Section VII. Scientific and Geological Proofs of the Existence of Several

Submerged Continents. It may not be amiss—for the benefit of those who resolve the tradition of a lost Miocene Atlantis into an “antiquated myth”—to append a few scientific admissions on this point. Science, it is true, is largely indifferent to such questions. But there are Scientists ready to admit that, in any case, a cautious agnosticism as to geological problems concerning the remote past is far more philosophical than _à priori_ denial, or even hasty generalizations on insufficient data. Meanwhile two very interesting instances, that have been lately met with, may be pointed out as “confirming” certain passages in the letter of a Master, published in _Esoteric Buddhism_. The eminence of the authorities will not be questioned (we italicize the corresponding passages): Extract from _Esoteric Buddhism_, p. 70. (1.) The sinking of Atlantis (the group of continents and isles) began during the Miocene period ... and it culminated first in the final disappearance of the largest continent, _an event coincident with the elevation of the Alps_, and second with that of the last of the fair islands mentioned by Plato. Extract from a Lecture by W. Pengelly, F.R.S., F.G.S. (1.) Was there, as some have believed, an Atlantis—a continent or archipelago of large islands occupying the area of the North Atlantic? There is, perhaps, nothing unphilosophical in the hypothesis. For since, as geologists state, “_The Alps have acquired 4,000 and even in some places more than 10,000 feet of their present altitude since the commencement of the Eocene epoch_” (Lyell’s _Principles_, p. 256, 2nd Ed.)—_a Post‐Miocene depression might have carried the hypothetical Atlantis into almost abysmal depths_.(1824) Extract from _Esoteric Buddhism_, pp. 64, 65. (2.) Lemuria ... should no more be confounded with the Atlantis Continent than Europe with America. Both sank and were drowned with their high civilizations and “gods”; yet between the two catastrophes a period of about 700,000 years elapsed, Lemuria flourishing and ending her career just about that lapse of time before the early part of the _Eocene_ age, since its Race was the Third. Behold _the relics of that once great nation in some of the flat‐headed aborigines of your Australia_. Extract from an article in the _Popular Science Review_, v. 18, by Professor Seemann, Ph.D., F.L.S., V.‐P.A.S. (2.) It would be premature to say, because no evidence has yet been adduced, _that men may not have existed in the Eocene age_, especially as it can be shown that _a race of men, the lowest we know of, co‐exists with that remnant of the Eocene flora which still survives on the continent and islands of Australia_. Extract from _The Pedigree of Man_, p. 81. Hæckel, who fully accepts the reality of a former Lemuria, also regards the _Australians as direct descendants of the Lemurians_. Persistent forms of both [his Lemurian] stems are in all probability still surviving, of the former in the Papuans and Hottentots, of the latter in the _Australians_ and in one division of the Malays. With regard to a former civilization, of which a _portion_ of these degraded Australians are the last surviving offshoot, the opinion of Gerland is strongly suggestive. Commenting upon the religion and mythology of the tribes, he writes: The statement that Australian civilization [?] indicates a higher grade, is nowhere more clearly proved than here [in the province of religion] where everything resounds like the expiring voices of a previous and richer age.... The idea that the Australians have no trace of religion or mythology is thoroughly false. But this religion is certainly quite deteriorated.(1825) As to Hæckel’s view of the relationship between the Australians and the Malays, as two branches of a common stock, he is in error when he classes the Australians with the rest. The Malays and Papuans are a _mixed_ stock, resulting from the intermarriages of the low Atlantean sub‐races with the seventh sub‐race of the Third Root‐Race. Like the Hottentots, they are of indirect Lemuro‐Atlantean descent. It is a most suggestive fact—to those concrete thinkers who demand a _physical_ proof of Karma—that the lowest races of men are now rapidly dying out; a phenomenon largely due to an extraordinary sterility setting in among the women, from the time that they were first approached by the Europeans. A process of decimation is taking place all over the Globe, among those races, whose “time is up”—among just those stocks, be it remarked, which Esoteric Philosophy regards as the senile representatives of lost archaic nations. It is inaccurate to maintain that the extinction of a lower race is _invariably_ due to cruelties or abuses perpetrated by colonists. Change of diet, drunkenness, etc., have done much; but those who rely on such data as offering an all‐sufficient explanation of the crux, cannot meet the phalanx of facts now so closely arrayed. Even the Materialist Lefèvre says: Nothing can save those that have run their course. It would be necessary to extend their destined cycle.... _The peoples that have been relatively most spared, those who have defended themselves most valiantly, Hawaiians or Maories, have been no less decimated than the tribes massacred or tainted by European intrusion._(1826) True; but is not the phenomenon here confirmed, an instance of the operation of Cyclic Law, difficult to account for on materialist lines? Whence the “destined cycle” and the order here testified to? Why does this (Karmic) sterility attack and root out certain races at their “appointed hour”? The answer that it is due to a “mental disproportion” between the colonizing and aboriginal races is obviously evasive, since it does not explain the sudden “checks to fertility” which so frequently supervene. The dying out of the Hawaiians, for instance, is one of the most mysterious problems of the day. Ethnology will sooner or later have to recognize, with Occultists, that the true solution has to be sought for in a comprehension of the workings of Karma. As Lèfevre remarks: The time is drawing near when there will remain nothing but three great human types. The time is before the Sixth Root‐Race dawns; the three types are the white (Âryan, Fifth Root‐Race), the yellow, and the African negro—with their crossings (Atlanto‐European divisions). Redskins, Eskimos, Papuans, Australians, Polynesians, etc.—all are dying out. Those who realize that every Root‐Race runs through a gamut of seven sub‐races with seven branchlets, etc., will understand the “why.” The tide‐wave of incarnating Egos has rolled past them to harvest experience in more developed and less senile stocks; and their extinction is hence a Karmic necessity. Some extraordinary and _unexplained_ statistics as to race extinction are given by de Quatrefages.(1827) No solution, except on Occult lines, is able to account for these. But we have digressed from our direct subject. Let us hear now what Professor Huxley has to say on the subject of former Atlantic and Pacific Continents. He writes in _Nature_: There is nothing, so far as I am aware, in the biological or geological evidence at present accessible, to render untenable the hypothesis that _an area of the Mid‐Atlantic or Pacific sea‐bed as big as Europe_, should have been upheaved as high as Mont Blanc, and have subsided again any time since the Palæozoic epoch, if there were any grounds for entertaining it.(1828) That is to say, then, that there is nothing to militate against _positive_ evidence of the fact; nothing, therefore, against the geological postulates of the Esoteric Philosophy. Dr. Berthold Seemann assures us in the _Popular Science Review_ that: The facts which botanists have accumulated for reconstructing these lost maps of the globe are rather comprehensive; and they have not been backward in demonstrating the former existence of several large tracts of solid land in parts now occupied by great oceans. The many striking points of contact between the present floras of the United States and Eastern Asia, induced them to assume that, during the present order of things, there existed a continental connection between South‐Eastern Asia and Western America. The singular correspondence of the present flora of the Southern United States with that of the lignite flora of Europe induces them to believe that, in the Miocene period, Europe and America were connected by a land passage, of which Iceland, Madeira, and the other Atlantic islands are remnants; that, in fact, the story of an Atlantis, which an Egyptian priest told to Solon, is not purely fictitious, but rests upon a solid historical basis.... Europe of the Eocene period received the plants which spread over mountains and plains, valleys and river‐banks (from Asia generally), neither exclusively from the South nor from the East. The West also furnished additions, and if at that period these were rather meagre, they show, at all events, that the bridge was already building, which, at a later period, was to facilitate communication between the two continents in such a remarkable manner. At that time some plants of the Western Continent began to reach Europe by means of the island of Atlantis, then probably just [?] just rising above the ocean.(1829) And in another number of the same review(1830) Mr. W. Duppa Crotch, M.A., F.L.S., in an article entitled “The Norwegian Lemming and its Migrations,” alludes to the same subject: Is it probable that land could have existed where now the broad Atlantic rolls? All tradition says so: old Egyptian records speak of Atlantis, as Strabo and others have told us. The Sahara itself is the sand of an ancient sea, and the shells which are found upon its surface prove that, no longer ago than the Miocene period, a sea rolled over what is now desert. The voyage of the “Challenger” has proved the existence of three long ridges(1831) in the Atlantic Ocean,(1832) one extending for more than three thousand miles, and lateral spurs may, by connecting these ridges, account for the marvellous similarity of the fauna of the Atlantic islands.(1833)... The submerged continent of _Lemuria_, in what is now the Indian Ocean, is considered to afford an explanation of many difficulties in the distribution of organic life, and, I think, the existence of a _Miocene Atlantis_ will be found to have a strong elucidative bearing on subjects of greater interest [truly so!] than the migration of the lemming. At all events, if it can be shown that land existed in former ages where the North Atlantic now rolls, not only is a motive found for these apparently suicidal migrations, but also a strong collateral proof that what we call instincts are but the blind and sometimes even prejudicial inheritance of previously acquired experience. At certain periods, we learn, multitudes of these animals swim to sea and perish. Coming, as they do, from all parts of Norway, the powerful instinct which survives throughout ages as an inheritance from their progenitors impels them to seek a continent, once existing but now submerged beneath the ocean, and to court a watery grave. In an article containing a criticism of Mr. A. R. Wallace’s _Island Life_—a work devoted largely to the question of the distribution of animals, etc.—Mr. Starkie Gardiner writes: By a process of reasoning supported by a large array of facts of different kinds, he arrives at the conclusion that the distribution of life upon the land as we now see it has been accomplished without the aid of important changes in the relative positions of continents and seas. Yet if we accept his views, we must believe that Asia and Africa, Madagascar and Africa, New Zealand and Australia, Europe and America, have been united at some period not remote geologically, and that seas to the depth of 1,000 fathoms have been bridged over; but we must treat as “utterly gratuitous and entirely opposed to all the evidences at our command” [! !], the supposition that temperate Europe and temperate America, Australia, and South America, have ever been connected, except by way of the Arctic or Antarctic Circles, and that lands now separated by seas of more than 1,000 fathoms depth have ever been united. Mr. Wallace, it must be admitted, has succeeded in explaining the chief features of existing life distribution, without bridging the Atlantic or Pacific, except towards the Poles, yet I cannot help thinking that some of the facts might perhaps be more easily explained by admitting the former existence of the connection between the coast of Chili and Polynesia(1834) and Great Britain and Florida, shadowed by the sub‐marine banks which stretch between them. Nothing is urged that renders these more direct connections impossible, and no physical reason is advanced why the floor of the ocean should not be upheaved from any depth. The route by which [according to the Anti‐Atlantean and Lemurian hypotheses of Wallace] the floras of South America and Australia are supposed to have mingled, is beset by almost insurmountable obstacles, and the apparently sudden arrival of a number of subtropical American plants in our Eocenes necessitates a connection more to the South than the present 1,000 fathom line. Forces are unceasingly acting, and there is _no reason why an elevating force once set in action in the centre of an ocean should cease to act until a continent is formed_. They have acted and lifted out from the sea, in comparatively recent geological time, the loftiest mountains on earth. Mr. Wallace himself admits repeatedly that sea‐beds have been elevated 1,000 fathoms, and islands have risen up from the depths of 3,000 fathoms; and to suppose that the upheaving forces are limited in power, is, it seems to me, to again quote from _Island Life_, “utterly gratuitous and entirely opposed to all the evidences at our command.”(1835) The “father” of English Geology—Sir Charles Lyell—was a uniformitarian in his views of continental formation. We find him saying: Professors Unger (_Die Versunkene Insel Atlantis_) and Heer (_Flora Tertiaria Helvetiæ_) have advocated on botanical grounds _the former existence of an Atlantic Continent during some part of the tertiary period_, as affording the only plausible explanation that can be imagined of the analogy between the Miocene flora of Central Europe, and the existing flora of Eastern America. Professor Oliver, on the other hand, after showing how many of the American types found fossil in Europe are common to Japan, inclines to the theory, first advanced by Dr. Asa Gray, that the migration of species, to which the community of types in the Eastern States of North America, and the Miocene flora of Europe is due, took place when there was an overland communication from America to Eastern Asia between the fiftieth and sixtieth parallels of latitude, or south of Behring’s Straits, following the direction of the Aleutian islands. By this course they may have made their way, at any epoch, Miocene, Pliocene, or Postpliocene, antecedently to the Glacial epoch, to Amoorland, on the East coast of Northern Asia.(1836) The unnecessary difficulties and complications here incurred in order to avoid the hypothesis of an Atlantic Continent, are really too apparent to escape notice. _If the botanical evidences stood alone_, scepticism would be partially reasonable; but in this case all branches of Science converge to one point. Science has made blunders, and has exposed itself to greater errors than it would be exposed to by the admission of our two now invisible Continents. It has denied even the undeniable, from the days of the Mathematician Laplace down to our own, and that only a few years ago.(1837) We have Professor Huxley’s authority for saying that there is no _à priori_ improbability whatever against possible evidences supporting the belief. But now that the _positive evidence is brought forward_, will that eminent Scientist admit the corollary? Touching on the problem in another place Sir Charles Lyell tells us: Respecting the cosmogony of the Egyptian priests, we gather much information from writers of the Grecian sects, who borrowed almost all their tenets from Egypt, and amongst others that of the former successive destruction and renovation of the world [_continental_, not cosmic, catastrophes]. We learn from Plutarch that this was the theme of one of the hymns of Orpheus, so celebrated in the fabulous ages of Greece. It was brought by him from the banks of the Nile; and we even find in his verses, as in the Indian systems, a definite period assigned for the duration of every successive world. The returns of great catastrophes were determined by the period of the Annus Magnus, or great year, a cycle composed of the revolutions of the sun, moon, and planets, and terminating when these return together to the same sign whence they were supposed at some remote epoch to have set out.... We learn particularly from the _Timæus_ of Plato that the Egyptians believed the world to be subject to occasional conflagrations and deluges. The sect of Stoics adopted most fully the system of catastrophes destined at certain intervals to destroy the world. These, they taught, were of two kinds—the cataclysm, or _destruction by deluge_, which sweeps away the whole human race, and annihilates all the animal and vegetable productions of nature, and the _ecpyrosis_, or _conflagration_, which destroys the globe itself [submarine volcanoes]. From the Egyptians they derived the doctrine of the gradual debasement of man from a state of innocence [nascent simplicity of the first sub‐races of each Root‐Race]. Towards the termination of each era the gods could no longer bear with the wickedness of men [degeneracy into magical practices and gross animality of the Atlanteans], and a shock of the elements, or a deluge, overwhelmed them; after which calamity, Astræa again descended on the earth to renew the golden age [dawn of a new Root‐Race].(1838) Astræa, the Goddess of Justice, is the last of the deities to forsake the Earth, when the Gods are said to abandon it and to be taken up again into heaven by Jupiter. But, no sooner does Zeus carry from Earth Ganymedes—the object of _lust_, personified—than the Father of the Gods throws down Astræa on the Earth again, on which she falls _upon her head_. Astræa is Virgo, the constellation of the Zodiac. Astronomically it has a very plain significance, and one which gives the key to the occult meaning. But it is inseparable from Leo, the sign that precedes it, and from the Pleiades and their sisters, the Hyades, of which Aldebaran is the brilliant leader. All these are connected with the periodical renovations of the Earth, with regard to its continents—even Ganymedes, who in astronomy is Aquarius. It has already been shown that while the South Pole is the “Pit” (or the infernal regions figuratively and cosmologically), the North Pole is geographically the First Continent; while astronomically and metaphorically the Celestial Pole, with its Pole Star in Heaven, is Meru, or the Seat of Brahmâ, the Throne of Jupiter, etc. For in the age when the Gods forsook the Earth and were said to ascend into Heaven, the ecliptic had become parallel with the meridian, and part of the Zodiac appeared to descend from the North Pole to the north horizon. Aldebaran was in conjunction then with the Sun, as it was 40,000 years ago, at the great festival in commemoration of that Annus Magnus, of which Plutarch spoke. Since that Year—40,000 years ago—there has been a retrograde motion of the equator, and about 31,000 years ago Aldebaran was in conjunction with the vernal equinoctial point. The part assigned to Taurus, even in Christian Mysticism, is too well known to need repetition. The famous Orphic Hymn on the great periodical cataclysm divulges the whole Esotericism of the event. Pluto, in the Pit, carries off Eurydice, bitten by the Polar Serpent. Then Leo, the Lion, is vanquished. Now, when the Lion is “in the Pit,” or below the South Pole, then Virgo, as the next sign, follows him, and when her head, down to the waist, is below the southern horizon—she is inverted. On the other hand, the Hyades are the rain or Deluge constellations; and Aldebaran—he who follows, or _succeeds_ the daughters of Atlas, or the Pleiades—looks down from the eye of Taurus. It is from this point of the ecliptic that the calculations of the new cycle were commenced. The student has to remember also, that when Ganymedes—Aquarius—is raised to heaven—or above the horizon of the North Pole—Virgo or Astræa, who is Venus‐Lucifer, descends head downwards below the horizon of the South Pole, or the Pit; which Pit, or the Pole, is also the Great Dragon, or the Flood. Let the student exercise his intuition by placing these facts together; no more can be said. Lyell remarks: The connection between the doctrine of successive catastrophes and repeated deteriorations in the moral character of the human race, is more intimate and natural than might at first be imagined. For, in a rude state of society, all great calamities are regarded by the people as judgments of God on the wickedness of man.... In like manner in the account given to Solon by the Egyptian priests of the submersion of the island of Atlantis under the waters of the ocean, after repeated shocks of an earthquake, we find that _the event happened when Jupiter had seen the moral depravity of the inhabitants_.(1839) True; but was it not owing to the fact that all Esoteric truths were given out to the public by the Initiates of the temples _under the guise of allegories_? “Jupiter,” is merely the personification of that immutable Cyclic Law, which arrests the downward tendency of each Root‐Race after attaining the zenith of its glory.(1840) We must admit allegorical teaching, unless we hold with Prof. John Fiske’s singularly dogmatic opinion that a myth: Is an explanation by the uncivilized mind, of some natural phenomenon; not an allegory, not an esoteric symbol, for the ingenuity is wasted [!!] which strives to detect in myths the remnants of a refined primeval science—but an explanation. Primitive men had no profound science to perpetuate by means of allegory [how does Mr. Fiske know?], nor were they such sorry pedants as to talk in riddles when plain language would serve their purpose.(1841) We venture to say the language of the initiated few was far more “plain,” and their Science‐Philosophy far more comprehensive and satisfying alike to the physical and _spiritual_ wants of man, than even the terminology and system elaborated by Mr. Fiske’s master—Herbert Spencer. What, however, is Sir Charles Lyell’s “explanation” of the “myth”? Certainly, he in no way countenances the idea of its “astronomical” origin, as asserted by some writers. The two interpreters are entirely at variance with one another. Lyell’s solution is as follows. A disbeliever in cataclysmal changes from the absence (?) of any reliable historical data on the point, as well as from a strong bias to the uniformitarian conceptions of geologic changes,(1842) he attempts to trace the Atlantis “tradition” to the following sources: (1) Barbarous tribes connect catastrophes with an avenging God, who is assumed in this way to punish immoral races. (2) Hence the commencement of a new race is logically a virtuous one. (3) The primary source of the geologic basis of the tradition was Asia—a continent subject to violent earthquakes. Exaggerated accounts would thus be handed down the ages. (4) Egypt, being herself free from earthquakes, nevertheless based her not inconsiderable geologic knowledge on these cataclysmal traditions. An ingenious “explanation,” as all such are! But proving a negative is proverbially a difficult task. Students of Esoteric Science, who know what the resources of the Egyptian priesthood really were, need no such laboured hypothesis. Moreover, while an imaginative theorist is always able to furnish a reasonable solution of problems which, in one branch of Science, seem to necessitate the hypothesis of periodical cataclysmic changes on the surface of our planet, the impartial critic who is not a specialist, will recognize the immense difficulty of explaining away the cumulative evidences—namely, the archaeological, ethnological, geological, traditional, botanical, and even biological—in favour of former continents now submerged. When each science is fighting for its own hand, the cumulative force of the evidence is almost invariably lost sight of. In the _Theosophist_ we wrote: We have as evidence the most ancient traditions of various and wide‐separated peoples—legends in India, in ancient Greece, Madagascar, Sumatra, Java, and all the principal isles of Polynesia, as well as the legends of both Americas. Among savages, and in the traditions of the richest literature in the world—the Sanskrit literature of India—there is an agreement in saying, that, ages ago, there existed in the Pacific Ocean, a large Continent, which by a geological upheaval was engulfed by the sea(1843) [Lemuria]. And it is our firm belief ... that most, if not all, of the islands from the Malayan Archipelago to Polynesia, are fragments of that once immense submerged Continent. Both Malacca and Polynesia, which lie at the two extremities of the ocean, and which, since the memory of man, never had nor could have any intercourse with, or even a knowledge of each other, have yet a tradition common to all the islands and islets, that their respective countries extended far, far into the Sea; that there were in the world but two immense continents, one inhabited by yellow, the other by dark men; and that the Ocean, by command of the Gods, and to punish them for their incessant quarrelling, swallowed them up. Notwithstanding the geographical fact that New Zealand, and Sandwich and Easter Islands, are at a distance from each other of between 800 and 1,000 leagues, and that, according to every testimony, neither these nor any other intermediate islands, for instance, the Marquesan, Society, Fiji, Tahitian, Samoan, and other islands, could, since they became islands, ignorant as their people were of the compass, have communicated with each other before the arrival of Europeans; yet they one and all maintain that their respective countries extended far toward the West, on the Asian side. Moreover with very small differences, they all speak dialects evidently of the same language, and understand each other with little difficulty, have the same religious beliefs and superstitions, and pretty much the same customs. And as few of the Polynesian islands were discovered earlier than a century ago, and the Pacific Ocean itself was unknown to Europe until the days of Columbus, and these islanders have never ceased repeating the same old traditions since the Europeans first set foot on their shores, it seems to us a logical inference that our theory is nearer to the truth than any other. Chance would have to change its name and meaning, were all this due but to chance alone.(1844) Professor Schmidt, writing in defence of the hypothesis of a former Lemuria, declares: A great series of animal‐geographical facts is explicable only on the hypothesis of the former existence of a Southern Continent of which the Australian mainland is a remnant.... [The distribution of species] points to the vanished land of the south, where perhaps the home of the progenitors of the Maki of Madagascar may also be looked for.(1845) Mr. A. R. Wallace, in his _Malay Archipelago_, arrives at the following conclusion after a review of the mass of evidence at hand: The inference that we must draw from these facts is undoubtedly that the whole of the islands eastwards beyond Java and Borneo do essentially form a part of a former Australian or Pacific Continent, although some of them may never have been actually joined to it. This continent must have been broken up not only before the Western Islands were separated from Asia, but probably before the extreme south‐eastern portion of Asia was raised above the waters of the ocean, for a great part of the land of Borneo and Java is known to be geologically of quite recent formation.(1846) According to Hæckel: Probably Southern Asia itself was not the earliest cradle of the human race; but Lemuria, a continent that lay to the South of Asia, and sank later on beneath the surface of the Indian Ocean.(1847) In one sense Hæckel is right as to Lemuria—the “cradle of the human race.” That Continent _was_ the home of the first _physical_ human stock—the later Third‐Race Men. Previous to that epoch the Races were far less consolidated and physiologically quite different. Hæckel makes Lemuria extend from Sunda Island to Africa and Madagascar and eastwards to Upper India. Professor Rütimeyer, the eminent Palæontologist, asks: Need the conjecture that the almost exclusively graminivorous and insectivorous marsupials, sloths, armadilloes, ant‐eaters and ostriches, once possessed an actual point of union in a Southern Continent of which the present flora of Terra del Fuego and Australia must be the remains—need this conjecture raise difficulties at a moment when, from their fossil remains, Heer restores to our sight the ancient forests of Smith’s Sound and Spitzbergen?