Title: The Secret Doctrine (Third Edition, Vol. 3 of 4)
Author: Blavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna)
Language: English
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                           The Secret Doctrine

            The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy

                                    By

                        Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

                        Author of “Isis Unveiled.”

                        Third and Revised Edition.

                        SATYÂT NÂSTI PARO DHARMAH.

                “There is no Religion higher than Truth.”

                               Volume III.

                    The Theosophical Publishing House

                                  London

                                   1897



CONTENTS


Preface.
Introductory.
Section I. Preliminary Survey.
Section II. Modern Criticism and the Ancients.
Section III. The Origin of Magic.
Section IV. The Secresy of Initiates.
Section V. Some Reasons for Secresy.
Section VI. The Dangers of Practical Magic.
Section VII. Old Wine in New Bottles.
Section VIII. The Book of Enoch the Origin and the Foundation of
Christianity.
Section IX. Hermetic and Kabalistic Doctrines.
Section X. Various Occult Systems of Interpretations of Alphabets and
Numerals.
Section XI. The Hexagon with the Central Point, or the Seventh Key.
Section XII. The Duty of the True Occultist toward Religions.
Section XIII. Post‐Christian Adepts and their Doctrines.
Section XIV. Simon and his Biographer Hippolytus.
Section XV. St. Paul the real Founder of present Christianity.
Section XVI. Peter a Jewish Kabalist, not an Initiate.
Section XVII. Apollonius of Tyana.
Section XVIII. Facts underlying Adept Biographies.
Section XIX. St. Cyprian of Antioch.
Section XX. The Eastern Gupta Vidya & the Kabalah.
Section XXI. Hebrew Allegories.
Section XXII. The “Zohar” on Creation and the Elohim.
Section XXIII. What the Occultists and Kabalists have to say.
Section XXIV. Modern Kabalists in Science and Occult Astronomy.
Section XXV. Eastern and Western Occultism.
Section XXVI. The Idols and the Teraphim.
Section XXVII. Egyptian Magic.
Section XXVIII. The Origin of the Mysteries.
Section XXIX. The Trial of the Sun Initiate.
Section XXX. The Mystery “Sun of Initiation.”
Section XXXI. The Objects of the Mysteries.
Section XXXII. Traces of the Mysteries.
Section XXXIII. The Last of the Mysteries in Europe.
Section XXXIV. The Post‐Christian Successors to the Mysteries.
Section XXXV. Symbolism of Sun and Stars.
Section XXXVI. Pagan Sidereal Worship, or Astrology.
Section XXXVII. The Souls of the Stars—Universal Heliolatry.
Section XXXVIII. Astrology and Astrolatry.
Section XXXIX. Cycles and Avataras.
Section XL. Secret Cycles.
Section XLI. The Doctrine of Avataras.
Section XLII. The Seven Principles.
Section XLIII. The Mystery of Buddha.
Section XLIV. “Reincarnations” of Buddha.
Section XLV. An Unpublished Discourse of Buddha.
Section XLVI. Nirvana‐Moksha.
Section XLVII. The Secret Books of “Lam‐Rin” and Dzyan.
Section XLVIII. Amita Buddha Kwan‐Shai‐yin, and Kwan‐yin.—What the “Book
of Dzyan” and the Lamaseries of Tsong‐Kha‐pa say.
Section XLIX. Tsong‐Kha‐pa.—Lohans in China.
Section L. A few more Misconceptions Corrected.
Section LI. The “Doctrine of the Eye” & the “Doctrine of the Heart,” or
the “Heart’s Seal.”
Some Papers On The Bearing Of Occult Philosophy On Life.
   Paper I. A Warning.
   Paper II. An Explanation.
   Paper III. A Word Concerning the Earlier Papers.
   Appendix. Notes on Papers I., II. and III.
   Notes On Some Oral Teachings.
Footnotes



                               [Cover Art]

[Transcriber’s Note: The above cover image was produced by the submitter
at Distributed Proofreaders, and is being placed into the public domain.]



    As for what thou hearest others say, who persuade the many that
    the soul when once freed from the body neither suffers ... evil
    nor is conscious, I know that thou art better grounded in the
    doctrines received by us from our ancestors and in the sacred
    orgies of Dionysus than to believe them; for the mystic symbols
    are well known to us who belong to the Brotherhood.

    PLUTARCH.

    The problem of life is man. Magic, or rather Wisdom, is the
    evolved knowledge of the potencies of man’s interior being, which
    forces are divine emanations, as intuition is the perception of
    their origin, and initiation our induction into that knowledge....
    We begin with instinct; the end is omniscience.

    A. WILDER.



PREFACE.


The task of preparing this volume for the press has been a difficult and
anxious one, and it is necessary to state clearly what has been done. The
papers given to me by H. P. B. were quite unarranged, and had no obvious
order: I have, therefore, taken each paper as a separate Section, and have
arranged them as sequentially as possible. With the exception of the
correction of grammatical errors and the elimination of obviously un‐
English idioms, the papers are as H. P. B. left them, save as otherwise
marked. In a few cases I have filled in a gap, but any such addition is
enclosed within square brackets, so as to be distinguished from the text.
In “The Mystery of Buddha” a further difficulty arose; some of the
Sections had been written four or five times over, each version containing
some sentences that were not in the others; I have pieced these versions
together, taking the fullest as basis, and inserting therein everything
added in any other versions. It is, however, with some hesitation that I
have included these Sections in the _Secret Doctrine_. Together with some
most suggestive thought, they contain very numerous errors of fact, and
many statements based on exoteric writings, not on esoteric knowledge.
They were given into my hands to publish, as part of the Third Volume of
the _Secret Doctrine_, and I therefore do not feel justified in coming
between the author and the public, either by altering the statements, to
make them consistent with fact, or by suppressing the Sections. She says
she is acting entirely on her own authority, and it will be obvious to any
instructed reader that she makes—possibly deliberately—many statements so
confused that they are mere blinds, and other statements—probably
inadvertently—that are nothing more than the exoteric misunderstandings of
esoteric truths. The reader must here, as everywhere, use his own
judgment, but feeling bound to publish these Sections, I cannot let them
go to the public without a warning that much in them is certainly
erroneous. Doubtless, had the author herself issued this book, she would
have entirely re‐written the whole of this division; as it was, it seemed
best to give all she had said in the different copies, and to leave it in
its rather unfinished state, for students will best like to have what she
said as she said it, even though they may have to study it more closely
than would have been the case had she remained to finish her work.

The quotations made have been as far as possible found, and correct
references given; in this most laborious work a whole band of earnest and
painstaking students, under the guidance of Mrs. Cooper‐Oakley, have been
my willing assistants. Without their aid it would not have been possible
to give the references, as often a whole book had to be searched through,
in order to find a paragraph of a few lines.

This volume completes the papers left by H. P. B., with the exception of a
few scattered articles that yet remain and that will be published in her
own magazine _Lucifer_. Her pupils are well aware that few will be found
in the present generation to do justice to the occult knowledge of H. P.
B. and to her magnificent sweep of thought, but as she can wait to future
generations for the justification of her greatness as a teacher, so can
her pupils afford to wait for the justification of their trust.

ANNIE BESANT.



INTRODUCTORY.


“Power belongs to him who knows;” this is a very old axiom. Knowledge—the
first step to which is the power of comprehending the truth, of discerning
the real from the false—is for those only who, having freed themselves
from every prejudice and conquered their human conceit and selfishness,
are ready to accept every and any truth, once it is demonstrated to them.
Of such there are very few. The majority judge of a work according to the
respective prejudices of its critics, who are guided in their turn by the
popularity or unpopularity of the author, rather than by its own faults or
merits. Outside the Theosophical circle, therefore, the present volume is
certain to receive at the hands of the general public a still colder
welcome than its two predecessors have met with. In our day no statement
can hope for a fair trial, or even hearing, unless its arguments run on
the line of legitimate and accepted enquiry, remaining strictly within the
boundaries of official Science or orthodox Theology.

Our age is a paradoxical anomaly. It is preëminently materialistic and as
preëminently pietistic. Our literature, our modern thought and progress,
so called, both run on these two parallel lines, so incongruously
dissimilar and yet both so popular and so very orthodox, each in its own
way. He who presumes to draw a third line, as a hyphen of reconciliation
between the two, has to be fully prepared for the worst. He will have his
work mangled by reviewers, mocked by the sycophants of Science and Church,
misquoted by his opponents, and rejected even by the pious lending
libraries. The absurd misconceptions, in so‐called cultured circles of
society, of the ancient Wisdom‐Religion (Bodhism) after the admirably
clear and scientifically‐presented explanations in _Esoteric Buddhism_,
are a good proof in point. They might have served as a caution even to
those Theosophists who, hardened in an almost life‐long struggle in the
service of their Cause, are neither timid with their pen, nor in the least
appalled by dogmatic assumption and scientific authority. Yet, do what
Theosophical writers may, neither Materialism nor doctrinal pietism will
ever give their Philosophy a fair hearing. Their doctrines will be
systematically rejected, and their theories denied a place even in the
ranks of those scientific ephemera, the ever‐shifting “working hypotheses”
of our day. To the advocate of the “animalistic” theory, our
cosmogenetical and anthropogenetical teachings are “fairy‐tales” at best.
For to those who would shirk any moral responsibility, it seems certainly
more convenient to accept descent from a common simian ancestor and see a
brother in a dumb, tailless baboon, than to acknowledge the fatherhood of
Pitris, the “Sons of God,” and to have to recognise as a brother a
starveling from the slums.

“Hold back!” shout in their turn the pietists. “You will never make of
respectable church‐going Christians Esoteric Buddhists!”

Nor are we, in truth, in any way anxious to attempt the metamorphosis. But
this cannot, nor shall it, prevent Theosophists from saying what they have
to say, especially to those who, in opposing to our doctrine Modern
Science, do so not for her own fair sake, but only to ensure the success
of their private hobbies and personal glorification. If we cannot prove
many of our points, no more can they; yet we may show how, instead of
giving historical and scientific facts—for the edification of those who,
knowing less than they, look to Scientists to do their thinking and form
their opinions—the efforts of most of our scholars seem solely directed to
killing ancient facts, or distorting them into props to support their own
special views. This will be done in no spirit of malice or even criticism,
as the writer readily admits that most of those she finds fault with stand
immeasurably higher in learning than herself. But great scholarship does
not preclude bias and prejudice, nor is it a safeguard against self‐
conceit, but rather the reverse. Moreover, it is but in the legitimate
defence of our own statements, _i.e._, the vindication of Ancient Wisdom
and its great truths, that we mean to take our “great authorities” to
task.

Indeed, unless the precaution of answering beforehand certain objections
to the fundamental propositions in the present work be adopted—objections
which are certain to be made on the authority of this, that, or another
scholar concerning the Esoteric character of all the archaic and ancient
works on Philosophy—our statements will be once more contradicted and even
discredited. One of the main points in this Volume is to indicate in the
works of the old Âryan, Greek, and other Philosophers of note, as well as
in all the world‐scriptures, the presence of a strong Esoteric allegory
and symbolism. Another of the objects is to prove that the key of
interpretation, as furnished by the Eastern Hindu‐Buddhistic canon of
Occultism—fitting as well the Christian Gospels as it does archaic
Egyptian, Greek, Chaldæan, Persian, and even Hebrew‐Mosaic Books—must have
been one common to all the nations, however divergent may have been their
respective methods and exoteric “blinds.” These claims are vehemently
denied by some of the foremost scholars of our day. In his Edinburgh
Lectures, Prof. Max Müller discarded this fundamental statement of the
Theosophists by pointing to the Hindu Shâstras and Pandits, who know
nothing of such Esotericism.(1) The learned Sanskrit scholar stated in so
many words that there was no hidden meaning, no Esoteric element or
“blinds,” either in the _Purânas_ or the _Upanishads_. Considering that
the word “Upanishad” means, when translated, the “Secret Doctrine,” the
assertion is, to say the least, extraordinary. Sir M. Monier Williams
again holds the same view with regard to Buddhism. To hear him is to
regard Gautama, the Buddha, as an enemy of every pretence to Esoteric
teachings. He himself never taught them! All such “pretences” to Occult
learning and “magic powers” are due to the later Arhats, the subsequent
followers of the “Light of Asia”! Prof. B. Jowett, again, as
contemptuously passes the sponge over the “absurd” interpretations of
Plato’s _Timæus_ and the Mosaic Books by the Neoplatonists. There is not a
breath of the Oriental (Gnostic) spirit of Mysticism in Plato’s
_Dialogues_, the Regius Professor of Greek tells us, nor any approach to
Science, either. Finally, to cap the climax, Prof. Sayce, the
Assyriologist, although he does not deny the actual presence, in the
Assyrian tablets and cuneiform literature, of a hidden meaning—


    Many of the sacred texts ... so written as to be intelligible only
    to the initiated—


yet insists that the “keys and glosses” thereof are now in the hands of
the Assyriologists. The modern scholars, he affirms, have in their
possession clues to the interpretation of the Esoteric Records,


    Which even the initiated priests [of Chaldæa] did not possess.


Thus, in the scholarly appreciation of our modern Orientalists and
Professors, Science was in its infancy in the days of the Egyptian and
Chaldæan Astronomers. Pânini, the greatest Grammarian in the world, was
unacquainted with the art of writing. So was the Lord Buddha, and everyone
else in India until 300 B.C. The grossest ignorance reigned in the days of
the Indian Rishis, and even in those of Thales, Pythagoras, and Plato.
Theosophists must indeed be superstitious ignoramuses to speak as they do,
in the face of such learned evidence to the contrary!

Truly it looks as if, since the world’s creation, there has been but one
age of real knowledge on earth—the present age. In the misty twilight, in
the grey dawn of history, stand the pale shadows of the old Sages of world
renown. They were hopelessly groping for the correct meaning of their own
Mysteries, the spirit whereof has departed without revealing itself to the
Hierophants, and has remained latent in space until the advent of the
initiates of Modern Science and Research. The noontide brightness of
knowledge has only now arrived at the “Know‐All,” who, basking in the
dazzling sun of induction, busies himself with his Penelopeian task of
“working hypotheses,” and loudly asserts his rights to universal
knowledge. Can anyone wonder, then, that according to present views the
learning of the ancient Philosopher, and even sometimes that of his direct
successors in the past centuries, has ever been useless to the world and
valueless to himself? For, as explained repeatedly in so many words, while
the Rishis and the Sages of old have walked far over the arid fields of
myth and superstition, the mediæval Scholar, and even the average
eighteenth century Scientist, have always been more or less cramped by
their “supernatural” religion and beliefs. True, it is generally conceded
that some ancient and also mediæval Scholars, such as Pythagoras, Plato,
Paracelsus, and Roger Bacon, followed by a host of glorious names, had
indeed left not a few landmarks over precious mines of Philosophy and
unexplored lodes of Physical Science. But then the actual excavation of
these, the smelting of the gold and silver, and the cutting of the
precious jewels they contain, are all due to the patient labours of the
modern man of Science. And is it not to the unparalleled genius of the
latter that the ignorant and hitherto‐deluded world owes a correct
knowledge of the real nature of the Kosmos, of the true origin of the
universe and man, as revealed in the automatic and mechanical theories of
the Physicists, in accordance with strictly scientific Philosophy? Before
our cultured era, Science was but a name, Philosophy a delusion and a
snare. According to the modest claims of contemporary authority on genuine
Science and Philosophy, the Tree of Knowledge has only now sprung from the
dead weeds of superstition, as a beautiful butterfly emerges from an ugly
grub. We have, therefore, nothing for which to thank our forefathers. The
Ancients have at best prepared and fertilised the soil; it is the Moderns
who have planted the seeds of knowledge and reared the lovely plants
called blank negation and sterile agnosticism.

Such, however, is not the view taken by Theosophists. They repeat what was
stated twenty years ago. It is not sufficient to speak of the “untenable
conceptions of an uncultured past” (Tyndall); of the “_parler enfantin_”
of the Vaidic poets (Max Müller); of the “absurdities” of the
Neoplatonists (Jowett); and of the ignorance of the Chaldæo‐Assyrian
initiated Priests with regard to their own symbols, when compared with the
knowledge thereon of the British Orientalist (Sayce). Such assumptions
have to be proven by something more solid than the mere word of these
scholars. For no amount of boastful arrogance can hide the intellectual
quarries out of which the representations of so many modern Philosophers
and Scholars have been carved. How many of the most distinguished European
Scientists have derived honour and credit for the mere dressing‐up of the
ideas of these old Philosophers, whom they are ever ready to disparage, is
left to an impartial posterity to say. Thus it does seem not altogether
untrue as stated in _Isis Unveiled_, to say of certain Orientalists and
Scholars of dead languages, that they will allow their boundless conceit
and self‐opinionatedness to run away with their logic and reasoning
powers, rather than concede to the ancient Philosophers the knowledge of
anything the modern do not know.

As part of this work treats of the Initiates and the secret knowledge
imparted during the Mysteries, the statements of those who, in spite of
the fact that Plato was an Initiate, maintain that no hidden Mysticism is
to be discovered in his works, have to be first examined. Too many of the
present scholars, Greek and Sanskrit, are but too apt to forego facts in
favour of their own preconceived theories based on personal prejudice.
They conveniently forget, at every opportunity, not only the numerous
changes in language, but also that the allegorical style in the writings
of old Philosophers and the secretiveness of the Mystics had their _raison
d’être_; that both the pre‐Christian and the post‐Christian classical
writers—the great majority at all events—were under the sacred obligation
never to divulge the solemn secrets communicated to them in the
sanctuaries; and that this alone is sufficient to sadly mislead their
translators and profane critics. But these critics will admit nothing of
the kind, as will presently be seen.

For over twenty‐two centuries everyone who has read Plato has been aware
that, like most of the other Greek Philosophers of note, he had been
initiated; that therefore, being tied down by the Sodalian Oath, he could
speak of certain things only in veiled allegories. His reverence for the
Mysteries is unbounded; he openly confesses that he writes
“enigmatically,” and we see him take the greatest precautions to conceal
the true meaning of his words. Every time the subject touches the greater
secrets of Oriental Wisdom—the cosmogony of the universe, or the ideal
preëxisting world—Plato shrouds his Philosophy in the profoundest
darkness. His _Timæus_ is so confused that no one but an Initiate can
understand the hidden meaning. As already said in _Isis Unveiled_:


    The speculations of Plato in the _Banquet_ on the creation, or
    rather the evolution, of primordial men, and the essay on
    cosmogony in the _Timæus_, must be taken allegorically if we
    accept them at all. It is this hidden Pythagorean meaning in
    _Timæus_, _Cratylus_, and _Parmenides_, and a few other trilogies
    and dialogues, that the Neoplatonists ventured to expound, as far
    as the theurgical vow of secresy would allow them. The Pythagorean
    doctrine that God is the Universal Mind diffused through all
    things, and the dogma of the soul’s immortality, are the leading
    features in these apparently incongruous teachings. His piety and
    the great veneration he felt for the Mysteries are sufficient
    warrant that Plato would not allow his indiscretion to get the
    better of that deep sense of responsibility which is felt by every
    Adept. “Constantly perfecting himself in perfect Mysteries a man
    in them alone becomes truly perfect,” says he in the _Phædrus_.

    He took no pains to conceal his displeasure that the Mysteries had
    become less secret than formerly. Instead of profaning them by
    putting them within the reach of the multitude, he would have
    guarded them with jealous care against all but the most earnest
    and worthy of his disciples.(2) While mentioning the Gods on every
    page, his monotheism is unquestionable, for the whole thread of
    his discourse indicates that by the term “Gods” he means a class
    of beings lower in the scale than Deities, and but one grade
    higher than men. Even Josephus perceived and acknowledged this
    fact, despite the natural prejudice of his race. In his famous
    onslaught upon Apion, this historian says: “Those, however, among
    the Greeks who philosophized in accordance with truth were not
    ignorant of anything, ... nor did they fail to perceive the
    chilling superficialities of the mythical allegories, on which
    account they justly despised them.... By which thing Plato, being
    moved, says it is not necessary to admit any one of the other
    poets into ‘the Commonwealth,’ and he dismisses Homer blandly,
    after having crowned him and pouring unguent upon him, in order
    that indeed he should not destroy by _his myths_, the orthodox
    belief respecting one God.”(3)


And this is the “God” of every Philosopher, God infinite and impersonal.
All this and much more, which there is no room here to quote, leads one to
the undeniable certitude that (_a_), as all the Sciences and Philosophies
were in the hands of the temple Hierophants, Plato, as initiated by them,
must have known them; and (_b_), that logical inference alone is amply
sufficient to justify anyone in regarding Plato’s writings as allegories
and “dark sayings,” veiling truths which he had no right to divulge.

This established, how comes it that one of the best Greek scholars in
England, Prof. Jowett, the modern translator of Plato’s works, seeks to
demonstrate that none of the Dialogues—including even the _Timæus_—have
any element of Oriental Mysticism about them? Those who can discern the
true spirit of Plato’s Philosophy will hardly be convinced by the
arguments which the Master of Balliol College lays before his readers.
“Obscure and repulsive” to him, the _Timæus_ may certainly be; but it is
as certain that this obscurity does not arise, as the Professor tells his
public, “in the infancy of physical science,” but rather in its days of
secresy; not “out of the confusion of theological, mathematical, and
physiological notions,” or “out of the desire to conceive the whole of
Nature without any adequate knowledge of the parts.”(4) For Mathematics
and Geometry were the backbone of Occult cosmogony, hence of “Theology,”
and the physiological notions of the ancient Sages are being daily
verified by Science in our age; at least, to those who know how to read
and understand ancient Esoteric works. The “knowledge of the parts” avails
us little, if this knowledge only leads us the more to ignorance of the
Whole, or the “nature and reason of the Universal,” as Plato called Deity,
and causes us to blunder most egregiously because of our boasted inductive
methods. Plato may have been “incapable of induction, or generalization in
the modern sense”;(5) he may have been ignorant also, of the circulation
of the blood, which, we are told, “was absolutely unknown to him,”(6) but
then, there is naught to disprove that he knew what blood _is_—and this is
more than any modern Physiologist or Biologist can claim nowadays.

Though a wider and far more generous margin for knowledge is allowed the
“physical philosopher” by Prof. Jowett than by nearly any other modern
commentator and critic, nevertheless, his criticism so considerably
outweighs his laudation, that it may be as well to quote his own words, to
show clearly his bias. Thus he says:


    To bring sense under the control of reason; to find some way
    through the labyrinth or chaos of appearances, either the highway
    of mathematics, or more devious paths suggested by the analogy of
    man with the world and of the world with man; to see that all
    things have a cause and are tending towards an end—this is the
    spirit of the ancient physical philosopher.(7) But we neither
    appreciate the conditions of knowledge to which he was subjected,
    nor have the ideas which fastened upon his imagination the same
    hold upon us. For he is hovering between matter and mind; he is
    under the dominion of abstractions; his impressions are taken
    almost at random from the outside of nature; he sees the light,
    but not the objects which are revealed by the light; and he brings
    into juxtaposition things which to us appear wide as the poles
    asunder, because he finds nothing between them.


The last proposition but one must evidently be distasteful to the modern
“physical philosopher,” who sees the “objects” before him, but fails to
see the light of the Universal Mind, which reveals them, _i.e._, who
proceeds in a diametrically opposite way. Therefore the learned Professor
comes to the conclusion that the ancient Philosopher, whom he now judges
from Plato’s _Timæus_, must have acted in a decidedly unphilosophical and
even irrational way. For:


    He passes abruptly from persons to ideas and numbers, and _from
    ideas and numbers to persons_,(8) he confuses subject and object,
    _first_ and _final_ causes, and in dreaming of geometrical
    figures(9) is lost in a flux of sense. And now an effort of mind
    is required on our parts _in order to understand his double
    language_, or to apprehend _the twilight character of the
    knowledge_ and the genius of ancient philosophers which, under
    such conditions [?], seems by a divine power in many instances to
    have anticipated the truth.(10)


Whether “such conditions” imply those of ignorance and mental stolidity in
“the genius of ancient philosophers” or something else, we do not know.
But what we do know is that the meaning of the sentences we have
italicized is perfectly clear. Whether the Regius Professor of Greek
believes or disbelieves in a hidden sense of geometrical figures and of
the Esoteric “jargon,” he nevertheless admits the presence of a “double
language” in the writings of these Philosophers. Thence he admits a hidden
meaning, which must have had an interpretation. Why, then, does he flatly
contradict his own statement on the very next page? And why should he deny
to the _Timæus_—that preëminently Pythagorean (mystic) Dialogue—any Occult
meaning and take such pains to convince his readers that


    The influence which the _Timæus_ has exercised upon posterity is
    partly due to a misunderstanding.


The following quotation from his Introduction is in direct contradiction
with the paragraph which precedes it, as above quoted:


    In the supposed depths of this dialogue the Neo‐Platonists found
    hidden meanings and connections with the Jewish and Christian
    Scriptures, and out of them they dictated doctrines quite at
    variance with the spirit of Plato. Believing that he was inspired
    by the Holy Ghost, or had received his wisdom from Moses,(11) they
    seemed to find in his writings the Christian Trinity, the Word,
    the Church ... and the Neo‐Platonists had a method of
    interpretation which could elicit any meaning out of any words.
    They were really incapable of distinguishing between the opinions
    of one philosopher and another, or between the serious thoughts of
    Plato and his passing fancies.(12)... [But] there is no danger of
    the modern commentators on the _Timæus_ falling into the absurdity
    of the Neo‐Platonists.


No danger whatever, of course, for the simple reason that the modern
commentators have never had the key to Occult interpretations. And before
another word is said in defence of Plato and the Neoplatonists, the
learned master of Balliol College ought to be respectfully asked: What
does, or can he know of the Esoteric canon of interpretation? By the term
“canon” is here meant that key which was communicated orally from “mouth
to ear” by the Master to the disciple, or by the Hierophant to the
candidate for initiation; this from time immemorial throughout a long
series of ages, during which the inner—not public—Mysteries were the most
sacred institution of every land. Without such a key no correct
interpretation of either the _Dialogues_ of Plato or any Scripture, from
the _Vedas_ to Homer, from the _Zend Avesta_ to the Mosaic Books, is
possible. How then can the Rev. Dr. Jowett know that the interpretations
made by the Neoplatonists of the various sacred books of the nations were
“absurdities?” Where, again, has he found an opportunity of studying these
“interpretations”? History shows that all such works were destroyed by the
Christian Church Fathers and their fanatical catechumens, wherever they
were found. To say that such men as Ammonius, a genius and a saint, whose
learning and holy life earned for him the title of Theodidaktos (“God‐
taught”), such men as Plotinus, Porphyry, and Proclus, were “incapable of
distinguishing between the opinions of one philosopher and another, or
between the serious thoughts of Plato and his fancies,” is to assume an
untenable position for a Scholar. It amounts to saying that, (_a_) scores
of the most famous Philosophers, the greatest Scholars and Sages of Greece
and of the Roman Empire were dull fools, and (_b_) that all the other
commentators, lovers of Greek Philosophy, some of them the acutest
intellects of the age—who do not agree with Dr. Jowett—are also fools and
no better than those whom they admire. The patronising tone of the last
above‐quoted passage is modulated with the most _naïve_ conceit,
remarkable even in our age of self‐glorification and mutual‐admiration
cliques. We have to compare the Professor’s views with those of some other
scholars.

Says Prof. Alexander Wilder of New York, one of the best Platonists of the
day, speaking of Ammonius, the founder of the Neoplatonic School:


    His deep spiritual intuition, his extensive learning, his
    familiarity with the Christian Fathers, Pantænus, Clement, and
    Athenagoras, and with the most erudite philosophers of the time,
    all fitted him for the labour which he performed so
    thoroughly.(13) He was successful in drawing to his views the
    greatest scholars and public men of the Roman Empire, who had
    little taste for wasting time in dialectic pursuits or
    superstitious observances. The results of his ministration are
    perceptible at the present day in every country of the Christian
    world; every prominent system of doctrine now bearing the marks of
    his plastic hand. Every ancient philosophy has had its votaries
    among the moderns; and even Judaism ... has taken upon itself
    changes which were suggested by the “God‐taught” Alexandrian....
    He was a man of rare learning and endowments, of blameless life
    and amiable disposition. His almost superhuman ken and many
    excellencies won for him the title of Theodidaktos; but he
    followed the modest example of Pythagoras, and only assumed the
    title of Philalethian, or lover of truth.(14)


It would be happy for truth and fact were our modern scholars to follow as
modestly in the steps of their great predecessors. But not
they—Philalethians!

Moreover, we know that:


    Like Orpheus, Pythagoras, Confucius, Socrates, and Jesus
    himself,(15) Ammonius committed nothing to writing.(16) Instead he
    ... communicated his most important doctrines to persons duly
    instructed and disciplined, imposing on them the obligations of
    secresy, as was done before him by Zoroaster and Pythagoras, and
    in the Mysteries. Except a few treatises of his disciples we have
    only the declarations of his adversaries from which to ascertain
    what he actually taught.(17)


It is from the biassed statements of such “adversaries,” probably, that
the learned Oxford translator of Plato’s Dialogues came to the conclusion
that:


    That which was truly great and truly characteristic of him
    [Plato], his effort to realise and connect abstractions, _was not
    understood_ by them [the Neoplatonists] at all [?].


He states, contemptuously enough for the ancient methods of intellectual
analysis, that:


    In the present day ... an ancient philosopher is to be interpreted
    from himself and by the contemporary history of thought.(18)


This is like saying that the ancient Greek canon of proportion (if ever
found), and the Athena Promachus of Phidias, have to be interpreted in the
present day from the contemporary history of architecture and sculpture,
from the Albert Hall and Memorial Monument, and the hideous Madonnas in
crinolines sprinkled over the fair face of Italy. Prof. Jowett remarks
that “mysticism is not criticism.” No; but neither is criticism always
fair and sound judgment.


    La critique est aisée, mais l’art est difficile.


And such “art” our critic of the Neoplatonists—his Greek scholarship
notwithstanding—lacks from _a_ to _z_. Nor has he, very evidently, the key
to the true spirit of the Mysticism of Pythagoras and Plato, since he
denies even in the _Timæus_ an element of Oriental Mysticism, and seeks to
show Greek Philosophy reäcting upon the East, forgetting that the truth is
the exact reverse; that it is “the deeper and more pervading spirit of
Orientalism” that had—through Pythagoras and his own initiation into the
Mysteries—penetrated into the very depths of Plato’s soul.

But Dr. Jowett does not see this. Nor is he prepared to admit that
anything good or rational—in accordance with the “contemporary history of
thought”—could ever come out of that Nazareth of the Pagan Mysteries; nor
even that there is anything to interpret of a hidden nature in the
_Timæus_ or any other Dialogue. For him,


    The so‐called mysticism of Plato is purely Greek, arising out of
    his imperfect knowledge(19) and high aspirations, and is the
    growth of an age in which philosophy is not wholly separated from
    poetry and mythology.(20)


Among several other equally erroneous propositions, it is especially the
assumptions (_a_) that Plato was entirely free from any element of Eastern
Philosophy in his writings, and (_b_) that every modern scholar, without
being a Mystic and a Kabalist himself, can pretend to judge of ancient
Esotericism—which we mean to combat. To do this we have to produce more
authoritative statements than our own would be, and bring the evidence of
other scholars as great as Dr. Jowett, if not greater, specialists in
their subjects, moreover, to bear on and destroy the arguments of the
Oxford Regius Professor of Greek.

That Plato was undeniably an ardent admirer and follower of Pythagoras no
one will deny. And it is equally undeniable, as Matter has it, that Plato
had inherited on the one hand his doctrines, and on the other had drawn
his wisdom, from the same sources as the Samian Philosopher.(21) And the
doctrines of Pythagoras are Oriental to the backbone, and even
Brâhmanical; for this great Philosopher ever pointed to the far East as
the source whence he derived his information and his Philosophy, and
Colebrooke shows that Plato makes the same profession in his Epistles, and
says that he has taken his teachings “from ancient and sacred
doctrines.”(22) Furthermore, the ideas of both Pythagoras and Plato
coincide too well with the systems of India and with Zoroastrianism to
admit any doubt of their origin by anyone who has some acquaintance with
these systems. Again:


    Pantænus, Athenagoras, and Clement were thoroughly instructed in
    the Platonic philosophy, and _comprehended_ its essential unity
    with the Oriental systems.(23)


The history of Pantænus and his contemporaries may give the key to the
Platonic, and at the same time Oriental, elements that predominate so
strikingly in the Gospels over the Jewish Scriptures.



SECTION I. PRELIMINARY SURVEY.


Initiates who have acquired powers and transcendental knowledge can be
traced back to the Fourth Root Race from our own age. As the multiplicity
of the subjects to be dealt with prohibits the introduction of such a
historical chapter, which, however historical in fact and truth, would be
rejected _à priori_ as blasphemy and fable by both Church and Science—we
shall only touch on the subject. Science strikes out, at its own sweet
will and fancy, dozens of names of ancient heroes, simply because there is
too great an element of myth in their histories; the Church insists that
biblical patriarchs shall be regarded as historical personages, and terms
her seven “Star‐angels” the “historical channels and agents of the
Creator.” Both are right, since each finds a strong party to side with it.
Mankind is at best a sorry herd of Panurgian sheep, following blindly the
leader that happens to suit it at the moment. Mankind—the majority at any
rate—hates to think for itself. It resents as an insult the humblest
invitation to step for a moment outside the old well‐beaten tracks, and,
judging for itself, to enter into a new path in some fresh direction. Give
it an unfamiliar problem to solve, and if its mathematicians, not liking
its looks, refuse to deal with it, the crowd, unfamiliar with mathematics,
will stare at the unknown quantity, and getting hopelessly entangled in
sundry _x_’s and _y_’s, will turn round, trying to rend to pieces the
uninvited disturber of its intellectual Nirvâna. This may, perhaps,
account for the ease and extraordinary success enjoyed by the Roman Church
in her conversions of nominal Protestants and Free‐thinkers, whose name is
legion, but who have never gone to the trouble of thinking for themselves
on these most important and tremendous problems of man’s inner nature.

And yet, if the evidence of facts, the records preserved in History, and
the uninterrupted anathemas of the Church against “Black Magic” and
Magicians of the accursed race of Cain, are not to be heeded, our efforts
will prove very puny indeed. When, for nearly two millenniums, a body of
men has never ceased to lift its voice against _Black_ Magic, the
inference ought to be irrefutable that if Black Magic exists as a real
fact, there must be somewhere its counterpart—_White_ Magic. False silver
coins could have no existence if there were no genuine silver money.
Nature is dual in whatever she attempts, and this ecclesiastical
persecution ought alone to have opened the eyes of the public long ago.
However much travellers may be ready to pervert every fact with regard to
abnormal powers with which certain men are gifted in “heathen” countries;
however eager they may be to put false constructions on such facts, and—to
use an old proverb—“to call white swan black goose,” and to kill it, yet
the evidence of even Roman Catholic missionaries ought to be taken into
consideration, once they swear in a body to certain facts. Nor is it
because they choose to see Satanic agency in manifestations of a certain
kind, that their evidence as to the existence of such powers can be
disregarded. For what do they say of China? Those missionaries who have
lived in the country for long years, and have seriously studied every fact
and belief that may prove an obstacle to their success in making
conversions, and who have become familiar with every exoteric rite of both
the official religion and sectarian creeds—all swear to the existence of a
certain body of men, whom no one can reach but the Emperor and a select
body of high officials. A few years ago, before the war in Tonkin, the
archbishop in Pekin, on the report of some hundreds of missionaries and
Christians, wrote to Rome the identical story that had been reported
twenty‐five years before, and had been widely circulated in clerical
papers. They had fathomed, it was said, the mystery of certain official
deputations, sent at times of danger by the Emperor and ruling powers to
their Sheu and Kiuay, as they are called among the people. These Sheu and
Kiuay, they explained, were the Genii of the mountains, endowed with the
most miraculous powers. They are regarded as the protectors of China, by
the “ignorant” masses; as the incarnation of Satanic power by the good and
“learned” missionaries.


    The Sheu and Kiuay are men belonging to another state of being to
    that of the ordinary man, or to the state they enjoyed while they
    were clad in their bodies. They are disembodied spirits, ghosts
    and larvæ, living, nevertheless, in objective form on earth, and
    dwelling in the fastnesses of mountains, inaccessible to all but
    those whom they permit to visit them.(24)


In Tibet certain ascetics are also called Lha, Spirits, by those with whom
they do not choose to communicate. The Sheu and Kiuay, who enjoy the
highest consideration of the Emperor and Philosophers, and of
Confucianists who believe in no “Spirits,” are simply Lohans—Adepts who
live in the greatest solitude in their unknown retreats.

But both Chinese exclusiveness and Nature seem to have allied themselves
against European curiosity and—as it is sincerely regarded in
Tibet—desecration. Marco Polo, the famous traveller, was perhaps the
European who ventured farthest into the interior of these countries. What
was said of him in 1876 may now be repeated.


    The district of the Gobi wilderness, and, in fact, the whole area
    of Independent Tartary and Tibet is carefully guarded against
    foreign intrusion. Those who are permitted to traverse it are
    under the particular care and pilotage of certain agents of the
    chief authority, and are in duty bound to convey no intelligence
    respecting places and persons to the outside world. But for this
    restriction, many might contribute to these pages accounts of
    exploration, adventure, and discovery that would be read with
    interest. The time will come, sooner or later, when the dreadful
    sand of the desert will yield up its long‐buried secrets, and then
    there will indeed be unlooked‐for mortifications for our modern
    vanity.

    “The people of Pashai,”(25) says Marco Polo, the daring traveller
    of the thirteenth century, “are great adepts in sorceries and the
    diabolic arts.” And his learned editor adds: “This Paschai, or
    Udyana, was the native country of Padma Sambhava, one of the chief
    apostles of Lamaism, _i.e._, of Tibetan Buddhism, and a great
    master of enchantments. The doctrines of Sakya, as they prevailed
    in Udyana _in old times_, were probably strongly tinged with
    Sivaïtic magic, and the Tibetans still regard the locality as the
    classic ground of sorcery and witchcraft.”

    The “old times” are just like the “modern times”; nothing is
    changed as to magical practices except that they have become still
    more esoteric and arcane, and that the caution of the adepts
    increases in proportion to the traveller’s curiosity. Hiouen‐
    Thsang says of the inhabitants: “The men ... are fond of study,
    but pursue it with no ardour. _The science of magical formulæ has
    become a regular professional business with them._”(26) We will
    not contradict the venerable Chinese pilgrim on this point, and
    are willing to admit that in the seventh century _some_ people
    made “a professional business” of magic; so, also, do _some_
    people now, but certainly not the true adepts. Moreover, in that
    century, Buddhism had hardly penetrated into Tibet, and its races
    were steeped in the sorceries of the Bhon,—the pre‐lamaïc
    religion. It is not Hiouen‐Thsang, the pious, courageous man who
    risked his life a hundred times to have the bliss of perceiving
    Buddha’s shadow in the cave of Peshawur, who would have accused
    the good lamas and monkish thaumaturgists of “making a
    professional business” of showing it to travellers.

    The injunction of Gautama, contained in his answer to King
    Prasenajit, his protector, who called on him to perform miracles,
    must have been ever‐present to the mind of Hiouen‐Thsang. “Great
    king,” said Gautama, “I do not teach the law to my pupils, telling
    them, ‘Go, ye saints, and before the eyes of the Brâhmans and
    householders perform, by means of your supernatural powers,
    miracles greater than any man can perform.’ I tell them when I
    teach them the law, ‘Live ye saints, _hiding your good works, and
    showing your sins_.’ ”

    Struck with the accounts of magical exhibitions witnessed and
    recorded by travellers of every age who had visited Tartary and
    Tibet, Colonel Yule comes to the conclusion that the natives must
    have had “at their command the whole encyclopædia of modern
    Spiritualists.” Duhalde mentions among their sorceries the art of
    producing by their invocations the figures of Laotseu(27) and
    their divinities _in the air_, and “_of making a pencil write
    answers to questions without anybody touching it_.”(28)

    The former invocations pertain to the religious mysteries of their
    sanctuaries; if done otherwise, or for the sake of _gain_, they
    are considered _sorcery_, necromancy, and strictly forbidden. The
    latter art, that of making a pencil write without contact, was
    known and practised in China and other countries before the
    Christian era. It is the A B C of magic in those countries.

    When Hiouen‐Thsang desired to adore the shadow of Buddha, it was
    not to “professional magicians” that he resorted, but to the power
    of his own soul‐invocation; the power of prayer, faith, and
    contemplation. All was dark and dreary near the cavern in which
    the miracle was alleged to sometimes take place. Hiouen‐Thsang
    entered and began his devotions. He made one hundred salutations,
    but neither saw nor heard anything. Then, thinking himself too
    sinful, he cried bitterly and despaired. But as he was about to
    give up all hope, he perceived on the eastern wall a feeble light,
    but it disappeared. He renewed his prayers, full of hope this
    time, and again he saw the light, which flashed and disappeared
    again. After this he made a solemn vow: he would not leave the
    cave till he had the rapture to at last see the shadow of the
    “Venerable of the Age.” He had to wait longer after this, for only
    after two hundred prayers was the dark cave suddenly “bathed in
    light, and the shadow of Buddha, of a brilliant white colour, rose
    majestically on the wall, as when the clouds suddenly open, and
    all at once display the marvellous image of the ‘Mountain of
    Light.’ A dazzling splendour lighted up the features of the divine
    countenance. Hiouen‐Thsang was lost in contemplation and wonder,
    and would not turn his eyes away from the sublime and incomparable
    object.” Hiouen‐Thsang adds in his own diary, _See‐yu‐kee_, that
    it is only when man prays with sincere faith, and if he has
    received from above a hidden impression, that he sees the shadow
    clearly, but he cannot enjoy the sight for any length of time.
    (Max Müller, _Buddhist Pilgrims_.)

    From one end to the other the country is full of mystics,
    religious philosophers, Buddhist saints and magicians. Belief in a
    spiritual world, full of invisible beings who, on certain
    occasions, appear to mortals objectively, is universal. “According
    to the belief of the nations of Central Asia,” remarks I. J.
    Schmidt, “the earth and its interior, as well as the encompassing
    atmosphere, are filled with spiritual beings, which exercise an
    influence, partly beneficent, partly malignant, on the whole of
    organic and inorganic nature.... Especially are deserts, and other
    wild and uninhabited tracts, or regions in which the influences of
    nature are displayed on a gigantic and terrible scale, regarded as
    the chief abode or rendez‐vous of evil spirits. And hence the
    steppes of Turan, and in particular the great sandy desert of
    Gobi, have been looked on as the dwelling place of malignant
    beings, from days of hoary antiquity.”

    The treasures exhumed by Dr. Schliemann at Mycenæ, have awakened
    popular cupidity, and the eyes of adventurous speculators are
    being turned toward the localities where the wealth of ancient
    peoples is supposed to be buried, in crypt or cave, or beneath
    sand or alluvial deposit. Around no other locality, not even Peru,
    hang so many traditions as around the Gobi Desert. In independent
    Tartary this howling waste of shifting sand was once, if report
    speaks correctly, the seat of one of the richest empires the world
    ever saw. Beneath the surface is said to lie such wealth in gold,
    jewels, statuary, arms, utensils, and all that indicates
    civilization, luxury, and fine arts, as no existing capital of
    Christendom can show to‐day. The Gobi sand moves regularly from
    east to west before terrific gales that blow continually.
    Occasionally some of the hidden treasures are uncovered, but not a
    native dare touch them, for the whole district is under the ban of
    a mighty spell. Death would be the penalty. Bahti—hideous, but
    faithful gnomes—guard the hidden treasures of this prehistoric
    people, awaiting the day when the revolution of cyclic periods
    shall again cause their story to be known for the instruction of
    mankind.(29)


The above is purposely quoted from _Isis Unveiled_ to refresh the reader’s
memory. One of the cyclic periods has just been passed, and we may not
have to wait to the end of Mahâ Kalpa to have revealed something of the
history of the mysterious desert, in spite of the Bahti, and even the
Râkshasas of India, not less “hideous.” No tales or fictions were given in
our earlier volumes, their chaotic state notwithstanding, to which chaos
the writer, entirely free from vanity, confesses publicly and with many
apologies.

It is now generally admitted that, from time immemorial, the distant East,
India especially, was the land of knowledge and of every kind of learning.
Yet there is none to whom the origin of all her Arts and Sciences has been
so much denied as to the land of the primitive Âryas. From Architecture
down to the Zodiac, every Science worthy of the name was imported by the
Greeks, the mysterious Yavanas—agreeably with the decision of the
Orientalists! Therefore, it is but logical that even the knowledge of
Occult Science should be refused to India, since of its general practice
in that country less is known than in the case of any other ancient
people. It is so, simply because:


    With the Hindus it was, and is, more esoteric, if possible, than
    it was even among the Egyptian priests. So sacred was it deemed
    that its existence was only half admitted, and it was only
    practised in public emergencies. _It was more than a religious
    matter, for it was [and is still] considered divine._ The Egyptian
    hierophants, notwithstanding the practice of a stern and pure
    morality, could not be compared for one moment with the ascetical
    Gymnosophists, either in holiness of life or miraculous powers
    developed in them by the supernatural abjuration of everything
    earthly. By those who knew them well they were held in still
    greater reverence than the magians of Chaldæa. “Denying themselves
    the simplest comforts of life, they dwelt in woods, and led the
    life of the most secluded hermits,”(30) while their Egyptian
    brothers at least congregated together. Notwithstanding the slur
    thrown on all who practised magic and divination, history has
    proclaimed them as possessing the greatest secrets in medical
    knowledge and unsurpassed skill in its practice. Numerous are the
    volumes preserved in Hindu Mathams, in which are recorded the
    proofs of their learning. To attempt to say whether these
    Gymnosophists were the real founders of magic in India, or whether
    they only practised what had passed to them as an inheritance from
    the earliest Rishis(31)—the seven primeval sages—would be regarded
    as mere speculation by exact scholars.(32)


Nevertheless, this must be attempted. In _Isis Unveiled_, all that could
be stated about Magic was set down in the guise of hints; and thus, owing
to the great amount of material scattered over two large volumes, much of
its importance was lost upon the reader, while it still more failed to
draw his attention on account of the faulty arrangement. But hints may now
grow into explanations. One can never repeat it too often—_Magic is as old
as man_. It cannot any longer be called charlatanry or hallucination, when
its lesser branches—such as mesmerism, now miscalled “hypnotism,” “thought
reading,” “action by suggestion,” and what not else, only to avoid calling
it by its right and legitimate name—are being so seriously investigated by
the most famous Biologists and Physiologists of both Europe and America.
Magic is indissolubly blended with the Religion of every country and is
inseparable from its origin. It is as impossible for History to name the
time when it was not, as that of the epoch when it sprang into existence,
unless the doctrines preserved by the Initiates are taken into
consideration. Nor can Science ever solve the problem of the origin of man
if it rejects the evidence of the oldest records in the world, and refuses
from the hand of the legitimate Guardians of the mysteries of Nature the
key to Universal Symbology. Whenever a writer has tried to connect the
first foundation of Magic with a particular country or some historical
event or character, further research has shown his hypothesis to be
groundless. There is a most lamentable contradiction among the
Symbologists on this point. Some would have it that Odin, the Scandinavian
priest and monarch, originated the practice of Magic some 70 years B.C.,
although it is spoken of repeatedly in the _Bible_. But as it was proven
that the mysterious rites of the priestesses Valas (Voilers) were greatly
anterior to Odin’s age(33), then Zoroaster came in for an attempt, on the
ground that he was the founder of Magian rites; but Ammianus Marcellinus,
Pliny and Arnobius, with other ancient Historians, have shown that
Zoroaster was but a reformer of Magic as practised by the Chaldæans and
Egyptians, and not at all its founder.(34)

Who, then, of those who have consistently turned their faces away from
Occultism and even Spiritualism, as being “unphilosophical” and therefore
unworthy of scientific thought, has a right to say that he has studied the
Ancients; or that, if he has studied them, he has understood all they have
said? Only those who claim to be wiser than their generation, who think
that they know all that the Ancients knew, and thus, knowing far more to‐
day, fancy that they are entitled to laugh at their ancient simple‐
mindedness and superstition; those, who imagine they have discovered a
great secret by declaring the ancient royal sarcophagus, now empty of its
King Initiate, to be a “corn‐bin,” and the Pyramid that contained it, a
granary, perhaps a wine‐cellar!(35) Modern society, on the authority of
some men of Science, calls Magic charlatantry. But there are eight hundred
millions on the face of the globe who believe in it to this day; there are
said to be twenty millions of perfectly sane and often very intellectual
men and women, members of that same society, who believe in its phenomena
under the name of Spiritualism. The whole ancient world, with its Scholars
and Philosophers, its Sages and Prophets, believed in it. Where is the
country in which it was not practised? At what age was it banished, even
from our own country? In the New World as in the Old Country (the latter
far younger than the former), the Science of Sciences was known and
practised from the remotest antiquity. The Mexicans had their Initiates,
their Priest‐Hierophants and Magicians, and their crypts of Initiation. Of
the two statues exhumed in the Pacific States, one represents a Mexican
Adept, in the posture prescribed for the Hindu ascetic, and the other an
Aztec Priestess, in a head‐gear which might be taken from the head of an
Indian Goddess; while the “Guatemalan Medal” exhibits the “Tree of
Knowledge”—with its hundreds of eyes and ears, symbolical of seeing and
hearing—encircled by the “Serpent of Wisdom” whispering into the ear of
the sacred bird. Bernard Diaz de Castilla, a follower of Cortez, gives
some idea of the extraordinary refinement, intelligence and civilization,
and also of the magic arts of the people whom the Spaniards conquered by
brute force. Their pyramids are those of Egypt, built according to the
same secret canon of proportion as those of the Pharaohs, and the Aztecs
appear to have derived their civilization and religion in more than one
way from the same source as the Egyptians and, before these, the Indians.
Among all these three peoples arcane Natural Philosophy, or Magic, was
cultivated to the highest degree.

That it was natural, not supernatural, and that the Ancients so regarded
it, is shown by what Lucian says of the “laughing Philosopher,”
Democritus, who, he tells his readers,


    Believed in no [miracles] ... but applied himself to discover the
    method by which the theurgists could produce them; in a word, his
    philosophy brought him to the conclusion that magic was entirely
    confined to the application and the imitation of the laws and the
    works of nature.


Who then can still call the Magic of the Ancients “superstition”?


    In this respect the opinion of Democritus is of the greatest
    importance to us, since the Magi left by Xerxes, at Abdera, were
    his instructors, and he had studied magic, moreover, for a
    considerable time with the Egyptian priests.(36) For nearly ninety
    years of the one hundred and nine of his life, this great
    philosopher had made experiments, and noted them down in a book,
    which, according to Petronius,(37) _treated of nature_—facts that
    he had verified himself. And we find him not only disbelieving in
    and utterly rejecting miracles, but asserting that every one of
    those that were authenticated by eye‐witnesses, had, and could
    have taken place, for all, even the most _incredible_, were
    produced according to _the _“hidden laws of nature”.(38) ... Add
    to this that Greece, the “later cradle of the arts and sciences,”
    and India, cradle of religions, were, and one of them still is,
    devoted to its study and practice—and who shall venture to
    discredit its dignity as a study, and its profundity as a
    science?(39)


No true Theosophist will ever do so. For, as a member of our great
Oriental body, he knows indubitably that the Secret Doctrine of the East
contains the Alpha and the Omega of Universal Science; that in its obscure
texts, under the luxuriant, though perhaps too exuberant, growth of
allegorical Symbolism, lie concealed the corner‐ and the key‐stones of all
ancient and modern knowledge. That Stone, brought down by the Divine
Builder, is now rejected by the too‐human workman, and this because, in
his lethal materiality, man has lost every recollection, not only of his
holy childhood, but of his very adolescence, when he was one of the
Builders himself; when “the morning stars sang together, and the Sons of
God shouted for joy,” after they had laid the measures for the foundations
of the earth—to use the deeply significant and poetical language of Job,
the Arabian Initiate. But those who are still able to make room in their
innermost selves for the Divine Ray, and who accept, therefore, the data
of the Secret Sciences in good faith and humility, they know well that it
is in this Stone that remains buried the absolute in Philosophy, which is
the key to all those dark problems of Life and Death, some of which, at
any rate, may find an explanation in these volumes.

The writer is vividly alive to the tremendous difficulties that present
themselves in the handling of such abstruse questions, and to all the
dangers of the task. Insulting as it is to human nature to brand truth
with the name of imposture, nevertheless we see this done daily and accept
it. For every occult truth has to pass through such denial and its
supporters through martyrdom, before it is finally accepted; though even
then it remains but too often—


                                      A crown
    Golden in show, yet but a wreath of thorns.


Truths that rest on Occult mysteries will have, for one reader who may
appreciate them, a thousand who will brand them as impostures. This is
only natural, and the only means to avoid it would be for an Occultist to
pledge himself to the Pythagorean “vow of silence,” and renew it every
five years. Otherwise, cultured society—two‐thirds of which think
themselves in duty bound to believe that, since the first appearance of
the first Adept, one half of mankind practised deception and fraud on the
other half—cultured society will undeniably assert its hereditary and
traditional right to stone the intruder. Those benevolent critics, who
most readily promulgate the now famous axiom of Carlyle with regard to his
countrymen, of being “mostly fools,” having taken preliminary care to
include themselves safely in the only fortunate exceptions to this rule,
will in this work gain strength and derive additional conviction of the
sad fact, that the human race is simply composed of knaves and congenital
idiots. But this matters very little. The vindication of the Occultists
and their Archaic Science is working itself slowly but steadily into the
very heart of society, hourly, daily, and yearly, in the shape of two
monster branches, two stray off‐shoots of the trunk of Magic—Spiritualism
and the Roman Church. Fact works its way very often through fiction. Like
an immense boa‐constrictor, Error, in every shape, encircles mankind,
trying to smother in her deadly coils every aspiration towards truth and
light. But Error is powerful only on the surface, prevented as she is by
Occult Nature from going any deeper; for the same Occult Nature encircles
the whole globe, in every direction, leaving not even the darkest corner
unvisited. And, whether by phenomenon or miracle, by spirit‐hook or
bishop’s crook, Occultism must win the day, before the present era reaches
“Shani’s (Saturn’s) triple septenary” of the Western Cycle in Europe, in
other words—before the end of the twenty‐first century “A.D.”

Truly the soil of the long by‐gone past is not dead, for it has only
rested. The skeletons of the sacred oaks of the ancient Druids may still
send shoots from their dried‐up boughs and be reborn to a new life, like
that handful of corn, in the sarcophagus of a mummy 4,000 years old,
which, when planted, sprouted, grew, and “gave a fine harvest.” Why not?
Truth is stranger than fiction. It may any day, and most unexpectedly,
vindicate its wisdom and demonstrate the conceit of our age, by proving
that the Secret Brotherhood did not, indeed, die out with the
Philalethians of the last Eclectic School, that the Gnosis flourishes
still on earth, and its votaries are many, albeit unknown. All this may be
done by one, or more, of the great Masters visiting Europe, and exposing
in their turn the alleged exposers and traducers of Magic. Such secret
Brotherhoods have been mentioned by several well‐known authors, and are
spoken of in Mackenzie’s _Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_. The writer now, in
the face of the millions who deny, repeats boldly, that which was said in
_Isis Unveiled_.


    If they [the Initiates] have been regarded as mere fictions of the
    novelist, that fact has only helped the “brother‐adepts” to keep
    their incognito the more easily....

    The St. Germains and Cagliostros of this century, having learned
    bitter lessons from the vilifications and persecutions of the
    past, pursue different tactics now‐a‐days.(40)


These prophetic words were written in 1876, and verified in 1886.
Nevertheless, we say again,


    There are numbers of these mystic Brotherhoods which have naught
    to do with “civilized” countries; and it is in their unknown
    communities that are concealed the skeletons of the past. These
    “adepts” could, if they chose, lay claim to strange ancestry, and
    exhibit verifiable documents that would explain many a mysterious
    page in both sacred and profane history.(41) Had the keys to the
    hieratic writings and the secret of Egyptian and Hindu symbolism
    been known to the Christian Fathers, they would not have allowed a
    single monument of old to stand unmutilated.(42)


But there exists in the world another class of adepts, belonging to a
brotherhood also, and mightier than any other of those known to the
profane. Many among these are personally good and benevolent, even pure
and holy occasionally, as individuals. Pursuing collectively, however, and
as a body, a selfish, one‐sided object, with relentless vigour and
determination, they have to be ranked with the adepts of the Black Art.
These are our modern Roman Catholic “fathers” and clergy. Most of the
hieratic writings and symbols have been deciphered by them since the
Middle Ages. A hundred times more learned in secret Symbology and the old
Religions than our Orientalists will ever be, the personification of
astuteness and cleverness, every such adept in the art holds the keys
tightly in his firmly clenched hand, and will take care the secret shall
not be easily divulged, if he can help it. There are more profoundly
learned Kabalists in Rome and throughout Europe and America, than is
generally suspected. Thus are the professedly public “brotherhoods” of
“black” adepts more powerful and dangerous for Protestant countries than
any host of Eastern Occultists. People laugh at Magic! Men of Science,
Physiologists and Biologists, deride the potency and even the belief in
the existence of what is called in vulgar parlance “Sorcery” and “Black
Magic”! The Archæologists have their Stonehenge in England with its
thousands of secrets, and its twin‐brother Karnac of Brittany, and yet
there is not one of them who even suspects what has been going on in its
crypts, and its mysterious nooks and corners, for the last century. More
than that, they do not even know of the existence of such “magic halls” in
their Stonehenge, where curious scenes are taking place, whenever there is
a new convert in view. Hundreds of experiments have been, and are being
made daily at the Salpêtrière, and also by learned hypnotisers at their
private houses. It is now proved that certain sensitives—both men and
women—when commanded in trance, by the practitioner, who operates on them,
to do a certain thing—from drinking a glass of water up to simulated
murder—on recovering their normal state lose all remembrance of the order
inspired—“suggested” it is now called by Science. Nevertheless, at the
appointed hour and moment, the subject, though conscious and perfectly
awake, is compelled by an irresistible power within himself to do that
action which has been suggested to him by his mesmeriser; and that too,
whatever it may be, and whatever the period fixed by him who controls the
subject, that is to say, holds the latter under the power of his will, as
a snake holds a bird under its fascination, and finally forces it to jump
into its open jaws. Worse than this: for the bird is conscious of the
peril; it resists, however helpless in its final efforts, while the
hypnotized subject does not rebel, but seems to follow the suggestions and
voice of his own free‐will and soul. Who of our European men of Science,
who believe in such _scientific_ experiments—and very few are they who
still doubt them now‐a‐days, and who do not feel convinced of their actual
reality—who of them, it is asked, is ready to admit this as being Black
Magic? Yet it is the _genuine_, undeniable and actual _fascination_ and
_sorcery_ of old. The Mulu Kurumbas of Nîlgiri do not proceed otherwise in
their _envoûtements_ when they seek to destroy an enemy, nor do the Dugpas
of Sikkim and Bhûtân know of any more potential agent than their _will_.
Only in them that will does not proceed by jumps and starts, but acts with
certainty; it does not depend on the amount of receptivity or nervous
impressibility of the “subject.” Having chosen his victim and placed
himself _en rapport_ with him, the Dugpa’s “fluid” is sure to find its
way, for his will is immeasurably more strongly developed than the will of
the European experimenter—the self‐made, untutored, and _unconscious_
Sorcerer for the sake of Science—who has no idea (or belief either) of the
variety and potency of the world‐old methods used to develop this power,
by the _conscious_ sorcerer, the “Black Magician” of the East and West.

And now the question is openly and squarely asked: Why should not the
fanatical and zealous priest, thirsting to convert some selected rich and
influential member of society, use the same means to accomplish his end as
the French Physician and experimenter uses in his case with his subject?
The conscience of the Roman Catholic priest is most likely at peace. He
works _personally_ for no selfish purpose, but with the object of “saving
a soul” from “eternal damnation.” In his view, if Magic there be in it, it
is holy, meritorious and divine Magic. Such is the power of blind faith.

Hence, when we are assured by trustworthy and respectable persons of high
social standing, and unimpeachable character, that there are many well‐
organised societies among the Roman Catholic priests which, under the
pretext and cover of Modern Spiritualism and mediumship, hold _séances_
for the purposes of conversion by suggestion, directly and at a
distance—we answer: We know it. And when, moreover, we are told that
whenever those priest‐hypnotists are desirous of acquiring an influence
over some individual or individuals, selected by them for conversion, they
retire to an underground place, allotted and consecrated by them for such
purposes (_viz._, ceremonial Magic); and there, forming a circle, throw
their combined will‐power in the direction of that individual, and thus by
repeating the process, gain a complete control over their victim—we again
answer: Very likely. In fact we know the practice to be so, whether this
kind of ceremonial Magic and _envoûtement_ is practised at Stonehenge or
elsewhere. We know it, we say, through personal experience; and also
because several of the writer’s best and most loved friends have been
unconsciously drawn into the Romish Church and under her “benign”
protection by such means. And, therefore, we can only laugh in pity at the
ignorance and stubbornness of those deluded men of Science and cultured
experimentalists who, while believing in the power of Dr. Charcot and his
disciples to “envoûte” their subjects, find nothing better than a scornful
smile whenever Black Magic and its potency are mentioned before them.
Éliphas Lévi, the Abbé‐Kabalist, died before Science and the Faculté de
Médecine of France had accepted hypnotism and influence _par suggestion_
among its scientific experiments, but this is what he said twenty‐five
years ago, in his _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie_, on “Les
Envoûtements et les Sorts”:


    That which sorcerers and necromancers sought above all things in
    their evocations of the Spirit of Evil, was that magnetic potency
    which is the lawful property of the true Adept, and which they
    desired to obtain possession of for evil purposes.... One of their
    chief aims was the power of spells or of deleterious
    influences.... That power may be compared to real poisonings by a
    current of astral light. They exalt their will by means of
    ceremonies to the degree of rendering it venomous at a
    distance.... We have said in our “Dogma” what we thought of magic
    spells, and how this power was exceedingly real and dangerous. The
    true Magus throws a spell without ceremony and by his sole
    disapproval, upon those with whose conduct he is dissatisfied, and
    whom he thinks it necessary to punish;(43) he casts a spell, even
    by his pardon, over those who do him injury, and the enemies of
    Initiates never long enjoy impunity for their wrong‐doing. We have
    ourselves seen proofs of this fatal law in numerous instances. The
    executioners of martyrs always perish miserably; and the Adepts
    are the martyrs of intelligence. Providence [Karma] seems to
    despise those who despise them, and puts to death those who would
    seek to prevent them from living. The legend of the Wandering Jew
    is the popular poetry of this arcanum. A people had sent a sage to
    crucifixion; that people had bidden him “Move on!” when he tried
    to rest for one moment. Well! that people will become subject,
    henceforth, to a similar condemnation; it will become entirely
    proscribed, and for long centuries it will be bidden “Move on!
    move on!” finding neither rest nor pity.(44)


“Fables,” and “superstition,” will be the answer. Be it so. Before the
lethal breath of selfishness and indifference every uncomfortable fact is
transformed into meaningless fiction, and every branch of the once verdant
Tree of Truth has become dried up and stripped of its primeval spiritual
significance. Our modern Symbologist is superlatively clever only at
detecting phallic worship and sexual emblems even where none were ever
meant. But for the true student of Occult Lore, White or Divine Magic
could no more exist in Nature without its counterpart Black Magic, than
day without night, whether these be of twelve hours or of six months’
duration. For him everything in that Nature has an occult—a bright and a
night side to it. Pyramids and Druid’s oaks, dolmens and Bo‐trees, plant
and mineral—everything was full of deep significance and of sacred truths
of wisdom, when the Arch‐Druid performed his magic cures and incantations,
and the Egyptian Hierophant evoked and guided Chemnu, the “lovely
spectre,” the female Frankenstein‐creation of old, raised for the torture
and test of the soul‐power of the candidate for initiation, simultaneously
with the last agonising cry of his terrestrial human nature. True, Magic
has lost its name, and along with it its rights to recognition. But its
practice is in daily use; and its progeny, “magnetic influence,” “power of
oratory,” “irresistible fascination,” “whole audiences subdued and held as
though under a spell,” are terms recognised and used by all, generally
meaningless though they now are. Its effects, however, are more determined
and definite among religious congregations such as the Shakers, the Negro
Methodists, and Salvationists, who call it “the action of the Holy Spirit”
and “grace.” The real truth is that Magic is still in full sway amidst
mankind, however blind the latter to its silent presence and influence on
its members, however ignorant society may be, and remain, to its daily and
hourly beneficent and maleficent effects. The world is full of such
unconscious magicians—in politics as well as in daily life, in the Church
as in the strongholds of Free‐Thought. Most of those magicians are
“sorcerers” unhappily, not metaphorically but in sober reality, by reason
of their inherent selfishness, their revengeful natures, their envy and
malice. The true student of Magic, well aware of the truth, looks on in
pity, and, if he be wise, keeps silent. For every effort made by him to
remove the universal cecity is only repaid with ingratitude, slander, and
often curses, which, unable to reach him, will react on those who wish him
evil. Lies and calumny—the latter a teething lie, adding actual bites to
empty harmless falsehoods—become his lot, and thus the well‐wisher is soon
torn to pieces, as a reward for his benevolent desire to enlighten.

Enough has been given, it is believed, to shew that the existence of a
Secret Universal Doctrine, besides its practical methods of Magic, is no
wild romance or fiction. The fact was known to the whole ancient world,
and the knowledge of it has survived in the East, in India especially. And
if there be such a Science, there must be naturally, somewhere, professors
of it, or Adepts. In any case it matters little whether the Guardians of
the Sacred Lore are regarded as living, actually existing men, or are
viewed as myths. It is their Philosophy that will have to stand or fall
upon its own merits, apart from, and independent of any Adepts. For in the
words of the wise Gamaliel, addressed by him to the Synedrion: “If this
doctrine is false it will perish, and fall of itself; but if true,
then—_it cannot be destroyed_.”



SECTION II. MODERN CRITICISM AND THE ANCIENTS.


The Secret Doctrine of the Âryan East is found repeated under Egyptian
symbolism and phraseology in the Books of Hermes. At, or near, the
beginning of the present century, all the books called Hermetic were, in
the opinion of the average man of Science, unworthy of serious attention.
They were set down and loudly proclaimed as simply a collection of tales,
of fraudulent pretences and most absurd claims. They “never existed before
the Christian era,” it was said: “they were all written with the triple
object of speculation, deceiving and pious fraud;” they were all, even the
best of them, silly apocrypha.(45) In this respect the nineteenth century
proved a most worthy scion of the eighteenth, for, in the age of Voltaire
as well as in this century, everything, save what emanated direct from the
Royal Academy, was false, superstitious, foolish. Belief in the wisdom of
the Ancients was laughed to scorn, perhaps more so even than it is now.
The very thought of accepting as authentic the works and vagaries of “a
false Hermes, a false Orpheus, a false Zoroaster,” of false Oracles, false
Sibyls, and a thrice false Mesmer and his absurd fluid, was tabooed all
along the line. Thus all that had its genesis outside the learned and
dogmatic precincts of Oxford and Cambridge,(46) or the Academy of France,
was denounced in those days as “unscientific,” and “ridiculously absurd.”
This tendency has survived to the present day.

Nothing can be further from the intention of any true Occultist—who stands
possessed, by virtue of his higher psychic development, of instruments of
research far more penetrating in their power than any as yet in the hands
of physical experimentalists—than to look unsympathetically on the efforts
that are being made in the area of physical enquiry. The exertions and
labours undertaken to solve as many as possible of the problems of Nature
have always been holy in his sight. The spirit in which Sir Isaac Newton
remarked that at the end of all his astronomical work he felt a mere child
picking up shells beside the Ocean of Knowledge, is one of reverence for
the boundlessness of Nature which Occult Philosophy itself cannot eclipse.
And it may freely be recognised that the attitude of mind which this
famous simile describes is one which fairly represents that of the great
majority of _genuine_ Scientists in regard to all the phenomena of the
physical plane of Nature. In dealing with this they are often caution and
moderation itself. They observe facts with a patience that cannot be
surpassed. They are slow to cast these into theories, with a prudence that
cannot be too highly commended. And, subject to the limitations under
which they observe Nature, they are beautifully accurate in the record of
their observations. Moreover, it may be conceded further that modern
Scientists are exceedingly careful not to affirm negations. They may say
it is immensely improbable that any discovery will ever conflict with such
or such a theory, now supported by such and such an aggregation of
recorded facts. But even in reference to the broadest
generalizations—which pass into a dogmatic form only in brief popular text
books of scientific knowledge—the tone of “Science” itself, if that
abstraction may be held to be embodied in the persons of its most
distinguished representatives, is one of reserve and often of modesty.

Far, therefore, from being disposed to scoff at the errors into which the
limitations of their methods may betray men of Science, the true Occultist
will rather appreciate the pathos of a situation in which great industry
and thirst for truth are condemned to disappointment, and often to
confusion.

That which is to be deplored, however, in respect to Modern Science, is in
itself an evil manifestation of the excessive caution which in its most
favourable aspect protects Science from over‐hasty conclusions: namely,
the tardiness of Scientists to recognise that other instruments of
research may be applicable to the mysteries of Nature besides those of the
physical plane, and that it may consequently be impossible to appreciate
the phenomena of any one plane correctly without observing them as well
from the points of view afforded by others. In so far then as they
wilfully shut their eyes to evidence which ought to have shown them
clearly that Nature is more complex than physical phenomena alone would
suggest, that there are means by which the faculties of human perception
can pass sometimes from one plane to the other, and that their energy is
being misdirected while they turn it exclusively on the minutiæ of
physical structure or force, they are less entitled to sympathy than to
blame.

One feels dwarfed and humbled in reading what M. Renan, that learned
modern “destroyer” of every religious belief, past, present and future,
has to say of poor humanity and its powers of discernment. He believes


    Mankind has but a very narrow mind; and the number of men capable
    of seizing acutely (_finement_) the true analogy of things, is
    quite imperceptible.(47)


Upon comparing, however, this statement with another opinion expressed by
the same author, namely, that:


    The mind of the critic should yield to facts, hands and feet
    bound, to be dragged by them wherever they may lead him,(48)


one feels relieved. When, moreover, these two philosophical statements are
strengthened by a third enunciation of the famous Academician, which
declares that:


    _Tout parti pris à priori, doit être banni de la science_,(49)


there remains little to fear. Unfortunately M. Renan is the first to break
this golden rule.

The evidence of Herodotus—called, sarcastically no doubt, the “Father of
History,” since in every question upon which Modern Thought disagrees with
him, his testimony goes for nought—the sober and earnest assurances in the
philosophical narratives of Plato and Thucydides, Polybius, and Plutarch,
and even certain statements of Aristotle himself, are invariably laid
aside whenever they are involved in what modern criticism is pleased to
regard as a myth. It is some time since Strauss proclaimed that:


    The presence of a supernatural element or miracle in a narrative
    is an infallible sign of the presence in it of a myth;


and such is the canon of criticism tacitly adopted by every modern critic.
But what is a myth—μῦθος—to begin with? Are we not told distinctly by
ancient writers that the word means tradition? Was not the Latin term
_fabula_, a fable, synonymous with something told, as having happened in
pre‐historic times, and not necessarily an invention. With such autocrats
of criticism and despotic rulers as are most of the French, English, and
German Orientalists, there may, then, be no end of historical,
geographical, ethnological and philological surprises in store for the
century to come. Travesties in Philosophy have become so common of late,
that the public can be startled by nothing in this direction. It has
already been stated by one learned speculator that Homer was simply “a
mythical personification of the épopée”(50); by another, that Hippocrates,
son of Esculapius “could only be a chimera”; that the Asclepiades, their
seven hundred years of duration notwithstanding, might after all prove
simply a “fiction”; that “the city of Troy (Dr. Schliemann to the
contrary) existed only on the maps,” etc. Why should not the world be
invited after this to regard every hitherto historical character of days
of old as a myth? Were not Alexander the Great needed by Philology as a
sledge‐hammer wherewith to break the heads of Brâhmanical chronological
pretensions, he would have become long ago simply “a symbol for
annexation,” or “a genius of conquest,” as has been already suggested by
some French writer.

Blank denial is the only refuge left to the critics. It is the most secure
asylum for some time to come in which to shelter the last of the sceptics.
For one who denies unconditionally, the trouble of arguing is unnecessary,
and he also thus avoids what is worse, having to yield occasionally a
point or two before the irrefutable arguments and facts of his opponent.
Creuzer, the greatest of all the modern Symbologists, the most learned
among the masses of erudite German Mythologists, must have envied the
placid self‐confidence of certain sceptics, when he found himself forced
in a moment of desperate perplexity to admit that:


    We are compelled to return to the theories of trolls and genii, as
    they were understood by the ancients; [it is a doctrine] without
    which it becomes absolutely impossible to explain to oneself
    anything with regard to the Mysteries(51)


of the Ancients, which Mysteries are undeniable.

Roman Catholics, who are guilty of precisely the same worship, and to the
very letter—having borrowed it from the later Chaldæans, the Lebanon
Nabathæans, and the baptized Sabæans,(52) and not from the learned
Astronomers and Initiates of the days of old—would now, by anathematizing
it, hide the source from which it came. Theology and Churchianism would
fain trouble the clear fountain that fed them from the first, to prevent
posterity from looking into it, and thus seeing their original prototype.
The Occultists, however, believe the time has come to give everyone his
due. As to our other opponents—the modern sceptic and the Epicurean, the
cynic and the Sadducee—they may find an answer to their denials in our
earlier volumes. As to many unjust aspersions on the ancient doctrines,
the reason for them is given in these words in _Isis Unveiled_:


    The thought of the present‐day commentator and critic as to the
    ancient learning, is limited to and runs round the exoterism of
    the temples; his insight is either unwilling or unable to
    penetrate into the solemn adyta of old, where the hierophant
    instructed the neophyte to regard the public worship in its true
    light. No ancient sage would have taught that man is the king of
    creation, and that the starry heaven and our mother earth were
    created for his sake.(53)


When we find such works as _Phallicism_(54) appearing in our day in print,
it is easy to see that the day for concealment and travesty has passed
away. Science, in Philology, Symbolism and Comparative Religion, has
progressed too far to make wholesale denials any longer, and the Church is
too wise and cautious not to be now making the best of the situation.
Meanwhile, the “rhombs of Hecate” and the “wheels of Lucifer,”(55) daily
exhumed on the sites of Babylonia, can no longer be used as clear evidence
of a Satan‐worship, since the same symbols are shown in the ritual of the
Latin Church. The latter is too learned to be ignorant of the fact that
even the later Chaldæans, who had gradually fallen into dualism, reducing
all things to two primal Principles, never worshipped Satan or idols, any
more than did the Zoroastrians, who now lie under the same accusation, but
that their Religion was as highly philosophical as any; their dual and
exoteric Theosophy became the heirloom of the Jews, who, in their turn,
were forced to share it with the Christians. Pârsîs are to this day
charged with Heliolatry, and yet in the Chaldæan Oracles, under the
“Magical and Philosophical Precepts of Zoroaster” one finds the following:


    Direct not thy mind to the vast measures of the earth;
    For the plant of truth is not upon ground.
    Nor measure the measures of the sun, collecting rules,
    For he is carried by the eternal will of the Father, not for your
                sake.
    Dismiss the impetuous course of the moon; for she runs always by
                work of necessity.
    The progression of the stars was not generated for your sake.


There was a vast difference between the true worship taught to those who
showed themselves worthy, and the state religions. The Magians are accused
of all kinds of superstition, but this is what the same Chaldæan Oracle
says:


    The wide aerial flight of birds is not true,
    Nor the dissections of the entrails of victims; they are all mere
                toys,
    The basis of mercenary fraud; flee from these
    If you would open the sacred paradise of piety,
    Where virtue, wisdom, and equity are assembled.(56)


As we say in our former work:


    Surely it is not those who warn people against “mercenary fraud”
    who can be accused of it; and if they accomplished acts which seem
    miraculous, who can with fairness presume to deny that it was done
    merely because they possessed a knowledge of natural philosophy
    and psychological science to a degree unknown to our schools?(57)


The above quoted stanzas are a rather strange teaching to come from those
who are universally believed to have worshipped the sun, and moon, and the
starry hosts, as Gods. The sublime profundity of the Magian precepts being
beyond the reach of modern materialistic thought, the Chaldæan
Philosophers are accused of Sabæanism and Sun‐worship, which was the
religion only of the uneducated masses.



SECTION III. THE ORIGIN OF MAGIC.


Things of late have changed, true enough. The field of investigation has
widened; old religions are a little better understood; and since that
miserable day when the Committee of the French Academy, headed by Benjamin
Franklin, investigated Mesmer’s phenomena only to proclaim them
charlatanry and clever knavery, both heathen Philosophy and Mesmerism have
acquired certain rights and privileges, and are now viewed from quite a
different standpoint. Is full justice rendered them, however, and are they
any better appreciated? We are afraid not. Human nature is the same now,
as when Pope said of the force of prejudice that:


    The difference is as great between
    The optics seeing, as the objects seen.
    All manners take a tincture from our own,
    Or some discolour’d through our passions shown,
    Or fancy’s beam enlarges, multiplies,
    Contracts, inverts, and gives ten thousand dyes.


Thus in the first decades of our century Hermetic Philosophy was regarded
by both Churchmen and men of Science from two quite opposite points of
view. The former called it sinful and devilish; the latter denied point‐
blank its authenticity, notwithstanding the evidence brought forward by
the most erudite men of every age, including our own. The learned Father
Kircher, for instance, was not even noticed; and his assertion that all
the fragments known under titles of works by Mercury Trismegistus,
Berosus, Pherecydes of Syros, etc., were rolls that had escaped the fire
which devoured 100,000 volumes of the great Alexandrian Library—was simply
laughed at. Nevertheless the educated classes of Europe knew then, as they
do now, that the famous Alexandrian Library, the “marvel of the ages,” was
founded by Ptolemy Philadelphus; that numbers of its MSS. had been
carefully copied from hieratic texts and the oldest parchments, Chaldæan,
Phœnician, Persian, etc.; and that these transliterations and copies
amounted, in their turn, to another 100,000 rolls, as Josephus and Strabo
assert.

There is also the additional evidence of Clemens Alexandrinus, that ought
to be credited to some extent.(58) Clemens testified to the existence of
an additional 30,000 volumes of the Books of Thoth, placed in the library
of the Tomb of Osymandias, over the entrance of which were inscribed the
words, “A Cure for the Soul.”

Since then, as all know, entire texts of the “apocryphal” works of the
“false” Pymander, and the no less “false” Asclepias, have been found by
Champollion in the most ancient monuments of Egypt.(59) As said in _Isis
Unveiled_:


    After having devoted their whole lives to the study of the records
    of the old Egyptian wisdom, both Champollion‐Figéac and
    Champollion Junior publicly declared, notwithstanding many biassed
    judgments hazarded by certain hasty and unwise critics, that the
    _Books of Hermes_ “truly contain a mass of Egyptian traditions
    which are constantly corroborated by the most authentic records
    and monuments of Egypt of the hoariest antiquity.”(60)


The merit of Champollion as an Egyptologist none will question, and if he
declare that everything demonstrates the accuracy of the writings of the
mysterious Hermes Trismegistus, and if the assertion that their antiquity
runs back into the night of time be corroborated by him in minutest
details, then indeed criticism ought to be fully satisfied. Says
Champollion:


    These inscriptions are only the faithful echo and expression of
    the most ancient verities.


Since these words were written, some of the “apocryphal” verses by the
“mythical” Orpheus have also been found copied word for word, in
hieroglyphics, in certain inscriptions of the Fourth Dynasty, addressed to
various Deities. Finally, Creuzer discovered and immediately pointed out
the very significant fact that numerous passages found in Homer and Hesiod
were undeniably borrowed by the two great poets from the Orphic Hymns,
thus proving the latter to be far older than the _Iliad_ or the _Odyssey_.

And so gradually the ancient claims come to be vindicated, and modern
criticism has to submit to evidence. Many are now the writers who confess
that such a type of literature as the Hermetic works of Egypt can never be
dated too far back into the prehistoric ages. The texts of many of these
ancient works, that of Enoch included, so loudly proclaimed “apocryphal”
at the beginning of this century, are now discovered and recognised in the
most secret and sacred sanctuaries of Chaldæa, India, Phœnicia, Egypt and
Central Asia. But even such proofs have failed to convince the bulk of our
Materialists. The reason for this is very simple and evident. All these
texts—held in universal veneration in Antiquity, found in the secret
libraries of all the great temples, studied (if not always mastered) by
the greatest statesmen, classical writers, philosophers, kings and laymen,
as much as by renowned Sages—what were they? Treatises on Magic and
Occultism, pure and simple; the now derided and tabooed Theosophy—hence
the ostracism.

Were people, then, so simple and credulous in the days of Pythagoras and
Plato? Were the millions of Babylonia and Egypt, of India and Greece, with
their great Sages to lead them, all fools, that during those periods of
great learning and civilization which preceded the year _one_ of our
era—the latter giving birth but to the intellectual darkness of mediæval
fanaticism—so many otherwise great men should have devoted their lives to
a mere illusion, a superstition called Magic? It would seem so, had one to
remain content with the word and conclusions of modern Philosophy.

Every Art and Science, however, whatever its intrinsic merit, has had its
discoverer and practitioner, and subsequently its proficients to teach it.
What is the origin of the Occult Sciences, or Magic? Who were its
professors, and what is known of them, whether in history or legend?
Clemens Alexandrinus, one of the most intelligent and learned of the early
Christian Fathers, answers this question in his _Stromateis_. That ex‐
pupil of the Neoplatonic School argues:


    If there is instruction, you must seek for the master.(61)


And so he shows Cleanthes taught by Zeno, Theophrastus by Aristotle,
Metrodorus by Epicurus, Plato by Socrates, etc. And he adds that when he
had looked further back to Pythagoras, Pherecydes, and Thales, he had
still to search for their masters. The same for the Egyptians, the
Indians, the Babylonians, and the Magi themselves. He would not cease
questioning, he says, to learn who it was they all had for their masters.
And when he (Clemens) had traced down the enquiry to the very cradle of
mankind, to the first generation of men, he would reiterate once more his
questioning, and ask, “Who is their teacher?” Surely, he argues, their
master could be “no one of men.” And even when we should have reached as
high as the Angels, the same query would have to be offered to them: “Who
were their (meaning the ‘divine’ and the ‘fallen’ Angels) masters?”

The aim of the good father’s long argument is of course to discover two
distinct masters, one the preceptor of biblical patriarchs, the other the
teacher of the Gentiles. But the students of the Secret Doctrine need go
to no such trouble. Their professors are well aware who were the Masters
of their predecessors in Occult Sciences and Wisdom.

The two professors are finally traced out by Clemens, and are, as was to
be expected, God, and his eternal and everlasting enemy and opponent, the
Devil; the subject of Clemens’ enquiry relating to the _dual_ aspect of
Hermetic Philosophy, as cause and effect. Admitting the moral beauty of
the virtues preached in every Occult work with which he was acquainted,
Clemens desires to know the cause of the apparent contradiction between
the doctrine and the practice, good and evil Magic, and he comes to the
conclusion that Magic has two origins—divine and diabolical. He perceives
its bifurcation into two channels, hence his deduction and inference.

We perceive it too, without, however, necessarily designating such
bifurcation diabolical, for we judge the “left‐hand path” as it issued
from the hands of its founder. Otherwise, judging also by the effects of
Clemens’ own religion and the walk in life of certain of its professors,
since the death of their Master, the Occultists would have a right to come
to somewhat the same conclusion as Clemens. They would have a right to say
that while Christ, the Master of all _true_ Christians, was in every way
godly, those who resorted to the horrors of the Inquisition, to the
extermination and torture of heretics, Jews and Alchemists, the Protestant
Calvin who burnt Servetus, and his persecuting Protestant successors, down
to the whippers and burners of witches in America, must have had for
_their_ Master, the Devil. But Occultists, not believing in the Devil, are
precluded from retaliating in this way.

Clemens’ testimony, however, is valuable in so far as it shows (1) the
enormous number of works on Occult Sciences in his day; and (2) the
extraordinary powers acquired through those Sciences by certain men.

He devotes, for instance, the whole of the sixth book of his _Stromateis_
to this research for the first two “Masters” of the true and the false
Philosophy respectively, both preserved, as he says, in the Egyptian
sanctuaries. Very pertinently too, he apostrophises the Greeks, asking
them why they should not accept the “miracles” of Moses as such, since
they claim the very same privileges for their own Philosophers, and he
gives a number of instances. It is, as he says, Æachus obtaining through
his Occult powers a marvellous rain; it is Aristæus causing the winds to
blow; Empedocles quieting the gale, and forcing it to cease, etc.(62)

The books of Mercurius Trismegistus most attracted his attention.(63) He
is also warm in his praise of Hystaspes (or Gushtasp), of the Sibylline
books, and even of the right Astrology.

There have been in all ages use and abuse of Magic, as there are use and
abuse of Mesmerism or Hypnotism in our own. The ancient world had its
Apollonii and its Pherecydæ, and intellectual people could discriminate
then, as they can now. While no classical or pagan writer has ever found
one word of blame for Apollonius of Tyana, for instance, it is not so with
regard to Pherecydes. Hesychius of Miletia, Philo of Byblos and
Eusthathius charge the latter unstintingly with having built his
Philosophy and Science on demoniacal traditions—_i.e._, on Sorcery. Cicero
declares that Pherecydes is, _potius divinus quam medicus_, “rather a
soothsayer than a physician,” and Diogenes Laërtius gives a vast number of
stories relating to his predictions. One day Pherecydes prophesies the
shipwreck of a vessel hundreds of miles away from him; another time he
predicts the capture of the Lacedæmonians by the Arcadians; finally, he
foresees his own wretched end.(64)

Bearing in mind the objections that will be made to the teachings of the
Esoteric Doctrine as herein propounded, the writer is forced to meet some
of them beforehand.

Such imputations as those brought by Clemens against the “heathen” Adepts,
only prove the presence of clairvoyant powers and prevision in every age,
but are no evidence in favour of a Devil. They are, therefore, of no value
except to the Christians, for whom Satan is one of the chief pillars of
the faith. Baronius and De Mirville, for instance, find an unanswerable
proof of Demonology in the belief in the co‐eternity of Matter with
Spirit!

De Mirville writes that Pherecydes


    Postulates in principle the primordiality of Zeus or Ether, and
    then, on the same plane, a principle, coëternal and coäctive,
    which he calls the fifth element, or Ogenos.(65)


He then points out that the meaning of Ogenos is given as that which shuts
up, which holds captive, and that is Hades, “or in a word, hell.”

The synonyms are known to every schoolboy without the Marquis going to the
trouble of explaining them to the Academy; as to the deduction, every
Occultist will of course deny it and only smile at its folly. And now we
come to the theological conclusion.

The _résumé_ of the views of the Latin Church—as given by authors of the
same character as the Marquis de Mirville—amounts to this: that the
Hermetic Books, their wisdom—fully admitted in Rome—notwithstanding, are
“the heirloom left by Cain, the accursed, to mankind.” It is “generally
admitted,” says that modern memorialist of Satan in History:


    That immediately after the Flood Cham and his descendants had
    propagated anew the ancient teachings of the Cainites and of the
    submerged Race.(66)


This proves, at any rate, that Magic, or Sorcery as he calls it, is an
antediluvian Art, and thus one point is gained. For, as he says:—


    The evidence of Berosius makes Ham identical with the first
    Zoroaster, founder of Bactria, the first author of all the magic
    arts of Babylonia, the _Chemesenua_ or Cham,(67) the
    _infamous_(68) of the faithful Noachians, finally the object of
    adoration for Egypt, which having received its name Χημεία, whence
    chemistry, built in his honour a town called _Choemnis_, or the
    “city of fire.”(69) Ham adored it, it is said, whence the name
    _Chammaim_ given to the pyramids; which in their turn have been
    vulgarised into our modern noun “chimney.”(70)


This statement is entirely wrong. Egypt was the cradle of Chemistry and
its birth‐place—this is pretty well known by this time. Only Kenrick and
others show the root of the word to be _chemi_ or _chem_, which is not
_Cham_ or Ham, but _Khem_, the Egyptian phallic God of the Mysteries.

But this is not all. De Mirville is bent upon finding a satanic origin
even for the now innocent Tarot.

He goes on to say:


    As to the means for the propagation of this evil Magic, tradition
    points it out, in certain runic characters traced on metallic
    plates [or leaves, _des lames_] which have escaped destruction by
    the Deluge.(71) This might have been regarded as legendary, had
    not subsequent discoveries shown it far from being so. Plates were
    found covered with curious and utterly undecipherable characters,
    characters of undeniable antiquity, to which the Chamites
    [Sorcerers, with the author] attribute the origin of their
    marvellous and terrible powers.(72)


The pious author may, meanwhile, be left to his own orthodox beliefs. He,
at any rate, seems quite sincere in his views. Nevertheless, his able
arguments will have to be sapped at their very foundation, for it must be
shown on mathematical grounds who, or rather what, Cain and Ham really
were. De Mirville is only the faithful son of his Church, interested in
keeping Cain in his anthropomorphic character and in his present place in
“Holy Writ.” The student of Occultism, on the other hand, is solely
interested in the truth. But the age has to follow the natural course of
its evolution.



SECTION IV. THE SECRESY OF INITIATES.


The false rendering of a number of parables and sayings of Jesus is not to
be wondered at in the least. From Orpheus, the first initiated Adept of
whom history catches a glimpse in the mists of the pre‐Christian era, down
through Pythagoras, Confucius, Buddha, Jesus, Apollonius of Tyana, to
Ammonius Saccas, no Teacher or Initiate has ever committed anything to
writing for public use. Each and all of them have invariably recommended
silence and secresy on certain facts and deeds; from Confucius, who
refused to explain publicly and satisfactorily what he meant by his “Great
Extreme,” or to give the key to the divination by “straws,” down to Jesus,
who charged his disciples to tell no man that he was Christ(73)
(Chrestos), the “man of sorrows” and trials, before his supreme and last
Initiation, or that he had produced a “miracle” of resurrection.(74) The
Apostles had to preserve silence, so that the left hand should not know
what the right hand did; in plainer words, that the dangerous proficients
in the Left Hand Science—the terrible enemies of the Right Hand Adepts,
especially before their supreme Initiation—should not profit by the
publicity so as to harm both the healer and the patient. And if the above
is maintained to be simply an assumption, then what may be the meaning of
these awful words:


    Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God;
    but unto them that are without all these things are done in
    parables; that seeing they may see and not perceive; and hearing,
    they may hear and not understand; lest at any time they should be
    converted and their sins should be forgiven them.(75)


Unless interpreted in the sense of the law of silence and Karma, the utter
selfishness and uncharitable spirit of this remark are but too evident.
These words are directly connected with the terrible dogma of
predestination. Will the good and intelligent Christian cast such a slur
of cruel selfishness on his Saviour?(76)

The work of propagating such truths in parables was left to the disciples
of the high Initiates. It was their duty to follow the key‐note of the
Secret Teaching without revealing its mysteries. This is shown in the
histories of all the great Adepts. Pythagoras divided his classes into
hearers of exoteric and esoteric lectures. The Magians received their
instructions and were initiated in the far hidden caves of Bactria. When
Josephus declares that Abraham taught Mathematics he meant by it “Magic,”
for in the Pythagorean code Mathematics mean Esoteric Science, or Gnosis.

Professor Wilder remarks:


    The Essenes of Judæa and Carmel made similar distinctions,
    dividing their adherents into neophytes, brethren and the
    perfect.... Ammonius obligated his disciples by oath not to
    divulge his higher doctrines, except to those who had been
    thoroughly instructed and exercised [prepared for initiation].(77)


One of the most powerful reasons for the necessity of strict secresy is
given by Jesus Himself, if one may credit Matthew. For there the Master is
made to say plainly:


    Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your
    pearls before swine; lest they trample them under their feet, and
    turn again and rend you.(78)


Profoundly true and wise words. Many are those in our own age, and even
among us, who have been forcibly reminded of them—often when too late.(79)

Even Maimonides recommends silence with regard to the true meaning of the
_Bible_ texts. This injunction destroys the usual affirmation that “Holy
Writ” is the only book in the world whose divine oracles contain plain
unvarnished truth. It may be so for the learned Kabalists; it is certainly
quite the reverse with regard to Christians. For this is what the learned
Hebrew Philosopher says:


    Whoever shall find out the true sense of the Book of _Genesis_
    ought to take care not to divulge it. This is a maxim that all our
    sages repeat to us, and above all respecting the work of the six
    days. If a person should discover the _true_ meaning of it by
    himself, or by the aid of another, then he ought to be silent, or
    if he speaks he ought to speak of it obscurely, in an enigmatical
    manner, as I do myself, leaving the rest to be guessed by those
    who can understand me.


The Symbology and Esoterism of the _Old Testament_ being thus confessed by
one of the greatest Jewish Philosophers, it is only natural to find
Christian Fathers making the same confession with regard to the _New
Testament_, and the _Bible_ in general. Thus we find Clemens Alexandrinus
and Origen admitting it as plainly as words can do it. Clemens, who had
been initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries says, that:


    The doctrines there taught contained in them _the end of all
    instructions as they were taken from Moses and the prophets_,


a slight perversion of facts pardonable in the good Father. The words
admit, after all, that the Mysteries of the Jews were identical with those
of the Pagan Greeks, who took them from the Egyptians, who borrowed them,
in their turn, from the Chaldæans, who got them from the Âryans, the
Atlanteans and so on—far beyond the days of that Race. The secret meaning
of the Gospel is again openly confessed by Clemens when he says that the
Mysteries of the Faith are not to be divulged to all.


    But since this tradition is not published alone for him who
    perceives the magnificence of the word; it is requisite,
    therefore, to hide in a Mystery the wisdom spoken, which the Son
    of God taught.(80)


Not less explicit is Origen with regard to the _Bible_ and its symbolical
fables. He exclaims:


    If we hold to the letter, and must understand what stands written
    in the law after the manner of the Jews and common people, then I
    should blush to confess aloud that it is God who has given these
    laws: then the laws of men appear more excellent and
    reasonable.(81)


And well he might have “blushed,” the sincere and honest Father of early
Christianity in its days of relative purity. But the Christians of this
highly literary and civilised age of ours do not blush at all; they
swallow, on the contrary, the “light” before the formation of the sun, the
Garden of Eden, Jonah’s whale and all, notwithstanding that the same
Origen asks in a very natural fit of indignation:


    What man of sense will agree with the statement that the first,
    second and third days in which the _evening_ is named and the
    _morning_, were without sun, moon, and stars, and the first day
    without a heaven? What man is found such an idiot as to suppose
    that God planted trees in Paradise, in Eden, like a husbandman,
    etc.? I believe that every man must hold these things for images,
    under which a hidden sense lies concealed?(82)


Yet millions of “such idiots” are found in our age of enlightenment and
not only in the third century. When Paul’s unequivocal statement in
_Galatians_, iv. 22‐25, that the story of Abraham and his two sons is all
“an allegory,” and that “Agar is Mount Sinai” is added to this, then
little blame, indeed, can be attached to either Christian or Heathen who
declines to accept the _Bible_ in any other light than that of a very
ingenious allegory.

Rabbi Simeon Ben‐“Jochai,” the compiler of the _Zohar_, never imparted the
most important points of his doctrine otherwise than orally, and to a very
limited number of disciples. Therefore, without the final initiation into
the _Mercavah_, the study of the _Kabalah_ will be ever incomplete, and
the _Mercavah_ can be taught only “in darkness, in a deserted place, and
after many and terrific trials.” Since the death of that great Jewish
Initiate this hidden doctrine has remained, for the outside world, an
inviolate secret.


    Among the venerable sect of the Tanaim, or rather the Tananim, the
    wise men, there were those who taught the secrets practically and
    initiated some disciples into the grand and final Mystery. But the
    _Mishna Hagiga_, 2nd Section, say that the table of contents of
    the _Mercaba_ “must only be delivered to wise old ones.” The
    _Gemara_ is still more dogmatic. “The more important secrets of
    the Mysteries were not even revealed to all priests. Alone the
    initiates had them divulged.” And so we find the same great
    secresy prevalent in every ancient religion.(83)


What says the _Kabalah_ itself? Its great Rabbis actually threaten him who
accepts their sayings _verbatim_. We read in the _Zohar_:


    Woe to the man who sees in the Thorah, _i.e._, Law, only simple
    recitals and ordinary words! Because if in truth it only contained
    these, we would even to‐day be able to compose a Thorah much more
    worthy of admiration. For if we find only the simple words, we
    would only have to address ourselves to the legislators of the
    earth,(84) to those in whom we most frequently meet with the most
    grandeur. It would be sufficient to imitate them, and make a
    Thorah after their words and example. But it is not so; each word
    of the Thorah contains an elevated meaning and a sublime
    mystery.... The recitals of the Thorah are the vestments of the
    Thorah. Woe to him who takes this garment for the Thorah
    itself.... The simple take notice only of the garments or recitals
    of the Thorah, they know no other thing, they see not that which
    is concealed under the vestment. The more instructed men do not
    pay attention to the vestment, but to the body which it
    envelops.(85)


Ammonius Saccas taught that the Secret Doctrine of the Wisdom‐Religion was
found complete in the _Books of Thoth_ (Hermes), from which both
Pythagoras and Plato derived their knowledge and much of their Philosophy;
and these Books were declared by him to be “identical with the teachings
of the Sages of the remote East.” Professor A. Wilder remarks:


    As the name Thoth means a college or assembly, it is not
    altogether improbable that the books were so named as being the
    collected oracles and doctrines of the sacerdotal fraternity of
    Memphis. Rabbi Wise has suggested the same hypothesis in relation
    to the divine utterances recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures.(86)


This is very probable. Only the “divine utterances” have never been, so
far, understood by the profane. Philo Judæus, a non‐initiate, attempted to
give their secret meaning and—failed.

But _Books of Thoth_ or _Bible_, _Vedas_ or _Kabalah_, all enjoin the same
secresy as to certain mysteries of nature symbolised in them. “Woe be to
him who divulges _unlawfully_ the words whispered into the ear of Manushi
by the _First Initiator_.” Who that “Initiator” was is made plain in the
_Book of Enoch_:


    From them [the Angels] I heard all things, and understood what I
    saw; that which will not take place in this generation [Race], but
    in a generation which is to succeed at a distant period [the 6th
    and 7th Races] on account of the elect [the Initiates].(87)


Again, it is said with regard to the judgment of those who, when they have
learned “every secret of the angels,” reveal them, that:


    They have discovered secrets, and _they are_ those who have been
    judged; but not thou, my son [Noah] ... thou art pure and good and
    _free_ from the reproach of _discovering_ [revealing] secrets.(88)


But there are those in our century, who, having “discovered secrets”
unaided and owing to their own learning and acuteness only, and who being,
nevertheless, honest and straightforward men, undismayed by threats or
warning since they have never pledged themselves to secresy, feel quite
startled at such revelations. One of these is the learned author and
discoverer of one “Key to the Hebrew‐Egyptian Mystery.” As he says, there
are “some strange features connected with the promulgation and condition”
of the _Bible_.


    Those who compiled this Book were men as we are. They knew, saw,
    handled and realized, through the key measure,(89) the _law_ of
    the living, ever‐active God.(90) They needed no faith that He was,
    that He worked, planned, and accomplished, as a mighty mechanic
    and architect.(91) What was it, then, that reserved to them alone
    this knowledge, while first as men of God, and second as Apostles
    of Jesus the Christ, they doled out a blinding ritual service, and
    an empty teaching of _faith_ and no substance as proof, properly
    coming through the exercise of just those senses which the Deity
    has given all men as the essential means of obtaining any right
    understanding? _Mystery_ and _parable_, and _dark saying_, and
    _cloaking_ of the true meanings are the burden of the Testaments,
    Old and New. Take it that the narratives of the _Bible_ were
    purposed inventions to deceive the ignorant masses, even while
    enforcing a most perfect code of moral obligations: How is it
    possible to justify so great frauds, as part of a Divine economy,
    when to that economy, the attribute of simple and perfect
    _truthfulness_ must, in the nature of things, be ascribed? What
    has, or what by possibility ought mystery to have, with the
    promulgation of the truths of God?(92)


Nothing whatever most certainly, if those mysteries had been given from
the first. And so it was with regard to the first, semi‐divine, pure and
spiritual Races of Humanity. They had the “truths of God,” and lived up to
them, and their ideals. They preserved them, so long as there was hardly
any evil, and hence scarcely a possible abuse of that knowledge and those
truths. But evolution and the gradual fall into materiality is also one of
the “truths” and also one of the laws of “God.” And as mankind progressed,
and became with every generation more of the earth, earthly, the
individuality of each temporary Ego began to assert itself. It is personal
selfishness that develops and urges man on to abuse of his knowledge and
power. And selfishness is a human building, whose windows and doors are
ever wide open for every kind of iniquity to enter into man’s soul. Few
were the men during the early adolescence of mankind, and fewer still are
they now, who feel disposed to put into practice Pope’s forcible
declaration that he would tear out his own heart, if it had no better
disposition than to love only himself, and laugh at all his neighbours.
Hence the necessity of gradually taking away from man the divine knowledge
and power, which became with every new human cycle more dangerous as a
double‐edged weapon, whose evil side was ever threatening one’s neighbour,
and whose power for good was lavished freely only upon self. Those few
“elect” whose inner natures had remained unaffected by their outward
physical growth, thus became in time the sole guardians of the mysteries
revealed, passing the knowledge to those most fit to receive it, and
keeping it inaccessible to others. Reject this explanation from the Secret
Teachings, and the very name of Religion will become synonymous with
deception and fraud.

Yet the masses could not be allowed to remain without some sort of moral
restraint. Man is ever craving for a “beyond” and cannot live without an
ideal of some kind, as a beacon and a consolation. At the same time, no
average man, even in our age of universal education, could be entrusted
with truths too metaphysical, too subtle for his mind to comprehend,
without the danger of an imminent reaction setting in, and faith in Gods
and Saints making room for an unscientific blank Atheism. No real
philanthropist, hence no Occultist, would dream for a moment of a mankind
without one tittle of Religion. Even the modern day Religion in Europe,
confined to Sundays, is better than none. But if, as Bunyan put it,
“Religion is the best armour that a man can have,” it certainly is the
“worst cloak”; and it is that “cloak” and false pretence which the
Occultists and the Theosophists fight against. The true ideal Deity, the
one living God in Nature, can never suffer in man’s worship if that
outward cloak, woven by man’s fancy, and thrown upon the Deity by the
crafty hand of the priest greedy of power and domination, is drawn aside.
The hour has struck with the commencement of this century to dethrone the
“highest God” of every nation in favour of One Universal Deity—the God of
Immutable Law, not charity; the God of Just Retribution, not mercy, which
is merely an incentive to evil‐doing and to a repetition of it. The
greatest crime that was ever perpetrated upon mankind was committed on
that day when the first priest invented the first prayer with a selfish
object in view. A God who may be propitiated by iniquitous prayers to
“bless the arms” of the worshipper, and send defeat and death to thousands
of his enemies—his brethren; a Deity that can be supposed not to turn a
deaf ear to chants of laudation mixed with entreaties for a “fair
propitious wind” for self, and as naturally disastrous to the selves of
other navigators who come from an opposite direction—it is this idea of
God that has fostered selfishness in man, and deprived him of his self‐
reliance. Prayer is an ennobling action when it is an intense feeling, an
ardent desire rushing forth from our very heart, for the good of other
people, and when entirely detached from any selfish personal object; the
craving for a beyond is natural and holy in man, but on the condition of
sharing that bliss with others. One can understand and well appreciate the
words of the “heathen” Socrates, who declared in his profound though
untaught wisdom, that:


    Our prayers should be for blessings on all, in general, for the
    Gods know best what is good for us.


But official prayer—in favour of a public calamity, or for the benefit of
one individual irrespective of losses to thousands—is the most ignoble of
crimes, besides being an impertinent conceit and a superstition. This is
the direct inheritance by spoliation from the Jehovites—the Jews of the
Wilderness and of the Golden Calf.

It is “Jehovah,” as will be presently shown, that suggested the necessity
of veiling and screening this substitute for the unpronounceable name, and
that led to all this “mystery, parables, dark sayings and cloaking.” Moses
had, at any rate, initiated his seventy Elders into the hidden truths, and
thus the writers of the _Old Testament_ stand to a degree justified. Those
of the _New Testament_ have failed to do even so much, or so little. They
have disfigured the grand central figure of Christ by their dogmas, and
have led people ever since into millions of errors and the darkest crimes,
in His holy name.

It is evident that with the exception of Paul and Clement of Alexandria,
who had been both initiated into the Mysteries, none of the Fathers knew
much of the truth themselves. They were mostly uneducated, ignorant
people; and if such as Augustine and Lactantius, or again the Venerable
Bede and others, were so painfully ignorant until the time of Galileo(93)
of the most vital truths taught in the Pagan temples—of the rotundity of
the earth, for example, leaving the heliocentric system out of
question—how great must have been the ignorance of the rest! Learning and
sin were synonymous with the early Christians. Hence the accusations of
dealing with the Devil lavished on the Pagan Philosophers.

But truth must out. The Occultists, referred to as “the followers of the
accursed Cain,” by such writers as De Mirville, are now in a position to
reverse the tables. That which was hitherto known only to the ancient and
modern Kabalists in Europe and Asia, is now published and shown as being
mathematically true. The author of the _Key to the Hebrew‐Egyptian Mystery
or the Source of Measures_ has now proved to general satisfaction, it is
to be hoped, that the two great God‐names, Jehovah and Elohim, stood, in
one meaning of their numerical values, for a diameter and a circumference
value, respectively; in other words, that they are numerical indices of
geometrical relations; and finally that _Jehovah is Cain_ and _vice
versâ_.

This view, says the author,


    Helps also to take the horrid blemish off from the name of Cain,
    as a put‐up job to destroy his character; for even without these
    showings, by the very text, _he_ [Cain] _was Jehovah_. So the
    theological schools had better be alive to making the amend
    honorable, if such a thing is possible, to the good name and fame
    of the God they worship.(94)


This is not the first warning received by the “theological schools,”
which, however, no doubt knew it from the beginning, as did Clemens of
Alexandria and others. But if it be so they will profit still less by it,
as the admission would involve more for them than the mere sacredness and
dignity of the established faith.

But, it may also be asked, why is it that the Asiatic religions, which
have nothing of this sort to conceal and which proclaim quite openly the
Esoterism of their doctrines, follow the same course? It is simply this:
While the present, and no doubt enforced silence of the Church on this
subject relates merely to the external or theoretical form of the
_Bible_—the unveiling of the secrets of which would have involved no
practical harm, had they been explained from the first—it is an entirely
different question with Eastern Esoterism and Symbology. The grand central
figure of the Gospels would have remained as unaffected by the symbolism
of the _Old Testament_ being revealed, as would that of the Founder of
Buddhism had the Brâhmanical writings of the _Purânas_, that preceded his
birth, all been shown to be allegorical. Jesus of Nazareth, moreover,
would have gained more than he would have lost had he been presented as a
simple mortal left to be judged on his own precepts and merits, instead of
being fathered on Christendom as a God whose many utterances and acts are
now so open to criticism. On the other hand the symbols and allegorical
sayings that veil the grand truths of Nature in the _Vedas_, the
_Brâhmanas_, the _Upanishads_ and especially in the Lamaist _Chagpa
Thogmed_ and other works, are quite of a different nature, and far more
complicated in their secret meaning. While the Biblical glyphs have nearly
all a triune foundation, those of the Eastern books are worked on the
septenary principle. They are as closely related to the mysteries of
Physics and Physiology, as to Psychism and the transcendental nature of
cosmic elements and Theogony; unriddled they would prove more than
injurious to the uninitiated; delivered into the hands of the present
generations in their actual state of physical and intellectual
development, in the absence of spirituality and even of practical
morality, they would become absolutely disastrous.

Nevertheless the secret teachings of the sanctuaries have not remained
without witness; they have been made immortal in various ways. They have
burst upon the world in hundreds of volumes full of the quaint, head‐
breaking phraseology of the Alchemist; they have flashed like
irrepressible cataracts of Occult mystic lore from the pens of poets and
bards. Genius alone had certain privileges in those dark ages when no
dreamer could offer the world even a fiction without suiting his heaven
and his earth to biblical text. To genius alone it was permitted, in those
centuries of mental blindness, when the fear of the “Holy Office” threw a
thick veil over every cosmic and psychic truth, to reveal unimpeded some
of the grandest truths of Initiation. Whence did Ariosto, in his _Orlando
Furioso_, obtain his conception of that valley in the Moon, where after
our death we can find the ideas and images of all that exists on earth?
How came Dante to imagine the many descriptions given in his _Inferno_—a
new Johannine Apocalypse, a true Occult Revelation in verse—his visit and
communion with the Souls of the Seven Spheres? In poetry and satire every
Occult truth has been welcomed—none has been recognised as serious. The
Comte de Gabalis is better known and appreciated than Porphyry and
Iamblichus. Plato’s mysterious Atlantis is proclaimed a fiction, while
Noah’s Deluge is to this day on the brain of certain Archæologists, who
scoff at the archetypal world of Marcel Palingenius’ _Zodiac_, and would
resent as a personal injury being asked to discuss the four worlds of
Mercury Trismegistus—the Archetypal, the Spiritual, the Astral and the
Elementary, with three others behind the opened scene. Evidently civilised
society is still but half prepared for the revelation. Hence, the
Initiates will never give out the whole secret, until the bulk of mankind
has changed its actual nature and is better prepared for truth. Clemens
Alexandrinus was positively right in saying, “It is requisite to hide in a
mystery the wisdom spoken”—which the “Sons of God” teach.

That Wisdom, as will be seen, relates to all the primeval truths delivered
to the first Races, the “Mind‐born,” by the “Builders” of the Universe
Themselves.


    There was in every ancient country having claims to civilisation,
    an Esoteric Doctrine, a system which was designated WISDOM,(95)
    and those who were devoted to its prosecution were first
    denominated sages, or wise men.... Pythagoras termed this system ἡ
    γνῶσις τῶν ὅντων, the Gnosis or Knowledge of things that are.
    Under the noble designation of WISDOM, the ancient teachers, the
    sages of India, the magians of Persia and Babylon, the seers and
    prophets of Israel, the hierophants of Egypt and Arabia, and the
    philosophers of Greece and the West, included all knowledge which
    they considered as essentially divine; classifying a part as
    esoteric and the remainder as exterior. The Rabbis called the
    exterior and secular series the _Mercavah_, as being the body or
    vehicle which contained the higher knowledge.(96)


Later on, we shall speak of the law of the silence imposed on Eastern
chelâs.



SECTION V. SOME REASONS FOR SECRESY.


The fact that the Occult Sciences have been withheld from the world at
large, and denied by the Initiates to Humanity, has often been made matter
of complaint. It has been alleged that the Guardians of the Secret Lore
were selfish in withholding the “treasures” of Archaic Wisdom; that it was
positively criminal to keep back such knowledge—“if any”—from the men of
Science, etc.

Yet there must have been some very good reasons for it, since from the
very dawn of History such has been the policy of every Hierophant and
“Master.” Pythagoras, the first Adept and real Scientist in pre‐Christian
Europe, is accused of having taught in public the immobility of the earth,
and the rotatory motion of the stars around it, while he was declaring to
his privileged Adepts his belief in the motion of the Earth as a planet,
and in the heliocentric system. The reasons for such secresy, however, are
many and were never made a mystery of. The chief cause was given in _Isis
Unveiled_. It may now be repeated.


    From the very day when the first mystic, taught by the first
    Instructor of the “divine Dynasties” of the early races, was
    taught the means of communication between this world and the
    worlds of the invisible host, between the sphere of matter and
    that of pure spirit, he concluded that to abandon this mysterious
    science to the desecration, willing or unwilling, of the profane
    rabble—was to lose it. An abuse of it might lead mankind to speedy
    destruction; it was like surrounding a group of children with
    explosive substances, and furnishing them with matches. The first
    divine Instructor initiated but a select few, and these kept
    silence with the multitudes. They recognised _their_ “God” and
    each Adept felt the great “SELF” within himself. The Âtman, the
    Self, the mighty Lord and Protector, once that man knew him as the
    “I am,” the “Ego Sum,” the “Asmi,” showed his full power to him
    who could recognise the “still small voice.” From the days of the
    primitive man described by the first Vedic poet, down to our
    modern age, there has not been a philosopher worthy of that name,
    who did not carry in the silent sanctuary of his heart the grand
    and mysterious truth. If initiated, he learnt it as a sacred
    science; if otherwise, then, like Socrates, repeating to himself
    as well as his fellow‐men, the noble injunction, “O man, know
    thyself,” he succeeded in recognising his God within himself. “Ye
    are Gods,” the king‐psalmist tells us, and we find Jesus reminding
    the scribes that this expression was addressed to other mortal
    men, claiming for themselves the same privilege without any
    blasphemy. And as a faithful echo, Paul, while asserting that we
    are all “the temple of the living God,” cautiously remarked
    elsewhere that after all these things are only for the “wise,” and
    it is “unlawful” to speak of them.(97)


Some of the reasons for this secresy may here be given.

The fundamental law and master‐key of practical Theurgy, in its chief
applications to the serious study of cosmic and sidereal, of psychic and
spiritual, mysteries was, and still is, that which was called by the Greek
Neoplatonists “Theophania.” In its generally‐accepted meaning this is
“communication between the Gods (or God) and those initiated mortals who
are spiritually fit to enjoy such an intercourse.” Esoterically, however,
it signifies more than this. For it is not only the presence of a God, but
an actual—howbeit temporary—incarnation, the blending, so to say, of the
personal Deity, the Higher Self, with man—its representative or agent on
earth. As a general law, the Highest God, the Over‐soul of the human being
(Âtma‐Buddhi), only overshadows the individual during his life, for
purposes of instruction and revelation; or as Roman Catholics—who
erroneously call that Over‐soul the “Guardian Angel”—would say, “It stands
outside and watches.” But in the case of the theophanic mystery, it
incarnates itself in the Theurgist for purposes of revelation. When the
incarnation is temporary, during those mysterious trances or “ecstasy,”
which Plotinus defined as


    The liberation of the mind from its finite consciousness, becoming
    one and identified with the Infinite,


this sublime condition is very short. The human soul, being the offspring
or emanation of its God, the “Father and the Son” become one, “the divine
fountain flowing like a stream into its human bed.”(98) In exceptional
cases, however, the mystery becomes complete; the Word is made Flesh in
real fact, the individual becoming divine in the full sense of the term,
since his personal God has made of him his permanent life‐long
tabernacle—“the temple of God,” as Paul says.

Now that which is meant here by the _personal_ God of Man is, of course,
not his seventh Principle alone, as _per se_ and in essence that is merely
a beam of the infinite Ocean of Light. In conjunction with our Divine
Soul, the Buddhi, it cannot be called a Duad, as it otherwise might,
since, though formed from Âtmâ and Buddhi (the two higher Principles), the
former is no entity but an emanation from the Absolute, and indivisible in
reality from it. The personal God is not the Monad, but indeed the
prototype of the latter, what for want of a better term we call the
_manifested_ Kâranâtmâ(99) (Causal Soul), one of the “seven” and chief
reservoirs of the human Monads or Egos. The latter are gradually formed
and strengthened during their incarnation‐cycle by constant additions of
individuality from the personalities in which incarnates that androgynous,
half‐spiritual, half‐terrestrial principle, partaking of both heaven and
earth, called by the Vedântins Jîva and Vijñânamaya Kosha, and by the
Occultists the Manas (mind); that, in short, which uniting itself
partially with the Monad, incarnates in each new birth. In perfect unity
with its (seventh) Principle, the Spirit unalloyed, it is the divine
Higher Self, as every student of Theosophy knows. After every new
incarnation Buddhi‐Manas culls, so to say, the aroma of the flower called
personality, the purely earthly residue of which—its dregs—is left to fade
out as a shadow. This is the most difficult—because so transcendentally
metaphysical—portion of the doctrine.

As is repeated many a time in this and other works, it is not the
Philosophers, Sages, and Adepts of antiquity who can ever be charged with
idolatry. It is they in fact, who, recognising divine unity, were the only
ones, owing to their initiation into the mysteries of Esotericism, to
understand correctly the ὑπόνοια (hyponéa), or under‐meaning of the
anthropomorphism of the so‐called Angels, Gods, and spiritual Beings of
every kind. Each, worshipping the one Divine Essence that pervades the
whole world of Nature, reverenced, but never worshipped or idolised, any
of these “Gods,” whether high or low—not even his own personal Deity, of
which he was a Ray, and to whom he appealed.(100)


    The holy Triad emanates from the One, and is the Tetraktys; the
    gods, daimons, and souls are an emanation of the Triad. Heroes and
    men repeat the hierarchy in themselves.


Thus said Metrodorus of Chios, the Pythagorean, the latter part of the
sentence meaning that man has within himself the seven pale reflections of
the seven divine Hierarchies; his Higher Self is, therefore, in itself but
the refracted beam of the direct Ray. He who regards the latter as an
Entity, in the usual sense of the term, is one of the “infidels and
atheists,” spoken of by Epicurus, for he fastens on that God “the opinions
of the multitude”—an anthropomorphism of the grossest kind.(101) The Adept
and the Occultist know that “what are styled the Gods are only the first
principles” (Aristotle). None the less they are intelligent, conscious,
and _living_ “Principles,” the Primary Seven Lights _manifested_ from
Light _unmanifested_—which to us is Darkness. They are the
Seven—exoterically four—Kumâras or “Mind‐Born Sons” of Brahmâ. And it is
they again, the Dhyân Chohans, who are the prototypes in the æonic
eternity of lower Gods and hierarchies of divine Beings, at the lowest end
of which ladder of being are we—men.

Thus perchance Polytheism, when philosophically understood, may be a
degree higher than even the Monotheism of the Protestant, say, who limits
and conditions the Deity in whom he persists in seeing the Infinite, but
whose supposed actions make of that “Absolute and Infinite” the most
absurd paradox in Philosophy. From this standpoint Roman Catholicism
itself is immeasurably higher and more logical than Protestantism, though
the Roman Church has been pleased to adopt the exotericism of the heathen
“multitude” and to reject the Philosophy of pure Esotericism.

Thus every mortal has his immortal counterpart, or rather his Archetype,
in heaven. This means that the former is indissolubly united to the
latter, in each of his incarnations, and for the duration of the cycle of
births; only it is by the spiritual and intellectual Principle in him,
entirely distinct from the lower _self_, never through the earthly
personality. Some of these are even liable to break the union altogether,
in case of absence in the moral individual of binding, _viz._, of
spiritual ties. Truly, as Paracelsus puts it in his quaint, tortured
phraseology, man with his three (compound) Spirits is suspended like a
fœtus by all three to the matrix of the Macrocosm; the thread which holds
him united being the “Thread‐Soul,” Sûtrâtmâ, and Taijasa (the “Shining”)
of the Vedântins. And it is through this spiritual and intellectual
Principle in man, through Taijasa—the Shining, “because it has the
luminous internal organ as its associate”—that man is thus united to his
heavenly prototype, never through his lower inner self or Astral Body, for
which there remains in most cases nothing but to fade out.

Occultism, or Theurgy, teaches the means of producing such union. But it
is the actions of man—his personal merit alone—that can produce it on
earth, or determine its duration. This lasts from a few seconds—a flash—to
several hours, during which time the Theurgist or Theophanist is that
overshadowing “God” himself; hence he becomes endowed for the time being
with relative omniscience and omnipotence. With such perfect (divine)
Adepts as Buddha(102) and others such a hypostatical state of avatâric
condition may last during the whole life; whereas in the case of full
Initiates, who have not yet reached the perfect state of Jîvanmukta,(103)
Theopneusty, when in full sway, results for the high Adept in a full
recollection of everything seen, heard, or sensed.


    Taijasa has fruition of the supersensible.(104)


For one less perfect it will end only in a partial, indistinct
remembrance; while the beginner has to face in the first period of his
psychic experiences a mere confusion, followed by a rapid and finally
complete oblivion of the mysteries seen during this super‐hypnotic
condition. The degree of recollection, when one returns to his waking
state and physical senses, depends on his spiritual and psychic
purification, the greatest enemy of spiritual memory being man’s physical
brain, the organ of his sensuous nature.

The above states are described for a clearer comprehension of terms used
in this work. There are so many and such various conditions and states
that even a Seer is liable to confound one with the other. To repeat: the
Greek, rarely‐used word, “Theophania,” meant more with the Neoplatonists
than it does with the modern maker of dictionaries. The compound word,
“Theophania” (from “theos,” “God,” and “phainomai,” “to appear”), does not
simply mean “a manifestation of God to man by _actual_ appearance”—an
absurdity, by the way—but the actual presence of a God in man, a _divine_
incarnation. When Simon the Magician claimed to be “God the Father,” what
he wanted to convey was just that which has been explained, namely, that
he was a _divine_ incarnation of his own Father, whether we see in the
latter an Angel, a God, or a Spirit; therefore he was called “that power
of God which is called great,”(105) or that power which causes the Divine
Self to enshrine itself in its lower self—man.

This is one of the several mysteries of being and incarnation. Another is
that when an Adept reaches during his lifetime that state of holiness and
purity that makes him “equal to the Angels,” then at death his
apparitional or astral body becomes as solid and tangible as was the late
body, and is transformed into the real man.(106) The old physical body,
falling off like the cast‐off serpent’s skin, the body of the “new” man
remains either visible or, at the option of the Adept, disappears from
view, surrounded as it is by the Âkâshic shell that screens it. In the
latter case there are three ways open to the Adept:

(1.) He may remain in the earth’s sphere (Vâyu or Kâma‐loka), in that
ethereal locality concealed from human sight save during flashes of
clairvoyance. In this case his astral body, owing to its great purity and
spirituality, having lost the conditions required for Âkâshic light (the
nether or terrestrial ether) to absorb its semi‐material particles, the
Adept will have to remain in the company of disintegrating shells—doing no
good or useful work. This, of course, cannot be.

(2.) He can by a supreme effort of will merge entirely into, and get
united with, his Monad. By doing so, however, he would (_a_) deprive his
Higher Self of posthumous Samâdhi—a bliss which is not real Nirvâna—the
astral, however pure, being too earthly for such state; and (_b_) he would
thereby open himself to Karmic law; the action being, in fact, the outcome
of personal selfishness—of reaping the fruits produced by and for
oneself—alone.

(3.) The Adept has the option of renouncing conscious Nirvâna and rest, to
work on earth for the good of mankind. This he can do in a two‐fold way:
either, as above said, by consolidating his astral body into physical
appearance, he can reassume the self‐same personality; or he can avail
himself of an entirely new physical body, whether that of a newly‐born
infant or—as Shankarâchârya is reported to have done with the body of a
dead Râjah—by “entering a deserted sheath,” and living in it as long as he
chooses. This is what is called “continuous existence.” The Section
entitled “The Mystery about Buddha” will throw additional light on this
theory, to the profane incomprehensible, or to the generality simply
_absurd_. Such is the doctrine taught, everyone having the choice of
either fathoming it still deeper, or of leaving it unnoticed.

The above is simply a small portion of what might have been given in _Isis
Unveiled_, had the time come then, as it has now. One cannot study and
profit by Occult Science, unless one gives himself up to it—heart, soul,
and body. Some of its truths are too awful, too dangerous, for the average
mind. None can toy and play with such terrible weapons with impunity.
Therefore it is, as St. Paul has it, “unlawful” to speak of them. Let us
accept the reminder and talk only of that which is “lawful.”

The quotation on p. 56 relates, moreover, only to psychic or spiritual
Magic. The practical teachings of Occult Science are entirely different,
and few are the strong minds fitted for them. As to ecstasy, and such like
kinds of self‐illumination, this may be obtained by oneself and without
any teacher or initiation, for ecstacy is reached by an inward command and
control of Self over the physical Ego; as to obtaining mastery over the
forces of Nature, this requires a long training, or the capacity of one
born a “natural Magician.” Meanwhile, those who possess neither of the
requisite qualifications are strongly advised to limit themselves to
purely spiritual development. But even this is difficult, as the first
necessary qualification is an unshakable belief in one’s own powers and
the Deity within oneself; otherwise a man would simply develop into an
irresponsible medium. Throughout the whole mystic literature of the
ancient world we detect the same idea of spiritual Esoterism, that the
personal God exists within, nowhere outside, the worshipper. That personal
Deity is no vain breath, or a fiction, but an immortal Entity, the
Initiator of the Initiates, now that the heavenly or Celestial Initiators
of primitive humanity—the Shishta of the preceding cycles—are no more
among us. Like an under‐current, rapid and clear, it runs without mixing
its crystalline purity with the muddy and troubled waters of dogmatism, an
enforced anthropomorphic Deity and religious intolerance. We find this
idea in the tortured and barbarous phraseology of the _Codex Nazaræus_,
and in the superb Neoplatonic language of the Fourth Gospel of the later
Religion, in the oldest _Veda_ and in the _Avesta_, in the _Abhidharma_,
in Kapila’s _Sânkhya_, and the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_. We cannot attain Adeptship
and Nirvâna, Bliss and the “Kingdom of Heaven,” unless we link ourselves
indissolubly with our Rex Lux, the Lord of Splendour and of Light, our
immortal God within us. “Aham eva param Brahman”—“I am verily the Supreme
Brahman”—has ever been the one living truth in the heart and mind of the
Adepts, and it is this which helps the Mystic to become one. One must
first of all recognise one’s own immortal Principle, and then only can one
conquer, or take the Kingdom of Heaven by violence. Only this has to be
achieved by the higher—not the middle, nor the third—man, the last one
being of dust. Nor can the second man, the “Son”—on this plane, as his
“Father” is the Son on a still higher plane—do anything without the
assistance of the first, the “Father.” But to succeed one has to identify
oneself with one’s divine Parent.


    The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second [inner, our
    higher] man is the Lord from heaven.... Behold, I show you a
    mystery.(107)


Thus says Paul, mentioning but the dual and trinitarian man for the better
comprehension of the non‐initiated. But this is not all, for the Delphic
injunction has to be fulfilled: man must know himself in order to become a
perfect Adept. How few can acquire the knowledge, however, not merely in
its inner mystical, but even in its literal sense, for there are two
meanings in this command of the Oracle. This is the doctrine of Buddha and
the Bodhisattvas pure and simple.

Such is also the mystical sense of what was said by Paul to the
Corinthians about their being the “temple of God,” for this meant
Esoterically:


    Ye are the temple of [the, or your] God, and the Spirit of [a, or
    your] God dwelleth in you.(108)


This carries precisely the same meaning as the “I am verily Brahman” of
the Vedântin. Nor is the latter assertion more blasphemous than the
Pauline—if there were any blasphemy in either, which is denied. Only the
Vedântin, who never refers to his body as being himself, or even a part of
himself, or aught else but an illusory form for others to see him in,
constructs his assertion more openly and sincerely than was done by Paul.

The Delphic command “Know thyself” was perfectly comprehensible to every
nation of old. So it is now, save to the Christians, since, with the
exception of the Mussulmans, it is part and parcel of every Eastern
religion, including the Kabalistically instructed Jews. To understand its
full meaning, however, necessitates, first of all, belief in Reincarnation
and all its mysteries; not as laid down in the doctrine of the French
Reincarnationists of the Allan Kardec school, but as they are expounded
and taught by Esoteric Philosophy. Man must, in short, know who he was,
before he arrives at knowing what he is. And how many are there among
Europeans who are capable of developing within themselves an absolute
belief in their past and future reincarnations, in general, even as a law,
let alone mystic knowledge of one’s immediately precedent life? Early
education, tradition and training of thought, everything is opposing
itself during their whole lives to such a belief. Cultured people have
been brought up in that most pernicious idea that the wide difference
found between the units of one and the same mankind, or even race, is the
result of chance; that the gulf between man and man in their respective
social positions, birth, intellect, physical and mental capacities—every
one of which qualifications has a direct influence on every human
life—that all this is simply due to blind hazard, only the most pious
among them finding equivocal consolation in the idea that it is “the will
of God.” They have never analysed, never stopped to think of the depth of
the opprobrium that is thrown upon their God, once the grand and most
equitable law of the manifold re‐births of man upon this earth is
foolishly rejected. Men and women anxious to be regarded as Christians,
often truly and sincerely trying to lead a Christ‐like life, have never
paused to reflect over the words of their own _Bible_. “Art thou Elias?”
the Jewish priests and Levites asked the Baptist.(109) Their Saviour
taught His disciples this grand truth of the Esoteric Philosophy, but
verily, if His Apostles comprehended it, no one else seems to have
realised its true meaning. No; not even Nicodemus, who, to the assertion:
“Except a man be born again(110) he cannot see the Kingdom of God,”
answers: “How can a man be born when he is old?” and is forthwith reproved
by the remark: “Art thou a master in Israel and knowest not these
things?”—as no one had a right to call himself a “Master” and Teacher,
without having been initiated into the mysteries (_a_) of a spiritual re‐
birth through water, fire and spirit, and (_b_) of the re‐birth from
flesh.(111) Then again what can be a clearer expression as to the doctrine
of manifold re‐births than the answer given by Jesus to the Sadducees,
“who deny that there is any resurrection,” _i.e._, any re‐birth, since the
dogma of the resurrection in the flesh is now regarded as an absurdity
even by the intelligent clergy:


    They who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world
    [Nirvâna](112) ... neither marry ... neither can they die any
    more,


which shows that they had already died, and more than once. And again:


    Now that the dead are raised even Moses shewed ... he calleth the
    Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of
    Jacob, for he is not a God of the dead but of the living.(113)


The sentence “now that the dead _are raised_” evidently applied to the
then actual re‐births of the Jacobs and the Isaacs, and not to their
future resurrection; for in such case they would have been still dead in
the interim, and could not be referred to as “the living.”

But the most suggestive of Christ’s parables and “dark sayings” is found
in the explanation given by him to his Apostles about the blind man:


    Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born
    blind? Jesus answered, Neither hath this [blind, physical] man
    sinned nor his parents; but that the works of [his] God should be
    made manifest in him.(114)


Man is the “tabernacle,” the “building” only, of his God; and of course it
is not the temple but its inmate—the vehicle of “God”(115)—that had sinned
in a previous incarnation, and had thus brought the Karma of cecity upon
the new building. Thus Jesus spoke truly; but to this day his followers
have refused to understand the words of wisdom spoken. The Saviour is
shown by his followers as though he were paving, by his words and
explanation, the way to a preconceived programme that had to lead to an
intended miracle. Verily the Grand Martyr has remained thenceforward, and
for eighteen centuries, the Victim crucified daily far more cruelly by his
clerical disciples and lay followers than he ever could have been by his
allegorical enemies. For such is the true sense of the words “that the
works of God should be made manifest in him,” in the light of theological
interpretation, and a very undignified one it is, if the Esoteric
explanation is rejected.

Doubtless the above will be regarded as fresh blasphemy. Nevertheless
there are a number of Christians whom we know—whose hearts go out as
strongly to their ideal of Jesus, as their souls are repelled from the
theological picture of the official Saviour—who will reflect over our
explanation and find in it no offence, but perchance a relief.



SECTION VI. THE DANGERS OF PRACTICAL MAGIC.


Magic is a dual power: nothing is easier than to turn it into Sorcery; _an
evil thought suffices for it_. Therefore while theoretical Occultism is
harmless, and may do good, practical Magic, or the fruits of the Tree of
Life and Knowledge,(116) or otherwise the “Science of Good and Evil,” is
fraught with dangers and perils. For the study of theoretical Occultism
there are, no doubt, a number of works that may be read with profit,
besides such books as the _Finer Forces of Nature_, etc., the _Zohar_,
_Sepher Jetzirah_, _The Book of Enoch_, Franck’s _Kabalah_, and many
Hermetic treatises. These are scarce in European languages, but works in
Latin by the mediæval Philosophers, generally known as Alchemists and
Rosicrucians, are plentiful. But even the perusal of these may prove
dangerous for the unguided student. If approached without the right key to
them, and if the student is unfit, owing to mental incapacity, for Magic,
and is thus unable to discern the Right from the Left Path, let him take
our advice and leave this study alone; he will only bring on himself and
on his family unexpected woes and sorrows, never suspecting whence they
come, nor what are the powers awakened by his mind being bent on them.
Works for advanced students are many, but these can be placed at the
disposal of only sworn or “pledged” chelâs (disciples), those who have
pronounced the ever‐binding oath, and who are, therefore, helped and
protected. For all other purposes, well‐intentioned as such works may be,
they can only mislead the unwary and guide him imperceptibly to Black
Magic or Sorcery—if to nothing worse.

The mystic characters, alphabets and numerals found in the divisions and
sub‐divisions of the _Great Kabalah_, are, perhaps, the most dangerous
portions in it, and especially the numerals. We say dangerous, because
they are the most prompt to produce effects and results, and this with or
without the experimenter’s will, even without his knowledge. Some students
are apt to doubt this statement, simply because after manipulating these
numerals they have failed to notice any dire physical manifestation or
result. Such results would be found the least dangerous: it is the moral
causes produced and the various events developed and brought to an
unforeseen crisis, that would testify to the truth of what is now stated
had the lay students only the power of discernment.

The point of departure of that special branch of the Occult teaching known
as the “Science of Correspondences,” numerical or literal or alphabetical,
has for its epigraph with the Jewish and Christian Kabalists, the two mis‐
interpreted verses which say that God


    ordered all things in number, measure and weight;(117)


and:


    He created her in the Holy Ghost, and saw her, and numbered her,
    and measured her.(118)


But the Eastern Occultists have another epigraph: “_Absolute Unity, x_,
within number and plurality.” Both the Western and the Eastern students of
the Hidden Wisdom hold to this axiomatic truth. Only the latter are
perhaps more sincere in their confessions. Instead of putting a mask on
their Science, they show her face openly, even if they do veil carefully
her heart and soul before the inappreciative public and the profane, who
are ever ready to abuse the most sacred truths for their own selfish ends.
But Unity is the real basis of the Occult Sciences—physical and
metaphysical. This is shown even by Éliphas Lévi, the learned Western
Kabalist, inclined as he is to be rather jesuitical. He says:


    Absolute Unity is the supreme and final reason of things.
    Therefore, that reason can be neither one person, nor three
    persons; it is Reason, and pre‐eminently Reason (_raison par
    excellence_).(119)


The meaning of this Unity in Plurality in “God” or Nature, can be solved
only by the means of transcendental methods, by numerals, as by the
correspondences between soul and the Soul. Names, in the _Kabalah_ as in
the _Bible_, such as Jehovah, Adam Kadmon, Eve, Cain, Abel, Enoch, are all
of them more intimately connected, by geometrical and astronomical
relations, with Physiology (or Phallicism) than with Theology or Religion.
Little as people are as yet prepared to admit it, this will be shown to be
a fact. If all those names are symbols for things hidden, as well as for
those manifested, in the _Bible_ as in the _Vedas_, their respective
mysteries differ greatly. Plato’s motto “God geometrises” was accepted by
both Âryans and Jews; but while the former applied their Science of
Correspondences to veil the most spiritual and sublime truths of Nature,
the latter used their acumen to conceal only one—to them the most
divine—of the mysteries of Evolution, namely, that of birth and
generation, and then they deified the organs of the latter.

Apart from this, every cosmogony, from the earliest to the latest, is
based upon, interlinked with, and most closely related to, numerals and
geometric figures. Questioned by an Initiate, these figures and numbers
will yield numerical values based on the integral values of the
Circle—“the secret habitat of the ever‐invisible Deity” as the Alchemists
have it—as they will yield every other Occult particular connected with
such mysteries, whether anthropographical, anthropological, cosmic, or
psychical. “In reuniting Ideas to Numbers, we can operate upon Ideas in
the same way as upon Numbers, and arrive at the Mathematics of Truth,”
writes an Occultist, who shows his great wisdom in desiring to remain
unknown.


    Any Kabalist well acquainted with the Pythagorean system of
    numerals and geometry can demonstrate that the metaphysical views
    of Plato were based upon the strictest mathematical principles.
    “True mathematics,” says the _Magicon_, “is something with which
    all higher sciences are connected; common mathematics is but a
    deceitful phantasmagoria, whose much praised infallibility only
    arises from this—that materials, conditions and references are
    made to foundation.” ...

    The cosmological theory of numerals which Pythagoras learned in
    India, and from the Egyptian Hierophants, is alone able to
    reconcile the two units, matter and spirit, and cause each to
    demonstrate the other mathematically. The sacred numbers of the
    universe in their esoteric combination can alone solve the great
    problem, and explain the theory of radiation and the cycle of the
    emanations. The lower orders, before they develop into higher
    ones, must emanate from the higher spiritual ones, and when
    arrived at the turning‐point, be reäbsorbed into the
    infinite.(120)


It is upon these true Mathematics that the knowledge of the Kosmos and of
all mysteries rests, and to one acquainted with them, it is the easiest
thing possible to prove that both Vaidic and Biblical structures are based
upon “God‐in‐Nature” and “Nature‐in‐God,” as the radical law. Therefore,
this law—as everything else immutable and fixed in eternity—could find a
correct expression only in those purest transcendental Mathematics
referred to by Plato, especially in Geometry as transcendentally applied.
_Revealed_ to men—we fear not and will not retract the expression—in this
geometrical and symbolical garb, Truth has grown and developed into
additional symbology, invented by man for the wants and better
comprehension of the masses of mankind that came too late in their cyclic
development and evolution to have shared in the primitive knowledge, and
would never have grasped it otherwise. If later on, the clergy—crafty and
ambitious of power in every age—anthropomorphised and degraded abstract
ideals, as well as the real and divine Beings who do exist in Nature, and
are the Guardians and Protectors of our manvantaric world and period, the
fault and guilt rests with those would‐be leaders, not with the masses.

But the day has come when the gross conceptions of our forefathers during
the Middle Ages can no longer satisfy the thoughtful religionist. The
mediæval Alchemist and Mystic are now transformed into the sceptical
Chemist and Physicist; and most of them are found to have turned away from
truth, on account of the purely anthropomorphic ideas, the gross
Materialism, of the forms in which it is presented to them. Therefore,
future generations have either to be gradually initiated into the truths
underlying Exoteric Religions, including their own, or be left to break
the feet of clay of the last of the gilded idols. No educated man or woman
would turn away from any of the now called “superstitions” which they
believe to be based on nursery tales and ignorance, if they could only see
the basis of fact that underlies every “superstition.” But let them once
learn for a certainty that there is hardly a claim in the Occult Sciences
that is not founded on philosophical and scientific facts in Nature, and
they will pursue the study of those Sciences with the same, if not with
greater, ardour than that they have expended in shunning them. This cannot
be achieved at once, for to benefit mankind such truths have to be
revealed gradually and with great caution, the public mind not being
prepared for them. However much the Agnostics of our age may find
themselves in the mental attitude demanded by Modern Science, people are
always apt to cling to their old hobbies so long as the remembrance of
them lasts. They are like the Emperor Julian—called the Apostate, because
he loved truth too well to accept aught else—who, though in his last
Theophany he beheld his beloved Gods as pale, worn‐out, and hardly
discernible shadows, nevertheless clung to them. Let, then, the world
cling to its Gods, to whatever plane or realm they may belong. The true
Occultist would be guilty of high treason to mankind, were he to break for
ever the old deities before he could replace them with the whole and
unadulterated truth—and this he cannot do as yet. Nevertheless, the reader
may be allowed to learn at least the alphabet of that truth. He may be
shown, at any rate, what the Gods and Goddesses of the Pagans, denounced
as demons by the Church, are not, if he cannot learn the whole and final
truth as to what they are. Let him assure himself that the Hermetic “Tres
Matres,” and the “Three Mothers” of the _Sepher Jetzirah_ are one and the
same thing; that they are no Demon‐Goddesses, but Light, Heat, and
Electricity, and then, perchance, the learned classes will spurn them no
longer. After this, the Rosicrucian Illuminati may find followers even in
the Royal Academies, which will be more prepared, perhaps, than they are
now, to admit the grand truths of archaic Natural Philosophy, especially
when their learned members shall have assured themselves that, in the
dialect of Hermes, the “Three Mothers” stand as symbols for the whole of
the forces or agencies which have a place assigned to them in the modern
system of the “correlation of forces.”(121) Even the polytheism of the
“superstitious” Brâhman and idolater shows its _raison d’être_, since the
three Shaktis of the three great Gods, Brahmâ, Vishnu, and Shiva, are
identical with the “Three Mothers” of the monotheistic Jew.

The whole of the ancient religious and mystical literature is symbolical.
The _Books of Hermes_, the _Zohar_, the _Ya‐Yakav_, the Egyptian _Book __
of the Dead_, the _Vedas_, the _Upanishads_, and the _Bible_, are as full
of symbolism as are the Nabathean revelations of the Chaldaic Qû‐tâmy; it
is a loss of time to ask which is the earliest; all are simply different
versions of the one primeval Record of prehistoric knowledge and
revelation.

The first four chapters of _Genesis_ contain the synopsis of all the rest
of the _Pentateuch_, being only the various versions of the same thing in
different allegorical and symbolical applications. Having discovered that
the Pyramid of Cheops with all its measurements is to be found contained
in its minutest details in the structure of Solomon’s Temple; and having
ascertained that the biblical names Shem, Ham and Japhet are determinative


    of pyramid measures, in connection with the 600‐year period of
    Noah and the 500‐year period of Shem, Ham and Japhet; ... the term
    “Sons of Elohim” and “Daughters” of H‐Adam, [are] for one thing
    astronomical terms,(122)


the author of the very curious work already mentioned—a book very little
known in Europe, we regret to say—seems to see nothing in his discovery
beyond the presence of Mathematics and Metrology in the _Bible_. He also
arrives at most unexpected and extraordinary conclusions, such as are very
little warranted by the facts discovered. His impression seems to be that
because the Jewish biblical names are all astronomical, therefore the
Scriptures of all the other nations can be “only this and nothing more.”
But this is a great mistake of the erudite and wonderfully acute author of
_The Source of Measures_, if he really thinks so. The “Key to the Hebrew‐
Egyptian Mystery” unlocks but a certain portion of the hieratic writings
of these two nations, and leaves those of other peoples untouched. His
idea is that the _Kabalah_ “is only that sublime Science upon which
Masonry is based”; in fact he regards Masonry as the substance of the
_Kabalah_, and the latter as the “rational basis of the Hebrew text of
Holy Writ.” About this we will not argue with the author. But why should
all those who may have found in the _Kabalah_ something beyond “the
sublime Science” upon which Masonry is alleged to have been built, be held
up to public contempt?

In its exclusiveness and one‐sidedness such a conclusion is pregnant with
future misconceptions and is absolutely wrong. In its uncharitable
criticism it throws a slur upon the “Divine Science” itself.

The _Kabalah_ is indeed “of the essence of Masonry,” but it is dependent
on Metrology only in one of its aspects, the less Esoteric, as even Plato
made no secret that the Deity was ever geometrising. For the uninitiated,
however learned and endowed with genius they may be, the _Kabalah_, which
treats only of “the garment of God,” or the _veil_ and _cloak_ of truth,


    is built from the ground upward with a practical application to
    present uses.(123)


Or in other words represents an exact Science only on the terrestrial
plane. To the initiated, the Kabalistic Lord descends from the primeval
Race, generated spiritually from the “Mind‐born Seven.” Having reached the
Earth the Divine Mathematics—a synonym for Magic in his day, as we are
told by Josephus—veiled her face. Hence the most important secret yet
yielded by her in our modern day is the identity of the old Roman measures
and the present British measures, of the Hebrew‐Egyptian cubit and the
Masonic inch.(124)

The discovery is most wonderful, and has led to further and minor
unveilings of various riddles in reference to Symbology and biblical
names. It is thoroughly understood and proven, as shown by Nachanides,
that in the days of Moses the initial sentence in _Genesis_ was made to
read _B’rash ithbara Elohim_, or “In the head‐source [or Mûlaprakiti—the
Rootless Root] developed [or evolved] the Gods [Elohim], the heavens and
the earth;” whereas it is now, owing to the Massora and theological
cunning, transformed into _B’rashith bara Elohim_, or, “In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth”—which word juggling alone has led
to materialistic anthropomorphism and dualism. How many more similar
instances may not be found in the _Bible_, the last and latest of the
Occult works of antiquity? There is no longer any doubt in the mind of the
Occultist, that, notwithstanding its form and outward meaning, the
_Bible_—as explained by the _Zohar_ or _Midrash_, the _Yetzirah_ (Book of
Creation) and the _Commentary on the Ten Sephiroth_ (by Azariel Ben
Manachem of the XIIth century)—is part and parcel of the Secret Doctrine
of the Âryans, which explains in the same manner the _Vedas_ and all other
allegorical books. The _Zohar_, in teaching that the Impersonal One Cause
manifests in the Universe through Its Emanations, the Sephiroth—that
Universe being in its totality simply the veil woven from the Deity’s own
substance—is undeniably the copy and faithful echo of the earliest
_Vedas_. Taken by itself, without the additional help of the Vaidic and of
Brâhmanical literature in general, the _Bible_ will never yield the
universal secrets of Occult Nature. The cubits, inches, and measures of
this physical plane will never solve the problems of the world on the
spiritual plane—for Spirit can neither be weighed nor measured. The
working out of these problems is reserved for the “mystics and the
dreamers” who alone are capable of accomplishing it.

Moses was an initiated priest, versed in all the mysteries and the Occult
knowledge of the Egyptian temples—hence thoroughly acquainted with
primitive Wisdom. It is in the latter that the symbolical and astronomical
meaning of that “Mystery of Mysteries,” the Great Pyramid, has to be
sought. And having been so familiar with the geometrical secrets that lay
concealed for long æons in her strong bosom—the measurements and
proportions of the Kosmos, our little Earth included—what wonder that he
should have made use of his knowledge? The Esoterism of Egypt was that of
the whole world at one time. During the long ages of the Third Race it had
been the heirloom, in common, of the whole of mankind, received from their
Instructors, the “Sons of Light,” the primeval Seven. There was a time
also when the Wisdom‐Religion was not symbolical, for it became Esoteric
only gradually, the change being necessitated by misuse and by the Sorcery
of the Atlanteans. For it was the “misuse” only, and not the use, of the
divine gift that led the men of the Fourth Race to Black Magic and
Sorcery, and finally to become “forgetful of Wisdom”; while those of the
Fifth Race, the inheritors of the Rishis of the Tretâ Yuga, used their
powers to atrophise such gifts in mankind in general, and then, as the
“Elect Root,” dispersed. Those who escaped the “Great Flood” preserved
only its memory, and a belief founded on the knowledge of their direct
fathers of one remove, that such a Science existed, and was now jealously
guarded by the “Elect Root” exalted by Enoch. But there must again come a
time when man shall once more become what he was during the second Yuga
(age), when his probationary cycle shall be over and he shall gradually
become what he was—semi‐corporeal and pure. Does not Plato, the Initiate,
tell us in the _Phædrus_ all that man once was, and that which he may yet
again become:


    Before man’s spirit sank into sensuality and became embodied
    through the loss of his wings, he lived among the Gods in the airy
    spiritual world where everything is true and pure.(125)


Elsewhere he speaks of the time when men did not perpetuate themselves,
but lived as pure spirits.

Let those men of Science who feel inclined to laugh at this, themselves
unravel the mystery of the origin of the first man.

Unwilling that his chosen people—chosen by him—should remain as grossly
idolatrous as the profane masses that surrounded them, Moses utilised his
knowledge of the cosmogonical mysteries of the Pyramid, to build upon it
the Genesiacal Cosmogony in symbols and glyphs. This was more accessible
to the minds of the _hoi polloi_ than the abstruse truths taught to the
educated in the sanctuaries. He invented nothing but the outward garb,
added not one iota; but in this he merely followed the example of older
nations and Initiates. If he clothed the grand truths revealed to him by
his Hierophant under the most ingenious imagery, he did it to meet the
requirements of the Israelites; that stiff‐necked race would accept of no
God unless He were as anthropomorphic as those of the Olympus; and he
himself failed to foresee the times when highly educated statesmen would
be defending the husks of the fruit of wisdom that grew and developed in
him on Mount Sinai, when communing with his own personal God—his divine
Self. Moses understood the great danger of delivering such truths to the
selfish, for he understood the fable of Prometheus and remembered the
past. Hence, he veiled them from the profanation of public gaze and gave
them out allegorically. And this is why his biographer says of him, that
when he descended from Sinai,


    Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone ... and he put a
    veil upon his face.(126)


And so he “put a veil” upon the face of his _Pentateuch_; and to such an
extent that, using orthodox chronology, only 3376 years after the event
people begin to acquire a conviction that it is “a veil indeed.” It is not
the face of God or even of a Jehovah shining through; not even the face of
Moses, but verily the faces of the later Rabbis.

No wonder if Clemens wrote in the _Stromateis_ that:


    Similar, then, to the Hebrew enigmas in respect to concealment are
    those of the Egyptians also.(127)



SECTION VII. OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES.


It is more than likely, that the Protestants in the days of the
Reformation knew nothing of the true origin of Christianity, or, to be
more explicit and correct, of Latin Ecclesiasticism. Nor is it probable
that the Greek Church knew much of it, the separation between the two
having occurred at a time when, in the struggle for political power the
Latin Church was securing, at any cost, the alliance of the highly
educated, the ambitious and influential Pagans, while these were willing
to assume the outward appearance of the new worship, provided they were
themselves kept in power. There is no need to remind the reader here of
the details of that struggle, well‐known to every educated man. It is
certain that the highly cultured Gnostics and their leaders—such men as
Saturnilus, an uncompromising ascetic, as Marcion, Valentinus, Basilides,
Menander and Cerinthus—were not stigmatised by the (now) Latin Church
because they were heretics, nor because their tenets and practices were
indeed “_ob turpitudinem portentosam nimium et horribilem_,” “monstrous,
revolting abominations,” as Baronius says of those of Carpocrates; but
simply because they knew too much of fact and truth. Kenneth R. H.
Mackenzie correctly remarks:


    They were stigmatised by the later Roman Church because they came
    into conflict with the purer Church of Christianity—the possession
    of which was usurped by the Bishops of Rome, but which original
    continues in its docility towards the founder, in the Primitive
    Orthodox Greek Church.(128)


Unwilling to accept the responsibility of gratuitous assumptions, the
writer deems it best to prove this inference by more than one personal and
defiant admission of an ardent Roman Catholic writer, evidently entrusted
with the delicate task by the Vatican. The Marquis de Mirville makes
desperate efforts to explain in the Catholic interest certain remarkable
discoveries in Archæology and Palæography, though the Church is cleverly
made to remain outside of the quarrel and defence. This is undeniably
shown by his ponderous volumes addressed to the Academy of France between
1803 and 1865. Seizing the pretext of drawing the attention of the
materialistic “Immortals” to the “epidemic of Spiritualism,” the invasion
of Europe and America by a numberless host of Satanic forces, he directs
his efforts towards proving the same, by giving the full Genealogies and
the Theogony of the Christian and Pagan Deities, and by drawing parallels
between the two. All such wonderful likenesses and identities are only
“seeming and superficial,” he assures the reader. Christian symbols, and
even characters, Christ, the Virgin, Angels and Saints, he tells them,
were all personated centuries beforehand by the fiends of hell, in order
to discredit eternal truth by their ungodly copies. By their knowledge of
futurity the devils anticipated events, having “discovered the secrets of
the Angels.” Heathen Deities, all the Sun‐Gods named Soters—Saviours—born
of immaculate mothers and dying a violent death, were only
Ferouers(129)—as they were called by the Zoroastrians—the demon‐ante‐dated
copies (_copies anticipées_) of the Messiah to come.

The danger of recognition of such _facsimiles_ had indeed lately become
dangerously great. It had lingered threateningly in the air, hanging like
a sword of Damocles over the Church, since the days of Voltaire, Dupuis
and other writers on similar lines. The discoveries of the Egyptologists,
the finding of Assyrian and Babylonian pre‐Mosaic relics bearing the
legend of Moses(130) and especially the many rationalistic works published
in England, such as _Supernatural Religion_ made recognition unavoidable.
Hence the appearance of Protestant and Roman Catholic writers deputed to
explain the inexplicable; to reconcile the fact of Divine Revelation with
the mystery that the divine personages, rites, dogmas and symbols of
Christianity were so often identical with those of the several great
heathen religions. The former—the Protestant defenders—tried to explain
it, on the ground of “prophetic, precursory ideas”; the Latinists, such as
De Mirville, by inventing a double set of Angels and Gods, the one divine
and true, the other—the earlier—“copies ante‐dating the originals” and due
to a clever plagiarism by the Evil One. The Protestant stratagem is an old
one, that of the Roman Catholics is so old that it has been forgotten, and
is as good as new. Dr. Lundy’s _Monumental Christianity_ and _A Miracle in
Stone_ belong to the first attempts. De Mirville’s _Pneumatologie_ to the
second. In India and China, every such effort on the part of the Scotch
and other missionaries ends in laughter, and does no harm; the plan
devised by the Jesuits is more serious. De Mirville’s volumes are thus
very important, as they proceed from a source which has undeniably the
greatest learning of the age at its service, and this coupled with all the
craft and casuistry that the sons of Loyola can furnish. The Marquis de
Mirville was evidently helped by the acutest minds in the service of Rome.

He begins by not only admitting the justice of every imputation and charge
made against the Latin Church as to the originality of her dogmas, but by
taking a seeming delight in anticipating such charges; for he points to
every dogma of Christianity as having existed in Pagan rituals in
Antiquity. The whole Pantheon of Heathen Deities is passed in review by
him, and each is shown to have had some point of resemblance with the
Trinitarian personages and Mary. There is hardly a mystery, a dogma, or a
rite in the Latin Church that is not shown by the author as having been
“parodied by the Curvati”—the “Curved,” the Devils. All this being
admitted and explained, the Symbologists ought to be silenced. And so they
would be, if there were no materialistic critics to reject such
omnipotency of the Devil in this world. For, if Rome admits the
likenesses, she also claims the right of judgment between the true and the
false Avatâra, the real and the unreal God, between the original and the
copy—though the copy precedes the original by millenniums.

Our author proceeds to argue that whenever the missionaries try to convert
an idolater, they are invariably answered:


    We had our Crucified before yours. What do you come to show
    us?(131) Again, what should we gain by denying the mysterious side
    of this copy, under the plea that according to Weber all the
    present _Purânas_ are remade from older ones, since here we have
    in the same order of personages a positive precedence which no one
    would ever think of contesting.(132)


And the author instances Buddha, Krishna, Apollo, etc. Having admitted all
this he escapes the difficulty in this wise:


    The Church Fathers, however, who recognized their own property
    under all such sheep’s clothing ... knowing by means of the Gospel
    ... all the ruses of the pretended spirits of light; the Fathers,
    we say, meditating upon the decisive words, “all that ever came
    before me are robbers” (_John_, x. 8), did not hesitate in
    recognizing the Occult agency at work, the general and superhuman
    direction given beforehand to falsehood, the universal attribute
    and environment of all these false Gods of the nations; “_omnes
    dii gentium dæmonia (elilim)_.” (_Psalm_ xcv.)(133)


With such a policy everything is made easy. There is not one glaring
resemblance, not one fully proven identity, that could not thus be made
away with. The above‐quoted cruel, selfish, self‐glorifying words, placed
by John in the mouth of Him who was meekness and charity personified,
could never have been pronounced by Jesus. The Occultists reject the
imputation indignantly, and are prepared to defend the man as against the
God, by showing whence come the words plagiarised by the author of the
Fourth Gospel. They are taken bodily from the “Prophecies” in the _Book of
Enoch_. The evidence on this head of the learned biblical scholar,
Archbishop Laurence, and of the author of the _Evolution of Christianity_,
who edited the translation, may be brought forward to prove the fact. On
the last page of the Introduction to the _Book of Enoch_ is found the
following passage:


    The parable of the sheep rescued by the good Shepherd from
    hireling guardians and ferocious wolves, is obviously borrowed by
    the fourth Evangelist from _Enoch_, lxxxix, in which the author
    depicts the shepherds as killing and destroying the sheep before
    the advent of their Lord, and thus discloses the true meaning of
    that hitherto mysterious passage in the Johannine parable—“All
    that ever came before me are thieves and robbers”—language in
    which we now detect an obvious reference to the allegorical
    shepherds of Enoch.


“Obvious” truly, and something else besides. For, if Jesus pronounced the
words in the sense attributed to him, then he must have read the _Book of
Enoch_—a purely Kabalistic, Occult work, and he therefore recognised the
worth and value of a treatise now declared apocryphal by his Churches.
Moreover, he could not have been ignorant that these words belonged to the
oldest ritual of Initiation.(134) And if he had not read it, and the
sentence belongs to John, or whoever wrote the Fourth Gospel, then what
reliance can be placed on the authenticity of other sayings and parables
attributed to the Christian Saviour?

Thus, De Mirville’s illustration is an unfortunate one. Every other proof
brought by the Church to show the infernal character of the ante‐and‐anti‐
Christian copyists may be as easily disposed of. This is perhaps
unfortunate, but it is a fact, nevertheless—_Magna est veritas et
prevalebit_.

The above is the answer of the Occultists to the two parties who charge
them incessantly, the one with “Superstition,” and the other with
“Sorcery.” To those of our Brothers who are Christians, and twit us with
the secresy imposed upon the Eastern Chelâs, adding invariably that their
own “Book of God” is “an open volume” for all “to read, understand, and
_be saved_,” we would reply by asking them to study what we have just said
in this Section, and then to refute it—if they can. There are very few in
our days who are still prepared to assure their readers that the _Bible_
had God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without any
mixture of error for its matter.

Could Locke be asked the question now, he would perhaps be unwilling to
repeat again that the _Bible_ is


    all pure, all sincere, nothing too much, nothing wanting.


The _Bible_, if it is not to be shown to be the very reverse of all this,
sadly needs an interpreter acquainted with the doctrines of the East, as
they are to be found in its secret volumes; nor is it safe now, after
Archbishop Laurence’s translation of the _Book of Enoch_, to cite Cowper
and assure us that the _Bible_


    ... gives a light to every age,
    It gives, but borrows none.


for it does borrow, and that very considerably; especially in the opinion
of those who, ignorant of its symbolical meaning and of the universality
of the truths underlying and concealed in it, are able to judge only from
its dead‐letter appearance. It is a grand volume, a master‐piece composed
of clever, ingenious fables containing great verities; but it reveals the
latter only to those who, like the Initiates, have a key to its inner
meaning; a tale sublime in its morality and didactics truly—still a tale
and an allegory; a repertory of invented personages in its older Jewish
portions, and of dark sayings and parables in its later additions, and
thus quite misleading to anyone ignorant of its Esotericism. Moreover it
is Astrolatry and Sabæan worship, pure and simple, that is to be found in
the _Pentateuch_ when it is read exoterically, and Archaic Science and
Astronomy to a most wonderful degree, when interpreted—Esoterically.



SECTION VIII. THE BOOK OF ENOCH THE ORIGIN AND THE FOUNDATION OF
CHRISTIANITY.


While making a good deal of the _Mercavah_, the Jews, or rather their
synagogues, rejected the _Book of Enoch_, either because it was not
included from the first in the Hebrew Canon, or else, as Tertullian
thought, it was


    Disavowed by the Jews like all other Scripture which speaks of
    Christ.(135)


But neither of these reasons was the real one. The Synedrion would have
nothing to do with it, simply because it was more of a magic than a purely
kabalistic work. The present day Theologians of both Latin and Protestant
Churches class it among apocryphal productions. Nevertheless the _New
Testament_, especially in the _Acts_ and _Epistles_, teems with ideas and
doctrines, now accepted and established as dogmas by the infallible Roman
and other Churches, and even with whole sentences taken bodily from Enoch,
or the “pseudo‐Enoch,” who wrote under that name in Aramaic or Syro‐
Chaldaic, as asserted by Bishop Laurence, the translator of the Ethiopian
text.

