I. The Lha (a) which turns the Fourth* is Servant to the

LhA(5) of the SE\^Nt (d), they who REVOtVE. DRIVING THEIR
Chariots around their Lord, the One Eye J of our Woru). Hjs Breath gave Life to the Sev^n.S It gave ufe to the First (r). " T^cy are all Dragons of Wisdom^ adds the Commentary {d), («) **Lha" is the ancient term in Trans-Himilaj'an regions for "Spirit." any celestial or super-human Being, and it covers the whole senes of heavenly hierarchies, from an Archangel, or Dhyani, down to an Angel of darkness, or terrestrial Spirit,
{b) This expresvsion shows in plain language that the Spirit-Guardian of our Globe, which is the fourth in the Chain, is subordinate to the chief Spirit (or God) of the Seven Planetarj' Genii or Spirits. As already explained, the Ancients had, in their Kyriel of Gods, seven
* Tbe FOmtb Glotie, or our Eartb. All the ^loss«s on the imnBlatioa of the text of the StAnzoa Bod CamiDentaries are the writer's. In «)me places tht-y may be incomplete anJ even Innclrfinate from the Hlnda stRndpoint: bat in the meaninpr attached to them in TTuns-Himilai-an B»otcnci*ni
»r» comet. In cvtrj- ca*c ihc ftxitcr tAkes auy bl&mc upon herself. As she has never cluimt- J lat infallibility, that which is given on her own authority niay leave mueh to be denired, par-
irly In the very abstruse case* where too deep metaphysic is involved. The teaching is oflered « it it understood ; and KelnK that there are seven keys of interpretation to e\-ery symbol and AQerorr, a meaning which may not be suitahle froin, say, the psycholofical or astraooniical aspect^ •rfl! ocTcrthclesa be found quite comet from the physicai or metaphysical.
• T*e Planeury Spirits. S Uj^a Chalubus.
The Manet*.
van u
THE SECRET DOCTRmB.
chief Mysterj'-Gods, whose leader was, exoterically, the vi:;?ble Sun, or the eighth, and, Esoterically, the Second Logos, the Demiurge. The Seven — who have now, in the Christian religion, become the "Seven Eyes of the Lord*' — were the Regents of the seven chirf planets; but these were not reckoned according to the enumeration devised later by people who had forgotten, or who had an inadequate notion of, the real Mysteries, and included neither the Sun, the Moon, nor the Eartli. The Sun was the chief, exoterically, of the twelve Great Gods, or zodiacal constellations; and, Esoterically, the Messiah, the Christos — tlie subject '* anointed" by the Great Breath, or the One — surrounded by his twelve subordinate powers, also subordinate, in turn, to each of the seven Mysterj'-Gods of the planets.
" The Seven Higher make the Seven Lhas create the world,** states a Commentary; which means that our Earth — to leave aside the rest — wac ** created" or fashioned by Terrestrial Spirits, the Regents being simp!/ the supervisors. This is the first germ of that which grew later into tlie Tree of Astrology and Astrolatry, The Higher Ones were the Cosmocratores, the fabricators of our Solar System. This is borne out by all the ancient Cosmogonies, such as those of Hermes, of the Chaldaeans, of the Aryans, of the Eg>'ptians, and even of the Jews. The Signs of the Zodiac — the ** Sacred Aimnah^' or "Heaven's Belt" — are as much the Bne' Alhim — Sons of the Gods or the Elohim — as the Spirits of the Earth; but tliey are prior to them. Soma and Sin, Isis and Diana, are all lunar Gods or Goddesses, called the Fathers and Mothers of our Earth, which is subordinate to them. But these, in their turn, are subordinate to their "Fathers" and "Mothers" — the latter being interchangeable and var>'ing with each nation — the Gods and their Planets, such as Jupiter, Saturn, Bel, Brihaspati, etc.
(f) "His Breath gave Life to the Seven," refers as much to the Suu, who gives life to the Planets, as to the " High One," Uie Spiritual Sun, who gives life to the whole Kosnios. The astronomical and astrologi- cal keys opening the gate leading to the mysteries of Theogony can be found only in the later glossaries, which accompany the Stanzas.
In the apocalj^ptic Shlokas of the Archaic Records, the language is as symbolical, if less mythical, than in the Purdnas. Without the help of the later Commentaries, compiled by generations of Adepts, it would be impossible to understand the meaning correctly. In the ancient Cos- mogonies, the visible and the invisible worlds are the double links of one and the same chain. As the Invisible Logos, with its Seven
COSMIC ULTIMATES.
Hierarchies — each represented or personified by its chief Angel or Rector — form one PowER, the inner and the invisible; so, in the world of Forms, the Sun and the seven chief Planets constitute the visible and active potency; the latter Hierarchy being, so to speak, the visible and objective Logos of the Invisible and — except in the lowest grades — ever-subjective Angels.
Thus — to anticipate a little by way of illustration — ev€r>' Race in its evolution is said to be bom under the direct influence of oue of the Planets; Race the First receiving its breath of life from the Sun, as will be seen later on; while the Third Humanity — those who fell into generation, or from androgynes became separate entities, one male and the other female — is said to be under the direct influence of Venus, " the ' liitU sun* in which the solar orb stores his light."
The summary of the Stanzas in Volume I showed the genesis* of Gods and men taking rise in, and from, one and the same Point, which is the One Universal, Immutable, Eternal, and Absolute Unitv. In its priraarj' manifested aspect we have seen it become: (i) in the sphere of objectivity and Physics, Primordial Substa>'CK and Force — centripetal and centrifugal, positive and negative, male and female, etc. ; (2) in the world of Metaphysics, the Spirit op the Universe, or Cosmic Ideation, called by some the Logos.
This Logos is the apex of the P>'thagorean Triangle. When the Triangle is complete it becomes the Tetraktj'-s, or the Triangle in the Square, and is the dual symbol of the four-lettered Tetragrammaton in the manifested Kosraos, and of its radical triple Ray in the unmani- festcd — its Noumenon.
Put more metaphysically, the classification given here of Cosmic UUimates, is more one of convenience than of absolute philosophical accurac>\ At the commencement of a great Manvantara, Parabrahraan manifests as Mulaprakriti and then as the Logos. This Logos is equiva- lent to the '* Unconscious Universal Mind," etc., of Western Pantheists. It constitutes the Basis of the subjed-sxA^ of manifested Being, and is the source of all manifestations of individual consciousness. Mulapra- kriti or Primordial Cosmic Substance, is the foundation of the object- side of things — the basis of all objective evolution and cosmo-genesis. Force, then, does not emerge with Primordial Substance from Para-
^
^ .\ccor^ne to Dr. A. Ullder'B Icflmed definition. Genesis. ycFCcris, is not generaUon, but **a eoming oul of the etemaX Into the Cosmos and Time": "a coming from ciiv into ^xiuirrf/' or from a Thcoeophist would say.
Being'
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
brabmanic latency. It is the irans/ormafion into energy of the supra- consciofis thought of the Logos, infused, so to speak, into the objectivation of the latter out of potential latency in the One Reality. Hence spring the wondrous laws of Matter; hence the "primalimpress** so vainly discussed by Bishop Temple. Force thus is Jiot synchronous with the first objectivation of Mulaprakriti. Nevertheless as, apart from it, the latter is absolutely and necessarily inert — a mere abstraction — it is nn- necessary to weave too fine a cobweb of subtleties as to the order of succession of the Cosmic Ultimates. Force jwrr^^j Mulaprakriti ; but. minus Force, Mfilaprakriti is for all practical intents and purposes non existent.* J
The Heavenly Man or Tetragrammaton, who is the Protogonos? Tikkoun, the Firstborn from the passive Deity and the first mani- festation of that DeitVs Shadow, is the Universal Form and Idea, which engenders tlie Manifested Logos, Adam Kadmon, or the four- lettered symbol, in the Kabalah, of the Universe itself, also called the Second Logos. The Second springs from the First and develops the Third Triangle;! from the last of which (the lower host of Angelsj Men are generated. It is with this third aspect that we shall deal at present
The reader must bear in mind that there is a great difference between the Logos and the Demiurgos, for one is Spirit and the other is Soul or as Dr. Wilder has it:
iHanoia and Logos are synonymous, Nous being superior and closely in affinilj' with Ti *A.ya6h¥y one being the superior app*eheuding, the other the comprehend- ing— one noetic and the other phrenic.
Moreover, Man was regarded in several systems as the Third Logos. The Esoteric meaning of the word Logos — Speech or Word. Verbum — is the rendering iu objective expression, as in a photograph, of the concealed thought. The Logos is the mirror reflecting Divikk Mind, and the Utiiverse is the mirror of the Logos, though the latter is the esse of that Universe, As the Logos reflects ait in the Universe of Pleroma, so Man reflects in himself all that he sees and finds in his Universe, the Earth. It is the Three Heads of the Kabalah — "unum intra aiterum, et aiterum super aiterum.''X "Every Universe (World or
n
* For A dearer rvplanalion of Uie on^n». u contoiued in Uie B&utcrid»m of the Bhagtkvad CUa, Kc the Notes tbmroii published la "Hit TTuoiophttt for February, March and June, 1M7. Mi
♦ See Uie Scphirothftl Tree, t Zokar, Jdra Sato, Sec. VIL
DRAGON AND SERPENT.
29
PPI;
Planet) has its own Logos,' says the Doctrine. The Sun was aJwayr
called by the Egyptians the " Eye of Osiris," and was himself the Logos,
ihe First-begotten» or Light made manifest to the world, "which is the
Mind and divine Intellect of the Concealed/' It is only by the seven-
d Ray of this Light that we can become cognizant of the Logos
rough the Demiurge, regarding the latter as the "Creator" of our
anet and everything pertaining to it, and the former as the guiding
Force of that "Creator" — good and bad at the same time, the origjin of
good and the origin of evil. This "Creator" is neither good nor bad
per *r, but its differentiated aspects in Nature make it assume one or
the other character. With the invisible and the unknown Universes
disseminated through Space, none of the Sun-Gods had anything to do.
he idea is expressed very clearly in the Books of Hermes, and in
ery ancient folk-lore. It is symbolized generally by the Dragon and
e Serpent — the Dragon of Good and the Serpent of Evil, represented
on Earth by the right and the left-hand Magic. In the epic poem of
Finland, the Kalcvala* the origin of the Serpent of Evil is given : it
bom from the spittle of Suoyatar, and endowed with a Living Soul
ly the Principle of Evil, Hisi. A strife is described between the two,
e "thing of evil," the Serpent or Sorcerer, and Ahti, the Dragon or
e white magician, Lemminkainen. The latter is one of the seven
ns of Ilmatar, the virgin "daughter of the air/' she "who fell from
heaven into the sea," before Creation, Af.. Spirit transformed into the
matter of sensuous life. There is a world of meaning and Occult
thought in the following few lines, admirably rendered by Dr. J. M.
ford, of Cincinnati. The hero Lemminkainen,
Hews the wall witli might of magic. Breaks the palisade in pieces. Hews to atoms seven pickets. Chops the serfxni'Wall to frai^euts.
When the monster little heeding,
Pounces with his mouth of venom At the head of Lemminkainen. Btit the hero, quick recalling. Speaks the master-words of knowledge. Words that came from distant ages. Words his ancestors had taught him.
• J. B. Aldcn; N
dfo
THK SBCRHT DOCTRINE.
(tf) In China the men of Fohi, or the '* Heavenly Man," are called the twelve Tien-Hoang, the twelve Hierarchies of Dhyanis or Angeb. Avith human faces, and dragon bodies; the Dragon standing for Divine Wisdom or Spirit;* and they create men by incarnating themselves in seven figures of clay — earth and water — made in the shape of these Tlen-Hoang, a third allegory.f The twelve j^sers of the Scandinavian Eddas do the same. In the Secret Catechism of the Druses of Syria — a legend which is repeated word for word by the oldest tribes about •sLiid around the Euphrates — men were created by the "Sons of God," who descended on Earth, and after gathering seven Mandragoras, they animated the roots, which forthwith became men. J
AH these allegories point to one and the same origin — to the dual and triple nature of man; dual, as male and female; triple, as being of spiritual and psychic essence within, and of a material fabric without.
* [t Has been repcatetlly «Utcd that Ibe Srrpmt is the symbol of wlxlom satl of Occult knowledge. •'The 8crpeiit h*ft bccu coniicctnl with Ihc ifod of wisdum from the earliest Umes of which wc have jiiiy historical notice," writw C. statiilAnd Wake. "TliU animal was the especial uynibol of Thoih or Tout . . , and of all Uioae godt, nuch a» Herruc* [/] ond Scth who can be oonnrctcd with tum, litis iit true also of the third member of the jirimitive eh&ldicrui triad, Hca or noa." According to ■ftir Henry RnwUnBOu, "the moal Importnnt tltJm of this deity rtfer to ' hl» fniictlona as the source of •lU know^dgc and adeiice.' Not only is tie 'the iulclUgetit 6sh.* but hU uamc may be read as signUy- iHit both 'life' and a 'serpent' [an initiated Adept], and he may be considered us 'ligured by the '-^reiit serpent which occnpicfi so conspicuooji n place amoni;; the symbols of the gods on the black #(imea reconUng Babylonian \icut:{Azi'\ontt"* [Thf titeat /\ramui,p.7f,]. Eaculapma, Serapia, Pluto, tfsmun and Kueph, ate all deities with llie attributes of the serpent, says Dupuls. They ore all ^M»alfrs, given of health, spiritual and physical, and of mii/rM/tmment. The crown formed of an aap, the ThennuthLs, twlong* to lais, noddeaa of Ufe and Healing. The CfiamuAtids have n trratiae on the Sctfruf of Serftnt3—\n other words, the Science of Occult Knowledge; and the NIgaa of the -exoteric Buddhist are not " the fabul«tu ciraturea, of the nature of aerpenta . . . being superior to man, and regarded as protectors of the low of Buddlta," a men, some superior to raeu by rirtue of their Occult Knowledge, and the pr^ecton of Buddha* i law. Inasmuch as thty inttwprtt his mttaphyiical Untti lOtmUj', oUiers inferior morally as being " black magicians." Therefore it is truly declared that Gautama Buddha " ia said to have taught them a more philosophical religious systein than to men, who were not suC&cicntly advanced lo understand -It at the time of his appearance" {ibid., p. 7*).
i* Compare the Symbols of the fionrti.
X Tlic Mandragora Is the Mandrake of the Bible, of Rachel and L.eah. llie roots of the plant are fleshy, hair)-, and forked, representing roughly the 1iml>s, the body, aud even bead of a msu. Its -magical and mysterioua properties hove been proclaimed in fable and play from the most archaic ■gca. From Rachel and Leah, who indulged in witchcraa with them, down to Shakespeare, who «pc«ks of " sh rieking ' ' —
" Kike mandrake* torn out of the earth That living mortals, hearing them, nui nod" —the mandragora was the magic plant par txttllenee.
