PART I. ANTHROPOGENESIS.

Twelve Stanzas From the “Book Of Dzyan,”(27) With Commentaries. In primeval times, a maiden, Beauteous Daughter of the Ether, Passed for ages her existence In the great expanse of Heaven. Seven hundred years she wandered, Seven hundred years she laboured, Ere her first‐born was delivered. Ere a beauteous duck descending, Hastens toward the water‐mother, Lightly on the knee she settles, Finds a nesting‐place befitting, Where to lay her eggs in safety. Lays her eggs within, at pleasure, Six, the golden eggs she lays there, Then a Seventh, an egg of iron. _Kalevala_ (CRAWFORD). Text. Stanza I. 1. The Lha which turns the Fourth is Servant to the Lha(s) of the Seven, they who revolve, driving their Chariots around their Lord, the One Eye of our World. His Breath gave Life to the Seven. It gave Life to the First. 2. Said the Earth: “Lord of the Shining Face, my House is empty.... Send thy Sons to people this Wheel. Thou hast sent thy Seven Sons to the Lord of Wisdom. Seven times doth he see thee nearer to himself, seven times more doth he feel thee. Thou hast forbidden thy Servants, the small Rings, to catch thy Light and Heat, thy great Bounty to intercept on its passage. Send now to thy Servant the same.” 3. Said the Lord of the Shining Face: “I shall send thee a Fire when thy work is commenced. Raise thy voice to other Lokas; apply to thy Father, the Lord of the Lotus, for his Sons.... Thy People shall be under the rule of the Fathers. Thy Men shall be mortals. The Men of the Lord of Wisdom, not the Sons of Soma, are immortal. Cease thy complaints. Thy Seven Skins are yet on thee.... Thou art not ready. Thy Men are not ready.” 4. After great throes she cast off her old Three and put on her new Seven Skins, and stood in her first one. Stanza II. 5. The Wheel whirled for thirty crores more. It constructed Rûpas; soft Stones that hardened, hard Plants that softened. Visible from invisible, Insects and small Lives. She shook them off her back whenever they overran the Mother.... After thirty crores, she turned round. She lay on her back: on her side.... She would call no Sons of Heaven, she would ask no Sons of Wisdom. She created from her own Bosom. She evolved Water‐Men, terrible and bad. 6. The Water‐Men, terrible and bad, she herself created from the remains of others. From the dross and slime of her First, Second, and Third, she formed them. The Dhyâni came and looked ... the Dhyâni from the bright Father‐Mother, from the White Regions they came, from the Abodes of the immortal Mortals. 7. Displeased they were. “Our Flesh is not there. No fit Rûpas for our Brothers of the Fifth. No Dwellings for the Lives. Pure Waters, not turbid, they must drink. Let us dry them.” 8. The Flames came. The Fires with the Sparks; the Night‐Fires and the Day‐Fires. They dried out the turbid dark Waters. With their heat they quenched them. The Lhas of the High, the Lhamayin of Below, came. They slew the Forms which were two‐ and four‐faced. They fought the Goat‐Men, and the Dog‐Headed Men, and the Men with fishes’ bodies. 9. Mother‐Water, the Great Sea, wept. She arose, she disappeared in the Moon, which had lifted her, which had given her birth. 10. When they were destroyed, Mother Earth remained bare. She asked to be dried. Stanza III. 11. The Lord of the Lords came. From her Body he separated the Waters, and that was Heaven above, the First Heaven. 12. The great Chohans called the Lords of the Moon, of the Airy Bodies: “Bring forth Men, Men of your nature. Give them their Forms within. She will build Coverings without. Males‐Females will they be. Lords of the Flame also....” 13. They went each on his allotted Land; Seven of them, each on his Lot. The Lords of the Flame remain behind. They would not go, they would not create. Stanza IV. 14. The Seven Hosts, the Will‐Born Lords, propelled by the Spirit of Life‐ Giving, separate Men from themselves, each on his own Zone. 15. Seven times seven Shadows of Future Men were born, each of his own Colour and Kind. Each inferior to his Father. The Fathers, the Boneless, could give no Life to Beings with Bones. Their progeny were Bhûta, with neither Form nor Mind. Therefore they are called the Chhâyâ Race. 16. How are the Manushya born? The Manus with minds, how are they made? The Fathers called to their help their own Fire, which is the Fire that burns in Earth. The Spirit of the Earth called to his help the Solar Fire. These Three produced in their joint efforts a good Rûpa. It could stand, walk, run, recline, or fly. Yet it was still but a Chhâyâ, a Shadow with no Sense.... 17. The Breath needed a Form; the Fathers gave it. The Breath needed a Gross Body; the Earth moulded it. The Breath needed the Spirit of Life; the Solar Lhas breathed it into its Form. The Breath needed a Mirror of its Body; “We gave it our own!”—said the Dhyânis. The Breath needed a Vehicle of Desires; “It has it!”—said the Drainer of Waters. But Breath needs a Mind to embrace the Universe; “We cannot give that!”—said the Fathers. “I never had it!”—said the Spirit of the Earth. “The Form would be consumed were I to give it mine!”—said the Great Fire.... Man remained an empty senseless Bhûta.... Thus have the Boneless given Life to those who became Men with Bones in the Third. Stanza V. 18. The First were the Sons of Yoga. Their sons, the children of the Yellow Father and the White Mother. 19. The Second Race was the product by budding and expansion, the A‐sexual from the Sexless.(28) Thus was, O Lanoo, the Second Race produced. 20. Their Fathers were the Self‐born. The Self‐born, the Chhâyâ from the brilliant Bodies of the Lords, the Fathers, the Sons of Twilight. 21. When the Race became old, the old Waters mixed with the fresher Waters. When its Drops became turbid, they vanished and disappeared in the new Stream, in the hot Stream of Life. The Outer of the First became the Inner of the Second. The old Wing became the new Shadow, and the Shadow of the Wing. Stanza VI. 22. Then the Second evolved the Egg‐born, the Third. The Sweat grew, its Drops grew, and the Drops became hard and round. The Sun warmed it; the Moon cooled and shaped it; the Wind fed it until its ripeness. The White Swan from the Starry Vault overshadowed the big Drop. The Egg of the Future Race, the Man‐swan of the later Third. First male‐female, then man and woman. 23. The Self‐born were the Chhâyâs, the Shadows from the Bodies of the Sons of Twilight. Neither water nor fire could destroy them. Their sons were. Stanza VII. 24. The Sons of Wisdom, the Sons of Night, ready for rebirth, came down. They saw the vile forms of the First Third. “We can choose,” said the Lords, “we have wisdom.” Some entered the Chhâyâs. Some projected a Spark. Some deferred till the Fourth. From their own Rûpa they filled the Kâma. Those who entered became Arhats. Those who received but a Spark, remained destitute of knowledge; the Spark burned low. The Third remained mind‐ less. Their Jîvas were not ready. These were set apart among the Seven. They became narrow‐headed. The Third were ready. “In these shall we dwell,” said the Lords of the Flame and of the Dark Wisdom. 25. How did the Mânasa, the Sons of Wisdom, act? They rejected the Self‐ born. They are not ready. They spurned the Sweat‐born. They are not quite ready. They would not enter the first Egg‐born. 26. When the Sweat‐born produced the Egg‐born, the twofold, the mighty, the powerful with bones, the Lords of Wisdom said: “Now shall we create.” 27. The Third Race became the Vâhan of the Lords of Wisdom. It created Sons of Will and Yoga, by Kriyâshakti it created them, the Holy Fathers, Ancestors of the Arhats.... Stanza VIII. 28. From the drops of sweat, from the residue of the substance, matter from dead bodies of men and animals of the Wheel before, and from cast‐off dust, the first animals were produced. 29. Animals with bones, dragons of the deep, and flying Sarpas were added to the creeping things. They that creep on the ground got wings. They of the long necks in the water became the progenitors of the fowls of the air. 30. During the Third, the boneless animals grew and changed; they became animals with bones, their Chhâyâs became solid. 31. The animals separated the first. They began to breed. The two‐fold man separated also. He said: “Let us as they; let us unite and make creatures.” They did.... 32. And those which had no Spark took huge she‐animals unto them. They begat upon them dumb races. Dumb they were themselves. But their tongues untied. The tongues of their progeny remained still. Monsters they bred. A race of crooked red‐hair‐covered monsters going on all fours. A dumb race to keep the shame untold. Stanza IX. 33. Seeing which, the Lhas who had not built men, wept, saying: 34. “The Amânasa have defiled our future abodes. This is Karma. Let us dwell in the others. Let us teach them better, lest worse should happen.” They did.... 35. Then all men became endowed with Manas. They saw the sin of the mindless. 36. The Fourth Race developed speech. 37. The one became two; also all the living and creeping things that were still one, giant fish, birds and serpents with shell‐heads. Stanza X. 38. Thus, two by two, on the seven Zones, the Third Race gave birth to the Fourth; the Sura became A‐sura. 39. The First, on every Zone, was moon‐coloured; the Second yellow like gold; the Third red; the Fourth brown, which became black with sin. The first seven human shoots were all of one complexion. The next seven began mixing. 40. Then the Third and Fourth became tall with pride. “We are the kings; we are the gods.” 41. They took wives fair to look upon. Wives from the mindless, the narrow‐headed. They bred monsters, wicked demons, male and female, also Khado, with little minds. 42. They built temples for the human body. Male and female they worshipped. Then the Third Eye acted no longer. Stanza XI. 43. They built huge cities. Of rare earths and metals they built. Out of the fires vomited, out of the white stone of the mountains and of the black stone, they cut their own images, in their size and likeness, and worshipped them. 44. They built great images nine yatis high, the size of their bodies. Inner fires had destroyed the land of their fathers. The water threatened the Fourth. 45. The first great waters came. They swallowed the seven great islands. 46. All holy saved, the unholy destroyed. With them most of the huge animals, produced from the sweat of the earth. Stanza XII. 47. Few remained. Some yellow, some brown and black, and some red remained. The moon‐coloured were gone for ever. 48. The Fifth produced from the holy stock remained; it was ruled over by the first Divine Kings. 49. ... The Serpents who re‐descended, who made peace with the Fifth, who taught and instructed it.... Commentaries On the Twelve Stanzas and Their Terms, According To Their Numeration, In Stanzas And Shlokas. Stanza I. Beginnings of Sentient Life. 1. The Lha, or Spirit of the Earth. 2. Invocation of the Earth to the Sun. 3. What the Sun answers. 4. Transformation of the Earth. 1. THE LHA (_a_) WHICH TURNS THE FOURTH(29) IS SERVANT TO THE LHA(S) OF THE SEVEN(30) (_b_), THEY WHO REVOLVE, DRIVING THEIR CHARIOTS AROUND THEIR LORD, THE ONE EYE(31) OF OUR WORLD. HIS BREATH GAVE LIFE TO THE SEVEN.(32) IT GAVE LIFE TO THE FIRST (_c_). “_They are all Dragons of Wisdom_,” adds the Commentary (_d_). (_a_) “Lha” is the ancient term in Trans‐Himâlayan regions for “Spirit,” any celestial or _super‐human_ Being, and it covers the whole series of heavenly hierarchies, from an Archangel, or Dhyâni, down to an Angel of darkness, or terrestrial Spirit. (_b_) This expression shows in plain language that the Spirit‐Guardian of our Globe, which is the fourth in the Chain, is subordinate to the chief Spirit (or God) of the Seven Planetary Genii or Spirits. As already explained, the Ancients had, in their Kyriel of Gods, seven chief Mystery‐ Gods, whose leader was, _exoterically_, the visible Sun, or the eighth, and, _Esoterically_, the Second Logos, the Demiurge. The Seven—who have now, in the Christian religion, become the “Seven Eyes of the Lord”—were the Regents of the seven _chief_ planets; but these were not reckoned according to the enumeration devised later by people who had forgotten, or who had an inadequate notion of, the real Mysteries, and included neither the Sun, the Moon, nor the Earth. The Sun was the chief, exoterically, of the twelve Great Gods, or zodiacal constellations; and, Esoterically, the Messiah, the Christos—the subject “anointed” by the Great Breath, or the One—surrounded by his twelve subordinate powers, also subordinate, in turn, to each of the seven Mystery‐Gods of the planets. “_The Seven Higher make the Seven Lhas create the world_,” states a Commentary; which means that our Earth—to leave aside the rest—was “created” or fashioned by Terrestrial Spirits, the Regents being simply the supervisors. This is the first germ of that which grew later into the Tree of Astrology and Astrolatry. The Higher Ones were the Cosmocratores, the fabricators of our Solar System. This is borne out by all the ancient Cosmogonies, such as those of Hermes, of the Chaldæans, of the Aryans, of the Egyptians, and even of the Jews. The Signs of the Zodiac—the “_Sacred Animals_” or “Heaven’s Belt”—are as much the Bne’ Alhim—Sons of the Gods or the Elohim—as the Spirits of the Earth; but they are prior to them. Soma and Sin, Isis and Diana, are all lunar Gods or Goddesses, called the Fathers and Mothers of our Earth, which is subordinate to them. But these, in their turn, are subordinate to their “Fathers” and “Mothers”—the latter being interchangeable and varying with each nation—the Gods and their Planets, such as Jupiter, Saturn, Bel, Brihaspati, etc. (_c_) “His Breath gave Life to the Seven,” refers as much to the Sun, who gives life to the Planets, as to the “High One,” the _Spiritual Sun_, who gives life to the whole Kosmos. The astronomical and astrological keys opening the gate leading to the mysteries of Theogony can be found only in the later glossaries, which accompany the Stanzas. In the apocalyptic Shlokas