(1848) Having now dealt generally with the broad scientific attitude on the two questions, it will, perhaps, conduce to an agreeable brevity, if we sum up the more striking isolated facts in favour of that fundamental contention of Esoteric Ethnologists—the reality of Atlantis. Lemuria is so widely accepted, that further pursuit of the subject is unnecessary. With regard, however, to the former, it is found that: (1) The Miocene floræ of Europe have their most numerous and striking analogues in the floræ of the United States. In the forests of Virginia and Florida are found the magnolias, tulip‐trees, evergreen oaks, plane trees, etc., which correspond with European Tertiary flora, term for term. How was the migration effected, if we exclude the theory of an Atlantic Continent bridging the ocean between America and Europe? The proposed “explanation” to the effect that the transition was by way of Asia and the Aleutian Islands is a mere uncalled‐for theory, obviously upset by the fact that a large number of these floræ only appear _East_ of the Rocky Mountains. This also negatives the idea of a Trans‐Pacific migration. They are now superseded by European continents and islands to the North. (2) Skulls exhumed on the banks of the Danube and Rhine bear a _striking similarity_ to those of the Caribs and Old Peruvians (Littré). Monuments have been exhumed in Central America, which bear representations of undoubted _negro_ heads and faces. How are such facts to be accounted for except on the Atlantean hypothesis? What is now N.W. Africa was once connected with Atlantis by a network of islands, few of which now remain. (3) According to Farrar the “_isolated_ language” of the Basques has no affinities with the other languages of Europe,(1849) but with: The aboriginal languages of the vast opposite continent [America] and those alone.(1850) Professor Broca is also of the same opinion. Palæolithic European man of the Miocene and Pliocene times was a pure Atlantean, as we have previously stated. The Basques are, of course, of a much later date than this, but their affinities, as here shown, go far to prove the original extraction of their remote ancestors. The “mysterious” affinity between their tongue and that of the Dravidian races of India will be understood by those who have followed our outline of continental formations and shiftings. (4) Stones have been found in the Canary Islands bearing sculptured symbols similar to those found on the shore of Lake Superior. Berthollet was induced by such evidence to postulate the unity of race of the early men of the Canary Islands and America.(1851) The Guanches of the Canary Islands were lineal descendants of the Atlanteans. This fact will account for the _great stature_ evidenced by their old skeletons, as well as by those of their European congeners, the Cro‐Magnon Palæolithic men. (5) Any experienced mariner has but to navigate the fathomless ocean along the Canary Islands to ask himself the question when or how that group of volcanic and rocky little islands has been formed, surrounded on every side by that vast watery space. Frequent questions of this kind led finally to the expedition of the famous Leopold von Buch, which took place in the first quarter of the present century. Some Geologists maintained that the volcanic islands had been raised right from the bottom of the ocean, the depth of which in the immediate vicinity of the island varies from 6,000 to 18,000 feet. Others were inclined to see in these groups—including Madeira, the Azores, and the islands of Cape de Verde—the remnants of a gigantic but submerged continent which had once united Africa with America. The latter men of Science supported their hypothesis by a mass of evidence in its favour, drawn from ancient “myths.” Hoary “superstitions,” such as the fairy‐like Atlantis of Plato, the Garden of the Hesperides, Atlas supporting the world on his shoulders, all of them mythoi connected with the Peak of Teneriffe, did not go far with sceptical Science. The identity of animal and vegetable species, showing either a previous connection between America and the remaining groups of the islands—the hypothesis of their having been drifted from the New to the Old World by the waves was too absurd to stand long—found more serious consideration. But it is only quite lately, and after Donnelly’s book had been published several years, that the theory has had a greater chance than ever of becoming an accepted fact. Fossils found on the _Eastern Coast_ of South America have now been _proved_ to belong to the Jurassic formations, and are nearly identical with the Jurassic fossils of _Western_ Europe and _Northern_ Africa. The geological structure of both coasts is also almost identical; the resemblance between the smaller marine animals dwelling in the more shallow waters of the South American, the Western African, and the South European coasts, is also very great. All such facts are bound to bring Naturalists to the conclusion that there has been, in distant pre‐historic ages, a continent which extended from the coast of Venezuela, across the Atlantic Ocean, to the Canarese Islands and North Africa, and from Newfoundland nearly to the coast of France. (6) The great resemblance between the Jurassic fossils of South America, North Africa, and Western Europe is a striking enough fact in itself, and admits of no explanation, unless the ocean is bridged with an Atlantis. But why, also, is there so marked a similarity between the fauna of the (now) isolated Atlantic islands? Why did the specimens of Brazilian fauna dredged up by Sir C. Wyville Thompson resemble those of Western Europe? Why does a resemblance exist between many of the West African and West Indian animal groups? Again: When the animals and plants of the Old and New World are compared, one cannot but be struck with their identity; all, or nearly all, belong to the same genera, while many, even of the species, are common to both continents ... indicating that they radiated from a common centre [Atlantis].(1852) The horse, according to Science, originated in America. At least, a large proportion of the once “missing links” connecting it with inferior forms have been exhumed from American strata. How did the horse penetrate into Europe and Asia, if no land communication bridged the oceanic interspaces? Or if it is asserted that the horse originated in the Old World, how did such forms as the hipparion, etc., get into America in the first instance on the migration hypothesis? Again: Buffon had ... remarked the repetition of the African in the American fauna, how, for example, the llama is a juvenescent and feeble copy of the camel, and how the puma of the New represents the lion of the Old World.(1853) (7) The following quotation runs with No. 2, but its significance is such and the writer cited is so authoritative, that it deserves a place to itself: With regard to the primitive dolichocephalæ of America, I entertain a hypothesis still more bold, namely, that they are nearly related to the Guanches of the Canary Islands, and to the Atlantic populations of Africa, the Moors, Tuaricks, Copts, which Latham comprises under the name of Egyptian‐Atlantidæ. We find one and the same form of skull in the Canary Islands, in front of the African coast, and in the Carib islands, on the opposite coast which faces Africa. The colour of the skin on both sides of the Atlantic is represented in these populations as being of a reddish‐brown.(1854) If, then, Basques and Cro‐Magnon Cave‐Men are of the same race as the Canarese Guanches, it follows that the former are also allied to the aborigines of America. This is the conclusion necessitated by the independent investigations of Retzius, Virchow, and de Quatrefages. The Atlantean affinities of these three types become patent. (8) The sea‐soundings undertaken by H.M.S. “Challenger” and the “Dolphin,” have established the fact that a huge elevation some 3,000 miles in length, projecting upwards from the abysmal depths of the Atlantic, extends from a point near the British Islands southwards, curving round near Cape de Verde, and running in a south‐easterly direction along the West African coast. This elevation averages some 9,000 feet in height, and rises above the waves at the Azores, Ascension, and other places. In the ocean depths around the neighbourhood of the former the ribs of a once massive piece of land have been discovered.(1855) The inequalities, the mountains and valleys of its surface could never have been produced in accordance with any known laws for the deposition of sediment, nor by submarine elevation; but, on the contrary, must have been carved by agencies acting above the water‐level.(1856) It is most probable that necks of land formerly existed knitting Atlantis to South America, somewhere above the mouth of the Amazon, to Africa near Cape de Verde, while a similar point of juncture with Spain is not unlikely, as contended for by Donnelly.(1857) Whether the latter existed or not, is of no consequence, in view of the fact that what is now N.W. Africa was—before the elevation of the Sahara and the rupture of the Gibraltar connection—an extension of Spain. Consequently no difficulty can be raised as to how the migration of the European fauna, etc., took place. Enough has now been said from the purely scientific standpoint, and it is needless, in view of the manner in which the subject has already been developed on the lines of Esoteric Knowledge, to swell the mass of testimony further. In conclusion, the words of one of the most intuitive writers of the day may be cited as admirably illustrative of the opinions of the Occultist, who awaits in patience the dawn of the coming day: We are but beginning to understand the past; one hundred years ago the world knew nothing of Pompeii or Herculaneum; nothing of the lingual tie that binds together the Indo‐European nations; nothing of the significance of the vast volume of inscriptions upon the tombs and temples of Egypt; nothing of the meaning of the arrow‐ headed inscriptions of Babylon; nothing of the marvellous civilizations revealed in the remains of Yucatan, Mexico, and Peru. We are on the threshold. Scientific investigation is advancing with giant strides. Who shall say that one hundred years from now, the great museums of the world may not be adorned with gems, statues, arms, and implements from Atlantis, while the libraries of the world shall contain translations of its inscriptions, throwing new light upon all the past history of the human race, and all the great problems which now perplex the thinkers of to‐day.(1858) And now to conclude. We have concerned ourself with the ancient records of the nations, with the doctrine of chronological and psychic cycles, of which these records are the tangible proof; and with many other subjects, which may, at first sight, seem out of place in this Volume. But they are necessary in truth. In dealing with the secret annals and traditions of so many nations, whose very origins have never been ascertained on more secure grounds than inferential suppositions, in giving out the beliefs and philosophy of more than pre‐historic races, it is not quite as easy to deal with the subject matter as it would be if only the philosophy and evolution of one special race, were concerned. The Secret Doctrine was the common property of the countless millions of men born under various climates, in times with which history refuses to deal, and to which Esoteric Teachings assign dates incompatible with the theories of Geology and Anthropology. The birth and evolution of the Sacred Science of the Past are lost in the very night of Time, and that even which is historic—_i.e._, that which is found scattered hither and thither throughout ancient classical literature—is, in almost every case, attributed by modern criticism to lack of observation in the ancient writers, or to superstition born out of the ignorance of antiquity. It is, therefore, impossible to treat this subject as one would the ordinary evolution of an art or science in some well‐ known historical nation. It is only by bringing before the reader an abundance of proofs all tending to show that in every age, under every condition of civilization and knowledge, the educated classes of every nation made themselves the more or less faithful echoes of one identical system and its fundamental traditions—that he can be made to see that so many streams of the same water must have had a common source from which they started. What was this source? If coming events are said to cast their shadows before, past events cannot fail to leave their impress behind them. It is, then, by those shadows of the hoary Past and their fantastic silhouettes on the external screen of every Religion and Philosophy, that we can, by checking them as we go along and comparing them, trace out finally the body that produced them. There must be truth and fact in that which every people of antiquity accepted and made the foundation of its religions and its faith. Moreover, as Haliburton said: Hear one side, and you will be in the dark; hear both sides, and all will be clear. The public has hitherto had access to, and has heard but one side, or rather the one‐sided views of two diametrically opposed classes of men, whose _primâ facie_ propositions or respective premises differ widely, but whose final conclusions are the same—the men of Science and Theology. And now our readers have an opportunity of hearing the other, and so of learning the defendants’ justification and the nature of our arguments. If the public is to be left to its old opinions—namely, on one side, that Occultism, Magic, the legends of old etc., are all the outcome of ignorance and superstition; and on the other, that everything outside the orthodox groove is the work of the devil—what will be the result? In other words, had no theosophical and mystic literature obtained a hearing for the last few years, the present work would have had but a poor chance of impartial consideration. It would have been proclaimed—and by many will still be proclaimed—a fairy tale woven out of abstruse problems, poised in, and based on the air; built of soap‐bubbles, bursting at the slightest touch of serious reflection, with no foundation to stand upon. Even the ancient “superstitious and credulous” classical writers have no word of reference to it in clear and unmistakable terms, and the symbols themselves fail to yield a hint of the existence of such a system. Such would be the verdict of all. But when it becomes undeniably proven that the claim of the modern Asiatic nations to a Secret Science and an Esoteric History of the world is based on fact; that though hitherto unknown to the masses and a veiled mystery even to the learned—because they have never had the key to a right understanding of the abundant hints thrown out by the ancient classics—it is still no fairy tale, but an actuality; then the present work will become but the pioneer of many more such books. The statement that hitherto even the keys discovered by some great scholars have proved too rusty for use, and that they are but the silent witnesses that there do exist mysteries behind the veil which are unreachable without a new key, is borne out by too many proofs to be easily dismissed. An instance may be given as an illustration out of the history of Freemasonry. In his _Maçonnerie Occulte_, Ragon, an illustrious and learned Belgian Mason, rightly or wrongly reproaches the English Masons with having materialized and dishonoured Masonry, once based upon the Ancient Mysteries, by adopting, owing to a mistaken notion of the origin of the craft, the name of “Free Masonry” and “Free Masons.” The mistake is due, he says, to those who connect Masonry with the _building_ of Solomon’s Temple. He derides the idea, and says: The Frenchman knew well, when he adopted the title of Freemason, that it was no question of building the smallest wall, but that, initiated into the Mysteries veiled under the name of Freemasonry, which could only be the continuation or the renovation of the ancient Mysteries, he was to become a “Mason” after the manner of Apollo or Amphion. And do not we know that the ancient initiated poets, when speaking of the _foundation of a city_, meant thereby the establishment of a doctrine? Thus Neptune, God of reasoning, and Apollo, God of hidden things, presented themselves as masons before Laomedon, Priam’s father, to help him to build the city of Troy—that is to say, to establish the Trojan religion.(1859) Such veiled sentences with double meaning abound in ancient classical writers. Therefore, if an attempt had been made to show that, for instance, Laomedon was the founder of a branch of Archaic Mysteries, in which the earth‐bound material soul, the Fourth Principle, was personified in Menelaus’ faithless wife, the fair Helen, and if Ragon had not come to corroborate what we asserted, we might have been told that no classical author speaks of it, and that Homer shows Laomedon building a _city_, not founding an _Esoteric Worship_ or _Mysteries_. Who are those left now, save a few Initiates, who understand the language and correct meaning of such symbolical terms? But though we have pointed to many a misconceived symbol bearing on our thesis, there still remains more than one difficulty to be overcome. Most important among several such obstacles is that of chronology. But this could hardly be helped. Wedged in between theological chronology and that of the Geologists, backed by all the materialistic Anthropologists, who assign dates to man and nature which fit in with their own theories alone—what could the writer do except what she has done? Since Theology places the Deluge 2448 B.C., and the World’s Creation only 5890 years ago; and since the accurate researches by the methods of “exact” Science, have led the Geologists and Physicists to assign to the incrusted age of our Globe between ten million and one thousand million of years(1860) (a _trifling_ difference, verily!); and since the Anthropologists, to vary their divergence of opinion as to the appearance of man, ask for between 25,000 and 500,000 years—what can one who studies the Occult Doctrine do, but bravely present the Esoteric calculations before the world? But to do this, corroboration by even a few “historical” proofs has been necessary, though all know the real value of the so‐called “historical evidence.” For, whether man appeared on Earth 18,000 or 18,000,000 years ago, can make no difference to profane history, since it only begins about a couple of thousand years before our era, and since, even then, it grapples hopelessly with the clash and din of contradictory and mutually‐ destroying opinions around it. Nevertheless, in view of the respect in which the average reader has been brought up for exact Science, even that short Past would remain meaningless, unless the Esoteric Teachings were corroborated and supported on the spot—_whenever possible_—by references to historical names of a so‐called historical period. This is the only guide that can be given to the beginner before he is permitted to start among the, to him, unfamiliar windings of that dark labyrinth called the pre‐historic ages. This necessity has been complied with. It is only hoped that the desire to do so, which has led the writer to be constantly bringing ancient and modern evidence as a corroboration of the archaic and quite unhistoric Past, will not bring on her the accusation of having sorely jumbled up, without order or method, the various and widely‐ separated periods of history and tradition. But literary form and method had to be sacrificed to the greater clearness of the general exposition. To accomplish the proposed task, the writer has had to resort to the rather unusual means of dividing each Volume into three Parts; the first of which only is the consecutive, though very fragmentary, history of the Cosmogony and the Evolution of Man on this Globe. In treating of Cosmogony and then of the Anthropogenesis of mankind, it was necessary to show that on religion, from the very earliest, has ever been based entirely on fiction, that none was the object of special revelation, and that it is dogma alone which has ever been killing primeval truth; finally, that no human‐born doctrine, no creed, however sanctified by custom and antiquity, can compare in sacredness with the religion of Nature. The Key of Wisdom that unlocks the massive gates leading to the arcana of the innermost sanctuaries can be found hidden in her bosom only; and that bosom is in the countries pointed to by the great seer of the past century, Emanuel Swedenborg. There lies the Heart of Nature, that shrine whence issued the early races of primeval humanity, and which is the cradle of _physical_ man. Thus far have proceeded the rough outlines of the beliefs and tenets of the archaic, earliest Races, contained in their hitherto secret scriptural Records. But our explanations are by no means complete, nor do they pretend to give out the full text, or to have been read by the help of more than three or four keys out of the sevenfold bunch of Esoteric interpretation; and even this has only been partially accomplished. The work is too gigantic for any one person to undertake, far more to accomplish. Our main concern has been simply to prepare the soil. This, we trust we have done. These two Volumes only constitute the work of a pioneer who has forced his way into the well‐nigh impenetrable jungle of the virgin forests of the Land of the Occult. A commencement has been made in felling and uprooting the deadly upas trees of superstition, prejudice, and conceited ignorance, so that these two Volumes should form for the student a fitting prelude for other works. Until the rubbish of the ages is cleared away from the minds of the Theosophists to whom these pages are dedicated, it is impossible that the more practical teaching contained in the Third Volume should be understood. Consequently, it entirely depends upon the reception with which Volumes I and II shall meet at the hands of Theosophists and Mystics, whether the last Volume will ever be published. SATYÂT NÂSTI PARO DHARMAH. THERE IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN TRUTH. END OF VOLUME II. [Transcriber’s Note: Obvious printer’s errors have been corrected.] FOOTNOTES 1 See _Genesis_ ii. 19. Adam is formed in verse 7, and in verse 19 it is said: “Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them.” Thus man was created _before_ the animals; for the animals mentioned in chapter i are the signs of the Zodiac, while the man, “male and female,” is not man, but the Host of the Sephiroth, Forces, or Angels, “made in his [God’s] image and after his likeness.” The Adam, man, is not made in that likeness, nor is it so asserted in the _Bible_. Moreover, the Second Adam is Esoterically a septenary which represents seven men, or rather groups of men. For the first Adam, the Kadmon, is the synthesis of the _ten_ Sephiroth. Of these, the upper Triad remains in the Archetypal World as the future “Trinity,” while the seven lower Sephiroth create the manifested material world; and this septennate is the Second Adam. _Genesis_, and the mysteries upon which it was fabricated, came from Egypt. The “God” of the 1st chapter of _Genesis_ is the Logos, and the “Lord God” of the 2nd chapter the Creative Elohim, the lower Powers. 2 Thus saith Pymander: “This is the mystery that to this day was hidden. Nature being mingled with the Heavenly Man [Elohim, or Dhyânis], brought forth a wonder ... seven Men, all males and females [Hermaphrodite] ... according to the nature of the seven Governors” (ii. 29), or the seven Hosts of the Pitris or Elohim, who projected or created him. This is very clear, but yet, see the interpretations of even our modern theologians, men supposed to be intellectual and learned. In the _Theological and Philosophical Works of Hermes Trismegistus, Christian [?] Neoplatonist_, a work compiled by John David Chambers, of Oriel College, Oxford, the translator wonders “for whom these seven Men are intended?” He solves the difficulty by concluding that, as “the original pattern Man [Adam Kadmon of _Genesis_ i] was masculine‐feminine, ... the seven may signify the succeeding patriarchs named in _Genesis_” (p. 9). A truly theological way of cutting the Gordian knot! 3 George Smith’s _Chaldean Account of Genesis_, p. 103. 4 Compare _Zohar_, _Siphra Dtzenioutha_, _Idra Suta_, 2928, Franck, _La Kabbale_, p. 205. 5 _Siphra Dtzenioutha._ 6 As it is now asserted that the Chaldæan tablets, which give the allegorical description of Creation, the Fall, and the Flood, even to the legend of the Tower of Babel, were written “before the time of Moses” (Smith’s _Chaldean Account of Genesis_), how can the _Pentateuch_ be called a “revelation”? It is simply another version of the same story. 7 _Philosophumena_, v. 7; Miller’s edition, p. 98. 8 _Ibid._, p. 108. 9 P. 86. 10 See Pliny, iv, c. 12; Strabo, 10; Herodotus, vii, c. 109; Pausanias, vii, c. 4, etc. 11 _Chaldean Account of Genesis_, p. 82. 12 See _Bund._, 79, 12. 13 By “original” we mean the Amshaspend, called “Zarathushtra, the lord and ruler of the Vara made by Yima in that land.” There were several Zarathushtras or Zertusts, the _Dabistan_ alone enumerating thirteen; but these were all reincarnations of the first one. The last Zoroaster was the founder of the Fire‐temple of Azareksh, and the writer of the works on the primeval sacred Magian religion destroyed by Alexander. 14 In India called a “Day of Brahmâ.” 15 x. 86. 16 See Volcker, _Mythological Geography_, pp. 145 to 170. 17 _Mythical Monsters_, p. 47. 18 It is to be remarked, however, that Mr. Wallace does not accept Mr. Sclater’s idea, and even opposes it. Mr. Sclater supposes a land or continent formerly uniting Africa, Madagascar, and India but not Australia and India; and Mr. A. R. Wallace shows, in his _Geographical Distribution of Animals_ and _Island Life_, that the hypothesis of such a land is quite uncalled for on the alleged zoological grounds. But he admits that a much closer proximity of India and Australia did certainly exist, and at a time so very remote that it was “certainly pre‐tertiary,” adding in a private letter that “no name has been given to this supposed land.” Yet the land did exist, and was of course “pre‐tertiary,” for Lemuria, if we accept this name for the third Continent, had perished before Atlantis fully developed, and Atlantis had sunk and its chief portions disappeared before the end of the Miocene period. 19 See _Esoteric Buddhism_. 20 One more “coincidence”: “Now it is proved that in geologically recent times, this region of North Africa was in fact a peninsula of Spain, and that its union with Africa (proper) was effected on the North by the rupture of Gibraltar, and on the South by an upheaval to which the Sahara owes its existence. The shores of this former sea of Sahara are still marked by the shells of the same Gastropoda that live on the shores of the Mediterranean.” (Prof. Oscar Schmidt, _Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism_, p. 244.) 21 iii. fol. 10a. 22 A. Winchell, Professor of Geology, _World‐Life_, p. 369. 23 Mr. Charles Gould, late geological surveyor of Tasmania, in _Mythical Monsters_, p. 84. 24 Sir Charles Lyell, who is credited with having “happily invented” the terms Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene, to mark the three divisions of the Tertiary Age, ought really to have settled upon some approximate length for his “mind‐offspring.” Having left the duration of these periods, however, to the speculations of specialists, the greatest confusion and perplexity are the result of that happy thought. It seems like a hopeless task to succeed in quoting a single set of figures from one work, without the risk of finding it contradicted by the same author in an earlier or a subsequent volume. Sir William Thomson, one of the most eminent among the modern authorities, has changed his opinion about half‐a‐ dozen times upon the age of the Sun and the date of the consolidation of the Earth’s crust. In Thomson and Tait’s _Natural Philosophy_, we find only ten million years allowed since the time when the temperature of the Earth permitted vegetable life to appear on it. (App. E _et seq._; also _Trans. Roy. Soc. Edin._, xxiii. Pt. 1, 157, 1862, where 847 is cancelled.) Mr. Darwin gives Sir William Thomson’s estimate as “a minimum of 98 and a maximum of 200 millions of years since the consolidation of the crust.” (See Ch. Gould, _op. cit._, p. 83.) In the same work (_Nat. Phil._) 80 millions are given from the time of incipient incrustation to the present state of the world. And in his last lecture, as shown elsewhere, Sir William Thomson declares (1887) that the Sun is not older than 15 millions of years! Meanwhile, basing his arguments as to the limits of the age of the Sun’s heat, on figures previously established by Sir William Thomson, Mr. Croll allows 60 millions of years since the beginning of the Cambrian period. This is hopeful for the lovers of _exact_ knowledge. Thus, whatever figures are given by Occult Science, they are sure to be corroborated by those of some one among the modern men of Science who are considered as authorities. 25 See _Proceedings_, Royal Society, London, xxviii. 281. 26 Gould, _Mythical Monsters_, p. 91. 