in the Icelandic sagas and tales, are carefully put together, they
give a grand picture of the history of Earth and Man from the first
dawn of the present great Day of evolution. Clear and scientific in
the broad outlines, they will some day surely prove a gold-mine of
useful knowledge for future researches into the past. Nor do they
stop with the history of the past and its blending with the present,
but go farther and picture the destruction of life as we know it in a
purifying fire, and show how a new earth arises from the sea, whereon a
new and lasting Golden Age will be enjoyed by Gods and men.
When Earth had assumed its shape and was ready to receive living
beings, the Creative Wisdom permeated the elements and in the ensuing
fermentation the cow Audumla appeared. Licking the salt rocks she
liberated from the life-germs of the various elements a great and
beautiful being endowed with a divine spirit. He became the father of
the Gods who rule and protect the world of Man in this cycle.
Drops of venom from the Fount of Frost grew to another being, the
giant Ymer, who nourished by Audumla's milk brought into being various
giants, some good, but many evil and horrible. Among the good are the
wise Mimer, the guardian of the Fount of Wisdom at one of the three
roots of the world-tree, Yggdrasil; and the three Norns, Urd, Verdande
and Skuld--Urd, the Norn of the Present, being the guardian of the
Fount of Life at another of Yggdrasil's roots.
Odin knew his mighty task as chief ruler of human life in this cycle.
But he was not yet perfect and felt himself lacking in strength;
therefore he went to Mimer to drink from the Fount of Wisdom. None, not
even the Gods, can, however, win this precious drink without proving
his worthiness, and here at the very outset we meet with the great
example of self-sacrifice. Odin gave up himself to his greater Self,
remained for "nine days and nights" in Yggdrasil without food or drink,
looking inward to the roots of things, listening to the mystic song out
of the depth. Purified and prepared, he was allowed to drink from the
water of Wisdom and learned from Mimer nine wonderful and potent songs.
And Odin grew henceforth rapidly in knowledge and creative power.
Presiding over the Gods and the various hierarchies in Nature he then
began to make Earth a fitting habitation for man. That done, Odin
visited Midgard with his two brothers, Höner and Lodur, and there on
the shore they found two trees, "powerless and without destiny." Lodur
loosened them from their connexion with earth, giving them power to
move and act from inner impulses, and made them images of the Gods;
Höner endowed them with a human Ego, having consciousness and will; and
finally Odin gave them the most precious gift, the spirit.
In the childhood of the Earth men long lived in a golden age of
unbroken peace, knowing of no evil. But there came a time when two
beings among the giants, both adopted by the Gods as members of the
Asgard family, appeared among men tempting them to evil things, the
man Loke, and the woman Gullveig (the golden way, or stream), Gullveig
being the worse. To strengthen the good in human hearts, enlighten them
and prepare them for coming days of strife, the Gods sent to Midgard as
Teacher Heimdall, the Shining One, the God of the pure and most sacred
fire. He brought with him many things not before seen in Midgard, and
as the ruler of the people he instructed them in cultivating the soil,
in sowing the seed he had brought, and in preparing bread; in carving
and forging, spinning and weaving, cutting runes and reading. He taught
them how to tame animals for domestic use, to build houses and to
form families and communities; also the use of weapons in protection
against animals. And further he informed them of the rules laid down
by the Norns for a righteous life, and of the names and functions of
the Gods. He showed them how to build altars and temples for worship,
and brought to them the pure and undefiled fire produced by friction,
the only one worthy of burning in the shrine of the Gods; and then he
taught them the sacred songs that ever since have sounded from the lips
of men in praise of divine powers.
But even now Gullveig began her wanderings among men and secretly
taught them runes and songs which counteracted Heimdall's teachings.
When the Gods became aware of this, they had her burned; but her heart
was proof against fire. Loke found it, and swallowing it he brought
into the world the monster-wolf Fenris, which feeds on all the evil
thoughts and feelings among men.
Gullveig soon incarnated again and continued her ways unrecognized
for a long period. When discovered she was burned a second time, Loke
again finding her heart and giving life to the giantess of pestilence,
Leikin. The same thing happened a third time, and then was born the
Midgard-Snake, destined to grow rapidly and finally to encircle the
whole earth.