These roots are without any apparent stalk, large leaves growlug out of the head of the root, like a gigantic crop of hair. The>' prrm-iit Utile siuiiUtude to man when fouad in Spain, Italy, Asia UlnoT, or Syria, but on the Isle of Caudia, and In Karunanis near the city of Ad&n, they have a wonderfully human form, and are very highly prised as amulets. They are also worn by women as a charm againat sterility, and for other purpuaea. They are capecioJly efleclive In "Black Magic."
mercoty and the sttn. ^
2. Said the Earth, •• Lord op thb Shining Face,*^ my House IS EMPT\-. . . . Send thy Sons to people this Wheel-I Thou
OAST SENT THY SEVEN SONS TO THE LORD OF WiSDOM (a). SEVEN" TIMES DOTH HE SEE THEE NEARER TO HIMSELF; SEVEN TIMES MORE DOTH HE FEEL THEE (^). ThOU HAST FORBIDDEN THY SERVANTS, THE SMALL RiNGS, TO CATCH THY LIGHT AND HeAT, THY GREAT
Bounty to intercept on its passage. Send now to thy Servant
THE &VME ! "
(a) The "Lord of Wisdom" is Mercury, or Budha.
(6) The modern Commentary explains the words as a reference to a well-known astronomical fact, that Mercury receives seven times more light and heat from the Sun than the Earth, or even the beautiful Venus, which receives but twice the amount falling on our insignificant Globe. Wliether the fact was known in antiquity may be inferred from the prayer of the "Earth Spirit" to the Sun as given in the text-t The Sun, however, refuses to people the Globe, as it is not ready to receive life as yet.
Mercury, as an astrological Planet, is still more Occult and mys- terious than Venus. It is identical with the Mazdean Mithra, the Genius, or God, '* established between the Sun and the Moon, the perpetual companion of the 'Suu' of Wisdom." Pausanias (Bk. v> shows him as having an altar in common with Jupiter. He had wings to express his attendance upon the Sun in its course; and he was called the Nuntius and Sun-wolf, **so/aris luminis pariicepsy He was the leader and evocator of Souls, the great Magician and the Hierophant. Virgil depicts hira as taking his wand to evoke from Otcus the souls plunged therein — turn virgam capita hoc animas ille evocal Orco.% He is the Golden-coloured Mercury, the Xpwro^y^ 'Epfiyr whom the Hierophants forbade to name. He is symbolized in Grecian mythology by one of the "dogs" (vigilance), which watch over the celestial flock (Occult Wisdom), or Hermes Anubis, or again Agatho-
• Tbe Sun.
t Earth.
} Copernlctu wrote hU theories on the "Revolution of the Heavenly Bodie»" in the sixteenth ecn- tnry, and the Zokar, rvm if compiled by Monen de Leon in the thirteenth century, itatcii that :
"In Lhe Book of Hammaiinnnah, the Old (or, the Andentl, we learn . . . that the earth tura» upon itself in the form of a circle; that some are on top, the uthen below; that .... there are aome countrim of the earth which are lightened, wbiUt other* are in darkness: these have the day, when lor the fcrracr it is ni^ht: and tbtrre are countries in which it is constantly day. or in which at lettM the night continues only aome instants." {Zt>iiar, tii, ful. loa, quoted in Myer's Qabbalah,
p- 139-) \ dee mlao the xnt Pars&rd of Uie t-Vn^MAf on the oetestiai xB&itia.
4J3 THB SECRET DOCTRIXB.
daemon. He is the Argus watching over the Earth, mistaken by the latter for the Sun itself. It is through the intercession of Mercury that the Emperor Julian prayed to the Occult Sun every night; for, as says Vossius:
A]l the theoIogiBtis assert that Mercury and the Sun are one, . . . He was the moat eloquent and the most wise of all the Gods, which is not to be wondered at, .since Mercury is in such dose proximity to the Wisdom and the Word of God [the Sun] that he was confused with both.*
Vossius here utters a greater Occult truth than he suspected. The Hermes of the Greeks is closely related to the Hindu Sarama and Sarameya, the divine watchman, "who watches over the golden flock of stars and solar rays."
In the clearer words of the Commentar>':
Th€ Globe, propelled onward by the Spirit of the Earth and his six Assistants, gets all its vital forces, life, and powers through the medium of the seven planetary Dhydnis from the Spirit of the Sum. They are his messetigers of Light and Life.
Like each of the Seven Regions of the Earth, each of the $even\ First- horn \jhe primordial Human Groups'] receives its light and life front its 4>wn especial Dhyani — spiritually, and from the Palaee [//oiise, the Planet^ of that Dhyani — physically ; so with the sei*en great Races to be born on it. The First is bom under the Sun ; the Second under Bfihaspati [fupUerl: the Third under Lohitdnga [Afars, the *' Fiery-bodied*' and also utider Venits or Shuha^; the Fourth, tmdcr Soma [the Moon, our Globe also, the Fourth Sphere being bom ttnder and from the Afoon~\ and Sham, Satnm.X the Krura-lochana [Evil-eyed^ and the Asita [the Dark]; the Fifth, under Budha [Mercury^.
So also with man and every **man*' [every principle] in man. Each gels its specif c quality from its Primary [the Planetary Spirit], therefore every man is a septenate [or a combination of principles, each having its origin in a quality of that special Dhydni\ Every active power or forci
• iOotat., II. 373-
■* Science teaches that Venua receive* from the Son twice as much tisrht and heat an Che ^rlh. Thua this l^anet, prccnnor of the dawn and the twilight, the mo«t radiant of all the Pltinetif, is Mid to give the Earth one an Occnit aa vrell a» an aiitronomical meanin);.
% "As It Is above, to below," \\ the fundamental axiom of Occult Philosophy. As the l^^Oft U seven-fold, i>., throug:hout Kounos it appears as seven LoK under seven diflrirnt forms, or, as taught by Icanicd Urdhmans. "each of theae is the cenlral B^ure of one o{ the seven main brancfaca of the ancient Wisdom Kelig-ion " ; and, ax the seven priuciplcs which correspond to the seven dis- tinct states of Prajna, or Consciousness, arc allied to seven states of Matter and sex-en forms of Force, ihe dinaion must be Uic same In all that coucerua the fiartlt.
THE CBLESTIAI, GO\'ERNORS OF HUMANITY.
33
:
.y the Earth comes to her from one of the seven Lords, Light comes through Shukra [ Venus^ who receives a triple supply, and gives one- ihird of it to Itw Earth, Therefore the two are called " Twin-sisters" but the Spirit of the Earth is subservient to the ^' Lord'' of Shukra. Our wise wen represent the two Globes, one oz'er, the other under the double Sign [the primeval Svaslika bereft of its four arms^ or the cross^ -I-]-*
The "double sign" is, as every student of Occultism knows, the symbol of the male and the female principles in Nature, of the posi- tive and the negative, for the Svastika or L^ is all that and much more. All antiquity, ever since the birth of Astronomy — imparted to the Fourth Race by one of the Kings of the Divine Dynasty — and also of Astrology, represented Venus in its astronomical tables as a Globe poised over a Cross, and the Earth, as a Globe under a Cross. The Esoteric meaning of this is the Earth fallen into generation, or into the production of its species through sexual union. But the later Western nations have not failed to give it quite a different interpreta- tion. They explained the sign through their Mystics — guided by the light of the Latin Church — as meaning that our Earth and all on it were redeemed by the Cross, while Venus — otherwise Lucifer or Satan — was trampling upon it. Venus is the most Occult, powerful, and mys- terious of all the Planets; the one whose influence upon, and relation to. the Earth is most prominent. In exoteric Brahmanism, Venus or Shukra — a male deityf — is the son of Bhrigu, one of the PrajSpati and a Vedic sage, and is Daitya-Guru, or the priest-instructor of the pri- meval giants. The whole histor>' of Shukra in the Purdnas, refers to the Third and Fourth Races. As says the Commentary:
// is through Shukra that the *' double ones** [the hermaphrodites'] of the Third [Root-Race] descended from the first ** Sweat- born." Therefore it is represented under the symbol Q [the circle and diameter\ during the Third \Race\ and Q. during the Fourth.
This needs explanation. The diameter, when found isolated in a circle, stands for female Nature; for the first ideal World, self- generated and self impregyia ted by the universally diffused Spirit of Life — thus also referring to the primitive Root-Race. It becomes androgynous as the Races and all else on Earth develop into their physical forms, and the symbol is transformed into a circle with a diameter from which runs a
• V)mn* U thu» 9 • ^h« K^rtli 6 '
* lo the KiKitcnc Philosophy it u male and fcnale, or hennaphrodlte ; bence the " bearded " Venna in m>-Uiolof>.
34
TWS SECRKT IX)CTR1NE.
vertical line, expressive of male and female, not separated as yet — the first and earliest Egyptian Tau; Q after which it becomes -U, or male female separated* and fallen into generation. Venus (the Planet), is symbolized by the sign of a globo over a cross, which shows the former as presiding over the natural generation of man. The Eg^^Jtians symbolized Ankh. "life,'* by the ansated cross, or ^, which is only another form of Venus (Isis), ^, and meant, Esoterically, that mankind and all animal life had stepped out of the divine spiritual circle and had fallen into physical male and female generation. This sign, from the end of the Third Race, has the same phallic significance as the *' Tr^ of Life" in Eden. Anouki, aform of Isis, is the Goddess of Life ; and Ankh was taken by the Hebrews from the Egyptians. It was introduced into the language by Moses, one learned in the Wisdom of the priests of Eg>'pt, with many other mystical words. The word Ankh in Hebrew, with the personal sufiEix, means "my life** — ray being — which "is the personal pronoun Anochi," from the name of the Eg>'ptian Goddess Anouki. f
In one of the most ancient Catechisms of Southern India, Madras Presidency, the hermaphrodite Goddess Ardhanari.J has the ansated cross, the Svastika. the "male and female sign," right in the central part, to denote the pre-sexual state of the Third Race. Vishnu, who is now represented with a lotus growing out of his navel — or the Uni- verse of Brahmi evolving out of the central point, Nara — is shown in one of the oldest carvings as double-sexed (Vishnu and Lakshmi) standing on a lotus-leaf floating on the water, the water rising in a semicircle and pouring through the Svastika, "the source of genera- tion," or of the descent of man.
Pythagoras calls Shukra- Venus the Sol aiicr, the "other Sun." Of the "seven Palaces of the Sun," that of Lucifer- Venus is the third in Christian and Jewish Kabalah, the Zohar making of it the abode of Samael. According to the Occult Doctrine, this Planet is our Earth's primary^ and its spiritual prototype. Hence, Shukra's car (Venus- Lucifer's) is said to be drawn by an Ogdoad of ^'earth-born horses," while khe steeds of the chariots of the other Planets are different.
* Tlw«Hbre.f»ttiiwaridcitBi«lisio*iiiet«p1iyvc«la«pect,theCraMortheCI^ far morr phallic than the ra^an Svmstika. CompAir toI. L pp. \k, 5$.
* The ansated ctd«s is the aBtronotnical planetary ngn of Venus. " uipnifyitiff the existence fiXpa*- iMrimf tntrxy In the sexual sense, and this was one of the attributes of Isu. the Mother, of Bve, Haurah. or Mother-Rarth. and was ao recoirniMd asoo^ all the ancicol peoples in ooe or aaoUier mode of expRssioo." (Krom s modern Kabalistic MS.}
: Sec Moor's HimdA Ptintkttm.
SHTJKRA AND THE EARTH.
35
Every sin cammiited on Earth is felt by Ushanas-Shukra. The Guru if the Daityas is the Guardiaii Spirit of the Earth and Men. Every iiangr tm Shukra is felt on^ and reflected by, the Earth.
Shukra, or Venus, is thus represented as the Preceptor of the Daityas. the giants of the Fourth Race, who, in the Hindu allejajory. at one time obtained the sovereignty of all the Earth, and defeated the minor Gods. The Titans of the Western allegor>' also are as closely connected with Venus-Lucifer, which was identified by later Christians with Satan. And, as Venus, equally with Isis, was represented with cow's horns on her bead, the symbol of mystic Nature — one convertible with, and sgnificant of, the Moon, since all these were lunar Goddesses — the configuration of this Planet is now placed by theologians between the horns of the mystic Lucifer* It is owing to the fanciful interpretation of the archaic tradition, which states that Venus changes simulta- neously (geologically) with the Earth, that whatever takes place on the one takes place on the other, and that many and great were their common changes — it is for these reasons that St. Augustine repeats it, ipplying the several changes of configuration, colour, and even of the orbital paths, to that theologically-woven character of Venus- Lucifer. He even goes so far in his pious fancy as to connect the last changes of the Planet with the Noachian and mythical Deluge alleged to have taken place 1796 B.c.f
As Venus has no satellites, it is stated allegorically, that Asphujit
thowi that the fint letter of Gatao't name wma represented in days of old by an arc t; and tome Roman Catholic*, kind, good men, would {Knuadethc public that it 1« in of Luci/cr'ft crescent-like horn* that Musaulmans have chosen the creacent Tor their national rer «incc the establishment of Kotnon Catholic dogmatism, has been identified with I^ocifer, or the Great Dragoti, contrary to all reason and logic. As ahovrn by symbologista
"IW aMociatioTi between the serpent and the idea of darkness had on astronomical foundation. Ttt poaitkHi wbicb the coaftellatioti Draco at one time occupied showed that the Great Serpent was iteralcrof the nifrht. This constellation was rormerly at the very centre of the heavens, and is so tlut it was called the Great I>r8gron. lU body spreads over seven ef grus of the Zodiac : and who sees in the X>T%g cnt, saya, ' It is not that a constellation so extended should be represented by the author of that book as a BHl dracvm with aeren beads, who drew the third part of the stars from heaven and cast them to ^ eaztli.' *" (Stasiland Wake, The Greet fyramtd, p 79 ; Dupuis, iii. *^)
Oaity Dapnis never knew wky Draco, once the pole-star — the symbol of Guide, Gum and Director — |yd bBOi t>it» deffraded by posterity. "The Gods of oar fathers are our devils," says an Astatic jrmuti, Wbco Draco ceased to be the "lode-star," the gutdiuK sidereal divinity, it shared the late of ifi IW dllen Gods. Seth and Typhon was at one time, Bunsen tells us, " a ^reat God imiverully throostaoat ICsypt, who conferred on the soverei^s of the iSth and iqth Dynasties the flf life and power. But sobacqueotly, iu the course of the 20th Dyuosty, he is suddeaty u an erfl Demon, insomuch that bis effigies and name are obliterated on all the monumcntfl atf iaaottitiom that could be reached." The real Occult reason will be civen tn these pages, r /V CiwtUU D*t, T.TTT. viii.
36
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
(this ** Planet") adopted the Earth, the progeny of the Moon, '*wh9 overgrnif Us parent and gazT much trouble^* — a reference to the Occult connection between the two. The Regent (of the Planet) Shukra* loved his adopted child so well that he incaniated as Ushanas and gave it perfect laws, which were disregarded and rejected in later ages., Another allegory, in the liarivansha, is that Shukra went to Shiva and asked him to protect his pupils, the Daityas and Asuras, from the fighting Gods ; and that to further his object he performed a Yoga rite "imbibing the smoke o{ chafFwilh his iuad doivnivards for 1,000 years.** This refers to the great inclination of the axis of Venus — amounting to fifty degrees — and to its being enveloped in eternal clouds. But it relates only lo the physical constitution of the Planet. It is with its Regent, the informing Dhyau Chohan, that Occult Mysticism has to deal. The: allegory which states that Vishnu was cursed by Shukra to be rtborm\ seven times on the Earth as a punishment for killing his (Shukra' s): mother, is full of Occult philosophical meaning. It does not refer tai Vishnu's Avataras, since these number nine — the tenth being still to, come — but to the Races on Earth. Venus, or Lucifer — also Shukra and Ushanas — the Planet, is the light-l>earer of our Earth, in both the physical and mystic sense. The Christians knew it well in early time.'^, since one of the earliest popes of Rome is known by his pontiff-name as Lucifer.
