Section XI. The Mysteries of the Hebdomad.

We must not close this Part on the Symbolism of Archaic History, without

an attempt to explain the perpetual recurrence of this truly mystic

number, the Hebdomad, in every scripture known to the Orientalists. As

every religion, from the oldest to the latest, reveals its presence, and

explains it on its own grounds agreeably with its own special dogmas, this

is no easy task. We can, therefore, do no better or more explanatory work

than to give a bird’s‐eye view of all. The numbers, 3, 4, 7, are the

sacred numbers of Light, Life, and Union—especially in this present

Manvantara, our Life‐Cycle; of which number _seven_ is the special

representative, or the _factor_ number. This has now to be demonstrated.

If one should ask a Brâhman learned in the _Upanishads_, which are so full

of the Secret Wisdom of old, why “he, of whom seven forefathers have drunk

the juice of the Moon‐plant,” is Trisuparna, as Bopaveda is credited with

saying;(1400) and why the Somapa Pitris should be worshipped by the

Brâhman Trisuparna—very few could answer the question; or, if they knew,

they would still less satisfy one’s curiosity. Let us, then, hold to what

the old Esoteric Doctrine teaches. As says the Commentary:

_When the first Seven appeared on Earth, they threw the seed of everything

that grows on the land into the soil. First came Three, and Four were

added to these as soon as stone was transformed into plant. Then came the

second Seven, who, guiding the Jîvas of the plants, produced the middle

[intermediate] natures between plant and moving living animal. The third

Seven evolved their Chhâyâs.... The fifth Seven imprisoned their

Essence.... Thus man became a Saptaparna._

A. Saptaparna.

Such is the name given in Occult phraseology to man. It means, as shown

elsewhere, a seven‐leaved plant, and the name has a great significance in

the Buddhist legends. So it had, also, under disguise, in the Greek myths.

The T, or τ (Tau), formed from the figure 7, and the Greek letter Γ

(Gamma), was, as stated in the last Section, the symbol of life, and of

Life Eternal: of earthly life, because Γ (Gamma) is the symbol of the

Earth (Gaia)(1401); and of Life Eternal, because the figure 7 is the

symbol of the same life _linked_ with Divine Life, the double glyph

expressed in geometrical figures being:

[Symbol: a triangle over a square]

—a Triangle and a Quaternary, the symbol of Septenary Man.

Now, the number _six_ has been regarded in the Ancient Mysteries as an

emblem of _physical_ Nature. For six is the representation of the six

dimensions of all bodies—the _six_ directions which compose their form,

namely, the four directions extending to the four cardinal points, North,

South, East, and West, and the two directions of height and thickness that

answer to the Zenith and the Nadir. Therefore, while the Senary was

applied by the Sages to _physical_ man, the Septenary was for them the

symbol of that man _plus_ his immortal Soul.(1402)

J. M. Ragon gives a very good illustration of the “hieroglyphical senary,”

as he calls our double equilateral triangle.

The hieroglyphical senary is the symbol of the commingling of the

_philosophical three_ fires and _three_ waters, whence results the

procreation of the elements of all things.(1403)

The same idea is found in the Indian double equilateral triangle. For,

though it is called in that country the sign of Vishnu, yet in truth it is

the symbol of the Triad, or Tri‐mûrti. For, even in the exoteric

rendering, the lower triangle, [Symbol: triangle], with the apex downward,

is the symbol of Vishnu, the God of the Moist Principle and Water,

Nârâyana being the Moving Principle in the Nârâ, or Waters;(1404) while

the triangle, with its apex upward, [Symbol: triangle], is Shiva, the

Principle of Fire, symbolized by the triple flame in his hand.(1405) It is

these two interlaced triangles, wrongly called “Solomon’s Seal”—which also

form the emblem of our Society—that produce the Septenary and the Triad at

one and the same time, and are the Decad. Whatever way this [Symbol:

6‐point star] is examined, all the ten numbers are contained therein. For

with a point in the middle or centre, [Symbol: 6‐point star with middle

dot], it is a _sevenfold_ sign or Septenary; its triangles denote number

three, or the Triad; the two triangles show the presence of the Binary;

the triangles with the central point common to both yield the Quaternary;

the six points are the Senary; and the central point, the Unit; the

Quinary being traced by combination, as a compound of _two_ triangles, the

even number, and of _three_ sides in each triangle, the first odd number.

This is the reason why Pythagoras and the ancients made the number _six_

sacred to Venus, since:

The union of the two sexes, and the spagyrization of matter by

triads, are necessary to develop the generative force, that

prolific virtue and tendency to reproduction which is inherent in

all bodies.(1406)

Belief in “Creators,” or the personified Powers of Nature, is in truth no

polytheism, but a philosophical necessity. Like all the other Planets of

our system, the Earth has seven Logoi—the emanating Rays of the one

“Father‐Ray”—the Protogonos, or the Manifested Logos, he who sacrifices

his Esse (or “Flesh,” the Universe) that the World may live and every

creature therein have conscious being.

Numbers 3 and 4 are respectively male and female, Spirit and Matter, and

their union is the emblem of Life Eternal in Spirit on its ascending arc,

and in Matter as the ever resurrecting Element—by procreation and

reproduction. The spiritual male line is vertical [Symbol: bar]; the

differentiated matter‐line is horizontal; the two forming the cross or ☩.

The 3 is invisible; the 4 is on the plane of objective perception. This is

why all the Matter of the Universe, when analyzed to its ultimates by

Science, can be reduced to four Elements only—Carbon, Oxygen, Nitrogen,

and Hydrogen; and why the three primaries, the noumena of the four, or

graduated Spirit or Force, have remained a _terra incognita_, and mere

speculations, mere names, to exact Science. Her servants must believe in

and study first the primary causes, before they can hope to fathom the

nature, and acquaint themselves with the potentialities, of the effects.

Thus, while the men of Western learning had, and still have, the four, or

Matter, to toy with, the Eastern Occultists and their disciples, the great

Alchemists the world over, have the whole septenate to study from.(1407)

As those Alchemists have it:

_When the Three and the Four kiss each other, the Quaternary joins its

middle nature with that of the Triangle [or Triad, i.e., the face of one

of its plane surfaces becoming the middle face of the other], and becomes

a Cube; then only does it [the Cube unfolded] become the vehicle and the

number of Life, the Father‐Mother Seven._

Now we are taught that all these earliest forms of organic life also

appear in septenary groups of numbers. From minerals or “soft stones that

hardened,” to use the phraseology of the Stanzas, followed by the “hard

plants that softened,” which are the product of the mineral, for “it is

from the bosom of the stone that vegetation is born”;(1408) and then to

man—all the primitive models in every kingdom of Nature begin by being

ethereal, transparent, films. This, of course, takes place only in the

first beginning of life. With the next period they consolidate, and at the

_seventh_ begin to branch off into species, _all except men_, the first of

the mammalian animals(1409) in the Fourth Round.

Virgil, versed as every ancient poet was, more or less, in Esoteric

Philosophy, sang of evolution in the following strains:

_Principio cælum ac terras camposque liquentes_

Lucentemque globum Lunæ, Titaniaque astra

_Spiritus_ intus alit, totamque infusa per artus

_Mens_ agitat molem et magno se corpore miscet.

Inde hominum pecudumque genus vitæque volantum

Et quæ marmoreo fert monstra sub æquore pontus.(1410)

“First came three, or the Triangle.” This expression has a profound

meaning in Occultism, and the fact is corroborated, in Mineralogy, Botany,

and even in Geology—as has been demonstrated in the Section on “The

Chronology of the Brâhmans”—by the compound number seven, the three and

the four, being contained in it. Salt in solution proves this. For when

its molecules, clustering together, begin to deposit themselves as a

solid, the first shape they assume is that of triangles, of small pyramids

and cones. It is the figure of Fire, whence the word “Pyramis”; while the

second geometrical figure in _manifested_ Nature is a Square or a Cube, 4

and 6; for, as Enfield says, “the particles of earth being cubical, those

of fire are pyramidal”—truly. The pyramidal shape is that assumed by the

pines—the most primitive tree after the fern period. Thus the two

opposites in cosmic Nature—fire and water, heat and cold—begin their

metrographical manifestations, one by a trimetric, the other by a

hexagonal system. For the stellate crystals of snow, viewed under a

microscope, are all and each of them a double or a treble six‐pointed

star, with a central nucleus, like a miniature star within the larger one.

Says Mr. Darwin—showing that the inhabitants of the sea‐shore are greatly

affected by the tides:

The most ancient progenitors in the kingdom of the Vertebrata ...

apparently consisted of a group of marine animals.... Animals

living either about the _mean_ high‐water mark, or about the

_mean_ low‐water mark, pass through a complete cycle of tidal

changes in a fortnight.... Now it is a mysterious fact that in the

higher and now terrestrial Vertebrata ... many normal and abnormal

processes have one or more weeks [septenates] as their periods ...

such as gestation of mammals, the duration of fevers.(1411)

The eggs of the pigeon are hatched in two weeks [or 14 days];

those of the fowl in three; those of the duck in four; those of

the goose in five; and those of the ostrich in seven.(1412)

This number is closely connected with the Moon, whose Occult influence is

ever manifesting itself in septenary periods. It is the Moon which is the

guide of the Occult side of terrestrial Nature, while the Sun is the

regulator and factor of manifested life. This truth has ever been evident

to the Seers and the Adepts. Jakob Böhme, by insisting on the fundamental

doctrine of the seven properties of everlasting Mother Nature, proved

himself thereby a great Occultist.

But to return to the consideration of the septenary in ancient religious

symbolism. To the metrological key of the symbolism of the Hebrews, which

reveals numerically the geometrical relations of the Circle (All‐Deity) to

the Square, Cube, Triangle, and all the integral emanations of the divine

area, may be added the theogonic key. This key explains that Noah, the

Deluge‐Patriarch, is in one aspect the permutation of the Deity (the

Universal Creative Law), for the purpose of the formation of our Earth,

its population, and the propagation of life on it, in general.

Now bearing in mind the septenary division in divine Hierarchies, as in

cosmic and human constitutions, the student will readily understand that

Jah‐Noah is at the head of, and is the synthesis of the lower cosmic

Quaternary. The upper Sephirothal Triad, △—of which Jehovah‐Binah

(Intelligence) is the left, female, angle—emanates the Quaternary, □. The

latter, symbolizing by itself the Heavenly Man, the sexless Adam Kadmon,

viewed as Nature in the abstract, becomes a septenate again by emanating

from itself the additional three principles, the lower terrestrial or

manifested physical Nature, Matter and our Earth—the seventh being

Malkuth, the “Bride of the Heavenly Man”—thus forming, with the higher

Triad, or Kether, the Crown, the full number of the Sephirothal Tree—the

10, the Total in Unity, or the Universe. Apart from the higher Triad, the

lower creative Sephiroth are seven.

The above is not directly to our point, though it is a necessary reminder

to facilitate the comprehension of what follows. The question at issue is

to show that Jah‐Noah, or the Jehovah of the Hebrew _Bible_, the alleged

Creator of our Earth, of man and all upon it, is:

(_a_) The lowest Septenary, the Creative Elohim—in his cosmic aspect.

(_b_) The Tetragrammaton or the Adam Kadmon, the “Heavenly Man” of the

four letters—in his theogonic and kabalistic aspects.

(_c_) The Noah—identical with the Hindû Shishta, the human Seed, left for

the peopling of the Earth from a previous creation, or Manvantara, as

expressed in the _Purânas_, or the pre‐diluvian period as rendered

allegorically in the _Bible_—in his cosmic character.

But whether a Quaternary (Tetragrammaton) or a Triad, the biblical

Creative God is not the Universal 10, unless blended with Ain Suph (as

Brahmâ with Parabrahman), but a septenary, one of the many septenaries of

the Universal Septenate. In the explanation of the question now in hand,

his position and status as Noah may best be shown by placing the 3, △, and

4, □, on parallel lines with the cosmic and human principles. For the

latter, the old familiar classification is made use of.

As an additional demonstration of the statement, let the reader turn to

kabalistic works.

“_Ararat_ = _the mount of descent_ = הר‐י‐רד, _Hor‐Jared_. Hatho

mentions it out of composition by _Arath_ = ארת. Editor of Moses

Cherenensis says: ‘By this, they say, is signified _the first

place of descent_ (of the ark).’ ” (Bryant’s _Anal._, vol. iv. pp.

5, 6, 15.) Under “_Berge_,” _mountain_, Nork says of _Ararat_:

“אררט, for ארת (_i.e._, _Ararat_ for _Arath_) _earth, Aramaic_

reduplication.” Here it is seen that Nork and Hatho make use of

the same equivalent, in Arath, ארש, with the meaning of

_earth_.(1413)

Noah thus symbolizing both the Root‐Manu and the Seed‐Manu, or the Power

which developed the Planetary Chain, and our Earth, and the Seed‐Race, the

Fifth, which was saved while the last sub‐races of the Fourth, Vaivasvata

Manu, perished, the number _seven_ will be seen to recur at every step. It

is Noah who, as Jehovah’s permutation, represents the septenary Host of

the Elohim, and is thus the Father or Creator (the Preserver) of all

animal life. Hence the verses of _Genesis_: “Of every clean beast thou

shalt take to thee by sevens, the male [3], and the female [4]; of fowls

also of the air by sevens,”(1414) etc., followed by all the _sevening_ of

days and the rest.

