X. saying that she felt as though she saw on three planes, H. P. B.

answered that each plane was sevenfold, the Astral as every other. She gave as an example on the Physical Plane the vision of a table with the sense of sight; seeing it still, with the eyes closed, by retinal impression; the image of it conserved in the brain; it can be recalled by memory; it can be seen in dream; or as an aggregate of atoms; or as disintegrated. All these are on the Physical Plane. Then we can begin again on the Astral Plane, and obtain another septenary. This hint should be followed and worked out. Triangle And Quaternary. _Q. Why is the violet, the color of the Linga Sharîra, placed at the apex of the triangle, when the Macrocosm is figured as a triangle over a square, thus throwing the yellow, Buddhi, into the lower Quaternary?_ _A._ It is wrong to speak of the “lower Quaternary” in the Macrocosm. It is the Tetraktys, the highest, the most sacred of all symbols. There comes a moment when, in the highest meditation, the Lower Manas is withdrawn into the Triad, which thus becomes the Quaternary, the Tetraktys of Pythagoras, leaving what was the Quaternary as the lower Triad, which is then reversed. The Triad is reflected in the Lower Manas. The Higher Manas cannot reflect itself, but when the Green passes upward it becomes a mirror for the Higher; it is then no more Green, having passed from its associations. The Psyche then becomes spiritual, the Ternary is reflected in the Fourth, and the Tetraktys is formed. So long as you are not dead, there must be something to reflect the Higher Triad; for there must be something to bring back to the waking consciousness the experiences passed through on the higher plane. The Lower Manas is as a tablet which retains the impressions made on it during trance. The Turîya state is entered on the Fourth Path; it is figured in the diagram on p. 478, in the Second Paper. _Q. What is the meaning of a triangle formed of lines of light appearing in the midst of intense vibrating blue?_ _A._ Seeing the Triangle outside is nothing; it is merely a reflection of the Triad on the Auric Envelope, and proves that the seer is outside the Triangle. It should be seen in quite another way. You must endeavour to merge yourself in it, to assimilate yourself with it. You are merely seeing things in the Astral. “When the Third Eye is opened in any one of you, you will have something very different to tell me.” _Q. With reference to the __“__Pillar of Light__”__ in a previous question, is the Auric Envelope the Higher Ego, and does it correspond to the Ring Pass‐Not?_ [This question was not answered, as going too far. The Ring Pass‐Not is at the circumference of the manifested Universe.] Nidânas. _Q. The root of the Nidânas is Avidyâ. How does this differ from Mâyâ? How many Nidânas are there Esoterically?_ _A._ Again too much is asked. The Nidânas, the concatenations of causes and effects (not in the sense of the Orientalists), are not caused by ignorance. They are produced by Dhyân Chohans and Devas, who certainly cannot be said to act in ignorance. We produce Nidânas in ignorance. Each cause started on the Physical Plane sets up action on every plane to all eternity. They are eternal effects reflected from plane to plane on to the “screen of eternity.” Manas. _Q. What is the septenary classification of Manas? There are seven degrees of the Lower Manas, and presumably there are seven degrees of the Higher. Are there then fourteen degrees of Manas, or is Manas, taken as a whole, divided into forty‐nine Mânasic fires?_ _A._ Certainly there are fourteen, but you want to run before you can walk. First learn the three, and then go on to the forty‐nine. There are three Sons of Agni; they become seven, and then evolve to the forty‐nine. But you are still ignorant how to produce the three. Learn first how to produce the “Sacred Fire,” spoken of in the _Purânas_. The forty‐nine fires are all states of Kundalinî, to be produced in ourselves by the friction of the Triad. First learn the septenary of the body, and then that of each Principle. But first of all learn the first Triad (the three vital airs). The Spinal Cord. _Q. What is the sympathetic nerve and its function in Occultism? It is found only after a certain stage of animal evolution, and would seem to be evolving in complexity towards a second spinal cord._ _A._ At the end of the next Round, Humanity will again become male‐female, and then there will be two spinal cords. In the Seventh Race the two will merge into the one. The evolution corresponds to the Races, and with the evolution of the Races the sympathetic developes into a true spinal cord. We are returning up the arc only with self‐consciousness added. The Sixth Race will correspond to the “pudding bags,” but will have the perfection of form with the highest intelligence and spirituality. Anatomists are beginning to find new ramifications and new modifications in the human body. They are in error on many points, _e.g._, as to the spleen, which they call the manufactory of white blood corpuscles, but which is really the vehicle of the Linga Sharîra. Occultists know each minute portion of the heart, and have a name for each. They call them by the names of the Gods, as Brahmâ’s Hall, Vishnu’s Hall, etc. They correspond with parts of the brain. The very atoms of the body are the thirty‐three crores of Gods. The sympathetic nerve is played on by the Tântrikas, who call it Shiva’s Vînâ. Prâna. _Q. What is the relation of man to Prâna—the periodical life?