I. Rilpa« body or element of form.

3. Praua, tbe breath of life.
3. Astral body.
4. Manas, or iatelligeucc.t
5. KAnia RApa, or animal soul.
6. Bitddhi, or spiritual sonl.
7. Alraft, pure spirit.
Egyptian.
1. Kha, body.
2. Ba. the soul of breath. 5. Rhaba, the shade.
4. Akhu, intelligence or perception.
5. Seb, ancestral soul.
6. Putah, the first intellectual father,
7. .\lmu, a divine, or eternal soul. J
Further on, the lecturer formulates these seven (Egj'ptian) Souls, as (i) The Soul of Blood— the >rw«fl/n'^; (2) The Soul of Breath— that breathes; (3) The Shade or Covering Soul — that envelopes; (4) The Soul of Perception — that perceives: (5) The Soul of Pubescence — that procreates: (6) The Intellectual Soul — that reproduces inieUectually ; and (7) The Spiritual Soul— that 'xs, perpetuated pemtanefitly.
From the exoteric and physiological standpoint this may be very correct; it becomes less so from the Esoteric point of view. To main- tain this, does not at all mean that the "Esoteric Buddhists'* resolve tnen into a number of el emaitary spirits^ as Mr. G. Massey, in the same lecture, accuses them of maintaining. No "Esoteric Buddhist*' has ever been guilty of any such absurdit>'. Nor has it been ever imagined that these shadows "become spiritual beings in another world," or "seven potential spirits or elementaries of another life." What is maintained is simply that every time the immortal Ego incarnates it becomes, as a total, a compound unit of Matter and Spirit, which together act on seven different planes of being and consciousness. Elsewhere, Mr. Gerald Massey adds:
The seven soiil.s [our "principles"] . . . are often mentioned ^n the E^^-pttan texts. The moon-god. Taht-Esmun, or the later sun-god. expressed the seven nature-powers that were prior to himself and were summed up in him as his seven souls [we say "principles"]. . . . The seven stars in the hand of the Christ in Revelation, have the same significance.^
• Ibid., p. 4.
t TfaU Is a ffnal miatoke made in the HsoLeric enumeration. Manoa is the fifth, not the fourth ; and Muus coirrspoiids precuurty vrith Seb. the Egryptian fifth principle, Tor that portion of Manas which foilowb the two higher principles, is the ancestral soul, indeed, the bright, iuimortal thread of the higher Ego, to which clingy the apirituat aroma or all the lives or births.
t Ibid., p. 3.
( Ibid., pp. *, 3. •
670 TITE SKCRBT DOCTRIJTK.
And a still greater one. as these stars represent also the setffn keys oT the Seven Churches or the Sodalian Mysteries, kabalistically. Howevc, we will not stop to discuss, but add that other Kg\"ptolog"ist.s have alio discovered that the septenary constitution of man was a cardinal doc- trine with the old Egyptians. In a series of remarkable articles in the Sphinx^ of Munich, Herr Franz Lambert gives incontrovertible proof of his conclusions from the Book of the Dead and other EgXTJtiaa records. For details the reader must be referred to the articles them- selves, but the following diagram, summing up the author's conclusion*. is demonstrative evidence of the identity of Egyptian Psychologj' witj the septenary division in Esoteric Buddhism,
On the left hand side the kabalistic names of the cofrespon human principles arc placed, and on the right the hieroglyphic nameH with their renderings as in the diagram of Franz Lambert.
^r..
KA&AI^R. RrRROGLVPHICa.
/ Yechid* /vTP\ Chu— Divine Spirit.
r circle: I
zelemof / Chayah ( Vi I Cheybi— Spiritual Soul.
Neshamab
Neshamah XTV^X Bai ( In«ellecttial Soul,
Lower Circle: \ Kuch
/Nei
) Km
(ha Guf Guf
Middle circle: 1 / \ ai ( The Heart,
Tztrlem of Ruach* TV h a . Feeling.
Ruach ) V / ( Animal Soul.
The Astral Body, Nephesh ^*C'in3^ ^^ -! lU-estnim,
Sidereal Man. 1 Vital Force,
Tzelem of j ha ( J J 1 Anch Arclueus,
Nephesh ) Guf \ / ' Mumia.
