Section XVII. Summary of the Position.

The reader has had the whole case presented to him from both sides, and it remains with him to decide whether its summary stands in our favour or not. If there were such a thing as a void, a vacuum in Nature, one ought to find it produced, according to a physical law, in the minds of helpless admirers of the “lights” of Science, who pass their time in mutually destroying their teachings. If ever the theory that “two lights make darkness” found its application it is in this case, where one‐half of the “lights” imposes its forces and “modes of motion” on the belief of the faithful, and the other half opposes the very existence of the same. “Ether, Matter, Energy”—the sacred hypostatical trinity, the three principles of the truly _unknown_ God of Science, called by them PHYSICAL NATURE! Theology is taken to task and ridiculed for believing in the union of three persons in one Godhead—one God as to substance, three persons as to individuality; and we are laughed at for our belief in unproved and unprovable doctrines, in Angels and Devils, Gods and Spirits. And, indeed, that which made the Scientists win the day over Theology in the Great “Conflict between Religion and Science,” was precisely the argument that neither the identity of that substance, nor the triple individuality claimed—after having been conceived, invented, and worked out in the depths of Theological Consciousness—could be proved to exist by any scientific inductive process of reasoning, least of all by the evidence of our senses. Religion must perish, it is said, because it teaches “mysteries.” “Mystery is the negation of Common Sense,” and Science repels it. According to Mr. Tyndall, Metaphysics is “fiction,” like poetry. The man of Science “takes nothing on trust”; rejects everything “that is not proven to him,” while the Theologian accepts “everything on blind faith.” The Theosophist and the Occultist, who take nothing on trust, not even _exact_ Science, the Spiritualist who denies dogma but believes in Spirits and in _invisible but potent influences_, all share in the same contempt. Very well, then; what we have to do now, is to examine for the last time whether _exact_ Science does not act precisely in the same way as do Theosophy, Spiritualism, and Theology. In a work by Mr. S. Laing, considered a standard book on Science, _Modern Science and Modern Thought_, the author of which, according to the laudatory review of the _Times_, “exhibits with much power and effect the immense discoveries of Science, and its numerous victories over old opinions, whenever they have the rashness to challenge conclusions with it,” we read as follows: What is the material universe composed of? Ether, Matter, Energy. We stop to ask, What is Ether? And Mr. Laing answers in the name of Science: Ether is not actually known to us by any test of which the senses can take cognizance, but is a sort of mathematical substance which we are compelled to assume in order to account for the phenomena of light and heat.(1143) And what is Matter? Do you know more about it than you do about the “hypothetical” agent, Ether? In perfect strictness, it is true that chemical investigations can tell us ... nothing directly of the composition of living matter, and ... it is also in strictness true, that we know nothing about the compositions of any [material] body whatever as it is.(1144) And Energy? Surely you can define the third person of the Trinity of your Material Universe? We can take the answer from any book on Physics: Energy is that which is only known to us by its effects. Pray explain, for this is rather hazy. [In mechanics there is actual and potential energy: work actually performed, and the capacity for performing it. As to the nature of molecular Energy or Forces], the various phenomena which bodies present show that their molecules are under the influence of two contrary forces, one which tends to bring them together, and the other to separate them.... The first force ... is called _molecular attraction_ ... the second force is due to the _vis viva_, or moving force.(1145) Just so: it is the nature of this _moving force_, of this _vis viva_, that we want to know. What is it? “We do not know!” is the invariable answer. “It is an empty shadow of my imagination,” explains Mr. Huxley in his _Physical Basis of Life_. Thus the whole structure of Modern Science is built on a kind of “mathematical abstraction,” on a Protean “Substance which eludes the senses” (Dubois Reymond), and on _effects_, the shadowy and illusive will‐ o’‐the wisps of a _something_ entirely unknown to, and beyond the reach of, Science. “_Self‐moving_” Atoms! _Self‐moving_ Suns, Planets, and Stars! But who, then, or _what_ are they all, if they are self‐endowed with motion? Why then should you, Physicists, laugh at and deride our “Self‐moving Archæus”? Mystery is rejected and scorned by Science, and as Father Felix has truly said: She cannot escape it. Mystery is the fatality of Science. The language of the French preacher is ours, and we quote it in _Isis Unveiled_. Who—he asks—who of you, men of Science: Has been able to penetrate the secret of the formation of a body, the generation of a single atom? What is there, I will not say at the centre of a sun, but at the centre of an atom? Who has sounded to the bottom the abyss in a grain of sand? The grain of sand, gentlemen, has been studied four thousand years by science; she has turned and returned it; she divides it and subdivides it; she torments it with her experiments; she vexes it with her questions to snatch from it the final word as to its secret constitution; she asks it, with an insatiable curiosity: “Shall I divide thee infinitesimally?” Then suspended over this abyss, science hesitates, she stumbles, she feels dazzled, she becomes dizzy, and in despair says: “I DO NOT KNOW.” But if you are so fatally ignorant of the genesis and hidden nature of a grain of sand, how should you have an intuition as to the generation of a single living being? Whence in the living being does life come? Where does it commence? What is the life principle?(1146) Do the men of Science deny all these charges? By no means: for here is a confession of Tyndall, which shows how powerless is Science, even over the world of Matter. The first marshalling of the atoms, on which all subsequent action depends, baffles a keener power than that of the microscope.... Through pure excess of complexity, and long before observation can have any voice in the matter, the most highly trained intellect, the most refined and disciplined imagination, retires in bewilderment from the contemplation of the problem. We are struck dumb by an astonishment which no microscope can relieve, doubting not only the power of our instrument, but even whether we ourselves possess the intellectual elements which will ever enable us to grapple with the ultimate structural energies of nature. How little is known of the material Universe, indeed, has now been suspected for years, on the very admissions of these men of Science themselves. And now there are some Materialists who would even make away with Ether—or whatever Science calls the infinite Substance, the noumenon of which the Buddhists call Svabhâvat—as well as with Atoms, too dangerous both on account of their ancient philosophical, and their present Christian and theological, associations. From the earliest Philosophers, whose records passed to posterity, down to our present age—which, if it denies Invisible Beings in Space, can never be so insane as to deny a Plenum of some sort—the Fulness of the Universe has been an accepted belief. And what it was said to contain, one learns from Hermes Trismegistus (in Dr. Anna Kingsford’s able rendering), who is made to say: Concerning the void ... my judgment is that it does not exist, that it never has existed, and that it never will exist, for all the various parts of the universe are filled, as the earth also is complete and full of bodies, differing in quality and in form, having their species and their magnitude, one larger, one smaller, one solid, one tenuous. The larger ... are easily perceived; the smaller ... are difficult to apprehend, or altogether invisible. We know only of their existence by the sensation of feeling, wherefore many persons deny such entities to be bodies, and regard them as simply spaces,(1147) but it is impossible there should be such spaces. For if indeed there should be anything outside the universe ... then it would be a space occupied by intelligible beings analogous to its [the universe’s] Divinity.... I speak of the genii, for I hold they dwell with us, and of the heroes who dwell above us, between the earth and the higher airs; wherein are neither clouds nor any tempest.(1148) And we “hold” it too. Only, as already remarked, no Eastern Initiate would speak of spheres “_above_ us, between the earth and the airs,” even the highest, as there is no such division or measurement in Occult speech, no _above_, as no _below_, but an eternal _within, within two other withins_, or the planes of subjectivity merging gradually into that of terrestrial objectivity—this being for _man_ the last one, his own plane. This necessary explanation may be closed here by giving, in the words of Hermes, the belief on this particular point of the whole world of Mystics: There are many orders of the Gods; and in all there is an intelligible part. It is not to be supposed they do not come within the range of our senses; on the contrary, we perceive them, better even than those which are called visible.... There are then Gods, superior to all appearances; after them come the Gods whose principle is spiritual; these Gods being sensible, in conformity with their double origin, manifest all things by a sensible nature, each of them illuminating his works one by another.(1149) The supreme Being of heaven, or of all that is comprehended under this name, is Zeus, for it is by heaven that Zeus gives life to all things. The supreme Being of the sun is light, for it is by the disk of the sun that we receive the benefit of the light. The thirty‐six horoscopes of the fixed stars have for supreme Being, or prince, him whose name is _Pantomorphos_, or having all forms, because he gives divine forms to divers types. The seven planets, or wandering spheres, have for supreme Spirits Fortune and Destiny, who uphold the eternal stability of the laws of Nature throughout incessant transformation and perpetual agitation. The ether is the instrument or medium by which all is produced.(1150) This is quite philosophical and in accordance with the spirit of Eastern Esotericism: for all the Forces, such as Light, Heat, Electricity, etc., are called the “Gods”—Esoterically. This, indeed, must be so, since the Esoteric Teachings in Egypt and India were identical. And, therefore, the personification of Fohat, synthesizing all the manifesting Forces in Nature is a legitimate result. Moreover, as will be shown later, the real and Occult Forces in Nature only now begin to be known—and even in this case, by heterodox, not orthodox, Science,(1151) though their existence, in one instance at any rate, is corroborated and certified by an immense number of educated people, and even by some official men of Science. The statement, moreover, in Stanza VI—that Fohat sets in motion the primordial World‐Germs, or the aggregation of Cosmic Atoms and Matter, “some one way, some the other way,” in the opposite direction—looks orthodox and scientific enough. For there is, at all events, in support of this position, one fact fully recognized by Science, and it is this. The meteoric showers, periodical in November and August, belong to a system moving in an elliptical orbit around the Sun. The aphelion of this ring is 1,732 millions of miles beyond the orbit of Neptune, its plane is inclined to the Earth’s orbit at an angle of 64° 3´, and the direction of the meteoric swarm moving round this orbit _is contrary to that of the Earth’s revolution_. This fact, recognized only in 1833, shows it to be the modern rediscovery of what was very anciently known. Fohat turns with his two hands in contrary directions the “seed” and the “curds,” or Cosmic Matter; in clearer language, is turning particles in a highly attenuated condition, and nebulæ. Outside the boundaries of the Solar System, it is other Suns, and especially the mysterious Central Sun—the “Abode of the Invisible Deity” as some reverend gentlemen have called it—that determines the motion and the direction of bodies. That motion serves also to differentiate the homogeneous Matter, round and between the several bodies, into Elements and Sub‐elements unknown to our Earth, and these are regarded by Modern Science as distinct individual Elements, whereas they are merely temporary appearances, changing with every small cycle within the Manvantara, some Esoteric works calling them “Kalpic Masks.” Fohat is the key in Occultism which opens and unriddles the multiform symbols and allegories in the so‐called mythology of every nation; demonstrating the wonderful Philosophy and the deep insight into the mysteries of Nature, contained in the Egyptian and Chaldean as well as in the Âryan religions. Fohat, shown in his true character, proves how deeply versed were all those prehistoric nations in every Science of Nature, now called the physical and chemical branches of Natural Philosophy. In India, Fohat is the scientific aspect of both Vishnu and Indra, the latter older and more important in the _Rig Veda_ than his sectarian successor; while in Egypt, Fohat was known as Toom issued of Noot,(1152) or Osiris in his character of a primordial God, creator of heaven and of beings.(1153) For Toom is spoken of as the Protean God who _generates other Gods_ and gives himself the form he likes; the “Master of Life, giving their vigour to the Gods.”(1154) He is the _overseer_ of the Gods, and he “who creates spirits and gives them shape and life”; he is “the North Wind and the Spirit of the West”; and finally the “Setting Sun of Life,” or the vital electric force that leaves the body at death; wherefore the Defunct begs that Toom should give him the breath from his _right_ nostril (positive electricity) that he might live in his _second_ form. Both the hieroglyph, and the text of chapter xlii in the _Book of the Dead_, show the identity of Toom and Fohat. The former represents a man standing erect with the hieroglyph of the _breaths_ in his hands. The latter says: I open to the chief of An (Heliopolis). I am Toom. I cross the water spilt by Thot‐Hapi, the lord of the horizon, and am the divider of the earth [Fohat divides Space and, with his Sons, the Earth into seven zones].... I cross the heavens; I am the two Lions. I am Ra, I am Aam, I eat my heir.(1155).... I glide on the soil of the field of Aanroo,(1156) given me by the master of limitless eternity. I am a germ of eternity. I am Toom, to whom eternity is accorded. The very words used by Fohat in the XIth Book, and the very titles given him. In the Egyptian Papyri the whole Cosmogony of the Secret Doctrine is found scattered about in isolated sentences, even in the _Book of the Dead_. Number seven is quite as much insisted upon and emphasized therein as in the _Book of Dzyan_. “The Great Water [the Deep or Chaos] is said to be seven cubits deep”—“cubits” standing here of course for divisions, zones, and principles. Therein, “in the great Mother, all the Gods, and the Seven Great Ones are born.” Both Fohat and Toom are addressed as the “Great Ones of the Seven Magic Forces,” who, “conquer the Serpent Apap” or Matter.(1157) No student of Occultism, however, ought to be betrayed, by the usual phraseology used in the translations of Hermetic Works, into believing that the ancient Egyptians or Greeks spoke of, and referred, monk‐like, at every moment in conversation, to a Supreme Being, God, the “One Father and Creator of all,” etc., in the way found on every page of such translations. No such thing indeed; and those texts _are not the original Egyptian_ texts. They are Greek compilations, the earliest of which does not go beyond the early period of Neo‐Platonism. No Hermetic work written by Egyptians—as we may see by the _Book of the Dead_—would speak of the one universal God of the Monotheistic systems; the one _Absolute_ Cause of all, was as unnameable and unpronounceable in the mind of the ancient Philosopher of Egypt, as it is for ever _Unknowable_ in the conception of Mr. Herbert Spencer. As for the Egyptian in general, as M. Maspero well remarks, whenever he Arrived at the notion of divine Unity, the God One was never “God” simply. M. Lepage‐Renouf very justly observed that the word Nouter, Nouti, “God” had never ceased to be _a generic name_ to become a personal one. Every God was the “one living and unique God” with them. Their Monotheism was purely geographical. If the Egyptian of Memphis proclaimed the Unity of Phtah to the exclusion of Ammon, the Thebeian Egyptian proclaimed the unity of Ammon to the exclusion of Phtah [as we now see done in India in the case of the Shaivas and the Vaishnavas]. Ra, the “One God” at Heliopolis is not the same as Osiris, the “One God” at Abydos, and can be worshipped side by side with him, without being absorbed by him. The one God is but the God of the nome or the city, Nouter Nouti, and does not exclude the existence of the one God of the neighbouring town or nome. In short, whenever we are speaking of Egyptian Monotheism, we ought to speak of the Gods One of Egypt, and not of the One God.(1158) It is by this feature, preëminently Egyptian, that the authenticity of the various so‐called _Hermetic Books_, ought to be tested; and it is totally absent from the Greek fragments known under this name. This proves that a Greek Neo‐Platonic, or perhaps a Christian hand, had no small share in the editing of such works. Of course the fundamental Philosophy is there, and in many a place—intact. But the style has been altered and smoothed in a monotheistic direction, as much, if not more than that of the Hebrew Genesis in its Greek and Latin translations. They _may_ be _Hermetic_ works, but not works written by either of the two Hermes—or rather, by Thot Hermes, the directing Intelligence of the Universe(1159) or by Thot his terrestrial incarnation called Trismegistus, of the Rosetta stone. But all is doubt, negation, iconoclasm and brutal indifference, in our age of a hundred “isms” and no religion. Every idol is broken save the Golden Calf. Unfortunately, no nation or nations can escape their Karmic fate, any more than can units and individuals. History itself is dealt with by the so‐ called historians as unscrupulously as legendary lore. For this, Augustin Thierry has made the _amende honorable_, if one may believe his biographers. He deplored the erroneous principle that made all the _would‐ be_ historiographers lose their way, and each presume to correct tradition, “that _vox populi_ which nine times out of ten is _vox Dei_”; and he finally admitted that _in legend alone rests real history_; for he adds: Legend is living tradition, and three times out of four it is truer than what we call History.(1160) While Materialists deny everything in the Universe, save Matter, Archæologists are trying to dwarf Antiquity, and seek to destroy every claim of Ancient Wisdom by tampering with Chronology. Our present‐day Orientalists and historical writers are to Ancient History that which the white ants are to the buildings in India. More dangerous even than those Termites, the modern Archæologists—the “authorities” of the future in the matter of Universal History—are preparing for the history of past nations the fate of certain edifices in tropical countries. As said Michelet: History will tumble down and break into atoms in the lap of the twentieth century, devoured to its foundations by her annalists. Very soon, indeed, under their combined efforts, it will share the fate of those ruined cities in both Americas, which lie deeply buried under impassable virgin forests. Historical facts will remain concealed from view by the inextricable jungles of modern hypotheses, denials and scepticism. But very happily _actual_ History repeats herself, for she proceeds, like everything else, in cycles; and dead facts, and events deliberately drowned in the sea of modern scepticism, will ascend once more and reappear on the surface. In Volume II, the very fact that a work with pretensions to Philosophy, which is also an exposition of the most abstruse problems, has to be commenced by tracing the evolution of mankind from what are regarded as supernatural beings—Spirits—will arouse the most malevolent criticism. Believers in, and the defenders of, the Secret Doctrine, however, will have to bear the accusation of madness _and worse_, as philosophically as for long years already the writer has done. Whenever a Theosophist is taxed with insanity, he ought to reply by quoting from Montesquieu’s _Lettres Persanes_: By opening so freely their lunatic asylums to their supposed madmen, men only seek to assure each other that they are not themselves mad. [Transcriber’s Note: Obvious printer’s errors have been corrected.] FOOTNOTES 1 See _Theosophist_, June, 1883. 2 _Preface_ to the original edition. 3 _Dan_, in modern Chinese and Tibetan phonetics _Chhan_, is the general term for the esoteric schools and their literature. In the old books, the word _Janna_ is defined as “reforming one’s self by meditation and knowledge,” a second _inner_ birth. Hence _Dzan_, _Djan_ phonetically; the _Book of Dzyan_. See Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 129, note. 4 Mr. Beglor, the chief engineer at Buddhagâya, and a distinguished archæologist, was the first, we believe, to discover it. 5 See _Isis Unveiled_, Vol. II, p. 27. 6 _Introduction to the Science of Religion_, p. 23. 7 _Ain í Akbari_, translated by Dr. Blochmann, quoted by Max Müller, _op. cit._ 8 _Tao‐te‐King_, p. xxvii. 9 Max Müller, _op. cit._, p. 114. 10 Found out and proven only _now_, through the discoveries made by George Smith (see his _Chaldean Account of Genesis_), and which, thanks to this Armenian forger, have misled all the “civilized nations” for over 1,500 years into accepting Jewish derivations for direct _Divine_ Revelation. 11 _Egypt’s Place in History_, i. 200. 12 Spence Hardy, _The Legends and Theories of the Buddhists_, p. 66. 13 E. Schlagintweit, _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 77. 14 Lassen (_Ind. Althersumkunde_, II, 1,072) shows a Buddhist monastery erected in the Kailâs. Range in 137 B.C.; and General Cunningham, one earlier than that. 15 Rev. J. Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 87. 16 See, for example, Max Müller’s _Lectures_. 17 _Op. cit._, p. 118. 18 _Op. cit._, p. 318. 19 _Asiatic Researches_, I, 272. 20 See Max Müller, _op. cit._, pp. 288 _et seq._ This relates to the clever forgery, on leaves inserted in old Purânic MSS., and written in correct and archaic Sanskrit, of all that the Pandits had heard from Colonel Wilford about Adam and Abraham, Noah and his three sons, etc., etc. 21 From a lecture by N. M. Prjevalsky. 22 Lün‐Yü (§ I a); Schott, _Chinesische Literatur_, p. 7; quoted by Max Müller. 23 _Life and Teachings of Confucius_, p. 96. 24 Op. cit., p. 257. 25 The name is used in the sense of the Greek word ἅνθρωπς. 26 Rabbi Jehoshua Ben Chananea, who died about A.D. 72, openly declared that he had performed “miracles” by means of the book _Sepher Jetzirah_, and challenged every sceptic. Franck, quoting from the Babylonian _Talmud_, names two other thaumaturgists, Rabbis Chanina and Oshoi. (See _Jerusalem Talmud_, _Sanhedrin_, c. 7, etc.; and Franck, _Die Kabbalah_, pp. 55, 56). Many of the mediæval Occultists, Alchemists, and Kabalists have made the same claim; and even the late modern Magus, Éliphas Lévi, publicly asserts it in his books on Magic. 