Every worid has its parent Star and sister Planet, Thus Earth is ihc^ adopted child and younger brother of VettuSt but its inhabitants are of iheir^ own kind. . . , All sentient complete beings [^full septenary mefi or higher beings] are furnished^ in their beginnings^ with fonns and organisms in full harmony with the nature and stale of the Sphere they inhabit.^
The Spheres of Being, or Centres of Life , which are isolated nuclei breeding their men artd their animals, are ?iumberless: not one has any^ resemblance to its sister-companion or to any other in its own spedai\ progeny,X J
* Shukni Is the con of Bhriiru ibc ^reat Klshi, aiid one of the Seven Prajfipali, the rounder of the, Uflcc of BhlrgBvas, in which Pamshu Itima is bom. i
i Thii ia a flat contradiction of Swcdmbor;, who saw, in " the fint Carth of the Antral World," inhabltouta dressed u are the peasants in Europe ; and on the Fourth Earth womm clad as ore the \ ahepherdeaaea in a bol masgu^ t Ev«n the famouK ofttronomcr Hiiygeii-f Intxnired under the mititaken idea that other worlds and ptanctn have .species of bcinj[s identical with those who live on our Earth, , posaetting the same fiffurca, senses, brain-power, arts, sciences, dwctUnss, even to the same fabric i for their wearing appnrel ! '■ ThiorU du Mondf.) i
X This is a modem gloM. It is added to the old Commentaries for the clearer comprehcnuion of I those diftdples who stndy Esoteric Cnsraotcony after haWng passed through Western Icftrnins:. Tt earlier GloMCs are too redundant with adjectives and figures of speech to be eokily assimilated.
THE OliE AND THE MANT.
37
All have a dcubU physical and spiritual nature.
The ftueleoles are eternal and everlasting: the nuclei periodical and finite. The nucleoles form part of the Absolute. They are the embrasures of that black impenetrable fortress t which is for et^cr concealed front human or evai Dhyanic sight. The nuclei are the light of eternity escaping therefrom.
It is that Light which condenses iiito the Forms of the ** Lords of Being'* "the first and the highest of which are, collectively, JIvatma, or Pratyag- htma [which is said figuratively to issue from Paramdtmd. It is the Logos of ike Greek philosophers — appearing at the beginning of every new tWanvantaray Prom these downwards— formed from the ever-consolidating raz'cs of that Light, which becomes on the objective plane gross A/alter — proceed the numerous Hierarchies of the Creative Forces; some fortnless^ others having their own distinctive form, others, again, the lowest [Bit'- menta/s'jt having no form of their own, but assumifig every form cueording iff the surrounding conditions,
nut there is but one Absolute Upddhi \^Basis'\ in the spiritual sense, fr9m,Qn, and in which, are built for manvantaric purposes the countless hasic centres an which proceed the universal^ cyclic^ and individual Evolu- ticTts during the active period.
The informing Intelligences, which animate these various Cefitres of Being, are referred to indiscriminately by mai beyond the Great Range**-
the Manus, the Pishis, the Pitris,] the Prajdpati, and so on; and as
\yani-Buddhas, the Chohans, Mclhas \^Fire-Gods\ Bodhisattvas,X and others, on this side. The truly ignorant call them Gods; ike learned pro- Jane, the One God: and t/te wise, tlie Initiates, honour in them only the manvantaric manifestations of That which neither our Creators ^the Dhyan Chohans'] tior their creatures can ever discuss or know anything 4boui. The Absolute is not to be defined^ and no mortal or immortal has ezer seal or comprehended it during the periods of Existaice. The mutable osftnat know the Immutable^ fior can that which lives perceive Absolute
"Therefore, man cannot know higher Beings than his own Progeni-
* ' Brxond " the Grc«t Range, means, in this case, India, as being: the Tranii-Himiilayan region for Or Tibetan region.
V The term V\\ri* ui used by us in these Shlokos to fadUUitc their cdmprehcn^on, hut it is not m asBdiB tbe ongin&J sunxas. where ihey hAve distinct appellations of their owii. besides being called 'VaUwn" and " Progcuitort."
I B tsorooeoos to take literally the worship of the human Bodhtaattras, or Manjushn*. It is true ftat. cxoterKally, the Mah&yina school teaches adoration of thcM without dibtinction, and that SakD-Taag speaks of some disciples of Btiddlia as being wonhipped. But, Esoterically, it is not IbrAsciplc or the learned Manjushri^^rjond/Zythat received boaours. but the divine BodhiflatCva* and rtytai WtiMh** that animated (amilakka, as the Mongolians say) the human fonna.
58
THE SKCRET DOCTRINB.
tors," **Nor shall he worship ikon,*' but he ought to learn how he came into the world.
Number Seven, the fuadamental figure among all other figures in every national religious system, from Cosmogony down to man, must have its raison d'etre. It is found among the ancient Americans, as prominently as among the archaic Aryans and Egyptians. The ques- tion will be fully dealt with in the second Fart of this Volume; mean- while a few facts may be given here. Says the author of the Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and the Quiches^ z 1,^00 years ago:"*
Seven seems to have been the sacred number par excellence among all civilized nations of antiquity. Why? This query lias never been satisfactorily answere«L Each separate people has given a different explanation, according to the peculiar tenets of their [exoteric] religion. That it was the number of numbers for those iuitiated to the sacred mysteries there can be uo doubt. Pythagoras . . . calls it the ''Vehicle of life/* containing body and soul, since it is formed of a quater- nary, that is: Wisdom and IntelUcl; and a Trinity, or ac^tioft and matter. The Emperor Julian, in Afatrem and in OratioA expresses himself thus: "Were I to touch upon the initiation into our secret mysteries, which the Chaldecs bacchized respecting the seven-rayed god, ligliting up the soul through him, I should say things unknown to the rabble, very unknown, but well known to the bleoocd Thenrgists."^
And who that is acquainted with the Purdnas, the Book of the Di the Zendavesta, the Assyrian Tiles, and finally the Bible, aud has ol served the constant occurrence of the number seven iu these records people from the remotest times upwards unconnected and so far apai can regard as a coincidence the following fact, given by the same plorer of ancient Mysteries? Speaking of the prevalence of seven as mystic ntunber, among the inhabitants of the "Western Continent" America, he adds that it is not less remarkable. For:
It frequently occurs in the Popui-yuh. We find it besides in the seven /ami s&id by Sahagun and Cla%'igero to have accompanic yd(a», the reputed founder of the great city of Nachan, identified by some Patenque. In the seven caves ^ from which the ancestors of the Nahualts are
* He author or this work is Augustus Xje Floogeoo. He and bis wife arc weU kLnown in the Unit States for their unUHng^ labours in Cratml America. It is they who diacovrtrd the sepulchre of the royal Kan Coh, at Cichen-Itxa. The author seems to believe and to seek to prove that the G»oteric learning of the Aryans and the EK)'pLians was derived from the Mayas. But, although certainly coeval with Plato's Atlantis, the Mays', belonged to the Fifth Continent, which was preceded by Atlantis and I^maria.
V More correctly /« Mairrm Dtorum, Owtttio v.
J P. i
I These Mtvn cavts, irttn citia, etc., etc., stand in every case for the aeven centres, or saoe% which the aevcn primitive groups of the first Kool>IUoe were bom.
THE "SBVBN MYSTERY.
39
ported to amve emerged. In the sfi'm cities of Cibola, described by Coronado and Niia. ... In the seven AnitlUs; in the Sfven heroes who, we are told, escaped tbr Delnge.
Heroes, moreover, whose number is found the same in every Deluge ston' — from the seven Rishis who were saved with Vaivasvata Manu, down to Noah's ark, into which beasts, fowls, and living creatures were taken by •'sevens." Thus we see the figures i, 3, 5, 7, as perfect, because thoroughly mystic, numbers playing a prominent part in ever)' Cosmogony and evolution of living Beings. In China, 1, 3, 5, 7, are called ••celestial numbers" in the canonical ''Book of Changes'* — >; AVifjf, or tranifonnaiion, as in "evolution."
The explanation of it becomes evident when one examines the sncient S>TnboIs: all these are based upon and start from the figures given from the Archaic Manuscript in the Proem of Volume I. ^^, the 5>Tnbol of evolution and fall into generation or Matter, is reflected in the old Mexican sculptures or paintings, as it is in the Kabalistic Sephi- roth. and the Egyptian Tau. Examine the Mexican MS. {Add. MSS, Brit. Mus. 9789)*; you will find it in a tree whose trunk is covered with tm fruits ready to be plucked by a male and female, one on each side of it. while from the top of the trunk two branches shoot horizontally to the nght and left, thus forming a perfect ~|~ (Tau), the ends of the two branches, moreover, each bearing a triple bunch, with a bird — the bird of immortality , AtmS or the Divine Spirit — sitting between the two, and thus aaking the seventh. This represents the same idea as the Sephirothal Tree, tai in all, yet, when separated from its upper triad, leaving seven. These are the celestial fruits, the ten, or (j), 10, bom out of the two in- visible male and female seeds, making up the 12. or the Dodecahedron of the Universe. The mystic system contains the -, the central point; the 5, or ^^: the 5. "i^ ; and the 7. or [a] ; or again X^; the triangle in the square and the synthesizing point in the interlaced double triangles. This for the world of the archetypes. The phenomenal world receives its culmination and the reflex of all in Man. Therefore he is the mystic square — in his metaphysical aspect — the Tetraktys; and becomes the Cube on the creative plane. His symbol is the cube unfolded f and 6 becoming 7, or the '^, 3 crossways (the female) and 4 vertically; and this \s man, the culmination of the deity on earth, whose body is the cross of flesh, wi, through^ and in which he is ever crucifying and
* The mcravliig U reproduced in th« Sacrtd MysUru* 9/tht Mojvj and tht Quicktt oa p. 134.
* Stt Soura nf MMiuru, p. 50-^.
40
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
4
putting to death the di\nne Logos, or his Higher Self. Says evcrr Philosophy and Cosmogony :
The ouivcrse bath a Ruler [Rulers collectively] set over it, which is called Word jfter the One.
These are the Spirit and Nature, which two fonn our Illusor>' Uni- "^erse. The two inseparables remain in the Universe of Ideas so long as ;t lasts, and then merge back into Parabrahuian, the One ever change less. "The Spirit, whose essence is eternal, one and self-existenl emanates a pure ethereal Light — ^a dual light not perceptible to the elementar>' senses — according to the Purdnas, the Bibic, the Sef*hcr Yetzirah, the Greek and Latin Hymns, the Book of Hermes, the Chal« ^ daean Book of Numbers ^ the Esotericism of Lao-tse, and ever>'\vhere ela^H In the Kabalah, which explains the secret meaning of Gerusis, th^^ Light is the Dual-Man. or the Androgyne (rather Sexless) Augels, whose generic name is Adam Kadmon. It is they who complete man, whose ethereal form is emanated by other divine, but far lower Beinj who solidify the body with clay, or the "dust of the grounds- allegory indeed, but as scientific as any Darwinian evolution more irue.
The author of the Source of Measures says that the foundation of Kabalah and of all its mystic books is made to rest upon the ien Sephi- roth; which is a fundamental truth. He shows these Ten Sephirol or the lo Numbers as follows:
The circle is the naught; its vertical diameter line is the first or primal One [the Word or Logos], from which spring the 2, the 3, and so on to 9, the limit the digits. The 10 is the first Divine Manifestation,* which coutaius cver> possi power of exact expression of proportion — the sacred Jod. By tiiis Cabbalali we taught that these Sephiroth were the numbers or emanations of the heaven Light they were the flux was the Heavenly man, the Adam-KDM (the 144—144); and the Light, by the New Testament or Covenant (41224) created God; just as by the Old Testament God (Alhim. 31415) creates Light {2061a to 6s6T).t
Ine
* Sec /six L'nvetted, II. pp. joo // seq., for a proof of tbe antiqutty of Uie dccima] syitem of figMwyJ T See Matonic Revitw, Cincinnati, June, 1686, Art. " The Cabbalah.— No. VI," p, lo.
THE THRKB KINDS OF WGHT.
4^
Now there are three kinds of Light in Occultism, as in the Kabalah. (i) The Abstract and Absolute Light, which is Darkness; (2) The Light of the Manifesled-Unmanifested, called by some the Logos: and (3) The latter Light reflected in the Dhyan Chohans, the minor Logoi —the Elohim, collectively — who, in their turn, shed it on the objective Universe. But in the Kabalah — reedited and carefully adjusted to fit the Christian tenets by the Kabalists of the thirteenth century — the three Lights are described as: (i) The clear and penetrating, that of Jehovah; (2) reflected light; Siud (^;i) Mght in thtr ads/racf.
Tills Light, abstractly taken, (in a metaphysical or syntbolical sense) is Alhim (Elohim. God), while the clear penetrating Light is Jehovah. The light of Alhim tfclongs to the world in general, in its allness and general fulness, bnt the light of Jehovah is that pertaining to the chiefest production, man, whom this light penc- tmed to and made.*
The author of the Source of Measures pertinently refers the reader to Inman's Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names^ il. 648. There, an engraving of
The scii^a piscis, Mary, and the female emblem, copied from a Rosary of the Mfcd Virgin Mary, which was printed at Venice, 1542,
and therefore, as Inman remarks, "with a licence from the Inquisition, and consequently orthodox," will shou' the reader what the Latin Church understood by this "penetrating power of light and its effects." How sadly disflgured — applied as they were to the grossest anthropo* morphic conceptions — have, under Christian interpretation, become the noblest and grandest, as the most exalted, ideas of Deity of the Eastern Philosophy !
The Occultists in the East call this Light Daiviprakriti, and in tlie tt'esi the Light of Christos. It is the Light of tlie Logos, the direct reflection of the ever Unknowable on the plane of Universal Mani- festation. But here is the interpretation thereof given by the modem Christians from the Kabalah, As declared by the author just citedc
To the fulness of the world in general with its chiefest content, man, the term Elohizn-Jehovah applies. In extracts from Suhar, the Rev. Dr. Cassell [a Kabalist], eo prove that the Cabbalah sets forth the doctrine of the Trinity, among other diings says: "Jehovah ia Klohim (Alhim)" ... By thru steps God, (Alhim) cad Jehovah become the same, and though separated, each and together they ar? of the same One.t
Similarly, Vishnu becomes the Sun, the visible symbol of the Im-
• rbul.,l0i,ai.
t Jhid.t p. tt.
THE SECAST DOCTRDCB.