Chat— The Elementary Body.
This is a very fair representation of the number of the "principle of Occultism, but much confused ; and this is what we call the sev- "principles" in man. and what Mr. Massey calls '*souls," giving th same name to the Ego or the Monad which reincarnates and "resur- rects," so to speak, at each rebirth, as the Egyptians did, namely — the "Renewed." But how can Ruach (Spirit) be lodged in Kama Rupa? What does Bohme, the prince of all the mediaeval seers, say?
I
hV
t Tlicre MciDft a cooruston. laatinff for many centDrica. in the mlncU of Wciteni KabalivU. They call Ktisch (Spirit) what wr ckU Kinu ROpa ; whereas, wltii ui, Ruach would be the Spihtua) !>oiil. Buddhi, and Ncpheah ibe fourth priudplc, the Vital, Aiiimal Soul. ^liphsB I>vi falls luto Uie «rror. ,
THE "WATERMEN" OF THE *'BUNDAHISH.
We find seven especial properties in nature whereby this only Mother works all things [which he calls fire, light, sound (the upper three) and tUsire, biiiemess^ anguishy and substantiality^ thus analyzing the lower in his own mystic way]; what- ever the six forms are spiritually, that the seventh [the body or substantiality], is essentially. These are the seven forms of the Mother of all Beings, from whence all that is in this world is generated.*
And again :
The Creator hath, m the body of this world, generated himself as it were araturely in his qualifj-ing or Fountain Spirits, and all the stars are . . . God*s powers, and the whole body of the world eonsisteth in the seven qualifying or fountain spirits, t
This is rendering in mystical language our theosophical doctrine. But how can we agree with Mr. Gerald Massey when he states that :
The Seven Races of Men that have been sublimated and made Planetary [?] by Esoteric Buddhism, t may be met v^'ith in the Bundahish asd) the earth-men; (3) water-men; (3) breast-eared men; {4) breast-eyed men; (5) one-legged men; (6) bat- winged men; (7) men with tails. f
Each of these descriptions, allegorical and even perverted in their later form, is. nevertheless, an echo of the Secret Doctrine teaching. They all refer to the pre-human evolution of the "Water-men terrible and bad" by unaided Nature through millions of years, as previously described. But we deny point-blank the assertion that *' these were never real races/' and point to the Archaic Stan/as for our answer. It is easy to infer and to say that our "instructors have mistaken these shadows of the Past, for things human and spiritual"; but that " they are neither, and never were either," it is less easy to prove. The asser- tion must ever remain on a par with the Darwinian claim that man and the ape had a common pithecoid ancestor. What the lecturer takes for a "mode of expression" and nothing more, in the Egyptian Ritual, we take as having quite another and an important meaning. Here is one instauce. Says the Ritual, the Book of the Dead:
"I am the mouse.'* "I am the hawk." '*I am the ape." ...*'/ am the crocodile whose soul comes from MS,^" . . . *' I am Ihe sohI of Ike gods.**^
The last sentence but one is explained by the lecturer, who says parenthetically, ''thai is, as a type 0/ iiitelligence^* and the last as mean- ing, *'the Horus, or Christ, as the outcome of all."
" Sigmatura Kerum, xtv. pant. lo, 14, 15; Tkt /^atnrui Gcmtjt't, I. 317. + Aurora, xxir. 27.
: This is indeed newsl It malccs us fear that the lecturer had never read Ex>Urtc Buddhism Dc4a*v criticizing it. There Rre too many such miscoucepUotu In bis notices of iL I "The Seven Sooli of Man," pp. a6, 17. L Jtrta., p. a6.
6^2
THK SECHRT DOCTRINH-
The Occult Teaching answers : It means far more.
It gives first of all a corroboration of the teaching that, wliile tb« human Monad has passed on Globe A and others, in the First Round, through all the three kingdoms — the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal — in this our Fourth Round, every mammal has sprung from Man, if the semi -ethereal, many-shaped creature with the human Monad in it, of the first two Races, can be regarded as Man. But it must be so called; for, in the Esoteric language, it is not the form of flesh, blood, and bones, now referred to as man, which is in any way the Man, but the inner divine Monad with its manifold principles or aspects.