27 It is hardly necessary to remind the reader that the term Divine Thought, like that of Universal Mind, must not be regarded as even vaguely shadowing forth an intellectual process akin to that exhibited by man. The “Unconscious,” according to von Hartmann, arrived at the vast creative, or rather evolutionary plan, “by a clairvoyant wisdom superior to all consciousness,” which in Vedântic language would mean absolute Wisdom. Only those who realize how far intuition soars above the tardy processes of ratiocinative thought can form the faintest conception of that absolute Wisdom which transcends the ideas of Time and Space. Mind, as we know it, is resolvable into states of consciousness, of varying duration, intensity, complexity, etc., all, in the ultimate, resting on sensation, which is again Mâyâ. Sensation, again, necessarily postulates limitation. The Personal God of orthodox Theism perceives, thinks, and is affected by emotion; he repents and feels “fierce anger.” But the notion of such mental states clearly involves the unthinkable postulate of the externality of the exciting stimuli, to say nothing of the impossibility of ascribing changelessness to a being whose emotions fluctuate with events in the worlds he presides over. The conceptions of a Personal God as changeless and infinite are thus unpsychological and, what is worse, unphilosophical. 28 Plato proves himself an Initiate, when saying in _Cratylus_ that θεός is derived from θέειν, to move, to run, for the first astronomers who observed the motions of the heavenly bodies called the planets θεοί, gods. Later the word produced another term, ἀλήθεια—the breath of God. 29 Nominalists, arguing with Berkeley that “it is impossible ... to form the abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving” (_Principles of Human Knowledge_, Introd., par. 10), may put the question, What is that body, the producer of that motion? Is it a substance? Then you are believers in a Personal God? etc., etc. This will be answered farther on, in a further part of this work; meanwhile, we claim our rights of Conceptionalists as against Roscelini’s materialistic views of Realism and Nominalism. “Has science,” says one of its ablest advocates, Edward Clodd, “revealed anything that weakens or opposes itself to the ancient words in which the essence of all religion, past, present, and to come, is given; to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly before thy God?” And we agree, provided we connote by the word God, not the crude anthropomorphism which is still the backbone of our current theology, but the symbolic conception of that which is the Life and Motion of the Universe, to know which in the physical order is to know time past, present, and to come, in the existence of successions of phenomena; to know which, in the moral, is to know what has been, is, and will be, within human consciousness. (See _Science and the Emotions_, a Discourse delivered at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, London, December 27th, 1885.) 30 _Isis Unveiled_, II, 264‐5. 31 Rig Veda. 32 We are told by the Western mathematicians and some American Kabalists, that in the _Kabalah_ also “the value of the Jehovah name is that of the diameter of a circle.” Add to this the fact that Jehovah is the third of the Sephiroth, Binah, a feminine word, and you have the key to the mystery. By certain Kabalistic transformations this name, which is androgynous in the first chapters of _Genesis_, becomes in its transformations entirely masculine, Cainite and phallic. The choosing of a deity among the pagan gods and making of it a special national God, to call upon it as the “One Living God,” the “God of Gods,” and then proclaiming this worship monotheistic, does not change it into the One Principle whose “Unity admits not of multiplication, change, or form,” especially in the case of a priapic deity, as Jehovah is now demonstrated to be. 33 See that suggestive work, _The Source of Measures_, where the author explains the real meaning of the word _Sacr’_ from which “sacred,” “sacrament,” are derived, words which have now become synonyms of holiness, though purely phallic! 34 _Mândûkya Upanishad_, I. 28. 35 _Bodhimür_, Book II. 36 See the _Vedânta Sâra_, by Major G. A. Jacob; and also _The Aphorisms of Shândilya_, translated by Cowell, p. 42. 37 _Aitareya Upanishad._ 38 Nevertheless, prejudiced and rather fanatical Christian Orientalists would like to prove this to be pure Atheism. For proof of this, compare Major Jacob’s _Vedânta Sâra_. Yet, the whole of antiquity echoes the thought: Omnis enim per se divom natura necesse est Immortali ævo summa cum pace fruatur— as Lucretius has it—a purely Vedântic conception. 39 The very names of the two chief deities, Brahmâ and Vishnu, ought to have long ago suggested their esoteric meanings. Brahman, or Brahm, is derived by some from the root _brih_, to grow or to expand (see _Calcutta Review_, vol. lxvi., p. 14); Vishnu, from the root _vish_, to pervade, to enter into the nature of the essence; Brahmâ‐Vishnu thus being infinite Space, of which the Gods, the Rishis, the Manus, and all in this Universe are simply the Potencies (Vibhûtayah). 40 See Manu’s account of Brahmâ separating his body into male and female, the latter the female Vâch, in whom he creates Virâj, and compare this with the esotericism of Chapters II, III, and IV of _Genesis_. 41 Occultism is indeed “in the air” at the close of this our century. Among many other works recently published, we would recommend especially to students of theoretical Occultism who would not venture beyond the realm of our special human plane, _New Aspects of Life and Religion_, by Henry Pratt, M.D. It is full of esoteric dogmas and philosophy, the latter, however, in the concluding chapters, rather limited by what seems to be a spirit of conditioned positivism. Nevertheless, what is said of Space as “the Unknown First Cause,” merits quotation. “This unknown something, thus recognized as, and identified with, the primary embodiment of Simple Unity, is invisible and impalpable [as _abstract_ space, granted]: and because invisible and impalpable, therefore incognizable. And this incognizability has led to the error of supposing it to be a simple void, a mere receptive capacity. But, even viewed as an absolute void, space must be admitted to be either self‐existent, infinite, and eternal, or to have had a first cause outside, behind, and beyond itself. “And yet could such a cause be found and defined, this would only lead to the transferring thereto of the attributes otherwise accruing to space, and thus merely throw the difficulty of origination a step farther back, without gaining additional light as to primary causation.” (_Op. cit._, p. 5.) This is precisely what has been done by the believers in an anthropomorphic creator, an extra‐cosmic, instead of an intra‐cosmic God. Many of Dr. Pratt’s subjects—most of them we may say—are old Kabalistic ideas and theories which he presents in quite a new garb—“New Aspects” of the Occult in Nature, indeed. Space, however, viewed as a Substantial Unity—the living Source of Life—is, as the Unknown Causeless Cause, the oldest dogma in Occultism, millenniums earlier than the Pater‐Æther of the Greeks and Latins. So are “Force and Matter, as Potencies of Space, inseparable, and the unknown revealers of the Unknown.” They are all found in Âryan philosophy personified as Vishvakarman, Indra, Vishnu, etc., etc. Still they are expressed very philosophically, and under many unusual aspects, in the work referred to. 42 In contradistinction to the manifested Universe of matter, the term Mûlaprakriti (from _mûla_, root, and prakriti, nature), or the unmanifested primordial Matter—called by Western Alchemists Adam’s Earth—is applied by the Vedântins to _Parabrahman_. Matter is dual in religious metaphysics, and in esoteric teachings septenary, like everything else in the Universe. As Mûlaprakriti, it is undifferentiated and eternal: as Vyakta, it becomes differentiated and conditioned, according to _Shvetâshvatara Upanishad_, I, 8, and _Devî Bhâgavata Purâna_. The author of the Four lectures on the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_, in speaking of Mûlaprakriti, says: “From its [the Logos’] objective standpoint, Parabrahman appears to it as Mûlaprakriti.... Of course this Mûlaprakriti is material to it, as any material object is material to us.... Parabrahman is an unconditioned and absolute reality, and Mûlaprakriti is a sort of veil thrown over it.” (_Theosophist_, VIII, 304.) 43 Esoteric Philosophy, regarding every finite thing as Mâyâ (or the illusion of ignorance), must necessarily view in the same light every intra‐cosmic planet and body, seeing that it is something organized, hence finite. The sentence, therefore, “it proceeds from without inwardly, etc.”, in its first clause, refers to the dawn of the Mahâmanvantara, or the great reëvolution after one of the complete periodical dissolutions of every compound form in Nature, from planet to molecule, into its ultimate essence or element; and in its second clause, to the partial or local Manvantara, which may be a solar or even a planetary one. 44 By Centre, a centre of energy or a cosmic focus is meant; when the so‐called “creation,” or formation, of a planet, is accomplished by that force which is designated by Occultists Life and by Science Energy, then the process takes place from within outwardly, every atom being said to contain in itself the creative energy of the divine Breath. And, whereas after an Absolute Pralaya, when the preëxisting material consists but of One Element, and Breath “is everywhere,” the latter acts from without inwardly; after a Minor Pralaya, when everything having remained _in statu quo_—in a refrigerated state, so to say, like the moon—then at the first flutter of Manvantara, the planet or planets begin their resurrection to life from within outwardly. 45 In the evolutionary cycles of ideas, it is curious to notice how ancient thought seems to be reflected in modern speculation. Had Mr. Herbert Spencer read and studied ancient Hindû philosophers when he wrote a certain passage in his _First Principles_ (p. 482)? Or is it an independent flash of inner perception that made him say half correctly, half incorrectly, “motion as well as matter, being fixed in quantity [?], it would seem that the change in the distribution of matter which motion effects, coming to a limit in whichever direction it is carried [?], the indestructible motion thereupon necessitates a reverse distribution. Apparently, the universally coëxistent forces of attraction and repulsion which, as we have seen, necessitate rhythm in all minor changes throughout the Universe, also necessitate rhythm in the totality of its changes—produce now an immeasurable period during which the attracting forces predominating, cause universal concentration, and then an immeasurable period, during which the repulsive forces predominating, cause universal diffusion—alternate eras of evolution and dissolution.” 46 Whatever the news of Physical Science upon the subject, Occult Science has been teaching for ages that Âkâsha (of which Ether is the grossest form), the Fifth universal cosmic Principle—to which corresponds and from which proceeds human Manas—is, cosmically, a radiant, cool, diathermanous plastic matter, creative in its physical nature, correlative in its grossest aspects and portions, immutable in its higher principles. In the creative condition it is called the Sub‐Root; and in conjunction with radiant heat, it recalls “dead worlds to life.” In its higher aspect it is the Soul of the World; in its lower—the Destroyer. 47 _Hypoth._, 1675. 48 The “First” presupposes necessarily something which is the “first brought forth,” “the first in time, space, and rank”—and therefore finite and conditioned. The “first” _cannot be Absolute_ for it is a manifestation. Therefore, Eastern Occultism calls the Abstract All the One Causeless Cause, the Rootless Root, and limits the “First Cause” to the Logos, in the sense that Plato gives to this term. 49 See T. Subba Row’s four able lectures on the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_, in _The Theosophist_, Feb. 1887. 50 Called by Christian theology, Archangels, Seraphs, etc., etc. 51 “Pilgrim” is the appellation given to our Monad (the Two in one) during its cycle of incarnations. It is the only immortal and eternal Principle in us, being an indivisible part of the integral whole—the Universal Spirit, from which it emanates, and into which it is absorbed at the end of the cycle. When it is said to emanate from the One Spirit, an awkward and incorrect expression has to be used for lack of appropriate words in English. The Vedântins call it Sûtrâtmâ (Thread‐Soul), but their explanation differs somewhat from that of the Occultists; to explain which difference, however, is left to the Vedântins themselves. 52 It is not the physical organisms that remain _in statu quo_, least of all their psychic principles, during the great Cosmic or even Solar Pralayas, but only their âkâshic or astral “photographs.” But during the Minor Pralayas, once overtaken by the “Night,” the planets remain intact, though dead, just as a huge animal, caught and embedded in the polar ice, remains the same for ages. 53 Thus Spencer, who, nevertheless, like Schopenhauer and von Hartmann, only reflects an aspect of the old esoteric philosophers, and hence lands his readers on the bleak shore of Agnostic despair—reverently formulates the grand mystery; “that which persists unchanging in quantity, but ever changing in form, under these sensible appearances which the Universe presents to us, is an unknown and unknowable power, which we are obliged to recognize as without limit in Space and without beginning or end in Time.” It is only daring Theology—never Science or Philosophy—which seeks to gauge the Infinite and unveil the Fathomless and Unknowable. 54 Space. 55 It is stated in Book II, ch. viii, of _Vishnu Purâna_: “By immortality is meant existence to the end of the Kalpa”; and Wilson, the translator, remarks in a foot‐note: “This, according to the _Vedas_, is all that is to be understood of the immortality [or eternity] of the gods; they perish at the end of universal dissolution [or Pralaya].” And Esoteric Philosophy says: “They ‘perish’ not, but are _reäbsorbed_.” 56 Celestial Beings. 57 And hence to manifest it. 58 Nirvâna. Nippang in Chinese; Neibban in Burmese; Moksha in India. 59 Nidâna and Mâyâ. The “Twelve” Nidânas (in Tibetan Ten‐brel Chug‐nyi) are the chief causes of existence, effects generated by a concatenation of causes produced. 60 See Wassilief, _Der Buddhismus_, pp. 97‐128. 61 The term “Wheel” is the symbolical expression for a world or globe, which shows that the ancients were aware that our Earth was a revolving globe, not a motionless square as some Christian Fathers taught. The “Great Wheel” is the whole duration of our Cycle of Being, or Mahâkalpa, _i.e._, the whole revolution of our special Chain of seven Globes or Spheres from beginning to end; the “Small Wheels” meaning the Rounds, of which there are also seven. 62 Absolute Perfection, Paranirvâna, which is Yong‐Grub. 63 See Dzungarian _Mani Kumbum_, the “Book of the 10,000 Precepts.” Also consult Wassilief’s _Der Buddhismus_, pp. 327 and 357, etc. 64 In clearer words: One has to acquire true Self‐Consciousness in order to understand Samvriti, or the “origin of delusion.” Paramârtha is the synonym of the term Svasamvedanâ, or the “reflection which analyses itself.” There is a difference in the interpretation of the meaning of Paramârtha between the Yogâchâryas and the Madhyamikas, neither of whom, however, explain the real and true esoteric sense of the expression. 65 In India it is called the “Eye of Shiva,” but beyond the Great Range it is known in Esoteric phraseology as “Dangma’s Opened Eye.” Dangma means a purified soul, one who has become a Jîvanmukta, the highest Adept, or rather a Mahâtmâ so‐called. His “Opened Eye” is the inner spiritual eye of the seer; and the faculty which manifests through it, is not clairvoyance as ordinarily understood, _i.e._, the power of seeing at a distance, but rather the faculty of spiritual intuition, through which direct and certain knowledge is obtainable. This faculty is intimately connected with the “third eye,” which mythological tradition ascribes to certain races of men. 66 _Vishnu Purâna_, I. 21. 67 And yet, one, _claiming authority_, namely, Sir Monier Williams, Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, has just denied the fact. This is what he taught his audience, on June the 4th, 1888, in his annual address before the Victoria Institute of Great Britain: “Originally, Buddhism set its face against all solitary asceticism ... to attain sublime heights of knowledge. It had no occult, no esoteric system of doctrine ... withheld from ordinary men” (!!). And, again: “... When Gautama Buddha began his career, the later and lower form of Yoga seems to have been little known.” And then, contradicting himself, the learned lecturer forthwith informs his audience that “we learn from _Lalita‐Vistara_ that various forms of bodily torture, self‐maceration, and austerity were common in Gautama’s time.” (!!) But the lecturer seems quite unaware that this kind of torture and self‐maceration is precisely the lower form of Yoga, _Hatha_ Yoga, which was “little known” and yet so “common” in Gautama’s time. 68 It is even argued that all the Six Darshanas, or Schools of Philosophy, show traces of Buddha’s influence, being either taken from Buddhism or due to Greek teaching! (See Weber, Max Müller, etc.) We labour under the impression that Colebrooke, “the highest authority” in such matters, had long ago settled the question by showing that “the Hindûs were in this instance the teachers, not the learners.” 69 Soul, as the basis of all, Anima Mundi. 70 Absolute Being and Consciousness, which are Absolute Non‐Being and Unconsciousness. 71 “Paramârthasatya” is self‐consciousness; Svasamvedanâ, or self‐ analyzing reflection—from _parama_, above everything, and _artha_, comprehension; _satya_ meaning absolute true being, or _esse_. In Tibetan Paramârthasatya is Dondampaidenpa. The opposite of this absolute reality, or actuality, is Samvritisatya—the relative truth only—Samvriti meaning “false conception” and being the origin of Illusion, Mâyâ; in Tibetan Kundzabchidenpa, “illusion‐creating appearance.” 72 _Aphorisms of the Bodhisattvas._ 73 Âryâsanga was a pre‐Christian Adept and founder of a Buddhist esoteric school, though Csoma de Körös places him, for some reasons of his own, in the seventh century A.D. There was another Aryâsanga, who lived during the first centuries of our era, and the Hungarian scholar most probably confuses the two. 74 _Vâyu Purâna_. 75 _Vishnu Purâna_, Wilson, I. 20. 76 Finite self‐consciousness, I mean. For how can the _Absolute_ attain this otherwise than simply as an _aspect_, the highest of which aspects known to us is human consciousness? 77 See Schwegler’s _Handbook of the History of Philosophy_, in Sterling’s translation, p. 28. 78 Vajrapâni or Vajradhara means the diamond‐holder; in Tibetan Dorjesempa, _sempa_ meaning the soul; its adamantine quality referring to its indestructibility in the hereafter. The explanation with regard to the Anupâdaka given in the _Kâla Chakra_, the first in the Gyut division of the _Kanjur_, is half esoteric. It has misled the Orientalists into erroneous speculations with respect to the Dhyâni‐Buddhas and their earthly correspondencies, the Mânushi‐ Buddhas. The real tenet is hinted at in a subsequent volume, and will be more fully explained in its proper place. 79 To quote Hegel again, who with Schelling practically accepted the Pantheistic conception of periodical Avatâras (special incarnations of the World‐Spirit in Man, as seen in the case of all the great religious reformers): “The essence of man is spirit ... only by stripping himself of his finiteness and surrendering himself to pure self‐consciousness does he attain the truth. Christ‐man, as man in whom the Unity of God‐man [identity of the individual with the universal Consciousness as taught by the Vedântins and some Advaitees] appeared, has, in his death and history generally, himself presented the eternal history of Spirit—a history which every man has to accomplish in himself, in order to exist as Spirit.”—_Philosophy of History_, Sibree’s English Translation, p. 340. 80 Chohanic, Dhyâni‐Buddhic. 81 Rûpa. 82 Arûpa. 83 “Mother of the Gods,” Aditi, or Cosmic Space. In the _Zohar_, she is called Sephira, the Mother of the Sephiroth, and Shekinah in her primordial form, _in abscondita_. 84 Hence Non‐Being is “Absolute Being,” in Esoteric Philosophy. In the tenets of the latter even Âdi‐Buddha (the First or Primeval Wisdom) is, while manifested, in one sense an Illusion, Mâyâ, since all the gods, including Brahmâ, have to die at the end of the Age of Brahmâ; the abstraction called Parabrahman—whether we call it Ain Suph, or with Herbert Spencer the Unknowable—alone being the One Absolute Reality. The One Secondless Existence is Advaita, “Without a Second,” and all the rest is Mâyâ, so teaches the Advaita Philosophy. 85 Motion. 86 Wilson, I. iv. 87 Mother‐Lotus. 88 An unpoetical term, yet still very graphic. 89 Gross, _The Heathen Religion_, p. 195. 90 _Precepts for Yoga_. 91 A Vedântin of the Visishthadvaita Philosophy would say that, though the only independent Reality, Parabrahman is inseparable from His Trinity. That He is three, “Parabrahman, Chit, and Achit,” the last two being dependent Realities unable to exist separately; or, to make it clearer, Parabrahman is the Substance—changeless, eternal, and incognizable—and Chit (Âtmâ) and Achit (Anâtmâ) and its qualities, as form and colour are the qualities of any object. The two are the garment, or body, or rather aspect (sharîra) of Parabrahman. But an Occultist would find much to say against this claim, and so would the Advaiti Vedântin. 92 _Sc._, Sons. 93 Simultaneously. 94 Moves. 95 Periodical. 96 Wilson, _Vishnu Purâna_, I. 40. 97 Triangle. 98 Quaternary. 99 Hiranyagarbha. 100 The three hypostases of Brahmâ, or Vishnu, the three Avasthâs. 101 Number, truly; but never Motion. It is Motion which begets the Logos, the Word, in Occultism. 102 The “fourteen precious things.” The narrative or allegory is found in the _Shatapatha Brâmanah_ and others. The Japanese Secret Science of the Buddhist Mystics, the Yamabooshi, has “seven precious things.” We will speak of them, hereafter. 103 “The original for Understanding is Sattva, which Shankara renders Antaskarana. ‘Refined,’ he says, ‘by sacrifices and other sanctifying operations.’ In the _Katha_, at p. 148, Sattva is rendered by Shankara to mean Buddhi—a common use of the word.” (_Bhagavadgîtâ_, etc., translated by Kâshinâth Trimbak Telang, M.A.; edited by Max Müller, p. 193.) Whatever meaning various schools may give the term, Sattva is the name given among Occult students of the Âryâsanga School to the dual Monad, or Âtmâ‐Buddhi, and Âtmâ‐Buddhi on this plane corresponds to Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti on the higher plane. 104 Amrita. 105 Cory’s _Ancient Fragments_, p. 314. 106 On Rosenkranz. 107 i. 2. 108 _John_, i. 4. 109 Lanoo is a student, a Chelâ who studies practical Esotericism. 110 “Whom thou knowest now as Kwan‐Shai‐Yin.”—_Comment._ 111 Eka is One; Chatur, Four; Tri, Three; and Sapta, Seven. 112 “Tridasha,” or Thirty, three times ten, alludes to the Vedic deities in round numbers, or more accurately 33—a sacred number. They are the 12 Âdityas, the 8 Vasus, the 11 Rudras, and the 2 Ashvins—the twin sons of the Sun and Sky. This is the root‐number of the Hindû Pantheon, which enumerates 33 crores, or three hundred and thirty millions of gods and goddesses. 113 Stars. 114 The Upper Space. 115 Element. 116 The Gnostic Sophia, “Wisdom,” who is the “Mother” of the Ogdoad (Aditi, in a certain sense, with her eight sons), is the Holy Ghost and the Creator of all, as in the ancient systems. The “Father” is a far later invention. The earliest manifested Logos was female everywhere—the mother of the seven planetary powers. 117 See _Chinese Buddhism_, by the Rev. Joseph Edkins, who always gives correct facts, although his conclusions are very frequently erroneous. 118 _Book of Sarparâjni_. 119 By “God, the Father,” the seventh principle in Man and Kosmos are here unmistakably meant, this principle being inseparable in its Esse and Nature from the seventh cosmic principle. In one sense it is the Logos of the Greeks and the Avalokiteshvara of the Esoteric “Buddhists.” 120 Fitzedward Hall’s edition, in the _Bibliotheca Indica_, p. 16. 121 _Anugîtâ_, ch. xxvi, K. T. Telang’s Translation, p. 333. 122 See Mariette’s _Abydos_, II. 63, and III. 413, 414, No. 1,122. 123 _Book of Dzyan_, III. 124 Od is the pure life‐giving Light, or magnetic fluid; Ob the messenger of death used by sorcerers, the nefarious evil fluid; Aour is the synthesis of the two, Astral Light proper. Can the Philologists tell why Od—a term used by Reichenbach to denominate the vital fluid—is also a Tibetan word meaning light, brightness, radiancy? It also means “sky” in an Occult sense. Whence the root of the word? But Âkâsha is not quite Ether, but far higher than that, as will be shown. 125 This is again similar to the doctrine of Fichte and German Pantheists. The former reveres Jesus as the great teacher who inculcated the unity of the spirit of man with the God‐Spirit or Universal Principle (the Advaita doctrine). It is difficult to find a single speculation in Western metaphysics which has not been anticipated by archaic Eastern philosophy. From Kant to Herbert Spencer, it is all a more or less distorted echo of the Dvaita, Advaita, and Vedântic doctrines generally. 126 Compare Dowson’s _Dictionary of Hindû Mythology_, p. 57. 127 Whether the genus of the bird be _cygnus_, _anser_, or _pelecanus_, it is no matter, as it is an aquatic bird floating or moving on the waters like the Spirit, and then issuing from those waters to give birth to other beings. The true significance of the symbol of the Eighteenth Degree of the Rosecroix is precisely this, though it was later on poetised into the motherly feeling of the pelican rending its bosom to feed its seven little ones with its blood. 128 The reason why Moses forbids eating the pelican and swan (_Deuteronomy_, xiv. 16, 17), classing the two among the unclean fowls, and permits eating “the bald locusts, beetles, and the grasshopper after his kind” (_Leviticus_ xi. 22.), is a purely physiological one, and has to do with mystic symbology only in so far as the word “unclean,” like every other word, ought not to be understood literally; for it is esoteric like all the rest, and may as well mean “holy” as not. It is a very suggestive blind in connection with certain superstitions—_e.g._, that of the Russian people, who will not use the pigeon for food; not because it is “unclean” but because the “Holy Ghost” is credited with having appeared under the form of a dove. 129 Chaos. 130 Not the Mediæval Alchemists, but the Magi and Fire‐Worshippers, from whom the Rosicrucians, or the Philosophers _per ignem_, the successors of the Theurgists, borrowed all their ideas concerning Fire, as a mystic and divine element. 131 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 146. 132 “Para” gives the force of beyond, outside. 133 Purusha. 134 Prakriti. 135 I, I. 7. 136 The Web. 137 The Father. 138 The Root of Matter. 139 The Elements, with their respective Powers, or Intelligences. 140 The Web. 141 _Popular Astronomy_, pp. 507, 508. 142 _American Journal of Science_, July, 1870. 143 Winchell, _World‐Life_, pp. 83‐5. 144 Of the Atoms. 145 The Universe. 146 Primeval Light. 147 This is said in view of the fact that the flame from a fire is inexhaustible, and that the lights of the whole Universe could be lit from one simple rush‐light without diminishing the flame. 148 Chap. viii., p. 80, Telang’s Translation. 149 _Deuteronomy_, iv 24. 150 _Thess._, i. 7, 8. 151 _Acts_, ii. 3. 152 _Rev._, xix. 13. 153 Telang’s Translation, _Sacred Books of the East_, viii. 278. 154 Dhyân Chohans. 155 Formless. 156 With Bodies. 157 Pitris. 158 The Four, represented in the Occult numerals by the Tetraktys, the Sacred or Perfect Square, is a Sacred Number with the Mystics of every nation and race. It has one and the same significance in Brâhmanism, Buddhism, in Kabalism and in the Egyptian, Chaldean and other numerical systems. 159 In the _Kabalah_, the same numbers, viz., 1065 are a value of Jehovah, since the numerical values of the three letters which compose his name—Jod, Vau and twice Hé—are respectively 10 (י), 6 (ו) and 5 (ה); or again thrice seven, 21. “Ten is the Mother of the Soul, for Life and Light are therein united,” says Hermes. “For number one is born of the Spirit and the number ten from Matter [Chaos, feminine]; the unity has made the ten, the ten the unity.” (_Book of the Keys_.) By means of Temura, the anagrammatical method of the _Kabalah_, and the knowledge of 1065 (21), a universal science may be obtained regarding Cosmos and its mysteries (Rabbi Yogel). The Rabbis regard the numbers 10, 6, and 5 as the most sacred of all. 160 The reader may be told that an American Kabalist has now discovered the same number for the Elohim. It came to the Jews from Chaldæa. See “Hebrew Metrology,” in _The Masonic Review_, July, 1885, McMillan Lodge, No. 141. 161 We find the same expression in Egypt. Mout signifies, for one thing, “Mother,” and shows the character assigned to her in the triad of that country. She was no less the mother than the wife of Ammon, one of the principal titles of the god being “the husband of his mother.” The goddess Mout, or Mût, is addressed as “Our Lady,” the “Queen of Heaven” and “of the Earth,” thus “sharing these titles with the other mother goddesses, Isis, Hathor, etc.” (Maspero). 162 The Sparks. 163 The permutation of Oeaohoo. The literal signification of the word is, among the Eastern Occultists of the North, a circular wind, whirlwind; but in this instance, it is a term to denote the ceaseless and eternal Cosmic Motion, or rather the Force that moves it, which Force is tacitly accepted as the Deity, but never named. It is the eternal Kârana, the ever‐acting Cause. 164 vi. 15. The _Anugîtâ_ forms part of the Ashvamedha Parvan of the _Mahâbhârata_. The translator of the _Bhagavadgîtâ_, edited by Max Müller, regards it as a continuation of the _Bhagavadgîtâ_. Its original is one of the oldest _Upanishads_. 165 This shows the modern metaphysicians, added to all past and present Hegels, Berkeleys, Schopenhauers, Hartmanns, Herbert Spencers, and even the modern Hylo‐Idealists to boot, no better than the pale copyists of hoary antiquity. 166 It is the knowledge of this law that permits and helps the Arhat to perform his Siddhis, or various phenomena, such as the disintegration of matter, the transport of objects from one place to another, etc. 167 These are ancient Commentaries attached with modern Glossaries to the Stanzas, for the Commentaries in their symbolical language are usually as difficult to understand as the Stanzas themselves. 168 In a polemical scientific work, _The Modern Genesis_ (p. 48), the Rev. W. B. Slaughter, criticizing the position assumed by the astronomers, says: “It is to be regretted that the advocates of this [nebular] theory have not entered more largely into the discussion of it [the beginning of rotation] No one condescends to give us the _rationale_ of it. How does the process of cooling and contracting the mass impart to it a rotatory motion?” (Quoted by Winchell, _World‐Life_, p. 94.) It is not materialistic Science that can ever solve it. “_Motion is eternal in the unmanifested, and periodical in the manifest_,” says an Occult teaching. It is “_when heat caused by the descent of Flame into primordial matter causes its particles to move, which motion becomes the Whirlwind_.” A drop of liquid assumes a spheroidal form owing to its atoms moving around themselves in their ultimate, unresolvable, and noumenal essence; unresolvable for Physical Science, at any rate. The question is amply treated later on. 169 The x, the unknown quantity. 170 Which makes Ten, or the perfect number, applied to the “Creator,” the name given to the totality of the Creators blended by the Monotheists into One, as the “Elohim,” Adam Kadmon or Sephira, the Crown—are the androgyne synthesis of the ten Sephiroth, who stand for the symbol of the manifested Universe in the popularized _Kabalah_. The Esoteric Kabalists, however, following the Eastern Occultists, divide the upper Sephirothal triangle (or Sephira, Chokmah and Binah) from the rest, which leaves seven Sephiroth. As for Svabhâvat, the Orientalists explain the term as meaning the universal plastic matter diffused through space, with, perhaps, half an eye to the Ether of Science. But the Occultists identify it with “Father‐Mother” on the mystic plane. 171 Arûpa. 172 Boundless Circle. 173 Subjective, Formless. 174 Bhâskara. 175 This refers to the Abstract Thought and concrete Voice, or the manifestation thereof, the effect of the Cause. Adam Kadmon, or Tetragrammaton, is the Logos in the _Kabalah_. Therefore this Triad answers in the latter to the highest Triangle of Kether, Chokmah and Binah, the last a female potency, and at the same time the male Jehovah, as partaking of the nature of Chokmah, or the male Wisdom. 176 The Secret Doctrine teaches that the Sun is a central star and not a planet. Yet the ancients knew of and worshipped seven great gods, excluding the Sun and Earth. Which was that “Mystery God” they set apart? Of course not Uranus, only discovered by Herschel in 1781. But could it not be known by another name? Says Ragon: “Occult Sciences having discovered through astronomical calculations that the number of the planets must be seven, the ancients were led to introduce the Sun into the scale of the celestial harmonies, and make him occupy the vacant place. Thus, every time they perceived an influence that pertained to none of the six planets known, they attributed it to the Sun.... The error seems important, but was not so in practical results, if the astrologers replaced Uranus by the Sun, which ... is a central Star relatively motionless, turning only on its axis and regulating time and measure; and which cannot be turned aside from its true functions.” (_Maçonnerie Occulte_, p. 447.) The nomenclature of the days of the week is also faulty. “The Sun‐day ought to be Uranus‐day (Urani dies, Urandi),” adds the learned writer. 177 Planetary System. 178 “The Sun rotates on its axis always in the same direction in which the planets revolve in their respective orbits,” astronomy teaches us. 179 See _Anugîtâ_, Telang, x. 9; and _Aitareya Brâhmana_, Haug, p. 1. 180 This essence of cometary matter, Occult Science teaches, is totally different from any of the chemical or physical characteristics with which Modern Science is acquainted. It is homogeneous in its primitive form beyond the Solar Systems, and differentiates entirely once it crosses the boundaries of our Earth’s region; vitiated by the atmospheres of the planets and the already compound matter of the interplanetary stuff, it is heterogeneous only in our manifested world. 181 Manas—the Mind‐Principle, or the Human Soul. 182 Buddhi—the Divine Soul. 183 See _Correlation of Physical Forces_, 1843, p. 81; and _Address to the British Association_, 1866. 184 Very similar ideas were those of W. Mattieu Williams, in _The Fuel of the Sun_; of Dr. C. William Siemens, _On the Conservation of Solar Energy_ (_Nature_, XXV, 440‐444, March 9, 1882); and also of Dr. P. Martin Duncan in an _Address_, as the President of the Geological Society, London, May, 1877. See _World‐Life_, by Alexander Winchell, LL.D., p. 53, _et seq_. 185 When we speak of Neptune, it is not as an Occultist but as a European. The true Eastern Occultist will maintain that, whereas there are many yet undiscovered planets in our system, Neptune does not really belong to it, in spite of its _apparent_ connection with our Sun and the influence of the latter upon it. This connection is mâyâvic, imaginary, they say. 186 Word, Voice and Spirit. 187 These are the four “Immortals,” which are mentioned in the _Atharva Veda_ as the “Watchers” or Guardians of the four quarters of the sky. (See Ch. lxxvi., 1‐4, _et seq_.) 188 _Conflict between Religion and Science_, pp. 132 and 133. 189 _Principles of Science_, II. 455. 190 _Les Mystères de l’Horoscope_, Ely Star, p. xi. 191 _Psalms_, civ. 4. 192 The difference between the Builders, the Planetary Spirits, and the Lipika must not be lost sight of. (See Shlokas 5 and 6 of this Commentary.) 193 That is, he is under the influence of their guiding thought. 194 Cosmic mists. 195 The World to be. 196 Atoms. 197 See A. P. Sinnett’s _Esoteric Buddhism_, 5th annotated edition, pp. 171‐173. 198 The first and greatest Tibetan Reformer who founded the “Yellow‐ Caps,” Gelukpas. He was born in the year 1355 A.D., in the district of Amdo, and was the Avatâra of Amitâbha, the celestial name of Gautama Buddha. 199 T. Subba Row seems to identify him with, and to call him, the Logos. (See his _Lectures on the Bhagavadgîtâ_, in the _Theosophist_, vol. ix.) 200 Helmholtz, _Faraday Lecture_, 1881. 201 It is well known that sand, when placed on a metal plate in vibration, assumes a series of regular figures of various descriptions. Can Science give a _complete_ explanation of this fact? 202 See _The Masonic Cyclopædia_, Mackenzie; and _The Pythagorean Triangle_, Oliver. 203 Ormazd is the Logos, the “First Born,” and the Sun. 204 _Against Apion_, I, 25. 205 See _Isis Unveiled_, II., 430‐438. 206 See Dowson’s _Hindû Classical Dictionary_. 207 The mineral atoms. 208 Gaseous clouds. 209 See _Kabbalah Denudata_, “De Anima,” p. 113. 210 “The doctrine of the rotation of the earth about an axis was taught by the Pythagorean Hicetas, probably as early as 500 B.C. It was also taught by his pupil Ecphantus, and by Heraclides, a pupil of Plato. The immobility of the sun and the orbital rotation of the earth were shown by Aristarchus of Samos as early as 281 B.C. to be suppositions accordant with facts of observation. The heliocentric theory was also taught about 150 B.C., by Seleucus of Seleucia on the Tigris. [It was taught 500 B.C. by Pythagoras.—H.P.B.] It is said also that Archimedes, in a work entitled _Psammites_, inculcated the heliocentric theory. The sphericity of the earth was distinctly taught by Aristotle, who appealed for proof to the figure of the earth’s shadow on the moon in eclipses. (Aristotle, _De Cælo_, lib. II., cap, XIV.) The same idea was defended by Pliny. (_Nat. Hist._, II., 65.) These views seem to have been lost from knowledge for more than a thousand years....” (Winchell, _World‐ Life_, 551‐2.) 211 _On Vortex Atoms_. 212 _Op. cit._, 567. 213 Abridged from _Principia Rerum Naturalium_. 214 The Lipika. 215 That is: the First is now the Second World. 216 The Formless Universe of Thought. 217 The Shadowy World of Primal Form, or the Intellectual. 218 In the _Rig Veda_, we find the names Brahmanaspati and Brihaspati alternating with, and equivalent to, each other. Also see _Brihadâranyaka Upanishad_; Brihaspati is a deity called the “Father of the Gods.” 219 _Logic_, II. 125. 220 Having already taken the first three. 221 Hosts. 222 The four Aspects are the body, its life or vitality, and the “double” of the body—the triad which disappears with the death of the person—and the Kâma Rûpa which disintegrates in Kâma Loka. 223 _On Amos_, iv. 224 _Theol. Cir._, I. vii. 225 See _The Occult World_, pp. 89, 90. 226 Thus the sentence, “Natura Elementorum obtinet revelationem Dei” (Clemens, _Stromata_, IV. 6), is applicable to both or neither. Consult the _Zends_, II. 228, and Plutarch _De Iside_, as compared by Layard, _Académie des Inscriptions_, 1854, Vol. XV. 227 _Exodus_ xxvi, xxvii. 228 _Antiquities_, I. VIII, ch. xxii. 229 _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 216. 230 “Man” was here substituted for “Dragon.” Compare the Ophite Spirits. The Angels recognized by the Roman Catholic Church, who correspond to these “Faces,” were with the Ophites: Dragon—Raphael; Lion—Michael; Bull, or Ox—Uriel; and Eagle—Gabriel. The four keep company with the four Evangelists, and preface the Gospels. 231 _Ezekiel_, i. 232 The Jews, save the Kabalists, having no names for East, West, South, and North, expressed the idea by words signifying before, behind, right and left, and very often confounded the terms exoterically, thus making the blinds in the _Bible_ more confused and difficult to interpret. Add to this the fact that out of the forty‐seven translators of King James’ Bible “only three understood Hebrew, and of these two died before the Psalms were translated” (_Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_), and one may easily understand what reliance can be placed on the English version of the _Bible_. In this work the Douay Roman Catholic version is generally followed. 233 The vertical line or the figure 1. 234 Circle. 235 Also for those who, etc. 236 The Formless World and the World of Forms. 237 _Theosophist_, Feb., 1877, p. 303. 238 These voluntary reïncarnations are referred to in our Doctrine as Nirmânakâyas—the surviving spiritual principles of men. 239 Sûkshma Sharîra, “dream‐like” illusive body, with which are clothed the inferior Dhyânis of the celestial Hierarchy. 240 Compare this Esoteric tenet with the Gnostic doctrine found in _Pistis‐Sophia_ (Knowledge‐Wisdom), in which treatise Sophia (Achamôth) is shown lost in the waters of Chaos (Matter), on her way to the Supreme Light, and Christos delivering and helping her on the right Path. Note well, that “Christos” with the Gnostics meant the Impersonal Principle, the Âtman of the Universe, and the Âtmâ within every man’s soul—and not Jesus; though in the old Coptic MS., in the British Museum, “Christos” is replaced by “Jesus” and other terms. 241 _A Catechism of the Visishthadvaita Philosophy_, by N. Bhâshiyacharya, F.T.S., late Pandit of the Adyar Library. 242 _Träume eines Geistersehers_, quoted by C. C. Massey, in his preface to Von Hartmann’s _Spiritismus_. 243 _Le Livre des Morts_, Paul Pierret, Chap. xvii. p. 61. 244 See also for other data on this peculiar expression, the Day of “Come To Us,” _The Funerary Ritual of the Egyptians_, by Viscount de Rougé. 245 Chaos. 246 Our Universe. 247 _The Theosophist_, Feb., 1887, p. 305. 248 _Op. cit._, p. 306. 249 Madhya is said of something whose commencement and end are unknown, and Para means infinite. These expressions all relate to infinitude and to division of time. 250 _Op. cit._, p. 307. 251 From the Sanskrit _Laya_, the point of matter where every differentiation has ceased. 252 _Five Years of Theosophy_, Art., “Personal and Impersonal God,” p. 200. 253 Elements. 254 Fraction. 255 Presidential Address before the Royal Society of Chemists, March, 1888. 256 P. 242. 257 Worlds. 258 A period of 311,040,000,000,000 years, according to Brâhmanical calculations. 259 See the _Scientific Arena_, a monthly journal devoted to current philosophical teaching and its bearing upon the religious thought of the age. New York: A. Wilford Hall, Ph.D., LL.D., Editor, July, August, and September, 1886. 260 Such, we believe, is the name applied to what he also calls “Etheric Centres,” by J. W. Keely, of Philadelphia, the inventor of the famous “Motor”—destined, as his admirers have hoped, to revolutionize the motor power of the world. 261 The moon is _dead_ only so far as regards her _inner_ principles—_i.e._, _psychically_ and _spiritually_, however absurd the statement may seem. Physically, she is only as a semi‐paralysed body may be. She is aptly referred to in Occultism as the “Insane Mother,” the great sidereal _lunatic_. 262 Occultists, however, having the most perfect faith in their own exact records, astronomical and mathematical, calculate the age of humanity, and assert that men (as separate sexes) have existed in this Round just 18,618,727 years, as the Brâhmanical teachings and even some Hindû calendars declare. 263 The commentaries on the Stanzas are resumed on p. 213. 264 In _Esoteric Buddhism_ and _Man: Fragments of Forgotten History_. 265 Many more planets are enumerated in the Secret Books than in modern astronomical works. 266 p. 48. 267 See, in _Esoteric Buddhism_, “The Constitution of Man,” and the “Planetary Chain.” 268 Winchell’s _World‐Life_. 269 P. 113 (5th edition). 270 pp. 185‐6. 271 Kosha is “sheath” literally, the sheath of every principle. 272 Sthûla‐upâdhi, or basis of the principle. 273 Life. 274 The Astral Body, or Linga Sharîra. 275 Buddhi. 276 See Diagram II, p. 195. 277 Extract from the Teacher’s letters on various topics. 278 We are not concerned with the other Globes in this work except incidentally. 279 _Esoteric Buddhism_, p. 136. 280 _Lucifer_, May, 1888. 281 _Esoteric Buddhism_ (5th ed.), p. 46. 282 _Op. cit._, p. 49. 283 _Op. cit._, p. 140. 284 p. 177 _supra_. 285 Occultism divides the periods of Rest (Pralaya) into several kinds: there is the _Individual_ Pralaya of each Globe, as humanity and life pass on to the next—seven minor Pralayas in each Round; the _Planetary_ Pralaya, when seven Rounds are completed; the _Solar_ Pralaya, when the whole system is at an end; and finally the _Universal_ Pralaya, Mahâ or Brahmâ Pralaya, at the close of the Age of Brahmâ. These are the chief Pralayas or “destruction periods.” There are many other minor ones, but with these we are not concerned at present. 286 Pp. 48, 49. 287 _Ibid._ 288 “Physical” here means differentiated for cosmical purposes and work; that “physical side,” nevertheless, if objective to the apperception of beings from other planes, is yet quite subjective to us on our plane. 289 Pp. 276 _et seq_. 290 _Ibid._ 291 See diagram, _op. cit._, p. 277. 292 _Op. cit._, pp. 273‐4. 293 _Op. cit._, p. 274‐5. 294 II. 278‐9. 295 P. 48. 296 The _Natures_ of the seven Hierarchies or Classes of Pitris and Dhyân Chohans which compose our nature and bodies are here meant. 297 Round, or revolution of Life and Being round the seven smaller Wheels. 298 Thirds. 299 Race. 300 P. 235. 301 _Rev._, xii. 7‐9. 302 See Vol. II, Shloka 17. 303 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 299, 300. Compare also Dunlap, _Sôd: the Son of the Man_, pp. 51 _et seq._ 304 On the authority of Irenæus, of Justin Martyr and of the _Codex_ itself, Dunlap shows that the Nazarenes regarded “Spirit” as a _female and evil_ Power, in its connection with our Earth. 305 Fetahil is identical with the host of the Pitris, who “created man” as a “shell” only. He was, with the Nazarenes, the King of Light, and the Creator; but in this instance he is the unlucky Prometheus, who fails to get hold of the Living Fire necessary for the formation of the Divine Soul, as he is ignorant of the secret name, the ineffable or incommunicable name of the Kabalists. 306 The spirit of Matter and Concupiscence; Kâma Rûpa _minus_ Manas, Mind. 307 _Codex Nazaræus_, ii. 233. 308 This Mano of the Nazarenes strangely resembles the Hindû Manu, the Heavenly Man of the _Rig Veda_. 309 “I am the true _Vine_, and my father is the husbandman.” (_John_, xv. 1.) 310 With the Gnostics, Christ, as well as Michael who is identical with him in some respects, was the “Chief of the Æons.” 311 _Codex Nazaræus_, i. 135. 312 See the Cosmogony of Pherecydes. 313 I. 301, note. 314 They are found, however, in the Chaldean _Book of Numbers_. 315 _Op. cit._, II. 183 _et seq._ 316 For the difference between _nous_, the higher divine Wisdom, and psyche, the lower and terrestrial, see _St. James_, iii. 15‐17. 317 Jehovah’s connection with the Moon in the _Kabalah_ is well known to students. 318 For the Nazarenes, see _Isis Unveiled_, II. 131 and 132. The true followers of the true Christos were all Nazarenes and _Christians_, and were the opponents of the later Christians. 319 See the diagram of the Lunar Chain of seven worlds, p. 195, where, as in our own or any other Chain, the upper worlds are spiritual, while the lowest, whether Moon, Earth, or any other planet, is dark with matter. 320 The whole Kosmos. The reader is reminded that in the Stanzas Kosmos often means only our own Solar System, not the Infinite Universe. 321 This is purely astronomical. 322 For a clearer explanation of the above, see “Saptaparna” in the Index. 323 _Op. cit._, III. 346. 324 _Book of Dzyan_. 325 See _Index_, at the words “Evolution,” “Darwin,” “Kapila,” “Battle of Life,” etc. 326 _Isis Unveiled_, II. 260. 327 _Vishnu Purâna_. 328 Chain. 329 Earth. 330 Kenealy, _Book of God_, p. 118. 331 Acosta, vi. 14. 332 Kenealy, _Ibid._ 333 I, 587‐93. 334 That which was _natural_ in the sight of primitive man, has only now become _miracle_ to us; and that which was to him a miracle, could never be expressed in our language. 335 There is no nation in the world in which the feeling of devotion, or of religious mysticism, is more developed and prominent than in the Hindû people. See what Max Müller says of this idiosyncrasy and national feature in his works. This is a direct inheritance from the primitive _conscious_ men of the Third Race. 336 _Lectures on Heroes_. 337 Vehicle. 338 Âtman. 339 Âtmâ‐Buddhi, Spirit‐Soul. This relates to the cosmic principles. 340 Again. 341 Avalokiteshvara. 342 Builders. The seven creative Rishis, now connected with the constellation of the Great Bear. 343 Earth. 344 Rosenroth, _Liber Mysterii_ IV. 1. 345 _Genesis_ i. 346 _Auszüge aus dem Zohar_, pp. 13‐15. 347 See _Vishnu Purâna_, Book I. 348 Ch. lxxxviii. 349 Ch. lxiv. 29, 30. 350 _Ibid._, 34, 35. 351 A World, when called a “higher World,” is not higher by reason of its location, but because it is superior in quality or essence. Yet such a World is generally understood by the profane as “Heaven,” and located above our heads. 352 Of Form, the Sthûla Sharîra, External Body. 353 Pearls. 354 Ἄνθρωπος, a work on Occult Embryology, Book I. 355 Namely, a congenital idiot. 356 _John_ iii, 8. 357 Ch. cxlviii. 358 _Ibid._, cxlix. 51. 359 _The Seven Souls of Man_, p. 2; a Lecture by Gerald Massey. 360 _De Iside et Osiride_, xliii. 361 Ch. xli. 362 iv. 5. 363 Mariette’s _Abydos_, plate 51. 364 P. Pierret, _Études Égyptologiques_. 365 _Ritual_, ch. ii. 366 Linked into. 367 _Op. cit._, xvii. 4. 368 Several inimical critics are anxious to prove that no Seven Principles of Man, or Septenary Constitution of our Chain, were taught in our earlier volumes, _Isis Unveiled_. Though in that work the doctrine could only be hinted at, there are many passages, nevertheless, in which the Septenary Constitution of both Man and the Chain is openly mentioned. Speaking of the Elohim (II. 420), it is said: “They remain over the seventh heaven (or spiritual world), for it is they who, according to the Kabalists, formed in succession the six material worlds, or rather, attempts at worlds, that preceded our own, which, they say, is the seventh.” Our Globe, in the diagram representing the Chain, is, of course, the seventh and lowest; though, as the evolution on these Globes is cyclic, it is the fourth, on the descending arc of matter. And again (II. 367) it is written: “In the Egyptian notions, _as in those of all other faiths founded on philosophy_, man was not merely ... a union of soul and body; he was a trinity, when spirit was added to it. Besides, that doctrine made him consist of ... body, ... astral form, or shadow, ... animal soul, ... the higher soul, and ... terrestrial intelligence ... [and] a sixth principle, etc., etc.”—the seventh—SPIRIT. So clearly are these principles mentioned, that even in the _Index_ (II. 683), one finds “Six Principles of Man,” the seventh being, in strict truth, the synthesis of the six, and _not_ a principle but a ray of the Absolute ALL. 369 See Diagram III, p. 221. 370 pp. 340‐351, “Genesis of the Soul.” 371 _De Mysteriis_, ii. 3. 372 _Asiatic Researches_, xi. 99, 100. 373 Ch. xxxii. 9. 374 Their Upper Triad. 375 Bhûmi or Prithivî. 376 _Book of the Dead_, i. 7. Compare also _Mysteries of Rostan_. 377 Kingdom. 378 Kingdom. 379 The first Shadow of the Physical Man. 380 Man. 381 The Moon. 382 See _Mantuan Codex_. 383 The formation of the “Living Soul,” or Man, would render the idea more clearly. A “Living Soul” is a synonym of Man in the _Bible_. These are our seven “Principles.” 384 _Ha Idra Zuta Kadisha_, xxii. 746. 385 xviii. 12. 386 _Hebrews_, iv. 387 Cruden, _sub voce_. 388 _Book of Numbers_, 1. viii. 3. 389 p. 389. 390 Plate VII. p. 37. 391 Esotericism teaches the same. But Manas is not Nephesh; nor is the latter the Astral, but the Fourth Principle, and also the Second, Prâna, for Nephesh is the “Breath of Life” in man, as in beast or insect; of physical, material life, which has no spirituality in it. 392 Éliphas Lévi, whether purposely or otherwise, has confused the numbers: with us his No. 2 is No. 1 (Spirit); and by making of Nephesh both the Plastic Mediator and Life, he thus makes in reality only six principles, because he repeats the first two. 393 _Zohar_, “Idra Suta,” Book iii., p. 292b. 394 1. 302. 395 Read, in _Isis Unveiled_ (ii. 297‐303), the doctrine of the _Codex Nazaræus_. Every tenet of our teaching is found there under a different form and allegory. 396 _Manu_, Bk. I. 397 The word “Sin” is curious, but has a particular Occult relation to the Moon, besides being its Chaldean equivalent. 398 Professor Zöllner’s theory has been more than welcomed by several Scientists, who are also Spiritualists; Professors Butlerof and Wagner, of St. Petersburg, for instance. 399 “The giving reality to abstractions is the error of Realism. Space and Time are frequently viewed as separated from all the concrete experiences of the mind, instead of being generalizations of these in certain aspects.” (Bain, _Logic_, Part II. p. 389.) 400 _The Mysteries of Magic_, by A. E. Waite. 401 Wilson, I. 23, 24. 402 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 169. 403 In the Sânkhya philosophy, the seven Prakritis, or “productive productions,” are Mahat, Ahamkâra, and the _five_ Tanmâtras. See _Sânkhya Kârikâ_, III., and the Commentary thereon. 404 See _Linga Purâna_, Prior Section, lxx. 12 _et seq._; and _Vâyu Purâna_, ch. iv., but especially the former _Purâna_—Prior Section, viii. 67‐74. 405 _Vishnu Purâna_, Book vi., ch. iv. No use to say so to the Hindûs, who know their _Purânas_ by heart, but very useful to remind our Orientalists and those Westerns who regard Wilson’s translations as authoritative, that, in his English translation of the _Vishnu Purâna_, he is guilty of the most ludicrous contradictions and errors. So on this identical subject of the seven Prakritis, or the seven zones of Brahmâ’s Egg, the two accounts differ totally. In Vol. i. p. 40, the Egg is said to be externally invested by seven envelopes. Wilson comments: “by Water, Air, Fire, Ether, and Ahamkâra”—which last word does not exist in the Sanskrit texts. And in Vol. v. p. 198, of the same _Purâna_, it is written: “in this manner were the seven forms of nature (Prakriti) reckoned from Mahat to Earth” (?). Between Mahat, or Mahâ‐Buddhi, and “Water, etc.”, the difference is very considerable. 406 According to the great metaphysician Hegel also. For him Nature was a _perpetual becoming_. A purely Esoteric conception. Creation or Origin, in the Christian sense of the term, is absolutely unthinkable. As the above‐quoted thinker said: “God (the Universal Spirit) _objectivizes himself as Nature_, and again rises out of it.” 407 _Book of Dzyan_, Comm. III, par. 18. 408 P. 19. 409 Primitive, or First Man. 410 Reïncarnation. 411 Vehicle. 412 See, for example, _Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and the Quichés_, by Augustus le Plongeon, who shows the identity between the Egyptian rites and beliefs and those of the people he describes. The ancient hieratic alphabets of the Mayas and the Egyptians are almost identical. 413 In _The Theosophist_, 1881. 414 T. Subba Row, _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 154. 415 Also called the “Sons of Wisdom” and of the “Fire‐Mist,” and the “Brothers of the Sun,” in the Chinese records. Si‐dzang (Tibet) is mentioned, in the MSS. of the sacred library of the province of Fo‐ Kien, as the great seat of Occult learning from time immemorial, ages before Buddha. The Emperor Yu, the “Great” (2,207 B.C.), a pious Mystic and great Adept, is said to have obtained his Knowledge from the “Great Teachers of the Snowy Range” in Si‐dzang. 416 _Matt._ vi. 5, 6. 417 _The Virgin of the World_, pp. 134‐5. 418 _Paracelsus_, Franz Hartmann, M.D., p. 44. 419 This word is explained by Dr. Hartmann, from the original texts of Paracelsus before him, as follows. According to this great Rosicrucian; “Mysterium is everything out of which something may be developed, which is only germinally contained in it. A seed is the ‘Mysterium’ of a plant, an egg that of a living bird, etc.” 420 _Op. cit._, pp. 41, 42. 421 It is only the mediæval Kabalists who, following the Jewish and one or two Neo‐Platonists, applied the term Microcosm to man. Ancient philosophy called the Earth the Microcosm of the Macrocosm, and man the outcome of the two. 422 “This doctrine, preached 300 years ago,” remarks the translator, “is identical with the one that has revolutionized modern thought, after having been put into new shape and elaborated by Darwin. It is still more elaborated by Kapila in the Sânkhya philosophy.” 423 The Eastern Occultist says that they are guided and informed by Spiritual Beings, the Workmen in the invisible Worlds, and behind the veil of Occult Nature, or Nature _in abscondito_. 424 Wilson, I. ii., (Vol. I. 35). 425 A frequent expression in the said “Fragments,” to which we take exception. The _Universal Mind_ is not a _Being_ or “God.” 426 _The Virgin of the World_, p. 47. “Asclepios,” Pt. I. 427 _Divine Pymander_, ix. 64. 428 _The Virgin of the World_, p. 153. 429 _Op. cit._, pp. 139, 140. Fragments from the “Physical Eclogues” and “Florilegium” of Stobæus. 430 _Vishnu Purâna_, I. ii, Wilson, I. 13‐15. 431 _Op. cit._, pp. 135‐138. 432 This teaching does not refer to Prakriti‐Purusha beyond the boundaries of our small universe. 433 The ultimate quiescent state; the Nirvânic condition of the Seventh Principle. 434 The teaching is all given from our plane of consciousness. 435 Or the “dream of Science,” the primeval really homogeneous matter, which no mortal can make objective in this Race, or Round either. 436 “Vishnu, in the form of his active energy, neither ever rises nor sets, and is at once, the _seven‐fold sun_ and distinct from it,” says _Vishnu Purâna_, II. xi., (Wilson, II. 296). 437 “In the same manner as a man approaching a mirror placed upon a stand, beholds in it his own image, so the energy (or reflection) of Vishnu [the Sun] is never disjoined but remains ... in the Sun (as in a mirror), that is there stationed.” (_Ibid._, _loc. cit._) 438 Compare the Hermetic “Nature” “going down cyclically into matter when she meets the ‘Heavenly Man’.” 439 The writers of the above knew perfectly well the physical cause of the tides, of the waves, etc. It is the informing Spirit of the whole cosmic solar body that is meant here, and which is referred to whenever such expressions are used from the mystic point of view. 440 _Five Years of Theosophy_, pp. 110, 111, art., “The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac.” 441 See Stanzas III and IV, and the Commentaries thereupon, and especially compare the comments on Stanza IV, concerning the Lipika and the four Mahârâjahs, the agents of Karma. 442 And “Gods” or Dhyânis, too, not only the Genii or “guided Forces.” 443 The meaning of this is that as man is composed of all the Great Elements—Fire, Air, Water, Earth and Ether—the Elementals which respectively belong to these Elements feel attracted to man by reason of their coëssence. That Element which predominates in a certain constitution will be the ruling Element throughout life. For instance, if man has a preponderance of the earthly, gnomic Element, the Gnomes will lead him towards assimilating metals—money and wealth, and so on. “Animal man is the son of the animal elements out of which his Soul [life] was born, and animals are the mirrors of man,” says Paracelsus. (_De Fundamento Sapientiæ._) Paracelsus was cautious, and wanted the _Bible_ to agree with what he said, and therefore did not say all. 444 Cyclic progress in development. 445 The God in man and often the incarnation of a God, a highly Spiritual Dhyân Chohan in him, besides the presence of his own Seventh Principle. 446 Now, what “God” is meant here? Not God the “Father,” the anthropomorphic fiction; for that God is the Elohim collectively, and has no being apart from the Host. Besides, such a God is finite and imperfect. It is the high Initiates and Adepts who are meant here by the “few in number.” And it is precisely such men who believe in “Gods”, and know no “God” but one Universal unrelated and unconditioned Deity. 447 _The Virgin of the World_, pp. 104‐5, “The Definitions of Asclepios.” 448 P. 120. 449 _National Reformer_, January 9th, 1887. Article “Phreno‐Kosmo‐ Biology,” by Dr. Lewins. 450 This is Cyclic law; but this law itself is often defied by human stubbornness. 451 Vol. I. p. 256. 452 _Sepher Jetzirah._ 453 As far as “Divine Revelation” is concerned, we agree. Not so with regard to “human history.” For there is “history” in most of the allegories and “myths” of India; and events, real actual events, are concealed under them. 454 When the “false theologies” disappear, then true prehistoric realities will be found, contained especially in the mythology of the Âryans and ancient Hindûs, and even the pre‐Homeric Hellenes. 455 See Section VII, “Deus Lunus.” 456 From an MS. 457 _Guide au Musée de Boulaq_, pp. 148, 149. 458 As we said in _Isis Unveiled_ (II. 438‐9): “To the present moment, in spite of all controversies and researches, History and Science remain as much as ever in the dark as to the origin of the Jews. They may as well be the exiled Chandâlas of old India, the ‘bricklayers’ mentioned by Veda‐Vyâsa and Manu, as the Phœnicians of Herodotus, or the Hyksos of Josephus, or the descendants of Pali shepherds, or a mixture of all these. The _Bible_ names the Tyrians as a kindred people and claims dominion over them.... Yet whatever they may have been, they became a hybrid people, not long after the time of Moses, for the _Bible_ shows them freely intermarrying not alone with the Canaanites, but with every other nation or race they came in contact with.” 459 _Knowledge_, Vol. I; see also Petrie’s letter to _The Academy_, Dec. 17, 1881. 460 _The Origin and Significance of the Great Pyramid_, p. 9. 461 _Op. cit._, I. 519. 462 _The Origin and Significance of the Great Pyramid_, p. 93. 463 vii. 13 _et seq._ 464 P. 224. 465 Vol. I. Part I. 46. 466 x. 10. 467 See _Isis Unveiled_, II. 442‐3. 468 _Exodus_, 11. 21. 469 George Smith, _Chaldean Account of Genesis_, pp. 299, 300. 470 II. 3. 471 As a reminder how the _esoteric_ religion of Moses was crushed several times, and the worship of Jehovah, as reëstablished by David, put in its place, by Hezekiah for instance, compare _Isis Unveiled_ (II. 436‐42). Surely there must have been some very good reasons why the Sadducees, who furnished almost all the High Priests of Judæa, held to the Laws of Moses and spurned the alleged “Books of Moses,” the _Pentateuch_ of the Synagogue and the _Talmud_? 472 Once more, remember the Hindû Wittoba crucified in space; the significance of the “sacred sign,” the Svastika; Plato’s Decussated Man in Space, etc. 473 See farther on the description given of the early Âryan Initiation: of Vishvakarman crucifying the Sun, Vikarttana, shorn of his beams—on a cruciform lathe. 474 _Primeval Man Unveiled; or the Anthropology of the Bible_, by the author (unknown) of _The Stars and the Angels_, 1870, p. 14. 475 _Op. cit._, p. 195. 476 Especially in the face of the evidence furnished by the authorized _Bible_ itself in _Genesis_ (iv. 16, 17), which shows Cain going to the land of Nod and there marrying a wife. 477 _Ibid._, p. 194. 478 _Ibid._, p. 55. 479 _Ibid._, pp. 206‐7. 480 _Acts_, xvii. 23, 24. 481 _Taittirîyaka Upanishad_, Second Vallî, First Anuvâka. 482 _Ephesians_, vi, 12. 483 _Oracles of Zoroaster_, “Effatum,” xvi. 484 _Georgica_, Book II. 325. 485 _Isis Unveiled._ 486 _Op. cit._, I. 5‐13, Burnell’s translation. 487 The ideal apex of the Pythagorean Triangle. 488 See A. Coke Burnell’s translation, edited by Ed. W. Hopkins, Ph. D. 489 Ahamkâra, as universal Self‐Consciousness, has a triple aspect, as has also Manas. For this “conception of I,” or the Ego, is either _sattva_, “pure quietude,” or appears as _rajas_, “active,” or remains _tamas_, “stagnant,” in darkness. It belongs to Heaven and Earth, and assumes the properties of Ether. 490 See _Sânkhya Kârikâ_ III, and Commentaries. 491 The word “eternity,” by which Christian theologians interpret the term “for ever and ever,” does not exist in the Hebrew tongue. “Oulam,” says Le Clerc, only imports a time when beginning or end is not known. It does not mean “infinite duration,” and the term “for ever,” in the _Old Testament_, only signifies a “long time.” Nor is the word “eternity” used in the Christian sense in the _Purânas_. For in _Vishnu Purâna_, it is clearly stated that by “eternity” and “immortality” only “existence to the end of the Kalpa” is meant. (Book II. chap. viii.) 492 Orphic Theogony is purely Oriental and Indian in its spirit. The successive transformations it has undergone, have now separated it widely from the spirit of ancient Cosmogony, as may be seen by comparing it even with Hesiod’s _Theogony_. Yet the truly Âryan Hindû spirit breaks forth everywhere in both the Hesiodic and Orphic systems. (See the remarkable work of James Darmesteter, “Cosmogonies Âryennes,” in his _Essais Orientaux_.) Thus the original Greek conception of Chaos is that of the Secret Wisdom Religion. In Hesiod, therefore, Chaos is infinite, boundless, endless and beginningless in duration, an abstraction and a visible presence at the same time, Space filled with darkness, which is primordial matter in its _pre‐cosmic_ state. For in its etymological sense, Chaos is Space, according to Aristotle, and Space is the ever Unseen and Unknowable Deity, in our philosophy. 493 The _manifested_ Spirit: Absolute, Divine Spirit is one with absolute Divine Substance; Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti are one in essence. Therefore, Cosmic Ideation and Cosmic Substance, in their primal character, are one also. 494 _Sepher Yetzirah_, Chap. I. Mishna ix. 495 _Ibid._ It is from “Arba” that Abram is derived. 496 _Zohar_, I. 2a. 497 _Sepher Yetzirah_, Mishna ix. 10. 498 _Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection_. 499 Plato, _Timæus_. 500 Suidas, _sub voc._ “Tyrrhenia.” See Cory’s _Ancient Fragments_, p. 309, 2nd ed. 501 The reader will understand that by “years” is meant “ages,” not mere periods of 13 lunar months each. 502 See the Greek translation by Philon Byblius. 503 Cory, _Op. cit._, p. 3. 504 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 342. 505 Mithras was regarded among the Persians as the _theos ek petras_—the God from the rock. 506 Bordj is called a fire‐mountain, a volcano: therefore it contains fire, rock, earth and water; the male, or active, and the female, or passive, elements. The myth is suggestive. 507 _Op. cit._, I. 156. 508 Henry Pratt, M.D., _New Aspects of Life_. 509 _Siphrah Dtzenioutha_, i. 16. 510 Damascius, in his Theogony, calls it Dis, “the disposer of all things.” Cory, _Ancient Fragments_, p. 314. 511 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 341. 512 “Migration of Abraham,” 32. 513 With the Greeks, the River‐Gods, all of them the Sons of the Primeval Ocean—Chaos, in its masculine aspect—were the respective ancestors of the Hellenic races. For them the Ocean was the Father of the Gods; and thus in this connection they had anticipated the theories of Thales, as rightly observed by Aristotle. (_Metaph._ I. 3‐5.) 514 xxvi. 5. 515 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 133‐4. 516 The Spirit, or hidden voice of the Mantras; the active manifestation of the latent force, or Occult potency. 517 Orthography of the _Archaic Dictionary_. 518 We do not mean the current or accepted _Bible_, but the _real_ Jewish Scripture, now kabatistically explained. 519 See _Genesis_, ii. 4. 520 It is “unutterable” for the simple reason that it is non‐existent. It _never_ was either a _name_, or any _word_ at all, but an _idea_ that could not be expressed. A substitute was created for it in the century preceding our era. 521 The Cosmic Tabernacle of Moses, erected by him in the Desert, was _square_, representing the four Cardinal Points and the four Elements, as Josephus tells his readers. (_Antiq._ I. viii. ch. xxii.) The idea was taken from the pyramids in Egypt, and also in Tyre, where the pyramids became pillars. The Genii, or Angels, have their abodes in these four points respectively. 522 Isaac Myer’s _Qabbalah_, published 1888, p. 415. 523 As, for instance, in _Vishnu Purâna_, Bk. I. 524 Plutarch, _De Iside et Osiride_, lvi. 525 _Spirit History of Man_, p. 88. 526 Movers, _Phoinizer_, 268. 527 Cory, _Ancient Fragments_, 240. 528 _Vishnu Purâna_, Bk. I. Ch. iv., Fitzedward Hall’s rendering. 529 Just as Mûlaprakriti is known only to Îshvara, the Logos, as he is called by T. Subba Row. 530 Franck, _Die Kabbala_, 126. 531 Philo, _Quæst. et Solut._ 532 Franck, _Op. cit._, 153. 533 The “Seven Angels of the Face,” with the Christians. 534 _Philosophumena_, vi. 42. 535 _The Kabbalah Unveiled_, 47. 536 _Qabbalah_, 233. 537 p. 79. 538 Arnobius, VI. xii. 539 We employ the term as one accepted and sanctioned by use, and therefore more comprehensible to the reader. 540 See Dunlap, _Sôd: the Mysteries of Adoni_, 23. 541 With the ancient Jews, as shown by Le Clerc, the word Oulom meant simply a time whose beginning or end was not known. The term “Eternity,” properly speaking, did not exist in the Hebrew tongue with the meaning applied by Vedântins to Parabrahman, for instance. 542 _Zohar_, Part I. fol. 20a. 543 In the Indian Pantheon the double‐sexed Logos is Brahmâ, the Creator, whose seven “Mind‐born” Sons are the primeval Rishis—the Builders. 544 Says Rabbi Simeon: “Oh, companions, companions, man as an emanation was both man and woman, as well on the side of the ‘Father’ as on the side of the ‘Mother.’ And this is the sense of the words: ‘And Elohim spake, Let there be Light, and it was Light’; ... and this is the _two‐fold man_.” (_Auszüge ans dem Sohar_, 13, 15.) Light, then, in _Genesis_, stood for the Androgyne Ray, or “Heavenly Man.” 545 _Zohar_, iii. 290. 546 _Op. cit._, ii. 261. 547 ix. 1. 548 _Chaldean Account of Genesis_, 62, 63. 549 The Seven Swans that are believed to descend from Heaven on Lake Mânsarovara, are in the popular fancy the Seven Rishis of the Great Bear, who assume that form to visit the locality where the _Vedas_ were written. 550 See Petronius, _Satyricon_, cxxxvi. 551 _Progress of Religious Ideas_, I. 17 _et seq._ 552 iii. 165. 553 Ch. liv. 3. 554 Ch. xxii. 1. 555 Ch. xlii. 13. 556 Ch. liv. 1, 2; ch. lxxvii. i. 557 _Vishnu Purâna_, I. 39. 558 _Op. cit._, _ibid._ 559 Ch. xvii. 50, 51. 560 Ch. xlii. 13. 561 Ch. lxxx. 9. 562 See Max Müller’s “Our Figures.” 563 A Kabalist would be rather inclined to believe that as the Arabic _cifron_ was taken from the Indian _sunyan_, nought, so the Jewish Kabalistic Sephiroth (_Sephrim_) were taken from the word _cipher_, not in the sense of emptiness, but in that of creation by number and degrees of evolution. And the Sephiroth are 10 or [circle split by vertical line]. 564 See King’s _Gnostics and their Remains_, 370 (2nd ed.). 565 _De Vita Pithag._ 566 The year of his birth is given as 608 B.C. 567 That is to say 332 B.C. 568 _Metaphysics_, vii., F. 569 _Euterpe_, 75, 76. 570 _De Cultu Egypt._ 571 xxi. 5 _et seq._ 572 II _Kings_, xviii. 4. 573 _Supra_, pp. 386, 387. 574 III. 124. 575 Movers, _Phoinizer_, 282. 576 See _Isis Unveiled_, I. 56. 577 Weber, _Akad‐Vorles_, 213, _et seq._ 578 The Chinese seem to have thus anticipated Sir William Thomson’s theory that the first living germ had dropped to the earth from some passing comet. Query: Why should this be called _scientific_ and the Chinese idea a superstitious, foolish theory? 579 Compare Movers, _Phoinizer_, 268. 580 His triadic Goddesses are Sati and Anouki. 581 Ptah was originally the god of Death, of Destruction, like Shiva. He is a Solar God only by virtue of the Sun’s fire killing as well as vivifying. He was the national God of Memphis, the radiant and “fair‐faced” God. 582 _Book of Numbers._ 583 Wilson, _Vishnu Purâna_, I. Pref. lxxxiv‐v. 584 There is a curious piece of information in the Buddhist esoteric traditions. The exoteric or allegorical biography of Gautama Buddha shows this great Sage dying of an indigestion of “pork and rice”; a very prosaic end, indeed, with little of the solemn element in it! This is explained as an allegorical reference to his having been born in the “Boar” or Varâha Kalpa, when Vishnu assumed the form of that animal to raise the Earth out of the “Waters of Space.” Now as the Brâhmans descend direct from Brahmâ and are, so to speak, identified with him; and as they are at the same time the mortal enemies of Buddha and Buddhism, we have this curious allegorical hint and combination. The Brâhmanism of the Boar or Varâha Kalpa has slaughtered the religion of Buddha in India, swept it from its face. Therefore Buddha, who is identified with his philosophy, is said to have died from the effects of eating of the flesh of a wild hog. The very idea of one who established the most rigorous vegetarianism and respect for animal life—even to refusing to eat eggs as being vehicles of latent life—dying of an indigestion of meat, is absurdly contradictory and has puzzled more than one Orientalist. But the present explanation, however, unveils the allegory, and makes clear all the rest. The Varâha, however, is no simple Boar, but seems to have meant at first some antediluvian lacustrine animal “delighting to sport in water.” (_Vâyu Purâna._) 585 According to Colonel Wilford, the conclusion of the “Great War” took place in 1370 B.C., (_Asiatic Researches_, xi. 116.); according to Bentley, 575 B.C.!! We may yet hope, before the end of this century, to see the Mahâbhâratan epic proclaimed identical with the wars of the great Napoleon. 586 See _Royal Asiat. Soc._ ix. 364. 587 Bk. vi. ch. iii. 588 In the Vedânta and Nyâya, Nimitta, from which Naimittika, is rendered as the Efficient Cause, when antithesized with Upâdâna, the Physical or Material Cause. In the Sânkhya, Pradhâna is a cause inferior to Brahmâ, or rather Brahmâ being himself a cause, is superior to Pradhâna. Hence “Incidental” is a wrong translation, and ought to be rendered, as shown by some scholars, “Ideal” Cause: even Real Cause would have been better. 589 XII. iv, 35. 590 _Vâyu Purâna._ 591 Wilson, _Vishnu Purâna_, VI, iii. 592 The chief Kumâra, or Virgin‐God, a Dhyân Chohan who refuses to create. A prototype of St. Michael, who also refuses to do so. 593 See concluding lines in Section, “Chaos: Theos: Kosmos.” 594 _Ibid._, iv. 595 This prospect would hardly suit Christian theology, which prefers an eternal, everlasting Hell for its followers. 596 The term “Elements” must be here understood to mean not only the visible and physical elements, but also that which St. Paul calls Elements—the Spiritual, Intelligent Potencies—Angels and Demons in their manvantaric forms. 597 When this description is correctly understood by Orientalists, in its esoteric significance, then it will be found that this cosmic correlation of World‐Elements may explain the correlation of physical forces better than those now known. At any rate, Theosophists will perceive that Prakriti has _seven forms_, or principles, “reckoned from Mahat to Earth.” The “Waters” mean here the mystic “Mother”; the Womb of Abstract Nature, in which the Manifested Universe is conceived. The seven “zones” have reference to the Seven Divisions of that Universe, or the Noumena of the Forces that bring it into being. It is all allegorical. 598 _Vishnu Purâna_, Bk. VI. Ch. iv., Wilson’s mistakes being corrected and the original terms put in brackets. 599 As it is the Mahâ, the Great, or so‐called Final, Pralaya which is here described, every thing is reäbsorbed into its original One Element; the “Gods themselves, Brahmâ and the rest” being said to die and disappear during that long “Night.” 600 The “Builders” of the Stanzas. 601 From the _Siphra Dtzenioutha_, c. i. § 16 _et seq._; as quoted in Myer’s _Qabbalah_, 232‐3. 602 Compare the _Siphra Dtzenioutha_. 603 Bk. I. Ch. iii. 604 pp. 219, 221. 605 See Jacolliot’s _Les Fils de Dieu_, and _L’Inde des Brahmes_, p. 230. 606 If this is not prophetic, what is? 607 Wilson, _Vishnu Purâna_, Bk. IV. Ch. xxiv. 608 The _Matsya Purâna_ gives Katâpa. 609 _Vishnu Purâna_, _Ibid._ 610 Max Müller translates the name as Morya, of the Morya dynasty, to which Chandragupta belonged. (See _History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature_). In _Matsya Purâna_, chapter cclxxii, the dynasty of ten Moryas, or Maureyas, is spoken of. In the same chapter, it is stated that the Moryas will one day reign over India, after restoring the Kshattriya race many thousand years hence. Only that reign will be purely spiritual and “not of this world.” It will be the kingdom of the next Avatâra. Colonel Tod believes the name Morya, or Maurya, a corruption of Mori, a Rajpût tribe, and the commentary on the _Mahâvanso_ thinks that some princes have taken their name Maurya from their town called Mori, or as Professor Max Müller gives it, Morya‐Nâgara, which is more correct, after the original _Mahâvanso_. The Sanskrit Encyclopedia, _Vâchaspattya_, we are informed by our Brother, Devan Bâdhâdur R. Ragoonath Rao, of Madras, places Katâpa (Kalâpa) on the northern side of the Himâlayas, hence in Tibet. The same is stated in the _Bhâgavata Purâna_, Skanda xii. 611 _Ibid._, ch. iv. The _Vayu Purâna_ declares that Moru will reëstablish the Kshattriyas in the Nineteenth coming Yuga. (See _Five Years of Theosophy_, 483, art. “The Moryas and Koothoomi.”) 612 See _Dissertations Relating to Asia_. 613 Ch. lxxxi. 614 I. 11. 615 In the Indian _Purânas_, it is Vishnu, the First, and Brahmâ, the Second Logos, or the Ideal and Practical Creators, who are respectively represented, one as manifesting the Lotus, the other as issuing from it. 616 Not the efforts, however, of the trained psychic faculties of an Initiate into Eastern Metaphysics, and the Mysteries of Creative Nature. It is the Profane of the past ages, who have degraded the pure ideal of cosmic creation into an emblem of mere human reproduction and sexual functions: it is the Esoteric Teachings, and the Initiates of the Future, whose mission it is, and will be, to redeem and ennoble once more the primitive conception, so sadly profaned by its crude and gross application to exoteric dogmas and personations, by theological and ecclesiastical religionists. The silent worship of abstract or noumenal Nature, the only divine manifestation, is the one ennobling religion of Humanity. 617 Surely the words of the old Initiate into the _primitive_ Mysteries of Christianity, “Know ye not ye are the Temple of God” (1 _Corinth_, iii. 16), could not be applied in _this_ sense to _men_; though the meaning _was_, undeniably, so stated, in the minds of the Hebrew compilers of the _Old Testament_. And here is the abyss that lies between the symbolism of the _New Testament_ and the Jewish canon. This gulf would have remained, and have ever widened, had not Christianity, especially and most glaringly the Latin Church, thrown a bridge over it. Modern Popery has now spanned it entirely, by its dogma of the two immaculate conceptions, and the anthropomorphic and, at the same time idolatrous, character it has conferred upon the Mother of its God. 618 It was so carried _only_ in the Hebrew _Bible_, and its servile copyist, Christian theology. 619 The same idea is carried out exoterically in the incidents of the exodus from Egypt. The Lord God tempts Pharaoh sorely, and “plagues him with great plagues,” lest the king should escape punishment, and thus afford no pretext for one more triumph to his “chosen people.” 620 _Exodus_, ii. 10. Even to the seven daughters of the Midianite priest, who came to draw _water_, and whom Moses helped to _water_ their flock; for which service the Midian gives Moses his daughter Zipporah, or Sippara, the _shining_ Wave, as wife. (_Exod._ ii. 16‐21.) All this has the same secret meaning. 621 With the Egyptians it was the resurrection in rebirth, after 3,000 years of purification, either in Devachan or the “Fields of Bliss.” 622 Such “frog‐Goddesses” may be seen at Boulak, in the Cairo Museum. For the statement about the Church‐lamps and inscriptions, the learned ex‐director of the Boulak Museum, M. Gaston Maspero, must be held responsible. (See his _Guide au Musée de Boulaq_, p. 146.) 623 The Goddess Τρίμορφος in the statuary of Alcamenes. 624 Ancient Mythology includes ancient Astronomy as well as Astrology. The planets were the hands pointing out, on the dial of our Solar System, the hours of certain periodical events. Thus, Mercury was the _messenger_, appointed to keep time during the daily solar and lunar phenomena, and was otherwise connected with the God and Goddess of Light. 625 A caricatured and dwarfed Vedântin notion of Parabrahman containing within _itself_ the whole Universe, as being that boundless Universe itself, and _nothing existing outside of itself_. 626 Just as they are to this day in India; the bull of Shiva, and the cow representing several Shaktis or Goddesses. 627 Hence the worship of the Moon by the Hebrews. 628 “_Male_ and _female_, created he them.” 629 Because it was too sacred. It is referred to as THAT in the _Vedas_. It is the “Eternal Cause,” and cannot, therefore, be spoken of as a “First Cause,” a term implying the absence of Cause, at one time. 630 _Pneumatologie: Des Esprits_, tom. III. p. 117; “Archéologie de la Vierge Mère.” 631 p. 23. 632 Myer’s _Qabbalah_, 335‐6. 633 _Moreh Nebhuchim_, III. xxx. 634 See _De Diis Syriis_, Teraph., II. Synt. p. 31. 635 I. i. 21. 636 See _Pausanias_, viii. 35‐8. 637 Cornutus, _De Natura Deorum_, xxxiv. 1. 638 The Roman Catholics are indebted for the idea of consecrating the month of May to the Virgin to the pagan Plutarch, who shows that “May is sacred to Maia (Μαῖα) or Vesta” (Aulus Gellius, _sub voc._ Maia), our mother‐earth, our nurse and nourisher, personified. 639 Thot‐Lunus is the Budha‐Soma of India, or Mercury and the Moon. 640 _Ezekiel_, viii. 16. 641 The Earth flees for her life, in the allegory, before Prithu, who pursues her. She assumes the shape of a cow, and, trembling with terror, runs away and hides even in the regions of Brahmâ. Therefore, it is _not_ our Earth. Again, in every _Purâna_, the calf changes name. In one it is Manu Svâyambhuva, in another Indra, in a third the Himavat (Himâlayas) itself, while Meru was the milker. This is a deeper allegory than one may be inclined to think. 642 His _clear_ realization is, that the Egyptians _prophesied_ Jehovah (!) and his incarnated Redeemer (the good serpent), etc.; even to identifying Typhon with the _wicked_ dragon of the garden of Eden. And this passes as serious and sober _science_! 643 Hathor is the _infernal_ Isis, the Goddess preëminently of the West or the Nether World. 644 This is from De Mirville, who proudly confesses the similarity, and he _ought to know_. See “Archéologie de la Vierge Mère,” in his _Des Esprits_, pp. 111‐113. 645 _Magie_, p. 153. 646 De Mirville, _Ibid._, pp. 116 and 119. 647 _Hymns to Minerva_, p. 19. 648 _Sermon sur la Sainte Vierge._ 649 _Apoc._, ch. xii. 650 Wägner and McDowall, _Asgard and the Gods_, p. 86. 651 See _De Vitâ Apollionii_, I. xiv. 652 _Adv. Hæres._ xxxvii. 653 Gerald Massey, _The Natural Genesis_, I. 340. 654 Ch. xv. 655 Ch. xi. 656 _De Mundi Opif._, _Par._, pp. 30 and 419. 657 For the same reason the division of the principles in man into seven is thus reckoned, as they describe the same circle in the higher and lower human nature. 658 Thus the septenary division is the oldest and preceded the four‐fold division. It is the root of archaic classification. 659 In Chinese Buddhism and Esotericism, the Genii are represented by four Dragons—the Mahârâjahs of the Stanzas. 660 _Op. cit._, II. 312‐13. 661 _Ibid._, I. 321. 662 Proclus, _Tim._, I. 663 _Prep. Evang._, I. iii. 3. 664 _Op. cit._, pp. 366‐8. 665 _Job_, ii. 666 _Genesis_, vi. 667 _James_, i. 13. 668 _James_, i. 2, 12; _Matth._, vi. 13. See Cruden, _sub voc._ 669 _Padma Purâna._ 670 _Vishnu Purâna_, I. i. 671 Vol. II. ch. x. 672 See Chwolsohn, _Nabathean Agriculture_, II. 217. 673 One Day of Brahmâ lasts 4,320,000,000 years—multiply this by 360! The A‐suras (No‐gods, or Demons) are here still Suras, Gods higher in hierarchy than such secondary Gods as are not even mentioned in the _Vedas_. The duration of the War shows its significance, and also shows that the combatants are only the personified Cosmic Powers. It is evidently for sectarian purposes and out of _odium theologicum_ that the illusive form Mâyâmoha, assumed by Vishnu, was attributed in later reärrangements of old texts to Buddha and the Daityas, as in the _Vishnu Purâna_, unless it was a fancy of Wilson himself. He also fancied he found an allusion to Buddhism in the _Bhagavadgîtâ_, whereas, as proved by K. T. Telang, he had only confused the Buddhists and the older Chârvâka materialists. The version exists nowhere in other _Purânas_ if the inference does, as Professor Wilson claims, in the _Vishnu Purâna_; the translation of which, especially of Book III. ch. xviii, where the reverend Orientalist arbitrarily introduces Buddha, and shows him teaching Buddhism to Daityas, led to another “great war” between himself and Col. Vans Kennedy. The latter charged him publicly with wilfully distorting Purânic texts. “I affirm,” wrote the Colonel at Bombay, in 1840, “that the _Purânas_ do not contain what Professor Wilson has stated is contained in them; ... until such passages are produced I may be allowed to repeat my former conclusions that Professor Wilson’s opinion, that the _Purânas_ as now extant are compilations made between the eighth and seventeenth centuries [A.D.!], rests solely _on gratuitous assumptions and unfounded assertions_, and that his reasoning in support of it is either futile, fallacious, contradictory, or improbable.” (See _Vishnu Purâna_, trans. by Wilson, edit, by Fitzedward Hall, Vol. V, Appendix.) 674 This statement belongs to the _third_ War, since the terrestrial continents, seas and rivers are mentioned in connection with it. 675 _Vishnu Purâna_, III. xvii (Wilson, Vol. III. 204‐5). 676 Book I. chap. xvii (Wilson, Vol. II. 36), in the story of Prahlâda—the Son of Hiranyakashipu, the Purânic Satan, the great enemy of Vishnu, and the King of the Three Worlds—into whose heart Vishnu entered. 677 _Ibid._, I. iv (Wilson, Vol. I. 64). 678 II _Chronicles_, ii. 5. 679 “There was a day when the _Sons of God_ came before the Lord, and Satan came _with his brothers_, also before the Lord.” (_Job_ ii., Abyss., Ethiopic text.) 680 _Ibid._, Vol. III. 205‐7. 681 _Journal of the Royal Asiat. Society_, xix. 302. 682 Wilson’s opinion that the _Vishnu Purâna_ is a production _of our era_, and that in its present form it is not earlier than between the VIIIth and the XVIIth (!!) century, is absurd beyond noticing. 683 P. 3. 684 _Ibid._, p. 2. 685 _Ibid._, p. 21. 686 See _The Monthly Magazine_, for April, 1797. 687 Ἤτοι μὲν πρώτιστα Χάος γ’eνετ᾽ (l. 166); γένετο being considered in antiquity as meaning: “was _generated_” and not simply “_was_.” (See Taylor’s “Introd. to the _Parmenides_ of Plato,” p. 260.) 688 It is the confusion between the “Bound,” and the “Infinite,” that Kapila overwhelms with sarcasms in his disputations with the Brâhman Yogis, who claim in their mystical visions to see the “Highest One.” 689 _Ibid._ 690 See T. Taylor’s article in his _Monthly Magazine_, quoted in the _Platonist_ of Feb., 1887, edited by T. M. Johnson, F.T.S., Osceola, Missouri. 691 _Vit. Pythag._, p. 47. 692 _Asgard and the Gods_, 22. 693 Vâch—the “melodious cow, who milks sustenance and Water,” and yields us “nourishment and sustenance,” as described in the _Rig Veda_. 694 _The Theosophist_, Feb., 1887, pp. 302‐3. 695 _Ibid._, p. 304. 696 _The Masonic Review_, June, 1886. 697 Objective—in the world of Mâyâ, of course; still as real as we are. 698 “In the course of cosmic manifestation, this Daiviprakriti, instead of being the Mother of the Logos, should, strictly speaking, be called his Daughter.” (“Notes on the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_,” _op. cit._, p. 305.) 699 The wise men who, like Stanley Jevons amongst the moderns, invented a method to make the incomprehensible assume a tangible form, could only do so by resorting to numbers and geometrical figures. 700 The Pranava, Om, is a mystic term pronounced by the Yogis during meditation; of the terms called, according to exoteric commentators, Vyâkritis, or Aum, Bhûh, Bhuvah, Svah, (Om, Earth, Sky, Heaven), Pranava is, perhaps, the most sacred. They are pronounced with breath suppressed. See _Manu_ II. 76‐81, and Mitakshara commenting on the _Yâjnavâkhya‐Smriti_, I. 23. But the esoteric explanation goes a great deal further. 701 “Lectures on the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_,” _ibid._, p. 307. 702 It is this Trinity that is allegorized by the “Three Steps of Vishnu,” which mean—Vishnu being considered as the Infinite in exotericism—that from Parabrahman issued Mûlaprakriti, Purusha (the Logos) and Prakriti; the four forms—with itself, the synthesis—of Vâch. And in the _Kabalah_, Ain Suph, Shekinah, Adam Kadmon and Sephira, the four, or the three, emanations being distinct—yet One. 703 Chaldean _Book of Numbers_. In the current _Kabalah_ the name Jehovah replaces that of Adam Kadmon. 704 Justin Martyr tells us that, owing to his ignorance of these four sciences, he was rejected by the Pythagoreans as a candidate for admission into their school. 705 Diogenes Laërtius, in _Vit. Pythag._ 706 31415, or π, the synthesis, or the Host _unified_ in the Logos and the Point, called in Roman Catholicism the “Angel of the Face,” and in Hebrew, Michael, מיכאל, “who [is like unto, or the same] as God,” the manifested representation. 707 Appearing at the beginning of Cycles, as also of every Sidereal Year, of 25,868 years. Therefore, the Kabeira or Kabarim received their name in Chaldæa, for it means the Measures of Heaven, from _Kob_, “measure of,” and _Urim_, “Heavens.” 708 _The Natural Genesis_, II. 316. 709 See Kircher’s _Œdipus Ægypt._, II. 423. 710 This Egyptian word Naja reminds one a good deal of the Indian Nâga, the Serpent‐God. Brahmâ and Shiva and Vishnu are all crowned and connected with Nâgas—a sign of their cyclic and cosmic character. 711 _Comment. on the Yashna_, 174. 712 First Treatise, p. 59. 713 Says the translator of Avicebron’s _Qabbalah_ of this “Sum Total”: “The letter of Kether is י (Yod), of Binah ה (Heh), together YaH, the feminine Name; the third letter, that of ’Hokhmah, is ו (Vav), making together יהו YHV of יהוה YHVH, the Tetragrammaton, and really the complete symbols of its efficaciousness. The last ה (Heh) of this Ineffable Name _being always applied to the Six Lower and the last, together the Seven_ remaining Sephiroth.” (Myer’s _Qabbalah_, p. 263). Thus the Tetragrammaton is holy only in its abstract synthesis. As a Quaternary containing the lower Seven Sephiroth, _it is phallic_. 714 The statement will, of course, be found preposterous and absurd, and simply laughed at. But if one believes in the final submersion of Atlantis, 850,000 years ago, as taught in _Esoteric Buddhism_—the gradual first sinking having begun during the Eocene Age—one has also to accept the statement for the so‐called Lemuria, the continent of the Third Root‐Race, which was first nearly destroyed by combustion, and then submerged. As the Commentary teaches: “_The First Earth having been purified by the Forty‐nine Fires, her people, born of Fire and Water, could not die ...; the Second Earth [with its Race] disappeared as vapour vanishes in the air ...; the Third Earth had everything consumed on it after the Separation, and went down into the lower Deep [the Ocean]. This was twice eighty‐two Cyclic Years ago._” Now a Cyclic Year is what we call a Sidereal Year, and is founded on the Precession of the Equinoxes. The length of this Sidereal Year is 25,868 years, and the period mentioned in the Commentary is, therefore, in all equal to 4,242,352 years. More details will be found in Volume II. Meanwhile, this doctrine is embodied in the “Kings of Edom.” 715 The same reserve is found in the _Talmud_ and in every national system of religion whether monotheistic or exoterically polytheistic. From the superb religious poem by the Kabalist Rabbi Solomon ben Yehudah Ibn Gabirol, the “Kether Malchuth,” we select a few definitions given in the prayers of Kippûr: “Thou art One, the beginning of all numbers, and the foundation of all edifices; Thou art One, and in the secret of Thy unity the wisest of men are lost, because they know it not. Thou art One, and Thy Unity is never diminished, never extended, and cannot be changed. Thou art One, but _not as an element of numeration; for Thy Unity admits not of multiplication, change or form_. Thou art Existent; but the understanding and vision of mortals cannot attain to thy existence, nor determine for thee the Where, the How, and the Why. Thou art Existent, but in thyself alone, there being none other that can exist with thee. Thou art Existent, before all time and without place. Thou art Existent, and thy existence is so profound and secret that none can penetrate and discover thy secrecy. Thou art living, but within no time that can be fixed or known; Thou art living, but not by a spirit or a soul, for _Thou art Thyself_, the Soul of all Souls.” There is a distance between this Kabalistical Deity and the Biblical Jehovah, the spiteful and revengeful God of Abram, Isaac, and Jacob, who tempted the first and wrestled with the last. No Vedântin but would repudiate such a Parabrahman! 716 Edkins, _Chinese Buddhism_, ch. xx. And very wisely have they acted. 717 If he rejected it, it was on the ground of what he calls the “changes,” in other words, rebirths of man, and constant transformations. He denied immortality to the Personality of man, as we do, not to Man. 718 He may be laughed at by the Protestants; but the Roman Catholics have no right to mock him, without becoming guilty of blasphemy and sacrilege. For it is over 200 years since Confucius was canonized as a Saint in China by the Roman Catholics, who have thereby obtained many converts among the ignorant Confucianists. 719 The animals regarded as sacred in the _Bible_ are by no means few in number; as, for instance, the Goat, the Azaz‐el, or God of Victory. As Aben Ezra says: “If thou art capable of comprehending the mystery of Azazel, thou wilt learn the mystery of His [God’s] name, for it has similar associates in Scriptures. I will tell thee by allusion one portion of the mystery; when thou shalt have _thirty three years of age_ thou wilt comprehend me.” So with the mystery of the Tortoise. Rejoicing over the poetry of biblical metaphors, associating “incandescent stones,” “sacred animals,” etc., with the name of Jehovah, and quoting from the _Bible de Vence_ (XIX. 318) a pious French writer says: “Indeed all of them are Elohim, _like their God_”; for, these Angels, “ ‘assume,’ _through a holy usurpation_, ‘the very divine name of Jehovah each time they represent him’.” (De Mirville, _Des Esprits_.) No one ever doubted that the Name must have been _assumed_, when under the guise of the Infinite, One Incognizable, the Malachim, or Messengers, descended to eat and drink with men. But if the Elohim and even lower Beings, _assuming_ the God‐name, were and are still worshipped, why should the same Elohim be called Devils, when appearing under the names of other Gods? 720 _Matth._, xxiv. 28. 721 Bryant is right in saying “Druid bardism says of Noah that when he came out of the ark (the birth of a new cycle), after a stay therein of a year and a day, that is 364 + 1=365 days, he was congratulated by Neptune upon his birth from the waters of the Flood, who wished him a _Happy New Year_.” The “Year,” or cycle, esoterically, was the new race of men, _born from woman_, after the Separation of the Sexes, which is the secondary meaning of the allegory; its primary meaning being the beginning of the Fourth Round, or the _new_ Creation. 