While Gullveig spread ruin in human life, Loke caused enmity and
strife among the powers of nature and even among the Gods. Many were
the resulting wars in Asgard, besides the constant warfare against
the giants; and always they were followed by wars in Midgard. At last
the Gods were divided to such a degree that Odin, rather than cause
the death of many of his nearest kin, left Asgard and the guidance of
humanity in the care of the Vaner Gods, who otherwise presided over
the regular course of the processes of Nature. When the giants learned
this they thought it a fit time to gain supremacy not only over Midgard
but even over Asgard itself. Odin knew this in good time, through his
power of prevision, and he issued from his retreat "far in the East" to
warn the Vaner Gods and offer them assistance. The fearful resulting
war united the Gods once more, after which Odin was freely offered the
high seat in Asgard, where, purified and perfected by experience and
adversity he now rules with wisdom until the last day of the cycle.
Heimdall "died" in Midgard before the golden age was over, and he was
followed by his son Sköld-Borgar. His son, Halfdan, became the first
king, and led the people in all the battles that followed in the new
age, while constantly overshadowed by the Gods. On the other side the
chief was Od-Svipdag, a most heroic and valiant champion. War after war
raged, one of them being so frightful that a new generation had to grow
up before new armies could be collected.
Svipdag is a most remarkable character, who journeys to the Underworld
and obtains the "avenging sword" which nothing can resist, not even
the hammer of Thor. The fate of the world seems to depend on his mind,
when at the critical moment his love for the Goddess Fröja turns his
steps to Asgard, in order to make peace with the Gods. He then lives
mostly in Asgard with Fröja and is sent by the Gods on many difficult
journeys, even to the Underworld to find whether Balder, the God of
purity, who had died when strife came into the world, could not return
from his safe retreat near the Fount of Wisdom.
The great Ice period is described as coming in Halfdan's days, the
people being obliged to leave the Northern countries for more southern
climes. But when the ice at last receded they went back step by
step northward, fighting continual battles. Halfdan at last dies by
Svipdag's sword, and is followed by his brave son, Hadding. And thus we
reach the present age, which is depicted as one of supreme darkness.
Seldom nowadays the Gods appear before men, for they are few who by
a righteous and sincere life keep the link unbroken with the regions
in the crown of Yggdrasil. The evil is increasing all the time; men
have forgotten their divine birth, and they prostitute their divine
powers. Yet above the veil of darkness the Gods rule as ever, helping
wherever there is an opportunity; while elves and dwarfs and all the
other nature sprites continue to fulfil their duties in the economy of
nature, although no longer seen by men.
Much is said about the process of death. Man is made up of six
principles, and death is a purification whereby the higher and purer
elements, after passing through the second death, go to the bliss of
the presence of the Gods. If man in life has developed his "inner body"
by noble living, then he passes easily through the trials and the
judgment of the Gods. If not, then he is held down by the demons of
passion and lust and meets torture and suffering.
Of Reincarnation there is little in the form of direct statement,
probably partly because carefully removed in Christian times, and
partly because it forms an integral part of the whole conception of
life found in all ancient sagas. Some of the heroes are, however,
named in more than one incarnation, showing the same soul in different
garments. The noblest and the worst reincarnate almost immediately; for
others some time has first to elapse.
In the efflorescence of time the hour will at length arrive for
Ragnarök, the great purifying battle and fire, when evil will be
destroyed in the final war between good and evil. The Gods assemble
with their faithful, Odin leading, majestic, calm and wiser than ever,
knowing that he and most of the Gods will have to buy the victory with
their lives. The different groups on both sides are pictured with
matchless boldness and vividness, and we see how each has to meet his
fate. Odin is killed by the Fenris Wolf; Thor kills the Midgard Snake,
but falls dead from its venom. The giants who have possessed themselves
of the "avenging sword" use it in the battle, but at the same moment
their fate is sealed. For this sword was so forged that if swung by a
giant it would destroy the giant world.
At the close of the fearful battle the very foundations of the earth
seem to tremble. Fires rise towards heaven, and amid flame and smoke
and destruction--the Gods still living--Odin's sons Vidar and Vale,
and Thor's sons Magne and Mode, ride to the Underworld, to Balder's
peaceful land, where neither death nor destruction are.