27 Only forty‐nine Shlokas out of several hundred are here given, and not every verse is translated verbatim, a periphrasis being sometimes used for the sake of clearness and intelligibility, where a literal translation would be quite unintelligible. 28 The idea and the spirit of the sentence only is here given, as a verbal translation would convey very little to the reader. 29 The Fourth Globe, or our Earth. All the glosses on the translation of the text of the Stanzas and Commentaries are the writer’s. In some places they may be incomplete and even inadequate from the Hindû standpoint; but in the meaning attached to them in Trans‐ Himâlayan Esotericism they are correct. In every case the writer takes any blame upon herself. As she has never claimed personal infallibility, that which is given on her own authority may leave much to be desired, particularly in the very abstruse cases where too deep metaphysic is involved. The teaching is offered as it is understood; and seeing that there are seven keys of interpretation to every symbol and allegory, a meaning which may not be suitable from, say, the psychological or astronomical aspect, will nevertheless be found quite correct from the physical or metaphysical. 30 The Planetary Spirits. 31 Loka Chakshus. 32 The Planets. 33 According to Dr. A. Wilder’s learned definition, Genesis, γένεσις, is not generation, but “_a coming out of the eternal_ into the Cosmos and Time”; “a coming from _esse_ into _exsistere_,” or from “Be‐ness” into “Being”—as a Theosophist would say. 34 For a clearer explanation of the origins, as contained in the Esotericism of the _Bhagavad Gita_, see the Notes thereon published in _The Theosophist_ for February, March and June, 1887, Madras. 35 See the Sephirothal Tree. 36 _Zohar_, _Idra Suta_, Sec. VII. 37 J. B. Alden; New York, 1888: ii. 432, 434. 38 It has been repeatedly stated that the Serpent is the symbol of wisdom and of Occult knowledge. “The Serpent has been connected with the god of wisdom from the earliest times of which we have any historical notice,” writes C. Staniland Wake. “This animal was the especial symbol of Thoth or Taut ... and of all those gods, such as Hermes [?] and Seth who can be connected with him. This is true also of the third member of the primitive Chaldæan triad, Hea or Hoa.” According to Sir Henry Rawlinson, “the most important titles of this deity refer to ‘his functions as the source of all knowledge and science.’ Not only is he ‘the intelligent fish,’ but his name may be read as signifying both ‘life’ and a ‘serpent’ [an initiated Adept], and he may be considered as ‘figured by the great serpent which occupies so conspicuous a place among the symbols of the gods on the black stones recording Babylonian benefactions.’ ” (_The Great Pyramid_, p. 75). Esculapius, Serapis, Pluto, Esmun and Kneph, are all deities with the attributes of the serpent, says Dupuis. They are all _healers_, givers of health, spiritual and physical, and of _enlightenment_. The crown formed of an asp, the Thermuthis belongs to Isis, Goddess of Life and Healing. The _Upanishads_ have a treatise on the _Science of Serpents_—in other words, the Science of Occult Knowledge; and the Nâgas of the exoteric Buddhist are not “the fabulous creatures, of the nature of serpents ... being superior to man, and regarded as protectors of the law of Buddha,” as Schlagintweit believes, but real living men, some superior to men by virtue of their Occult Knowledge, and the _protectors of Buddha’s law_, inasmuch as _they interpret his metaphysical tenets correctly_, others inferior _morally_ as being “black magicians.” Therefore it is truly declared that Gautama Buddha “is said to have taught them a more philosophical religious system than to men, who were not sufficiently advanced to understand it at the time of his appearance” (_ibid._, p. 72). 39 Compare the _Symbols of the Bonzes_. 40 The Mandragora is the Mandrake of the _Bible_, of Rachel and Leah. The roots of the plant are fleshy, hairy, and forked, representing roughly the limbs, the body, and even head of a man. Its magical and mysterious properties have been proclaimed in fable and play from the most archaic ages. From Rachel and Leah, who indulged in witchcraft with them, down to Shakespeare, who speaks of “shrieking”— “Like mandrakes torn out of the earth That living mortals, hearing them, run mad” —the mandragora was _the_ magic plant _par excellence_. These roots are without any apparent stalk, large leaves growing out of the head of the root, like a gigantic crop of hair. They present little similitude to man when found in Spain, Italy, Asia Minor, or Syria, but on the Isle of Candia, and in Karamania near the city of Adan, they have a wonderfully human form, and are very highly prized as amulets. They are also worn by women as a charm against sterility, and for other purposes. They are especially effective in “Black Magic.” 41 The Sun. 42 Earth. 43 Copernicus wrote his theories on the “Revolution of the Heavenly Bodies” in the sixteenth century, and the _Zohar_, even if compiled by Moses de Leon in the thirteenth century, states that: “In the Book of Hammannunah, the Old (or, the Ancient), we learn ... that the earth turns upon itself in the form of a circle; that some are on top, the others below; that ... there are some countries of the earth which are lightened, whilst others are in darkness; these have the day, when for the former it is night; and there are countries in which it is constantly day, or in which at least the night continues only some instants.” (_Zohar_, iii, fol. 10a, quoted in Myer’s _Qabbalah_, p. 139.) 44 See also the 21st Fargard of the _Vendídád_ on the celestial militia. 45 _Idolat._, II. 373. 46 Science teaches that Venus receives from the Sun twice as much light and heat as the Earth. Thus this Planet, precursor of the dawn and the twilight, the most radiant of all the Planets, is said to give the Earth one‐third of the supply she receives, and has two parts left for herself. This has an Occult as well as an astronomical meaning. 47 “As it is above, so below,” is the fundamental axiom of Occult Philosophy. As the Logos is seven‐fold, _i.e._, throughout Kosmos it appears as seven Logoi under seven different forms, or, as taught by learned Brâhmans, “each of these is the central figure of one of the seven main branches of the ancient Wisdom Religion”; and, as the seven principles which correspond to the seven distinct states of Prajnâ, or Consciousness, are allied to seven states of Matter and seven forms of Force, the division must be the same in all that concerns the Earth. 48 Venus is thus ♀, the Earth ♁. 49 In the Esoteric Philosophy it is male and female, or hermaphrodite; hence the “bearded” Venus in mythology. 50 Therefore, putting aside its religio‐metaphysical aspect, the Cross of the Christians is symbolically far more phallic than the Pagan Svastika. Compare vol. i. pp. 34, 35. 51 The ansated cross is the astronomical planetary sign of Venus, “signifying the existence of _parturient energy_ in the sexual sense, and this was one of the attributes of Isis, the Mother, of Eve, Hauvah, or Mother‐Earth, and was so recognized among all the ancient peoples in one or another mode of expression.” (From a modern Kabalistic MS.) 52 See Moore’s _Hindû Pantheon_. 53 Athenæus shows that the first letter of Satan’s name was represented in days of old by an arc and crescent; and some Roman Catholics, kind, good men, would persuade the public that it is in honour of Lucifer’s crescent‐like horns that Mussulmans have chosen the crescent for their national arms. Venus, ever since the establishment of Roman Catholic dogmatism, has been identified with Satan and Lucifer, or the Great Dragon, contrary to all reason and logic. As shown by symbologists and Astronomers: “The association between the serpent and the idea of darkness had an astronomical foundation. The position which the constellation Draco at one time occupied showed that the Great Serpent was the ruler of the night. This constellation was formerly at the very centre of the heavens, and is so extensive that it was called the Great Dragon. Its body spreads over seven signs of the Zodiac; and Dupuis, who sees in the Dragon of the Apocalypse a reference to the celestial serpent, says, ‘It is not astonishing that a constellation so extended should be represented by the author of that book as a great dragon with seven heads, who drew the third part of the stars from heaven and cast them to the earth.’ ” (Staniland Wake, _The Great Pyramid_, p. 79; Dupuis, iii. 255.) Only Dupuis never knew _why_ Draco, once the pole‐star—the symbol of Guide, Guru and Director—had been thus degraded by posterity. “The Gods of our fathers are our devils,” says an Asiatic proverb. When Draco ceased to be the “lode‐star,” the guiding sidereal divinity, it shared the fate of all the fallen Gods. Seth and Typhon was at one time, Bunsen tells us, “a great God universally adored throughout Egypt, who conferred on the sovereigns of the 18th and 19th Dynasties the symbols of life and power. But subsequently, in the course of the 20th Dynasty, he is suddenly treated as an evil Demon, insomuch that his effigies and name are obliterated on all the monuments and inscriptions that could be reached.” The real Occult reason will be given in these pages. 54 _De Civitate Dei_, LXXI. viii. 55 Shukra is the son of Bhrigu the great Rishi, and one of the Seven Prajâpati, the founder of the Race of Bhârgavas, in which Parashu Râma is born. 56 This is a flat contradiction of Swedenborg, who _saw_, in “the first Earth of the Astral World,” inhabitants dressed as are the peasants in Europe; and on the Fourth Earth women clad as are the shepherdesses in a _bal masqué_! Even the famous astronomer Huygens laboured under the mistaken idea that other worlds and planets have species of beings identical with those who live on our Earth, possessing the same figures, senses, brain‐power, arts, sciences, dwellings, even to the same fabric for their wearing apparel! (_Théorie du Monde._) 57 This is a modern gloss. It is added to the old Commentaries for the clearer comprehension of those disciples who study Esoteric Cosmogony after having passed through Western learning. The earlier Glosses are too redundant with adjectives and figures of speech to be easily assimilated. 58 “Beyond” the Great Range, means, in this case, India, as being the Trans‐Himâlayan region for the Tibetan region. 59 The term Pitris is used by us in these Shlokas to facilitate their comprehension, but it is not so used in the original Stanzas, where they have distinct appellations of their own, besides being called “Fathers” and “Progenitors.” 60 It is erroneous to take literally the _worship_ of the human Bodhisattvas, or Manjushrî. It is true that, exoterically, the Mahâyâna school teaches adoration of these without distinction, and that Huien‐Tsang speaks of some disciples of Buddha as being worshipped. But, Esoterically, it is not the disciple or the learned Manjushrî _personally_ that received honours, but the divine Bodhisattvas and Dhyâni‐Buddhas that animated (_amilakha_, as the Mongolians say) the human forms. 61 The author of this work is Augustus Le Plongeon. He and his wife are well known in the United States for their untiring labours in Central America. It is they who discovered the sepulchre of the royal Kan Coh, at Cichen‐Itza. The author seems to believe and to seek to prove that the Esoteric learning of the Âryans and the Egyptians was derived from the Mayas. But, although certainly coëval with Plato’s Atlantis, the Mayas belonged to the Fifth Continent, which was preceded by Atlantis and Lemuria. 62 More correctly _In Matrem Deorum_, _Oratio_ v. 63 P. 143. 64 These _seven caves_, _seven cities_, etc., etc., stand in every case for the seven centres, or zones, upon which the seven primitive groups of the first Root‐Race were born. 65 The engraving is reproduced in the _Sacred Mysteries of the Mayas and the Quiches_ on p. 134. 66 See _Source of Measures_, p. 50‐53. 67 See _Isis Unveiled_, II. pp. 300 _et seq._, for a proof of the antiquity of the decimal system of figures. 68 See _Masonic Review_, Cincinnati, June, 1886, Art. “The Cabbalah.—No. VI,” p. 10. 69 _Ibid._, _loc. cit._ 70 _Ibid._, p. 11. 71 See _Source of Measures_, pp. 276, _et seq._, App. VII. 72 Art., _Masonic Review_, pp. 11, 12. 73 In the Book _Al‐Chazari_, by Jehuda‐ha‐Levi, translated by Dr. D. Cassel. 74 Art. cited, pp. 12, 13. 75 i. pp. 117 _et seq._ 76 Art. cited, p. 2. 77 _Ibid._, p. 14. 78 The appellation _Ak‐ad_ (or Akkadians) is of the same class as _Ad‐ m_, _Ha‐va_ (Eve) _Æd‐en_ (Eden); _Ak‐Ad_ meaning “Son of _Ad_,” like the sons of Ad in Ancient Arabia. _Ad‐ad_, the “only one” and the “first,” was the _Ad‐on_ or “Lord” of Syria and consort of _Ad‐ ar‐gat_ or Aster’t, the Syrian Goddess. And Gan‐Æden (Eden) or Gandunia was Babylonia and Mesopotamia. In Assyrian _Ak_ meant Creator, the letter _k_ being pronounced _kh_ (_ah_) gutturally. According to Swedenborg’s mysticism Adam was not a man but a church (?) of primitive light. In the _Vedas_, _Ad_‐iti is the primitive light, the Âkâsha of the phenomenal world. 79 Adam‐Jehovah, Brahmâ and Mars are, in one sense, identical; they are all symbols for primitive or initial _generative powers_ for the purposes of human procreation. Adam is red, and so also are Brahmâ‐Virâj and Mars—God and Planet. Water is the “blood” of the Earth; therefore, all these names are connected with Earth and Water. “It takes _earth_ and _water_ to create a _human_ soul,” says Moses. Mars is identical with Kârttikeya, God of War (in one sense)—which God is born of the Sweat of Shiva, Shiva‐gharmaja and the Earth. In the _Mahâbhârata_ he is shown as born without the intervention of a woman. And he is also called Lohita, the Red, like Adam, and the other “first men.” Hence, the author of _The Source of Measures_ is quite right in thinking that Mars (and all the other Gods of like attributes), “being the _god of war_ and of _bloodshed_, was but a secondary idea flowing out of the primary one of shedding of blood in conception for the first time.” Hence Jehovah became later a fighting God, “Lord of Hosts,” and one who commands war. He is the aggressive Zodh—or Cain, by permutation, who _slew_ his (female) _brother_, whose “blood crieth from the ground,” the _Earth_ having opened _her mouth_ to receive the _blood_. (_Genesis_ iii.) 80 Apollo Karneios is certainly a Greek transformation from the Hindû Krishna‐Karna. Karna means radiant, and Karneios, which was a title of Apollo with the Celts as with the Greeks, meant “Sun‐born.” 81 Kumuda‐Pati. 82 Pitri‐Pati. 83 Budha, Mercury. 84 The Moon. 85 Ushanas‐Shukra, or Venus, is our Lucifer, the Morning‐Star, of course. The ingenuity of this allegory in its manifold meanings is great indeed. Thus Brihaspati (the Planet Jupiter), or Brahmanaspati, is, in the _Rig Veda_, a deity who is the symbol and the prototype of the _exoteric_ or ritualistic worship. He is priest, sacrificer, suppliant, and the medium through which the prayers of mortals reach the Gods. He is the Purohita (Family Priest, or Court Chaplain) of the Hindû Olympus and the spiritual Guru of the Gods. Soma is the Mystery God and presides over the mystic and Occult nature in man and the Universe. Târâ, the priest’s wife, who symbolizes the worshipper, prefers Esoteric truths to their mere shell, exotericism; hence she is shown as carried off by Soma. Now Soma is the sacred juice of that name, giving mystic visions and trance revelations, the _result of which union_ is Budha (Wisdom), Mercury, Hermes, etc.; that Science in short which to this day is proclaimed by the Brihaspatis of Theology as Devilish and Satanic. What wonder that by expanding the cycle of this allegory we find Christian Theology espousing the quarrel of the Hindû Gods, and regarding Ushanas (Lucifer), who helped Soma against that ancient personification of ritualistic worship (Brahmanaspati, the Lord of the Brâhmans, now become Jupiter‐Jehovah) as Satan, the “Enemy of God”! 86 As shown elsewhere, it is only the Heavenly Man, Adam‐Kadmon, of the first chapter of _Genesis_, who is made “in the image and likeness of God.” Adam of the second chapter is not said to be made in that _image_ nor in the divine likeness, before he ate of the forbidden fruit. The former Adam is the Sephirothal Host; the second Adam is the mindless First human Root‐Race; the third Adam is the Race that separated, whose eyes are opened. 87 The Earth. 88 Achyuta is an almost untranslatable term. It means that which is not subject to fall or change for the worse: the Unfalling; and it is the reverse of Chyuta, the Fallen. The Dhyânîs who incarnate in the human forms of the Third Root‐Race and endow them with intellect (Manas) are called the Chyuta for they fall into generation. 89 This is perhaps the reason why, in the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_, we are told that Brahmâ had communicated to Nârada in the beginning that all men whatsoever, even Mlechchhas, outcasts and barbarians, might know the true nature of Vâsudeva and learn to have faith in that Deity. 90 See _Asiatic Researches_, i. 265. 91 _Book of God_, 60. 92 Shesha, who is also Ananta, the infinite, and the “Cycle of Eternity” in Esotericism, is credited with having given his astronomical knowledge to Garga, the oldest astronomer of India, who propitiated him, and forthwith knew all about the Planets and how to read omens. 93 See _The History of Indian Literature_, p. 253, by Prof. A. Weber: in Trübner’s Oriental Series. 94 Even the Maya Indians of Guatemala had their Zodiac from untold antiquity. And “primitive man acted in the same manner independently of time or locality in every age,” observes a French writer. 95 _Ibid._, p. 2. 96 The _Tirukkanda Panchanga_, for the Kali Yuga 4986, by Chintamany Raghauaracharya, son of the famous Government astronomer of Madras, and Tartakamala Venkata Krishna Rao. 97 Of years, 300 million years, or Three Occult Ages. The _Rig Veda_ has the same division. In the “Physician’s Hymn,” (X 97 1) it is said that “the plants came into being _Three Ages_ (Triyugam) before the gods” on our Earth. (See “Chronology of the Brâhmans” at the end of this Stanza.) 98 Forms. 99 Minerals. 100 Vegetation. 101 Sarísripa, svapada. 102 The Earth. 103 These two must not be confused with the Seven Creations or Divisions in each Kalpa. The _Primary_ and _Secondary_ Creations are here meant. 104 In _Bereschith Rabba_, Parscha IX. 105 i. 31. 106 See _Hibbert Lectures_, 1887, Sayce, p. 39. 107 Whence the identity of the ideas? The Chinese have the same traditions. According to the commentator Kwoh P’oh, in the work called _Shan‐Hai‐King_, “Wonders by Sea and Land,” a work which was written by the historiographer Chung Ku from engravings on nine urns made by the Emperor Yü (B.C. 2255), an interview is mentioned with men _having two distinct faces on their heads_, before and behind, monsters with bodies of goats and human faces, etc. Gould, in his _Mythical Monsters_ (p. 27), giving the names of some authors on Natural History, mentions _Shan‐Hai‐King_. “According to the commentator Kwoh P’oh (A.D. 276‐324) this work was compiled three thousand years before his time, or at seven dynasties’ distance. Yang Sun of the Ming Dynasty (commencing A.D. 1368) states that it was compiled by Kung Chia and Chung Ku (?)”—as stated above. “Chung Ku ... at the time of the last emperor of the Hia dynasty (B.C. 1818), fearing that the emperor might destroy the books treating of the ancient time, carried them in his flight to Yin.” 108 Cory’s _Ancient Fragments_, original edition, p. 25. 109 _Qabbalah_, p. 246. 110 From the mineral, vegetable, and animal remains. 111 Rounds. 112 Solar‐lunar. 113 Gods and Planetary Spirits, especially the Ribhus. “The three Ribhus” who also become “thrice seven” in number of their gifts. 114 Remember the “winged races” of Plato, and the _Popol Vuh_ accounts of the first human race, which could walk, fly, and see objects, however distant. 115 See _Mythical Monsters_, by Charles Gould. 116 In the first volume of the lately published _Introduction à l’Étude des Races Humaines_, by M. de Quatrefages, there is proof that since the Post‐Tertiary Period and even before that time—since many Races were already scattered during that Age on the face of the Earth—man has not altered one iota in his physical structure. And if man was surrounded for ages by a fauna that altered from one period or cycle to another, which died out, which was reborn in other forms—so that now there does not exist one single animal on Earth, large or small, contemporary with the man of that period—if, then, every animal has been transformed save man himself, this fact goes to prove not only his antiquity, but that he is a _distinct Kingdom_. Why should he alone have escaped transformation? Because, says de Quatrefages, the weapon used by him, in his struggle with Nature, and the ever‐ changing geological conditions and elements, was “his _psychic force_, not his physical strength or body,” as in the case of animals. Give man only that dose of intelligence and reason with which other mammalia are endowed, and with his present bodily organization he will show himself the most helpless of creatures of Earth. And as everything goes to prove that the human organism with all its characteristics, peculiarities and idiosyncrasies existed already on our Globe in those far distant geological periods when there was not yet _one single specimen of the now‐existing forms of mammalia_, what is the unavoidable conclusion? Why this: Since all the human races are of one and the same species, it follows that this species is the _most ancient of all_ the now‐living mammalia. Therefore it is the most stable and persevering of all, and was already as fully developed as it is now when all the other mammalia now known had not made even their first approach to appearance on this Earth. Such is the opinion of the great French Naturalist, who gives thereby a terrible blow to Darwinism. 117 They said. 118 The Monads of the “presentments” of men of the Third Round, the huge ape‐like forms. 119 The Waters. 120 In the Esoteric System the seven “principles” in man are represented by seven letters. The first two are _more_ sacred than the four letters of the Tetragrammaton. 121 The Intermediate Spheres, wherein the Monads, which have not reached Nirvâna, are said to slumber in unconscious inactivity between the Manvantaras. 122 Explained elsewhere. The Three Fires, Pâvaka, Pavamâna, and Shuchi, who had forty‐five Sons, who, with their three Fathers, and their Father Agni, constitute the forty‐nine Fires. Pavamâna, Fire produced by friction, is the parent of the “Fire of the Asuras”; Shuchi, Solar Fire, is the parent of the “Fire of the Gods”; and Pâvaka, Electric Fire, is the Father of the “Fire of the Pitris.” (See _Vâyu Purâna_.) But this is an explanation on the material and terrestrial plane. The Flames are evanescent and only periodical; the Fires—eternal in their triple unity. They correspond to the _four_ lower, and the _three_ higher human “principles.” 123 The Suras, who become later the A‐Suras. 124 Âtmâ, Buddhi and Manas. In Devachan the higher element of the Manas is needed to make it a state of perception and consciousness for the disembodied Monad. 125 _Catechism_, Book iii. Sec. 9. 126 See _Vishnu Purâna_, Book I. Ch. V., closing Shloka. Fitzedward Hall’s rendering of the text, in Wilson’s Translation, i. 88. Also _Mânava‐Dharma Shâstra_, i. 30. 127 This has in Esotericism a direct bearing upon the seven “principles” of the manifested Brahmâ, or Universe, in the same order as in man. Exoterically, it is only four “principles.” 128 Wilson’s Translation, i. 81. 129 Demons is a very loose word to use, as it applies to a great number of inferior—_i.e._, more material—Spirits, or minor Gods, who are so termed because they “war” with the higher ones; but they are no devils. 130 The same order of principles in man: Âtmâ (Spirit), Buddhi (Soul), its vehicle, as Matter is the Vâhan of Spirit, and Manas (Mind), the third, or the fifth microcosmically. On the _plane of personality_, Manas is the first. 131 Thus, says the Commentary, the saying, “by day the Gods are most powerful, and by night the Demons,” is purely allegorical. 132 This “thinking of oneself” as this, that, or the other, is the chief factor in the production of every kind of psychic or even physical phenomena. The words “whosoever shall say to this mountain be thou removed and cast into the sea, and _shall not doubt_ ... that thing will come to pass,” are no vain words. Only the word “faith” ought to be translated by “Will.” Faith without Will is like a wind‐mill without _wind_—barren of results. 133 The same idea is found in the first four chapters of _Genesis_, with their “Lord” and “God,” which are the Elohim and the Androgynous Eloha. 134 P. 398. 135 P. 107. 136 Spirits. 137 Also Spirits. 138 vi. 2‐6. 139 But see the difficulties suggested later, in the works of various Geologists, against this theory. Compare Sir R. S. Ball’s articles in _Nature_, xxv, 79‐82, 103‐107, Nov. 24 and Dec. 1, 1881. 140 The Rûpas. 141 The Goddess who gave birth to these primordial monsters, in the account of Berosus, was Thalatth, in Greek Thalassa, the “Sea.” 142 See, for comparison, the account of creation by Berosus, as preserved in Alexander Polyhistor, and the hideous beings born from the two‐fold principle—Earth and Water—in the abyss of Primordial Creation: Narâs (Centaurs, men with the limbs of horses and human bodies), and Kinnaras (men with the heads of horses) created by Brahmâ in the commencement of the Kalpa. 143 For a similar admission see Prof. Lefèvre’s _Philosophy_, 481. 144 xii. 10,308. 145 The Esoteric Doctrine says that this “Cosmic Evolution” refers only to our Solar System; while exoteric Hindûism makes the figures refer, if we do not mistake, to the whole Universal System. 146 Another point of disagreement. Occultism says that the astral prototypes of the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms up to man have taken that time (300 million years) to evolve, reforming out of the cast‐off materials of the preceding Round, which, though very dense and physical in their own cycle, are relatively ethereal as compared with the materiality of our present middle Round. At the expiration of these 300 million years, Nature, on the way to the physical and material, down the arc of descent, begins with mankind and works downwards, hardening or materializing forms as it proceeds. Thus the fossils found in strata, to which an antiquity, not of eighteen, but of many hundreds of millions of years, must be ascribed, belong in reality to forms of the preceding Round, which, while living, were far more ethereal than physical, _as we know the physical_. That we perceive and disinter them as tangible forms, is due to the process of materialization or crystallization referred to, which took place subsequently, at the beginning of the Fourth Round, and reached its maximum after the appearance of man, proceeding parallel with his physical evolution. This alone illustrates the fact that the degree of materiality of the Earth changes _pari passu_ with that of its inhabitants. And thus man now finds, as tangible fossils, what were once the (to his present senses) ethereal forms of the lower kingdoms. The above Brâhmanical figures refer to evolution beginning on Globe A, and in the First Round. In this Volume we speak only of this, the Fourth Round. 147 This difference and the change of cyphers in the last three triplets of figures, the writer cannot undertake to account for. According to every calculation, once the three hundred millions are subtracted, the figures ought to stand, 1,655,884,687. But they are given as stated in the Tamil calendar above‐named and as they were translated. The school of the late Pandit Dayânand Sarasvati, founder of the Ârya Samâj, gives a date of 1,960,852,987. See the _Ârya Magazine_ of Lahore, the cover of which bears the words: “Âryan era 1,960,852,987.” 148 Vaivasvata Manu is the one Human Being—some versions add to him the seven Rishis—who in the Matsya Avatâra allegory is saved from the Deluge in a boat, like Noah in the Ark. Therefore, this Vaivasvata Manvantara would be the “post‐diluvian” period. This, however, does not refer to the later “Atlantean” or Noah’s Deluge, nor to the Cosmic “Deluge” or Pralaya of obscuration, which preceded our Round, but to the appearance of mankind in the latter Round. There is a great difference made, however, between the Naimitika, Occasional or Incidental, Prâkritika, Elemental, Atyantika, the Absolute, and Nitya, the Perpetual Pralaya; the latter being described as “Brahmâ’s contingent recoalescence of the Universe at the end of Brahmâ’s Day.” The question was raised by a learned Brâhman Theosophist: “Whether there is such a thing as Cosmic Pralaya; because, otherwise, the Logos (Krishna) would have to be reborn, and he is Aja (unborn).” We cannot see why. The Logos is said to be born only metaphorically, as the Sun is born daily, or rather a beam of that Sun is born in the morning and is said to die when it disappears, whereas it is simply reäbsorbed into the parent essence. Cosmic Pralaya is for things visible, not for the Arûpa, Formless, World. The Cosmic or Universal Pralaya comes only at the end of one hundred Years of Brahmâ, when the Universal Dissolution is said to take place. Then the Avyaya, say the exoteric Scriptures, the Eternal Life symbolized by Vishnu, assuming the character of Rudra, the Destroyer, enters into the Seven Rays of the Sun and drinks up all the waters of the Universe. “Thus fed, the seven Solar Rays dilate to _seven suns_ and set fire to the whole Cosmos.” 