of the Archaic Records, the language is as symbolical, if less mythical, than in the _Purânas_. Without the help of the later Commentaries, compiled by generations of Adepts, it would be impossible to understand the meaning correctly. In the ancient Cosmogonies, the visible and the invisible worlds are the double links of one and the same chain. As the Invisible Logos, with its Seven Hierarchies—each represented or personified by its chief Angel or Rector—form one POWER, the inner and the invisible; so, in the world of Forms, the Sun and the seven chief Planets constitute the visible and active potency; the latter Hierarchy being, so to speak, the visible and objective Logos of the Invisible and—except in the lowest grades—ever‐ subjective Angels. Thus—to anticipate a little by way of illustration—every Race in its evolution is said to be born under the direct influence of one of the Planets; Race the First receiving its breath of life from the Sun, as will be seen later on; while the Third Humanity—those who fell into generation, or from androgynes became separate entities, one male and the other female—is said to be under the direct influence of Venus, “_the __‘__little sun__’__ in which the solar orb stores his light_.” The summary of the Stanzas in Volume I showed the genesis(33) of Gods and men taking rise in, and from, one and the same Point, which is the One Universal, Immutable, Eternal, and Absolute UNITY. In its primary manifested aspect we have seen it become: (1) in the sphere of objectivity and Physics, PRIMORDIAL SUBSTANCE and FORCE—centripetal and centrifugal, positive and negative, male and female, etc.; (2) in the world of Metaphysics, the SPIRIT OF THE UNIVERSE, or Cosmic Ideation, called by some the LOGOS. This Logos is the apex of the Pythagorean Triangle. When the Triangle is complete it becomes the Tetraktys, or the Triangle in the Square, and is the dual symbol of the four‐lettered Tetragrammaton in the manifested Kosmos, and of its radical triple Ray in the unmanifested—its Noumenon. Put more metaphysically, the classification given here of Cosmic Ultimates, is more one of convenience than of absolute philosophical accuracy. At the commencement of a great Manvantara, Parabrahman manifests as Mûlaprakriti and then as the Logos. This Logos is equivalent to the “Unconscious Universal Mind,” etc., of Western Pantheists. It constitutes the Basis of the _subject_‐side of manifested Being, and is the source of all manifestations of individual consciousness. Mûlaprakriti or Primordial Cosmic Substance, is the foundation of the _object_‐side of things—the basis of all objective evolution and cosmo‐genesis. Force, then, does not emerge with Primordial Substance from Parabrahmanic latency. It is the _transformation into energy of the supra‐conscious thought of the Logos_, infused, so to speak, into the objectivation of the latter out of potential latency in the One Reality. Hence spring the wondrous laws of Matter; hence the “primal impress” so vainly discussed by Bishop Temple. Force thus is _not synchronous_ with the first objectivation of Mûlaprakriti. Nevertheless as, apart from it, the latter is absolutely and necessarily inert—_a mere abstraction_—it is unnecessary to weave too fine a cobweb of subtleties as to the order of succession of the Cosmic Ultimates. Force _succeeds_ Mûlaprakriti; but, _minus_ Force, Mûlaprakriti is for all practical intents and purposes non‐existent.(34) The Heavenly Man or Tetragrammaton, who is the Protogonos, Tikkoun, the Firstborn from the passive Deity and the first manifestation of that Deity’s Shadow, is the Universal Form and Idea, which engenders the Manifested Logos, Adam Kadmon, or the four‐lettered symbol, in the Kabalah, of the Universe itself, also called the Second Logos. The Second springs from the First and develops the Third Triangle;(35) from the last of which (the lower host of Angels) _Men_ are generated. It is with this third aspect that we shall deal at present. The reader must bear in mind that there is a great difference between the Logos and the Demiurgos, for one is _Spirit_ and the other is _Soul_; or as Dr. Wilder has it: Dianoia and Logos are synonymous, Nous being superior and closely in affinity with Τὸ Ἀγαθὸν, one being the superior apprehending, the other the comprehending—one noëtic and the other phrenic. Moreover, Man was regarded in several systems as the Third Logos. The Esoteric meaning of the word Logos—Speech or Word, Verbum—is the rendering in objective expression, as in a photograph, of the concealed thought. The Logos is the mirror reflecting DIVINE MIND, and the Universe is the mirror of the Logos, though the latter is the _esse_ of that Universe. As the Logos reflects _all_ in the Universe of Plerôma, so Man reflects in himself all that he sees and finds in _his_ Universe, the Earth. It is the Three Heads of the Kabalah—“_unum intra alterum, et alterum super alterum._”(36) “Every Universe (World or Planet) has its own Logos,” says the Doctrine. The Sun was always called by the Egyptians the “Eye of Osiris,” and was himself the Logos, the First‐begotten, or Light made manifest to the world, “which is the Mind and divine Intellect of the Concealed.” It is only by the seven‐fold Ray of this Light that we can become cognizant of the Logos through the Demiurge, regarding the latter as the “Creator” of our Planet and everything pertaining to it, and the former as the guiding Force of that “Creator”—good and bad at the same time, the origin of good and the origin of evil. This “Creator” is neither good nor bad _per se_, but its differentiated aspects in Nature make it assume one or the other character. With the invisible and the unknown Universes disseminated through Space, none of the Sun‐Gods had anything to do. The idea is expressed very clearly in the Books of Hermes, and in every ancient folk‐lore. It is symbolized generally by the Dragon and the Serpent—the Dragon of Good and the Serpent of Evil, represented on Earth by the right and the left‐hand Magic. In the epic poem of Finland, the _Kalevala_,(37) the origin of the Serpent of Evil is given: it is born from the spittle of Suoyatar, and endowed with a Living Soul by the Principle of Evil, Hisi. A strife is described between the two, the “thing of evil,” the Serpent or Sorcerer, and Ahti, the Dragon of the white magician, Lemminkainen. The latter is one of the seven sons of Ilmatar, the virgin “daughter of the air,” she “who fell from heaven into the sea,” before Creation, _i.e._, Spirit transformed into the matter of sensuous life. There is a world of meaning and Occult thought in the following few lines, admirably rendered by Dr. J. M. Crawford, of Cincinnati. The hero Lemminkainen, Hews the wall with might of magic, Breaks the palisade in pieces, Hews to atoms _seven_ pickets, Chops the _serpent‐wall_ to fragments. When the monster little heeding, Pounces with his mouth of venom At the head of Lemminkainen. But the hero, quick recalling, Speaks the _master‐words of knowledge_, Words that came from distant ages, Words his ancestors had taught him. (_d_) In China the men of Fohi, or the “Heavenly Man,” are called the twelve Tien‐Hoang, the twelve Hierarchies of Dhyânis or Angels, with human faces, and dragon bodies; the Dragon standing for Divine Wisdom or Spirit;(38) and they create men by incarnating themselves in seven figures of clay—earth and water—made in the shape of these Tien‐Hoang, a third allegory.(39) The twelve Æsers of the Scandinavian Eddas do the same. In the Secret Catechism of the Druses of Syria—a legend which is repeated word for word by the oldest tribes about and around the Euphrates—men were created by the “Sons of God,” who descended on Earth, and after gathering seven Mandragoras, they animated the roots, which forthwith became men.(40) All these allegories point to one and the same origin—to the dual and triple nature of man; dual, as male and female; triple, as being of spiritual and psychic essence _within_, and of a material fabric without. 2. SAID THE EARTH, “LORD OF THE SHINING FACE,(41) MY HOUSE IS EMPTY.... SEND THY SONS TO PEOPLE THIS WHEEL.(42) THOU HAST SENT THY SEVEN SONS TO THE LORD OF WISDOM (_A_). SEVEN TIMES DOTH HE SEE THEE NEARER TO HIMSELF; SEVEN TIMES MORE DOTH HE FEEL THEE (_B_). THOU HAST FORBIDDEN THY SERVANTS, THE SMALL RINGS, TO CATCH THY LIGHT AND HEAT, THY GREAT BOUNTY TO INTERCEPT ON ITS PASSAGE. SEND NOW TO THY SERVANT THE SAME!” (_a_) The “Lord of Wisdom” is Mercury, or Budha. (_b_) The modern Commentary explains the words as a reference to a well‐ known astronomical fact, that Mercury receives seven times more light and heat from the Sun than the Earth, or even the beautiful Venus, which receives but twice the amount falling on our insignificant Globe. Whether the fact was known in antiquity may be inferred from the prayer of the “Earth Spirit” to the Sun as given in the text.(43) The Sun, however, refuses to people the Globe, as it is not ready to receive life as yet. Mercury, as an astrological Planet, is still more Occult and mysterious than Venus. It is identical with the Mazdean Mithra, the Genius, or God, “established between the Sun and the Moon, the perpetual companion of the ‘Sun’ of Wisdom.” Pausanias (Bk. v.) shows him as having an altar in common with Jupiter. He had wings to express his attendance upon the Sun in its course; and he was called the Nuntius and Sun‐wolf, “_solaris luminis particeps_.” He was the leader and evocator of Souls, the great Magician and the Hierophant. Virgil depicts him as taking his wand to evoke from Orcus the souls plunged therein—_tum virgam capit, hac animas ille evocat Orco_.(44) He is the Golden‐coloured Mercury, the Χρυσοφαὴς Ἑρμῆς whom the Hierophants forbade to name. He is symbolized in Grecian mythology by one of the “dogs” (vigilance), which watch over the celestial flock (Occult Wisdom), or Hermes Anubis, or again Agathodæmon. He is the Argus watching over the Earth, mistaken by the latter for the Sun itself. It is through the intercession of Mercury that the Emperor Julian prayed to the Occult Sun every night; for, as says Vossius: All the theologians assert that _Mercury and the Sun are one_.... He was the most eloquent and the most wise of all the Gods, which is not to be wondered at, since _Mercury is in such close proximity to the Wisdom and the Word of God_ [the Sun] that he was confused with both.(45) Vossius here utters a greater Occult truth than he suspected. The Hermes of the Greeks is closely related to the Hindû Saramâ and Sârameya, the divine watchman, “who watches over the golden flock of stars and solar rays.” In the clearer words of the Commentary: _The Globe, propelled onward by the Spirit of the Earth and his six Assistants, gets all its vital forces, life, and powers through the medium of the seven planetary Dhyânis from the Spirit of the Sun. They are his messengers of Light and Life._ _Like each of the Seven Regions of the Earth, each of the seven_(_46_)_ First‐born [the primordial Human Groups] receives its light and life from its own especial Dhyâni—spiritually, and from the Palace [House, the Planet] of that Dhyâni—physically; so with the seven great Races to be born on it. The First is born under the Sun; the Second under Brihaspati [Jupiter]; the Third under Lohitânga [Mars, the __“__Fiery‐bodied,__”__ and also under Venus or Shukra]; the Fourth, under Soma [the Moon, our Globe also, the Fourth Sphere being born under and from the Moon] and Shani, Saturn,_(_47_)_ the Krûra‐lochana [Evil‐eyed], and the Asita [the Dark]; the Fifth, under Budha [Mercury]._ _So also with man and every __“__man__”__ [every principle] in man. Each gets its specific quality from its Primary [the Planetary Spirit], therefore every man is a septenate [or a combination of principles, each having its origin in a quality of that special Dhyâni]. Every active power or force __ of the Earth comes to her from one of the seven Lords. Light comes through Shukra [Venus], who receives a triple supply, and gives one‐ third of it to the Earth. Therefore the two are called __“__Twin‐ sisters,__”__ but the Spirit of the Earth is subservient to the __“__Lord__”__ of Shukra. Our wise men represent the two Globes, one over, the other under the double Sign [the primeval Svastika bereft of its four arms, or the cross, ☩]._(48) The “double sign” is, as every student of Occultism knows, the symbol of the male and the female principles in Nature, of the positive and the negative, for the Svastika or 卐 is all that and much more. All antiquity, ever since the birth of Astronomy—imparted to the Fourth Race by one of the Kings of the Divine Dynasty—and also of Astrology, represented Venus in its astronomical tables as a _Globe poised over a Cross_, and the Earth, as a _Globe under a Cross_. The Esoteric meaning of this is the Earth fallen into generation, or into the production of its species through sexual union. But the later Western nations have not failed to give it quite a different interpretation. They explained the sign through their Mystics—guided by the light of the Latin Church—as meaning that our Earth and all on it were redeemed _by the Cross_, while Venus—otherwise Lucifer or Satan—was trampling upon it. Venus is the most Occult, powerful, and mysterious of all the Planets; the one whose influence upon, and relation to, the Earth is most prominent. In exoteric Brâhmanism, Venus or Shukra—a male deity(49)—is the son of Bhrigu, one of the Prajâpati and a Vedic sage, and is Daitya‐Guru, or the priest‐instructor of the primeval giants. The whole history of Shukra in the _Purânas_, refers to the Third and Fourth Races. As says the Commentary: _It is through Shukra that the __“__double ones__”__ [the hermaphrodites] of the Third [__Root‐Race__] descended from the first __“__Sweat‐ born.__”__ Therefore it is represented under the symbol [Symbol: circle with horizontal line through it] [the circle and diameter], during the Third [Race], and [Symbol: circle with horizontal line through it, and another from center to bottom], during the Fourth._ This needs explanation. The diameter, when found isolated in a circle, stands for female Nature; for the first ideal World, _self‐generated_ and _self‐impregnated_ by the universally diffused Spirit of Life—thus also referring to the primitive Root‐Race. It becomes androgynous as the Races and all else on Earth develop into their physical forms, and the symbol is transformed into a circle with a diameter from which runs a vertical line, expressive of male and female, not separated as yet—the first and earliest Egyptian Tau; [Symbol: circle with horizontal line through it, and another from center to bottom] after which it becomes ☩, or male female separated(50) and fallen into generation. Venus (the Planet), is symbolized by the sign of a globe over a cross, which shows the former as presiding over the natural generation of man. The Egyptians symbolized Ankh, “life,” by the ansated cross, or ☥, which is only another form of Venus (Isis), ♀, and meant, Esoterically, that mankind and all animal life had stepped out of the divine spiritual circle and had fallen into physical male and female generation. This sign, from the end of the Third Race, has the same phallic significance as the “_Tree_ of Life” in Eden. Anouki, a form of Isis, is the Goddess of Life; and Ankh was taken by the Hebrews from the Egyptians. It was introduced into the language by Moses, one learned in the Wisdom of the priests of Egypt, with many other mystical words. The word Ankh in Hebrew, with the personal suffix, means “my life”—my being—which “is the personal pronoun Anochi,” from the name of the Egyptian Goddess Anouki.(51) In one of the most ancient Catechisms of Southern India, Madras Presidency, the hermaphrodite Goddess Ardhanârî,(52) has the ansated cross, the Svastika, the “male and female sign,” right in the central part, to denote the pre‐sexual state of the Third Race. Vishnu, who is now represented with a lotus growing out of his navel—or the Universe of Brahmâ evolving out of the central point, Nara—is shown in one of the oldest carvings as double‐sexed (Vishnu and Lakshmî) standing on a lotus‐ leaf floating on the water, the water rising in a semicircle and pouring through the Svastika, “the source of generation,” or of the descent of man. Pythagoras calls Shukra‐Venus the _Sol alter_, the “other Sun.” Of the “seven Palaces of the Sun,” that of Lucifer‐Venus is the third in Christian and Jewish Kabalah, the _Zohar_ making of it the abode of Samael. According to the Occult Doctrine, this Planet is our Earth’s _primary_, and its spiritual prototype. Hence, Shukra’s car (Venus‐ Lucifer’s) is said to be drawn by an _Ogdoad_ of “_earth‐born_ horses,” while the steeds of the chariots of the other Planets are different. _Every sin committed on Earth is felt by Ushanas‐Shukra. The Guru of the Daityas is the Guardian Spirit of the Earth and Men. Every change on Shukra is felt on, and reflected by, the Earth._ Shukra, or Venus, is thus represented as the Preceptor of the Daityas, the giants of the Fourth Race, who, in the Hindû allegory, at one time obtained the sovereignty of all the Earth, and defeated the minor Gods. The Titans of the Western allegory also are as closely connected with Venus‐Lucifer, which was identified by later Christians with Satan. And, as Venus, equally with Isis, was represented with cow’s horns on her head, the symbol of mystic Nature—one convertible with, and significant of, the Moon, since all these were lunar Goddesses—the configuration of this Planet is now placed by theologians between the horns of the mystic Lucifer.(53) It is owing to the fanciful interpretation of the archaic tradition, which states that Venus changes simultaneously (geologically) with the Earth, that whatever takes place on the one takes place on the other, and that many and great were their common changes—it is for these reasons that St. Augustine repeats it, applying the several changes of configuration, colour, and even of the orbital paths, to that theologically‐woven character of Venus‐Lucifer. He even goes so far in his pious fancy as to connect the last changes of the Planet with the Noachian and mythical Deluge alleged to have taken place 1796 B.C.(54) As Venus has no satellites, it is stated allegorically, that Âsphujit (this “Planet”) adopted the Earth, the progeny of the Moon, “_who overgrew its parent and gave much trouble_”—a reference to the Occult connection between the two. The Regent (of the Planet) Shukra(55) loved his adopted child so well that he incarnated as Ushanas and gave it perfect laws, which were disregarded and rejected in later ages. Another allegory, in the _Harivansha_, is that Shukra went to Shiva and asked him to protect his pupils, the Daityas and Asuras, from the fighting Gods; and that to further his object he performed a Yoga rite “imbibing the _smoke_ of chaff with his _head downwards_ for 1,000 years.” This refers to the great inclination of the axis of Venus—amounting to fifty degrees—and to its being enveloped in eternal clouds. But it relates only to the physical constitution of the Planet. It is with its Regent, the informing Dhyân Chohan, that Occult Mysticism has to deal. The allegory which states that Vishnu was cursed by Shukra to be _reborn seven times_ on the Earth as a punishment for killing his (Shukra’s) mother, is full of Occult philosophical meaning. It does not refer to Vishnu’s Avatâras, since these number nine—the tenth being still to come—but to the Races on Earth. Venus, or Lucifer—also Shukra and Ushanas—the Planet, is the light‐bearer of our Earth, in both the physical and mystic sense. The Christians knew it well in early times, since one of the earliest popes of Rome is known by his pontiff‐name as Lucifer. _Every world has its parent Star and sister Planet. Thus Earth is the adopted, child and younger brother of Venus, but its inhabitants are of their own kind.... All sentient complete beings [full septenary men or higher beings] are furnished, in their beginnings, with forms and organisms in full harmony with the nature and state of the Sphere they inhabit._(56) _The Spheres of Being, or Centres of Life, which are isolated nuclei breeding their men and their animals, are numberless; not one has any resemblance to its sister‐companion or to any other in its own special progeny._(57) _All have a double physical and spiritual nature._ _The nucleoles are eternal and everlasting; the nuclei periodical and finite. The nucleoles form part of the Absolute. They are the embrasures of that black impenetrable fortress, which is for ever concealed from human or even Dhyânic sight. The nuclei are the light of eternity escaping therefrom._ _It is that __LIGHT__ which condenses into the Forms of the __“__Lords of Being__”__—the first and the highest of which are, collectively, __JÎVÂTMÂ__, or Pratyagâtmâ [which is said figuratively to issue from Paramâtmâ. It is the Logos of the Greek philosophers—appearing at the beginning of every new Manvantara]. From these downwards—formed from the ever‐consolidating waves of that Light, which becomes on the objective plane gross Matter—proceed the numerous Hierarchies of the Creative Forces; some formless, others having their own distinctive form, others, again, the lowest [Elementals], having no form of their own, but assuming every form according to the surrounding conditions._ _Thus there is but one Absolute Upâdhi [Basis] in the spiritual sense, from, on, and in which, are built for manvantaric purposes the countless basic centres on which proceed the universal, cyclic, and individual Evolutions during the active period._ _The informing Intelligences, which animate these various Centres of Being, are referred to indiscriminately by men beyond the Great Range_(_58_)_ as the Manus, the Rishis, the Pitris,_(_59_)_ the Prajâpati, and so on; and as Dhyâni‐Buddhas, the Chohans, Melhas [Fire‐Gods], Bodhisattvas,_(_60_)_ and others, on this side. The truly ignorant call them Gods; the learned profane, the One God; and the wise, the Initiates, honour in them only the manvantaric manifestations of __THAT__ which neither our Creators [the Dhyân Chohans] nor their creatures can ever discuss or know anything about. The __ABSOLUTE__ is not to be defined, and no mortal or immortal has ever seen or comprehended it during the periods of Existence. The mutable cannot know the Immutable, nor can that which lives perceive Absolute Life._ “Therefore, man cannot know higher Beings than his own Progenitors.” “_Nor shall he worship them_,” but he ought to learn _how_ he came into the world. Number Seven, the fundamental figure among all other figures in every national religious system, from Cosmogony down to man, must have its _raison d’être_. It is found among the ancient Americans, as prominently as among the archaic Âryans and Egyptians. The question will be fully dealt with in the second Part of this Volume; meanwhile a few facts may be given here. Says the author of the _Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and the Quiches, 11,500 years ago_:(61) Seven seems to have been the sacred number _par excellence_ among all civilized nations of antiquity. Why? This query has never been satisfactorily answered. Each separate people has given a different explanation, according to the peculiar tenets of their [exoteric] religion. That it was the number of numbers for those initiated to the sacred mysteries there can be no doubt. Pythagoras ... calls it the “Vehicle of life,” containing body and soul, since it is formed of a quaternary, that is: _Wisdom and Intellect_; and a Trinity, or _action_ and _matter_. The Emperor Julian, in _Matrem_ and in _Oratio_,(62) expresses himself thus: “Were I to touch upon the initiation into our secret mysteries, which the Chaldees bacchized respecting the _seven‐rayed_ god, lighting up the soul through him, I should say things unknown to the rabble, very unknown, but well known to the blessed Theurgists.”(63) And who that is acquainted with the _Purânas_, the _Book of the Dead_, the _Zendavesta_, the Assyrian Tiles, and finally the _Bible_, and has observed the constant occurrence of the number seven in these records of people from the remotest times upwards unconnected and so far apart, can regard as a coincidence the following fact, given by the same explorer of ancient Mysteries? Speaking of the prevalence of seven as a mystic number, among the inhabitants of the “Western Continent” of America, he adds that it is not less remarkable. For: It frequently occurs in the _Popul‐Vuh_. We find it besides in the _seven families_ said by Sahagun and Clavigero to have accompanied the mystical personage named _Votan_, the reputed founder of the great city of Nachan, identified by some with Palenque. In the _seven caves_(64) from which the ancestors of the Nahualts are reported to have emerged. In the _seven cities_ of Cibola, described by Coronado and Niza.... In the _seven Antilles_; in the _seven heroes_ who, we are told, escaped the Deluge. Heroes, moreover, whose number is found the same in every Deluge story—from the seven Rishis who were saved with Vaivasvata Manu, down to Noah’s ark, into which beasts, fowls, and living creatures were taken by “sevens.” Thus we see the figures 1, 3, 5, 7, as perfect, because thoroughly mystic, numbers playing a prominent part in every Cosmogony and evolution of living Beings. In China, 1, 3, 5, 7, are called “celestial numbers” in the canonical “Book of Changes”—_Yi King_, or _transformation_, as in “evolution.” The explanation of it becomes evident when one examines the ancient Symbols: all these are based upon and start from the figures given from the Archaic Manuscript in the Proem of Volume I. [Symbol: circle with horizontal line through it, and another from center to bottom], the symbol of evolution and fall into generation or Matter, is reflected in the old Mexican sculptures or paintings, as it is in the Kabalistic Sephiroth, and the Egyptian Tau. Examine the Mexican MS. (_Add. MSS._ Brit. Mus. 9789)(65); you will find it in a tree whose trunk is covered with _ten_ fruits ready to be plucked by a male and female, one on each side of it, while from the top of the trunk two branches shoot horizontally to the right and left, thus forming a perfect Τ (Tau), the ends of the two branches, moreover, each bearing a triple bunch, with a bird—the bird of immortality, Âtmâ or the Divine Spirit—sitting between the two, and thus making the _seventh_. This represents the same idea as the Sephirothal Tree, _ten_ in all, yet, when separated from its upper triad, leaving _seven_. These are the celestial fruits, the ten, or [Symbol: circle with “i” inside], 10, born out of the two invisible male and female seeds, making up the 12, or the Dodecahedron of the Universe. The mystic system contains the ·, the central point; the 3, or [symbol: triangle]; the 5, [symbol: 5‐point star]; and the 7, or [symbol: triangle in square]; or again [symbol: 6‐point star]; the triangle in the square and the synthesizing point in the interlaced double triangles. This for the world of the archetypes. The phenomenal world receives its culmination and the reflex of all in MAN. Therefore he is the mystic square—in his metaphysical aspect—the Tetraktys; and becomes the Cube on the creative plane. His symbol is the cube unfolded(66) and 6 becoming 7, or the [Symbol: cross], 3 crossways (the female) and 4 vertically; and this is man, the culmination of the deity on earth, whose body is the cross of flesh, _on_, _through_, and _in_ which he is ever crucifying and putting to death the divine Logos, or his HIGHER SELF. Says every Philosophy and Cosmogony: The universe hath a Ruler [Rulers collectively] set over it, which is called the WORD (Logos); the fabricating Spirit is its Queen: which two are the First Power after the ONE. These are the Spirit and Nature, which two form our Illusory Universe. The two inseparables remain in the _Universe of Ideas_ so long as it lasts, and then merge back into Parabrahman, the One ever changeless. “The Spirit, whose essence is eternal, one and self‐existent,” emanates a pure ethereal Light—a dual light not perceptible to the elementary senses—according to the _Purânas_, the _Bible_, the _Sepher Yetzirah_, the Greek and Latin Hymns, the _Book of Hermes_, the Chaldæan _Book of Numbers_, the Esotericism of Lao‐tse, and everywhere else. In the Kabalah, which explains the secret meaning of _Genesis_, this Light is the Dual‐ Man, or the Androgyne (rather Sexless) Angels, whose generic name is Adam Kadmon. It is they who complete man, whose ethereal form is emanated by other divine, but far lower Beings, who solidify the body with clay, or the “dust of the ground”—an allegory indeed, but as scientific as any Darwinian evolution and more _true_. The author of the _Source of Measures_ says that the foundation of the Kabalah and of all its mystic books is made to rest upon the _ten_ Sephiroth; which is a fundamental truth. He shows these Ten Sephiroth or the 10 Numbers as follows: [Illustration: Circle with numbers 2 through 9, and vertical line through it] The circle is the _naught_; its vertical diameter line is the first or primal _One_ [the Word or Logos], from which spring the 2, the 3, and so on to 9, the limit of the digits. The 10 is the first Divine Manifestation,(67) which contains every possible power of exact expression of proportion—the sacred _Jod_. By this Cabbalah we are taught that these Sephiroth were the _numbers_ or emanations of the heavenly Light (20612 to 6561), they were the 10 Words, DBRIM, 41224, the light of which they were the flux was the Heavenly man, the Adam‐KDM (the 144‐144); and the Light, by the New Testament or Covenant (41224) created God; just as by the Old Testament God (Alhim, 31415) creates Light (20612 to 6561).