722 From an unpublished MS. 723 Or literally: “One Prâdhânika Brahma Spirit: THAT was.” The “Prâdhânika Brahma Spirit” is Mûlaprakriti and Parabrahman. 724 Wilson, _Vishnu Purâna_, I. 73‐5. 725 Origen, _Contra Celsum_, VI. xxii. 726 _Timæus._ 727 “And the fourth creation is _here_ the primary, for _things_ immovable are emphatically known as primary”—according to a commentary translated by Fitzedward Hall in his editing of Wilson’s translation. 728 How can “divinities” have been created _after_ the animals? The esoteric meaning of the expression “animals” is the _germs of all animal life_, including man. Man is called a _sacrificial animal_, that is, the only one among the animal creation who sacrifices to the Gods. Moreover, by “sacred animals” the twelve Signs of the Zodiac are often meant in the sacred texts, as already stated. 729 _Vishnu Purâna_, _ibid._ 730 _Op. cit._, I. ix. 731 Myer’s _Qabbalah_, 415‐16. 732 _Contra Hær._, I. xvii. 1. 733 _Ibid._, I. xxx. 734 Superior to the Spirits, or “Heavens,” of the Earth only. 735 _Ibid._, I. v. 2. 736 See _Isis Unveiled_, II. 183. 737 See also King’s _Gnostics and their Remains_, p. 97. Other sects regarded Jehovah as Ialdabaoth himself. King identifies him with Saturn. 738 _Ordinances of Manu_, I. 33. 739 _Irenæus_, _op. cit._, I. xxx. 6. 740 Elsewhere, however, the identity is revealed. See _supra_ the quotation from Iba Gabirol and his 7 heavens, 7 earths, etc. 741 This must not be confused with _precosmic_ “DARKNESS,” the Divine ALL. 742 I. 2; and also at the beginning of II. 743 The quotations that follow in treating of the seven Creations, except when otherwise stated, are all from _Vishnu Purâna_, Bk. I. Ch. i‐v. 744 I. 240. 745 Brucker, _ibid._ 746 Compare _Genesis_ xix. 34‐8 and iv. 1. 747 Vishnu is both Bhûtesha, “Lord of the Elements,” and of all things, and Vishvarûpa, “Universal Substance” or Soul. 748 Compare, for their “post‐types,” the Treatise written by Trithemius, Agrippa’s master, in the sixteenth century, “Concerning the Seven Secondaries, or Spiritual Intelligences, who, after God, actuate the Universe,” which, in addition to secret cycles and several prophecies, discloses certain facts and beliefs about the Genii, or the Elohim, which preside over and guide the septenary stages of the World’s Course. 749 From the first, the Orientalists have found themselves beset with great difficulties in regard to any possible order in the Purânic “Creations.” Brahman is very often confused by Wilson with Brahmâ, for which he is criticized by his successors. The _Original Sanscrit Texts_ are preferred by Mr. Fitzedward Hall for the translation of the _Vishnu Purâna_, to the text used by Wilson. “Had Professor Wilson enjoyed the advantages which are now at the command of the student of Indian philosophy, unquestionably he would have expressed himself differently,” says the editor of his work. This reminds one of the answer given by one of Thomas Taylor’s admirers to those scholars who criticized his translations of Plato: “Taylor might have known less Greek than his critics, but he knew more Plato.” Our present Orientalists disfigure the _mystic_ sense of the Sanskrit texts far more than Wilson ever did, though the latter is undeniably guilty of very gross errors. 750 _Vâyu Purâna._ 751 _Collected Works_, III. 381. 752 Professor Wilson translates as though animals were higher in the scale of “creation” than divinities, or angels, although the truth about the Devas is very plainly stated further on. This “Creation,” says the text, is both Primary (Prâkrita) and Secondary (Vaikrita). It is the Secondary, as regards the origin of the Gods from Brahmâ, the _personal_ anthropomorphic _creator_ of our material universe; it is the Primary as affecting Rudra, who is the immediate production of the First Principle. The term Rudra is not only a title of Shiva, but embraces agents of creation, angels and men, as will be shown further on. 753 Neither plant nor animal, but an existence between the two. 754 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 276, art., “Mineral Monad.” 755 “These notions,” remarks Professor Wilson, “the birth of Rudra and the saints, seem to have been _borrowed_ from the Shaivas, and to have been awkwardly engrafted upon the Vaishnava system.” The esoteric meaning ought to have been consulted before venturing such a hypothesis. 756 See _Sânkhya Kârikâ_, v. 46. p. 146. 757 Parâshara, the Vedic Rishi, who received the _Vishnu Purâna_ from Pulastya and taught it to Maitreya, is placed by the Orientalists at various epochs. As correctly observed, in the _Hindû Classical Dictionary_: “Speculations as to his era differ widely, from 575 B.C. to 1391 B.C., and _cannot be trusted_.” Quite so; but they are no more untrustworthy than any other date, as assigned by the Sanskritists, so famous in the department of arbitrary fancy. 758 They may indeed mark a “special” or extra “creation,” since it is they who, by incarnating themselves within the senseless human shells of the two first Root‐Races, and a great portion of the Third Root‐Race, create, so to speak, a _new race_: that of thinking, self‐conscious and _divine_ men. 759 _Hindû Classical Dictionary._ 760 _Linga Purâna_, Prior Section, lxx. 174. 761 See _Manu_, I. 10. 762 See _Linga_, _Vâyu_ and _Mârkandeya Purânas_. 763 Movers, _Phoinizer_, 282. 764 Weber, _Akad. Vorles_, 213, 214, etc. 765 IX. 850. 766 _Stromata_, I. v. 6. 767 The Gehenna of the _Bible_ was a valley near Jerusalem, where the monotheistic Jews immolated their children to Moloch, if the word of the prophet Jeremiah is to be believed. The Scandinavian Abode of Hel or Hela was a frigid region—Kâma Loka again—and the Egyptian Amenti a place of purification. (See _Isis Unveiled_, II. 11.) 768 I. vi. i. 769 _Cod. Naz._, I. 47; see also _Psalms_, lxxxix. 18. 770 I _Cor._, viii. 5. 771 _Concerning Divine Names_, traduction Darboy, 364. 772 See de Mirville, _Des Esprits_, ii. 322. 773 _The Correlation of Physical Forces_, p. 89. 774 _Ibid._, xiv. 775 II _Sam._, xxii. 9, 11. 776 _Deut._, iv. 24. 777 _Op. cit._, III. 415. 778 II _Sam._, xxii. 14, 15. 779 Herodotus, _Polymnia_, 190, 191. 780 viii. 24. 781 _Fa‐hwa‐King._ 782 See _La Mission des Juifs_. 783 _China Revealed_, as quoted in Hargrave Jennings’ _Phallicism_, p. 273. 784 p. 202. 785 _Op. cit._, p. 60. 786 _Ibid._ 787 O’Brien, _Round Towers of Ireland_, p. 61, quoted by Hargrave Jennings in his _Phallicism_, p. 246. 788 _Introduction to the Science of Religion_, p. 332. 789 _Pantheon_, text 3. 790 Their intellection, of course, being of quite a different nature to any we can conceive of on Earth. 791 See his Third Letter to Bentley. 792 _Concepts of Modern Physics_, pp. xi, xii, Introd. to 2nd Ed. 793 “Recherches expérimentales sur la relation qui existe entre la résistance de l’air et sa température,” p. 68, translated from Stallo’s quotation. 794 From the criticism of _Concepts of Modern Physics_, in _Nature_. See Stallo’s work, p. xvi of Introduction. 795 Mr. Robert Ward, discussing the questions of Heat and Light in the November _Journal of Science_, 1881, shows us how utterly ignorant is Science about one of the commonest facts of Nature—the heat of the Sun. He says: “The question of the temperature of the sun has been the subject of investigation with many scientists: Newton, one of the first investigators of this problem, tried to determine it, and after him all the scientists who have been occupied with calorimetry have followed his example. All have believed themselves successful, and have formulated their results with great confidence. The following, in the chronological order of the publication of the results, are the temperatures (in centigrade degrees) found by each of them: Newton, 1,699,300°; Pouillet, 1,461°; Tollner, 102,200°; Secchi, 5,344,840°; Ericsson, 2,726,700°; Fizeau, 7,500°; Waterston, 9,000,000°; Spoëren, 27,000°; Deville, 9,500°; Soret, 5,801,846°; Vicaire, 1,500°; Rosetti, 20,000°. The difference is as 1,400° against 9,000,000°, or no less than 8,998,600°!! There probably does not exist in science a more astonishing contradiction than that revealed in these figures.” And yet without doubt if an Occultist were to give out an estimate, each of these gentlemen would vehemently protest in the name of “exact” Science at the rejection of his special result. 796 See _Correlation of the Physical Forces_, Preface. 797 _Soirées_, vol. ii. 798 Stallo’s above‐cited work, _Concepts of Modern Physics_, a volume which has called forth the liveliest protests and criticisms, is recommended to anyone inclined to doubt this statement. “The professed antagonism of science to metaphysical speculation,” he writes, “has led the majority of scientific specialists to assume that the methods and results of empirical research are wholly independent of the control of the laws of thought. They either silently ignore, or openly repudiate, the simplest canons of logic, including the laws of non‐contradiction, and ... resent with the utmost vehemence every application of the rule of consistency to their hypotheses and theories ... and they regard an examination (of them) ... in the light of these laws as an impertinent intrusion of ‘_à priori_ principles and methods’ into the domains of empirical science. Persons of this cast of mind find no difficulty in holding that atoms are absolutely inert, and at the same time asserting that these atoms are perfectly elastic; or in maintaining that the physical universe, in its last analysis, resolves itself into ‘dead’ matter and motion, and yet denying that all physical energy is in reality kinetic; or in proclaiming that all phenomenal differences in the objective world are ultimately due to the various motions of absolutely simple material units, and, nevertheless, repudiating the proposition that these units are equal.” (p. xix.) The blindness of eminent Physicists to some of the most obvious consequences of their own theories is marvellous. “When Prof. Tait, in conjunction with Prof. Stewart, announces that ‘matter is simply passive’ (_The Unseen Universe_, sec. 104), and then, in connection with Sir William Thomson, declares that ‘matter has an innate power of resisting external influences’ (_Treat. on Nat. Phil._, Vol. I. sec. 216), it is hardly impertinent to inquire how these statements are to be reconciled. When Prof. Du Bois Reymond ... insists upon the necessity of reducing all the processes of nature to motions of a substantial, indifferent substratum, _wholly destitute of quality_ (_Ueber die Grenzen des Naturerkennens_, p. 5), having declared shortly before in the same lecture that ‘resolution of all changes in the material world into motions of atoms _caused by their constant central forces_ would be the completion of natural science,’ we are in a perplexity from which we have the right to be relieved.” (Pref. xliii.) 799 Stallo, _loc. cit._, p. x. 800 _Silliman’s Journal_, vol. viii. pp. 364 _et seq._ 801 See Clerk Maxwell’s _Treatise on Electricity_, and compare with Cauchy’s _Mémoire sur la Dispersion de la Lumière_. 802 Stallo, _loc. cit._, p. x. 803 _Nature_, vol. xxvii. p. 304. 804 _Op. cit._, p. xxiv. 805 “_Somewhat_ different!” exclaims Stallo. “The real import of this ‘somewhat’ is, that the medium in question _is not, in any intelligible sense, material at all_, having none of the properties of matter.” All the properties of matter depend upon differences and changes, and the “hypothetical” Ether here defined is not only destitute of differences, but incapable of difference and change—in the physical sense let us add. This proves that if Ether is “matter,” it is so only as something visible, tangible and existing, for _spiritual_ senses alone; that it is a Being indeed—but not of our plane—Pater Æther, or Âkâsha. 806 _Veræ causæ_ for Physical Science are mâyâvic or illusionary causes for the Occultist, and _vice versâ_. 807 Very much “differentiated,” on the contrary, since the day it left its _laya_ condition. 808 _Op. cit._, pp. xxiv‐xxvi. 809 _Sept Leçons de Physique Générale_, p. 38, _et seq._, Ed. Moigno. 810 Defin. 8, B. I. Prop. 69, “Scholium.” 811 See _Modern Materialism_, by the Rev. W. F. Wilkinson. 812 “Attraction,” Le Couturier, a Materialist, writes, “has now become for the public that which it was for Newton himself—a simple word, an Idea” (_Panorama des Mondes_), since its cause is unknown. Herschell virtually says the same, when remarking, that whenever studying the motion of the heavenly bodies, and the phenomena of attraction, he feels penetrated at every moment with the idea of “the existence of causes that act for us under a veil, disguising their direct action.” (_Musée des Sciences_, August, 1856.) 813 If we are taken to task for believing in operating Gods and Spirits while rejecting a personal God, we answer to the Theists and Monotheists: Admit that your Jehovah is _one of the Elohim_, and we are ready to recognize him. Make of him, as you do, the Infinite, the ONE and the Eternal God, and we will never accept him in this character. Of tribal Gods there were many; the One Universal Deity is a principle, an abstract Root‐Idea, which has nought to do with the unclean work of finite Form. We do not worship the Gods, we only honour Them, as beings superior to ourselves. In this we obey the Mosaic injunction, while Christians disobey their _Bible_—missionaries foremost of all. “Thou shalt not revile the Gods,” says one of them—Jehovah—in _Exodus_, xxii. 28; but at the same time in verse 20 it is commanded: “He that sacrificeth to any God, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed.” Now in the original texts it is not “God” but Elohim—and we challenge contradiction—and Jehovah is one of the Elohim, as proved by his own words in _Genesis_, iii. 22, when “the Lord God said: Behold the Man is become as one of us.” Hence both those who worship and sacrifice to the Elohim, the Angels, and to Jehovah, and those who revile the Gods of their fellowmen, are far greater transgressors than the Occultists or than any Theosophist. Meanwhile many of the latter prefer believing in some one “Lord” or other, and are quite welcome to do as they like. 814 To liken the “immateriate species to wooden iron,” and to laugh at Spiller for referring to them as “incorporeal matter” does not solve the mystery. (See _Concepts of Modern Physics_, p. 165 _et infra_.) 815 See _Vossius_, Vol. II. p. 528. 816 _De Carlo_, I. 9. 817 _De Motibus Planetarum Harmonicis_, p. 248. 818 _World‐Life_, Prof. Winchell, LL.D., pp. 49 and 50. 819 _Panorama des Mondes_, pp. 47 and 53. 820 Newton, _Optics_, III. Query 28, 1704; quoted in _World‐Life_, p. 50. 821 _Ibid._ 822 When read in a fair and unprejudiced spirit, Sir Isaac Newton’s works are an ever ready witness to show how he must have hesitated between gravitation and attraction, impulse, and some other _unknown cause_, to explain the regular course of the planetary motion. But see his _Treatise on Colour_ (Vol. III. Question 31). We are told by Herschell that Newton left with his successors the duty of drawing all the scientific conclusions from his discovery. How Modern Science has abused the privilege of building its newest theories upon the law of gravitation, may be realized when one remembers how profoundly religious was that great man. 823 The materialistic notion that because, in Physics, real or sensible motion is impossible in pure space or vacuum, therefore, the eternal Motion of and in Cosmos—regarded as infinite Space—is a _fiction_, only shows once more that such expressions of Eastern metaphysics as “pure Space,” “pure Being,” the “Absolute” etc., have never been understood in the West. 824 From Winchell’s _World‐Life_, p. 379. 825 _Correl. Phys. Forces_, p. 173. 826 See _Revue Germanique_ of the 31st Dec. 1860, art., “Lettres et Conversations d’Alexandre Humboldt.” 827 Prof. Winchell. 828 _World‐Life_, p. 553. 829 But see _Astronomie du Moyen Age_, by Delambre. 830 See _Isis Unveiled_, I. 270, 271. 831 _World‐Life_, 554. 832 Godefroy, _Cosmogonie de la Révélation_. 833 The terms “high” and “low” being only relative to the position of the observer in Space, any use of those terms tending to convey the impression that they stand for abstract realities, is necessarily fallacious. 834 Jacob Ennis, _The Origin of the Stars_. 835 P. 99, note. 836 If such is the case, how does Science explain the comparatively small size of the planets nearest the Sun? The theory of meteoric aggregation is only a step farther from truth than the nebular conception, and has not even the quality of the latter—its metaphysical element. 837 Laplace, _Système du Monde_, p. 414, ed. 1824. 838 Faye, _Comptes Rendus_, t. xc. pp. 640‐2. 839 Wolf. 840 _Panorama des Mondes_, Le Couturier. 841 _World‐Life_, Winchell, p. 140. 842 Sir William Thomson’s lecture on “The latent dynamical theory regarding the probable origin, total amount of heat, and duration of the Sun,” 1887. 843 Thomson and Tait, _Natural Philosophy_. And even on these figures Bischof disagrees with Thomson, and calculates that 350,000,000 years would be required for the Earth to cool from a temperature of 20,000° to 200° centigrade. This is, also, the opinion of Helmholtz. 844 Coulomb’s Law. 845 _Musée des Sciences_, 15 August, 1857. 846 _Panorama des Mondes_, p. 55. 847 _Revue des Deux Mondes_, July 15, 1860. 848 _Cosmographie._ 849 _Soirées._ 850 _Discours_, 165. 851 p. 28. 852 _Des Esprits_, III. 155, Deuxième Mémoire. 853 Laing’s _Modern Science and Modern Thought_. 854 _Ibid._, p. 17. 855 _Heaven and Earth._ 856 Winchell, _World‐Life_, p. 196. 857 _L’Univers expliqué par la Révélation_, and _Cosmogonie de la Révélation_. But see De Mirville’s _Deuxième Mémoire_. The author, a terrible enemy of Occultism, was yet one who wrote great truths. 858 See _Kabbala Denudata_, II. 67. 859 “Sur la Distinction des Forces,” published in the _Mémoires de l’Académie des Sciences de Montpellier_, Vol. II. fasc. i, 1854. 860 P. 123. 861 _Der Weltæther als Kosmische Kraft_, p. 4. 862 See _Popular Science Review_, Vol. V. pp. 329‐34. 863 See _Correlation of Physical Forces_, p. 110. 864 See Buckwell’s _Electric Science_. 865 Schelling, _Ideen_, etc., p. 18. 866 _Op. cit._, p. 161. 867 _Princ._, Def. iii. 868 _Philosophical Magazine_, Vol. II. p. 252. 869 _Concepts of Modern Physics_, xxxi., Introductory to the 2nd Edition. 870 _Loc. cit._ 871 J. P. Cooke, _The New Chemistry_, p. 13. 872 “It imports that equal volumes of all substances, when in the gaseous state, and under like conditions of pressure and temperature, contain the same number of molecules—whence it follows that the weights of the molecules are proportional to the specific gravities of the gases; that therefore, these being different, the weights of the molecule are different also; and inasmuch as the molecules of certain elementary substances are monatomic (consist of but one atom each) while the molecules of various other substances contain the same number of atoms, that the ultimate atoms of such substances are of different weights.” (_Concepts of Modern Physics_, p. 34.) As shown further on in the same volume, this cardinal principle of modern theoretical chemistry is in utter and irreconcilable conflict with the first proposition of the atomo‐ mechanical theory—namely, the absolute equality of the primordial units of mass. 873 Wundt, _Die Theorie der Materie_, p. 381. 874 Nazesmann, _Thermochemie_, p. 150. 875 Krœnig, Clausius, Maxwell, etc., _Philosophical Magazine_, Vol. XIX. p. 18. 876 _Philosophical Magazine_, Vol. XIV. p. 321. 877 Referring to the “Aura,” one of the Masters says in the _Occult World_: “How could you make yourself understood by, command in fact, those semi‐intelligent Forces, whose means of communication with us are not through spoken words, but through sounds and colours in correlation between the vibrations of the two.” It is this “correlation” that is unknown to Modern Science, although it has been many times explained by the Alchemists. 878 The Substance of the Occultist, however, is to the most refined Substance of the Physicist, what Radiant Matter is to the leather of the Chemist’s boots. 879 The names of the Seven Rays—which are, Sushumnâ, Harikesha, Vishvakarman, Vishvatryarchâs, Sannaddha, Sarvâvasu and Svarâj—are all mystical, and each has its distinct application in a distinct state of consciousness, for Occult purposes. The Sushumnâ, which, as said in the Nirukta (11, 6), is only to light up the Moon, is the Ray nevertheless cherished by the initiated Yogîs. The totality of the Seven Rays spread through the Solar System constitutes, so to say, the physical Upâdhi (Basis) of the Ether of Science; in which Upâdhi, light, heat, electricity, etc., the Forces of orthodox Science, correlate to produce their terrestrial effects. As psychic and spiritual effects, they emanate from, and have their origin in, the supra‐solar Upâdhi, in the Æther of the Occultist—or Âkâsha. 880 Leslie’s _Fluid Theory of Light and Heat_. 881 Buckle’s _History of Civilization_, Vol. III. p. 384. 882 On the plane of manifestation and illusionary matter it may be so; not that it is nothing more, for it is vastly more. 883 Neutral, or Laya. 884 _Scientific Letters_, Professor Butlerof. 885 _Ibid._ 886 _Ibid._ 887 _Ibid._ 888 Called the “drinker of waters,” solar heat causing water to evaporate. 889 I. ii. (Wilson, I. 38.) 890 Its founder, Râmânujâchârya, was born A.D. 1017. 891 The Gandharva of the _Veda_ is the deity who knows and reveals the secrets of heaven and divine truths to mortals. Cosmically, the Gandharvas are the aggregate Powers of the Solar Fire, and constitute its Forces; psychically, the Intelligence residing in the Sushumnâ, the Solar Ray, the highest of the Seven Rays; mystically, the Occult Force in the Soma, the Moon, or lunar plant, and the drink made of it; physically, the phenomenal, and spiritually, the noumenal, causes of Sound and the “Voice of Nature.” Hence, they are called the 6,333 heavenly singers, and musicians of Indra’s Loka, who personify, even in number, the various and manifold sounds in Nature, both above and below. In the later allegories they are said to have mystic power over women, and to be fond of them. The Esoteric meaning is plain. They are one of the forms, if not the prototypes, of Enoch’s Angels, the Sons of God, who saw that the daughters of men were fair (_Gen._, vi.), who married them, and taught the daughters of Earth the secrets of Heaven. 892 Pp. 329‐334. 893 Not only “through space,” but filling every point of our Solar System, for it is the physical residue, so to say, of Ether, its “lining” (envelope) on our plane; Ether having to serve other cosmic and terrestrial purposes besides being the “agent” for transmitting light. It is the Astral Fluid or Light of the Kabalists, and the Seven Rays of Sun‐Vishnu. 894 What need, then, of etheric waves for the transmission of light, heat, etc., if _this_ substance can pass through vacuum. 895 And how can it be otherwise? Gross ponderable matter is the body, the shell, of Matter or Substance, the female passive principle; and this Fohatic Force is the second principle, Prâna—the male and the active. On our globe this Substance is the second principle of the septenary Element—Earth; in the atmosphere, it is that of Air, which is the cosmic gross body; in the Sun it becomes the Solar Body and that of the Seven Rays; in Sidereal Space it corresponds with another principle, and so on. The whole is a homogeneous Unity alone, the parts are all differentiations. 896 Or the reverberation, and for Sound repercussion, _on our plane_ of that which is a perpetual motion of that Substance on higher planes. Our world and senses are ceaselessly victims of Mâyâ. 897 An honest admission, this. 898 Yet it is not Ether, but only one of the principles of Ether, the latter being itself one of the principles of Âkâsha. 899 And so does Prâna (Jîva) pervade the whole living body of man; but alone, without having an atom to act upon, it would be quiescent—dead; _i.e._, would be in Laya, or, as Mr. Crookes has it, “locked in Protyle.” It is the action of Fohat upon a compound or even upon a simple, body that produces life. When a body dies, it passes into the same polarity as its male energy, and repels therefore the active agent, which, losing hold of the whole, fastens on the parts or molecules, this action being called chemical. Vishnu, the Preserver, transforms himself into Rudra‐Shiva, the Destroyer—a correlation seemingly unknown to Science. 900 Verily, unless the Occult terms of the Kabalists are adopted! 901 “Unchangeable” only during manvantaric periods, after which it merges once more into Mûlaprakriti; “invisible” for ever, in its own essence, but seen in its reflected coruscations, called the Astral Light by the modern Kabalists. Yet, conscious and grand Beings, clothed in that same Essence, move in it. 902 One has to add ponderable, to distinguish it from that Ether which is Matter still, though a substratum. 903 The Occult Sciences reverse the statement, and say that it is the Sun, and all the Suns that are from it, which emanate at the manvantaric dawn from the Central Sun. 904 Here, we decidedly beg to differ from the learned gentleman. Let us remember that this Ether—whether Âkâsha, or its lower principle, Ether, is meant by the term—is septenary. Âkâsha is Aditi in the allegory, and the mother of Mârttânda, the Sun, the Devamâtri, Mother of the Gods. In the Solar System, the Sun is her Buddhi and Vâhana, the Vehicle, hence the sixth principle; in Kosmos all the Suns are the Kâma Rûpa of Âkâsha and so is ours. It is only when regarded as an individual Entity in his own Kingdom, that Sûrya, the Sun, is the seventh principle of the great body of Matter. 905 To be more correct, let us rather call it Agnosticism. Brutal but frank Materialism is more honest than Janus‐faced Agnosticism in our days. Western Monism, so‐called, is the Pecksniff of modern Philosophy, turning a pharisaical face to Psychology and Idealism, and its natural face of a Roman Augur, swelling his cheek with his tongue, to Materialism. Such Monists are worse than Materialists; because, while looking at the Universe and at psycho‐spiritual man from the same negative stand‐point, the latter put their case far less plausibly than do sceptics of Mr. Tyndall’s or even of Mr. Huxley’s stamp. Herbert Spencer, Bain and Lewes are more dangerous to universal truths than is Büchner. 906 _Geology_, by Professor A. Winchell. 907 See _Five Years of Theosophy_, pp. 245‐262—Arts. “Do the Adepts deny the Nebular Theory?” and “Is the Sun merely a Cooling Mass?”—for the true Occult teaching. 908 _Philosophie Naturelle_, art. 142. 909 _Astronomie_, p. 342. 910 Commentary on Stanza IV, _ante_, pp. 126‐7. 911 _Popular Science Review_, Vol. IV. p. 148. 912 And the _central mass_, too, as will be found, or rather the centre of the reflection. 913 This “matter” is just like the reflection in a mirror of the flame from a “photogenic” lamp‐wick. 914 See _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 258, for an answer to this speculation of Herschell. 915 _Ibid._, p. 156. 916 Paracelsus for one, who called it Liquor Vitæ, and Archæus. 917 _Alchemical_ “composition,” rather. 918 “This vital force ... radiates around man like a luminous sphere,” says Paracelsus in _Paragranum_. 919 _Popular Science Review_, Vol. X. pp. 380‐3. 920 _De Generatione Hominis._ 921 _De Viribus Membrorum_. See _Life of Paracelsus_, by Franz Hartmann, M.D., F.T.S. 922 P. 384. 923 Ch. xiii; Telang’s translation, p. 292. 924 _Ibid._, ch. xxxvi; p. 385. 925 The division of the physical senses into five, comes to us from a great antiquity. But while adopting the number, no modern Philosopher has asked himself how these senses could exist, _i.e._, be perceived and used in a self‐conscious way, unless there were the _sixth_ sense, mental perception, to register and record them; and—this for the Metaphysicians and Occultists—the _seventh_ to preserve the spiritual fruitage and remembrance thereof, as in a Book of Life which belongs to Karma. The Ancients divided the senses into five, simply because their teachers, the Initiates, stopped at _hearing_, as being that sense which developed on the physical plane, or rather, got dwarfed and limited to this plane, only at the beginning of the Fifth Race. The Fourth Race already had begun to lose the _spiritual_ condition, so preëminently developed in the Third Race. 926 _Ibid._, ch. x: pp. 277, 278. 927 _Mundakopanishad_, p. 298. 928 _Bhagavadgîtâ_, ch. vii; _ibid._, pp. 73, 74. 929 Ahamkâra, I suppose, that “Egoship,” or “Ahamship,” which leads to every error. 930 The Elements are the five Tanmâtras of earth, water, fire, air and ether, the producers of the grosser elements. 931 _Anugîtâ_, ch. xx; _ibid._, p. 313. 932 The conductor in the sense of Upâdhi—a material or physical basis; but, as the second principle of the universal Soul and Vital Force in Nature, it is intelligently guided by the fifth principle thereof. 933 And too great an exuberance of it in the nervous system leads as often to disease and death. If it were the animal system which generated it, such would not be the case, surely. Hence, the latter emergency shows its independence of the system, and its connection with the Sun‐Force, as Metcalfe and Hunt explain. 934 P. 387. 935 _Paragranum; Life of Paracelsus_, by Dr. F. Hartmann. 936 In a recent work on Symbolism in Buddhism and Christianity—in Buddhism and Roman Catholicism, rather, many later rituals and dogmas in Northern Buddhism, in its popular exoteric form, being identical with those of the Latin Church—some curious facts are to be found. The author of this volume, with more pretensions than erudition, has indiscriminately crammed into his work ancient and modern Buddhist teachings, and has sorely confused Lamaïsm with Buddhism. On page 404 of this volume, called _Buddhism in Christendom, or Jesus the Essene_, our _pseudo_‐Orientalist devotes himself to criticizing the “Seven Principles” of the “Esoteric Buddhists,” and attempts to ridicule them. On page 405, the closing page, he speaks enthusiastically of the Vidyâdharas, “the seven great legions of dead men made wise.” Now, these Vidyâdharas, whom some Orientalists call “demi‐gods,” are in fact, exoterically, a kind of Siddhas, “affluent in devotion,” and, esoterically, they are identical with the seven classes of Pitris, one class of which endow man in the Third Race with Self‐consciousness, by incarnating in the human shells. The “Hymn to the Sun,” at the end of his queer volume of mosaic, which endows Buddhism with a Personal God (!!), is an unfortunate thrust at the very proofs so elaborately collected by the unlucky author. Theosophists are fully aware that Mr. Rhys Davids has likewise expressed his opinion on their beliefs. He said that the theories propounded by the author of _Esoteric Buddhism_ “were not Buddhism, and were not esoteric.” The remark is the result of (_a_) the unfortunate mistake of writing “Buddhism” instead of “Budhaïsm,” or “Budhism,” _i.e._, of connecting the system with Gautama’s religion instead of with the Secret Wisdom taught by Krishna, Shankarâchârya, and many others, as much as by Buddha; and (_b_) of the impossibility of Mr. Rhys Davids knowing anything of the true Esoteric Teachings. Nevertheless as he is the greatest Pâli and Buddhist scholar of the day, whatever he may say is entitled to respectful hearing. But when one who knows no more of exoteric Buddhism on Scientific and Materialistic lines, than he knows of Esoteric Philosophy, defames those whom he honours with his spite, and assumes with the Theosophists the airs of a profound scholar, one can only smile or—heartily laugh at him. 937 _The Human Species_, pp. 10, 11. 938 _The Theosophist._ 939 Not only does it not deny the occurrence, though attributing it to a wrong cause, as always, each theory contradicting every other (see the theories of Secchi, of Faye, and of Young), the spots depending on the superficial accumulation of vapours cooler than the photosphere (?), etc., etc., but we have men of Science who _astrologize_ upon the spots. Professor Jevons attributes all the great periodical commercial crises to the influence of the sun‐spots every eleventh cyclic year. (See his _Investigations into Currency and Finance_.) This is worthy of praise and encouragement surely. 940 _Le Soleil_, II. 184. 941 _World‐Life_, p. 48. 942 Unfortunately, as these pages are being written, the “archebiosis of terrestrial existence” has turned, under a somewhat stricter chemical analysis, into a simple precipitate of sulphate of lime—hence, from the scientific standpoint, not even an organic substance! _Sic transit gloria mundi!_ 943 _Vishnu Purâna_, Wilson, I. 16, Fitzedward Hall’s rendering. 944 _Popular Astronomy_, p. 444. 945 In his _World‐Life_ (page 48), in the appended footnotes, Professor Winchell says, “It is generally admitted that at excessively high temperatures matter exists in a state of dissociation—that is, no chemical combination can exist”; and, to prove the unity of Matter, would appeal to the spectrum, which in every case of homogeneity will show a _bright_ line, whereas in the case of several molecular arrangements existing—in the nebulæ say, or a star—“the spectrum should consist of two or three bright lines”! This would be no proof either way to the Physicist‐Occultist, who maintains that beyond a certain limit of visible Matter, no spectrum, no telescope and no microscope are of any use. The unity of Matter, of that which is real cosmic Matter to the Alchemist, or “Adam’s Earth” as the Kabalists call it, can hardly be proved or disproved, by either the French _savant_ Dumas, who suggests “the composite nature” of the “elements” on “certain relations of atomic weights,” or even by Mr. Crookes’ “radiant matter,” though his experiments may seem “to be best understood on the hypothesis of the homogeneity of the elements of matter, and the continuity of the states of matter.” For all this does not go beyond _material_ Matter, so to say, even in what is shown by the spectrum, that modern “eye of Shiva” of physical experiments. It is only of this Matter, that H. St. Claire Deville could say that “when bodies, deemed to be simple, combine with one another, they vanish, they are individually annihilated”; simply because he could not follow those bodies in their further transformation in the world of spiritual cosmic Matter. Verily Modern Science will never be able to dig deep enough into the cosmological formations to find the Roots of the World‐Stuff or Matter, unless she works on the same lines of thought as the mediæval Alchemist did. 946 _Concepts of Modern Physics_, p. vi. 947 Book I. ch. II. p. 25. _Vishnu Purâna_, Fitzedward Hall’s Translation. 948 _Vide_ in preceding Section VII., “Life, Force, or Gravity,” quotation from _Anugitâ_. 949 The word “supernatural” implies _above or outside_ nature. Nature and Space are one. Now Space for the metaphysician exists outside any act of sensation, and is a purely subjective representation, notwithstanding the contention of Materialism, which would connect it forcibly with one or another datum of sensation. For our senses, it is fairly subjective when independent of anything within it. How then can any phenomenon, or anything else, step outside, or be performed beyond, that which has no limits? But when spatial extension becomes simply conceptual, and is thought of in an idea connected with certain actions, as by the Materialists and the Physicists, then again they have hardly a right to define and claim that which can, or cannot, be produced by Forces generated within even limited spaces, as they have not even an approximate idea of what those Forces are. 950 It is not correct, when speaking of Idealism, to show it based upon “the old ontological assumptions that things or entities exist independently of each other, and otherwise than as terms of relations” (Stallo). At any rate, it is incorrect to say so of Idealism in Eastern Philosophy and _its_ cognition, for it is just the reverse. 951 Independent, in a certain sense, but not _disconnected_ with it. 952 “By Fohat, more likely,” would be an Occultist’s reply. 953 The reason for such psychic capacities is given farther on. 954 The above was written in 1886, at a time when hopes of success for the “Keely Motor” were at their highest. Every word then said by the writer proved true, and now only a few remarks are added with regard to the failure of Mr. Keely’s expectations, so far, a failure now admitted by the discoverer himself. Though, however, the word _failure_ is here used, the reader should understand it in a relative sense, for, as Mrs. Bloomfield‐Moore explains: “What Mr. Keely does admit is that, baffled in applying vibratory force to mechanics, upon his first and second lines of experimental research, he was obliged either to confess a _commercial_ failure, or to try a third departure from his base or principle, seeking success through another channel.” And this “channel” is on the _physical_ plane. 955 We learn that these remarks are not applicable to Mr. Keely’s latest discovery; time alone can show the exact limit of his achievements. 956 _Theosophical Siftings_, No. 9. 957 This is also the division made by the Occultists, under other names. 958 Quite so, since there is the _seventh_ beyond, which begins the same enumeration from the first to the last, on another and higher plane. 959 From Mrs. Bloomfield‐Moore’s paper, _The New Philosophy_. 960 In answer to a friend, that eminent Geologist writes: “I can only say, in reply to your letter, that it is at present, and perhaps always will be, impossible to reduce, even approximately, geological time into years, or even into millenniums.” (Signed, William Pengelly, F.R.S.) 961 Plato, in speaking of the irrational, turbulent Elements, “composed of fire, air, water, and earth,” means Elementary Dæmons. (See _Timæus_.) 962 Plato in the _Timæus_ uses the word “secretions” of turbulent Elements. 963 Valentinus’ _Esoteric Treatise on the Doctrine of Gilgul_. 964 See Mackenzie’s _Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_. 965 See _Isis Unveiled_, II. 152. 966 See Mackenzie, _ibid._, _sub voc._ 967 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 317. 968 _Viveka Chudamani_, translated by Mohini M. Chatterji, as “The Crest Jewel of Wisdom.” See _Theosophist_, July and August, 1886. 969 The Tanmâtras are literally the type or rudiment of an element devoid of qualities; but esoterically, they are the primeval Noumena of that which becomes in the progress of evolution, a Cosmic Element, in the sense given to the term in Antiquity, not in that of Physics. They are the Logoi, the seven emanations or rays of the Logos. 970 Ch. xxxvi; Telang’s translation, pp. 387‐8. 971 See _Theosophist_, August, 1886. 972 The now universal error of attributing to the Ancients the knowledge of only seven planets, simply because they mentioned no others, is based on the same general ignorance of their Occult doctrines. The question is not whether they were, or were not, aware of the existence of the later discovered planets; but whether the reverence paid by them to the four exoteric and three secret Great Gods—the Star‐Angels, had not some special reason. The writer ventures to say there was such a reason, and it is this. Had they known of as many planets as we do now—and this question can hardly be decided at present, either way—they would still have only connected the seven with their religious worship, because these seven are directly and specially connected with our Earth, or, using esoteric phraseology, with our septenary Ring of Spheres. 973 _John_, x. 30. 974 _Ibid._, xx. 17. 975 _Ibid._, xiv. 28. 976 _Matt._, v. 16. 977 _Ibid._, xiii. 43. 978 1 _Cor._, iii. 16. 979 _Theosophist_, Aug., 1886. 980 These are planets accepted for purposes of Judicial Astrology only. The astro‐theogonical division differed from the above. The Sun, being a central _star_ and not a planet, stands, with _its_ seven planets, in more occult and mysterious relations to _our_ Globe than is generally known. The Sun was, therefore, considered the great Father of all the Seven “Fathers,” and this accounts for the variations found between the Seven and Eight Great Gods of Chaldean and other countries. Neither the Earth, nor the Moon, its satellite, nor yet the stars, for another reason, were anything more than _substitutes used for Esoteric purposes_. Yet, even with the exclusion of the Sun and the Moon from the calculation, the Ancients seem to have known of _seven_ planets. How many more are known to us, so far, if we throw out the Earth and Moon? _Seven_, and no more: Seven primary or principal planets, the rest _planetoids_ rather than planets. 981 When one remembers that under the powerful telescope of Sir William Herschell, that eminent Astronomer—gauging merely that portion of heaven in the equatorial plane, the approximate centre of which is occupied by our Earth—saw in one quarter of an hour, 16,000 stars pass; and applying this calculation to the totality of the “Milky Way” he found in it no less than eighteen millions of Suns, one wonders no longer that Laplace, in conversation with Napoleon I, should have called God a _hypothesis_—perfectly useless to speculate upon for _exact_ Physical Science, at any rate. Occult Metaphysics and transcendental Philosophy will alone be able to lift the smallest corner of the impenetrable veil in this direction. 982 _Numb._, xi. 16. 983 _Deut._, xxxii. 8, 9. 984 _Ibid._, 9. 985 C. W. King in _The Gnostics and their Remains_ (p. 344), identifies it with “that _summum bonum_ of Oriental aspiration, the Buddhist Nirvâna, ‘perfect repose, the Epicurean _Indolentia_’;” a view that looks flippant enough in its expression, though not quite untrue. 986 See Origen’s Copy of the Chart, or Diagramma of the Ophites. 987 See also Section XIV. 988 Abraham and Saturn are identical in astro‐symbology, and he is the forefather of the Jehovistic Jews. 989 _John_, viii. 37, 38, 41, 44. 990 _Matthew_, v. 22. 991 The Elemental Vortices inaugurated by the “Mind” have not been improved by their modern transformation. 992 I have often been taken to task for using expressions in _Isis_ denoting belief in a _personal_ and anthropomorphic God. This is _not_ my idea. Kabalistically speaking, the “Architect” is the generic name for the Sephiroth, the Builders of the Universe, as the “Universal Mind” represents the collectivity of the Dhyân Chohanic Minds. 993 _Timæus._ 994 I. 258. 995 _Researches on Light in its Chemical Relations_. 996 _Modern Chemistry._ 997 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 137. 998 _Faraday Lectures_, 1881. 999 Thus, what the writer of the present work said ten years ago in _Isis Unveiled_ was, it seems, prophetic. These are the words: “Many of these mystics, by following what they were taught by some treatises, secretly preserved from one generation to another, achieved discoveries which would not be despised even in our modern days of exact sciences. Roger Bacon, the friar, was laughed at as a quack, and is now generally numbered among ‘pretenders’ to magic art; but his discoveries were nevertheless accepted, and are now used by those who ridicule him the most. Roger Bacon belonged by right, if not by fact, to that Brotherhood which includes all those who study the Occult Sciences. Living in the thirteenth century, almost a contemporary, therefore, of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, his discoveries—such as gunpowder and optical glasses, and his mechanical achievements—were considered by everyone as so many miracles. He was accused of having made a compact with the Evil One.” (Vol. I, pp. 64, 65.) 1000 Just so; “those forms of energy ... _which become evident_ ...” in the laboratory of the Chemist and Physicist; but _there are other forms of energy_ wedded to _other forms_ of matter, _which are supersensuous_, yet are known to the Adepts. 1001 _Presidential Address_, p. 16. 1002 It is just the existence of such worlds on other planes of consciousness that is asserted by the Occultist. The Secret Science teaches that the primitive race was boneless, and that there are worlds invisible to us, peopled as our own, besides the _populations_ of Dhyân Chohans. 1003 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 258 _et seq._ 1004 Says Mr. Crookes in the same address: “The first riddle which we encounter in chemistry is: ‘What are the elements?’ Of the attempts hitherto made to define or explain an element, none satisfy the demands of the human intellect. The text books tell us that an element is ‘a body which has not been decomposed;’ that it is ‘a something to which we can add, but from which we can take nothing,’ or ‘a body which increases in weight with every chemical change.’ Such definitions are doubly unsatisfactory: they are provisional, and may cease to‐morrow to be applicable in any given case. They take their stand, not on any attribute of the things to be defined, but on the limitations of human power: they are confessions of intellectual impotence.” 1005 And the lecturer quotes Sir George Airy, who says (in _Faraday’s Life and Letters_, Vol. II., p. 354): “I can easily conceive that there are plenty of bodies about us not subject to this intermutual action, and therefore not subject to the law of gravitation.” 1006 The Vedântic philosophy conceives of such; but then it is not physics, but metaphysics, called by Mr. Tyndall “poetry” and “fiction.” 1007 In the form they are now, we conceive? 1008 And to Kapila and Manu—especially and originally. 1009 Here is a scientific corroboration of the eternal law of correspondences and analogy. 1010 This method of illustrating the periodic law in the classification of elements is, in the words of Mr. Crookes, proposed by Professor Emerson Reynolds, of Dublin University, who ... “points out that in each period, the general properties of the elements vary from one to another, with approximate regularity until we reach the _seventh member_, which is in more or less striking contrast with the first element of the same period, as well as with the first of the next. Thus chlorine, the seventh member of Mendeleef’s third period, contrasts sharply with both sodium, the first member of the same series, and with potassium, the first member of the next series; whilst on the other hand, sodium and potassium are closely analogous. The six elements, whose atomic weights intervene between sodium and potassium, vary in properties, step by step, until chlorine, the contrast to sodium, is reached. But from chlorine to potassium, the analogue of sodium, there is a change in properties _per saltum_..... If we thus recognize a contrast in properties—more or less decided—between the first and the last members of each series, we can scarcely help admitting the existence of a point of mean variation within each system. In general the _fourth_ element of each series possesses the property we might expect a transition‐ element to exhibit.... Thus for the purpose of graphic translation, Professor Reynolds considers that the fourth member of a period—silicon, for example—may be placed at the apex of a symmetrical curve, which shall represent for that particular period, the direction in which the properties of the series of elements vary with rising atomic weights.” Now, the writer humbly confesses complete ignorance of modern Chemistry and its mysteries. But she is pretty well acquainted with the Occult Doctrine with regard to _correspondences of types and antetypes_ in nature, and to perfect analogy as a fundamental law in Occultism. Hence she ventures on a remark which will strike every Occultist, however it may be derided by orthodox Science. This method of illustrating the periodic law in the behaviour of elements, whether or not still a hypothesis in Chemistry, _is a law in Occult Sciences_. Every well‐read Occultist knows that the _seventh_ and _fourth_ members—whether in a septenary chain of worlds, the septenary hierarchy of angels, or in the constitution of man, animal, plant, or mineral atom—that the _seventh_ and _fourth_ members, we say, in the geometrically and mathematically uniform workings of the immutable laws of Nature, always play a distinct and specific part in the septenary system. From the stars twinkling high in heaven, to the sparks flying asunder from the rude fire built by the savage in his forest; from the hierarchies and the essential constitution of the Dhyân Chohans—organized for diviner apprehensions and a loftier range of perception than the greatest Western Psychologist ever dreamed of, down to Nature’s _classification_ of species among the humblest insects; finally from Worlds to Atoms, everything in the Universe, from great to small, proceeds in its spiritual and physical evolution, cyclically and septennially, showing its seventh and fourth number (the latter the turning point) behaving in the same way as is shown in that periodic law of Atoms. Nature never proceeds _per saltum_. Therefore, when Mr. Crookes remarks on this that he does not “wish to infer that the gaps in Mendeleef’s table, and in this graphic representation of it [the diagram showing the evolution of Atoms] necessarily mean that there are elements actually existing to fill up the gaps; these gaps may only mean that at the birth of the elements there was an easy potentiality of the formation of an element which would fit into the place”—an Occultist would respectfully remark to him that the latter hypothesis can only hold good, if the septenary arrangement of Atoms is not interfered with. This is _the one law_, and an infallible method that must always lead one who follows it to success. 1011 A group of electricians has just protested against the new theory of Clausius, the famous professor of the University of Bonn. The character of the protest is shown in the signature, which has “Jules Bourdin, in the name of the group of Electricians, which had the honour of being introduced to Professor Clausius in 1881, and whose war‐cry (_cri de ralliement_) is _À bas l’Ether_”—down with Ether, even; they want Universal _Void_, you see! 1012 _Smithsonian Contributions_, xxi., Art. 1. pp. 79‐97. 1013 _System of Logic_, p. 229. 1014 Beyond the zero‐line of action. 1015 _Progymnasmata_, p. 795. 1016 _De Stellâ Novâ in Pede Serpentarii_, p. 115. 1017 _Hypothèses Cosmogoniques_, p. 2, C. Wolf, 1886. 1018 See _Philosophical Transactions_, p. 269, _et seq._ 1019 Laplace conceived that the external and internal zones of the ring would rotate with the same angular velocity, which would be the case with a solid ring; but the principle of equal areas requires the inner zones to rotate more rapidly than the outer. (_World‐Life_, p. 121.) Prof. Winchell points out a good many mistakes of Laplace; but as a geologist he is not infallible himself in his “astronomical speculations.” 1020 _Five Years of Theosophy_, pp. 249‐251, Art. “Do the Adepts deny the Nebular Theory?” 1021 Had Astronomers, in their present state of knowledge, merely held to the hypothesis of Laplace, which was simply the formation of the Planetary System, it might in time have resulted in something like an approximate truth. But the two parts of the general problem—that of the formation of the Universe, or the formation of the Suns and Stars from the Primitive Matter, and then the development of the Planets round their Sun—rest on quite different facts in Nature and are even so viewed by Science itself. They are at the opposite poles of Being. 1022 Aristotle’s _Physica_, viii. 1. 1023 _Hypothèses Cosmogoniques_, p. 3, Wolf. 1024 Vol. I., p. 185, quoted by Wolf, p. 3. Wolf’s argument is here summarised. 1025 Note vii. Summarized from Wolf, p. 6. 1026 _Five Years of Theosophy_, pp. 241, 242, and 239. 1027 But the spectra of these nebulæ have never yet been ascertained. When they _are_ found with bright lines, then only may they be cited. 1028 _Hypothèses Cosmogoniques_, p. 3. 1029 Mr. Crookes’ Protyle must not be regarded as the _primary_ stuff, out of which the Dhyân Chohans, in accordance with the immutable laws of Nature, wove our Solar System. This Protyle cannot even be the Prima Materia of Kant, which that great mind saw used up in the formation of the worlds, and thus existing no longer in a diffused state. Protyle is a _mediate_ phase in the progressive differentiation of Cosmic Substance from its normal undifferentiated state. It is, then, the aspect assumed by Matter in its middle passage into full objectivity. 1030 See Stanza III, Commentary 9, (p. 109) about “Light,” or “_Cold_ Flame,” where it is explained that the “Mother”—Chaos—is a cold Fire, a cool Radiance, colourless, formless, devoid of every quality. “_Motion as the One Eternal_ IS, _and contains the potentialities of every quality in the Manvantaric Worlds_,” it is said. 1031 _Hypothèses Cosmogoniques_, pp. 4, 5. 1032 _World‐Life_, p. 196. 1033 _Westminster Review_, XX., July 27, 1868. 1034 Vol. XIV. p. 252. 1035 _Hypothèses Cosmogoniques._ 1036 Which “Light” we call Fohat. 1037 This is a mistake, which implies a material agent, distinct from the influences which move it, _i.e._, blind matter and perhaps “God” again, whereas this One Life is the very God and Gods “Itself.” 1038 The same error. 1039 _Popular Science Review_, Vol. X. 1040 “Is the Jîva a myth, as Science says, or is it not?” ask some Theosophists, wavering between materialistic and idealistic Science. The difficulty of really grasping Esoteric problems concerning the “ultimate state of Matter” is again the old crux of the _objective_ and the _subjective_. What is Matter? Is the Matter of our present objective consciousness anything but our _sensations_? True, the sensations we receive come _from without_, but can we really—except in terms of phenomena—speak of the “gross matter” of this plane as an entity apart from and independent of us? To all such arguments Occultism answers: True, in _reality_ Matter is not independent of, or existent outside, our perceptions. Man is an _illusion_: granted. But the existence and actuality of other, still more illusive, but not less _actual_, entities than we are, is not a claim which is lessened, but rather strengthened, by this doctrine of Vedântic and even Kantian Idealism. 1041 See _Musée des Sciences_, August, 1856. 1042 Book II. of the _Commentary on the Book of Dzyan_. 1043 Even the question of the plurality of worlds inhabited by sentient creatures is rejected, or is approached with the greatest caution! And yet see what the great astronomer, Camille Flammarion, says in his _Pluralité des Mondes_. 1044 Nevertheless, it may be shown on the testimony of the _Bible_ itself, and of such good Christian theologians as Cardinal Wiseman, that this plurality is taught in both the _Old_ and the _New Testaments_. 1045 See _Plurality of Worlds_, Vol. II. 1046 See on this _La Pluralité des Mondes Habités_, par C. Flammarion, wherein is given a list of the many men of Science who have written to prove the theory. 1047 _World‐Life_, pp. 496‐498, _et seq._ 1048 _World‐Life._ 1049 _The Book of Enoch._ Trans. by Archbishop Laurence, Ch. LXXIX. 1050 The Âtmâ, or Spirit, the Spiritual SELF, passing like a thread through the five Subtle Bodies, or Principles, Koshas, is called “Thread‐soul,” or Sûtrâtmâ in Vedântic Philosophy. 1051 “The Septenary Principle,” _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 197. 1052 _Pythagorean Triangle_, by the Rev. G. Oliver, p. 36. 1053 See Kant’s _Critique de la Raison Pure_, Barui’s transl., II. 54. 1054 Plutarch, _De Placitis Philosophorum_. 1055 In the Greek and Latin Churches—which regard marriage as one of the sacraments—the officiating priest during the marriage ceremony represents the apex of the triangle; the bride, its left feminine side, and the bridegroom the right side, while the base line is symbolized by the row of witnesses, the bridesmaids and best men. But behind the priest there is the Holy of Holies, with its mysterious containments and symbolic meaning, inside of which no one but the consecrated priests should enter. In the early days of Christianity the marriage ceremony was a mystery and a true symbol. Now, however, even the Churches have lost the true meaning of this symbolism. 1056 _New Aspects of Life and Religion_, by Henry Pratt, M.D., p. 7. Ed. 1886. 1057 _Ibid._, pp. 7, 8. 1058 _Ibid._, p. 9. 1059 _Pythagorean Triangle_, by the Rev. G. Oliver, pp. 18, 19. 1060 P. 387. 1061 P. 387. 1062 In the World of Form, symbolism finding expression in the Pyramids, has in them both triangle and square, four co‐equal triangles or surfaces, four basic points, and the fifth—the apex. 1063 Pp. 385, 386. 1064 _Op. cit._ By Isaac Myer. P. 174. 1065 P. 175. 1066 P. 175. 1067 “The lowest designation, or the Deity in Nature, the more general term Elohim, is translated God.” (P. 175.) Such recent works as the _Qabbalah_ of Mr. Isaac Myer, and of Mr. S. L. MacGregor Mathers, fully justify our attitude towards the Jehovistic Deity. It is not the transcendental, philosophical, and highly metaphysical abstraction of the original Kabalistic thought—Ain‐Suph‐Shekinah‐ Adam‐Kadmon, and all that follows—that we oppose, but the crystallization of all these into the highly unphilosophical, repulsive, and anthropomorphic Jehovah, the androgynous and _finite_ deity, for which eternity, omnipotence, and omniscience are claimed. We do not war against the _Ideal Reality_, but the hideous theological _Shadow_. 1068 Let not the word “Psychology” cause the reader, by association of ideas, to carry his thought to modern “Psychologists,” so‐called, whose _Idealism_ is another name for uncompromising Materialism, and whose pretended Monism is no better than a mask to conceal the void of final annihilation—even of consciousness. Here _spiritual_ Psychology is meant. 1069 “Vishvânara is not merely the manifested objective world, but the one physical basis [the horizontal line of the triangle] from which the whole objective world starts into existence.” And this is the Cosmic Duad, the Androgynous Substance. Only beyond this is the true Protyle. 1070 T. Subba Row. See _Theosophist_, Feb. 1887. 1071 By W. Crookes, F.R.S., V.P.C.S., delivered at the Royal Institution, London, on Friday, February 18th, 1887. 1072 How true it is will be fully demonstrated only on that day when Mr. Crookes’ discovery of radiant matter will have resulted in a further elucidation with regard to the true source of light, and will have revolutionized all the present speculations. Further familiarity with the northern streamers of the _aurora borealis_ may help the recognition of this truth. 1073 _Genesis of the Elements_, p. 1. 1074 _De Placit. Philos._ 1075 _The Path_, I. 10, p. 297. 1076 P. 11. 1077 Corresponding on the cosmic scale with the Spirit, Soul, Mind, Life, and the three Vehicles—the Astral, the Mâyâvic and the Physical Bodies (of mankind), whatever division is made. 1078 _Ibid._ p. 16. 1079 Vol. I, p. 429. 1080 _Ibid._, p. 21. 1081 “The Lord is a consuming _fire_.” “In him was _life_, and the life was the light of men.” 1082 Which if separated _alchemically_ would yield the Spirit of Life, and its Elixir. 1083 Foremost of all, the postulate that there is no such thing in Nature as _inorganic_ substances or bodies. Stones, minerals, rocks, and even chemical “atoms” are simply organic units in profound lethargy. Their coma has an end and their inertia becomes activity. 1084 _Ibid._, p. 144. 1085 The orthography of the name—as spelt by himself—is Leibniz. He was of Slavonian descent though born in Germany. 1086 _Monadologie_, Introd. 1087 “Leibnitz’s dynamism,” says Professor Lachelier, “would offer but little difficulty if, with him, the monad had remained a simple atom of _blind force_. But....” One perfectly understands the perplexity of Modern Materialism! 1088 _The Path_, I. 10, p. 297. 1089 Leibnitz was an _absolute_ Idealist in maintaining that “material atoms are contrary to reason.” (_Système Nouveau_, Erdmann, p. 126, col. 2.) For him Matter was a simple representation of the Monad, whether human or atomic. Monads, he thought (as do we), are everywhere. Thus the human soul is a Monad, and every cell in the human body has its Monad, as has every cell in animal, vegetable, and even in the so‐called _inorganic_ bodies. His Atoms are the molecules of modern Science, and his Monads those _simple atoms_ that Materialistic Science takes on faith, though it will never succeed in _interviewing_ them—except in imagination. But Leibnitz is rather contradictory in his views about Monads. He speaks of his “Metaphysical Points” and “Formal Atoms,” at one time as _realities_, occupying space; at another as pure spiritual _ideas_; then he again endows them with objectivity and aggregates and positions in their co‐relations. 1090 _Examen des Principes du P. Malebranche._ 1091 The Atoms of Leibnitz have, in truth, nothing but the name in common with the atoms of the Greek Materialists, or even the molecules of Modem Science. He calls them “Formal Atoms,” and compares them to the “Substantial Forms” of Aristotle. (See _Système Nouveau_, § 3.) 1092 Letter to Father Desbosses, _Correspondence_, xviii. 1093 _Monadologie_, § 60. Leibnitz, like Aristotle, calls the “created” or _emanated_ Monads (the Elementals issued from Cosmic Spirits or Gods)—Entelechies, Ἐντελέχειαι, and “incorporeal automata.” (_Monadologie_ § 18.) 1094 These three “rough divisions” correspond to Spirit, Mind (or Soul), and Body, in the human constitution. 1095 Brother C. H. A. Bjerregaard, in the lecture already mentioned, warns his audience not to regard the Sephiroth too much as _individualities_, but to avoid at the same time seeing in them _abstractions_. “We shall never arrive at the truth,” he says, “much less the power of associating with these celestials, until we return to the simplicity and fearlessness of the primitive ages, when men mixed freely with the gods, and the gods descended among men and guided them in truth and holiness.” (P. 296.) “There are several designations for ‘angels’ in the Bible, which clearly show that beings like the elementals of the Kabbala and the monads of Leibnitz, must be understood by that term rather than that which is commonly understood. They are called ‘morning stars,’ ‘flaming fires,’ ‘the mighty ones,’ and St. Paul sees them in his cosmogonic vision as ‘Principalities and Powers.’ Such names as these preclude the idea of personality, and we find ourselves compelled to think of them as impersonal existences ... as an _influence_, a spiritual substance, or _conscious_ force.” (Pp. 321, 322.) 1096 _Buddhist Catechism_, by H. S. Olcott, President of the Theosophical Society, p. 51. 1097 _Ibid._ 51, 52. 1098 We refer those who would regard the statement as an impertinence or irreverence levelled at accepted Science, to Dr. James Hutchinson Stirling’s work _As regards Protoplasm_, which is a defence of a Vital Principle _versus_ the Molecularists—Huxley, Tyndall, Vogt, and Co.—and request them to examine whether it is true or not to say that, though the scientific premisses may not be always correct, they are, nevertheless, accepted, to fill up a gap or a hole in some beloved materialistic hobby. Speaking of protoplasm and the organs of man, as “viewed by Mr. Huxley,” the author says: “Probably then, in regard to any continuity in protoplasm of power, of form, or of substance, we have seen _lacunæ_ enow. Nay, Mr. Huxley himself can be adduced in evidence on the same side. Not rarely do we find in his essay admissions of _probability_, where it is _certainty_ that is alone in place. He says, for example: ‘It is more than probable that _when_ the vegetable world is thoroughly explored we _shall_ find all plants in possession of the same powers.’ When a conclusion is decidedly announced, it is rather disappointing to be told, as here, that the premisses are still to collect [!!].... Again, here is a passage in which he is seen to cut his own ‘_basis_’ from beneath his own feet. After telling us that all forms of protoplasm consist of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen ‘in very complex union,’ he continues: ‘To this complex combination, _the nature of which has never been determined with exactness_ [!!], the name of _protein_ has been applied.’ This, plainly, is an identification, on Mr. Huxley’s own part, of protoplasm and _protein_; and what is said of one, being necessarily true of the other, it follows that he admits the nature of protoplasm never to have been determined with exactness, and that even in his eyes the _lis_ is still _sub judice_. This admission is strengthened by the words, too, ‘If we use this term (protein) with such _caution_ as may properly arise out of our _comparative ignorance_ of the things for which it stands’ ” ... etc. (pp. 33 and 34, ed. 1872, in reply to Mr. Huxley in _Yeast_). This is the eminent Huxley, the king of physiology and biology, who is proven playing at blind man’s buff with _premisses_ and _facts_! What may not the “smaller fry” of Science do after this! 1099 “The Cycles of Matter,” a name given by Professor Winchell to an Essay written in 1860. 1100 _World‐Life_, pp. 535, 548. 1101 Quoted in Büchner’s _Force and Matter_. 1102 Men of Science will say: We deny, because nothing of the kind has ever come within the scope of our experience. But, as argued by Charles Richet, the Physiologist: “So be it, but have you at least demonstrated the contrary?... Do not, at any rate, deny _à priori_. Actual Science is not sufficiently advanced to give you such right.”—_La Suggestion Mentale et le Calcul des Probabilités._ 1103 _Lectures on the Philosophy of History_, p. 26. Sibree’s Eng. Transl. 1104 _Isis Unveiled_, Vol. 1, p. 34. 1105 This symbolism does not prevent these now seemingly mythic personages from having ruled the Earth once upon a time under the human form of actual living, though truly divine and god‐like Men. The opinion of Colonel Vallancey—and also of Count de Gebelin—that the “names of the Kabiri appear to be all allegorical, and to have signified no more [?] than an almanac of the vicissitudes of the seasons—calculated for the operations of agriculture” (_Collect. de Reb. Hibern._, No. 13, Præf. Sect. 5), is as absurd as his assertion that Æon, Cronus, Saturn and Dagon are all one, namely, the “Patriarch Adam.” The Kabiri were the instructors of mankind in agriculture, because they were the Regents over the seasons and Cosmic Cycles. Hence it was they who regulated, as Planetary Spirits or Angels (Messengers), the _mysteries_ of the _art_ of agriculture. 1106 “Who dread Karma‐Nemesis,” would be better. 1107 Dryden. 1108 Not all, however, for there are men of Science awakening to truth. This is what we read: “Whatever way we turn our eyes we encounter a mystery ... all in Nature for us is the unknown.... Yet they are numerous, those superficial minds for whom nothing can be produced by natural forces outside of facts observed long ago, consecrated in books and grouped more or less skilfully with the help of theories whose ephemeral duration ought, by this time, to have demonstrated their insufficiency, .... I do not pretend to contest the possibility of invisible beings, of a nature different from ours and capable of moving matter to action. Profound philosophers have admitted this in all epochs, as a consequence of the great law of continuity which rules the universe. That intellectual life, which we see starting in some way from non‐being (_néant_) and gradually reaching man, can it stop abruptly at man to reäppear only in the infinite, in the sovereign regulator of the world? This is little probable.” Therefore, “I no more deny the existence of spirits than I deny soul, while I yet try to explain certain facts without this hypothesis.” _The Non‐Defined Forces, Historical and Experimental Researches_, p. 3. (Paris, 1877.) The author is A. de Rochas, a well‐known man of Science in France, and his work is one of the signs of the time. 1109 ix. 9. 1110 xxxviii. 31, 32. 1111 _Astronomie Antique._ 1112 The Pleiades, as all know, are the seven stars beyond the Bull, which appear at the beginning of spring. They have a very Occult meaning in the Hindû Esoteric Philosophy, and are connected with _Sound_ and other mystic principles in Nature. 1113 See _Astronomie Antique_, pp. 63 to 74. 1114 _Temple de Jerusalem_, Vol. II, Part II, Chap. xxx. 1115 Ch. vii. 1116 Quoted by De Mirville, _Des Esprits_, iv. p. 58. 1117 _Natural Genesis_, ii. p. 318. 1118 _Proœm_, 2. 1119 _Astronomy of the Ancients_, Lewis, p. 264. 1120 _Natural Genesis_, ii. p. 319. 1121 Proclus, _In Timæum_, i. 1122 _Genesis_, xlix. 1123 Creuzer, iii. p. 930. 1124 _Cyropædia_, viii. p. 7, as quoted in _Des Esprits_, iv. p. 55. 1125 _Des Esprits_, iv. pp. 59, 60. 1126 _Origine de tous les Cultes_, “Zodiaque.” 1127 _Vie de Notre Seigneur Jésus Christ_, I. p. 9. 1128 Whether many nations have seen that identical star, or not, we all know that the sepulchres of the “three Magi”—who rejoice in the quite Teutonic names of Kaspar and Melchior, Balthazar being the only exception, and the two having little of the Chaldean ring in them—are shown by the priests in the famous cathedral of Cologne, where the Magian bodies are not only supposed, but firmly believed to have been buried. 1129 This tradition about the “seventy planets” that preside over the destinies of nations, is based on the Occult cosmogonical teaching that besides our own septenary chain of World‐Planets, there are many more in the Solar System. 1130 _Des Esprits_, iv. p. 67. 1131 _The Mythological Astronomy of the Ancients Demonstrated_; Part the Second, or The Key of Urania: pp. 23, 24. Ed. 1823. 1132 Every scholar is aware, of course, that the Chaldeans claimed the same digits (432), or 432,000, for their Divine Dynasties as the Hindûs do for their Mahâyuga, namely 4,320,000. Therefore has Dr. Sepp, of Munich, undertaken to support Kepler and Wilford in their charge that the Hindûs borrowed them from the Christians, and the Chaldeans from the Jews, who, it is claimed, expected their Messiah in the lunar year of the world 4,320!!! As these figures, according to ancient writers, were based by Berosus on the 120 Saroses—each of the divisions meaning six Neroses of 600 years each, making a sum total of 432,000 years—they would appear to be peremptory, remarks De Mirville (_Des Esprits_, iii. p. 24). So the pious professor of Munich undertook to explain them _in the correct way_. He claims to have solved the riddle by showing that “the saros being composed, according to Pliny, of 222 synodial months, to wit, 18 years 6/10,” the calculator naturally fell back on the figures “given by Suidas,” who affirmed that the “120 saroses made 2,222 sacerdotal and cyclic years, which equalled 1,656 solar years.” (_Vie de Notre Seigneur Jésus Christ_, ii. p. 417.) But Suidas said nothing of the kind; and, even supposing he had, he would prove little, if anything, by such a statement. The Neroses and Saroses were the same thorn in the side of _uninitiated_ ancient writers as the apocalyptic 666 of the “Great Beast” is in that of the modern, and the former figures have found their unlucky Newtons, as have the latter. 1133 See _Isis Unveiled_, ii. p. 132. 1134 The reader has to bear in mind that the phrase “climacteric year” has more than the usual significance, when used by Occultists and Mystics. It is not only a critical period, during which some great change is periodically expected, whether in human or cosmic constitution, but it likewise pertains to universal spiritual changes. The Europeans called every 63rd year the “grand climacteric,” and perhaps justly supposed those years to be the years produced by multiplying 7 into the odd numbers 3, 5, 7 and 9. But 7 is the real scale of Nature, in Occultism, and 7 has to be multiplied in quite a different way and method than is as yet known to European nations. 1135 _Des Espirits_; iv. p. 61. 1136 ii. p. 490. 1137 See _Recueil de l’Académie des Inscriptions_, 1853, quoted in _Des Esprits_, iv. p. 62. 1138 _Ruins of Empires_, p. 360. 1139 See pp. 54, 196, _et seqq_. 1140 For a detailed scientific proof of this conclusion, see page 121 of