Luakft
Doty. Vishnu is described as "striding through the seven of the UotvcTse in /Aret sUpt.*^ But with the Hindus this is an aoccRmty a snr&ce tenet and an allegory, while the KabalisU |pv« it oat as the Esoteric and final meaning. Bot to proceed :
KvwLqibt. H rfwwB. is aa6xa to 6562. as tlie proper enonciation of the int aad ■■■Mffacal f¥titiwB of fismcter to orcvrnfercsce of a circle. God (.-Uhim, that ik $1415 to One, A modified form of the ftboTv) U the reductioD of this, 90 as to • ifiABdud natt Omc sa the basis, in general, of atl czalculation and all men* Bst for the prodnctioa of aniznal Ufc. and for especial tinu measure, or Che )mmm year, that inflaence which causes conception and embryotic development tfcr OMBbcn of the Jehovah measure (the "man rt'cn J^hoz j^SSS* faave to be specialized.* Bat this last ratio is bat a modified form of Light, or Jo6f3 to 6561, as a / 6961 ia ^1415 to one, and 355 to 113 ia 31415 or Alhim or God), and ia sach a manner UulODC can be made to flow into and be derived from the other: — and these are the three stcpa by which the Unity and sameness can be shown of the Divine &amca. That is, the two are but variations of the same ratio, viz., that of pi. The object of this comment is to show the same s}*mbolic measuring use for the Cabbalah, as taught, with that of the Three Covenants of the BibU^ and with that of Maaonry as just noticed.
First, then, the Sephiroth are described as Light, that is, they themselves are a fonction of. indeed, the same as, the manifestation of the Ain Soph; and they from the fact that "Z.j]^A/*' represents the ratio 30612 to 6561, as part of
Words.*' DBRIM, 41224, or, as to the Word, Dabar, 206 (—10 cubits). "Light" ts ■0 much the burden of the Cabbalah as to explaining the Sephiroth, that the most famous book on the CabbaJah is called Sohar. or "Light" In this we find exprea- aions of this kind: "The infmile was entirely unknown and diffused no light be the luminous point violently broke through into vision." "Wheu He first assu Mic form (of the crown, or the first Sephira), He caused 9 splendid lights to emanate from it, which, shining through it, diffused a bright light in all directions:" is, these 9 with bis one (which was the origin, as above, of the 9), together, the 10. that is (T). or (^, or the sacred Ten (numbers or Sephiroth), or /o thcw numbers were **the Light." Just as in the Gospel of St. John, God (Alhint. ' 5:415 to one) was that Light (20612 to 6561) by wliich (Light) all things were m^^^l In the Scpher Yctzirah, or "Number of Creation," the whole proc^^ of evolution is given out in numbers. In its "thirty-two Paths of Wisdom" the number 3 is repeated four times, and the number-H five times. Therefore, the Wisdom of God is contained in number* ■ i(Scpltrim or Sephiroth), for Sepher (or S-ph-r when unvowelled) means "to cipher." And therefore, also, we find Plato stating that the Deity "geometrizes" in fabricating the Universe.
prea-
mate"
-^
-aaff
• S« Source af Mtasurti, pp. »r6, et if^., App. VII. t Art., MasoHte Heviat; pp. n. 12
TUB NUUBB&S OF CREATION.
43
The Kabalistic book, the Sepher YeUirah, opens with a statement of the hidden wisdom of Alhim in Sephrim, i.e., the Elohim in the Sephirolh.
In thirty and two paths, hidden wisdom, established Jah, IHVH, TzabaotU, E!c»hi of Israel. Alhim of Life, EI of Grace and Mercy — exalted uplifted Dweller on high, and King of Evefln-sting, and His name — Holy! in Three Sephrixn, -viXA
hB— S*ph-r. V--S'ph-r, V— Siph-o-r. Mr. Ralston Skinner goes on to say:
This cominent sets forth the "hidden wisdom** of the original text by hidden vifldoni, that is. by the uae of words carrying a special set of numbers and a ffpeciaJ phraaeology, which will set forth the very explanatory system which we find to 5t so accurately in the Hebrew Bible. ... In setting forth his scheme, to enforce it, and to finish out his detailed exposition in a general postulate, — viz., the one word "SirfiArim'* (Sephirolh), of the Number Jezirah, the author explains the separation of this word in the three sahordinate ones, a play upon a common word, S'Ph-r, or number.
The prince Al-Chazari* says to the Rabbi: "I wish now that thou wouldest impart to me some of the chiefcst or leading principles of Natural Philosophy, which, as thou sayest, were m former times worked out by them (the ancient wise onesi;" — to which tlxe Rabbi mai.es answer : "To such principles appertains the Number of Creation of out race-father Abraham" ;that is Abram and Abraham, or DambcTS 41224 and 41252). He then says that this book of number treats of teaca- ^^ig the "W/A/w-ness and 0»^-ness throngh (DBRIM)" %iz., the numbcra of the ^Hord " Words.** That is, it teaches theus&of the ratio 3r4i5 to One, through 41224. ^Hnuch last, in the description of the Ark of the Covenant, was divided into two ^lllpixts by the Iwo tables of stone, on which these DBRIM, or 41224. were written or engraved — or 20612 x 2. He then comments on these three subordinately used words, and takes care as to one of them to make the comment, "and Alhim (31415 to One) said let there be Light The words as given in tlie text are :
wd the Rabbi, in commenting upon them, says: "It teaches the ^Mrm-ness 1^1415} and Om-iat»A (the diameter to Alhim), throngh Words (DBRIM = 412241. by which on the one side there is infinite expression in heterogeneous creations, and OB the other a &nal harmonic tcadency to £>»^'-ness" (which, as everyone knows, is (be mathematical function of pi of the schools, which measures, wc^ighs, and omnber? the stars of heaven, and yet resolves them back into the final oneness «f the Uni-verse) " through Words. Their final accord perfects itself in that Ofiw KM that ordains them, and which consists in
"11DD 1DD HDd" that ia, the Rabbi, in his first comment, leaves Xhejod, or s, out of one of thft words, "r^hercas afterwards he restores it again. If we take the values of those subordinate
* In the Book At- Ckaxari, by Jchada-taa-Leri, tnuulated by Or. D. CasMt
THE SECRET DOCTRINH.
words, we find Ihem to be 340. 340 and 546;— together these are i division of the general word into these has been to produce these numbers — which by T'mura may be changed in various ways, for various purposes.*
The reader is asked to turn to Stanza IV of Volume I, Shloka 3 and Commentan'.t to find that the 3, 4. (7), and the thrice seveu, or 1065, :he number of Jehovah, is the number of the 31 Prajapati mentioned in -he Afahdbhdraia, or the three Sephrim (words in ciphers or figures). And this comparison between the Creative Powers of Archaic Philo- sophy and the anthropomorphic Creator of exoteric Judaism (since the EsoUricism of the Jews shows its identity with the Secret Doctrine) will lead the student to perceive and discover that, in truth, Jehovah is but a "lunar" and "generation" God. It is a fact well known to ev^ry conscientious student of the Kabalah, that the deeper he dives into it, the more be feels convinced that unless the Kabalah — or what is left of it — is read by the light of the Eastern Esoteric Philosophy, its study leads only to the discover)' that, on the lines traced by exoteric Judaism and Christianity, the monotheism of both is nothing more exalted than ancient Astrolatry, now vindicated by modern Astronomy. The Kaba* lists never cease to repeat that Primal Intelligence car. never be under- stood. It cannot be comprehended, nor can it be located, therefore it has to remain nameless and negative. Hence the Aiu Suph — the "Un- knowable" and •' Unnameable" — as It could not be made manifest, was imagined as emanating Manifesting Powers. It is then with its Emanations alone that human intellect has to, and can, deal. Christian theology, having rejected the doctrine of Emanations and replaced them with direct, conscious Creations of Angels aud the rest out of nothings now finds itself hopelessly stranded between Supematuralism, or Miracle, and Materialism. An rr/^a-cosmic God is fatal to Philosophy; an j«/ra-cosmic Deity — i.e., Spirit and Matter inseparable from each other — is a philosophical necessity. Separate them and that which is left is a gross superstition under a mask of emotionalism. But why "geometrize," as Plato has it, why represent these Emanations under the form of an immense arithmetical table? The question is well answered by the author just cited, who says:
Mental perception, to become physical perception. ^must have the cosmic principle of Light : — and, by this, our mental circle must become visible through light; or, for its complete* muuifestation, the circle must Itf that of physical visibility, cr Ivigbt itdclf.
• Art. ciled, pp. (I, 13,
4 1, np. 117 »t leq.
EVOtDTION NOT CKKATION
45
Such conceptions, thus formulated, becmme the gronnd-work of the philosophy of the Divine manifesting in the universe.*
^K This is Philosophy. It is otherwise when we find the Rabbi in Ai-
^^Ohazari saying that :
^1 ^Q^ci' Si'ph-r is to be understood — caiaUation and weighing uf the created bodies. For the caicuiaiion, by means of which a IxkIv must be constructed in liaruiouy or sjinmetr^*, by which it must be in construction rightly arranged and made to corres- pood to the object in design, consists at last in number^ exttnsion, mass, weigM; — co-orcUnate relation of movements, then hamiouy of music, must consist altogether biwmmber^ that is s'ph-r. ... By Sippor (s*phor) is to be understood the words of llbira (206 — I of 314x5 to one), whereunlo joins or adapts itself the design to the frame or form of construction ; for example — it was said "Let Light be." The work became as the words were spoken, that is, as the numbers of the work came (bnh.t
This is malerializing the spiritual without scruple. But the KabalaU DOC always so well adapted to anthropo-nionotheistic conceptions.
ompare this with any of the six schools of India. For instance in Kapila's Sankhya Philosophy, unless, allegorically speaking, Purusha mounts on the shoulders of Prakriti, the latter remains irrational, while the former remains inactive without her. Therefore Nature (in man) must become a compound of Spirit and Matter before he becomes what ie is ; and the Spirit latent in Matter must be awakened to life and
•nsciousness gradually. The Monad has to pass through its mineral,
getable and animal forms, before the Light of the Logos is awakened in the animal man. Therefore, till then, the latter cannot be referred to as ••man," but has to be regarded as a Monad imprisoned in ever- clianging forms. Evolution^ not Creation, by means of Words is recog- nized in the Philosophies of the East, even in their exoteric records. Ex orimU lux. Even the name of the first man in the Mosaic Bible had its origin in India, Professor Max MiiUer's negation notwithstanding. The Jews got their Adam from Chaldaea ; and Adam-Adami is a com- pound word and therefore a manifold symbol, and proves the Occult
igmas.
This is no place for philological disquisitions. But the reader may be reminded that the words Ad and Adi mean in Sanskrit the "first"; is Aramaean, "one" (--^(/-ai/, the "only one"); in Assyrian. "Father,"
eace Ak-ad or "fiather-creator."t And once the statement is found
Art. ciUd, p. K.
t /Ki. p. 14-
The tppcUatloo Ak-ad{ac Akkidiinit U of the lame cImb as Ad-m. Hc-va (Bvc«tf-ffi 4Eden): ilrfiwiiiiia "Sod oK Ad," Ulce the toiu of Ad in Aocicnl Aratiia. Ad-ad,MM^ "only one" and Uie
46
THK SECRET DOCTRINK.
correct, it becomes rather difficult to confine Adam to the Mosaic B\ alone, and to see therein simply a Jewish name.
There is frequent confusion in the attributes and genealogies of ihc Gods in their Theogonies, the Alpha and the Omega of the records of that symbolical science, as given to the world by the half-initiated writers, BrShmanical and Biblical. Yet there could be no such con- fusion made by the earliest nations, the descendants and pupils of the Divine Instructors; for both the attributes and the genealogies were inseparably linked with cosmogonical sj'mbols, the ''Gods" being the life and animating "soul-principle" of the various regions of the Uni- verse. Nowhere and by no people was speculation allowed to range beyond those manifesied Gods. The boundless and infinite Unit)' remained with every nation a virgin forbidden soil, untrodden by man's thought, untouched by fruitless speculation. The only refer- ence made to it was the brief conception of its diastolic and systolic property, of its periodical expansion, or dilatation, and contraction. In the Universe, with all its incalculable myriads of Systems and Worlds disappearing and reappearing in eternity, the anthropomor- phized Powers, or Gods, their Souls, had to disappear from view with their Bodies. As our Catechism says:
'• The Breath returning to the Eternal Bosom which exhales and inhaL themr
Ideal Nature, the Abstract Space in which ever\'thing in the Uni^ verse is mysteriously and invisibly generated, is the same female side of the procreative power in Nature in the Vedic as in every other Cosmogony. Aditi is Sephira. and the Sophia of the Gnostics, and Isis. the Virgin Mother of Horus. In eveo' Cosmogony, behind and higher than the "Creative" Deit>*, there is a Superior Deity, a Planner, an Architect, of whom the Creator is but the executive agent. And still higher, ozwand around, within and without^ there is the Unknow- able and the Unknown, the Source and Cause of all these Emanations.
It thus becomes easy to account for the reason why Adam-Adami is found in the Chaldaean scripture, certainly earlier than the Mosaic Books. In Assyrian Ad is the "father." and in Aramaean Ad is "on and Ad-ad the "only one," while Ak is in Assyrian "creator." ~
l^\
i
"fint," wu Uie Ad'On or "Lord " of SyiU and coovrt of Ad-ar^gat or Astrr't, the Syrian And tita\-JPAcr\ (Rdra) or Oandnni/i was Babylonia and Mcflopotninia. In Assyrian Ak Creator, the letter k being^ pronounced kh {ah) ffuttaroUy. According to Swedenborg^'s tu] Adam vraa not a man but a church (?) of primitive light. Id the Vidat, Ad-Wi ta the primitive the AJcSsbn of (be pheoomrnMl irorld.
ADAM KADMON.
47
Ad-ttm-ak-ad-mon became Adam-Kadmon in the Kabalah (Zohar), meaning as it did, the "One (Son) of the divine Father, or the Creator," for the words am and om meant at one time in nearly every ngnage the diin'n^, or the dfi/y. Thus Adam-Kadmon and Adam- aini came to mean "The first Emanation of the Father-Mother or Divine Nature." and literally the "first Divine One." And it is easy to see that xf(/-Argat (or Aster't, the Syrian Goddess, the consort of I Ad- ^■bter. Mylitta, Eve, etc., are identical with the Aditi and VSch of th'^ ^Hindus. They are all the "Mothers of all living" and "of the Gods." ^Khi the other hand — cosmically and astronomically — all the male Gods became at first "Sun-Gods," then, theologically, the "Suns of Right- eousness," and the Logoi. all symbolized by the Sun.* They are all Protogonoi — First-bom — and Mikroprosopoi. With the Jews Adam- I Kadmon was the same as Athamaz, Tamaz. or the Adonis of the Greeks — "the One with, and of hi^ Father"— the "Father" becoming during the later Races Helios, the Sun, as Apollo Kameios,t for in- stance, who was the "Sun-bona"; Osiris. Ormazd, and so on. were all followed by, and found themselves transformed later on into, still more earthly t>'pes: such as Prometheus, the crucified of Mount Kajbee, Hercules, and so many others, Sun-Gods and Heroes, until all of them came to have no better significance than phallic symbols. In the Zohar it is said :
Mjn was created b>' the Sephiroth (Elohitn-Jnveh, also) and they engendered by common power the earihiy Adain.