B. The Tetraktys In Relation To The Heptagon.

Thus number _seven_, as a compound of 3 and 4, is the factor element in

every ancient religion, because it is _the factor element in Nature_. Its

adoption must be justified, and it must be shown to be _the_ number _par

excellence_, for, since the appearance of _Esoteric Buddhism_, frequent

objections have been made, and doubts expressed as to the correctness of

these assertions.

And here let the student be told at once, that in all such numerical

divisions the One universal Principle—although referred to as (the) one,

because the Only One—never enters into the calculations. It stands, in its

character of the Absolute, the Infinite, and the Universal Abstraction,

entirely by Itself and independent of every other Power whether noumenal

or phenomenal. Says the author of the article “Personal and Impersonal

God”:

This entity is neither matter nor spirit; it is neither Ego nor

non‐Ego; and it is neither object nor subject.

In the language of Hindû philosophers it is the original and

eternal combination of Purusha [Spirit] and Prakriti [Matter]. As

the Advaitîs hold that an external object is merely the product of

our mental states, Prakriti is nothing more than illusion, and

Purusha is the only reality; it is the _one_ existence which

remains in the universe of Ideas. This ... then, is the

Parabrahman of the Advaitîs. Even if there were to be a personal

God with anything like a material Upâdhi (physical basis of

whatever form), from the standpoint of an Advaitî there will be as

much reason to doubt his noumenal existence, as there would be in

the case of any other object. In their opinion, a conscious God

cannot be the origin of the universe, as his Ego would be the

effect of a previous cause, if the word conscious conveys but its

ordinary meaning. They cannot admit that _the grand total of all

the states of consciousness in the universe_ is their deity, as

these states are constantly changing, and as cosmic idealism

ceases during Pralaya. There is only one permanent condition in

the Universe, which is the state of perfect unconsciousness, bare

Chidâkâsham (the field of consciousness) in fact.

When my readers once realize the fact that this grand universe is

in reality but a huge aggregation of various states of

consciousness, they will not be surprised to find that the

ultimate state of unconsciousness is considered as Parabrahman by

the Advaitîs.(1415)

Although itself entirely out of human reckoning or calculation, yet this

“huge aggregation of various states of consciousness” is a septenate, in

_its_ totality entirely composed of septenary groups—simply because “the

capacity of perception _exists in seven different aspects corresponding to

the seven conditions of matter_,”(1416) or the seven properties, or states

of matter. And, therefore, the series from one to seven, begins in the

Esoteric calculations with the first manifested principle, which is number

one if we commence from above, and number seven when reckoning from below,

or from the lowest principle.

The Tetrad is esteemed in the _Kabalah_, as it was by Pythagoras, the most

perfect, or rather _sacred_ number, because it emanated from the One, the

first manifested Unit, or rather the Three in One. And the latter has ever

been impersonal, sexless, incomprehensible, though within the possibility

of the higher mental perceptions.

The first manifestation of the eternal Monad was never meant to stand as

the symbol of another symbol, the Unborn for the Element‐born, or the one

Logos for the Heavenly Man. Tetragrammaton, or the Tetraktys of the

Greeks, is the Second Logos, the Demiurgos.

The Tetrad, as Thomas Taylor thinks, is, however, the _animal

itself_ of Plato who, as Syrianus justly observes, was the best of

the Pythagoreans; subsists at the extremity of the intelligible

triad, as is most satisfactorily shown by Proclus in the third

book of his treatise on the theology of Plato. And between these

two triads [the double triangle], the one intelligible, and the

other intellectual, another order of gods exists, which partakes

of both extremes.(1417)...

The Pythagorean world, according to Plutarch,(1418) _consisted of a double

quaternary_.

This statement corroborates what is said about the choice, by the exoteric

theologies, of the _lower_ Tetraktys. For:

The quaternary of the intellectual world [the world of Mahat] is

T’Agathon, Nous, Psyche, Hyle; while that of the sensible world

[of Matter], which is properly what Pythagoras meant by the word

Kosmos, is Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. The four elements are

called by the name of _rhizômata_, the roots or principles of all

_mixed bodies_.(1419)

That is to say, the lower Tetraktys is the root of _illusion_, of the

World of Matter; and this is the Tetragrammaton of the Jews, and the

“mysterious deity,” over which the modern Kabalists make such a fuss!

This number [_four_] forms the arithmetical mean between the monad

and the heptad; and this comprehends all powers, both of the

productive and produced numbers; for this, of all numbers under

ten, is made of a certain number; the duad doubled makes a tetrad,

and the tetrad doubled [or unfolded] makes the hebdomad [the

septenary]. Two multiplied into itself produces four; and retorted

into itself makes the first cube. This first cube is a _fertile

number_, the ground of multitude and variety, constituted of two

and four [depending on the monad, the _seventh_]. Thus the two

principles of temporal things, the pyramis and cube, form and

matter, flow from one fountain, the tetragon [on earth, the monad,

in heaven].(1420)

Here Reuchlin, the great authority on the _Kabalah_, shows the cube to be

“matter,” whereas the pyramid or the triad is “form.” With the Hermesians

the number four becomes the symbol of truth only when _amplified into a

cube_, which, unfolded, makes seven, as symbolizing the male and female

elements and the element of Life.(1421)

Some students have been puzzled to account for the vertical line,(1422)

which is male, becoming, in the cross, a four‐partitioned line (_four_

being a female number), while the horizontal (the line of matter) becomes

three‐divisioned. But this is easy of explanation. Since the middle face

of the “cube unfolded” is _common_ to both the vertical and the horizontal

bar, or double‐line, it becomes _neutral_ ground so to say, and belongs to

neither. The spirit line remains triadic, and the matter line two‐fold—two

being an even and therefore a female number also. Moreover, according to

Theon in his _Mathematica_, the Pythagoreans, who gave the name of Harmony

to the Tetraktys, “because it is a diatessaron in sesquitertia,” were of

opinion that:

The division of the canon of the monochord was made by the

tetraktys in the duad, triad, and tetrad; for it comprehends a

sesquitertia, a sesquialtera, a duple, a triple, and a quadruple

proportion, the section of which is 27. In the ancient musical

notation, the tetrachord consisted of _three_ degrees or

intervals, and _four_ terms of sounds called by the Greeks

diatessaron, and by us a fourth.(1423)

Moreover, the quaternary though an even, therefore a female (“infernal”)

number, varied according to its form. This is shown by Stanley.(1424) The

four was called by the Pythagoreans the Key‐Keeper of Nature; but in union

with the three, which made it seven, it became the most perfect and

harmonious number—_nature herself_. The four was “the masculine of

feminine form,” when forming the cross; and seven is the “Master of the

Moon,” for this Planet is forced to alter her appearance every seven days.

It is on number seven that Pythagoras composed his doctrine on the Harmony

and Music of the Spheres, calling a “tone” the distance of the Moon from

the Earth; from the Moon to Mercury half a tone, from thence to Venus the

same; from Venus to the Sun one and a half tones; from the Sun to Mars a

tone; from thence to Jupiter half a tone; from Jupiter to Saturn half a

tone; and thence to the Zodiac a tone; thus making seven tones—the

diapason harmony.(1425) All the melody of Nature is in those seven tones,

and therefore is called the “Voice of Nature.”

Plutarch explains(1426) that the most ancient Greeks regarded the Tetrad

as the root and principle of all things, since it was the number of the

elements which gave birth to all visible and invisible _created_

things.(1427) With the brothers of the Rosy Cross, the figure of the

cross, or _cube unfolded_, formed the subject of a disquisition in one of

the Theosophic degrees of Peuvret, and was treated according to the

fundamental principles of light and darkness, _or good and evil_.(1428)

The intelligible world proceeds out of the divine mind [or unit]

after this manner. The Tetraktys, reflecting upon its own essence,

_the first unit, productrix of all things_, and on its own

beginning, saith thus: Once one, twice two, immediately ariseth a

tetrad, having on its top the highest unit, and _becomes a

Pyramis_, whose base is a plain tetrad, answerable to a

superficies, upon which the radiant light of the divine unity

produceth the form of incorporeal fire, by reason of the descent

of Juno (matter) to inferior things. Hence ariseth essential

light, not burning but illuminating. This is _the creation of the

middle world_, which the Hebrews call the _Supreme_, the world of

the [_their_] deity. It is termed Olympus, entirely light, and

replete with separate forms, where is the seat of the immortal

gods, _deûm domus alta_, whose top is _unity_, its wall _trinity_,

and its superficies _quaternity_.(1429)

The “superficies” has thus to remain a _meaningless surface_, if left by

itself. _Unity_ only “illuminating” _quaternity_, the famous lower four

has to build for itself also a wall from _trinity_, if it would be

manifested. Moreover, the Tetragrammaton, or Microprosopus, is “Jehovah”

arrogating to himself very improperly the “Was, Is, Will Be,” now

translated into the “I am that I am,” and interpreted as referring to the

highest abstract Deity; while Esoterically and in plain truth, it means

only periodically chaotic, turbulent, and eternal Matter, with all its

potentialities. For the Tetragrammaton is one with Nature, or Isis, and is

the exoteric series of androgyne Gods such as Osiris‐Isis, Jove‐Juno,

Brahmâ‐Vâch, or the Kabalistic Jah‐Hovah; all male‐females. Every

anthropomorphic God, in old nations, as Marcellus Ficin well observed, has

his name written with four letters. Thus with the Egyptians, he was Teut;

the Arabs, Alla; the Persians, Sire; the Magi, Orsi; the Mahometans, Abdi;

the Greeks, Teos; the ancient Turks, Esar; the Latins, Deus; to which John

Lorenzo Anania adds the German Gott; the Sarmatian Bouh; etc.(1430)

The Monad being one, and an _odd_ number, the Ancients therefore said that

the odd were the only perfect numbers; and—selfishly, perhaps, yet as a

fact—considered them all as masculine and perfect, being applicable to the

_celestial_ Gods, while even numbers, such as two, four, six, and

especially eight, as being female, were regarded as imperfect, and given

only to the _terrestrial and infernal_ Deities. Virgil records the fact by

saying, “_Numero deus impare gaudet_.” “The God is pleased with an odd

number.”(1431)

But number _seven_, or the Heptagon, the Pythagoreans considered to be a

_religious and perfect number_. It was called Telesphoros, because by it

all in the Universe and mankind is led _to its end_, _i.e._, its

culmination.(1432) The doctrine of the Spheres ruled by the seven Sacred

Planets(1433) shows, from Lemuria to Pythagoras, the seven Powers of

terrestrial and sublunary Nature, as well as the seven great Forces of the

Universe, proceeding and evolving in seven tones, which are the seven

notes of the musical scale.

The Heptad [our Septenary] was considered to be _the number of a virgin,

because it is unborn_ [like the Logos or the Aja of the Vedântins]:

Without a father ... or a mother, ... _but proceeding directly

from the monad_, which is the origin and crown of all

things.(1434)

And if the Heptad is made to proceed from the Monad directly, then it is,

as taught in the Secret Doctrine of the oldest schools, the perfect and

sacred number of this Mahâmanvantara of ours.

The Septenary, or Heptad, was sacred indeed to several Gods and Goddesses;

to Mars, with his seven attendants, to Osiris, whose body was divided into

seven and twice seven parts; to Apollo, the Sun, amid his seven planets,

and playing the hymn to the seven‐rayed on his seven‐stringed harp; to

Minerva, the fatherless and the motherless, and others.(1435)

Cis‐Himâlayan Occultism with its sevening, and because of such sevening,

must be regarded as the most ancient, the original of all. It is opposed

by _some_ fragments left by Neo‐Platonists; and the admirers of the

latter, who hardly understand what they defend, say to us: See, your

forerunners believed only in _triple_ man, composed of Spirit, Soul, and

Body. Behold, the Târaka Râja Yoga of India limits that division to 3, we,

to 4, and the Vedântins to 5 (Koshas). To this, we of the Archaic school

ask:

Why then does the Greek poet say that it is not four but _seven_ who sing

the praise of the Spiritual Sun?

Ἑπτά με κ.τ.λ.

Seven sounding letters sing the praise of me,

The immortal God, the almighty Deity.

