A. The Evil Spirit: Who, And What?
Our present quarrel is exclusively with Theology. The Church enforces
belief in a Personal God and a Personal Devil, while Occultism shows the
fallacy of such a belief. For the Pantheists and Occultists, as much as
for the Pessimists, “Nature” is no better than “a comely mother, but stone
cold”; but this is true only so far as regards _external_ Physical Nature.
They both agree that, to the superficial observer, she is no better than
an immense slaughter‐house wherein butchers become victims, and victims
executioners in their turn. It is quite natural that the pessimistically
inclined profane, once convinced of Nature’s numerous shortcomings and
failures, and especially of her autophagous propensities, should imagine
this to be the best evidence that there is no Deity _in abscondito_ within
Nature, nor anything divine in her. Nor is it less natural that the
Materialist and the Physicist should imagine that everything is due to
blind force and chance, and to the survival of the _strongest_, even more
often than of the _fittest_. But the Occultists, who regard Physical
Nature as a bundle of most varied illusions on the plane of deceptive
perceptions; who recognize in every pain and suffering but the necessary
pangs of incessant procreation; a series of stages toward an ever‐growing
perfectibility, which is visible in the silent influence of never‐erring
Karma, or _Abstract_ Nature—the Occultists, we say, view the Great Mother
otherwise. Woe to those who live without suffering. Stagnation and death
is the future of all that vegetates without change. And how can there be
any change for the better without proportionate suffering during the
preceding stage? Is it not those only who have learnt the deceptive value
of earthly hopes and the illusive allurements of external nature who are
destined to solve the great problems of life, pain, and death?
If our modern Philosophers—preceded by the mediæval scholars—have helped
themselves to more than one fundamental idea of antiquity, Theologians
have built their God and his Archangels, their Satan and his Angels, along
with the Logos and his staff, entirely out of the _dramatis personæ_ of
the old heathen Pantheons. They would have been welcome to these, had they
not cunningly distorted the original characters, perverted the
philosophical meaning, and, taking advantage of the ignorance of
Christendom—the result of long ages of mental sleep, during which humanity
was permitted to think only by proxy—tossed every symbol into the most
inextricable confusion. One of their most sinful achievements in this
direction, was the transformation of the divine _Alter Ego_ into the
grotesque Satan of their Theology.
As the whole philosophy of the problem of evil hangs upon the correct
comprehension of the constitution of the _Inner_ Being of Nature and Man,
of the divine within the animal, and hence also the correctness of the
whole system as given in these pages, with regard to the crown piece of
evolution—Man—we cannot take sufficient precautions against theological
subterfuges. When the good St. Augustine and the fiery Tertullian call the
Devil the “monkey of God,” we can attribute it to the ignorance of the age
they lived in. It is more difficult to excuse our modern writers on the
same ground. The translation of Mazdean literature has afforded Roman
Catholic writers the pretext for proving their point in the same direction
once more. They have taken advantage of the dual nature of Ahura Mazda and
of his Amshaspands in the _Zend Avesta_ and the _Vendîdâd_, to emphasize
still further their wild theories. Satan is the _plagiarist and the
copyist by anticipation_ of the religion which came ages later. This was
one of the master strokes of the Latin Church, its best trump‐card after
the appearance of Spiritualism in Europe. Though only a _succès d’estime_,
in general, even among those who are not interested in either Theosophy or
Spiritualism, yet the weapon is often used by the Christian (Roman
Catholic) Kabalists against the Eastern Occultists.
Now even the Materialists are quite harmless, and may be regarded as the
friends of Theosophy, when compared to some fanatical “Christian”—as they
call themselves, “Sectarian” as we call them—Kabalists, on the Continent.
These read the _Zohar_, not to find in it ancient Wisdom, but, by mangling
the texts and meaning, to discover in its verses Christian dogmas, where
none could ever have been meant; and, having fished them out with the
collective help of Jesuitical casuistry and learning, the supposed
“Kabalists” proceed to write books and to mislead less far‐sighted
students of the Kabalah.(1088)
May we not then be permitted to drag the deep rivers of the Past, and thus
bring to the surface the root idea that led to the transformation of the
Wisdom‐God, who had first been regarded as the Creator of everything that
exists, into an Angel of Evil—a ridiculous horned biped, half goat and
half monkey, with hoofs and a tail? We need not go out of the way to
compare the Pagan Demons of either Egypt, India, or Chaldæa with the Devil
of Christianity, for no such comparison is possible. But we may stop to
glance at the biography of the Christian Devil, a piratical reprint from
the Chaldæo‐Judæan mythology.
The primitive origin of this personification rests upon the Akkadian
conception of the Cosmic Powers—the Heavens and the Earth—in eternal feud
and struggle with Chaos. Their Silik‐Muludag (? Murudug), “the God amongst
all the Gods,” the “merciful guardian of men on Earth,” was the son of Hea
(or Ea) the great God of Wisdom, called by the Babylonians Nebo. With both
peoples, as also in the case of the Hindû Gods, their deities were both
beneficent and maleficent. As evil and punishment are the agents of Karma,
in an absolutely just retributive sense, so Evil was the servant of the
Good.(1089) The reading of the Chaldæo‐Assyrian tiles has now demonstrated
this beyond a shadow of doubt. We find the same idea in the _Zohar_. Satan
was a Son and an Angel of God. With all the Semitic nations, the Spirit of
the Earth was as much the Creator in his own realm as the Spirit of the
Heavens. They were twin brothers and interchangeable in their functions,
when not two in one. Nothing of that which we find in _Genesis_ is absent
from the Chaldæo‐Assyrian religious beliefs, even in the little that has
hitherto been deciphered. The great “Face of the Deep” of _Genesis_ is
traced in the Tohu Bohu (“Deep” or “Primeval Space”), or Chaos, of the
Babylonians. Wisdom, the Great Unseen God—called in _Genesis_ the “Spirit
of God”—lived, for the older Babylonians as for the Akkadians, in the Sea
of Space. Toward the days described by Berosus, this Sea became the
Visible Waters on the face of the Earth—the crystalline abode of the Great
Mother, the Mother of Ea and all the Gods, which became, still later, the
great Dragon Tiamat, the Sea Serpent. Its last stage of development was
the great struggle of Bel with the Dragon—the Devil!
Whence the Christian idea that God cursed the Devil? The God of the Jews,
whosoever he was, forbids cursing Satan. Philo Judæus and Josephus both
state that the Law (the _Pentateuch_ and the _Talmud_) undeviatingly
forbid one to curse the Adversary, and also the Gods of the Gentiles.
“Thou shalt not revile the Gods,” quoth the God of Moses,(1090) for it is
God who “hath divided [them] unto all nations”;(1091) and those who speak
evil of “Dignities” (Gods) are called “filthy dreamers” by Jude.
For even Michael the Archangel ... durst not bring against him
[the Devil] a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke
thee.(1092)
Finally the same is repeated in the _Talmud_:(1093)
Satan appeared one day to a man who used to curse him daily, and
said to him: “Why dost thou this?” Consider that _God himself_
would not curse me, but merely said: “The Lord rebuke thee,
Satan.”(1094)
This piece of Talmudic information shows plainly (_a_) that St. Michael is
called “God” in the _Talmud_, and somebody else the “Lord,” and (_b_) that
Satan is _a_ God, of whom even the “Lord” is in fear. All we read in the
_Zohar_ and other kabalistic works on Satan shows plainly that this
“personage” is simply the personification of the abstract Evil, which is
the weapon of Karmic Law and Karma. It is our human nature and man
himself, as it is said that “Satan is always near and inextricably
interwoven with man.” It is only a question of that Power being latent or
active in us.
It is a well‐known fact—to learned Symbologists at all events—that in
every great religion of antiquity, it is the Logos Demiurge—the Second
Logos, or the first emanation from the Mind, Mahat—who is made to strike,
so to say, the key‐note of that which may be called the correlation of
Individuality and Personality in the subsequent scheme of evolution. It is
the Logos who is shown, in the mystic symbolism of Cosmogony, Theogony,
and Anthropogony, playing two parts in the drama of Creation and
Being—that of the purely human Personality and the divine Impersonality of
the so‐called Avatâras, or divine Incarnations, and of the Universal
Spirit, called Christos by the Gnostics, and the Fravarshi (or Ferouer) of
Ahura Mazda in the Mazdean Philosophy. On the lower rungs of Theogony the
Celestial Beings of lower Hierarchies had each a Fravarshi, or a Celestial
“Double.” It is the same, only still more mystic, reässertion of the
kabalistic axiom, “_Deus est Demon inversus_”; the word “Demon,” however,
as in the case of Socrates, and in the spirit of the meaning given to it
by the whole of antiquity, standing for the Guardian Spirit, an “Angel,”
not a Devil of Satanic descent as Theology would have it. The Roman
Catholic Church shows its usual logic and consistency by accepting St.