Therefore in Genesis the Elohim say: "Behold Man is become as one
But in Hindu Cosmogony or "Creation," BrahmS-PrajSpati
VirSj and the Rishis, spiritually; therefore the latter are dis-
* Adam-JehoTKh. Brabma and Uars are, in one acnie. identical ; they are all iiyinbolft for primitive vWUftI /iivra/fw^anvrj for the purpoftea of human procreation. Adam ia red. and >o also are
-Virij and Mar»— God and Planet. Water in the "blood" of the Earth; therefore, all these «aa «fC connected with Earth and Water. " It takes farth and tvattrXo create a hmmau ftoul," aqaMflaca. Man Is identical with KJirtlikeya, God of War (in one senAe)~which Cod i. tenC c€ Shrvm, Shtva-Kharmaja and the Karth. In the MakabAArata h« is Rhown as bom *rithout ae tatervcntion of a woman. And he ia also called Lohita, the Red, like Adam, and the other " firat ■a.** Hence, the author of Tkt Soura of Mtasitrei is quite rigrhl in Ihlnkin^ that Marv B* fiCfact Coda of like attribntea), " being the ^mf 0/ wa r and of Uoodsht.!. wna but ■ secondary idea Iniof out of the primary one of sbeddine of hlood in conception for the Hmt time." Hence y^vtMh became later a fighting God, " Lord of Hosts," and one who commands war. He is the Ifgnativc Zodfa— or Cain, by permntntion, who sUw bis (female) b^othtr. whose "blood crieth ^m Aegrasad." the Earth haviag opened her mouth to receive the blood, [Gentsu iii.)
• ApoDo Kamcios in certainly a Creek trank formation from the Hindu Kri.ihna-Kania. tCama vctBs radiant, and Karneioi, which waa o title of ApoUo with the CelU as with the Creeks, nwaat
^
THE SECRBT DOCTEIXB.
tipcdy called the '^Bfind-bom Sons of Brahmd": and this specified flM>d« of engentUring precluded every idea of Phailicism. at any rate m Utt earlier human nations. This instance well illustrates the respective fpiriiitahiy of the two nations.
3. Said thk Lord of the Shinixg Face: "I shau. send thee A Fire when thy work is commenced. Raise thy voice to other
LOEAS; APPLY to THY FaT»EK, THE LORD OF THE LOTUS* (a), FOR
HIS Sons .... Thy People shall be under the rule op the Fathers.! Thy Men shall be mortals. The Men of the Lord OF Wisdom,! not the Sons of Soma.J are immortal. Cease thv complaints (^). Thy Seven Skins are yet on thee. . . . Thoi
ART not ItEADY. ThY MEN ARE NOT READY " (r).
(d) Kuinuda*Pati is the Moon, the Earth's parent, in his regioa Soma*loka. Though the Pitris, or Fathers, are Sons of the Gods, else^ where Sons of Brahmi and even Rishis, they are generally known a^ the Lunar Ancestors.
(b) Pitri-Pati is the Lord or King of the Pitris, Yama, the God Death and the Judge of mortals. The men of Budha, Mercur>\ ai metaphorically "immortar' through their Wisdom. Such is the com mon belief of those who credit every Star or Planet with bcii i u habited — and there are men of Science, M. Flam marion amon] others, who believe in this ferventl)% on logical as well as on astro- , noraical data. The Moou being an inferior body — even to the Hartt^| to say nothing of otlier Planets, the terrestrial men produced by he^^ Sons — the Ltinar Men or Ancestors — from her shell or body, cannot be immortal. They cannot hope to become real, self-conscious and tclligcnt men, unless they art? "finished,*' so to say, by other crealoi Thus in ihc Purdnic legend, the son of the Moon (Soma) is Bu (Mcrcur>'), the intelligent and the wise, because he is the offspring Soma, the Regent of the visible Moon, not of Indu, the physical Moon. Thus Mercury is the elder brother of the Earth, metaphorically — his step-brother, so to say, the offspring of Spirit — while she (the Earth) ]m| the progeny of the Body. These allegories have a deeper and more scienti&c meaning — astronomically and geologically — than our modei
1
je- as
i
ro-
•tbe
tora^ idhS
* Komnda-Pati. t PitriPati- 1 Bttdha. Mercury. ) The Moon.
THE FIRST WAR IN flEAVEN.
Physicists are willing lo admit. The whole cycle of the first "War in Heaven." the Taraka-maya, is as full of philosophical as of cosino- gonical and astronomical truths. One can trace therein the biographies of all the Planets by the histor>' of their Gods and Rulers. Ushanas Shukia, or Venus), the bosom-friend of Soma and the foe of Brihaspati Japiier). the ** Instructor of the Gods." whose wife TSrS, or TarakS. hat- been carried away by the Moon, Soma — ''of whom he begat Budha" — look also an active part in this war against the'* Gods" and forthwith was degraded into a Demon (Asura) Deity, and so he remains to this day.*
Here the word "men" refers to the Celestial men, or what are called in India the Pitaras or Pitris, the Fathers, the Progenitors of men. This does not remove the seeming difficulty, in view of modem hypo- theses, of the teaching, which shows these Progenitors or Ancestors creating the first human Adams out of their sides, as astral shadows. And though it is an improvement on Adam's rib, still geological and climatic difficulties will be brought forward. Such, however, is the
iching of Occultism.
(f) Man's organism was adapted in every Race to its surroundings. The first Root-Race was as ethereal as ours is material. The progeny of the Seven Creators, who evolved the Seven Primordial Adams,t snitly required no purified gases to breathe and live upon. Therefore, hwevcr strongly the impossibility of this teaching may be urged by the devotees of Modem Science, the Occultist maintains that the case was as stated aons of years before even the evolution of the Lenitirian,
le first physical man, which took place 18,000,000 years ago.
* FVhcaas-Shnkra, or Vraus. {s our Lucifer, thr Monittig-Slor, of course. The ingenuity of this aOffory in iU cnaDifold mcniiiars is crrat indeed. Thus Bhhupati (the Planet Jupiter), or Drah- ■na^isti. is, in the ftig i^rda, a deity who Is the Rj-mbol and the prototype of the exoteric or ntvtficUc wor»tiip- Kc \% priest, nacrificer, suppliant, and the mediiuu tliruugh which the (iraycrs tf Borlals reach the Godf. He is Ihc Pnrohita (Kamily IVicst. or Court Chuplaln) of the Hlnd6 Olynpuft and the spiritual Omn of the Gods. Soma is the Myntery God and presldeA over the myxtic iM Occult nature in tnau and the irniverse. TArS, the priest's wife, who symbalize^ the worshipper, gufcja Eaolerk truths to their mere shell, cxotericism ; heucc nhe is shown as carried off by Soma. X^SoBM is the aacrrd juice of that name. Riving mystic visions and trance revelations, the result of s4fcA •niom is Uudha (WiMloiii). Mereuiy, Herinrs, etc. : that Science in short which to thift day is ^nxlanncU by the Ilrihaspatis of Theolof^y as Dc\-tli:ih and Satanic. What woudcr thai by expand- ^tfeccyde of this aHefrory wc find Christian Theolojry expoasinjc the quarrel of the HindQ CkkIs, 3aA regarding (.'fthanos Xucifer), who helped }ioma ng.-iin.'«t that ancient prrsoniGcation of ritualistic rBrvhmanaspati, the Lord of the Brihinans, now become Jupiter-Jfhovah) as Satan, the
\y of God"'
'As shown eUarwhexv, it is only the Heavenly Man, Adiun^Kadmoo, of the first ctwpterof G*men\% *f»is made "in the image uid likeness of God." Adam of the accond chapter is not aaid to b: =u4e in that image nor in the divine likeness, before he ate of the forbidden fruit. The former
ta Che Sephirutbal Uost^ the secoud Adam i» the miniUc^s Firbt hmuau Koot-Ran:; the third
Is the Kace that wparated, whose eyes arc opened.
y?
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Archaic Scripture teaches that at the commencement of every Kalpa, or Round, the Earth is reborn, and preliminary' evolutii described in one of the Books of Dzyan and the Commentaries thei in this wise:
*'^As the human Jiva [Mofuid\ when passing into a new womb, ge/s ered imth a new body, so does the Jtva of the Earth ; it gets a perfect and solid covering with each Round after reemerging once more the matrix of space into objectivity'*
This process is attended, of course, by the throes of the new bii or geological convulsions.
The only reference to it is contained in one verse of the volume the Book of Dzyan before us, where it says:
4. After great throes she* cast off hbr old Three and
ON HER NEW SEVEN SkINS, AND STOOD IN HBR FIRST ONE,
This refers to the growth of the Earth, whereas in the Stanza tn ing of the First Round it is said in the Commentary:
^* After the changeless \_Avikdra^ immutable Nature [Essence, Sadaii rupa^ had awakened and changed [^differentiated^ into [a state of'\ eai ality [Avyakia\ arid from cause [Kdrana"] had become its own dii effect [ Vyakta^ from invisible it became visible. The smallest of /^ small [the most atomic of atoms, or aniydnsam aniyasdm'\ became and the many [Ekdnekarupa~\; and producing the Universe prodm also the fourth Loka [our Earih'\ in the garland of the sevat lotusi The Achyuta then became the Chyuta"\
The Earth is said to cast off "her old three" Skins, because tl refers to the three preceding Rounds she has alread}* passed througl the present being the Fourth Round out of the seven. At the begii ning of every new Round, after a period of Obscuration, the Earth- as do also the other six "Earths** — casts off, or is supposed to cast ol her old Skins as the Serpent does; therefore she is called in tl Aiiareya-Brdkmana the Sarpa-Rajni, the *' Queen of the Serpents,' and "the mother of all that moves." The "Seven Skins." in the fii of which she now stands, refer to the seven geological changes whic]
* The Harth.
t Acliyuta is au almost uatrHtUilatabte tcnti. It means that which is not subject to fall or ch*l fo; Uie worse : Iht f nfnUing: and it in Iht rcvrrac of Chyuta. the Fallen. The IMiyints who im 3atc in the human fornui of the Third Rooi-Rqcc aod endow than with intellect (Manas) n the Ch)*uta, for they fall into i;*^ncralion.
KARADA AND ASURABCAYA.
51
accompany and correspond to the evolution of the Se\'en Root- Races of Humanity.
Stanza II, which speaks of this Round, begins with a few words of information concerning the age of our Earth. The chronology will be given in its place. In the Commentary appended to the Stanza, two personages are mentioned. Narada and Asuramaya. especially the utter. All the calculations are attributed to this archaic celebrity; 2nd what follows will make the reader superficially acquainted with some of these figures.
gr;
TWO ANTEDILUVIAN ASTRONORERa
To the mind of the Eastern student of Occultism, two figures are indissolubly connected with mystic Astronomy, Chronology, and their cycles. Two grand and mysterious figures, towering like two giants in the Archaic Past, emerge before him. whenever he has to refer to Yogas and Kalpas. When, at what period of pre-history they H\'ed. none save a few men in the world know, or ever can know, with that certainly which is required by exact chronology. It may have been 100,000 years ago, it may have been 1,000.000, for all that the outside ■Id will ever know. The mystic West and Freemasonry talk loudly Enoch and Hermes. The mystic East speaks of NSrada. the old Vcdic Rishi, and of Asuramaya. the Atlantean.
It has already been hinted that of all the incomprehensible charac- rs in the Mahabkaraia and the Puranas, NSrada, the son of Brahmli in the Matsya Purdna, the progeny of Kashyapa and the daughter of Daksha, in the Vishnu Parana, is the most mysterious. He is referred to by the honourable title of Deva-Rishi (Divine Rishi. rather than Demi-God) by ParSshara. and yet he is cursed by Daksha and even by ahraA. He informs Kansha that BhagavSn, or Vishnu in exoteri- sm, would incarnate in the eighth child of Devaki. and thus brings the wrath of the Indian Herod upon Krishna's mother: and then, from the cloud on which he is seated — invisible as a true MSnasapiitra — he uds Krishna, in delight at the Avatir's feat of killing the monster hin. Nirada is here, there, and everywhere; and yet. none of the Purdnas pves the true characteristics of this great enemy of physical ation. Whatever those characteristics may be in Hindu Kso- dsm, NSrada — who is called in Cis-HimSlayan Occultism Pesh- Hun. the "Messenger," or the Greek Angelos — is the sole confidant
s tfai th Jaud
52
THK SECKET DOCTIUKS.
les
;i
and the executor of the universal decrees of Karma and Adi-Buanaf a kind of active and ever-incaruating Logos, who leads and guides human affairs from the beginning to the end of the Kalpa.
Pesh-Hun is a general not a special Hindu possession. He is ihi mysterious guiding intelligent power, which gives the impulse to, a regulates the impetus of Cycles, Kalpas and universal events.* He is Karma's visible adjuster on a general scale; the iuspirer and the leader of the greatest heroes of this Manvantara. In the exoteric works he is referred to by some very uncomplimentary names; such as Kali- kSraka, Strife-maker. Kapi-vaktra, Monkey-faced, and even Pishuna, the Spy, though elsewhere he is called Deva-Brahma. Even Sir William Jones was strongly impressed with this mysterious character from what he gathered in his Sanskrit studies. He compares him to Hermes and Mercur>', and calls him "the eloquent messenger of the gods."t All this, besides the fact that the Hindus believe him to be a great Rishi. "who is for ever wandering about the earth, giving good counsel." led tlie late Dr. KenealyJ to see in him one of his twelve Messiahs. He was. perhaps, not so far off the real track as some imagine.
What Ndrada rtally is, cannot be explained in print; nor would t modern generations of the profane gather much from the information. But it may be remarked, that if there be iu the Hindu Pantheon a Deity which resembles Jehovah, in tempting by "suggestion" of thoughts, and "hardening" of the hearts of those whom he would make his tools and victims, it is Narada. Only with the latter it is no desire to obtain a pretext for "plaguing," and thus showing that "/aw the Lord God." Nor is it through any ambitious or selfish motive; but, verily, to se and guide universal progress and evolution.
NIrada is one of tlie few prominent characters, if we except some Gods, in the Purdtias^ who visit the so-called nether or infernal regions, PfltSla. Whether or not it was from his intercourse with the thousand-headed Shesha, the Serpent who bears the Seven PStalas and the entire world like a diadem upon his heads, and who is the great teacher of Astronomy, § that Narada learned all that he knew, ce
* This is p«-bap8 Uie reason why. la the Bkagavad GU3, we arc lold that Brahmi b«d commai cated to Nlrada in the beginning that all men whatsoever, cveu Mlechchhaii. outcasts and barbariai might know the true nature of Viaudcvo and Icaro lo have faith in that Ueily.
♦ Sec Ariatic Kexearchn, i. 365. : Book of God, 60. 1 Shnha, who is also .\naula, the infiniic. and the "Cycle of Eternity" in Hsoteridsm, is credited
with having given bis astronomical knowlnige to Garsa, the oldest astronomer of lodia, who pro- pitiated hiu, and forthwith knew all about the Flaiicta and how to read omens.
"1
THE MIKHOR OP FUTURITY.
