all the\n      principles and colours. Besides which, there is the same great\n      Occult mystery attached to all these correspondences, both celestial\n      and terrestrial bodies, colours and sounds. In clearer words, there\n      exists the same law of relation between the Moon and the Earth, the\n      astral and the living body of man, as between the violet end of the\n      prismatic spectrum and the indigo and the blue. But of this more\n      anon.\n\n  795 Magic, _Magia_, means, in its spiritual, secret sense, the \u201cGreat\n      Life,\u201d or divine life _in spirit_. The root is _magh_, as seen in\n      the Sanskrit _mahat_, Zend _maz_, Greek _megas_, and Latin _magnus_,\n      all signifying \u201cgreat.\u201d\n\n  796 _Philosophumena_, vi. 9.\n\n  797 _Nous_, _Epinoia_; _Ph\u00f4ne_, _Onoma_; _Logismos_, _Enthum\u00easis_.\n\n  798 _Philosophumena_, vi. 12.\n\n  799 See _supra_, _sub voce_.\n\n  800 _The Great Revelation_ (_H\u00ea Megal\u00ea Apophasis_), of which Simon\n      himself is supposed to have been the author.\n\n  801 Literally, standing opposite each other in rows or pairs.\n\n  802 _Philosophumena_, vi. 18.\n\n  803 _Op. cit._, vi. 18.\n\n  804 _Op. cit._, i. 13.\n\n  805 _Op. cit._, vi. 17.\n\n  806 _Op. cit._, i. 5.\n\n  807 _Philosophumena_, vi. 14.\n\n  808 At first there are the omphalo\u2010mesenteric vessels, two arteries and\n      two veins, but these afterwards totally disappear, as does the\n      \u201cvascular area\u201d on the Umbilical Vesicle, from which they proceed.\n      As regards the \u201cUmbilical Vessels\u201d proper, the Umbilical Cord\n      ultimately has entwined around it from right to left the one\n      Umbilical Vein which takes the oxygenated blood from the mother to\n      the F\u0153tus, and two Hypogastric or Umbilical Arteries which take the\n      used\u2010up blood from the F\u0153tus to the Placenta, the contents of the\n      vessels being the reverse of that which prevails after birth. Thus\n      Science corroborates the wisdom and knowledge of ancient Occultism,\n      for in the days of Simon Magus no man, unless an Initiate, knew\n      anything about the circulation of the blood or about Physiology.\n      While this Paper was being printed, I received two small pamphlets\n      from Dr. Jerome A. Anderson, which were printed in 1884 and 1888,\n      and in which is to be found the scientific demonstration of the\n      f\u0153tal nutrition as advanced in Paper I. Briefly, the F\u0153tus is\n      nourished by osmosis from the Amniotic Fluid and respires by means\n      of the Placenta. Science knows little or nothing about the Amniotic\n      Fluid and its uses. If any one cares to follow up this question, I\n      would recommend Dr. Anderson\u2019s _Remarks on the Nutrition of the\n      F\u0153tus_. (Wood & Co., New York.)\n\n  809 _Supra_, vol. ii.\n\n  810 See Eusebius, _Hist. Eccles._, lib. iii. cap. 26.\n\n  811 _De Mysteriis_, p. 100, lines 10 to 19; p. 109, fol. 1.\n\n  812 _De Mysteriis_, p. 290, lines 15 to 18, _et seq._, caps. v. and vii.\n\n  813 _Ibid._, p. 100, sec. iii, cap. iii.\n\n  814 See _supra_, i. 34; i. 4, _et seq._; ii. 39, _et seq._, and 625, _et\n      seq._\n\n  815 The following table lists the wave\u2010lengths in Millimetres, and the\n      number of vibrations in Trillions, of the various colours.\n\n      Violet extreme: 406, 759\n      Violet: 423, 709\n      Violet\u2010Indigo: 439, 683\n      Indigo: 449, 668\n      Indigo\u2010Blue: 459, 654\n      Blue: 479, 631\n      Blue\u2010Green: 492, 610\n      Green: 512, 586\n      Green\u2010Yellow: 532, 564\n      Yellow: 551, 544\n      Yellow\u2010Orange: 571, 525\n      Orange: 583, 514\n      Orange\u2010Red: 596, 503\n      Red: 620, 484\n      Red\u2010extreme: 645, 465\n\n  816 See _Five Years of Theosophy_, pp. 273 to 278.\n\n  817 _Apud Gr\u00eabaut Papyrus Orbiney_, p. 101.\n\n  818 See \u201cGenius,\u201d _Lucifer_, Nov., 1889, p. 227.\n\n  819 See _Voice of the Silence_, pp. 68 and 94, art. 28, Glossary.\n\n  820 The references to \u201cNature\u2019s Finer Forces\u201d which follow, have respect\n      to the eight articles which appeared in the pages of the\n      _Theosophist_ and not to the fifteen essays and the translation of a\n      chapter of the Shiv\u00e2gama which are contained in the book called\n      _Nature\u2019s Finer Forces_. The _Shiv\u00e2gama_ in its details is purely\n      T\u00e2ntric, and nothing but harm can result from any practical\n      following of its precepts. I would most strongly dissuade any\n      student from attempting any of these Hatha Yoga practices, for he\n      will either ruin himself entirely, or throw himself so far back that\n      it will be almost impossible to regain the lost ground in this\n      incarnation. The translation referred to has been considerably\n      expurgated, and even now is hardly fit for publication. It\n      recommends Black Magic of the worst kind, and is the very antipodes\n      of spiritual R\u00e2ja Yoga. Beware, I say.