Michael as the Ferouer of Christ. This Ferouer was his “Angel Guardian,”
as _proved_ by St. Thomas,(1095) who, however, calls the prototypes and
synonyms of Michael, such as Mercury for example, Devils!
The Church positively accepts the tenet that Christ has his Ferouer as any
other God or mortal has. Writes De Mirville:
Here we have the two heroes of the Old Testament, the _Verbum_ [?]
(or _second_ Jehovah), and his _Face_ [“Presence,” as the
Protestants translate], both making but one, and yet being two, a
mystery which seemed to us unsolvable before we had studied the
doctrine of the Mazdean _Ferouers_, and learnt that the _Ferouer_
was the spiritual potency, at once _image_, _face_, and _guardian_
of the Soul which finally assimilates the _Ferouer_.(1096)
This is _almost_ correct.
Among other absurdities, the Kabalists maintain that the word Metatron,
being divided into _meta‐thronon_ (μετὰ, θρόνον), means “near the
throne.”(1097) It means quite the reverse, as _meta_ means “beyond” and
not “near.” This is of great importance in our argument. St. Michael,
then, the “_quis ut Deus_,” is the translator, so to speak, of the
invisible world into the visible and the objective.
They maintain, furthermore, along with the Roman Catholic Church, that in
the Biblical and Christian Theology there does not exist a “higher
celestial personality, after the Trinity, than that of the Archangel, or
the Seraphim, Michael.” According to them, the conqueror of the Dragon is
the Archisatrap of the Sacred Militia, the Guardian of the Planets, the
King of the Stars, the Slayer of Satan and the Powerful Rector. In the
mystic Astronomy of these gentlemen, he is the Conqueror of Ahriman, who
having upset the Sidereal Throne of the usurper, bathes in his stead in
the Solar Fires; and, Defender of the Christ‐Sun, he approaches so near
his Master, “that he seems to become one with him.”(1098) Owing to this
fusion with the Word (Verbum) the Protestants, and among them Calvin,
ended by losing sight entirely of the duality, and saw no Michael “but
only his Master,” writes the Abbé Caron. The Roman Catholics, and
especially their Kabalists, know better; and it is they who explain to the
world this duality, which affords them the means of glorifying the chosen
ones of the Church, and of rejecting and anathematizing all those Gods who
may be in the way of their dogmas.
Thus the same titles and the same names are given in turn to God and the
Archangel. Both are called Metatron, “both have the name of Jehovah
applied to them when they speak _one in the other_” (_sic_), for,
according to the _Zohar_, the term signifies equally the Master and the
Ambassador. Both are the Angel of the Face, because, as we are informed,
if on the one hand the “Word” is called “the Face [or the Presence] and
the Image of the Substance of God,” on the other, “when speaking of the
_Saviour_ to the Israelites, Isaiah [?] tells them” that “the Angel of his
Presence saved them in their affliction”—“so he was their Saviour.”(1099)
Elsewhere Michael is called very plainly the “Prince of the Faces of the
Lord,” the “Glory of the Lord.” Both Jehovah and Michael are the “Guides
of Israel(1100) ... Chiefs of the Armies of the Lord, Supreme Judges of
the Souls and even Seraphs.”(1101)
The whole of the above is given on the authority of various works by Roman
Catholics, and must, therefore, be orthodox. Some expressions are
translated to show what subtle Theologians and Casuists mean by the term
Ferouer,(1102) a word borrowed by some French writers from the _Zend
Avesta_, as said, and utilized in Roman Catholicism for a purpose
Zoroaster was very far from anticipating. In Fargard xix (verse 14), of
the _Vendîdâd_ it is said:
Invoke, O Zarathushtra! my Fravarshi, who am Ahura Mazda, the
greatest, the best, the fairest of all beings, the most solid, the
most intelligent, ... and whose soul is the holy Word (Mâthra
Spenta).(1103)
The French Orientalists translate _Fravarshi_ by _Ferouer_.
Now what is a Ferouer, or Fravarshi? In some Mazdean works it is plainly
implied that Fravarshi is the _inner_, immortal Man, or the Ego which
reïncarnates; that it existed before the physical body and survives all
such bodies it happens to be clothed in.
Not only man was endowed with a Fravarshi, _but gods too_, and the
sky, fire, waters, and plants.(1104)
This shows as plainly as can be shown that the Ferouer is the “spiritual
counterpart” of either God, animal, plant, or even element, _i.e._, the
refined and the _purer_ part of the grosser creation, the soul of the
body, whatever the body may happen to be. Therefore does Ahura Mazda
recommend Zarathushtra to invoke his Fravarshi and not himself (Ahura
Mazda); that is to say, the impersonal and _true_ Essence of Deity, one
with Zoroaster’s own Âtmâ (or Christos), not the _false_ and personal
appearance. This is quite clear.
Now it is on this divine and ethereal prototype that the Roman Catholics
have seized so as to build up the supposed difference between their God
and Angels and the Deity and its aspects, or the Gods of the old
religions. Thus, while calling Mercury, Venus, Jupiter (whether as Gods or
Planets) Devils, they at the same time make of the same Mercury the
Ferouer of their Christ. This fact is undeniable. Vossius(1105) proves
that Michael is the Mercury of the Pagans, and Maury and other French
writers corroborate him, and add that according to great Theologians
_Mercury and the Sun are one_, (?) and no wonder, they think, since
Mercury being so near the Wisdom and the Verbum (the Sun), must be
absorbed by and confounded with him.(1106)
This “Pagan” view was accepted from the first century of our era, as shown
in the original _Acts of the Apostles_ (the English translation being
worthless). So much is Michael the Mercury of the Greeks and other
nations, that when the inhabitants of Lystra mistook Paul and Barnabas for
Mercury and Jupiter, saying, “The Gods have come down to us in the
likeness of men”—the text adds: “And they called Barnabas Zeus, and Paul,
Hermes, because he was the _leader of the Word_ (Logos),” and not “the
chief speaker,” as erroneously translated in the Authorized, and repeated
even in the Revised, English _Bible_. Michael is the Angel of the vision
in _Daniel_, the Son of God, “who was like unto a Son of Man.” It is the
Hermes‐Christos of the Gnostics, the Anubis‐Syrius of the Egyptians, the
Counsellor of Osiris in Amenti, the Leontoid Michael‐Ophiomorphos
(ὀφιομόρφος) of the Ophites, who wears on certain Gnostic jewels a lion’s
_head_, like his father Ildabaoth.(1107)
Now to all this the Roman Catholic Church tacitly consents, many of her
writers even avowing it publicly. Unable to deny the flagrant “borrowing”
of their Church, who “spoiled” her seniors of their symbols, as the Jews
had “spoiled” the Egyptians of their jewels of silver and gold, they
explain the fact quite coolly and seriously. Thus the writers who have
hitherto been _timid_ enough to see, in this repetition by Christian
dogmas of old Pagan ideas, “a _legendary plagiarism_ perpetrated by man,”
are gravely assured that, far from such a simple solution of the almost
perfect resemblance, it has to be attributed to quite another cause—“to a
_pre‐historical_ plagiarism, of a _superhuman_ origin.”
If the reader would know how, he must again kindly turn to the same volume
of De Mirville’s work.(1108) Please note that this author was the
_official and recognized defender_ of the Roman Church, and was helped by
the learning of all the Jesuits. There we read:
We have pointed out several demi‐gods, and also “very historical”
heroes of the Pagans, who were predestined from the moment of
their birth, _to ape_, while at the same time they dishonoured,
the nativity of the hero, _who was quite God_, before whom the
whole earth had to bow; we have traced them being born as _he_
was, from an immaculate mother; we have seen them strangling
serpents in their cradles, fighting against demons, performing
miracles, dying as martyrs, descending to the nether world and
rising again from the dead. And we have bitterly deplored that
timid and shy Christians should feel compelled to explain all such
identities on the ground of coincidence of myth and symbol. They
forget apparently these words of the Saviour, _all that came
before me are thieves and robbers_—a word which explains all
without any absurd negation and which I have commented on in these
words, “The Evangel is a sublime drama, _parodied and played
before its appointed time by ruffians_.”
The “ruffians” (_les drôles_), are of course Demons whose manager is
Satan. Now this is the easiest and the most sublime and simple way of
getting out of the difficulty! The Rev. Dr. Lundy, a Protestant De
Mirville, followed the happy suggestion in his _Monumental Christianity_,
and so did Dr. Sepp of Munich in his works written to prove the divinity
of Jesus and the Satanic origin of all other Saviours. So much greater the
pity that a systematic and collective plagiarism which went on for several
centuries on the most gigantic scale, should be explained by another
plagiarism, this time in the fourth Gospel. For the sentence quoted from
it, “All that ever came before me,” etc., is a _verbatim_ repetition of
words written in the _Book of Enoch_. In the Introduction to Archbishop
Laurence’s translation from an Ethiopic MS. in the Bodleian Library, the
editor, author of the _Evolution of Christianity_, remarks:
In revising the proof‐sheets of the Book of Enoch, we have been
still further impressed by relationship with New Testament
Scripture. Thus, 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.(1109)
It is too late in the day to claim that it is Enoch who borrowed from the
_New Testament_, instead of _vice versâ_. Jude (14, 15) quotes _verbatim_
from Enoch a long passage about the coming of the Lord with his ten
thousand saints, and naming the prophet specifically _acknowledges_ the
source.
