Arguing upon the virtue in names (Baalshem), Molitor thinks it impossible
to deny that the _Kabalah_—its present abuses notwithstanding—has some
very profound and scientific basis to stand upon. And if it is claimed, he
argues,
That before the Name of Jesus every other Name must bend, why
should not the Tetragrammaton have the same power?(192)
This is good sense and logic. For if Pythagoras viewed the hexagon formed
of two crossed triangles as the symbol of creation, and the Egyptians, as
that of the union of fire and water (or of generation), the Essenes saw in
it the Seal of Solomon, the Jews the Shield of David, the Hindus the Sign
of Vishnu (to this day); and if even in Russia and Poland the double
triangle is regarded as a powerful talisman—then so widespread a use
argues that there is something in it. It stands to reason, indeed, that
such an ancient and universally revered symbol should not be merely laid
aside to be laughed at by those who know nothing of its virtues or real
Occult significance. To begin with, even the known sign is merely a
substitute for the one used by the Initiates. In a Tântrika work in the
British Museum, a terrible curse is called down upon the head of him who
shall ever divulge to the profane the real Occult hexagon known as the
“Sign of Vishnu,” “Solomon’s Seal,” etc.
The great power of the hexagon—with its central mystic sign the T, or the
Svastika, a septenary—is well explained in the seventh key of _Things
Concealed_, for it says:
The seventh key is the hieroglyph of the sacred septenary, of
royalty, of the priesthood [the Initiate], of triumph and true
result by struggle. It is magic power in all its force, the true
“Holy Kingdom.” In the Hermetic Philosophy it is the quintessence
resulting from the union of the two forces of the great Magic
Agent [Âkâsha, Astral Light.].... It is equally Jakin and Boaz
bound by the will of the Adept and overcome by his omnipotence.
The force of this key is absolute in Magic. All religions have consecrated
this sign in their rites.
We can only glance hurriedly at present at the long series of antediluvian
works in their postdiluvian and fragmentary, often disfigured, form.
Although all of these are the inheritance from the Fourth Race—now lying
buried in the unfathomed depths of the ocean—still they are not to be
rejected. As we have shown, there was but one Science at the dawn of
mankind, and it was entirely divine. If humanity on reaching its adult
period has abused it—especially the last Sub‐Races of the Fourth Root‐
Race—it has been the fault and sin of the practitioners who desecrated the
divine knowledge, not of those who remained true to its pristine dogmas.
It is not because the modern Roman Catholic Church, faithful to her
traditional intolerance, is now pleased to see in the Occultist, and even
in the innocent Spiritualist and Mason, the descendants of “the Kischuph,
the Hamite, the Kasdim, the Cephene, the Ophite and the Khartumim”—all
these being “the followers of Satan,” that they are such indeed. The State
or National Religion of every country has ever and at all times very
easily disposed of rival schools by professing to believe they were
dangerous heresies—the old Roman Catholic State Religion as much as the
modern one.
The anathema, however, has not made the public any the wiser in the
Mysteries of the Occult Sciences. In some respects the world is all the
better for such ignorance. The secrets of Nature generally cut both ways,
and in the hands of the undeserving they are more than likely to become
murderous. Who in our modern day knows anything of the real significance
of, and the powers contained in, certain characters and
signs—talismans—whether for beneficent or evil purposes? Fragments of the
Runes and the writing of the Kischuph, found scattered in old mediæval
libraries; copies from the Ephesian and Milesian letters or characters;
the thrice famous _Book of Thoth_, and the terrible treatises (still
preserved) of Targes, the Chaldæan, and his disciple Tarchon, the
Etruscan—who flourished long before the Trojan War—are so many names and
appellations void of sense (though met with in classical literature) for
the educated modern scholar. Who, in the nineteenth century, believes in
the art, described in such treatises as those of Targes, of evoking and
directing thunder‐bolts? Yet the same is described in the Brâhmanical
literature, and Targes copied his “thunder‐bolts” from the Astra,(193)
those terrible engines of destruction known to the Mahâbhâratan Âryans. A
whole arsenal of dynamite bombs would pale before this art—if it ever
becomes understood by the Westerns. It is from an old fragment that was
translated to him, that the late Lord Bulwer Lytton got his idea of Vril.