Why again is the _triune_ Iao, the Mystery God, called the “fourfold,” and

yet the triadic and tetradic symbols come under one unified name with the

Christians—the Jehovah of the seven letters? Why again in the Hebrew Shebâ

is the Oath (the Pythagorean Tetraktys) identical with number 7? Or, as

Mr. Gerald Massey has it:

Taking an oath was synonymous with “to seven,” and the 10

expressed by the letter Jod, was the full number of Iao‐Sabaoth

[—the ten‐lettered God].(1436)

In Lucian’s _Auction_:

Pythagoras asks, “How do you reckon?” The reply is, “One, Two,

Three, Four.” Then Pythagoras says, “Do you see? In _what you

conceive_ Four there are Ten, _a perfect Triangle and our Oath_

[Tetraktys, Four!—or Seven in all].”(1437)

Why again does Proclus say:

The Father of the golden verses celebrates the Tetraktys as the

fountain of perennial nature?(1438)

Simply because those Western Kabalists who quote the _exoteric_ proofs

against us have no idea of the real _Esoteric_ meaning. All the ancient

Cosmologies—the oldest Cosmographies of the two most ancient people of the

Fifth Root‐Race, the Hindû Âryans and the Egyptians, together with the

early Chinese races, the remnants of the Fourth or Atlantean Race—based

the whole of their Mysteries on number 10; the higher Triangle standing

for the invisible and metaphysical World, the lower three and four, or the

Septenate, for the physical Realm. It is not the Jewish _Bible_ that

brought number seven into prominence. Hesiod used the words, “the seventh

is the sacred day,” before the Sabbath of “Moses” was ever heard of. The

use of number seven was never confined to any one nation. This is well

testified by the seven vases in the Temple of the Sun, near the ruins of

Babian in Upper Egypt; the seven fires burning continually for ages before

the altars of Mithra; the seven holy fanes of the Arabians; the seven

peninsulas, the seven islands, seven seas, mountains, and rivers of India;

and of the _Zohar_; the Jewish Sephiroth of the seven splendours; the

seven Gothic deities; the seven worlds of the Chaldæans and their seven

Spirits; the seven constellations mentioned by Hesiod and Homer; and all

the interminable sevens which the Orientalists find in every MS. they

discover.(1439)

What we have to say finally is this: Enough has been brought forward to

show why the human principles were and are divided in the Esoteric Schools

into seven. Make it four and it will either leave man _minus_ his lower

terrestrial elements, or, if viewed from a physical standpoint, make of

him a soulless animal. The Quaternary must be the higher or the lower—the

celestial or terrestrial Tetraktys; to become comprehensible, according to

the teachings of the _ancient_ Esoteric School, man must be regarded as a

septenary. This was so well understood, that even the so‐called Christian

Gnostics adopted this time‐honoured system.(1440) This remained for a long

time a secret, for though it was suspected, no MSS. of that time spoke of

it clearly enough to satisfy the sceptic. But there comes to our rescue

the literary curiosity of our age—the oldest and best preserved Gospel of

the Gnostics, _Pistis Sophia_. To make the proof absolutely complete, we

shall quote from an authority, C. W. King, the only Archæologist who has

had a faint glimmer of this elaborate doctrine, and the best writer of the

day on the Gnostics and their gems.

According to this extraordinary piece of religious literature—a true

Gnostic fossil—the human Entity is the Septenary Ray from the One,(1441)

just as our School teaches. It is composed of seven elements, four of

which are borrowed from the four kabalistical manifested worlds. Thus:

From Asiah it gets the Nephesh, or seat of the physical appetites

[vital breath, also]; from Jezirah, the Ruach, or seat of the

passions [? !]; from Briah, the Neshamah or reason; and from

Aziluth it obtains the Chaiah, or principle of spiritual life.

This looks like an adaptation of the Platonic theory of the Soul’s

obtaining its respective faculties from the Planets in its

downward progress through their spheres. But the Pistis‐Sophia,

with its accustomed boldness, puts this theory into a much more

poetical shape (§ 282). The _Inner Man_ is similarly made up of

_four_ constituents, _but these are supplied by the rebellious

Æons of the Spheres_, being the _Power_—a particle of the Divine

light (“Divinæ particula auræ”) yet left in themselves; the _Soul_

[the fifth] “formed out of the tears of their eyes, and the sweat

of their torments”; the Ἀντιμῖμον Πνεύματος, _Counterfeit of the

Spirit_ (seemingly answering to our _Conscience_) [_the sixth_];

and lastly the Μοῖρα, _Fate_(1442) [Karmic Ego], whose business it

is to lead the man to the end appointed for him: if he hath to die

by the fire, to lead him into the fire; if he hath to die by a

wild beast, to lead him unto the wild beast—[the _seventh_]!(1443)

C. The Septenary Element In The Vedas.

_It Corroborates the Occult Teaching Concerning the Seven Globes and the

Seven Races._

We have to go to the very source of historical information, if we would

bring our best evidence to testify to the facts enunciated. For, though

entirely allegorical, the Rig Vedic hymns are none the less suggestive.

The seven Rays of Sûrya, the Sun, are therein made parallel to the seven

Worlds, of every Planetary Chain, to the seven Rivers of Heaven and Earth,

the former being the seven creative Hosts, and the latter the seven Men,

or primitive human groups. The seven ancient Rishis—the progenitors of all

that lives and breathes on Earth—are the seven friends of Agni, his seven

“Horses,” or seven “Heads.” The human race has sprung from Fire and Water,

it is allegorically stated; fashioned by the Fathers, or the Ancestor‐

sacrificers, from Agni; for Agni, the Ashvins, the Âdityas,(1444) are all

synonymous with those “Sacrificers,” or the Fathers, variously called

Pitaras (or Pitris), Angirasas,(1445) and Sâdhyas, “Divine Sacrificers,”

the most Occult of all. They are all called Deva‐putra Rishayah or the

“Sons of God.”(1446) The “Sacrificers,” moreover, are collectively the One

Sacrificer, the Father of the Gods, Vishvakarman, who performed the great

Sarva‐medha ceremony, and ended by sacrificing himself.

In these Hymns the “Heavenly Man” is called Purusha, the “Man,”(1447) from

whom Virâj was born(1448); and from Virâj, the (mortal) man. It is

Varuna—lowered from his sublime position to be the chief of the

Lords—Dhyânîs or Devas—who regulates all natural phenomena, who “makes a

path for the Sun, for him to follow.” The seven Rivers of the Sky (the

descending Creative Gods), and the seven Rivers of the Earth (the seven

primitive Mankinds), are under his control, as will be seen. For he who

breaks Varuna’s laws (Vratâni, or “courses of natural action,” active

laws), is punished by Indra(1449) the Vedic powerful God, whose Vrata, or

law or power, is greater than the Vratâni of any other God.

Thus, the _Rig Veda_, the oldest of _all the known_ ancient records, may

be shown to corroborate the Occult Teachings in almost every respect. Its

Hymns, which are the records written by the earliest Initiates of the

Fifth (our) Race concerning the Primordial Teachings, speak of the Seven

Races (two still to come), allegorizing them by the seven “Streams”(1450)

and of the Five Races (Panchakrishtayah) which have already inhabited this

world(1451) on the five Regions (Panchapradishah)(1452) as also of the

three Continents that were.(1453)

It is only those scholars who will master the secret meaning of the

Purusha Sukta—in which the intuition of the modern Orientalists has chosen

to see “one of the very latest hymns of the _Rig Veda_”—who may hope to

understand how harmonious are its teachings and how corroborative of the

Esoteric Doctrines. He must study, in all the abstruseness of their

metaphysical meaning, the relations therein between the (Heavenly) Man

(Purusha), _sacrificed_ for the production of the Universe and all in

it,(1454) and the terrestrial mortal man(1455) before he realizes the

hidden philosophy of the verse:

15. He [“Man,” Purusha, or Vishvakarman] had seven enclosing logs

of fuel, and _thrice seven_ layers of fuel; when the Gods

performed the sacrifice, they bound the Man as victim.

This relates to the three septenary primeval Races, and shows the

antiquity of the _Vedas_, which knew of no other sacrifice, probably, in

these earliest _oral_ teachings; and also to the seven primeval groups of

Mankind, as Vishvakarman represents divine Humanity collectively.(1456)

The same doctrine is found reflected in the other old religions. It may,

it must, have come down to us disfigured and misinterpreted, as in the

case of the Parsîs who read it in their _Vendîdâd_ and elsewhere, though

without understanding the allusions therein contained any better than do

the Orientalists; yet the doctrine is plainly mentioned in their old

works.(1457)

Comparing the Esoteric Teaching with the interpretations by Prof. James

Darmesteter, one may see at a glance where the mistake is made, and the

cause that produced it. The passage runs thus:

The Indo‐Iranian Asura [Ahura] was often conceived as _sevenfold_;

by the play of certain mythical [?] formulæ and the strength of

certain mythical [?] numbers, the ancestors of the Indo‐Iranians

had been led to speak of seven worlds,(1458) and the supreme god

was often made sevenfold, as well as the worlds over which he

ruled. The seven worlds became in Persia the seven Karshvare of

the earth: the earth is divided into seven Karshvare, _only one of

which is known and accessible to man_, the one on which we live,

namely, Hvaniratha; which amounts to saying that there are _seven

earths_.(1459) Parsi mythology knows also of seven heavens.

Hvaniratha itself is divided into seven climes. (Orm. Ahr. §

72.)(1460)

The same division and doctrine is to be found in the oldest and most

revered of the Hindû scriptures—the _Rig Veda_. Mention is made therein of

six Worlds, _besides_ our Earth: the six Rajamsi above Prithivî, the

Earth, or “this” (Idam) as opposed to “that which is _yonder_” (_i.e._,

the six Globes on the _three_ other planes or Worlds).(1461)

The italics are ours to point out the identity of the tenets with those of

the Esoteric Doctrine, and to accentuate the mistake that is made. The

Magi or Mazdeans only believed in what other people believed in: namely,

in seven “Worlds” or Globes of our Planetary Chain, of which _only one_ is

accessible to man, at the present time, our Earth; and in the successive

appearance and destruction of seven Continents or Earths on this our

Globe, each Continent being divided, in commemoration of the seven Globes

(one visible, six invisible), into seven islands or continents, seven

“climes,” etc. This was a common belief in those days when the now Secret

Doctrine was open to all. It is this multiplicity of localities in

septenary divisions, which has made the Orientalists—who have, moreover,

been further led astray by the oblivion of their primitive doctrines of

both the uninitiated Hindûs and Parsîs—feel so puzzled by this ever‐

recurring seven‐fold number as to regard it as “mythical.” It is this

oblivion of first principles which has led the Orientalists off the right

track and made them commit the greatest blunders. The same failure is

found in the definition of the Gods. Those who are ignorant of the

Esoteric Doctrine of the earliest Âryans, can never assimilate or even

understand correctly the metaphysical meaning contained in these Beings.

Ahura Mazda (Ormazd) was the head and synthesis of the seven Amesha

Spentas, or Amshaspands, and, therefore, an Amesha Spenta himself. Just as

Jehovah‐Binah‐Elohim was the head and synthesis of the Elohim, and no

more; so Agni‐Vishnu‐Sûrya was the synthesis and head, or the focus whence

emanated in physics and also in metaphysics, from the spiritual as well as

from the physical Sun, the seven Rays, the seven Fiery Tongues, the seven

Planets or Gods. All these became supreme Gods and _the_ One God, but only

after the loss of the primeval secrets; _i.e._, the sinking of Atlantis,

or the “Flood,” and the occupation of India by the Brâhmans, who sought

safety on the summits of the Himâlayas, for even the high table‐lands of

what is now Tibet became submerged for a time. Ahura Mazda is addressed

only as the “Most Blissful Spirit, Creator of the _Corporeal_ World” in

the _Vendîdâd_. Ahura Mazda in its literal translation means the “Wise

Lord” (Ahura “lord” and Mazda “wise”). Moreover, this name of Ahura, in

Sanskrit Asura, connects him with the Mânasaputras, the Sons of Wisdom who

informed the mindless man, and endowed him with his mind (Manas). Ahura

(Asura) may be derived from the root _ah_ “to be,” but in its primal

signification it is what the Secret Teaching shows it to be.

When Geology shall have found out how many thousands of years ago the

disturbed waters of the Indian Ocean reached the highest plateaux of

Central Asia, when the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf made one with it,

then only will they know the age of the existing Âryan Brâhmanical nation,

and also the time of its descent into the plains of Hindûstan, which did

not take place till millenniums later.

Yima, the so‐called “first man” in the _Vendîdâd_, as much as his twin‐

brother Yama, the son of Vaivasvata Manu, belongs to two epochs of

Universal History. He is the Progenitor of the Second human Race, hence

the personification of the Shadows of the Pitris, and the Father of the

Postdiluvian Humanity. The Magi said, “Yima,” as we say “man” when

speaking of mankind. The “fair Yima,” the first mortal who converses with

Ahura Mazda, is the _first _“man”_ who dies_ or disappears, not the first

who is born. The “son of Vîvanghat”(1462) was, like the son of Vaivasvata,

the symbolical man, who stood in Esotericism as the representative of the

_first three_ Races and the collective Progenitor thereof. Of these Races

the first two never died(1463) but only vanished, absorbed in their

progeny, and the Third knew death only towards its close, after the

separation of the sexes and its “Fall” into generation. This is plainly

alluded to in Fargard ii of the _Vendîdâd_. Yima refuses to become the

bearer of the law of Ahura Mazda, saying:

“I was not born, I was not taught to be the preacher and the

bearer of thy law.”(1464)

And then Ahura Mazda asks him to make his men increase and “watch over”

his world.

He refuses to become the priest of Ahura Mazda, because he is _his own

priest and sacrificer_, but he accepts the second proposal. He is made to

answer:

“Yes!... Yes, I will nourish, and rule, and watch over thy world.

There shall be, while I am king, neither cold wind nor hot wind,

_neither disease nor death_.”

Then Ahura Mazda brings him a golden ring and a poniard, the emblems of

sovereignty.

Thus, under the sway of Yima, three hundred _winters_ passed away,

and the earth was _replenished_ with flocks and herds, with men

and dogs and birds and with red blazing fires.

Three hundred winters mean three hundred periods or cycles. “Replenished,”

mark well; that is to say, all this had been on it before; and thus is

proven the knowledge of the doctrine about the successive Destructions of

the World and its Life‐Cycles. Once the “three hundred winters” were over,

Ahura Mazda warns Yima that the Earth is becoming too full, and men have

nowhere to live. Then Yima steps forward, and with the help of Spenta

Ârmaita, the female Genius, or Spirit of the Earth, makes that Earth

stretch out and become larger by one‐third, after which “new flocks and

herds and men” appear upon it. Ahura Mazda warns him again, and Yima makes

the Earth by the same magic power to become larger by two‐thirds. “Nine

hundred winters” _pass_ away, and Yima has to perform the ceremony for the

_third_ time. The whole of this is allegorical. The three processes of

stretching the Earth, refer to the three successive Continents and Races

issuing one after and from the other, as explained more fully elsewhere.