_ _A._ Jîva becomes Prâna only when the child is born and begins to breathe. It is the breath of life, Nephesh. There is no Prâna on the Astral Plane. Antahkarana. _Q. The Antahkarana is the link between the Higher and the Lower Egos; does it correspond to the umbilical cord in projection?_ _A._ No; the umbilical cord joining the astral to the physical body is a real thing. Antahkarana is imaginary, a figure of speech, and is only the bridging over from the Higher to the Lower Manas. Antahkarana only exists when you commence to “throw your thought upwards and downwards.” The Mâyâvi Rûpa, or Mânasic body, has no material connection with the physical body, no umbilical cord. It is spiritual and ethereal, and passes everywhere without let or hindrance. It entirely differs from the astral body, which, if injured, acts by repercussion on the physical body. The Devachanic entity, even previous to birth, can be affected by the Skandhas, but these have nothing to do with the Antahkarana. It is affected, _e.g._, by the desire for reincarnation. _Q. We are told in_ The Voice of the Silence _that we have to become __ __“__the path itself,__”__ and in another passage that Antahkarana is that path. Does this mean anything more than that we have to bridge over the gap between the consciousness of the Lower and the Higher Egos?_ _A._ That is all. _Q. We are told that there are seven portals on the Path: is there then a sevenfold division of Antahkarana? Also, is Antahkarana the battlefield?_ _A._ It is the battlefield. There are seven divisions in the Antahkarana. As you pass from each to the next you approach the Higher Manas. When you have bridged the fourth you may consider yourself fortunate. Miscellaneous. _Q. We are told that_ AUM _“__should be practised physically.__”__ Does this mean that, colour being more differentiated than sound, it is only through the colours that we shall get at the real sound of each of us? and that_ AUM _can only have its Spiritual and Occult signification when turned to the Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas of each person?_ _A._ AUM means good action, not merely lip‐sound. You must say it in deeds. _Q. With reference to the triangle, is not the Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas different for each entity, according to the plane on which he is?_ _A._ Each Principle is on a different plane. The Chelâ must rise to one after the other, assimilating each, until the three are one. This is the real root of the Trinity. _Q. In_ The Secret Doctrine _we are told that Âkâsha is the same as Pradhâna. Âkâsha is the Auric Egg of the earth, and yet Âkâsha is Mahat. What that is the relation of Manas to the Auric Egg?_ _A._ Mûlaprakriti is the same as Âkâsha (seven degrees). Mahat is the positive aspect of Âkâsha, and is the Manas of the Kosmic Body. Mahat is to Âkâsha as Manas is to Buddhi, and Pradhâna is but another name for Mûlaprakriti. The Auric Egg is Âkâsha and has seven degrees. Being pure abstract substance, it reflects abstract ideas, but also reflects lower concrete things. The Third Logos and Mahat are one, and are the same as the Universal Mind, Alaya. The Tetraktys is the Chatur Vidyâ, or the fourfold knowledge in one, the four‐faced Brahmâ. Nâdis. _Q. Have the Nâdîs any fixed relationship to the vertebræ; can they be located opposite to or between any vertebræ? can they be regarded as occupying each a given and fixed extent in the cord? Do they correspond to the divisions of the cord known to Anatomists?_ _A._ H. P. B. believed that the Nâdîs corresponded to regions of the spinal cord known to Anatomists. There are thus six or seven Nâdîs or plexuses along the spinal cord. The term, however, is not technical but general, and applies to any knot, centre, ganglion, etc. The sacred Nâdîs are those which run along or above Sushumnâ. Six are known to Science, and one (near the atlas) unknown. Even the Târaka Râja Yogîs speak only of six, and will not mention the sacred seventh. Idâ and Pingalâ play along the curved wall of the cord in which is Sushumnâ. They are semi‐material, positive and negative, sun and moon, and start into action the free and spiritual current of Sushumnâ. They have distinct paths of their own, otherwise they would radiate all over the body. By concentration on Idâ and Pingalâ is generated the “sacred fire.” Another name for Shiva’s Vînâ (sympathetic system) is