In ... perfecting the parallelism between prophet and apostle,
[we] have placed beyond controversy that, _in the eyes of the
author of an Epistle accepted as Divine revelation_, the Book of
Enoch _was the inspired production of an antediluvian
patriarch_....
The cumulative coincidence of language and ideas in Enoch and the
authors of New Testament Scripture, ... 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.(1110)
“Antediluvian,” truly; but if the phraseology of the text dates hardly a
few centuries or even millenniums before the historical era, then it is no
longer the original _prediction_ of the events to come, but is, in its
turn, a copy of some scripture of a pre‐historic religion.
In the Krita age, Vishnu, in the form of Kapila and other
(inspired teachers) ... imparts ... true wisdom [as Enoch did]. In
the Tretâ age he restrains the wicked, in the form of a universal
monarch [Chakravartin, the “Everlasting King” of Enoch(1111)] and
protects the three worlds [or Races]. In the Dvâpara age, in the
person of Veda‐vyâsa, he divides the one Veda into four, and
distributes it into hundreds (Shata) of branches.(1112)
Truly so; the Veda of the earliest Âryans, before it was written, went
forth into every nation of the Atlanto‐Lemurians, and sowed the first
seeds of all the now existing old religions. The off‐shoots of the never
dying Tree of Wisdom have scattered their dead leaves even on Judæo‐
Christianity. And at the end of the Kali, our present Age, Vishnu, or the
“Everlasting King,” will appear as Kalki, and reëstablish righteousness
upon earth. The minds of those who live at that time shall be awakened,
and become as pellucid as crystal.
The men who are thus changed by virtue of that peculiar time [the
Sixth Race] _shall be as the seeds_ of other human beings, and
shall give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita
age of purity;
_i.e._, it shall be the Seventh Race, the Race of “Buddhas,” the “Sons of
God,” born of _immaculate_ parents.
B. The Gods Of Light Proceed From The Gods Of Darkness.
Thus it is pretty well established that Christ, the Logos, or the God in
Space and the Saviour on Earth, is but one of the echoes of this same
antediluvian and sorely misunderstood Wisdom. Its history begins by the
descent on Earth of the “Gods” who incarnate in mankind, and this is the
“Fall.” Whether Brahmâ hurled down on Earth by Bhagavân in the allegory,
or Jupiter by Cronus, all are the symbols of the human races. Once having
touched this Planet of dense Matter, the snow‐white wings of even the
highest Angel can no longer remain immaculate, or the Avatâra (or
incarnation) be perfect, as every such Avatâra is the fall of a God into
generation. Nowhere is the metaphysical truth more clear, when explained
Esoterically, or more hidden from the average comprehension of those who
instead of appreciating the sublimity of the idea can only degrade it—than
in the _Upanishads_, the Esoteric glossaries of the _Vedas_. The _Rig
Veda_, as Guignault characterized it, “is the most sublime conception of
the great highways of humanity.” The _Vedas_ are, and will remain for
ever, in the Esotericism of the _Vedânta_ and the _Upanishads_, “the
mirror of the Eternal Wisdom.”
For upwards of sixteen centuries the new masks, forced over the faces of
the old Gods, have screened them from public curiosity, but they have
finally proved a misfit. Yet the metaphorical Fall, and the as
metaphorical Atonement and Crucifixion, have led Western Humanity through
roads knee‐deep in blood. Worse than all, they have led it to believe in
the dogma of the Evil Spirit distinct from the Spirit of all Good, whereas
the former lives in all Matter and preëminently in man. Finally it has
created the God‐slandering dogma of Hell and eternal perdition; it has
spread a thick film between the higher intuitions of man and divine
verities; and, most pernicious result of all, it has made people remain
ignorant of the fact that there were no fiends, no dark demons in the
Universe before man’s own appearance on this, and probably on other
Earths. Hence the people have been led to accept, as the problematical
consolation for this world’s sorrows, the thought of original sin.
The philosophy of that Law in Nature, which implants in man as well as in
every beast a passionate, inherent, and instinctive desire for freedom and
self‐guidance, pertains to Psychology and cannot be touched on now, for to
demonstrate this feeling in higher Intelligences, to analyze and give a
natural reason for it, would necessitate an endless philosophical
explanation for which there here is no room. Perhaps the best synthesis of
this feeling is found in three lines of Milton’s _Paradise Lost_. Says the
“Fallen One”:
Here we may reign secure; and in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell!
Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven!
Better be man, the crown of terrestrial production and king over its _opus
operatum_, than be lost among the will‐less Spiritual Hosts in Heaven.
We have said elsewhere that the dogma of the first Fall rested on a few
verses in _Revelation_, which are now shown to be a plagiarism from Enoch
by some scholars. These have given rise to endless theories and
speculations, which have gradually acquired the importance of dogma and
inspired tradition. Every one sought to explain the verse about the seven‐
headed dragon with his ten horns and seven crowns, whose tail “drew the
third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth,” and
whose place, with that of his Angels, “was found no more in heaven.” What
the seven heads of the Dragon (or Cycle) mean, and its _five_ wicked kings
also, may be learned in the Addenda which close Part III of this Volume.
From Newton to Bossuet speculations were incessantly evolved in Christian
brains with regard to these obscure verses. Says Bossuet:
The star that falls is the heresiarch Theodosius.... The clouds of
smoke are the heresies of the Montanists.... The third part of the
stars are the martyrs, and especially the doctors of divinity.
Bossuet ought to have known, however, that the events described in
_Revelation_ were not original, and may, as shown, be found in other and
Pagan traditions. There were no scholastics nor Montanists during Vedic
times, nor yet far earlier in China. But Christian _Theology_ had to be
_protected and saved_.
This is only natural. But why should truth be sacrificed in order to
protect from destruction the lucubrations of Christian Theologians?
The “_princeps aeris hujus_,” the “Prince of the Air,” of St. Paul, is not
the Devil, but the effects of the Astral Light, as Éliphas Lévi correctly
explains. The Devil is not the “God _of this period_,” as he says, for it
is the Deity of every age and period since Man appeared on Earth, and
Matter in its countless forms and states had to fight for its evanescent
existence against other disintegrating Forces.
The “Dragon” is simply the symbol of the Cycle and of the “Sons of
Manvantaric Eternity,” who had descended on Earth during a certain epoch
of its formative period. The “clouds of smoke” are geological phenomena.
The “third part of the stars of heaven,” cast down to the Earth, refers to
the Divine Monads—the Spirits of the Stars in Astrology—that
circumambulate our Globe; _i.e._, the _human_ Egos destined to perform the
whole Cycle of Incarnations. The sentence, “_qui circumambulat terram_,”
however, is again referred to the Devil in Theology, the mythical Father
of Evil being said to “fall like lightning.” Unfortunately for this
interpretation, the “Son of Man,” or Christ, is expected, on the personal
testimony of Jesus, to descend on Earth likewise, “as the lightning cometh
out of the East,”(1113) just in the same shape and under the same symbol
as Satan, who is seen to fall “as lightning ... from heaven.”(1114) All
these metaphors and figures of speech, preëminently Oriental in their
character, must have their origin searched for in the East. In all the
ancient Cosmogonies _Light_ comes from _Darkness_. In Egypt, as elsewhere,
_Darkness_ was “the principle of all things.” Hence Pymander, the “Thought
Divine,” issues as Light from Darkness. Behemoth(1115) is the principle of
Darkness, or Satan, in Roman Catholic Theology, and yet Job says of him
that Behemoth is “the chief [principle] of the ways of God”—“_Principium
viarum Domini Behemoth!_”(1116)
Consistency does not seem to be a favourite virtue in any portion of
Divine Revelation, so‐called—not as interpreted by Theologians, at any
rate.
The Egyptians and the Chaldæans referred the birth of their Divine
Dynasties to that period when creative Earth was in her last final throes
in giving birth to her pre‐historic mountain ranges, which have since
disappeared, her seas and her continents. Her face was covered with “deep
Darkness and in that [Secondary] Chaos was the principle of all things”
that developed on the Globe later on. Our Geologists have now ascertained
that there was such a terrestrial conflagration in the early geological
periods, several hundred millions of years ago.(1117) As to the tradition
itself, every country and nation had it, each under its respective
national form.
It is not alone Egypt, Greece, Scandinavia or Mexico, that had its Typhon,
Python, Loki, and its “falling” Demon, but China also. The Celestials have
a whole literature upon the subject. It is said that in consequence of the
rebellion against Ti of a proud Spirit, who said he was Ti himself, seven
Choirs of Celestial Spirits were exiled upon Earth, which “_brought a
change in all Nature_, Heaven itself _bending_ down and uniting with
Earth.”
