I. Ether

Hearing.
J. Air
Touch .
3- Fire, or Light
Sight .
4. Water
Taste .
5. Earth
Smell .
• Pfwtandev. J. 6- The opponcnLA of HindAinm may call the above PanUicism, PolytheiBin, or any- tltoj Ihey may picaac. If bdcncc is not cniirely blinded by prejudice, il will sec in this account a yr^jsimi! knowledge of Natural Science* and I*hy»iics, as well as of Metaphysics and PKycbo1 te lo find lhi« ottl, one haa to study the personifications, and then con^-rrt them into cbemioU Ofl^ It will then be found to satisfy both pbyfticol anO even purely materialistic Science, as well stkoae who kc in evolution the work of Uie "Grrat Cnknovrn Cause" in its phenomeiuT nod npcds.
{
H
THE SECRET DOCTRIKE.
First Cause — which is not Parabrahman, for the latter is the Aix Cause, and cannot be referred to as the ** First Cause," — which First Cause is called in the Brahman ical Books Jagad-Yoni, the "Womb o. the World," mankind emanates from these active agents in Kosmos. But men, during the First and Second Races, were not physical beings, but merely rudiments of the future men; Bbutas. which proceeded I'rom Bh&tadi, "origin," or the "original place whence sprang the Elements." Hence they proceeded with all the rest from Prabhavapyaya, "the place whence is the origination, and into which is the resolution of all things," as explained by the Commentator on the Vishnu Parana. Whence also our physical senses. Whence even the hig^hest "created'* Deity itself, in our Philosophy. As one with the Universe, whether we call him Brahma, Ishvara, or Purusha, he is a Manifested Deity — hence '•created," or limited and conditioned. This is easily proven, evea' from the exoteric teachings.
After being called the incognizable^ eternal Brahma (neuter or abstract), the Pundarikaksha, " supreme and imperishable glory," once that instead of Sadaika-Rupa. "changeless" or "immutable" Nature, he is addressed as Ekancka-Rupa, "both single and mani- fold," he, the Cause, becomes merged with his own effects; and his names, if placed in Esoteric order, show the following descending scale:
Supreme Spirit. The Living Spirit of Nature. Spiritual or Intellectual Soul (one with the senses).
Bhutitman The Living, or Life Soul.
KshetrajAa Embodied Soul, or the Universe of
Spirit and Matter. BhrSntidarshanatah False Perception — Material Universe.
The last name means something perceived or conceived of, owing to false and erroneous apprehension, as a material form, but is, iu fact, only M4yS, Illusion, as all is in our physical universe.
It is in strict analog>* with the attributes of this Brahma in both the spiritual and material worlds, that the evolution of the Dliyau-Chohanic Essences takes place; the characteristics of the latter being reflected, in their turn, in Ma^^ collectively, and in each of his principles; every one of which contains in itself, in the same progressive order, a pofiion of fhcir various *'Fircs" and Elanails,
Mahapurusha or ParamStman Atman or Purvaja (Protologos) Indriyatmaa, or Hrishikesha . .
THE TABULA SMARAGDXNA. STANZA V.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE SECOND RACE.
.>
r
18. The Sons of Yoga. 19. The Sexless Second Race. so. The Sons of the "Sons of Twilight." 31. The "Shadow/' or the Astral Man, retires within, and man devclcT)S a Physical Body.
18. The First* were the Sons of Yoga. Their Sons, the chiu>rkn op the yellow father and the white mother.
In the later Commentary, the sentence is translated:
The Sons of the Suit and of the Moon, the nursling of Ether [or the ^^Wind^'^fa). . . .
They were the shadows of the Shadows of the Lords (b). They [the shadows'] expanded. The Spirits of the Earth clothed them; the Solar Lhas warmed them [i.e., preserved the Vital Fire in the nascent physical Forms]. The Breaths had life, but had no understanding. They had no Fire or Water of their own fcj.
(a) Remember in this connection the Tabula Smaragdina of Hermes, the Esoteric meaning of which has seven keys to it. The Astro- chemical is well known to students, the Anthropological may now be given. The "One Thing" mentioned in it is Man. It is said:
The Father of that One Only Thing is the Sun; its Mother the Moon; the Wind carries it in his bosom, and its Nurse is the Spirituous Earth.
In the Occult rendering of the same it is added: "and Spiritual Fire is its instructor [Guru].''
