their Relation to the Cross and Circle.
When the Abbé Louis Constant, better known as Éliphas Lévi, said in his
_Histoire de la Magie_ that the _Sepher Jetzirah_, the _Zohar_, and the
_Apocalypse_ of St. John, are the masterpieces of the Occult Sciences, he
ought, if he had wished to be correct and clear, to have added—in Europe.
It is quite true that these works contain “more _significance_ than
words”; and that their “expression is poetical,” while “in numbers” they
are “exact.” Unfortunately, however, before any one can appreciate the
_poetry_ of the expressions, or the _exactness_ of the numbers, he will
have to learn the real significance and meaning of the terms and symbols
employed. But man will never learn this so long as he remains ignorant of
the fundamental principle of the Secret Doctrine, whether in Oriental
Esotericism, or in the kabalistical Symbology—the _key, or value, in all
their aspects_, of the God‐names, Angel‐names, and Patriarch‐names in the
_Bible_, their mathematical or geometrical value, and their relations to
manifested Nature.
Therefore, if, on the one hand, the _Zohar_ “astonishes” the mystic, by
the profundity of its views and the great simplicity of its images, or the
other hand, that work misleads the student by such expressions as those
used with respect to Ain Suph and Jehovah, notwithstanding the assurance
that:
The book is careful to explain that the human form with which it
clothes God is but _an image of the Word_, and that God should not
be expressed by any thought, or any form.
It is well known that Origen Clement, and the Rabbis confessed that the
_Kabalah_ and the _Bible_ were _veiled and secret_ books; but few know
that the Esotericism of the kabalistic books in their present _reëdited_
form is simply another and still more cunning veil thrown upon the
primitive symbolism of these secret volumes.
The idea of representing the _hidden_ Deity by the circumference of a
circle, and the Creative Power—male and female, or the Androgynous Word—by
the diameter across it, is one of the oldest symbols. It is upon this
conception that every great Cosmogony has been built. With the old Âryans,
the Egyptians, and the Chaldæans, the symbol was complete, as it embraced
the idea of the eternal and immovable Divine Thought in its absoluteness,
separated entirely from the incipient stage of the so‐called “creation,”
and comprised psychological and even spiritual evolution, and its
mechanical work, or cosmogonical construction. With the Hebrews, however,
though the former conception is to be distinctly found in the _Zohar_, and
the _Sepher Jetzirah_, or what remains of the latter—that which has been
subsequently embodied in the _Pentateuch_ proper, and especially in
_Genesis_, is simply this secondary stage, to wit, the mechanical law of
creation, or rather of construction; while Theogony is hardly, if at all,
outlined.
It is only in the first six chapters of _Genesis_, in the rejected _Book
of Enoch_, and the misunderstood and mistranslated poem of _Job_, that
true echoes of the Archaic Doctrine may now be found. The key to it is
lost now, even among the most learned Rabbis, whose predecessors in the
early period of the Middle Ages, in their national exclusiveness and
pride, and especially in their profound hatred of Christianity, preferred
to cast it into the deep sea of oblivion, rather than to share their
knowledge with their relentless and fierce persecutors. Jehovah was their
own tribal property, inseparable from, and unfit to play a part in, any
other but the Mosaic Law. Violently torn out of his original frame, which
he fitted and which fitted him, the “Lord God of Abraham and Jacob” could
hardly be crammed without damage and breakage into the new Christian
Canon. Being the weaker, the Judeans could not help the desecration. They
kept, however, the secret of the origin of their Adam Kadmon, or male‐
female Jehovah, and the new tabernacle proved a complete misfit for the
old God. They were, indeed, avenged!
The statement that Jehovah was the tribal God of the Jews and no higher,
will be denied like many other things. Yet the Theologians are not in a
position to tell us, in that case, the meaning of the verses in
_Deuteronomy_, which say quite plainly:
When the Most High [not the “Lord,” or “Jehovah” either] divided
to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of
Adam, he set the bounds ... according to the number of the
children of Israel.... _The Lord’s_ [Jehovah’s] _portion is his
people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance_.(1259)
This settles the question. So impudent have been the modern translators of
Bibles and Scriptures, and so damaging are these verses, that, following
in the steps traced for them by their worthy Church Fathers, each
translator has rendered these lines in his own way. While the above‐cited
quotation is taken _verbatim_ from the English Authorized Version, in the
French Bible,(1260) we find the “Most High” translated by “Souverain”
(Sovereign!!), the “sons of Adam” rendered by “the children of men,” and
the “Lord” changed into the “Eternal.” For impudent sleight‐of‐hand, the
French Protestant Church seems thus to have surpassed even English
ecclesiasticism.
Nevertheless, one thing is patent: the “Lord’s [Jehovah’s] portion” is his
“chosen people” and none else, for, _Jacob alone is the lot of his
inheritance_. What, then, have other nations, who call themselves Âryans,
to do with this Semitic Deity, the tribal God of Israel? Astronomically,
the “Most High” is the Sun, and the “Lord” is one of his seven planets,
whether it be Iao, the Genius of the Moon, or Ildabaoth‐Jehovah, the
Genius of Saturn, according to Origen and the Egyptian Gnostics.(1261) Let
the “Angel Gabriel,” the “Lord” of Iran, watch over his people, and
Michael‐Jehovah, over his Hebrews. These are not the Gods of other
nations, nor were they ever those of Jesus. As each Persian Dev is chained
to his planet,(1262) so each Hindû Deva (a “Lord”) has its allotted
portion, a world, a planet, a nation or a race. Plurality of worlds
implies plurality of Gods. We believe in the former, and may recognize,
but will never worship the latter.(1263)
It has been repeatedly stated in this work that every religious and
philosophical symbol had seven meanings attached to it, each pertaining to
its legitimate plane of thought, _i.e._, either purely metaphysical or
astronomical; psychic or physiological, etc. These seven meanings and
their applications are difficult enough to learn when taken by themselves;
but the interpretation and the right comprehension of them become tenfold
more puzzling, when, instead of being correlated, or made to flow
consecutively out of, and to follow, each other, each, or any one of these
meanings, is accepted as the one and sole explanation of the whole
symbolical idea. An instance may be given, as it admirably illustrates the
statement. Here are two interpretations, given by two learned Kabalists
and scholars, of one and the same verse in _Exodus_. Moses beseeches the
Lord to show him his “glory.” Evidently it is not the crude dead‐letter
phraseology as found in the _Bible_ that is to be accepted. There are
_seven_ meanings in the _Kabalah_, of which we may give two as interpreted
by the said two scholars. One of them translates while explaining:
“Thou canst not see My face;... I will put thee in a cleft of the
rock and I will cover thee with My hand while I pass by. And then
I will take away Mine hand, and thou shalt see My _a’hoor_,”
_i.e._, My back.(1264)
And then the translator adds in a gloss:
That is, I will show you “My back,” _i.e._, My visible universe,
My lower manifestations, but, as a man still in the flesh, thou
canst not see My invisible nature. So proceeds the Qabbalah.(1265)
This is correct, and is the cosmo‐metaphysical explanation. And now speaks
the other Kabalist, giving the numerical meaning. As it involves a good
many suggestive ideas, and is far more fully given, we may allow it more
space. This synopsis is from an unpublished MS., and explains more fully
what was given in Section III, on the “Holy of Holies.”(1266)
The numbers of the name “Moses” are those of “I am that I am,” so that the
names Moses and Jehovah are at one in numerical harmony. The word Moses is
משה (5 + 300 + 40), and the sum of the values of its letters is 345;
Jehovah—the Genius _par excellence_ of the Lunar Year—assumes the value of
543, or the reverse of 345.
In the third chapter of Exodus, in the 13th and 14th verses, it is
said: And Moses said, ... Behold I come unto the children of
Israel, and shall say unto them. The God of your fathers hath sent
me unto you; and they shall say unto me, What is his name? What
shall I say unto them? And God said unto Moses,
I Am That I Am.
The Hebrew words for this expression are _âhiyé asher âhiyé_, and in the
value of the sums of their letters stand thus:
אהיה אשר אהיה
21 501 21
... This being his [God’s] name, the sum of the values composing
it, 21, 501, 21 is 543, or simply a use of the simple digit
numbers in the name of Moses, ... but now so ordered that the name
of 345 is reversed, and reads 543.
