When the Occultist speaks of Elements, and of human Beings who lived
during those geological ages, the duration of which it is found as
impossible to determine—according to the opinion of one of the best
English Geologists(960)—as the nature of Matter, it is because he knows
what he is talking about. When he says Man and Elements, he means neither
man in his present physiological and anthropological form, nor the
elemental Atoms, those hypothetical conceptions, existing at present in
scientific minds, the entitative abstractions of Matter in its highly
attenuated state; nor, again, does he mean the compound Elements of
Antiquity. In Occultism the word Element in every case means _Rudiment_.
When we say “Elementary Man,” we mean either the proëmial, incipient
sketch of man, in its unfinished and undeveloped condition, hence in that
form which now lies latent in physical man during his life‐time, and takes
shape only occasionally and under certain conditions; or, that form which
for a time survives the material body, and which is better known as an
Elementary.(961) With regard to Element, when the term is used
metaphysically, it means, in distinction to the mortal, the incipient
Divine Man; and, in its physical usage, it means inchoate Matter in its
first undifferentiated condition, or in the Laya state, the eternal and
normal condition of Substance, which differentiates only periodically;
during that differentiation, Substance is really in an abnormal state—in
other words, it is but a transitory illusion of the senses.
As to the Elemental Atoms, so‐called, the Occultists refer to them by that
name with a meaning analogous to that which is given by the Hindû to
Brahmâ, when he calls him Anu, the Atom. Every Elemental Atom, in search
of which more than one Chemist has followed the path indicated by the
Alchemists, is, in their firm belief, when not _knowledge_, a Soul; not
necessarily a disembodied Soul, but a Jîva, as the Hindûs call it, a
centre of Potential Vitality, with latent intelligence in it, and, in the
case of compound Souls, an intelligent active Existence, from the highest
to the lowest order, a form composed of more or less differentiations. It
requires a Metaphysician—and an Eastern Metaphysician—to understand our
meaning. All those Atom‐Souls are differentiations from the One, and are
in the same relation to it as is the Divine Soul, Buddhi, to its informing
and inseparable Spirit, Âtmâ.
Modern Physics, in borrowing from the Ancients their Atomic Theory, forgot
one point, the most important point of the doctrine; hence they have got
only the husks and will never be able to get the kernel. In adopting
physical Atoms, they omitted the suggestive fact that, from Anaxagoras to
Epicurus, to the Roman Lucretius, and finally even to Galileo, all these
Philosophers believed more or less in _animated_ Atoms, not in invisible
specks of so‐called “brute” matter. According to them, rotatory motion was
generated by larger (read, more divine and pure) Atoms forcing other Atoms
downwards; the lighter ones being simultaneously thrust upward. The
Esoteric meaning of this is the ever cyclic curve of differentiated
Elements downward and upward through intercyclic phases of existence,
until each again reaches its starting‐point or birthplace. The idea was
metaphysical as well as physical; the hidden interpretation embracing Gods
or Souls, in the shape of Atoms, as the _causes_ of all the _effects_
produced on Earth by the _secretions_ from the divine bodies.(962) No
Ancient Philosopher, not even the Jewish Kabalists, ever dissociated
Spirit from Matter, or Matter from Spirit. Everything originated in the
One, and, proceeding from the One, must finally return to the One.
Light becomes heat, and consolidates into fiery particles; which,
from being ignited, become cold, hard particles, round and smooth.
And this is called Soul, imprisoned in its robe of matter.(963)
Atoms and Souls were synonymous in the language of the Initiates. The
doctrine of “whirling Souls,” Gilgoolem, in which so many learned Jews
have believed,(964) had no other meaning esoterically. The learned Jewish
Initiates never meant Palestine alone by the Promised Land, but they meant
the same Nirvâna as do the learned Buddhist and Brahman—the bosom of the
Eternal ONE, symbolized by that of Abraham, and by Palestine as its
substitute on Earth.