53
it is that he surpasses Garga's Guru in his knowledge of cyclic intri- cacies. It is he who has charge of our progress and national weal or woe. It is he who brings on wars and puts an end to them. In the old Stanzas, Pesh-Hun is credited with having calculated and recorded all the astronomical and cosmic Cycles to come, and with having taught the Science to the first gazers at the starry vault. And it is Asuramaya, who is said to have based all his astronomical works upon those re- cords, to have determined the duration of all the past geological and cosmical periods, and the length of all the Cycles to come, till the end of this Life-Cycle, or the end of the Seventh Race.
There is a work among the Secret Books, called the Mirror of Futurity^ wherein all the Kalpas within Kalpas, and Cycles within the bosom of Shesha, or infinite Time, are recorded. This work is ascribed to Pesh- Hun-Narada. There is another old work which is attributed to various Atlanteans. It is these two records which furnish us with the figures of our Cycles, and the possibility of calculating the date of Cycles to come. The chronological calculations which will presently be given are, bow- er, those of the BrShmans, as explained further on: but most of them are also those of the Secret Doctrine.
The chronology and computations of the BrShman Initiates are based upon the zodiacal records of India, and the works of the above- entioned Astronomer and Magician — Asuramaya. The Atlantean odiacal records cannot err, as they were compiled under the guidance of those who first taught Astronomy, among other things, to mankind. But here again we are deliberately and recklessly facing a new diffi- culty. We shall be told that our statement is contradicted by Science, in the person of a man regarded as a great authority (in the West) upon all subjects of Sanskrit literature — Professor Albrecht Weber, of Berlin. is, to our great regret, cannot be helped ; and we are ready to main- in what is nov; stated. Asuramaya, to whom the epic tradition points as the earliest Astronomer in Arj'Svarta, one to whom "the Sun-God imparted the knowledge of the stars," in propria persona^ as Dr. Weber
WLoj self states, is identified by him, in some ver>* mysterious way, with yc •' Ptolemaios" of the Greeks. No more valid reason is given for us identification than that: This lalter name (Ptolemaius), as we see from the inscription of Piyadasi, became llie Indian "Turamaya," out of which the name " Aaura Maya" might very easily grow.
No doubt it "might," but the vital question is: Are there any good
LTh ■^th-
I ba
auf ■Vhi
54 THK SECRET DOCTRINE.
proofis that it has thus grown? The only evidence that is given for t is. that it musl be so:
hia^
since . . . this Maya it distinctly assigne
The MSyS is e\'ident, since no Sanskritist among Europeans can tell where that locality of Romaka-pura was, except, indeed, that it was somewhere "in the West." In any case, as no member of the Asiatic Societ>', or Western Orientalist, will ever listen to a BrShmanical teach- ing, it is useless to take the objections of European Orientalists into consideration. Romaka-pura was *'in the West," certainly, since it was part and parcel of the lost continent of Atlantis. And it is equally certain that it is Atlantis, to which is assigned in the Hindu Puranas the birth-place of Asuramaya, "as great a Magician as he was an Astrologer and an Astronomer." Moreover, Prof. Weber refuses to assign any great antiquity to the Indian Zodiac, and feels inclined to think that the Hindus never knew of a Zodiac at all till
They bad borrowed one from the Greeks.t I
This statement clashes with the most ancient traditions of India, and must therefore be ignored. We are the more justified in ignoring it, as the learned German Professor himself tells us in the introduction to his work, that:
In addition to the natural ohstacles which impede investigation [in India], there still prevails a dense mist of prejudice and preconceived opinions hovering over the land, and enfolding it as with a veil.t
Caught in that veil, it is no wonder that Dr. Weber should himself have been led into involuntary errors. Let us hope that he knows better now.
Now whether Asuramaya is to be considered a modem myth, a personage who flourished in the day of the Macedonian Greeks, or that which he is claimed to be by the Occultists, in any case his calculations agree entirely with those of the Secret Records.
From fragments of immensely old works attributed to the Atlantean Astronomer, and found in Southern India» the calendar elsewhere men- tioned was compiled by two very learned Brahmans§ in 1884 and 1885. The work is proclaimed by the best Pandits as faultless — from the
* See Thf History 0/ /ndiam UUraturt, p. 353, by Prof. A. Weber; in Trabnrr't Orimtol Seriea.
t Even the Mayo Indians of Guatemflta had thdr Zodiac from untold antiquity. And "primitire man acted in the ttanir manner independently of time ur locality in every age," observes a French writer.
J nid.. p. t.
) Tlic Tirukianiia fbncManga, for the Kali Yugv 4996. by Chiatamany Raghanarachar>'>. k>d ot the famotu Goremmcnt aatronomCT of Hadnui, and Xartakamala VenkaU Kritihna Rao.
WHAT THE BAJtTH-WHIRI* PRODCCBD.
55
Brihmanical standpoint — and thus far relates to the chronolog>' of the orthodox teachings. If we compare its statements with those made several years earlier in Isis Unvciicd, with the fragmentary teachings published by some Theosophists, and with the present data derived trom the Secret Books of Occultism, the whole will be found to agree pcrfiecUy, save in some details which may not be explained ; for secrets of higher Initiation — as unknown to the writer as they are to the reader —would have to be revealed, and that cannot be done*
STANZA 11. NATURE UNAIDED FAILS.
Alter enormous periods the Earth creates monsters. 6. The "Creators" are iitt great tides. 10. The beginning of incrustation.
, 80
5, The Wheel whirled for thirty crores more ♦ It con- structed RiPAs;t SOFT Stones that hardened^ hard plants that soptened.§ Visible from invisible, Insects and small lives.ii she^i shook them off her back whenever they over- RAX THE Mother (a). . . . After thirty crores, she turned socND. She lay on her back; on her side She
OULD CALL no SONS OF HEAVEN, SHE WOrLD ASK NO SONS OF
TisDOM. She created from her own bosom. She evolved ater-Men, terrible and bad ib).
(a) This relates to an inclination of the axis — of which there were several — to a consequent deluge and chao.s on Earth (having, however, no reference to Primeval Chaos), in which monsters, half-human, half- animal, were generated. We find it mentioned in the Book of the Dead, and also in the Chaldaean account of creation, on the Cutha Tablets. however mutilated.
It is not even allegor>'. Here we have facts^ that are found repeated
* of y«Bn. 30Q mitUon yean, or Three Occult Ages. The Rig Vtda has Uic same division. In the "ni>^icuii'« K>inn." \X 97 ■) it U said that "the plants came into beiag Thret Ascs (Triyuffam) bcfure the irods" on our fiarth. (Sec "Chronotoify oi Uic Brfthriians" at the end of thL*" Stanra.)
* Forms.
X Minetalfr.
\ TCfftlAtiOO.
I aaxlsripa, svapada. V Tlic Earth.
56
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
in the accotiiit of the Pymander^ as well as in the Chaldaean tablets ol creation. The verses may almost be checked by the Cosmogony, as given by Berosus. which has been disfigured out of recognition b] Eusebius, but some of the features of which may yet be found in fragments left by ancient Greek authors — Apollodorus. Alexander Polyhistor, etc. "The water-men terrible and bad" — who were the production of Physical Nature alone, a result of the "evolutionary impulse" and the first attempt to create ''man," the crown, and the^ aim and goal of all animal life on Earth — are shown to be failures iufl our Stanzas. Do we not find the same in the Berosian Cosmogony, denounced with such vehemence as the culmination of heathen ab- surdity? And yet who of the Evolutionists can say that things in the beginning have not come to pass as they are described? That, ajlfl maintained in the Purdnas, the Egyptian and Chaldaean fragments, and even in Genesis^ there have not been two, and even more, *'crea- tions," before the last formation of the Globe; which, changing xM^k geological and atmospheric conditions, changed also its flora, its fauna, and its men? This claim agrees not only with every ancient Cos- mogony, but also with Modem Science, and even, to a certain degre^^| with the theory of evolution, as may be demonstrated in a few words.
There is no "Dark Creation." no '*Evil Dragon" conquered by a Sun-God, in the earliest World-Cosmogonies. Even with the Akkads,B the Great Deep^the Watery Abyss, or Space — was the birthplace and abode of Ea, Wisdom, the incognizable infinite Deity. But with the Semites and the later Chaldaean.s. the fathomless Deep of Wisdom becomes gross Matter, sinful substance, and Ea is changed into Tiamat, the Dragon slain by Merodach, or Satan, in the astral waves.
In the Hindu Purdnas, Brahma, the Creator, is seen recommencing de funo several "Creations" after as many failures; and two great Crea- tions are mentioned,* the P&draa and the VarSha, the present, when the Earth was lifted out of the water by Brahma, in the shape of a Boar, the Varaha Avatara. Creation is shown as a sport, an amuse- ment (Lila) of the Creative God. The Zokar speaks of primordial]* worlds, which perished as soon as they came into existence. And the™ same is said in the Midraisk, Rabbi Abahu explaining distinctly! that "the Holy One" had successively created and destroyed sundo' Worlds, before he succeeded in the present one. This does not relate only to
Hfimary nnd Sttondary Crvalioni) nrv here meant. f In StrticAitH Ratba, Pancba IX.
The
THE MONSTERS OP CHAOS.
57
Other Worlds in Space, but to a mystery of our own Globe contained in the allegon' about the "Kings of Edom.** For the words, "This one pleases me," are repeated in Genesis,* though in disfigured terms, as asnal. The Chaldaean fragments of Cosmogony in the cuneiform inscriptions, and elsewhere, show two distinct creations of animals and men, the first being destroyed, as it was a failure. The Cosmogouical tablets prove that this our actual creation was preceded by others ;i and as shown by the author of The Qahbalah, in the Xohar, Siphra Dtenwulha^ in /
(^) Oannes, or Dagon, the Chaldsean "Man-fish," divides his Cos- mogony and Genesis into two portions. First the abyss of waters and darkness, wherein resided most hideous beings — men with wings, four and two-winged men, human beings with two heads, with the legs and bonis of a goat — our "goat-men" J — hippocentaurs, bulls with the beads of men, and dogs with tails of fishes. lu short, combinations of various animals and men, of fishes, reptiles and other monstrous animals, assuming each other's shapes and countenances. The femi- ^^sine element tliey resided in is personified by Thalatth— the Sea, or ^»" Water" — which was finally conquered by Belus, the male principle. And Polyhistor says :
Bclas came, and cut the woman asunder: and of one half of her he formed the earth, ind of the other half the heavens; and ai the same time destroyed the coinuU within her. \
As pertinently remarked by Isaac Myer:
With ihe Aikadians each object and power of Nature had its Zi or Spirit. The AkkadxAus formed their deities into triads, usually of males [sexless, rather?], the Senutea also had triadic deities, but introduced sex |
phallicism. With the Aryan and the earliest Akkadians all things
Ser Hihhtfi fjcturti, 18B7. Sayce, p. 390.
Whence the identity of the ideas > The Chinese hare the same traditions. According: to the itator Kwob P'oh, in the work called Skan- Hat 'King, " Woudera by Sea and t,axid," m. work wkach WAS written by the historiographer Chuug Ku from cnpraiings on nine urns made by the Ya (B.C. zsssi, an interrlew is mrntloncd with men having two distinct faces on their heada, and behind, montteni «rilh bodies of gonts and human faces, etc. Gould, iu his Mythicai '2 (p. 37), giving the names of some authon on Natural History, mentions ShaH- Mat- King, AccortHng to the commentator Kwoh P'oh (a.o. >;6-3z.t) this work was compiled three thousand before bis time, or at seven dynasties' distance. Vang Sun of the Miug Dynasty (commcDcing iji6fl) statea that it was compiled by Kung Chia and Chung Ku I?)"— as stated above. "Chung . . . at the time of the last emi>eror of the Hia dynasty (B.C. ifliS), fearing that the emperor It destroy the books treating uf the ancient ttiue, carried them in his Aight to Yin." I Corjt* Anct£mt F^ngmen/t, original edition, p. 35.
58
THE SECRBT DOCTRINK.
are emanations through^ not by^ a Creator or Logos, everything is begotten.
With the Semites
•E^"
%
6. The Water-Men. terrible akd bad, she herself creatj from the remains op others.* from the dross and sume op her First, Second, ant> Third,! she formed them. The Dhyani came AND looked the Dhyani from the bright Father- Mother, FROM THE White t Regions thky§ came, from the Abodi OP the Immortal Mortals (a).
(a) The explanations given in our Stanzas are far more clear than that which the legend of creation from the Cutha tablet would give, even were it complete. What is preserved on it, however, corroborates them. For, in the tablet, the "Lord of Angels" destroys the men in the abyss, when "there were not left the carcases and waste" after they were slaughtered. After which they, the Great Gods, create men with the bodies of birds of the desert, human beings, "seven kings, brothers of the same family," etc., which is a reference to the locomotive quali- ties of the primary ethereal bodies of men, which could fly as well as they could \valk,i| but who "were destroyed" because they were not "perfect," ix., they "were sexless, like the Kings of Edom," ^H
Weeded of metaphors and allegories, what will Science say to thi^^ idea of a primordial creation of species? It will object to the "Angels" and "Spirits" having anything to do therewith; but if it be Nature and the physical law of evolution that are the creators of all there is now on Earth, why could there be "no such abyss," when the Globe was covered with waters, in which numbers of monstrous beings w^ere generated? Is it the "human beings" and animals with human heads and double faces, which are a point of the objection? But if man is only a higher animal and has evolved from the brute species by an infinite series of transformations, why could not the "missing links" have had human heads attached to the bodies of animals, or, being two-headed, have heads of beasts and vice versdj in Nature's early efforts? Are we not shown, during the geological periods, in the ages
* Prom the mineral, vegetable, and animal remains.
* Roundii.
I Solar-lunar.
I Godaand Planetary Spirita, espedatly the Ribhus. "The three Ribhiu" who also become "UiHce Bcven " in number of their gifts.
II Remember the " winded races " of Plato, and the I\tp«t- Vuk accounts of the first human racc^ which could walk, fly, and ice objccta, however distant.
UNAIDED PHYSICAL NATURE FAII^.
59
I of the reptiles and the mammalia, lizards with birds* wings* and
■ serpents' heads on animal bodies?* And. arguing from the standpoint
m cf Science, does not even our modem human race occasionally furnish
1 05 with monster-specimens: two-headed children, animal bodies with
htiman heads, dog-headed babies, etc.? And this proves that, if Nature
will still play such freaks now that she has been settled for ages in the
order of her evolutionary work, monsters, like those described by Berosus,
were a possibility in her opening programme; a possibility which may
e\'en have existed once upon a time as a law, before she sorted out her
5peciesand began regular work upon them. And this indeed now admits
of definite proof by the bare fact of "Reversion." as Science puts it.
This is what the Doctrine teaches, and demonstrates by numerous prooEs. But we shall not wait for the approval of either dogmatic Theology or Materialistic Science, but proceed with the Stanzas. Let these speak for themselves, with the help of the light thrown on them by the Commentaries and their explanations; the scientific aspect of these questions will be considered later on.