So that when Moses asks, “Let me see Thy face or glory,” the other rightly
and truly replies, “Thou canst not see my face ... but thou _shalt see me
behind_”—the true sense, though not the precise words; for the corner and
the _behind_ of 543 is the _face_ of 345. This is
For check and to keep a _strict use_ of a set of numbers to
develop certain _grand_ results, for the object of which they are
specifically employed.
As the learned Kabalist adds:
In other uses of the numbers, they saw each other face to face. It
is strange that if we add 345 to 543 we have 888, which was the
Gnostic Cabbalistic value of the name Christ, who was Jehoshua or
Joshua. And so also the division of the 24 hours of the day gives
three eights as quotient.... The chief end of all this system of
Number Checks was to preserve in perpetuity the exact value of the
Lunar Year in the Natural measure of Days.
These are the astronomical and numerical meanings in the secret Theogony
of sidereo‐cosmical Gods invented by the Chaldæo‐Hebrews,—two meanings out
of seven. The other five would astonish the Christians still more.
The series of Œdipuses who have endeavoured to interpret the riddle of the
Sphinx, is long indeed. For many ages she has been devouring the brightest
and the noblest intellects of Christendom; but now the Sphinx is
conquered. In the great intellectual struggle which has ended in the
complete victory of the Œdipuses of Symbolism, it is, however, not the
Sphinx, who, burning with the shame of defeat, has had to bury herself in
the sea, but verily the many‐sided symbol, named Jehovah, whom
Christians—the _civilized_ nations—have accepted for their God. The
Jehovah symbol has collapsed under the too close analysis, and is—drowned.
Symbologists have discovered with dismay that their adopted Deity was only
a mask for many other Gods, a _euhemerized_ extinct planet, at best, the
Genius of the Moon and Saturn with the Jews, of the Sun and Jupiter with
early Christians; that the Trinity—unless they accepted the more abstract
and metaphysical meanings given to it by the Gentiles—was, in truth, only
an astronomical triad, composed of the Sun (the Father), and the two
planets Mercury (the Son) and Venus (the Holy Ghost), Sophia, the Spirit
of Wisdom, Love and Truth, and Lucifer, as Christ, the “bright and morning
star.”(1267) For, if the Father is the Sun (the “Elder Brother,” in the
Eastern Inner Philosophy), the nearest planet to it is Mercury (Hermes,
Budha, Thoth), the name of whose Mother on Earth was Maia. Now this planet
receives seven times more light than any other; a fact which led the
Gnostics to call their Christos, and the Kabalists their Hermes (in the
astronomical meaning), the “Seven‐fold Light.” Finally, _this_ God was
Bel—the Sun being Bel with the Gauls; Helios, with the Greeks; Baal, with
the Phœnicians; El, in Chaldæan, hence El‐ohim, Emanu‐el, and El, “God,”
in Hebrew. But even the kabalistic God has vanished in the rabbinical
workmanship, and one has now to turn to the innermost metaphysical sense
of the _Zohar_ to find in it anything like Ain Suph, the Nameless Deity
and the Absolute, so authoritatively and loudly claimed by the Christians.
But it is certainly not to be found in the Mosaic books, at any rate by
those who try to read without a key to them. Ever since this key was lost,
Jews and Christians have tried their best to blend these two conceptions,
but in vain. They have only succeeded in finally robbing even the
Universal Deity of Its majestic character and primitive meaning.
As was said in _Isis Unveiled_:
It would seem, therefore, but natural to make a difference between
the mystery‐god Ιαω, adopted from the highest antiquity by all who
participated in the esoteric knowledge of the priests, and his
phonetic counterparts, whom we find treated with so little
reverence by the Ophites and other Gnostics.(1268)
In the Ophite gems of King,(1269) we find the name of Iao
repeated, and often confounded with that of Ievo, while the latter
simply represents one of the Genii antagonistic to Abraxas.... But
the name Iao neither originated with, nor was it the sole property
of the Jews. Even if it had pleased Moses to bestow the name upon
the tutelary “Spirit,” the alleged protector and national deity of
the “chosen people of Israel,” there is yet no possible reason why
other nationalities should receive Him as the Highest and One‐
living God. But we deny the assumption altogether. Besides, there
is the fact that Iaho or Iao was a “mystery name” from the
beginning, for יהיה and יה never came into use before the time of
king David. Anterior to his time, few or no proper names were
compounded with Iah or Jah. It looks rather as though David, being
a sojourner among the Tyrians and Philistines,(1270) brought
thence the name of Jehovah. He made Zadok high priest, from whom
came the Zadokites or Sadducees. He lived and ruled first at
Hebron (חברון), Habir‐on or Kabeir‐town, where the rites of the
four (mystery‐gods) were celebrated. Neither David nor Solomon
recognized either Moses or the law of Moses. They aspired to build
a temple to יהוה, like the structures erected by Hiram to Hercules
and Venus, Adon and Astarte.
Says Fürst: “The very ancient name of God, Yâho, written in the
Greek Ιαω, appears, apart _from its derivation_, to have been an
old mystic name of the Supreme Deity of the Shemites. Hence it was
told to Moses when he was initiated at Hor‐eb—the _Cave_—under the
direction of Jethro, the Kenite (or Cainite) priest of Midian. In
an old religion of the Chaldæans, whose remains are to be found
among the Neo‐Platonists, the highest Divinity, enthroned above
the seven Heavens, representing the Spiritual Light‐Principle, ...
and also conceived of as Demiurgus,(1271) was called Ιαω (יהו),
who was, like the Hebrew Yâho, mysterious and unmentionable, and
whose name was communicated to the Initiated. The Phœnicians had a
Supreme God, whose name was triliteral and _secret_, and he was
Ιαω.”(1272)
The cross, say the Kabalists, repeating the lesson of the Occultists, is
one of the most ancient—nay, perhaps, the _most_ ancient of symbols. This
has been demonstrated at the very beginning of the Proem in Volume I. The
Eastern Initiates show it coëval with the circle of Deific Infinitude and
the first differentiation of the Essence, the union of Spirit and Matter.
This interpretation has been rejected, and the astronomical allegory alone
has been accepted and made to fit into cunningly imagined terrestrial
events.
Let us demonstrate this statement. In Astronomy, as said, Mercury is the
son of Cœlus and Lux—of the Sky and Light, or the Sun; in Mythology he is
the progeny of Jupiter and Maia. He is the “Messenger” of his Father
Jupiter, the Messiah of the Sun; in Greek, his name Hermes means, among
other things, the “Interpreter”—the Word, the Logos, or Verbum. Now
Mercury is born on Mount Cyllene among shepherds, and is the patron of the
latter. As a psychopompic Genius, he conducted the Souls of the Dead to
Hades and brought them back again, an office attributed to Jesus after his
Death and Resurrection. The symbols of Hermes‐Mercury (Dii Termini) were
placed along, and at the turning points of, highways, as crosses are now
placed in Italy, and they were _cruciform_.(1273) Every seventh day the
priests anointed these Termini with oil, and once a year hung them with
garlands, hence they were the _anointed_. Mercury, when speaking through
his oracles, says:
I am he whom you call the Son of the Father [Jupiter] and Maia.
Leaving the King of Heaven [the Sun] I come to help you, mortals.
Mercury heals the blind and restores sight, mental and physical.(1274) He
was often represented as three‐headed and called Tricephalus, Triplex, as
one with the Sun and Venus. Finally, Mercury, as Cornutus(1275) shows, was
sometimes figured under a cubic form, without arms, because “the power of
speech and eloquence can prevail without the assistance of arms or feet.”
It is this cubic form which connects the Termini directly with the cross,
and it is the eloquence or the power of speech of Mercury which made the
crafty Eusebius say, “Hermes is the emblem of the Word which creates and
interprets all,” for it is the Creative Word; and he shows Porphyry
teaching that the Speech of Hermes—now interpreted “Word of God” (!) in
_Pymander_—a Creative Speech (Verbum), is the Seminal Principle scattered
throughout the Universe.(1276) In Alchemy “Mercury” is the radical “Moyst”
Principle, Primitive or Elementary Water, containing the Seed of the
Universe, fecundated by the Solar Fires. To express this fecundating
principle, a phallus was often added to the cross (the male and female, or
the vertical and the horizontal united) by the Egyptians. The cruciform
Termini also represented this dual idea, which was found in Egypt in the
_cubic_ Hermes. The author of _Source of Measures_ tells us why.(1277)
As shown by him, the cube unfolded becomes in display a cross of the Tau,
or the Egyptian, form; or again, “the circle attached to the Tau gives the
ansated cross” of the old Pharaohs. They had known this from their priests
and their “King‐Initiates” for ages, and also what was meant by “the
attachment of a man to the cross,” which idea “was made to coördinate with
that of the origin of human life, and hence the _phallic form_.” Only the
latter came into action æons and ages after the idea of the Carpenter and
Artificer of the Gods, Vishva‐karmâ, crucifying the “Sun‐Initiate” on the
cruciform lathe. As the same author writes:
_The attachment of a man to the cross_ ... was made use of in this
form of display by the Hindûs.(1278)
But, it was made “to coördinate” with the idea of the new rebirth of man
by _spiritual_, not physical regeneration. The Candidate for Initiation
was attached to the Tau or astronomical cross with a far grander and
nobler idea than that of the origin of mere _terrestrial_ life.
On the other hand, the Semites seem to have had no other or higher purpose
in life than that of procreating their species. Thus, geometrically, and
according to the reading of the _Bible_ by means of the numerical method,
the author of _The Source of Measures_ is quite correct.
The entire [Jewish] system seems to have been anciently regarded
as one resting in nature, and one which was adopted by nature, or
God, as the _basis or law_ of the exertion practically of creative
power—_i.e._, it was the _creative design_, of which creation was
practically the application. This seems to be established by the
fact that, under the system set forth, measures of _planetary
times_ serve coördinately as measures of the _size_ of planets,
and of the peculiarity of their shapes—_i.e._, in the extension of
their equatorial and polar diameters.... This system [that of
creative design] seems to underlie the whole Biblical structure,
as a foundation for its _ritualism_ and for its display of the
works of the Deity in the way of _architecture_, by use of the
sacred unit of measure in the Garden of Eden, the Ark of Noah, the
Tabernacle, and the Temple of Solomon.(1279)
Thus, on the very showing of the defenders of this system, the Jewish
Deity is proved to be, at best, only the manifested Duad, never the One
Absolute All. Geometrically demonstrated, he is a _number_; symbolically,
a _euhemerized_ Priapus; and this can hardly satisfy a mankind thirsting
after the demonstration of real spiritual truths, and the possession of a
God with a divine, not anthropomorphic, nature. It is strange that the
most learned of modern Kabalists can see in the cross and circle nothing
but a symbol of the manifested _creative_ and _androgyne_ Deity in its
relation to, and interference with, this phenomenal world.(1280) One
author believes that:
However man [read, the Jew and Rabbi] obtained knowledge of the
practical measure, ... by which nature was thought to adjust the
planets in size to harmonize with the notation of their movements,
it seems he did obtain it, and esteemed its possession as the
means of his realization of the Deity—that is, he approached _so
nearly to a conception of a Being having a mind like his own_,
only infinitely more powerful, as to be able to realize _a law of
creation_ established by that Being, which must have existed prior
to any creation (kabalistically called the Word).(1281)
This may have satisfied the practical _Semite_ mind, but the Eastern
Occultist has to decline the offer of such a God; indeed, a Deity, a
Being, “having a mind like that of man, only infinitely more powerful,” is
_no_ God that has any room _beyond_ the cycle of creation. He has nought
to do with the _ideal_ conception of the Eternal Universe. He is, at best,
one of the _subordinate creative_ powers, the Totality of which is called
the Sephiroth, the Heavenly Man, and Adam Kadmon, the Second Logos of the
Platonists.
This very same idea is clearly found at the bottom of the ablest
definitions of the _Kabalah_ and its mysteries, _e.g._, by John A. Parker,
as quoted in the same work:
The key of the Kabala is _thought to be the geometrical relation
of the area of the circle inscribed in the square_, or of the cube
to the sphere, giving rise to the relation of diameter to
circumference of a circle, with the numerical value of this
relation expressed in integrals. The relation of diameter to
circumference, being a supreme one connected with the god‐names
Elohim and Jehovah (which terms are expressions numerically of
these relations, respectively—the first being of circumference,
the latter of diameter), embraces all other subordinations under
it. Two expressions of circumference to diameter in integrals are
used in the Bible: (1) The perfect, and (2) The imperfect. One of
the relations between these is such that (2) subtracted from (1)
will leave a _unit_ of a diameter value in terms, or in the
denomination of the circumference value of the perfect circle, or
a unit straight line having a perfect circular value, or a factor
of circular value.(1282)
Such calculations can lead one no further than to unriddle the mysteries
of the _third_ stage of Evolution, or the “Third Creation of Brahmâ.” The
initiated Hindûs know how to “square the circle” far better than any
European. But of this more anon. The fact is that the Western Mystics
commence their speculation only at that stage when the Universe “falls
into matter,” as the Occultists say. Throughout the whole series of
kabalistic books we have not met with one sentence that would hint in the
remotest way at the psychological and spiritual, as well as at the
mechanical and _physiological_ secrets of “creation.” Shall we, then,
regard the evolution of the Universe as simply a prototype, on a gigantic
scale, of the act of procreation; as “divine” _phallicism_, and rhapsodize
on it as the evilly‐inspired author of a late work of this name has done?
The writer does not think so. And she feels justified in saying so, since
the most careful reading of the _Old Testament_—esoterically, as well as
exoterically—seems to have carried the most enthusiastic enquirers no
further than a certainty on mathematical grounds that from the first to
the last chapter of the _Pentateuch_ every scene, every character or event
are shown connected, directly or indirectly, with the _origin of birth_ in
its crudest and most brutal form. Thus, however interesting and ingenious
the rabbinical methods, the writer, in common with other Eastern
Occultists, must prefer those of the Pagans.
It is not, then, in the _Bible_ that we have to search for the origin of
the cross and circle, but beyond the Flood. Therefore, returning to
Éliphas Lévi and the _Zohar_, we answer for the Eastern Occultists and say
that, applying practice to principle, they agree entirely with Pascal, who
says that:
God is a circle, the centre of which is everywhere and the
circumference nowhere.
Whereas the Kabalists say the reverse, and maintain it, solely out of
their desire to veil their doctrine. By the way, the definition of Deity
by the circle is not Pascal’s at all, as Éliphas Lévi thought. It was
_borrowed_ by the French Philosopher from either Mercury Trismegistus or
Cardinal Cusa’s Latin work, _De Doctâ Ignorantiâ_, in which he makes use
of it. It is, moreover, disfigured by Pascal, who replaces the words
“Cosmic Circle,” which stand symbolically in the original inscription, by
the word Theos. With the Ancients both words were synonymous.
A. Cross And Circle.
In the minds of the ancient Philosophers something of the divine and the
mysterious has ever been ascribed to the shape of the circle. The old
world, consistent in its symbolism and with its Pantheistic intuitions,
uniting the visible and the invisible Infinitudes into one, represented
Deity and its outward Veil alike—by a circle. This merging of the two into
a unity, and the name Theos being given indifferently to both, is
explained, and becomes thereby still more _scientific_ and philosophical.
Plato’s etymological definition of the word _theos_ (θεός) has, been given
elsewhere. In his _Cratylus_, he derives it from the verb _the‐ein_
(θέειν), “to move,” as suggested by the motion of the heavenly bodies
which he connects with Deity. According to the Esoteric Philosophy, this
Deity, during its “Nights” and its “Days,” or Cycles of Rest and Activity,
is the “Eternal Perpetual Motion,” the “Ever‐Becoming, as well as the ever
universally Present, and the Ever‐Existing.” The latter is the root‐
abstraction; the former is the only possible conception in the human mind,
if it disconnects this Deity from any shape or form. It is a perpetual,
never‐ceasing evolution, circling back in its incessant progress through
æons of duration into its original status—Absolute Unity.
It was only the minor Gods who were made to carry the symbolical
attributes of the higher ones. Thus, the God Shoo, the personification of
Ra, who appears as the “Great Cat of the Basin of Persæa in An”(1283) was
often represented in the Egyptian monuments seated and holding a cross,
symbol of the four Quarters, or the Elements, attached to a circle.
In that very learned work, _The Natural Genesis_, by Gerald Massey, under
the heading, “Typology of the Cross,” there is more information to be had
on the cross and circle than in any other work we know of. He who would
fain have proofs of the antiquity of the cross is referred to these two
volumes. The author says:
The circle and cross are inseparable.... The Crux Ansata unites
the circle and cross of the four corners. From this origin the
circle and the cross came to be interchangeable at times. For
example, the Chakra, or Disk of Vishnu, is a circle. The name
denotes the circling, wheeling round, periodicity, the wheel of
time. This the god uses as a weapon to hurl at the enemy. In like
manner, Thor throws his weapon, the Fylfot, a form of the four‐
footed cross [Svastika], and a type of the four quarters. Thus the
cross is equivalent to the circle of the year. The wheel emblem
unites the cross and circle in one, as does the hieroglyphic cake
and the Ankh‐tie ☥.(1284)
Nor was the double glyph sacred with the profane, but only with the
Initiates. For Raoul Rochette shows that:(1285)
The sign ♀ occurs as the _reverse_ of a Phœnician coin, with a Ram
as the obverse.... The same sign, sometimes called Venus’ Looking‐
Glass, because it typified reproduction, was employed to mark the
hind‐quarters of valuable brood mares of Corinthian and other
beautiful breeds of horses.
This proves that so far back as those early days the cross had already
become the symbol of human procreation, and that oblivion of the _divine_
origin of cross and circle had begun.
Another form of the cross is given from the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society_:(1286)
At each of the four corners is placed a quarter arc of an oviform
curve, and when the four are put together they form an oval; thus
the figure combines the cross with the circle round it in four
parts, corresponding to the four corners of the cross. The four
segments answer to the four feet of the Swastica cross and the
Fylfot of Thor. The four‐leaved lotus flower of Buddha, is
likewise figured at the centre of this cross, the lotus being an
Egyptian and Hindu type of the four quarters. The four quarter
arcs, if joined together, would form an ellipse, and the ellipse
is also figured on each arm of the cross. This ellipse therefore
denotes the path of the earth.... Sir J. Y. Simpson copied the
following specimen, [Symbol: Oval, with large letter “Z” inside,
with horizontal crossbar] which is here presented, as the cross of
the two equinoxes and the two solstices placed within the figure
of the earth’s path. The same ovoid or boat‐shaped figure appears
at times in the Hindu drawings with seven steps at each end as a
form or a mode of Meru.
This is the astronomical aspect of the double glyph. There are six more
aspects, however, and an attempt may be made to interpret a few of these.
The subject is so vast that it would require in itself alone many volumes.
But the most curious of these Egyptian symbols of cross and circle, spoken
of in the above cited work, is one which receives its full explanation and
final colour from Âryan symbols of the same nature. Says the author:
The four‐armed Cross is simply the cross of the four quarters, but
the cross‐sign is not always simple.(1287) This is a type that was
developed from an identifiable beginning, which was adapted to the
expression of various ideas afterwards. The most sacred cross of
Egypt that was carried in the hands of the Gods, the Pharaohs, and
the mummied dead, is the Ankh ☥ the sign of life, the living, an
oath, the covenant.... The top of this is the hieroglyphic Ru
[Symbol: Horizontal oval] set upright on the Tau‐cross. The Ru is
the door, gate, mouth, the place of outlet. This denotes the
_birthplace_ in the northern quarter of the heavens, from which
the Sun is reborn. Hence the _Ru of the Ankh‐sign is the feminine
type of the birthplace, representing the north_. It was in the
_northern quarter_ that the Goddess of the Seven Stars, called the
“Mother of the Revolutions,” gave birth to time in the earliest
cycle of the year. The first sign of this primordial circle and
cycle made in heaven is the earliest shape of the Ankh‐cross
[Symbol: Horizontal oval with tail to the right], a mere loop
which contains both a circle and the cross in one image. This loop
or noose is carried in front of the oldest genitrix, _Typhon of
the Great Bear_; as her _Ark_, the ideograph of a _period_, _an
ending_, _a time_, shown to mean one revolution. This, then,
represents the circle made in the northern heaven by the Great
Bear which constituted the earliest year of time, from which fact
we infer that the loop or Ru of the North represents that quarter,
the birthplace of time when figured as the Ru of the Ankh symbol.
Indeed this can be proved. The noose is an _Ark_ or _Rek_ type of
reckoning. The Ru of the Ankh‐cross was continued in the Cypriote
R, [Symbol: Circle with horizontal line beneath], and the Coptic
Ro, [Symbol: Figure like a Rho].(1288) The Ro was carried into the
Greek cross [Symbol: Large Greek Rho with letter Chi beneath it],
which is formed of the Ro and Chi or _R‐k_.... The Rek, or Ark,
was the sign of all beginning (_Arche_) on this account, and the
Ark‐tie is the cross of the North, the hind part of heaven.(1289)
Now this, again, is entirely astronomical and phallic. The Paurânic
version in India gives the whole matter another colour. Without destroying
the above interpretation, it is made to reveal a portion of its mysteries
with the help of the astronomical key, and thus offers a more metaphysical
rendering. The Ankh‐tie [Symbol: Horizontal oval with tail to the right]
does not belong to Egypt alone. It exists under the name of Pâsha, a cord
which the four‐armed Shiva holds in the hand of his right back arm.(1290)
The Mahâdeva is represented in the posture of an ascetic, as Mahâyogî,
with his third eye [Symbol: Vertical oval with dot in the middle], which
is “the Ru [Symbol: Horizontal oval with dot in the middle], set upright
on the Tau‐cross” in another form. The Pâsha is held in the hand in such a
way that the first finger and hand near the thumb make the cross, or loop
and crossing. Our Orientalists would have it to represent a cord to bind
refractory offenders with, because, forsooth, Kâlî, Shiva’s consort, has
the same as an attribute!
The Pâsha has here a double significance, as also has Shiva’s Trisûla and
every other divine attribute. This dual significance lies in Shiva, for
Rudra has certainly the same meaning as the Egyptian Ansated Cross in its
cosmic and mystic meaning. In the hand of Shiva, the Pâsha becomes
lingyonic. Shiva, as said before, is a name unknown to the _Vedas_. It is
in the _White Yajur Veda_ that Rudra appears for the first time as the
Great God, Mahâdeva, whose symbol is the Lingam. In the _Rig Veda_ he is
called Rudra, the “howler,” the beneficent and the maleficent Deity at the
same time, the Healer and the Destroyer. In the _Vishnu Purâna_, he is the
God who springs from the forehead of Brahmâ, who separates into male and
female, and he is the parent of the Rudras or Maruts, half of whom are
brilliant and gentle, others, black and ferocious. In the _Vedas_, he is
the Divine Ego aspiring to return to its pure, deific state, and at the
same time that Divine Ego imprisoned in earthly form, whose fierce
passions make of him the “roarer,” the “terrible.” This is well shown in
the _Brihadâranyaka Upanishad_, wherein the Rudras, the progeny of Rudra,
God of Fire, are called the “ten vital breaths (_prâna_, life), with the
heart (_manas_), as eleventh,”(1291) whereas as Shiva, he is the
_destroyer_ of that life. Brahmâ calls him Rudra, and gives him, besides,
seven other names, signifying seven forms of manifestation, and also the
seven powers of nature which destroy but to recreate or regenerate.
Hence the cruciform noose, or Pâsha, in the hand of Shiva, when he is
represented as an ascetic, the Mahâyogin, has no phallic signification,
and, indeed, it requires an imagination strongly bent in this direction to
find such a signification even in an astronomical symbol. As an emblem of
“door, gate, mouth, the place of outlet” it signifies the “strait gate”
that leads to the Kingdom of Heaven, far more than the “birthplace” in a
physiological sense.
It is a cross in a circle and Crux Ansata, truly; but it is a cross on
which all the human passions have to be crucified before the Yogî passes
through the “strait gate,” the narrow circle that widens into an infinite
one, as soon as the Inner Man has passed the threshold.
