Section XVII. Summary of the Position.

The reader has had the whole case presented to him from both sides, and it

remains with him to decide whether its summary stands in our favour or

not. If there were such a thing as a void, a vacuum in Nature, one ought

to find it produced, according to a physical law, in the minds of helpless

admirers of the “lights” of Science, who pass their time in mutually

destroying their teachings. If ever the theory that “two lights make

darkness” found its application it is in this case, where one‐half of the

“lights” imposes its forces and “modes of motion” on the belief of the

faithful, and the other half opposes the very existence of the same.

“Ether, Matter, Energy”—the sacred hypostatical trinity, the three

principles of the truly _unknown_ God of Science, called by them PHYSICAL

NATURE!

Theology is taken to task and ridiculed for believing in the union of

three persons in one Godhead—one God as to substance, three persons as to

individuality; and we are laughed at for our belief in unproved and

unprovable doctrines, in Angels and Devils, Gods and Spirits. And, indeed,

that which made the Scientists win the day over Theology in the Great

“Conflict between Religion and Science,” was precisely the argument that

neither the identity of that substance, nor the triple individuality

claimed—after having been conceived, invented, and worked out in the

depths of Theological Consciousness—could be proved to exist by any

scientific inductive process of reasoning, least of all by the evidence of

our senses. Religion must perish, it is said, because it teaches

“mysteries.” “Mystery is the negation of Common Sense,” and Science repels

it. According to Mr. Tyndall, Metaphysics is “fiction,” like poetry. The

man of Science “takes nothing on trust”; rejects everything “that is not

proven to him,” while the Theologian accepts “everything on blind faith.”

The Theosophist and the Occultist, who take nothing on trust, not even

_exact_ Science, the Spiritualist who denies dogma but believes in Spirits

and in _invisible but potent influences_, all share in the same contempt.

Very well, then; what we have to do now, is to examine for the last time

whether _exact_ Science does not act precisely in the same way as do

Theosophy, Spiritualism, and Theology.

In a work by Mr. S. Laing, considered a standard book on Science, _Modern

Science and Modern Thought_, the author of which, according to the

laudatory review of the _Times_, “exhibits with much power and effect the

immense discoveries of Science, and its numerous victories over old

opinions, whenever they have the rashness to challenge conclusions with

it,” we read as follows:

What is the material universe composed of? Ether, Matter, Energy.

We stop to ask, What is Ether? And Mr. Laing answers in the name of

Science:

Ether is not actually known to us by any test of which the senses

can take cognizance, but is a sort of mathematical substance which

we are compelled to assume in order to account for the phenomena

of light and heat.(1143)

And what is Matter? Do you know more about it than you do about the

“hypothetical” agent, Ether?

In perfect strictness, it is true that chemical investigations can

tell us ... nothing directly of the composition of living matter,

and ... it is also in strictness true, that we know nothing about

the compositions of any [material] body whatever as it is.(1144)

And Energy? Surely you can define the third person of the Trinity of your

Material Universe? We can take the answer from any book on Physics:

Energy is that which is only known to us by its effects.

Pray explain, for this is rather hazy.

[In mechanics there is actual and potential energy: work actually

performed, and the capacity for performing it. As to the nature of

molecular Energy or Forces], the various phenomena which bodies

present show that their molecules are under the influence of two

contrary forces, one which tends to bring them together, and the

other to separate them.... The first force ... is called

_molecular attraction_ ... the second force is due to the _vis

viva_, or moving force.(1145)

Just so: it is the nature of this _moving force_, of this _vis viva_, that

we want to know. What is it?

“We do not know!” is the invariable answer. “It is an empty shadow of my

imagination,” explains Mr. Huxley in his _Physical Basis of Life_.

Thus the whole structure of Modern Science is built on a kind of

“mathematical abstraction,” on a Protean “Substance which eludes the

senses” (Dubois Reymond), and on _effects_, the shadowy and illusive will‐

o’‐the wisps of a _something_ entirely unknown to, and beyond the reach

of, Science. “_Self‐moving_” Atoms! _Self‐moving_ Suns, Planets, and

Stars! But who, then, or _what_ are they all, if they are self‐endowed

with motion? Why then should you, Physicists, laugh at and deride our

“Self‐moving Archæus”? Mystery is rejected and scorned by Science, and as

Father Felix has truly said:

She cannot escape it. Mystery is the fatality of Science.

The language of the French preacher is ours, and we quote it in _Isis

Unveiled_. Who—he asks—who of you, men of Science:

Has been able to penetrate the secret of the formation of a body,

the generation of a single atom? What is there, I will not say at

the centre of a sun, but at the centre of an atom? Who has sounded

to the bottom the abyss in a grain of sand? The grain of sand,

gentlemen, has been studied four thousand years by science; she

has turned and returned it; she divides it and subdivides it; she

torments it with her experiments; she vexes it with her questions

to snatch from it the final word as to its secret constitution;

she asks it, with an insatiable curiosity: “Shall I divide thee

infinitesimally?” Then suspended over this abyss, science

hesitates, she stumbles, she feels dazzled, she becomes dizzy, and

in despair says: “I DO NOT KNOW.”

But if you are so fatally ignorant of the genesis and hidden

nature of a grain of sand, how should you have an intuition as to

the generation of a single living being? Whence in the living

being does life come? Where does it commence? What is the life

principle?(1146)

Do the men of Science deny all these charges? By no means: for here is a

confession of Tyndall, which shows how powerless is Science, even over the

world of Matter.

The first marshalling of the atoms, on which all subsequent action

depends, baffles a keener power than that of the microscope....

Through pure excess of complexity, and long before observation can

have any voice in the matter, the most highly trained intellect,

the most refined and disciplined imagination, retires in

bewilderment from the contemplation of the problem. We are struck

dumb by an astonishment which no microscope can relieve, doubting

not only the power of our instrument, but even whether we

ourselves possess the intellectual elements which will ever enable

us to grapple with the ultimate structural energies of nature.

How little is known of the material Universe, indeed, has now been

suspected for years, on the very admissions of these men of Science

themselves. And now there are some Materialists who would even make away

with Ether—or whatever Science calls the infinite Substance, the noumenon

of which the Buddhists call Svabhâvat—as well as with Atoms, too dangerous

both on account of their ancient philosophical, and their present

Christian and theological, associations. From the earliest Philosophers,

whose records passed to posterity, down to our present age—which, if it

denies Invisible Beings in Space, can never be so insane as to deny a

Plenum of some sort—the Fulness of the Universe has been an accepted

belief. And what it was said to contain, one learns from Hermes

Trismegistus (in Dr. Anna Kingsford’s able rendering), who is made to say:

Concerning the void ... my judgment is that it does not exist,

that it never has existed, and that it never will exist, for all

the various parts of the universe are filled, as the earth also is

complete and full of bodies, differing in quality and in form,

having their species and their magnitude, one larger, one smaller,

one solid, one tenuous. The larger ... are easily perceived; the

smaller ... are difficult to apprehend, or altogether invisible.

We know only of their existence by the sensation of feeling,

wherefore many persons deny such entities to be bodies, and regard

them as simply spaces,(1147) but it is impossible there should be

such spaces. For if indeed there should be anything outside the

universe ... then it would be a space occupied by intelligible

beings analogous to its [the universe’s] Divinity.... I speak of

the genii, for I hold they dwell with us, and of the heroes who

dwell above us, between the earth and the higher airs; wherein are

neither clouds nor any tempest.(1148)

And we “hold” it too. Only, as already remarked, no Eastern Initiate would

speak of spheres “_above_ us, between the earth and the airs,” even the

highest, as there is no such division or measurement in Occult speech, no

_above_, as no _below_, but an eternal _within, within two other withins_,

or the planes of subjectivity merging gradually into that of terrestrial

objectivity—this being for _man_ the last one, his own plane. This

necessary explanation may be closed here by giving, in the words of

Hermes, the belief on this particular point of the whole world of Mystics:

There are many orders of the Gods; and in all there is an

intelligible part. It is not to be supposed they do not come

within the range of our senses; on the contrary, we perceive them,

better even than those which are called visible.... There are then

Gods, superior to all appearances; after them come the Gods whose

principle is spiritual; these Gods being sensible, in conformity

with their double origin, manifest all things by a sensible

nature, each of them illuminating his works one by another.(1149)

The supreme Being of heaven, or of all that is comprehended under

this name, is Zeus, for it is by heaven that Zeus gives life to

all things. The supreme Being of the sun is light, for it is by

the disk of the sun that we receive the benefit of the light. The

thirty‐six horoscopes of the fixed stars have for supreme Being,

or prince, him whose name is _Pantomorphos_, or having all forms,

because he gives divine forms to divers types. The seven planets,

or wandering spheres, have for supreme Spirits Fortune and

Destiny, who uphold the eternal stability of the laws of Nature

throughout incessant transformation and perpetual agitation. The

ether is the instrument or medium by which all is produced.(1150)

This is quite philosophical and in accordance with the spirit of Eastern

Esotericism: for all the Forces, such as Light, Heat, Electricity, etc.,

are called the “Gods”—Esoterically.

This, indeed, must be so, since the Esoteric Teachings in Egypt and India

were identical. And, therefore, the personification of Fohat, synthesizing

all the manifesting Forces in Nature is a legitimate result. Moreover, as

will be shown later, the real and Occult Forces in Nature only now begin

to be known—and even in this case, by heterodox, not orthodox,

Science,(1151) though their existence, in one instance at any rate, is

corroborated and certified by an immense number of educated people, and

even by some official men of Science.

The statement, moreover, in Stanza VI—that Fohat sets in motion the

primordial World‐Germs, or the aggregation of Cosmic Atoms and Matter,

“some one way, some the other way,” in the opposite direction—looks

orthodox and scientific enough. For there is, at all events, in support of

this position, one fact fully recognized by Science, and it is this. The

meteoric showers, periodical in November and August, belong to a system

moving in an elliptical orbit around the Sun. The aphelion of this ring is

1,732 millions of miles beyond the orbit of Neptune, its plane is inclined

to the Earth’s orbit at an angle of 64° 3´, and the direction of the

meteoric swarm moving round this orbit _is contrary to that of the Earth’s

revolution_.

This fact, recognized only in 1833, shows it to be the modern rediscovery

of what was very anciently known. Fohat turns with his two hands in

contrary directions the “seed” and the “curds,” or Cosmic Matter; in

clearer language, is turning particles in a highly attenuated condition,

and nebulæ.

Outside the boundaries of the Solar System, it is other Suns, and

especially the mysterious Central Sun—the “Abode of the Invisible Deity”

as some reverend gentlemen have called it—that determines the motion and

the direction of bodies. That motion serves also to differentiate the

homogeneous Matter, round and between the several bodies, into Elements

and Sub‐elements unknown to our Earth, and these are regarded by Modern

Science as distinct individual Elements, whereas they are merely temporary

appearances, changing with every small cycle within the Manvantara, some

Esoteric works calling them “Kalpic Masks.”

Fohat is the key in Occultism which opens and unriddles the multiform

symbols and allegories in the so‐called mythology of every nation;

demonstrating the wonderful Philosophy and the deep insight into the

mysteries of Nature, contained in the Egyptian and Chaldean as well as in

the Âryan religions. Fohat, shown in his true character, proves how deeply

versed were all those prehistoric nations in every Science of Nature, now

called the physical and chemical branches of Natural Philosophy. In India,

Fohat is the scientific aspect of both Vishnu and Indra, the latter older

and more important in the _Rig Veda_ than his sectarian successor; while

in Egypt, Fohat was known as Toom issued of Noot,(1152) or Osiris in his

character of a primordial God, creator of heaven and of beings.(1153) For

Toom is spoken of as the Protean God who _generates other Gods_ and gives

himself the form he likes; the “Master of Life, giving their vigour to the

Gods.”(1154) He is the _overseer_ of the Gods, and he “who creates spirits

and gives them shape and life”; he is “the North Wind and the Spirit of

the West”; and finally the “Setting Sun of Life,” or the vital electric

force that leaves the body at death; wherefore the Defunct begs that Toom

should give him the breath from his _right_ nostril (positive electricity)

that he might live in his _second_ form. Both the hieroglyph, and the text

of chapter xlii in the _Book of the Dead_, show the identity of Toom and

Fohat. The former represents a man standing erect with the hieroglyph of

the _breaths_ in his hands. The latter says:

I open to the chief of An (Heliopolis). I am Toom. I cross the

water spilt by Thot‐Hapi, the lord of the horizon, and am the

divider of the earth [Fohat divides Space and, with his Sons, the

Earth into seven zones]....