Thus Physical Nature, when left to herself in the creation of animal and man. is shown to have failed. She can produce the first two kingdoms, as well as that of the lower animals, but when it comes to the turn of man, spiritual, independent and intelligent powers are required for his creation, besides the "coats of skin" and the "breath of animal life.'^ The human Monads of preceding Rounds need something higher than purely physical materials with which to build their personalities, under the penalty of remaining even below any " Frankenstein " animal.f
* Sr Myiktcat Monitm. by ChariM Gould.
■ tB a>c hrti volume of the lately published [HtroductioH d fAtudf d^s Rxuti Humaines, by M. de QoatavfiiC**, then is proof that since the Post-Tertiary Period and e\'en before that time— «lnce many Races were already scatterrd during that Age on the face of the Earth— man has not altered one iota in hfa physical fttructnre. And if man was surrounded for ages by a fnuna that altered from one period or cycle lo another, which died out. which was reborn in other forms— so that now there docs •ot exist one aiogle animal on Earth, large or small, contrraporar}- with the man of that pcriod^fr llicn. every animal has been transfomied save man himself, this fact goes lo prow not only faU aartiquity, but that he is a dtsttnct k'imgdom. Why ehould he alone have eacSped transformation? Brcanar, 9Xy% de Quatrefages, the weapon used by him, in his struggle witli Nature, and the ever* chaniEinff geological conditioos and elements, was "his psychic /or ct. not \\\% physical strength or Iwdy," u in the case of animals. Give roan only that dose of intelligence and reason with which OH^BW iii#i"T»ii are endowed, and with his present bodily organixalton he will show himself the mnuT lidpleas of creatures of Eartli. And as everything goes to prove that the human organism with jiB its duormcteristics. peculiarities and idiosj-ncrasien existed already on our Globe In those far distant gurtiljTral periods when there was not yet onr ungle tpfcimtn of the now 'exiiting forms of mammalia, «ftat ia the anaToidable concliuionP Why this: Since all the human races are of one and the same •peciCK it foUows that this species is Che most ancient of all the now-living mammalia. Therefore it is cbe most stable and persevering of all, and was already as fully developed as it is now when all the munmoUa now known had not made even their first opproach to appearance on this Rarth. li the opinion of the great French Naturalist, who gives thereby a tenible blow to Darwinism.
60
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
7. Displeased they were. "Our Flesh is xot there.* No fit RiTPAS FOR OUR Brothers of the Fifth. No Dwelungs for the LivES-t Pure Waters, not turbid, they must drink («). Let
DRY THEM. "J
(a) Says the Caieckisni on the Commentaries:
It is front the material Worlds that descend they, wfw fashion phy. man at the new Manvantaras. Tluy are inferior Lha \^Spirits\ possessi of a dual body [«n Astral withi?t an Ethereal Forfn]. They are tk fashioners and creators of our body of illusion
Into the forms projected by the Lha [Pitris] the Two Letters^ \^the Jifcnai called also the *' Double Dragon'* ] descemi from the Spheres of Expects tian,\\ But they are like a roof with no walls, nor pillars to rest nfion. ,
Man needs four Flames and three Fires to become one on Earth, and requires the cssaicc of the forty -tiine Fires% to be perfect. It is those uthff' have deserted the Superior Spheres, the Gods of MW** xvho complete the Manu of illusion. For the '* Double Dragon'* has no hold upon tlie mere form. It is like the breeze where tlure is no tree or branch to receive and harbour it. It cannot affect the form where there is no agent of transmissien^ ; [Manas, **Mind"~\ and the form knows it not, ^H
In the highest worlds, the three are becomes two. They are like the two [side] lines of a triangle that has losl_ its bottom line — which is the third Fire. XX
Now this requires some explanation before proceeding any further^ To do so especially for the benefit of our Ar>'an Hindu brethren — who! Esoteric interpretations may differ from our own — we shall have to ex- plain to them the foregoing by certain passages in their own exoti
ost
I
IX-
• They »aid.
t The Monads of the " prescntmenUs" of men of the Third Round, the huge apc-like fomta.
J The Watera.
( In the Eftotcric System the seven "principles" In man are represented by acren letters. The fint tvfo ore more sacred than the four letter* of the Tetrasrrammaton.
|i The lutermediale Spheres, wherein the Monads, which have not reached Nirvina, are said to filumhcr in unconscious inactivity between the ManvantorBs.
•T Kxptained elsewhere. The Three Fires, Pivaka, Pavamana, and Shnchi. who had forty-Eve Soas, who, with Oieir thrre Pathere, and their Father Agnl. conrtitute the forty-nine Fire*. Pavamiiia. Fire produced by friction, is the parent of the "Fire of the Astiros"; Shuchi, .Solar Fire. i» the parvnt of the "Fire of the Gods"; and PAvakn. Electric Finr, is the Father of the "Fire of the Pitria." iSee yS^it Purdna.) But this is an explanation on the material and terrestrial plane- The Flames ore evnnfrscent and only periodical: the Fires— eternal in their triple unity. They correspond to the Jbur lower, and the three higher human " principles."
•• The Suras, who become later the A^Suras.
t^ klm&. Buddhi and Manas. In Dcvachaa the higher clement of the Monaa is needed to make H a slate of perception and consciousness for the discratxHlied Monad.
tt CaiediisM, Book iii. Sec. q.
ir
THE BODIES OP BRAHMA.
6i
|>)ook5, namely, the Puranas. In the allegories of the latter, Brahma, wno iscoHectively the Creative Force of the Universe, is thus described:
At ihc beginning of the Yugas [Cycles] possessed of the desire and o.
|the power to create. And impelled by the potencies of what is to be created, agaii: ndag&in docs he, at the outset of a Kalpa, put forth a similar creation.*
It is now proposed to examine the exoteric account in tlie Vishnu \Pumna, and see how much it may agree or disagree with our Occult
Lrersion.
CREATION OF DIVINE BEINGS IN THE EXOTERIC ACCOUNTS. In the Vishnu Purdna, which is certainly the earliest of all the IdiptnFes of that name, we find, as in all the others, Brahmd, as the toale God, assuming, for purposes of creation. **/our Bodies invested by /"^^ qualities/* t It is said:
ta Ihis manner, Maitreya, JyotsnA (dawn), RAtri (night), Ahan (day), and SnndhyA ing [twilight]) are the four bodies of Brahmft. J
As Parishara explains it. when Brahma wishes to create the world ewand construct progeny through his imll, in the fourfold condition, the four Orders of Beings, termed Gods(Dhyan Chohaus), Demons§ r. more material Devas), Progenitors (Pitris) and Men, "he collects [^Yoga-like] his miud into itself" (Yuyuge).
Strange to say, he begins by creating Demons, who thus take pre- cedence over the Angels or Gods. This is no incongruity, nor is it due tc inconsistency, but has, like all the rest, a profound Esoteric mean- ing, quite clear to one free from Christian theological prejudice. He who bears in mind that the principle Mahat. or Intellect, the "Uni- versal Mind" (literally the "Great"), which Esoteric Philosophy- explains as the "Manifested Omniscience" — the "first product" of ^B^dhana, Primordial Matter, as the Vishnu Purdna says, but the ^B&t Cosmic Aspect of Parabrahman or the Esoteric Sat, the Universal ^^pu],|| as Occultism teaches — is at the root of SELF-Consciousness,
* 5e« I'lsknM F^rAna, Book I. Ch. V., clMiDg^ Sfaloko. Pitxcdward UaU'b rCDdctiug^ of the text, in I ^Ttlfcn'K TrasflUtjAn. t. S8. A1«o M-tnava- PAarma SMdsiro, i. 30.
• This has in £«ot«riciEin a dirvcl bearing upon the seven " principles" of the mauifcsted Bnhmil, I or Colvefse, in Ibe sanir order tut in nutn. Exotcrically, it is onty four " principles." I i WflMNt'eTnnslation. i. 81.
t PODODs is a very loose word to use. as it applies to a great nambcr of iaferior — 1>,, more material
its. or minor Gods, wbo are eo termed becansc Ifaey " war" with the higher ones; but they ore
kderila.
Tbe same order of prindptcs in man: Atmi (Spirit), Buddfai (SoiU). Its vehicle, as Matter li the
of Spirit, and Manas tMittdi, the third, or the fifth microcosmically. On the fiiane 0/ person-
islhe first.
€2
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
will understand the reason why. The so-called Demons — who ate Bsoterically the Self-asserting and intellectually active Principle — are the positive poU of creation, so to say; hence, the first produced. This is in brief the process as narrated allegorically in the Purdnas.
Having concentrated his mind into itself and the Qualitj' of Darkness perx'ftding Brahmfl'a assumed body, the Asuras, issuing from his Thigh, were first produced ^^ after which, abandoning this body, it was transformed into Night. ^H
Two important points are involved herein: (a) Primarily in the Risr l\da, the Asuras are shown as spiritual divine Ba\g^ : their et>'molog>* is derived from Asu, breath, the "Breath of God," and they mean the same as the Supreme Spirit or the Zoroastrian Aliura. It is later oi^H for purposes of theology and dogma, that they are shown issuing from^ Brahmi's Thigh, and that their name began to be derived from a, privative, and Sura, a God, or "not-a-God," and that they became the enemies of the Gods, (d) Every ancient Theogouy without exception — from the Aryan and the Egyptian down to that of Hesiod — ^in the order of Cosmogonical evolution, places Night before Day; even Genesis, where "darkness i!> upon the face of the deep" before the *' first day.*' The reason for this is that ever>* Cosmogony — except in the Secret Doctrine — begins by the "Secondary Creation" so-called; to wit, the Manifested Universe, the Genesis of which has to begin by a marked differentiation between the eternal Light of " Primar>' Crea* tion," whose mystery must remain for ever " Darkness '* to the pr>'ing finite conception and intellect of the profane, and the Secondary Ev lution of manifested visible Nature. The Veda contains the whol? philosophy of that division, without having ever been correctly ex- plained by our Orientalists, since it has never been understood by them.
Continuing to create, Brahma assumes another form, that of the Day, and creates from his Breath the Gods, who are endowed with the Quality of Goodness (Passivity).* In his next body the Quality of great Passivity prevailed, which is also (negative) goodness, and from the side of that personage issued the Pitris, the Progenitors of men. because, as the text explains, Brahmfi "thought of himself [during the process] as the father of the world." f This is Kriyi-shakti — th
* Thus, says the Commentnry. the sayiae, " bj' day the Gods ore most powerful, and by night the Demons," is pnrely allc^'orical.
* This "thinking oroneActf" us this, thnt, or the other, is the chief factor in the production of «very kind of psychic or even physical phenomena, The words " whosoever shall say to this ntoun- tain be thou remored and cast into the sea, and ihail m>l doubt .... that thing will come to paaa." arv no vain words. Only the word "faith" oufrM to be translated by "WilL" Poitb oat Will is like a wincl-mill without imm^— barren of resulu.
^
'1^
THE FOUR CLASSES OF CREATORS.
63
niysteriotts Yoga-power explained elsewhere. This body of Brahmi when cast off became the Sandhyfi, Evening Twilight, the interval between Day and Night.
Finally Brahma assumed his last form perx'aded by the Quality of
Foulness.
.\iid from thiss Men. in whom foulness (or passion) predominates, were produced.
This body when cast off became the Dawn, or Morning Twilight —
the Twilight of Humanity. Here Brahma stands Esoterically for the
Pitris. He is collectively the PitS, "Father/'
The true Esoteric meaning of this allegorx' must now be explained. Brahma here symbolizes personally the Collective Creators of the World and Men — the Universe with all its numberless productions of things movable and (seemingly) immovable.* He is collectively the Praja- patis, the Lords of Being; and the four bodies t3T>ify the four Classes of Creative Powers or Dhyan Chohans, described in the Commentary I on Shloka I, Stanza VII, in Volume I. The whole philosophy of the so- ^^called •• Creation " of the good and e\'il in this World, and of the whole ^Byde of Manvantaric results therefrom, hang^s on the correct com- ^Krebension of these Four Bodies of BrahmS.
^P The reader will now be prepared to understand the reaU the Esoteric ' significance of what follows. Moreover there is an important point to be cleared up. Christian Theology having arbitrarily settled and agreed that Satan with his Fallen Angels belonged to the earliest creation, Satan being the first-created, the wisest and most beautiful of God's Archangels, the word was given, the key-note struck. Henceforth all the Pagan Scriptures were made to yield the same meaning, and all were shown to be demoniacal, and it was and is claimed that /r«M and fact belong to, and commence only with, Christianity'. Even the Orientalists and Mythologists, some of them no Christians at all but "infidels," or men of Science, entered, unconsciously to theiuselves and by the mere force of association of ideas and habit, into the theo- logical groove.
Purely Brahmanical considerations, based on greed of power and ambition, allowed the masses to remain in ignorance of great truths; and the same causes led the Initiates among the early Christians to remain silent, while those who had never known the truth disfigured the order of things, judging of the Hierarchy of "Angels'* by their
* The luae idea {« found Id the first four chapt«rt of (TnMsrj, wiUi Uicir "I«ord" and "Gc^*' vkich uv the glohim and the Androgynous £loha.
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
exoteric form. Thus, as the Asuras had become the rebellious inferic Gods fighting the higher ones in popular creeds, so the highest Arch angel, in truth the Agathodaemon, the eldest benevolent Logos, became in theolog>' the "Adversary" or Satan. But is this warranted by th^ correct interpretation of any old Scripture? The answer is: most cer- tainly not. As the Mazdean Scriptures of the Zend Avesta^ the I'r/idi- dad znd others correct and expose the later cunning shufEing of th. Gods in the Hindu Pantheon, and restore through Ahura the Asura: to their legitimate place in Theogony, so the recent discoveries of the Chaldaean tablets vindicate the good name of the first divine Emana- tions. This is easily proved. Christian Angelology is directly and solely derived from that of the Pharisees, who brought their tenets from Babylonia. The Sadducees, the real guardians of the Laws of Moses, knew not of any Angels, opposing even the immortalit>' of the human Soul (not the impersonal Spirit). In the BibU the only Angels spoken of are the "Sons of God*' mentioned in Gausis vi — who are now regarded as the Nephilim, the Fallen Angels — and several Angels in human form, the "Messengers" of the Jewish God, whose own rank needs a closer analysis than heretofore given. As shown above, the early Akkadians called Ea Wisdom, which was disfigured by the later Chaldees and Semites into Tiamat, Tisalat and the Thalatth of Berosus the female Sea Dragon, now Satan. Truly — "How art thou fallen [b; the hand of man], O bright Star and Son of the Morning"!
Now what do the Babylonian accounts of "Creation," as found the Assyrian fragments of tiles, tell us; those verj' accoiuits upo: which the Pharisees built their Angelolog>'? Compare Mr, George Smith's Assyrian Discoveries* and his Chaldean Account of Genesis.^ The Tablet with the story of the Seven Wicked Gods or Spirits, has the following account; we print the important passages in italics
;. In the first days the evil Gods,
a. the angels who were in rei>eiliont who in the lower part of heaven
3. had l>eeii created
4. they cau&ed their evil work
5. devising with wicked heads .... etc.
Thus we are shown, as plainly as can be, on a fragment which re- mained unbroken, so that there can be no dubious reading, that th: "Rebellious Angels" had been created in the "lower part of heaven." i.e., that they belonged and do belong to a material plane of evolution^
-4
ter
lis, I
•P.398.