Surely no educated Jew ever believed this allegory in its literal sense,
that the bodies of Jews contain within them a principle of Soul which
cannot rest, if the bodies are deposited in a foreign land, until, by a
process called the “whirling of the Soul” the immortal particle reaches
once more the sacred soil of the “Promised Land.”(965) The meaning of this
is evident to an Occultist. The process was supposed to be accomplished by
a kind of metempsychosis, the psychic spark being conveyed through bird,
beast, fish, and the most minute insect.(966) The allegory relates to the
_Atoms of the body_, each of which has to pass through every form, before
all reach the final state, which is the first starting‐point of the
departure of every Atom—its primitive Laya state. But the primitive
meaning of Gilgoolem, or the “Revolution of Souls,” was the idea of the
reïncarnating Souls or Egos. “All the Souls go into the Gilgoolah,” into a
cyclic or revolving process; _i.e._, they all proceed on the cyclic path
of re‐births. Some Kabalists interpret this doctrine to mean only a kind
of purgatory for the souls of the wicked. But this is not so.
The passage of the Soul‐Atom “through the seven Planetary Chambers” had
the same metaphysical and physical meaning. It had the latter when it was
said to dissolve into Ether. Even Epicurus, the model Atheist and
Materialist, knew so much and believed so much in the ancient Wisdom, that
he taught that the Soul—entirely distinct from immortal Spirit, when the
former is enshrined _latent_ in it, as it is in every atomic speck—was
composed of a fine, tender essence, formed from the _smoothest, roundest,
and finest atoms_.(967)
And this shows that the ancient Initiates, who were followed more or less
closely by all profane Antiquity, meant by the term Atom, a Soul, a Genius
or Angel, the first‐born of the ever‐concealed Cause of all causes; and in
this sense their teachings become comprehensible. They asserted, as do
their successors, the existence of Gods and Genii, Angels or Demons, not
outside, nor independent of, the Universal Plenum, but within it. Only
this Plenum, during the life‐cycles, is infinite. They admitted and taught
a good deal of that which modern Science now teaches—namely, the existence
of a primordial World‐Stuff or Cosmic Substance, eternally homogeneous,
except during its periodic existence; then, universally diffused
throughout infinite Space, it differentiates, and gradually forms sidereal
bodies from itself. They taught the revolution of the Heavens, the Earth’s
rotation, the Heliocentric System, and the Atomic Vortices—Atoms being in
reality Souls and Intelligences. These “Atomists” were spiritual, most
transcendental, and philosophical Pantheists. It is not they who would
have ever conceived or dreamed that monstrous contrasted progeny, the
nightmare of our modern civilized race: inanimate material and self‐
guiding Atoms, on the one hand, and an extra‐cosmic God on the other.
It may be useful to show what the Monad was, and what its origin, in the
teachings of the old Initiates.
Modern exact Science, as soon as it began to grow out of its teens,
perceived the great, and to it hitherto esoteric, axiom, that nothing,
whether in the spiritual, psychic, or physical realm of Being, could come
into existence out of nothing. There is no cause in the manifested
Universe without its adequate effects, whether in Space or Time; nor can
there be an effect without its primal cause, which itself owes its
existence to a still higher one—the final and absolute Cause having to
remain to man for ever an incomprehensible Causeless Cause. But even this
is no solution, and must be viewed, if at all, from the highest
philosophical and metaphysical standpoints, otherwise the problem had
better be left unapproached. It is an abstraction, on the verge of which
human reason—however trained in metaphysical subtleties—trembles,
threatening to collapse. This may be demonstrated to any European, who
would undertake to solve the problem of existence, by the articles of
faith of the true Vedântin for instance. Let him read and study the
sublime teachings of Shankarâchârya, on the subject of Soul and Spirit,
and the reader will realize what is now said.(968)
While the Christian is taught that the human Soul is a breath of God,
being created by him for sempiternal existence, having a beginning, but no
end—and therefore never to be called eternal—the Occult Teaching says:
Nothing is created, it is only transformed. Nothing can manifest itself in
this Universe—from a globe down to a vague, rapid thought—that was not in
the Universe already; everything on the subjective plane is an eternal
_is_; as everything on the objective plane is an _ever‐becoming_—because
all is transitory.
