II. The Lord of the Lords came.

rated the waters, and that was Heaven.*
From her Body he sepa- Heaven above, the First
Here tradition falls again into the Universal. As in the earliest version, repeated in the Purdnas, so in the latest, the Mosaic accoun In the first it is said:
«
THK UJRDS OF THB MOON.
79
He the Lord [the God who has the form of Brahmfi], when the world had become one ocean, concluding that within the waters lay tlie earth, and desirous to rai^e it up [to separate it], created himself in another form. As in the preceding Kalpa fManvantara] he had assumed the shape of a tortoise, so in this one he took tlie shape of a boar, etc.*
In the Elobistic "creation.**! "God" creates *'a firmament in the lidst of the waters." and says "let iiry lartd appear.*' And now comes 'the traditional peg whereunto is hung the Esoteric portion of the Kabalistic interpretation.
12. The great ChohansJ called the Lords op the Moon, of *int Airy Bodies: "Bring forth Men,§ Men of your nature.
CrVE them II THEIR FORMS WITHIN. ShE^ WILL BUILD COVERINGS
WITHOUT.** Males- Females will they be. Lords of the Flame
Who are the "Lords of the Moon*'? In India they are called Pitris ►r "Lunar Ancestors," hut in the Hebrew scrolls it is Jehovah himself "Who is the "Lord of the Moon," collectively as the Host, and also as one of the Elohim. The Astronomy of the Hebrews and their "ob- servance of iimcs'* was regulated by the Moon. A Kabalist, having Aown that "Daniel . . . told off God's providence by set iimcs^'* and that the Revelation of John "speaks of a carefully measured cubical cit)' descending out of the heavens," etc.» adds:
Bet the vitalising power of heaven lay chiefly with the moon. ... It was the
Hebrew rPIT [Jehovah].— and St. Paul enjoins:—*' Let no man judge you for your
obsenrance of the 7th day, and the day of new moon,— which are a shadow of things
U> come; but the body (or substance) is of Christ," i.e.y Jehovah,— that function of
power that "made the barren woman the joyful mother of children," — "for
ley are the gift of Jehovah," .... which is a key to the objection which
her husband made to the Shunamite, as to her going to the man of God: — "for it
is neither the 7th day nor the day of new moon.*' The living spiritual powers of
the constellations had mighty wars marked by the movements and positions of the
sUrs and planets, and especially as the result of the conjunction of the moon,
earth and son. Bentlej comments on the Hindfk "war between the gods and the
giants," as marked by the eclipse of the sua at the ascending node of the moon,
• /fan'vamika, i. j6.
T Gemsis, i. 6-9.
t Lords.
) They werr told.
tl !>., the Jivaa or Monads.
V Mother Earth or Nature.
•• For externa] bodies.
Bo
THB SECRET DOCTRINE.
945 B.C. [!], nt which lime was bom/ or produced from the sea, SRI (Sarai, S-r-i, the wife of the Hebrew Abramt). who was the Vcnus-Aphroditus [sic] of the Wealema. emblem "of the luni-solor year, or the moon, [as Sri is the wife of the Moon; sec foot-note], the goddess of increase.'*! • • • [Therefore] the grand monument and land-mark uf the exact period of the lunar year and month, by which this cycle [of 19 tropical years of the sun and 235 revolutions of the moon] could be
calculated, was Mouut Sinai. — the Lord Jehovah comin^ down thereon
Paul speaks [then] as a mystagogue, wheu he says concerning the freed woman and bond woman of Abraham:—" For this Hagar (the bond woman of Abraham) i» Mount Sinai in Arabia.'* How could a woman be a mountain ? and such a moun- tain! Yet, in one sense, . . . she was, and in a very marvellously true one. Her name was Hagar, Hebrew ^3^' whose numbers read 235, or in exact nieasurr^ the very number of lunar months to equal 19 tropical years to complete this cycle and make the likeness and similitude good; Mount Sinai being, in the esoteric language of this wis month, by wbjch this spiritual vitalizing cycle could be computed, — and which mountain, indeed, was called (Fuerst) "the Mountain of tlie Moon (Sin).*' So also Sarai (SRI), the wife of Abram, could have no child until her name was changed to Sarah. rntOi giving to her the property of this lunar influence.^
This may be regarded as a digression from the main subject; but it is a very necessary one with a \iew to Christian readers. For who, after studying dispassionately the respective legends of Abram or Abraham, Sarai or Sarah, who was "fair to look upon," and those of Brahma and Sarasvati, or Shri, Lakshmi-Venus, with the relations of all these to the Moon and Water; — and especially one who understands the real Kabalistic meaning of the name Jehovah and its relation to» and connection with, the Moon — who can doubt that the story of Abram is based upon that of Brahma, or that Genesis was written upon the old Hues used by every ancient nation? All in the ancient Scriptures is allegorical — all baaed upon and inseparably connected with Astro- nomy and Cosmolatry.
* According to the wcmderful chronologry of Bcntley, who wrote in dny* wheo Biblical chronoloicr mu alill ondtspuLcd ; And also according (o that of tho«c modem OrieatoUsU who dwarf the HladA daten oa for 05 they can.
t Now Shri i.% thr daiightrr of Rhrigu. One o( Ihr Praj&patttt and Rtchi!!, the chief of Uie Bhrlgus, the "Conitumere." the AErial Clans of Gods. She is Lxluhml. the wife of VUhnu, and she in Gaurl. the **hridc of Shiva." and she is Sanis\-aU, the "watery." the wife of BrahnU. becauac the three Goda and OoddcMCC are one, under three aApcctn. Kcad the rxplHnHiinn liy Parlabara. In t-'tsknu /Hitdna (I. viii., Wllaon's Trans., i. iiqi. and you will undcrsUud. "The lord of Shri in the moon," he floya, and " Shri U the wife of N'Ar&yuna. the God of Goda " ; Shrt or Lokahml (Venus) in Indrint, as she ia Sarasvati, for in the words of Pai'Iahara: "Uari [or lalivara, the " Lord"] itt all that ia called mole [in the Univenie]: Lokshmi ts all that is tcnncd female. Tliere is oolhing else than they." liencc she i* female, and "Gcxi" in male Natnrc.
4 Shri U Goddcraa of, and heraclf "Fortune and Proi^pcrity.'*
I MMomic Xivt^Uf {QiiuAunalM), )mke, iBSb. Axt. "The CabbaJab.— Mo. VI," i$*i7.
THE VARIOUS CIASSES OP CREATORS.
^H 13. They* went each on his allotted Land: Seven op them. ^H EACH ox HIS Lot. The Lords of the Flame remain behind. ^H Thky would not go, they would not create.
^H The Secret Teachings show the divine Progenitors creating men on ^^ seven portions of the Globe '*each on his lot" — /.^., each a different I Jlace of men e.xternally and internally, and on different Zones. This I jolygenistic claim is considered elsewhere, in Stanza VII. But who ^Bpre "They** who create, and the **Lords of the Flame," "who would ^^Bot"? Occultism divides the ''Creators" into Twelve Classes; of which ^Htmrhave reached "Liberation" to the end of the "Great Age," the fifth ^^■s ready to reach it, but still remains active on the intellectual planes, ^^^hile seven are still under direct Karniic Law. These last act on the
i' Tnan -bearing Globes of our Chain. Exoteric Hindu books mention Seven Classes of Pitris. and among fcliein two distinct kinds of Progenitors or Ancestors: the Barhishad and be Agnishvatta; or those possessed of the "sacred fire" and those fires, and with Griha^tha Brdhmaus in earlier incarnations; those who TOve, and those who have twt attended as they should to their house- hold sacred fires in their previous births. The distinction, as said, is derived from the Vedas. The first and highest class (Esoterically), the Agnishvatta, are represented in the exoteric allegory as Grihastha or Brihman-householders, who, having failed to maintain their domestic fires and to offer burnt sacrifices, in their past births in other Manvan- Uras. have lost every right to have oblations with fire presented to Ibem. WTiereas the Barhishad. being Brahmans who have kept up their household sacred fires, are thus honoured to this day. Thence the A^ishvatta are represented as devoid of, and the Barhishad as possessed oi. fires.
But Esoteric Philosophy explains the original qualifications as being An^ to the difference between the natures of the two Classes: the AgnishvStta Pitris are devoid of "fire" i,e., of creative passion, because Ihey are too divine and pure; whereas the Barhishad, being the Lunar • ts more closely connected with Earth, became the creative Elohim -. i\jrm, or the Adam of dust.
The aIlegor>- says that Sanandana and other Vedhas, the Sons of BrahmS, his first progeny:
* The Moon-God».
Sst
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Were witliout desire or passion, inspired with holy wisdom, estranged frotn the universe and uncUsirous of progeny.*
This also is what is meant in the shloka by the words, "They wotild not create," and is explained as follows:
^^ The Pnmordial Emanations from fht Creative Power are too near the Absolute Cause. They are transitional and I atait forces, which will develop only in the next and subsequetit removes"
This makes it plain. Hence Brahnid is said to have felt wrathful when he saw that those
Embodied spirits, produced from his limbs [gdira\ would not multiply tbeni- selves.
After which, in the allegory, he creates other seven Mind-bom Sonsf namely, Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Kratu and Vasishtha, the latter being often replaced by Daksha, the most prolific of the Creators. In most of the texts these Seven Sons of Vasishtha- Daksha are called the Seven Rishis of the Third Manvantara; the latter refer- ring both to the Third Round and also to the Third Root- Race and its Branch-Races in the Fourth Round. These are all the Creators of the various Beings on this Earth, the Prajapati, and at the same time they appear as divers reincarnations in the early Manvantaras or Races.
It thus becomes clear why the AgnishvStta, devoid of the grosser "creative fire," hence unable to create physical man, having no Double, or Astral Body, to project, since they were without any "form," are shown in exoteric allegories as Yogis, Kumaras (chaste youths), who became "rebels," Asuras, fighting and opposing Gods, % etc. Yet it is they alone who could complete man, i.e., make of him a self-conscious, almost a divine Being — a God on Earth. The Barhishad, though pos- sessed of "creative fire," were devoid of the higher Mahat-ic element. Being on a level with the lower "Principles" — those which precede gross objective matter — they could only give birth to the outer man, or rather to the model of the physical, the astral man. Thus, though we see them intrusted with the task by Brahma — the collective Mahat or
*
* Viiknu PurAma, t. vH.. WIlKm'i Trmns., I. loi.
* See Mahiibh&rala . MokthadMarma f^trvan,
; UecDunc, b« the oUeijory shows, the Orods who had DO peraodal merit of their own, dreading the sanctity of thottc sclf-ftlrivinif incamnttd Itrin^ who had become A»celics and Vogli, and Ihtu thrraleneil to up«t the power of the fonnc-r by their set/-ac4fuirf{i power»— denounced Ihcm. Alt thi* hax a deep philotophical meaning and refrrs to the evolutiun and acquirement of divine pfiwen through ifl/'fxfrtiOH, Some Rishi-Votil* nrc ahown in the pHrdnas to lie far more powerful than the Gods. Secondary Gods or lemporary Powvrs in Nature jlhc Forces) arc doomed to disappear ; it is only the spiritual Potentiality in man which can toad him to become one with the UfFWira. and the AMOLurm.
