COSMIC SYMBOLISM
COSMIC SYMBOLISM
BEING A DISCUSSION AND EXPOSITION OF SOME
RECONDITE AND OBSCURE POINTS IN THE ART
OF THE KABALISTS, THE MYSTERIES OF
SOUND, FORM AND NUMBER, AND
THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF
COSMIC SYMBOLISM
BY
SEPHARIAL
AUTHOR OF “A MANUAL OF OCCULTISM,” “THE KABALA OF NUMBERS,”
“KABALISTIC ASTROLOGY,” “A NEW MANUAL OF ASTROLOGY,”
“SECOND SIGHT,” ETC., ETC.
LONDON
WILLIAM RIDER & SON, LIMITED
8 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.
1912
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 1
I THE MEANING AND PURPOSE OF OCCULTISM 4
II THE PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE 15
III THE MODERN MIRACLE 26
IV THERAPY—ANCIENT AND MODERN 33
V THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM 44
VI COSMIC SYMBOLOGY 56
VII READING THE SYMBOLS 65
VIII ANCIENT AND MODERN EXAMPLES 75
IX A TYPICAL CASE 86
X THE LAW OF CYCLES 96
XI THE TIME FACTOR IN KABALISM 109
XII INVOLUTION AND EVOLUTION 118
XIII PLANETARY NUMBERS 127
XIV SOME FURTHER KABALAS 139
XV PLANETARY SOUNDS 153
XVI PLANETARY HOURS 161
XVII CELESTIAL MAGNETIC POLARITIES 171
XVIII VULCAN THE CHAIN MAKER 179
XIX ALFRIDARIES 190
XX IN THE LUMBER ROOM 199
XXI THE LAW OF VIBRATIONS 201
XXII THE EQUALIZATION OF EPOCHS 219
XXIII LUNAR INFLUENCE 229
XXIV SOLAR INFLUENCE 241
XXV ASTROLOGY 251
XXVI CHARACTER AND ENVIRONMENT 264
XXVII THE LAW OF SEX 274
XXVIII A TEST OF VALUE 285
INTRODUCTION
“There is no end to the writing of books,” we are told. Certainly it
seems to be the fact that one book leads to another, and the many
demands made upon me for explanations of points, problems and paradoxes,
contained in some of my recent works, have induced me to a comprehensive
effort in the present volume. Whether I shall have succeeded in throwing
more light upon the dark problems of Occultism, or only in making
confusion worse confounded, it is for the reader to judge. “All truth is
paradoxical,” says Laotze, the great philosopher of Quietism. In such
case it were hard indeed to offer any argument which may be regarded as
final and conclusive, and especially is this the case in reference to
the debatable ground of Occultism.
Yet a very wise writer has said that nothing can be accepted as true
which does not submit to a mathematical statement. This is a tacit
confession of faith in the law of numerical ratios, the geometry of the
universe which underlies all revelation. We cannot truly be said to know
a thing until we have reduced it to a mathematical concept.
We may conveniently regard life as manifesting in three stages or
degrees, namely, Principles, Causes and Effects. Our conscious relation
to these three stages of life gives rise to Ethic, Philosophy and
Science.
Science is what we know of the universe; philosophy what we think of it;
ethic, how that thought affects our conduct. Thus the final appeal is to
utility. The virtue of everything is in its use. Science, philosophy and
ethic must eventually submit to the test of utility.
It is not for the sake of the mathematical statement, nor yet for the
pleasure of abstract argument, but chiefly for the sake of utility that
I have attempted this popular exposition of Occultism, for I think it
deserves more attention than has hitherto been given to it.
The idea that Occultism serves any useful end in life may not at once
appeal to the casual reader. The deeper thinker will, however, discern
in any coherent system of thought, in any orderly statement of fact, a
possible means of self-adjustment to the problems of life, howsoever
dimly apprehended. To the categorical imperative of Kant—I must because
I ought, but why ought I?—Occultism offers a very definite answer. It
gives a cogent reason for all action, and may indeed be finally judged
on its ethical value. It will not be found inadequate.
Purposive action has no value without free will in man. That “free will
in man is necessity in play” is true only of those who are not divine
conspirators. We are fated to the extent that we are ignorant of the
cosmical and spiritual laws—the one order is a reflex of the other—by
which the universe is upheld. We are culpable to the extent that we
neglect those laws we know. Science has succeeded in harnessing many of
the forces of Nature to the service of mankind. Philosophy will bring
man into conscious relations with the laws governing his existence, and
ethic will instruct him concerning their employment for the good of the
race.