This Fire is the Higher Self, the Spiritnal Ego, or that which is etenially reincarnating under the influence of its lower personal Selves, changing with every re-birth, full of Tanha or desire to live. It is a strange law of Nature that, on this plane, the higher (Spiritual) Nature should be, so to say, in bondage to the lower. Unless the Ego takes refuge in the Atman, the All-Spirit, and merges entirely into the essence thereof, the personal Ego may goad it to the bitter end. This cannot be thoroughly understood unless the student makes himself familiar with the mystery of evolution, which proceeds on triple lines — Spiritual, Psychic and Physical.
That which propels towards, and forces evolution, i,e,^ compels the
A (6
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
growth and development of Man towards perfection, is (a) the Monad, or that which acts in it unconsciously through a Force inherent in itself; and {b) the lower Astral Body or the Personal Self. The former, whether imprisoned in a vegetable or an animal body, is endowed with, is indeed itself, that Force. Owing to its identitj' with the All-Force, which, as said, is inherent in the Monad, it is all-potent on the Arupa, or formless plane. On our plane, its essence being too pure, it remains all-potential, but individually becomes inactive. For instance, the rays of the Sun, which contribute to the growth of vegetation, do not select this or that plant to shine upon. Uproot the plant and transfer it to a piece of soil where the sunbeam cannot reach it, and the latter will not follow it. So witli the Atman: unless the Higher Self or Ego gravi- tates towards its Sun — the Monad — the Lower Ego, or Personal Self, will have the upper hand in every case. For it is this Ego. with its fierce selfishness and animal desire to live a senseless life (Tanha), which is the "maker of the tabernacle," as Buddha calls it in the Dhamma^ pada^ Hence the expression, the Spirits of the Earth clothed the shadows and expanded them. To these "Spirits" belong temporarily the human Astral Selves; and it is they who give, or build, the physical tabernacle of man, for the Monad and its conscious principle, Manas, to dwell in. But the "Solar*' Lhas, or Spirits, ^;arm the Shadows, This is physically and literally true; melapaj'sically, or on the psychic and spiritual plane, it is equally true that the Atman alone warms the Inner Man r i.f., it enlightens it with the Ray of Divine Life and alone is able to impart to the Inner Man, or the Reincarnating Ego, its immortalit}'. Thus, we shall find, for the first three and a half Root- Races, up to the middle or turning point, it is the Astral Shadows of! the "Progenitors," the Lunar Pitris, which are the formative powers iu the Races, and wliich build and gradually force the evolution of the physical form towards perfection — this, at the cost of a proportionate loss of Spirituality. Then, from the turning point, it is the Higher] Ego, or Incarnating Principle, the Nous or Mind, which reigns over the Animal Ego, and rules it whenever it is not carried down by the latter. In short. Spirituality is on its ascending arc, and the animal or physical impedes it from steadily progressing on the path of its evolution, only when the .selfishness of the Personality has so strongly infected the real Inner Man with its lethal virusy that the upward attraction has lost all its power on the thinking reasonable man. In sober truth, vice and
• Bhlokaa, 153. 15^.
I 4
THE "SHBIXS" OF SHBBA HACHA.LOTH.
117
! wickedness are an abnormal, nnnatttral manifestation, at this perioa of ir huraan evolution — at least they ought to be so. The fact that raan- [bud was never more selfish and vicious than it is now — civilized lations having succeeded in making of the former an ethical charac- ristic, of the latter an art — is an additional proof of the exceptional nature of the phenomenon.
The entire scheme is in the Chaldaan Book of Numbers, and even in the Zohar^ if one only understands the meaning of the apocal>'ptic hints, 'irst comes Ain Suph. the '* Concealed of the Concealed," then the Point, Sephira and the later Sephiroth ; then the Atzilalic World, a World of Emanations that gives birth to three other Worlds — the first the Briatic World called the Throne, the abode of pure Spirits; the second, the World of Forrnation, or Jetziratic, the habitat of the Angels who sent forth the Third, or World of Action, the Asiatic World, which is the Earth or our World ; and yet it is said of this World — also called Kli- photh, containing the (six other) Spheres, cSlSl, and Matter — that it is the residence of the " Prince of Darkness.'* This is as clearly stated as can be; for Metatron, the Angel of the second Briatic World* the first habitable World, means Messenger, "KyytXo^, Angel, called the great Teacher; and under him are the Angels of the third World, or Jetziratic, whose ten and seven classes are the Sephiroth,* of whom it is said that:
Tliey inhabit or vivify this world as essential [^n/i/i€s and] initlligences, and their tomlata and logical contraries inhabit the third habitable world, called the Asiatic.