The Monad—a truly “indivisible thing,” as defined by Good, who did not
give it the sense we now do—is here rendered as the Âtmâ, in conjunction
with Buddhi and the higher Manas. This trinity is one and eternal, the
latter being absorbed in the former at the termination of all conditioned
and illusive life. The Monad, then, can be traced through the course of
its pilgrimage and in its changes of transitory vehicles, only from the
incipient stage of the manifested Universe. In Pralaya, the intermediate
period between two Manvantaras, it loses its name, as it loses it when the
real One Self of man merges into Brahman, in cases of high Samâdhi (the
Turîya state), or final Nirvâna; in the words of Shankara:
When the disciple having attained that primeval consciousness,
absolute bliss, of which the nature is truth, which is without
form and action, abandons this illusive body that has been assumed
by the _Âtmâ_ just as an actor (abandons) the dress (put on).
For Buddhi, the Anandamaya Sheath, is but a mirror which reflects absolute
bliss; and, moreover, that reflection itself is yet not free from
ignorance, and is _not_ the Supreme Spirit, since it is subject to
conditions, is a spiritual modification of Prakriti, and is an effect;
Âtmâ alone is the one real and eternal substratum of all, the Essence and
Absolute Knowledge, the Kshetrajña. Now that the Revised Version of the
Gospels has been published and the most glaring mistranslations of the old
versions are corrected, one can understand better the words in 1 _John_ v.
6: “It is the Spirit that beareth witness because the Spirit is truth.”
The words that follow in the mistranslated version about the “three
witnesses,” hitherto supposed to stand for “the Father, the Word, and the
Holy Ghost,” show the real meaning of the writer very clearly, thus still
more forcibly identifying his teaching in this respect with that of
Shankarâchârya. For what can the sentence mean, “there are three that bear
witness ... the Spirit and the Water and the Blood”—if it bears no
relation to, nor connection with, the more philosophical statement of the
great Vedântin teacher, who, speaking of the Sheaths—the principles in
man—Jîva, Vijñânamaya, etc., which _are_, in their physical manifestation,
“Water and Blood” or Life, adds that Âtmâ, Spirit, alone is what remains
after the subtraction of the Sheaths and that it is the Only Witness, or
synthesized unity. The less spiritual and philosophical school, solely
with an eye to a Trinity, made three witnesses out of “one,” thus
connecting it more with Earth than with Heaven. It is called in Esoteric
Philosophy the “One Witness,” and, while it rests in Devachan, is referred
to as the “Three Witnesses to Karma.”
Âtmâ, our seventh principle, being identical with the Universal Spirit,
and man being one with it in his essence, what is then the Monad proper?
It is that homogeneous spark which radiates in millions of rays from the
primeval Seven;—of which Seven something will be said further on. It is
the EMANATING SPARK FROM THE UNCREATED RAY—a mystery. In the esoteric, and
even exoteric Buddhism of the North, Âdi‐Buddha (Chogi Dangpoi Sangye),
the One Unknown, without beginning or end, identical with Parabrahman and
Ain Suph, emits a bright Ray from its Darkness.
This is the Logos, the First, or Vajradhara, the Supreme Buddha, also
called Dorjechang. As the Lord of all Mysteries he cannot manifest, but
sends into the world of manifestation his Heart—the “Diamond Heart,”
Vajrasattva or Dorjesempa. This is the Second Logos of Creation, from whom
emanate the seven—in the exoteric blind the five—Dhyâni‐Buddhas, called
the Anupâdaka, the “Parentless.” These Buddhas are the primeval Monads
from the World of Incorporeal Being, the Arûpa World, wherein the
Intelligences (on that plane only) have neither shape nor name, in the
exoteric system, but have their distinct seven names in the Esoteric
Philosophy. These Dhyâni‐Buddhas emanate, or create from themselves, by
virtue of Dhyâna, celestial Selves—the super‐human Bodhisattvas. These,
incarnating at the beginning of every human cycle on Earth as mortal men,
become occasionally, owing to their personal merit, Bodhisattvas among the
Sons of Humanity, after which they may reäppear as Mânushi, or Human,
Buddhas. The Anupâdaka, or Dhyâni‐Buddhas, are thus identical with the
Brâhmanical Mânasaputra, Mind‐born Sons—whether of Brahmâ, or of either of