THE LIVING SPIKITUAL FIRE.
83
V Fniversal Divine Mind — the "Mystery of Creation** is repeated on B £arth, only in an inverted sense, as in a mirror. B It is those who are unable to create the spiritual immortal man, who r project the senseless model (the Astral) of the physical Being ; and, as will be seen, it was those who would not multiply, who sacrificed them- selves to the goo plete the septenary man^ to add to his three lower Principles and cement them with the Spiritual Monad — which could never dwell in such a fbnn otherwise than in an absolutely latent state — two connecting '* Prin- ciples" are needed : Manas and Kama. This requires a living Spiritual I'in? of the middle Principle from the Fifth and Third States of Pleronia. ^ut this Fire is the possession of the Triangles, not of the (perfect) Cubes, which symbolize the Angelic Beings;* the former having from the First Creation possessed themselves of it and being said to have appropriated it for themselves, as in the allegor>' of Prometheus. These ^re the active, and therefore — in Heaven — no longer "pure" Beings. They have become the independent and free Intelligences, shown in ^very Theogony as fighting for that independence and freedom, and hence — in tlie ordinary sense — " rebellious to the divine passive law." These are then those " Flames " — the Agnishvdtta — who, as shown in the shloka, *' remain behind," instead of going along with the others to create men ou Earth. But the true Esoteric meaning is that most of them were destined to incarnate as the Egos of the forthcoming crop of Mankind.
A
The human Ego is neither Atman nor Buddhi, but the Higher Manas; the intellectual fruitage and the efflorescence of the intellectual self- conscious Egotism — in the higher spiritual sense. The ancient works refer to it as Karana Sharira on the plane of SutrStma, which is the "golden thread" on wliich, like beads, the various Personalities of this Higher Ego are strung. If the reader were told, as in the semi-Esoteric allegories, that these Beings were returning NirvSnis from preceding Maha-Manvantaras — Ages of incalculable duration which have rolled away in the Eternity, a still more incalculable time ago — he would hardly understand the text correctly ; while some VedSntins might say: **Thisisnot so; the Nirvani can never return"; which is true during the Manvantara he belongs to. and erroneous where Eternity is concerned. For it is said in the Sacred Shlokas : " Tke Thread of Radiance which is imperishable and dissolves only in
* The Triangle becomes a Peotac^m (five>fold} oa Sarth.
fjft^ THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
N'ifTdna, ncnicrffes from it in its inUgrify on the day when the Great Law calls all things back into action^
Hence, as the higher Pitris or Dhyanis had no hand in bis physical creation, we find Primeval Man — issued from the bodies of his spiritually "fireless" Progenitors — described as aeriform, devoid of compactness, and "mindless." He had no middle Principle to serve him as a medium between the Highest and the Lowest — the Spiritual Man and the physical brain — for he lacked Manas. The Motiads which incar- nated in tliose empty Shells, remained as unconscious as when separated from their preWous incomplete forms and vehicles. There is no poten* tialitA' for Creation, or Self-Consciousness, in a pure Spirit on this our plane, unless its too homogeneous, perfect — because divine — nature is. so to say, mixed with, and strengthened by. an essence already differen- tiated. It is only the lower line of the Triangle — representing the first Triad that emanates from the Universal Monad — that can furnish this needed consciousness on the plane of differentiated Nature. But how could these pure Emanations, which, on this principle, must have originally been themselves "unconscious" (in our sense), be of any use in supplying the required Principle, as they could hardly have possessed it themselves ?
The answer is difficult to comprehend, unless one is well acquainted with the philosophical metaphysics of a beginningless and endless series of Cosmic Re-births, and becomes well impressed and familiarized with that immutable law of Nature which is Eternal Motion, cyclic and spiral — therefore progressive even in its seeming retrogression. The one Divine Principle, the nameless That of the Vcdas, is the Universal Total, which, neither in its spiritual aspects and emanations, nor iu its physical Atoms, can ever be at "Ab.solute Rest" except during the Nights of BrahmS. Hence, also, the "First -bom" are those who are first set in motion at the beginning of a Manvantara. and thus the first to fall into the lower spheres of materiality. They who are called in Theolog>' the " Thrones," and are the '* Seat of God," must be the first incarnated men on Earth ; and it becomes comprehen- sible, if we think of the endless series of past Manvantaras, to find that the last had to come first, and the first last. We find, in short, that the higher Angels had broken, countless seons before, through the "Seven Circles," and thus "robbed" them of the Sacred Fire; this means in plain words, that they had assimilated during tlieir past incarnations, iu lower as well as in higher Worlds, all the wisdom therefrom — the
•
MAN A GOD IN ANIMAI, FORM.
S--
TeSection of Maliat in its various degrees of intensity. No Entity, whether angelic or human, can reach the state of Nirvlna, or of absolute purity, except through a?ons of suffering and the hiozt'Udge of evil as well as of good, as otherwise the latter would remain in- comprehensible.
Between man and the animal — whose Monads, or Jivas, are funda- mentally identical — there is the impassable abyss of Mentality and Self-consciousuess. What is human mind in its higher aspect, whence comes it, if it be not a portion of the essence — and, in some rare cases of incarnation, the vcpy essence — of a higher Being; one from a higher and divine plane? Can man — a God in the animal form — be the pro- duct of Material Nature by evolution alone, even as is the animal, which differs from man in external shape, but by no means in the materials of its physical fabric, and is informed by the same, though undeveloped. Monad — seeing that the intellectual potentialities of the two differ as the sun does from the glow-worm? And what is it that creates such difference, unless man is an animal pius a living God within his physical shell? Let us pause and ask ourselves seriously the question, regardless of the vagaries and sophisms of both the materialistic and the psychological modem Sciences.
To some extent, it is admitted that even the Esoteric Teaching is allegorical. To make the latter comprehensible to the average intelli- gence, the use of symbols cast in an intelligible form is needed. Hence the allegorical and serai-mythical narratives in the exoteric, and the only j Esoteric Teachings. For the purely and transcendentally spiritual conceptions are adapted only to the perceptions of those who ** see without eyes, hear ivithoztt ears, and sense without orgajis^ according to the graphic expression of the Commentar\-. The too puritan Idealist is at liberty to spiritualize the tenet, whereas the modem Psychologist would simply tr>' to spirit away our "fallen," yet still divine, human Soul — divine in its connection with Buddhi.
The myster>' attached to the highly spiritual Ancestors of the Divine Man within the earthly man is very great. His dual creation is hinted at in the Purdnas, though its Esoteric meaning can be approached only by collating together the many vTirying accounts, and reading them in their symbolical and allegorical character. So it is in the Bible, both in Genesis and even in the Epistles of Paul. For that "Creator," who is called in the second chapter of Genesis the "Lord God," is in
86
THE SECRET DOCTRTNB.
the original the Elohim, or Gods (the Lords'), in the plural; and while one of them makes the earthly Adam of Dust, the other breathes into him the Breath of Life, and the third makes of him a Living Soul, all of which readings are implied in the plural number of the word Elchim.* Or again, as Paul says:
The first man i« of the earth, the second [the last, or ralhcr highest] is the Lord from heaven. t
In the Aryan allegory the rebellious Sons of BrahmS are all repre- sented as holy Ascetics and Yogis, Re-born in every Kalpa, they generally try to impede the work of human procreation. When Dak- sha, the chief of the PrajSpatis or Creators, brings forth lo.ooo sons for the purpose of peopling the world, Nftrada — a son of Brahma, the great Ktshi, and virtually a Kumiira, if not so in name — interferes with, and twice frustrates Daksha's aim, by persuading those Sons to remain holy Ascetics and eschew marriage. For this, Daksha curses Ndrada to be "re-born as a man," as Brahmd had cursed him before for re- fusing to marrj', and obtain progeny, saying: "Perish in thy (present [Deva or Angelic] form); and take up thy abode in the womb" — r.r., become a man. J
Notwithstanding several conflicting versions of the same story, it is easy to see that Nirada belongs to that Class of Brahma's "First- born," who have all proven rebellious to the law of animal procreation, for which they had to incarnate as men. Of all the Vedic Rishis, Ndrada, as already shown, is the most incomprehensible, because the most closely connected with the Occult Doctrines — especially with the Secret Cycles and Kalpas.
Certain contradictory 'statements about this Sage have much dis- tracted the Orientalists. Thus he is shown as refusing positively to "create" or have progeny, and even as calling his father BrahmS. a "false teacher" for advising him to get married, as related in the Ndrada-Pancha-Rdtra ; nevertheless, he is referred to as one of the Prajdpatis or Progenitors! In the Ndradlya Purdna^ he describes the
• Seth, ms Hansen and others have ahown, I* not oDly the "primitive Cod" of the Scroitea -enily Jrws included— hut alao thdr " acmi-djvine anceator." For, sayi Bunsea {God in Histoty, \. ijj, ^34) : "The Seth of Gencti.i. the fniher of Knoch (Ihctuan) must be conxidercdu ori^rinlly riuinlng parallel with that derived from the ElohJm, Adam'i fnlhcr." "According toBunaen.lhe Deity (the Cod ScUi) wan the /JriWi/itrfcxf of Northern llgypt and rnlMline." unya Stanlland Wake, in T%t G^eat PyramU (p. 61). And Seth became conaldcred in the later Theolof^ of the K£)'ptians aa an "evil demon," aaya the aame Buotcn, for he ift one with Typboo and one with tbe Uind6 Demons as a lo^cal aequd*
t I Corimtk., Jtv. 47.
1 V&yu PktAna : H^rivamskAt\^
"FIRES," "SPARKS/* ANt> "FLAMKS."
87
and the duties of the celibate Adepts; and as these Occult duties lo not happen to be found in the fragment of about 3,000 Stanzas in le possession of European museums, the Brahmans are proclaimed the Orientalists forgetting that the Ndrad'iya is credited with itaining 25,000 Stanzas, and that it is not very likely that such MSS. lould be found in the hands of the Hindu profane, those who are idy to sell any precious Olla for a red pottage. Suffice it to say, that Tarada is ike Deva-Rishi of Occultism par excellence^ and that the :ultist who does not ponder, analyze, and study NSrada from his ^ven Esoteric facets, will never be able to fathom certain anthropo- logical, chronological, and even cosmic Mysteries. He is one of the fires above-mentioned, and plays a part in the evolution of this Kalpa from its incipient down to its final stage. He is an actor who appears in each of the successive acts, or Root- Races, of the present Manvan- taric drama, in the world-allegories which strike the key-note of Eso- tericism, and are now becoming more familiar to the reader. But ^hall we turn to other ancient Scriptures and documents for the oorroboration of the "Fires," "Sparks," and "Flames"? They are plentiful, if one onlj' seeks for them in the right places.