These "contraries" are called the ''Shells.*' mo'^^pp' or Demons.f "Who inhabit the seven habitations called Sheba Hachaloth, which are dimply the seven Zones of our Globe.* Their prince is called in the XabalaJi Saniael, the Angel of Death, who is also the seducing Serpent Satan ; but this Satan is also Lucifer, the bright Angel of Light, the Light- and Life-bringer, the "Soul" alienated from the Holy Ones, the cither Angels, and for a period, anticipating the time when they would descend on Earth to incarnate in their turn.
The Book of Wisdom teaches that :
AU Souls [Monads] are preexistent in the Worlds of Emanations. (
* It U symboUxcd in tlic PythagoreAn Triuigle, the ten yods wiUiia, utd the seven poiaU of the '^^(tc and the Square.
* Vtacnce the Kobaliatic namr of " Shells " f^ven to the Astral Form, the Body called KAma ROpa. Jeft bchuid by the Higher AngeU in the ohape of the Higher Manas, when the latter leave* for '*^*whftn, foraAking its rcoiduc.
1 Uockenxic'c RoyiU Masonic Cyciofiadia, pp. ^o^-^tt. lnii.aa
ii8
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
And the 2ioAat teaches that in the "Soul" is the rmi martt t.c, the igo aud the conscious /am, the Manas. Says Josephus. repeating the belief of the Essenes, [SouU] descend from the pure air to be chained to bodies* And Philo states that :
The air was f\tll of [Souls], and that those which were nearest the earth, descend- ing to be tied to mortal bodies, return back to bodies, being desirous to live in them.t
Because through, and in, the human form they will become progress sivc Beings, whereas the nature of the Angel is purely intransitive; therefore Man has in him the potency of transcending the faculties of the Angels. Hence the Initiates in India say that it is the Brahman, the Twice-born, who rules the Gods or Devas; and Paul repeated it in his Epi&tle to the Corinthians :
Know ye not that we [the Initiates] shall judge angels? %
Finally, it is shown in every ancient Scripture and Cosmogony that man evolved primarily as a luminous incorporeal form ^ over which, like molten brass poured into the model of the sculptor, the physical frame of his body was built by, through and from, the lower forms and types of animal terrestrial life. Says the Zohar:
The Soul and the Form when descending on Earth put on an earthly garment.
His protoplastic body was not formed of that matter of which our mortal frames are fashioned.
When Adam dwelled in the garden of Eden, be was dressed in the celestial
garment, which is the garment of heavenly light .... light of that tight whiih was used in the garden of Iide*t-\ Man [the Heavenly Adam] was created by the ten Sephiroth of the Jctziratic World, and by their common power tlie seven Angels of a still lower Wnrld engendered the Karthly Adam. J'irst Samacl fell, and then deceiving {}) man, caused his fall also.
{b) The sentence, ** they were the shadows of the Shadows of the Lords *' — i.e.t the Progenitors created man out of their own Astral Bodies ^-explains a universal belief. The Devas are credited in the East with having no "shadows" of their own. **The Devas cast no shadows,'* and this is the sure sign of ^ good holy Spirit.
• Vk BtU. JutL. U. w.
* Dt Gigiat, p. ixic. ; De Sommiis, p. 4f..sD. ; which »howtt that the ll*»ci\r% bellev«d in n-birth and many rcfncaniAUoiu on H«rth, u Jesu* hluuclf did, ■ (act we cmu prove Irom Uie yVirtv TtttamsrJ itself.
; I. vi. 3.
' Zoiimr, ii. U9A.
THK SECRET WORK OF CHIRAM,
-:g
(c) Why bad they •' no Fire or Water of their own *' ?* Because that Khich Hydrogen is to the elements and gases on the objective plane, its Xoumenon is in the world of mental or subjective phenomena; since its trinitarian latent nature is mirrored in its three active emana- tions from the three higher principles in man. namely* Spirit, Soul, and Mind, or AtmS, Buddhi, and Manas. It is the spiritual and also the 'material human basis. Rudimentaary man, having been nursed by the "Air" or the •* Wind," becomes the perfect man later on ; when, with I the de\'elopment of "Spiritual Fire," the Noumenon of the "Three in j One" within his Self, he acquires from his Inner Self, or Instructor, the I Wisdom of Self-Consciousness, which he does not possess in the begin- t oing. Thus here again Divine Spirit is symbolized by the Sun or Fire; BDivine Soul by Water and the Moon, both standing for the Father and HUother of Pneuma, the Human Soul, or Mind, symbolized by the Wind ^or Air, for Pneuma, means " Breath." I Hence in the Stnaragdiru Tablet^ disfigured by Christian hands:
The Superior agrees with the Inferior; and the Inferior with the Superior; to tffwrt that one truly wonderful work — [which is Man].