The plagiarisms are so glaring that the author of _The Evolution of
Christianity_, who edited Bishop Laurence’s translation, was compelled to
make some suggestive remarks in his Introduction. On internal
evidence(136) this book is found to have been written before the Christian
period (whether two or twenty centuries does not matter). As correctly
argued by the Editor, it is


    Either the inspired forecast of a great Hebrew prophet, predicting
    with miraculous accuracy the future teaching of Jesus of Nazareth,
    or the Semitic romance from which the latter borrowed His
    conceptions of the triumphant return of the Son of man, to occupy
    a judicial throne in the midst of rejoicing saints and trembling
    sinners, expectant of everlasting happiness or eternal fire; and
    whether these celestial visions be accepted as human or Divine,
    they have exercised so vast an influence on the destinies of
    mankind for nearly two thousand years that candid and impartial
    seekers after religious truth can no longer delay enquiry into the
    relationship of the _Book of Enoch_ with the revelation, or the
    evolution, of Christianity.(137)


The _Book of Enoch_


    Also records the supernatural control of the elements, through the
    action of individual angels presiding over the winds, the sea,
    hail, frost, dew, the lightning’s flash, and reverberating
    thunder. The names of the principal fallen angels are also given,
    among whom we recognize some of the invisible powers named in the
    incantations [magical] inscribed on the terra‐cotta cups of
    Hebrew‐Chaldee conjurations.(138)


We also find on these cups the word “Halleluiah,” showing that


    A word with which ancient Syro‐Chaldæans conjured has become,
    through the vicissitudes of language, the Shibboleth of modern
    Revivalists.(139)


The Editor proceeds after this to give fifty‐seven verses from various
parts of the _Gospels_ and _Acts_, with parallel passages from the _Book
of Enoch_, and says:


    The attention of theologians has been concentrated on the passage
    in the _Epistle of Jude_, because the author specifically names
    the prophet; but the cumulative coincidence of language and ideas
    in Enoch and the authors of the _New Testament_ Scripture, as
    disclosed in the parallel passages which we have collated, clearly
    indicates that the work of the Semitic Milton was the
    inexhaustible source from which Evangelists and Apostles, or the
    men who wrote in their names, borrowed their conceptions of the
    resurrection, judgment, immortality, perdition, and of the
    universal reign of righteousness, under the eternal dominion of
    the Son of man. This evangelical plagiarism culminates in the
    Revelation of John, which adapts the visions of Enoch to
    Christianity, with modifications in which we miss the sublime
    simplicity of the great master of apocalyptic prediction, who
    prophesied in the name of the antediluvian patriarch.(140)


In fairness to truth, the hypothesis ought at least to have been
suggested, that the _Book of Enoch_ in its present form is simply a
transcript—with numerous pre‐Christian and post‐Christian additions and
interpolations—from far older texts. Modern research went so far as to
point out that Enoch is made, in Chapter lxxi, to divide the day and night
into eighteen parts, and to represent the longest day in the year as
consisting of twelve out of these eighteen parts, while a day of sixteen
hours in length could not have occurred in Palestine. The translator,
Archbishop Laurence, remarks thus:


    The region in which the author lived must have been situated not
    lower than forty‐five degrees north latitude, where the longest
    day is fifteen hours and a‐half, nor higher perhaps than forty‐
    nine degrees, where the longest day is precisely sixteen hours.
    This will bring the country where he wrote as high up at least as
    the northern districts of the Caspian and Euxine Seas ... the
    author of the _Book of Enoch_ was perhaps a member of one of the
    tribes which Shalmaneser carried away, and placed “in Halah and in
    Habor by the river Goshen, and in the cities of the Medes.”(141)


Further on, it is confessed that:


    It cannot be said that internal evidence attests the superiority
    of the _Old Testament_ to the _Book of Enoch_.... The _Book of
    Enoch_ teaches the preëxistence of the Son of man, the Elect One,
    the Messiah, who “from the beginning existed in secret,(142) and
    whose name was invoked in the presence of the Lord of Spirits,
    before the sun and the signs were created.” The author also refers
    to the “other Power who was upon Earth over the water on that
    day”—an apparent reference to the language of _Genesis_, i.
    2.(143) [We maintain that it applies as well to the Hindu
    Nârâyana—the “mover on the waters.”] We have thus the Lord of
    Spirits, the Elect One, and a third Power, seemingly foreshadowing
    this Trinity [as much as the Trimûrti] of futurity; but although
    Enoch’s ideal Messiah doubtless exercised an important influence
    on primitive conceptions of the Divinity of the Son of man, we
    fail to identify his obscure reference to another “Power” with the
    Trinitarianism of the Alexandrine school; more especially as
    “angels of power” abound in the visions of Enoch.(144)


An Occultist would hardly fail to identify the said “Power.” The Editor
concludes his remarkable reflections by adding:


    Thus far we learn that the _Book of Enoch_ was published before
    the Christian Era by some great Unknown of Semitic [?] race, who,
    believing himself to be inspired in a post‐prophetic age, borrowed
    the name of an antediluvian patriarch(145) to authenticate his own
    enthusiastic forecast of the Messianic kingdom. And as the
    contents of his marvellous book enter freely into the composition
    of the _New Testament_, it follows that if the author was not an
    inspired prophet, who predicted the teachings of Christianity, he
    was a visionary enthusiast whose illusions were accepted by
    Evangelists and Apostles as revelation—alternative conclusions
    which involve the Divine or human origin of Christianity.(146)


The outcome of all of which is, in the words of the same Editor:


    The discovery that the language and ideas of alleged revelation
    are found in a preëxistent work, accepted by Evangelists and
    Apostles as inspired, but classed by modern theologians among
    apocryphal productions.(147)


This accounts also for the unwillingness of the reverend librarians of the
Bodleian Library to publish the Ethiopian text of the _Book of Enoch_.

The prophecies of the _Book of Enoch_ are indeed prophetic, but they were
intended for, and cover the records of, the five Races out of the
seven—everything relating to the last two being kept secret. Thus the
remark made by the Editor of the English translation, that:


    Chapter xcii. records a series of prophecies extending from
    Enoch’s own time to about one thousand years beyond the present
    generation,(148)


is faulty. The prophecies extend to the end of our present Race, not
merely to a “thousand years” hence. Very true that:


    In the system of [Christian] chronology adopted, a day stands
    [occasionally] for a hundred, and a week for seven hundred
    years.(149)


But this is an arbitrary and fanciful system adopted by Christians to make
Biblical chronology fit with facts or theories, and does not represent the
original thought. The “days” stand for the undetermined periods of the
Side‐Races, and the “weeks” for the Sub‐Races, the Root‐Races being
referred to by an expression that is not even found in the English
translation. Moreover the sentence at the bottom of page 150:


    Subsequently, in the fourth week ... the visions of the holy and
    the righteous shall be seen, the order of generation after
    generation shall take place,(150)


is quite wrong. It stands in the original: “the order of generation after
generation had taken place on the earth,” etc.; that is, after the first
human race procreated in the truly human way had sprung up in the Third
Root‐Race; a change which entirely alters the meaning. Then all that is
given in the translation—as very likely also in the Ethiopic text, since
the copies have been sorely tampered with—as about things which were to
happen in the future, is, we are informed, in the past tense in the
original Chaldæan MSS., and is not prophecy, but a narrative of what had
already come to pass. When Enoch begins “to speak from a book”(151) he is
reading the account given by a great Seer, and the prophecies are not his
own, but are from the Seer. Enoch or Enoichion means “internal eye” or
Seer. Thus every Prophet and Adept may be called “Enoichion,” without
becoming a pseudo‐Enoch. But here, the Seer who compiled the present _Book
of Enoch_ is distinctly shown as reading out from a book:


    I have been born the seventh in the first week [the seventh
    branch, or Side‐Race, of the first Sub‐Race, after physical
    generation had begun, namely, in the third Root‐Race].... But
    after me, in the second week [second Sub‐Race] great wickedness
    shall arise [arose, rather] and in that week the end of the first
    shall take place, in which mankind shall be safe. But when the
    first is completed iniquity shall grow up.(152)


As translated it has no sense. As it stands in the Esoteric text, it
simply means, that the First Root‐Race shall come to an end during the
second Sub‐Race of the Third Root‐Race, in the period of which time
mankind will be safe; all this having no reference whatever to the
biblical Deluge. Verse 10th speaks of the sixth week [sixth Sub‐Race of
the Third Root‐Race] when


    All those who are in it shall be darkened, the hearts of all of
    them shall be forgetful of wisdom [the divine knowledge will be
    dying out] and in it shall a man ascend.


This “man” is taken by the interpreters, for some mysterious reasons of
their own, to mean Nebuchadnezzar; he is in reality the first Hierophant
of the purely human Race (after the allegorical Fall into generation)
selected to perpetuate the dying Wisdom of the Devas (Angels or Elohim).
He is the first “Son of Man”—the mysterious appellation given to the
divine Initiates of the first human school of the Mânushi (men), at the
very close of the Third Root‐Race. He is also called the “Saviour,” as it
was He, with the other Hierophants, who saved the Elect and the Perfect
from the geological conflagration, leaving to perish in the cataclysm of
the Close(153) those who forgot the primeval wisdom in sexual sensuality.


    And during its completion [of the “sixth week,” or the sixth Sub‐
    Race] he shall burn the house of dominion [the half of the globe
    or the then inhabited continent] with fire, and all the race of
    the elect root shall be dispersed.(154)


The above applies to the Elect Initiates, and not at all to the Jews, the
supposed chosen people, or to the Babylonian captivity, as interpreted by
the Christian theologians. Considering that we find Enoch, or his
perpetuator, mentioning the execution of the “decree upon sinners” in
several different weeks,(155) saying that “every work of the ungodly shall
disappear from the whole earth” during this fourth time (the Fourth Race),
it surely can hardly apply to the one solitary Deluge of the _Bible_,
still less to the Captivity.

It follows, therefore, that as the _Book of Enoch_ covers the five Races
of the Manvantara, with a few allusions to the last two, it does not
contain “Biblical prophecies,” but simply facts taken out of the Secret
Books of the East. The editor, moreover, confesses that:


    The preceding six verses, _viz._, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th,
    and 18th, are taken from between the 14th and 15th verses of the
    nineteenth chapter, where they are to be found in the MSS.(156)


By this arbitrary transposition, he has made confusion still more
confused. Yet he is quite right in saying that the doctrines of the
_Gospels_, and even of the _Old Testament_, have been taken bodily from
the _Book of Enoch_, for this is as evident as the sun in heaven. The
whole of the _Pentateuch_ was adapted to fit in with the facts given, and
this accounts for the Hebrews refusing to give the book a place in their
Canon, just as the Christians have subsequently refused to admit it among
their canonical works. The fact that the Apostle Jude and many of the
Christian Fathers referred to it as a revelation and a sacred volume, is,
however, an excellent proof that the early Christians accepted it; among
these the most learned—as, for instance, Clement of Alexandria—understood
Christianity and its doctrines in quite a different light from their
modern successors, and viewed Christ under an aspect that Occultists only
can appreciate. The early Nazarenes and Chrestians, as Justin Martyr calls
them, were the followers of Jesus, of the true Chrestos and Christos of
Initiation; whereas, the modern Christians, especially those of the West,
may be Papists, Greeks, Calvinists, or Lutherans, but can hardly be called
Christians, _i.e._, the followers of Jesus, the Christ.

Thus the _Book of Enoch_ is entirely symbolical. It relates to the history
of the human Races and of their early relation to Theogony, the symbols
being interblended with astronomical and cosmic mysteries. One chapter is
missing, however, in the Noachian records (from both the Paris and the
Bodleian MSS.), namely, Chapter lviii. in Sect. X; this could not be
remodelled, and therefore it had to disappear, disfigured fragments alone
having been left of it. The dream about the cows, the black, red and white
heifers, relates to the first Races, their division and disappearance.
Chapter lxxxviii, in which one of the four Angels “went to the white cows
and taught them a mystery,” after which, the mystery being born “became a
man,” refers to (_a_) the first group evolved of primitive Âryans, and
(_b_) to the “mystery of the Hermaphrodite” so called, having reference to
the birth of the first human Races as they are now. The well‐known rite in
India, one that has survived in that patriarchal country to this day,
known as the passage, or rebirth through the cow—a ceremony to which those
of lower castes who are desirous of becoming Brâhmans have to submit—has
originated in this mystery. Let any Eastern Occultist read with careful
attention the above‐named chapter in the _Book of Enoch_, and he will find
that the “Lord of the Sheep,” in whom Christians and European Mystics see
Christ, is the Hierophant Victim whose name in Sanskrit we dare not give.
Again, that while the Western Churchmen see Egyptians and Israelites in
the “sheep and wolves,” all these animals relate in truth to the trials of
the Neophyte and the mysteries of initiation, whether in India or Egypt,
and to that most terrible penalty incurred by the “wolves”—those who
reveal indiscriminately that which is only for the knowledge of the Elect
and the “Perfect.”

The Christians who, thanks to later interpolations,(157) have made out in
that chapter a triple prophecy relating to the Deluge, Moses and Jesus,
are mistaken, as in reality it bears directly on the punishment and loss
of Atlantis and the penalty of indiscretion. The “Lord of the sheep” is
Karma and the “Head of the Hierophants” also, the Supreme Initiator on
earth. He says to Enoch, who implores him to save the leaders of the sheep
from being devoured by the beasts of prey:


    I will cause a recital to be made before me ... how many they have
    delivered up to destruction, and ... what they will do; whether
    they will act as I have commanded them or not.

    Of this, however, they shall be ignorant; neither shalt thou make
    any explanation to them, neither shalt thou reprove them; but
    there shall be an account of all the destruction done by them in
    their respective seasons.(158)

    ... He looked in silence, rejoicing they were devoured, swallowed
    up, and carried off, and leaving them in the power of every beast
    for food....(159)


Those who labour under the impression that the Occultists of any nation
reject the _Bible_, in its original text and meaning, are wrong. As well
reject the _Books of Thoth_, the Chaldæan _Kabalah_ or the _Book of Dzyan_
itself. Occultists only reject the one‐sided interpretations and the human
element in the _Bible_, which is an Occult, and therefore a sacred, volume
as much as the others. And terrible indeed is the punishment of all those
who transgress the permitted limits of secret revelations. From Prometheus
to Jesus, and from Him to the highest Adept as to the lowest disciple,
every revealer of mysteries has had to become a Chrestos, a “man of
sorrow” and a martyr. “Beware,” said one of the greatest Masters, “of
revealing the Mystery to those without”—to the profane, the Sadducee and
the unbeliever. All the great Hierophants in history are shown ending
their lives by violent deaths—Buddha,(160) Pythagoras, Zoroaster, most of
the great Gnostics, the founders of their respective schools; and in our
own more modern epoch a number of Fire‐Philosophers, of Rosicrucians and
Adepts. All of these are shown—whether plainly or under the veil of
allegory—as paying the penalty for the revelations they had made. This may
seem to the profane reader only coincidence. To the Occultist, the death
of every “Master” is significant, and appears pregnant with meaning. Where
do we find in history that “Messenger” grand or humble, an Initiate or a
Neophyte, who, when he was made the bearer of some hitherto concealed
truth or truths, was not crucified and rent to shreds by the “dogs” of
envy, malice and ignorance? Such is the terrible Occult law; and he who
does not feel in himself the heart of a lion to scorn the savage barking,
and the soul of a dove to forgive the poor ignorant fools, let him give up
the Sacred Science. To succeed, the Occultist must be fearless; he has to
brave dangers, dishonour and death, to be forgiving, and to be silent on
that which cannot be given. Those who have vainly laboured in that
direction must wait in these days—as the _Book of Enoch_ teaches—“until
the evil‐doers be consumed” and the power of the wicked annihilated. It is
not lawful for the Occultist to seek or even to thirst for revenge: let
him


    Wait until sin pass away; for their [the sinners’] names shall be
    blotted out of the holy books [the astral records], their seed
    shall be destroyed and their spirits slain.(161)


Esoterically, Enoch is the “Son of man,” the first; and symbolically, the
first Sub‐Race of the _Fifth_ Root Race.(162) And if his name yields for
purposes of numerical and astronomical glyphs the meaning of the solar
year, or 365, in conformity to the age assigned to him in _Genesis_, it is
because, being the seventh, he is, for Occult purposes, the personified
period of the two preceding Races with their fourteen Sub‐Races.
Therefore, he is shown in the Book as the great grandfather of Noah who,
in his turn, is the personification of the mankind of the Fifth,
struggling with that of the Fourth Root‐Race—the great period of the
revealed and profaned Mysteries, when the “sons of God” coming down on
Earth took for wives the daughters of men, and taught them the secrets of
the Angels; in other words, when the “mind‐born” men of the Third Race
mixed themselves with those of the Fourth, and the divine Science was
gradually brought down by men to Sorcery.



SECTION IX. HERMETIC AND KABALISTIC DOCTRINES.


The cosmogony of Hermes is as veiled as the Mosaic system, only it is upon
its face far more in harmony with the doctrines of the Secret Sciences and
even of Modern Science. Says the thrice great Trismegistus, “the hand that
shaped the world out of formless pre‐existent matter is no hand”; to which
_Genesis_ is made to reply, “The world was created out of nothing,”
although the _Kabalah_ denies such a meaning in its opening sentences. The
Kabalists have never, any more than have the Indian Âryans, admitted such
an absurdity. With them, Fire, or Heat, and Motion(163) were chiefly
instrumental in the formation of the world out of preëxisting Matter. The
Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti of the Vedântins are the prototypes of the En
Suph and Shekinah of the Kabalists. Aditi is the original of Sephira, and
the Prajâpatis are the elder brothers of the Sephiroth. The nebular theory
of Modern Science, with all its mysteries, is solved in the cosmogony of
the Archaic Doctrine; and the paradoxical though very scientific
enunciation, that “cooling causes contraction and contraction causes heat;
therefore cooling causes heat,” is shown as the chief agency in the
formation of the worlds, and especially of our sun and solar system.

All this is contained within the small compass of _Sepher Jetzirah_ in its
thirty‐two wonderful Ways of Wisdom, signed “Jah Jehovah Sabaoth,” for
whomsoever has the key to its hidden meaning. As to the dogmatic or
theological interpretation of the first verses in _Genesis_ it is
pertinently answered in the same book, where speaking of the Three
Mothers, Air, Water and Fire, the writer describes them as a balance with


    The good in one scale, the evil in the other, and the oscillating
    tongue of the Balance between them.(164)


One of the secret names of the One Eternal and Ever‐Present Deity, was in
every country the same, and it has preserved to this day a phonetic
likeness in the various languages. The Aum of the Hindus, the sacred
syllable, had become the Ἀιών with the Greeks, and the Ævum with the
Romans—the Pan or All. The “thirtieth way” is called in the _Sepher
Jetzirah_ the “gathering understanding,” because


    Thereby gather the celestial adepts judgments of the stars and
    celestial signs, and their observations of the orbits are the
    perfection of science.(165)


The thirty‐second and last is called therein the “serving understanding,”
and it is so‐called because it is


    A disposer of all those that are serving in the work of the Seven
    Planets, according to their Hosts.(166)


The “work” was Initiation, during which all the mysteries connected with
the “Seven Planets” were divulged, and also the mystery of the “Sun‐
Initiate” with his seven radiances or beams cut off—the glory and triumph
of the anointed, the Christos; a mystery that makes plain the rather
puzzling expression of Clemens:


    For we shall find that very many of the dogmas that are held by
    such sects [of Barbarian and Hellenic Philosophy] as have not
    become utterly senseless, and are not cut out from the order of
    nature [“by cutting off Christ,”(167) or rather Chrestos] ...
    correspond in their origin and with the truth as a whole.(168)


In _Isis Unveiled_,(169) the reader will find fuller information than can
be given here on the _Zohar_ and its author, the great Kabalist, Simeon
Ben Jochai. It is said there that on account of his being known to be in
possession of the secret knowledge and of the Mercaba, which insured the
reception of the “Word,” his very life was endangered, and he had to fly
to the wilderness, where he lived in a cave for twelve years surrounded by
faithful disciples, and finally died there amid signs and wonders.(170)
His teachings on the origin of the Secret Doctrine, or, as he also calls
it, the Secret Wisdom, are the same as those found in the East, with the
exception that in place of the Chief of a Host of Planetary Spirits he
puts “God,” saying that this Wisdom was first taught by God himself to a
certain number of Elect Angels; whereas in the Eastern Doctrine the saying
is different, as will be seen.

Some synthetic and kabalistic studies on the sacred _Book of Enoch_ and
the Taro (Rota) are before us. We quote from the MS. copy of a Western
Occultist, which is prefaced by these words:


    There is but one Law, one Principle, one Agent, one Truth and one
    Word. That which is above is analogically as that which is below.
    All that which is, is the result of quantities and of
    equilibriums.


The axiom of Éliphas Lévi and this triple epigraph show the identity of
thought between the East and the West with regard to the Secret Science
which, as the same MS. tells us, is:


    The key of things concealed, the key of the sanctuary. This is the
    Sacred Word which gives to the Adept the supreme reason of
    Occultism and its Mysteries. It is the Quintessence of
    Philosophies and of Dogmas; it is the Alpha and Omega; it is the
    Light, Life and Wisdom Universal.


The Taro of the sacred _Book of Enoch_, or Rota, is prefaced, moreover,
with this explanation:


    The antiquity of this Book is lost in the night of time. It is of
    _Indian origin_, and goes back to an epoch long before Moses....
    It is written upon detached leaves, which at the first were of
    fine gold and precious metals.... It is symbolical, and its
    combinations adapt themselves to all the wonders of the Spirit.
    Altered by its passage across the Ages, it is nevertheless
    preserved—thanks to the ignorance of the curious—in its types and
    its most important primitive figures.


This is the Rota of Enoch, now called Taro of Enoch, to which De Mirville
alludes, as we saw, as the means used for “evil Magic,” the “metallic
plates [or leaves] escaped from destruction during the Deluge” and which
are attributed by him to Cain. They have escaped the Deluge for the simple
reason that this Flood was not “Universal.” And it is said to be “of
Indian origin,” because its origin is with the Indian Âryans of the first
Sub‐Race of the Fifth Root‐Race, before the final destruction of the last
stronghold of Atlantis. But, if it originated with the forefathers of the
primitive Hindus, it was not in India that it was first used. Its origin
is still more ancient and must be traced beyond and into the Himaleh,(171)
the Snowy Range. It was born in that mysterious locality which no one is
able to locate, and which is the despair of both Geographers and Christian
Theologians—the region in which the Brâhman places his Kailâsa, the Mount
Sumeru, and the Pârvatî Pamîr, transformed by the Greeks into Paropamisus.

Round this locality, which still exists, the traditions of the Garden of
Eden were built. From these regions the Greeks obtained their
Parnassus(172); and thence proceeded most of the biblical personages, some
of them in their day men, some demi‐gods and heroes, some—though very
few—myths, the astronomical doubles of the former. Abram was one of them—a
Chaldæan Brâhman,(173) says the legend, transformed later, after he had
repudiated his Gods and left his Ur (_pur_, “town”?) in Chaldæa, into A‐
brahm(174) (or A‐braham) “no‐brâhman” who emigrated. Abram becoming the
“father of many nations” is thus explained. The student of Occultism has
to bear in mind that every God and hero in ancient Pantheons (that of the
_Bible_ included), has three biographies in the narrative, so to say,
running parallel with each other and each connected with one of the
aspects of the hero—historical, astronomical and perfectly mythical, the
last serving to connect the other two together and smooth away the
asperities and discordancies in the narrative, and gathering into one or
more symbols the verities of the first two. Localities are made to
correspond with astronomical and even with psychic events. History was
thus made captive by ancient Mystery, to become later on the great Sphynx
of the nineteenth century. Only, instead of devouring her too dull
querists who will unriddle her whether she acknowledges it or not, she is
desecrated and mangled by the modern Œdipus, before he forces her into the
sea of speculations in which the Sphynx is drowned and perishes. This has
now become self‐evident, not only through the Secret Teachings,
parsimoniously as they may be given, but by earnest and learned
Symbologists and even Geometricians. The _Key to the Hebrew Egyptian
Mystery_, in which a learned Mason of Cincinnati, Mr. Ralston Skinner,
unveils the riddle of a God, with such ungodly ways about him as the
Biblical Jah‐ve, is followed by the establishment of a learned society
under the presidentship of a gentleman from Ohio and four vice‐presidents,
one of whom is Piazzi Smyth, the well‐known Astronomer and Egyptologist.
The Director of the Royal Observatory in Scotland and author of _The Great
Pyramid, Pharaonic by name, Humanitarian by fact, its Marvels, Mysteries,
and its Teachings_, is seeking to prove the same problem as the American
author and Mason: namely, that the English system of measurement is the
same as that used by the ancient Egyptians in the construction of their
Pyramid, or in Mr. Skinner’s own words that the Pharaonic “source of
measures” originated the “British inch and the ancient cubit.” It
“originated” much more than this, as will be fully demonstrated before the
end of the next century. Not only is everything in Western religion
related to measures, geometrical figures, and time‐calculations, the
principal period‐durations being founded on most of the historical
personages,(175) but the latter are also connected with heaven and earth
truly, only with the Indo‐Âryan heaven and earth, not with those of
Palestine.

The prototypes of nearly all the biblical personages are to be sought for
in the early Pantheon of India. It is the “Mind‐born” Sons of Brahmâ, or
rather of the Dhyâni‐Pitara (the “Father‐Gods”), the “Sons of Light,” who
have given birth to the “Sons of Earth”—the Patriarchs. For if the _Rig
Veda_ and its three sister _Vedas_ have been “milked out from fire, air
and sun,” or Agni, Indra, and Sûrya, as _Manu‐Smriti_ tells us, the _Old
Testament_ was most undeniably “milked out” of the most ingenious brains
of Hebrew Kabalists, partly in Egypt and partly in Babylonia—“the seat of
Sanskrit literature and Brâhman learning from her origin,” as Colonel Vans
Kennedy truly declared. One of such copies was Abram or Abraham, into
whose bosom every orthodox Jew hopes to be gathered after death, that
bosom being localised as “heaven in the clouds” or Abhra.(176)

From Abraham to Enoch’s Taro there seems to be a considerable distance,
yet the two are closely related by more than one link. Gaffarel has shown
that the four symbolical animals on the twenty‐first key of the Taro, at
the third septenary, are the Teraphim of the Jews invented and worshipped
by Abram’s father Terah, and used in the oracles of the Urim and Thummim.
Moreover, astronomically Abraham is the sun‐measure and a portion of the
sun, while Enoch is the solar year, as much as are Hermes or Thot; and
Thot, numerically, “was the equivalent of Moses, or Hermes,” “the lord of
the lower realms, also esteemed as a teacher of wisdom,” the same Mason‐
mathematician tells us; and the Taro being, according to one of the latest
bulls of the Pope, “an invention of Hell,” the same “as Masonry and
Occultism,” the relation is evident. The Taro contains indeed the mystery
of all such transmutations of personages into sidereal bodies and _vice
versâ_. The “wheel of Enoch” is an archaic invention, the most ancient of
all, for it is found in China. Éliphas Lévi says there was not a nation
but had it, its real meaning being preserved in the greatest secresy. It
was a universal heirloom.

As we see, neither the _Book of Enoch_ (his “Wheel”), nor the _Zohar_, nor
any other kabalistic volume, contains merely Jewish wisdom.


    The doctrine itself being the result of whole millenniums of
    thought, is therefore the joint property of Adepts of every nation
    under the sun. Nevertheless, the _Zohar_ teaches practical
    Occultism more than any other work on that subject; not as it is
    translated and commented upon by its various critics though, but
    with the secret signs on its margins. These signs contain the
    hidden instructions, apart from the metaphysical interpretations
    and apparent absurdities so fully credited by Josephus, who was
    never initiated and gave out the _dead letter_ as he had received
    it.(177)



SECTION X. VARIOUS OCCULT SYSTEMS OF INTERPRETATIONS OF ALPHABETS AND
NUMERALS.


The transcendental methods of the _Kabalah_ must not be mentioned in a
public work; but its various systems of arithmetical and geometrical ways
of unriddling certain symbols may be described. The _Zohar_ methods of
calculation, with their three sections, the Gematria, Notaricon and
Temura, also the Albath and Algath, are extremely difficult to practise.
We refer those who would learn more to Cornelius Agrippa’s works.(178) But
none of those systems can ever be understood unless a Kabalist becomes a
real Master in his Science. The Symbolism of Pythagoras requires still
more arduous labour. His symbols are very numerous, and to comprehend even
the general gist of his abstruse doctrines from his Symbology would
necessitate years of study. His chief figures are the square (the
Tetraktys), the equilateral triangle, the point within a circle, the cube,
the triple triangle, and finally the forty‐seventh proposition of Euclid’s
Elements, of which proposition Pythagoras was the inventor. But with this
exception, none of the foregoing symbols originated with him, as some
believe. Millenniums before his day, they were well known in India, whence
the Samian Sage brought them, not as a speculation, but as a demonstrated
Science, says Porphyry, quoting from the Pythagorean Moderatus.


    The numerals of Pythagoras were hieroglyphical symbols by means
    whereof he explained _all_ ideas concerning the nature of
    things.(179)


The fundamental geometrical figure of the _Kabalah_, as given in the _Book
of Numbers_,(180) that figure which tradition and the Esoteric Doctrines
tell us was given by the Deity Itself to Moses on Mount Sinai,(181)
contains the key to the universal problem in its grandiose, because
simple, combinations. This figure contains in itself all the others.

The Symbolism of numbers and their mathematical inter‐relations is also
one of the branches of Magic, especially of mental Magic, divination and
correct perception in clairvoyance. Systems differ, but the root idea is
everywhere the same. As shown in the _Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, by
Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie:


    One system adopts unity, another trinity, a third quinquinity;
    again we have sexagons, heptagons, novems, and so on, until the
    mind is lost in the survey of the materials alone of a science of
    numbers.(182)


The Devanâgarî characters in which Sanskrit is generally written, have all
that the Hermetic, Chaldæan and Hebrew alphabets have, and in addition the
Occult significance of the “eternal sound,” and the meaning given to every
letter in its relation to spiritual as well as terrestrial things. As
there are only twenty‐two letters in the Hebrew alphabet and ten
fundamental numbers, while in the Devanâgarî there are thirty‐five
consonants and sixteen vowels, making altogether fifty‐one simple letters,
with numberless combinations in addition, the margin for speculation and
knowledge is in proportion considerably wider. Every letter has its
equivalent in other languages, and its equivalent in a figure or figures
of the calculation table. It has also numerous other significations, which
depend upon the special idiosyncrasies and characteristics of the person,
object, or subject to be studied. As the Hindus claim to have received the
Devanâgarî characters from Sarasvatî, the inventress of Sanskrit, the
“language of the Devas” or Gods (in their exoteric pantheon), so most of
the ancient nations claimed the same privilege for the origin of their
letters and tongue. The _Kabalah_ calls the Hebrew alphabet the “letters
of the Angels,” which were communicated to the Patriarchs, just as the
Devanâgarî was to the Rishis by the Devas. The Chaldæans found their
letters traced in the sky by the “yet unsettled stars and comets,” says
the _Book of Numbers_; while the Phœnicians had a sacred alphabet formed
by the twistings of the sacred serpents. The Natar Khari (hieratic
alphabet) and secret (sacerdotal) speech of the Egyptians is closely
related to the oldest “Secret Doctrine Speech.” It is a Devanâgarî with
mystical combinations and additions, into which the Senzar largely enters.

The power and potency of numbers and characters are well known to many
Western Occultists as being compounded from all these systems, but are
still unknown to Hindu students, if not to their Occultists. In their turn
European Kabalists are generally ignorant of the alphabetical secrets of
Indian Esoterism. At the same time the general reader in the West knows
nothing of either; least of all how deep are the traces left by the
Esoteric numeral systems of the world in the Christian Churches.

Nevertheless this system of numerals solves the problem of cosmogony for
whomsoever studies it, while the system of geometrical figures represents
the numbers objectively.

To realise the full comprehension of the Deific and the Abstruse enjoyed
by the Ancients, one has to study the origin of the figurative
representations of their primitive Philosophers. The _Books of Hermes_ are
the oldest repositories of numerical Symbology in Western Occultism. In
them we find that the number _ten_(183) is the Mother of the Soul, Life
and Light being therein united. For as the sacred anagram Teruph shows in
the _Book of the Keys_ (Numbers), the number 1 (one) is born from Spirit,
and the number 10 (ten) from Matter; “the unity has made the ten, the ten,
the unity”; and this is only the Pantheistic axiom, in other words “God in
Nature and Nature in God.”

The kabalistic Gematria is arithmetical, not geometrical. It is one of the
methods for extracting the hidden meaning from letters, words, and
sentences. It consists in applying to the letters of a word the sense they
bear as numbers, in outward shape as well as in their individual sense. As
illustrated by Ragon:


    The figure I signified the living man (a body erect), man being
    the only living being enjoying this faculty. A head being added to
    it, the glyph (or letter) P was obtained, meaning paternity,
    creative potency; the R signifying the walking man (with his foot
    forward) going, _iens_, _iturus_.(184)

    The characters were also made supplementary to speech, every
    letter being at once a figure representing a sound for the ear, an
    idea to the mind; as, for instance, the letter F, which is a
    cutting sound like that of air rushing quickly through space;
    fury, fusee, fugue, all words expressive of, and depicting what
    they signify.(185)


But the above pertains to another system, that of the primitive and
philosophical formation of the letters and their outward glyphic form—not
to Gematria. The Temura is another kabalistic method, by which any word
could be made to yield its mystery out of its anagram. So in _Sepher
Jetzirah_ we read “One—the Spirit of the Alahim of Lives.” In the oldest
kabalistic diagrams the Sephiroth (the seven and the three) are
represented as wheels or circles, and Adam Kadmon, the primitive Man, as
an upright pillar. “Wheels and seraphim and the holy creatures” (Chioth)
says Rabbi Akiba. In still another system of the symbolical _Kabalah_
called Albath—which arranges the letters of the alphabet by pairs in three
rows—all the couples in the first row bear the numerical value ten; and in
the system of Simeon Ben Shetah (an Alexandrian Neoplatonist under the
first Ptolemy) the uppermost couple—the most sacred of all—is preceded by
the Pythagorean cypher: one, and a nought—10.

All beings, from the first divine emanation, or “God manifested,” down to
the lowest atomic existence, “have their particular number which
distinguishes each of them and becomes the source of their attributes and
qualities as of their destiny.” Chance, as taught by Cornelius Agrippa, is
in reality only an unknown progression; and time but a succession of
numbers. Hence, futurity being a compound of chance and time, these are
made to serve Occult calculations in order to find the result of an event,
or the future of one’s destiny. Said Pythagoras:


    There is a mysterious connection between the Gods and numbers, on
    which the science of arithmancy is based. The soul is a world that
    is self‐moving; the soul contains in itself, and is, the
    quaternary, the tetraktys [the perfect cube].


There are lucky and unlucky, or beneficent and maleficent numbers. Thus
while the ternary—the first of the odd numbers (the one being the perfect
and standing by itself in Occultism)—is the divine figure or the triangle;
the duad was disgraced by the Pythagoreans from the first. It represented
Matter, the passive and evil principle—the number of Mâyâ, illusion.


    While the number _one_ symbolized harmony, order or the good
    principle (the one God expressed in Latin by Solus, from which the
    word Sol, the Sun, the symbol of the Deity), number two expressed
    a contrary idea. The science of good and evil began with it. All
    that is double, false, opposed to the only reality, was depicted
    by the binary. It also expressed the contrasts in Nature which are
    always double: night and day, light and darkness, cold and heat,
    dampness and dryness, health and sickness, error and truth, male
    and female, etc.... The Romans dedicated to Pluto the second month
    of the year, and the second day of that month to expiations in
    honour of the Manes. Hence the same rite established by the Latin
    Church, and faithfully copied. Pope John XIX. instituted in 1003
    the Festival of the Dead, which had to be celebrated on the 2nd of
    November, the second month of autumn.(186)


On the other hand the triangle, a purely geometrical figure, had great
honour shewn it by every nation, and for this reason:


    In geometry a straight line cannot represent an absolutely perfect
    figure, any more than two straight lines. Three straight lines, on
    the other hand, produce by their junction a triangle, or the first
    absolutely perfect figure. Therefore, it symbolized from the first
    and to this day the Eternal—the first perfection. The word for
    deity in Latin, as in French, begins with D, in Greek the delta or
    triangle, Δ, whose three sides symbolize the trinity, or the three
    kingdoms, or, again, divine nature. In the middle is the Hebrew
    Yod, the initial of Jehovah [see Éliphas Lévi’s _Dogme et Rituel_,
    i. 154], the animating spirit or fire, the generating principle
    represented by the letter G, the initial of “God” in the northern
    languages, whose philosophical significance is generation.(187)


As stated correctly by the famous Mason Ragon, the Hindu Trimûrti is
personified in the world of ideas by Creation, Preservation and
Destruction, or Brahmâ, Vishnu and Shiva; in the world of matter by Earth,
Water and Fire, or the Sun, and symbolised by the Lotus, a flower that
lives by earth, water, and the sun.(188) The Lotus, sacred to Isis, had
the same significance in Egypt, whereas in the Christian symbol, the
Lotus, not being found in either Judæa or Europe, was replaced by the
water‐lily. In every Greek and Latin Church, in all the pictures of the
Annunciation, the Archangel Gabriel is depicted with this trinitarian
symbol in his hand standing before Mary, while above the chief altar or
under the dome, the Eye of the Eternal is painted within a triangle, made
to replace the Hebrew Yod or God.

Truly, says Ragon, there was a time when numbers and alphabetical
characters meant something more than they do now—the images of a mere
insignificant sound.


    Their mission was nobler then. Each of them represented by its
    form a complete sense, which, besides the meaning of the word, had
    a double(189) interpretation adapted to a dual doctrine. Thus when
    the sages desired to write something to be understood only by the
    savants, they confabulated a story, a dream, or some other
    fictitious subject with personal names of men and localities, that
    revealed by their lettered characters the true meaning of the
    author by that narrative. Such were all their religious
    creations.(190)


Every appellation and term had its _raison d’être_. The name of a plant or
mineral denoted its nature to the Initiate at the first glance. The
essence of everything was easily perceived by him once that it was figured
by such characters. The Chinese characters have preserved much of this
graphic and pictorial character to this day, though the secret of the full
system is lost. Nevertheless, even now, there are those among that nation
who can write a long narrative, a volume, on one page; and the symbols
that are explained historically, allegorically and astronomically, have
survived until now.

Moreover, there exists a universal language among the Initiates, which an
Adept, and even a disciple, of any nation may understand by reading it in
his own language. We Europeans, on the contrary, possess only one graphic
sign common to all, & (and); there is a language richer in metaphysical
terms than any on earth, whose every word is expressed by like common
signs. The Litera Pythagoræ, so called, the Greek Υ (the English capital
Y) if traced alone in a message, was as explicit as a whole page filled
with sentences, for it stood as a symbol for a number of things—for white
and black Magic, for instance.(191) Suppose one man enquired of another:
To what School of Magic does so and so belong? and the answer came back
with the letter traced with the right branch thicker than the left, then
it meant “to right hand or divine Magic;” but if the letter were traced in
the usual way, with the left branch thicker than the right, then it meant
the reverse, the right or left branch being the whole biography of a man.
In Asia, especially in the Devanâgarî characters, every letter had several
secret meanings.

Interpretations of the hidden sense of such apocalyptic writings are found
in the keys given in the _Kabalah_, and they are among its most sacred
lore. St. Hieronymus assures us that they were known to the School of the
Prophets and taught therein, which is very likely. Molitor, the learned
Hebraist, in his work on tradition says that:


    The two and twenty letters of the Hebrew alphabet were regarded as
    an emanation, or the visible expression of the divine forces
    inherent in the ineffable name.


These letters find their equivalent in, and are replaced by numbers, in
the same way as in the other systems. For instance, the twelfth and the
sixth letter of the alphabet yield eighteen in a name; the other letters
of that name added being always exchanged for that figure which
corresponds to the alphabetical letter; then all those figures are
subjected to an algebraical process which transforms them again into
letters; after which the latter yield to the enquirer “the most hidden
secrets of divine Permanency (eternity in its immutability) in the
Futurity.”



SECTION XI. THE HEXAGON WITH THE CENTRAL POINT, OR THE SEVENTH KEY.


Arguing upon the virtue in names (Baalshem), Molitor thinks it impossible
to deny that the _Kabalah_—its present abuses notwithstanding—has some
very profound and scientific basis to stand upon. And if it is claimed, he
argues,


    That before the Name of Jesus every other Name must bend, why
    should not the Tetragrammaton have the same power?(192)


This is good sense and logic. For if Pythagoras viewed the hexagon formed
of two crossed triangles as the symbol of creation, and the Egyptians, as
that of the union of fire and water (or of generation), the Essenes saw in
it the Seal of Solomon, the Jews the Shield of David, the Hindus the Sign
of Vishnu (to this day); and if even in Russia and Poland the double
triangle is regarded as a powerful talisman—then so widespread a use
argues that there is something in it. It stands to reason, indeed, that
such an ancient and universally revered symbol should not be merely laid
aside to be laughed at by those who know nothing of its virtues or real
Occult significance. To begin with, even the known sign is merely a
substitute for the one used by the Initiates. In a Tântrika work in the
British Museum, a terrible curse is called down upon the head of him who
shall ever divulge to the profane the real Occult hexagon known as the
“Sign of Vishnu,” “Solomon’s Seal,” etc.

The great power of the hexagon—with its central mystic sign the T, or the
Svastika, a septenary—is well explained in the seventh key of _Things
Concealed_, for it says:


    The seventh key is the hieroglyph of the sacred septenary, of
    royalty, of the priesthood [the Initiate], of triumph and true
    result by struggle. It is magic power in all its force, the true
    “Holy Kingdom.” In the Hermetic Philosophy it is the quintessence
    resulting from the union of the two forces of the great Magic
    Agent [Âkâsha, Astral Light.].... It is equally Jakin and Boaz
    bound by the will of the Adept and overcome by his omnipotence.


The force of this key is absolute in Magic. All religions have consecrated
this sign in their rites.

We can only glance hurriedly at present at the long series of antediluvian
works in their postdiluvian and fragmentary, often disfigured, form.
Although all of these are the inheritance from the Fourth Race—now lying
buried in the unfathomed depths of the ocean—still they are not to be
rejected. As we have shown, there was but one Science at the dawn of
mankind, and it was entirely divine. If humanity on reaching its adult
period has abused it—especially the last Sub‐Races of the Fourth Root‐
Race—it has been the fault and sin of the practitioners who desecrated the
divine knowledge, not of those who remained true to its pristine dogmas.
It is not because the modern Roman Catholic Church, faithful to her
traditional intolerance, is now pleased to see in the Occultist, and even
in the innocent Spiritualist and Mason, the descendants of “the Kischuph,
the Hamite, the Kasdim, the Cephene, the Ophite and the Khartumim”—all
these being “the followers of Satan,” that they are such indeed. The State
or National Religion of every country has ever and at all times very
easily disposed of rival schools by professing to believe they were
dangerous heresies—the old Roman Catholic State Religion as much as the
modern one.

The anathema, however, has not made the public any the wiser in the
Mysteries of the Occult Sciences. In some respects the world is all the
better for such ignorance. The secrets of Nature generally cut both ways,
and in the hands of the undeserving they are more than likely to become
murderous. Who in our modern day knows anything of the real significance
of, and the powers contained in, certain characters and
signs—talismans—whether for beneficent or evil purposes? Fragments of the
Runes and the writing of the Kischuph, found scattered in old mediæval
libraries; copies from the Ephesian and Milesian letters or characters;
the thrice famous _Book of Thoth_, and the terrible treatises (still
preserved) of Targes, the Chaldæan, and his disciple Tarchon, the
Etruscan—who flourished long before the Trojan War—are so many names and
appellations void of sense (though met with in classical literature) for
the educated modern scholar. Who, in the nineteenth century, believes in
the art, described in such treatises as those of Targes, of evoking and
directing thunder‐bolts? Yet the same is described in the Brâhmanical
literature, and Targes copied his “thunder‐bolts” from the Astra,(193)
those terrible engines of destruction known to the Mahâbhâratan Âryans. A
whole arsenal of dynamite bombs would pale before this art—if it ever
becomes understood by the Westerns. It is from an old fragment that was
translated to him, that the late Lord Bulwer Lytton got his idea of Vril.
It is a lucky thing, indeed, that, in the face of the virtues and
philanthropy that grace our age of iniquitous wars, of anarchists and
dynamiters, the secrets contained in the books discovered in Numa’s tomb
should have been burnt. But the science of Circe and Medea is not lost.
One can discover it in the apparent gibberish of the Tântrika Sûtras, the
_Kuku‐ma_ of the Bhûtânî and the Sikhim Dugpas and “Red‐caps” of Tibet,
and even in the sorcery of the Nîlgiri Mula Kurumbas. Very luckily few
outside the high practitioners of the Left Path and of the Adepts of the
Right—in whose hands the weird secrets of the real meaning are
safe—understand the “black” evocations. Otherwise the Western as much as
the Eastern Dugpas might make short work of their enemies. The name of the
latter is legion, for the direct descendants of the antediluvian sorcerers
hate all those who are not with them, arguing that, therefore, they are
against them.

As for the “Little Albert”—though even this small half‐esoteric volume has
become a literary relic—and the “Great Albert” or the “Red Dragon,”
together with the numberless old copies still in existence, the sorry
remains of the mythical Mother Shiptons and the Merlins—we mean the false
ones—all these are vulgarised imitations of the original works of the same
names. Thus the “Petit Albert” is the disfigured imitation of the great
work written in Latin by Bishop Adalbert, an Occultist of the eighth
century, sentenced by the second Roman Concilium. His work was reprinted
several centuries later and named _Alberti Parvi Lucii Libellus de
Mirabilibus Naturæ Arcanis_. The severities of the Roman Church have ever
been spasmodic. While one learns of this condemnation, which placed the
Church, as will be shown, in relation to the Seven Archangels, the Virtues
or Thrones of God, in the most embarrassing position for long centuries,
it remains a wonder indeed, to find that the Jesuits have not destroyed
the archives, with all their countless chronicles and annals, of the
History of France and those of the Spanish Escurial, along with them. Both
history and the chronicles of the former speak at length of the priceless
talisman received by Charles the Great from a Pope. It was a little volume
on Magic—or Sorcery, rather—all full of kabalistic figures, signs,
mysterious sentences and invocations to the stars and planets. These were
talismans against the enemies of the King (_les ennemis de Charlemagne_),
which talismans, the chronicler tells us, proved of great help, as “every
one of them [the enemies] died a violent death.” The small volume,
_Enchiridium Leonis Papæ_, has disappeared and is very luckily out of
print. Again the Alphabet of Thoth can be dimly traced in the modern Tarot
which can be had at almost every bookseller’s in Paris. As for its being
understood or utilised, the many fortune‐tellers in Paris, who make a
professional living by it, are sad specimens of failures of attempts at
reading, let alone correctly interpreting, the symbolism of the Tarot
without a preliminary philosophical study of the Science. The real Tarot,
in its complete symbology, can be found only in the Babylonian cylinders,
that any one can inspect and study in the British Museum and elsewhere.
Any one can see these Chaldæan, antediluvian rhombs, or revolving
cylinders, covered with sacred signs; but the secrets of these divining
“wheels,” or, as de Mirville calls them, “the rotating globes of Hecate,”
have to be left untold for some time to come. Meanwhile there are the
“turning‐tables” of the modern medium for the babes, and the _Kabalah_ for
the strong. This may afford some consolation.

People are very apt to use terms which they do not understand, and to pass
judgments on _primâ facie_ evidence. The difference between White and
Black Magic is very difficult to realise fully, as both have to be judged
by their motive, upon which their ultimate though not their immediate
effects depend, even though these may not come for years. Between the
“right and the left hand [Magic] there is but a cobweb thread,” says an
Eastern proverb. Let us abide by its wisdom and wait till we have learned
more.

We shall have to return at greater length to the relation of the _Kabalah_
to Gupta Vidyâ, and to deal further with esoteric and numerical systems,
but we must first follow the line of Adepts in post‐Christian times.



SECTION XII. THE DUTY OF THE TRUE OCCULTIST TOWARD RELIGIONS.


Having disposed of pre‐Christian Initiates and their Mysteries—though more
has to be said about the latter—a few words must be given to the earliest
post‐Christian Adepts, irrespective of their personal beliefs and
doctrines, or their subsequent places in History, whether sacred or
profane. Our task is to analyse this adeptship with its abnormal
thaumaturgical, or, as now called, psychological powers; to give each of
such Adepts his due, by considering, firstly, what are the historical
records about them that have reached us at this late day, and secondly, to
examine the laws of probability with regard to the said powers.

And at the outset the writer must be allowed a few words in justification
of what has to be said. It would be most unfair to see in these pages any
defiance to, or disrespect for, the Christian religion—least of all, a
desire to wound anyone’s feelings. The Theosophist believes in neither
Divine nor Satanic miracles. At such a distance of time he can only obtain
_primâ facie_ evidence and judge of it by the results claimed. There is
neither Saint nor Sorcerer, Prophet nor Soothsayer for him; only Adepts,
or proficients in the production of feats of a phenomenal character, to be
judged by their words and deeds. The only distinction he is now able to
trace depends on the results achieved—on the evidence whether they were
beneficent or maleficent in their character as affecting those for or
against whom the powers of the Adept were used. With the division so
arbitrarily made between proficients in “miraculous” doings of this or
that Religion by their respective followers and advocates, the Occultist
cannot and _must not_ be concerned. The Christian whose Religion commands
him to regard Peter and Paul as Saints, and divinely inspired and
glorified Apostles, and to view Simon and Apollonius as Wizards and
Necromancers, helped by, and serving the ends of, supposed Evil Powers—is
quite justified in thus doing if he be a sincere orthodox Christian. But
so also is the Occultist justified, if he would serve truth and only
truth, in rejecting such a one‐sided view. The student of Occultism must
belong to no special creed or sect, yet he is bound to show outward
respect to every creed and faith, if he would become an Adept of the Good
Law. He must not be bound by the pre‐judged and sectarian opinions of
anyone, and he has to form his own opinions and to come to his own
conclusions in accordance with the rules of evidence furnished to him by
the Science to which he is devoted. Thus, if the Occultist is, by way of
illustration, a Buddhist, then, while regarding Gautama Buddha as the
grandest of all the Adepts that lived, and the incarnation of unselfish
love, boundless charity, and moral goodness, he will regard in the same
light Jesus—proclaiming Him another such incarnation of every divine
virtue. He will reverence the memory of the great Martyr, even while
refusing to recognise in Him the incarnation on earth of the One Supreme
Deity, and the “Very God of Gods” in Heaven. He will cherish the ideal man
for his personal virtues, not for the claims made on his behalf by
fanatical dreamers of the early ages, or by a shrewd calculating Church
and Theology. He will even believe in most of the “asserted miracles,”
only explaining them in accordance with the rules of his own Science and
by his psychic discernment. Refusing them the term “miracle”—in the
theological sense of an event “contrary to the established laws of
nature”—he will nevertheless view them as a deviation from the laws known
(so far) to Science, quite another thing. Moreover the Occultist will, on
the _primâ facie_ evidence of the _Gospels_—whether proven or not—class
most of such works as beneficent, divine Magic, though he will be
justified in regarding such events as casting out devils into a herd of
swine(194) as allegorical, and as pernicious to true faith in their dead‐
letter sense. This is the view a genuine, impartial Occultist would take.
And in this respect even the fanatical Mussulmans who regard Jesus of
Nazareth as a great Prophet, and show respect to Him, are giving a
wholesome lesson in charity to Christians, who teach and accept that
“religious tolerance is impious and absurd,”(195) and who will never refer
to the prophet of Islam by any other term but that of a “false prophet.”
It is on the principles of Occultism, then, that Peter and Simon, Paul and
Apollonius, will now be examined.

These four Adepts are chosen to appear in these pages with good reason.
They are the first in post‐Christian Adeptship—as recorded in profane and
sacred writings—to strike the key‐note of “miracles,” that is of psychic
and physical phenomena. It is only theological bigotry and intolerance
that could so maliciously and arbitrarily separate the two harmonious
parts into two distinct manifestations of Divine and Satanic Magic, into
“godly” and “ungodly” works.



SECTION XIII. POST‐CHRISTIAN ADEPTS AND THEIR DOCTRINES.


What does the world at large know of Peter and Simon, for example? Profane
history has no record of these two, while that which the so‐called sacred
literature tells us of them is scattered about, contained in a few
sentences in the _Acts_. As to the _Apocrypha_, their very name forbids
critics to trust to them for information. The Occultists, however, claim
that, one‐sided and prejudiced as they may be, the apocryphal _Gospels_
contain far more historically true events and facts than does the _New
Testament_, the _Acts_ included. The former are crude tradition, the
latter (the official _Gospels_) are an elaborately made up legend. The
sacredness of the _New Testament_ is a question of private belief and of
blind faith, and while one is bound to respect the private opinion of
one’s neighbour, no one is forced to share it.

Who was Simon Magus, and what is known of him? One learns in the _Acts_
simply that on account of his remarkable magical Arts he was called “the
Great Power of God.” Philip is said to have baptised this Samaritan; and
subsequently he is accused of having offered money to Peter and John to
teach him the power of working true “miracles,” false ones, it is
asserted, being of the Devil.(196) This is all, if we omit the words of
abuse freely used against him for working “miracles” of the latter kind.
Origen mentions him as having visited Rome during the reign of Nero,(197)
and Mosheim places him among the open enemies of Christianity;(198) but
Occult tradition accuses him of nothing worse than refusing to recognise
“Simeon” as a Vicegerent of God, whether that “Simeon” was Peter or anyone
else being still left an open question with the critic.

That which Irenæus(199) and Epiphanius(200) say of Simon Magus—namely,
that he represented himself as the incarnated trinity; that in Samaria he
was the Father, in Judæa the Son, and had given himself out to the
Gentiles as the Holy Spirit—is simply backbiting. Times and events change;
human nature remains the same and unaltered under every sky and in every
age. The charge is the result and product of the traditional and now
classical _odium theologicum_. No Occultists—all of whom have experienced
personally, more or less, the effects of theological rancour—will ever
believe such things merely on the word of an Irenæus, if, indeed, he ever
wrote the words himself. Further on it is narrated of Simon that he took
about with him a woman whom he introduced as Helen of Troy, who had passed
through a hundred reincarnations, and who, still earlier, in the beginning
of æons, was Sophia, Divine Wisdom, an emanation of his own (Simon’s)
Eternal Mind, when he (Simon) was the “Father”; and finally, that by her
he had “begotten the Archangels and Angels, by whom this world was
created,” etc.

Now we all know to what a degree of transformation and luxuriant growth
any bare statement can be subjected and forced, after passing through only
half a dozen hands. Moreover, all these claims may be explained and even
shown to be true at bottom. Simon Magus was a Kabalist and a Mystic, who,
like so many other reformers, endeavoured to found a new Religion based on
the fundamental teachings of the Secret Doctrine, yet without divulging
more than necessary of its mysteries. Why then should not Simon, a Mystic,
deeply imbued with the fact of serial incarnations (we may leave out the
number “one hundred,” as a very probable exaggeration of his disciples),
speak of any one whom he knew psychically as an incarnation of some
heroine of that name, and in the way he did—if he ever did so? Do we not
find in our own century some ladies and gentlemen, not charlatans but
intellectual persons highly honoured in society, whose inner conviction
assures them that they were—one Queen Cleopatra, another one Alexander the
Great, a third Joan of Arc, and who or what not? This is a matter of inner
conviction, and is based on more or less familiarity with Occultism and
belief in the modern theory of reincarnation. The latter differs from the
one genuine doctrine of old, as will be shown, but there is no rule
without its exception.

As to the Magus being “one with God the Father, God the Son, and God the
Holy Ghost,” this again is quite reasonable, if we admit that a Mystic and
Seer has a right to use allegorical language; and in this case, moreover,
it is quite justified by the doctrine of Universal Unity taught in
Esoteric Philosophy. Every Occultist will say the same, on (to him)
scientific and logical grounds, in full accordance with the doctrine he
professes. Not a Vedântin but says the same thing daily: he is, of course,
Brahman, and he is Parabrahman, once that he rejects the individuality of
his personal spirit, and recognises the Divine Ray which dwells in his
Higher Self as only a reflection of the Universal Spirit. This is the echo
in all times and ages of the primitive doctrine of Emanations. The first
Emanation from the Unknown is the “Father,” the second the “Son,” and all
and everything proceeds from the One, or that Divine Spirit which is
“unknowable.” Hence, the assertion that by her (Sophia, or Minerva, the
Divine Wisdom) he (Simon), when yet in the bosom of the Father, himself
the Father (or the first collective Emanation), begot the Archangels—the
“Son”—who were the creators of this world.

The Roman Catholics themselves, driven to the wall by the irrefutable
arguments of their opponents—the learned Philologists and Symbologists who
pick to shreds Church dogmas and their authorities, and point out the
plurality of the Elohim in the _Bible_—admit to‐day that the first
“creation” of God, the Tsaba, or Archangels, must have participated in the
creation of the Universe. Might not we suppose:


    Although “God alone created the heaven and the earth” ... that
    however unconnected they [the Angels] may have been with the
    primordial _ex nihilo_ creation, they may have received a mission
    to achieve, to continue, and to sustain it?(201)


exclaims De Mirville, in answer to Renan, Lacour, Maury and the _tutti
quanti_ of the French Institute. With certain alterations it is precisely
this which is claimed by the Secret Doctrine. In truth there is not a
single doctrine preached by the many Reformers of the first and the
subsequent centuries of our era, that did not base its initial teachings
on this universal cosmogony. Consult Mosheim and see what he has to say of
the many “heresies” he describes. Cerinthus, the Jew,


    Taught that the Creator of this world ... the Sovereign God of the
    Jewish people, was a Being ... who derived his birth from the
    Supreme God;


that this Being, moreover,


    Fell by degrees from his native virtue and primitive dignity.


Basilides, Carpocrates and Valentinus, the Egyptian Gnostics of the second
century, held the same ideas with a few variations. Basilides preached
seven Æons (Hosts or Archangels), who issued from the substance of the
Supreme. Two of them, Power and Wisdom, begot the heavenly hierarchy of
the first class and dignity; this emanated a second; the latter a third,
and so on; each subsequent evolution being of a nature less exalted than
the precedent, and each creating for itself a Heaven as a dwelling, the
nature of each of these respective Heavens decreasing in splendour and
purity as it approached nearer to the earth. Thus the number of these
Dwellings amounted to 365; and over all presided the Supreme Unknown
called Abraxas, a name which in the Greek method of numeration yields the
number 365, which in its mystic and numerical meaning contains the number
355, or the man value.(202) This was a Gnostic Mystery based upon that of
primitive Evolution, which ended with “man.”

Saturnilus of Antioch promulgated the same doctrine slightly modified. He
taught two eternal principles, Good and Evil, which are simply Spirit and
Matter. The seven Angels who preside over the seven Planets are the
Builders of our Universe—a purely Eastern doctrine, as Saturnilus was an
Asiatic Gnostic. These Angels are the natural Guardians of the seven
Regions of our Planetary System, one of the most powerful among these
seven creating Angels of the _third_ order being “Saturn,” the presiding
genius of the Planet, and the God of the Hebrew people: namely, Jehovah,
who was venerated among the Jews, and to whom they dedicated the seventh
day or Sabbath, Saturday—“Saturn’s day” among the Scandinavians and also
among the Hindus.

Marcion, who also held the doctrine of the two opposed principles of Good
and Evil, asserted that there was a third Deity between the two—one of a
“mixed nature”—the God of the Jews, the Creator (with his Host) of the
lower, or our, World. Though ever at war with the Evil Principle, this
intermediate Being was nevertheless also opposed to the Good Principle,
whose place and title he coveted.

Thus Simon was only the son of his time, a religious Reformer like so many
others, and an Adept among the Kabalists. The Church, to which a belief in
his actual existence and great powers is a necessity—in order the better
to set off the “miracle” performed by Peter and his triumph over
Simon—extols unstintingly his wonderful magic feats. On the other hand,
Scepticism, represented by scholars and learned critics, tries to make
away with him altogether. Thus, after denying the very existence of Simon,
they have finally thought fit to merge his individuality entirely in that
of Paul. The anonymous author of _Supernatural Religion_ assiduously
endeavoured to prove that by Simon Magus we must understand the Apostle
Paul, whose _Epistles_ were secretly as well as openly calumniated and
opposed by Peter, and charged with containing “dysnoëtic learning.” Indeed
this seems more than probable when we think of the two Apostles and
contrast their characters.


    The Apostle of the Gentiles was brave, outspoken, sincere, and
    very learned; the Apostle of Circumcision, cowardly, cautious,
    insincere, and very ignorant. That Paul had been, partially at
    least, if not completely, initiated into the theurgic mysteries,
    admits of little doubt. His language, the phraseology so peculiar
    to the Greek philosophers, certain expressions used only by the
    Initiates, are so many sure ear‐marks to that supposition. Our
    suspicion has been strengthened by an able article entitled “Paul
    and Plato,” by Dr. A. Wilder, in which the author puts forward one
    remarkable and, for us, very precious observation. In the
    _Epistles to the Corinthians_, he shows Paul abounding with
    “expressions suggested by the initiations of Sabazius and Eleusis,
    and the lectures of the (Greek) philosophers. He (Paul) designates
    himself an _idiotes_—a person unskilful in the Word, but not in
    the _gnosis_ or philosophical learning. ‘We speak wisdom among the
    perfect or initiated,’ he writes, _even_ the _hidden wisdom_, ‘not
    the wisdom of this world, nor of the Archons of this world, but
    divine wisdom in a mystery, secret—which _none of the Archons of
    this world knew_.’ ”(203)

    What else can the Apostle mean by those unequivocal words, but
    that he himself, as belonging to the Mystæ (Initiated), spoke of
    things shown and explained only in the Mysteries? The “divine
    wisdom in a mystery which none of the _Archons of this world
    knew_,” has evidently some direct reference to the Basileus of the
    Eleusinian Initiation who did know. The Basileus belonged to the
    staff of the great Hierophant, and was an Archon of Athens; and as
    such was one of the chief Mystæ, belonging to the _interior_
    Mysteries, to which a very select and small number obtained an
    entrance.(204) The magistrates supervising the Eleusinia were
    called Archons.(205)


We will deal, however, first with Simon the Magician.



SECTION XIV. SIMON AND HIS BIOGRAPHER HIPPOLYTUS.


As shown in our earlier volumes, Simon was a pupil of the Tanaim of
Samaria, and the reputation he left behind him, together with the title of
“the Great Power of God,” testify in favour of the ability and learning of
his Masters. But the Tanaim were Kabalists of the same secret school as
John of the _Apocalypse_, whose careful aim it was to conceal as much as
possible the real meaning of the names in the Mosaic Books. Still the
calumnies so jealously disseminated against Simon Magus by the unknown
authors and compilers of the _Acts_ and other writings, could not cripple
the truth to such an extent as to conceal the fact that no Christian could
rival him in thaumaturgic deeds. The story told about his falling during
an aerial flight, breaking both his legs and then committing suicide, is
ridiculous. Posterity has heard but one side of the story. Were the
disciples of Simon to have a chance, we might perhaps find that it was
Peter who broke both his legs. But as against this hypothesis we know that
this Apostle was too prudent ever to venture himself in Rome. On the
confession of several ecclesiastical writers, no Apostle ever performed
such “supernatural wonders,” but of course pious people will say this only
the more proves that it was the Devil who worked through Simon. He was
accused of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, only because he introduced as
the “Holy Spiritus” the Mens (Intelligence) or “the Mother of all.” But we
find the same expression used in the _Book of Enoch_, in which, in
contradistinction to the “Son of Man,” he speaks of the “Son of the
Woman.” In the _Codex_ of the Nazarenes, and in the _Zohar_, as well as in
the _Books of Hermes_, the same expression is used; and even in the
apocryphal _Evangelium of the Hebrews_ we read that Jesus admitted the
female sex of the Holy Ghost by using the expression “My Mother, the Holy
Pneuma.”

After long ages of denial, however, the actual existence of Simon Magus
has been finally demonstrated, whether he was Saul, Paul or Simon. A
manuscript speaking of him under the last name has been discovered in
Greece and has put a stop to any further speculation.

In his _Histoire des Trois Premiers Siècles de l’Église_(206) M. de
Pressensé gives his opinion on this additional relic of early
Christianity. Owing to the numerous myths with which the history of Simon
abounds—he says—many Theologians (among Protestants, he ought to have
added) have concluded that it was no better than a clever tissue of
legends. But he adds:


    It contains positive facts, it seems, now warranted by the
    unanimous testimony of the Fathers of the Church and the narrative
    of Hippolytus recently discovered.(207)


This MS. is very far from being complimentary to the alleged founder of
Western Gnosticism. While recognising great powers in Simon, it brands him
as a priest of Satan—which is quite enough to show that it was written by
a Christian. It also shows that, like another “servant of the Evil One”—as
Manes is called by the Church—Simon was a _baptised_ Christian; but that
both, being too well versed in the mysteries of true _primitive_
Christianity, were persecuted for it. The secret of such persecution was
then, as it is now, quite transparent to those who study the question
impartially. Seeking to preserve his independence, Simon could not submit
to the leadership or authority of any of the Apostles, least of all to
that of either Peter or John, the fanatical author of the _Apocalypse_.
Hence charges of heresy followed by “anathema maranatha.” The persecutions
by the Church were never directed against Magic, when it was orthodox; for
the new Theurgy, established and regulated by the Fathers, now known to
Christendom as “grace” and “miracles,” was, and is still, when it does
happen, only Magic—whether conscious or unconscious. Such phenomena as
have passed to posterity under the name of “divine miracles” were produced
through powers acquired by great purity of life and ecstasy. Prayer and
contemplation added to asceticism are the best means of discipline in
order to become a Theurgist, where there is no regular initiation. For
intense prayer for the accomplishment of some object is only intense
_will_ and desire, resulting in unconscious Magic. In our own day George
Müller of Bristol has proved it. But “divine miracles” are produced by the
same causes that generate effects of Sorcery. The whole difference rests
on the good or evil effects aimed at, and on the actor who produces them.
The thunders of the Church were directed only against those who dissented
from the formulæ and attributed to themselves the production of certain
marvellous effects, instead of fathering them on a personal God; and thus,
while those Adepts in Magic Arts who acted under her direct instructions
and auspices were proclaimed to posterity and history as saints and
friends of God, all others were hooted out of the Church and sentenced to
eternal calumny and curses from their day to this. Dogma and authority
have ever been the curse of humanity, the great extinguishers of light and
truth.(208)

It was perhaps the recognition of a germ of that which, later on, in the
then nascent Church, grew into the virus of insatiate power and ambition,
culminating finally in the dogma of infallibility, that forced Simon, and
so many others, to break away from her at her very birth. Sects and
dissensions began with the first century. While Paul rebukes Peter to his
face, John slanders under the veil of vision the Nicolaitans, and makes
Jesus declare that he hates them.(209) Therefore we pay little attention
to the accusations against Simon in the MS. found in Greece.

It is entitled _Philosophumena_. Its author, regarded as Saint Hippolytus
by the Greek Church, is referred to as an “unknown heretic” by the
Papists, only because he speaks in it “very slanderously” of Pope
Callistus, also a Saint. Nevertheless, Greeks and Latins agree in
declaring the _Philosophumena_ to be an extraordinary and very erudite
work. Its antiquity and genuineness have been vouched for by the best
authorities of Tübingen.

Whoever the author may have been, he expresses himself about Simon in this
wise:


    Simon, a man well versed in magic arts, deceived many persons
    partly by the art of Thrasymedes,(210) and partly _with the help
    of demons_.(211)... He determined to pass himself off as a god....
    Aided by his wicked arts, he turned to profit not only the
    teachings of Moses, but those of the poets.... His disciples use
    to this day his charms. Thanks to incantations, to philtres, to
    their attractive caresses(212) and what they call “sleeps,” they
    send demons to influence all those whom they would fascinate. With
    this object they employ what they call “familiar demons.”(213)


Further on the MS. reads:


    The Magus (Simon) made those who wished to enquire of the demon,
    write what their question was on a leaf of parchment; this, folded
    in four, was thrown into a burning brazier, in order that the
    smoke should reveal the contents of the writing to the Spirit
    (demon) (_Philos._, IV. iv.). Incense was thrown by handfuls on
    the blazing coals, the Magus adding, on pieces of papyrus, the
    Hebrew names of the Spirits he was addressing, and the flame
    devoured all. Very soon the _divine_ Spirit seemed to overwhelm
    the Magician, who uttered unintelligible invocations, and plunged
    in such a state he answered every question—phantasmal apparitions
    being often raised over the flaming brazier (_ibid._, iii.); at
    other times fire descended from heaven upon objects previously
    pointed out by the Magician (_ibid._); or again the deity evoked,
    crossing the room, would trace fiery orbs in its flight (_ibid._,
    ix.).(214)


So far the above statements agree with those of Anastasius the Sinaïte:


    People saw Simon causing statues to walk; precipitating himself
    into the flames without being burnt; metamorphosing his body into
    that of various animals [lycanthropy]; raising at banquets
    phantoms and spectres; _causing the furniture in the rooms to move
    about_, by invisible _spirits_. He gave out that he was escorted
    by a number of shades to whom he gave the name of “souls of the
    dead.” Finally, he used to fly in the air ... (Anast., _Patrol.
    Grecque_, vol. lxxxix., col. 523, quæst. xx.).(215)


Suetonius says in his _Nero_,


    In those days an Icarus fell at his first ascent near Nero’s box
    and covered it with his blood.(216)


This sentence, referring evidently to some unfortunate acrobat who missed
his footing and tumbled, is brought forward as a proof that it was Simon
who fell.(217) But the latter’s name is surely too famous, if one must
credit the Church Fathers, for the historian to have mentioned him simply
as “an Icarus.” The writer is quite aware that there exists in Rome a
locality named Simonium, near the Church of SS. Cosmas and Daimanus (Via
Sacra), and the ruins of the ancient temple of Romulus, where the broken
pieces of a stone, on which it is alleged the two knees of the Apostle
Peter were impressed in thanksgiving after his supposed victory over
Simon, are shown to this day. But what does this exhibition amount to? For
the broken fragments of one stone, the Buddhists of Ceylon show a whole
rock on Adam’s Peak with another imprint upon it. A crag stands upon its
platform, a terrace of which supports a huge boulder, and on the boulder
rests for nearly three thousand years the sacred foot‐print, of a foot
five feet long. Why not credit the legend of the latter, if we have to
accept that of St. Peter? “Prince of Apostles,” or “Prince of Reformers,”
or even the “First‐born of Satan,” as Simon is called, all are entitled to
legends and fictions. One may be allowed to discriminate, however.

That Simon could fly, _i.e._, raise himself in the air for a few minutes,
is no impossibility. Modern mediums have performed the same feat supported
by a force that Spiritualists persist in calling “spirits.” But if Simon
did so, it was with the help of a self‐acquired blind power that heeds
little the prayers and commands of rival Adepts, let alone Saints. The
fact is that logic is against the supposed fall of Simon at the prayer of
Peter. For had he been defeated publicly by the Apostle, his disciples
would have abandoned him after such an evident sign of inferiority, and
would have become orthodox Christians. But we find even the author of
_Philosophumena_, just such a Christian, showing otherwise. Simon had lost
so little credit with his pupils and the masses, that he went on daily
preaching in the Roman Campania after his supposed fall from the clouds
“far above the Capitolium,” in which fall he broke his legs only! Such a
lucky fall is in itself sufficiently miraculous, one would say.



SECTION XV. ST. PAUL THE REAL FOUNDER OF PRESENT CHRISTIANITY.


We may repeat with the author of _Phallicism_:


    We are all for _construction_—even for _Christian_, although of
    course philosophical _construction_. We have nothing to do with
    reality, in man’s limited, mechanical, scientific sense, or with
    _realism_. We have undertaken to show that mysticism is the very
    life and soul of religion;(218) ... that _the Bible is only
    misread and misrepresented when rejected as advancing supposed
    fabulous and contradictory things_; that Moses did not make
    mistakes, but spoke to the “children of men” in the only way in
    which _children_ in their nonage can be addressed; that the world
    is, indeed, a very different place from that which it is assumed
    to be; that what is derided as superstition is the only true and
    the only scientific _knowledge_, and moreover that modern
    knowledge and modern science are to a great extent not only
    _superstition_, but superstition of a very destructive and deadly
    kind.(219)


All this is perfectly true and correct. But it is also true that the _New
Testament_, the _Acts_ and the _Epistles_—however much the historical
figure of Jesus may be true—are all symbolical and allegorical sayings,
and that “it was not Jesus but Paul who was the real founder of
Christianity;”(220) but it was not the official Church Christianity, at
any rate. “The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch,” the
_Acts of the Apostles_ tell us,(221) and they were not so called before,
nor for a long time after, but simply Nazarenes.

This view is found in more than one writer of the present and the past
centuries. But, hitherto, it has always been laid aside as an unproven
hypothesis, a blasphemous assumption; though, as the author of _Paul, the
Founder of Christianity_(222) truly says:


    Such men as Irenæus, Epiphanius and Eusebius have transmitted to
    posterity a reputation for such untruth and dishonest practices
    that the heart sickens at the story of the crimes of that period.


The more so, since the whole Christian scheme rests upon _their_ sayings.
But we find now another corroboration, and this time on the perfect
reading of biblical glyphs. In _The Source of Measures_ we find the
following:


    It must be borne in mind that our present Christianity is
    _Pauline_, not _Jesus_. Jesus, in his life, was a Jew, conforming
    to the law; even more, He says: “The scribes and pharisees sit in
    Moses’ seat; whatsoever therefore they command you to do, that
    observe and do.” And again: “I did not come to destroy but to
    fulfil the law.” Therefore, He was under the law to the day of his
    death, and could not, while in life, abrogate one jot or tittle of
    it. He was circumcised and commanded circumcision. But Paul said
    of circumcision that it availed nothing, and _he_ (Paul) abrogated
    the law. _Saul_ and _Paul_—that is, Saul, under the law, and Paul,
    freed from the obligations of the law—were in one man, but
    parallelisms _in the flesh_, of Jesus the man under the law as
    observing it, who thus died in _Chréstos_ and arose, freed from
    its obligations, in the spirit world as _Christos_, or the
    triumphant Christ. It was the Christ who was freed, but Christ was
    in the Spirit. Saul in the flesh was the function of, and parallel
    of Chréstos. Paul in the flesh was the function and parallel of
    Jesus become Christ in the spirit, as an early reality to answer
    to and act for the _apotheosis_; and so armed with all authority
    in the flesh to abrogate human law.(223)


The real reason why Paul is shown as “abrogating the law” can be found
only in India, where to this day the most ancient customs and privileges
are preserved in all their purity, notwithstanding the abuse levelled at
the same. There is only one class of persons who can disregard the law of
Brâhmanical institutions, caste included, with impunity, and that is the
_perfect_ “Svâmîs,” the Yogîs—who have reached, or are supposed to have
reached, the first step towards the Jîvanmukta state—or the full
Initiates. And Paul was undeniably an Initiate. We will quote a passage or
two from _Isis Unveiled_, for we can say now nothing better than what was
said then:


    Take Paul, read the little of original that is left of him in the
    writings attributed to this brave, honest, sincere man, and see
    whether anyone can find a word therein to show that Paul meant by
    the word Christ anything more than the abstract ideal of the
    personal divinity indwelling in man. For Paul, Christ is not a
    person, but an embodied idea. “If any man is in Christ he is a new
    creation,” _he is reborn_, as after initiation, for the Lord is
    spirit—the spirit of man. Paul was the only one of the apostles
    who had understood the secret ideas underlying the teachings of
    Jesus, although he had never met him.


But Paul himself was not infallible or perfect.


    Bent upon inaugurating a new and broad reform, one embracing the
    whole of humanity, he sincerely set his own doctrines far above
    the wisdom of the ages, above the ancient Mysteries and final
    revelation to the Epoptæ.

    Another proof that Paul belonged to the circle of the “Initiates”
    lies in the following fact. The apostle had his head shorn at
    Ceuchreæ, where Lucius (_Apuleius_) was initiated, because “he had
    a vow.” The Nazars—or set apart—as we see in the Jewish
    Scriptures, had to cut their hair, which they wore long, and which
    “no razor touched” at any other time, and sacrifice it on the
    altar of initiation. And the Nazars were a class of Chaldæan
    Theurgists or Initiates.


It is shown in _Isis Unveiled_ that Jesus belonged to this class.


    Paul declares that: “According to the grace of God which is given
    unto me, as a wise _master‐builder_, I have laid the foundation.”
    (_I. Corinth._, iii. 10.)

    This expression, master‐builder, used only _once_ in the whole
    _Bible_, and by Paul, may be considered as a whole revelation. In
    the Mysteries, the third part of the sacred rites was called
    Epopteia, or revelation, reception into the secrets. In substance
    it means the highest stage of clairvoyance—the divine; ... but the
    real significance of the word is “overseeing,” from ὄπτομαι—“I see
    myself.” In Sanskrit the root _âp_ had the same meaning
    originally, though now it is understood as meaning “to
    obtain.”(224)

    The word _epopteia_ is compound, from ἐπὶ “upon,” and ὄπτομαι “to
    look,” or an overseer, an inspector—also used for a master‐
    builder. The title of master‐mason, in Freemasonry, is derived
    from this, in the sense used in the Mysteries. Therefore, when
    Paul entitles himself a “master‐builder,” he is using a word pre‐
    eminently kabalistic, theurgic, and masonic, and one which no
    other apostle uses. He thus declares himself an _adept_, having
    the right to initiate others.

    If we search in this direction, with those sure guides, the
    Grecian Mysteries and the _Kabalah_, before us, it will be easy to
    find the secret reason why Paul was so persecuted and hated by
    Peter, John, and James. The author of the _Revelation_ was a
    Jewish Kabalist, _pur sang_, with all the hatred inherited by him
    from his forefathers toward the pagan Mysteries.(225) His jealousy
    during the life of Jesus extended even to Peter; and it is but
    after the death of their common master that we see the two
    apostles—the former of whom wore the Mitre and the Petaloon of the
    Jewish Rabbis—preach so zealously the rite of circumcision. In the
    eyes of Peter, Paul, who had humiliated him, and whom he felt so
    much his superior in “Greek learning” and philosophy, must have
    naturally appeared as a magician, a man polluted with the
    “Gnosis,” with the “wisdom” of the Greek Mysteries—hence, perhaps,
    “Simon the Magician” as a comparison, not a nickname.(226)



SECTION XVI. PETER A JEWISH KABALIST, NOT AN INITIATE.


As to Peter, biblical criticism has shown that in all probability he had
no more to do with the foundation of the Latin Church at Rome than to
furnish the pretext, so readily seized upon by the cunning Irenæus, of
endowing the Church with a new name for the Apostle—Petra or Kiffa—a name
which, by an easy play upon words, could be readily connected with
Petroma. The Petroma was a pair of stone tablets used by the Hierophants
at the Initiations, during the final Mystery. In this lies concealed the
secret of the Vatican claim to the seat of Peter. As already quoted in
_Isis Unveiled_, ii. 92:


    In the Oriental countries the designation Peter (in Phœnician and
    Chaldaic an interpreter), appears to have been the title of this
    personage.(227)


So far, and as the “interpreters” of _Neo_‐Christianism, the Popes have
most undeniably the right to call themselves successors to the title of
Peter, but hardly the successors to, least of all the interpreters of, the
doctrines of Jesus, the Christ; for there is the Oriental Church, older
and far purer than the Roman hierarchy, which, having ever faithfully held
to the primitive teachings of the Apostles, is known historically to have
refused to follow the Latin seceders from the original Apostolic Church,
though, curiously enough, she is still referred to by her Roman sister as
the “Schismatic” Church. It is useless to repeat the reasons for the
statements above made, as they may all be found in _Isis Unveiled_,(228)
where the words, Peter, Patar, and Pitar, are explained, and the origin of
the “Seat of Pitah” is shown. The reader will find upon referring to the
above pages that an inscription was found on the coffin of Queen Mentuhept
of the Eleventh Dynasty (2250 B.C. according to Bunsen), which in its turn
was shown to have been transcribed from the Seventeenth Chapter of the
_Book of the Dead_, dating certainly not later than 4500 B.C. or 496 years
before the World’s Creation, in the Genesiacal chronology. Nevertheless,
Baron Bunsen shows the group of the hieroglyphics given (_Peter‐ref‐su_,
the “Mystery Word”) and the sacred formulary mixed up with a whole series
of glosses and various interpretations on a monument 4,000 years old.


    This is identical with saying that the record (the true
    interpretation) was at that time no longer intelligible.... We beg
    our readers to understand that a sacred text, a hymn, containing
    the words of a departed spirit, existed in such a state, about
    4,000 years ago, as to be all but unintelligible to royal
    scribes.(229)


“Unintelligible” to the non‐initiated—this is certain; and it is so proved
by the confused and contradictory glosses. Yet there can be no doubt that
it was—for it _still is_—a mystery word. The Baron further explains:


    It appears to me that our PTR is literally the old Aramaic and
    Hebrew “Patar,” which occurs in the history of Joseph as the
    specific word for _interpreting_, whence also Pitrum is the term
    for interpretation of a text, a dream.(230)


This word, PTR, was partially interpreted owing to another word similarly
written in another group of hieroglyphics, on a stele, the glyph used for
it being an opened eye, interpreted by De Rougé(231) as “to appear,” and
by Bunsen as “illuminator,” which is more correct. However it may be, the
word Patar, or Peter, would locate both master and disciple in the circle
of initiation, and connect them with the Secret Doctrine; while in the
“Seat of Peter” we can hardly help seeing a connection with Petroma, the
double set of stone tablets used by the Hierophant at the Supreme
Initiation during the final Mystery, as already stated, also with the
Pîtha‐sthâna (seat, or the place of a seat), a term used in the Mysteries
of the Tântriks in India, in which the limbs of Satî are scattered and
then united again, as those of Osiris by Isis.(232) Pîtha is a Sanskrit
word, and is also used to designate the seat of the initiating Lama.

Whether all the above terms are due simply to “coincidences” or otherwise
is left to the decision of our learned Symbologists and Philologists. We
state facts—and nothing more. Many other writers, far more learned and
entitled to be heard than the author has ever claimed to be, have
sufficiently demonstrated that Peter never had anything to do with the
foundation of the Latin Church; that his supposed name Petra or Kiffa,
also the whole story of his Apostleship at Rome, are simply a play on the
term, which meant in every country, in one or another form, the Hierophant
or Interpreter of the Mysteries; and that finally, far from dying a martyr
at Rome, where he had probably never been, he died at a good old age at
Babylon. In _Sepher Toldoth Jeshu_, a Hebrew manuscript of great
antiquity—evidently an original and very precious document, if one may
judge from the care the Jews took to hide it from the Christians—Simon
(Peter) is referred to as “a faithful servant of God,” who passed his life
in austerities and meditation, a Kabalist and a Nazarene who lived at
Babylon “at the top of a tower, composed hymns, preached charity,” and
died there.



SECTION XVII. APOLLONIUS OF TYANA.


It is said in _Isis Unveiled_ that the greatest teachers of divinity agree
that nearly all ancient books were written symbolically and in a language
intelligible only to the Initiated. The biographical sketch of Apollonius
of Tyana affords an example. As every Kabalist knows, it embraces the
whole of the Hermetic Philosophy, being a counterpart in many respects of
the traditions left us of King Solomon. It reads like a fairy story, but,
as in the case of the latter, sometimes facts and historical events are
presented to the world under the colours of fiction. The journey to India
represents in its every stage, though of course allegorically, the trials
of a Neophyte, giving at the same time a geographical and topographical
idea of a certain country as it is even now, if one knows where to look
for it. The long discourses of Apollonius with the Brâhmans, their sage
advice, and the dialogues with the Corinthian Menippus would, if
interpreted, give the Esoteric Catechism. His visit to the empire of the
wise men, his interview with their king Hiarchas, the oracle of
Amphiaraus, explain symbolically many of the secret dogmas of Hermes—in
the generic sense of the name—and of Occultism. Wonderful is this to
relate, and were not the statement supported by numerous calculations
already made, and the secret already half revealed, the writer would never
have dared to say it. The travels of the great Magus are correctly, though
allegorically described—that is to say, all that is related by Damis had
actually taken place—but the narrative is based upon the Zodiacal signs.
As _transliterated_ by Damis under the guidance of Apollonius and
_translated_ by Philostratus, it is a marvel indeed. At the conclusion of
what may now be related of the wonderful Adept of Tyana our meaning will
become clearer. Suffice it to say for the present that the dialogues
spoken of would disclose, if correctly understood, some of the most
important secrets of Nature. Éliphas Lévi points out the great resemblance
which exists between King Hiarchus and the fabulous Hiram, from whom
Solomon procured the cedars of Lebanon and the gold of Ophir. But he keeps
silent as to another resemblance of which, as a learned Kabalist, he could
not be ignorant. Moreover, according to his invariable custom, he
mystifies the reader more than he teaches him, divulging nothing and
leading him off the right track.

Like most of the historical heroes of hoary antiquity, whose lives and
works strongly differ from those of commonplace humanity, Apollonius is to
this day a riddle, which has, so far, found no Œdipus. His existence is
surrounded with such a veil of mystery that he is often mistaken for a
myth. But according to every law of logic and reason, it is quite clear
that Apollonius should never be regarded in such a light. If the Tyanean
Theurgist may be put down as a fabulous character, then history has no
right to her Cæsars and Alexanders. It is quite true that this Sage, who
stands unrivalled in his thaumaturgical powers to this day—on evidence
historically attested—came into the arena of public life no one seems to
know whence, and disappeared from it, no one seems to know whither. But
the reasons for this are evident. Every means was used—especially during
the fourth and fifth centuries of our era—to sweep from people’s minds the
remembrance of this great and holy man. The circulation of his
biographies, which were many and enthusiastic, was prevented by the
Christians, and for a very good reason, as we shall see. The diary of
Damis survived most miraculously, and remained alone to tell the tale. But
it must not be forgotten that Justin Martyr often speaks of Apollonius,
and the character and truthfulness of this good man are unimpeachable, the
more in that he had good reasons to feel bewildered. Nor can it be denied
that there is hardly a Church Father of the first six centuries that left
Apollonius unnoticed. Only, according to invariable Christian customs of
charity, their pens were dipped as usual in the blackest ink of _odium
theologicum_, intolerance and one‐sidedness. St. Jerome (Hieronymus) gives
at length the story of St. John’s alleged contest with the Sage of Tyana—a
competition of “miracles”—in which, of course, the truthful saint(233)
describes in glowing colours the defeat of Apollonius, and seeks
corroboration in St. John’s _Apocrypha_ proclaimed doubtful _even_ by the
Church.(234)

Therefore it is that nobody can say where or when Apollonius was born, and
everyone is equally ignorant of the date at which, and of the place where
he died. Some think he was eighty or ninety years old at the time of his
death, others that he was one hundred or even one hundred and seventeen.
But, whether he ended his days at Ephesus in the year 96 A.D., as some
say, or whether the event took place at Lindus in the temple of Pallas‐
Athene, or whether again he disappeared from the temple of Dictynna, or
whether, as others maintain, he did not die at all, but when a hundred
years old renewed his life by Magic, and went on working for the benefit
of humanity, no one can tell. The Secret Records alone have noted his
birth and subsequent career. But then—“who hath believed in _that_
report?”

All that history knows is that Apollonius was the enthusiastic founder of
a new school of contemplation. Perhaps less metaphorical and more
practical than Jesus, he nevertheless inculcated the same quintessence of
spirituality, the same high moral truths. He is accused of having confined
them to the higher classes of society instead of doing what Buddha and
Jesus did, instead of preaching them to the poor and the afflicted. Of his
reasons for acting in such an exclusive way it is impossible to judge at
so late a date. But Karmic law seems to be mixed up with it. Born, as we
are told, among the aristocracy, it is very likely that he desired to
finish the work undone in this particular direction by his predecessor,
and sought to offer “peace on earth and good will” to _all_ men, and not
alone to the outcast and the criminal. Therefore he associated with the
kings and the mighty ones of the age. Nevertheless, the three “miracle‐
workers” exhibited striking similarity of purpose. Like Jesus and like
Buddha, Apollonius was the uncompromising enemy of all outward show of
piety, all display of useless religious ceremonies, bigotry and hypocrisy.
That his “miracles” were more wonderful, more varied, and far better
attested in History than any others, is also true. Materialism denies; but
evidence, and the affirmations of even the Church herself, however much he
is branded by her, show this to be the fact.(235)


    The calumnies set afloat against Apollonius were as numerous as
    they were false. So late as eighteen centuries after his death he
    was defamed by Bishop Douglas in his work against miracles. In
    this the Right Reverend bishop crushed himself against historical
    facts. For it is not in the _miracles_, but in the identity of
    ideas and doctrines preached that we have to look for a similarity
    between Buddha, Jesus and Apollonius. If we study the question
    with a dispassionate mind, we shall soon perceive that the ethics
    of Gautama, Plato, Apollonius, Jesus, Ammonius Sakkas, and his
    disciples, were all based on the same mystic philosophy—that all
    worshipped one divine Ideal, whether they considered it as the
    “Father” of humanity, who lives in man, as man lives in Him, or as
    the Incomprehensible Creative Principle. All led God‐like lives.
    Ammonius, speaking of his philosophy, taught that their school
    dated from the days of Hermes, who brought his wisdom from India.
    It was the same mystical contemplation throughout as that of the
    Yogin: the communion of the Brâhman with his own luminous Self—the
    “Âtman.”(236)


The groundwork of the Eclectic School is thus shown to be identical with
the doctrines of the Yogîs—the Hindu Mystics; it is proved that it had a
common origin, from the same source as the earlier Buddhism of Gautama and
of his Arhats.


    The _Ineffable Name_ in the search for which so many
    Kabalists—unacquainted with any Oriental or even European
    Adepts—vainly consume their knowledge and lives, dwells latent in
    the heart of every man. This mirific name which, according to the
    most ancient oracles, “rushes into the infinite worlds,
    ἀφοιτήτῳστροφάλιγγι,” can be obtained in a twofold way: by regular
    initiation, and through the “small voice” which Elijah heard in
    the cave of Horeb, the mount of God. And “when Elijah heard it he
    wrapped his _face in his mantle_ and stood in the entering of the
    cave. And behold there came _the_ voice.”

    When Apollonius of Tyana desired to hear the “small voice,” he
    used to wrap himself up entirely in a mantle of fine wool, on
    which he placed both his feet, after having performed certain
    magnetic passes, and pronounced not the “name” but an invocation
    well known to every adept. Then he drew the mantle over his head
    and face, and his translucid or astral spirit was free. On
    ordinary occasions he no more wore wool than the priests of the
    temples. The possession of the secret combination of the “name”
    gave the Hierophant supreme power over every being, human or
    otherwise, inferior to himself in soul‐strength.(237)


To whatever school he belonged, this fact is certain, that Apollonius of
Tyana left an imperishable name behind him. Hundreds of works were written
upon this wonderful man; historians have seriously discussed him;
pretentious fools, unable to come to any conclusion about the Sage, have
tried to deny his very existence. As to the Church, although she execrates
his memory, she has ever tried to present him in the light of a historical
character. Her policy now seems to be to direct the impression left by him
into another channel—a well known and a very old stratagem. The Jesuits,
for instance, while admitting his “miracles,” have set going a double
current of thought, and they have succeeded, as they succeed in all they
undertake. Apollonius is represented by one party as an obedient “medium
of Satan,” surrounding his theurgical powers by a most wonderful and
dazzling light; while the other party professes to regard the whole matter
as a clever romance, written with a predetermined object in view.

In his voluminous Memoirs of Satan, the Marquis de Mirville, in the course
of his pleading for the recognition of the enemy of God as the producer of
spiritual phenomena, devotes a whole chapter to this great Adept. The
following translation of passages in his book unveils the whole plot. The
reader is asked to bear in mind that the Marquis wrote every one of his
works under the auspices and authorisation of the Holy See of Rome.


    It would be to leave the first century incomplete and to offer an
    insult to the memory of St. John, to pass over in silence the name
    of one who had the honour of being his special antagonist, as
    Simon was that of St. Peter, Elymas that of Paul, etc. In the
    first years of the Christian era, ... there appeared at Tyana in
    Cappadocia one of those extraordinary men of whom the Pythagorean
    School was so very lavish. As great a traveller as was his master,
    initiated in all the secret doctrines of India, Egypt and Chaldæa,
    endowed, therefore, with all the theurgic powers of the ancient
    Magi, he bewildered, each in its turn, all the countries which he
    visited, and which all—we are obliged to admit—seem to have
    blessed his memory. We could not doubt this fact without
    repudiating real historical records. The details of his life are
    transmitted to us by a historian of the fourth century
    (Philostratus), himself the translator of a diary that recorded
    day by day the life of the philosopher, written by Damis, his
    disciple and intimate friend.(238)


De Mirville admits the possibility of _some_ exaggerations in both
recorder and translator; but he “does not believe they hold a very wide
space in the narrative.” Therefore, he regrets to find the Abbé Freppel
“in his eloquent _Essays_,(239) calling the diary of Damis a romance.”
Why?


    [Because] the orator bases his opinion on the perfect similitude,
    calculated as he imagines, of that legend with the life of the
    Saviour. But in studying the subject more profoundly, he [Abbé
    Freppel] can convince himself that neither Apollonius, nor Damis,
    nor again Philostratus ever claimed a greater honour than a
    likeness to St. John. This programme was in itself sufficiently
    fascinating, and the travesty as sufficiently scandalous; for
    owing to magic arts Apollonius had succeeded in counterbalancing,
    in appearance, several of the miracles at Ephesus [produced by St.
    John], etc.(240)


The _anguis in herba_ has shown its head. It is the perfect, the wonderful
similitude of the life of Apollonius with that of the Saviour that places
the Church between Scylla and Charybdis. To deny the life and the
“miracles” of the former, would amount to denying the trustworthiness of
the same Apostles and patristic writers on whose evidence is built the
life of Jesus himself. To father the Adept’s beneficent deeds, his
raisings of the dead, acts of charity, healing powers, etc., on the “old
enemy” would be rather dangerous at this time. Hence the stratagem to
confuse the ideas of those who rely upon authorities and criticisms. The
Church is far more clear‐sighted than any of our great historians. The
Church _knows_ that to deny the existence of that Adept would lead her to
denying the Emperor Vespasian and _his_ Historians, the Emperors Alexander
Severus and Aurelianus and _their_ Historians, and finally to deny Jesus
and every evidence about Him, thus preparing the way to her flock for
finally denying _herself_. It becomes interesting to learn what she says
in this emergency, through her chosen speaker, De Mirville. It is as
follows:

What is there so new and so impossible in the narrative of Damis
concerning their voyages to the countries of the Chaldees and the
Gymnosophists?—he asks. Try to recall, before denying, what were in those
days those countries of marvels _par excellence_, as also the testimony of
such men as Pythagoras, Empedocles and Democritus, who ought to be allowed
to have known what they were writing about. With what have we finally to
reproach Apollonius? Is it for having made, as the Oracles did, a series
of prophecies and predictions wonderfully verified? No: because, better
studied now, we _know_ what they are.(241) The Oracles have now become to
us, what they were to every one during the past century, from Van Dale to
Fontenelle. Is it for having been endowed with second sight, and having
had visions at a distance?(242) No; for such phenomena are at the present
day endemical in half Europe. Is it for having boasted of his knowledge of
every existing language under the sun, without having ever learned one of
them? But who can be ignorant of the fact that this is the best
criterion(243) of the presence and assistance of a spirit of whatever
nature it may be? Or is it for having believed in transmigration
(reincarnation)? It is still believed in (by millions) in our day. No one
has any idea of the number of the men of Science who long for the re‐
establishment of the Druidical Religion and of the Mysteries of
Pythagoras. Or is it for having exorcised the demons and the plague? The
Egyptians, the Etruscans and all the Roman Pontiffs had done so long
before.(244) For having conversed with the dead? We do the same to‐day, or
believe we do so—which is all the same. For having believed in the
Empuses? Where is the Demonologist that does not know that the Empuse is
the “south demon” referred to in David’s _Psalms_, and dreaded then as it
is feared even now in all Northern Europe?(245) For having made himself
invisible at will? It is one of the achievements of mesmerism. For having
appeared after his (supposed) death to the Emperor Aurelian above the city
walls of Tyana, and for having compelled him thereby to raise the siege of
that town? Such was the mission of every hero beyond the tomb, and the
reason of the worship vowed to the Manes.(246) For having descended into
the famous den of Trophonius, and taken from it an old book preserved for
years after by the Emperor Adrian in his Antium library? The trustworthy
and sober Pausanias had descended into the same den before Apollonius, and
came back no less a believer. For having disappeared at his death? Yes,
like Romulus, like Votan, like Lycurgus, like Pythagoras,(247) always
under the most mysterious circumstances, ever attended by apparitions,
revelations, etc. Let us stop here and repeat once more: had the life of
Apollonius been simple _romance_, he would never have attained such a
celebrity during his lifetime or created such a numerous sect, one so
enthusiastic after his death.

And, to add to this, had all this been a romance, never would a Caracalla
have raised a heroön to his memory(248) or Alexander, Severus have placed
his bust between those of two Demi‐Gods and of the true God,(249) or an
Empress have corresponded with him. Hardly rested from the hardships of
the siege at Jerusalem, Titus would not have hastened to write to
Apollonius a letter, asking to meet him at Argos and adding that his
father and himself (Titus) owed all to him, the great Apollonius, and
that, therefore, his first thought was for their benefactor. Nor would the
Emperor Aurelian have built a temple and a shrine to that great Sage, to
thank him for his apparition and communication at Tyana. That _posthumous_
conversation, as all knew, saved the city, inasmuch as Aurelian had in
consequence raised the siege. Furthermore, had it been a romance, History
would not have had Vopiscus,(250) one of the most trustworthy Pagan
Historians, to certify to it. Finally, Apollonius would not have been the
object of the admiration of such a noble character as Epictetus, and even
of several of the Fathers of the Church; Jerome for instance, in his
better moments, writing thus of Apollonius:


    This travelling philosopher found something to learn wherever he
    went; and profiting everywhere thus improved with every day.(251)


As to his prodigies, without wishing to fathom them, Jerome most
undeniably admits them as such; which he would assuredly never have done,
had he not been compelled to do so by facts. To end the subject, had
Apollonius been a simple hero of a romance, dramatised in the fourth
century, the Ephesians would not, in their enthusiastic gratitude, have
raised to him a golden statue for all the benefits he had conferred upon
them.(252)



SECTION XVIII. FACTS UNDERLYING ADEPT BIOGRAPHIES.


The tree is known by its fruits; the nature of the Adept by his words and
deeds. These words of charity and mercy, the noble advice put into the
mouth of Apollonius (or of his sidereal phantom), as given by Vopiscus,
show the Occultists who Apollonius was. Why then call him the “Medium of
Satan” seventeen centuries later? There must be a reason, and a very
potent reason, to justify and explain the secret of such a strong animus
of the Church against one of the noblest men of his age. There is a reason
for it, and we give it in the words of the author of the _Key to the
Hebrew‐Egyptian Mystery in the Source of Measures_, and of Professor
Seyffarth. The latter analyses and explains the salient dates in the life
of Jesus, and thus throws light on the conclusions of the former. We quote
both, blending the two.


    According to solar months (of thirty days, one of the calendars in
    use among the Hebrews) all remarkable events of the _Old
    Testament_ happened on the days of the equinoxes and the
    solstices; for instance, the foundations and dedications of the
    temples and altars [and consecration of the tabernacle]. On the
    same cardinal days, the most remarkable events of the _New
    Testament_ happened; for instance, the annunciation, the birth,
    the resurrection of Christ, and the birth of John the Baptist. And
    thus we learn that all remarkable epochs of the _New Testament_
    were typically sanctified a long time before by the _Old
    Testament_, beginning at the day succeeding the end of the
    Creation, which was the day of the vernal equinox. During the
    crucifixion, on the 14th day of Nisan, Dionysius Areopagita saw,
    in Ethiopia, an eclipse of the sun, and he said, “Now the Lord
    (Jehovah) is suffering something.” Then Christ arose from the dead
    on the 22d March, 17 _Nisan_, Sunday, the day of the vernal
    equinox (Seyf., quoting Philo de Septen)—that is, on Easter, or on
    the day when the sun gives new life to the earth. The words of
    John the Baptist “He must increase, but I must decrease,” serve to
    prove, as is affirmed by the fathers of the church, that John was
    born on the longest day of the year, and Christ, who was six
    months younger, on the shortest, 22d June and 22d December, the
    solstices.

    This only goes to show that, as to another phase, John and Jesus
    were but epitomisers of the history of the same sun, under
    differences of aspect or condition; and one condition following
    another, of necessity, the statement, _Luke_, ix. 7, was not only
    not an empty one, but it was true, that which “was said of some,
    that (in Jesus) John was risen from the dead.” (And this
    consideration serves to explain why it has been that the _Life of
    Apollonius of Tyana_, by Philostratus, has been so persistently
    kept back from translation and from popular reading. Those who
    have studied it in the original have been forced to the comment
    that either the _Life of Apollonius_ has been taken from the _New
    Testament_, or that the _New Testament_ narratives have been taken
    from the _Life of Apollonius_, because of the manifest sameness of
    the _means of construction_ of the narratives. The explanation is
    simple enough, when it is considered that the names of _Jesus_,
    Hebrew יש, and Apollonius, or Apollo, are alike names of _the sun
    in the heavens_; and necessarily the history of the one, as to his
    travels through _the signs_, with the personifications of his
    sufferings, triumphs and miracles, could be but the _history of
    the other_, where there was a widespread, common method of
    describing those travels by personification.) It seems also that,
    for long afterward, all this was known to rest upon an
    astronomical basis; for the secular church, so to speak, was
    founded by Constantine, and the objective condition of the worship
    established was that part of his decree, in which it was affirmed
    that the venerable day of the _sun_ should be the day set apart
    for the worship of Jesus Christ, as _Sun_‐day. There is something
    weird and startling in some other facts about this matter. The
    prophet Daniel (_true prophet_, as says Graetz),(253) by use of
    the pyramid numbers, or astrological numbers, foretold the cutting
    off of the _Méshiac_, as it happened (which would go to show the
    accuracy of his astronomical knowledge, if there was an eclipse of
    the sun at that time).... Now, however, the temple was destroyed
    in the year 71, in the month Virgo, and 71 is the Dove number, as
    shown, or 71 × 5 = 355, and with _the fish_, a Jehovah number.


“Is it possible,” queries further on the author, thus answering the
intimate thought of every Christian and Occultist who reads and studies
his work:


    Is it possible that the events of humanity do run co‐ordinately
    with these number forms? If so, while Jesus Christ, as an
    astronomical figure, was true to all that has been advanced, and
    more, possibly, He may, as a man, have filled up, under the
    numbers, answers in the sea of life to predestined type. The
    personality of Jesus does not appear to have been destroyed,
    because, _as a condition_, he was answering to astronomical forms
    and relations. The Arabian says, “Your destiny is written in the
    stars.”(254)


Nor is the “personality” of Apollonius “destroyed” for the same reason.
The case of Jesus covers the ground for the same possibility in the cases
of all Adepts and Avatâras—such as Buddha, Shankarâchârya, Krishna,
etc.—all of these as great and as historical for their respective
followers and in their countries, as Jesus of Nazareth is now for
Christians and in this land.

But there is something more in the old literature of the early centuries.
Iamblichus wrote a biography of the great Pythagoras.


    The latter so closely resembles the life of Jesus that it may be
    taken for a travesty. Diogenes Laërtius and Plutarch relate the
    history of Plato according to a similar style.(255)


Why then wonder at the doubts that assail every scholar who studies all
these lives? The Church herself knew all these doubts in her early stages;
and though only one of her Popes has been known publicly and openly as a
Pagan, how many more were there who were too ambitious to reveal the
truth?

This “mystery,” for mystery indeed it is to those who, not being
Initiates, fail to find the key of the perfect similitude between the
lives of Pythagoras, Buddha, Apollonius, etc.—is only a natural result for
those who know that all these great characters were Initiates of the same
School. For them there is neither “travesty” nor “copy” of one from the
other; for them they are all “originals,” only painted to represent one
and the same subject: the mystic, and at the same time the public, life of
the Initiates sent into the world to save portions of humanity, if they
could not save the whole bulk. Hence, the same programme for all. The
assumed “immaculate origin” for each, referring to their “mystic birth”
during the Mystery of Initiation, and accepted literally by the
multitudes, encouraged in this by the better informed but ambitious
clergy. Thus, the mother of each one of them was declared a virgin,
conceiving her son directly by the Holy Spirit of God; and the Sons, in
consequence, were the “Sons of God,” though in truth, none of them was any
more entitled to such recognition than were the rest of his brother
Initiates, for they were all—so far as their mystic lives were
concerned—only “the epitomisers of the history of the same Sun,” which
epitome is another mystery within the Mystery. The biographies of the
external personalities bearing the names of such heroes have nothing to do
with, and are quite independent of the private lives of the heroes, being
only the mystic records of their public and, parallel therewith, of their
_inner_ lives, in their characters as Neophytes and Initiates. Hence, the
manifest sameness of the means of construction of their respective
biographies. From the beginning of Humanity the Cross, or Man, with his
arms stretched out horizontally, typifying his kosmic origin, was
connected with his psychic nature and with the struggles which lead to
Initiation. But, if it is once shown that (_a_) every true Adept had, and
still has, to pass through the seven and the twelve trials of Initiation,
symbolised by the twelve labours of Hercules; (_b_) that the day of his
real birth is regarded as that day when he is born into the world
spiritually, his very age being counted from the hour of his second birth,
which makes of him a “twice‐born,” a Dvija or Initiate, on which day he is
indeed born of a God and from an immaculate Mother; and (_c_) that the
trials of all these personages are made to correspond with the Esoteric
significance of initiatory rites—all of which corresponded to the twelve
zodiacal signs—then every one will see the meaning of the travels of all
those heroes through the signs of the Sun in Heaven; and that they are in
each individual case a personification of the “sufferings, triumphs and
miracles” of an Adept, before and after his Initiation. When to the world
at large all this is explained, then also the mystery of all those lives,
so closely resembling each other that the history of one seems to be the
history of the other, and _vice versâ_, will, like everything else, become
plain.

Take an instance: The legends—for they are _all_ legends for exoteric
purposes, whatever may be the denials in one case—of the lives of Krishna,
Hercules, Pythagoras, Buddha, Jesus, Apollonius, Chaitanya. On the worldly
plane, their biographies, if written by one outside the circle, would
differ greatly from what we read of them in the narratives that are
preserved of their mystic lives. Nevertheless, however much masked and
hidden from profane gaze, the chief features of such lives will all be
found there in common. Each of those characters is represented as a
divinely begotten Sotēr (Saviour), a title bestowed on deities, great
kings and heroes; everyone of them, whether at their birth or afterwards,
is searched for, and threatened with death (yet never killed) by an
opposing power (the world of Matter and Illusion), whether it be called a
king Kansa, king Herod, or king Mâra (the Evil Power). They are all
tempted, persecuted and finally said to have been murdered at the end of
the rite of Initiation, _i.e._, in their _physical_ personalities, of
which they are supposed to have been rid for ever after _spiritual_
“resurrection” or “birth.” And having thus come to an end by this supposed
violent death, they all descend to the Nether World, the Pit or Hell—the
Kingdom of Temptation, Lust and Matter, therefore of Darkness, whence
returning, having overcome the “Chrest‐condition,” they are glorified and
become “Gods.”

It is not in the course of their everyday life, then, that the great
similarity is to be sought, but in their inner state and in the most
important events of their career as religious teachers. All this is
connected with, and built upon, an astronomical basis, which serves, at
the same time, as a foundation for the representation of the degrees and
trials of Initiation: descent into the Kingdom of Darkness and Matter,
_for the last time_, to emerge therefrom as “Suns of Righteousness,” is
the most important of these and, therefore, is found in the history of all
the Sotērs—from Orpheus and Hercules, down to Krishna and Christ. Says
Euripides:


    Heracles, who has gone from the chambers of earth,
    Leaving the nether home of Pluto.(256)


And Virgil writes:


    At Thee the Stygian lakes trembled; Thee the janitor of Orcus
    Feared.... Thee not even Typhon frightened....
    Hail, _true son of Jove_, glory added to the Gods.(257)


Orpheus seeks, in the kingdom of Pluto, Eurydice, his lost Soul; Krishna
goes down into the infernal regions and rescues therefrom his six
brothers, he being the seventh Principle; a transparent allegory of his
becoming a “perfect Initiate,” the whole of the six Principles merging
into the seventh. Jesus is made to descend into the kingdom of Satan to
save the soul of Adam, or the symbol of material physical humanity.

Have any of our learned Orientalists ever thought of searching for the
origin of this allegory, for the parent “Seed” of that “Tree of Life”
which bears such verdant boughs since it was first planted on earth by the
hand of its “Builders”? We fear not. Yet it is found, as is now shown,
even in the exoteric, distorted interpretations of the _Vedas_—of the _Rig
Veda_, the oldest, the most trustworthy of all the four—this root and seed
of all future Initiate‐Saviours being called in it the Visvakarmâ, the
“Father” Principle, “beyond the comprehension of mortals;” in the _second_
stage Sûrya, the “Son,” who offers Himself as a sacrifice to Himself; in
the third, the Initiate, who sacrifices His _physical_ to His _spiritual_
Self. It is in Visvakarmâ, the “omnificent,” who becomes (mystically)
Vikkartana, the “sun shorn of his beams,” who suffers for his too ardent
nature, and then becomes glorified (by purification), that the keynote of
the Initiation into the greatest Mystery of Nature was struck. Hence the
secret of the wonderful “similarity.”

All this is allegorical and mystical, and yet perfectly comprehensible and
plain to any student of Eastern Occultism, even superficially acquainted
with the Mysteries of Initiation. In our objective Universe of Matter and
false appearances the Sun is the most fitting emblem of the life‐giving,
beneficent Deity. In the subjective, boundless World of Spirit and Reality
the bright luminary has another and a mystical significance, which cannot
be fully given to the public. The so‐called “idolatrous” Pârsîs and Hindus
are certainly nearer the truth in their religious reverence for the Sun,
than the cold, ever‐analysing, and as ever‐mistaken, public is prepared to
believe, at present. The Theosophists, who will be alone able to take in
the meaning, may be told that the Sun is the external manifestation of the
Seventh Principle of our Planetary System, while the Moon is its Fourth
Principle, shining in the borrowed robes of her master, saturated with and
reflecting every passionate impulse and evil desire of her grossly
material body, Earth. The whole cycle of Adeptship and Initiation and all
its mysteries are connected with, and subservient to, these two and the
Seven Planets. Spiritual clairvoyance is derived from the Sun; all psychic
states, diseases, and even lunacy, proceed from the Moon.

According even to the data of History—her conclusions being remarkably
erroneous while her premises are mostly correct—there is an extraordinary
agreement between the “legends” of every Founder of a Religion (and also
between the rites and dogmas of all) and the names and course of
constellations headed by the Sun. It does not follow, however, because of
this, that both Founders and their Religions should be, the one myths, and
the other superstitions. They are, one and all, the different versions of
the same natural primeval Mystery, on which the Wisdom‐Religion was based,
and the development of its Adepts subsequently framed.

And now once more we have to beg the reader not to lend an ear to the
charge—against Theosophy in general and the writer in particular—of
disrespect toward one of the greatest and noblest characters in the
History of Adeptship—Jesus of Nazareth—nor even of hatred to the Church.
The expression of truth and fact can hardly be regarded, with any
approximation to justice, as blasphemy or hatred. The whole question hangs
upon the solution of that one point: Was Jesus as “Son of God” and
“Saviour” of Mankind, unique in the World’s annals? Was His case—among so
many similar claims—the only exceptional and unprecedented one; His birth
the sole supernaturally immaculate; and were all others, as maintained by
the Church, but blasphemous Satanic copies and plagiarisms by
anticipation? Or was He only the “son of his deeds,” a pre‐eminently holy
man, and a reformer, one of many, who paid with His life for the
presumption of endeavouring, in the face of ignorance and despotic power,
to enlighten mankind and make its burden lighter by His Ethics and
Philosophy? The first necessitates a blind, all‐resisting faith; the
latter is suggested to every one by reason and logic. Moreover, has the
Church always believed as she does now—or rather, as she pretends she
does, in order to be thus justified in directing her anathema against
those who disagree with her—or has she passed through the same throes of
doubt, nay, of secret denial and unbelief, suppressed only by the force of
ambition and love of power?

The question must be answered in the affirmative as to the second
alternative. It is an irrefutable conclusion, and a natural inference
based on facts known from historical records. Leaving for the present
untouched the lives of many Popes and Saints that loudly belied their
claims to infallibility and holiness, let the reader turn to
Ecclesiastical History, the records of the growth and progress of the
Christian Church (not of Christianity), and he will find the answer on
those pages. Says a writer:


    The Church has known too well the suggestions of freethought
    created by enquiry, as also all those doubts that provoke her
    anger to‐day; and the “sacred truths” she would promulgate have
    been in turn admitted and repudiated, transformed and altered,
    amplified and curtailed, by the dignitaries of the Church
    hierarchy, even as regards the most fundamental dogmas.


Where is that God or Hero whose origin, biography, and genealogy were more
hazy, or more difficult to define and finally agree upon than those of
Jesus? How was the now irrevocable dogma with regard to His true nature
settled at last? By His mother, according to the Evangelists, He was a
man—a simple mortal man; by His Father He is God! But how? Is He then man
or God, or is He both at the same time? asks the perplexed writer. Truly
the propositions offered on this point of the doctrine have caused floods
of ink and blood to be shed, in turn, on poor Humanity, and still the
doubts are not at rest. In this, as in everything else, the wise Church
Councils have contradicted themselves and changed their minds a number of
times. Let us recapitulate and throw a glance at the texts offered for our
inspection. This is History.

The Bishop Paul of Samosata denied the divinity of Christ at the first
Council of Antioch; at the very origin and birth of theological
Christianity, He was called “Son of God” merely on account of His holiness
and good deeds. His blood was corruptible in the Sacrament of the
Eucharist.

At the Council of Nicæa, held A.D. 325, Arius came out with his premisses,
which nearly broke asunder the Catholic Union.

Seventeen bishops defended the doctrines of Arius, who was exiled for
them. Nevertheless, thirty years after, A.D. 355, at the Council of Milan,
three hundred bishops signed a letter of adherence to the Arian views,
notwithstanding that ten years earlier, A.D. 345, at a new Council of
Antioch, the Eusebians had proclaimed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God
and One with His Father.

At the Council of Sirmium, A.D. 357, the “Son” had become no longer
consubstantial. The Anomæans, who denied that consubstantiality, and the
Arians were triumphant. A year later, at the second Council of Ancyra, it
was decreed that the “Son was not consubstantial but only similar to the
Father in his substance.” Pope Liberius ratified the decision.

During several centuries the Councils fought and quarrelled, supporting
the most contradictory and opposite views, the fruit of their laborious
travail being the Holy Trinity, which, Minerva‐like, issued forth from the
theological brain, armed with all the thunders of the Church. The new
mystery was ushered into the world amid some terrible strifes, in which
murder and other crimes had a high hand. At the Council of Saragossa, A.D.
380, it was proclaimed that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one and
the same Person, Christ’s human nature being merely an “illusion”—an echo
of the Avatâric Hindu doctrine. “Once upon this slippery path the Fathers
had to slide down _ad absurdum_—which they did not fail of doing.” How
deny human nature in him who was born of a woman? The only wise remark
made during one of the Councils of Constantinople came from Eutyches, who
was bold enough to say: “May God preserve me from reasoning on the nature
of my God”—for which he was excommunicated by Pope Flavius.

At the Council of Ephesus, A.D. 449, Eutyches had his revenge. As
Eusebius, the veracious Bishop of Cæsarea, was forcing him into the
admission of _two_ distinct natures in Jesus Christ, the Council rebelled
against him and it was proposed that Eusebius should be burned alive. The
bishops arose like one man, and with fists clenched, foaming with rage,
demanded that Eusebius should be torn into two halves, and be dealt by as
he would deal with Jesus, whose nature he divided. Eutyches was re‐
established in his power and office, Eusebius and Flavius deposed. Then
the two parties attacked each other most violently and fought. St. Flavius
was so ill‐treated by Bishop Diodorus, who assaulted and kicked him, that
he died a few days later from the injuries inflicted.

Every incongruity was courted in these Councils, and the result is the
present living paradoxes called Church dogmas. For instance, at the first
Council of Ancyra, A.D. 314, it was asked, “In baptizing a woman with
child, is the unborn baby also baptized by the fact?” The Council answered
in the negative; because, as was alleged, “the person thus receiving
baptism must be a consenting party, which is impossible to the child in
its mother’s womb.” Thus then unconsciousness is a canonical obstacle to
baptism, and thus no child baptised nowadays is baptised at all in fact.
And then what becomes of the tens of thousands of starving heathen babies
baptised by the missionaries during famines, and otherwise surreptitiously
“saved” by the too zealous Padres? Follow one after another the debates
and decisions of the numberless Councils, and behold on what a jumble of
contradictions the present infallible and Apostolic Church is built!

And now we can see how greatly paradoxical, when taken literally, is the
assertion in _Genesis_: “God created man in his own image.” Besides the
glaring fact that it is not the Adam of dust (of Chapter ii.), who is thus
made in the divine image, but the Divine Androgyne (of Chapter i.), or
Adam Kadmon, one can see for oneself that God—the God of the Christians at
any rate—was created by man in his own image, amid the kicks, blows and
murders of the early Councils.

A curious fact, one that throws a flood of light on the claim that Jesus
was an Initiate and a martyred Adept, is given in the work, (already so
often referred to) which may be called “a mathematical revelation”.—_The
Source of Measures._


    Attention is called to the part of the 46th verse of the 27th
    Chapter of Matthew, as follows: “Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani?—that
    is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Of course,
    our versions are taken from the original _Greek_ manuscripts (the
    reason why we have no original Hebrew manuscripts concerning these
    occurrences being because the enigmas in Hebrew would betray
    themselves on comparison with the sources of their derivation, the
    _Old Testament_). The Greek manuscripts, without exception, give
    these words as—

    Ἠλί Ἠλί λαμὰ σαβαχθανί

    They are _Hebrew words_, rendered into the _Greek_, and in Hebrew
    are as follows:

    אלי אלי למח שבחתני

    The Scripture of these words says, “that is to say, My God, my
    God, why hast thou forsaken me?” as their proper translation. Here
    then are the words, beyond all dispute; and beyond all question,
    such is the interpretation given of them by Scripture. Now the
    words will not bear this interpretation, and it is a false
    rendering. The true meaning is _just the opposite of the one
    given_, and is—

    _My God, my God, how thou dost glorify me!_

    But even more, for while _lama_ is _why_, or _how_, as a verbal it
    connects the idea of _to dazzle_, or adverbially, it could run
    “_how dazzlingly_,” and so on. To the unwary reader this
    interpretation is enforced, and made to answer, as it were, to the
    fulfilment of a prophetic utterance, by a marginal reference to
    the _first_ verse of the _twenty‐second_ Psalm, which reads:

    “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

    The Hebrew of this verse for these words is—

    אלי אלי למה עזבתני

    as to which the reference is correct, and the interpretation sound
    and good, but with an utterly different word. The words are—

    _Eli, Eli, lamah azabvtha‐ni?_

    No wit of man, however scholarly, can save this passage from
    _falseness of rendering_ on its face; and as so, it becomes a most
    terrible blow upon the proper first‐face sacredness of the
    recital.(258)


For ten years or more, sat the revisers (?) of the _Bible_, a most
imposing and solemn array of the learned of the land, the greatest Hebrew
and Greek scholars of England, purporting to correct the mistakes and
blunders, the sins of omission and of commission of their less learned
predecessors, the translators of the Bible. Are we going to be told that
none of them saw the glaring difference between the Hebrew words in
_Psalm_ xxii., _azabvtha‐ni_, and _sabachthani_ in _Matthew_; that they
were not aware of the deliberate falsification?

For “falsification” it was. And if we are asked the reason why the early
Church Fathers resorted to it, the answer is plain: Because the
_Sacramental_ words belonged in their true rendering to Pagan temple
rites. They were pronounced after the terrible trials of Initiation, and
were still fresh in the memory of some of the “Fathers” when the _Gospel
of Matthew_ was edited into the Greek language. Because, finally, many of
the Hierophants of the Mysteries, and many more of the Initiates were
still living in those days, and the sentence rendered in its true words
would class Jesus directly with the simple Initiates. The words “My God,
my Sun, thou hast poured thy radiance upon me!” were the final words that
concluded the thanksgiving prayer of the Initiate, “the Son and the
glorified Elect of the Sun.” In Egypt we find to this day carvings and
paintings that represent the rite. The candidate is between two divine
sponsors; one “Osiris‐Sun” with the head of a hawk, representing life, the
other Mercury—the ibis‐headed, psychopompic genius, who guides the Souls
after death to their new abode, Hades—standing for the death of the
physical body, figuratively. Both are shown pouring the “stream of life,”
the water of purification, on the head of the Initiate, the two streams of
which, interlacing, form a cross. The better to conceal the truth, this
_basso‐relievo_ has also been explained as a “Pagan presentment of a
Christian truth.” The Chevalier des Mousseaux calls this Mercury:


    The assessor of Osiris‐Sol, as St. Michael is the assessor,
    Ferouer, of the Word.


The monogram of Chrestos and the Labarum, the standard of Constantine—who,
by the by, died a Pagan and was never baptised—is a symbol derived from
the above rite and also denotes “life and death.” Long before the sign of
the Cross was adopted as a Christian symbol, it was employed as a secret
sign of recognition among Neophytes and Adepts. Say Éliphas Lévi:


    The sign of the cross adopted by the Christians does not belong
    exclusively to them. It is kabalistic, and represents the
    oppositions and quaternary equilibrium of the elements. We see by
    the occult verse of the _Pater_, to which we have called attention
    in another work, that there were originally two ways of making it,
    or, at least, two very different formulas to express its meaning:
    one reserved for priests and initiates; the other given to
    neophytes and the profane.(259)


One can understand now why the _Gospel of Matthew_, the Evangel of the
Ebionites, has been for ever excluded in its Hebrew form from the world’s
curious gaze.


    Jerome found the authentic and original Evangel written in Hebrew,
    by Matthew the Publican, at the library collected at Cæsarea by
    the martyr Pamphilius. “_I received permission from the
    Nazaræans_, who at Berœa of Syria used this (gospel) to translate
    it,” he writes toward the end of the fourth century.(260) “In the
    Evangel which the _Nazarenes_ and _Ebionites_ use,” said Jerome,
    “which recently I translated from Hebrew into Greek, and which is
    called by most persons the _genuine_ gospel of Matthew,” etc.(261)

    That the apostles had received a “secret doctrine” from Jesus, and
    that he himself taught one, is evident from the following words of
    Jerome, who confessed it in an unguarded moment. Writing to the
    Bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus, he complains that “a difficult
    work is enjoined, since this (translation) has been commanded me
    by your Felicities, which _St. Matthew himself_, the Apostle and
    Evangelist, _did not wish to be openly written_. For if this had
    not been _secret_, he (Matthew) would have added to the Evangel
    that what he gave forth _was his_; but he made up this book
    _sealed up in the Hebrew characters_, which he put forth _even in
    such a way_ that the book, written in Hebrew letters and by the
    hand of himself, might be possessed _by the men most religious_;
    who also, in the course of time, received it from those who
    preceded them. But this very book they never gave to any one to be
    transcribed, and _its text_ they related some one way and some
    another.”(262) And he adds further on the same page: “And it
    happened that this book, having been published by a disciple of
    Manichæus, named Seleucus, who also wrote falsely _The Acts of the
    Apostles_, exhibited matter not for edification, but for
    destruction; and that this (book) was _approved in a synod_ which
    the ears of the Church properly refused to listen to.”(263)

    Jerome admits, himself, that the book which he authenticates as
    being written “by the hand of Matthew,” was nevertheless a book
    which, notwithstanding that he translated it twice, was nearly
    unintelligible to him, for it was arcane. Nevertheless, Jerome
    coolly sets down every commentary upon it but his own as
    _heretical_. More than that, Jerome knew that this Gospel was the
    only _original_ one, yet he becomes more zealous than ever in his
    persecution of the “Heretics.” Why? Because to accept it was
    equivalent to reading the death sentence of the established
    Church. _The Gospel according to the Hebrews_ was well known to
    have been the only one accepted for four centuries by the Jewish
    Christians, the Nazarenes and the Ebionites. And neither of the
    latter accepted the _divinity of_ Christ.(264)


The Ebionites were the first, the earliest Christians, whose
representative was the Gnostic author of the _Clementine Homilies_, and as
the author of _Supernatural Religion_ shows,(265) Ebionitic Gnosticism had
once been the purest form of Christianity. They were the pupils and
followers of the early Nazarenes—the kabalistic Gnostics. They believed in
the Æons, as the Cerinthians did, and that “the world was put together by
Angels” (Dhyân Chohans), as Epiphanius complains (_Contra Ebionitas_):
“Ebion had the opinion of the Nazarenes, the form of Cerinthians.” “They
decided that Christ was of the seed of a man,” he laments.(266) Thus
again:


    The badge of Dan‐Scorpio is _death‐life_, in the symbol ☧ as
    _cross‐bones and skull_, ... or _life‐death_ ... the standard of
    Constantine, the Roman Emperor. Abel has been shown to be Jesus,
    and Cain‐Vulcain, or Mars, pierced him. Constantine was the Roman
    Emperor, whose warlike god was Mars, and a Roman soldier pierced
    Jesus on the cross....

    But the piercing of Abel was the consummation of his marriage with
    Cain, and this was proper under the form of Mars Generator; hence
    the double glyph, one of Mars‐Generator [Osiris‐Sun] and Mars‐
    Destroyer [Mercury the God of Death in the Egyptian _basso‐
    relievo_] in one; significant, again, of the primal idea of the
    living cosmos, or of birth and death, as necessary to the
    continuation of the stream of life.(267)


To quote once more from _Isis Unveiled_:


    A Latin cross of a perfect Christian shape was found hewn upon the
    granite slabs of the Adytum of the Serapeum; and the monks did not
    fail to claim that the cross had been hallowed by the Pagans in a
    “spirit of prophecy.” At least, Sozomen, with an air of triumph,
    records the fact.(268) But archæology and symbolism, those
    tireless and implacable enemies of clerical false pretences, have
    found in the hieroglyphics of the legend running round the design
    at least a partial interpretation of its meaning.

    According to King and other numismatists and archæologists, the
    cross was placed there as the symbol of eternal life. Such a Tau,
    or Egyptian cross, was used in the Bacchic and Eleusinian
    Mysteries. Symbol of the dual generative power, it was laid upon
    the breast of the Initiate, after his “new birth” was
    accomplished, and the Mystæ had returned from their baptism in the
    sea. It was a mystic sign that his spiritual birth had regenerated
    and united his astral soul with his divine spirit, and that he was
    ready to ascend in spirit to the blessed abodes of light and
    glory—the Eleusinia. The Tau was a magic talisman at the same time
    as a religious emblem. It was adopted by the Christians through
    the Gnostics and Kabalists, who used it largely, as their numerous
    gems testify. These in turn had the Tau (or handled cross) from
    the Egyptians, and the Latin Cross from the Buddhist missionaries,
    who brought it from India (where it can be found even now) two or
    three centuries B.C. The Assyrians, Egyptians, ancient Americans,
    Hindus and Romans had it in various, but very slight modifications
    of shape. Till very late in the middle ages, it was considered a
    potent spell again at epilepsy and demoniacal possession, and the
    “signet of the living God” brought down in St. John’s vision by
    the angel ascending from the east to “seal the servants of our God
    in the foreheads,” was but the same mystic Tau—the Egyptian Cross.
    In the painted glass of St. Denis (France) this angel is
    represented as stamping this sign on the forehead of the elect;
    the legend reads, SIGNUM TAY. In King’s _Gnostics_, the author
    reminds us that “this mark is commonly borne by St. Anthony, an
    _Egyptian_ recluse.”(269) What the real meaning of the Tau was, is
    explained to us by the Christian St. John, the Egyptian Hermes,
    and the Hindu Brahmans. It is but too evident that, with the
    Apostle at least, it meant the “Ineffable Name,” as he calls this
    “signet of the living God” a few chapters further on(270) the
    “_Father’s name written in their foreheads_.”

    The Brahmâtmâ, the chief of the Hindu Initiates, had on his head‐
    gear two keys, symbol of the revealed mystery of life and death,
    placed cross‐like; and in some Buddhist pagodas of Tartary and
    Mongolia, the entrance of a chamber within the temple, generally
    containing the staircase which leads to the inner dagoba,(271) and
    the porticos of some _Prachidas_(272) are ornamented with a cross
    formed of two fishes, as found on some of the zodiacs of the
    Buddhists. We should not wonder at all at learning that the sacred
    device in the tombs in the catacombs at Rome, the “Vesica Piscis,”
    was derived from the said Buddhist zodiacal sign. How general must
    have been that geometrical figure in the world‐symbols, may be
    inferred from the fact that there is a Masonic tradition that
    Solomon’s temple was built on three foundations, forming the
    “triple Tau” or three crosses.

    In its mystical sense, the Egyptian cross owes its origin, as an
    emblem, to the realisation by the earliest philosophy of an
    _androgynous dualism of every manifestation in nature_, which
    proceeds from the abstract ideal of a likewise androgynous deity,
    while the Christian emblem is simply due to chance. Had the Mosaic
    law prevailed, Jesus should have been lapidated.(273) The crucifix
    was an instrument of torture, and utterly common among Romans as
    it was unknown among Semitic nations. It was called the “Tree of
    Infamy.” It is but later that it was adopted as a Christian
    symbol; but during the first two decades the apostles looked upon
    it with horror.(274) It is certainly not the Christian Cross that
    John had in mind when speaking of the “signet of the living God,”
    but the _mystic_ Tau—the Tetragrammaton, or mighty name, which, on
    the most ancient Kabalistic talismans, was represented by the four
    Hebrew letters composing the Holy Word.

    The famous Lady Ellenborough, known among the Arabs of Damascus,
    and in the desert, after her last marriage, as _Hanoum Medjouye_,
    had a talisman in her possession, presented to her by a Druse from
    Mount Lebanon. It was recognised by a certain sign on its left
    corner as belonging to that class of gems which is known in
    Palestine as a “_Messianic_” amulet, of the second or third
    century B.C. It is a green stone of a pentagonal form; at the
    bottom is engraved a fish; higher, Solomon’s Seal;(275) and still
    higher, the four Chaldaic letters—Jod, He, Vau, He, IAHO, which
    form the name of the Deity. These are arranged in quite an unusual
    way, running from below upward, in reversed order, and forming the
    Egyptian Tau. Around these there is a legend which, as the gem is
    not our property, we are not at liberty to give. The Tau, in its
    mystical sense, as well as the _Crux ansata_, is the _Tree of
    Life_.

    It is well known that the earliest Christian emblems—before it was
    ever attempted to represent the bodily appearance of Jesus—were
    the Lamb, the Good Shepherd, and _The Fish_. The origin of the
    latter emblem, which has so puzzled the archæologists, thus
    becomes comprehensible. The whole secret lies in the easily
    ascertained fact that, while in the _Kabalah_ the King Messiah is
    called “Interpreter,” or Revealer of the Mystery, and shown to be
    the _fifth_ emanation, in the _Talmud_—for reasons we will now
    explain—the Messiah is very often designated as “DAG,” or the
    Fish. This is an inheritance from the Chaldees, and relates—as the
    very name indicates—to the Babylonian Dagon, the man‐fish, who was
    the instructor and interpreter of the people, to whom he appeared.
    Abarbanel explains the name, by stating that the sign of his
    (Messiah’s) coming is the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter in the
    sign _Pisces_.(276) Therefore, as the Christians were intent upon
    identifying their Christos with the Messiah of the _Old
    Testament_, they adopted it so readily as to forget that its true
    origin might be traced still further back than the Babylonian
    Dagon. How eagerly and closely the ideal of Jesus was united, by
    the early Christians, with every imaginable kabalistic and pagan
    tenet, may be inferred from the language of Clemens, of
    Alexandria, addressed to his co‐religionists.

    When they were debating upon the choice of the most appropriate
    symbol to remind them of Jesus, Clemens advised them in the
    following words: “Let the engraving upon the gem of your ring be
    either _a dove_, or _a ship running before the wind_ (the Argha),
    or a _fish_.” Was the good father, when writing this sentence,
    labouring under the recollection of Joshua, son of Nun (called
    _Jesus_ in the Greek and Slavonian versions); or had he forgotten
    the real interpretation of these pagan symbols?(277)


And now, with the help of all these passages scattered hither and thither
in _Isis_ and other works of this kind, the reader will see and judge for
himself which of the two explanations—the Christian or that of the
Occultist—is the nearer to truth. If Jesus were not an Initiate, why
should all these _allegorical_ incidents of his life be given? Why should
such extreme trouble be taken, so much time wasted trying to make the
above: (_a_) answer and dovetail with purposely picked out sentences in
the _Old Testament_, to show them as _prophecies_; and (_b_) to preserve
in them the initiatory symbols, the emblems so pregnant with Occult
meaning and all of these belonging to Pagan _mystic_ Philosophy? The
author of the _Source of Measures_ gives out that _mystical_ intent; but
only once now and again, in its one‐sided, numerical and kabalistic
meaning, without paying any attention to, or having concern with, the
primeval and more spiritual origin, and he deals with it only so far as it
relates to the _Old Testament_. He attributes the _purposed_ change in the
sentence “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani” to the principle already mentioned
of the crossed bones and skull in the Labarum,


    As an emblem of death, being placed over the door of life and
    signifying _birth_, or of the intercontainment of two opposite
    principles in one, just as, mystically, the Saviour was held to be
    man‐woman.(278)


The author’s idea is to show the mystic blending by the Gospel writers of
Jehovah, Cain, Abel, etc., with Jesus (in accordance with Jewish
kabalistic numeration); the better he succeeds, the more clearly he shows
that it was a _forced_ blending, and that we have not a record of the real
events of the life of Jesus, narrated by eye‐witnesses or the Apostles.
The narrative is all based on the signs of the Zodiac:


    Each a double sign or male‐female [in ancient astrological
    Magic]—viz: it was Taurus‐Eve, and Scorpio was Mars‐Lupa, or Mars
    with the female wolf [in relation to Romulus]. So, as these signs
    were opposites of each other, yet _met in the centre_, they were
    connected; and so in fact it was, and in a double sense, the
    conception of the year was in Taurus, as the conception of Eve by
    Mars, her opposite, in Scorpio. The birth would be at the winter
    solstice, or Christmas. On the contrary, by conception in
    Scorpio—_viz._, of Lupa by Taurus—birth would be in Leo. Scorpio
    was Chrēstos in _humiliation_, while Leo was Christos in
    _triumph_. While Taurus‐Eve fulfilled astronomical functions,
    Mars‐Lupa fulfilled spiritual ones by type.(279)


The author bases all this on Egyptian correlations and meanings of Gods
and Goddesses, but ignores the Âryan, which are far earlier.


    _Mooth_ or _Mouth_, was the Egyptian cognomen of Venus, (Eve,
    mother of all living) [as _Vach_, mother of all living, a
    permutation of _Aditi_, as Eve was one of Sephira] _or the moon_.
    Plutarch (_Isis_, 374) hands it down that Isis was sometimes
    called _Muth_, which word means _mother_ ... (Issa, אשה, woman).
    (_Isis_, p. 372). Isis, he says is that part of Nature, which, as
    feminine, contains in herself, as (nutrix) nurse, all things to be
    born.... “Certainly the moon,” speaking astronomically, “chiefly
    exercises this function in Taurus, Venus being the house (in
    opposition to Mars, _generator_, in Scorpio), because the sign is
    luna, hypsoma. Since ... Isis Metheur differs from Isis _Muth_ and
    that in the vocable _Muth_ the _notion of bringing forth_ may be
    concealed, and since fructification must take place, _Sol_ being
    joined with _Luna_ in _Libra_, it is not improbable that Muth
    first indeed signifies Venus in Libra; hence Luna in Libra.”
    (Beiträge zur Kenntniss, pars. 11, S. 9, under _Muth_.)(280)


Then Fuerst, under _Bohu_, is quoted to show


    The double play upon the word _Muth_ by help of which the real
    intent is produced in the occult way ... _sin_, _death_, and
    _woman_ are one in the glyph, and correlatively connected with
    _intercourse_ and _death_.(281)


All this is applied by the author _only_ to the exoteric and Jewish
euhemerised symbols, whereas they were meant, first of all, to conceal
cosmogonical mysteries, and then, those of anthropological evolution with
reference to the Seven Races, already evoluted and to come, and especially
as regards the last branch races of the third Root‐Race. However, the word
_void_ (primeval Chaos) is shown to be taken for Eve‐Venus‐Naamah,
agreeably with Fuerst’s definition; for as he says:


    In this primitive signification [of void] was בהו [bohu] taken in
    the Biblical cosmogony, and used in establishing the dogma יש מאין
    _Jes_ (us) _m’aven_, (_Jes‐us from nothing_), respecting creation.
    [Which shows the writers of the _New Testament_ considerably
    skilled in the _Kabalah_ and Occult Sciences, and corroborates
    still more our assertion.] Hence Aquila translates οὔδεν vulg.
    vacua (hence _vacca_, _cow_) [hence also the horns of Isis—Nature,
    Earth, and the Moon—taken from Vâch, the Hindu “Mother of all that
    lives,” identified with Virâj and called in Atharvaveda the
    daughter of Kâma, the _first_ desires: “That daughter of thine, O
    Kâma, is _called __ the cow_, she whom Sages name _Vâch‐Virâj_,”
    who was _milked_ by Brihaspati, the Rishi, which is another
    mystery] Onkelos and Samarit. ריקבי.

    The Phœnician cosmogony has connected _Bohu_ בהו Βααυ into a
    personified expression denoting the _primitive substance_, and as
    a deity, the _mother of races of the gods_ [which is Aditi and
    Vâch]. The Aramean name בהו‐תא, בהו‐ת, בהו‐ת, Βαώθ, Βυθ‐ός, Buto,
    for the _mother of the gods_, which passed over to the Gnostics,
    Babylonians and Egyptians, _is identical then with Môt_ (מות, our
    _Muth_) properly, (Βώθ) _originated in Phœnician_ from an
    interchange of _b_ with _m_.(282)


Rather, one would say, go to the origin. The mystic euhemerisation of
Wisdom and Intelligence, operating in the work of cosmic evolution, or
_Buddhi_ under the names of Brahmâ, Purusha, etc., as male power, and
Aditi‐Vâch, etc., as female, whence Sarasvatî, Goddess of Wisdom, who
became under the veils of Esoteric concealment, Butos, _Bythos_—Depth, the
grossly material, personal female, called Eve, the “primitive woman” of
Irenæus, and the world springing out of _Nothing_.


    The workings out of this glyph of 4th _Genesis_ help to the
    comprehension of the division of one character into the forms of
    two persons; as Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Abram and Isaac,
    Jacob and Esau, and so on [all male and female].... Now, as
    linking together several great salient points in the Biblical
    structure: (_1_) as to the _Old_ and _New Testaments_; with also
    (_2_) as to the Roman Empire; (_3_) as to confirming the meanings
    and uses of symbols; and (_4_) as to confirming the entire
    explanation and reading of the glyphs; as (_5_) recognising and
    laying down the base of the great pyramid as the _foundation
    square_ of the Bible construction; (_6_) as well as the new Roman
    adoption under Constantine—the following given:(283)

    Cain has been shown to be ... the 360 circle of the Zodiac, the
    perfect and exact standard, by a squared division; hence his name
    of Melchizadik.... [The geometrical and numerical demonstrations
    here follow.] It has been repeatedly stated that the object of the
    Great Pyramid construction was to measure the _heavens and the
    earth_ ... [the objective spheres as evoluting from the
    subjective, purely spiritual Kosmos, we beg leave to add];
    therefore, its measuring containment would indicate all the
    substance of measure of _the heavens and the earth_, or agreeably
    to ancient recognition, _Earth_, _Air_, _Water_ and _Fire_.(284)
    (The base side of this pyramid was diameter to a circumference _in
    feet_ of 2400. The characteristic of this is 24 feet, or 6 × 4 =
    24, or this very Cain‐Adam square.) Now, by the restoration of the
    encampment of the Israelites, as initiated by Moses, by the great
    scholar, Father Athanasius Kircher, the Jesuit priest, the above
    is precisely, by Biblical record and traditionary sources, the
    method of laying off this encampment. The _four interior squares_
    were devoted to (1) Moses and Aaron; (2) Kohath; (3) Gershom; and
    (4) Merari—the last three being the heads of the Levites. The
    attributes of these squares were the _primal_ attributes of Adam‐
    Mars and were concreted of the elements, _Earth_, _Air_, _Fire_,
    _Water_, or ים = Iam = _Water_, נור = Nour = _Fire_, רוח = Rouach
    = _Air_, and יבשׂׂשׂה = Iābeshah = _Earth_. The initial letters of
    these words are INRI—the symbol usually translated as _I_esus
    _N_azarenus _R_ex _I_udæorum—“Jesus of Nazareth, King of the
    Jews.” This square of INRI is the _Adam square_, which was
    extended from, as a foundation, into four others of 144 × 2 = 288,
    to the side of the large square of 288 × 4 = 1152, = the whole
    circumference. But this square is the display of also circular
    elements and 115·2 can denote this. Put _INRI_ into a circle, or
    read it as the letters stand in the square, as to its values of
    1521, and we have [Symbol: circle with numbers inside: 1, 1, 2, 5]
    which reads 115·2.

    But as seen Cain denotes this as, or in, the 115 of his name:
    which 115 was the very complement to make up the 360 day year, to
    agree with the balances of the standard circle, which were Cain.
    The corner squares of the larger square are, A = Leo, and B = Dan
    Scorpio; and it is seen that Cain pierces Abel at the intersection
    of the equinoctial with the solstice cross lines, referred to from
    Dan‐Scorpio on the celestial circle. But Dan‐Scorpio borders on
    Libra, the scales, whose sign is ♎ (which sign is that of the
    ancient _pillow_ on which _the back of the head to the ears_(285)
    rested, the pillow of Jacob), and is represented for one symbol as
    [Symbol: Letters X, P, and S, with Libra symbol atop them]....
    Also the badge of Dan‐Scorpio is death‐life, in the symbol ☧. Now
    the cross is the emblem of the _origin of measures_, in the
    _Jehovah_ form of a _straight line one of a denomination of 20612,
    the perfect circumference_; hence Cain was this as Jehovah, for
    the text says that _he was_ Jehovah. But the attachment of a man
    to this cross was that of 113: 355 to 6561: 5153 × 4 = 20612, as
    shown. Now, over the _head_ of Jesus crucified was placed the
    inscription, of which the initial letters of the words have always
    been retained as symbolic, and handed down and used as a monogram
    of Jesus Chrestos—_viz._, INRI or _Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judæorum_;
    but they are located on the _Cross_, or the cubed _form_ of the
    circular origin of measures which measure the substance of
    _Earth_, _Air_, _Fire_ and _Water_, or INRI = 1152, as shown. Here
    is the _man_ on the _cross_, or 113: 355 combined with 6561: 5153
    × 4 = 20612. These are the _pyramid‐base_ numbers as coming from
    113: 355 as the Hebrew source; whence the Adam‐square, which is
    the pyramid base, and the centre one to the larger square of the
    _encampment_. Bend INRI into a circle, and we have 1152, or the
    circumference of the latter. But Jesus dying (or Abel married)
    made use of the very words needed to set forth all. He says, _Eli,
    Eli, Lama Sabachthani_.... Read them by their power values, in
    _circular form_, as produced from the Adam form as shown, and we
    have אלי = 113, אלי = 113, or 113—311: לפה = 345, or Moses in the
    Cain‐Adam pyramid circle: שכחת = 710, equals Dove, or Jonah and
    710 ÷ 2 = 355, or 355—553; and finally, as determinative of all יב
    or _ni_, where ב = _nun_, fish = 565, and י = 1 or 10; together
    565 י = יהוה or the Christ value....

    [All of the above] throws light on the transfiguration scene on
    the mount. There were present there Peter and James and John with
    Jesus; or ים Iami, James, _Water_; יבשה, Peter, _Earth_; דרה,
    John, _Spirit_, _Air_, and יבור Jesus, _Fire_, _Life_—together
    INRI. But behold Eli and Moses met them there, or אלי and למה or
    _Eli_ and _Lamah_, or 113 and 345. And this shows that the scene
    of transfiguration was connected with the one above set
    forth.(286)


This kabalistical reading of the Gospel narratives—hitherto supposed to
record the most important, the most mystically awful, yet most real events
of the life of Jesus—must fall with terrible weight upon some Christians.
Every honest trusting believer who has shed tears of reverential emotion
over the events of the short period of the public life of Jesus of
Nazareth, has to choose one of the two ways opening before him after
reading the aforesaid: either his faith has to render him quite impervious
to any light coming from human reasoning and evident fact; or he must
confess that he has lost his Saviour. The One whom he had hitherto
considered as the unique incarnation on this earth of the One Living God
in heaven, fades into thin air, on the authority of the properly read and
correctly interpreted _Bible_ itself. Moreover, since on the authority of
Jerome himself and his accepted and authentic confession, the book written
by the hand of Matthew “exhibits matter not for _edification_ but for
_destruction_” (of Church and _human_ Christianity, and only that) what
truth can be expected from his famous _Vulgate_? _Human_ mysteries,
concocted by generations of Church Fathers bent upon evolving a religion
of their own invention, are seen instead of a _divine_ Revelation; and
that this was so is corroborated by a prelate of the Latin Church. Saint
Gregory Nazianzen wrote to his friend and confidant, Saint Jerome:


    Nothing can impose better on a people than verbiage; the less they
    understand the more they admire.... Our fathers and doctors have
    often said, not what they thought, but that to which circumstances
    and necessity forced them.


Which then of the two—the clergy, or the Occultists and Theosophists—are
the more blasphemous and dangerous? Is it those who would impose upon the
world’s acceptance a Saviour of their own fashioning, a God with human
shortcomings, and who therefore is certainly not a perfect divine Being;
or those others who say: Jesus of Nazareth was an Initiate, a holy, grand
and noble character, but withal human, though truly “a Son of God”?

If Humanity is to accept a so‐called supernatural Religion, how far more
logical to the Occultist and the Psychologist seems the transparent
allegory given of Jesus by the Gnostics. They, as Occultists, and with
Initiates for their Chiefs, differed only in their renderings of the story
and in their symbols, and not at all in substance. What say the Ophites,
the Nazarenes, and other “heretics”? Sophia, “the Celestial Virgin,” is
prevailed upon to send Christos, her emanation, to the help of perishing
humanity, from whom Ilda‐Baoth (the Jehovah of the Jews) and his six Sons
of Matter (the lower terrestrial Angels) are shutting out the divine
light. Therefore, Christos, the perfect,(287)


    Uniting himself with Sophia [divine wisdom] descended through the
    seven planetary regions, assuming in each an analogous form ...
    [and] entered into the man Jesus at the moment of his baptism in
    the Jordan. From this time forth Jesus began to work miracles;
    before that he had been entirely ignorant of his own mission.


Ilda‐Baoth, discovering that Christos was bringing to an end his kingdom
of Matter, stirred up the Jews, his own people, against Him, and Jesus was
put to death. When Jesus was on the Cross Christos and Sophia left His
body, and returned to Their own sphere. The material body of Jesus was
abandoned to the earth, but He Himself, the Inner Man, was clothed with a
body made up of _æther_.(288)


    Thenceforth he consisted merely of soul and spirit.... During his
    sojourn upon earth of _eighteen_ months after he had risen, he
    received from Sophia that perfect knowledge, that true Gnosis,
    which he communicated to the small portion of the Apostles who
    were capable of receiving the same.(289)


The above is transparently Eastern and Hindu; it is the Esoteric Doctrine
pure and simple, save for the names and the allegory. It is, more or less,
the history of every Adept who obtains Initiation. The Baptism in the
Jordan is the Rite of Initiation, the final purification; whether in
sacred pagoda, tank, river, or temple lake in Egypt or Mexico. The perfect
Christos and Sophia—divine Wisdom and Intelligence—enter the Initiate at
the moment of the mystic rite, by transference from Guru to Chelâ, and
leave the physical body, at the moment of the death of the latter, to re‐
enter the Nirmânakâya, or the astral Ego of the Adept.


    The spirit of Buddha [collectively] overshadows the Bodhisattvas
    of his Church


says the Buddhist Ritual of Âryâsangha.

Says the Gnostic teaching:


    When he [the spirit of Christos] shall have collected all the
    Spiritual, all the Light [that exists in matter], out of
    Ilbadaoth’s empire, Redemption is accomplished and the end of the
    world arrived.(290)


Say the Buddhists:


    When Buddha [the Spirit of the Church] hears the hour strike, he
    will send Maitreya Buddha—after whom the old world wall be
    destroyed.


That which is said of Basilides by King may be applied as truthfully to
every innovator, so called, whether of a Buddhist or of a Christian
Church. In the eyes of Clemens Alexandrinus, he says, the Gnostics taught
very little that was blameable in their mystical transcendental views.


    In his eyes the latter [Basilides], was not a _heretic_, that is
    an innovator upon the accepted doctrines of the Catholic Church,
    but only a theosophic speculator who sought to express old truths
    by new formulæ.(291)


There was a Secret Doctrine preached by Jesus; and “secresy” in those days
meant Secrets, or Mysteries of Initiation, all of which have been either
rejected or disfigured by the Church. In the Clementine _Homilies_ we
read:


    And Peter said: “We remember that our Lord and Teacher, commanding
    us, said ‘Guard the mysteries for me and the sons of my house.’ ”
    Wherefore also he explained to His disciples privately the
    Mysteries of the Kingdom of the Heavens.(292)



SECTION XIX. ST. CYPRIAN OF ANTIOCH.


The Æons (Stellar Spirits)—emanated from the Unknown of the Gnostics, and
identical with the Dhyân Chohans of the Esoteric Doctrine—and their
Pleroma, having been transformed into Archangels and the “Spirits of the
Presence” by the Greek and Latin Churches, the prototypes have lost caste.
The Pleroma(293) was now called the “Heavenly Host,” and therefore the old
name had to become identified with Satan and his “Host.” Might is right in
every age, and History is full of contrasts. Manes had been called the
“Paraclete”(294) by his followers. He was an Occultist, but passed to
posterity, owing to the kind exertions of the Church, as a Sorcerer, so a
match had to be found for him by way of contrast. We recognise this match
in St. Cyprianus of Antioch, a self‐confessed if not a real “Black
Magician,” it seems, whom the Church—as a reward for his contrition and
humility—subsequently raised to the high rank of Saint and Bishop.

What history knows of him is not much, and it is mostly based on his own
confession, the truthfulness of which is warranted, we are told, by St.
Gregory, the Empress Eudoxia, Photius and the Holy Church. This curious
document was ferreted out by the Marquis de Mirville,(295) in the Vatican,
and by him translated into French for the first time, as he assures the
reader. We beg his permission to re‐translate a few pages, not for the
sake of the penitent Sorcerer, but for that of some students of Occultism,
who will thus have an opportunity of comparing the methods of ancient
Magic (or as the Church calls it, Demonism) with those of modern Theurgy
and Occultism.

The scenes described took place at Antioch about the middle of the third
century, 252 A.D., says the translator. This Confession was written by the
penitent Sorcerer after his conversion; therefore, we are not surprised to
find how much room he gives in his lamentations to reviling his Initiator
“Satan,” or the “Serpent Dragon,” as he calls him. There are other and
more modern instances of the same trait in human nature. Converted Hindus,
Pârsîs and other “heathen” of India are apt to denounce their forefathers’
religions at every opportunity. Thus runs the Confession:


    O all of you who reject the real mysteries of Christ, see my
    tears!... You who wallow in your demoniacal practices, learn by my
    sad example all the vanity of their [the demons’] baits ... I am
    that Cyprianus, who, vowed to Apollo from his infancy, was early
    initiated into all the arts of the dragon.(296) Even before the
    age of seven I had already been introduced into the temple of
    Mithra: three years later, my parents taking me to Athens to be
    received as citizen, I was permitted likewise to penetrate the
    mysteries of Ceres lamenting her daughter,(297) and I also became
    the guardian of the Dragon in the Temple of Pallas.

    Ascending after that to the summit of Mount Olympus, the Seat of
    the Gods, as it is called, there too I was initiated into the
    sense, and the _real_ meaning of their [the Gods’] speeches and
    their clamorous manifestations (_strepituum_). It is there that I
    was made to see in imagination (_phantasia_) [or _mâyâ_] those
    trees and all those herbs that operate such prodigies with the
    help of demons; ... and I saw their dances, their warfares, their
    snares, illusions and promiscuities. I heard their singing.(298) I
    saw finally, for forty consecutive days, the phalanx of the Gods
    and Goddesses, sending from Olympus, as though they were Kings,
    spirits to represent them on earth and act in their name among all
    the nations.(299)

    At that time I lived entirely on fruit, eaten only after sunset,
    the virtues of which were explained to me by the seven priests of
    the sacrifices.(300)

    When I was fifteen my parents desired that I should be made
    acquainted, not only with all the natural laws in connection with
    the generation and corruption of bodies on earth, in the air and
    in the seas, but also with all the other forces _grafted_(301)
    (_insitas_) on these by the Prince of the World in order to
    counteract their primal and divine constitution.(302) At twenty I
    went to Memphis, where, penetrating into the Sanctuaries, I was
    taught to discern all that pertains to the communications of
    demons [Daimones or Spirits] with terrestrial matters, their
    aversion for certain places, their sympathy and attraction for
    others, their expulsion from certain planets, certain objects and
    laws, their persistence in preferring darkness and their
    resistance to light.(303) There I learned the number of the fallen
    Princes,(304) that which takes place in human souls and the bodies
    they enter into communication with.

    I learnt the analogy that exists between earthquakes and the
    rains, between the motion of the earth(305) and the motion of the
    seas; I saw the spirits of the Giants plunged in subterranean
    darkness and seemingly supporting the earth like a man carrying a
    burden on his shoulders.(306)

    When thirty I travelled to Chaldæa to study there the true power
    of the air, placed by some in the fire and by the more learned in
    light [Âkâsha]. I was taught to see that the planets were in their
    variety as dissimilar as the plants on earth, and the stars were
    like armies ranged in battle order. I knew the Chaldæan division
    of Ether into 365 parts,(307) and I perceived that every one of
    the demons who divide it among themselves(308) was endowed with
    that material force that permitted him to execute the orders of
    the Prince and guide all the movements therein [in the
    Ether].(309) They [the Chaldees] explained to me how those Princes
    had become participants in the Council of Darkness, ever in
    opposition to the Council of Light.

    I got acquainted with the Mediatores [surely not mediums as De
    Mirville explains!],(310) and upon seeing the covenants they were
    mutually bound by, I was struck with wonder upon learning the
    nature of their oaths and observances.(311)

    Believe me, I saw the Devil; believe me I have embraced him(312)
    [like the witches at the Sabbath (?)] when I was yet quite young,
    and he saluted me by the title of the new Jambres, declaring me
    worthy of my ministry (initiation). He promised me continual help
    during life and a principality after death.(313) Having become in
    great honour [an Adept] under his tuition, he placed under my
    orders a phalanx of demons, and when I bid him good‐bye, “Courage,
    good success, excellent Cyprian,” he exclaimed, rising up from his
    seat to see me to the door, plunging thereby those present into a
    profound admiration.(314)


Having bidden farewell to his Chaldæan Initiator, the future Sorcerer and
Saint went to Antioch. His tale of “iniquity” and subsequent repentance is
long but we will make it short. He became “an accomplished Magician,”
surrounded by a host of disciples and “candidates to the perilous and
sacrilegious art.” He shows himself distributing love‐philtres and dealing
in deathly charms “to rid young wives of old husbands, and to ruin
Christian virgins.” Unfortunately Cyprianus was not above love himself. He
fell in love with the beautiful Justine, a converted maiden, after having
vainly tried to make her share the passion one named Aglaides, a
profligate, had for her. His “demons failed” he tells us, and he got
disgusted with them. This disgust brings on a quarrel between him and his
Hierophant, whom he insists on identifying with the Demon; and the dispute
is followed by a tournament between the latter and some Christian
converts, in which the “Evil One” is, of course, worsted. The Sorcerer is
finally baptised and gets rid of his enemy. Having laid at the feet of
Anthimes, Bishop of Antioch, all his books on Magic, he became a Saint in
company with the beautiful Justine, who had converted him; both suffered
martyrdom under the Emperor Diocletian; and both are buried side by side
in Rome, in the Basilica of St. John Lateran, near the Baptistery.



SECTION XX. THE EASTERN GUPTA VIDYA & THE KABALAH.


We now return to the consideration of the essential identity between the
Eastern Gupta Vidyâ and the Kabalah as a system, while we must also show
the dissimilarity in their philosophical interpretations since the Middle
Ages.

It must be confessed that the views of the Kabalists—meaning by the word
those students of Occultism who study the Jewish _Kabalah_ and who know
little, if anything, of any other Esoteric literature or of its
teachings—are as varied in their synthetic conclusions upon the nature of
the mysteries taught even in the _Zohar_ alone, and are as wide of the
true mark, as are the _dicta_ upon it of exact Science itself. Like the
mediæval Rosicrucian and the Alchemist—like the Abbot Trithemius, John
Reuchlin, Agrippa, Paracelsus, Robert Fludd, Philalethes, etc.—by whom
they swear, the continental Occultists see in the Jewish _Kabalah_ alone
the universal well of wisdom; they find in it the secret lore of nearly
all the mysteries of Nature—metaphysical and divine—some of them including
herein, as did Reuchlin, those of the Christian _Bible_. For them the
_Zohar_ is an Esoteric Thesaurus of all the mysteries of the Christian
Gospel; and the _Sepher Yetzirah_ is the light that shines in every
darkness, and the container of the keys to open every secret in Nature.
Whether many of our modern followers of the mediæval Kabalists have an
idea of the real meaning of the symbology of their chosen Masters is
another question. Most of them have probably never given even a passing
thought to the fact that the Esoteric language used by the Alchemists was
their own, and that it was given out as a blind, necessitated by the
dangers of the epoch they lived in, and not as the Mystery‐language, used
by the Pagan Initiates, which the Alchemists had re‐translated and re‐
veiled once more.

And now the situation stands thus: as the old Alchemists have not left a
key to their writings, the latter have become a mystery within an older
mystery. The _Kabalah_ is interpreted and checked only by the light which
mediæval Mystics have thrown upon it, and they, in their forced
Christology, had to put a theological dogmatic mask on every ancient
teaching, the result being that each Mystic among our modern European and
American Kabalists interprets the old symbols in his own way, and each
refers his opponents to the Rosicrucian and the Alchemist of three and
four hundred years ago. Mystic Christian dogma is the central maëlstrom
that engulfs every old Pagan symbol, and Christianity—Anti‐Gnostic
Christianity, the modern retort that has replaced the alembic of the
Alchemists—has distilled out of all recognition the _Kabalah_, _i.e._, the
Hebrew _Zohar_ and other rabbinical mystic works. And now it has come to
this: The student interested in the Secret Sciences has to believe that
the whole cycle of the symbolical “Ancient of Days,” every hair of the
mighty beard of Macroprosopos, refers only to the history of the earthly
career of Jesus of Nazareth! And we are told that the _Kabalah_ “was first
taught to a select company of angels” by Jehovah himself—who, out of
modesty, one must think, made himself only the third Sephiroth in it, and
a female one into the bargain. So many Kabalists, so many explanations.
Some believe—perchance with more reason than the rest—that the substance
of the _Kabalah_ is the basis upon which Masonry is built, since modern
Masonry is undeniably the dim and hazy reflection of primeval Occult
Masonry, of the teaching of those divine Masons who established the
Mysteries of the prehistoric and prediluvian Temples of Initiation, raised
by truly superhuman Builders. Others declare that the tenets expounded in
the _Zohar_ relate merely to mysteries terrestrial and profane, having no
more concern with metaphysical speculations—such as the soul, or the
_post‐mortem_ life of man—than have the Mosaic books. Others, again—and
these are the real, genuine Kabalists, who had their instructions from
initiated Jewish Rabbis—affirm that if the two most learned Kabalists of
the mediæval period, John Reuchlin and Paracelsus, differed in their
religious professions—the former being the Father of the Reformation and
the latter a Roman Catholic, at least in appearance—the _Zohar_ cannot
contain much of Christian dogma or tenet, one way or the other. In other
words, they maintain that the numerical language of the Kabalistic works
teaches universal truths—and not any one Religion in particular. Those who
make this statement are perfectly right in saying that the Mystery‐
language used in the _Zohar_ and in other Kabalistic literature was once,
in a time of unfathomable antiquity, the universal language of Humanity.
But they become entirely wrong if to this fact they add the untenable
theory that _this language was invented by, or was the original property
of, the Hebrews, from whom all the other nations borrowed it_.

They are wrong, because, although the _Zohar_ (זהר ZHR), _The Book of
Splendour_ of Rabbi Simeon Ben Iochai, did indeed originate with him—his
son, Rabbi Eleazar, helped by his secretary, Rabbi Abba, compiling the
Kabalistic teachings of his deceased father into a work called the
_Zohar_—those teachings were not Rabbi Simeon’s, as the Gupta Vidyâ shows.
They are as old as the Jewish nation itself, and far older. In short, the
writings which pass at present under the title of the _Zohar_ of Rabbi
Simeon are about as original as were the Egyptian synchronistic Tables
after being handled by Eusebius, or as St. Paul’s _Epistles_ after their
revision and correction by the “Holy Church.”(315)

Let us throw a rapid retrospective glance at the history and the
tribulations of that very same _Zohar_, as we know of them from
trustworthy tradition and documents. We need not stop to discuss whether
it was written in the first century B.C. or in the first century A.D.
Suffice it for us to know that there was at all times a Kabalistic
literature among the Jews; that though historically it can be traced only
from the time of the Captivity, yet from the _Pentateuch_ down to the
_Talmud_ the documents of that literature were ever written in a kind of
Mystery‐language, were, in fact, a series of symbolical records which the
Jews had copied from the Egyptian and the Chaldæan Sanctuaries, only
adapting them to their own national history—if history it can be called.
Now that which we claim—and it is not denied even by the most prejudiced
Kabalist, is that although Kabalistic lore had passed orally through long
ages down to the latest Pre‐Christian Tanaim, and although David and
Solomon may have been great Adepts in it, as is claimed, yet no one dared
to write it down till the days of Simeon Ben Iochai. In short, the lore
found in Kabalistic literature was never recorded in writing before the
first century of the modern era.

This brings the critic to the following reflection: While in India we find
the _Vedas_ and the Brâhmanical literature written down and edited ages
before the Christian era—the Orientalists themselves being obliged to
concede a couple of millenniums of antiquity to the older manuscripts;
while the most important allegories in _Genesis_ are found recorded on
Babylonian tiles centuries B.C.; while the Egyptian sarcophagi yearly
yield proofs of the origin of the doctrines borrowed and copied by the
Jews; yet the Monotheism of the Jews is exalted and thrown into the teeth
of all the Pagan nations, and the so‐called Christian Revelation is placed
above all others, like the sun above a row of street gas‐lamps. Yet it is
perfectly well known, having been ascertained beyond doubt or cavil, that
no manuscript, whether Kabalistic, Talmudistic, or Christian, which has
reached our present generation, is of earlier date than the first
centuries of our era, whereas this can certainly never be said of the
Egyptian papyri or the Chaldæan tiles, or even of some Eastern writings.

But let us limit our present research to the _Kabalah_, and chiefly to the
_Zohar_—called also the _Midrash_. This book, whose teachings were edited
for the first time between 70 and 110 A.D., is known to have been lost,
and its contents to have been scattered throughout a number of minor
manuscripts, until the thirteenth century. The idea that it was the
composition of Moses de Leon of Valladolid, in Spain who passed it off as
a pseudograph of Simeon Ben Iochai, is ridiculous and was well disposed of
by Munk—though he does point to more than one modern interpolation in the
_Zohar_. At the same time it is more than certain that the present _Book
of Zohar_ was written by Moses de Leon, and, owing to joint editorship, is
more Christian in its colouring than is many a genuine Christian volume.
Munk gives the reason why, saying that it appears evident that the author
made use of ancient documents, and among these of certain _Midraschim_, or
collections of traditions and Biblical expositions, which we do not now
possess.