In the _Y‐King_, one reads:
The flying Dragon, superb and rebellious, suffers now, and his
pride is punished; he thought he would reign in Heaven, he reigns
only on the Earth.
Again, the _Tchoon‐Tsieoo_ says allegorically:
One night the stars ceased shining in darkness, and deserted it,
falling down like rain upon the Earth, _where they are now
hidden_.
These stars are the Monads.
Chinese Cosmogonies have their “Lord of the Flame” and their “Celestial
Virgin,” with little “Spirits to help and minister to her; and big Spirits
to fight those who are the enemies of other Gods.” But all this does not
prove that the said allegories are _presentments_ or _prophetic_ writings
which all refer to Christian Theology.
The best proof one can offer to Christian Theologians that the Esoteric
statements in the _Bible_—in both Testaments—are the assertion of the same
idea as in our Archaic Teachings, to wit, that the “Fall of the Angels”
referred simply to the Incarnation of Angels “who had broken through the
Seven Circles”—is found in the _Zohar_. Now the _Kabalah_ of Simeon Ben
Iochaï is the soul and essence of the allegorical narrative, as the later
_Christian Kabalah_ is the “dark cloaked” Mosaic Pentateuch. And it says
(in the Agrippa MSS.):
The Wisdom of the Kabalah rests in the Science of the Equilibrium
and Harmony.
Forces that manifest without having been first equilibrized perish
in Space [“equilibrized” meaning differentiated].
Thus perished the first Kings [the Divine Dynasties] of the
Ancient World, the _self‐produced_ Princes of Giants. They fell
like rootless trees, and were seen no more; for _they were the
Shadow of the Shadow_ [to wit, the Chhâyâ of the Shadowy
Pitris].(1118)
But those that came after them, who shooting down like falling
stars were enshrined in the Shadows—prevailed to this day
[Dhyânîs, who by incarnating in those “empty Shadows,” inaugurated
the era of mankind].
Every sentence in the ancient Cosmogonies unfolds to him who can read
between the lines the identity of the ideas, though under different garbs.
The first lesson taught in Esoteric Philosophy is, that the Incognizable
Cause does not put forth evolution, whether consciously or unconsciously,
but only exhibits periodically _different aspects_ of Itself to the
perception of _finite_ minds. Now the Collective Mind—the
Universal—composed of various and numberless Hosts of Creative Powers,
however infinite in Manifested Time, is still finite when contrasted with
the Unborn and Undecaying Space in its supreme essential aspect. That
which is finite cannot be perfect. Therefore there are inferior Beings
among those Hosts, but there never have been any Devils or “disobedient
Angels,” for the simple reason that they are all governed by Law. The
Asuras (call them by any other name you will) who incarnated, followed in
this a law as implacable as any other. They had manifested prior to the
Pitris, and as Time (in Space) proceeds in Cycles, their turn had
come—hence the numerous allegories. The name “Asura” was first given by
the Brâhmans indiscriminately to those who opposed their mummeries and
sacrifices, as did the great Asura called Asurendra. It is to those ages,
probably, that the origin of the idea of the Demon, as opposer and
adversary, has to be traced.
The Hebrew Elohim, called “God” in the translations, who create “Light,”
are identical with the Âryan Asuras. They are also referred to as the
“Sons of Darkness,” as a philosophical and logical contrast to Light
Immutable and Eternal. The earliest Zoroastrians did not believe in Evil
or Darkness being _coëternal_ with Good or Light, and they give the same
interpretation. Ahriman is the manifested _Shadow_ of Ahura Mazda (Asura
Mazda), himself issued from Zeruâna Âkerne, the “Boundless [Circle of]
Time,” or the Unknown Cause. They say of the latter:
Its glory is too exalted, its light too resplendent for either
human intellect or mortal eye to grasp and see.
Its primal emanation _is Eternal Light, which, from having been previously
concealed in Darkness, was called to manifest itself and thus was formed
Ormazd, the __“__King of Life.__”_ He is the “First‐born” in Boundless
Time, but, like his own antetype (preëxisting spiritual idea), _has lived
within Darkness from all Eternity_. The six Amshaspands—seven with
himself, the Chief of all—the primitive _Spiritual Angels and Men_, are
_collectively_ his Logos. The Zoroastrian Amshaspands create the World in
six Days or periods also, and rest on the seventh; but in the Esoteric
Philosophy, that _seventh_ is the _first_ period or “Day,” the so‐called
_Primary Creation_ in Âryan Cosmogony. It is that intermediate Æon which
is the _Prologue_ to Creation, and which stands on the borderland between
the Uncreated Eternal Causation and the produced finite effects; a state
of _nascent_ activity and energy as the first aspect of the Eternal
Immutable Quiescence. In _Genesis_, on which no metaphysical energy has
been spent, but only an extraordinary acuteness and ingenuity to veil the
Esoteric Truth, Creation begins at the third stage of manifestation. “God”
or the Elohim are the “Seven Regents” of _Pymander_. They are identical
with all the other Creators. But even in _Genesis_ that period is hinted
at by the abruptness of the picture, and the “Darkness” that was on the
face of the Deep. The Elohim are shown to “create”—that is to say, to
build or to produce the two Heavens or “double” Heaven (_not_ Heaven and
Earth); which means, in so many words, that they separated the upper
manifested (Angelic) Heaven, or plane of consciousness, from the lower or
terrestrial plane; the (to us) Eternal and Immutable Æons from those
Periods that are in space, time and duration; Heaven from Earth, the
Unknown from the Known—to the profane. Such is the meaning of the sentence
in _Pymander_, which says that:
Thought, the _divine_, which is Light and Life [Zeruâna Âkerne]
produced through its Word, or first aspect, the other, _operating_
Thought, which being the God of Spirit and Fire, constructed Seven
Regents enclosing within their Circle the World of Senses named
“Fatal Destiny.”
The latter refers to Karma; the “Seven Circles” are the seven planets and
planes, as also the seven Invisible Spirits, in the Angelic Spheres, whose
visible symbols are the seven planets,(1119) the seven Rishis of the Great
Bear and other glyphs. As said of the Âdityas by Roth:
They are neither sun, nor moon, nor stars, nor dawn, but the
eternal sustainers of this luminous life which exists as it were
behind all these phenomena.
It is they—the “Seven Hosts”—who, having “considered in their Father
[Divine Thought] the plan of the operator,” as says _Pymander_, _desired_
to operate (or build the world with its creatures) likewise; for, having
been born “_within_ the Sphere of Operation”—the manifesting Universe—such
is the Manvantaric Law. And now comes the second portion of the passage,
or rather of two passages merged into one to conceal the full meaning.
Those who were born within the Sphere of Operation were “the brothers who
loved _him_ well.” The latter—the “him”—were the Primordial Angels; the
Asuras, the Ahriman, the Elohim, or “Sons of God,” of whom Satan was
one—all those Spiritual Beings who were called the “Angels of Darkness,”
because that Darkness is _absolute_ Light, a fact now neglected if not
entirely forgotten in Theology. Nevertheless, the spirituality of those
much abused “Sons of Light” which is Darkness, must be evidently as great,
in comparison with that of the Angels next in order, as the ethereality of
the latter would be when contrasted with the density of the human body.
The former are the “First‐born,” and therefore so near to the confines of
Pure Quiescent Spirit as to be merely the “privations”—in the Aristotelian
sense—the Ferouers or the ideal types of those who followed. They could
not create material, _corporeal_ things; and, therefore, were said in
process of time to have “refused” to create, as “commanded” by
“God”—otherwise, to have “_rebelled_.”
Perchance, this is justified on the principle of the _scientific_ theory
which teaches us as to the effect of two sound waves of equal length
meeting:
If the two sounds be of the same intensity, their coincidence
produces a sound four times the intensity of either, while their
interference produces _absolute silence_.
While explaining some of the “heresies” of his day, Justin Martyr shows
the identity of all the world religions at their starting points. The
first _Beginning_ opens invariably with the _Unknown_ and _Passive_ Deity,
from which emanates a certain Active Power or Virtue, the Mystery that is
sometimes called Wisdom, sometimes the Son, very often God, Angel, Lord,
and Logos.(1120) The latter is sometimes applied to the very first
Emanation, but in several systems it proceeds from the first Androgyne or
Double Ray produced at the beginning by the Unseen. Philo depicts this
Wisdom as male and female. But though its first manifestation had a
beginning—for it proceeded from Oulom(1121) (Aiôn, Time), the highest of
the Æons when emitted from the Father—it had remained with the Father
_before all creations_, for it is part of him.(1122) Therefore Philo
Judæus calls Adam Kadmon by the name “Mind”—the Ennoia of Bythos in the
Gnostic System. “The Mind, let it be named Adam.”(1123)
As the old Magian books explain it, the whole event becomes clear. A thing
can only exist through its opposite—Hegel teaches us; and only a little
philosophy and spirituality are needed to comprehend the origin of the
later dogma, which is so truly satanic and infernal in its cold and cruel
wickedness. The Magians accounted for the Origin of Evil in their exoteric
teachings in this way. “Light can produce nothing but Light, and can never
be the origin of Evil”; how then was Evil produced, since there was
nothing coëqual or like the Light in its production? Light, say they,
produced several Beings, all of them spiritual, luminous, and powerful.