After the _third_ time, Ahura Mazda warns Yima in an assembly of

“celestial gods” and “excellent mortals” that upon the material world the

fatal winters are going to fall, and all _life_ will perish. This is the

old Mazdean symbolism for the “Flood,” and the coming cataclysm to

Atlantis, which sweeps away every Race in its turn. Like Vaivasvata Manu

and Noah, Yima makes a Vara—an Enclosure, an Ark—under the God’s

direction, and brings thither the seed of every living creature, animals

and “Fires.”

It is of this “Earth” or new Continent that Zarathushtra became the law‐

giver and ruler. This was the Fourth Race in its beginning, after the men

of the Third began to die out. Till then, as said above, there had been no

regular death, but only a transformation, for _men had no personality_ as

yet. They had Monads—“Breaths” of the One Breath, as impersonal as the

source from which they proceeded. They had bodies, or rather shadows of

bodies, which were sinless, hence Karma‐less. Therefore, as there was no

Kâma Loka—least of all Nirvâna or even Devachan—for the “Souls” of men who

had no personal Egos, there could be no intermediate periods between the

incarnations. Like the Phœnix, primordial man resurrected out of his old

into a new body. Each time, and with each new generation, he became more

solid, more physically perfect, agreeably with the evolutionary law, which

is the Law of Nature. Death came with the complete physical organism, and

with it—moral decay.

This explanation shows one more old religion agreeing in its symbology

with the Universal Doctrine.

Elsewhere the oldest Persian traditions, the relics of Mazdeism of the

still older Magians, are given, and some of them explained. Mankind did

not issue from one solitary couple. Nor was there ever a first man—whether

Adam or Yima—but a first mankind.

It may, or may not, be “mitigated polygenism.” Once that both Creation _ex

nihilo_ (an absurdity) and a superhuman Creator or Creators (a fact) are

made away with by Science, polygenism presents no more difficulties or

inconveniences—rather fewer from a scientific point of view—than

monogenism does.

In fact, it is as scientific as any other claim. For in his Introduction

to Nott and Gliddon’s _Types of Mankind_, Agassiz declares his belief in

an indefinite number of “primordial races of men created _separately_”;

and remarks that, “whilst in every zoological province animals are of

_different_ species, _man_, in spite of the diversity of his races, always

forms _one and the same_ human being.”

Occultism defines and limits the number of primordial races to seven,

because of the seven “Progenitors,” or Prajâpatis, the evolvers of beings.

These are neither Gods, nor supernatural Beings, but advanced Spirits from

another and lower Planet, reborn on this Planet, and giving birth in their

turn in the present Round to present Humanity. This doctrine is again

corroborated by one of its echoes—among the Gnostics. In their

anthropology and genesis of man they taught that “a certain company of

_seven_ Angels,” formed the first men, who were no better than senseless,

gigantic, shadowy forms—“a mere wriggling worm” (!) writes Irenæus,(1465)

who takes, as usual, the metaphor for reality.

D. The Septenary In The Exoteric Works.

We may now examine other ancient scriptures and see whether they contain

the septenary classification, and, if so, to what degree.

Scattered about in thousands of other Sanskrit texts, some still unopened,

others yet unknown, as well as in all the _Purânas_, as much as, if not

much more than, even in the Jewish _Bible_, the numbers seven and forty‐

nine (7 × 7) play a most prominent part. In the _Purânas_ they are found

from the seven Creations, in the first chapters, down to the seven Rays of

the Sun at the final Pralaya, which expand into seven Suns and absorb the

material of the whole Universe. Thus the _Matsya Purâna_ has:

For the sake of promulgating the Vedas, Vishnu, in the beginning

of a Kalpa, related to Manu the story of Narasimha and the events

of _seven_ Kalpas.(1466)

Then again the same _Purâna_ shows that:

In all the Manvantaras, classes of Rishis(1467) appear by seven

and _seven_, and having established a code of law and morality

depart to felicity.(1468)

The Rishis, however, represent many other things besides living sages.

In Dr. Muir’s translation of the _Atharva Veda_, we read:

1. Time carries (us) forward, a steed, with _seven_ rays, a

thousand eyes, undecaying, full of fecundity. On him intelligent

sages mount; his wheels are all the worlds.

2. Thus Time moves on _seven_ wheels; he has _seven_ naves;

immortality is his axle. He is at present _all these worlds_. Time

hastens onward the first God.

3. A full jar is contained in Time. We behold him existing in many

forms. He is all these worlds in the future. They call him “Time

in the highest Heaven.”(1469)

Now add to this the following verse from the Esoteric Volumes:

_Space and Time are one. Space and Time are nameless, for they are the

incognizable That, which can be sensed only through its seven Rays—which

are the seven Creations, the seven Worlds, the seven Laws, etc._

Remembering that the _Purânas_ insist on the identity of Vishnu with Time

and Space,(1470) and that even the Rabbinical symbol for God is Maqom,

“Space,” it becomes clear why, for purposes of a manifesting Deity—Space,

Matter, and Spirit—the one central Point became the Triangle and

Quaternary—the perfect Cube—hence _seven_. Even the Pravaha Wind—the

mystic and occult force that gives the impulse to, and regulates the

course of the stars and planets—is septenary. The _Kûrma_ and _Linga

Purânas_ enumerate seven principal winds of that name, which winds are the

principles of Cosmic Space.(1471) They are intimately connected with

Dhruva(1472) (now Alpha), the Pole‐Star, which is connected in its turn

with the production of various phenomena through cosmic forces.

Thus, from the seven Creations, seven Rishis, Zones, Continents,

Principles, etc., in the Âryan Scriptures, the number has passed through

Indian, Egyptian, Chaldæan, Greek, Jewish, Roman, and finally Christian

mystic thought, until it landed in, and remained indelibly impressed on,

every exoteric theology. The seven old books stolen out of Noah’s Ark by

Ham, and given to Cush, his son, and the seven Brazen Columns of Ham and

Cheiron, are a reflection and a remembrance of the seven primordial

Mysteries instituted according to the “seven secret Emanations,” the seven

Sounds, and seven Rays—the spiritual and sidereal models of the seven

thousand times seven copies of them in later æons.

The mysterious number is once more prominent in the no less mysterious

Maruts. The _Vâyu Purâna_ shows, and the _Harivamsha_ corroborates,

concerning the Maruts—the oldest as the most incomprehensible of all the

secondary or lower Gods in the _Rig Veda_:

That they are _born in every Manvantara [Round], seven times

seven_ (or forty‐nine); that, in each Manvantara, _four times

seven_ (or twenty‐eight) obtain emancipation, but their places are

_filled up by persons reborn in that character_.(1473)

What are the Maruts in their Esoteric meaning, and who _those persons_

“reborn in that character”? In the _Rik_ and other _Vedas_, the Maruts are

represented as the Storm Gods and the _friends and allies_ of Indra; they

are the “Sons of Heaven and of Earth.” This led to an allegory that makes

them the children of Shiva, the great patron of the Yogîs:

The Mahâ Yogî, the great _ascetic_, in whom is centred the highest

perfection of austere penance and abstract meditation, _by which

the most unlimited powers are attained, marvels and miracles are

worked, the highest spiritual knowledge is acquired, and union

with the great spirit of the universe is eventually gained_.(1474)

In the _Rig Veda_ the name Shiva is unknown, but the corresponding God is

called Rudra, a name used for Agni, the Fire‐God, the Maruts being called

therein his sons. In the _Râmâyana_ and the _Purânas_, their mother,

Diti—the sister, or complement, and a form of Aditi—anxious to obtain a

son who would destroy Indra, is told by Kashyapa, the Sage, that if, “with

thoughts wholly pious and person entirely pure,” she carries the babe in

her womb “for a hundred years,”(1475) she will have such a son. But Indra

foils her in the design. With his thunderbolt he _divides the embryo in

her womb into seven portions_, and then divides every such portion _into

seven pieces again_, which become the swift‐moving deities, the

Maruts.(1476) These Deities are only another _aspect_, or a development,

of the Kumâras, who are patronymically Rudras, like many others.(1477)

Diti, being Aditi—unless the contrary is proven to us—Aditi, we say, or

Âkâsha in her highest form, is the Egyptian _seven‐fold_ Heaven. Every

true Occultist will understand what this means. Diti, we repeat, is the

sixth principle of _metaphysical_ Nature, the Buddhi of Âkâsha. Diti, the

Mother of the Maruts, is one of her terrestrial forms, made to represent,

at one and the same time, the Divine Soul in the ascetic, and the divine

aspirations of mystic Humanity toward deliverance from the webs of Mâyâ,

and consequent final bliss. Indra is now degraded, because of the Kali

Yuga, when such aspirations are no more general but have become abnormal

through a general spread of Ahamkâra, the feeling of Egotism, or “I‐am‐

ness” and ignorance; but in the beginning Indra was one of the greatest

Gods of the Hindû Pantheon, as the _Rig Veda_ shows. Surâdhipa the “chief

of the gods,” has fallen down from Jishnu, the “Leader of the Celestial

Host”—the Hindû St. Michael—to an opponent of asceticism, the enemy of

every holy aspiration. He is shown married to Aindrî (Indrânî), the

personification of Aindriyaka, the evolution of the element of senses,

whom he married “because of her _voluptuous attractions_”; after which he

began sending celestial female demons to excite the passions of holy men,

Yogîs, and “to beguile them from the potent penances which he dreaded.”

Therefore, Indra, now characterized as “the god of the firmament, the

personified atmosphere”—is in reality the cosmic principle Mahat, and the

fifth human principle, Manas in its dual aspect—as connected with Buddhi,

and as allowing itself to be dragged down by the Kâma principle, the body

of passions and desires. This is demonstrated by Brahmâ telling the

conquered God that his frequent defeats were due to Karma, and were a

punishment for his licentiousness, and the seduction of various nymphs. It

is in this latter character that he seeks, to save himself from

destruction, to destroy the coming “babe,” destined to conquer him—the

babe, of course, allegorizing the divine and steady will of the Yogî,

determined to resist all such temptations, and thus destroy the passions

within his earthly personality. Indra succeeds again, because flesh

conquers spirit.(1478) He divides the “embryo” (of new _divine_ Adeptship,

begotten once more by the Ascetics of the Âryan Fifth Race) into _seven_

portions (a reference not alone to the seven sub‐races of the new Root‐

Race, in each of which there will be a Manu,(1479) but also to the seven

degrees of Adeptship), and then each portion into seven pieces—alluding to

the Manu‐Rishis of each Root‐Race, and even sub‐race.

It does not seem difficult to perceive what is meant by the Maruts

obtaining “four times seven” emancipations in every Manvantara, and by

those persons who are _re‐born_ in that character, viz., of the Maruts in

their Esoteric meaning, and who “fill up their places.” The Maruts

represent (_a_) the passions that storm and rage within every Candidate’s

breast, when preparing for an ascetic life—this mystically; (_b_) the

Occult potencies concealed in the manifold aspects of Âkâsha’s lower

principles—her body, or Sthûla Sharîra, representing the terrestrial,

lower atmosphere of every inhabited Globe—this mystically and sidereally;

(_c_) actual conscious existences, beings of a cosmic and psychic nature.

At the same time, Marut in Occult parlance is one of the names given to

those Egos of great Adepts who have passed away, and are known also as

Nirmânakâyas; of those Egos for whom—_since they are beyond

illusion_—there is no Devachan, who, having either voluntarily renounced

Nirvâna for the good of mankind, or who not yet having reached it, remain

invisible on Earth. Therefore are the Maruts(1480) shown, firstly, as the

sons of Shiva‐Rudra, the Patron Yogî, whose Third Eye (mystically) must be

acquired by the Ascetic before he becomes an Adept; then, in their cosmic

character, as the subordinates of Indra and his opponents, under various

characters. The “four times seven” emancipations have a reference to the

four Rounds, and the four Races that preceded ours, in each of which

Maruta‐Jîvas (Monads) have been re‐born, and would have obtained final

liberation, if only they had chosen to avail themselves of it. But instead

of this, out of love for the good of mankind, which would struggle still

more hopelessly in the meshes of ignorance and misery _were it not for

this extraneous help_, they are re‐born over and over again “in that

character,” and thus “fill up their own places.” _Who_ they are, “on

Earth”—every student of Occult Science knows. And he also knows that the

Maruts are Rudras, among whom also the family of Tvashtri, a synonym of

Vishvakarman, the great Patron of the Initiates, is included. This gives

us an ample knowledge of their true nature.

The same for the septenary division of cosmos and the human principles.

The _Purânas_, along with other sacred texts, teem with allusions to this.