As a proof, also, that the knowledge of the Esoteric system taught in the
_Zohar_ came to the Jews very late indeed—at any rate, that they had so
far forgotten it that the innovations and additions made by de Leon
provoked no criticism, but were thankfully received—Munk quotes from
Tholuck, a Jewish authority, the following information: Haya Gaon, who
died in 1038, is to our knowledge the first author who developed (and
perfected) the theory of the Sephiroth, and he gave them names which we
find again among the Kabalistic names used by Dr. Jellinek. Moses Ben
Schem‐Tob de Leon, who held intimate intercourse with the Syrian and
Chaldæan Christian learned scribes, was enabled through the latter to
acquire a knowledge of some of the Gnostic writings.(316)

Again, the _Sepher Jetzirah_ (_Book of Creation_)—though attributed to
Abraham and though very archaic as to its contents—is first mentioned in
the eleventh century by Jehuda Ho Levi (Chazari). And these two, the
_Zohar_ and _Jetzirah_, are the storehouse of all the subsequent
Kabalistic works. Now let us see how far the Hebrew sacred canon itself is
to be trusted.

The word “Kabalah” comes from the root “to receive,” and has a meaning
identical with the Sanskrit “Smriti” (“received by tradition”)—a system of
oral teaching, passing from one generation of priests to another, as was
the case with the Brâhmanical books before they were embodied in
manuscript. The Kabalistic tenets came to the Jews from the Chaldæans; and
if Moses knew the primitive and universal language of the Initiates, as
did every Egyptian priest, and was thus acquainted with the numerical
system on which it was based, he may have—and we say he has—written
_Genesis_ and other “scrolls.” The five books that now pass current under
his name, the _Pentateuch_, are _not_ withal the original Mosaic
Records.(317) Nor were they written in the old Hebrew square letters, nor
even in the Samaritan characters, for both alphabets belong to a date
later than that of Moses, and Hebrew—as it is now known—did not exist in
the days of the great lawgiver, either as a language or as an alphabet.

As no statements contained in the records of the Secret Doctrine of the
East are regarded as of any value by the world in general, and since to be
understood by and convince the reader one has to quote names familiar to
him, and use arguments and proofs out of documents which are accessible to
all, the following facts may perhaps demonstrate that our assertions are
not merely based on the teachings of Occult Records:

(1) The great Orientalist and scholar, Klaproth, denied positively the
antiquity of the so‐called Hebrew alphabet, on the ground that the square
Hebrew characters in which the Biblical manuscripts are written, and which
we use in printing, were probably derived from the Palmyrene writing, or
some other Semitic alphabet, so that the Hebrew _Bible_ is written merely
in the Chaldaic phonographs of Hebrew words.

The late Dr. Kenealy pertinently remarked that the Jews and Christians
rely on


    A phonograph of a dead and almost unknown language, as abstruse as
    the cuneiform letters on the mountains of Assyria.(318)


(2) The attempts made to carry back the square Hebrew character to the
time of Esdras (B.C. 458) have all failed.

(3) It is asserted that the Jews took their alphabet from the Babylonians
during their captivity. But there are scholars who do not carry the now‐
known Hebrew square letters beyond the late period of the fourth century,
A.D.(319)


    The Hebrew Bible is precisely as if Homer were printed, not in
    Greek, but in English letters; or as if Shakespeare’s works were
    phonographed in Burmese.(320)


(4) Those who maintain that the ancient Hebrew is the same as the Syraic
or Chaldaic have to see what is said in _Jeremiah_, wherein the Lord is
made to threaten the house of Israel with bringing against it the mighty
and ancient nation of the Chaldæans:


    A nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest
    what they say.(321)


This is quoted by Bishop Walton(322) against the assumption of the
identity of Chaldaic and Hebrew, and ought to settle the question.

(5) The real Hebrew of Moses was lost after the seventy years’ captivity,
when the Israelites brought back Chaldaic with them and grafted it on
their own language, the fusion resulting in a dialectical variety of
Chaldaic, the Hebrew tincturing it very slightly and ceasing from that
time to be a spoken language.(323)

As to our statement that the present _Old Testament_ does not contain the
original Books of Moses, this is proven by the facts that:

(1) The Samaritans repudiated the Jewish canonical books and _their_ “Law
of Moses.” They will have neither the _Psalms_ of David, nor the Prophets,
nor the _Talmud_ and _Mishna_: nothing but the real Books of Moses, and in
quite a different edition.(324) The Books of Moses and of Joshua are
disfigured out of recognition by the Talmudists, they say.

(2) The “black Jews” of Cochin, Southern India—who know nothing of the
Babylonian Captivity or of the _ten_ “lost tribes” (the latter a pure
invention of the Rabbis), proving that these Jews must have come to India
before the year 600 B.C.—have their Books of Moses which they will show to
no one. And these Books and Laws differ greatly from the present scrolls.
Nor are they written in the square Hebrew characters (semi‐Chaldaic and
semi‐Palmyrean) but in the archaic letters, as we were assured by one of
them—letters entirely unknown to all but themselves and a few Samaritans.

(3) The Karaim Jews of the Crimea—who call themselves the descendants of
the true children of Israel, _i.e._, of the Sadducees—reject the _Torah_
and the _Pentateuch_ of the Synagogue, reject the Sabbath of the Jews
(keeping Friday), will have neither the Books of the Prophets nor the
_Psalms_—nothing but their own Books of Moses and what they call his one
and real Law.

This makes it plain that the _Kabalah_ of the Jews is but the distorted
echo of the Secret Doctrine of the Chaldæans, and that the real _Kabalah_
is found only in the Chaldæan _Book of Numbers_ now in the possession of
some Persian Sufis. Every nation in antiquity had its traditions based on
those of the Âryan Secret Doctrine; and each nation points to this day to
a Sage of its own race who had received the primordial revelation from,
and had recorded it under the orders of, a more or less divine Being. Thus
it was with the Jews, as with all others. They had received their Occult
Cosmogony and Laws from their Initiate, Moses, and they have now entirely
mutilated them.

Âdi is the generic name in our Doctrine of all the first men, _i.e._, the
first speaking races, in each of the seven zones—hence probably “Ad‐am.”
And such first men, in every nation, are credited with having been taught
the divine mysteries of creation. Thus, the Sabæans (according to a
tradition preserved in the Sufi works) say that when the “Third First Man”
left the country adjacent to India for Babel, a tree(325) was given to
him, then another and a third tree, whose leaves recorded the history of
all the races; the “Third First Man” meant one who belonged to the Third
Root‐Race, and yet the Sabæans call him Adam. The Arabs of Upper Egypt,
and the Mohammedans generally, have recorded a tradition that the Angel
Azaz‐el brings a message from the Wisdom‐Word of God to Adam whenever he
is reborn; this the Sufis explain by adding that this book is given to
every Seli‐Allah (“the chosen one of God”) for his wise men. The story
narrated by the Kabalists—namely, that the book given to Adam before his
Fall (a book full of mysteries and signs and events which either had been,
were, or were to be) was taken away by the Angel Raziel after Adam’s Fall,
but again restored to him lest men might lose its wisdom and instruction;
that this book was delivered by Adam to Seth, who passed it to Enoch, and
the latter to Abraham, and so on in succession to the most wise of every
generation—relates to all nations, and not to the Jews alone. For Berosus
narrates in his turn that Xisuthrus compiled a book, writing it at the
command of his deity, which book was buried in Zipara(326) or Sippara, the
City of the Sun, in Ba‐bel‐on‐ya, and was dug up long afterwards and
deposited in the temple of Belos; it is from this book that Berosus took
his history of the antediluvian dynasties of Gods and Heroes. Ælian (in
_Nimrod_) speaks of a Hawk (emblem of the Sun), who in the days of the
beginnings brought to the Egyptians a book containing the wisdom of their
religion. The _Sam‐Sam_ of the Sabæans is also a _Kabalah_, as is the
Arabic _Zem‐Zem_ (_Well of Wisdom_).(327)

We are told by a very learned Kabalist that Seyffarth asserts that the old
Egyptian tongue was only old Hebrew, or a Semitic dialect; and he proves
this, our correspondent thinks, by sending him “some 500 words in common”
in the two languages. This proves very little to our mind. It only shows
that the two nations lived together for centuries, and that before
adopting the Chaldæan for their phonetic tongue the Jews had adopted the
old Coptic or Egyptian. The Israelitish Scriptures drew their hidden
wisdom from the primeval Wisdom‐Religion that was the source of other
Scriptures, only it was sadly degraded by being applied to things and
mysteries of this Earth, instead of to those in the higher and ever‐
present, though invisible, spheres. Their national history, if they can
claim any autonomy before their return from the Babylonian captivity,
cannot be carried back one day earlier than the time of Moses. The
language of Abraham—if Zeruan (Saturn, the emblem of time—the “Sar,”
“Saros,” a “cycle”) can be said to have any language—was not Hebrew, but
Chaldaic, perhaps Arabic, and still more likely some old Indian dialect.
This is shown by numerous proofs, some of which we give here; and unless,
indeed, to please the tenacious and stubborn believers in _Bible_
chronology, we cripple the years of our globe to the Procrustean bed of
7,000 years, it becomes self‐evident that the Hebrew cannot be called an
old language, merely because Adam is supposed to have used it in the
Garden of Eden. Bunsen says in _Egypt’s Place in Universal History_ that
in the


    Chaldæan tribe immediately connected with Abraham, we find
    reminiscences of dates disfigured and misunderstood as genealogies
    of single men, or figures of epochs. The Abrahamic recollections
    go back at least three millennia beyond the grandfather of
    Jacob.(328)


The _Bible_ of the Jews has ever been an Esoteric Book in its hidden
meaning, but this meaning has not remained one and the same throughout
since the days of Moses. It is useless, considering the limited space we
can give to this subject, to attempt anything like the detailed history of
the vicissitudes of the so‐called _Pentateuch_, and besides, the history
is too well known to need lengthy disquisitions. Whatever was, or was not,
the Mosaic _Book of Creation_—from _Genesis_ down to the Prophets—the
_Pentateuch_ of to‐day is not the same. It is sufficient to read the
criticisms of Erasmus, and even of Sir Isaac Newton, to see clearly that
the Hebrew Scriptures had been tampered with and remodelled, had been lost
and rewritten, a dozen times before the days of Ezra. This Ezra himself
may yet one day turn out to have been Azara, the Chaldæan priest of the
Fire and Sun‐God, a renegade who, through his desire of becoming a ruler,
and in order to create an Ethnarchy, restored the old lost Jewish Books in
his own way. It was an easy thing for one versed in the secret system of
Esoteric numerals, or Symbology, to put together events from the stray
books that had been preserved by various tribes, and make of them an
apparently harmonious narrative of creation and of the evolution of the
Judæan race. But in its hidden meaning, from _Genesis_ to the last word of
_Deuteronomy_, the Pentateuch is the symbolical narrative of the sexes,
and is an apotheosis of Phallicism, under astronomical and physiological
personations.(329) Its coördination, however, is only apparent; and the
human hand appears at every moment, is found everywhere in the “Book of
God.” Hence the Kings of Edom discuss in _Genesis_ before any king had
reigned in Israel; Moses records his own death, and Aaron dies twice and
is buried in two different places, to say nothing of other trifles. For
the Kabalist they are trifles, for he knows that all these events are not
history, but are simply the cloak designed to envelope and hide various
physiological peculiarities; but for the sincere Christian, who accepts
all these “dark sayings” in good faith, it matters a good deal. Solomon
may very well be regarded as a myth(330) by the Masons, as they lose
nothing by it, for all their secrets are Kabalistic and allegorical—for
those few, at any rate, who understand them. For the Christian, however,
to give up Solomon, the son of David—from whom Jesus is made to
descend—involves a real loss. But how even the Kabalists can claim great
antiquity for the Hebrew texts of the old Biblical scrolls now possessed
by the scholars is not made at all apparent. For it is certainly a fact of
history, based on the confessions of the Jews themselves, and of
Christians likewise, that:


    The Scriptures having perished in the captivity of Nabuchodonozar,
    Esdras, the Levite, the priest, in the times of Artaxerxes, king
    of the Persians, having become inspired, in the exercise of
    prophecy restored again the whole of the ancient Scriptures.(331)


One must have a strong belief in “Esdras,” and especially in his good
faith, to accept the now‐existing copies as genuine Mosaic Books; for:


    Assuming that the copies, or rather phonographs which had been
    made by Hilkiah and Esdras, and the various anonymous editors,
    were really true and genuine, they must have been wholly
    exterminated by Antiochus; and the versions of the Old Testament
    which now subsist must have been made by Judas, or by some unknown
    compilers, probably from the Greek of the Seventy, long after the
    appearance and death of Jesus.(332)


The _Bible_, therefore, as it is now (the Hebrew texts, that is), depends
for its accuracy on the genuineness of the _Septuagint_; this, we are
again told, was written miraculously by the Seventy, in Greek, and the
original copy having been lost since that time, our texts are re‐
translated back into Hebrew from that language. But in this vicious circle
of proofs we once more have to rely upon the good faith of two
Jews—Josephus and Philo Judæus of Alexandria—these two Historians being
the only witnesses that the Septuagint was written under the circumstances
narrated. And yet it is just these circumstances that are very little
calculated to inspire one with confidence. For what does Josephus tell us?
He says that Ptolemy Philadelphus, desiring to read the Hebrew Law in
Greek, wrote to Eleazar, the high‐priest of the Jews, begging him _to send
him six men from each of the twelve tribes_, who should make a translation
for him. Then follows a truly miraculous story, vouchsafed by Aristeas, of
these seventy‐two men from the twelve tribes of Israel, who, shut up in an
island, compiled their translation in exactly seventy‐two days, etc.

All this is very edifying, and one might have had very little reason to
doubt the story, had not the “ten lost tribes” been made to play their
part in it. How could these tribes, lost between 700 and 900 B.C., each
send six men some centuries later, to satisfy the whim of Ptolemy, and to
disappear once more immediately afterwards from the horizon? A miracle,
verily.

We are expected, nevertheless, to regard such documents as the
_Septuagint_ as containing direct divine revelation: Documents originally
written in a tongue about which nobody now knows anything; written by
authors that are practically mythical, and at dates as to which no one is
able even to make a defensible surmise; documents of the original copies
of which there does not now remain a shred. Yet people will persist in
talking of the ancient Hebrew, as if there were any man left in the world
who now knows one word of it. So little, indeed, was Hebrew known that
both the Septuagint and the _New Testament_ had to be written in a
_heathen_ language (the Greek), and no better reasons for it given than
what Hutchinson says, namely, that the Holy Ghost chose to write the New
Testament in Greek.

The Hebrew language is considered to be very old, and yet there exists no
trace of it anywhere on the old monuments, not even in Chaldæa. Among the
great number of inscriptions of various kinds found in the ruins of that
country:


    One in the Hebrew Chaldee letter and language _has never been
    found_; nor has a single authentic medal or gem in this new‐
    fangled character been ever discovered, which could carry it even
    to the days of Jesus.(333)


The original _Book of Daniel_ is written in a dialect which is a mixture
of Hebrew and Aramaic; it is not even in Chaldaic, with the exception of a
few verses interpolated later on. According to Sir W. Jones and other
Orientalists, the oldest discoverable languages of Persia are the Chaldaic
and Sanskrit, and there is no trace of the “Hebrew” in these. It would be
very surprising if there were, since the Hebrew known to the Philologists
does not date earlier than 500 B.C., and its characters belong to a far
later period still. Thus, while the real Hebrew characters, if not
altogether lost are nevertheless so hopelessly transformed—


    A mere inspection of the alphabet showing that it has been shaped
    and made regular, in doing which the characteristic marks of some
    of the letters _have been retrenched_ in order to make them more
    square and uniform—(334)


that no one but an initiated Rabbi of Samaria or a “Jain” could read them,
the new system of the masoretic points has made them a sphinx‐riddle for
all. Punctuation is now to be found everywhere in all the later
manuscripts, and by means of it anything can be made of a text; a Hebrew
scholar can put on the texts any interpretation he likes. Two instances
given by Kenealy will suffice:


    In _Genesis_, xlix. 21, we read:

    Naphtali is a _hind let loose_; he _giveth goodly words_.

    By only a slight alteration of the points Bochart changes this
    into:

    Naphtali is a _spreading tree, shooting forth beautiful branches_.

    So again, in _Psalms_ (xxix. 9), instead of:

    The voice of the Lord _maketh the hind to calve_, and discovereth
    the forests;

    Bishop Lowth gives:

    The voice of the Lord _striketh the oak_, and discovereth the
    forests.

    The same word in Hebrew signifies “God” and “nothing,” etc.(335)


With regard to the claim made by some Kabalists that there was in
antiquity one knowledge and one language, this claim is also our own, and
it is very just. Only it must be added, to make the thing clear, that this
knowledge and language have both been esoteric ever since the submersion
of the Atlanteans. The Tower of Babel myth relates to that enforced
secrecy. Men falling into sin were regarded as no longer trustworthy for
the reception of such knowledge, and, from being universal, it became
limited to the few. Thus, the “one‐lip”—or the Mystery‐language—being
gradually denied to subsequent generations, all the nations became
severally restricted to their own national tongue; and forgetting the
primeval Wisdom‐language, they stated that the Lord—one of the chief Lords
or Hierophants of the Mysteries of the Java Aleim—had confounded the
languages of all the earth, so that the sinners could understand one
another’s speech no longer. But Initiates remained in every land and
nation, and the Israelites, like all others, had their learned Adepts. One
of the keys to this Universal Knowledge is a pure geometrical and
numerical system, the alphabet of every great nation having a numerical
value for every letter,(336) and, moreover, a system of permutation of
syllables and synonyms which is carried to perfection in the Indian Occult
methods, and which the Hebrew certainly has not. This one system,
containing the elements of Geometry and Numeration, was used by the Jews
for the purpose of concealing their Esoteric creed under the mask of a
popular and national monotheistic Religion. The last who knew the system
to perfection were the learned and “atheistical” Sadducees, the greatest
enemies of the pretensions of the Pharisees and of their confused notions
brought from Babylon. Yes, the Sadducees, the Illusionists, who maintained
that the Soul, the Angels, and all similar Beings, were illusions because
they were temporary—thus showing themselves at one with Eastern
Esotericism. And since they rejected every book and Scripture, with the
exception of the Law of Moses, it seems that the latter must have been
very different from what it is now.(337)

The whole of the foregoing is written with an eye to our Kabalists. Great
scholars as some of them undoubtedly are, they are nevertheless wrong to
hang the harps of their faith on the willows of Talmudic growth—on the
Hebrew scrolls, whether in square or pointed characters, now in our public
libraries, museums, or even in the collections of Paleographers. There do
not remain half‐a‐dozen copies from the true Mosaic Hebrew scrolls in the
whole world. And those who are in possession of these—as we indicated a
few pages back—would not part with them, or even allow them to be
examined, on any consideration whatever. How then can any Kabalist claim
priority for Hebrew Esotericism, and say, as does one of our
correspondents, that “the Hebrew has come down from a far remoter
antiquity than any of them [whether Egyptian or even Sanskrit!], and that
it was the source, or nearer to the old original source, than any of
them”?(338)

As our correspondent says: “It becomes more convincing to me every day
that in a far past time there was _a mighty civilization with __ enormous
learning, which had a common language over the earth, as to which its
essence can be recovered from the fragments which now exist_.”

Aye, there existed indeed a mighty civilization, and a still mightier
secret learning and knowledge, the entire scope of which can never be
discovered by Geometry and the _Kabalah_ alone: for there are seven keys
to the large entrance‐door, and not one, nor even two, keys can ever open
it sufficiently to allow more than glimpses of what lies within.

Every scholar must be aware that there are two distinct styles—_two
schools_, so to speak—plainly traceable in the Hebrew Scriptures: the
Elohistic and the Jehovistic. The portions belonging to these respectively
are so blended together, so completely mixed up by later hands, that often
all external characteristics are lost. Yet it is also known that the two
schools were antagonistic; that the one taught esoteric, the other
exoteric, or theological doctrines; that the one, the Elohists, were Seers
(Roch), whereas the other, the Jehovists, were prophets (Nabhi),(339) and
that the latter—who later became Rabbis—were generally only nominally
prophets by virtue of their official position, as the Pope is called the
infallible and inspired vicegerent of God. That, again, the Elohists meant
by “Elohim” “forces,” identifying their Deity, as in the Secret Doctrine,
with Nature; while the Jehovists made of Jehovah a personal God
externally, and used the term simply as a phallic symbol—a number of them
secretly disbelieving even in metaphysical, abstract Nature, and
synthesizing all on the terrestrial scale. Finally, the Elohists made of
man the divine incarnate image of the Elohim, emanated first in all
Creation; and the Jehovists show him as the last, the crowning glory of
the animal creation, instead of his being the head of all the sensible
beings on earth. (This is reversed by some Kabalists, but the reversion is
due to the designedly‐produced confusion in the texts, especially in the
first four chapters of _Genesis_.)

Take the _Zohar_ and find in it the description relating to Ain‐Suph, the
Western or Semitic Parabrahman. What passages have come so nearly up to
the Vedântic ideal as the following:


    The creation [the evolved Universe] is the garment of that which
    has no name, the garment _woven from the Deity’s own
    substance_.(340)


Between that which is Ain or “nothing,” and the Heavenly Man, there is an
Impersonal First Cause, however, of which it is said:


    Before It gave any shape to this world, before It produced any
    form, It was alone, without form or similitude to anything else.
    Who, then, can comprehend It, how It was before the creation,
    since It was formless? Hence it is forbidden to represent It by
    any form, similitude, or even by Its sacred name, by a single
    letter or a single point.(341)


The sentence that follows, however, is an evident later interpolation; for
it draws attention to a complete contradiction:


    And to this the words (_Deut._ iv. 15), refer—“Ye saw no manner of
    similitude on the day the Lord spake unto you.”


But this reference to Chapter iv. of _Deuteronomy_, when in Chapter v. God
is mentioned as speaking “face to face” with the people, is very clumsy.

Not one of the names given to Jehovah in the _Bible_ has any reference
whatever to either Ain‐Suph or the Impersonal First‐Cause (which is the
Logos) of the _Kabalah_; but they all refer to the _Emanations_.

It says


    For although to reveal itself to us, the concealed of all the
    concealed sent forth the Ten Emanations [Sephiroth] called the
    Form of God, Form of the Heavenly Man, yet since even this
    luminous form was too dazzling for our vision, it had to assume
    another form, or had to put on another garment, _which is the
    Universe_. The Universe, therefore, or the visible world, is a
    farther expansion of the Divine Substance, and is called in the
    Kabalah “The Garment of God.”(342)


This is the doctrine of all the Hindu Purânas, especially that of the
_Vishnu Purâna_. Vishnu pervades the Universe and is that Universe; Brahmâ
enters the Mundane Egg, and issues from it as the Universe; Brahmâ even
dies with it and there remains only Brahman, the impersonal, the eternal,
the unborn, and the unqualifiable. The Ain‐Suph of the Chaldæans and later
of the Jews is assuredly a copy of the Vaidic Deity; while the “Heavenly
Adam,” the Macrocosm which unites in itself the totality of beings and is
the _Esse_ of the visible Universe, finds his original in the Purânic
Brahmâ. In _Sôd_, “the Secret of the Law,” one recognizes the expressions
used in the oldest fragments of the Gupta Vidyâ, the Secret Knowledge. And
it is not venturing too much to say that even a Rabbi quite familiar with
his own special Rabbinical _Hebrew_ would only comprehend its secrets
thoroughly if he added to his learning a serious knowledge of the Hindu
philosophies. Let us turn to Stanza I. of the _Book of Dzyan_ for an
example.

The _Zohar_ premises, as does the Secret Doctrine, a universal, eternal
Essence, passive—because absolute—in all that men call attributes. The
pregenetic or pre‐cosmical Triad is a pure metaphysical abstraction. The
notion of a triple hypostasis in one Unknown Divine Essence is as old as
speech and thought. Hiranyagarbha, Hari, and Shankara—the Creator, the
Preserver, and the Destroyer—are the three manifested attributes of it,
appearing and disappearing with Kosmos; the visible Triangle, so to speak,
on the plane of the ever‐invisible Circle. This is the primeval root‐
thought of thinking Humanity; the Pythagorean Triangle emanating from the
ever‐concealed Monad, or the Central Point.

Plato speaks of it and Plotinus calls it an ancient doctrine, on which
Cudworth remarks that:


    Since Orpheus, Pythagoras, and Plato, who all of them asserted a
    Trinity of divine hypostases, unquestionably derived their
    doctrine from the Egyptians, it may be reasonably suspected that
    the Egyptians did the like before them.(343)


The Egyptians certainly derived their Trinity from the Indians. Wilson
justly observes:


    As, however, the Grecian accounts and those of the Egyptians are
    much more perplexed and unsatisfactory than those of the Hindus,
    it is most probable that we find amongst them the doctrine in its
    most original, as well as most methodical and significant
    form.(344)


This, then, is the meaning:

“_Darkness alone filled the Boundless All, for Father, Mother and Son were
once more One._”(345)

Space was, and is ever, as it is between the Manvantaras. The Universe in
its pre‐kosmic state was once more homogeneous and one—outside its
aspects. This was a Kabalistic, and is now a Christian teaching.

As is constantly shown in the _Zohar_, the Infinite Unity, or Ain‐Suph, is
ever placed outside human thought and appreciation; and in _Sepher
Jetzirah_ we see the Spirit of God—the Logos, not the Deity itself—called
One.


    One is the Spirit of the living God, ... who liveth for ever.
    Voice, Spirit, [of the Spirit], and Word: this is the Holy
    Spirit,(346)


—and the Quaternary. From this Cube emanates the whole Kosmos.

Says the Secret Doctrine:

“_It is called to life. The mystic Cube in which rests the Creative Idea,
the manifesting Mantra_ [or articulate speech—Vâch] _and the holy Purusha_
[both radiations of prima materia] _exist in the Eternity in the Divine
Substance in their latent state_”

—during Pralaya.

And in the _Sepher Jetzirah_, when the Three‐in‐One are to be called into
being—by the manifestation of Shekinah, the first effulgency or radiation
in the manifesting Kosmos—the “Spirit of God,” or Number One,(347)
fructifies and awakens the dual Potency, Number Two, Air, and Number
Three, Water; in these “are darkness and emptiness, slime and dung”—which
is Chaos, the Tohu‐Vah‐Bohu. The Air and Water emanate Number Four, Ether
or Fire, the Son. This is the Kabalistic Quaternary. This Fourth Number,
which in the manifested Kosmos is the One, or the Creative God, is with
the Hindus the “Ancient,” Sanat, the Prajâpati of the _Vedas_ and the
Brahmâ of the Brâhmans—the heavenly Androgyne, as he becomes the male only
after separating himself into two bodies, Vâch and Virâj. With the
Kabalists, he is at first the Jah‐Havah, only later becoming Jehovah, like
Virâj, his prototype; after separating himself as Adam‐Kadmon into Adam
and Eve in the formless, and into Cain‐Abel in the semi‐objective, world,
he became finally the Jah‐Havah, or man and woman, in Enoch, the son of
Seth.

For, the true meaning of the compound name of Jehovah—of which, unvoweled,
you can make almost anything—is: men and women, or humanity composed of
its two sexes. From the first chapter to the end of the fourth chapter of
_Genesis_ every name is a permutation of another name, and every personage
is at the same time somebody else. A Kabalist traces Jehovah from the Adam
of earth to Seth, the third son—or rather race—of Adam.(348) Thus Seth is
Jehovah male; and Enos, being a permutation of Cain and Abel, is Jehovah
male and female, or our mankind. The Hindu Brahmâ‐Virâj, Virâj‐Manu, and
Manu‐Vaivasvata, with his daughter and wife, Vâch, present the greatest
analogy with these personages—for anyone who will take the trouble of
studying the subject in both the _Bible_ and the _Purânas_. It is said of
Brahmâ that he created himself as Manu, and that he was born of, and was
identical with, his original self, while he constituted the female portion
“Shata‐rûpâ” (hundred‐formed). In this Hindu Eve, “the mother of all
living beings,” Brahmâ created Virâj, who is himself, but on a lower
scale, as Cain is Jehovah on an inferior scale: both are the first males
of the Third Race. The same idea is illustrated in the Hebrew name of God
(יהוה) Read from right to left “Jod” (י) is the father, “He” (ה) the
mother, “Vau” (ו) the son, and “He” (ה), repeated at the end of the word,
is generation, the act of birth, materiality. This is surely a sufficient
reason why the God of the Jews and Christians should be personal, as much
as the male Brahmâ, Vishnu, or Shiva of the orthodox, exoteric Hindu.

Thus the term of Jhvh alone—now accepted as the name of “One living [male]
God”—will yield, if seriously studied, not only the whole mystery of
_Being_ (in the Biblical sense,) but also that of the Occult Theogony,
from the highest divine Being, the third in order, down to man. As shown
by the best Hebraists:


    The verbal היה, or Hâyâh, or E‐y‐e, means _to be_, _to exist_,
    while חיה or Châyâh, or H‐y‐e, means _to live_, as _motion of
    existence_.(349)


Hence Eve stands as the evolution and the never‐ceasing “becoming” of
Nature. Now if we take the almost untranslatable Sanskrit word Sat, which
means the quintessence of absolute immutable Being, or Be‐ness—as it has
been rendered by an able Hindu Occultist—we shall find no equivalent for
it in any language; but it may be regarded as most closely resembling
“Ain,” or “En‐Suph,” Boundless Being. Then the term Hâyâh, “to be,” as
passive, changeless, yet manifested existence may perhaps be rendered by
the Sanskrit Jîvâtmâ, universal life or soul, in its secondary and cosmic
meaning; while “Châyâh,” “to live,” as “motion of existence,” is simply
Prâna, the ever‐changing life in its objective sense. It is at the head of
this third category that the Occultist finds Jehovah—the Mother, Binah,
and the Father, Arelim. This is made plain in the _Zohar_, when the
emanation and evolution of the Sephiroth are explained: First, Ain‐Suph,
then Shekinah, the Garment or Veil of Infinite Light, then Sephira or the
Kadmon, and, thus making the fourth, the spiritual Substance sent forth
from the Infinite Light. This Sephira is called the Crown, Kether, and has
besides, six other names—in all seven. These names are: 1. Kether; 2. the
Aged; 3. the Primordial Point; 4. the White Head; 5. the Long Face; 6. the
Inscrutable Height; and 7. Ehejeh (“I am”.)(350) This septenary Sephira is
said to contain in itself the nine Sephiroth. But before showing how she
brought them forth, let us read an explanation about the Sephiroth in the
_Talmud_, which gives it as an archaic tradition, or Kabalah.

There are three groups (or orders) of Sephiroth: 1. The Sephiroth called
“divine attributes” (the Triad in the Holy Quaternary); 2. the sidereal
(personal) Sephiroth; 3. the metaphysical Sephiroth, or a periphrasis of
Jehovah, who are the first three Sephiroth (Kether, Chokmah and Binah),
the rest of the seven being the personal “Seven Spirits of the Presence”
(also of the planets, therefore). Speaking of these, the angels are meant,
though not because they are seven, but because they represent the seven
Sephiroth which contain in them the universality of the Angels.

This shows (_a_) that, when the first four Sephiroth are separated, as a
Triad‐Quaternary—Sephira being its synthesis—there remain only seven
Sephiroth, as there are seven Rishis; these become ten when the
Quaternary, or the first divine Cube, is scattered into units; and (_b_)
that while Jehovah might have been viewed as the Deity, if he be included
in the three divine groups or orders of the Sephiroth, the collective
Elohim, or the quaternary indivisible Kether, once that he becomes a male
God, he is no more than one of the Builders of the lower group—a Jewish
Brahmâ.(351) A demonstration is now attempted.

The first Sephira, containing the other nine, brought them forth in this
order: (2) Hokmah (Chokmah, or Wisdom), a masculine active potency
represented among the divine names as Jah; and, as a permutation or an
evolution into lower forms in this instance—becoming the Auphanim (or the
Wheels—cosmic rotation of matter) among the army, or the angelic hosts.
From this Chokmah emanated a feminine passive potency called (3)
Intelligence, Binah, whose divine name is Jehovah, and whose angelic name,
among the Builders and Hosts, is _Arelim_.(352) It is from the union of
these two potencies, male and female (or Chokmah and Binah) that emanated
all the other Sephiroth, the seven orders of the Builders. Now if we call
Jehovah by his divine name, then he becomes at best and forthwith “a
female passive” potency in Chaos. And if we view him as a male God, he is
no more than one of many, an Angel, Arelim. But straining the analysis to
its highest point, and if his male name Jah, that of Wisdom, be allowed to
him, still he is not the “Highest and the one Living God;” for he is
contained with many others within Sephira, and Sephira herself is a third
Potency in Occultism, though regarded as the first in the exoteric
_Kabalah_—and is one, moreover, of lesser importance than the Vaidic
Aditi, or the Primordial Water of Space, which becomes after many a
permutation the Astral Light of the Kabalist.

Thus the _Kabalah_, as we have it now, is shown to be of the greatest
importance in explaining the allegories and “dark sayings” of the _Bible_.
As an Esoteric work upon the mysteries of creation, however, it is almost
worthless as it is now disfigured, unless checked by the Chaldæan _Book of
Numbers_ or by the tenets of the Eastern Secret Science, or Esoteric
Wisdom. The Western nations have neither the original _Kabalah_, nor yet
the Mosaic _Bible_.

Finally, it is demonstrated by internal as well as by external evidence,
on the testimony of the best European Hebraists, and the confessions of
the learned Jewish Rabbis themselves, that “an ancient document forms the
essential basis of the _Bible_, which received very considerable
insertions and supplements;” and that “the Pentateuch arose out of the
primitive or older document by means of a supplementary one.” Therefore in
the absence of the _Book of Numbers_,(353) the Kabalists of the West are
only entitled to come to definite conclusions, when they have at hand some
data at least from that “ancient document”—data now found scattered
throughout Egyptian papyri, Assyrian tiles, and the traditions preserved
by the descendants of the disciples of the last Nazars. Instead of that,
most of them accept as their authorities and infallible guides Sabre
d’Olivet—who was a man of immense erudition and of speculative mind, but
neither a Kabalist nor an Occultist, either Western or Eastern—and the
Mason Ragon, the greatest of the “Widow’s sons,” who was even less of an
Orientalist than d’Olivet, for Sanskrit learning was almost unknown in the
days of both these eminent scholars.



SECTION XXI. HEBREW ALLEGORIES.


How can any Kabalist, acquainted with the foregoing, deduce his
conclusions with regard to the true Esoteric beliefs of the primitive
Jews, from that only which he now finds in the Jewish scrolls? How can any
scholar—even though one of the keys to the universal language be now
positively discovered, the true key to the numerical reading of a pure
geometrical system—give out anything as his _final_ conclusion? Modern
Kabalistic speculation is on a par now with modern “speculative Masonry;”
for as the latter tries vainly to link itself with the ancient—or rather
the archaic—Masonry of the Temples, failing to make the link because all
its claims have been shown to be inaccurate from an archæological
standpoint, so fares it also with Kabalistic speculation. As no mystery of
Nature worth running after can be revealed to humanity by settling whether
Hiram Abif was a living Sidonian builder, or a solar myth, so no fresh
information will be added to Occult Lore by the details of the exoteric
privileges conferred on the Collegia Fabrorum by Numa Pompilius. Rather
must the symbols used in it be studied in the Âryan light, since all the
Symbolism of the ancient Initiations came to the West with the light of
the Eastern Sun. Nevertheless, we find the most learned Masons and
Symbologists declaring that all these weird symbols and glyphs, that run
back to a common origin of immense antiquity, were nothing more than a
display of cunning natural phallicism, or emblems of primitive typology.
How much nearer the truth is the author of _The Source of Measures_, who
declares that the elements of human and numerical construction in the
_Bible_ do not shut out the spiritual elements in it, albeit so few now
understand them. The words we quote are as suggestive as they are true:


    How desperately blinding becomes a superstitious use, through
    ignorance, of such emblems, when they are made to possess the
    power of bloodshed and torture, through orders of propaganda of
    any species of religious cultus. When one thinks of the horrors of
    a _Moloch_, or _Baal_, or _Dagon_ worship; of the correlated
    blood‐deluges under the Cross baptized in gore by Constantine, at
    the initiative of the secular Church; ... when one thinks of all
    this and then that the cause of all has been simply ignorance of
    the real radical reading of the _Moloch_, and _Baal_, and _Dagon_,
    and the _Cross_ and the _T’phillin_, all running back to a common
    origin, and after all being nothing more than a display of pure
    and natural mathematics, ... one is apt to feel like cursing
    ignorance, and to lose confidence in what are called _intuitions_
    of religion; one is apt to wish for a return of the day when all
    the world was of one _lip_ and of one _knowledge_.... But while
    these elements [of the construction of the pyramid] are rational
    and scientific, ... let no man consider that with this discovery
    comes a cutting‐off of the _spirituality_(354) of the _Bible_
    intention, or of man’s relation to this spiritual foundation. Does
    one wish to build a house? No house was ever actually built with
    tangible material _until first the architectural design of
    building had been accomplished_, no matter whether the structure
    was palace or hovel. So with these elements and numbers. They are
    not of man, nor are they of his invention. They have been revealed
    to him to the extent of his ability to realize a system, which is
    _the creative system_ of the eternal God.... But _spiritually_, to
    man the value of this matter is that he can actually in
    contemplation, bridge over all material construction of the
    cosmos, and pass into the very _thought_ and _mind_ of God, to the
    extent of recognizing this _system of design_ for cosmic
    creation—yea, even before the words went forth: “_Let there
    be_.”(355)


But true as the above words may be, when coming from one who has re‐
discovered, more completely than anyone else has done during the past
centuries, one of the keys to the universal Mystery Language, it is
impossible for an Eastern Occultist to agree with the conclusion of the
able author of _The Source of Measures_. He “has set out to find the
truth,” and yet he still believes that:


    The best and most authentic vehicle of communication from [the
    creative] God to man ... is to be found in the Hebrew Bible.


To this we must and shall demur, giving our reasons for it in a few words.
The “Hebrew _Bible_” exists no more, as has been shown in the foregoing
pages, and the garbled accounts, the falsified and pale copies we have of
the real Mosaic _Bible_ of the Initiates, warrant the making of no such
sweeping assertion and claim. All that the scholar can fairly claim is
that the Jewish _Bible_, as now extant—in its latest and final
interpretation, and according to the newly‐discovered key—may give a
partial presentment of the truths it contained before it was mangled. But
how can he tell what the _Pentateuch_ contained before it had been re‐
composed by Esdras; then corrupted still more by the ambitious Rabbis in
later times, and otherwise remodelled and interfered with? Leaving aside
the opinion of the declared enemies of the Jewish Scriptures, one may
quote simply what their most devoted followers say.

Two of these are Horne and Prideaux. The avowals of the former will be
sufficient to show how much now remains of the original Mosaic books,
unless indeed we accept his sublimely blind faith in the inspiration and
editorship of the Holy Ghost. He writes that when a Hebrew scribe found a
writing of any author he was entitled, if he thought fit, being “conscious
of the aid of the Holy Spirit,” to do exactly as he pleased with it—to cut
it up, or copy it, or use as much of it as he deemed right, and so to
incorporate it with his own manuscript. Dr. Kenealy aptly remarks of
Horne, that it is almost impossible to get any admission from him


    That makes against his church, so remarkably guarded is he [Horne]
    in his phraseology and so wonderfully discreet in the use of words
    that his language, like a diplomatic letter, perpetually suggests
    to the mind ideas other than those which he really means; I defy
    any unlearned person to read his chapter on “Hebrew characters”
    and to derive _any knowledge_ from it whatever on the subject on
    which he professes to treat.(356)


And yet this same Horne writes:


    We are persuaded that the things to which reference is made
    proceeded from the original writers or _compilers_ of the books
    [_Old Testament_]. Sometimes they took other writings, annals,
    genealogies, and such like, with which they _incorporated
    additional matter_, or which they put together with greater or
    less condensation. The _Old Testament_ authors used the sources
    they employed (that is, the writing of other people) with freedom
    and independence. Conscious of the aid of the Divine Spirit, _they
    adapted_ their own productions, or the productions of others, to
    the wants of the times. But in these respects they cannot be said
    to have corrupted the text of Scripture. _They made the
    text._(357)


But of what did they make it? Why, of the writings of other persons,
justly observes Kenealy:


    And this is Horne’s notion of what the _Old Testament_ is—a cento
    from the writings of unknown persons collected and put together by
    those who, he says, were divinely inspired. No infidel that I know
    of has ever made so damaging a charge as this against the
    authenticity of the _Old Testament_.(358)


This is quite sufficient, we think, to show that no key to the universal
language‐system can ever open the mysteries of Creation in a work in
which, whether through design or carelessness, nearly every sentence has
been made to apply to the latest outcome of religious views—to Phallicism,
and to nothing else. There are a sufficient number of stray bits in the
Elohistic portions of the _Bible_ to warrant the inference that the
Hebrews who wrote it were Initiates; hence the mathematical coördinations
and the perfect harmony between the measures of the Great Pyramid and the
numerals of the Biblical glyphs. But surely if one borrowed from the
other, it cannot be the architects of the Pyramid who borrowed from
Solomon’s Temple, if only because the former exists to this day as a
stupendous living monument of Esoteric records, while the famous temple
has never existed outside of the far later Hebrew scrolls.(359) Hence
there is a great distance between the admission that some Hebrews were
Initiates, and the conclusion that because of this the Hebrew _Bible_ must
be the best standard, as being the highest representative of the archaic
Esoteric System.

Nowhere does the _Bible_ say, moreover, that the Hebrew is the language of
God; of this boast, at any rate, the authors are not guilty. Perhaps
because in the days when the _Bible_ was last edited the claim would have
been too preposterous—hence dangerous. The _compilers_ of the _Old
Testament_, as it exists in the Hebrew canon, knew well that the language
of the Initiates in the days of Moses was identical with that of the
Egyptian Hierophants; and that none of the dialects that had sprung from
the old Syriac and the pure old Arabic of Yarab—the father and progenitor
of the primitive Arabians, long before the time of Abraham, in whose days
the ancient Arabic had already become vitiated—that none of those
languages was the one sacerdotal universal tongue. Nevertheless all of
them included a number of words which could be traced to common roots. And
to do this is the business of modern Philology, though to this day, with
all the respect due to the labours of the eminent Philologists of Oxford
and Berlin, that Science seems to be hopelessly floundering in the
Cimmerian darkness of mere hypothesis.

Ahrens, when speaking of the letters as arranged in the Hebrew sacred
scrolls, and remarking that they were musical notes, had probably never
studied Âryan Hindu music. In the Sanskrit language letters are
continually arranged in the sacred Ollas so that they may become musical
notes. For the whole Sanskrit alphabet and the _Vedas_, from the first
word to the last, are musical notations reduced to writing; the two are
inseparable.(360) As Homer distinguished between the “language of Gods”
and the “language of men,”(361) so did the Hindus. The Devanâgarî, the
Sanskrit characters, are the “speech of the Gods,” and Sanskrit is the
divine language.

It is argued in defence of the present version of the Mosaic Books that
the mode of language adopted was an “accommodation” to the ignorance of
the Jewish people. But the said “mode of language” drags down the “sacred
text” of Esdras and his colleagues to the level of the most unspiritual
and gross phallic religions. This plea confirms the suspicions entertained
by some Christian Mystics and many philosophical critics, that:

(_a_) Divine Power as an Absolute Unity had never anything more to do with
the Biblical Jehovah and the “Lord God” than with any other Sephiroth or
Number. The Ain‐Suph of the _Kabalah_ of Moses is as independent of any
relation with the created Gods as is Parabrahman Itself.

(_b_) The teachings veiled in the _Old Testament_ under allegorical
expressions are all copied from the Magical Texts of Babylonia, by Esdras
and others, while the earlier Mosaic Text had its source in Egypt.

A few instances known to almost all Symbologists of note, and especially
to the French Egyptologists, may help to prove the statement. Furthermore,
no ancient Hebrew Philosopher, Philo no more than the Sadducees, claimed,
as do now the ignorant Christians, that the events in the _Bible_ should
be taken literally. Philo says most explicitly:


    The verbal statements are fabulous [in the Book of the Law]: it is
    in the allegory that we shall find the truth.


Let us give a few instances, beginning with the latest narrative, the
Hebrew, and thus if possible trace the allegories to their origin.

1. Whence the Creation in six days, the seventh day as day of rest, the
seven Elohim,(362) and the division of space into heaven and earth, in the
first chapter of _Genesis_?

The division of the vault above from the Abyss, or Chaos, below is one of
the first acts of creation or rather of evolution, in every cosmogony.
Hermes in _Pymander_ speaks of a heaven seen in seven circles with seven
Gods in them. We examine the Assyrian tiles and find the same on them—the
seven creative Gods busy each in his own sphere. The cuneiform legends
narrate how Bel prepared the seven mansions of the Gods; how heaven was
separated from the earth. In the Brâhmanical allegory everything is
septenary, from the seven zones, or envelopes, of the Mundane Egg down to
the seven continents, islands, seas, etc. The six days of the week and the
seventh, the Sabbath, are based primarily on the seven creations of the
Hindu Brahmâ, the seventh being that of man; and secondarily on the number
of generation. It is preëminently and most conspicuously phallic. In the
Babylonian system the seventh day, or period, was that in which man and
the animals were created.

2. The Elohim make a woman out of Adam’s rib.(363) This process is found
in the Magical Texts translated by G. Smith.


    The seven Spirits bring forth the woman from the loins of the man,


explains Mr. Sayce in his _Hibbert Lectures_.(364)

The mystery of the woman who was made from the man is repeated in every
national religion, and in Scriptures far antedating the Jewish. You find
it in the Avestan fragments, in the Egyptian _Book of the Dead_, and
finally in Brahmâ, the male, separating from himself, as a female self,
Vâch, in whom he creates Virâj.

3. The two Adams of the first and second chapters in _Genesis_ originated
from garbled exoteric accounts coming from the Chaldæans and the Egyptian
Gnostics, revised later from the Persian traditions, most of which are old
Âryan allegories. As Adam Kadmon is the seventh creation,(365) so the Adam
of dust is the eighth; and in the Purânas one finds an eighth, the
Anugraha creation, and the Egyptian Gnostics had it. Irenæus, complaining
of the heretics, says of the Gnostics:


    Sometimes they will have him [man] to have been made on the sixth
    day, and sometimes on the eighth.(366)


The author of _The Hebrew and Other Creations_ writes:


    These two creations of man on the sixth day and on the eighth were
    those of the Adamic, or fleshly man, and of the spiritual man, who
    were known to Paul and the Gnostics as the first and second Adam,
    the man of earth and the man of Heaven. Irenæus also says they
    insisted that Moses began with the Ogdoad of the Seven Powers and
    their mother, Sophia (the old Kefa of Egypt, who is the _Living
    Word_ at Ombos).(367)


Sophia is also Aditi with her seven sons.

One might go on enumerating and tracing the Jewish “revelations” _ad
infinitum_ to their original sources, were it not that the task is
superfluous, since so much is already done in that direction by others—and
done thoroughly well, as in the case of Gerald Massey, who has sifted the
subject to the very bottom. Hundreds of volumes, treatises, and pamphlets
are being written yearly in defence of the “divine‐inspiration” claim for
the _Bible_; but symbolical and archæological research is coming to the
rescue of truth and fact—therefore of the Esoteric Doctrine—upsetting
every argument based on faith and breaking it as an idol with feet of
clay. A curious and learned book, _The Approaching End of the Age_, by H.
Grattan Guinness, professes to solve the mysteries of the _Bible_
chronology and to prove thereby God’s direct revelation to man. Among
other things its author thinks that:


    It is impossible to deny that _a septiform chronology was divinely
    appointed_ in the elaborate ritual of Judaism.


This statement is innocently accepted and fervently believed in by
thousands and tens of thousands, only because they are ignorant of the
Bibles of other nations. Two pages from a small pamphlet, a lecture by Mr.
Gerald Massey,(368) so upset the arguments and proofs of the enthusiastic
Mr. Grattan Guinness, spread over 760 pages of small print, as to prevent
them from ever raising their heads any more. Mr. Massey treats of the
Fall, and says:


    Here, as before, the genesis does not begin at the beginning.
    There was an earlier Fall than that of the Primal Pair. In this
    the number of those who failed and fell was seven. We meet with
    those seven in Egypt—eight with the Mother—where they are called
    the “Children of Inertness,” who were cast out from Am‐Smen, the
    Paradise of the Eight; also in a Babylonian legend of Creation, as
    the Seven Brethren, who were Seven Kings, like the Seven Kings in
    the _Book of Revelation_; and the Seven Non‐Sentient Powers, who
    became the Seven Rebel Angels that made war in heaven. The Seven
    Kronidæ, described as the Seven Watchers, who in the beginning
    were formed in the interior of heaven. The heaven, like a vault,
    they extended or hollowed out; that which was not visible they
    raised, and that which had no _exit_ they opened; their work of
    creation being exactly identical with that of the Elohim in the
    _Book of Genesis_. These are the Seven elemental Powers of space,
    who were continued as Seven Timekeepers. It is said of them: “In
    watching was their office, but among the stars of heaven their
    watch they kept not,” and their failure was the Fall. In the _Book
    of Enoch_ the same Seven Watchers in heaven are stars which
    transgressed the commandment of God before their time arrived, for
    they came not in their proper season, therefore was he offended
    with them, and bound them until the period of the consummation of
    their crimes, at the end of the _secret_, or great year of the
    World, _i.e._, the Period of Precession, when there was to be
    restoration and rebeginning. The Seven deposed constellations are
    seen by Enoch, looking like seven great blazing mountains
    overthrown—the seven mountains in _Revelation_, on which the
    Scarlet Lady sits.(369)


There are seven keys to this, as to every other allegory, whether in the
_Bible_ or in pagan religions. While Mr. Massey has hit upon the key in
the mysteries of cosmogony, John Bentley in his _Hindu Astronomy_ claims
that the Fall of the Angels, or _War in Heaven_, as given by the Hindus,
is but a figure of the calculations of time‐periods, and goes on to show
that among the Western nations the same war, with like results, took the
form of the war of the Titans.

In short, he makes it _astronomical_. So does the author of _The Source of
Measures_:


    The celestial sphere with the earth, was divided into twelve
    compartments [astronomically], and these compartments were
    esteemed as _sexed_, the _lords_ or _husbands_ being respectively
    the planets presiding over them. This being the settled scheme,
    want of proper correction would bring it to pass, after a time,
    that error and confusion would ensue by the compartments coming
    under the lordship of the wrong planets. Instead of lawful
    wedlock, there would be illegal intercourse, as between the
    planets, “_sons of Elohim_” and these compartments, “daughters of
    H‐Adam,” or the _earth_‐man; and in fact the fourth verse of sixth
    _Genesis_ will bear _this_ interpretation for the usual one,
    _viz._, “In the same days, or periods, there were untimely births
    in the earth; and also behind that, when the sons of Elohim came
    to the daughters of H‐Adam, they begat to them the offspring of
    harlotry,” etc., astronomically indicating this confusion.(370)


Do any of these learned explanations explain anything except a possible
ingenious allegory, and a personification of the celestial bodies, by the
ancient Mythologists and Priests? Carried to their last word they would
undeniably explain much, and would thus furnish one of the right seven
keys, fitting a great many of the Biblical puzzles yet opening none
naturally and entirely, instead of being scientific and cunning master‐
keys. But they yet prove one thing—that neither the septiform chronology
nor the septiform theogony and evolution of all things is of divine origin
in the _Bible_. For let us see the sources at which the _Bible_ sipped its
divine inspiration with regard to the sacred number seven. Says Mr. Massey
in the same lecture:


    The _Book of Genesis_ tells us nothing about the nature of these
    Elohim, erroneously rendered “God,” who are creators of the Hebrew
    beginning, and who are themselves preëxtant and seated when the
    theatre opens and the curtain ascends. It says that in the
    beginning the Elohim created the heaven and the earth. In
    thousands of books the Elohim have been discussed, but ... with no
    conclusive result.... The Elohim are Seven in number, whether as
    nature‐powers, gods of constellations, or planetary gods, ... as
    the Pitris and Patriarchs, Manus and Fathers of earlier times. The
    Gnostics, however, and the Jewish _Kabalah_ preserve an account of
    the Elohim of _Genesis_ by which we are able to identify them with
    other forms of the seven primordial powers.... Their names are
    Ildabaoth, Jehovah (or Jao), Sabaoth, Adonai, Eloeus, Oreus, and
    Astanphæus. Ildabaoth signifies the Lord God of the fathers, that
    is the fathers who preceded the Father; and thus the seven are
    identical with the seven Pitris or Fathers of India (Irenæus, B.
    I., xxx., 5). Moreover, the Hebrew Elohim were preëxtant by name
    and nature as Phœnician divinities or powers. Sanchoniathon
    mentions them by name, and describes them as Auxiliaries of Kronos
    or Time. In this phase, then, the Elohim are time‐keepers in
    heaven! In the Phœnician mythology the Elohim are the Seven sons
    of Sydik [Melchizedek], identical with the Seven Kabiri, who in
    Egypt are the Seven sons of Ptah, and the Seven Spirits of Ra in
    _The Book of the Dead_; ... in America with the seven Hohgates,
    ... in Assyria with the seven Lumazi.... They are always seven in
    number ... who _Kab_—that is, turn round, together, whence the
    “Kab‐iri.”... They are also the Ili or Gods, in Assyrian, who were
    seven in number!... They were first born of the Mother in
    Space,(371) and then the Seven Companions passed into the sphere
    of time as auxiliaries of Kronus, or Sons of the Male Parent. As
    Damascius says in his _Primitive Principles_, the Magi consider
    that space and time were the source of all; and from being powers
    of the air the gods were promoted to become time‐keepers for men.
    Seven constellations were assigned to them.... As the seven turned
    round in the ark of the sphere they were designated the Seven
    Sailors’ Companions, Rishis, or Elohim. The first “Seven Stars”
    are not planetary. They are the leading stars of seven
    constellations which turned round with the Great Bear in
    describing the circle of the year.(372) These the Assyrians called
    the seven Lumazi, or leaders of the flocks of stars, designated
    sheep. On the Hebrew line of descent or development, these Elohim
    are identified for us by the Kabalists and Gnostics, who retained
    the hidden wisdom or gnosis, the clue of which is absolutely
    essential to any proper understanding of mythology or theology....
    There were two constellations with seven stars each. _We_ call
    them the Two Bears. But the seven stars of the Lesser Bear were
    once considered to be the seven heads of the Polar Dragon, which
    we meet with—as the beast with seven heads—in the Akkadian Hymns
    and in _Revelation_. The mythical dragon originated in the
    crocodile, which is the dragon of Egypt.... Now in one particular
    cult, the Sut‐Typhonian, the first god was Sevekh [the seven‐
    fold], who wears the crocodile’s head, as well as the Serpent, and
    who is the Dragon, or whose constellation was the Dragon.... In
    Egypt the Great Bear was the constellation of Typhon, or _Kepha_,
    the old genetrix, called the Mother of the Revolutions; and the
    Dragon with seven heads was assigned to her son, Sevekh‐Kronus, or
    Saturn, called the Dragon of Life. That is, the typical dragon or
    serpent with seven heads was female at first, and then the type
    was continued, as male in her son Sevekh, the Sevenfold Serpent,
    in Ea the Sevenfold, ... Iao Chnubis, and others. We find these
    two in _The Book of Revelation_. One is the Scarlet Lady, the
    mother of mystery, the great harlot, who sat on a scarlet‐coloured
    beast with seven heads, which is the Red Dragon of the Pole. She
    held in her hand the unclean things of her fornication. That means
    the emblems of the male and female, imaged by the Egyptians at the
    Polar Centre, the very uterus of creation, as was indicated by the
    Thigh constellation, called the Khepsh of Typhon, the old Dragon,
    in the northern birthplace of Time in heaven. The two revolved
    about the _pole of heaven_, or the Tree, as it was called, which
    was figured at the centre of the starry motion. In _The Book of
    Enoch_ these two constellations are identified as Leviathan and
    Behemoth‐Bekhmut, or the Dragon and Hippopotamus = Great Bear, and
    they are the primal pair that were first created in the Garden of
    Eden. So that the Egyptian first mother, Kefa [or Kepha] whose
    name signifies “mystery,” was the original of the Hebrew Chavah,
    our Eve; and therefore Adam is one with Sevekh the sevenfold one,
    the solar dragon in whom the powers of light and darkness were
    combined, and the sevenfold nature was shown in the seven rays
    worn by the Gnostic Iao‐Chnubis, god of the number seven, who is
    Sevekh by name and a form of the first father as head of the
    Seven.(373)


All this gives the key to the astronomical prototype of the allegory in
_Genesis_, but it furnishes no other key to the mystery involved in the
sevenfold glyph. The able Egyptologist shows also that Adam himself
according to Rabbinical and Gnostic tradition, was the chief of the Seven
who fell from Heaven, and he connects these with the Patriarchs, thus
agreeing with the Esoteric Teaching. For by mystic permutation and the
mystery of primeval rebirths and adjustment, the Seven Rishis are in
reality identical with the seven Prajâpatis, the fathers and creators of
mankind, and also with the Kumâras, the first sons of Brahmâ, who refused
to procreate and multiply. This apparent contradiction is explained by the
seven‐fold nature—make it four‐fold on metaphysical principles and it will
come to the same thing—of the celestial men, the Dhyân Chohans. This
nature is made to divide and separate; and while the higher principles
(Âtmâ‐Buddhi) of the “Creators of Men” are said to be the Spirits of the
seven constellations, their middle and lower principles are connected with
the earth and are shown


    Without desire or passion, inspired with holy wisdom, estranged
    from the Universe and undesirous of progeny,(374)


remaining Kaumâric (virgin and undefiled); therefore it is said they
refused to create. For this they are cursed and sentenced to be born and
reborn “Adams,” as the Semites would say.

Meanwhile let me quote a few lines more from Mr. G. Massey’s lecture, the
fruit of his long researches in Egyptology and other ancient lore, as it
shows that the septenary division was at one time a universal doctrine:


    Adam as the father among the Seven is identical with the Egyptian
    Atum, ... whose other name of Adon is identical with the Hebrew
    Adonai. In this way the second Creation in _Genesis_ reflects and
    continues the later creation in the mythos which explains it. The
    Fall of Adam to the lower world led to his being humanised on
    earth, by which process the celestial was turned into the mortal,
    and this, which belongs to the astronomical allegory, got
    literalised as the Fall of Man, or descent of the soul into
    matter, and the conversion of the angelic into an earthly
    being.... It is found in the [Babylonian] texts, when Ea, the
    first father, is said to “grant forgiveness to the conspiring
    gods,” for whose “redemption did he create mankind.” (Sayce; _Hib.
    Lec._, p. 140) ... The Elohim, then, are the Egyptian, Akkadian,
    Hebrew, and Phœnician form of the Universal Seven Powers, who are
    Seven in Egypt, Seven in Akkad, Babylon, Persia, India, Britain,
    and Seven among the Gnostics and Kabalists. They were the Seven
    fathers who preceded the Father in Heaven, because they were
    earlier than the individualised fatherhood on earth.... When the
    Elohim said: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,”
    there were seven of them who represented the seven elements,
    powers, or souls that went to the making of the human being who
    came into existence before the Creator was represented
    anthropomorphically, or could have conferred the human likeness on
    the Adamic man. It was in the sevenfold image of the Elohim that
    man was first created, with his seven elements, principles or
    souls,(375) and therefore he could not have been formed in the
    image of the one God. The seven Gnostic Elohim tried to make a man
    in their own image, but could not for lack of virile power.(376)
    Thus their creation in earth and heaven was a failure ... because
    they themselves were lacking in the soul of the fatherhood! When
    the Gnostic Ildabaoth,(377) chief of the Seven, cried: “I am the
    father and God,” his mother Sophia [Achamoth] replied: “Do not
    tell lies, Ildabaoth, for the first man (Anthropos, son of
    Anthropos)(378) is above thee.” That is, man who had now been
    created in the image of the fatherhood was superior to the gods
    who were derived from the Mother‐Parent alone!(379) For, as it had
    been first on earth, so was it afterwards in heaven [the Secret
    Doctrine teaches the reverse]; and thus the primary gods were held
    to be soulless like the earliest races of men.... The Gnostics
    taught that the Spirits of Wickedness, the inferior Seven, derived
    their origin from the great Mother alone, who produced without the
    fatherhood! It was in the image, then, of the sevenfold Elohim
    that the seven races were formed which we sometimes hear of as the
    Pre‐Adamite races of men, because they were earlier than the
    fatherhood, which was individualised only in the second Hebrew
    Creation.(380)


This shows sufficiently how the echo of the Secret Doctrine—of the Third
and Fourth Races of men, made complete by the incarnation in humanity of
the Mânasa Putra, Sons of Intelligence or Wisdom—reached every corner of
the globe. The Jews, however, although they borrowed of the older nations
the groundwork on which to build their revelation, never had more than
three keys out of the seven in their mind, while composing their national
allegories—the astronomical, the numerical (metrology), and above all the
purely anthropological, or rather physiological key. This resulted in the
most phallic religion of all, and has now passed, part and parcel, into
Christian theology, as is proved by the lengthy quotations made from a
lecture of an able Egyptologist, who can make naught of it save
astronomical myths and phallicism, as is implied by his explanations of
“fatherhood” in the allegories.



SECTION XXII. THE “ZOHAR” ON CREATION AND THE ELOHIM.


The opening sentence in _Genesis_, as every Hebrew scholar knows, is:

בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ

Now there are two well‐known ways of rendering this line, as any other
Hebrew writing: one exoteric, as read by the orthodox _Bible_ interpreters
(Christian), and the other Kabalistic, the latter, moreover, being divided
into the Rabbinical and the purely Kabalistic or Occult method. As in
Sanskrit writing, the words are not separated in the Hebrew, but are made
to run together—especially in the old systems. For instance, the above,
divided, would read: “_B’rashith bara Elohim eth hashamayim v’eth
h’areths_;” and it can be made to read thus: “_B’rash ithbara Elohim
ethhashamayim v’eth’arets_,” thus changing the meaning entirely. The
latter means, “In the beginning _God made the heavens_ and the earth,”
whereas the former, precluding the idea of any beginning, would simply
read that “out of the ever‐existing Essence [divine] [or out of the
_womb_—also head—thereof] the dual [or androgyne] Force [Gods] shaped the
double heaven;” the upper and the lower heaven being generally explained
as heaven and earth. The latter word means Esoterically the “Vehicle,” as
it gives the idea of an empty globe, within which the manifestation of the
world takes place. Now, according to the rules of Occult symbolical
reading as established in the old _Sepher Jetzirah_ (in the Chaldæan _Book
of Numbers_(381)) the initial fourteen letters (or “B’rasitb’ raalaim”)
are in themselves quite sufficient to explain the theory of “creation”
without any further explanation or qualification. Every letter of them is
a sentence; and, placed side by side with the hieroglyphic or pictorial
initial version of “creation” in the _Book of Dzyan_, the origin of the
Phœnician and Jewish letters would soon be found out. A whole volume of
explanations would give no more to the student of primitive Occult
Symbology than this: the head of a bull within a circle, a straight
horizontal line, a circle or sphere, then another one with three dots in
it, a triangle, then the Svastika (or Jaina cross); after these come an
equilateral triangle within a circle, seven small bulls’ heads standing in
three rows, one over the other; a black round dot (an opening), and then
seven lines, meaning Chaos or Water (feminine).

Anyone acquainted with the symbolical and numerical value of the Hebrew
letters will see at a glance that this glyph and the letters of “B’rasith’
raalaim” are identical in meaning. “Beth” is “abode” or “region;” “Resh,”
a “circle” or “head;” “Aleph,” “bull” (the symbol of generative or
creative power(382)); “Shin,” a “tooth” (300 exoterically—a trident or
_three in one_ in its Occult meaning); “Jodh,” the perfect unity or
“one”(383); “Tau,” the “root” or “foundation” (the same as the cross with
the Egyptians and Âryans): again, “Beth,” “Resh,” and “Aleph.” Then
“Aleph,” or seven bulls for the seven Alaim; an ox‐goad, “Lamedh,” active
procreation; “He,” the “opening” or “matrix;” “Yodh,” the organ of
procreation; and “Mem,” “water” or “chaos,” the female Power near the male
that precedes it.

The most satisfactory and scientific exoteric rendering of the opening
sentence of _Genesis_—on which was hung in blind faith the whole Christian
religion, synthesized by its fundamental dogmas—is undeniably the one
given in the Appendix to _The Source of Measures_ by Mr. Ralston Skinner.
He gives, and we must admit in the ablest, clearest, and most scientific
way, the numerical reading of this first sentence and chapter in
_Genesis_. By the means of number 31, or the word “El” (1 for “Aleph” and
30 for “Lamedh”), and other numerical _Bible_ symbols, compared with the
measures used in the great pyramid of Egypt, he shows the perfect identity
between its measurements—inches, cubits, and plan—and the numerical values
of the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, and the Patriarchs. In short, the
author shows that the pyramid contains in itself architecturally the whole
of _Genesis_, and discloses the astronomical, and even the physiological,
secrets in its symbols and glyphs; yet he will not admit, it would seem,
the psycho‐cosmical and spiritual mysteries involved in these. Nor does
the author apparently see that the root of all this has to be sought in
the archaic legends and the Pantheon of India.(384) Failing this, whither
does his great and admirable labour lead him? Not further than to find out
that Adam, the earth, and Moses or Jehovah “are the same”—or to the a‐b‐c
of comparative Occult Symbology—and that the days in _Genesis_ being
“circles” “displayed by the Hebrews as squares,” the result of the sixth‐
day’s labour culminates in the fructifying principle. Thus the _Bible_ is
made to yield Phallicism, and that alone.

Nor—read in this light, and as its Hebrew texts are interpreted by Western
scholars—can it ever yield anything higher or more sublime than such
phallic elements, the root and the corner‐stone of its dead‐letter
meaning. Anthropomorphism and Revelation dig the impassable chasm between
the material world and the ultimate spiritual truths. That creation is not
thus described in the Esoteric Doctrine is easily shown. The Roman
Catholics give a reading far more approaching the true Esoteric meaning
than that of the Protestant. For several of their saints and doctors admit
that the formation of heaven and earth, of the celestial bodies, etc.,
belongs to the work of the “Seven Angels of the Presence.” St. Denys calls
the “Builders” “the coöperators of God,” and St. Augustine goes even
farther, and credits the Angels with the possession of the divine thought,
the prototype, as he says, of everything created.(385) And, finally, St.
Thomas Aquinas has a long dissertation upon this topic, calling God the
primary, and the Angels the secondary, cause of all visible effects. In
this, with some dogmatic differences of form, the “Angelic Doctor”
approaches very nearly the Gnostic ideas. Basilides speaks of the lowest
order of Angels as the Builders of our material world, and Saturnilus
held, as did the Sabæans, that the Seven Angels who preside over the
planets are the real creators of the world; the Kabalist‐monk, Trithemius,
in his _De Secundis Deis_, taught the same.

The eternal _Kosmos_, the Macrocosm, is divided in the Secret Doctrine,
like man, the Microcosm, into three Principles and four Vehicles,(386)
which in their collectivity are the seven Principles. In the Chaldæan or
Jewish _Kabalah_, the Kosmos is divided into seven worlds: the Original,
the Intelligible, the Celestial, the Elementary, the Lesser (Astral), the
Infernal (Kâma‐loka or Hades), and the Temporal (of man). In the Chaldæan
system it is in the Intelligible World, the second, that appear the “Seven
Angels of the Presence,” or the Sephiroth (the three higher ones being, in
fact, one, and also the sum total of all). They are also the “Builders” of
the Eastern Doctrine: and it is only in the third, the celestial world,
that the seven planets and our solar system are built by the seven
Planetary Angels, the planets becoming their visible bodies. Hence—as
correctly stated—if the universe as a whole is formed out of the Eternal
_One_ Substance or Essence, it is not that everlasting Essence, the
Absolute Deity, that builds it into shape; this is done by the first Rays,
the Angels or Dhyân Chohans, that emanate from the One Element, which
becoming periodically Light and Darkness, remains eternally, in its Root‐
Principle, the one unknown yet existing Reality.

A learned Western Kabalist, Mr. S. L. MacGregor Mathers, whose reasoning
and conclusions will be the more above suspicion since he is untrained in
Eastern Philosophy and unacquainted with its Secret Teachings, writes on
the first verse of _Genesis_ in an unpublished essay:


    _Berashith Bara_ Elohim—“In the beginning the Elohim created!” Who
    are these Elohim of _Genesis_?

    _Va‐Yivra Elohim Ath Ha‐Adam Be‐Tzalmo, Be‐Tzelem Elohim Bara
    Otho, Zakhar Vingebah Bara Otham_—“And the Elohim created the Adam
    in Their own Image, in the Image of the Elohim created They them,
    Male and Female created They them!” Who are they, the Elohim? The
    ordinary English translation of the _Bible_ renders the word
    Elohim by “God:” it translates a _plural_ noun by a _singular_
    one. The only excuse brought forward for this is the somewhat lame
    one that the word is certainly plural, but is not to be used in a
    plural sense: that it is “a plural denoting excellence.” But this
    is only an assumption whose value may be justly gauged by
    _Genesis_ i. 26, translated in the orthodox Biblical version thus:
    “And God [Elohim] said, ‘Let us make man in our own image, after
    our likeness.’ ” Here is a distinct admission of the fact that
    “Elohim” is _not_ a “plural of excellence,” but a plural noun
    denoting more than one being.(387)

    What, then, is the proper translation of “Elohim,” and to whom is
    it referable? “Elohim” is not only a plural, but a _feminine
    plural_! And yet the translators of the _Bible_ have rendered it
    by a _masculine singular_! Elohim is the plural of the feminine
    noun El‐h, for the final letter, ‐h, marks the gender. It,
    however, instead of forming the plural in ‐oth, takes the usual
    termination of the masculine plural, which is ‐im.

    Although in the great majority of cases the nouns of both genders
    take the terminations appropriated to them respectively, there are
    yet many masculines which form the plural in ‐oth, as well as
    feminine which form it in ‐im while some nouns of each gender take
    alternately both. It must be observed, however, that the
    termination of the plural does not affect its gender, which
    remains the same as in the singular....

    To find the real meaning of the symbolism involved in this word
    Elohim we must go to that key of Jewish Esoteric Doctrine, the
    little‐known and less‐understood _Kabalah_. There we shall find
    that this word represents two united masculine and feminine
    Potencies, co‐equal and co‐eternal, conjoined in everlasting union
    for the maintenance of the Universe—the great Father and Mother of
    Nature, into whom the Eternal One conforms himself before the
    Universe can subsist. For the teaching of the _Kabalah_ is that
    before the Deity conformed himself thus—_i.e._ as male and
    female—the Worlds of the Universe could not subsist; or in the
    words of _Genesis_, that “the earth was formless and void.” Thus,
    then, is the conformation of the Elohim, the end of the Formless
    and the Void and the Darkness, for only after that conformation
    can the _Ruach Elohim_—the “Spirit of the Elohim”—vibrate upon the
    countenance of the Waters. But this is a very small part of the
    information which the Initiate can derive from the _Kabalah_
    concerning this word _Elohim_.


Attention must here be called to the confusion—if not worse—which reigns
in the Western interpretations of the _Kabalah_. The Eternal _One_ is said
to conform himself into two: the Great Father and Mother of Nature. To
begin with, it is a horribly anthropomorphic conception to apply terms
implying sexual distinction to the earliest and first differentiations of
the One. And it is even more erroneous to identify these first
differentiations—the Purusha and Prakriti of Indian Philosophy—with the
Elohim, the creative powers here spoken of; and to ascribe to these (to
our intellects) unimaginable abstractions, the formation and construction
of this visible world, full of pain, sin, and sorrow. In truth, the
“creation by the Elohim” spoken of here is but a much later “creation,”
and the Elohim far from being supreme, or even exalted powers in Nature,
are only lower Angels. This was the teaching of the Gnostics, the most
philosophical of all the early Christian Churches. They taught that the
imperfections of the world were due to the imperfection of its Architects
or Builders—the imperfect, and therefore inferior, Angels. The Hebrew
Elohim correspond to the Prajâpati of the Hindus, and it is shown
elsewhere from the Esoteric interpretation of the Purânas that the
Prajâpati were the fashioners of man’s material and astral form _only_:
that they could not give him intelligence or reason, and therefore in
symbolical language they “failed to create man.” But, not to repeat what
the reader can find elsewhere in this work, his attention needs only to be
called to the fact that “creation” in this passage is not the Primary
Creation, and that the Elohim are not “_God_,” nor even the higher
Planetary Spirits, but the Architects of this visible physical planet and
of man’s material body, or encasement.


    A fundamental doctrine of the _Kabalah_ is that the gradual
    development of the Deity from negative to positive Existence is
    symbolized by the gradual development of the Ten Numbers of the
    denary scale of numeration, from the Zero, through the Unity, into
    the Plurality. This is the doctrine of the Sephiroth, or
    Emanations.

    For the inward and concealed Negative Form concentrates a centre
    which is the primal Unity. But the Unity is one and indivisible:
    it can neither be increased by multiplication nor decreased by
    division, for 1 × 1 = 1, and no more; and 1 ÷ 1 = 1, and no less.
    And it is this changelessness of the Unity, or Monad, which makes
    it a fitting type of the One and Changeless Deity. It answers thus
    to the Christian idea of God the Father, for as the Unity is the
    parent of the other numbers, so is the Deity the Father of All.


The philosophical Eastern mind would never fall into the error which the
_connotation_ of these words implies. With them the “One and
Changeless”—Parabrahman—the Absolute All and One, cannot be conceived as
standing in any _relation_ to things finite and conditioned, and hence
they would never use such terms as these, which in their very essence
imply such a relation. Do they, then, absolutely sever man from God? On
the contrary. They feel a closer union than the Western mind has done in
calling God the “Father of All,” for they know that in his immortal
essence man _is_ himself the Changeless, Secondless One.


    But we have just said that the Unity is one and changeless by
    either multiplication or division; how then is two, the Duad,
    formed? By reflection. For, unlike Zero, the Unity is partly
    definable—that is, in its positive aspect; and the definition
    creates an Eikon or Eidolon of itself which, together with itself,
    forms a Duad; and thus the number two is to a certain extent
    analogous to the Christian idea of the Son as the Second Person.
    And as the Monad vibrates, and recoils into the Darkness of the
    Primary Thought, so is the Duad left as its vice‐gerent and
    representative, and thus co‐equal with the Positive Duad is the
    Triune Idea, the number three, co‐equal and co‐eternal with the
    Duad in the bosom of the Unity, yet, as it were, proceeding
    therefrom in the numerical conception of its sequence.


This explanation would seem to imply that Mr. Mathers is aware that this
“creation” is not the truly divine or primary one, since the Monad—the
first manifestation on _our_ plane of objectivity—“recoils into the
Darkness of the Primal Thought,” _i.e._, into the subjectivity of the
first divine Creation.


    And this, again, also partly answers to the Christian idea of the
    Holy Ghost, and of the whole three forming a Trinity in unity.
    This also explains the fact in geometry of the three right lines
    being the smallest number which will make a plane rectilineal
    figure, while two can never enclose a space, being powerless and
    without effect till completed by the number Three. These three
    first numbers of the decimal scale the Qabalists call by the names
    of Kether, the Crown, Chokmah, Wisdom, and Binah, Understanding;
    and they furthermore associate with them these divine names: with
    the Unity, Eheich, “I exist;” with the Duad, Yah; and with the
    Triad, Elohim; they especially also call the Duad, Abba—the
    Father, and the Triad, Aima—the Mother, whose eternal conjunction
    is symbolized in the word Elohim.

    But what especially strikes the student of the _Kabalah_ is the
    malicious persistency with which the translators of the _Bible_
    have jealously crowded out of sight and suppressed every reference
    to the feminine form of the Deity. They have, as we have just
    seen, translated the feminine plural “Elohim,” by the masculine
    singular, “God.” But they have done more than this: they have
    carefully hidden the fact that the word Ruach—the “Spirit”—is
    feminine, and that consequently the Holy Ghost of the _New
    Testament_ is a feminine Potency. How many Christians are
    cognizant of the fact that in the account of the Incarnation in
    _Luke_ (i. 35) _two_ divine Potencies are mentioned?

    “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the Power of the Highest
    shall overshadow thee.” The Holy Ghost (the feminine Potency)
    descends, and the Power of the Highest (the masculine Potency) is
    united therewith. “Therefore also that holy thing which shall be
    born of thee shall be called the Son of God”—of the Elohim namely,
    seeing that these two Potencies descend.

    In the _Sepher Yetzirah_, or _Book of Formation_, we read:

    “One is She the Ruach Elohim Chüm—(Spirit of the Living
    Elohim).... Voice, Spirit, and Word; and this is She, the Spirit
    of the Holy One.” Here again we see the intimate connection which
    exists between the Holy Spirit and the Elohim. Furthermore,
    farther on in this same _Book of Formation_—which, is, be it
    remembered, one of the oldest of the Kabalistical Books, and whose
    authorship is ascribed to Abraham the Patriarch—we shall find the
    idea of a Feminine Trinity in the first place, from whom a
    masculine Trinity proceeds; or, as it is said in the text: “Three
    Mothers whence proceed three Fathers.” And yet this double Triad
    forms, as it were, but one complete Trinity. Again it is worthy of
    note that the Second and Third Sephiroth (Wisdom and
    Understanding) are both distinguished by feminine names, Chokmah
    and Binah, notwithstanding that to the former more particularly
    the masculine idea, and to the latter the feminine, are
    attributed, under the titles of Abba and Aima (or Father and
    Mother). This Aima (the Great Mother) is magnificently symbolized
    in the twelfth chapter of the _Apocalypse_, which is undoubtedly
    one of the most Kabalistical books in the _Bible_. In fact,
    without the Kabalistical keys its meaning is utterly
    unintelligible.

    Now, in the Hebrew, as in the Greek, alphabet, there are no
    distinct numeral characters, and consequently each letter has a
    certain numerical value attached to it. From this circumstance
    results the important fact that every Hebrew word constitutes a
    number, and every number a word. This is referred to in the
    _Revelations_ (xiii. 18) in mentioning the “number of the beast”!
    In the _Kabalah_ words of equal numerical values are supposed to
    have a certain explanatory connection with each other. This forms
    the science of Gematria, which is the first division of the
    Literal _Kabalah_. Furthermore, each letter of the Hebrew alphabet
    had for the Initiates of the _Kabalah_ a certain hieroglyphical
    value and meaning which, rightly applied, gave to each word the
    value of a mystical sentence; and this again was variable
    according to the relative positions of the letters with regard to
    each other. From these various Kabalistical points of view let us
    now examine this word Elohim.

    First then we can divide the word into the two words, which
    signify “The Feminine Divinity of the Waters;” compare with the
    Greek Aphrodite. “sprung from the foam of the sea.” Again it is
    divisible into the “Mighty One, Star of the Sea,” or “the Mighty
    One breathing forth the Spirit upon the Waters.” Also by
    combination of the letters we get “the Silent Power of Iah.” And
    again, “My God, the Former of the Universe,” for _Mah_ is a secret
    Kabalistical name applied to the idea of Formation. Also we obtain
    “Who is my God.” Furthermore “the Mother in Iah.”

    The total number is 1 + 30 + 5 + 10 + 40 = 86 = “Violent heat,” or
    “the Power of Fire.” If we add together the three middle letters
    we obtain 45, and the first and last letters yield 41, making thus
    “the Mother of Formation.” Lastly, we shall find the two divine
    names “El” and “Yah,” together with the letter _m_, which
    signifies “Water,” for Mem, the name of this letter, means
    “water.”

    If we divide it into its component letters and take them as
    hieroglyphical signs we shall have:

    “Will perfected through Sacrifice progressing through successive
    Transformation by Inspiration.”


The last few paragraphs of the above, in which the word “Elohim” is
Kabalistically analyzed, show conclusively enough that the Elohim are not
one, nor two, nor even a trinity, but a Host—the army of the creative
powers.

The Christian Church, in making of Jehovah—one of these very Elohim—the
one Supreme God, has introduced hopeless confusion into the celestial
hierarchy, in spite of the volumes written by Thomas Aquinas and his
school on the subject. The only explanation to be found in all their
treatises on the nature and essence of the numberless classes of celestial
beings mentioned in the _Bible_—Archangels, Thrones, Seraphim, Cherubim,
Messengers, etc.—is that “The angelic host is God’s militia.” They are
“Gods _the creatures_,” while he is “God _the Creator_;” but of their true
functions—of their actual place in the economy of Nature—not one word is
said. They are


    More brilliant than the flames, more rapid than the wind, and they
    live in love and harmony, mutually enlightening each other,
    feeding on bread and a mystic beverage—the communion wine and
    water?—surrounding as with a _river of fire_ the throne of the
    Lamb, and veiling their faces with their wings. This throne of
    love and glory they leave only to carry to the stars, the earth,
    the kingdoms and all the sons of God, their brothers and pupils,
    in short, to all creatures _like themselves_ the divine
    influence.... As to their number, it is that of the great army of
    Heaven (Sabaoth), more numerous than the stars.... Theology shows
    us these rational luminaries, each constituting a species, and
    containing in their natures such or another position of Nature:
    covering immense space, though of a determined area;
    residing—incorporeal though they are—within circumscribed limits;
    ... more rapid than light or thunderbolt, disposing of all the
    elements of Nature, providing at will inexplicable mirages
    [illusions?], objective and subjective in turn, speaking to men a
    language at one time articulate, at another purely spiritual.(388)


We learn farther on in the same work that it is these Angels and their
hosts who are referred to in the sentence of verse I, chapter ii, of
_Genesis_: “Igitur perfecti sunt cœli et terra et omnis ornatus eorum:”
and that the Vulgate has peremptorily substituted for the Hebrew word
“tsaba” (“host”) that of “ornament;” Munck shows the mistake of
substitution and the derivation of the compound title, “Tsabaoth‐Elohim,”
from “tsaba.” Moreover, Cornelius à Lapide, “the master of all Biblical
commentators,” says de Mirville, shows us that such was the real meaning.
Those Angels are stars.

All this, however, teaches us very little as to the true functions of this
celestial army, and nothing at all as to its place in evolution and its
relation to the earth we live on. For an answer to the question, “Who are
the true Creators?” we must go to the Esoteric Doctrine, since there only
can the key be found which will render intelligible the Theogonies of the
various world‐religions.

There we find that the real creator of the Kosmos, as of all visible
Nature—if not of all the invisible hosts of Spirits not yet drawn into the
“Cycle of Necessity,” or evolution—is “the Lord—the Gods,” or the “Working
Host,” the “Army” collectively taken, the “One in many.”

The One is infinite and unconditioned. It cannot create, for It can have
no relation to the finite and conditioned. If everything we see, from the
glorious suns and planets down to the blades of grass and the specks of
dust, had been created by the Absolute Perfection and were the direct work
of even the _First_ Energy that proceeded from It,(389) then every such
thing would have been perfect, eternal, and unconditioned, like its
author. The millions upon millions of imperfect works found in Nature
testify loudly that they are the products of finite, conditioned
beings—though the latter were and are Dhyân Chohans, Archangels, or what
ever else they may be named. In short, these imperfect works are the
unfinished production of evolution, under the guidance of the imperfect
Gods. The _Zohar_ gives us this assurance as well as the Secret Doctrine.
It speaks of the auxiliaries of the “Ancient of Days,” the “Sacred Aged,”
and calls them Auphanim, or the living Wheels of the celestial orbs, who
participate in the work of the creation of the Universe.

Thus it is not the “Principle,” One and Unconditioned, nor even Its
reflection, that creates, but only the “Seven Gods” who fashion the
Universe out of the eternal Matter, vivified into objective life by the
reflection into it of the One Reality.

The Creator is they—“God the Host”—called in the Secret Doctrine the Dhyân
Chohans; with the Hindus the Prajâpatis; with the Western Kabalists the
Sephiroth; and with the Buddhist the Devas—impersonal because blind
forces. They are the Amshaspends with the Zoroastrians, and while with the
Christian Mystic the “Creator” is the “Gods of the God,” with the dogmatic
Churchman he is the “God of the Gods,” the “Lord of lords,” etc.

“Jehovah” is only the God who is greater than all Gods in the eyes of
Israel.


    I know, that the Lord [of Israel] is great and that our Lord is
    above all gods.(390)


And again:


    For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the
    heavens.(391)


The Egyptian Neteroo, translated by Champollion “_the other Gods_” are the
Elohim of the Biblical writers, behind which stands concealed the One God,
considered in the diversity of his powers.(392) This One is not
Parabrahman, but the Unmanifested Logos, the Demiurgos, the real Creator
or Fashioner, that follows him, standing for the Demiurgi collectively
taken. Further on the great Egyptologist adds:


    We see Egypt concealing and hiding, so to say, _the_ God of Gods
    behind the _agents_ she surrounds him with; she gives the
    precedence to her great gods before the one and sole Deity, so
    that the attributes of that God become their property. Those great
    Gods proclaim themselves uncreate.... Neith is “_that which is_,”
    as Jehovah;(393) Thoth is self‐created(394) without having been
    begotten, etc. Judaism annihilating these potencies before the
    grandeur of its God, they cease to be simply Powers, like Philo’s
    Archangels, like the Sephiroth of the _Kabalah_, like the Ogdoades
    of the Gnostics—they merge together and become transformed into
    God himself.(395)


Jehovah is thus, as the _Kabalah_ teaches, at best but the “Heavenly Man,”
Adam Kadmon, used by the self‐created Spirit, the Logos, as a chariot, a
vehicle in His descent towards manifestation in the phenomenal world.

Such are the teachings of the Archaic Wisdom, nor can they be repudiated
even by the orthodox Christian, if he be sincere and open‐minded in the
study of his own Scripture. For if he reads St. Paul’s _Epistles_
carefully he will find that the Secret Doctrine and the _Kabalah_ are
fully admitted by the “Apostle of the Gentiles.” The Gnosis which he
appears to condemn is no less for him than for Plato “the supreme
knowledge of the truth and of the One Being;”(396) for what St. Paul
condemns is not the true, but only the false, Gnosis and its abuses:
otherwise how could he use the language of a Platonist _pur sang_? The
Ideas, types (Archai), of the Greek Philosopher; the Intelligences of
Pythagoras; the Æons or Emanations of the Pantheist; the Logos or Word,
Chief of these Intelligences; the Sophia or Wisdom; the Demiurgos, the
Builder of the world under the direction of the Father, the Unmanifested
Logos, from which He emanates; Ain‐Suph, the Unknown of the Infinite; the
angelic Periods; the _Seven_ Spirits who are the representatives of the
_Seven_ of all the older cosmogonies—are all to be found in his writings,
recognized by the Church as canonical and divinely inspired. Therein, too,
may be recognized the Depths of Ahriman, Rector of this our World, the
“God of this World;” the Pleroma of the Intelligences; the Archontes of
the air; the Principalities, the Kabalistic Metatron; and they can easily
be identified again in the Roman Catholic writers when read in the
original Greek and Latin texts, English translations giving but a very
poor idea of the real contents of these.



SECTION XXIII. WHAT THE OCCULTISTS AND KABALISTS HAVE TO SAY.


The _Zohar_, an unfathomable store of hidden wisdom and mystery, is very
often appealed to by Roman Catholic writers. A very learned Rabbi, now the
Chevalier Drach, having been converted to Roman Catholicism, and being a
great Hebraist, thought fit to step into the shoes of Picus de Mirandola
and John Reuchlin, and to assure his new co‐religionists that the _Zohar_
contained in it pretty nearly all the dogmas of Catholicism. It is not our
province to show here how far he has succeeded or failed; only to bring
one instance of his explanations and preface it with the following:

The _Zohar_, as already shown, is not a genuine production of the Hebrew
mind. It is the repository and compendium of the oldest doctrines of the
East, transmitted orally at first, and then written down in independent
treatises during the Captivity at Babylon, and finally brought together by
Rabbi Simeon Ben Iochai, toward the beginning of the Christian era. As
Mosaic cosmogony was born under a new form in Mesopotamian countries, so
the _Zohar_ was a vehicle in which were focussed rays from the light of
Universal Wisdom. Whatever likenesses are found between it and the
Christian teachings, the compilers of the _Zohar_ never had Christ in
their minds. Were it otherwise there would not be one single Jew of the
Mosaic law left in the world by this time. Again, if one is to accept
literally what the _Zohar_ says, then any religion under the sun may find
corroboration in its symbols and allegorical sayings; and this, simply
because this work is the echo of the primitive truths, and every creed is
founded on some of these; the _Zohar_ being but a veil of the Secret
Doctrine. This is so evident that we have only to point to the said ex‐
Rabbi, the Chevalier Drach, to prove the fact.

In Part III, fol. 87 (col. 346th) the _Zohar_ treats of the Spirit guiding
the Sun, its Rector, explaining that it is not the Sun itself that is
meant thereby, but the Spirit “on, or _under_” the Sun. Drach is anxious
to show that it was Christ who was meant by that “Sun,” or the Solar
Spirit therein. In his comment upon that passage which refers to the Solar
Spirit as “that stone which the builders rejected,” he asserts most
positively that this


    Sun‐stone (_pierre soleil_) is identical with Christ, who was that
    stone,


and that therefore


    The sun is undeniably (_sans contredit_) the second hypostasis of
    the Deity,(397) or Christ.


If this be true, then the Vaidic or pre‐Vaidic Âryans, Chaldæans and
Egyptians, like all Occultists past, present, and future, Jews included,
have been Christians from all eternity. If this be not so, then modern
Church Christianity is Paganism pure and simple exoterically, and
transcendental and practical Magic, or Occultism, Esoterically.

For this “stone” has a manifold significance, a dual existence, with
gradations, a regular progression and retrogression. It is a “mystery”
indeed.

The Occultists are quite ready to agree with St. Chrysostom, that the
infidels—the _profane_, rather—


    Being blinded by sun‐light, thus lose sight of the true Sun in the
    contemplation of the false one.


But if that Saint, and along with him now the Hebraist Drach, chose to see
in the _Zohar_ and the Kabalistic Sun “the _second_ hypostasis,” this is
no reason why all others should be blinded by them. The mystery of the Sun
is the grandest perhaps, of all the innumerable mysteries of Occultism. A
Gordian knot, truly, but one that cannot be severed with the double‐edged
sword of scholastic casuistry. It is a true _deo dignus vindice nodus_,
and can be untied only by the _Gods_. The meaning of this is plain, and
every Kabalist will understand it.

_Contra solem ne loquaris_ was not said by Pythagoras with regard to the
visible Sun. It was the “Sun of Initiation” that was meant, in its triple
form—two of which are the “Day‐Sun” and the “Night‐Sun.”

If behind the physical luminary there were no mystery that people sensed
instinctively, why should every nation, from the primitive peoples down to
the Parsîs of to‐day, have turned towards the Sun during prayers? The
Solar Trinity is not Mazdean, but is universal, and is as old as man. All
the temples in Antiquity were invariably made to face the Sun, their
portals to open to the East. See the old temples of Memphis and Baalbec,
the Pyramids of the Old and of the New (?) Worlds, the Round Towers of
Ireland, and the Serapeum of Egypt. The Initiates alone could give a
philosophical explanation of this, and a reason for it—its mysticism
notwithstanding—were only the world ready to receive it, which alas! it is
not. The last of the Solar Priests in Europe was the Imperial Initiate,
Julian, now called the Apostate.(398) He tried to benefit the world by
revealing at least a portion of the great mystery of the τρεπλασιος
and—_he died_. “There are three in one,” he said of the Sun—the central
Sun(399) being a precaution of Nature: the first is the universal cause of
all, Sovereign Good and perfection; the Second Power is paramount
Intelligence, having dominion over all reasonable beings, νοεροῖς; the
third is the visible Sun. The pure energy of solar intelligence proceeds
from the luminous seat occupied by our Sun in the centre of heaven, that
pure energy being the Logos of our system; the “Mysterious Word Spirit
produces all through the Sun, and never operates through any other
medium,” says Hermes Trismegistus. For it is _in_ the Sun, more than in
any other heavenly body that the [unknown] Power placed the seat of its
habitation. Only neither Hermes Trismegistus nor Julian (an initiated
Occultist), nor any other, meant by this Unknown Cause Jehovah, or
Jupiter. They referred to the cause that produced all the manifested
“great Gods” or Demiurgi (the Hebrew God included) of our system. Nor was
our visible, _material_ Sun meant, for the latter was only the manifested
symbol. Philolaus the Pythagorean, explains and completes Trismegistus by
saying:


    The Sun is a mirror of fire, the splendour of whose flames by
    their reflection in that mirror [the Sun] is poured upon us, and
    that splendour we call image.


It is evident that Philolaus referred to the central spiritual Sun, whose
beams and effulgence are only mirrored by our central Star, the Sun. This
is as clear to the Occultists as it was to the Pythagoreans. As for the
profane of pagan antiquity, it was, of course, the physical Sun that was
the “highest God” for them, as it seems—if Chevalier Drach’s view be
accepted—to have now virtually become for the modern Roman Catholics. If
words mean anything, the statement made by the Chevalier Drach that “this
sun is, undeniably, the second hypostasis of the Deity,” imply what we
say; as “this Sun” refers to the Kabalistic Sun, and “hypostasis” means
substance or subsistence of the Godhead or Trinity—distinctly personal. As
the author, being an ex‐Rabbi, thoroughly versed in Hebrew, and in the
mysteries of the _Zohar_, ought to know the value of words; and as,
moreover, in writing this, he was bent upon reconciling “the seeming
contradictions,” as he puts it, between Judaism and Christianity—the fact
becomes quite evident.

But all this pertains to questions and problems which will be solved
naturally and in the course of the development of the doctrine. The Roman
Catholic Church stands accused, not of worshipping under other names the
Divine Beings worshipped by all nations in antiquity, but of declaring
idolatrous, not only the Pagans ancient and modern, but every Christian
nation that has freed itself from the Roman yoke. The accusation brought
against herself by more than one man of Science, of worshipping the stars
like true Sabæans of old, stands to this day uncontradicted, yet no star‐
worshipper has ever addressed his adoration to the material stars and
planets, as will be shown before the last page of this work is written;
none the less is it true that those Philosophers alone who studied
Astrology and Magic knew that the last word of those sciences was to be
sought in, and expected from, the Occult forces emanating from those
constellations.



SECTION XXIV. MODERN KABALISTS IN SCIENCE AND OCCULT ASTRONOMY.


There is a physical, an astral, and a super‐astral Universe in the three
chief divisions of the _Kabalah_; as there are terrestrial, super‐
terrestrial, and spiritual Beings. The “Seven Planetary Spirits” may be
ridiculed by Scientists to their hearts’ content, yet the need of
intelligent ruling and guiding Forces is so much felt to this day that
scientific men and specialists, who will not hear of Occultism or of
ancient systems, find themselves obliged to generate in their inner
consciousness some kind of semi‐mystical system. Metcalf’s “sun‐force”
theory, and that of Zaliwsky, a learned Pole, which made Electricity the
Universal Force and placed its storehouse in the Sun,(400) were revivals
of the Kabalistic teachings. Zaliwsky tried to prove that Electricity,
producing “the most powerful, attractive, calorific, and luminous
effects,” was present in the physical constitution of the Sun and
explained its peculiarities. This is very near the Occult teaching. It is
only by admitting the gaseous nature of the Sun‐reflector, and the
powerful Magnetism and Electricity of the solar attraction and repulsion,
that one can explain (_a_) the evident absence of any waste of power and
luminosity in the Sun—inexplicable by the ordinary laws of combustion; and
(_b_) the behaviour of the planets, so often contradicting every accepted
rule of weight and gravity. And Zaliwsky makes this “solar electricity”
“_differ from anything known on earth_.”

Father Secchi may be suspected of having sought to introduce


    _Forces of quite a new order_ and quite foreign to gravitation,
    which he had discovered in Space,(401)


in order to reconcile Astronomy with theological Astronomy. But Nagy, a
member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, was no clerical, and yet he
develops a theory on the necessity of intelligent Forces whose complacency
“would lend itself to all the whims of the comets.” He suspects that:


    Notwithstanding all the actual researches on the rapidity of
    light—that _dazzling product of an unknown force_ ... which we see
    too frequently to understand—_that light is motionless_ in
    reality.(402)


C. E. Love, the well‐known railway builder and engineer in France, tired
of blind forces, made all the (then) “imponderable agents”—now called
“forces”—subordinates of Electricity, and declares the latter to be an


    Intelligence—albeit molecular in nature and material.(403)


In the author’s opinion these Forces are atomistic agents, endowed with
intelligence, spontaneous will, and motion,(404) and he thus, like the
Kabalists, makes the causal Forces substantial, while the Forces that act
on this plane are only the effects of the former, as with him matter is
eternal, and the Gods also;(405) so is the Soul likewise, though it has
inherent in itself a still higher Soul [Spirit], preëxistent, endowed with
memory, and superior to Electric Force; the latter is subservient to the
higher Souls, those superior Souls forcing it to act according to the
eternal laws. The concept is rather hazy, but is evidently on the Occult
lines. Moreover, the system proposed is entirely pantheistic, and is
worked out in a purely scientific volume. Monotheists and Roman Catholics
fall foul of it, of course; but one who believes in the Planetary Spirits
and who endows Nature with living Intelligences, must always expect this.

In this connection, however, it is curious that after the moderns have so
laughed at the ignorance of the ancients,


    Who, knowing only of seven planets [yet having an ogdoad which
    _did not_ include the earth!], invented therefore seven Spirits to
    fit in with the number,


Babinet should have vindicated the “superstition” unconsciously to
himself. In the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ this eminent French Astronomer
writes:


    The ogdoad of the Ancients included the earth [which is an error],
    _i.e._, eight or seven according to whether or not the earth was
    comprised in the number.(406)


De Mirville assures his readers that:


    M. Babinet was telling me but a few days ago that we had in
    reality only eight big planets, including the earth, and so many
    small ones between Mars and Jupiter.... Herschel offering to call
    all those beyond the seven primary planets asteroids!(407)


There is a problem to be solved in this connection. How do Astronomers
know that Neptune is a planet, or even that it is a body belonging to our
system? Being found on the very confines of our Planetary World, so
called, the latter was arbitrarily expanded to receive it; but what really
mathematical and infallible proof have Astronomers that it is (_a_) a
planet, and (_b_) one of _our_ planets? None at all! It is at such an
immeasurable distance from us, the


    Apparent diameter of the sun being to Neptune but one‐fortieth of
    the sun’s apparent diameter to us,


and it is so dim and hazy when seen through the best telescope that it
looks like an astronomical romance to call it one of our planets.
Neptune’s heat and light are reduced to 1/900 part of the heat and light
received by the earth. His motion and that of his satellites have always
looked suspicious. They do not agree—in appearance, at least—with those of
the other planets. His system is retrograde, etc. But even the latter
abnormal fact resulted only in the creation of new hypotheses by our
Astronomers, who forthwith suggested a probable overturn of Neptune, his
collision with another body, etc. Was Adams’ and Leverrier’s discovery so
welcomed because Neptune was as necessary as was Ether to throw a new
glory upon astronomical prevision, upon the certitude of modern scientific
data, and principally upon the power of mathematical analysis? It would so
appear. A new planet that widens our planetary domain by more than four
hundred million leagues is worthy of annexation. Yet, as in the case of
terrestrial annexation, scientific authority may be proved “right” only
because it has “might.” Neptune’s motion happens to be dimly perceived:
Eureka! it is a planet! A mere motion, however, proves very little. It is
now an ascertained fact in Astronomy that there are no absolutely fixed
stars in Nature,(408) even though such stars should continue to exist in
astronomical parlance, while they have passed from the scientific
imagination. Occultism, however, has a strange theory of its own with
regard to Neptune.

Occultism says that if several hypotheses resting on mere assumption—which
have been accepted only because they have been taught by eminent men of
learning—are taken away from the Science of Modern Astronomy, to which
they serve as props, then even the presumably universal law of gravitation
will be found to be contrary to the most ordinary truths of mechanics. And
really one can hardly blame Christians—foremost of all the Roman
Catholics—however scientific some of these may themselves be, for refusing
to quarrel with their Church for the sake of scientific beliefs. Nor can
we even blame them for accepting in the secresy of their hearts—as some of
them do—the theological “Virtues” and “Archons” of Darkness, instead of
all the blind forces offered them by Science.


    Never can there be intervention of any sort in the marshalling and
    the regular precession of the celestial bodies! The law of
    gravitation is the law of laws; who ever witnessed a stone rising
    in the air against gravitation? The permanence of the universal
    law is shown in the behaviour of the sidereal worlds and globes
    eternally faithful to their primitive orbits; never wandering
    beyond their respective paths. Nor is there any intervention
    needed, as it could only be disastrous. Whether the first sidereal
    incipient rotation took place owing to an intercosmic chance, or
    to the spontaneous development of latent primordial forces; or
    again, whether that impulse was given once for all by God or
    Gods—it does not make the slightest difference. At this stage of
    cosmic evolution no intervention, superior or inferior, is
    admissible. Were any to take place, the universal clock‐work would
    stop, and Kosmos would fall into pieces.


Such are stray sentences, pearls of wisdom, fallen from time to time from
scientific lips, and now chosen at random to illustrate a query. We lift
our diminished heads and look heavenward. Such seems to be the fact:
worlds, suns, and stars, the shining myriads of the heavenly hosts, remind
the Poet of an infinite, shoreless ocean, whereon move swiftly numberless
squadrons of ships, millions upon millions of cruisers, large and small,
crossing each other, whirling and gyrating in every direction; and Science
teaches us, that though they be without rudder or compass or any beacon to
guide them, they are nevertheless secure from collision—almost secure, at
any rate, save in chance accidents—as the whole celestial machine is built
upon and guided by an immutable, albeit blind, law, and by constant and
accelerating force or forces. “Built upon” by whom? “By self‐evolution,”
is the answer. Moreover, as dynamics teach that


    A body in motion tends to continue in the same state of relative
    rest or motion unless acted upon by some external force,


this force has to be regarded as self‐generated—even if not eternal, since
this would amount to the recognition of perpetual motion—and so well self‐
calculated and self‐adjusted as to last from the beginning to the end of
Kosmos. But “self‐generation” has still to generate from something,
generation _ex‐nihilo_ being as contrary to reason as it is to Science.
Thus we are placed once more between the horns of a dilemma: are we to
believe in perpetual motion or in self‐generation _ex‐nihilo_? And if in
neither, who or what is that something, which first produced that force or
those forces?

There are such things in mechanics as superior levers, which give the
impulse and act upon secondary or inferior levers. The former, however,
need an impulse and occasional renovation, otherwise they would themselves
very soon stop and fall back into their original status. What is the
external force which puts and retains them in motion? Another dilemma!

As to the law of cosmical _non‐intervention_, it could be justified only
in one case, namely, if the celestial mechanism were perfect; but it is
not. The so‐called unalterable motions of celestial bodies alter and
change incessantly; they are very often disturbed, and the wheels of even
the sidereal locomotive itself occasionally jump off their invisible
rails, as may be easily proved. Otherwise why should Laplace speak of the
probable occurrence at some future time of an out‐and‐out reform in the
arrangement of the planets;(409) or Lagrange maintain the gradual
narrowing of the orbits; or our modern Astronomers, again, declare that
the fuel in the sun is slowly disappearing? If the laws and forces which
govern the behaviour of the celestial bodies are immutable, such
modifications and wearing‐out of substance or fuel, of force and fluids,
would be impossible; yet they are not denied. Therefore one has to suppose
that such modifications will have to rely upon the laws of forces, which
will have to self‐regenerate themselves once more on such occasions, thus
producing an astral antinomy, and a kind of physical palinomy, since, as
Laplace says, one would then see fluids disobeying themselves and reäcting
in a way contrary to all their attributes and properties.

Newton felt very uncomfortable about the moon. Her behaviour in
progressively narrowing the circumference of her orbit around the earth
made him nervous, lest it should end one day in our satellite falling upon
the earth. The world, he confessed, needed repairing, and that very
often.(410) In this he was corroborated by Herschel.(411) He speaks of
real and quite considerable deviations, besides those which are only
apparent, but gets some consolation from his conviction that somebody or
something will probably see to things.

We may be answered that the personal beliefs of some pious Astronomers,
however great they may be as scientific characters, are no proofs of the
actual existence and presence in space of intelligent supramundane Beings,
of either Gods or Angels. It is the behaviour of the stars and planets
themselves that has to be analysed and inferences must be drawn therefrom.
Renan asserts that nothing that we know of the sidereal bodies warrants
the idea of the presence of any Intelligence, whether internal or external
to them.

Let us see, says Reynaud, if this is a fact, or only one more empty
scientific assumption.


    The orbits traversed by the planets are far from being immutable.
    They are, on the contrary, subject to perpetual mutation in
    position, as in form. Elongations, contractions, and orbital
    widenings, oscillations from right to left, slackening and
    quickening of speed ... and all this on a plane which seems to
    vacillate.(412)


As is very pertinently observed by des Mousseux:


    Here is a path having little of the mathematical and mechanical
    precision claimed for it; for we know of no clock which, having
    gone slow for several minutes should catch up the right time _of
    itself_ and _without a turn of the key_.


So much for blind law and force. As for the physical impossibility—a
miracle indeed in the sight of Science—of a stone raised in the air
against the law of gravitation, this is what Babinet—the deadliest enemy
and opponent of the phenomena of levitation—(cited by Arago) says:


    Everyone knows the theory of _bolides_ [meteors] and
    aerolithes.... In Connecticut an immense aerolith was seen [a mass
    of eighteen hundred feet in diameter], bombarding a whole American
    zone and returning to the spot [in mid‐air] from which it had
    started.(413)


Thus we find in both of the cases above cited—that of self‐correcting
planets and of meteors of gigantic size flying back into the air—a “blind
force” regulating and resisting the natural tendencies of “blind matter,”
and even occasionally repairing its mistakes and correcting its failures.
This is far more miraculous and even “extravagant,” one would say, than
any “Angel‐guided” Element.

Bold is he who laughs at the idea of Von Haller, who declares that:


    The stars are perhaps an abode of glorious Spirits; as here Vice
    reigns, there is Virtue master.(414)



SECTION XXV. EASTERN AND WESTERN OCCULTISM.


In _The Theosophist_ for March, 1886,(415) in an answer to the “Solar
Sphinx,” a member of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society wrote as
follows:


    We hold and believe that the revival of Occult Knowledge now in
    progress will some day demonstrate that the Western system
    represents ranges of perceptions which the Eastern—at least as
    expounded in the pages of _The Theosophist_—has yet to
    attain.(416)


The writer is not the only person labouring under this erroneous
impression. Greater Kabalists than he had said the same in the United
States. This only proves that the knowledge possessed by Western
Occultists of the true Philosophy, and the “ranges of perceptions” and
thought of the Eastern doctrines, is very superficial. This assertion will
be easily demonstrated by giving a few instances, instituting comparisons
between the two interpretations of one and the same doctrine—the Hermetic
Universal Doctrine. It is the more needed since, were we to neglect
bringing forward such comparisons, our work would be left incomplete.

We may take the late Éliphas Lévi, rightly referred to by another Western
Mystic, Mr. Kenneth Mackenzie, as “one of the greatest representatives of
modern Occult Philosophy,”(417) as presumably the best and most learned
expounder of the Chaldæan _Kabalah_, and compare his teaching with that of
Eastern Occultists. In his unpublished manuscripts and letters, lent to us
by a Theosophist, who was for fifteen years his pupil, we had hoped to
find that which he was unwilling to publish. What we do find, however,
disappoints us greatly. We will take these teachings, then, as containing
the essence of Western or Kabalistic Occultism, analyzing and comparing
them with the Eastern interpretation as we go on.

Éliphas Lévi teaches correctly, though in language rather too
rhapsodically rhetorical to be sufficiently clear to the beginner, that


    Eternal life is Motion equilibrated by the alternate
    manifestations of force.


But why does he not add that this perpetual motion is independent of the
manifested Forces at work? He says:


    Chaos is the Tohu‐vah‐bohu of perpetual motion and the sum total
    of primordial matter;


and he fails to add that Matter is “primordial” only at the beginning of
every new reconstruction of the Universe, matter _in abscondito_, as it is
called by the Alchemists, is eternal, indestructible, without beginning or
end. It is regarded by Eastern Occultists as the eternal Root of all, the
Mûlaprakriti of the Vedântin, and the Svabhâvat of the Buddhist, the
Divine Essence, in short, or Substance; the radiations from This are
periodically aggregated into graduated forms, from pure Spirit to gross
Matter; the Root, or Space, is in its abstract presence the Deity Itself,
the Ineffable and Unknown One Cause.

Ain‐Suph with him also is the Boundless, the infinite and One Unity,
secondless and causeless as Parabrahman. Ain‐Suph is the indivisible
point, and therefore, as “being everywhere and nowhere,” is the absolute
All. It is also “Darkness” because it is absolute Light, and the Root of
the seven fundamental Cosmic Principles. Yet Éliphas Lévi, by simply
stating that “Darkness was upon the face of the Earth,” fails to show
(_a_) that “Darkness” in this sense is Deity Itself, and he is therefore
withholding the only philosophical solution of this problem for the human
mind; and (_b_) he allows the unwary student to believe that by “Earth”
our own little globe—an atom in the Universe—is meant. In short, this
teaching does not embrace the Occult Cosmogony, but deals simply with
Occult Geology and the formation of our cosmic speck. This is further
shown by his making a _résumé_ of the Sephirothal Tree in this wise:


    God is harmony, the astronomy of Powers and Unity outside of the
    World.


This seems to suggest (_a_) that he teaches the existence of an extra‐
cosmic God, thus limiting and conditioning both the Kosmos and the divine
Infinity and Omnipresence, which cannot be extraneous to or outside of one
single atom; and (_b_) that by skipping the whole of the pre‐cosmic
period—the manifested Kosmos here being meant—the very root of Occult
teaching, he explains only the Kabalistic meaning of the dead‐letter of
the _Bible_ and _Genesis_, leaving its spirit and essence untouched.
Surely the “ranges of perception” of the Western mind will not be greatly
enlarged by such a limited teaching.

Having said a few words on Tohu‐vah‐bohu—the meaning of which Wordsworth
rendered graphically as “higgledy‐piggledy”—and having explained that this
term denoted Cosmos, he teaches that:


    Above the dark abyss [Chaos] were the Waters; ... the earth [_la
    terre!_] was Tohu‐vah‐bohu, _i.e._, in confusion, and darkness
    covered the face of the Deep, and vehement Breath moved on the
    Waters when the Spirit exclaimed [?], “Let there be light,” and
    there was light. Thus the earth [our globe, of course] was in a
    state of cataclysm; _thick_ vapours veiled the immensity of the
    sky, the earth was covered with waters and a violent wind was
    agitating this dark ocean, when at a given moment the equilibrium
    revealed itself and light reäppeared; the letters that compose the
    Hebrew word “Bereshith” (the first word of _Genesis_) are “Beth,”
    the binary, the verb manifested by the act, a _feminine_ letter;
    then “Resch,” the Verbum and Life, number 20, the disc multiplied
    by 2; and “Aleph,” the spiritual principle, the Unit, a masculine
    letter.

    Place these letters in a triangle and you have the absolute Unity,
    that without being included into numbers creates the number, the
    first manifestation, which is 2, and these two united by harmony
    resulting from the analogy of contraries [opposites], make 1,
    only. This is why God is called Elohim (plural).


All this is very ingenious, but is very puzzling, besides being incorrect.
For owing to the first sentence, “Above the dark abyss were the Waters,”
the French Kabalist leads the student away from the right track. This an
Eastern Chela will see at a glance, and even one of the profane may see
it. For if the Tohu‐vah‐bohu is “under” and the Waters are “above,” then
these two are quite distinct from each other, and this is not the case.
This statement is a very important one, inasmuch as it entirely changes
the spirit and nature of Cosmogony, and brings it down to a level with
exoteric _Genesis_—perhaps it was so stated with an eye to this result.
The Tohu‐vah‐bohu is the “Great Deep” and is identical with “the Waters of
Chaos,” or the primordial Darkness. By stating the fact otherwise it makes
both “the Great Deep” and the “Waters”—which cannot be separated except in
the phenomenal world—limited as to space and conditioned as to their
nature. Thus Éliphas in his desire to conceal the last word of Esoteric
Philosophy, fails—whether intentionally or otherwise does not matter—to
point out the fundamental principle of the one true Occult Philosophy,
namely, the unity and absolute homogeneity of the One Eternal Divine
Element, and he makes of the Deity a male God. Then he says:


    Above the Waters was the powerful Breath of the Elohim [the
    creative Dhyân Chohans]. Above the Breath appeared the Light, and
    above the Light the Word ... that created it.


Now the fact is quite the reverse of this: it is the Primeval Light that
creates the Word or Logos, Who in His turn creates physical light. For the
Secret Doctrine teaches us that the reconstruction of the Universe takes
place in this wise: At the periods of new generation, perpetual Motion
becomes Breath; from the Breath comes forth primordial Light, through
whose radiance manifests the Eternal Thought concealed in darkness, and
this becomes the Word (Mantra).(418) It is _That_ (the Mantra or Word)
from which all This (the Universe) sprang into being.

Further on Éliphas Lévi says:


    This [the concealed Deity] radiated a ray into the Eternal Essence
    [Waters of Space] and, fructifying thereby the primordial germ,
    the Essence expanded,(419) giving birth to the Heavenly Man from
    whose mind were born all forms.


The _Kabalah_ states very nearly the same. To learn what it really teaches
one has to reverse the order in which Éliphas Lévi gives it, replacing the
word “above” by that of “in,” as there cannot surely be any “above” or
“under” in the Absolute. This is what he says:


    Above the waters the powerful breath of the Elohim; above the
    Breath the Light; above Light the Word, or the Speech that created
    it. We see here the spheres of evolution: the souls [?] driven
    from the dark centre (Darkness) toward the luminous circumference.
    At the bottom of the lowest circle is the Tohu‐vah‐bohu, or the
    chaos which precedes all manifestation [_Naissances_—generation];
    then the region of Water; then Breath; then Light; and, lastly,
    the Word.


The construction of the above sentences shows that the learned Abbé had a
decided tendency to anthropomorphize creation, even though the latter has
to be shaped out of preëxisting material, as the _Zohar_ shows plainly
enough.

This is how the “great” Western Kabalist gets out of the difficulty: he
keeps silent on the first stage of evolution and imagines a second Chaos.
Thus he says:


    The Tohu‐vah‐bohu is the Latin Limbus, or twilight of the morning
    and evening of life.(420) It is in perpetual motion,(421) it
    decomposes continually,(422) and the work of putrefaction
    accelerates, because the world is advancing towards
    regeneration.(423) The Tohu‐vah‐bohu of the Hebrews is not exactly
    the confusion of things called Chaos by the Greeks, and which is
    found described in the commencement of the Metamorphosis of Ovid;
    it is something greater and more profound; it is the foundation of
    religion, it is the philosophical affirmation of the immateriality
    of God.


Rather an affirmation of the materiality of a personal God. If a man has
to seek his Deity in the Hades of the ancients—for the Tohu‐vah‐bohu, or
the Limbus of the Greeks, is the Hall of Hades—then one can wonder no
longer at the accusations brought forward by the Church against the
“witches” and sorcerers versed in Western Kabalism, that they adored the
goat Mendes, or the devil personified by certain spooks and Elementals.
But in face of the task Éliphas Lévi had set before himself—that of
reconciling Jewish Magic with Roman ecclesiasticism—he could say nothing
else.

Then he explains the first sentence in _Genesis_:


    Let us put on one side the vulgar translation of the sacred texts
    and see what is hidden in the first chapter of _Genesis_.


He then gives the Hebrew text quite correctly, but transliterates it:


    Bereschith Bara Eloim uth aschamam ouatti aares ouares ayete Tohu‐
    vah‐bohu.... Ouimas Eloim rai avur ouiai aour.


And he then explains:


    The first word, “Bereschith,” signifies “genesis,” a word
    equivalent to “nature.”


“The act of generation or production,” we maintain; not “nature.” He then
continues:


    The phrase, then, is incorrectly translated in the _Bible_. It is
    not “in the beginning,” for it should be at the stage of the
    _generating force_,(424) which would thus exclude every idea of
    the _ex‐nihilo_ ... as _nothing_ cannot produce something. The
    word “Eloim” or “Elohim” signifies the generating Powers, and such
    is the Occult sense of the first verse.... “Bereschith” (“nature”
    or “genesis”), “Bara” (“created”) “Eloim” (“the forces”) “Athat‐
    ashamaim” (“heavens”) “ouath” and “oaris” (“the earth”); that is
    to say, “The generative potencies created indefinitely
    (eternally(425)) those forces that are the equilibrated opposites
    that we call heaven and earth, meaning the space and the bodies,
    the volatile and the fixed, the movement and the weight.”


Now this, if it be correct, is too vague to be understood by any one
ignorant of the Kabalistic teaching. Not only are his explanations
unsatisfactory and misleading—in his published works they are still
worse—but his Hebrew transliteration is entirely wrong: it precludes the
student, who would compare it for himself with the equivalent symbols and
numerals of the words and letters of the Hebrew alphabet, from finding
anything of that he might have found were the words correctly spelt in the
French transliteration.

Compared even with exoteric Hindu Cosmogony, the philosophy which Éliphas
Lévi gives out as Kabalistic is simply mystical Roman Catholicism adapted
to the Christian _Kabalah_. His _Histoire de la Magie_ shows it plainly,
and reveals also his object, which he does not even care to conceal. For,
while stating with his Church, that


    The Christian religion has imposed silence on the lying oracles of
    the Gentiles and put an end to the prestige of the false
    gods,(426)


he promises to prove in his work that the real Sanctum Regnum, the great
Magic Art, is in that Star of Bethlehem which led the three Magi to adore
the Saviour of the World. He says:


    We will prove that the study of the sacred Pentagram had to lead
    all the Magi to know the new name which should be raised above all
    names, and before which every being capable of worship has to bend
    his knee.(427)


This shows that Lévi’s _Kabalah_ is mystic Christianity, and not
Occultism; for Occultism is universal and knows no difference between the
“Saviours” (or great Avatâras) of the several old nations. Éliphas Lévi
was not an exception in preaching Christianity under a disguise of
Kabalism. He was undeniably “the greatest representative of modern Occult
Philosophy,” as it is studied in Roman Catholic countries generally, where
it is fitted to the preconceptions of Christian students. But he never
taught the real universal _Kabalah_, and least of all did he teach Eastern
Occultism. Let the student compare the Eastern and Western teaching, and
see whether the philosophy of the _Upanishads_ “has yet to attain the
ranges of perception” of this Western system. Everyone has the right to
defend the system he prefers, but in doing this, there is no need to throw
slurs upon the system of one’s brother.

In view of the great resemblance between many of the fundamental “truths”
of Christianity and the “myths” of Brâhmanism, there have been serious
attempts made lately to prove that the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_ and most of the
_Brâhmanas_ and the _Purânas_ are of a far later date than the Mosaic
Books and even than the _Gospels_. But were it possible that an enforced
success should be obtained in this direction, such argument cannot achieve
its object, since the _Rig Veda_ remains. Brought down to the most modern
limits of the age assigned to it, its date cannot be made to overlap that
of the _Pentateuch_, which is admittedly later.

The Orientalists know well that they cannot make away with the landmarks,
followed by all subsequent religions, set up in that “Bible of Humanity”
called the _Rig Veda_. It is there that at the very dawn of intellectual
humanity were laid the foundation‐stones of all the faiths and creeds, of
every fane and church built from first to last; and they are still there.
Universal “myths,” personifications of Powers divine and cosmic, primary
and secondary, and historical personages of all the now‐existing as well
as of extinct religions are to be found in the seven chief Deities and
their 330,000,000 correlations of the _Rig Veda_, and those Seven, with
the odd millions, are the Rays of the one boundless Unity.

But to THIS can never be offered profane worship. It can only be the
“object of the most abstract meditation, which Hindus practise in order to
obtain absorption in it.” At the beginning of every “dawn” of “Creation,”
eternal Light—which is darkness—assumes the aspect of so‐called Chaos:
chaos to the human intellect; the eternal Root to the superhuman or
spiritual sense.

“Osiris is a black God.” These were the words pronounced at “low breath”
at Initiation in Egypt, because Osiris Noumenon is darkness to the mortal.
In this Chaos are formed the “Waters,” Mother Isis, Aditi, etc. They are
the “Waters of Life,” in which primordial germs are created—or rather
reäwakened—by the primordial Light. It is Purushottama, or the Divine
Spirit, which in its capacity of Nârâyana, the Mover on the Waters of
Space, fructifies and infuses the Breath of life into that germ which
becomes the “Golden Mundane Egg,” in which the male Brahmâ is
created;(428) and from this the first Prajâpati, the Lord of Beings,
emerges, and becomes the progenitor of mankind. And though it is not he,
but the Absolute, that is said to contain the Universe in Itself, yet it
is the duty of the male Brahmâ to manifest it in a visible form. Hence he
has to be connected with the procreation of species, and assumes, like
Jehovah and other male Gods in subsequent anthropomorphism, a phallic
symbol. At best every such male God, the “Father” of all, becomes the
“Archetypal Man.” Between him and the Infinite Deity stretches an abyss.
In the theistic religions of personal Gods the latter are degraded from
abstract Forces into physical potencies. The Water of Life—the “Deep” of
Mother Nature—is viewed in its terrestrial aspect in anthropomorphic
religions. Behold, how holy it has become by theological magic! It is held
sacred and is deified now as of old in almost every religion. But if
Christians use it as a means of spiritual purification in baptism and
prayer; if Hindus pay reverence to their sacred streams, tanks, and
rivers; if Pârsî, Mahommedan and Christian alike believe in its efficacy,
surely that element must have some great and Occult significance. In
Occultism it stands for the Fifth Principle of Kosmos, in the lower
septenary: for the whole visible Universe was built by Water, say the
Kabalists who know the difference between the two waters—the “Waters of
Life” and those of Salvation—so confused together in dogmatic religions.
The “King‐Preacher” says of himself:


    I, the Preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem, and I gave my
    heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all _things_
    that are done under heaven.(429)


Speaking of the great work and glory of the Elohim(430)—unified into the
“Lord God” in the English _Bible_, whose garment, he tells us, is light
and heaven the curtain—he refers to the builder


    Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters,(431)


that is, the divine Host of the Sephiroth, who have constructed the
Universe out of the Deep, the Waters of Chaos. Moses and Thales were right
in saying that only earth and water can bring forth a living Soul, water
being on this plane the principle of all things. Moses was an Initiate,
Thales a Philosopher—_i.e._, a Scientist, for the words were synonymous in
his day.

The secret meaning of this is that water and earth stand in the Mosaic
Books for the prima materia and the creative (feminine) Principle on our
plane. In Egypt Osiris was Fire, and Isis was the Earth or its synonym
Water; the two opposing elements—just because of their opposite
properties—being necessary to each other for a common object: that of
procreation. The earth needs solar heat and rain to make her throw out her
germs. But these procreative properties of Fire and Water, or Spirit and
Matter, are symbols but of physical generation. While the Jewish Kabalists
symbolized these elements only in their application to manifested things,
and reverenced them as the emblems for the production of terrestrial life,
the Eastern Philosophy noticed them only as an illusive emanation from
their spiritual prototypes, and no unclean or unholy thought marred its
Esoteric religious symbology.

Chaos, as shown elsewhere, is Theos, which becomes Kosmos: it is Space,
the container of everything in the Universe. As Occult Teachings assert,
it is called by the Chaldæans, Egyptians, and every other nation Tohu‐vah‐
bohu, or Chaos, Confusion, because Space is the great storehouse of
Creation, whence proceed not forms alone, but also ideas, which could
receive their expression only through the Logos, the Word, Verbum, or
Sound.

_The numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 are the successive emanations from Mother [Space]
as she forms running downward her garment, spreading it upon the seven
steps of Creation._(_432_)_ The roller returns upon itself, as one end
joins the other __ in infinitude, and the numbers 4, 3, and 2 are
displayed, as it is the only side of the veil that we can perceive, the
first number being lost in its inaccessible solitude._

... _Father, which is Boundless Time, generates Mother, which is infinite
Space, in Eternity; and Mother generates Father in Manvantaras, which are
divisions of durations, that Day when that world becomes one ocean. Then
the Mother becomes Nârâ [Waters—the Great Deep] for Nara [the Supreme
Spirit] to rest—or move—upon, when, it is said, that 1, 2, 3, 4 descend
and abide in the world of the unseen, while the 4, 3, 2, become the limits
in the visible world to deal with the manifestations of Father
[Time]._(433)

This relates to the Mahâyugas which in figures become 432, and with the
addition of noughts, 4,320,000.

Now it is surpassingly strange, if it be a mere coincidence, that the
numerical value of Tohu‐vah‐bohu, or “Chaos,” in the _Bible_—which Chaos,
of course, is the “Mother” Deep, or the Waters of Space—should yield the
same figures. For this is what is found in a Kabalist manuscript:


    It is said of the Heavens and the Earth in the second verse of
    _Genesis_ that they were “Chaos and Confusion”—that is, they were
    “Tohu‐vah‐bohu;” “and _darkness_ was upon the face of the deep,”
    _i.e._, “the perfect material out of which construction was to be
    made lacked organization.” The order of the digits of these words
    as they stand—_i.e._,(434) the letters rendered by their numerical
    value—is 6,526,654 and 2,386. By art speech these are key‐working
    numbers loosely shuffled together, the germs and keys of
    construction, but to be recognized, one by one, as used and
    required. They follow symmetrically in the work as immediately
    following the first sentence of grand enunciation: “In Rash
    developed itself Gods, the heavens and the earth.”

    Multiply the numbers of the letters of “Tohu‐vah‐bohu” together
    continuously from right to left, placing the consecutive single
    products as we go, and we will have the following series of
    values, _viz._, (_a_) 30, 60, 360, 2,160, 10,800, 43,200, or as by
    the characterizing digits; 3, 6, 36, 216, 108, and 432; (_b_) 20,
    120, 720, 1,440, 7,200, or 2, 12, 72, 144, 72, 432, the series
    closing in 432, one of the most famous numbers of antiquity, and
    which, though obscured, crops out in the chronology up to the
    Flood.(435)...


This shows that the Hebrew usage of play upon the numbers must have come
to the Jews from India. As we have seen, the final series yields, besides
many another combination, the figures 108 and 1008—the number of the names
of Vishnu, whence the 108 grains of the Yogî’s rosary—and close with 432,
the truly “famous” number in Indian and Chaldæan antiquity, appearing in
the cycle of 4,320,000 years in the former, and in the 432,000 years, the
duration of the Chaldæan divine dynasties.



SECTION XXVI. THE IDOLS AND THE TERAPHIM.


The meaning of the “fairy‐tale” told by the Chaldæan Qû‐tâmy is easily
understood. His _modus operandi_ with the “idol of the moon” was that of
all the Semites, before Terah, Abraham’s father, made images—the Teraphim,
called after him—or the “chosen people” of Israel ceased divining by them.
These teraphim were just as much “idols” as is any pagan image or
statue.(436) The injunction “Thou shalt not bow to a graven image,” or
teraphim, must have either come at a later date, or have been disregarded,
since the bowing‐down to and the divining by the teraphim seem to have
been so orthodox and general that the “Lord” actually threatens the
Israelites, through Hosea, to deprive them of their teraphim.


    For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king,
    ... without a sacrifice, and without an image.


Matzebah, or statue, or pillar, is explained in the _Bible_ to mean
“without an ephod and without teraphim.”(437)

Father Kircher supports very strongly the idea that the statue of the
Egyptian Serapis was identical in every way with those of the seraphim, or
teraphim, in the temple of Solomon. Says Louis de Dieu:


    They were, perhaps, images of angels, or statues dedicated to the
    angels, the presence of one of these spirits being thus attracted
    into a teraphim and answering the inquirers [consultans]; and even
    in this hypothesis the word “teraphim” would become the equivalent
    of “seraphim” by changing the “t” into “s” in the manner of
    Syrians.(438)


What says the _Septuagint_? The teraphim are translated successively by
ἐίδωλα—forms in someone’s likeness; eidolon, an “astral body;” γλυπτὰ—the
sculptured; κενοτάφια—sculptures in the sense of containing something
hidden, or receptacles; θὴλους—manifestations; ἀλήθειας—truths or
realities; μορφώματα or φωτισμοὺς—luminous, shining likenesses. The latter
expression shows plainly what the teraphim were. The _Vulgate_ translates
the term by “annuntientes,” the “messengers who announce,” and it thus
becomes certain that the teraphim were the oracles. They were the animated
statues, the Gods who revealed themselves to the masses through the
Initiated Priests and Adepts in the Egyptian, Chaldæan, Greek, and other
temples.

As to the way of divining, or learning one’s fate, and of being instructed
by the teraphim,(439) it is explained quite plainly by Maimonides and
Seldenus. The former says:


    The worshippers of the teraphim claimed that the light of the
    principal stars [planets], penetrating into and filling the carved
    statue through and through, the angelic virtue [of the regents, or
    animating principle in the planets] conversed with them, teaching
    them many most useful arts and sciences.(440)


In his turn Seldenus explains the same, adding that the teraphim(441) were
built and fashioned in accordance with the position of their respective
planets, each of the teraphim being consecrated to a special “star‐angel,”
those that the Greeks called stoichæ, as also according to figures located
in the sky and called the “tutelary Gods”:


    Those who traced out the στοιχεῖα were called στοιχειωματικοὶ [or
    the diviners by the planets] and the στοιχεῖα.(442)


Ammianus Marcellinus states that the ancient divinations were always
accomplished with the help of the “spirits” of the elements (spiritus
elementorum), or as they are called in Greek πνεύματα τῶν στοιχείων. Now
the latter are not the “spirits” of the stars (planets), nor are they
divine Beings; they are simply the creatures inhabiting their respective
elements, called by the Kabalists, elementary spirits, and by the
Theosophists elementals.(443) Father Kircher, the Jesuit, tells the
reader:


    Every god had such instruments of divination to speak through.
    Each had his speciality.


Serapis gave instruction on agriculture; Anubis taught sciences; Horus
advised upon psychic and spiritual matters; Isis was consulted on the
rising of the Nile, and so on.(444)

This historical fact, furnished by one of the ablest and most erudite
among the Jesuits, is unfortunate for the prestige of the “Lord God of
Israel” with regard to his claims to priority and to his being the _one_
living God. Jehovah, on the admission of the _Old Testament_ itself,
conversed with his elect in no other way, and this places him on a par
with every other Pagan God, even of the inferior classes. In _Judges_,
xvii., we read of Micah having an ephod and a teraphim fabricated, and
consecrating them to Jehovah (see the _Septuagint_ and the _Vulgate_);
these objects were made by a founder from the two hundred shekels of
silver given to him by his mother. True, King James’ “Holy Bible” explains
this little bit of idolatry by saying:


    In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that
    which was right in his own eyes.


Yet the act must have been orthodox, since Micah, after hiring a priest, a
diviner, for his ephod and teraphim, declares: “Now know I that the Lord
will do me good.” And if Micah’s act—who


    Had an house of Gods, and made an ephod and teraphim and
    consecrated one of his sons


to their service, as also to that of the “graven image” dedicated “unto
the Lord” by his mother—now seems prejudicial, it was not so in those days
of one religion and one lip. How can the Latin Church blame the act, since
Kircher, one of her best writers, calls the teraphim “the holy instruments
of primitive revelations;” since _Genesis_ shows us Rebecca going “to
enquire of the Lord,”(445) and the Lord answering her (certainly through
his teraphim), and delivering to her several prophecies? And if this be
not sufficient, there is Saul, who deplores the silence of the ephod,(446)
and David who consults the thummim, and receives oral advice from the Lord
as to the best way of killing his enemies.

The thummim and urim, however—the object in our days of so much conjecture
and speculation—was not an invention of the Jews, nor had it originated
with them, despite the minute instruction given about it by Jehovah to
Moses. For the priest‐hierophant of the Egyptian temples wore a
breastplate of precious stones, in every way similar to that of the high
priest of the Israelites.


    The high‐priests of Egypt wore suspended on their necks an image
    of sapphire, called _Truth_, the manifestation of truth becoming
    evident in it.


Seldenus is not the only Christian writer who assimilates the Jewish to
the Pagan teraphim, and expressed a conviction that the former had
borrowed them from the Egyptians. Moreover, we are told by Döllinger, a
preëminently Roman Catholic writer:


    The teraphim were used and remained in many Jewish families to the
    days of Josiah.(447)


As to the personal opinion of Döllinger, a Papist, and of Seldenus, a
Protestant—both of whom trace Jehovah in the teraphim of the Jews and
“evil spirits” in those of the Pagans—it is the usual one‐sided judgment
of _odium theologicum_ and sectarianism. Seldenus is right, however, in
arguing that in the days of old, all such modes of communication had been
primarily established for purposes of divine and angelic communications
only. But


    The holy Spirit (spirits, rather) spake [not] to the children of
    Israel [alone] by urim and thummim, while the tabernacle remained,


as Dr. A. Cruden would have people believe. Nor had the Jews alone need of
a “tabernacle” for such a kind of theophanic, or divine communication; for
no Bath‐Kol (or “Daughter of the divine Voice”), called thummim, could be
heard whether by Jew, Pagan, or Christian, were there not a fit tabernacle
for it. The “tabernacle” was simply the archaic telephone of those days of
Magic when Occult powers were acquired by Initiation, just as they are
now. The nineteenth century has replaced with an electric telephone the
“tabernacle” of specified metals, wood, and special arrangements, and has
natural mediums instead of high priests and hierophants. Why should people
wonder, then, that instead of reaching Planetary Spirits and Gods,
believers should now communicate with no greater beings than elementals
and animated shells—the demons of Porphyry? Who these were, he tells us
candidly in his work _On the Good and Bad Demons_:


    They whose ambition is to be taken for Gods, and whose leader
    demands to be recognized as the Supreme God.


Most decidedly—and it is not the Theosophists who will ever deny the
fact—there are good as well as bad spirits, beneficent and malevolent
“Gods” in all ages. The whole trouble was, and still is, to know which is
which. And this, we maintain, the Christian Church knows no more than her
profane flock. If anything proves this, it is, most decidedly, the
numberless theological blunders made in this direction. It is idle to call
the Gods of the heathen “devils,” and then to copy their symbols in such a
servile manner, enforcing the distinction between the good and the bad
with no weightier proof than that they are respectively Christian and
Pagan. The planets—the elements of the Zodiac—have not figured only at
Heliopolis as the twelve stones called the “mysteries of the elements”
(elementorum arcana). On the authority of many an orthodox Christian
writer they were found also in Solomon’s temple, and may be seen to this
day in several old Italian churches, and even in Notre Dame of Paris.

One would really say that the warning in Clement’s _Stromateis_ has been
given in vain, though he is supposed to quote words pronounced by St.
Peter. He says:


    Do not adore God as the Jews do, who think they are the only ones
    to know Deity and fail to perceive that, instead of God, they are
    worshipping angels, the lunar months, and the moon.(448)


Who after reading the above can fail to feel surprise that,
notwithstanding such understanding of the Jewish mistake, the Christians
are still worshipping the Jewish Jehovah, the Spirit who spoke through his
teraphim! That this is so, and that Jehovah was simply the “tutelary
genius,” or spirit, of the people of Israel—only one of the pneumata tōn
stoicheiōn (or “great spirits of the elements”), not even a high
“Planetary”—is demonstrated on the authority of St. Paul and of Clemens
Alexandrinus, if the words they use have any meaning. With the latter, the
word στοιχεῖα signifies not only elements, but also


    Generative cosmological principles, and notably the signs [or
    constellations] of the Zodiac, of the months, days, the sun and
    the moon.(449)


The expression is used by Aristotle in the same sense. He says, τῶν ἀστρῶν
στοιχεῖα,(450) while Diogenes Laertius calls δώδεκα στοιχεία, the twelve
signs of the Zodiac.(451) Now having the positive evidence of Ammianus
Marcellinus to the effect that


    Ancient divination was always accomplished with the help of the
    spirits of the elements,


or the same πνεάματα τῶν στοιχείων, and seeing in the _Bible_ numerous
passages that (_a_) the Israelites, including Saul and David, resorted to
the same divination, and used the same means; and (_b_) that it was their
“Lord”—namely, Jehovah—who answered them, what else can we believe Jehovah
to be than a “spiritus elementorum”?

Hence one sees no great difference between the “idol of the moon”—the
Chaldæan teraphim through which spoke Saturn—and the idol of urim and
thummim, the organ of Jehovah. Occult rites, scientific at the
beginning—and forming the most solemn and sacred of sciences—have fallen
through the degeneration of mankind into Sorcery, now called
“superstition.” As Diogenes explains in his _History_:


    The Kaldhi, having made long observations on the planets and
    knowing better than anyone else the meaning of their motions and
    their influences, predict to people their futurity. They regard
    their doctrine of the _five_ great orbs—which they call
    interpreters, and we, planets—as the most important. And though
    they allege that it is the _sun_ that furnishes them with most of
    the predictions for great forthcoming events, yet they worship
    more particularly Saturn. Such predictions made to a number of
    kings, especially to Alexander, Antigonus, Seleucus, Nicanor,
    etc., ... have been so marvellously realised that people were
    struck with admiration.(452)


It follows from the above that the declaration made by Qû‐tâmy, the
Chaldæan Adept—to the effect that all that he means to impart in his work
to the profane had been told by Saturn to the moon, by the latter to her
idol, and by that idol, or teraphim, to himself, the scribe—no more
implied idolatry than did the practice of the same method by King David.
One fails to perceive in it, therefore, either an apocrypha or a “fairy‐
tale.” The above‐named Chaldæan Initiate lived at a period far anterior to
that ascribed to Moses, in whose day the Sacred Science of the sanctuary
was still in a flourishing condition. It began to decline only when such
scoffers as Lucian had been admitted, and the pearls of the Occult Science
had been too often thrown to the hungry dogs of criticism and ignorance.



SECTION XXVII. EGYPTIAN MAGIC.


Few of our students of Occultism have had the opportunity of examining
Egyptian papyri—those living, or rather re‐arisen witnesses that Magic,
good and bad, was practised many thousands of years back into the night of
time. The use of the papyrus prevailed up to the eighth century of our
era, when it was given up, and its fabrication fell into disuse. The most
curious of the exhumed documents were immediately purchased and taken away
from the country. Yet there are a number of beautifully‐preserved papyri
at Bulak, Cairo, though the greater number have never been yet properly
read.(453)

Others—those that have been carried away and may be found in the museums
and public libraries of Europe—have fared no better. In the days of the
Vicomte de Rougé, some twenty‐five years ago, only a few of them “were
two‐thirds deciphered;” and among those some most interesting legends,
inserted parenthetically and for purposes of explaining royal expenses,
are in the Register of the Sacred Accounts.

This may be verified in the so‐called “Harris” and Anastasi collections,
and in some papyri recently exhumed; one of these gives an account of a
whole series of magic feats performed before the Pharaohs Ramses II. and
III. A curious document, the first‐mentioned, truly. It is a papyrus of
the fifteenth century B.C., written during the reign of Ramses V., the
last king of the eighteenth dynasty, and is the work of the scribe
Thoutmes, who notes down some of the events with regard to defaulters
occurring on the twelfth and thirteenth days of the month of Paophs. The
document shows that in those days of “miracles” in Egypt the taxpayers
were not found among the living alone, but every mummy was included. All
and everything was taxed; and the Khou of the mummy, in default, was
punished “by the priest‐exorciser, who deprived it of the liberty of
action.” Now what was the Khou? Simply the astral body, or the aerial
simulacrum of the corpse or the mummy—that which in China is called the
Hauen, and in India the Bhût.

Upon reading this papyrus to‐day, an Orientalist is pretty sure to fling
it aside in disgust, attributing the whole affair to the crass
superstition of the ancients. Truly phenomenal and inexplicable must have
been the dullness and credulity of that otherwise highly philosophical and
civilized nation if it could carry on for so many consecutive ages, for
thousands of years, such a system of mutual deception! A system whereby
the people were deceived by the priests, the priests by their King‐
Hierophants, and the latter themselves were cheated by the ghosts, which
were, in their turn, but “the fruits of hallucination.” The whole of
antiquity, from Menes to Cleopatra, from Manu to Vikramaditya, from
Orpheus down to the last Roman augur, were hysterical, we are told. This
must have been so, if the whole were not a system of fraud. Life and death
were guided by, and were under the sway of, sacred “conjuring.” For there
is hardly a papyrus, though it be a simple document of purchase and sale,
a deed belonging to daily transactions of the most ordinary kind, that has
not Magic, white or black, mixed up in it. It looks as though the sacred
scribes of the Nile had purposely, and in a prophetic spirit of race‐
hatred, carried out the (to them) most unprofitable task of deceiving and
puzzling the generations of a future white race of unbelievers yet unborn!
Anyhow, the papyri are full of Magic, as are likewise the stelæ. We learn,
moreover, that the papyrus was not merely a smooth‐surfaced parchment, a
fabric made of


    Ligneous matter from a shrub, the pellicles of which superposed
    one over the other formed a kind of writing‐paper;


but that the shrub itself, the implements and tools for fabricating the
parchment, etc., were all previously subjected to a process of magical
preparation—according to the ordinance of the Gods, who had taught that
art, as they had all others, to their Priest‐Hierophants.

There are, however, some modern Orientalists who seem to have an inkling
of the true nature of such things, and especially of the analogy and the
relations that exist between the Magic of old and our modern‐day
phenomena. Chabas is one of these, for he indulges, in his translation of
the “Harris” papyrus, in the following reflections:


    Without having recourse to the imposing ceremonies of the wand of
    Hermes, or to the obscure formulæ of an unfathomable mysticism, a
    mesmerizer in our own day will, by means of a few passes, disturb
    the organic faculties of a subject, inculcate the knowledge of
    foreign languages, transport him to a far‐distant country, or into
    secret places, make him guess the thoughts of those absent, read
    in closed letters, etc.... The antre of the modern sybil is a
    modest‐looking room, the tripod has made room for a small round
    table, a hat, a plate, a piece of furniture of the most vulgar
    kind; only the latter is even superior to the oracle of antiquity
    [how does M. Chabas know?], inasmuch as the latter only
    spoke,(454) while the oracle of our day writes its answers. At the
    command of the medium the spirits of the dead descend to make the
    furniture creak, and the authors of bygone centuries deliver to us
    works written by them beyond the grave. Human credulity has no
    narrower limits to‐day than it had at the dawn of historical
    times.... As teratology is an essential part of general physiology
    now, so the _pretended_ Occult Sciences occupy in the annals of
    humanity a place which is not without its importance, and deserve
    for more than one reason the attention of the philosopher and the
    historian.(455)


Selecting the two Champollions, Lenormand, Bunsen, Vicomte de Rougé, and
several other Egyptologists to serve as our witnesses, let us see what
they say of Egyptian Magic and Sorcery. They may get out of the difficulty
by accounting for each “superstitious belief” and practice by attributing
them to a chronic psychological and physiological derangement, and to
collective hysteria, if they like; still facts are there, staring us in
the face, from the hundreds of these mysterious papyri, exhumed after a
rest of four, five, and more thousands of years, with their magical
containments and evidence of antediluvian Magic.

A small library, found at Thebes, has furnished fragments of every kind of
ancient literature, many of which are dated, and several of which have
thus been assigned to the accepted age of Moses. Books or manuscripts on
ethics, history, religion and medicine, calendars and registers, poems and
novels—everything—may be had in that precious collection; and old
legends—traditions of long forgotten ages (please to remark this: legends
recorded during the Mosaic period)—are already referred to therein as
belonging to an immense antiquity, to the period of the dynasties of Gods
and Giants. Their chief contents, however, are formulæ of exorcisms
against black Magic, and funeral rituals: true breviaries, or the _vade
mecum_ of every pilgrim‐traveller in eternity. These funeral texts are
generally written in hieratic characters. At the head of the papyrus is
invariably placed a series of scenes, showing the defunct appearing before
a host of Deities successively, who have to examine him. Then comes the
judgment of the Soul, while the third act begins with the launching of
that Soul into the divine light. Such papyri are often forty feet
long.(456)

The following is extracted from general descriptions. It will show how the
moderns understand and interpret Egyptian (and other) Symbology.

The papyrus of the priest Nevo‐loo (or Nevolen), at the Louvre, may be
selected for one case. First of all there is the bark carrying the coffin,
a black chest containing the defunct’s mummy. His mother, Ammenbem‐Heb,
and his sister, Hooissanoob, are near; at the head and feet of the corpse
stand Nephtys and Isis clothed in red, and near them a priest of Osiris
clad in his panther’s skin, his censer in his right hand, and four
assistants carrying the mummy’s intestines. The coffin is received by the
God Anubis (of the jackal’s head), from the hands of female weepers. Then
the Soul rises from its mummy and the Khou (astral body) of the defunct.
The former begins its worship of the four genii of the East, of the sacred
birds, and of Ammon as a ram. Brought into the “Palace of Truth,” the
defunct is before his judges. While the Soul, a scarabæus, stands in the
presence of Osiris, his astral Khou is at the door. Much laughter is
provoked in the West by the invocations to various Deities, presiding over
each of the limbs of the mummy, and of the living human body. Only judge:
in the papyrus of the mummy Petamenoph “the anatomy becomes
theographical,” “astrology is applied to physiology,” or rather “to the
anatomy of the human body, the heart and the soul.” The defunct’s “hair
belongs to the Nile, his eyes to Venus (Isis), his ears to Macedo, the
guardian of the tropics; his nose to Anubis, his left temple to the Spirit
dwelling in the sun.... What a series of intolerable absurdities and
ignoble prayers ... to Osiris, imploring him to give the defunct in the
other world, geese, eggs, pork, etc.”(457)

It might have been prudent, perhaps, to have waited to ascertain whether
all these terms of “geese, eggs, and pork” had not some other Occult
meaning. The Indian Yogî who, in an _exoteric_ work, is invited to drink a
certain intoxicating liquor till he loses his senses, was also regarded as
a drunkard representing his sect and class, until it was found that the
Esoteric sense of that “spirit” was quite different: that it meant divine
light, and stood for the ambrosia of Secret Wisdom. The symbols of the
dove and the lamb which abound now in Eastern and Western Christian
Churches may also be exhumed long ages hence, and speculated upon as
objects of present‐day worship. And then some “Occidentalist” in the
forthcoming ages of high Asiatic civilization and learning, may write
karmically upon the same as follows: “The ignorant and superstitious
Gnostics and Agnostics of the sects of ‘Pope’ and ‘Calvin’ (the two
monster Gods of the Dynamite‐Christian period) adored a pigeon and a
sheep!” There will be portable hand‐fetishes in all and every age for the
satisfaction and reverence of the rabble, and the Gods of one race will
always be degraded into devils by the next one. The cycles revolve within
the depths of Lethe, and Karma shall reach Europe as it has Asia and her
religions.

Nevertheless,


    This grand and dignified language [in the _Book of the Dead_],
    these pictures full of majesty, this orthodoxy of the whole
    evidently proving a very precise doctrine concerning the
    immortality of the soul and its personal survival,


as shown by De Rougé and the Abbé Van Drival, have charmed some
Orientalists. The psychostasy (or judgment of the Soul) is certainly a
whole poem to him who can read it correctly and interpret the images
therein. In that picture we see Osiris, the horned, with his sceptre
hooked at the end—the original of the pastoral bishop’s crook or
crosier—the Soul hovering above, encouraged by Tmei, daughter of the Sun
of Righteousness and Goddess of Mercy and Justice; Horus and Anubis,
weighing the deeds of the soul. One of these papyri shows the Soul found
guilty of gluttony sentenced to be re‐born on earth as a hog; forthwith
comes the learned conclusion of an Orientalist, “This is an indisputable
proof of belief in _metempsychosis_, of transmigration _into animals_,”
etc.

Perchance the Occult law of Karma might explain the sentence otherwise. It
may, for all our Orientalists know, refer to the physiological vice in
store for the Soul when re‐incarnated—a vice that will lead that
personality into a thousand and one scrapes and misadventures.


    Tortures to begin with, then metempsychosis _during_ 3,000 _years_
    as a hawk, an angel, a lotus‐flower, a heron, a stork, a swallow,
    a serpent, and a crocodile: one sees that the consolation of such
    a progress was far from being satisfactory,


argues De Mirville, in his work on the Satanic character of the Gods of
Egypt.(458) Again, a simple suggestion may throw on this a great light.
Are the Orientalists quite sure they have read correctly the
“metempsychosis during 3,000 years”? The Occult Doctrine teaches that
Karma waits at the threshold of Devachan (the Amenti of the Egyptians) for
3,000 years; that then the eternal _Ego_ is reincarnated _de novo_, to be
punished in its new temporary personality for sins committed in the
preceding birth, and the suffering for which, in one shape or another,
will atone for past misdeeds. And the hawk, the lotus‐flower, the heron,
serpent, or bird—every object in Nature, in short—had its symbolical and
manifold meaning in ancient religious emblems. The man who all his life
acted hypocritically and passed for a good man, but had been in sober
reality watching like a bird of prey his chance to pounce upon his fellow‐
creatures, and had deprived them of their property, will be sentenced by
Karma to bear the punishment for hypocrisy and covetousness in a future
life. What will it be? Since every human unit has ultimately to progress
in its evolution, and since that “man” will be reborn at some future time
as a good, sincere, well‐meaning man, his sentence to be re‐incarnated as
a hawk may simply mean that he will then be regarded metaphorically as
such. That, notwithstanding his real, good, intrinsic qualities, he will,
perhaps during a long life, be unjustly and falsely charged with and
suspected of greed and hypocrisy and of secret exactions, all of which
will make him suffer more than he can bear. The law of retribution can
never err, and yet how many such innocent victims of false appearance and
human malice do we not meet in this world of incessant illusion, of
mistake and deliberate wickedness. We see them every day, and they may be
found within the personal experience of each of us. What Orientalist can
say with any degree of assurance that he has understood the religions of
old? The metaphorical language of the priests has never been more than
superficially revealed, and the hieroglyphics have been very poorly
mastered to this day.(459)

What says _Isis Unveiled_ on this question of Egyptian rebirth and
transmigration, and does it clash with anything that we say now?


    It will be observed that this philosophy of cycles, which was
    allegorized by the Egyptian Hierophants in the “cycle of
    necessity,” explains at the same time the allegory of the “Fall of
    Man.” According to the Arabian descriptions, each of the seven
    chambers of the pyramids—those grandest of all cosmic symbols—was
    known by the name of a planet. The peculiar architecture of the
    pyramids shows in itself the drift of the metaphysical thought of
    their builders. The apex is lost in the clear blue sky of the land
    of the Pharaohs, and typifies the primordial point lost in the
    unseen Universe from whence started the first race of the
    spiritual prototypes of man. Each mummy from the moment that it
    was embalmed lost its physical individuality in one sense: it
    symbolised the human race. Placed in such a way as was best
    calculated to aid the exit of the “Soul,” the latter had to pass
    through the seven planetary chambers before it made its exit
    through the symbolical apex. Each chamber typified, at the same
    time, one of the seven spheres [of our Chain] and one of the seven
    higher types of physico‐spiritual humanity alleged to be above our
    own. Every 3000 years the soul, representative of its race, had to
    return to its primal point of departure before it underwent
    another evolution into a more perfected spiritual and physical
    transformation. We must go deep indeed into the abstruse
    metaphysics of Oriental mysticism before we can realise fully the
    infinitude of the subjects that were embraced at one sweep by the
    majestic thought of its exponents.(460)


This is all Magic when once the details are given; and it relates at the
same time to the evolution of our seven Root‐Races, each with the
characteristics of its special guardian or “God,” and his Planet. The
astral body of each Initiate, after death, had to reënact in its funeral
mystery the drama of the birth and death of each Race—the past and the
future—and pass through the seven “planetary chambers,” which, as said
above, typified also the seven spheres of our Chain.

The mystic doctrine of Eastern Occultism teaches that

_“__The Spiritual Ego [not the astral Khou] has to revisit, before it
incarnates into a new body, the scenes it left at its last disincarnation.
It __ has to see for itself and take cognizance of all the effects
produced by the causes [the Nidânas] generated by its actions in a
previous life; that, seeing, it should recognize the justice of the
decree, and help the law of Retribution [Karma] instead of impeding
it.__”_(461)

The translations by Vicomte de Rougé of several Egyptian papyri, imperfect
as they may be, give us one advantage: they show undeniably the presence
in them of white, divine Magic, as well as of Sorcery, and the practice of
both throughout all the dynasties. The _Book of the Dead_, far older than
_Genesis_(462) or any other book of the _Old Testament_, shows it in every
line. It is full of incessant prayers and exorcisms against the Black Art.
Therein Osiris is the conqueror of the “aerial demons.” The worshipper
implores his help against Matat, “from whose eye proceeds the invisible
arrow.” This “invisible arrow” that proceeds from the eye of the Sorcerer
(whether living or dead) and that “circulates throughout the world,” is
the evil eye—cosmic in its origin, terrestrial in its effects on the
microcosmical plane. It is not the Latin Christians whom it behoves to
view this as a superstition. Their Church indulges in the same belief, and
has even a prayer against the “arrow circulating in darkness.”

The most interesting of all those documents, however, is the “Harris”
papyrus, called in France “_le papyrus magique_ de Chabas,” as it was
first translated by the latter. It is a manuscript written in hieratic
characters, translated, commented upon, and published in 1860 by M.
Chabas, but purchased at Thebes in 1855 by Mr. Harris. Its age is given at
between twenty‐eight and thirty centuries. We quote a few extracts from
these translations:


    Calendar of lucky and unlucky days: ... He who makes a bull work
    on the 20th of the month of Pharmuths will surely die; he who on
    the 24th day of the same month pronounces the name of Seth aloud
    will see trouble reigning in his house from that day; ... he who
    on the 5th day of Patchous leaves his house falls sick and dies.


Exclaims the translator, whose cultured instincts are revolted:


    If one had not these words under our eyes, one could never believe
    in such servitude at the epoch of the Ramessides.(463)


We belong to the nineteenth century of the Christian era, and are
therefore at the height of civilization, and under the benign sway and
enlightening influence of the Christian Church, instead of being subject
to the Pagan Gods of old. Nevertheless we personally know dozens, and have
heard of hundreds, of educated, highly‐intellectual persons who would as
soon think of committing suicide as of starting on any business on a
Friday, of dining at a table where thirteen sit down, or of beginning a
long journey on a Monday. Napoleon the Great became pale when he saw three
candles lit on a table. Moreover, we may gladly concur with De Mirville in
this, at any rate, that such “superstitions” are “the outcome of
observation and experience.” If the former had never agreed with facts,
the authority of the _Calendar_, he thinks, would not have lasted for a
week. But to resume:


    _Genethliacal influences_: The child born on the 5th day of Paophi
    will be killed by a bull; on the 27th by a serpent. Born on the
    4th of the month of Athyr, he will succumb to blows.


This is a question of horoscopic predictions; judiciary astrology is
firmly believed in in our own age, and has been proven to be
scientifically possible by Kepler.

Of the Khous two kinds were distinguished: first, the justified Khous,
_i.e._, those who had been absolved from sin by Osiris when they were
brought before his tribunal; these lived a second life. Secondly, there
were the guilty Khous, “the Khous dead a second time;” these were the
damned. Second death did not annihilate them, but they were doomed to
wander about and to torture people. Their existence had phases analogous
to those of the living man, a bond so intimate between the dead and the
living that one sees how the observation of religious funeral rites and
exorcisms and prayers (or rather magic incantations) should have become
necessary.(464) Says one prayer:


    Do not permit that the venom should master his limbs [of the
    defunct], ... that he should be penetrated by any male dead, or
    any female dead; or that the shadow of any spirit should haunt him
    (or her).(465)


M. Chabas adds:


    These Khous were beings of that kind to which human beings belong
    after their death; they were exorcised in the name of the god
    Chons.... The Manes then could enter the bodies of the living,
    haunt and obsess them. Formulæ and talismans, and especially
    statues or _divine figures_, were used against such _formidable_
    invasions.(466)... They were combated by the help of the divine
    power, the god Chons being famed for such deliverances. The Khou,
    in obeying the orders of the god, none the less preserved the
    precious faculty inherent in him of accommodating himself in any
    other body at will.


The most frequent formula of exorcism is as follows. It is very
suggestive:


    Men, gods, elect, dead spirits, amous, negroes, menti‐u, do not
    look at this soul to show cruelty toward it.


This is addressed to all who were acquainted _with Magic_.

“Amulets and mystic names.” This chapter is called “very mysterious,” and
contains invocations to Penhakahakaherher and Uranaokarsankrobite, and
other such easy names. Says Chabas:


    We have proofs that mystic names similar to these were in common
    use during the stay of the Israelites in Egypt.


And we may add that, whether got from the Egyptians or the Hebrews, these
are sorcery names. The student can consult the works of Éliphas Lévi, such
as his _Grimoire des Sorciers_. In these exorcisms Osiris is called
Mamuram‐Kahab, and is implored to prevent the twice‐dead Khou from
attacking the justified Khou and his next of kin, since the accursed
(astral spook)


    Can take any form he likes and penetrate at will into any locality
    or body.


In studying Egyptian papyri, one begins to find that the subjects of the
Pharaohs were not very much inclined to the Spiritism or Spiritualism of
their day. They dreaded the “blessed spirit” of the dead more than a Roman
Catholic dreads the devil!

But how uncalled‐for and unjust is the charge against the Gods of Egypt
that they are these “devils,” and against the priests of exercising their
magic powers with the help of “the fallen angels,” may be seen in more
than one papyrus. For one often finds in them records of Sorcerers
sentenced to the death penalty, as though they had been living under the
protection of the holy Christian Inquisition. Here is one case during the
reign of Ramses III., quoted by De Mirville from Chabas.


    The first page begins with these words: “From the place where I am
    to the people of my country.” There is reason to suppose, as one
    will see, that the person who wrote this, in the first personal
    pronoun, is a magistrate making a report, and attesting it before
    men, after an accustomed formula, for here is the main part of
    this accusation: “This Hai, a bad man, was an overseer [or perhaps
    keeper] of sheep: he said: ‘Can I have a book that will give me
    great power?’... And a book was given him with the formulæ of
    Ramses‐Meri‐Amen, the great God, his royal master; and he
    succeeded in getting a divine power enabling him to fascinate men.
    He also succeeded in building a place and in finding a very _deep
    place_, and produced men of Menh [magical homunculi?] and ...
    love‐writings ... stealing them from the Khen [the occult library
    of the palace] by the hand of the stonemason Atirma, ... by
    forcing one of the supervisors to go aside, and acting magically
    on the others. Then he sought to read futurity by them and
    succeeded. All the horrors and abominations he had conceived in
    his heart, he did them really, he practised them all, and other
    great crimes as well, such as _the horror_ [?] of all the Gods and
    Goddesses. Likewise let the prescriptions _great_ [_severe?_]
    _unto death_ be done unto him, such as the divine words order to
    be done to him.” The accusation does not stop there, it specifies
    the crimes. The first line speaks of a hand paralysed by means of
    the _men of Menh_, to whom it is simply said, “_Let such an effect
    be produced_,” and it is produced. Then come the _great
    abominations_, such as deserve death.... The judges who had
    examined him (the culprit) reported saying, “Let him die according
    to the order of Pharaoh, and according to what is written in the
    lines of the divine language.”


M. Chabas remarks:


    Documents of this kind abound, but the task of analysing them all
    cannot be attempted with the limited means we possess.(467)


Then there is an inscription taken in the temple of Khous, the God who had
power over the elementaries, at Thebes. It was presented by M. Prisse
d’Avenne to the Imperial—now National—Library of Paris, and was translated
first by Mr. S. Birch. There is in it a whole romance of Magic. It dates
from the day of Ramses XII.(468) of the twentieth dynasty; it is from the
rendering of M. de Rougé as quoted by De Mirville, that we now translate
it.


    This monument tells us that one of the Ramses of the twentieth
    dynasty, while collecting at Naharain the tributes paid to Egypt
    by the Asiatic nations, fell in love with a daughter of the chief
    of Bakhten, one of his tributaries, married her and, bringing her
    to Egypt with him, raised her to the dignity of Queen, under the
    royal name of Ranefrou. Soon afterwards the chief of Bakhten
    dispatched a messenger to Ramses, praying the assistance of
    Egyptian science for Bent‐Rosh, a young sister of the queen,
    attacked with illness in all her limbs.

    The messenger asked expressly that a “wise‐man” [an Initiate—Reh‐
    Het] should be sent. The king gave orders that all the
    hierogrammatists of the palace and the guardians of the secret
    books of the Khen should be sent for, and choosing from among them
    the royal scribe Thoth‐em‐Hebi, an intelligent man, well versed in
    writing, charged him to examine the sickness.

    Arrived at Bakhten, Thoth‐em‐Hebi found that Bent‐Rosh was
    possessed by a Khou (Em‐seh‐’eru ker h’ou), but declared himself
    too weak to engage in a struggle with him.(469)

    Eleven years elapsed, and the young girl’s state did not improve.
    The chief of Bakhten again sent his messenger, and on his formal
    demand Khons‐peiri‐Seklerem‐Zam, one of the divine forms of
    Chons—God the Son in the Theban Trinity—was dispatched to
    Bakhten....