I cross the heavens; I am the two Lions. I am Ra, I am Aam, I eat

my heir.(1155).... I glide on the soil of the field of

Aanroo,(1156) given me by the master of limitless eternity. I am a

germ of eternity. I am Toom, to whom eternity is accorded.

The very words used by Fohat in the XIth Book, and the very titles given

him. In the Egyptian Papyri the whole Cosmogony of the Secret Doctrine is

found scattered about in isolated sentences, even in the _Book of the

Dead_. Number seven is quite as much insisted upon and emphasized therein

as in the _Book of Dzyan_. “The Great Water [the Deep or Chaos] is said to

be seven cubits deep”—“cubits” standing here of course for divisions,

zones, and principles. Therein, “in the great Mother, all the Gods, and

the Seven Great Ones are born.” Both Fohat and Toom are addressed as the

“Great Ones of the Seven Magic Forces,” who, “conquer the Serpent Apap” or

Matter.(1157)

No student of Occultism, however, ought to be betrayed, by the usual

phraseology used in the translations of Hermetic Works, into believing

that the ancient Egyptians or Greeks spoke of, and referred, monk‐like, at

every moment in conversation, to a Supreme Being, God, the “One Father and

Creator of all,” etc., in the way found on every page of such

translations. No such thing indeed; and those texts _are not the original

Egyptian_ texts. They are Greek compilations, the earliest of which does

not go beyond the early period of Neo‐Platonism. No Hermetic work written

by Egyptians—as we may see by the _Book of the Dead_—would speak of the

one universal God of the Monotheistic systems; the one _Absolute_ Cause of

all, was as unnameable and unpronounceable in the mind of the ancient

Philosopher of Egypt, as it is for ever _Unknowable_ in the conception of

Mr. Herbert Spencer. As for the Egyptian in general, as M. Maspero well

remarks, whenever he

Arrived at the notion of divine Unity, the God One was never “God”

simply. M. Lepage‐Renouf very justly observed that the word

Nouter, Nouti, “God” had never ceased to be _a generic name_ to

become a personal one.

Every God was the “one living and unique God” with them. Their

Monotheism was purely geographical. If the Egyptian of Memphis

proclaimed the Unity of Phtah to the exclusion of Ammon, the

Thebeian Egyptian proclaimed the unity of Ammon to the exclusion

of Phtah [as we now see done in India in the case of the Shaivas

and the Vaishnavas]. Ra, the “One God” at Heliopolis is not the

same as Osiris, the “One God” at Abydos, and can be worshipped

side by side with him, without being absorbed by him. The one God

is but the God of the nome or the city, Nouter Nouti, and does not

exclude the existence of the one God of the neighbouring town or

nome. In short, whenever we are speaking of Egyptian Monotheism,

we ought to speak of the Gods One of Egypt, and not of the One

God.(1158)

It is by this feature, preëminently Egyptian, that the authenticity of the

various so‐called _Hermetic Books_, ought to be tested; and it is totally

absent from the Greek fragments known under this name. This proves that a

Greek Neo‐Platonic, or perhaps a Christian hand, had no small share in the

editing of such works. Of course the fundamental Philosophy is there, and

in many a place—intact. But the style has been altered and smoothed in a

monotheistic direction, as much, if not more than that of the Hebrew

Genesis in its Greek and Latin translations. They _may_ be _Hermetic_

works, but not works written by either of the two Hermes—or rather, by

Thot Hermes, the directing Intelligence of the Universe(1159) or by Thot

his terrestrial incarnation called Trismegistus, of the Rosetta stone.

But all is doubt, negation, iconoclasm and brutal indifference, in our age

of a hundred “isms” and no religion. Every idol is broken save the Golden

Calf.

Unfortunately, no nation or nations can escape their Karmic fate, any more

than can units and individuals. History itself is dealt with by the so‐

called historians as unscrupulously as legendary lore. For this, Augustin

Thierry has made the _amende honorable_, if one may believe his

biographers. He deplored the erroneous principle that made all the _would‐

be_ historiographers lose their way, and each presume to correct

tradition, “that _vox populi_ which nine times out of ten is _vox Dei_”;

and he finally admitted that _in legend alone rests real history_; for he

adds:

Legend is living tradition, and three times out of four it is

truer than what we call History.(1160)

While Materialists deny everything in the Universe, save Matter,

Archæologists are trying to dwarf Antiquity, and seek to destroy every

claim of Ancient Wisdom by tampering with Chronology. Our present‐day

Orientalists and historical writers are to Ancient History that which the

white ants are to the buildings in India. More dangerous even than those

Termites, the modern Archæologists—the “authorities” of the future in the

matter of Universal History—are preparing for the history of past nations

the fate of certain edifices in tropical countries. As said Michelet:

History will tumble down and break into atoms in the lap of the

twentieth century, devoured to its foundations by her annalists.

Very soon, indeed, under their combined efforts, it will share the fate of

those ruined cities in both Americas, which lie deeply buried under

impassable virgin forests. Historical facts will remain concealed from

view by the inextricable jungles of modern hypotheses, denials and

scepticism. But very happily _actual_ History repeats herself, for she

proceeds, like everything else, in cycles; and dead facts, and events

deliberately drowned in the sea of modern scepticism, will ascend once

more and reappear on the surface.

In Volume II, the very fact that a work with pretensions to Philosophy,

which is also an exposition of the most abstruse problems, has to be

commenced by tracing the evolution of mankind from what are regarded as

supernatural beings—Spirits—will arouse the most malevolent criticism.

Believers in, and the defenders of, the Secret Doctrine, however, will

have to bear the accusation of madness _and worse_, as philosophically as

for long years already the writer has done. Whenever a Theosophist is

taxed with insanity, he ought to reply by quoting from Montesquieu’s

_Lettres Persanes_:

By opening so freely their lunatic asylums to their supposed

madmen, men only seek to assure each other that they are not

themselves mad.

[Transcriber’s Note: Obvious printer’s errors have been corrected.]

FOOTNOTES

1 See _Theosophist_, June, 1883.

2 _Preface_ to the original edition.

3 _Dan_, in modern Chinese and Tibetan phonetics _Chhan_, is the

general term for the esoteric schools and their literature. In the

old books, the word _Janna_ is defined as “reforming one’s self by

meditation and knowledge,” a second _inner_ birth. Hence _Dzan_,

_Djan_ phonetically; the _Book of Dzyan_. See Edkins, _Chinese

Buddhism_, p. 129, note.

4 Mr. Beglor, the chief engineer at Buddhagâya, and a distinguished

archæologist, was the first, we believe, to discover it.

5 See _Isis Unveiled_, Vol. II, p. 27.

6 _Introduction to the Science of Religion_, p. 23.

7 _Ain í Akbari_, translated by Dr. Blochmann, quoted by Max Müller,

_op. cit._

8 _Tao‐te‐King_, p. xxvii.

9 Max Müller, _op. cit._, p. 114.

10 Found out and proven only _now_, through the discoveries made by

George Smith (see his _Chaldean Account of Genesis_), and which,

thanks to this Armenian forger, have misled all the “civilized

nations” for over 1,500 years into accepting Jewish derivations for

direct _Divine_ Revelation.

11 _Egypt’s Place in History_, i. 200.

12 Spence Hardy, _The Legends and Theories of the Buddhists_, p. 66.

13 E. Schlagintweit, _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 77.

14 Lassen (_Ind. Althersumkunde_, II, 1,072) shows a Buddhist monastery

erected in the Kailâs. Range in 137 B.C.; and General Cunningham,

one earlier than that.

15 Rev. J. Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 87.

16 See, for example, Max Müller’s _Lectures_.

17 _Op. cit._, p. 118.

18 _Op. cit._, p. 318.

19 _Asiatic Researches_, I, 272.

20 See Max Müller, _op. cit._, pp. 288 _et seq._ This relates to the

clever forgery, on leaves inserted in old Purânic MSS., and written

in correct and archaic Sanskrit, of all that the Pandits had heard

from Colonel Wilford about Adam and Abraham, Noah and his three

sons, etc., etc.

21 From a lecture by N. M. Prjevalsky.

22 Lün‐Yü (§ I a); Schott, _Chinesische Literatur_, p. 7; quoted by Max

Müller.

23 _Life and Teachings of Confucius_, p. 96.

24 Op. cit., p. 257.

25 The name is used in the sense of the Greek word ἅνθρωπς.

26 Rabbi Jehoshua Ben Chananea, who died about A.D. 72, openly declared

that he had performed “miracles” by means of the book _Sepher

Jetzirah_, and challenged every sceptic. Franck, quoting from the

Babylonian _Talmud_, names two other thaumaturgists, Rabbis Chanina

and Oshoi. (See _Jerusalem Talmud_, _Sanhedrin_, c. 7, etc.; and

Franck, _Die Kabbalah_, pp. 55, 56). Many of the mediæval

Occultists, Alchemists, and Kabalists have made the same claim; and

even the late modern Magus, Éliphas Lévi, publicly asserts it in his

books on Magic.

27 It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that the term Divine

Thought, like that of Universal Mind, must not be regarded as even

vaguely shadowing forth an intellectual process akin to that

exhibited by man. The “Unconscious,” according to von Hartmann,

arrived at the vast creative, or rather evolutionary plan, “by a

clairvoyant wisdom superior to all consciousness,” which in Vedântic

language would mean absolute Wisdom. Only those who realize how far

intuition soars above the tardy processes of ratiocinative thought

can form the faintest conception of that absolute Wisdom which

transcends the ideas of Time and Space. Mind, as we know it, is

resolvable into states of consciousness, of varying duration,

intensity, complexity, etc., all, in the ultimate, resting on

sensation, which is again Mâyâ. Sensation, again, necessarily

postulates limitation. The Personal God of orthodox Theism

perceives, thinks, and is affected by emotion; he repents and feels

“fierce anger.” But the notion of such mental states clearly

involves the unthinkable postulate of the externality of the

exciting stimuli, to say nothing of the impossibility of ascribing

changelessness to a being whose emotions fluctuate with events in

the worlds he presides over. The conceptions of a Personal God as

changeless and infinite are thus unpsychological and, what is worse,

unphilosophical.

28 Plato proves himself an Initiate, when saying in _Cratylus_ that

θεός is derived from θέειν, to move, to run, for the first

astronomers who observed the motions of the heavenly bodies called

the planets θεοί, gods. Later the word produced another term,

ἀλήθεια—the breath of God.

29 Nominalists, arguing with Berkeley that “it is impossible ... to

form the abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving”

(_Principles of Human Knowledge_, Introd., par. 10), may put the

question, What is that body, the producer of that motion? Is it a

substance? Then you are believers in a Personal God? etc., etc. This

will be answered farther on, in a further part of this work;

meanwhile, we claim our rights of Conceptionalists as against

Roscelini’s materialistic views of Realism and Nominalism. “Has

science,” says one of its ablest advocates, Edward Clodd, “revealed

anything that weakens or opposes itself to the ancient words in

which the essence of all religion, past, present, and to come, is

given; to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly before thy God?”