And the old earth finally sinks into the sea, dissolved into slag
and ashes. The flames die. The air is purified by the fire, the sky
is bluer than ever. From the sea arises a new earth, covered with
luxuriant vegetation. It is the regions of the Underworld near the
Founts of Wisdom and Life, the lands of Mimer and Urd, that now appear.
Those founts, so long nearly dry, again flow copiously, and Yggdrasil
is fresh and green. The days of golden life return to Gods and men.
Balder assumes full sway, and the new earth is peopled from the two
races who have been spared for that purpose, living in purity unstained
along with Balder during the age of darkness. Even animals have been
spared in the same way and enjoy the new Day. It is the happy Day of
Balder the Pure and Righteous.
But even this is not the final scene, according to the Northern
mythology. A mightier Being than even Balder will come after him,
descending upon a still higher and more purified earth. It is the
unnamed God whose servant Urd is, One whose spirit blendeth with all
living things by virtue of the Fount of Wisdom--an omnipotent God, a
God bringing highest peace, who will then "establish a worship that
will endure forevermore."
[Illustration: Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept. RUINS OF THE DIPYLON
GATE OF ANCIENT ATHENS]
[Illustration: Lomaland Photo. and Engraving Dept. ANCIENT ATHENIAN
TOMBS ALONG THE SACRED WAY]
THE DIPYLON AND THE OUTER CERAMICUS: by F. S. Darrow, A. M., Ph. D.
(Harv.)
The Dipylon or "Double Gate" (so named because it consisted of an
inner and an outer gateway, separated by a court), was the principal
entrance of classical Athens at the west end of the city. Probably,
it was built under Perikles' directions on the site of the still
older Thriasian Gate, but the extant remains which are shown in the
accompanying illustration belong to a somewhat later alteration. The
gateway itself, because of its size and position (it was at the lowest
point of the city walls) was surrounded by massive fortifications. The
inner wall with the upright stone, marking one of the boundaries of the
Outer Ceramicus or ancient Potters' quarters just outside the city, was
built by Themistokles, but the outer wall shown in the illustration
was probably added by Perikles. About sixty yards to the west of
the Dipylon, that is to the right of the illustration, is a smaller
gateway, which is thought to be the Sacred Gate, used for the exit and
entrance of the Procession of Mystics during the celebration of the
Eleusinian Mysteries.
In ancient times three roads lined with tombs led from the Dipylon,
namely, the Road to the Academy, the Sacred Way leading to Eleusis,
and the Road to the harbor, the Peiraeeus. Along the Road leading to
the Academy were buried those who had died fighting for their country
on land and on sea. The public burials were made at the end of each
campaign, when the bones of the slain were placed in coffins of cypress
wood, one coffin for each of the ten Athenian tribes, and an empty
one, serving symbolically for the burial of those whose bodies could
not be recovered. Citizens and strangers alike were permitted to join
in the procession, and as the coffins were lowered, a speaker publicly
appointed ascended a lofty pulpit and delivered an oration in honor of
the dead.
Thukydides says:
The public cemetery is situated in the most beautiful spot outside
the walls and there the Athenians always bury those who fall in war;
but after the battle of Marathon the dead in recognition of their
pre-eminent valor were interred on the field.
It was here in the winter of 431 B. C., while delivering his immortal
funeral oration that Perikles declared:
It is difficult to say neither too little nor too much. I do not
commiserate the parents of the dead: I would rather comfort them.
Those men may be deemed fortunate who have gained the greatest honor.
To you who are sons and brothers of the departed I see that the
struggle to emulate them will be an arduous one. The dead have been
honorably interred and it remains only that their children should be
maintained at the public charge until they are grown up; this is the
solid prize with which, as with a garland, Athens crowns her sons,
living and dead.
The tombs of many of the most famous figures in Greek history were in
this public cemetery, including those of Harmodios and Aristogeiton,
the Tyrannicides; Kleisthenes, the Law-giver; Perikles, the greatest
Athenian Statesman; Thrasybulos, the Liberator, who overthrew the
Thirty Tyrants; Chabrias; Phormio; Konon and Timotheus, father and
son, "second only to Miltiades and Kimon for their brilliant feats";
and Lykurgos, the son of Lykophron, the Athenian orator and statesman,
who finished the Dionysiac Theater in stone and built the Docks at the
Peiraeeus.