\n\n  821 Pr\u00e2na, on earth at any rate, is thus but a mode of life, a constant\n      cyclic motion from within outwardly and back again, an out\u2010breathing\n      and in\u2010breathing of the ONE LIFE, or J\u00eeva, the synonym of the\n      Absolute and Unknowable Deity. Pr\u00e2na is not absolute life, or J\u00eeva,\n      but its aspect in a world of delusion. In the _Theosophist_, May,\n      1888, p. 478, Pr\u00e2na is said to be \u201cone stage finer than the gross\n      matter of the earth.\u201d\n\n  822 Remember that our re\u2010incarnating Egos are called the M\u00e2nasaputras,\n      \u201cSons of Manas\u201d (or Mahat), Intelligence, Wisdom.\n\n  823 It is erroneous to call the fourth human principle \u201cK\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa.\u201d It\n      is no R\u00fbpa or form at all until after death, but stands for the\n      K\u00e2mic elements in man, his animal desires and passions, such as\n      anger, lust, envy, revenge, etc., the progeny of selfishness and\n      matter.\n\n  824 Here the world of effects is the Devachanic state, and the world of\n      causes, earth life.\n\n  825 It is this K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa alone that can _materialize_ in mediumistic\n      s\u00e9ances, which occasionally happens when it is not the Astral Double\n      or Linga Shar\u00eera, of the medium himself which appears. How, then,\n      can this vile bundle of passions and terrestrial lusts, resurrected\n      by, and gaining consciousness only through the organism of the\n      medium, be accepted as a \u201cdeparted angel\u201d or the Spirit of a once\n      human body? As well say of the microbic pest which fastens on a\n      person, that it is a sweet departed angel.\n\n  826 This is accomplished in more or less time, according to the degree\n      in which the personality (whose dregs it now is) was spiritual or\n      material. If spirituality prevailed, then the Larva, or Spook, will\n      fade out very soon; but if the personality was very materialistic,\n      the K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa may last for centuries and\u2014in some, though very\n      exceptional cases\u2014even survive with the help of some of its\n      scattered Skandhas, which are all transformed in time into\n      Elementals. See the _Key to Theosophy_, pp. 141 _et seq._, in which\n      work it was impossible to go into details, but where the Skandhas\n      are spoken of as the germs of Karmic effect.\n\n  827 _Key to Theosophy_, p. 141\n\n  828 Following _Shiv\u00e2gama_, the said author enumerates the\n      correspondences in this wise; \u00c2k\u00e2sha, Ether, is followed by V\u00e2yu,\n      Gas; Tejas, Heat; \u00c2pas, Liquid; and Prithiv\u00ee, Solid.\n\n  829 See Fitz\u2010Edward Hall\u2019s notes on the _Vishnu Pur\u00e2na_.\n\n  830 The pair which we refer to as the One Life, the Root of All, and\n      \u00c2k\u00e2sha in its pre\u2010differentiating period answers to the Brahma\n      (neuter) and Aditi of some Hindus, and stands in the same relation\n      as the Parabrahman and M\u00fblaprakriti of the Ved\u00e2ntins.\n\n  831 See above, i. diagram, p. 221.\n\n  832 Anup\u00e2daka, Opapatika in P\u00e2li, means the \u201cparentless,\u201d born without\n      father or mother, from _itself_, as a transformation, _e.g._, the\n      God Brahm\u00e2 sprung from the Lotus (the symbol of the Universe) that\n      grows from Vishnu\u2019s navel, Vishnu typifiying eternal and limitless\n      Space, and Brahm\u00e2 the Universe and LOGOS; the mythical Buddha is\n      also born from a Lotus.\n\n  833 See _Theosophist_, February, 1888, p. 276.\n\n  834 S\u0153mmerring, _De Acervulo Cerebri_, vol. ii. p. 322.\n\n  835 In the Greek Eastern Church no child is allowed to go to confession\n      before the age of seven, after which he is considered to have\n      reached the age of reason.\n\n  836 _De Caus. Ep._, vol xii.\n\n  837 _Advers. Med._, ii. 322.\n\n  838 _De Lapillis Glandul\u00e6 Pinealis in Quinque Ment Alien_, 1753.\n\n  839 See \u201cStray Thoughts on Death and Satan\u201d in the _Theosophist_, vol.\n      iii. No. 1; also \u201cFragments of Occult Truth,\u201d vols. iii. and iv.