First of all, the Mundane Egg which contained Brahmâ, or the Universe, was

externally invested with _seven_ natural elements, at first loosely

enumerated as Water, Air, Fire, Ether, and _three secret_ elements; then

the “World” is said to be “encompassed on every side” by seven elements,

also _within_ the Egg—as explained:

The world is encompassed on every side, and above, and below, by

the shell of the egg (of Brahmâ) [Andakatâha].(1481)

Around the shell flows Water, which is surrounded with Fire; Fire by Air;

Air by Ether; Ether by the Origin of the Elements (Ahamkâra); the latter

by Universal Mind, or “Intellect,” as Wilson translates. It relates to

Spheres of Being as much as to Principles. Prithivî is not our Earth but

the World, the Solar System, and means the “broad,” the “wide.” In the

_Vedas_—the greatest of all authorities, though needing a key to be read

correctly—three terrestrial and three celestial Earths are mentioned as

having been called into existence simultaneously with Bhûmi, our Earth. We

have often been told that six, not _seven_, appears to be the number of

spheres, principles, etc. We answer that there are, in fact, only six

principles in man; since his body is _no_ principle, but the covering, the

shell of a principle. So with the Planetary Chain; therein, speaking

Esoterically, the Earth—as well as the seventh, or rather fourth plane,

one that stands as the seventh, if we count from the first triple kingdom

of the Elementals that begin its formation—may be left out of

consideration, being (to us) the only distinct body of the seven. The

language of Occultism is varied. But supposing that _three_ Earths only,

instead of seven, are meant in the _Vedas_, what are those three, since we

still know of but one? Evidently there _must be_ an Occult meaning in the

statement under consideration. Let us see. The “Earth that floats” on the

Universal Ocean of Space, which Brahmâ divides in the _Purânas_ into seven

Zones, is Prithivî, the World divided into seven principles—a cosmic

division, looking metaphysical enough, but, in reality, _physical_ in its

Occult effects. Many Kalpas later, our Earth is mentioned, and again, in

its turn, is divided into seven Zones according to the law of analogy

which guided ancient Philosophers. After which we find on it seven

Continents, seven Isles, seven Oceans, seven Seas and Rivers, seven

Mountains, seven Climates, etc.(1482)

Furthermore, it is not only in the Hindû scriptures and philosophy that

one finds references to the seven Earths, but in the Persian, Phœnician,

Chaldæan, and Egyptian cosmogonies, and even in Rabbinical literature. The

Phœnix(1483)—called by the Hebrews Onech ענק, from Phenoch, Enoch, the

symbol of a secret cycle and initiation, and by the Turks, Kerkes—lives a

thousand years, after which, kindling a flame, it is self‐consumed; and

then, reborn from itself, it lives another thousand years, up to _seven

times seven_,(1484) when comes the Day of Judgment. The “seven times

seven,” or forty‐nine, are a transparent allegory, and an allusion to the

forty‐nine Manus, the seven Rounds, and the seven times seven human Cycles

in each Round on each Globe. The Kerkes and the Onech stand for a Race

Cycle, and the mystical Tree Ababel, the “Father Tree” in the _Kurân_,

shoots out new branches and vegetation at every resurrection of the Kerkes

or Phœnix; the “Day of Judgment” meaning a minor Pralaya. The author of

the _Book of God_ and the _Apocalypse_ believes that:

The Phœnix is ... very plainly the same as the Simorgh of Persian

romance; and the account which is given us of this last bird yet

more decisively establishes the opinion that the death and revival

of the Phœnix exhibit the successive destruction and reproduction

of the world, which many believed to be effected by the agency of

a fiery deluge [and also a watery one in its turn]. When the

Simorgh was asked her age, she informed Caherman that this world

is very ancient, for it has been already _seven times

replenished_, with beings different from men, and _seven times

depopulated_:(1485) that the age of the human race in which we now

are, is to endure seven thousand years, and that she herself had

seen _twelve_ of these revolutions, and knew not how many more she

had to see.(1486)

The above, however, is no new statement. From Bailly, in the last century,

down to Dr. Kenealy, in the present, these facts have been noticed by a

number of writers; but now a connection can be established between the

Persian oracle and the Nazarene prophet. Says the author of the _Book of

God_:

The Simorgh is in reality the same as the winged Singh of the

Hindûs, and the Sphinx of the Egyptians. It is said that the

former will appear at the end of the world ... [as a] monstrous

lion‐bird.... From these the Rabbins have borrowed their mythos of

an enormous Bird, sometimes standing on the earth, sometimes

walking in the ocean ... while its head props the sky; and with

the symbol, they have also adopted the doctrine to which it

relates. They teach that there are to be _seven successive

renewals_ of the globe; that each reproduced system will last

_seven_ thousand years [?]; and that the _total duration of the

Universe_ will be 49,000 years. This opinion, which involves the

doctrine of the preëxistence of each renewed creature, they may

either have learned during their Babylonian captivity, or _it may

have been part of the primeval religion_ which their priests had

preserved from remote times.(1487)

It shows rather that the initiated Jews _borrowed_, and their non‐

initiated successors, the Talmudists, lost, the sense, and applied the

seven Rounds, and the forty‐nine Races, etc., wrongly.

Not only _their_ priests, but those of every other country. The Gnostics,

whose various teachings are the many echoes of the one primitive and

universal doctrine, put the same numbers, under another form, in the mouth

of Jesus in the very occult _Pistis Sophia_. We say more: even the

Christian editor or author of _Revelation_ has preserved this tradition

and speaks of the _seven_ Races, four of which, with part of the fifth,

are gone, and two have to come. It is stated as plainly as can be. Thus

saith the angel:

And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven

mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are _seven_

kings; _five_ are fallen, and one _is_, and the other is not yet

come.(1488)

Who, in the least acquainted with the symbolical language of old, will

fail to discern in the _five_ Kings that have fallen, the four Root‐Races

that were, and part of the Fifth, the one that _is_; and in the _other_,

that “is not yet come,” the Sixth and Seventh coming Root‐Races, as also

the sub‐races of this, our present Race? Another still more forcible

allusion to the seven Rounds and the forty‐nine Root‐Races in _Leviticus_,

will be found elsewhere, Part III.(1489)

E. Seven In Astronomy, Science, And Magic.

Again, number _seven_ is closely connected with the Occult significance of

the Pleiades, those seven daughters of Atlas, “the six present, the

seventh _hidden_.” In India they are connected with their nursling, the

war God, Kârttikeya. It was the Pleiades (in Sanskrit, Krittikâs) who gave

this name to the God, Kârttikeya being the planet Mars, _astronomically_.

As a God he is the son of Rudra, born without the intervention of a woman.

He is a Kumâra, a “virgin youth” again, generated in the fire from the

Seed of Shiva—the Holy Spirit—hence called Agni‐bhû. The late Dr. Kenealy

believed that, in India, Kârttikeya is the secret symbol of the Cycle of

the Naros, composed of 600, 666, and 777 years, according to whether solar

or lunar, divine or mortal, years are counted; and that the six visible,

or the seven actual sisters, the Pleiades, are needed for the completion

of this most secret and mysterious of all the astronomical and religious

symbols. Therefore, when intended to commemorate one particular event,

Kârttikeya was shown, of old, as a Kumâra, an Ascetic, with _six_

heads—one for each century of the Naros. When the symbolism was needed for

another event, then, in conjunction with the seven sidereal sisters,

Kârttikeya is seen accompanied by Kaumârî, or Senâ, his female aspect. He

is then riding on a peacock, the bird of Wisdom and Occult Knowledge, and

the Hindû Phœnix, whose Greek relation with the 600 years of the Naros is

well known. A six‐rayed star (double triangle), a Svastika, a six and

occasionally seven‐pointed crown, is on his brow; the peacock’s tail

represents the sidereal heavens; and the twelve signs of the Zodiac are

_hidden on his body_; for which he is also called Dvâdasha‐kara, the

“twelve‐handed,” and Dvâdashâksha, “twelve‐eyed.” It is as Shakti‐dhara,

however, the “spear‐holder,” and the conqueror of Târaka, Târaka‐jit, that

he is shown to be most famous.

As the years of the Naros are, in India, counted in two ways, either by

one hundred “years of the gods” (divine years), or one hundred “mortal

years,” we can see the tremendous difficulty the non‐initiated have in

arriving at a correct comprehension of this cycle, which plays such an

important part in St. John’s _Revelation_. It is the truly apocalyptic

cycle, because of its being of various lengths and relating to various

pre‐historic events, and in none of the numerous speculations about it

have we found any but a few _approximate_ truths.

Against the duration claimed by the Babylonians for their divine ages, it

has been urged that Suidas shows the Ancients counting days for years, in

their chronological computations. It is to Suidas and his authority that

Dr. Sepp appeals in his ingenious plagiarism—which we have already

exposed—of the Hindû figures 432. These they give in thousands and

millions of years, the duration of their Yugas, but Sepp dwarfed them to

4,320 _lunar_ years,(1490) “before the birth of Christ,” as “foreordained”

in the sidereal, in addition to the invisible, heavens, and proved “by the

apparition of the Star of Bethlehem.” But Suidas had no other warrant for

this assertion than his own speculations, and he was not an Initiate. He

cites, as a proof, Vulcan, and shows him reigning 4,477 years, or 4,477

_days_, as he thinks, or again rendered in years, 12 years, 3 months, and

7 days; he has, however, 5 days in his original—thus committing an error

even in such an easy calculation.(1491) True, there are other ancient

writers guilty of like fallacious speculations; Calisthenes, for instance,

who assigns to the astronomical observations of the Chaldæans only 1,903

years, whereas Epigenes recognizes 720,000 years.(1492) The whole of these

hypotheses made by profane writers are due to a misunderstanding. The

chronology of the Western peoples, ancient Greeks and Romans, was borrowed

from India. Now, it is said in the Tamil edition of _Bagavadam_ that 15

solar days make a Paccham; two Pacchams, or 30 days, make a month of

mortals, which is only one _day_ of the Pitara Devatâ or Pitris. Again, 2

of these months constitute a Rûdû, 3 Rûdûs make an Ayanam, and 2 Ayanams a

year of mortals, which is only a _day_ of the Gods. It is from such

misunderstood teachings that some Greeks have imagined that all the

initiated priests had transformed days into years!

This mistake of the ancient Greek and Latin writers became pregnant with

results in Europe. At the close of the past and the beginning of the

present century, Bailly, Dupuis, and others, relying upon the purposely

mutilated accounts of Hindû chronology, brought from India by certain

unscrupulous and too zealous missionaries, built quite a fantastic theory

on the subject. Because the Hindûs had made of half a revolution of the

moon a measure of time; and because a month composed of only fifteen days,

of which Quintus Curtius speaks,(1493) is found mentioned in Hindû

literature, therefore, it becomes a verified fact that their _year_ was

only half a year, when it was not called a _day_! The Chinese, also,

divided their Zodiac into twenty‐four parts, and hence their year into

twenty‐four fortnights, but such computation did not, nor does it, prevent

them having an astronomical year just the same as ours. They also have a

period of 60 days—the Southern Indian Rûdû—to this day in some provinces.

Moreover, Diodorus Siculus(1494) calls “_thirty days_ an Egyptian year,”

or that period during which the moon performs a complete revolution. Pliny

and Plutarch(1495) both speak of it; but does it stand to reason that the

Egyptians, who knew Astronomy as well as any other nation, made the

_lunar_ month consist of 30 days, when it is only 28 days with fractions?

This lunar period had an Occult meaning surely as well as had also the

Ayanam and the Rûdû of the Hindûs. The year of 2 months’ duration, and the

period of 60 days also, was a universal measure of time in antiquity, as

Bailly himself shows in his _Traité de l’ Astronomie Indienne et

Orientale_. The Chinamen, according to their own books, divided their year

into two parts, from one equinox to the other;(1496) the Arabs anciently

divided the year into six seasons, each composed of two months; in the

Chinese astronomical work called _Kioo‐tche_, it is said that two moons

make a measure of time, and six measures a year; and to this day the

aborigines of Kamschatka have their years of six months, as they had when

visited by Abbé Chappe.(1497) But is all this any reason for claiming that

when the Hindû _Purânas_ say a solar _year_, they mean one solar _day_!

It was the knowledge of the natural laws which make of seven the root

nature‐number, so to say, in the manifested world, or at any rate in our

present terrestrial life‐cycle, and the wonderful comprehension of its

workings, that unveiled to the Ancients so many of the mysteries of

Nature. It is these laws, again, and their processes on the sidereal,

terrestrial, and moral planes, which enabled the old Astronomers to

calculate correctly the duration of the cycles and their respective

effects on the march of events; to record beforehand—to prophesy, it is

called—the influence which they would have on the course and development

of the human races. The Sun, Moon, and Planets being the never‐erring

time‐measurers, whose potency and periodicity were well known, became thus

respectively the great ruler and rulers of our little system in all its

seven domains, or “spheres of action.”(1498)

This has been so evident and remarkable, that even many of the modern men

of Science, Materialists as well as Mystics, have had their attention

called to this law. Physicians and Theologians, Mathematicians and

Psychologists, have repeatedly drawn the attention of the world to this

fact of periodicity in the behaviour of “Nature.” These numbers are

explained in the Commentaries in the following words:

_The Circle is not the __“__One__”__ but the __“__All.__”_

_In the higher [Heaven], the impenetrable Rajah,_(_1499_)_ it [the Circle]

becomes One, because [it is] the indivisible, and there can be no Tau in

it._

_In the second [of the three Rajamsi, or the three __“__Worlds__”__], the

One becomes Two [male and female], and Three [with the Son or Logos], and

the Sacred Four [the Tetraktys, or Tetragrammaton]._

_In the third [the lower World or our Earth], the number becomes Four, and

Three, and Two. Take the first two, and thou wilt obtain Seven, the sacred

number of life; blend [the latter] with the middle Rajah, and thou wilt

have Nine, the sacred number of Being and Becoming._(1500)

When the Western Orientalists have mastered the real meaning of the Rig

Vedic divisions of the World—the two‐fold, three‐fold, six‐ and seven‐

fold, and especially the nine‐fold division—the mystery of the cyclic

divisions applied to Heaven and Earth, Gods and Men, will become clearer

to them than it is now. For:

_There is a harmony of numbers in all nature; in the force of

gravity, in the planetary movements, in the laws of heat, light,

electricity, and chemical affinity, in the forms of animals and

plants, in the perceptions of the mind._ The direction, indeed, of

modern natural and physical science is towards a generalization

which shall express the fundamental laws of all, by one simple

numerical ratio. We would refer to Professor Whewell’s _Philosophy

of the Inductive Sciences_, and to Mr. Hay’s researches into the

laws of harmonious colouring and form. _From these it appears that

the number seven is distinguished in the laws regulating the

harmonious perception of forms, colours, and sounds_, and probably

of taste also, if we could analyze our sensations of this kind

with mathematical accuracy.(1501)

So much so, indeed, that more than one Physician has stood aghast at the

_septenary_ periodical return of the cycles in the rise and fall of

various complaints, and Naturalists have felt themselves at an utter loss

to explain this law.