As to the mysterious seven Rishis in the constellation of the Great Bear;
if Egypt made them sacred to “the oldest genitrix, Typhon,” India has
connected these symbols ages ago with Time or Yuga‐revolutions, and the
Saptarshis are intimately connected with our present age‐the dark Kali
Yuga.(1292) The great Circle of Time, on the face of which, Indian fancy
has represented the Porpoise, or Shishumâra, has the cross placed on it by
nature in its division and localization of stars, planets and
constellations. In _Bhâgavata Purâna_,(1293) it is said:
At the _extremity of the tail of that animal, whose head is
directed toward the south_, and whose body is _in the shape of a
ring_ [circle], Dhruva [the ex‐pole star] is placed; _along its
tail_ are Prajâpati, Agni, Indra, Dharma, etc.; _across its loins_
the seven Rishis.(1294)
This is then the first and earliest cross and circle, formed by the Deity,
symbolized by Vishnu, the Eternal Circle of Boundless Time, Kâla, on whose
plane lie crossways all the Gods, creatures, and creations born in Space
and Time‐who, as the Philosophy has it, all die at the Mahâpralaya.
Meanwhile it is the seven Rishis who mark the time and the duration of
events in our septenary Life‐cycle. They are as mysterious as their
supposed wives, the Pleiades, of whom only one‐she who hides‐has proven
virtuous. The Pleiades, or Krittikâs, are the nurses of Kârttikeya, the
God of War (the Mars of the Western Pagans), who is called the Commander
of the Celestial Armies, or rather of the Siddhas—Siddha‐sena (translated
Yogîs in Heaven, and holy Sages on the Earth)—which would make Kârttikeya
identical with Michael, the “Leader of the Celestial Hosts” and, like
himself, a virgin Kumâra.(1295) Verily he is the Guha, the “Mysterious
One,” as much so as are the Saptarshis and the Krittikâs, the seven Rishis
and the Pleiades, for the interpretation of all these combined reveal to
the Adept the greatest mysteries of Occult Nature. One point is worth
mention in this question of cross and circle, as it bears strongly upon
the elements of Fire and Water, which play such an important part in the
circle and cross symbolism. Like Mars, who is alleged by Ovid to have been
born of his mother Juno alone, without the participation of a father, or
like the Avatâras (Krishna, for instance)—in the West as in the
East—Kârttikeya is born, but in a still more miraculous manner, begotten
by neither father nor mother, but out of a seed of Rudra‐Shiva, which was
cast into the Fire (Agni) and then received by the Water (Ganges). Thus he
is born from Fire and Water—a “boy bright as the Sun and beautiful as the
Moon.” Hence he is called Agnibhû (son of Agni) and Gangâputra (son of
Ganges). Add to this the fact that the Krittikâ, his nurses, as the
_Matsya Purâna_ shows, are presided over by Agni, or, in the authentic
words, “the seven Rishis are on a line with the brilliant Agni,” and hence
“Krittika has Âgneya as a synonym”(1296)—and the connection is easy to
follow.
It is, then, the Rishis who mark the time and the periods of Kali Yuga,
the age of sin and sorrow. As the _Bhâgavata Purâna_ tells us:
When the splendour of Vishnu, named Krishna, departed for heaven,
then did the Kali age, during which men delight in sin, invade the
world....
When the seven Rishis were in Maghâ, the Kali age, comprising
1,200 [divine] years [432,000 common years] began; and, when, from
Maghâ, they shall reach Pûrvâshâdhâ, then will this Kali age
attain its growth, under Nanda and his successors.(1297)
This is the revolution of the Rishis—
When the two first stars of the seven Rishis (the Great Bear) rise
in the heavens, and some lunar asterism is seen at night, at an
equal distance between them, then the seven Rishis continue
stationary in that conjunction for a hundred years,
—as a hater of Nanda makes Parâshara say. According to Bentley, it was in
order to show the quantity of the precession of the equinoxes that this
notion originated among the Astronomers.
This was by assuming an imaginary line, or great circle, passing
through the poles of the ecliptic and the beginning of the fixed
Maghâ, which circle was supposed to cut some of the stars in the
Great Bear.... The seven stars in the Great Bear being called the
Rishis, the circle so assumed was called the line of the Rishis;
and, being invariably fixed to the beginning of the lunar asterism
Maghâ, the precession would be noted by stating the degree, etc.,
of any movable lunar mansion cut by that line or circle, as an
index.(1298)
There has been, and there still exists, a seemingly endless controversy
about the chronology of the Hindûs. Here is, however, a point that could
help to determine—approximately at least—the age when the symbolism of the
seven Rishis and their connection with the Pleiades began. When Kârttikeya
was delivered to the Krittikâ by the Gods to be nursed, they were only
six, whence Kârttikeya is represented with _six_ heads; but when the
poetical fancy of the early Âryan Symbologists made of them the consorts
of the seven Rishis, they were _seven_. Their names are given, and these
are Amba, Dulâ, Nitatui, Abrayanti, Maghâyanti, Varshayanti, and
Chupunika. There are other sets of names which differ, however. Anyhow,
the seven Rishis were made to marry the seven Krittikâ before the
disappearance of the seventh Pleiad. Otherwise, how could the Hindû
astronomers speak of a star which no one can see without the help of the
strongest telescopes? This is why, perhaps, in every such case the
majority of the events described in the Hindû allegories is fixed upon as
“a very recent invention, certainly _within_ the Christian era.”
The oldest Sanskrit MSS. on Astronomy begin their series of Nakshatras,
the twenty‐seven lunar asterisms, with the sign of Krittikâ, and this can
hardly make them earlier than 2,780 B.C. This is according to the “Vedic
Calendar,” which is accepted even by the Orientalists, though they get out
of the difficulty by saying that the said Calendar does not _prove_ that
the Hindûs knew anything of Astronomy at that date, and assure their
readers that, Calendars notwithstanding, the Indian Pandits may have
acquired their knowledge of the lunar mansions headed by Krittikâ from the
Phœnicians, etc. However that may be, the Pleiades are the central group
of the system of sidereal symbology. They are situated in the neck of the
constellation Taurus, regarded by Mädler and others, in Astronomy, as the
_central group_ of the system of the Milky Way, and in the _Kabalah_ and
Eastern Esotericism, as the _sidereal septenate_ born from the first
manifested side of the upper triangle, the concealed [triangle]. This
manifested side is Taurus, the symbol of One (the figure 1), or of the
first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Aleph (א) “bull” or “ox,” whose
synthesis is Ten (10), or Yod (י), the perfect letter and number. The
Pleiades (Alcyone, especially), are thus considered, even in Astronomy, as
the central point around which _our universe of fixed stars revolves_, the
focus from which, and into which, the Divine Breath, Motion, works
incessantly during the Manvantara. Hence, in the sidereal symbols of the
Occult Philosophy, it is this circle with the starry cross on its face
which plays the most prominent part.
The Secret Doctrine teaches us that everything in the Universe, as well as
the Universe itself, is formed (“created”) during its periodical
manifestations—by accelerated Motion set into activity by the Breath of
the Ever‐to‐be‐unknown Power—unknown to present mankind, at any
rate—within the phenomenal world. The Spirit of Life and Immortality was
everywhere symbolized by a circle; hence the serpent biting its tail,
represents the Circle of Wisdom in Infinity; as does the astronomical
cross—the cross within a circle—and the globe, with two wings added to it,
which then became the sacred Scarabæus of the Egyptians, its very name
being suggestive of the secret idea attached to it. For the Scarabæus is
called in the Egyptian papyri, Khopirron and Khopri from the verb
_khopron_, “to become,” and has thus been made a symbol and an emblem of
human life and of the successive “becomings” of man, through the various
peregrinations and metempsychoses, or reïncarnations, of the liberated
soul. This mystical symbol shows plainly that the Egyptians believed in
reïncarnation and the successive lives and existences of the Immortal
Entity. As this, however, was an Esoteric Doctrine, revealed only during
the Mysteries, by the Priest‐hierophants and the King‐initiates to the
Candidates, it was kept secret. The Incorporeal Intelligences (the
Planetary Spirits, or Creative Powers) were always represented under the
form of circles. In the primitive Philosophy of the Hierophants these
_invisible_ circles were the prototypic causes and builders of all the
heavenly orbs, which were their _visible_ bodies or coverings, and of
which they were the souls. It was certainly a universal teaching in
antiquity.(1299) As Proclus says:
Before the mathematical numbers, there are the _self‐moving_
numbers; before the figures apparent—the vital figures, and before
producing the material worlds _which move in a circle_, the
Creative Power produced the _invisible_ circles.(1300)
“_Deus enim et circulus est_,” says Pherecydes, in his Hymn to Jupiter.