To the extent that we understand the laws of our being and use them for
our personal benefit, and through ourselves for the good of all mankind,
we become conspirators with the Divine Will, conscious co-operators
towards “that one divine far-off event to which the whole creation
moves,” an apotheosis warranted by the trend of the physical and
spiritual evolution of humanity, and prophetically indicated by the
words: “Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, to crown him
with glory and worship.”
As fragments in the fabric of a spiritual upbuilding, as detached
observations of the law of universal harmony, as things of isolated
interest, all conspiring to the founding of a single idea, these
curiosities of Occultism are offered to those who are able to appreciate
them.
SEPHARIAL.
CHAPTER I
THE MEANING AND PURPOSE OF OCCULTISM
Before one can enter intelligently into an understanding of Cosmic
Symbolism, which underlies all occult science, it is necessary that he
should have some well-defined conception of the meaning and purpose of
Occultism. Otherwise he will occupy the position of one who moves in the
dark, a slave to formularies and dogmas, following blindly where others
lead and without any definite idea as to his destination.
Misconceptions regarding Occultism are very prevalent and are found to
affect the thought of many who in their own walks are exceedingly
learned. Occultism is a broad and comprehensive system of thought; a
synthetic philosophy aiming at self-realization, and as much concerned
in the practical development of the psychical and spiritual powers
latent in man as in the study of those wider cosmical laws which
hitherto have escaped scientific observation, but which are found to
afford a ready explanation of man’s embodied existence, and the wide and
varied range of his faculties, aptitudes and individual characteristics.
If Occultism were merely a speculative system of thought regarding the
hidden things of Nature, it could never find practical demonstration. If
the occult were merely the “hidden,” then Röntgen rays, wireless
telegraphy and metabolism would have been facts of Occultism at quite a
recent date. In the first case it is confidently affirmed that
Occultism, so far from being speculative, is capable of instant
demonstration; and in the second case it anticipated the discoveries of
Science by analogous psychical processes involved in the exercise of
clairvoyance, psychometry, telepathy and hypnotism. Occultism is not
indeed mainly concerned in the domain of physics, but rather in those
immaterial forces which are at the back of all material forms, of those
universal laws which find their reflection in the constitution and
development of man and the cosmos to which he is immediately related.
Thus while it seeks to demonstrate some unexplored facts in Nature, it
also offers a coherent system of thought in which those facts find
appropriate places, and so in effect it affords an ethical basis for all
action which is more comprehensive than any system which is the outcome
of an insular sociology or a national religion. Its peculiar value as a
body of teaching lies in its inclusiveness and catholicity, its freedom
from dogma, and its wide suggestiveness. While offering a definite
system of cosmogenesis and anthropogenesis, it seeks only to throw new
light on old truths, being entirely constructive and in no sense
controversial. Unlike orthodox Science and Religion, however, Occultism
does not ignore the facts of man’s psychic and spiritual experience.
Rather it makes use of these as links which bring us into relations with
that greater world and that higher life which for Science has no
interest and for Religion no certain meaning. Thus when Science
repudiated the Chaldean account of the Genesis, Religion was left with
no ground upon which it could convict Science of error! The Occultist
remains wholly unaffected by the incident, not because he is either
unscientific or irreligious, but because the Book of Genesis is for him
as true to-day as when it was written. It is the work of Occultists, and
only Occultists can rightly apprehend it.
In the biblical cosmogenesis we are not concerned with ordinary
divisions of time called “day” and “night,” periods of twelve hours
each, more or less, but with vast periods known as _pralayas_ and
_manvantaras_, or periods of manifestation and obscuration, taking place
alternately. These great periods answer to the systole and diastole
motion of the Great Breath, the out-breathing and in-breathing of the
Cosmic Life-force. In each of these great out-breathings the seven
stages of evolution are realized: the Igneous, Gaseous, Fluidic,
Mineral, Vegetable, Animal and Human. But those monads that have reached
any one of these stages do not become involved in the scheme until that
stage is reached to which they attained in the last period of cosmic
activity; but from that stage they resume their evolution.
Now as we have every reason to presume that our present period of
activity is not the first of our solar system, we have reason to place a
special meaning on the words _Berâsit brâ Elohim âth hashemâyim veâth
heâretz_: In the beginning the Elohim compounded the original matter of
the heavens and of the earth. Long periods of cosmic evolution elapsed,
and at the point where the Great Breath again reached our planet we take
up the thread of the Chaldean account _veheâretz tohu vebohu_: “and the
earth was chaotic and barren.” The use of the prefix _vau_ as a
copulative conjunction at the beginning of each separate statement,
links up the various stages of the evolutional scheme without defining
the vast ages, the “days” and “nights” of the cosmos, which intervene.
From the great aqueous development we pass to the amphibians, the
“creeping things,” the avians or “flying things and fowls of the air,”
until by a process of natural evolution and natural selection,
determined entirely by the individual power of adaptation to
environment, we at length arrive at the evolution of the human-animal.
The brief but perfectly scientific statement, “And God (the Elohim) made
men out of the dust of the earth,” is a process which involves an
indefinitely long period of evolution.
But so far we have only the ascending arc of physical evolution, which
in effect found its apotheosis in the production of giant human forms,
fitted to the great struggle for existence with the saurians and
pachyderms and all that mammoth life, both vegetable and animal, by
which it was environed. “There were giants in the earth in those days.”
Nature had done her utmost in the production of colossal forms of animal
life, she had expended all her strength.
It was at this point, where Nature unaided would have failed, and in
process of time died down to her root, as a tree that has put forth leaf
and flower and fruit, that the upward arc of _physical evolution_ was
met by a downward arc of _spiritual involution_. The two processes are
well defined: 1. God made man out of the dust of the earth. 2. And
breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives.
In effect, from this union of spirit and matter we get the genesis of
the psyche or soul: “and man _became_ a living soul.” The process of
becoming is one that was neither immediate nor complete. Most of us are
still in the process of becoming. But a certain number of advanced
monads became living souls, realizing their spiritual consciousness
while in the flesh. These were the “sons of the gods” referred to in the
text. All else were the sons of men. “And the sons of God looked upon
the daughters of men and saw that they were fair.” The self-conscious
souls took to wife the daughters of a less-evolved race, a process that
would seem to be necessary to the further uplifting and spiritual
vitalizing of the inferior grades of human life. During the present
manvantara or period of cosmic activity we have traditional occult
knowledge of four great races of humanity before our own, each of which
attained to a successively higher state of civilization, the Atlantean
transcending the Lemurian, as in process of time the Aryan will
transcend the Atlantean. And as each period of cosmic activity has
afforded means of successively higher human development, it is a
question as to what has become of those very high forms of spiritualized
humanity who were the final product of the material and spiritual
evolution of past manvantaras. Earth-born in their origin, and linked to
this Earth’s humanity by a thousand compatriot ties, by bonds of blood
and heritage, by lives of tireless service, they wait the time when
humanity shall have evolved to that stage when personal intercourse is
compatible with their own spiritual status and the needs of our further
evolution. To them, as pioneers, guardians or masters of the race, we
are indebted for the universal tradition which here and there is
gathered up by Occultists the world over, and which is realized in its
integrity only by those who have fought their way to that place in the
scale of spiritual evolution where detachment is possible. To them is
attributable the founding of the great world religions, and at the
outset these “Sons of God” were the spiritual instructors of the world.
Each race produces its own crop of masters, evolved initiates sworn to
the service of man for ever. As there is a natural selection, so there
is a spiritual selection, and from the moment a human form is invested
with a soul (psyche) that soul continues to progress. There is an
evolution that has come along the natural line to the production of
human lives of great faculty and attainment; and there is an evolution
that has followed the spiritual line. Not all evolved humans are
invested with the breath of _lives_. Thus a man may be an intellectual
giant and yet not be ensouled, for the _psyche_ is one thing and the
_pneuma_ is another. The _psyche_, or _nephesh_ is common to man and the
lower animals and is capable of immense development when investing the
human form, but unless this _nephesh_ is illuminated by the _ruach_ or
_pneuma_ it cannot advance beyond a certain stage in the present cycle
of evolution. Hence the saying, “Work while the day is yet with you, for
the night cometh when no man shall work.”
Specialized humanity is a composite of spirit, mind, soul and body. The
element or principle in man which distinguishes him from the animal
(whether human in form or otherwise), is the Mind. Only in this
possession is he truly man. The word man comes, indeed, from the root
_man_ (Sansk.), to think. The limitations set up by embodiment of this
thinking self is the primary cause of self-realization. All forms of
life are conscious, but only spiritualized humanity is self-conscious,
or individualized.
The criterion of consciousness is response to stimulus. It is to be seen
in chemic action, in vegetation and in animal life. If the Day’s-eye
(daisy) were not conscious of the sunrise it would not open its petals.
You may call it automatism, a reflex of the chemic action of light. You
will be wiser if you call it consciousness of light, and so spare
yourself the trouble of pushing the question back indefinitely, for
somewhere or other you must admit response to stimulus and there you
must posit consciousness.
Thus while the animal soul in man responds to stimulus of every kind
coming to it through the sense-channels, the mind responds also to a
higher and immaterial gamut of vibrations, that is to say, to spiritual
stimulus. As man he continues to evolve while all other forms of life
remain in _statu quo_. The monads investing them have not been caught up
by the Over-soul; they have not reached the stage where their
mass-vibration is capable of responding to the spiritual impact; they
are not attracted.
As the outcome of human evolution through successive ages, cycles and
manvantaras there is evolved the Christ, or perfect man. The mystical
interpretation does not suffice. We require a living individual who
shall stand to us for the “man made perfect” through that same process
of spiritual evolution which is to be our own means of final liberation
from _samsāra_, or cyclic rebirth. The Christ is truly a generic title.
The sons of God are legion, and all of them are invested with the Spirit
of Truth or Christ principle. They are the Children of Light, the Great
White Brotherhood, and at their head is the Lord, the gravitating Centre
of this world’s humanity. He is the manifestation in time and space of
the inscrutable Deity, the revelation of God to man. The mythological
interpretation of the Christ does not suffice any more than the
mystical. The Sun and the twelve signs of the zodiac may well stand as
symbols of the Master and his twelve disciples, but they will not
suffice for the historical fact, for the fact is not limited to a drama
in which thirteen characters were at one time employed. It is a drama
that is playing through all time, in all places and among all peoples.
It is the great work of spiritual selection and co-ordination, and the
twelve signs are the twelve gates through which the elect of all
humanity will enter into the New Jerusalem or Spiritual Kingdom of a
perfected humanity. Neither is the kingdom one that is afar off. Its
denizens are to be found among embodied humanity at this day. The
Fathers and many of the early rulers of the great countries were special
representatives of the Spiritual Hierarchy which at later stages in the
history of the world sent forth its emissaries to become world-teachers,
empire-makers, legislators, warriors and inventors, each speaking the
Word that the world then had need of. Beside them are to be found the
Occultists of the East and West, followers of their respective Gurus,
Sadhus, Yogis and Teachers, aspirants to the heirloom of the ages, the
Gupta-Vidya or Hidden Knowledge; with here and there a messenger under
sealed orders, passing from one country to another; a host of
psychic-researchers and higher-thought lecturers, the aide-de-camps,
sappers and enlisting officers of the vast army of recruits, regulars
and veterans who are enrolled under this standard.
To the Occultist the universe is a symbol and every part of it is
symbolical. Although essentially an Idealist he does not attempt the
rôle of those visionaries who would argue the universe out of existence.
He may call it elusive but not an illusion, for his own existence
depends on his consciousness of the world about him and his well-being
upon the degree to which he understands and observes the laws of that
universe of which he is an integral part. For if it be said that the
world has no existence apart from our consciousness, it may with equal
truth be said that our consciousness has no existence apart from the
world to which it is related. What we understand as the laws of the
universe are formulated in terms of our thought, but inasmuch as the
laws of thought are imposed on us by existence, it is clear that we do
not ourselves impose cosmic laws, but we merely apprehend them. It is
not in the Idealistic sense that the universe is a symbol, but in the
real sense of it being the embodiment or out-realizing of the Supreme
Life and Mind. As symbol the universe is the revelation of all time, of
the past and the future; the repository of all history, the source of
all prophecy, the synthesis of actuality. That Consciousness which is
simultaneously immanent in all the universe is called the Universal
Mind. The Platonic definition of God as “That whose centre is everywhere
and whose circumference is illimitable” comes as nearly to this
conception of the Divine Mind as it is possible for words to compass.
Man is a centre of consciousness in the Divine Mind from the time that
he realizes his spiritual existence, a soul investing a cell in the
Brain of the Grand Man. As such he becomes subject to the higher
spiritual laws of Being and enters into the Divine Conspiracy. The
evolving monads circulate and finally become impounded in one or another
of the various organs of the Grand Man, in agreement with their several
states of evolution, passing from one to another of them during the
successive incarnations of the Deity. In his effort to reach a higher
sphere of consciousness and activity, a wider sphere of influence and a
greater measure of free will, man comes to realize that obedience to the
law of his being is the means of attainment. Thus every man is a law
unto himself, and the truly wise are they who are able to say in all
consciousness: “Thy will be done.” For human safety and happiness are
only assured by devotion to the highest good, and this is the occult
view of the dependence of mankind on an all-seeing and beneficent Spirit
“in whose service is perfect freedom.”
Occultism, therefore, whether consisting in the development and exercise
of one’s individual psychic powers, in systematic and impartial inquiry
as to evidence of these powers in others, or in the pursuit of such
studies as astrology, kabalism, yoga, hypnotism, etc., reaches out from
such vague beginnings into regions of thought and aspiration that
transcend the average mind and are seen to culminate, in specialized
cases, in the attainment of powers which may be called miraculous and of
attributes that are truly godlike.