In the Kabalistic Book of the Concealed Mystery they are clearly enunciated, as also in the Ha Idra Zuta Qadisha, or "The I^esser Holy Assembly." The language is very mystical and veiled, yet still com- prehensible. In the latter, among the sparks of Prior Worlds, "vibra- ^g Flames and Sparks.'* from the divine flint, the "Workman" proceeds to create man, "male and female" (427). These "Flames and Sparks" — Angels and their Worlds, Stars and Planets^ — are said. figuratively, to become extinct and die, that is to say, remain "un- manifested" until a certain process of Nature is accomplished. To show how thickly veiled from public view are the most important facts of Anthropogenesis, two passages are now quoted from two Kabalistic books. The first is from the Ha Idra Zuta Qadisha:
439, From a Light-Bearer [one of the Seven Sacred Planets] of insupportable bhghtness proceeded a Radiating Flame, dashing off like a vast and mighty h&mnier those sparlcs which were the Prior Worlds.
430. And with most subtle ether were these intermingled and bound mutually together, bat only when they were conjoined together^ even the Great Father and Great Mother.
43!. From Hoa, Himself, is AB. the Father; and from Hoa. Himself, is Ruach, the Spirit; Who are hidden in the Ancient of Days, and therein is that ctlier con- cealed.
TH£ S&CR1
DOCTRINE.
432. And It was connected with a Hght-ljearcr [a Planet and its Angel or Rej^nt], which went forth from that Light-Bearer of insupportable brighltiess* which ia hidden in the bosom of Aiuia, the Great Mother.*
Now the following extract frotn the Zokar,\ under the headings "The Pre- Adamite Kings," also deals with the same mystery:
We have learned in the Siphrah D'Tznioothah: That the At-Ut'kah D^At-U^kten^ Ancient of Ancients, before He prepared His Form, built kings and engraved kings, and sketched out kings [men, the "kings" of the animals], and they could not exist; till He overthrew them and hid them untU after a time, therefore it is written; "And these are the kings which reigned in the land of Edom." .... And they could not exist till f!tsha'Hiv''rah, the White Head, the AC-te^-kah 17 AC -tee' 'keen. Ancient of the Ancients, arranged Himself. \Mien he arranged Himself He fonned all forms Above and Below. . . . Before He arranged Him- self in IILs Form, had not been formed all those whom He desired to form, and all worlds have Ixren destroyed . . . They did not remain in their places, because the form of the kings had not been formed as it ought to be, and the Holy City had not (ieen prepared, X
Now the plain meaning of these two allegorical and metaphysical disquisitions is simply this: Worlds and men were in turn formed and destroyed, under the law of evohUhn and from preexisting material, until both the Planets and their men, in our case our Earth and its animal and hnman races, became what they are now in the present cycle — opposite polar forces, an equilibrized compound of Spirit and Matter^ of the positive and the negative, of the male and the female. Before man could becx>me male and female phyucallw his prototype, the creat- ing Klohim, had to arrange his Form on this sexual plane astrally. That is to say, the Atoms and the organic forces, descending into the plane of the g^ven differentiation, had to be marshalled in the order intended by Nature, so as to be ever carrying out, in an inimaculale way, that law which the Kabalah calls the "Balance," through which ever>'thing that exists does so as male and female in its final perfec- tion, in this present stage of materiality. Chokmah, Wisdom, the Male Sepbira, had to diffuse itself 7«, and through, Binah, intelligent Nature, or Understanding. Therefore the First Root-Race of men, sexless and mindless, had to be overthrown and "hidden until after a time"; I'.r., the First Race, instead of dying, disappeared in the Second Race, as certain lower lives and plants do in their progeny. It was a
I
• Bw MaUier't Kabbalah Unveiled, p. jot.
t Tnnslatrd in Uanc Myer'» QatsMak, p. 3M.
: Zvhar Hi,, ijjd, 7^a, i4ta Zootch, Brody Bd. I^ah Zootah
^^^H THE SON OF VAH. 89
^^Krbolesale transformation. The First became the Second Root-Race, ^Hnthout either begetting it, procreating it, or dying.
^H[ "They pass^ Cry together," as it is written: "And he died" and another "reigned ^H his stead."*
jf Wby? Because the *'//i?/v OVy had not been prepared." And what ^isthe ••Holy City^'? The Ma-qom— the Secret Place or the Shrine— ^Hbi Earth; in other words, the human womb, the microcosmic copy and F reflection of the Heavenly Matrix, the female Space or primeval Chaos, I in which the male Spirit fecundates the germ of the Son, or the visible Universe. So much .so, that in the paragraph on '*The Emanation of I tie Male and Female Principles" in the Zo/tar, it is said that, on this I Earth, the Wisdom from the "Holy Ancient" "does not shine except 1 v male and female."
^^C/fMmak Wisdom, is the Father, and Binah Understanding, is the Mother.) ^^k 1 • And when they connect one with the other, they bring forth and diffuse Pl^ra emanate Truth. In the sayings of Rabbi Ye-yeva, Sabbah, i.e., the Old, we Teamed this; What is Binah Understanding? But when they connect in one •mother, the i (Yod) in the n (Hch), they become impregnated and produce a Son. And, therefore, it is called Binah, Understanding. It means BeN YaH, t.e.^ Son of This is the completeness of the Whole.t
'his is also the "completeness" of phallicism by the Rabbis, its
feet apotheosis, the divine being dragged into the animal, the
sublime into the grossness of the terrestrial. Nothing so graphically
gross exists in Eastern Occultism, nor in the primitive Kabalah — the
Idsan Book of Numbers. We have said so already in Ish UnvHledi
Wc find it rather unwise on the part of Catholic writers to pour out their rials of viath in such sentences as these: "In a multitude of pagodas, the phallic stone, ever and always assuming, like the Grecian baiylos, the brutally indecent form of the hftghatn . . . the MahA Deva.** Before casting slurs on a symbol whose ^foond metaphysical meaning is loo much for tlie mo*lem champions of that icltgion of sensualism par fxc^lUnee, Roman Catholicism, to grasp, they are in duty bound to destroy their oldest churches, and change the form of the cupolas of their wrii temples. The Mahadeo of Elepbanta, the Round Tower of Bhagulporc, the minarets of Islam— either rounded or pointed— are the originals of the Campanile oohunn of San Marco, at Venice, of Rochester Cathedral, and of the modem Dikomo of Milan. All of these steeples, turrets, domes, and Chnstian temples, are the reproductions of the primitive idea of the lithos^ the upright pliallus.J
• C^«. Kxvi. 31 ttseqr. Mycr** Qahbatah. ibid.
t Z^avt iii. 390a, Brody £d. Indrab Zooub, quoted in Isaac Mycr's Qabhatah^ pp. 3B7. 388.
HI.5.
90
THE SECRET DOCTRmE.
Nevertheless, and however it may be, the fact that all these Hebrew Elohim, Sparks, and Chenibs are identical with the Devas, Rishis and the Fires and Flames, the Rudras and the forty-nine Agnis of ancient Aryas, is sufficiently proven by and in the Kabalah.
STANZA IV.
CREATION OF THE FIRST RACES.
14. Creation of men. 15. They are empty shadows. 16. The Creators are pc*" plexed how to create a thinking man. 17. What is needed for the formation of * perfect Man.
4
14, The Seven Hosts, the THE Spirit of LiFE-GiviNG.t
EACH ON niS OWN ZONE.
WiLVBORN* Lords, propelled b^, SEPARATE Men from THEMSEL)
I
;th^
They threw off their "Shadows" or Astral Bodies — if such an ethl real being as a "Lunar Spirit" may be supposed to rejoice in an Astral, besides a hardly tangible Body. In another Commentar>^ it is said that the Ancestors breathed out the first man, as Brahma is explained to have breathed out the Suras, or Gods, when they became Asuras (from Asu, breath). In a third it is said that they, the newly-created Men, were the "shadows of the Shadows.*'
With regard to this sentence — "They were the shadows of the Shadows" — a few more words may be said and a fuller explanation attempted. This first process of the evolution of mankind is far easier to accept than the one which follows it, though one and all such pro- cesses will be rejected and doubted even by some Kabalists, especially the Western, who study the present effects, but have neglected to study their primary causes. Nor does the writer feel competent to explain a mode of procreation so difficult of appreciation save for an Eastern Occultist. Therefore it is useless to enter here into details concerning the process, though it is minutely described in the Secret Books, as it would only lead to speaking of facts hitherto unknown to the profane world, and hence to their being misunderstood. An Adam made of
' Or Mind- bora.
t Folut.
MAN NOT CREATED PERFECT.
9Jt
■ nil
k
the dust of the ground will always be found preferable, by a certain class of students, to one projected out of the ethereal body of his creator: though the former process has never been heard of, while the latter is familiar, as all know, to many Spiritualists in Europe and America, who, of all men, ought to understand it. For who of those wlio have witnessed the phenomenon of a materializing form oozing t of the pores of a medium or, at other times, out of his /^/ side, can il to credit the possibility, at least, of such a birth? If there are in the Universe such beings as Angels or Spirits, whose incorporeal essence may constitute an intelligent Entity, notwithstanding the absence of tny(to us) solid organism; and if there are those who believe that a God made the first man out of dust, and breathed into him a living Soul — and there are millions upon millions who believe both — what does this doctrine of ours contain that is so impossible? Very soon the day will dawn, when the world will have to choose whether it will accept the miraculous creation of man (and Kosraos too) out of nothings according to the dead letter of Genesis^ or a first man bom from a tastic link — absolutely "rfiissing" so far — the common ancestor of and of the "true ape."* Between these two fallacies, Occult Philosophy steps in. It teaches that the first human stock was pro- jected by higher and semi-divine Beings out of their own essences. If the latter process is to be considered as abnormal or even inconceivable —because obsolete in Nature at this point of evolution — it is yet proven possible on the authority of certain **spiritualistic'* fads. Which, then, we ask of the three h>^theses or theories is the most reasonable and the least absurd? Certainly no one — provided he be not a soul- blind Materialist — can ever object to the Occult Teaching.
Now, as shown, we gather from the latter that man was not '* created '* the complete being he is now, however imperfect he still remains.
^Ultl
* ** Brnder. •ttpported by the most ertdent ducoverie* In Comparative Anatomy, could utter the Bnaimtou« sentence that the anatomicAl diffcrcnccji between man oud the highest ape* are le«i than ihoK between the tatter and the lowest apc«. In relation to our genealQgical tree of mon, the necco- mrf creoduxion follows that the human race has evptved tradualiy from ikt true apts." {Tht Brdigrte *f 3tdm. by Rni«t Haxkel, translated by Ed. B. Aveling, p. 49.)
Vhzi may be the scientific and logical objections to the opposite conclusion— we would ask ? The uutotnical reaemblanc«« bctu-een Man and the Anthropoid*— grossly exaggerated as they are hy Dorwimsts. as M. de Qitntrefages showa— are Himply enough accounted for when the origin of the inter is taken into consideration.