But a Great One (the “Great Asura,” Ahriman, Lucifer, etc.) had an _evil
thought_, contrary to the Light. He doubted, and by that doubt he became
dark.
This is a little nearer to the truth, but still wide of the mark. There
was _no_ “_evil_ thought” that originated the opposing Power, but simply
Thought _per se_; something which, being cogitative, and containing design
and purpose, is therefore finite, and must thus find itself naturally in
opposition to pure Quiescence, the as natural state of absolute
Spirituality and Perfection. It was simply the Law of Evolution that
asserted itself; the progress of Mental Unfolding, differentiated from
Spirit, involved and entangled already with Matter, into which it is
irresistibly drawn. Ideas, in their very nature and essence, as
conceptions bearing relation to objects, whether true or imaginary, are
opposed to Absolute Thought, that Unknowable All of whose mysterious
operations Mr. Spencer predicates that nothing can be said, but that “it
has no kinship of nature with Evolution”(1124)—which it certainly has
not.(1125)
The _Zohar_ gives it very suggestively. When the “Holy One” (the Logos)
desired to create man, he called the _highest_ Host of Angels and spake
unto them what he wanted, but they _doubted_ the wisdom of this desire and
answered: “Man will not continue one night in his glory”—for which they
were burnt (annihilated?), by the “Holy” Lord. Then he called another,
lower Host, and said the same. And they contradicted the “Holy One”: “What
is the good of Man?”—they argued. Still Elohim created Man, and when Man
_sinned_ there came the Hosts of Uzza and Azael, and twitted God: “Here is
the Son of Man that thou hast made”—they said. “Behold, he sinned!” Then
the Holy One replied: “If you had been among them [Men] you would have
been worse than they.” And he threw them from their exalted position in
Heaven even down on to the Earth; and “they were changed [into Men] and
sinned after the women of the earth.”(1126) This is quite plain. No
mention is made in _Genesis_ (vi) of these “Sons of God” receiving
_punishment_. The only reference to it in the _Bible_ is in _Jude_:
And the angels which kept not their first estate but left their
own habitation, he hath reserved in _everlasting chains_ under
_darkness_ unto the _judgment of the great day_.(1127)
And this means simply that the “Angels,” doomed to incarnation, are in the
_chains_ of flesh and matter, under the _darkness_ of ignorance, till the
“_Great Day_,” which will come as always after the Seventh Round, after
the expiration of the “Week,” on the Seventh Sabbath, or in the Post‐
Manvantaric Nirvâna.
How truly Esoteric and consonant with the Secret Doctrine is Pymander, the
Thought Divine, of Hermes, may be inferred from its original and primitive
translations in Latin and Greek only. On the other hand how disfigured it
has been later on by Christians in Europe, is seen from the remarks and
unconscious _confessions_ made by De St. Marc, in his Preface and Letter
to the Bishop of Ayre, in 1578. Therein, the whole cycle of
transformations from a Pantheistic and Egyptian into a Mystic Roman
Catholic treatise is given, and we see how _Pymander_ has become what it
is now. Still, even in St. Marc’s translation, traces are found of the
real Pymander—the “Universal Thought” or “Mind.” This is the translation
from the old French translation, the original being given in the foot‐
note(1128) in its quaint old French:
Seven men [principles] were generated in Man.... The nature of the
harmony of the Seven of the Father and of the Spirit. Nature ...
produced seven men in accordance with the natures of the Seven
Spirits ... having in them, potentially, the two sexes.
Metaphysically, the Father and the Son are the “Universal Mind” and the
“Periodical Universe”; the “Angel” and the “Man.” It is the Son and the
Father at one and the same time; in Pymander, the _active_ Idea and the
_passive_ Thought that generates it; the radical keynote in Nature which
gives birth to the seven notes—the septenary scale of the Creative Forces,
and to the seven prismatic _aspects_ of colour, all born from the one
White Ray, or Light—itself generated in Darkness.
C. The Many Meanings Of The “War In Heaven.”
The Secret Doctrine points out, as a self‐evident fact, that Mankind,
collectively and individually, is with all manifested Nature the vehicle
(_a_) of the Breath of One Universal Principle, in its primal
differentiation; and (_b_) of the countless “breaths” proceeding from that
One Breath in its secondary and further differentiations, as Nature with
its many “mankinds” proceeds downwards toward the planes that are ever
increasing in materiality. The Primary Breath informs the higher
Hierarchies; the secondary—the lower, on the constantly descending planes.
Now there are many passages in the _Bible_ which prove on their face,
_exoterically_, that this belief was at one time _universal_; and the two
most convincing are _Ezekiel_, xxviii and _Isaiah_, xiv. Christian
Theologians are welcome to interpret both as referring to the great War
before Creation, the Epos of Satan’s Rebellion, etc., if they so choose,
but the absurdity of the idea is too apparent. Ezekiel addresses his
lamentations and reproofs to the King of Tyre; Isaiah—to King Ahaz, who
indulged in the worship of idols, as did the rest of the nation with the
exception of a few Initiates (the Prophets, so‐called), who tried to
arrest it on its way to exotericism—or idolatry, which is the same thing.
Let the student judge.
In _Ezekiel_, it is said:
Son of Man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord God
[as we understand it, the “God” Karma]; Because thine heart is
lifted up, and thou hast said I am a God, ... yet thou art a
man.... Behold, therefore, I will bring strangers upon thee: ...
and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom,
... and they shall bring thee down to the pit [or Earth‐
life].(1129)
The origin of the “prince of Tyrus” is to be traced to the “Divine
Dynasties” of the iniquitous Atlanteans, the Great Sorcerers. There is no
metaphor in the words of Ezekiel, but actual _history_ this time. For the
voice _in_ the prophet, the voice of the “Lord,” his own Spirit, which
spake unto him, says:
Because ... thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of
God(s) [Divine Dynasties], in the midst of the seas; yet thou art
a man.... Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret
that they can hide from thee: with thy wisdom ... thou hast
increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy
riches. Behold, therefore ... strangers ... shall draw their
swords against the beauty of thy wisdom ... They shall bring thee
down ... and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in
the midst of the seas.(1130)
All such imprecations are not _prophecy_, but simply _reminders_ of the
fate of the Atlanteans, the “Giants on Earth.”
What can be the meaning of this last sentence if it is not a narrative of
the fate of the Atlanteans? Again, “Thine heart was lifted up because of
thy beauty,”(1131) may refer to the “Heavenly Man” in _Pymander_, or to
the Fallen Angels, who are accused of having fallen through pride on
account of the great beauty and wisdom which became their lot. There is no
metaphor here, except in the preconceived ideas of our Theologians,
perhaps. These verses relate to the Past and belong more to the Knowledge
acquired at the Mysteries of Initiation than to retrospective
clairvoyance! Says the voice, again:
Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God [in the Satya Yuga];
every precious stone was thy covering: ... the workmanship of thy
tabrets and thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day thou wast
created. Thou art the anointed cherub; ... thou hast walked up and
down in the midst of the stones of fire.... Thou wast perfect in
thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was
found in thee. Therefore I will cast thee ... out of the mountain
of God, and ... destroy thee.(1132)
The “Mountain of God” means the “Mountain of the Gods” or Meru, whose
representative in the Fourth Race was Mount Atlas, the _last form of one
of the divine Titans_, so high in those days that the ancients believed
that the Heavens rested on its top. Did not Atlas assist the Giants in
their War against the Gods (Hyginus)? Another version shows the _fable_ as
arising from the fondness of Atlas, son of Iapetus and Clymene, for
Astronomy, and from his dwelling for that reason on the highest mountain
peaks. The truth is that Atlas, the “Mountain of the Gods,” and also the
hero of that name, are the Esoteric symbols of the Fourth Race, and his
seven daughters, the Atlantides, are the symbols of its seven sub‐races.
Mount Atlas, according to all the legends, was three times as high as it
is now; for it has sunk at two different times. It is of a volcanic
origin, and therefore the voice within Ezekiel says:
Therefore will I _bring forth a fire from the midst of thee_, it
shall devour thee.(1133)
Surely it does not mean, as seems to be the case from the translated
texts, that this fire was to be brought from the midst of the Prince of
Tyrus, or his people, but from Mount Atlas, symbolizing the proud Race,
learned in Magic and high in arts and civilization, whose last remnant was
destroyed almost at the foot of the range of those once gigantic
mountains.