For the Secret Work of Chiram, or King Hiram in the Kabalah, "one in essence, but three in aspect," is the Universal Agent or Lapis Philosopborum. The culmination of the Secret Work is Spiritual Perfect Man. at one end of the line; the union of the three Elements is the Occult Solvent in the "Soul of the World," the Cosmic Soul or Astral Light, at the other; and, on the material plane, it is Hydrogen in its relation to the other gases. The To On, truly; the Onk "whom no person has seen except the Son"; this sentence applying both to Ihe metaphysical and physical Kosraos, and to the spiritual and anaterial Man, For how could the latter understand the To On, the
* n b corratMmited, howerer, as we hove ahown, hy the HAOtnidsm of Geiusis. Not only u« the If created therein after the "Adam of Oust." but veiretation iasbomi in the Earth before "the and the earth were cirated." " Every plant of the 6cld before It was in the cnnh " O'i- s). the Occult intrrprrtation ts accepted— which shows that id this I'aurth Round the Globe Uncovered with resfetation, and the First (Astral) Humanity was produced t>eforc- almost anything: Q»lil crow and develop thereon— what can the dead letter mean ? Simply that the grass was tu Ihe •■rtli of the Globe beforr Ihat Cilobe was created i And yet the meaning of verse 6, which says that "there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole fiaee of the ground," before it rained, Q4 csoscd the trees, tic, to frrow. Is plain cnouRh. It shows also in what geological period it "Wrnid. and further what is meant by "heaven" and "earth." It meant the firrnament and dry ■Mnijitf/Af land, scparatct und ridilt^n of its vajxiurs and exhalations. Morrorer, the student mu^t Wf ia mind that, a* Adam K-idmon, the "male and female being " of Genesis i, Is no ph>-aicAl human teaC but the bo»t of (he F.lohini, ninong which was Jehovah himself— so the animal*, mentioned in ^m dtapter as "created" before man in the dead-letter text, were no animals, but the zodiacal ff'na and oCbcr sidereal bodies.
I20
THK SKCRET DOCTRINE-
"One Father," if his Manas, the "Son," does not become (as) "One with the Father,'* and through this absorption receive enlightenment from the divine "Instructor," or Guru — Atma-Buddhi?
As says the Commentary:
If thou would'st understand the Secondary ["Creation," so-called], O Lanoo, thou siiould' si first study its relation to the Primary.*
The First Race had three Elements, but no Living Fire. Whyi Because:
"We S2.y four Elements, my Son, but ought to say three," says Hermes Trismegistus^. "In the Primary Circle," or Creation that which is marked 44» reads "Root," as in the Secondar>' likewise.
Thus in Alchemy^or Western Hermeticism — a variant on Easten:. Esotericism — we find:
Sulphur Flamma Spiritus
Mercury Natura Aqua
Salt Mater Sanguis
And these three are all quaternaries completed by their Root, The Spirit, beyond Manifested Nature, is the Fiery Breath in its abso- lute Unity. In the Manifested Universe, it is the Central Spiritual Sun, the electric Fire of all Life. In our System it is the visible Sun, th( Spirit of Nature, the terrestrial God. And in, on, and around th Earth, the fiery spirit thereof — Air, fluidic Fire; Water, liquid Fire;! Earth, solid Fire. All is Fire — Ignis, in its ultimate constitution, or the root of which is O (nought) in our conceptions, the All in Natui and its Mind. "Pro-Metor" is divine Fire. It is the Creator, the D* stroyer, the Preserver, The primitive names of the Gods are all con- nected with fire, from Agni, the Aryan, to the Jewish God who is a " consuming fire." In India, God is called in various dialects, Eashoor, Esiv, Iswur, and Ishvara, in Sanskrit, the Lord, from Isha, but this is primarily the name of Shiva, the Destroyer; and the three chief Vedic Gods are Agni (Ignis), Vayu. and Surya — Fire, Air. and the Sun, three Occult degrees of Fire. In the Hebrew, wtm (Aza) means to "illu- minate," and M©N (Asha) is "Fire." In Occultism, to "kindle a fire" is synonymous to evoking one of the three great Fire-powers, or to "call on God." In Sanskrit the root Ush is fire or heat; and the Eg>i>tian word Osiris is compounded, as shown by Schelling, of the two primitives Aish and Asr, or a "fire-enchanter." Aesar in the old
PI RE DEITV.