The lecture referred to, however, much as it opposes Esoteric Buddh- ism and its teachings, is an eloquent answer to those who have tried to represent the whole as a new-fangled doctrine. And there are many such, iu Europe, America, and even India. Yet, between the Esoteri- cism of the old Arhats, and that which has now survived in India among the few Brahmans who have seriously studied their Secret Philosophy, the difference does not appear so very great. It seems centred in, and limited to, the question of the order of the evolution of cosmic and other principles, more than anything else. At all events it is no greater divergence than the everlasting question of the filioqtu dogma, which since the eighth centur>' has separated the Roman Catholic from the older Greek Eastern Church. Yet, whatever the differences in the forms in which the septenary dogma is presented, the substance is there, and its presence and importance in the Brah- manical system may be judged by what one of India's learned meta- physicians and VedSntic scholars says of it:
Tlie real esoteric seven-fold clas^sifi cation is one of the most important, if n the roost important classification, wbicli has received its &mingeizient from tfae mysterious constitution of this eternal type. I may also mention in this con- nection that the four-fold classification claims the same origin. The light of life, as it were, seems to be refracted by the treble-faced prism of Prakriti, haWng the tHree Gunams for its three faces, and divided into seven rays, which develop in course of time the seven principles of this classification. The progress of develop- ment presents some points of similarity to the gradual development of the rays of the spectrum. Wliile the four-fold classification is amply sufficient for all practical purposes, this real seven-fold classification is of great theoretical and scientific 'mt>ortance. It will be necessary to adopt it to explain certain classes of pbeno> kucna nouced by occultists; and it is perhaps better fitted to be the basis perfect system of psychology. It is not the peculiar property of the "T fiim&layan Bsoteric Doctrine." In fact, it has a closer cuuncctiou with the
4
THE TRANS- AND CIS-HIMALAYAN BSOTKRIC DOCTRINE.
67S
manical Logos than with the Buddhist I^ogos. In order to make my meaning clear 1 may point out here thai the Logos has seven forms. In other words, there are seven kinds of Logoi in the Cosmos. Each of these has became the central figure of one of the seven main branches of the ancient Wisdom-Religion. This c1assi6- cation is not the seven- fold classification we have adopted. I make this assertion vrithout the slightest fear of contradiction. The real classification has all the requisites of a scientific classification. It has seven distinct principles, which correspond with seven distinct states of PrajftA or consciousness. It bridges the gulf between the objective and subjective, and indicates the mysterious circuit through which ideation passes. The seven principles are allied to seven states of matter, and to seven forms of force. These principles are harmoniously arranged between two poles, which define the limits of human consciousness.*
The above is perfectly correct, save, perhaps, on one point. The "seven-fold classification" in the Esoteric System has never (to the writer's knowledge) been claimed by any one belonging to it, as "the peculiar property of the 'Trans-Himalayan Esoteric Doctrine*"; but only as having survived in that old School alone. It is no more the property of the Trans-, than it is of the Cis-Himalayan Esoteric Doctrine, but is simply the common inheritance of all such Schools, left to the Sages of the Fifth Root-Race by the great Siddhasf of the Fourth. Let us remember that the Atlanteans became the terrible sorcerers, now celebrated in so many oi the oldest MSS. of India, only toward their "Fall,** whereby the submersion of their Continent was brought on. "WTiat is claimed i.s simply that the Wisdom imparted by the "Divine Ones" — bom through the Kriyashaktic powers of the Third Race before its Fall and separation into sexes — to the Adepts of the early Fourth Race, has remained in all its pristine purity in a cer- tain Brotherhood. The said School or Fraternity being closely con- nected with a certain island of an inland sea — believed in by both Hindfis and Buddhists, but called "mythical** by Geographers and Orientali.sts — the less one talks of it, the wiser he will be. Nor can one accept the said "seven-fold classification" as having "a closer connection with the Brahmanical Logos than with the Buddhist Logos," since both are identical, whether the one Logos is called Ishvara or Avalokiteshvara, Brahm^ or Padmapani. These are, how-
• Tfu Tkwto^isi, 1887 (Madrms). pp. 705. 706.
t AcconUng to SkvetAshvfiiara-V^Hishad {y\j) the Siddtaas arc thaw who are poaaesacd rrom birth of " superhuman" powrrs, as also of "knowledfre and indiflerence to the world.'* According to the Occnlt teachings, however, the Siddhaa are NimUaaJcAyaa or the "spirits"— in tht sense of an individual, or ccnxciout spirit — of great Sajrcs from spheres oa a higher plane than our own. who voluntarily incarnate in mortal bodies in order to help the human race in ita upward progress. Hence their innate knowledge, wi.