(68) Now there are three kinds of Light in Occultism, as in the Kabalah. (1) The Abstract and Absolute Light, which is Darkness; (2) The Light of the Manifested‐Unmanifested, called by some the Logos: and (3) The latter Light reflected in the Dhyân Chohans, the minor Logoi—the Elohim, collectively—who, in their turn, shed it on the objective Universe. But in the Kabalah—reëdited and carefully adjusted to fit the Christian tenets by the Kabalists of the thirteenth century—the three Lights are described as: (1) The clear and penetrating, that of Jehovah; (2) reflected light; and (3) light _in the abstract_. This Light, abstractly taken, (in a metaphysical or symbolical sense) is Alhim (Elohim, God), while the clear penetrating Light is Jehovah. The light of Alhim belongs to the world in general, in its allness and general fulness, but the light of Jehovah is that pertaining to the chiefest production, man, whom this light penetrated to and made.(69) The author of the _Source of Measures_ pertinently refers the reader to Inman’s _Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names_, ii. 648. There, an engraving of The _vesica piscis_, Mary, and the female emblem, copied from a Rosary of the blessed Virgin Mary, which was printed at Venice, 1542, and therefore, as Inman remarks, “with a licence from the Inquisition, and consequently orthodox,” will show the reader what the Latin Church understood by this “penetrating power of light and its effects.” How sadly disfigured—applied as they were to the grossest anthropomorphic conceptions—have, under Christian interpretation, become the noblest and grandest, as the most exalted, ideas of Deity of the Eastern Philosophy! The Occultists in the East call this Light Daiviprakriti, and in the West the Light of Christos. It is the Light of the Logos, the direct reflection of the ever Unknowable on the plane of Universal Manifestation. But here is the interpretation thereof given by the modern Christians from the Kabalah. As declared by the author just cited; To the fulness of the world in general with its chiefest content, man, the term Elohim‐Jehovah applies. In extracts from Sohar, the Rev. Dr. Cassell [a Kabalist], to prove that the Cabbalah sets forth the doctrine of the Trinity, among other things says: “Jehovah is Elohim (Alhim)” ... By _three_ steps God, (Alhim) and Jehovah become the same, and though separated, each and together they are of the same One.(70) Similarly, Vishnu becomes the Sun, the visible symbol of the Impersonal Deity. Vishnu is described as “striding through the seven regions of the Universe in _three steps_.” But with the Hindûs this is an _exoteric_ account, a surface tenet and an allegory, while the Kabalists give it out as the Esoteric and final meaning. But to proceed: Now Light, as shown, is 20612 to 6561, as the proper enunciation of the integral and numerical relation of diameter to circumference of a circle. God (Alhim, that is, 31415 to One, a modified form of the above) is the reduction of this, so as to obtain a standard unit _One_, as the basis, in general, of all calculation and all mensuration. But for the production of animal life, and for especial _time measure_, or the lunar year, that influence which causes conception and embryotic development, the numbers of the Jehovah measure (the “_man even Jehovah_” measure), viz., 113 to 355, have to be specialized.(71) But this last ratio is but a modified form of Light, or 20612 to 6561, as a _pi value_, being only a variation of the same (that is 20612 to 6561 is 31415 to one, and 355 to 113 is 31415 or Alhim or God), and in such a manner that one can be made to flow into and be derived from the other:—and these are the three steps by which the _Unity_ and sameness can be shown of the Divine names. That is, the two are but variations of the same ratio, viz., that of _pi_. The object of this comment is to show the same symbolic measuring use for the Cabbalah, as taught, with that of the Three Covenants of the _Bible_, and with that of Masonry as just noticed. First, then, the Sephiroth are described as _Light_, that is, they themselves are a function of, indeed, the same as, the manifestation of the Ain Soph; and they are so from the fact that “_Light_” represents the ratio 20612 to 6561, as part of the “Words,” DBRIM, 41224, or, as to the Word, Dabar, 206 (= 10 cubits). “_Light_” is so much the burden of the Cabbalah as to explaining the Sephiroth, that the most famous book on the Cabbalah is called _Sohar_, or “_Light_.” In this we find expressions of this kind: “The infinite was entirely unknown and diffused no light before the luminous point violently broke through into vision.” “When He first assumed the form (of the crown, or the first Sephira), He caused 9 splendid lights to emanate from it, which, shining through it, diffused a bright light in all directions:”—that is, these 9 with his one (which was the origin, as above, of the 9), together, made the 10, that is [Symbol: circle with vertical line through it], or [Symbol: circle with “x” inside], or the sacred Ten (numbers or Sephiroth), or _Jod_—and these numbers were “_the Light_.” Just as in the Gospel of St. John, God (Alhim, 31415 to one) was that Light (20612 to 6561) by which (Light) all things were made.(72) In the _Sepher Yetzirah_, or “Number of Creation,” the whole process of evolution is given out in numbers. In its “thirty‐two Paths of Wisdom” the number 3 is repeated four times, and the number 4 five times. Therefore, the Wisdom of God is contained in numbers (Sephrim or Sephiroth), for Sepher (or S‐ph‐r when unvowelled) means “to cipher.” And therefore, also, we find Plato stating that the Deity “geometrizes” in fabricating the Universe. The Kabalistic book, the _Sepher Yetzirah_, opens with a statement of the hidden wisdom of Alhim in Sephrim, _i.e._, the Elohim in the Sephiroth. In thirty and two paths, hidden wisdom, established Jah, IHVH, Tzabaoth, Elohi of Israel, Alhim of Life, El of Grace and Mercy—exalted uplifted Dweller on high, and King of Everlasting, and His name—Holy! in Three Sephrim, viz.: B—S’ph‐r, V—S’ph‐r, V—Siph‐o‐r. Mr. Ralston Skinner goes on to say: This comment sets forth the “_hidden wisdom_” of the original text by hidden wisdom, that is, by the use of words carrying a special set of numbers and a special phraseology, which will set forth the very explanatory system which we find to fit so accurately in the Hebrew Bible.... In setting forth his scheme, to enforce it, and to finish out his detailed exposition in a general postulate,—viz., the one word “_Sephrim_” (_Sephiroth_), of the Number Jezirah, the author explains the separation of this word in the three subordinate ones, a play upon a common word, _s‐ph‐r_, or number. The prince Al‐Chazari(73) says to the Rabbi: “I wish now that thou wouldest impart to me some of the chiefest or leading principles of _Natural Philosophy_, which, as thou sayest, were in former times worked out by them (the ancient wise ones);”—to which the Rabbi makes answer: “To such principles appertains the Number of Creation of our race‐father Abraham” that is Abram and Abraham, or numbers 41224 and 41252. He then says that this book of number treats of teaching the “_Alhim_‐ness and _One_‐ness through (DBRIM)” viz., the numbers of the word “_Words_.” That is, it teaches the use of the ratio 31415 to One, through 41224, which last, in the description of the Ark of the Covenant, was divided into two parts by the _two_ tables of stone, on which these DBRIM, or 41224, were written or engraved—or 20612 × 2. He then comments on these three subordinately used words, and takes care as to one of them to make the comment, “and _Alhim_ (31415 to One) said let there be Light (20612 to 6561).” The words as given in the text are: ספר ספר סיפור and the Rabbi, in commenting upon them, says: “It teaches the _Alhim_‐ness (31415) and _One_‐ness (the diameter to Alhim), through Words (DBRIM = 41224), by which on the one side there is infinite expression in heterogeneous creations, and on the other a final harmonic tendency to _One_‐ness” (which, as everyone knows, is the mathematical function of _pi_ of the schools, which measures, weighs, and numbers the stars of heaven, and yet resolves them back into the final oneness of the Uni‐verse) “through Words. Their final accord perfects itself in that _One_‐ness that ordains them, and which consists in ספר ספר ספור ” that is, the Rabbi, in his first comment, leaves the _jod_, or _i_, out of one of the words, whereas afterwards he restores it again. If we take the values of those subordinate words, we find them to be 340, 340 and 346;—together these are 1026, and the division of the general word into these has been to produce these numbers—which by T’mura may be changed in various ways, for various purposes.(74) The reader is asked to turn to Stanza IV of Volume I, Shloka 3 and Commentary,(75) to find that the 3, 4, (7), and the thrice seven, or 1065, the number of Jehovah, is the number of the 21 Prajâpati mentioned in the _Mahâbhârata_, or the three Sephrim (words in ciphers or figures). And this comparison between the Creative Powers of Archaic Philosophy and the anthropomorphic Creator of _exoteric_ Judaism (since the _Esotericism_ of the Jews shows its identity with the Secret Doctrine) will lead the student to perceive and discover that, in truth, Jehovah is but a “lunar” and “generation” God. It is a fact well known to every conscientious student of the Kabalah, that the deeper he dives into it, the more he feels convinced that unless the Kabalah—or what is left of it—is read by the light of the Eastern Esoteric Philosophy, its study leads only to the discovery that, on the lines traced by exoteric Judaism and Christianity, the monotheism of both is nothing more exalted than ancient Astrolatry, now vindicated by modern Astronomy. The Kabalists never cease to repeat that Primal Intelligence can never be understood. It cannot be comprehended, nor can it be located, therefore it has to remain nameless and negative. Hence the Ain Suph—the “Unknowable” and “UNNAMEABLE”—as It could not be made manifest, was imagined as emanating Manifesting Powers. It is then with its Emanations alone that human intellect has to, and can, deal. Christian theology, having rejected the doctrine of Emanations and replaced them with direct, conscious Creations of Angels and the rest out of _nothing_, now finds itself hopelessly stranded between Supernaturalism, or Miracle, and Materialism. An _extra_‐cosmic God is fatal to Philosophy: an _intra_‐cosmic Deity—_i.e._, Spirit and Matter inseparable from each other—is a philosophical necessity. Separate them and that which is left is a gross superstition under a mask of emotionalism. But why “geometrize,” as Plato has it, why represent these Emanations under the form of an immense arithmetical table? The question is well answered by the author just cited, who says: Mental perception, to become physical perception, must have the cosmic principle of _Light_:—and, by this, our mental circle must become visible through light; or, for its complete manifestation, the circle must be that of physical visibility, or Light itself. Such conceptions, thus formulated, became the ground‐work of the philosophy of the Divine manifesting in the universe.(76) This is Philosophy. It is otherwise when we find the Rabbi in _Al‐Chazari_ saying that: Under s’ph‐r is to be understood—_calculation_ and _weighing_ of the created bodies. For the _calculation_, by means of which a body must be constructed in harmony or symmetry, by which it must be in construction rightly arranged and made to correspond to the object in design, consists at last in _number_, _extension_, _mass_, _weight_;—co‐ordinate relation of movements, then harmony of music, must consist altogether _by number_, that is s’ph‐r.... By Sippor (s’phor) is to be understood the words of Alhim (206—1 of 31415 to one), whereunto joins or adapts itself the design to the frame or form of construction; for example—it was said “Let Light be.” The work became as the _words_ were spoken, that is, as the numbers of the work came forth.