The birth, growth, maturity, vital functions, healthy revolutions

of change, diseases, decay and death, of insects, reptiles,

fishes, birds, mammals, and even of man, are more or less

controlled by a law of _completion in weeks_ [or seven

days].(1502)

Dr. Laycock, writing on the “Periodicity of Vital Phenomena,”(1503)

records a “most remarkable illustration and confirmation of the law in

insects.”(1504)

To all of which Mr. Grattan Guinness remarks very pertinently, as he

defends biblical chronology:

And man’s life ... is a _week_, a _week of decades_. “The days of

our years are three‐score years and ten.” Combining the testimony

of all these facts, we are bound to admit that _there prevails in

organic nature a law of septiform periodicity, a law of completion

in weeks_.(1505)

Without accepting the conclusions, and especially the premises of the

learned founder of “The East London Institute for Home and Foreign

Missions,” the writer accepts and welcomes his researches in the Occult

chronology of the _Bible_; just as, while rejecting the theories,

hypotheses, and generalizations of Modern Science, we bow before its great

achievements in the world of the Physical, or in all the minor details of

material Nature.

There is most assuredly an Occult “chronological system in Hebrew

scripture,” the _Kabalah_ being its warrant; moreover there is in it “a

system of weeks,” based on the archaic Indian system, which may still be

found in the old Jyotisha.(1506) And there are in it cycles of the “_week_

of days,” of the “_week_ of months,” of years, of centuries, and even of

millenniums, and more, of the “week of years of years.”(1507) But all this

can be found in the Archaic Doctrine. And if the common source of the

chronology in every scripture, however _veiled_, is denied in the case of

the _Bible_; then it will have to be shown how, in face of the six days

and the seventh (a Sabbath), we can escape connecting the Genetic with the

Paurânic Cosmogonies. For the first “week of creation” shows the

septiformity of its chronology and thus connects it with Brahmâ’s “seven

creations.” The able volume from the pen of Mr. Grattan Guinness, in which

he has collected in some 760 pages every proof of this septiform

calculation, is good evidence. For if the biblical chronology is, as he

says, “regulated by the law of weeks,” and if it is septenary, whatever

the measures of the creation week and the length of its days may be, and

if, finally, “the Bible system includes weeks on a great variety of

scales,” then this system is shown to be identical with all the Pagan

systems. Moreover, the attempt to show that 4,320 years, in lunar months,

elapsed between the “Creation” and the “Nativity,” is a clear and

unmistakable connection with the 4,320,000 years of the Hindû Yugas.

Otherwise, why make such efforts to prove that these figures, which are

preëminently Chaldæan and Indo‐Âryan, play such a part in the _New

Testament_? This we shall now prove still more forcibly.

Let the impartial critic compare the two accounts—the _Vishnu Purâna_ and

the _Bible_—and he will find that the “seven creations” of Brahmâ are at

the foundation of the “week of creation” in _Genesis_. The two allegories

are different, but the systems are both built on the same foundation‐

stone. The _Bible_ can be understood _only by the light of_ the _Kabalah_.

Take the _Zohar_, the “Book of Concealed Mystery,” however now disfigured,

and compare. The seven Rishis and the fourteen Manus, of the seven

Manvantaras, issue from Brahmâ’s head; they are his “Mind‐born Sons,” and

it is with them that begins the division of mankind into its Races from

the Heavenly Man, the manifested Logos, who is Brahmâ Prajâpati. Speaking

of the “Skull” (Head) of Macroprosopus, the Ancient One(1508) (in Sanskrit

Sanat is an appellation of Brahmâ), the _Ha Idra Rabba Qadisha_, or

“Greater Holy Assembly,” says that in every one of his hairs is a hidden

fountain issuing from the concealed brain.

And it shineth and goeth forth through that hair unto the hair of

Microprosopus, and from it [which is the manifest Quaternary, the

Tetragrammaton] is his brain formed; and thence that brain goeth

forth into _thirty_ and _two_ paths [or the Triad and the Duad, or

again 432].

And again:

Thirteen curls of hair exist on the one side and on the other of

the skull [_i.e._, six on one and six on the other, the thirteenth

being also the fourteenth, as it is male‐female]; ... and through

them commenceth the division of the hair [the division of things,

of mankind and the races].(1509)

“We _six_ are lights which shine forth from a _seventh_ (light),” saith

Rabbi Abba; “_thou art the seventh light_”—the synthesis of us all—he

adds, speaking of Tetragrammaton and his seven “companions,” whom he calls

the “eyes of Tetragrammaton.”(1510)

Tetragrammaton is Brahmâ Prajâpati, who assumed _four_ forms, in order to

create four kinds of _supernal_ creatures, _i.e._, made himself _four‐

fold_, or the manifest Quaternary;(1511) after that, he is re‐born in the

_seven_ Rishis, his Mânasaputras, “Mind‐born Sons,” who became later,

nine, twenty‐one, and so on, and who are all said to be born from various

parts of Brahmâ.(1512)

There are two Tetragrammatons: the Macroprosopus and the Microprosopus.

The first is the absolute perfect Square, or the Tetraktys within the

Circle, both abstract conceptions, and is therefore called Ain—Non‐being,

_i.e._, illimitable or absolute “Be‐ness.” But when viewed as

Microprosopus, or the Heavenly Man, the Manifested Logos, he is the

Triangle in the Square—the _sevenfold_ Cube, not the fourfold, or the

plane Square. For it is written in “The Greater Holy Assembly”:

And concerning this, the children of Israel wished to inquire in

their hearts [know in their minds], like as it is written, Exod.

xvii. 7: “Is the Tetragrammaton in the midst of us, or the

Negatively Existent One?”(1513)

—where they distinguished between Microprosopus, who is called

Tetragrammaton, and between Macroprosopus, who is called Ain, the

Negatively Existent.(1514)

Therefore, Tetragrammaton is the Three _made_ four and the Four made

three, and is represented on this Earth by his seven “Companions,” or

“Eyes”—the “seven eyes of the Lord.” Microprosopus is, at best, only a

_secondary_ manifested Deity. For “The Greater Holy Assembly” elsewhere

says:

We have learned that there _were ten_ (_Rabbis_) [Companions]

entered into (_the Assembly_) [the Sod, “mysterious assembly or

mystery”] and that _seven_ came forth(1515) [_i.e._, _ten_ for the

unmanifested, seven for the manifested Universe].

1158. And when Rabbi Schimeon revealed the Arcana, there were

found none present there save those [seven] (_companions_). And

Rabbi Schimeon called them the seven eyes of Tetragrammaton, like

as it is written, Zach. iii. 9: “These are the seven eyes [or

principles] of Tetragrammaton” [—_i.e._, the four‐fold Heavenly

Man, or pure Spirit, is resolved into septenary man, pure Matter

and Spirit].(1516)

Thus the Tetrad is Microprosopus, and the latter is the male‐female

Chokmah‐Binah, the second and third Sephiroth. The Tetragrammaton is the

very essence of number _seven_, in its terrestrial significance. Seven

stands between four and nine—the basis and foundation, astrally, of our

physical world and man, in the kingdom of Malkuth.

For Christians and believers, this reference to _Zechariah_ and especially

to the _Epistle of Peter_,(1517) ought to be conclusive. In the old

symbolism, “man,” chiefly the Inner Spiritual Man is called a “stone.”

Christ is the corner‐stone, and Peter refers to all men as “lively”

(living) stones. Therefore a “stone with seven eyes” on it can only mean a

man whose constitution (_i.e._, his “principles”) is septenary.

To demonstrate more clearly the seven in Nature, it may be added that not

only does the number seven govern the periodicity of the phenomena of

life, but that it is also found dominating the series of chemical

elements, and equally paramount in the world of sound and in that of

colour as revealed to us by the spectroscope. This number is the factor,

_sine quâ non_, in the production of occult astral phenomena.

It is needless to refer in detail to the number of vibrations constituting

the notes of the musical scale; they are strictly analogous to the scale

of chemical elements, and also to the scale of colour as unfolded by the

spectroscope, although in the latter case we deal with only _one_ octave,

while both in music and chemistry we find a series of _seven_ octaves

represented theoretically, of which _six_ are fairly complete and in

ordinary use in both sciences. Thus, to quote Hellenbach:

It has been established that, from the standpoint of phenomenal

law, upon which all our knowledge rests, the vibrations of sound

and light increase regularly, that they divide themselves into

_seven_ columns, and that the successive numbers in each column

are closely allied; _i.e._, that they exhibit a close relationship

which not only is expressed in the figures themselves, but also is

practically confirmed in chemistry as in music, in the latter of

which the ear confirms the verdict of the figures.... The fact

that this periodicity and variety is governed by the number

_seven_ is undeniable, and it far surpasses the limits of mere

chance, and must be assumed to have an adequate cause, which cause

must be discovered.

Verily, then, as Rabbi Abba said:

We are six lights which shine forth from a seventh (_light_); thou

[Tetragrammaton] art the seventh light (_the origin of_) us all.

For assuredly there is no stability in those six, save (_what they

derive_) from the seventh. For all things depend from the

seventh.(1518)

The ancient and modern Western American Zuñi Indians seem to have

entertained similar views. Their present‐day customs, their traditions and

records, all point to the fact that, from time immemorial, their

institutions, political, social and religious, were, and still are, shaped

according to the septenary principle. Thus all their ancient towns and

villages were built in clusters of six, around a seventh. It is always a

group of seven, or of thirteen, and always the six surround the seventh.

Again, their sacerdotal hierarchy is composed of six “Priests of the

House” seemingly synthesized in the seventh, who is a woman, the

“Priestess Mother.” Compare this with the “seven great officiating

priests” spoken of in the _Anugîtâ_, the name given to the “seven senses,”

exoterically, and to the seven human principles, Esoterically. Whence this

identity of symbolism? Shall we still doubt the fact of Arjuna going over

to Pâtâla, the Antipodes, America, and there marrying Ulûpî, the daughter

of the Nâga, or rather Nargal, king? But to the Zuñi priests.

These receive, to this day, an annual tribute of corn of seven colours.

Undistinguished from other Indians during the rest of the year, on a

certain day they come out—six priests and one priestess—arrayed in their

priestly robes, each of a colour sacred to the particular God whom the

priest serves and personifies; each of them representing one of the seven

regions, and each receiving corn of the colour corresponding to that

region. Thus, the white represents the East, because from the East comes

the first sun‐light; the yellow corresponds to the North, from the colour

of the flames produced by the Aurora Borealis; the red, the South, as from

that quarter comes the heat; the blue stands for the West, the colour of

the Pacific Ocean, which lies to the West; black is the colour of the

nether underground region—darkness; corn with grains of all colours on one

ear represents the colours of the upper region—of the firmament, with its

rosy and yellow clouds, shining stars, etc. The “speckled” corn, each

grain containing all the colours, is that of the “Priestess‐Mother”—woman

containing in herself the seeds of all races past, present and future; Eve

being the mother of all living.

Apart from these was the Sun—the Great Deity—whose priest was the

spiritual head of the nation. These facts were ascertained by Mr. F.

Hamilton Cushing, who, as many are aware, became a Zuñi, lived with them,

was initiated into their religious mysteries, and has learned more about

them than any other man now living.

Seven is also the great magic number. In the Occult Records the weapon

mentioned in the _Purânas_ and the _Mahâbhârata_—the Âgneyâstra or “fiery

weapon” bestowed by Aurva upon his Chelâ Sagara—is said to be constructed

of seven elements. This weapon—supposed by some ingenious Orientalists to

have been a “rocket” (!)—is one of the many thorns in the side of our

modern Sanskritists. Wilson exercises his penetration over it, on several

pages in his _Specimens of the Hindû Theatre_, and finally fails to

explain it. He can make nothing out of the Âgneyâstra, for he argues:

These weapons are of a very unintelligible character. Some of them

are occasionally wielded as missiles; but, in general, they

_appear to be mystical powers exercised by the individual_—such as

those of paralyzing an enemy, or _locking his senses fast in

sleep_, or bringing down storm, and rain, and fire, from

heaven.(1519)... They are supposed to assume celestial shapes,

endowed with human faculties.... The _Râmâyana_ calls them the

sons of Krishâshva.(1520)

The Shastra‐devatâs, “Gods of the divine weapons,” are no more

Âgneyâstras, the weapons, than the gunners of modern artillery are the

cannon they direct. But this simple solution did not seem to strike the

eminent Sanskritist. Nevertheless, as he himself says of the armiform

progeny of Krishâshva, “the allegorical origin of the Âgneyâstra weapons

is, undoubtedly, the more ancient.”(1521) It is the fiery javelin of

Brahmâ.

The seven‐fold Âgneyâstra, like the seven senses and the seven principles,

symbolized by the seven priests, are of untold antiquity. How old is the

doctrine believed in by Theosophists, the following Section will tell.