T P. 107.
WHAT THE GNOSTICS SAY.
' although as it is not the plane of which we are made cognizant through
oar senses, it remains generally invisible to us, and is thus regarded as
sabjective. Were the Gnostics so wrong, after this, in affirming that
HUs our Visible World, and especially the Earth, had been created by
fcrarr Angels, the inferior Elohim, of which, as they tauj^ht, the God
Wf I&rael was one? These Gnostics were nearer in time to the records
Kthe Archaic Secret Doctrine* and therefore ought to be allowed to
Ktre known what it contained better than non-initiated Christians, who
Pbok upon themselves, hundreds of years later, to remodel and correct
TTbat was said. But let us see what the same Tablet says further on:
7. There were seven of them [the wicked gods].
Then follows the description of these, the fourth being a ''serpent," the phallic symbol of the Fourth Race in human Evolution.
15. The seven of them, messengers of the God Ann their king.
Now Ann belongs to the Chaldazan Trinity, and is identical with Sin, the "Moon," iu one aspect. And the Moon in the Hebrew Kabalah is the Argha of the seed of all material life, and is still more closely connected, kabalistically, with Jehovah, who is doublc- seied, as Anu is. They are both represented in Esotericism, and viewed, from a dual aspect: male or spiritual, female or material, or Spirit and Matter, the two antagonistic principles. Hence the ** Mes- sengers of Anu," who is Sin, the "Moon," are shown, in lines 28 to 41, as being finally overpowered by the same Sin with the help of Bel, the Sun, and Ishtar, Venus. This is regarded as a contradiction by the Assyriologists, but it is simply metaphysics in the Esoteric teaching.
There is more than one interpretation, for there are seven keys to the m\*stery of the "Fall." Moreover there are two '*Falls" in Theo- Iog>': the rebellion of the Archangels and their "Fall," and the "Fall" of Adam and Eve. Thus the lower as well as the higher Hierarchies are charged with a supposed crime. The word "supposed" is the true and correct term, for in both ca-ses it is founded on misconception. Both are considered in Occultism as Karmic effects, and both belong to the law of Evolution — intellectual and spiritual on the one hand, and psychic on the other. The "Fall" is a universal alle- '. It sets forth at one end of the ladder of Evolution the "rebel- ," x.^., the actionof differentiating intellection, or consciousness, on various planes, seeking union with Matter: and at the other, the Jower end, the rebellion of Matter against Spirit, or of action against
J
66
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
spiritual inertia. And here lies the germ of an error which has ha.^ such disastrous effects on the intelligence of civilized societies for ov^^ i.Soo years. In the original allegory it is Matter — hence the mo^ material Angels — which was regarded as the conqueror of Spirit, ^^^ the Archangels who "fell** on this plane.
They of the fiaming sword [or animal passions] had put to flight the Spirits ^ Darkness.
Yet it is the latter who fought for the supremacy of the consciotj:^ and divine spirituality on Earth and failed, succumbing to the powi of Matter. But in theological dogma we see the reverse. It is Micha •*who is like unto God/' the representative of Jehovah, who is th Leader of the Celestial Hosts — as Lucifer, in Milton*s fancy, is of th Infernal Hosts — who has the best of Satan. It is true that the natur^^ of Michael depends upon that of his Creator and Master. Who the latter^ is, one may find out by carefully studying the allegory of the "Wax in Heaven" with the astronomical key. As shown by Bentley, the "War of the Titans against the Gods" in Hesiod, and also the War of the Asuras. or the Tarakimaya, against the Devas in Purdnic legend, are identical in all save the names. The aspects of the stars show — Bentley taking the year 945 B.C. as the nearest date for such conjunction — that:
All the planets, except Saturn, were on the some side of the heavens as the Snn and Moon.
And hence were his opponents. And yet it is Saturn, or the Jewish "Moon-God," who is shown as prevailing, both by Hesiod and Moses^ neither of whom was understood. Thus it was that the real meaning became distorted.
STANZA II.— Continued,
8. The Flames came. The Fires with the Sparks; the Night- FiREs and the Day- Fires (a). They dried out the turbid dark Waters. With their heat they quenched them. The Lhas* OF the High; the LuAMAviNf of Below, came (b). They slew the Forms, which were two- and four-faced. They fought thb Goat-Men, and the Dog-Headed Men, and the Men with fishes' bodies.
(a) The "Flames" are a Hierarchy of Spirit? parallel to, if not identical with, the "burning" fiery Saraph (Seraphim), mentioned by
• Spirits.
Alsobpirits.
WHO ARE THE FLAMES?
67
Laiah* those who, according to Hebrew Theogony, attend the "Throne of the Almighty." Melha is the Lord of the ** Flames." When he appears on Earth, he assumes the personality of a Buddha,
says a popular legend. He is one of the most ancient and revered
IJias, a Buddhist St. Michael. {6) The word "Below*' must not be taken to meau Infernal Regions,
l>tit simply a spiritual, or rather ethereal, Being of a lower grade,
because nearer to the Earth, or one step higher than our Terrestrial
Sphere; while the Lhas are Spirits of the highest Spheres — whence
the name of the capital of Tibet, Lha-ssa. Besides a statement of a purely physical nature and belonging to the
evolution of life on Earth, there may be another allegorical meaning attached to this shloka, or indeed, as is taught, several. The " Flames," 01 "Fires," represent Spirit, or the male element, and "Water," Matter, or the opposite element. And here again we find, in the action of the Spirit slaying the purely material form, a reference to the eternal struggle, on the physical and psychic planes, between Spirit and Matter, besides a scientific cosmic fact. For, as said in the next verse:
9. Mother- Water, the Great Sea, wept. She arose, she dis- appeared IN the Moon, which had lifted her, which had given
HER birth.
Now what can this mean? Is it not an evident reference to tidal action in the early stage of the history of our Planet in its Fourth Hound? Modem research has been busy of late in its speculations on the Paljeozoic high-tides. Mr. G, H. Dan^nn's theory was that not less than 52,000,000 years ago — and probably much more — the Moon originated from the Earth's plastic mass. Starting from the point where research was left by Helmholtz, Ferrel, Sir William Thomson and others, he retraced the course of tidal retardation of the Earth's roto.r>' motioas far back iuto the very night of time, and placed the Moon during the infancy of our Planet at only "a firaction of its present distance." In short, his theory was that it was the Moon which separated from the Earth. The tidal elevation concurring with the swing of the globular mass — centrifugal tendency being then nearly
• vit-6.
68
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
equal to gravity — the latter was overcome, and the tidally elevated mass could thus separate completely from the Earth.*
The Occult teaching is the reverse of this. The Moon is far older than the Earth; and, as explained in Volume I, it is the latter which owes its being to the former, however Astronomy and Geology may explain the fact. Hence, the tides and the attraction to the Moon, as shown by the liquid portion of the Globe ever striving to raise itsdf towards its parent. This is the meaning of the sentence that the Mother- Water "arose, she disappeared in the Moon, which had lifted her, which had given her birth."
I
lo. When! thev were destroyed, Mother Earth remained' BARE.J She asked to be drjed.§
The lime for the Earth's incrustation had arrived. The waters bad separatetl and the process was started. It was the beginning of a new life. This is what one key divulges to us. Another key teaches the origin of Water, its admixture with Fire — ** Liquid Fire" it calls it— and enters upon an Alchemical description of the progeny of the two — solid matters such as minerals and earths. From the "Waters of Space," the progeny of the male Spirit-Fire and the female (gaseous) Water has become the Oceanic expanse on Earth. Vanma is dragged down from the infinite Space, to reigu as Neptune over the 5nite Seas. AS always, the popular fancy is found to be based on a strictly scientific foundation.
Water is the symbol of the Female Element ever>'where; Mater, from which comes the letter M, is derived pictorially from /\/\\, a water hieroglyph. It is the Universal Matrix or the "Great Deep." Venus, the great Mother- Virgin, issues forth from the sea-wave, and Cupid or Eros is her son. But Venus is the later mythological variant of Gsea, Gaia, the Earth, which, in its higher aspect is Prakriti. Nature, and
I
* But tec the difficultie* suggesUd later, in the work» of TariouA GeologiitJi, against this theory. Compare Sir R. S. Ball's articles in Nature, xxv, 79-8j, 10^-107, Nov. 14 and Dec. 1, tS8i.
•» The RfipBH.
t The Goddess who gave birth lo these primordial monsters, in the accoont or Beroaua, wasTha- Utth, in Creek Thalassa, the "Ses."
I See, for comparison, the account of crrotion by Beroaui. as preserved in Alexander Potyhistur, and the hideona beings bom from the twofold principle— Rarth and Water-in the «bys»« of Primor- dtsl Ciration : Narls (Ccntauis, rocn with the Hmbs of horwrs and human bodies), and Kinuaras (men with the beads of bowei) created by Brahmi in the commencement of the Kolpa.
DIVINE WILL BECOMES ERdS.
69
metaphysically Aditi, and even Mulaprakriti, the Root of Prakriti, or its noumenou.
Hence Cupid or Love in his primitive sense is Eros, the Divine Will, or Desire of manifesting itself through visible creation. Thence Fohat, the protot>-pe of Eros, becomes on Earth the Great Power '•Life-Electricity/* or the Spirit of "Life-giving." Let us remember the Greek Theogony and enter into the spirit of its Philosophy. We are taught by the Greeks that all things, Gods included, owe their being to the Ocean and his wife Tethys, the latter being Gaea, the Earth or Nature. But who is Ocean? Ocean is the immeasurable Space — Spirit in Chaos — which is the Deity; i(i Tethys is not the Earth, but Primordial Matter in the process larmation. In our case it is no longer Aditi-Gsea who begets Ouranos or Varuna, the chief Aditya among the seven Planetary Gods, but Prakriti, materialized and localized. The Moon, mas- culine in its theogonic character, is, in its cosmic aspect only, the lale generative principle, as the Sun is the male emblem thereof. I'aitr is the progeny of the Moon, an androgyne deity with every ition.
Evolution proceeds ou the laws of analogy in Kosmos as in the
innation of the smallest Globe. Thus the above, applying to the
fus opfrandi at the time when the Universe was appearing, applies
also in tlie case of our Earth's formation.
The Stanza now being commented upon opens by speaking of thirty
>res, 500,000,000 of years. We may be asked : What could the ancients
low of the duration of geological periods, when no modern Scientist
Mathematician is able to calculate their duration with anything like
Jproximate accuracy? Whether they had or had not better means —
and it is maintained that they had them as is evidenced by their
Zodiacs — still the chronology of the ancient Brahmans shall now be
given as faithfully as possible.
^ter riddle exists in Science, no problem is more hopelessly . than tlie question: How old — even approximately — are the Sun and Moon, the Earth and Man? What does Modern Science know
THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE BR.\HMANS.
THH SECRET DOCTRINE.
of the duration of the Ages of the World, or even of the length of Geological Periods?
Nothing; absolutely nothing.
If one turns to Science for chronological information, one is told by thofte who are straightfonvard and tnithful, as for instance Mr. Pen- gclly, the eminent Geologist, "We do not know.*'* One will learn that. 80 far, no trustworthy numerical estimate of the ages of the World and Man could be made, and that both Geolog>' and Anthro- pology arc at sea. Yet when a student of Esoteric Philosophy pre- sumes to bring forward the teachings of Occult Science, he is at once sat upon. Why should this be so. since, when reduced to their own phytticnl methods, the greatest Scientists have failed to arrive even at an approximate agreement?
It is true that Science can hardly be blamed for it. Indeed, in the Cimmerian darkness of the prehistoric ages, the explorers are lost in a labyrinth, whose great corridors are doorless, allowing no visible exit into the archaic past. Lost in the maze of their own conflicting speculations, rejecting, as Uiey have always done, the evidence of Eastern tradition, without any clue, or one single certain milestone to guide them, what can Geologists or Anthropologists do but pick up the slender thread of Ariadne where they first perceive it. and then pro- ceed at perfect random? Tliereforc we are first told that the farthest date to which documentary record extends is now generally regarded by Anthropology as but "the earliest distinctly visible point of the pro-historic period" — in the words of the writer of the article in the Encydopadia Briiannica.
Al the same time it is confessed that "beyond that period stretches back a vast iudcfinitc series of pre-historic ages."
It is with those specified '*ages" that we shall begin. They are "prc-historic'* to the naked eye of Matter only. To the spiritual eagle •ye of tlic Sccr and tlie Prophet of every race, Ariadne's thread Mrttchcs beyond that "historic period" without break or flaw, surely mA ittttdily. into the very uight of time; and the hand which holds it i9 •(» mighty to drop it, or even let it break. Records exist, although Ifey Bwy be rejected as fanciful by the profane; though, indeed, many are tacitly accepted by Philosophers and men of great learning, *^*«t with an unvarying refusal only from the oflicial and collective f firffwdox Science. And since the latter refuses to give us even
' Aw • ilmUar admlMloa ace Prof. L«f%vn's fkitmoi^hy, ^t.
THE RACK THAT NEVER DIBS.
71
a-n approximate idea of the duration of the geological Ages — save in a lew conflicting and contradictory hypotheses — let us see what An'an Philosophy can teach us.
Such computations as are given in Manu and the Puranas — ^save trifling and most evidently intentional exaggerations — are, as already slated, almost identical with those taught in Esoteric Philosophy. This may be seen by comparing the two in any Hindu calendar of recognized Orthodoxy.
Tlie best and most complete of all such calendars, at present, as vouched for by the learned Brahmans of Southern India, is the already mentioned Tamil calendar called the Tirukkanda Panchanga^ compiled, we are told, from, and in full accordance with, secret fragments of »aramaya's data. As Asuramaya is said to have been the greatest stronomer, so he is whispered to have also been the most powerful 'Sorcerer" of the "White Island, which had become Black with sin," u.. of the islands of Atlantis.
The "White Island" is a symbolical name. Asuramaya is said to iave lived, as in the tradition of the Jndna-bkaskara^ in Romaka-pura, in the West; because the name is an allusion to the land and cradle oi Ihc "Sweat-born" of the Third Race. That land or continent had disappeared ages before Asuramaya lived, since he was an Atlantean; but he was a direct descendant of the Wise Race, the Race thai never \iits. Many are the legends concerning this hero, the pupil of Sur>'a, the Sun-God, himself, as the Indian accounts allege. It matters little tphether he lived on one or another island, but the question is to prove that he was no mx'th, as Dr. Weber and others would make him. The fact of Romaka-pura, in the West, being named as the birthplace of lis hero of the Archaic Ages, is the more interesting because it is so -O* suggestive of the Esoteric Teaching about the Sweat-born Races, le men bom from the "pores of their parents." "Roma-kOpas" lean "hair-pores" in Sanskrit. In the Mahdbhdrata* a people named Lumas are said to have been created from tlie pores of Virabhadra, le terrible giant, who destroyed Daksha's sacrifice. Other tribes and )le are also represented as boni in this way. All these are refer- ices to the later Second and the earlier Third Root-Races. The following figures are from the calendar just referred to; a foot- >le marks the points of disagreement with the figures of the Arya ij school :
* xiL 10,308.
72 THK SECRET DOCTRINE-