And we agree, provided we connote by the word God, not the crude

anthropomorphism which is still the backbone of our current

theology, but the symbolic conception of that which is the Life and

Motion of the Universe, to know which in the physical order is to

know time past, present, and to come, in the existence of

successions of phenomena; to know which, in the moral, is to know

what has been, is, and will be, within human consciousness. (See

_Science and the Emotions_, a Discourse delivered at South Place

Chapel, Finsbury, London, December 27th, 1885.)

30 _Isis Unveiled_, II, 264‐5.

31 Rig Veda.

32 We are told by the Western mathematicians and some American

Kabalists, that in the _Kabalah_ also “the value of the Jehovah name

is that of the diameter of a circle.” Add to this the fact that

Jehovah is the third of the Sephiroth, Binah, a feminine word, and

you have the key to the mystery. By certain Kabalistic

transformations this name, which is androgynous in the first

chapters of _Genesis_, becomes in its transformations entirely

masculine, Cainite and phallic. The choosing of a deity among the

pagan gods and making of it a special national God, to call upon it

as the “One Living God,” the “God of Gods,” and then proclaiming

this worship monotheistic, does not change it into the One Principle

whose “Unity admits not of multiplication, change, or form,”

especially in the case of a priapic deity, as Jehovah is now

demonstrated to be.

33 See that suggestive work, _The Source of Measures_, where the author

explains the real meaning of the word _Sacr’_ from which “sacred,”

“sacrament,” are derived, words which have now become synonyms of

holiness, though purely phallic!

34 _Mândûkya Upanishad_, I. 28.

35 _Bodhimür_, Book II.

36 See the _Vedânta Sâra_, by Major G. A. Jacob; and also _The

Aphorisms of Shândilya_, translated by Cowell, p. 42.

37 _Aitareya Upanishad._

38 Nevertheless, prejudiced and rather fanatical Christian Orientalists

would like to prove this to be pure Atheism. For proof of this,

compare Major Jacob’s _Vedânta Sâra_. Yet, the whole of antiquity

echoes the thought:

Omnis enim per se divom natura necesse est

Immortali ævo summa cum pace fruatur—

as Lucretius has it—a purely Vedântic conception.

39 The very names of the two chief deities, Brahmâ and Vishnu, ought to

have long ago suggested their esoteric meanings. Brahman, or Brahm,

is derived by some from the root _brih_, to grow or to expand (see

_Calcutta Review_, vol. lxvi., p. 14); Vishnu, from the root _vish_,

to pervade, to enter into the nature of the essence; Brahmâ‐Vishnu

thus being infinite Space, of which the Gods, the Rishis, the Manus,

and all in this Universe are simply the Potencies (Vibhûtayah).

40 See Manu’s account of Brahmâ separating his body into male and

female, the latter the female Vâch, in whom he creates Virâj, and

compare this with the esotericism of Chapters II, III, and IV of

_Genesis_.

41 Occultism is indeed “in the air” at the close of this our century.

Among many other works recently published, we would recommend

especially to students of theoretical Occultism who would not

venture beyond the realm of our special human plane, _New Aspects of

Life and Religion_, by Henry Pratt, M.D. It is full of esoteric

dogmas and philosophy, the latter, however, in the concluding

chapters, rather limited by what seems to be a spirit of conditioned

positivism. Nevertheless, what is said of Space as “the Unknown

First Cause,” merits quotation.

“This unknown something, thus recognized as, and identified with,

the primary embodiment of Simple Unity, is invisible and impalpable

[as _abstract_ space, granted]: and because invisible and

impalpable, therefore incognizable. And this incognizability has led

to the error of supposing it to be a simple void, a mere receptive

capacity. But, even viewed as an absolute void, space must be

admitted to be either self‐existent, infinite, and eternal, or to

have had a first cause outside, behind, and beyond itself.

“And yet could such a cause be found and defined, this would only

lead to the transferring thereto of the attributes otherwise

accruing to space, and thus merely throw the difficulty of

origination a step farther back, without gaining additional light as

to primary causation.” (_Op. cit._, p. 5.)

This is precisely what has been done by the believers in an

anthropomorphic creator, an extra‐cosmic, instead of an intra‐cosmic

God. Many of Dr. Pratt’s subjects—most of them we may say—are old

Kabalistic ideas and theories which he presents in quite a new

garb—“New Aspects” of the Occult in Nature, indeed. Space, however,

viewed as a Substantial Unity—the living Source of Life—is, as the

Unknown Causeless Cause, the oldest dogma in Occultism, millenniums

earlier than the Pater‐Æther of the Greeks and Latins. So are “Force

and Matter, as Potencies of Space, inseparable, and the unknown

revealers of the Unknown.” They are all found in Âryan philosophy

personified as Vishvakarman, Indra, Vishnu, etc., etc. Still they

are expressed very philosophically, and under many unusual aspects,

in the work referred to.

42 In contradistinction to the manifested Universe of matter, the term

Mûlaprakriti (from _mûla_, root, and prakriti, nature), or the

unmanifested primordial Matter—called by Western Alchemists Adam’s

Earth—is applied by the Vedântins to _Parabrahman_. Matter is dual

in religious metaphysics, and in esoteric teachings septenary, like

everything else in the Universe. As Mûlaprakriti, it is

undifferentiated and eternal: as Vyakta, it becomes differentiated

and conditioned, according to _Shvetâshvatara Upanishad_, I, 8, and

_Devî Bhâgavata Purâna_. The author of the Four lectures on the

_Bhagavad Gîtâ_, in speaking of Mûlaprakriti, says: “From its [the

Logos’] objective standpoint, Parabrahman appears to it as

Mûlaprakriti.... Of course this Mûlaprakriti is material to it, as

any material object is material to us.... Parabrahman is an

unconditioned and absolute reality, and Mûlaprakriti is a sort of

veil thrown over it.” (_Theosophist_, VIII, 304.)

43 Esoteric Philosophy, regarding every finite thing as Mâyâ (or the

illusion of ignorance), must necessarily view in the same light

every intra‐cosmic planet and body, seeing that it is something

organized, hence finite. The sentence, therefore, “it proceeds from

without inwardly, etc.”, in its first clause, refers to the dawn of

the Mahâmanvantara, or the great reëvolution after one of the

complete periodical dissolutions of every compound form in Nature,

from planet to molecule, into its ultimate essence or element; and

in its second clause, to the partial or local Manvantara, which may

be a solar or even a planetary one.

44 By Centre, a centre of energy or a cosmic focus is meant; when the

so‐called “creation,” or formation, of a planet, is accomplished by

that force which is designated by Occultists Life and by Science

Energy, then the process takes place from within outwardly, every

atom being said to contain in itself the creative energy of the

divine Breath. And, whereas after an Absolute Pralaya, when the

preëxisting material consists but of One Element, and Breath “is

everywhere,” the latter acts from without inwardly; after a Minor

Pralaya, when everything having remained _in statu quo_—in a

refrigerated state, so to say, like the moon—then at the first

flutter of Manvantara, the planet or planets begin their

resurrection to life from within outwardly.

45 In the evolutionary cycles of ideas, it is curious to notice how

ancient thought seems to be reflected in modern speculation. Had Mr.

Herbert Spencer read and studied ancient Hindû philosophers when he

wrote a certain passage in his _First Principles_ (p. 482)? Or is it

an independent flash of inner perception that made him say half

correctly, half incorrectly, “motion as well as matter, being fixed

in quantity [?], it would seem that the change in the distribution

of matter which motion effects, coming to a limit in whichever

direction it is carried [?], the indestructible motion thereupon

necessitates a reverse distribution. Apparently, the universally

coëxistent forces of attraction and repulsion which, as we have

seen, necessitate rhythm in all minor changes throughout the

Universe, also necessitate rhythm in the totality of its

changes—produce now an immeasurable period during which the

attracting forces predominating, cause universal concentration, and

then an immeasurable period, during which the repulsive forces

predominating, cause universal diffusion—alternate eras of evolution

and dissolution.”

46 Whatever the news of Physical Science upon the subject, Occult

Science has been teaching for ages that Âkâsha (of which Ether is

the grossest form), the Fifth universal cosmic Principle—to which

corresponds and from which proceeds human Manas—is, cosmically, a

radiant, cool, diathermanous plastic matter, creative in its

physical nature, correlative in its grossest aspects and portions,

immutable in its higher principles. In the creative condition it is

called the Sub‐Root; and in conjunction with radiant heat, it

recalls “dead worlds to life.” In its higher aspect it is the Soul

of the World; in its lower—the Destroyer.

47 _Hypoth._, 1675.

48 The “First” presupposes necessarily something which is the “first

brought forth,” “the first in time, space, and rank”—and therefore

finite and conditioned. The “first” _cannot be Absolute_ for it is a

manifestation. Therefore, Eastern Occultism calls the Abstract All

the One Causeless Cause, the Rootless Root, and limits the “First

Cause” to the Logos, in the sense that Plato gives to this term.

49 See T. Subba Row’s four able lectures on the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_, in

_The Theosophist_, Feb. 1887.

50 Called by Christian theology, Archangels, Seraphs, etc., etc.

51 “Pilgrim” is the appellation given to our Monad (the Two in one)

during its cycle of incarnations. It is the only immortal and

eternal Principle in us, being an indivisible part of the integral

whole—the Universal Spirit, from which it emanates, and into which

it is absorbed at the end of the cycle. When it is said to emanate

from the One Spirit, an awkward and incorrect expression has to be

used for lack of appropriate words in English. The Vedântins call it

Sûtrâtmâ (Thread‐Soul), but their explanation differs somewhat from

that of the Occultists; to explain which difference, however, is

left to the Vedântins themselves.

52 It is not the physical organisms that remain _in statu quo_, least

of all their psychic principles, during the great Cosmic or even

Solar Pralayas, but only their âkâshic or astral “photographs.” But

during the Minor Pralayas, once overtaken by the “Night,” the

planets remain intact, though dead, just as a huge animal, caught

and embedded in the polar ice, remains the same for ages.

53 Thus Spencer, who, nevertheless, like Schopenhauer and von Hartmann,

only reflects an aspect of the old esoteric philosophers, and hence

lands his readers on the bleak shore of Agnostic despair—reverently

formulates the grand mystery; “that which persists unchanging in

quantity, but ever changing in form, under these sensible

appearances which the Universe presents to us, is an unknown and

unknowable power, which we are obliged to recognize as without limit

in Space and without beginning or end in Time.” It is only daring

Theology—never Science or Philosophy—which seeks to gauge the

Infinite and unveil the Fathomless and Unknowable.

54 Space.

55 It is stated in Book II, ch. viii, of _Vishnu Purâna_: “By

immortality is meant existence to the end of the Kalpa”; and Wilson,

the translator, remarks in a foot‐note: “This, according to the

_Vedas_, is all that is to be understood of the immortality [or

eternity] of the gods; they perish at the end of universal

dissolution [or Pralaya].” And Esoteric Philosophy says: “They

‘perish’ not, but are _reäbsorbed_.”

56 Celestial Beings.

57 And hence to manifest it.

58 Nirvâna. Nippang in Chinese; Neibban in Burmese; Moksha in India.

59 Nidâna and Mâyâ. The “Twelve” Nidânas (in Tibetan Ten‐brel Chug‐nyi)

are the chief causes of existence, effects generated by a

concatenation of causes produced.

60 See Wassilief, _Der Buddhismus_, pp. 97‐128.

61 The term “Wheel” is the symbolical expression for a world or globe,

which shows that the ancients were aware that our Earth was a

revolving globe, not a motionless square as some Christian Fathers

taught. The “Great Wheel” is the whole duration of our Cycle of

Being, or Mahâkalpa, _i.e._, the whole revolution of our special

Chain of seven Globes or Spheres from beginning to end; the “Small

Wheels” meaning the Rounds, of which there are also seven.

62 Absolute Perfection, Paranirvâna, which is Yong‐Grub.

63 See Dzungarian _Mani Kumbum_, the “Book of the 10,000 Precepts.”

Also consult Wassilief’s _Der Buddhismus_, pp. 327 and 357, etc.