This was a Hermetic axiom, and Pythagoras prescribed such a circular
prostration and posture during the hours of contemplation. “The devotee
must approach as much as possible the form of a perfect circle,”
prescribes the Secret Book. Numa tried to spread the same custom among the
people, Pierius tells his readers; and Pliny says:
During our worship, we roll up, so to say, our body in a
ring—_totum corpus circumagimur_.(1301)
The Vision of the prophet Ezekiel reminds one forcibly of this mysticism
of the circle, when he beheld a “whirlwind” from which came out “one
_wheel_ upon the earth” whose work “_was_ as it were a wheel in the middle
of a wheel”—“for the spirit of the living creature _was_ in the
wheels.”(1302)
“[_Spirit_] whirleth about continually, and ... returneth again according
to his circuits”—says Solomon,(1303) who is made in the English
_translation_ to speak of the “wind,” and in the original text to refer
both to the _spirit_ and the _sun_. But the _Zohar_, the only true gloss
of the Kabalistic Preacher—in explanation of this verse, which is,
perhaps, rather hazy and difficult to comprehend—says:
It seems to say that the sun moves in circuits, whereas it refers
to the Spirit _under the sun_, called the Holy Spirit, that moves
circularly, toward both sides, that they [It and the sun] _should
be united in the same Essence_.(1304)
The Brâhmanical “Golden Egg,” from within which emerges Brahmâ, the
Creative Deity, is the “Circle with the Central Point” of Pythagoras, and
its fitting symbol. In the Secret Doctrine the concealed Unity—whether
representing Parabrahman, or the “Great Extreme” of Confucius, or the
Deity concealed by Phtah, the Eternal Light, or again the Jewish Ain Suph,
is always found to be symbolized by a circle or the “nought” (absolute No‐
Thing and Nothing, because it is Infinite and the All); while the God‐
manifested (by its works) is referred to as the Diameter of that Circle.
The symbolism of the underlying idea is thus made evident: the right line
passing through the centre of a circle has, in the geometrical sense,
length, but neither breadth nor thickness; it is an imaginary and feminine
symbol, crossing eternity, and made to rest on the plane of existence _of
the phenomenal world_. It is _dimensional_, whereas its circle is
dimensionless, or, to use an algebraical term, it is the dimension of an
equation. Another way of symbolizing the idea is found in the Pythagorean
sacred Decad which synthesizes, in the dual numeral Ten (the one and a
circle or cipher), the Absolute All manifesting itself in the Word or
Generative Power of Creation.
B. The Fall Of The Cross Into Matter.
Those who would feel inclined to argue upon this Pythagorean symbol by
objecting that it is not yet ascertained, so far, at what period of
antiquity the nought or cipher occurs for the first time—especially in
India—are referred to _Isis Unveiled_.(1305)
Admitting for argument’s sake that the ancient world was not acquainted
with our modes of calculation or Arabic figures—though in reality we know
it was—yet the circle and diameter idea is there to show that it was the
first symbol in Cosmogony. Before the Trigrams of Fo‐hi, Yang, the unity,
and Yin, the binary, explained cunningly enough by Éliphas Lévi,(1306)
China had her Confucius, and her Tao‐ists. The former circumscribes the
“Great Extreme” within a circle with a horizontal line across; the latter
place three concentric circles beneath the great circle, while the Sung
Sages showed the “Great Extreme” in an upper circle, and Heaven and Earth
in two lower and smaller circles. The Yangs and the Yins are a far later
invention. Plato and his school never understood the Deity otherwise,
notwithstanding the many epithets applied by him to the “God over all” (ὁ
ἐπὶ πᾶσι θεός). Plato, having been initiated, could not believe in a
personal God—a gigantic shadow of man. His epithets of “Monarch” and “Law‐
giver of the Universe” bear an abstract meaning well understood by every
Occultist, who, no less than any Christian, believes in the One Law that
governs the Universe, and recognizes it at the same time as immutable. As
Plato says:
Beyond all _finite_ existences and _secondary_ causes, all laws,
ideas and principles, there is an Intelligence or Mind (νοῦς), the
first principle of all principles, the Supreme Idea on which all
other ideas are grounded, ... the _ultimate_ substance _from which
all things derive their being and essence_, the First and
efficient Cause of all the order, and harmony, and beauty and
excellency, and goodness, which pervade the Universe.
This Mind is called, by way of preëminence and excellence, the Supreme
Good,(1307) “The God” (ὁ θεός), and the “God over all.” These words apply,
as Plato himself shows, neither to the “Creator” nor to the “Father” of
our modern Monotheist, but to the _Ideal_ and Abstract Cause. For, as he
says: “This θεός, the God over all, _is not the truth or the
intelligence_, but the Father of it,” and its Primal Cause. Is it Plato,
the greatest pupil of the archaic Sages, a Sage himself, for whom there
was but a single object of attainment in this life—Real Knowledge—who
would have ever believed in a Deity that curses and damns men for ever, on
the slightest provocation?(1308) Surely not he who considered only those
to be genuine Philosophers and students of truth who possessed the
knowledge of the _really‐existing_ in opposition to mere seeming; of the
_always‐existing_ in opposition to the transitory: and of that which
exists _permanently_ in opposition to that which waxes, wanes, and is
developed and destroyed alternately.(1309) Speusippus and Xenocrates
followed in his footsteps. The One, the original, had no _existence_, in
the sense applied to it by mortal men. The τίμιον (the honoured) dwells in
the centre as in the circumference, but it is only _the reflection_ of the
Deity—the World Soul(1310)—the plane of the surface of the circle. The
cross and circle are a universal conception—as old as the human mind
itself. They stand foremost on the list of the long series of, so to say,
international symbols, which expressed very often great scientific truths,
besides their direct bearing upon psychological, and even physiological
mysteries.
It is no explanation to say, as does Éliphas Lévi, that God, the universal
Love, having caused the male Unit to dig an abyss in the female Binary, or
Chaos, thereby produced the world. In addition to the grossness of the
conception, it does not remove the difficulty of conceiving it without
losing one’s veneration for the rather too human‐like ways of the Deity.
It is to avoid such anthropomorphic conceptions that the Initiates never
used the epithet “God” to designate the One and Secondless Principle in
the Universe; and that—faithful in this to the oldest traditions of the
Secret Doctrine the world over—they deny that such imperfect and often not
very clean work could ever be produced by Absolute Perfection. There is no
need to mention here other still greater metaphysical difficulties.
Between speculative Atheism and idiotic Anthropomorphism there must be a
philosophical mean, and a reconciliation. The Presence of the Unseen
Principle throughout all Nature, and the highest manifestation of it on
Earth—Man, can alone help to solve the problem, which is that of the
mathematician whose _x_ must ever elude the grasp of our terrestrial
algebra. The Hindûs have tried to solve it by their Avatâras, the
Christians _think_ they have done so—by their one divine Incarnation.
Exoterically—both are wrong; Esoterically both of them are very near the
truth. Alone, among the Apostles of the Western religion, Paul seems to
have fathomed—if not actually revealed—the archaic mystery of the cross.
As for the rest of those who, by unifying and individualizing the
Universal Presence, have synthesized it into one symbol—the central point
in the crucifix—they show thereby that they have never seized the true
spirit of the teaching of Christ, but rather that they have degraded it in
more than one way by their erroneous interpretations. They have forgotten
the spirit of that universal symbol and have selfishly monopolized it—as
though the Boundless and the Infinite could ever be limited and
conditioned to one manifestation individualized in one man, or even in a
nation!
The four arms of the [Symbol: cross like the letter “X”], or decussated
cross, and of the Hermetic cross, pointing to the four cardinal
points—were well understood by the mystical minds of the Hindûs, Brâhmans
and Buddhists, hundreds of years before it was heard of in Europe, for
that symbol was and is found all over the world. They bent the ends of the
cross and made of it their Svastika, 卐 now the Wan of the Mongolian
Buddhist.(1311) It implies that the “central point” is not limited to one
individual, however perfect; that The Principle (God) is in Humanity, and
Humanity, as all the rest, is in It, like drops of water are in the ocean,
the four ends being toward the four cardinal points, hence losing
themselves in infinity.
