that it was no question of building the smallest wall, but that,
initiated into the Mysteries veiled under the name of Freemasonry,
which could only be the continuation or the renovation of the
ancient Mysteries, he was to become a “Mason” after the manner of
Apollo or Amphion. And do not we know that the ancient initiated
poets, when speaking of the _foundation of a city_, meant thereby
the establishment of a doctrine? Thus Neptune, God of reasoning,
and Apollo, God of hidden things, presented themselves as masons
before Laomedon, Priam’s father, to help him to build the city of
Troy—that is to say, to establish the Trojan religion.(1859)
Such veiled sentences with double meaning abound in ancient classical
writers. Therefore, if an attempt had been made to show that, for
instance, Laomedon was the founder of a branch of Archaic Mysteries, in
which the earth‐bound material soul, the Fourth Principle, was personified
in Menelaus’ faithless wife, the fair Helen, and if Ragon had not come to
corroborate what we asserted, we might have been told that no classical
author speaks of it, and that Homer shows Laomedon building a _city_, not
founding an _Esoteric Worship_ or _Mysteries_. Who are those left now,
save a few Initiates, who understand the language and correct meaning of
such symbolical terms?
But though we have pointed to many a misconceived symbol bearing on our
thesis, there still remains more than one difficulty to be overcome. Most
important among several such obstacles is that of chronology. But this
could hardly be helped. Wedged in between theological chronology and that
of the Geologists, backed by all the materialistic Anthropologists, who
assign dates to man and nature which fit in with their own theories
alone—what could the writer do except what she has done? Since Theology
places the Deluge 2448 B.C., and the World’s Creation only 5890 years ago;
and since the accurate researches by the methods of “exact” Science, have
led the Geologists and Physicists to assign to the incrusted age of our
Globe between ten million and one thousand million of years(1860) (a
_trifling_ difference, verily!); and since the Anthropologists, to vary
their divergence of opinion as to the appearance of man, ask for between
25,000 and 500,000 years—what can one who studies the Occult Doctrine do,
but bravely present the Esoteric calculations before the world?
But to do this, corroboration by even a few “historical” proofs has been
necessary, though all know the real value of the so‐called “historical
evidence.” For, whether man appeared on Earth 18,000 or 18,000,000 years
ago, can make no difference to profane history, since it only begins about
a couple of thousand years before our era, and since, even then, it
grapples hopelessly with the clash and din of contradictory and mutually‐
destroying opinions around it. Nevertheless, in view of the respect in
which the average reader has been brought up for exact Science, even that
short Past would remain meaningless, unless the Esoteric Teachings were
corroborated and supported on the spot—_whenever possible_—by references
to historical names of a so‐called historical period. This is the only
guide that can be given to the beginner before he is permitted to start
among the, to him, unfamiliar windings of that dark labyrinth called the
pre‐historic ages. This necessity has been complied with. It is only hoped
that the desire to do so, which has led the writer to be constantly
bringing ancient and modern evidence as a corroboration of the archaic and
quite unhistoric Past, will not bring on her the accusation of having
sorely jumbled up, without order or method, the various and widely‐
separated periods of history and tradition. But literary form and method
had to be sacrificed to the greater clearness of the general exposition.
To accomplish the proposed task, the writer has had to resort to the
rather unusual means of dividing each Volume into three Parts; the first
of which only is the consecutive, though very fragmentary, history of the
Cosmogony and the Evolution of Man on this Globe. In treating of Cosmogony
and then of the Anthropogenesis of mankind, it was necessary to show that
on religion, from the very earliest, has ever been based entirely on
fiction, that none was the object of special revelation, and that it is
dogma alone which has ever been killing primeval truth; finally, that no
human‐born doctrine, no creed, however sanctified by custom and antiquity,
can compare in sacredness with the religion of Nature. The Key of Wisdom
that unlocks the massive gates leading to the arcana of the innermost
sanctuaries can be found hidden in her bosom only; and that bosom is in
the countries pointed to by the great seer of the past century, Emanuel
Swedenborg. There lies the Heart of Nature, that shrine whence issued the
early races of primeval humanity, and which is the cradle of _physical_
man.
Thus far have proceeded the rough outlines of the beliefs and tenets of
the archaic, earliest Races, contained in their hitherto secret scriptural
Records. But our explanations are by no means complete, nor do they
pretend to give out the full text, or to have been read by the help of
more than three or four keys out of the sevenfold bunch of Esoteric
interpretation; and even this has only been partially accomplished. The
work is too gigantic for any one person to undertake, far more to
accomplish. Our main concern has been simply to prepare the soil. This, we
trust we have done. These two Volumes only constitute the work of a
pioneer who has forced his way into the well‐nigh impenetrable jungle of
the virgin forests of the Land of the Occult. A commencement has been made
in felling and uprooting the deadly upas trees of superstition, prejudice,
and conceited ignorance, so that these two Volumes should form for the
student a fitting prelude for other works. Until the rubbish of the ages
is cleared away from the minds of the Theosophists to whom these pages are
dedicated, it is impossible that the more practical teaching contained in
the Third Volume should be understood. Consequently, it entirely depends
upon the reception with which Volumes I and II shall meet at the hands of
Theosophists and Mystics, whether the last Volume will ever be published.
SATYÂT NÂSTI PARO DHARMAH.
THERE IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN TRUTH.
END OF VOLUME II.
[Transcriber’s Note: Obvious printer’s errors have been corrected.]
FOOTNOTES
1 See _Genesis_ ii. 19. Adam is formed in verse 7, and in verse 19 it
is said: “Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the
field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see
what he would call them.” Thus man was created _before_ the animals;
for the animals mentioned in chapter i are the signs of the Zodiac,
while the man, “male and female,” is not man, but the Host of the
Sephiroth, Forces, or Angels, “made in his [God’s] image and after
his likeness.” The Adam, man, is not made in that likeness, nor is
it so asserted in the _Bible_. Moreover, the Second Adam is
Esoterically a septenary which represents seven men, or rather
groups of men. For the first Adam, the Kadmon, is the synthesis of
the _ten_ Sephiroth. Of these, the upper Triad remains in the
Archetypal World as the future “Trinity,” while the seven lower
Sephiroth create the manifested material world; and this septennate
is the Second Adam. _Genesis_, and the mysteries upon which it was
fabricated, came from Egypt. The “God” of the 1st chapter of
_Genesis_ is the Logos, and the “Lord God” of the 2nd chapter the
Creative Elohim, the lower Powers.
2 Thus saith Pymander: “This is the mystery that to this day was
hidden. Nature being mingled with the Heavenly Man [Elohim, or
Dhyânis], brought forth a wonder ... seven Men, all males and
females [Hermaphrodite] ... according to the nature of the seven
Governors” (ii. 29), or the seven Hosts of the Pitris or Elohim, who
projected or created him. This is very clear, but yet, see the
interpretations of even our modern theologians, men supposed to be
intellectual and learned. In the _Theological and Philosophical
Works of Hermes Trismegistus, Christian [?] Neoplatonist_, a work
compiled by John David Chambers, of Oriel College, Oxford, the
translator wonders “for whom these seven Men are intended?” He
solves the difficulty by concluding that, as “the original pattern
Man [Adam Kadmon of _Genesis_ i] was masculine‐feminine, ... the
seven may signify the succeeding patriarchs named in _Genesis_” (p.
9). A truly theological way of cutting the Gordian knot!
3 George Smith’s _Chaldean Account of Genesis_, p. 103.
4 Compare _Zohar_, _Siphra Dtzenioutha_, _Idra Suta_, 2928, Franck,
_La Kabbale_, p. 205.
5 _Siphra Dtzenioutha._
6 As it is now asserted that the Chaldæan tablets, which give the
allegorical description of Creation, the Fall, and the Flood, even
to the legend of the Tower of Babel, were written “before the time
of Moses” (Smith’s _Chaldean Account of Genesis_), how can the
_Pentateuch_ be called a “revelation”? It is simply another version
of the same story.
7 _Philosophumena_, v. 7; Miller’s edition, p. 98.
8 _Ibid._, p. 108.
9 P. 86.
10 See Pliny, iv, c. 12; Strabo, 10; Herodotus, vii, c. 109; Pausanias,
vii, c. 4, etc.
11 _Chaldean Account of Genesis_, p. 82.
12 See _Bund._, 79, 12.
13 By “original” we mean the Amshaspend, called “Zarathushtra, the lord
and ruler of the Vara made by Yima in that land.” There were several
Zarathushtras or Zertusts, the _Dabistan_ alone enumerating
thirteen; but these were all reincarnations of the first one. The
last Zoroaster was the founder of the Fire‐temple of Azareksh, and
the writer of the works on the primeval sacred Magian religion
destroyed by Alexander.
14 In India called a “Day of Brahmâ.”
15 x. 86.
16 See Volcker, _Mythological Geography_, pp. 145 to 170.
17 _Mythical Monsters_, p. 47.
18 It is to be remarked, however, that Mr. Wallace does not accept Mr.
Sclater’s idea, and even opposes it. Mr. Sclater supposes a land or
continent formerly uniting Africa, Madagascar, and India but not
Australia and India; and Mr. A. R. Wallace shows, in his
_Geographical Distribution of Animals_ and _Island Life_, that the
hypothesis of such a land is quite uncalled for on the alleged
zoological grounds. But he admits that a much closer proximity of
India and Australia did certainly exist, and at a time so very
remote that it was “certainly pre‐tertiary,” adding in a private
letter that “no name has been given to this supposed land.” Yet the
land did exist, and was of course “pre‐tertiary,” for Lemuria, if we
accept this name for the third Continent, had perished before
Atlantis fully developed, and Atlantis had sunk and its chief
portions disappeared before the end of the Miocene period.
19 See _Esoteric Buddhism_.
20 One more “coincidence”:
“Now it is proved that in geologically recent times, this region of
North Africa was in fact a peninsula of Spain, and that its union
with Africa (proper) was effected on the North by the rupture of
Gibraltar, and on the South by an upheaval to which the Sahara owes
its existence. The shores of this former sea of Sahara are still
marked by the shells of the same Gastropoda that live on the shores
of the Mediterranean.” (Prof. Oscar Schmidt, _Doctrine of Descent
and Darwinism_, p. 244.)
21 iii. fol. 10a.
22 A. Winchell, Professor of Geology, _World‐Life_, p. 369.
23 Mr. Charles Gould, late geological surveyor of Tasmania, in
_Mythical Monsters_, p. 84.
24 Sir Charles Lyell, who is credited with having “happily invented”
the terms Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene, to mark the three divisions
of the Tertiary Age, ought really to have settled upon some
approximate length for his “mind‐offspring.” Having left the
duration of these periods, however, to the speculations of
specialists, the greatest confusion and perplexity are the result of
that happy thought. It seems like a hopeless task to succeed in
quoting a single set of figures from one work, without the risk of
finding it contradicted by the same author in an earlier or a
subsequent volume. Sir William Thomson, one of the most eminent
among the modern authorities, has changed his opinion about half‐a‐
dozen times upon the age of the Sun and the date of the
consolidation of the Earth’s crust. In Thomson and Tait’s _Natural
Philosophy_, we find only ten million years allowed since the time
when the temperature of the Earth permitted vegetable life to appear
on it. (App. E _et seq._; also _Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin._, xxiii. Pt.
1, 157, 1862, where 847 is cancelled.) Mr. Darwin gives Sir William
Thomson’s estimate as “a minimum of 98 and a maximum of 200 millions
of years since the consolidation of the crust.” (See Ch. Gould, _op.
cit._, p. 83.) In the same work (_Nat. Phil._) 80 millions are given
from the time of incipient incrustation to the present state of the
world. And in his last lecture, as shown elsewhere, Sir William
Thomson declares (1887) that the Sun is not older than 15 millions
of years! Meanwhile, basing his arguments as to the limits of the
age of the Sun’s heat, on figures previously established by Sir
William Thomson, Mr. Croll allows 60 millions of years since the
beginning of the Cambrian period. This is hopeful for the lovers of
_exact_ knowledge. Thus, whatever figures are given by Occult
Science, they are sure to be corroborated by those of some one among
the modern men of Science who are considered as authorities.