074
THK SECRET DOCTRIKK.
ever, very small differences, more fanciful than real, in fact. BrSh- manism and Buddhism, both viewed from their orthodox aspects, are as inimical and as irreconcilable as water and oil. Each of these greii bodies, however, has a vulnerable place in its constitution. While even in their esoteric interpretation both can agree but to disagrct, once that their respective vulnerable points are confronted, evcrr disagreement must fall, for the two will find themselves on common ground. The "Achilles' heeP" of orthodox Brahmanism is the Ad^-sjti philosophy, whose followers are called by the pious "Buddhists n disguise"; as that of orthodox Buddhism is Northern Mysticism, as represented by the disciples of the philosophies of the Yogacharra School of Arydsangha and the Mahdyina, who are twitted in their turn by their co-religionists as " VedSntins in disguise." The Esotenc Philosophy of both these can be but one if carefully analyzed and compared, as Gautama Buddha and ShankarSchSrya are most closely connected, if one believes tradition and certain Esoteric TeachingSL Thus every difference between the two will be found one of form rather than of substance.
A most mystic discourse, full of septenary symbology, may be fou: in the Anugita.^ There the Brdhmana narrates the bliss of havi crossed beyond the regions of illusion :
9
In which fancies are the gadflies aiid mosquitoes, in which grief and joy are cold and heat, in which delusion is the blinding darkness, in which avarice is the beasts of prey and reptiles, in which desire and anger are the obstructors.
The sage describes the entrance into and exit from the forest — a symbol for man's life-time — and also that forest itself: t
lu that forest arc seven large trees [the senses, mind and understanding, or Mania and Buddhi, included], seven fruits, and seven guests; seven hennit^;es^ seven (fornu of) concentration, and seven (forms of) initiation. This is the description of the forest. That forest is filled with trees producing splendid flowers and fruits of five colours.
The senses, says the commentator:
Are called trees, as being producers of the fruits , . . pleasures and pains • . .; the guests are the powers of each sense personiBeti — they receive the fruits above described; the hermitages are the trees ... in which the guests take shelter; the seven forma of concentration are the exclusion from the self of the
4
• "The Sacred Books oflhc BaM," v\\\. t^\, rt trqq.
t I propoM to follow here the test nod not the editor's comnumUrics. who accepts Arjuna Mlshrs and Nltakantha's di^HUlter cxpliinHtioiis. Our OHenlalUU never Uvuble to ihink Utst if s oAtivt conimeuiator \a « nou-iuitislc, he could nuL explain correctly, and if an IniListe, would not.
"■^A-^,^
AN ALLEGORY FROM THE "ANUGiTA.*
ilready referred to: the
fonuB of
«even ftmctionsi of the seven senses, e
initiation refer lo the initiation into the higher life, by repudiating as not one's
own the actions of each member out of the gronp of seveiir*
The explanation is harmless, if unsatisfactory. Says the Brfilimana. continuing his description :
That forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of four colours. That forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of three colours, and mixed. That forest is filled witli trees producing flowers and fruits of two colours, and of beautiful colours. That forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of on/ colour, and fragrant That forest is filled [instead of with seven] with two large trees producing numerous flowers and fruits of undistinguished colours [mind and understanding — the two higher senses, or theosophically, Manas and Buddhi]. There is one fire [the Self] here, connected with the Brahman, tandiiaving a good mind [or true knowledge^ according to Aijuna Mishra]. And there is fael here, (namely) the five senses [or human passions]. The seven (forms of) emancipation from them are the seven (forms of) initiation. The qualities are the fruits. . . . There . . . the great sages receive hospitality. And when they have been worshipped and have disappeared, another forest shines forth, in which iftUUigeme is the tree, and emancipation the fruit, and which possesses shade (in the form of) tranquillity, which depends on knowledge, which has contentment for its water, and which has the KshetrajAat within for the sun.