149 Since a Mahâ Yuga is the 1,000th part of a Day of Brahmâ. 150 _Op. cit._, Art. “Geology.” 151 _Ibid._ This allows a chance even to the Biblical “Adam Chronology” of 6,000 years. 152 _Modern Science and Modern Thought_, 48. 153 To the Silurian period as regards molluscs and animal life—granted; but what do they know of man? 154 _Ibid._, _loc. cit._ 155 _Ibid._, 49. 156 Winchell, _World‐Life_, 180. 157 _Op. cit._, 49. 158 Wilson’s _Vishnu Purâna_, i. 51. 159 i. 32. 160 The atmosphere, or the air, the firmament. 161 _Harivamsha_, i. 36. 162 _Genesis_, i. 6‐9. 163 Lords. 164 They were told. 165 _i.e._, the Jivas or Monads. 166 Mother Earth or Nature. 167 For external bodies. 168 According to the wonderful chronology of Bentley, who wrote in days when Biblical chronology was still undisputed; and also according to that of those modern Orientalists who dwarf the Hindû dates as far as they can. 169 Now Shrî is the daughter of Bhrigu, one of the Prajâpatis and Rishis, the chief of the Bhrigus, the “Consumers,” the Aërial Class of Gods. She is Lakshmî, the wife of Vishnu, and she is Gaurî, the “bride of Shiva,” and she is Sarasvatî, the “watery,” the wife of Brahmâ, because the three Gods and Goddesses are one, under three aspects. Read the explanation by Parâshara, in _Vishnu Purâna_ (I. viii., Wilson’s Trans., i. 119), and you will understand. “The lord of Shrî is the moon,” he says, and “Shrî is the wife of Nârâyana, the God of Gods”: Shrî or Lakshmî (Venus) is Indrânî, as she is Sarasvatî, for in the words of Parâshara: “Harî [or Îshvara, the ‘Lord’] is all that is called male [in the Universe]; Lakshmî is all that is termed female. There is nothing else than they.” Hence she is female, and “God” is male Nature. 170 Shrî is Goddess of, and herself “Fortune and Prosperity.” 171 _Masonic Review_ (Cincinnati), June, 1886. Art. “The Cabbalah.—No. VI,” 15‐17. 172 The Moon‐Gods. 173 _Vishnu Purâna_, I. vii., Wilson’s Trans., i. 101. 174 See _Mahâbhârata_, _Mokshadharma Parvan_. 175 Because, as the allegory shows, the Gods who had no personal merit of their own, dreading the sanctity of those self‐striving incarnated Beings who had become Ascetics and Yogîs, and thus threatened to upset the power of the former by their _self‐acquired_ powers—denounced them. All this has a deep philosophical meaning and refers to the evolution and acquirement of divine powers through _self‐exertion_. Some Rishi‐Yogîs are shown in the _Purânas_ to be far more powerful than the Gods. Secondary Gods or temporary Powers in Nature (the Forces) are doomed to disappear; it is only the spiritual Potentiality in man which can lead him to become one with the INFINITE and the ABSOLUTE. 176 The Triangle becomes a Pentagon (five‐fold) on Earth. 177 Seth, as Bunsen and others have shown, is not only the “primitive God” of the Semites—early Jews included—but also their “semi‐divine ancestor.” For, says Bunsen (_God in History_, i. 233, 234): “The Seth of Genesis, the father of Enoch (the man) must be considered as originally running parallel with that derived from the Elohim, Adam’s father.” “According to Bunsen, the Deity (the God Seth) was the _primitive god_ of Northern Egypt and Palestine,” says Staniland Wake, in _The Great Pyramid_ (p. 61). And Seth became considered in the later Theology of the Egyptians as an “evil demon,” says the same Bunsen, for he is one with Typhon and one with the Hindû Demons as a logical sequel. 178 _I Corinth._, xv. 47. 179 _Vâyu Purâna_; _Harivamsha_, 170. 180 See Mather’s _Kabbalah Unveiled_, p. 302. 181 Translated in Isaac Myer’s _Qabbalah_, p. 386. 182 _Zohar_ iii., 135a, 292a, _Idra Zootah_. Brody Ed., _Idrah Zootah_. 183 _Gen._ xxvi. 31 _et seq._; Myer’s _Qabbalah_, _ibid._ 184 _Zohar_, iii. 290a, Brody Ed. Indrah Zootah, quoted in Isaac Myer’s _Qabbalah_, pp. 387, 388. 185 ii. 5. 186 Or Mind‐born. 187 Fohat. 188 “Huxley, supported by the most evident discoveries in Comparative Anatomy, could utter the momentous sentence that the anatomical differences between man and the highest apes are less than those between the latter and the lowest apes. In relation to our genealogical tree of man, the necessary conclusion follows that the human race has _evolved gradually from the true apes_.” (_The Pedigree of Man_, by Ernst Hæckel, translated by Ed. B. Aveling, p. 49.) What may be the scientific and logical objections to the opposite conclusion—we would ask? The anatomical resemblances between Man and the Anthropoids—grossly exaggerated as they are by Darwinists, as M. de Quatrefages shows—are simply enough accounted for when the origin of the latter is taken into consideration. “Nowhere, in the older deposits, is an ape to be found that approximates more closely to man, or a man that approximates more closely to an ape.” “The same gulf which is found to‐day between man and ape, goes back with undiminished breadth and depth to the Tertiary period. This fact alone is enough to make its untenability clear.” (Dr. F. Pfaff, Prof. of Natural Science in the University of Erlangen.) 189 See _Yoga Shâstra_, ii. 32. 190 Voltaire. 191 _Mânava‐Dharma Shâstra_, iii. 196. 192 _Matsya_ and _Padma Purânas_ and Kullûka on the _Mânava‐Dharma Shâstra_, iii. 195. We are quite aware that the _Vâyu_ and _Matsya Purânas_ identify (agreeably to Western interpretation) the Agnishvâtta with the seasons, and the Barhishad Pitris with the months; adding a fourth class—Kâvyas—cyclic years. But do not Christian Roman Catholics identify their Angels with Planets, and are not the Seven Rishis become the Saptarshis—a constellation? They are Deities presiding over all the cyclic divisions. 193 _Vishnu Purâna_, Wilson, iii. 158, 159. 194 Shll. 935, 936. 195 The _Vâyu Purâna_ shows the region called Virâja‐loka inhabited by the Agnishvâttas. 196 Wilson, _ibid._, iii. 17. Note by Fitzedward Hall. 197 _Loc. cit._, _ibid._ 198 See _Theosophist_, February, 1887, p. 360. 199 See Wilson, ii. 26. 200 See _Vâyu Purâna_. 201 Chhâyâs. 202 Or Amânasas. 203 Thus. 204 Complexion. 205 Also. 206 Creator. 207 Phantoms. 208 Image or shadow. 209 This was hinted at in _Isis Unveiled_ (I. xxxviii.), though the full explanation could not then be given: “The Pitris are not the ancestors of the present living men, but those of the [first] human kind or Adamic race; the spirits of _human_ races, which, on the great scale of descending evolution, preceded our races of men, and were physically, as well as spiritually, far superior to our modern pigmies. In _Mânava‐Dharma Shâstra_ they are called the _Lunar_ ancestors.” 210 See the “Laws of Manu”—_Mânava‐Dharma Shâstra_, iii. 203. 211 “Sacred Books of the East,” Vol. IV, _The Zend‐Avesta_, Pt. I. lviii, Trans. by James Darmesteter. 212 Compare also what is said about Makara and the Kumâras in connection with the Zodiac. 213 Whence the subsequent assertions of St. John’s vision, referred to in his Apocalypse, about, “the great red dragon having seven heads and _ten_ horns, and seven crowns upon his heads,” whose “tail drew the _third part_ of the stars of heaven and did cast them to the earth.” (Ch. xii.) 214 See _Harivamsha_, 932. 215 The verse “did cast them to the earth,” plainly shows its origin in the grandest and oldest allegory of the Âryan Mystics, who, after the destruction of the Atlantean _giants_ and _sorcerers_, concealed the truth—_astronomical_, _physical_, and _divine_, as it is a page out of _pre‐cosmic_ Theogony—under various allegories. Its true Esoteric interpretation is a veritable Theodice of the “Fallen Angels,” so called: the _willing_ and the _unwilling_, the _creators_ and those who _refused to create_, being now mixed up most perplexingly by Christian Catholics, who forget that their highest Archangel, St. Michael, who is shown to conquer (to master and to assimilate) the _Dragon of Wisdom_ and of divine Self‐ sacrifice—now miscalled and calumniated as Satan—_was the first to refuse to create_! This has led to endless confusion. So little does Christian Theology understand the paradoxical language of the East and its symbolism, that it even explains, in its _dead‐letter sense_, the Chinese Buddhist and Hindû exoteric rite of raising a noise during certain eclipses to scare away the “great red dragon,” which laid a plot to carry away the “light”! But here “light” means Esoteric Wisdom, and we have sufficiently explained the secret meaning of the terms Dragon, Serpent, etc., all of which refer to Adepts and Initiates. 216 See _Genesis_ and Plato’s _Timæus_. 217 In spite of all efforts to the contrary, Christian Theology—having burdened itself with the Hebrew Esoteric account of the creation of man, which it understands _literally_—cannot find any reasonable excuse for its “God, the Creator,” who produces a man devoid of mind and sense; nor can it justify the punishment following an act, for which Adam and Eve might plead _non compos_. For if the couple be admitted to be ignorant of good and evil before the eating of the forbidden fruit, how could it be expected to know that _disobedience was evil_? If primeval man was meant to remain a half‐witted, or rather witless, being, then his creation was aimless and even _cruel_, if produced by an omnipotent and perfect God. But Adam and Eve are shown, even in _Genesis_, to be created by a Class of lower divine Beings, the Elohim, who are so jealous of their personal prerogatives as reasonable and intelligent creatures, that they will not allow man to become “as one of us.” This is plain, even from the dead‐letter meaning of the _Bible_. The Gnostics, then, were right in regarding the Jewish God as belonging to a Class of lower, material and not very holy denizens of the invisible World. 218 In _Isis Unveiled_ several of these Gnostic systems are given. One is taken from the _Codex Nazaræus_, the Scripture of the Nazarenes, who, although they existed long before the days of Christ, and even before the laws of Moses, were Gnostics, and many of them Initiates. They held their “Mysteries of Life” in Nazara (ancient and modern Nazareth), and their doctrines are a faithful echo of the teachings of the Secret Doctrine—some of which we are now endeavouring to explain. 219 i. 18. See the translation from the Greek by François, Monsieur de Foix, Evesque d’Ayre: the work dedicated to Marguerite de France, Reine de Navarre. Edition of 1579, Bordeaux. 220 _Asgard and the Gods_, p. 4. 221 Mr. James Darmesteter, the translator of the _Vendidâd_, speaking of it, says: “The tree, _whatever it is_....”—“Sacred Books of the East,” vol. iv. p. 209. 222 Plato’s _Timæus_. 223 See _Asgard and the Gods_, p. 305. 224 _Ibid._, _loc. cit._ 225 “The father of the sacred fire,” writes Prof. Jolly, “bore the name of Tvashtri ... His mother was Mâyâ. He himself was styled Akta (_anointed_ χριστὸς) after the priest had poured upon his head the spirituous (?) Soma, and on his body butter purified by sacrifice.” (_Man before Metals_, p. 190.) The source of his information is not given by the French Darwinist. But the lines are quoted to show that light begins to dawn even upon the Materialists. Adalbert Kühn, in his _Die Herabkunft des Feuers_, identifies the two signs [Symbol: swastika] and [Symbol: swastika with dots around the center] with Arani, and designates them under this name. He adds: “This process of kindling fire naturally led men to the idea of sexual reproduction,” etc. Why could not a more dignified idea, and one more Occult, have led man to invent this symbol, in so far as it is connected, in one of its aspects, with human reproduction? But its chief symbolism refers to Cosmogony. “Agni, in the condition of Akta, or anointed, is suggestive of Christ,” remarks Prof. Jolly. “Mâyâ, Mary, His mother; Tvashtri, St. Joseph, the carpenter of the Bible.” In the _Rig Veda_, Vishvakarman is the highest and oldest of the Gods and their “Father.” He is the “carpenter or builder,” because God is called even by the Monotheists, the “Architect of the Universe.” Still, the original idea is purely metaphysical, and had no connection with the later Phallicism. 226 The real Manushya. 227 Barishad (?). 228 The Kavyavâhana, electric fire. 229 Shuchi, the spirit in the Sun. 230 The Pitris and the two Fires. 231 The form. 232 It is not clear why Bhûtas should be rendered by the Orientalists as “evil spirits” in the _Purânas_. In the _Vishnu Purâna_ (I. v, Wilson’s Trans., Fitzedward Hall’s note, i. 83) the Shloka simply says: “Fiends, frightful from being monkey‐coloured and carnivorous”; and the word in India now means “ghosts,” ethereal or _astral_ phantoms, while in Esoteric Teaching it means _elementary_ substances, something made of attenuated, non‐compound essence, and, specifically, the astral Double of any man or animal. In this case these primitive men are the Doubles of the first ethereal Dhyânîs or Pitris. 233 See _Pymander_, Everard’s Trans., II. 17‐29. 234 _Chaldean Account of Genesis_, p. 92. 235 P. 91. 236 _Ibid._, _loc. cit._ 237 _Ibid._, _loc. cit._ 238 Human Monad. 239 Astral shadow. 240 Kâma Rûpa. 241 Shuchi, the fire of passion and animal instinct. 242 Solar Fire. 243 Nascent Man. 244 Later. 245 Race. 246 See Shloka 22. 247 See _Genesis of the Elements_, by W. Crookes, p. 21. 248 _Pymander_, i. 6. The opponents of Hindûism may call the above Pantheism, Polytheism, or anything they may please. If Science is not entirely blinded by prejudice, it will see in this account a profound knowledge of Natural Sciences and Physics, as well as of Metaphysics and Psychology. But to find this out, one has to study the personifications, and then convert them into chemical atoms. It will then be found to satisfy both physical and even purely materialistic Science, as well as those who see in evolution the work of the “Great Unknown Cause” in its phenomenal and illusive aspects. 249 _Sc._ Race. 250 Shlokas, 153, 154. 251 It is symbolized in the Pythagorean Triangle, the ten yods within, and the seven points of the Triangle and the Square. 252 Whence the Kabalistic name of “Shells” given to the Astral Form, the Body called Kâma Rûpa, left behind by the Higher Angels in the shape of the Higher Manas, when the latter leaves for Devachan, forsaking its residue. 253 Mackenzie’s _Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, pp. 409‐411. 254 viii. 20. 255 _De Bell. Jud._, ii. 12. 256 _De Gignat_, p. 222C.; _De Somniis_, p. 455D.; which shows that the Essenes believed in re‐birth and many reïncarnations on Earth, as Jesus himself did, a fact we can prove from the _New Testament_ itself. 257 I. vi. 3. 258 _Zohar_, ii. 229b. 259 It is corroborated, however, as we have shown, by the Esotericism of _Genesis_. Not only are the animals created therein after the “Adam of Dust,” but vegetation is shown _in_ the Earth before “the heavens and the earth were created.” “Every plant of the field before it was in the earth” (ii. 5). Now, unless the Occult interpretation is accepted—which shows that in this Fourth Round the Globe was covered with vegetation, and the First (Astral) Humanity was produced before almost anything could grow and develop thereon—what can the dead letter mean? Simply that the grass was in the earth of the Globe before that Globe was created? And yet the meaning of verse 6, which says that “there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground,” before it rained, and caused the trees, etc., to grow, is plain enough. It shows also in what geological period it occurred, and further what is meant by “heaven” and “earth.” It meant the firmament and dry _incrustated_ land, separated and ridden of its vapours and exhalations. Moreover, the student must bear in mind that, as Adam Kadmon, the “male and female being” of _Genesis_ i, is no physical human being but the host of the Elohim, among which was Jehovah himself—so the animals, mentioned in that chapter as “created” before man in the dead‐letter text, were no animals, but the zodiacal signs and other sidereal bodies. 260 _Book of Dzyan_, iii. 19. 261 Kenealy, _The Book of God_, pp. 114, 115. 262 To those who would enquire: What has Hydrogen to do with air or oxygenation?—it is answered: Study first the ABC of Occult Alchemy. In their anxiety, however, to identify Pymander, the “mouth of mystery,” with St. John the Baptist prophetically, the Christian Symbologists thus identified also the seven Kabiri and the Assyrian Bulls with the Cherubs of the Jews and the Apostles. Having, moreover, to draw a line of demarcation between the _four_ and the _three_ the latter being the _Fallen_ Angels; and furthermore to avoid connecting these with the “Seven Spirits of the Face,” the Archangels, they unceremoniously threw out all they did not choose to recognize. Hence the perversion in the order of the Elements, in order to make them dovetail with the order of the Gospels, and to identify the Angel‐Man with Christ. With the Chaldees, the Egyptians—from whom Moses adopted the Chroub (Cherubs in their animal form)—and the Ophites; with all these, the Angels, the Planets, and the Elements, were symbolized mystically and alchemically by the Lion (Mikael); the Bull (Uriel); the Dragon (Raphael); the Eagle (Gabriel); the Bear (Thot‐Sabaoth); the Dog (Era‐taoth); the Mule (Uriel or Thantabaoth). All these have a qualificative meaning. 263 See _Hibbert Lectures_, 1887, pp. 370 _et seqq._ 264 Sepher _M’bo Sha‐arim_, near the end, translated by Isaac Myer, _Qabbalah_, p. 110. 265 Form. 266 Shadow. 267 S. Laing, _Modern Science and Modern Thought_, p. 90. 268 And why not all the progenitive First Races, human as well as animal; and why _one_ “remote progenitor”? 269 Obviously so, on the lines of Evolutionism, which traces the Mammalia to some amphibian ancestor. 270 Second Edition, p. 161. 271 _Ibid._, p. 162. 272 De Quatrefages, _The Human Species_, p. 124; “International Scientific Series,” Volume XXVI. 273 _Ibid._, p. 125. 274 Fol. 186. 275 _Odyssey_, xi. 298‐305; _Iliad_, iii. 243. 276 Hyg., _Fab._, 80. Ovid., _Fast._, 700, etc. See Decharme’s _Mythologie de la Grèce Antique_, p. 6. 277 See Decharme, _ibid._, p. 652. 278 _Nem._, x. 80 _et seqq._ Theocr., xxiv. 131. 279 XXXIV. v. 5. Theocr., xxii. 1. 280 iii. 10. 7. 281 Apollodorus, iii. 1. 282 Castor’s tomb was shown in Sparta, in days of old, says Pausanias (iii. 13, 1); and Plutarch says that he was called at Argos the demi‐mortal or demi‐hero, μιξαρχαγέτας. (_Quæst. Gr._, 23.) 283 Pindar, _Nem._, x. 60, _seqq._, Dissen. 284 Schol. Eurip., _Orest._, 463, Dindorf. See Decharme, _op. cit._, p. 654. 285 The Monad is impersonal and a God _per se_, albeit unconscious on this plane. For divorced from its third (often called fifth) principle, Manas, which is the horizontal line of the first manifested Triangle or Trinity, it can have no consciousness or perception of things on this earthly plane. “The highest sees through the eye of the lowest” in the manifested world; Purusha (Spirit) remains blind without the help of Prakriti (Matter) in the material spheres; and so does Âtmâ‐Buddhi without Manas. 286 _Moral._, p. 484f. 287 This strange idea and interpretation are accepted by Decharme in his _Mythologie de la Grèce Antique_ (p. 655). “Castor and Pollux,” he says, “are nothing but the Sun and Moon, conceived as twins.... The Sun, the immortal and powerful being that disappears every evening from the horizon and descends under the Earth, as though he would make room for the fraternal orb which comes to life with night, is Pollux, who sacrifices himself for Castor; Castor, who, inferior to his brother, owes to him his immortality; for the Moon, says Theophrastus, is only another, but feebler Sun (_De Ventis_, 17).” 288 See _Book of Enoch_, Trans. by Bishop Laurence, 1883. 289 Adam (Kadmon) is, like Brahmâ and Mars, the symbol of the _generative_ and _creative_ power typifying Water and Earth—an Alchemical secret. “It takes Earth and Water to create a human Soul,” said Moses. Mars is the Hindû Mangala, the planet Mars, identical with Kârttikeya, the “War‐God”; he is Gharma‐ja, born of Shiva’s _sweat_, and of the Earth. He is Lohita, the red, like Brahmâ also and Adam. The Hindû Mars is, like Adam, born from no woman and mother. With the Egyptians, Mars was the primeval generative Principle, and so are Brahmâ, in exoteric teaching, and Adam, in the Kabalah. 290 Abel is Chebel, meaning “pains of birth,” conception. 291 See _Isis Unveiled_, II. 398, where Jehovah is shown to be Adam and Eve blended, and Hevah, and Abel, the _feminine serpent_. 292 See _Isis Unveiled_, I. 305: “The union of these two Races produced a _third_ ... Race.” 293 _Genesis_, v. 2. 294 _Ibid._, v. 3. 295 P. 159. 296 Jod in the Kabalah has for symbol the hand, the forefinger and the lingam, while numerically it is the perfect one; but it is also the number 10, male and female, when divided. 297 _Vishnu Purâna_, i. ii.: Wilson’s Trans., i. 20. 298 Quoted in Myer’s _Qabbalah_, p. 110. 299 See _Source of Measures_, p. 277. 300 II. 464, _et seqq._ 301 _Jeremiah_, x. 11. 302 _Isis Unveiled_, II. 462, 463. 303 See for comparison _Hosea_, xii. 6, where it is so punctuated. 304 _Isis Unveiled_, I. 156. 305 Race. 306 The Moon. 307 Hamsa. 308 _Text‐Book of Physiology_, Third Edition, 1879, p. 623. 309 See the _Timæus_. 310 See Extracts from that Essay in _The Theosophist_, of February, 1883, from which the following is condensed. 311 Compare Ezekiel’s vision (chap. i) of the four Divine Beings who “had the likeness of a man” and yet had the appearance of a wheel, “when they went, they went upon their four sides ... for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels.” 312 Eugibinus, a Christian, and the Rabbis Samuel, Menasseh ben Israel, and Maimonides taught that “Adam had _two_ faces and _one_ person, and from the beginning he was both male and female—male on one side and female on the other [like Manu’s Brahmâ]; but afterwards the parts were separated.” The one hundred and thirty‐ninth Psalm of David was cited by Rabbi Jeremiah ben Eliazar as evidence of this: “Thou hast _fashioned_ me _behind_ and _before_,” not _beset_ as in the _Bible_, which is absurd and meaningless, and this shows, as Prof. Wilder thinks, “that the primeval form of mankind was androgynous.” 313 See the union of Chokmah, Wisdom, with Binah, Intelligence, or Jehovah, the Demiurge, called Understanding in the _Proverbs of Solomon_ (vii). Unto men Wisdom (divine Occult Wisdom) crieth: “Oh, ye simple, understand Wisdom; and ye fools, be of an understanding heart.” It is Spirit and Matter, the Nous and the Psyche; of the latter of which St. James says that it is “earthly, sensual, and devilish.” 314 _Pluralité des Mondes_, p. 69. 315 A hypothesis evolved in 1881 by Mr. W. Mattieu Williams seems to have impressed Astronomers but little. Says the author of “The Fuel of the Sun,” in _Knowledge_, Dec. 23, 1881: “Applying now the researches of Dr. Andrews to the conditions of solar existence ... I conclude that the sun has _no nucleus_, either solid, liquid, or gaseous, but is composed of dissociated matter in the critical state, surrounded, first, by a flaming envelope, due to the recombination of the dissociated matter, and outside of this, by another envelope of vapours due to this combination.” This is a novel theory to be added to other hypotheses, _all scientific and orthodox_. The meaning of the “critical state” is explained by Mr. W. Mattieu Williams in the same journal (Dec. 9, 1881), in an article on “Solids, liquids, and Gases.” Speaking of an experiment by Dr. Andrews on carbonic acid, the Scientist says that: “When 88° is reached, the boundary between liquid and gas vanishes; liquid and gas have blended into one mysterious intermediate fluid; an indefinite fluctuating something is there filling the whole of the tube—an etherealized liquid or a visible gas. Hold a red‐hot poker between your eye and the light; you will see an upflowing wave of movement of what appears like liquid air. The appearance of the hybrid fluid in the tube resembles this, but is sensibly denser, and evidently stands between the liquid and gaseous states of matter, as pitch or treacle stands between solid and liquid.” The temperature at which this occurs has been named by Dr. Andrews the “critical temperature”; here the gaseous and the liquid states are “continuous,” and it is probable that all other substances capable of existing in both states have their own particular critical temperatures. Speculating further upon this “critical” state, Mr. W. Mattieu Williams emits some quite Occult theories about Jupiter and other Planets. He says: “Our notions of solids, liquids, and gases are derived from our experiences of the state of matter here upon this Earth. Could we be removed to another planet, they would be curiously changed. On Mercury water would rank as one of the condensible gases; on Mars, as a fusible solid; but what on Jupiter? “Recent observations justify us in regarding this as a miniature sun, with an external envelope of cloudy matter, apparently of partially‐condensed water, but red‐hot, or probably still hotter within. His vaporous atmosphere is evidently of enormous depth, and the force of gravitation being on his visible outer surface two‐and‐ a‐half times greater than that on our earth’s surface, the atmospheric pressure, in descending below this visible surface, must soon reach that at which the vapour of water would be brought to its critical condition. Therefore we may infer that the oceans of Jupiter are neither of frozen, liquid, nor gaseous water, but are oceans, or atmospheres of _critical_ water. If any fish or birds swim or fly therein, they must be very _critically_ organized.” As the whole mass of Jupiter is 300 times greater than that of the Earth, and its compressing energy towards the centre proportional to this, its materials, if similar to those of the Earth, and no hotter, would be considerably more dense, and the whole planet would have a higher specific gravity; but we know by the movement of its satellites that, instead of this, its specific gravity is less than a fourth of that of the Earth. This justifies the conclusion that it is intensely hot; for even hydrogen, if cold, would become denser than Jupiter under such pressure. “As all elementary substances may exist as solids, liquids, or gases, or, critically, according to the conditions of temperature and pressure, I am justified in hypothetically concluding that Jupiter is neither a solid, a liquid, nor a gaseous planet, but a _critical_ planet, or an orb composed internally of associated elements in the _critical_ state, and surrounded by a dense atmosphere of their vapours and those of some of their compounds such as water. The same reasoning applies to Saturn and other large and rarefied planets.” It is gratifying to see how “scientific imagination” approaches every year more closely to the borderland of our Occult Teachings. 316 _The Day after Death_, p. 23. 317 Cremona Ed., iii. 76a; Brody Ed., iii. 159a; _Qabbalah_. Isaac Myer, p. 420. 318 So destroyed. 319 The first occurred when what is now the North Pole was separated from the later Continents. 320 We must remember that at the head of all the Babylonian Gods were Ea, Anu, and the primeval Bel; and that Ea, the first, was the God of Wisdom, the great “God of Light” and of the Deep, and that he was identified with Oannes, or the Biblical Dagon—the Man‐Fish who rose out of the Persian Gulf. 321 It is far later on that the Moon became a male God; with the Hindus it was Soma, with the Chaldæans Nanak or Nanar, and Sin, the son of Mulil, the older Bel. The Akkadians called him the “Lord of Ghosts”; and he was the God of Nipur (Niffer) in northern Babylonia. It is Mulil who caused the waters of the Flood to fall from Heaven on Earth, because of which Xisuthrus would not allow him to approach his altar. As the modern Assyriologists have now ascertained, it is the northern Nipur which is the centre whence Chaldæan (Black) Magic spread; and Eridu (the Southern) which was the primitive seat of the worship of the culture God, the God of Divine Wisdom—the Sun‐God being the Supreme Deity everywhere. With the Jews, the Moon is connected with Israël’s Jehovah and his seed, for Ur was the chief seat of the worship of the Moon‐God, and Abraham is said to have come from Ur, when from A‐bra(h)m, he becomes Abraham. 322 When Nârada, the virgin‐ascetic, threatened to put an end to the human race by preventing Daksha’s sons from procreating it. 323 x. 6. 