(77) This is _materializing_ the _spiritual_ without scruple. But the Kabalah was not always so well adapted to anthropo‐monotheistic conceptions. Compare this with any of the six schools of India. For instance in Kapila’s Sânkhya Philosophy, unless, allegorically speaking, Purusha mounts on the shoulders of Prakriti, the latter remains irrational, while the former remains inactive without her. Therefore Nature (in man) must become a compound of Spirit and Matter before he becomes what he is; and the Spirit latent in Matter must be awakened to life and consciousness gradually. The Monad has to pass through its mineral, vegetable and animal forms, before the Light of the Logos is awakened in the animal man. Therefore, till then, the latter cannot be referred to as “man,” but has to be regarded as a Monad imprisoned in ever‐changing forms. _Evolution_, not _Creation_, by means of _Words_ is recognized in the Philosophies of the East, even in their exoteric records. _Ex oriente lux._ Even the name of the first man in the Mosaic _Bible_ had its origin in India, Professor Max Müller’s negation notwithstanding. The Jews got their Adam from Chaldæa; and Adam‐Adami is a compound word and therefore a manifold symbol, and proves the Occult dogmas. This is no place for philological disquisitions. But the reader may be reminded that the words _Ad_ and _Adi_ mean in Sanskrit the “first”; in Aramæan, “one” (_Ad‐ad_, the “only one”); in Assyrian, “Father,” whence _Ak‐ad_ or “father‐creator.”(78) And once the statement is found correct, it becomes rather difficult to confine Adam to the Mosaic _Bible_ alone, and to see therein simply a Jewish name. There is frequent confusion in the attributes and genealogies of the Gods in their Theogonies, the Alpha and the Omega of the records of that symbolical science, as given to the world by the half‐initiated writers, Brâhmanical and Biblical. Yet there could be no such confusion made by the earliest nations, the descendants and pupils of the Divine Instructors; for both the attributes and the genealogies were inseparably linked with cosmogonical symbols, the “Gods” being the life and animating “soul‐ principle” of the various regions of the Universe. Nowhere and by no people was speculation allowed to range _beyond_ those _manifested_ Gods. The boundless and infinite Unity remained with every nation a virgin forbidden soil, untrodden by man’s thought, untouched by fruitless speculation. The only reference made to it was the brief conception of its diastolic and systolic property, of its periodical expansion, or dilatation, and contraction. In the Universe, with all its incalculable myriads of Systems and Worlds disappearing and reäppearing in eternity, the anthropomorphized Powers, or Gods, their Souls, had to disappear from view with their Bodies. As our _Catechism_ says: “_The Breath returning to the Eternal Bosom which exhales and inhales them_.” Ideal Nature, the Abstract Space in which everything in the Universe is mysteriously and invisibly generated, is the same female side of the procreative power in Nature in the Vedic as in every other Cosmogony. Aditi is Sephira, and the Sophia of the Gnostics, and Isis, the Virgin Mother of Horus. In every Cosmogony, behind and higher than the “Creative” Deity, there is a Superior Deity, a Planner, an Architect, of whom the Creator is but the executive agent. And still higher, _over_ and _around_, _within_ and _without_, there is the Unknowable and the _Unknown_, the Source and Cause of all these Emanations. It thus becomes easy to account for the reason why Adam‐Adami is found in the Chaldæan scripture, certainly earlier than the Mosaic Books. In Assyrian _Ad_ is the “father,” and in Aramæan _Ad_ is “one,” and _Ad‐ad_ the “only one,” while _Ak_ is in Assyrian “creator.” Thus _Ad‐am‐ak‐ad‐ mon_ became Adam‐Kadmon in the Kabalah (_Zohar_), meaning as it did, the “One (Son) of the divine Father, or the Creator,” for the words _am_ and _om_ meant at one time in nearly every language the _divine_, or the _deity_. Thus Adam‐Kadmon and Adam‐Adami came to mean “The first Emanation of the Father‐Mother or Divine Nature,” and literally the “first Divine One.” And it is easy to see that _Ad_‐Argat (or Aster’t, the Syrian Goddess, the consort of _Ad‐on_, the Lord God of Syria or the Jewish Adonai), and Venus, Isis, Ister, Mylitta, Eve, etc., are identical with the Aditi and Vâch of the Hindûs. They are all the “Mothers of all living” and “of the Gods.” On the other hand—cosmically and astronomically—all the male Gods became at first “Sun‐Gods,” then, theologically, the “Suns of Righteousness,” and the Logoi, all symbolized by the Sun.(79) They are all Protogonoi—First‐born—and Mikroprosopoi. With the Jews Adam‐Kadmon was the same as Athamaz, Tamaz, or the Adonis of the Greeks—“the One _with_, and _of_ his Father”—the “Father” becoming during the later Races Helios, the Sun, as Apollo Karneios,(80) for instance, who was the “Sun‐born”; Osiris, Ormazd, and so on, were all followed by, and found themselves transformed later on into, still more earthly types: such as Prometheus, the crucified of Mount Kajbee, Hercules, and so many others, Sun‐Gods and Heroes, until all of them came to have no better significance than phallic symbols. In the _Zohar_ it is said: Man was created by the Sephiroth (Elohim‐Javeh, also) and they engendered by common power the _earthly_ Adam. Therefore in _Genesis_ the Elohim say: “Behold Man is become _as one of us_.” But in Hindû Cosmogony or “Creation,” Brahmâ‐Prajâpati _creates_ Virâj and the Rishis, spiritually; therefore the latter are distinctly called the “Mind‐born Sons of Brahmâ”; and this specified mode of _engendering_ precluded every idea of Phallicism, at any rate in the earlier human nations. This instance well illustrates the respective _spirituality_ of the two nations. 3. SAID THE LORD OF THE SHINING FACE: “I SHALL SEND THEE A FIRE WHEN THY WORK IS COMMENCED. RAISE THY VOICE TO OTHER LOKAS; APPLY TO THY FATHER, THE LORD OF THE LOTUS(81) (_A_), FOR HIS SONS.... THY PEOPLE SHALL BE UNDER THE RULE OF THE FATHERS.(82) THY MEN SHALL BE MORTALS. THE MEN OF THE LORD OF WISDOM,(83) NOT THE SONS OF SOMA,(84) ARE IMMORTAL. CEASE THY COMPLAINTS (_B_). THY SEVEN SKINS ARE YET ON THEE.... THOU ART NOT READY. THY MEN ARE NOT READY” (_C_). (_a_) Kumuda‐Pati is the Moon, the Earth’s parent, in his region of Soma‐ loka. Though the Pitris, or Fathers, are Sons of the Gods, elsewhere Sons of Brahmâ and even Rishis, they are generally known as the Lunar Ancestors. (_b_) Pitri‐Pati is the Lord or King of the Pitris, Yama, the God of Death and the Judge of mortals. The men of Budha, Mercury, are metaphorically “immortal” through their Wisdom. Such is the common belief of those who credit every Star or Planet with being inhabited—and there are men of Science, M. Flammarion among others, who believe in this fervently, on logical as well as on astronomical data. The Moon being an inferior body—even to the Earth, to say nothing of other Planets, the terrestrial men produced by her Sons—the Lunar Men or Ancestors—from her shell or body, cannot be immortal. They cannot hope to become real, self‐conscious and intelligent men, unless they are “finished,” so to say, by other creators. Thus in the Purânic legend, the son of the Moon (Soma) is Budha (Mercury), the intelligent and the wise, because he is the offspring of Soma, the Regent of the visible Moon, not of Indu, the physical Moon. Thus Mercury is the elder brother of the Earth, metaphorically—his step‐ brother, so to say, the offspring of Spirit—while she (the Earth) is the progeny of the Body. These allegories have a deeper and more scientific meaning—astronomically and geologically—than our modern Physicists are willing to admit. The whole cycle of the first “War in Heaven,” the Târakâ‐maya, is as full of philosophical as of cosmogonical and astronomical truths. One can trace therein the biographies of all the Planets by the history of their Gods and Rulers. Ushanas (Shukra, or Venus), the bosom‐friend of Soma and the foe of Brihaspati (Jupiter), the “Instructor of the Gods,” whose wife Târâ, or Tarakâ, had been carried away by the Moon, Soma—“of whom he begat Budha”—took also an active part in this war against the “Gods” and forthwith was degraded into a Demon (Asura) Deity, and so he remains to this day.(85) Here the word “men” refers to the Celestial men, or what are called in India the Pitaras or Pitris, the Fathers, the Progenitors of men. This does not remove the seeming difficulty, in view of modern hypotheses, of the teaching, which shows these Progenitors or Ancestors creating the first human Adams out of their sides, as astral shadows. And though it is an improvement on Adam’s rib, still geological and climatic difficulties will be brought forward. Such, however, is the teaching of Occultism. (_c_) Man’s organism was adapted in every Race to its surroundings. The first Root‐Race was as ethereal as ours is material. The progeny of the Seven Creators, who evolved the Seven Primordial Adams,(86) surely required no purified gases to breathe and live upon. Therefore, however strongly the impossibility of this teaching may be urged by the devotees of Modern Science, the Occultist maintains that the case was as stated _æons of years_ before even the evolution of the Lemurian, the first physical man, which took place 18,000,000 years ago. Archaic Scripture teaches that at the commencement of every local Kalpa, or Round, the Earth is reborn, and preliminary evolution is described in one of the _Books of Dzyan_ and the Commentaries thereon in this wise: “_As the human Jîva [Monad], when passing into a new womb, gets recovered with a new body, so does the Jîva of the Earth; it gets a more perfect and solid covering with each Round after reëmerging once more from the matrix of space into objectivity._” This process is attended, of course, by the throes of the new birth, or geological convulsions. The only reference to it is contained in one verse of the volume of the _Book of Dzyan_ before us, where it says: 4. AFTER GREAT THROES SHE(87) CAST OFF HER OLD THREE AND PUT ON HER NEW SEVEN SKINS, AND STOOD IN HER FIRST ONE. This refers to the growth of the Earth, whereas in the Stanza treating of the First Round it is said in the Commentary: “_After the changeless [Avikâra] immutable Nature [Essence, Sadaikarûpa] had awakened and changed [differentiated] into [a state of] causality [Avyakta], and from cause [Kârana] had become its own discrete effect [Vyakta], from invisible it became visible. The smallest of the small [the most atomic of atoms, or anîyânsam anîyasâm] became one and the many [Ekânekarûpa]; and producing the Universe produced also the fourth Loka [our Earth] in the garland of the seven lotuses. The Achyuta then became the Chyuta._”(88) The Earth is said to cast off “her old _three_” Skins, because this refers to the three preceding Rounds she has already passed through; the present being the Fourth Round out of the seven. At the beginning of every new Round, after a period of Obscuration, the Earth—as do also the other six “Earths”—casts off, or is supposed to cast off, her old Skins as the Serpent does; therefore she is called in the _Aitareya‐Brâhmana_ the Sarpa‐Râjnî, the “Queen of the Serpents,” and “the mother of all that moves.” The “Seven Skins,” in the first of which she now stands, refer to the seven geological changes which accompany and correspond to the evolution of the Seven Root‐Races of Humanity. Stanza II, which speaks of this Round, begins with a few words of information concerning the age of our Earth. The chronology will be given in its place. In the Commentary appended to the Stanza, two personages are mentioned, Nârada and Asuramaya, especially the latter. All the calculations are attributed to this archaic celebrity; and what follows will make the reader superficially acquainted with some of these figures. Two Antediluvian Astronomers. To the mind of the Eastern student of Occultism, two figures are indissolubly connected with mystic Astronomy, Chronology, and their cycles. Two grand and mysterious figures, towering like two giants in the Archaic Past, emerge before him, whenever he has to refer to Yugas and Kalpas. When, at what period of pre‐history they lived, none save a few men in the world know, or ever can know, with that certainty which is required by exact chronology. It may have been 100,000 years ago, it may have been 1,000,000, for all that the outside world will ever know. The mystic West and Freemasonry talk loudly of Enoch and Hermes. The mystic East speaks of Nârada, the old Vedic Rishi, and of Asuramaya, the Atlantean. It has already been hinted that of all the incomprehensible characters in the _Mahâbhârata_ and the _Purânas_, Nârada, the son of Brahmâ in the _Matsya Purâna_, the progeny of Kashyapa and the daughter of Daksha, in the _Vishnu Purâna_, is the most mysterious. He is referred to by the honourable title of Deva‐Rishi (Divine Rishi, rather than Demi‐God) by Parâshara, and yet he is cursed by Daksha and even by Brahmâ. He informs Kansha that Bhagavân, or Vishnu in exotericism, would incarnate in the eighth child of Devakî, and thus brings the wrath of the Indian Herod upon Krishna’s mother; and then, from the cloud on which he is seated—invisible as a true Mânasaputra—he lauds Krishna, in delight at the Avatâr’s feat of killing the monster Keshin. Nârada is here, there, and everywhere; and yet, none of the _Purânas_ gives the true characteristics of this great enemy of physical procreation. Whatever those characteristics may be in Hindû Esotericism, Nârada—who is called in Cis‐Himâlayan Occultism Pesh‐ Hun, the “Messenger,” or the Greek Angelos—is the sole confidant and the executor of the universal decrees of Karma and Adi‐Budha: a kind of active and ever‐incarnating Logos, who leads and guides human affairs from the beginning to the end of the Kalpa. Pesh‐Hun is a general not a special Hindû possession. He is the mysterious guiding intelligent power, which gives the impulse to, and regulates the impetus of Cycles, Kalpas and universal events.(89) He is Karma’s visible adjuster on a general scale; the inspirer and the leader of the greatest heroes of this Manvantara. In the exoteric works he is referred to by some very uncomplimentary names; such as Kali‐kâraka, Strife‐maker, Kapi‐ vaktra, Monkey‐faced, and even Pishuna, the Spy, though elsewhere he is called Deva‐Brahmâ. Even Sir William Jones was strongly impressed with this mysterious character from what he gathered in his Sanskrit studies. He compares him to Hermes and Mercury, and calls him “the eloquent messenger of the gods.”