Kâlî’s Vînâ. The sympathetic cords and Idâ and Pingalâ start from a sacred spot above the medulla oblongata, called Triveni. This is one of the sacred centres, another of which is Brahmarandra, which is, if you like, the grey matter of the brain. It is also the anterior fontanelle in the new‐born child. The spinal column is called Brahmadanda, the stick of Brahmâ. This is again symbolized by the bamboo rod carried by Ascetics. The Yogîs on the other sides of the Himâlayas, who assemble regularly at Lake Mânsarovara, carry a triple knotted bamboo stick, and are called Tridandins. This has the same signification as the Brâhmanical cord, which has many other meanings besides the three vital airs: _e.g._, it symbolizes the three initiations of a Brâhman, taking place: (_a_) at birth, when he receives his mystery name from the family Astrologer, who is supposed to have received it from the Devas (he is also thus said to be initiated by the Devas); a Hindu will sooner die than reveal this name; (_b_) at seven, when he receives the cord; and (_c_) at eleven or twelve, when he is initiated into his caste. _Q. If it is right to study the body and its organs, with their correspondences, will you give the main outline of these in connection with the Nâdîs and with the diagram of the orifices._ _A._ The Spleen corresponds to the Linga Sharîra The Liver to Kâma The Heart to Prâna The Corpora‐quadrigemina to Kâma‐Manas The Pituitary body to Manas‐Antahkarana The Pineal gland to Manas until it is touched by the vibrating light of Kundalinî, which proceeds from Buddhi, when it becomes Buddhi‐Manas. The pineal gland corresponds with Divine Thought. The pituitary body is the organ of the Psychic Plane. Psychic vision is caused by the molecular motion of this body, which is directly connected with the optic nerve, and thus affects the sight and gives rise to hallucinations. Its motion may readily cause flashes of light, such as may be obtained by pressing the eyeballs. Drunkenness and fever produce illusions of sight and hearing by the action of the pituitary body. This body is sometimes so affected by drunkenness that it is paralyzed. If an influence on the optic nerve is thus produced and the current thus reversed, the colour will probably be complementary. Sevens. _Q. If the physical body is no part of the real human septenary, is the physical material world one of the seven planes of the Kosmic septenary?_ _A._ It is. The body is not a Principle in Esoteric parlance, because the body and the Linga are both on the same plane; then the Auric Egg makes the seventh. The body is an Upâdhi rather than a Principle. The earth and its astral light are as closely related to each other as the body and its Linga, the earth being the Upâdhi. Our plane in its lowest division is the earth, in its highest the astral. The terrestrial astral light should of course not be confounded with the universal Astral Light. _Q. A physical object was spoken of as a septenary on the physical plane, inasmuch as we could (1) directly contact it; (2) retinally reproduce it; (3) remember it; (4) dream of it; (5) view it atomically; (6) view it disintegrated; (7)—What is the seventh?_ _These are seven ways in which we view it: the septenary is our way of seeing one thing. Is it objectively septenary?_ _A._ The seventh bridges across from one plane to another. The last is the idea, the privation of matter, and carries you to the next plane. The highest of one plane touches the lowest of the next. Seven is a factor in nature, as in colours and sounds. There are seven degrees in the same piece of wood, each perceived by one of the seven senses. In wood the smell is the most material degree, while in other substances it may be the sixth. Substances are septenary apart from the consciousness of the viewer. The psychometer, seeing a morsel, say of a table a thousand years hence, would see the whole; for every atom reflects the whole body to which it belongs, just as with the Monads of Leibnitz. After the seven material subdivisions are the seven divisions of the Astral, which is its second Principle. The disintegrated matter—the highest of the material subdivisions—is the privation of the idea of it—the fourth. The number fourteen is the first step between seven and forty‐nine. Each septenary is really a fourteen, because each of the seven has its two aspects. Thus fourteen signifies the inter‐relation of two planes in its turn. The septenary is to be clearly traced in the lunar months, fevers, gestations, etc. On it is based the week of the Jews and the septenary Hierarchies of the Lord of Hosts. Sounds. _Q. Sound is an attribute of Âkâsha; but we cannot cognize anything on the Âkâshic plane; on what plane then do we recognize sound? On what plane is sound produced by the physical contact of bodies? Is there sound on seven planes, and is the physical plane one of them?_ _A._ The physical plane is one of them. You cannot see Âkâsha, but you can sense it from the Fourth Path. You may not be fully conscious of it, and yet you may sense it. Âkâsha is at the root of the manifestation of all sounds. Sound is the expression and manifestation of that which is behind it, and which is the parent of many correlations. All Nature is a sounding‐board; or rather Âkâsha is the sounding‐board of Nature. It is the Deity, the one Life, the one Existence. (Hearing is the vibration of molecular particles; the order is seen in the sentence, “The disciple feels, hears, sees.”) Sound can have no end. H. P. B. remarked with regard to a tap made by a pencil on the table: “By this time it has affected the whole universe. The particle which has had its wear and tear destroys something which passes into something else. It is eternal in the Nidânas it produces.” A sound, if not previously produced on the Astral Plane, and before that on the Âkâshic, could not be produced at all. Âkâsha is the bridge between nerve cells and mental powers. _Q. __“__Colours are psychic, and sounds are spiritual.__”__ What, assuming that these are vibrations, is the successive order (these corresponding to sight and hearing) of the other senses?_ _A._ This phrase was not to be taken out of its context, otherwise confusion would arise. All are on all planes. The First Race had touch all over like a sounding board; this touch differentiated into the other senses, which developed with the Races. The “sense” of the First Race was that of touch, meaning the power of their atoms to vibrate in unison with external atoms. The “touch” would be almost the same as sympathy. The senses were on a different plane with each Race; _e.g._, the Fourth Race had very much more developed senses than ourselves, but on another plane. It was also a very material Race. The sixth and seventh senses will merge into the Âkâshic Sound. “It depends to what degree of matter the sense of touch relates itself as to what we call it.” Prâna. _Q. Is Prâna the production of the countless __“__lives__”__ of the human body, and therefore, to some extent, of the congeries of the cells or atoms of the body?_ _A._ No; Prâna is the parent of the “lives.” As an example, a sponge may be immersed in an ocean. The water in the sponge’s interior may be compared to Prâna; outside is Jîva. Prâna is the motor‐principle in life. The “lives” leave Prâna; Prâna does not leave them. Take out the sponge from the water, and it becomes dry, thus symbolizing death. Every principle is a differentiation of Jîva, but the life‐motion in each is Prâna, the “breath of life.” Kâma depends on Prâna, without which there would be no Kâma. Prâna wakes the Kâmic germs to life; it makes all desires vital and living. The Second Spinal Cord. _Q. With reference to the answer to the question on the second cord, what is it that will become a second spinal cord in the Sixth Race? Will Idâ and Pingalâ have separate physical ducts?_ _A._ It is the sympathetic cords which will grow together and form another spinal cord. Idâ and Pingalâ will be joined with Sushumnâ, and they will become one. Idâ is on the left side of the cord, and Pingalâ on the right. Initiates. Pythagoras was an Initiate, one of the grandest of Scientists. His disciple, Archytas, was marvellously apt in applied Science. Plato and Euclid were Initiates, but not Socrates. No real Initiates were married. Euclid learned his Geometry in the Mysteries. Modern men of Science only rediscover the old truths. Kosmic Consciousness. H. P. B. proceeded to explain Kosmic Consciousness, which is, like all else, on seven planes, of which three are inconceivable, and four are cognizable by the highest Adept. Taking the lowest only, the Terrestrial (it was afterwards decided to call this plane Prâkritic), it is divisible, into seven planes, and these again into seven, making the forty‐nine. She then took the lowest plane of Prâkriti, or the true Terrestrial. Its objective or sensuous plane is that which is sensed by the five physical senses. On its second plane things are reversed. Its third plane is psychic: here is the instinct which prevents a kitten going into the water and getting drowned. Then objective consciousness was given. The three lower Prâkritic are related to the three lower of the Astral Plane immediately succeeding. With regard to the first division of the second plane, H. P. B. reminded her pupils that all seen on it must be reversed in translating it, _e.g._, with numbers which appeared backwards. The Astral Objective corresponds in everything to the Terrestrial Objective. The second division corresponds to the second of the lower plane, but the objects are of extreme tenuity, an astralized Astral. This plane is the limit of the ordinary medium, beyond which he cannot go. A non‐mediumistic person to reach it must be asleep or in a trance, or under the influence of laughing‐gas; or in ordinary delirium people pass on to this plane. The third, the Prânic, is of an intensely vivid nature. Extreme delirium carries the patient to this plane. In delirium tremens the sufferer passes to this and to the one above it. Lunatics are often conscious on this plane, where they see terrible visions. It runs into the— Fourth division, the worst of the astral planes, Kâmic and terrible. Hence come the images that tempt; images of drunkards in Kâma Loka impelling others to drink; images of all vices inoculating men with the desire to commit crimes. The weak imitate these images in a kind of monkeyish fashion, so falling beneath their influence. This is also the cause of epidemics of vices, and cycles of disaster, of accidents of all kinds coming in groups. Extreme delirium tremens is on this plane. The fifth division is that of premonitions in dreams, of reflections from the lower mentality, glimpses into the past and future, the plane of things mental and not spiritual. The mesmerized clairvoyant can reach this plane, and even, if good, may go higher. The sixth is the plane from which come all beautiful inspirations of art, poetry, and music; high types of dreams, flashes of genius. Here we have glimpses of past incarnations, without being able to locate or analyze them. We are on the seventh plane at the moment of death or in exceptional visions. The drowning man is here when he remembers his past life. The memory of events of this plane must be centred in the heart, “the seat of Buddha.” There it will remain, but impressions from this plane are not made on the physical brain. General Notes. The two planes above dealt with are the only two used in the Hatha Yoga. Prâna and the Auric Envelope are essentially the same, and again, as Jîva, it is the same as the Universal Deity. This, in its Fifth Principle, is Mahat, in its Sixth, Alaya. (The Universal Life is also seven‐principled.) Mahat is the highest _Entity_ in Kosmos; beyond this is no diviner Entity; it is of subtlest matter, Sûkshma. In us this is Manas, and the very Logoi are less high, not having gained experience. The Mânasic Entity will not be destroyed, even at the end of the Mahâmanvantara, when all the Gods are absorbed, but will re‐emerge from Parabrâhmic latency. Consciousness is the Kosmic seed of superkosmic omniscience. It has the potentiality of budding into the Divine Consciousness. Rude physical health is a drawback to seership. This was the case with Swedenborg. Fohat is everywhere: it runs like a thread through all, and has its own seven divisions. Auric Envelope or Âtmic Elements of Manifested Kosmos. Alaya. Buddhi. Mahat. Manas. Fohat. Kâma‐Manas. Jîva. Kâma‐Prana. Astral. Linga. Prâkriti. Body. In the Kosmic Auric Envelope is all the Karma of the manifesting Universe. This is the Hiranyagarbha. Jîva is everywhere, and so with the other Principles. [Illustration] The above diagram represents the type of all the Solar Systems. Mahat, single before informing the Universe, differentiates when informing it, as does Manas in man. [Illustration] Taking this figure to represent the human Principles and planes of consciousness, then 7, 6, 5 represent respectively, Shiva, Vishnu, Brahmâ, Brahmâ being the lowest. Shiva is the four‐faced Brahmâ; the Creator, Preserver, Destroyer, and Regenerator. Between 5 and 4 comes the Antahkarana. The triangle represents the Christos, the Sacrificial Victim crucified between the thieves: this is the double‐faced entity. The Vedântins make this a quaternary for a blind: Antahkarana, Chit, Buddhi, and Manas. MANVANTARIC ASPECT OF PARABRAHMAN AND MÛLAPRAKRITI. [Illustration] [N.B.—The number of Rays is arbitrary and without significance.] Perceptive life begins with the Astral: it is not our physical atoms which see, etc. Consciousness proper begins between Kâma and Manas. Âtmâ‐Buddhi acts more in the atoms of the body, in the bacilli, microbes, etc., than in Man himself. Objective Consciousness. Sensuous objective consciousness includes all that pertains to the five physical senses in man, and rules in animals, birds, fishes and some insects. Here are the “Lives”; their consciousness is in Âtmâ‐Buddhi; these are entirely without Manas. Astral Consciousness. That of some plants (_e.g._, sensitive), of ants, spiders, and some night‐ flies (Indian), but not of bees. The vertebrate animals in general are without this consciousness, but the placental Mammals have all the potentialities of human consciousness, though at present, of course, dormant. Idiots are on this plane. The common expression “he has lost his mind” is an Occult truth. For when through fright or other cause the lower mind becomes paralyzed, then the consciousness is on the Astral Plane. The study of lunacy will throw much light on these points. This may be called the “nerve plane.” It is cognized by our “nervous centres” of which Physiology knows nothing, _e.g._, the clairvoyant reading with the eyes bandaged, reading with the tips of the fingers, the pit of the stomach, etc. This sense is greatly developed in the deaf and dumb. Kâma‐Prânic Consciousness. The general life‐consciousness which belongs to all the objective world, even to the stones; for if stones were not living they could not decay, emit a spark, etc. Affinity between chemical elements is a manifestation of this Kâmic consciousness. Kâma‐Mânasic Consciousness. The instinctual consciousness of animals and idiots in its lowest degrees, the planes of sensation: in man these are rationalized, _e.g._, a dog shut in a room has the instinct to get out, but cannot because its instinct is not sufficiently rationalized to take the necessary means; whereas a man at once takes in the situation and extricates himself. The highest degree of this Kâma‐Mânasic consciousness is the psychic. Thus there are seven degrees from the instinctual animal to the rationalized instinctual and psychic. Mânasic Consciousness. From this plane Manas stretches upwards to Mahat. Buddhic Consciousness. The plane of Buddhi and the Auric Envelope. From here it goes to the Father in heaven, Âtmâ, and reflects all that is in the Auric Envelope. Five and six therefore cover the planes from the psychic to the divine. Miscellaneous. Reason is a thing that oscillates between right and wrong. But Intelligence—Intuition—is higher, it is the clear vision. To get rid of Kâma we must crush out all our material instincts—“crush out matter.” The flesh is a thing of habit; it will repeat mechanically a good impulse as well as a bad one. It is not the flesh which is always the tempter; in nine cases out of ten it is the Lower Manas, which, by its images, leads the flesh into temptation. The highest Adept begins his Samâdhi on the Fourth Solar Plane, but cannot go outside the Solar System. When he begins Samâdhi he is on a par with some of the Dhyân Chohans, but he transcends them as he rises to the seventh plane (Nirvâna). The Silent Watcher is on the Fourth Kosmic Plane. The higher Mind directs the Will: the lower turns it into selfish Desire. The head should not be covered in meditation. It is covered in Samâdhi. The Dhyân Chohans are passionless, pure and mindless. They have no struggle, no passions to crush. The Dhyân Chohans are made to pass through the School of Life. “God goes to School.” The best of us in the future will be Mânasaputras; the lowest will be Pitris. We are seven intellectual Hierarchies here. This earth becomes the moon of the next earth. The “Pitris” are the Astral overshadowed by Âtmâ‐Buddhi, falling into matter. The “Pudding‐bags” had Life and Âtmâ‐Buddhi, but no Manas. They were therefore senseless. The reason for all evolution is the gaining of experience. In the Fifth Round all of us will play the part of Pitris. We shall have to go and shoot out our Chhâyâs into another humanity, and remain until that humanity is perfected. The Pitris have finished their office in this Round and have gone into Nirvâna; but they will return to do the same office up to the middle point of the Fifth Round. The Fourth or Kâmic Hierarchy of the Pitris becomes the “man of flesh.” The astral body is first in the womb; then comes the germ that fructifies it. It is then clothed with matter, as were the Pitris. The Chhâyâ is really the lower Manas, the shadow of the higher Mind. This Chhâyâ makes the Mâyâvi Rûpa. The Ray clothes itself in the highest degree of the Astral Plane. The Mâyâvi Rûpa is composed of the astral body as Upâdhi, the guiding intelligence from the heart, the attributes and qualities from the Auric Envelope. The Auric Envelope takes up the light of Âtmâ, and overshadows the coronal, circling round the head. The Auric Fluid is a combination of the Life and Will principles, the life and the will being one and the same in Kosmos. It emanates from the eyes and hands, when directed by the will of the operator. The Auric Light surrounds all bodies: it is the “aura” emanating from them, whether they be animal, vegetable, or mineral. It is the light, _e.g._, seen round magnets. Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas in man corresponds to the three Logoi in Kosmos. They not only correspond, but each is the radiation from Kosmos to Microcosmos. The third Logos, Mahat, becomes Manas in man, Manas being only Mahat individualized, as the sun‐rays are individualized in bodies that absorb them. The sun‐rays give life, they fertilize what is already there, and the individual is formed. Mahat, so to say, fertilizes, and Manas is the result. Buddhi‐Manas is the Kshetrajña. There are seven planes of Mahat, as of all else. The Human Principles. Here H. P. B. drew two diagrams, illustrating different ways of representing the human principles. In the first [Illustration] the two lower are disregarded; they go out, disintegrate, are of no account. Remain five, under the radiation of Âtmâ. In the second: [Illustration] the lower Quaternary is regarded as mere matter, objective illusion, and there remain Manas and the Auric Egg, the higher Principles being reflected in the Auric Egg. In all these systems remember the main principle, the descent and re‐ascent of the Spirit, in man as in Kosmos. The Spirit is drawn downwards as by spiritual gravitation. Seeking further for the cause of this, the students were checked, H. P. B. giving only a suggestion on the three Logoi: 1. Potentiality of Mind (Absolute Thought). 2. Thought in Germ. 3. Ideation in Activity. Notes. Protective variation, _e.g._, identity of colouring of insects and of that on which they feed, was explained to be the work of Nature Elementals. Form is on different planes, and the forms of one plane may be formless to dwellers on another. The Kosmocratores build on planes in the Divine Mind, visible to them though not to us. The principle of limitation—_principium individuationis_—is Form: this principle is Divine Law manifested in Kosmic Matter, which, in its essence, is limitless. The Auric Egg is the limit of man as Hiranyagarbha of the Kosmos. The first step towards the accomplishment of Kriyâshakti is the use of the Imagination. To imagine a thing is to firmly create a model of what you desire, perfect in all its details. The Will is then brought into action, and the form is thereby transferred to the objective world. This is creation by Kriyâshakti. Suns And Planets. A comet partially cools and settles down as a sun. It then gradually attracts round it planets that are as yet unattached to any centre, and thus, in millions of years, a Solar System is formed. The worn‐out planet becomes a moon to the planet of another system. The sun we see is a reflection of the true Sun: this reflection, as an outward concrete thing, is a Kâma‐Rûpa, all the suns forming the Kâma‐Rûpa of Kosmos. To its own system the sun is Buddhi, as being the reflection and vehicle of the true Sun, which is Âtmâ, invisible on this plane. All the Fohatic forces—electricity, etc.—are in this reflection. The Moon. At the beginning of the evolution of our globe, the moon was much nearer to the earth, and larger than it is now. It has retreated from us, and shrunk much in size. (The moon gave all her Principles to the earth, while the Pitris gave only their Chhâyâs to man.) The influences of the moon are wholly psycho‐physiological. It is dead, sending out injurious emanations like a corpse. It vampirizes the earth and its inhabitants, so that anyone sleeping in its rays suffers, losing some of his life‐force. A white cloth is a protection, the rays not passing through it, and the head especially should be thus guarded. It has most power when it is full. It throws off particles which we absorb, and is gradually disintegrating. Where there is snow the moon looks like a corpse, being unable, through the white snow, to vampirize effectually. Hence snow‐covered mountains are free from its bad influences. The moon is phosphorescent. The Râkshakas of Lanka and the Atlanteans are said to have subjected the moon. The Thessalians learned from them their Magic. Esoterically, the moon is the symbol of the Lower Manas; it is also the symbol of the Astral. Plants which under the sun’s rays are beneficent are maleficent under those of the moon. Herbs containing poisons are most active when gathered under the moon’s rays. A new moon will appear during the Seventh Round, and our moon will finally disintegrate and disappear. There is now a planet, the “Mystery Planet,” behind the moon, and it is gradually dying. Finally the time will come for it to send its Principles to a new Laya Centre, and there a new planet will form, to belong to another Solar System, the present Mystery Planet then functioning as moon to that new globe. This moon will have nothing to do with our earth, though it will come within our range of vision. The Solar System. All the visible planets placed in our Solar System by Astronomers belong to it, except Neptune. There are also some others not known to Science, belonging to it, and “all moons which are not yet visible for next things.” The planets only move in our consciousness. The Rulers of the seven Secret Planets have no influence on this earth, as this earth has on other planets. It is the sun and moon which really have not only a mental, but also a physical effect. The effect of the sun on humanity is connected with Kâma‐Prâna, with the most physical Kâmic elements in us; it is the vital principle which helps growth. The effect of the moon is chiefly Kâma‐Mânasic or psycho‐physiological; it acts on the psychological brain, on the brain‐mind. Precious Stones. In answer to a question, H. P. B. said that the diamond and the ruby were under the sun, the sapphire under the moon—“but what does it matter to you?” Time. When once out of the body, and not subject to the habit of consciousness formed by others, time does not exist. Cycles and epochs depend on consciousness: we are not here for the first time; the cycles return because we come back into conscious existence. Cycles are measured by the consciousness of humanity and not by Nature. It is because we are