Now. all tlie above is very plain, and no Theosophist, even among the least learned, can fail to understand the allegory. And yet, we see great Orientalists making a perfect mess of it in their explanations. The "great sages" who "receive hospitality" are explained as mean- ing the senses, "which, having worked as unconnected with the self are finally absorbed into it." But one fails to understand, if the senses are "unconnected" with the "Higher Self," in what manner they can be "absorbed into it." One would think, on the coutrar>% that it is just because the personal senses gravitate and strive to be connected with the impersonal Self, that the latter, which is Fire, bums the lower five and purifies thereby the higher two, "mind and understanding," or the higher aspects of Manas § and Buddhi. This is quite apparent from the
* See CkAamdogya, p. 319, and Shankara's commentary tliereupoii.
t Tbe editor explains here, saying, "1 presume devoted lo the Brahmaa." We venture lo assert that tlie "Plrc" or Self is the reaJ HlKher8£Lp "connected with," that U) to uy oiw with Bntama, the One Deily. The "Self" aepnrates itself no longer from (he Universal Spirit.
: The "Suprtiae Self," aays Kriahua, In the Bhagavad Gttd, pp. 102, tt u^.
\ As Mohat, or Universal Inletligence, is first bom, or manifests, as Vishnu, and then, when it foils into Matter and develops seir-con. nature. It is respectively under the Sun and Moon, for as Sbanluirichirya says: "The moon is the mind, and the »un the understanding." The Sun and Moon are the deities of our planetary Macro- coamos, and therefore Shankora adds that : "The mind and the understanding are the respeclive deities of the [human] orcaus." (See BrihadMranyakn. pp. 521, etM^g.) 7%ta is perhaps why Aijuna Mishra says that the Moon and the Pire (the Self, the fiun) constitute the universe.
676
THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
text. The "great sages" disappear after having "been worshipped," Worshipped by whom if they (the presumed senses) are "unconnected with the self"? By Mind, of course; by Manas (in this case merged in the sixth sense) which is not, and cannot be, the Brahman, the Self, or Kshetrajna — the SouPs Spiritual Sun. Into the latter, in time. Manas itself must be absorbed. It has worshipped "great sages" and given hospitality to /frr«/na/ wisdom; but once that "another forest shone forth" upon it. it is Intelligence (Buddhi. the seventh sense, but sixth principle) which is transformed into the Tree — that Tree whose fruit is emancipation — which finally destroys the very roots of the Asbvattha tree, the symbol of li/e and of its illusive joys and pleasures. And therefore, those who attain to that state of emancipation have, in the words of the above-cited Sage, "no fear afterwards." In this state "the end cannot be perceived because it extends on all sides."
"There always dwell seven females there," he goes on to say, carry- ing out the imagery. These females — who, according to Arjuna Mishra, are the Mahat, AhamkSra and five Tanmatras — have alwa)-s their faces turned downwards, as they are obstacles in the way of spiritual ascension.
In that same [Brahman, the Self] the sevcu perfect sages, together with their chiefs, . . . abide, and again emerge from the same. Glory, bnlUance and greal- ness, eulighteument, victory, perfection aud power — these seven rays follow aAer this same sun [Kshetrajfta. the Higher Self]. . . . Those whose usishes are reduced [the unselfish]; . . . whose sins [passions] are burnt up by penance, merging the self in the self;* devote themselves to BrAhmau. Those people who understand the forest of knowledge [Brahman, or the Self], praise tranquillity. And ospiri to that forest, they are [re-] bom so as not to lose courage. Such, indeed, is this bo| forest. . . . And understanding it, they [the sages] act (accordingly), bex directed by the Kshctrajfta.
No translator among the Western Orientalists has yet perceived in the foregoing allegory an>^hing higher than mysteries connected with sacrificial ritualism, penance, or ascetic ceremonies, and Hatha Yoga. But he who understands symbolical imager>', and hears the voice of Selfu'iihin Self, will see in this something far higher than mere ritual- ism, however often he may err in minor details of the Philosophy*.