64 In clearer words: One has to acquire true Self‐Consciousness in

order to understand Samvriti, or the “origin of delusion.”

Paramârtha is the synonym of the term Svasamvedanâ, or the

“reflection which analyses itself.” There is a difference in the

interpretation of the meaning of Paramârtha between the Yogâchâryas

and the Madhyamikas, neither of whom, however, explain the real and

true esoteric sense of the expression.

65 In India it is called the “Eye of Shiva,” but beyond the Great Range

it is known in Esoteric phraseology as “Dangma’s Opened Eye.” Dangma

means a purified soul, one who has become a Jîvanmukta, the highest

Adept, or rather a Mahâtmâ so‐called. His “Opened Eye” is the inner

spiritual eye of the seer; and the faculty which manifests through

it, is not clairvoyance as ordinarily understood, _i.e._, the power

of seeing at a distance, but rather the faculty of spiritual

intuition, through which direct and certain knowledge is obtainable.

This faculty is intimately connected with the “third eye,” which

mythological tradition ascribes to certain races of men.

66 _Vishnu Purâna_, I. 21.

67 And yet, one, _claiming authority_, namely, Sir Monier Williams,

Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, has just denied the fact.

This is what he taught his audience, on June the 4th, 1888, in his

annual address before the Victoria Institute of Great Britain:

“Originally, Buddhism set its face against all solitary asceticism

... to attain sublime heights of knowledge. It had no occult, no

esoteric system of doctrine ... withheld from ordinary men” (!!).

And, again: “... When Gautama Buddha began his career, the later and

lower form of Yoga seems to have been little known.” And then,

contradicting himself, the learned lecturer forthwith informs his

audience that “we learn from _Lalita‐Vistara_ that various forms of

bodily torture, self‐maceration, and austerity were common in

Gautama’s time.” (!!) But the lecturer seems quite unaware that this

kind of torture and self‐maceration is precisely the lower form of

Yoga, _Hatha_ Yoga, which was “little known” and yet so “common” in

Gautama’s time.

68 It is even argued that all the Six Darshanas, or Schools of

Philosophy, show traces of Buddha’s influence, being either taken

from Buddhism or due to Greek teaching! (See Weber, Max Müller,

etc.) We labour under the impression that Colebrooke, “the highest

authority” in such matters, had long ago settled the question by

showing that “the Hindûs were in this instance the teachers, not the

learners.”

69 Soul, as the basis of all, Anima Mundi.

70 Absolute Being and Consciousness, which are Absolute Non‐Being and

Unconsciousness.

71 “Paramârthasatya” is self‐consciousness; Svasamvedanâ, or self‐

analyzing reflection—from _parama_, above everything, and _artha_,

comprehension; _satya_ meaning absolute true being, or _esse_. In

Tibetan Paramârthasatya is Dondampaidenpa. The opposite of this

absolute reality, or actuality, is Samvritisatya—the relative truth

only—Samvriti meaning “false conception” and being the origin of

Illusion, Mâyâ; in Tibetan Kundzabchidenpa, “illusion‐creating

appearance.”

72 _Aphorisms of the Bodhisattvas._

73 Âryâsanga was a pre‐Christian Adept and founder of a Buddhist

esoteric school, though Csoma de Körös places him, for some reasons

of his own, in the seventh century A.D. There was another Aryâsanga,

who lived during the first centuries of our era, and the Hungarian

scholar most probably confuses the two.

74 _Vâyu Purâna_.

75 _Vishnu Purâna_, Wilson, I. 20.

76 Finite self‐consciousness, I mean. For how can the _Absolute_ attain

this otherwise than simply as an _aspect_, the highest of which

aspects known to us is human consciousness?

77 See Schwegler’s _Handbook of the History of Philosophy_, in

Sterling’s translation, p. 28.

78 Vajrapâni or Vajradhara means the diamond‐holder; in Tibetan

Dorjesempa, _sempa_ meaning the soul; its adamantine quality

referring to its indestructibility in the hereafter. The explanation

with regard to the Anupâdaka given in the _Kâla Chakra_, the first

in the Gyut division of the _Kanjur_, is half esoteric. It has

misled the Orientalists into erroneous speculations with respect to

the Dhyâni‐Buddhas and their earthly correspondencies, the Mânushi‐

Buddhas. The real tenet is hinted at in a subsequent volume, and

will be more fully explained in its proper place.

79 To quote Hegel again, who with Schelling practically accepted the

Pantheistic conception of periodical Avatâras (special incarnations

of the World‐Spirit in Man, as seen in the case of all the great

religious reformers): “The essence of man is spirit ... only by

stripping himself of his finiteness and surrendering himself to pure

self‐consciousness does he attain the truth. Christ‐man, as man in

whom the Unity of God‐man [identity of the individual with the

universal Consciousness as taught by the Vedântins and some

Advaitees] appeared, has, in his death and history generally,

himself presented the eternal history of Spirit—a history which

every man has to accomplish in himself, in order to exist as

Spirit.”—_Philosophy of History_, Sibree’s English Translation, p.

340.

80 Chohanic, Dhyâni‐Buddhic.

81 Rûpa.

82 Arûpa.

83 “Mother of the Gods,” Aditi, or Cosmic Space. In the _Zohar_, she is

called Sephira, the Mother of the Sephiroth, and Shekinah in her

primordial form, _in abscondita_.

84 Hence Non‐Being is “Absolute Being,” in Esoteric Philosophy. In the

tenets of the latter even Âdi‐Buddha (the First or Primeval Wisdom)

is, while manifested, in one sense an Illusion, Mâyâ, since all the

gods, including Brahmâ, have to die at the end of the Age of Brahmâ;

the abstraction called Parabrahman—whether we call it Ain Suph, or

with Herbert Spencer the Unknowable—alone being the One Absolute

Reality. The One Secondless Existence is Advaita, “Without a

Second,” and all the rest is Mâyâ, so teaches the Advaita

Philosophy.

85 Motion.

86 Wilson, I. iv.

87 Mother‐Lotus.

88 An unpoetical term, yet still very graphic.

89 Gross, _The Heathen Religion_, p. 195.

90 _Precepts for Yoga_.

91 A Vedântin of the Visishthadvaita Philosophy would say that, though

the only independent Reality, Parabrahman is inseparable from His

Trinity. That He is three, “Parabrahman, Chit, and Achit,” the last

two being dependent Realities unable to exist separately; or, to

make it clearer, Parabrahman is the Substance—changeless, eternal,

and incognizable—and Chit (Âtmâ) and Achit (Anâtmâ) and its

qualities, as form and colour are the qualities of any object. The

two are the garment, or body, or rather aspect (sharîra) of

Parabrahman. But an Occultist would find much to say against this

claim, and so would the Advaiti Vedântin.

92 _Sc._, Sons.

93 Simultaneously.

94 Moves.

95 Periodical.

96 Wilson, _Vishnu Purâna_, I. 40.

97 Triangle.

98 Quaternary.

99 Hiranyagarbha.

100 The three hypostases of Brahmâ, or Vishnu, the three Avasthâs.

101 Number, truly; but never Motion. It is Motion which begets the

Logos, the Word, in Occultism.

102 The “fourteen precious things.” The narrative or allegory is found

in the _Shatapatha Brâmanah_ and others. The Japanese Secret Science

of the Buddhist Mystics, the Yamabooshi, has “seven precious

things.” We will speak of them, hereafter.

103 “The original for Understanding is Sattva, which Shankara renders

Antaskarana. ‘Refined,’ he says, ‘by sacrifices and other

sanctifying operations.’ In the _Katha_, at p. 148, Sattva is

rendered by Shankara to mean Buddhi—a common use of the word.”

(_Bhagavadgîtâ_, etc., translated by Kâshinâth Trimbak Telang, M.A.;

edited by Max Müller, p. 193.) Whatever meaning various schools may

give the term, Sattva is the name given among Occult students of the

Âryâsanga School to the dual Monad, or Âtmâ‐Buddhi, and Âtmâ‐Buddhi

on this plane corresponds to Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti on the

higher plane.

104 Amrita.

105 Cory’s _Ancient Fragments_, p. 314.

106 On Rosenkranz.

107 i. 2.

108 _John_, i. 4.

109 Lanoo is a student, a Chelâ who studies practical Esotericism.

110 “Whom thou knowest now as Kwan‐Shai‐Yin.”—_Comment._

111 Eka is One; Chatur, Four; Tri, Three; and Sapta, Seven.

112 “Tridasha,” or Thirty, three times ten, alludes to the Vedic deities

in round numbers, or more accurately 33—a sacred number. They are

the 12 Âdityas, the 8 Vasus, the 11 Rudras, and the 2 Ashvins—the

twin sons of the Sun and Sky. This is the root‐number of the Hindû

Pantheon, which enumerates 33 crores, or three hundred and thirty

millions of gods and goddesses.

113 Stars.

114 The Upper Space.

115 Element.

116 The Gnostic Sophia, “Wisdom,” who is the “Mother” of the Ogdoad

(Aditi, in a certain sense, with her eight sons), is the Holy Ghost

and the Creator of all, as in the ancient systems. The “Father” is a

far later invention. The earliest manifested Logos was female

everywhere—the mother of the seven planetary powers.

117 See _Chinese Buddhism_, by the Rev. Joseph Edkins, who always gives

correct facts, although his conclusions are very frequently

erroneous.

118 _Book of Sarparâjni_.

119 By “God, the Father,” the seventh principle in Man and Kosmos are

here unmistakably meant, this principle being inseparable in its

Esse and Nature from the seventh cosmic principle. In one sense it

is the Logos of the Greeks and the Avalokiteshvara of the Esoteric

“Buddhists.”

120 Fitzedward Hall’s edition, in the _Bibliotheca Indica_, p. 16.

121 _Anugîtâ_, ch. xxvi, K. T. Telang’s Translation, p. 333.

122 See Mariette’s _Abydos_, II. 63, and III. 413, 414, No. 1,122.

123 _Book of Dzyan_, III.

124 Od is the pure life‐giving Light, or magnetic fluid; Ob the

messenger of death used by sorcerers, the nefarious evil fluid; Aour

is the synthesis of the two, Astral Light proper. Can the

Philologists tell why Od—a term used by Reichenbach to denominate

the vital fluid—is also a Tibetan word meaning light, brightness,

radiancy? It also means “sky” in an Occult sense. Whence the root of

the word? But Âkâsha is not quite Ether, but far higher than that,

as will be shown.

125 This is again similar to the doctrine of Fichte and German

Pantheists. The former reveres Jesus as the great teacher who

inculcated the unity of the spirit of man with the God‐Spirit or

Universal Principle (the Advaita doctrine). It is difficult to find

a single speculation in Western metaphysics which has not been

anticipated by archaic Eastern philosophy. From Kant to Herbert

Spencer, it is all a more or less distorted echo of the Dvaita,

Advaita, and Vedântic doctrines generally.

126 Compare Dowson’s _Dictionary of Hindû Mythology_, p. 57.

127 Whether the genus of the bird be _cygnus_, _anser_, or _pelecanus_,

it is no matter, as it is an aquatic bird floating or moving on the

waters like the Spirit, and then issuing from those waters to give

birth to other beings. The true significance of the symbol of the

Eighteenth Degree of the Rosecroix is precisely this, though it was

later on poetised into the motherly feeling of the pelican rending

its bosom to feed its seven little ones with its blood.

128 The reason why Moses forbids eating the pelican and swan

(_Deuteronomy_, xiv. 16, 17), classing the two among the unclean

fowls, and permits eating “the bald locusts, beetles, and the

grasshopper after his kind” (_Leviticus_ xi. 22.), is a purely

physiological one, and has to do with mystic symbology only in so

far as the word “unclean,” like every other word, ought not to be

understood literally; for it is esoteric like all the rest, and may

as well mean “holy” as not. It is a very suggestive blind in

connection with certain superstitions—_e.g._, that of the Russian

people, who will not use the pigeon for food; not because it is

“unclean” but because the “Holy Ghost” is credited with having

appeared under the form of a dove.