The public tombs which once lined the Road to the Academy seem to have
been almost entirely destroyed, but many of the private tombs along the
Sacred Way may still be seen _in situ_. Some of these, which have been
well preserved (thanks to the fact that they were covered by a huge
mound in 86 B. C. when the Roman Cornelius Sulla was besieging Athens),
are shown in the second illustration.
THE THEOSOPHIC TORCH: by Grace Knoche
O the great benefactor who points the Way! To Triptolemus have
all men erected temples and altars, because he gave us food by
cultivation; but to him who discovered truth, and brought it to
light and communicated it to all--not the truth which shows us how
to live _but how to live well_--who of you has built an altar for
this, or a temple, or has dedicated a statue, or who worships God for
this?--_Epictetus_
The final stitches are taken in the little garment which has stood for
the evening's duty. It is folded and laid aside, to fill on the morrow
a need as impersonal as the service that need inspired, silent tribute
to a system of work so practical and so perfect in its conservation
of energy that the world is already clamoring at Lomaland gates to be
let into the secret. A pile of loved books--very tiny ones, _The Voice
of the Silence_, the _Bhagavad-Gitâ_, _Patañjali_, and the rest--lies
beside the sewing-basket, jostling the newspaper, which, because of the
temporary need of another, at present has to be given room. But I brush
it aside to take up one of the little writings--any one of them, from
cover to cover, would hardly make up a newspaper page--thankful that
if the frothy and distempered bilge-water of current crime and gossip
_does_ have to lie before me, I do not have to drink of it; grateful
that even in the present heyday of lower psychological influences I am
free to drink what I will, free to pick my associates from among the
immortals--if I choose. And so we parry, and give and take, question
on my part and answer on his--small wonder that H. P. B. paid tribute
to his philosophy and W. Q. J. to his life, this grand old Roman whose
company for an hour any one would be proud to have--Epictetus!
O the great benefactor who points the Way!
This, a tribute to the Helpers of Humanity by one who was humbly, yet
with the courage of Hercules, trying to fire the mind of his age with
the torch-gleam of a true philosophy of life--Theosophy in fact, but
adapted to the conditions of his time, a fevered and cruel time, though
with gleams of nobility and spiritual splendor here and there.
What a picture comes before one of this brave old Roman Socrates,
banished in his last years from Rome by the Emperor Domitian--for
the crime of being a philosopher! And then another picture--of the
Epictetus as the Rome of Nero knew him, young but never strong, weakly,
lame, the abused slave of Nero's profligate secretary; allowed by
his owner to study philosophy because it chanced to be the fashion
in wealthy Rome to number wise men among one's "possessions" as one
numbered cocks and fine horses; Epictetus, a slave, often in chains,
tortured at his master's whim--but a Torch-bearer of the Truth!
Although a disciple of Rufus, the great Stoic teacher of the time,
Epictetus himself claiming no superiority to his teacher whom he
lovingly quotes, the conviction forces itself upon one that the latter
bathed in a wider ocean of truth than that of Stoicism as a doctrine.
He quotes Socrates, Plato, Diogenes, far more than Zeno; he had no part
in the tolerance of many Stoics to the idea of suicide. And we hear him
down the ages fulminating against the Academics, the Epicureans, the
Skeptics; declaring the Godhood, the Divinity, of man; immortality, the
higher law, man's obligation to study human nature _in its duality_;
Karma, the power of the Spiritual Will, the royal road to happiness;
and man's obligation to integrity, fidelity, compassion, reverence,
gratitude, trust, love, wisdom and a noble use of power. What was he
banished for? what is it that he said?
If Caesar should adopt you, no one could endure your arrogance; to
know, then, that you are the son of Zeus--will you not be elated?...
You are a superior thing; you are a portion separated from the
Deity; you have in yourself a certain portion of Him. Why then are
you ignorant of your own noble descent? When you are in social
intercourse, when you are exercising yourself, when you are engaged in
discussion, _know you not that you are nourishing a god, that you are
exercising a god_?
But give me directions, you say. Why should I give you directions? Has
not Zeus given you directions? What directions, what kind of orders,
did you bring _when you came from Him_? To keep what is your own; not
to desire what is not your own. Fidelity is your own, and integrity,
and modesty and virtue; for who can take these things from you? who,
excepting yourself, can hinder you from using them? Having such
promptings and commands from Zeus, what kind do you still ask from me?