It is a lucky thing, indeed, that, in the face of the virtues and
philanthropy that grace our age of iniquitous wars, of anarchists and
dynamiters, the secrets contained in the books discovered in Numa’s tomb
should have been burnt. But the science of Circe and Medea is not lost.
One can discover it in the apparent gibberish of the Tântrika Sûtras, the
_Kuku‐ma_ of the Bhûtânî and the Sikhim Dugpas and “Red‐caps” of Tibet,
and even in the sorcery of the Nîlgiri Mula Kurumbas. Very luckily few
outside the high practitioners of the Left Path and of the Adepts of the
Right—in whose hands the weird secrets of the real meaning are
safe—understand the “black” evocations. Otherwise the Western as much as
the Eastern Dugpas might make short work of their enemies. The name of the
latter is legion, for the direct descendants of the antediluvian sorcerers
hate all those who are not with them, arguing that, therefore, they are
against them.
As for the “Little Albert”—though even this small half‐esoteric volume has
become a literary relic—and the “Great Albert” or the “Red Dragon,”
together with the numberless old copies still in existence, the sorry
remains of the mythical Mother Shiptons and the Merlins—we mean the false
ones—all these are vulgarised imitations of the original works of the same
names. Thus the “Petit Albert” is the disfigured imitation of the great
work written in Latin by Bishop Adalbert, an Occultist of the eighth
century, sentenced by the second Roman Concilium. His work was reprinted
several centuries later and named _Alberti Parvi Lucii Libellus de
Mirabilibus Naturæ Arcanis_. The severities of the Roman Church have ever
been spasmodic. While one learns of this condemnation, which placed the
Church, as will be shown, in relation to the Seven Archangels, the Virtues
or Thrones of God, in the most embarrassing position for long centuries,
it remains a wonder indeed, to find that the Jesuits have not destroyed
the archives, with all their countless chronicles and annals, of the
History of France and those of the Spanish Escurial, along with them. Both
history and the chronicles of the former speak at length of the priceless
talisman received by Charles the Great from a Pope. It was a little volume
on Magic—or Sorcery, rather—all full of kabalistic figures, signs,
mysterious sentences and invocations to the stars and planets. These were
talismans against the enemies of the King (_les ennemis de Charlemagne_),
which talismans, the chronicler tells us, proved of great help, as “every
one of them [the enemies] died a violent death.” The small volume,
_Enchiridium Leonis Papæ_, has disappeared and is very luckily out of
print. Again the Alphabet of Thoth can be dimly traced in the modern Tarot
which can be had at almost every bookseller’s in Paris. As for its being
understood or utilised, the many fortune‐tellers in Paris, who make a
professional living by it, are sad specimens of failures of attempts at
reading, let alone correctly interpreting, the symbolism of the Tarot
without a preliminary philosophical study of the Science. The real Tarot,
in its complete symbology, can be found only in the Babylonian cylinders,
that any one can inspect and study in the British Museum and elsewhere.
Any one can see these Chaldæan, antediluvian rhombs, or revolving
cylinders, covered with sacred signs; but the secrets of these divining
“wheels,” or, as de Mirville calls them, “the rotating globes of Hecate,”
have to be left untold for some time to come. Meanwhile there are the
“turning‐tables” of the modern medium for the babes, and the _Kabalah_ for
the strong. This may afford some consolation.
People are very apt to use terms which they do not understand, and to pass
judgments on _primâ facie_ evidence. The difference between White and
Black Magic is very difficult to realise fully, as both have to be judged
by their motive, upon which their ultimate though not their immediate
effects depend, even though these may not come for years. Between the
“right and the left hand [Magic] there is but a cobweb thread,” says an
Eastern proverb. Let us abide by its wisdom and wait till we have learned
more.
We shall have to return at greater length to the relation of the _Kabalah_
to Gupta Vidyâ, and to deal further with esoteric and numerical systems,
but we must first follow the line of Adepts in post‐Christian times.