F. The Seven Souls Of The Egyptologists.

If one turns to those wells of information, _The Natural Genesis_ and the

_Lectures_ of Mr. Gerald Massey, the proofs of the antiquity of the

doctrine under analysis become positively overwhelming. That the belief of

the author differs from ours can hardly invalidate the facts. He views the

symbol from a purely natural standpoint, one perhaps a trifle too

materialistic, because too much that of an ardent Evolutionist and

follower of the modern Darwinian dogmas. Thus he shows that:

The student of Böhme’s books finds much in them concerning these

Seven “Fountain Spirits,” and primary powers, treated as seven

properties of Nature in the alchemistic and astrological phase of

the mediæval mysteries....

The followers of Böhme look on such matter as the divine

revelation of his inspired Seership. They know nothing of the

natural genesis, the history and persistence of the “Wisdom”(1522)

of the past (or of the broken links), and are unable to recognize

the physical features of the ancient “Seven Spirits” beneath their

modern metaphysical or alchemist mask. A second connecting link

between the theosophy of Böhme and the physical origins of

Egyptian thought, is extant in the fragments of _Hermes

Trismegistus_.(1523) No matter whether these teachings are called

Illuminatist, Buddhist, Kabalist, Gnostic, Masonic, or Christian,

the elemental types can only be truly known in their

beginnings.(1524) When the prophets or visionary showmen of

cloudland come to us claiming original inspiration, and utter

something new, we judge of its value by what it is in itself. But

if we find they bring us the ancient matter which they cannot

account for, and we can, it is natural that we should judge it by

the primary significations rather than the latest

pretensions.(1525) It is useless for us to read our later thought

into the earliest types of expression, and then say the ancients

meant that!(1526) Subtilized interpretations which have become

doctrines and dogmas in theosophy have now to be tested by their

genesis in physical phenomena, in order that we may explode their

false pretensions to supernatural origin or supernatural

knowledge.(1527)

But the able author of _The Book of the Beginnings_ and of _The Natural

Genesis_ does—very fortunately, for us—quite the reverse. He demonstrates

most triumphantly our Esoteric (Buddhist) teachings, by showing them

identical with those of Egypt. Let the reader judge from his learned

lecture on “The Seven Souls of Man.”(1528) Says the author:

The first form of the mystical Seven was seen to be figured in

heaven by the seven large stars of the _Great Bear_, the

constellation assigned by the Egyptians to the Mother of Time, and

of the seven Elemental Powers.(1529)

Just so, for the Hindûs place their seven primitive Rishis in the Great

Bear, and call this constellation the abode of the Saptarshi, Riksha and

Chitra‐shikhandinas. And their Adepts claim to know whether it is only an

astronomical myth, or a primordial mystery having a deeper meaning than it

bears on its surface. We are also told that:

The Egyptians divided the face of the sky by night into seven

parts. The primary Heaven was sevenfold.(1530)

So it was with the Âryans. One has but to read the _Purânas_ about the

beginnings of Brahmâ and his Egg, to see this. Have the Âryans then, taken

the idea from the Egyptians? But, as the lecturer proceeds:

The earliest forces recognized in Nature were reckoned as seven in

number. These became Seven Elementals, devils [?], or later

divinities. Seven properties were assigned to Nature—as matter,

cohesion, fluxion, coagulation, accumulation, station, and

division—and _seven elements or souls to man_.(1531)

All this was taught in the Esoteric Doctrine, but it was interpreted and

its mysteries unlocked, as already stated, with _seven_, not two or, at

the utmost, three keys; hence the causes and their effects worked in

invisible or mystic as well as in psychic Nature, and were made referable

to Metaphysics and Psychology as much as to Physiology. As the author

says:

A principle of _sevening_, so to say, was introduced, and the

number seven supplied a sacred type _that could be used for

manifold purposes_.(1532)

And it was so used. For:

The seven souls of the Pharaoh are often mentioned in the Egyptian

texts.... _Seven souls, or principles in man were identified by

our British Druids_.... The Rabbins also ran the number of souls

up to seven: so, likewise, do the Karens of India.(1533)

And then, the author, with several misspellings, tabulates the two

teachings—the Esoteric and the Egyptian—and shows that the latter had the

same series and in the same order.

[Esoteric] Indian. Egyptian.

1. Rûpa, body or element of 1. Kha, body.

form.

2. Prâna, the breath of life. 2. Ba, the soul of breath.

3. Astral body. 3. Khaba, the shade.

4. Manas, or 4. Akhu, intelligence or

intelligence.(1534) perception.

5. Kâma Rûpa, or animal soul. 5. Seb, ancestral soul.

6. Buddhi, or spiritual soul. 6. Putah, the first

intellectual father.

7. Âtmâ, pure spirit. 7. Atmu, a divine, or eternal

soul.(1535)

Further on, the lecturer formulates these seven (Egyptian) Souls, as (1)

The Soul of Blood—the _formative_; (2) The Soul of Breath—that _breathes_;

(3) The Shade or Covering Soul—that _envelopes_; (4) The Soul of

Perception—that _perceives_; (5) The Soul of Pubescence—that _procreates_;

(6) The Intellectual Soul—that _reproduces intellectually_; and (7) The

Spiritual Soul—that is _perpetuated permanently_.

From the exoteric and physiological standpoint this may be very correct;

it becomes less so from the Esoteric point of view. To maintain this, does

not at all mean that the “Esoteric Buddhists” _resolve men into a number

of elementary spirits_, as Mr. G. Massey, in the same lecture, accuses

them of maintaining. No “Esoteric Buddhist” has ever been guilty of any

such absurdity. Nor has it been ever imagined that these shadows “become

spiritual beings in another world,” or “seven potential spirits or

elementaries of another life.” What is maintained is simply that every

time the immortal Ego incarnates it becomes, as a total, a compound unit

of Matter and Spirit, which together act on seven different planes of

being and consciousness. Elsewhere, Mr. Gerald Massey adds:

The seven souls [our “principles”] ... are often mentioned in the

Egyptian texts. The moon‐god, Taht‐Esmun, or the later sun‐god,

expressed the seven nature‐powers that were prior to himself, and

were summed up in him as his seven souls [we say “principles”]....

The seven stars in the hand of the Christ in Revelation, have the

same significance.(1536)

And a still greater one, as these stars represent also the _seven keys_ of

the Seven Churches or the Sodalian Mysteries, kabalistically. However, we

will not stop to discuss, but add that other Egyptologists have also

discovered that the septenary constitution of man was a cardinal doctrine

with the old Egyptians. In a series of remarkable articles in the

_Sphinx_, of Munich, Herr Franz Lambert gives incontrovertible proof of

his conclusions from the _Book of the Dead_ and other Egyptian records.

For details the reader must be referred to the articles themselves.

Böhme, the prince of all the mediæval seers, says:

We find seven especial properties in nature whereby this only

Mother works all things [which he calls fire, light, sound (the

upper three) and _desire_, _bitterness_, _anguish_, and

_substantiality_, thus analyzing the lower in his own mystic way];

whatever the six forms are spiritually, that the seventh [the body

or substantiality], is essentially. These are the seven forms of

the Mother of all Beings, from whence all that is in this world is

generated.(1537)

And again:

The Creator hath, in the body of this world, generated himself as

it were _creaturely_ in his qualifying or Fountain Spirits, and

all the stars are ... God’s powers, and the whole body of the

world consisteth in the seven qualifying or fountain

spirits.(1538)

This is rendering in mystical language our theosophical doctrine. But how

can we agree with Mr. Gerald Massey when he states that:

The Seven Races of Men that have been sublimated and made

Planetary [?] by Esoteric Buddhism,(1539) may be met with in the

Bundahish as (1) the earth‐men; (2) water‐men; (3) breast‐eared

men; (4) breast‐eyed men; (5) one‐legged men; (6) bat‐winged men;

(7) men with tails.(1540)

Each of these descriptions, allegorical and even perverted in their later

form, is, nevertheless, an echo of the Secret Doctrine teaching. They all

refer to the pre‐human evolution of the “Water‐men terrible and bad” by

_unaided_ Nature through millions of years, as previously described. But

we deny point‐blank the assertion that “these were never real races,” and

point to the Archaic Stanzas for our answer. It is easy to infer and to

say that our “instructors have mistaken these shadows of the Past, for

things human and spiritual”; but that “they are neither, and never were

either,” it is less easy to prove. The assertion must ever remain on a par

with the Darwinian claim that man and the ape had a common pithecoid

ancestor. What the lecturer takes for a “mode of expression” and nothing

more, in the Egyptian _Ritual_, we take as having quite another and an

important meaning. Here is one instance. Says the _Ritual_, the _Book of

the Dead_:

“I am the mouse.” “I am the hawk.” “I am the ape.”... “_I am the

crocodile whose soul comes from_ MEN.”... “_I am the soul of the

gods._”(1541)

The last sentence but one is explained by the lecturer, who says

parenthetically, “_that is, as a type of intelligence_,” and the last as

meaning, “the Horus, or Christ, as the outcome of all.”

The Occult Teaching answers: It means far more.

It gives first of all a corroboration of the teaching that, while the

human Monad has passed on Globe A and others, in the First Round, through

all the three kingdoms—the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal—in this

our Fourth Round, every mammal has sprung from Man, if the semi‐ethereal,

many‐shaped creature with the _human_ Monad in it, of the first two Races,

can be regarded as Man. But it must be so called; for, in the Esoteric

language, it is not the form of flesh, blood, and bones, now referred to

as man, which is in any way the Man, but the inner divine Monad with its

manifold principles or aspects.

The lecture referred to, however, much as it opposes _Esoteric Buddhism_

and its teachings, is an eloquent answer to those who have tried to

represent the whole as a new‐fangled doctrine. And there are many such, in

Europe, America, and even India. Yet, between the Esotericism of the old

Arhats, and that which has now survived in India among the few Brâhmans

who have seriously studied their Secret Philosophy, the difference does

not appear so very great. It seems centred in, and limited to, the

question of the order of the evolution of cosmic and other principles,

more than anything else. At all events it is no greater divergence than

the everlasting question of the _filioque_ dogma, which since the eighth

century has separated the Roman Catholic from the older Greek Eastern

Church. Yet, whatever the differences in the forms in which the septenary

dogma is presented, the substance is there, and its presence and

importance in the Brâhmanical system may be judged by what one of India’s

learned meta‐physicians and Vedântic scholars says of it:

The real esoteric seven‐fold classification is one of the most

important, if not the most important classification, which has

received its arrangement from the mysterious constitution of this

eternal type. I may also mention in this connection that the four‐

fold classification claims the same origin. The light of life, as

it were, seems to be refracted by the treble‐faced prism of

Prakriti, having the three Gunams for its three faces, and divided

into seven rays, which develop in course of time the seven

principles of this classification. The progress of development

presents some points of similarity to the gradual development of

the rays of the spectrum. While the four‐fold classification is

amply sufficient for all practical purposes, this real seven‐fold

classification is of great theoretical and scientific importance.

It will be necessary to adopt it to explain certain classes of

phenomena noticed by occultists; and it is perhaps better fitted

to be the basis of a perfect system of psychology. It is not the

peculiar property of the “Trans‐Himâlayan Esoteric Doctrine.” In

fact, it has a closer connection with the Brâhmanical Logos than

with the Buddhist Logos. In order to make my meaning clear I may

point out here that the Logos has seven forms. In other words,

there are seven kinds of Logoi in the Cosmos. Each of these has

became the central figure of one of the seven main branches of the

ancient Wisdom‐Religion. This classification is not the seven‐fold

classification we have adopted. I make this assertion without the

slightest fear of contradiction. The real classification has all

the requisites of a scientific classification. It has seven

distinct principles, which correspond with seven distinct states

of Prajñâ or consciousness. It bridges the gulf between the

objective and subjective, and indicates the mysterious circuit

through which ideation passes. The seven principles are allied to

seven states of matter, and to seven forms of force. These

principles are harmoniously arranged between two poles, which

define the limits of _human_ consciousness.(1542)

The above is perfectly correct, save, perhaps, on one point. The “seven‐

fold classification” in the Esoteric System has never (to the writer’s

knowledge) been claimed by any one belonging to it, as “the peculiar

property of the ‘Trans‐Himâlayan Esoteric Doctrine’ ”; but only as having

survived in that old School alone. It is no more the property of the

Trans‐, than it is of the Cis‐Himâlayan Esoteric Doctrine, but is simply

the common inheritance of all such Schools, left to the Sages of the Fifth

Root‐Race by the great Siddhas(1543) of the Fourth. Let us remember that

the Atlanteans became the terrible sorcerers, now celebrated in so many of

the oldest MSS. of India, only toward their “Fall,” whereby the submersion

of their Continent was brought on. What is claimed is simply that the

Wisdom imparted by the “Divine Ones”—born through the Kriyâshaktic powers

of the Third Race before its Fall and separation into sexes—to the Adepts

of the early Fourth Race, has remained in all its pristine purity in a

certain Brotherhood. The said School or Fraternity being closely connected

with a certain island of an inland sea—believed in by both Hindûs and

Buddhists, but called “mythical” by Geographers and Orientalists—the less

one talks of it, the wiser he will be. Nor can one accept the said “seven‐

fold classification” as having “a closer connection with the Brâhmanical

Logos than with the Buddhist Logos,” since both are identical, whether the

one Logos is called Îshvara or Avalokiteshvara, Brahmâ or Padmapâni. These

are, however, very small differences, more fanciful than real, in fact.

Brâhmanism and Buddhism, both viewed from their orthodox aspects, are as

inimical and as irreconcilable as water and oil. Each of these great

bodies, however, has a vulnerable place in its constitution. While even in

their esoteric interpretation both can agree but to disagree, once that

their respective vulnerable points are confronted, every disagreement must

fall, for the two will find themselves on common ground. The “Achilles’

heel” of orthodox Brâhmanism is the Advaita philosophy, whose followers

are called by the pious “Buddhists in disguise”; as that of orthodox

Buddhism is Northern Mysticism, as represented by the disciples of the

philosophies of the Yogâchârya School of Âryâsangha and the Mahâyâna, who

are twitted in their turn by their co‐religionists as “Vedântins in

disguise.” The Esoteric Philosophy of both these can be but one if

carefully analyzed and compared, as Gautama Buddha and Shankarâchârya are

most closely connected, if one believes tradition and certain Esoteric

Teachings. Thus every difference between the two will be found one of form

rather than of substance.

A most mystic discourse, full of septenary symbology, may be found in the

_Anugita_(1544) There the Brâhmana narrates the bliss of having crossed

beyond the regions of illusion:

In which fancies are the gadflies and mosquitoes, in which grief

and joy are cold and heat, in which delusion is the blinding

darkness, in which avarice is the beasts of prey and reptiles, in

which desire and anger are the obstructors.

The sage describes the entrance into and exit from the forest—a symbol for

man’s life‐time—and also that forest itself:(1545)

In that forest are seven large trees [the senses, mind and

understanding, or Manas and Buddhi, included], seven fruits, and

seven guests; seven hermitages, seven (forms of) concentration,

and seven (forms of) initiation. This is the description of the

forest. That forest is filled with trees producing splendid

flowers and fruits of five colours.

The senses, says the commentator:

Are called trees, as being producers of the fruits ... pleasures

and pains ...; the guests are the powers of each sense

personified—they receive the fruits above described; the

hermitages are the trees ... in which the guests take shelter; the

seven forms of concentration are the exclusion from the self of

the seven functions of the seven senses, etc., already referred

to; the seven forms of initiation refer to the initiation into the

higher life, by repudiating as not one’s own the actions of each

member out of the group of seven.(1546)

The explanation is harmless, if unsatisfactory. Says the Brâhmana,

continuing his description:

That forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of

four colours. That forest is filled with trees producing flowers

and fruits of three colours, and mixed. That forest is filled with

trees producing flowers and fruits of two colours, and of

beautiful colours. That forest is filled with trees producing

flowers and fruits of one colour, and fragrant. That forest is

filled [instead of with seven] with two large trees producing

numerous flowers and fruits of undistinguished colours [mind and

understanding—the two higher senses, or theosophically, Manas and

Buddhi]. There is one fire [the Self] here, connected with the

Brahman,(1547) and having a good mind [or _true knowledge_,

according to Arjuna Mishra]. And there is fuel here, (namely) the

five senses [or human passions]. The seven (forms of) emancipation

from them are the seven (forms of) initiation. The qualities are

the fruits.... There ... the great sages receive hospitality. And

when they have been worshipped and have disappeared, another

forest shines forth, in which _intelligence_ is the tree, and

emancipation the fruit, and which possesses shade (in the form of)

tranquillity, which depends on knowledge, which has contentment

for its water, and which has the Kshetrajña(1548) within for the

sun.

Now, all the above is very plain, and no Theosophist, even among the least

learned, can fail to understand the allegory. And yet, we see great

Orientalists making a perfect mess of it in their explanations. The “great

sages” who “receive hospitality” are explained as meaning the senses,

“which, having worked _as unconnected with the self_ are finally absorbed

into it.” But one fails to understand, if the senses are “unconnected”

with the “Higher Self,” in what manner they can be “absorbed into it.” One

would think, on the contrary, that it is just because the _personal_

senses gravitate and strive to be connected with the _impersonal_ Self,

that the latter, which is Fire, burns the lower five and purifies thereby

the higher two, “mind and understanding,” or the higher aspects of

Manas(1549) and Buddhi. This is quite apparent from the text. The “great

sages” _disappear_ after having “been worshipped.” Worshipped by whom if

they (the presumed senses) are “unconnected with the self”? By Mind, of

course; by Manas (in this case merged in the _sixth sense_) which is not,

and cannot be, the Brahman, the Self, or Kshetrajña—the Soul’s Spiritual

Sun. Into the latter, in time, Manas itself must be absorbed. It has

worshipped “great sages” and given hospitality to _terrestrial_ wisdom;

but once that “another forest shone forth” upon it, it is Intelligence

(Buddhi, the seventh sense, but sixth principle) which is transformed into

_the_ Tree—that Tree whose fruit is emancipation—which finally destroys

the very roots of the Ashvattha tree, the symbol of _life_ and of its

illusive joys and pleasures. And therefore, those who attain to that state

of emancipation have, in the words of the above‐cited Sage, “no fear

afterwards.” In this state “the end cannot be perceived because it extends

on all sides.”

“There always dwell seven females there,” he goes on to say, carrying out

the imagery. These females—who, according to Arjuna Mishra, are the Mahat,

Ahamkâra and five Tanmâtras—have always their faces turned downwards, as

they are obstacles in the way of spiritual ascension.

In that same [Brahman, the Self] the seven perfect sages, together

with their chiefs, ... abide, and again emerge from the same.

Glory, brilliance and greatness, enlightenment, victory,

perfection and power—these seven rays follow after this same sun

[Kshetrajña, the Higher Self].... Those whose wishes are reduced

[the unselfish]; ... whose sins [passions] are burnt up by

penance, merging the self in the self,(1550) devote themselves to

Brahman. Those people who understand the forest of knowledge

[Brahman, or the Self], praise tranquillity. And aspiring to that

forest, they are [re‐] born so as not to lose courage. Such,

indeed, is this holy forest.... And understanding it, they [the

sages] act (accordingly), being directed by the Kshetrajña.

No translator among the Western Orientalists has yet perceived in the

foregoing allegory anything higher than mysteries connected with

sacrificial ritualism, penance, or ascetic ceremonies, and Hatha Yoga. But

he who understands symbolical imagery, and hears the voice of _Self within

Self_, will see in this something far higher than mere ritualism, however

often he may err in minor details of the Philosophy.

And here we must be allowed a last remark. No true Theosophist, from the

most ignorant up to the most learned, ought to claim infallibility for

anything he may say or write upon Occult matters. The chief point is to

admit that, in many a way, in the classification of either cosmic or human

principles, in addition to mistakes in the order of evolution, and

especially on metaphysical questions, those of us who pretend to teach

others more ignorant than ourselves—are all liable to err. Thus mistakes

have been made in _Isis Unveiled_, in _Esoteric Buddhism_, in _Man_, in

_Magic: White and Black_, etc., and more than one mistake is likely to be

found in the present work. This cannot be helped. For a large or even a

small work on such abstruse subjects to be entirely exempt from error and

blunder, it would have to be written from its first to its last page by a

great Adept, if not by an Avatâra. Then only should we say, “This is

verily a work without sin or blemish in it!” But so long as the artist is

imperfect, how can his work be perfect? “Endless is the search for truth!”

Let us love it and aspire to it for its own sake, and not for the glory or

benefit a minute portion of its revelation may confer on us. For who of us

can presume to have the _whole_ truth at his fingers’ ends, even upon one

minor teaching of Occultism?

Our chief point in the present subject, however, has been to show that the

septenary doctrine, or division of the constitution of man, was a very

ancient one, and was not invented by us. This has been successfully done,

for we are supported in this, consciously and unconsciously, by a number

of ancient, mediæval, and modern writers. What the former said, was well

said; what the latter repeated, has generally been distorted. An instance:

Read the Pythagorean Fragments, and study the septenary man as given by

the Rev. G. Oliver, the learned Mason, in his _Pythagorean Triangle_, who

speaks as follows:

The Theosophic Philosophy ... counted seven properties [or

principles] in man—viz.:

(1) The divine golden man.

(2) The inward holy body from fire and light, like pure silver.

(3) The elemental man.

(4) The mercurial ... paradisiacal man.

(5) The martial soul‐like man.

(6) The venerine, ascending to the outward desire.

(7) The solar man, [a witness to and] an inspector of the wonders

of God [the Universe].

They had also seven fountain spirits or powers of nature.(1551)

Compare this jumbled account and distribution of Western Theosophic

Philosophy with the latest Theosophic explanations by the Eastern School

of Theosophy, and then decide which is the more correct. Verily:

Wisdom hath builded her house,

She hath hewn out her _seven pillars_.(1552)

As to the charge that our School has not adopted the sevenfold

classification of the Brâhmans, but has confused it, this is quite unjust.

To begin with, the “School” is one thing, its exponents (to Europeans)

quite another. The latter have first to learn the A B C of practical

Eastern Occultism, before they can be made to understand correctly the

tremendously abstruse classification based on the seven distinct states of

Prajñâ or Consciousness; and, above all, to realize thoroughly what Prajñâ

_is_, in Eastern metaphysics. To give a Western student that

classification is to try to make him suppose that he can account for the

origin of consciousness, by accounting for the process by which a certain

knowledge, though _only one of the states_ of that consciousness, came to

him; in other words, it is to make him account for something he knows on

_this_ plane, by something he knows nothing about on the other planes;

_i.e._, to lead him from the spiritual and the psychological, direct to

the ontological. This is why the primary, old classification was adopted

by the Theosophists—of which classifications in truth there are many.

To busy oneself, after such a tremendous number of independent witnesses

and proofs have been brought before the public, with an additional

enumeration from theological sources, would be quite useless. The seven

capital sins and seven virtues of the Christian scheme are far less

philosophical than even the seven liberal and the seven accursed

sciences—or the seven arts of enchantment of the Gnostics. For one of the

latter is now before the public, pregnant with danger in the present as

for the future. The modern name for it is _Hypnotism_; used as it is by

scientific and ignorant Materialists, in the general ignorance of the

seven principles, it will soon become _Satanism_ in the full acceptation

of the term.

PART III. ADDENDA. SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED.

The knowledge of this nether world—

Say, friend, what is it, false or true?

The false, what mortal cares to know?

The true, what mortal ever knew?

Section I. Archaic, or Modern Anthropology?

Whenever the question of the Origin of Man is offered seriously to an

unbiassed, honest, and earnest man of Science, the answer comes

invariably: “We do not know.” De Quatrefages with his agnostic attitude is

one of such Anthropologists.

This does not imply that the rest of the men of Science are neither fair‐

minded nor honest, as such a remark would be questionably discreet. But it

is estimated that 75 per cent. of European Scientists are Evolutionists.

Are these representatives of Modern Thought all guilty of flagrant

misrepresentation of the facts? No one says this—but there are a few very

exceptional cases. However, the Scientists, in their anti‐clerical

enthusiasm and in despair of any alternative theory to Darwinism except

that of “special creation,” are unconsciously insincere in “forcing” a

hypothesis the elasticity of which is inadequate, and which resents the

severe strain to which it is now subjected. Insincerity on the same

subject is, however, patent in ecclesiastical circles. Bishop Temple has

come forward as a thorough‐going supporter of Darwinism in his _Religion

and Science_. This clerical writer goes so far as to regard Matter—after

it has received its “primal impress”—as the unaided evolver of all cosmic

phenomena. This view only differs from that of Hæckel, in postulating a

hypothetical Deity at “the back of beyont,” a Deity which stands entirely

aloof from the interplay of forces. Such a metaphysical entity is no more

the Theological God than is that of Kant. Bishop Temple’s truce with

materialistic Science is, in our opinion, impolitic—apart from the fact

that it involves a total rejection of the biblical cosmogony. In the

presence of this display of flunkeyism before the materialism of our

“learned” age, we Occultists can but smile. But how about loyalty to the

Master such theological truants profess to serve—Christ, and Christendom

at large?

However, we have no desire, for the present, to throw down the gauntlet to

the clergy, our business being now with materialistic Science alone. The

latter, in the person of its best representatives, answers to our

question, “We do not know;” yet the majority of them act as though

Omniscience were their heirloom, and they knew all things.

For, indeed, this negative reply has not prevented the majority of

Scientists from speculating on the question, each seeking to have his own

special theory accepted to the exclusion of all others. Thus, from Maillet

in 1748, down to Hæckel in 1870, theories on the origin of the human race

have differed as much as the personalities of their inventors themselves.

Buffon, Bory de St. Vincent, Lamarck, E. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, Gaudry,

Naudin, Wallace, Darwin, Owen, Hæckel, Filippi, Vogt, Huxley, Agassiz,

etc., each has evolved a more or less scientific hypothesis of genesis. De

Quatrefages arranges these theories in two principal groups—one based on a

rapid, and the other on a very gradual transmutation; the former favouring

a new type (man) produced by a being entirely different, the latter

teaching the evolution of man by progressive differentiations.

Strangely enough, it is from the most scientific of these authorities that

has emanated the most unscientific of all the theories upon the subject of

the Origin of Man. This is now so evident, that the hour is rapidly

approaching when the current teaching about the descent of man from an

ape‐like mammal will be regarded with less respect than the formation of

Adam out of clay, and of Eve out of Adam’s rib. For

It is evident, especially after the most fundamental principles of

Darwinism, that an organized being cannot be a descendant of

another whose development is in an inverse order to its own.

Consequently, in accordance with these principles, man cannot be

considered as the descendant of any simian type whatever.(1553)

Lucae’s argument _versus_ the Ape‐theory, based on the different flexures

of the bones constituting the axis of the skull in the cases of man and

the anthropoids, is fairly discussed by Schmidt. He admits that: