SECTION XXIII. WHAT THE OCCULTISTS AND KABALISTS HAVE TO SAY.

The _Zohar_, an unfathomable store of hidden wisdom and mystery, is very often appealed to by Roman Catholic writers. A very learned Rabbi, now the Chevalier Drach, having been converted to Roman Catholicism, and being a great Hebraist, thought fit to step into the shoes of Picus de Mirandola and John Reuchlin, and to assure his new co‐religionists that the _Zohar_ contained in it pretty nearly all the dogmas of Catholicism. It is not our province to show here how far he has succeeded or failed; only to bring one instance of his explanations and preface it with the following: The _Zohar_, as already shown, is not a genuine production of the Hebrew mind. It is the repository and compendium of the oldest doctrines of the East, transmitted orally at first, and then written down in independent treatises during the Captivity at Babylon, and finally brought together by Rabbi Simeon Ben Iochai, toward the beginning of the Christian era. As Mosaic cosmogony was born under a new form in Mesopotamian countries, so the _Zohar_ was a vehicle in which were focussed rays from the light of Universal Wisdom. Whatever likenesses are found between it and the Christian teachings, the compilers of the _Zohar_ never had Christ in their minds. Were it otherwise there would not be one single Jew of the Mosaic law left in the world by this time. Again, if one is to accept literally what the _Zohar_ says, then any religion under the sun may find corroboration in its symbols and allegorical sayings; and this, simply because this work is the echo of the primitive truths, and every creed is founded on some of these; the _Zohar_ being but a veil of the Secret Doctrine. This is so evident that we have only to point to the said ex‐ Rabbi, the Chevalier Drach, to prove the fact. In Part III, fol. 87 (col. 346th) the _Zohar_ treats of the Spirit guiding the Sun, its Rector, explaining that it is not the Sun itself that is meant thereby, but the Spirit “on, or _under_” the Sun. Drach is anxious to show that it was Christ who was meant by that “Sun,” or the Solar Spirit therein. In his comment upon that passage which refers to the Solar Spirit as “that stone which the builders rejected,” he asserts most positively that this Sun‐stone (_pierre soleil_) is identical with Christ, who was that stone, and that therefore The sun is undeniably (_sans contredit_) the second hypostasis of the Deity,(397) or Christ. If this be true, then the Vaidic or pre‐Vaidic Âryans, Chaldæans and Egyptians, like all Occultists past, present, and future, Jews included, have been Christians from all eternity. If this be not so, then modern Church Christianity is Paganism pure and simple exoterically, and transcendental and practical Magic, or Occultism, Esoterically. For this “stone” has a manifold significance, a dual existence, with gradations, a regular progression and retrogression. It is a “mystery” indeed. The Occultists are quite ready to agree with St. Chrysostom, that the infidels—the _profane_, rather— Being blinded by sun‐light, thus lose sight of the true Sun in the contemplation of the false one. But if that Saint, and along with him now the Hebraist Drach, chose to see in the _Zohar_ and the Kabalistic Sun “the _second_ hypostasis,” this is no reason why all others should be blinded by them. The mystery of the Sun is the grandest perhaps, of all the innumerable mysteries of Occultism. A Gordian knot, truly, but one that cannot be severed with the double‐edged sword of scholastic casuistry. It is a true _deo dignus vindice nodus_, and can be untied only by the _Gods_. The meaning of this is plain, and every Kabalist will understand it. _Contra solem ne loquaris_ was not said by Pythagoras with regard to the visible Sun. It was the “Sun of Initiation” that was meant, in its triple form—two of which are the “Day‐Sun” and the “Night‐Sun.” If behind the physical luminary there were no mystery that people sensed instinctively, why should every nation, from the primitive peoples down to the Parsîs of to‐day, have turned towards the Sun during prayers? The Solar Trinity is not Mazdean, but is universal, and is as old as man. All the temples in Antiquity were invariably made to face the Sun, their portals to open to the East. See the old temples of Memphis and Baalbec, the Pyramids of the Old and of the New (?) Worlds, the Round Towers of Ireland, and the Serapeum of Egypt. The Initiates alone could give a philosophical explanation of this, and a reason for it—its mysticism notwithstanding—were only the world ready to receive it, which alas! it is not. The last of the Solar Priests in Europe was the Imperial Initiate, Julian, now called the Apostate.(398) He tried to benefit the world by revealing at least a portion of the great mystery of the τρεπλασιος and—_he died_. “There are three in one,” he said of the Sun—the central Sun(399) being a precaution of Nature: the first is the universal cause of all, Sovereign Good and perfection; the Second Power is paramount Intelligence, having dominion over all reasonable beings, νοεροῖς; the third is the visible Sun. The pure energy of solar intelligence proceeds from the luminous seat occupied by our Sun in the centre of heaven, that pure energy being the Logos of our system; the “Mysterious Word Spirit produces all through the Sun, and never operates through any other medium,” says Hermes Trismegistus. For it is _in_ the Sun, more than in any other heavenly body that the [unknown] Power placed the seat of its habitation. Only neither Hermes Trismegistus nor Julian (an initiated Occultist), nor any other, meant by this Unknown Cause Jehovah, or Jupiter. They referred to the cause that produced all the manifested “great Gods” or Demiurgi (the Hebrew God included) of our system. Nor was our visible, _material_ Sun meant, for the latter was only the manifested symbol. Philolaus the Pythagorean, explains and completes Trismegistus by saying: The Sun is a mirror of fire, the splendour of whose flames by their reflection in that mirror [the Sun] is poured upon us, and that splendour we call image. It is evident that Philolaus referred to the central spiritual Sun, whose beams and effulgence are only mirrored by our central Star, the Sun. This is as clear to the Occultists as it was to the Pythagoreans. As for the profane of pagan antiquity, it was, of course, the physical Sun that was the “highest God” for them, as it seems—if Chevalier Drach’s view be accepted—to have now virtually become for the modern Roman Catholics. If words mean anything, the statement made by the Chevalier Drach that “this sun is, undeniably, the second hypostasis of the Deity,” imply what we say; as “this Sun” refers to the Kabalistic Sun, and “hypostasis” means substance or subsistence of the Godhead or Trinity—distinctly personal. As the author, being an ex‐Rabbi, thoroughly versed in Hebrew, and in the mysteries of the _Zohar_, ought to know the value of words; and as, moreover, in writing this, he was bent upon reconciling “the seeming contradictions,” as he puts it, between Judaism and Christianity—the fact becomes quite evident. But all this pertains to questions and problems which will be solved naturally and in the course of the development of the doctrine. The Roman Catholic Church stands accused, not of worshipping under other names the Divine Beings worshipped by all nations in antiquity, but of declaring idolatrous, not only the Pagans ancient and modern, but every Christian nation that has freed itself from the Roman yoke. The accusation brought against herself by more than one man of Science, of worshipping the stars like true Sabæans of old, stands to this day uncontradicted, yet no star‐ worshipper has ever addressed his adoration to the material stars and planets, as will be shown before the last page of this work is written; none the less is it true that those Philosophers alone who studied Astrology and Magic knew that the last word of those sciences was to be sought in, and expected from, the Occult forces emanating from those constellations.