Truly, “thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more”;(1134)
as the very name of the Race and its fate is now annihilated from man’s
memory. Bear in mind that almost every ancient king and priest was an
Initiate; that from toward the close of the Fourth Race there had been a
feud between the Initiates of the Right and those of the Left Path;
finally, that the Garden of Eden is referred to by other personages than
the Jews of the Adamic Race, since even Pharaoh is compared to the fairest
tree of Eden by this same Ezekiel, who shows:
All the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, ...
comforted in the nether parts of the earth. [For] they also went
down into hell with him [Pharaoh](1135)
—unto the nether parts, which are in fact the bottom of the ocean, whose
floor gaped wide to devour the lands of the Atlanteans and themselves. If
one bears all this in mind and compares the various accounts, then one
will find out that chapters xxviii and xxxi of _Ezekiel_ do not relate to
Babylon, Assyria, nor yet to Egypt, since none of these have been so
destroyed, having simply fallen into ruins on the _surface_, not _beneath_
the earth—but indeed to Atlantis and most of its nations. And he will see
that the “Garden of Eden” of the Initiates was no myth, but a locality now
submerged. Light will dawn upon him, and he will appreciate such sentences
as these at their true Esoteric value: “Thou hast been in Eden; ... thou
wast upon the holy mountain of God”(1136)—for every nation had and many
still have _holy_ mountains; some Himâlayan Peaks, others Parnassus and
Sinai. They were all places of Initiation and the abodes of the Chiefs of
the communities of ancient and even modern Adepts. And again:
Behold, the Assyrian [why not Atlantean, Initiate?] was a cedar in
Lebanon; ... his height was exalted above all the trees.... The
cedars in the garden of God could not hide him: ... so that all
the trees of Eden ... envied him.(1137)
Throughout all Asia Minor, the Initiates were called the “Trees of
Righteousness,” and the Cedars of Lebanon, as also were some kings of
Israel. So were the great Adepts in India, but only the Adepts of the Left
Hand. When _Vishnu Purâna_ narrates that “the world was over‐run with
trees,” while the Prachetasas, who “passed 10,000 years of austerity in
the vast ocean,” were absorbed in their devotions, the allegory relates to
the Atlanteans and the Adepts of the early Fifth Race—the Âryans. Other
“_trees_ [Adept Sorcerers] spread, and over‐shadowed the unprotected
earth; and the people perished ... unable to labour for ten thousand
years.” Then the Sages, the Rishis of the Âryan Race, called Prachetasas,
are shown “coming forth _from the deep_,”(1138) and destroying by the wind
and flame issuing from their mouths the iniquitous “Trees” and the whole
vegetable kingdom; until Soma (the Moon), the sovereign of the vegetable
world, pacifies them by making alliance with the Adepts of the Right Path,
to whom he offers as bride Mârishâ, the “offspring of the trees.”(1139)
This hints at the great struggle between the “Sons of God” and the Sons of
the Dark Wisdom—our forefathers; or the Atlantean and the Âryan Adepts.
The whole history of that period is allegorized in the _Râmâyana_, which
is the mystic narrative in epic form of the struggle between Râma—the
first king of the Divine Dynasty of the early Âryans—and Râvana, the
symbolical personation of the Atlantean (Lankâ) Race. The former were the
incarnations of the Solar Gods; the latter, of the Lunar Devas. This was
the great battle between Good and Evil, between White and Black Magic, for
the supremacy of the divine forces over the lower terrestrial, or cosmic
powers.
If the student would understand better the last statement, let him turn to
the Anugîtâ episode of the _Mahâbhârata_, where the Brâhmana tells his
wife:
I have perceived by means of the Self the seat abiding in the
Self—(the seat) where dwells the Brahman free from the pairs of
opposites, and the moon, together with the fire [or the sun],
upholding (all) beings (as) the mover of the intellectual
principle.(1140)
The Moon _is_ the deity of the mind (Manas) but only on the lower plane.
Says a Commentary:
_Manas is dual—Lunar in the lower, Solar in its upper portion._
That is to say, it is attracted in its higher aspect towards Buddhi, and
in its lower descends into, and listens to the voice of, its _animal_ Soul
full of selfish and sensual desires; and herein is contained the mystery
of an Adept’s and of a profane man’s life, as also that of the _post
mortem_ separation of the divine from the animal Man. The
_Mahâbhârata_—every line of which has to be read Esoterically—discloses in
magnificent symbolism and allegory the tribulations of both Man and Soul.
Says the Brâhmana in the _Anugîtâ_:
In the interior (within the body), in the midst of all these
(life‐winds) [? principles], which move about in the body and
swallow up one another,(1141) blazes the Vaishvânara fire(1142)
sevenfold.(1143)
But the chief “Soul” is Manas or mind; hence, Soma, the Moon, is shown as
making an alliance with the solar portion in it, personified as the
Prachetasas. But of the seven keys that open the seven aspects of the
_Râmâyana_, as of every other Scripture, this is only one—the
metaphysical.
The symbol of the “Tree” standing for various Initiates was almost
universal. Jesus is called the “Tree of Life,” as are also all the Adepts
of the Good Law, while those of the Left Path are referred to as the
“withering trees.” John the Baptist speaks of the “axe” which “is laid to
the root of the trees”;(1144) and the king of Assyria’s armies are called
“trees.”(1145)
The true meaning of the Garden of Eden has been sufficiently given in
_Isis Unveiled_. Now the writer has more than once heard surprise
expressed that _Isis Unveiled_ should contain so few of the doctrines now
taught. This is quite erroneous. For the allusions to such teachings are
plentiful, even if the teachings themselves were withheld. The time had
not arrived then, as the hour has not struck even now, _to say all_. “No
Atlanteans, or the Fourth Race which preceded our Fifth Race, are
mentioned in _Isis Unveiled_,” wrote a critic on _Esoteric Buddhism_ one
day. I, who wrote _Isis Unveiled_, maintain that the Atlanteans _are_
mentioned as our predecessors. For what can be plainer than the following
statement, when speaking of the Book of Job:
In the original text, instead of “dead things,” it is written dead
_Rephaim_ (giants, or mighty primitive men), from whom “Evolution”
_may one day trace our present race_.(1146)
It is invited to do so now, now that this hint is explained quite openly;
but Evolutionists are as sure to decline nowadays as they did ten years
ago. Science and Theology are against us: therefore we question both, and
have to do so in self‐defence. On the strength of hazy metaphors scattered
throughout the prophets, and in St. John’s _Revelation_, a grand but
reëdited version of the _Book of Enoch_, on these insecure grounds
Christian Theology has built its dogmatic Epos of the War in Heaven. It
has done more: it has used the symbolical visions, intelligible only to
the Initiates, as pillars upon which to support the whole bulky edifice of
its religion; and now the pillars have been found very weak reeds, and the
cunning structure is foundering. The entire Christian scheme rests upon
this Jakin and Boaz—the two contrary forces of Good and Evil, Christ and
Satan, αἱ ἀγαθαὶ καὶ αἱ κακαὶ δυνάμεις. Take away from Christianity its
main prop of the Fallen Angels, and the Eden Bower vanishes, with its Adam
and Eve, into thin air; and Christ, in the exclusive character of the One
God and Saviour, and the Victim of Atonement for the sin of animal‐man,
becomes forthwith a useless, meaningless myth.
In an old number of the _Revue Archéologique_, a French writer, M. Maury,
remarks:
This universal strife between good and bad spirits seems to be
only the reproduction of _another more ancient and more terrible
strife_, which, according to an ancient myth, took place before
the creation of the universe, between the faithful and the
rebellious legions.(1147)
Once more, it is a simple question of priority. Had John’s _Revelation_
been written during the Vedic period, and were not one sure now of its
being simply another version of the _Book of Enoch_ and the Dragon legends
of Pagan antiquity—the grandeur and the beauty of the imagery might have
biassed the critics’ opinion in favour of the Christian interpretation of
that first War, whose battle‐field was starry Heaven, and the first
slaughterers—the Angels. As the matter now stands, however, one has to
trace _Revelation_, event by event, to other and far older visions. For
the better comprehension of the apocalyptic allegories and of the Esoteric
epos we ask the reader to turn to _Revelation_, and to read chapter xii,
from verse 1 to verse 7.
This has several meanings, and much has been found out with regard to the
astronomical and numerical keys of this universal myth. That which may be
now given, is a fragment, a few hints as to its secret meaning, as
embodying the record of a real war, the struggle between the Initiates of
the two Schools. Many and various are the still existing allegories built
on this same foundation stone. The true narrative—that which gives the
full Esoteric meaning—is in the Secret Books, but the writer has had no
access to these.
In the exoteric works, however, the episode of the Târaka War, and some
Esoteric Commentaries, may offer a clue perhaps. In every _Purâna_ the
event is described with more or less variations which show its allegorical
character.