Isarim, an Initiate, is said to have found at Hebron, on the _dead body_
of Hermes, the well known Smaragdine Tablet, which, it is said, contained
the essence of Hermetic Wisdom. Upon it were traced, among others, the
sentences:
Separate the earth from the fire, the subtile from the gross....
Ascend ... from the earth to heaven and then descend again to
earth.
The _riddle_ of the cross is contained in these words, and its double
mystery is solved—to the Occultist.
The philosophical cross, the two lines running in opposite
directions, the horizontal and the perpendicular, the height and
breadth, which the geometrizing Deity divides at the intersecting
point, and which forms the magical as well as the scientific
quaternary, when it is inscribed within the perfect square, is the
basis of the Occultist. Within its mystical precinct lies the
master‐key which opens the door of every science, physical as well
as spiritual. It symbolizes our human existence, for the circle of
life circumscribes the four points of the cross, which represent
in succession, birth, life, death, and _immortality_.(1312)
“Attach thyself,” says the Alchemist, “to the four letters of the
tetragram disposed in the following manner. The letters of the
ineffable name are there, although thou mayest not discern them at
first. The incommunicable axiom is kabalistically contained
therein, and this is what is called the magic arcanum by the
masters.”(1313)
Again:
The Tau, Τ, and the astronomical cross of Egypt, [Symbol: Circle
with cross within] are conspicuous in several apertures of the
remains of Palenque. In one of the _basso‐relievos_ of the Palace
of Palenque, on the west side, sculptured as a hieroglyphic right
under the seated figure, is a Tau. The standing figure, which
leans over the first one, is in the act of covering its head with
the left hand with the veil of initiation; while it extends its
right with the index and middle finger pointing to heaven. The
position is precisely that of a Christian bishop giving his
blessing, or the one in which Jesus is often represented while at
the Last Supper.(1314)
The Egyptian Hierophant had a square head‐dress which he had to wear
always during his functions. These square hats are worn unto this day by
the Armenian priests. The perfect Tau—formed of the perpendicular
(descending male ray) and the horizontal line (Matter, female
principle)—and the mundane circle were attributes of Isis, and it was only
at death that the Egyptian cross was laid on the breast of the mummy. The
claim that the cross is purely a Christian symbol introduced after our
era, is strange indeed, when we find Ezekiel stamping the foreheads of the
men of Judah who feared the Lord,(1315) with the _signum Thau_, as it is
translated in the Vulgate. In the ancient Hebrew this sign was formed thus
[Symbol: Cross, tilted towards the northeast], but in the original
Egyptian hieroglyphics as a perfect Christian cross ☦ (Tat, the emblem of
stability). In the _Revelation_, also, the “Alpha and Omega”—Spirit and
Matter—the first and the last, stamps the name of his Father on the
foreheads of the _elect_. Moses(1316) orders his people to mark their
_door‐posts_ and _lintels_ with blood, lest the “Lord God” should make a
mistake and smite some of his chosen people, instead of the doomed
Egyptians. And this mark is a Tau!—the identical Egyptian handled cross,
with the half of which talisman Horus raised the dead, as is shown on a
sculptured ruin at Philæ.
Enough has been said in the text about the Svastika and the Tau. Verily
may the cross be traced back into the very depths of the unfathomable
archaic ages! Its mystery deepens rather than clears, as we find it on the
statues of Easter Island, in old Egypt, in Central Asia, engraved on rocks
as the Tau and Svastika, in Pre‐Christian Scandinavia, everywhere! The
author of the _Source of Measures_ stands perplexed before the endless
shadow it throws back into antiquity, and is unable to trace it to any
particular nation or man. He shows the Targums handed down by the Hebrews,
obscured by translation. In _Joshua_(1317) read in Arabic, and in the
_Targum of Jonathan_, it is said: “The king of Ai he _crucified_ upon a
tree.”
The Septuagint rendering is of suspension from a _double word_ or
_cross_. (Wordsworth on Joshua.) ... The strangest expression of
this kind is in _Numbers_ (xxv. 4) where, by Onkelos (?) it is
read: “_Crucify them before the Lord (Jehovah) against the sun_.”
The word here is יקע, _to nail to_, rendered properly (Fuerst) by
the Vulgate, _to crucify_. The very construction of this sentence
is mystic.(1318)
So it is, but the spirit of it has been ever misunderstood. “To crucify
before (not against) the Sun” is a phrase used of Initiation. It comes
from Egypt, and primarily from India. The enigma can be unriddled only by
searching for its key in the Mysteries of Initiation. The Initiated Adept,
who had successfully passed through all the trials, was _attached_, not
_nailed_, but simply tied on a couch in the form of a Tau, Τ, in Egypt, of
a Svastika without the four additional prolongations (☩ not 卐) in India,
plunged in a deep sleep—the “Sleep of Siloam,” as it is called to this day
among the Initiates in Asia Minor, in Syria, and even higher Egypt. He was
allowed to remain in this state for three days and three nights, during
which time his Spiritual Ego was said to “confabulate” with the “Gods,”
descend into Hades, Amenti, or Pâtâla—according to the country—and do
works of charity to the invisible Beings, whether Souls of men or
Elemental Spirits; his body remaining all the time in a temple crypt or
subterranean cave. In Egypt it was placed in the Sarcophagus in the King’s
Chamber of the Pyramid of Cheops, and carried during the night of the
approaching third day to the entrance of a gallery, where at a certain
hour the beams of the rising Sun struck full on the face of the entranced
Candidate, who awoke to be initiated by Osiris and Thoth, the God of
Wisdom.
Let the reader who doubts the statement consult the Hebrew originals
before he denies. Let him turn to some most suggestive Egyptian _bas
reliefs_. One especially from the temple of Philæ, represents a _scene of
initiation_. Two God‐Hierophants, one with the head of a hawk (the Sun),
the other ibis‐headed (Mercury, Thoth, the God of Wisdom and Secret
Learning, the assessor of Osiris‐Sun), are standing over the body of a
Candidate just initiated. They are in the act of pouring on his head a
double stream of “water” (the Water of Life and of New‐birth), the streams
being interlaced in the shape of a cross and full of small ansated
crosses. This is allegorical of the awakening of the Candidate who is now
an Initiate, when the beams of the morning Sun, Osiris, strike the crown
of his head; his entranced body being placed on its wooden Tau so as to
receive the rays. Then appeared the Hierophant‐Initiators, and the
sacramental words were pronounced, ostensibly to the Sun‐Osiris, in
reality to the Spirit‐Sun within, enlightening the newly‐born man.
Let the reader meditate on the connection of the Sun with the cross from
the highest antiquity, in both its generative and spiritually regenerative
capacities. Let him examine the tomb of Bait‐Oxly, in the reign of Ramses
II, where he will find the crosses in every shape and position; as also on
the throne of that sovereign, and finally on a fragment representing the
adoration of Bakhan‐Alearé, from the Hall of the ancestors of Totmes III,
now preserved in the National Library of Paris. In this extraordinary
sculpture and painting one sees the disk of the Sun beaming upon an
ansated cross placed upon a cross of which those of the Calvary are
perfect copies. The ancient MSS. mention these as the “hard couches of
those who were in [spiritual] travail, the _act of giving birth to
themselves_.” A quantity of such cruciform “couches,” on which the
Candidate, thrown into a dead trance at the end of his supreme Initiation,
was placed and secured, were found in the underground halls of the
Egyptian Temples after their destruction. The worthy and holy Fathers of
the Cyril and Theophilus types used them freely, believing they had been
brought and concealed there by some new converts. Alone Origen, and after
him Clemens Alexandrinus and other ex‐initiates, knew better. But they
preferred to keep silent.
Again, let the reader read the Hindû “fables,” as the Orientalists call
them, and remember the allegory of Vishvakarmâ, the Creative Power, the
Great Architect of the World, called in the _Rig Veda_ the “All‐seeing
God,” who “sacrifices himself to himself.” The Spiritual Egos of mortals
are his own essence, _one with him_, therefore. Remember that he is called
Deva‐vardhika, the “Builder of the Gods,” and that it is he who ties the
Sun, Sûrya, his son‐in‐law, on his lathe—in the exoteric allegory, but on
the Svastika, in Esoteric tradition, for on Earth he is the Hierophant‐
Initiator—and cuts away a portion of his brightness. Vishvakarmâ, remember
again, is the son of Yoga‐siddhâ, _i.e._, the holy power of Yoga, and the
fabricator of the “fiery weapon,” the magic Agneyastra.(1319) The
narrative is given more fully elsewhere.
The author of the kabalistic work so often quoted from, asks:
The theoretical use of crucifixion then, must have been somehow
connected with the personification of this symbol [the structure
of the Garden of Paradise symbolized by a crucified man]. But how?
And as showing what? The symbol was of the origin of measures,
shadowing forth _creative law_ or _design_. What, practically, as
regards humanity, could actual crucifixion betoken? Yet, that it
was held as the effigy of some mysterious working of the same
system, is shown from the very fact of the use. There seems to be
deep below deep as to the mysterious workings of these number
values—[the symbolization of the connection of 113: 355, with
20612: 6561, by a _crucified man_]. Not only are they shown to
work in the cosmos but, ... by sympathy, they seem to work out
conditions relating to an unseen and spiritual world, and the
prophets seem to have held knowledge of the connecting links.
Reflection becomes more involved when it is considered that, the
power of expression of the law, _exactly_, by numbers clearly
defining a system, was not the _accident_ of the language, but was
its very _essence_, and of its _primary organic construction_;
therefore, neither the language, nor the mathematical system
attaching to it, could be of man’s invention, unless both were
_founded upon a prior language which afterwards became
obsolete_.(1320)
The author proves these points by further elucidation, and reveals the
secret meaning of more than one dead‐letter narrative, by showing that
probably, איש, _man_, was the _primordial_ word:
The very first word possessed by the Hebrews, whoever they were,
to carry the idea, by sound, of _a man_. The _essential_ of this
word was 113 [the numerical value of that word] from the
beginning, and carried with it the elements of the cosmical system
displayed.(1321)
This is demonstrated by the Hindû Vittoba, a form of Vishnu, as has
already been stated. The figure of Vittoba, even to the nail‐marks on the
feet,(1322) is that of _Jesus crucified_, in all its details save the
cross. That _man_ was meant is proved to us further by the fact of the
Initiate being _reborn_ after his _crucifixion_ on the _Tree of Life_.
This “Tree” has now become exoterically—through its use by the Romans as
an instrument of torture and the ignorance of the early Christian
schemers—the _tree of death_!
Thus, one of the seven Esoteric meanings intended by this mystery of
crucifixion by the mystic inventors of the system—the original elaboration
and adoption of which dates back to the very establishment of the
Mysteries—is discovered in the geometrical symbols containing the history
of the evolution of man. The Hebrews—whose prophet Moses was so learned in
the Esoteric Wisdom of Egypt, and who adopted their numerical system from
the Phœnicians, and later from the Gentiles, from whom also they borrowed
most of their Kabalistic Mysticism—most ingeniously adapted the cosmic and
anthropological symbols of the “Heathen” nations to their peculiar
_secret_ records. If Christian sacerdotalism has lost the key of this to‐
day, the early compilers of the Christian Mysteries were well versed in
Esoteric Philosophy and the Hebrew Occult Metrology, and used it
dexterously. Thus they took the word Aish, one of the Hebrew word‐forms
for _man_, and used it in conjunction with that of Shânâh or _lunar year_,
so mystically connected with the name of Jehovah, the supposed “Father” of
Jesus, and embosomed the mystic idea in an astronomical value and formula.
The original idea of the “man crucified” in space certainly belongs to the
ancient Hindûs. Moor shows this in his _Hindû Pantheon_ in the engraving
that represents Vittoba. Plato adopted it in his decussated cross in
space, the [Symbol: cross like the letter “X”], the “second God who
impressed himself on the universe in the form of the cross”; Krishna is
likewise shown “crucified.”(1323) Again it is repeated in the _Old
Testament_ in the queer injunction to crucify men before the Lord, the
Sun—which is no prophecy at all, but has a direct phallic significance. In
that same most suggestive work on the kabalistic meanings, we read again:
In symbol, the nails of the cross have for the shape of the heads
thereof a solid pyramid, and a tapering square obeliscal shaft, or
phallic emblem, for the nail. Taking the position of the _three_
nails in the man’s extremities and on the cross, they form or mark
a _triangle_ in shape, one nail being at each corner of the
triangle. The wounds, or _stigmata_, in the extremities are
necessarily _four_, designative of the _square_.... The three
nails with the three wounds are in number 6, which denotes the 6
faces of the cube _unfolded_ [which make the cross or man‐form, or
7, counting three horizontal and four vertical squares], on which
the man is placed; and this in turn points to the circular measure
transferred on to the edges of the cube. The _one_ wound of the
feet separates into _two_ when the feet are separated, making
_three_ together _for all_, and _four when separated_, or 7 in
all—another and _most holy_ [_with the Jews_] feminine base
number.(1324)
Thus, while the phallic or sexual meaning of the “crucifixion nails” is
proven by the geometrical and numerical reading, its mystical meaning is
indicated by the short remarks upon it, as given above, in its connection
with, and bearing upon, Prometheus. He is another victim, for he is
crucified on the Cross of Love, on the rock of human passions, a sacrifice
to his devotion to the cause of the spiritual element in Humanity.
Now, the primordial system, the double glyph that underlies the idea of
the cross, is not of “human invention,” for Cosmic Ideation and the
spiritual representation of the Divine Ego‐man are at its basis. Later, it
expanded into the beautiful idea adopted by, and represented in, the
Mysteries, that of regenerated man, the mortal, who, by crucifying the man
of flesh and his passions on the Procrustean bed of torture, became reborn
as an Immortal. Leaving the body, the animal‐man, behind him, tied on the
Cross of Initiation like an empty chrysalis, the Ego‐Soul became as free
as a butterfly. Still later, owing to the gradual loss of spirituality,
the cross became in Cosmogony and Anthropology no higher than a _phallic
symbol_.
With the Esotericists from the remotest times, the Universal Soul or Anima
Mundi, the material reflection of the Immaterial Ideal, was the Source of
Life of all beings and of the Life‐Principle of the three kingdoms. This
was _septenary_ with the Hermetic Philosophers, as with all Ancients. For
it is represented as a sevenfold cross, whose branches are respectively,
_light_, _heat_, _electricity_, _terrestrial magnetism_, _astral
radiation_, _motion_, and _intelligence_, or what some call self‐
consciousness.
As we have said elsewhere, long before the cross or its sign were adopted
as symbols of Christianity, the sign of the cross was used as a mark of
recognition among Adepts and Neophytes, the latter being called
Chrests—from Chrestos, the man of tribulation and sorrow. Says Éliphas
Lévi:
The sign of the cross adopted by the Christians does not belong to
them exclusively. It is also kabalistic, and represents the
opposition and quaternary equilibrium of the elements. We see by
the occult verse of the _Paternoster_ ... that there were
originally two ways of doing it, or, at least _two_ very different
formulas to express its meaning: one reserved for the priests and
initiates; the other given to neophytes and the profane. Thus, for
example, the initiate, carrying his hand to his forehead, said,
_To thee_; then he added, _belong_; and continued, carrying his
hand to the breast, _the kingdom_; then to the left shoulder,
_justice_; to the right shoulder, _and mercy_. Then he joined the
two hands, adding, _throughout the generating cycles—Tibi sunt
Malchut et Geburah et Chesed per Æonas_—an absolutely and
magnificently kabalistic sign of the cross, which the profanations
of Gnosticism made the militant and official Church completely
_lose_.(1325)
The “militant and official Church” did more: having helped herself to what
had never belonged to her, she took only that which the “Profane” had—the
kabalistic meaning of the _male_ and _female_ Sephiroth. She never lost
the _inner_ and higher meaning since she never had it—Éliphas Lévi’s
pandering to Rome notwithstanding. The sign of the cross adopted by the
Latin Church was _phallic_ from the beginning, while that of the Greeks
was the cross of the Neophytes, the Chrestoi.