Am I more powerful than he, am I more worthy of confidence?
If you would make anything a habit, do it; if you would not make it
a habit, do not do it.... So with respect to the soul: when you have
been angry you must know that not only has this evil befallen you, but
that you have also increased the habit, and in a manner increased the
habit thrown fuel on the fire.... For he who has had a fever, and has
been relieved from it, is not in the same state that he was before,
unless he has been completely cured. _Something of the kind happens
also in diseases of the soul. Certain traces and blisters are left in
it, and unless a man shall completely efface them, when he is again
lashed in the same places, the lash will produce not welts but sores._
It is circumstances (difficulties) which show what men are. Therefore,
when a difficulty falls upon you, remember that God, like a trainer of
wrestlers, has matched you with a rough young man. For what purpose?
you may say. Why, that you may become an Olympic conqueror; _but it
is not accomplished without sweat_.... Hercules, when he was being
exercised by Eurytheus, never deemed himself wretched; but fulfilled
courageously all that was laid upon him. But he who shall cry out and
bear it hard when he is being exercised by Zeus, is he worthy to bear
the scepter of Diogenes?
The philosopher's school, ye men, is a surgery; you ought not to
go out of it with pleasure but with pain, for you are not in sound
health when you enter: one has dislocated his shoulder, another has
an abscess ... another a headache. And shall I sit and utter to you
little thoughts and exclamations, that you may praise me and go away,
one with his shoulder in the same condition as when he entered,
another with his head still aching, and a third with his fistula or
his abscess just as they were? Is it for this that young men quit
home and leave their parents and friends, their kinsmen and property,
that they may say to you, Wonderful! when you are uttering your
exclamations? Did Socrates do this, or Zeno, or Cleanthes?
Diogenes well said to one who asked from him letters of
recommendation, "That you are a man he will know as soon as he
sees you; and he will know whether you are good or bad if he has,
through experience, the skill to distinguish the good and the bad;
but if he has not, he would not know though I were to write him ten
thousand times." For it is just the same as if a drachma asked to be
recommended to a person. If he is skilful in testing silver, he will
know you (the drachma) for what you are. We ought then in life to be
able to have some such skill as in the case of silver coin, that we
may be able to say, like the judge of silver, Bring me any drachma and
I will test it.
When Florus was deliberating whether he should go down to Nero's
spectacles, and also perform in them, he asked Agrippinus for advice,
and Agrippinus said, Go down. But why do you not go down? said Florus;
and Agrippinus replied, I do not even deliberate about the matter;
_for he who has brought himself to calculate the value of external
things, is very near to those who have forgotten their own character_.
But if I do not take part, I shall have my head struck off. Go then,
said Agrippinus, and take part; but I will not. Why? Because you
consider yourself to be only one common thread in the tunic; it is
then fitting for you to take thought how you shall be like the rest of
men. But I wish to be purple, that small part which is bright, _and
makes all the rest appear graceful and beautiful_.
Katherine Tingley said recently in one of her intimate talks on the
subject of the individual responsibility of students in being given the
opportunity to bring a deeper than the common touch into the production
of _The Aroma of Athens_:
We are just now at a strange point in the cycle and in many ways are
linking ourselves with the past.
May not one evidence of this be an easier recognition of the Theosophic
Light that has been passed from hand to hand down the ages? Many have
been its disguises, many and strange the lamps holding it, often
obscured it has been, again nameless--but ever the one Light, the one
Flame, shining upon and enlightening all men.
THE PYTHAGOREAN SOLIDS:
by F. J. Dick, M. INST. C. E., M. INST. C. E. I.
Students of _The Secret Doctrine_ and of ancient teachings such as
those of Pythagoras, the Kabala, and the sacred books of different
races and epochs, are often puzzled by the frequent references to
Number, and to elementary plane forms like the circle, triangle, and
square. It may be surmised that these symbols refer to _meta_-physical
forces of various orders concealed within the "atom" and within nature
generally. For nature is built, obviously enough, upon some internal
principles of structural harmony. Without discussing the many avenues
of thought suggested by a study of the five regular solids, the main
features of these forms may be briefly summarized.