the other two Trimûrtian Hypostases; they are identical also with the
Rishis and Prajâpatis. Thus, a passage is found in _Anugîtâ_, which, read
esoterically, shows plainly, though under another imagery, the same idea
and system. It says:
Whatever entities there are in this world, moveable or immoveable,
they are the very first to be dissolved [at Pralaya]; and next the
developments produced from the elements [from which the visible
universe is fashioned]; and (after) these developments [evolved
entities], all the elements. Such is the upward gradation among
entities. Gods, Men, Gandharvas, Pishâchas, Asuras, Râkshasas, all
have been created by Nature [Svabhâva, or Prakriti, plastic
Nature], not by actions, nor by a cause [not by any physical
cause]. These Brâhmanas [the Rishi Prajâpati?], the creators of
the world, are born here (on earth) again and again. And whatever
is produced from them is dissolved in due time in those very five
great elements [the five, or rather seven, Dhyâni‐Buddhas, also
called “Elements” of Mankind], like billows in the ocean. These
great elements are in every way (beyond) the elements that make up
the world [the gross elements]. And he who is released, even from
these five elements [the Tanmâtras],(969) goes to the highest
goal. The Lord Prajâpati [Brahmâ] created all this by the mind
only [by Dhyâna, or abstract meditation and mystic powers, like
the Dhyâni‐Buddhas].(970)
Evidently then, these Brâhmanas are identical with the terrestrial
Bodhisattvas of the heavenly Dhyâni‐Buddhas. Both, as primordial,
intelligent “Elements,” become the Creators or the Emanators of the Monads
destined to become human in that cycle; after which they evolve
themselves, or, so to say, expand into their own Selves as Bodhisattvas or
Brâhmanas, in heaven and earth, to become at last simple men. “The
creators of the world are born here, on earth again and again”—truly. In
the Northern Buddhist system, or the popular exoteric religion, it is
taught that every Buddha, while preaching the Good Law on Earth, manifests
himself simultaneously in three Worlds: in the Formless World as a Dhyâni‐
Buddha, in the World of Forms as a Bodhisattva, and in the World of
Desire, the lowest or our World, as a man. Esoterically the teaching
differs. The divine, purely Âdi‐Buddhic Monad manifests as the universal
Buddhi, the Mahâ‐Buddhi or Mahat, in Hindû philosophies, the spiritual,
omniscient and omnipotent Root of divine Intelligence, the highest Anima
Mundi or the Logos. This descends “like a flame spreading from the eternal
Fire, immoveable, without increase or decrease, ever the same to the end”
of the cycle of existence, and becomes Universal Life on the Mundane
Plane. From this Plane of conscious Life shoot out, like seven fiery
tongues, the Sons of Light, the Logoi of Life; then the Dhyâni‐Buddhas of
contemplation, the concrete forms of their formless Fathers, the Seven
Sons of Light, _still themselves_, to whom maybe applied the Brâhmanical
mystic phrase: “Thou art THAT”—Brahman. It is from these Dhyâni‐Buddhas
that emanate their Chhâyâs or Shadows, the Bodhisattvas of the celestial
realms, the prototypes of the super‐terrestrial Bodhisattvas, and of the
terrestrial Buddhas, and finally of men. The Seven Sons of Light are also
called Stars.
The star under which a human Entity is born, says the Occult Teaching,
will remain for ever its star, throughout the whole cycle of its
incarnations in one Manvantara. _But this is not his astrological star._
The latter is concerned and connected with the _Personality_; the former
with the _Individuality_. The Angel of that Star, or the Dhyâni‐Buddha
connected with it, will be either the guiding, or simply the presiding,
Angel, so to say, in every new rebirth of the Monad, _which is part of his
own essence_, though his vehicle, man, may remain for ever ignorant of
this fact. The Adepts have each their Dhyâni‐Buddha, their elder “Twin‐
Soul,” and they know it, calling it “Father‐Soul,” and “Father‐Fire.” It
is only at the last and supreme Initiation, however, when placed face to
face with the bright “Image” that they learn to recognize it. How much did
Bulwer Lytton know of this mystic fact, when describing, in one of his
highest inspirational moods, Zanoni face to face with his Augoeides?
The Logos, or both the unmanifested and the manifested Word, is called by
the Hindûs, Îshvara, the Lord, though the Occultists give it another name.
Îshvara, say the Vedântins, is the highest consciousness in Nature. “This
highest consciousness,” answer the Occultists, “is only a synthetic unit
in the World of the manifested Logos—or on the plane of illusion; for it
is the sum total of Dhyân Chohanic consciousness.” “O wise man, remove the
conception that _Not‐Spirit is Spirit_”—says Shankarâchârya. Âtmâ is Not‐
Spirit in its final Parabrahmic state; Îshvara, or Logos, is Spirit; or,
as Occultism explains, it is a compound unity of manifested living
Spirits, the parent‐source and nursery of all the mundane and terrestrial
Monads, _plus_ their divine Reflection, which emanate from, and return
into, the Logos, each in the culmination of its time. There are seven
chief Groups of such Dhyân Chohans, which groups will be found and
recognized in every religion, for they are the primeval Seven Rays.
Humanity, Occultism teaches us, is divided into seven distinct Groups,
with their sub‐divisions, mental, spiritual, and physical. Hence there are
seven chief planets, the spheres of the indwelling seven Spirits, under
each of which is born one of the human Groups which is guided and
influenced thereby. There are only seven planets _specially_ connected
with Earth, and twelve houses, but the possible combinations of their
aspects are countless. As each planet can stand to each of the others in
twelve different aspects, their combinations must be almost infinite; as
infinite, in fact, as the spiritual, psychic, mental, and physical
capacities in the numberless varieties of the _genus homo_, each of which
varieties is born under one of the seven planets and one of the said
countless planetary combinations.(971)
The Monad, then, viewed as One, is above the seventh principle in Kosmos
and man; and as a Triad, it is the direct radiant progeny of the said
compound Unit, not the Breath of “God,” as that Unit is called, nor
creating out of _nihil_; for such an idea is quite unphilosophical, and
degrades Deity, dragging It down to a finite, attributive condition. As
well expressed by the translator of the _Crest‐Jewel of Wisdom_—though
Îshvara is “God.”
Unchanged in the profoundest depths of Pralayas and in the
intensest activity of Manvantaras, [still] beyond [him] is ÂTMÂ,
round whose pavilion is the darkness of eternal MÂYÂ.(972)
The “Triads” born under the same Parent‐Planet, or rather the Radiations
of one and the same Planetary Spirit or Dhyâni‐Buddha are, in all their
after lives and rebirths, sister, or “twin” souls, on this Earth. The idea
is the same as that of the Christian Trinity, the “Three in One,” only it
is still more metaphysical: the Universal “Over‐Spirit,” manifesting on
the two higher planes, those of Buddhi and Mahat. These are the three
Hypostases, metaphysical, but never personal.
This was known to every high Initiate in every age and in every country:
“I and my Father are one,” said Jesus.(973) When he is made to say,
elsewhere: “I ascend to _my_ Father and _your_ Father,”(974) it meant that
which has just been stated. The identity, and at the same time the
illusive differentiation of the _Angel_‐Monad and the _Human_‐Monad is
shown in the sentences: “My Father is _greater_ than I”;(975) “Glorify
_your_ Father _which is in Heaven_”;(976) “Then shall the righteous shine
forth as the sun in the kingdom of _their_ Father” (not _our_
Father).(977) So again Paul asks: “Know ye not ye are the _temple_ of God,
and that the _Spirit of God dwelleth_ in you?”(978) All this was simply
meant to show that the group of disciples and followers attracted to him
belonged to the same Dhyâni‐Buddha, Star, or Father, and that this again
belonged to the same planetary realm and division as he did. It is the
_knowledge_ of this Occult Doctrine that found expression in the review of
_The Idyll of the White Lotus_, when T. Subba Row wrote:
Every Buddha meets at his last Initiation all the great Adepts who
reached Buddhahood during the preceding ages ... every class of
Adepts has its own bond of spiritual communion which knits them
together.... The only possible and effectual way of entering into
such brotherhood ... is by bringing oneself within the influence
of the Spiritual light which radiates from one’s own Logos. I may
further point out here ... that such communion is only possible
between persons whose souls derive their life and sustenance from
the same divine Ray, and that, as seven distinct Rays radiate from
the “Central Spiritual Sun,” all Adepts and Dhyân Chohans are
divisible into seven classes, each of which is guided, controlled,
and overshadowed by one of the seven forms or manifestations of
the divine Wisdom.(979)
It is then the Seven Sons of Light,—called after their planets and often
identified with them by the rabble, namely, Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury,
Mars, Venus, and _presumably_ the Sun and Moon, for the modern critic, who
goes no deeper than the surface of old religions(980)—which are, according
to the Occult Teachings, our heavenly Parents, or synthetically our
“Father.” Hence, as already remarked, Polytheism is really more
philosophical and correct, as to fact and Nature, than is anthropomorphic
Monotheism. Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury, and Venus, the four exoteric
planets, and the three others, which must remain unnamed, were the
heavenly bodies in direct astral and psychic communication, morally and
physically, with the Earth, its Guides, and Watchers; the visible orbs
furnishing our Humanity with its outward and inward characteristics, and
their Regents or Rectors with our Monads and spiritual faculties. In order
to avoid creating new misconceptions, let it be stated that among the
three Secret Orbs, or Star‐Angels, neither Uranus nor Neptune were
included; not only because they were unknown under these names to the
ancient Sages, but because they, like all other planets, however many
there may be, are the Gods and Guardians of other septenary Chains of
Globes within our System.
Nor do the two great planets last discovered depend entirely on the Sun,
as do the rest of the planets. Otherwise, how can we explain the fact that
Uranus receives 1/390th part of the light received by our Earth, while
Neptune receives only 1/900th part; and that their satellites show a
peculiarity of inverse rotation found in no other planets of the Solar
System? At any rate, what we say applies to Uranus, though the fact has
again been disputed recently.
This subject will, of course, be considered as a mere vagary, by all those
who confuse the universal order of Being with their own systems of
classification. Here, however, simple facts from Occult Teachings are
stated, to be either accepted or rejected, as the case may be. There are
details which, on account of their great metaphysical abstraction,
_cannot_ be entered upon. Hence, we merely state that only seven of our
planets are as intimately related to our Globe, as the Sun is to all the
bodies subject to him in his System. Of these bodies the poor little
number of _primary_ and _secondary_ planets known to Astronomy, looks
wretched enough, in truth.(981) Therefore, it stands to reason that there
are a great number of planets, small and large, that have not been
discovered yet, but of the existence of which ancient Astronomers—all of
them initiated Adepts—must certainly have been aware. But, as the relation
of these to the Gods was sacred, it had to remain arcane, as did also the
names of various other planets and stars.
Besides this, even the Roman Catholic Theology speaks of “_seventy_
planets that preside over the destinies of the nations of this globe;”
and, save the erroneous application, there is more truth in this tradition
than in exact modern Astronomy. The seventy planets are connected with the
seventy elders of the people of Israel,(982) and the Regents of these
planets are meant, not the orbs themselves; the word seventy is a play and
a blind upon the 7 × 7 of the subdivisions. Each people and nation, as we
have already said, has its _direct_ Watcher, Guardian and Father in
Heaven—a Planetary Spirit. We are willing to leave their own national God,
Jehovah, to the descendants of Israel, the worshippers of Sabaoth or
Saturn; for, indeed, the Monads of the people chosen by him are his own,
and the _Bible_ has never made any secret of it. Only the text of the
Protestant English _Bible_ is, as usual, in disagreement with those of the
Septuagint and the Vulgate. Thus, while in the former we read:
When the Most High [not Jehovah] divided to the nations their
inheritance ... he set the bounds of the people according to the
number of the children of Israel.(983)
In the _Septuagint_ the text reads “according to the number of the
Angels,” Planet‐Angels, a version more concordant with truth and fact.
Moreover, all the texts agree that “the Lord’s [Jehovah’s] portion is his
people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance”;(984) and this settles the
question. The “Lord” Jehovah took Israel _for his portion_; what have
other nations to do with that particular national Deity? Let then, the
“Angel Gabriel” watch over Iran and “Mikael‐Jehovah” over the Hebrews.
These are not the Gods of other nations, and it is difficult to see why
Christians should have selected a God against whose commandments Jesus was
the first to rise in rebellion.
The planetary origin of the Monad, or Soul, and of its faculties was
taught by the Gnostics. On its way to the Earth, as on its way back from
the Earth, each soul born in, and from, the “Boundless Light,”(985) had to
pass through the seven planetary regions either way. The pure Dhyâni and
Devas of the oldest religions had become, in course of time, with the
Zoroastrians, the Seven Devs, the ministers of Ahriman, “each chained to
his planet”;(986) with the Brâhmans, the Asuras and some of the
Rishis—good, bad and indifferent; among the Egyptian Gnostics it was
Thoth, or Hermes, who was the chief of the Seven whose names are given by
Origen as Adonai, genius of the Sun; Tao, of the Moon; Eloi, of Jupiter;
Sabaoth, of Mars; Orai, of Venus; Astaphai, of Mercury; and Ildabaoth
(Jehovah), of Saturn. Finally, the _Pistis‐Sophia_, which the greatest
modern authority on exoteric Gnostic beliefs, the late Mr. C. W. King,
refers to as “that precious monument of Gnosticism”—this old document
echoes the archaic belief of the ages, while distorting it to suit
sectarian purposes. The Astral Rulers of the Spheres, the planets, create
the Monads, or Souls, from their own substance out of “the tears of their
eyes, and the sweat of their torments,” endowing the Monads with a spark
of their substance which is the Divine Light. It will be shown in Volume
II why these “Lords of the Zodiac and Spheres” have been transformed by
sectarian Theology into the Rebellious Angels of the Christians, who took
them from the Seven Devs of the Magi, without understanding the
significance of the allegory.(987)
As usual, that which _is_, and _was_ from its beginning, divine, pure, and
spiritual in its earliest unity, became—by reason of its differentiation
through the distorted prism of man’s conceptions—human and impure, as
reflecting man’s own sinful nature. Thus, in time, the planet Saturn
became reviled by the worshippers of other Gods. The nations born under
Saturn—the Jewish, for instance, with whom he became Jehovah, after being
considered as a son of Saturn, or Ilda‐Baoth, by the Ophites, and in the
Book of Jasher—were eternally fighting with those born under Jupiter,
Mercury, or any other planet, except Saturn‐Jehovah; genealogies and
prophecies notwithstanding, Jesus _the Initiate_ (or Jehoshua)—the type
from whom the “historical” Jesus was copied—was not of pure Jewish blood,
and thus recognized no Jehovah; nor did he worship any planetary God
beside his own “Father,” whom he knew, and with whom he communed, as every
high Initiate does, “Spirit to Spirit and Soul to Soul.” This can hardly
be taken exception to, unless the critic explains to every one’s
satisfaction the strange sentences put into the mouth of Jesus during his
disputes with the Pharisees by the author of the Fourth Gospel:
I know that ye are Abraham’s seed(988).... I speak that which I
have seen with my Father; and ye do that which ye have seen with
your Father.... Ye do the deeds of your Father.... Ye are of your
Father, the Devil.... He was a murderer from the beginning, and
abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he
speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the
father of it.(989)
This “Father” of the Pharisees was Jehovah, for he was identical with
Cain, Saturn, Vulcan, etc.—the planet under which they were born, and the
God whom they worshipped. Evidently there must be an Occult meaning sought
in these words and admonitions, however mistranslated, since they are
pronounced by one who threatened with hell‐fire anyone who says to his
brother simply Raca, fool.(990) And evidently, again, the planets are not
merely spheres, twinkling in Space, and made to shine for no purpose, but
they are the domains of various Beings with whom the uninitiated are so
far unacquainted, but who have, nevertheless, a mysterious, unbroken, and
powerful connection with men and globes. Every heavenly body is the temple
of a God, and these Gods themselves are the temples of God, the Unknown
“_Not_ Spirit.” There is nothing profane in the Universe. All Nature is a
consecrated place, as Young says:
Each of these Stars is a religious house.
Thus can all exoteric religions be shown to be the falsified copies of the
Esoteric Teaching. It is the priesthood which has to be held responsible
for the reaction of our day in favour of Materialism. It is by worshipping
and enforcing on the masses the worship of the shells of pagan
ideals—personified for purposes of allegory—that the latest exoteric
religion has made of Western lands a Pandemonium, in which the higher
classes worship the golden calf, and the lower and ignorant masses are
made to worship an idol with feet of clay.