121
I
Etniscan meant a God, being perhaps derived from Asura of the Vedas. Ishvara is an analogous term, as Dr. Kenealy thought, who quotes the Bhagavad GUd to the effect that:
ishvara resides in every mortal being and puts in motion, by his supernatural wers, all tilings which mount on the wheel of time.
It is the Creator and the Destroyer, truly.
Tbe primitive Fire was supposed to have on insatiable appetite for devouring. Muimnsof Tyre relates tliat the ancient Persians threw into the fire combustible maUcr cr>-ing. Devour^ O Lotdf In the Irish language easam^ or asam, means to maki or cncaU.
[And] Aesar was the name also of one of the ancient Irish gods; the literal ausiog of the word is "to kindle a fire."*
The Christian Kabalists and Symbologists who disfigured Pymander —prominent among them the Bishop of Ayre, Francois de Tours, in the i6th century — divide the Elements in the following way:
Tht/our Elements Jomud from divine Substances and the Spirits of the Salts of Nature represented by:
Water
t
1-0
H
St. Matthew. Angel-Man
(Jesus-Christ, Angel-Man, Mikael)
St. Mark. The Lion Fire
St. Luke. The Bui! Earth
St. John. The Eagle Airf
ne Quintessence, 'H *AOH, Flamma- Virgo [Virgin Oil], Flamma Durissima, Virff), Lncis /•E.tcrna Mater. The First Race of men were, then, simply the Images, the Astral Bcmbles. of their Fathers, who were the pioneers, or the most pro- gressed Entities from a preceding though lower Sphere, the shell o. which is now our Moon. But even this shell is all-potential, for, the Moon having generated the Earth, its phantom, attracted by magnetic affinity, sought to form its first inhabitants, the pre-human monsters.
• KetKttly, The Book of God, pp. 114, 115.
'Tnthoar wbo would enquire: What htu Hydroffm to do with air or oxyjrafition' — it Is anKwrred: SikJj- first ibe ABC of Occult Alchemy. In their anidcty, however, to identify Pymander, Ujc "nmth of mystery." with St. John tbe Baptist prophetically, the Christian Symbolo^ftis thus identi- fcd alio tbe levcn Kabtri and the A*syrinn Bul]» with the Cheruha of the Jews and the Apoattea. Hitiay, moreover, to draw a line of demarcation between thc/ '^tea Angela ; and furthermore to avoid connectinff these with the "Seven Spirits of the Face." the ^Rhin^La. Ibey unceremoniously threw out all they did not choose to recog:nize. Hence the per- *»«on ta the order of the Klemeuta, in order to make them dovetail with the order of the Gospels, ■dtoidentify the AnRel-Man with Christ. With the Chaldees, the Ejryptians—froiu whom Moica •fcpied Ibe Chroub (Cherubs in their animal form)— and the Ophites; with all these, the Angrcls, the ^hnets, and the Hlementa, were symbnlixcd mystically and alchemically by the Lion (Mikael); the ** arricl); the Druffon [Raphaen: the Ka^Ie (Cabriel): the Bear (Thot-Snbaoth) ; the Doy (Rn- ^^Ofll); the Mole (Uriel or Thantabauth). All Iheae Iixvz a quaUQcative meaning.
f
THR SBCRST DOCTRINE.
To assure himself of this, the student has again to turn to the Chal- daean Fragments, and read what Berosus says. Berosus obtained his information, he tells us, from Ea. the male-female Deity of Wisdom. While the Gods were generated in the androgynous bosom of this Wisdom (SvabhSvat, Mother-Space), its reflections became on Earth, the woman Onioroka, who is the Chalda^an Thavatth (or Thalalth), the Greek Thalassa, the Deep or the Sea, which Esoterically and even exoterically is the Afoon. It was the Moon (Omoroka) who presided over the monstrous creation of nondescript beings which were slain by the Dhyanis *
Evolutionar>' law compelled the Lunar Fathers to pass, in their monadic condition, through all the forms of life and being on this Globe; but at the end of the Third Round, they were already human in their divine nature, and were thus called upon to become the creators of the forms destined to fashion the tabernacles of the less progressed Monads, whose turn it was to incarnate. These "Formif'* are called "Sons of Yoga," becalls^; Yoga — union with BrahmS, exo- terically— is the supreme condition of the passive infinite Deity, since it contains all the divine energies and is the essence of Brahma, who IS said, as Brahma, to create everything through Yoga power. BrahmS^ Vishnu and Shiva are the most powerful energies of God. Brahma
leuter), says a Pauranic text. Yoga here is the same as DhySna, which word is again synonymous with Yoga in the Tibetan text, where the "Sons of Yoga*' are called "Sous of Dhy^na," or of that abstract meditation through which the Dhyani-Buddhas create their celestial sons, the Dhyini-Bodhisattvas.
All the creatures in the world have each a superior above. This superior, whose Inner pleasure it is to efnanale into them, cannot impart efflux until they hare adored [i.^., meditated as during Yoga].t
19. The Second Rack (was) the product by budding and bx-
^ANSION, THE A-SEXUALJ FROM THE SBXLBSS.§ ThUS WAS, O LANOO^
THE Second Race produced.
What will be most contested by scientific authorities is this A-sexual Race, the Second, the Fathers of the "Sweat-bom" so-called, and
• Sc« Hibhfri LectHres, 1887. pp. 370 r/ MV7.
t Sepher M'bo Ska-arim, near the exid. IrmngUted by Isaac Myer, Qabbaiah, p, tio.
: Form.
1 Shadow.
UODES OF REPRODUCTION.
12'
*
^
perhaps still more the Third Race, the "Egg-bom" Androg>Ties. These two modes of procreation are the most difficult to compre- hend, especially for the Western mind. It is evident that no expla- nation can be attempted for those who are not students of Occul'. Metaphysics. European language has no words to express things which Nature repeats no more at this stage of evolution, things which therefore can have no meaning for the Materialist. But there are analogies. It is not denied that in the beginning of physical evolution there must have been processes in Nature, spontaneous generation, for instance, now extinct, which are repeated in other forms. Thus we are told that microscopic research shows no per- manence of any particular mode of reproducing life. For it shows that:
The same organum may run through various metamorphoses in the course of its Ulc-cycle, during some of which it may be scxuai^ and in others a-sexual^ i.e., it xnay reproduce itself alternately by the cooperation of two beings of opposite sex, mud also by fissurt: or budding from one being only, which is of no sex.*
"Budding" is the very word used in the Stanza. How could these Chhayas reproduce themselves other^^'ise; viz., procreate the Second Race, since they were ethereal, a-sexual, and even devoid, as yet, of the vehicle of desire, or Kama Rupa, which evolved only in the Third Race? They evolved the Second Race unconsciously, as do some plants. Or, perhaps, as the Amceba, only on a more ethereal, impres- sive, and larger scale. If, indeed, the cell-theory applies equally to Botany and Zoolog>'. and extends to Morphology, as well as to the Physiology of organisms, and if the microscopic cells are looked upon by Physical Science as independent living beings — just as Occultism regards the "Fiery Lives'* — there is no diflficulty in the conception of the primitive process of procreation.
Consider the first stages of the development of a germ-cell. Its nucleus grows, changes, and forms a double cone or spindle, thus, ^ within the cell. This spindle approaches the surface of the cell, and one half of it is extruded in the form of what are called the "polar cells." These polar cells now die, and the embryo develops from the growth and segmentation of the remaining part of the nucleus which is flourished by the substance of the cell. Then why could not beingr have lived thus, and been created in this way — at the very beginning of human and mammalian evolution t
124
THK SECRET DOCTRINE.
This may, perhaps, serve as an analog>" to give some idea of the^, process by which the Second Race was fonned from the First. ^|
The Astral Form clothing the Monad was surrounded, as it still is, by its egg-shaped sphere of Aura, which here corresponds to the substance of the genn-cell or Ovum. The Astral Form itself is the nucleus, now, as then, instinct with the Principle of Life. ^M
When the season of reproduction arrives, the 5w^-astral "extrudes*^^ a miniature of itself from the egg of surrounding Aura. This germ grows and feeds on the Aura till it becomes fully developed, when it gradually separates from its parent, carrying with it its own sphere of Aura; just as we see living cells reproducing their like by growth and subsequent division into two. ^H
The analogy wth the "polar cells" would seem to hold good, sino^^ their death would now correspond to the change introduced by the_ separation of the sexes, when gestation in utero^ i.e., within the became the rule.
As the Commentary tells us:
71i€ early Second [Roof] Race were the Fathers of the ** Sweat- bom^*\ the later Second [Root] Race were ^* Siveai-bom" themselves.
This passage from the Commentary refers to the work of evoluti* from the beginning of a Race to its close. The "Sons of Yoga, the Primitive Astral Race, had seven stages of evolution racially^ collectively; as ever)*" indi\'idual Being in it had, and has now. It not Shakespeare only who divided the ages of man into a series seven, but Nature herself. Thus the first Sub-races of the Seconi Race were born at first by the process described on the law of analo] while the last began gradually, pari passu with the evolution of tl human body, to be formed other\Nnse. The process of reproducti( had seven stages also in each Race, each covering aeons of tira What Physiologist or Biologist can tell whether the present mode of generation, with all its phases of gestation, is older than half a million, or at most one million of years, since their cycle of obsei tion began hardly half a century ago?