\n\n  840 _Op. cit._, ii. 368, _et seq._\n\n  841 The essence of the Divine Ego is \u201cpure flame,\u201d an entity to which\n      nothing can be added and from which nothing can be taken; it cannot,\n      therefore, be diminished even by countless numbers of lower minds,\n      detached from it like flames from a flame. This is in answer to an\n      objection by an Esotericist who asked whence was that inexhaustible\n      essence of one and the same Individuality which was called upon to\n      furnish a human intellect for every new personality in which it is\n      incarnated.\n\n  842 The brain, or thinking machinery, is not only in the head, but, as\n      every physiologist who is not quite a materialist will tell you,\n      every organ in man, heart, liver, lungs, etc., down to every nerve\n      and muscle, has, so to speak, its own distinct brain or thinking\n      apparatus. As our brain has naught to do in the guidance of the\n      collective and individual work of every organ in us, what is that\n      which guides each so unerringly in its incessant functions; that\n      make these struggle, and that too with disease, throws it off and\n      acts, each of them, even to the smallest, not in a clock\u2010work\n      manner, as alleged by some materialists (for, at the slightest\n      disturbance or breakage the clock stops), but as an entity endowed\n      with instinct? To say it is Nature is to say nothing, if it is not\n      the enunciation of a fallacy; for Nature after all is but a name for\n      these very same functions, the sum of the qualities and attributes,\n      physical, mental, etc., in the universe and man, the total of\n      agencies and forces guided by intelligent laws.\n\n  843 See _Key to Theosophy_, pp. 147, 148, _et seq._\n\n  844 K\u00e2ma R\u00fbpa, the vehicle of the Lower Manas, is said to dwell in the\n      physical brain, in the five physical senses and in all the sense\u2010\n      organs of the physical body.\n\n  845 Tanm\u00e2tra means subtle and rudimentary form, the gross type of the\n      finer elements. The five Tanm\u00e2tras are really the characteristic\n      properties or qualities of matter and of all the elements; the real\n      spirit of the word is \u201csomething\u201d or \u201cmerely transcendental,\u201d in the\n      sense of properties or qualities.\n\n  846 See _Theosophist_, August, 1883, \u201cThe Real and the Unreal.\u201d\n\n  847 As the author of _Esoteric Buddhism_ and the _Occult World_ called\n      Manas the Human Soul, and Buddhi the Spiritual Soul, I have left\n      these terms unchanged in the _Voice_, seeing that it was a book\n      intended for the public.\n\n  848 In the exoteric teachings of R\u00e2ja Yoga, Antahkarana is called the\n      inner organ of perception and is divided into four parts: the\n      (lower) Manas, Buddhi (reason), Ahank\u00e2ra (personality), and Chitta\n      (thinking faculty). It also, together with several other organs,\n      forms a part of J\u00eeva, Soul called also Lingadeh. Esotericists,\n      however, must not be misled by this popular version.\n\n  849 The Earth, or earth\u2010life rather, is the only Av\u00eetchi (Hell) that\n      exists for the men of our humanity on this globe. Av\u00eetchi is a\n      state, not a locality, a counterpart of Devachan. Such a state\n      follows the Soul wherever it goes, whether into K\u00e2ma Loka, as a\n      semi\u2010conscious Spook, or into a human body, when reborn to suffer\n      Av\u00eetchi. Our Philosophy recognizes no other Hell.\n\n  850 See _Voice of the Silence_, p. 97.\n\n  851 _Loc. cit._\n\n  852 Read the last footnote on p. 368, vol. ii. of _Isis Unveiled_, and\n      you will see that even profane Egyptologists and men who, like\n      Bunsen, were ignorant of Initiation, were struck by their own\n      discoveries when they found the \u201cWord\u201d mentioned in old papyri.\n\n  853 See _Theosophist_, vol. iii., October, 1882, p. 13.\n\n  854 Read pp. 40 and 63 in the _Voice of the Silence_.\n\n  855 See _Voice of the Silence_, p. viii.\n\n  856 The following notes were contributed by students and approved by H.\n      P. B.\n\n  857 See page 444.\n\n  858 All these \u201cspaces\u201d denote the special magnetic currents, the planes\n      of substance, and the degrees of approach that the consciousness of\n      the Yog\u00ee, or Chel\u00e2, performs towards assimilation with the\n      inhabitants of the Lokas.\n\n  859 [If the Nid\u00e2nas are read the reverse way, _i.e._, from 12 to 1, they\n      give the evolutionary order.\u2014ED.]\n\n  860 [_I.e._, an Initiate, the word Adept being used by H. P. B. to cover\n      all grades of Initiation. As above seen, she used the words M\u00e2y\u00e2vi\n      R\u00fbpa in more than one sense.\u2014ED.]","title":"The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 3 of 4: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":245859}