25 See _Proceedings_, Royal Society, London, xxviii. 281.
26 Gould, _Mythical Monsters_, p. 91.
27 Only forty‐nine Shlokas out of several hundred are here given, and
not every verse is translated verbatim, a periphrasis being
sometimes used for the sake of clearness and intelligibility, where
a literal translation would be quite unintelligible.
28 The idea and the spirit of the sentence only is here given, as a
verbal translation would convey very little to the reader.
29 The Fourth Globe, or our Earth. All the glosses on the translation
of the text of the Stanzas and Commentaries are the writer’s. In
some places they may be incomplete and even inadequate from the
Hindû standpoint; but in the meaning attached to them in Trans‐
Himâlayan Esotericism they are correct. In every case the writer
takes any blame upon herself. As she has never claimed personal
infallibility, that which is given on her own authority may leave
much to be desired, particularly in the very abstruse cases where
too deep metaphysic is involved. The teaching is offered as it is
understood; and seeing that there are seven keys of interpretation
to every symbol and allegory, a meaning which may not be suitable
from, say, the psychological or astronomical aspect, will
nevertheless be found quite correct from the physical or
metaphysical.
30 The Planetary Spirits.
31 Loka Chakshus.
32 The Planets.
33 According to Dr. A. Wilder’s learned definition, Genesis, γένεσις,
is not generation, but “_a coming out of the eternal_ into the
Cosmos and Time”; “a coming from _esse_ into _exsistere_,” or from
“Be‐ness” into “Being”—as a Theosophist would say.
34 For a clearer explanation of the origins, as contained in the
Esotericism of the _Bhagavad Gita_, see the Notes thereon published
in _The Theosophist_ for February, March and June, 1887, Madras.
35 See the Sephirothal Tree.
36 _Zohar_, _Idra Suta_, Sec. VII.
37 J. B. Alden; New York, 1888: ii. 432, 434.
38 It has been repeatedly stated that the Serpent is the symbol of
wisdom and of Occult knowledge. “The Serpent has been connected with
the god of wisdom from the earliest times of which we have any
historical notice,” writes C. Staniland Wake. “This animal was the
especial symbol of Thoth or Taut ... and of all those gods, such as
Hermes [?] and Seth who can be connected with him. This is true also
of the third member of the primitive Chaldæan triad, Hea or Hoa.”
According to Sir Henry Rawlinson, “the most important titles of this
deity refer to ‘his functions as the source of all knowledge and
science.’ Not only is he ‘the intelligent fish,’ but his name may be
read as signifying both ‘life’ and a ‘serpent’ [an initiated Adept],
and he may be considered as ‘figured by the great serpent which
occupies so conspicuous a place among the symbols of the gods on the
black stones recording Babylonian benefactions.’ ” (_The Great
Pyramid_, p. 75). Esculapius, Serapis, Pluto, Esmun and Kneph, are
all deities with the attributes of the serpent, says Dupuis. They
are all _healers_, givers of health, spiritual and physical, and of
_enlightenment_. The crown formed of an asp, the Thermuthis belongs
to Isis, Goddess of Life and Healing. The _Upanishads_ have a
treatise on the _Science of Serpents_—in other words, the Science of
Occult Knowledge; and the Nâgas of the exoteric Buddhist are not
“the fabulous creatures, of the nature of serpents ... being
superior to man, and regarded as protectors of the law of Buddha,”
as Schlagintweit believes, but real living men, some superior to men
by virtue of their Occult Knowledge, and the _protectors of Buddha’s
law_, inasmuch as _they interpret his metaphysical tenets
correctly_, others inferior _morally_ as being “black magicians.”
Therefore it is truly declared that Gautama Buddha “is said to have
taught them a more philosophical religious system than to men, who
were not sufficiently advanced to understand it at the time of his
appearance” (_ibid._, p. 72).
39 Compare the _Symbols of the Bonzes_.
40 The Mandragora is the Mandrake of the _Bible_, of Rachel and Leah.
The roots of the plant are fleshy, hairy, and forked, representing
roughly the limbs, the body, and even head of a man. Its magical and
mysterious properties have been proclaimed in fable and play from
the most archaic ages. From Rachel and Leah, who indulged in
witchcraft with them, down to Shakespeare, who speaks of
“shrieking”—
“Like mandrakes torn out of the earth
That living mortals, hearing them, run mad”
—the mandragora was _the_ magic plant _par excellence_.
These roots are without any apparent stalk, large leaves growing out
of the head of the root, like a gigantic crop of hair. They present
little similitude to man when found in Spain, Italy, Asia Minor, or
Syria, but on the Isle of Candia, and in Karamania near the city of
Adan, they have a wonderfully human form, and are very highly prized
as amulets. They are also worn by women as a charm against
sterility, and for other purposes. They are especially effective in
“Black Magic.”
41 The Sun.
42 Earth.
43 Copernicus wrote his theories on the “Revolution of the Heavenly
Bodies” in the sixteenth century, and the _Zohar_, even if compiled
by Moses de Leon in the thirteenth century, states that:
“In the Book of Hammannunah, the Old (or, the Ancient), we learn ...
that the earth turns upon itself in the form of a circle; that some
are on top, the others below; that ... there are some countries of
the earth which are lightened, whilst others are in darkness; these
have the day, when for the former it is night; and there are
countries in which it is constantly day, or in which at least the
night continues only some instants.” (_Zohar_, iii, fol. 10a, quoted
in Myer’s _Qabbalah_, p. 139.)
44 See also the 21st Fargard of the _Vendídád_ on the celestial
militia.
45 _Idolat._, II. 373.
46 Science teaches that Venus receives from the Sun twice as much light
and heat as the Earth. Thus this Planet, precursor of the dawn and
the twilight, the most radiant of all the Planets, is said to give
the Earth one‐third of the supply she receives, and has two parts
left for herself. This has an Occult as well as an astronomical
meaning.
47 “As it is above, so below,” is the fundamental axiom of Occult
Philosophy. As the Logos is seven‐fold, _i.e._, throughout Kosmos it
appears as seven Logoi under seven different forms, or, as taught by
learned Brâhmans, “each of these is the central figure of one of the
seven main branches of the ancient Wisdom Religion”; and, as the
seven principles which correspond to the seven distinct states of
Prajnâ, or Consciousness, are allied to seven states of Matter and
seven forms of Force, the division must be the same in all that
concerns the Earth.
48 Venus is thus ♀, the Earth ♁.
49 In the Esoteric Philosophy it is male and female, or hermaphrodite;
hence the “bearded” Venus in mythology.
50 Therefore, putting aside its religio‐metaphysical aspect, the Cross
of the Christians is symbolically far more phallic than the Pagan
Svastika. Compare vol. i. pp. 34, 35.
51 The ansated cross is the astronomical planetary sign of Venus,
“signifying the existence of _parturient energy_ in the sexual
sense, and this was one of the attributes of Isis, the Mother, of
Eve, Hauvah, or Mother‐Earth, and was so recognized among all the
ancient peoples in one or another mode of expression.” (From a
modern Kabalistic MS.)
52 See Moore’s _Hindû Pantheon_.
53 Athenæus shows that the first letter of Satan’s name was represented
in days of old by an arc and crescent; and some Roman Catholics,
kind, good men, would persuade the public that it is in honour of
Lucifer’s crescent‐like horns that Mussulmans have chosen the
crescent for their national arms. Venus, ever since the
establishment of Roman Catholic dogmatism, has been identified with
Satan and Lucifer, or the Great Dragon, contrary to all reason and
logic. As shown by symbologists and Astronomers:
“The association between the serpent and the idea of darkness had an
astronomical foundation. The position which the constellation Draco
at one time occupied showed that the Great Serpent was the ruler of
the night. This constellation was formerly at the very centre of the
heavens, and is so extensive that it was called the Great Dragon.
Its body spreads over seven signs of the Zodiac; and Dupuis, who
sees in the Dragon of the Apocalypse a reference to the celestial
serpent, says, ‘It is not astonishing that a constellation so
extended should be represented by the author of that book as a great
dragon with seven heads, who drew the third part of the stars from
heaven and cast them to the earth.’ ” (Staniland Wake, _The Great
Pyramid_, p. 79; Dupuis, iii. 255.)
Only Dupuis never knew _why_ Draco, once the pole‐star—the symbol of
Guide, Guru and Director—had been thus degraded by posterity. “The
Gods of our fathers are our devils,” says an Asiatic proverb. When
Draco ceased to be the “lode‐star,” the guiding sidereal divinity,
it shared the fate of all the fallen Gods. Seth and Typhon was at
one time, Bunsen tells us, “a great God universally adored
throughout Egypt, who conferred on the sovereigns of the 18th and
19th Dynasties the symbols of life and power. But subsequently, in
the course of the 20th Dynasty, he is suddenly treated as an evil
Demon, insomuch that his effigies and name are obliterated on all
the monuments and inscriptions that could be reached.” The real
Occult reason will be given in these pages.
54 _De Civitate Dei_, LXXI. viii.
55 Shukra is the son of Bhrigu the great Rishi, and one of the Seven
Prajâpati, the founder of the Race of Bhârgavas, in which Parashu
Râma is born.
56 This is a flat contradiction of Swedenborg, who _saw_, in “the first
Earth of the Astral World,” inhabitants dressed as are the peasants
in Europe; and on the Fourth Earth women clad as are the
shepherdesses in a _bal masqué_! Even the famous astronomer Huygens
laboured under the mistaken idea that other worlds and planets have
species of beings identical with those who live on our Earth,
possessing the same figures, senses, brain‐power, arts, sciences,
dwellings, even to the same fabric for their wearing apparel!
(_Théorie du Monde._)
57 This is a modern gloss. It is added to the old Commentaries for the
clearer comprehension of those disciples who study Esoteric
Cosmogony after having passed through Western learning. The earlier
Glosses are too redundant with adjectives and figures of speech to
be easily assimilated.
58 “Beyond” the Great Range, means, in this case, India, as being the
Trans‐Himâlayan region for the Tibetan region.
59 The term Pitris is used by us in these Shlokas to facilitate their
comprehension, but it is not so used in the original Stanzas, where
they have distinct appellations of their own, besides being called
“Fathers” and “Progenitors.”
60 It is erroneous to take literally the _worship_ of the human
Bodhisattvas, or Manjushrî. It is true that, exoterically, the
Mahâyâna school teaches adoration of these without distinction, and
that Huien‐Tsang speaks of some disciples of Buddha as being
worshipped. But, Esoterically, it is not the disciple or the learned
Manjushrî _personally_ that received honours, but the divine
Bodhisattvas and Dhyâni‐Buddhas that animated (_amilakha_, as the
Mongolians say) the human forms.
61 The author of this work is Augustus Le Plongeon. He and his wife are
well known in the United States for their untiring labours in
Central America. It is they who discovered the sepulchre of the
royal Kan Coh, at Cichen‐Itza. The author seems to believe and to
seek to prove that the Esoteric learning of the Âryans and the
Egyptians was derived from the Mayas. But, although certainly coëval
with Plato’s Atlantis, the Mayas belonged to the Fifth Continent,
which was preceded by Atlantis and Lemuria.
62 More correctly _In Matrem Deorum_, _Oratio_ v.
63 P. 143.
64 These _seven caves_, _seven cities_, etc., etc., stand in every case
for the seven centres, or zones, upon which the seven primitive
groups of the first Root‐Race were born.
65 The engraving is reproduced in the _Sacred Mysteries of the Mayas
and the Quiches_ on p. 134.
66 See _Source of Measures_, p. 50‐53.
67 See _Isis Unveiled_, II. pp. 300 _et seq._, for a proof of the
antiquity of the decimal system of figures.
68 See _Masonic Review_, Cincinnati, June, 1886, Art. “The
Cabbalah.—No. VI,” p. 10.
69 _Ibid._, _loc. cit._
70 _Ibid._, p. 11.
71 See _Source of Measures_, pp. 276, _et seq._, App. VII.
72 Art., _Masonic Review_, pp. 11, 12.
73 In the Book _Al‐Chazari_, by Jehuda‐ha‐Levi, translated by Dr. D.
Cassel.
74 Art. cited, pp. 12, 13.
75 i. pp. 117 _et seq._
76 Art. cited, p. 2.
77 _Ibid._, p. 14.