129 Chaos.

130 Not the Mediæval Alchemists, but the Magi and Fire‐Worshippers, from

whom the Rosicrucians, or the Philosophers _per ignem_, the

successors of the Theurgists, borrowed all their ideas concerning

Fire, as a mystic and divine element.

131 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 146.

132 “Para” gives the force of beyond, outside.

133 Purusha.

134 Prakriti.

135 I, I. 7.

136 The Web.

137 The Father.

138 The Root of Matter.

139 The Elements, with their respective Powers, or Intelligences.

140 The Web.

141 _Popular Astronomy_, pp. 507, 508.

142 _American Journal of Science_, July, 1870.

143 Winchell, _World‐Life_, pp. 83‐5.

144 Of the Atoms.

145 The Universe.

146 Primeval Light.

147 This is said in view of the fact that the flame from a fire is

inexhaustible, and that the lights of the whole Universe could be

lit from one simple rush‐light without diminishing the flame.

148 Chap. viii., p. 80, Telang’s Translation.

149 _Deuteronomy_, iv 24.

150 _Thess._, i. 7, 8.

151 _Acts_, ii. 3.

152 _Rev._, xix. 13.

153 Telang’s Translation, _Sacred Books of the East_, viii. 278.

154 Dhyân Chohans.

155 Formless.

156 With Bodies.

157 Pitris.

158 The Four, represented in the Occult numerals by the Tetraktys, the

Sacred or Perfect Square, is a Sacred Number with the Mystics of

every nation and race. It has one and the same significance in

Brâhmanism, Buddhism, in Kabalism and in the Egyptian, Chaldean and

other numerical systems.

159 In the _Kabalah_, the same numbers, viz., 1065 are a value of

Jehovah, since the numerical values of the three letters which

compose his name—Jod, Vau and twice Hé—are respectively 10 (י), 6

(ו) and 5 (ה); or again thrice seven, 21. “Ten is the Mother of the

Soul, for Life and Light are therein united,” says Hermes. “For

number one is born of the Spirit and the number ten from Matter

[Chaos, feminine]; the unity has made the ten, the ten the unity.”

(_Book of the Keys_.) By means of Temura, the anagrammatical method

of the _Kabalah_, and the knowledge of 1065 (21), a universal

science may be obtained regarding Cosmos and its mysteries (Rabbi

Yogel). The Rabbis regard the numbers 10, 6, and 5 as the most

sacred of all.

160 The reader may be told that an American Kabalist has now discovered

the same number for the Elohim. It came to the Jews from Chaldæa.

See “Hebrew Metrology,” in _The Masonic Review_, July, 1885,

McMillan Lodge, No. 141.

161 We find the same expression in Egypt. Mout signifies, for one thing,

“Mother,” and shows the character assigned to her in the triad of

that country. She was no less the mother than the wife of Ammon, one

of the principal titles of the god being “the husband of his

mother.” The goddess Mout, or Mût, is addressed as “Our Lady,” the

“Queen of Heaven” and “of the Earth,” thus “sharing these titles

with the other mother goddesses, Isis, Hathor, etc.” (Maspero).

162 The Sparks.

163 The permutation of Oeaohoo. The literal signification of the word

is, among the Eastern Occultists of the North, a circular wind,

whirlwind; but in this instance, it is a term to denote the

ceaseless and eternal Cosmic Motion, or rather the Force that moves

it, which Force is tacitly accepted as the Deity, but never named.

It is the eternal Kârana, the ever‐acting Cause.

164 vi. 15. The _Anugîtâ_ forms part of the Ashvamedha Parvan of the

_Mahâbhârata_. The translator of the _Bhagavadgîtâ_, edited by Max

Müller, regards it as a continuation of the _Bhagavadgîtâ_. Its

original is one of the oldest _Upanishads_.

165 This shows the modern metaphysicians, added to all past and present

Hegels, Berkeleys, Schopenhauers, Hartmanns, Herbert Spencers, and

even the modern Hylo‐Idealists to boot, no better than the pale

copyists of hoary antiquity.

166 It is the knowledge of this law that permits and helps the Arhat to

perform his Siddhis, or various phenomena, such as the

disintegration of matter, the transport of objects from one place to

another, etc.

167 These are ancient Commentaries attached with modern Glossaries to

the Stanzas, for the Commentaries in their symbolical language are

usually as difficult to understand as the Stanzas themselves.

168 In a polemical scientific work, _The Modern Genesis_ (p. 48), the

Rev. W. B. Slaughter, criticizing the position assumed by the

astronomers, says: “It is to be regretted that the advocates of this

[nebular] theory have not entered more largely into the discussion

of it [the beginning of rotation] No one condescends to give us the

_rationale_ of it. How does the process of cooling and contracting

the mass impart to it a rotatory motion?” (Quoted by Winchell,

_World‐Life_, p. 94.) It is not materialistic Science that can ever

solve it. “_Motion is eternal in the unmanifested, and periodical in

the manifest_,” says an Occult teaching. It is “_when heat caused by

the descent of Flame into primordial matter causes its particles to

move, which motion becomes the Whirlwind_.” A drop of liquid assumes

a spheroidal form owing to its atoms moving around themselves in

their ultimate, unresolvable, and noumenal essence; unresolvable for

Physical Science, at any rate. The question is amply treated later

on.

169 The x, the unknown quantity.

170 Which makes Ten, or the perfect number, applied to the “Creator,”

the name given to the totality of the Creators blended by the

Monotheists into One, as the “Elohim,” Adam Kadmon or Sephira, the

Crown—are the androgyne synthesis of the ten Sephiroth, who stand

for the symbol of the manifested Universe in the popularized

_Kabalah_. The Esoteric Kabalists, however, following the Eastern

Occultists, divide the upper Sephirothal triangle (or Sephira,

Chokmah and Binah) from the rest, which leaves seven Sephiroth. As

for Svabhâvat, the Orientalists explain the term as meaning the

universal plastic matter diffused through space, with, perhaps, half

an eye to the Ether of Science. But the Occultists identify it with

“Father‐Mother” on the mystic plane.

171 Arûpa.

172 Boundless Circle.

173 Subjective, Formless.

174 Bhâskara.

175 This refers to the Abstract Thought and concrete Voice, or the

manifestation thereof, the effect of the Cause. Adam Kadmon, or

Tetragrammaton, is the Logos in the _Kabalah_. Therefore this Triad

answers in the latter to the highest Triangle of Kether, Chokmah and

Binah, the last a female potency, and at the same time the male

Jehovah, as partaking of the nature of Chokmah, or the male Wisdom.

176 The Secret Doctrine teaches that the Sun is a central star and not a

planet. Yet the ancients knew of and worshipped seven great gods,

excluding the Sun and Earth. Which was that “Mystery God” they set

apart? Of course not Uranus, only discovered by Herschel in 1781.

But could it not be known by another name? Says Ragon: “Occult

Sciences having discovered through astronomical calculations that

the number of the planets must be seven, the ancients were led to

introduce the Sun into the scale of the celestial harmonies, and

make him occupy the vacant place. Thus, every time they perceived an

influence that pertained to none of the six planets known, they

attributed it to the Sun.... The error seems important, but was not

so in practical results, if the astrologers replaced Uranus by the

Sun, which ... is a central Star relatively motionless, turning only

on its axis and regulating time and measure; and which cannot be

turned aside from its true functions.” (_Maçonnerie Occulte_, p.

447.) The nomenclature of the days of the week is also faulty. “The

Sun‐day ought to be Uranus‐day (Urani dies, Urandi),” adds the

learned writer.

177 Planetary System.

178 “The Sun rotates on its axis always in the same direction in which

the planets revolve in their respective orbits,” astronomy teaches

us.

179 See _Anugîtâ_, Telang, x. 9; and _Aitareya Brâhmana_, Haug, p. 1.

180 This essence of cometary matter, Occult Science teaches, is totally

different from any of the chemical or physical characteristics with

which Modern Science is acquainted. It is homogeneous in its

primitive form beyond the Solar Systems, and differentiates entirely

once it crosses the boundaries of our Earth’s region; vitiated by

the atmospheres of the planets and the already compound matter of

the interplanetary stuff, it is heterogeneous only in our manifested

world.

181 Manas—the Mind‐Principle, or the Human Soul.

182 Buddhi—the Divine Soul.

183 See _Correlation of Physical Forces_, 1843, p. 81; and _Address to

the British Association_, 1866.

184 Very similar ideas were those of W. Mattieu Williams, in _The Fuel

of the Sun_; of Dr. C. William Siemens, _On the Conservation of

Solar Energy_ (_Nature_, XXV, 440‐444, March 9, 1882); and also of

Dr. P. Martin Duncan in an _Address_, as the President of the

Geological Society, London, May, 1877. See _World‐Life_, by

Alexander Winchell, LL.D., p. 53, _et seq_.

185 When we speak of Neptune, it is not as an Occultist but as a

European. The true Eastern Occultist will maintain that, whereas

there are many yet undiscovered planets in our system, Neptune does

not really belong to it, in spite of its _apparent_ connection with

our Sun and the influence of the latter upon it. This connection is

mâyâvic, imaginary, they say.

186 Word, Voice and Spirit.

187 These are the four “Immortals,” which are mentioned in the _Atharva

Veda_ as the “Watchers” or Guardians of the four quarters of the

sky. (See Ch. lxxvi., 1‐4, _et seq_.)

188 _Conflict between Religion and Science_, pp. 132 and 133.

189 _Principles of Science_, II. 455.

190 _Les Mystères de l’Horoscope_, Ely Star, p. xi.

191 _Psalms_, civ. 4.

192 The difference between the Builders, the Planetary Spirits, and the

Lipika must not be lost sight of. (See Shlokas 5 and 6 of this

Commentary.)

193 That is, he is under the influence of their guiding thought.

194 Cosmic mists.

195 The World to be.

196 Atoms.

197 See A. P. Sinnett’s _Esoteric Buddhism_, 5th annotated edition, pp.

171‐173.

198 The first and greatest Tibetan Reformer who founded the “Yellow‐

Caps,” Gelukpas. He was born in the year 1355 A.D., in the district

of Amdo, and was the Avatâra of Amitâbha, the celestial name of

Gautama Buddha.

199 T. Subba Row seems to identify him with, and to call him, the Logos.

(See his _Lectures on the Bhagavadgîtâ_, in the _Theosophist_, vol.

ix.)

200 Helmholtz, _Faraday Lecture_, 1881.

201 It is well known that sand, when placed on a metal plate in

vibration, assumes a series of regular figures of various

descriptions. Can Science give a _complete_ explanation of this

fact?

202 See _The Masonic Cyclopædia_, Mackenzie; and _The Pythagorean

Triangle_, Oliver.

203 Ormazd is the Logos, the “First Born,” and the Sun.

204 _Against Apion_, I, 25.

205 See _Isis Unveiled_, II., 430‐438.

206 See Dowson’s _Hindû Classical Dictionary_.

207 The mineral atoms.

208 Gaseous clouds.

209 See _Kabbalah Denudata_, “De Anima,” p. 113.

210 “The doctrine of the rotation of the earth about an axis was taught

by the Pythagorean Hicetas, probably as early as 500 B.C. It was

also taught by his pupil Ecphantus, and by Heraclides, a pupil of

Plato. The immobility of the sun and the orbital rotation of the

earth were shown by Aristarchus of Samos as early as 281 B.C. to be

suppositions accordant with facts of observation. The heliocentric

theory was also taught about 150 B.C., by Seleucus of Seleucia on

the Tigris. [It was taught 500 B.C. by Pythagoras.—H.P.B.] It is

said also that Archimedes, in a work entitled _Psammites_,

inculcated the heliocentric theory. The sphericity of the earth was

distinctly taught by Aristotle, who appealed for proof to the figure

of the earth’s shadow on the moon in eclipses. (Aristotle, _De

Cælo_, lib. II., cap, XIV.) The same idea was defended by Pliny.