In the Mythology of the earliest Vaidic Âryans as in the later Paurânic
narratives, mention is made of Budha, the “Wise,” one “learned in the
Secret Wisdom,” who is the planet Mercury in his euhemerization. The
_Hindû Classical Dictionary_ credits Budha with being the author of a hymn
in the _Rig Veda_. Therefore, he can by no means be “a later fiction of
the Brâhmans,” but is a very old personation indeed.
It is by enquiring into his genealogy, or theogony rather, that the
following facts are disclosed. As a myth, he is the son of Târâ, the wife
of Brihaspati, the “gold coloured,” and of Soma, the (male) Moon who,
Paris‐like, carries this new Helen of the Hindû Sidereal Kingdom away from
her husband. This causes a great strife and _war_ in Svarga (Heaven). The
episode brings on a battle between the Gods and the Asuras. King Soma
finds allies in Ushanas (Venus), the leader of the Dânavas; and the Gods
are led by Indra and Rudra, who side with Brihaspati. The latter is helped
by Shankara (Shiva), who, having had for his Guru Brihaspati’s father,
Angiras, befriends his son. Indra is here the Indian prototype of Michael,
the Archistrategus and the slayer of the “Dragon’s” Angels—since one of
his names is Jishnu, “leader of the celestial host.” Both fight, as some
Titans did against other Titans in defence of revengeful Gods, the one
party in defence of Jupiter Tonans (in India, Brihaspati is the planet
Jupiter, which is a curious coincidence); the other in support of the
ever‐thundering Rudra. During this war, Indra is deserted by his body‐
guard, the Storm‐Gods (Maruts). The story is very suggestive in some of
its details.
Let us examine some of them, and seek to discover their meaning.
The presiding Genius, or “Regent” of the planet Jupiter is Brihaspati, the
wronged husband. He is the Instructor or Spiritual Guru of the Gods, who
are the representatives of the Procreative Powers. In the _Rig Veda_, he
is called Brahmanaspati, the name “of a deity in whom _the action of the
worshipped_ upon the gods is personified.” Hence Brahmanaspati represents
the materialization of the “Divine Grace,” so to say, by means of ritual
and ceremonies, or the exoteric worship.
Târâ,(1148) his wife, is, on the other hand, the personification of the
powers of one initiated into Gupta Vidyâ (Secret Knowledge), as will be
shown.
Soma is the Moon astronomically; but in mystical phraseology it is also
the name of the sacred beverage drunk by the Brâhmans and the Initiates
during their mysteries and sacrificial rites. The Soma plant is the
_asclepias acida_, which yields a juice from which that mystic beverage,
the Soma drink, is made. Alone the descendants of the Rishis, the
Agnihotris, or Fire‐priests, of the great Mysteries knew all its powers.
But the real property of the _true_ Soma was (and _is_) to make a “new
man” of the Initiate, after he is “reborn,” namely once that he begins to
live in his _Astral_ Body;(1149) for, his spiritual nature overcoming the
physical, he would soon snap it off and part even from that etherealized
form.(1150)
Soma was never given in days of old to the non‐initiated Brâhman—the
simple Grihasta, or priest of the exoteric ritual. Thus Brihaspati, “Guru
of the Gods” though he was, still represented the dead‐letter form of
worship. It is Târâ, his _wife_, the symbol of one who, though wedded to
dogmatic worship, longs for true Wisdom, who is shown as initiated into
his mysteries by King Soma, the giver of that Wisdom. Soma is thus made
_to carry her away_ in the allegory. The result of this is the birth of
Budha, _Esoteric Wisdom_—Mercury, or Hermes, in Greece and Egypt. He is
represented as “so beautiful,” that even the husband, though well aware
that Budha is not the progeny of his dead‐letter worship—claims the “new‐
born” as his Son, the fruit of his ritualistic and meaningless
forms.(1151) Such is, in brief, _one_ of the meanings of the allegory.
The War in Heaven refers to several events of this kind on various and
different planes of being. The first is a purely astronomical and cosmical
fact pertaining to Cosmogony. Mr. John Bentley thought that with the
Hindûs the War in Heaven was only a figure referring to their calculations
of time periods.(1152)
This served as a prototype, he thinks, for the Western nations to build
their War of the Titans upon. The author is not quite wrong, but neither
is he quite right. If the sidereal prototype refers indeed to a pre‐
manvantaric period, and rests entirely on the knowledge which the Âryan
Initiates claim they have of the whole programme and progress of
cosmogony,(1153) the War of the Titans is but a legendary and deified copy
of the real war that took place in the Himâlayan Kailâsa (Heaven) instead
of in the depths of cosmic interplanetary Space. It is the record of the
terrible strife between the “Sons of God” and the “Sons of the Shadow” of
the Fourth and the Fifth Races. It is on these two events, blended
together by legends borrowed from the exoteric account of the War waged by
the Asuras against the Gods, that every subsequent national tradition on
the subject has been built.
Esoterically, the Asuras, transformed subsequently into evil Spirits and
lower Gods, who are eternally at war with the _Great_ Deities—are the Gods
of the Secret Wisdom. In the oldest portions of the _Rig Veda_, they are
the Spiritual and the Divine, the term Asura being used for the Supreme
Spirit and being the same as the great Ahura of the Zoroastrians.(1154)
There was a time when the Gods Indra, Agni, and Varuna themselves belonged
to the Asuras.
In the _Taittirîya Brâhmana_, the Breath (Asu) of Brahmâ‐Prajâpati became
alive, and from that Breath he created the Asuras. Later on, after the
War, the Asuras are called the enemies of the Gods, hence—“_A_‐suras,” the
initial _a_ being a negative prefix—or “_No_‐Gods”; the “Gods” being
referred to as Suras. This then connects the Asuras and their “Hosts,”
enumerated further on, with the “Fallen Angels” of the Christian Churches,
a Hierarchy of Spiritual Beings to be found in every Pantheon of ancient
and even modern nations—from the Zoroastrian down to that of the Chinaman.
They are the Sons of the primeval Creative Breath at the beginning of
every new Mahâ Kalpa, or Manvantara, in the same rank as the Angels who
had remained “faithful.” These were the _allies_ of Soma (the parent of
the Esoteric Wisdom) as against Brihaspati (representing ritualistic or
ceremonial worship). Evidently they have been degraded in Space and Time
into opposing Powers or Demons by the ceremonialists, on account of their
rebellion against hypocrisy, sham‐worship, and the dead‐letter form.
Now what is the real character of all those who fought along with them?
They are:
(1) Ushanas, or the “Host” of the Planet Venus, become now in Roman
Catholicism Lucifer, the Genius of the “day star,”(1155) the Tsaba, or
Army of “Satan.”
(2) The Daityas and Dânavas are the Titans, the Demons and Giants whom we
find in the _Bible_(1156)—the progeny of the “Sons of God” and the
“Daughters of Men.” Their generic name shows their alleged character, and
discloses at the same time the secret _animus_ of the Brâhmans; for they
are the Kratu‐dvishas—the “enemies of the sacrifices” or exoteric _shams_.
These are the “Hosts” that fought against Brihaspati, the representative
of _exoteric_ popular and national religions; and Indra—the God of the
_visible_ Heaven, the Firmament, who, in the early _Veda_, is the
_highest_ God of cosmic Heaven, the fit habitation for an _extra_‐cosmic
and personal God, higher than whom no exoteric worship can ever soar.
(3) Then come the Nâgas,(1157) the Sarpas, Serpents or Seraphs. These,
again, show their character by the hidden meaning of their glyph. In
mythology they are _semi‐divine_ beings with a human face and the tail of
a dragon. They are therefore, undeniably, the Jewish Seraphim (compare
Serapis, Sarpa, Serpent); the singular being Saraph, “burning, fiery.”
Christian and Jewish angelology distinguishes between the Seraphim and the
Cherubim or Cherubs, who come second in order: Esoterically, and
kabalistically, they are identical; the Cherubim being simply the name for
the images or likenesses of any of the divisions of the celestial Hosts.
Now, as said before, the Dragons and Nâgas were the names given to the
Initiate‐hermits, on account of their great Wisdom and Spirituality and
their living in caves. Thus, when Ezekiel(1158) applies the adjective
Cherub to the King of Tyre, and tells him that by his _wisdom_ and his
_understanding_ there is _no secret_ that can be hidden from him, he shows
the Occultist that it is a “Prophet,” perhaps still a follower of
_exoteric_ worship, who fulminates against an Initiate of another school
and not against an imaginary Lucifer, a fallen Cherub from the stars, and
then from the Garden of Eden. Thus the so‐called “War” is, in one of its
many meanings, also an allegorical record of the strife between the two
classes of Adepts—of the Right and of the Left Path. There were three
classes of Rishis in India, who were the earliest Adepts known; the Royal,
or Râjarshis, kings and princes, who adopted the ascetic life; the Divine,
or Devarshis, or the sons of Dharma or Yoga; and the Brahmarshis,
descendants of those Rishis who were the founders of Gotras of Brâhmans,
or caste‐races. Now, leaving the mythical and astronomical keys for one
moment aside, the secret teachings show many Atlanteans who belonged to
these divisions; and there were strifes and wars between them, _de facto_
and _de jure_. Nârada, one of the greatest Rishis, was a Devarshi; and he
is shown in constant and everlasting feud with Brahmâ, Daksha, and other
Gods and Sages. Therefore we may safely maintain that whatever the
_astronomical_ meaning of this universally accepted legend may be, its
human phase is based on real and historical events, disfigured into a
theological dogma only to suit ecclesiastical purposes. As above so below.
Sidereal phenomena, and the behaviour of the celestial bodies in the
Heavens, were taken as a model, and the plan was carried out below, on
Earth. Thus, Space, in its abstract sense, was called the “realm of divine
knowledge,” and by the Chaldees or Initiates Ab Soo, the habitat (or
father, _i.e._, the source) of knowledge, because it is in Space that
dwell the intelligent Powers which _invisibly_ rule the Universe.(1159)
In the same manner, and on the plan of the Zodiac in the _upper_ Ocean or
the Heavens, a certain realm on Earth, an inland sea, was consecrated and
called the “Abyss of Learning”; twelve centres on it, in the shape of
twelve small islands, representing the Zodiacal Signs—two of which
remained for ages the “mystery Signs”(1160)—were the abodes of twelve
Hierophants and Masters of Wisdom. This “Sea of Knowledge” or
learning(1161) remained for ages there, where now stretches the Shamo or
Gobi Desert. It existed until the last great glacial period, when a local
cataclysm, which swept the waters South and West and so formed the present
great desolate desert, left only a certain oasis, with a lake and one
island in the midst of it, as a relic of the Zodiacal Ring on Earth. For
ages the Watery Abyss—which, with the nations that preceded the later
Babylonians, was the abode of the “Great Mother,” the terrestrial post‐
type of the “Great Mother Chaos” in Heaven, the parent of Ea (Wisdom),
himself the early prototype of Oannes, the Man‐Fish of the Babylonians—for
ages, then, the “Abyss” or Chaos was the abode of Wisdom and not of Evil.
The struggle of Bel and then of Merodach, the Sun‐God, with Tiamat, the
Sea and its Dragon—a “War” which ended in the defeat of the latter—has a
purely cosmic and geological meaning, as well as a historical one. It is a
page torn out of the history of the Secret and Sacred Sciences, their
evolution, growth and _death—for the profane masses_. It relates (_a_) to
the systematic and gradual drying up of immense territories by the fierce
Sun at a certain pre‐historic period, one of the terrible droughts which
ended by a gradual transformation of once fertile lands abundantly watered
into the sandy deserts which they are now; and (_b_) to the as systematic
persecution of the Prophets of the Right Path by those of the Left. The
latter, having inaugurated the birth and evolution of the sacerdotal
castes, have finally led the world into all those exoteric religions,
which have been invented to satisfy the depraved taste of the “hoi polloi”
and the ignorant for ritualistic pomp and the materialization of the ever‐
immaterial and Unknowable Principle.
This was a certain improvement on the Atlantean sorcery, the memory of
which lingers in the remembrance of all the literary and Sanskrit‐reading
portion of India, as well as in the popular legends. Still it was a parody
on, and the desecration of, the Sacred Mysteries and their Science. The
rapid progress of anthropomorphism and idolatry led the early Fifth, as it
had already led the Fourth Race, into sorcery once more, though on a
smaller scale. Finally, even the four “Adams” (symbolizing, under other
names, the four preceding Races) were forgotten, and, passing from one
generation into another, each loaded with some additional myths, were at
last drowned in that ocean of popular symbolism called the Pantheons. Yet
they exist to this day in the oldest Jewish traditions: the first as the
Tzelem, the “Shadow‐Adam,” the Chhâyâs of our doctrine; the second, the
“Model” Adam, the copy of the first, and the “male and female” of the
exoteric _Genesis_; the third, the “Earthly Adam” before the Fall, an
androgyne; and the fourth, the Adam after his “fall,” _i.e._, separated
into sexes, or the pure Atlantean. The Adam of the Garden of Eden, or the
forefather of our Race—the fifth—is an ingenious compound of the above
four. As stated in the _Zohar_, Adam, the first Man, is not found now on
Earth, he “is not found in all Below.” For where does the lower Earth come
from? “From the _Chain of the Earth_, and from the _Heaven Above_,”
_i.e._, from the superior Globes, those which precede and are above our
Earth.
And there came out from it [the Chain] creatures differing one
from the other. Some of them in garments [solid] (skins), some in
shells (_Q’lippoth_), ... some in red shells, some in black, some
in white, and some from all the colours.(1162)
As in the Chaldæan Cosmogony of Berosus and the Stanzas just given, some
treatises on the _Kabalah_ speak of creatures with two faces, some with
four, and some with one face; for “the highest Adam did not come down in
all the countries, or produce progeny and have many wives,” but is a
mystery.
So is the Dragon a mystery. Truly says Rabbi Simeon Ben Iochaï, that to
understand the meaning of the Dragon is not given to the “companions”
(students, or Chelâs), but only to the “little ones,” _i.e._, the perfect
Initiates.(1163)
The work of the beginning the companions understand; but it is
only the little ones who understand the parable on the work in the
Principium by the _Mystery of the Serpent of the Great Sea_.(1164)
And those Christians, who may happen to read this, will also understand by
the light of the above sentence who their “Christ” was. For Jesus states
repeatedly that he who “shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a _little
child_, he shall not enter therein”; and if some of his sayings have been
meant to apply to children without any metaphor, most of the references to
the “little ones” in the Gospels, relate to the Initiates, _of whom Jesus
was one_. Paul (Saul) is referred to in the _Talmud_ as the “little one.”
The “Mystery of the Serpent” was this: Our Earth, or rather _terrestrial
life_, is often referred to in the Secret Teachings as the Great Sea, the
“Sea of Life” having remained to this day a favourite metaphor. The
_Siphra Dtzenioutha_ speaks of Primeval Chaos and the Evolution of the
Universe after a Destruction (Pralaya), comparing it to an uncoiling
serpent:
Extending hither and thither, its tail in its mouth, the head
twisting on its neck, it is enraged and angry.... It watches and
conceals itself. Every thousand _Days_ it is manifested.(1165)
A commentary on the _Purânas_ says:
Ananta‐Shesha is a form of Vishnu, the Holy Spirit of
Preservation, and a symbol of the Universe, on which it is
supposed to sleep during the intervals of the _Days_ of Brahmâ.
The seven heads of Shesha support the Universe.
So the Spirit of God “sleeps,” or is “breathing” over the Chaos of
Undifferentiated Matter, before each new “Creation,” says the _Siphra
Dtzenioutha_. Now one Day of Brahmâ is composed, as already explained, of
_one thousand_ Mahâ Yugas; and as each Night, or period of rest, is equal
in duration to this Day, it is easy to see what this sentence in the
_Siphra Dtzenioutha_ refers to—viz., that the Serpent manifests “once in a
thousand days.” Nor is it more difficult to see whither the initiated
writer of the _Siphra_ is leading us, when he says:
Its head is broken in the waters of the Great Sea, as it is
written: Thou dividest the sea by thy strength, thou brakest the
_heads_ of the _dragons_ in the waters.(1166)
It refers to the trials of the Initiates in this physical life, the “Sea
of Sorrow,” if read with one key; it hints at the successive destruction
of the seven Spheres of a Chain of Worlds in the Great Sea of Space, when
read with another key; for every sidereal globe or sphere, every world,
star, or group of stars, is called in symbolism a “Dragon’s Head.” But
however it may read, the Dragon was never regarded as Evil, nor was the
Serpent either—in antiquity. In the metaphors, whether astronomical,
cosmical, theogonical or simply physiological (or phallic), the Serpent
was always regarded as a _divine_ symbol. When mention is made of “the
[Cosmic] Serpent which runs with 370 leaps,”(1167) it means the cyclic
periods of the great Tropical Year of 25,868 years, divided in the
Esoteric calculation into 370 periods or cycles, as one solar year is
divided into 365 days. And if Michael was regarded by the Christians as
the Conqueror of Satan, the Dragon, it is because in the _Talmud_ this
fighting personage is represented as the Prince of Waters, who had seven
subordinate Spirits under him—a good reason why the Latin Church made him
the patron saint of every promontory in Europe. In the _Siphra
Dtzenioutha_ the Creative Force “makes sketches and spiral lines of his
creation _in the shape of a Serpent_.” It “holds its tail in its mouth,”
because it is the symbol of endless eternity and of cyclic periods. Its
meanings, however, would require a volume, and we must end.
Thus the reader may now see for himself what are the several meanings of
the “War in Heaven,” and of the “Great Dragon.” Thus the most solemn and
dreaded of Church dogmas, the alpha and omega of the Christian faith, and
the pillar of its Fall and Atonement, dwindles down to a Pagan symbol, in
the many allegories of these pre‐historic struggles.