78 The appellation _Ak‐ad_ (or Akkadians) is of the same class as _Ad‐
m_, _Ha‐va_ (Eve) _Æd‐en_ (Eden); _Ak‐Ad_ meaning “Son of _Ad_,”
like the sons of Ad in Ancient Arabia. _Ad‐ad_, the “only one” and
the “first,” was the _Ad‐on_ or “Lord” of Syria and consort of _Ad‐
ar‐gat_ or Aster’t, the Syrian Goddess. And Gan‐Æden (Eden) or
Gandunia was Babylonia and Mesopotamia. In Assyrian _Ak_ meant
Creator, the letter _k_ being pronounced _kh_ (_ah_) gutturally.
According to Swedenborg’s mysticism Adam was not a man but a church
(?) of primitive light. In the _Vedas_, _Ad_‐iti is the primitive
light, the Âkâsha of the phenomenal world.
79 Adam‐Jehovah, Brahmâ and Mars are, in one sense, identical; they are
all symbols for primitive or initial _generative powers_ for the
purposes of human procreation. Adam is red, and so also are
Brahmâ‐Virâj and Mars—God and Planet. Water is the “blood” of the
Earth; therefore, all these names are connected with Earth and
Water. “It takes _earth_ and _water_ to create a _human_ soul,” says
Moses. Mars is identical with Kârttikeya, God of War (in one
sense)—which God is born of the Sweat of Shiva, Shiva‐gharmaja and
the Earth. In the _Mahâbhârata_ he is shown as born without the
intervention of a woman. And he is also called Lohita, the Red, like
Adam, and the other “first men.” Hence, the author of _The Source of
Measures_ is quite right in thinking that Mars (and all the other
Gods of like attributes), “being the _god of war_ and of
_bloodshed_, was but a secondary idea flowing out of the primary one
of shedding of blood in conception for the first time.” Hence
Jehovah became later a fighting God, “Lord of Hosts,” and one who
commands war. He is the aggressive Zodh—or Cain, by permutation, who
_slew_ his (female) _brother_, whose “blood crieth from the ground,”
the _Earth_ having opened _her mouth_ to receive the _blood_.
(_Genesis_ iii.)
80 Apollo Karneios is certainly a Greek transformation from the Hindû
Krishna‐Karna. Karna means radiant, and Karneios, which was a title
of Apollo with the Celts as with the Greeks, meant “Sun‐born.”
81 Kumuda‐Pati.
82 Pitri‐Pati.
83 Budha, Mercury.
84 The Moon.
85 Ushanas‐Shukra, or Venus, is our Lucifer, the Morning‐Star, of
course. The ingenuity of this allegory in its manifold meanings is
great indeed. Thus Brihaspati (the Planet Jupiter), or
Brahmanaspati, is, in the _Rig Veda_, a deity who is the symbol and
the prototype of the _exoteric_ or ritualistic worship. He is
priest, sacrificer, suppliant, and the medium through which the
prayers of mortals reach the Gods. He is the Purohita (Family
Priest, or Court Chaplain) of the Hindû Olympus and the spiritual
Guru of the Gods. Soma is the Mystery God and presides over the
mystic and Occult nature in man and the Universe. Târâ, the priest’s
wife, who symbolizes the worshipper, prefers Esoteric truths to
their mere shell, exotericism; hence she is shown as carried off by
Soma. Now Soma is the sacred juice of that name, giving mystic
visions and trance revelations, the _result of which union_ is Budha
(Wisdom), Mercury, Hermes, etc.; that Science in short which to this
day is proclaimed by the Brihaspatis of Theology as Devilish and
Satanic. What wonder that by expanding the cycle of this allegory we
find Christian Theology espousing the quarrel of the Hindû Gods, and
regarding Ushanas (Lucifer), who helped Soma against that ancient
personification of ritualistic worship (Brahmanaspati, the Lord of
the Brâhmans, now become Jupiter‐Jehovah) as Satan, the “Enemy of
God”!
86 As shown elsewhere, it is only the Heavenly Man, Adam‐Kadmon, of the
first chapter of _Genesis_, who is made “in the image and likeness
of God.” Adam of the second chapter is not said to be made in that
_image_ nor in the divine likeness, before he ate of the forbidden
fruit. The former Adam is the Sephirothal Host; the second Adam is
the mindless First human Root‐Race; the third Adam is the Race that
separated, whose eyes are opened.
87 The Earth.
88 Achyuta is an almost untranslatable term. It means that which is not
subject to fall or change for the worse: the Unfalling; and it is
the reverse of Chyuta, the Fallen. The Dhyânîs who incarnate in the
human forms of the Third Root‐Race and endow them with intellect
(Manas) are called the Chyuta for they fall into generation.
89 This is perhaps the reason why, in the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_, we are told
that Brahmâ had communicated to Nârada in the beginning that all men
whatsoever, even Mlechchhas, outcasts and barbarians, might know the
true nature of Vâsudeva and learn to have faith in that Deity.
90 See _Asiatic Researches_, i. 265.
91 _Book of God_, 60.
92 Shesha, who is also Ananta, the infinite, and the “Cycle of
Eternity” in Esotericism, is credited with having given his
astronomical knowledge to Garga, the oldest astronomer of India, who
propitiated him, and forthwith knew all about the Planets and how to
read omens.
93 See _The History of Indian Literature_, p. 253, by Prof. A. Weber:
in Trübner’s Oriental Series.
94 Even the Maya Indians of Guatemala had their Zodiac from untold
antiquity. And “primitive man acted in the same manner independently
of time or locality in every age,” observes a French writer.
95 _Ibid._, p. 2.
96 The _Tirukkanda Panchanga_, for the Kali Yuga 4986, by Chintamany
Raghauaracharya, son of the famous Government astronomer of Madras,
and Tartakamala Venkata Krishna Rao.
97 Of years, 300 million years, or Three Occult Ages. The _Rig Veda_
has the same division. In the “Physician’s Hymn,” (X 97 1) it is
said that “the plants came into being _Three Ages_ (Triyugam) before
the gods” on our Earth. (See “Chronology of the Brâhmans” at the end
of this Stanza.)
98 Forms.
99 Minerals.
100 Vegetation.
101 Sarísripa, svapada.
102 The Earth.
103 These two must not be confused with the Seven Creations or Divisions
in each Kalpa. The _Primary_ and _Secondary_ Creations are here
meant.
104 In _Bereschith Rabba_, Parscha IX.
105 i. 31.
106 See _Hibbert Lectures_, 1887, Sayce, p. 39.
107 Whence the identity of the ideas? The Chinese have the same
traditions. According to the commentator Kwoh P’oh, in the work
called _Shan‐Hai‐King_, “Wonders by Sea and Land,” a work which was
written by the historiographer Chung Ku from engravings on nine urns
made by the Emperor Yü (B.C. 2255), an interview is mentioned with
men _having two distinct faces on their heads_, before and behind,
monsters with bodies of goats and human faces, etc. Gould, in his
_Mythical Monsters_ (p. 27), giving the names of some authors on
Natural History, mentions _Shan‐Hai‐King_. “According to the
commentator Kwoh P’oh (A.D. 276‐324) this work was compiled three
thousand years before his time, or at seven dynasties’ distance.
Yang Sun of the Ming Dynasty (commencing A.D. 1368) states that it
was compiled by Kung Chia and Chung Ku (?)”—as stated above. “Chung
Ku ... at the time of the last emperor of the Hia dynasty (B.C.
1818), fearing that the emperor might destroy the books treating of
the ancient time, carried them in his flight to Yin.”
108 Cory’s _Ancient Fragments_, original edition, p. 25.
109 _Qabbalah_, p. 246.
110 From the mineral, vegetable, and animal remains.
111 Rounds.
112 Solar‐lunar.
113 Gods and Planetary Spirits, especially the Ribhus. “The three
Ribhus” who also become “thrice seven” in number of their gifts.
114 Remember the “winged races” of Plato, and the _Popol Vuh_ accounts
of the first human race, which could walk, fly, and see objects,
however distant.
115 See _Mythical Monsters_, by Charles Gould.
116 In the first volume of the lately published _Introduction à l’Étude
des Races Humaines_, by M. de Quatrefages, there is proof that since
the Post‐Tertiary Period and even before that time—since many Races
were already scattered during that Age on the face of the Earth—man
has not altered one iota in his physical structure. And if man was
surrounded for ages by a fauna that altered from one period or cycle
to another, which died out, which was reborn in other forms—so that
now there does not exist one single animal on Earth, large or small,
contemporary with the man of that period—if, then, every animal has
been transformed save man himself, this fact goes to prove not only
his antiquity, but that he is a _distinct Kingdom_. Why should he
alone have escaped transformation? Because, says de Quatrefages, the
weapon used by him, in his struggle with Nature, and the ever‐
changing geological conditions and elements, was “his _psychic
force_, not his physical strength or body,” as in the case of
animals. Give man only that dose of intelligence and reason with
which other mammalia are endowed, and with his present bodily
organization he will show himself the most helpless of creatures of
Earth. And as everything goes to prove that the human organism with
all its characteristics, peculiarities and idiosyncrasies existed
already on our Globe in those far distant geological periods when
there was not yet _one single specimen of the now‐existing forms of
mammalia_, what is the unavoidable conclusion? Why this: Since all
the human races are of one and the same species, it follows that
this species is the _most ancient of all_ the now‐living mammalia.
Therefore it is the most stable and persevering of all, and was
already as fully developed as it is now when all the other mammalia
now known had not made even their first approach to appearance on
this Earth. Such is the opinion of the great French Naturalist, who
gives thereby a terrible blow to Darwinism.
117 They said.
118 The Monads of the “presentments” of men of the Third Round, the huge
ape‐like forms.
119 The Waters.
120 In the Esoteric System the seven “principles” in man are represented
by seven letters. The first two are _more_ sacred than the four
letters of the Tetragrammaton.
121 The Intermediate Spheres, wherein the Monads, which have not reached
Nirvâna, are said to slumber in unconscious inactivity between the
Manvantaras.
122 Explained elsewhere. The Three Fires, Pâvaka, Pavamâna, and Shuchi,
who had forty‐five Sons, who, with their three Fathers, and their
Father Agni, constitute the forty‐nine Fires. Pavamâna, Fire
produced by friction, is the parent of the “Fire of the Asuras”;
Shuchi, Solar Fire, is the parent of the “Fire of the Gods”; and
Pâvaka, Electric Fire, is the Father of the “Fire of the Pitris.”
(See _Vâyu Purâna_.) But this is an explanation on the material and
terrestrial plane. The Flames are evanescent and only periodical;
the Fires—eternal in their triple unity. They correspond to the
_four_ lower, and the _three_ higher human “principles.”
123 The Suras, who become later the A‐Suras.
124 Âtmâ, Buddhi and Manas. In Devachan the higher element of the Manas
is needed to make it a state of perception and consciousness for the
disembodied Monad.
125 _Catechism_, Book iii. Sec. 9.
126 See _Vishnu Purâna_, Book I. Ch. V., closing Shloka. Fitzedward
Hall’s rendering of the text, in Wilson’s Translation, i. 88. Also
_Mânava‐Dharma Shâstra_, i. 30.
127 This has in Esotericism a direct bearing upon the seven “principles”
of the manifested Brahmâ, or Universe, in the same order as in man.
Exoterically, it is only four “principles.”
128 Wilson’s Translation, i. 81.
129 Demons is a very loose word to use, as it applies to a great number
of inferior—_i.e._, more material—Spirits, or minor Gods, who are so
termed because they “war” with the higher ones; but they are no
devils.
130 The same order of principles in man: Âtmâ (Spirit), Buddhi (Soul),
its vehicle, as Matter is the Vâhan of Spirit, and Manas (Mind), the
third, or the fifth microcosmically. On the _plane of personality_,
Manas is the first.
131 Thus, says the Commentary, the saying, “by day the Gods are most
powerful, and by night the Demons,” is purely allegorical.
132 This “thinking of oneself” as this, that, or the other, is the chief
factor in the production of every kind of psychic or even physical
phenomena. The words “whosoever shall say to this mountain be thou
removed and cast into the sea, and _shall not doubt_ ... that thing
will come to pass,” are no vain words. Only the word “faith” ought
to be translated by “Will.” Faith without Will is like a wind‐mill
without _wind_—barren of results.
133 The same idea is found in the first four chapters of _Genesis_, with
their “Lord” and “God,” which are the Elohim and the Androgynous
Eloha.
134 P. 398.
135 P. 107.
136 Spirits.
137 Also Spirits.
138 vi. 2‐6.
139 But see the difficulties suggested later, in the works of various
Geologists, against this theory. Compare Sir R. S. Ball’s articles
in _Nature_, xxv, 79‐82, 103‐107, Nov. 24 and Dec. 1, 1881.
140 The Rûpas.
141 The Goddess who gave birth to these primordial monsters, in the
account of Berosus, was Thalatth, in Greek Thalassa, the “Sea.”
142 See, for comparison, the account of creation by Berosus, as
preserved in Alexander Polyhistor, and the hideous beings born from
the two‐fold principle—Earth and Water—in the abyss of Primordial
Creation: Narâs (Centaurs, men with the limbs of horses and human
bodies), and Kinnaras (men with the heads of horses) created by
Brahmâ in the commencement of the Kalpa.
143 For a similar admission see Prof. Lefèvre’s _Philosophy_, 481.
144 xii. 10,308.
145 The Esoteric Doctrine says that this “Cosmic Evolution” refers only
to our Solar System; while exoteric Hindûism makes the figures
refer, if we do not mistake, to the whole Universal System.
146 Another point of disagreement. Occultism says that the astral
prototypes of the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms up to man
have taken that time (300 million years) to evolve, reforming out of
the cast‐off materials of the preceding Round, which, though very
dense and physical in their own cycle, are relatively ethereal as
compared with the materiality of our present middle Round. At the
expiration of these 300 million years, Nature, on the way to the
physical and material, down the arc of descent, begins with mankind
and works downwards, hardening or materializing forms as it
proceeds. Thus the fossils found in strata, to which an antiquity,
not of eighteen, but of many hundreds of millions of years, must be
ascribed, belong in reality to forms of the preceding Round, which,
while living, were far more ethereal than physical, _as we know the
physical_. That we perceive and disinter them as tangible forms, is
due to the process of materialization or crystallization referred
to, which took place subsequently, at the beginning of the Fourth
Round, and reached its maximum after the appearance of man,
proceeding parallel with his physical evolution. This alone
illustrates the fact that the degree of materiality of the Earth
changes _pari passu_ with that of its inhabitants. And thus man now
finds, as tangible fossils, what were once the (to his present
senses) ethereal forms of the lower kingdoms. The above Brâhmanical
figures refer to evolution beginning on Globe A, and in the First
Round. In this Volume we speak only of this, the Fourth Round.
147 This difference and the change of cyphers in the last three triplets
of figures, the writer cannot undertake to account for. According to
every calculation, once the three hundred millions are subtracted,
the figures ought to stand, 1,655,884,687. But they are given as
stated in the Tamil calendar above‐named and as they were
translated. The school of the late Pandit Dayânand Sarasvati,
founder of the Ârya Samâj, gives a date of 1,960,852,987. See the
_Ârya Magazine_ of Lahore, the cover of which bears the words:
“Âryan era 1,960,852,987.”
148 Vaivasvata Manu is the one Human Being—some versions add to him the
seven Rishis—who in the Matsya Avatâra allegory is saved from the
Deluge in a boat, like Noah in the Ark. Therefore, this Vaivasvata
Manvantara would be the “post‐diluvian” period. This, however, does
not refer to the later “Atlantean” or Noah’s Deluge, nor to the
Cosmic “Deluge” or Pralaya of obscuration, which preceded our Round,
but to the appearance of mankind in the latter Round. There is a
great difference made, however, between the Naimitika, Occasional or
Incidental, Prâkritika, Elemental, Atyantika, the Absolute, and
Nitya, the Perpetual Pralaya; the latter being described as
“Brahmâ’s contingent recoalescence of the Universe at the end of
Brahmâ’s Day.” The question was raised by a learned Brâhman
Theosophist: “Whether there is such a thing as Cosmic Pralaya;
because, otherwise, the Logos (Krishna) would have to be reborn, and
he is Aja (unborn).” We cannot see why. The Logos is said to be born
only metaphorically, as the Sun is born daily, or rather a beam of
that Sun is born in the morning and is said to die when it
disappears, whereas it is simply reäbsorbed into the parent essence.
Cosmic Pralaya is for things visible, not for the Arûpa, Formless,
World. The Cosmic or Universal Pralaya comes only at the end of one
hundred Years of Brahmâ, when the Universal Dissolution is said to
take place. Then the Avyaya, say the exoteric Scriptures, the
Eternal Life symbolized by Vishnu, assuming the character of Rudra,
the Destroyer, enters into the Seven Rays of the Sun and drinks up
all the waters of the Universe. “Thus fed, the seven Solar Rays
dilate to _seven suns_ and set fire to the whole Cosmos.”
149 Since a Mahâ Yuga is the 1,000th part of a Day of Brahmâ.
150 _Op. cit._, Art. “Geology.”
151 _Ibid._ This allows a chance even to the Biblical “Adam Chronology”
of 6,000 years.
152 _Modern Science and Modern Thought_, 48.
153 To the Silurian period as regards molluscs and animal life—granted;
but what do they know of man?
154 _Ibid._, _loc. cit._
155 _Ibid._, 49.
156 Winchell, _World‐Life_, 180.
157 _Op. cit._, 49.
158 Wilson’s _Vishnu Purâna_, i. 51.
159 i. 32.
160 The atmosphere, or the air, the firmament.
161 _Harivamsha_, i. 36.
162 _Genesis_, i. 6‐9.
163 Lords.
164 They were told.
165 _i.e._, the Jivas or Monads.
166 Mother Earth or Nature.
167 For external bodies.
168 According to the wonderful chronology of Bentley, who wrote in days
when Biblical chronology was still undisputed; and also according to
that of those modern Orientalists who dwarf the Hindû dates as far
as they can.
169 Now Shrî is the daughter of Bhrigu, one of the Prajâpatis and
Rishis, the chief of the Bhrigus, the “Consumers,” the Aërial Class
of Gods. She is Lakshmî, the wife of Vishnu, and she is Gaurî, the
“bride of Shiva,” and she is Sarasvatî, the “watery,” the wife of
Brahmâ, because the three Gods and Goddesses are one, under three
aspects. Read the explanation by Parâshara, in _Vishnu Purâna_ (I.
viii., Wilson’s Trans., i. 119), and you will understand. “The lord
of Shrî is the moon,” he says, and “Shrî is the wife of Nârâyana,
the God of Gods”: Shrî or Lakshmî (Venus) is Indrânî, as she is
Sarasvatî, for in the words of Parâshara: “Harî [or Îshvara, the
‘Lord’] is all that is called male [in the Universe]; Lakshmî is all
that is termed female. There is nothing else than they.” Hence she
is female, and “God” is male Nature.
170 Shrî is Goddess of, and herself “Fortune and Prosperity.”
171 _Masonic Review_ (Cincinnati), June, 1886. Art. “The Cabbalah.—No.
VI,” 15‐17.
172 The Moon‐Gods.
173 _Vishnu Purâna_, I. vii., Wilson’s Trans., i. 101.
174 See _Mahâbhârata_, _Mokshadharma Parvan_.
175 Because, as the allegory shows, the Gods who had no personal merit
of their own, dreading the sanctity of those self‐striving
incarnated Beings who had become Ascetics and Yogîs, and thus
threatened to upset the power of the former by their _self‐acquired_
powers—denounced them. All this has a deep philosophical meaning and
refers to the evolution and acquirement of divine powers through
_self‐exertion_. Some Rishi‐Yogîs are shown in the _Purânas_ to be
far more powerful than the Gods. Secondary Gods or temporary Powers
in Nature (the Forces) are doomed to disappear; it is only the
spiritual Potentiality in man which can lead him to become one with
the INFINITE and the ABSOLUTE.
176 The Triangle becomes a Pentagon (five‐fold) on Earth.
177 Seth, as Bunsen and others have shown, is not only the “primitive
God” of the Semites—early Jews included—but also their “semi‐divine
ancestor.” For, says Bunsen (_God in History_, i. 233, 234): “The
Seth of Genesis, the father of Enoch (the man) must be considered as
originally running parallel with that derived from the Elohim,
Adam’s father.” “According to Bunsen, the Deity (the God Seth) was
the _primitive god_ of Northern Egypt and Palestine,” says Staniland
Wake, in _The Great Pyramid_ (p. 61). And Seth became considered in
the later Theology of the Egyptians as an “evil demon,” says the
same Bunsen, for he is one with Typhon and one with the Hindû Demons
as a logical sequel.
178 _I Corinth._, xv. 47.
179 _Vâyu Purâna_; _Harivamsha_, 170.
180 See Mather’s _Kabbalah Unveiled_, p. 302.
181 Translated in Isaac Myer’s _Qabbalah_, p. 386.
182 _Zohar_ iii., 135a, 292a, _Idra Zootah_. Brody Ed., _Idrah Zootah_.
183 _Gen._ xxvi. 31 _et seq._; Myer’s _Qabbalah_, _ibid._
184 _Zohar_, iii. 290a, Brody Ed. Indrah Zootah, quoted in Isaac Myer’s
_Qabbalah_, pp. 387, 388.
185 ii. 5.
186 Or Mind‐born.
187 Fohat.
188 “Huxley, supported by the most evident discoveries in Comparative
Anatomy, could utter the momentous sentence that the anatomical
differences between man and the highest apes are less than those
between the latter and the lowest apes. In relation to our
genealogical tree of man, the necessary conclusion follows that the
human race has _evolved gradually from the true apes_.” (_The
Pedigree of Man_, by Ernst Hæckel, translated by Ed. B. Aveling, p.
49.)
What may be the scientific and logical objections to the opposite
conclusion—we would ask? The anatomical resemblances between Man and
the Anthropoids—grossly exaggerated as they are by Darwinists, as M.
de Quatrefages shows—are simply enough accounted for when the origin
of the latter is taken into consideration.
“Nowhere, in the older deposits, is an ape to be found that
approximates more closely to man, or a man that approximates more
closely to an ape.”
“The same gulf which is found to‐day between man and ape, goes back
with undiminished breadth and depth to the Tertiary period. This
fact alone is enough to make its untenability clear.” (Dr. F. Pfaff,
Prof. of Natural Science in the University of Erlangen.)
189 See _Yoga Shâstra_, ii. 32.
190 Voltaire.
191 _Mânava‐Dharma Shâstra_, iii. 196.
192 _Matsya_ and _Padma Purânas_ and Kullûka on the _Mânava‐Dharma
Shâstra_, iii. 195. We are quite aware that the _Vâyu_ and _Matsya
Purânas_ identify (agreeably to Western interpretation) the
Agnishvâtta with the seasons, and the Barhishad Pitris with the
months; adding a fourth class—Kâvyas—cyclic years. But do not
Christian Roman Catholics identify their Angels with Planets, and
are not the Seven Rishis become the Saptarshis—a constellation? They
are Deities presiding over all the cyclic divisions.
193 _Vishnu Purâna_, Wilson, iii. 158, 159.
194 Shll. 935, 936.
195 The _Vâyu Purâna_ shows the region called Virâja‐loka inhabited by
the Agnishvâttas.
196 Wilson, _ibid._, iii. 17. Note by Fitzedward Hall.
197 _Loc. cit._, _ibid._
198 See _Theosophist_, February, 1887, p. 360.
199 See Wilson, ii. 26.
200 See _Vâyu Purâna_.
201 Chhâyâs.
202 Or Amânasas.
203 Thus.
204 Complexion.
205 Also.
206 Creator.
207 Phantoms.
208 Image or shadow.
209 This was hinted at in _Isis Unveiled_ (I. xxxviii.), though the full
explanation could not then be given: “The Pitris are not the
ancestors of the present living men, but those of the [first] human
kind or Adamic race; the spirits of _human_ races, which, on the
great scale of descending evolution, preceded our races of men, and
were physically, as well as spiritually, far superior to our modern
pigmies. In _Mânava‐Dharma Shâstra_ they are called the _Lunar_
ancestors.”
210 See the “Laws of Manu”—_Mânava‐Dharma Shâstra_, iii. 203.
211 “Sacred Books of the East,” Vol. IV, _The Zend‐Avesta_, Pt. I.
lviii, Trans. by James Darmesteter.
212 Compare also what is said about Makara and the Kumâras in connection
with the Zodiac.
213 Whence the subsequent assertions of St. John’s vision, referred to
in his Apocalypse, about, “the great red dragon having seven heads
and _ten_ horns, and seven crowns upon his heads,” whose “tail drew
the _third part_ of the stars of heaven and did cast them to the
earth.” (Ch. xii.)
214 See _Harivamsha_, 932.
215 The verse “did cast them to the earth,” plainly shows its origin in
the grandest and oldest allegory of the Âryan Mystics, who, after
the destruction of the Atlantean _giants_ and _sorcerers_, concealed
the truth—_astronomical_, _physical_, and _divine_, as it is a page
out of _pre‐cosmic_ Theogony—under various allegories. Its true
Esoteric interpretation is a veritable Theodice of the “Fallen
Angels,” so called: the _willing_ and the _unwilling_, the
_creators_ and those who _refused to create_, being now mixed up
most perplexingly by Christian Catholics, who forget that their
highest Archangel, St. Michael, who is shown to conquer (to master
and to assimilate) the _Dragon of Wisdom_ and of divine Self‐
sacrifice—now miscalled and calumniated as Satan—_was the first to
refuse to create_! This has led to endless confusion. So little does
Christian Theology understand the paradoxical language of the East
and its symbolism, that it even explains, in its _dead‐letter
sense_, the Chinese Buddhist and Hindû exoteric rite of raising a
noise during certain eclipses to scare away the “great red dragon,”
which laid a plot to carry away the “light”! But here “light” means
Esoteric Wisdom, and we have sufficiently explained the secret
meaning of the terms Dragon, Serpent, etc., all of which refer to
Adepts and Initiates.
216 See _Genesis_ and Plato’s _Timæus_.
217 In spite of all efforts to the contrary, Christian Theology—having
burdened itself with the Hebrew Esoteric account of the creation of
man, which it understands _literally_—cannot find any reasonable
excuse for its “God, the Creator,” who produces a man devoid of mind
and sense; nor can it justify the punishment following an act, for
which Adam and Eve might plead _non compos_. For if the couple be
admitted to be ignorant of good and evil before the eating of the
forbidden fruit, how could it be expected to know that _disobedience
was evil_? If primeval man was meant to remain a half‐witted, or
rather witless, being, then his creation was aimless and even
_cruel_, if produced by an omnipotent and perfect God. But Adam and
Eve are shown, even in _Genesis_, to be created by a Class of lower
divine Beings, the Elohim, who are so jealous of their personal
prerogatives as reasonable and intelligent creatures, that they will
not allow man to become “as one of us.” This is plain, even from the
dead‐letter meaning of the _Bible_. The Gnostics, then, were right
in regarding the Jewish God as belonging to a Class of lower,
material and not very holy denizens of the invisible World.
218 In _Isis Unveiled_ several of these Gnostic systems are given. One
is taken from the _Codex Nazaræus_, the Scripture of the Nazarenes,
who, although they existed long before the days of Christ, and even
before the laws of Moses, were Gnostics, and many of them Initiates.
They held their “Mysteries of Life” in Nazara (ancient and modern
Nazareth), and their doctrines are a faithful echo of the teachings
of the Secret Doctrine—some of which we are now endeavouring to
explain.
219 i. 18. See the translation from the Greek by François, Monsieur de
Foix, Evesque d’Ayre: the work dedicated to Marguerite de France,
Reine de Navarre. Edition of 1579, Bordeaux.
220 _Asgard and the Gods_, p. 4.
221 Mr. James Darmesteter, the translator of the _Vendidâd_, speaking of
it, says: “The tree, _whatever it is_....”—“Sacred Books of the
East,” vol. iv. p. 209.
222 Plato’s _Timæus_.
223 See _Asgard and the Gods_, p. 305.
224 _Ibid._, _loc. cit._
225 “The father of the sacred fire,” writes Prof. Jolly, “bore the name
of Tvashtri ... His mother was Mâyâ. He himself was styled Akta
(_anointed_ χριστὸς) after the priest had poured upon his head the
spirituous (?) Soma, and on his body butter purified by sacrifice.”
(_Man before Metals_, p. 190.) The source of his information is not
given by the French Darwinist. But the lines are quoted to show that
light begins to dawn even upon the Materialists. Adalbert Kühn, in
his _Die Herabkunft des Feuers_, identifies the two signs [Symbol:
swastika] and [Symbol: swastika with dots around the center] with
Arani, and designates them under this name. He adds: “This process
of kindling fire naturally led men to the idea of sexual
reproduction,” etc. Why could not a more dignified idea, and one
more Occult, have led man to invent this symbol, in so far as it is
connected, in one of its aspects, with human reproduction? But its
chief symbolism refers to Cosmogony.
“Agni, in the condition of Akta, or anointed, is suggestive of
Christ,” remarks Prof. Jolly. “Mâyâ, Mary, His mother; Tvashtri, St.
Joseph, the carpenter of the Bible.” In the _Rig Veda_, Vishvakarman
is the highest and oldest of the Gods and their “Father.” He is the
“carpenter or builder,” because God is called even by the
Monotheists, the “Architect of the Universe.” Still, the original
idea is purely metaphysical, and had no connection with the later
Phallicism.
226 The real Manushya.
227 Barishad (?).
228 The Kavyavâhana, electric fire.
229 Shuchi, the spirit in the Sun.
230 The Pitris and the two Fires.
231 The form.
232 It is not clear why Bhûtas should be rendered by the Orientalists as
“evil spirits” in the _Purânas_. In the _Vishnu Purâna_ (I. v,
Wilson’s Trans., Fitzedward Hall’s note, i. 83) the Shloka simply
says: “Fiends, frightful from being monkey‐coloured and
carnivorous”; and the word in India now means “ghosts,” ethereal or
_astral_ phantoms, while in Esoteric Teaching it means _elementary_
substances, something made of attenuated, non‐compound essence, and,
specifically, the astral Double of any man or animal. In this case
these primitive men are the Doubles of the first ethereal Dhyânîs or
Pitris.
233 See _Pymander_, Everard’s Trans., II. 17‐29.
234 _Chaldean Account of Genesis_, p. 92.
235 P. 91.
236 _Ibid._, _loc. cit._
237 _Ibid._, _loc. cit._
238 Human Monad.
239 Astral shadow.
240 Kâma Rûpa.
241 Shuchi, the fire of passion and animal instinct.
242 Solar Fire.
243 Nascent Man.
244 Later.
245 Race.
246 See Shloka 22.
247 See _Genesis of the Elements_, by W. Crookes, p. 21.
248 _Pymander_, i. 6. The opponents of Hindûism may call the above
Pantheism, Polytheism, or anything they may please. If Science is
not entirely blinded by prejudice, it will see in this account a
profound knowledge of Natural Sciences and Physics, as well as of
Metaphysics and Psychology. But to find this out, one has to study
the personifications, and then convert them into chemical atoms. It
will then be found to satisfy both physical and even purely
materialistic Science, as well as those who see in evolution the
work of the “Great Unknown Cause” in its phenomenal and illusive
aspects.
249 _Sc._ Race.
250 Shlokas, 153, 154.
251 It is symbolized in the Pythagorean Triangle, the ten yods within,
and the seven points of the Triangle and the Square.
252 Whence the Kabalistic name of “Shells” given to the Astral Form, the
Body called Kâma Rûpa, left behind by the Higher Angels in the shape
of the Higher Manas, when the latter leaves for Devachan, forsaking
its residue.
253 Mackenzie’s _Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, pp. 409‐411.
254 viii. 20.
255 _De Bell. Jud._, ii. 12.
256 _De Gignat_, p. 222C.; _De Somniis_, p. 455D.; which shows that the
Essenes believed in re‐birth and many reïncarnations on Earth, as
Jesus himself did, a fact we can prove from the _New Testament_
itself.
257 I. vi. 3.
258 _Zohar_, ii. 229b.
259 It is corroborated, however, as we have shown, by the Esotericism of
_Genesis_. Not only are the animals created therein after the “Adam
of Dust,” but vegetation is shown _in_ the Earth before “the heavens
and the earth were created.” “Every plant of the field before it was
in the earth” (ii. 5). Now, unless the Occult interpretation is
accepted—which shows that in this Fourth Round the Globe was covered
with vegetation, and the First (Astral) Humanity was produced before
almost anything could grow and develop thereon—what can the dead
letter mean? Simply that the grass was in the earth of the Globe
before that Globe was created? And yet the meaning of verse 6, which
says that “there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the
whole face of the ground,” before it rained, and caused the trees,
etc., to grow, is plain enough. It shows also in what geological
period it occurred, and further what is meant by “heaven” and
“earth.” It meant the firmament and dry _incrustated_ land,
separated and ridden of its vapours and exhalations. Moreover, the
student must bear in mind that, as Adam Kadmon, the “male and female
being” of _Genesis_ i, is no physical human being but the host of
the Elohim, among which was Jehovah himself—so the animals,
mentioned in that chapter as “created” before man in the dead‐letter
text, were no animals, but the zodiacal signs and other sidereal
bodies.
260 _Book of Dzyan_, iii. 19.
261 Kenealy, _The Book of God_, pp. 114, 115.
262 To those who would enquire: What has Hydrogen to do with air or
oxygenation?—it is answered: Study first the ABC of Occult Alchemy.
In their anxiety, however, to identify Pymander, the “mouth of
mystery,” with St. John the Baptist prophetically, the Christian
Symbologists thus identified also the seven Kabiri and the Assyrian
Bulls with the Cherubs of the Jews and the Apostles. Having,
moreover, to draw a line of demarcation between the _four_ and the
_three_ the latter being the _Fallen_ Angels; and furthermore to
avoid connecting these with the “Seven Spirits of the Face,” the
Archangels, they unceremoniously threw out all they did not choose
to recognize. Hence the perversion in the order of the Elements, in
order to make them dovetail with the order of the Gospels, and to
identify the Angel‐Man with Christ. With the Chaldees, the
Egyptians—from whom Moses adopted the Chroub (Cherubs in their
animal form)—and the Ophites; with all these, the Angels, the
Planets, and the Elements, were symbolized mystically and
alchemically by the Lion (Mikael); the Bull (Uriel); the Dragon
(Raphael); the Eagle (Gabriel); the Bear (Thot‐Sabaoth); the Dog
(Era‐taoth); the Mule (Uriel or Thantabaoth). All these have a
qualificative meaning.
263 See _Hibbert Lectures_, 1887, pp. 370 _et seqq._
264 Sepher _M’bo Sha‐arim_, near the end, translated by Isaac Myer,
_Qabbalah_, p. 110.
265 Form.
266 Shadow.
267 S. Laing, _Modern Science and Modern Thought_, p. 90.
268 And why not all the progenitive First Races, human as well as
animal; and why _one_ “remote progenitor”?
269 Obviously so, on the lines of Evolutionism, which traces the
Mammalia to some amphibian ancestor.
270 Second Edition, p. 161.
271 _Ibid._, p. 162.
272 De Quatrefages, _The Human Species_, p. 124; “International
Scientific Series,” Volume XXVI.
273 _Ibid._, p. 125.
274 Fol. 186.
275 _Odyssey_, xi. 298‐305; _Iliad_, iii. 243.
276 Hyg., _Fab._, 80. Ovid., _Fast._, 700, etc. See Decharme’s
_Mythologie de la Grèce Antique_, p. 6.
277 See Decharme, _ibid._, p. 652.
278 _Nem._, x. 80 _et seqq._ Theocr., xxiv. 131.
279 XXXIV. v. 5. Theocr., xxii. 1.
280 iii. 10. 7.
281 Apollodorus, iii. 1.
282 Castor’s tomb was shown in Sparta, in days of old, says Pausanias
(iii. 13, 1); and Plutarch says that he was called at Argos the
demi‐mortal or demi‐hero, μιξαρχαγέτας. (_Quæst. Gr._, 23.)
283 Pindar, _Nem._, x. 60, _seqq._, Dissen.
284 Schol. Eurip., _Orest._, 463, Dindorf. See Decharme, _op. cit._, p.
654.
285 The Monad is impersonal and a God _per se_, albeit unconscious on
this plane. For divorced from its third (often called fifth)
principle, Manas, which is the horizontal line of the first
manifested Triangle or Trinity, it can have no consciousness or
perception of things on this earthly plane. “The highest sees
through the eye of the lowest” in the manifested world; Purusha
(Spirit) remains blind without the help of Prakriti (Matter) in the
material spheres; and so does Âtmâ‐Buddhi without Manas.
286 _Moral._, p. 484f.
287 This strange idea and interpretation are accepted by Decharme in his
_Mythologie de la Grèce Antique_ (p. 655). “Castor and Pollux,” he
says, “are nothing but the Sun and Moon, conceived as twins.... The
Sun, the immortal and powerful being that disappears every evening
from the horizon and descends under the Earth, as though he would
make room for the fraternal orb which comes to life with night, is
Pollux, who sacrifices himself for Castor; Castor, who, inferior to
his brother, owes to him his immortality; for the Moon, says
Theophrastus, is only another, but feebler Sun (_De Ventis_, 17).”
288 See _Book of Enoch_, Trans. by Bishop Laurence, 1883.
289 Adam (Kadmon) is, like Brahmâ and Mars, the symbol of the
_generative_ and _creative_ power typifying Water and Earth—an
Alchemical secret. “It takes Earth and Water to create a human
Soul,” said Moses. Mars is the Hindû Mangala, the planet Mars,
identical with Kârttikeya, the “War‐God”; he is Gharma‐ja, born of
Shiva’s _sweat_, and of the Earth. He is Lohita, the red, like
Brahmâ also and Adam. The Hindû Mars is, like Adam, born from no
woman and mother. With the Egyptians, Mars was the primeval
generative Principle, and so are Brahmâ, in exoteric teaching, and
Adam, in the Kabalah.
290 Abel is Chebel, meaning “pains of birth,” conception.
291 See _Isis Unveiled_, II. 398, where Jehovah is shown to be Adam and
Eve blended, and Hevah, and Abel, the _feminine serpent_.
292 See _Isis Unveiled_, I. 305: “The union of these two Races produced
a _third_ ... Race.”
293 _Genesis_, v. 2.
294 _Ibid._, v. 3.
295 P. 159.
296 Jod in the Kabalah has for symbol the hand, the forefinger and the
lingam, while numerically it is the perfect one; but it is also the
number 10, male and female, when divided.
297 _Vishnu Purâna_, i. ii.: Wilson’s Trans., i. 20.
298 Quoted in Myer’s _Qabbalah_, p. 110.
299 See _Source of Measures_, p. 277.
300 II. 464, _et seqq._
301 _Jeremiah_, x. 11.
302 _Isis Unveiled_, II. 462, 463.
303 See for comparison _Hosea_, xii. 6, where it is so punctuated.
304 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 156.
305 Race.
306 The Moon.
307 Hamsa.
308 _Text‐Book of Physiology_, Third Edition, 1879, p. 623.
309 See the _Timæus_.
310 See Extracts from that Essay in _The Theosophist_, of February,
1883, from which the following is condensed.
311 Compare Ezekiel’s vision (chap. i) of the four Divine Beings who
“had the likeness of a man” and yet had the appearance of a wheel,
“when they went, they went upon their four sides ... for the spirit
of the living creature was in the wheels.”
312 Eugibinus, a Christian, and the Rabbis Samuel, Menasseh ben Israel,
and Maimonides taught that “Adam had _two_ faces and _one_ person,
and from the beginning he was both male and female—male on one side
and female on the other [like Manu’s Brahmâ]; but afterwards the
parts were separated.” The one hundred and thirty‐ninth Psalm of
David was cited by Rabbi Jeremiah ben Eliazar as evidence of this:
“Thou hast _fashioned_ me _behind_ and _before_,” not _beset_ as in
the _Bible_, which is absurd and meaningless, and this shows, as
Prof. Wilder thinks, “that the primeval form of mankind was
androgynous.”
313 See the union of Chokmah, Wisdom, with Binah, Intelligence, or
Jehovah, the Demiurge, called Understanding in the _Proverbs of
Solomon_ (vii). Unto men Wisdom (divine Occult Wisdom) crieth: “Oh,
ye simple, understand Wisdom; and ye fools, be of an understanding
heart.” It is Spirit and Matter, the Nous and the Psyche; of the
latter of which St. James says that it is “earthly, sensual, and
devilish.”
314 _Pluralité des Mondes_, p. 69.
315 A hypothesis evolved in 1881 by Mr. W. Mattieu Williams seems to
have impressed Astronomers but little. Says the author of “The Fuel
of the Sun,” in _Knowledge_, Dec. 23, 1881:
“Applying now the researches of Dr. Andrews to the conditions of
solar existence ... I conclude that the sun has _no nucleus_, either
solid, liquid, or gaseous, but is composed of dissociated matter in
the critical state, surrounded, first, by a flaming envelope, due
to the recombination of the dissociated matter, and outside of this,
by another envelope of vapours due to this combination.”
This is a novel theory to be added to other hypotheses, _all
scientific and orthodox_. The meaning of the “critical state” is
explained by Mr. W. Mattieu Williams in the same journal (Dec. 9,
1881), in an article on “Solids, liquids, and Gases.” Speaking of an
experiment by Dr. Andrews on carbonic acid, the Scientist says that:
“When 88° is reached, the boundary between liquid and gas vanishes;
liquid and gas have blended into one mysterious intermediate fluid;
an indefinite fluctuating something is there filling the whole of
the tube—an etherealized liquid or a visible gas. Hold a red‐hot
poker between your eye and the light; you will see an upflowing wave
of movement of what appears like liquid air. The appearance of the
hybrid fluid in the tube resembles this, but is sensibly denser, and
evidently stands between the liquid and gaseous states of matter, as
pitch or treacle stands between solid and liquid.”
The temperature at which this occurs has been named by Dr. Andrews
the “critical temperature”; here the gaseous and the liquid states
are “continuous,” and it is probable that all other substances
capable of existing in both states have their own particular
critical temperatures.
Speculating further upon this “critical” state, Mr. W. Mattieu
Williams emits some quite Occult theories about Jupiter and other
Planets. He says:
“Our notions of solids, liquids, and gases are derived from our
experiences of the state of matter here upon this Earth. Could we be
removed to another planet, they would be curiously changed. On
Mercury water would rank as one of the condensible gases; on Mars,
as a fusible solid; but what on Jupiter?
“Recent observations justify us in regarding this as a miniature
sun, with an external envelope of cloudy matter, apparently of
partially‐condensed water, but red‐hot, or probably still hotter
within. His vaporous atmosphere is evidently of enormous depth, and
the force of gravitation being on his visible outer surface two‐and‐
a‐half times greater than that on our earth’s surface, the
atmospheric pressure, in descending below this visible surface, must
soon reach that at which the vapour of water would be brought to its
critical condition. Therefore we may infer that the oceans of
Jupiter are neither of frozen, liquid, nor gaseous water, but are
oceans, or atmospheres of _critical_ water. If any fish or birds
swim or fly therein, they must be very _critically_ organized.”
As the whole mass of Jupiter is 300 times greater than that of the
Earth, and its compressing energy towards the centre proportional to
this, its materials, if similar to those of the Earth, and no
hotter, would be considerably more dense, and the whole planet would
have a higher specific gravity; but we know by the movement of its
satellites that, instead of this, its specific gravity is less than
a fourth of that of the Earth. This justifies the conclusion that it
is intensely hot; for even hydrogen, if cold, would become denser
than Jupiter under such pressure.
“As all elementary substances may exist as solids, liquids, or
gases, or, critically, according to the conditions of temperature
and pressure, I am justified in hypothetically concluding that
Jupiter is neither a solid, a liquid, nor a gaseous planet, but a
_critical_ planet, or an orb composed internally of associated
elements in the _critical_ state, and surrounded by a dense
atmosphere of their vapours and those of some of their compounds
such as water. The same reasoning applies to Saturn and other large
and rarefied planets.”
It is gratifying to see how “scientific imagination” approaches
every year more closely to the borderland of our Occult Teachings.
316 _The Day after Death_, p. 23.
317 Cremona Ed., iii. 76a; Brody Ed., iii. 159a; _Qabbalah_. Isaac Myer,
p. 420.
318 So destroyed.
319 The first occurred when what is now the North Pole was separated
from the later Continents.
320 We must remember that at the head of all the Babylonian Gods were
Ea, Anu, and the primeval Bel; and that Ea, the first, was the God
of Wisdom, the great “God of Light” and of the Deep, and that he was
identified with Oannes, or the Biblical Dagon—the Man‐Fish who rose
out of the Persian Gulf.
321 It is far later on that the Moon became a male God; with the Hindus
it was Soma, with the Chaldæans Nanak or Nanar, and Sin, the son of
Mulil, the older Bel. The Akkadians called him the “Lord of Ghosts”;
and he was the God of Nipur (Niffer) in northern Babylonia. It is
Mulil who caused the waters of the Flood to fall from Heaven on
Earth, because of which Xisuthrus would not allow him to approach
his altar. As the modern Assyriologists have now ascertained, it is
the northern Nipur which is the centre whence Chaldæan (Black) Magic
spread; and Eridu (the Southern) which was the primitive seat of the
worship of the culture God, the God of Divine Wisdom—the Sun‐God
being the Supreme Deity everywhere. With the Jews, the Moon is
connected with Israël’s Jehovah and his seed, for Ur was the chief
seat of the worship of the Moon‐God, and Abraham is said to have
come from Ur, when from A‐bra(h)m, he becomes Abraham.
322 When Nârada, the virgin‐ascetic, threatened to put an end to the
human race by preventing Daksha’s sons from procreating it.
323 x. 6.
324 This is corroborated by a learned Brahman. In his most excellent
Lectures on the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_ (_Theosophist_, April, 1887, p. 444)
the lecturer says:
“There is a peculiarity to which I must call your attention. He
[Krishna] speaks here of four Manus. Why does he speak of four? We
are now in the seventh Manvantara—that of Vaivasvata. If he is
speaking of the past Manus, he ought to speak of six, but he only
mentions four. In some commentaries an attempt has been made to
interpret this in a peculiar manner.
“The word ‘Chatvârah’ is separated from the word ‘Manavah,’ and is
made to refer to Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatkumâra, and Sanatsujâta,
who were also included among the mind‐born sons of Prajâpati.
“But this interpretation will lead to a most absurd conclusion, and
make the sentence contradict itself. The persons alluded to in the
text have a qualifying clause in the sentence. It is well known that
Sanaka and the other three refused to create, though the other sons
had consented to do so: therefore, in speaking of those persons from
whom humanity has sprung into existence, it would be absurd to
include these four also in the list. The passage must be interpreted
without splitting the compound into two nouns. The number of Manus
will then be four, and the statement would then contradict the
Paurânic account, though it would be in harmony with the Occult
theory. You will recollect that it is stated [in Occultism] that we
are now in the Fifth Root‐Race. Each Root‐Race is considered as the
Santati of a particular Manu. Now, the Fourth Race has passed, or,
in other words, there have been four past Manus.”
325 Stockwell, _Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge_, xviii.; R. W.
McFarland, _American Journal of Science_, III. xi. 450; and Croll’s
_Climate and Time_. Lemuria was not submerged by a flood, but was
destroyed by volcanic action, and afterwards sank.
326 Coste, I. iv. 19.
327 Agruerus is Kronos, or Saturn, and the prototype of the Israëlitish
Jehovah. As connected with Argha, the Moon or Ark of salvation, Noah
is mythologically one with Saturn. But then this cannot relate to
the terrestrial flood. (See Faber’s _Cabiri_, I. 35, 43, and 45.)
328 _Ibid._, II. 240.
329 Sanchuniathon says that the Titans were the sons of Kronos, and
seven in number; and he calls them fire‐worshippers, Aletæ (Sons of
Agni?) and diluvians. Al‐ait is the God of Fire.
330 _Ibid._, i. 130, note.
331 Of which _seven_, let us remark, the Âryans, and not the Semites,
were the originators, while the Jews got that number from the
Chaldæans.
332 Seven individual Sons of God, or Pitaras, Pitris; also in this case
the sons of Kronos or Saturn (Kâla, “Time”) and Arkites, like the
Kabiri and Titans, as their name—“_Lunar_ Ancestors”—shows; the Moon
being the Ark, or Argha, on the Watery Abyss of Space.
333 _Asiatic Researches_, v. 246.
334 _Kabiri_, _ibid._, _loc. cit._
335 Orpheus apud Proclum _in Timæum_, v. 295.
336 Arnobius, _Contra Gentes_, iii. 124; quoted by Faber, _op. cit._, i.
135.
337 _Ant._, iii. 8.
338 _Bibl._, iii. 170.
339 Aretia is the female form of Artes, the Egyptian Mars. Thence the
Chaldæan (and now Hebrew) word ארצ (Arets), “Earth.” Seyffarth, the
author of _Beiträge zur Kenntniss_ (under “_Artes_,” _Mars_) quotes
as follows: “Addit Cedrenus (Salm. I. c): Stella Martis ab Ægyptiis
vocatur Ertosi (plantare, generare). Significat autem hoc omnis
generis procreationem et _vivificationem_, omnisque substantiæ et
materiæ naturam et vim ordinantem atque procreantem.” It is Earth as
“source of being”; or, as explained by the author of _The Source of
Measures_ (p. 186), Arts is the same in Hebrew and Egyptian, and
both “combine the primal idea of _earth as source_; precisely as in
the Hebrew itself, under another form, _Adam_ and _Mâdim_, _Mars_,
are the same, and combine the idea of _earth_, with _Adam_ under the
form of _h‐adam‐h_.”
340 _Ant._, v. 64.
341 Nonnus, _Dionys._, xviii. 319. Quoted by Faber, _op. cit._, i. 328.
342 See _Isis Unveiled_, II. 420 _et seq._, where one or two of the
seven meanings are hinted at.
343 Chap. lxiv (Sect. xi).
344 _Isis Unveiled_, II. 423, 424.
345 _Ibid._, 423, note.
346 One has to remember that, in the Hindû Philosophy, every
differentiated unit is such only through the Cycles of Mâyâ, being
one in its essence with the Supreme or One Spirit. Hence arises the
seeming confusion and contradiction in the various _Purânas_, and at
times in the same _Purâna_, about the same individual. Vishnu—as the
many‐formed Brahmâ, and as Brahma (neuter)—is one, and yet he is
said to be all the twenty‐eight Vyâsas.
“In every Dvâpara (or third) age, Vishnu, in the person of Vyâsa,
divides the Veda, which is (properly, but) one, into many
portions.... Twenty‐eight times have the Vedas been arranged by the
great Rishis in the Vaivasvata Manvantara, in the Dvâpara age; and,
consequently, eight and twenty Vyâsas have passed away.” (_Vishnu
Purâna_, iii. 3; Wilson’s Trans., iii. 33, 34.) “[They who were all]
in the form of Veda‐Vyâsa; who were the Vyâsas of their respective
eras.” (_Ibid._, _loc. cit._, p. 33.) “This world is Brahmâ, in
Brahmâ, from Brahmâ ... nothing further to be known.” Then, again,
in the _Harivamsha_: “There were (in the first Manvantara) seven
celebrated sons of Vasishtha, who (in the _third_ Manvantara) were
sons of Brahmâ (_i.e._, Rishis), the illustrious progeny of Ûrjâ.”
(_Ibid._, iii. 6, note.) This is plain: the Humanity of the First
Manvantara is that of the seventh and of all the intermediate ones.
The Mankind of the First Root‐Race is the mankind of the Second,
Third, Fourth, Fifth, etc. To the last it forms a cyclic and
constant reïncarnation of the Monads belonging to the Dhyân Chohans
of our Planetary Chain.
347 The Dvâpara Yuga differs for each Race. All Races have their own
Cycles, which fact causes a great difference. For instance, the
Fourth Sub‐Race of the Atlanteans was in its Kali Yuga, when they
were destroyed, whereas the Fifth was in its Satya or Krita Yuga.
The Âryan Race is now in its Kali Yuga, and will continue to be in
it for 427,000 years longer, while various “Family Races,” called
the Semitic, Hamitic, etc., are in their own special cycles. The
forthcoming Sixth Sub‐Race—which may begin very soon—will be in its
Satya (Golden) Age while we reap the fruit of our iniquity in our
Kali Yuga.
348 See _Asiatic Researches_, viii. 280.
349 See Dowson’s _Hindû Classical Dictionary_, _sub voce_ “Idâ.”
350 See _Posthumous Humanity_: Translated by H. S. Olcott London, 1887.
351 Professor Newcomb says the heat evolved by contraction would last
only 18,000,000 years. (_Popular Astronomy_, 509.) While a
temperature permitting the existence of water could not be reached
earlier than 10,000,000 years ago. (Winchell’s _World‐Life_, 356.)
But Sir William Thomson says that the whole age of the incrustation
of the Earth is 80,000,000 years, though, this year, he has again
altered his opinion and allows only 15,000,000 years as the age of
the Sun. As will be shown in the Addenda, the divergence of
scientific opinions is so great that no reliance can ever be placed
upon _scientific_ speculation.
352 The essay on _The Plurality of Worlds_ (1853)—an anonymous work, yet
well known to have been the production of Dr. Whewell—is a good
proof of this. No Christian ought to believe in either the plurality
of Worlds or the geological age of the Globe, argues the author;
because, if it is asserted that this World is only one among the
many of its kind, which are all the work of God, as it is itself;
that all are the seat of life, all the realm and dwelling of
intelligent creatures endowed with will, subject to law and capable
of free‐will; then, it would be extravagant to think that _our_
World should have been the subject of God’s favours and His special
interference, of His communications and His _personal visit_. Can
the Earth presume to be considered the centre of the moral and
religious Universe, he asks, if it has not the slightest distinction
to rely upon in the physical Universe? Is it not as absurd to uphold
such an assertion (of the plurality of inhabited worlds), as it
would be to‐day to uphold the old hypothesis of Ptolemy, who placed
the Earth in the centre of our system? The above is quoted from
memory, yet _almost textually_. The author fails to see that he is
bursting his own soap‐bubble with such a defence.
353 _Man’s Place in Nature_, p. 58.
354 _De Cœlo_, II. 13.
355 Or what is more generally known as Protoplasm. This substance
received the name of “Sarcode” from Prof. Dujardin Beaumetz far
earlier than its present appellation.
356 The Monera are indeed Protista. They are neither animals nor plants,
writes Hæckel; “the whole body of the Moneron represents nothing
more than a single thoroughly homogeneous particle of albumen in a
firmly adhesive condition.” (_Journal of Microscopical Science_,
Jan., 1869, p. 28.)
357 Behold the Iguanodon of the Mesozoic ages—the monster 100 feet
long—now transformed into the small Iguana lizard of South America.
Popular traditions about “giants” in days of old, and their mention
in every mythology, including that of the _Bible_, may some day be
shown to be founded on fact. In nature, the logic of analogy alone
should make us accept these _traditions_ as scientific verities.
358 These are the opinions of Burmeister and Czolbe. See _Force and
Matter_, by L. Büchner, edited, by J. F. Collingwood, F.R.S.L., p.
61.
359 _Vishnu Purâna_, II. viii; Fitzedward Hall’s rendering in Wilson’s
Translation, ii. 241.
360 _Ibid._, p. 242.
361 _Introduction à l’Étude des Races Humaines._
362 _Modern Science and Modern Thought_, by S. Laing, p. 32.
363 _Esoteric Buddhism_, p. 70.
364 The same fate is in store for spiritualistic phenomena and all the
other psychological manifestations of the _inner_ man. Since the
days of Hume, whose researches culminated in a nihilistic Idealism,
Psychology has gradually shifted its position to one of crass
Materialism. Hume is regarded as a Psychologist, and yet he denied
_à priori_ the possibility of phenomena in which millions now
believe, including many men of Science. The Hylo‐Idealists of to‐day
are rank Annihilationists. The schools of Spencer and Bain are
respectively positivist and materialist, and not metaphysical at
all. It is _Psychism_ and not Psychology; it reminds one as little
of the Vedântic teaching as does the pessimism of Schopenhauer and
von Hartmann recall the Esoteric Philosophy, the heart and soul of
_true_ Buddhism.
365 It must be noted that, though the astral and physical planes of
Matter ran parallel with one another even in the earliest geological
ages, yet they were not in the same phases of manifestation in which
they are _now_. The Earth did not reach its present _grade of
density_ till 18,000,000 years ago. Since then _both_ the physical
and astral planes have become grosser.
366 The conception and definition of the Absolute by Cardinal Cusa may
satisfy only the Western mind, prisoned, so unconsciously to itself,
and entirely degenerated, by long centuries of scholastic and
theological sophistry. But this “recent philosophy of the Absolute,”
traced by Sir William Hamilton to Cusa, would never satisfy the more
acutely metaphysical mind of the Hindû Vedântin.
367 Cudworth’s _Intellectual System_, I. 328.
368 Issued from the Body of Brahmâ when it became Night.
369 Intellectually vile.
370 Still senseless Race.
371 Race.
372 Intensified.
373 The vehicle of Desire.
374 Higher knowledge.
375 Monads.
376 Primitive human species.
377 _Inst. Div._, II. viii; quoted in Myer’s _Qabbalah_, 116.
378 _Op. cit._, I. v; Wilson’s Trans., Fitzedward Hall’s rendering, i.
72.
379 _Ibid._, ii. 10.
380 _Ibid._, i. 83.
381 Whom Manu calls “paternal grandfathers” (iii. 284). The Rudras are
the seven manifestations of Rudra‐Shiva, the “destroying God,” and
_also_ the grand Yogi and Ascetic.
382 To speak of _life_ as having arisen, and of the human race as having
originated, in this _absurdly unscientific_ way, in the face of the
modern Pedigrees of Man, is to court instantaneous annihilation. The
Esoteric Doctrine risks the danger, nevertheless, and even goes so
far as to ask the impartial reader to compare the above hypothesis
(if it is one) with Hæckel’s theory—now fast becoming an axiom with
Science—which we quote verbatim as follows:
“How did life, the living world of organisms, arise? And, secondly,
the special question: How did the human race originate? The first of
these two enquiries, that as to the first appearance of living
beings, can only be decided empirically [!!] by proof of the so‐
called Archebiosis, or equivocal generation, or the spontaneous
production of organisms of the simplest conceivable kind. Such are
the Monera (Protogenes, Protamœba, Protomyxa, Vampyrella),
exceedingly simple microscopic masses of protoplasm without
structure or organization, which take in nutriment and _reproduce
themselves by division_. Such a Moneron as that primordial organism
_discovered_ by the renowned English zoologist Huxley and named
Bathybius Hæckelii, appears as a continuous thick protoplasmic
covering at the greatest depths of the ocean, between 3,000 and
30,000 feet. _It is true that the first appearance of such Monera
has not up to the present moment been actually observed_; but there
is nothing intrinsically improbable in such an Evolution.” (_The
Pedigree of Man_, Aveling’s translation, p. 33.)
The Bathybius protoplasm having recently turned out to be no organic
substance at all, there remains little to be said. Nor, after
reading this, does one need to consume further time in refuting the
further assertion that: “In that case man also has, _beyond a doubt_
[to the minds of Hæckel and his like], arisen from the lower
Mammalia, apes, the earlier simian creatures, the still earlier
Marsupialia, Amphibia, Pisces, by progressive transformations” (p.
36)—all produced by “a series of _natural forces working blindly,
... without aim, without design_.”
The above‐quoted passage bears its criticism on its own face.
Science is made to teach that, which, up to the present time, “_has
never been actually observed_.” She is made to deny the phenomenon
of an _intelligent_ nature and a vital force independent of form and
matter, and to find it more scientific to teach the miraculous
performance of “natural forces _working blindly without aim or
design_.” If so, then we are led to think that the physico‐
mechanical forces of the brains of certain eminent Scientists are
leading them on as blindly to sacrifice logic and common sense on
the altar of mutual admiration. Why should the protoplasmic Moneron
producing the first living creature through _self‐division_ be held
as a very scientific hypothesis, and an ethereal pre‐human race
generating the primeval men in the same fashion be tabooed as
unscientific superstition? Or has Materialism obtained a sole
monopoly in Science?
383 The Râkshasas, regarded in Indian popular theology as Demons, are
called the “Preservers” beyond the Himâlayas. This double meaning
has its origin in a philosophical allegory, which is variously
rendered in the _Purânas_. It is stated that when Brahmâ created the
Demons, Yakshas (from _yaksh_, to eat) and the Râkshasas, both of
which kinds of Demons, as soon as born, wished to devour their
Creator, “those among them that called out ‘Not so: oh! let him be
saved [preserved]!’ were named Râkshasas.” (_Vishnu Purâna_, I. v.;
Wilson, i. 82.) The _Bhâgavata Purâna_ (III. 20, 19‐21; _ibid._,
_loc. cit._) renders the allegory differently. “Brahmâ transformed
himself into night [or ignorance] invested with a body.” This the
Yakshas and Râkshasas seized, exclaiming, “Do not spare it; devour
it.” Brahmâ cried out, “Do not devour me; spare me.” This has an
inner meaning of course. The “Body of Night” is the darkness of
ignorance, and it is the darkness of silence and secrecy. Now the
Râkshasas are shown in almost every case to be Yogîs, pious Sâdhus
and Initiates, a rather unusual occupation for Demons. The meaning
then is that while we have power to dispel the darkness of
ignorance—“devour it”—we have to preserve the sacred truth from
profanation. “Brahmâ is for the Brâhmans alone,” says that proud
caste. The moral of the _fable_ is evident.
384 The gradual evolution of man in the Secret Doctrine shows that all
the later (to the profane the earliest) Races have their _physical_
origin in the early Fourth Race. But it is the sub‐race, which
preceded the one that separated sexually, that is to be regarded as
the _spiritual_ ancestors of our present generations, and especially
of the Eastern Âryan Races. Weber’s idea that the Indo‐Germanic Race
preceded the Âryan Vedic Race is, to the Occultist, grotesque to the
last degree.
385 _Cf._ especially Schmidt’s _Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism_, pp.
39 _et seqq._, and Laing’s _A Modern Zoroastrian_, pp. 102‐111.
386 Every process of healing and cicatrization in the higher animal
groups—even in the case of reproduction of mutilated limbs with the
Amphibians—is effected by _fission_ and _gemmation_ of the
elementary morphological elements.
387 The term here means neither the dolicho‐cephalic nor the brachyo‐
cephalic, nor yet skulls of a smaller volume, but simply brains
devoid of intellect generally. The theory which would judge of the
intellectual capacity of a man according to his cranial capacity,
seems absurdly illogical to one who has studied the subject. The
skulls of the stone period, as well as those of African races
(Bushmen included) show that the first are above rather than below
the average of the brain capacity of the modern man, and the skulls
of the last are on the whole (as also in the case of Papuans and
Polynesians generally) larger by one cubic inch than that of the
average Frenchman. Again, the cranial capacity of the Parisian of
to‐day represents an average of 1437 cubic centimetres compared to
1523 of the Auvergnat.
388 A. Lefèvre, _Philosophy_, p. 498.
389 _Principles of Zoology_, p. 206.
390 i. 154.
391 The boneless.
392 The _first_ Sweat‐born. This is explained in the Section which
follows this series of Stanzas in the allegory from the _Purânas_
concerning Kandu, the holy sage, and Pramlochâ, the nymph who is
alleged to have hypnotized him; a suggestive allegory,
scientifically, as the drops of perspiration which she exuded, are
the symbols of the spores of Science.
393 This will be explained as we proceed. This unwillingness to fashion
men, or create, is symbolized in the _Purânas_ by Daksha’s dealings
with his opponent Nârada, the “strife‐making ascetic.”
394 Androgyne Third Race. The Evolutionist Professor Schmidt alludes to
“the fact of the separation of sexes, as to the derivation of which
from species _once hermaphrodite_ all [the believers in Creation
naturally excepted] are assuredly of one accord.” (_Doctrine of
Descent and Darwinism_, p. 159.) Such indeed is the incontestable
evidence drawn from the presence of rudimentary organs. Apart from
such palpable traces of a primeval hermaphroditism, the fact may be
noted that, as Laing writes, “a study of embryology ... shows that
in the _human higher animal_ species the distinction of sex is not
developed until a _considerable progress_ has been made in the
growth of the embryo.” (_A Modern Zoroastrian_, p. 106.) The Law of
Retardation—operative alike in the case of human races, animal
species, etc., when a higher type has once been evolved—still
preserves hermaphroditism as the reproductive method of the majority
of plants and many lower animals.
395 Vehicle.
396 _Vishnu Purâna_, I. vii; Wilson, i. 100.
397 See _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 111.
398 For explanations and a philosophical account of the nature of those
Beings, which are now viewed as the “evil” and rebellious Spirits,
the Creators by Kriyâshakti, the reader is referred to the chapters
on “The Myth of the ‘Fallen Angel,’ in its Various Aspects,” in Part
II of this Volume.
399 _Vishnu Purâna_, III. ii.
400 In the oldest MS. of the _Vishnu Purâna_ in the possession of an
Initiate in Southern India, the God is not Indra, but Kâma, the God
of love and desire.
401 These are the exoteric figures given in a purposely reversed and
distorted way, being the figure of the duration of the cycle between
the First and Second human Race. All Orientalists to the contrary,
there is not a word in any of the _Purânas_ that has not a special
esoteric meaning.
402 _Vishnu Purâna_, I. xv; Wilson, ii. 5. Compare also Vivien’s
temptation of Merlin (Tennyson)—the same legend in Irish tradition.
403 x. 129.
404 The text has: “From Brahmâ, continuing to meditate, were born mind‐
engendered progeny, with forms and faculties derived from his
corporeal nature, _embodied spirits_, produced from the limbs
(Gâtra) of Dhîmat (all‐wise deity).” All these beings were the abode
of the three qualities of Devasarga, or divine creation, which, as
the five‐fold creation, is _devoid of clearness of perception,
without reflection_, dull of nature. “But as they _did not multiply
themselves_, Brahmâ created other mind‐born sons like himself,”
namely, the Brahmarshis, or the Prajâpatis, ten and seven in number.
“Sanandana and the other sons of Vedhas (Brahmâ) were previously
created,” but as shown elsewhere, they were “_without desire or
passion_, inspired with holy wisdom, estranged from the universe and
undesirous of progeny.” (_Vishnu Purâna_, X. vii; Wilson’s Trans.,
i. 100, 101.) These Sanandana and other Kumâras are then the Gods,
who after refusing to “create progeny” are forced to incarnate in
senseless men. The reader must pardon unavoidable repetitions in
view of the great number of facts given.
405 Compare Schlagintweit’s _Buddhism in Tibet_, pp. 88‐90.
406 See Edkins’ _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 208.
407 The previous Third Round.
408 Of this Round.
409 An allegorical reference to the “Sacred Animals” of the Zodiac and
other heavenly bodies. Some Kabalists see in them the prototypes of
the animals.
410 In _Hesiod_, Zeus creates his Third Race of men out of ash‐trees. In
the _Popol Vuh_ the Third Race of men is created out of the tree
Tzita and the marrow of the reed called Sibac. But Sibac means “egg”
in the mystery language of the Artufas, or Initiation caves. In a
report sent in 1812 to the Cortes by Don Baptista Pino it is said:
“All the Pueblos have their Artufas—so the natives call subterranean
rooms with only a single door where they (secretly) assemble....
These are impenetrable temples ... and the doors are always closed
to the Spaniards.... They adore the Sun and Moon ... fire and the
great _Snake_ (the creative power), whose eggs are called Sibac.”
411 There is a notable difference _esoterically_ between the words Sarpa
and Nâga, though they are both used indiscriminately. Sarpa,
serpent, is from the root _srip_, to creep, compare, Lat., _serp‐o_;
and they are called Ahi, from _hâ_, to abandon. The Sarpas were
produced from Brahmâ’s hair, which, owing to his fright at beholding
the Yakshas, whom he had created horrible to behold, fell off from
the head, each hair becoming a serpent. They are called “Sarpa from
their creeping and Ahi because they had deserted the head.” (Wilson,
i. 83.) But the Nâgas, in the allegories, their serpent’s tail
notwithstanding, do not creep, but manage to walk, run and fight.
412 Wilson translates the word as “demigods” (_Vishnu Purâna_, i. 130);
but Raumas are simply a race, a tribe.
413 xii. 10,308.
414 Wilson, _ibid._, p. 123.
415 _Ibid._, ii. 10.
416 Serpents.
417 Race.
418 Also.
419 Into male and female.
420 Then.
421 Man.
422 The “narrow‐headed.” Compare Shloka 24.
423 The “narrow‐headed.”
424 See Commentary on Shloka 36.
425 These “animals,” or monsters, are not the anthropoid or any other
apes, but verily what the Anthropologists might call the “missing
link,” the primitive lower man.
426 The shame of their animal origin which our modern Scientists would
emphasize if they could.
427 _The Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism_, pp. 186, 187. The “unknown
ancestry” referred to are the _primæval_ astral prototypes.
428 “A very strong argument in favour of variability is supplied by the
science of embryology. Is not a man in the uterus ... a simple cell,
a vegetable with three or four leaflets, a tadpole with branchiæ, a
mammal with a tail, lastly a primate [?] and a biped? It is scarcely
possible not to recognize in the embryonic evolution a rapid sketch,
a faithful summary, of the entire organic series.” (Lefèvre,
_Philosophy_, p. 484.)
The summary alluded to is, however, only that of the _store of
types_ hoarded up in man, the microcosm. This simple explanation
meets all such objections, as the presence of the rudimentary tail
in the fœtus—a fact triumphantly paraded by Hæckel and Darwin as
conclusively in favour of the Ape‐Ancestor Theory. It may also be
pointed out that _the presence of a vegetable with leaflets_ in the
embryonic stages is _not explained_ on ordinary evolutionist
principles. Darwinists have not traced man through the vegetable,
but Occultists have. _Why then this feature in the embryo_, and how
do the former explain it?
429 “The Proofs of Evolution,” a lecture by Hæckel.
430 Vol. i. pp. 388‐390.
431 See Cory, _Ancient Fragments_, pp. 21, _et seqq._
432 _Origin of Species_, pp. 448, 449, first edition.
433 Vol. i. p. 154.
434 The sin committed with the animals.
435 The Spirits, the “Sons of Wisdom.”
436 Who had refused to “create.”
437 Mindless.
438 Mind.
439 This verse in the _Rig Veda_ (x. 5, 6): “The Seven Wise Ones [Rays
of Wisdom, Dhyânis] fashion Seven Paths [or Lines, and also Races in
another sense]. To one of these may the distressed mortal come”—a
verse interpreted solely from the astronomical and cosmic aspect, is
one of the most pregnant in occult meaning. The “Paths” may mean
Lines (Maryâdâh), but they are primarily Beams of Light falling on
the Paths leading to Wisdom. (See _Rig Veda_, iv. 5‐13.) It means
“Ways” or Paths. They are, in short, the seven Rays which fall free
from the Macrocosmic Centre, the seven Principles in the
metaphysical, the seven Races in the physical sense. All depends
upon the key used.
440 _Rig Veda_, x. 10, 5, 2.
441 It is next to impossible to translate verbally some of these old
Commentaries. We are often obliged to give the meaning only, and
thus retranslate the verbatim translations.
442 Rudra, as a Kumâra, is Nîlalohita—red and blue.
443 This, regardless of modern materialistic evolution, which speculates
in this wise: “The primitive human form, whence as we think all
human species sprang, has perished this long time. [This we deny: it
has only decreased in size and changed in texture.] But many facts
point to the conclusion that it was hairy and dolichocephalic.
[African races are even _now_ dolichocephalic in a great measure,
but the palæolithic Neanderthal skull, the oldest we know of, is of
a large size, and no nearer to the capacity of the gorilla’s cranium
than that of any other now‐living man.] Let us, for the time being,
call this hypothetical species _homo primigenius_.... This first
species, or the ape‐man, the ancestor of all the others, _probably_
arose in the _tropical regions_ of the old world from _anthropoid
apes_.” Asked for proofs, the Evolutionist, not the least daunted,
replies: “Of these _no fossil remains are as yet known to us, but
they were probably akin to the Gorilla and Orang of the present
day_.” And then the Papuan negro is mentioned as the probable
descendant in the first line. (_Pedigree of Man_, p. 80.)