    The God [incarnate] having saluted (_besa_) the patient, she felt
    immediately relieved, and the Khou who was in her manifested
    forthwith his intention of obeying the orders of the God. “O great
    God, who forcest the phantom to vanish,” said the Khou, “I am thy
    slave and I will return whence I came!”(470)


Evidently Khons‐peiri‐Seklerem‐Zam was a real Hierophant of the class
named the “Sons of God,” since he is said to be one of the forms of the
God Khons; which means either that he was considered as an incarnation of
that God—an Avatâra—or that he was a full Initiate. The same text shows
that the temple to which he belonged was one of those to which a School of
Magic was attached. There was a Khen in it, or that portion of the temple
which was inaccessible to all but the highest priest, the library or
depository of secret works, to the study and care of which special priests
were appointed (those whom all the Pharaohs consulted in cases of great
importance), and wherein they communicated with the Gods and obtained
advice from them. Does not Lucian tell his readers in his description of
the temple of Hierapolis, of “Gods who manifest their presence
independently?”(471) And further on that he once travelled with a priest
from Memphis, who told him he had passed twenty‐three years in the
subterranean crypts of his temple, receiving instructions on Magic from
the Goddess Isis herself. Again we read that it was by Mercury himself
that the great Sesostris (Ramses II.) was instructed in the Sacred
Sciences. On which Jablonsky remarks that we have here the reason why Amun
(Ammon)—whence he thinks our “Amen” is derived—was a real evocation to the
light.(472)

In the Papyrus Anastasi, which teems with various formulæ for the
evocation of Gods, and with exorcisms against Khous and the elementary
demons, the seventh paragraph shows plainly the difference made between
the real Gods, the Planetary Angels, and those shells of mortals which are
left behind in Kâma‐loka, as though to tempt mankind and to puzzle it the
more hopelessly in its vain search after the truth, outside the Occult
Sciences and the veil of Initiation. This seventh verse says with regard
to such divine evocations or theomantic consultations:


    One must invoke that divine and great name(473) only in cases of
    absolute necessity, and when one feels absolutely pure and
    irreproachable.


Not so in the formula of black Magic. Reuvens, speaking of the two rituals
of Magic of the Anastasi collection, remarks that they


    Undeniably form the most instructive commentary upon the _Egyptian
    mysteries_ attributed to Jamblichus, and the best pendant to that
    classical work, for understanding the thaumaturgy of the
    philosophical sects, thaumaturgy based on ancient Egyptian
    religion. According to Jamblichus, thaumaturgy was exercised by
    the ministry of secondary genii.(474)


Reuvens closes with a remark which is very suggestive and is very
important to the Occultists who defend the antiquity and genuineness of
their documents, for he says:


    All that he [Jamblichus] gives out as theology we find as history
    in our papyri.


But then how deny the authenticity, the credibility, and, beyond all, the
trustworthiness of those classical writers, who all wrote about Magic and
its Mysteries in a most worshipful spirit of admiration and reverence?
Listen to Pindarus, who exclaims:


    Happy he who descends into the grave thus initiated, for he knows
    the end of his life and the kingdom(475) given by Jupiter.(476)


Or to Cicero:


    Initiation not only teaches us to feel happy in this life, but
    also to die with better hope.(477)


Plato, Pausanias, Strabo, Diodorus and dozens of others bring their
evidence as to the great boon of Initiation; all the great as well as the
partially‐initiated Adepts, share the enthusiasm of Cicero.


    Does not Plutarch, thinking of what he had learned in his
    initiation, console himself for the loss of his wife? Had he not
    obtained the certitude at the Mysteries of Bacchus that “the soul
    [spirit] remains incorruptible, and that there is a hereafter”?...
    Aristophanes went even farther: “All those who participated in the
    Mysteries,” he says, “led an innocent, calm, and holy life; they
    died looking for the light of the Eleusinian Fields [Devachan],
    while the rest could never expect anything but eternal darkness
    [ignorance?].

    “... And when one thinks about the importance attached by the
    States to the principle and the correct celebration of the
    Mysteries, to the stipulations made in their treaties for the
    security of their celebration, one sees to what degree those
    Mysteries had so long occupied their first and their last thought.

    “It was the greatest among public as well as private
    preoccupations, and this is only natural, since according to
    Döllinger, ‘the Eleusinian Mysteries were viewed as the
    efflorescence of all the Greek religion, as the purest essence of
    all its conceptions.’ ”(478)

    Not only conspirators were refused admittance therein, but those
    who had not denounced them; traitors, perjurers, debauchees,(479)
    ... so that Porphyry could say that: “Our soul has to be at the
    moment of death as it was during the Mysteries, _i.e._, exempt
    from any blemishes, passion, envy, hatred, or anger.”(480)


Truly,


    Magic was considered a Divine Science which led to a participation
    in the attributes of the Divinity itself.(481)


Herodotus, Thales, Parmenides, Empedocles, Orpheus, Pythagoras, all went,
each in his day, in search of the wisdom of Egypt’s great Hierophants, in
the hope of solving the problems of the universe.

Says Philo:


    The Mysteries were known to unveil the secret operations of
    Nature.(482)

    The prodigies accomplished by the priests of theurgic magic are so
    well authenticated and the evidence—if human testimony is worth
    anything at all—is so overwhelming that, rather than confess that
    the pagan theurgists far outrivalled the Christians in miracles,
    Sir David Brewster conceded to the former the greatest proficiency
    in physics and everything that pertains to natural philosophy.
    Science finds herself in a very disagreeable dilemma....

    “Magic,” says Psellus, “formed the last part of the sacerdotal
    science. It investigated the nature, power, and quality of
    everything sublunary; of the elements and their parts, of animals,
    of various plants and their fruits, of stones and herbs. In short,
    it explored the essence and power of everything. From hence,
    therefore, it produced its effects. And it formed _statues_
    [magnetized] which procure health, and made all various figures
    and things [talismans], which could equally become the instruments
    of disease as well as of health. Often, too, celestial fire is
    made to appear through magic, and then statues laugh and lamps are
    spontaneously enkindled.”(483)


This assertion of Psellus that Magic “made statues which procure health,”
is now proven to the world to be no dream, no vain boast of a hallucinated
Theurgist. As Reuvens says, it becomes “history.” For it is found in the
_Papyrus Magique_ of Harris and on the votive stele just mentioned. Both
Chabas and De Rougé state that:


    On the eighteenth line of this very mutilated monument is found
    the formula with regard to the acquiescence of the God (Chons) who
    made his consent known by a motion he imparted to his statue.(484)


There was even a dispute over it between the two Orientalists. While M. de
Rougé wanted to translate the word “Han” by “favour” or “grace,” M. Chabas
insisted that “Han” meant a “movement” or “_a sign_” made by the statue.

Excesses of power, abuse of knowledge and personal ambition very often led
selfish and unscrupulous Initiates to black Magic, just as the same causes
led to precisely the same thing among Christian popes and cardinals; and
it was black Magic that led finally to the abolition of the Mysteries, and
not Christianity, as is often erroneously thought. Read Mommsen’s _Roman
History_, vol. i., and you will find that it was the Pagans themselves who
put an end to the desecration of the Divine Science. As early as 560 B.C.
the Romans had discovered an Occult association, a school of black Magic
of the most revolting kind; it celebrated mysteries brought from Etruria,
and very soon the moral pestilence had spread all over Italy


    More than seven thousand Initiates were prosecuted, and most of
    them were sentenced to death....

    Later on, Titus‐Livius shows us another three thousand Initiates
    sentenced during a single year for the crime of poisoning.(485)


And yet black Magic is derided and denied!

Paulthier may or may not be too enthusiastic in saying that India appears
to him as


    The grand and primitive hearth of human thought, that has ended by
    embracing the whole ancient world,


but he was right in his idea. That primitive thought led to Occult
knowledge, which in our Fifth Race is reflected from the earliest days of
the Egyptian Pharaohs down to our modern times. Hardly a hieratic papyrus
is exhumed with the tightly swathed‐up mummies of kings and high priests
that does not contain some interesting information for the modern students
of Occultism.

All that is, of course, derided Magic, the outcome of primitive knowledge
and of revelation, though it was practised in such ungodly ways by the
Atlantean Sorcerers that it has since become necessary for the subsequent
Race to draw a thick veil over the practices which were used to obtain so‐
called magical effects on the psychic and on the physical planes. In the
letter no one in our century will believe the statements, with the
exception of the Roman Catholics, and these will give the acts a satanic
origin. Nevertheless, Magic is so mixed up with the history of the world,
that if the latter is ever to be written it has to rely upon the
discoveries of Archæology, Egyptology, and hieratic writings and
inscriptions; if it insists that they must be free from that “superstition
of the ages” it will never see the light. One can well imagine the
embarrassing position in which serious Egyptologists, Assyriologists,
savants and academicians find themselves. Forced to translate and
interpret the old papyri and the archaic inscriptions on stelæ and
Babylonian cylinders, they find themselves compelled from first to last to
face the distasteful, and to them repulsive, subject of Magic, with its
incantations and paraphernalia. Here they find sober and grave narratives
from the pens of learned scribes, made up under the direct supervision of
Chaldæan or Egyptian Hierophants, the most learned among the Philosophers
of antiquity. These statements were written at the solemn hour of the
death and burial of Pharaohs, High Priests, and other mighty ones of the
land of Chemi; their purpose was the introduction of the newly‐born,
Osirified Soul before the awful‐tribunal of the “Great Judge” in the
region of Amenti—there where a _lie_ was said to outweigh the greatest
crimes. Were the Scribes and Hierophants, Pharaohs, and King‐Priests all
fools or frauds to have either believed in, or tried to make others
believe in, such “cock‐and bull stories” as are found in the most
respectable papyri? Yet there is no help for it. Corroborated by Plato and
Herodotus, by Manetho and Syncellus, as by all the greatest and most
trustworthy authors and philosophers who wrote upon the subject, those
papyri note down—as seriously as they note any history, or any fact so
well known and accepted as to need no commentary—whole royal dynasties of
Manes, to wit, of shadows and phantoms (astral bodies), and such feats of
magic skill and such Occult phenomena, that the most credulous Occultist
of our own times would hesitate to believe them to be true.

The Orientalists have found a plank of salvation, while yet publishing and
delivering the papyri to the criticism of literary Sadducees: they
generally call them “romances of the days of Pharaoh So‐and‐So.” The idea
is ingenious, if not absolutely fair.



SECTION XXVIII. THE ORIGIN OF THE MYSTERIES.


All that is explained in the preceding Sections and a hundredfold more was
taught in the Mysteries from time immemorial. If the first appearance of
those institutions is a matter of historical tradition with regard to some
of the later nations, their origin must certainly be assigned to the time
of the Fourth Root Race. The Mysteries were imparted to the elect of that
Race when the average Atlantean had begun to fall too deeply into sin to
be trusted with the secrets of Nature. Their establishment is attributed
in the Secret Works to the King‐Initiates of the divine dynasties, when
the “Sons of God” had gradually allowed their country to become Kookarma‐
des (the land of vice).

The antiquity of the Mysteries may be inferred from the history of the
worship of Hercules in Egypt. This Hercules, according to what the priests
told Herodotus, was not Grecian, for he says:


    Of the Grecian Hercules I could in no part of Egypt procure any
    knowledge: ... the name was never borrowed by Egypt from
    Greece.... Hercules, ... as they [the priests] affirm, is one of
    the twelve (great Gods), who were reproduced from the earlier
    eight Gods 17,000 years before the year of Amasis.


Hercules is of Indian origin, and—his Biblical chronology put
aside—Colonel Tod was quite right in his suggestion that he was Balarâma
or Baladeva. Now one must read the _Purânas_ with the Esoteric key in
one’s hand in order to find out how on almost every page they corroborate
the Secret Doctrine. The ancient classical writers so well understood this
truth that they unanimously attributed to Asia the origin of Hercules.


    A section of the Mahâbhârata is devoted to the history of the
    Hercûla, of which race was Vyasa.... Diodorus has the same legend
    with some variety. He says: “Hercules was born amongst the Indians
    and, like the Greeks, they furnish him with a club and lion’s
    hide.” Both [Krishna and Baladeva] are (lords) of the race (cûla)
    of Heri (Heri‐cul‐es) of which the Greeks might have made the
    compound Hercules.(486)


The Occult Doctrine explains that Hercules was the last incarnation of one
of the seven “Lords of the Flame,” as Krishna’s brother, Baladeva. That
his incarnations occurred during the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Root‐Races,
and that his worship was brought into Egypt from Lanka and India by the
later immigrants. That he was borrowed by the Greeks from the Egyptians is
certain, the more so as the Greeks place his birth at Thebes, and only his
twelve labours at Argos. Now we find in the _Vishnu Purâna_ a complete
corroboration of the statement made in the Secret Teachings, of which
Purânic allegory the following is a short summary:

Raivata, a grandson of Sharyâti, Manu’s fourth son, finding no man worthy
of his lovely daughter, repaired with her to Brahmâ’s region to consult
the God in this emergency. Upon his arrival, Hâhâ Hûhû, and other
Gandharvas were singing before the throne, and Raivata, waiting till they
had done, imagined that but one Muhûrta (instant) had passed, whereas long
ages had elapsed. When they had finished Raivata prostrated himself and
explained his perplexity. Then Brahmâ asked him whom he wished for a son‐
in‐law, and upon hearing a few personages named, the Father of the World
smiled and said: “Of those whom you have named the third and fourth
generation [Root‐Races] no longer survive, for many successions of ages
[Chatur‐Yuga, or the four Yuga cycles] have passed away while you were
listening to our songsters. Now on earth the twenty‐eighth great age of
the present Manu is nearly finished and the Kali period is at hand. You
must therefore bestow this virgin‐gem upon some other husband. For you are
now alone.”

Then the Râja Raivata is told to proceed to Kushasthalî, his ancient
capital, which was now called Dvârakâ, and where reigned in his stead a
portion of the divine being (Vishnu) in the person of Baladeva, the
brother of Krishna, regarded as the seventh incarnation of Vishnu whenever
Krishna is taken as a full divinity.

“Being thus instructed by the Lotus‐born [Brahmâ], Raivata returned with
his daughter to earth, where he found the race of men dwindled in stature
[see what is said in the Stanzas and Commentaries of the races of mankind
gradually decreasing in stature]; ... reduced in vigour, and enfeebled in
intellect. Repairing to the city of Kushasthalî, he found it much
altered,” because, according to the allegorical explanation of the
commentator, “Krishna had reclaimed from the sea a portion of the
country,” which means in plain language that the continents had all been
changed meanwhile—and “had renovated the city”—or rather built a new one,
Dvârakâ; for one reads in the _Bhagavad Purâna_(487) that Kushasthalî was
founded and built by Raivata within the sea; and subsequent discoveries
showed that it was the same, or on the same spot, as Dvârakâ. Therefore it
was on an island before. The allegory in _Vishnu Purâna_ shows King
Raivata giving his daughter to “the wielder of the ploughshare”—or rather
“the plough‐bannered”—Baladeva, who “beholding the damsel of excessively
lofty height ... shortened her with the end of his ploughshare, and she
became his wife.”(488)

This is a plain allusion to the Third and Fourth Races—to the Atlantean
giants and the successive incarnations of the “Sons of the Flame” and
other orders of Dhyân Chohans in the heroes and kings of mankind, down to
the Kali Yuga, or Black Age, the beginning of which is within historical
times. Another _coincidence_: Thebes is the city of a hundred gates, and
Dvârakâ is so called from its many gateways or doors, from the word
“Dvâra,” “gateway.” Both Hercules and Baladeva are of a passionate, hot
temper, and both are renowned for the fairness of their white skins. There
is not the slightest doubt that Hercules is Baladeva in Greek dress.
Arrian notices the great similarity between the Theban and the Hindu
Hercules, the latter being worshipped by the Suraseni who built Methorea,
or Mathûrâ, Krishna’s birthplace. The same writer places Sandracottus
(Chandragupta, the grandfather of King Asoka, of the clan of Morya) in the
direct line of the descendants of Baladeva.

There were no Mysteries in the beginning, we are taught. Knowledge (Vidyâ)
was common property, and it reigned universally throughout the Golden Age
(Satya Yuga). As says the Commentary:

_Men had not created evil yet in those days of bliss and purity, for they
were of God‐like more than of human nature._

But when mankind, rapidly increasing in numbers, increased also in variety
of idiosyncrasies of body and mind, then incarnated Spirit showed its
weakness. Natural exaggerations, and along with these superstitions, arose
in the less cultured and healthy minds. Selfishness was born out of
desires and passions hitherto unknown, and but too often knowledge and
power were abused, until finally it became necessary to limit the number
of those _who knew_. Thus arose Initiation.

Every separate nation now arranged for itself a religious system,
according to its enlightenment and spiritual wants. Worship of mere form
being discarded by the wise men, these confined true knowledge to the very
few. The need of veiling truth to protect it from desecration becoming
more apparent with every generation, a thin veil was used at first, which
had to be gradually thickened according to the spread of personality and
selfishness, and this led to the Mysteries. They came to be established in
every country and among every people, while to avoid strife and
misunderstanding exoteric beliefs were allowed to grow up in the minds of
the profane masses. Inoffensive and innocent in their incipient stage—like
a historical event arranged in the form of a fairy tale, adapted for and
comprehensible to the child’s mind—in those distant ages such beliefs
could be allowed to grow and make the popular faith without any danger to
the more philosophical and abstruse truths taught in the sanctuaries.
Logical and scientific observation of the phenomena in Nature, which alone
leads man to the knowledge of eternal truths—provided he approaches the
threshold of observation unbiassed by preconception and sees with his
spiritual eye before he looks at things from their physical aspect—does
not lie within the province of the masses. The marvels of the One Spirit
of Truth, the ever‐concealed and inaccessible Deity, can be unravelled and
assimilated only through Its manifestations by the secondary “Gods,” Its
acting powers. While the One and Universal Cause has to remain for ever
_in abscondito_, Its manifold action may be traced through the effects in
Nature. The latter alone being comprehensible and manifest to average
mankind, the Powers causing those effects were allowed to grow in the
imagination of the populace. Ages later in the Fifth, the Âryan, Race some
unscrupulous priests began to take advantage of the too‐easy beliefs of
the people in every country, and finally raised those secondary Powers to
the rank of God and Gods, thus succeeding in isolating them altogether
from the One Universal Cause of all causes.(489)

Henceforward the knowledge of the primeval truths remained entirely in the
hands of the Initiates.

The Mysteries had their weak points and their defects, as every
institution welded with the human element must necessarily have. Yet
Voltaire has characterised their benefits in a few words:


    In the chaos of popular superstitions there existed an institution
    which has ever prevented man from falling into absolute brutality:
    it was that of the Mysteries.


Verily, as Ragon puts it of Masonry;


    Its temple has Time for duration, the Universe for space.... “Let
    us divide that we may rule,” have said the crafty; “Let us unite
    to resist,” have said the first Masons.(490)


Or rather, the Initiates whom the Masons have never ceased to claim as
their primitive and direct Masters. The first and fundamental principle of
moral strength and power is association and solidarity of thought and
purpose. “The Sons of Will and Yoga” united in the beginning to resist the
terrible and ever‐growing iniquities of the left‐hand Adepts, the
Atlanteans. This led to the foundation of still more Secret Schools,
temples of learning, and of Mysteries inaccessible to all except after the
most terrible trials and probations.

Anything that might be said of the earliest Adepts and their divine
Masters would be regarded as fiction. It is necessary, therefore, if we
would know something of the primitive Initiates to judge of the tree by
its fruits; to examine the bearing and the work of their successors in the
Fifth Race as reflected in the works of the classic writers and the great
Philosophers. How were Initiation and the Initiates regarded during some
2,000 years by the Greek and Roman writers? Cicero informs his readers in
very clear terms. He says:


    An Initiate must practise all the virtues in his power: justice,
    fidelity, liberality, modesty, temperance; these virtues cause men
    to forget the talents that he may lack.(491)


Ragon says:


    When the Egyptian priests said: “All for the people, nothing
    through the people,” they were right: in an ignorant nation truth
    must be revealed only to trustworthy persons.... We have seen in
    our days, “all through the people, nothing for the people,” a
    false and dangerous system. The real axiom ought to be: “All for
    the people and _with_ the people.”(492)


But in order to achieve this reform the masses have to pass through a dual
transformation: (_a_) to become divorced from every element of exoteric
superstition and priestcraft, and (_b_) to become educated men, free from
every danger of being enslaved whether by a man or an idea.

This, in view of the preceding, may seem paradoxical. The Initiates were
“priests,” we may be told—at any rate, all the Hindu, Egyptian, Chaldæan,
Greek, Phœnician, and other Hierophants and Adepts were priests in the
temples, and it was they who invented their respective exoteric creeds. To
this the answer is possible: “The cowl does not make the friar.” If one
may believe tradition and the unanimous opinion of ancient writers, added
to the examples we have in the “priests” of India, the most conservative
nation in the world, it becomes quite certain that the Egyptian priests
were no more priests in the sense we give to the word than are the temple
Brâhmans. They could never be regarded as such if we take as our standard
the European clergy. Laurens observes very correctly that:


    The priests of Egypt were not, strictly speaking, ministers of
    religion. The word “priest,” which translation has been badly
    interpreted, had an acceptation very different from the one that
    is applied to it among us. In the language of antiquity, and
    especially in the sense of the initiation of the priests of
    ancient Egypt, the word “priest” is synonymous with that of
    “philosopher.”... The institution of the Egyptian priests seems to
    have been really a confederation of sages gathered to study the
    art of ruling men, to centre the domain of truth, modulate its
    propagation, and arrest its too dangerous dispersion.(493)


The Egyptian Priests, like the Brâhmans of old, held the reins of the
governing powers, a system that descended to them by direct inheritance
from the Initiates of the great Atlantis. The pure cult of Nature in the
earliest patriarchal days—the word “patriarch” applying in its first
original sense to the Progenitors of the human race,(494) the Fathers,
Chiefs, and Instructors of primitive men—became the heirloom of those
alone who could discern the noumenon beneath the phenomenon. Later, the
Initiates transmitted their knowledge to the human kings, as their divine
Masters had passed it to their forefathers. It was their prerogative and
duty to reveal the secrets of Nature that were useful to mankind—the
hidden virtues of plants, the art of healing the sick, and of bringing
about brotherly love and mutual help among mankind. No Initiate was one if
he could not heal—aye, recall to life from apparent death (coma) those
who, too long neglected, would have indeed died during their
lethargy.(495) Those who showed such powers were forthwith set above the
crowds, and were regarded as Kings and Initiates. Gautama Buddha was a
King‐Initiate, a healer, and recalled to life those who were in the hands
of death. Jesus and Apollonius were healers, and were both addressed as
Kings by their followers. Had they failed to raise those who were to all
intents and purposes the dead, none of their names would have passed down
to posterity; for this was the first and crucial test, the certain sign
that the Adept had upon Him the invisible hand of a primordial divine
Master, or was an incarnation of one of the “Gods.”

The later royal privilege descended to our Fifth Race kings through the
kings of Egypt. The latter were all initiated into the mysteries of
medicine, and they healed the sick, even when, owing to the terrible
trials and labours of final Initiation, they were unable to become full
Hierophants. They were healers by privilege and by tradition, and were
assisted in the healing art by the Hierophants of the temples, when they
themselves were ignorant of Occult curative Science. So also in far later
historical times we find Pyrrhus curing the sick by simply touching them
with his foot; Vespasian and Hadrian needed only to pronounce a few words
taught to them by their Hierophants, in order to restore sight to the
blind and health to the cripple. From that time onward history has
recorded cases of the same privilege conferred on the emperors and kings
of almost every nation.(496)

That which is known of the Priests of Egypt and of the ancient Brâhmans,
corroborated as it is by all the ancient classics and historical writers,
gives us the right to believe in that which is only traditional in the
opinion of sceptics. Whence the wonderful knowledge of the Egyptian
Priests in every department of Science, unless they had it from a still
more ancient source? The famous “Four,” the seats of learning in old
Egypt, are more historically certain than the beginnings of modern
England. It was in the great Theban sanctuary that Pythagoras upon his
arrival from India studied the Science of Occult numbers. It was in
Memphis that Orpheus popularized his too‐abstruse Indian metaphysics for
the use of Magna Grecia; and thence Thales, and ages later Democritus,
obtained all they knew. It is to Saïs that all the honour must be given of
the wonderful legislation and the art of ruling people, imparted by its
Priests to Lycurgus and Solon, who will both remain objects of admiration
for generations to come. And had Plato and Eudoxus never gone to worship
at the shrine of Heliopolis, most probably the one would have never
astonished future generations with his ethics, nor the other with his
wonderful knowledge of mathematics.(497)

The great modern writer on the Mysteries of Egyptian Initiation—one,
however, who knew nothing of those in India—the late Ragon, has not
exaggerated in maintaining that:


    All the notions possessed by Hindustan, Persia, Syria, Arabia,
    Chaldæa, Sydonia, and the priests of Babylonia, [on the secrets of
    Nature], was known to the Egyptian priests. It is thus Indian
    philosophy, without mysteries, which, having penetrated into
    Chaldæa and ancient Persia, gave rise to the doctrine of Egyptian
    Mysteries.(498)


The Mysteries preceded the hieroglyphics.(499) They gave birth to the
latter, as permanent records were needed to preserve and commemorate their
secrets. It is primitive Philosophy(500) that has served as the
foundation‐stone for modern Philosophy; only the progeny, while
perpetuating the features of the external body, has lost on its way the
Soul and Spirit of its parent.

Initiation, though it contained neither rules and principles, nor any
special teaching of Science—as now understood—was nevertheless Science,
and the Science of sciences. And though devoid of dogma, of physical
discipline, and of exclusive ritual, it was yet the one true Religion—that
of eternal truth. Outwardly it was a school, a college, wherein were
taught sciences, arts, ethics, legislation, philanthropy, the cult of the
true and real nature of cosmic phenomena; secretly, during the Mysteries,
practical proofs of the latter were given. Those who could learn truth on
all things—_i.e._, those who could look the great Isis in her unveiled
face and bear the awful majesty of the Goddess—became Initiates. But the
children of the Fifth Race had fallen too deeply into matter always to do
so with impunity. Those who failed disappeared from the world, without
leaving a trace behind. Which of the highest kings would have dared to
claim any individual, however high his social standing, from the stern
priests, once that the victim had crossed the threshold of their sacred
Adytum?

The noble precepts taught by the Initiates of the early races passed to
India, Egypt, and Greece, to China and Chaldæa, and thus spread all over
the world. All that is good, noble, and grand in human nature, every
divine faculty and aspiration, were cultured by the Priest‐Philosophers
who sought to develop them in their Initiates. Their code of ethics, based
on altruism, has become universal. It is found in Confucius, the
“atheist,” who taught that “he who loves not his brother has no virtue in
him,” and in the _Old Testament_ precept, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour
as thyself.”(501) The greater Initiates became like unto Gods, and
Socrates, in Plato’s _Phædo_, is represented as saying:


    The Initiates are sure to come into the company of the Gods.


In the same work the great Athenian Sage is made to say:


    It is quite apparent that those who have established the
    Mysteries, or the secret assemblies of the Initiates, were no mean
    persons, but powerful genii, who from the first ages had
    endeavoured to make us understand under those enigmas that he who
    will reach the invisible regions unpurified will be hurled into
    the abyss [the Eighth Sphere of the Occult Doctrine; that is, he
    will lose his personality for ever], while he who will attain them
    purged of the maculations of this world, and accomplished in
    virtues, will be received in the abode of the Gods.


Said Clemens Alexandrinus, referring to the Mysteries:


    Here ends all teaching. One sees Nature and all things.


A Christian Father of the Church speaks then as did the Pagan Pretextatus,
the pro‐consul of Achaia (fourth century A.D.), “a man of eminent
virtues,” who remarked that to deprive the Greeks of “the sacred Mysteries
which bind in one the whole of mankind,” was to render their very lives
worthless to them. Would the Mysteries have ever obtained the highest
praise from the noblest men of antiquity had they not been of more than
human origin? Read all that is said of this unparalleled institution, as
much by those who had never been initiated, as by the Initiates
themselves. Consult Plato, Euripides, Socrates, Aristophanes, Pindar,
Plutarch, Isocrates, Diodorus, Cicero, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, not to
name dozens of other famous Sages and writers. That which the Gods and
Angels had _revealed_, exoteric religions, beginning with that of Moses,
_reveiled_ and hid for ages from the sight of the world. Joseph, the son
of Jacob, was an Initiate, otherwise he would not have married Aseneth,
the daughter of Petephre (“Potiphar”—“he who belongs to Phre,” the Sun‐
God), priest of Heliopolis and governor of On.(502) Every truth _revealed_
by Jesus, and which even the Jews and early Christians understood, was
_reveiled_ by the Church that pretends to serve Him. Read what Seneca
says, as quoted by Dr. Kenealy:


    “The world being melted and having reëntered the bosom of Jupiter
    [or Parabrahman], this God continues for some time totally
    concentred in himself and remains concealed, as it were, wholly
    immersed in the contemplation of his own ideas. Afterwards we see
    a new world spring from him.... An innocent race of men is
    formed.” And again, speaking of a mundane dissolution as involving
    the destruction or death of all, he [Seneca] teaches us that when
    the laws of Nature shall be buried in ruin and the last day of the
    world shall come, the Southern Pole shall crush, as it falls, all
    the regions of Africa; and the North Pole shall overwhelm all the
    countries beneath its axis. _The affrighted sun shall be deprived
    of its light_; the palace of heaven, falling to decay, shall
    produce at once both life and death, and some kind of dissolution
    shall equally seize upon all the deities, who thus shall return to
    their original chaos.(503)


One might fancy oneself reading the Purânic account by Parâshara of the
great Pralaya. It is nearly the same thing, idea for idea. Has
Christianity nothing of the kind? Let the reader open any English _Bible_
and read chapter iii. of the _Second Epistle of Peter_, and he will find
there the same ideas.


    There shall come in the last days scoffers, ... saying, Where is
    the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all
    things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
    For this they willingly are ignorant of that by the word of God
    the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water
    and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being
    overflowed with water, perished. But the heavens and the earth,
    which are now, by the same word are ... reserved unto fire, ... in
    the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the
    elements shall melt with fervent heat.... Nevertheless we ... look
    for new heavens and a new earth.


If the interpreters chose to see in this a reference to a creation, a
deluge, and a promised coming of Christ, when they will live in a New
Jerusalem in heaven, that is no fault of Peter. What he meant was the
destruction of the Fifth Race and the appearance of a new continent for
the Sixth Race.

The Druids understood the meaning of the Sun in Taurus, therefore when all
the fires were extinguished on the 1st of November their sacred and
inextinguishable fire remained alone to illumine the horizon like those of
the Magi and the modern Zoroastrian. And like the early Fifth Race and the
later Chaldæans and Greeks, and again like the Christians (who do it to
this day without suspecting the real meaning), they greeted the “Morning‐
Star,” the beautiful Venus‐Lucifer.(504) Strabo speaks of an island near
Britannia where Ceres and Persephone were worshipped with the same rites
as in Samothrace, and this was the sacred Ierna, where a perpetual fire
was lit. The Druids believed in the rebirth of man, not, as Lucian
explains,


    That the same _Spirit_ shall animate a new body, not here, but in
    a different world,


but in a series of reïncarnations in this same world; for as Diodorus
says, they declared that the souls of men after a determinate period would
pass into other bodies.(505)

These tenets came to the Fifth Race Âryans from their ancestors of the
Fourth Race, the Atlanteans. They piously preserved the teachings, while
their parent Root‐Race, becoming with every generation more arrogant,
owing to the acquisition of superhuman powers, were gradually approaching
their end.



SECTION XXIX. THE TRIAL OF THE SUN INITIATE.


We will begin with the ancient Mysteries—those received from the
Atlanteans by the primitive Âryans—whose mental and intellectual state
Professor Max Müller has described with such a masterly hand, yet left so
incomplete withal.


    He says: We have in it [in the _Rig Veda_] a period of the
    intellectual life of man to which there is no parallel in any
    other part of the world. In the hymns of the _Veda_ we see man
    left to himself to solve the riddle of this world.... He invokes
    the gods around him, he praises, he worships them. But still with
    all these gods ... beneath him, and above him, the early poet
    seems ill at rest within himself. There, too, in his own breast,
    he has discovered a power that is never mute when he prays, never
    absent when he fears and trembles. It seems to inspire his prayers
    and yet to listen to them; it seems to live in him, and yet to
    support him and all around him. The only name he can find for this
    mysterious power is “Brahman;” for brahman meant originally force,
    will, wish, and the propulsive power of creation. But this
    impersonal brahman too, as soon as it is named, grows into
    something strange and divine. It ends by being one of many gods,
    one of the great triad, worshipped to the present day. And still
    the thought within him has no real name; that power which is
    nothing but itself, which supports the gods, the heavens, and
    every living being, floats before his mind, conceived but not
    expressed. At last he calls it “Âtman,” for âtman, originally
    breath or spirit, comes to mean Self and Self alone, Self, whether
    divine or human; Self, whether creating or suffering; Self,
    whether One or All; but always Self, independent and free. “Who
    has seen the first‐born?” says the poet, “when he who had no bones
    (_i.e._, form) bore him that had bones? Where was the life, the
    blood, the Self of the world? Who went to ask this from any one
    who knew it? (_Rig Veda_, I, 164, 4.) This idea of a divine Self
    once expressed, everything else must acknowledge its supremacy;
    _Self_ is the Lord of all things; it is the King of all things; as
    all the spokes of a wheel are contained in the nave and
    circumference, all things are contained in this Self; all selves
    are contained in this _Self_.” (Brihadâranyaka, IV. v. 15).(506)


This Self, the highest, the one, and the universal, was symbolised on the
plane of mortals by the Sun, its life‐giving effulgence being in its turn
the emblem of the Soul—killing the terrestrial passions which have ever
been an impediment to the re‐union of the Unit Self (the Spirit) with the
All‐Self. Hence the allegorical mystery, only the broad features of which
may be given here. It was enacted by the “Sons of the Fire‐Mist” and of
“Light.” The second Sun (the “second hypostasis” of Rabbi Drach) appeared
as put on his trial, Vishvakarma, the Hierophant, cutting off seven of his
beams, and replacing them with a crown of brambles, when the “Sun” became
Vikarttana, shorn of his beams or rays. After that, the Sun—enacted by a
neophyte ready to be initiated—was made to descend into Pâtâla, the nether
regions, on a trial of Tantalus. Coming out of it triumphant, he emerged
from this region of lust and iniquity, to re‐become Karmasâkshin, witness
of the Karma of men,(507) and arose once more triumphant in all the glory
of his regeneration, as the Graha‐Râjah, King of the Constellations, and
was addressed as Gabhastiman, “re‐possessed of his rays.”

The “fable” in the popular Pantheon of India, founded upon, and born out
of the poetical mysticism of the _Rig‐Veda_—the sayings of which were
mostly all dramatised during the religious Mysteries—grew in the course of
its exoteric evolution into the following allegory. It may be found now in
several of the _Purânas_ and in other Scriptures. In the _Rig‐Veda_ and
its Hymns, Vishvakarma, a Mystery‐God, is the Logos, the Demiurgos, one of
the greatest Gods, and spoken of in two of the hymns as the highest. He is
the Omnificent (Vishvakarma), called the “Great Architect of the
Universe,” the


    All seeing God, ... the father, the generator, the disposer, who
    gives the gods their names, and is beyond the comprehension of
    mortals,


as is every Mystery‐God. Esoterically, He is the personification of the
creative manifested Power: and mystically He is the seventh principle in
man, in its collectivity. For He is the son of Bhuvana, the self‐created,
luminous Essence, and of the virtuous, chaste and lovely Yoga‐Siddhâ, the
virgin Goddess, whose name speaks for itself, since it personified Yoga‐
power, the “chaste mother” that creates the Adepts. In the Rig‐Vaidic
Hymns, Vishvakarma performs the “great sacrifice,” _i.e._, sacrifices
himself for the world; or, as the _Nirukta_ is made to say, translated by
the Orientalists:


    Vishvakarma first of all offers up all the world in a sacrifice,
    and then ends by sacrificing himself.


In the mystical representations of his character, Vishvakarma is often
called Vittoba, and is pictured as the “Victim,” the “Man‐God,” or the
Avatâra crucified in space.

[Of the true Mysteries, the real Initiations, nothing of course can be
said in public; they can be known only to those who are able to experience
them. But a few hints can be given of the great ceremonial Mysteries of
Antiquity, which stood to the public as the real Mysteries, and into which
candidates were initiated with much ceremony and display of Occult Arts.
Behind these, in silence and darkness, were the true Mysteries, as they
have always existed and continue to exist. In Egypt, as in Chaldæa and
later in Greece, the Mysteries were celebrated at stated times, and the
first day was a public holiday, on which, with much pomp, the candidates
were escorted to the Great Pyramid and passed thereinto out of sight. The
second day was devoted to ceremonies of purification, at the close of
which the candidate was presented with a white robe; on the third
day](508) he was tried and examined as to his proficiency in Occult
learning. On the fourth day, after another ceremony symbolical of
purification, he was sent alone to pass through various trials, finally
becoming entranced in a subterranean crypt, in utter darkness, for two
days and two nights. In Egypt, the entranced neophyte was placed in an
empty sarcophagus in the Pyramid, where the initiatory rites took place.
In India and Central Asia, he was bound on a lathe, and when his body had
become like that of one dead (entranced), he was carried into the crypt.
Then the Hierophant kept watch over him “guiding the apparitional soul
(astral body) from this world of Samsâra (or delusion) to the _nether_
kingdoms, from which, if successful, he had the right of releasing _seven
suffering souls_” (Elementaries). Clothed with his Anandamayakosha, the
body of bliss—the Srotâpanna remained there where we have no right to
follow him, and upon returning—received the _Word_, with or without the
“heart’s blood” of the Hierophant.(509)

Only in truth the Hierophant was never killed—neither in India nor
elsewhere, the murder being simply feigned—unless the Initiator had chosen
the Initiate for his successor and had decided to pass to him the last and
supreme Word, after which he had to die—only one man in a nation having
the right to know that word. Many are those grand Initiates who have thus
passed out of the world’s sight, disappearing


    As mysteriously from the sight of men as Moses from the top of
    Mount Pisgah (_Nebo_, oracular Wisdom), after he had laid his
    hands upon Joshua, who thus became “full of the spirit of wisdom,”
    _i.e._, initiated.


But he died, he was not killed. For killing, if really done, would belong
to black, not to divine Magic. It is the transmission of light, rather
than a transfer of life, of life spiritual and divine, and it is the
shedding of Wisdom, not of blood. But the uninitiated inventors of
theological Christianity took the allegorical language _à la lettre_; and
instituted a dogma, the crude, misunderstood expression of which horrifies
and repels the spiritual “heathen.”

All these Hierophants and Initiates were types of the Sun and of the
Creative Principle (spiritual potency) as were Vishvakarma and Vikarttana,
from the origin of the Mysteries. Ragon, the famous Mason, gives curious
details and explanations with regard to the Sun rites. He shows that the
biblical Hiram, the great hero of Masonry (the “widow’s son”) a type taken
from Osiris, is the Sun‐God, the inventor of arts, and the “architect,”
the name Hiram meaning the _elevated_, a title belonging to the Sun. Every
Occultist knows how closely related to Osiris and the Pyramids are the
narratives in _Kings_ concerning Solomon, his Temple and its construction;
he knows also that the whole of the Masonic rite of Initiation is based
upon the Biblical allegory of the construction of that Temple, Masons
conveniently forgetting, or perhaps ignoring, the fact that the latter
narrative is modelled upon Egyptian and still earlier symbolisms. Ragon
explains it by showing that the three companions of Hiram, the “three
murderers,” typify the three last months of the year; and that Hiram
stands for the Sun—from its summer solstice downwards, when it begins
decreasing—the whole rite being an astronomical allegory.


    During the summer solstice, the Sun provokes songs of gratitude
    from all that breathes; hence Hiram, who represents it, can give
    to whomsoever has the right to it, the sacred Word, that is to say
    life. When the Sun descends to the inferior signs all Nature
    becomes mute, and Hiram can no longer give the sacred Word to the
    companions, who represent the three inert months of the year. The
    first companion strikes Hiram feebly with a rule twenty‐four
    inches long, symbol of the twenty‐four hours which make up each
    diurnal revolution; it is the first distribution of time, which
    after the exaltation of the mighty star, feebly assails his
    existence, giving him the first blow. The second companion strikes
    him with an _iron square_, symbol of the last season, figured by
    the intersections of two right lines, which would divide into four
    equal parts the Zodiacal circle, whose centre symbolises Hiram’s
    heart, where it touches the point of the four squares representing
    the four seasons: second distribution of time, which at that
    period strikes a heavier blow at the solar existence. The third
    companion strikes him mortally on his forehead with a heavy blow
    of his mallet, whose cylindrical form symbolises the year, the
    ring or circle: third distribution of time, the accomplishment of
    which deals the last blow to the existence of the _expiring_ Sun.
    From this interpretation it has been inferred that _Hiram_, a
    _founder_ of metals, the hero of the new legend with the title of
    _architect_, is Osiris (the Sun) of modern initiation; that
    _Isis_, his widow, is the _Lodge_, the emblem of the Earth (_loka_
    in Sanskrit, the world) and that _Horus_, son of Osiris (or of
    light) and the widow’s son, is the _free Mason_, that is to say,
    the _Initiate_ who inhabits the terrestrial lodge (_the child of
    the Widow, and of Light_.)(510)


And here again, our friends the Jesuits have to be mentioned, for the
above rite is of their making. To give one instance of their success in
throwing dust into the eyes of ordinary individuals to prevent their
seeing the truths of Occultism, we will point out what they did in what is
now called Freemasonry.

This Brotherhood does possess a considerable portion of the symbolism,
formulæ, and ritual of Occultism, handed down from time immemorial from
the primeval Initiations. To render this Brotherhood a mere harmless
negation, the Jesuits sent some of their most able emissaries into the
Order, who first made the simple brethren believe that the true secret was
lost with Hiram Abiff; and then induced them to put this belief into their
formularies. They then invented specious but spurious higher degrees,
pretending to give further light upon this lost secret, to lead the
candidate on and amuse him with forms borrowed from the real thing but
containing no substance, and all artfully contrived to lead the aspiring
Neophyte to nowhere. And yet men of good sense and abilities, in other
respects, will meet at intervals, and with solemn face, zeal and
earnestness, go through the mockery of revealing “substituted secrets”
instead of the real thing.

If the reader turns to a very remarkable and very useful work called _The
Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, Art. “Rosicrucianism,” he will find its author,
a high and learned Mason, showing what the Jesuits have done to destroy
Masonry. Speaking of the period when the existence of this mysterious
Brotherhood (of which many pretend to know “something” if not a good deal,
and know in fact nothing) was first made known, he says:


    There was a dread among the great masses of society in byegone
    days of the unseen—a dread, as recent events and phenomena show
    very clearly, not yet overcome in its entirety. Hence students of
    Nature and mind were forced into an obscurity not altogether
    unwelcome.... The Kabalistic reveries of a Johann Reuchlin led to
    the fiery action of a Luther, and the patient labours of
    Trittenheim produced the modern system of diplomatic cipher
    writing.... It is very worthy of remark, that one particular
    century, and that in which the Rosicrucians first showed
    themselves, is distinguished in history as the era in which most
    of these efforts at throwing off the trammels of the past [Popery
    and Ecclesiasticism] occurred. Hence the opposition of the losing
    party, and their virulence against anything mysterious or unknown.
    They freely organised pseudo‐Rosicrucian and Masonic societies in
    return; and these societies were instructed to irregularly entrap
    the weaker brethren of the True and Invisible Order, and then
    triumphantly betray anything they might be so inconsiderate as to
    communicate to the superiors of these transitory and unmeaning
    associations. Every wile was adopted by the authorities, fighting
    in self‐defence against the progress of truth, to engage, by
    persuasion, interest or terror, such as might be cajoled into
    receiving the Pope as Master—when gained, as many converts to that
    faith know, but dare not own, they are treated with neglect, and
    left to fight the battle of life as best they may, not even being
    admitted to the knowledge of such miserable aporrheta as the
    Romish faith considers itself entitled to withhold.


But if Masonry has been spoiled, none is able to crush the real, invisible
Rosicrucian and the Eastern Initiate. The symbolism of Vishvakarma and
Sûrya Vikarttana has survived, where Hiram Abiff was indeed murdered, and
we will now return to it. It is not simply an astronomical, but is the
most solemn rite, an inheritance from the Archaic Mysteries that has
crossed the ages and is used to this day. It typifies a whole drama of the
Cycle of Life, of progressive incarnations, and of psychic as well as of
physiological secrets, of which neither the Church nor Science knows
anything, though it is this rite that has led the former to the greatest
of its Christian Mysteries.



SECTION XXX. THE MYSTERY “SUN OF INITIATION.”


The antiquity of the Secret Doctrine may be better realised when it is
shown at what point of history its Mysteries had already been desecrated,
by being made subservient to the personal ambition of despot‐ruler and
crafty priest. These profoundly philosophical and scientifically composed
religious dramas, in which were enacted the grandest truths of the Occult
or Spiritual Universe and the hidden lore of learning, had become subject
to persecution long before the days when Plato and even Pythagoras
flourished. Withal, primal revelations given to Mankind have not died with
the Mysteries; they are still preserved as heirlooms for future and more
spiritual generations.

It has been already stated in _Isis Unveiled_,(511) that so far back as in
the days of Aristotle, the great Mysteries had already lost their
primitive grandeur and solemnity. Their rites had fallen into desuetude,
and they had to a great degree degenerated into mere priestly speculations
and had become religious shams. It is useless to state when they first
appeared in Europe and Greece, since recognised history may almost be said
to begin with Aristotle, everything before him appearing to be in an
inextricable chronological confusion. Suffice it to say, that in Egypt the
Mysteries had been known since the days of Menes, and that the Greeks
received them only when Orpheus introduced them from India. In an article
“Was writing known before Pânini?”(512) it is stated that the Pândus had
acquired universal dominion and had taught the “sacrificial” Mysteries to
other races as far back as 3,300 B.C. Indeed, when Orpheus, the son of
Apollo or Helios, received from his father the phorminx—the seven‐stringed
lyre, symbolical of the sevenfold mystery of Initiation—these Mysteries
were already hoary with age in Central Asia and India. According to
Herodotus it was Orpheus who brought them from India, and Orpheus is far
anterior to Homer and Hesiod. Thus even in the days of Aristotle few were
the true Adepts left in Europe and even in Egypt. The heirs of those who
had been dispersed by the conquering swords of various invaders of old
Egypt had been dispersed in their turn. As 8,000 or 9,000 years earlier
the stream of knowledge had been slowly running down from the tablelands
of Central Asia into India and towards Europe and Northern Africa, so
about 500 years B.C. it had begun to flow backward to its old home and
birthplace. During the two thousand subsequent years the knowledge of the
existence of great Adepts nearly died out in Europe. Nevertheless, in some
secret places the Mysteries were still enacted in all their primitive
purity. The “Sun of Righteousness” still blazed high on _the midnight
sky_; and, while darkness was upon the face of the profane world, there
was the eternal light in the Adyta on the nights of Initiation. The _true_
Mysteries were never made public. Eleusinia and Agræ for the multitudes;
the God Εὐβουλῆ “of the good counsel,” the great Orphic Deity, for the
neophyte.

This mystery God—mistaken by our Symbologists for the Sun—who was He?
Everyone who has any idea of the ancient Egyptian exoteric faith is quite
aware that for the multitudes Osiris was the Sun in Heaven, “the Heavenly
King,” Ro‐Imphab; that by the Greeks the Sun was called the “Eye of
Jupiter,” as for the modern orthodox Pârsî he is “the Eye of Ormuzd:” that
the Sun, moreover, was addressed as the “All‐seeing God” (πολυόφθαλμος) as
the “God Saviour,” and the “saving God” (Αἴτιον τῆς σωτηρίας). Read the
papyrus of Papheronmes at Berlin, and the stela as rendered by Mariette
Bey,(513) and see what they say:


    Glory to thee, O Sun, divine child! ... thy rays carry life to the
    pure and to those ready.... The Gods [the “Sons of God”] who
    approach thee tremble with delight and awe.... Thou art the first
    born, the Son of God, the Word.(514)


The Church has now seized upon these terms and sees presentments of the
coming Christ in these expressions in the initiatory rites and prophetic
utterances of the Pagan Oracles. They are nothing of the kind, for they
were applied to every worthy Initiate. If the expressions that were used
in hieratic writings and glyphs thousands of years before our era are now
found in the laudatory hymns and prayers of Christian Churches, it is
simply because they have been unblushingly appropriated by the Latin
Christians, in the full hope of never being detected by posterity.
Everything that could be done had been done to destroy the original Pagan
manuscripts and the Church felt secure. Christianity has undeniably had
her great Seers and Prophets, like every other religion; but their claims
are not strengthened by denying their predecessors.

Listen to Plato:


    Know then, Glaucus, that when I speak of the production of good,
    it is the Sun I mean. The Son has a perfect analogy with his
    Father.


Iamblichus calls the Sun “the image of divine intelligence or Wisdom.”
Eusebius, repeating the words of Philo, calls the rising Sun (ἀνατολὴ) the
chief Angel, the most ancient, adding that the Archangel who is
_polyonymous_ (of many names) is the Verbum or Christ. The word Sol (Sun)
being derived from _solus_, the One, or the “He alone,” and its Greek name
Helios meaning the “Most High,” the emblem becomes comprehensible.
Nevertheless, the Ancients made a difference between the Sun and its
prototype.

Socrates saluted the rising Sun as does a true Pârsî or Zoroastrian in our
own day; and Homer and Euripides, as Plato did after them several times,
mention the Jupiter‐Logos, the “Word” or the Sun. Nevertheless, the
Christians maintain that since the oracle consulted on the God Iao
answered: “It is the Sun,” therefore


    The Jehovah of the Jews was well known to the Pagans and
    Greeks;(515)


and “Iao is our Jehovah.” The first part of the proposition has nothing,
it seems, to do with the second part, and least of all can the conclusion
be regarded as correct. But if the Christians are so anxious to prove the
identity, Occultists have nothing against it. Only, in such case, Jehovah
is also Bacchus. It is very strange that the people of civilised
Christendom should until now hold on so desperately to the skirts of the
idolatrous Jews—Sabæans and Sun worshippers as they were,(516) like the
rabble of Chaldæa—and that they should fail to see that the later Jehovah
is but a Jewish development of the Ja‐va, or the Iao, of the Phœnicians;
that this name, in short, was the secret name of a Mystery‐God, one of the
many Kabiri. “Highest God” as He was for one little nation, he never was
so regarded by the Initiates who conducted the Mysteries; for them he was
but a Planetary Spirit attached to the visible Sun; and the visible Sun is
only the central Star, not the central spiritual Sun.


    And the Angel of the Lord said unto him [Manoah] “Why askest thou
    thus after my name, seeing it is secret.”(517)


However this may be, the identity of the Jehovah of Mount Sinai with the
God Bacchus is hardly disputable, and he is surely—as already shown in
_Isis Unveiled_—Dionysos.(518) Wherever Bacchus was worshipped there was a
tradition of Nyssa,(519) and a cave where he was reared. Outside Greece,
Bacchus was the all‐powerful “Zagreus, the highest of Gods,” in whose
service was Orpheus, the founder of the Mysteries. Now, unless it be
conceded that Moses was an initiated Priest, an Adept, whose actions are
all narrated allegorically, then it must be admitted that he personally,
together with his hosts of Israelites, worshipped Bacchus.


    And Moses built an altar, and called the name of it _Jehovah
    Nissi_ [or, Iao‐nisi, or again Dionisi].(520)


To strengthen the statement we have further to remember that the place
where Osiris, the Egyptian Zagreus or Bacchus, was born, was Mount Sinai,
which is called by the Egyptians Mount Nissa. The brazen serpent was a
nis, כהש, and the month of the Jewish Passover is Nisan.



SECTION XXXI. THE OBJECTS OF THE MYSTERIES.


The earliest Mysteries recorded in history are those of Samothrace. After
the distribution of pure Fire, a new life began. This was the new birth of
the Initiate, after which, like the Brâhmans of old in India, he became a
dwija—a “twice born,”


    Initiated into that which may be rightly called the most blessed
    of all Mysteries ... being ourselves pure,(521)


says Plato. Diodorus Siculus, Herodotus, and Sanchoniathon the
Phœnician—the oldest of Historians—say that these Mysteries originated in
the night of time, thousands of years probably before the historical
period. Iamblichus informs us that Pythagoras


    Was initiated in all the Mysteries of Byblus and Tyre, in the
    sacred operations of the Syrians, and in the Mysteries of the
    Phœnicians.(522)


As was said in _Isis Unveiled_:


    When men like Pythagoras, Plato and Iamblichus, renowned for their
    severe morality, took part in the Mysteries and spoke of them with
    veneration, it ill behoves our modern critics to judge them [and
    their Initiates] upon their merely external aspect.


Yet this is what has been done until now, especially by the Christian
Fathers. Clement Alexandrinus stigmatises the Mysteries as “indecent and
diabolical” though his words, showing that the Eleusinian Mysteries were
identical with, and even, as he would allege, borrowed from, those of the
Jews, are quoted elsewhere in this work. The Mysteries were composed of
two parts, of which the Lesser were performed at Agræ, and the Greater at
Eleusis, and Clement had been himself initiated. But the Katharsis, or
trials of purification, have ever been misunderstood. Iamblichus explains
the worst; and his explanation ought to be perfectly satisfactory, at any
rate for every unprejudiced mind.

He says:—


    Exhibitions of this kind in the Mysteries were designed to free us
    from licentious passions, by gratifying the sight, and at the same
    time vanquishing all evil thought, through the awful sanctity with
    which these rites were accompanied.


Dr. Warburton remarks:


    The wisest and best men in the Pagan world are unanimous in this,
    that the Mysteries were instituted pure, and proposed the noblest
    ends by the worthiest means.


Although persons of both sexes and all classes were allowed to take part
in the Mysteries, and a participation in them was even obligatory, very
few indeed attained the higher and final Initiation in these celebrated
rites. The gradation of the Mysteries is given us by Proclus in the fourth
book of his _Theology of Plato_.


    The perfective rite, precedes in order the initiation Telete,
    _Muesis_, and the initiation, _Epopteia_, or the final apocalypse
    [revelation].


Theon of Smyrna, in _Mathematica_, also divides the mystic rites into five
parts:


    The first of which is the previous purification; for neither are
    the Mysteries communicated to all who are willing to receive them;
    but there are certain persons who are prevented by the voice of
    the crier ... since it is necessary that such as are not expelled
    from the Mysteries should first be refined by certain
    purifications: but after purification the reception of the sacred
    rites succeeds. The third part is denominated _epopteia_ or
    reception. And the fourth, which is the end and design of the
    revelation, is (the investiture) the binding of the head and
    fixing of the crowns(523) ... whether after this he [the initiated
    person] becomes a torchbearer, or an hierophant of the Mysteries,
    or sustains some other part of the sacerdotal office. But the
    fifth, which is produced from all these, _is friendship and
    interior communion with God_. And this was the last and most awful
    of all the Mysteries.(524)


The chief objects of the Mysteries, represented as diabolical by the
Christian Fathers and ridiculed by modern writers, were instituted with
the highest and the most moral purpose in view. There is no need to repeat
here that which has been already described in _Isis Unveiled_(525) that
whether through temple Initiation or the private study of Theurgy, every
student obtained the proof of the immortality of his Spirit, and the
survival of his Soul. What the last _epopteia_ was is alluded to by Plato
in _Phædrus_:


    Being _initiated_ in those _Mysteries_, which it is lawful to call
    the most blessed of all mysteries ... we were freed from the
    molestations of evils, which otherwise await us in a future period
    of time. Likewise in consequence of this divine _initiation_, we
    became spectators of entire, simple, immoveable, and blessed
    visions, resident in a pure light.(526)


This veiled confession shows that the Initiates enjoyed Theophany—saw
visions of Gods and of real immortal Spirits. As Taylor correctly infers:


    The most sublime part of the _epopteia_ or final revealing,
    consisted in beholding the Gods [the high Planetary Spirits]
    themselves, invested with a resplendent light.(527)


The statement of Proclus upon the subject is unequivocal:


    In all the Initiations and Mysteries, the Gods exhibit many forms
    of themselves, and appear in a variety of shapes; and sometimes
    indeed a formless light of themselves is held forth to the view;
    sometimes this light is according _to a human form_ and sometimes
    it proceeds into a different shape.(528)


Again we have


    Whatever is on earth is the resemblance and shadow of something
    that is in the sphere, while that resplendent thing [the prototype
    of the Soul‐Spirit] remaineth in _unchangeable_ condition, it is
    well also with its shadow. When that resplendent one removeth far
    from its shadow life removeth [from the latter] to a distance.
    Again that light is the shadow of something more resplendent than
    itself.(529)


Thus speaks the _Desatir_, in the _Book of Shet_ (the prophet Zirtusht),
thereby showing the identity of its Esoteric doctrines with those of the
Greek Philosophers.

The second statement of Plato confirms the view that the Mysteries of the
Ancients were identical with the Initiations practised even now among the
Buddhist and the Hindu Adepts. The higher visions, the most truthful, were
produced through a regular discipline of gradual Initiations, and the
development of psychical powers. In Europe and Egypt the Mystæ were
brought into close union with those whom Proclus calls “mystical natures,”
“resplendent Gods,” because, as Plato says:


    [We] were ourselves pure and immaculate, being liberated from this
    surrounding vestment, which we denominate body, and to which we
    are now bound like an oyster to its shell.(530)


As to the East,


    The doctrine of planetary and terrestrial Pitris was revealed
    _entirely_ in ancient India, as well as now, only at the last
    moment of initiation, and to the adepts of superior degrees.(531)


The word _Pitris_ may now be explained and something else added. In India
the chela of the third degree of Initiation has two Gurus: One, the living
Adept; the other the disembodied and glorified Mahâtmâ, Who remains the
adviser or instructor of even the high Adepts. Few are the accepted chelas
who even see their living Master, their Guru, till the day and hour of
their final and for ever binding vow. It is this that was meant in _Isis
Unveiled_, when it was stated that few of the _fakirs_ (the word _chela_
being unknown to Europe and America in those days) however


    Pure, and honest, and self‐devoted, have yet ever seen the astral
    form of a purely _human pitar_ (an ancestor or father), otherwise
    than at the solemn moment of their first and last initiation. It
    is in the presence of his instructor, the Guru, and just before
    the _vatou_‐fakir [the just initiated chela] is despatched into
    the world of the living, with his seven‐knotted bamboo wand for
    all protection, that he is suddenly placed face to face with the
    unknown PRESENCE [of his Pitar or Father, the glorified invisible
    Master, or disembodied Mahâtmâ]. He sees it, and falls prostrate
    at the feet of the evanescent form, but is not entrusted with the
    great secret of its evocation, for it is the supreme mystery of
    the holy syllable.


The Initiate, says Éliphas Lévi, _knows_; therefore, “he dares all and
keeps silent.” Says the great French Kabalist:


    You may see him often sad, never discouraged or desperate; often
    poor, never humbled or wretched; often persecuted, never cowed
    down or vanquished. For he remembers the widowhood and the murder
    of Orpheus, the exile and solitary death of Moses, the martyrdom
    of the prophets, the tortures of Apollonius, the Cross of the
    Saviour. He knows in what forlorn state died Agrippa, whose memory
    is slandered to this day; he knows the trials that broke down the
    great Paracelsus, and all that Raymond Lully had to suffer before
    he arrived at a bloody death. He remembers Swedenborg having to
    feign insanity, and losing even his reason before his knowledge
    was forgiven to him; St. Martin, who had to hide himself all his
    life; Cagliostro, who died forsaken in the cells of the
    Inquisition(532); Cazotte, who perished on the guillotine.
    Successor of so many victims, he dares, nevertheless, but
    understands the more the necessity to keep silent.(533)


Masonry—not the political institution known as the Scotch Lodge, but real
Masonry, some rites of which are still preserved in the Grand Orient of
France, and that Elias Ashmole, a celebrated English Occult Philosopher of
the XVIIth century, tried in vain to remodel, after the manner of the
Indian and Egyptian Mysteries—Masonry rests, according to Ragon, the great
authority upon the subject, upon three fundamental degrees: the triple
duty of a Mason is to study _whence he comes_, _what he is_, and _whither
he goes_; the study that is, of God, of himself, and of the future
transformation.(534) Masonic Initiation was modelled on that in the lesser
Mysteries. The third degree was one used in both Egypt and India from time
immemorial, and the remembrance of it lingers to this day in every Lodge,
under the name of the death and resurrection of Hiram Abiff, the “Widow’s
Son.” In Egypt the latter was called “Osiris;” in India “Loka‐chakshu”
(Eye of the World), ind “Dinakara” (day‐maker) or the Sun—and the rite
itself was everywhere named the “gate of death.” The coffin, or
sarcophagus, of Osiris, killed by Typhon, was brought in and placed in the
middle of the Hall of the Dead, with the Initiates all around it and the
candidate near by. The latter was asked whether he had participated in the
murder, and notwithstanding his denial, and after sundry and very hard
trials, the Initiator feigned to strike him on the head with a hatchet; he
was thrown down, swathed in bandages like a mummy, and wept over. Then
came lightning and thunder, the supposed corpse was surrounded with fire,
and was finally raised.

Ragon speaks of a rumour that charged the Emperor Commodus—when he was at
one time enacting the part of the Initiator—with having played this part
in the initiatory drama so seriously that he actually killed the postulant
when dealing him the blow with the hatchet. This shows that the _lesser_
Mysteries had not quite died out in the second century A.D.

The Mysteries were carried into South and Central America, Northern Mexico
and Peru by the Atlanteans in those days when


    A pedestrian from the North [of what was once upon a time also
    India] might have reached—hardly wetting his feet—the Alaskan
    Peninsula, through Manchooria, across the _future_ Gulf of
    Tartary, the Kurile and Aleutian Islands; while another traveller,
    furnished with a canoe and starting from the South, could have
    walked over from Siam, crossed the Polynesian Islands and trudged
    into any part of the continent of South America.(535)


They continued to exist down to the day of the Spanish invaders. These
destroyed the Mexican and Peruvian records, but were prevented from laying
their desecrating hands upon the many Pyramids—the lodges of an ancient
Initiation—whose ruins are scattered over Puente Nacional, Cholula, and
Teotihuacan. The ruins of Palenque, of Ococimgo in Chiapas, and others in
Central America are known to all. If the pyramids and temples of Guiengola
and Mitla ever betray their secrets, the present Doctrine will then be
shown to have been a forerunner of the grandest truths in Nature.
Meanwhile they have all a claim to be called Mitla, “the place of sadness”
and “the abode of the (desecrated) dead.”



SECTION XXXII. TRACES OF THE MYSTERIES.


Says the _Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, art. “Sun:”


    In all times, the Sun has necessarily played an important part as
    a symbol, and especially in Freemasonry. The W.M. represents the
    rising sun, the J.W. the sun at the meridian, and the S.W. the
    setting sun. In the Druidical rites, the Arch‐Druid represented
    the sun, and was aided by two other officers, one representing the
    Moon in the West, and the other the Sun at the South in its
    meridian. It is quite unnecessary to enter into any lengthened
    discussion on this symbol.


It is the more “unnecessary” since J. M. Ragon has discussed it very
fully, as one may find at the end of Section XXIX., where part of his
explanations have been quoted. Freemasonry derived her rites from the
East, as we have said. And if it be true to say of the modern Rosicrucians
that “they are invested with a knowledge of chaos, not perhaps a very
desirable acquisition,” the remark is still more true when applied to all
the other branches of Masonry, since the knowledge of their members about
the full signification of their symbols is _nil_. Dozens of hypotheses are
resorted to, one more unlikely than the other, as to the “Round Towers” of
Ireland; one fact is enough to show the ignorance of the Masons, namely,
that, according to the _Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, the idea that they are
connected with Masonic Initiation may be at once dismissed as unworthy of
notice. The “Towers,” which are found throughout the East in Asia, were
connected with the Mystery‐Initiations, namely, with the Vishvakarma and
the Vikarttana rites. The candidates for Initiation were placed in them
for three days and three nights, wherever there was no temple with a
subterranean crypt close at hand. These round towers were built for no
other purposes. Discredited as are all such monuments of Pagan origin by
the Christian clergy, who thus “soil their own nest,” they are still the
living and indestructible relics of the Wisdom of old. Nothing exists in
this objective and illusive world of ours that cannot be made to serve two
purposes—a good and a bad one. Thus in later ages, the Initiates of the
_Left_ Path and the anthropomorphists took in hand most of those venerable
ruins, then silent and deserted by their first wise inmates, and turned
them indeed into phallic monuments. But this was a deliberate, wilful, and
vicious misinterpretation of their real meaning, a deflection from their
first use. The Sun—though ever, even for the multitudes, μὸνος οὐρανοῦ
θεὸς, “the only and one King and God in Heaven,” and the Εὐβουλῆ, “the God
of Good Counsel” of Orpheus—had in every exoteric popular religion a dual
aspect which was anthropomorphised by the profane. Thus the Sun was
Osiris‐_Typhon_, Ormuzd‐_Ahriman_, Bel‐Jupiter and _Baal_, the life‐giving
and the _death_‐giving luminary. And thus one and the same monolith,
pillar, pyramid, tower or temple, originally built to glorify the first
principle or aspect, might become in time an idol‐fane, or worse, a
phallic emblem in its crude and brutal form. The Lingam of the Hindus has
a spiritual and highly philosophical meaning, while the missionaries see
in it but an “indecent emblem;” it has just the meaning which is to be
found in all those baalim, chammanim, and the bamoth with the pillars of
unhewn stone of the Bible, set up for the glorification of the male
Jehovah. But this does not alter the fact that the pureia of the Greeks,
the nur‐hags of Sardinia, the teocalli of Mexico, etc., were all in the
beginning of the same character as the “Round Towers” of Ireland. They
were sacred places of Initiation.

In 1877, the writer, quoting the authority and opinions of some most
eminent scholars, ventured to assert that there was a great difference
between the terms _Chrestos_ and _Christos_, a difference having a
profound and Esoteric meaning. Also that while _Christos_ means “to live”
and “to be born into a new life,” _Chrestos_, in “Initiation” phraseology,
signified the death of the inner, lower, or personal nature in man; thus
is given the key to the Brâhmanical title, the twice‐born; and finally,


    There were _Chrestians_ long before the era of Christianity, and
    the Essenes belonged to them.(536)...


For this epithets sufficiently opprobrious to characterise the writer
could hardly be found. And yet then as well as now, the author never
attempted a statement of such a serious nature without showing as many
learned authorities for it as could be mustered. Thus on the next page it
was said:


    Lepsius shows that the word _Nofre_ means Chrestos, “good,” and
    that one of the titles of Osiris, “Onnofre,” must be translated
    “the goodness of God made manifest.” “The worship of Christ was
    not universal at this early date,” explains Mackenzie, “by which I
    mean that Christolatry had not been introduced; but the worship of
    _Chrestos_—the Good Principle—had preceded it by many centuries,
    and even survived the general adoption of Christianity, as shown
    on monuments still in existence....” Again, we have an inscription
    which is pre‐Christian on an epitaphial tablet (Spon. _Misc.
    Erud._, Ant., x. xviii. 2). Υαχινθε Λαρισαιων Δησμοσιε Πρως Χρηστε
    Χαιρε, and de Rossi (_Roma Sotteranea_, tome i., tav. xxi.) gives
    us another example from the catacombs—“Ælia Chreste, in
    Pace.”(537)


To‐day the writer is able to add to all those testimonies the
corroboration of an erudite author, who proves whatever he undertakes to
show on the authority of geometrical demonstration. There is a most
curious passage with remarks and explanations in the _Source of Measures_,
whose author has probably never heard of the “Mystery‐God” Visvakarma of
the early Âryans. Treating on the difference between the terms Chrest and
Christ, he ends by saying that:


    There were two Messiahs: one who went down into the pit for the
    salvation of this world; this was the Sun shorn of his golden
    rays, and crowned with blackened ones (symbolising this loss), as
    the thorns: the other was the triumphant Messiah mounting up to
    the summit of the arch of heaven, and _personified as the Lion of
    the Tribe of Judah_. In both instances he had the cross; once in
    humiliation and once holding it in his control as the law of
    creation, He being Jehovah.


And then the author proceeds to give “the fact” that “there were two
Messiahs,” etc., as quoted above. And this—leaving the divine and mystic
character and claim for Jesus entirely independent of this event of His
mortal life—shows Him, beyond any doubt, as an Initiate of the Egyptian
Mysteries, where the same rite of Death and of spiritual Resurrection for
the neophyte, or the suffering Chrestos on his trial and new birth by
Regeneration, was enacted—for this was a universally adopted rite.

The “pit” into which the Eastern Initiate was made to descend was, as
shown before, Pâtâla, one of the seven regions of the nether world, over
which ruled Vâsuki, the great “snake God.” This pit, Pâtâla, has in the
Eastern Symbolism precisely the same manifold meaning as is found by Mr.
Ralston Skinner in the Hebrew word _shiac_ in its application to the case
in hand. For it was the synonym of Scorpio—Pâtâla’s depths being
“impregnated with the brightness of the new Sun”—represented by the “newly
born” into the glory; and Pâtâla was and is in a sense, “a pit, a grave,
the place of death, and the door of Hades or Sheol”—as, in the partially
exoteric Initiations in India, the candidate had to pass through the
matrix of the heifer before proceeding to Pâtâla. In its non‐mystic sense
it is the Antipodes—America being referred to in India as Pâtâla. But in
its symbolism it meant all that, and much more. The fact alone that
Vâsuki, the ruling Deity of Pâtâla, is represented in the Hindu Pantheon
as the great Nâga (Serpent)—who was used by the Gods and Asuras as a rope
round the mountain Mandara, at the churning of the ocean for Amrita, the
water of immortality—connects him directly with Initiation.

For he is Shesha Nâga also, serving as a couch for Vishnu, and upholding
the seven worlds; and he is also Ananta, “the endless,” and the symbol of
eternity—hence the “God of Secret Wisdom,” degraded by the Church to the
_rôle_ of the tempting Serpent, of Satan. That what is now said is correct
may be verified by the evidence of even the exoteric rendering of the
attributes of various Gods and Sages both in the Hindu and the Buddhist
Pantheons. Two instances will suffice to show how little our best and most
erudite Orientalists are capable of dealing correctly and fairly with the
symbolism of Eastern nations, while remaining ignorant of the
corresponding points to be found only in Occultism and the Secret
Doctrine.

(1) The learned Orientalist and Tibetan traveller, Professor Emil
Schlagintweit, mentions in one of his works on Tibet, a national legend to
the effect that


    Nâgârjuna [a “mythological” personage “without any real
    existence,” the learned German scholar thinks] received the book
    Paramârtha, or according to others, the book _Avatamsaka_, from
    the Nâgas, fabulous creatures of the nature of serpents, who
    occupy a place among the beings superior to man, and are regarded
    as protectors of the law of Buddha. To these spiritual beings
    Shâkyamuni is said to have taught a more philosophical religious
    system than to men, who were not sufficiently advanced to
    understand it at the time of his appearance.(538)


Nor are men sufficiently advanced for it now; for “the more philosophical
religious system” is the Secret Doctrine, the Occult Eastern Philosophy,
which is the corner‐stone of all sciences rejected by the unwise builders
even at this day, and more to‐day perhaps than ever before, in the great
conceit of our age. The allegory means simply that Nâgârjuna having been
initiated by the “Serpents”—the Adepts, “the wise ones”—and driven out
from India by the Brâhmans, who dreaded to have their Mysteries and
sacerdotal Science divulged (the real cause of their hatred of Buddhism),
went away to China and Tibet, where he initiated many into the truths of
the hidden Mysteries taught by Gautama Buddha.

(2) The hidden symbolism of Nârada—the great Rishi and the author of some
of the Rig‐Vaidic hymns, who incarnated again later on during Krishna’s
time—has never been understood. Yet, in connection with the Occult
Sciences, Nârada, the son of Brahmâ, is one of the most prominent
characters; he is directly connected in his first incarnation with the
“Builders”—hence with the seven “Rectors” of the Christian Church, who
“helped God in the work of creation.” This grand personification is hardly
noticed by our Orientalists, who refer only to that which he is alleged to
have said of Pâtâla, namely, “that it is a place of sexual and sensual
gratifications.” This is thought to be amusing, and the reflection is
suggested that Nârada, no doubt, “found the place delightful.” Yet this
sentence simply shows him to have been an Initiate, connected directly
with the Mysteries, and walking, as all the other neophytes, before and
after him, had to walk, in “the pit among the thorns” in the “sacrificial
_Chrest_ condition,” as the suffering victim made to descend thereinto—a
mystery, truly!

Nârada is one of the seven Rishis, the “mind‐born sons” of Brahmâ. The
fact of his having been during his incarnation a high Initiate—he, like
Orpheus, being the founder of the Mysteries—is corroborated, and made
evident by his history. The _Mahâbhârata_ states that Nârada, having
frustrated the scheme formed for peopling the universe, in order to remain
true to his vow of chastity, was cursed by Daksha, and sentenced to be
born once more. Again, when born during Krishna’s time, he is accused of
calling his father Brahmâ “a false teacher,” because the latter advised
him to get married, and he refused to do so. This shows him to have been
an Initiate, going against the orthodox worship and religion. It is
curious to find this Rishi and leader among the “Builders” and the
“Heavenly Host” as the prototype of the Christian “leader” of the same
“Host”—the Archangel Mikael. Both are the male “Virgins,” and both are the
only ones among their respective “Hosts” who refuse to create. Nârada is
said to have dissuaded the Hari‐ashvas, the five thousand sons of Daksha,
begotten by him for the purpose of peopling the Earth, from producing
offspring. Since then the Hari‐ashvas have “dispersed themselves through
the regions, and have never returned.” The Initiates are, perhaps, the
incarnations of these Hari‐ashvas?

It was on the seventh day, the third of his ultimate trial, that the
neophyte arose, a regenerated man, who, having passed through his second
spiritual birth, returned to earth a glorified and triumphant conqueror of
Death, a Hierophant.

An Eastern neophyte in his Chrest condition may be seen in a certain
engraving in Moor’s _Hindu Pantheon_, whose author mistook another form of
the crucified Sun or Vishnu, Vittoba, for Krishna, and calls it “Krishna
crucified in Space.” The engraving is also given in Dr. Lundy’s
_Monumental Christianity_, in which work the reverend author has collected
as many proofs as his ponderous volume could hold of “Christian symbols
_before_ Christianity,” as he expresses it. Thus he shows us Krishna and
Apollo as good shepherds, Krishna holding the cruciform Conch and the
Chakra, and Krishna “crucified in Space,” as he calls it. Of this figure
it may be truly said, as the author says of it himself:


    This representation I believe to be anterior to Christianity....
    It looks like a Christian crucifix in many respects.... The
    drawing, the attitude, the nail‐marks in hands and feet, indicate
    a Christian origin, while the Parthian coronet of seven points,
    the absence of the wood, and of the usual inscription, and the
    rays of glory above, would seem to point to some other than a
    Christian origin. Can it be the victim‐man, or the priest and
    victim both in one, of the Hindu Mythology, who offered himself a
    sacrifice before the worlds were?


It is surely so.


    Can it be Plato’s Second God who impressed himself on the universe
    in the form of the cross? Or is it his divine man, who would be
    scourged, tormented, fettered, have his eyes burnt out; and lastly
    ... _would be crucified_?


It is all that and much more; archaic religious Philosophy was universal,
and its Mysteries are as old as man. It is the eternal symbol of the
personified Sun—astronomically purified—in its mystic meaning regenerated,
and symbolised by all the Initiates in memory of a sinless Humanity when
all were “Sons of God.” Now, mankind has become the “Son of Evil” truly.
Does all this take anything away from the dignity of Christ as an ideal,
or of Jesus as a divine man? Not at all. On the contrary, made to stand
alone, glorified above all other “Sons of God,” He can only foment evil
feelings in all those many millioned nations who do not believe in the
Christian system, provoking their hatred and leading to iniquitous wars
and strifes. If, on the other hand, we place Him among a long series of
“Sons of God” and Sons of divine Light, every man may then be left to
choose for himself, among those many ideals, which he will choose as a God
to call to his help, and worship on earth as in Heaven.

Many among those called “Saviours” were “good shepherds,” as was Krishna
for one, and all of them are said to have “crushed the serpent’s head”—in
other words to have conquered their sensual nature and to have mastered
divine and Occult Wisdom. Apollo killed Python, a fact which exonerates
him from the charge of being himself the great Dragon, Satan: Krishna slew
the snake Kalinâga, the Black Serpent; and the Scandinavian Thor bruised
the head of the symbolical reptile with his crucifixion mace.

In Egypt every city of importance was separated from its burial‐place by a
sacred lake. The same ceremony of judgment, as is described in _The Book
of the Dead_—“that precious and mysterious book” (Bunsen)—as taking place
in the world of Spirit, took place on earth during the burial of the
mummy. Forty‐two judges or assessors assembled on the shore and judged the
departed “Soul” according to its actions when in the body. After that the
priests returned within the sacred precincts and instructed the neophytes
upon the probable fate of the Soul, and the solemn drama that was then
taking place in the invisible realm whither the Soul had fled. The
immortality of the Spirit was strongly inculcated on the neophytes by the
_Al‐om‐jah_—the name of the highest Egyptian Hierophant. In the Crata
Nepoa—the priestly Mysteries in Egypt—the following are described as four
out of the seven degrees of Initiation.

After a preliminary trial at Thebes, where the neophyte had to pass
through many probations, called the “Twelve Tortures,” he was commanded,
in order that he might come out triumphant, to govern his passions and
never lose for a moment the idea of his inner God or seventh Principle.
Then, as a symbol of the wanderings of the unpurified Soul, he had to
ascend several ladders and wander in darkness in a cave with many doors,
all of which were locked. Having overcome all, he received the degree of
Pastophoris, after which he became, in the second and third degrees, the
Neocoris and Melancphoris. Brought into a vast subterranean chamber,
thickly furnished with mummies lying in state, he was placed in presence
of the coffin which contained the mutilated body of Osiris. This was the
hall called the “Gates of Death,” whence the verse in Job:


    Have the gates of Death been opened to thee,
    Hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?


Thus asks the “Lord,” the Hierophant, the Al‐om‐jah, the Initiator of Job,
alluding to this third degree of Initiation. For the _Book of Job_ is the
poem of Initiation _par excellence_.

When the neophyte had conquered the terrors of this trial, he was
conducted to the “Hall of Spirits,” to be judged by them. Among the rules
in which he was instructed, he was commanded:


    Never to either desire or seek revenge; to be always ready to help
    a brother in danger, even unto the risk of his own life; to bury
    every dead body; to honour his parents above all; to respect old
    age, and protect those weaker than himself; and, finally, to ever
    bear in mind the hour of death, and that of resurrection in a new
    and imperishable body.


Purity and chastity were highly recommended, and adultery was threatened
with death. Thus the Egyptian neophyte was made a Kristophoros. In this
degree the mystery‐name of IAO was communicated to him.

Let the reader compare the above sublime precepts with the precepts of
Buddha, and the noble commandments in the “Rule of Life” for the ascetics
of India, and he will understand the unity of the Secret Doctrine
everywhere.

It is impossible to deny the presence of a sexual element in many
religious symbols, but this fact is not in the least open to censure, once
it becomes generally known that—in the religious traditions of every
country—man was not born in the first “human” race from father and mother.
From the bright “mind‐born Sons of Brahmâ,” the Rishis, and from Adam
Kadmon with his Emanations, the Sephiroth, down to the “parentless,” the
Anupâdaka, or the Dhyâni‐Buddhas, from whom sprang the Bodhisattvas and
Manushi‐Buddhas, the earthly Initiates—men—the first race of men was with
every nation held as being born without father or mother. Man, the
“Manushi‐Buddha,” the Manu, the “Enosh,” son of Seth, or the “Son of Man”
as he is called—is born in the present way only as the consequence, the
unavoidable fatality, of the law of natural evolution. Mankind—having
reached the last limit, and that turning point where its spiritual nature
had to make room for mere physical organisation—had to “fall into matter”
and generation. But man’s evolution and involution are cyclic. He will end
as he began. Of course to our grossly material minds even the sublime
symbolism of Kosmos conceived in the matrix of Space after the divine Unit
had entered into and fructified it with Its holy fiat, will no doubt
suggest materiality. Not so with primitive mankind. The initiatory rite in
the Mysteries of the self‐sacrificing Victim that dies a spiritual death
to save the world from destruction—really from depopulation—was
established during the Fourth Race, to commemorate an event, which,
physiologically, has now become the Mystery of Mysteries among the world‐
problems. In the Jewish script it is Cain and the female Abel who are the
sacrificed and sacrificing couple—both immolating themselves (as
permutations of Adam and Eve, or the dual Jehovah) and shedding their
blood “of separation and union,” for the sake of and to save mankind by
inaugurating a new physiological race. Later still, when the neophyte, as
already mentioned, in order to be re‐born once more into his lost
spiritual state, had to pass through the entrails (the womb) of a _virgin_
heifer(539) killed at the moment of the rite, it involved again a mystery
and one as great, for it referred to the process of birth, or rather the
first entrance of man on to this earth, through Vâch—“the melodious cow
who milks forth sustenance and water”—and who is the female Logos. It had
also reference to the same self‐sacrifice of the “divine Hermaphrodite”—of
the third Root‐Race—the transformation of Humanity into truly physical
men, after the loss of spiritual potency. When, the fruit of evil having
been tasted along with the fruit of good, there was as a result the
gradual atrophy of spirituality and a strengthening of the materiality in
man, then he was doomed to be born thenceforth through the present
process. This is the Mystery of the Hermaphrodite, which the Ancients kept
so secret and veiled. It was neither the absence of moral feeling, nor the
presence of gross sensuality in them that made them imagine their Deities
under a dual aspect; but rather their knowledge of the mysteries and
processes of primitive Nature. The Science of Physiology was better known
to them than it is to us now. It is in this that lies buried the key to
the Symbolism of old, the true focus of national thought, and the strange
dual‐sexed images of nearly every God and Goddess in both pagan and
monotheistic Pantheons.

Says Sir William Drummond in _Œdipus Judaïcus_:


    The truths of science were the arcana of the priests because these
    truths were the foundations of religion.


But why should the missionaries so cruelly twit the Vaishnavas and Krishna
worshippers for the supposed grossly indecent meaning of their symbols,
since it is made clear beyond the slightest doubt, and by the most
unprejudiced writers, that Chrestos in the pit—whether the pit be taken as
meaning the grave or hell—had likewise a sexual element in it, from the
very origin of the symbol.

This fact is no longer denied to‐day. The “Brothers of the Rosy Cross” of
the Middle Ages were as good Christians as any to be found in Europe,
nevertheless, all their rites were based on symbols whose meaning was pre‐
eminently phallic and sexual. Their biographer, Hargrave Jennings, the
best modern authority on Rosicrucianism, speaking of this mystic
Brotherhood, describes how


    The tortures and the sacrifice of Calvary, the Passion of the
    Cross, were, in their [the Rose‐Croix’s] glorious blessed magic
    and triumph, the protest and appeal.


Protest—by whom? The answer is, the protest of the crucified Rose, the
greatest and the most unveiled of all sexual symbols—the Yoni and Lingam,
the “victim” and the “murderer,” the female and male principles in Nature.
Open the last work of that author, _Phallicism_, and see in what glowing
terms he describes the sexual symbolism in that which is most sacred to
the Christian:


    The flowing blood streamed from the crown, or the piercing circlet
    of the thorns of Hell. The Rose is feminine. Its lustrous carmine
    petals are guarded with thorns. The Rose is the most beautiful of
    flowers. The Rose is the Queen of God’s Garden (Mary, the Virgin).
    It is not the Rose alone which is the magical idea, or truth. But
    it is the “crucified rose,” or the “martyred rose” (by the grand
    mystic apocalyptic figure) which is the talisman, the standard,
    the object of adoration of all the “Sons of Wisdom” or the true
    Rosicrucians.(540)


Not of _all_ the “Sons of Wisdom,” by any means, not even of the _true_
Rosicrucian. For the latter would never put in such sickening relievo, in
such a purely sensual and terrestrial, not to say animal light, the
grandest, the noblest of Nature’s symbols. To the Rosicrucian, the “Rose”
was the symbol of Nature, of the ever prolific and virgin Earth, or Isis,
the mother and nourisher of man, considered as feminine and represented as
a virgin woman by the Egyptian Initiates. Like every other personification
of Nature and the Earth she is the sister and wife of Osiris, as the two
characters answer to the personified symbol of the Earth, both she and the
Sun being the progeny of the same mysterious Father, because the Earth is
fecundated by the Sun—according to the earliest Mysticism—by divine
insufflation. It was the pure ideal of mystic Nature that was personified
in the “World Virgins,” the “Celestial Maidens,” and later on by the human
Virgin, Mary, the Mother of the Saviour, the _Salvator Mundi_ now chosen
by the Christian World. And it was the character of the Jewish maiden that
was adapted by Theology to archaic Symbolism,(541) and not the Pagan
symbol that was modelled for the new occasion.

We know through Herodotus that the Mysteries were brought from India by
Orpheus—a hero far anterior to both Homer and Hesiod. Very little is
really known of him, and till very lately Orphic literature, and even the
Argonauts, were attributed to Onamacritus, a contemporary of Pisistratus,
Solon and Pythagoras—who was credited with their compilation in the
present form toward the close of the sixth century B.C., or 800 years
after the time of Orpheus. But we are told that in the days of Pausanias
there was a sacerdotal family, who, like the Brâhmans with the _Vedas_,
had committed to memory all the Orphic Hymns, and that they were usually
thus transmitted from one generation to another. By placing Orpheus so far
back as 1200 B.C., official Science—so careful in her chronology to choose
in each case as late a period as possible—admits that the Mysteries, or in
other words Occultism dramatised, belong to a still earlier epoch than the
Chaldæan and Egyptians.

The downfall of the Mysteries in Europe may now be mentioned.



SECTION XXXIII. THE LAST OF THE MYSTERIES IN EUROPE.


As was predicted by the great Hermes in his dialogue with Æsculapius, the
time had indeed come when impious foreigners accused Egypt of adoring
monsters, and naught but the letters engraved in stone upon her monuments
survived—enigmas unintelligible to posterity. Her sacred Scribes and
Hierophants became wanderers upon the face of the earth. Those who had
remained in Egypt found themselves obliged for fear of a profanation of
the sacred Mysteries to seek refuge in deserts and mountains, to form and
establish secret societies and brotherhoods—such as the Essenes; those who
had crossed the oceans to India and even to the (now‐called) New World,
bound themselves by solemn oaths to keep silent, and to preserve secret
their Sacred Knowledge and Science; thus these were buried deeper than
ever out of human sight. In Central Asia and on the northern borderlands
of India, the triumphant sword of Aristotle’s pupil swept away from his
path of conquest every vestige of a once pure Religion: and its Adepts
receded further and further from that path into the most hidden spots of
the globe. The cycle of —— being at its close, the first hour for the
disappearance of the Mysteries struck on the clock of the Races, with the
Macedonian conqueror. The first strokes of its last hour sounded in the
year 47 B.C. Alesia(542) the famous city in Gaul, the Thebes of the Kelts,
so renowned for its ancient rites of Initiation and Mysteries, was, as J.
M. Ragon well describes it:


    The ancient metropolis and the tomb of Initiation, of the religion
    of the Druids and of the freedom of Gaul.(543)


It was during the first century before our era, that the last and supreme
hour of the great Mysteries had struck. History shows the populations of
Central Gaul revolting against the Roman yoke. The country was subject to
Cæsar, and the revolt was crushed; the result was the slaughter of the
garrison at Alesia (or Alisa), and of all its inhabitants, including the
Druids, the college‐priests and the neophytes; after this the whole city
was plundered and razed to the ground.

Bibractis, a city as large and as famous, not far from Alesia, perished a
few years later. J. M. Ragon describes her end as follows:


    Bibractis, the mother of sciences, the soul of the early nations
    [in Europe], a town equally famous for its sacred college of
    Druids, its civilisation, its schools, in which 40,000 students
    were taught philosophy, literature, grammar, jurisprudence,
    medicine, astrology, occult sciences, architecture, etc. Rival of
    Thebes, of Memphis, of Athens and of Rome, it possessed an
    amphitheatre, surrounded with colossal statues, and accommodating
    100,000 spectators, gladiators, a capitol, temples of Janus,
    Pluto, Proserpine, Jupiter, Apollo, Minerva, Cybele, Venus and
    Anubis; and in the midst of those sumptuous edifices the Naumachy,
    with its vast basin, an incredible construction, a gigantic work
    wherein floated boats and galleys devoted to naval games; then a
    _Champ de Mars_, an aqueduct, fountains, public baths; finally
    fortifications and walls, the construction of which dated from the
    heroic ages.(544)


Such was the last city in Gaul wherein died for Europe the secrets of the
Initiations of the Great Mysteries, the Mysteries of Nature, and of her
forgotten Occult truths. The rolls and manuscripts of the famous
Alexandrian Library were burned and destroyed by the same Cæsar,(545) but
while History deprecates the action of the Arab general, Amrus, who gave
the final touch to this act of vandalism perpetrated by the great
conqueror, it has not a word to say to the latter for his destruction of
nearly the same amount of precious rolls in Alesia, nor to the destroyer
of Bibractis. While Sacrovir—chief of the Gauls, who revolted against
Roman despotism under Tiberius, and was defeated by Silius in the year 21
of our era—was burning himself alive with his fellow conspirators on a
funeral pyre before the gates of the city, as Ragon tells us, the latter
was sacked and plundered, and all her treasures of literature on the
Occult Sciences perished by fire. The once majestic city, Bibractis, has
now become Autun, Ragon explains.


    A few monuments of glorious antiquity are still there, such as the
    temples of Janus and of Cybele.


Ragon goes on:


    Arles, founded two thousand years before Christ, was sacked in
    270. This metropolis of Gaul, restored 40 years later by
    Constantine, has preserved to this day a few remains of its
    ancient splendour; amphitheatre, capitol, an obelisk, a block of
    granite 17 metres high, a triumphal arch, catacombs, etc. Thus
    ended Kelto‐Gaulic civilisation. Cæsar, as a barbarian worthy of
    Rome, had already accomplished the destruction of the ancient
    Mysteries by the sack of the temples and their initiatory
    colleges, and by the massacre of the Initiates and the Druids.
    Remained Rome; but she never had but the lesser Mysteries, shadows
    of the Secret Sciences. The Great Initiation was extinct.(546)


A few further extracts may be given from his _Occult Masonry_, as they
bear directly upon our subject. However learned and erudite, some of the
chronological mistakes of that author are very great. He says:


    After deified man (Hermes) came the King‐Priest [the Hierophant]
    Menes was the first legislator and the founder of Thebes of the
    hundred palaces. He filled that city with magnificent splendour;
    it is from his day that the sacerdotal epoch of Egypt dates. The
    priests reigned, for it is they who made the laws. It is said that
    there have been three hundred and twenty‐nine [Hierophants] since
    his time—all of whom have remained unknown.


After that, genuine Adepts having become scarce, the author shows the
Priests choosing false ones from the midst of slaves, whom they exhibited,
having crowned and deified them, for the adoration of the ignorant masses.


    Tired of reigning in such a servile way, the kings rebelled and
    freed themselves. Then came Sesostris, the founder of Memphis
    (1613, they say, before our era). To the sacerdotal election to
    the throne succeeded that of the warriors.... Cheops who reigned
    from 1178 to 1122 built the great Pyramid which bears his name. He
    is accused of having persecuted theocracy and closed the temples.


This is utterly incorrect, though Ragon repeats “History.” The Pyramid
called by the name of Cheops is the Great Pyramid, the building of which
even Baron Bunsen assigned to 5,000 B.C. He says in _Egypt’s Place in
Universal History_:


    The Origines of Egypt go back to the ninth millennium before
    Christ.(547)


And as the Mysteries were performed and the Initiations took place in that
Pyramid—for indeed it was built for that purpose—it looks strange and an
utter contradiction with known facts in the history of the Mysteries, to
suppose that Cheops, if the builder of that Pyramid, ever turned against
the initiated Priests and their temples. Moreover, as far as the Secret
Doctrine teaches, it was not Cheops who built the Pyramid of that name,
whatever else he might have done.

Yet, it is quite true that


    Owing to an Ethiopian invasion and the federated government of
    twelve chiefs, royalty fell into the hands of Amasis, a man of low
    birth.


This was in 570 B.C., and it is Amasis who destroyed priestly power. And


    Thus perished that ancient theocracy which showed its crowned
    priests for so many centuries to Egypt and the whole world.


Egypt had gathered the students of all countries around her Priests and
Hierophants before Alexandria was founded. Ennemoser asks:


    How comes it that so little has become known of the Mysteries and
    of their particular contents, through so many ages, and amongst so
    many different times and people? The answer is that it is again
    owing to the universally strict silence of the initiated. Another
    cause may be found in the destruction and total loss of all the
    written memorials of the secret knowledge of the remotest
    antiquity.

    Numa’s books, described by Livy, consisting of natural philosophy,
    were found in his tomb; but they were not allowed to be made
    known, lest they should reveal the most secret mysteries of the
    state religion.... The senate and the tribunes of the people
    determined ... that the books themselves should be burned, which
    was done.(548)


Cassain mentions a treatise, well‐known in the fourth and fifth centuries,
which was accredited to Ham, the son of Noah, who in his turn was reputed
to have received it from Jared, the fourth generation from Seth, the son
of Adam.

Alchemy also was first taught in Egypt by her learned Priests, though the
first appearance of this system is as old as man. Many writers have
declared that Adam was the first Adept; but that was a blind and a pun
upon the name, which is “red earth” in one of its meanings. The correct
information—under its allegorical veil—is found in the sixth chapter of
Genesis, which speaks of the “Sons of God” who took wives of the daughters
of men, after which they communicated to these wives many a mystery and
secret of the phenomenal world. The cradle of Alchemy, says Olaus
Borrichius, is to be sought in the most distant times. Democritus of
Abdera was an Alchemist, and a Hermetic Philosopher. Clement of Alexandria
wrote considerably upon the Science, and Moses and Solomon are called
proficients in it. We are told by W. Godwin:


    The first authentic record on this subject is an edict of
    Diocletian about 300 years A.D., ordering a diligent search to be
    made in Egypt for all the ancient books which treated of the art
    of making gold and silver, that they might, without distinction,
    be consigned to the flames.


The Alchemy of the Chaldæans and the old Chinamen is not even the parent
of that Alchemy which revived among the Arabians many centuries later.
There is a spiritual Alchemy and a physical transmutation. The knowledge
of both was imparted at the Initiations.



SECTION XXXIV. THE POST‐CHRISTIAN SUCCESSORS TO THE MYSTERIES.


The Eleusinian Mysteries were no more. Yet it was these which gave their
principal features to the Neo‐platonic school of Ammonius Saccas, for the
Eclectic System was chiefly characterised by its Theurgy and ecstasis. It
was Iamblichus who added to it the Egyptian doctrine of Theurgy with its
practices, and Porphyry, the Jew, who opposed this new element. The
school, however, with but few exceptions, practised asceticism and
contemplation, its mystics passing through a discipline as rigorous as
that of the Hindu devotee. Their efforts never tended so much to develop
the successful practice of thaumaturgy, necromancy or sorcery—such as they
are now accused of—as to evolve the higher faculties of the inner man, the
Spiritual Ego. The school held that a number of spiritual beings, denizens
of spheres quite independent of the earth and of the human cycle, were
mediators between the “Gods” and men, and even between man and the Supreme
Soul. To put it in plainer language, the soul of man became, owing to the
help of the Planetary Spirits, “recipient of the soul of the world” as
Emerson puts it. Apollonius of Tyana asserted his possession of such a
power in these words (quoted by Professor Wilder in his _Neo‐Platonism_):


    I can see the present and the future in a clear mirror. The sage
    [Adept] need not wait for the vapours of the earth and the
    corruption of the air to foresee plagues and fevers; he must know
    them later than God, but earlier than the people. The _theoi_ or
    gods see the future; common men, the present; sages, that which is
    about to take place. My peculiar abstemious mode of living
    produces such an acuteness of the senses, or creates some other
    faculty, so that the greatest and most remarkable things may be
    performed.(549)


Professor A. Wilder’s comment thereupon is remarkable:


    This is what may be termed _spiritual photography_. The soul is
    the camera in which facts and events, future, past, and present,
    are alike fixed; and the mind becomes conscious of them. Beyond
    our everyday world of limits, all is as one day or state—the past
    and future comprised in the present. Probably this is the “great
    day,” the “_last_ day,” the “day of the Lord,” of the Bible
    writers—the day into which everyone passes by death or _ecstasis_.
    Then the soul is freed from the constraint of the body, and its
    nobler part is united to higher nature and becomes partaker in the
    wisdom and foreknowledge of the higher beings.(550)


How far the system practised by the Neo‐Platonists was identical with that
of the old and the modern Vedântins may be inferred from what Dr. A.
Wilder says of the Alexandrian Theosophists.


    The anterior idea of the New Platonists was that of a single
    Supreme Essence.... All the old philosophies contained the
    doctrine that θεοὶ, _theoi_, gods or disposers, angels, demons,
    and other spiritual agencies, emanated from the Supreme Being.
    Ammonius accepted the doctrine of the Books of Hermes, that from
    the divine All proceeded the Divine Wisdom or Amun; that from
    Wisdom proceeded the Demiurge or Creator; and from, the Creator,
    the subordinate spiritual beings; the world and its peoples being
    the last. The first is contained in the second, the first and
    second in the third, and so on through the entire series.(551)


This is a perfect echo of the belief of the Vedântins, and it proceeds
directly from the secret teachings of the East. The same author says:


    Akin to this is the doctrine of the Jewish Kabala which was taught
    by the Pharsi or Pharisees, who probably borrowed it, as their
    sectarian designation would seem to indicate, from the Magians of
    Persia. It is substantially embodied in the following synopsis.

    The Divine Being is the All, the source of all existence, the
    Infinite; and He cannot be known. The Universe reveals Him, and
    subsists by Him. At the beginning His effulgence went forth
    everywhere.(552) Eventually He retired within Himself and so
    formed around Him a vacant space. Into this He transmitted His
    first Emanation, a Ray, containing in it the generative and
    conceptive power, and hence the name IE, or Jah. This in its turn
    produced the _tikkun_, the _pattern_ or idea of form; and in this
    emanation, which also contained the male and female, or generative
    and conceptive potencies, were the three primitive forces of
    Light, Spirit and Life. This Tikkun is united to the Ray, or first
    emanation, and pervaded by it: and by that union is also in
    perpetual communication with the infinite source. It is the
    pattern, the primitive man, the Adam Kadmon, the _macrocosm_ of
    Pythagoras and other philosophers. From it proceeded the
    _Sephiroth_.... From the Sephiroth in turn emanated the four
    worlds, each proceeding out of the one immediately above it, and
    the lower one enveloping its superior. These worlds became less
    pure as they descended in the scale, the lowest of all being the
    material world.(553)


This veiled enunciation of the Secret Teaching will be clear to our
readers by this time. These worlds are:


    _Aziluth_ is peopled with the purest emanations [the First, almost
    spiritual, Race of the human beings that were to inhabit] the
    Fourth; the second, _Beriah_, by a lower order, the servants of
    the former [the second Race]; the third, _Jesirah_, by the
    cherubim and seraphim, the Elohim and B’ni Elohim [“Sons of Gods”
    or _Elohim_, our Third Race]. The fourth world, _Asiah_, is
    inhabited by the Klipputh, of whom Belial is chief [the Atlantean
    Sorcerers].(554)


These worlds are all the earthly duplicates of their heavenly prototypes,
the mortal and temporary reflections and shadows of the more durable, if
not eternal, races dwelling in other, to us, invisible worlds. The souls
of the men of our Fifth Race derive their elements from these four
worlds—Root Races—that preceded ours: namely, our intellect, Manas, the
fifth principle, our passions and mental and corporeal appetites. A
conflict having arisen, called “war in heaven,” among our prototypical
worlds, war came to pass, æons later, between the Atlanteans(555) of
Asiah, and those of the third Root Race, the B’ni Elohim or the “Sons of
God,”(556) and then evil and wickedness were intensified. Mankind (in the
last sub‐race of the third Root Race) having


    Sinned in their first parent [a physiological allegory, truly!]
    from whose soul every human soul is an emanation,


says the _Zohar_, men were “exiled” into more material bodies to


    Expiate that sin and become proficient in goodness.


To accomplish the cycle of necessity, rather, explains the doctrine; to
progress on their task of evolution, from which task none of us can be
freed, neither by death nor suicide, for each of us have to pass through
the “Valley of Thorns” before he emerges into the plains of divine light
and rest. And thus men will continue to be born in new bodies


    Till they have become sufficiently pure to enter a higher form of
    existence.


This means only that Mankind, from the First down to the last, or Seventh
Race, is composed of one and the same company of actors, who have
descended from higher spheres to perform their artistic tour on this our
planet, Earth. Starting as pure spirits on our downward journey around the
world (verily!) with the knowledge of truth—now feebly echoed in the
Occult Doctrines—inherent in us, cyclic law brings us down to the reversed
apex of matter, which is lost down here on earth and the bottom of which
we have already struck; and then, the same law of spiritual gravity will
make us slowly ascend to still higher, still purer spheres than those we
started from.

Foresight, prophecy, oracular powers! Illusive fancies of man’s dwarfed
perceptions, which see actual images in reflections and shadows, and
mistake past actualities for prophetic images of a future that has no room
in Eternity. Our macrocosm and its smallest microcosm, man, are both
repeating the same play of universal and individual events at each
station, as on every stage on which Karma leads them to enact their
respective dramas of life. False prophets could have no existence had
there been no true prophets. And so there were, and many of both classes,
and in all ages. Only, none of these ever saw anything but that which had
already come to pass, and had been before prototypically enacted in higher
spheres—if the event foretold related to national or public weal or woe—or
in some preceding life, if it concerned only an individual, for every such
event is stamped as an indelible record of the Past and Future, which are
only, after all, the ever Present in Eternity. The “worlds” and the
purifications spoken of in the _Zohar_ and other Kabalistic books, relate
to our globe and races no more and no less than they relate to other
globes and other races that have preceded our own in the great cycle. It
was such fundamental truths as these that were performed in allegorical
plays and images during the Mysteries, the last Act of which, the Epilogue
for the Mystæ, was the _anastasis_ or “continued existence,” as also the
“Soul transformation.”

Hence, the author of _Neo‐platonism and Alchemy_ shows us that all such
Eclectic doctrines were strongly reflected in the _Epistles_ of Paul, and
were


    Inculcated more or less among the Churches. Hence, such passages
    as these “Ye were dead in errors and sins; ye walked according to
    the _æon_ of this world, according to the _archon_ that has the
    domination of the air.” “We wrestle not against flesh and blood,
    but against the dominations, against potencies, against the lords
    of darkness, and against the mischievousness of spirits in the
    empyrean regions.” But Paul was evidently hostile to the effort to
    blend his gospel with the gnostic ideas of the Hebrew‐Egyptian
    school, as seems to have been attempted at Ephesus; and
    accordingly, wrote to Timothy, his favourite disciple, “Keep safe
    the precious charge entrusted to thee; and reject the new
    doctrines and the antagonistic principles of the gnosis, falsely
    so‐called, of which some have made profession and gone astray from
    the faith.”(557)


But as the Gnosis is the Science pertaining to our Higher Self, as blind
faith is a matter of temperament and emotionalism, and as Paul’s doctrine
was still newer and his interpretations far more thickly veiled, to keep
the inner truths hidden far away from the Gnostic, preference has been
given to the former by every earnest seeker after truth.

Besides this, the great Teachers who professed the so‐called “false
Gnosis” were very numerous in the days of the Apostles, and were as great
as any converted Rabbi could be. If Porphyry, the Jew Malek, went against
Theurgy on account of old traditional recollections, there were other
teachers who practised it. Plotinus, Iamblichus, Proclus were all
thaumaturgists, and the latter


    Elaborated the entire theosophy and theurgy of his predecessors
    into a complete system. (558)


As to Ammonius,


    Countenanced by Clemens and Athenagoras, in the Church, and by
    learned men of the Synagogue, the Academy, and the Grove, he
    fulfilled his labour by teaching a common doctrine for all.(559)


Thus it is not Judaism and Christianity that re‐modelled the ancient Pagan
Wisdom, but rather the latter that put its heathen curb, quietly and
insensibly, on the new faith; and this, moreover, was still further
influenced by the Eclectic Theosophical system, the direct emanation of
the Wisdom Religion. All that is grand and noble in Christian theology
comes from Neo‐Platonism. It is too well‐known to now need much repetition
that Ammonius Saccas, the God‐taught (_theodidaktos_) and the lover of the
truth (_philalethes_), in establishing his school, made a direct attempt
to benefit the world by teaching those portions of the Secret Science that
were permitted by its direct guardians to be revealed in those days.(560)
The modern movement of our own Theosophical Society was begun on the same
principles; for the Neo‐Platonic school of Ammonius aimed, as we do, at
the reconcilement of all sects and peoples, under the once common faith of
the Golden Age, trying to induce the nations to lay aside their
contentions—in religious matters at any rate—by proving to them that their
various beliefs are all the more or less legitimate children of one common
parent, the Wisdom Religion.

Nor was the Eclectic Theosophical system—as some writers inspired by Rome
would make the world believe—developed only during the third century of
our era; but it belongs to a much earlier age, as has been shown by
Diogenes Laertius. He traces it to the beginning of the dynasty of the
Ptolemies; to the great seer and prophet, the Egyptian Priest Pot‐Amun, of
the temple of the God of that name—for Amun is the God of Wisdom. Unto
that day the communication between the Adepts of Upper India and Bactria
and the Philosophers of the West had never ceased.


    Under Philadelphus ... the Hellenic teachers became rivals of the
    College of Rabbis of Babylon. The Buddhistic, Vedântic and Magian
    systems were expounded along with the philosophies of Greece....
    Aristobulus, the Jew, declared that the ethics of Aristotle were
    derived from the law of Moses (!); and Philo, after him, attempted
    to interpret the Pentateuch in accordance with the doctrines of
    Pythagoras and the Academy. In Josephus it is said that, in the
    Book of the Genesis, Moses wrote philosophically—that is, in the
    figurative style; and the Essenes of Carmel were reproduced in the
    Therapeutæ of Egypt, who, in turn, were declared by Eusebius to be
    identical with the Christians, though they actually existed long
    before the Christian era. Indeed, in its turn, Christianity also
    was taught at Alexandria, and underwent an analogous
    metamorphosis. Pantænus, Athenagoras and Clement were thoroughly
    instructed in the Platonic philosophy, and comprehended its
    essential unity with the oriental systems.(561)


Ammonius, though the son of Christian parents, was a _lover_ of the truth,
a true Philaletheian foremost of all. He set his heart upon the work of
reconciling the different systems into a harmonious whole, for he had
already perceived the tendency of Christianity to raise itself on the
hecatomb which it had constructed out of all other creeds and faiths. What
says history?

The ecclesiastical historian, Mosheim, declares that


    Ammonius, conceiving that not only the philosophers of Greece, but
    also all those of the different barbarous nations, were perfectly
    in unison with each other with regard to every essential point,
    made it his business so to temper and expound the tenets of all
    these various sects, as to make it appear they had all of them
    originated from one and the same source, and all tended to one and
    the same end. Again, Mosheim says that Ammonius taught that the
    religion of the multitude went hand in hand with philosophy, and
    with her had shared the fate of being by degrees corrupted and
    obscured with mere human conceits, superstition, and lies; that it
    ought, therefore, to be brought back to its original purity by
    purging it of this dross and expounding it upon philosophical
    principles; and that the whole which Christ had in view was to
    reinstate and restore to its primitive integrity the Wisdom of the
    Ancients.(562)


Now what was that “Wisdom of the Ancients” that the Founder of
Christianity “had in view”? The system taught by Ammonius in his Eclectic
Theosophical School was made of the crumbs permitted to be gathered from
the antediluvian lore; those Neo‐Platonic teachings are described in the
_Edinburgh Encyclopædia_ as follows:


    He [Ammonius] adopted the doctrines which were received in Egypt
    concerning the Universe and the Deity, considered as constituting
    one great whole; concerning the eternity of the world, the nature
    of souls, the empire of Providence [Karma] and the government of
    the world by demons [_daimons_ or spirits, archangels]. He also
    established a system of moral discipline which allowed the people
    in general to live according to the laws of their country and the
    dictates of nature; but required the wise to exalt their minds by
    contemplation, and to mortify the body,(563) so that they might be
    capable of enjoying the presence and assistance of the demons
    [including their own _daimon_ or Seventh Principle] ... and
    ascending after death to the presence of the Supreme [Soul]
    Parent. In order to reconcile the popular religions, and
    particularly the Christian, with this new system, he made the
    whole history of the heathen gods an allegory, maintaining that
    they were only celestial ministers(564) entitled to an inferior
    kind of worship; and he acknowledged that Jesus Christ was an
    excellent man and the friend of God, but alleged that it was not
    his design entirely to abolish the worship of demons,(565) and
    that his only intention was to purify the ancient religion.


No more could be declared except for those Philaletheians who were
initiated, “persons duly instructed and disciplined” to whom Ammonius
communicated his more important doctrines,


    Imposing on them the obligations of secrecy, as was done before
    him by Zoroaster and Pythagoras, and in the Mysteries [where an
    oath was required from the neophytes or catechumens not to divulge
    what they had learned]. The great Pythagoras divided his teachings
    into exoteric and esoteric.(566)


Has not Jesus done the same, since He declared to His disciples that to
them it was given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, whereas
to the multitudes it was not given, and therefore He spoke in parables
which had a two‐fold meaning?

Dr. A. Wilder proceeds:


    Thus Ammonius found his work ready to his hand. His deep spiritual
    intuition, his extensive learning, and his familiarity with the
    Christian fathers, Pantænus, Clement and Athenagoras, and with the
    most erudite philosophers of the time, all fitted him for the
    labour he performed so thoroughly.... The results of his
    ministration are perceptible at the present day in every country
    of the Christian world; every prominent system of doctrine now
    bearing the marks of his plastic hand. Every ancient philosophy
    has had its votaries among the moderns; and even Judaism, oldest
    of them all, has taken upon itself changes which were suggested by
    the “God‐taught” Alexandrian.(567)


The Neo‐Platonic School of Alexandria founded by Ammonius—the prototype
proposed for the Theosophical Society—taught Theurgy and Magic, as much as
they were taught in the days of Pythagoras, and by others far earlier than
his period. For Proclus says that the doctrines of Orpheus, who was an
Indian and came from India, were the origin of the systems afterwards
promulgated.


    What Orpheus delivered in hidden allegories, Pythagoras learned
    when he was initiated into the Orphic Mysteries; and Plato next
    received a perfect knowledge of them from Orphic and Pythagorean
    writings.(568)


The Philaletheians had their division into neophytes (_chelas_) and
Initiates, or Masters; and the eclectic system was characterised by three
distinct features, which are purely Vedântic; a Supreme Essence, One and
Universal; the eternity and indivisibility of the human spirit; and
Theurgy, which is Mantricism. So also, as we have seen, they had their
secret or Esoteric teachings like any other mystic school. Nor were they
allowed to reveal anything of their secret tenets, any more than were the
Initiates of the Mysteries. Only the penalties incurred by the revealers
of the secrets of the latter were far more terrible, and this prohibition
has survived to this day, not only in India, but even among the Jewish
Kabalists in Asia.(569)

One of the reasons for such secrecy may be the undoubtedly serious
difficulties and hardships of chelaship, and the dangers attending
Initiation. The modern candidate has, like his predecessor of old, to
either conquer or die; when, which is still worse, he does not lose his
reason. There is no danger to him who is true and sincere, and,
especially, unselfish. For he is thus prepared beforehand to meet any
temptation.


    He, who fully recognised the power of his immortal spirit, and
    never doubted for one moment its omnipotent protection, had naught
    to fear. But woe to the candidate in whom the slightest physical
    fear—sickly child of matter—made him lose sight and faith in his
    own invulnerability. He who was not wholly confident of his moral
    fitness to accept the burden of these tremendous secrets was
    doomed.(570)


There were no such dangers in Neo‐Platonic Initiations. The selfish and
the unworthy failed in their object, and in the failure was the
punishment. The chief aim was “reunion of the part with the _all_.” This
All was One, with numberless names. Whether called _Dui_, the “bright Lord
of Heaven” by the Âryan; _Iao_, by the Chaldæan and Kabalist; _Iabe_ by
the Samaritan; the _Tiu_ or _Tuisco_ by the Northman; _Duw_ by the Briton;
_Zeus_, by the Thracian or _Jupiter_ by the Roman—it was _the_ Being, the
_Facit_, One and Supreme,(571) the unborn and the inexhaustible source of
every emanation, the fountain of life and light eternal, a Ray of which
every one of us carries in him on this earth. The knowledge of this
Mystery had reached the Neo‐Platonists from India through Pythagoras, and
still later through Apollonius of Tyana and the rules and methods for
producing ecstasy had come from the same lore of the divine Vidyâ, the
Gnosis. For Âryavarta, the bright focus into which had been poured in the
beginning of time the flames of Divine Wisdom, had become the centre from
which radiated the “tongues of fire” into every portion of the globe. What
was Samâdhi but that


    Sublime ecstasy, in which state things divine and the mysteries of
    Nature are revealed to us,


of which Porphyry speaks?


    The efflux from the divine soul is imparted to the human spirit in
    unreserved abundance, accomplishing for the soul a union with the
    divine, and enabling it while in the body to be partaker of the
    life which is not in the body,


he explains elsewhere.

Thus under the title of Magic was taught every Science, physical and
metaphysical, natural or deemed supernatural by those who are ignorant of
the omnipresence and universality of Nature.


    Divine Magic makes of man a God; human magic creates a new fiend.


We wrote in _Isis Unveiled_:


    In the oldest documents now in the possession of the World—the
    _Vedas_ and the older laws of Manu—we find many magical rites
    practised and permitted by the Brâhmans.(572) Tibet, Japan, and
    China, teach in the present age that which was taught by the
    oldest Chaldæans. The clergy of these respective countries prove
    moreover what they teach—namely, that the practice of moral and
    physical purity, and of certain austerities, developes the vital
    soul‐power of self‐illumination. Affording to man the control over
    his own immortal spirit, it gives him truly magical powers over
    the elementary spirits inferior to himself. In the West we find
    magic of as high an antiquity as in the East. The Druids of Great
    Britain practised it in the silent crypts of their deep caves; and
    Pliny devotes many a chapter to the “wisdom”(573) of the leaders
    of the Celts. The Semothees—the Druids of the Gauls—expounded the
    physical as well as the spiritual sciences. They taught the
    secrets of the universe, the harmonious progress of the heavenly
    bodies, the formation of the earth, and above all—the immortality
    of the Soul.(574) In their sacred groves—natural academies built
    by the hand of the Invisible Architect—the initiates assembled at
    the still hour of midnight, to learn about what man once was, and
    what he will be.(575) They needed no artificial illumination, nor
    life‐drawing gas, to light up their temples, for the chaste
    goddess of night beamed her most silvery rays on their oak‐crowned
    heads; and their white‐robed sacred bards knew how to converse
    with the solitary queen of the starry vault.(576)


During the palmy days of Neo‐Platonism these Bards were no more, for their
cycle had run its course, and the last of the Druids had perished at
Bibractis and Alesia. But the Neo‐Platonic school was for a long time
successful, powerful and prosperous. Still, while adopting Âryan Wisdom in
its doctrines, the school failed to follow the wisdom of the Brâhmans in
practice. It showed its moral and intellectual superiority too openly,
caring too much for the great and powerful of this earth. While the
Brâhmans and their great Yogîs—experts in matters of philosophy,
metaphysics, astronomy, morals and religion—preserved their dignity under
the sway of the most powerful princes, remained aloof from the world and
would not condescend to visit them or ask for the slightest favour,(577)
the Emperors Alexander, Severus, and Julian, and the greatest among the
aristocracy of the land, embraced the tenets of the Neo‐Platonists, who
mixed freely with the world. The system flourished for several centuries
and comprised within the ranks of its followers the ablest and most
learned among the men of the time; Hypatia, the teacher of the Bishop
Synesius, was one of the ornaments of the School until the fatal and
shameful day when she was murdered by the Christian mob at the instigation
of Bishop Cyril of Alexandria. The school was finally removed to Athens,
and closed by order of the Emperor Justinian.

How accurate is Dr. Wilder’s remark that


    Modern writers have commented upon the peculiar views of the Neo‐
    Platonists upon these [metaphysical] subjects, seldom representing
    them correctly, even if this was desired or intended.(578)


The few speculations on the sublunary, material, and spiritual universes
that they did put into writing—Ammonius never having himself written a
line, after the wont of reformers—could not enable posterity to judge them
rightly, even had not the early Christian Vandals, the later crusaders,
and the fanatics of the Middle Ages, destroyed three parts of that which
remained of the Alexandrian Library and its later schools.

Professor Draper shows that Cardinal Ximenes alone


    Delivered to the flames in the squares of Granada eighty thousand
    Arabic manuscripts, many of them translations of classical
    authors.


In the Vatican Library, whole passages in the most rare and precious
treatises of the Ancients were found erased and blotted out, “for the sake
of interlining them with absurd psalmodies!” Moreover it is well known
that over thirty‐six volumes written by Porphyry were burnt and otherwise
destroyed by the “Fathers.” Most of the little that is known of the
doctrines of the Eclectics is found in the writings of Plotinus and of
those same Church Fathers.

Says the author of _Neo‐Platonism_:


    What Plato was to Socrates, and the Apostle John to the head of
    the Christian faith, Plotinus became to the God‐taught Ammonius.
    To Plotinus, Origenes, and Longinus we are indebted for what is
    known of the Philaletheian system. They were duly instructed,
    initiated and entrusted with the interior doctrines.(579)


This accounts marvellously for Origen’s calling people “idiots” who
believe in the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve fables; as also for the
fact that so few of the writings of that Church Father have passed to
posterity. Between the secrecy imposed, the vows of silence and that which
was maliciously destroyed by every foul means, it is indeed miraculous
that even so much of the Philaletheian tenets has reached the world.



SECTION XXXV. SYMBOLISM OF SUN AND STARS.


    And the Heaven was visible in Seven Circles and the planets
    appeared with all their signs, in star‐form, and the stars were
    divided and numbered with the rulers that were in them, and their
    revolving course, through the agency of the divine Spirit.(580)


Here Spirit denotes Pneuma, collective Deity, manifested in its
“Builders,” or, as the Church has it, “the seven Spirits of the Presence,”
the _mediantibus angelis_ of whom Thomas Aquinas says that “God never
works but through them.”

These seven “rulers” or mediating Angels were the Kabiri Gods of the
Ancients. This was so evident, that it forced from the Church, together
with the admission of the fact, an explanation and a theory, whose
clumsiness and evident sophistry are such that it must fail to impress.
The world is asked to believe, that while the Planetary Angels of the
Church are divine Beings, the genuine “Seraphim,”(581) these very same
angels, under identical names and planets, were and are “false”—as Gods of
the ancients. They are no better than pretenders; the cunning copies of
the real Angels, produced beforehand through the craft and power of
Lucifer and of the fallen Angels. Now, what are the Kabiri?

Kabiri, as a name, is derived from Habir חבר, great, and also from Venus,
this Goddess being called to the present day Kabar, as is also her star.
The Kabiri were worshipped at Hebron, the city of the Anakim, or anakas
(kings, princes). They are the highest Planetary Spirits, the “greatest
Gods” and “the powerful.” Varro, following Orpheus, calls these Gods
εὐδυνατοί, “divine Powers.” The word Kabirim when applied to men, and the
words Heber, Gheber (with reference to Nimrod, or the “giants” of
_Genesis_, vi.) and Kabir, are all derived from the “mysterious Word”—the
Ineffable and the “Unpronounceable.” Thus it is they who represent
_tsaba_, the “host of heaven.” The Church, however, bowing before the
angel Anael (the regent of Venus),(582) connects the planet Venus with
Lucifer, the chief of the rebels under Satan—so poetically apostrophized
by the prophet Isaiah as “O Lucifer, son of the morning.”(583) All the
Mystery Gods were Kabiri. As these “seven lictors” relate directly to the
Secret Doctrine their real status is of the greatest importance.

Suidas defines the Kabiri as the Gods who command all the other dæmons
(Spirits), καβείρους δαίμονας. Macrobius introduces them as


    Those Penates and tutelary deities, through whom we live and learn
    and know (_Saturn_, I. iii. ch. iv.).


The teraphim through which the Hebrews consulted the oracles of the Urim
and the Thummim, were the symbolical hieroglyphics of the Kabiri.
Nevertheless, the good Fathers have made of Kibir the synonym, of devil
and of daimon (spirit) a demon.

The Mysteries of the Kabiri at Hebron (Pagan and Jewish) were presided
over by the seven Planetary Gods, among the rest by Jupiter and Saturn
under their mystery names, and they are referred to as ἀξιόχρσος and
ἀξιόχερσα, and by Euripides as ἀξιόχρεως ὁ θεὸς. Creuzer, moreover, shows
that whether in Phœnicia or in Egypt, the Kabiri were always the seven
planets as known in antiquity, who, together with their Father the
Sun—referred to elsewhere as their “elder brother”—composed a powerful
ogdoad;(584) the eight superior powers, as παρεδοὶ, or solar assessors,
danced around him the sacred circular dance, the symbol of the rotation of
the planets around the Sun. Jehovah and Saturn, moreover, are one.

It is quite natural, therefore, to find a French writer, D’Anselme,
applying the same terms of ἀξιόχερσος and ἀξιόχερσα to Jehovah and his
word, and they are correctly so applied. For if the “circle dance”
prescribed by the Amazons for the Mysteries—being the “circle dance” of
the planets, and characterised as “the motion of the divine Spirit carried
on the waves of the great Deep”—can now be called “infernal” and
“lascivious” when performed by the Pagans, then the same epithets ought to
be applied to David’s dance;(585) and to the dance of the daughters of
Shiloh,(586) and to the leaping of the prophets of Baal;(587) they were
all identical and all belonged to Sabæan worship. King David’s dance,
during which he uncovered himself before his maid‐servants in a public
thoroughfare, saying:


    I will _play_ (act wantonly) before יהוה (Jehovah), and I will yet
    be more vile than this,


was certainly more reprehensible than any “circle dance” during the
Mysteries, or even than the modern Râsa Mandala in India,(588) which is
the same thing. It was David who introduced Jehovistic worship into Judea,
after sojourning so long among the Tyrians and Philistines, where these
rites were common.


    David knew nothing of Moses; and if he introduced the Jehovah‐
    worship, it was not in its monotheistic character, but simply as
    that of one of the many (_Kabirean_) gods of the neighbouring
    nations, a tutelary deity of his own, יהוה to whom he had given
    the preference—whom he had chosen among “all other (Kabeiri)
    gods,”(589)


and who was one of the “associates,” Chabir, of the Sun. The Shakers dance
the “circle dance” to this day when turning round for the Holy Ghost to
move them. In India it is Nârâ‐yana who is “the mover on the waters;” and
Nârâyana is Vishnu in his secondary form, and Vishnu has Krishna for an
Avatâra, in whose honour the “circle dance” is still enacted by the
Nautch‐girls of the temples, he being the Sun‐God and they the planets as
symbolised by the gopis.

Let the reader turn to the works of De Mirville, a Roman Catholic writer,
or to _Monumental Christianity_, by Dr. Lundy, a Protestant divine, if he
wants to appreciate to any degree the subtlety and casuistry of their
reasonings. No one ignorant of the occult versions can fail to be
impressed with the proofs brought forward to show how cleverly and
perseveringly “Satan has worked for long millenniums to tempt a humanity”
unblessed with an infallible Church, in order to have himself recognised
as the “One living God,” and his fiends as holy Angels. The reader must be
patient, and study with attention what the author says on behalf of his
Church. To compare it the better with the version of the Occultists, a few
points may be quoted here verbatim.


    St. Peter tells us: “May the divine Lucifer arise in your
    hearts”(590) [Now the Sun is Christ].... “I will send my Son from
    the Sun,” said the Eternal through the voice of prophetic
    traditions; and prophecy having become history the Evangelists
    repeated in their turn: The _Sun rising_ from on high visited
    us.(591)


Now God says, through Malachi, that the Sun shall arise for those who fear
his name. What Malachi meant by “the Sun of Righteousness” the Kabalists
alone can tell; but what the Greek, and even the Protestant, theologians
understood by the term is of course Christ, referred to metaphorically.
Only, as the sentence, “I will send my Son from the Sun,” is borrowed
verbatim from a Sibylline Book, it becomes very hard to understand how it
can be attributed to, or classed with any prophecy relating to the
Christian Saviour, unless, indeed, the latter is to be identified with
Apollo. Virgil, again, says, “Here comes the Virgin’s and Apollo’s reign,”
and Apollo, or Apollyon, is to this day viewed as a form of Satan, and is
taken to mean the Antichrist. If the Sibylline promise, “He will send his
Son from the Sun” applies to Christ, then either Christ and Apollo are
one—and then why call the latter a demon?—or the prophecy had nothing to
do with the Christian Saviour, and, in such a case, why appropriate it at
all?

But De Mirville goes further. He shows us St. Denys, the Areopagite,
affirming that


    The Sun is the special signification, and the statue of
    God(592).... It is by the Eastern door that the glory of the Lord
    penetrated into the temples [of the Jews and Christians, that
    divine glory being Sun‐light.]... “We build our churches towards
    the east,” says in his turn St. Ambrose, “for during the Mysteries
    we begin by renouncing him who is in the west.”


“He who is in the west” is Typhon, the Egyptian god of darkness—the west
having been held by them as the “Typhonic Gate of Death.” Thus, having
borrowed Osiris from the Egyptians, the Church Fathers thought little of
helping themselves to his brother Typhon. Then again:


    The prophet Baruch(593) speaks of the stars that rejoice in their
    _vessels_ and _citadels_ (Chap. iii.); and _Ecclesiastes_ applies
    the same terms to the sun, which is said to be “the admirable
    vessel of the most High,” and the “citadel of the Lord”
    φυλαχη.(594)

    In every case there is no doubt about the thing, for the sacred
    writer says, It is a _Spirit_ who rules the sun’s course. Hear
    what he says (in _Eccles._, i. 6), “The sun also ariseth—and its
    spirit lighting all in its circular path (gyrat gyrans) returneth
    according to his circuits.”(595)


De Mirville seems to quote from texts either rejected by or unknown to
Protestants, in whose bible there is no forty‐third chapter of
_Ecclesiastes_; nor is the sun made to go “in circuits” in the latter, but
the wind. This is a question to be settled between the Roman and the
Protestant Churches. Our point is the strong element of Sabæanism or
Heliolatry present in Christianity.

An Œcumenical Council having authoritatively put a stop to Christian
Astrolatry by declaring that there were no sidereal Souls in sun, moon, or
planets, St. Thomas took upon himself to settle the point in dispute. The
“angelic doctor” announced that such expressions did not mean a “soul,”
but only an Intelligence, not resident in the sun or stars, but one that
assisted them, “a guiding and directing intelligence.”(596)

Thereupon the author, comforted by the explanation, quotes Clement the
Alexandrian, and reminds the reader of the opinion of that philosopher,
the inter‐relation that exists “between the seven branches of the
candlestick—the seven stars of the Revelation,” and the sun:


    The six branches (says Clement) fixed to the central candlestick
    have lamps, but the sun placed in the midst of the wandering ones
    (πλανητῶν) pours his beams on them all; this golden candlestick
    hides one more mystery: it is the sign of Christ, not only in
    shape, but because he sheds his light through the ministry of the
    seven spirits primarily created, and who are the Seven Eyes of the
    Lord. Therefore the principal planets are to the seven primeval
    spirits, according to St. Clement, that which the candlestick‐sun
    is to Christ Himself, namely—their vessels, their φυλαχαὶ.


Plain enough, to be sure; though one fails to see that this explanation
even helps the situation. The seven‐branched chandelier of the Israelites,
as well as the “wanderers” of the Greeks, had a far more natural meaning,
a purely astrological one to begin with. In fact from Magi and Chaldæans
down to the much‐laughed‐at Zadkiel, every astrological work will tell its
reader that the Sun placed in the midst of the planets, with Saturn,
Jupiter and Mars on one side, and Venus, Mercury and the Moon on the
other, the planets’ line crossing through the whole Earth, has always
meant what Hermes tells us, namely, the thread of destiny, or that whose
action (influence) is called destiny.(597) But symbol for symbol we prefer
the sun to a candlestick. One can understand how the latter came to
represent the sun and planets, but no one can admire the chosen symbol.
There is poetry and grandeur in the sun when it is made to symbolize the
“Eye of Ormuzd,” or of Osiris, and is regarded as the Vâhan (vehicle) of
the highest Deity. But one must for ever fail to perceive that any
particular glory is rendered to Christ by assigning to him the trunk of a
candlestick,(598) in a Jewish synagogue, as a mystical seat of honour.

There are then positively two suns, a sun adored and a sun adoring. The
_Apocalypse_ proves it.


    The Word is found in Chap. vii., in the angel who ascends with the
    rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God.... While
    commentators differ on the personality of this angel, St. Ambrose
    and many other theologians see in him Christ himself.... He is the
    _Sun adored_. But in Chap. xix. we find an angel standing _in_ the
    sun, inviting all the nations to gather to the great supper of the
    Lamb. This time it is literally and simply the angel of the
    sun—who cannot be mistaken for the “Word,” since the prophet
    distinguishes him from the Word, the King of Kings and the Lord of
    Lords.... The angel _in_ the sun seems to be an adoring sun. Who
    may be the latter? And who else can he be but the Morning Star,
    the guardian angel of the Word, his _ferouer_, or _angel of the
    face_, as the Word is the angel of the Face (presence) of his
    Father, his principal attribute and strength, as his name itself
    implies (Mikael), the powerful rector glorified by the Church, the
    _Rector potens_ who will fell the Antichrist, the Vice‐Word, in
    short, who represents his master, and seems to be _one with
    him_.(599)


Yes, Mikael is the alleged conqueror of Ormuzd, Osiris, Apollo, Krishna,
Mithra, etc., of all the Solar Gods, in short, known and unknown, now
treated as demons and as “Satan.” Nevertheless, the “Conqueror” has not
disdained to don the war‐spoils of the vanquished foes—their
personalities, attributes, even their names—to become the _alter ego_ of
these demons.


    Thus the Sun‐God here is _Honover_ or the Eternal. The prince is
    Ormuzd, since he is the first of the seven Amshaspends [the demon
    copies of the seven original angels] (_capul angelorum_); the lamb
    (_hamal_), the Shepherd of the Zodiac and the antagonist of the
    snake. But the Sun (the Eye of Ormuzd) has also his rector,
    Korshid or the _Mitraton_, who is the _Ferouer_ of the face of
    Ormuzd, his Ized, or the morning star. The Mazdeans had a triple
    Sun.... For us this _Korshid‐Mitraton_ is the first of the
    _psychopompian_ genii, and the guide of the sun, the immolator of
    the terrestrial Bull [or lamb] whose wounds are licked by the
    serpent [on the famous Mithraic monument].(600)


St. Paul, in speaking of the rulers of this world, the Cosmocratores, only
said what was said by all the primitive Philosophers of the ten centuries
before the Christian era, only he was scarcely understood, and was often
wilfully misinterpreted. Damascius repeats the teachings of the Pagan
writers when he explains that


    There are seven series of cosmocratores or cosmic forces, which
    are double: the higher ones commissioned to support and guide the
    superior world; the lower ones, the inferior world [our own].


And he is but saying what the ancients taught. Iamblichus gives this dogma
of the duality of all the planets and celestial bodies, of gods and
daimons (spirits). He also divides the Archontes into two classes—the more
and the less spiritual; the latter more connected with and clothed with
matter, as having a _form_, while the former are bodiless (_arûpa_). But
what have Satan and his angels to do with all this? Perhaps only that the
identity of the Zoroastrian dogma with the Christian, and of Mithra,
Ormuzd, and Ahriman with the Christian Father, Son, and Devil, might be
accounted for. And when we say “Zoroastrian dogmas” we mean the exoteric
teaching. How explain the same relations between Mithra and Ormuzd as
those between the Archangel Mikael and Christ?


    Ahura Mazda says to holy Zaratushta: “When I _created_ [emanated]
    Mithra ... I created him that he should be invoked and adored
    equally with myself.”


For the sake of necessary reforms, the Zoroastrian Âryans transformed the
Devas, the bright Gods of India, into devs or devils. It was their Karma
that in their turn the Christians should vindicate on this point the
Hindus. Now Ormuzd and Mithra have become the devs of Christ and Mikael,
the dark lining and aspect of the Saviour and Angel. The day of the Karma
of Christian theology will come in its turn. Already the Protestants have
begun the first chapter of the religion that will seek to transform the
“Seven Spirits” and the host of the Roman Catholics into demons and idols.
Every religion has its Karma, as has every individual. That which is due
to human conception and is built on the abasement of our brothers who
disagree with us, must have its day. “There is no religion higher than
truth.”

The Zoroastrians, Mazdeans, and Persians borrowed their conceptions from
India; the Jews borrowed their theory of angels from Persia; the
Christians borrowed from the Jews.

Hence the latest interpretation by Christian theology—to the great disgust
of the synagogue, forced to share the symbolical candlestick with the
hereditary enemy—that the seven‐branched candlestick represents the seven
Churches of Asia and the seven planets which are the angels of those
Churches. Hence also, the conviction that the Mosaic Jews, the inventors
of that symbol for their tabernacle, were a kind of Sabæans, who blended
their planets and the spirits thereof into one, and called them—only far
later—Jehovah. For this we have the testimony of Clemens Alexandrinus, St.
Hieronymus and others.

And Clement, as an Initiate of the Mysteries—at which the secret of the
heliocentric system was taught several thousands of years before Galileo
and Copernicus—proves it by explaining that


    By these various symbols connected with (sidereal) phenomena the
    totality of all the creatures which bind heaven with earth, are
    figured.... The chandelier represented the motion of the seven
    luminaries, describing their astral revolution. To the right and
    the left of that candelabrum projected the six branches, each of
    which had its lamp, because the Sun placed as a candelabrum in the
    middle of other planets distributes light to them.(601) ... As to
    the cherubs having twelve wings between the two, they represent to
    us the sensuous world in the twelve zodiacal signs.(602)


And yet, in the face of all this evidence, sun, moon, planets, all are
shown as being demoniacal before, and divine only after, the appearance of
Christ. All know the Orphic verse: “It is Zeus, it is Adas, it is the Sun,
it is Bacchus,” these names having been all synonymous for classic poets
and writers. Thus for Democritus “Deity is but a soul in an orbicular
fire,” and that fire is the Sun. For Iamblichus the sun was “the image of
divine intelligence”; for Plato “an immortal living Being.” Hence the
oracle of Claros when asked to say who was the Jehovah of the Jews,
answered, “It is the Sun.” We may add the words in _Psalm_ xix. 4


    In the sun hath he placed a tabernacle for himself(603) ... his
    going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto
    the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.


Jehovah then is the sun, and thence also the Christ of the Roman Church.
And now the criticism of Dupuis on that verse becomes comprehensible, as
also the despair of the Abbé Foucher. “Nothing is more favourable to
Sabæism than this text of the Vulgate!” he exclaims. And, however
disfigured may be the words and sense in the English authorised bible, the
Vulgate and the Septuagint both give the correct text of the original, and
translate the latter: “In the sun he established his abode”; while the
Vulgate regards the “heat” as coming direct from God and not from the sun
alone, since it is God who issues forth from, and dwells in the sun and
performs the circuit: _in sole posuit ... et ipse exultavit_. From these
facts it will be seen that the Protestants were right in charging St.
Justin with saying that


    God has permitted us to worship the sun.


And this, notwithstanding the lame excuses that what was really meant was
that


    God permitted himself to be worshipped in, or within, the sun,


which is all the same.

It will be seen from the above, that while the Pagans located in the sun
and planets only the inferior powers of Nature, the representative
Spirits, so to say, of Apollo, Bacchus, Osiris, and other solar gods, the
Christians, in their hatred of Philosophy, appropriated the sidereal
localities, and now limit them to the use of their anthropomorphic deity
and his angels—new transformations of the old, old gods. Something had to
be done in order to dispose of the ancient tenants, so they were disgraced
into “demons,” wicked devils.



SECTION XXXVI. PAGAN SIDEREAL WORSHIP, OR ASTROLOGY.


The Teraphim of Abram’s father _Terah_, the “maker of images,” and the
Kabiri Gods are directly connected with ancient Sabæan worship or
Astrolatry. Kiyun, or the God Kivan, worshipped by the Jews in the
wilderness, is Saturn and Shiva, later on called Jehovah. Astrology
existed before astronomy, and _Astronomus_ was the title of the highest
hierophant in Egypt.(604) One of the names of the Jewish Jehovah,
“Sabaoth,” or the “Lord of Hosts” (_tsabaoth_), belongs to the Chaldæan
Sabæans (or _Tsabæans_), and has for its root the word _tsab_, meaning a
“car,” a “ship,” and “an army”; sabaoth thus meaning literally the _army
of the ship_, the _crew_, or a _naval host_, the sky being metaphorically
referred to as the “upper ocean” in the doctrine.

In his interesting volumes, _The God of Moses_, Lacour explains that all
such words as


    The celestial armies or the hosts of heaven, signify not only the
    totality of the heavenly constellations, but also the Aleim on
    whom they are dependent; the _aleitzbaout_ are the forces or
    _souls_ of the constellations, the potencies that maintain and
    guide the planets in this order and procession; ... the Jae‐va‐
    Tzbaout signifies Him, the supreme chief of those celestial
    bodies.


In his collectivity, as the chief “Order of Spirits,” not a chief Spirit.

The Sabæans having worshipped in the _graven_ images only the celestial
hosts—angels and gods whose habitations were the planets, never in truth
worshipped the stars. For on Plato’s authority, we know that among the
stars and constellations, the planets alone had a right to the title of
_theoi_ (Gods), as that name was derived from the verb θεῖν, to run or to
circulate. Seldenus also tells us that they were likewise called


    θεοὶ βουλαιοὶ (God‐Councillors) and ῥαβδοφόροι (_lictors_) as they
    (the planets) were present at the sun’s consistory, _solis
    consistoris adstantes_.


Says the learned Kircher:


    The sceptres the seven presiding angels were armed with, explain
    these names of Rhabdophores and lictors given to them.


Reduced to its simplest expression and popular meaning, this is of course
fetish worship. Yet esoteric astrolatry was not at all the worship of
idols, since under the names of “Councillors” and “Lictors,” present at
the “Sun’s consistory,” it was not the planets in their material bodies
that were meant, but their Regents or “Souls” (Spirits). If the prayer
“Our Father in heaven,” or “Saint” so‐and‐so in “Heaven” is not an
idolatrous invocation, then “Our Father in Mercury,” or “Our Lady in
Venus,” “Queen of Heaven,” etc., is no more so; for it is precisely the
same thing, the name making no difference in the act. The word used in the
Christian prayers, “in heaven” cannot mean anything abstract. A
dwelling—whether of Gods, angels or Saints (every one of these being
anthropomorphic individualities and beings)—must necessarily mean a
locality, some defined spot in that “heaven”; hence it is quite immaterial
for purposes of worship whether that spot be considered as “heaven” in
general, meaning nowhere in particular, or in the Sun, Moon or Jupiter.

The argument is futile that there were


    Two deities, and two distinct hierarchies or _tsabas_ in heaven,
    in the ancient world as in our modern times ... the one, the
    living God and his host, and the other, _Satan_, Lucifer with his
    councillors and lictors, or the _fallen_ angels.


Our opponents say that it is the latter which Plato with the whole of
antiquity worshipped, and which two‐thirds of humanity worship to this
day. “The whole question is to know how to discern between the two.”

Protestant Christians fail to find any mention of angels in the
Pentateuch, we may therefore leave them aside. The Roman Catholics and the
Kabalists find such mention; the former, because they have accepted Jewish
angelology, without suspecting that the “tsabæan Hosts” were colonists and
settlers on Judæan territory from the lands of the Gentiles; the latter,
because they accepted the bulk of the Secret Doctrine, keeping the kernel
for themselves and leaving the husks to the unwary.

Cornelius a Lapide points out and proves the meaning of the word _tsaba_
in the first verse of Chapter ii. of _Genesis_; and he does so correctly,
guided, as he probably was, by learned Kabalists. The Protestants are
certainly wrong in their contention, for angels _are_ mentioned in the
Pentateuch under the word _tsaba_, which means “hosts” of angels. In the
Vulgate the word is translated _ornatus_, meaning the “sidereal army,” the
_ornament_ also of the sky—kabalistically. The biblical scholars of the
Protestant Church, and the _savants_ among the materialists, who failed to
find “angels” mentioned by Moses, have thus committed a serious error. For
the verse reads:


    Thus the heaven and the earth were finished and all the host of
    them,


the “host” meaning “the army of stars and angels”; the last two words
being, it seems, convertible terms in Church phraseology. A Lapide is
cited as an authority for this; he says that


    _Tsaba_ does not mean _either one_ or the other but “_the one and
    the other_,” or both, _siderum ac angelorum_.


If the Roman Catholics are right on this point, so are the Occultists when
they claim that the angels worshipped in the Church of Rome are none else
than their “Seven Planets,” the Dhyân Chohans of Buddhistic Esoteric
Philosophy, or the Kumâras, “the mind‐born sons of Brahmâ,” known under
the patronymic of Vaidhâtra. The identity between the Kumâras, the
Builders or cosmic Dhyân Chohans, and the Seven Angels of the Stars, will
be found without one single flaw if their respective biographies are
studied, and especially the characteristics of their chiefs, Sanat‐Kumâra
(Sanat Sujâta), and Michael the Archangel. Together with the Kabirim
(Planets), the name of the above in Chaldæa, they were all “_divine_
Powers” (Forces). Fuerot says that the name Kabiri was used to denote the
_seven_ sons of יצדיק meaning Pater Sadic, Cain, or Jupiter, or again of
Jehovah. There are seven Kumâras—four exoteric and three secret—the names
of the latter being found in the _Sânkhya Bhâshya_, by
Gaudapâdâchârya.(605) They are all “Virgin Gods,” who remain eternally
pure and innocent and decline to create progeny. In their primitive
aspect, these Âryan seven “mind‐born sons” of God are not the regents of
the planets, but dwell far beyond the planetary region. But the same
mysterious transference from one character or dignity to another is found
in the Christian Angel‐scheme. The “Seven Spirits of the Presence” attend
perpetually on God, and yet we find them under the same names of Mikael,
Gabriel, Raphael, etc., as “Star‐regents” or the informing deities of the
seven planets. Suffice it to say that the Archangel Michael is called “the
invincible virgin combatant” as he “refused to create,”(606) which would
connect him with both Sana Sujâta and the Kumâra who is the God of War.

The above has to be demonstrated by a few quotations. Commenting upon St.
John’s “Seven Golden Candlesticks,” Cornelius a Lapide says:


    These seven lights relate to the seven branches of the candlestick
    by which were represented the seven [principal] planets in the
    temples of Moses and Solomon ... or, better still, to the seven
    principal Spirits, commissioned to watch over the salvation of men
    and churches.


St. Jerome says:


    In truth the candlestick with the seven branches was the type of
    the world and its planets.


St. Thomas Aquinas, the great Roman Catholic doctor writes:


    I do not remember having ever met in the works of saints or
    philosophers a denial that the planets are guided by spiritual
    beings.... It seems to me that it may be proved to demonstration
    that the celestial bodies are guided by some intelligence, either
    directly by God, or by the mediation of angels. But the latter
    opinion seems to be far more consonant with the order of things
    asserted by St. Denys to be without exception, that everything on
    earth is, as a rule, governed by God through intermediary
    agencies.(607)


And now let the reader recall what the Pagans say of this. All the
classical authors and philosophers who have treated the subject, repeat
with Hermes Trismegistus, that the seven Rectors—the planets including the
sun—were the associates, or the co‐workers, of the Unknown All represented
by the Demiurgos—commissioned to contain the Cosmos—our planetary
world—within seven circles. Plutarch shows them representing “the circle
of the celestial worlds.” Again, Denys of Thracia and the learned Clemens
of Alexandria both describe the Rectors as being shown in the Egyptian
temples in the shape of mysterious wheels or spheres always in motion,
which made the Initiates affirm that the problem of perpetual motion had
been solved by the celestial wheels in the Initiation Adyta.(608) This
doctrine of Hermes was that of Pythagoras and of Orpheus before him. It is
called by Proclus “the God‐given” doctrine. Iamblichus speaks of it with
the greatest reverence. Philostratus tells his readers that the whole
sidereal court of the Babylonian heaven was represented in the temples


    In globes made of sapphires and supporting the golden images of
    their respective gods.


The temples of Persia were especially famous for these representations. If
Cedrenus can be credited


    The Emperor Heraclius on his entry into the city of Bazaeum was
    struck with admiration and wonder before the immense machine
    fabricated for King Chosroes, which represented the night‐sky with
    the planets and all their revolutions, with the angels presiding
    over them.(609)


It was on such “spheres” that Pythagoras studied Astronomy in the _adyta
arcana_ of the temples to which he had access. And it was there on his
Initiation, that the eternal rotation of those spheres—“the mysterious
wheels” as they are called by Clemens and Denys, and which Plutarch calls
“world‐wheels”—demonstrated to him the verity of what had been divulged to
him, namely, the heliocentric system, the great secret of the Adyta. All
the discoveries of modern astronomy, like all the secrets that can be
revealed to it in future ages, were contained in the secret observatories
and Initiation Halls of the temples of old India and Egypt. It is in them
that the Chaldæan made his calculations, revealing to the world of the
profane no more than it was fit to receive.

We may, and shall be told, no doubt, that Uranus was unknown to the
ancients, and that they were forced to reckon the sun amongst the planets
and as their chief. How does anyone know? Uranus is a modern name; but one
thing is certain: the ancients had a planet, “a mystery planet,” that they
never named and that the highest Astronomus, the Hierophant, alone could
“confabulate with.” But this seventh planet was not the sun, but the
hidden Divine Hierophant, who was said to have a crown, and to embrace
within its wheel “seventy‐seven smaller wheels.” In the archaic secret
system of the Hindus, the sun is the visible Logos “Sûrya”; over him there
is another, the divine or heavenly Man—who, after having established the
system of the world of matter on the archetype of the Unseen Universe, or
Macrocosm, conducted during the Mysteries the heavenly Râsa Mandala; when
he was said:


    To give with his right foot the impulse to _Tyam_ or Bhûmi [Earth]
    that makes her rotate in a double revolution.


What says Hermes again? When explaining Egyptian Cosmology he exclaims:


    Listen, O my son ... the Power has also formed seven agents, who
    contain within their circles the material world, and whose action
    is called destiny.... When all became subject to man, the Seven,
    willing to favour human intelligence, communicated to him their
    powers. But as soon as man knew their true essence and his own
    nature, he desired to penetrate within and beyond the circles and
    thus break their circumference by usurping the power of him who
    has dominion over the Fire [Sun] itself; after which, having
    robbed one of the Wheels of the Sun of the sacred fire, he fell
    into slavery.(610)


It is _not_ Prometheus who is meant here. Prometheus is a symbol and a
personification of the whole of mankind in relation to an event which
occurred during its childhood, so to say—the “Baptism by Fire”—which is a
mystery within the great Promethean Mystery, one that may be at present
mentioned only in its broad general features. By reason of the
extraordinary growth of human intellect and the development in our age of
the fifth principle (Manas) in man, its rapid progress has paralysed
spiritual perceptions. It is at the expense of wisdom that intellect
generally lives, and mankind is quite unprepared in its present condition
to comprehend the awful drama of human disobedience to the laws of Nature
and the subsequent Fall, as a result. It can only be hinted at in its
place.



SECTION XXXVII. THE SOULS OF THE STARS—UNIVERSAL HELIOLATRY.


In order to show that the Ancients have never “mistaken stars for Gods,”
or Angels and the sun for the highest Gods and God, but have worshipped
only the Spirit of all, and have reverenced the minor Gods supposed to
reside in the sun and planets—the difference between these two worships
has to be pointed out. Saturn, “the Father of Gods” must not be confused
with his namesake—the planet of the same name with its eight moons and
three rings. The two—though in one sense identical, as are, for instance,
physical man and his soul—must be separated in the question of worship.
This has to be done the more carefully in the case of the seven planets
and their Spirits, as the whole formation of the universe is attributed to
them in the Secret Teachings. The same difference has to be shown again
between the stars of the Great Bear, the Riksha and the Chitra
Shikhandina, “the bright‐crested,” and the Rishis—the mortal Sages who
appeared on earth during the Satya Yuga. If all of these have been so far
closely united in the visions of the seers of every age—the bible seers
included—there must have been a reason for it. Nor need one go back so far
as into the periods of “superstition” and “unscientific fancies” to find
great men in our epoch sharing in them. It is well known that Kepler, the
eminent astronomer, in common with many other great men who believed that
the heavenly bodies ruled favourably or adversely the fates of men and
nations—fully credited besides this the fact that all heavenly bodies,
even our own earth, are endowed with living and thinking souls.

Le Couturier’s opinion is worthy of notice in this relation:


    We are too inclined to criticize unsparingly everything concerning
    astrology and its ideas; nevertheless our criticism, to be one,
    ought at least to know, lest it should be proved aimless, what
    those ideas in truth are. And when among the men we thus
    criticize, we find such names as those of Regiomontanus, Tycho
    Brahe, Kepler, etc., there is reason why we should be careful.
    Kepler was an astrologer by profession, and became an astronomer
    in consequence. He was earning his livelihood by genethliac
    figures, which, indicating the state of the heavens at the moment
    of the birth of individuals, were a means to which everyone
    resorted for horoscopes. That great man was a believer in the
    principles of astrology, without accepting all its foolish
    results.(611)


But astrology is nevertheless proclaimed as a sinful science, and together
with Occultism is tabooed by the Churches. It is very doubtful, however,
whether mystic “star worship” can be so easily laughed down as people
imagine—at any rate by Christians. The hosts of Angels, Cherubs and
Planetary Archangels are identical with the minor Gods of the Pagans. As
to their “great Gods,” if Mars has been shown—on the admission of even the
enemies of the Pagan astrologers—to have been regarded by the latter
simply as the personified strength of the one highest impersonal Deity,
Mercury being personified as its omniscience, Jupiter as its omnipotency,
and so on, then the “superstition” of the Pagan has indeed become the
“religion” of the masses of the civilized nations. For with the latter,
Jehovah is the synthesis of the seven Elohim, the eternal centre of all
those attributes and forces, the Alei of the Aleim, and the Adonai of the
Adonim. And if with them Mars is now called St. Michael, the “_strength_
of God,” Mercury Gabriel, the “omniscience and fortitude of the Lord,” and
Raphael “the blessing or healing power of God,” this is simply a change of
names, the characters behind the masks remaining the same.

The Dalai‐lama’s mitre has seven ridges in honour of the seven chief
Dhyâni Buddhas. In the funeral ritual of the Egyptians the defunct is made
to exclaim:


    Salutation to you, O Princes, who stand in the presence of
    Osiris.... Send me the grace to have my sins destroyed, as you
    have done for the seven spirits who follow their Lord!(612)


Brahmâ’s head is ornamented with seven rays, and he is followed by the
seven Rishis, in the seven Svargas. China has her seven Pagodas; the
Greeks had their seven Cyclopes, seven Demiurgi, and the Mystery Gods, the
seven Kabiri, whose chief was Jupiter‐Saturn, and with the Jews, Jehovah.
Now the latter Deity has become chief of all, the highest and the one God,
and his old place is taken by Mikael (Michael). He is the “Chief of the
Host” (_tsaba_); the “Archistrategus of the Lord’s army”; the “Conqueror
of the Devil”—Victor diaboli—and the “Archisatrap of the Sacred Militia,”
he who slew the “Great Dragon.” Unfortunately astrology and symbology,
having no inducement to veil old things with new masks, have preserved the
real name of Mikael—“that was Jehovah”—Mikael being the Angel of the face
of the Lord,(613) “the guardian of the planets,” and the living image of
God. He represents the Deity in his visits to earth, for as it is well
expressed in Hebrew, he is one מיכאל, who is as God, or who is like unto
God. It is he who cast out the serpent.(614)

Mikael, being the regent of the planet Saturn, is—_Saturn_.(615) His
mystery‐name is Sabbathiel, because he presides over the Jewish Sabbath,
as also over the astrological Saturday. Once identified, the reputation of
the Christian conqueror of the devil is in still greater danger from
further identifications. Biblical angels are called Malachim, the
messengers between God (or rather _the gods_) and men. In Hebrew מכאל
Malach, is also “a King,” and Malech or Melech was likewise Moloch, or
again Saturn, the Seb of Egypt, to whom _Dies Saturni_, or the Sabbath,
was dedicated. The Sabæans separated and distinguished the planet Saturn
from its God far more than the Roman Catholics do their angels from their
stars; and the Kabalists make of the Archangel Mikael the patron of the
seventh work of magic.


    In theological symbolism ... Jupiter [the Sun] is the risen and
    glorious Saviour, and Saturn, God the Father, or the Jehovah of
    Moses,(616)


says Éliphas Lévi, who _ought_ to know. Jehovah and the Saviour, Saturn
and Jupiter, being thus one, and Mikael being called the living image of
God, it does seem dangerous for the Church to call Saturn, Satan—_le dieu
mauvais_. However, Rome is strong in casuistry and will get out of this as
she got out of every other identification, with glory to herself and to
her own full satisfaction. Nevertheless all her dogmas and rituals seem
like so many pages torn out from the history of Occultism, and then
distorted. The extremely thin partition that separates the Kabalistic and
Chaldæan Theogony from the Roman Catholic Angelology and Theodicy is now
confessed by at least one Roman Catholic writer. One can hardly believe
one’s eyes in finding the following (the passages italicized by us should
be carefully noticed):


    One of the most characteristic features of our Holy Scriptures is
    _the calculated discretion used in the enunciation of the
    mysteries less directly useful to salvation_.... Thus, beyond
    those “myriads of myriads” of angelic creatures just noticed(617)
    and all these prudently elementary divisions, there are certainly
    many others, whose very names have not yet reached us.(618) “For,”
    excellently says St. John Chrysostom, “there are doubtless, (_sine
    dubio_,) many other _Virtues_ [celestial beings] whose
    denominations we are yet far from knowing.... The nine orders are
    not by any means the only populations in heaven, where, on the
    contrary, _are to be found numberless tribes_ of inhabitants
    infinitely varied, and of which it would be impossible _to give
    the slightest idea_ through human tongue.... Paul, who _had
    learned their names_, reveals to us their existence.” (_De
    Incomprehensibili Natura Dei_, Bk. IV.)....

    It would thus amount _to a gross mistake to see merely errors_ in
    the Angelology of the Kabalists and Gnostics, so severely treated
    by the Apostle of the Gentiles, for his imposing censure reached
    _only their exaggerations and vicious interpretations_, and still
    more, _the application of those noble_ titles _to the miserable
    personalities of demoniacal usurpers_.(619) Often nothing so
    resemble each other as _the language of the judges and that of the
    convicts_ [of saints and Occultists]. One has to penetrate deeply
    into this _dual_ study [of creed and profession] and what is still
    better, _to trust blindly to the authority of the tribunal_ [the
    Church of Rome, of course] to enable oneself to seize precisely
    the point of the error. The _Gnosis_ condemned by St. Paul
    remains, nevertheless, for him as for Plato the supreme knowledge
    of all truths, and of the _Being par excellence_, ὁ ὄντως ὤν
    (_Republ._ Bk. VI). The Ideas, _types_, ἀρχὰι of the Greek
    philosopher, the _Intelligences_ of Pythagoras, the _aeons_ or
    _emanations_, the occasion of so much reproach to the first
    heretics, the Logos or Word, Chief of these Intelligences, the
    _Demiurgos_, the architect of the world under his father’s
    direction [of the Pagans], the unknown God, the _En‐soph_, or the
    _It of the Infinite_ [of the Kabalists], the angelical
    periods,(620) the _seven_ spirits, the Depths of _Ahriman_, the
    World’s _Rectors_, the _Archontes_ of the air, the _God of this
    world_, the _pleroma_ of the intelligences, down to _Metatron_ the
    angel of the Jews, _all this is found word for word, as so many
    truths, in the works of our greatest doctors, and in St.
    Paul_.(621)


If an Occultist, eager to charge the Church with a numberless series of
plagiarisms were to write the above, could he have written more strongly?
And have we, or have we not, the right, after such a complete confession,
to reverse the tables and to say of Roman Catholics and others what is
said of the Gnostics and Occultists. “They used our expressions and
rejected our doctrines.” For it is not the “promoters of the false
Gnosis”—who had all those expressions from their archaic ancestors—who
helped themselves to Christian expressions, but verily the Christian
Fathers and Theologians, who helped themselves to our nest, and have tried
ever since to soil it.

The words above quoted will explain much to those who are searching for
truth and for truth only. They will show the origin of certain rites in
the Church inexplicable hitherto to the simple‐minded, and will give the
reason why such words as “Our Lord the Sun” were used in prayer by
Christians up to the fifth and even sixth century of our era, and embodied
in the Liturgy, until altered into “Our Lord, the God.” Let us remember
that the early Christians painted Christ on the walls of their
subterranean necropolis, as a shepherd in the guise of, and invested with
all the attributes of Apollo, driving away the wolf, Fenris, who seeks to
devour the Sun and his Satellites.



SECTION XXXVIII. ASTROLOGY AND ASTROLATRY.


The books of Hermes Trismegistus contain the exoteric meaning, still
veiled for all but the Occultist, of the Astrology and Astrolatry of the
Khaldi. The two subjects are closely connected. Astrolatry, or the
adoration of the heavenly host, is the natural result of only half‐
revealed Astrology, whose Adepts carefully concealed from the non‐
initiated masses its Occult principles and the wisdom imparted to them by
the Regents of the Planets—the “Angels.” Hence, divine Astrology for the
Initiates; superstitious Astrolatry for the profane. St. Justin asserts
it:


    From the first invention of the hieroglyphics it was not the
    vulgar, but the distinguished and select men who became initiated
    in the secrecy of the temples into the science of every kind of
    Astrology—even into its most abject kind: that Astrology which
    later on found itself prostituted in the public thoroughfares.


There was a vast difference between the Sacred Science taught by Petosiris
and Necepso—the first Astrologers mentioned in the Egyptian manuscripts,
believed to have lived during the reign of Ramses II. (Sesostris)(622)—and
the miserable charlatanry of the quacks called Chaldæans, who degraded the
Divine Knowledge under the last Emperors of Rome. Indeed, one may fairly
describe the two as the “high ceremonial Astrology” and “astrological
Astrolatry.” The first depended on the knowledge by the Initiates of those
(to us) immaterial Forces or Spiritual Entities that affect matter and
guide it. Called by the ancient Philosophers the Archontes and the
Cosmocratores, they were the types or paradigms on the higher planes of
the lower and more material beings on the scale of evolution, whom we call
Elementals and Nature‐Spirits, to whom the Sabæans bowed and whom they
worshipped, without suspecting the essential difference. Hence the latter
kind when not a mere pretence, degenerated but too often into Black Magic.
It was the favourite form of popular or exoteric Astrology, entirely
ignorant of the apotelesmatic principles of the primitive Science, the
doctrines of which were imparted only at Initiation. Thus, while the real
Hierophants soared like Demi‐Gods to the very summit of spiritual
knowledge, the _hoi polloi_ among the Sabæans crouched, steeped in
superstition—ten millenniums back, as they do now—in the cold and lethal
shadow of the valleys of matter. Sidereal influence is dual. There is the
physical and physiological influence, that of exotericism; and the high
spiritual, intellectual, and moral influence, imparted by the knowledge of
the planetary Gods. Bailly, speaking with only an imperfect knowledge of
the former, called Astrology, so far back as the eighteenth century, “The
very foolish mother of a very wise daughter”—Astronomy. On the other hand,
Arago, a luminary of the nineteenth century, supports the reality of the
sidereal influence of the Sun, Moon and Planets. He asks:


    Where do we find lunar influences refuted by arguments that
    science would dare to avow?


But even Bailly, having, as he thought, put down Astrology as publicly
practised, dares not do the same with the real Astrology. He says:


    Judiciary Astrology was at its origin the result of a profound
    system, the work of an enlightened nation that would wander too
    far into the mysteries of God and Nature.


A Scientist of a more recent date, a member of the Institute of France,
and a professor of History, Ph. Lebas, discovers (unconsciously to
himself) the very root of Astrology in his able article on the subject in
the _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique de France_. He well understands, he tells
his readers, that the adhesion to that Science of such a number of highly
intellectual men should be in itself a sufficient motive for believing
that all Astrology is not folly:


    While proclaiming in politics the sovereignty of the people and of
    public opinion can we admit, as heretofore, that mankind allowed
    itself to be radically deceived in this only: that an absolute and
    gross absurdity reigned in the minds of whole nations for so many
    centuries without being based on anything save—on one hand human
    imbecility, and on the other charlatanry? How for fifty centuries
    and more can most men have been either dupes or knaves? ... Even
    though we may find it impossible to decide between and separate
    the realities of Astrology from the elements of invention and
    empty dreaming in it, ... let us, nevertheless, repeat with
    Bossuet and all modern philosophers, that “nothing that has been
    dominant could be absolutely false.” Is it not true, at all
    events, that there is a physical reaction on one another among the
    planets? Is it not again true, that the planets have an influence
    on the atmosphere, and consequently at any rate a mediate action
    on vegetation and animals? Has not modern science demonstrated now
    these two points beyond any doubt?... Is it any less true that
    human liberty of action is not absolute: that all is bound, that
    all weighs, planets as the rest, on each individual will; that
    Providence [_or Karma_] acts on us and directs men through those
    relations that it has established between them and the visible
    objects and the whole universe?... Astrolatry, in its essence, is
    nothing but that; we are bound to recognise that an instinct
    superior to the age they lived in guided the efforts of the
    ancient Magi. As to the materialism and annihilation of human
    moral freedom with which Bailly charges their theory (Astrology),
    the reprobate has no sense whatever. All the great astrologers
    admitted, without one single exception, that man could react
    against the influence of the stars. This principle is established
    in the Ptolemœian _Tetrabiblos_, the true astrological Scriptures,
    in chapters ii. and iii. of book i.(623)


Thomas Aquinas had corroborated Lebas in anticipation; he says:


    The celestial bodies are _the cause of all that happens in this
    sublunary world_, they act indirectly on human actions; but not
    all the effects produced by them are unavoidable.(624)


The Occultists and Theosophists are the first to confess that there is
white and black Astrology. Nevertheless, Astrology has to be studied in
both aspects by those who wish to become proficient in it; and the good or
bad results obtained do not depend upon the principles, which are the same
in both kinds, but in the Astrologer himself. Thus Pythagoras, who
established the whole Copernican system by the Books of Hermes 2,000 years
before Galileo’s predecessor was born, found and studied in them the whole
Science of divine Theogony, of the communication with, and the evocation
of, the world’s Rectors—the Princes of the “Principalities” of St.
Paul—the nativity of each Planet and of the Universe itself, the formulæ
of incantations and the consecration of each portion of the human body to
the respective Zodiacal sign corresponding to it. All this cannot be
regarded as childish and absurd—still less “devilish”—save by those who
are, and wish to remain, tyros in the Philosophy of the Occult Sciences.
No true thinker—no one who recognises the presence of a common bond
between man and visible, as well as invisible, Nature—would see in the old
relics of Archaic Wisdom—such as the _Petemenoph Papyrus_, for
instance—“childish nonsense and absurdity,” as many Academicians and
Scientists have done. But upon finding in such ancient documents the
application of the Hermetic rules and laws, such as


    The consecration of one’s hair to the celestial Nile; of the left
    temple to the living Spirit in the sun, and in the right one to
    the spirit of Ammon,


he will endeavour to study and comprehend better the “laws of
correspondences.” Nor will he disbelieve in the antiquity of Astrology on
the plea that some Orientalists have thought fit to declare that the
Zodiac was not very ancient, being only the invention of the Greeks of the
Macedonian period. For this statement, besides having been shown to be
entirely erroneous by a number of other reasons, may be entirely disproved
by facts relating to the latest discoveries in Egypt, and by the more
accurate readings of hieroglyphics and inscriptions of the earliest
dynasties. The published polemics on the contents of the so‐called “Magic”
Papyri of the Anastasi collection indicate the antiquity of the Zodiac. As
the _Lettres à Lettrone_ say: The papyri discourse at length upon the four
bases or


    Foundations of the world, the identity of which it is impossible,
    according to Champollion, to mistake, as one is forced to
    recognise in them the Pillars of the World of St. Paul. It is they
    who are invoked with the gods of all the celestial zones, quite
    analogous, once more, to the _Spiritualia nequitiæ in cælestibus_
    of the same Apostle.(625)

    That invocation was made in the proper terms ... of the formula,
    reproduced far too faithfully by Jamblichus for it to be possible
    to refuse him any longer the merit of having transmitted to
    posterity the ancient and primitive spirit of the Egyptian
    Astrologers.(626)


As Letronne had tried to prove that all the genuine Egyptian Zodiacs had
been manufactured during the Roman period, the Sensaos mummy is brought
forward to show that:


    All the Zodiacal monuments in Egypt were chiefly astronomical.
    Royal tombs and funereal rituals are so many tables of
    constellations and of their influences for all the hours of every
    month.

    Thus the genethliac tables themselves prove that they are far
    older than the period assigned to their origin; all the Zodiacs of
    the sarcophagi of later epochs being simple reminiscences of the
    Zodiacs belonging to the mythological [archaic] period.


Primitive Astrology was as far above modern judiciary Astrology, so‐
called, as the guides (the Planets and Zodiacal signs) are above the lamp‐
posts. Berosus shows the sidereal sovereignty of Bel and Mylitta (Sun and
Moon), and only “the twelve lords of the Zodiacal Gods,” the “thirty‐six
Gods Counsellors” and the “twenty‐four Stars, judges of this world,” which
support and guide the Universe (our solar system), watch over mortals and
reveal to mankind its fate and their own decrees. Judiciary Astrology as
it is now known, is correctly denominated by the Latin Church the


    Materialistic and pantheistic prophesying by the objective planet
    itself, independently of its Rector [the Mlac of the Jews, the
    ministers of the Eternal commissioned by him to announce his will
    to mortals]; the ascension or conjunction of the planet at the
    moment of the birth of an individual deciding his fortune and the
    moment and mode of his death.(627)


Every student of Occultism knows that the heavenly bodies are closely
related during each Manvantara with the mankind of that special cycle; and
there are some who believe that each great character born during that
period has—as every other mortal has, only in a far stronger degree—his
destiny outlined within his proper constellation or star, traced as a
self‐prophecy, an anticipated autobiography, by the indwelling Spirit of
that particular star. The human Monad in its first beginning is that
Spirit, or the Soul of that star (Planet) itself. As our Sun radiates its
light and beams on every body in space within the boundaries of its
system, so the Regent of every Planet‐star, the Parent‐monad, shoots out
from itself the Monad of every “pilgrim” Soul born under its house within
its own group. The Regents are esoterically seven, whether in the
Sephiroth, the “Angels of the Presence,” the Rishis, or the Amshaspends.
“The One is no number” is said in all the esoteric works.

From the Kasdim and Gazzim (Astrologers) the noble primitive science
passed to the Khartumim Asaphim (or Theologians) and the Hakamim (or
scientists, the Magicians of the lower class), and from these to the Jews
during their captivity. The Books of Moses had been buried in oblivion for
centuries, and when re‐discovered by Hilkiah had lost their true sense for
the people of Israel. Primitive Occult Astrology was on the decline when
Daniel, the last of the Jewish Initiates of the old school, became the
chief of the Magi and Astrologers of Chaldæa. In those days even Egypt,
who had her wisdom from the same source as Babylon, had degenerated from
her former grandeur, and her glory had begun to fade out. Still, the
science of old had left her eternal imprint on the world, and the seven
great Primitive Gods reigned for ever in the Astrology and in the division
of time of every nation upon the face of the earth. The names of the days
of our (Christian) week are those of the Gods of the Chaldæans, who
translated them from those of the Âryans; the uniformity of these
antediluvian names in every nation, from the Goths back to the Indians,
would remain inexplicable, as Sir W. Jones thought, had not the riddle
been explained to us by the invitation made by the Chaldæan oracles,
recorded by Porphyry and quoted by Eusebius:


    To carry those names first to the Egyptian and Phœnician colonies,
    then to the Greeks, with the express recommendation that each God
    should be invoked only on that day that had been called by his
    name....

    Thus Apollo says in those oracles: “I must be invoked on the day
    of the _sun_; Mercury after his directions, then Chronos [Saturn],
    then Venus, and do not fail to call seven times each of those
    gods.”(628)


This is slightly erroneous. Greece did not get her astrological
instruction from Egypt or from Chaldæa, but direct from Orpheus, as Lucian
tells us.(629) It was Orpheus, as he says, who imparted the Indian
Sciences to nearly all the great monarchs of antiquity; and it was they,
the ancient kings favoured by the Planetary Gods, who recorded the
principles of Astrology—as did Ptolemus, for instance. Thus Lucian writes:


    The Bœotian Tiresias acquired the greatest reputation in the art
    of predicting futurity.... In those days divination was not as
    slightly treated as it is now; and nothing was ever undertaken
    without previous consultation with diviners, whose oracles were
    all directed by astrology.... At Delphos the virgin commissioned
    to announce futurity was the symbol of the Heavenly Virgin, ...
    and Our Lady.


On the sarcophagus of an Egyptian Pharaoh, Neith, mother of Ra, the heifer
that brings forth the Sun, her body spangled with stars, and wearing the
solar and lunar discs, is equally referred to as the “Heavenly Virgin” and
“Our Lady of the Starry Vault.”

Modern judiciary Astrology in its present form began only during the time
of Diodorus, as he apprises the world.(630) But Chaldæan Astrology was
believed in by most of the great men in History, such as Cæsar, Pliny,
Cicero—whose best friends, Nigidius Figulus and Lucius Tarrutius, were
themselves Astrologers, the former being famous as a prophet. Marcus
Antonius never travelled without an Astrologer recommended to him by
Cleopatra. Augustus, when ascending the throne, had his horoscope drawn by
Theagenes. Tiberius discovered pretenders to his throne by means of
Astrology and divination. Vitellius dared not exile the Chaldæans, as they
had announced the day of their banishment as that of his death. Vespasian
consulted them daily; Domitian would not move without being advised by the
prophets; Adrian was a learned Astrologer himself; and all of them, ending
with Julian (called the _Apostate_ because he would not become one),
believed in, and addressed their prayers to, the Planetary “Gods.” The
Emperor Adrian, moreover, “predicted from the January calends up to
December 31st, every event that happened to him daily.” Under the wisest
emperors Rome had a School of Astrology, wherein were secretly taught the
occult influences of the Sun, Moon, and Saturn.(631) Judiciary Astrology
is used to this day by the Kabalists; and Éliphas Lévi, the modern French
Magus, teaches its rudiments in his _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie_.
But the key to ceremonial or ritualistic Astrology, with the teraphim and
the urim and thummim of Magic, is lost to Europe. Hence our century of
Materialism shrugs its shoulders and sees in Astrology—a pretender.

Not all scientists scoff at it, however, and one may rejoice in reading in
the _Musée des Sciences_(632) the suggestive and fair remarks made by Le
Couturier, a man of science of no mean reputation. He thinks it curious to
notice that while the bold speculations of Democritus are found vindicated
by Dalton,


    The reveries of the alchemists are also on their way to a certain
    rehabilitation. They receive renewed life from the minute
    investigations of their successors, the chemists; a very
    remarkable thing indeed is to see how much modern discoveries have
    served to vindicate, of late, the theories of the Middle Ages from
    the charge of absurdity laid at their door. Thus, if, as
    demonstrated by Col. Sabine, the direction of a piece of steel,
    hung a few feet above the soil, may be influenced by the position
    of the moon, whose body is at a distance of 240,000 miles from our
    planet, who then could accuse of extravagance the belief of the
    ancient astrologers [or the modern, either] in the influence of
    the stars on human destiny.(633)



SECTION XXXIX. CYCLES AND AVATARAS.


We have already drawn attention to the facts that the record of the life
of a World‐Saviour is emblematical, and must be read by its mystic
meaning, and that the figures 432 have a cosmic evolutionary significance.
We find these two facts throwing light on the origin of the exoteric
Christian religion, and clearing away much of the obscurity surrounding
its beginnings. For is it not clear that the names and characters in the
Synoptical Gospels and in that of St. John are not historical? Is it not
evident that the compilers of the life of Christ, desirous to show that
the birth of their Master was a cosmic, astronomical, and divinely‐
preördained event, attempted to coördinate the same with the end of the
secret cycle, 4,320? When facts are collated this answers to them as
little as does the other cycle of “thirty‐three solar years, seven months,
and seven days,” which has also been brought forward as supporting the
same claim, the soli‐lunar cycle in which the Sun gains on the Moon one
solar year. The combination of the three figures, 4, 3, 2, with cyphers
according to the cycle and Manvantara concerned, was, and is, preëminently
Hindu. It will remain a secret even though several of its significant
features are revealed. It relates, for instance, to the Pralaya of the
races in their periodical dissolution, before which events a special
Avatâra has always to descend and incarnate on earth. These figures were
adopted by all the older nations, such as those of Egypt and Chaldæa, and
before them were current among the Atlanteans. Evidently some of the more
learned among the early Church Fathers who had dabbled, whilst Pagans, in
temple secrets, knew them to relate to the Avatâric or Messianic mystery,
and tried to apply this cycle to the birth of their Messiah; they failed
because the figures relate to the respective ends of the Root‐Races and
not to any individual. In their badly‐directed efforts, moreover, an error
of five years occurred. Is it possible, if their claims as to the
importance and universality of the event were correct, that such a vital
mistake should have been allowed to creep into a chronological computation
preördained and traced in the heavens by the finger of God? Again, what
were the Pagan and even Jewish Initiates doing, if this claim as to Jesus
be correct? Could they, the custodians of the key to the secret cycles and
Avatâras, the heirs of all the Âryan, Egyptian, and Chaldæan wisdom, have
failed to recognise their great “God‐Incarnate,” one with Jehovah,(634)
their Saviour of the latter days, him whom all the nations of Asia still
expect as their Kalki Avatâra, Maitreya Buddha, Sosiosh, Messiah, etc.?

The simple secret is this: There are cycles within greater cycles, which
are all contained in the one Kalpa of 4,320,000 years. It is at the end of
this cycle that the Kalki Avatâra is expected—the Avatâra Whose name and
characteristics are secret, Who will come forth from Shamballa, the “City
of Gods,” which is in the West for some nations, in the East for others,
in the North or South for yet others. And this is the reason why, from the
Indian Rishi to Virgil, and from Zoroaster down to the latest Sibyl, all
have, since the beginning of the Fifth Race, prophesied, sung, and
promised the cyclic return of the Virgin—Virgo, the constellation—and the
birth of a divine child who should bring back to our earth the Golden Age.

No one, however fanatical, would have sufficient hardihood to maintain
that the Christian era has ever been a return to the Golden Age—Virgo
having actually entered into Libra since then. Let us trace as briefly as
possible the Christian traditions to their true origin.

First of all, they discover in a few lines from Virgil a direct prophecy
of the birth of Christ. Yet it is impossible to detect in this prophecy
any feature of the present age. It is in the famous fourth Eclogue in
which, half a century before our era, Pollio is made to ask the Muses of
Sicily to sing to him about greater events.


    The last era of Cumæan song is now arrived and the grand series of
    ages [that series which recurs again and again in the course of
    our mundane revolution] begins afresh. Now the Virgin Astræa
    returns, and the reign of Saturn recommences. Now a new progeny
    _descends from the celestial realms_. Do thou, chaste Lucina,
    smile propitious to the infant Boy who will bring to a close the
    present Age of Iron,(635) and introduce throughout the whole world
    the Age of Gold.... He shall share the life of Gods and shall see
    heroes mingled in society with Gods, himself be seen by them and
    all the peaceful world.... Then shall the herds no longer dread
    the huge lion, the serpent also shall die: and the poison’s
    deceptive plant shall perish. Come then, dear child of the Gods,
    great descendant of Jupiter!... The time is near. See, the world
    is shaken with its globe saluting thee: the earth, the regions of
    the sea, and the heavens sublime.(636)


It is in these few lines, called the “Sibylline prophecy about the coming
of Christ,” that his followers now see a direct foretelling of the event.
Now who will presume to maintain that either at the birth of Jesus or
since the establishment of the so‐called Christian religion, any portion
of the above‐quoted sentences can be shown as prophetic? Has the “last
age”—the Age of Iron, or Kali Yuga—closed since then? Quite the reverse,
since it is shown to be in full sway just now, not only because the Hindus
use the name, but by universal personal experience. Where is that “new
race that has descended from the celestial realms”? Was it the race that
emerged from Paganism into Christianity? Or is it our present race, with
nations ever red‐hot for fight, jealous and envious, ready to pounce upon
each other, showing mutual hatred that would put to blush cats and dogs,
ever lying and deceiving one another? Is it this age of ours that is the
promised “Golden Age”—in which neither the venom of the serpent nor of any
plant is any longer lethal, and in which we are all secure under the mild
sway of God‐chosen sovereigns? The wildest fancy of an opium‐eater could
hardly suggest a more inappropriate description, if it is to be applied to
our age or to any age since the year one of our era. What of the mutual
slaughter of sects, of Christians by Pagans, and of Pagans and Heretics by
Christians; the horrors of the Middle Ages and of the Inquisition;
Napoleon, and since his day, an “armed peace” at best—at the worst,
torrents of blood, shed for supremacy over acres of land, and a handful of
heathen: millions of soldiers under arms, ready for battle; a diplomatic
body playing at Cains and Judases; and instead of the “mild sway of a
divine sovereign” the universal, though unrecognised, sway of Cæsarism, of
“might” in lieu of “right,” and the breeding therefrom of anarchists,
socialists, pétroleuses, and destroyers of every description?

The Sibylline prophecy and Virgil’s inspirational poetry remain
unfulfilled in every point, as we see.


    The fields are yellow with soft ears of corn;


but so they were before our era:


    The blushing grapes shall hang from the rude brambles, and dewy
    honey shall [or may] distil from the rugged oak;


but they have not thus done, so far. We must look for another
interpretation. What is it? The Sibylline Prophetess spoke, as thousands
of other Prophets and Seers have spoken, though even the few such records
that have survived are rejected by Christian and infidel, and their
interpretations are only allowed and accepted among the Initiated. The
Sibyl alluded to cycles in general and to the great cycle especially. Let
us remember how the Purânas corroborate the above, among others the
_Vishnu Purâna_:


    When the practices taught by the Vedas, and the Institutes of Law
    shall have nearly ceased, and the close of the Kali Yuga [the
    “Iron Age” of Virgil] shall be nigh, an aspect of that divine
    Being who exists of his own spiritual nature in the character of
    Brahmâ and even is the beginning and the end [_Alpha and Omega_],
    ... shall descend upon earth: he will be born in the family of
    Vishnuyashas, an eminent Brâhman of Shamballah ... endowed with
    the eight superhuman powers. By his irresistible might he will
    destroy ... all whose minds are devoted to iniquity. He will then
    reëstablish righteousness upon earth; and the minds of those who
    live at the end of the [Kali] Age shall be awakened, and shall be
    as pellucid as crystal.(637) The men who are thus changed by
    virtue of that peculiar time shall be as the seeds of human beings
    [the Shistha, the survivors of the future cataclysm], and shall
    give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita [or
    Satya] Yuga [the age of purity, or the “Golden Age”]. For it is
    said: “When the sun and moon and Tishya [asterisms] and the planet
    Jupiter are in one mansion the Krita Age [the Golden] shall
    return.”(638)


The astronomical cycles of the Hindus—those taught publicly—have been
sufficiently well understood, but the esoteric meaning thereof, in its
application to transcendental subjects connected with them, has ever
remained a dead‐letter. The number of cycles was enormous; it ranged from
the Mahâ Yuga cycle of 4,320,000 years down to the small septenary and
quinquennial cycles, the latter being composed of the five years called
respectively the Samvatsara, Parivatsara, Idvatsara, Anuvatsara, and
Vatsara, each having secret attributes or qualities attached to them.
Vriddhagarga gives these in a treatise, now the property of a Trans‐
Himâlayan Matham (or temple); and describes the relation between this
quinquennial and the Brihaspati cycle, based on the conjunction of the Sun
and Moon every sixtieth year: a cycle as mysterious—for national events in
general and those of the Âryan Hindu nation especially—as it is important.



SECTION XL. SECRET CYCLES.


The former five‐year cycle comprehends sixty solar‐sidereal months of 1800
days, sixty‐one solar months (or 1830 days); sixty‐two lunar months (or
1860 lunations), and sixty‐seven lunar‐asterismal months (or 1809 such
days).

In his _Kâla Sankalita_, Col. Warren very properly regards these years as
cycles; this they are, for each year has its own special importance as
having some bearing upon, and connection with, specified events in
individual horoscopes. He writes that in the cycle of sixty there


    Are contained five cycles of twelve years, each supposed equal to
    one year of the planet (Brihaspati, or Jupiter) ... I mention this
    cycle because I found it mentioned in some books, but I know of no
    nation or tribe that reckons time after that account.(639)


The ignorance is very natural, since Col. Warren could know nothing of the
secret cycles and their meanings. He adds:


    The names of the five cycles or Yugas are: ... (1) Samvatsara, (2)
    Parivatsara, (3) Idvatsara, (4) Anuvatsara, (5) Udravatsara.


The learned Colonel might, however, have assured himself that there were
“other nations” which had the same secret cycle, if he had but remembered
that the Romans also had their _lustrum_ of five years (from the Hindus
undeniably) which represented the same period if multiplied by 12.(640)
Near Benares there are still the relics of all these cycle‐records, and of
astronomical instruments cut out of solid rock, the everlasting records of
Archaic Initiation, called by Sir W. Jones (as suggested by the prudent
Brâhmans who surrounded him) old “back records” or reckonings. But in
Stonehenge they exist to this day. Higgins says that Waltire found the
barrows of tumuli surrounding this giant‐temple represented accurately the
situation and magnitude of the fixed stars, forming a complete orrery or
planisphere. As Colebrooke found out, it is the cycle of the _Vedas_,
recorded in the _Jyotisha_, one of the Vedângas, a treatise on Astronomy,
which is the basis of calculation for all other cycles, larger or
smaller;(641) and the _Vedas_ were written in characters, archaic though
they be, long after those natural observations, made by the aid of their
gigantic mathematical and astronomical instruments, had been recorded by
the men of the Third Race, who had received their instruction from the
Dhyân Chohans. Maurice speaks truly when he observes that all such


    Circular stone monuments were intended as durable symbols of
    astronomical cycles by a race who, not having, or for political
    reasons, forbidding the use of letters, had no other permanent
    method of instructing their disciples or handing down their
    knowledge to posterity.


He errs only in the last idea. It was to conceal their knowledge from
profane posterity, leaving it as an heirloom only to the Initiates, that
such monuments, at once rock observatories and astronomical treatises,
were cut out.

It is no news that as the Hindus divided the earth into seven zones, so
the more western peoples—Chaldæans, Phœnicians, and even the Jews, who got
their learning either directly or indirectly from the Brâhmans—made all
their secret and sacred numerations by 6 and 12, though using the number 7
whenever this would not lend itself to handling. Thus the numerical base
of 6, the exoteric figure given by Ârya Bhatta, was made good use of. From
the first secret cycle of 600—the Naros, transformed successively into
60,000 and 60 and 6, and, with other noughts added into other secret
cycles—down to the smallest, an Archæologist and Mathematician can easily
find it repeated in every country, known to every nation. Hence the globe
was divided into 60 degrees, which, multiplied by 60, became 3,600 the
“great year.” Hence also the hour with its 60 minutes of 60 seconds each.
The Asiatic people count a cycle of 60 years also, after which comes the
lucky seventh decad, and the Chinese have their small cycle of 60 days,
the Jews of 6 days, the Greeks of 6 centuries—the Naros again. The
Babylonians had a great year of 3,600, being the Naros multiplied by 6.
The Tartar cycle called Van was 180 years, or three sixties; this
multiplied by 12 times 12 = 144, makes 25,920 years, the exact period of
revolution of the heavens.

India is the birthplace of arithmetic and mathematics; as “Our Figures,”
in _Chips from a German Workshop_, by Prof. Max Müller, shows beyond a
doubt. As well explained by Krishna Shâstri Godbole in _The Theosophist_:


    The Jews ... represented the units (1‐9) by the first nine letters
    of our alphabet; the tens (10‐90) by the next nine letters; the
    first four hundreds (100‐400) by the last four letters, and the
    remaining ones (500‐900) by the second forms of the letters “kâf”
    (11th), “mîm” (13th), “nûn” (14th), “pe” (17th), and “sâd” (18th);
    and they represented other numbers by combining these letters
    according to their value.... The Jews of the present period still
    adhere to this practice of notation in their Hebrew books. The
    Greeks had a numerical system similar to that used by the Jews,
    but they carried it a little farther by using letters of the
    alphabet with a dash or slant‐line behind, to represent thousands
    (1000‐9000), tens of thousands (10,000‐90,000) and one hundred of
    thousands (100,000) the last, for instance, being represented by
    “rho” with a dash behind, while “rho” singly represented 100. The
    Romans represented all numerical values by the combination
    (additive when the second letter is of equal or less value) of six
    letters of their alphabet: i (= 1), v (= 5), x (= 10), c (for
    “centum” = 100), d (= 500), and m (= 1000): thus 20 = xx, 15 = xv,
    and 9 = ix. These are called the Roman numerals, and are adopted
    by all European nations when using the Roman alphabet. The Arabs
    at first followed their neighbours, the Jews, in their method of
    computation, so much so that they called it Abjad from the first
    four Hebrew letters—“alif,” “beth,” “gimel”—or rather “jimel,”
    that is, “jim” (Arabic being wanting in “g”), and “daleth,”
    representing the first four units. But when in the early part of
    the Christian era they came to India as traders, they found the
    country already using for computation the decimal scale of
    notation, which they forthwith borrowed literally; _viz._, without
    altering its method of writing from left to right, at variance
    with their own mode of writing, which is from right to left. They
    introduced this system into Europe through Spain and other
    European countries lying along the coast of the Mediterranean and
    under their sway, during the dark ages of European history. It has
    thus become evident that the Âryas knew well mathematics or the
    science of computation at a time when all other nations knew but
    little, if anything, of it. It has also been admitted that the
    knowledge of arithmetic and algebra was first introduced from the
    Hindus by the Arabs, and then taught by them to the Western
    nations. This fact convincingly proves that the Âryan civilisation
    is older than that of any other nation in the world; and as the
    _Vedas_ are avowedly proved the oldest work of that civilisation,
    a presumption is raised in favour of their great antiquity.(642)


But while the Jewish nation, for instance—regarded so long as the first
and oldest in the order of creation—knew nothing of arithmetic and
remained utterly ignorant of the decimal scale of notation—the latter
existed for ages in India before the actual era.

To become certain of the immense antiquity of the Âryan Asiatic nations
and of their astronomical records one has to study more than the _Vedas_.
The secret meaning of the latter will never be understood by the present
generation of Orientalists; and the astronomical works which give openly
the real dates and prove the antiquity of both the nation and its science,
elude the grasp of the collectors of ollas and old manuscripts in India,
the reason being too obvious to need explanation. Yet there are
Astronomers and Mathematicians to this day in India, humble Shâstris and
Pandits, unknown and lost in the midst of that population of phenomenal
memories and metaphysical brains, who have undertaken the task and have
proved to the satisfaction of many that the _Vedas_ are the oldest works
in the world. One of such is the Shâstri just quoted, who published in
_The Theosophist_(643) an able treatise proving astronomically and
mathematically that:


    If the Post‐Vaidika works alone, the Upanishads, the Brâhmanas,
    etc., down to the Purânas, when examined critically carry us back
    to 20,000 B.C., then the time of the composition of the _Vedas_
    themselves cannot be less than 30,000 B.C., in round numbers, a
    date which we may take at present as the age of that Book of
    books.(644)


And what are his proofs?

Cycles and the evidence yielded by the asterisms. Here are a few extracts
from his rather lengthy treatise, selected to give an idea of his
demonstrations and bearing directly on the quinquennial cycle spoken of
just now. Those who feel interested in the demonstrations and are advanced
mathematicians can turn to the article itself, “The Antiquity of the
_Vedas_,”(645) and judge for themselves.


    10. Somâkara in his commentary on the _Shesha Jyotisha_ quotes a
    passage from the _Satapatha Brâhmana_, which contains an
    observation on the change of the tropics, and which is also found
    in the _Sâkhâyana Brâhmana_, as has been noticed by Prof. Max
    Müller in his preface to _Rigveda Samhitâ_ (p. xx. foot‐note, vol.
    iv.). The passage is this: ... “The full‐moon night in Phâlguna is
    the first night of Samvatsara, the first year of the quinquennial
    age.” This passage clearly shows that the quinquennial age which,
    according to the sixth verse of the _Jyotisha_, begins on the 1st
    of Mâgha (January‐February), once began on the 15th of Phâlguna
    (February‐March). Now when the 15th of Phâlguna of the first year
    called Samvatsara of the quinquennial age begins, the moon,
    according to the _Jyotisha_, is in 3/4th of the Uttar Phâlgunî,
    and the sun in 1/4th of Pûrva Bhâdrapadâ. Hence the position of
    the four principal points on the ecliptic was then as follows:

    The winter solstice in 3°29’ of Purva Bhâdrapadâ.

    The vernal equinox in the beginning of Mrigashîrsha.

    The summer solstice in 10 of Purva Phâlgunî.

    The autumnal equinox in the middle of Jyeshtha.

    The vernal equinoctial point, we have seen, coincided with the
    beginning of Krittikâ in 1421 B.C.; and from the beginning of
    Krittikâ to that of Mrigashîrsha, was, in consequence, 1421 +
    26‐2/3 x 72 = 1421 + 1920 = 3341 B.C., supposing the rate of
    _precession_ to be 50° a year. When we take the rate to be 3°20"
    in 247 years, the time comes up to 1516 + 1960·7 = 3476·7 B.C.

    When the winter solstice by its retrograde motion coincided after
    that with the beginning of Pûrva Bhâdrapadâ, then the commencement
    of the quinquennial age was changed from the 15th to the 1st of
    Phâlguna (February‐March). This change took place 240 years after
    the date of the above observation, that is, in 3101 B.C. This date
    is most important, as from it an era was reckoned in after times.
    The commencement of the Kali or Kali Yuga (derived from “kal,” “to
    reckon”), though said by European scholars to be an imaginary
    date, becomes thus an astronomical fact.

    INTERCHANGE OF KRITTIKÂ AND ASHVINÎ.(646)

    We thus see that the asterisms, twenty‐seven in number, were
    counted from the Mrigashîrsha when the vernal equinox was in its
    beginning, and that the practice of thus counting was adhered to
    till the vernal equinox retrograded to the beginning of Krittikâ,
    when it became the first of the asterisms. For then the winter
    solstice had changed, receding from Phâlguna (February‐March) to
    Mâgha (January‐February), one complete lunar month. And, in like
    manner, the place of Krittikâ was occupied by Ashvinî, that is,
    the latter became the first of the asterisms, heading all others,
    when its beginning coincided with the vernal equinoctial point,
    or, in other words, when the winter solstice was in Pansha
    (December‐February). Now from the beginning of Krittikâ to that of
    Ashvinî there are two asterisms, or 26‐2/3°, and the time the
    equinox takes to retrograde this distance at the rate of 1 in 72
    years is 1920 years; and hence the date at which the vernal
    equinox coincided with the commencement of Ashvinî or with the end
    of Revatî is 1920 ‐ 1421 = 499 A.D.

    BENTLEY’S OPINION.

    12. The next and equally‐important observation we have to record
    here is one discussed by Mr. Bentley in his researches into the
    Indian antiquities. “The first lunar asterism,” he says, “in the
    division of twenty‐eight was called Mûla, that is to say, the root
    or origin. In the division of twenty‐seven the first lunar
    asterism was called Jyeshtha, that is to say, the eldest or first,
    and consequently of the same import as the former” (_vide_ his
    _Historical View of the Hindu Astronomy_, p. 4). From this it
    becomes manifest that the vernal equinox was once in the beginning
    of Mûla, and Mûla was reckoned the first of the asterisms when
    they were twenty‐eight in number, including Adhijit. Now there are
    fourteen asterisms, or 180°, from the beginning of Mrigashîrsha to
    that of Mûla, and hence the date at which the vernal equinox
    coincided with the beginning of Mûla was at least 3341 + 180 × 72
    = 16,301 B.C. The position of the four principal points on the
    ecliptic was then as given below:

    The winter solstice in the beginning of Uttara Phâlgunî in the
    month of Shrâvana.

    The vernal equinox in the beginning of Mûla in Kârttika.

    The summer solstice in the beginning of Pûrva Bhâdrapadâ in Mâgha.

    The autumnal equinox in the beginning of Mrigashîrsha in
    Vaishâkha.

    A PROOF FROM THE BHAGAVAD GÎTÂ.

    13. The _Bhagavad Gîtâ_, as well as the _Bhâgavata_, makes mention
    of an observation which points to a still more remote antiquity
    than the one discovered by Mr. Bentley. The passages are given in
    order below:

    “I am the Mârgashîrsha [_viz._ the first among the months] and the
    spring [_viz._ the first among the seasons].”

    This shows that at one time the first month of spring was
    Mârgashîrsha. A season includes two months, and the mention of a
    month suggests the season.

    “I am the Samvatsara among the years [which are five in number]
    and the spring among the seasons, and the Mârgashîrsha among the
    months and the Abhijit among the asterisms [which are twenty‐eight
    in number].”

    This clearly points out that at one time in the first year called
    Samvatsara, of the quinquennial age, the Madhu, that is, the first
    month of spring, was Mârgashîrsha, and Abhijit was the first of
    the asterisms. It then coincided with the vernal equinoctial
    point, and thence from it the asterisms were counted. To find the
    date of this observation: There are three asterisms from the
    beginning of Mûla to the beginning of Abhijit, and hence the date
    in question is at least 16,301 + 3/7 × 90 × 72 = 19,078 or about
    20,000 B.C. The Samvatsara at this time began in Bhâdrapadâ, the
    winter solstitial month.


So far then 20,000 years are mathematically proven for the antiquity of
the _Vedas_. And this is simply exoteric. Any mathematician, provided he
be not blinded by preconception and prejudice, can see this, and an
unknown but very clever amateur Astronomer, S. A. Mackey, has proved it
some sixty years back.

His theory about the Hindu Yugas and their length is curious—as being so
very near the correct doctrine.


    It is said in volume ii. p. 131, of _Asiatic Researches_ that:
    “The great ancestor of Yudhister reigned 27,000 years ... at the
    end of the brazen age.” In volume ix. p. 364, we read:

    “In the _beginning of the Cali Yuga_, in the reign of Yudhister.
    And Yudhister ... began his reign immediately after the flood
    called Pralaya.”

    Here we find three different statements concerning Yudhister ...
    to explain these seeming differences we must have recourse to
    their books of science, where we find the heavens and the earth
    divided into _five parts_ of unequal dimensions, by circles
    parallel to the equator. Attention to these divisions will be
    found to be of the utmost importance ... as it will be found that
    from them arose the division of their Maha‐Yuga into its four
    component parts. Every astronomer knows that there is a point in
    the heavens called the pole, round which the whole seems to turn
    in twenty‐four hours; and that at ninety degrees from it they
    imagine a _circle_ called the _equator_, which divides the heavens
    and the earth into two equal parts, the north and the south.
    Between this circle and the pole there is another imaginary circle
    called the circle of _perpetual apparition_: between which and the
    equator there is a point in the heavens called the zenith, through
    which let another imaginary circle pass, parallel to the other
    two; and then there wants but the circle of perpetual occultation
    to complete the round.... No astronomer of Europe besides myself
    has ever applied them to the development of the Hindu mysterious
    numbers. We are told in the _Asiatic Researches_ that Yudhister
    brought Vicramâditya to reign in Cassimer, which is in the
    latitude of 36 degrees. And in that latitude the circle of
    perpetual apparition would extend up to 72 degrees altitude, and
    from that to the zenith there are but 18 degrees, but from the
    zenith to the equator in that latitude there are 36 degrees, and
    from the equator to the circle of perpetual occultation there are
    54 degrees. Here we find the semi‐circle of 180 degrees divided
    into four parts, in the proportion of 1, 2, 3, 4, _i.e._, 18, 36,
    54, 72. Whether the Hindu astronomers were acquainted with the
    motion of the earth or not is of no consequence, since the
    appearances are the same; and if it will give those gentlemen of
    _tender consciences_ any pleasure I am willing to admit that they
    imagined the heavens rolled round the earth, but they had observed
    the stars in the path of the sun to move _forward_ through the
    equinoctial points, at the rate of fifty‐four seconds of a degree
    in a year, which carried the whole zodiac round in 24,000 years;
    in which time they also observed that the angle of obliquity
    varied, so as to _extend_ or _contract_ the width of the tropics 4
    degrees on each side, which rate of motion would carry the tropics
    from the equator to the poles in 540,000 years: in which time the
    Zodiac would have made twenty‐two and a half revolutions, which
    are expressed by the parallel circles from the equator to the
    poles ... or what amounts to the same thing, the north pole of the
    ecliptic would have moved from the north pole of the earth to the
    equator.... Thus the poles become inverted in 1,080,000 years,
    which is their Maha Yuga, and which they had divided into four
    unequal parts, in the proportions of 1, 2, 3, 4, for the reasons
    mentioned above; which are 108,000, 216,000, 324,000, and 432,000.
    Here we have the most positive proofs that the above numbers
    originated in _ancient astronomical observations_, and
    consequently are not deserving of those epithets which have been
    bestowed upon them by the Essayist, echoing the voice of Bentley,
    Wilford, Dupuis, etc.

    I have now to show that the reign of Yudhister for 27,000 years is
    neither _absurd nor disgusting_, but perhaps the Essayist is not
    aware that there were several Yudhisters or Judhisters. In volume
    ii. p. 131, _Asiatic Researches_: “The great ancestor of Yudhister
    reigned 27,000 years at the end of the brazen or third age.” Here
    I must again beg your attention to this projection. This is a
    plane of that machine which the second gentleman thought so very
    clumsy; it is that of a _prolong spheroid_, called by the ancients
    an atroscope. Let the longest axis represent the poles of the
    earth, making an angle of 28 degrees with the horizon; then will
    the seven divisions above the horizon to the North Pole, the
    temple of Buddha, and the seven from the North Pole to the circle
    of perpetual apparition represent the fourteen Manvantaras, or
    very long periods of time, each of which, according to the third
    volume of _Asiatic Researches_, p. 258 or 259, was the reign of a
    Menu. But Capt. Wilford, in volume v. p. 243, gives us the
    following information: “The Egyptians had fourteen dynasties, and
    the Hindus had fourteen dynasties, the _rulers_ of which are
    called Menus.” ...

    Who can here mistake the fourteen very long periods of time for
    those which constituted the Cali Yuga of Delhi, or any other place
    in the latitude of 28 degrees, where the blank space from the foot
    of Meru to the seventh circle from the equator, constitutes the
    part passed over by the tropic in the next age; which proportions
    differ considerably from those in the latitude of 36; and because
    the numbers in the Hindu books differ, Mr. Bentley asserts that:
    “This shows what little dependence is to be put in them.” But, on
    the contrary, it shows with what accuracy the Hindus had
    _observed_ the motions of the heavens in different latitudes.

    Some of the Hindus inform us that “the earth has _two spindles_
    which are surrounded by _seven tiers of heavens and hells_ at the
    distance of _one Raju_ each.” This needs but little explanation
    when it is understood that the seven divisions from the equator to
    their zenith are called _Rishis_ or _Rashas_. But what is most to
    our present purpose to know is that they had given names to each
    of those divisions which the tropics passed over during each
    revolution of the Zodiac. In the latitude of 36 degrees where the
    Pole or Meru was nine steps high at Cassimere, they were called
    _Shastras_; in latitude 28 degrees at Delhi, where the Pole or
    Meru was seven steps high, they were called Menus; but in 24
    degrees, at Cacha, where the Pole or Meru was but six steps high,
    they were called Sacas. But in the ninth volume (_Asiatic
    Researches_) Yudhister, the son of Dherma, or _Justice_, was the
    first of the six Sacas; the name implies the _end_, and as
    everything has two ends, Yudhister is as applicable to the first
    as to the last. And as the division on the north of the circle of
    perpetual apparition is the first of the Cali Yuga, supposing the
    tropics to be ascending, it was called the division or reign of
    Yudhister. But the division which immediately precedes the circle
    of perpetual apparition is the last of the third or _brazen age_,
    and was therefore called Yudhister, and as his reign preceded the
    reign of the other, as the tropic ascended to the Pole or Meru, he
    was called _the father_ of the other—“the great ancestor of
    Yudhister, who reigned _twenty‐seven thousand years, at the end_
    of the brazen age.” (Vol. ii. _Asiatic Researches_.)

    The ancient Hindus observed that the Zodiac went forward at about
    the rate of fifty‐four seconds a year, and to avoid greater
    fractions, stated it at that, which would make a complete round in
    24,000 years; and observing the angle of the poles to vary nearly
    4 degrees each round, stated the three numbers as such, which
    would have given _forty‐five rounds of the Zodiac_ to half a
    revolution of the poles; but finding that forty‐five rounds would
    not bring the northern tropic to coincide with the circle of
    perpetual apparition by thirty minutes of a degree, which required
    the Zodiac to move one sign and a half more, which we all know it
    could not do in less than 3,000 years, they were, in the case
    before us, added to the end of the _brazen age_; which lengthen
    the reign of _that_ Yudhister to 27,000 years instead of 24,000,
    but, at another time they did not alter the regular order of
    24,000 years to the reign of each of these long‐winded monarchs,
    but rounded up the time by allowing a _regency_ to continue three
    or four thousand years. In volume ii. p. 134, _Asiatic
    Researches_, we are told that: “Paricshit, the great nephew and
    successor of Yudhister, is allowed without controversy to have
    reigned in the interval between the _brazen and earthen_, or Cali
    Ages, and to have died at the setting‐in of the Cali Yug.” Here we
    find an _interregnum_ at the _end_ of the _brazen_ age, and
    _before_ the setting‐in of the Cali Yug: and as there can be but
    one brazen or Treta Yug, _i.e._, the third age, in a Maha Yuga of
    1,080,000 years: the reign of this Paricshit must have been in the
    second Maha Yuga, when the pole had returned to its original
    position, which must have taken 2,160,000 years: and this is what
    the Hindus call the Prajanatha Yuga. Analogous to this custom is
    that of some nations more modern, who, fond of even numbers, have
    made the common year to consist of twelve months of thirty days
    each, and the five days and odd measure have been represented as
    the reign of a little serpent biting his tail, and divided into
    five parts, etc.

    But “Yudhister began his reign immediately _after the flood called
    Pralaya_,” _i.e._, at the end of the Cali Yug (or age of heat),
    when the tropic had passed from the pole to the other side of the
    circle of perpetual apparition, which coincides with the northern
    horizon; here the tropics or summer solstice would be again in the
    same parallel of north declination, at the _commencement_ of their
    first age, as he was at the _end_ of their _third age_, or Treta
    Yug, called the brazen age....

    Enough has been said to prove that the Hindu books of science are
    not disgusting absurdities, originated in ignorance, vanity, and
    credulity; but books containing the most profound knowledge of
    astronomy and geography.

    What, therefore, can induce those gentlemen of tender consciences
    to insist that Yudhister was a real mortal man I have no guess;
    unless it be that they fear for the fate of Jared and his
    grandfather, Methuselah?



SECTION XLI. THE DOCTRINE OF AVATARAS.


A strange story—a legend rather—is persistently current among the
disciples of some great Himâlayan Gurus, and even among laymen, to the
effect that Gautama, the Prince of Kapilavastu, has never left the
terrestrial regions, though his body died and was burnt, and its relics
are preserved to this day. There is an oral tradition among the Chinese
Buddhists, and a written statement among the secret books of the Lamaists
of Tibet, as well as a tradition among the Âryans, that Gautama BUDDHA had
two doctrines: one for the masses and His lay disciples, the other for His
“elect,” the Arhats. His policy and after Him that of His Arhats was, it
appears, to refuse no one admission into the ranks of candidates for
Arhatship, but never to divulge the final mysteries except to those who
had proved themselves, during long years of probation, to be worthy of
Initiation. These once accepted were consecrated and initiated without
distinction of race, caste or wealth, as in the case of His western
successor. It is the Arhats who have set forth and allowed this tradition
to take root in the people’s mind, and it is the basis, also, of the later
dogma of Lamaic reincarnation or the succession of human Buddhas.

The little that can be said here upon the subject may or may not help to
guide the psychic student in the right direction. It being left to the
option and responsibility of the writer to tell the facts as she
_personally_ understood them, the blame for possible misconceptions
created must fall only upon her. She has been taught the doctrine, but it
was left to her sole intuition—as it is now left to the sagacity of the
reader—to group the mysterious and perplexing facts together. The
incomplete statements herein given are fragments of what is contained in
certain secret volumes, but it is not lawful to divulge the details.

The esoteric version of the mystery given in the secret volumes may be
told very briefly. The Buddhists have always stoutly denied that their
Buddha was, as alleged by the Brâhmans, an Avatâra of Vishnu in the same
sense as a man is an incarnation of his Karmic ancestor. They deny it
partly, perhaps, because the esoteric meaning of the term “Mahâ Vishnu” is
not known to them in its full, impersonal, and general meaning. There is a
mysterious Principle in Nature called “Mahâ Vishnu,” which is not the God
of that name, but a principle which contains Bîja, the seed of Avatârism
or, in other words, is the potency and cause of such divine incarnations.
All the World‐Saviours, the Bodhisattvas and the Avatâras, are the trees
of salvation grown out from the one seed, the Bîja or “Mahâ Vishnu.”
Whether it be called Âdi‐Buddha (Primeval Wisdom) or Mahâ Vishnu, it is
all the same. Understood esoterically, Vishnu is both Saguna and Nirguna
(with and without attributes). In the first aspect, Vishnu is the object
of exoteric worship and devotion; in the second, as Nirguna, he is the
culmination of the totality of spiritual wisdom in the
Universe—Nirvâna,(647) in short—and has as worshippers all philosophical
minds. In this esoteric sense the Lord BUDDHA _was_ an incarnation of Mahâ
Vishnu.

This is from the philosophical and purely spiritual standpoint. From the
plane of illusion, however, as one would say, or from the terrestrial
standpoint, those initiated _know_ that He was a direct incarnation of one
of the primeval “Seven Sons of Light” who are to be found in every
Theogony—the Dhyân Chohans whose mission it is, from one eternity (æon) to
the other, to watch over the spiritual welfare of the regions under their
care. This has been already enunciated in _Esoteric Buddhism_.

One of the greatest mysteries of speculative and philosophical
Mysticism—and it is one of the mysteries now to be disclosed—is the _modus
operandi_ in the degrees of such hypostatic transferences. As a matter of
course, divine as well as human incarnations must remain a closed book to
the theologian as much as to the physiologist, unless the esoteric
teachings be accepted and become the religion of the world. This teaching
may never be fully explained to an unprepared public; but one thing is
certain and may be said now: that between the dogma of a newly‐created
soul for each new birth, and the physiological assumption of a temporary
animal soul, there lies the vast region of Occult teaching(648) with its
logical and reasonable demonstrations, the links of which may all be
traced in logical and philosophical sequence in nature.

This “Mystery” is found, for him who understands its right meaning, in the
dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna, in the _Bhagavad Gita_, chapter iv.
Says the Avatâra:


    Many births of mine have passed, as also of yours, O Arjuna! All
    those I know, but you do not know yours, O harasser of your
    enemies.

    Although I am unborn, with exhaustless Âtmâ, and am the Lord of
    all that is; yet, taking up the domination of my nature I am born
    by the power of illusion.(649)

    Whenever, O son of Bhârata, there is decline of Dharma [the right
    law] and the rise of Adharma [the opposite of Dharma] there I
    manifest myself.

    For the salvation of the good and the destruction of wickedness,
    for the establishment of the law, _I am born_ in every yuga.

    Whoever comprehends truly my divine birth and action, he, O
    Arjuna, having abandoned the body does not receive re‐birth; he
    comes to me.


Thus, all the Avatâras are one and the same: the Sons of their “Father,”
in a direct descent and line, the “Father,” or one of the seven Flames
becoming, for the time being, the Son, and these two being one—in
Eternity. What is the Father? Is it the absolute Cause of all?—the
fathomless Eternal? No; most decidedly. It is Kâranâtmâ, the “Causal Soul”
which, in its general sense, is called by the Hindus Îshvara, the Lord,
and by Christians, “God,” the One and Only. From the standpoint of unity
it is so; but then the lowest of the Elementals could equally be viewed in
such case as the “One and Only.” Each human being has, moreover, his own
divine Spirit or personal God. That divine Entity or Flame from which
Buddhi emanates stands in the same relation to man, though on a lower
plane, as the Dhyâni‐Buddha to his human Buddha. Hence monotheism and
polytheism are not irreconcilable; they exist in Nature.

Truly, “for the salvation of the good and the destruction of wickedness,”
the personalities known as Gautama, Shankara, Jesus and a few others were
born each in his age, as declared—“I am born in every Yuga”—and they were
all born through the same Power.

There is a great mystery in such incarnations and they are outside and
beyond the cycle of general re‐births. Rebirths may be divided into three
classes: the divine incarnations called Avatâras; those of Adepts who give
up Nirvâna for the sake of helping on humanity—the Nirmânakâyas; and the
natural succession of rebirths for all—the common law. The Avatâra is an
appearance, one which may be termed a special illusion within the natural
illusion that reigns on the planes under the sway of that power, Mâyâ; the
Adept is re‐born consciously, at his will and pleasure;(650) the units of
the common herd unconsciously follow the great law of dual evolution.

What _is_ an Avatâra? for the term before being used ought to be well
understood. It is a descent of the manifested Deity—whether under the
specific name of Shiva, Vishnu, or Âdi‐Buddha—into an illusive form of
individuality, an appearance which to men on this illusive plane is
objective, but is not so in sober fact. That illusive form, having neither
past nor future, because it had neither previous incarnation nor will have
subsequent rebirths, has naught to do with Karma, which has therefore no
hold on it.

Gautama BUDDHA was born an Avatâra in one sense. But this, in view of
unavoidable objections on dogmatic grounds, necessitates explanation.
There is a great difference between an Avatâra and a Jîvanmukta: one, as
already stated, is an illusive appearance, Karma‐less, and having never
before incarnated; and the other, the Jîvanmukta, is one who obtains
Nirvâna by his individual merits. To this expression again an
uncompromising, philosophical Vedântin would object. He might say that as
the condition of the Avatâra and the Jîvanmukta are one and the same
state, no amount of personal merit, in howsoever many incarnations, can
lead its possessor to Nirvâna. Nirvâna, he would say, is actionless; how
can, then, any action lead to it? It is neither a result nor a cause, but
an ever‐present, eternal _Is_, as Nâgasena defined it. Hence it can have
no relation to, or concern with, action, merit, or demerit, since these
are subject to Karma. All this is very true, but still to our mind there
is an important difference between the two. An Avatâra _is_; a Jîvanmukta
_becomes_ one. If the state of the two is identical, not so are the causes
which lead to it. An Avatâra is a descent of a God into an illusive form;
a Jîvanmukta, who may have passed through numberless incarnations and may
have accumulated merit in them, certainly does not become a Nirvânî
because of that merit, but only because of the Karma generated by it,
which leads and guides him in the direction of the Guru who will initiate
him into the mystery of Nirvâna and who alone can help him to reach this
abode.

The Shâstras say that from our works alone we obtain Moksha, and if we
take no pains there will be no gain and we shall be neither assisted nor
benefited by Deity [the Mahâ‐Guru]. Therefore it is maintained that
Gautama, though an Avatâra in one sense, is a true human Jîvanmukta, owing
his position to his personal merit, and thus more than an Avatâra. It was
his personal merit that enabled him to achieve Nirvâna.

Of the voluntary and conscious incarnations of Adepts there are two
types—those of Nirmânakâyas, and those undertaken by the probationary
chelâs who are on their trial.

The greatest, as the most puzzling mystery of the first type lies in the
fact, that such re‐birth in a human body of the personal Ego of some
particular Adept—when it has been dwelling in the Mâyâvi or the Kâma Rûpa,
and remaining in the Kâma Loka—may happen even when his “Higher
Principles” are in the state of Nirvâna.(651) Let it be understood that
the above expressions are used for popular purposes, and therefore that
what is written does not deal with this deep and mysterious question from
the _highest_ plane, that of absolute spirituality, nor again from the
highest philosophical point of view, comprehensible but to the very few.
It must not be supposed that anything can go into Nirvâna which is not
eternally there; but human intellect in conceiving the Absolute must put
It as the highest term in an indefinite series. If this be borne in mind a
great deal of misconception will be avoided. The content of this spiritual
evolution is the material on various planes with which the Nirvânî was in
contact prior to his attainment of Nirvâna. The plane on which this is
true, being in the series of illusive planes, is undoubtedly not the
highest. Those who search for that must go to the right source of study,
the teachings of the _Upanishads_, and must go in the right spirit. Here
we attempt only to indicate the direction in which the search is to be
made, and in showing a few of the mysterious Occult possibilities we do
not bring our readers actually to the goal. The ultimate truth can be
communicated only from Guru to initiated pupil.

Having said so much, the statement still will and must appear
incomprehensible, if not absurd, to many. Firstly, to all those who are
unfamiliar with the doctrine of the manifold nature and various aspects of
the human Monad; and secondly to those who view the septenary division of
the human entity from a too materialistic standpoint. Yet the intuitional
Occultist, who has studied thoroughly the mysteries of Nirvâna—who knows
it to be identical with Parabrahman, and hence unchangeable, eternal and
no Thing but the Absolute All—will seize the possibility of the fact. They
know that while a Dharmakâya—a Nirvânî “without remains,” as our
Orientalists have translated it, being absorbed into that Nothingness,
which is the one real, because Absolute, Consciousness—cannot be said to
return to incarnation on Earth, the Nirvânî being no longer a he, a she,
or even an it, the Nirmânakâya—or he who has obtained Nirvâna “with
remains,” _i.e._, who is clothed in a subtle body, which makes him
impervious to all outward impressions and to every mental feeling, and in
whom the notion of his Ego has not entirely ceased—can do so. Again, every
Eastern Occultist is aware of the fact that there are two kinds of
Nirmânakâyas—the natural, and the assumed; that the former is the name or
epithet given to the condition of a high ascetic, or Initiate, who has
reached a stage of bliss second only to Nirvâna; while the latter means
the self‐sacrifice of one who voluntarily gives up the absolute Nirvâna,
in order to help humanity and be still doing it good, or, in other words,
to save his fellow‐creatures by guiding them. It may be objected that the
Dharmakâya, being a Nirvânî or Jîvanmukta, can have no “remains” left
behind him after death, for having attained that state from which no
further incarnations are possible, there is no need for him of a subtle
body, or of the individual Ego that reincarnates from one birth to
another, and that therefore the latter disappears of logical necessity; to
this it is answered: it is so for all exoteric purposes and as a general
law. But the case with which we are dealing is an exceptional one, and its
realization lies within the Occult powers of the high Initiate, who,
before entering into the state of Nirvâna, can cause his “remains”
(sometimes, though not very well, called his Mâyâvi Rûpa), to remain
behind,(652) whether he is to become a Nirvânî, or to find himself in a
lower state of bliss.

Next, there are cases—rare, yet more frequent than one would be disposed
to expect—which are the voluntary and conscious reincarnations of
Adepts(653) on their trial. Every man has an Inner, a “Higher Self,” and
also an Astral Body. But few are those who, outside the higher degrees of
Adeptship, can guide the latter, or any of the principles that animate it,
when once death has closed their short terrestrial life. Yet such
guidance, or their transference from the dead to a living body, is not
only possible, but is of frequent occurrence, according to Occult and
Kabalistic teachings. The degrees of such power of course vary greatly. To
mention but three: the lowest of these degrees would allow an Adept, who
has been greatly trammelled during life in his study and in the use of his
powers, to choose after death another body in which he could go on with
his interrupted studies, though ordinarily he would lose in it every
remembrance of his previous incarnation. The next degree permits him, in
addition to this, to transfer the memory of his past life to his new body;
while the highest has hardly any limits in the exercise of that wonderful
faculty.

As an instance of an Adept who enjoyed the first mentioned power some
mediæval Kabalists cite a well‐known personage of the fifteenth
century—Cardinal de Cusa; Karma, due to his wonderful devotion to Esoteric
study and the _Kabalah_, led the suffering Adept to seek intellectual
recuperation and rest from ecclesiastical tyranny in the body of
Copernicus. _Se non e vero e ben trovato_; and the perusal of the lives of
the two men might easily lead a believer in such powers to a ready
acceptance of the alleged fact. The reader having at his command the means
to do so is asked to turn to the formidable folio in Latin of the
fifteenth century, called _De Docta Ignorantia_, written by the Cardinal
de Cusa, in which all the theories and hypotheses—all the ideas—of
Copernicus are found as the key‐notes to the discoveries of the great
astronomer.(654) Who was this extraordinarily learned Cardinal? The son of
a poor boatman, owing all his career, his Cardinal’s hat, and the
reverential awe rather than friendship of the Popes Eugenius IV., Nicholas
V., and Pius II., to the extraordinary learning which seemed innate in
him, since he had studied nowhere till comparatively late in life. De Cusa
died in 1473; moreover, his best works were written before he was forced
to enter orders—to escape persecution. Nor did the Adept escape it.

In the voluminous work of the Cardinal above‐quoted is found a very
suggestive sentence, the authorship of which has been variously attributed
to Pascal, to Cusa himself, and to the _Zohar_, and which belongs by right
to the Books of Hermes:


    The world is an infinite sphere, whose centre is everywhere and
    whose circumference is nowhere.


This is changed by some into: “The centre being nowhere, and the
circumference everywhere,” a rather heretical idea for a Cardinal, though
perfectly orthodox from a Kabalistic standpoint.

The theory of rebirth must be set forth by Occultists, and then applied to
special cases. The right comprehension of this psychic fact is based upon
a correct view of that group of celestial Beings who are universally
called the seven Primeval Gods or Angels—our Dhyân Chohans—the “Seven
Primeval Rays” or Powers, adopted later on by the Christian Religion as
the “Seven Angels of the Presence.” Arûpa, formless, at the upper rung of
the ladder of Being, materializing more and more as they descend in the
scale of objectivity and form, ending in the grossest and most imperfect
of the Hierarchy, man—it is the former purely spiritual group that is
pointed out to us, in our Occult teaching, as the nursery and fountain‐
head of human beings. Therein germinates that consciousness which is the
earliest manifestation from causal Consciousness—the Alpha and the Omega
of divine being and life for ever. And as it proceeds downward through
every phase of existence descending through man, through animal and plant,
it ends its descent only in the mineral. It is represented by the double
triangle—the most mysterious and the most suggestive of all mystic signs,
for it is a double glyph, embracing spiritual and physical consciousness
and life, the former triangle running upwards, and the lower downwards,
both interlaced, and showing the various planes of the twice‐seven modes
of consciousness, the fourteen spheres of existence, the Lokas of the
Brâhmans.

The reader may now be able to obtain a clearer comprehension of the whole
thing. He will also see what is meant by the “Watchers,” there being one
placed as the Guardian or Regent over each of the seven divisions or
regions of the earth, according to old traditions, as there is one to
watch over and guide every one of the fourteen worlds or Lokas.(655) But
it is not with any of these that we are at present concerned, but with the
“Seven Breaths,” so‐called, that furnish man with his immortal Monad in
his cyclic pilgrimage.

The Commentary on the _Book of Dzyan_ says:

_Descending on his region first as Lord of Glory, the Flame (or Breath),
having called into conscious being the highest of the Emanations of that
special region, ascends from it again to Its primeval seat, whence It
watches __ over and guides Its countless Beams (Monads). It chooses as Its
Avatâras only those who had the Seven Virtues in them_(_656_)_ in their
previous incarnation. As for the rest, It overshadows each with one of Its
countless beams.... Yet even the __“__beam__”__ is a part of the Lord of
Lords._(657)

The septenary principle in man—who can be regarded as dual only as
concerns psychic manifestation on this gross earthly plane—was known to
all antiquity, and may be found in every ancient Scripture. The Egyptians
knew and taught it, and their division of principles is in every point a
counterpart of the Âryan Secret Teaching. It is thus given in _Isis
Unveiled_:


    In the Egyptian notions, as in those of all other faiths founded
    on philosophy, man was not merely ... a union of soul and body: he
    was a trinity when Spirit was added to it. Besides, that doctrine
    made him consist of Kha (body), Khaba (astral form or shadow), Ka
    (animal soul or life‐principle), Ba (the higher soul), and Akh
    (terrestrial intelligence). They had also a sixth principle, named
    Sah (or mummy), but the functions of this one commenced after the
    death of the body.(658)


The seventh principle being of course the highest, uncreated Spirit was
generically called Osiris, therefore every deceased person became
Osirified—or an Osiris—after death.

But in addition to reiterating the old ever‐present fact of reincarnation
and Karma—not as taught by the Spiritists, but as by the most Ancient
Science in the world—Occultists must teach cyclic and evolutionary
reincarnation: that kind of re‐birth, mysterious and still
incomprehensible to many who are ignorant of the world’s history, which
was cautiously mentioned in _Isis Unveiled_. A general re‐birth for every
individual with interlude of Kâma Loka and Devachan, and a cyclic
conscious reincarnation with a grand and divine object for the few. Those
great characters who tower like giants in the history of mankind like
Siddârtha BUDDHA and Jesus in the realm of the spiritual, and Alexander
the Macedonian and Napoleon the Great in the realm of physical conquests
are but the reflected images of human types which had existed—not ten
thousand years before, as cautiously put forward in _Isis Unveiled_, but
for millions of consecutive years from the beginning of the Manvantara.
For—with the exception of real Avatâras, as above explained—they are the
same unbroken Rays (Monads), each respectively of its own special Parent‐
Flame—called Devas, Dhyân Chohans, or Dhyâni‐Buddhas, or again, Planetary
Angels, etc.—shining in æonic eternity as their prototypes. It is in their
image that some men are born, and when some specific humanitarian object
is in view, the latter are hypostatically animated by their divine
prototypes reproduced again and again by the mysterious Powers that
control and guide the destinies of our world.

No more could be said at the time when _Isis Unveiled_ was written; hence
the statement was limited to the single remark that


    There is no prominent character in all the annals of sacred or
    profane history whose prototype we cannot find in the half
    fictitious and half real traditions of bygone religions and
    mythologies. As the star, glimmering at an immeasurable distance
    above our heads, in the boundless immensity of the sky, reflects
    itself in the smooth waters of a lake, so does the imagery of men
    of the antediluvian ages reflect itself in the periods we can
    embrace in a historical retrospect.


But now that so many publications have been brought out, stating much of
the doctrine, and several of them giving many an erroneous view, this
vague allusion may be amplified and explained. Not only does this
statement apply to prominent characters in history in general, but also to
men of genius, to every remarkable man of the age, who soars beyond the
common herd with some abnormally developed special capacity in him,
leading to the progress and good of mankind. Each is a reincarnation of an
individuality that has gone before him with capacities in the same line,
bringing thus as a dowry to his new form that strong and easily re‐
awakened capacity or quality which had been fully developed in him in his
preceding birth. Very often they are ordinary mortals, the Egos of natural
men in the course of their cyclic development.

But it is with “special cases” that we are now concerned. Let us suppose
that a person during his cycle of incarnations is thus selected for
special purposes—the vessel being sufficiently clean—by his personal God,
the Fountain‐head (on the plane of the manifested) of his Monad, who thus
becomes his in‐dweller. That God, his own prototype or “Father in Heaven,”
is, in one sense, not only the image in which he, the spiritual man, is
made, but in the case we are considering, it is that spiritual, individual
Ego himself. This is a case of permanent, life‐long Theophania. Let us
bear in mind that this is neither Avatârism, as it is understood in
Brâhmanical Philosophy, nor is the man thus selected a Jîvanmukta or
Nirvânî, but that it is a wholly exceptional case in the realm of
Mysticism. The man may or may not have been an Adept in his previous
lives; he is so far, and simply, an extremely pure and spiritual
individual—or one who was all that in his preceding birth, if the vessel
thus selected is that of a newly‐born infant. In this case, after the
physical translation of such a saint or Bodhisattva, his astral principles
cannot be subjected to a natural dissolution like those of any common
mortal. They remain in our sphere and within human attraction and reach;
and thus it is that not only a Buddha, a Shankarâchârya, or a Jesus can be
said to animate several persons at one and the same time, but even the
principles of a high Adept may be animating the outward tabernacles of
common mortals.

A certain Ray (principle) from Sanat Kumâra spiritualized (animated)
Pradyumna, the son of Krishna during the great Mahâbhârata period, while
at the same time, he, Sanat Kumâra, gave spiritual instruction to King
Dhritarâshtra. Moreover, it is to be remembered that Sanat‐Kumâra is “an
eternal youth of sixteen,” dwelling in Jana Loka, his own sphere or
spiritual state.

Even in ordinary _mediumistic_ life, so‐called, it is pretty well
ascertained that while the body is acting—even though only mechanically—or
resting in one place, its astral double may be appearing and acting
independently in another, and very often distant place. This is quite a
common occurrence in mystic life and history, and if this be so with
ecstatics, Seers and Mystics of every description, why cannot the same
thing happen on a higher and more spiritually developed plane of
existence? Admit the possibility on the lower psychic plane, then why not
on a higher plane? In the cases of higher Adeptship, when the body is
entirely at the command of the Inner Man, when the Spiritual Ego is
completely reünited with its seventh principle even during the life‐time
of the personality, and the Astral Man or personal Ego has become so
purified that he has gradually assimilated all the qualities and
attributes of the middle nature (Buddhi and Manas in their terrestrial
aspect) that personal Ego substitutes itself, so to say, for the spiritual
Higher Self, and is thenceforth capable of living an independent life on
earth; when corporeal death takes place the following mysterious event
often happens. As a Dharmakâya, a Nirvânî “without remains” entirely free
from terrestrial admixture, the Spiritual Ego cannot return to reincarnate
on earth. But in such cases, it is affirmed, the personal Ego of even a
Dharmakâya can remain in our sphere as a whole, and return to incarnation
on earth if need be. For now it can no longer be subject, like the astral
remains of any ordinary man, to gradual dissolution in the Kâma Loka (the
_limbus_ or purgatory of the Roman Catholic, and the “Summer‐land” of the
Spiritualist); it cannot die a second death, as such disintegration is
called by Proclus.(659) It has become too holy and pure, no longer by
reflected but its own natural light and spirituality, either to sleep in
the unconscious slumber of a lower Nirvânic state, or to be dissolved like
any ordinary astral shell and disappear in its entirety.

But in that condition known as the Nirmânakâya [the Nirvânî “with
remains,”] he can still help humanity.

“Let me suffer and bear the sins of all [be reincarnated unto new misery]
but let the world be saved!” was said by Gautama BUDDHA: an exclamation
the real meaning of which is little understood now by his followers. “If I
will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?”(660) asks the
astral Jesus of Peter. “Till I come” means “till I am reincarnated again”
in a physical body. Yet the Christ of the old crucified body could truly
say: “I am with my Father and one with Him,” which did not prevent the
astral from taking a form again nor John from tarrying indeed till his
Master had come; nor hinder John from failing to recognize him when he did
come, or from then opposing him. But in the Church that remark generated
the absurd idea of the millennium or chiliasm, in its physical sense.

Since then the “Man of Sorrows” has returned perchance, more than once,
unknown to, and undiscovered by, his blind followers. Since then also,
this grand “Son of God” has been incessantly and most cruelly crucified
daily and hourly by the Churches founded in his name. But the Apostles,
only half‐initiated, failed to tarry for their Master, and not recognizing
him, spurned him every time he returned.(661)



SECTION XLII. THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES.


The “Mystery of Buddha” is that of several other Adepts—perhaps of many.
The whole trouble is to understand correctly that other mystery: that of
the real fact, so abstruse and transcendental at first sight, about the
“Seven Principles” in man, the reflections in man of the seven powers in
Nature, physically, and of the seven Hierarchies of Being, intellectually
and spiritually. Whether a man—material, ethereal, and spiritual—is for
the clearer comprehension of his (broadly‐speaking) triple nature, divided
into groups according to one or another system, the foundation and the
apex of that division will be always the same. There being only three
Upâdhis (bases) in man, any number of Koshas (sheaths) and their aspects
may be built on these without destroying the harmony of the whole. Thus,
while the Esoteric System accepts the septenary division, the Vedântic
classification gives five Koshas, and the Târaka Râja Yoga simplifies them
into four—the three Upâdhis synthesized by the highest principle, Âtmâ.

That which has just been stated will, of course, suggest the question:
“How can a spiritual (or semi‐spiritual) personality lead a triple or even
a dual life, shifting respective ‘Higher Selves’ _ad libitum_, and be
still the one eternal Monad in the infinity of a Manvantara?” The answer
to this is easy for the true Occultist, while for the uninitiated profane
it must appear absurd. The “Seven Principles” are, of course, the
manifestation of one indivisible Spirit, but only at the end of the
Manvantara, and when they come to be re‐united on the plane of the One
Reality does the unity appear; during the “Pilgrim’s” journey the
reflections of that indivisible One Flame, the aspects of the one eternal
Spirit, have each the power of action on one of the manifested planes of
existence—the gradual differentiations from the one unmanifested plane—on
that plane namely to which it properly belongs. Our earth affording every
Mâyâvic condition, it follows that the purified Egotistical Principle, the
astral and personal Self of an Adept, though forming in reality one
integral whole with its Highest Self (Âtmâ and Buddhi) may, nevertheless,
for purposes of universal mercy and benevolence, so separate itself from
its divine Monad as to lead on this plane of illusion and temporary being
a distinct independent conscious life of its own under a borrowed illusive
shape, thus serving at one and the same time a double purpose: the
exhaustion of its own individual Karma, and the saving of millions of
human beings less favoured than itself from the effects of mental
blindness. If asked: “When the change described as the passage of a Buddha
or a Jîvanmukta into Nirvâna takes place, where does the original
consciousness which animated the body continue to reside—in the Nirvânî or
in the subsequent reincarnations of the latter’s ‘remains’ (the
Nirmânakâya)?” the answer is that _imprisoned_ consciousness may be a
“certain knowledge from observation and experience,” as Gibbon puts it,
but _disembodied_ consciousness is not an effect, but a cause. It is a
part of the whole, or rather a Ray on the graduated scale of its
manifested activity, of the one all‐pervading, limitless Flame, the
reflections of which alone can differentiate; and, as such, consciousness
is ubiquitous, and can be neither localized nor centred on or in any
particular subject, nor can it be limited. Its effects alone pertain to
the region of matter, for thought is an energy that affects matter in
various ways, but consciousness _per se_, as understood and explained by
Occult philosophy, is the highest quality of the sentient spiritual
principle in us, the Divine Soul (or Buddhi) and our Higher Ego, and does
not belong to the plane of materiality. After the death of the physical
man, if he be an Initiate, it becomes transformed from a human quality
into the independent principle itself; the conscious Ego becoming
Consciousness _per se_ without any Ego, in the sense that the latter can
no longer be limited or conditioned by the senses, or even by space or
time. Therefore it is capable, without separating itself from or
abandoning its possessor, Buddhi, of reflecting itself at the same time in
its astral man that was, without being under any necessity for localizing
itself. This is shown at a far lower stage in our dreams. For if
consciousness can display activity during our visions, and while the body
and its material brain are fast asleep—and if even during those visions it
is all but ubiquitous—how much greater must be its power when entirely
free from, and having no more connection with, our physical brain.



SECTION XLIII. THE MYSTERY OF BUDDHA.


Now the mystery of Buddha lies in this: Gautama, an incarnation of pure
Wisdom, had yet to learn in His human body and to be initiated into the
world’s secrets like any other mortal, until the day when He emerged from
His secret recess in the Himâlayas and preached for the first time in the
grove of Benares. The same with Jesus: from the age of twelve to thirty
years, when He is found preaching the Sermon on the Mount, nothing is
positively said or known of Him. Gautama had sworn inviolable secrecy as
to the Esoteric Doctrines imparted to Him. In His immense pity for the
ignorance—and as its consequence the sufferings—of mankind, desirous
though He was to keep inviolate His sacred vows, He failed to keep within
the prescribed limits. While constructing His Esoteric Philosophy (the
“Eye‐Doctrine”) on the foundations of eternal Truth, He failed to conceal
certain dogmas, and trespassing beyond the lawful lines, caused those
dogmas to be misunderstood. In His anxiety to make away with the false
Gods, He revealed in the “Seven Paths to Nirvâna” some of the mysteries of
the Seven Lights of the Arûpa (formless) World. A little of the truth is
often worse than no truth at all.


    Truth and fiction are like oil and water: they will never mix.


His new doctrine, which represented the outward dead body of the Esoteric
Teaching without its vivifying Soul, had disastrous effects: it was never
correctly understood, and the doctrine itself was rejected by the Southern
Buddhists. Immense philanthropy, a boundless love and charity for all
creatures, were at the bottom of His unintentional mistake; but Karma
little heeds intentions, whether good or bad, if they remain fruitless. If
the “Good Law” as preached resulted in the most sublime code of ethics and
the unparalleled philosophy of things external in the visible Kosmos, it
biassed and misguided immature minds into believing there was nothing more
under the outward mantle of the system, and its dead‐letter only was
accepted. Moreover, the new teaching unsettled many great minds which had
previously followed the orthodox Brâhmanical lead.

Thus, fifty odd years after his death “the great Teacher”(662) having
refused full Dharmakâya and Nirvâna, was pleased, for purposes of Karma
and philanthropy, to be reborn. For Him death had been no death, but as
expressed in the “Elixir of Life,”(663) He changed


    A sudden plunge into darkness to a transition into a brighter
    light.


The shock of death was broken, and like many other Adepts, He threw off
the mortal coil and left it to be burnt, and its ashes to serve as relics,
and began interplanetary life, clothed in His subtle body. He was reborn
as Shankara, the greatest Vedântic teacher of India, whose
philosophy—based as it is entirely on the fundamental axioms of the
eternal Revelation, the Shruti, or the primitive Wisdom‐Religion, as
Buddha from a different point of view had before based His—finds itself in
the middle‐ground between the too exuberantly veiled metaphysics of the
orthodox Brâhmans and those of Gautama, which, stripped in their exoteric
garb of every soul‐vivifying hope, transcendental aspiration and symbol,
appear in their cold wisdom like crystalline icicles, the skeletons of the
primeval truths of Esoteric Philosophy.

Was Shankarâchârya Gautama the Buddha, then, under a new personal form? It
may perhaps only puzzle the reader the more if he be told that there was
the “astral” Gautama inside the outward Shankara, whose higher principle,
or Âtman, was, nevertheless, his own divine prototype—the “Son of Light,”
indeed—the heavenly, mind‐born son of Aditi.

This fact is again based on that mysterious transference of the divine ex‐
personality merged in the impersonal Individuality—now in its full
trinitarian form of the Monad as Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas—to a new body, whether
visible or subjective. In the first case it is a Manushya‐Buddha; in the
second it is a Nirmânakâya. The Buddha is in Nirvâna, it is said, though
this once mortal vehicle—the subtle body—of Gautama is still present among
the Initiates; nor will it leave the realm of conscious Being so long as
suffering mankind needs its divine help—not to the end of this Root Race,
at any rate. From time to time He, the “astral” Gautama, associates
Himself, in some most mysterious—to us quite incomprehensible—manner, with
Avatâras and great saints, and works through them. And several such are
named.

Thus it is averred that Gautama Buddha was reincarnated in
Shankarâchârya—that, as is said in _Esoteric Buddhism_:


    Shankarâchârya simply _was_ Buddha in all respects in a new
    body.(664)


While the expression in its mystic sense is true, the way of putting it
may be misleading until explained. Shankara was a Buddha, most assuredly,
but he never was a reincarnation of the Buddha, though Gautama’s “Astral”
Ego—or rather his Bodhisattva—may have been associated in some mysterious
way with Shankarâchârya. Yes, it was perhaps the Ego, Gautama, under a new
and better adapted casket—that of a Brâhman of Southern India. But the
Âtman, the Higher Self that overshadowed both, was distinct from the
Higher Self of the translated Buddha, which was now in Its own sphere in
Kosmos.

Shankara was an Avatâra in the full sense of the term. According to
Sayanâchârya, the great commentator on the _Vedas_, he is to be held as an
Avatâra, or direct incarnation of Shiva—the Logos, the Seventh Principle
in Nature—Himself. In the Secret Doctrine Shri Shankarâchârya is regarded
as the abode—for the thirty‐two years of his mortal life—of a Flame, the
highest of the manifested Spiritual Beings, one of the Primordial Seven
Rays.

And now what is meant by a “Bodhisattva”? Buddhists of the Mahâyâna mystic
system teach that each BUDDHA manifests Himself (hypostatically or
otherwise) simultaneously in three worlds of Being, namely, in the world
of Kâma (concupiscence or desire—the sensuous universe or our earth) in
the shape of a man; in the world of Rûpa (form, yet supersensuous) as a
Bodhisattva; and in the highest Spiritual World (that of purely
incorporeal existences) as a Dhyâni‐Buddha. The latter prevails eternally
in space and time, _i.e._, from one Mahâ‐Kalpa to the other—the synthetic
culmination of the three being Âdi‐Buddha,(665) the Wisdom‐Principle,
which is Absolute, and therefore out of space and time. Their inter‐
relation is the following: The Dhyâni‐Buddha, when the world needs a human
Buddha, “creates” through the power of Dhyâna (meditation, omnipotent
devotion), a mind‐born son—a Bodhisattva—whose mission it is after the
physical death of his human, or Manushya‐Buddha, to continue his work on
earth till the appearance of the subsequent Buddha. The Esoteric meaning
of this teaching is clear. In the case of a simple mortal, the principles
in him are only the more or less bright reflections of the seven cosmic,
and the seven celestial Principles, the Hierarchy of supersensual Beings.
In the case of a Buddha, they are almost the principles _in esse_
themselves. The Bodhisattva replaces in him the Kârana Sharira, the Ego
principle, and the rest correspondingly; and it is in this way that
Esoteric Philosophy explains the meaning of the sentence that “by virtue
of Dhyâna [or abstract meditation] the Dhyâni‐Buddha [the Buddha’s Spirit
or Monad] creates a Bodhisattva,” or the astrally clothed Ego within the
Manushya‐Buddha. Thus, while the Buddha merges back into Nirvâna whence it
proceeded, the Bodhisattva remains behind to continue the Buddha’s work
upon earth. It is then this Bodhisattva that may have afforded the lower
principles in the apparitional body of Shankarâchârya, the Avatâra.

Now to say that Buddha, after having reached Nirvâna, returned thence to
reïncarnate in a new body, would be uttering a heresy from the
Brâhmanical, as well as from the Buddhistic standpoint. Even in the
Mahâyâna exoteric School in the teaching as to the three “Buddhic”
bodies,(666) it is said of the Dharmakâya—the ideal formless Being—that
once it is taken, the Buddha in it abandons the world of sensuous
perceptions for ever, and has not, nor can he have, any more connection
with it. To say, as the Esoteric or Mystic School teaches, that though
Buddha is in Nirvâna he has left behind him the Nirmânakâya (the
Bodhisattva) to work after him, is quite orthodox and in accordance with
both the Esoteric Mahâyâna and the Prasanga Mâdhyâmika Schools, the latter
an anti‐esoteric and most rationalistic system. For in the _Kâla Chakra_
Commentary it is shown that there is: (1) Âdi‐Buddha, eternal and
conditionless; then (2) come Sambhogakâya‐Buddhas, or Dhyâni‐Buddhas,
existing from (æonic) eternity and never disappearing—the _Causal_ Buddhas
so to say; and (3) the Manushya‐Bodhisattvas. The relation between them is
determined by the definition given. Âdi‐Buddha is Vajradhara, and the
Dhyâni‐Buddhas are Vajrasattva; yet though these two are different Beings
on their respective planes, They are identical in fact, one acting through
the other, as a Dhyâni through a human Buddha. One is “Endless
Intelligence;” the other only “Supreme Intelligence.” It is said of Phra
Bodhisattva—who was subsequently on earth Buddha Gautama:


    Having fulfilled all the conditions for the immediate attainment
    of perfect Buddhaship, the Holy One preferred, from unlimited
    charity towards living beings, _once more_ to reincarnate for the
    benefit of man.


The Nirvâna of the Buddhists is only the threshold of Paranirvâna,
according to the Esoteric Teaching: while with the Brâhmans, it is the
_summum bonum_, that final state from which there is no more return—not
till the next Mahâ‐Kalpa, at all events. And even this last view will be
opposed by some too orthodox and dogmatic Philosophers who will not accept
the Esoteric Doctrine. With them Nirvâna is absolute nothingness, in which
there is nothing and no one: only an unconditioned All. To understand the
full characteristics of that Abstract Principle one must sense it
intuitionally and comprehend fully the “one permanent condition in the
Universe,” which the Hindûs define so truly as


    The state of perfect unconsciousness—bare Chidâkâsham (field of
    consciousness) in fact,


however paradoxical it may seem to the profane reader.(667)

Shankarâchârya was reputed to be an Avatâra, an assertion the writer
implicitly believes in, but which other people are, of course, at liberty
to reject. And as such he took the body of a southern Indian, newly‐born
Brâhman baby; that body, for reasons as important as they are mysterious
to us, is said to have been animated by Gautama’s astral personal remains.
This divine Non‐Ego chose as its own Upâdhi (physical basis), the
ethereal, human Ego of a great Sage in this world of forms, as the fittest
vehicle for Spirit to descend into.

Said Shankarâchârya:


    Parabrahman is Kartâ [Purusha], as there is no other
    Adhishtâthâ,(668) and Parabrahman is Prakriti, there being no
    other substance.(669)


Now what is true of the Macrocosmical is also true of the Microcosmical
plane. It is therefore nearer the truth to say—when once we accept such a
possibility—that the “astral” Gautama, or the Nirmânakâya, was the Upâdhi
of Shankarâchârya’s spirit, rather than that the latter was a
reincarnation of the former.

When a Shankarâchârya has to be born, naturally every one of the
principles in the manifested mortal man must be the purest and finest that
exist on earth. Consequently those principles that were once attached to
Gautama, who was the direct great predecessor of Shankara, were naturally
attracted to him, the economy of Nature forbidding the re‐evolution of
similar principles from the crude state. But it must be remembered that
the higher ethereal principles are not, like the lower more material ones,
visible sometimes to man (as astral bodies), and they have to be regarded
in the light of separate or independent Powers or Gods, rather than as
material objects. Hence the right way of representing the truth would be
to say that the various principles, the Bodhisattva, of Gautama Buddha,
which did not go to Nirvâna, re‐united to form the middle principles of
Shankarâchârya, the earthly Entity.(670)

It is absolutely necessary to study the doctrine of the Buddhas
esoterically and understand the subtle differences between the various
planes of existence to be able to comprehend correctly the above. Put more
clearly, Gautama, the human Buddha, who had, exoterically, Amitâbha for
his Bodhisattva and Avalokiteshvara for his Dhyâni‐Buddha—the triad
emanating directly from Âdi‐Buddha—assimilated these by his “Dhyâna”
(meditation) and thus become a Buddha (“enlightened”). In another manner
this is the case with all men; everyone of us has his Bodhisattva—the
middle principle, if we hold for a moment to the trinitarian division of
the septenary group—and his Dhyâni‐Buddha, or Chohan, the “Father of the
Son.” Our connecting link with the higher Hierarchy of Celestial Beings
lies here in a nutshell, only we are too sinful to assimilate them.

Six centuries after the translation of the human Buddha (Gautama) another
Reformer, as noble and as loving, though less favoured by opportunity,
arose in another part of the world, among another and a less spiritual
race. There is a great similarity between the subsequent opinions of the
world about the two Saviours, the Eastern and the Western. While millions
became converted to the doctrines of the two Masters, the enemies of
both—sectarian opponents, the most dangerous of all—tore both to shreds by
insinuating maliciously‐distorted statements based on Occult truths, and
therefore doubly dangerous. While of Buddha it is said by the Brâhmans
that He was truly an Avatâra of Vishnu, but that He had come to tempt the
Brâhmans from their faith, and was therefore the evil aspect of the God;
of Jesus the Bardesanian Gnostics and others asserted that He was Nebu,
the false Messiah, the destroyer of the old orthodox religion. “He is the
founder of a new sect of Nazars,” said other sectarians. In Hebrew the
word “Naba” means “to speak by inspiration,” (נבא, and נבו is Nebo, the
God of wisdom). But Nebo is also Mercury, who is Buddha in the Hindu
monogram of planets. And this is shown by the fact that the Talmudists
hold that Jesus was inspired by the Genius (or Regent) of Mercury
confounded by Sir William Jones with Gautama Buddha. There are many other
strange points of similarity between Gautama and Jesus, which cannot be
noticed here.(671)

If both the Initiates, aware of the danger of furnishing the uncultured
masses with the powers acquired by ultimate knowledge, left the innermost
corner of the sanctuary in profound darkness, who, acquainted with human
nature, can blame either of them for this? Yet although Gautama, actuated
by prudence, left the Esoteric and most dangerous portions of the Secret
Knowledge untold, and lived to the ripe old age of eighty—the Esoteric
Doctrine says one hundred—years, dying with the certainty of having taught
its essential truths, and of having sown the seeds for the conversion of
one‐third of the world, He yet perhaps revealed more than was strictly
good for posterity. But Jesus, who had promised His disciples the
knowledge which confers upon man the power of producing “miracles” far
greater than He had ever produced Himself, died, leaving but a few
faithful disciples—men only half‐way to knowledge. They had therefore to
struggle with a world to which they could impart only what they but half‐
knew themselves, and—no more. In later ages the exoteric followers of both
mangled the truths given out, often out of recognition. With regard to the
adherents of the Western Master, the proof of this lies in the very fact
that none of them can now produce the promised “miracles.” They have to
choose: either it is they who have blundered, or it is their Master who
must stand arraigned for an empty promise, an uncalled‐for boast.(672) Why
such a difference in the destiny of the two? For the Occultist this enigma
of the unequal favour of Karma or Providence is unriddled by the Secret
Doctrine.

It is “not lawful” to speak of such things publicly, as St. Paul tells us.
One more explanation only may be given in reference to this subject. It
was said a few pages back that an Adept who thus sacrifices himself to
live, giving up full Nirvâna, though he can never lose the knowledge
acquired by him in previous existences, yet can never rise higher in such
borrowed bodies. Why? Because he becomes simply the vehicle of a “Son of
Light” from a still higher sphere, Who being Arûpa, has no personal astral
body of His own fit for this world. Such “Sons of Light,” or Dhyâni‐
Buddhas, are the Dharmakâyas of preceding Manvantaras, who have closed
their cycles of incarnations in the ordinary sense and who, being thus
Karmaless, have long ago dropped their individual Rûpas, and have become
identified with the first Principle. Hence the necessity of a sacrificial
Nirmânakâya, ready to suffer for the misdeeds or mistakes of the new body
in its earth‐pilgrimage, without any future reward on the plane of
progression and rebirth, since there are no rebirths for him in the
ordinary sense. The Higher Self, or Divine Monad, is not in such a case
attached to the lower Ego; its connection is only temporary, and in most
cases it acts through decrees of Karma. This is a real, genuine sacrifice,
the explanation of which pertains to the highest Initiation of Gñâna
(Occult Knowledge). It is closely linked, by a direct evolution of Spirit
and involution of Matter, with the primeval and great Sacrifice at the
foundation of the manifested Worlds, the gradual smothering and death of
the spiritual in the material. The seed “is not quickened except it
die.”(673) Hence in the Purusha Sûkta of the _Rig Veda_,(674) the mother‐
fount and source of all subsequent religions, it is stated allegorically
that “the thousand‐headed Purusha” was slaughtered at the foundation of
the World, that from his remains the Universe might arise. This is nothing
more nor less than the foundation—the seed, truly—of the later many‐formed
symbol in various religions, including Christianity, of the sacrificial
lamb. For it is a play upon the words. “Aja” (Purusha), “the unborn,” or
eternal Spirit, means also “lamb,” in Sanskrit. Spirit disappears—dies,
metaphorically—the more it gets involved in matter, and hence the
sacrifice of the “unborn,” or the “lamb.”

Why the BUDDHA chose to make this sacrifice will be plain only to those
who, to the minute knowledge of His earthly life, add that of a thorough
comprehension of the laws of Karma. Such occurrences, however, belong to
the most exceptional cases.

As tradition goes, the Brâhmans had committed a heavy sin by persecuting
Gautama BUDDHA and His teachings instead of blending and reconciling them
with the tenets of pure Vaidic Brâhmanism, as was done later by
Shankarâchârya. Gautama had never gone against the _Vedas_, only against
the exoteric growth of preconceived interpretations. The Shruti—divine
oral revelation, the outcome of which was the _Veda_—is eternal. It
reached the ear of Gautama Siddartha as it had those of the Rishis who had
written it down. He accepted the revelation, while rejecting the later
overgrowth of Brâhmanical thought and fancy, and built His doctrines on
one and the same basis of imperishable truth. As in the case of His
Western successor, Gautama, the “Merciful,” the “Pure,” and the “Just,”
was the first found in the Eastern Hierarchy of historical Adepts, if not
in the world‐annals of divine mortals, who was moved by that generous
feeling which locks the whole of mankind within one embrace, with no petty
differences of race, birth, or caste. It was He who first enunciated that
grand and noble principle, and He again who first put it into practice.
For the sake of the poor and the reviled, the outcast and the hapless,
invited by Him to the king’s festival table, He had excluded those who had
hitherto sat alone in haughty seclusion and selfishness, believing that
they would be defiled by the very shadow of the disinherited ones of the
land—and these non‐spiritual Brâhmans turned against Him for that
preference. Since then such as these have never forgiven the prince‐
beggar, the son of a king, who, forgetting His rank and station, had flung
widely open the doors of the forbidden sanctuary to the pariah and the man
of low estate, thus giving precedence to personal merit over hereditary
rank or fortune. The sin was theirs—the cause nevertheless Himself: hence
the “Merciful and the Blessed One” could not go out entirely from this
world of illusion and created causes without atoning for the sin of
all—therefore of these Brâhmans also. If “man afflicted by man” found safe
refuge with the Tathâgata, “man afflicting man” had also his share in His
self‐sacrificing, all‐embracing and forgiving love. It is stated that He
desired to atone for the sin of His enemies. Then only was He willing to
become a full Dharmakâya, a Jivanmukta “without remains.”

The close of Shankarâchârya’s life brings us face to face with a fresh
mystery. Shankarâchârya retires to a cave in the Himâlayas, permitting
none of his disciples to follow him, and disappears therein for ever from
the sight of the profane. Is he dead? Tradition and popular belief answer
in the negative, and some of the local Gurus, if they do not emphatically
corroborate, do not deny the rumour. The truth with its mysterious details
as given in the Secret Doctrine is known but to them; it can be given out
fully only to the direct followers of the great Dravidian Guru, and it is
for them alone to reveal of it as much as they think fit. Still it is
maintained that this Adept of Adepts lives to this day in his spiritual
entity as a mysterious, unseen, yet overpowering presence among the
Brotherhood of Shamballa, beyond, far beyond, the snowy‐capped Himâlayas.



SECTION XLIV. “REINCARNATIONS” OF BUDDHA.


Every section in the chapter on “Dezhin Shegpa”(675) (Tathâgata) in the
Commentaries represents one year of that great Philosopher’s life, in its
dual aspect of public and private teacher, the two being contrasted and
commented upon. It shows the Sage reaching Buddha‐hood through a long
course of study, meditation, and Initiations, as any other Adept would
have to do, not one rung of the ladder up to the arduous “Path of
Perfection” being missed. The Bodhisattva became a Buddha and a Nirvânî
through personal effort and merit, after having had to undergo all the
hardships of every other neophyte—not by virtue of a divine birth, as
thought by some. It was only the reaching of Nirvâna while still living in
the body and on this earth that was due to His having been in previous
births high on the “Path of Dzyan” (knowledge, wisdom). Mental or
intellectual gifts and abstract knowledge follow an Initiate in his new
birth, but he has to acquire phenomenal powers anew, passing through all
the successive stages. He has to acquire Rinchen‐na‐dun (“the seven
precious gifts”)(676) one after the other. During the period of meditation
no worldly phenomena on the physical plane must be allowed to enter into
his mind or cross his thoughts. Zhine‐Ihagthong (Sanskrit: Vipashya,
religious abstract meditation) will develop in him most wonderful
faculties independently of himself. The four degrees of contemplation, or
Sam‐tan (Sanskrit: Dhyâna), once acquired, everything becomes easy. For,
once that man has entirely got rid of the idea of individuality, merging
his Self in the Universal Self, becoming, so to say, the bar of steel to
which the properties inherent in the loadstone (Âdi Buddha, or Anima
Mundi) are imparted, powers hitherto dormant in him are awakened,
mysteries in invisible Nature are unveiled, and becoming a Thonglam‐pa (a
Seer) he becomes a Dhyâni‐Buddha. Every Zung (Dhâranî, a mystic word or
mantra) of the Lokottaradharma (the highest world of causes) will be known
to him.

Thus, after His outward death, twenty years later, Tathâgata in His
immense love and “pitiful mercy” for erring and ignorant humanity, refused
Paranirvâna(677) in order that He might continue to help men.

Says a Commentary:

_Having reached the Path of Deliverance [Thar‐lam] from transmigration,
one cannot perform Tulpa_(_678_)_ any longer, for to become a Paranirvânî
is to close the circle of the Septenary Ku‐Sum._(_679_)_ He has merged his
borrowed Dorjesempa [Vajrasattva] into the Universal and become one with
it._

Vajradhara, also Vajrasattva (Tibetan: Dorjechang and Dorjedzin, or
Dorjosampa), is the regent or President of all the Dhyân Chohans or Dhyâni
Buddhas, the highest, the Supreme Buddha; personal, yet never manifested
objectively; the “Supreme Conqueror,” the “Lord of all Mysteries,” the
“One without Beginning or End”—in short, the Logos of Buddhism. For, as
Vajrasattva, He is simply the Tsovo (Chief) of the Dhyâni Buddhas or Dhyân
Chohans, and the Supreme Intelligence in the Second World; while as
Vajradhara (Dorjechang), He is all that which was enumerated above. “These
two are one, and yet two,” and over them is “Chang, the Supreme
Unmanifested and Universal Wisdom that has no name.” As two in one He
(They) is the Power that subdued and conquered Evil from the beginning,
allowing it to reign only over willing subjects on earth, and having no
power over those who despise and hate it. Esoterically the allegory is
easily understood; exoterically Vajradhara (Vajrasattva) is the God to
whom all the evil spirits swore that they would not impede the propagation
of the Good Law (Buddhism), and before whom all the demons tremble.
Therefore, we say this dual personage has the same _rôle_ assigned to it
in canonical and dogmatic Tibetan Buddhism as have Jehovah and the
Archangel Mikael, the Metatron of the Jewish Kabalists. This is easily
shown. Mikael is “the angel of the face of God,” or he who represents his
Master. “My face shall go with thee” (in English, “presence”), before the
Israelites, says God to Moses (_Exodus_, xxxiii. 14). “The angel of my
presence” (Hebrew: “of my face”) (_Isaiah_, lxiii. 9), etc. The Roman
Catholics identify Christ with Mikael, who is also his ferouer, or “face,”
mystically. This is precisely the position of Vajradhara, or Vajrasattva,
in Northern Buddhism. For the latter, in His Higher Self as Vajradhara
(Dorjechang), is _never_ manifested, except to the seven Dhyân Chohans,
the primeval Builders. Esoterically, it is the Spirit of the “Seven”
collectively, their seventh principle, or Âtman. Exoterically, any amount
of fables may be found in _Kâla Chakra_, the most important work in the
Gyut [or (D)gyu] division of the Kanjur, the division of mystic knowledge
[(D)gyu]. Dorjechang (wisdom) Vajradhara, is said to live in the second
Arûpa World, which connects him with Metatron, in the first world of pure
Spirits, the Briatic world of the Kabalists, who call this angel El‐
Shaddai, the Omnipotent and Mighty One. Metatron is in Greek ἄγγελος
(Messenger), or the Great Teacher. Mikael fights Satan, the Dragon, and
conquers him and his Angels. Vajrasattva, who is one with Vajrapâni, the
Subduer of the Evil Spirits, conquers Râhu, the Great Dragon who is always
trying to devour the sun and moon (eclipses). “War in Heaven” in the
Christian legend is based upon the bad angels having discovered the
secrets (magical wisdom) of the good ones (Enoch), and the mystery of the
“Tree of Life.” Let anyone read simply the exoteric accounts in the Hindu
and Buddhist Pantheons—the latter version being taken from the former—and
he will find both resting on the same primeval, archaic allegory from the
Secret Doctrine. In the exoteric texts (Hindu and Buddhist), the Gods
churn the ocean to extract from it the Water of Life—Amrita—or the Elixir
of Knowledge. In both the Dragon steals some of this, and is exiled from
heaven by Vishnu, or Vajradhara, or the chief God, whatever may be his
name. We find the same in the Book of _Enoch_, and it is poetized in St.
John’s _Revelation_. And now the allegory, with all its fanciful
ornamentations, has become a dogma!

As will be found mentioned later, the Tibetan Lamaseris contain many
secret and semi‐secret volumes, detailing the lives of great Sages. Many
of the statements in them are purposely confused, and in others the reader
becomes bewildered, unless a clue be given him, by the use of one name to
cover many individuals who follow the same line of teaching. Thus there is
a succession of “living Buddhas’” and the name “Buddha” is given to
teacher after teacher. Schlagintweit writes:


    To each human Buddha belongs a Dhyâni‐Buddha, and a Dhyâni‐
    Bodhisattva, and the unlimited number of the former also involves
    an equally unlimited number of the latter.(680)


[But if this be so—and the exoteric and semi‐exoteric use of the name
justify the statement—the reader must depend on his own intuition to
distinguish between the Dhyâni Buddhas and the human Buddhas, and must not
apply to the great BUDDHA of the Fifth Race all that is ascribed to “the
Buddha” in books where, as said, blinds are constantly introduced.

In one of these books some strange and obscure statements are made which
the writer gives, as before, entirely on her own responsibility, since a
few may sense a meaning hidden under words misleading in their surface
meaning.](681) It is stated that at the age of thirty‐three,
Shankarâchârya, tired of his mortal body, “put it off” in the cave he had
entered, and that the Bodhisattva, that served as his lower personality,
was freed


    With the burden of a sin upon him which he had not committed.


At the same time it is added:


    At whatever age one puts off his outward body by free will, at
    that age will he be made to die a violent death against his will
    in his next rebirth.


Now, Karma could have no hold on “Mahâ Shankara” (as Shankara is called in
the secret work), as he had, as Avatâra, no Ego of his own, but a
Bodhisattva—a willing sacrificial victim. Neither had the latter any
responsibility for the deed, whether sinful or otherwise. Therefore we do
not see the point, since Karma cannot act unjustly. There is some terrible
mystery involved in all this story, one that no uninitiated intellect can
ever unravel. Still, there it is, suggesting the natural query, “Who,
then, was punished by Karma?” and leaving it to be answered.

A few centuries later Buddha tried one more incarnation, it is said, in *
* *, and again, fifty years subsequent to the death of this Adept, in one
whose name is given as Tiani‐Tsang.(682) No details, no further
information or explanation is given. It is simply stated that the last
Buddha had to work out the remains of his Karma, which none of the Gods
themselves can escape, forced as he was to bury still deeper certain
mysteries half revealed by him—hence misinterpreted. The words used would
stand when translated:(683)


    Born fifty‐two years too early as Shramana Gautama, the son of
    King Zastang; then retiring fifty‐seven years too soon as Mahâ
    Shankara, who got tired of his outward form. This wilful act
    aroused and attracted King Karma, who killed the new form of * * *
    at thirty‐three,(684) the age of the body that was put off. [At
    whatever age one puts off his outward body by free will, at that
    age will he be made to die in his next incarnation _against his
    will_—Commentary.] He died in his next (body) at thirty‐two and a
    little over, and again in his next at eighty—a Mâyâ, and at one
    hundred, in reality. The Bodhisattva chose Tiani‐Tsang,(685) then
    again the Sugata became Tsong‐Kha‐pa, who became thus Dezhin‐
    Shegpa [Tathâgata—“one who follows in the way and manner of his
    predecessors”]. The Blessed One could do good to his generation as
    * * * but none to posterity, and so as Tiani‐Tsaug he became
    incarnated only for the “_remains_” [of his precedent Karma, as we
    understand it]. The Seven Ways and the Four Truths were once more
    hidden out of sight. The Merciful One confined since then his
    attention and fatherly care to the heart of Bodyul, the nursery‐
    grounds of the seeds of truth. The blessed “remains” since then
    have overshadowed and rested in many a holy body of human
    Bodhisattvas.


No further information is given, least of all are there any details or
explanations to be found in the secret volume. All is darkness and mystery
in it, for it is evidently written but for those who are already
instructed. Several flaming red asterisks are placed instead of names, and
the few facts given are abruptly broken off. The key of the riddle is left
to the intuition of the disciple, unless the “direct followers” of Gautama
the Buddha—“those who are to be denied by His Church for the next
cycle”—and of Shankarâchârya, are pleased to add more.

The final section gives a kind of summary of the seventy sections—covering
seventy‐three years of Buddha’s life(686)—from which the last paragraph is
summarized as follows:


    Emerging from ——, the most excellent seat of the three secrets
    [Sang‐Sum], the Master of incomparable mercy, after having
    performed on all the anchorites the rite of ——, and each of these
    having been cut off,(687) perceived through [the power of] Hlun‐
    Chub(688) what was his next duty. The Most‐Illustrious meditated
    and asked himself whether this would help [the future]
    generations. What they needed was the sight of Mâyâ in a body of
    illusion. Which?... The great conqueror of pains and sorrows arose
    and proceeded back to his birthplace. There Sugata was welcomed by
    the few, for they did not know Shramana Gautama. “Shâkya [the
    Mighty] is in Nirvâna.... He has given the Science to the Shuddhas
    [Shûdra],” said they of Damze Yul [the country of Brâhmans:
    India].... It was for that, born of pity, that the All‐Glorious
    One had to retire to ——, and then appear [karmically] as Mahâ
    Shankara; and out of pity as ——, and again as ——, and again as
    Tsong‐Kha‐pa.... For, he who chooses in humiliation must go down,
    and he who _loves not_ allows Karma to raise him.(689)


This passage is confessedly obscure and written for the few. It is not
lawful to say any more, for the time has not yet come when nations are
prepared to hear the whole truth. The old religions are full of mysteries,
and to demonstrate some of them would surely lead to an explosion of
hatred, followed, perhaps, by bloodshed and worse. It will be sufficient
to know that while Gautama Buddha is merged in Nirvâna ever since his
death, Gautama Shâkyamuni may have had to reincarnate—this dual inner
personality being one of the greatest mysteries of Esoteric psychism.

“The seat of the three secrets” refers to a place inhabited by high
Initiates and their disciples. The “secrets” are the three mystic powers
known as Gopa, Yasodhara, and Uptala Varna, that Csomo de Köros mistook
for Buddha’s three wives, as other Orientalists have mistaken Shakti (Yoga
power) personified by a female deity for His wife; or the Draupadî—also a
spiritual power—for the wife in common of the five brothers Pândava.



SECTION XLV. AN UNPUBLISHED DISCOURSE OF BUDDHA.


(It is found in the second _Book of Commentaries_ and is addressed to the
Arhats.)

Said the All‐Merciful: Blessed are ye, O Bhikshus, happy are ye who have
understood the mystery of Being and _Non‐Being_ explained in Bas‐pa
[Dharma, Doctrine], and have given preference to the latter, for ye are
verily my Arhats.... The elephant, who sees his form mirrored in the lake,
looks at it, and then goes away, taking it for the real body of another
elephant, is wiser than the man who beholds his face in the stream, and,
looking at it, says, “Here am I.... I am I”: for the “I,” his Self, is not
in the world of the twelve Nidânas and mutability, but in that of Non‐
Being, the only world beyond the snares of Mâyâ.... That alone, which has
neither cause nor author, which is self‐existing, eternal, far beyond the
reach of mutability, is the true “I” [Ego], the Self of the Universe. The
Universe of Nam‐Kha says: “I am the world of Sien‐Chan”;(690) the four
illusions laugh and reply, “Verily so.” But the truly wise man knows that
neither man, nor the Universe that he passes through like a flitting
shadow, is any more a real Universe than the dewdrop that reflects a spark
of the morning sun is that sun.... There are three things, Bhikshus, that
are everlastingly the same, upon which no vicissitude, no modification can
ever act: these are the Law, Nirvâna, and Space,(691) and those three are
One, since the first two are within the last, and that last one a Mâyâ, so
long as man keeps within the whirlpool of sensuous existences. One need
not have his mortal body die to avoid the clutches of concupiscence and
other passions. The Arhat who observes the seven hidden precepts of Bas‐pa
may become Dang‐ma and Lha.(692) He may hear the “holy voice” of ...
[Kwan‐yin],(693) and find himself within the quiet precincts of his
Sangharama(694) transferred into Amitâbha Buddha.(695) Becoming one with
Anuttara Samyak Sambodhi,(696) he may pass through all the six worlds of
Being (Rûpaloka) and get into the first three worlds of Arûpa.(697)... He
who listens to my secret law, preached to my select Arhats, will arrive
with its help at the knowledge of Self, and thence at perfection.

It is due to entirely erroneous conceptions of Eastern thought and to
ignorance of the existence of an Esoteric key to the outward Buddhist
phrases that Burnouf and other great scholars have inferred from such
propositions—held also by the Vedântins—as “my body is not body” and
“myself is no self of mine,” that Eastern psychology was all based upon
non‐permanency. Cousin, for instance, lecturing upon the subject, brings
the two following propositions to prove, on Burnouf’s authority, that,
unlike Brâhmanism, Buddhism rejects the perpetuity of the thinking
principle. These are:


    1. Thought or Spirit(698)—for the faculty is not distinguished
    from the subject—appears only with sensation and does not survive
    it.

    2. The Spirit cannot itself lay hold of itself, and in directing
    attention to itself it draws from it only the conviction of its
    powerlessness to see itself otherwise than as successive and
    transitory.


This all refers to Spirit embodied, not to the freed Spiritual Self on
whom Mâyâ has no more hold. Spirit is no body; therefore have the
Orientalists made of it “nobody” and nothing. Hence they proclaim
Buddhists to be Nihilists, and Vedântins to be the followers of a creed in
which the “Impersonal [God] turns out on examination to be a myth”; their
goal is described as


    The complete extinction of all spiritual, mental, and bodily
    powers by absorption into the Impersonal.(699)



SECTION XLVI. NIRVANA‐MOKSHA.


The few sentences given in the text from one of Gautama Buddha’s secret
teachings show how uncalled for is the epithet of “Materialist” when
applied to One Whom two‐thirds of those who are looked upon as great
Adepts and Occultists in Asia recognize as their Master, whether under the
name of Buddha or that of Shankarâchârya. The reader will remember the
just‐quoted words are what Buddha Sanggyas (or Pho) is alleged by the
Tibetan Occultists to have taught: there are three eternal things in the
Universe—the Law, Nirvâna, and Space. The Buddhists of the Southern Church
claim, on the other hand, that Buddha held only two things as
eternal—Âkâsha and Nirvâna. But Âkâsha being the same as Aditi,(700) and
both being translated “Space,” there is no discrepancy so far, since
Nirvâna as well as Moksha, is a state. Then in both cases the great
Kapilavastu Sage unifies the two, as well as the three, into one eternal
Element, and ends by saying that even “that One is a Mâyâ” to one who is
not a Dang‐ma, a perfectly purified Soul.

The whole question hangs upon materialistic misconceptions and ignorance
of Occult Metaphysics. To the man of Science who regards Space as simply a
mental representation, a conception of something existing _pro formâ_, and
having no real being outside our mind, Space _per se_ is verily an
illusion. He may fill the boundless interstellar space with an “imaginary”
ether, nevertheless Space for him is an abstraction. Most of the
Metaphysicians of Europe are so wide of the mark, from the purely Occult
standpoint, of a correct comprehension of “Space,” as are the
Materialists, though the erroneous conceptions of both of course differ
widely.

If, bearing in mind the philosophical views of the Ancients upon this
question, we compare them with what is now termed exact physical Science,
it will be found that the two disagree only in inferences and names, and
that their postulates are the same when reduced to their most simple
expression. From the beginning of the human Æons, from the very dawn of
Occult Wisdom, the regions that the men of Science fill with ether have
been explored by the Seers of every age. That which the world regards
simply as cosmic Space, an abstract representation, the Hindu Rishi, the
Chaldæan Magus, the Egyptian Hierophant held, each and all, as the one
eternal Root of all, the playground of all the Forces in Nature. It is the
fountain‐head of all terrestrial life, and the abode of those (to us)
invisible swarms of existences—of real beings, as of the shadows only
thereof, conscious and unconscious, intelligent and senseless—that
surround us on all sides, that interpenetrate the atoms of our Kosmos, and
see us not, as we do not either see or sense them through our physical
organisms. For the Occultist “Space” and “Universe” are synonyms. In Space
there is not Matter, Force, nor Spirit, but all that and much more. It is
the One Element, and that one the Anima Mundi—Space, Âkâsha, Astral
Light—the Root of Life which, in its eternal, ceaseless motion, like the
out‐ and in‐breathing of one boundless ocean, evolves but to reabsorb all
that lives and feels and thinks and has its being in it. As said of the
Universe in _Isis Unveiled_, it is:


    The combination of a thousand elements and yet the expression of a
    single Spirit—a chaos to the sense, a Kosmos to the reason.


Such were the views upon the subject of all the great ancient
Philosophers, from Manu down to Pythagoras, from Plato to Paul.


    When the dissolution [Pralaya] had arrived at its term the great
    Being [Para‐Âtmâ, or Para‐Purusha], the Lord existing through
    himself, out of whom and through whom all things were, and are,
    and will be, ... resolved to emanate from his own substance the
    various creatures.(701)

    The mystic Decad [of Pythagoras] (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10) is a way of
    expressing this idea. The One is God;(702) the Two, matter; the
    Three, combining Monad and Duad and partaking of the nature of
    both, is the phenomenal world; the Tetrad, or form of perfection,
    expresses the emptiness of all; and the Decad, or sum of all,
    involves the entire Cosmos.(703)


Plato’s “God” is the “Universal Ideation,” and Paul saying “Out of him,
and through him, and in him, all things are,” had surely a Principle—never
a Jehovah—in his profound mind. The key to the Pythagorean dogmas is the
key to every great Philosophy. It is the general formula of unity in
multiplicity, the One evolving the many and pervading the All. It is the
archaic doctrine of Emanation in a few words.

Speusippus and Xenocrates held, like their great Master, Plato, that:


    The Anima Mundi (or “world‐soul”) was not the Deity, but a
    manifestation. Those philosophers never conceived of the One as an
    _animate nature_. The original One did not _exist_, as we
    understand the term. Not till he (it) had united with the many
    emanated existences (the Monad and Duad), was a being produced.
    The τίμιον (“honoured”), the something manifested, dwells in the
    centre as in the circumference, but it is only the reflection of
    the Deity—the World‐Soul. In this doctrine we find the spirit of
    Esoteric Buddhism.(704)


And it is that of Esoteric Brâhmanism and of the Vedântin Adwaitîs. The
two modern philosophers, Schopenhauer and von Hartmann, teach the same
ideas. The Occultists say that:


    The psychic and ectenic forces, the “ideo‐motor” and “electro‐
    biological powers,” “latent thought,” and even “unconscious
    cerebration” theories can be condensed in two words: the
    Kabalistic Astral Light.(705)


Schopenhauer only synthesized all this by calling it Will, and
contradicted the men of Science in their materialistic views, as von
Hartmann did later on. The author of the _Philosophy of the Unconscious_
calls their views “an instinctual prejudice.”


    Furthermore, he demonstrates that no experimenter can have
    anything to do with matter properly so termed, but only with the
    forces into which he divides it. The visible effects of matter are
    but the effects of force. He concludes thereby that that which is
    now called matter is nothing but the aggregation of atomic forces,
    to express which the word “matter” is used; outside of that, for
    science, matter is but a word void of sense.(706)


As much, it is to be feared, as those other terms with which we are now
concerned, “Space,” “Nirvâna,” and so on.


    The bold theories and opinions expressed in Schopenhauer’s works
    differ widely from those of the majority of our orthodox
    scientists.(707) “In reality,” remarks this daring speculator,
    “there is neither _Matter_ nor _Spirit_. The tendency to
    gravitation in a stone is as unexplainable as thought in the human
    brain.... If matter can—no one knows why—fall to the ground, then
    it can also—no one knows why—think.... As soon, even in mechanics,
    as we trespass beyond the purely mathematical, as soon as we reach
    the inscrutable adhesion, gravitation, and so on we are faced by
    phenomena which are to our senses as mysterious as the _will_ and
    _thought_ in man: we find ourselves facing the incomprehensible,
    for such is every force in nature. Where is, then, that _matter_
    which you all pretend to know so well, and from which—being so
    familiar with it—you draw all your conclusions and explanations,
    and attribute to it all things?... That which can be fully
    realized by our reason and senses is but the superficial; they can
    never reach the true inner substance of things. Such was the
    opinion of Kant. If you consider that there is in a human head
    some sort of a _spirit_, then you are obliged to concede the same
    to a stone. If your dead and utterly‐passive matter can manifest a
    tendency toward gravitation or, like electricity, attract and
    repel and send out sparks then as well as the brain it can also
    think. In short, every particle of the so‐called spirit we can
    replace with an equivalent of matter, and every particle of matter
    replace with spirit.... Thus, it is not the Christian division of
    all things into matter and spirit that can ever be found
    philosophically exact; but only if we divide them into _will_ and
    _manifestation_, which form of division has naught to do with the
    former, for it spiritualizes everything: all that which is in the
    first instance real and objective—body and matter—it transforms
    into a representation, and every manifestation into will.”(708)


The _matter_ of science may be for all objective purposes a “dead and
utterly‐passive matter”; to the Occultist not an atom of it can be
dead—“Life is ever present in it.” We send the reader who would know more
about it to our article, “Transmigration of Life‐Atoms.”(709) What we are
now concerned with is the doctrine of Nirvâna.

A “system of atheism” it may be justly called, since it recognizes neither
God nor Gods—least of all a Creator, as it entirely rejects creation. The
_Fecit ex nihilo_ is as incomprehensible to the Occult metaphysical
Scientist as it is to the scientific Materialist. It is at this point that
all agreement stops between the two. But if such be the sin of the
Buddhist and Brâhman Occultist, then Pantheists and Atheists, and also
theistical Jews—the Kabalists—must also plead “guilty” to it; yet no one
would ever think of calling the Hebrews of the Kabalah “Atheists.” Except
the Talmudistic and Christian exoteric systems there never was a religious
Philosophy, whether in the ancient or modern world, but rejected _à
priori_ the _ex nihilo_ hypothesis, simply because Matter was always co‐
eternalized with Spirit.

Nirvâna, as well as the Moksha of the Vedântins, is regarded by most of
the Orientalists as a synonym of annihilation; yet no more glaring
injustice could be done, and this capital error must be pointed out and
disproved. On this most important tenet of the Brâhmo‐Buddhistic
system—the Alpha and the Omega of “Being” or “Non‐Being”—rests the whole
edifice of Occult Metaphysics. Now the rectification of the great error
concerning Nirvâna may be very easily accomplished with relation to the
philosophically inclined, to those who,


    In the glass of things temporal see the image of things spiritual.


On the other hand, to that reader who could never soar beyond the details
of tangible material form, our explanation will appear meaningless. He may
comprehend and even accept the logical inferences from the reasons
given—the true spirit will ever escape his intuitions. The word “nihil”
having been misconceived from the first, it is continually used as a
sledge‐hammer in the matter of Esoteric Philosophy. Nevertheless it is the
duty of the Occultist to try and explain it.

Nirvâna and Moksha, then, as said before, have their being in non‐being,
if such a paradox be permitted to illustrate the meaning the better.
Nirvâna, as some illustrious Orientalists have attempted to prove, does
mean the “blowing‐out”(710) of all sentient existence. It is like the
flame of a candle burnt out to its last atom, and then suddenly
extinguished. Quite so. Nevertheless, as the old Arhat Nâgasena affirmed
before the king who taunted him: “Nirvâna _is_”—and Nirvâna is eternal.
But the Orientalists deny this, and say it is not so. In their opinion
Nirvâna is not a re‐absorption in the Universal Force, not eternal bliss
and rest, but it means literally “the blowing‐out, the extinction,
complete annihilation, and not absorption.” The _Lankavatara_ quoted in
support of their arguments by some Sanskritists, and which gives the
different interpretations of Nirvâna by the Tîrthika Brâhmans, is no
authority to one who goes to primeval sources for information, namely, to
the Buddha who taught the doctrine. As well quote the Chârvâka
Materialists in their support.

If we bring as an argument the sacred Jaina books, wherein the dying
Gautama Buddha is thus addressed: “Arise into Nirvi [Nirvâna] from this
decrepit body into which thou hast been sent.... Ascend into thy former
abode, O blessed Avatâra”; and if we add that this seems to us the very
opposite of nihilism, we may be told that so far it may only prove a
contradiction, one more discrepancy in the Buddhist faith. If again we
remind the reader that since Gautama is believed to appear occasionally,
re‐descending from his “former abode” for the good of humanity and His
faithful congregation, thus making it incontestable that Buddhism does not
teach final annihilation, we shall be referred to authorities to whom such
teaching is ascribed. And let us say at once: Men are no authority for us
in questions of conscience, nor ought they to be for anyone else. If
anyone holds to Buddha’s Philosophy, let him do and say as Buddha did and
said; if a man calls himself a Christian, let him follow the commandments
of Christ—not the interpretations of His many dissenting priests and
sects.

In _A Buddhist Catechism_ the question is asked:


    Are there any dogmas in Buddhism which we are required to accept
    on faith?

    A. No. We are earnestly enjoined to accept nothing whatever on
    faith, whether it be written in books, handed down from our
    ancestors, or taught by sages. Our Lord Buddha has said that we
    must not believe in a thing said merely because it is said; nor
    traditions because they have been handed down from antiquity; nor
    rumours, as such; nor writings by sages, because sages wrote them:
    nor fancies that we may suspect to have been inspired in us by a
    Deva (that is, in presumed spiritual inspiration); nor from
    inferences drawn from some haphazard assumption we may have made;
    nor because of what seems an analogical necessity; nor on the mere
    authority of our teachers or masters. But we are to believe when
    the writing, doctrine, or saying is corroborated by our own reason
    and consciousness. “For this,” says he in concluding, “I taught
    you not to believe merely because you have heard, but when you
    believed of your consciousness, then to act accordingly and
    abundantly.”(711)


That Nirvâna, or rather, that state in which we are in Nirvâna, is quite
the reverse of annihilation is suggested to us by our “reason and
consciousness,” and that is sufficient for us personally. At the same
time, this fact being inadequate and very ill‐adapted for the general
reader, something more efficient may be added.

Without resorting to sources unsympathetic to Occultism, the _Kabalah_
furnishes us with the most luminous and clear proofs that the term “nihil”
in the minds of the Ancient Philosophers had a meaning quite different
from that it has now received at the hands of Materialists. It means
certainly “nothing”—or “no‐thing.” F. Kircher, in his work on the
_Kabalah_ and the Egyptian Mysteries(712) explains the term admirably. He
tells his readers that in the _Zohar_ the first of the Sephiroth(713) has
a name the significance of which is “the _Infinite_,” but which was
translated indifferently by the Kabalists as “Ens” and “Non‐Ens” (“Being”
and “Non‐Being”); a _Being_, inasmuch as it is the _root_ and source of
all other beings; _Non‐Being_ because Ain Soph—the Boundless and the
Causeless, the Unconscious and the Passive Principle—resembles nought else
in the Universe.

The author adds:


    This is the reason why St. Denys did not hesitate to call it
    Nihil.


“Nihil” therefore stands—even with some Christian theologians and
thinkers, especially with the earlier ones who lived but a few removes
from the profound Philosophy of the initiated Pagans—as a synonym for the
impersonal, divine Principle, the Infinite All, which is no Being or
thing—the En or Ain Soph, the Parabrahman of the Vedânta. Now St. Denys
was a pupil of St. Paul—an Initiate—and this fact makes everything clear.

The “Nihil” is _in esse_ the Absolute Deity itself, the hidden Power or
Omnipresence degraded by Monotheism into an anthropomorphic Being, with
all the passions of a mortal on a grand scale. Union with That is not
annihilation in the sense understood in Europe.(714) In the East
annihilation in Nirvâna refers but to matter: that of the visible as well
as the invisible body, for the astral body, the personal double, is still
matter, however sublimated. Buddha taught that the primitive Substance is
eternal and unchangeable. Its vehicle is the pure, luminous ether, the
boundless, infinite Space,


    Not a void resulting from the absence of forms, but on the
    contrary, the foundation of all forms.... [This] denotes it to be
    the creation of Mâyâ, all the works of which are as nothing before
    the uncreated Form [Spirit], in whose profound and sacred depths
    all motion must cease for ever.(715)


Motion here refers only to illusive objects, to their change as opposed to
perpetuity, rest—perpetual motion being the Eternal Law, the ceaseless
Breath of the Absolute.

The mastery of Buddhistic dogmas can be attained only according to the
Platonic method: from universals to particulars. The key to it lies in the
refined and mystical tenets of spiritual influx and divine life.

Saith Buddha:

_Whosoever is unacquainted with my Law,_(_716_)_ and dies in that state
must return to earth until he becomes a perfect Samano [ascetic]. To
achieve this object he must destroy within himself the trinity of
Mâyâ._(_717_)_ He must extinguish his passions, unite and identify himself
with the Law [the teaching of the Secret Doctrine], and comprehend the
philosophy of annihilation._(718)

No, it is not in the dead‐letter of Buddhistical literature that scholars
may ever hope to find the true solution of its metaphysical subtleties.
Alone in all antiquity the Pythagoreans understood them perfectly, and it
is on the (to the average Orientalist and the Materialist)
incomprehensible abstractions of Buddhism that Pythagoras grounded the
principal tenets of his Philosophy.

Annihilation means with the Buddhistical Philosophy only a dispersion of
matter, in whatever form or _semblance_ of form it may be, for everything
that bears a shape was created, and thus must sooner or later perish,
_i.e._, change that shape; therefore, as something temporal, though
seeming to be permanent, it is but an illusion, Mâyâ; for as eternity has
neither beginning nor end, the more or less prolonged duration of some
particular form passes, as it were, like an instantaneous flash of
lightning. Before we have the time to realize that we have seen it, it is
gone and passed for ever; hence even our astral bodies, pure ether, are
but illusions of matter so long as they retain their terrestrial outline.
The latter changes, says the Buddhist, according to the merits or demerits
of the person during his lifetime, and this is metempsychosis. When the
spiritual Entity breaks loose for ever from every particle of matter, then
only it enters upon the eternal and unchangeable Nirvâna. He exists in
Spirit, in nothing; as a form, a shape, a semblance, he is completely
annihilated, and thus will die no more, for Spirit alone is no Mâyâ, but
the only Reality in an illusionary universe of ever‐passing forms.


    It is upon this Buddhist doctrine that the Pythagoreans grounded
    the principal tenets of their philosophy. “Can that Spirit which
    gives life and motion, and partakes of the nature of light, be
    reduced to nonentity?” they ask. “Can that sensitive Spirit in
    brutes which exercises memory, one of the rational faculties, die
    and become nothing?” And Whitelock Bulstrode in his able defence
    of Pythagoras expounds this doctrine by adding:

    “If you say they [the brutes] breathe their Spirits into the air,
    and there vanish, that is all that I contend for. The air indeed
    is the proper place to receive them, being according to Laertius
    full of souls; and according to Epicurus full of atoms, the
    principles of all things; for even this place wherein we walk and
    birds fly has so much of a spiritual nature that it is invisible,
    and therefore may well be the receiver of forms, since the forms
    of all bodies are so; we can only see and hear its effects; the
    air itself is too fine and above the capacity of the age. What
    then is the ether in the region above, and what are the influences
    of forms that descend from thence?” The _Spirits_ of creatures,
    the Pythagoreans hold, who are emanations of the most sublimated
    portions of ether—emanations, _breaths, but not forms_. Ether is
    corruptible—all philosophers agree in that;—and what is
    incorruptible _is so far from being annihilated_ when it gets rid
    of the _form_ that it lays a good claim to _immortality_.

    “But what is that which has no body, no _form_; which is
    imponderable, invisible, and indivisible—that which exists, and
    yet _is not_?” ask the Buddhists. “It is Nirvâna,” is the answer.
    It is _nothing_—not a region, but rather a state.(719)



SECTION XLVII. THE SECRET BOOKS OF “LAM‐RIN” AND DZYAN.


The _Book of Dzyan_—from the Sanskrit word “Dhyân” (mystic meditation)—is
the first volume of the Commentaries upon the seven secret folios of Kiu‐
te, and a Glossary of the public works of the same name. Thirty‐five
volumes of Kiu‐te for exoteric purposes and the use of the laymen may be
found in the possession of the Tibetan Gelugpa Lamas, in the library of
any monastery; and also fourteen books of Commentaries and Annotations on
the same by the initiated Teachers.

Strictly speaking, those thirty‐five books ought to be termed “The
Popularised Version” of the Secret Doctrine, full of myths, blinds, and
errors; the fourteen volumes of _Commentaries_, on the other hand—with
their translations, annotations, and an ample glossary of Occult terms,
worked out from one small archaic folio, the _Book of the Secret Wisdom of
the World_(720)—contain a digest of all the Occult Sciences. These, it
appears, are kept secret and apart, in the charge of the Teshu Lama of
Tji‐gad‐je. The Books of Kiu‐te are comparatively modern, having been
edited within the last millennium, whereas, the earliest volumes of the
_Commentaries_ are of untold antiquity, some fragments of the original
cylinders having been preserved. With the exception that they explain and
correct some of the too fabulous, and to every appearance, grossly‐
exaggerated accounts in the Books of Kiu‐te(721)—properly so‐called—the
_Commentaries_ have little to do with these. They stand in relation to
them as the Chaldæo‐Jewish _Kabalah_ stands to the Mosaic Books. In the
work known as the _Avatumsaka Sûtra_, in section: “The Supreme Âtman
[Soul] as manifested in the character of the Arhats and Pratyeka Buddhas,”
it is stated that:


    Because from the beginning all sentient creatures have confused
    the truth and embraced the false, therefore there came into
    existence a hidden knowledge called Alaya Vijñâna.


“Who is in possession of the true knowledge?” is asked. “The great
Teachers of the Snowy Mountain,” is the response.

These “great Teachers” have been known to live in the “Snowy Range” of the
Himâlayas for countless ages. To deny in the face of millions of Hindus
the existence of their great Gurus, living in the Âshrams scattered all
over the Trans‐ or the Cis‐Himâlayan slopes is to make oneself ridiculous
in their eyes. When the Buddhist Saviour appeared in India, their
Âshrams—for it is rarely that these great Men are found in Lamaseries,
unless on a short visit—were on the spots they now occupy, and that even
before the Brâhmans themselves came from Central Asia to settle on the
Indus. And before that more than one Âryan Dvija of fame and historical
renown had sat at their feet, learning that which culminated later on in
one or another of the great philosophical schools. Most of these Himâlayan
Bhante were Âryan Brâhmans and ascetics.

No student, unless very advanced, would be benefited by the perusal of
those exoteric volumes.(722) They must be read with a key to their
meaning, and that key can only be found in the _Commentaries_. Moreover
there are some comparatively modern works that are positively injurious so
far as a fair comprehension of even exoteric Buddhism is concerned. Such
are the _Buddhist Cosmos_, by Bonze Jin‐ch’on of Pekin; the _Shing‐Tau‐ki_
(or _The Records of the Enlightenment of Tathâgata_), by Wang Puk—seventh
century; _Hisai Sûtra_ (or _Book of Creation_), and some others.



SECTION XLVIII. AMITA BUDDHA KWAN‐SHAI‐YIN, AND KWAN‐YIN.—WHAT THE “BOOK
OF DZYAN” AND THE LAMASERIES OF TSONG‐KHA‐PA SAY.


As a supplement to the _Commentaries_ there are many secret folios on the
lives of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and among these there is one on
Prince Gautama and another on His reincarnation in Tsong‐Kha‐pa. This
great Tibetan Reformer of the fourteenth century, said to be a direct
incarnation of Amita Buddha, is the founder of the secret School near Tji‐
gad‐je, attached to the private retreat of the Teshu Lama. It is with Him
that began the regular system of Lamaic incarnations of Buddhas (Sang‐
gyas), or of Shâkya‐Thub‐pa (Shakya‐muni). Amida or Amita Buddha is called
by the author of _Chinese Buddhism_, a mythical being. He speaks of


    Amida Buddha (_Ami‐to Fo_) a fabulous personage, worshipped
    assiduously—like Kwan‐yin—by the Northern Buddhists, but unknown
    in Siam, Burmah, and Ceylon.(723)


Very likely. Yet Amida Buddha is not a “fabulous” personage, since (_a_)
“Amida” is the Senzar form of “Âdi”; “Âdi‐Buddhi” and “Âdi‐Buddha,”(724)
as already shown, existed ages ago as a Sanskrit term for “Primeval Soul”
and “Wisdom”; and (_b_) the name was applied to Gautama Shâkyamuni, the
last Buddha in India, from the seventh century, when Buddhism was
introduced into Tibet. “Amitâbha” (in Chinese, “Wu‐liang‐sheu”) means
literally “Boundless Age,” a synonym of “En,” or “Ain‐Suph,” the “Ancient
of Days,” and is an epithet that connects Him directly with the Boundless
Âdi‐Buddhi (primeval and Universal Soul) of the Hindus, as well as with
the Anima Mundi of all the ancient nations of Europe and the Boundless and
Infinite of the Kabalists. If Amitâbha be a fiction of the Tibetans, or a
new form of Wu‐liang‐sheu, “a fabulous personage,” as the author‐compiler
of _Chinese Buddhism_ tells his readers, then the “fable” must be a very
ancient one. For on another page he says himself that the addition to the
canon, of the books containing the


    Legends of Kwan‐yin and of the Western heaven with its Buddha,
    Amitâbha, was also previous to the Council of Kashmere, a little
    before the beginning of our era,(725)


and he places


    the origin of the primitive Buddhist books which are common to the
    Northern and Southern Buddhists before 246 B.C.


Since Tibetans accepted Buddhism only in the seventh century A.D., how
comes it that they are charged with inventing Amita‐Buddha? Besides which,
in Tibet, Amitâbha is called Odpag‐med, which shows that it is not the
name but the abstract idea that was first accepted of an unknown,
invisible, and Impersonal Power—taken, moreover, from the Hindu “Âdi‐
Buddhi,” and not from the Chinese “Amitâbha.”(726) There is a great
difference between the popular Odpag‐med (Amitâbha) who sits enthroned in
Devachan (Sukhâvatî), according to the _Mani Kambum_ Scriptures—the oldest
_historical_ work in Tibet, and the philosophical abstraction called Amida
Buddha, the name being passed now to the earthly Buddha, Gautama.



SECTION XLIX. TSONG‐KHA‐PA.—LOHANS IN CHINA.


In an article, “Reincarnation in Tibet,” everything that could be said
about Tsong‐Kha‐pa was published.(727) It was stated that this reformer
was not, as is alleged by Pârsî scholars, an incarnation of one of the
celestial Dhyânis, or the five heavenly Buddhas, said to have been created
by Shâkyamuni after he had risen to Nirvâna, but that he was an
incarnation of Amita Buddha Himself. The records preserved in the Gon‐pa,
the chief Lamasery of Tda‐shi‐Hlumpo, show that Sang‐gyas left the regions
of the “Western Paradise” to incarnate Himself in Tsong‐Kha‐pa, in
consequence of the great degradation into which His secret doctrines had
fallen.


    Whenever made too public, the Good Law of Cheu [magical powers]
    fell invariably into sorcery or “black magic.” The Dwijas, the
    Hoshang [Chinese monks] and the Lamas could alone be entrusted
    safely with the formulæ.


Until the Tsong‐Kha‐pa period there had been no Sang‐gyas (Buddha)
incarnations in Tibet.

Tsong‐Kha‐pa gave the signs whereby the presence of one of the twenty‐five
Bodhisattvas(728) or of the Celestial Buddhas (Dhyân Chohans) in a human
body might be recognized, and He strictly forbade necromancy. This led to
a split amongst the Lamas, and the malcontents allied themselves with the
aboriginal Bhons against the reformed Lamaism. Even now they form a
powerful sect, practising the most disgusting rites all over Sikkhim,
Bhutan, Nepaul, and even on the borderlands of Tibet. It was worse then.
With the permission of the Tda‐shu or Teshu Lama,(729) some hundred Lohans
(Arhats), to avert strife, went to settle in China in the famous monastery
near Tien‐t’‐ai, where they soon became subjects for legendary lore, and
continue to be so to this day. They had been already preceded by other
Lohans,


    The world‐famous disciples of Tathâgata, called the “sweet‐voiced”
    on account of their ability to chant the Mantras with magical
    effect.(730)


The first ones came from Kashmir in the year 3,000 of Kali Yuga (about a
century before the Christian era),(731) while the last ones arrived at the
end of the fourteenth century, 1,500 years later; and, finding no room for
themselves at the lamasery of Yihigching, they built for their own use the
largest monastery of all on the sacred island of Pu‐to (Buddha, or Put, in
Chinese), in the province of Chusan. There the Good Law, the “Doctrine of
the Heart,” flourished for several centuries. But when the island was
desecrated by a mass of Western foreigners, the chief Lohans left for the
mountains of ——. In the Pagoda of Pi‐yun‐ti, near Pekin, one can still see
the “Hall of the Five‐hundred Lohans.” There the statues of the first‐
comers are arranged below, while one solitary Lohan is placed quite under
the roof of the building, which seems to have been built in commemoration
of their visit.

The works of the Orientalists are full of the direct landmarks of Arhats
(Adepts), possessed of thaumaturgic powers, but these are spoken
of—whenever the subject cannot be avoided—with unconcealed scorn. Whether
innocently ignorant of, or purposely ignoring, the importance of the
Occult element and symbology in the various Religions they undertake to
explain, short work is generally made of such passages, and they are left
untranslated. In simple justice, however, it should be allowed that much
as all such miracles may have been exaggerated by popular reverence and
fancy, they are neither less credible nor less attested in “heathen”
annals than are those of the numerous Christian Saints in the church
chronicles. Both have an equal right to a place in their respective
histories.

If, after the beginning of persecution against Buddhism, the Arhats were
no more heard of in India, it was because, their vows prohibiting
retaliation, they had to leave the country and seek solitude and security
in China, Tibet, Japan, and elsewhere. The sacerdotal powers of the
Brâhmans being at that time unlimited, the Simons and Apolloniuses of
Buddhism had as much chance of recognition and appreciation by the
Brâhmanical Irenæuses and Tertullians as had their successors in the
Judæan and Roman worlds. It was a historical rehearsal of the dramas that
were enacted centuries later in Christendom. As in the case of the so‐
called “Heresiarchs” of Christianity, it was not for rejecting the _Vedas_
or the sacred Syllable that the Buddhist Arhats were persecuted, but for
understanding too well the secret meaning of both. It was simply because
their knowledge was regarded as dangerous and their presence in India
unwelcome, that they had to emigrate.

Nor were there a smaller number of Initiates among the Brâhmans
themselves. Even to‐day one meets most wonderfully‐gifted Sâddhus and
Yogîs, obliged to keep themselves unnoticed and in the shadow, not only
owing to the absolute secresy imposed upon them at their Initiation but
also for fear of the Anglo‐Indian tribunals and courts of law, wherein
judges are determined to regard as charlatanry, imposition, and fraud, the
exhibition of, or claim to, any abnormal powers, and one may judge of the
past by the present. Centuries after our era the Initiates of the inner
temples and the Mathams (monastic communities) chose a superior council,
presided over by an all‐powerful Brahm‐Âtmâ, the Supreme Chief of all
those Mahâtmâs. This pontificate could be exercised only by a Brâhman who
had reached a certain age, and he it was who was the sole guardian of the
mystic formula, and he was the Hierophant who created great Adepts. He
alone could explain the meaning of the sacred word, AUM, and of all the
religious symbols and rites. And whosoever among those Initiates of the
Supreme Degree revealed to a profane a single one of the truths, even the
smallest of the secrets entrusted to him, had to die; and he who received
the confidence was put to death.

But there existed, and still exists to this day, a Word far surpassing the
mysterious monosyllable, and which renders him who comes into possession
of its key nearly the equal of Brahman. The Brahmâtmâs alone possess this
key, and we know that to this day there are two great Initiates in
Southern India who possess it. It can be passed only at death, for it is
the “Lost Word.” No torture, no human power, could force its disclosure by
a Brâhman who knows it; and it is well guarded in Tibet.

Yet this secresy and this profound mystery are indeed disheartening, since
they alone—the Initiates of India and Tibet—could thoroughly dissipate the
thick mists hanging over the history of Occultism, and force its claims to
be recognized. The Delphic injunction, “_Know thyself_,” seems for the few
in this age. But the fault ought not to be laid at the door of the Adepts,
who have done all that could be done, and have gone as far as Their rules
permitted, to open the eyes of the world. Only while the European shrinks
from public obloquy and the ridicule unsparingly thrown on Occultists, the
Asiatic is being discouraged by his own Pandits. These profess to labour
under the gloomy impression that no Bîga Vidyâ, no Arhatship (Adeptship),
is possible during the Kali Yuga (the “Black Age”) we are now passing
through. Even the Buddhists are taught that the Lord Buddha is alleged to
have prophesied that the power would die out in “one millennium after His
death.” But this is an entire mistake. In the _Dîgha Nikâya_ the Buddha
says:


    Hear, Subhadra! The world will never be without Rahats, if the
    ascetics in my congregations well and truly keep my precepts.


A similar contradiction of the view brought forward by the Brâhmans is
made by Krishna in the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_, and there is further the actual
appearance of many Sâddhus and miracle‐workers in the past, and even in
the present age. The same holds good for China and Tibet. Among the
commandments of Tsong‐Kha‐pa there is one that enjoins the Rahats (Arhats)
to make an attempt to enlighten the world, including the “white
barbarians,” every century, at a certain specified period of the cycle. Up
to the present day none of these attempts has been very successful.
Failure has followed failure. Have we to explain the fact by the light of
a certain prophecy? It is said that up to the time when Pban‐chhen‐rin‐po‐
chhe (the Great Jewel of Wisdom)(732) condescends to be reborn in the land
of the P’helings (Westerners), and appearing as the Spiritual Conqueror
(Chom‐den‐da), destroys the errors and ignorance of the ages, it will be
of little use to try to uproot the misconceptions of P’heling‐pa (Europe):
her sons will listen to no one. Another prophecy declares that the Secret
Doctrine shall remain in all its purity in Bhod‐yul (Tibet), only to the
day that it is kept free from foreign invasion. The very visits of Western
natives, however friendly, would be baneful to the Tibetan populations.
This is the true key to Tibetan exclusiveness.



SECTION L. A FEW MORE MISCONCEPTIONS CORRECTED.


Notwithstanding widespread misconceptions and errors—often most amusing to
one who has a certain knowledge of the true doctrines—about Buddhism
generally, and especially about Buddhism in Tibet, all the Orientalists
agree that the Buddha’s foremost aim was to lead human beings to salvation
by teaching them to practise the greatest purity and virtue, and by
detaching them from the service of this illusionary world, and the love of
one’s still more illusionary—because so evanescent and unreal—body and
physical self. And what is the good of a virtuous life, full of privations
and suffering, if the only result of it is to be annihilation at the end?
If even the attainment of that supreme perfection which leads the Initiate
to remember the whole series of his past lives, and to foresee that of the
future ones, by the full development of that inner, divine eye in him, and
to acquire the knowledge that unfolds the causes(733) of the ever‐
recurring cycles of existence, brings him finally to non‐being, and
nothing more—then the whole system is idiotic, and Epicureanism is far
more philosophical than _such_ Buddhism. He who is unable to comprehend
the subtle, and yet so potent, difference between existence in a material
or physical state and a purely spiritual existence—Spirit or “Soul‐
life”—will never appreciate at their full value the grand teachings of the
Buddha, even in their exoteric form. Individual or personal existence is
the cause of pains and sorrows; collective and impersonal life‐eternal is
full of divine bliss and joy for ever, with neither causes nor effects to
darken its light. And the hope for such a life‐eternal is the keynote of
the whole of Buddhism. If we are told that impersonal existence is no
existence at all, but amounts to annihilation, as was maintained by some
French reincarnationists, then we would ask: What difference can it make
in the spiritual perceptions of an Ego whether he enter Nirvâna loaded
with the recollections only of his own personal lives—tens of thousands
according to the modern reincarnationists—or whether, merged entirely in
the Parabrâhmic state it becomes one with the All, with the absolute
knowledge and the absolute feeling of representing collective humanities?
Once that an Ego lives only ten distinct individual lives he must
necessarily lose his one self, and become mixed up—merged, so to say—with
these ten selves. It really seems that so long as this great mystery
remains a dead‐letter to the world of Western thinkers, and especially to
the Orientalists, the less the latter undertake to explain it the better
for Truth.

Of all the existing religious Philosophies, Buddhism is the least
understood. The Lassens, Webers, Wassiljows, the Burnoufs and Juliens, and
even such “eye‐witnesses” of Tibetan Buddhism as Csoma de Köros and the
Schlagintweits, have hitherto only added perplexity to confusion. None of
these has ever received his information from a genuine Gelugpa source: all
have judged Buddhism from the bits of knowledge picked up at Tibetan
frontier lamaseries, in countries thickly populated by Bhutanese and
Leptchas, Bhons, and red‐capped Dugpas, along the line of the Himâlayas.
Hundreds of volumes purchased from Burats, Shamans, and Chinese Buddhists,
have been read and translated, glossed and misinterpreted according to
invariable custom. Esoteric Schools would cease to be worthy of their name
were their literature and doctrines to become the property of even their
profane co‐religionists—still less of the Western public. This is simple
common‐sense and logic. Nevertheless this is a fact which our Orientalists
have ever refused to recognize: hence they have gone on, gravely
discussing the relative merits and absurdities of idols, “sooth‐saying
tables,” and “magical figures of Phurbu” on the “square tortoise.” None of
these have anything to do with the real philosophical Buddhism of the
Gelugpa, or even of the most educated among the Sakyapa and Kadampa sects.
All such “plates” and sacrificial tables, Chinsreg magical circles, etc.,
were avowedly got from Sikkhim, Bhutan, and Eastern Tibet, from Bhons and
Dugpas. Nevertheless, these are given as characteristics of Tibetan
Buddhism! It would be as fair to judge the unread Philosophy of Bishop
Berkeley after studying Christianity in the clown‐worship of Neapolitan
lazzaroni, dancing a mystic jig before the idol of St. Pip, or carrying
the _ex‐voto_ in wax of the phallus of SS. Cosmo and Domiano, at Tsernie.

It is quite true that the primitive Shrâvakas (listeners or hearers) and
the Shramanas (the “thought‐restrainers” and the “pure”) have degenerated,
and that many Buddhist sects have fallen into mere dogmatism and
ritualism. Like every other Esoteric, half‐suppressed teaching, the words
of the Buddha convey a double meaning, and every sect has gradually come
to claim to be the only one knowing the correct meaning, and thus to
assume supremacy over the rest. Schism has crept in, and has fastened,
like a hideous cancer, on the fair body of early Buddhism. Nâgârjuna’s
Mahâyâna (“Great Vehicle”) School was opposed by the Hînayâna (or “Little
Vehicle”) System, and even the Yogâchârya of Âryâsanga became disfigured
by the yearly pilgrimage from India to the shores of Mansarovara, of hosts
of vagabonds with matted locks who play at being Yogîs and Fakirs,
preferring this to work. An affected detestation of the world, and the
tedious and useless practice of the counting of inhalations and
exhalations as a means to produce absolute tranquillity of mind or
meditation, have brought this school within the region of Hatha Yoga, and
have made it heir to the Brâhmanical Tîrthikas. And though its Srotâpatti,
its Sakridâgâmin, Anâgâmin, and Arhats,(734) bear the same names in almost
every school, yet the doctrines of each differ greatly, and none of these
is likely to gain real Abhijñâs (the supernatural abnormal five powers).

One of the chief mistakes of the Orientalists when judging on “internal
(?) evidence,” as they express it, was that they assumed that the Pratyeka
Buddhas, the Bodhisattvas, and the “Perfect” Buddhas were a later
development of Buddhism. For on these three chief degrees are based the
seven and twelve degrees of the Hierarchy of Adeptship. The first are
those who have attained the Bodhi (wisdom) of the Buddhas, but do not
become Teachers.(735) The human Bodhisattvas are candidates, so to say,
for perfect Buddhaship (in Kalpas to come), and with the option of using
their powers now if need be. “Perfect” Buddhas are simply “perfect”
Initiates. All these are men, and not disembodied Beings, as is given out
in the Hînayâna exoteric books. Their correct character may be found only
in the secret volumes of Lugrub or Nâgârjuna, the founder of the Mahâyâna
system, who is said to have been initiated by the Nâgas (fabulous
“Serpents,” the veiled name for an Initiate or Mahâtmâ). The fabled report
found in Chinese records that Nâgârjuna considered his doctrine to be in
opposition to that of Gautama Buddha, until he discovered from the Nâgas
that it was precisely the doctrine that had been secretly taught by
Shâkyamuni Himself, is an allegory, and is based upon the reconciliation
between the old Brâhmanical secret Schools in the Himâlayas and Gautama’s
Esoteric teachings, both parties having at first objected to the rival
schools of the other. The former, the parent of all others, had been
established beyond the Himâlayas for ages before the appearance of
Shâkyamuni. Gautama was a pupil of this; and it was with them, those
Indian Sages, that He had learned the truths of the Sungata, the emptiness
and impermanence of every terrestrial, evanescent thing, and the mysteries
of Prajñâ Pâramitâ, or “knowledge across the River,” which finally lands
the “Perfect One” in the regions of the One Reality. But His Arhats were
not Himself. Some of them were ambitious, and they modified certain
teachings after the great councils, and it is on account of these
“heretics” that the Mother‐School at first refused to allow them to blend
their schools, when persecution began driving away the Esoteric
Brotherhood from India. But when finally most of them submitted to the
guidance and control of the chief Âshrams, then the Yogâchârya of
Âryâsanga was merged into the oldest Lodge. For it is _there_ from time
immemorial that has lain concealed the final hope and light of the world,
the salvation of mankind. Many are the names of that School and land, the
name of the latter being now regarded by the Orientalists as the mythic
name of a fabulous country. It is from this mysterious land, nevertheless,
that the Hindu expects his Kalki Avatâra, the Buddhist his Maitreya, the
Pârsî his Sosiosh, and the Jew his Messiah, and so would the Christian
expect thence his Christ—if he only knew of it.

There, and there alone, reigns Paranishpanna (Gunggrub), the absolutely
perfect comprehension of Being and Non‐Being, the changeless true
Existence in Spirit, even while the latter is seemingly still in the body,
every inhabitant thereof being a Non‐Ego because he has become the Perfect
Ego. Their voidness is “self‐existent and perfect”—if there were profane
eyes to sense and perceive it—because it has become absolute; the unreal
being transformed into conditionless Reality, and the realities of this,
our world, having vanished in their own nature into thin (non‐existing)
air. The “Absolute Truth” (Dondam‐pay‐den‐pa; Sanskrit: Paramârthasatya),
having conquered “relative truth” (Kunza‐bchi‐den‐pa; Sanskrit:
Samvritisatya), the inhabitants of the mysterious region are thus supposed
to have reached the state called in mystic phraseology Svasamvedanâ
(“self‐analyzing reflection”) and Paramârtha, or that absolute
consciousness of the personal merged into the impersonal Ego, which is
above all, hence above illusion in every sense. Its “Perfect” Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas may be on every nimble Buddhist tongue as celestial—therefore
unreachable Beings, while these names may suggest and say nothing to the
dull perceptions of the European profane. What matters it to Those who,
being in this world, yet live outside and far beyond our illusive earth!
Above Them there is but one class of Nirvânîs, namely, the Chos‐ku
(Dharmakâya), or the Nirvânîs “without remains”—the pure Arûpa, the
formless Breaths.(736)

Thence emerge occasionally the Bodhisattvas in their Prul‐pai‐ku (or
Nirmânakâya) body and, assuming an ordinary appearance, they teach men.
There are conscious, as well as unconscious, incarnations.

Most of the doctrines contained in the Yogâchârya, or Mahâyâna systems are
Esoteric, like the rest. One day the profane Hindu and Buddhist may begin
to pick the _Bible_ to pieces, taking it literally. Education is fast
spreading in Asia, and already there have been made some attempts in this
direction, so that the tables may then be cruelly turned on the
Christians. Whatever conclusions the two may arrive at, they will never be
half as absurd and unjust as some of the theories launched by Christians
against their respective Philosophies. Thus, according to Spence Hardy, at
death the Arhat enters Nirvâna:


    That is, he ceases to exist.


And, agreeably to Major Jacob, the Jîvanmukta,


    Absorbed into Brahma, enters upon an unconscious and stonelike
    existence.(737)


Shankarâchârya is shown as saying in his prolegomena to the
_Shvetâshvatara:_


    Gnosis, once arisen, requires nothing farther for the realization
    of its result: it needs _subsidia_ only that it may arise.


The Theosophist, it has been argued, as long as he lives, may do good and
evil as he chooses, and incur no stain, such is the efficacy of gnosis.
And it is further alleged that the doctrine of Nirvâna lends itself to
immoral inferences, and that the Quietists of all ages have been taxed
with immorality.(738)

According to Wassilyew(739) and Csoma de Köros,(740) the Prasanga School
adopted a peculiar mode of


    Deducing the absurdity and erroneousness of every esoteric
    opinion.(741)


Correct interpretations of Buddhist Philosophy are crowned by that gloss
on a thesis from the Prasanga School, that


    Even an Arhat goes to hell in case he doubt anything,(742)


thus making of the most free‐thinking religion in the world a blind‐faith
system. The “threat” refers simply to the well‐known law that even an
Initiate may fail, and thus have his object utterly ruined, if he doubt
for one moment the efficacy of his psychic powers—the alphabet of
Occultism, as every Kabalist well knows.

The Tibetan sect of the Ngo‐vo‐nyid‐med par Mraba (“they who deny
existence,” or “regard nature as Mâyâ”)(743) can never be contrasted for
one moment with some of the nihilistic or materialistic schools of India,
such as the Chârvâka. They are pure Vedântins—if anything—in their views.
And if the Yogâchâryas may be compared with, or called the Tibetan
Vishishtadwaitîs, the Prasanga School is surely the Adwaita Philosophy of
the land. It was divided into two: one was originally founded by Bhavya,
the Svantatra Madhyamika School, and the other by Buddhapâlita; both have
their exoteric and esoteric divisions. It is necessary to belong to the
latter to know anything of the esoteric doctrines of that sect, the most
metaphysical and philosophical of all. Chandrakirti (Dava Dagpa) wrote his
commentaries on the Prasanga doctrines and taught publicly; and he
expressly states that there are two ways of entering the “Path” to
Nirvâna. Any virtuous man can reach by Naljorngonsum (“meditation by self‐
perception”), the intuitive comprehension of the four Truths, without
either belonging to a monastic order or having been initiated. In this
case it was considered as a heresy to maintain that the visions which may
arise in consequence of such meditation, or Vishnâ (internal knowledge),
are not susceptible of errors (Namtog or false visions), for they are.
Alaya alone having an absolute and eternal existence, can alone have
absolute knowledge; and even the Initiate, in his Nirmânakâya(744) body
may commit an occasional mistake in accepting the false for the true in
his explorations of the “Causeless” World. The Dharmakâya Bodhisattva is
alone infallible, when in real Samâdhi. Âlaya, or Nying‐po, being the root
and basis of all, invisible and incomprehensible to human eye and
intellect, it can reflect only its reflection—not Itself. Thus that
reflection will be mirrored like the moon in tranquil and clear water only
in the passionless Dharmakâya intellect, and will be distorted by the
flitting image of everything perceived in a mind that is itself liable to
be disturbed.

In short, this doctrine is that of the Râj‐Yoga in its practice of the two
kinds of the Samâdhi state; one of the “Paths” leading to the sphere of
bliss (Sukhâvatî or Devachan), where man enjoys perfect, unalloyed
happiness, but is yet still connected with personal existence; and the
other the Path that leads to entire emancipation from the worlds of
illusion, self, and unreality. The first one is open to all and is reached
by merit simply; the second—a hundredfold more rapid—is reached through
knowledge (Initiation). Thus the followers of the Prasanga School are
nearer to Esoteric Buddhism than are the Yogâchâryas; for their views are
those of the most secret Schools, and only the echo of these doctrines is
heard in the _Yamyangshapda_ and other works in public circulation and
use. For instance, the unreality of two out of the three divisions of time
is given in public works, namely (_a_) that there is neither past nor
future, both of these divisions being correlative to the present; and
(_b_) that the reality of things can never be sensed or perceived except
by him who has obtained the Dharmakâya body; here again is a difficulty,
since this body “without remains” carries the Initiate to full
Paranirvâna, if we accept the exoteric explanation verbally, and can
therefore neither sense nor perceive. But evidently our Orientalists do
not feel the _caveat_ in such incongruities, and they proceed to speculate
without pausing to reflect over it. Literature on Mysticism being
enormous, and Russia, owing to the free intercourse with the Burats,
Shamans, and Mongolians, having alone purchased whole libraries on Tibet,
scholars ought to know better by this time. It suffices to read, however,
what Csoma wrote on the origin of the Kâla Chakra System,(745) or
Wassilyew on Buddhism, to make one give up every hope of seeing them go
below the rind of the “forbidden fruit.” When Schlagintweit is found
saying that Tibetan Mysticism is not Yoga—


    That abstract devotion by which supernatural powers are
    acquired,(746)


as Yoga is defined by Wilson, but that it is closely related to Siberian
Shamanism, and is “almost identical with the Tântrika ritual”; and that
the Tibetan _Zung_ is the “_Dhâranîs_,” and the _Gyut_ only the
_Tantras_—pre‐Christian Tantra being judged by the ritual of the modern
Tântrikas—one seems almost justified in suspecting our materialistic
Orientalists of acting as the best friends and allies of the missionaries.
Whatever is not known to our geographers seems to be a non‐existent
locality. Thus:


    Mysticism is reported to have originated in the fabulous country,
    Sambhala.... Csoma, from _careful_ investigations, places this
    [fabulous?] country beyond the Sir Daria [Yaxartes] between 45°
    and 50° north latitude. It was first known in India in the year
    965 A.D., and was introduced ... into Tibet from India, _viâ_
    Kashmir, in the year 1025 A.D.(747)


“It” meaning the “Dus‐kyi Khorlo,” or Tibetan Mysticism. A system as old
as man, known in India and practised before Europe had become a continent,
“was first known,” we are told, only nine or ten centuries ago! The text
of its books in its present form may have “originated” even later, for
there are numerous such texts that have been tampered with by sects to
suit the fancies of each. But who has read the original book on Dus‐Kyi
Khorlo, re‐written by Tsong‐Kha‐pa, with his Commentaries? Considering
that this grand Reformer burnt every book on Sorcery on which he could lay
his hands in 1387, and that he has left a whole library of his own
works—not a tenth part of which has ever been made known—such statements
as those above‐quoted are, to say the least, premature. The idea is also
cherished—from a happy hypothesis offered by Abbé Huc—that Tsong‐Kha‐pa
derived his wisdom and acquired his extraordinary powers from his
intercourse with a stranger from the West, “remarkable for a long nose.”
This stranger is believed by the good Abbé “to have been a European
missionary”; hence the remarkable resemblance of the religious ritual in
Tibet to the Roman Catholic service. The sanguine “Lama of Jehovah” does
not say, however, who were the five foreigners who appeared in Tibet in
the year 371 of our era, to disappear as suddenly and mysteriously as they
came, after leaving with King Thothori‐Nyang‐tsan instructions how to use
certain things in a casket that “had fallen from heaven” in his presence
precisely fifty years before, or in the year A.D. 331.(748)

There is generally a hopeless confusion about Eastern dates among European
scholars, but nowhere is this so great as in the case of Tibetan Buddhism.
Thus, while some, correctly enough, accept the seventh century as the date
of the introduction of Buddhism, there are others—such as Lassen and
Koeppung, for instance—who show on good authority, the one, the
construction of a Buddhist monastery on the slopes of the Kailas Range so
far back as the year 137 B.C.,(749) and the other, Buddhism established in
and north of the Punjab, as early as the year 292 B.C. The difference
though trifling—only just one thousand years—is nevertheless puzzling. But
even this is easily explained on Esoteric grounds. Buddhism—the veiled
Esotericism of Buddha—was established and took root in the seventh century
of the Christian era; while true Esoteric Buddhism, or the kernel, the
very spirit of Tathâgata’s doctrines, was brought to the place of its
birth, the cradle of humanity, by the chosen Arhats of Buddha, who were
sent to find for it a secure refuge, as


    The Sage had perceived the dangers ever since he had entered upon
    Thonglam (“the Path of seeing,” or clairvoyance).


Amidst populations deeply steeped in Sorcery the attempt proved a failure;
and it was not until the School of the “Doctrine of the Heart” had merged
with its predecessor, established ages earlier on the slope facing Western
Tibet, that Buddhism was finally engrafted, with its two distinct
Schools—the Esoteric and the exoteric divisions—in the land of the Bhon‐
pa.



SECTION LI. THE “DOCTRINE OF THE EYE” & THE “DOCTRINE OF THE HEART,” OR
THE “HEART’S SEAL.”


Prof. Albrecht Weber was right when he declared that the Northern
Buddhists


    Alone possess these [Buddhist] Scriptures complete.


For, while the Southern Buddhists have no idea of the existence of an
Esoteric Doctrine—enshrined like a pearl within the shell of every
religion—the Chinese and the Tibetans have preserved numerous records of
the fact. Degenerate, fallen as is now the Doctrine publicly preached by
Gautama, it is yet preserved in those monasteries in China that are placed
beyond the reach of visitors. And though for over two millennia every new
“reformer,” taking something out of the original has replaced it by some
speculation of his own, still truth lingers even now among the masses. But
it is only in the Trans‐Himâlayan fastnesses—loosely called Tibet—in the
most inaccessible spots of desert and mountain, that the Esoteric “Good
Law”—the “Heart’s Seal”—lives to the present day in all its pristine
purity.

Was Emanuel Swedenborg wrong when he remarked of the forgotten, long‐lost
Word:


    Seek for it in China; peradventure you may find it in Great
    Tartary.


He had obtained this information, he tells his readers, from certain
“Spirits,” who told him that they performed their worship according to
this (lost) ancient Word. On this it was remarked in _Isis Unveiled_ that


    Other students of Occult Sciences had more than the word of
    “spirits” to rely upon in this special case: they have seen the
    books


that contain the “Word.”(750) Perchance the names of those “Spirits” who
visited the great Swedish Theosophist were Eastern. The word of a man of
such undeniable and recognised integrity, of one whose learning in
Mathematics, Astronomy, the natural Sciences and Philosophy was far in
advance of his age, cannot be trifled with or rejected as unceremoniously
as if it were the statement of a modern Theosophist; further, he claimed
to pass at will into that state when the Inner Self frees itself entirely
from every physical sense, and lives and breathes in a world where every
secret of Nature is an open book to the Soul‐eye.(751) Unfortunately two‐
thirds of his public writings are also allegorical in one sense; and, as
they have been accepted literally, criticism has not spared the great
Swedish Seer any more than other Seers.

Having taken a panoramic view of the hidden Sciences and Magic with their
Adepts in Europe, Eastern Initiates must now be mentioned. If the presence
of Esotericism in the Sacred Scriptures of the West only now begins to be
suspected, after nearly two thousand years of blind faith in their
_verbatim_ wisdom, the same may well be granted as to the Sacred Books of
the East. Therefore neither the Indian nor the Buddhist system can be
understood without a key, nor can the study of comparative Religion become
a “Science” until the symbols of every Religion yield their final secrets.
At the best such a study will remain a loss of time, a playing at hide‐
and‐seek.

On the authority of a Japanese _Encyclopædia_, Remusat shows the Buddha,
before His death, committing the secrets of His system to His disciple,
Kâsyapa, to whom alone was entrusted the sacred keeping of the Esoteric
interpretation. It is called in China _Ching‐fa‐yin‐Tsang_ (“the Mystery
of the Eye of the Good Doctrine”). To any student of Buddhist Esotericism
the term, “the Mystery of the Eye,” would show the absence of any
Esotericism. Had the word “Heart” stood in its place, then it would have
meant what it now only professes to convey. The “Eye Doctrine” means dogma
and dead‐letter form, church ritualism intended for those who are content
with exoteric formulæ. The “Heart Doctrine,” or the “Heart’s Seal” (the
Sin Yin), is the only real one. This may be found corroborated by Hiuen
Tsang. In his translation of _Mahâ‐Prajnâ‐Pâramitâ_ (_Ta‐poh‐je‐King_), in
one hundred and twenty volumes, it is stated that it was Buddha’s
“favourite disciple Ânanda,” who, after his great Master had gone into
Nirvâna, was commissioned by Kâsyapa to promulgate “the Eye of the
Doctrine,” the “Heart” of the Law having been left with the Arhats alone.

The essential difference that exists between the two—the “Eye” and the
“Heart,” or the outward form and the hidden meaning, the cold metaphysics
and the Divine Wisdom—is clearly demonstrated in several volumes on
“Chinese Buddhism,” written by sundry missionaries. Having lived for years
in China, they still know no more than they have learned from pretentious
schools calling themselves esoteric, yet freely supplying the open enemies
of their faith with professedly ancient manuscripts and esoteric works!
This ludicrous contradiction between profession and practice has never, as
it seems, struck any of the western and reverend historians of other
peoples’ secret tenets. Thus many esoteric schools are mentioned in
_Chinese Buddhism_ by the Rev. Joseph Edkins, who believes quite sincerely
that he has made “a minute examination” of the secret tenets of Buddhists
whose works “were until lately inaccessible in their original form.” It
really will not be saying too much to state at once that the genuine
Esoteric literature is “inaccessible” to this day, and that the
respectable gentleman who was inspired to state that


    It does not appear that there was any secret doctrine which those
    who knew it would not divulge,


made a great mistake if he ever believed in what he says on page 161 of
his work. Let him know at once that all those Yû‐luh (“Records of the
Sayings”) of celebrated teachers are simply blinds, as complete—if not
more so—than those in the Purânas of the Brâhmans. It is useless to
enumerate an endless string of the finest Oriental scholars or to bring
forward the researches of Remusat, Burnouf, Koeppen, St. Hilaire, and St.
Julian, who are credited with having exposed to view the ancient Hindu
world, by revealing the sacred and secret books of Buddhism: the world
that they reveal has never been veiled. The mistakes of all the
Orientalists may be judged by the mistake of one of the most popular, if
not the greatest among them all—Prof. Max Müller. It is made with
reference to what he laughingly translates as the “god Who” (Ka).


    The authors of the Brâhmanas had so completely broken with the
    past, that, forgetful of the poetical character of the hymns and
    the yearning of the poets after the Unknown God, they exalted the
    interrogative pronoun itself into a deity, and acknowledged a god
    Ka (or Who?)... Wherever interrogative verses occur the author
    states that Ka is Prajâpati, or the Lord of Creatures. Nor did
    they stop here. Some of the hymns in which the interrogative
    pronoun occurred were called Kadvat, _i.e._, having Kad or Quid.
    But soon a new adjective was formed, and not only the hymns but
    the sacrifice also offered to the god were called Kaya, or
    “Who”‐ish.... At the time of Pânini this word acquired such
    legitimacy as to call for a separate rule explaining its
    formation. The Commentator here explains Ka by Brahman.


Had the commentator explained It even by Parabrahman he would have been
still more in the right than he was by rendering It as “Brahman.” One
fails to see why the secret and sacred Mystery‐Name of the highest,
sexless, formless Spirit, the Absolute,—Whom no one would have dared to
classify with the rest of the manifested Deities, or even to name during
the primitive nomenclature of the symbolical Panthenon, should not be
expressed by an interrogative pronoun. Is it those who belong to the most
anthropomorphic Religion in the world who have a right to take ancient
Philosophers to task for even an exaggerated religious awe and veneration?

But we are now concerned with Buddhism. Its Esotericism and oral
instruction, which is written down and preserved in single copies by the
highest chiefs in genuine Esoteric Schools, is shown by the author San‐
Kian‐yi‐su. Contrasting Bodhidharma with Buddha, he exclaims:


    “Julai” (Tathâgata) taught great truths and the causes of things.
    He became the instructor of men and Devas. He saved multitudes,
    and spoke the contents of more than five hundred works. Hence
    arose the Kiau‐men, or exoteric branch of the system, and it was
    believed to be the tradition of the _words_ of Buddha. Bodhidharma
    brought from the Western Heaven [Shamballa] the “Seal of Truth”
    (true seal) and opened the fountain of contemplation in the East.
    He pointed directly to Buddha’s heart and nature, swept away the
    parasitic and alien growth of book‐instruction, and thus
    established the Tsung‐men, or Esoteric branch of the system
    containing the tradition of the heart of Buddha.(752)


A few remarks made by the author of _Chinese Buddhism_ throw a flood of
light on the universal misconceptions of Orientalists in general, and of
the missionaries in the “lands of the Gentiles” in particular. They appeal
very forcibly to the intuition of Theosophists—more particularly of those
in India. The sentences to be noticed are italicized.


    The common [Chinese] word for the esoteric Schools is _dan_, the
    Sanskrit _Dhyâna_.... Orthodox Buddhism has in China slowly but
    steadily _become heterodox_. The Buddhism of books and ancient
    traditions _has become the Buddhism of mystic contemplation_....
    The history of ancient schools springing up long ago in the
    Buddhist communities of India _can now be only very partially
    recovered_. Possibly some light may be thrown back by China upon
    the religious history of the country from which Buddhism
    came.(753) In no part of the story is aid to the recovery of the
    lost knowledge more likely to be found than in the accounts of the
    patriarchs, the line of whom was completed by Bodhidharma. In
    seeking the best explanation of the Chinese and Japanese narrative
    of the patriarchs, and the _seven Buddhas_ terminating in Gautama,
    or Shâkyamuni, it is important to know the Jain traditions as they
    were early in the sixth century of our era, when the Patriarch
    Bodhidharma removed to China....

    In tracing the rise of the various schools of esoteric Buddhism it
    must be kept in mind that a principle somewhat similar to the
    dogma of apostolical succession belongs to them all. They all
    profess _to derive their doctrines through a succession of
    teachers, each instructed personally by his predecessor, till the
    time of Bodhidharma, and so further up in the series to Shâkyamuni
    himself and the earlier Buddhas_.(754)


It is complained further on, and is mentioned as a falling away from
strict orthodox Buddhism, that _the Lamas of Tibet are received in Pekin
with the utmost respect_ by the Emperor.

The following passages, taken from different parts of the book, summarise
Mr. Edkins’ views:


    Hermits are not uncommonly met with in the vicinity of large
    Buddhist temples ... their hair being allowed to grow unshorn....
    The doctrine of metempsychosis is rejected. Buddhism is one form
    of Pantheism on the ground that the doctrine of metempsychosis
    makes all nature instinct with life, and that that life is the
    Deity assuming different forms of personality, that Deity not
    being a self‐conscious, free‐acting Self‐Cause, but an all‐
    pervading Spirit. The esoteric Buddhists of China, keeping rigidly
    to their one doctrine,(755) say nothing of the metempsychosis, ...
    or any other of the more material parts of the Buddhist system....
    The Western paradise promised to the worshippers of Amida Buddha
    is ... inconsistent with the doctrine of Nirvana [?].(756)... _It
    promises immortality_ instead of annihilation. The great antiquity
    of this School is evident from the early date of the translation
    of the _Amida Sûtra_, which came from the hands of Kumârajîva, and
    the _Ku‐liang‐sheu‐King_, dating from the Han dynasty. Its extent
    of influence is seen in the attachment of the Tibetans and Moguls
    to the worship of this Buddha, and in the fact that the name of
    this fictitious personage [?] is more commonly heard in China than
    that of the historical Shâkyamuni.


We fear the learned writer is on a false track as to Nirvâna and Amita
Buddha. However, here we have the evidence of a missionary to show that
there are several schools of Esoteric Buddhism in the Celestial Empire.
When the misuse of dogmatical orthodox Buddhist Scriptures had reached its
climax, and the true spirit of the Buddha’s Philosophy was nearly lost,
several reformers appeared from India, who established an oral teaching.
Such were Bodhidharma and Nâgârjuna, the authors of the most important
works of the contemplative School in China during the first centuries of
our era. It is known, moreover, as is said in _Chinese Buddhism_, that
Bodhidharma became the chief founder of the Esoteric Schools, which were
divided into five principal branches. The data given are correct enough,
but every conclusion, without one single exception, is wrong. It was said
in _Isis Unveiled_ that—


    Buddha teaches the doctrine of a new birth as plainly as Jesus
    does. Desiring to break with the ancient Mysteries, to which it
    was impossible to admit the ignorant masses, the Hindu reformer,
    though generally silent upon more than one secret dogma, clearly
    states his thought in several passages. Thus, he says: “_Some
    people are born again_; evil‐doers go to hell [Avitchi]; righteous
    people go to heaven [Devachan]; those who are free from all
    worldly desires enter Nirvâna” (_Precepts of the Dhammapada_, v.
    126). Elsewhere Buddha states that “it is better to believe in a
    future life, in which happiness or misery can be felt: for if the
    heart believes therein it will abandon sin and act virtuously; and
    even if there is no resurrection [rebirth], such a life will bring
    a good name and the reward of men. But those who believe in
    extinction at death will not fail to commit any sin that they may
    choose, because of their disbelief in a future.” (See _Wheel of
    the Law_.)


How is immortality, then, “inconsistent with the doctrine of Nirvâna?” The
above are only a few of Buddha’s openly‐expressed thoughts to his chosen
Arhats; the great Saint said much more. As a comment upon the mistaken
views held in our century by the Orientalists, “who vainly try to fathom
Tathâgata’s thoughts,” and those of Brâhmans, “who repudiate the great
Teacher to this day,” here are some original thoughts expressed in
relation to the Buddha and the study of the Secret Sciences. They are from
a work written in Chinese by a Tibetan, and published in the monastery of
Tientaï for circulation among the Buddhists


    Who live in foreign lands, and are in danger of being spoiled by
    missionaries,


as the author truly says, every convert being not only “spoiled” for his
own creed, but being also a sorry acquisition for Christianity. A
translation of a few passages, kindly made from that work for the present
volumes is now given.


    No profane ears having heard the mighty Chau‐yan [secret and
    enlightening _precepts_] of Vu‐vei‐Tchen‐jen [Buddha _within_
    Buddha],(757) of our beloved Lord and Bodhisattva, how can one
    tell what his thoughts really were? The holy Sang‐gyas‐
    Panchhen(758) never offered an insight into the _One Reality_ to
    the unreformed [uninitiated] Bhikkus. Few are those even among the
    Tu‐fon [Tibetans] who knew it; as for the Tsung‐men(759) Schools,
    they are going with every day more down hill.... Not even the Fa‐
    siong‐Tsung(760) can give one the wisdom taught in real Naljor‐
    chod‐pa [Sanskrit:(761) Yogâchârya]: ... it is all “Eye” Doctrine,
    and no more. The loss of a restraining guidance is felt, since the
    Tch’‐an‐si [teachers] of inward meditation [self‐contemplation or
    Tchung‐kwan] have become rare, and the Good Law is replaced by
    idol‐worship [Siang‐kyan]. It is of this [idol‐ or image‐worship]
    that the Barbarians [Western people] have heard, and know nothing
    of Bas‐pa‐Dharma [the secret Dharma or doctrine]. Why has truth to
    hide like a tortoise within its shell? Because it is now found to
    have become like the Lama’s tonsure knife,(762) a weapon too
    dangerous to use even for the Lanoo. Therefore no one can be
    entrusted with the knowledge [Secret Science] before his time. The
    Chagpa‐Thog‐mad have become rare, and the best have retired to
    Tushita the Blessed.(763)


Further on, a man seeking to master the mysteries of Esotericism before he
had been declared by the initiated Tch’‐an‐si (teachers) to be ready to
receive them, is likened to


    One who would, without a lantern and on a dark night, proceed to a
    place full of scorpions, determined to feel on the ground for a
    needle his neighbour has dropped.


Again:


    He who would acquire the Sacred Knowledge should, before he goes
    any farther “_trim his lamp_ of inner understanding,” and then
    “with the help of such good light” use his meritorious actions as
    a dust‐cloth to remove every impurity from his mystic mirror,(764)
    so that he should be enabled to see in its lustre the faithful
    reflection of Self.... First, this; then Tong‐pa‐nya,(765) lastly;
    Samma Sambuddha.(766)


In _Chinese Buddhism_ a corroboration of these statements is to be found
in the aphorisms of Lin‐tsi:


    Within the body which admits sensations, acquires knowledge,
    thinks, and acts, there is the “true man without a position” Wu‐
    wei‐chen‐jen. He makes himself clearly visible; not the thinnest
    separating film hides him. Why do you not recognise him?... If the
    mind does not come to conscious existence, there is deliverance
    everywhere.... What is Buddha? _Ans._ A mind clear and at rest.
    What is the Law? _Ans._ A mind clear and enlightened. What is
    _Tau_? _Ans._ In every place absence of impediments and pure
    enlightenment. These three are one.


The reverend author of _Chinese Buddhism_ makes merry over the symbolism
of Buddhist discipline. Yet the self‐inflicted “slaps on the cheek” and
“blows under the ribs” find their pendants in the mortifications of the
body and self‐flagellation—“the discipline of the scourge”—of the
Christian monks, from the first centuries of Christianity down to our own
day. But then the said author is a Protestant, who substitutes for
mortification and discipline—good living and comfort. The sentence in the
Lin‐tsi,


    The “true man, without a position,” Wu‐wei‐chen‐jen, is wrapped in
    a prickly shell, like the chestnut. He cannot be approached. This
    is Buddha—the Buddha within you,


is laughed at. Truly


    An infant cannot understand the seven enigmas!



SOME PAPERS ON THE BEARING OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY ON LIFE.


NOTE.

Papers I. II. III. of the following were written by H. P. B. and were
circulated privately during her lifetime, but they were written with the
idea that they would be published after a time. They are papers intended
for students rather than for the ordinary reader, and will repay careful
study and thought. The “Notes of some Oral Teaching” were written down by
some of her pupils and were partially corrected by her, but no attempt has
been made to relieve them of their fragmentary character. She had intended
to make them the basis for written papers similar to the first three, but
her failing health rendered this impossible, and they are published with
her consent, the time for restricting them to a limited circle having
expired.

ANNIE BESANT.



Paper I. A Warning.


There is a strange law in Occultism which has been ascertained and proven
by thousands of years of experience; nor has it failed to demonstrate
itself, almost in every case, during the years that the Theosophical
Society has been in existence. As soon as anyone pledges himself as a
“Probationer,” certain Occult effects ensue. Of these the first is the
_throwing outward_ of everything latent in the nature of the man; his
faults, habits, qualities or subdued desires, whether good, bad or
indifferent.

For instance, if a man be vain or a sensualist, or ambitious, whether by
atavism or by karmic heirloom, those vices are sure to break out, even if
he has hitherto successfully concealed and repressed them. They will come
to the front irrepressibly, and he will have to fight a hundred times
harder than before, until he kills all such tendencies in himself.

On the other hand, if he be good, generous, chaste and abstemious, or has
any virtue hitherto latent and concealed in him, it will work its way out
as irrepressibly as the rest. Thus a civilized man who hates to be
considered a saint, and therefore assumes a mask, will not be able to
conceal his true nature, whether base or noble.

THIS IS AN IMMUTABLE LAW IN THE DOMAIN OF THE OCCULT.

Its action is the more marked, the more earnest and sincere the desire of
the candidate, and the more deeply he has felt the reality and importance
of his pledge.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

The ancient occult axiom, “Know Thyself,” must be familiar to every
student; but few if any have apprehended the real meaning of this wise
exhortation of the Delphic Oracle. You all know your earthly pedigree, but
who of you has ever traced all the links of heredity, astral, psychic and
spiritual, which go to make you what you are? Many have written and
expressed their desire to unite themselves with their Higher Ego, yet none
seem to know the indissoluble link connecting their “Higher Egos” with the
One Universal SELF.

For all purposes of Occultism, whether practical or purely metaphysical,
such knowledge is absolutely requisite. It is proposed, therefore, to
begin these papers by showing this connection in all directions with the
worlds: Absolute, Archetypal, Spiritual, Mânasic, Psychic, Astral, and
Elemental. Before, however, we can touch upon the higher
worlds—Archetypal, Spiritual and Mânasic—we must master the relations of
the seventh, the terrestrial world, the lower Prakriti, or Malkuth as in
the Kabalah, to the worlds or planes which immediately follow it.

OM.

“OM,” says the Âryan Adept, the son of the Fifth Race, who with this
syllable begins and ends his salutation to the human being, his
conjuration of, or appeal to, non‐human PRESENCES.

“OM‐MANI,” murmurs the Turanian Adept, the descendant of the Fourth Race;
and after pausing he adds, “PADME‐HUM.”

This famous invocation is very erroneously translated by the Orientalists
as meaning, “Oh the Jewel in the Lotus.” For although, literally, OM is a
syllable sacred to the Deity, PADME means “in the Lotus,” and MANI is any
precious stone, still neither the words themselves, nor their symbolical
meaning, are thus really correctly rendered.

In this, the most sacred of all Eastern formulas, not only has every
syllable a secret potency producing a definite result, but the whole
invocation has seven different meanings and can produce seven distinct
results, each of which may differ from the others.

The seven meanings and the seven results depend upon the intonation which
is given to the whole formula and to each of its syllables; and even the
numerical value of the letters is added to or diminished according as such
or another rhythm is made use of. Let the student remember that number
underlies form, and number guides sound. Number lies at the root of the
manifested Universe: numbers and harmonious proportions guide the first
differentiations of homogeneous substance into heterogeneous elements; and
number and numbers set limits to the formative hand of Nature.

Know the corresponding numbers of the fundamental principle of every
element and its sub‐elements, learn their interaction and behaviour on the
occult side of manifesting Nature, and the law of correspondences will
lead you to the discovery of the greatest mysteries of macrocosmical life.

But to arrive at the macrocosmical, you must begin by the microcosmical,
_i.e._, you must study MAN, the microcosm—in this case as physical science
does—inductively, proceeding from particulars to universals. At the same
time, however, since a key‐note is required to analyze and comprehend any
combination of differentiations of sound, we must never lose sight of the
Platonic method, which starts with one general view of all, and descends
from the universal to the individual. This is the method adopted in
Mathematics—the only _exact_ science that exists in our day.

Let us study Man, therefore; but if we separate him for one moment from
the Universal Whole, or view him in isolation, from a single aspect, apart
from the “Heavenly Man”—the Universe symbolized by Adam Kadmon or his
equivalents in every Philosophy—we shall either land in Black Magic or
fail most ingloriously in our attempt.

Thus the mystic sentence, “_Om Mani Padme Hum_,” when rightly understood,
instead of being composed of the almost meaningless words, “Oh the Jewel
in the Lotus,” contains a reference to this indissoluble union between Man
and the Universe, rendered in seven different ways, and having the
capability of seven different applications to as many planes of thought
and action.

From whatever aspect we examine it, it means: “I am that I am”: “I am in
thee and thou art in me.” In this conjunction and close union the good and
pure man becomes a God. Whether consciously or unconsciously, he will
bring about, or innocently cause to happen, unavoidable results. In the
first case, if an Initiate (of course an Adept of the Right‐hand Path
alone is meant), he can guide a beneficent or a protecting current, and
thus benefit and protect individuals and even whole nations. In the second
case, although quite unaware of what he is doing, the good man becomes a
shield to whomsoever he is with.

Such is the fact; but its how and why have to be explained, and this can
be done only when the actual presence and potency of numbers in sounds,
and hence in words and letters, have been rendered clear. The formula,
“_Om Mani Padme Hum_,” has been chosen as an illustration on account of
its almost infinite potency in the mouth of an Adept, and of its
potentiality when pronounced by any man. Be careful, all you who read
this: do not use these words in vain, or when in anger, lest you become
yourself the first sacrificial victim, or, what is worse, endanger those
whom you love.

The profane Orientalist, who all his life skims mere externals, will tell
you flippantly, and laughing at the superstition, that in Tibet this
sentence is the most powerful six‐syllabled incantation and is said to
have been delivered to the nations of Central Asia by Padmapâni, the
Tibetan Chenresi.(767)

But who is Padmapâni, in reality? Each of us must recognize him for
himself, whenever he is ready. Each of us has within himself the “Jewel in
the Lotus,” call it Padmapâni, Krishna, Buddha, Christ, or whatever name
we may give to our Divine Self. The exoteric story runs thus:

The supreme Buddha, or Amitâbha, they say, at the hour of the creation of
man, caused a rosy ray of light to issue from his right eye. The ray
emitted a sound and became Padmapâni Bodhisattva. Then the Deity allowed
to stream forth from his left eye a blue ray of light, which, becoming
incarnate in the two virgins Dolma, acquired the power to enlighten the
minds of living beings. Amitâbha then called the combination, which
forthwith took up its abode in man, “_Om Mani Padme Hum_,” “I am the Jewel
in the Lotus and in it I will remain.” Then Padmapâni, “the One in the
Lotus” vowed never to cease working until he had made Humanity feel his
presence in itself and had thus saved it from the misery of rebirth. He
vowed to perform the feat before the end of the Kalpa, adding that, in
case of failure, he wished that his head should split into numberless
fragments. The Kalpa closed; but Humanity felt him not within its cold,
evil heart. Then Padmapâni’s head split and was shattered into a thousand
fragments. Moved with compassion, the Deity re‐formed the pieces into
_ten_ heads, three white, and seven of various colours. And since that day
man has become a perfect number, or TEN.

In this allegory the potency of SOUND, COLOUR, and NUMBER is so
ingeniously introduced as to veil the real Esoteric meaning. To the
outsider it reads like one of the many meaningless fairy‐tales of
creation; but it is pregnant with spiritual and divine, physical and
magical meaning. From Amitâbha—_no colour_, or the _white glory_—are born
the seven differentiated colours of the prism. These each emit a
corresponding sound, forming the seven of the _musical scale_. As
Geometry, among the Mathematical Sciences, is specially related to
Architecture, and also (proceeding to Universals) to Cosmogony, so the ten
Jods of the Pythagorean Tetrad, or Tetraktys, being made to symbolize the
Macrocosm, the Microcosm, or man, its image, had also to be divided into
ten points. For this Nature herself has provided, as will be seen.

But before this statement can be proved and the perfect correspondences
between the Macrocosm and the Microcosm demonstrated, a few words of
explanation are necessary.

To the learner who would study the Esoteric Sciences with their double
object: (_a_) of proving Man to be identical in spiritual and physical
essence with both the Absolute Principle and with God in Nature; and (_b_)
of demonstrating the presence in him of the same potential powers as exist
in the creative forces in Nature—to such a one a perfect knowledge of the
correspondences between Colours, Sounds, and Numbers is the first
requisite. As already said, the sacred formula of the far East, “_Om Mani
Padme Hum_,” is the one best calculated to make these correspondential
qualities and functions clear to the learner.

In the allegory of Padmapâni, the Jewel (or Spiritual Ego) in the Lotus,
or the symbol of androgynous man, the numbers 3, 4, 7, 10, as synthesizing
the _Unit_, Man, are prominent, as I have already said. It is on the
thorough knowledge and comprehension of the meaning and potency of these
numbers, in their various and multiform combinations, and in their mutual
correspondence with sounds or words, and colours or rates of motion
(represented in physical science by vibrations), that the progress of a
student in Occultism depends. Therefore we must begin with the first,
initial word, OM, or AUM. OM is a “blind.” The sentence “_Om Mani Padme
Hum_” is not a six‐ but a seven‐syllabled phrase, as the first syllable is
double in its right pronunciation, and triple in its essence, A‐UM. It
represents the for ever concealed primeval triune differentiation, not
_from_ but _in_ the ONE Absolute, and is therefore symbolized by the 4, or
the Tetraktys, in the metaphysical world. It is the Unit‐ray, or Âtman.

It is the Âtman, this highest Spirit in man, which, in conjunction with
Buddhi and Manas, is called the upper Triad, or Trinity. This Triad with
its four lower human principles, is, moreover, enveloped with an auric
atmosphere, like the yolk of an egg (the future embryo) by the albumen and
shell. This, to the perceptions of higher Beings from other planes, makes
of each individuality an oval sphere of more or less radiancy.

To show the student the perfect correspondence between the birth of
Kosmos, a World, a Planetary Being, or a Child of Sin and Earth, a more
definite and clear description must be given. Those acquainted with
Physiology will understand it better than others.

Who, having read say the _Vishnu_ or other _Purâna_, is not familiar with
the exoteric allegory of the birth of Brahmâ (male‐female) in the Egg of
the World, Hiranyagarbha, surrounded by its seven zones, or rather planes,
which in the world of form and matter become seven and fourteen Lokas; the
numbers seven and fourteen reäppearing as occasion requires.

Without giving out the secret analysis, the Hindus have from time
immemorial compared the matrix of the Universe, and also the solar matrix,
to the female uterus. It is written of the former: “Its womb is vast as
the Meru,” and


    The future mighty oceans lay asleep in the waters that filled its
    cavities, the continents, seas and mountains, the stars, planets,
    the gods, demons and mankind.


The whole resembled, in its inner and outer coverings, the cocoanut filled
interiorly with pulp, and covered externally with husk and rind. “Vast as
Meru,” say the texts.


    Meru was its Amnion, and the other mountains were its Chorion,


adds a verse in _Vishnu Purâna_.(768)

In the same way is man born in his mother’s womb. As Brahmâ is surrounded,
in exoteric traditions, by seven layers within and seven without the
Mundane Egg, so is the embryo (the first or the seventh layer, according
to the end from which we begin to count). Thus, just as Esotericism in its
Cosmogony enumerates seven inner and seven outer layers, so Physiology
notes the contents of the uterus as seven also, although it is completely
ignorant of this being a copy of what takes place in the Universal Matrix.
These contents are:

1. _Embryo._ 2. _Amniotic Fluid_, immediately surrounding the Embryo. 3.
_Amnion_, a membrane derived from the Fœtus, which contains the fluid. 4.
_Umbilical Vesicle_, which serves to convey nourishment originally to the
Embryo and to nourish it. 5. _Allantois_, a protrusion from the Embryo in
the form of a closed bag, which spreads itself between 3 and 7, in the
midst of 6, and which, after being specialized into the Placenta, serves
to conduct nourishment to the Embryo. 6. _Interspace_ between 3 and 7 (the
Amnion and Chorion), filled with an albuminous fluid. 7. _Chorion_, or
outer layer.

Now, each of these seven contents severally corresponds with, and is
formed after, an antetype, one on each of the seven planes of being, with
which in their turn correspond the seven states of Matter and all other
forces, sensational or functional, in Nature.

The following is a bird’s‐eye view of the seven correspondential contents
of the wombs of Nature and of Woman. We may contrast them thus:


    (1) Cosmic Process: The mathematical Point, called the “Cosmic
    Seed,” the Monad of Leibnitz; which contains the whole Universe,
    as the acorn the oak. This is the first bubble on the surface of
    boundless homogeneous Substance, or Space, the bubble of
    differentiation in its incipient stage. It is the beginning of the
    Orphic or Brahmâ’s Egg. It corresponds in Astrology and Astronomy
    to the Sun.

    Human Process: The terrestrial Embryo, which contains in it the
    future man with all his potentialities. In the series of
    principles of the human system it is the Âtman, or the super‐
    spiritual principle, just as in the physical Solar System it is
    the Sun.

    (2) Cosmic Process: The _vis vitæ_ of our solar system exudes from
    the Sun. Human Process: The Amniotic Fluid exudes from the Embryo.

    (_a_) Cosmic Process: It is called, when referred to the higher
    planes, Âkâsha. Human Process: It is called, on the plane of
    matter, Prâna.(769)

    (_b_) Cosmic Process: It proceeds from the ten “divinities,” the
    ten numbers of the Sun, which is itself the “Perfect Number.”
    These are called Dis—in reality Space—the forces spread in Space,
    three of which are contained in the Sun’s Âtman, or seventh
    principle, and seven are the rays shot out by the Sun.

    Human Process: It proceeds, taking its source in the universal One
    Life, from the heart of man and Buddhi, over which the Seven Solar
    Rays (Gods) preside.

    (3) Cosmic Process: The Ether of Space, which, in its external
    aspect, is the plastic crust which is supposed to envelope the
    Sun. On the higher plane it is the whole Universe, as the third
    differentiation of evolving Substance, Mûlaprakriti becoming
    Prakriti.

    Human Process: The Amnion, the membrane containing the Amniotic
    Fluid and enveloping the Embryo. After the birth of man it becomes
    the third layer, so to say, of his magneto‐vital aura.

    (_a_) Cosmic Process: It corresponds mystically to the manifested
    Mahat, or the Intellect or Soul of the World. Human Process:
    Manas, the third principle (counting from above), or the Human
    Soul in Man.

    (4) Cosmic Process: The sidereal contents of Ether, the
    substantial parts of it, unknown to Modern Science, represented as
    follows. Human Process: Umbilical Vesicle, serving, as Science
    teaches, to nourish the Embryo originally, but, as Occult Science
    avers, to carry to the Fœtus by osmosis the cosmic influences
    extraneous to the mother.

    (_a_) Cosmic Process: In Occult and Kabalistic Mysteries, by
    Elementals. Human Process: In the grown man these become the
    feeders of Kâma, over which they preside.

    (_b_) Cosmic Process: In physical Astronomy, by meteors, comets,
    and all kinds of casual and phenomenal cosmic bodies. Human
    Process: In the physical man, his passions and emotions, the moral
    meteors and comets of human nature.

    (5) Cosmic Process: Life currents in Ether, having their origin in
    the Sun: the canals through which the vital principle of that
    Ether (the blood of the Cosmic Body) passes to nourish everything
    on the Earth and on the other Planets: from the minerals, which
    are thus made to grow and become specialized, from the plants,
    which are thus fed, to animal and man, to whom life is thus
    imparted.

    Human Process: The Allantois, a protrusion from the Embryo, which
    spreads itself between the Amnion and Chorion; it is supposed to
    conduct the nourishment from the mother to the Embryo. It
    corresponds to the life‐principle, Prâna or Jîva.

    (6) Cosmic Process: The double radiation, psychic and physical,
    which radiates from the Cosmic Seed and expands around the whole
    Kosmos, as well as around the Solar System and every Planet. In
    Occultism it is called the upper divine, and the lower material,
    Astral Light.

    Human Process: The Allantois is divided into two layers. The
    interspace between the Amnion and the Chorion contains the
    Allantois and also an albuminous fluid.(770)

    (7) Cosmic Process: The outer crust of every sidereal body, the
    Shell of the Mundane Egg, or the sphere of our Solar System, of
    our Earth, and of every man and animal. In sidereal space, Ether
    proper; on the terrestrial plane, Air, which again is built in
    seven layers.

    Human Process: The Chorion, or the _Zona Pellucida_, the globular
    object called Blastodermic Vesicle, the outer and the inner layers
    of the membrane of which go to form the physical man. The outer,
    or ectoderm, forms his epidermis; the inner, or endoderm, his
    muscles, bones, etc. Man’s skin, again, is composed of seven
    layers.

    (_a_) Cosmic Process: The primordial potential world‐stuff becomes
    (for the Manvantaric period) the permanent globe or globes. Human
    Process: The “primitive” becomes the “permanent” Chorion.


Even in the evolution of the Races we see the same order as in Nature and
Man.(771) Placental animal‐man became such only after the separation of
sexes in the Third Root‐Race. In the physiological evolution, the placenta
is fully formed and functional only after the third month of uterine life.

Let us put aside such human conceptions as a personal God, and hold to the
purely divine, to that which underlies all and everything in boundless
Nature. It is called by its Sanskrit Esoteric name in the _Vedas_, TAT (or
THAT), a term for the unknowable Rootless Root. If we do so, we may answer
these seven questions of the _Esoteric Catechism_ thus:


    (1) Q.—What is the Eternal Absolute?

    A.—THAT.

    (2) Q.—How came Kosmos into being?

    A.—Through THAT.

    (3) Q.—How, or what will it be when it falls back into Pralaya?

    A.—In THAT.

    (4) Q.—Whence all the animate, and suppositionally, the
    “inanimate” nature?

    A.—From THAT.

    (5) Q.—What is the Substance and Essence of which the Universe is
    formed?

    A.—THAT.

    (6) Q.—Into what has it been and will be again and again resolved?

    A.—Into THAT.

    (7) Q.—Is THAT then both the instrumental and material cause of
    the Universe?

    A.—What else is it or can it be than THAT?


As the Universe, the Macrocosm and the Microcosm,(772) are _ten_, why
should we divide Man into _seven_ “principles”? This is the reason why the
perfect number ten is divided into two: in their completeness, _i.e._,
super‐spiritually and physically, the forces are TEN: to wit, three on the
subjective and inconceivable, and seven on the objective plane. Bear in
mind that I am now giving you the description of the two opposite poles:
(_a_) the primordial Triangle, which, as soon as it has reflected itself
in the “Heavenly Man,” the highest of the lower seven—disappears,
returning into “Silence and Darkness”; and (_b_) the astral paradigmatic
man, whose Monad (Âtmâ) is also represented by a triangle, as it has to
become a ternary in conscious Devachanic interludes. The purely
terrestrial man being reflected in the universe of Matter, so to say,
upside down, the upper Triangle, wherein the creative ideation and the
subjective potentiality of the formative faculty resides, is shifted in
the man of clay below the seven. Thus three of the ten, containing in the
archetypal world only ideative and paradigmatical potentiality, _i.e._,
existing in possibility, not in action, are in fact one. The potency of
formative creation resides in the Logos, the synthesis of the seven Forces
or Rays, which becomes forthwith the Quaternary, the sacred Tetraktys.
This process is repeated in man, in whom the lower physical triangle
becomes, in conjunction with the female One, the male‐female creator, or
generator. The same on a still lower plane in the animal world. A mystery
above, a mystery below, truly.

This is how the upper and highest, and the lower and most animal, stand in
mutual relation.

Diagram I

1st—Macrocosm and Its 3, 7, or 10 Centres of Creative Forces

                   [Illustration: Triangle with A B C]

A. B. C. The Unknowable
A. Sexless, Unmanifested Logos
B. Potential Wisdom
C. Universal Ideation

                 [Illustration: Circle with a through g]

a. Creative Logos
b. Eternal Substance
c. Spirit

a. b. c. This is Pradhâna, undifferentiated matter in Sânkhya philosophy,
or Good, Evil and Chaotic Darkness (Sattva, Rajas, and Tamas),
neutralizing each other. When differentiated, they become the Seven
Creative Potencies: Spirit, Substance and Fire stimulating Matter to form
itself.

D. The Spiritual Forces acting in Matter

2nd.—Microcosm (the Inner Man) and his 3, 7, or 10 Centres of Potential
Forces

                 [Illustration: Circle with 1 through 6]

(ÂTMAN, although exoterically reckoned as the seventh principle, is no
individual principle at all, and belongs to the Universal Soul; 7 is the
AURIC EGG, the Magnetic Sphere round every human and animal being.)

1. BUDDHI, the vehicle of ÂTMÂ.

2. MANAS, the vehicle of BUDDHI.

3. LOWER MANAS (the Upper and Lower MANAS are two aspects of one and the
same principle) and

4. KÂMA RÛPA, its vehicle.

5. PRÂNA, Life, and

6. LINGA SHARIRA, its vehicle

I. II. III. are the Three Hypostases of ÂTMAN, its contact with Nature and
Man being the Fourth, making it a Quaternary, or Tetraktys, the Higher
self.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. These six principles, acting on four different planes,
and having their AURIC ENVELOPE on the seventh (_vide infra_), are those
used by the Adepts of the Right‐Hand, or White Magicians.

3rd.—Microcosm (the Physical Man) and his 10 Orifices, or centres of
Action

                 [Illustration: Circle with 1 through 10]

1. (BUDDHI) Right Eye

3. (LOWER MANAS) Right Ear

5. (LIFE PRINCIPLE) Right Nostril

7. The Organ of the CREATIVE LOGOS, the Mouth

8. 9. 10. As this Lower Ternary has a direct connection with the Higher
Âtmic Triad and its three aspects (creative, preservative and destructive,
or rather regenerative), the abuse of the corresponding functions is the
most terrible of Karmic Sins—the Sin against the Holy Ghost with the
Christians.

2. (MANAS) Left Eye

4. (KÂMA RÛPA) Left Ear

6. (LIFE VEHICLE) Left Nostril

7. The Paradigm of the 10th (creative) orifice in the Lower Triad.

These Physical Organs are used only by Dugpas in Black Magic.

In this diagram, we see that physical man (or his body) does not share in
the _direct_ pure waves of the divine Essence which flows from the _One in
Three_, the Unmanifested, through the Manifested Logos (the upper face in
the diagram). Purusha, the primeval Spirit, touches the human head and
stops there. But the Spiritual Man (the synthesis of the seven principles)
is directly connected with it. And here a few words ought to be said about
the usual exoteric enumeration of the principles. At first an approximate
division only was made and given out. _Esoteric Buddhism_ begins with
Âtmâ, the seventh, and ends with the Physical Body, the first. Now neither
Âtmâ, which is no individual “principle,” but a radiation _from_ and _one
with_ the Unmanifested Logos; nor the Body, which is the material rind, or
shell, of the Spiritual Man, can be, in strict truth, referred to as
“principles.” Moreover, the chief “principle” of all, one not even
mentioned heretofore, is the “Luminous Egg” (Hiranyagarbha), or the
invisible magnetic sphere in which every man is enveloped.(773) It is the
direct emanation: (_a_) from the Âtmic Ray in its triple aspect of
Creator, Preserver and Destroyer (Regenerator); and (_b_) from Buddhi‐
Manas. The _seventh_ aspect of this individual Aura is the faculty of
assuming the form of its body and becoming the “Radiant,” the Luminous
Augoeides. It is this, strictly speaking, which at times becomes the form
called Mâyâvi Rûpa. Therefore, as explained in the second face of the
diagram (the astral man), the Spiritual Man consists of only five
principles, as taught by the Vedântins,(774) who substitute, tacitly, for
the physical this sixth, or Auric, Body, and merge the dual Manas (the
dual mind, or consciousness) into one. Thus they speak of five Koshas
(sheaths or principles), and call Âtmâ the sixth yet no “principle.” This
is the secret of the late Subba Row’s criticism of the division in
_Esoteric Buddhism_. But let the student now learn the true Esoteric
enumeration.

The reason why public mention of the Auric Body was not permitted was on
account of its being so sacred. It is this Body which, at death,
assimilates the essence of Buddhi and Manas and becomes the vehicle of
these spiritual principles, _which are not objective_, and then, with the
full radiation of Âtmâ upon it ascends as Manas‐Taijasi into the
Devachanic state. Therefore is it called by many names. It is the
Sûtrâtmâ, the silver “thread” which “incarnates” from the beginning of
Manvantara to the end, stringing upon itself the pearls of human
existence, in other words, the spiritual aroma of every personality it
_follows_ through the pilgrimage of life.(775) It is also the material
from which the Adept forms his Astral Bodies, from the Augoeides and the
Mâyâvi Rûpa downwards. After the death of man, when its most ethereal
particles have drawn into themselves the spiritual principles of Buddhi
and the Upper Manas, and are illuminated with the radiance of Âtmâ, the
Auric Body remains either in the Devachanic state of consciousness, or, in
the case of a full Adept, prefers the state of a Nirmânakâya, that is, one
who has so purified his whole system that he is above even the divine
illusion of a Devachanî. Such an Adept remains in the astral (invisible)
plane connected with our earth, and henceforth moves and lives in the
possession of all his principles except the Kâma Rûpa and Physical Body.
In the case of the Devachanî, the Linga Sharîra—the _alter ego_ of the
body, which during life is within the physical envelope while the radiant
aura is without—strengthened by the material particles which this aura
leaves behind, remains close to the dead body and outside it, and soon
fades away. In the case of the full Adept, the body alone becomes subject
to dissolution, while the centre of that force which was the seat of
desires and passions, disappears with its cause—the animal body. But
during the life of the latter all these centres are more or less active
and in constant correspondence with their prototypes, the cosmic centres,
and their microcosms, the principles. It is only through these cosmic and
spiritual centres that the physical centres (the upper seven orifices and
the lower triad) can benefit by their Occult interaction, for these
orifices, or openings, are channels conducting into the body the
influences that _the will of man_ attracts and uses, _viz._, the cosmic
forces.

This will has, of course, to act primarily through the spiritual
principles. To make this clearer, let us take an example. In order to stop
pain, let us say in the right eye, you have to attract to it the potent
magnetism from that cosmic principle which corresponds to this eye and
also to Buddhi. Create, by a powerful will effort, an imaginary line of
communication between the right eye and Buddhi, locating the latter as a
_centre_ in the same part of the head. This line, though you may call it
“imaginary,” is, once you succeed in seeing it with your mental eye and
give it a shape and colour, in truth as good as real. A rope in a dream
_is not_ and yet _is_. Moreover, according to the prismatic colour with
which you endow your line, so will the influence act. Now Buddhi and
Mercury correspond with each other, and both are yellow, or radiant and
golden coloured. In the human system, the right eye corresponds with
Buddhi and Mercury; and the left with Manas and Venus or Lucifer. Thus, if
your line is golden or silvery, it will stop the pain; if red, it will
increase it, for red is the colour of Kâma and corresponds with Mars.
Mental or Christian Scientists have stumbled upon the _effects_ without
understanding the _causes_. Having found by chance the secret of producing
such results owing to mental abstraction, they attribute them to their
union with God (whether a personal or impersonal God they know best),
whereas it is simply the effect of one or another principle. However it
may be, they are on the path of discovery, although they must remain
wandering for a long time to come.

Let not Esoteric students commit the same mistake. It has often been
explained that neither the cosmic planes of substance nor even the human
principles—with the exception of the lowest material plane or world and
the physical body, which, as has been said, are no “principles,”—can be
located or thought of as being in Space and Time. As the former are seven
in ONE, so are we seven in ONE—that same absolute Soul of the World, which
is both Matter and non‐Matter, Spirit and non‐Spirit, Being and non‐Being.
Impress yourselves well with this idea, all those of you who would study
the mysteries of SELF.

Remember that with our physical senses alone at our command, none of us
can hope to reach beyond gross Matter. We can do so only through one or
another of our seven _spiritual_ senses, either by training, or if one is
a born Seer. Yet even a clairvoyant possessed of such faculties, if not an
Adept, no matter how honest and sincere he may be, will, through his
ignorance of the truths of Occult Science, be led by the visions he sees
in the Astral Light only to mistake for God or Angels the denizens of
those spheres of which he may occasionally catch a glimpse, as witness
Swedenborg and others.

These seven senses of ours correspond with every other septenate in nature
and in ourselves. Physically, though invisibly, the human Auric Envelope
(the amnion of the physical man in every age of life) has seven layers,
just as Cosmic Space and our physical epidermis have. It is this Aura
which, according to our mental and physical state of purity or impurity,
either opens for us vistas into other worlds, or shuts us out altogether
from anything but this three‐dimensional world of Matter.

Each of our seven physical senses (two of which are still unknown to
profane Science), and also of our seven states of consciousness—_viz._:
(1) waking; (2) waking‐dreaming; (3) natural sleeping; (4) induced or
trance‐sleep; (5) psychic; (6) super‐psychic; and (7) purely
spiritual—corresponds with one of the seven Cosmic Planes, develops and
uses one of the seven super‐senses, and is connected directly, in its use
on the terrestro‐spiritual plane, with the cosmic and divine centre of
force that gave it birth, and which is its direct creator. Each is also
connected with, and under the direct influence of, one of the seven sacred
Planets.(776) These belonged to the Lesser Mysteries, whose followers were
called Mystai (the veiled), seeing that they were allowed to perceive
things only through a mist, as it were “with the eyes closed”; while the
Initiates or “Seers” of the Greater Mysteries were called Epoptai (those
who see things unveiled). It was the latter only who were taught the true
mysteries of the Zodiac and the relations and correspondences between its
twelve signs (two secret) and the ten human orifices. The latter are now
of course ten in the female, and only nine in the male; but this is merely
an external difference. In the second volume of this work it is stated
that till the end of the Third Root‐Race (when androgynous man separated
into male and female) the ten orifices existed in the hermaphrodite, first
potentially, then functionally. The evolution of the human embryo shows
this. For instance, the only opening formed at first is the buccal cavity,
“a _cloaca_ communicating with the anterior extremity of the intestine.”
These become later the mouth and the posterior orifice: the Logos
differentiating and emanating gross matter on the lower plane, in Occult
parlance. The difficulty which some students will experience in
reconciling the correspondences between the Zodiac and the orifices can be
easily explained. Magic is coëval with the Third Root‐Race, which began by
creating through Kriyâshakti and ended by generating its species in the
present way.(777) Woman, being left with the full or perfect cosmic number
10 (the divine number of Jehovah), was deemed higher and more spiritual
than man. In Egypt, in days of old, the marriage service contained an
article that the woman should be the “lady of the lord,” and real lord
over him, the husband pledging himself to be “obedient to his wife” for
the production of alchemical results such as the Elixir of Life and the
Philosopher’s Stone, for the _spiritual_ help of the woman was needed by
the male Alchemist. But woe to the Alchemist who should take this in the
dead‐letter sense of _physical_ union. Such sacrilege would become Black
Magic and be followed by certain failure. The true Alchemist of old took
_aged_ women to help him, carefully avoiding the young ones; and if any of
them happened to be married they treated their wives for months both
before and during their operations as sisters.

The error of crediting the Ancients with knowing only ten of the zodiacal
signs is explained in _Isis Unveiled_.(778) The Ancients did know of
twelve, but viewed these signs differently from ourselves. They took
neither Virgo nor Scorpio singly into consideration, but regarded them as
two in one, since they were made to refer directly and symbolically to the
primeval dual man and his separation into sexes. During the reformation of
the Zodiac, Libra was added as the twelfth sign, though it is simply an
equilibrating sign, at the turning point—the mystery of separated man.

Let the student learn all this well. Meanwhile we have to recapitulate
what has been said.

(1) Each human being is an incarnation of his God, in other words, one
with his “Father in Heaven,” just as Jesus, an Initiate, is made to say.
As many men on earth, so many Gods in Heaven; and yet these Gods are in
reality ONE, for at the end of every period of activity, they are
withdrawn, like the rays of the setting sun, into the Parent Luminary, the
Non‐Manifested Logos, which in its turn is merged into the One Absolute.
Shall we call these “Fathers” of ours, whether individually or
collectively, and under any circumstances, our _personal God_? Occultism
answers, _Never_. All that an average man can know of his “Father” is what
he knows of himself, through and within himself. The Soul of his “Heavenly
Father” is incarnated in him. This Soul is himself, if he be successful in
assimilating the Divine Individuality while in his physical, animal shell.
As to the Spirit thereof, as well expect to be heard by the Absolute. Our
prayers and supplications are vain, unless to potential words we add
potent acts, and make the Aura which surrounds each one of us so pure and
divine that the God within us may act outwardly, or in other words, become
as it were an extraneous Potency. Thus have Initiates, Saints, and very
holy and pure men been enabled to help others as well as themselves in the
hour of need, and produce what are foolishly called “miracles,” each by
the help and with the aid of the God within himself, which he alone has
enabled to act on the outward plane.

(2) The word AUM or OM, which corresponds to the upper Triangle, if
pronounced by a very holy and pure man, will draw out, or awaken, not only
the less exalted Potencies residing in the planetary spaces and elements,
but even his Higher Self, or the “Father” within him. Pronounced by an
averagely good man, in the correct way, it will help to strengthen him
morally, especially if between two “AUMS” he meditates intently upon the
AUM within him, concentrating all his attention upon the ineffable glory.
But woe to the man who pronounces it after the commission of some far‐
reaching sin: he will only thereby attract to his own impure photosphere
invisible Presences and Forces which could not otherwise break through the
Divine Envelope.

AUM is the original of Amen. Now, Amen is not a Hebrew term, but, like the
word Halleluiah, was borrowed by the Jews and Greeks from the Chaldees.
The latter word is often found repeated in certain magical inscriptions
upon cups and urns among the Babylonian and Ninevean relics. Amen does not
mean “so be it,” or “verily,” but signified in hoary antiquity almost the
same as AUM. The Jewish Tanaïm (Initiates) used it for the same reason as
the Âryan Adepts use AUM, and with a like success, the numerical value of
_AMeN_ in Hebrew letters being 91, the same as the full value of
_YHVH_,(779) 26, and _ADoNaY_, 65, or 91. Both words mean the affirmation
of the being, or existence, of the sexless “Lord” within us.

(3) Esoteric Science teaches that every sound in the visible world awakens
its corresponding sound in the invisible realms, and arouses to action
some force or other on the Occult side of Nature. Moreover, every sound
corresponds to a colour and a number (a potency spiritual, psychic or
physical) and to a sensation on some plane. All these find an echo in
every one of the so‐far developed elements, and even on the terrestrial
plane, in the Lives that swarm in the terrene atmosphere, thus prompting
them to action.

Thus a prayer, unless pronounced _mentally_ and addressed to one’s
“Father” in the silence and solitude of one’s “closet,” must have more
frequently disastrous than beneficial results, seeing that the masses are
entirely ignorant of the potent effects which they thus produce. To
produce good effects, the prayer must be uttered by “one who knows how to
make himself heard in silence,” when it is no longer a prayer, but becomes
a command. Why is Jesus shown to have forbidden his hearers to go to the
public synagogues? Surely every praying man was not a hypocrite and a
liar, nor a Pharisee who loved to be seen praying by people! He had a
motive, we must suppose: the same motive which prompts the experienced
Occultist to prevent his pupils from going into crowded places now as
then, from entering churches, séance rooms, etc., unless they are in
sympathy with the crowd.

There is one piece of advice to be given to beginners, who cannot help
going into crowds—one which may appear superstitious, but which in the
absence of Occult knowledge will be found efficacious. As well known to
good Astrologers, the days of the week are not in the order of those
planets whose names they bear. The fact is that the ancient Hindus and
Egyptians divided the day into four parts, each day being under the
protection (as ascertained by practical magic) of a planet; and every day,
as correctly asserted by Dion Cassius, received the name of the planet
which ruled and protected its first portion. Let the student protect
himself from the “Powers of the Air” (Elementals) which throng public
places, by wearing either a ring containing some jewel of the colour of
the presiding planet, or else of the metal sacred to it. But the best
protection is a clear conscience and a firm desire to benefit Humanity.



The Planets, The Days of the Week and Their Corresponding Colours and
Metals.


[Transcriber’s Note: This table was a wide pull‐out insert into the book,
with more columns than modern readers can display. It has been reformatted
into several tables of more manageable width.]

These Correspondences are from the Objective, Terrestrial Plane.

Âtman is no Number, and corresponds to no visible Planet, for it proceeds
from the Spiritual Sun; nor does it bear any relation either to Sound,
Colour, or the rest, for it includes them all.

As the Human Principles have no Numbers per se, but only correspond to
Numbers, Sounds, Colours, etc., they are not enumerated here in the order
used for exoteric purposes.

_NUMBERS_              _METALS._              _PLANETS._
1 and 10. Physical     Iron.                  Mars. The Planet of
Man’s Key‐note.                               Generation.
2. Life Spiritual      Gold.                  The Sun. The Giver
and Life Physical.                            of Life physically.
                                              Spiritually and
                                              esoterically the
                                              substitute for the
                                              inter‐Mercurial
                                              Planet, a sacred and
                                              secret planet with
                                              the ancients.
3. Because Buddhi is   Mercury. Mixes with    Mercury. The
(so to speak)          Sulphur, as Buddhi     Messenger and the
between Âtmâ and       is mixed with the      Interpreter of the
Manas, and forms       Flame of Spirit (See   Gods.
with the seventh, or   Alchemical
Auric Envelope, the    Definitions.)
Devachanic Triad.
4. The middle          Lead.                  Saturn.
principle—between
the purely material
and purely spiritual
triads. The
conscious part of
_animal_ man.
5.                     Tin.                   Jupiter.
6.                     Copper. When alloyed   Venus. The Morning
                       becomes Bronze (the    and the Evening
                       _dual_ principle).     Star.
7. Contains in         Silver.                The Moon. The Patent
itself the                                    of the Earth.
reflection of
Septenary Man.

_NUMBERS_              _THE HUMAN             _DAYS OF THE WEEK._
                       PRINCIPLES._
1 and 10.              Kâma Rûpa. The         Tuesday. _Dies
                       vehicle or seat of     Martis_, or Tiw.
                       the Animal Instincts
                       and Passions.
2.                     Prâna or Jîva. Life.   Sunday. _Dies
                                              Solss_, or Sun.
3.                     Buddhi. Spiritual      Wednesday. _Dies
                       Soul, or Âtmic Ray;    Mercurii_, or Woden.
                       vehicle of Âtmâ.       Day of Buddha in the
                                              South, end of Woden
                                              in the North—Gods of
                                              Wisdom.
4.                     Kâma Manas. The        Saturday. _Dies
                       Lower Mind, or         Saturns_, or Saturn.
                       Animal Soul.
5.                     Auric Envelope.        Thursday. _Dies
                                              Jovis_, or Thor.
6.                     Manas. The Higher      Friday. _Dies
                       Mind, or Human Soul.   Veneris_, or Friga.
7.                     Linga Sharîra. The
                       Astral Double of
                       Man, the Parent of
                       the Physical Man.

_NUMBERS_              _COLOURS._             _SOUND._ MUSICAL
                                              SCALE..
1 and 10.              1 Red.                 Sa or Do.
2.                     2 Orange.              Ri or Re.
3.                     3. Yellow.             Ga or Mi.
4.                     4. Green.              Ma or Fa.
5.                     5. Blue.               Pa or Sol.
6.                     6. Indigo or Dark      Da or La.
                       Blue.
7.                     7. Violet.             Ni or Si.

In the accompanying diagram the days of the week do not stand in their
usual order, though they are placed in their correct sequence as
determined by the order of the colours in the solar spectrum and the
corresponding colours of their ruling planets. The fault of the confusion
in the order of the days revealed by this comparison lies at the door of
the early Christians. Adopting from the Jews their lunar months, they
tried to blend them with the solar planets, and so made a mess of it; for
the order of the days of the week as it now stands does not follow the
order of the planets.

Now, the Ancients arranged the planets in the following order: Moon,
Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, counting the Sun as a planet
for exoteric purposes. Again, the Egyptians and Indians, the two oldest
nations, divided their day into four parts, each of which was under the
protection and rule of a planet. In course of time each day came to be
called by the name of that planet which ruled its first portion—the
morning. Now, when they arranged their week, the Christians proceeded as
follows: they wanted to make the day of the Sun, or Sunday, the seventh,
so they named the days of the week by taking every fourth planet in turn;
_e.g._, beginning with the Moon (Monday), they counted thus: Moon,
Mercury, Venus, Sun, _Mars_; thus Tuesday, the day whose first portion was
ruled by Mars, became the second day of the week; and so on. It should be
remembered also that the Moon, like the Sun, is a substitute for a secret
planet.

The present division of the solar year was made several centuries later
than the beginning of our era; and our week is not that of the Ancients
and the Occultists. The septenary division of the four parts of the lunar
phases is as old as the world, and originated with the people who reckoned
time by the lunar months. The Hebrews never used it, for they counted only
the seventh day, the Sabbath, though the second chapter of _Genesis_ seems
to speak of it. Till the days of the Cæsars there is no trace of a week of
seven days among any nation save the Hindus. From India it passed to the
Arabs, and reached Europe with Christianity. The Roman week consisted of
eight days, and the Athenian of ten.(780) Thus one of the numberless
contradictions and fallacies of Christendom is the adoption of the Indian
septenary week of the lunar reckoning, and the preservation at the same
time of the mythological names of the planets.

Nor do modern Astrologers give the correspondences of the days and planets
and their colours correctly; and while Occultists can give good reason for
every detail of their own tables of colours, etc., it is doubtful whether
the Astrologers can do the same.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

To close this first Paper, let me say that the readers must in all
necessity be separated into two broad divisions: those who have not quite
rid themselves of the usual sceptical doubts, but who long to ascertain
how much truth there may be in the claims of the Occultists; and those
others who, having freed themselves from the trammels of Materialism and
Relativity, feel that true and real bliss must be sought only in the
knowledge and personal experience of that which the Hindu Philosopher
calls the Brahmavidyâ, and the Buddhist Arhat the realization of
Âdibuddha, the primeval Wisdom. Let the former pick out and study from
these Papers only those explanations of the phenomena of life which
profane Science is unable to give them. Even with such limitations, they
will find by the end of a year or two that they will have learned more
than all their Universities and Colleges can teach them. As to the sincere
believers, they will be rewarded by seeing their faith transformed into
knowledge. True knowledge is of Spirit and in Spirit alone, and cannot be
acquired in any other way except through the region of the higher mind,
the only plane from which we can penetrate the depths of the all‐pervading
Absoluteness. He who carries out only those laws established by human
minds, who lives that life which is prescribed by the code of mortals and
their fallible legislation, chooses as his guiding star a beacon which
shines on the ocean of Mâyâ, or of temporary delusions, and lasts for but
one incarnation. These laws are necessary for the life and welfare of
physical man alone. He has chosen a pilot who directs him through the
shoals of one existence, a master who parts with him, however, on the
threshold of death. How much happier that man who, while strictly
performing on the temporary objective plane the duties of daily life,
carrying out each and every law of his country, and rendering, in short,
to Cæsar what is Cæsar’s, leads in reality a spiritual and permanent
existence, a life with no breaks of continuity, no gaps, no interludes,
not even during those periods which are the halting‐places of the long
pilgrimage of purely spiritual life. All the phenomena of the lower human
mind disappear like the curtain of a proscenium, allowing him to live in
the region beyond it, the plane of the noumenal, the one reality. If man
by suppressing, if not destroying, his selfishness and personality, only
succeeds in knowing himself as he is behind the veil of physical Mâyâ, he
will soon stand beyond all pain, all misery, and beyond all the wear and
tear of change, which is the chief originator of pain. Such a man will be
physically of Matter, he will move surrounded by Matter, and yet he will
live beyond and outside it. His body will be subject to change, but he
himself will be entirely without it, and will experience everlasting life
even while in temporary bodies of short duration. All this may be achieved
by the development of unselfish universal love of Humanity, and the
suppression of personality, or _selfishness_, which is the cause of all
sin, and consequently of all human sorrow.



Paper II. An Explanation.


In view of the abstruse nature of the subjects dealt with, the present
Paper will begin with an explanation of some points which remained obscure
in the preceding one, as well as of some statements in which there was an
appearance of contradiction.

Astrologers, of whom there are many among the Esotericists, are likely to
be puzzled by some statements distinctly contradicting their teachings;
whilst those who know nothing of the subject may perhaps find themselves
opposed at the outset by those who have studied the exoteric systems of
the Kabalah and Astrology. For let it be distinctly known, nothing of that
which is printed broadcast, and available to every student in public
libraries or museums, is really Esoteric, but is either mixed with
deliberate “blinds,” or cannot be understood and studied with profit
without a complete glossary of Occult terms.

The following teachings and explanations, therefore, may be useful to the
student in assisting him to formulate the teaching given in the preceding
Paper.

In Diagram I. it will be observed that the 3, 7, and 10 centres are
respectively as follows:

(_a_) The 3 pertain to the spiritual world of the Absolute, and therefore
to the three higher principles in Man.

(_b_) The 7 belong to the spiritual, psychic, and physical worlds and to
the body of man. Physics, metaphysics and hyper‐physics are the triad that
symbolizes man on this plane.

(_c_) The 10, or the sum total of these, is the Universe as a whole, in
all its aspects, and also its Microcosm—Man, with his ten orifices.

Laying aside, for the moment, the Higher Decad (Kosmos) and the Lower
Decad (Man), the first three numbers of the separate sevens have a direct
reference to the Spirit, Soul and Auric Envelope of the human being, as
well as to the higher supersensual world. The lower four, or the four
aspects, belong to Man also, as well as to the Universal Kosmos, the whole
being synthesized by the Absolute.

If these three discrete or distributive degrees of Being be conceived,
according to the Symbology of all the Eastern Religions, as contained in
one Ovum, or EGG, the name of that EGG will be Svabhâvat, or the ALL‐BEING
on the manifested plane. This Universe has, in truth, neither centre nor
periphery; but in the individual and finite mind of man it has such a
definition, the natural consequence of the limitations of human thought.

In Diagram II., as already stated therein, no notice need be taken of the
numbers used in the left‐hand column, as these refer only to the
Hierarchies of the Colours and Sounds on the metaphysical plane, and are
not the characteristic numbers of the human principles or of the planets.
The human principles elude enumeration, because each man differs from
every other, just as no two blades of grass on the whole earth are
absolutely alike. Numbering is here a question of spiritual progress and
the natural predominance of one principle over another. With one man it
may be Buddhi that stands as number one; with another, if he be a bestial
sensualist, the Lower Manas. With one the physical body, or perhaps Prâna,
the life principle, will be on the first and highest plane, as would be
the case in an extremely healthy man, full of vitality; with another it
may come as the sixth or even seventh downward. Again, the colours and
metals corresponding to the planets and human principles, as will be
observed, are not those known exoterically to modern Astrologers and
Western Occultists.

Let us see whence the modern Astrologer got his notions about the
correspondence of planets, metals and colours. And here we are reminded of
the modern Orientalist, who, judging by appearances credits the ancient
Akkadians (and also the Chaldæans, Hindus and Egyptians) with the crude
notion that the Universe, and in like manner the earth, was like an
inverted, bell‐shaped bowl! This he demonstrates by pointing to the
symbolical representations of some Akkadian inscriptions and to the
Assyrian carvings. It is, however, no place here to explain how mistaken
is the Assyriologist, for all such representations are simply symbolical
of the _Khargakkurra_, the World‐Mountain, or Meru, and relate only to the
North Pole, the Land of the Gods. Now, the Assyrians arranged their
_exoteric_ teaching about the planets and their correspondences as
follows:

Diagram II.

_Numbers._   _Planets._   _Metals._      _Colours._   _Solar
                                                      Days of
                                                      Week._
1.           Saturn.      Lead.          Black.       Saturday.
                                                      (Whence
                                                      Sabbath,(781)
                                                      in honour
                                                      of
                                                      Jehovah.)
2.           Jupiter.     Tin.           White, but   Thursday.
                                         as often
                                         Purple or
                                         Orange.
3.           Mars.        Iron.          Red.         Tuesday.
4.           Sun.         Gold.          Yellow‐      Sunday.
                                         golden.
5.           Venus.       Copper.        Green or     Friday.
                                         Yellow.
6.           Mercury.     Quicksilver.   Blue.        Wednesday.
7.           Moon.        Silver.        Silver‐      Monday.
                                         white.

This is the arrangement now adopted by Christian Astrologers, with the
exception of the order of the days of the week, of which, by associating
the solar planetary names with the lunar weeks, they have made a sore
mess, as has been already shown in Paper I. This is the Ptolemaic
geocentric system, which represents the Universe as in the following
diagram, showing our Earth in the centre of the Universe, and the Sun a
Planet, the fourth in number.

And if the Christian chronology and order of the days of the week are
being daily denounced as being based on an entirely wrong astronomical
foundation, it is high time to begin a reform also in Astrology built on
such lines, and coming to us entirely from the Chaldæan and Assyrian
exoteric mob.

But the correspondences given in these Papers are purely Esoteric. For
this reason it follows that when the Planets of the Solar System are named
or symbolized (as in Diagram II.) it must not be supposed that the
planetary bodies themselves are referred to, except as types on a purely
physical plane of the septenary nature of the psychic and spiritual
worlds. A material planet can correspond only to a material something.
Thus when Mercury is said to correspond to the right eye, it does not mean
that the objective planet has any influence on the right optic organ, but
that both stand rather as corresponding mystically through Buddhi. Man
derives his Spiritual Soul (Buddhi) from the essence of the Mânasa Putra,
the Sons of Wisdom, who are the Divine Beings (or Angels) ruling and
presiding over the planet Mercury.

In the same way Venus, Manas and the left eye are set down as
correspondences. Exoterically, there is, in reality, no such association
of physical eyes and physical planets; but Esoterically there is; for the
right eye is the “Eye of Wisdom,” _i.e._, it corresponds magnetically with
that Occult centre in the brain which we call the “Third Eye”;(782) while
the left corresponds with the intellectual brain, or those cells which are
the organ on the physical plane of the thinking faculty. The kabalistic
triangle of Kether, Chokmah and Binah shows this. Chokmah and Binah, or
Wisdom and Intelligence, the Father and Mother, or, again, the Father and
Son, are on the same plane and reäct mutually on one another.

When the individual consciousness is turned inward, a conjunction of Manas
and Buddhi takes place. In the spiritually regenerated man this
conjunction is permanent, the Higher Manas clinging to Buddhi beyond the
threshold of Devachan, and the Soul, or rather the Spirit, which should
not be confounded with Âtmâ, the Super‐Spirit, is then said to have the
“Single Eye.” Esoterically, in other words, the “Third Eye” is active. Now
Mercury is called Hermes, and Venus, Aphrodite, and thus their conjunction
in man on the psycho‐physical plane gives him the name of the
Hermaphrodite, or Androgyne. The absolutely Spiritual Man is, however,
entirely disconnected from sex. The Spiritual Man corresponds directly
with the higher “coloured circles,” the Divine Prism which emanates from
the One Infinite White Circle; while physical man emanates from the
Sephiroth, which are the Voices or Sounds of Eastern Philosophy. And these
“Voices” are lower than the “Colours,” for they are the seven lower
Sephiroth, or the objective Sounds, seen, not heard, as the _Zohar_
shows,(783) and even the Old Testament also. For, when properly
translated, verse 18 of chapter xx. _Exodus_ would read: “And the people
saw the Voices” (or Sounds, not the “thunderings” as now translated); and
these Voices, or Sounds, are the Sephiroth.(784)

In the same way the right and left nostrils, into which is breathed the
“Breath of Lives”(785) are here said to correspond with Sun and Moon, as
Brahmâ‐Prajâpati and Vâch, or Osiris and Isis, are the parents of the
natural life. This Quaternary, _viz._: the two eyes and two nostrils,
Mercury and Venus, Sun and Moon, constitutes the Kabalistic Guardian‐
Angels of the Four Corners of the Earth. It is the same in the Eastern
Esoteric Philosophy, which, however, adds that the Sun is not a planet,
but the central star of our system, and the Moon a dead planet, from which
all the principles are gone, both being substitutes, the one for an
invisible inter‐Mercurial planet, and the other for a planet which seems
to have now altogether disappeared from view. These are the Four
Mahârâjahs,(786) the “Four Holy Ones” connected with Karma and Humanity,
Kosmos and Man, in all their aspects. They are: the Sun, or its substitute
Michael; Moon, or substitute Gabriel; Mercury, Raphael; and Venus, Uriel.
It need hardly be said here again that the planetary bodies themselves,
being only physical symbols, are not often referred to in the Esoteric
System, but, as a rule, their cosmic, psychic, physical and spiritual
forces are symbolized under these names. In short, it is the seven
physical planets which are the lower Sephiroth of the _Kabalah_, and our
triple physical Sun whose reflection only we see, which is symbolized, or
rather personified, by the Upper Triad, or Sephirothal Crown.(787)

Then, again, it will be well to point out that the numbers attached to the
psychic principles in Diagram I. appear the reverse of those in exoteric
writings. This is because numbers in this connection are purely arbitrary,
changing with every school. Some schools count three, some four, some six,
and others seven, as do all the Buddhist Esotericists. As said
before,(788) the Esoteric School has been divided into two departments
since the fourteenth century, one for the inner Lanoos, or higher Chelâs,
the other for the outer circle, or lay Chelâs. Mr. Sinnett was distinctly
told in the letters he received from one of the Gurus that he could not be
taught the real Esoteric Doctrine given out only to the pledged disciples
of the Inner Circle. The numbers and principles do not go in regular
sequence, like the skins of an onion, but the student must work out for
himself the number appropriate to each of his principles, when the time
comes for him to enter upon practical study. The above will suggest to the
student the necessity of knowing the principles by their names and their
appropriate faculties apart from any system of enumeration, or by
association with their corresponding centres of actions, colours, sounds,
etc., until these become inseparable.

The old and familiar mode of reckoning the principles, given in the
_Theosophist_ and _Esoteric Buddhism_, leads to another apparently
perplexing contradiction, though it is really none at all. The principles
numbered 3 and 2, _viz._: Linga Sharîra and Prâna, or Jîva, stand in the
reverse order to that given in Diagram I. A moment’s consideration will
suffice to explain the apparent discrepancy between the exoteric
enumeration, and the Esoteric order given in Diagram I. For in Diagram I.
the Linga Sharîra is defined as the vehicle of Prâna, or Jîva, the life
principle, and as such must of necessity be inferior to Prâna, not
superior as the exoteric enumeration would suggest. The principles do not
stand one above the other, and thus cannot be taken in numerical sequence;
their order depends upon the superiority and predominance of one or
another principle, and therefore differs in every man.

The Linga Sharîra is the double, or protoplasmic antetype of the body,
which is its image. It is in this sense that it is called in Diagram II.
the parent of the physical body, _i.e._, the mother by conception of
Prâna, the father. This idea is conveyed in the Egyptian mythology by the
birth of Horus, the child of Osiris and Isis, although, like all sacred
Mythoi, this has both a threefold spiritual, and a sevenfold psycho‐
physical application. To close the subject, Prâna, the life principle,
can, in sober truth, have no number, as it pervades every other principle,
or the human total. Each number of the seven would thus be naturally
applicable to Prâna‐Jîva exoterically as it is to the Auric Body
Esoterically. As Pythagoras showed, Kosmos was produced not _through_ or
_by_ number, but geometrically, _i.e._, following the proportions of
numbers.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

To those who are unacquainted with the exoteric astrological natures
ascribed in practice to the planetary bodies, it may be useful if we set
them down here after the manner of Diagram II., in relation to their
dominion over the human body, colours, metals, etc., and explain at the
same time why genuine Esoteric Philosophy differs from the astrological
claims.

_Planets._   _Days._      _Metals._      _Parts of    _Colours._
                                         the Body._
Saturn.      Saturday.    Lead.          Right Ear,   Black.(789)
                                         Knees and
                                         Bony
                                         System.
Jupiter.     Thursday.    Tin.           Left Ear,    Purple.(790)
                                         Thighs,
                                         Feet and
                                         Arterial
                                         System.
Mars.        Tuesday.     Iron.          Forehead     Red.
                                         and Nose,
                                         the Skull,
                                         Sex‐
                                         function
                                         and
                                         Muscular
                                         System.
Sun.         Sunday.      Gold.          Right Eye,   Orange.(791)
                                         Heart and
                                         Vital
                                         Centres.
Venus.       Friday.      Copper.        Chin and     Yellow.(792)
                                         Cheeks,
                                         Neck and
                                         Reins and
                                         the Venous
                                         System.
Mercury.     Wednesday.   Quicksilver.   Mouth,       Dove or
                                         Hands,       Cream.(793)
                                         Abdominal
                                         Viscera
                                         and
                                         Nervous
                                         System.
Moon.        Monday.      Silver.        Breasts,     White.(794)
                                         Left Eye,
                                         the
                                         Fluidic
                                         System,
                                         Saliva,
                                         Lymph,
                                         etc.

Thus it will be seen that the influence of the solar system in the
exoteric kabalistic Astrology is by this method distributed over the
entire human body, the primary metals, and the gradations of colour from
black to white; but that Esotericism recognizes neither black nor white as
colours, because it holds religiously to the seven solar or natural
colours of the prism. Black and white are artificial tints. They belong to
the Earth, and are only perceived by virtue of the special construction of
our physical organs. White is the absence of all colours, and therefore no
colour; black is simply the absence of light, and therefore the negative
aspect of white. The seven prismatic colours are direct emanations from
the Seven Hierarchies of Being, each of which has a direct bearing upon
and relation to one of the human principles, since each of these
Hierarchies is, in fact, the creator and source of the corresponding human
principle. Each prismatic colour is called in Occultism the “Father of the
Sound” which corresponds to it; Sound being the Word, or the Logos, of its
Father‐Thought. This is the reason why sensitives connect every colour
with a definite sound, a fact well recognized in Modern Science (_e.g._,
Francis Galton’s _Human Faculty_). But black and white are entirely
negative colours, and have no representatives in the world of subjective
being.

Kabalistic Astrology says that the dominion of the planetary bodies in the
human brain also is defined thus: there are seven primary groups of
faculties, six of which function through the cerebrum, and the seventh
through the cerebellum. This is perfectly correct Esoterically. But when
it is further said that: Saturn governs the devotional faculties; Mercury,
the intellectual; Jupiter, the sympathetic; the Sun, the governing
faculties; Mars, the selfish; Venus, the tenacious; and the Moon, the
instincts;—we say that the explanation is incomplete and even misleading.
For, in the first place, the physical planets can rule only the physical
body and the purely physical functions. All the mental, emotional, psychic
and spiritual faculties, are influenced by the Occult properties of the
scale of causes which emanate from the Hierarchies of the Spiritual Rulers
of the planets, and not by the planets themselves. This scale, as given in
Diagram II., leads the student to perceive in the following order: (1)
colour; (2) sound; (3) the sound materializes into the spirit of the
metals, _i.e._, the metallic Elementals; (4) these materialize again into
the physical metals; (5) then the harmonial and vibratory radiant essence
passes into the plants, giving them colour and smell, both of which
“properties” depend upon the rate of vibration of this energy per unit of
time; (6) from plants it passes into the animals; (7) and finally
culminates in the “principles” of man.

Thus we see the Divine Essence of our Progenitors in Heaven circling
through seven stages; Spirit becoming Matter, and Matter returning to
Spirit. As there is sound in Nature which is inaudible, so there is colour
which is invisible, but which can be heard. The creative force, at work in
its incessant task of transformation, produces colour, sound and numbers,
in the shape of rates of vibration which compound and dissociate the atoms
and molecules. Though invisible and inaudible to us in detail, yet the
synthesis of the whole becomes audible to us on the material plane. It is
that which the Chinese call the “Great Tone,” or _Kung_. It is, even by
scientific confession, the actual tonic of Nature, held by musicians to be
the middle Fa on the keyboard of a piano. We hear it distinctly in the
voice of Nature, in the roaring of the ocean, in the sound of the foliage
of a great forest, in the distant roar of a great city, in the wind, the
tempest and the storm; in short, in everything in Nature which has a voice
or produces sound. To the hearing of all who hearken, it culminates in a
single definite tone, of an unappreciable pitch, which, as said, is the F,
or Fa, of the diatonic scale. From these particulars, that wherein lies
the difference between the exoteric and the Esoteric nomenclature and
symbolism will be evident to the student of Occultism. In short,
kabalistic Astrology, as practised in Europe, is the semi‐esoteric Secret
Science, adapted for the outer and not for the inner circle. It is,
furthermore, often left incomplete and not infrequently distorted to
conceal the real truth. While it symbolizes and adapts its correspondences
on the mere appearances of things, Esoteric Philosophy, which concerns
itself pre‐eminently with the essence of things, accepts only such symbols
as cover the whole ground, _i.e._, such symbols as yield a spiritual as
well as a psychic and physical meaning. Yet even Western Astrology has
done excellent work, for it has helped to carry the knowledge of the
existence of a Secret Wisdom throughout the dangers of the Mediæval Ages
and their dark bigotry up to the present day, when all danger has
disappeared.

The order of the planets in exoteric practice is that defined by their
geocentric radii, or the distance of their several orbits from the Earth
as a centre, _viz._, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury and Moon.
In the first three of these we find symbolized the celestial Triad of
supreme power in the physical, manifested universe, or Brahmâ, Vishnu and
Shiva; while in the last four we recognize the symbols of the terrestrial
quaternary ruling over all natural and physical revolutions of the
seasons, quarters of the day, points of the compass, and elements. Thus:

Spring.     Summer.         Autumn.      Winter.
Morning.    Noon.           Evening.     Night.
Youth.      Adolescence.    Manhood.     Age.
Fire.       Air.            Water.       Earth.
East.       South.          West.        North.

But Esoteric Science is not content with analogies on the purely objective
plane of the physical senses, and therefore it is absolutely necessary to
preface further teachings in this direction with a clear explanation of
the real meaning of the word Magic.



What Magic Is, In Reality.


Esoteric Science is, above all, the knowledge of our relations with and in
Divine Magic,(795) inseparableness from our divine _Selves_—the latter
meaning something else besides our own higher Spirit. Thus, before
proceeding to exemplify and explain these relations, it may perhaps be
useful to give the student a correct idea of the full meaning of this most
misunderstood word “Magic.” Many are those willing and eager to study
Occultism, but very few have even an approximate idea of the Science
itself. Now, very few of our American and European students can derive
benefit from Sanskrit works or even their translations, as these
translations are, for the most part, merely blinds to the uninitiated. I
therefore propose to offer to their attention demonstrations of the
aforesaid drawn from Neo‐Platonic works. These are accessible in
translation; and in order to throw light on that which has hitherto been
full of darkness, it will suffice to point to a certain key in them. Thus
the Gnosis, both pre‐Christian and post‐Christian, will serve our purpose
admirably.

There are millions of Christians who know the name of Simon Magus, and the
little that is told about him in the _Acts_; but very few who have even
heard of the many motley, fantastic and contradictory details which
tradition records about his life. The story of his claims and his death is
to be found only in the prejudiced, half‐fantastic records about him in
the works of the Church Fathers, such as Irenæus, Epiphanius and St.
Justin, and especially in the anonymous _Philosophumena_. Yet he is a
historical character, and the appellation of “Magus” was given to him and
was accepted by all his contemporaries, including the heads of the
Christian Church, as a qualification indicating the miraculous powers he
possessed, and irrespective of whether he was regarded as a white (divine)
or a black (infernal) Magician. In this respect, opinion has always been
made subservient to the Gentile or Christian proclivities of his
chronicler.

It is in his system and in that of Menander, his pupil and successor, that
we find what the term “Magic” meant for Initiates in those days.

Simon, as all the other Gnostics, taught that our world was created by the
_lower_ angels, whom he called Æons. He mentions only three degrees of
such, because it was and is useless, as we have before explained, to teach
anything about the four higher ones, and he therefore begins at the plane
of globes A and G. His system is as near to Occult Truth as any, so that
we may examine it, as well as his own and Menander’s claims about “Magic,”
to find out what they meant by the term. Now, for Simon, the summit of all
manifested creation was Fire. It was, with him as with us, the Universal
Principle, the Infinite Potency, born from the concealed Potentiality.
This Fire was the primeval cause of the manifested world of being, and was
dual, having a manifested and a concealed, or secret, side.


    The secret side of the Fire is concealed in its evident [or
    objective] side, and the objective is produced from the secret
    side,(796)


he writes, which amounts to saying that the visible is ever present in the
invisible, and the invisible in the visible. This was but a new form of
stating Plato’s idea of the Intelligible (_Noêton_) and the Sensible
(_Aisthêton_), and Aristotle’s teaching on the Potency (_Dunamis_) and the
Act (_Energeia_). For Simon, all that can be thought of, all that can be
acted upon, was perfect intelligence. Fire contained _all_. And thus all
the parts of that Fire, being endowed with intelligence and reason, were
susceptible of development by extension and emanation. This is our
teaching of the Manifested Logos, and these parts in their primordial
emanation are our Dhyân Chohans, the “Sons of Flame and Fire,” or higher
Æons. This “Fire” is the symbol of the active and living side of Divine
Nature. Behind it lay “infinite Potentiality in Potentiality,” which Simon
named “that which has stood, stands and will stand,” or permanent
stability and personified immutability.

From the Potency of Thought, Divine Ideation thus passed to Action. Hence
the series of primordial emanations through Thought begetting the Act, the
objective side of Fire being the Mother, the sacred side of it being the
Father. Simon called these emanations Syzygies (a united pair, or couple),
for they emanated two‐by‐two, one as an active, and the other as a passive
Æon. Three couples thus emanated (or six in all, the Fire being the
seventh), to which Simon gave the following names: “Mind and Thought;
Voice and Name; Reason and Reflection,”(797) the first in each pair being
male, the last female. From these primordial six emanated the six Æons of
the Middle World. Let us see what Simon himself says:


    Each of these six primitive beings contained the entire infinite
    Potency [of its parent]; but it was there only in Potency, and not
    in Act. That Potency had to be called forth [or conformed] through
    an _image_ in order that it should manifest in all its essence,
    virtue, grandeur and effects; for only then could the emanated
    Potency become similar to its parent, the eternal and infinite
    Potency. If, on the contrary, it remained simply potentially in
    the six Potencies and failed to be conformed through an image,
    then the Potency would not pass into action, but would get
    lost,(798)


in clearer terms, it would become atrophied, as the modern expression
goes.

Now, what do these words mean if not that to be equal in all things to the
Infinite Potency the Æons had to imitate it in its action, and become
themselves, in their turn, emanative Principles, as was their Parent,
giving life to new beings, and becoming Potencies _in actu_ themselves? To
produce emanations, or to have acquired the gift of Kriyâ‐shakti.(799) is
the direct result of that power, an effect which depends on our own
action. That power, then, is inherent in man, as it is in the primordial
Æons and even in the secondary Emanations, by the very fact of their and
our descent from the One Primordial Principle, the Infinite Power, or
Potency. Thus we find in the system of Simon Magus that the first six
Æons, synthesized by the seventh, the Parent Potency, passed into Act, and
emanated, in their turn, six secondary Æons, which were each synthesized
by their respective Parents. In the _Philosophumena_ we read that Simon
compared the Æons to the “Tree of Life.” Said Simon in the
_Revelation_:(800)


    It is written that there are two ramifications of the universal
    Æons, having neither beginning nor end, issued both from the same
    Root, the invisible and incomprehensible Potentiality, Sigê
    [Silence]. One of these [series of Æons] appears from above. This
    is the Great Potency, Universal Mind [or Divine Ideation, the
    Mahat of the Hindus]; it orders all things and is male. The other
    is from below, for it is the Great [manifested] Thought, the
    female Æon, generating all things. These [two kinds of Æons]
    corresponding(801) with each other, have conjunction and manifest
    the middle distance [the intermediate sphere, or plane], the
    incomprehensible Air which has neither beginning nor end.(802)


This female “Air” is our Ether, or the kabalistic Astral Light. It is,
then, the Second World of Simon, born of Fire, the principle of
everything. We call it the ONE LIFE, the Intelligent, Divine Flame,
omnipresent and infinite. In Simon’s system this Second World was ruled by
a Being, or Potency, both male and female, or active and passive, good and
bad. This Parent‐Being, like the primordial infinite Potency, is also
called “that which has stood, stands and will stand,” so long as the
manifested Kosmos shall last. When it emanated _in actu_ and became like
unto its own Parent, it was not dual or androgyne. It is the Thought
(Sigê) that emanated from it which became as itself (the Parent), having
become like unto its image (or antetype); the second had now become in its
turn the first (on its own plane or sphere). As Simon has it:


    It [the Parent or Father] was one. For having it [the Thought] in
    itself, it was alone. It was not, however, first, though it was
    preëxisting; but manifesting itself to itself from itself, it
    became the second (or dual). Nor was it called Father before it
    [the Thought] gave it that name. As, therefore, itself developing
    itself by itself, manifested to itself its own Thought, so also
    the Thought being manifested did not act, but seeing the Father
    hid it in itself, that is, (hid) that Potency (in itself). And the
    Potency [_Dunamis_, _viz._: _Nous_] and Thought [_Epinoia_] are
    male‐female. Whence they correspond with one another—for Potency
    in no way differs from Thought—being one. So from the things above
    is found Potency, and from those below, Thought. It comes to pass,
    therefore, that that which is manifested from them, although being
    one, yet is found to be twofold, the androgyne having the female
    in itself. So is Mind in Thought, things inseparable from each
    other which though being one are yet found dual.(803)

    He [Simon] calls the first Syzygy of the six Potencies and of the
    seventh, which is with it, Nous and Epinoia, Heaven and Earth: the
    male looks down from on high and takes thought for his Syzygy [or
    spouse], for the Earth below receives those intellectual fruits
    which are brought down from Heaven and are cognate to the
    Earth.(804)


Simon’s Third World with its third series of six Æons and the seventh, the
Parent, is emanated in the same way. It is this same note which runs
through every Gnostic system—gradual development downward into Matter by
similitude; and it is a law which is to be traced down to primordial
Occultism, or Magic. With the Gnostics, as with us, this seventh Potency,
synthesizing all, is the Spirit brooding over the dark waters of
undifferentiated Space, Nârâyana, or Vishnu, in India; the Holy Ghost in
Christianity. But while in the latter the conception is conditioned and
dwarfed by limitations necessitating faith and grace, Eastern Philosophy
shows it pervading every atom, conscious or unconscious. Irenæus
supplements the information on the further development of these six Æons.
We learn from him that Thought, having separated itself from its Parent,
and knowing through its identity of Essence with the latter what it had to
know, proceeded on the second or intermediate plane, or rather World (each
of such Worlds consisting of two planes, the superior and inferior, male
and female, the latter assuming finally both Potencies and becoming
androgyne), to create inferior Hierarchies, Angels and Powers, Dominions
and Hosts, of every description, which in their turn created, or rather
emanated out of their own Essence, our world with its men and beings, over
which they watch.

It thus follows that every rational being—called Man on Earth—is of the
same essence and possesses potentially all the attributes of the higher
Æons, the primordial Seven. It is for him to develope, “with the image
before him of the highest,” by imitation _in actu_, the Potency with which
the highest of his Parents, or Fathers, is endowed. Here we may again
quote with advantage from the _Philosophumena_:


    So then, according to Simon, this blissful and imperishable
    [principle] is concealed in everything in potency, not in act.
    This is “that which has stood, stands and will stand,” _viz._,
    that which has stood above in ingenerable Potency; that which
    stands below in the stream of the waters generated in an image;
    that which will stand above, beside the blissful infinite Potency,
    if it makes itself like unto this image. For three, he says, are
    they that stand, and without these three Æons of stability, there
    is no adornment of the generable which, according to them [the
    Simonians], is borne on the water, and being moulded according to
    the similitude is a perfect and celestial (Æon), in no manner of
    thinking inferior to the ingenerable Potency. Thus they say: “I
    and thou [are] one; before me [wast] thou; that which is after
    thee [is] I.” This, he says, is the one Potency, divided into
    above and below, generating itself, nourishing itself, seeking
    itself, finding itself; its own mother, father, brother, spouse,
    daughter and son, one, for it is the Root of all.(805)


Thus of this triple Æon, we learn the first exists as “that which has
stood, stands and will stand,” or the uncreate Power, Âtman; the second is
generated in the dark waters of Space (Chaos, or undifferentiated
Substance, our Buddhi), from or through the image of the former reflected
in those waters, the image of Him, or It, which moves on them; the third
World (or, in man, Manas) will be endowed with every power of that eternal
and omnipresent Image if it but assimilates it to itself. For,


    All that is eternal, pure and incorruptible is concealed in
    everything that is,


if only potentially, not actually. And


    Everything is that image, provided the lower image (man) ascends
    to that highest Source and Root in Spirit and Thought.


Matter as Substance is eternal and has never been created. Therefore Simon
Magus, with all the great Gnostic Teachers and Eastern Philosophers, never
speaks of its beginning. “Eternal Matter” receives its various forms in
the lower Æon from the Creative Angels, or Builders, as we call them. Why,
then, should not Man, the direct heir of the highest Æon, do the same, by
the potency of his thought, which is born from Spirit? This is
Kriyâshakti, the power of producing forms on the objective plane through
the potency of Ideation and Will, from invisible, indestructible Matter.

Truly says Jeremiah,(806) quoting the “Word of the Lord”:


    Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou
    camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee,


for Jeremiah stands here for Man when he was yet an Æon, or Divine Man,
both with Simon Magus and Eastern Philosophy. The first three chapters of
_Genesis_ are as Occult as that which is given in Paper I. For the
terrestrial Paradise is the Womb, says Simon,(807) Eden the region
surrounding it. The river which went out of Eden to water the garden is
the Umbilical Cord; this cord is divided into four Heads, the streams that
flowed out of it, the four canals which serve to carry nutrition to the
Fœtus, _i.e._, the two arteries and the two veins which are the channels
for the blood and convey the breathing air, the unborn child, according to
Simon, being entirely enveloped by the Amnion, fed through the Umbilical
Cord and given vital air through the Aorta.(808)

The above is given for the elucidation of that which is to follow. The
disciples of Simon Magus were numerous, and were instructed by him in
Magic. They made use of so‐called “exorcisms” (as in the _New Testament_),
incantations, philtres; believed in dreams and visions, and produced them
at will; and finally forced the lower orders of spirits to obey them.
Simon Magus was called “the Great Power of God,” literally “the Potency of
the Deity which is called Great.” That which was then termed Magic we now
call Theosophia, or Divine Wisdom, Power and Knowledge.

His direct disciple, Menander, was also a great Magician. Says Irenæus,
among other writers:


    The successor of Simon was Menander, a Samaritan by birth, who
    reached the highest summits in the Science of Magic.


Thus both master and pupil are shown as having attained the highest powers
in the art of enchantments, powers which can be obtained only through “the
help of the Devil,” as Christians claim; and yet their “works” were
identical with those spoken of in the _New Testament_, wherein such
phenomenal results are called divine miracles, and are, therefore,
believed in and accepted as coming from and through God. But the question
is, have these so‐called “miracles” of the “Christ” and the Apostles ever
been explained any more than the magical achievements of so‐called
Sorcerers and Magicians? I say, never. We Occultists do not believe in
supernatural phenomena, and the Masters laugh at the word “miracle.” Let
us see, then, what is really the sense of the word Magic.

The source and basis of it lie in Spirit and Thought, whether on the
purely divine or the terrestrial plane. Those who know the history of
Simon have the two versions before them, that of White and of Black Magic,
at their option, in the much talked of union of Simon with Helena, whom he
called his Epinoia (Thought). Those who, like the Christians, had to
discredit a dangerous rival, talk of Helena as being a beautiful and
actual woman, whom Simon had met in a house of ill‐fame at Tyre, and who
was, according to those who wrote his life, the reincarnation of Helen of
Troy. How, then, was she “Divine Thought”? The lower angels, Simon is made
to say in _Philosophumena_, or the third Æons, being so material, had more
badness in them than all the others. Poor man, created or emanated from
them, had the vice of his origin. What was it? Only this: when the third
Æons possessed themselves, in their turn, of the Divine Thought through
the transmission into them of Fire, instead of making of man a complete
being, according to the universal plan, they at first detained from him
that Divine Spark (Thought, on Earth Manas); and that was the cause and
origin of senseless man’s committing the original sin as the angels had
committed it æons before by refusing to create.(809) Finally, after
detaining Epinoia prisoner amongst them and having subjected the Divine
Thought to every kind of insult and desecration, they ended by shutting it
into the already defiled body of man. After this, as interpreted by the
enemies of Simon, she passed from one female body into another through
ages and races, until Simon found and recognized her in the form of
Helena, the “prostitute,” the “lost sheep” of the parable. Simon is made
to represent himself as the Saviour descended on Earth to rescue this
“lamb” and those men in whom Epinoia is still under the dominion of the
lower angels. The greatest magical feats are thus attributed to Simon
through his sexual union with Helena, hence Black Magic. Indeed, the chief
rites of this kind of Magic are based on such disgusting literal
interpretation of noble myths, one of the noblest of which was thus
invented by Simon as a symbolical mark of his own teaching. Those who
understood it correctly knew what was meant by “Helena.” It was the
marriage of Nous (Âtmâ‐Buddhi) with Manas, the union through which Will
and Thought become one and are endowed with divine powers. For Âtman in
man, being of an unalloyed essence, the primordial Divine Fire (or the
eternal and universal “that which has stood, stands and will stand”), is
of all the planes; and Buddhi is its vehicle or Thought, generated by and
generating the “Father” in her turn, and also Will. She is “that which has
stood, stands and will stand,” thus becoming, in conjunction with Manas,
male‐female, in this sphere only. Hence, when Simon spoke of himself as
the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and of Helena as his Epinoia,
Divine Thought, he meant the marriage of his Buddhi with Manas. Helena was
the Shakti of the inner man, the female potency.

Now, what says Menander? The lower angels, he taught, were the emanations
of Ennoia (Designing Thought). It was Ennoia who taught the Science of
Magic and imparted it to him, together with the art of conquering the
creative angels of the lower world. The latter stand for the passions of
our lower nature. His pupils, after receiving baptism from him (_i.e._,
after Initiation), were said to “resurrect from the dead” and, “growing no
older,” became “immortal.”(810) This “resurrection” promised by Menander
meant, of course, simply the passage from the darkness of ignorance into
the light of truth, the awakening of man’s immortal Spirit to inner and
eternal life. This is the Science of the Râja Yogîs—Magic.

Every person who has read Neo‐Platonic Philosophy knows how its chief
Adepts, such as Plotinus, and especially Porphyry, fought against
phenomenal Theurgy. But, beyond all of them, Jamblichus, the author of the
_De Mysteriis_, lifts high the veil from the real term Theurgy, and shows
us therein the true Divine Science of Râja Yoga.

Magic, he says, is a lofty and sublime Science, Divine, and exalted above
all others.


    It is the great remedy for all.... It neither takes its source in,
    nor is it limited to, the body or its passions, to the human
    compound or its constitution; but all is derived by it from our
    upper Gods,


our divine Egos, which run like a silver thread from the Spark in us up to
the primeval divine Fire.(811)

Jamblichus execrates physical phenomena, produced, as he says, by the bad
demons who deceive men (the spooks of the séance room), as vehemently as
he exalts Divine Theurgy. But to exercise the latter, he teaches, the
Theurgist must imperatively be “a man of high morality and a chaste Soul.”
The other kind of Magic is used only by impure, selfish men, and has
nothing of the Divine in it. No real Vates would ever consent to find in
its communications anything coming from our higher Gods. Thus one
(Theurgy) is the knowledge of our Father (the Higher Self); the other,
subjection to our lower nature. One requires holiness of the Soul, a
holiness which rejects and excludes everything corporeal; the other, the
desecration of it (the Soul). One is the union with the Gods (with one’s
God), the source of all Good; the other intercourse with demons
(Elementals), which, unless we subject them, will subject us, and lead us
step by step to moral ruin (mediumship). In short:


    Theurgy unites us most strongly to divine nature. This nature
    begets itself through itself, moves through its own powers,
    supports all, and is intelligent. Being the ornament of the
    Universe, it invites us to intelligible truth, to perfection and
    imparting perfection to others. It unites us so intimately to all
    the creative actions of the Gods, according to the capacity of
    each of us, that the soul having accomplished the sacred rites is
    consolidated in their [the Gods’] actions and intelligences, until
    it launches itself into and is absorbed by the primordial divine
    essence. This is the object of the sacred Initiations of the
    Egyptians.(812)


Now, Jamblichus shows us how this union of our Higher Soul with the
Universal Soul, with the Gods, is to be effected. He speaks of Manteia,
which is Samâdhi, the highest trance.(813) He speaks also of dream which
is divine vision, when man re‐becomes again a God. By Theurgy, or Râja
Yoga, a man arrives at: (1) Prophetic Discernment through our God (the
respective Higher Ego of each of us) revealing to us the truths of the
plane on which we happen to be acting; (2) Ecstacy and Illumination; (3)
Action in Spirit (in Astral Body or through Will); (4) and Domination over
the minor, senseless demons (Elementals) by the very nature of our
purified Egos. But this demands the complete purification of the latter.
And this is called by him Magic, through initiation into Theurgy.

But Theurgy has to be preceded by a training of our senses and the
knowledge of the human Self in relation to the Divine SELF. So long as man
has not thoroughly mastered this preliminary study, it is idle to
anthropomorphize the formless. By “formless” I mean the higher and the
lower Gods, the supermundane as well as mundane Spirits, or Beings, which
to beginners can be revealed only in Colours and Sounds. For none but a
high Adept can perceive a “God” in its true transcendental form, which to
the untrained intellect, to the Chelâ, will be visible only by its Aura.
The visions of full figures casually perceived by sensitives and mediums
belong to one or another of the only three categories they can see: (_a_)
Astrals of living men; (_b_) Nirmânakâyas (Adepts, good or bad, whose
bodies are dead, but who have learned to live in the invisible space in
their ethereal personalities); and (_c_) Spooks, Elementaries and
Elementals masquerading in shapes borrowed from the Astral Light in
general, or from figures in the “mind’s eye” of the audience, or of the
medium, which are immediately reflected in their respective Auras.

Having read the foregoing, students will now better comprehend the
necessity of first studying the correspondences between our
“principles”—which are but the various aspects of the triune (spiritual
and physical) man—and our Paradigm, the direct roots of these in the
Universe. In view of this, we must resume our teaching about the
Hierarchies directly connected and for ever linked with man.

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

Enough has been said to show that while for the Orientalists and profane
masses the sentence, “_Om Mani Padme Hum_,” means simply “Oh the Jewel in
the Lotus,” Esoterically it signifies “Oh my God within me.” Yes; there is
a God in each human being, for man was, and will re‐become, God. The
sentence points to the indissoluble union between Man and the Universe.
For the Lotus is the universal symbol of Kosmos as the absolute totality,
and the Jewel is Spiritual Man, or God.

In the preceding Paper, the correspondences between Colours, Sounds, and
“Principles” were given; and those who have read our second volume will
remember that these seven principles are derived from the seven great
Hierarchies of Angels, or Dhyân Chohans, which are, in their turn,
associated with Colours and Sounds, and form collectively the Manifested
Logos.

In the eternal music of the spheres we find the perfect scale
corresponding to the colours, and in the number, determined by the
vibrations of colour and sound, which “underlies every form and guides
every sound,” we find the summing‐up of the Manifested Universe.

We may illustrate these correspondences by showing the relation of colour
and sound to the geometrical figures which(814) express the progressive
stages in the manifestation of Kosmos.

But the student will certainly be liable to confusion if, in studying the
Diagrams, he does not remember two things: (1) That, our plane being a
plane of reflection, and therefore illusionary, _the various notations are
reversed and must be counted from below upwards_. The musical scale begins
from below upwards, commencing with the deep Do and ending with the far
more acute Si. (2) That Kâma Rûpa (corresponding to Do in the musical
scale), containing as it does all potentialities of Matter, is necessarily
the starting‐point on our plane. Further, it commences the notation on
every plane, as corresponding to the “matter” of that plane. Again, the
student must also remember that these notes have to be arranged in a
circle, thus showing how Fa is the middle note of Nature. In short,
musical notes, or Sounds, Colours and Numbers proceed from one to seven,
and not from seven to one as erroneously shown in the spectrum of the
prismatic colours, in which Red is counted first: a fact which
necessitated my putting the principles and the days of the week at random
in Diagram II. The musical scale and colours, according to the number of
vibrations, proceed from the world of gross Matter to that of Spirit thus:

_Principles._   _Colours._   _Notes._     _Numbers._   _States of
                                                       Matter._
Chhâyâ,         Violet.      Si.          7.           Ether.
Shadow or
Double.
Higher Manas,   Indigo.      La.          6.           Critical
Spiritual                                              State,
Intelligence.                                          called Air
                                                       in
                                                       Occultism.
Auric           Blue.        Sol.         5.           Steam or
Envelope.                                              Vapour.
Lower Manas,    Green.       Fa.          4.           Critical
or Animal                                              State.
Soul.
Buddhi, or      Yellow.      Mi.          3.           Water.
Spiritual
Soul.
Prâna, or       Orange.      Re.          2.           Critical
Life                                                   State.
Principle.
Kâma Rûpa,      Red.         Do.          1.           Ice.
the Seat of
Animal Life.

Here again the student is asked to dismiss from his mind any
correspondence between “principles” and numbers, for reasons already
given. The Esoteric enumeration cannot be made to correspond with the
conventional exoteric. The one is the reality, the other is classified
according to illusive appearances. The human principles, as given in
_Esoteric Buddhism_, were tabulated for beginners, so as not to confuse
their minds. It was half a blind.



Colours, Sounds and Forms.


To proceed:

                          [Illustration: Square]

The Point in the Circle is the Unmanifested Logos, corresponding to
Absolute Life and Absolute Sound.

The first geometrical figure after the Circle or the Spheroid is the
Triangle. It corresponds to Motion, Colour and Sound. Thus the Point in
the Triangle represents the Second Logos, “Father‐Mother,” or the White
Ray which is no colour, since it contains potentially all colours. It is
shown radiating from the Unmanifested Logos, or the Unspoken Word. Around
the first Triangle is formed on the plane of Primordial Substance in this
order (_reversed_ as to our plane):

                          [Illustration: Square]

                   [Illustration: Triangle and Square]

                   [Illustration: Triangle and Square]

A.

(_a_) The Astral Double of Nature, or the Paradigm of all Forms.

(_b_) Divine Ideation, or Universal Mind.

(_c_) The Synthesis of Occult Nature, the Egg of Brahmâ, containing all
and radiating all.

(_d_) Animal or Material Soul of Nature, source of animal and vegetable
intelligence and instinct.

(_e_) The aggregate of Dhyân Chohanic Intelligences, Fohat.

(_f_) Life Principle in Nature.

(_g_) The Life Procreating Principle in Nature. That which, on the
spiritual plane, corresponds to sexual affinity on the lower.

Mirrored on the plane of Gross Nature, the World of Reality is reversed,
and becomes on Earth and our plane:

B.

(_a_) Red is the colour of manifested dual, or male and female. In man it
is shown in its lowest animal form.

(_b_) Orange is the colour of the robes of the Yogîs and Buddhist Priests,
the colour of the Sun and Spiritual Vitality, also of the Vital Principle.

(_c_) Yellow or radiant Golden is the colour of the Spiritual, Divine Ray
in every atom; in man of Buddhi.

(_d_) Green and Red are, so to speak, interchangeable colours, for Green
absorbs the Red, as being threefold stronger in its vibrations than the
latter; and Green is the complementary colour of extreme Red. This is why
the Lower Manas and Kâma Rûpa are respectively shown as Green and Red.

(_e_) The Astral Plane, or Auric Envelope in Nature and Man.

(_f_) The Mind or rational element in Man and Nature.

(_g_) The most ethereal counterpart of the Body of man, the opposite pole,
standing in point of vibration and sensitiveness as the Violet stands to
the Red.

The above is on the manifested plane; after which we get the seven and the
Manifested Prism, or Man on Earth. With the latter, the Black Magician
alone is concerned.

In Kosmos, the gradations and correlations of Colours and Sounds, and
therefore of Numbers are infinite. This is suspected even in Physics, for
it is ascertained that there exist slower vibrations than those of the
Red, the slowest perceptible to us, and far more rapid vibrations than
those of the Violet, the most rapid that our senses can perceive. But on
Earth, in our physical world, the range of perceptible vibrations is
limited. Our physical senses cannot take cognizance of vibrations above
and below the septenary and limited gradations of the prismatic colours,
for such vibrations are incapable of causing in us the sensation of colour
or sound. It will always be the graduated septenary and no more, unless we
learn to paralyze our Quaternary and discern both the superior and
inferior vibrations with our spiritual senses seated in the upper
Triangle.

Now, on this plane of illusion, there are three fundamental colours, as
demonstrated by Physical Science, Red, Blue and Yellow (or rather Orange‐
Yellow). Expressed in terms of the human principles they are: (1) Kâma
Rûpa, the seat of the animal sensations, welded to, and serving as a
vehicle for the Animal Soul or Lower Manas (Red and Green, as said, being
interchangeable); (2) Auric Envelope, or the essence of man; and (3)
Prâna, or Life Principle. But if from the realm of illusion, or the living
man as he is on our Earth, subject to his sensuous perceptions only, we
pass to that of semi‐illusion, and observe the natural colours themselves,
or those of the principles, that is, if we try to find out which are those
that in the perfect man absorb all others, we shall find that the colours
correspond and become complementary in the following way:

             Violet.
(1) Red               Green.
(2) Orange            Blue.
(3) Yellow            Indigo.
             Violet.

A faint violet, mist‐like form represents the Astral Man within an oviform
bluish circle, over which radiate in ceaseless vibrations the prismatic
colours. That colour is predominant, of which the corresponding principle
is the most active generally, or at the particular moment when the
clairvoyant perceives it. Such man appears during his waking states; and
it is by the predominance of this or that colour, and by the intensity of
its vibrations, that a clairvoyant, _if_ he be acquainted with
correspondences, can judge of the inner state or character of a person,
for the latter is an open book to every practical Occultist.

In the trance state the Aura changes entirely, the seven prismatic colours
being no longer discernible. In sleep also they are not all “at home.” For
those which belong to the spiritual elements in the man, _viz._, Yellow,
Buddhi; Indigo, Higher Manas; and the Blue of the Auric Envelope will be
either hardly discernible, or altogether missing. The Spiritual Man is
free during sleep, and though his physical memory may not become aware of
it, lives, robed in his highest essence, in realms on other planes, in
realms which are the land of reality, called dreams on our plane of
illusion.

A good clairvoyant, moreover, if he had an opportunity of seeing a Yogî in
the trance state and a mesmerized subject, side by side, would learn an
important lesson in Occultism. He would learn to know the difference
between self‐induced trance and a hypnotic state resulting from extraneous
influence. In the Yogî, the “principles” of the lower Quaternary disappear
entirely. Neither Red, Green, Red‐Violet nor the Auric Blue of the Body
are to be seen; nothing but hardly perceptible vibrations of the golden‐
hued Prâna principle and a violet flame streaked with gold rushing upwards
from the head, in the region where the Third Eye rests, and culminating in
a point. If the student remembers that the true Violet, or the extreme end
of the spectrum, is no compound colour of Red and Blue, but a homogeneous
colour with vibrations seven times more rapid than those of the Red,(815)
and that the golden hue is the essence of the three yellow hues from
Orange Red to Yellow‐Orange and Yellow, he will understand the reason why:
he lives in his own Auric Body, now become the vehicle of Buddhi‐Manas. On
the other hand, in a subject in an artificially produced hypnotic or
mesmeric trance, an effect of unconscious when not of conscious Black
Magic, unless produced by a high Adept, the whole set of the principles
will be present, with the Higher Manas paralyzed, Buddhi severed from it
through that paralysis, and the red‐violet Astral Body entirely subjected
to the Lower Manas and Kâma Rûpa (the green and red animal monsters in
us).

One who comprehends well the above explanations will readily see how
important it is for every student, whether he is striving for practical
Occult powers or only for the purely psychic and spiritual gifts of
clairvoyance and metaphysical knowledge, to master thoroughly the right
correspondences between the human, or nature principles, and those of
Kosmos. It is ignorance which leads materialistic Science to deny the
inner man and his Divine powers; knowledge and personal experience that
allow the Occultist to affirm that such powers are as natural to man as
swimming to fishes. It is like a Laplander, in all sincerity, denying the
possibility of the catgut, strung loosely on the sounding‐board of a
violin producing comprehensive sounds or melody. Our principles are the
Seven‐Stringed Lyre of Apollo, truly. In this our age, when oblivion has
shrouded ancient knowledge, men’s faculties are no better than the loose
strings of the violin to the Laplander. But the Occultist who knows how to
tighten them and tune his violin in harmony with the vibrations of colour
and sound, will extract divine harmony from them. The combination of these
powers and the attuning of the Microcosm and the Macrocosm will give the
geometrical equivalent of the invocation “_Om Mani Padme Hum_.”

This was why the previous knowledge of music and geometry was obligatory
in the School of Pythagoras.



The Roots Of Colour And Sound.


Further, each of the Primordial Seven, the first Seven Rays forming the
Manifested Logos, is again sevenfold. Thus, as the seven colours of the
solar spectrum correspond to the seven Rays, or Hierarchies, so each of
these latter has again its seven divisions corresponding to the same
series of colours. But in this case one colour, _viz._, that which
characterizes the particular Hierarchy as a whole, is predominant and more
intense than the others.

These Hierarchies can only be symbolized as concentric circles of
prismatic colours; each Hierarchy being represented by a series of seven
concentric circles, each circle representing one of the prismatic colours
in their natural order. But in each of these “wheels” one circle will be
brighter and more vivid in colour than the rest, and the wheel will have a
surrounding Aura (a fringe, as the physicists call it) of that colour.
This colour will be the characteristic colour of that Hierarchy as a
whole. Each of these Hierarchies furnishes the essence (the Soul) and is
the “Builder” of one of the seven kingdoms of Nature which are the three
elemental kingdoms, the mineral, the vegetable, the animal, and the
kingdom of spiritual man.(816) Moreover, each Hierarchy furnishes the Aura
of one of the seven principles in man with its specific colour. Further,
as each of these Hierarchies is the Ruler of one of the Sacred Planets, it
will easily be understood how Astrology came into existence, and that real
Astrology has a strictly scientific basis.

The symbol adopted in the Eastern School to represent the Seven
Hierarchies of creative Powers is a wheel of seven concentric circles,
each circle being coloured with one of the seven colours; call them
Angels, if you will, or Planetary Spirits, or, again, the Seven Rulers of
the Seven Sacred Planets of our system, as in our present case. At all
events, the concentric circles stand as symbols for Ezekiel’s Wheels with
some Western Occultists and Kabalists, and for the “Builders” or Prajâpati
with us.

DIAGRAM III.

The student should carefully examine the following Diagram.

                              [Diagram III]

Thus the Linga Sharîra is derived from the Violet sub‐ray of the Violet
Hierarchy; the Higher Manas is similarly derived from the Indigo sub‐ray
of the Indigo Hierarchy, and so on. Every man being born under a certain
planet, there will always be a predominance of that planet’s colour in
him, because that “principle” wall rule in him which has its origin in the
Hierarchy in question. There will also be a certain amount of the colour
derived from the other planets present in his Aura, but that of the ruling
planet will be strongest. Now a person in whom, say, the Mercury principle
is predominant, will, by acting upon the Mercury principle in another
person born under a different planet, be able to get him entirely under
his control. For the stronger Mercury principle in him will overpower the
weaker Mercurial element in the other. But he will have little power over
persons born under the same planet as himself. This is the key to the
Occult Sciences of Magnetism and Hypnotism.

The student will understand that the Orders and Hierarchies are here named
after their corresponding colours, so as to avoid using numerals, which
would be confusing in connection with the human principles, as the latter
have no proper numbers of their own. The real Occult names of these
Hierarchies cannot now be given.

The student must, however remember that the colours which we see with our
physical eyes are not the true colours of Occult Nature, but are merely
the effects produced on the mechanism of our physical organs by certain
rates of vibration. For instance, Clerk Maxwell has demonstrated that the
retinal effects of any colour may be imitated by properly combining three
other colours. It follows, therefore, that our retina has only three
distinct colour sensations, and we therefore do not perceive the seven
colours which really exist, but only their “imitations,” so to speak, in
our physical organism.

Thus, for instance, the Orange‐Red of the first “Triangle” is not a
combination of Orange and Red, but the true “spiritual” Red, if the term
may be allowed, while the Red (blood‐red) of the spectrum is the colour of
Kâma, animal desire, and is inseparable from the material plane.



The Unity Of Deity.


Esotericism, pure and simple, speaks of no personal God; therefore are we
considered as Atheists. But, in reality, Occult Philosophy, as a whole, is
based absolutely on the ubiquitous presence of God, the Absolute Deity;
and if IT Itself is not speculated upon, as being too sacred and yet
incomprehensible as a Unit to the finite intellect, yet the entire
Philosophy is based upon Its Divine Powers as being the Source of all that
breathes and lives and has existence. In every ancient Religion the ONE
was demonstrated by the many. In Egypt and India, in Chaldæa and Phœnicia,
and finally in Greece, the ideas about Deity were expressed by multiples
of three, five and seven; and also by eight, nine and twelve great Gods,
which symbolized the powers and properties of the One and Only Deity. This
was related to that infinite subdivision by irregular and odd numbers to
which the metaphysics of these nations subjected their ONE DIVINITY. Thus
constituted, the cycle of the Gods had all the qualities and attributes of
the ONE SUPREME AND UNKNOWABLE; for in this collection of divine
Personalities, or rather of Symbols personified, dwells the ONE GOD, the
GOD ONE, that God which, in India, is said to have no Second.


    O God Ani [the Spiritual Sun], thou residest in the agglomeration
    of thy divine personages.(817)


These words show the belief of the ancients that all manifestation
proceeds from one and the same Source, all emanating from the one
identical Principle which can never be completely developed except in and
through the collective and entire aggregate of Its emanations.

The Pleroma of Valentinus is absolutely the Space of Occult Philosophy;
for Pleroma means the “Fullness,” the superior regions. It is the sum
total of all the Divine manifestations and emanations expressing the
_plenum_ or totality of the rays proceeding from the ONE, differentiating
on all the planes, and transforming themselves into Divine Powers, called
Angels and Planetary Spirits in the Philosophy of every nation. The
Gnostic Æons and Powers of the Pleroma are made to speak as the Devas and
Siddhas of the _Purânas_. The Epinoia, the first female manifestation of
God, the “Principle” of Simon Magus and Saturninus, holds the same
language as the Logos of Basilides; and each of these is traced to the
purely esoteric Alêtheia, the TRUTH of the Mysteries. All of them, we are
taught, repeat at different times and in different languages the
magnificent hymn of the Egyptian papyrus, thousands of years old:


    The Gods adore thee, they greet thee, O the One Dark Truth.


And addressing Ra, they add:


    The Gods bow before thy Majesty, by exalting the Souls of that
    which produces them ... and say to thee, Peace to all emanations
    from the Unconscious Father of the Conscious Fathers of the
    Gods.... Thou producer of beings, we adore the souls which emanate
    from thee. Thou begettest us, O thou Unknown, and we greet thee in
    worshipping each God‐Soul which descendeth from thee and liveth in
    us.


This is the source of the assertion:


    Know ye not that ye are Gods and the temple of God.


This is shown in the “Roots of Ritualism in Church and Masonry,” in
_Lucifer_ for March, 1889. Truly then, as said seventeen centuries ago,
“Man cannot possess Truth (Alêtheia) except he participate in the Gnosis.”
So we may say now: No man can know the Truth unless he studies the secrets
of the Pleroma of Occultism; and these secrets are all in the Theogony of
the ancient Wisdom‐Religion, which is the Alêtheia of Occult Science.



Paper III. A Word Concerning the Earlier Papers.


As many have written and almost complained to me that they could find no
practical clear application of certain diagrams appended to the first two
Papers, and others have spoken of their abstruseness, a short explanation
is necessary.

The reason of this difficulty in most cases has been that the point of
view taken was erroneous; the purely abstract and metaphysical was
mistaken for, and confused with, the concrete and the physical. Let us
take for example the diagrams on page 477 (Paper II.,) and say that these
are entirely macrocosmic and ideal. It must be remembered that the study
of Occultism proceeds from Universals to Particulars and not the reverse
way, as accepted by Science. As Plato was an Initiate, he very naturally
used the former method, while Aristotle, never having been initiated,
scoffed at his master, and, elaborating a system of his own, left it as an
heirloom to be adopted and improved by Bacon. Of a truth the aphorism of
Hermetic Wisdom, “As above, so below,” applies to all Esoteric
instruction; but we must begin with the above; we must learn the formula
before we can sum the series.

The two figures, therefore, are not meant to represent any two particular
planes, but are the abstraction of a pair of planes, explanatory of the
law of reflection, just as the Lower Manas is a reflection of the Higher.
They must therefore be taken in the highest metaphysical sense.

The diagrams are only intended to familiarize students with the leading
ideas of Occult correspondences, the very genius of metaphysical, or
macrocosmic and spiritual Occultism forbidding the use of figures or even
symbols further than as temporary aids. Once define an idea in words, and
it loses its reality; once figure a metaphysical idea, and you materialize
its spirit. Figures must be used only as ladders to scale the battlements,
ladders to be disregarded when once the foot is set upon the rampart.

Let students, therefore, be very careful to spiritualize the Papers and
avoid materializing them; let them always try to find the highest meaning
possible, confident that in proportion as they approach the material and
visible in their speculations on the Papers, so far are they from the
right understanding of them. This is especially the case with these first
Papers and Diagrams, for as in all true arts, so in Occultism, we must
first learn the theory before we are taught the practice.



Concerning Secrecy.


Students ask: Why such secrecy about the details of a doctrine the body of
which has been publicly revealed, as in _Esoteric Buddhism_ and the
_Secret Doctrine_?

To this Occultism would reply: for two reasons:—

(_a_) The whole truth is too sacred to be given out promiscuously.

(_b_) The knowledge of all the details and missing links in the exoteric
teachings is too dangerous in profane hands.

The truths revealed to man by the “Planetary Spirits”—the highest Kumâras,
those who incarnate no longer in the Universe during this
Mahâmanvantara—who will appear on earth as Avatâras only at the beginning
of every new human Race, and at the junctions or close of the two ends of
the small and great cycles—in time, as man became more animalized, were
made to fade away from his memory. Yet, though these Teachers remain with
man no longer than the time required to impress upon the plastic minds of
child‐humanity the eternal verities they teach, Their Spirit remains vivid
though latent in mankind. And the full knowledge of the primitive
revelation has remained always with a few elect, and has been transmitted
from that time up to the present, from one generation of Adepts to
another. As the Teachers say in the Occult Primer:

_This is done so as to ensure them_ [the eternal truths] _from being
utterly lost or forgotten in ages hereafter by the forthcoming
generations._

The mission of the Planetary Spirit is but to strike the key‐note of
Truth. When once He has directed the vibration of the latter to run its
course uninterruptedly along the concatenation of the race to the end of
the cycle, He disappears from our earth until the following Planetary
Manvantara. The mission of any teacher of Esoteric truths, whether he
stands at the top or the foot of the ladder of knowledge, is precisely the
same; as above, so below. I have only orders to strike the key‐note of the
various Esoteric truths among the learners as a body. Those units among
you who will have raised themselves on the “Path” over their fellow‐
students, in their Esoteric sphere, will, as the “Elect” spoken of did and
do in the Parent Brotherhoods, receive the last explanatory details and
the ultimate key to what they learn. No one, however, can hope to gain
this privilege before the MASTERS—not my humble self—find him or her
worthy.

If you wish to know the real _raison d’être_ for this policy, I now give
it to you. No use my repeating and explaining what all of you know as well
as myself; at the very beginning, events have shown that no caution can be
dispensed with. Of our body of several hundred men and women, many did not
seem to realize either the awful sacredness of the pledge (which some took
at the end of their pen), or the fact that their _personality_ has to be
entirely disregarded, when brought face to face with their HIGHER SELF; or
that all their words and professions went for naught unless corroborated
by actions. This was human nature, and no more; therefore it was passed
leniently by, and a new lease accorded by the MASTER. But apart from this
there is a danger lurking in the nature of the present cycle itself.
Civilized humanity, however carefully guarded by its invisible Watchers,
the Nirmânakâyas, who watch over our respective races and nations, is yet,
owing to its collective Karma, terribly under the sway of the traditional
opposers of the Nirmânakâyas—the “Brothers of the Shadow,” embodied and
disembodied; and this, as has already been told you, will last to the end
of the first Kali Yuga cycle (1897), and a few years beyond, as the
smaller dark cycle happens to overlap the great one. Thus, notwithstanding
all precautions, terrible secrets are often revealed to entirely unworthy
persons by the efforts of the “Dark Brothers” and their working on human
brains. This is entirely owing to the simple fact that in certain
privileged organisms, vibrations of the primitive truth put in motion by
the Planetary Beings are set up, in what Western philosophy would term
innate ideas, and Occultism “flashes of genius.”(818) Some such idea based
on eternal truth is awakened, and all that the watchful Powers can do is
to prevent its entire revelation.

Everything in this Universe of differentiated matter has its two aspects,
the light and the dark side, and these two attributes applied practically,
lead the one to use, the other to abuse. Every man may become a Botanist
without apparent danger to his fellow‐creatures; and many a Chemist who
has mastered the science of essences knows that every one of them can both
heal and kill. Not an ingredient, not a poison, but can be used for both
purposes—aye, from harmless wax to deadly prussic acid, from the saliva of
an infant to that of the cobra di capella. This every tyro in medicine
knows—theoretically, at any rate. But where is the learned Chemist in our
day who has been permitted to discover the “night side” of an attribute of
any substance in the three kingdoms of Science, let alone in the seven of
the Occultists? Who of them has penetrated into its Arcana, into the
innermost Essence of things and its primary correlations? Yet it is this
knowledge alone which makes of an Occultist a genuine practical Initiate,
whether he turn out a Brother of Light or a Brother of Darkness. The
essence of that subtle, traceless poison, the most potent in nature, which
entered into the composition of the so‐called Medici and Borgia poisons,
if used with discrimination by one well versed in the septenary degrees of
its potentiality on each of the planes accessible to man on earth—could
heal or kill every man in the world; the result depending, of course, on
whether the operator was a Brother of the Light or a Brother of the
Shadow. The former is prevented from doing the good he might, by racial,
national, and individual Karma; the second is impeded in his fiendish work
by the joint efforts of the human “Stones” of the “Guardian Wall.”(819)

It is incorrect to think that there exists any special “powder of
projection” or “philosopher’s stone,” or “elixir of life.” The latter
lurks in every flower, in every stone and mineral throughout the globe. It
is the ultimate essence of _everything on its way to higher and higher
evolution_. As there is no good or evil _per se_, so there is neither
“elixir of life” nor “elixir of death,” nor poison, _per se_, but all this
is contained in one and the same universal Essence, this or the other
effect, or result, depending on the degree of its differentiation and its
various correlations. The _light side_ of it produces life, health, bliss,
divine peace, etc.; the _dark side_ brings death, disease, sorrow and
strife. This is proven by the knowledge of the nature of the most violent
poisons; of some of them even a large quantity will produce no evil effect
on the organism, whereas a grain of the same poison kills with the
rapidity of lightning; while the same grain, again, altered by a certain
combination, though its quantity remains almost identical, will heal. The
number of the degrees of its differentiation is septenary, as are the
planes of its action, each degree being either beneficent or maleficent in
its effects, according to the system into which it is introduced. He who
is skilled in these degrees is on the high road to practical Adeptship; he
who acts at hap‐hazard—as do the enormous majority of the “Mind Curers,”
whether “Mental” or “Christian Scientists”—is likely to rue the effects on
himself as well as on others. Put on the track by the example of the
Indian Yogîs, and of their broadly but incorrectly outlined practices,
which they have only read about, but have had no opportunity to
study—these new sects have rushed headlong and guideless into the practice
of _denying_ and _affirming_. Thus they have done more harm than good.
Those who are successful owe it to their innate magnetic and healing
powers, which very often counteract that which would otherwise be
conducive to much evil. Beware, I say; Satan and the Archangel are more
than twins; they are one body and one mind—_Deus est Demon inversus_.



Is The Practice Of Concentration Beneficent?


Such is another question often asked. I answer: Genuine concentration and
meditation, _conscious and cautious_, upon one’s lower self in the light
of the inner divine man and the Pâramitâs, is an excellent thing. But to
“sit for Yoga,” with only a superficial and often distorted knowledge of
the real practice, is almost invariably fatal; for ten to one the student
will either develop mediumistic powers in himself or lose time and get
disgusted both with practice and theory. Before one rushes into such a
dangerous experiment and seeks to go beyond a minute examination of one’s
lower self and _its_ walk in life, or that which is called in our
phraseology, “The Chelâ’s Daily Life Ledger,” he would do well to learn at
least the difference between the two aspects of “Magic,” the White or
Divine, and the Black or Devilish, and assure himself that by “sitting for
Yoga,” with no experience, as well as with no guide to show him the
dangers, he does not daily and hourly cross the boundaries of the Divine
to fall into the Satanic. Nevertheless, the way to learn the difference is
very easy; one has only to remember that _no Esoteric truths entirely
unveiled will ever be given in public print_, in book or magazine.

I ask students to turn to the _Theosophist_ of November, 1887. On page 98
they will find the beginning of an excellent article by Mr. Râma Prasâd on
“Nature’s Finer Forces.”(820) The value of this work is not so much in its
literary merit, though it gained its author the gold medal of the
_Theosophist_, as in its exposition of tenets hitherto concealed in a rare
and ancient Sanskrit work on Occultism. But Mr. Râma Prasâd is not an
Occultist, only an excellent Sanskrit scholar, a university graduate and a
man of remarkable intelligence. His essays are almost entirely based on
Tântra works, which, if read indiscriminately by a tyro in Occultism, will
lead to the practice of most unmitigated Black Magic. Now, since the
difference of primary importance between Black and White Magic is the
object with which it is practised, and that of secondary importance the
nature of the agents used for the production of phenomenal results, the
line of demarcation between the two is very—_very_ thin. The danger is
lessened only by the fact that every _Occult_ book, so‐called, is Occult
only in a certain sense: that is, the text is Occult merely by reason of
its blinds. The symbolism has to be thoroughly understood before the
reader can get at the correct sense of the teaching. Moreover, it is never
complete, its several portions each being under a different title, and
each containing a portion of some other work; so that without a key to
these no such work divulges the whole truth. Even the famous _Shivâgama_,
on which _Natures Finer Forces_ is based, “is nowhere to be found in
complete form,” as the author tells us. Thus, like all others, it treats
of only five Tattvas instead of the seven as in Esoteric teachings.

Now, the Tattvas being simply the substratum of the seven forces of
Nature, how can this be? There are seven forms of Prakriti, as Kapila’s
Sânkhya, the _Vishnu Purâna_, and other works teach. Prakriti is Nature,
Matter (primordial and elemental); therefore logic demands that the
Tattvas also should be seven. For whether Tattvas mean, as Occultism
teaches, “forces of Nature,” or, as the learned Râma Prâsad explains, “the
substance out of which the universe is formed” and “the power by which it
is sustained,” it is all one; they are Force, Purusha, and _Matter_,
Prakriti. And if the _forms_, or rather planes, of the latter are seven,
then its forces must be seven also. In other words, the degrees of the
solidity of matter and the degrees of the power that ensouls it must go
hand in hand.


    The Universe is made out of the Tattva, it is sustained by the
    Tattva, and it disappears into the Tattva,


says Shiva, as quoted from the _Shivâgama_ in _Nature’s Finer Forces_.
This settles the question; if Prakriti is septenary, then the Tattvas must
be seven, for, as said, they are both Substance and Force, or atomic
Matter and the Spirit that ensoule it.

This is explained here to enable the student to read between the lines of
the so‐called Occult articles on Sanskrit Philosophy, by which they must
not be misled. The doctrine of the seven Tattvas (the principles of the
Universe and also of man) was held in great sacredness and therefore
secrecy, in days of old, by the Brâhmans, who have now almost forgotten
the teaching. Yet it is taught to this day in the Schools beyond the
Himâlayan Range, though now hardly remembered or heard of in India except
through rare Initiates. The policy has, however, been changed gradually;
Chelâs began to be taught the broad outlines of it, and at the advent of
the T. S. in India in 1879, I was ordered to teach it in its exoteric form
to one or two. I now give it out Esoterically.

Knowing that some students try to follow a system of Yoga in their own
fashion, guided only by the rare hints they find in Theosophical books and
magazines, which must naturally be incomplete, I chose one of the best
expositions upon ancient Occult works, _Nature’s Finer Forces_, in order
to point out how very easily one can be misled by their blinds.

The author seems to have been himself deceived. The Tantras read
Esoterically are as full of wisdom as the noblest Occult works. Studied
without a guide and applied to practice, they may lead to the production
of various phenomenal results, on the moral and physiological planes. But
let anyone accept their dead‐letter rules and practices, let him try with
some selfish motive in view to carry out the rites prescribed therein,
and—he is lost. Followed with pure heart and unselfish devotion merely for
the sake of experiment, either no results will follow, or such as can only
throw back the performer. But woe to the selfish man who seeks to develop
Occult powers only to attain earthly benefits or revenge, or to satisfy
his ambition; the separation of the Higher from the Lower Principles and
the severing of Buddhi‐Manas from the Tântrist’s personality will speedily
follow, the terrible Karmic results to the _dabbler_ in Magic.

In the East, in India and China, _soulless_ men and women are as
frequently met with as in the West, though vice is, in truth, far less
developed there than it is here.

It is Black Magic and oblivion of their ancestral wisdom that lead them
thereunto. But of this I will speak later, now merely adding: you have to
be warned and know the danger.

Meanwhile, in view of what follows, the real Occult division of the
Principles in their correspondences with the Tattvas and other minor
forces has to be well studied.



About “Principles” And “Aspects.”


Speaking metaphysically and philosophically, on strict Esoteric lines, man
as a complete unit is composed of Four basic Principles and their Three
Aspects on this earth. In the semi‐esoteric teachings, these Four and
Three have been called Seven Principles, to facilitate the comprehension
of the masses.

The Eternal Basic Principles.

1. _Âtmâ_, or _Jîva_, “the One Life,” which permeates the _Monadic Trio_.
(One in three and three in One.)

2. _Auric Envelope_; because the substratum of the Aura around man is the
universally diffused primordial and pure Akâsha, the first film on the
boundless and shoreless expanse of Jîva, the immutable Root of all.

3. _Buddhi_; for Buddhi is a ray of the Universal Spiritual Soul (ALAYA).

4. _Manas_ (the Higher Ego); for it proceeds from Mahat, the first product
or emanation of Pradhâna which contains _potentially_ all the Gunas
(attributes). Mahat is Cosmic Intelligence, called the “Great
Principle.”(821)

Transitory Aspects Produced by the Principles.

1. _Prâna_, the Breath of Life, the same as _Nephesh_. At the death of a
living being, Prâna re‐becomes Jîva.(822)

2. _Linga Sharîra_, the Astral Form, the transitory emanation of the Auric
Egg. This form precedes the formation of the living Body, and after death
clings to it, dissipating only with the disappearance of its last atom
(the skeleton excepted).

3. Lower Manas, the Animal Soul, the reflection or shadow of the Buddhi‐
Manas, having the potentialitie of both, but conquered generally by its
association with the Kâma elements.

As the lower man is the combined product of two aspects—physically, of his
Astral Form, and psycho‐physiologically of Kâma‐Manas—he is not looked
upon even as an aspect, but as an illusion.

The Auric Egg, on account of its nature and manifold functions, has to be
well studied. As Hiranyagarbha, the Golden Womb or Egg, contains Brahmâ,
the collective symbol of the Seven Universal Forces, so the Auric Egg
contains, and is directly related to, both the divine and the physical
man. In its essence, as said, it is eternal; in its constant correlations
and transformations, during the reincarnating progress of the Ego on this
earth, it is a kind of perpetual motion machine.

As given out in our second volume, the Egos or Kumâras, incarnating in
man, at the end of the Third Root‐Race, are not human Egos of this earth
or plane, but become such only from the moment they ensoul the Animal Man,
thus endowing him with his Higher Mind. Each is a “Breath” or Principle,
called the Human Soul, or Manas, the Mind. As the teachings say:

_“__Each is a pillar of light. Having chosen its vehicle, it expanded,
surrounding with an Âkâshic Aura the human animal, while the Divine
(Mânasic) Principle settled within that human form.__”_

Ancient Wisdom teaches us, moreover, that from this first incarnation, the
Lunar Pitris, who had made men out of their Chhâyâs or Shadows, are
absorbed by this Auric Essence, and a distinct Astral Form is now produced
for each forthcoming personality of the reincarnating series of each Ego.

Thus the Auric Egg, reflecting all the thoughts, words and deeds of man,
is:

(_a_) The preserver of every Karmic record.

(_b_) The storehouse of all the good and evil powers of man, receiving and
giving out at his will—nay, at his very thought—every potentiality, which
becomes, then and there, an acting potency: this Aura is the mirror in
which sensitives and clairvoyants sense and perceive the real man, and see
him _as he is_, not as he appears.

(_c_) As it furnishes man with his Astral Form, around which the physical
entity models itself, first as a fœtus, then as a child and man, the
astral growing apace with the human being, so it furnishes him during
life, if an Adept, with his Mâyâvi Rûpa, or Illusion Body, which is not
his _Vital_‐Astral Body; and after death, with his Devachanic Entity and
Kâma Rûpa, or Body of Desire (the Spook).(823)

In the case of the Devachanic Entity, the Ego, in order to be able to go
into a state of bliss, as the “I” of its immediately preceding
incarnation, has to be clothed (metaphorically speaking) with the
spiritual elements of the ideas, aspirations and thoughts of the now
disembodied personality; otherwise what is it that enjoys bliss and
reward? Surely not the impersonal Ego, the Divine Individuality. Therefore
it must be the good Karmic records of the deceased, impressed upon the
Auric Substance, which furnish the Human Soul with just enough of the
spiritual elements of the ex‐personality, to enable it to still believe
itself that body from which it has just been severed, and to receive its
fruition, during a more or less prolonged period of “spiritual gestation.”
For Devachan is a “spiritual gestation” within an ideal matrix state, a
birth of the Ego into the world of effects, which ideal, subjective birth
precedes its next terrestrial birth, the latter being determined by its
bad Karma, into the world of causes.(824)

In the case of the Spook, the Kâma Rûpa is furnished from the animal dregs
of the Auric Envelope, with its daily Karmic record of animal life, so
full of animal desires and selfish aspirations.(825)

Now the Linga Sharîra remains with the Physical Body, and fades out along
with it. An astral entity then has to be created, a new Linga Sharîra
provided, to become the bearer of all the past Tanhas and future Karma.
How is this accomplished? The mediumistic Spook, the “departed angel,”
fades out and vanishes also in its turn(826) as an entity or full image of
the personality that was, and leaves in the Kâmalokic world of effects
only the record of its misdeeds and sinful thoughts and acts, known in the
phraseology of Occultists as Tânhic or human Elementals. Entering into the
composition of the Astral Form of the new body, into which the Ego, upon
its quitting the Devachanic state, is to enter according to Karmic decree,
the Elementals form that new astral entity which is born within the Auric
Envelope, and of which it is often said:


    Bad Karma waits at the threshold of Devachan, with its army of
    Skandhas.(827)


For no sooner is the Devachanic state of reward ended, than the Ego is
indissolubly united with (or rather follows in the track of) the new
Astral Form. Both are Karmically propelled towards the family or woman
from whom is to be born the _animal child_ chosen by Karma to become the
vehicle of the Ego which has just awakened from the Devachanic state. Then
the _new_ Astral Form, composed partly of the pure Akâshic Essence of the
Auric Egg, and partly of the terrestrial elements of the punishable sins
and misdeeds of the last personality, is drawn into the woman. Once there,
Nature models the fœtus of flesh around the Astral, out of the growing
materials of the male seed in the female soil. Thus grows out of the
essence of a decayed seed the fruit or eidolon of the dead seed, the
physical fruit producing in its turn within itself another, and other
seeds for future plants.

And now we may return to the Tattvas, and see what they mean in nature and
man, showing thereby the great danger of indulging in fancy, amateur Yoga,
without knowing what we are about.



The Tâttvic Correlations and Meaning.


In Nature, then, we find seven Forces, or seven Centres of Force, and
everything seems to respond to that number, as for instance, the septenary
scale in music, or Sounds, and the septenary spectrum in Colours. I have
not exhausted its nomenclature and proofs in the earlier volumes, yet
enough is given to show every thinker that the facts adduced are no
coincidences, but very weighty testimony.

There are several reasons why only five Tattvas are given in the Hindu
systems. One of these I have already mentioned; another is that owing to
our having reached only the Fifth Race, and being (so far as Science is
able to ascertain) endowed with only five senses, the two remaining senses
that are still latent in man can have their existence proven only on
phenomenal evidence which to the Materialist is no evidence at all. The
five physical senses are made to correspond with the five lower Tattvas,
the two yet undeveloped senses in man; and the two forces, or Tattvas,
forgotten by Brâhmans and still unrecognized by Science, being so
subjective and the highest of them so sacred, that they can only be
recognized by, and known through, the highest Occult Sciences. It is easy
to see that these two Tattvas and the two senses (the sixth and the
seventh) correspond to the two highest human principles, Buddhi and the
Auric Envelope, impregnated with the light of Âtmâ. Unless we open in
ourselves, by Occult training, the sixth and seventh senses, we can never
comprehend correctly their corresponding types. Thus the statement in
_Nature’s Finer Forces_ that, in the Tâttvic scale, the highest Tattva of
all is Âkâsha(828) (followed by [only] four, each of which becomes grosser
than its predecessor), if made from the Esoteric standpoint, is erroneous.
For once Âkâsha, an almost homogeneous and certainly universal Principle,
is translated Ether, then Âkâsha is dwarfed and limited to our visible
Universe, for assuredly it is not the Ether of Space. Ether, whatever
Modern Science makes of it, is differentiated Substance; Âkâsha, having no
attributes save one—SOUND, _of which it is the substratum_—is no substance
even exoterically and in the minds of some Orientalists,(829) but rather
Chaos, or the Great Spatial Void.(830)

Esoterically, Âkâsha alone is _Divine_ Space, and becomes Ether only on
the lowest and last plane, or our visible Universe and Earth. In this case
the blind is in the word “attribute,” which is said to be Sound. But Sound
is no attribute of Âkâsha, but its primary correlation, its primordial
manifestation, the LOGOS, or Divine Ideation made Word, and that “WORD”
made “Flesh.” Sound may be considered an “attribute” of Âkâsha only on the
condition of anthropomorphizing the latter. It is not a characteristic of
it, though it is certainly as innate in it as the idea “I am _I_” is
innate in our thoughts.

Occultism teaches that Âkâsha contains and includes the seven Centres of
Force, therefore the six Tattvas, of which it is the seventh, or rather
their synthesis. But if Âkâsha be taken, as we believe it is in this case,
to represent only the exoteric idea, then the author is right; because,
seeing that Âkâsha is universally omnipresent, following the Paurânic
limitation, _for the better comprehension of our finite intellects_, he
places its commencement only beyond the four planes of our Earth
Chain,(831) the two higher Tattvas being as concealed to the average
mortal as the sixth and seventh senses are to the materialistic mind.

Therefore, while Sanskrit and Hindu Philosophy generally speak of five
Tattvas only, Occultists name seven, thus making them correspond with
every septenary in Nature. The Tattvas stand in the same order as the
seven macro‐ and micro‐cosmic Forces: and as taught in Esotericism, are as
follows:

(1) ÂDI TATTVA, the primordial universal Force, issuing at the beginning
of manifestation, or of the “creative” period, from the eternal immutable
Sat, the substratum of ALL. It corresponds with the Auric Envelope or
Brahmâ’s Egg, which surrounds every globe, as well as every man, animal
and thing. It is the vehicle containing potentially everything—Spirit and
Substance, Force and Matter. Âdi Tattva, in Esoteric Cosmogony, is the
Force which we refer to as proceeding from the First or Unmanifested
LOGOS.

(2) ANUPÂDAKA TATTVA,(832) the first differentiation on the plane of
being—the first being an ideal one—or that which is born by transformation
from something higher than itself. With the Occultists, this Force
proceeds from the Second LOGOS.

(3) ÂKÂSHA TATTVA, this is the point from which all _exoteric_
Philosophies and Religions start. Âkâsha Tattva is explained in them as
Etheric Force, Ether. Hence Jupiter, the “highest” God, was named after
Pater Æther; Indra, once the highest God in India, is the etheric or
heavenly expanse, and so with Uranus, etc. The Christian biblical God,
also, is spoken of as the Holy Ghost, Pneuma, rarefied wind or air. This
the Occultists call the Force of the Third LOGOS, the Creative Force in
the already Manifested Universe.

(4) VÂYU TATTVA, the aërial plane where substance is gaseous.

(5) TAIJAS TATTVA, the plane of our atmosphere, from _tejas_, luminous.

(6) ÂPAS TATTVA, watery or liquid substance or force.

(7) PRITHIVÎ TATTVA, solid earthly substance, the terrestrial spirit or
force, the lowest of all.

All these correspond to our Principles, and to the seven senses and forces
in man. According to the Tattva or Force generated or induced in us, so
will our bodies act.

Now, what I have to say here is addressed especially to those members who
are anxious to develop powers by “sitting for Yoga.” You have seen, from
what has been already said, that in the development of Râja Yoga, no
extant works made public are of the least good; they can at best give
inklings of Hatha Yoga, something that may develop mediumship at best, and
in the worst case—consumption. If those who practice “meditation,” and try
to learn “the Science of Breath,” will read attentively _Nature’s Finer
Forces_, they will find that it is by utilizing the five Tattvas only that
this dangerous science is acquired. For in the exoteric Yoga Philosophy,
and the Hatha Yoga practice, Âkâsha Tattva is placed in the head (or
physical brain) of man; Tejas Tattva in the shoulders; Vâyu Tattva in the
navel (the seat of all the phallic Gods, “creators” of the universe and
man); Âpas Tattva in the knees; and Prithivî Tattva in the feet. Hence the
two higher Tattvas and their correspondences are ignored and excluded;
and, as these are the chief factors in Râja Yoga, no spiritual or
intellectual phenomena of a high nature can take place. The best results
obtainable will be physical phenomena and no more. As the “Five Breaths,”
or rather the five states of the human breath, in Hatha Yoga correspond to
the above _terrestrial_ planes and colours, what spiritual results can be
obtained? On the contrary, they are the very reverse of the plane of
Spirit, or the higher macrocosmic plane, reflected as they are upside
down, in the Astral Light. This is proven in the Tântra work, _Shivâgama_,
itself. Let us compare.

First of all, remember that the Septenary of visible and also invisible
Nature is said in Occultism to consist of the _three_ (and four) Fires,
which grow into the forty‐nine Fires. This shows that as the Macrocosm is
divided into seven great planes of various differentiations of
Substance—from the spiritual or subjective, to the fully objective or
material, from Akâsha down to the sin‐laden atmosphere of our earth—so, in
its turn, each of these great planes has three aspects, based on four
Principles, as already shown above. This seems to be quite natural, as
even modern Science has her three states of matter and what are generally
called the “critical” or intermediate states between the solid, the
fluidic, and the gaseous.

Now, the Astral Light is not a universally diffused stuff, but pertains
only to our earth and all other bodies of the system on the same plane of
matter with it. Our Astral Light is, so to speak, the Linga Sharîra of our
earth; only instead of being its primordial prototype, as in the case of
our Chhâyâ, or Double, it is the reverse. Human and animal bodies grow and
develop on the model of their antetypal Doubles; whereas the Astral Light
is born from the terrene emanations, grows and develops after its
prototypal parent, and in its treacherous waves everything from the upper
planes and from the lower solid plane, the earth, both ways, is reflected
_reversed_. Hence the confusion of its colours and sounds in the
clairvoyance and clairaudience of the sensitive who trusts to its records,
be that sensitive a Hatha Yogî or a medium.

Such, then, is the Occult Science on which the modern Ascetics and Yogîs
of India base their Soul development and powers. They are known as the
Hatha Yogîs. Now, the science of Hatha Yoga rests upon the “suppression of
breath,” or Prânâyâma, to which exercise our Masters are unanimously
opposed. For what is Prânâyâma? Literally translated, it means the “death
of (vital) breath.” Prâna, as said, is not Jîva, the eternal fount of life
immortal; nor is it connected in any way with Pranava, as some think, for
Pranava is a synonym of AUM in a mystic sense. As much as has ever been
taught publicly and clearly about it is to be found in _Nature’s Finer
Forces_. If such directions, however, are followed, they can only lead to
Black Magic and mediumship. Several impatient Chelâs, whom we knew
personally in India, went in for the practice of Hatha Yoga,
notwithstanding our warnings. Of these, two developed consumption, of
which one died; others became almost idiotic; another committed suicide;
and one developed into a regular Tântrika, a Black Magician, but his
career, fortunately for himself, was cut short by death.

The science of the Five Breaths, the moist, the fiery, the airy, etc., has
a twofold significance and two applications. The Tântrikas take it
literally, as relating to the regulation of the vital, lung breath,
whereas the ancient Râja Yogîs understood it as referring to the mental or
“will” breath, which alone leads to the highest clairvoyant powers, to the
function of the Third Eye, and the acquisition of the true Râja Yoga
Occult powers. The difference between the two is enormous. The former, as
shown, use the five lower Tattvas; the latter begin by using the three
higher alone, for mental and will development, and the rest only when they
have completely mastered the three; hence, they use only one (Âkâsha
Tattva) out of the Tântric five. As well said in the above stated work,
“Tattvas are the modifications of Svara.” Now, the Svara is the root of
all sound, the substratum of the Pythagorean music of the spheres, Svara
being that which is _beyond_ Spirit, in the modern acceptation of the
word, the Spirit within Spirit, or as very properly translated, the
“current of the life‐wave,” the emanation of the One Life. The Great
Breath spoken of in our first volume is ÂTMÂ, the etymology of which is
“_eternal motion_.” Now while the ascetic Chelâ of our school, for his
mental development, follows carefully the process of the evolution of the
Universe, that is, proceeds from universals to particulars, the Hatha Yogî
reverses the conditions and begins by sitting for the suppression of his
(vital) breath. And if, as Hindu philosophy teaches, at the beginning of
kosmic evolution, “Svara threw itself into the form of Âkâsha,” and thence
successively into the forms of Vâyu (air), Agni (fire), Âpas (water), and
Prithivî (solid matter),(833) then it stands to reason that we have to
begin by the higher _supersensuous_ Tattvas. The Râja Yogî does not
descend on the planes of substance beyond Sûkshma (subtle matter), while
the Hatha Yogî develops and uses his powers only on the material plane.
Some Tântrikas locate the three Nadîs, Sushumnâ, Îdâ and Pingalâ, in the
medulla oblongata, the central line of which they call Sushumnâ, and the
right and left divisions, Pingalâ and Îdâ, and also in the heart, to the
divisions of which they apply the same names. The Trans‐Himâlayan school
of the ancient Indian Râja Yogîs, with which the modern Yogîs of India
have little to do, locates Sushumnâ, the chief seat of these three Nadîs,
in the central tube of the spinal cord, and Îdâ and Pingalâ on its left
and right sides. Sushumnâ is the Brahmadanda. It is that canal (of the
spinal cord), of the use of which Physiology knows no more than it does of
the spleen and the pineal gland. Îâ and Pingalâ are simply the sharps and
flats of that _Fa_ of human nature, the keynote and the middle key in the
scale of the septenary harmony of the Principles, which, when struck in a
proper way, awakens the sentries on either side, the spiritual Manas and
the physical Kâma, and subdues the lower through the higher. But this
effect has to be produced by the exercise of will‐power, not through the
scientific or trained suppression of the breath. Take a transverse section
of the spinal region, and you will find sections across three columns, one
of which columns transmits the volitional orders, and a second a life
current of Jîva—not of Prâna, which animates the body of man—during what
is called Samâdhi and like states.

He who has studied both systems, the Hatha and the Râja Yoga, finds an
enormous difference between the two: one is purely psycho‐physiological,
the other purely psycho‐spiritual. The Tântrists do not seem to go higher
than the six visible and known plexuses, with each of which they connect
the Tattvas; and the great stress they lay on the chief of these, the
Mûladhâra Chakra (the sacral plexus), shows the material and selfish bent
of their efforts towards the acquisition of powers. Their five Breaths and
five Tattvas are chiefly concerned with the prostatic, epigastric,
cardiac, and laryngeal plexuses. Almost ignoring the Âjñâ, they are
positively ignorant of the synthesizing laryngeal plexus. But with the
followers of the old school it is different. We begin with the mastery of
that organ which is situated at the base of the brain, in the pharynx, and
called by Western Anatomists the Pituitary Body. In the series of the
objective cranial organs, corresponding to the subjective Tâttvic
principles, it stands to the Third Eye (Pineal Gland) as Manas stands to
Buddhi; the arousing and awakening of the Third Eye must be performed by
that vascular organ, that insignificant little body, of which, once again,
Physiology knows nothing at all. The one is the Energizer of Will, the
other that of Clairvoyant Perception.

Those who are Physicians, Physiologists, Anatomists, etc., will understand
me better than the rest in the following explanation.

Now, as to the functions of the Pineal Gland, or Conarium, and of the
Pituitary Body, we find no explanations vouchsafed by the standard
authorities. Indeed, on looking through the works of the greatest
specialists, it is curious to observe how much confused ignorance on the
human vital economy, physiological as well as psychological, is openly
confessed. The following is all that can be gleaned from the authorities
upon these two important organs.

(1) The Pineal Gland, or Conarium, is a rounded, oblong body, from three
to four lines long, of a deep reddish grey, connected with the posterior
part of the third ventricle of the brain. It is attached at its base by
two thin medullary cords, which diverge forward to the Optic Thalami.
Remember that the latter are found by the best Physiologists to be the
organs of reception and condensation of the most sensitive and sensorial
incitations from the periphery of the body (according to Occultism, from
the periphery of the Auric Egg, which is our point of communication with
the higher, universal planes). We are further told that the two bands of
the Optic Thalami, which are inflected to meet each other, unite on the
median line, where they become the two peduncles of the Pineal Gland.

(2) The Pituitary Body, or Hypophysis Cerebri, is a small and hard organ,
about six lines broad, three long and three high. It is formed of an
anterior bean‐shaped, and of a posterior and more rounded lobe, which are
uniformly united. Its component parts, we are told, are almost identical
with those of the Pineal Gland; yet not the slightest connection can be
traced between the two centres. To this, however, Occultists take
exception; they _know_ that there is a connection, and this even
anatomically and physically. Dissectors, on the other hand, have to deal
with corpses; and, as they themselves admit, brain‐matter, of all tissues
and organs, collapses and changes form the soonest—in fact, a few minutes
after death. When, then, the pulsating life which expanded the mass of the
brain, filled all its cavities and energized all its organs, vanishes, the
cerebral mass shrinks into a sort of pasty condition, and once open
passages become closed. But the contraction and even interblending of
parts in this process of shrinking, and the subsequent pasty state of the
brain, do not imply that there is no connection between these two organs
before death. In point of fact, as Professor Owen has shown, a connection
as objective as a groove and tube exists in the crania of the human fœtus
and of certain fishes. When a man is in his normal condition, an Adept can
see the golden Aura pulsating in both the centres, like the pulsation of
the heart, which never ceases throughout life. This motion, however, under
the abnormal condition of effort to develop clairvoyant faculties, becomes
intensified, and the Aura takes on a stronger vibratory or swinging
action. The arc of the pulsation of the Pituitary Body mounts upward, more
and more, until, just as when the electric current strikes some solid
object, the current finally strikes the Pineal Gland, and the dormant
organ is awakened and set all glowing with the pure Âkâshic Fire. This is
the psycho‐physiological illustration of two organs on the physical plane,
which are, respectively, the concrete symbols of the metaphysical concepts
called Manas and Buddhi. The latter, in order to become conscious on this
plane, needs the more differentiated fire of Manas; _but once the sixth
sense has awakened the seventh_, the light which radiates from this
seventh sense illumines the fields of infinitude. For a brief space of
time man becomes omniscient; the Past and the Future, Space and Time,
disappear and become for him the Present. If an Adept, he will store the
knowledge he thus gains in his physical memory, and nothing, save the
crime of indulging in Black Magic, can obliterate the remembrance of it.
If only a Chelâ, portions alone of the whole truth will impress themselves
on his memory, and he will have to repeat the process for years, never
allowing one speck of impurity to stain him mentally or physically, before
he becomes a fully initiated Adept.

It may seem strange, almost incomprehensible, that the chief success of
Gupta Vidyâ, or Occult Knowledge, should depend upon such flashes of
clairvoyance, and that the latter should depend in man on two such
insignificant excrescences in his cranial cavity, “two horny _warts_
covered with grey sand (acervulus cerebri),” as expressed by Bichat in his
_Anatomie Descriptive_; yet so it is. But this sand is not to be despised;
nay, in truth, it is only this landmark of the internal, independent
activity of the Conarium that prevents Physiologists from classifying it
with the absolutely useless atrophied organs, the relics of a previous and
now utterly changed anatomy of man during some period of his unknown
evolution. This “sand” is very mysterious, and baffles the inquiry of
every Materialist. In the cavity on the anterior surface of this gland, in
young persons, and in its substance, in people of advanced years, is found


    A yellowish substance, semi‐transparent, brilliant and hard, the
    diameter of which does not exceed half a line.(834)


Such is the acervulus cerebri.

This brilliant “sand” is the concretion of the gland itself, so say the
Physiologists. Perhaps not, we answer. The Pineal Gland is that which the
Eastern Occultist calls Devâksha, the “Divine Eye.” To this day, it is the
chief organ of spirituality in the human brain, the seat of genius, the
magical Sesame uttered by the purified will of the Mystic, which opens all
the avenues of truth for him who knows how to use it. The Esoteric Science
teaches that Manas, the Mind Ego, does not accomplish its full union with
the child before he is six or seven years of age, before which period,
even according to the canon of the Church and Law, no child is deemed
responsible.(835) Manas becomes a prisoner, one with the body, only at
that age. Now a strange thing was observed in several thousand cases by
the famous German anatomist, Wengel. With a few extremely rare exceptions,
this “sand,” or golden‐coloured concretion, is found only in subjects
after the completion of their seventh year. In the case of fools these
calculi are very few; in congenital idiots they are completely absent.
Morgagni,(836) Grading,(837) and Gum(838) were wise men in their
generation, and are wise men to‐day, since they are the only
Physiologists, so far, who connect the calculi with mind. For, sum up the
facts, that they are absent in young children, in very old people, and in
idiots, and the unavoidable conclusion will be that they must be connected
with mind.

Now since every mineral, vegetable and other atom is only a concretion of
crystallized Spirit, or Âkâsha, the Universal Soul, why, asks Occultism,
should the fact that these concretions of the Pineal Gland, are, upon
analysis, found to be composed of animal matter, phosphate of lime and
carbonate, serve as an objection to the statement that they are the result
of the work of mental electricity upon surrounding matter?

Our seven Chakras are all situated in the head, and it is these Master
Chakras which govern and rule the seven (for there are seven) principal
plexuses in the body, besides the forty‐two minor ones to which Physiology
refuses that name. The fact that no microscope can detect such centres on
the objective plane goes for nothing; no microscope has ever yet detected,
nor ever will, the difference between the motor and sensory nerve‐tubes,
the conductors of all our bodily and psychic sensations; and yet logic
alone would show that such difference exists. And if the term plexus, in
this application, does not represent to the Western mind the idea conveyed
by the term of the Anatomist, then call them Chakras or Padmas, or the
Wheels, the Lotus Heart and Petals. Remember that Physiology, imperfect as
it is, shows septenary groups all over the exterior and interior of the
body; the seven head orifices, the seven “organs” at the base of the
brain, the seven plexuses, the pharyngeal, laryngeal, cavernous, cardiac,
epigastric, prostatic, and sacral, etc.

When the time comes, advanced students will be given the minute details
about the Master Chakras and taught the use of them; till then, less
difficult subjects have to be learned. If asked whether the seven
plexuses, or Tâttvic centres of action, are the centres where the seven
Rays of the Logos vibrate, I answer in the affirmative, simply remarking
that the rays of the Logos vibrate in every atom, for the matter of that.

In these volumes it is almost revealed that the “Sons of Fohat” are the
personified Forces known in a general way as Motion, Sound, Heat, Light,
Cohesion, Electricity or Electric Fluid, and Nerve‐Force or Magnetism.
This truth, however, cannot teach the student to attune and moderate the
Kundalinî of the cosmic plane with the _vital_ Kundalinî, the Electric
Fluid with the Nerve‐Force, and unless he does so, he is sure to kill
himself; for the one travels at the rate of about 90 feet, and the other
at the rate of 115,000 leagues a second. The seven Shaktis respectively
called Para Shakti, Jñâna Shakti, etc., are synonymous with the “Sons of
Fohat,” for they are their female aspects. At the present stage, however,
as their names would only be confusing to the Western student, it is
better to remember the English equivalents as translated above. As each
Force is septenary, their sum is, of course, forty‐nine.

The question now mooted in Science, whether a sound is capable of calling
forth impressions of light and colour in addition to its natural sound
impressions, has been answered by Occult Science ages ago. Every impulse
or vibration of a physical object producing a certain vibration of the
air, that is, causing the collision of physical particles, the sound of
which is capable of affecting the ear, produces at the same time a
corresponding flash of light, which will assume some particular colour.
For, in the realm of hidden Forces, an _audible_ sound is but a subjective
colour; and a perceptible colour, but an _inaudible_ sound; both proceed
from the same potential substance, which Physicists used to call ether,
and now refer to under various other names; but which we call plastic,
through invisible SPACE. This may appear a paradoxical hypothesis, but
facts are there to prove it. Complete deafness, for instance, does not
preclude the possibility of discerning sounds; medical science has several
cases on record which prove that these sounds are received by, and
conveyed to, the patient’s organ of sight, through the mind, under the
form of chromatic impressions. The very fact that the intermediate tones
of the chromatic musical scale were formerly written in colours shows an
unconscious reminiscence of the ancient Occult teaching that colour and
sound are two out of the seven correlative aspects, _on our plane_, of one
and the same thing, _viz._, Nature’s first differentiated Substance.

Here is an example of the relation of colour to vibration well worthy of
the attention of Occultists. Not only Adepts and advanced Chelâs, but also
the lower order of Psychics, such as clairvoyants and psychometrists, can
perceive a psychic Aura of various colours around every individual,
corresponding to the temperament of the person within it. In other words,
the mysterious records within the Auric Egg are not the heirloom of
trained Adepts alone, but sometimes also of natural Psychics. Every human
passion, every thought and quality, is indicated in this Aura by
corresponding colours and shades of colour, and certain of these are
sensed and felt rather than perceived. The best of such Psychics, as shown
by Galton, can also perceive colours produced by the vibrations of musical
instruments, every note suggesting a different colour. As a string
vibrates and gives forth an audible note, so the nerves of the human body
vibrate and thrill in correspondence with various emotions under the
general impulse of the circulating vitality of Prâna, thus producing
undulations in the psychic Aura of the person which result in chromatic
effects.

The human nervous system as a whole, then, may be regarded as an Æolian
Harp, responding to the impact of the vital force, which is no
abstraction, but a dynamic reality, and manifests the subtlest shades of
the individual character in colour phenomena. If these nerve vibrations
are made intense enough and brought into vibratory relation with an astral
element, the result is—sound. How, then, can anyone doubt the relation
between the microcosmic and macrocosmic forces?

And now that I have shown that the Tântric works as explained by Râma
Prâsad, and other Yoga treatises of the same character which have appeared
from time to time in Theosophical journals—for note well that those of
true Râja Yoga are never published—tend to Black Magic and are most
dangerous to take for guides in self‐training, I hope that students will
be on their guard.

For, considering that no two authorities up to the present day agree as to
the real location of the Chakras and Padmas in the body, and, seeing that
the colours of the Tattvas as given are reversed, _e.g._:

(_a_) Âkâsha is made black or colourless, whereas corresponding to Manas,
it is indigo;

(_b_) Vâyu is made blue, whereas, corresponding to the Lower Manas, it is
green;

(_c_) Âpas is made white, whereas, corresponding to the Astral Body, it is
violet, with a silver, moonlike white substratum;

Tejas, red, is the only colour given correctly—from such considerations, I
say, it is easy to see that these disagreements are dangerous blinds.

Further, the practice of the Five Breaths results in deadly injury, both
physiologically and psychically, as already shown. It is indeed that which
it is called, Prânâyâma, or the death of the breath, for it results, for
the practiser, in death—in moral death always, and in physical death very
frequently.



On Exoteric “Blinds” and “the Death of the Soul.”


As a corollary to this, and before going into still more abstruse
teachings, I must redeem the promise already given. I have to illustrate
by tenets you already know, the awful doctrine of personal annihilation.
Banish from your minds all that you have hitherto read in such works as
_Esoteric Buddhism_, and thought you understood, of such hypotheses as the
eighth sphere and the moon, and that man shares a common ancestor with the
ape. Even the details occasionally given out by myself in the
_Theosophist_ and _Lucifer_ were nothing like the whole truth, but only
broad general ideas, hardly touched upon in their details. Certain
passages, however, give out hints, especially my foot‐notes on articles
translated from Éliphas Lévi’s _Letters on Magic_.(839)

Nevertheless, personal immortality is conditional, for there are such
things as “soulless men,” a teaching barely mentioned, although it is
spoken of even in _Isis Unveiled_;(840) and there is an Avîtchi, rightly
called Hell, though it has no connection with, or similitude to, the good
Christian’s Hell, either geographically or psychically. The truth known to
Occultists and Adepts in every age could not be given out to a promiscuous
public; hence, though almost every mystery of Occult Philosophy lies half
concealed in _Isis_ and the two earlier volumes of the present work, I had
no right to amplify or correct the details of others. Readers may now
compare those four volumes and such books as _Esoteric Buddhism_ with the
diagrams and explanations in these Papers, and see for themselves.

Paramâtmâ, the Spiritual Sun, may be thought of as outside the human Auric
Egg, as it is also outside the Macrocosmic or Brahmâ’s Egg. Why? Because,
though every particle and atom are, so to speak, cemented with and soaked
through by this Paramâtmic essence, yet it is wrong to call it a “human”
or even a “universal” Principle, for the term is very likely to give rise
to naught but an erroneous idea of the philosophical and purely
metaphysical concept; it is not a Principle, but the cause of every
Principle, the latter term being applied by Occultists only to its
shadow—the Universal Spirit that ensouls the boundless Kosmos whether
within or beyond Space and Time.

Buddhi serves as a vehicle for that Paramâtmic shadow. This Buddhi is
universal, and so also is the human Âtmâ. Within the Auric Egg is the
macracosmic pentacle of LIFE, Prâna, containing within itself the
pentagram which represents man. The universal pentacle must be pictured
with its point soaring upwards, the sign of White Magic—in the human
pentacle it is the lower limbs which are upward, forming the “Horns of
Satan,” as the Christian Kabbalists call them. This is the symbol of
Matter, that of the personal man, and the recognized pentacle of the Black
Magician. For this reversed pentacle does not stand only for Kâma, the
fourth Principle exoterically, but it also represents physical man, the
animal of flesh with its desires and passions.

Now, mark well, in order to understand that which follows, that Manas may
be pictured as an upper triangle connected with the lower Manas by a thin
line which binds the two together. This is the Antah‐karana, that path or
bridge of communication which serves as a link between the personal being
whose physical brain is under the sway of the lower animal mind, and the
reincarnating Individuality, the spiritual Ego, Manas, Manu, the “Divine
Man.” This thinking Manu alone is that which reincarnates. In truth and in
nature, the two Minds, the spiritual and the physical or animal, are one,
but separate into two at reincarnation. For while that portion of the
Divine which goes to animate the personality, consciously separating
itself, like a dense but pure shadow, from the Divine Ego,(841) wedges
itself into the brain and senses(842) of the fœtus, at the completion of
its seventh month, the Higher Manas does not unite itself with the child
before the completion of the first seven years of its life. This detached
essence, or rather the reflection or shadow of the Higher Manas, becomes,
as the child grows, a distinct thinking Principle in man, its chief agent
being the physical brain. No wonder the Materialists, who perceive only
_this_ “rational soul,” or mind, will not disconnect it with the brain and
matter. But Occult Philosophy has ages ago solved the problem of mind, and
discovered the duality of Manas. The Divine Ego tends with its point
upwards towards Buddhi, and the human Ego gravitates downwards, immersed
in Matter, connected with its higher, subjective half only by the
Antahkarana. As its derivation suggests, this is the only connecting link
during life between the two minds—the higher consciousness of the Ego and
the human intelligence of the lower mind.

To understand this abstruse metaphysical doctrine fully and correctly, one
has to be thoroughly impressed with an idea, which I have in vain
endeavoured to impart to Theosophists at large, namely, the great
axiomatic truth that the only eternal and living Reality is that which the
Hindus call Paramâtmâ and Parabrahman. This is the one ever‐existing Root
Essence, immutable and unknowable to our physical senses, but manifest and
clearly perceptible to our spiritual natures. Once imbued with that basic
idea and the further conception that if It is omnipresent, universal and
eternal, like abstract Space itself, we must have emanated from It and we
must, some day, return into It, and all the rest becomes easy.

If so, then it stands to reason that life and death, good and evil, past
and future, are all empty words, or at best, figures of speech. If the
objective Universe itself is but a passing illusion on account of its
beginning and finitude, then both life and death must also be aspects and
illusions. They are changes of state, in fact, and no more. Real life is
in the spiritual consciousness of that life, _in a conscious existence in
Spirit, not Matter_; and real death is the limited perception of life, the
impossibility of sensing conscious or even individual existence outside of
form, or at least, of some form of Matter. Those who sincerely reject the
possibility of conscious life divorced from Matter and brain‐substance,
are _dead units_. The words of Paul, an Initiate, become comprehensible.
“Ye are dead, and your _life_ is hid with Christ in God;” which is to say:
Ye are personally dead matter, unconscious of its own spiritual essence,
and your real life is hid with your Divine Ego (Christos) in, or merged
with, God (Âtmâ); now has it departed from you, ye soulless people.
Speaking on Esoteric lines, every irrevocably materialistic person is a
_dead Man_, a living automaton, in spite of his being endowed with great
brain power. Listen to what Aryasangha says, stating the same fact:


    That which is neither Spirit nor Matter, neither Light nor
    Darkness, but is verily the container and root of these, that thou
    art. The Root projects at every Dawn its shadow on ITSELF, and
    that shadow thou callest Light and Life, O poor dead Form. (This)
    Life‐Light streameth downward through the stairway of the seven
    worlds, the stairs of which each step become denser and darker. It
    is of this seven‐times‐seven scale that thou art the faithful
    climber and mirror, O little man! Thou art this, but thou knowest
    it not.


This is the first lesson to learn. The second is to study well the
Principles of both the Kosmos and ourselves, dividing the group into the
permanent and the impermanent, the higher and immortal and the lower and
mortal, for thus only can we master and guide, first the lower cosmic and
personal, then the higher cosmic and impersonal.

Once we can do that we have secured our immortality. But some may say:
“How few are those who can do so. All such are great Adepts, and none can
reach such Adeptship in one short life.” Agreed; but there is an
alternative. “If the Sun thou canst not be, then be the humble Planet,”
says the _Book of the Golden Precepts_. And if even that is beyond our
reach, then let us at least endeavour to keep within the ray of some
lesser star, so that its silvery light may penetrate the murky darkness,
through which the stony path of life trends onward; for without this
divine radiance we risk losing more than we imagine.

With regard, then, to “soulless” men, and the “second death” of the
“Soul,” mentioned in the second volume of _Isis Unveiled_, you will there
find that I have spoken of such soulless people, and even of Avîtchi,
though I leave the latter unnamed. Read from the last paragraph on page
367 to the end of the first paragraph on page 370, and then collate what
is there said with what I have now to say.

The higher triad, Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas, may be recognized from the first
lines of the quotation from the Egyptian papyrus. In the _Ritual_, now the
_Book of the Dead_, the purified Soul, the dual Manas, appears as “the
victim of the dark influence of the Dragon Apophis,” the physical
personality of Kâmarûpic man, with his passions. “If it has attained the
final knowledge of the heavenly and infernal Mysteries, the Gnosis”—the
divine and the terrestrial Mysteries, of White and Black Magic—then the
defunct personality “will triumph over its enemy”—death. This alludes to
the case of a complete re‐union, at the end of earth life, of the lower
Manas, full of “the harvest of life,” with its Ego. But if Apophis
conquers the Soul, then it “cannot escape a _second_ death.”

These few lines from a papyrus, many thousands of years old, contain a
whole revelation, known, in those days, only to the Hierophants and the
Initiates. The “harvest of life” consists of the finest spiritual
thoughts, of the memory of the noblest and most unselfish deeds of the
personality, and the constant presence during its bliss after death of all
those it loved with divine, spiritual devotion.(843) Remember the
teaching: The Human Soul, lower Manas, is the _only_ and direct mediator
between the personality and the Divine Ego. That which goes to make up on
this earth the _personality_ miscalled _individuality_ by the majority, is
the sum of all its mental, physical, and spiritual characteristics, which,
being impressed on the Human Soul, produces the _man_. Now, of all these
characteristics it is the purified thoughts alone which can be impressed
on the higher, immortal Ego. This is done by the Human Soul merging again,
in its essence, into its parent source, commingling with its Divine Ego
during life, and re‐uniting itself entirely with it after the death of the
physical man. Therefore, unless Kâma‐Manas transmits to Buddhi‐Manas such
personal ideations, and such consciousness of its “I” as can be
assimilated by the Divine Ego, nothing of that “I” or personality can
survive in the Eternal. Only that which is worthy of the immortal God
within us, and identical in its nature with the divine quintessence, can
survive; for in this case it is its own, the Divine Ego’s, “shadows” or
emanations which ascend to it and are indrawn by it into itself again, to
become once more part of its own Essence. No noble thought, no grand
aspiration, desire, or divine immortal love, can come into the brain of
the man of clay and settle there, except as a direct emanation from the
Higher to, and through, the lower Ego; all the rest, intellectual as it
may seem, proceeds from the “shadow,” the _lower mind_, in its association
and commingling with Kâma, and passes away and disappears for ever. But
the mental and spiritual ideations of the personal “I” return to it, as
parts of the Ego’s Essence, and can never fade out. Thus of the
personality that was, only its spiritual experiences, the memory of all
that is good and noble, with the consciousness of its “I” blended with
that of all the other personal “I’s” that preceded it, survive and become
immortal. There is no distinct or separate immortality for the men of
earth outside of the Ego which informed them. That Higher Ego is the sole
bearer of all its _alter egos_ on earth and their sole representative in
the mental state called Devachan. As the last embodied personality,
however, has a right to its own special state of bliss, unalloyed and free
from the memories of all others, it is the _last life only which is fully
and realistically vivid_. Devachan is often compared to the happiest day
in a series of many thousands of other “days” in the life of a person. The
intensity of its happiness makes the man entirely forget all others, his
past becoming obliterated.

This is what we call the Devachanic state, the reward of the personality,
and it is on this old teaching that the hazy Christian notion of Paradise
was built, borrowed with many other things from the Egyptian Mysteries,
wherein the doctrine was enacted. And this is the meaning of the passage
quoted in _Isis_. The Soul has triumphed over Apophis, the Dragon of
Flesh. Henceforth, the personality will live in eternity, in its highest
and noblest elements, the memory of its past deeds, while the
“characteristics” of the “Dragon” will be fading out in Kâma Loka. If the
question be asked, “How live in eternity, when Devachan lasts but from
1,000 to 2,000 years,” the answer is: “In the same way as the recollection
of each day which is worth remembering lives in the memory of each one of
us.” For the sake of an example, the days passed in one personal life may
be taken as an illustration of each personal life, and this or that person
may stand for the Divine Ego.

To obtain the key which will open the door of many a psychological mystery
it is sufficient to understand and remember that which precedes and that
which follows. Many a Spiritualist has felt terribly indignant on being
told that personal immortality was _conditional_; and yet such is the
philosophical and logical fact. Much has been said already on the subject,
but no one to this day seems to have fully understood the doctrine.
Moreover, it is not enough to know that such a fact is said to exist. All
Occultist, or he who would become one, must know _why_ it is so; for
having learned and comprehended the _raison d’étre_, it becomes easier to
set others right in their erroneous speculations, and, most important of
all, it affords one an opportunity, without saying too much, to teach
other people to avoid a calamity which, sad to say, occurs in our age
almost daily. This calamity will now be explained at length.

One must know little indeed of the Eastern modes of expression to fail to
see in the passage quoted from the _Book of the Dead_, and the pages of
_Isis_, (_a_) an allegory for the uninitiated, containing our Esoteric
teaching; and (_b_) that the two terms “second death” and “Soul” are, in
one sense, blinds. “Soul” refers indifferently to Buddhi‐Manas and Kâma‐
Manas. As to the term “second death,” the qualification “second” applies
to several deaths which have to be undergone by the “Principles” during
their incarnation, Occultists alone understanding fully the sense in which
such a statement is made. For we have (1) the death of the Body; (2) the
death of the Animal Soul in Kâma Loka; (3) the death of the Astral Linga
Sharîra, following that of the Body; (4) the metaphysical death of the
Higher Ego, the _immortal_, every time it “falls into matter,” or
incarnates in a new personality. The Animal Soul, or lower Manas, that
shadow of the Divine Ego which separates from it to inform the
personality, cannot by any possible means _escape death_ in Kâma Loka, at
any rate that portion of this reflection which remains as a terrestrial
residue and cannot be impressed on the Ego. Thus the chief and most
important secret with regard to that “second death,” in the Esoteric
teaching, was and is to this day the terrible possibility of the _death_
of the Soul, that is, its severance from the Ego on earth during a
person’s lifetime. This is a _real_ death (though with chances of
resurrection), which shows no traces in a person and yet leaves him
morally a living corpse. It is difficult to see why this teaching should
have been preserved until now with such secrecy, when, by spreading it
among people, at any rate among those who believe in reincarnation, so
much good might be done. But so it was, and I had no right to question the
wisdom of the prohibition, but have given it hitherto, as it was given to
myself, _under pledge_ not to reveal it to the world at large. But now I
have permission to give it to all, revealing its tenets first to the
Esotericists, and then when they have assimilated them thoroughly it will
be their duty to teach others this special tenet of the “second death,”
and warn all the Theosophists of its dangers.

To make the teaching clearer, I shall seemingly have to go over old
ground; in reality, however, it is given out with new light and new
details. I have tried to hint at it in the _Theosophist_ as I have done in
_Isis_, but have failed to make myself understood. I will now explain it,
point by point.



The Philosophical Rationale of the Tenet.


(1) Imagine, for illustration’s sake, the one homogeneous, absolute and
omnipresent Essence, above the upper step of the “stair of the seven
planes of worlds,” ready to start on its evolutionary journey. As its
correlating reflection gradually descends, it differentiates and
transforms into subjective, and finally into objective matter. Let us call
it at its north pole Absolute Light; at its south pole, which to us would
be the fourth or middle step, or plane, counting either way, we know it
Esoterically as the One and Universal Life. Now mark the difference.
Above, LIGHT; below, _Life_. The former is ever immutable, the latter
manifests under the aspects of countless differentiations. According to
the Occult law, all potentialities included in the higher become
differentiated reflections in the lower; and according to the same law,
nothing which is differentiated can be blended with the homogeneous.

Again, nothing can endure of that which lives and breathes and has its
being in the seething waves of the world, or plane of differentiation.
Thus Buddhi and Manas being both primordial rays of the One Flame, the
former the vehicle, the upâdhi or vâhana, of the one eternal Essence, the
latter the vehicle of Mahat or Divine Ideation (Mahâ‐Buddhi in the
_Purânas_), the Universal Intelligent Soul—neither of them, as such, can
become extinct or be annihilated, either in essence or consciousness. But
the physical personality with its Linga Sharîra, and the animal soul, with
its Kâma,(844) can and do become so. They are born in the realm of
illusion, and must vanish like a fleecy cloud from the blue and eternal
sky.

He who has read these volumes with any degree of attention, must know the
origin of the human Egos, called Monads, generically, and what they were
before they were forced to incarnate in the human animal. The divine
beings whom Karma led to act in the drama of Manvantaric life, are
entities from higher and earlier worlds and planets, whose Karma had not
been exhausted when their world went into Pralaya. Such is the teaching;
but whether it is so or not, the Higher Egos are—as compared to such forms
of transitory, terrestrial mud as ourselves—Divine Beings, Gods, immortal
throughout the Mahâmanvantara, or the 311,040,000,000,000 years during
which the Age of Brahmâ lasts. And as the Divine Egos, in order to re‐
become the One Essence, or be indrawn again into the AUM, have to purify
themselves in the fire of suffering and individual experience, so also
have the terrestrial Egos, the personalities, to do likewise, if they
would partake of the immortality of the Higher Egos. This they can achieve
by crushing in themselves all that benefits only the lower personal nature
of their “selves” and by aspiring to transfuse their thinking Kâmic
Principle into that of the Higher Ego. We (_i.e._, our personalities)
become immortal by the mere fact of our thinking moral nature being
grafted on our Divine Triune Monad, Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas, the three in one
and one in three (aspects). For the Monad manifested on earth by the
incarnating Ego is that which is called the Tree of Life Eternal, that can
only be approached by eating the fruit of knowledge, the Knowledge of Good
and Evil, or of GNOSIS, Divine Wisdom.

In the Esoteric teachings, this Ego is the fifth Principle in man. But the
student who has read and understood the first two Papers, knows something
more. He is aware that the seventh is not a human, but a universal
Principle in which man participates; but so does equally every physical
and subjective atom, and also every blade of grass and everything that
lives or is in Space, whether it be sensible of it or not. He knows,
moreover, that if man is more closely connected with it, and assimilates
it with a hundredfold more power, it is simply because he is endowed with
the highest consciousness on this earth; that man, in short, may become a
Spirit, a Deva, or a God, in his next transformation, whereas neither a
stone nor a vegetable, nor an animal, can do so before they become men in
their proper turn.

(2) Now what are the functions of Buddhi? On this plane it has none,
unless it is united with Manas, the conscious Ego. Buddhi stands to the
divine Root Essence in the same relation as Mûlaprakriti to Parabrahman,
in the Vedânta School; or as Alaya the Universal Soul to the One Eternal
Spirit, or that which is beyond Spirit. It is its human vehicle, one
remove from that Absolute, which can have no relation whatever to the
finite and the conditioned.

(3) What, again, is Manas and its functions? In its purely metaphysical
aspect, Manas, though one remove on the downward plane from Buddhi, is
still so immeasurably higher than the physical man, that it cannot enter
into direct relation with the personality, except through its reflection,
the lower mind. Manas is _Spiritual Self‐Consciousness_ in itself, and
Divine Consciousness when united with Buddhi, which is the true “producer”
of that “production” (vikâra), or Self‐Consciousness, through Mahat.
Buddhi‐Manas, therefore, is entirety unfit to manifest during its
periodical incarnations, except through the human mind or lower Manas.
Both are linked together and are inseparable, and can have as little to do
with the lower Tanmâtras,(845) or rudimentary atoms, as the homogeneous
with the heterogeneous. It is, therefore, the task of the lower Manas, or
thinking personality, if it would blend itself with its God, the Divine
Ego, to dissipate and paralyze the Tanmâtras, or properties of the
material form. Therefore, Manas is shown double, as the Ego and Mind of
Man. It is Kâma‐Manas, or the lower Ego, which, deluded into a notion of
independent existence, as the “producer” in its turn and the sovereign of
the five Tanmâtras, becomes _Ego‐ism_, the selfish Self, in which case it
has to be considered as Mahâbhûtic and finite, in the sense of its being
connected with Ahankâra, the personal “I‐creating” faculty. Hence


    Manas has to be regarded as eternal and non‐eternal; eternal in
    its atomic nature (paramanu rûpa), as eternal substance (dravya),
    finite (kârya rûpa) when linked as a duad with Kâma (animal desire
    or human _egoistic_ volition), a lower production, in short.(846)


While, therefore, the INDIVIDUAL EGO, owing to its essence and nature, is
immortal throughout eternity, with a form (rûpa), which prevails during
the whole life cycles of the Fourth Round, its _Sosie_, or resemblance,
the personal Ego, has to win its immortality.

(4) Antahkarana is the name of that imaginary bridge, the _path_ which
lies between the Divine and the human Egos, for they are _Egos_, during
human life, to re‐become _one_ Ego in Devachan or Nirvâna. This may seem
difficult to understand, but in reality, with the help of a familiar,
though fanciful illustration, it becomes quite simple. Let us figure to
ourselves a bright lamp in the middle of a room, casting its light upon
the wall. Let the lamp represent the Divine Ego, and the light thrown on
the wall the lower Manas, and let the wall stand for the body. That
portion of the atmosphere which transmits the ray from the lamp to the
wall, will then represent the Antahkarana. We must further suppose that
the light thus cast is endowed with reason and intelligence, and
possesses, moreover, the faculty of dissipating all the evil shadows which
pass across the wall, and of attracting all brightnesses to itself,
receiving their indelible impressions. Now, it is in the power of the
human Ego to chase away the shadows, or sins, and multiply the
brightnesses, or good deeds, which make these impressions, and thus
through Antahkarana, ensure its own permanent connection, and its final
re‐union, with the Divine Ego. Remember that the latter cannot take place
while there remains a single taint of the terrestrial, or of matter, in
the purity of that light. On the other hand, the connection cannot be
entirely ruptured, and final re‐union prevented, so long as there remains
one spiritual deed, or potentiality to serve as a thread of union; but the
moment this last spark is extinguished, and the last potentiality
exhausted, then comes the severance. In an Eastern parable, the Divine Ego
is likened to the Master who sends out his labourers to till the ground
and to gather in the harvest, and who is content to keep the field so long
as it can yield even the smallest return. But when the ground becomes
absolutely sterile, not only is it abandoned, but the labourer also (the
lower Manas) perishes.

On the other hand, however, still using our simile, when the light thrown
on the wall, or the rational human Ego, reaches the point of actual
spiritual exhaustion, the Antahkarana disappears, no more light is
transmitted, and the lamp becomes non‐existent to the ray. The light which
has been absorbed gradually disappears and “Soul eclipse” occurs; the
being lives on earth and then passes into Kâma Loka as a mere surviving
congeries of material qualities; it can never pass onwards towards
Devachan, but is reborn immediately, a human animal and scourge.

This simile, however fantastic, will help us to seize the correct idea.
Save through the blending of the moral nature with the Divine Ego, there
is no immortality for the personal Ego. It is only the most spiritual
emanations of the personal Human Soul which survive. Having, during a
lifetime, been imbued with the notion and feeling of the “I am I” of its
personality, the Human Soul, the bearer of the very essence of the Karmic
deeds of the physical man, becomes, after the death of the latter, part
and parcel of the Divine Flame, the Ego. It becomes immortal through the
mere fact that it is now strongly grafted on the Monad, which is the “Tree
of Life Eternal.”

And now we must speak of the tenet of the “second death.” What happens to
the Kâmic Human Soul, which is always that of a debased and wicked man or
of a soulless person? This mystery will now be explained.

The personal Soul in this case, _viz._, in that of one who has never had a
thought not concerned with the animal self, having nothing to transmit to
the Higher, or to add to the sum of the experiences gleaned from past
incarnations which its memory is to preserve throughout eternity—this
personal Soul becomes separated from the Ego. It can graft nothing of self
on that eternal trunk whose sap throws out millions of personalities, like
leaves from its branches, leaves which wither, die and fall at the end of
their season. These personalities bud, blossom forth and expire, some
without leaving a trace behind, others after commingling their own life
with that of the parent stem. It is the Souls of the former class that are
doomed to annihilation, or Avîtchi, a state so badly understood, and still
worse described by some Theosophical writers, but which is not only
located on our earth, but is in fact this very earth itself.

Thus we see that Antahkarana has been destroyed before the lower man has
had an opportunity of assimilating the Higher and becoming at one with it;
and therefore the Kâmic “Soul” becomes a separate entity, to live
henceforth, for a short or long period according to its Karma, as a
“soulless” creature.

But before I elaborate this question, I must explain more clearly the
meaning and functions of the Antahkarana. As already said, it may be
represented as a narrow bridge connecting the Higher and the lower Manas.
If you look at the Glossary of the _Voice of the Silence_, pp. 88 and 89,
you will find that it is a projection of the lower Manas, or, rather, the
link between the latter and the Higher Ego, or, between the Human and the
Divine or Spiritual Soul.(847)


    At death it is destroyed as a path, or medium of communication,
    and its remains survive as Kâma Rûpa,


the “shell.” It is this which the Spiritualists see sometimes appearing in
the séance rooms as materialized “forms,” which they foolishly mistake for
the “Spirits of the Departed.”(848) So far is this from being the case,
that in dreams, though Antahkarana is there, the personality is only half
awake; therefore, Antahkarana is said to be _drunk_ or _insane_ during our
normal sleeping state. If such is the case during the periodical death, or
sleep, of the living body, one may judge what the consciousness of
Antahkarana is like when it has been transformed after the “eternal sleep”
into Kâma Rûpa.

But to return. In order not to confuse the mind of the Western student
with the abstruse difficulties of Indian metaphysics, let him view the
lower Manas, or Mind, as the personal Ego during the waking state, and as
Antahkarana only during those moments when it aspires towards its Higher
Ego, and thus becomes the medium of communication between the two. It is
for this reason that it is called the “Path.” Now, when a limb or organ
belonging to the physical organism is left in disuse, it becomes weak and
finally atrophies. So also is it with mental faculties; and hence the
atrophy of the lower mind‐function, called Antahkarana, becomes
comprehensible in both completely materialistic and depraved natures.

According to Esoteric Philosophy, however, the teaching is as follows:
Seeing that the faculty and function of Antahkarana is as necessary as the
medium of the ear for hearing, or that of the eye for seeing; then so long
as the feeling of Ahankâra, that is, of the personal “I” or selfishness,
is not entirely crushed out in a man, and the lower mind not entirely
merged into and become one with the Higher Buddhi‐Manas, it stands to
reason that to destroy Antahkarana is like destroying a bridge over an
impassable chasm; _the traveller can never reach the goal on the other
shore_. And here lies the difference between the exoteric and Esoteric
teaching. The former makes the Vedânta state that so long as Mind (the
lower) clings through Antahkarana to Spirit (Buddhi‐Manas) it is
impossible for it to acquire true Spiritual Wisdom, Gnyâna, and that this
can only be attained by seeking to come _en rapport_ with the Universal
Soul (Âtmâ); that, in fact, it is by ignoring the Higher Mind altogether
that one reaches Râja Yoga. We say it is not so. No single rung of the
ladder leading to knowledge can be skipped. No personality can ever reach
or bring itself into communication with Âtmâ, except through Buddhi‐Manas;
to try and become a Jîvanmukta or a Mahâtmâ, before one has become an
Adept or even a Narjol (a sinless man) is like trying to reach Ceylon from
India without crossing the sea. Therefore we are told that if we destroy
Antahkarana before the personal is absolutely under the control of the
impersonal Ego, we risk to lose the latter and be severed for ever from
it, unless indeed we hasten to re‐establish the communication by a supreme
and final effort.

It is only when we are indissolubly linked with the essence of the Divine
Mind, that we have to destroy Antahkarana.


    Like as a solitary warrior pursued by an army, seeks refuge in a
    stronghold; to cut himself off from the enemy, he first destroys
    the drawbridge, and then only commences to destroy the pursuer; so
    must the Srotâpatti act before he slays Antahkarana.


Or as an Occult axiom has it:


    _The Unit becomes Three, and Three generate Four. It is for the
    latter [the Quaternary] to rebecome Three, and for the Divine
    Three to expand into the Absolute One._


Monads, which become Duads on the differentiated plane, to develop into
Triads during the cycle of incarnations, even when incarnated know neither
space nor time, but are diffused through the lower Principles of the
Quaternary, being omnipresent and omniscient in their nature. But this
omniscience is innate, and can manifest its reflected light only through
that which is at least semi‐terrestrial or material; even as the physical
brain which, in its turn, is the vehicle of the lower Manas enthroned in
Kâma Rûpa. And it is this which is gradually annihilated in cases of
“second death.”

But such annihilation—which is in reality the absence of the slightest
trace of the doomed Soul from the eternal MEMORY, and therefore signifies
annihilation in eternity—does not mean simply discontinuation of human
life on earth, for earth is Avîtchi, and the worst Avîtchi possible.
Expelled for ever from the consciousness of the Individuality, the
reincarnating Ego, the physical atoms and psychic vibrations of the now
separate personality are immediately reincarnated on the same earth, only
in a lower and still more abject creature, a human being only in form,
doomed to Karmic torments during the whole of its new life. Moreover, if
it persists in its criminal or debauched course, it will suffer a long
series of immediate reincarnations.

Here two questions present themselves: (1) What becomes of the Higher Ego
in such cases? (2) What kind of an animal is a human creature born
soulless?

Before answering these two very natural queries, I have to draw the
attention of all of you who are born in Christian countries to the fact
that the romance of the vicarious atonement and the mission of Jesus, as
it now stands, was drawn or borrowed by some too liberal Initiates from
the mysterious and weird tenet of the earthly experience of the
reincarnating Ego. The latter is indeed the sacrificial victim of, and
through, its own Karma in previous Manvantaras, which takes upon itself
voluntarily the duty of saving what would be otherwise soulless men or
personalities. Eastern truth is thus more philosophical and logical than
Western fiction. The Christos, or Buddhi‐Manas of each man is not quite an
innocent and sinless God, though in one sense it is the “Father,” being of
the same essence with the Universal Spirit, and at the same time the
“Son,” for Manas is the second remove from the “Father.” By incarnation
the Divine Son makes itself responsible for the sins of all the
personalities which it will inform. This it can do only through its proxy
or reflection, the lower Manas. The only case in which the Divine Ego can
escape individual penalty and responsibility as a guiding Principle, is
when it has to break off from the personality, because matter, with its
psychic and astral vibrations, is then, by the very intensity of its
combinations, placed beyond the control of the Ego. Apophis, the Dragon,
having become the conqueror, the reincarnating Manas, separating itself
gradually from its tabernacle, breaks finally asunder from the psycho‐
animal Soul.

Thus, in answer to the first question, I say:

(1) The Divine Ego does one of two things: either (_a_) it recommences
immediately under its own Karmic impulses a fresh series of incarnations;
or (_b_) it seeks and finds refuge in the bosom of the Mother, Alaya, the
Universal Soul, of which the Manvantaric aspect is Mahat. Freed from the
life‐impressions of the personality, it merges into a kind of Nirvânic
interlude, wherein there can be nothing but the eternal Present, which
absorbs the Past and Future. Bereft of the “labourer,” both field and
harvest now being lost, the Master, in the infinitude of his thought,
naturally preserves no recollection of the finite and evanescent illusion
which had been his last personality. And then, indeed, is the latter
annihilated.

(2) The future of the lower Manas is more terrible, and still more
terrible to humanity than to the now animal man. It sometimes happens that
after the separation the exhausted Soul, now become supremely animal,
fades out in Kâma Loka, as do all other animal souls. But seeing that the
more material is the human mind, the longer it lasts, even in the
intermediate stage, it frequently happens that after the present life of
the soulless man is ended, he is again and again reincarnated into new
personalities, each one more abject than the other. The impulse of _animal
life_ is too strong; it cannot wear itself out in one or two lives only.
In rarer cases, however, when the lower Manas is doomed to exhaust itself
by _starvation_; when there is no longer hope that even a remnant of a
lower light will, owing to favourable conditions—say, even a short period
of spiritual aspiration and repentance—attract back to itself its Parent
Ego, and Karma leads the Higher Ego back to new incarnations, then
something far more dreadful may happen. The Kâma‐Mânasic spook may become
that which is called in Occultism the “Dweller on the Threshold.” This
Dweller is not like that which is described so graphically in _Zanoni_,
but an actual fact in Nature and not a fiction in romance, however
beautiful the latter may be. Bulwer, however, must have got the idea from
some Eastern Initiate. This Dweller, led by affinity and attraction,
forces itself into the astral current, and through the Auric Envelope, of
the new tabernacle inhabited by the Parent Ego, and declares war to the
lower light which has replaced it. This, of course, can only happen in the
case of the moral weakness of the personality so obsessed. No one strong
in virtue, and righteous in his walk of life, can risk or dread any such
thing; but only those depraved in heart. Robert Louis Stevenson had a
glimpse of a true vision indeed when he wrote his _Strange Case of Dr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_. His story is a true allegory. Every Chelâ will
recognise in it a substratum of truth, and in Mr. Hyde a Dweller, an
obsessor of the personality, the tabernacle of the Parent Spirit.

“This is a nightmare tale!” I was often told by one, now no more in our
ranks, who had a most pronounced “Dweller,” a “Mr. Hyde,” as an almost
constant companion. “How can such a process take place without one’s
knowledge?” It can and does so happen, and I have almost described it once
before in the _Theosophist_.


    The Soul, the lower Mind, becomes as a half animal principle
    almost paralyzed with daily vice, and grows gradually unconscious
    of its subjective half, the Lord, one of the mighty Host; [and] in
    proportion to the rapid sensuous development of the brain and
    nerves, sooner or later, it (the personal Soul) finally loses
    sight of its divine mission on earth.


Truly,


    Like the vampire, the brain feeds and lives and grows in strength
    at the expense of its spiritual parent ... and the personal half‐
    unconscious Soul becomes senseless, beyond hope of redemption. It
    is powerless to discern the voice of its God. It aims but at the
    development and fuller comprehension of natural, earthly life; and
    thus can discover but the mysteries of physical nature.... It
    begins by becoming virtually dead, during the life of the body;
    and ends by dying completely—that is, by being _annihilated as a
    complete immortal Soul_. Such a catastrophe may often happen long
    years before one’s physical death: “We elbow soulless men and
    women at every step in life.” And when death arrives ... there is
    no more a Soul (the reincarnating Spiritual Ego) to liberate ...
    for _it has fled years before_.


_Result_: Bereft of its guiding Principles, but strengthened by the
material elements, Kâma‐Manas, from being a “derived light” now becomes an
independent Entity. After thus suffering itself to sink lower and lower on
the animal plane, when the hour strikes for its earthly body to die, one
of two things happens: either Kâma‐Manas is immediately reborn in Myalba,
the state of Avîtchi on earth,(849) or, if it become too strong in
evil—“immortal in Satan” is the Occult expression—it is sometimes allowed,
for Karmic purposes, to remain in an active state of Avîtchi in the
terrestrial Aura. Then through despair and loss of all hope it becomes
like the mythical “devil” in its endless wickedness; it continues in its
elements, which are imbued through and through with the essence of Matter;
for evil is coeval with Matter rent asunder from Spirit. And when its
Higher Ego has once more reincarnated, evolving a new reflection, or Kâma‐
Manas, the doomed lower Ego, like a Frankenstein’s monster, will ever feel
attracted to its Father, who repudiates his son, and will become a regular
“Dweller on the Threshold” of terrestrial life. I gave the outlines of the
Occult doctrine in the _Theosophist_ of October, 1881, and November, 1882,
but could not go into details, and therefore got very much embarrassed
when called upon to explain. Yet I have written there plainly enough about
“useless drones,” those who refuse to become co‐workers with Nature and
who perish by millions during the Manvantaric life‐cycle; those, as in the
case in hand, who prefer to be ever suffering in Avîtchi under Karmic law
rather than give up their lives “in evil,” and finally, those who are co‐
workers with Nature for destruction. These are thoroughly wicked and
depraved men, but yet as highly intellectual and acutely _spiritual_ for
evil, as those who are spiritual for good.


    The (lower) Egos of these may escape the law of final destruction
    or annihilation for ages to come.


Thus we find two kinds of soulless beings on earth: those who have lost
their Higher Ego in the present incarnation, and those who are born
soulless, having been severed from their Spiritual Soul in the preceding
birth. The former are candidates for Avîtchi; the latter are “Mr. Hydes,”
whether _in_ or _out_ of human bodies, whether incarnated or hanging about
as invisible though potent ghouls. In such men, cunning develops to an
enormous degree, and no one except those who are familiar with the
doctrine would suspect them of being soulless, for neither Religion nor
Science has the least suspicion that such facts actually exist in Nature.

There is, however, still hope for a person who has lost his Higher Soul
through his vices, while he is yet in the body. He may be still redeemed
and made to turn on his material nature. For either an intense feeling of
repentance, or one single earnest appeal to the Ego that has fled, or best
of all, an active effort to amend one’s ways, may bring the Higher Ego
back again. The thread of connection is not altogether broken, though the
Ego is now beyond forcible reach, for “Antahkarana is destroyed,” and the
personal Entity has one foot already in Myalba;(850) yet it is not
entirely beyond hearing a strong spiritual appeal. There is another
statement made in _Isis Unveiled_(851) on this subject. It is said that
this terrible death may be sometimes avoided by the knowledge of the
mysterious NAME, the “WORD.”(852) What this “WORD,” which is not a “Word”
but a _Sound_, is, you all know. Its potency lies in the rhythm or the
accent. This means simply that even a bad person may, by the study of the
Sacred Science, be redeemed and stopped on the path of destruction. But
unless he is in thorough union with his Higher Ego, he may repeat it,
parrot‐like, ten thousand times a day, and the “Word” will not help him.
On the contrary, if not entirely at one with his Higher Triad, it may
produce quite the reverse of a beneficent effect, the Brothers of the
Shadow using it very often for malicious objects; in which case it awakens
and stirs up naught but the evil, material elements of Nature. But if
one’s nature is good, and sincerely strives towards the HIGHER SELF, which
is that Aum, through one’s Higher Ego, which is its third letter, and
Buddhi the second, there is no attack of the Dragon Apophis which it will
not repel. From those to whom much is given much is expected. He who
knocks at the door of the Sanctuary in full knowledge of its sacredness,
and after obtaining admission, departs from the threshold, or turns round
and says, “Oh, there’s nothing in it!” and thus loses his chance of
learning the whole truth—can but await his Karma.

Such are then the Esoteric explanations of that which has perplexed so
many who have found what they thought contradictions in various
Theosophical writings, including “Fragments of Occult Truth,” in vols.
iii. and iv. of _The Theosophist_, etc. Before finally dismissing the
subject, I must add a caution, which pray keep well in mind. It will be
very natural for those of you who are Esotericists to hope that none of
you belong so far to the soulless portion of mankind, and that you can
feel quite easy about Avîtchi, even as the good citizen is about the penal
laws. Though not, perhaps, exactly on the Path as yet, you are skirting
its border, and many of you in the right direction. Between such venal
faults as are inevitable under our social environment, and the blasting
wickedness described in the Editor’s note on Éliphas Lévi’s “Satan,”(853)
there is an abyss. If not become “immortal in good by identification with
(our) God,” or AUM, Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas, we have surely not made ourselves
“immortal in evil” by coalescing with Satan, the lower Self. You forget,
however, that everything must have a beginning; that the first step on a
slippery mountain slope is the necessary antecedent to one’s falling
precipitately to the bottom and into the arms of death. Be it far from me
the suspicion that any of the Esoteric students have reached to any
considerable point down the plane of spiritual descent. All the same I
warn you to avoid taking the first step. You may not reach the bottom in
this life or the next, but you may now generate causes which will insure
your spiritual destruction in your third, fourth, fifth, or even some
subsequent birth. In the great Indian epic you may read how a mother whose
whole family of warrior sons were slaughtered in battle, complained to
Krishna that though she had the spiritual vision to enable her to look
back fifty incarnations, yet she could see no sin of hers that could have
begotten so dreadful a Karma; and Krishna answered her: “If thou could’st
look back to thy fifty‐first anterior birth, as I can, thou would’st see
thyself killing in wanton cruelty the same number of ants as that of the
sons thou hast now lost.” This, of course, is only a poetical
exaggeration; yet it is a striking image to show how great results come
from apparently trifling causes.

Good and evil are relative, and are intensified or lessened according to
the conditions by which man is surrounded. One who belongs to that which
we call the “useless portion of mankind,” that is to say, the lay
majority, is in many cases irresponsible. Crimes committed in Avidyâ, or
ignorance, involve physical but not moral responsibilities or Karma. Take,
for example, the case of idiots, children, savages, and people who know no
better. But the case of each who is pledged to the HIGHER SELF is quite
another matter. _You cannot invoke this Divine Witness with impunity_, and
once that you have put yourselves under its tutelage, you have asked the
Radiant Light to shine and search through all the dark corners of your
being; consciously you have invoked the Divine Justice of Karma to take
note of your motive, to scrutinize your actions, and to enter up all in
your account. The step is irrevocable as that of the infant taking birth.
Never again can you force yourselves back into the matrix of Avidyâ and
irresponsibility. Though you flee to the uttermost parts of the earth, and
hide yourselves from the sight of men, or seek oblivion in the tumult of
the social whirl, that Light will find you out and lighten your every
thought, word and deed. All H. P. B. can do is to send to each earnest one
among you a most sincerely fraternal sympathy and hope for a good outcome
to your endeavours. Nevertheless, be not discouraged, but try, ever keep
trying;(854) twenty failures are not irremediable if followed by as many
undaunted struggles upward. Is it not so that mountains are climbed? And
know further, that if Karma relentlessly records in the Esotericist’s
account, bad deeds that in the ignorant would be overlooked, yet, equally
true is it that each of his good deeds is, by reason of his association
with the Higher Self, a hundredfold intensified as a potentiality for
good.

Finally, keep ever in mind the consciousness that though you see no Master
by your bedside, nor hear one audible whisper in the silence of the still
night, yet the Holy Power is about you, the Holy Light is shining into
your hour of spiritual need and aspirations, and it will be no fault of
the MASTERS, or of their humble mouthpiece and servant, if through
perversity or moral feebleness some of you cut yourselves off from these
higher potencies, and step upon the declivity that leads to Avîtchi.



Appendix. Notes on Papers I., II. and III.



Page 436.


Students in the west have little or no idea of the forces that lie latent
in Sound, the Âkâshic vibrations that may be set up by those who
understand how to pronounce certain words. The Om, or the “_Om mani padme
hum_” are in spiritual affinity with cosmic forces, but without a
knowledge of the natural arrangement, or of the order in which the
syllables stand, very little can be achieved. “Om” is, of course, Aum,
that may be pronounced as two, three or seven syllables, setting up
different vibrations.

Now, letters, as vocal sounds, cannot fail to correspond with musical
notes, and therefore with numbers and colours; hence also with Forces and
Tattvas. He who remembers that the Universe is built up from the Tattvas
will readily understand something of the power that may be exercised by
vocal sounds. Every letter in the alphabet, whether divided into three,
four, or seven septenaries, or forty‐nine letters, has its own colour, or
shade of colour. He who has learnt the colours of the alphabetical
letters, and the corresponding numbers of the seven, and the forty‐nine
colours and shades on the scale of planes and forces, and knows their
respective order in the seven planes, will easily master the art of
bringing them into affinity or interplay. But here a difficulty arises.
The Senzar and Sanskrit alphabets, and other Occult tongues, besides other
potencies, have a number, colour, and distinct syllable for every letter,
and so had also the old Mosaic Hebrew. But how many students know any of
these tongues? When the time comes, therefore, it must suffice to teach
the students the numbers and colours attached to the Latin letters only
(N.B. as pronounced in Latin, not in Anglo‐Saxon, Scotch, or Irish). This,
however, would be at present premature.

The colour and number of not only the planets but also the zodiacal
constellations corresponding to every letter of the alphabet, are
necessary to make any special syllable, and even letter, _operative_.(855)
Therefore if a student would make Buddhi operative, for instance, he would
have to intone the first words of the Mantra on the note _mi_. But he
would have still further to accentuate the _mi_, and produce mentally the
yellow colour corresponding to this sound and note, on every letter M in
“_Om mani padme hum_”; this, not because the note bears the same name in
the vernacular, Sanskrit, or even the Senzar, for it does not—but because
the letter M follows the first letter, and is in this sacred formula also
the seventh and the fourth. As Buddhi it is second; as Buddhi‐Manas it is
the second and third combined.

H. P. B.



Page 439.(856)


The Pythagorean Four, or Tetraktys, was the symbol of the Kosmos, as
containing within itself, the point, the line, the superficies, the solid;
in other words, the essentials of all forms. Its mystical representation
is the point within the triangle. The Decad or perfect number is contained
in the Four; thus, 1+2+3+4=10.



Page 477.


The difficult passage: “Bear in mind ... a mystery below truly,”(857) may
become a little more clear to the student if slightly amplified. The
“primordial Triangle” is the Second Logos, which reflects itself as a
Triangle in the Third Logos, or Heavenly Man, and then disappears. The
Third Logos, containing the “potency of formative creation,” develops the
Tetraktys from the Triangle, and so becomes the Seven, the Creative Force,
making a Decad with the primordial Triangle which originated it. When this
heavenly Triangle and Tetraktys are reflected in the Universe of Matter,
as the astral paradigmatic man, they are reversed, and the Triangle, or
formative potency, is thrown below the Quaternary, with its apex pointing
downwards: the Monad of this astral paradigmatic man is itself a Triangle,
bearing to the Quaternary and Triangle the relation borne by the
primordial Triangle to the Heavenly Man. Hence the phrase, “the upper
Triangle ... is shifted in the man of clay below _the seven_.” Here again
the Point tracing the Triangle, the Monad becoming the Ternary, with the
Quaternary and the lower creative triangle, make up the Decad, the perfect
number. “As above, so below.”

The student will do well to relate the knowledge here acquired to that
given on p. 477. Here the upper Triangle is given as Violet, Indigo, Blue,
associating Violet as the paradigm of all forms with Indigo as Mahat, and
blue as the Âtmic Aura. In the Quaternary, Yellow, as substance, is
associated with Yellow‐Orange, Life, and Red‐Orange, the creative potency.
Green is the plane between.

The next stage is not explained. Green passes upwards to Violet, Indigo,
Blue, the Triangle opening out to receive it, and so forming the square,
Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green. This leaves the Red‐Orange, Yellow‐Orange,
and Yellow, and these, having thus lost their fourth member, can only form
a triangle. This triangle revolves, to point downwards for the descent
into matter, and “mirrored on the plane of gross nature, it is reversed.”

In the perfect man the Red will be absorbed by the Green; Yellow will
become one with Indigo; Yellow‐Orange will be absorbed in Blue; Violet
will remain outside the True Man, though connected with him. Or, to
translate the colours: Kâma will be absorbed in the Lower Manas; Buddhi
will become one with Manas; Prâna will be absorbed in the Auric Egg; the
physical body remains, connected but outside the real life.

A. B.



Page 481.


To the five senses at present the property of mankind two more on this
globe are to be added. The sixth sense is the psychic sense of colour. The
seventh is that of spiritual sound. In the second instruction, the
corrected rates of vibration for the seven primary colours and their
modulations are given. Inspecting these, it appears that each colour
differs from the proceeding one by a step of 42, or 6 × 7.

462 Red     + 42 = 504
504 Orange  + 42 = 546
546 Yellow  + 42 = 588
588 Green   + 42 = 630
630 Blue    + 42 = 672
672 Indigo  + 42 = 714
714 Violet  + 42 = 756
756 Red

Carrying the process backward, and subtracting 42, we find that the first
or ground colour is green, for this globe.

—— Green
42 Blue
84 Indigo
126 Violet (end of First semi‐octave)
168 Red (start of Second octave)
210 Orange
252 Yellow
294 Green
336 Blue
378 Indigo
420 Violet
462 Red

The second and fourth octaves would be heat and actinic rays, and are
invisible to our present perception.

The seventh sense is that of spiritual sound; and, since the vibrations of
the sixth progress by steps of 6 × 7, those of the seventh progress by
steps of 7 × 7. This is their table:

—— Fa ... Green Sound (start of First semi‐octave)
49 Sol ...  Blue
98 La ...  Indigo
147 Si ...  Violet
196 Do ... Red
245 Re ... Orange (start of Second Octave)
294 Mi ...  Yellow
343 Fa ... Green
392 Sol ...  Blue
441 La ... Indigo
490 Si ... Violet
539 Do ...  Red
Etc., etc.

The fifth sense is in our possession: it is possibly that of geometrical
form, and its steps of progression would be 5 × 7, or 35.

The fourth sense is that of physical hearing, music, and its progressions
are 28, or 4 × 7. The truth of this is demonstrated by the fact that it is
in accord with the theories of Science as to the vibrations of musical
notes. Our scale is as follows:

—, 28, 56, 84, 112, 140, 168, 196, 224, 252, 280, 308, 336, 364, 392, 420,
448, 476, 504, 532, 560, 588, 616, 644, 672, 700.

According to musical science, the notes C, E, G, are as 4, 5, 6, in their
ratios of vibrations. The same ratio obtains between the notes of the
triplet G, B, D, and F, A, C.

H. C.



Notes On Some Oral Teachings.



The Three Vital Airs.


It is the pure Âkâsha that passes up Sushumnâ: its two aspects flow in Idâ
and Pingalâ. These are the three vital airs, and are symbolized by the
Brâhmanical thread. They are ruled by the Will. Will and Desire are the
higher and lower aspects of one and the same thing. Hence the importance
of the purity of the canals; for if they soil the vital airs energized by
the Will, Black Magic results. This is why all sexual intercourse is
forbidden in practical Occultism.

From Sushumnâ, Idâ and Pingalâ a circulation is set up, and from the
central canal passes into the whole body. (Man is a tree; he has in him
the macrocosm and the microcosm. Hence the trees used as symbols; the
Dhyân‐Chohanic body is thus figured.)



The Auric Egg.


The Auric Egg is formed in curves, which may be conceived from the curves
formed by sand on a vibrating metal disk. Each atom, as each body, has its
Auric Egg, each centre forming its own. This Auric Egg, with the
appropriate materials thrown into it, is a defence; no wild animal,
however ferocious, will approach the Yogî thus guarded: it flings back
from its surface all malign influences. No Will power is manifested
through the Auric Egg.

_Q. What is the connection between the circulation of the vital airs and
the power of the Yogî to make his Auric Egg a defence against aggression?_

_A._ It is impossible to answer this question. The knowledge is the last
word of Magic. It is connected with Kundalinî, that can as easily destroy
as preserve. The ignorant tyro might kill himself.

_Q. Is the Auric Egg of a child a differentiation of Akâsha, into which
may be thrown by the Adept the materials he needs for special
purposes_—_e.g._, _the Mâyâvi Rûpa?_

[The question was somewhat obscurely worded. Evidently what the questioner
wanted to know was if the Auric Egg was a differentiation of Akâsha, into
which, as the child became a man, he might, if an Adept, weave the
materials needed for special purposes, etc.]

_A._ Taking the question in the sense of an Adept putting something into
or acting on the Auric Egg of a child, then this could not be done, as the
Auric Egg is Karmic, and not even an Adept must interfere with such Karmic
record. If the Adept were to put anything into the Auric Egg of another,
for which the person is not responsible, or which does not come from the
Higher Self of that personality, how could Karmic justice be maintained?

The Adept can draw into his own Auric Egg from his planet, or even from
that of the globe or of the universe, according to his degree. This
envelope is the receptacle of all Karmic causes, and photographs all
things like a sensitive plate.

The child has a very small Auric Egg which is in colour almost pure white.
At birth the Auric Egg consists of almost pure Akâsha plus the Tanhâs,
which, until the seventh year, remain potential or in latency.

The Auric Egg of an idiot cannot be said to be human, that is, it is not
tinged with Manas. It is Akâshic vibrations rather than an Auric Egg—the
material envelope, such as that of the plant, the mineral or other object.

The Auric Egg is the transmitter from the periodical lives to the Life
eternal, _i.e._, from Prâna to Jîva. It disappears, but remains.

The reason why the confession of the Roman Catholic and Greek Churches is
so great a sin is because the confessor interferes with the Auric Egg of
the penitent by means of his will power, engrafting artificially
emanations from his own Auric Egg and casting seeds for germination into
the Auric Egg of his subject. It is on the same lines as hypnotic
suggestion.

The above remarks apply equally to Hypnotism, although the latter is a
psycho‐physical force, and it is this which constitutes one of its many
serious dangers. At the same time “a good thing may pass through dirty
channels,” as in the case of the breaking by suggestion of the alcohol or
opium habit. Mesmerism may be used by the Occultist to remove evil habits,
if the intention be perfectly pure; as on the higher plane intention is
everything, and good intention must work for good.

_Q. Is the Auric Egg the expansion of the __“__Pillar of Light,__”__ the
Mânasic Principle, and so not surrounding the child till its seventh
year?_

_A._ It is the Auric Egg. The Auric Egg is quite pure at birth, but it is
a question whether the higher or lower Manas will colour it at the seventh
year. The Mânasic expansion is pure Âkâsha. The ray of Manas is let down
into the vortex of the lower Principles, and being discoloured, and so
limited by the Kâmic Tanhâs and by the defects of the bodily organism,
forms the personality. Hereditary Karma can reach the child before the
seventh year, but no individual Karma can come into play till the descent
of the Manas.


    The Auric Egg is to the Man
    As the Astral Light is to the Earth
    As the Ether is to the Astral Light
    As the Akâsha is to the Ether


The critical states are left out in the enumeration. They are the Lava
Centres, or missing links in our consciousness, and separate these four
planes from one another.



The Dweller.


The “Dweller on the Threshold” is found in two cases: (_a_) In the case of
the separation of the Triangle from the Quaternary; (_b_) When Kâmic
desires and passions are so intense that the Kâma Rûpa persists in Kâma
Loka beyond the Devachanic period of the Ego, and thus survives the
reincarnation of the Devachanic Entity (_e.g._, when reincarnation occurs
within two hundred or three hundred years). The “Dweller” being drawn by
affinity towards the Reincarnating Ego to whom it had belonged, and being
unable to reach it, fastens on the Kâma of the new personality, and
becomes the Dweller on the Threshold, strengthening the Kâmic element and
thus lending it a dangerous potency. Some become mad from this cause.



Intellect.


The white Adept is not always at first of powerful intellect. In fact, H.
P. B. had known Adepts whose intellectual powers were originally below the
average. It is the Adept’s purity, his equal love to all, his working with
Nature, with Karma, with his “Inner God,” that give him his power.
Intellect by itself alone will make the Black Magician. For intellect
alone is accompanied with pride and selfishness: it is the intellectual
_plus_ the spiritual that raises man. For spirituality prevents pride and
vanity.

Metaphysics are the domain of the Higher Manas; whereas Physics are that
of Kâma‐Manas, which does the thinking in Physical Science and on material
things. Kâma‐Manas, like every other Principle, is of seven degrees. The
Mathematician without spirituality, however great he may be, will not
reach Metaphysics; but the Metaphysician will master the highest
conceptions of Mathematics, and will apply them, without learning the
latter. To a born Metaphysician the Psychic Plane will not be of much
account: he will see its errors immediately he enters it, inasmuch as it
is not the thing he seeks. With respect to Music and other Arts, they are
the children of either the Mânasic or Kâma‐Mânasic Principle,
proportionately as Soul or technicality predominates.



Karma.


After each incarnation, when the Mânasic Ray returns to its Father, the
Ego, some of its atoms remain behind and scatter. These Mânasic atoms,
Tânhic and other “causes,” being of the same nature as the Manas, are
attracted to it by strong bonds of affinity, and on the reincarnation of
the Ego are unerringly attracted to it and constitute its Karma. Until
these are all gathered up, the individuality is not free from rebirth. The
Higher Manas is responsible for the Ray it sends forth. If the Ray be not
soiled, no bad Karma is generated.



The Turîya State.


You should bear in mind that, in becoming Karma‐less, good Karma, as well
as bad, has to be gotten rid of, and that Nidânas, started towards the
acquisition of good Karma, are as binding as those induced in the other
direction. For both are Karma.

Yogîs cannot attain the Turîya state unless the Triangle is separated from
the Quaternary.



Mahat.


Mahat is the manifested universal Parabrâhmic Mind (for one Manvantara) on
the Third Plane [of Kosmos]. It is the Law whereby the Light falls from
plane to plane and differentiates. The Mânasaputras are its emanations.

Man alone is capable of conceiving the Universe on this plane of
existence.

Existence _is_; but when the entity does not feel it, for that entity it
is not. The pain of an operation exists, though the patient does not feel
it, and for the patient it is not.



How To Advance.


_Q. What is the correct pronunciation of AUM?_

_A._ It should first be practised physically, always at the same pitch,
which must be discovered in the same way as the particular colour of the
student is found, for each has his own tone.

AUM consists of two vowels and one semi‐vowel, which latter must be
prolonged. Just as Nature has its Fa, so each man has his: man being
differentiated from Nature. The body may be compared to an instrument and
the Ego to the player. You begin by producing effects on yourself; then
little by little you learn to play on the Tattvas and Principles; learn
first the notes, then the chords, then the melodies. Once the student is
master of every chord, he may begin to be a co‐worker with Nature and for
others. He may then, by the experience he has gained of his own nature,
and by the knowledge of the chords, strike such as will be beneficial in
another, and so will serve as a keynote for beneficial results.

Try to have a clear representation of the geometrical triangle on every
plane, the conception gradually growing more metaphysical, and ending with
the subjective Triangle, Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas. It is only by the knowledge of
this Triangle under all forms that you can succeed, _e.g._ in enclosing
the past and the future in the present. Remember that you have to merge
the Quaternary in the Triangle. The Lower Manas is drawn upwards, with the
Kâma, Prâna and Linga, leaving only the physical body behind, the lower
reinforcing the higher.

Advance may be made in Occultism even in Devachan, if the Mind and Soul be
set thereon during life; but it is only as in a dream, and the knowledge
will fade away as memory of a dream fades, unless it be kept alive by
conscious study.



Fear And Hatred.


Fear and hatred are essentially one and the same. He who fears nothing
will never hate, and he who hates nothing will never fear.



The Triangle.


_Q. What is the meaning of the phrase: __“__Form a clear image of the
Triangle on every plane;__”_ _e.g._, _on the Astral Plane, what should one
think of as the Triangle?_

_A._ [H. P. B. asked whether the question signified the meaning of the
Triangle or the way to represent the Triangle on the “screen of light.”
The questioner explaining that the latter was the meaning, H. P. B. said
that] it was only in the Turîya state, the fourth of the seven steps of
Râja Yoga that the Yogî can represent to himself that which is abstract.
Below this state, the perceptive power, being conditioned, must have some
form to contemplate; it cannot represent to itself the Arûpa. In the
Turîya state the Triangle is in yourself and is felt. Below the Turîya
state there must be a symbol to represent Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas. It is not a
mere geometrical Triangle, but the Triad imaged, to make thought possible.
Of this Triad, we can make some kind of representation of Manas, however
indistinct; while of Âtmâ no image can be formed. We must try to represent
the Triangle to ourselves on higher and higher planes. We must figure
Manas as overshadowed by Buddhi, and immersed in Âtmâ. Only Manas, the
Higher Ego, can be represented; we may think it as the Augoeides, the
radiant figure in _Zanoni_. A very good Psychic might see this.



Psychic Vision.


Psychic vision, however, is not to be desired, since Psyche is earthly and
evil. More and more as Science advances, the psychic will be reached and
understood; Psychism has in it nothing that is spiritual. Science is right
on its own plane, from its own standpoint. The law of the Conservation of
Energy implies that psychic motion is generated by motion. Psychic motion
being only motion on the Psychic Plane, a material plane, the Psychologist
is right who sees in it nothing beyond matter. Animals have no Spirit, but
they have psychic vision, and are sensitive to psychic conditions; observe
how these react on their health, their bodily state.

Motion is the abstract Deity; on the highest plane it is Arûpa, absolute;
but on the lowest it is merely mechanical. Psychic action is within the
sphere of physical motion. Ere psychic action can be developed in the
brain and nerves, there must be adequate action which generates it on the
Physical Plane. The paralyzed animal that cannot generate action in the
physical body, cannot think. Psychics merely see on a plane of different
material density; the spiritual glimpses sometimes obtained by them come
from a plane beyond. A Psychic’s vision is that of one coming, as it were,
into a lighted room, and seeing everything there by an artificial light:
when the light is extinguished, vision is lost. Spiritual vision sees by
the light within, the light hidden beneath the bushel of the body, by
which we can see clearly and independently of all outside. The Psychic
seeing by an external light, the vision is coloured by the nature of that
light.

X. saying that she felt as though she saw on three planes, H. P. B.
answered that each plane was sevenfold, the Astral as every other. She
gave as an example on the Physical Plane the vision of a table with the
sense of sight; seeing it still, with the eyes closed, by retinal
impression; the image of it conserved in the brain; it can be recalled by
memory; it can be seen in dream; or as an aggregate of atoms; or as
disintegrated. All these are on the Physical Plane. Then we can begin
again on the Astral Plane, and obtain another septenary. This hint should
be followed and worked out.



Triangle And Quaternary.


_Q.  Why is the violet, the color of the Linga Sharîra, placed at the apex
of the triangle, when the Macrocosm is figured as a triangle over a
square, thus throwing the yellow, Buddhi, into the lower Quaternary?_

_A._ It is wrong to speak of the “lower Quaternary” in the Macrocosm. It
is the Tetraktys, the highest, the most sacred of all symbols. There comes
a moment when, in the highest meditation, the Lower Manas is withdrawn
into the Triad, which thus becomes the Quaternary, the Tetraktys of
Pythagoras, leaving what was the Quaternary as the lower Triad, which is
then reversed. The Triad is reflected in the Lower Manas. The Higher Manas
cannot reflect itself, but when the Green passes upward it becomes a
mirror for the Higher; it is then no more Green, having passed from its
associations. The Psyche then becomes spiritual, the Ternary is reflected
in the Fourth, and the Tetraktys is formed. So long as you are not dead,
there must be something to reflect the Higher Triad; for there must be
something to bring back to the waking consciousness the experiences passed
through on the higher plane. The Lower Manas is as a tablet which retains
the impressions made on it during trance.

The Turîya state is entered on the Fourth Path; it is figured in the
diagram on p. 478, in the Second Paper.

_Q. What is the meaning of a triangle formed of lines of light appearing
in the midst of intense vibrating blue?_

_A._ Seeing the Triangle outside is nothing; it is merely a reflection of
the Triad on the Auric Envelope, and proves that the seer is outside the
Triangle. It should be seen in quite another way. You must endeavour to
merge yourself in it, to assimilate yourself with it. You are merely
seeing things in the Astral. “When the Third Eye is opened in any one of
you, you will have something very different to tell me.”

_Q. With reference to the __“__Pillar of Light__”__ in a previous
question, is the Auric Envelope the Higher Ego, and does it correspond to
the Ring Pass‐Not?_

[This question was not answered, as going too far. The Ring Pass‐Not is at
the circumference of the manifested Universe.]



Nidânas.


_Q. The root of the Nidânas is Avidyâ. How does this differ from Mâyâ? How
many Nidânas are there Esoterically?_

_A._ Again too much is asked. The Nidânas, the concatenations of causes
and effects (not in the sense of the Orientalists), are not caused by
ignorance. They are produced by Dhyân Chohans and Devas, who certainly
cannot be said to act in ignorance. We produce Nidânas in ignorance. Each
cause started on the Physical Plane sets up action on every plane to all
eternity. They are eternal effects reflected from plane to plane on to the
“screen of eternity.”



Manas.


_Q. What is the septenary classification of Manas? There are seven degrees
of the Lower Manas, and presumably there are seven degrees of the Higher.
Are there then fourteen degrees of Manas, or is Manas, taken as a whole,
divided into forty‐nine Mânasic fires?_

_A._ Certainly there are fourteen, but you want to run before you can
walk. First learn the three, and then go on to the forty‐nine. There are
three Sons of Agni; they become seven, and then evolve to the forty‐nine.
But you are still ignorant how to produce the three. Learn first how to
produce the “Sacred Fire,” spoken of in the _Purânas_. The forty‐nine
fires are all states of Kundalinî, to be produced in ourselves by the
friction of the Triad. First learn the septenary of the body, and then
that of each Principle. But first of all learn the first Triad (the three
vital airs).



The Spinal Cord.


_Q. What is the sympathetic nerve and its function in Occultism? It is
found only after a certain stage of animal evolution, and would seem to be
evolving in complexity towards a second spinal cord._

_A._ At the end of the next Round, Humanity will again become male‐female,
and then there will be two spinal cords. In the Seventh Race the two will
merge into the one. The evolution corresponds to the Races, and with the
evolution of the Races the sympathetic developes into a true spinal cord.
We are returning up the arc only with self‐consciousness added. The Sixth
Race will correspond to the “pudding bags,” but will have the perfection
of form with the highest intelligence and spirituality.

Anatomists are beginning to find new ramifications and new modifications
in the human body. They are in error on many points, _e.g._, as to the
spleen, which they call the manufactory of white blood corpuscles, but
which is really the vehicle of the Linga Sharîra. Occultists know each
minute portion of the heart, and have a name for each. They call them by
the names of the Gods, as Brahmâ’s Hall, Vishnu’s Hall, etc. They
correspond with parts of the brain. The very atoms of the body are the
thirty‐three crores of Gods.

The sympathetic nerve is played on by the Tântrikas, who call it Shiva’s
Vînâ.



Prâna.


_Q. What is the relation of man to Prâna—the periodical life?_

_A._ Jîva becomes Prâna only when the child is born and begins to breathe.
It is the breath of life, Nephesh. There is no Prâna on the Astral Plane.



Antahkarana.


_Q. The Antahkarana is the link between the Higher and the Lower Egos;
does it correspond to the umbilical cord in projection?_

_A._ No; the umbilical cord joining the astral to the physical body is a
real thing. Antahkarana is imaginary, a figure of speech, and is only the
bridging over from the Higher to the Lower Manas. Antahkarana only exists
when you commence to “throw your thought upwards and downwards.” The
Mâyâvi Rûpa, or Mânasic body, has no material connection with the physical
body, no umbilical cord. It is spiritual and ethereal, and passes
everywhere without let or hindrance. It entirely differs from the astral
body, which, if injured, acts by repercussion on the physical body. The
Devachanic entity, even previous to birth, can be affected by the
Skandhas, but these have nothing to do with the Antahkarana. It is
affected, _e.g._, by the desire for reincarnation.

_Q. We are told in_ The Voice of the Silence _that we have to become __
__“__the path itself,__”__ and in another passage that Antahkarana is that
path. Does this mean anything more than that we have to bridge over the
gap between the consciousness of the Lower and the Higher Egos?_

_A._ That is all.

_Q. We are told that there are seven portals on the Path: is there then a
sevenfold division of Antahkarana? Also, is Antahkarana the battlefield?_

_A._ It is the battlefield. There are seven divisions in the Antahkarana.
As you pass from each to the next you approach the Higher Manas. When you
have bridged the fourth you may consider yourself fortunate.



Miscellaneous.


_Q. We are told that_ AUM _“__should be practised physically.__”__ Does
this mean that, colour being more differentiated than sound, it is only
through the colours that we shall get at the real sound of each of us? and
that_ AUM _can only have its Spiritual and Occult signification when
turned to the Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas of each person?_

_A._ AUM means good action, not merely lip‐sound. You must say it in
deeds.

_Q. With reference to the triangle, is not the Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas different
for each entity, according to the plane on which he is?_

_A._ Each Principle is on a different plane. The Chelâ must rise to one
after the other, assimilating each, until the three are one. This is the
real root of the Trinity.

_Q. In_ The Secret Doctrine _we are told that Âkâsha is the same as
Pradhâna. Âkâsha is the Auric Egg of the earth, and yet Âkâsha is Mahat.
What that is the relation of Manas to the Auric Egg?_

_A._ Mûlaprakriti is the same as Âkâsha (seven degrees). Mahat is the
positive aspect of Âkâsha, and is the Manas of the Kosmic Body. Mahat is
to Âkâsha as Manas is to Buddhi, and Pradhâna is but another name for
Mûlaprakriti.

The Auric Egg is Âkâsha and has seven degrees. Being pure abstract
substance, it reflects abstract ideas, but also reflects lower concrete
things.

The Third Logos and Mahat are one, and are the same as the Universal Mind,
Alaya.

The Tetraktys is the Chatur Vidyâ, or the fourfold knowledge in one, the
four‐faced Brahmâ.



Nâdis.


_Q. Have the Nâdîs any fixed relationship to the vertebræ; can they be
located opposite to or between any vertebræ? can they be regarded as
occupying each a given and fixed extent in the cord? Do they correspond to
the divisions of the cord known to Anatomists?_

_A._  H. P. B. believed that the Nâdîs corresponded to regions of the
spinal cord known to Anatomists. There are thus six or seven Nâdîs or
plexuses along the spinal cord. The term, however, is not technical but
general, and applies to any knot, centre, ganglion, etc. The sacred Nâdîs
are those which run along or above Sushumnâ. Six are known to Science, and
one (near the atlas) unknown. Even the Târaka Râja Yogîs speak only of
six, and will not mention the sacred seventh.

Idâ and Pingalâ play along the curved wall of the cord in which is
Sushumnâ. They are semi‐material, positive and negative, sun and moon, and
start into action the free and spiritual current of Sushumnâ. They have
distinct paths of their own, otherwise they would radiate all over the
body. By concentration on Idâ and Pingalâ is generated the “sacred fire.”

Another name for Shiva’s Vînâ (sympathetic system) is Kâlî’s Vînâ.

The sympathetic cords and Idâ and Pingalâ start from a sacred spot above
the medulla oblongata, called Triveni. This is one of the sacred centres,
another of which is Brahmarandra, which is, if you like, the grey matter
of the brain. It is also the anterior fontanelle in the new‐born child.

The spinal column is called Brahmadanda, the stick of Brahmâ. This is
again symbolized by the bamboo rod carried by Ascetics. The Yogîs on the
other sides of the Himâlayas, who assemble regularly at Lake Mânsarovara,
carry a triple knotted bamboo stick, and are called Tridandins. This has
the same signification as the Brâhmanical cord, which has many other
meanings besides the three vital airs: _e.g._, it symbolizes the three
initiations of a Brâhman, taking place: (_a_) at birth, when he receives
his mystery name from the family Astrologer, who is supposed to have
received it from the Devas (he is also thus said to be initiated by the
Devas); a Hindu will sooner die than reveal this name; (_b_) at seven,
when he receives the cord; and (_c_) at eleven or twelve, when he is
initiated into his caste.

_Q. If it is right to study the body and its organs, with their
correspondences, will you give the main outline of these in connection
with the Nâdîs and with the diagram of the orifices._


    _A._ The Spleen corresponds to the Linga Sharîra
    The  Liver to Kâma
    The Heart to Prâna
    The Corpora‐quadrigemina to Kâma‐Manas
    The Pituitary body to Manas‐Antahkarana
    The Pineal gland to Manas


until it is touched by the vibrating light of Kundalinî, which proceeds
from Buddhi, when it becomes Buddhi‐Manas.

The pineal gland corresponds with Divine Thought. The pituitary body is
the organ of the Psychic Plane. Psychic vision is caused by the molecular
motion of this body, which is directly connected with the optic nerve, and
thus affects the sight and gives rise to hallucinations. Its motion may
readily cause flashes of light, such as may be obtained by pressing the
eyeballs. Drunkenness and fever produce illusions of sight and hearing by
the action of the pituitary body. This body is sometimes so affected by
drunkenness that it is paralyzed. If an influence on the optic nerve is
thus produced and the current thus reversed, the colour will probably be
complementary.



Sevens.


_Q. If the physical body is no part of the real human septenary, is the
physical material world one of the seven planes of the Kosmic septenary?_

_A._ It is. The body is not a Principle in Esoteric parlance, because the
body and the Linga are both on the same plane; then the Auric Egg makes
the seventh. The body is an Upâdhi rather than a Principle. The earth and
its astral light are as closely related to each other as the body and its
Linga, the earth being the Upâdhi. Our plane in its lowest division is the
earth, in its highest the astral. The terrestrial astral light should of
course not be confounded with the universal Astral Light.

_Q. A physical object was spoken of as a septenary on the physical plane,
inasmuch as we could (1) directly contact it; (2) retinally reproduce it;
(3) remember it; (4) dream of it; (5) view it atomically; (6) view it
disintegrated; (7)—What is the seventh?_

_These are seven ways in which we view it: the septenary is our way of
seeing one thing. Is it objectively septenary?_

_A._ The seventh bridges across from one plane to another. The last is the
idea, the privation of matter, and carries you to the next plane. The
highest of one plane touches the lowest of the next. Seven is a factor in
nature, as in colours and sounds. There are seven degrees in the same
piece of wood, each perceived by one of the seven senses. In wood the
smell is the most material degree, while in other substances it may be the
sixth. Substances are septenary apart from the consciousness of the
viewer.

The psychometer, seeing a morsel, say of a table a thousand years hence,
would see the whole; for every atom reflects the whole body to which it
belongs, just as with the Monads of Leibnitz.

After the seven material subdivisions are the seven divisions of the
Astral, which is its second Principle. The disintegrated matter—the
highest of the material subdivisions—is the privation of the idea of
it—the fourth.

The number fourteen is the first step between seven and forty‐nine. Each
septenary is really a fourteen, because each of the seven has its two
aspects. Thus fourteen signifies the inter‐relation of two planes in its
turn. The septenary is to be clearly traced in the lunar months, fevers,
gestations, etc. On it is based the week of the Jews and the septenary
Hierarchies of the Lord of Hosts.



Sounds.


_Q. Sound is an attribute of Âkâsha; but we cannot cognize anything on the
Âkâshic plane; on what plane then do we recognize sound? On what plane is
sound produced by the physical contact of bodies? Is there sound on seven
planes, and is the physical plane one of them?_

_A._ The physical plane is one of them. You cannot see Âkâsha, but you can
sense it from the Fourth Path. You may not be fully conscious of it, and
yet you may sense it. Âkâsha is at the root of the manifestation of all
sounds. Sound is the expression and manifestation of that which is behind
it, and which is the parent of many correlations. All Nature is a
sounding‐board; or rather Âkâsha is the sounding‐board of Nature. It is
the Deity, the one Life, the one Existence. (Hearing is the vibration of
molecular particles; the order is seen in the sentence, “The disciple
feels, hears, sees.”)

Sound can have no end. H. P. B. remarked with regard to a tap made by a
pencil on the table: “By this time it has affected the whole universe. The
particle which has had its wear and tear destroys something which passes
into something else. It is eternal in the Nidânas it produces.” A sound,
if not previously produced on the Astral Plane, and before that on the
Âkâshic, could not be produced at all. Âkâsha is the bridge between nerve
cells and mental powers.

_Q. __“__Colours are psychic, and sounds are spiritual.__”__ What,
assuming that these are vibrations, is the successive order (these
corresponding to sight and hearing) of the other senses?_

_A._ This phrase was not to be taken out of its context, otherwise
confusion would arise. All are on all planes. The First Race had touch all
over like a sounding board; this touch differentiated into the other
senses, which developed with the Races. The “sense” of the First Race was
that of touch, meaning the power of their atoms to vibrate in unison with
external atoms. The “touch” would be almost the same as sympathy.

The senses were on a different plane with each Race; _e.g._, the Fourth
Race had very much more developed senses than ourselves, but on another
plane. It was also a very material Race. The sixth and seventh senses will
merge into the Âkâshic Sound. “It depends to what degree of matter the
sense of touch relates itself as to what we call it.”



Prâna.


_Q. Is Prâna the production of the countless __“__lives__”__ of the human
body, and therefore, to some extent, of the congeries of the cells or
atoms of the body?_

_A._ No; Prâna is the parent of the “lives.” As an example, a sponge may
be immersed in an ocean. The water in the sponge’s interior may be
compared to Prâna; outside is Jîva. Prâna is the motor‐principle in life.
The “lives” leave Prâna; Prâna does not leave them. Take out the sponge
from the water, and it becomes dry, thus symbolizing death. Every
principle is a differentiation of Jîva, but the life‐motion in each is
Prâna, the “breath of life.” Kâma depends on Prâna, without which there
would be no Kâma. Prâna wakes the Kâmic germs to life; it makes all
desires vital and living.



The Second Spinal Cord.


_Q. With reference to the answer to the question on the second cord, what
is it that will become a second spinal cord in the Sixth Race? Will Idâ
and Pingalâ have separate physical ducts?_

_A._ It is the sympathetic cords which will grow together and form another
spinal cord. Idâ and Pingalâ will be joined with Sushumnâ, and they will
become one. Idâ is on the left side of the cord, and Pingalâ on the right.



Initiates.


Pythagoras was an Initiate, one of the grandest of Scientists. His
disciple, Archytas, was marvellously apt in applied Science. Plato and
Euclid were Initiates, but not Socrates. No real Initiates were married.
Euclid learned his Geometry in the Mysteries. Modern men of Science only
rediscover the old truths.



Kosmic Consciousness.


H. P. B. proceeded to explain Kosmic Consciousness, which is, like all
else, on seven planes, of which three are inconceivable, and four are
cognizable by the highest Adept.

Taking the lowest only, the Terrestrial (it was afterwards decided to call
this plane Prâkritic), it is divisible, into seven planes, and these again
into seven, making the forty‐nine.

She then took the lowest plane of Prâkriti, or the true Terrestrial.

Its objective or sensuous plane is that which is sensed by the five
physical senses.

On its second plane things are reversed.

Its third plane is psychic: here is the instinct which prevents a kitten
going into the water and getting drowned.

Then objective consciousness was given.

The three lower Prâkritic are related to the three lower of the Astral
Plane immediately succeeding.

With regard to the first division of the second plane, H. P. B. reminded
her pupils that all seen on it must be reversed in translating it, _e.g._,
with numbers which appeared backwards. The Astral Objective corresponds in
everything to the Terrestrial Objective.

The second division corresponds to the second of the lower plane, but the
objects are of extreme tenuity, an astralized Astral. This plane is the
limit of the ordinary medium, beyond which he cannot go. A non‐mediumistic
person to reach it must be asleep or in a trance, or under the influence
of laughing‐gas; or in ordinary delirium people pass on to this plane.

The third, the Prânic, is of an intensely vivid nature. Extreme delirium
carries the patient to this plane. In delirium tremens the sufferer passes
to this and to the one above it. Lunatics are often conscious on this
plane, where they see terrible visions. It runs into the—

Fourth division, the worst of the astral planes, Kâmic and terrible. Hence
come the images that tempt; images of drunkards in Kâma Loka impelling
others to drink; images of all vices inoculating men with the desire to
commit crimes. The weak imitate these images in a kind of monkeyish
fashion, so falling beneath their influence. This is also the cause of
epidemics of vices, and cycles of disaster, of accidents of all kinds
coming in groups. Extreme delirium tremens is on this plane.

The fifth division is that of premonitions in dreams, of reflections from
the lower mentality, glimpses into the past and future, the plane of
things mental and not spiritual. The mesmerized clairvoyant can reach this
plane, and even, if good, may go higher.

The sixth is the plane from which come all beautiful inspirations of art,
poetry, and music; high types of dreams, flashes of genius. Here we have
glimpses of past incarnations, without being able to locate or analyze
them.

We are on the seventh plane at the moment of death or in exceptional
visions. The drowning man is here when he remembers his past life. The
memory of events of this plane must be centred in the heart, “the seat of
Buddha.” There it will remain, but impressions from this plane are not
made on the physical brain.



General Notes.


The two planes above dealt with are the only two used in the Hatha Yoga.

Prâna and the Auric Envelope are essentially the same, and again, as Jîva,
it is the same as the Universal Deity. This, in its Fifth Principle, is
Mahat, in its Sixth, Alaya. (The Universal Life is also seven‐principled.)
Mahat is the highest _Entity_ in Kosmos; beyond this is no diviner Entity;
it is of subtlest matter, Sûkshma. In us this is Manas, and the very Logoi
are less high, not having gained experience. The Mânasic Entity will not
be destroyed, even at the end of the Mahâmanvantara, when all the Gods are
absorbed, but will re‐emerge from Parabrâhmic latency.

Consciousness is the Kosmic seed of superkosmic omniscience. It has the
potentiality of budding into the Divine Consciousness.

Rude physical health is a drawback to seership. This was the case with
Swedenborg.

Fohat is everywhere: it runs like a thread through all, and has its own
seven divisions.

Auric Envelope or Âtmic Elements of Manifested Kosmos.
Alaya. Buddhi.
Mahat. Manas.
Fohat. Kâma‐Manas.
Jîva. Kâma‐Prana.
Astral. Linga.
Prâkriti. Body.

In the Kosmic Auric Envelope is all the Karma of the manifesting Universe.
This is the Hiranyagarbha. Jîva is everywhere, and so with the other
Principles.

                              [Illustration]

The above diagram represents the type of all the Solar Systems.

Mahat, single before informing the Universe, differentiates when informing
it, as does Manas in man.

                              [Illustration]

Taking this figure to represent the human Principles and planes of
consciousness, then 7, 6, 5 represent respectively, Shiva, Vishnu, Brahmâ,
Brahmâ being the lowest.

Shiva is the four‐faced Brahmâ; the Creator, Preserver, Destroyer, and
Regenerator.

Between 5 and 4 comes the Antahkarana.  The triangle represents the
Christos, the Sacrificial Victim crucified between the thieves: this is
the double‐faced entity. The Vedântins make this a quaternary for a blind:
Antahkarana, Chit, Buddhi, and Manas.

MANVANTARIC ASPECT OF PARABRAHMAN AND MÛLAPRAKRITI.

                              [Illustration]

[N.B.—The number of Rays is arbitrary and without significance.]

Perceptive life begins with the Astral: it is not our physical atoms which
see, etc.

Consciousness proper begins between Kâma and Manas. Âtmâ‐Buddhi acts more
in the atoms of the body, in the bacilli, microbes, etc., than in Man
himself.



Objective Consciousness.


Sensuous objective consciousness includes all that pertains to the five
physical senses in man, and rules in animals, birds, fishes and some
insects. Here are the “Lives”; their consciousness is in Âtmâ‐Buddhi;
these are entirely without Manas.



Astral Consciousness.


That of some plants (_e.g._, sensitive), of ants, spiders, and some night‐
flies (Indian), but not of bees.

The vertebrate animals in general are without this consciousness, but the
placental Mammals have all the potentialities of human consciousness,
though at present, of course, dormant.

Idiots are on this plane. The common expression “he has lost his mind” is
an Occult truth. For when through fright or other cause the lower mind
becomes paralyzed, then the consciousness is on the Astral Plane. The
study of lunacy will throw much light on these points. This may be called
the “nerve plane.” It is cognized by our “nervous centres” of which
Physiology knows nothing, _e.g._, the clairvoyant reading with the eyes
bandaged, reading with the tips of the fingers, the pit of the stomach,
etc. This sense is greatly developed in the deaf and dumb.



Kâma‐Prânic Consciousness.


The general life‐consciousness which belongs to all the objective world,
even to the stones; for if stones were not living they could not decay,
emit a spark, etc. Affinity between chemical elements is a manifestation
of this Kâmic consciousness.



Kâma‐Mânasic Consciousness.


The instinctual consciousness of animals and idiots in its lowest degrees,
the planes of sensation: in man these are rationalized, _e.g._, a dog shut
in a room has the instinct to get out, but cannot because its instinct is
not sufficiently rationalized to take the necessary means; whereas a man
at once takes in the situation and extricates himself. The highest degree
of this Kâma‐Mânasic consciousness is the psychic. Thus there are seven
degrees from the instinctual animal to the rationalized instinctual and
psychic.



Mânasic Consciousness.


From this plane Manas stretches upwards to Mahat.



Buddhic Consciousness.


The plane of Buddhi and the Auric Envelope. From here it goes to the
Father in heaven, Âtmâ, and reflects all that is in the Auric Envelope.
Five and six therefore cover the planes from the psychic to the divine.



Miscellaneous.


Reason is a thing that oscillates between right and wrong. But
Intelligence—Intuition—is higher, it is the clear vision.

To get rid of Kâma we must crush out all our material instincts—“crush out
matter.” The flesh is a thing of habit; it will repeat mechanically a good
impulse as well as a bad one. It is not the flesh which is always the
tempter; in nine cases out of ten it is the Lower Manas, which, by its
images, leads the flesh into temptation.

The highest Adept begins his Samâdhi on the Fourth Solar Plane, but cannot
go outside the Solar System. When he begins Samâdhi he is on a par with
some of the Dhyân Chohans, but he transcends them as he rises to the
seventh plane (Nirvâna).

The Silent Watcher is on the Fourth Kosmic Plane.

The higher Mind directs the Will: the lower turns it into selfish Desire.

The head should not be covered in meditation. It is covered in Samâdhi.

The Dhyân Chohans are passionless, pure and mindless. They have no
struggle, no passions to crush.

The Dhyân Chohans are made to pass through the School of Life. “God goes
to School.”

The best of us in the future will be Mânasaputras; the lowest will be
Pitris. We are seven intellectual Hierarchies here. This earth becomes the
moon of the next earth.

The “Pitris” are the Astral overshadowed by Âtmâ‐Buddhi, falling into
matter. The “Pudding‐bags” had Life and Âtmâ‐Buddhi, but no Manas. They
were therefore senseless. The reason for all evolution is the gaining of
experience.

In the Fifth Round all of us will play the part of Pitris. We shall have
to go and shoot out our Chhâyâs into another humanity, and remain until
that humanity is perfected. The Pitris have finished their office in this
Round and have gone into Nirvâna; but they will return to do the same
office up to the middle point of the Fifth Round. The Fourth or Kâmic
Hierarchy of the Pitris becomes the “man of flesh.”

The astral body is first in the womb; then comes the germ that fructifies
it. It is then clothed with matter, as were the Pitris.

The Chhâyâ is really the lower Manas, the shadow of the higher Mind. This
Chhâyâ makes the Mâyâvi Rûpa. The Ray clothes itself in the highest degree
of the Astral Plane. The Mâyâvi Rûpa is composed of the astral body as
Upâdhi, the guiding intelligence from the heart, the attributes and
qualities from the Auric Envelope.

The Auric Envelope takes up the light of Âtmâ, and overshadows the
coronal, circling round the head.

The Auric Fluid is a combination of the Life and Will principles, the life
and the will being one and the same in Kosmos. It emanates from the eyes
and hands, when directed by the will of the operator.

The Auric Light surrounds all bodies: it is the “aura” emanating from
them, whether they be animal, vegetable, or mineral. It is the light,
_e.g._, seen round magnets.

Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas in man corresponds to the three Logoi in Kosmos. They
not only correspond, but each is the radiation from Kosmos to Microcosmos.
The third Logos, Mahat, becomes Manas in man, Manas being only Mahat
individualized, as the sun‐rays are individualized in bodies that absorb
them. The sun‐rays give life, they fertilize what is already there, and
the individual is formed. Mahat, so to say, fertilizes, and Manas is the
result.

Buddhi‐Manas is the Kshetrajña.

There are seven planes of Mahat, as of all else.



The Human Principles.


Here H. P. B. drew two diagrams, illustrating different ways of
representing the human principles. In the first

                              [Illustration]

the two lower are disregarded; they go out, disintegrate, are of no
account. Remain five, under the radiation of Âtmâ.

In the second:

                              [Illustration]

the lower Quaternary is regarded as mere matter, objective illusion, and
there remain Manas and the Auric Egg, the higher Principles being
reflected in the Auric Egg. In all these systems remember the main
principle, the descent and re‐ascent of the Spirit, in man as in Kosmos.
The Spirit is drawn downwards as by spiritual gravitation.

Seeking further for the cause of this, the students were checked, H. P. B.
giving only a suggestion on the three Logoi:

1. Potentiality of Mind (Absolute Thought).

2. Thought in Germ.

3. Ideation in Activity.



Notes.


Protective variation, _e.g._, identity of colouring of insects and of that
on which they feed, was explained to be the work of Nature Elementals.

Form is on different planes, and the forms of one plane may be formless to
dwellers on another. The Kosmocratores build on planes in the Divine Mind,
visible to them though not to us. The principle of limitation—_principium
individuationis_—is Form: this principle is Divine Law manifested in
Kosmic Matter, which, in its essence, is limitless. The Auric Egg is the
limit of man as Hiranyagarbha of the Kosmos.

The first step towards the accomplishment of Kriyâshakti is the use of the
Imagination. To imagine a thing is to firmly create a model of what you
desire, perfect in all its details. The Will is then brought into action,
and the form is thereby transferred to the objective world. This is
creation by Kriyâshakti.



Suns And Planets.


A comet partially cools and settles down as a sun. It then gradually
attracts round it planets that are as yet unattached to any centre, and
thus, in millions of years, a Solar System is formed. The worn‐out planet
becomes a moon to the planet of another system.

The sun we see is a reflection of the true Sun: this reflection, as an
outward concrete thing, is a Kâma‐Rûpa, all the suns forming the Kâma‐Rûpa
of Kosmos. To its own system the sun is Buddhi, as being the reflection
and vehicle of the true Sun, which is Âtmâ, invisible on this plane. All
the Fohatic forces—electricity, etc.—are in this reflection.



The Moon.


At the beginning of the evolution of our globe, the moon was much nearer
to the earth, and larger than it is now. It has retreated from us, and
shrunk much in size. (The moon gave all her Principles to the earth, while
the Pitris gave only their Chhâyâs to man.)

The influences of the moon are wholly psycho‐physiological. It is dead,
sending out injurious emanations like a corpse. It vampirizes the earth
and its inhabitants, so that anyone sleeping in its rays suffers, losing
some of his life‐force. A white cloth is a protection, the rays not
passing through it, and the head especially should be thus guarded. It has
most power when it is full. It throws off particles which we absorb, and
is gradually disintegrating. Where there is snow the moon looks like a
corpse, being unable, through the white snow, to vampirize effectually.
Hence snow‐covered mountains are free from its bad influences. The moon is
phosphorescent.

The Râkshakas of Lanka and the Atlanteans are said to have subjected the
moon. The Thessalians learned from them their Magic.

Esoterically, the moon is the symbol of the Lower Manas; it is also the
symbol of the Astral.

Plants which under the sun’s rays are beneficent are maleficent under
those of the moon. Herbs containing poisons are most active when gathered
under the moon’s rays.

A new moon will appear during the Seventh Round, and our moon will finally
disintegrate and disappear. There is now a planet, the “Mystery Planet,”
behind the moon, and it is gradually dying. Finally the time will come for
it to send its Principles to a new Laya Centre, and there a new planet
will form, to belong to another Solar System, the present Mystery Planet
then functioning as moon to that new globe. This moon will have nothing to
do with our earth, though it will come within our range of vision.



The Solar System.


All the visible planets placed in our Solar System by Astronomers belong
to it, except Neptune. There are also some others not known to Science,
belonging to it, and “all moons which are not yet visible for next
things.”

The planets only move in our consciousness. The Rulers of the seven Secret
Planets have no influence on this earth, as this earth has on other
planets. It is the sun and moon which really have not only a mental, but
also a physical effect. The effect of the sun on humanity is connected
with Kâma‐Prâna, with the most physical Kâmic elements in us; it is the
vital principle which helps growth. The effect of the moon is chiefly
Kâma‐Mânasic or psycho‐physiological; it acts on the psychological brain,
on the brain‐mind.



Precious Stones.


In answer to a question, H. P. B. said that the diamond and the ruby were
under the sun, the sapphire under the moon—“but what does it matter to
you?”



Time.


When once out of the body, and not subject to the habit of consciousness
formed by others, time does not exist.

Cycles and epochs depend on consciousness: we are not here for the first
time; the cycles return because we come back into conscious existence.
Cycles are measured by the consciousness of humanity and not by Nature. It
is because we are the same people as in past epochs that these events
occur to us.



Death.


The Hindus look upon death as impure, owing to the disintegration of the
body and the passing from one plane to another. “I believe in
transformation, not in death.”



Atoms.


The Atom is the Soul of the molecule. It is the six Principles, and the
molecule is the body thereof. The Atom is the Âtman of the objective
Kosmos, _i.e._, it is on the seventh plane of the lowest Prakriti.



Terms.


H. P. B. began by saying that students ought to know the correct meaning
of the Sanskrit terms used in Occultism, and should learn the Occult
Symbology. To begin with one had better learn the correct Esoteric
classification and names of the fourteen (7 × 2) and seven (Sapta) Lokas
found in the exoteric texts. These are given there in a very confused
manner, and are full of “blinds.” To illustrate this three classifications
are given below.



Lokas.


1. The general exoteric, orthodox and tântric category:
      Bhûr‐loka.
      Bhuvar‐loka.
      Swar‐loka.
      Mahar‐loka.       The second seven are reflected.
      Janar‐loka.
      Tapar‐loka.
      Satya‐loka.

2. The Sânkhya category, and that of some Vedântins
      Brahmâ‐loka.
      Pitri‐loka.
      Soma‐loka.
      Indra‐loka.
      Gandharva‐loka.
      Râkshasa‐loka
      Yaksha‐loka.

And an eighth.

3. The Vedântic, the nearest approach to the Esoteric:
      Atala.
      Vitala.
      Sutala.
      Talâtala (or Karatala).
      Rasâtala.
      Mahâtala.
      Pâtâla.

Each and all correspond Esoterically to the Kosmic or Dhyân Chohanic
Hierarchies, and to the human States of Consciousness and their
subdivisions (forty‐nine). To appreciate this the meanings of the terms
used in the Vedântic classification must be first understood.

_Tala_     means _place_.

Atala      means no place.

Vitala     means some change for the better: _i.e._, better for matter in
that more matter enters into it, or, in other words, it becomes more
differentiated. This is an ancient Occult term.

Sutala     means good, excellent, place.

Karatala   means something that can be grasped or touched (from kara, a
hand): _i.e._, the state in which matter becomes tangible.

Rasâtala   means place of taste; a place you can sense with one of the
organs of sense.

Mahâtala   means exoterically “great place”; but, Esoterically, a place
including all others subjectively, and potentially including all that
precedes it.

Pâtâla     means something under the feet (from pada, foot), the upâdhi,
or basis, of anything, the antipodes, America, etc.

Each of the Lokas, places, worlds, states, etc., corresponds with and is
transformed into five (exoterically) and seven (Esoterically) states or
Tattvas, for which there are no definite names. These in the main
divisions cited below make up the forty‐nine Fires:


    5 and 7 Tanmâtras, outer and inner senses.
    5 and 7 Bhûtas, or elements.
    5 and 7 Gnyânendryas, or organs of sensation.
    5 and 7 Karmendryas, or organs of action.


These correspond in general to States of Consciousness, to the Hierarchies
of Dhyân Chohans, to the Tattvas, etc. These Tattvas transform themselves
into the whole Universe. The fourteen Lokas are made of seven with seven
reflections: above, below; within, without; subjective, objective; pure,
impure; positive, negative; etc.



Explanation of the States of Consciousness Corresponding to the Vedântic
Classification of Lokas.


7. _Atala._ The Âtmic or Auric state or locality: it emanates directly
from ABSOLUTENESS, and is the first something in the Universe. Its
correspondence is the Hierarchy of non‐substantial primordial Beings, in a
place which is no place (for us), a state which is no state. This
Hierarchy contains the primordial plane, all that was, is, and will be,
from the beginning to the end of the Mahâmanvantara; all is there. This
statement should not, however, be taken to imply Kismet: the latter is
contrary to all the teachings of Occultism.

Here are the Hierarchies of the Dhyâni Buddhas. Their state is that of
Parasamâdhi, of the Dharmakâya; a state where no progress is possible. The
entities there may be said to be crystallized in purity, in homogeneity.

6. _Vitala._ Here are the Hierarchies of the celestial Buddhas, or
Bodhisattvas, who are said to emanate from the seven Dhyâni Buddhas. It is
related on earth to Samâdhi, to the Buddhic consciousness in man. No
Adept, save one, can be higher than this and live; if he passes into the
Âtmic or Dharmakâya state (Alaya) he can return to earth no more. These
two states are purely hyper‐metaphysical.

5. _Sutala._ A differential state corresponding on earth with the Higher
Manas, and therefore with Shabda (Sound), the Logos, our Higher Ego; and
also to the Manushi Buddha state, like that of Gautama, on earth. This is
the third stage of Samâdhi (which is septenary). Here belong the
Hierarchies of the Kumâras—the Agnishvattas, etc.

4. _Karatala_ corresponds with Sparsha (touch) and to the Hierarchies of
ethereal, semi‐objective Dhyân Chohans of the astral matter of the Mânasa‐
Manas, or the pure ray of Manas, that is the Lower Manas before it is
mixed with Kâma (as in the young child). They are called Sparsha Devas,
the Devas endowed with touch. These Hierarchies of Devas are progressive:
the first have one sense; the second two; and so on to seven: each
containing all the senses potentially, but not yet developed. Sparsha
would be rendered better by affinity, contact.

3. _Rasâtala_, or Rûpatala: corresponds to the Hierarchies of Rûpa or
Sight Devas, possessed of three senses, sight, hearing, and touch. These
are the Kâma‐Mânasic entities, and the higher Elementals. With the
Rosicrucians they were the Sylphs and Undines. It corresponds on earth
with an artificial state of consciousness, such as that produced by
hypnotism and drugs (morphia, etc.).

2. _Mahâtala._ Corresponds to the Hierarchies of Rasa or Taste Devas, and
includes a state of consciousness embracing the lower five senses and
emanations of life and being. It corresponds to Kâma and Prâna in man, and
to Salamanders and Gnomes in nature.

1. _Pâtâla._ Corresponds to the Hierarchies of Gandha or Smell Devas, the
underworld or antipodes: Myalba. The sphere of irrational animals, having
no feeling save that of self‐preservation and gratification of the senses:
also of intensely selfish human beings, waking or sleeping. This is why
Nârada is said to have visited Pâtâla when he was cursed to be reborn. He
reported that life there was very pleasant for those “who had never left
their birth‐place”; they were very happy. It is the earthly state, and
corresponds with the sense of smell. Here are also animal Dugpas,
Elementals of animals, and Nature Spirits.



Further Explanations of the Same Classifications.


7. Auric, Âtmic, Alayic, sense or state. One of full potentiality, but not
of activity.

6. Buddhic; the sense of being one with the universe; the impossibility of
imagining oneself apart from it.

(It was asked why the term Alayic was here given to the Âtmic and not to
the Buddhic state. _Ans._ These classifications are not hard and fast
divisions. A term may change places according as the classification is
exoteric, Esoteric or practical. For students the effort should be to
bring all things down to states of consciousness. Buddhi is really one and
indivisible. It is a feeling within, absolutely inexpressible in words.
All cataloguing is useless to explain it.)

5. Shâbdic, sense of hearing.

4. Spârshic, sense of touch.

3. Rûpic, the state of feeling oneself a body and perceiving it (rûpa =
form).

2. Râsic, sense of taste.

1. Gândhic, sense of smell.

All the Kosmic and anthropic states and senses correspond with our organs
of sensation, Gnyânendryas, rudimentary organs for receiving knowledge
through direct contact, sight, etc. These are the faculties of Sharîra,
through Netra (eyes), nose, speech, etc., and also with the organs of
action, Karmendryas, hands, feet, etc.

Exoterically, there are five sets of five, giving twenty‐five. Of these
twenty are facultative and five Buddhic. Exoterically Buddhi is said to
perceive; Esoterically it reaches perception only through the Higher
Manas. Each of these twenty is both positive and negative, thus making
forty in all. There are two subjective states answering to each of the
four sets of five, hence eight in all. These being subjective cannot be
doubled. Thus we have 40 + 8 = 48 “cognitions of Buddhi.” These with Mâyâ,
which includes them all, make 49. (Once that you have reached the
cognition of Mâyâ, you are an Adept.)



The Lokas.


In their exoteric blinds the Brâhmans count fourteen Lokas (earth
included), of which seven are objective, though not apparent, and seven
subjective, yet fully demonstrable to the Inner Man. There are seven
Divine Lokas and seven infernal (terrestrial) Lokas.

SEVEN DIVINE LOKAS.              SEVEN INFERNAL (TERRESTRIAL)
                                 LOKAS.
1. Bhûrloka (the earth).         1. Pâtâla (our earth).
2. Bhuvarloka (between the       2. Mahâtala.
earth and the sun [Munis]).
3. Svarloka (between the sun     3. Rasâtala.
and and Pole Star [Yogîs]).
4. Maharloka (between the        4. Talâtala (or Karatala).
earth and the utmost limit of
the Solar System).(858)
5. Janarloka (beyond the Solar   5. Sutala.
System, the abode of the
Kumâras, who do not belong to
this plane).
6. Taparloka (still beyond the   6. Vitala.
Mahâtmic region, the dwelling
of the Vairâja deities).
7. Satyaloka (the abode of the   7. Atala.
Nirvanîs).

These the Brâhmans read from the bottom.

Now all these fourteen are planes from without within, and (the seven
Divine) States of Consciousness through which man can pass‐‐and must pass,
once he is determined to go through the seven paths and portals of Dhyâni;
one need not be disembodied for this, and all this is reached on earth,
and in one or many of the incarnations.

See the order: the four lower ones (1, 2, 3, 4), are _rûpa_; _i.e._, they
are performed by the Inner Man with the full concurrence of the diviner
portions, or, elements, of the Lower Manas, and consciously by the
personal man. The three higher states cannot be reached and remembered by
the latter, unless he is a fully initiated Adept. A Hatha Yogî will never
pass beyond the Maharloka, psychically, and the Talâtala (double or dual
place), physico‐mentally. To become a Râja Yogî, one has to ascend up to
the seventh portal, the Satyaloka. For such, the Master Yogîs tell us, is
the fruition of Yajna, or sacrifice. When the Bhûr, Bhuvar and Svarga
(states) are once passed, and the Yogî’s consciousness centred in
Maharloka, it is in the last plane and state between entire identification
of the Personal and the Higher Manas.

One thing to remember: while the infernal (or terrestrial) states are also
the seven divisions of the earth, for planes and states, as much as they
are Kosmic divisions, the divine Saptaloka are purely subjective, and
begin with the psychic Astral Light plane, ending with the Satya or
Jîvanmukta state. These fourteen Lokas, or spheres, form the extent of the
whole Brahmânda (world). The four lower are transitory, with all their
dwellers, and the three higher eternal; _i.e._, the former states, planes
and subjects, to these, last only a Day of Brahmâ, changing with every
Kalpa: the latter endure for an Age of Brahmâ.

Students must learn the correspondences: then concentrate on the organs
and so reach their corresponding states of consciousness. Take them in
order beginning with the lowest, and working steadily upwards. A medium
might irregularly catch glimpses of higher, but would not thus gain
orderly development.

The greatest phenomena are produced by touching and centering the
attention upon the little finger.

The Lokas and Talas are reflections the one of the other. So also are the
Hierarchies in each, in pairs of opposites, at the two poles of the
sphere. Everywhere are such opposites: good and evil, light and darkness,
male and female.

H. P. B. could not say why blue was the colour of the earth. Blue is a
colour by itself, a primary. Indigo is a colour, not a shade of blue, so
is violet.

The Vairâjas belong to, are the fiery Egos of, other Manvantaras. They
have already been purified in the fire of passions. It is they who refused
to create. They have reached the Seventh Portal, and have refused Nirvâna,
remaining for succeeding Manvantaras.

The seven steps of Antahkarana correspond with the Lokas.

Samâdhi is the highest state on earth that can be reached in the body.
Beyond that the Initiate must have become a Nirmânakâya.

Purity of mind is of greater importance than purity of body. If the Upâdhi
be not perfectly pure, it cannot preserve recollections coming from a
higher state. An act may be performed to which little or no attention is
paid, and it is of comparatively small importance. But if thought of,
dwelt on in the mind, the effect is a thousand times greater. The thoughts
must be kept pure.

Remember that Kâma, while having bad passions and emotions, helps you to
evolve by giving also the desire and impulse necessary for rising.

The flesh, the body, the human being in his material part, is, on this
plane, the most difficult thing to subject. The highest Adept, put into a
new body, has to struggle against it and subdue it, and finds its
subjugation difficult.

The Liver is the General, the Spleen is the Aide‐de‐Camp. All that the
Liver does not accomplish is taken up and completed by the Spleen.

H. P. B. was asked whether each person must pass through the fourteen
states, and answered that the Lokas and Talas represented planes on this
earth, through some of which all must pass, and through all of which the
disciple must pass, on his way to Adeptship. Everyone passes through the
lower Lokas, but not necessarily through the corresponding Talas. There
are two poles in everything: seven states in every state.

Vitala represents a sublime as well as an infernal state. That state which
for the mortal is a complete separation of the Ego from the personality is
for a Buddha a mere temporary separation. For the Buddha it is a Kosmic
state.

The Brâhmans and Buddhists regard the Talas as hells, but in reality the
term is figurative. We are in hell whenever we are in misery, suffer
misfortune and so on.



Forms In The Astral Light.


The Elementals in the Astral light are reflections. Everything on earth is
reflected there. It is from these that photographs are sometimes obtained
through mediums. The mediums unconsciously produce them as forms. The
Adepts produce them consciously through Kriyâshakti, bringing them down by
a process that may be compared to the focussing of rays of light by a
burning glass.



States Of Consciousness.


Bhûrloka is the waking state in which we normally live; it is the state in
which animals also are, when they sense food, a danger, etc. To be in
Svarloka is to be completely abstracted on this plane, leaving only
instinct to work, so that on the material plane you would behave as an
animal. Yogîs are known who have become crystallized in this state, and
then they must be nourished by others. A Yogî near Allahabad had been for
fifty‐three years sitting on a stone; his Chelâs plunge him into the river
every night and then replace him. During the day his consciousness returns
to Bhûrloka, and he talks and teaches. A Yogî was found on an island near
Calcutta round whose limbs the roots of trees had grown. He was cut out,
and in the endeavour to awaken him so many outrages were inflicted on him
that he died.

_Q. Is it possible to be in more than one state of consciousness at once?_

_A._ The consciousness cannot be entirely on two planes at once. The
higher and lower states are not wholly incompatible, but if you are on the
higher you will wool‐gather on the lower. In order to remember the higher
state on returning to the lower, the memory must be carried upwards to the
higher. An Adept may apparently enjoy a dual consciousness; when he
desires not to see he can abstract himself: he may be in a higher state
and yet return answers to questions addressed to him. But in this case he
will momentarily return to the material plane, shooting up again to the
higher plane. This is his only salvation in adverse conditions.

The lower you go in the Talas the more intellectual you become and the
less spiritual. You may be a morally good man but not spiritual. Intellect
may remain very closely related to Kâma. A man may be in a Loka and visit
one and all the Talas, his condition depending on the Loka to which he
belongs. Thus a man in Bhûrloka only may pass into the Talas and go to the
devil. If he dwells in Bhuvarloka he cannot become as bad. If he has
reached the Satya state he can go into any Tala without danger; buoyed up
by his own purity he can never be engulfed. The Talas are brain intellect
states, while the Lokas—or more accurately the three higher—are spiritual.

Manas absorbs the light of Buddhi. Buddhi is Arûpa, and can absorb
nothing. When the Ego takes all the light of Buddhi, it takes that of
Âtmâ, Buddhi being the vehicle, and thus the three become one. This done,
the _full_ Adept is one spiritually, but has a body. The fourfold Path is
finished and he is one. The Masters’ bodies are, as far as they are
concerned, illusionary, and hence do not grow old, become wrinkled, etc.

The student, who is not naturally psychic, should fix the fourfold
consciousness in a higher plane and nail it there. Let him make a bundle
of the four lower and pin them to a higher state. He should centre on this
higher, trying not to permit the body and intellect to draw him down and
carry him away. Play ducks and drakes with the body, eating, drinking and
sleeping, but living always on the ideal.



Mother‐Love.


Mother‐love is an instinct, the same in the human being and in the animal,
and often stronger in the latter. The continuance of this love in human
beings is due to association, to blood magnetism and to psychic affinity.
Families are sometimes formed of those who have lived together before, but
often not. The causes at work are very complex and have to be balanced.
Sometimes when a child with very bad Karma is to be born, parents of a
callous type are chosen, or they may die before the Karmic results appear.
Or the suffering through the child may be their own Karma. Mother‐love as
an instinct is between Rasâtala and Talâtala.

The Lipikas keep man’s Karmic record, and impress it on the Astral Light.

Vacillating people pass from one state of consciousness to another.

Thought arises before desire. The thought acts on the brain, the brain on
the organ, and then desire awakes. It is not the outer stimulus that
arouses the organ. Thought therefore must be slain ere desire can be
extinguished. The student must guard his thoughts. Five minutes’ thought
may undo the work of five years; and though the five years’ work will be
run through more rapidly the second time, yet time is lost.



Consciousness.


H. P. B. began by challenging the views of consciousness in the West,
commenting on the lack of definition in the leading Philosophies. No
distinction was made between consciousness and self‐consciousness, and yet
in this lay the difference between man and the animal. The animal was
conscious only, not self‐conscious; the animal does not know the Ego as
Subject, as does man. There is therefore an enormous difference between
the consciousness of the bird, the insect, the beast, and that of man.

But the full consciousness of man is self‐consciousness—that which makes
us say, “_I_ do that.” If there is pleasure it must be traced to some one
experiencing it. Now the difference between the consciousness of man and
of animals is that while there is a Self in the animal, the animal is not
conscious of the Self. Spencer reasons on consciousness, but when he comes
to a gap he merely jumps over it. So again Hume, when he says that on
introspection he sees merely feelings and can never find any “I,” forgets
that without an “I” no seeing of feelings would be possible. What is it
that studies the feelings? The animal is not conscious of the feeling “I
am I.” It has instinct, but instinct is not self‐consciousness. Self‐
consciousness is an attribute of the mind, not of the soul, the _anima_,
whence the very name _animal_ is taken. Humanity had no self‐consciousness
until the coming of the Mânasaputras in the Third Race. Consciousness,
brain‐consciousness, is the field of the light of the Ego, of the Auric
Egg, of the Higher Manas. The cells of the leg are conscious, but they are
the slaves of the idea; they are not self‐conscious, they cannot originate
an idea, although when they are tired they can convey to the brain an
uneasy sensation, and so give rise to the idea of fatigue. Instinct is the
lower state of consciousness. Man has consciousness running through the
four lower keys of his septenary consciousness; there are seven scales of
consciousness in his consciousness, which is none the less essentially and
pre‐eminently one, a unit. There are millions and millions of states of
consciousness, as there are millions and millions of leaves; but as you
cannot find two leaves alike, so you cannot find two states of
consciousness alike; a state is never exactly repeated.

Is memory a thing born in us that it can give birth to the Ego? Knowledge,
feeling, volition, are colleagues of the mind, not faculties of it. Memory
is an artificial thing, an adjunct of relativeness; it can be sharpened or
left dull, and it depends on the condition of the brain‐cells which store
all impressions; knowledge, feeling, volition, cannot be correlated, do
what you will. They are not produced from each other, nor produced from
mind, but are principles, colleagues. You cannot have knowledge without
memory, for memory stores all things, garnishing and furnishing. If you
teach a child nothing, it will know nothing. Brain‐consciousness depends
on the intensity of the light shed by the Higher Manas on the Lower, and
the extent of affinity between the brain and this light. Brain‐mind is
conditioned by the responsiveness of the brain to this light; it is the
field of consciousness of the Manas. The animal has the Monad and the
Manas latent, but its brain cannot respond. All potentialities are there,
but are dormant. There are certain accepted errors in the West which
vitiate all their theories.

How many impressions can a man receive simultaneously into his
consciousness and record? The Westerns say one: Occultists say normally
seven, and abnormally fourteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty‐one, up to
forty‐nine, impressions can be simultaneously received. Occultism teaches
that the consciousness always receives a sevenfold impression and stores
it in the memory. You can prove it by striking at once the seven notes of
the musical scale: the seven sounds reach the consciousness
simultaneously, but the untrained ear can only recognize them one after
another, and if you choose you can measure the intervals. The trained ear
will hear the seven notes at once, simultaneously. And experiment has
shown that in two or three weeks a man may be trained to receive seventeen
or eighteen impressions of colour, the intervals decreasing with practice.

Memory is acquired for this life, and can be expanded. Genius is the
greatest responsiveness of the brain and brain‐memory to the Higher Manas.
Impressions on any sense are stored in the memory.

Before a physical sense is developed there is a mental feeling which
proceeds to become a physical sense. Fishes who are blind, living in the
deep sea, or subterranean waters, if they are put into a pond will in a
few generations develop eyes. But in their previous state there is a sense
of seeing, though no physical sight; how else should they in the darkness
find their way, avoid dangers, etc.? The mind will take in and store all
kinds of things mechanically and unconsciously, and will throw them into
the memory as unconscious perceptions. If the attention is greatly
engrossed in any way, the sense perception of any injury is not felt at
the time, but later the suffering enters into consciousness. So, returning
to our example of the seven notes struck simultaneously, we have one
impression, but the ear is affected in succession by the notes one after
another, so that they are stored in the brain‐mind in order, for the
untrained consciousness cannot register them simultaneously. All depends
on training and on attention. Thus the transference of a sensation passing
from any organ to the consciousness is almost simultaneous if your
attention is fixed on it, but if any noise distracts your attention, then
it will take a fraction more of a second before it reaches your
consciousness. The Occultist should train himself to receive and transmit
along the line of the seven scales of his consciousness every impression,
or impressions, simultaneously. He who reduces the intervals of physical
time the most has made the most progress.



Consciousness, Its Seven Scales.


There are seven scales or shades of consciousness, of the Unit; _e.g._, in
a moment of pleasure or pain; four lower and three higher.

1. Physical sense‐perception: Perception of the cell (if paralyzed, the
sense is there, though _you_ do not feel it).

2. Self‐perception or apperception: _I.e._, self‐perception of cell.

3. Psychic apperception: Of astral double, döppelganger, carrying it
higher to the:

4. Vital perception: Physical feeling, sensations of pleasure and pain, of
quality.

These are the four lower scales, and belong to the psycho‐physiological
man.

5. Mânasic discernment of the Mânasic self‐perception. Lower Manas:

6. Will perception: Volitional perception, the voluntary taking in of an
idea; you can regard or disregard physical pain.

7. Spiritual, entirely conscious apperception:   Because it reaches the
Higher, self‐conscious Manas.

[Apperception means self‐perception, conscious action, not as with
Leibnitz, but when attention is fixed on the perception.]

You can take these on any planes: _e.g._, bad news passes through the four
lower stages before coming to the heart.

Or take Sound:


    1. It strikes the ear.

    2. Self‐perception of the ear.

    3. On the psychic or mental, which carries it to

    4. Vital (harsh, soft; strong, weak; etc.).



The Ego.


One of the best proofs that there is an Ego, a true Field of
Consciousness, is the fact already mentioned, that a state of
consciousness is never exactly reproduced, though you should live a
hundred years, and pass through milliards and milliards. In an active day,
how many states and substates there are; it would be impossible to have
cells enough for all. This will help you to understand why some mental
states and abstract things follow the Ego into Devachan, and why others
merely scatter in space. That which touches the Entity has an affinity for
it, as a noble action, is immortal and goes with it into Devachan, forming
part and parcel of the biography of the personality which is
disintegrating. A lofty emotion runs through the seven stages, and touches
the Ego, the mind that plays its tunes in the mind‐cells. We can analyze
the work of consciousness and describe it; but we cannot define
consciousness unless we postulate a Subject.



Bhûrloka.


The Bhûrloka begins with the Lower Manas. Animals do not feel as do men.
The dog thinks more of his master being angry than of the actual pain of
the lash. The animal does not suffer in memory and in imagination, feeling
past and future as well as actual present pain.



Pineal Gland.


The special physical organ of perception is the brain, and perception is
located in the aura of the pineal gland. This aura answers in vibrations
to any impressions, but it can only be sensed, not perceived, in the
living man. During the process of thought manifesting in consciousness, a
constant vibration occurs in the light of this aura, and a clairvoyant
looking at the brain of a living man may almost count, see with the
spiritual eye, the seven scales, the seven shades of light, passing from
the dullest to the brightest. You touch your hand; before you touch it the
vibration is already in the aura of the pineal gland, and has its own
shade of colour. It is this aura which causes the wear and tear of the
organ, by the vibrations it sets up. The brain, set vibrating, conveys the
vibrations to the spinal cord, and so to the rest of the body. Happiness
as well as sorrow sets up these strong vibrations, and so wears out the
body. Powerful vibrations of joy or sorrow may thus kill.



The Heart.


The septenary disturbance and play of light around the pineal gland are
reflected in the heart, or rather the aura of the heart, which vibrates
and illumines the seven brains of the heart, just as does the aura round
the pineal gland. This is the exoterically four‐ but Esoterically seven‐
leaved lotus, the Saptaparna, the cave of Buddha, with its seven
compartments.



Astral And Ego.


There is a difference between the nature and the essence of the Astral
Body and the Ego. The Astral Body is molecular, however etherealized it
may be: the Ego is atomic, spiritual. The Atoms are spiritual, and are for
ever invisible on this plane; molecules form around them, they remaining
as the higher invisible principles of the molecules. The eyes are the most
Occult of our senses: close them and you pass to the mental plane. Stop
all the senses and you are entirely on another plane.



Individuality.


If twelve people are smoking together, the smoke of their cigarettes may
mingle, but the molecules of the smoke from each have an affinity with
each other, and they remain distinct for ever and ever, no matter how the
whole mass may interblend. So a drop of water, though it fall into the
ocean retains its individuality. It has become a drop with a life of its
own, like a man, and cannot be annihilated. Any group of people would
appear as a group in the Astral Light, but would not be permanent; but a
group meeting to study Occultism would cohere, and the impression would be
more permanent. The higher and the more spiritual the affinity, the more
permanent the cohesion.



Lower Manas.


The Lower Manas is an emanation from the Higher Manas, and is of the same
nature as the Higher. This nature can make no impression on this plane,
nor receive any: an Archangel, having no experience, would be senseless on
this plane, and could neither give nor receive impressions. So the Lower
Manas clothes itself with the essence of the Astral Light; this astral
envelope shuts it out from its Parent, except through the Antahkarana
which is its only salvation. Break this and you become an animal.



Kâma.


Kâma is life, it is the essence of the blood. When this leaves the blood
the latter congeals. Prâna is universal on this plane; it is in us the
vital principle, Prânic, rather than Prâna.



Self‐Hood.


Qualities determine the properties of “Self‐hood.” As, for instance, two
wolves placed in the same environment would probably not act differently.

The field of the consciousness of the Higher Ego is never reflected in the
Astral Light. The Auric Envelope receives the impressions of both the
Higher and the Lower Manas, and it is the latter impressions that are also
reflected in the Astral Light. Whereas the essence of all things
spiritual, all that which reaches, or is not rejected by, the Higher Ego
is not reflected in the Astral Light, because it is on too low a plane.
But during the life of a man, this essence, with a view to Karmic ends, is
impressed on the Auric Envelope, and after death and the separation of the
Principles is united with the Universal Mind (that is to say, those
“impressions” which are superior to even the Devachanic Plane), to await
there Karmically until the day when the Ego is to be reincarnated. [There
are thus three sets of impressions, which we may call the Kâmic,
Devachanic and Mânasic.] For the entities, no matter how high, must have
their Karmic rewards and punishments on earth. These spiritual impressions
are made more or less on the brain, otherwise the Lower Ego would not be
responsible. There are some impressions, however, received through the
brain, which are not of our previous experience. In the case of the Adept
the brain is trained to retain these impressions.

The Reincarnating Ray may, for convenience, be separated into two aspects:
the lower Kâmic Ego is scattered in Kâma Loka; the Mânasic part
accomplishes its cycle and returns to the Higher Ego. It is, in reality,
this Higher Ego which is, so to speak, punished, which suffers. This is
the true crucifixion of the Christos—the most abstruse but yet the most
important mystery of Occultism; all the cycle of our lives hangs on it. It
is indeed the Higher Ego that is the sufferer; for remember that the
abstract consciousness of the higher personal consciousness will remain
impressed on the Ego, since it must be part and parcel of its eternity.
All our grandest impressions are impressed on the Higher Ego, because they
are of the same nature as itself.

Patriotism and great actions in national service are not altogether good,
from the point of view of the highest. To benefit a portion of humanity is
good; but to do so at the expense of the rest is bad. Therefore, in
patriotism, etc., the venom is present with the good. For though the inner
essence of the Higher Ego is unsoilable, the outer garment may be soiled.
Thus both the bad and the good of such thoughts and actions are impressed
on the Auric Envelope and the Karma of the bad is taken up by the Higher
Ego, though it is perfectly guiltless of it. Thus both sets of
impressions, after death, scatter in the Universal Mind, and at
reincarnation the Ego sends out a Ray which is itself, into a new
personality, and there suffers. It suffers in the Self‐consciousness that
it has created by its own accumulated experiences.

Every one of our Egos has the Karma of past Manvantaras behind. There are
seven Hierarchies of Egos, some of which, _e.g._, in inferior tribes, may
be said to be only just beginning the present cycle. The Ego starts with
Divine Consciousness; no past, no future, no separation. It is long before
realizing that it is itself. Only after many births does it begin to
discern, by this collectivity of experience, that it is individual. At the
end of its cycle of reincarnation it is still the same Divine
Consciousness, but it has now become individualized Self‐consciousness.

The feeling of responsibility is inspired by the presence of the Light of
the Higher Ego. As the Ego in its cycle of re‐birth becomes more and more
individualized, it learns more and more by suffering to recognize its own
responsibility, by which it finally gains Self‐consciousness, the
consciousness of all the Egos of the whole Universe. Absolute Being, to
have the idea or sensation of all this, must pass through all experience
individually, not universally, so that when it returns it should be of the
same omniscience as the Universal Mind _plus_ the memory of all that it
has passed through.

At the Day “Be with us” every Ego has to remember all the cycles of its
past reincarnations for Manvantaras. The Ego comes in contact with this
earth, all seven Principles become one, it sees all that it has done
therein. It sees the stream of its past reincarnations by a certain divine
light. It sees all humanity at once, but still there is ever, as it were,
a stream which is always the “I.”

We should therefore always endeavour to accentuate our responsibility.

The Higher Ego is, as it were, a globe of pure divine light, a Unit from a
higher plane, on which is no differentiation. Descending to a plane of
differentiation it emanates a Ray, which it can only manifest through the
personality which is already differentiated. A portion of this Ray, the
Lower Manas, during life, may so crystallize itself and become one with
Kâma that it will remain assimilated with Matter. That portion which
retains its purity forms Antahkarana. The whole fate of an incarnation
depends on whether Antahkarana will be able to restrain the Kâma‐Manas or
not. After death the higher light (Antahkarana) which bears the
impressions and memory of all good and noble aspirations, assimilates
itself with the Higher Ego, the bad is dissociated in space, and comes
back as bad Karma awaiting the personality.

The feeling of responsibility is the beginning of Wisdom, a proof that
Ahankâra is beginning to fade out, the beginning of losing the sense of
separateness.



Kâma Rûpa.


The Kâma Rûpa eventually breaks up and goes into animals. All red‐blooded
animals come from man. The cold‐blooded are from the matter of the past.
The blood is the Kâma Rûpa.

The white corpuscles are the scavengers, “devourers”; they are oozed out
of the Astral through the spleen, and are of the same essence as the
Astral. They are the sweat‐born of the Chhâyâ. Kâma is everywhere in the
body. The red cells are drops of electrical fluid, the perspiration of all
the organs oozed out from every cell. They are the progeny of the Fohatic
Principle.



Heart.


There are seven brains in the heart, the Upâdhis and symbols of the seven
Hierarchies.



The Fires.


The fires are always playing round the pineal gland, but when Kundalinî
illuminates them for a brief instant the whole universe is seen. Even in
deep sleep the Third Eye opens. This is good for Manas, who profits by it,
though we ourselves do not remember.



Perception.


In answer to a question on the seven stages of perception, H. P. B. said
that thought should be centred on the highest, the seventh, and then an
attempt to transcend this will prove that it is impossible to go beyond it
on this plane. There is nothing in the brain to carry the thinker on, and
if thought is to rise yet further it must be thought without a brain. Let
the eyes be closed, the will set not to let the brain work, and then the
point may be transcended and the student will pass to the next plane. All
the seven stages of perception come before Antahkarana; if you can pass
beyond them you are on the Mânasic Plane.

Try to imagine something which transcends your power of thought, say, the
nature of the Dhyân Chohans. Then make the brain passive, and pass beyond;
you will see a white radiant light, like silver, but opalescent as mother
of pearl; then waves of colour will pass over it, beginning in the
tenderest violet, and through bronze shades of green to indigo with
metallic lustre, and that colour will remain. If you see this you are on
another plane. You should pass through seven stages.

When a colour comes, glance at it, and if it is not good reject it. Let
your attention be arrested only on the green, indigo and yellow. These are
good colours. The eyes being connected with the brain, the colour you see
most easily will be the colour of the personality. If you see red, it is
merely physiological, and is to be disregarded. Green‐bronze is the Lower
Manas, yellow‐bronze the Antahkarana, indigo‐bronze is Manas. These are to
be observed, and when the yellow‐bronze merges into the indigo you are on
the Mânasic Plane.

On the Mânasic Plane you see the Noumena, the essence of phenomena. You do
not see people or other consciousnesses, but have enough to do to keep
your own. The trained Seer can see Noumena always. The Adept sees the
Noumena on this plane, the reality of things, so cannot be deceived.

In meditation the beginner may waver backwards and forwards between two
planes. You hear the ticking of a clock on this plane, then on the
astral—the soul of the ticking. When clocks are stopped here the ticking
goes on on higher planes, in the astral, and then in the ether, until the
last bit of the clock is gone. It is the same as with a dead body, which
sends out emanations until the last molecule is disintegrated.

There is no time in meditation, because there is no succession of states
of consciousness on this plane.

Violet is the colour of the Astral. You begin with it, but should not stay
in it; try to pass on. When you see a sheet of violet, you are beginning
unconsciously to form a Mâyâvi Rûpa. Fix your attention, and if you go
away keep your consciousness firmly to the Mâyâvic Body; do not lose sight
of it, hold on like grim death.



Consciousness.


The consciousness which is merely the animal consciousness is made up of
the consciousness of all the cells in the body except those of the heart.
The heart is the king, the most important organ in the body of man. Even
if the head be severed from the body, the heart will continue to beat for
thirty minutes. It will beat for some hours if wrapped in cotton wool and
put in a warm place. The spot in the heart which is the last of all to die
is the seat of life, the centre of all, Brahmâ, the first spot that lives
in the fœtus and the last that dies. When a Yogî is buried in a trance it
is this spot that lives, though the rest of the body be dead, and as long
as this is alive the Yogî can be resurrected. This spot contains
potentially mind, life, energy, and will. During life it radiates
prismatic colours, fiery and opalescent. The heart is the centre of
spiritual consciousness, as the brain is the centre of intellectual. But
this consciousness cannot be guided by a person, nor its energy directed
by him until he is at one with Buddhi‐Manas; until then it guides him—if
it can. Hence the pangs of remorse, the prickings of conscience; they come
from the heart, not the head. In the heart is the only manifested God, the
other two are invisible, and it is this which represents the Triad,
Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas.

In reply to a question whether the consciousness might not be concentrated
in the heart, and so the promptings of the Spirit caught, H. P. B. said
that any one who could thus concentrate would be at one with Manas, would
have united Kâma‐Manas to the Higher Manas. The Higher Manas could not
directly guide man, it could only act through the Lower Manas.

There are three principal centres in man, Heart, Head, and Navel: any two
of which may be + or ‐ to each other, according to the relative
predominance of the centres.

The heart represents the Higher Triad; the liver and spleen represent the
Quaternary. The solar plexus is the brain of the stomach.

H. P. B. was asked if the three centres above‐named would represent the
Christos, crucified between two thieves; she said it might serve as an
analogy, but these figures must not be over‐driven. It must never be
forgotten that the Lower Manas is the same in its essence as the Higher,
and may become one with it by rejecting Kâmic impulses. The crucifixion of
the Christos represents the self‐sacrifice of the Higher Manas, the Father
that sends his only begotten Son into the world to take upon him our sins:
the Christ‐myth came from the Mysteries. So also did the life of
Apollonius of Tyana; this was suppressed by the Fathers of the Church
because of its striking similarity to the life of Christ.

The psycho‐intellectual man is all in the head with its seven gateways;
the spiritual man is in the heart. The convolutions are formed by thought.

The third ventricle in life is filled with light, and not with a liquid as
after death.

There are seven cavities in the brain which are quite empty during life,
and it is in these that visions must be reflected if they are to remain in
the memory. These centres are, in Occultism, called the seven harmonies,
the scale of the divine harmonies. They are filled with Âkâsha, each with
its own colour, according to the state of consciousness in which you are.
The sixth is the pineal gland, which is hollow and empty during life; the
seventh is the whole; the fifth is the third ventricle; the fourth the
pituitary body. When Manas is united to Âtmâ‐Buddhi, or when Âtmâ‐Buddhi
is centred in Manas, it acts in the three higher cavities, radiating,
sending forth a halo of light, and this is visible in the case of a very
holy person.

The cerebellum is the centre, the storehouse, of all the forces; it is the
Kâma of the head. The pineal gland corresponds to the uterus; its
peduncles to the Fallopian tubes. The pituitary body is only its servant,
its torch‐bearer, like the servants bearing lights that used to run before
the carriage of a princess. Man is thus androgyne so far as his head is
concerned.

Man contains in himself every element that is found in the Universe. There
is nothing in the Macrocosm that is not in the Microcosm. The pineal
gland, as was said, is quite empty during life; the pituitary contains
various essences. The granules in the pineal gland are precipitated after
death within the cavity.

The cerebellum furnishes the materials for ideation; the frontal lobes of
the cerebrum are the finishers and polishers of the materials, but they
cannot create of themselves.

Clairvoyant perception is the consciousness of touch: thus reading
letters, psychometrizing substances, etc., may be done at the pit of the
stomach. Every sense has its consciousness, and you can have consciousness
through every sense. There may be consciousness on the plane of sight,
though the brain be paralyzed; the eyes of a paralyzed person will show
terror. So with the sense of hearing. Those who are physically blind, deaf
or dumb, are still possessed of the psychic counterparts of these senses.



Will And Desire.


Eros in man is the will of the genius to create great pictures, great
music, things that will live and serve the race. It has nothing in common
with the animal desire to create. Will is of the Higher Manas. It is the
universal harmonious tendency acting by the Higher Manas. Desire is the
outcome of separateness, aiming at the satisfaction of Self in Matter. The
path opened between the Higher Ego and the Lower enables the Ego to act on
the personal self.



Conversion.


It is not true that a man powerful in evil can suddenly be converted and
become as powerful for good. His vehicle is too defiled, and he can at
best but neutralize the evil, balancing up the bad Karmic causes he has
set in motion, at any rate for this incarnation. You cannot take a herring
barrel and use it for attar of roses: the wood is too soaked through with
the drippings. When evil impulses and tendencies have become impressed on
the physical nature, they cannot at once be reversed. The molecules of the
body have been set in a Kâmic direction, and though they have sufficient
intelligence to discern between things on their own plane, _i.e._, to
avoid things harmful to themselves, they cannot understand a change of
direction, the impulse to which is from another plane. If they are forced
too violently, disease, madness or death will result.



Origines.


Absolute eternal motion, Parabrahman, which is nothing and everything,
motion inconceivably rapid, in this motion throws off a film, which is
Energy, Eros. It thus transforms itself to Mûlaprakriti, primordial
Substance which is still Energy. This Energy, still transforming itself in
its ceaseless and inconceivable motion, becomes the Atom, or rather the
germ of the Atom, and then it is on the Third Plane.

Our Manas is a Ray from the World‐Soul and is withdrawn at Pralaya; “it is
perhaps the Lower Manas of Parabrahman,” that is, of the Parabrahman of
the manifested Universe. The first film is Energy, or motion on the
manifested plane; Alaya is the Third Logos, Mahâ‐Buddhi, Mahat. We always
begin on the Third Plane; beyond that all is inconceivable. Âtmâ is
focussed in Buddhi, but is embodied only in Manas, these being the Spirit,
Soul and Body of the Universe.



Dreams.


We may have evil experiences in dreams as well as good. We should,
therefore, train ourselves so as to awaken directly we tend to do wrong.

The Lower Manas is asleep in sense‐dreams, the animal consciousness being
then guided towards the Astral Light by Kâma; the tendency of such sense‐
dreams is always towards the animal.

If we could remember our dreams in deep sleep, then we should be able to
remember all our past incarnations.



Nidânas.


There are twelve Nidânas, exoteric and Esoteric, the fundamental doctrine
of Buddhism.

So also there are twelve exoteric Buddhist Sûttas called Nidânas, each
giving one Nidâna.

The Nidânas have a dual meaning. They are:

(1) The twelve causes of sentient existence, through the twelve links of
subjective with objective Nature, or between the subjective and objective
Natures.

(2) A concatenation of causes and effects.

Every cause produces an effect, and this effect becomes in its turn a
cause. Each of these has as Upâdhi (basis), one of the sub‐divisions of
one of the Nidânas, and also an effect or consequence.

Both bases and effects belong to one or another Nidâna, each having from
three to seventeen, eighteen and twenty‐one sub‐divisions.

The names of the twelve Nidânas are:

(1) Jarâmarana.
(2) Jâti.
(3) Bhava.
(4) Upâdâna.
(5) Trishnâ.
(6) Vedanâ.
(7) Sparsha.
(8) Chadayâtana.
(9) Nâmarûpa.
(10) Vignâna.
(11) Samskâra.
(12) Avidyâ.(859)

(1) JARÂMARANA, lit. death in consequence of decrepitude. Notice that
death and not life comes as the first of the Nidânas. This is the first
fundamental in Buddhist Philosophy; every Atom, at every moment, as soon
as it is born begins dying.

The five Skandhas are founded on it; they are its effects or product.
Moreover, in its turn, it is based on the five Skandhas. They are mutual
things, one gives to the other.

(2) JÂTI, lit. Birth.

That is to say, Birth according to one of the four modes of Chaturyoni
(the four wombs), _viz._:

(i) Through the womb, like Mammalia.

(ii) Through Eggs.

(iii) Ethereal or liquid Germs—fish spawn, pollen, insects, etc.

(iv) Anupâdaka—Nirmânakâyas, Gods, etc.

That is to say that birth takes place by one of these modes. You must be
born in one of the six objective modes of existence, or in the seventh
which is subjective. These four are within six modes of existence, _viz._:

_Exoterically_:—

(i) Devas; (ii) Men; (iii) Asuras; (iv) Men in Hell; (v) Pretas, devouring
demons on earth; (vi) animals.

_Esoterically_:—

(i) Higher Gods; (ii) Devas or Pitris (all classes); (iii) Nirmânakâyas;
(iv) Bodhisattvas; (v) Men in Myalba; (vi) Kâma Rûpic existences, whether
of men or animals, in Kâma Loka or the Astral Light; (vii) Elementals
(Subjective Existences).

(3) BHAVA = Karmic existence, not life existence, but as a moral agent
which determines _where_ you will be born, _i.e._, in which of the
Triloka, Bhûr, Bhuvar or Svar (seven Lokas in reality).

The cause or Nidâna of Bhava is Upâdâna, that is, the clinging to
existence, that which makes us desire life in whatever form.

Its effect is Jâti in one or another of the Triloka and under whatever
conditions.

Nidânas are the detailed expression of the law of Karma under twelve
aspects; or we might say the law of Karma under twelve Nidânic aspects.



Skandhas.


Skandhas are the germs of life on all the seven planes of Being, and make
up the totality of the subjective and objective man. Every vibration we
have made is a Skandha. The Skandhas are closely united to the pictures in
the Astral Light, which is the medium of impressions, and the Skandhas, or
vibrations, connected with subjective or objective man, are the links
which attract the Reincarnating Ego, the germs left behind when it went
into Devachan which have to be picked up again and exhausted by a new
personality. The exoteric Skandhas have to do with the physical atoms and
vibrations, or objective man; the Esoteric with the internal and
subjective man.

A mental change, or a glimpse of spiritual truth, may make a man suddenly
change to the truth even at his death, thus creating good Skandhas for the
next life. The last acts or thoughts of a man have an enormous effect upon
his future life, but he would still have to suffer for his misdeeds, and
this is the basis of the idea of a death‐bed repentance. But the Karmic
effects of the past life must follow, for the man in his next birth must
pick up the Skandhas or vibratory impressions that he left in the Astral
Light, since nothing comes from nothing in Occultism, and there must be a
link between the lives. New Skandhas are born from their old parents.

It is wrong to speak of Tanhâs in the plural; there is only one Tanhâ,
_the desire to live_. This develops into a multitude or one might say a
congeries of ideas. The Skandhas are Karmic and non‐Karmic. Skandhas may
produce Elementals by unconscious Kriyâshakti. Every Elemental that is
thrown out by man must return to him sooner or later, since it is his own
vibration. They thus become his Frankenstein. Elementals are simply
effects producing effects. They are disembodied thoughts, good and bad.
They remain crystallized in the Astral Light and are attracted by affinity
and galvanized back into life again, when their originator returns to
earth‐life. You can paralyze them by reverse effects. Elementals are
caught like a disease and hence are dangerous to ourselves and to others.
This is why it is dangerous to influence others. The Elementals which live
after your death are those which you implant in others: the rest remain
latent till you are reincarnated, when they come to life in you. “Thus,”
H. P. B. said, “if you are badly taught by me or incited thereby to do
something wrong, you would go on after my death and sin through me, but I
should have to bear the Karma. Calvin, for instance, will have to suffer
for all the wrong teaching he has given, though he gave it with good
intentions. The worst * * * * does is to arrest the progress of truth.
Even Buddha made mistakes. He applied his teaching to people who were not
ready; and this has produced Nidânas.”



Subtle Bodies.


When a man visits another in his Astral Body, it is the Linga Sharîra
which goes, but this cannot happen at any great distance. When a man
_thinks_ of another at a distance very intently, he sometimes appears to
that person.

In this case it is the Mâyâvi Rûpa, which is created by unconscious
Kriyâshakti, and the man himself is not conscious of appearing. If he
were, and projected his Mâyâvi Rûpa consciously, he would be an
Adept.(860) No two persons can be simultaneously conscious of one
another’s presence, unless one be an Adept. Dugpas use the Mâyâvi Rûpa and
sorcerers also. Dugpas work on the Linga Sharîra of other people.

The Linga Sharîra in the spleen is the perfect picture of the man, and is
good or bad, according to his own nature. The Astral Body is the
subjective image of the man which is to be, the first germ in the matrix,
the model of the physical body in which the child is formed and developed.
The Linga Sharîra may be hurt by a sharp instrument, and would not face a
sword or bayonet, although it would easily pass through a table or other
piece of furniture.

Nothing however can hurt the Mâyâvi Rûpa or thought‐body, since it is
purely subjective. When swords are struck at shades, it is the sword
itself, not its Linga Sharîra or Astral that cuts. Sharp instruments alone
can penetrate Astrals, _e.g._, under water, a blow will not affect you,
but a cut will.

The projection of the Astral Body should not be attempted, but the power
of Kriyâshakti should be exercised in the projection of the Mâyâvi Rûpa.



Fire.


Fire is not an Element but a divine thing. The physical flame is the
objective vehicle of the highest Spirit. The Fire Elementals are the
highest. Everything in this world has its Aura and its Spirit. The flame
you apply to the candle has nothing to do with the candle itself. The Aura
of the object comes into conjunction with the lowest part of the other.
Granite cannot burn because its Aura is Fire. Fire Elementals have no
consciousness on this plane, they are too high, reflecting the divinity of
their own source. Other Elementals have consciousness on this plane as
they reflect man and his nature. There is a very great difference between
the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. The wick of the lamp, for instance, is
negative. It is made positive by fire, the oil being the medium. Æther is
Fire. The lowest part of Æther is the flame which you see. Fire is
Divinity in its subjective presence throughout the universe. Under other
conditions, this Universal Fire manifests as water, air and earth. It is
the one Element in our visible Universe which is the Kriyâshakti of all
forms of life. It is that which gives light, heat, death, life, etc. It is
even the blood. In all its various manifestations it is essentially _one_.

It is the “seven Cosmocratores.”

Evidence of the esteem in which Fire was held are to be found in the _Old
Testament_. The Pillar of Fire, the Burning Bush, the Shining Face of
Moses—all Fire. Fire is like a looking‐glass in its nature, and reflects
the beams of the first order of subjective manifestations which are
supposed to be thrown on to the screen of the first outlines of the
created universe; in their lower aspect these are the creations of Fire.

Fire in the grossest aspect of its essence is the first form and reflects
the lower forms of the first subjective beings which are in the universe.
The first divine chaotic thoughts are the Fire Elementals. When on earth
they take form and come flitting in the flame in the form of the
Salamanders or lower Fire Elementals. In the air you have millions of
living and conscious beings, besides our thoughts which they catch up. The
Fire Elementals are related to the sense of sight and absorb the
Elementals of all the other senses. Thus through sight you can have the
consciousness of feeling, hearing, tasting, etc., since all are included
in the sense of sight.



Hints On The Future.


As time passes on there will be more and more ether in the air. When ether
fills the air, then will be born children without fathers. In Virginia
there is an apple tree of a special kind. It does not blossom but bears
fruit from a kind of berry without any seeds. This will gradually extend
to animals and then to men. Women will bear children without impregnation,
and in the Seventh Round there will appear men who can reproduce
themselves. In the Seventh Race of the Fourth Round, men will change their
skins every year and will have new toe and finger nails. People will
become more psychic, then spiritual. Last of all in the Seventh Round,
Buddhas will be born without sin. The Fourth Round is the longest in the
Kali Yuga, then the Fifth, then the Sixth, and the Seventh Round will be
very short.



The Egos.


On the separation of the Principles at death the Higher Ego may be said to
go to Devachan by reason of the experiences of the Lower. The Higher Ego
in its own plane is the Kumâra.

The Lower Quaternary dissolves; the body rots, the Linga Sharîra fades
out.

At reincarnation the Higher Ego shoots out a Ray, the Lower Ego. Its
energies are upward and downward. The upward tendencies become its
Devachanic experiences; the lower are Kâmic. The Higher Manas stands to
Buddhi as the Lower Manas to the Higher.

As to the question of responsibility, it may be understood by an example.
If you take the form of Jack the Ripper, you must suffer for its misdeeds,
for the law will punish the murderer and hold him responsible. You are the
sacrificial victim. In the same way the Higher Ego is the Christos, the
sacrificial victim for the Lower Manas. The Ego takes the responsibility
of every body it informs.

You borrow some money to lend it to another; the other runs away, but it
is you who are responsible. The mission of the Higher Ego is to shoot out
a Ray to be a Soul in a child.

Thus the Ego incarnates in a thousand bodies, taking upon itself the sins
and responsibilities of each body. At every incarnation a new Ray is
emitted, and yet it is the same Ray in essence, the same in you and me and
every one. The dross of the incarnation disintegrates, the good goes to
Devachan.

The Flame is eternal. From the Flame of the Higher Ego, the Lower is
lighted, and from this a lower vehicle, and so on.

And yet the Lower Manas is such as it makes itself. It is possible for it
to act differently in like conditions, for it has reason and self‐
conscious knowledge of right and wrong, and good and evil, given to it. It
is in fact endowed with all the attributes of the Divine Soul. In this the
Ray is the Higher Manas, the speck of responsibility on earth.

The part of the essence is the essence, but while it is out of itself, so
to say, it can get soiled and polluted. The Ray can be manifested on this
earth because it can send forth its Mâyâvi Rûpa. But the Higher cannot, so
it has to send forth a Ray. We may look upon the Higher Ego as the Sun,
and the personal Manases as its Rays. If we take away the surrounding air
and light the Ray may be said to return to the Sun, so with the Lower
Manas and Lower Quaternary.

The Higher Ego can only manifest through its attributes.

In cases of sudden death, the Lower Manas no more disappears than does the
Kâma Rûpa after death. After the severance the Ray may be said to snap or
be dropped. After death such a man cannot go to Devachan, nor yet remain
in Kâma Loka; his fate is to reincarnate immediately. Such an entity is
then an animal Soul _plus_ the intelligence of the severed Ray. The
manifestation of this intelligence in the next birth will depend entirely
on the physical formation of the brain and on education.

Such a Soul may be re‐united with its Higher Ego in the next birth, if the
environment is such as to give it a chance of aspiration (this is the
“grace” of the Christians); or it may go on for two or three incarnations,
the Ray becoming weaker and weaker, and gradually dissipating, until it is
born a congenital idiot and then finally dissipated in lower forms.

There are enormous mysteries connected with the Lower Manas.

With regard to some intellectual giants, they are in somewhat the same
condition as smaller men, for their Higher Ego is paralyzed, that is to
say, their spiritual nature is atrophied.

The Manas can pass its essence to several vehicles, _e.g._, the Mâyâvi
Rûpa, etc., and even to Elementals which it can ensoul, as the
Rosicrucians taught.

The Mâyâvi Rûpa may be sometimes so vitalized that it goes on to another
plane and unites with the beings of that plane and so ensouls them.

People who bestow great affection upon animal pets are ensouling them to a
certain extent, and such animal Souls progress very rapidly; in return
such persons get back the animal vitality and magnetism. It is, however,
against Nature to thus accentuate animal evolution, and on the whole is
bad.



Monadic Evolution.


The Kumâras do not direct the evolution of the Lunar Pitris. To understand
the latter, we might take the analogy of the blood.

The blood may be compared to the universal Life Principle, the corpuscles
to the Monads. The different kinds of corpuscles are the same as the
various classes of Monads and various kingdoms, not, however, because of
their essence being different, but because of the environment in which
they are. The Chhâyâ is the permanent seed, and Weissmann in his
hereditary germ theory is very near truth.

H. P. B. was asked whether there was one Ego to one permanent Chhâyâ seed,
oversouling it in a series of incarnations; her answer was: “No, it is
Heaven and Earth kissing each other.”

The animal Souls are in temporary forms and shells in which they gain
experience, and in which they prepare materials for higher evolution.

Until the age of seven the astral atavic germ forms and moulds the body;
after that the body forms the Astral.

The Astral and the Mind mutually react on each other.

The meaning of the passage in the _Upanishads_, where it says that the
Gods feed on men, is that the Higher Ego obtains its earth experience
through the Lower.



Astral Body.


The Astral can get out unconsciously to the person and wander about.

The Chhâyâ is the same as the Astral Body.

The germ or life essence of it is in the spleen.

“The Chhâyâ is coiled up in the spleen.” It is from this that the Astral
is formed; it evolves in a shadowy curling or gyrating essence like smoke,
gradually taking form as it grows. But it is not projected from the
physical, atom for atom. This latter intermolecular form is the Kâma Rûpa.
At death every cell and molecule gives out its essence, and from it is
formed the Astral of the Kâma Rûpa; but this can never come out during
life.

The Chhâyâ in order to become visible draws upon the surrounding
atmosphere, attracting the atoms to itself; the Linga Sharîra could not
form _in vacuo_. The fact of the Astral Body accounts for the Arabian and
Eastern tales of Djins and bottle imps, etc.

In spiritualistic phenomena, the resemblance to deceased persons is mostly
caused by the imagination. The clothing of such phantoms is formed from
the living atoms of the medium, and is no real clothing, and has nothing
to do with the clothing of the medium. “All the clothing of a
materialization has been paid for.”

The Astral supports life; it is the reservoir or sponge of life, gathering
it up from all the natural kingdoms around, and is the intermediary
between the kingdoms of Prânic and physical life.

Life cannot come immediately from the subjective to the objective, for
Nature goes gradually through each sphere. Therefore the Linga Sharîra is
the intermediary between Prâna and our physical body, and pumps in the
life.

The spleen is consequently a very delicate organ, but the physical spleen
is only a cover for the real spleen.

Now Life is in reality Divinity, Parabrahman. But in order to manifest on
the Physical Plane it must be assimilated; and as the purely physical is
too gross, it must have a medium, _viz._, the Astral. Astral matter is not
homogeneous, and the Astral Light is nothing but the shadow of the real
Divine Light; it is however not molecular.

Those (Kâmarûpic) entities which are below the Devachanic Plane are in
Kâma Loka and only possess intelligence like monkeys. There are no
entities in the four lower kingdoms possessing intelligence which can
communicate with men, but the Elementals have instincts like animals. It
is, however, possible for the Sylphs (the Air Elementals, the wickedest
things in the world) to communicate, but they require to be propitiated.

Spooks (Kâmarûpic entities) can only give the information they see
immediately before them. They see things in the Aura of people, although
the people may not be aware of them themselves.

Earth‐bound spirits are Kâmalokic entities that have been so materialistic
that they cannot be dissolved for a long time. They have only a glimmering
of consciousness and do not know why they are held, some sleep, some
preserve a glimmering of consciousness and suffer torture.

In the case of people who have very little Devachan, the greater part of
the consciousness remains in Kâma Loka, and may last far beyond the normal
period of one hundred and fifty years and remain over until the next
reincarnation of the Spirit. This then becomes the Dweller on the
Threshold and fights with the new Astral.

The acme of Kâma is the sexual instinct, _e.g._, idiots have such desires
and also food appetites, etc., and nothing else.

Devachan is a state on a plane of spiritual consciousness; Kâma Loka is a
place of physical consciousness. It is the shadow of the animal world and
that of instinctual feelings. When the consciousness thinks of spiritual
things, it is on a spiritual plane.

If one’s thoughts are of nature, flowers, etc., then the consciousness is
on the material plane.

But if thoughts are about eating, drinking, etc., and the passions, then
the consciousness is in the Kâmalokic plane, which is the plane of animal
instincts pure and simple.



[Transcriber’s Note: Obvious printer’s errors have been corrected.]



FOOTNOTES


    1 The majority of the Pandits know nothing of the Esoteric Philosophy
      now, because they have lost the key to it; yet not one of these, if
      honest, would deny that the _Upanishads_, and especially the
      _Purânas_, are allegorical and symbolical; nor that there still
      remain in India a few great scholars who could, if they would, give
      them the key to such interpretations. Nor do they reject the actual
      existence of Mahâtmâs—initiated Yogis and Adepts—even in this age of
      Kali Yuga.

    2 This assertion is clearly corroborated by Plato himself, who writes:
      “You say that in my former discourse I have not sufficiently
      explained to you the nature of the First. I purposely spoke
      enigmatically, that in case the tablet should have happened with any
      accident, either by sea or land, a person without some previous
      knowledge of the subject might not be able to understand its
      contents.” (Plato, _Ep._, ii. 312; Cory, _Ancient Fragments_, p.
      304.)

    3 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 287, 288.

    4 _The Dialogues of Plato_, translated by B. Jowett, Regius Professor
      of Greek at the University of Oxford, iii. 523.

    5 _Op. cit._, p. 561.

    6 _Op. cit._, p. 591.

    7 This definition places (unwittingly, of course), the ancient
      “physical philosopher” many cubits higher than his modern “physical”
      _confrère_, since the _ultima thule_ of the latter is to lead
      mankind to believe that neither universe nor man have any cause at
      all—not an intelligent one at all events—and that they have sprung
      into existence owing to blind chance and a senseless whirling of
      atoms. Which of the two hypotheses is the more rational and logical
      is left to the impartial reader to decide.

    8 Italics are mine. Every tyro in Eastern Philosophy, every Kabalist,
      will see the reason for such an association of persons with ideas,
      numbers, and geometrical figures. For number, says Philolaus, “is
      the dominant and self‐produced bond of the eternal continuance of
      things.” Alone the modern Scholar remains blind to the grand truth.

    9 Here again the ancient Philosopher seems to be ahead of the modern.
      For he only “confuses ... first and final causes” (which confusion
      is denied by those who know the spirit of ancient scholarship),
      whereas his modern successor is confessedly and absolutely ignorant
      of both. Mr. Tyndall shows Science “powerless” to solve a single one
      of the final problems of Nature and “disciplined [read, modern
      materialistic], imagination retiring in bewilderment from the
      contemplation of the problems” of the world of matter. He even
      doubts whether the men of present Science possess “the intellectual
      elements which would enable them to grapple with the ultimate
      structural energies of Nature.” But for Plato and his disciples, the
      lower types were but the concrete images of the higher abstract
      ones; the immortal Soul has an arithmetical, as the body has a
      geometrical, beginning. This beginning, as the reflection of the
      great universal Archæus (_Anima Mundi_), is self‐moving, and from
      the centre diffuses itself over the whole body of the Macrocosm.

   10 _Op. cit._, p. 523.

   11 Nowhere are the Neoplatonists guilty of such an absurdity. The
      learned Professor of Greek must have been thinking of two spurious
      works attributed by Eusebius and St. Jerome to Ammonius Saccas, who
      wrote nothing; or must have confused the Neoplatonists with Philo
      Judæus. But then Philo lived over 130 years before the birth of the
      founder of Neoplatonism. He belonged to the School of Aristobulus
      the Jew, who lived under Ptolemy Philometer (150 years B.C.), and is
      credited with having inaugurated the movement which tended to prove
      that Plato and even the Peripatetic Philosophy were derived from the
      “revealed” Mosaic Books. Valckenaer tries to show that the author of
      the _Commentaries on the Books of Moses_, was not Aristobulus, the
      sycophant of Ptolemy. But whatever he was, he was not a
      Neoplatonist, but lived before, or during the days of Philo Judæus,
      since the latter seems to know his works and follow his methods.

   12 Only Clemens Alexandrinus, a Christian Neoplatonist and a very
      fantastic writer.

   13 The labour of reconciling the different systems of religion.

   14 _New Platonism and Alchemy_, by Alex. Wilder, M.D. pp. 7, 4.

   15 It is well‐known that, though born of Christian parents, Ammonius
      had renounced the tenets of the Church—Eusebius and Jerome
      notwithstanding. Porphyry, the disciple of Plotinus, who had lived
      with Ammonius for eleven years together, and who had no interest for
      stating an untruth, positively declares that he had renounced
      Christianity entirely. On the other hand, we know that Ammonius
      believed in the bright Gods, Protectors, and that the Neoplatonic
      Philosophy was as “pagan” as it was mystical. But Eusebius, the most
      unscrupulous forger and falsifier of old texts, and St. Jerome, an
      out‐and‐out fanatic, who had both an interest in denying the fact,
      contradict Porphyry. We prefer to believe the latter, who has left
      to posterity an unblemished name and a great reputation for honesty.

   16 Two works are falsely attributed to Ammonius. One, now lost, called
      _De Consensu Moysis et Jesu_, is mentioned by the same “trustworthy”
      Eusebius, the Bishop of Cæsaræa, and the friend of the Christian
      Emperor Constantine, who died, however, a heathen. All that is known
      of this pseudo‐work is that Jerome bestows great praise upon it
      (_Vir. Illust._, § 55; and Euseb., _H. E._, vi. 19). The other
      spurious production is called the _Diatesseron_ (or the “Harmony of
      the Gospels”). This is partially extant. But then, again, it exists
      only in the Latin version of Victor, Bishop of Capua (sixth
      century), who attributed it himself to Tatian, and as wrongly,
      probably, as later scholars attributed the _Diatesseron_ to
      Ammonius. Therefore no great reliance can be placed upon it, nor on
      its “esoteric” interpretation of the Gospels. Is it this work, we
      wonder, which led Prof. Jowett to regard the Neo‐platonic
      interpretations as “absurdities”?

   17 _Op. cit._, p. 7.

   18 _Op. cit._, iii, 524.

   19 “Imperfect knowledge” of what? That Plato was ignorant of many of
      the modern “working hypotheses”—as ignorant as our immediate
      posterity is sure to be of the said hypotheses when they in their
      turn after exploding join the “great majority”—is perhaps a blessing
      in disguise.

   20 _Op. cit._, p. 524.

   21 _Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme_, by M. J. Matter, Professor of
      the Royal Academy of Strasburg, “It is in Pythagoras and Plato that
      we find, in Greece, the first elements of [Oriental] Gnosticism,” he
      says. (Vol. i, pp. 48 and 50.)

   22 _Asiat. Trans._, i, 579.

   23 _New Platonism and Alchemy_, p. 4.

   24 This fact and others may be found in Chinese Missionary Reports, and
      in a work by Monseigneur Delaplace, a Bishop in China. _Annales de
      la Propagation de la Foi._

   25 The regions somewhere about Udyana and Kashmir, as the translator
      and editor of Marco Polo (Colonel Yule) believes (i. 175).

   26 _Voyage des Pélerins Bouddhistes_, Vol. I.; _Histoire de la Vie de
      Hiouen‐Thsang_, etc., traduit du chinois en français, par Stanislas
      Julien.

   27 Lao‐tse, the Chinese philosopher.

   28 _The Book of Ser Marco Polo_, i. 318.

   29 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 599‐601, 603, 598.

   30 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 6.

   31 The Rishis—the first group of seven in number—lived in days
      preceding the Vedic period. They are now known as Sages and held in
      reverence like demigods. But they may now be shown as something more
      than merely mortal Philosophers. There are other groups of ten,
      twelve and even twenty‐one in number. Haug shows that they occupy in
      the Brâhmanical religion a position answering to that of the twelve
      sons of Jacob in the Jewish _Bible_. The Brâhmans claim to descend
      directly from the Rishis.

   32 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 90.

   33 See Münter “On the most Ancient Religions of the North before Odin.”
      _Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de France_, ii. 230.

   34 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxvi. 6.

   35 “The date of the hundreds of pyramids in the Valley of the Nile is
      impossible to fix by any of the rules of modern science; Herodotus
      informs us that each successive king erected one to commemorate his
      reign, and serve as his sepulchre. But, Herodotus did not tell all,
      although he knew that the real purpose of the pyramid was very
      different from that which he assigns to it. Were it not for his
      religious scruples, he might have added that, externally, it
      symbolized the creative principle of Nature, and illustrated also
      the principles of geometry, mathematics, astrology and astronomy.
      Internally, it was a majestic fane, in whose sombre recesses were
      performed the Mysteries, and whose walls had often witnessed the
      initiation scenes of members of the royal family. The porphyry
      sarcophagus, which Professor Piazzi Smyth, Astronomer Royal of
      Scotland, degrades into a corn‐bin, was the baptismal font, upon
      emerging from which, the neophyte was ‘born again,’ and became an
      adept.” (_Isis Unveiled_, i. 518, 519.)

   36 Diog. Laërt., in “Democrit. Vit.”

   37 _Satyric_, ix. 3.

   38 Pliny, _Hist. Nat._

   39 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 512.

   40 _Op. cit._, ii. 403.

   41 This is precisely what some of them are preparing to do, and many a
      “mysterious page” in sacred and profane history are touched on in
      these pages. Whether or not their explanations will be accepted—is
      another question.

   42 _Ibid._

   43 This is incorrectly expressed. The true Adept of the “Right Hand”
      never punishes anyone, not even his bitterest and most dangerous
      enemy; he simply leaves the latter to his Karma, and Karma never
      fails to do so, sooner or later.

   44 _Op. cit._, ii. 239, 241, 240.

   45 See, in this connection, _Pneumatologie des Esprits_, by the Marquis
      de Mirville, who devotes six enormous volumes to show the absurdity
      of those who deny the reality of Satan and Magic, or the Occult
      Sciences—the two being with him synonymous.

   46 We think we see the sidereal phantom of the old Philosopher and
      Mystic—once of Cambridge University—Henry More, moving about in the
      astral mist over the old moss‐covered roofs of the ancient town in
      which he wrote his famous letter to Glanvil about “witches.” The
      “soul” seems restless and indignant, as on that day of May, 1678,
      when the doctor complained so bitterly to the author of _Sadducismus
      Triumphatus_ of Scot, Adie and Webster. “Our new inspired saints,”
      the soul is heard to mutter, “sworn advocates of the witches ... who
      against all sense and reason ... will have no Samuel but a
      confederate knave ... these in‐blown buffoons, puffed up with ...
      ignorance, vanity and stupid infidelity!” (See “Letter to Glanvil,”
      and _Isis Unveiled_, i. 205, 206.)

   47 _Études Religieuses._

   48 _Études Historiques._

   49 _Mémoire_ read at the Académie des Inscriptions des Belles Lettres,
      in 1859.

   50 See Alfred Maury’s _Histoire des Religions de la Grèce_, i. 248; and
      the speculations of Holzmann in _Zeitschrift für Vergleichende
      Sprach forschung_, ann. 1852, p. 487, _sq._

   51 Creuzer’s _Introduction des Mystères_, iii. 456.

   52 The later Nabathæans adhered to the same belief as the Nazarenes and
      the Sabæans, honoured John the Baptist, and used Baptism. (See _Isis
      Unveiled_, ii. 127; Munck, _Palestine_, p. 525; Dunlap, _Sod, the
      Son of Man_, etc.)

   53 i. 535.

   54 By Hargrave Jennings.

   55 See De Mirville’s _Pneumatologie_, iii. 267 _et seq._

   56 Psellus, 4: in Cory’s _Ancient Fragments_, 269.

   57 _Isis Unveiled_, i, 535, 536.

   58 The forty‐two Sacred Books of the Egyptians, mentioned by Clement of
      Alexandria as having existed in his time, were but a portion of the
      Books of Hermes. Iamblichus, on the authority of the Egyptian priest
      Abammon, attributes 1,200 of such books to Hermes, and Manetho
      36,000. But the testimony of Iamblichus as a Neoplatonist and
      Theurgist is of course rejected by modern critics. Manetho, who is
      held by Bunsen in the highest consideration as a “purely historical
      personage,” with whom “none of the later native historians can be
      compared” (see _Égypte_, i. 97), suddenly becomes a Pseudo‐Manetho,
      as soon as the ideas propounded by him clash with the scientific
      prejudices against Magic and the Occult knowledge claimed by the
      ancient priests. However, none of the Archæologists doubt for a
      moment the almost incredible antiquity of the Hermetic books.
      Champollion shows the greatest regard for their authenticity and
      truthfulness, corroborated as it is by many of the oldest monuments.
      And Bunsen brings irrefutable proofs of their age. From his
      researches, for instance, we learn that there was a line of sixty‐
      one kings before the days of Moses, who preceded the Mosaic period
      by a clearly‐traceable civilization of several thousand years. Thus
      we are warranted in believing that the works of Hermes Trismegistus
      were extant many ages before the birth of the Jewish law‐giver.
      “Styli and inkstands were found on monuments of the fourth Dynasty,
      the oldest in the world,” says Bunsen. If the eminent Egyptologist
      rejects the period of 48,863 years before Alexander, to which
      Diogenes Laërtius carries back the records of the priests, he is
      evidently more embarrassed with the ten thousand of astronomical
      observations, and remarks that “if they were actual observations,
      they _must have_ extended over 10,000 years” (p. 14). “We learn,
      however,” he adds, “from one of their own old chronological works
      ... that the genuine Egyptian traditions concerning the mythological
      period treated of _myriads_ of years.” (_Égypte_, i. 15; _Isis
      Unveiled_, i. 33.)

   59 These details are taken from _Pneumatologie_, iii. pp. 204, 205.

   60 _Égypte_, p. 143; _Isis Unveiled_, i. 625.

   61 _Strom._, VI. vii. The following paragraph is paraphrased from the
      same chapter.

   62 See _Pneumatologie_, iii. 207. Therefore Empedocles is called
      κωλυθάνεμος, the “dominator of the wind.” _Strom._, VI. iii.

   63 _Ibid._, iv.

   64 Summarised from _Pneumatologie_, iii. 209.

   65 _Loc. cit._

   66 _Op. cit._, iii. 208.

   67 The English speaking people who spell the name of Noah’s
      disrespectful son “Ham” have to be reminded that the right spelling
      is “Kham” or “Cham.”

   68 Black Magic, or Sorcery, is the _evil_ result obtained in any shape
      or way through the practice of Occult Arts; hence it has to be
      judged only by its effects. The name of neither Ham nor Cain, when
      pronounced, has ever killed any one; whereas, if we have to believe
      that same Clemens Alexandrinus who traces the teacher of every
      Occultist, outside of Christianity, to the Devil, the name of
      Jehovah (pronounced Jevo and in a peculiar way) had the effect of
      killing a man at a distance. The mysterious Schemham‐phorasch was
      not always used for holy purposes by the Kabalists, especially since
      the Sabbath or Saturday, sacred to Saturn or the evil Shani,
      became—with the Jews—sacred to “Jehovah.”

   69 Khoemnis, the pre‐historic city, may or may not have been built by
      Noah’s son, but it was not his name that was given to the town, but
      that of the Mystery Goddess Khoemnu or Khoemnis (Greek form); the
      deity that was created by the ardent fancy of the neophyte, who was
      thus tantalised during his “twelve labours” of probation before his
      final initiation. Her male counterpart is Khem. The city of Choemnis
      or Khemmis (to‐day Akhmem) was the chief seat of the God Khem. The
      Greeks identifying Khem with Pan, called this city “Panopolis.”

   70 _Pneumatologie_, iii. 210. This looks more like pious vengeance than
      philology. The picture, however, seems incomplete, as the author
      ought to have added to the “chimney” a witch flying out of it on a
      broomstick.

   71 How could they escape from the Deluge unless God so willed it? This
      is scarcely logical.

   72 _Loc. cit._, p. 210.

   73 _Matthew_, xvi. 20.

   74 _Mark_, v. 43.

   75 _Mark_, iv. 11, 12.

   76 Is it not evident that the words: “lest at any time they should be
      converted (or: ‘lest haply they should turn again’—as in the revised
      version) and their sins be forgiven them”—do not at all mean to
      imply that Jesus feared that through repentance any outsider, or
      “them that are without,” should escape damnation, as the literal
      dead‐letter sense plainly shows—but quite a different thing? Namely,
      “lest any of the profane should by understanding his preaching,
      undisguised by parable, get hold of some of the secret teachings and
      mysteries of Initiation—and even of Occult powers? ‘Be converted’
      is, in other words, to obtain a knowledge belonging exclusively to
      the Initiated: ‘and their sins be forgiven them,’ that is, their
      sins would fall upon the illegal revealer, on those who had helped
      the unworthy to reap there where they have never laboured to sow,
      and had given them, thereby, the means of escaping on this earth
      their deserved Karma, which must thus re‐act on the revealer, who,
      instead of good, did harm and failed.”

   77 _New Platonism and Alchemy_, 1869, pp. 7, 9.

   78 vii. 6.

   79 History is full of proofs of the same. Had not Anaxagoras enunciated
      the great truth taught in the Mysteries, _viz._, that the sun was
      surely larger than the Peloponnesus, he would not have been
      persecuted and nearly put to death by the fanatical mob. Had that
      other rabble which was raised against Pythagoras understood what the
      mysterious Sage of Crotona meant by giving out his remembrance of
      having been the “Son of Mercury”—God of the Secret Wisdom—he would
      not have been forced to fly for his life; nor would Socrates have
      been put to death, had he kept secret the revelations of his divine
      Daimon. He knew how little his century—save those initiated—would
      understand his meaning, had he given out all he knew of the moon.
      Thus he limited his statement to an allegory, which is now proven to
      have been more scientific than was hitherto believed. He maintained
      that the moon was inhabited and that the lunar beings lived in
      profound, vast and dark valleys, our satellite being airless and
      without any atmosphere outside such profound valleys; this,
      disregarding the revelation full of meaning for the few only, must
      be so of necessity, if there is any atmosphere on our bright Selene
      at all. The facts recorded in the secret annals of the Mysteries had
      to remain veiled under penalty of death.

   80 _Stromateis_, xii.

   81 See _Homilies_ 7, in _Levit._, quoted in the _Source of Measures_,
      p. 307.

   82 Origen: Huet., _Origeniana_, 167; Franck, 121; quoted from Dunlap’s
      _Sôd_, p. 176.

   83 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 350.

   84 The materialistic “law‐givers,” the critics and Sadducees who have
      tried to tear to shreds the doctrines and teachings of the great
      Asiatic Masters past and present—no scholars in the modern sense of
      the word—would do well to ponder over these words. No doubt that
      doctrines and secret teachings had they been invented and written in
      Oxford and Cambridge would be more brilliant outwardly. Would they
      equally answer to universal truths and facts, is the next question
      however.

   85 iii. fol. 1526, quoted in Myer’s _Qabbalah_, p. 102.

   86 _New‐Platonism and Alchemy_, p. 6.

   87 i. 2.

   88 lxiv. 10.

   89 The _key_ is shown to be “in the source of measures originating the
      British inch and the ancient cubit” as the author tries to prove.

   90 The word as a plural might have better solved the mystery. God is
      _ever‐present_; if he were _ever‐active_ he could no longer be an
      infinite God—nor ever‐present in his limitation.

   91 The author is evidently a Mason of the way of thinking of General
      Pike. So long as the American and English Masons will reject the
      “Creative Principle” of the “Grand Orient” of France they will
      remain in the dark.

   92 _Source of Measures_, pp. 308, 309.

   93 In his _Pneumatologie_, in Vol. iv., pp. 105‐112, the Marquis de
      Mirville claims the knowledge of the heliocentric system—earlier
      than Galileo—for Pope Urban VIII. The author goes further. He tries
      to show that famous Pope, not as the persecutor but as one
      persecuted by Galileo, and calumniated by the Florentine Astronomer
      into the bargain. If so, so much the worse for the Latin Church,
      since her Popes, knowing of it, still preserved silence upon this
      most important fact, either to screen Joshua or their own
      infallibility. One can understand well that the _Bible_ having been
      so exalted over all the other systems, and its alleged monotheism
      depending upon the silence preserved, nothing remained of course but
      to keep quiet over its symbolism, thus allowing all its blunders to
      be fathered on its God.

   94 _Op. cit._, App. vii. p. 296. The writer feels happy to find this
      fact now mathematically demonstrated. When it was stated in _Isis
      Unveiled_ that Jehovah and Saturn were one and the same with Adam
      Kadmon, Cain, Adam and Eve, Abel, Seth, etc., and that all were
      convertible symbols in the Secret Doctrine (see Vol. ii. pp. 446,
      448, 464 _et seq._); that they answered, in short, to secret
      numerals and stood for more than one meaning in the _Bible_ as in
      other doctrines—the author’s statements remained unnoticed. _Isis_
      had failed to appear under a scientific form, and by giving too
      much, in fact, gave very little to satisfy the enquirer. But now, if
      mathematics and geometry, besides the evidence of the _Bible_ and
      _Kabalah_ are good for anything, the public must find itself
      satisfied. No fuller, more scientifically given proof can be found
      to show that Cain is the transformation of an Elohim (the Sephira
      Binah) into Jah‐Veh (or God‐Eve) androgyne, and that Seth is the
      Jehovah male, than in the combined discoveries of Seyffarth, Knight,
      etc., and finally in Mr. Ralston Skinner’s most erudite work. The
      further relations of these personifications of the first human
      races, in their gradual development, will be given later on in the
      text.

   95 The writings extant in olden times often personified Wisdom as an
      emanation and associate of the Creator. Thus we have the Hindu
      Buddha, the Babylonian Nebo, the Thoth of Memphis, the Hermes of
      Greece; also the female divinities, Neïtha, Metis, Athena, and the
      Gnostic potency Achamoth or Sophia. The Samaritan _Pentateuch_
      denominated the _Book of Genesis_, Akamouth, or Wisdom, and two
      remnants of old treatises, the _Wisdom of Solomon_ and the _Wisdom
      of Jesus_, relate to the same matters. The _Book of Mashalim_—the
      _Discourses_ or _Proverbs_ of Solomon—thus personifies Wisdom as the
      auxiliary of the Creator. In the Secret Wisdom of the East that
      auxiliary is found collectively in the first emanations of Primeval
      Light, the Seven Dhyáni‐Chohans, who have been shown to be identical
      with the “Seven Spirits of the Presence” of the Roman Catholics.

   96 _New Platonism and Alchemy_, p. 6.

   97 ii. 317. 318. Many verbal alterations from the original text of
      _Isis Unveiled_ were made by H. P. B. in her quotations therefrom,
      and these are followed throughout.

   98 Proclus claims to have experienced this sublime ecstasy six times
      during his mystic life; Porphyry asserts that Apollonius of Tyana
      was thus united four times to his deity—a statement which we believe
      to be a mistake, since Apollonius was a Nirmânakâya (divine
      incarnation—not Avatâra)—and he (Porphyry) only once, when over
      sixty years of age. Theophany (or the actual appearance of a God to
      man), Theopathy (or “assimilation of divine nature”), and
      Theopneusty (inspiration, or rather the mysterious power to hear
      orally the teachings of a God) have never been rightly understood.

   99 Kârana Sharîra is the “causal” body and is sometimes said to be the
      “personal God.” And so it is, in one sense.

  100 This would be in one sense Self‐worship.

  101 “The Gods exist,” said Epicurus, “but they are not what the _hoi
      polloi_ [the multitude] suppose them to be. He is not an infidel or
      atheist who denies the existence of Gods whom the multitude worship,
      but he is such who fastens on the Gods the opinions of the
      multitude.”

  102 Esoteric, as exoteric, Buddhism rejects the theory that Gautama was
      an incarnation or Avatâra of Vishnu, but teaches the doctrine as
      herein explained. Every man has in him the materials, if not the
      conditions, for theophanic intercourse and Theopneusty, the
      inspiring “God” being, however, in every case, his own Higher Self,
      or divine prototype.

  103 One entirely and absolutely purified, and having nothing in common
      with earth except his body.

  104 _Mândûkyopanishad_, 4.

  105 Acts, viii. 10 (Revised Version).

  106 See the explanations given on the subject in “The Elixir of Life,”
      by G. M. (From a Chelâ’s Diary), _Five Years of Theosophy_.

  107 _I. Cor._, xv. 47, 50.

  108 _I. Cor._, iii. 16. Has the reader ever meditated upon the
      suggestive words, often pronounced by Jesus and his Apostles? “Be ye
      therefore perfect as your Father ... is perfect” (_Matt._, v. 48),
      says the Great Master. The words are, “as perfect as your Father
      which is in heaven,” being interpreted as meaning God. Now the utter
      absurdity of any man becoming as perfect as the infinite, all‐
      perfect omniscient and omnipresent Deity, is too apparent. If you
      accept it in such a sense, Jesus is made to utter the greatest
      fallacy. What was Esoterically meant is, “Your Father who is above
      the material and astral man, the highest Principle (save the Monad)
      within man, his own personal God, or the God of his own personality,
      of whom he is the ‘prison’ and the ‘temple.’ ” “If thou wilt be
      perfect (_i.e._, an Adept and Initiate) go and sell that thou hast”
      (_Matt._, xix. 21). Every man who desired to become a neophyte, a
      chelâ, then, as now, had to take the vow of poverty. The “Perfect,”
      was the name given to the Initiates of every denomination. Plato
      calls them by that term. The Essenes had their “Perfect,” and Paul
      plainly states that they, the Initiates, can only speak before other
      Adepts. “We speak wisdom among them [only] that are perfect” (_I.
      Cor._ ii. 6.)

  109 _John_, i. 21.

  110 _John_, iii. “Born” from above, _viz._, from his Monad or divine
      EGO, the seventh Principle, which remains till the end of the Kalpa,
      the nucleus of, and at the same time the overshadowing Principle, as
      the Kâranâtmâ (Causal Soul) of the personality in every rebirth. In
      this sense, the sentence “born anew” means “descends from above,”
      the last two words having no reference to heaven or space, neither
      of which can be limited or located, since one is a state and the
      other infinite, hence having no cardinal points. (See _New
      Testament, Revised Version_, _loc. cit._)

  111 This can have no reference to Christian Baptism, since there was
      none in the days of Nicodemus and he could not therefore know
      anything of it, even though a “Master.”

  112 This word, translated in the _New Testament_ “world” to suit the
      official interpretation, means rather an “age” (as shown in the
      _Revised Version_) or one of the periods during the Manvantara, a
      Kalpa, or Æon. Esoterically the sentence would read: “He who shall
      reach, through a series of births and Karmic law, that state in
      which Humanity shall find itself after the Seventh Round and the
      Seventh Race, when comes Nirvâna, Moksha, and when man becomes
      ‘equal unto the Angels’ or Dhyân Chohans, is a ‘son of the
      resurrection’ and ‘can die no more’; then there will be no marriage,
      as there will be no difference of sexes”—a result of our present
      materiality and animalism.

  113 _Luke_, xx. 27‐38.

  114 _John_, ix. 2, 3.

  115 The conscious Ego, or Fifth Principle Manas, the vehicle of the
      divine Monad or “God.”

  116 Some Symbologists, relying on the correspondence of numbers and the
      symbols of certain things and personages, refer these “secrets” to
      the mystery of generation. But it is more than this. The glyph of
      the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” has no doubt a phallic and
      sexual element in it, as has the “Woman and the Serpent”; but it has
      also a psychical and spiritual significance. Symbols are meant to
      yield more than one meaning.

  117 _Wisdom_, xi. 21. Douay version.

  118 _Ecclesiasticus_, i. 9. Douay version.

  119 _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie_, i. 361.

  120 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 6, 7.

  121 “Synesius mentions books of stone which he found in the temple of
      Memphis, on one of which was engraved the following sentence: ‘One
      _nature_ delights in another, one nature overcomes another, one
      nature overrules another, and the whole of them are _one_’.”

      “The inherent restlessness of matter is embodied in the saying of
      Hermes: ‘Action is the life of Phta’; and Orpheus calls nature
      πολυμήχανος μάτηρ, ‘the mother that makes many things,’ or the
      ingenious, the contriving, the inventive mother.”—_Isis Unveiled_,
      i. 257.

  122 _Source of Measures_, p. x.

  123 _Masonic Review_, July, 1886.

  124 See _Source of Measures_, pp. 47‐50, _et pass._

  125 See Cary’s translation, pp. 322, 323.

  126 _Exodus_, xxxiv. 29, 33.

  127 _Op. cit._, V. vii.

  128 _The Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, under “Gnosticism.”

  129 In the Ferouers and Devs of Jacobi (Letters F. and D.) the word
      “ferouer” is explained in the following manner: The Ferouer is a
      part of the creature (whether man or animal) of which it is the type
      and which it survives. It is the Nous of the Greeks, therefore
      divine and immortal, and thus can hardly be the Devil or the satanic
      copy De Mirville would represent it (see _Mémoires de l’Académie des
      Inscriptions_, Vol. XXXVII. p. 623, and chap. xxxix. p. 749).
      Foucher contradicts him entirely. The Ferouer was never the
      “principle of sensations,” but always referred to the most divine
      and pure portion of Man’s Ego—the spiritual principle. Anquetil says
      that the Ferouer is the purest portion of man’s soul. The Persian
      Dev is the antithesis of the Ferouer, for the Dev has been
      transformed by Zoroaster into the Genius of Evil (whence the
      Christian Devil), but even the Dev is only finite; for having become
      possessed of the soul of man by _usurpation_, it will have to leave
      it at the great day of Retribution. The Dev obsesses the soul of the
      defunct for three days, during which the soul wanders about the spot
      at which it was forcibly separated from its body; the Ferouer
      ascends to the region of eternal Light. It was an unfortunate idea
      that made the noble Marquis de Mirville imagine the Ferouer to be a
      “satanic copy” of a _divine_ original. By calling all the Gods of
      the Pagans—Apollo, Osiris, Brahmâ, Ormazd, Bel, etc., the “Ferouers
      of Christ and of the chief Angels,” he merely exhibits the God and
      the Angels he would honour as inferior to the Pagan Gods, as man is
      inferior to his Soul and Spirit; since the Ferouer is the immortal
      part of the mortal being of which it is the type and which it
      survives. Perchance the poor author is unconsciously prophetic; and
      Apollo, Brahmâ, Ormazd, Osiris, etc., are destined to survive and
      replace—as eternal cosmic verities—the evanescent fictions about the
      God, Christ and Angels of the Latin Church!

  130 See George Smith’s _Babylon_ and other works.

  131 This is as fanciful as it is arbitrary. Where is the Hindu or
      Buddhist who would speak of his “Crucified”?

  132 _Op. cit._, iv. 237.

  133 _Loc. cit._, 250.

  134 “_Q._: Who knocks at the door?

      _A._: The good cowherd.

      _Q._: Who preceded thee?

      _A._: The three robbers.

      _Q._: Who follows thee?

      _A._: The three murderers,” etc., etc.

      Now this is the conversation that took place between the priest‐
      initiators and the candidates for initiation during the mysteries
      enacted in the oldest sanctuaries of the Himâlayan fastnesses. The
      ceremony is still performed to this day in one of the most ancient
      temples in a secluded spot of Nepaul. It originated with the
      Mysteries of the first Krishna, passed to the First Tirthankara and
      ended with Buddha, and is called the Kurukshetra rite, being enacted
      as a memorial of the great battle and death of the divine Adept. It
      is not Masonry, but an initiation into the Occult teachings of that
      Hero—Occultism, pure and simple.

  135 _Book of Enoch_, Archbishop Laurence’s translation. Introduction, p.
      v.

  136 _The Book of Enoch_ was unknown to Europe for a thousand years, when
      Bruce found in Abyssinia some copies of it in Ethiopic; it was
      translated by Archbishop Laurence in 1821, from the text in the
      Bodleian Library, Oxford.

  137 _Op. cit._, p. xx.

  138 _Loc. cit._

  139 _Op. cit._, p. xiv., note.

  140 _Op. cit._, p. xxxv.

  141 _Op. cit._, p. xiii.

  142 The Seventh Principle, the First Emanation.

  143 _Op. cit._, pp. xxxvii. and xl.

  144 _Op. cit._, pp. xl. and li.

  145 Who stands for the “Solar” or Manvantaric Year.

  146 _Op. cit._, pp. xli., xlii.

  147 _Op. cit._, p. xlviii.

  148 _Op. cit._, p. xxiii.

  149 _Loc. cit._

  150 xcii. 9.

  151 _Op. cit._, xcii. 4.

  152 _Op. cit._, xcii. 4‐7.

  153 At the close of every Root‐Race there comes a cataclysm, in turn by
      fire or water. Immediately after the “Fall into generation” the
      dross of the third Root‐Race—those who fell into sensuality by
      falling off from the teaching of the Divine Instructors—were
      destroyed, after which the Fourth Root‐Race originated, at the end
      of which took place the last Deluge. (See the “Sons of God”
      mentioned in _Isis Unveiled_, 593 _et seq._)

  154 _Op. cit._, xcii. 11.

  155 _Op. cit._, xcii. 7, 11, 13, 15.

  156 _Op. cit._, note, p. 152.

  157 Those interpolations and alterations are found almost in every case
      where figures are given—especially whenever the numbers eleven and
      twelve come in—as these are all made (by the Christians) to relate
      to the numbers of Apostles, and Tribes, and Patriarchs. The
      translator of the Ethiopic text—Archbishop Laurence—attributes them
      generally to “mistakes of the transcriber” whenever the two texts,
      the Paris and the Bodleian MSS., differ. We fear it is no mistake,
      in most cases.

  158 _Op. cit._, lxxxviii. 99, 100.

  159 _Loc. cit._, 94. This passage, as will be presently shown, has led
      to a very curious discovery.

  160 In the profane history of Gautama Buddha he dies at the good old age
      of eighty, and passes off from life to death peacefully with all the
      serenity of a great saint, as Barthélemy St. Hilaire has it. Not so
      in the Esoteric and true interpretation which reveals the real sense
      of the profane and allegorical statement that makes Gautama, the
      Buddha, die very unpoetically from the effects of too much pork,
      prepared for him by Tsonda. How one who preached that the killing of
      animals was the greatest sin, and who was a perfect vegetarian,
      could die from eating pork, is a question that is never asked by our
      Orientalists, some of whom made (as now do many charitable
      missionaries in Ceylon) great fun at the alleged occurrence. The
      simple truth is that the said rice and pork are purely allegorical.
      Rice stands for “forbidden fruit,” like Eve’s “apple,” and means
      Occult knowledge with the Chinese and Tibetans; and “pork” for
      Brâhmanical teachings—Vishnu having assumed in his first Avatâra the
      form of a boar, in order to raise the earth on the surface of the
      waters of space. It is not, therefore, from “pork” that Buddha died,
      but for having divulged some of the Brâhmanical mysteries, after
      which, seeing the bad effects brought on some unworthy people by the
      revelation, he preferred, instead of availing himself of Nirvâna, to
      leave his earthly form, remaining still in the sphere of the living,
      in order to help humanity to progress. Hence his constant
      reincarnations in the hierarchy of the Dalai and Teshu Lamas, among
      other bounties. Such is the Esoteric explanation. The life of
      Gautama will be more fully discussed later on.

  161 _Op. cit._, cv. 21.

  162 In the _Bible_ (_Genesis_, iv and v) there are three distinct Enochs
      (Kanoch or Chanoch)—the son of Cain, the son of Seth, and the son of
      Jared; but they are all identical, and two of them are mentioned for
      purposes of misleading. The years of only the last two are given,
      the first one being left without further notice.

  163 The eternal and incessant “in‐breathing and out‐breathing of
      Parabrahman” or Nature, the Universe in Space, whether during
      Manvantara or Pralaya.

  164 _Op. cit._, iii. 1.

  165 _Op. cit._, 30.

  166 _Op. cit._, 32.

  167 Those who are aware that the term Christos was applied by the
      Gnostics to the Higher Ego (the ancient Pagan Greek Initiates doing
      the same), will readily understand the allusion. Christos was said
      to be cut off from the lower Ego, Chrestos, after the final and
      supreme Initiation, when the two became blended in one; Chrestos
      being conquered and resurrected in the glorified Christos.—Franck,
      _Die Kabbala_, 75; Dunlap, _Sôd_, Vol. II.

  168 _Stromateis_, I. xiii.

  169 _Op. cit._, II. viii.

  170 Many are the marvels recorded as having taken place at his death, or
      we should rather say his translation; for he did not die as others
      do, but having suddenly disappeared, while a dazzling light filled
      the cavern with glory, his body was again seen upon its subsidence.
      When this heavenly light gave place to the habitual semi‐darkness of
      the gloomy cave—then only, says Ginsburg, “the disciples of Israel
      perceived that the lamp of Israel was extinguished.” His biographers
      tell us that there were voices heard from Heaven during the
      preparation for his funeral, and at his interment, when the coffin
      was lowered into the deep cave prepared for it, a flame broke forth
      and a voice mighty and majestic pronounced these words: “This is he
      who caused the earth to quake, and the kingdoms to shake!”

  171 Pockocke, maybe, was not altogether wrong in deriving the German
      Heaven, Himmel, from Himâlaya; nor can it be denied that it is the
      Hindu Kailâsa (Heaven) that is the father of the Greek Heaven
      (Koilon), and of the Latin Cœlum.

  172 See Pockocke’s _India in Greece_, and his derivation of Mount
      Parnassus from Parnasa, the leaf and branch huts of the Hindu
      ascetics, half shrine and half habitation. “Part of the Par‐o‐
      Pamisus (the hill of Bamian), is called Parnassus. ‘These mountains
      are called Devanica, because they are so full of Devas or Gods,
      called “Gods of the Earth,” Bhu Devas. They lived, according to the
      Purânas, in bowers or huts, called Parnasas, because they were made
      of leaves’ (Parnas),” p. 302.

  173 Rawlinson is justly very confident of an Âryan and Vedic influence
      on the early mythology and history of Babylon and Chaldæa.

  174 This is a Secret Doctrine affirmation, and may or may not be
      accepted. Only Abrahm, Isaac and Judah resemble terribly the Hindu
      Brahmâ Ikshvâku and Yadu.

  175 It is said in _The Gnostics and their Remains_, by C. W. King (p.
      13), with regard to the names of Brahmâ and Abram; “This figure of
      the _man_, Seir Aupin, consists of 243 numbers, being the numerical
      value of the letters in the name ‘Abram’ signifying the different
      orders in the celestial Hierarchies. In fact the names Abram and
      Brahmâ are equivalent in numerical value.” Thus to one acquainted
      with Esoteric Symbolism, it does not seem at all strange to find in
      the Loka‐pâlas (the four cardinal and intermediate points of the
      compass personified by eight Hindu Gods) Indra’s elephant, named
      Abhra—(mâtanga) and his wife Abhramu. Abhra is in a way a Wisdom
      Deity, since it is this elephant’s head that replaced that of
      Ganesha (Ganapati) the God of Wisdom, cut off by Shiva. Now Abhra
      means “cloud,” and it is also the name of the city where Abram is
      supposed to have resided—when read backwards—“Arba (Kirjath) the
      city of four ... Abram is Abra with an appended _m_ final, and Abra
      read backward is Arba” (_Key to the Hebrew Egyptian Mystery_). The
      author might have added that Abra meaning in Sanskrit “in, or of,
      the clouds,” the cosmo‐astronomical symbol of Abram becomes still
      plainer. All of these ought to be read in their originals, in
      Sanskrit.

  176 Before these theories and speculations—we are willing to admit they
      are such—are rejected, the following few points ought to be
      explained, (1) Why, after leaving Egypt, was the patriarch’s name
      changed by Jehovah from Abram to Abraham. (2) Why Sarai becomes on
      the same principle Sarah (_Gen._, xvii.). (3) Whence the strange
      coincidence of names? (4) Why should Alexander Polyhistor say that
      Abraham was born at Kamarina or Uria, a city of soothsayers, and
      invented Astronomy? (5) “The Abrahamic recollections go back at
      least three millenniums beyond the grandfather of Jacob,” says
      Bunsen (_Egypt’s Place in History_, v. 35.)

  177 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 35.

  178 See _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 218‐300. Gematria is formed by a metathesis
      from the Greek word γραμματεία; Notaricon may be compared to
      stenography; Temura is permutation—a way of dividing the alphabet
      and shifting letters.

  179 _De Vita Pythag._

  180 We are not aware that a copy of this ancient work is embraced in the
      catalogue of any European library; but it is one of the “Books of
      Hermes,” and it is referred to and quotations are made from it in
      the works of a number of ancient and mediæval philosophical authors.
      Among these authorities are Arnoldo di Villanova’s _Rosarium
      Philosoph._, Francesco Arnuphi’s _Opus de Lapide_, Hermes
      Trismegistus’ _Tractatus de Transmutatione Metallorum_ and _Tabula
      Smaragdina_, and above all the treatise of Raymond Lully, _Ab
      Angelis Opus Divinum de Quinta Essentia_.

  181 _Exodus_, xxv. 40.

  182 _Sub voce_ “Numbers.”

  183 See Johannes Meursius, _Denarius Pythagoricus_.

  184 Ragon, _Maçonnerie Occulte_, p. 426, note.

  185 _Ibid._, p. 432, note.

  186 Extracted from Ragon, _Maçonnerie Occulte_, p. 427, note.

  187 Summarised from Ragon, _ibid._, p. 428, note.

  188 Ragon mentions the curious fact that the first four numbers in
      German are named after the elements.

      “Ein, or one, means the air, the element which, ever in motion,
      penetrates matter throughout, and whose continual ebb and tide is
      the universal vehicle of life.

      “Zwei, two, is derived from the old German Zweig, signifying germ,
      fecundity; it stands for earth the fecund mother of all.

      “Drei, three, is the _trienos_ of the Greeks, standing for water,
      whence the Sea‐gods, Tritons; and trident, the emblem of Neptune—the
      water, or sea, in general being called Amphitrite (surrounding
      water).

      “Vier, four, a number meaning in Belgian fire.... It is in the
      quaternary that the first solid figure is found, the universal
      symbol of immortality, the Pyramid, ‘whose first syllable means
      fire.’ Lysis and Timæus of Locris claimed that there was not a thing
      one could name that had not the quaternary for its root.... The
      ingenious and mystical idea which led to the veneration of the
      ternary and the triangle was applied to number four and its figure:
      it was said to express a living being, 1, the vehicle of the
      triangle 4, vehicle of God, or man carrying in him the divine
      principle.”

      Finally, “the Ancients represented the world by the number five.
      Diodorus explains it by saying that this number represents earth,
      fire, water, air and ether or spiritus. Hence, the origin of Pente
      (five) and of Pan (the God) meaning in Greek all.” (Compare Ragon,
      _op. cit._, pp. 428‐430.) It is left with the Hindu Occultists to
      explain the relation this Sanskrit word Pancha (five) has to the
      elements, the Greek Pente having for its root the Sanskrit term.

  189 The system of the so‐called Senzar characters is still more
      wonderful and difficult, since each letter is made to yield several
      meanings, a sign placed at the commencement showing the true
      meaning.

  190 Ragon, _op. cit._, p. 431, note.

  191 The Y exoterically signifies only the two paths of virtue or vice,
      and stands also for the numeral 150 and with a dash over the letter
      Y for 150,000.

  192 _Tradition_, chap. on “Numbers.”

  193 This is a kind of magical bow and arrow calculated to destroy in one
      moment whole armies; it is mentioned in the _Râmâyana_, the
      _Purânas_ and elsewhere.

  194 _Matthew_, viii. 30‐34.

  195 _Dogmatic Theology_, iii. 345.

  196 viii. 9, 10.

  197 _Adv. Celsum._

  198 _Eccles. Hist._, i. 140.

  199 _Contra Hæreses_, I. xxiii. 1‐4.

  200 _Contra Hæreses_, ii. 1‐6.

  201 _Op. cit._, ii. 337.

  202 Ten is the perfect number of the Supreme God among the “manifested”
      deities, for number 1 is the symbol of the Universal Unit, or male
      principle in Nature, and number O the feminine symbol Chaos, the
      Deep, the two forming thus the symbol of Androgyne nature as well as
      the full value of the solar year, which was also the value of
      Jehovah and Enoch. Ten, with Pythagoras, was the symbol of the
      Universe; also of Enos, the Son of Seth, or the “Son of Man” who
      stands as the symbol of the solar year of 365 days, and whose years
      are therefore given as 365 also. In the Egyptian Symbology Abraxas
      was the Sun, the “Lord of the Heavens.”

      The circle is the symbol of the one Unmanifesting Principle, the
      plane of whose figure is infinitude eternally, and this is crossed
      by a diameter only during Manvantaras.

  203 _I. Cor._, ii. 6‐8.

  204 Compare Taylor’s _Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries_.

  205 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 89.

  206 _Op. cit._, ii. 395.

  207 Quoted by De Mirville, _Op. cit._, vi. 41 and 42.

  208 Mr. St. George Lane‐Fox has admirably expressed the idea in his
      eloquent appeal to the many rival schools and societies in India. “I
      feel sure,” he said, “that the prime motive, however dimly
      perceived, by which you, as the promoters of these movements, were
      actuated, was a revolt against the tyrannical and almost universal
      establishment throughout all existing social and so‐called religious
      institutions of a usurped authority in some external form
      supplanting and obscuring the only real and ultimate authority, the
      indwelling spirit of truth revealed to each individual soul, true
      conscience in fact, that supreme source of all human wisdom and
      power which elevates man above the level of the brute.” (_To the
      Members of the Ârya Samâj, the Theosophical Society, Brahmo and
      Hindu Samâj and other Religious and Progressive Societies in
      India._)

  209 _Revelation_, ii. 6.

  210 This “art” is not common jugglery, as some define it now: it is a
      kind of psychological jugglery, if jugglery at all, where
      fascination and glamour are used as means of producing illusions. It
      is hypnotism on a large scale.

  211 The author asserts in this his Christian persuasion.

  212 Magnetic passes, evidently, followed by a trance and sleep.

  213 “Elementals” used by the highest Adept to do mechanical, not
      intellectual work, as a physicist uses gases and other compounds.

  214 Quoted from De Mirville, _op. cit._, vi. 43.

  215 _Ibid._, vi. 45.

  216 _Ibid._, p. 46.

  217 Amédée Fleury, _Rapports de St. Paul avec Sénèque_, ii. 100. The
      whole of this is summarised from De Mirville.

  218 But we can never agree with the author “that rites and ritual and
      formal worship and prayers are of the absolute necessity of things,”
      for the external can develop and grow and receive worship only at
      the expense of, and to the detriment of, the internal, the only real
      and true.

  219 H. Jennings, _op. cit._, pp. 37, 38.

  220 See _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 574.

  221 xi. 26.

  222 Art., by Dr. A. Wilder, in _Evolution_.

  223 _Op. cit._, p. 262.

  224 In its most extensive meaning, the Sanskrit word has the same
      literal sense as the Greek term; both imply “revelation,” by no
      human agent, but through the “receiving of the sacred drink.” In
      India the initiated received the “Soma,” sacred drink, which helped
      to liberate his soul from the body; and in the Eleusinian Mysteries
      it was the sacred drink offered at the Epopteia. The Grecian
      Mysteries are wholly derived from the Brâhmanical Vaidic rites, and
      the latter from the Ante‐Vaidic religious Mysteries—primitive Wisdom
      Philosophy.

  225 It is needless to state that the _Gospel according to John_ was not
      written by John, but by a Platonist or a Gnostic belonging to the
      Neoplatonic school.

  226 _Ibid._, _loc. cit._ The fact that Peter persecuted the “Apostle to
      the Gentiles” under that name, does not necessarily imply that there
      was no Simon Magus individually distinct from Paul. It may have
      become a generic name of abuse. Theodoret and Chrysostom, the
      earliest and most prolific commentators on the Gnosticism of those
      days, seem actually to make of Simon a rival of Paul and to state
      that between them passed frequent messages. The former, as a
      diligent propagandist of what Paul terms the “antithesis of the
      Gnosis” (_1. Epistle to Timothy_), must have been a sore thorn in
      the side of the apostle. There are sufficient proofs of the actual
      existence of Simon Magus.

  227 Taylor’s _Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries_, Wilder’s ed., p. x.

  228 ii. 91‐94.

  229 Bunsen, _Egypt’s Place in History_, v. 90.

  230 _Ibid._

  231 _Stele_, p. 44.

  232 See Dowson’s _Hindu Classical Dict._, _sub voc._, “Pîtha‐sthânaru.”

  233 See _Preface to St. Matthew’s Gospel_, Baronius, i. 752, quoted in
      De Mirville, vi. 63. Jerome is the Father who having found the
      authentic and original _Evangel_ (the Hebrew text), by Matthew the
      Apostle‐publican, in the library of Cæsarea, “_written by the hand_
      of Matthew” (Hieronymus: _De Viris_, Illust. Chap. iii.)—as he
      himself admits—set it down as heretical, and substituted for it his
      own Greek text. And it is also he who perverted the text in the
      _Book of Job_ to enforce belief in the resurrection in flesh (see
      _Isis Unveiled_, Vol. ii. pp. 181 and 182, _et seq._), quoting in
      support the most learned authorities.

  234 De Mirville gives the following thrilling account of the “contest.”

      “John, pressed, as St. Jerome tells us, by all the churches of Asia
      to proclaim more solemnly [in the face of the miracles of
      Apollonius] the divinity of Jesus Christ, after a long prayer with
      his disciples on the Mount of Patmos and being in ecstasy by the
      divine Spirit, made heard amid thunder and lightning his famous _In
      Principio erat Verbum_. When that sublime extasis, that caused him
      to be named the ‘Son of Thunder,’ had passed, Apollonius was
      compelled to retire and to disappear. Such was his defeat, less
      bloody but as hard as that of Simon, the Magician.” (“The Magician
      Theurgist,” vi. 63) For our part we have never heard of extasis
      producing thunder and lightning and we are at a loss to understand
      the meaning.

  235 This is the old, old story. Who of us, Theosophists, but knows by
      bitter personal experience what clerical hatred, malice and
      persecution can do in this direction; to what an extent of
      falsehood, calumny and cruelty these feelings can go, even in our
      modern day, and what exemplars of _Christ‐like_ charity His alleged
      and self‐constituted servants have shown themselves to be!

  236 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 342.

  237 _Loc. cit._, ii. 343, 344.

  238 _Pneumatologie_, vi. 62.

  239 _Les Apologistes Chrétiens au Second Siècle_, p. 106.

  240 _Pneumatologie_, vi, 62.

  241 Many are they who _do not know_: hence, they do not believe in them.

  242 Just so. Apollonius, during a lecture he was delivering at Ephesus
      before an audience of many thousands, perceived the murder of the
      Emperor Domitian in Rome and notified it at the very moment it was
      taking place, to the whole town; and Swedenborg, in the same manner,
      saw from Gothenburg the great fire at Stockholm and told it to his
      friends, no telegraph being in use in those days.

  243 No criterion at all. The Hindu Sâddhus and Adepts acquire the gift
      by the holiness of their lives. The Yoga‐Vidyâ teaches it, and no
      “spirits” are required.

  244 As to the Pontiffs, the matter is rather doubtful.

  245 But this alone is no reason why people should believe in this class
      of spirits. There are better authorities for such belief.

  246 De Mirville’s aim is to show that all such apparitions of the Manes
      or disembodied Spirits are the work of the Devil, “Satan’s
      simulacra.”

  247 He might have added: like the great Shankarâchârya, Tsong‐Kha‐Pa,
      and so many other real Adepts—even his own Master, Jesus; for this
      is indeed a criterion of true Adeptship, though “to disappear” one
      need not fly up in the clouds.

  248 See _Dion Cassius_, XXVII. xviii. 2.

  249 Lampridius, _Adrian_, xxix. 2.

  250 The passage runs as follows: “Aurelian had determined to destroy
      Tyana, and the town owed its salvation only to a miracle of
      Apollonius; this man so famous and so wise, this great friend of the
      Gods, appeared suddenly before the Emperor, as he was returning to
      his tent, in his own figure and form, and said to him in the
      Pannonian language: ‘Aurelian, if thou wouldst conquer, abandon
      these evil designs against my fellow‐citizens: if thou wouldst
      command, abstain from shedding innocent blood; and if thou wouldst
      live, abstain from injustice.’ Aurelian, familiar with the face of
      Apollonius, whose portraits he had seen in many temples, struck with
      wonder, immediately vowed to him (Apollonius) statue, portrait and
      temple, and returned completely to ideas of mercy.” And then
      Vopiscus adds: “If I have believed more and more in the virtues of
      the _majestic_ Apollonius, it is because, after gathering my
      information from the most serious men, I have found all these facts
      corroborated in the Books of the Ulpian Library.” (See Flavius
      Vopiscus, _Aurelianus_). Vopiscus wrote in 250 and consequently
      preceded Philostratus by a century.

  251 _Ep. ad Paulinum._

  252 The above is mostly summarised from De Mirville, _loc. cit._, pp.
      66‐69.

  253 A “true prophet” because an Initiate, one perfectly versed in Occult
      astronomy.

  254 _Key to Hebrew‐Egyptian Mystery_, p. 259 _et seq._ Astronomy and
      physiology are the bodies, astrology and psychology their informing
      souls; the former being studied by the eye of sensual perception,
      the latter by the inner or “soul‐eye”; and both are _exact_
      sciences.

  255 _New Platonism and Alchemy_, p. 12

  256 _Heracles_, 807.

  257 _Æneid_, viii., 274 ff.

  258 App., vii., p. 301.

  259 _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie_, ii. 88.

  260 (Hieronymus, _De Viris Illust._, iii.) “It is remarkable that, while
      all Church Fathers say that _Matthew_ wrote in _Hebrew_, the whole
      of them use the _Greek_ text as the genuine apostolic writing,
      without mentioning what relation the _Hebrew_ Matthew has to our
      _Greek_ one! It had many _peculiar additions_ which are wanting in
      our (Greek) Evangel” (Olshausen, _Nachweis der Echtheit der
      Sämmtlichen Schriften des Neuen Test._, p. 32; Dunlap, _Sôd, the Son
      of the Man_, p. 44.)

  261 _Commen. to Matthew_ (xii. 13) Book II. Jerome adds that it was
      written in the Chaldaic language, but with Hebrew letters.

  262 “St. Jerome,” v. 445; Dunlap, _Sôd, the Son of Man_, p. 46.

  263 This accounts also for the rejection of the works of Justin Martyr,
      who used only this “Gospel according to the Hebrews,” as also did
      most probably Tatian, his disciple. At what a late period the
      divinity of Christ was fully established we can judge by the mere
      fact that even in the fourth century Eusebius did not denounce this
      book as spurious, but only classed it with such as the _Apocalypse_
      of John; and Credner (_Zur Gesch. des Kan_, p. 120) shows Nicephorus
      inserting it, together with the _Revelation_, in his _Stichometry_,
      among the Antilegomena. The Ebionites, the _genuine_ primitive
      Christians, rejecting the rest of the Apostolic writings, make use
      only of this Gospel (_Adv. Hær._, i. 26) and the Ebionites, as
      Epiphanius declares, firmly believed, with the Nazarenes, that Jesus
      was but a man, “of the seed of a man.”

  264 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 182‐3.

  265 _Op. cit._, ii. 5.

  266 See also _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 180, to end of chapter.

  267 _Source of Measures_, p. 299. This “stream of life” being
      emblematised in the Philloc _basso‐relievo_ just mentioned, by the
      water poured in the shape of a Cross on the initiated candidate by
      Osiris—_Life_ and the Sun—and Mercury—_Death_. It was the _finale_
      of the rite of Initiation after the _seven_ and the _twelve_
      tortures in the Crypts of Egypt were passed through successfully.

  268 Another untrustworthy, untruthful and ignorant writer, an
      ecclesiastical historian of the fifth century. His alleged history
      of the strife between the Pagans, Neoplatonists, and the Christians
      of Alexandria and Constantinople, which extends from the year 324 to
      439, dedicated by him to Theodosius, the younger, is full of
      deliberate falsifications.

  269 _Gems of the Orthodox Christians_, vol. I., p. 135.

  270 _Revelation_, xiv. 1.

  271 A Dagoba is a small temple of globular form, in which are preserved
      the relics of Gautama.

  272 Prachidas are buildings of all sizes and forms, like our mausoleums,
      and are sacred to votive offerings to the dead.

  273 The Talmudistic records claim that, after having been hanged, he was
      lapidated and buried under the water at the junction of two streams.
      _Mishna Sanhedrin_, Vol. VI., p. 4; _Talmud_, of Babylon, same
      article, 43 a, 67 a.

  274 _Coptic Legends of the Crucifixion_, MSS. XI.

  275 We are at a loss to understand why King, in his _Gnostic Gems_,
      represents Solomon’s Seal as a five‐pointed star, whereas it is six‐
      pointed, and is the signet of Vishnu in India.

  276 King (_Gnostics_) gives the figure of a Christian symbol, very
      common during the middle ages, of three fishes interlaced into a
      triangle, and having the FIVE letters (a most sacred Pythagorean
      number) ΙΧΘΥΣ engraved on it. The number five relates to the same
      kabalistic computation.

  277 _Op. cit._, ii., 253‐256.

  278 _Op. cit._, 301. All this connects Jesus with great Initiates and
      solar heroes; all this is purely Pagan, under a newly‐evolved
      variation, the Christian scheme.

  279 _Op. cit._, 296.

  280 Pp. 294, 295.

  281 P. 295

  282 Pp. 295, 296.

  283 Had we known the learned author before his book was printed, he
      might have been perchance prevailed upon to add a seventh link from
      which all others, far preceding those enumerated in point of time,
      and surpassing them in universally philosophical meaning, have been
      derived, aye, even to the great pyramid, whose foundation square
      was, in its turn, the great Âryan Mysteries.

  284 We would say cosmic Matter, Spirit, Chaos, and Divine Light, for the
      Egyptian idea was identical in this with the Âryan. However, the
      author is right with regard to the Occult Symbology of the Jews.
      They were a remarkably matter of fact, unspiritual people at all
      times; yet even with them “Ruach” was Divine Spirit, not “air.”

  285 Mr. Ralston Skinner shows that the symbol ☧, the crossed bones and
      skull, has the letter ק _Koph_, the half of the head behind the
      ears.

  286 Pp. 296‐302. By these numbers, explains the author, “Eli is 113 (by
      placing the word in a circle); _amah_ being 345, is by change of
      letters to suit the same value משת (in a circle) or Moses, while
      Sabachth is John or the dove, or Holy Spirit, because (in a circle)
      it is 710 (or 355 × 2). The termination _ni_, as _meni_ or 5651,
      becomes Jehovah.”

  287 The Western personification of that power, which the Hindus call the
      _Vija_, the “one seed,” or _Mahâ Vishnu_—a power, not the God—or
      that mysterious Principle that contains in Itself the Seed of
      Avatârism.

  288 “Arise into Nervi from this decrepit body into which thou hast been
      sent. Ascend into thy former abode, O blessed Avatâr!”

  289 _The Gnostics and their Remains_, King, pp. 100, 101.

  290 _Loc cit._

  291 _Op. cit._ 258.

  292 _Homilies_ XIX., xx. 1.

  293 The Pleroma constituted the synthesis or entirety of all the
      spiritual entities. St. Paul still used the name in his Epistles.

  294 The “Comforter,” second Messiah, intercessor. “A term applied to the
      Holy Ghost.” Manes was the disciple of Terebinthus, an Egyptian
      Philosopher, who, according to the Christian Socrates (I. i., cited
      by Tillemont, iv. 584), “while invoking one day the demons of the
      air, fell from the roof of his house and was killed.”

  295 _Cf._ _op. cit._, vi. 169‐183.

  296 “The _great serpent_ placed to _watch the temple_,” comments De
      Mirville. “How often have we repeated that it was no _symbol_, no
      personification but really a serpent occupied by a god!”—he
      exclaims; and we answer that at Cairo in a Mussulman, not a
      _heathen_ temple, we have seen, as thousands of other visitors have
      also seen, a huge serpent that lived there for centuries, we were
      told, and was held in great respect. Was it also “occupied by a
      God,” or possessed, in other words?

  297 The Mysteries of Demeter, or the “afflicted mother.”

  298 By the satyrs.

  299 This looks rather suspicious and seems interpolated. De Mirville
      tries to have what he says of Satan and his Court sending their imps
      on earth to tempt humanity and masquerade at _séances_, corroborated
      by the ex‐sorcerer.

  300 This does not look like sinful food. It is the diet of Chelâs to
      this day.

  301 “Grafted” is the correct expression. “The seven Builders graft the
      divine and the beneficent forces on to the gross material nature of
      the vegetable and mineral kingdoms every Second Round”—says the
      _Catechism of Lanoos_.

  302 Only the Prince of the World is not Satan, as the translator would
      make us believe, but the collective Host of the Planetary. This is a
      little theological back‐biting.

  303 Here the Elemental and Elementary Spirits are evidently meant.

  304 The reader has already learned the truth about them in the course of
      the present work.

  305 Pity the penitent _Saint_ had not imparted his knowledge of the
      rotation of the earth and helio‐centric system earlier to his
      Church. That might have saved more than one human life—that of Bruno
      for one.

  306 Chelâs in their trials of initiation, also see _in trances
      artificially generated for them_, the vision of the Earth supported
      by an elephant on the top of a tortoise standing on nothing—and
      this, to teach them to discern the true from the false.

  307 Relating to the days of the year, also to 7 × 7 divisions of the
      earth’s sublunary sphere, divided into seven upper and seven lower
      spheres with their respective Planetary Hosts or “armies.”

  308 Daimon is not “demon,” as translated by De Mirville, but Spirit.

  309 All this is to corroborate his dogmatic assertions that Pater Æther
      or Jupiter is Satan! and that pestilential diseases, cataclysms, and
      even thunderstorms that prove disastrous, come from the Satanic Host
      dwelling in Ether—a good warning to the men of Science!

  310 The translator replaces the word Mediators by mediums, excusing
      himself in a foot‐note by saying that Cyprian _must_ have meant
      modern mediums!

  311 Cyprianus simply meant to hint at the rites and mysteries of
      Initiation, and the pledge of secresy and oaths that bound the
      Initiates together. His translator, however, has made a Witches’
      Sabbath of it instead.

  312 “Twelve centuries later, in full renaissance and reform, the world
      saw Luther do the same [embrace the Devil he means?]—according to
      his own confession and in the same conditions,” explains De Mirville
      in a foot‐note, showing thereby the brotherly love that binds
      Christians. Now Cyprianus meant by the Devil (if the word is really
      in the original text) his Initiator and Hierophant. No Saint—even a
      penitent Sorcerer—would be so silly as to speak of his (the Devil’s)
      rising from his seat to see him to the door, were it otherwise.

  313 Every Adept has “a principality after his death.”

  314 Which shows that it was the Hierophant and his disciples. Cyprianus
      shows himself as grateful as most of the other converts (the modern
      included) to his Teachers and Instructors.

  315 This is proved if we take but a single recorded instance. J. Picus
      de Mirandola, finding that there was more Christianity than Judaism
      in the _Kabalah_, and discovering in it the doctrines of the
      Trinity, the Incarnation, the Divinity of Jesus, etc., wound up his
      proofs of this with a challenge to the world at large from Rome. As
      Ginsburg shows: “In 1486, when only twenty‐four years old, he
      [Picus] published nine hundred [Kabalistic] _theses_, which were
      placarded in Rome, and undertook to defend them in the presence of
      all European scholars whom he invited to the Eternal City, promising
      to defray their travelling expenses.”

  316 This account is summarised from Isaac Myer’s _Qabbalah_, p. 10, _et
      seq._

  317 There is not in the decalogue one idea that is not the counterpart,
      or the paraphrase, of the dogmas and ethics current among the
      Egyptians long before the time of Moses and Aaron. (The Mosaic Law a
      transcript from Egyptian Sources; vide _Geometry in Religion_,
      1890.)

  318 _Book of God._ Kenealy, p. 383. The reference to Klaproth is also
      from this page.

  319 See _Asiat. Jour._, N.S. vii., p. 275, quoted by Kenealy.

  320 _Book of God_, _loc. cit._

  321 _Op. cit._, v. 15.

  322 _Prolegomena_, iii. 13, quoted by Kenealy, p. 385.

  323 See _Book of God_, p. 385. “Care should be taken,” says Butler
      (quoted by Kenealy, p. 489), “to distinguish between the Pentateuch
      in the Hebrew language but in the letters of the Samaritan alphabet,
      and the version of the Pentateuch in the Samaritan language. One of
      the most important differences between the Samaritan and the Hebrew
      text respects the duration of the period between the deluge and the
      birth of Abraham. The Samaritan text makes it longer by some
      centuries than the Hebrew text; and the Septuagint makes it longer
      by some centuries than the Samaritan.” It is observable that in the
      authentic translation of the Latin Vulgate, the Roman Church follows
      the computation expressed in the Hebrew text; and in her Martyrology
      follows that of the Seventy, both texts being inspired, as she
      claims.

  324 See Rev. Joseph Wolff’s _Journal_, p. 200.

  325 A tree is symbolically a book—as “pillar” is another synonym of the
      same.

  326 The wife of Moses, one of the seven daughters of a Midian priest, is
      called Zipora. It was Jethro, the priest of Midian, who initiated
      Moses, Zipora, one of the seven daughters, being simply one of the
      seven Occult powers that the Hierophant was and is supposed to pass
      to the initiated novice.

  327 See for these details the _Book of God_, pp. 244, 250.

  328 _Op. cit._ v. 85.

  329 As is fully shown in the _Source of Measures_ and other works.

  330 Surely even Masons would never claim the _actual_ existence of
      Solomon? As Kenealy shows, he is not noticed by Herodotus, nor by
      Plato, nor by any writer of standing. It is most extraordinary, he
      says, “that the Jewish nation, over whom but a few years before the
      mighty Solomon had reigned in all his glory, with a magnificence
      scarcely equalled by the greatest monarchs, spending nearly _eight
      thousand millions_ of gold on a temple, was overlooked by the
      historian Herodotus, writing of Egypt on the one hand, and of
      Babylon on the other—visiting both places, and of course passing
      almost necessarily within a few miles of the splendid capital of the
      national Jerusalem? How can this be accounted for?” he asks (p.
      457). Nay, not only are there no proofs of the twelve tribes of
      Israel having ever existed, but Herodotus, the most accurate of
      historians, who was in Assyria when Ezra flourished, never mentions
      the Israelites at all; and Herodotus was born in 484 B.C. How is
      this?

  331 Clement, _Stromateis_, xxii.

  332 _Book of God_, p. 408.

  333 _Book of God_, p. 453.

  334 _Asiatic Journal_, vii., p. 275, quoted by Kenealy.

  335 _Book of God_, p. 385.

  336 Speaking of the hidden meaning of the Sanskrit words, Mr. T. Subba
      Row, in his able article on “The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac,” gives
      some advice as to the way in which one should proceed to find out
      “the deep significance of ancient Sanskrit nomenclature in the old
      Âryan myths. 1. Find out the synonyms of the word used which have
      other meanings. 2. Find out the numerical value of the letters
      composing the word according to the methods of the ancient Tântrik
      works [_Tântrika Shâstra_—works on Incantation and Magic]. 3.
      Examine the ancient myths or allegories, if there are any, which
      have any special connection with the word in question. 4. Permute
      the different syllables composing the word and examine the new
      combinations that will thus be formed and their meanings,” etc. But
      he does not give the principal rule. And no doubt he is quite right.
      The Tântrika _Shâstras_ are as old as Magic itself. Have they also
      borrowed their Esotericism from the Hebrews?

  337 Their founder, Sadoc, was the pupil, through Antigonus Saccho, of
      Simon the Just. They had their own secret _Book of the Law_ ever
      since the foundation of their sect (about 400 B.C.) and this volume
      was unknown to the masses. At the time of the Separation the
      Samaritans recognised only the _Book of the Law of Moses_ and the
      _Book of Joshua_, and their _Pentateuch_ is far older, and is
      different from the Septuagint. In 168 B.C. Jerusalem had its temple
      plundered, and its Sacred Books—namely, the _Bible_ made up by Ezra
      and finished by Judas Maccabeus—were lost (see Burder’s _Josephus_,
      vol. ii. pp. 331‐335); after which the _Massorah_ completed the work
      of destruction (even of Ezra’s once‐more adjusted _Bible_) begun by
      the change into square from horned letters. Therefore the later
      _Pentateuch_ accepted by the Pharisees was rejected and laughed at
      by the Sadducees. They are generally called atheists; yet, since
      those learned men, who made no secret of their freethought,
      furnished from among their number the most eminent of the Jewish
      high‐priests, this seems impossible. How could the Pharisees and the
      other two believing and pious sects allow notorious atheists to be
      selected for such posts? The answer is difficult to find for bigotry
      and for believers in a personal, anthropomorphic God, but very easy
      for those who accept facts. The Sadducees were called atheists
      because they believed as the initiated Moses believed, thus
      differing very widely from the latter made‐up Jewish legislator and
      hero of Mount Sinai.

  338 The measurements of the Great Pyramid being those of the temple of
      Solomon, of the Ark of the Covenant, etc., according to Piazzi
      Smythe and the author of the _Source of Measures_, and the Pyramid
      of Gizeh being shown on astronomical calculations to have been built
      4950 B.C., and Moses having _written_ his books—for the sake of
      argument—not even half that time before our era, how can this be?
      Surely if any one borrowed from the other, it is not the Pharaohs
      from Moses. Even philology shows not only the Egyptian, but even the
      Mongolian, older than the Hebrew.

  339 This alone shows how the Books of Moses were tampered with. In
      _Samuel_ (ix. 9), it is said: “He that is now a prophet [Nabhi] was
      beforetime called a Seer [Roch].” Now since before _Samuel_, the
      word “Roch” is met nowhere in the _Pentateuch_, but its place is
      always taken by that of “Nabhi,” this proves clearly that the Mosaic
      text has been replaced by that of the later Levites. (See for fuller
      details _Jewish Antiquities_, by the Rev. D. Jennings, D.D.)

  340 _Zohar_, i, 2a.

  341 _Zohar_, 42b.

  342 _Zohar_, i, 2a. See Dr. Ch. Ginsburg’s essay on _The Cabbalah, its
      Doctrines, Developments and Literature_.

  343 Cudworth, I. iii, quoted by Wilson, _Vishnu Purâna_, i. 14, note.

  344 _Vishnu Purâna_, i. 14.

  345 Stanza i, 4.

  346 _Mishna_, i. 9.

  347 In its manifested state it becomes Ten, the Universe. In the
      Chaldæan _Kabalah_ it is sexless. In the Jewish, Shekinah is female,
      and the early Christians and Gnostics regarded the Holy Ghost as a
      female potency. In the _Book of Numbers_ “Shekina” is made to drop
      the final “h” that makes it a feminine name. Nârâyana, the Mover on
      the Waters, is also sexless; but it is our firm belief that Shekinah
      and Daiviprakriti, the “Light of the Logos,” are one and the same
      thing philosophically.

  348 The Elohim create the Adam of dust, and in him Jehovah‐Binah
      separates himself into Eve, after which the male portion of God
      becomes the Serpent, tempts himself in Eve, then creates himself in
      her as Cain, passes into Seth, and scatters from Enoch, the Son of
      Man, or Humanity, as Jodheva.

  349 _The Source of Measures_, p. 8.

  350 This identifies Sephira, the third potency, with Jehovah the Lord,
      who says to Moses out of the burning bush: “(Here) I am.” (_Exodus_,
      iii, 4.) At this time the “Lord” had not yet become Jehovah. It was
      not the one Male God who spoke, but the Elohim manifested, or the
      Sephiroth in their manifested collectivity of seven, contained in
      the triple Sephira.

  351 The Brâhmans were wise in their generation when they gradually, for
      no other reason than this, abandoned Brahmâ, and paid less attention
      to him individually than to any other deity. As an abstract
      synthesis they worshipped him collectively and in every God, each of
      which represents him. As Brahmâ, the male, he is far lower than
      Shiva, the Lingam, who personates universal generation, or Vishnu,
      the preserver—both Shiva and Vishnu being the regenerators of life
      after destruction. The Christians might do worse than follow their
      example, and worship God in Spirit, and not in the male Creator.

  352 A plural word, signifying a collective host generically; literally,
      the “strong lion.”

  353 The writer possesses only a few extracts, some dozen pages in all,
      verbatim quotations from that priceless work, of which but two or
      three copies, perhaps, are still extant.

  354 Aye; but that _spirituality_ can never be discovered, far less
      proved, unless we turn to the Âryan Scriptures and Symbology. For
      the Jews it was lost, save for the Sadducees, from the day that the
      “chosen people” reached the Promised Land, the national Karma
      preventing Moses from reaching it.

  355 _Op. cit._, pp. 317‐319.

  356 _The Book of God_, pp. 388, 389.

  357 See Horne’s _Introduction_ (10th edition), vol. ii, p. 33, as quoted
      by Dr. Kenealy, p. 389.

  358 See Horne’s _Introduction_ (10th edition), vol. ii, p. 33, as quoted
      by Dr. Kenealy, p. 389.

  359 The author says that Parker’s _quadrature_ is “that identical
      measure which was used anciently as the perfect measure, by the
      Egyptians, in the construction of the Great Pyramid, which was built
      to _monument it and its uses_,” and that “from it the _sacred cubit‐
      value was derived_, which was the cubit‐value used in the
      construction of the Temple of Solomon, the Ark of Noah, and the Ark
      of the Covenant” (p. 22). This is a grand discovery, no doubt, but
      it only shows that the Jews profited well by their captivity in
      Egypt, and that Moses was a great Initiate.

  360 See _Theosophist_, November, 1879, art. “Hindu Music,” p. 47.

  361 The Sanskrit letters are far more numerous than the poor twenty‐two
      letters of the Hebrew alphabet. They are all musical, and they are
      read—or rather chanted—according to a system given in very old
      Tântrika works, and are called Devanâgarî, the speech, or language,
      of the Gods. And since each letter answers to a numeral, the
      Sanskrit affords a far larger scope for expression, and it must
      necessarily be far more perfect than the Hebrew, which followed the
      same system but could apply it only in a very limited way. If either
      of these two languages, were taught to humanity by the Gods, surely
      it would more likely be the Sanskrit, the perfect form of the most
      perfect language on earth, than the Hebrew, the roughest and the
      poorest. For once anyone believes in a language of divine origin, he
      can hardly believe at the same time that Angels or Gods or any
      divine Messengers have had to develop it from a rough monosyllabic
      form into a perfect one, as we see in terrestrial linguistic
      evolution.

  362 In the first chapter of _Genesis_ the word “God” represents the
      Elohim—Gods in the plural, not one God. This is a cunning and
      dishonest translation. For the whole _Kabalah_ explains sufficiently
      that the Alhim (Elohim) are seven; each creates one of the seven
      things enumerated in the first chapter, and these answer
      allegorically to the seven creations. To make this clear, count the
      verses in which it is said “And God saw that it was good,” and you
      will find that this is said seven times—in verses 4, 10, 12, 18, 21,
      25, and 31. And though the compilers cunningly represent the
      creation of man as occurring on the sixth day, yet, having made man
      “male and female in the image of God,” the Seven Elohim repeat the
      sacramental sentence, “It was good,” for the seventh time, thus
      making of man the seventh creation, and showing the origin of this
      bit of cosmogony to be in the Hindu creations. The Elohim are, of
      course, the seven Egyptian Khnûmû, the “assistant‐architects”; the
      seven Amshaspends of the Zoroastrians; the Seven Spirits subordinate
      to Ildabaoth of the Nazareans; the seven Prajâpati of the Hindus,
      etc.

  363 _Gen._, ii. 21, 22.

  364 _Op. cit._, p. 395, note.

  365 The seventh esoterically, exoterically the sixth.

  366 _Contra Hereses_, I, xviii, 2.

  367 _Op. cit._ by Gerald Massey, p. 19.

  368 _Op cit._, p. 278.

  369 _The Hebrew and other Creations: with a reply to Professor A. H.
      Sayce_, p. 19.

  370 _Op. cit._, p. 243.

  371 When they are the Anupâdakas (Parentless) of the Secret Doctrine.
      See Stanzas, i, 9, Vol. i, 56.

  372 These originated with the Âryans, who placed therein their “bright‐
      crested” (Chitra‐Shikhandan) Seven Rishis. But all this is far more
      Occult than appears on the surface.

  373 _Op. cit._, pp. 19‐22.

  374 _Vishnu Purâna_, Wilson’s Trans., i, 101. The period of these
      Kumâras is Pre‐Adamic, _i.e._, before the separation of sexes, and
      before humanity had received the creative, or sacred, fire of
      Prometheus.

  375 The Secret Doctrine says that this was the second creation, not the
      first, and that it took place during the Third Race, when men
      separated, _i.e._, began to be born as distinct men and women. See
      Vol. ii. of this work, Stanzas and Commentaries.

  376 This is a Western mangling of the Indian doctrine of the Kumâras.

  377 He was regarded by several Gnostic sects as one with Jehovah. See
      _Isis Unveiled_, vol. ii. p. 184.

  378 Or “man, son of man.” The Church found in this a _prophecy_ and a
      confession of Christ, the “Son of Man!”

  379 See Stanza ii. 5, Secret Doctrine, ii. 16.

  380 _Op. cit._, pp. 23, 24.

  381 The _Sepher Jetzirah_ now known is but a portion of the original one
      incorporated in the Chaldæan _Book of Numbers_. The fragment now in
      possession of the Western Kabalists is one greatly tampered with by
      the Rabbis of the Middle Ages, as its masoretic points show. The
      “Masorah” scheme is a modern blind, dating after our era and
      perfected in Tiberias. (See _Isis Unveiled_, vol. ii, pp. 430‐431.)

  382 In the oldest symbolism—that used in the Egyptian hieroglyphics—when
      the bull’s head only is found it means the Deity, the Perfect
      Circle, with the procreative power latent in it. When the whole bull
      is represented, a solar God, a _personal_ deity is meant, for it is
      then the symbol of the acting generative power.

  383 It took three Root‐Races to degrade the symbol of the One Abstract
      Unity manifested in Nature as a Ray emanating from infinity (the
      Circle) into a phallic symbol of generation, as it was even in the
      _Kabalah_. This degradation began with the Fourth Race, and had its
      _raison d’etre_, in Polytheism, as the latter was invented to screen
      the One Universal Deity from profanation. The Christians may plead
      ignorance of its meaning as an excuse for its acceptance. But why
      sing never‐ceasing laudations to the Mosaic Jews who repudiated all
      the other Gods, preserved the most phallic, and then most impudently
      proclaimed themselves Monotheists? Jesus ever steadily ignored
      Jehovah. He went against the Mosaic commandments. He recognized his
      Heavenly Father alone, and prohibited public worship.

  384 Is it everything to have found out that the celestial circle of 360°
      is determined by “the full word‐form of Elohim,” and that this
      yields, when the word is placed in a circle, “3.1415, or the
      relation of circumference to a diameter of _one_.” This is only its
      astronomical or mathematical aspect. To know the full _septenary_
      significance of the “Primordial Circle,” the pyramid and the
      Kabalistic _Bible_ must be read in the light of the figure on which
      the temples of India are built. The mathematical squaring of the
      circle is only the terrestrial _résumé_ of the problem. The Jews
      were content with the six days of activity and the seventh of rest.
      The progenitors of mankind solved the greatest problems of the
      Universe with their seven Rays or Rishis.

  385 _Genesis_ begins with the _third_ stage of “creation,” skipping the
      preliminary two.

  386 The three _root_‐principles are, exoterically: Man, Soul, and Spirit
      (meaning by “man” the intelligent personality), and esoterically:
      Life, Soul, and Spirit; the four vehicles are Body, Astral double,
      Animal (or human) Soul, and Divine Soul (Sthûla‐Sharîra, Linga‐
      Sharîra, Kâma‐rûpa, and Buddhi, the vehicle of Âtma or Spirit). Or,
      to make it still clearer: (1) the _Seventh_ Principle has for its
      vehicle the Sixth (Buddhi); (2) the vehicle of Manas is Kâma‐rûpa;
      (3) that of Jîva or Prâna (life) is the Linga‐Sharîra (the “double”
      of man; the Linga‐Sharîra proper can never leave the body till
      death; that which appears is an astral body, reflecting the physical
      body and serving as a vehicle for the human soul, or intelligence);
      and (4) the Body, the physical vehicle of all the above
      collectively. The Occultist recognizes the same order as existing
      for the cosmical totality, the _psycho_‐cosmical Universe.

  387 St. Denys, the Areopagite, the supposed contemporary of St. Paul,
      his co‐disciple, and first Bishop of St. Denis, near Paris, teaches
      that the bulk of the “work of creation” was performed by the
      “_Seven_ Spirits of the Presence”—God’s _co‐operators_, owing to a
      participation of the divinity in them. (_Hierarch._, p. 196.) And
      Saint Augustine also thinks that “things were rather created in the
      angelic minds than in Nature, that is to say, that the angels
      perceived and knew them (all things) in their thoughts before they
      could spring forth into actual existence.” (_Vid. De Genesis ad
      Litteram_ p. II.) (Summarized from De Mirville, Vol. II., pp.
      337‐338.) Thus the early Christian Fathers, even a non‐initiate like
      St. Augustine, ascribed the creation of the visible world to Angels,
      or Secondary Powers, while St. Denys not only specifies these as the
      “_Seven_ Spirits of the Presence,” but shows them owing their power
      to the informing divine energy—Fohat in the Secret Doctrine. But the
      egotistical darkness which caused the Western races to cling so
      desperately to the _Geo_‐centric System, made them also neglect and
      despise all those fragments of the true Religion which would have
      deprived them and the little globe they took for the centre of the
      Universe of the signal honour of having been expressly “created” by
      the One, Secondless, Infinite God!

  388 De Mirville, ii. 295.

  389 To the Occultist and Chelâ the difference made between _Energy_ and
      Emanation need not be explained. The Sanskrit word “Sakti” is
      untranslatable. It may be Energy, but it is one that proceeds
      through itself, not being due to the active or conscious will of the
      one that produces it. The “First‐Born,” or Logos, is not an
      Emanation, but an Energy inherent in and co‐eternal with
      Parabrahman, the One. The _Zohar_ speaks of emanations, but reserves
      the word for the seven Sephiroth emanated from the first three—which
      form one triad—Kether, Chokmah, and Binah. As for these three, it
      explains the difference by calling them “immanations,” something
      inherent to and coëval with the subject postulated, or in other
      words, “Energies.”

      It is these “Auxiliaries,” the Auphanim, the half‐human Prajâpatis,
      the Angels, the Architects under the leadership of the “Angel of the
      Great Council,” with the rest of the Kosmos‐Builders of other
      nations, that can alone explain the imperfection of the Universe.
      This imperfection is one of the arguments of the Secret Science in
      favour of the existence and activity of these “Powers.” And who know
      better than the few philosophers of our civilised lands how near the
      truth Philo was in ascribing the origin of evil to the admixture of
      inferior potencies in the arrangement of matter, and even in the
      formation of man—a task entrusted to the divine Logos.

  390 _Psalms_ cxxxv. 5.

  391 _Psalms_ xcvi. 5.

  392 Rather as Ormazd or Ahura‐Mazda, Vit‐nam‐Ahmi, and all the
      unmanifested Logoi. Jehovah is the manifested Virâj, corresponding
      to Binah, the third Sephira in the _Kabalah_, a female Power which
      would find its prototype rather in the Prajâpati, than in Brahmâ,
      the Creator.

  393 Neith is Aditi, evidently.

  394 The Self‐created Logos, Nârâyana, Purushottama, and others.

  395 _Mère d’Apis_, pp. 32‐35. Quoted by De Mirville.

  396 See _Republic_, I. vi.

  397 _Harmonie entre l’Église et la Synagogue_, t. II., p. 427, by the
      Chevalier Drach. See De Mirville iv. 38, 39.

  398 Julian died for the same crime as Socrates. Both divulged a portion
      of the solar mystery, the heliocentric system being only a part of
      what was given during Initiation—one consciously, the other
      unconsciously, the Greek Sage never having been initiated. It was
      not the real solar system that was preserved in such secrecy, but
      the mysteries connected with the Sun’s constitution. Socrates was
      sentenced to death by earthly and worldly judges; Julian died a
      violent death because the hitherto protecting hand was withdrawn
      from him, and, no longer shielded by it, he was simply left to his
      destiny or Karma. For the student of Occultism there is a suggestive
      difference between the two kinds of death. Another memorable
      instance of the unconscious divulging of secrets pertaining to
      mysteries is that of the poet, P. Ovidius Naso, who, like Socrates,
      had not been initiated. In his case, the Emperor Augustus, who was
      an Initiate, mercifully changed the penalty of death into banishment
      to Tomos on the Euxine. This sudden change from unbounded royal
      favour to banishment has been a fruitful scheme of speculation to
      classical scholars not initiated into the Mysteries. They have
      quoted Ovid’s own lines to show that it was some great and heinous
      immorality of the Emperor of which Ovid had become unwillingly
      cognizant. The inexorable law of the death penalty, always following
      upon the revelation of any portion of the Mysteries to the profane,
      was unknown to them. Instead of seeing the amiable and merciful act
      of the Emperor in its true light, they have made it an occasion for
      traducing his moral character. The poet’s own words can be no
      evidence, because as he was not an Initiate, it could not be
      explained to him in what his offence consisted. There have been
      comparatively modern instances of poets unconsciously revealing in
      their verses so much of the hidden knowledge as to make even
      Initiates suppose them to be fellow‐Initiates, and come to talk to
      them on the subject. This only shows that the sensitive poetic
      temperament is sometimes so far transported beyond the bounds of
      ordinary sense as to get glimpses into what has been impressed on
      the Astral Light. In the _Light of Asia_ there are two passages that
      might make an Initiate of the first degree think that Mr. Edwin
      Arnold had been initiated himself in the Himâlyan _âshrams_, but
      this is not so.

  399 A proof that Julian was acquainted with the heliocentric system.

  400 _La Gravitation par l’Electricité_, p. 7, quoted by De Mirville; iv.
      156.

  401 De Mirville, iv. 157.

  402 _Memoir on the Solar System_, p. 7, De Mirville, iv. 157.

  403 _Essai sur l’ Identité des Agents Producteurs du Son, de la
      Lumière_, etc., p. 15, _Ibid._

  404 _Ibid._, p. 218.

  405 Summarised from _Ibid._, p. 213. De Mirville, iv. 158.

  406 May, 1855. _Ibid._, p. 139.

  407 _La Terre et notre Système solaire._ De Mirville, iv. 139.

  408 If, as Sir W. Herschel thought, the so‐called fixed stars have
      resulted from, and owe their origin to nebular combustion, they
      cannot be fixed any more than is our sun, which was believed to be
      motionless and is now found to rotate around its axis every twenty‐
      five days. As the fixed star nearest to the sun, however, is eight‐
      thousand times farther away from him than is Neptune, the illusions
      furnished by the telescopes must be also eight‐thousand times as
      great. We will therefore leave the question at rest, repeating only
      what A. Maury said in his work (_La Terre et l’Homme_, published in
      1858): “It is utterly impossible, so far, to decide anything
      concerning Neptune’s constitution, analogy alone authorising us to
      ascribe to him a rotary motion like that of other planets” (De
      Mirville, iv. 140).

  409 _Exposition du vrai Système du Monde_, p. 282.

  410 See the passage quoted by Herschel in _Natural Philosophy_, p. 165.
      De Mirville, iv. 105.

  411 _Loc. cit._

  412 _Terre et Ciel_, p. 28. _Ibid._

  413 _Œuvres d’Arago_, vol. i., p. 219; quoted by De Mirville, iii. 462.

  414 “_Die Sterne sind vielleicht ein Sitz verklarter Geister;_
      _Wie hier das Laster herrscht, ist dort die Tugend Meister._”

  415 _Op. cit._, p. 411.

  416 Whenever Occult doctrines were expounded in the pages of _The
      Theosophist_, care was taken each time to declare a subject
      incomplete when the whole could not be given in its fulness, and no
      writer has ever tried to mislead the reader. As to the Western
      “ranges of perception” concerning doctrines really Occult, the
      Eastern Occultists have been made acquainted with them for some time
      past. Thus they are enabled to assert with confidence that the West
      may be in possession of Hermetic philosophy as a speculative system
      of dialectics, the latter being used in the West admirably well, but
      it lacks entirely the knowledge of Occultism. The genuine Eastern
      Occultist keeps silent and unknown, never publishes what he knows,
      and rarely even speaks of it, as he knows too well the penalty of
      indiscretion.

  417 See _The Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, art. “Sepher Jetzirah.”

  418 In the exoteric sense, the Mantra (or that psychic faculty or power
      that conveys perception or thought) is the older portion of the
      _Vedas_, the second part of which is composed of the _Brâhmanas_. In
      Esoteric phraseology Mantra is the Word made flesh, or rendered
      objective, through divine magic.

  419 The secret meaning of the word “Brahmâ” is “expansion,” “increase,”
      or “growth.”

  420 Why not give at once its theological meaning, as we find it in
      Webster? With the Roman Catholics it means simply “purgatory,” the
      borderland between heaven and hell (_Limbus patrum_ and _Limbus
      infantum_), the one for all men, whether good, bad or indifferent;
      the other for the souls of unbaptized children! With the ancients it
      meant simply that which in _Esoteric Buddhism_ is called the Kâma
      Loka, between Devachan and Avitchi.

  421 As Chaos, the eternal Element, not as the Kâma Loka surely.

  422 A proof that by this word Éliphas Lévi means the lowest region of
      the terrestrial Âkâsha.

  423 Evidently he is concerned only with our periodical world, or the
      terrestrial globe.

  424 In the “reäwakening” of the Forces would be more correct.

  425 An action which is incessant in eternity cannot be called
      “creation;” it is evolution, and the eternally or ever‐becoming of
      the Greek Philosopher and the Hindu Vedântin; it is the Sat and the
      one Beingness of Parmenides, or the Being identical with Thought.
      Now how can the Potencies be said to “create movement,” once it is
      seen movement never had any beginning, but existed in the Eternity?
      Why not say that the reawakened Potencies transferred motion from
      the eternal to the temporal plane of being? Surely this is not
      Creation.

  426 _Histoire de la Magie._ Int., p. 1.

  427 _Histoire de la Magie._ Int., p. 2.

  428 The Vaishnavas, who regard Vishnu as the Supreme God and the
      fashioner of the Universe, claim that Brahmâ sprang from the navel
      of Vishnu, the “imperishable,” or rather from the lotus that grew
      from it. But the “navel” here means the Central Point, the
      mathematical symbol of infinitude, or Parabrahman, the One and the
      Secondless.

  429 _Ecclesiastes_, i. 12, 13.

  430 It is probably needless to say here what everyone knows. The
      translation of the Protestant _Bible_ is not a word for word
      rendering of the earlier Greek and Latin _Bibles_: the sense is very
      often disfigured, and “God” is put where “Jahve” and “Elohim” stand.

  431 _Psalms_, civ. 2, 3.

  432 To avoid misunderstanding of the word “creation” so often used by
      us, the remarks of the author of _Through the Gates of Gold_ may be
      quoted owing to their clearness and simplicity. “The words ‘to
      create’ are often understood by the ordinary mind to convey the idea
      of evolving something out of nothing. This is clearly not its
      meaning. We are mentally obliged to provide our Creator with chaos
      from which to produce the worlds. The tiller of the soil, who is the
      typical producer of social life, must have his material: his earth,
      his sky, rain and sun, and the seeds to place within the earth. Out
      of nothing he can produce nothing. Out of a void nature cannot
      arise; there is that material beyond, behind, or within, from which
      she is shaped by our desire for a Universe.” (P. 72.)

  433 Commentary on Stanza ix. on Cycles.

  434 Or, read from right to left, the letters and their corresponding
      numerals stand thus: “t,” 4; “h,” 5; “bh,” 2; “v,” 6; “v,” 6; “h,”
      5; “v” or “w,” 6; which yields “thuvbhu,” 4566256, or “Tohu‐vah‐
      bohu.”

  435 Mr. Ralston Skinner’s MSS.

  436 That the teraphim was a statue, and no small article either, is
      shown in _Samuel_ xix., where Michal takes a teraphim (“image,” as
      it is translated) and puts it in bed to represent David, her
      husband, who ran away from Saul (see verse 13, _et seq._). It was
      thus of the size and shape of a human figure—a statue or real
      _idol_.

  437 _Op. cit._, iii. 4

  438 Louis de Dieu, _Genesis_, xxxi. 19. See De Mirville, iii. 257.

  439 “The teraphim of Abram’s father, Terah, the ‘maker of images,’ were
      the Kabeiri Gods, and we see them worshipped by Micah, by the
      Danites, and others. (_Judges_, xvii.‐xviii., etc.) Teraphim were
      identical with seraphim, and these were serpent images, the origin
      of which is in the Sanskrit ‘Sarpa’ (the ‘serpent’) a symbol sacred
      to all the deities as a symbol of immortality. Kiyun, or the God
      Kivan, worshipped by the Hebrews in the wilderness, is Shiva, the
      Hindu Saturn. (The Zendic ‘h’ is ‘s’ in India; thus, ‘Hapta’ is
      ‘Sapta;’ ‘Hindu’ is ‘Sindbaya.’ (A. Wilder)) ‘The “s” continually
      softens to “h” from Greece to Calcutta, from the Caucasus to Egypt,’
      says Dunlap. Therefore the letters ‘k,’ ‘h,’ and ‘s’ are
      interchangeable. The Greek story shows that Dardanus, the Arcadian,
      having received them as a dowry, carried them to Samothrace, and
      thence to Troy; and they were worshipped long before the days of
      glory of Tyre or Sidon, though the former had been built 2760 B.C.
      From where did Dardanus derive them?” _Isis Unveiled_, i. 570.

  440 Maimon, _More Nevochim_, III. xxx.

  441 Those dedicated to the sun were made in gold, and those to the moon
      in silver.

  442 _De Diis Syriis, Teraph._ II. Syat, p. 31.

  443 Those that the Kabalists call _elementary_ spirits are sylphs,
      gnomes, undines and salamanders, nature‐spirits, in short. The
      spirits of the angels formed a distinct class.

  444 _Œdipus_, ii. 444.

  445 _Op. cit._, xxv. 22 _et seq._

  446 The ephod was a linen garment worn by the high priest, but as the
      thummim was attached to it, the entire paraphernalia of divination
      was often comprised in that single word, ephod. See I. _Sam._,
      xxviii. 6, and xxx. 7, 8.

  447 _Paganism and Judaism_, iv. 197.

  448 _Op. cit._, I. vi. 5.

  449 _Discourse to the Gentiles_, p. 146.

  450 _De Gener._, I, II. iv.

  451 See _Cosmos_, by Ménage, I., vi., § 101.

  452 _Op. cit._, I. ii.

  453 “The characters employed on those parchments,” writes De Mirville,
      “are sometimes hieroglyphics, placed perpendicularly, a kind of
      lineary tachygraphy (abridged characters), where the image is often
      reduced to a simple stroke; at other times placed in horizontal
      lines; then the hieratic or sacred writing, going from right to left
      as in all Semitic languages; lastly, the characters of the country,
      used for official documents, mostly contracts, etc., but which since
      the Ptolemies has been also adopted for the monuments,” v. 81, 82. A
      copy of the Harris papyrus, translated by Chabas—_Papyrus
      magique_—may be studied at the British Museum.

  454 And what of the “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin,” the words that “the
      fingers of a man’s hand,” whose body and arm remained invisible,
      wrote on the walls of Belshazzar’s palace? (_Daniel_, v.) What of
      the writings of Simon the Magician, and the magic characters on the
      walls and in the air of the crypts of Initiation, without mentioning
      the tables of stone on which the finger of God wrote the
      commandments? Between the writing of one God and other Gods the
      difference, if any, lies only in their respective natures; and if
      the tree is to be known by its fruits, then preference would have to
      be given always to the Pagan Gods. It is the immortal “To be or not
      to be.” Either all of them are—or at any rate, may be—true, or all
      are surely pious frauds and the result of credulity.

  455 _Papyrus Magique_, p. 186.

  456 See Maspero’s _Guide to the Bulak Museum_, among others.

  457 De Mirville (from whom much of the preceding is taken), v. 81, 85.

  458 See De Mirville, v. 84, 85.

  459 One sees this difficulty arise even with a perfectly known language
      like Sanskrit, the meaning of which is far easier to comprehend than
      the hieratic writings of Egypt. Everyone knows how hopelessly the
      Sanskritists are often puzzled over the real meaning and how they
      fail in rendering the meaning correctly in their respective
      translations, in which one Orientalist contradicts the other.

  460 _Op. cit._, i. 297.

  461 Book II., Commentary.

  462 Bunsen and Champollion so declare, and Dr. Carpenter says that the
      _Book of the Dead_, sculptured on the oldest monuments, with “the
      very phrases we find in the _New Testament_ in connection with the
      Day of Judgment ... was engraved probably 2,000 years before the
      time of Christ.” (See _Isis Unveiled_, i., 518.)

  463 De Mirville, v. 88. Just such a calendar and horoscope interdictions
      exist in India in our day, as well as in China and all the Buddhist
      countries.

  464 See De Mirville, iii. 65.

  465 _Pap. Mag._, p. 163.

  466 _Ibid._, p. 168.

  467 Maimonides in his _Treatise on Idolatry_ says, speaking of the
      Jewish teraphim: “They talked with men.” To this day Christian
      Sorcerers in Italy, and negro Voodoos at New Orleans fabricate small
      wax figures in the likeness of their victims, and transpierce them
      with needles, the _wound_, as on the teraphim or Menh, being
      repercussed on the living, often killing them. Mysterious deaths are
      still many, and not all are traced to the guilty hand.

  468 The Ramses of Lepsius, who reigned some 1300 years before our era.

  469 One may judge how trustworthy are the translations of such Egyptian
      documents when the sentence is rendered in three different ways by
      three Egyptologists. Rougé says: “He found her in a state _to fall
      under the power of spirits_,” or “with her limbs quite stiff,” (?)
      another version; and Chabas translates: “And the Scribe found the
      Khou too wicked.” Between her being in possession of an evil Khou
      and “with her limbs quite stiff,” there is a difference.

  470 De Mirville, v. 247, 248.

  471 Some translators would have Lucian speak of the inhabitants of the
      city, but they fail to show that this view is maintainable.

  472 De Mirville, v. 256, 257.

  473 How can de Mirville see Satan in the Egyptian God of the great
      divine Name, when he himself admits that nothing was greater than
      the name of the oracle of Dodona, as it was that of the God of the
      Jews, IAO, or Jehovah? That oracle had been brought by the
      Pelasgians to Dodona more than fourteen centuries B.C. and left with
      the forefathers of the Hellenes, and its history is well‐known and
      may be read in Herodotus. Jupiter, who loved the fair nymph of the
      ocean, Dodona, had ordered Pelasgus to carry his cult to Thessaly.
      The name of the God of that oracle at the temple of Dodona was Zeus
      Pelasgicos, the Zeuspater (God the Father), or as De Mirville
      explains: “It was the name _par excellence_, the name that the Jews
      held as the ineffable, the unpronounceable Name—in short, _Jaoh‐
      pater_, _i.e._, ‘he who was, who is, and who will be,’ otherwise the
      Eternal.” And the author admits that Maury is right “in discovering
      in the name of the Vaidic Indra the Biblical Jehovah,” and does not
      even attempt to deny the etymological connection between the two
      names—“the _great_ and the _lost_ name with the sun and the thunder‐
      bolts.” Strange confessions, and still stranger contradictions.

  474 Reuvens’ _Letter to Letronne on the 75th number of the Papyri
      Anastasi_. See De Mirville. v. 258.

  475 The Eleusinian Fields.

  476 _Fragments_, ix.

  477 _De Legibus_, II. iv.

  478 _Judaism and Paganism_, i. 184.

  479 _Frag. of Styg., ap. Stob._

  480 _De Special. Legi._

  481 De Mirville, v. 278, 279.

  482 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 25.

  483 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 282, 283.

  484 De Mirville, v. 248.

  485 De Mirville, v. 281.

  486 Tod’s Rajasthan, i. 28.

  487 _Op. cit._, ix. iii. 28.

  488 _Vishnu Purâna_, iv. i. Wilson’s translation, iii. 248‐254.

  489 There were no Brâhmans as a hereditary caste in days of old. In
      those long‐departed ages a man became a Brâhman through personal
      merit and Initiation. Gradually, however, despotism crept in, and
      the son of a Brâhman was created a Brâhman by right of protection
      first, then by that of heredity. The rights of blood replaced those
      of real merit, and thus arose the body of Brâhmans, which was soon
      changed into a powerful caste.

  490 _Des Initiations Anciennes and Modernes._ “The mysteries,” says
      Ragon, “were the gift of India.” In this he is mistaken, for the
      Âryan race had brought the mysteries of Initiation from Atlantis.
      Nevertheless he is right in saying that the mysteries preceded all
      civilisations, and that by polishing the mind and morals of the
      peoples they served as a base for all the laws—civil, political, and
      religious.

  491 _De Off._, i. 33.

  492 _Des Initiations_, p. 22.

  493 _Essais Historiques sur la Franc‐Maçonnerie_, pp. 142, 143.

  494 The word “patriarch” is composed of the Greek word “Patria”
      (“family,” “tribe,” or “nation”) and “Archos” (a “chief”), the
      paternal principle. The Jewish Patriarchs who were pastors, passed
      their name to the Christian Patriarchs; yet they were no priests,
      but were simply the heads of their tribes, like the Indian Rishis.

  495 There is no need to observe here that the resurrection of a really
      dead body is an impossibility in Nature.

  496 The kings of Hungary claimed that they could cure the jaundice; the
      Dukes of Burgundy were credited with preserving people from the
      plague; the kings of Spain delivered those possessed by the devil.
      The prerogative of curing the king’s evil was given to the kings of
      France, in reward for the virtues of good King Robert. Francis the
      First, during a short stay at Marseilles for his son’s wedding,
      touched and cured of that disease upwards of 500 persons. The kings
      of England had the same privilege.

  497 See Laurens’ _Essais Historiques_ for further information as to the
      world‐wide, universal knowledge of the Egyptian Priests.

  498 _Des Initiations_, p. 24.

  499 The word comes from the Greek “hieros” (“sacred”) and “glupho” (“I
      grave”). The Egyptian characters were sacred to the Gods, as the
      Indian Devanâgarî is the language of the Gods.

  500 The same author had (as Occultists have) a very reasonable objection
      to the modern etymology of the word “philosophy,” which is
      interpreted “love of wisdom,” and is nothing of the kind. The
      philosophers were scientists, and philosophy was a real science—not
      simply verbiage, as it is in our day. The term is composed of two
      Greek words whose meaning is intended to convey its secret sense,
      and ought to be interpreted as “wisdom of love.” Now it is in the
      last word, “love,” that lies hidden the esoteric significance: for
      “love” does not stand here as a noun, nor does it mean “affection”
      or “fondness,” but is the term used for Eros, that primordial
      principle in divine creation, synonymous with πόθος, the abstract
      desire in Nature for procreation, resulting in an everlasting series
      of phenomena. It means “divine love,” that universal element of
      divine omnipresence spread throughout Nature and which is at once
      the chief cause and effect. The “wisdom of love” (or “philosophia,”)
      meant attraction to and love of everything hidden beneath objective
      phenomena and the knowledge thereof. Philosophy meant the highest
      Adeptship—love of and assimilation with Deity. In his modesty
      Pythagoras even refused to be called a Philosopher (or one who knows
      every hidden thing in things visible; cause and effect, or absolute
      truth), and called himself simply a Sage an aspirant to philosophy,
      or to Wisdom of Love—love in its exoteric meaning being as degraded
      by men then as it is now by its purely terrestrial application.

  501 _Lev._, xix. 18.

  502 “On,” the “Sun,” the Egyptian name of Heliopolis (the “City of the
      Sun”).

  503 _Book of God_, p. 160.

  504 Mr. Kenealy quotes, in his _Book of God_, Vallancey, who says: “I
      had not been a week landed in Ireland from Gibraltar, where I had
      studied Hebrew and Chaldaic under Jews of various countries, when I
      heard a peasant girl say to a boor standing by her ‘_Feach an Maddin
      Nag_’ (‘Behold the morning star’), pointing to the planet Venus, the
      Maddena Nag of the Chaldeans.”

  505 There was a time when the whole world, the totality of mankind, had
      one religion, as they were of “one lip.” “All the religions of the
      earth were at first one, and emanated from one centre,” says Faber.

  506 _Chips from a German Workshop_, i. 69, 70.

  507 Sûrya, the Sun, is one of the nine divinities that witness all human
      actions.

  508 [There is a gap in H. P. B.’s MS., and the paragraph in brackets
      supplies what was missing.—A. B.]

  509 In _Isis Unveiled_, Vol. II., pp. 41, 42, a portion of this rite is
      referred to. Speaking of the dogma of Atonement, it is traced to
      ancient “heathendom” again. We say: “This cornerstone of a church
      which had believed herself built on a firm rock for long centuries,
      is now excavated by science and proved to come from the Gnostics.
      Professor Draper shows it as hardly known in the days of Tertullian,
      and as having ‘originated among the Gnostic heretics’ (see _Conflict
      Between Religion and Science_, p. 224).... But there are sufficient
      proofs to show that it _originated_ among them no more than did
      their anointed Christos and Sophia. The former they modelled on the
      original of the King Messiah, the male principle of wisdom, and the
      latter on the third Sephiroth, from the Chaldæan _Kabalah_, and even
      from the Hindu Brahmâ and Sarasvatî, and the Pagan Dionysius and
      Demeter. And here we are on firm ground, if it were only because it
      is now proved that the _New Testament_ never appeared in its
      complete form, such as we find it now, till 300 years after the
      period of the apostles, and the _Zohar_ and other Kabalistic books
      are found to belong to the first century before our era, if not to
      be far older still.

      “The Gnostics entertained many of the Essenean ideas; and the
      Essenes had their greater and minor Mysteries at least two centuries
      before our era. They were the _Isarim_ or _Initiates_, the
      descendants of the Egyptian hierophants, in whose country they had
      been settled for several centuries before they were converted to
      Buddhistic monasticism by the missionaries of King Asoka, and
      amalgamated later with the earliest Christians: and they existed,
      probably, before the old Egyptian temples were desecrated and ruined
      in the incessant invasions of Persians, Greeks, and other conquering
      hordes. The hierophants had their atonement enacted in the Mystery
      of Initiation ages before the Gnostics, or even the Essenes, had
      appeared. It was known among hierophants as the Baptism of Blood,
      and was considered not as an atonement for the ‘fall of man’ in
      Eden, but simply as an expiation for the past, present, and future
      sins of ignorant, but nevertheless polluted mankind. The hierophant
      had the option of either offering his pure and sinless life as a
      sacrifice for his race to the gods whom he hoped to rejoin, or an
      animal victim. The former depended entirely on their own will. At
      the last moment of the solemn ‘new birth,’ the Initiator passed ‘the
      word’ to the initiated, and immediately after the latter had a
      weapon placed in his right hand, and was ordered _to strike_. This
      is the true origin of the Christian dogma of atonement.”

      As Ballanche says, quoted by Ragon: “Destruction is the great God of
      the World,” justifying therefore the philosophical conception of the
      Hindu Shîva. According to this immutable and sacred law, “the
      Initiate was compelled to kill the Initiator; otherwise initiation
      remained incomplete.... It is death that generates life.”
      _Orthodoxie maçonnique_, p. 104. All that, however, was emblematic
      and exoteric. Weapon and killing must be understood in their
      allegorical sense.

  510 _Orthodoxie maçonnique_, pp. 102‐104.

  511 _Op. cit._, i. 15.

  512 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 258. A curious question to start and
      to deny, when it is well‐known even to the Orientalists that, to
      take but one case, there is Yaska, who was a predecessor of Pânini,
      and his work still exists; there are seventeen writers of Nirukta
      (glossary) known to have preceded Yaska.

  513 _La Mère d’Apis_, p. 47.

  514 One just initiated is called the “first‐born,” and in India he
      becomes dwija, “twice born,” only after his final and supreme
      Initiation. Every Adept is a “Son of God” and a “Son of Light” after
      receiving the “Word,” when he becomes the “Word” himself, after
      receiving the seven divine attributes or the “lyre of Apollo.”

  515 See De Mirville, iv. 15.

  516 II. _Kings_, xxiii. 4‐13.

  517 _Judges_, xiii. 18. Samson, Manoah’s son, was an Initiate of that
      “Mystery” Lord, Ja‐va; he was consecrated before his birth to become
      a “Nazarite” (a chela) an Adept. His sin with Dalilah, and the
      cropping of his long hair that “no razor was to touch” shows how
      well he kept his sacred vow. The allegory of Samson proves the
      Esotericism of the _Bible_, as also the character of the “Mystery
      Gods” of the Jews. True, Môvers gives a definition of the Phœnician
      idea of the ideal sunlight as a spiritual influence issuing from the
      highest God, Iao, “the light conceivable only by intellect—the
      physical and spiritual Principle of all things; out of which the
      soul emanates.” It was the male Essence, or Wisdom, while the
      primitive matter or _Chaos_ was the female. Thus the first two
      principles, co‐eternal and infinite, were already with the primitive
      Phœnicians, spirit and matter. But this is the echo of Jewish
      thought, not the opinion of Pagan Philosophers.

  518 See _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 526.

  519 Beth‐San or Scythopolis in Palestine had that designation; so had a
      spot on Mount Parnassus. But Diodorus declares that Nyssa was
      between Phœnicia and Egypt; Euripides states that Dionysos came to
      Greece from India; and Diodorus adds his testimony: “Osiris was
      brought up in Nyssa, in Arabia the Happy; he was the son of Zeus,
      and was named from his father (nominative Zeus, genitive _Dios_) and
      the place Dio‐Nysos”—the Zeus or Jove of Nyssa. This identity of
      name or title is very significant. In Greece Dionysos was second
      only to Zeus, and Pindar says: “So Father Zeus governs all things,
      and Bacchus he governs also.”

  520 _Ex._, xvii. 15.

  521 _Phædrus_, Cary’s translation, p. 326.

  522 _Life of Pythagoras_, p. 297. “Since Pythagoras,” he adds, “also
      spent two and twenty years in the adyta of the temples in Egypt,
      associated with the Magians in Babylon, and was instructed by them
      in their venerable knowledge, it is not at all wonderful that he was
      skilled in Magic or Theurgy, and was therefore able to perform
      things which surpass merely human power, and which appear to be
      perfectly incredible to the vulgar” (p. 298).

  523 This expression must not be understood simply literally; for, as in
      the initiation of certain Brotherhoods, it has a secret meaning that
      we have just explained; it was hinted at by Pythagoras, when he
      describes his feelings after the Initiation, and says that he was
      crowned by the Gods in whose presence he had drunk “the waters of
      life”—in the Hindu Mysteries there was the fount of life, and
      _soma_, the sacred drink.

  524 _Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries_, T. Taylor, p. 46, 47.

  525 ii. 111, 113.

  526 _Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries_, p. 63.

  527 _Op. cit._, p. 65.

  528 Quoted by Taylor, p. 66.

  529 Verses 35‐38.

  530 _Phædrus_, 64, quoted by Taylor, p. 64.

  531 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 114.

  532 This is false, and the Abbé Constant (Éliphas Lévi) _knew_ it was
      so. Why did he promulgate the untruth?

  533 _Dogme de la Haute Magie_, i. 219, 220.

  534 _Orthodoxie Maçonnique_, p. 99.

  535 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 214.

  536 In I. _Peter_, ii. 3, Jesus is called “the Lord Chrestos.”

  537 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 323.

  538 _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 31.

  539 The Âryans replaced the living cow by one made of gold, silver or
      any other metal, and the rite is preserved to this day, when one
      desires to become a Brâhman, a twice‐born, in India.

  540 _Op. cit._, p. 141.

  541 In Ragon’s _Orthodoxie Maçonnique_, p. 105, _note_, we find the
      following statement—borrowed from Albumazar the Arabian, probably:
      “_The Virgin of the Magi and Chaldæans._ The Chaldæan sphere [globe]
      showed in its heavens a newly‐born babe, called _Christ and Jesus_;
      it was placed in the arms of the Celestial Virgin. It was to this
      Virgin that Eratosthenes, the Alexandrian Librarian, born 276 years
      before our era, gave the name of Isis, mother of Horus.” This is
      only what Kircher gives (in _Ædipus Ægypticus_, iii. 5), quoting
      Albumazar: “In the first decan of the Virgin rises a maid, called
      Aderenosa, that is pure, immaculate virgin ... sitting upon an
      embroidered throne nursing a boy...; a boy, named Jessus ... which
      signifies Issa, whom they also call Christ in Greek.” (See _Isis
      Unveiled_, ii. 491.)

  542 Now called _St. Reine_ (Côte d’Or) on the two streams, the Ose and
      the Oserain. Its fall is a historical fact in Keltic Gaulish
      History.

  543 _Orthodoxie Maçonnique_, p. 22.

  544 _Op. cit._, p. 22.

  545 The Christian mob in 389 of our era completed the work of
      destruction upon what remained; most of the priceless works were
      saved for students of Occultism, but lost to the world.

  546 _Op. cit._ p. 23. J. M. Ragon, a Belgian by birth, and a Mason, knew
      more about Occultism than any other non‐initiated writer. For fifty
      years he studied the ancient Mysteries wherever he could find
      accounts of them. In 1805, he founded at Paris the Brotherhood of
      _Les Trinosophes_, in which Lodge he delivered for years lectures on
      Ancient and Modern Initiation (in 1818 and again in 1841), which
      were published, and now are lost. Then he became the writer in chief
      of _Hermes_, a masonic paper. His best works were _La Maçonnerie
      Occulte_ and the _Fastes Initiatiques_. After his death, in 1866, a
      number of his MSS. remained in the possession of the Grand Orient of
      France. A high Mason told the writer that Ragon had corresponded for
      years with two Orientalists in Syria and Egypt, one of whom is a
      Kopt gentleman.

  547 _Op. cit._, iv. 462.

  548 _History of Magic_, ii. 11.

  549 _Neo‐Platonism and Alchemy_, p. 15.

  550 _Loc. cit._

  551 _Op. cit._, pp. 9, 10.

  552 This Divine Effulgence and Essence is the light of the Logos; only
      the Vedântin would not use the pronoun “He,” but would say “It.”

  553 _Loc. cit._, _note_, p. 10.

  554 _Loc. cit._, _note_.

  555 See _Esoteric Buddhism_, by A. P. Sinnett, Fifth Edition.

  556 See _Isis Unveiled_, Vol. I., pp. 589‐595. The “Sons of God” and
      their war with the giants and magicians.

  557 _Loc. cit._, _note_.

  558 _Op. cit._, p. 18.

  559 _Op. cit._, p. 8.

  560 No orthodox Christian has ever equalled, far less surpassed, in the
      practice of true Christ‐like virtues and ethics, or in the beauty of
      his moral nature, Ammonius, the Alexandrian pervert from
      Christianity (he was born from Christian parents).

  561 _Op. cit._, pp. 3, 4.

  562 Quoted by Dr. Wilder, p. 5.

  563 “Mortification” is here meant in the moral, not the physical sense;
      to restrain every lust and passion, and live on the simplest diet
      possible.

  564 This is the Neo‐Platonic teaching adopted as a doctrine in the Roman
      Catholic Church, with its worship of the Seven Spirits.

  565 The Church has made of it the worship of devils. “Daimon” is Spirit,
      and relates to our divine Spirit, the seventh Principle and to the
      Dhyân Chohans. Jesus prohibited going to the temple or church “as
      Pharisees do” but commanded that man should retire for prayer
      (communion with his God) into a private closet. Is it Jesus who
      would have countenanced in the face of the starving millions, the
      building of the most gorgeous churches?

  566 _Op. cit._, p. 7.

  567 _Op. cit._, p. 7.

  568 _Op. cit._, p. 18.

  569 The _Talmud_ gives the story of the four Tanaim, who are made, in
      allegorical terms, to enter into _the garden of delights_, _i.e._,
      to be initiated into the occult and final science.

      “According to the teaching of our holy masters the names of the four
      who entered the garden of delight, are: Ben Asai, Ben Zoma, Acher,
      and Rabbi Akiba....

      “Ben Asai looked and—lost his sight.

      “Ben Zoma looked and—lost his reason.

      “Acher made depredations in the plantation” (mixed up the whole and
      failed). “But Akiba, who had entered in peace came out of it in
      peace; for the saint, whose name he blessed, had said, ‘This old man
      is worthy of serving us with glory.’ ”

      “The learned commentators of the _Talmud_, the Rabbis of the
      synagogue, explain that the _garden of delight_, in which those four
      personages are made to enter, is but that mysterious science, the
      most terrible of sciences for weak intellects, which it leads
      directly to insanity,” says A. Franck, in his _Kabbalah_. It is not
      the pure at heart and he who studies but with a view to perfecting
      himself and so more easily acquiring the promised immortality, who
      need have any fear; but rather he who makes of the science of
      sciences a sinful pretext for worldly motives, who should tremble.
      The latter will never understand the kabalistic evocations of the
      supreme initiation.—_Isis Unveiled_, ii. 119.

  570 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 119.

  571 See _Neo‐Platonism_, p. 9.

  572 See the Code published by Sir William Jones, Chapter ix. p. 11.

  573 Pliny: _Hist. Nat._, xxx. 1; _Ib._, xvi. 14; xxv. 9, etc.

  574 Pomponius ascribes to them the knowledge of the highest sciences.

  575 Cæsar, iii. 14.

  576 Pliny, xxx. _Isis Unveiled_, i. 18.

  577 “The care which they took in educating youth, in familiarizing it
      with generous and virtuous sentiments, did them peculiar honour, and
      their maxims and discourses, as recorded by historians, prove that
      they were expert in matters of philosophy, metaphysics, astronomy,
      morality and religion,” says a modern writer. “If kings or princes
      desired the advice or the blessings of the holy men, they were
      either obliged to go themselves, or to send messengers. To these men
      no secret power of either plant or mineral was unknown. They had
      fathomed nature to its depths, while psychology and physiology were
      to them open books, and the result was that science that is now
      termed, so superciliously, _magic_.”

  578 _Op. cit._, p. 9.

  579 _Op. cit._, p. 11.

  580 _Hermes_, iv. 6.

  581 From _Saraph_ שרף “fiery, burning,” plural (see _Isaiah_, vi. 2‐6).
      They are regarded as the personal attendants of the Almighty, “his
      messengers,” angels or metatrons. In _Revelation_ they are the
      “seven burning lamps” in attendance before the throne.

  582 Venus with the Chaldæans and Egyptians was the wife of _Proteus_,
      and is regarded as the mother of the Kabiri, the sons of Phta or
      Emepth—the divine light or the Sun. The angels answer to the stars
      in the following order: The Sun, the Moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury,
      Jupiter, and Saturn; Michael, Gabriel, Samael, Anael, Raphael,
      Zachariel, and Orifiel; this is in religion and Christian Kabalism;
      astrologically and esoterically the places of the “regents” stand
      otherwise, as also in the Jewish, or rather the real Chaldæan
      _Kabalah_.

  583 _Loc. cit._, xiv. 12.

  584 This is one more proof that the Ancients knew of seven planets
      besides the Sun; for otherwise which is the eighth in such a case?
      The seventh, with two others, as stated, were “mystery” planets,
      whether Uranus or any other.

  585 II. _Sam._, vi. 20‐22.

  586 _Judges_, xxi. 21, _et seq._

  587 I. _Kings_, xviii. 26.

  588 This dance—the Râsa Mandala, enacted by the Gopîs or shepherdesses
      of Krishna, the Sun‐God, is enacted to this day in Râjputâna in
      India, and is undeniably the same theo‐astronomical and symbolical
      dance of the planets and the Zodiacal signs, that was danced
      thousands of years before our era.

  589 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 45.

  590 II. _Epistle_, i. 19. The English text says: “Until the day‐star
      arise in your heart,” a trifling alteration which does not really
      matter—as _Lucifer_ is the day as well as the “morning” star—and it
      is less shocking to pious ears. There are a number of such
      alterations in the Protestant bibles.

  591 Again the English translation changes the word “Sun” into “day‐
      spring.” The Roman Catholics are decidedly braver and more sincere
      than the Protestant theologians. De Mirville: iv. 34, 38.

  592 Thus said the Egyptians and the Sabæans in days of old, the symbol
      of whose manifested gods, Osiris and Bel, was the sun. But they had
      a higher deity.

  593 Exiled from the Protestant bible but left in the _Apocrypha_ which,
      according to Article VI. of the Church of England, “she doth read
      for example of life and instruction of manners” (?), but not to
      establish any doctrine.

  594 _Cornelius a Lapide_, v. 248.

  595 _Ecclesiastes_, xliii. The above quotations are taken from De
      Mirville’s chapter “On Christian and Jewish Solar Theology,” iv.
      35‐38.

  596 Nevertheless the Church has preserved in her most sacred rites the
      “star‐rites” of the Pagan Initiates. In the pre‐Christian Mithraic
      Mysteries, the candidate who overcame successfully the “twelve
      Tortures” which preceded the final Initiation, received a small
      round cake or wafer of unleavened bread, symbolising in one of its
      meanings, the solar disc, and known as the manna (heavenly
      bread).... A lamb, or a bull even, was killed, and with the blood
      the candidate had to be sprinkled, as in the case of the Emperor
      Julian’s initiation. The seven rules or mysteries that are
      represented in the _Revelation_ as the seven seals which are opened
      in order were then delivered to the newly born.

  597 Truly says S. T. Coleridge: “Instinctively the reason has always
      pointed out to men the ultimate end of various sciences.... There is
      no doubt but that astrology of some sort or other will be the last
      achievement of astronomy; there must be chemical relations between
      the planets ... the difference of their magnitude compared with that
      of their distances is not explicable otherwise.” Between planets and
      our earth with its mankind, we may add.

  598 “Christ then,” the author says (p. 40), “is represented by the trunk
      of the candlestick.”

  599 De Mirville, iv. 41, 42.

  600 De Mirville, iv. 42.

  601 Notwithstanding the above, written in the earliest Christian period
      by the renegade Neo‐Platonist, the Church persists to this day in
      her wilful error. Helpless against Galileo, she now tries to throw a
      doubt even on the heliocentric system!

  602 _Stromateis_, V., vi.

  603 The English bible has: “In them (the Heavens) hath he set a
      tabernacle for the sun,” which is incorrect and has no sense in view
      of the verse that follows, for there _are_ things “hid from the heat
      thereof” if the latter word is to be applied to the sun.

  604 When the hierophant took his last degree, he emerged from the sacred
      recess called _Manneras_ and was given the golden _Tau_, the
      Egyptian Cross, which was subsequently placed on his breast, and
      buried with him.

  605 The three secret names are “Sana, Sanat Sujâta, and Kapila;” while
      the four exoteric Gods are called, Sanat Kumâra, Sananda, Sanaka and
      Sanâtana.

  606 Another Kumâra, the “God of War” is called in the Hindu system the
      “eternal celibate”—“the virgin warrior.” He is the Âryan St.
      Michael.

  607 We give the original: “Coelestia corpora moveri a spirituali
      creatura, a _nemine_ Sanctorum vel philosophorum, negatum, legisse
      me memini. (_Opusc._ X. art. iii.).... Mihi autam videtur, quod
      _Demonstrative_ probari posset, quod ab aliquo intellectu corpora
      coelestia moveantur, vel a Deo immediate, vel a mediantibus angelis.
      Sed quod mediantibus angelis ca moveat, congruit rerum ordine, quem
      Dionysius infallibilem asserit, ut inferiora a Deo per _Media_
      secundum cursum communem administrentur” (_Opusc._ II. art. ii.),
      and if so, and God _never_ meddles with the once for ever
      established laws of Nature, leaving it to his administrators, why
      should their being called Gods by the “heathen” be deemed
      idolatrous?

  608 In one of Des Mousseaux’s volumes on Demonology (_Œuvres des
      Demons_) if we do not mistake the statement of the Abbé Huc is
      found, and the author testifies to having heard the following story
      repeatedly from the Abbé himself. In a lamasery of Tibet, the
      missionary found the following:

      It is a simple canvas without the slightest mechanical apparatus
      attached, as the visitor may prove by examining it at his leisure.
      It represents a moonlit landscape, but the moon is not at all
      motionless and dead; quite the reverse, for, according to the Abbé,
      one would say that our moon herself, or at least her living double,
      lighted the picture. Each phase, each aspect, each movement of our
      satellite, is repeated in her facsimile, in the movement and
      progress of the moon in the sacred picture. “You see this planet in
      the painting ride as a crescent, or full, shine brightly, pass
      behind the clouds, peep out or set, in a manner corresponding in the
      most extraordinary way with the real luminary. It is, in a word, a
      most perfect and resplendent reproduction of the pale queen of the
      night, which received the adoration of so many people in the days of
      old.” We know from the most reliable sources and numerous eye‐
      witnesses, that such “machines”—not canvas paintings—do exist in
      certain temples of Tibet; as also the “sidereal wheels” representing
      the planets, and kept for the same purposes—astrological and
      magical. Huc’s statement was translated in _Isis Unveiled_ from Des
      Mousseaux’s volume.

  609 Cedrenus, p. 338. Whether produced by _clockwork_ or _magic_ power,
      such machines—whole celestial spheres with planets rotating—were
      found in the Sanctuaries, and some exist to this day in Japan, in a
      secret subterranean temple of the old Mikados, as well as in two
      other places.

  610 Champollion’s _Égypte Moderne_, p. 42.

  611 _Musée des Sciences_, p. 230.

  612 Translated by the Vicomte de Rougemont. See _Les Annales de
      Philosophie Chrétienne_, 7th year, 1861.

  613 _Isaiah_, lxiii. 9.

  614 Chapter xii. of _Revelation_: “There was war in heaven, Mikael and
      his angels fought against the Dragon,” etc. (7) and the great dragon
      was cast out (9).

  615 He is also the informing Spirit of the Sun and Jupiter, and even of
      Venus.

  616 _Dogme et Rituel_, ii. 116.

  617 If enumerated, they will be found to be the Hindu “divisions” and
      choirs of Devas, and the Dhyân Chohans of Esoteric Buddhism.

  618 But this fact has not prevented the Roman Church from adopting them
      all the same, accepting them from ignorant, though perchance sincere
      Church Fathers, who had borrowed them from Kaballists—Jews and
      Pagans.

  619 To call “usurpers” those who preceded the Christian Beings for whose
      benefit these same titles were borrowed, is carrying paradoxical
      anachronism a little too far!

  620 Or the _divine ages_, the “days and years of Brahmâ.”

  621 De Mirville, ii. 325, 326. So we say too. And this shows that it is
      to the Kabalists and _Magicians_ that the Church is indebted for her
      dogmas and names. Paul never condemned _real_ Gnosis, but the
      _false_ one, now accepted by the Church.

  622 Sesostris, or Pharaoh Ramses II., whose mummy was unswathed in 1886
      by Maspero of the Bulak Museum, and recognised as that of the
      greatest king of Egypt, whose grandson, Ramses III. was the last
      king of an ancient kingdom.

  623 _Op. cit._, p. 422.

  624 _Summa_, Quest. xv. Art. v., upon Astrologers, and Vol. III. pp.
      2‐29.

  625 “The principalities and powers [born] in heavenly places” (_Ephes._,
      iii. 10). The verse, “For though there be that are called Gods,
      whether in heaven or on earth, as there be Gods many and lords many”
      (I. _Corinth._, viii. 5), shows, at any rate, the recognition by
      Paul of a plurality of “Gods” whom he calls “dæmons”
      (“spirits”—never _devils_). Principalities, Thrones, Dominions,
      Rectors, etc. are all Jewish and Christian names for the Gods of the
      ancients—the Archangels and Angels of the former being in every case
      the Devas and the Dhyân Chohans of the more ancient religions.

  626 Answer by Reuvens to Letronne with regard to his mistaken notions
      about the Zodiac of Dendera.

  627 St. Augustine (_De Gen._, I. iii.) and Delrio (_Disquisit._, Vol.
      IV., chap. iii.) are quoted by De Mirville, to show that “the more
      astrologers speak the truth and the better they prophesy it, the
      more one has to feel diffident, seeing that their agreement with the
      devil becomes thereby the more apparent.” The famous statement made
      by Juvenal (_Satires_, vi.) to the effect that “not one single
      astrologer could be found who did not pay dearly for the help he
      received from his genius”—no more proves the latter to be a devil
      than the death of Socrates proves his daimon to have been a native
      from the nether world—if such there be. Such argument only
      demonstrates human stupidity and wickedness, once reason is made
      subservient to prejudice and fanaticism of every sort. “Most of the
      great writers of antiquity, Cicero and Tacitus among them, believed
      in Astrology and the realization of its prophecies;” and “the
      penalty of death decreed nearly everywhere against those
      mathematicians [astrologers] who happened to predict falsely
      diminished neither their number nor their tranquillity of mind.”

  628 _Preparatio Evangelica_, I. xiv.

  629 _Ast._, iv. 60.

  630 _Hist._, I. ii.

  631 All these particulars may be found more fully and far more
      completely in Champollion Figeac’s _Égypte_.

  632 _Op. cit._, p. 230.

  633 _Op. cit._, p. 230.

  634 In the 1,326 places in the _New Testament_ where the word “God” is
      mentioned nothing signifies that in God are included more beings
      than God. On the contrary in 17 places God is called the only God.
      The places where the Father is so‐called amount to 320. In 105
      places God is addressed with high‐sounding titles. In 90 places all
      prayers and thanks are addressed to the Father; 300 times in the
      _New Testament_ is the Son declared to be inferior to the Father; 85
      times is Jesus called the “Son of Man;” 70 times is he called a man.
      In not one single place in the bible is it said that God holds
      within him three different Beings or Persons, and yet is one Being
      or Person.—Dr. Karl von Bergen’s _Lectures in Sweden_.

  635 Kali Yuga, the Black or Iron Age.

  636 Virgil, _Eclogue_, iv.

  637 At the close of our Race, people, it is said, through suffering and
      discontent will become more spiritual. Clairvoyance will become a
      general faculty. We shall be approaching the spiritual state of the
      Third and Second Races.

  638 _Vishnu Purâna_, IV., xxiv. 228, Wilson’s translation.

  639 _Op. cit._, p. 212.

  640 At any rate, the temple secret meaning was the same.

  641 _Asiat. Res._, vol. viii. p. 470, _et seq._

  642 _Theosophist_, August, 1881.

  643 Aug., 1881 to Feb., 1882.

  644 _Loc. cit._, iv. 127.

  645 _Theosophist_, vol. iii. p. 22.

  646 The impartial study of Vaidic and Post‐Vaidic works shows that the
      ancient Âryans knew well the precession of the equinoxes, and “that
      they changed their position from a certain asterism to two
      (occasionally three) asterisms back whenever the precession amounted
      to two, properly speaking, to 2 11/61 asterisms or about 29°, being
      the motion of the sun in a lunar month, and so caused the seasons to
      fall back a complete lunar month.... It appears certain that at the
      date of _Sûrya Siddhânta_, _Brahmâ Siddânta_, and other ancient
      treatises on astronomy, the vernal equinoctial point had not
      actually reached the beginning of Ashvinî, but was a few degrees
      east of it.... The astronomers of Europe change westward the
      beginning of Aries and of all other signs of the Zodiac every year
      by about 50" 25, and thus make the names of the signs meaningless.
      But these signs are as much fixed as the asterisms themselves, and
      hence the Western astronomers of the present day appear to us in
      this respect less wary and scientific in their observations than
      their very ancient brethren—the Âryas.”—_Theosophist_, iii. 23.

  647 A great deal of misconception is raised by a confusion of planes of
      being and misuse of expressions. For instance, certain spiritual
      states have been confounded with the Nirvâna of BUDDHA. The Nirvâna
      of BUDDHA is totally different from any other spiritual state of
      Samâdhi or even the highest Theophania enjoyed by lesser Adepts.
      After physical death the kinds of spiritual states reached by Adepts
      differ greatly.

  648 This region is the one possible point of conciliation between the
      two diametrically opposed poles of religion and science, the one
      with its barren fields of dogmas on faith, the other over‐running
      with empty hypotheses, both overgrown with the weeds of error. They
      will never meet. The two are at feud, at an everlasting warfare with
      each other, but this does not prevent them from uniting against
      Esoteric Philosophy, which for two millenniums has had to fight
      against infallibility in both directions, or “mere vanity and
      pretence” as Antoninus defined it, and now finds the materialism of
      Modern Science arrayed against its truths.

  649 Whence some of the Gnostic ideas? Cerinthus taught that the world
      and Jehovah having fallen off from virtue and primitive dignity the
      Supreme permitted one of his glorious Æons, whose name was the
      “Anointed” (Christ) to incarnate in the man Jesus. Basilides denied
      the reality of the body of Jesus, and calling it an “illusion” held
      that it was Simon of Cyrene who suffered on the Cross in his stead.
      All such teachings are echoes of the Eastern Doctrines.

  650 A genuine initiated Adept will retain his Adeptship, though there
      may be for our world of illusion numberless incarnations of him. The
      propelling power that lies at the root of a series of such
      incarnations is not Karma, as ordinarily understood, but a still
      more inscrutable power. During the period of his lives the Adept
      does not lose his Adeptship, though he cannot rise in it to a higher
      degree.

  651 From the so‐called Brahmâ Loka—the seventh and higher world, beyond
      which all is arûpa, formless, purely spiritual—to the lowest world
      and insect, or even to an object such as a leaf, there is perpetual
      revolution of the condition of existence, evolution and re‐birth.
      Some human beings attain states or spheres from which there is only
      a return in a new Kalpa (a day of Brahmâ); there are other states or
      spheres from which there is only return after 100 years of Brahmâ
      (Mahâ‐Kalpa, a period covering 311,040,000,000,000 years). Nirvâna,
      it is said, is a state from which there is no return. Yet it is
      maintained that there may be, as exceptional cases, re‐incarnation
      from that state; only such incarnations are illusion, like
      everything else on this plane, as will be shown.

  652 This fact of the disappearance of the vehicle of Egotism in the
      fully developed Yogî, who is supposed to have reached Nirvâna on
      earth, years before his corporeal death, has led to the law in Manu,
      sanctioned by millenniums of Brâhmanical authority, that such a
      Paramâtmâ should be held as absolutely blameless and free from sin
      or responsibility, do whatever he may (see last chapter of the _Laws
      of Manu_). Indeed, caste itself—that most despotic, uncompromising
      and autocratic tyrant in India—can be broken with impunity by the
      Yogî, who is above caste. This will give the key to our statements.

  653 [The word “Adept” is very loosely used by H. P. B., who often seems
      to have implied by it no more than the possession of special
      knowledge of some kind. Here it seems to mean first an uninitiated
      disciple and then an initiated one.—EDS.]

  654 About fifty years before the birth of Copernicus, de Cusa wrote as
      follows: “Though the world may not be absolutely infinite, no one
      can represent it to himself as finite, since human reason is
      incapable of assigning to it any term.... For in the same way that
      our earth cannot be in the centre of the Universe, as thought, no
      more could the sphere of the fixed stars be in it.... Thus this
      world is like a vast machine, having its centre [Deity] everywhere,
      and its circumference nowhere [_machina mundi, quasi habens ubique
      centrum, et nullibi circumferentiam_].... Hence, the earth not being
      in the centre, cannot therefore be motionless ... and though it is
      far smaller than the sun, one must not conclude for all that, that
      she is worse [_vilior_—more vile].... One cannot see whether its
      inhabitants are superior to those who dwell nearer to the sun, or in
      other stars, as sidereal space cannot be deprived of inhabitants....
      The earth, very likely [_fortasse_] one of the smallest globes, is
      nevertheless the cradle of intelligent beings, most noble and
      perfect.” One cannot fail to agree with the biographer of Cardinal
      de Cusa, who, having no suspicion of the Occult truth, and the
      reason of such erudition in a writer of the fourteenth and fifteenth
      centuries, simply marvels at such a miraculous foreknowledge, and
      attributes it to God, saying of him that he was a man incomparable
      in every kind of philosophy, by whom many a theological mystery
      inaccessible to the human mind (!), veiled and neglected for
      centuries (_velata et neglecta_) were once more brought to light.
      “Pascal might have read De Cusa’s works; but whence could the
      Cardinal have borrowed his ideas?” asks Moreri. Evidently from
      Hermes and the works of Pythagoras, even if the mystery of his
      incarnation and re‐incarnation be dismissed.

  655 This is the secret meaning of the statements about the Hierarchy of
      Prajâpatis or Rishis. First seven are mentioned, then ten, then
      twenty‐one, and so on. They are “Gods” and creators of men—many of
      them the “Lords of Beings”; they are the “Mind‐born Sons” of Brahmâ,
      and then they became mortal heroes, and are often shown as of a very
      sinful character. The Occult meaning of the Biblical Patriarchs,
      their genealogy, and their descendants dividing among themselves the
      earth, is the same. Again, Jacob’s dream has the same significance.

  656 He “of the Seven Virtues” is one who, without the benefit of
      Initiation, becomes as pure as any Adept by the simple exertion of
      his own merit. Being so holy, his body at his next incarnation
      becomes the Avatâra of his “Watcher” or Guardian Angel, as the
      Christian would put it.

  657 The title of the highest Dhyân Chohans.

  658 _Op. cit._, ii. 367.

  659 “After death, the soul continueth in the aerial (astral) body, till
      it is entirely purified from all angry, sensual passions; then doth
      it put off by a _second death_ [when arising to Devachan] the aerial
      body as it did the earthly one. Wherefore the ancients say that
      there is a celestial body always joined with the soul, which is
      immortal, luminous and star‐like.” It becomes natural then, that the
      “aerial body” of an Adept should have no such second dying, since it
      has been cleansed of all its natural impurity before its separation
      from the physical body. The high Initiate is a “Son of the
      Resurrection,” “being equal unto the angels,” and cannot die any
      more (see _Luke_, xx. 36).

  660 _St. John_, xxi. 21.

  661 See the extract made in the _Theosophist_ from a glorious novel by
      Dostoievsky—a fragment entitled “The Great Inquisitor.” It is a
      fiction, naturally, still a sublime fiction of Christ returning in
      Spain during the palmy days of the Inquisition, and being imprisoned
      and put to death by the Inquisitor, who fears lest Christ should
      ruin the work of Jesuit hands.

  662 When we say the “great Teacher,” we do not mean His Buddhic Ego, but
      that principle in Him which was the vehicle of His personal or
      terrestrial Ego.

  663 _Five Years of Theosophy_, New Edition, p. 3.

  664 _Op. cit._, p. 175, Fifth Edition.

  665 It would be useless to raise objections from exoteric works to
      statements in this, which aims to expound, however superficially,
      the Esoteric Teachings alone. It is because they are misled by the
      exoteric doctrine that Bishop Bigandet and others aver that the
      notion of a supreme eternal Âdi‐Buddha is to be found only in
      writings of comparatively recent date. What is given here is taken
      from the secret portions of Dus Kyi Khorlo (Kâla Chakra, in
      Sanskrit, or the “Wheel of Time,” or duration).

  666 The three bodies are (1) the Nirmânakâya (Pru‐lpai‐Ku in Tibetan),
      in which the Bodhisattva after entering by the six Pâramitâs the
      Path to Nirvâna, appears to men in order to teach them; (2)
      Sambhogakâya (Dzog‐pai‐Ku), the, body of bliss impervious to all
      physical sensations, received by one who has fulfilled the three
      conditions of moral perfection; and (3) Dharmakâya (in Tibetan,
      Chos‐Ku), the Nirvânic body.

  667 _Five Years of Theosophy_, art. “Personal and Impersonal God,” p.
      129.

  668 Adhishtâthâ, the active or working agent in Prakriti (or matter).

  669 _Vedânta‐Sûtras_, Ad. I. Pâda iv. Shi. 23. Commentary. The passage
      is given as follows in Thibaut’s translation (Sacred Books of the
      East, xxxiv.), p. 286: “The Self is thus the operative cause,
      because there is no other ruling principle, and the material cause
      because there is no other substance from which the world could
      originate.”

  670 In _Five Years of Theosophy_ (art. “Shâkya Muni’s Place in History,”
      p. 234, note) it is stated that one day when our Lord sat in the
      Sattapanni Cave (Saptaparna) he compared man to a Saptaparna (seven
      leaved) plant.

      “Mendicants,” he said, “there are seven Buddhas in every Buddha, and
      there are _six_ Bhikshus and but one Buddha in each mendicant. What
      are the _seven_? The seven branches of complete knowledge. What are
      the _six_? The six organs of sense. What are the five? The five
      elements of illusive being. And the One which is also ten? He is a
      true Buddha who develops in him the ten forms of holiness and
      subjects them all to the One.” Which means that every principle in
      the Buddha was the highest that could be evolved on this earth;
      whereas in the case of other men who attain to Nirvâna this is not
      necessarily the case. Even as a mere human (Manushya) Buddha Gautama
      was a pattern for all men. But his Arhats were not necessarily so.

  671 See _Isis Unveiled_, ii., 132.

  672 “Before one becomes a Buddha he must be a Bodhisattva; before
      evolving into a Bodhisattva he must be a Dhyâni‐Buddha.... A
      Bodhisattva is the way and Path to his Father, and thence to the One
      Supreme Essence” (_Descent of Buddhas_, p. 17, from Âryâsanga). “I
      am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father
      but by me” (_St. John_, xiv. 6). The “way” is not the goal. Nowhere
      throughout the _New Testament_ is Jesus found calling himself God,
      or anything higher than “a son of God,” the son of a “Father” common
      to all, synthetically. Paul never said (I. _Tim._, iii. 10), “God
      was manifest in the flesh,” but “He who was manifested in the flesh”
      (Revised Edition). While the common herd among the Buddhists—the
      Burmese especially—regard Jesus as an incarnation of Devadatta, a
      relative who opposed the teachings of Buddha, the students of
      Esoteric Philosophy see in the Nazarene Sage a Bodhisattva with the
      spirit of Buddha Himself in Him.

  673 I. _Corinth._, xv. 36.

  674 _Op. cit._, Mandala x., hymn 90.

  675 Literally, “he who walks [or follows] in the way [or path] of his
      predecessors.”

  676 Schmidt, in _Slanong Seetsen_, p. 471, and Schlagintweit, in
      _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 53, accept these precious things
      _literally_, enumerating them as “the wheel, the precious stone, the
      royal consort, the best treasurer, the best horse, the elephant, the
      best leader.” After this one can little wonder if “besides a Dhyâni‐
      Buddhi and a Dhyâni‐Bodhisattva” each human Buddha is furnished with
      “a female companion, a Shakti”—when in truth “Shakti” is simply the
      Soul‐power, the psychic energy of the God as of the Adept. The
      “royal consort,” the third of the “seven precious gifts,” very
      likely led the learned Orientalist into this ludicrous error.

  677 A Bodhisattva can reach Nirvâna and live, as Buddha did, and after
      death he can either refuse objective reincarnation or accept and use
      it at his convenience for the benefit of mankind whom he can
      instruct in various ways while he remains in the Devachanic regions
      within the attraction of our earth. But having once reached
      Paranirvâna or “Nirvâna without remains”—the highest Dharmakâya
      condition, in which state he remains entirely outside of every
      earthly condition—he will return no more until the commencement of a
      new Manvantara, since he has crossed beyond the cycle of births.

  678 Tulpa is the voluntary incarnation of an Adept into a living body,
      whether of an adult, child, or new‐born babe.

  679 Ku‐sum is the triple form of the Nirvâna state and its respective
      duration in the “cycle of Non‐Being.” The number seven here refers
      to the seven Rounds of our septenary System.

  680 _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 52. This same generic use of a name is found
      among Hindus with that of Shankarâchârya, to take but one instance.
      All His successors bear his name, but are not reincarnations of Him.
      So with the “Buddhas.”

  681 [The words within brackets are supplied to introduce the following
      statements that are confused and contradictory as they stand, and
      which H. P. B. had probably intended to elucidate to some slight
      extent, as they are written two or three times with different
      sentences following them. The MS. is exceedingly confused, and
      everything H. P. B. said is here pieced together, the addition above
      made being marked in brackets to distinguish it from hers.—A. B.]

  682 King Suddhodana.

  683 There are several names marked simply by asterisks.

  684 Shankarâchârya died also at thirty‐two years of age, or rather
      disappeared from the sight of his disciples, as the legend goes.

  685 Does “Tiani‐Tsang” stand for Apollonius of Tyana? This is a simple
      surmise. Some things in the life of that Adept would seem to tally
      with the hypothesis—others to go against it.

  686 According to Esoteric teaching Buddha lived one hundred years in
      reality, though having reached Nirvâna in his eightieth year he was
      regarded as one dead to the world of the living. See article
      “Shâkyamuni’s Place in History” in _Five Years of Theosophy_.

  687 It is a _secret_ rite, pertaining to high Initiation, and has the
      same significance as the one to which Clement of Alexandria alludes
      when he speaks of “the token of recognition being in common with us,
      as by cutting off Christ” (Strom., 13). Schlagintweit wonders what
      it may be. “The typical representation of a hermit,” he says, “is
      always that of a man with long, uncut hair and beard.... A rite very
      often selected, though I am unable to state for what reason, is that
      of Chod (‘to cut’ or ‘to destroy’) the meaning of which is anxiously
      kept a profound secret by the Lamas.” (_Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 163.)

  688 Hlun‐Chub is the divining spirit in man, the highest degree of
      seership.

  689 The secret meaning of this sentence is that Karma exercises its sway
      over the Adept as much as over any other man; “Gods” can escape it
      as little as simple mortals. The Adept who, having reached the Path
      and won His Dharmakâya—the Nirvâna from which there is no return
      until the new grand Kalpa—prefers to use His right of choosing a
      condition inferior to that which belongs to Him, but that will leave
      him free to return whenever He thinks it advisable and under
      whatever personality He may select, must be prepared to take all the
      chances of failure—possibly—and a lower condition than was His
      lot—for a certainty—as it is an occult law. Karma alone is absolute
      justice and infallible in its selections. He who uses his rights
      with it (Karma) must bear the consequences—if any. Thus Buddha’s
      first reincarnation was produced by Karma—and it led Him higher than
      ever; the two following were “out of pity” and * * *.

  690 The Universe of Brahmâ (Sien‐Chan; Nam‐Kha) is Universal Illusion,
      or our phenomenal world.

  691 Âkâsha. It is next to impossible to render the mystic word “Tho‐og”
      by any other term than “Space,” and yet, unless coined on purpose,
      no new appellation can render it so well to the mind of the
      Occultist. The term “Aditi” is also translated “Space,” and there is
      a world of meaning in it.

  692 Dang‐ma, a purified soul, and Lha, a freed spirit within a living
      body; an Adept or Arhat. In the popular opinion in Tibet, a Lha is a
      disembodied spirit, something similar to the Burmese Nat—only
      higher.

  693 Kwan‐yin is a synonym, for in the original another term is used, but
      the meaning is identical. It is the divine voice of Self, or the
      “Spirit‐voice” in man, and the same as Vâchîshvara (the “Voice‐
      deity”) of the Brâhmans. In China, the Buddhist ritualists have
      degraded its meaning by anthropomorphizing it into a Goddess of the
      same name, with one thousand hands and eyes, and they call it Kwan‐
      shai‐yin‐Bodhisat. It is the Buddhist “daïmon”‐voice of Socrates.

  694 Sangharama is the _sanctum sanctorum_ of an ascetic, a cave or any
      place he chooses for his meditation.

  695 Amitâbha Buddha is in this connection the “boundless light” by which
      things of the subjective world are perceived.

  696 Esoterically, “the unsurpassingly merciful and enlightened heart,”
      said of the “Perfect Ones,” the Jîvan‐muktas, collectively.

  697 These six worlds—seven with us—are the worlds of Nats or Spirits,
      with the Burmese Buddhists, and the seven higher worlds of the
      Vedântins.

  698 Two things entirely distinct from each other. The “faculty is not
      distinguished from the subject” only on this material plane, while
      thought generated by our physical brain, one that has never
      impressed itself at the same time on the spiritual counterpart,
      whether through the atrophy of the latter or the intrinsic weakness
      of that thought, can never survive our body; this much is sure.

  699 _Vedânta Sâra_, translated by Major Jacob, p. 123.

  700 Aditi is, according to the _Rig Veda_, “the Father and Mother of all
      the Gods”; and Âkâsha is held by Southern Buddhism as the Root of
      all, whence everything in the Universe came out, in obedience to a
      law of motion inherent in it; and this is the Tibetan “Space” (Tho‐
      og).

  701 _Mânava‐Dharma‐Shâstra_, i. 6, 7.

  702 The “God” of Pythagoras, the disciple of the Âryan Sages, is no
      personal God. Let it be remembered that he taught as a cardinal
      tenet that there exists a permanent Principle of Unity beneath all
      forms, changes, and other phenomena of the Universe.

  703 _Isis Unveiled_, i. xvi.

  704 _Isis Unveiled_, i. xviii.

  705 _Isis Unveiled_ i. 58.

  706 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 59.

  707 While they are to a great extent identical with those of Esoteric
      Buddhism, the Secret Doctrine of the East.

  708 _Parerga_, II. iii. 112; quoted in _Isis Unveiled_, i. 58.

  709 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 338, _et seq._

  710 Prof. Max Müller, in a letter to _The Times_ (April, 1857),
      maintained most vehemently that Nirvâna meant _annihilation_ in the
      fullest sense of the word. (_Chips from a German Workshop_, i. 287.)
      But in 1869, in a lecture before the General Meeting of the
      Association of German Philologists at Kiel, “he distinctly declares
      his belief that the Nihilism attributed to Buddha’s teaching forms
      no part of his doctrine, and that it is wholly wrong to suppose that
      Nirvâna means annihilation.” (Trubner’s _Amer. and Oriental Lit.
      Rec._, Oct. 16th, 1869.)

  711 See the _Kalama Sutta_ of the _Anguttaranikayo_, as quoted in _A
      Buddhist Catechism_, by H. S. Olcott, President of the Theosophical
      Society, pp. 55, 56.

  712 _Œdipus Ægypt._, II. i. 291.

  713 Sephir, or Aditi (mystic Space). The Sephiroth, be it understood,
      are identical with the Hindu Prajâpatis, the Dhyân Chohans of
      Esoteric Buddhism, the Zoroastrian Amshaspends, and finally with the
      Elohim—the “Seven Angels of the Presence” of the Roman Catholic
      Church.

  714 According to the Eastern idea, the All comes out from the One, and
      returns to it again. Absolute annihilation is simply unthinkable.
      Nor can eternal Matter be annihilated. Form may be annihilated: co‐
      relations may change. That is all. There can be no such thing as
      annihilation—in the European sense—in the Universe.

  715 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 289.

  716 The Secret Law, the “Doctrine of the Heart,” so called in contrast
      to the “Doctrine of the Eye,” or exoteric Buddhism.

  717 “Illusive matter in its triple manifestation in the earthly, and the
      astral or fontal Soul (the body), and the Platonian dual Soul—the
      rational and the irrational one.”

  718 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 289.

  719 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 290.

  720 It is from the texts of all these works that the Secret Doctrine has
      been given. The original matter would not make a small pamphlet, but
      the explanations and notes from the Commentaries and Glossaries
      might be worked into ten volumes as large as _Isis Unveiled_.

  721 The monk Della Penna makes considerable fun in his _Memoirs_ (see
      Markham’s _Tibet_) of certain statements in the Books of Kiu‐te. He
      brings to the notice of the Christian public “the great mountain
      160,000 leagues high” (a Tibetan league consisting of five miles) in
      the Himâlayan Range. “According to their law,” he says, “in the west
      of this world is an eternal world ... a paradise, and in it a Saint
      called Hopahma, which means ‘Saint of Splendour and Infinite Light.’
      This Saint has many disciples who are all Chang‐chub,” which means,
      he adds in a footnote, “the Spirits of those who, on account of
      their perfection, do not care to become saints, and train and
      instruct the bodies of the reborn Lamas ... so that they may help
      the living.” Which means that the presumably “dead” Yang‐Chhub (not
      “Chang‐chub”) are simply living Bodhisattvas, some of those known as
      Bhante (“the Brothers”). As to the “mountain 160,000 leagues high,”
      the _Commentary_ which gives the key to such statements explains
      that according to the code used by the writers, “to the west of the
      ‘Snowy Mountain’ 160 leagues [the cyphers being a blind] from a
      certain spot and by a direct road, is the Bhante Yul [the country or
      ‘Seat of the Brothers’], the residence of Mahâ‐Chohan ...” etc. This
      is the real meaning. The “Hopahma” of Della Penna is—the
      Mahâ‐Chohan, the Chief.

  722 In some MSS. notes before us, written by Gelung (priest) Thango‐pa
      Chhe‐go‐mo, it is said: “The few Roman Catholic missionaries who
      have visited our land (under protest) in the last century and have
      repaid our hospitality by turning our sacred literature into
      ridicule, have shown little discretion and still less knowledge. It
      is true that the Sacred Canon of the Tibetans, the _Kahgyur_ and
      _Bstanhgyur_, comprises 1707 distinct works—1083 public and 624
      secret volumes, the former being composed of 350 and the latter of
      77 volumes folio. May we humbly invite the good missionaries,
      however, to tell us when they ever succeeded in getting a glimpse of
      the last‐named secret folios? Had they even by chance seen them I
      can assure the Western Pandits that these manuscripts and folios
      could never be understood even by a born Tibetan without a key (_a_)
      to their peculiar characters, and (_b_) to their hidden meaning. In
      our system every description of locality is figurative, every name
      and word purposely veiled; and one has first to study the mode of
      deciphering and then to learn the equivalent secret terms and
      symbols for nearly every word of the religious language. The
      Egyptian enchorial or hieratic system is child’s play to our
      sacerdotal puzzles.”

  723 _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 171.

  724 “Buddhi” is a Sanskrit term for “discrimination” or intellect (the
      sixth principle), and “Buddha” is “wise,” “wisdom,” and also the
      planet Mercury.

  725 This curious contradiction may be found in _Chinese Buddhism_, pp.
      171, 273. The reverend author assures his readers that “to the
      philosophic Buddhists ... Amitâbha Yoshi Fo, and the others are
      nothing but the signs of ideas” (p. 236). Very true. But so should
      be all other deific names, such as Jehovah, Allah, etc., and if they
      are not simply “signs of ideas” this would only show that minds that
      receive them otherwise are not “philosophic”; it would not at all
      afford serious proof that there are personal, living Gods of these
      names in reality.

  726 The Chinese Amitâbha (Wu‐liang‐sheu) and the Tibetan Amitâbha
      (Odpag‐med) have now become personal Gods, ruling over and living in
      the celestial region of Sukhâvatî, or Tushita (Tibetan: Devachan);
      while Âdi‐Buddhi, of the philosophic Hindu, and Amita Buddha of the
      philosophic Chinaman and Tibetan, are names for universal, primeval
      ideas.

  727 See _Theosophist_ for March, 1882.

  728 The intimate relation of the twenty‐five Buddhas (Bodhisattvas) with
      the twenty‐five Tattvas (the Conditioned or Limited) of the Hindus
      is interesting.

  729 It is curious to note the great importance given by European
      Orientalists to the Dalaï Lamas of Lhassa, and their utter ignorance
      as to the Tda‐shu (or Teshu) Lamas, while it is the latter who began
      the hierarchical series of Buddha‐incarnations, and are _de facto_
      the “popes” in Tibet; the Dalaï Lamas are the creations of Nabang‐
      lob‐Sang, the Tda‐shu Lama, who was Himself the sixth incarnation of
      Amita, through Tsong Kha‐pa, though very few seem to be aware of
      that fact.

  730 The chanting of a Mantra is not a prayer, but rather a magical
      sentence in which the law of Occult causation connects itself with,
      and depends on, the will and acts of its singer. It is a succession
      of Sanskrit sounds, and when its string of words and sentences is
      pronounced according to the magical formulæ in the _Atharva Veda_,
      but understood by the few, some Mantras produce an instantaneous and
      very wonderful effect. In its esoteric sense it contains the Vâch
      (the “mystic speech”), which resides in the Mantra, or rather in its
      sounds, since it is according to the vibrations, one way or the
      other, of ether that the effect is produced. The “sweet singers”
      were called by that name because they were experts in Mantras. Hence
      the legend in China that the singing and melody of the Lohans are
      heard at dawn by the priests from their cells in the monastery of
      Fang‐Kwang. (See _Biography of Chi‐Kai_ in Tien‐tai‐nan‐tchi.)

  731 The celebrated Lohan, Mâdhyantika, who converted the king and whole
      country of Kashmir to Buddhism, sent a body of Lohans to preach the
      Good Law. He was the sculptor who raised to Buddha the famous statue
      one hundred feet high, which Hiuen‐Tsaung saw at Dardu, to the north
      of the Punjab. As the same Chinese traveller mentions a temple ten
      Li from Peshawur—350 feet round and 850 feet high—which was at his
      time (A.D. 550) already 850 years old, Koeppen thinks that so far
      back as 292 B.C. Buddhism was the prevalent religion in the Punjab.

  732 A title of the Tda‐shu‐Hlum‐po Lama.

  733 The twelve Nidâwas, called in Tibetan Tin‐brel Chug‐nyi, which are
      based upon the “Four Truths.”

  734 The Srotâpatti is one who has attained the _first_ Path of
      comprehension in the real and the unreal; the Sakridâgâmin is the
      candidate for one of the higher Initiations: “one who is to receive
      birth once more;” the Anâgâmin is he who has attained the “third
      Path,” or literally, “he who will not be reborn again” _unless he so
      wishes it_, having the option of being reborn in any of the “worlds
      of the Gods,” or of remaining in Devachan, or of choosing an earthly
      body with a philanthropic object. An Arhat is one who has reached
      the highest Path; he may merge into Nirvâna at will, while here on
      earth.

  735 [The Pratyeka Buddha stands on the level of the Buddha, but His work
      for the world has nothing to do with its teaching, and His office
      has always been surrounded with mystery. The preposterous view that
      He, at such superhuman height of power, wisdom and love could be
      selfish, is found in the exoteric books, though it is hard to see
      how it can have arisen. H. P. B. charged me to correct the mistake,
      as she had, in a careless moment, copied such a statement
      elsewhere.—A. B.]

  736 It is an erroneous idea which makes the Orientalists take literally
      the teaching of the Mahâyâna School about the three different kinds
      of bodies, namely, the Prulpa‐ku, the Longehod‐drocpaig‐ku, and the
      Chos‐ku, as all pertaining to the Nirvânic condition. There are two
      kinds of Nirvâna: the earthly, and that of the purely disembodied
      Spirits. These three “bodies” are the three envelopes—all more or
      less physical—which are at the disposal of the Adept who has entered
      and crossed the six Pâramitâs, or “Paths” of Buddha. Once He enters
      upon the seventh, He can return no more to earth. See Cosma, _Jour.
      As. Soc. Beng._, vii. 142; and Schott, _Buddhismus_, p. 9, who give
      it otherwise.

  737 _Vedânta Sâra_, translated by Major Jacob, p. 119.

  738 _Ibid._, p. 122.

  739 _Der Buddhismus_, pp. 327, 357, _et seq._, quoted by Schlagintweit.

  740 _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 41.

  741 _Jour. of As. Soc. Bengal_, vii. 144, quoted as above.

  742 _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 44.

  743 They maintain also the existence of One Absolute pure Nature,
      Parabrahman; the illusion of everything outside of it; the leading
      of the individual Soul—a Ray of the “Universal”—into the true nature
      of existence and things by Yoga alone.

  744 Nirmânakâya (also Nirvânakâya, vulg.) is the body or Self “with
      remains,” or the influence of terrestrial attributes, however
      spiritualized, clinging yet to that Self. An Initiate in Dharmakâya,
      or in Nirvâna “without remains,” is the Jivanmukta, the Perfect
      Initiate, who separates his Higher Self entirely from his body
      during Samâdhi. [It will be noticed that these two words are here
      used in a sense other than that previously given.—A. B.]

  745 The “Sacred” Books of Dus‐Kyi Khorlo (“Time Circle”). See _Jour. As.
      Soc._, ii. 57. These works were abandoned to the Sikkhim Dugpas,
      from the time of Tsong‐Kha‐pa’s reform.

  746 _Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms_, art. “Yoga,” quoted in
      _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 47.

  747 _Buddhism in Tibet_, pp. 47, 48.

  748 _Buddhism in Tibet_, pp. 63, 64. The objects found in the casket, as
      enumerated in the exoteric legend, are of course symbolical. They
      may be found mentioned in the _Kanjur_. They were said to be: (1)
      two hands joined; (2) a miniature Choten (Stûpa, or reliquary); (3)
      a talisman with “Om mani padme hum” inscribed on it; (4) a religious
      book, _Zamatog_ (“a constructed vehicle”).

  749 _Alterthumskunde_, ii. 1072.

  750 _Op. cit._, ii. 470.

  751 Unless one obtains exact information and the right method, one’s
      visions, however correct and true in Soul‐life, will ever fail to
      get photographed in our human memory, and certain cells of the brain
      are sure to play havoc with our remembrances.

  752 _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 158. The Rev. Joseph Edkins either ignores,
      or—which is more probable—is utterly ignorant of the real existence
      of such Schools, and judges by the Chinese travesties of these,
      calling such Esotericism “heterodox Buddhism.” And so it is, in one
      sense.

  753 That country—India—has lost the records of such Schools and their
      teachings only so far as the general public, and especially the
      inappreciative Western Orientalists, are concerned. It has preserved
      them in full in some Mathams (refuges for mystic contemplation). But
      it may perhaps be better to seek them with, and from, their rightful
      owners, the so‐called “mythical” Adepts, or Mahâtmâs.

  754 _Chinese Buddhism_, pp. 155‐159.

  755 They certainly reject most emphatically the popular theory of the
      transmigration of human entities or Souls _into_ animals, but not
      the evolution of men _from_ animals—so far, at least, as their lower
      principles are concerned.

  756 It is quite consistent, on the contrary, when explained in the light
      of the Esoteric Doctrine. The “Western paradise,” or Western heaven,
      is no fiction located in transcendental space. It is a _bonâ‐fide_
      locality in the mountains, or, to be more correct, one encircled in
      a desert within mountains. Hence it is assigned for the residence of
      those students of Esoteric Wisdom—disciples of Buddha—who have
      attained the rank of Lohans and Anâgâmins (Adepts). It is called
      “Western” simply from geographical considerations; and “the great
      iron mountain girdle” that surrounds the Avitchi, and the seven
      Lokas that encircle the “Western paradise” are a very exact
      representation of well‐known localities and things to the Eastern
      student of Occultism.

  757 The word is translated by the Orientalists as “true man without a
      position,” (?) which is very misleading. It simply means the true
      inner man, or Ego, “Buddha _within_ Buddha” meaning that there was a
      Gautama _inwardly_ as well as _outwardly_.

  758 One of the titles of Gautama Buddha in Tibet.

  759 The “Esoteric” Schools, or sects, of which there are many in China.

  760 A school of contemplation founded by Hiuen‐Tsang, the traveller,
      nearly extinct. Fa‐siong‐Tsung means “the School that unveils the
      inner nature of things.”

  761 Esoteric, or hidden, teaching of Yoga (Chinese: Yogi‐mi‐kean).

  762 The “tonsure knife” is made of _meteoric_ iron, and is used for the
      purpose of cutting off the “vow‐lock,” or hair from the novice’s
      head during his first ordination. It has a double‐edged blade, is
      sharp as a razor, and lies concealed within a hollow handle of horn.
      By touching a spring the blade jerks out like a flash of lightning,
      and recedes back with the same rapidity. A great dexterity is
      required in using it without wounding the head of the young Gelung
      and Gelung‐ma (candidates to become priests and nuns) during the
      preliminary rites, which are public.

  763 Chagpa‐Thog‐mad is the Tibetan name of Âryâsanga, the founder of the
      Yogâchârya or Naljorchodpa School. This Sage and Initiate is said to
      have been taught “Wisdom” by Maitreya Buddha Himself, the Buddha of
      the Sixth Race, at Tushita (a celestial region presided over by
      Him), and as having received from Him the five books of
      _Champaitehos‐nga_. The Secret Doctrine teaches, however, that he
      came from Dejung, or Shambhalla, called the “source of happiness”
      (“wisdom‐acquired”) and declared by some Orientalists to be a
      “fabulous” place.

  764 It may not be, perhaps, amiss to remind the reader of the fact that
      the “mirror” was a part of the symbolism of the Thesmophoria, a
      portion of the Eleusinian Mysteries; and that it was used in the
      search for Atmu, the “Hidden One,” or “Self.” In his excellent paper
      on the above‐named mysteries, Dr. Alexander Wilder of New York says:
      “Despite the assertion of Herodotus and others that the Bacchic
      Mysteries were Egyptian, there exists strong probability that they
      came originally from India, and were Shaivitic or Buddhistical.
      Kore‐Persep‐honeia was but the goddess Parasu‐pani, or Bhavani, and
      Zagreus is from Chakra, a country extending from ocean to ocean. If
      this is a Turanian story we can easily recognise the ‘horns’ as the
      crescent worn by Lama‐priests, and assume the whole legend [the
      fable of Dionysus‐Zagreus] to be based on Lama‐succession and
      transmigration.... The whole story of Orpheus ... has a Hindu ring
      all through.” The tale of “Lama‐succession and transmigration” did
      not originate with the Lamas, who date themselves only so far back
      as the seventh century, but with the Chaldæans and the Brâhmans,
      still earlier.

  765 The state of absolute freedom from any sin or desire.

  766 The state during which an Adept sees the long series of his past
      births, and lives through all his previous incarnations in this and
      the other worlds. (See the admirable description in the _Light of
      Asia_, p. 166, 1884 ed.)

  767 See _supra_, ii. 188, 189.

  768 Wilson’s translation, as amended by Fitzedward Hall, i. 40.

  769 Prâna is in reality the universal Life Principle.

  770 All the uterine contents, having a direct spiritual connection with
      their cosmic antetypes, are, on the physical plane, potent objects
      in Black Magic, and are therefore considered unclean.

  771 See _supra_, ii. Part I.

  772 The Solar System or the Earth, as the case may be.

  773 So are the animals, the plants, and even the minerals. Reichenbach
      never understood what he learned through his sensitives and
      clairvoyants. It _is_ the odic, or rather the auric or magnetic
      fluid which emanates from man, but it is also something more.

  774 See _supra_, i. 181, for the Vedântic exoteric enumeration.

  775 See _Lucifer_, January, 1889, “Dialogue upon the Mysteries of After‐
      Life.”

  776 See _supra_, i, 626‐629.

  777 See _supra_, i, 228, _et seq._, and ii. _passim_.

  778 _Op. cit._, ii, 456, 461, 465 _et seq._

  779 _Jod‐Hevah_, or male‐female on the terrestrial plane, as invented by
      the Jews, and now made out to mean Jehovah; but signifying in
      reality and literally, “giving being” and “receiving life.”

  780 See _Notice sur le Calendrier_, J. H. Ragon.

  781 See _supra_, ii. 373; and 152, _et seq._

  782 See _supra_, ii. 302, _et seq._

  783 _Op. cit._, ii. 81, 6.

  784 See Frank’s _Die Kabbala_, p. 314, _et seq._

  785 _Genesis_, ii. 7.

  786 _Supra_, i. 147.

  787 We may refer for confirmation to Origen’s works, who says that “the
      seven ruling daimons” (genii or planetary rulers) are Michael, the
      Sun (the lion‐like); the second in order, the Bull, Jupiter or
      Suriel, etc.; and all these, the “Seven of the Presence,” are the
      Sephiroth. The Sephirothal Tree is the Tree of the Divine Planets as
      given by Porphyry, or Porphyry’s Tree, as it is usually called.

  788 _Supra_, i, 147.

  789 Esoterically, green, there being no black in the prismatic ray.

  790 Esoterically, light blue. As a pigment, purple is a compound of red
      and blue, and in Eastern Occultism blue is the spiritual essence of
      the colour purple, while red is its material basis. In reality,
      Occultism makes Jupiter blue because he is the son of Saturn, which
      is green, and light blue as a prismatic colour contains a great deal
      of green. Again, the Auric Body will contain much of the colour of
      the Lower Manas if the man is a material sensualist, just as it will
      contain much of the darker hue if the Higher Manas has preponderance
      over the Lower.

  791 Esoterically, the Sun cannot correspond with the eye, nose, or any
      other organ, since, as explained, it is no planet, but a central
      star. It was adopted as a planet by the post‐Christian Astrologers,
      who had never been initiated. Moreover, the true colour of the Sun
      is blue, and it appears yellow only owing to the effect of the
      absorption of vapours (chiefly metallic) by its atmosphere. All is
      Mâyâ on our Earth.

  792 Esoterically, indigo, or dark blue, which is the complement of
      yellow in the prism. Yellow is a simple or primitive colour. Manas
      being dual in its nature—as is its sidereal symbol, the planet
      Venus, which is both the morning and evening star—the difference
      between the higher and the lower principles of Manas, whose essence
      is derived from the Hierarchy ruling Venus, is denoted by the dark
      blue and green. Green, the Lower Manas, resembles the colour of the
      solar spectrum which appears between the yellow and the dark blue,
      the Higher Spiritual Manas. Indigo is the intensified colour of the
      heaven or sky, to denote the upward tendency of Manas toward Buddhi,
      or the heavenly Spiritual Soul. This colour is obtained from the
      _indigofera tinctoria_, a plant of the highest occult properties in
      India, much used in White Magic, and occultly connected with copper.
      This is shown by the indigo assuming a copper lustre, especially
      when rubbed on any hard substance. Another property of the dye is
      that it is insoluble in water and even in ether, being lighter in
      weight than any known liquid. No symbol has ever been adopted in the
      East without being based upon a logical and demonstrable reason.
      Therefore Eastern Symbologists, from the earliest ages, have
      connected the spiritual and the animal minds of man, the one with
      dark blue (Newton’s indigo), or true blue, free from green; and the
      other with pure green.

  793 Esoterically, yellow, because the colour of the Sun is orange, and
      Mercury now stands next to the Sun in distance, as it does in
      colour. The planet for which the Sun is a substitute was still
      nearer the Sun than Mercury now is, and was one of the most secret
      and highest planets. It is said to have become invisible at the
      close of the Third Race.

  794 Esoterically, violet, because, perhaps, violet is the colour assumed
      by a ray of sunlight when transmitted through a very thin plate of
      silver, and also because the Moon shines upon the Earth with light
      borrowed from the Sun, as the human body shines with qualifications
      borrowed from its double—the aërial man. As the astral shadow starts
      the series of principles in man, on the terrestrial plane, up to the
      lower, animal Manas, so the violet ray starts the series of
      prismatic colours from its end up to green, both being, the one as a
      principle and the other as a colour, the most refrangible of all the
      principles and colours. Besides which, there is the same great
      Occult mystery attached to all these correspondences, both celestial
      and terrestrial bodies, colours and sounds. In clearer words, there
      exists the same law of relation between the Moon and the Earth, the
      astral and the living body of man, as between the violet end of the
      prismatic spectrum and the indigo and the blue. But of this more
      anon.

  795 Magic, _Magia_, means, in its spiritual, secret sense, the “Great
      Life,” or divine life _in spirit_. The root is _magh_, as seen in
      the Sanskrit _mahat_, Zend _maz_, Greek _megas_, and Latin _magnus_,
      all signifying “great.”

  796 _Philosophumena_, vi. 9.

  797 _Nous_, _Epinoia_; _Phône_, _Onoma_; _Logismos_, _Enthumêsis_.

  798 _Philosophumena_, vi. 12.

  799 See _supra_, _sub voce_.

  800 _The Great Revelation_ (_Hê Megalê Apophasis_), of which Simon
      himself is supposed to have been the author.

  801 Literally, standing opposite each other in rows or pairs.

  802 _Philosophumena_, vi. 18.

  803 _Op. cit._, vi. 18.

  804 _Op. cit._, i. 13.

  805 _Op. cit._, vi. 17.

  806 _Op. cit._, i. 5.

  807 _Philosophumena_, vi. 14.

  808 At first there are the omphalo‐mesenteric vessels, two arteries and
      two veins, but these afterwards totally disappear, as does the
      “vascular area” on the Umbilical Vesicle, from which they proceed.
      As regards the “Umbilical Vessels” proper, the Umbilical Cord
      ultimately has entwined around it from right to left the one
      Umbilical Vein which takes the oxygenated blood from the mother to
      the Fœtus, and two Hypogastric or Umbilical Arteries which take the
      used‐up blood from the Fœtus to the Placenta, the contents of the
      vessels being the reverse of that which prevails after birth. Thus
      Science corroborates the wisdom and knowledge of ancient Occultism,
      for in the days of Simon Magus no man, unless an Initiate, knew
      anything about the circulation of the blood or about Physiology.
      While this Paper was being printed, I received two small pamphlets
      from Dr. Jerome A. Anderson, which were printed in 1884 and 1888,
      and in which is to be found the scientific demonstration of the
      fœtal nutrition as advanced in Paper I. Briefly, the Fœtus is
      nourished by osmosis from the Amniotic Fluid and respires by means
      of the Placenta. Science knows little or nothing about the Amniotic
      Fluid and its uses. If any one cares to follow up this question, I
      would recommend Dr. Anderson’s _Remarks on the Nutrition of the
      Fœtus_. (Wood & Co., New York.)

  809 _Supra_, vol. ii.

  810 See Eusebius, _Hist. Eccles._, lib. iii. cap. 26.

  811 _De Mysteriis_, p. 100, lines 10 to 19; p. 109, fol. 1.

  812 _De Mysteriis_, p. 290, lines 15 to 18, _et seq._, caps. v. and vii.

  813 _Ibid._, p. 100, sec. iii, cap. iii.

  814 See _supra_, i. 34; i. 4, _et seq._; ii. 39, _et seq._, and 625, _et
      seq._

  815 The following table lists the wave‐lengths in Millimetres, and the
      number of vibrations in Trillions, of the various colours.

      Violet extreme: 406, 759
      Violet: 423, 709
      Violet‐Indigo: 439, 683
      Indigo: 449, 668
      Indigo‐Blue: 459, 654
      Blue: 479, 631
      Blue‐Green: 492, 610
      Green: 512, 586
      Green‐Yellow: 532, 564
      Yellow: 551, 544
      Yellow‐Orange: 571, 525
      Orange: 583, 514
      Orange‐Red: 596, 503
      Red: 620, 484
      Red‐extreme: 645, 465

  816 See _Five Years of Theosophy_, pp. 273 to 278.

  817 _Apud Grêbaut Papyrus Orbiney_, p. 101.

  818 See “Genius,” _Lucifer_, Nov., 1889, p. 227.

  819 See _Voice of the Silence_, pp. 68 and 94, art. 28, Glossary.

  820 The references to “Nature’s Finer Forces” which follow, have respect
      to the eight articles which appeared in the pages of the
      _Theosophist_ and not to the fifteen essays and the translation of a
      chapter of the Shivâgama which are contained in the book called
      _Nature’s Finer Forces_. The _Shivâgama_ in its details is purely
      Tântric, and nothing but harm can result from any practical
      following of its precepts. I would most strongly dissuade any
      student from attempting any of these Hatha Yoga practices, for he
      will either ruin himself entirely, or throw himself so far back that
      it will be almost impossible to regain the lost ground in this
      incarnation. The translation referred to has been considerably
      expurgated, and even now is hardly fit for publication. It
      recommends Black Magic of the worst kind, and is the very antipodes
      of spiritual Râja Yoga. Beware, I say.

  821 Prâna, on earth at any rate, is thus but a mode of life, a constant
      cyclic motion from within outwardly and back again, an out‐breathing
      and in‐breathing of the ONE LIFE, or Jîva, the synonym of the
      Absolute and Unknowable Deity. Prâna is not absolute life, or Jîva,
      but its aspect in a world of delusion. In the _Theosophist_, May,
      1888, p. 478, Prâna is said to be “one stage finer than the gross
      matter of the earth.”

  822 Remember that our re‐incarnating Egos are called the Mânasaputras,
      “Sons of Manas” (or Mahat), Intelligence, Wisdom.

  823 It is erroneous to call the fourth human principle “Kâma Rûpa.” It
      is no Rûpa or form at all until after death, but stands for the
      Kâmic elements in man, his animal desires and passions, such as
      anger, lust, envy, revenge, etc., the progeny of selfishness and
      matter.

  824 Here the world of effects is the Devachanic state, and the world of
      causes, earth life.

  825 It is this Kâma Rûpa alone that can _materialize_ in mediumistic
      séances, which occasionally happens when it is not the Astral Double
      or Linga Sharîra, of the medium himself which appears. How, then,
      can this vile bundle of passions and terrestrial lusts, resurrected
      by, and gaining consciousness only through the organism of the
      medium, be accepted as a “departed angel” or the Spirit of a once
      human body? As well say of the microbic pest which fastens on a
      person, that it is a sweet departed angel.

  826 This is accomplished in more or less time, according to the degree
      in which the personality (whose dregs it now is) was spiritual or
      material. If spirituality prevailed, then the Larva, or Spook, will
      fade out very soon; but if the personality was very materialistic,
      the Kâma Rûpa may last for centuries and—in some, though very
      exceptional cases—even survive with the help of some of its
      scattered Skandhas, which are all transformed in time into
      Elementals. See the _Key to Theosophy_, pp. 141 _et seq._, in which
      work it was impossible to go into details, but where the Skandhas
      are spoken of as the germs of Karmic effect.

  827 _Key to Theosophy_, p. 141

  828 Following _Shivâgama_, the said author enumerates the
      correspondences in this wise; Âkâsha, Ether, is followed by Vâyu,
      Gas; Tejas, Heat; Âpas, Liquid; and Prithivî, Solid.

  829 See Fitz‐Edward Hall’s notes on the _Vishnu Purâna_.

  830 The pair which we refer to as the One Life, the Root of All, and
      Âkâsha in its pre‐differentiating period answers to the Brahma
      (neuter) and Aditi of some Hindus, and stands in the same relation
      as the Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti of the Vedântins.

  831 See above, i. diagram, p. 221.

  832 Anupâdaka, Opapatika in Pâli, means the “parentless,” born without
      father or mother, from _itself_, as a transformation, _e.g._, the
      God Brahmâ sprung from the Lotus (the symbol of the Universe) that
      grows from Vishnu’s navel, Vishnu typifiying eternal and limitless
      Space, and Brahmâ the Universe and LOGOS; the mythical Buddha is
      also born from a Lotus.

  833 See _Theosophist_, February, 1888, p. 276.

  834 Sœmmerring, _De Acervulo Cerebri_, vol. ii. p. 322.

  835 In the Greek Eastern Church no child is allowed to go to confession
      before the age of seven, after which he is considered to have
      reached the age of reason.

  836 _De Caus. Ep._, vol xii.

  837 _Advers. Med._, ii. 322.

  838 _De Lapillis Glandulæ Pinealis in Quinque Ment Alien_, 1753.

  839 See “Stray Thoughts on Death and Satan” in the _Theosophist_, vol.
      iii. No. 1; also “Fragments of Occult Truth,” vols. iii. and iv.

  840 _Op. cit._, ii. 368, _et seq._

  841 The essence of the Divine Ego is “pure flame,” an entity to which
      nothing can be added and from which nothing can be taken; it cannot,
      therefore, be diminished even by countless numbers of lower minds,
      detached from it like flames from a flame. This is in answer to an
      objection by an Esotericist who asked whence was that inexhaustible
      essence of one and the same Individuality which was called upon to
      furnish a human intellect for every new personality in which it is
      incarnated.

  842 The brain, or thinking machinery, is not only in the head, but, as
      every physiologist who is not quite a materialist will tell you,
      every organ in man, heart, liver, lungs, etc., down to every nerve
      and muscle, has, so to speak, its own distinct brain or thinking
      apparatus. As our brain has naught to do in the guidance of the
      collective and individual work of every organ in us, what is that
      which guides each so unerringly in its incessant functions; that
      make these struggle, and that too with disease, throws it off and
      acts, each of them, even to the smallest, not in a clock‐work
      manner, as alleged by some materialists (for, at the slightest
      disturbance or breakage the clock stops), but as an entity endowed
      with instinct? To say it is Nature is to say nothing, if it is not
      the enunciation of a fallacy; for Nature after all is but a name for
      these very same functions, the sum of the qualities and attributes,
      physical, mental, etc., in the universe and man, the total of
      agencies and forces guided by intelligent laws.

  843 See _Key to Theosophy_, pp. 147, 148, _et seq._

  844 Kâma Rûpa, the vehicle of the Lower Manas, is said to dwell in the
      physical brain, in the five physical senses and in all the sense‐
      organs of the physical body.

  845 Tanmâtra means subtle and rudimentary form, the gross type of the
      finer elements. The five Tanmâtras are really the characteristic
      properties or qualities of matter and of all the elements; the real
      spirit of the word is “something” or “merely transcendental,” in the
      sense of properties or qualities.

  846 See _Theosophist_, August, 1883, “The Real and the Unreal.”

  847 As the author of _Esoteric Buddhism_ and the _Occult World_ called
      Manas the Human Soul, and Buddhi the Spiritual Soul, I have left
      these terms unchanged in the _Voice_, seeing that it was a book
      intended for the public.

  848 In the exoteric teachings of Râja Yoga, Antahkarana is called the
      inner organ of perception and is divided into four parts: the
      (lower) Manas, Buddhi (reason), Ahankâra (personality), and Chitta
      (thinking faculty). It also, together with several other organs,
      forms a part of Jîva, Soul called also Lingadeh. Esotericists,
      however, must not be misled by this popular version.

  849 The Earth, or earth‐life rather, is the only Avîtchi (Hell) that
      exists for the men of our humanity on this globe. Avîtchi is a
      state, not a locality, a counterpart of Devachan. Such a state
      follows the Soul wherever it goes, whether into Kâma Loka, as a
      semi‐conscious Spook, or into a human body, when reborn to suffer
      Avîtchi. Our Philosophy recognizes no other Hell.

  850 See _Voice of the Silence_, p. 97.

  851 _Loc. cit._

  852 Read the last footnote on p. 368, vol. ii. of _Isis Unveiled_, and
      you will see that even profane Egyptologists and men who, like
      Bunsen, were ignorant of Initiation, were struck by their own
      discoveries when they found the “Word” mentioned in old papyri.

  853 See _Theosophist_, vol. iii., October, 1882, p. 13.

  854 Read pp. 40 and 63 in the _Voice of the Silence_.

  855 See _Voice of the Silence_, p. viii.

  856 The following notes were contributed by students and approved by H.
      P. B.

  857 See page 444.

  858 All these “spaces” denote the special magnetic currents, the planes
      of substance, and the degrees of approach that the consciousness of
      the Yogî, or Chelâ, performs towards assimilation with the
      inhabitants of the Lokas.

  859 [If the Nidânas are read the reverse way, _i.e._, from 12 to 1, they
      give the evolutionary order.—ED.]

  860 [_I.e._, an Initiate, the word Adept being used by H. P. B. to cover
      all grades of Initiation. As above seen, she used the words Mâyâvi
      Rûpa in more than one sense.—ED.]





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