(_Nat. Hist._, II., 65.) These views seem to have been lost from

knowledge for more than a thousand years....” (Winchell, _World‐

Life_, 551‐2.)

211 _On Vortex Atoms_.

212 _Op. cit._, 567.

213 Abridged from _Principia Rerum Naturalium_.

214 The Lipika.

215 That is: the First is now the Second World.

216 The Formless Universe of Thought.

217 The Shadowy World of Primal Form, or the Intellectual.

218 In the _Rig Veda_, we find the names Brahmanaspati and Brihaspati

alternating with, and equivalent to, each other. Also see

_Brihadâranyaka Upanishad_; Brihaspati is a deity called the “Father

of the Gods.”

219 _Logic_, II. 125.

220 Having already taken the first three.

221 Hosts.

222 The four Aspects are the body, its life or vitality, and the

“double” of the body—the triad which disappears with the death of

the person—and the Kâma Rûpa which disintegrates in Kâma Loka.

223 _On Amos_, iv.

224 _Theol. Cir._, I. vii.

225 See _The Occult World_, pp. 89, 90.

226 Thus the sentence, “Natura Elementorum obtinet revelationem Dei”

(Clemens, _Stromata_, IV. 6), is applicable to both or neither.

Consult the _Zends_, II. 228, and Plutarch _De Iside_, as compared

by Layard, _Académie des Inscriptions_, 1854, Vol. XV.

227 _Exodus_ xxvi, xxvii.

228 _Antiquities_, I. VIII, ch. xxii.

229 _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 216.

230 “Man” was here substituted for “Dragon.” Compare the Ophite Spirits.

The Angels recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, who correspond

to these “Faces,” were with the Ophites: Dragon—Raphael;

Lion—Michael; Bull, or Ox—Uriel; and Eagle—Gabriel. The four keep

company with the four Evangelists, and preface the Gospels.

231 _Ezekiel_, i.

232 The Jews, save the Kabalists, having no names for East, West, South,

and North, expressed the idea by words signifying before, behind,

right and left, and very often confounded the terms exoterically,

thus making the blinds in the _Bible_ more confused and difficult to

interpret. Add to this the fact that out of the forty‐seven

translators of King James’ Bible “only three understood Hebrew, and

of these two died before the Psalms were translated” (_Royal Masonic

Cyclopædia_), and one may easily understand what reliance can be

placed on the English version of the _Bible_. In this work the Douay

Roman Catholic version is generally followed.

233 The vertical line or the figure 1.

234 Circle.

235 Also for those who, etc.

236 The Formless World and the World of Forms.

237 _Theosophist_, Feb., 1877, p. 303.

238 These voluntary reïncarnations are referred to in our Doctrine as

Nirmânakâyas—the surviving spiritual principles of men.

239 Sûkshma Sharîra, “dream‐like” illusive body, with which are clothed

the inferior Dhyânis of the celestial Hierarchy.

240 Compare this Esoteric tenet with the Gnostic doctrine found in

_Pistis‐Sophia_ (Knowledge‐Wisdom), in which treatise Sophia

(Achamôth) is shown lost in the waters of Chaos (Matter), on her way

to the Supreme Light, and Christos delivering and helping her on the

right Path. Note well, that “Christos” with the Gnostics meant the

Impersonal Principle, the Âtman of the Universe, and the Âtmâ within

every man’s soul—and not Jesus; though in the old Coptic MS., in the

British Museum, “Christos” is replaced by “Jesus” and other terms.

241 _A Catechism of the Visishthadvaita Philosophy_, by N.

Bhâshiyacharya, F.T.S., late Pandit of the Adyar Library.

242 _Träume eines Geistersehers_, quoted by C. C. Massey, in his preface

to Von Hartmann’s _Spiritismus_.

243 _Le Livre des Morts_, Paul Pierret, Chap. xvii. p. 61.

244 See also for other data on this peculiar expression, the Day of

“Come To Us,” _The Funerary Ritual of the Egyptians_, by Viscount de

Rougé.

245 Chaos.

246 Our Universe.

247 _The Theosophist_, Feb., 1887, p. 305.

248 _Op. cit._, p. 306.

249 Madhya is said of something whose commencement and end are unknown,

and Para means infinite. These expressions all relate to infinitude

and to division of time.

250 _Op. cit._, p. 307.

251 From the Sanskrit _Laya_, the point of matter where every

differentiation has ceased.

252 _Five Years of Theosophy_, Art., “Personal and Impersonal God,” p.

200.

253 Elements.

254 Fraction.

255 Presidential Address before the Royal Society of Chemists, March,

1888.

256 P. 242.

257 Worlds.

258 A period of 311,040,000,000,000 years, according to Brâhmanical

calculations.

259 See the _Scientific Arena_, a monthly journal devoted to current

philosophical teaching and its bearing upon the religious thought of

the age. New York: A. Wilford Hall, Ph.D., LL.D., Editor, July,

August, and September, 1886.

260 Such, we believe, is the name applied to what he also calls “Etheric

Centres,” by J. W. Keely, of Philadelphia, the inventor of the

famous “Motor”—destined, as his admirers have hoped, to

revolutionize the motor power of the world.

261 The moon is _dead_ only so far as regards her _inner_

principles—_i.e._, _psychically_ and _spiritually_, however absurd

the statement may seem. Physically, she is only as a semi‐paralysed

body may be. She is aptly referred to in Occultism as the “Insane

Mother,” the great sidereal _lunatic_.

262 Occultists, however, having the most perfect faith in their own

exact records, astronomical and mathematical, calculate the age of

humanity, and assert that men (as separate sexes) have existed in

this Round just 18,618,727 years, as the Brâhmanical teachings and

even some Hindû calendars declare.

263 The commentaries on the Stanzas are resumed on p. 213.

264 In _Esoteric Buddhism_ and _Man: Fragments of Forgotten History_.

265 Many more planets are enumerated in the Secret Books than in modern

astronomical works.

266 p. 48.

267 See, in _Esoteric Buddhism_, “The Constitution of Man,” and the

“Planetary Chain.”

268 Winchell’s _World‐Life_.

269 P. 113 (5th edition).

270 pp. 185‐6.

271 Kosha is “sheath” literally, the sheath of every principle.

272 Sthûla‐upâdhi, or basis of the principle.

273 Life.

274 The Astral Body, or Linga Sharîra.

275 Buddhi.

276 See Diagram II, p. 195.

277 Extract from the Teacher’s letters on various topics.

278 We are not concerned with the other Globes in this work except

incidentally.

279 _Esoteric Buddhism_, p. 136.

280 _Lucifer_, May, 1888.

281 _Esoteric Buddhism_ (5th ed.), p. 46.

282 _Op. cit._, p. 49.

283 _Op. cit._, p. 140.

284 p. 177 _supra_.

285 Occultism divides the periods of Rest (Pralaya) into several kinds:

there is the _Individual_ Pralaya of each Globe, as humanity and

life pass on to the next—seven minor Pralayas in each Round; the

_Planetary_ Pralaya, when seven Rounds are completed; the _Solar_

Pralaya, when the whole system is at an end; and finally the

_Universal_ Pralaya, Mahâ or Brahmâ Pralaya, at the close of the Age

of Brahmâ. These are the chief Pralayas or “destruction periods.”

There are many other minor ones, but with these we are not concerned

at present.

286 Pp. 48, 49.

287 _Ibid._

288 “Physical” here means differentiated for cosmical purposes and work;

that “physical side,” nevertheless, if objective to the apperception

of beings from other planes, is yet quite subjective to us on our

plane.

289 Pp. 276 _et seq_.

290 _Ibid._

291 See diagram, _op. cit._, p. 277.

292 _Op. cit._, pp. 273‐4.

293 _Op. cit._, p. 274‐5.

294 II. 278‐9.

295 P. 48.

296 The _Natures_ of the seven Hierarchies or Classes of Pitris and

Dhyân Chohans which compose our nature and bodies are here meant.

297 Round, or revolution of Life and Being round the seven smaller

Wheels.

298 Thirds.

299 Race.

300 P. 235.

301 _Rev._, xii. 7‐9.

302 See Vol. II, Shloka 17.

303 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 299, 300. Compare also Dunlap, _Sôd: the Son of

the Man_, pp. 51 _et seq._

304 On the authority of Irenæus, of Justin Martyr and of the _Codex_

itself, Dunlap shows that the Nazarenes regarded “Spirit” as a

_female and evil_ Power, in its connection with our Earth.

305 Fetahil is identical with the host of the Pitris, who “created man”

as a “shell” only. He was, with the Nazarenes, the King of Light,

and the Creator; but in this instance he is the unlucky Prometheus,

who fails to get hold of the Living Fire necessary for the formation

of the Divine Soul, as he is ignorant of the secret name, the

ineffable or incommunicable name of the Kabalists.

306 The spirit of Matter and Concupiscence; Kâma Rûpa _minus_ Manas,

Mind.

307 _Codex Nazaræus_, ii. 233.

308 This Mano of the Nazarenes strangely resembles the Hindû Manu, the

Heavenly Man of the _Rig Veda_.

309 “I am the true _Vine_, and my father is the husbandman.” (_John_,

xv. 1.)

310 With the Gnostics, Christ, as well as Michael who is identical with

him in some respects, was the “Chief of the Æons.”

311 _Codex Nazaræus_, i. 135.

312 See the Cosmogony of Pherecydes.

313 I. 301, note.

314 They are found, however, in the Chaldean _Book of Numbers_.

315 _Op. cit._, II. 183 _et seq._

316 For the difference between _nous_, the higher divine Wisdom, and

psyche, the lower and terrestrial, see _St. James_, iii. 15‐17.

317 Jehovah’s connection with the Moon in the _Kabalah_ is well known to

students.

318 For the Nazarenes, see _Isis Unveiled_, II. 131 and 132. The true

followers of the true Christos were all Nazarenes and _Christians_,

and were the opponents of the later Christians.

319 See the diagram of the Lunar Chain of seven worlds, p. 195, where,

as in our own or any other Chain, the upper worlds are spiritual,

while the lowest, whether Moon, Earth, or any other planet, is dark

with matter.

320 The whole Kosmos. The reader is reminded that in the Stanzas Kosmos

often means only our own Solar System, not the Infinite Universe.

321 This is purely astronomical.

322 For a clearer explanation of the above, see “Saptaparna” in the

Index.

323 _Op. cit._, III. 346.

324 _Book of Dzyan_.

325 See _Index_, at the words “Evolution,” “Darwin,” “Kapila,” “Battle

of Life,” etc.

326 _Isis Unveiled_, II. 260.

327 _Vishnu Purâna_.

328 Chain.

329 Earth.

330 Kenealy, _Book of God_, p. 118.

331 Acosta, vi. 14.

332 Kenealy, _Ibid._

333 I, 587‐93.

334 That which was _natural_ in the sight of primitive man, has only now

become _miracle_ to us; and that which was to him a miracle, could

never be expressed in our language.

335 There is no nation in the world in which the feeling of devotion, or

of religious mysticism, is more developed and prominent than in the

Hindû people. See what Max Müller says of this idiosyncrasy and

national feature in his works. This is a direct inheritance from the

primitive _conscious_ men of the Third Race.

336 _Lectures on Heroes_.

337 Vehicle.

338 Âtman.

339 Âtmâ‐Buddhi, Spirit‐Soul. This relates to the cosmic principles.

340 Again.

341 Avalokiteshvara.

342 Builders. The seven creative Rishis, now connected with the

constellation of the Great Bear.

343 Earth.

344 Rosenroth, _Liber Mysterii_ IV. 1.

345 _Genesis_ i.

346 _Auszüge aus dem Zohar_, pp. 13‐15.