Primeval human Hermaphrodites are a fact in Nature well known the Ancients, and form one of Darwin's greatest perplexities. "V there is certainly no impossibilit>% but, on the contrary', a great probi bility that hermaphroditism existed in the evolution of the early Races; while on the grounds of analog^% and on that of the existence of one universal law in physical evolution, acting indifferently in the con-
DARWIN ON ANDROGYNOUS FORMS.
"5
V ttniction of plant, animal, and man, it must be so. The mistaken
■ theories c* Monogenesis. and the descent of man from the mammal. I instead of the mammals from man, are fatal to the completeness oi devolution as taught in modern schools on Darwinian lines, and they Hirili have to be abandoned in view of the insuperable difficulties which ■they encounter. Occult tradition — if the terms Science and Know- Hledge are denied in this particular to Antiquity — can alone reconcile
■ the inconsistencies and fill the gap. Says a Talmudic axiom: r If thou wilt know the invisible, open thine eye* wide on the visible.
h In the Descent of Mail occurs me follo\\*ing passage, which shows how ■near Darwin came to the acceptance of this ancient teaching.
■ It has long been known that in the vertebrate king-lom one sex bears mdiraents
■ of \'&rious accessory parts, appertaining lo the reproductive system, which properly H belong to the opposite sex, . . , Some remote progenitor of the whole vcrte- B braie kingdom appears to have been hermaphrodite or androg>'nou8.* But here we I cncoimter a singular difiSculty. In the mammalian doss ihe males possess rudiments W of a uterus uith Ike adjacent passages in the vcsiatke prostatictr; they bear also rudi-
*fients of mamtne^, and some male marsupials have traces of a marsupial sac. Other analogona facts could be added. Are we. then, to suppose that some extremely udent mauunal continued androgynous, after it had acquired the chief distinc* dons of its class, and therefore after it had diverged from Uie lower classes of the Ttrtebrate kingdom? This seems very improbable, t^/* we have to look to fishes, the lowest of all the classes, to find any still existent andro 0nous fOrms. J
Mr. Darwin is evidently strongly disinclined to adopt the hypothesis which the facts so forcibly suggest, viz., that of a primeval androgynous stem from which the Mammalia -prang. His explanation runs: I
That vajions accessory organs, proper to each sex, are found in a rudimentary con'iition in the opposite sex, may be explained by such organs having been gradu- I ally acquired by the one sex, and then transmitted in a more or less imperfect state lo the other.f
He instances the case of "spurs, plumes, and brilHant colours, acquired for battle or ornament by male birds" and only partialf/f \ inherited by their female descendants. In the problem to be dealt i with, however, the need of a more satisfactory explanation is evident, ihc facts being of so much more prominent and important a character than the mere superficial details with which they are compared by
■ And why not all the progeniUvr Firat Races, httman as welt £i: animal; and why one "reTnoCe pcoteiiitor" i « Otnriotuly so. on Uie lines of B^'Olutioinsm, which traces the Mammalia tu tome amphibian
3 Second Edition, p. i6t. I /H^p.iAa.
126
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Danrin. Why not candidly admit the argument in favou; of tc hermaphroditism which characterizes the old fauna? Occultism pro- poses a solution which embraces the facts in a most comprehensive and simple manner. These relics of a prior androgyne stock must be placed in the same category as the pineal gland, and other organs equally mysterious, which afford us silent testimony as to the reality of functions which have long since become atrophied in the course of animal and human progress, but which once played a signal port in the general economy of primeval life.
The Occult doctrine, in any case, can be advantageously compared with that of the most liberal men of Science, who have theorized upoa the origin of the first man.
Long before Darvvin, Naudin, who gave the name of Blastema to that which the Darwiiiists call Protoplasm, put forward a theory hal Occult and half scientifico-materialistic. He made Adam, the A-sexual, spring suddenly from the clay, as it is called in the BibU, the Blastema of Science. As Naudin explains:
It is from this larval form of mankind, that the evolutive force effected the
pletion of species. For the accomplishment of this great phenomenon, Adam ha4 to pass through a phase of immobility and unconsciousness, very analogous to thi nymphal state of animals undergoing metamorphosis.*
For the eminent Botanist, Adam was not one man, however, btst
mankind, which remained
Concealed within a temporazy organism, already distinct from all others, and itl> capable of contracting an alliance with any of them.
He shows the differentiation of sexes accomplished by
A process of germiuation similar to that of medusce and ascidians.
Mankind, thus constituted physiologically,
Would retain a sufficient evolutive force for the rapid production of the various great human races.
De Quatrefages criticizes this position in Th^ Human Species. It is unscientific, he says, or, properly speaking. Naudin*s ideas "do not form a scientific theory," inasmuch as Primordial Blastema is connected in his theory with the '*firit cause*' which is credited with having made potentially in the Blastema all past, present, and future beings, and thus of having in reality created these beings en masse; moreover, Naudin does not even consider the ** second causes,** or their action in
4
com-
Lha4^H >thc^H
NAUDIN 5 PRIMORDIAL BLASTEMA.
this evolution of the organic world. Science, which is only occupied with "second causes/' has thus
Nothing to say to the theory of M. Naudin.*
Nor will it have any more to say to the Occult teachings, which are to some extent approached by Naudin. For if we but see in his ••Primordial Blastema" the Dhyan-Chohanic Essence, the ChhSya or Double of the Pitris, which contains within itself the potentiality of all forms, we are quite in accord. But there are two real and vital differ- ences between our teachings. M. Naudin declares that evolution has progressed by sudden leaps and bounds, instead of extending slowly over millions of years; and his Primordial Blastema is endowed only with blind instincts — a kind of unconsdmis First Cause in the Manifested Kosmos — which is an absurdity. Whereas it is our Dhyfin-Chohanic Essence — the Causality of the Primal Cause which cvtdX^ physical man — which is the living, active and potential Matter (pregnant per se with that animal consciousness of a superior kind, such as is found in the ant and the beaver) which produces the long series of physiological differentiations. Apart from this, his "ancient and general process of creation*' from Proto-orgauisms is as Occult as any theory of Paracelsus or Kbunrath could be.
Moreover, the Kabalistic works are full of the proof of this. The Zohar, for instance, says that every type in the visible has its prototype in the invisible Universe.
All that which is in the Lower (our) World is found in the Upper. The I/)wer and the Upper act and react upon each other.t
u
20. Their Fathers were the Self-born. The Self-born, the ChhAva from the brilliant Bodies of the Lords, the Fathers, the Sons of Twiught.
The "Shadows/' or ChhSySs, are called the Sons of the "Self-bom/' as the latter name is applied to all the Gods and Beings, born through the Will, whether of Deity or Adept. The Homunculi of Paracelsus would, perhaps, be also given this name, though the latter process is on a far more material plane. The name *'Sons of Twilight" shows that the "Self-bom" Progenitors of our Doctrine are identical Avith the
• fhid., p. 125. + Fol. x86.
y
I3o
THB SECRET DOCTRINE.
Pitris of the Brahmanical System, as the title is a reference ic mode of birth; these Pitris being stated to have issued from Brahmi^i^ "Body of Twilight," as stated in the Purdnas.
21. When the Rack became oi.d, the oi.d Waters mixed
THE FRESHER WATERS (a). WhEN ITS DROPS BECAME TURBID,
vanished and disappeared in the new stream. in the Stream of Life. The Outer op the First became the Ii OF THE Second {b). The old Wing became the new Sh^ and the Shadow of the Wing (r).
(fl) The old or Primitive Race merged in the Second Race, and came one with it.
{6) This is the mysterious process of the transformation and evi tiou of mankind. The material of the first Forms — shadowy, ethei and negative — was drawn or absorbed into, and thus became the plement of the Forms of the Second Race. The Commentan,' expli this by saying that, as the First Race was simply composed of Astral Shadows of the Creative Progenitors, having of course neil astral nor physical bodies of its own — the Race never died. Its "M* melted gradually away, becoming absorbed in the bodies of their "Sweat-born" progeny, more solid than their own. The old F vanished and was absorbed by, disappeared in, the new Form, human and physical. There was no death in those days of a pel more blissful than the Golden Age; but the first, or parent, mateflj was used for the formation of the new being, to form the Body even the inner or lower Principles or Bodies of the progeny.
(r) When the *' Shadow" retires, i.e., when the Astral Body becoi covered with more solid flesh, man develops a Physical Body. "Wing," or the ethereal Form that produced its Shadow and Imj became the Shadow of the Astral Body and its own progeny. Th* expression is queer and original. ■
As there may be no occasion to refer to this mystery later, it is ^ well to point out at once the dual meaning contained in the Gree^ myth bearing upon this particular phase of evolution. It is found J** the several variants of the allegor>' of Leda and her two sons Cast and Pollux, each of which variants has a special meaning. Thus V