(90) All this, besides the fact that the Hindûs believe him to be a great Rishi, “who is for ever wandering about the earth, giving good counsel,” led the late Dr. Kenealy(91) to see in him one of his twelve Messiahs. He was, perhaps, not so far off the real track as some imagine. What Nârada _really_ is, cannot be explained in print; nor would the modern generations of the profane gather much from the information. But it may be remarked, that if there be in the Hindû Pantheon a Deity which resembles Jehovah, in tempting by “suggestion” of thoughts, and “hardening” of the hearts of those whom he would make his tools and victims, it is Nârada. Only with the latter it is no desire to obtain a pretext for “plaguing,” and thus showing that “_I am_ the Lord God.” Nor is it through any ambitious or selfish motive; but, verily, to serve and guide universal progress and evolution. Nârada is one of the few prominent characters, if we except some Gods, in the _Purânas_, who visit the so‐called nether or infernal regions, Pâtâla. Whether or not it was from his intercourse with the thousand‐headed Shesha, the Serpent who bears the Seven Pâtâlas and the entire world like a diadem upon his heads, and who is the great teacher of Astronomy,(92) that Nârada learned all that he knew, certain it is that he surpasses Garga’s Guru in his knowledge of cyclic intricacies. It is he who has charge of our progress and national weal or woe. It is he who brings on wars and puts an end to them. In the old Stanzas, Pesh‐Hun is credited with having calculated and recorded all the astronomical and cosmic Cycles to come, and with having taught the Science to the first gazers at the starry vault. And it is Asuramaya, who is said to have based all his astronomical works upon those records, to have determined the duration of all the past geological and cosmical periods, and the length of all the Cycles to come, till the end of this Life‐Cycle, or the end of the Seventh Race. There is a work among the Secret Books, called the _Mirror of Futurity_, wherein all the Kalpas within Kalpas, and Cycles within the bosom of Shesha, or infinite Time, are recorded. This work is ascribed to Pesh‐Hun‐ Nârada. There is another old work which is attributed to various Atlanteans. It is these two records which furnish us with the figures of our Cycles, and the possibility of calculating the date of Cycles to come. The chronological calculations which will presently be given are, however, those of the Brâhmans, as explained further on: but most of them are also those of the Secret Doctrine. The chronology and computations of the Brâhman Initiates are based upon the zodiacal records of India, and the works of the above‐mentioned Astronomer and Magician—Asuramaya. The Atlantean zodiacal records cannot err, as they were compiled under the guidance of those who first taught Astronomy, among other things, to mankind. But here again we are deliberately and recklessly facing a new difficulty. We shall be told that our statement is contradicted by Science, in the person of a man regarded as a great authority (in the West) upon all subjects of Sanskrit literature—Professor Albrecht Weber, of Berlin. This, to our great regret, cannot be helped; and we are ready to maintain what is now stated. Asuramaya, to whom the epic tradition points as the earliest Astronomer in Âryâvarta, one to whom “the Sun‐God imparted the knowledge of the stars,” _in propriâ personâ_, as Dr. Weber himself states, is identified by him, in some very mysterious way, with the “Ptolemaios” of the Greeks. No more valid reason is given for this identification than that: This latter name (Ptolemaios), as we see from the inscription of Piyadasi, became the Indian “Turamaya,” out of which the name “Asura Maya” might very easily grow. No doubt it “might,” but the vital question is: Are there any good proofs that it _has_ thus grown? The only evidence that is given for this is, that it _must_ be so: Since ... this Maya is distinctly assigned to Romaka‐pura in the West.(93) The Mâyâ is evident, since no Sanskritist among Europeans can tell where that locality of Romaka‐pura was, except, indeed, that it was somewhere “in the West.” In any case, as no member of the Asiatic Society, or Western Orientalist, will ever listen to a Brâhmanical teaching, it is useless to take the objections of European Orientalists into consideration. Romaka‐pura was “in the West,” certainly, since it was part and parcel of the lost continent of Atlantis. And it is equally certain that it is Atlantis, to which is assigned in the Hindû _Purânas_ the birth‐place of Asuramaya, “as great a Magician as he was an Astrologer and an Astronomer.” Moreover, Prof. Weber refuses to assign any great antiquity to the Indian Zodiac, and feels inclined to think that the Hindûs never knew of a Zodiac at all till They had borrowed one from the Greeks.(94) This statement clashes with the most ancient traditions of India, and must therefore be ignored. We are the more justified in ignoring it, as the learned German Professor himself tells us in the introduction to his work, that: In addition to the natural obstacles which impede investigation [in India], there still prevails a dense mist of prejudice and preconceived opinions hovering over the land, and enfolding it as with a veil.(95) Caught in that veil, it is no wonder that Dr. Weber should himself have been led into involuntary errors. Let us hope that he knows better now. Now whether Asuramaya is to be considered a modern myth, a personage who flourished in the day of the Macedonian Greeks, or that which he is claimed to be by the Occultists, in any case his calculations agree entirely with those of the Secret Records. From fragments of immensely old works attributed to the Atlantean Astronomer, and found in Southern India, the calendar elsewhere mentioned was compiled by two very learned Brâhmans(96) in 1884 and 1885. The work is proclaimed by the best Pandits as faultless—from the Brâhmanical standpoint—and thus far relates to the chronology of the orthodox teachings. If we compare its statements with those made several years earlier in _Isis Unveiled_, with the fragmentary teachings published by some Theosophists, and with the present data derived from the Secret Books of Occultism, the whole will be found to agree perfectly, save in some details which may not be explained; for secrets of higher Initiation—as unknown to the writer as they are to the reader—would have to be revealed, and that _cannot be done_. Stanza II. Nature Unaided Fails. 5. After enormous periods the Earth creates monsters. 6. The “Creators” are displeased. 7. They dry the Earth. 8. The forms are destroyed by them. 9. The first great tides. 10. The beginning of incrustation. 5. THE WHEEL WHIRLED FOR THIRTY CRORES MORE.(97) IT CONSTRUCTED RÛPAS;(98) SOFT STONES THAT HARDENED,(99) HARD PLANTS THAT SOFTENED.(100) VISIBLE FROM INVISIBLE, INSECTS AND SMALL LIVES.(101) SHE(102) SHOOK THEM OFF HER BACK WHENEVER THEY OVERRAN THE MOTHER (_A_).... AFTER THIRTY CRORES, SHE TURNED ROUND. SHE LAY ON HER BACK; ON HER SIDE.... SHE WOULD CALL NO SONS OF HEAVEN, SHE WOULD ASK NO SONS OF WISDOM. SHE CREATED FROM HER OWN BOSOM. SHE EVOLVED WATER‐MEN, TERRIBLE AND BAD (_B_). (_a_) This relates to an inclination of the axis—of which there were several—to a consequent deluge and chaos on Earth (having, however, no reference to Primeval Chaos), in which monsters, half‐human, half‐animal, were generated. We find it mentioned in the _Book of the Dead_, and also in the Chaldæan account of creation, on the Cutha Tablets, however mutilated. It is not even allegory. Here we have _facts_, that are found repeated in the account of the _Pymander_, as well as in the Chaldæan tablets of creation. The verses may almost be checked by the Cosmogony, as given by Berosus, which has been disfigured out of recognition by Eusebius, but some of the features of which may yet be found in fragments left by ancient Greek authors—Apollodorus, Alexander Polyhistor, etc. “The water‐ men terrible and bad”—who were the production of Physical Nature alone, a result of the “evolutionary impulse” and the first attempt to create “man,” the crown, and the aim and goal of all animal life on Earth—are shown to be failures in our Stanzas. Do we not find the same in the Berosian Cosmogony, denounced with such vehemence as the culmination of heathen absurdity? And yet who of the Evolutionists can say that things in the beginning have not come to pass as they are described? That, as maintained in the _Purânas_, the Egyptian and Chaldæan fragments, and even in _Genesis_, there have not been two, and even more, “creations,” before the last formation of the Globe; which, changing its geological and atmospheric conditions, changed also its flora, its fauna, and its men? This claim agrees not only with every ancient Cosmogony, but also with Modern Science, and even, to a certain degree, with the theory of evolution, as may be demonstrated in a few words. There is no “Dark Creation,” no “Evil Dragon” conquered by a Sun‐God, in the earliest World‐Cosmogonies. Even with the Akkads, the Great Deep—the Watery Abyss, or Space—was the birthplace and abode of Ea, Wisdom, the incognizable infinite Deity. But with the Semites and the later Chaldæans, the fathomless Deep of Wisdom becomes gross Matter, sinful substance, and Ea is changed into Tiamat, the Dragon slain by Merodach, or Satan, in the astral waves. In the Hindû _Purânas_, Brahmâ, the Creator, is seen recommencing _de novo_ several “Creations” after as many failures; and two great Creations are mentioned,(103) the Pâdma and the Vârâha, the present, when the Earth was lifted out of the water by Brahmâ, in the shape of a Boar, the Varâha Avatâra. Creation is shown as a sport, an amusement (Lîlâ) of the Creative God. The _Zohar_ speaks of primordial worlds, which perished as soon as they came into existence. And the same is said in the _Midraish_, Rabbi Abahu explaining distinctly(104) that “the Holy One” had successively created and destroyed sundry Worlds, before he succeeded in the present one. This does not relate only to other Worlds in Space, but to a mystery of our own Globe contained in the allegory about the “Kings of Edom.” For the words, “This one pleases me,” are repeated in _Genesis_,(105) though in disfigured terms, as usual. The Chaldæan fragments of Cosmogony in the cuneiform inscriptions, and elsewhere, show two distinct creations of animals and men, the first being destroyed, as it was a failure. The Cosmogonical tablets prove that this our actual creation was preceded by others;(106) and as shown by the author of _The Qabbalah_, in the _Zohar_, _Siphra Dtzenioutha_, in _Jovah Rabba_, 128a, etc., the Kabalah states the same. (_b_) Oannes, or Dagon, the Chaldæan “Man‐fish,” divides his Cosmogony and Genesis into two portions. First the abyss of waters and darkness, wherein resided most hideous beings—men with wings, four and two‐winged men, human beings with two heads, with the legs and horns of a goat—our “goat‐ men”(107)—hippocentaurs, bulls with the heads of men, and dogs with tails of fishes. In short, combinations of various animals and men, of fishes, reptiles and other monstrous animals, assuming each other’s shapes and countenances. The feminine element they resided in is personified by Thalatth—the Sea, or “Water”—which was finally conquered by Belus, the male principle. And Polyhistor says: Belus came, and cut the woman asunder; and of one half of her he formed the earth, and of the other half the heavens; and at the same time destroyed the animals within her.(108) As pertinently remarked by Isaac Myer: With the Akkadians each object and power of Nature had its _Zi_ or Spirit. The Akkadians formed their deities into triads, usually of males [sexless, rather?], the Semites also had triadic deities, but introduced sex(109) —or phallicism. With the Âryan and the earliest Akkadians all things are emanations _through_, not _by_, a Creator or Logos. With the Semites everything is _begotten_. 6. THE WATER‐MEN, TERRIBLE AND BAD, SHE HERSELF CREATED FROM THE REMAINS OF OTHERS.(110) FROM THE DROSS AND SLIME OF HER FIRST, SECOND, AND THIRD,(111) SHE FORMED THEM. THE DHYÂNI CAME AND LOOKED.... THE DHYÂNI FROM THE BRIGHT FATHER‐MOTHER, FROM THE WHITE(112) REGIONS THEY(113) CAME, FROM THE ABODES OF THE IMMORTAL MORTALS (_A_). (_a_) The explanations given in our Stanzas are far more clear than that which the legend of creation from the Cutha tablet would give, even were it complete. What is preserved on it, however, corroborates them. For, in the tablet, the “Lord of Angels” destroys the men in the abyss, when “there were not left the carcases and waste” after they were slaughtered. After which they, the Great Gods, create men with the bodies of birds of the desert, human beings, “seven kings, brothers of the same family,” etc., which is a reference to the locomotive qualities of the primary ethereal bodies of men, which could fly as well as they could walk,(114) but who “were destroyed” because they were not “perfect,” _i.e._, they “were sexless, like the Kings of Edom.” Weeded of metaphors and allegories, what will Science say to this idea of a primordial creation of species? It will object to the “Angels” and “Spirits” having anything to do therewith; but if it be Nature and the physical law of evolution that are the creators of all there is now on Earth, why could there be “no such abyss,” when the Globe was covered with waters, in which numbers of monstrous beings were generated? Is it the “human beings” and animals with human heads and double faces, which are a point of the objection? But if man is only a higher animal and has evolved from the brute species by an infinite series of transformations, why could not the “missing links” have had human heads attached to the bodies of animals, or, being two‐headed, have heads of beasts and _vice versâ_, in Nature’s early efforts? Are we not shown, during the geological periods, in the ages of the reptiles and the mammalia, lizards with birds’ wings, and serpents’ heads on animal bodies?(115) And, arguing from the standpoint of Science, does not even our modern human race occasionally furnish us with monster‐specimens: two‐headed children, animal bodies with human heads, dog‐headed babies, etc.? And this proves that, if Nature will still play such freaks now that she has been settled for ages in the order of her evolutionary work, monsters, like those described by Berosus, were a possibility in her opening programme; a possibility which may even have existed once upon a time as a law, before she sorted out her species and began regular work upon them. And this indeed now admits of definite proof by the bare fact of “Reversion,” as Science puts it. This is what the Doctrine teaches, and demonstrates by numerous proofs. But we shall not wait for the approval of either dogmatic Theology or Materialistic Science, but proceed with the Stanzas. Let these speak for themselves, with the help of the light thrown on them by the Commentaries and their explanations; the scientific aspect of these questions will be considered later on. Thus Physical Nature, when left to herself in the creation of animal and man, is shown to have failed. She can produce the first two kingdoms, as well as that of the lower animals, but when it comes to the turn of man, spiritual, independent and intelligent powers are required for his creation, besides the “coats of skin” and the “breath of animal life.” The human Monads of preceding Rounds need something higher than purely physical materials with which to build their personalities, under the penalty of remaining even below any “Frankenstein” animal.(116) 7. DISPLEASED THEY WERE. “OUR FLESH IS NOT THERE.(117) NO FIT RÛPAS FOR OUR BROTHERS OF THE FIFTH. NO DWELLINGS FOR THE LIVES.(118) PURE WATERS, NOT TURBID, THEY MUST DRINK (_A_). LET US DRY THEM.”(119) (_a_) Says the _Catechism_ on the Commentaries: _It is from the material Worlds that descend they, who fashion physical man at the new Manvantaras. They are inferior Lha [Spirits], possessed of a dual body [an Astral within an Ethereal Form]. They are the fashioners and creators of our body of illusion_.... _Into the forms projected by the Lha [Pitris] the Two Letters_(_120_)_ [the Monad, called also the __“__Double Dragon__”__] descend from the Spheres of Expectation._(_121_)_ But they are like a roof with no walls, nor pillars to rest upon_.... _Man needs four Flames and three Fires to become one on Earth, and he requires the essence of the forty‐nine Fires_(_122_)_ to be perfect. It is those who have deserted the Superior Spheres, the Gods of Will,_(_123_)_ who complete the Manu of illusion. For the __“__Double Dragon__”__ has no hold upon the mere form. It is like the breeze where there is no tree or branch to receive and harbour it. It cannot affect the form where there is no agent of transmission [Manas, __“__Mind__”__] and the form knows it not._ _In the highest worlds, the three are one,_(_124_)_ on Earth [at first] the one becomes two. They are like the two [side] lines of a triangle that has lost its bottom line—which is the third Fire._(125) Now this requires some explanation before proceeding any further. To do so especially for the benefit of our Âryan Hindû brethren—whose Esoteric interpretations may differ from our own—we shall have to explain to them the foregoing by certain passages in their own exoteric books, namely, the _Purânas_. In the allegories of the latter, Brahmâ, who is collectively the Creative Force of the Universe, is thus described: At the beginning of the Yugas [Cycles] ... possessed of the desire and of the power to create, and impelled by the potencies of what is to be created, again and again does he, at the outset of a Kalpa, put forth a similar creation.(126) It is now proposed to examine the exoteric account in the _Vishnu Purâna_, and see how much it may agree or disagree with our Occult version. Creation of Divine Beings in the Exoteric Accounts. In the _Vishnu Purâna_, which is certainly the earliest of all the scriptures of that name, we find, as in all the others, Brahmâ, as the male God, assuming, for purposes of creation, “_four_ Bodies invested by _three_ qualities.”(127) It is said: In this manner, Maitreya, Jyotsnâ (dawn), Râtri (night), Ahan (day), and Sandhyâ (evening [twilight]) are the four bodies of Brahmâ.(128) As Parâshara explains it, when Brahmâ wishes to create the world anew and construct progeny _through his will_, in the fourfold condition, or the four Orders of Beings, termed Gods (Dhyân Chohans), Demons(129) (_i.e._, more material Devas), Progenitors (Pitris) and Men, “he collects [Yoga‐ like] his mind into itself” (Yûyuge). Strange to say, he begins by creating Demons, who thus take precedence over the Angels or Gods. This is no incongruity, nor is it due to inconsistency, but has, like all the rest, a profound Esoteric meaning, quite clear to one free from Christian theological prejudice. He who bears in mind that the principle Mahat, or Intellect, the “Universal Mind” (literally the “Great”), which Esoteric Philosophy explains as the “Manifested Omniscience”—the “first product” of Pradhâna, Primordial Matter, as the _Vishnu Purâna_ says, but the first Cosmic Aspect of Parabrahman or the Esoteric Sat, the Universal Soul,(130) as Occultism teaches—is at the root of SELF‐Consciousness, will understand the reason why. The so‐called Demons—who are Esoterically the Self‐asserting and intellectually active Principle—are the _positive pole of creation_, so to say; hence, the first produced. This is in brief the process as narrated allegorically in the _Purânas_. Having concentrated his mind into itself and the Quality of Darkness pervading Brahmâ’s assumed body, the Asuras, issuing from his Thigh, were first produced; after which, abandoning this body, it was transformed into Night. Two important points are involved herein: (_a_) Primarily in the _Rig Veda_, the Asuras are shown as _spiritual divine Beings_; their etymology is derived from Asu, breath, the “Breath of God,” and they mean the same as the Supreme Spirit or the Zoroastrian Ahura. It is later on, for purposes of theology and dogma, that they are shown issuing from Brahmâ’s Thigh, and that their name began to be derived from _a_, privative, and _Sura_, a God, or “not‐a‐God,” and that they became the enemies of the Gods. (_b_) Every ancient Theogony without exception—from the Aryan and the Egyptian down to that of Hesiod—in the order of Cosmogonical evolution, places Night before Day; even _Genesis_, where “darkness is upon the face of the deep” before the “first day.” The reason for this is that every Cosmogony—except in the Secret Doctrine—begins by the “Secondary Creation” so‐called; to wit, the _Manifested_ Universe, the Genesis of which has to begin by a marked differentiation between the eternal Light of “Primary Creation,” whose mystery must remain for ever “Darkness” to the prying finite conception and intellect of the profane, and the Secondary Evolution of manifested visible Nature. The _Veda_ contains the whole philosophy of that division, without having ever been correctly explained by our Orientalists, since it has _never been understood_ by them. Continuing to create, Brahmâ assumes another form, that of the Day, and creates from his Breath the Gods, who are endowed with the Quality of Goodness (Passivity).(131) In his next body the Quality of great Passivity prevailed, which is also (negative) goodness, and from the side of that personage issued the Pitris, the Progenitors of men, because, as the text explains, Brahmâ “thought of himself [during the process] as the father of the world.”(132) This is Kriyâ‐shakti—the mysterious Yoga‐power explained elsewhere. This body of Brahmâ when cast off became the Sandhyâ, Evening Twilight, the interval between Day and Night. Finally Brahmâ assumed his last form pervaded by the Quality of Foulness. And from this, Men, in whom foulness (or passion) predominates, were produced. This body when cast off became the Dawn, or Morning Twilight—the Twilight of Humanity. Here Brahmâ stands Esoterically for the Pitris. He is collectively the Pitâ, “Father.” The true Esoteric meaning of this allegory must now be explained. Brahmâ here symbolizes personally the Collective Creators of the World and Men—the Universe with all its numberless productions of things movable and (seemingly) immovable.(133) He is collectively the Prajâpatis, the Lords of Being; and the four bodies typify the four Classes of Creative Powers or Dhyân Chohans, described in the Commentary on Shloka I, Stanza VII, in Volume I. The whole philosophy of the so‐called “Creation” of the good and evil in this World, and of the whole Cycle of Manvantaric results therefrom, hangs on the correct comprehension of these Four Bodies of Brahmâ. The reader will now be prepared to understand the real, the Esoteric significance of what follows. Moreover there is an important point to be cleared up. Christian Theology having arbitrarily settled and agreed that Satan with his Fallen Angels belonged to the earliest creation, Satan being the first‐created, the wisest and most beautiful of God’s Archangels, the word was given, the key‐note struck. Henceforth all the Pagan Scriptures were made to yield the same meaning, and all were shown to be demoniacal, and it _was_ and _is_ claimed that _truth and fact_ belong to, and commence only with, Christianity. Even the Orientalists and Mythologists, some of them no Christians at all but “infidels,” or men of Science, entered, unconsciously to themselves and by the mere force of association of ideas and habit, into the theological groove. Purely Brâhmanical considerations, based on greed of power and ambition, allowed the masses to remain in ignorance of great truths; and the same causes led the Initiates among the early Christians to remain silent, while those who had never known the truth disfigured the order of things, judging of the Hierarchy of “Angels” by their exoteric form. Thus, as the Asuras had become the rebellious inferior Gods fighting the higher ones in popular creeds, so the highest Archangel, in truth the Agathodæmon, the eldest benevolent Logos, became in theology the “Adversary” or Satan. But is this warranted by the correct interpretation of any old Scripture? The answer is: most certainly not. As the Mazdean Scriptures of the _Zend Avesta_, the _Vendidâd_ and others correct and expose the later cunning shuffling of the Gods in the Hindû Pantheon, and restore through Ahura the Asuras to their legitimate place in Theogony, so the recent discoveries of the Chaldæan tablets vindicate the good name of the first divine Emanations. This is easily proved. Christian Angelology is directly and solely derived from that of the Pharisees, who brought their tenets from Babylonia. The Sadducees, the real guardians of the Laws of Moses, knew not of any Angels, opposing even the immortality of the human Soul (not the impersonal Spirit). In the _Bible_ the only Angels spoken of are the “Sons of God” mentioned in _Genesis_ vi—who are now regarded as the Nephilim, the Fallen Angels—and several Angels in human form, the “Messengers” of the Jewish God, whose own rank needs a closer analysis than heretofore given. As shown above, the early Akkadians called Ea Wisdom, which was disfigured by the later Chaldees and Semites into Tiamat, Tisalat and the Thalatth of Berosus, the female Sea Dragon, now Satan. Truly—“How art thou fallen [by the hand of man], O bright Star and Son of the Morning”! Now what do the Babylonian accounts of “Creation,” as found on the Assyrian fragments of tiles, tell us; those very accounts upon which the Pharisees built their Angelology? Compare Mr. George Smith’s _Assyrian Discoveries_,(134) and his _Chaldean Account of Genesis_.(135) The Tablet with the story of the Seven Wicked Gods or Spirits, has the following account; we print the important passages in italics: 1. In the _first days_ the evil Gods, 2. the _angels who were in rebellion_, who _in the lower part of heaven_ 3. _had been created_, 4. they caused their evil work 5. devising with wicked heads ... etc. Thus we are shown, as plainly as can be, on a fragment which remained unbroken, so that there can be no dubious reading, that the “Rebellious Angels” had been created in the “lower part of heaven,” _i.e._, that they belonged and do belong to a _material plane of evolution_, although as it is not the plane of which we are made cognizant through our senses, it remains generally invisible to us, and is thus regarded as subjective. Were the Gnostics so wrong, after this, in affirming that this our Visible World, and especially the Earth, had been created by _Lower_ Angels, the inferior Elohim, of which, as they taught, the God of Israel was one? These Gnostics were nearer in time to the records of the Archaic Secret Doctrine, and therefore ought to be allowed to have known what it contained better than non‐initiated Christians, who took upon themselves, hundreds of years later, to remodel and _correct_ what was said. But let us see what the same Tablet says further on: 7. There were seven of them [the wicked gods]. Then follows the description of these, the fourth being a “serpent,” the phallic symbol of the Fourth Race in human Evolution. 15. The seven of them, messengers of the God Anu their king. Now Anu belongs to the Chaldæan Trinity, and is identical with Sin, the “Moon,” in one aspect. And the Moon in the Hebrew Kabalah is the Argha of the seed of all material life, and is still more closely connected, kabalistically, with Jehovah, who is double‐sexed, as Anu is. They are both represented in Esotericism, and viewed, from a dual aspect: male or spiritual, female or material, or Spirit and Matter, the two antagonistic principles. Hence the “Messengers of Anu,” who is Sin, the “Moon,” are shown, in lines 28 to 41, as being finally overpowered by the same Sin with the help of Bel, the Sun, and Ishtar, Venus. This is regarded as a contradiction by the Assyriologists, but it is simply _metaphysics_ in the Esoteric teaching. There is more than one interpretation, for there are seven keys to the mystery of the “Fall.” Moreover there are two “Falls” in Theology: the rebellion of the Archangels and their “Fall,” and the “Fall” of Adam and Eve. Thus the lower as well as the higher Hierarchies are charged with a supposed crime. The word “supposed” is the true and correct term, for in both cases it is founded on misconception. Both are considered in Occultism as Karmic effects, and both belong to the law of Evolution—intellectual and spiritual on the one hand, physical and psychic on the other. The “Fall” is a universal allegory. It sets forth at one end of the ladder of Evolution the “rebellion,” _i.e._, the action of differentiating intellection, or consciousness, on its various planes, seeking union with Matter; and at the other, the lower end, the rebellion of Matter against Spirit, or of action against spiritual inertia. And here lies the germ of an error which has had such disastrous effects on the intelligence of civilized societies for over 1,800 years. In the original allegory it is Matter—hence the more material Angels—which was regarded as the conqueror of Spirit, or the Archangels who “fell” on this plane. They of the _flaming sword_ [or animal passions] had put to flight the Spirits of Darkness. Yet it is the latter who fought for the supremacy of the conscious and divine spirituality on Earth and failed, succumbing to the power of Matter. But in theological dogma we see the reverse. It is Michael, “who is like unto God,” the representative of Jehovah, who is the Leader of the Celestial Hosts—as Lucifer, in Milton’s fancy, is of the Infernal Hosts—who has the best of Satan. It is true that the nature of Michael depends upon that of his Creator and Master. Who the latter is, one may find out by carefully studying the allegory of the “War in Heaven” with the astronomical key. As shown by Bentley, the “War of the Titans against the Gods” in Hesiod, and also the War of the Asuras, or the Târakâmaya, against the Devas in Purânic legend, are identical in all save the names. The aspects of the stars show—Bentley taking the year 945 B.C. as the nearest date for such conjunction—that: All the planets, except Saturn, were on the same side of the heavens as the Sun and Moon. And hence were his opponents. And yet it is Saturn, or the Jewish “Moon‐ God,” who is shown as prevailing, both by Hesiod and Moses, neither of whom was understood. Thus it was that the real meaning became distorted. Stanza II.—_Continued._ 8. THE FLAMES CAME. THE FIRES WITH THE SPARKS; THE NIGHT‐FIRES AND THE DAY‐FIRES (_A_). THEY DRIED OUT THE TURBID DARK WATERS. WITH THEIR HEAT THEY QUENCHED THEM. THE LHAS(136) OF THE HIGH; THE LHAMAYIN(137) OF BELOW, CAME (_B_). THEY SLEW THE FORMS, WHICH WERE TWO‐ AND FOUR‐FACED. THEY FOUGHT THE GOAT‐MEN, AND THE DOG‐HEADED MEN, AND THE MEN WITH FISHES’ BODIES. (_a_) The “Flames” are a Hierarchy of Spirits parallel to, if not identical with, the “burning” fiery Saraph (Seraphim), mentioned by Isaiah(138) those who, according to Hebrew Theogony, attend the “Throne of the Almighty.” Melha is the Lord of the “Flames.” When he appears on Earth, he assumes the personality of a Buddha, says a popular legend. He is one of the most ancient and revered Lhas, a Buddhist St. Michael. (_b_) The word “Below” must not be taken to mean Infernal Regions, but simply a spiritual, or rather ethereal, Being of a lower grade, because nearer to the Earth, or one step higher than our Terrestrial Sphere; while the Lhas are Spirits of the highest Spheres—whence the name of the capital of Tibet, Lha‐ssa. Besides a statement of a purely physical nature and belonging to the evolution of life on Earth, there may be another allegorical meaning attached to this shloka, or indeed, as is taught, several. The “Flames,” or “Fires,” represent Spirit, or the male element, and “Water,” Matter, or the opposite element. And here again we find, in the action of the Spirit slaying the purely material form, a reference to the eternal struggle, on the physical and psychic planes, between Spirit and Matter, besides a scientific cosmic fact. For, as said in the next verse: 9. MOTHER‐WATER, THE GREAT SEA, WEPT. SHE AROSE, SHE DISAPPEARED IN THE MOON, WHICH HAD LIFTED HER, WHICH HAD GIVEN HER BIRTH. Now what can this mean? Is it not an evident reference to tidal action in the early stage of the history of our Planet in its Fourth Round? Modern research has been busy of late in its speculations on the Palæozoic high‐ tides. Mr. G. H. Darwin’s theory was that not less than 52,000,000 years ago—and probably much more—the Moon originated from the Earth’s plastic mass. Starting from the point where research was left by Helmholtz, Ferrel, Sir William Thomson and others, he retraced the course of tidal retardation of the Earth’s rotary motions far back into the very night of time, and placed the Moon during the infancy of our Planet at only “a fraction of its present distance.” In short, his theory was that it was the Moon which separated from the Earth. The tidal elevation concurring with the swing of the globular mass—centrifugal tendency being then nearly equal to gravity—the latter was overcome, and the tidally elevated mass could thus separate completely from the Earth.(139) The Occult teaching is the reverse of this. The Moon is far older than the Earth; and, as explained in Volume I, it is the latter which owes its being to the former, however Astronomy and Geology may explain the fact. Hence, the tides and the attraction to the Moon, as shown by the liquid portion of the Globe ever striving to raise itself towards its parent. This is the meaning of the sentence that the Mother‐Water “arose, she disappeared in the Moon, which had lifted her, which had given her birth.” 10. WHEN(140) THEY WERE DESTROYED, MOTHER EARTH REMAINED BARE.(141) SHE ASKED TO BE DRIED.(142) The time for the Earth’s incrustation had arrived. The waters had separated and the process was started. It was the beginning of a new life. This is what one key divulges to us. Another key teaches the origin of Water, its admixture with Fire—“Liquid Fire” it calls it—and enters upon an Alchemical description of the progeny of the two—solid matters such as minerals and earths. From the “Waters of Space,” the progeny of the male Spirit‐Fire and the female (gaseous) Water has become the Oceanic expanse on Earth. Varuna is dragged down from the infinite Space, to reign as Neptune over the finite Seas. As always, the popular fancy is found to be based on a strictly scientific foundation. Water is the symbol of the Female Element everywhere; Mater, from which comes the letter M, is derived pictorially from [Symbol like three mountains, rather like the letter “M”], a water hieroglyph. It is the Universal Matrix or the “Great Deep.” Venus, the great Mother‐Virgin, issues forth from the sea‐wave, and Cupid or Erôs is her son. But Venus is the later mythological variant of Gæa, Gaia, the Earth, which, in its higher aspect is Prakriti, Nature, and metaphysically Aditi, and even Mûlaprakriti, the Root of Prakriti, or its noumenon. Hence Cupid or Love in his primitive sense is Erôs, the Divine Will, or Desire of manifesting itself through visible creation. Thence Fohat, the prototype of Erôs, becomes on Earth the Great Power “Life‐Electricity,” or the Spirit of “Life‐giving.” Let us remember the Greek Theogony and enter into the spirit of its Philosophy. We are taught by the Greeks that all things, Gods included, owe their being to the Ocean and his wife Tethys, the latter being Gæa, the Earth or Nature. But who is Ocean? Ocean is the immeasurable Space—Spirit in Chaos—which, is the Deity; and Tethys is not the Earth, but Primordial Matter in the process of formation. In our case it is no longer Aditi‐Gæa who begets Ouranos or Varuna, the chief Âditya among the seven Planetary Gods, but Prakriti, materialized and localized. The Moon, masculine in its theogonic character, is, in its cosmic aspect only, the female generative principle, as the Sun is the male emblem thereof. Water is the progeny of the Moon, an androgyne deity with every nation. Evolution proceeds on the laws of analogy in Kosmos as in the formation of the smallest Globe. Thus the above, applying to the _modus operandi_ at the time when the Universe was appearing, applies also in the case of our Earth’s formation. The Stanza now being commented upon opens by speaking of thirty crores, 300,000,000 of years. We may be asked: What could the ancients know of the duration of geological periods, when no modern Scientist or Mathematician is able to calculate their duration with anything like approximate accuracy? Whether they had or had not better means—and it is maintained that they had them as is evidenced by their Zodiacs—still the chronology of the ancient Brâhmans shall now be given as faithfully as possible. The Chronology of the Brâhmans. No greater riddle exists in Science, no problem is more hopelessly insoluble, than the question: How old—even approximately—are the Sun and Moon, the Earth and Man? What does Modern Science know of the duration of the Ages of the World, or even of the length of Geological Periods? Nothing; absolutely nothing. If one turns to Science for chronological information, one is told by those who are straightforward and truthful, as for instance Mr. Pengelly, the eminent Geologist, “We do not know.”(143) One will learn that, so far, no trustworthy numerical estimate of the ages of the World and Man could be made, and that both Geology and Anthropology are at sea. Yet when a student of Esoteric Philosophy presumes to bring forward the teachings of Occult Science, he is at once sat upon. Why should this be so, since, when reduced to their own physical methods, the greatest Scientists have failed to arrive even at an approximate agreement? It is true that Science can hardly be blamed for it. Indeed, in the Cimmerian darkness of the prehistoric ages, the explorers are lost in a labyrinth, whose great corridors are doorless, allowing no visible exit into the archaic past. Lost in the maze of their own conflicting speculations, rejecting, as they have always done, the evidence of Eastern tradition, without any clue, or one single certain milestone to guide them, what can Geologists or Anthropologists do but pick up the slender thread of Ariadne where they first perceive it, and then proceed at perfect random? Therefore we are first told that the farthest date to which documentary record extends is now generally regarded by Anthropology as but “the earliest distinctly visible point of the pre‐historic period”—in the words of the writer of the article in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_. At the same time it is confessed that “beyond that period stretches back a vast indefinite series of pre‐historic ages.” It is with those specified “ages” that we shall begin. They are “pre‐ historic” to the naked eye of Matter only. To the spiritual eagle eye of the Seer and the Prophet of every race, Ariadne’s thread stretches beyond that “historic period” without break or flaw, surely and steadily, into the very night of time; and the hand which holds it is too mighty to drop it, or even let it break. Records exist, although they may be rejected as fanciful by the profane; though, indeed, many of them are tacitly accepted by Philosophers and men of great learning, and meet with an unvarying refusal only from the official and collective body of _orthodox_ Science. And since the latter refuses to give us even an approximate idea of the duration of the geological Ages—save in a few conflicting and contradictory hypotheses—let us see what Âryan Philosophy can teach us. Such computations as are given in _Manu_ and the _Purânas_—save trifling and most evidently _intentional_ exaggerations—are, as already stated, almost identical with those taught in Esoteric Philosophy. This may be seen by comparing the two in any Hindû calendar of recognized orthodoxy. The best and most complete of all such calendars, at present, as vouched for by the learned Brâhmans of Southern India, is the already mentioned Tamil calendar called the _Tirukkanda Panchanga_, compiled, as we are told, from, and in full accordance with, secret fragments of Asuramaya’s data. As Asuramaya is said to have been the greatest Astronomer, so he is whispered to have also been the most powerful “Sorcerer” of the “White Island, which had become Black with sin,” _i.e._, of the islands of Atlantis. The “White Island” is a symbolical name. Asuramaya is said to have lived, as in the tradition of the _Jñâna‐bhâskara_, in Romaka‐pura, in the West; because the name is an allusion to the land and cradle of the “Sweat‐born” of the Third Race. That land or continent had disappeared ages before Asuramaya lived, since he was an Atlantean; but he was a direct descendant of the Wise Race, _the Race that never dies_. Many are the legends concerning this hero, the pupil of Sûrya, the Sun‐God, himself, as the Indian accounts allege. It matters little whether he lived on one or another island, but the question is to prove that he was no myth, as Dr. Weber and others would make him. The fact of Romaka‐pura, in the West, being named as the birthplace of this hero of the Archaic Ages, is the more interesting because it is so very suggestive of the Esoteric Teaching about the Sweat‐born Races, the men born from the “pores of their parents.” “_Roma‐kûpas_” mean “hair‐pores” in Sanskrit. In the _Mahâbhârata_,(144) a people named Raumas are said to have been created from the pores of Vîrabhadra, the terrible giant, who destroyed Daksha’s sacrifice. Other tribes and people are also represented as born in this way. All these are references to the later Second and the earlier Third Root‐Races. The following figures are from the calendar just referred to; a foot‐note marks the points of disagreement with the figures of the Ârya Samâj school: