SECTION XL

The Mysteries of the HEBDOiMAD.'
Wr must not close this Part on the Symbolism of Archaic History, without an attempt to explain the perpetual recurrence of this truly- mystic number, the Hebdomad, in every scripture known to the Orientalists. As every religion, from the oldest to the latest reveals its presence, and explains it on its own grounds agreeably with its own special dogmas, this is no easy task. We can, therefore, do no better or more explanatory work than to give a bird's-eye view of all. The numbers, 3, 4, 7, are the sacred numbers of Light, Life, and Union — especially in this present Manvantara, our Life-Cycle; of which number seven is the special representative, or the factor number. This has now to be demonstrated.
If one should ask a Brahman learned in the Upanishads^ which are so full of the Secret Wisdom of old, why **he, of whom seven fore- fathers have drunk the juice of the Moon-plant," is Trisuparna, as Bopaveda is credited ^th saying;* and why the Somapa Pitris should be worshipped by the Brihman Trisuparna — very few could answer the question; or, if they knew, they would still less satisfy one's curiosity. Let us, then, hold to what the old Esoteric Doctrine teaches. As says the Commentary:
Whe7i the first Seven appeared on Earthy tkcy threw the seed of every- thitig that grows on the land into the soil. First came Three^ and Four rx^rc added to these as soon as stogie was transformed into plant. Then catne the second Sevcn^ tvho^ guiding the fivas of the plants^ produced the middle [^intervtediate'] 7iatures betweeti plant and moving living animal. The third Seven evolved their Chhayas, . . . The fifth Sevett imprisonedL their Essence. . . . Thus man Became a Saptapama.
I
Viiknu f\trdHa, Wilwni'a Trans., Ul. 174, note by FiUcdward UalL
THE " HIKROGLYPHICAL SKNARY.
625
^^F SAPTAPARNA-
Such is the name given in Occult phraseology to man. It means, as shown elsewhere, a seven-leaved plant, and the name has a great signi- iicance in the Buddhist legends. So it had, also, under disguise, in the Greek myths. The T, or ~j~ (Tau), formed from the figure 7, and the Greek letter r (Gamma), was, as stated in the last Section, the symbol of life, and of Life Eternal: of earthly life, because r (Gamma) is the symbol of the Earth (Gaia)*; and of Life Eternal, because the figure 7 is the symbol of the same life liHk^d with Divine Life, the double glyph expressed in geometrical figures being:
A
D
^a Triangle and a Quaternary, the symbol of Septenary Man.
Now, the number six has been regarded in the Ancient Mysteries as an emblem o^ physical Nature, For six is the representation of the six dimensions of all bodies — the six directions which compose their form^ namely, the four directions extending to the four cardinal points, North, South, East, and West, and the two directions of height and thickness that answer to the Zenith and the Nadir. Therefore, while the Senary was applied by the Sages to physical man, the Septenary was for them the symbol of that man plus his immortal Soul.f
J. M. Ragon gives a ver>' good illustration of the "hieroglyphical senary.'* as he calls our double equilateral triangle.
The hieroglyphical aenar>' is the symbol of the commingling of the philosophical' ihrce firea and three waters, whence results the procreation of the elements of all things. J
The same idea is found in the Indian double equilateral triangle. For, though it is called in that coi^ntry the sign of Vishnu, yet in truth it is thfi symbol of the Triad, or Tri-murti. For, even in the exoteric rendering, the lower triangle, S^, with the apex downwcr.^, is the symbol of Vishnu, the God of the Moist Principle and Water, NflrS- yana being the Moving Principle in the NdrS, or Waters ;§ while the
* Hence the Inttiates In Greece called Uie Tau FcuiTtoc, "son of GaU," "sprung- from Btstb," lUce Tltyos in the Odyiiey (viL 314I.
t Ka^on, Orthodoxie Mafonnique, etc., pp. 432, 435.
t Ibid., p, 4X1, note.
I Sec the MaMAbkiirata, e^., III. 189, 3, where Vishnu says, "I called the uamc of water Nlr4 in ancient times, and am hence called Nir&yana, for that was always the ahodc t morcd in (.A.yana|." It is into the Water, or Chaos, the "Moist Principle" of the Greeks and Hermes, that the first seed of Uie L'uiversr is thrown. "The 'Spirit of God' moves on the dark waters of Space"; hence ThalCS makta of it the primordial element and prior to Fire, which was yet Uteat ia that Spiht.
THE SBCRET DOCTRINE.
triangle, with its apex upward, ^^, is Shiva, the Principle of Fire. symbolized by the triple flame in his hand.* It is these two inter- laced triangles, wrongly called "Solomon's Seal" — ^which also form the emblem of our Society — that produce the Septenary and the Triad at one and the same time, and are the Decad. Whatever way this S^ is examined, all the ten numbers are contained therein. For with a point in the middle or centre, jJS, it is a sevmfold sign or Septenary; its triangles denote number three, or the Triad; the two triangles show the presence of the Binary; the triangles with the central point common to both yield the Quaternary; the six points are the Senary; and the central point, the Unit; the Quinary being traced by combination, as a compound of two triangles, the even number, and of three sides in each triangle^ the first odd number. This is the reason why Pythagoras and the ancients made the number six sacred to Venus, since:
The union of the two sexes, and the spagyrization of matter by triads, aie necessary to develop the generative force, that prolific virtue and tendency lo reproduction which is inherent in all bodics.t
Belief in "Creators/' or the personified Powers of Nature, is in truth no polytheism, but a philosophical necessity. Like all the other Planets of our system, the Earth has seven Logoi — the emanating Rays of the one *' Father- Ray" — the Protogonos, or the Manifested Logos, he who sacrifices his Esse (or "Flesh," the Universe) that the World may live and every creature therein have conscious being.
Numbers 3 and 4 are respectively male and female. Spirit and Matter, and their union is the emblem of Life Eternal in Spirit on its asceudiug arc. and in Matter as the ever resurrecting Element — by procreation and reproduction. The spiritual male line is vertical j ; the differen^j tiated matter-line is horizontal; the two forming the cross or -|-. Tl^H 3 is invisible; the 4 is on the plane of objective perception. This i^" why all the Matter of the Universe, when analyzed to its ultimates by Science, can be reduced to four Elements only — Carbon, Oxygen, Nitro- gen, and Hydrogen; and why the three primaries, the noumena of the four, or graduated Spirit or Force, have remained a tetya incognita^ and mere speculations, mere names, to exact Science. Her servants must believe in and study first the primary causes, before they can hope to fathom the nature, and acquaint themselves with the potentialities, of
* See Che bitmzc' statue of Tripurintalui Sblva, "Mahidev» dcaUoyitLg^ Tripar^un," at Museum of the ladla House, f Ksfuu, iftid., p. 433, note.
SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL CORRESPONDENCES.
627
the effects. Thus, while the men of Western learning had, and still have, the four, or Matter, to toy with, the Eastern Occultists and their disciples, the great Alchemists the world over, have the whole septenate to study from.* As those Alchemists have it:
WArn the Three and the Four kiss each other, the Quaternary joins its middle stature with that of the Triangle [or Triads i.e., the face of one of its plane surfaces decoming the middle face of the other], and becomes a Cube ; then 07ily does it [M Life^ the Father-Mother Sevett,
The following diag^m will perhaps assist the student to grasp these parallelisms.
3.
Human Principlbs.
Atm&.
Buddhi.
Mauas.
KAma Rupa; the principle of ^ animal desire, which bams j fiercely daring life in Mat- ter, resultinff in satiety; is inseparable from animal existence.
limal I
LingaSharira;theinertvehicle \ or form on which the body is moulded; the vehicleof Life. It is dissipated very shortly after the disintegration of the body.
PrAna; Life, the active power producing all vital pheno- mena.
The jjross matter of the body the substance formed and moulded over the Linga Sharira (Chh&yA) by the action of Prdna.
0
P&iNciPi,Bs OK Physical Nature.
The lightest of all gaaes; it bums in Oxygen giving off the most intense heat of any substance in HVDROGBN the most stable of compounds; Hydrogen enters largely into all organic compounds.
An inert gas; the vehicle with which Oxygen is mixed to adapt the latter for animal respiration; it also enters largely into all organic substances.
NITROOBN
OXYGEN
CARBON
The supporter of combustion; the- life-giving gas, the active chemi- cal agent in all organic life.
The fuel par excellence ; the basis of all organic substances, the (chemical) element which forms the largest variety of com- pounds.
■ There arc learned Br*hmans who have protested airainst oar acpteaary divinon. They are ri^k from their own iitand{>oint. as wc are right from ours. T>»ving the three aspects, or adjuuti principUx out of calculation, they accept only four Upidfais, or Bases. Including Uie Ego— the rcflertcd image of the I^gos in the Kirana Sharira— and even "stricUy spealdng . . . only three Upidhls." For purely theoretical metaphysical philosophy, or purposes of meditation. Ihrse three may be sufficient, as shown by the Taraka Yoga system: but foe praciicai occult teaching our septenary division IS the best and easiest. U is, however, a matter of school and choice.
638 THE SECRET DOCTRINE. ^^^^^™
l^'ow we are taught that all these earliest forms of organic life also appear in septenary groups of numbers. From minerals or **soft stones that hardened," to use the phraseology of the Stanzas, followed by the "hard plants that softened," which are the product of the mineral, for '*it is from the bosom of the stone that vegetation is bom";* and then to man — all the primitive models in every kingdom of Nature begin by being ethereal, transparent, films. This, of course, takes place only in the first beginning of life. With the next period they consolidate, and at the seventh begin to branch ofif into species, aii except men^ the first of the mammalian animalsf in the Fourth Round.
Virgil, versed as every ancient poet was, more or less, in Esoteric Philosophy^ sang of evolution in the following strains:
Principio caelutn ac terras camposque liquefites LaccDtemque globum Lunae, Titaoiaqae astra Spiritus intus alit, totamqtic infusa per artns Mens agitat molem et maRno se corpore tniscet Inde homiaum pecudumque genus vitaeque volautum Et quae mannoreo fcrt monslra sub squore pontas.J
' "First came three, or the Triangle." This expression has a pro- found meaning in Occultism, and the fact is corroborated, in Minera- logy, Botany, and even in Geology — as has been demonstrated in the Section on "The Chronolog>' of the Brdhmans" — by the compound number seven, the three and the four, being contained in it. Salt in solution proves this. For when its molecules, clustering together, begin to deposit themselves as a solid, the first shape they assume is that of triangles, of small pyramids and cones. It is the figure of Fire, whence the word *'Pyramis"; while the second geometrical
■ Commmtmy, Book U. P. 19.
* I'TOtUta un not antnmlB. The re«der is asked to bear in mind that when we >peak of *' animals." tb* niAmiualiaii* aloiif are meant. Cmatncea, fishes, and reptile* ore contemporary with, and most haw pr^cded, ^A>ii;rtf/ man in this Hound. Ail were bi-sexual. however, before the agv of mam- malia til the c\Q•\t\^ portion of the Secondary or Mcaozoic ages, yei nearer to ike /Wtroxoic tkam tJU O9n»M0U agtt. Amaller marsupUl roammalin are contemporary with the huge reptiliau mon»ter& of tkr ecModary.
I ^m*id, i4. 7f plalna. Ihr monn's orb and shining stars and the [Eternal] Mind diffused thrangrh all the porta [of Ktturt], adual^a the whole stupendous frame and mingles with the rast body [of the rni vrrsrl. Thence proceed Mr race of men and beasts, the vitai prxncipttx of the flying kind and ihc mniiatrrs which the Ocean breeds under its smooth crystal plane." "All proceeds from Kther and from ita irvcn natum"— ««id the Alchemists. Science knows these only in their supcrficiAl effect*.
i
THH THKOGONTC KEY
6a9
figure in manifested Nature is a Square or a Cube, 4 and 6; for, as Enfield says, "the particles of earth being cubical, those of fire are pyramidal " — truly. The pyramidal shape is that assumed by the pines — the most primitive tree after the fern period. Thus the two opposites in cosmic Nature — fire and water, heat and cold — begin their metrographical manifestations, one by a trimetric, the other by a hexagonal system. For the stellate crystals of snow, viewed under a microscope, are all and each of them a double or a treble six-pointed star, with a central nucleus, like a miniature star within the larger one. Says Mr. Darwin — show- ing that the inhabitants of the sea-shore are greatly affected by the tides:
The most ancient progenitors in the kingdom of the Vertebrata . . . appa- rently consisted of a group of marine animals. . . . Animals living either about the nieafi high-water mark, or about the tnean. low>water mark, pass through a complete cycle of tidal changes in a fortnight- . . . Now it is a mysterious fact that in the higher and now terrestrial Vertebrata . . . many normal and ab- normal processes have one or more weeks [septenates] as their periods , . , such as gestation of mammals> the duration of fevers.*
The eggs of the pigeon are hatched in two weeks [or 14 days]; those of the fowl in three; those of the duck iu four; those of the goose in five; and those of thr ostrich in seven. t
This number is closely connected with the Moon, whose Occult influence is ever manifesting itself in septenary periods. It is the Moon v/hich is the guide of the Occult side of terrestrial Nature, while the Sun is the regulator and factor of manifested life. This truth has ever been evident to the Seers and the Adepts. Jakob Bohme, by insisting on the fundamental doctrine of the seven proper- ties of everlasting Mother Nature, proved himself thereby a great Occultist.
But to return to the consideration of the septenary in ancient reli- gious symbolism. To the metrological key of the symbolism of the Hebrews, which reveals numerically the geometrical relations of the Circle (All-Deity) to the Square, Cube, Triangle, and all the integral emanations of the divine area, may be added the theogonic key. This key explains that Noah, the Deluge-Patriarch, is in one aspect the permutation of the Deity (the Universal Creative Law), for the purpose
* Compare Detant of Man, p. 164.
-f BartleU's Land and Wikttr,
J
630
THB SECRET DOCTRINE.
of the formation of our Earth, its population, and the propagation life on it, in general.
Now bearing in mind the septenan' division in divine Hierarchies, as in cosmic and human constitutions, the student will readily understand that Jah-Noah is at the head of, and is the synthesis of the lower cosmic Quaternary. The upper Sephirothal Triad, /\ — of which Jehovah-Binah (Intelligence) is the left, female, angle — emanates the Quaternary. Q]. The latter, symbolizing by itself the Heavenly Man, the sexless Adam Kadmon, viewed as Nature in the abstract, becomes a septenate again by emanating from itself the additional three principles, the lower terrestrial or manifested physical Nature, Matter and our Earth — the seventh being Malkuth, the "Bride of the Heavenly Man" — thus forming, with the higher Triad, or Kether, the Crown, the full number of the Sephirothal Tree — the 10, the Total in Unity, or the Universe. Apart from the higher Triad, the lower creative Sephiroth are seven.
The above is not directly to our point, though it is a necessary reminder to facilitate the comprehension of what follows. The question at issue is to show that Jah-Noah, or the Jehovah of the Hebrew Bible^ the alleged Creator of our Earth, of man and all upon it, is:
{a) The lowest Septenary, the Creative Blohim — in his costnic aspect.
{b) The Tetragrammaton or the Adam Kadmon, the "Heavenly Man*' of the four letters — in his theogonic and kabalistic as- pects.
(c) The Noah — identical with the Hindu Shishta, tlie human Seed* left for the peopling of the Earth from a previous creation, or Manvan- tara, as expressed in the Punhras, or the pre-diluvian period as rendered alltrgorically in the Bib/e — in his cosmic character- But whether a Quateruar>' (Tetragrammaton) or a Triad, the biblical Creative God is not the Universal 10, unless blended with Ain Supfa (as Brahma with Parabraliman), but a septenar>', one of the many septenaries of the Universal Septenate. In the explanation of the question now in hand, his position and status as Noah may best be :jhown by placing the 3. ^, and 4, Q, on parallel lines with the cosmic and human principles. For the latter, the old familiar classifi- cation is made use of. Thus:
NOAH IN A NEW DRESS.
631
HtJMAN Aspects, or Principles.
1. Universal Spirit {Atmi). \
2. Spiritual Soul (Buddhi). f
3. HnmanSuul.Miud (Manas), i
Triple aspect
the Deity. \ 3.
Cosuic Aspects, or
Principles.
1. The Unmanifested Logos.
2. Universal Latent Ideation." Universal (or Cosmic) Ac- live t Intelligence.
4. Animal Soul (Kflma Rfipa). \ Spirit of the / 4- Cosmic (Chaotic) Energy.
j Earth. Jehovah4[ $. Aatral Body{LingaSharira). / Koah. I 5. Astral Ideation, reflecting
f J terrestrial things.
6. Life Essence (PrAna). f Space containing J 6. Life Essence or Energy.
1 Life— the Waters/ I of the Deluge, I
7. Body (Sthflla Sharira). / Mount Araratf \ 7. The Earth.
As an additional demonstration of the statement. let the reader turn to kabalistic works.
"Ararat = ihe mount of descent = Tl-^^n, Hor-Jared, Hatho mentions it out of composition by Araih ~ mM. Editor of Moses Cherenensis says: 'By this, they say, is signified the first place of descent (of the ark).*" (Bryant's Anat., vol. iv. pp. 5, 6, 15.) Under "Berge" tnountain, Nork. says of Ararat: "£5"nH, for mM {i.e.^ Ararat for Arath) earthy Aramaic reduplication," Here it is seen that
• Tbe Advftitlii Vedidtic Philosophy clsisaifies this as the higrheat Triaity. or rather the THniUrian aspect of Chinm^tra (Parabrahman); explained by them as the "Bare Potentiality of Prajnl," the power or the capacity that gives rise to perception; ChldiUsbnin, the infiaite field or plane of Univerftal Consciousness; and Arat (M&lBprakriti), or Undifferentiated Matter. (See "Perflonal and Imperaonal God" tn Five Years of Theosopky, p. joj.)
t Diffierentititcd Matter existing in the SoUr S>'Stcni— let us refrain from touching: the whole Koamos— in seven different conditions, and PrajnA. or the capacity of perception, existinfir likewise in seven di0erent aspects correspondicgr to the seven conditions of Matter, there must necessarily be seven states of consciDuaneas in man: and according: to the greater or amaUer development of these states, the systems of religions and philosophies were schemed out.
t Represented as the jealous, angry, turbulent and ever-active God, revengeful, and kind only to his "chosen people" when propitiated by them.
\ Noah and his three Sons arc the collective symbol of this Quaternary in many and various appU- cations. Ham being the Chaotic principle.
THE SECRET I>OCTRIXE.
Nork and Hatho make use of the same equivalent, in Arath. &*1M, with the meao- ing of earth.*
Noah thus symbolizing both the Root-Manu and the Seed-Manti, or the Power which developed the Planetary Chain, and our Earth, and the Seed-Race, the Fifth, which was saved while the last sub-races of the Fourth, Vaivasvata Manu, perished, the number seven will be seen to recur at every step. It is Noah who, as Jehovah's permutation, repre- sents the septenary Host of the Etohim, and is thus the Father or Creator (the Preserver) of all animal life. Hence the verses of Genesis: *'Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male [3], and the female [4] ; of fowls also of the air by sevens/'f etc., followed by all the sevening of days and the rest.
B. THE TETRAKTYS IN RELATION TO THE HEPTAGON,
Thus number seven, as a compound of 3 and 4, is the factor element in every ancient religion, because it is ihe faclor element in Nature. Its adoption must be justified, and it must be shown to be ihe number ^r excellefice, for, since the appearance of Esoteric Buddhism, frequent objections have been made, and doubts expressed as to the correctness of these assertions.
And here let the student be told at once, that in all such numerical divisions the One universal Principle — although referred to as (the) one. because the Only One — never enters into the calculations. It stands, in its character of the Absolute, the lufinite, and the Universal Abstrac- tion, entirely by Itself and independent of every other Power whether noumenal or phenomenal. Says the author of the article "Personal and Impersonal God":
* Somftf 9f Measuwett p. 65. The anthor crpUiiis: "Note that in Hebivw, Jartd, the father of Ranch, ift coustrued to Xx'Uu miomnt of lUseeiU,' and it ta *aid to be the aamr with Ararat, oe iHskh Ihf cuMcnl Atnicturc of IVoah, or foundation measure, rested. Jared, in Hebrew, is TT^, The root drrivnlioiiN are the samr with those of Arurai, of acrf, ot earth. The Hebrew TT^ ia iiitfmt/^. Iff ihiliiA, V K 1); hmcr, in Jared. is to be found hterally, our Eng'liah word jwrrf tand alio *Tl^ r»i y It U mn\'\ of lilm, hy rabbinical commeotatora, that the year period of 365 dayh was discorcred by^ bliii, Ibtii brtnffliif;, n^ln, time and disiamce values together, ij., year time deacended. by coQrdina- 11(111, IhiMUgli tlie yatd, or Jartd, who thus imu tts father, in or through Enoch : and truly ^noagh, iivn- .»irri^(tir .fated) x 4 -' ^164, the characterijtk Taloeof the volnrday. in Mirrfr, which, as ttaled,. liiNv Im' Alyl'il thr f^itttml. nmmeticaih. of the solar year" {tbid,). Tfat&, however, by the astraaomical mitl ituiiirtlinl kabAlUtlc method*. Bsotcrically. Jared is the Third Race and Enoch the Fourth— but tia hf In takrn nway nllve he KyroboHses also the Elect saved in the Fourth, while Noah is the Fifth ttww Ui« brgtiiuinjr—the niuiily aared from the Waters, eternally msiii physically.
t vU. I. 3,
4
THE ROOTS OF THINGS.
This entity is neither matter nor spirit ; it is neither Ego nor non-Ego; , and it is neither object nor subject.
In the language of Hindfl philosophers it is the original and eternal combination of Purusha [Spirit] and Prakriti [Matter]. As the Advaitls hold that an external object is merely the product of our mental states, Praknti is nothing more than illusion, and Puruaha is the only reality; it is the one existence which remains in the universe of Ideas. This . . . then, is the Parabrahman of the Advaitis. Even if there were to be a personal God with anything like a material UpAdhi (physical basis of whatever form), from the standpoint of an Advaiti there will be as much reason to doubt his noumenal existence, as there would be in the case of any other object. In their opiuion, a conscious God cannot be the origin of the universe, as his Ego would be the effect of a previous cause, if the word conscious conveys but its ordinary meaning. They cannot admit that the grand total of all the states cf consciousness in the universe is their deity, as these states are constantly changing, and OS cosmic idealism ceases during Pralaya. There is only one permanent con- dition in the Universe, which is the state of perfect unconsciousness, bare Chid- Ak&sham (the field of consciousness) in fact.
When my readersonce realize the fact that this grand universe is in reality but a huge aggregation of various states of consciousness, they will not be surprised to find that the ultimate state of unconsciousness is considered as Parabrahman by the Advaitis.*
Although itself entirely out of huuiau reckoning or calculation, yet this *'huge aggregation of various states of consciousness" is a sep- tenatc, in its totality entirely composed of septenary groups — simply because "the capacity of perception exists in seven different aspects corres- ponding to the seven conditions of matter"^ or the seven properties, or states of matter. And, therefore, the series from one to seven, begins in the Esoteric calculations with the first manifested principle, which is number one if we commence from above, and number seven when reckoning from below, or from the lowest principle.
The Tetrad is esteemed in the Kabalak^ as it was by Pythagoras, the most perfect, or rather sacred number, because it emanated from the One, the first manifested Unit, or rather the Three in One. And the latter has ever been impersonal, sexless, incomprehensible, thougb within the possibilit>' of the higher mental perceptions.
The first manifestation of the eternal Monad was never meant to stand as the symbol of another symbol, the Unborn for the Element- bom, or the one Logos for the Heavenly Man. Tetragrammaton, or the Tetraktys of the Greeks, is the Second Logos, the Demiurgos.
The Tetrad, as Thomas Taylor thinks, is, however, the anitnal itself of Plato who, as Syrianus justly observes, was the best of the Pythagoreans ; subsists at the extremity of the intelligible triad, as is most satisfactorily shown by Proclus in tue
• Fivt Ytars of TKeosophy, pp. toa, aoj.
t Und,, p. »oo.
«M
THH SECRET DOCTRIXB.
third book of hu treatise on the theology of Plato. And between these two triads [the doable triangle^ the one intelligible, and the other intellectoal. another order of gods exists, vhich partakes of both extremes* . . .
The Pythagorean world, according to Plutarch,! consisted of a dcuhU guatemary.
This statement corroborates what is said about the choice, by the exoteric theologies, of the iow^ Tetraktys. For:
The quaternary of the intellectoal world [the world of Mahat] is TAgathon, Nona, Psyche, Hyle ; while that of the sensible world [of Matter], which i* properly what Pythagoras meant by the word Koamos, is Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, The four elements are c&Ued by the name of rhizdmala, the roots or principles of all ntixfd bodies.X
That is to say, the lower Tetrakt\-s is the root of illusitm, of the World of Matter; and this is the Tetragrammalon of the Jews, and the •'naystc- lious deit>%" over which the modem Kabalists make such a fuss !
This number [four] forms the arithmetical mean between the monad and the heptad ; and this comprehends all powers, both of the productive and produced numbers; for this, of all numbers under ten, is made of a certain numtier; the dusd doubled makes a tetrad, and the tetrad doubled [or unfolded] makes the heb> domad [the septenan]. Two multiplied into itself produces four: and retorted into itself makes the first cube. This first cube is a fertile number, the ground of multitude and variety, constituted of two and four [depending on the monad, the S€venth\. Thus the two principles of temporal things, the pyramis and cube, form and matter, flow from one fountain, the tetragon [on earth, the monad, in heaven) \
Here Reuchlin. the great authorit>' on the h'atalah, shows the cube to be "matter," whereas the pyramid or the triad is ''form." With the Hermesiaus the number four becomes the symbol of truth only when amplified into a cube, which, unfolded, makes seven, as symbolizing the male and female elements and the element of Life.!
* Oliver's fytAajcreaM TH*m^, p. 104.
♦ He Amim. Ptoer., io«7. t Oliver, ittd., p. lit.
I Reuchlin » CabaU. 1. li; Oliver. I'^i^.. p. 104.
II Xn Tkt Source a/Mfosum, thr nalhor shows (pp. 50, 5O that the figure of the cube unfolded in cannecUon with the circle " becomes ... a erou proptr, or of the t^m form, and the attacbmcnt of the cirrle to this last ^\-es the anstUtdoou of the BSTptiana. . . . While there are but 6 faces to a cube, the representntion of the cross as the cube anfolded. as to the crow-bar*, displays one face THE Cuas of the cube as cewtmtam to two ^ars, coooted as bclonriog to either [!>., once cottgled VifpOLDaD. horixonially, and once verlicaQyl; ... 4 for the upright, and 3 for the craas-bar.
■n making te^en in alt. Here we have the farnous 4 and 3 and 7." Rso4eric Phtlosoplij^
—r jii^ ^ explains that /our is the symbol of the Universe m its potential aute. or Chaotic L_ _ J Matter, snd that it requires Spirit to permeate it actively; i^., the primonlial ahjtr^aci Triangle has to quit iu oDe-dimensional quality and spread acroas that Matter, thns forming a mani/(tU4 basis on the three -dimensional S|)acc. in order that the t'niverw should manifest intelligibly. This is achieved by the cutie unfoMed. Rmce the
9 as the s^^bol of man. generation and life. Tn Egypt Ank aig:ni5cd "soul," " life " It
I
AMMtt^ cross and "blood.
is the enMvUd, Irving man, the septenary.
THE "VOICE OF NATtJRE.
635
Some students have been puzzled to account for the vertical line,* which is male, becoming, in the cross, a four-partitioned line {four being a female number), while the horizontal (the line of matter) becomes three-divisioned. But this is easf of explanation. Since the middle face of the "cube unfolded" is cofnmon to both the vertical and the horizontal bar, or double-Hue, it becomes neutral ground so to say. aud belongs to neither. The spirit line remains triadic, and the matter line two-fold — two being an even and therefore a female number also. Moreover, according to Theon in his Afathemaiica, the P>'thagoreans, who gave the name of Harmony to the Tetraktys, "because it is a diatessaron in sesquitertia/* were of opinion that:
The division of the canon of the nionochord was made by the tetraktys in the dnad, triad, and tetrad; for it comprehends a sesquitertia, a sesquialtera, a duple, a triple, and a quadruple proportion, the section of which is 37. In the ancient musical notation, the tetrachord consisted of three degrees or intervals, and four terms of sounds called by the Greeks diatessaron, and by us a fourth.t
Moreover, the quatemar>' though an even, therefore a female ("in- femal") number, varied according to its form. This is shown by Stanley.^ The four was called by the Pythagoreans the Key- Keeper of Nature; but in union with the three, which made it seven, it became the most perfect and harmonious number — nature herself. The four was *'the masculine of feminine form," when forming the cross; and seven is the "Master of the Moon," for this Planet is forced to alter her appearance ever>' seven days. It is on number seven that Pytha- goras composed his doctrine on the Harmony and Music of the Spheres, calling a "tone" the distance of the Moon from the Earth; from the Moon to Mercury half a tone, from thence to Venus the same; from Venus to the Sun one and a half tones; from the Sun to Mars a tone; from thence to Jupiter half a tone; from Jupiter to Saturn half a tone; and thence to the Zodiac a tone; thus making seven tones — the diapason harmony. § All the melody of Nature is in those seven tones, and therefore is called the '* Voice of Nature."
Plutarch explains !| that the most ancient Greeks regarded the Tetrad as the root and principle of all things, since it was the number of the elements which gave birth to all visible and invisible created things.K
* Supra, p. 626.
♦ Oliver, ibid., p. 114- % Pyikag., p. 61.
\ Oliver, (*«/., p. 172. It Dt Ptac. /iiiL,p.&j8. 11 SeeOliwer. ibid., p. 106.
636
THB SECRET DOCTRINE.
With the brothers of the Rosy Cross, the figure of the cross, or atSe unfolded, formed the subject of a disquisition in one of the Theosophic degrees of Peu\Tet, and was treated according to the fundamental^ principles of light and darkness, or good and coil*
The intelliifible world proceeds out of the divine mind [or nnit] after this manner. The Tetraktys, reflecting upon its own essence, the fint unit, productrix of all things, and on its own beginning, saith thus: Once one, twice two, imme* diately arisetb a tetrad, having on its top the highest unit, and bccotms a f^ymmii. whose base is a plain tetrad, answerable to a superficies, upon which the radiant light of the divine unity produceth the form of incorporeal fire, by reason of the descent of Juno (matter) to inferior things. Hence ariseth essential light, not burning but illuminating. This is the creation of the middle worlds which the Hebrews call the Supreme, the world of the [their] deity. It is termed Olympus. entirely light, and replete with separate forms, where is the seat of the immortal gods, dfum domus alia, whose top is unity, its wall trinity, and its superficies guaicmily. t
The "superficies" has thus to remain a meaningUss surface^ if left by itself Unity only "illuminating" quatemity, the famous lower four has to build for itself also a wall from Irinityt if it would be manifested. Moreover, the Tetragrammaton, or Microprosopus, is "Jehovah" arro- gating to himself very improperly the "Was, Is, Will Be," now trans- lated into the "I am that I am," and interpreted as referring to the highest abstract Deity; while Esoterically and in plain truth, it means only periodically chaotic, turbulent, and eternal Matter, with all its potentialities. For the Tetragrammaton is one with Nature, or Isis, and is the exoteric series of androg>'ne Gods such as Osiris-Isis» Jove- Juno, BrahmS-Vach, or the Kabahstic Jah-Hovah; all male-females. Every anthropomorphic God, in old nations, as Marcellus Ficin well observed, has his name written with four letters. Thus with the Egyptians, he was Teut; the Arabs, Alia; the Persians, Sire; the Magi, Orsi; the Mahometans, Abdi; the Greeks, Teos; the ancient Turks, Esar; the Latins, Deus; to which John Lorenzo Anauia adds the German Gott; the Sarmatiau Bouh; etcj
The Monad being one, and an odd number, the Ancients therefore said that the odd were the only perfect numbers; and — selfishly, per- haps, yet as a fact^-considered them all as masculine and perfect, being applicable to the celestial Gods, while even numbers, such as two, four, six, and especially eight, as being female, were regarded as imperfect and given only to the terrestrial and infernal Deities. Virgil records
* /Mtf., p. loB. t Reuchlin, m/ tupra, p. 689; Oliver, ibid,, pp. lis, 113. % Oliver, ^id,, p. »&.
T*HE SEPTENARY DEMONSTRATED. 637
the fact by saying, ''Nutncro deus imparc gandet.'' "The God is pleased with an odd number."*
But number seven^ or the Heptagon, the P>lhagoreans considered to be a religious and perfect number. It was called Telesphoros, because by it all in the Universe and mankind is led to its aid, i.e., its culmination. f The doctrine of the Spheres ruled by the seven Sacred Planets J shows, from Lemuria to Pythagoras, the seven Powers of terrestrial and sublunary Nature, as well as the sex*en g^eat Forces of the Universe, proceeding and '
evolving in seven tones, which are the seven notes of the musical scale.
The Heptad [our Septenary] was considered to be the number of a virgin^ because it is unborn [like the Logos or the Aja of the Vedintins] : ]
Without a father ... or a mother, . . , but proceeding directly from ihc monad, which is the origia and crown of aU things. $ i
And if the Heptad is made to proceed from the Monad directly, then {
it is, as taught in the Secret Doctrine of the oldest schools, the perfect I
and sacred number of this Mahdmanvantara of ours. ]
The Septenary, or Heptad, was sacred indeed to several Gods and |
Goddesses ; to Mars, with his seven attendants, to Osiris, whose body was i
divided into seven and twice seven parts ; to Apollo, the Sun, amid his i
seven planets, and playing the hymn to the seven-rayed on his seven- I
stringed harp : to Minerva, the fatherless and the motherless, and others.|| j
Cis-Himalayan Occultism -with its seveuing, and because of such \
sevening, mu.st be regarded as the most ancient, the original of all. I
It is opposed by some fragments left by Neo-Platonists; and the |
admirers of the latter, who hardly understand what they defend, say j
to us: See, your forerunners believed only in triple m^n^ composed of '
Spirit, Soul, and Body. Behold, the TSraka Raja Yoga of India limits 1
that di\'ision to 3, we, to 4, and the Vedantins to 5 (Koshas). To this, ,
we of the Archaic school ask : I
Why then does the Greek poet say that it is not four but seven who i
sing the praise of the Spiritual Sun? j
*ETTa ft.€ K.T.X. li
Seven sounding letters sing the praise of me, |
The immortal God, the almighty Deity. V
• Bucotiea. Eel. viil. 75.
T Philo, Dt Mund. Dpi/- ; Oliver, ibid., p. 17a.
} The seven Planets are not hmitcd to this number because the Aodenta knew of no otben, bnt simply becsuite they were the prinUtiTe or primordial "Houses " of the seven IvO^. There may be nine and ninely-niue other planets discovered— this does not alter the fact of these seven alone bein? Mcred.
I Oli^xr, ibid., pp. 173, 174.
It Ibid., ha. cit.
638
THE SKCRBT OOCTRINB.
I
4
Why again is the triune lao, the Mystery God, called the "fourfold and yet the triadic and tetradic symbols come under one unified name with the Christians — the Jehovah of the seven letters? Why again in the Hebrew ShebS is the Oath (the Pythagorean Tetraktys) identical with number 7? Or, as Mr. Gerald Massey has it:
Taking an oath was synonymous with "to seven.** and the to expresoed by letter Jod, was the Aill number of lao-Sabaoth [—the ten-lettered God].*
In Lucian's Auction:
Pjrthagoraa aaks, "How do you reckon?" The reply is, "One, Two, Thwt, Pour." Then Pythngoras snys, "Do you see? In zvfiat yoit concave Four there tn Ten, a perfect TriangU and our Oath [Tetruktys, Four! — or Seven in aU3."t
Why again does Proclus say:
The Father of the golden verses celebrates the Tetraktys as the fonntain oT perenuial nature ?t
Simply because those Western fCabalists who quote the cxotfrii proofs against us have no idea of the real Esoteric meaning. All the ancient Cosmologies — the oldest Cosmographies of the two most ancient people of the Fifth Root-Race, the Hindu Aryans and the Egyptians^ together with the early Chinese races, the remnants of the Fourth or Atlanlean Race — based the whole of their Mysteries on number lo; the higher Triangle standing for the invisible and meta- physical World, the lower three and four, or the Septenate, for the physical Realm. It is not the Jewish Bible that brought number seven into prominence. Hesiod used the words, "the seventh is the sacred day," before the Sabbath of "Moses** was ever heard of. The use of number seven was never confined to any one nation. This is well testified by the seven vases in the Temple of the Sun. near the ruins of Babian in Upper Egypt; the seven fires burning continually for ages before the altars of Mithra; the seven holy fanes of the Arabians; the seven peninsulas, the seven islands, seven seas, mountains, and rivers of India; and of the Zohar; the Jewish Sephiroth of the seven splendours; the seven Gothic deities; the seven worlds of the Chal- dseans and iheir seven Spirits; the seven constellations mentioned by Hesiod and Homer; and all the interminable sevens which t Orientalists find in every MS. they discover.^
What we have to say finally is this: Enough has been brought fbr^vard to show why the human principles were and are divided in the Esoteric Schools into seven. Make it four and it will either leave man
■ !%• N^tm^ Gmkui»^ L ms- f IkO- % In 7>'«ur»j, tU. ; ibid. \ Oliver, ibid., p. i;^
PROOFS FROM A GNOSTIC GOSPBL.
639
tjwttj bis lower terrestrial elements, or, if viewed from a physical stand- point, make of him a soulless animal. The Quaternary must be the higher or the lower — the celestial or terrestrial Tetraktys; to become comprehensible, according to the teachings of the ancient Esoteric School, man must be regarded as a septenar>'. This was so well understood, that even the so-called Christian Gnostics adopted this time-honoured system.* This remained for a long time a secret, for though it was suspected, no MSS. of that time spoke of it clearly enough to satisfy the sceptic. But there comes to our rescue the literary curiosity of our age — the oldest and best preserved Gospel of the Gnostics. Pistis Sophia. To make the proof absolutely complete, we shall quote from an authority, C. W. King, the only Archseologist who has had a faint glimmer of this elaborate doctrine, and the best writer of the day on the Gnostics and their gems.
According to this extraordinary piece of religious literature — a true Gnostic fossil — the human Entity is the Septenary Ray from the One.f just as our School teaches. It is composed of seven elements, four of which are borrowed from the four kabalistical manifested worlds. Thus :
From Asioli it gets the Nephesh, or scat of the physical appetites [rital breath, also]: from Jezirab, the Ruach, or »eat of the passions [f !]; from Briah. the Keshamah or reason; and from Aziluth it obtains the Chaiah, or principle of spiritual life. This looks like an adaptation of the Platonic theory of the Soul's obtaining its respective faculties from the Planets in its downward progress through their spheres. But the Pis lis- Sophia, with its accustomed boldness, puts this theory into a much more poetical shape {\ 382). The iHner Man is similarly made up of four constituents, hul ihfse are supplied by ifie rebellious JEons of the Spheres, being the Power— a. particle of the Divine light ("Divinae particula aurae") yet left in Uiemselves; the Soul [the fifth] "formed out of the tears of their eyes, and the sweat of their torments" ; the 'KvrniXfiQv IlvfuftaTos, Counierfeil of the Spirit (seem- ingly answering to our Comcience) \the sixihY, hnd lastly the Mr.rpa, FaUX [Karmic
* See Section P., in/ra^ " The Seven SouU of the K^yptologists."
♦ The Seven Centre* of Kncrgy evolved, or rendered objeclivc by Ihe BCtion of Pohnt upon the On* Klcntenl: or, in fact, the "i^vetUh Principle" of the Seven Klcmenls which exist throughout mani- fested Ko«nio«. We may here point out that they are in truth the Sepliiroth of the Kabaliftts ; the " bc^'en frif^ of the Holy Gho-it " in IheChristlaa system : and in a mystical »ense, the Mvcn chtldrci) or of these. We have to part or seporatc from them iK-fore we reach the Krishna or Christ-alate, that of a Jtvanmukta, and centre ounelvcs entirely in the highest, the Seventh or the One.
t Moipa U destiny, not "Pate," in this esse, as it ia an appeUation, nol a proper nmm. (See Wolf's trmnal., Odyssey, xxii. 413.) But Moira, the Ooddesa of Pale, is 11 deity who, like ATtra, gives f air thtir portton qf good and rviHlAAAtW and Scott's Lexicon), and is therefore Karma, fly this abbrrriatlon, however, the subject to Uealiny or Karma la meant, the Self or Kjfo, and that which is reborn. Nor is AvTLfJUfxov ITi'iv/xaTO? our conscience, but our Buddhi; nor is it again the "counter- feit" of Spirit but "modelled after." or a "counterpart" (Aristopta.. Thamophor., »^) of the SpWt— which Buddhi is. as the vehicle of ktrnk.
540
THE SECRET DOCTRINK
Ego], whose bnsiness it is to lead the man to the end appointed for him : if he halh to die by the fire, to lead him into the fire; if he hath to die by a wild beast, to lead him unto the wild beast— [the JrtWiM]!*
C.
THE SEPTENARY ELEMENT IN THE VEDAS.
IT COR&OBOBATBS THV OCCULT TSACHINC CONCKRNINC TUS SeVBK OliOBlS
AND THB Skvhn Racks.
We have to go to the very source of historical information, if we would bring our best e\ndence to testify to the facts enunciated. For, though entirely allegorical, the Rig Vedic hymns are none the less suggestive. The seven Rays of Surya, the Sun, are therein made parallel to the seven Worlds, of every Planetary Chain» to the se\'en Rivers of Heaven and Earthy the former being the seven creative Hosts, and the latter the seven Men, or primitive human groups. The seven ancient Rishis — the progenitors of all that lives and breathes on Earth — are the seven friends of Agni, his seven *' Horses," or seven "Heads." The human race has sprung from Fire and Water, it is allegorically stated; fashioned by the Fathers, or the Ancestor-sacri- ficers, from Agni; for Agni, the Ashvins, the Adityas,t are all synony- mous with those '•Sacrificers," or the Fathers, variously called Pitaras (or Pitris), Angirasas,} and S^dhyas, *' Divine Sacrificers," the most Occult of all. They are all called Deva-putra Rishayah or tlie "Sons of God.**§ The '*Sacrificers," moreover, are collectively the One Sacri ficer, the Father of the Gods, Vishvakarman, who performed the gr Sarva-medha ceremony, and ended by sacrificing himself.
In these Hymns the ** Heavenly Man" is called Purusha, the "Man/'| from whom Virfij was born^ ; and from Virdj, the (mortal) man. It is Varuna — lowered from his sublime position to be the chief of the Lords- DhySnSs or Devas — who regulates all natural phenomeua, who "makes
1
* Thf Gnoitici and tktir Rtmains, pp. 37, 38.
f Rig I'eiLx, Hi. j^. 16: U. »9. 3, A-
t Prof. Koth (in Pvter'i Lexicon) defines Uie Angirasas u zja intermediate race of highi between Gods and Men ; while Prof. Weber, according to his invariable custom of modemizioB • unthropomorphixinK the diTlne, aces in them the ari^nr.1 priesU of the religion which wita commoe to the Aryan HiudOa and Pervinns. Koth is right. "AngiraMt" wu one of the uaine* of tbe Dhylnli, or I^era-lnatmcton (Gum-DcTu), of the laic Third, the Fourth, and eren of the Fifth Rmc IniUatet.
\ Ibid., X. 6s. t, 4.
II Ihid., X. 90. I.
^ Jbid,, X. 90. 5.
■ THE VRDIC TEACHINGS. 64!
a path for the Sun, for him to follow." The seven Rivers of the Sky ^_lhe descending Creative Gods), and the seven Rivers of the Earth (the seven primitive Mankinds), are under his control, as will be seen. For he who breaks Vanina's laws (Vratani, or *' courses of natural action," active laws), is punished by Indra* the Vedic powerful God, whose Vrata, or law or power, is greater than the Vratani of any other God.
Thus, the Rig Veda, the oldest of ail the known ancient records, may be shown to corroborate the Occult Teachings in almost every respect. Its Hymns, which are the records written by the earliest Initiates of the Fifth (our) Race concerning the Primordial Teachings, speak of the Seven Races (two still to come), allegorizing them by the seven "Streams^t and of the Five Races (Panchakrishtayah) which have already inhabited this world J on the five Regions (Panchapradishah)§ as also of the three Continents that were.||
It is only those scholars who will master the secret meaning of the Purusha Sukta — in which the intuition of the modem Orientalists has chosen to see "one of the very latest hymns of the Rig Veda" — who may hope to understand how harmonious are its teachings and how corroborative of the Esoteric Doctrines. He must study, in all the abstruseness of their metaphysical meaning, the relations therein between the (Heavenly) Man (Purusha), sacrificed for the production of the Universe and all in it,! an realizes the hidden philosophy of the verse:
15. He ["Man," Purusha, or Vishvakamiau] bad seven enclosing logs of fuel, and ihrice seven layers of fuel; when the Gods performed the sacrifice, they bound the Man as victim.
This relates to the three septenary primeval Races, and shows the antiquity of the P'edas, which knew of no other sacrifice, probably, in
• Jiig Vtda.x. 113.5.
t fhid., ioc. est.
( /bid., ix. 86. CO.
II Only three submerRed. or otherwijie destroyed. ContiaetitB— Ibr the first Continent of the Firet Race exists to this day and will prevail to tlie last— are dcacrllicd in the Occtilt noctrine. the Hyper- borean, the Lctnurian (adopting: a name now known in Science), and the Atlantean. Most of Ania Issued from tinder the waters aAer the destruction of Atlantis ; Africa came sHU later, while Europe is the fifth and the latest continent— portion* of the two American bcinp far older. But of lhe«e, more aooo. The Initiates who recorded the (Vdixj— or the Rishis of our Ftflh Race— wrote nt a time when Atlantic hnd already gone down. Atlantis is the /outth Continent that appeared, but the third that disappeared.
^ Compare VlshTakorman.
•* Ibid., X. JO. 2. 16.
642
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
these earliest i)m/ teachings; and also to the seven primeval g^ronps Mankind, as Vishvakarman represents di\nne Humanity collectively *
The same doctrine is found reflected in the other old religions. It may. it must, have come down to us disflgured and misinterpreted, as in the case of the Parsis who read it in their Vend'tddd and elsewhere, though without understanding the allusions therein contained any better than do the Orientalists; yet the doctrine is plainly mentioned in their old works. f
Comparing the Esoteric Teaching with the interpretations by Prof James Darmesteter, one may see at a glance where the mistake is made, and the cause that produced it. The passage runs thus:
The Indo-Iranian Asura [Ahura] was often concei%*e certain mythical [?] formulEe and the strength of certain mythical [?] numbers, tht ancestors of the Indo-Irnnians had been led to speak of seven worlds, t and the supreme god was often made sevenfold, as well as the worlds over which he raleX The seven worlds became in Persia the seven Karshvare of the earth : the earth i divided into seven Karshvare, only otic of which is known and accessibU (o mtZH, ihc one on which we Uve, namely, Hvaniratha; which amounts to saying that there ut seven eatihs.^ Parsi mythology knows also of seven heavens. Hvaniratha itieli" is divided into seven climes. (Orm. Ahr. § 72.)fi
The same division and doctrine is to be found in the oldest and most revered of the Hindu scriptures— the J^ig Veda. Mention is made therein of six Worlds, besides our Earth: the six Rajamsi above Prithivl, the Earth, or "this" (Idam) as opposed to "that which is yonder** (i.ft, the six Globes on the three other planes or Worlds). 1]
The italics are ours to point out the identity of the tenets with those
* Nor is UiIb Airtiatc Teaching »o wry umicietttific, since one of Uie greatest KaturaluU of Uie b(c —the Utc Prorc«»or A^aaslz— admitted the multiplicity of the gcogrniphical origins of raan, and tup- ported it to the end of his life. The unity of the human species was accepted by the illusUious Pro- fcaaor of Cambridgr {IT.S.A.) in the same way n« it i* by the Occultists— namely, in the sciucof Iheir eueatial and ori^nal honioEeneity and their origiD from one and the same »urcc. e^^ NcfTooc iryann, Mongols, etc.. have aU ori^nated in the same way and from the same aooector*. These latter were all of ooc essence, thouffh diflercnliated, (viiicc they belong^ to seven plane* whidi diCTered in Atfcrcc though not in kind. That original physical diflereace was only a little nun accentuated by that of geographical and climatic conditions, later on. This is not th« IbCOry iX Agaftsis. of course, but the Esoteric \*crslon. It is fully discussed in the Addenda. Part III.
* Sec the enumeriition of the iteven Spheres— not the " Karshvare of the earth," as geoenllf believed— in Fargard xix. 30. rf seg^.
t The srveu World* are, as has been ftaid, the scren Spheres of the Chain, each presided over by oar of the seven "Creat God?*" of every religion. When the religious Itecamc degraded and onthropo- morphixed, and the melnphysical ideas nearly forgotten, the synthesis or the highest, the was separated from the rest, and that personification became the figktk God, whom Monotheism ti to unify but— failed. In no exoteric religion is God really one. if analysed metaphysically.
I The aix Invisible Globea of our Chain are both "Worlds" and "Earths" as is our own, invt»]blc. But where could l>e the six invisible Earths on tkit Globe?
H t^/^Hdfddd, S. B. E.. vol. iv. pp. lix. \x.. and note.
H See /!ig Veda, \. 34; Hi. s6: vii. 10. 411, and v. 60. 6.
THE ZOROASTRIAN SEPTENARY.
643
of the Esoteric Doctrine, and to accentuate the mistake that is made. The Magi or Mazdeans only believed in what other people believed in: namely, in seven ^'Worlds'* or Globes of our Planetary Chain, of which only one is accessible to man. at the present time, our Earth; and in the successive appearance and destruction of seven Continents or Earths on this our Globe, each Continent being dividetl, in com- memoration of the seven Globes (one visible, six invisible), into seven islands or continents, seven *• climes,'* etc. This was a common belief in those days when the now Secret Doctrine was open to all. It is this multiplicity of localities in septenary divisions, which has made the Orientalists — who have, moreover, been further led astray by the obli\non of their primitive doctrines of both the uninitiated Hindus and Parsis — feel so puzzled by this ever-recurring seven-fold number as to regard it as "mythical." It is this oblivion of first principles which has led the Orientalists off the right track and made them commit the greatest blunders. The same failure is found in the defi- nition of the Gods. Those who are ignorant of the Esoteric Doctrine of the earliest Aryans, can never assimilate or even understand cor- rectly the metaphysical meaning contained in these Beings.
Ahura Mazda (Onnazd) was the head and s>Tithesis of the seven Amesha Spentas, or Amshaspands. and, therefore, an Amesha Spenta himself Just as Jehovah-Binah-Elohim was the head and synthesis of the Elohim, and no more; so Agni-Vishnu-Sur>'a was the synthesis and head, or the focus whence emanated in physics and also in meta- physics, from the spiritual as well as from the physical Sun, the seven Rays, the seven Fiery Tongues, the seven Planets or Gods. All these became supreme Gods and ihe One God, but only after the loss of the primeval secrets; i.e., the sinking of Atlantis, or the "Flood," and the occupation of India by the Brahmans, who sought safety on the sum- mits of the Himalayas, for even the high table-lands of what is now Tibet became submerged for a time. Ahura Mazda is addressed only as the "Most Blissful Spirit. Creator of the Corporeal World" in the Vendiddd. Ahura Mazda in its literal translation means the "Wise Lord" (Ahura "lord" and Mazda "wise"). Moreover, this name of Ahura, in Sanskrit Asura, connects him with the Manasaputras. the Sons of Wisdom w^ho informed the mindless man, and endowed him with his mind (Manas). Ahura (Asura) may be derived from the root ah "to be." but in its primal signification it is what the Secret Teach- ing jhows it to be.
644
THK SECRKT DOCTRINE.
When Geolog>' shall have found out how mauy thousands of years ago the disturbed waters of the Indian Ocean reached the highest plateaux of Central Asia, when the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gul/ made one with it, then only will they know the age of the existing Aryan Brahmanical nation, and also the time of its descent into the plains of Hindustan, which did not take place till millenniums later.
Yima, the so-called "first man" in the Vefididdd^ as much as his
twin-brother Yama, the son of Vaivasvata Manu, belongs to two
epochs of Universal History. He is the Progenitor of the Second
human Race, hence the personification of the Shadows of the Pitris,
and the Father of the Postdiluvian Humanity. The Magi said.
"Yima," as we say "man" when speaking of mankind. The "fair
Yima," the first mortal who converses with Ahura Mazda, is they?n/
"man'* who dies or disappears, not the first who is bom. The "son of
Vivanghat"* was, like the son of Vaivasvata, the symbolical man. who
stood in Esotericism as the representative of the firsi three Races and
the collective Progenitor thereof. Of these Races the first two never
diedf but only vanished, absorbed in their progeny, and the Third
* knew death only towards its close, after the separation of the seres
and its "Fall" into generation. This is plainly alluded to in Fargaid ii
of the Vend'idad. Yima refuses to become the bearer of the law of
Ahura Mazda, saying:
**I was not born, I was not tauglit to be the preacher and the bearer of thjr law/*:
And then Ahura Mazda asks him to make his men increase and "watch over" his world.
He refuses to become the priest of Ahura Mazda, because he is ottrn priest and sacrificer^ but he accepts the second proposal. He made to answer:
"Yes! . . . Yes, I will nourish, and rule, and watch over thy world. Th shall be, wliile I am king, neither cold wind nor hot wind, neither disease nor death."
Then Ahura Mazda brings him a golden ring and a poniard, the emblems of sovereignty.
Thus, under the sway of Yima, three hundred winters passed away, and the earth wiu reptemisked with floclu and herds, with men and dogs and birds and with red blnxInK ^tt^
Three hundred winters mean three hundred periods or cycles.
1
« Death ciiD* only «ncT man had becone a pkysitni cmtuic. of thv arcond, dtualv««l ami disappeared in tlicir pmgtny.
The men oT tfa« Ant ftaoe.
THE "BRSATHS" OF THE "ONE BREATH." 645
Replenished," mark well; that is to say, all this had been on it before; and thus is proven the knowledge of the doctrine about the successive Destructions of the World and its Life-Cycles. Once the "three hundred winters" were over, Aliura Mazda warns Yima that the Earth is becoming too full, and men have nowhere to live. Then Yima steps forward, and with the hdp of Spenta Armaita. the female Genius, or Spirit of the Earth, makes that Earth stretch out and become larger by one-third, after which "new flocks and herds and men" appear upon it. Ahura Mazda warns him again, and Yima makes the Earth by the same magic power to become larger bj^ two- thirds. "Nine hundred winters" pass away, and Yima has to perform the ceremony for the M;>v/ time. The whole of this is allegorical. The three processes of stretching the Earth, refer to the three succes- sive Continents and Races issuing one after and from the other, as explained more fully elsewhere. After the /////v/ time, Ahura Mazda warns Yima in an assembly of "celestial gods" and ^'excellent mor- tals" that upon the material world the fatal winters are going to fall, and all /t/c will perish. This is the old Mazdean symbolism for the "Flood," and the coming cataclysm to Atlantis, which sweeps away ever>' Race in its turn. Like Vaivasvata Manu and Noah, Yima makes a Vara — an Enclosure, an Ark — under the God's direction, and brings thither the seed of every living creature, animals and "Fires."
It is of this "Earth" or new Continent that Zarathushtra became the law-giver and ruler. This was the Fourth Race in its beginning, after the men of the Third began to die out. Till then, as said above, there had been no regular death, but only a transformation, for nwn had no personality ^% yet. They had Monads — "Breaths" of the One Breath, as impersonal as the source from which they proceeded. They had bodies, or rather shadows of bodies, which were sinless, hence Karma- less. Therefore, as there was no Kama Loka — least of all Nirvana or even Devachan^ — for the "Souls" of men who had no personal Egos, there could be no intermediate periods between the incarnations. Like the Phcenix, primordial man resurrected out of his old into a new body. Each time, and with each new generation, he became more solid, more physically perfect, agreeably with the evolutionary law, which is the Law of Nature. Death came with the complete physical organism, and with it — moral decay.
This explanation shows one more old religion agreeing in its sym- bolog^ with the Universal Doctrine.
646
THB SECRET DOCTRmE.
Elsewhere the oldest Persian traditions, the relics of Mazdeism of the slill older Magians, are given, and some of them explained. Man- kind did not issue from one solitar>' couple. Nor was there ever a first man — ^whether Adam or Yima — but a first mankind.
It may, or may not, be "mitigated polygenism." Once that both Creation ex nihilo (an absurdit>*) and a superhuman Creator or Creators (a fact) are made away with by Science, polygenism presents no more difficulties or inconveniences — rather fewer from a scientific point of view — than monogenism docs.
In fact, it is as scientific as any other claim. For in his Introduction to Nolt and Gliddon*s Types of Mankind^ Agassiz declares his belief in an indefinite number of "primordial races of men created sepa- rately^': and remarks that, "whilst in ever>- zoological province animals are of different species, man^ in spite of the diversity of his races, always forms oiie and the same human being,"
Occultism defines and limits the number of primordial races to seven, because of the seven "Progenitors," or Prajapalis, the cvolvers of beings. These are neither Gods, nor supernatural Beings, but ad- vanced Spirits from another and lower Planet, reborn on this Planet, and gi\nng birth in their turn in the present Round to present Humanity. This doctrine is again corroborated by one of its echoes — among the Gnostics. In their anthropolog>* and genesis of man they taught that "a certain company of seven Angels," formed the first men, who were no better than senseless, gigantic, shadowy forms — "a mere wriggling worm" (I) writes Irenseus,* who takes, as usual^ the metaphor for reality.
D.
THE SEPTENARY IN THE EXOTERIC WORKS.
We may now examine other ancient scriptures and see whether I contain the septenary classification, and, if so, to what degree.
Scattered about in thousands of other Sanskrit texts, some still opened, others yet unknown, as well as in all the Purdnas, as much as, if not much more than, even in the Jewish Bible, the numbers seven and forty-nine (7 x 7) play a most prominent part. In the Purdnss they are found from the seven Creations, in the first chapters, down to the seven Rays of the Sun at the final Pralaya, which expand into
THE SEPTKNATE IN THE PURANAS.
647
seven Suns and absorb the material of the whole Universe. Thus the Matsya Purana has:
For the sake of promulgating the Vedas, Vishnu, in the beginning of a Kalpa, related to Manu the story of Narasimha and the events of seven Kalpas.*
Then again the same Purana shows that:
In all the Manvantaras, classes of Rishist appear by seven and seven, and haWng established a code of law and morality depart to felicity. J
The Rishis, however, represent many other things besides living sages.
In Dr. Muir's translation of the Atharia Veda^ we read:
1. Time carries (us) forward, a steed, with seven rays, a thousand eyes, undecay- ing, full of fecundity. On him intelligent sages mount ; his wheels are all the worlds.
2. Thus Time moves on seven wheels; he has seven naves; immortality is his Azle. He is at present all these worlds. Time hastens onward the first God.
3. A full jar is contained in Time. We behold him existing in many forms. He is all these worlds in the future. They call him "Time in the highest Heaven.'* $
Now add to this the following verse from the Esoteric Volumes: Space and Time are one. Space and Time are nameless, for they are the incognizable That, which can be sensed only through its seven Rays — yWhick are the seven Creations, the seven Worlds^ the seven Laws, etc.
Remembering that the Puranas insist on the identity of Vishnu with Time and Space.H and that even the Rabbinical symbol for God is Maqom, "Space," it becomes clear why, for purposes of a manifesting Deity — Space. Matter, and Spirit — the one central Point became the Triangle and Quaternary — the perfect Cube — hence scve^u Even the Pravaha Wind — the mystic and occult force that gives the impulse to, and regulates the course of the stars and planets — is septenary. The Kurma and Linga Puranas enumerate seven principal winds of that name, which winds are the principles of Cosmic Space.1l They are
* Vishnu Purina^ WUaon's Trans., 1. Uxs.
T As Psrisbara says : " Th«9e are the leven penons by whom In the several Maavsntaras created beinjr* have bcfo protected. Because the whole world hoi» !»cen pervaded !iy the tner^ of the deity. he u entitled ViAhnu, Trum tbe root VUh, ' to enter,' or ' pervade ' ; for alt the ffods, the Manus. the •even Rishis, the sons of the Manus, the Indras, the sovereigns of the gods, all are but the imper- sonated might [Yibh^tayah, potencies] of Vishnu." [fbid., \\\. 18, 19.) Vi«hnn i« the Universe ; and the Cnfvense iiMlf is divided in the Rig Veda into sfven regions— which ought to be sufficient authority, for tbe Brlhmans at all events.
t /bid., iti. 15.
) Hymn xix. 53.
n Vishna isa//— the worId», the »tarw, the sca^i, etc. Vishnu " t)* all that Is, alt that is not. . . . tBut] he is not a substance (Vattubhfita)." (Visktut pMr&na,'Qoo\c II, Ch. xii ; Wilson's Trans., ii. 309.) " That which people call the highest God is not a substance but the ca use of it ; not one that is here, there, or elsewhere, not what we see, but that in which all is— Space."
II VUhnu i^rdna, WUson's Trans., il. .v)6.
M
TBB SBCUrr DOCTRINB.
intniut^ cocuiecied with Dbrava* (dow Alpha), the Pole-Star, which b coanectcd ia its torn vith the production of various phenomcxiA throagh ccaodc Cocces.
ThnSt boa the seven Creations, seven Rishis, Zones, ContinentSw Principles; etc^ tn the Aryan Scnptnres, the number has passed Ihtoa^h Indian. £gyptiaa. ChaMsean. Greek, Jewish. Roman, and finally ChhstiaB mystic thooght, sntil it landed iu. and remained in- ckUb2>- impressed on. every exoteric theology. The seven old books stolen oat of Nojh's Ark by Ham. and given to Cush. his sou, and the Mven BrMMft Columns of Ham and Cheiron. are a reflection and t rcmembrtace of the seven primordial Mysteries instituted accordii^ to the **3«\-ea secret Emanations," the seven Sounds, and seven Rays —the »v^ntu4l and sidereal models of the seven thousand times seven copies of them in later aeons.
The mysterious number is once more prominent in the no less uo'vtcriouit Marwts. The ydvn Purdna shows, and the Iifarivamska COnoUxmte^ concerning the Manits — the oldest as the most incom- proheniftihle of all the secondar>* or lower Gods in the Rig V^da :
Tlut lh»y «rt Ai^m m tttvy Maarantars [Round], sr^cn times s^en (or forty-oincU |t. • )i MMav«aUn«7CMir tiama seifn (or twenty-eight) obtain etnanctpatioB.
hi.. \y\ii nan JUitti tfp ^ ptnoms rehom in ihai charaiUrA
Wlirtt ate the Muruta in Iheir Esoteric meaning, and who ihcse pmom ^'wborti in that character'*? In the ^/Xr and other Vedas, the Martits are reptc*culcd as the Storm Gods and the /nends and allies of Indra; they arc the "Sonii of Heaven and of Earth." This led to an allegory that make:* Ihem the children of Shiva, the great patron of the Yogis:
XXw MrthA Yo|{t. the i:rf«t a%ttih\ in whom is centred the highest perfection of tiUMtnr iicimncc *iul nhalmct meditation, t^ which the most unlimited p&Tvrfi ^$kkiw$dt MMfW^ nmi tmkm iWM ikegfwi spirit of the universe is eventually gaitted-X
In the Rig IWa the name Shiva is unknown, but the corresponding Goil isculU'd Rudru, a name used for Agni. the Fire-God, the MaraU being called therein his sons. In the Ramdyana and the PurdMAS, their mother, Diti— the sister, or complement, and a form of Aditi—
* Tbcrefon It U mJiI In ihr i*ut4umi tbiit the slffht at nixht of Dhniva, the polar star, and ccle«tlal Porpoise (Shlxluiuiirn, n conBtdUtton) "expiate» whatever sin ha» been oommittMl during) *|jiy." {Ibid., p. jo6.) The fi*ct \% that Ibe riiyii of the four stars in the "circle of perpetual tion "—the A|^. Mahendnt. KawhyfliM. and Phruva. placed in Uie tail of Cr9a Minor iShiahuininK' focuMcd in a certain way mid on a certain object, produce extraordinary rcaolta. The Astro-ougia* of India will understand whut U meant.
T /bid., iii. j.v
I Dowson'a Hindlk Cta^ticat Dictiamary^ *mb voc. "Shiva," p. 19S.
WHO ARE THE MARUTS?
649
anxious to obtain a son who would destroy Indra, is told by Kashyapa, the Sage, that if, "with thoughts wholly pious and person entirely pure/' she carries the babe in her womb "for a hundred years,"* she will have such a son. But Indra foils her in the design. With his thunderbolt he divides ike embryo in Her womb into seven portions^ and then divides every such portion into seven pieces again^ which become the swift-moving deities, the Maruts.f These Deities are only another aspect, or a development, of the Kum^ras, who are patronyraically Rudras, like many others.^
Diti, being Aditi — unless the contrary is proven to us — Aditi. we say, or Akqsha in her highest form, is the Egyptian seven-fold Heaven. Ever>' true Occultist will understand what this means. Diti, we repeat, is the sixth principle of metaphysical Nature, the Buddhi of Akasha. Diti, the Mother of the Maruts, is one of her terrestrial forms, made to represent, at one and the same time, the Divine Soul in the ascetic, and the divine aspirations of mystic Humanity toward deliverance from the webs of Maya, and consequent final bliss. Indra is now degraded, because of the Kali Yuga, when such aspirations are no more general but have become abnormal through a general spread of Ahauikara. the feeling of Egotism, or "I-am-ness" and ignorance; but in the begin- ning Indra was one of the greatest Gods of the Hindu Pantheon, as the Rig Veda shows. Suradhipa the "chief of the gods," has fallen down fromjishuu, the "Leader of the Celestial Host" — the Hindu St. Michael — to an opponent of asceticism, the enemy of every holy aspiration. He is shown married to Aindri (IndrSni), the personification of Aindri- yaka, the evolution of the element of senses, whom he married "because of her volnptuoics attractions^'* ; after which he began sending celestial female demons to excite the passions of holy meu, Yogis, and "to beguile them from the potent penances which he dreaded." Therefore, Indra, now characterized as "the god of the firmament, the personified atmosphere" — is in reality the cosmic principle Mahat, and the fifth human principle, Manas in its dual aspect — as connected with Buddhi, and as allowing itself to be dragged down by the KAma principle.
* Vishnu Parana, op. cit., li. 78.
-I- In the ftamdi/
t With regard to the orifon or Rudra, it is iiiaLcd in several PurSnas that his (spiritual) pro^ny, created in Aim by Brahma, in not confined Lo either the leucK KumAras or the nUvrn RudraA. etc., but •• comprehends in&aite numbers of beingfs in person and eguipmenti like their (\irginf father. Alarmed at their fierceness, numbers, and immortality, Brahml desires his son Rtidra lo (omi crea- tures of a different and mortal nature." Rudra re/ming- to create, deists, etc., hence Kudra is the fitst rf^. {l.img'a, VAyu, Mat^a, and other Pur&nas.)
650
THE SECRET DOCTRIXE,
the body of passions and desires. This is demonstrated by Brahmi telling the conquered God that his frequent defeats were due to Karma, and were a punishment for his licentiousaess, and the sedaction of \-ariotts n>'mphs. It is in this latter character that he seeks, to save himself from destruction, to destroy the coming '*babe," destined to conquer him — the babe, of course, allegorizing the divine and steady will of the Yogi, determined to resist all such temptations, and thus destroy the passions within his earthly personality. Indra succeeds again, because flesh conquers spirit.* He divides the "embryo" (of new divine Adeptship, begotten once more by the Ascetics of the Aryan Fifth Race) into seven portions (a reference not alone to the seven sub- races of the new Root- Race, iu each of which there will be a Mano^t but also to the seven degrees of Adeptship), and then each j>ortion into seven pieces — alluding to the Manu-Rishis of each Root- Race, and eren sub- race.
It does not seem difficult to perceive what is meant by the Maiuts obtaining "four times seven" emancipations in every Maavantara* and by those persons who are re-bom in that character, viz., of the Maruts in Iheir Esoteric meaning, and who '^fill up their places." The Maruts represent {a) the passions that storm and rage within every Candidate's breast, when preparing for an ascetic life — this mystically; (Ji) the Occult potencies concealed in the manifold aspects of Akisba's lower principles — her body, or Sthula Sharira, representing the terrestrial lower atmosphere of every inhabited Globe — this mystically and sidereally; {c) actual conscious existences, beings of a cosmic and psychic nature.
At the same time, Marut in Occult parlance is one of the names given to those Egos of great Adepts who have passed away, and are known also as NirmSnakayas; of those Egos for whom — since i key an beyond illusion — there is no Devachan, who, having either voluntarily renounced Nirvina for the good of mankind, or who not yet having
* Dili is shown to have been Uiui frustrated in Uie DvAptra Yuffs, durios tb«t period
Foanh Race was floiirivhing.
f Not with standi ug tht trrrihle, aad evidently purposed, confu«ioti of Mantis. RisliU. and iMr proireny in the Purdnas, oae thing U made clciir; there have been and there will be scrcn Ruhuis every Root-RAcc, culled also Manvantara In the sacred books, just as there are fuurtecn Maoos ts every Round, the presidiag Cods, the RUhls and sons of the Manus, being identical. (See KuA** Pu*6na. III. i; Wilson's Trans., iii, 19.) six Manvantaras are riven, the seventh bcinf ortirowii. ti Uie Vuknn Purina. The V'dyu P^rAna furnishes the nomenclature of the sons of the liouftco Manns in every Manvantara, and the kons of the seven Sages or Rishis. The latter are the prusmr of the Progcnltora of mankind. AU the PurdiMs speak of the sc^en Prajapatis of this penod « Round.
THE DOOM OF CONTINUAI, RE-BtRTH.
651
reached it. remain invisible on Earth. Therefore are the Maruls* shown, firstly, as the sons of Shiva-Rudra, the Patron Yog!, whose Third Eye (mystically) must be acquired by the Ascetic before he becomes an Adept; then, in their cosmic character, as the subordinates of Indra and his opponents, under various characters. The "four times seven'* emancipations have a reference to the four Rounds, and the four Races that preceded ours, in each of which Maruta-Jivas (Monads) have been re-born, and would have obtained final liberation, if only they had chosen to avail themselves of it. But instead of this, out of love for the good of mankind^ which would struggle still more hope- lessly in the meshes of ignorance and misery were it not for this extra- neons help^ they are re-born over and over again "iu that character," and thus "fill up their own places.*' Who they are, "on Earth" — every student of Occult Science knows. And he also knows that the Maruts are Rudras, among whom also the family of Tvashtri, a synonjTn of Vishvakarman, the great Patron of the Initiates, is in- cluded. This gives us an ample knowledge of their true nature.
The same for the septenao' division of cosmos and the human prin- ciples. The Purdnas, along with other sacred texts, teem with allu- sions to this. First of all, the Mundane Egg which contained Brahma, or the Universe, was externally invested with seven natural elements, at first loosely enumerated as Water. Air, Fire, Ether, and three secret elements; then the **World" is said to be "encompassed on every side" by seven elements, also within the Egg — as explained:
The world is encompassed on every side, and above, and below, by the shell of the egg (of Drahm&y [AndakatAha].t
Around the shell flows Water, which is surrounded with Fire; Fire by Air^ Air by Ether; Ether by the Origin of the Elements (Ahamkara); the latter by Universal Mind, or "Intellect,*' as Wilson translates. It relates to Spheres of Being as much as to Principles. Prithivi is not our Earth but the World, the Solar System, and means the "broad," the '* wide." In the Vedas — the greatest of all authorities, though needing a
* " Cliikahusha was the Mann of UiesixU] period [Third Round and Third Race], in which Indra was Manqjava" — Mantradrama in the Bhagavata Purama. {l^tiMmu Pur6na, Wihton'R Trans., UL la.) As there is a perfect aoolo^- betwcrn the Oreat Round (MahAkalpd), each of the seven Rounds, and each of the lewn great Kaces in every one of the Rounds— therefore, lodra of the sixth period, or Third Rouud, comriipoadB to the close of the Third Race, at the time of the Pall or the scparntion ol aezes, Kudrn, aathcruthcrof the Mamtfi, has tunny points of contact with Indra, the Mafutv^i, or " Lord of the Maruts." Rudra is aoid to have received his oaine because of his weeping. Hence Braliinii called htm Rudra; but kt wfpt ytt itvtn iimti mart and so ohtamed seven other namts^ol which he uses one duHageack "period."
i Ibid., ii. aji.
§52
THE SHCRBT DOCTRINE.
kej' to be read correctly — three terrestrial and three celestial Earths sir mentioned as having been called into existence simultaneously with Bhumi, our Earth. We have often been told that six, not stv^h^ appears to be the number of spheres, principles, etc. We answer that there are, in fact, only six principles in man; since his body is no principle, but the covering, the shell of a principle. So with the Planetary Chain; therein, speaking Esoterically. the Earth — as well as the seventh, or rather fourth plane, one that stands as the seventh, if we count from the first triple kingdom of the Elementals that begin its formation— may be left out of consideration, being (to us) the only distinct body of the seven. .The language of Occultism is varied. But supposing that three Earths only, instead of seven, are meant in the Vedas, what are those three, since we still know of but one? Evi- dently there must be an Occult meaning in the statement under con- sideration. Let us see. The "Earth that floats" on the Universal Ocean of Space, which BrahmS divides in the Puranas into seven Zones, is Prithivi, the World di\'ided into seven principles — a cosmic division, looking metaphysical enough, but, in reality, physical in its Occult effects. Many Kalpas later, our Earth is mentioned, and again. in its turn, is divided into seveu Zones according to the law of analogs* which guided ancient Philosophers. After which we find on it seven Continents, seven Isles, seven Oceans, seven Seas and Rivers, seven j Mountains, seven Climates, etc.* ^1
Furthermore, it is not only in the Hindu scriptures and philosophy " that one finds references to the seven Earths, but iu the Persian, Phoenician, Chaldasan. and Egyptian cosmogonies, and even in i Rabbinical literature. The Phoenix t — called by the Hebrews Onech p3;&. from Phenoch. Enoch, the symbol of a secret cycle and initiation, and by the Turks, Kerkes — lives a thousand years, after which, kindling a flame, it is self-consumed; and then, reborn from itself. '
• In Viihttu PuranA, Book 11. Chap. iv. (Wilsoa. ii. sojl. it U stated thai the "Earth." "with iU contiuents, mouutoins, oceuu. and cictenor shell, U Ji/iy cnora [five hundred millions] of Vojaaas ia extent"; to which the trarulalormnftrks: ** This compris*i thr planetary sphtrts ; for the fUametcr of the srvm soncA axid ocean*— each ocean being of the same diameter as the continent it cndoKS, uMl each successive continent being t«ricc the diameter of that which precedes it— amonnts lo bat two cnUTfl or fifty-four lakhs. . . . ' Whenever any contradictions in diflerent EMirinas are observed. they are to t»c ascribed , . . to diSerrnces of Kalpas and the like.'" "The Hfce" onKht to rcsi4 "occult meaning." an explanation which is withheld by the commentator, who wrote for exoteric. tfciariam purposes, and was misunderstood by the translator for rarious other reasons, the leoac uf which is-ljfnwnincr of the Esoteric Philosophy.
* Tiw Phirnix, allliough generally connected with the Solar Cycle of 600 ycar»— the Western cfcit of the Greeks and other nations—is a generic sjrmbol for several kinds of cycle*, dpbers being; take* uul ur mure added according to which cycle is meant.
PERSIAN SVMBOI.OGY.
653
it lives another thousand years, up to seven times seven^ when comes the Day of Judgment. The "seven times seven/* or forty-nine, are a transparent allegory, and an allusion to the forty-nine Manus, the seven Rounds, and the seven times seven human Cycles in each Round on each Globe. The Kerkes and the Onech stand for a Race Cycle, and the mystical Tree Ababel, the "Father Tree" in the Kuran, shoots out new branches and vegetation at every resurrection of the Kerkes or Phcenix; the **Day of Judgment" meaning a minor Pralaya. The author of the Book of God and the Apocalypse believes that:
The Phoenix is . . . very plainly the same as the Simorgh of Persian romance; and the account which is given ns of this last l)ird yet more decisively establishes the opinion that the death and revival of the Phoenix exhibit the successive de- struction and reproduction of the world, which many believed to be eflfected by the agency of a fiery deluge [and also a watery one in its turn]. When the Simorgb was asked her age, she informed Caherman that this world is ven- ancient, for it has been already seven times replenished, with beings different from men, and seven times depopulate :^ that the age of the human race in which we now are, is to endure seven thousand years, and that she herself had seen ttvelve oi these revolu- tions, and knew not how many more she had to see.J
The above, however, is no new statement. From Bailly, in the last century, down to Dr. Kenealy, in the present, these facts have been noticed by a number of writers; but now a connection can be estab- lished between the Persian oracle and the Nazarene prophet. Says the author of the Book of God:
The Simorgh is in reality the same as the winged Singh of the Himlfls. and the Sphinx of the Egyptians. It is said that the former will appear at the end of the world . . . [as a] monstrous lion-bird. . . . From these the Rabbins have borrowed their mythos of an enormous Bird. somt;times standing on the earth, sometimes walking in the ocean . . . while its bead props the sky; and with the sj'mbol, they have also adopted the doctrine to which it relates. They teach that there are to be seven successive reneutals of the globe; that each reproduced system will last uven thousand years [?J; and that the total duration of tfte Universe will be 49,000 years. This opinion, which involves the doctrine of the preexistence of each renewed creature, they may either have learned daring their Babylonian captivity, or // ntay have been part of the primeval religion which their priests had preserved from remote times. ^
It shows rather that the initiated Jews borrowed, and their non-
* Sec Book 0/ All, Russian Liansl.
-f The tnue is past, because tbc book is allcfforical, and has to veU tbc truths it cootaiiUi
t Oriental CoUectiont, tt. iigi quoted by Kenealy. op, cii,, pp. 17a, 176.
1 find., ioc. dl.
^
THH SECRKT DOCTRINE.
initiated successors, the Talmudists, lost, the sense, and applied the seven Rounds, and the forty-nine Races, etc., wrongly.
Not only their priests, but those of every other country. The Gnos- tics, whose various teachings are the many echoes of the one primitive and universal doctrine, put the same numbers, under another form, in the mouth of Jesus in the very occult Pisth Sophia. We say more; even the Christian editbr or author of Revelation has preserved this tradition and speaks of the seven Races, four of which, with part of the fifth, are gone, and two have to come. It is stated as plainly as can be. Thus saith the angel:
And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven moun- tains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are seven kings; jive are {alien* and one w, and the other is not yet come.*
Who, in the least acquainted with the s>Tnbolical language of old. will fail to discern in the five Kings that have fallen, the four Root- Races that were, and part of the Fifth, the one that is: and in the other, that "is not yet come," the Sixth and Seventh coming Root- Races, as also the sub-races of this, our present Race? Another still more forcible allusion to the seven Rounds and the forty-nine Root- Races in Levitiais, will be found elsewhere. Part Ill.f
E.
SEVEN IN ASTRONOMY. SCIENCE. AND MAGIC
Again, number seven is closely connected with the Occult signifi- cance of the Pleiades, those seven daughters of Atlas, "the six present, the seventh hiddai^ In India they are connected with their nursling, the war God, Karttikeya. It was the Pleiades (in Sanskrit. KrittikSs) who gave this name to the God, Karttikeya being the planet Mars. astronomically. As a God he is the son of Rudra, bom without the intervention of a woman. He is a KumSra, a "virgin youth" again, generated in the fire from the Seed of Shiva — the Holy Spirit — hence called Agni-bhu. The late Dr, Kenealy believed that, in India, Kartti- keya is the secret s\Tnbol of the Cycle of the Naros. composed of 600, 666, and 777 years, according to whether solar or lunar, divine or mortal, years are counted ; and that the six visible, or the seven actual
• op. cit., rvii. 9, 10.
4 Section VX; Leviticus, xxiU. t;, WMfff.
THK CYCtE OF THE NAROS.
^^55
Sisters, the Pleiades, are needed for the completion of this most secret and mysterious of all the astronomical and religious symbols. There- fore, when intended to commemorate one particular event, KSrttikeya was shown, of old, as a Kumira, an Ascetic, with six heads — one for each century of the Naros. When the symbolism was needed for another event, then, in conjunction with the seven sidereal sisters, Kairttikeya is seen accompanied by Kaumari, or SenS, his female aspect. He is then riding on a peacock, the bird of Wisdom and Occult Knowledge, and the Hindu Phoenix, whose Greek relation with the 600 years of the Naros is well known. A six-rayed star (double triangle), a Svastika, a six and occasionally seven-pointed crown, is on his brow; the peacock*s tail represents the sidereal heavens: and the twelve signs of the Zodiac are hiddeti on his body; for which he is also called Dv^dasha-kara, the "twelve-handed." and EK'adashSksha, ** twelve-ej'ed." It is as Shakti-dhara, however, the *' spear-holder," and the conqueror of Taraka, Taraka-jit, that he is shown to be most famous.
As the years of the Naros are, in India, counted in two ways, either by one hundred *'years of the gods" (divine years), or one hundred *' mortal years," we can see the tremendous difficulty the non-initiated have in arriving at a correct comprehension of this cycle, which plays such an important part in St. John's Revelation. It is the truly apocalyptic cycle, because of its being of various lengths and relating to various pre-historic events, and in none of the numerous speculations about it have we found any but a few approximate truths.
Against the duration claimed by the Babylonians for their divine ages, it has been urged that Suidas shows the Ancients counting days for years, in their chronological computations. It is to Suidas and his authorit>' that Dr. Sepp appeals in his ingenious plagiarism — which we have already exposed — of the Hindu figures 432, These they gi\'e in thousands and millions of years, the duration of their Yugas, but Sepp dwarfed them to 4,320 lunar years,* "before the birth of Christ," as "foreordained" in the sidereal, in addition to the invisible, heavens, and proved "by the apparition of the Star of Bethlehem." But Suidas had no other warrant for this assertion than his own speculations, and he was not an Initiate. He cites, as a proof. Vulcan, and shows him reigning 4,477 years, or 4,477 days^ as he thinks, or again rendered in
656
THE SECRET DOCTRIXE-
years, 12 years, 3 months, and 7 days; he has. however, 5 days in his original — thus commitliug an error even in such an easy calcula- tion.* True, there are other ancient writers guilty of like fallacious speculations: Calisthenes, for instance, who assigns to the astronomical obser\'ations of the Chaldseans only 1,903 years, whereas Epigencs recognizes 720,000 years.f The whole of these hypotheses made by profane writers are due to a misunderstanding. The chronology of the Western peoples, ancient Greeks and Romans, was borrowed from India. Now, it is said in the Tamil edition of Ba^avadam that 15 solar days make a Paccham ; two Pacchams, or 30 days, make a month of mortals, which is only one day of the Pitara Devaia or Pitris. Again, 2 of these months constitute a Rudu, 3 Rudus make an Ayanam, and 2 Ayanams a year of mortals, which is only a day of the Gods. It is from such misunderstood teachings that some Gree have imagined that all the initiated priests had transformed days int years!
This mistake of the ancient Greek and Latin writers became preg- nant with results in Europe. At the close of the past and the begin- ning of the present centur>', Bailly, Dupuis, and others, relying upon the purposely mutilated accounts of Hindu chronolog>', brought from India by certain unscrupulous and too zealous missionaries, built quite a fantastic theory on the subject. Because the Hindus had made of half a revolution of the moon a measure of time; and because a month composed of only fifteen days, of which Quintus Curtius speaks,* is found mentioned in Hindu literature, therefore, it becomes a verified fact that their yearvt^s only half a year, when it was not called a day I The Chinese, also, divided their Zodiac into twent>'-four parts, and hence their year into twenty-four fortnights, but such computation did not, nor does it, prevent them having an astronomical year just the same as ours. They also have a period of 60 days — the Southern Indian Rudu — to this day in some provinces. Moreover. Diodorus Siculus§ calls *' thirty days an Egyptian year." or that period during which the moon performs a complete revolution. Pliny and Plutarch | both speak of it; but does it stand to reason that the Eg>'ptians. who knew Astronomy as well as any other nation, made the lunar mouth
of
%
* Sec Sttidu, sub t>0c.*HXio«.
f Plioy, Hiit. Nat., vU. 56.
S " Menacs in quinoA dies dmcripiicruat dies '* (IvliU 9).
I Ub. i. c. a6.
D Hist. :^at., Tii. 4S, and W* ^ Wniw. ) 16.
VARIOUS C\XI,IC CALCULATIOXS.
657
consist of 30 days, when it is only 28 days with fractions? This lunar period had an Occult meaning surely as well as had also the Ayanam and the RCidu of the Hindus. The year of 2 months' duration, and the period of 60 days also, was a universal measure of time in anti- quit>', as Bailly himself shows in his Traitt de V Astronomic Indicrine et Orientaie. The Chinamen, according to their own books, divided their year into two parts, from one equinox to the other;* the Arabs anciently divided the year into six seasons, each composed of two months; in the Chinese astronomical work called Kioo-tche^ it is said that two moons make a measure of time, and six measures a year; and to this day the aborigines of Kamschatka have their years of six months, as they had when visited by Abbe Chappe.f But is all this any reason for claiming that when the Hinclu Purdnas say a %o\zx year^ they mean one solar day /
It was the knowledge of the natural laws which make of seven the root nature-number, so to say. in the manifested world, or at any rate in our present terrestrial life-cycle, and the wonderful comprehension of its workings, that unveiled to the Ancients so many of the mys- teries of Nature. It is these laws, again, and their processes on the sidereal, terrestrial, and moral planes, which enabled the old Astrono- mers to calculate correctly the duration of the cycles and their respec- tive eflfects on the march of events; to record beforehand — to prophesy, it is called — the influence which they would have on the course and development of the human races. The Sun, Moon, and Planets being the never-erring time-measurers, whose potency and periodi- city were well known, became thus respectively the great ruler and rulers of our little system in all its seven domains, or "spheres of action."J
This has been so evident and remarkable, that even many of the modem men of Science, Materialists as well as Mystics, have had their attention called to this law. Physicians and Theologians, Mathe- maticians and Psychologists, have repeatedly drawTi the attention of the world to this fact of periodicity in the behaviour of "Nature." The.se numbers are explained in the Commentaries in the following words :
• Mtm. Acad, ins., xvi. c. 48; iii. i8j.
t l^oyage en Sibirit. iii. 19.
t Tht: !i{ihrrr or Noamcnal; {2) the Spiritual; (j) the Ps/chic; (4} the Astro-ethenmt ; (5) the Sub-utral; (6) the Vital; aad (7) the purely Physical Spheres.
658
THE SECRET DOCTRIXE.
The Circle is noi the " One" but the *'Ali:'
In the higher \_HeaveH\ the impenetrable Rajah,^ it [the Circle'] beecmes On€y because \it /V] the indivisible^ and there can be no Tau in it.
In the second [of the three Rajamsi, or the three " Wortds"'\, the One be- comes Two [male and /emale\ and Tliree [with the Son or Logos']^ and Ike Sacred Four [the Teiraktys^ or Tetragramniaton\
In the third [the lower World or our Earth], the number beanms Four, and Three, and Two. Take the first tTvo, and thou wilt obtain Seven, the sacred number 0/ It/c : blend [/he latter] with the middle Rajah, and thou wilt have Nine, the sacred number 0/ Being and Becoming.^
When the Western Orientalists have mastered the real meaning of the Rig Vedic divisions of the World — the two-fold, three-fold, six- and seven-fold, and especially the nine-fold division — the mystery of the cyclic divisions applied to Heaven and Earth. Gods and Men, will become clearer to them than it is now. For:
There is a harmony of numbers in all nature ; in the force of gravity, in the plane- tary movepnents, in (He laws of heat, light, electricity, and chemical affinity, in the fortns of animals and plants, in the perceptions of the mind. The direction, indeed, of modem natural and physical science ia towards a generalization which shall express the fundamental laws of all, by one simple numerical ratio. We would refer to Professor Whewell's Philosophy of the inductive Sciences, and to 3Ir. Hay's researches into the laws of harmonious colouring and form, /^rom these it appears that the number scveti is distinguished in the laws regulating the harmonious penep- lioft of fortns, colours, and sounds, and probably of taste also, if we could analyxe our sensations of this kind with mathematical accuracy.^
So much so, indeed, that more than one Physician has stood aghast at the scptennry periodical return of the cycles in the rise and fall of various complaints, and Naturalists have felt themselves at an utter loss to explain this law.
The birth, growth, maturity, vital functions, healthy revolutions of change, diseases, decay and death, of insects, reptiles, 6she3, birds, mammals, and even of man, are more or less controlled by a law of completion in weets [or seven days].*
4
* Adbtaatam. hc Atharva I'eda, x. 105.
t^ In Hiud6ism, as understood by thr OricntolUU from Uic AtAarea Veda, the three Raj&msl rcftr to the tbrw " strides '* of Vishnu ; his ascending hlffher step bdu? Ulcen in the hlebest world \A. K. ^- 99, »: besides this in Occultism. The sentence, ^rethu gUkjrtikM vraUiku {cf., \. 155, 3, and ix. 7& s, or agrain, x. 114). in Atharva l-Wd. has^reC to be explained.
: Mtdical Rtvirtit,}\]\y, 1844-
I II. Crattaa Ooinocss, F.K.U.S,, in bis Approackmg Endo/tAtAge, p. 2$B.
I
THE SEPTKNATE IN Pm'SIOLOGY.
659
Dr. Laycock, writing on the ••Periodicity of Vital Phenomena,"* records a "most remarkable illustration and confirmation of the law in insects."!
To all of which Mr. Grattan Guinness remarks very pertinently, as he defends biblical chronology:
And man's life ... is a week^ a week of decodes. " The days of our years are three-score years and ten." Combining the testimony of all these facts, we are bound to admit that there prevails in organic nature a taw of septiform periodicity^ a law of cmnpUtion in weeks.X
Without accepting the conclusions, and especially the premises of the learned founder of '*The East London Institute for Home and Foreign Missions/' the writer accepts and welcomes his researches in
mciT ^^ the a
• Lancri, i84», 1843.
t Having SriTcn a number of illustrations from nattiral ht!itor>', the doctor ndcU ; " The facts t hare briefly glanced at atv Kencml facLs, and cannot happat day afler day in $0 many miVionz ofantmaU ofmety kind, raoM the ij^h va ok ovum ov a MucirrE insect up to man, at dtfinitt prriods, from a mere chana or coincidence. . . . Upon the whole it is, I think, Impoasible to come to any less general conclusion than this, that, in animals^ chamgfx occur evtry three and a hat/, seven, fourteen. ty-one, or iwmty-eight dayi, or at jome definite number o/wetki "—or KrptenaTy cycles. Again, the same Dr. I,aycoclc atfltca that : " Whatever type the lerer may exhibit, there wilt he a paroxysm on ihg sevenik day. . . , the four Uenth wilt be rrmarkahU as a day of amendment . . . [either cure or death taking place]. If the fourth [paroxysm] he nrvere, and the fifth Irsn 90, the disease trill end at the seventh paroxyam. and . . . the change for the belter . . . will be seen on the fourteenth day . . . namely, about three or four o'clock a.m., when the system la most languid." {Approaching End of the Age, by Grattan Guinness, pp. jjS to nf/), wherein thin [.Hciuoted).
This is pure " soothsajring " by cyclic calculations, and it Is connected with Chaldican Astrolatry and Astrology. Thus Materialistic Science— in its medicine, the most materialistic 0/ 0^/— applies our Occult laws to diseases, studies natural history with its help, ircogniaes its presence as a fact in Nature, and yet must needs pooh-pooh the same archaic knowledge when claimed by the Occultists. For If the mygterious Septenary Cycle ia a law in Nature, and it is one, oa proven ; if it la found con- trolling both evolution and inuotutiom (or deathUn the realms of entomology, ichthyology and ornith- ology, as in the kingdom of the animal mammalia and man— why cannot it be present and acting in Koamofl, in general, in its natural (though occult) divisjona of time, races, and menial develop- ment? And why. furthermore, should not the most ancient Adepts have studied and thoroughly mastered these c>-clic laws under all their aspects? Indeed. Dr. Strattoo states as a physiological and pathological fact, that " in health (he human pulne is mure frequent in the min^^iug than in the evening for six days out of seven ; and that on the seventh day !t id slower." (Edinburgh Sfedic^ and Surgical Journal, Jan. 1843; ibid., loc. cit.) Why, then, should not an Occultist show the some in co«niic and terrestrial life !□ the pulse of the Planet and Races ? Dr. Laycock divides life by three gn»t septenary peiioiiK ; the first and last, each stretching over 21 years, and the central period or prime of life lasting 30 years, or four times seven. He subdivides the fint into seTien distinct stages. and the other two into three minor i>eriod», and says that : "The fundamental unit of the greater periods is one ureh of seven days, each day being twelve hours, and that single and compound multiples of this unit, determine the length of these periods by the same ratio, as multiples of the unit of twelve hours determine the len-sor periods. This law binds all periodic intal phenomena together, and links the periods observed in the ioutest annntose animals, with those ^ man himself, the highest fif th£ vertebrata." {Ibid., p. 267.) If Science does this, why should she acorn the Occnlt information. Chat— to use Dr. I^ycock'5 langttagr — one Week fjf the Manvantaric (t,nnar) Fortnight, of fourteen Ooya (or aeven Manus), that Fortnight of tMrclve Hours in a Day representing seven Periods or se%*rn Races — la now passed ? This language of Science fits our Doctrine admirably. Mankind has lived over " a week of seven days, each day being twelve hours," since three and n half Races arc now gone for ever* the Fourth ia submerged, and we are now in the Fifth Race.
J op. cit., p. 069.
66o
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the Occult chronolog>' of the Bible; just as, while rejecting^ the theories. hypotheses, and generalizations of Modern Science, we bow before its great achievements in the world of the Physical, or in all the minor details of material Nature.
There is most assuredly an Occult "chronological system in Hebrew scripture," the Kabalah being its warrant; moreover there is iu it "a system of weeks/' based on the archaic Indian system, which may still be found in the old Jyotisha.* And there are in it cycles of the *'weak of days," of the **u'£ek of months," of years, of centuries, and even of millenniums, and more, of the "week of years of years."t But all this can be found in the Archaic Doctrine. And if the common source of the chronology in every scripture, however veikd, is denied in the case of the Bib/e; then it will have to be shown how, iu face of the six days and the seventh (a Sabbath), we can escape connecting the Genetic with the Pauranic Cosmogonies. For the first " week of creation" shows the septiformity of its chronology and thus connects it with Brahmi's "seven creations." The able volume from the pen of Mr. Grattan Guinness, in which he has collected in some 760 pages every proof of this septiform calculation, is good evidence. For if the biblical chronology is, as he says, "regulated by the law of weeks," and if it is aeptenar>', whatever the measures of the creation week and the length of its days may be, and if, finally, "the Bible system includes weeks on a great variety of scales," then this system is shown to be identical with all the Pagan systems. Moreover, the attempt to show that 4,320 years, in lunar months, elapsed between the "Creation" and the "Nativity," is a clear and unmistakable connection with the 4,320,000 j'ears of the Hindu Vugas. Otherwise, why make such eflforts to prove that these figures, which are preeminently Chaldaean and Indo-Ar>an, play such a part in the //nn Tcsiameni? This we shall now prove still more forcibly.
Let the impartial critic compare the two accounts — the Vishnu Purdna and the Bibie — and he will find that the "seven creations" of Brahmd are at the foundation of the "week of creation" in Genesis,
* Sm for the length of sach c)rc]cs or Vugas in ^riddSa. Garga and other ancient ft£tronomic«I «ctlon» (Jyotisha). They vary from the cjxle of five years— which Colebrooke calU "the cycle of Ibc VetUi>/* specified tn the instltutea of PahUhara, "and the basis of calculation for Ur^v cycle* " {Miiuii. Euayi. \. to6 and 108)— up to the Mab& Vuga or the famous cycle of 4,3x1.0(10 yean.
1 The Uehrew word for **wtck** Ucnwit; and any length of time divided hy srvm would haw tKca a "wrrk" with them— even 49.000,000 years, as it is seven timet) seven millioua. But tbcir calculatiao Is Ihrouichuut MCptiform.
THE HAIRY SYMBOL.
66r
The two allegories are diflPerent. but the systems are both built on the same foundation-stone. The Bible can be understood only by the light ^ the Kabalah. Take the Zohar, the "Book of Concealed Mystery," however now disfigured, and compare. The seven Rishis and the four- teen Manus, of the seven Manvantaras, issue from Brahma's head; they are his *' Mind-born Sons," and it is with them that begins the division of mankind into its Races from the Heavenly Man, the manifested Logos, who is Brahma PrajSpati. Speaking of the "Skull" (Head) of Macroprosopus, the Ancient One* (in Sanskrit Sanat is an appella- tion of BrahmS), the Ha Idra Rabba Qadiska, or "Greater Holy Assembly," says that in every one of his hairs is a hidden fountain issuing from the concealed brain.
And it shiuetb and goeth forth through that hair uuto the liair of Microprosopus, and from it [which is the manifest Quaternary, the TetragranimatonJ is his brain formed; and thence that brain goeth forth into thirty and two paths [or the Triad and the Duad, or again 432].
And again:
Thirteen cnrls of hair exist on the one side and on the other of the skixll [i.A, six on one and six on the other, the thirteenth being also the fourteenth, as it is male-female]; . . . and through them corameuccth the division of the hair [the division of things, of mankind and the races].t
"We six are lights which shine forth from a seventh (light)," saith Rabbi Abba; **thou art the seventh lighV* — the synthesis of us all — ^he
adds, speaking of Tetragrammaton and his seven "companions," whom he calls the "eyes of Tetragrammaton." J
Tetragrammaton is Brahmi PrajSpati, who assumed four forms, in order to create four kinds of supernal creatures, i.e., made himself _^ttr- fold^ or the manifest Quaternar)^§ after that, he is re-bom in the seven Rishis. his MSnasaputras, "Mind-bom Sons," who became later, nine.
* Brahm& creates in thr first Kalpa. or on the 6rst Day, VBrions "sacri&ctal animals" (raahavah),or the celestial bodies and the Zodiacal siffns, and "plants," which he uses In iacrifittx at the opening of Treti Vuga. The Esoteric meaning show* hiro proceeding cyclically and crentin^^ astral Prototypes on the dfscrnding spiritnol arc and then on the azcendimg physical arc. The latter ia the sub- division of a {'WQ-fold creation, sub-di\-ided again into seven descending and seven asceodingdcgrees of Spirit falling, and of Matter ascending ; the Inverse of what takes place — a»in a mirrur which ri-flects the right on the left Mde— in thiii Manvantara of ount. It is the same Esoterically in the EloUistic Geneiis (chap, i), and in the Jehovistic copy, as in HindQ cosmogony.
« Op. cit., w. 70, 71, 80; THt Kabbalah UnvetUd, S. I^ MacGr^or Matben, pp. lao, mi.
} "The Greater Holy Aasembly," v. 1,160.
I Sec Kr'Mfm Pitrana, 1. t.
662
THB SKCRBT DOCTRIKE.
twentA'-one. and so on, and who are all said to be bom from various parts of Brahma.*
There are two Tetragrammatons: the Macroprosopus and the Micro- prosopus. The first is the absolute perfect Square, or the Tetrakt>'s within the Circle, both abstract conceptions, and is therefore called Ain — Non-being, i.e., illimitable or absolute "Be-ness/* But when viewed as Microprosopus, or the Heavenly Man, the Manifested Logos, he is the Triangle in the Square — the sei>en/oid Cube, not the fourfold, or the plane Square. For it is written in "The Greater Holy Assembly":
And couceming this, the children of Israel wished to inquire in their hearts
[koow in their minds], like as it is written, Exod. xvii. 7: "I* the Tetragrammaton in the midst of us, or the Negatively Existent One.-"t
— where they distinguished between Microprosopus, who is called Tetragrammaton, and between Macroprosopus, who is called Ain. the Negatively Existent.}
Therefore, Tetragrammaton is the Three made four and the Four made three, and is represented on this Earth by his seven ** Com- panions/' or "Eyes*' — the "seven eyes of the Lord.** Microprosopus is. at best, only a secondary manifested Deity. For "The Greater Holy Assembly** elsewhere says:
We have learned that there were (en (Rabbis) [Companions] entered into (Mr Assentbiy) [the Sod, "mysterious assembly or mystery**] and that seven came forth | [f.^, ten for the unmauifested. seven for the maaifested UniveraeJ.
* Tt is vtTT surprisiiiic to sec tlicologiatift and OricntAl RchoUrA rxpreMin^ indignation st the "depraved taiitc" of the Utudu mystjcs, who, not content n'ith bavins: "invented" the Mind-bora Sons of BrahtnA, make the Rlnhifl, Manus, and PrajipatiA of ever>* kind sprloR fnnn variomj p^rts tkt body of their primal froj^njlor, Brahm&. (See Wilkin'* footnote in his l^i^hmu Purama, i. io».V Because the average public is unacquainted with the A'atntlah. the key to. and Rlos^ary of, the mndi veiled Mosnic Books, therefore, the clerK>' tmasines the truth will never out. l English, Hebrew, or L.atin texts of the A'abolak, now so ably translated hy several scholars, and he will find that Uie Tetragrammaton, which is the Hebrew IH\'K. is also l»th the "Scphirothal Tree" — f>., it contains all the Sephiroth except Kether, the crown— and the united Body of the Heavenly Man (Adam Kadmon) from whose Limbs emauate the Universe and everything in it. Furthermure. be will find that the idea in the Katxalistic Books, the chief of which In the Zohar are the " Bouk of Concealed MyHtery," and of the "Greater" and the "I^esser Holy Assembly." is entirely phallic and far mote crudely expressed than is the four-fold Brahml in any of the Pttwanai. [See The k'aSi-atalk Unvfii^d, by S. L. MacGregor Mathcra, chapter zxil. of "The Ijesaer Holy Assembly," conceming^ the remaining members of Microprosopus.) For, this "Tree of Life" is also tlic "Tree of Knowledge of Oood and Kvil," whose chief mystery is that of human procreation. U Ls a mistake to regard the Xa^iah as explaining the mysteries of Kosmos or Nature : it explainn and unveils only a few alle- gories in the BibU. and is morf esoteru than is the latter.
* Simplifird in the Kngli^h SibUto: "Is the Lord [ft] among ns, or not^" : Verse 83; op. dl.. p. tn. \ Translators often render the word "Companion" (Angel, olao Adepts by "RabW," just as the
Rishis ate called Gurus. The Zohar is, if possible, more occult than the Book of Moits; to read the "Book of Concealed Mystery" one requtns the keys famished by the genuise Cboldcao A««A ^ Nmmbers, which U not cxtaol.
THE NUMBER SEVEN IN CHEMISTRY.
663
I158. And vrhen Rabbi Schimeon revealed the Arcana, there were Tound none present there save those [seven] {companiotts). And Rabbi Schimeon called them the seven eyes of Tetragrammaton, like as it is written, Zach. iii. 9; "These are the seven eyes [or principles] of Tetragrammaton** [ — i.a, the four-fold Heavenly Man, or pure Spirit, is resolved into septenary man, pare Matter and Spirit].'
Thus the Tetrad is Microprosopus. and the latter is the male-female Chokmah-Binah, the second and third Sephiroth. The Tetragram- maton is the very essence of number scvat, in its terrestrial signifi- cance. Seven stands between four and nine — the basis and founda- tion, astrally, of our pliysical world and man, in the kingdom of Malkuth.
For Christians and believers, this reference to Zcchariah and espe- cially to the Epistle of Peter,\ ought to be conclusive. In the old symbolism, "man," chiefly the Inner Spiritual Man is called a "stone.** Christ is the corner-stone, and Peter refers to all men as "lively" (living) stones. Therefore a "stone with seven eyes** on it can only mean a man whose constitution (/>., his "principles") is septenary.
To demonstrate more clearly the seven in Nature, it may be added that not only does the number seven govern the periodicity of the phenomena of life, but that it is also found dominating the series of chemical elements, and equally paramount in the world of sound and in that of colour as revealed to us by the spectroscope. This number is the factor, sine qtid non, in the production of occult astral phenomena.
Thus, if the chemical elements are arranged in groups according to their atomic weights, they will be found to constitute a series of rows of seven; the first, second, etc., members of each row bearing a close analogy in all their properties to the correspond- ing members of the next row. The following table, copied from Helleubach's Magie der Zaklen, and corrected, exhibits this law and fully warrants the conclusion he draws in the following words:
We thus see that chemical variety, so far as we can grasp its inner nature, depends upon numerical relations, and we have further found in this variety a ruling law for which we can assign no cause; we find a law of periodicity governed by the number seven.
Vcrees 1S51, itsS, 1159; Qp. at., p. jis4
♦ /Attr. ii. t-v
664
THK SECRET DOCTRINE.
Row
Group
&roup
n.
Group
in.
Group IV.
Group V.
Gitrap VX.
Group
vn.
1*7
Be 9-3
Bii
Cit
N14
0 16
P19
N«t3
K39 Cu 63-3
Mgi4
C4ft
Zn6s
Al.7-3 He 44 Ga68i
Tl4» GC71
P31
A«75
S3» Cr5a*4
SC7»
CI 35-4 Mn54-» Br 795
1 1
( Pe 56. Co s8'6
4 Ru 103, Rh 104 J Pd 106. tAr «^
1
Aff 107*6
Cd 1 11*6
V89-5 Id II3-4
Zr9o 9u 118
Nb94
Sb !»
Mo 9b Teiaa
— 100 I 136$
C» ijj 5
Ba 136-8
U 139
Ce no
Di 144
-
-
— 1
■^~
"""
Br 170
__
T»i»i
W lU
_
I Oft 196. Ir 1^-7 t Ft 196*7. (AU 197]
to
AU197
Hff KW
Tl M4
FbK)6
Biaio
"f
—
i
The eijjhth element in this list is, as it were, the odave of the first/ and the uiuth of the second* and so on; each element being almost identical in its properties with the corresponding element in each of the septenary rows; a phenomenon which accentuates the septenary law of periodicity. For further details the reader is referred to Hellen- bach*s work, where it is also shown that this classification is confirmed by the spectroscopic peculiarities of the elements. j
It is needless to refer in detail to the number of vibrations consti-'^ tuting the notes of the musical scale; they are strictly analogous to the scale of chemical elements, and also to the scale of colour as unfolded by the spectroscope, although in the latter case we deal with only one octave, while both in music and chemistry we find a series of sa.^€n octaves represented theoretically, of which six are fairly complete and in ordinary use in both sciences. Thus, to quote Hellcnbach :
It hns been established that, from the standpoint of phenoTnenuI law, upon whici all our kiiowleiiKe restt, the vibrations of sound and lij;lit increase regularly, that they divide themselves into ieven columns, and that the successive numbers ii each column are closely allied; r.^*., that they exhibit a close relationship whiclil not only is expressed in the figures themselves, but also is practically confirmed iaj chemistry as in music, in the latter of which the ear confirms the verdict of the figures. . . . The fact that this periodicity and variety is governed bj* the number smen is undeniable, anil it far snrpasses the limits of mere chance, and must l>e assumed to have an atlequale cause, which cause must be discovered.
Verily, then, as Rabbi Abba said: 1
We are six lights which shine forth from a seventh {light\\ thou [Tetragrarama* ton] art the seventh light {t}ic ofigin of) us all.
For assuredly there is no stability in those six, save {what they derive) from the seventh. For all things depend from the acventli.*
The Grrater Holy AsMinbly," w. 1160, irti; op. cit., p. 355.
THE SEVBN PRIESTS OP THE ZTTRIS.
665
The ancient and modem Western American Zu;^i Indians seem to have entertained similar views. Their present-day customs, their traditions and records, all point to the fact that, from time immemorial, their institntions, political, social and religious, were, and still are, shaped according to the septenary principle. Thus all their ancient towns and villages were built in clusters of six, around a seventh. It is always a group of seven, or of thirteen, and always the six surround the seventh. Again^ their sacerdotal hierarchy is composed of six "Priests of the House" seemingly synthesized in the seventh, who is a woman, the *' Priestess Mother." Compare this with the "seven great officiating priests" spoken of in the Ami_s^td, the name given to the "seven senses." exoterically, and to the seven human principles, Esoterically. Whence this identity of symbolism? Shall we still doubt the fact of Arjuna going over to Pflt^n, the Antipodes, America, and there manning Ulupi, the daughter of the NSga, or rather Nargal, king? But to the Zuni priests.
These receive, to this day, an annual tribute of com of seven colours. Undistinguished from other Indians during the rest of the year, on a certain day they come out — six priests and one priestess — arrayed in their priestly robes, each of a colour sacred to the particular God whom the priest serves and personifies; each of them representing one of the seven regions, and each receiving com of the colour corresponding to that region. Thus, the white represents the East, because from the East comes the first sun-light; the yellow corresponds to the North, from the colour of the flames produced by the Aurora Borealis; the red, the South, as from that quarter comes the heat; the blue stands for the West, the colour of the Pacific Ocean, which lies to the West; black is the colour of the nether underground region — darkness; com with grains of all colours on one ear represents the colours of the upper region — of the firmament, with its rosy and yellow clouds, shining stars, etc. The "speckled" com, each grain containing all the colours, is that of the "Priesless-lrfother" — woman containing in herself the seeds of all races past, present and future; Eve being the mother of all living.
Apart from these was the Sun — the Great Deity — whose priest was the spiritual head of the nation. These facts were ascertained by Mr. F. Hamilton Gushing, who, as many are aware, became a Zufti, lived with them, was initiated into their religious mysteries, and has learned more about them than any other man now living.
666
THB SBCRKT DOCTRINE.
Seven is also the great magic number. In the Occult Records weapon mentioned in the Purdnas and the Makdbhdrata — the Agne- ySstra or *' fiery weapon" bestowed by Aurvaupon his Chela Sagara — is said to be constructed of seven elements. This weapon — supposed by some ingenious Orientalists to have been a '* rocket" (!) — is one of the many thorns in the side of our modern Sanskritists. Wilson exercises his penetration over it. on several pages in his Specimens of ihc Hindk\ Theatre^ and finally fails to explain it. He can make nothing out oi the Agneyastra, for he argues;
Theae weapon* are of a very unintelligible character. Some of them arc occ» sionally wielded as missiles ; bnt, in general, they appear to be mysiicaf poweri\ exercised hy the individual — such as those of paralyzing an enemy, or locking kit\ senses fast in sleeps or bringing down storm, and rain, and fire, from heaven. • , They are supposed to assume celestial shapes, endowed with human faculties. The Rdm&yana calls them the sons of KrishAshva.t
The Shastra-devatSs, "Gods of the divine weapons," are no more Agneyastras, the weapons, than the gunners of modem artillery' are the cannon they direct. But this simple solution did not seem to strike the eminent Sanskritist. Nevertheless, as he himself says of the anni- fonn progeny of Krishashva, *'the allegorical origin of the [Agne- yastra] weapons is, undoubtedly, the more ancient."! It is the fiery javelin of Brahmd.
A
The seven-fold Agneyastra, like the seven senses and the seven prin- ciples, symbolized by the seven priests, are of untold antiquity. How old is the doctrine believed in by Theosophisls, the following Section, will tell.
THE SEVEN SOULS OF THE EGYPTOtOGlSTS. If one turns to those wells of inforuiation. The Natural Genesis and the Lectures of Mr. Gerald Massey, the proofs of the antiquit>- of the doctrine under analysis become positively overwhelming. That the belief of the author differs from ours can hardly invalidate the facts. He views the symbol from a purely natural standpoint, one perhaps a
• See pp. 445. A4^. supra. » Op, cit., i. 497. «k1 «L
1 U ia. Bui Agrneyltftrn are fiery "missile Mreapoos," not "edged" weapons, at then U diflcrtocc bcl«t:en Shastra and Astra In Soaskril.
THE SEPTENAKY IN EGYPT. 667
trifle too materialistic, because too much that of au ardent Evolutionist and follower of the modem Darwinian dogmas. Thus he shows that:
The student of B5hine*s books finds mnch in tbem concerning these Seven "Fountain Spirits," and primary powers, treated as seven properties of Nature in the alchemistic and astrological phase of the mediaeval mysteries. . . .
The followers of Bohme look on such matter as the divine revelation of his in- spired Seership. They know nothing of the natural genesis, the histor>' and per- sistence of the "Wisdom"* of the past (or of the broken links), and are unable to recognize the physical features of the ancient "Seven Spirits" beneath their modem metaphysical or alchemist mask. A second connecting link between the theosophy of Bohme and the physical origins of Egyptian thought, is extant in the fragments oi Hennes TristnegisiusA No matter whether these teachings are called lUnmiuatisl, Buddhist, Kabalist, Gnostic. Masonic, or Christian, the ele- mental types can only l>e truly known in their beginnings.^ Wlien the prophets or visionary showmen of cloudlaud come to us claiming original inspiration, and utter something new, we judge of its value by what it is in itself. But if we find they bring us the ancfcnt matter which they cannot account for. and we can, it is natural that we should judge it by the primary significations rather than the latest pretensions.^ It is useless for us to read our later thought into the earliest types of expression, and then say the ancients meant that![l Subtilized interpretations which have become doctrines and dogmas in theosophy have now to be tested by their genesis in physical phenomena, in order that we may explode their false pre- tensions to supernatural origin or supernatural luiowledge.f
But the able author of The Book of the Beginnings and of The Natural Genesis does — ver}' fortunately, for us — quite the reverse. He demonstrates most triumphantly our Esoteric (Buddhist) teachings, by- showing them identical with those of Egypt. Let the reader judge
* Vet (here are some, who may know something- of these, even otttcide the author's Unes, wide u they undeniably are.
t This connecting link, like othem, wag pointed out by the present writer nine yeant before the appearance of thr work from which the above is quoted, namely in /j/j Uni^iUd, a work full of 9UcJ» graiding linkfi between ancient, mediieva], and modem thought, but, unfortuaalely, too loosely edited.
I Ay ; but how can the learned writer prove that the«e "besinningB" wrrc precisely in Egypt, and nowhere else; and only 50,000 years ago^
\ Precisely; and this is just what the Theosophlats do. They have ne\'er claimed "urigiaal inspira- tion," not e%'en as mediums claim it, but have always pointed, and do now point, to the "primary KsgnificatiOD" of the symbols, which Ihcy trace to other countries, older even than Bgypt: significa- tions, moreover, which emanate from a Hierarchy (or Hierarchies, if preferred) of fivinff Wise Men— mortals notwillistanding that Wi&doiu — who rejecl rvtrry ap[iroach lo luprmaturainm.
II Bnt where is the proof that the Ancients did not mean precisely that which the Thcosophists claim? Records exist for what they say. just as other records exijit for what Mr. Cerald Mossey says. Hi» iuterpretatiops arc very correct, but are also very one phystcai atfiect; for Astronomy. Astrology, and so on, are all on the physical, not the spiritual, plane.
1 T^e Uatmral Gentsis. i. 31S. It is to be feared thol Mr. Massey has not ♦ucceeded. We have OUT followers as he has bin followers, and Materialistic Sdcncc steps in and lakes little acccuttt of both bia and our speculations r
668
THE SECRET DOCTRIXE.
from his learned lecture on '*The Seven Souls of Man/** Says author:
The first form of the mystical Seven was seen to be figured in heaven by tbf seven large stars of the Greai Bcar^ the coustc II avion assigned by the Egyptians m tlie Mother of Time, and of the seven Klenjental Powers, t
Just SO. for the Hindus place their seven primitive Rishis in the Great Bear, and call this constellation the abode of the Saptars Riksha and Chitra-shikhandinas. And their Adepts claim to kn whether it is only an astronomical myth, or a primordial nij'st having a deeper meaning than it bears on its surface. We are also told that:
The Egyptians divided the face of the sky by night into seven parts. primary Heaven was sevenfold. J
So it was with the Ar>'ans. One has but to read the Puranas about the beginnings of Brahma and his Egg. to see this. Have the Aryans then, taken the idea from the Eg3'ptians? But, as the lect proceeds :
The earliest forces recognized in Nature were reckoned as seven in numbcc^ These became Seven Elemeutals, devils [?J, or later divinities. Seven propextief were assigned to Nature — as matter, cohesion, iliixiou. coagulation, accumulation, station, and division— an
All this was taught in the Esoteric Doctrine, but it was interpreted and its mysteries unlocked, as already stated, with seven, not two or, at the utmost, three keys; hence the causes and their effects worked in invisible or mystic as well as in psychic Nature, and were made refer- able to Metaphysics and Psychology as much as to Physiology. As the author says:
A principle of sevening, so to say. was introduced, and the number seven suppli a sacred type that could be used for manifold purposes. \\
And it was so used. For:
ure^j
abcX
The seven souls of the Pharaoh arc oflen mentioned ia the Eg>'ptian texts. Seven souls, or principles in man were identified by our British £}ruids, . .
The
* llicract UialthU learned EKyptotoKifttdocsnot rcco^nitcin the doctrine of the " Se\*en Souls," w he terms our "principles," or "metaphysical 'concepts,'" anything: hut "the primitive biology or ph>'stology or the aouI," docs not invalidate our arffumcat. The lecturer touches on only two key*, those that unlock the aiiLronomiciU and the physiological mysteries of Bsoteridsm, and leaves out the other 0ve. Otherwiite he n-ould have promptly umlerstood that what he calls the pbyaiological divisions of the living Soul of nidn. arc rrgardcd by Tbeosopbista aa alao psycbologicil and qviiiliuLL
■t Of. at., p. a.
t Ibid., tiK.. cit.
\ Ihtd., toe. cit.
I) ibid., toe. al.
THE "PRINCIPLRS" IN EGYPTIAN "METAPHYSICS.
669
P^bbins also ran the number of souls up to seven; so, likewise, do the Karens of India.*
And then, the author, with several misspellings, tabulates the two teachings — the Esoteric and the Egryptian — and shows that the latter bad the same series and in the same order.
[Esoteric] Ixdian.