And here we must be allowed a last remark. No true Theosophis from the most ignorant up to the most learned, ought to claim infal bility for anything he may say or write upon Occult matters. The'
nd
I
* "The body va Xhc •out." m Arjuun MUhra U credited with Mj-ing, or r«ther " the wMil lit Uic ■piril " ; aud ou a »tiU higher plane of developmeul. the Self tir Alman In the Univcmal Self-
ENDLESS IS THE SBASCH FOR TRUTB.
677
chief point is to admit that, in many a way, in the classification of either cosmic or human principles, in addition to mistakes in the order of evolution, and especially on metaphysical questions, those of us who pretend to teach others more ignorant than ourselves — are all liable to err. Thus mistakes have been made in his Unveiled^ in Esoteric Buddhism^ in J/a«, in Magic: While a^td Blacky etc., and more than one mistake is likely to be found in the present work. This cannot be helped. For a large or even a small work on such abstmse subjects to be entirely exempt from error and blunder, it would have to be written from its first to its last page by a great Adept, if not by an Avatara. Then only should we say, ''This is verily a work without sin or blemish in it!" But so long as the artist is imperfect, how can his work be perfect? ** Endless is the search for truth!" Let us love it and aspire to it for its own sake, and not for the glory or benefit a minute portion of its revelation may confer on us. For who of us can presume to have the whole truth at his fingers' ends, even upon one minor teaching of Occultism?
Our chief point in the present subject, however, has been to show that the septenar>' doctrine, or division of the constitution of man, was a ver>' ancient one, and was not invented by us. This has been successfully done, for we are supported in this, consciously and uncon- sciously, by a number of ancient, mediaeval, and modem writers. What the former said, was well said; what the latter repeated, has generally been distorted. An instance: Read the Pythagorean Frag- ments, and study the septenary man as given by the Rev. G. Oliver, the learned Mason, in his Pylkagvrean Triangle^ who speaks as follows:
The Theosophic Philosophy . . . counted aeven properties [or principles] in man— viz.:
(0 The divine golden man.
(3) The inward holy body from fire and light, like pare silver.
(3) The elemental man.
(4) The mercurial . . . paradisiacal man. (5] The martial soul-like man.
(6) The venerine, ascending to the outward desire.
(7) The solar man, [a witness to and] an inspector of the wonders of God [the Universe].
They had also seven fountain spirits or powers of nature.*
Compare this jumbled account and distribution of Western Theo- sophic Philosophy witb the latest Theosophic explanations by the
* op,€it.,^xrh
L
678
THE SECRET DOCTRINE,
4
Eastern School of Thecsophy, and then decide which is the more correct. Verily:
Wisdom bath bnilded her boose, She hath hewn out her S€t*en pillars*
As to the charge that our School has not adopted the sevenfold classification of the Brahmans, but has confused it, this is quite unjust. To beg:in with, the ''School" is one thing, its exponents (to Europeans) quite another. The latter have first to learn the A B C of practical Eastern Occultism, before they can be made to understand correctly the tremendously abstruse classification based on the seven distinct states of PrajnS. or Consciousness; and, above all, to realize thoroughly what PrajfiS is, in Eastern metaphysics. To give a Western student that classification is to try to make him suppose that he can account for the origin of consciousness, by accounting for the process by which a certain knowledge, though only one of the stales of that consciousness, came to him ; in other words, it is to make him account for something he knows on this plane, by something he knows nothing about on the other planes; i,e., to lead him from the spiritual and the psychological, direct to the ontological. This is why the primary, old classification was adopted by the Theosophists — of which classifications in truth there are many.
To busy oneself, after such a tremendous number of independent witnesses and proofs have been brought before the public, wth an additional enumeration from theological sources, would be quite useless. The seven capital sins and seven virtues of the Christian scheme are far less philosophical than even the seven liberal and the seven accursed sciences— or the seven arts of enchantment of the Gnostics. For one of the latter is now before the public, pregnant with danger in the present as for the future. The modern name for it is Hypnotism ; used as it is by scientific and ignorant Materialists, in the general ignorance of the seven principles, it will soon become Satanism in the full acceptation of the term.