* Xowherc. in the older depooits, is an ape to be found that approximales more closely to man, or a ■aathat approximates more closely to an npc."
" The same giilf which is found to-day between man and ape, goes back with undiminished breadth and depth to the Tertiary period. This fact aloue ill enough to moke Its uutenability clear." fDr. F. tfkB, Prof, of Natural Sckacc in the Cnivcraity of Erlangcn.)
92
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
There was a spiritual, a psychic, an intellectual, and an animal lution, from the highest to the lowest, as well as a physical develo mcnt — from the simple and homogeneous, up to the more complex an heterogeneous; though not quite on the lines traced for us by t modern Evolutionists. This double evolution in two contrary direc tions, required various ages, of divers natures and degrees of spirituality and intellectuality, to fabricate the being now known as man. Further- more, the one absolute, ever acting and never erring law, which pro- ceeds on the same lines from one Eternity (or Manvantara) to the oth^t — ever furnishing an ascending scale for the manifested, or that whic^ we call the great Illusion (Maha-MayS), but plunging Spirit deep*^ and deeper into materiality on the one hand, and then redfaning' ^ \ tkrough flesh and liberabng it — this law, we say, uses for these purpo^^^ the Beings from other and higher planes, men, or Minds (Manus), ^^ accordance with their Karmic exigencies.
At this juncture, the reader is again asked to turn to the Indi^^^ Philosophy and Religion. The Esotericism of both is at one with o^^-*^ Secret Doctrine, however much the fonn^uay differ and vary.
ON THE IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCES OF THE INCARNATING
POWERS.
The Progenitors of Man, called in ludia Fathers, Pitaras, or Pil are the "Creators" of our bodies and lower principles. They are our^ selves, vi^\h*t first perso7iaIiiies^ aud we are they. Primeval man would be **tbe bone of their bone and the flesh of their flesh," if they had bones and flesh. As stated, they were "Lunar Beings."
The endowers of man with his conscious, immortal Ego, are "Solar Angels" — whether so regarded metaphorically or literally, mysteries of the Conscious Ego or Human Soul arc great. The teric name of these Solar Angels is, literally, the "Lords" (NIth) "persevering ceaseless devotion" (PrauidhSna). Therefore they of Fifth Principle (Manas) seem to be connected with, or to have origij ated the system of the Yogis who make of PranidhSna their ft) observance.* It has already been explained why the Trans-Himfilayi Occultists regard them as e\'idently identical with those who in India are termed Kumaras, Agnishvattas, and the Barhishads.
How precise and true is Plato's expression, how profound aud pliilo-
PITRIS OF THE GODS AND DEAIONS.
93
sophical his remark on the (Human) Soul or Ego, when he defined it ^is "a compound of the same and the oihcr^ And yet how little this
LiDt has been understood, since the world took it to mean that the Soul the Breath of God, of Jehovah. It is "the same and the other,"' as Ue great Initiate-Philosopher said; for the Ego — the "Higher Self"
■vhen merged with and in the Divine Monad — is Man, and yet the santc as the "otker^' ; the Angel in him incarnated is the same with the Uni- versal Mahat. The great classical writers and philosophers felt this Cnjlh, when saying that:
There must be something within as which produces our thoughts. Something very subtle ; it is a breath; it is fire; it is ether; it is quintessence; it is a slender HksoesB; it is an iutellectioa: it is a number; it is harmony."
All these are the Mauasas and Rajasas ; the Kumaras, Asuras, and other Rulers and Pitris» who incarnated in the Third Race, and in this and various other ways endowed mankind with Mind.
There are Seven Clas-i^es of Pitris, as shown below, three Incorporeal
and four Corporeal; and two kinds, the Agnishvatta and the Barhishad.
And we may add that, as there are two kinds of Pitris, so there is a
double and a triple set of Barhishad and Agnishvitta. The former,
bamg given birth to their Astral Doubles^ are reborn as Sons of Atri,
aud are the " Pitris of the Demons," or Corporeal Beings, on the
aalhority of Manu;t while the AgnishvStta are reborn as Sons of
Mirichi, a Son of Brahma, and are the " Pitris of tlie Gods." J
The V&yu Purina declares the Seven Orders of Pitris to have been originally the JintCods, the VairAjas, whom BrahniA, with the eye of Yoga, beheld in the eternal
t^hcm, ;^tii\ who arc the gods of i/te £;ods The A/aisya .... adds,
t^ the Gods worshipped them.§
The Harivamsha distinguishes the Vairdjas as one class of the Pitris only,]] a statement corroborated in the Secret Teachings, which, how- ever, identify the Vairajaswith the ^/fl! or Abhutarajasas, who are Incorporeal without even an Astral Phantom.
^^^^Minava- Dharma SMsira. itU 19&.
^^B MaiTM imd Hxdma f^ranas and Rulluka on Ui? Mtinaivt-DJmrma Shdiira, Hi. 195. Wr are quite ^^^Bcltut tfae ydyu and Matsya Putdnas identify (a^Tceably to Western iutcrprct&Lioa) tbe Agrni* I^Vmiu wtdi the sMUOtts, and the Barliishad Htris with the months ; adding: n fourth claftfr— KAvyas— y e|i9t T^ftn. Bnt do not Chn>tian Kuman Catholics identify their An^dn wiilt PlanelK, and are not IF iW' ■i*'-,^^ RishU become the Saptarshiii— a coustcUution } They are Deities presiding over alt the \-i!don&.
•■•^n Atrdna, Wilson, lU. 158, 159. I Sh2I. (^^, 9j6.
t me yi^H M^fitta shows the legioa called VtrAjaOolu hibabiled by the Agwfihv&itas,
94
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
to have incarnated in and through
Vishnu is said, in most of the M! them.
In the Rai^-ata MaovanUra, again, Hari. best of gods, was bom ot Sambbati, as the divine MAnasa — originating with the deities called RAjasas.*
Sambhuti was a daughter of Daksha. and wife of Marichi. the father of the Agnishvatta, who, along with the Rajasas. are ever associated with Manasas. As remarked by a far more able Sanskritist than Wilson, Mr. Fitz.edward Hall:
MAnasa is no inappropriate name for a deity associated with the RAjasas. We appear to have in it fHdnasam— the same as manas—with the change of tcrmioation required to express male personification. t
All the Sons of Viraja are Mauasa. says Nilakantha. And VirSja is Brahma, and. therefore, the Incorporeal Pitris are called VairSjas from being the Sons of Viraja. says I'ayu Purana.
We could multiply our proofs ad infinitum^ but it is useless. The wise will understand our meaning, the unwise are not required to. There are thirty-three crores, or three hundred and thirty* millions, of Gods in India. But, as remarked by the learned lecturer on the Bkagavad Gtia :
They may be all devns, but are by no means all "gods," iu the high spiritual sense one attributes to the term.
This is an uufortunnte blunder generally committed by Europeans. Dcva is a kind of spiritual being, and because the same word is used in ordinary- parlance to mean god, it by no means follows that we have and worship thirty-three crores of gods. These beings, as may be naturally inferred, have a c^iain affinity with one of the three component TJpAdhis [basic principles] into which we have divided man. t
The names of the deities of a certain mystic class change with every Manvantara. Thus the twelve Great Gods, Jayas. created by Brahma to assist him in the work of creation iu the verj^ beginning of the Kalpa. and who. lost in Samadhi, neglected to create — whereupon they were cursed to be repeatedly born in each Manvantara till the seventh — are respectively called Ajitas. Tushitas, Sat>'as. Haris, Vaikunthas. SSdhyas. and Adityas:§ they are Tushitas, in the second Kalpa, and Adityas in this Vaivasvata Period. |[ besides other names for each age. But they are identical with the MSnasas or Rijasas, and these with our incarnating Dhyin Chohaus.
Yes; besides those Beings, who. like the Yakshas, Gandharvas,
• WllBon. ibid,, iti. 17, Note by FiUcdwranl lUU.
+ Ijk. cit., ibid,
t Ser Thrviophist, TchniAry, 1B87, p. j6o.
I See WilfiDii, it 36.
I Sec f 'Syu Pk rSna^
■
PROGENITORS OF MEN.
95
Kinnaras, etc., taken in their individualities, inhabit the Astral Plane, there are real Devas. and to these classes belong the Adilyas, the Vairajas. the Kumaras, the Asuras, and all those high celestial Beings whom Occult teaching calls Manasvin, the Wise, foremost of all, and who would have made all men the sclf-coTtscimts spiritually intellectual Beings they will be, had they not been "cursed " to fall into generation* and to be reborn themselves as mortals for their neglect of duty.
STANZA lV.—Con(inued.
15. Seven times seven Shadows* of Future Menj {a) wereI
BORN. EACH OF HIS OWN CoLOUR§ .-VND KiNI) {b). EACH || INFERIOR
TO HIS Father. H The Fathers, the Boneless, could give no Life to Beings with Bones. Their Progeny were BhOta,** WITH neither Form nor Mind. Therefore they are caixed
the CHHAYAft R-'VCE {c).
(a) Manu, as already remarked, comes from the root man^ to think^ hence a "thinker." It is from this Sanskrit word very likely that sprung the Latin metis. Mind, the Egyptian Afenes, the "Master-Mind," the P>n:hagorean monas^ or conscious "thinking unit,'* mind also, and even our manas or mind, the fifth principle in man. Hence these Shadows are called Amdnasa, "Mindless."
With the BrShmans, the Pitris are very sacred, because they are the Progenilors.Jt or Ancestors of men — the first Manushyas on this Earth — and offerings are made to them by the Brahman when a son is born unto him. They are more honoured and their ritual is more important than the worship of the Gods.§§
May we not now search for a philosophical meaning in this dual group of Progenitors?
* ClUi&yAs.
■* OrAminufti.
1 Thus.
I CompScadoa.
I Also.
1 Creator.
•• Phantoms.
*^ Image or ifaadonr.
M This was hinted at in /n'j UnvtiUd (T. xxxviii.), though Mxc full explanaUon could oot th?n be- given: "The PitriB are not the ancestors of the present Uving^ men. but those of the (first] human kind or Adomic race; the tpirits of human races, which, on the great ftcale of dcKendiag e\'olution, pre pigmies. In MAnava- Dharma SMj/ra they are called the Lunar ancestors.'*
H See the " hAvr% o{ \iaan"—AfatiaT'a-Dhiirma ShAstra, iil. joj.
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The Pitris being dmded into sa;e7i Classes, we have here the mystic number again. Nearly all the Purdnas agree that three of these are Arupa, formless, while four are Corporeal; the former being intellec- tual and spiritual, the latter material and devoid of intellect. Esoteri- cally, it is the Asiiras who form the first three Classes of Pitris — "bom in the Body of Night" — whereas the other four were produced from the "Body of Twilight." Their Fathers, tlie Gods, were doomed to be bom fools on Earth, according to the Vdyn Purdna. The legends are pur- posely mixed up and made ver>' liazy: the Pitris being in one the Sons of the Gods, and, iu another, those of Brahmd; while a third makes them instructors of their own Fathers. It is the Hosts of the four material Classes who create men simultaneously on the seven Zones.
Now, with regard to the seven Classes of Pitris, each of which is again divided into seven, a word to students and a query to the profane. That Class of the "Fire Dhyanis,'* which we identify on undeniable grounds with the Agnishvdttas, is called in our school the ** Heart'* of the DhySu-Chohanic Body, and is said to have incarnated in the Third Race of men and made them perfect. The E.soteric Mystagog>' speaks of the mysterious relation existing between the hebdomadic essence or substance of this angelic Heart and that of man, whose every physical organ, and psychic, and spiritual function, is a reflection, so to say, a copy on the terrestrial plane, of the model or prototype above. Why, it is asked, should there be such a strange repetition of the number seven in the anatomical structure of man? Why should the heart have y2^«r /<>ttrr cavities and three /;/^//(V- divisions, answering so strangely to the septenar)' division of the human principles, separated into two group-s, the higher and the lower; and why should the same division be found in the various classes of Pitris, and especially our Fire DhySnis? For, as already stated, these Beings fall into four Corporeal, or grosser, and three Incorporeal, or subtler, " Principles," or call them by any other name you please. Why do the seven nervous plexuses of the body radiate seven rays? Wliy are there these seven plexuses, and why seven distinct layers in the human skin?
Says the Commentary-:
Having projtxted iheir Shado7vs and made mm of one Element \^EUur\ the Progenitors redsccnd to Mahd-Loka^ whence they descend periodicalty^ when (he World is renewed, to give birth to neiv Men.
The Subtle Bodies remain without understanding ^Manas^ until the advetit oj the Suras {^Godsl now called Asuras \^Noi-Gods\
THE REFUSAL TO CREATE.
9/
u
"iNot-Gods" for the Bi'ahmans. perhaps, but the highest "Breaths," for the Occultist; since those Progenitors (Pitaras). the formless and the intellectual, refuse to build man, hut endow him with Mind; the four corporeal Classes creating only his body.
This is very plainly shown in various texts of the /^ig^ Veda — the highest authority for a Hindu of any sect whatever. Therein Asura means "spiritual, divine," and the word is used as a synonym for Supreme Spirit, and the term Asura. in the sense of a "God," is applied to Varuna and Indra and preeminently to Agni — the three having been in days of old the three highest Gods, before Brahmanical Theo- Mythology distorted the true meaning of almost everything in the Archaic Scriptures. But, as the key is now lost, the Asuras are hardly mentioned.
In the Zcfid Avesta the same is found. In the Mazdean, or Magian, religion, Asura is the Lord Asura Vishvavedas. the '* all-knowing" or •'omniscient Lord" ; and Asura MazdhS. becoming later Ahura Mazdha, is. as Benfey shows, "the Lord who bestows Inttlligence*^ — Asura Medhi and Ahura Mazdio.* Elsewhere in this work it is shown, on equ^ly good authority, that the Indo-Tranian Asura was always regarded as sevenfold. This fact, combined with the name Mazdhsi, as above, which makes of the sevenfold Asura the '* Lord." or "Lords" collectively "who bestow Infeiiif^en/^e" connects the Amshaspends with the Asuras and "with our incarnating Dhyan Chohans, as well as with the Elohira. and the seven informing Gods of Egypt, Chaldsea, and ever3' other country.
Why these "Gods'* refused to create men is not. as stated in exoteric accounts, because their pride was too great to share the celestial power of their essence with the Children of Earth, but for reasons already suggested. However, allegory has indulged in endless fancies and Theology has taken advantage thereof in every country, to make out its case against these First-born, or the Logoi, and to impress it as a truth on the minds of the ignorant and credulous.f
The Christian system is not the only one which has degraded these Gods into Demons. Zoroastrianism and even Brahmanisra have profited thereby to obtain hold over the people's mind. Even in Chaldaean exotericism. Beings who refuse to create, and are said to ppose thereby the Demiurgus. are also denounced as Spirits of Dark- ness. The Suras, who win their intellectual independence, fight the
* "SACred Books of the East," Vol. IV, 7%^ r>n(/'^«n/a, Pt. l.lviii, Traiu.hr J«ne*I>animtctcr. T Compare alao what is said about Makara and the KumArns in connecUon with th« Zodiac.
98
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Suras, who are devoid thereof and are shown as passing their lives li. profitless ceremonial worship based on blind faith — a hint now ignored by the orthodox Br^hraans — and forthwith the former become ^4 -Suras. The First- and Mind-bom Sons of the Deity refuse to create progeny, and are cursed by BrahmS to be bom as men. They are hurled down to Earth, which, later on, is transformed, in theological dogma, into the Infernal Regions. Ahriman destroys the Bull created by Ormazd — which is the emblem of terrestrial illusive life, the "germ of sorrow" — and, forgetting that the perishing finite seed must die. in order that the plant of immortality, the plant of spiritual, eternal life, should sprout and live, Ahriman is proclaimed the enemy, the opposing power, the Devil. Tjphon cuts Osiris into fourteen pieces, in order to prevent him peopling the world and thus creating misery; and Typhon be- comes, in the exoteric, theological teaching, the Power of Darkness. But all this is the exoteric shell. It is the worshippers of the latter who attribute to disobedience and rebellion the effort and self-sacrifice of those who would help men to their original status of divinity through self-conscious efforts; and it is these worshippers oi fomi who have made Demons of the Angels of Light.
Esoteric Philosophy, however, teaches that one-third* of the DhySnis — !>., the three Classes of the Arupa Pitris, endowed with intelligence, •'which is a formless breath, composed of intellectual not elementary substances"! — was simply doomed by the law of Karma and n^oluii^n to be re-borHt or incarnated, on Earth. t Some of these were Nirmanakayas from other Manvautaras. Hence we see them, in all the Purdnas, re- appearing on this Globe, in the Third Manvantara — read Third Root- Race — as Kings, Rishis and Heroes. This tenet, being too philo-
* Whence the lubwqoeDt uscrtloM of St. John's vision. reftnTd to fo his AjwcalypK, atMut, "the great red dragon having Mvcn beads and trn honiR, and acvm crowns upon hia heada," whoae " tall drew the third pari of the atars of bearen and did cast them to the earth." (Ch. zif.)
* Sec Harivamsha, 939.
i The verve "did cast them to thr earth," plainly show* It* origin in the grandest and oldest allegory or the Aryan Mystics, who, after the destruction of the Atlantesn gtants and sorcerers, con- cealed the xraXti—iXstroHomuol, pkysicat, and divine^ as It ia a page out ot prt-coamic Theogony— tinder various allegories. Us tnie Rsoteric interpretation is a veritable Theodice of the " Fallen Angels," so called 1 the willing and tbe unwilling, the creators and those who refuied to create, being now mixed up most perplcxlngly by Christian Catholics, who forget that their highest Archaogcl, St. Michael, who is itfaown to conquer (to niastcr and to assimilate) the Dragon of Wisdom and of divine Sclf'Sacrifice — now miscalled and calumtiistcd as Satan— waj the first to re/use to create f This has led to endless confusion. So little does Christian Theology undemtand the paradoxical language of the East and its symbolism, that it even eapiains. In iu deod-letler stnse, the Chinese Buddhist and Hiudfl exoteric rite of rmising a noise during certain eclipses to scare away the "great red dragrm," which laid 0 plot to carry away the "light"! But here "light" means Esoteric Wisdom, and we have sufficiently explained tlie secret meaning of the terms Dntgon, Serpent, etc., all of which refer to Adepta and Initiates.
WHAT PROMBTHBT7S SYMBOUZED.
■
sopbicai and metaphysical to be grasped by the multitudes, was, as already stated, disfigured by the priesthood for the purpose of pre- sennng a hold over the former through superstitious fear.
The supposed "Rebels," then, were simply those who, compelled by Karmic law to drink the cup of gall to its last bitter drop, had to tn- carna/esiUGW, aud thus make responsible thinking entities of the astral statues projected by their inferior brethren. Some are said to have xefused, because they had not in them the requisite materials — i.e., an astral body — for they were Arupa. The refusal of others had reference to their having been Adepts and Yogis of long past preceding Man- vantaras; another mystery. But, later on, as NirmSnakdyas, they sacrificed themselves for the good and salvation of the Monads which were waiting for their turn, and which otherwise would have had to linger for countless ages in irresponsible, animal-like» though in ap- pearance human, forms. It may be a parable and an allegory wilkin an allegory. Its solution is left to the intuition of the student, if he only reads that which follows with his spiritual eye.
As to their Fashioners or Ancestors — those Angels who, in the exo- teric legends, obeyed the law — they must be identical with the Bar- liishad Pitris, or the Pitri-Devat^s, «>., those possessed of the physical creative fire. They could only create, or rather clothe, the human Monads with their own astral Selves, but they could not make man in their image aud likeness. "Man must not be like one of us," say the Creative Gods, entrusted with the fabrication of the lower animal — but higher * Their creating the seniblauce of men out of their own divine Essence means, Esoterically, that it is they who became the First Race, and thus shared its destiny and further evolution. They would not, simply because they could not, give to man that sacred spark which bums and expands into the flower of human reason and self-consciousness, for they had it not to give. This was left to that Class of Devas who became symbolized in Greece under the name of Prometheus; to those who had nought to do with the physical body, yet everything with the purely spiritual man.
Each Class of Creators endows man with what it has to give : the one builds his external fonn; the other gives him its essence, which later on becomes the Human Higher Self owing to the personal exertion cf ike individual; but they could not make men as they were them- selves— perfect, because sinless ; sinless, because having only the first,
lOO
THE SECRET DOCTRINK.
pale shadow>' outlines of attributes, and these all perfect — from humau standpoint — white, pure and cold as the virgin snow. Wh there is no struggle, there is no merit. Humanity, "of the eai earthy," was not destined to be created by the Angels of the Fii Divine Breath. Therefore they are said to have refused to create, man had to be formed by more material Creators,* who, in their could give only what they had in their own natures, and no moi '^ubser\nent to eternal law, the pure Gods could only project out themselves shadowy men, a little less ethereal and spiritual, less divx and perfect than themselves^-shadows still. The first Humanity, th fore, was a pale copy of its Progenitors; too material, even in it ethereality, to be a hierarchy of Gods; too spiritual and pure to be M( — endowed as it is with every negative (nirguna) perfection. Perfecti( to be fully such, must be bom out of imperfection, the incomtptil must grow out of the corruptible. ha\ing the latter as its vehicle basis and contrast. Absolute Light is absolute Darkness, and vice In fact, there is neither Light nor Darkness in the realms of Trat Good and Evil are twins, the progeny of Space and Time, under sway of Miya. Separate them, by cutting off one from the other, they will both die. Neither exists /^-j^, since each has to be general and created out of the other, in order to come into being; both mi be known and appreciated before becoming objects of perceptic hence, in mortal mind, they must be divided.
Nevertheless, as the illusiouary distinction exists, it requires a Iq\ Order of Creative Angels to "create" inhabited Globes — especis ours — or to deal with Matter on this earthly plane. The philosophi Gnostics were the first to think so, in the historical period, and invent various systems upon this theor>\ Therefore in their schemes of creation, one always finds their "Creators" occupying a place at the very foot of the ladder of Spiritual Being. With them, those who created our Earth and its mortals were placed on the ver\' limit of
* la Bpite of aU efforts to the contrnry , Cliristian Tlieoloffy— bavinK' bordened iUcLf with the Hebrew
Esoteric account of the creation of man, which It understands Huratty — cannot 6nd any reaiooabte excuse for it» *' God , Ihc Creator," who produces a man devoid of niind and sense ; nor can it jnatiiy' the punishment following an act, for which Adam andHve mig-ht plead non compos. Forif thecottple be admitted to be ignorant of good and evil before the eating of the forbidden fruit, how could it be expected to know that disoh/dirno' rvoi rvil f If primeval man was meant tu remain a half-witted, or rather witless, being, then his creation was aimless and even crufi, if produced by an omnipotent and perfect God. But Adam and Eve are shown, even in Genesis, to be created by a Class of lower diTine Beings, the Elohim. who are so jcalons of their persoiial prerogntivea as reasonable and intelligmt crrstures, that they will not allow man to become " as one of us." This is plain, even from the de«d- letter meaning of the Jtibie. The Gnostics, then, were right in regarding the Jewish Cod ■> belonging to a Claas of lower, material and not very holy denizens of the invisible World.
RECORDS OF ANCIENT RACKS.
lOI
HwSvic Matter, and their followers were taught to think — to the great disgust of the Church Fathers — that for the creation of those wretched races, in a spiritual and moral sense, which grace our Globe, IK) high Divinity could be made responsible, but only Angels of ft low Hierarchy,* to which Class they relegated the Jewish God, Jehovah.
Mankinds different from the present are mentioned in all the ancient Cosmogonies. Plato speaks, in the Phaxlrus^ of a '*wiuged'* race of men. Aristophanes, in Plato's Banqiut, speaks of a race androgynous asd with round bodies. In Pymander, all the animal kingdom even is double-sexed. Thus it is said :
The drcuit having been accomplished, ihf knot joas loou^tfd .... and all tbe animalA, which were equally androgynous, were untied [separated] together with man . . . [for] . . . the causes had to produce effects on eartb.t
Again, in the ancient Quiche Manuscript, the Popo/ Vuh — published by the late Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg — the first men are described as a race "whose sight was unlimited, and who knew all things at once"; thus showing the divine knowledge of Gods, not mortals. The Secret Doctrine, correcting the unavoidable exaggerations of popular fancy, gives the facts as they are recorded in the archaic s>*mhols.
'*) These "Shadows'* were bom "each of his own colour and kind," each also "inferior to his Father/* or Creator, because the latter was a complete Being of his kind. The Commentaries refer the first sen- Itnce to the colour or complexion of each human race thus evolved. la Pymander^ the Seven Primitive Men, created by Nature from "Heavenly Man.'* all partake of the qualities of the Seven vemors." or Rulers, who loved Man — their own reflection and synthesis.
In the Norse Legends, one recognizes in Asgard, the habitat of the Gods, as also in the Ases themselves, the same mystical Loci and personifications woven into the popular "myths,'* as in our Secret
! • In /m VnvfOtd several of these Gnostic ^>stem9 are (ri\'«i. One is taken from the Codex oAamraw, the Scrlptnre of the Nazarmes, who. although they existed loag before the rtays of ^Kta. aod even before the Uws of Moics. wcie Gnostics, and many of them Initinteii. Tliey held Hb ** U jraterics of Life" in N'ozara lancieiit and modem Nasareih), and their doctrines arr a nbftd ccdw of the teachings of the Secret Doctrine— some of which we are now endeavourins to
» L li. See the trflnxlntion from the Creek by I'ran^ois. Monsieur de Foix. Kvesqtie d'Ayre: the ■QEfc dedicated to Marffuerite de Prance, Reine de Navarre. Edition of 1579, Bordeaux.
.' '^- ^^
t03
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Doctrine ; and we find them in the yiedas, the Purdnas, the Scriptures and the Kabalah. The Ases of Scandinavia, the Rulers of the Worid which preceded ours, whose name means literally the "Pillars of the World," its *' Supports," are thus identical with the Greek Cosmocratores, the seven "Workmen" or Rectors of Pymanda^ the seven Rishis and Pitris of India, the seven Chaldsean Gods and seven E\nl Spirits, the seven Kabalistic Sephiroth, synthesized by the upper Triad, and even the seven Planetary Spirits of the Christiao Mystics. The Ases create the earth, the seas, the sky and the clouds, the whole visible world, from the remains of the slain giant Ymir; bat they do not create Man, but only his form from the Ask or Ash tree. It is Odin who endows him with life and soul, after I,odur had given him blood and bones, and finally it is Honir who furnishes him with his intellect (Manas) and with his conscious senses.* The Norse Ask, the ' Hesiodic Ash-tree, whence issued the men of the generation of bronie, the Third Root-Race, and the Tzite tree of the Popol Vuk, out of which the Mexican third race of men was created, are all one. This may be plainly seen by any reader. But the Occult reason why Uie Noise Yggdrasil, the Hindii Ashvattha, the Gogard. the Hellenic tree of life. and the Tibetan Zampun, are one with the Kabalistic Sephirothic Tree, and even with the Holy Tree made by Ahura Mazda, and the Tree of Eden — ^who among the Western scholars can tell?t Nevertheless, the fruits of all those "Trees," whether Pippala, or Haoma, or even the inoie prosaic Apple, are the "plants of life,'* in fact and verity. The proto- types of our races were all enclosed in the Microcosmic Tree, which grew and developed within and under the great mundane Macrocosmic Tree; J and the mystery is half revealed in the Dirghotamas, where it is said :
Pippala, the sweet fruit of that tree upon which come spirits who love tht sciiWOt and where the gods produce all raarvela.
As in the Gogard, among the luxuriant branches of all these Mun- dane Trees, the "Serpent" dwells. But while the Macrocosmic Tree is the Serpent of Eternity and of absolute Wisdom itself, those who dwell in the Microcosmic Tree are the Serpents of the Manifested Wisdom. One is the One and All; the others are its reflected parts. The "Tree" is man himself, of course, and the Serpent dwelling in each, the con-
• Atfiard and tk£ Cods, p. 4.
^ Mr. }%jat* DarniestetCT', the tranftlator of the VtndldAd, speaking or it, nys: " Tbc tree, it is. . . ."—"Sacred BooIls of the Hast," vol. iv. p. 909. I Plato'* Tfm^ut.
THB SVASTIKA.
103
iCtous Manas, the connecting link between Spirit and Matter, Heaven ia4 Earth.
^Pverywbere, it is the same. The "Creating" Powers produce Man, liut fail in their final object. All these Logoi strive to endow man with conscious immortal Spirit, reflected in the Miad (Manas) alone; they 6dl, and they are all represented as being punished for the failure, if not for the attempt. What is the nature of the punishment? A sen- tence of imprisonment in the lower or nether region, which is our Edrih, ike hwest in its Chain; an "Eternity" — meaning the duration of the Ufe-cycle— in the darkness of Matter, or within animal Man. It pleased the half ignorant and half designing Church Fathers to dis- figure the graphic symbol. They took advantage of the metaphor and allegory in every old religion to turn them to the benefit of the new One. Thus man was transformed into the darkness of a material Hell: his divine consciousuess, obtained from his indwelling Principle, the Manasa, or the incarnated Deva, became the glaring flames of the Infernal Region, and our Globe that Hell itself. Pippala, Haoma, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, were denounced as ih^ forbidden fruit, ' nd the "Serpent of Wisdom," the voice of reason and consciousness, nmained identified for ages with the Fallen Angel, which is the old Dragon, the Devil!
The same for the other high symbols. The Svastika, the most sacred and mystic symbol in India, the "Jaina Cross" as it is now called by Ihe Masons, notwithstanding its direct connection, and even identity, with the Christian Cross, has become dishonoured in the same manner. Itisthe ''devil's sign," we are told by the Indian missionaries. Does itnot shine on the head of the great Serpent of Vishnu, on the thou- land-headed Shesha-Ananta, in the depths of PatSIa, the Hindu Naraka or Hell? It does: but what is Ananta? As Shesha, it is the 4lmost endless Manvantaric Cycle of Time, and becomes In^ni/e T'mie itself, when called Ananta, the great Seven-headed Serpent, on which itsts Vishnu, the Eterjial Deiiy, during Pralayic inactivity. What has Sitan to do with this highly metaphysical symbol? The Svastika is the most philosophically scientific of all symbols, as also the most comprehensible. It is the summary in a few lines of the whole work of "creation," or evolution as one should rather say, from Cosrao- dieogony down to Anthropogony, from the indivisible unknown Para- brahman to the humble Moneron of materialistic Science, \^'\\q&& genesis ix as unJhuntm to that Science as is that of the AU-Deity Itself. The
I04
SECRET DOCTRINE.
Svastika is found heading the religious symbols of even' old nation. It is the ''Worker's Hammer*' in the Chaldaean Book of Numbers^ the "Hammer," above referred to, in the Book of Concealed Mystery, "which striketh sparks from the flint" (Space), those sparks becoming Worlds, It is Thor's Hammer, the magic weapon forged by the Dwarfs against the Giants, or the Pre-cosmic Titanic Forces of Nature, which rebel and. while alive in the region of Matter, will not be subdued by the Gods — the agents of Universal Harmony — but have first to be de- stroyed. This is why the World is formed out of the relics of the murdered Ymir. The Svastika is the Miolnir, the "Storm-hammer"; and therefore it is said that when the Ases, the holy Gods, after having beeu purified by fire — the fire of the passions and suffering in their life-incarnations — become fit to dwell in Ida in eternal peace, then Miolnir will become useless. This will be when the bonds of Hel — the Goddess-queen of the region of the Dead— will bind them no longer, for the kingdom of evil will have passed away.
Surtur's flames had not destroyed them, nor yet had the raging waters [of the
several deluges] There were . . . the sons of Thor. They brought
Miolnir with tliem, not as a weapon of war, but as the hammer wilh which to consecrate the new heavens and the new earth.*
Verily many are its meanings! In the macrocosmic work, the "Hammer of Creation," with its four arms bent at right angles, refers to the continual motioji and revolution of the invisible Kosmos of Forces. In that of the manifested Cosmos and our Earth, it points to the rotation in the Cycles of Time of the world's axes and their equatorial belts; the two lines forming the Svastika M^, meaning Spirit and Matter, the four hooks suggesting the motion in the revolving cycles. Applied to the microcosm, Man, it shows him to be a link between Heaven and Earth; the right hand being raised at the end of a horizontal arm, the left pointing to the Earth. In the Smaragdine Tablet of Hermes, the uplifted right hand is inscribed with the word "Solve," the left with the word '*Coagiila." It is at one and the same time an Alchemical, Cosmogonical, Anthropological, and Magical sign, with seven keys to its inner meaning. It is not too much to say that the compound symbolism of this universal and most suggestive of sig^s contains the key to the seven great mysteries of Kosmos. Bom in the mystical conceptions of the early Aryans, and by them placed
* See Axgard and the Gods, p. 305.
A PROPHECY OF THE SEVENTH RACE.
^ttSe very threshold of eternity, on the head of the serpent Anaota, it
tnd its spiritual death in the scholastic interpretations of mediaeval thropomorphtsts. It is the Alpha and the Omega of universal Crea- tive Force, evolving from pure Spirit and ending in gross Matter. It is also the key to the Cycle of Science, divine and human; and he who comprehends its full meaning is for ever liberated from the toils of Mahi-Maya. the great Illusion and Deceiver. The Light that shines from under the Divine Hammer, now deg^raded into the mallet or gavel of the Grand Masters of Masonic Lodges, is suflScient to dissipate the darkness of any human schemes or fictions. HaHow prophetic are the songs of the three Norse Goddesses, to whom Hie ravens of Odin whisper of the past and the future, as they flutter round in their abode of crystal beneath the flowing river. The songs are all written down in the '^Scrolls of Wisdom," of which many are lost but some still remain; and they repeat in poetical allegory the teachings of the Archaic Ages. To summarize from Dr. Wagner's Aigard and the Gods, concerning the "Renewal of the World," which is a prophecy about the Seventh Race of our Round told in the past tense. The Miolnir had done its duty in this Round, and:
On the field of Ida, the field of resurrection (for the Fifth Round], the sons of the highest gods asseuihlcd, and /« them fh^r fathers rose aj^ain [the Egos of all their past incarnations]. They talked of the Past and the Present, and remem- bered the wisdom and prophecies of their ancestors which had all been fulfilled. Xtir them, but unseen by (hem, was the strong, the mighty One, who rules all things, makes peace between those who are angry with each other, and ordains the (teraal laws that govern tlie world. They all knew he was there, Ihey felt his e and his pozver, but were ignorant of his name. At his command the tiew rvse oiit of the waters [of Space]. To the south above the Field of Ida, he auother heaven called Audlang, and further off, a third, known as Widblain. Gimil's cave a wondrous palace was erected, which was covered with gold and e: bright in the sun. [These are the three gradually ascending Globes of our ] There the gods were enthroned, as they used to be, and they rejoiced ia the lion and in the better time. From Gimil's heights [the Seventh Globe, the t and purest], they looked down upon the happy descendants of Lif [anil the coming Adam and Eve of purified Humanity] and signed to them ^Himb up higher, to rise in knowledge and wisdom, in piety and in deeds of love, Ftep, from one heaven to another, until they were at last fit to be united to unities in the house of All father.*
He who knows the doctrines of Esoterie Budhism, or Wisdom,
* Ibid., toe. eiL
io6
THB SECRRT DOCTRINB.
though SO imperfectly sketched hitherto, will see clearly the allegorr contained in the above.
Its more philosophical meaning will be better understood if the reader thinks carefully over the myth of Prometheus. It is examined, further on. in the light of the Hindu Pramantha. Degfraded into a purely physiological symbol by some Orientalists, and taken in con- nection with terrestrial fire only, their interpretation is an insult to every religion, including Christianity*, whose greatest myster>' is thus dragged down to Matter. The "friction" of divine Pramantha and Arani could suggest itself under this image only to the brutal concep- tions of the German Materialists — than whom there are none worse. It is true that the Divine Babe, Agni with the Sanskrit-speaking Race, who became Ignis with the Latins, is bom from the conjunction of Pramantha and Arani — the Svastika — during the sacrificial ceremony. But what of that? Tvashtri (Vishvakarman) is the "divine artist and carpenter**^ and is also the Father of the Gods and of "Creative Fire" in the Vfdas, So ancient is the symbol and so sacred, that there is hardly an excavation made on the sites of old cities without its being found. A number of such terra-cotta discs, called /MjraiW/'s, were found by Dr. Schliemiinn under the ruins of ancient Troy. Both the forms, 1^ and [^1. were excavated in great abundance; their presence being one more proof that the ancient Trojans and their ancestors were p Aryans.
{c) ChhSyS, as already explained, is the Astral Image. It bears this meaning in Sanskrit works. Thus SanjnS, Spiritual Consciousness, the wife of Surya, the Sun, is shown retiring into the jungle to lead an ascetic life, and lea\ing behind to her husband her Chhiyd, Shadow or Image.
• "The father of the sAcred fire," wtiten Prof. Jolly, " iKire the unnie of TvRshtri . . . Hli mother WAA M^yl. He himfloir vrait Htylcd Akta [antnnted y^ptrrTQ^) after the priest had poured ur>on his bead the spirituoiMi?! Soma, and oo hi« body butter purified by ftucrifice." (Mam b/fove Afffah.p. 190.) The source or his information [» not given by the French I>arwlni!it. Dut the lines are quoted to «how that light iKgitif) to dnwn even upon the MnterinUats. AdnWuiTX Kuhn, in hit Di> //ftaftkun/t tUs Fruers, ideutifics the two iiK""^ M-n and Lp. with Arani, and desij^inteB them under this name, lie adds: "This process of kJndlinKfire naturally led men to the idea of sexual reproduction," etc. Why could uot a morr digtiifird idea, and one mure Occult, have led man tn invent this symbol, in so far as it is connected, in one of its as)»ccts, with human reproduction ? But its chief symbolism refers to Cosmogony.
"Agni, In the condiUon of Aktn. or anointed, Is surs^Uvc of Christ," remarks Prof. Jolly. *']fi: Biary, His mother. Tv.vihlri. St. Jos*eph, the carpenter of the Bible." In the Rig I'edn. \nshvAkar' man ia the higheitt and oldest of the Cods and tlieir "Father." Me is the "carpenter or builder," because Cod is called even by the Monothdats. the "Architect of the Universe." Still, the oriRiiuv, idea ia purely metaphysical, and had no connection with the later PhalUcism.
PRIMITIVE MAN A FAILURE.
xo:
l6. How ARE THE MaNUSHYA* BORN? ThB MaNUS WITH UTSD% low ARE THEY MADE? (a) ThB FATHERS f CALLED TO THEIR HELP :iR OWN FiRE.t WHICH IS THE FiRE THAT BURNS IN EarTH. ThE
JpiRjT OF THE Earth called to his help the Solar Fire.§ These
[RHEli produced IN THEIR JOINT EFFORTS A GOOD RCpA. ItH COULD STAND, WALK, RUN, RECUNE. OR FLY. YeT IT WAS STILL BUT A
Chhaya, a Shadow with no sense. (^) , . .
(a) Here an explanation again becomes necessary in the light and wth the help of the exoteric added to the Esoteric Scriptures. The Uanushyas (Men) and the Manus are here equivalent to the Chaldsean Adam — this term not meaning at all the first man, as with the Jews, or one solitary individual, but Mankind collectively, as with the Chalda^ans and Assyrians. It is the four Orders or Classes of Dhyin Chohans out of the Seven, says the Commentary. "wAo teere the Progenitors of the Concealed Man*' — ». Moon, the Lunar Spirits, were, as already stated, only the Ancestors of his Form, i.e.^ of the model according to which Nature began her eiiemal work upon him. Thus Primitive Man was, when he ap- peared, only a senseless Bhuta** or "phantom." This "creation" was a failure.
ih) This attempt again was a failure. It allegorizes the vanity of \fkystcai Nature's unaided attempts to construct even a perfect animal —let alone man. For the Fathers, the Lower Angels, are all Nature- Spirits, and the higher Elementals also possess an intelligence of their own; but this is not enough to construct a thinking man. ** Living
Hk'* was needed, that Fire which gives the human mind its self-per- »tion and self-cousciousness, or Manas; and the progeny of Parvaka Shnchi are the Animal-Electric and Solar Fires, which create miraals, and could thus furnish only a physical living constitution to t4at first astral model of man. The first Creators, then, were the
Tlw n«] Kjuiusbya.
' B*ruh*d ;.').
1 The Kmvyavihana. el«ctric Bn.
lEhtichl. the Apiril in the Sun.
I Tbe lltri* and the two Fires. \ ' The form.
ttisnot cicarwhy BbQtAsihonldbe rendered by the OrienUliiiUu "cWl sptriU" in the Air jmii.
ttte t^ssJknu Putana (I. v; WUflon's Trans., Pltcedward Hall'8 note. (. 85) the Shiokn elmply says: 'Kcxdf, friKhtiiil from being nionkey-colour«l an ■cBa " gtioat«," rthereal or astral phantoms, while in Esoteric Teaching it means eUmentarv sub- ■iBCCA, MnethiDe made of attenuateil, non-coraponnd eiwence, and, specificntly, the niitral Double oe tny man or animal. In tbif com these ^imitire men are the J^onbles of the first ethereal Dby&nls vntria.
io8
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Pygmalions of Primeval Man: they failed to animate the statue — intellectually.
This Stanza we shall see is ver>' suggestive. It explains the mystery of, and fills the gap between, the Informing Principle in man — the Higher Self or Human Monad — and the Animal Monad, both one and the same, although the former is endowed with divine intelli- gence, the latter with instinctual faculty alone. How is the difference to be explained, and the presence of thai Higher Self in man ac- counted for?
Says the Commentary:
The Sons of Mahat are the guickcners of the human Plant. Tk^y are the Waters falling upon the arid soil of latent life, and the Spark thai vivifies the human Animal. They are the Lords of Spiritual Life Eternal, , . . . /// the beginning \_in the Second Racel some [of the Lords] only breathed of their essence into Afanushya [iw/7i]» and some took in man their abode.
This shows that not all men became incarnations of the *' Divine Rebels,*' but only a few among them. The remainder had their fifth Principle simply quickened by the spark thrown into it, which accounts for the great difference between the intellectual capacities of men and races. Had not the **Sons of Mahat/* speaking allegorically, skipped the Intermediate Worlds, in their impulse toward intellectual freedom, the animal man would never have been able to reach upward from this Earth, and attain through self-exertion his ultimate goal. The Cyclic Pilgrimage would have had to be performed through all the planes of existence half unconsciously, if not entirely so, as in the case of the animals. It is owing to this rebellion of intellectual life against the morbid inactivity of pure spirit, that we are what we are — self-con- scious, thinking men, with the capabilities and attributes of Gods in us, for good as much as for evil. Hence the Rebels are our Saviours. Let the Philosopher ponder well over this, and more than one mystery will become clear to him. It is only by the attractive force of the con- trasts that the two opposites — Spirit and Matter^ can be cemented ;;ogether on Earth, and, smelted in the fire of self-conscious experience and suffering, find themselves wedded in Etemitv*. This will reveal the meaning of many hitherto incomprehensible allegories, foolishly called -fables."
It explains, to begin with, the statement made in Pymander, that the "Heavenly Man," the •* Son of the Father,** who partook of the nature
*
PERPLEXITY OF THE ASSYRIOtOGISTS.
109
aad essence of the Seven Governors, or Creators and Rulers of the Material World,
Peeped through the Harmony, and breaking through the strength of the [Seven]
t Circle* [of Firei so showed and made manifest the dowuward It explains every verse in the Hermetic narrative, as also the Greek allegory of Prometheus. Most important of all, it explains the many allegorical accounts about the "Wars in Heaven," including that of Revflaiion with respect to the Christian dogma of the " Fallen Angels." It explains the " Rebellion" of the oldest and highest Angels, and the meaning of their being cast down from Heaven into the depths of Hell, u,. Matter. It even solves the recent perplexity of the Assyriologists, who express their wonder through the late George Smith, as follows:
My first idea of this part [of the rebellion] was that the war with the powers of tTiXpnuded the Creation; I now think it followed the account of the Pall.t
In the same work.J Mr. George Smith gives an engraving, from an early Babylonian Cylinder, of the Sacred Tree, the Serpent, man and voman. The Tree has seven branches; ikree on the mau's side, y^wr on that of the female. These branches are typical of the seven Root- Races, in the third of which, at its vcr>' close, occurred the separa- ton of the sexes and the so-called Fall into generation. The three earUest Races were sexless, then hermaphrodite; the other four, male and female, as distinct from each other. As the writer tells us:
The dragon, which, in the Chaldean account of the Creation, leads man to sin. is tlic creature of Tiamat, the living principle of the sea and of chaos .... ^hicb was opposed to the deities at the creation of the world. $
This is an error. The Dragon is the male principle, or Phallus,
h personified, or rather animalizcd; and Tiamat, *'the embodiment of |he spirit of chaos," of the Deep, or Abyss, is the female principle, fte Womb. The "spirit of chaos and disorder" refers to the mental perturbation which it led to. It is the sensual, attractive, magnetic principle which fascinates and seduces, the ever-living active element ^ch throws the whole world into disorder, chaos and sin. The Serpent seduces the woman, but it is the latter who seduces man, and Icth are included in the Karmic curse, though only as a natural result of a cause produced. Says George Smith :
• See P^wiand^, Kvcrard's Trans-, II. i7-a9.
t ChaldtAn Account 0/ GtMSU, p. 93.
3 P. 91-
I /bi^., loc. cil.
no
THK
DOCTJONE.
It U dear that the dragon is indtided in the cnne for the Pall, and that the [the Elohim, jealous at aecixig the mas of day becomisg a Creator in his turn, like all the animals] invoke on the head of the human Race all the evils which afflict uumanity. Wiadom and knowled^ liiall injore hinif he shall hare family qaarrela, shall submit to tvrannv, be will anger the gods ... he shall be disappointed in his desirea. he shall pofxr out mseUss pruytr, .... he shall comtnit future sin. No doubt subsequent lines ootntisue these topics, but again our narrative is broken, and it only reopens where the gods are preparing for war with the powertJ of evil, which arc led by Tiamat (the woman).* ^
This account is omitted in Genesis, for monotheistic purposes. But it is a mistakes policy — born no doubt of fear, and regard for dogmatic religion and its superstitions — to seek to restore the Chaldaean frag- ments by Gefusis, whereas it is the latter, far j'ounger than any of the fragments, which ought to be explained by the former.
ThJ[
17. The BREATHf nebdbd a Form; the Fathers gave it. Breath needed a Gross Body; the Earth moulded it. The Breath needed the Spirit of Life; the Solar Lhas breathed IT into its Form. The Breath needed a Mirror of its Body; J " Wk gave it our own ! " — said the DhyanIs. The Breatb needed A Vehicle of Desires ;§ ''It has it!*' — said the Draineti OF Waters.ii But Breath needs a Mind to embrace the Uni- verse; "We cannot give that!" — ^said the Fathers. *•! never
HAD it!"— said the SPIRIT OF THE EARTH. "ThE FORM WOU BE CONSUMED WERE I TO GIVE IT MINE!" — SAID THE GrEAT FiRE.' .... Man *♦ REMAINED AN EMPTY SENSELESS BhOTA. . . i HITS HAVE THE BONELESS GIVEN I,IFK TO THOSE. WHO ft BE
Men WITH Bones in the Third.JJ
As a full explanation is found in the commentary' on Stanza V, a U remarks will now suffice. The "* Father" of primitive physical man, of his body, is the Vital Electric Principle residing in the Sun. T Moon is its "Mother." because of that mysterious power in the M
• Ibid., loc. ct'L t Human Monad. t Astral shadow.
I KAma RQpi..
II Sbuchi, the fire of passion aod animal instiiKt* f Solar Fire.
•• Nafcent Man., tt lAtrr. U Race.
WHAT UYDROGBN RBAXLY IS.
Ill
n
zh has as decided an influence upon human gestation and genera- , which it regulates, as it has on the growth of plants and animals. The *'Wind'* or Ether, standing in this case for the agent of trans- mission by which those influences are carried down from the two luminaries and diffused upon earth, is referred to as the "Nurse";* while "Spiritual Fire*' alone makes of man a divine and perfect entity.
Now what is that "Spiritual Fire"? In Alchemy it is Hydrogen, in general; while in Esoteric actuality it is the emanation, or the Ray which proceeds from its Noumenon, the "Dhyan of the First Ele- ment.'* Hydrogen is gus only on our terrestrial plane. But even in Chemistry, Hydrogen "would be the only existing form of matter, in our sense of the term/'f and is very nearly allied to Protyle, which is our Layam. It is the father and generator, so to say. or rather the pddhi (basis), of both Air and Water, and is "fire, air and water/* in act: one under three aspects; hence the chemical and alchemical trinity. In the world of manifestation, or Matter, it is the objective sj'mbol and the material emanation from the subjective and purely spiritual entitative Being in the region of Noumena, Well might Godfrey Higgins have compared Hydrogen to, and even identified it with, the To On, the "One" of the Greeks. For, as he remarks, Hydrogen is no^ water, though it generates it; Hydrogen is not fire, though it manifests or creates it; nor is it air, though air may be regarded as a product of the union of water and fire — since Hydrogen is found in the aqueous element of the atmosphere. It is three one.
If one studies comparative Theogony, it is easy to find that the secret of these "Fires" was taught in the Mysteries of ever>* ancient people, preeminently in Samothrace. There is not the smallest doubt that the Kabiri, the most arcane of all the ancient Deities, Gods and Men, great Deities and Titans, are identical with the Kumaras and Rudras headed by Kirltikeya — a Kumara also. This is quite evident even exoterically; and these Hindu Deities were, like the Kabiri, the Personified sacred Fires of the most Occuit Powers of Nature. The several branches of the Ar>'an Race, the Asiatic and the European, the Hindu and the Greek, did their best to conceal their true nature, if not their importance. As in the case of the KumSras, the number of the Kabiri 'A uncertain. Some say that there were three or four only; others say
Sec Shloka ».
t Sec Genesis of tke Elemunts, by W, Crtx>kc«, p. ai.
THE SECRET DOCTRIKK.
seven. Axierus, Axiocersa, Axiocersus, and Casmilus may very well stand for the alter egos of the four KumSras — Sauat-Kumara, Saoauda, Sanaka. and Sanatana. The former deities, whose reputed father was Vulcan, were often confounded with the Dioscori, Corybantes, Anactes. etc.; just as the KumSras, whose reputed father is BrahmS — or rather, the "Flame of his Wrath," which prompted him to perform the ninth or Kaumdra Creation, resulting in Rudra or Nilalohita (Shiva) and the Kuradras — were confounded with the Asuras, the Rudras. and the Pitris, for the simple reason that they are all one — /.f., correlative Forces and Fires. There is no space to describe these "Fires" and their real meaning here, though we may attempt to do so if the rest of this work is ever published. Meanwhile a few more explanations may be added.
The foregoing are all mysteries which must be left to the personal intuition of the student for solution, rather than described. If he would learn something of the secret of the Fires, let him turn to certain works of the Alchemists, who very correctly connect Fire with every Element, as do the Occultists. The reader must remember that tlie Ancients considered Religion and the Natural Sciences along with Philosophy, as closely and inseparably linked together, j^sculapius was the Son of Apollo — the Sun or Fire of Life; at once Helius, Pythius, and the God of oracular Wisdom. In exoteric religions, as much as in Esoteric Philosophy, the Elements — especially Fire, Water, and Air — are made the Progenitors o{ ouv five physical senses, and hence are directly connected, in an Occult way, with them. These physical senses pertain even to a lower Creation than the one called in the Puranas Pratisarga, or "Secondary Creation.** *'Liquid Fire proceeds from Indiscrete Fire" says an Occult axiom.
The Circle is tlie Thought ; the Diameter [or the line'] is the Word; and their union is Life.
In the Kabalah, Bath-Kol is the Daughter of the Divine Voice, or Primordial Light, Shekinali. In the Puranas and Hindu exotericism, Vdch, the Voice, is the female Logos of BrahmS — a permutation of Aditi, Primordial Light. And if Bath-Kol, in Jewish Mysticism, is an articulate prreter-natural voice from heaven, revealing to the "chosen people" the sacred traditions and laws, it is only because VSch was called, before Judaism, the "Mother of the Vedas,*' who entered into the Rishis and inspired them by her revelations; just as Bath-Kol is naid to have inspired the prophets of Israel and the Jewish High-
THE EVOLUTION OF THE SENSES.
;:i3
[Priests. And both exist to this day, in their respective sacred sym- )logies, because the Ancients associated Sound or Speech with the ther of Space, of which Sound is the characteristic. Hence Fire,
l^ater and Air are the primordial Cosmic Trinity.
I am thy Thought, thy God, more ancient than the Moist Principle, the Light mdiaUs Tmthin Darkness [Chaos], and the shining Word of God [Sound] is the of the DeiU.*
'Thns we have to study well the "Primary Creation" before we can understand the Secondar>% The first Race had three mdimatfary Elements in it; and no Fire as yet; because, with the Ancients, the evolution of man, and the growth and development of his spiritual and physical senses, were subordinate to the evolution of the Elements on the Cosmic plane of this Earth. All proceeds from Prabhavapyaya, the evolution of the creative and sentient principles in the Gods, and of the so-called Creative Deity himself. This is found in the les and appellations given to Vishnu in exoteric Scriptures. As \t Orphic Protologos, he is called Pur\'aja, "pregenetic/' and the other names connect him in their descending order more and more rith Matter.
The following order on parallel lines may be found in the evolution of the Elements and the Senses; or in Cosmic Terrestrial "Man" or 'Spirit," and mortal physical man:
Sound.
Sound and Touch. Sound, Touch and Colour. Sound. Touch, Colour and Taste. Sound, Touch, Colour, Taste and Smell- As seen, each Element adds to its own characteristics, those of its lecessor; as each Root-Race adds the characterizing sense of the reding Race. The same is true in the septenary "creation" of man. »bo evolves gradually in seven stages, and on the same principles, as
be shown further on. IThtis. while Gods, or DhySn Chohans (Devas), proceed from the