324 This is corroborated by a learned Brahman. In his most excellent Lectures on the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_ (_Theosophist_, April, 1887, p. 444) the lecturer says: “There is a peculiarity to which I must call your attention. He [Krishna] speaks here of four Manus. Why does he speak of four? We are now in the seventh Manvantara—that of Vaivasvata. If he is speaking of the past Manus, he ought to speak of six, but he only mentions four. In some commentaries an attempt has been made to interpret this in a peculiar manner. “The word ‘Chatvârah’ is separated from the word ‘Manavah,’ and is made to refer to Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatkumâra, and Sanatsujâta, who were also included among the mind‐born sons of Prajâpati. “But this interpretation will lead to a most absurd conclusion, and make the sentence contradict itself. The persons alluded to in the text have a qualifying clause in the sentence. It is well known that Sanaka and the other three refused to create, though the other sons had consented to do so: therefore, in speaking of those persons from whom humanity has sprung into existence, it would be absurd to include these four also in the list. The passage must be interpreted without splitting the compound into two nouns. The number of Manus will then be four, and the statement would then contradict the Paurânic account, though it would be in harmony with the Occult theory. You will recollect that it is stated [in Occultism] that we are now in the Fifth Root‐Race. Each Root‐Race is considered as the Santati of a particular Manu. Now, the Fourth Race has passed, or, in other words, there have been four past Manus.” 325 Stockwell, _Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge_, xviii.; R. W. McFarland, _American Journal of Science_, III. xi. 450; and Croll’s _Climate and Time_. Lemuria was not submerged by a flood, but was destroyed by volcanic action, and afterwards sank. 326 Coste, I. iv. 19. 327 Agruerus is Kronos, or Saturn, and the prototype of the Israëlitish Jehovah. As connected with Argha, the Moon or Ark of salvation, Noah is mythologically one with Saturn. But then this cannot relate to the terrestrial flood. (See Faber’s _Cabiri_, I. 35, 43, and 45.) 328 _Ibid._, II. 240. 329 Sanchuniathon says that the Titans were the sons of Kronos, and seven in number; and he calls them fire‐worshippers, Aletæ (Sons of Agni?) and diluvians. Al‐ait is the God of Fire. 330 _Ibid._, i. 130, note. 331 Of which _seven_, let us remark, the Âryans, and not the Semites, were the originators, while the Jews got that number from the Chaldæans. 332 Seven individual Sons of God, or Pitaras, Pitris; also in this case the sons of Kronos or Saturn (Kâla, “Time”) and Arkites, like the Kabiri and Titans, as their name—“_Lunar_ Ancestors”—shows; the Moon being the Ark, or Argha, on the Watery Abyss of Space. 333 _Asiatic Researches_, v. 246. 334 _Kabiri_, _ibid._, _loc. cit._ 335 Orpheus apud Proclum _in Timæum_, v. 295. 336 Arnobius, _Contra Gentes_, iii. 124; quoted by Faber, _op. cit._, i. 135. 337 _Ant._, iii. 8. 338 _Bibl._, iii. 170. 339 Aretia is the female form of Artes, the Egyptian Mars. Thence the Chaldæan (and now Hebrew) word ארצ (Arets), “Earth.” Seyffarth, the author of _Beiträge zur Kenntniss_ (under “_Artes_,” _Mars_) quotes as follows: “Addit Cedrenus (Salm. I. c): Stella Martis ab Ægyptiis vocatur Ertosi (plantare, generare). Significat autem hoc omnis generis procreationem et _vivificationem_, omnisque substantiæ et materiæ naturam et vim ordinantem atque procreantem.” It is Earth as “source of being”; or, as explained by the author of _The Source of Measures_ (p. 186), Arts is the same in Hebrew and Egyptian, and both “combine the primal idea of _earth as source_; precisely as in the Hebrew itself, under another form, _Adam_ and _Mâdim_, _Mars_, are the same, and combine the idea of _earth_, with _Adam_ under the form of _h‐adam‐h_.” 340 _Ant._, v. 64. 341 Nonnus, _Dionys._, xviii. 319. Quoted by Faber, _op. cit._, i. 328. 342 See _Isis Unveiled_, II. 420 _et seq._, where one or two of the seven meanings are hinted at. 343 Chap. lxiv (Sect. xi). 344 _Isis Unveiled_, II. 423, 424. 345 _Ibid._, 423, note. 346 One has to remember that, in the Hindû Philosophy, every differentiated unit is such only through the Cycles of Mâyâ, being one in its essence with the Supreme or One Spirit. Hence arises the seeming confusion and contradiction in the various _Purânas_, and at times in the same _Purâna_, about the same individual. Vishnu—as the many‐formed Brahmâ, and as Brahma (neuter)—is one, and yet he is said to be all the twenty‐eight Vyâsas. “In every Dvâpara (or third) age, Vishnu, in the person of Vyâsa, divides the Veda, which is (properly, but) one, into many portions.... Twenty‐eight times have the Vedas been arranged by the great Rishis in the Vaivasvata Manvantara, in the Dvâpara age; and, consequently, eight and twenty Vyâsas have passed away.” (_Vishnu Purâna_, iii. 3; Wilson’s Trans., iii. 33, 34.) “[They who were all] in the form of Veda‐Vyâsa; who were the Vyâsas of their respective eras.” (_Ibid._, _loc. cit._, p. 33.) “This world is Brahmâ, in Brahmâ, from Brahmâ ... nothing further to be known.” Then, again, in the _Harivamsha_: “There were (in the first Manvantara) seven celebrated sons of Vasishtha, who (in the _third_ Manvantara) were sons of Brahmâ (_i.e._, Rishis), the illustrious progeny of Ûrjâ.” (_Ibid._, iii. 6, note.) This is plain: the Humanity of the First Manvantara is that of the seventh and of all the intermediate ones. The Mankind of the First Root‐Race is the mankind of the Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, etc. To the last it forms a cyclic and constant reïncarnation of the Monads belonging to the Dhyân Chohans of our Planetary Chain. 347 The Dvâpara Yuga differs for each Race. All Races have their own Cycles, which fact causes a great difference. For instance, the Fourth Sub‐Race of the Atlanteans was in its Kali Yuga, when they were destroyed, whereas the Fifth was in its Satya or Krita Yuga. The Âryan Race is now in its Kali Yuga, and will continue to be in it for 427,000 years longer, while various “Family Races,” called the Semitic, Hamitic, etc., are in their own special cycles. The forthcoming Sixth Sub‐Race—which may begin very soon—will be in its Satya (Golden) Age while we reap the fruit of our iniquity in our Kali Yuga. 348 See _Asiatic Researches_, viii. 280. 349 See Dowson’s _Hindû Classical Dictionary_, _sub voce_ “Idâ.” 350 See _Posthumous Humanity_: Translated by H. S. Olcott London, 1887. 351 Professor Newcomb says the heat evolved by contraction would last only 18,000,000 years. (_Popular Astronomy_, 509.) While a temperature permitting the existence of water could not be reached earlier than 10,000,000 years ago. (Winchell’s _World‐Life_, 356.) But Sir William Thomson says that the whole age of the incrustation of the Earth is 80,000,000 years, though, this year, he has again altered his opinion and allows only 15,000,000 years as the age of the Sun. As will be shown in the Addenda, the divergence of scientific opinions is so great that no reliance can ever be placed upon _scientific_ speculation. 352 The essay on _The Plurality of Worlds_ (1853)—an anonymous work, yet well known to have been the production of Dr. Whewell—is a good proof of this. No Christian ought to believe in either the plurality of Worlds or the geological age of the Globe, argues the author; because, if it is asserted that this World is only one among the many of its kind, which are all the work of God, as it is itself; that all are the seat of life, all the realm and dwelling of intelligent creatures endowed with will, subject to law and capable of free‐will; then, it would be extravagant to think that _our_ World should have been the subject of God’s favours and His special interference, of His communications and His _personal visit_. Can the Earth presume to be considered the centre of the moral and religious Universe, he asks, if it has not the slightest distinction to rely upon in the physical Universe? Is it not as absurd to uphold such an assertion (of the plurality of inhabited worlds), as it would be to‐day to uphold the old hypothesis of Ptolemy, who placed the Earth in the centre of our system? The above is quoted from memory, yet _almost textually_. The author fails to see that he is bursting his own soap‐bubble with such a defence. 353 _Man’s Place in Nature_, p. 58. 354 _De Cœlo_, II. 13. 355 Or what is more generally known as Protoplasm. This substance received the name of “Sarcode” from Prof. Dujardin Beaumetz far earlier than its present appellation. 356 The Monera are indeed Protista. They are neither animals nor plants, writes Hæckel; “the whole body of the Moneron represents nothing more than a single thoroughly homogeneous particle of albumen in a firmly adhesive condition.” (_Journal of Microscopical Science_, Jan., 1869, p. 28.) 357 Behold the Iguanodon of the Mesozoic ages—the monster 100 feet long—now transformed into the small Iguana lizard of South America. Popular traditions about “giants” in days of old, and their mention in every mythology, including that of the _Bible_, may some day be shown to be founded on fact. In nature, the logic of analogy alone should make us accept these _traditions_ as scientific verities. 358 These are the opinions of Burmeister and Czolbe. See _Force and Matter_, by L. Büchner, edited, by J. F. Collingwood, F.R.S.L., p. 61. 359 _Vishnu Purâna_, II. viii; Fitzedward Hall’s rendering in Wilson’s Translation, ii. 241. 360 _Ibid._, p. 242. 361 _Introduction à l’Étude des Races Humaines._ 362 _Modern Science and Modern Thought_, by S. Laing, p. 32. 363 _Esoteric Buddhism_, p. 70. 364 The same fate is in store for spiritualistic phenomena and all the other psychological manifestations of the _inner_ man. Since the days of Hume, whose researches culminated in a nihilistic Idealism, Psychology has gradually shifted its position to one of crass Materialism. Hume is regarded as a Psychologist, and yet he denied _à priori_ the possibility of phenomena in which millions now believe, including many men of Science. The Hylo‐Idealists of to‐day are rank Annihilationists. The schools of Spencer and Bain are respectively positivist and materialist, and not metaphysical at all. It is _Psychism_ and not Psychology; it reminds one as little of the Vedântic teaching as does the pessimism of Schopenhauer and von Hartmann recall the Esoteric Philosophy, the heart and soul of _true_ Buddhism. 365 It must be noted that, though the astral and physical planes of Matter ran parallel with one another even in the earliest geological ages, yet they were not in the same phases of manifestation in which they are _now_. The Earth did not reach its present _grade of density_ till 18,000,000 years ago. Since then _both_ the physical and astral planes have become grosser. 366 The conception and definition of the Absolute by Cardinal Cusa may satisfy only the Western mind, prisoned, so unconsciously to itself, and entirely degenerated, by long centuries of scholastic and theological sophistry. But this “recent philosophy of the Absolute,” traced by Sir William Hamilton to Cusa, would never satisfy the more acutely metaphysical mind of the Hindû Vedântin. 367 Cudworth’s _Intellectual System_, I. 328. 368 Issued from the Body of Brahmâ when it became Night. 369 Intellectually vile. 370 Still senseless Race. 371 Race. 372 Intensified. 373 The vehicle of Desire. 374 Higher knowledge. 375 Monads. 376 Primitive human species. 377 _Inst. Div._, II. viii; quoted in Myer’s _Qabbalah_, 116. 378 _Op. cit._, I. v; Wilson’s Trans., Fitzedward Hall’s rendering, i. 72. 379 _Ibid._, ii. 10. 380 _Ibid._, i. 83. 381 Whom Manu calls “paternal grandfathers” (iii. 284). The Rudras are the seven manifestations of Rudra‐Shiva, the “destroying God,” and _also_ the grand Yogi and Ascetic. 382 To speak of _life_ as having arisen, and of the human race as having originated, in this _absurdly unscientific_ way, in the face of the modern Pedigrees of Man, is to court instantaneous annihilation. The Esoteric Doctrine risks the danger, nevertheless, and even goes so far as to ask the impartial reader to compare the above hypothesis (if it is one) with Hæckel’s theory—now fast becoming an axiom with Science—which we quote verbatim as follows: “How did life, the living world of organisms, arise? And, secondly, the special question: How did the human race originate? The first of these two enquiries, that as to the first appearance of living beings, can only be decided empirically [!!] by proof of the so‐ called Archebiosis, or equivocal generation, or the spontaneous production of organisms of the simplest conceivable kind. Such are the Monera (Protogenes, Protamœba, Protomyxa, Vampyrella), exceedingly simple microscopic masses of protoplasm without structure or organization, which take in nutriment and _reproduce themselves by division_. Such a Moneron as that primordial organism _discovered_ by the renowned English zoologist Huxley and named Bathybius Hæckelii, appears as a continuous thick protoplasmic covering at the greatest depths of the ocean, between 3,000 and 30,000 feet. _It is true that the first appearance of such Monera has not up to the present moment been actually observed_; but there is nothing intrinsically improbable in such an Evolution.” (_The Pedigree of Man_, Aveling’s translation, p. 33.) The Bathybius protoplasm having recently turned out to be no organic substance at all, there remains little to be said. Nor, after reading this, does one need to consume further time in refuting the further assertion that: “In that case man also has, _beyond a doubt_ [to the minds of Hæckel and his like], arisen from the lower Mammalia, apes, the earlier simian creatures, the still earlier Marsupialia, Amphibia, Pisces, by progressive transformations” (p. 36)—all produced by “a series of _natural forces working blindly, ... without aim, without design_.” The above‐quoted passage bears its criticism on its own face. Science is made to teach that, which, up to the present time, “_has never been actually observed_.” She is made to deny the phenomenon of an _intelligent_ nature and a vital force independent of form and matter, and to find it more scientific to teach the miraculous performance of “natural forces _working blindly without aim or design_.” If so, then we are led to think that the physico‐ mechanical forces of the brains of certain eminent Scientists are leading them on as blindly to sacrifice logic and common sense on the altar of mutual admiration. Why should the protoplasmic Moneron producing the first living creature through _self‐division_ be held as a very scientific hypothesis, and an ethereal pre‐human race generating the primeval men in the same fashion be tabooed as unscientific superstition? Or has Materialism obtained a sole monopoly in Science? 383 The Râkshasas, regarded in Indian popular theology as Demons, are called the “Preservers” beyond the Himâlayas. This double meaning has its origin in a philosophical allegory, which is variously rendered in the _Purânas_. It is stated that when Brahmâ created the Demons, Yakshas (from _yaksh_, to eat) and the Râkshasas, both of which kinds of Demons, as soon as born, wished to devour their Creator, “those among them that called out ‘Not so: oh! let him be saved [preserved]!’ were named Râkshasas.” (_Vishnu Purâna_, I. v.; Wilson, i. 82.) The _Bhâgavata Purâna_ (III. 20, 19‐21; _ibid._, _loc. cit._) renders the allegory differently. “Brahmâ transformed himself into night [or ignorance] invested with a body.” This the Yakshas and Râkshasas seized, exclaiming, “Do not spare it; devour it.” Brahmâ cried out, “Do not devour me; spare me.” This has an inner meaning of course. The “Body of Night” is the darkness of ignorance, and it is the darkness of silence and secrecy. Now the Râkshasas are shown in almost every case to be Yogîs, pious Sâdhus and Initiates, a rather unusual occupation for Demons. The meaning then is that while we have power to dispel the darkness of ignorance—“devour it”—we have to preserve the sacred truth from profanation. “Brahmâ is for the Brâhmans alone,” says that proud caste. The moral of the _fable_ is evident. 384 The gradual evolution of man in the Secret Doctrine shows that all the later (to the profane the earliest) Races have their _physical_ origin in the early Fourth Race. But it is the sub‐race, which preceded the one that separated sexually, that is to be regarded as the _spiritual_ ancestors of our present generations, and especially of the Eastern Âryan Races. Weber’s idea that the Indo‐Germanic Race preceded the Âryan Vedic Race is, to the Occultist, grotesque to the last degree. 385 _Cf._ especially Schmidt’s _Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism_, pp. 39 _et seqq._, and Laing’s _A Modern Zoroastrian_, pp. 102‐111. 386 Every process of healing and cicatrization in the higher animal groups—even in the case of reproduction of mutilated limbs with the Amphibians—is effected by _fission_ and _gemmation_ of the elementary morphological elements. 387 The term here means neither the dolicho‐cephalic nor the brachyo‐ cephalic, nor yet skulls of a smaller volume, but simply brains devoid of intellect generally. The theory which would judge of the intellectual capacity of a man according to his cranial capacity, seems absurdly illogical to one who has studied the subject. The skulls of the stone period, as well as those of African races (Bushmen included) show that the first are above rather than below the average of the brain capacity of the modern man, and the skulls of the last are on the whole (as also in the case of Papuans and Polynesians generally) larger by one cubic inch than that of the average Frenchman. Again, the cranial capacity of the Parisian of to‐day represents an average of 1437 cubic centimetres compared to 1523 of the Auvergnat. 388 A. Lefèvre, _Philosophy_, p. 498. 389 _Principles of Zoology_, p. 206. 390 i. 154. 391 The boneless. 392 The _first_ Sweat‐born. This is explained in the Section which follows this series of Stanzas in the allegory from the _Purânas_ concerning Kandu, the holy sage, and Pramlochâ, the nymph who is alleged to have hypnotized him; a suggestive allegory, scientifically, as the drops of perspiration which she exuded, are the symbols of the spores of Science. 393 This will be explained as we proceed. This unwillingness to fashion men, or create, is symbolized in the _Purânas_ by Daksha’s dealings with his opponent Nârada, the “strife‐making ascetic.” 394 Androgyne Third Race. The Evolutionist Professor Schmidt alludes to “the fact of the separation of sexes, as to the derivation of which from species _once hermaphrodite_ all [the believers in Creation naturally excepted] are assuredly of one accord.” (_Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism_, p. 159.) Such indeed is the incontestable evidence drawn from the presence of rudimentary organs. Apart from such palpable traces of a primeval hermaphroditism, the fact may be noted that, as Laing writes, “a study of embryology ... shows that in the _human higher animal_ species the distinction of sex is not developed until a _considerable progress_ has been made in the growth of the embryo.” (_A Modern Zoroastrian_, p. 106.) The Law of Retardation—operative alike in the case of human races, animal species, etc., when a higher type has once been evolved—still preserves hermaphroditism as the reproductive method of the majority of plants and many lower animals. 395 Vehicle. 396 _Vishnu Purâna_, I. vii; Wilson, i. 100. 397 See _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 111. 398 For explanations and a philosophical account of the nature of those Beings, which are now viewed as the “evil” and rebellious Spirits, the Creators by Kriyâshakti, the reader is referred to the chapters on “The Myth of the ‘Fallen Angel,’ in its Various Aspects,” in Part II of this Volume. 399 _Vishnu Purâna_, III. ii. 400 In the oldest MS. of the _Vishnu Purâna_ in the possession of an Initiate in Southern India, the God is not Indra, but Kâma, the God of love and desire. 401 These are the exoteric figures given in a purposely reversed and distorted way, being the figure of the duration of the cycle between the First and Second human Race. All Orientalists to the contrary, there is not a word in any of the _Purânas_ that has not a special esoteric meaning. 402 _Vishnu Purâna_, I. xv; Wilson, ii. 5. Compare also Vivien’s temptation of Merlin (Tennyson)—the same legend in Irish tradition. 403 x. 129. 404 The text has: “From Brahmâ, continuing to meditate, were born mind‐ engendered progeny, with forms and faculties derived from his corporeal nature, _embodied spirits_, produced from the limbs (Gâtra) of Dhîmat (all‐wise deity).” All these beings were the abode of the three qualities of Devasarga, or divine creation, which, as the five‐fold creation, is _devoid of clearness of perception, without reflection_, dull of nature. “But as they _did not multiply themselves_, Brahmâ created other mind‐born sons like himself,” namely, the Brahmarshis, or the Prajâpatis, ten and seven in number. “Sanandana and the other sons of Vedhas (Brahmâ) were previously created,” but as shown elsewhere, they were “_without desire or passion_, inspired with holy wisdom, estranged from the universe and undesirous of progeny.” (_Vishnu Purâna_, X. vii; Wilson’s Trans., i. 100, 101.) These Sanandana and other Kumâras are then the Gods, who after refusing to “create progeny” are forced to incarnate in senseless men. The reader must pardon unavoidable repetitions in view of the great number of facts given. 405 Compare Schlagintweit’s _Buddhism in Tibet_, pp. 88‐90. 406 See Edkins’ _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 208. 407 The previous Third Round. 408 Of this Round. 409 An allegorical reference to the “Sacred Animals” of the Zodiac and other heavenly bodies. Some Kabalists see in them the prototypes of the animals. 410 In _Hesiod_, Zeus creates his Third Race of men out of ash‐trees. In the _Popol Vuh_ the Third Race of men is created out of the tree Tzita and the marrow of the reed called Sibac. But Sibac means “egg” in the mystery language of the Artufas, or Initiation caves. In a report sent in 1812 to the Cortes by Don Baptista Pino it is said: “All the Pueblos have their Artufas—so the natives call subterranean rooms with only a single door where they (secretly) assemble.... These are impenetrable temples ... and the doors are always closed to the Spaniards.... They adore the Sun and Moon ... fire and the great _Snake_ (the creative power), whose eggs are called Sibac.” 411 There is a notable difference _esoterically_ between the words Sarpa and Nâga, though they are both used indiscriminately. Sarpa, serpent, is from the root _srip_, to creep, compare, Lat., _serp‐o_; and they are called Ahi, from _hâ_, to abandon. The Sarpas were produced from Brahmâ’s hair, which, owing to his fright at beholding the Yakshas, whom he had created horrible to behold, fell off from the head, each hair becoming a serpent. They are called “Sarpa from their creeping and Ahi because they had deserted the head.” (Wilson, i. 83.) But the Nâgas, in the allegories, their serpent’s tail notwithstanding, do not creep, but manage to walk, run and fight. 412 Wilson translates the word as “demigods” (_Vishnu Purâna_, i. 130); but Raumas are simply a race, a tribe. 413 xii. 10,308. 414 Wilson, _ibid._, p. 123. 415 _Ibid._, ii. 10. 416 Serpents. 417 Race. 418 Also. 419 Into male and female. 420 Then. 421 Man. 422 The “narrow‐headed.” Compare Shloka 24. 423 The “narrow‐headed.” 424 See Commentary on Shloka 36. 425 These “animals,” or monsters, are not the anthropoid or any other apes, but verily what the Anthropologists might call the “missing link,” the primitive lower man. 426 The shame of their animal origin which our modern Scientists would emphasize if they could. 427 _The Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism_, pp. 186, 187. The “unknown ancestry” referred to are the _primæval_ astral prototypes. 428 “A very strong argument in favour of variability is supplied by the science of embryology. Is not a man in the uterus ... a simple cell, a vegetable with three or four leaflets, a tadpole with branchiæ, a mammal with a tail, lastly a primate [?] and a biped? It is scarcely possible not to recognize in the embryonic evolution a rapid sketch, a faithful summary, of the entire organic series.” (Lefèvre, _Philosophy_, p. 484.) The summary alluded to is, however, only that of the _store of types_ hoarded up in man, the microcosm. This simple explanation meets all such objections, as the presence of the rudimentary tail in the fœtus—a fact triumphantly paraded by Hæckel and Darwin as conclusively in favour of the Ape‐Ancestor Theory. It may also be pointed out that _the presence of a vegetable with leaflets_ in the embryonic stages is _not explained_ on ordinary evolutionist principles. Darwinists have not traced man through the vegetable, but Occultists have. _Why then this feature in the embryo_, and how do the former explain it? 429 “The Proofs of Evolution,” a lecture by Hæckel. 430 Vol. i. pp. 388‐390. 431 See Cory, _Ancient Fragments_, pp. 21, _et seqq._ 432 _Origin of Species_, pp. 448, 449, first edition. 433 Vol. i. p. 154. 434 The sin committed with the animals. 435 The Spirits, the “Sons of Wisdom.” 436 Who had refused to “create.” 437 Mindless. 438 Mind. 439 This verse in the _Rig Veda_ (x. 5, 6): “The Seven Wise Ones [Rays of Wisdom, Dhyânis] fashion Seven Paths [or Lines, and also Races in another sense]. To one of these may the distressed mortal come”—a verse interpreted solely from the astronomical and cosmic aspect, is one of the most pregnant in occult meaning. The “Paths” may mean Lines (Maryâdâh), but they are primarily Beams of Light falling on the Paths leading to Wisdom. (See _Rig Veda_, iv. 5‐13.) It means “Ways” or Paths. They are, in short, the seven Rays which fall free from the Macrocosmic Centre, the seven Principles in the metaphysical, the seven Races in the physical sense. All depends upon the key used. 440 _Rig Veda_, x. 10, 5, 2. 441 It is next to impossible to translate verbally some of these old Commentaries. We are often obliged to give the meaning only, and thus retranslate the verbatim translations. 442 Rudra, as a Kumâra, is Nîlalohita—red and blue. 443 This, regardless of modern materialistic evolution, which speculates in this wise: “The primitive human form, whence as we think all human species sprang, has perished this long time. [This we deny: it has only decreased in size and changed in texture.] But many facts point to the conclusion that it was hairy and dolichocephalic. [African races are even _now_ dolichocephalic in a great measure, but the palæolithic Neanderthal skull, the oldest we know of, is of a large size, and no nearer to the capacity of the gorilla’s cranium than that of any other now‐living man.] Let us, for the time being, call this hypothetical species _homo primigenius_.... This first species, or the ape‐man, the ancestor of all the others, _probably_ arose in the _tropical regions_ of the old world from _anthropoid apes_.” Asked for proofs, the Evolutionist, not the least daunted, replies: “Of these _no fossil remains are as yet known to us, but they were probably akin to the Gorilla and Orang of the present day_.” And then the Papuan negro is mentioned as the probable descendant in the first line. (_Pedigree of Man_, p. 80.) Hæckel holds fast to Lemuria, which, with East Africa and South Asia also, he mentions as the possible cradle of the primitive ape‐men. So also do many Geologists. Mr. A. R. Wallace admits its reality, though in a rather modified sense, in his _Geographical Distribution of Animals_. But let not Evolutionists speak so lightly of the comparative size of the brains of man and the ape, for this is very _unscientific_, especially when they pretend to see no difference between the two, or very little at any rate. For Vogt himself showed that, while the highest of the apes, the Gorilla, has a brain of only 30 to 51 cubic inches, the brain of the lowest of the Australian aborigines amounts to 99·35 cubic inches. The former is thus “not half of the size of the brain of a new‐born babe,” says Pfaff. 444 Ellis’ _Polynesian Researches_, Vol. II, p. 38. Missionaries seem to have pounced upon this name _Ivi_ and made of it _Eve_. But, as shown by Professor Max Müller, Eve is not the Hebrew name but a European transformation of חוה, Châvah, life, or mother of all living; “while the Tahitian _ivi_, and the Maori, _wheva_, meant bone, and bone only.” (_Introduction to the Science of Religion_, p. 304.) 445 _Chaire d’Hébreu au Collége de France_, p. 20. 446 Of such semi‐animal creatures, the sole remnants known to Ethnology were the Tasmanians, a _portion_ of the Australians and a mountain tribe in China, the men and women of which are entirely covered with hair. They were the last descendants in a _direct_ line of the semi‐ animal latter‐day Lemurians referred to. There are, however, considerable numbers of the mixed Lemuro‐Atlantean peoples produced by various crossings with such semi‐human stocks—_e.g._, the wild men of Borneo, the Veddhas of Ceylon, classed by Prof. Flower among Âryans (!), most of the remaining Australians, Bushmen, Negritos, Andaman Islanders, etc. The Australians of the Gulf of St. Vincent and the neighbourhood of Adelaide are _very hairy_, and the brown down on the skin of boys of five or six years of age assumes a _furry appearance_. They are, however, degraded _men_; not the closest approximation to the “pithecoid man,” as Hæckel so sweepingly affirms. Only a portion of these men are a Lemurian relic. (_Cf._ _Esoteric Buddhism_, pp. 64 _et seqq._) 447 In calling the animal “soulless” we do not deprive the beast, from the humblest to the highest species, of a Soul, but only of a conscious surviving Ego‐Soul, _i.e._, that principle which survives after a man, and reïncarnates in a like man. The animal has an Astral Body, that survives the physical form for a short period; nevertheless its (animal) Monad does not reïncarnate in the same, but in a higher species, and has no “Devachan” of course. It has the _seeds_ of all the human principles in itself, but they are _latent_. 448 _Manual of Geology_, p. 302. 449 The “fables” and “myths” about Leda and Jupiter, and such like, could never have sprung up in people’s fancy, had not the allegory rested on a fact in Nature. Evolution, gradually transforming man into a mammal, did in his case only what it did in that of other animals. But this does not prevent man from having always stood at the head of the animal world and other organic species, and from having preceded the former. 450 See the Section on “The Chronology of the Brâhmans,” p. 69. 451 To avoid confusion, let the reader remember that the term Root‐Race applies to one of the seven great Races, sub‐race to one of its great Branches, and family‐race to one of the sub‐divisions, which include nations and large tribes. 452 In the Section on “The Fifth Race and its Divine Instructors,” in the Commentary on Stanza XII, the nature of these “Instructors” is explained. 453 The present yellow races are the descendants, however, of the early branches of the Fourth Race. Of the Third, the only _pure and direct_ descendants are, as said above, a portion of the fallen and degenerated Australians, whose far distant ancestors belonged to a division of the seventh sub‐race of the Third. The rest are of mixed Lemuro‐Atlantean descent. They have since then entirely changed in stature and intellectual capacities. 454 _Language_ is certainly coëval with reason, and could never have been developed before men became one with the informing principles in them—those who fructified and awoke to life the mânasic element dormant in primitive man. For, as Professor Max Müller tells us in his _Science of Thought_: “Thought and language are identical.” To add to this, however, the reflection that _thoughts which are too deep for words, do not really exist at all_, is rather risky, for thought impressed upon the astral tablets exists in eternity whether expressed or not. _Logos_ is both reason and speech. But language, proceeding in cycles, is not always adequate to express _spiritual_ thoughts. Moreover, in one sense, the Greek Logos is the equivalent of the Sanskrit Vâch, “the immortal (intellectual) ray of spirit.” And the fact that Vâch (as Devasenâ, an _aspect_ of Sarasvatî, the Goddess of Hidden Wisdom) is the spouse of the eternal celibate Kumâra, unveils a suggestive, though veiled, reference to the Kumâras, those “who refused to create,” but who were compelled later on to complete _divine_ Man by incarnating in him. All this will be fully explained in the Sections that follow. 455 Ptolemy, speaking in his ninth table of the Kabolitæ or Kabul tribes, calls them Ἀριστόφυλοι, Aristophyli, the aristocratic or noble tribes. The Afghans call themselves Ben‐Issraël, children of Is (sa) raël, from Issa, “woman and also earth,” sons of Mother Earth. But if you call an Afghan Yahoudi (Jew), he will kill you. The names of the supposed twelve tribes of the Jews, and the names of the real twelve tribes of the Afghans, are the same. The Afghans being far older (at any rate, their Arabic stock) than the Israëlites, no one need be surprised to find such tribal names among them as Youssoufzic, sons of Joseph, in Punjcaure and Boonere; Zablistanee (Zebulon); Ben‐manasseh, sons of Manasseh, among the Khojar Tartars; Isaguri, or Issachar, now Ashnagor in Afghanistan, etc. The whole twelve names of the so‐called twelve tribes are names of the signs of the Zodiac, as is now well proven. In any case, the names of the oldest Arabic tribes, re‐transliterated, yield the names of the zodiacal signs and likewise of the mythical sons of Jacob. Where are the traces of the Jewish twelve tribes? Nowhere. But there is a trace, and a deep one, that the Jews have tried to deceive people with the help of these names. For, see what happens ages after the _ten tribes_ had wholly disappeared from Babylon. Ptolemy Philadelphus, desiring to have the Hebrew Law translated for him into Greek (the famous Septuagint), wrote to the high priest of the Jews, Eleazar, to send him _six men from each of the twelve tribes_; and the _seventy‐two representatives_ (of whom sixty were ghosts apparently) came to the king in Egypt and translated the Law amid miracles and wonders. See Butler’s _Horæ Biblicæ_, Josephus, and Philo Judæus. 456 The Commentary explains that the apes are the only species, among the animals, which has gradually, and with every generation and variety, tended more and more to return to the original type of its male forefather—the dark gigantic Lemurian and Atlantean. 457 Androgyne. 458 Dr. A. Wilder; who says that Gan‐duniyas is a name of Babylonia. 459 Vol. i. pp. 575, 576. 460 _Foĕ‐kouĕ‐ki; ou Relations des Royaumes Bouddhiques_; par Chy Fa‐ hian: translated by Abel Remusat. 461 Seventh year, 1855. 462 De Mirville’s _Des Esprits_, ii. 423. See also Moses Maimonides, _More Nevochim_. 463 _Sciences Occultes_, p. 464. 464 _Révolution du Globe_, Vol. v. p. 247. 465 We read in De Mirville’s “Mémoire â l’Académie” (ii. 431) of the “naïve astonishment of Geoffroy St. Hilaire, when M. de Paravey showed to him, in some old Chinese works and Babylonian tiles, dragons, ... ornithorhynchuses and saurians (aquatic animals _found only in Australia_), etc., extinct animals that he had thought unknown on earth ... till his own day.” 466 See _Isaiah_, xxx. 6: “The viper and the flying serpent,” and the fiery serpents conquered by the brazen serpent of Moses. 467 The fossils, reconstructed by Science which we know, ought to be sufficient warrant for the possibility of even a Leviathan, not to mention Isaiah’s flying serpents, or Saraph Mehophep, words which are translated in all the Hebrew dictionaries as “Saraph,” enflamed or fiery venom, and “Mehophep,” flying. But, although Christian Theology has always connected both Leviathan and Saraph Mehophep with the Devil, the expressions are metaphorical and have nought to do with the “Evil One.” Nevertheless, the word “Dragon” has now become a synonym for the latter. In Bretagne the word Drouk now signifies “Devil,” whence, as we are told by Cambry (_Monuments Celtiques_, p. 299), the Devil’s Tomb in England, Droghedanum Sepulcrum. In Languedoc the meteoric fires and will‐o’‐the‐wisps are called Drac, and in Bretagne Dreag and Wraie or wraith; the castle of Drogheda in Ireland meaning the Devil’s castle. (De Mirville, _ibid._, ii. 423.) 468 The ultramontane writers accept the whole series of draconian stories given by Father Kircher, in his _Œdipus Ægyptiacus_, “De Genesi Draconum,” quite seriously. According to that Jesuit, he himself saw a dragon which was killed in 1669 by a Roman peasant, as the director of the Museo Barberini sent it to him, to take the beast’s likeness, which Father Kircher did and had it published in one of his _in‐folios_. After this he received a letter from Christopher Scherer, Prefect of the Canton of Soleure, Switzerland, in which that official certifies to his having seen himself, _with his own eyes_, one fine summer night in 1619, a living dragon. Having remained on his balcony “to contemplate the perfect purity of the firmament,” he writes, “I saw a fiery, shining dragon rise from one of the caves of Mount Pilatus and direct himself rapidly towards Fluelen to the other end of the lake. Enormous in size, his tail was still longer and his neck stretched out. His head and jaws were those of a serpent. In flying, he emitted on his way numerous sparks (? !).... I thought at first I was seeing a meteor, but soon, looking more attentively, I was convinced by his flight and the conformation of his body that I saw a _veritable dragon_. I am happy to be thus able to enlighten your Reverence on the _very real_ existence of those animals”—in _dreams_, the writer ought to have added, of long past ages. (_Ibid._, p. 424.) 469 As a convincing proof of the reality of the fact, a Roman Catholic refers the reader to the picture of the incident painted by Simon de Sienne, a friend of the poet, on the portal of the Church Notre Dame du Don at Avignon, notwithstanding the prohibition of the Sovereign Pontiff, who “would not allow this triumph of love to be enthroned in the holy place”; and adds: “Time has injured the work of art, but has not weakened its tradition.” (_Ibid._, p. 425.) De Mirville’s “Dragon‐Devils” of our era seem to have no luck, as they disappear most mysteriously from the museums where they are said to have been. Thus the Dragon embalmed by Ulysses Aldovrandus and presented to the Musée du Sénat, either in Naples or Bologna, “was there still in 1700,” but is there no more. (_Ibid._, p. 427.) 470 _Op. cit._, ii. 422. 471 _Ibid._, p. 433. 472 _Ibid._, pp. 432, 433. This is about as just as though, a few millenniums hence, a fanatic of some future new creed, who was bent upon glorifying _his_ religion at the expense of _ancient_ Christianity, were to say: Everywhere the quadruped lamb was adored. The nun, calling it the Agnus, placed it on her bosom; the priest laid it on the altar. It figured in every Paschal meal, and was glorified loudly in every temple. And yet the Christians dreaded it and hated it, for they slew and devoured it. Heathens, at any rate, do not eat their sacred symbols. We know of no serpent or reptile‐ eaters, except in Christian civilized countries, where they begin with frogs and eels, and must end with real snakes, as they have begun with lamb and ended with horse‐flesh. 473 _Ibid._, p. 423. 474 _Pantheon_, 3. 475 The Solar Chnouphis, or Agathodæmon, is the Christos of the Gnostics, as every scholar knows. He is intimately connected with the Seven Sons of Sophia (Wisdom), the Seven Sons of Aditi, Universal Wisdom, her eighth being Mârttânda, the Sun, which Seven are the Seven Planetary Regents or Genii. Therefore Chnouphis was the Spiritual Sun of Enlightenment, of Wisdom, hence the patron of all the Egyptian Initiates, as Bel‐Merodach, or Bel‐Belitanus, became later with the Chaldæans. 476 Hermes, or rather Thot, was a generic name. Abul Feda shows in his _Historia Anti‐Islamitica_, five Hermes, and the names of Hermes, Nebo, Thot were given respectively in various countries to great Initiates. Thus Nebo, the son of Merodach and Zarpanitu, whom Herodotus calls Zeus‐Belos, gave his name to all the great Prophets, Seers and Initiates. They were all “Serpents of Wisdom,” as connected with the Sun astronomically, and with Wisdom spiritually. 477 _Pantheon_, text 15. 478 i. 555. 479 _Genesis_, xlix. 17, 18, and 5, 6. 480 Dunlap, in his Introduction to _Sod, the Mysteries of Adoni_ (xi), explains the word “Sod” as _arcanum_, religious mystery, on the authority of Schindler’s _Penteglott_, 1201. “The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him,” says _Psalm_, xxv. 14. This is a mistranslation of the Christians, for it ought to read: “Sod Ihoh (the Mysteries of Ihoh) are for _those who fear him_.” “Al [El] is terrible in the great Sod of the Kedeshim (the Priests, the Holy, the Initiated).”—_Psalm_, lxxxix. 7 (_ibid._). The Kedeshim were very far from holy. See the Section on “The Holy of Holies,” in Part II of this Volume. 481 “The members of the Priest‐Colleges were called Sodales,” says Freund’s _Latin Lexicon_ (iv. 448). “Sodalities were constituted in the Idæan Mysteries of the Mighty Mother,” writes Cicero in _De Senectute_. (Dunlap, _ibid._, p. xii.) 482 xxx. 6. 483 The priests of Baal who jumped over the fires. But this was a Hebrew term and a local one. Saraph means “fiery or flaming venom.” 484 _Book of the Dead_, ch. xxxix. 485 The same ram’s horns are found on the heads of Moses which were seen on some old medals by the writer in Palestine, one of which is still in her possession. The horns, forming part of the shining aureole on the statue of Moses in Rome by Michael Angelo, are vertical instead of being bent down to the ears, but the emblem is the same; hence the Brazen Serpent. 486 But see Harris’ _Magic Papyrus_, No. v, and the ram‐headed Ammon manufacturing men on a potter’s wheel. 487 Brasseur de Bourbourg, _Mexique_, pp. 135 and 574. 488 Ulûpî (Ulûpl) has an entirely Atlantean ring about it. Like Atlantis, it is neither a Greek nor a Sanskrit name, but reminds one of Mexican names. 489 _Mahâbhârata_, Âdi Parva, Shlokas 7788, 7789. The _Bhâgavata Purâna_ (ix. xx. 31), as explained by Shrîdhara, the commentator, makes Ulûpî the daughter of the king of Manipûra (see _Vishnu Purâna_, Wilson, iv. 160); but the late Pandit Dayânand Sarasvatî, certainly the greatest Sanskrit and Paurânic authority in India on such questions, personally corroborated that Ulûpî was daughter of the king of the Nâgas in Pâtâla, or America, 5,000 years ago, and that the Nâgas were Initiates. 490 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 293. 491 Foh‐tchou, in Chinese meaning literally Buddha’s lord, or the teacher of the doctrines of Buddha—Foh. 492 This mountain is situated south‐west of China, almost between China and Tibet. 493 _Ibid._, pp. 293, 294. 494 Let the reader be reminded that in the _Zohar_, and also in all the Kabalistic works, it is maintained that “Metatron united with Shekinah.” Now Shekinah as the Veil (Grace) of Ain Suph, representing the Logos, is that very Tree of Knowledge; while Shamaël—the dark _aspect_ of the Logos—occupies only the bark of that tree, and has the knowledge of _evil_ alone. As Lacour, who saw in the scene of the Fall (_Genesis_, iii) an incident pertaining to Egyptian Initiation, says: “The Tree of the Divination, or of the Knowledge of Good and Evil ... is the science of Tzyphon, the Genius of Doubt, _tzy_ to teach, and _phon_, doubt. Tzyphon is one of the Aleim; we shall see him presently under the name of Nach, the tempter” (_Les Œloim_, vol. ii. p. 218). He is now known to Symbologists under the name of Jehovah. 495 This is the view taken and adopted by all the Church Fathers, but it is not the real Esoteric Teaching. The _curse_ did not begin with the formation of either man or woman, for their separation was a natural sequence of evolution, but with _the breaking of the law_. 496 By which _human_ nature lives; not even the animal—but the misguided, sensual and vicious nature, which _men_, not Nature, created. See the Section “Cross and Circle.” 497 See _Zohar_, i. 172, _a_ and _b_. 498 Compare the Section on “The Mysteries of the Hebdomad” in Part II of this Volume. 499 Gould’s _Mythical Monsters_, p. 1. 500 _The Unicorn: a Mythological Investigation_, Robert Brown, junr., F.S.A. London, 1881. 501 _Mythical Monsters_, pp. 2‐4. 502 _Ibid._, p. 20. 503 _Ibid._, pp. 36, 37. 504 _The Human Species_, p. 52. 505 _Manual of Geology_, p. 301. 506 _Ibid._, p. 17. 507 Gould’s _Mythical Monsters_, p. 16. See also _Recherches, etc., des Mammifères_, plate 1. Paris, 1868 to 1874. 508 Preface to the _Shan Hai King_, or “Wonders by Land and Sea.” 509 Vol. i. pp. 589, _et seqq._ 510 There are Archæologists, who, like Mr. James Fergusson, refuse any great antiquity to even one single monument in India. In his work, _Illustrations of the Rock‐Cut Temples of India_, he ventures to express the very extraordinary opinion that “Egypt had ceased to be a nation before the earliest of the cave‐temples of India was excavated.” In short, he does not admit the existence of any cave‐ temple anterior to the reign of Ashoka, and seems anxious to prove that most of these rock‐cut temples were executed during a period extending from the time of that pious Buddhist king until the destruction of the Andhra dynasty of Magadha, in the beginning of the fifth century. We believe such a claim to be perfectly arbitrary. Further discoveries will show that it is erroneous and unwarranted. 511 America, at the time of its discovery, was called _Atlanta_ by some native tribes. 512 Since then Donnelly’s _Atlantis_ has appeared, and soon its actual existence will have become a scientific fact. 513 It is so divided to this day, and Theosophists and Occultists, who have learned something of the occult but undeniable power of Dugpaship at their own expense, know this but too well. 514 See De Mirville’s _Pneumatologie: Des Esprits_, iii. 57, _et seqq._ 515 See Max Müller, _Chips_, i. 339; “Popol Vuh.” Compare also Holmberg, _Ethnographische Skizzen über die Völker des Russischen Amerika_. Helsingfors, 1855. 516 _Op. cit._, pp. 13‐15. 517 _Ibid._, p. 308. 518 An approach to the statues at Bamian—also a Buddha 200 feet high—is found near a Jain settlement in Southern India, and appears to be the only one that remains at present. 519 Even Wilson admits that Râma and Râvana were personages founded on historical facts. “The traditions of the South of India uniformly ascribe its civilization ... and the settlement of civilized Hindûs [the Fifth Race] to the conquest of Lankâ by Râma” (_Vishnu Purâna_, iii. 318)—the victory of the “Sons of Gods” over the Atlantean sorcerers, says the _true_ tradition. 520 Thus we are shown one hero, to give an instance, first born as the “unrighteous but valiant monarch” (Purusha) of the Daityas, Hiranyakashipu, slain by the Avatâra Nara‐sinha (Man‐lion). Then he was born as Râvana, the giant king of Lankâ, and killed by Râma; after which he is reborn as Shishupâla, the son of Rajarshi (King Rishi) Damaghosha, when he is again killed by Krishna, the last incarnation of Vishnu. This parallel evolution of Vishnu (Spirit) with a Daitya, as man, may seem meaningless, yet it gives us the key not only to the respective dates of Râma and Krishna but even to a certain psychological mystery. 521 Compare _Hibbert Lectures_, 1877, Sayce, pp. 134‐138. 522 The Gods became No‐Gods. 523 Race. 524 Yellow‐white. 525 Strictly speaking, it is only from the time of the Atlantean, brown and yellow giant races, that one ought to speak of _man_, since it was the Fourth Race only which was the first _completely human species_, however much larger in size than we are now. In _Man: Fragments of Forgotten History_ (by two Chelâs), all that is said of the Atlanteans is quite correct. It is chiefly this Race which became “black with sin,” that brought the divine names of the Asuras, the Râkshasas and the Daityas, into disrepute, and passed them on to posterity as the names of fiends. For, as said, the Suras, Gods or Devas, having incarnated in the wise men of Atlantis, the names of Asuras and Râkshasas were given to the ordinary Atlanteans. Owing to the incessant conflicts of the latter with the last remnants of the Third Race and the “Sons of Will and Yoga,” their names have led to the later allegories about them in the _Purânas_. “Asura was the generic appellation of all the Atlanteans who were the enemies of the spiritual heroes of the Âryans (Gods).” (_Man_, p. 77.) 526 In the beginning. 527 The sub‐races. 528 Their colours. 529 Stanza VII, Shloka 24. 530 See Shlokas 32, 34. 531 In general, the so‐called orthodox Christian conceptions about the “fallen” Angels or Satan, are as remarkable as they are absurd. About a dozen could be cited, of the most varied character as to details, and all from the pens of educated lay authors, “university graduates” of the present quarter of our century. Thus, the author of _Earth’s Earliest Ages_, G. H. Pember, M.A., devotes a thick volume to proving Theosophists, Spiritualists, Agnostics, Mystics, metaphysicians, poets, and every contemporary author on Oriental speculations, to be the devoted servants of the “Prince of the Air,” and irretrievably damned. He describes Satan and his Antichrist in this wise: “Satan is the ‘Anointed Cherub’ of old.... God created Satan, the fairest and wisest of all His creatures in this part of His Universe, and made him Prince of the World, and of the Power of the Air.... He was placed in an Eden, which was both far anterior to the Eden of Genesis ... and of an altogether different and more substantial character, resembling the New Jerusalem. Thus, Satan being perfect in wisdom, and beauty, his vast empire is our earth, if not the whole solar system.... Certainly no other angelic power of greater or even equal dignity has been revealed to us. The Archangel Michael himself is quoted by Jude as preserving towards the Prince of Darkness _the respect due to a superior_, however wicked he may be, until God has formally commanded his deposition.” Then we are informed that “Satan was from the moment of his creation surrounded by the _insignia of royalty_” (! !): that he “awoke to consciousness to find the air filled with the rejoicing music of those whom God had appointed.” Then the Devil “passes from the royalty to his _priestly dignity_” (! ! !). “Satan was also a _priest of the Most High_,” etc., etc. And now—“Antichrist will be Satan incarnate.” (Chap. III and pp. 56‐59.) The pioneers of the coming Apollyon have already appeared—they are the Theosophists, the Occultists, the authors of the _Perfect Way_, of _Isis Unveiled_, of the _Mystery of the Ages_, and even of the _Light of Asia_ ! ! The author notes the “avowed origin” of Theosophy from the “descending angels,” from the “Nephilim,” or the Angels of _Genesis_ (vi), and the Giants. He ought to note his own descent from them also, as our _Secret Doctrine_ endeavours to show—unless he refuses to belong to the present humanity. 532 Compare x. 8, where it speaks of all who have come before Jesus, being “thieves and robbers.” 533 Verse 14. 534 _Luke_, x. 18. 535 It is not correct to refer to Christ—as some Theosophists do—as Buddhi, the sixth principle in man. The latter _per se_ is a passive and latent principle, the Spiritual Vehicle of Âtmâ, inseparable from the manifested Universal Soul. It is only in union and in conjunction with _Self‐consciousness_ that Buddhi becomes the Higher Self and the Divine, discriminating Soul. Christos is the seventh principle, if anything. 536 xix. 7. 537 _Ibid._, verse 8. 538 xviii. 24. 539 To make it plainer, any one who reads the passage in _Luke_, will see that the remark follows the report of the _seventy_, who rejoice that “even the devils [the spirit of controversy and reasoning, or the opposing power, since Satan means simply ‘adversary’ or ‘opponent’] are subject unto us through thy name.” (_Luke_, x. 17.) Now, “thy name” means the name of Christos, or Logos, or the Spirit of true Divine Wisdom, as distinct from the spirit of intellectual or mere materialistic reasoning—the Higher Self in short. And when Jesus remarks on this that he has “beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven,” it is a mere statement of his clairvoyant powers, notifying to them that he already knew it, and a reference to the incarnation of the Divine Ray—the Gods or Angels—which _falls into generation_. For not all men, by any means, benefit by that incarnation, and with some the power remains latent and dead during the whole life. Truly “no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son,” as added by Jesus then and there (verse 22)—the “Church of Christ” less than any one else. The Initiates alone understood the secret meaning of the terms “Father” and “Son,” and knew that it referred to Spirit and Soul on the Earth. For the teachings of Christ were Occult teachings, which could only be explained at Initiation. They were never intended for the masses, for Jesus forbade the twelve to go to the Gentiles and the Samaritans (_Matth._, x. 5), and repeated to his disciples that the “mystery of the kingdom of God” was for them alone, not for the multitudes (_Mark_, iv. 11). 540 So, for instance, in the _Purânas_, Pulastya, a Prajâpati, or son of Brahmâ—the progenitor of the Râkshasas, and the grandfather of Râvana, the great king of Lankâ in the _Râmâyana_—had, in a _former birth_, a son named Dattoli, “who is now known as the sage Agastya,” says _Vishnu Purâna_ (Wilson’s Trans., i. 154). This name of Dattoli alone, has six more variants to it, or seven meanings. He is called respectively, Dattoli, Dattâli, Dattotti, Dattotri, Dattobhri, Dambhobhi and Dambholi. These seven variants have each a secret sense, and refer in the Esoteric Commentaries to various ethnological classifications, and also to physiological and anthropological mysteries of the primitive races. For, surely, the Râkshasas are not Demons, but simply the primitive and ferocious Giants, the Atlanteans, who were scattered on the face of the Globe, as the Fifth Race is now. Vasishtha is a warrant of this, if his words addressed to Parâshara, who attempted a bit of Jadoo (sorcery), which he calls “sacrifice,” for the destruction of the Râkshasas, mean anything. For he says: “Let no more of these _unoffending_ ‘Spirits of Darkness’ be consumed.” (See for details, _Mahâbhârata_, Âdi Parvan, s. 176; also _Linga Purâna_, Pûrvârdha, s. 64; Wilson, _ibid._, i. 8, 9.) 541 We have a passage from a Master’s letter which has a direct bearing upon these incarnating Angels. Says the letter: “Now there are, and there must be, failures in the ethereal Races of the many Classes of Dhyân Chohans, or Devas [_progressed entities_ of a _previous_ Planetary Period], as well as among men. But still, as the _failures_ are too far progressed and spiritualized to be thrown back forcibly from Dhyân‐Chohanship into the vortex of a new primordial evolution through the lower Kingdoms, this then happens. Where a new Solar System has to be evolved, these Dhyân Chohans are borne in by influx ‘ahead’ of the Elementals [entities ... to be developed into humanity at a _future_ time] and remain as a latent or inactive spiritual force, in the Aura of a nascent World ... until the stage of human evolution is reached.... Then they become an _active force_ and commingle with the Elementals, to _develop little by little the full type of humanity_.” That is to say, to develop in man, and endow him with his Self‐conscious Mind, or Manas. 542 Appendix XV, pp. 369, _et seqq._ 543 When the Earth with its Planetary Chain and Man were to appear. 544 Our Earth and the physical plane of consciousness. 545 When the pure, celestial Beings or Dhyân Chohans, and the great Pitris of various classes were commissioned—the one to evolve their Images or Chhâyâs, and make of them physical man, the others to inform and thus endow him with divine intelligence and the comprehension of the Mysteries of Creation. 546 The “dynasties of kings” who all regard themselves as the “anointed,” reigning by the “Grace of God,” whereas in truth, they reign by the grace of Matter, the Great Illusion, the Deceiver. 547 _Ibid._, _loc. cit._, verse 10. 548 See the “Primeval Manus of Humanity.” 549 The “Heavenly Man,” please mark again the word, is the “Logos” or the “Son” Esoterically. Therefore, once that the title was applied to Christ, who was declared to be God and the very God himself, Christian Theology had no choice. In order to support its dogma of a personal Trinity it had to proclaim, as it still does, that the Christian Logos is the only true one, and that all the Logoi of other religions are false, and are only the masquerading Evil Principle, Satan. See whereto this has led Western Theology! 550 “For the Mind, a deity abounding in both sexes, being Light and Life, brought forth by its Word another Mind or Workman; which, being God of the Fire and the Spirit, fashioned and formed seven other Governors, which in their Circles contain the Phenomenal World, and whose disposition is called Fate or Destiny.” (Sect. ix. c. 1, ed. of 1579.) Here it is evident that Mind, the Primeval Universal Divine Thought, is neither the Unknown Unmanifested One, since it abounds in both sexes—is male and female—nor yet the Christian “Father,” as the latter is a male and not an androgyne. The fact is that the “Father,” “Son,” and “Man” are hopelessly mixed up in the translations of _Pymander_. 551 The allegory of the fire of Prometheus is another version of the rebellion of the proud Lucifer, who was hurled down to the “bottomless pit,” or simply on to our Earth, to live as man. The Hindû Lucifer, the Mahâsura, is also said to have become envious of the Creator’s resplendent Light, and, at the head of inferior Asuras (not Gods, but Spirits), to have rebelled against Brahmâ; for which Shiva hurled him down to Pâtâla. But, as philosophy goes hand in hand with allegorical fiction in Hindû myths, the “Devil” is made to repent, and is afforded the opportunity to progress: he is a sinful man _esoterically_, and can by Yoga, devotion, and adeptship, reach his status of “one with the deity,” once more. Hercules, the Sun‐ God, descends to Hades (the Cave of Initiation) to deliver the victims from their tortures, etc. The Christian Church alone creates _eternal_ torment for the Devil and the damned that she has invented. 552 Why, for instance, should Éliphas Lévi, the very fearless and outspoken Kabalist, have hesitated to divulge the mystery of the Fallen Angels so‐called? That he knew the fact and the real meaning of the allegory, both in its religious and mystical, as well as in its physiological sense, is proved by his voluminous writings and frequent allusions and hints. Yet Éliphas, after having alluded to it a hundred times in his previous works, says in his later _Histoire de la Magie_ (pp. 220, 221): “We protest with all our might against the sovereignty and the ubiquity of Satan. We _pretend neither to deny nor affirm here the tradition on the Fall of the Angels_.... But if so ... then the prince of the Angelic Rebels can be at best the last and the most powerless among the condemned—now that he is separated from deity—which is the principle of every power.” This is hazy and evasive enough; but see what Hargrave Jennings writes in his weird, staccato‐like style: “Both Saint Michael and Saint George are types. They are sainted personages, or dignified heroes, or powers apotheosized. They are each represented with their appropriate faculties and attributes. These are reproduced and stand multiplied—distinguished by different names in all the mythologies [including the Christian]. But the idea regarding each is a general one. This idea and representative notion is that of the all‐powerful champion—child‐like in his ‘virgin innocence’—so powerful that this God‐filled innocence (the Seraphim ‘know most,’ the Cherubim ‘love most’) can shatter the world (articulated—so to use the word—in the magic of Lucifer, but condemned), in opposition to the artful constructions, won out of the permission of the Supreme—artful constructions (‘this side life’)—of the magnificent apostate, the mighty rebel, but yet, at the same time, the ‘Light‐bringer,’ the Lucifer—the ‘Morning Star,’ the ‘Son of the Morning’—the very highest title ‘out of heaven,’ for in heaven it cannot be, but out of heaven it is everything. In an apparently incredible side of his character—for let the reader carefully remark that qualities are of no sex—this Archangel Saint Michael is the invincible, sexless, celestial ‘Energy’—to dignify him by his grand characteristics—the invincible ‘Virgin‐Combatant,’ clothed ... and at the same time armed, in the denying mail of the Gnostic ‘refusal to create.’ This is another myth, a ‘myth within myths,’ ... a stupendous ‘mystery of mysteries,’ because it is so impossible and contradictory. Unexplainable as the Apocalypse. Unrevealable as the ‘Revelation.’ ” (_Phallicism_, pp. 212, 213.) Nevertheless, this _unexplainable_ and _unrevealable_ mystery will now be explained and revealed by the doctrines of the East. Though, of course, as the very erudite, but still more puzzling author of _Phallicism_ gives it, no uninitiated mortal would ever understand his real drift. 553 “Creation”—out of preëxistent eternal Substance, or Matter, of course, which Substance, according to our teachings, is Boundless, Ever‐existing Space. 554 The Luciferians, a sect of the fourth century who are alleged to have taught that the soul was a _carnal_ body transmitted to the child by its father, and the Lucianists, another and earlier sect of the third century A.D., who taught all this, and further, that the _animal_ soul was not immortal, philosophized on the grounds of the real Kabalistic and Occult teachings. 555 This “Central Sun” of the Occultists even Science is obliged to accept astronomically, for it cannot deny the presence in sidereal space of a central body in the Milky Way, a point unseen and mysterious, the ever‐hidden centre of attraction of our Sun and System. But this “Sun” is viewed differently by the Occultists of the East. While the Western and Jewish Kabalists—and even some pious modern Astronomers—claim that in this Sun the God‐head is specially present, referring to it the volitional acts of God—the Eastern Initiates maintain that, as the Supra‐divine Essence of the Unknown Absolute is equally in every domain and place, the “Central Sun” is simply the centre of Universal Life‐Electricity; the reservoir within which that Divine Radiance, already differentiated at the beginning of every “creation,” is focussed. Though still in a Laya, or neutral condition, it is, nevertheless, the one attracting, as also the ever‐emitting, Life‐Centre. 556 _Op. cit._, pp. 287‐289. 557 See Commentary to Stanza VII, Volume I. 558 The _fourth_ and the _fifth_ from _below_ beginning with the Physical Body; the _third_ and the _fourth_, if we reckon from Âtmâ. 559 _New Aspects of Life._ 560 Angelic, Spiritual Essences, immortal in their Being, because unconditioned in Eternity; but periodical and conditioned in their Manvantaric manifestations. 561 _Op. cit._, pp. 97, 98, 2nd ed., 1887. 562 The history of Prometheus, Karma, and human consciousness, is to be found in Part II, Section V. 563 By an Englishman whose erratic genius killed him. The son of a Protestant clergyman, he became a Mohammedan; then a rabid Atheist; after meeting with a Master, a Guru, he became a Mystic; then a Theosophist who doubted, despaired—threw up _white_ for _black_ magic, went insane and joined the Roman Church. Then again turning round, anathematized her, re‐became an Atheist, and died cursing humanity, knowledge, and God, in whom he had ceased to believe. Furnished with all the Esoteric data to write his “War in Heaven,” he made a semi‐political article out of it, mixing Malthus with Satan, and Darwin with the Astral Light. Peace be to his—_Shell_. He is a warning to the Chelâs who fail. His forgotten tomb may now be seen in the Mussulman burial ground of Joonaghur, Kathiawar, India. 564 The author talks of the _active, fighting_, damning Jehovah as though he were a synonym of Parabrahman! We have quoted from this article to show where it dissents from Theosophic teachings; otherwise it would be quoted some day against us, as everything published in the _Theosophist_ generally is. 565 _The Theosophist_, vol. iii. p. 68. 566 Explaining the _Kabalah_, Dr. Henry Pratt says: “Spirit was to man [to the Jewish Rabbin, rather!] a bodiless, disembodied, or deprived, and degraded being, and hence was termed by the ideograph Nahash, ‘Deprived’; represented as appearing to and seducing the human race—man through the woman.... In the picture from this Nahash, this spirit was represented by a serpent, because from its _destitution of bodily members_, the serpent was looked upon as a deprived and depraved and degraded creature.” (_New Aspects of Life_, p. 235.) Symbol for symbol there are those who would prefer that of the serpent—the symbol of wisdom and eternity, deprived of limbs as it is—to the Jod (י)—the poetical ideograph of Jehovah in the _Kabalah_—the God of the male symbol of generation. 567 _Zohar_, iii. 61c. 568 Daksha, the “intelligent, the competent.” “This name generally carries with it the idea of _creative power_.” He is a son of Brahmâ and of Aditi, and agreeably to other versions, a self‐born power, which, like Minerva, sprang from his father’s body. He is the chief of the Prajâpatis, the Lords or Creators of Being. In _Vishnu Purâna_, Parâshara says of him: “In every Kalpa [or Manvantara] Daksha and the rest are born and are again destroyed.” And the _Rig Veda_ says that “Daksha sprang from Aditi and Aditi from Daksha,” a reference to the eternal cyclic re‐birth of the same divine Essence. 569 _Bhâgavata Purâna_, iv. 24, 4. 570 No one of these Orders is distinct from the Pitris or Progenitors. As says Manu (iii. 284): “The wise call our fathers Vasus; our paternal grandfathers, Rudras; our paternal great grandfathers, Âdityas; agreeably to a text of the Vedas.” “This is an everlasting Vedic text,” says another translation. 571 As now discovered by the late G. Smith in the Babylonian cylinder literature, it was the same in Chaldæan Theogony. Ishtar, “eldest of Heaven and of Earth.” Below him the Igigi or Angels of Heaven, and the Anûnaki, or Angels of Earth. Below these again various classes of Spirits and “Genii” called Sadu, Vadukku, Ekimu, Gallu—of which some were good, some evil. (See Smith’s _Babylonian Mythology_, also Sayce’s _Hibbert Lectures_, p. 141.) 572 Some superior, others inferior, _to suit the Karma_ of the various reïncarnating Monads, which could not all be of the same degree of purity in their last births in other Worlds. This accounts for the difference of races, the inferiority of the savage and other human varieties. 573 “There are,” says Topinard in the English edition of his _Anthropology_, with a preface by Professor Broca, “_three_ fundamental elements of colour in the human organism—namely, the _red_, the _yellow_, and the _black_, which, mixed in variable quantities with the white of the tissues, give rise to those numerous shades seen in the human family.” Here is Science again unintentionally supporting Occultism. 574 It must be remembered that the “last remnants” here spoken of, refer to those portions of the “Great Continent” which still remained, and not to any of the numerous islands which existed contemporaneously with the Continent. Plato’s “island,” for instance, was one of such remnants; the others having sunk at various periods previously. An Occult “tradition” teaches that such submersions occur whenever there is an eclipse of the “Spiritual Sun.” 575 See the remarks on the Root and Seed Manus _infra_, and the Section on “The Primeval Manus of Humanity,” at the end of the Commentaries on this Stanza. 576 Mr. Gladstone’s unfortunate attempt to reconcile the Genetic account with Science (see his “Dawn of Creation” and “Proem to Genesis,” in _The Nineteenth Century_, 1886), has brought upon him the Jovian thunderbolt hurled by Mr. Huxley. The dead‐letter account warranted no such attempt; and his fourfold order, or division, of animated creation, has turned into the stone which, instead of killing the fly on the sleeping friend’s brow, killed the man himself. Mr. Gladstone has killed _Genesis_ for ever. But this does not prove that there is no Esotericism in the latter. The fact that the Jews and all the Christians, the modern as well as the early sects, have accepted the narrative _literally_ for two thousand years, proves only their ignorance, and shows the great ingenuity and constructive ability of the Initiated Rabbis, who built the two accounts—the Elohistic and Jehovistic—Esoterically, and purposely confused the meaning by the vowelless glyphs or word‐signs in the original text. The six days (Yom) of creation do mean six periods of evolution, and the seventh day is that of culmination, of perfection—not of rest. These refer to the seven Rounds and the seven Races with a distinct “creation” in each; though the use of the words Boker, “dawn” or “morning,” and Ereb, “evening twilight”—which have Esoterically the same meaning as Sandhyâ, “twilight,” in Sanskrit—have led to a charge of the most crass ignorance of the order of evolution. 577 _Modern Science and Modern Thought_, p. 337. 578 Dowson’s _Hindû Classical Dictionary_, _sub voce_. 579 _Op. cit._, p. 335. 580 “Follow the law of analogy”—the Masters teach. Âtmâ‐Buddhi is dual and Manas is triple, inasmuch as the former has two aspects, and the latter three, _i.e._, as a “principle” _per se_, which gravitates, in its higher aspect, to Âtmâ‐Buddhi, and follows, in its lower nature, Kâma, the seat of terrestrial and animal desires and passions. Now compare the evolution of the Races, the First and the Second of which are of the nature of Âtmâ‐Buddhi, of which they are the passive Spiritual progeny, while the Third Root‐Race shows three distinct divisions or aspects physiologically and psychically—the earliest sinless, the middle portions awakening to intelligence, and the third and last decidedly _animal_, _i.e._, Manas succumbs to the temptations of Kâma. 581 Laing, _op. cit._, _ibid._ 582 The whole trouble is this: neither Physiologists nor Pathologists will recognize that the cell‐germinating substance, the Cytoblastema, and the mother‐lye from which crystals originate, are one and the same essence, save in differentiation for certain purposes. 583 Huxley, _Proceedings of the Royal Institution_, iii. 151. 584 _Introduction to the Study of the Foraminifera_, p. xi. 585 _Transactions of the Geological Society of Glasgow_, vol. iii. Very strangely, however, he has recently again changed his opinion. The Sun, he says, is only 15,000,000 years old. 586 Bastian, _The Beginnings of Life_, ii. 622. 587 Laing, _Modern Science and Modern Thought_, p. 171. 588 In _Isis Unveiled_, vol. i. p. 389, this is noticed and half explained. 589 Hence the philosophy in the allegory of the 7, 10, and finally 21, Prajâpatis, Rishis, Munis, etc., who all are made the “fathers” of various beings and things. The order of the seven classes, or orders of plants, animals, and even inanimate things, given at random in the _Purânas_, is found in several commentaries in the correct rotation. Thus, Prithu is the father of the Earth. He “milks” her, and makes her bear every kind of grain and vegetable, all enumerated and specified. Kashyapa is the “father” of all the reptiles, snakes, demons, etc. 590 See vol. i. pp. 151, _et seqq._, concerning the “Tree of Evolution”—the “Mundane Tree.” 591 Checked and modified, however, by the Law of Retardation, which imposes a restriction on the advance of all species when a _higher type_ makes its appearance. 592 See _Origin of Species_, p. 145. 593 Bastian, _Beginnings of Life_, ii. pp. 622, 623. 594 Vol. ii. p. 278. 595 _Op. cit._, i. 9. 596 _Ibid._, ii. 283, 284. 597 See his _Lettres sur l’Atlantide_. 598 This is shown by Faber, again a pious Christian, who says that: “The Noëtic family also ... bore the appellations of Atlanteans and Titans; and the great patriarch himself was called, by way of eminence, Atlas and Titan.” (_Ibid._, ii. 285.) And if so, then, _according to the Bible_, Noah must have been the progeny of the Sons of God, the Fallen Angels, agreeably to the same authority, and of the “daughters of men who were fair.” (See _Genesis_, vi.) And why not, since his father Lamech slew a man, and was, with all his sons and daughters, who perished in the Deluge, as bad as the rest of mankind? 599 In that wonderful volume of Donnelly, _Atlantis, the Antediluvian World_, the author, speaking of the Âryan colonies from Atlantis, and of the arts and sciences—the legacy of our Fourth Race—bravely announces that “the roots of the institutions of to‐day reach back to the Miocene age.” This is an enormous allowance for a modern scholar to make; but civilization dates still further back than the Miocene Atlanteans. Secondary‐period man will be discovered, and with him his long forgotten civilization. 600 Nature is the _Natural_ Body, the Shadow of the Progenitors. 601 Man is the “Heavenly Man,” as already stated. 602 _Divine Pymander_, i. 16. 603 The _Pymander_ of our museums and libraries is an abridgment of one of the Books of Thoth, by a Platonist of Alexandria. In the Third Century it was remodelled after old Hebrew and Phœnician MSS. by a Jewish Kabalist, and called the _Genesis of Enoch_. But even its disfigured remnants show how closely its text agrees with the Archaic Doctrine, as is shown in the creation of the Seven Creators and Seven Primitive Men. As to Enoch, Thoth or Hermes, Orpheus and Cadmus, these are all generic names, branches and offshoots of the seven primordial Sages—incarnated Dhyân Chohans or Devas, in _illusive_, not mortal bodies—who taught Humanity all it knew, and whose earliest disciples assumed their Master’s names. This custom passed from the Fourth to the Fifth Race. Hence the sameness of the traditions about Hermes—of whom Egyptologists count five—Enoch, etc.; they are all inventors of letters; none of them die; they still live, and are the first Initiators into, and Founders of, the Mysteries. It was only very lately that the _Genesis of Enoch_ disappeared from among the Kabalists. Guillaume Postel saw it. It was most certainly in a great measure a transcript from the Books of Hermes, and far anterior to the Books of Moses, as Éliphas Lévi tells his readers. 604 Uranus is a modified Varuna, the “universal encompasser,” the “all‐ embracer,” and one of the oldest of the Vedic Deities—Space, the maker of Heaven and Earth, since both are manifested out of his (or its) seed. It is only later that Varuna became the chief of the Âdityas and a kind of Neptune riding on the “Leviathan”—Makara, now the most sacred and mysterious of the Signs of the Zodiac. Varuna, without whom “no creature can even wink,” was degraded like Uranus, and, like him, _fell into generation_; his functions—“the grandest cosmical functions,” as Muir calls them—having been degraded from Heaven to Earth by exoteric anthropomorphism. As the same Orientalist says: “The attributes and functions ascribed to Varuna [in the Vedas] impart to his character a moral elevation and sanctity far surpassing that attributed to any other Vedic Deity.” But to understand correctly the reason of his fall, like as that of Uranus, one has to see in every exoteric religion the imperfect and sinful work of man’s fancy, and also to study the mysteries which Varuna is said to have imparted to Vasishtha. Only “his secrets and those of Mitra _are not to be revealed to the foolish_.” 605 _Mythologie de la Grèce Antique_, p. 7. 606 Cronus is not only Χρόνος, Time, but also, as Bréal showed, in his _Hercule et Cacus_ (p. 57), comes from the root _kar_, “to make, to create.” Whether Bréal and Decharme, who quotes him, are as right in saying that in the _Vedas_, Krânan (_sic_) is a Creative God, we have our doubts. Bréal probably meant Karma, or rather Visvakarman, the Creative God, the “omnificent” and the “great architect of the world.” 607 See Stanzas III—X, _et seqq._, and also Berosus’ account of primeval creation. 608 The Titanic struggle, in Theogony at least, is the fight for supremacy between the children of Uranus and Gæa (or Heaven and Earth in their abstract sense), the Titans, against the children of Cronus, whose chief is Zeus. It is the everlasting struggle going on to this day between the Spiritual Inner Man and the man of flesh, in one sense. 609 Just as the “Lord God,” or Jehovah, is Cain, esoterically, and the “tempting serpent” as well; the male portion of the androgynous Eve—before her “Fall,” the female portion of Adam Kadmon—the left side, or Binah, of the right side, Chokmah, in the first Sephirothal Triad. 610 Decharme, _op. cit._, p. 284. 611 In the Egyptian legend, called the “Two Brothers,” translated by M. Maspéro (the ex‐director of the Boulaq Museum), the original of Pandora is given. Noom, the famous heavenly artist, creates a marvellous beauty, a girl whom he sends to Batoo, after which the happiness of the latter is destroyed. Batoo is man, and the girl Eve, of course. (See _Revue Archéologique_, March, 1878, and also Decharme, _ibid._, p. 285.) 612 Yima is not the “first man” in the _Vendîdâd_, but only in the theories of the Orientalists. 613 Bœotia was submerged and subsequently ancient Athens and Eleusis. 614 _Opera et Dies_, v. 108. 615 _Nem._, VI. i. 616 See _Apollod._, i. 7, 2; and Ovid, _Metam._, i. 260, _et seqq._ 617 _Deutsche Mythol._, i. 545, 3rd edit., and Hanusch _Schlawische Myth._, p. 235. See Decharme, _ibid._, p. 288, who gives “nine times,” and not seven. 618 Hesiod, _Opera et Dies_, 143‐155. 619 See Æschylus, _Septem contra Thebas_. 620 Decharme, _ibid._, pp. 289, 290. 621 Races. 622 It was said. 623 In Sanskrit Dâkinî. 624 The name is used here in the sense, and as a synonym, of “sorcerers.” The Atlantean Races were many, and their evolution lasted for millions of years. All of them were not bad, but became so towards the end of their cycle, as we, the Fifth Race, are now fast becoming. 625 The “Gods of the Elements” are by no means the Elementals. The latter are at best used by them as vehicles and materials in which to clothe themselves. 626 Cain was the “sacrificer,” as shown at first in Chap. iv. of _Genesis_, of “the fruit of the ground,” of which he was the _first tiller_, while Abel “brought of the firstlings of his flock” to the Lord. Cain is the symbol of the first male, Abel of the first female humanity, Adam and Eve being the types of the Third Race. The “murdering” is blood‐shedding, but not taking life. 627 _Genesis_, vi. 628 It is, perhaps, with an eye to this _degradation_ of the highest and purest Spirits, who broke through the intermediate planes of lower consciousness, the “Seven Circles of Fire” of _Pymander_, that St. James is made to say “This wisdom (_sophia_) descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, _devilish_”; now this Sophia is Manas, the “Human Soul,” the Spiritual Wisdom or Soul being Buddhi, which being so near the Absolute, is, _per se_, only _latent_ consciousness, and is dependent upon Manas for manifestation beyond its own plane. 629 This is the “Undying Race,” as it is called in Esotericism, and exoterically the fruitless generation of the first progeny of Daksha, who curses Nârada, the divine Rishi, for having dissuaded the Haryashvas and the Shabalâshvas (the sons of Daksha) from procreating their species, by saying: “Be born in the womb; there shall not be a resting place for thee in all these regions.” After this, Nârada, the representative of that race of _fruitless_ ascetics, is said, as soon as he dies in one body, to be reborn in another. 630 Âdi Parvan, p. 113. 631 _Vishnu Purâna_, Wilson’s Trans., ii. 12. 632 The traditions of every country and nation point to this fact. Donnelly quotes from Father Duran’s _Historia Antigua de la Nueva España_ of 1885, in which a native of Cholula, a centenarian, accounts for the building of the great pyramid of Cholula, as follows: “In the beginning, before the light of the sun had been created, this land [Cholula] was in obscurity and darkness ... but immediately _after the light of the sun arose in the East_, there appeared gigantic men ... who built the said pyramid, its builders being scattered after that to all parts of the earth.” “A great deal of the Central American history is taken up with the doings of an ancient race of Giants called Quinanes,” says the author of _Atlantis_ (p. 204). 633 _Histoire de la Terre_, p. 154. 634 There are critics who, finding no evidence for the existence of Tertullian save in the writings of Eusebius, “the veracious,” are inclined to doubt it. 635 _Heroica_, p. 35. 636 _Hist. Nat._, VII. xvi. 637 See for the above De Mirville, _Pneumatologie Des Esprits_, iii. 46‐48. 638 _Élévations_, p. 56. 639 And that, notwithstanding the formal prohibition at the great Church Council of Elyrus in A.D. 303, when it was declared that “the form of God, which is immaterial and invisible, shall not be limited by figure or shape.” In 692, the Council of Constantinople similarly prohibited the faithful “to paint or represent Jesus _as a lamb_,” as also “to bow the knee in praying, as it is the act of idolatry.” But the Council of Nicæa (787) brought this idolatry back, while that of Rome (883) excommunicated John, the Patriarch of Constantinople, for showing himself an enemy of image worship. 640 _Genesis_, v. Treating of the Chinese Dragon and the literature of China, Mr. Charles Gould, in his _Mythical Monsters_ (p. 212), writes: “Its mythologies, histories, religions, popular stories, and proverbs, all teem with references to a mysterious being _who has a physical nature and spiritual attributes_. Gifted with an accepted form, which he has the supernatural power of casting off for the assumption of others, he has the power of influencing the weather, producing droughts or fertilizing rains at pleasure, of raising tempests and allaying them. Volumes could be compiled from the scattered legends which everywhere abound relating to this subject.” This “mysterious being” is the _mythical_ Dragon, _i.e._, the symbol of the _historical_ and actual Adept, the Master and Professor of Occult Sciences of old. It has already been stated elsewhere, that the great “Magicians” of the Fourth and Fifth Races were generally called “Serpents” and “Dragons” after their Progenitors. All these belonged to the Hierarchy of the so‐called “Fiery Dragons of Wisdom,” the Dhyân Chohans, answering to the Agnishvâtta Pitris, the Maruts and Rudras generally, as the issue of Rudra their father, who is identified with the God of Fire. More is said in the text. Now Clement, an initiated Neo‐Platonist, knew, of course, the origin of the word “Dragon,” and why the initiated Adepts were so called, as he knew the secret of the Agathodæmon, the Christ, the seven‐ vowelled Serpent of the Gnostics. He knew that the dogma of his new faith required the transformation of all the _rivals_ of Jehovah—the Angels supposed to have rebelled against that “Elohim,” as the Titan Prometheus rebelled against Zeus, the usurper of his father’s kingdom—and that “Dragon” was the mystic appellation of the “Sons of Wisdom”; from this knowledge came his definition, as cruel as it was arbitrary, “serpents and giants signify _demons_,” _i.e._, not “Spirits,” but _Devils_, in Church parlance. 641 Part IV, Ch. xxvii, p. 291. 642 “What would you say to our affirmation that the Chinese—I now speak of the inland, the true Chinamen, not of the hybrid mixture between the Fourth and Fifth Races now occupying the throne—the aborigines who belong in their unallied nationality wholly to the highest and last branch of the Fourth Race, reached their highest civilization when the Fifth had hardly appeared in Asia.” (_Esoteric Buddhism_, p. 67.) And this handful of the inland Chinese are all of a very high stature. Could the most ancient MSS. in the Lolo language (that of the aborigines of China) be got at and correctly translated, many a priceless piece of evidence would be found. But they are as rare as their language is unintelligible. So far, one or two European Archæologists only have been able to procure such priceless works. 643 Quoted in De Mirville, _op. cit._, iii. 53. Remember the same statement in the _Book of Enoch_, as also the ladder seen by Jacob in his dream. The “two worlds” mean, of course, the two _planes_ of Consciousness and Being. A seer can commune with Beings of a higher plane than the Earth, without quitting his arm‐chair. 644 See the Commentary on the Four Races—and on the “Sons of Will and Yoga,” the immaculate progeny of the Androgynous Third Race. 645 In the _Kabalah_ the pronunciation of the four‐lettered _ineffable_ Name is “a most secret arcanum”—“a secret of secrets.” 646 _The Chaldean Account of Genesis_, p. 81. 647 _Ibid._, p. 84, lines 12, 14 and 15. 648 Returning once more to this most important subject in Archaic Cosmogony, even in the Norse legends, in the Sacred Scrolls of the Goddess Saga, we find Loki, the brother by blood of Odin—just as Typhon, Ahriman, and others are respectively brothers of Osiris and Ormazd—becoming evil only later, when he had mingled too long with humanity. Like all other Fire or Light Gods—Fire burning and destroying as well as warming and giving life—he ended by being regarded in the destructive sense of “Fire.” The name _Loki_, we learn from _Asgard and the Gods_ (p. 250), has been derived from the old word _liuhan_, to enlighten. It has, therefore, the same origin as the Latin _lux_, light. Hence Loki is identical with Lucifer or Light‐bringer. This title, being given to the Prince of Darkness, is very suggestive and is in itself a vindication against theological slander. But Loki is still more closely related to Prometheus, for he is shown chained to a sharp rock, while Lucifer, also identified with Satan, was chained down in Hell; a circumstance, however, which prevented neither of them from acting with all freedom on Earth, if we accept the theological paradox in its fulness. Loki is a beneficent, generous and powerful God in the beginnings of time, and the principle of good, and not of evil, in early Scandinavian Theogony. 649 The Greek mythos alluded to a few pages back, namely the mutilation of Uranus by his son Cronus, is an allusion to this “theft” of the _divine creative Fire_ by the Son of the Earth and Heavens. If Uranus, the personification of the Celestial Powers, has to cease creating (he is made impotent by Cronus (Chronos), the God _in Time_), so, in the Egyptian Cosmogony, it is Thot, the God of Wisdom, who regulates this fight between Horus and Set, the latter being served by the former as Uranus is by Cronus. (See _Book of the Dead_, xvii, line 26.) In the Babylonian account it is the God Zu, who strips the “Father of the Gods” of “_umsimi_”—the ideal creative organ, not the “crown” (!) as G. Smith thought (_op. cit._, pp. 115, 116). For, in the fragment K. 3454 (British Museum), it is said very clearly, that Zu having stripped the “venerable of heaven” of his _desire_, he carried away the “_umsimi_ of the gods,” and burnt thereby “the _tereti_ [the power] of all the gods,” thus “governing the whole of the _seed_ of all the angels.” As the _umsimi_ was “_on the seat_” of Bel, it could hardly be the “crown.” A fourth version is in the _Bible_. Ham is the Chaldæan Zu, and both are cursed for the same allegorically described crime. 650 Quoted by Christian Ginsburg from the _Kabalah_. 651 Schlagintweit, _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 248. These are the Beings whose legendary existence has served as a ground‐work upon which to build the Rabbinical Lilith, and what the believers in the _Bible_ would term the Antediluvian women, and the Kabalists the Pre‐Adamite races. They are no fiction—this is certain, however fantastic the exuberance of later growth. 652 _Op. cit._, pp. 101, 102. 653 For suggestiveness, we would recommend a short article by Visconde de Figanière, F.T.S., in _The Theosophist_, entitled “Esoteric Studies.” Its author expounds therein quite an Occult theory, though to the world a new idea—“the _progress_ of the Monad concurring with the _retrogression_ of Form, _i.e._, with decrease of the _vis formativa_.” (Vol. viii. p. 666.) He says, “Who knows what shape vehicled the Ego in remote rings [Rounds, or Races?]?... May not man’s type ... have been that of the Simiadæ in its variety? Might not the Monkey‐kingdom of Râmâyana fame rest on some far‐off tradition relating to a period when that was the common lot, or rather aspect, of man?” And the author winds up a very clever, though too short, exposition of his theory by saying that which every true Occultist will endorse: “With physico‐ethereal man there must be _involution_ of sex. As physico‐astral man depended on entities of the sub‐human class (evolved from animal prototypes) for rebirth, so will physico‐ethereal man find among the graceful, shapely orders issuing from the _air_‐plane, one or more which will be developed for his successive embodiments _when procreated forms are given_—a process which will include all mankind only very gradually. The [_Pre_‐?] Adamic and Post‐Adamic races were giants; their ethereal counterparts may possibly be liliputians—beauteous, luminous, diaphanous—but will assuredly be giants in mind” (p. 671). 654 It may be objected that this is a contradiction. That, as the first Root‐Race appeared 300,000,000 years after the vegetation had evolved, the Seed of vegetable life could not be in the First Race. We say it could; for up to man’s appearance in _this_ Round, the vegetation was of quite another kind to what it is now, and quite ethereal; this, for the simple reason that no grass or plants could have been physical, before there were animal or other organisms to breathe out the carbonic acid which vegetation has to imbibe for its development, its nutrition and growth. They are interdependent in their _physical_ and achieved forms. 655 _Zohar_, i. 21a. 656 _Ibid._, iii. 48a. 657 _Ibid._, ii. 76a. 658 _Op. cit._, p. 666. 659 It is stated in the _Zohar_ that the “primordial worlds” (sparks) could not continue because _man was not as yet_. “The _human_ form contains everything; and as it did not as yet exist, the worlds were destroyed.” 660 “The Sacred Books of the East,” vol. iv; _The Vendîdâd_, J. Darmesteter; Fargard ii. vv. 27 (70) and 28 (74). 661 This is the meaning when the allegory and symbol are opened and read by means of the _human_ key, or the key to Terrestrial Anthroposophy. This interpretation of the “Ark” symbolism does not in the least interfere with its astronomical, or even theogonic keys; nor with any of the other six meanings. Nor does it seem less scientific than the modern theories about the origin of man. As said, it has seven keys to it, like the rest. 662 _Ibid._, v. 30 (87). 663 _Ibid._, v. 31 (93). 664 _Ibid._, v. 40 (131). 665 See also _Bund._, xv. 666 _Ibid._, 42 (137). 667 _Bund._, xix and xxiv. 668 S. L. MacGregor Mathers, _Kabbalah Unveiled_, p. 104. 669 _Zohar_, ii. 8b. 670 _Zohar_, iii. 278a; Myer’s _Qabbalah_, p. 217. 671 Darwinian Evolutionists who are so wont to refer to the evidence of _reversion to type_—the full meaning of which, in the case of human monsters, is embraced in the Esoteric solution of the embryological problem—as proof of their arguments, would do well to enquire into those instances of _modern giants_ who are often 8, 9, and even 11 feet high. Such _reversions_ are imperfect, yet undeniable reproductions of the original towering man of primeval times. 672 See _Mythical Monsters_, by Ch. Gould, from whose interesting and scientific volume a few passages are quoted further on. See also, in A. P. Sinnett’s _Occult World_, the description of a cavern in the Himâlayas filled with relics of giant human and animal bones. 673 _I.e._, the Third Eye was at the back of the head. The statement that the latest hermaphrodite humanity was “four‐armed,” unriddles probably the mystery of all the representations and idols of the exoteric Gods of India. On the Acropolis of Argos, there was a ξόανον, a rudely carved wooden statue, attributed to Dædalus, representing a three‐eyed colossus, which was consecrated to Zeus Triôpês, the “Three‐eyed.” The head of the “god” has two eyes in its face and one above on the top of the forehead. It is considered the most archaic of all the ancient statues. (_Schol. Vatic, ad Eurip. Troad._, 14.) 674 The _inner vision_ could henceforth be acquired only through training and initiation, save in the cases of “natural and born magicians”—sensitives and mediums, as they are called now. 675 This expression “petrified” instead of “ossified” is curious. The “back eye,” which is of course the Pineal Gland, so‐called, the small pea‐like mass of grey nervous matter attached to the back of the third ventricle of the brain, is said to almost invariably contain _mineral concretions_ and _sand_, and “nothing more.” 676 “Deeply placed within the head, covered by thick skin and muscles, true eyes, that cannot see, are found in certain animals,” says Hæckel. “Among the Vertebrata there are blind moles and field‐mice, blind snakes and lizards.... They shun the daylight, dwelling ... under the ground.... [They] were _not originally blind_, but have evolved from ancestors that lived in the light and had well‐ developed eyes. The atrophied eye beneath the opaque skin may be found in these blind beings in every stage of reversion.” (Hæckel, _Pedigree of Man_, “Sense Organs.” p. 343: Aveling’s Trans.) And if _two_ eyes could become so atrophied in lower animals, why not _one_ eye—the Pineal Gland—in man, who is but a higher animal in his physical aspect? 677 _Op. cit._, ii. 830, 831, ninth edition; “The Thalamencephalon or Inter‐brain.” 678 The “nervous ether” of Dr. B. W. Richardson, F.R.S.; the nerve‐aura of Occultism. The “animal spirits” (?) are equivalent to the currents of nerve‐auric compound circulation. 679 Let us remember that the _First_ Race is shown, in Occult Science, as spiritual within and ethereal without; the _Second_, psycho‐ spiritual mentally, and ethereo‐physical bodily; the _Third_, still bereft of intellect in its beginning, is astro‐physical in its body, and lives an inner life, in which the psycho‐spiritual element is in no way as yet interfered with by the hardly nascent physiological senses. Its two front eyes look before them without seeing either past or future. But the Third Eye “_embraces Eternity_.” 680 But in a very different manner to that pictured by Hæckel as an “_evolution by Natural Selection in the struggle for existence_” (_Pedigree of Man_, “Sense Organs,” p. 335; Aveling’s Trans.). The mere “thermal sensibility of the skin,” to hypothetical light‐waves, is absurdly incompetent to account for the beautiful combination of adaptations existing in the eye. We have shown that “natural selection” is a pure myth when credited with the _origination_ of variations, as the “survival of the fittest” can only take place after useful variations have sprung up, together with improved organisms. Whence came the “useful variations,” which developed the eye? Only from “blind forces ... without aim, without design”? The argument is puerile. The true solution of the mystery is to be found in the impersonal Divine Wisdom, in its Ideation—reflected through Matter. 681 Palæontology has ascertained that in the animals of the Mesozoic age—the Saurians especially, such as the antediluvian Labyrinthodon, whose fossil skull exhibits a perforation otherwise inexplicable—the third, or odd eye must have been much developed. Several Naturalists, among others E. Korscheldt, feel convinced that whereas, notwithstanding the opaque skin covering it, such an eye in the reptiles of the present period can only distinguish light from darkness (as the human eyes do when bound with a handkerchief, or even tightly closed), in the now extinct animals that eye functioned and was a real organ of vision. 682 Gould’s _Mythical Monsters_, p. 27. 683 Karma is a word of many meanings, and has a special term for almost every one of its aspects. As a synonym of sin, it means the performance of some action for the attainment of an object of _worldly_, hence _selfish_, desire, which cannot fail to be hurtful to somebody else. Karma is action, the cause; and Karma again is the “Law of Ethical Causation”; the _effect_ of an act produced egotistically, in face of the great Law of Harmony which depends on altruism. 684 Objectors to the doctrine of Karma should recall the fact that it is absolutely out of the question to attempt a reply to the Pessimists on other data. A firm grasp of the principles of Karmic Law knocks away the whole basis of the imposing fabric reared by the disciples of Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann. 685 The doctrine and theology of the Calvinists. “The purpose of God _from eternity_ respecting all events”—which becomes _fatalism_ and kills free will, or any attempt of exerting it for good. “It is the preässignment or allotment of men to everlasting happiness or misery.” (_Catechism._) A noble and encouraging doctrine this! 686 In order to make Karma more comprehensible to the Western mind, which is better acquainted with the Greek than with Âryan philosophy, some Theosophists have made an attempt to translate it by Nemesis. Had Nemesis been known to the Profane in antiquity, as it was understood by the Initiate, this translation of the term would be unobjectionable. As it is, Nemesis has been too much anthropomorphized by Greek fancy to permit our using it without an elaborate explanation. With the early Greeks, “from Homer to Herodotus, she was no goddess, but a _moral feeling_ rather,” says Decharme; the barrier to evil and immorality. He who transgresses it, commits a sacrilege in the eyes of the Gods, and is pursued by Nemesis. But, with time, that “feeling” was deified, and its personification became an ever‐fatal and punishing Goddess. Therefore, if we would connect Karma with Nemesis, we must do so in her triple character as Nemesis, Adrasteia and Themis. For, while the last is the Goddess of Universal Order and Harmony, who, like Nemesis, is commissioned to repress every excess, and keep man within the limits of Nature and righteousness under severe penalty, Adrasteia, the “inevitable,” represents Nemesis as the immutable effect of causes created by man himself. Nemesis, as the daughter of Dikê, is the equitable Goddess reserving her wrath for those alone who are maddened with pride, egoïsm, and impiety. (See Mesomed., _Hymn. Nemes._, v. 2, from Brunck, _Analecta_ II. p. 292; quoted in _Mythologie de la Grèce Antique_, p. 304.) In short, while Nemesis is a mythological, exoteric Goddess, or _Power_, personified and anthropomorphized in its various aspects, Karma is a highly philosophical truth, a most divine and noble expression of the primitive intuition of man concerning Deity. It is a doctrine which explains the origin of Evil, and ennobles our conceptions of what divine immutable Justice ought to be, instead of degrading the unknown and unknowable Deity by making it the whimsical, cruel tyrant, which we call “Providence.” 687 Pralaya—a word already explained—is not a term that applies _only_ to every “Night of Brahmâ,” or the World’s Dissolution following every Manvantara, equal to 71 Mahâyugas. It applies also to each “Obscuration” as well, and even to every Cataclysm that puts an end, by Fire or by Water in turn, to each Root‐Race. Pralaya is a general term like the word “Manu” the generic name for the Shishtas, who, under the appellation of “Kings,” are said in the _Purânas_ to be preserved “with the seed of all things, in an ark, from the waters of that inundation [or the fires of a general volcanic conflagration, the commencement of which we already see for our Fifth Race in the terrible earthquakes and eruptions of these late years, and especially in the present year (1888)], which, in the season of a Pralaya overspreads the world [the Earth].” (_Vishnu Purâna_, Wilson’s Trans., I. lxxxi.) Time is only a form of Vishnu—truly, as Parâshara says in the _Vishnu Purâna_. In the Hindû Yugas and Kalpas, we have the regular descending series 4, 3, 2, with ciphers, multiplied, as occasion requires, for Esoteric purposes, but not, as Wilson and other Orientalists thought, for “sectarian embellishments.” A Kalpa may be an Age, or Day of Brahmâ, or a sidereal Kalpa, astronomical and earthly. These calculations are found in all the _Purânas_, but some differ—as for instance, the “Year of the seven Rishis,” 3,030 mortal years, and the “Year of Dhruva,” 9,090, in the _Linga Purâna_, which are again Esoteric, and _do_ represent actual (and secret) chronology. As said in the _Brahma Vaivarta_: “Chronologers compute a Kalpa by the life of Brahmâ. _Minor_ Kalpas, as Samvarta and the rest, are numerous.” “Minor Kalpas” denote here every period of Destruction, as was well understood by Wilson himself, who explains the latter as “those in which the Samvarta wind or other destructive agents operate.” (_Ibid._, p. 54.) 688 An intuition and a presentiment of the Shishtas may be found in Mr. Sinnett’s _Esoteric Buddhism_. See the “Annotations”—the “Noah’s Ark Theory,” pp. 146, 147, fifth edition. 689 The fact that Manu himself is made to declare that he was created by Virâj, and that he then produced the ten Prajápatis, who again produced seven Manus, who in their turn gave birth to seven other Manus (_Manu_, i. 33‐36) relates to other still earlier mysteries, and is at the same time a “blind” with regard to the doctrine of the Septenary Chain, and the simultaneous evolution of seven Humanities, or Men. However, the present work is written on the records of Cis‐ Himâlayan Secret Teachings, and Brâhmanical Esoteric Philosophy may now differ in form as does the Kabalah. But they were identical in hoary antiquity. 690 There is another Esoteric reason besides this for it. A Vaivasvata is the _seventh_ Manu, because this our Round, although the Fourth, is in the _preseptenary_ Manvantara, and the Round itself is in its _seventh_ stage of materiality or physicality. The close of its middle racial point occurred during the Fourth Root‐Race, when Man and all Nature reached their lowest state of gross Matter. From that time, _i.e._, from the end of the three and a half Races, Humanity and Nature entered on the ascending arc of their Racial Cycle. 691 The interval that precedes each Yuga is called a Sandhyâ, composed of as many hundreds of years as there are thousands in the Yuga; and that which follows the latter is named Sandhyâmsha, and is of similar duration, as we are told in _Vishnu Purâna_. “The interval between the Sandhyâ and the Sandhyâmsha is the Yuga denominated Krita, Tretâ, etc. The [four] Krita, Tretâ, Dvâpara, and Kali constitute a great age, or aggregate of four ages: a thousand such aggregates are a Day of Brahmâ; and fourteen _Manus reign within that term_.” (_Op. cit._, _ibid._, p. 49.) Now had we to accept this literally then there would be only one Manu for every 4,320,000,000 years. As we are taught that it took 300 million years for the two lower kingdoms to evolve, and that our Humanity is just 18 and some odd millions old—where were the other Manus spoken of, unless the allegory means what the Esoteric Doctrine teaches as to the 14 being each multiplied by 49. 692 The words “Creation,” “Dissolution,” etc., do not correctly render the right meaning of either Manvantara or Pralaya. The _Vishnu Purâna_ enumerates several: “The dissolution of all things is of four kinds,” Parâshara is made to say: Naimittika (Occasional), when Brahmâ slumbers (his Night, when, “at the end of this Day occurs a re‐coalescence _of the Universe_, called Brahmâ’s contingent re‐ coalescence,” because Brahmâ _is_ this Universe itself); Prâkritika (Elemental), when the return of this Universe to its original nature is partial and physical; Âtyantika (Absolute), identification of the _Embodied_ with the incorporeal Supreme Spirit—Mahâtmic state, whether temporary or until the following Mahâ Kalpa: also Absolute Obscuration—as of a whole Planetary Chain, etc.; and Nitya (Perpetual), Mahâ Pralaya for the Universe, _Death_—for man. Nitya is the extinction of life, like the “extinction of a lamp,” also “in sleep at night.” Nitya Sarga is “constant or perpetual creation,” as Nitya Pralaya is “constant or perpetual destruction of all that is born.” “That which ensues after a minor dissolution is called ephemeral creation.” (_Vishnu Purâna_, Wilson’s Trans., i. 113, 114.) The subject is so difficult that we are obliged to repeat our statements. 693 But see the superb definitions of Parabrahman and the Logos in T. Subba Row’s Lectures on the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_ in the early numbers of _The Theosophist_ of 1887. 694 See preceding foot‐note. 695 See _Manu_, i. 32, 33. Vaishvânara is, in another sense, the living magnetic fire that pervades the manifested Solar System. It is the most objective (though to us the reverse) and ever present aspect of the One Life, for it is the Vital Principle. (See _Theosophist_, July, 1883, p. 249.) It is also a name of Agni. 696 _Op. cit._, pp. 134, 135. 697 This—in the period of _Secondary_ Creation, so called. Of the _Primary_, when Earth is in possession of the three _Elemental_ Kingdoms, we cannot speak for several reasons, one of which is, that, no one but a great seer, or one naturally intuitional, will be able to realize that which can never be expressed in any existing terms. 698 Hippocrates said that number _seven_ “by its occult virtues tended to the accomplishment of all things, to be the dispenser of life and fountain of all its changes.” The life of man he divided into seven ages, as did Shakespeare, for “as the moon changes her phases every seven days, this number influences all sublunary beings,” and even the Earth, as we know. The teeth of a child appear in the seventh month, and he sheds them at seven years; at twice seven puberty begins, at three times seven his mental and vital powers are developed, at four times seven he is in his full strength, at five times seven his passions are most developed, etc. Thus also for the Earth; it is now in its middle age, yet very little wiser for it. The Tetragrammaton, the four‐lettered sacred name of the Deity, can be resolved on Earth only by becoming septenary through the manifest Triangle proceeding from the concealed Tetraktys. Therefore, the number seven has to be adopted on this plane. As written in the _Kabalah_ (“The Greater Holy Assembly,” v. 1161): “For assuredly there is no stability in those six, save (what they derive) from the _seventh_. For _all things depend_ from the _seventh_.” (S. L. MacGregor Mathers’ _Kabbalah_, p. 255.) 699 Compare Stanzas III. _et seqq._ 700 St. Augustin says of Jesus: “He is a _fish_ that lives in the midst of waters.” Christians called themselves “Little Fishes”—_Pisciculi_—in their sacred Mysteries. “So many _fishes_ bred in the _water_, and saved by _one great fish_,” says Tertullian of the Christians and Christ and the Church. 701 _Esoteric Buddhism_, p. 55. 702 This event—viz., the destruction of the famous island of Ruta and the smaller island Daitya—which occurred 850,000 years ago in the later Pliocene times, must not be confounded with the submersion of the main Continent of Atlantis during the Miocene period. Geologists cannot bring the Miocene so near as 850,000 years, whatever they may do; it is, in reality, several million years ago that the main Atlantis perished. 703 See _The Athenæum_, Aug. 25th, 1860. 704 Mr. Huxley divides these races into the quintuple group of Australoids, Negroids, Mongoloids, Xanthochroics and Melanochroics—all issuing from imaginary Anthropoids. And yet, while protesting against those who say “that the structural differences between man and apes are small and insignificant,” and adding that “every bone of the gorilla bears a mark by which it can be distinguished from a corresponding human bone, and that in the present state of creation, at least, no intermediary being fills the gap which separates the man from the troglodyte”—the great Anatomist goes on speaking of the _simian_ characteristics in man! (See de Quatrefages, _The Human Species_, P. 113.) 705 _Op. cit._, Isaac Myer, p. 422. 706 _Zohar_, i. 119b, col. 475; _ibid._, p. 412. 707 The Lemurians. 708 Lava. 709 Marble. 710 Of the subterranean fires. 711 This is the reason, perhaps, why even Easter Island, with its wondrous gigantic statues—a speaking witness to a submerged continent with a civilized mankind on it—is hardly mentioned anywhere in modern Encyclopædias. Its mention is carefully avoided except in some books of travels. Modern Science has an undeniable predilection for forcing hypotheses, built on personal hobbies, upon the cultured public, as well‐established evidence: for offering it _guesses_ instead of knowledge, and calling them “scientific conclusions.” Its specialists will evolve a thousand and one contradictory speculations rather than confess an _awkward self‐ evident fact_—preëminent among such specialists being Hæckel and his English admirers and co‐thinkers. Yet “they are authorities”—we are sternly reminded. What of that? The Pope of Rome is also an authority and an infallible one—for _his_ followers; whereas the remarkable fallibility of scientific speculations is being proven periodically with every change of the moon. 712 Our best modern novelists, although they are neither Theosophists nor Spiritualists, nevertheless begin to have very psychological and suggestively Occult dreams; witness Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson and his _Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde_, than which no grander psychological essay on Occult lines exists. Has the rising novelist Mr. Rider Haggard also had a prophetic, or rather a retrospective, clairvoyant dream before he wrote _She_? His imperial Kor, the great city of the dead, whose surviving inhabitants sailed northwards after the plague had killed almost a whole nation, seems, in its general outlines, to step out from the imperishable pages of the old archaic records. Ayesha suggests “that those men who sailed north may have been the fathers of the first Egyptians”; and then seems to attempt a synopsis of certain letters of a Master quoted in _Esoteric Buddhism_, for, she says: “Time after time have nations, ay, and rich and strong nations, learned in the arts, been, and passed away, and been forgotten, so that no memory of them remains. This [the nation of Kor] is but one of several; for time eats up the work of man unless, indeed, he digs in caves like the people of Kor, and _then mayhap the sea swallows them, or the earthquake shakes them in_.... Yet were not these people utterly destroyed, as I think. Some few remained in the other cities, for their cities were many. But the barbarians ... came down upon them, and took their women to wife, and the race of the Amahagger that is now is a bastard brood of the mighty sons of Kor, and behold it dwelleth in the tombs with its fathers’ bones” (pp. 180, 181). Here the clever novelist seems to repeat the history of all the now degraded and down‐fallen races of humanity. Geologists and Anthropologists would place at the head of humanity—as descendants of Homo Primigenius—the ape‐man, of which “_no fossil remains are as yet known to us_,” though they “were _probably_ akin to the _Gorilla_ and _Orang of the present day_” (Hæckel). In answer to whose “probably,” Occultists point to another and a greater probability—viz., the one given in our text. 713 Robert Brown, _The Countries of the World_, vol. iv. p. 43. 714 See Stanza II. This would account for the variation and great difference between the intellectual capacities of races, nations, and individual men. While incarnating into, and in other cases only informing, the human vehicles evolved by the first brainless (“manas‐less”) Race, the incarnating Powers and Principles had to take into account, and make their choice between, the past Karmas of the Monads, between which and their bodies they had to become the connecting link. Moreover, as correctly stated in _Esoteric Buddhism_ (p. 30), “the fifth principle, or human (intellectual) soul, in the majority of mankind is not even yet fully developed.” 715 It is said by the incarnate Logos, Krishna, in the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_, “The seven great Rishis, the four preceding Manus, partaking of my nature, were born from my mind: from them sprang [emanated or were born] the human race and the world” (x. 6). Here, by the seven Great Rishis, the seven great Rûpa Hierarchies or Classes of Dhyân Chohans, are meant. Let us bear in mind that the seven Rishis, Saptarshi, are the Regents of the seven stars of the Great Bear, and therefore, of the same nature as the Angels of the Planets, or the seven Great Planetary Spirits. They were all reborn as men on Earth in various Kalpas and Races. Moreover, “the four preceding Manus” are the four Classes of the originally Arûpa Gods—the Kumâras, the Rudras, the Asuras, etc.; who are also said _to have incarnated_. They are not Prajâpatis, as are the first, but their informing “principles”—some of which have incarnated in men, while others have made other men simply the vehicles of their “reflections.” As Krishna truly says—the same words being repeated later by another _vehicle_ of the Logos—“I am the the same to all beings ... those who worship me [the sixth principle or the _divine_ Intellectual Soul, Buddhi, made conscious by its union with the higher faculties of Manas] _are in me, and I am in them_.” (_Ibid._, x. 29.) The Logos, being no “personality” but the Universal Principle, is represented by all the divine Powers, _born of its Mind_—the pure Flames, or, as they are called in Occultism, the “Intellectual Breaths”—those Angels who are said to _have made themselves independent_, _i.e._, passed from the passive and quiescent, into the active state of Self‐Consciousness. When this is recognized, the true meaning of Krishna becomes comprehensible. But see Mr. Subba Row’s excellent Lecture on the _Bhagavad Gîtâ_ (_Theosophist_, April, 1887, p. 444). 716 _Op. cit._, p. 152. 717 It was the northern parts of the Toyâmbudhi, or sea of fresh water, in Shveta‐dvîpa, which the seven Kumâras—Sanaka, Sananda, Sanâtana, Sanatkumâra, Jâta, Vodhu, and Panchashikha—visited agreeably with exoteric tradition. (See the Uttara Khanda of the _Padma Purâna, Asiatick Researches_, vol. xi. pp. 99, 100.) 718 _Vishnu Purâna_, Wilson’s Trans., ii. 109. 719 See _Bibliotheca Indica_, Trans. of the _Golâdhyâya of the Siddhânta‐shiromani_, iii. 21‐44. 720 _Ibid._, pp. 106, 107. 721 P. 321. 722 Wilson, _ibid._, p. 137. 723 In a lecture, Professor Pengelly, F.R.S., quotes Professor Oliver to the effect “that the present Atlantic islands’ flora affords no substantial evidence of a former direct communication with the mainland of the New World,” but adds himself that, at the same time, “at some period of the Tertiary epoch, N.‐E. Asia was united to N.‐W. America, perhaps by the line where the Aleutian chain of islands now extends.” Thus Occult Science alone can reconcile the contradictions and hesitations of Modern Science. But again, surely the argument for the existence of Atlantis does not rest on Botany alone. 724 _Vishnu Purâna_, Wilson, v. 381, 382. 725 As shown in the “Preliminary Notes” to this Volume, it stands to reason that neither the name of Lemuria nor even of Atlantis are the real _archaic_ names of the lost Continents. They have been adopted by us simply for the sake of clearness. Atlantis was the name given to those portions of the submerged Fourth Race Continent which were “beyond the Pillars of Hercules,” and which happened to keep above water after the general Cataclysm. The last remnant of these—Plato’s Atlantis, or “Poseidonis,” which is another _substitute_, or rather a translation of the real name—was the last of the Continent above water some 11,000 years ago. Most of the correct names of the countries and islands of both Continents are given in the _Purânas_; but to mention them specially, as found in other more ancient works, such as the _Sûrya Siddhânta_, would necessitate too lengthy explanations. If, in earlier writings, the two seem to have been too faintly distinguished, this must be due to careless reading and want of reflection. If ages hence, Europeans are referred to as Âryans, and a reader confuses them with the Hindûs and the latter with the Fourth Race, because some of them lived in ancient Lankâ—the blame will not fall on the writer. 726 See Part III, Section VI, of this Volume. 727 See Professor J. D. Dana’s article, _American Journal of Science_,