347 See _Vishnu Purâna_, Book I.

348 Ch. lxxxviii.

349 Ch. lxiv. 29, 30.

350 _Ibid._, 34, 35.

351 A World, when called a “higher World,” is not higher by reason of

its location, but because it is superior in quality or essence. Yet

such a World is generally understood by the profane as “Heaven,” and

located above our heads.

352 Of Form, the Sthûla Sharîra, External Body.

353 Pearls.

354 Ἄνθρωπος, a work on Occult Embryology, Book I.

355 Namely, a congenital idiot.

356 _John_ iii, 8.

357 Ch. cxlviii.

358 _Ibid._, cxlix. 51.

359 _The Seven Souls of Man_, p. 2; a Lecture by Gerald Massey.

360 _De Iside et Osiride_, xliii.

361 Ch. xli.

362 iv. 5.

363 Mariette’s _Abydos_, plate 51.

364 P. Pierret, _Études Égyptologiques_.

365 _Ritual_, ch. ii.

366 Linked into.

367 _Op. cit._, xvii. 4.

368 Several inimical critics are anxious to prove that no Seven

Principles of Man, or Septenary Constitution of our Chain, were

taught in our earlier volumes, _Isis Unveiled_. Though in that work

the doctrine could only be hinted at, there are many passages,

nevertheless, in which the Septenary Constitution of both Man and

the Chain is openly mentioned. Speaking of the Elohim (II. 420), it

is said: “They remain over the seventh heaven (or spiritual world),

for it is they who, according to the Kabalists, formed in succession

the six material worlds, or rather, attempts at worlds, that

preceded our own, which, they say, is the seventh.” Our Globe, in

the diagram representing the Chain, is, of course, the seventh and

lowest; though, as the evolution on these Globes is cyclic, it is

the fourth, on the descending arc of matter. And again (II. 367) it

is written: “In the Egyptian notions, _as in those of all other

faiths founded on philosophy_, man was not merely ... a union of

soul and body; he was a trinity, when spirit was added to it.

Besides, that doctrine made him consist of ... body, ... astral

form, or shadow, ... animal soul, ... the higher soul, and ...

terrestrial intelligence ... [and] a sixth principle, etc.,

etc.”—the seventh—SPIRIT. So clearly are these principles mentioned,

that even in the _Index_ (II. 683), one finds “Six Principles of

Man,” the seventh being, in strict truth, the synthesis of the six,

and _not_ a principle but a ray of the Absolute ALL.

369 See Diagram III, p. 221.

370 pp. 340‐351, “Genesis of the Soul.”

371 _De Mysteriis_, ii. 3.

372 _Asiatic Researches_, xi. 99, 100.

373 Ch. xxxii. 9.

374 Their Upper Triad.

375 Bhûmi or Prithivî.

376 _Book of the Dead_, i. 7. Compare also _Mysteries of Rostan_.

377 Kingdom.

378 Kingdom.

379 The first Shadow of the Physical Man.

380 Man.

381 The Moon.

382 See _Mantuan Codex_.

383 The formation of the “Living Soul,” or Man, would render the idea

more clearly. A “Living Soul” is a synonym of Man in the _Bible_.

These are our seven “Principles.”

384 _Ha Idra Zuta Kadisha_, xxii. 746.

385 xviii. 12.

386 _Hebrews_, iv.

387 Cruden, _sub voce_.

388 _Book of Numbers_, 1. viii. 3.

389 p. 389.

390 Plate VII. p. 37.

391 Esotericism teaches the same. But Manas is not Nephesh; nor is the

latter the Astral, but the Fourth Principle, and also the Second,

Prâna, for Nephesh is the “Breath of Life” in man, as in beast or

insect; of physical, material life, which has no spirituality in it.

392 Éliphas Lévi, whether purposely or otherwise, has confused the

numbers: with us his No. 2 is No. 1 (Spirit); and by making of

Nephesh both the Plastic Mediator and Life, he thus makes in reality

only six principles, because he repeats the first two.

393 _Zohar_, “Idra Suta,” Book iii., p. 292b.

394 1. 302.

395 Read, in _Isis Unveiled_ (ii. 297‐303), the doctrine of the _Codex

Nazaræus_. Every tenet of our teaching is found there under a

different form and allegory.

396 _Manu_, Bk. I.

397 The word “Sin” is curious, but has a particular Occult relation to

the Moon, besides being its Chaldean equivalent.

398 Professor Zöllner’s theory has been more than welcomed by several

Scientists, who are also Spiritualists; Professors Butlerof and

Wagner, of St. Petersburg, for instance.

399 “The giving reality to abstractions is the error of Realism. Space

and Time are frequently viewed as separated from all the concrete

experiences of the mind, instead of being generalizations of these

in certain aspects.” (Bain, _Logic_, Part II. p. 389.)

400 _The Mysteries of Magic_, by A. E. Waite.

401 Wilson, I. 23, 24.

402 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 169.

403 In the Sânkhya philosophy, the seven Prakritis, or “productive

productions,” are Mahat, Ahamkâra, and the _five_ Tanmâtras. See

_Sânkhya Kârikâ_, III., and the Commentary thereon.

404 See _Linga Purâna_, Prior Section, lxx. 12 _et seq._; and _Vâyu

Purâna_, ch. iv., but especially the former _Purâna_—Prior Section,

viii. 67‐74.

405 _Vishnu Purâna_, Book vi., ch. iv. No use to say so to the Hindûs,

who know their _Purânas_ by heart, but very useful to remind our

Orientalists and those Westerns who regard Wilson’s translations as

authoritative, that, in his English translation of the _Vishnu

Purâna_, he is guilty of the most ludicrous contradictions and

errors. So on this identical subject of the seven Prakritis, or the

seven zones of Brahmâ’s Egg, the two accounts differ totally. In

Vol. i. p. 40, the Egg is said to be externally invested by seven

envelopes. Wilson comments: “by Water, Air, Fire, Ether, and

Ahamkâra”—which last word does not exist in the Sanskrit texts. And

in Vol. v. p. 198, of the same _Purâna_, it is written: “in this

manner were the seven forms of nature (Prakriti) reckoned from Mahat

to Earth” (?). Between Mahat, or Mahâ‐Buddhi, and “Water, etc.”, the

difference is very considerable.

406 According to the great metaphysician Hegel also. For him Nature was

a _perpetual becoming_. A purely Esoteric conception. Creation or

Origin, in the Christian sense of the term, is absolutely

unthinkable. As the above‐quoted thinker said: “God (the Universal

Spirit) _objectivizes himself as Nature_, and again rises out of

it.”

407 _Book of Dzyan_, Comm. III, par. 18.

408 P. 19.

409 Primitive, or First Man.

410 Reïncarnation.

411 Vehicle.

412 See, for example, _Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and the

Quichés_, by Augustus le Plongeon, who shows the identity between

the Egyptian rites and beliefs and those of the people he describes.

The ancient hieratic alphabets of the Mayas and the Egyptians are

almost identical.

413 In _The Theosophist_, 1881.

414 T. Subba Row, _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 154.

415 Also called the “Sons of Wisdom” and of the “Fire‐Mist,” and the

“Brothers of the Sun,” in the Chinese records. Si‐dzang (Tibet) is

mentioned, in the MSS. of the sacred library of the province of Fo‐

Kien, as the great seat of Occult learning from time immemorial,

ages before Buddha. The Emperor Yu, the “Great” (2,207 B.C.), a

pious Mystic and great Adept, is said to have obtained his Knowledge

from the “Great Teachers of the Snowy Range” in Si‐dzang.

416 _Matt._ vi. 5, 6.

417 _The Virgin of the World_, pp. 134‐5.

418 _Paracelsus_, Franz Hartmann, M.D., p. 44.

419 This word is explained by Dr. Hartmann, from the original texts of

Paracelsus before him, as follows. According to this great

Rosicrucian; “Mysterium is everything out of which something may be

developed, which is only germinally contained in it. A seed is the

‘Mysterium’ of a plant, an egg that of a living bird, etc.”

420 _Op. cit._, pp. 41, 42.

421 It is only the mediæval Kabalists who, following the Jewish and one

or two Neo‐Platonists, applied the term Microcosm to man. Ancient

philosophy called the Earth the Microcosm of the Macrocosm, and man

the outcome of the two.

422 “This doctrine, preached 300 years ago,” remarks the translator, “is

identical with the one that has revolutionized modern thought, after

having been put into new shape and elaborated by Darwin. It is still

more elaborated by Kapila in the Sânkhya philosophy.”

423 The Eastern Occultist says that they are guided and informed by

Spiritual Beings, the Workmen in the invisible Worlds, and behind

the veil of Occult Nature, or Nature _in abscondito_.

424 Wilson, I. ii., (Vol. I. 35).

425 A frequent expression in the said “Fragments,” to which we take

exception. The _Universal Mind_ is not a _Being_ or “God.”

426 _The Virgin of the World_, p. 47. “Asclepios,” Pt. I.

427 _Divine Pymander_, ix. 64.

428 _The Virgin of the World_, p. 153.

429 _Op. cit._, pp. 139, 140. Fragments from the “Physical Eclogues” and

“Florilegium” of Stobæus.

430 _Vishnu Purâna_, I. ii, Wilson, I. 13‐15.

431 _Op. cit._, pp. 135‐138.

432 This teaching does not refer to Prakriti‐Purusha beyond the

boundaries of our small universe.

433 The ultimate quiescent state; the Nirvânic condition of the Seventh

Principle.

434 The teaching is all given from our plane of consciousness.

435 Or the “dream of Science,” the primeval really homogeneous matter,

which no mortal can make objective in this Race, or Round either.

436 “Vishnu, in the form of his active energy, neither ever rises nor

sets, and is at once, the _seven‐fold sun_ and distinct from it,”

says _Vishnu Purâna_, II. xi., (Wilson, II. 296).

437 “In the same manner as a man approaching a mirror placed upon a

stand, beholds in it his own image, so the energy (or reflection) of

Vishnu [the Sun] is never disjoined but remains ... in the Sun (as

in a mirror), that is there stationed.” (_Ibid._, _loc. cit._)

438 Compare the Hermetic “Nature” “going down cyclically into matter

when she meets the ‘Heavenly Man’.”

439 The writers of the above knew perfectly well the physical cause of

the tides, of the waves, etc. It is the informing Spirit of the

whole cosmic solar body that is meant here, and which is referred to

whenever such expressions are used from the mystic point of view.

440 _Five Years of Theosophy_, pp. 110, 111, art., “The Twelve Signs of

the Zodiac.”

441 See Stanzas III and IV, and the Commentaries thereupon, and

especially compare the comments on Stanza IV, concerning the Lipika

and the four Mahârâjahs, the agents of Karma.

442 And “Gods” or Dhyânis, too, not only the Genii or “guided Forces.”

443 The meaning of this is that as man is composed of all the Great

Elements—Fire, Air, Water, Earth and Ether—the Elementals which

respectively belong to these Elements feel attracted to man by

reason of their coëssence. That Element which predominates in a

certain constitution will be the ruling Element throughout life. For

instance, if man has a preponderance of the earthly, gnomic Element,

the Gnomes will lead him towards assimilating metals—money and

wealth, and so on. “Animal man is the son of the animal elements out

of which his Soul [life] was born, and animals are the mirrors of

man,” says Paracelsus. (_De Fundamento Sapientiæ._) Paracelsus was

cautious, and wanted the _Bible_ to agree with what he said, and

therefore did not say all.

444 Cyclic progress in development.

445 The God in man and often the incarnation of a God, a highly

Spiritual Dhyân Chohan in him, besides the presence of his own

Seventh Principle.

446 Now, what “God” is meant here? Not God the “Father,” the

anthropomorphic fiction; for that God is the Elohim collectively,

and has no being apart from the Host. Besides, such a God is finite

and imperfect. It is the high Initiates and Adepts who are meant

here by the “few in number.” And it is precisely such men who

believe in “Gods”, and know no “God” but one Universal unrelated and

unconditioned Deity.

447 _The Virgin of the World_, pp. 104‐5, “The Definitions of

Asclepios.”

448 P. 120.

449 _National Reformer_, January 9th, 1887. Article “Phreno‐Kosmo‐

Biology,” by Dr. Lewins.

450 This is Cyclic law; but this law itself is often defied by human

stubbornness.

451 Vol. I. p. 256.

452 _Sepher Jetzirah._

453 As far as “Divine Revelation” is concerned, we agree. Not so with

regard to “human history.” For there is “history” in most of the

allegories and “myths” of India; and events, real actual events, are

concealed under them.

454 When the “false theologies” disappear, then true prehistoric

realities will be found, contained especially in the mythology of

the Âryans and ancient Hindûs, and even the pre‐Homeric Hellenes.

455 See Section VII, “Deus Lunus.”

456 From an MS.

457 _Guide au Musée de Boulaq_, pp. 148, 149.

458 As we said in _Isis Unveiled_ (II. 438‐9): “To the present moment,

in spite of all controversies and researches, History and Science

remain as much as ever in the dark as to the origin of the Jews.

They may as well be the exiled Chandâlas of old India, the

‘bricklayers’ mentioned by Veda‐Vyâsa and Manu, as the Phœnicians of

Herodotus, or the Hyksos of Josephus, or the descendants of Pali

shepherds, or a mixture of all these. The _Bible_ names the Tyrians

as a kindred people and claims dominion over them.... Yet whatever

they may have been, they became a hybrid people, not long after the

time of Moses, for the _Bible_ shows them freely intermarrying not

alone with the Canaanites, but with every other nation or race they

came in contact with.”

459 _Knowledge_, Vol. I; see also Petrie’s letter to _The Academy_, Dec.

17, 1881.

460 _The Origin and Significance of the Great Pyramid_, p. 9.

461 _Op. cit._, I. 519.

462 _The Origin and Significance of the Great Pyramid_, p. 93.

463 vii. 13 _et seq._

464 P. 224.

465 Vol. I. Part I. 46.

466 x. 10.

467 See _Isis Unveiled_, II. 442‐3.

468 _Exodus_, 11. 21.

469 George Smith, _Chaldean Account of Genesis_, pp. 299, 300.

470 II. 3.

471 As a reminder how the _esoteric_ religion of Moses was crushed

several times, and the worship of Jehovah, as reëstablished by

David, put in its place, by Hezekiah for instance, compare _Isis

Unveiled_ (II. 436‐42). Surely there must have been some very good

reasons why the Sadducees, who furnished almost all the High Priests

of Judæa, held to the Laws of Moses and spurned the alleged “Books

of Moses,” the _Pentateuch_ of the Synagogue and the _Talmud_?

472 Once more, remember the Hindû Wittoba crucified in space; the

significance of the “sacred sign,” the Svastika; Plato’s Decussated

Man in Space, etc.

473 See farther on the description given of the early Âryan Initiation:

of Vishvakarman crucifying the Sun, Vikarttana, shorn of his

beams—on a cruciform lathe.

474 _Primeval Man Unveiled; or the Anthropology of the Bible_, by the

author (unknown) of _The Stars and the Angels_, 1870, p. 14.

475 _Op. cit._, p. 195.

476 Especially in the face of the evidence furnished by the authorized

_Bible_ itself in _Genesis_ (iv. 16, 17), which shows Cain going to

the land of Nod and there marrying a wife.

477 _Ibid._, p. 194.

478 _Ibid._, p. 55.

479 _Ibid._, pp. 206‐7.

480 _Acts_, xvii. 23, 24.

481 _Taittirîyaka Upanishad_, Second Vallî, First Anuvâka.

482 _Ephesians_, vi, 12.

483 _Oracles of Zoroaster_, “Effatum,” xvi.

484 _Georgica_, Book II. 325.

485 _Isis Unveiled._

486 _Op. cit._, I. 5‐13, Burnell’s translation.

487 The ideal apex of the Pythagorean Triangle.

488 See A. Coke Burnell’s translation, edited by Ed. W. Hopkins, Ph. D.

489 Ahamkâra, as universal Self‐Consciousness, has a triple aspect, as

has also Manas. For this “conception of I,” or the Ego, is either

_sattva_, “pure quietude,” or appears as _rajas_, “active,” or

remains _tamas_, “stagnant,” in darkness. It belongs to Heaven and

Earth, and assumes the properties of Ether.

490 See _Sânkhya Kârikâ_ III, and Commentaries.

491 The word “eternity,” by which Christian theologians interpret the

term “for ever and ever,” does not exist in the Hebrew tongue.

“Oulam,” says Le Clerc, only imports a time when beginning or end is

not known. It does not mean “infinite duration,” and the term “for

ever,” in the _Old Testament_, only signifies a “long time.” Nor is

the word “eternity” used in the Christian sense in the _Purânas_.

For in _Vishnu Purâna_, it is clearly stated that by “eternity” and

“immortality” only “existence to the end of the Kalpa” is meant.

(Book II. chap. viii.)

492 Orphic Theogony is purely Oriental and Indian in its spirit. The

successive transformations it has undergone, have now separated it

widely from the spirit of ancient Cosmogony, as may be seen by

comparing it even with Hesiod’s _Theogony_. Yet the truly Âryan

Hindû spirit breaks forth everywhere in both the Hesiodic and Orphic

systems. (See the remarkable work of James Darmesteter, “Cosmogonies

Âryennes,” in his _Essais Orientaux_.) Thus the original Greek

conception of Chaos is that of the Secret Wisdom Religion. In

Hesiod, therefore, Chaos is infinite, boundless, endless and

beginningless in duration, an abstraction and a visible presence at

the same time, Space filled with darkness, which is primordial

matter in its _pre‐cosmic_ state. For in its etymological sense,

Chaos is Space, according to Aristotle, and Space is the ever Unseen

and Unknowable Deity, in our philosophy.

493 The _manifested_ Spirit: Absolute, Divine Spirit is one with

absolute Divine Substance; Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti are one in

essence. Therefore, Cosmic Ideation and Cosmic Substance, in their

primal character, are one also.

494 _Sepher Yetzirah_, Chap. I. Mishna ix.

495 _Ibid._ It is from “Arba” that Abram is derived.

496 _Zohar_, I. 2a.

497 _Sepher Yetzirah_, Mishna ix. 10.

498 _Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection_.

499 Plato, _Timæus_.

500 Suidas, _sub voc._ “Tyrrhenia.” See Cory’s _Ancient Fragments_, p.

309, 2nd ed.

501 The reader will understand that by “years” is meant “ages,” not mere

periods of 13 lunar months each.

502 See the Greek translation by Philon Byblius.

503 Cory, _Op. cit._, p. 3.

504 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 342.

505 Mithras was regarded among the Persians as the _theos ek petras_—the

God from the rock.

506 Bordj is called a fire‐mountain, a volcano: therefore it contains

fire, rock, earth and water; the male, or active, and the female, or

passive, elements. The myth is suggestive.

507 _Op. cit._, I. 156.

508 Henry Pratt, M.D., _New Aspects of Life_.

509 _Siphrah Dtzenioutha_, i. 16.

510 Damascius, in his Theogony, calls it Dis, “the disposer of all

things.” Cory, _Ancient Fragments_, p. 314.

511 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 341.

512 “Migration of Abraham,” 32.

513 With the Greeks, the River‐Gods, all of them the Sons of the

Primeval Ocean—Chaos, in its masculine aspect—were the respective

ancestors of the Hellenic races. For them the Ocean was the Father

of the Gods; and thus in this connection they had anticipated the

theories of Thales, as rightly observed by Aristotle. (_Metaph._ I.

3‐5.)

514 xxvi. 5.

515 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 133‐4.

516 The Spirit, or hidden voice of the Mantras; the active manifestation

of the latent force, or Occult potency.

517 Orthography of the _Archaic Dictionary_.

518 We do not mean the current or accepted _Bible_, but the _real_

Jewish Scripture, now kabatistically explained.

519 See _Genesis_, ii. 4.

520 It is “unutterable” for the simple reason that it is non‐existent.

It _never_ was either a _name_, or any _word_ at all, but an _idea_

that could not be expressed. A substitute was created for it in the

century preceding our era.

521 The Cosmic Tabernacle of Moses, erected by him in the Desert, was

_square_, representing the four Cardinal Points and the four

Elements, as Josephus tells his readers. (_Antiq._ I. viii. ch.

xxii.) The idea was taken from the pyramids in Egypt, and also in

Tyre, where the pyramids became pillars. The Genii, or Angels, have

their abodes in these four points respectively.

522 Isaac Myer’s _Qabbalah_, published 1888, p. 415.

523 As, for instance, in _Vishnu Purâna_, Bk. I.

524 Plutarch, _De Iside et Osiride_, lvi.

525 _Spirit History of Man_, p. 88.

526 Movers, _Phoinizer_, 268.

527 Cory, _Ancient Fragments_, 240.

528 _Vishnu Purâna_, Bk. I. Ch. iv., Fitzedward Hall’s rendering.

529 Just as Mûlaprakriti is known only to Îshvara, the Logos, as he is

called by T. Subba Row.

530 Franck, _Die Kabbala_, 126.

531 Philo, _Quæst. et Solut._

532 Franck, _Op. cit._, 153.

533 The “Seven Angels of the Face,” with the Christians.

534 _Philosophumena_, vi. 42.

535 _The Kabbalah Unveiled_, 47.

536 _Qabbalah_, 233.

537 p. 79.

538 Arnobius, VI. xii.

539 We employ the term as one accepted and sanctioned by use, and

therefore more comprehensible to the reader.

540 See Dunlap, _Sôd: the Mysteries of Adoni_, 23.

541 With the ancient Jews, as shown by Le Clerc, the word Oulom meant

simply a time whose beginning or end was not known. The term

“Eternity,” properly speaking, did not exist in the Hebrew tongue

with the meaning applied by Vedântins to Parabrahman, for instance.

542 _Zohar_, Part I. fol. 20a.

543 In the Indian Pantheon the double‐sexed Logos is Brahmâ, the

Creator, whose seven “Mind‐born” Sons are the primeval Rishis—the

Builders.

544 Says Rabbi Simeon: “Oh, companions, companions, man as an emanation

was both man and woman, as well on the side of the ‘Father’ as on

the side of the ‘Mother.’ And this is the sense of the words: ‘And

Elohim spake, Let there be Light, and it was Light’; ... and this is

the _two‐fold man_.” (_Auszüge ans dem Sohar_, 13, 15.) Light, then,

in _Genesis_, stood for the Androgyne Ray, or “Heavenly Man.”

545 _Zohar_, iii. 290.

546 _Op. cit._, ii. 261.

547 ix. 1.

548 _Chaldean Account of Genesis_, 62, 63.

549 The Seven Swans that are believed to descend from Heaven on Lake

Mânsarovara, are in the popular fancy the Seven Rishis of the Great

Bear, who assume that form to visit the locality where the _Vedas_

were written.

550 See Petronius, _Satyricon_, cxxxvi.

551 _Progress of Religious Ideas_, I. 17 _et seq._

552 iii. 165.

553 Ch. liv. 3.

554 Ch. xxii. 1.

555 Ch. xlii. 13.

556 Ch. liv. 1, 2; ch. lxxvii. i.

557 _Vishnu Purâna_, I. 39.

558 _Op. cit._, _ibid._

559 Ch. xvii. 50, 51.

560 Ch. xlii. 13.

561 Ch. lxxx. 9.

562 See Max Müller’s “Our Figures.”

563 A Kabalist would be rather inclined to believe that as the Arabic

_cifron_ was taken from the Indian _sunyan_, nought, so the Jewish

Kabalistic Sephiroth (_Sephrim_) were taken from the word _cipher_,

not in the sense of emptiness, but in that of creation by number and

degrees of evolution. And the Sephiroth are 10 or [circle split by

vertical line].