the same people as in past epochs that these events occur to us. Death. The Hindus look upon death as impure, owing to the disintegration of the body and the passing from one plane to another. “I believe in transformation, not in death.” Atoms. The Atom is the Soul of the molecule. It is the six Principles, and the molecule is the body thereof. The Atom is the Âtman of the objective Kosmos, _i.e._, it is on the seventh plane of the lowest Prakriti. Terms. H. P. B. began by saying that students ought to know the correct meaning of the Sanskrit terms used in Occultism, and should learn the Occult Symbology. To begin with one had better learn the correct Esoteric classification and names of the fourteen (7 × 2) and seven (Sapta) Lokas found in the exoteric texts. These are given there in a very confused manner, and are full of “blinds.” To illustrate this three classifications are given below. Lokas. 1. The general exoteric, orthodox and tântric category: Bhûr‐loka. Bhuvar‐loka. Swar‐loka. Mahar‐loka. The second seven are reflected. Janar‐loka. Tapar‐loka. Satya‐loka. 2. The Sânkhya category, and that of some Vedântins Brahmâ‐loka. Pitri‐loka. Soma‐loka. Indra‐loka. Gandharva‐loka. Râkshasa‐loka Yaksha‐loka. And an eighth. 3. The Vedântic, the nearest approach to the Esoteric: Atala. Vitala. Sutala. Talâtala (or Karatala). Rasâtala. Mahâtala. Pâtâla. Each and all correspond Esoterically to the Kosmic or Dhyân Chohanic Hierarchies, and to the human States of Consciousness and their subdivisions (forty‐nine). To appreciate this the meanings of the terms used in the Vedântic classification must be first understood. _Tala_ means _place_. Atala means no place. Vitala means some change for the better: _i.e._, better for matter in that more matter enters into it, or, in other words, it becomes more differentiated. This is an ancient Occult term. Sutala means good, excellent, place. Karatala means something that can be grasped or touched (from kara, a hand): _i.e._, the state in which matter becomes tangible. Rasâtala means place of taste; a place you can sense with one of the organs of sense. Mahâtala means exoterically “great place”; but, Esoterically, a place including all others subjectively, and potentially including all that precedes it. Pâtâla means something under the feet (from pada, foot), the upâdhi, or basis, of anything, the antipodes, America, etc. Each of the Lokas, places, worlds, states, etc., corresponds with and is transformed into five (exoterically) and seven (Esoterically) states or Tattvas, for which there are no definite names. These in the main divisions cited below make up the forty‐nine Fires: 5 and 7 Tanmâtras, outer and inner senses. 5 and 7 Bhûtas, or elements. 5 and 7 Gnyânendryas, or organs of sensation. 5 and 7 Karmendryas, or organs of action. These correspond in general to States of Consciousness, to the Hierarchies of Dhyân Chohans, to the Tattvas, etc. These Tattvas transform themselves into the whole Universe. The fourteen Lokas are made of seven with seven reflections: above, below; within, without; subjective, objective; pure, impure; positive, negative; etc. Explanation of the States of Consciousness Corresponding to the Vedântic Classification of Lokas. 7. _Atala._ The Âtmic or Auric state or locality: it emanates directly from ABSOLUTENESS, and is the first something in the Universe. Its correspondence is the Hierarchy of non‐substantial primordial Beings, in a place which is no place (for us), a state which is no state. This Hierarchy contains the primordial plane, all that was, is, and will be, from the beginning to the end of the Mahâmanvantara; all is there. This statement should not, however, be taken to imply Kismet: the latter is contrary to all the teachings of Occultism. Here are the Hierarchies of the Dhyâni Buddhas. Their state is that of Parasamâdhi, of the Dharmakâya; a state where no progress is possible. The entities there may be said to be crystallized in purity, in homogeneity. 6. _Vitala._ Here are the Hierarchies of the celestial Buddhas, or Bodhisattvas, who are said to emanate from the seven Dhyâni Buddhas. It is related on earth to Samâdhi, to the Buddhic consciousness in man. No Adept, save one, can be higher than this and live; if he passes into the Âtmic or Dharmakâya state (Alaya) he can return to earth no more. These two states are purely hyper‐metaphysical. 5. _Sutala._ A differential state corresponding on earth with the Higher Manas, and therefore with Shabda (Sound), the Logos, our Higher Ego; and also to the Manushi Buddha state, like that of Gautama, on earth. This is the third stage of Samâdhi (which is septenary). Here belong the Hierarchies of the Kumâras—the Agnishvattas, etc. 4. _Karatala_ corresponds with Sparsha (touch) and to the Hierarchies of ethereal, semi‐objective Dhyân Chohans of the astral matter of the Mânasa‐ Manas, or the pure ray of Manas, that is the Lower Manas before it is mixed with Kâma (as in the young child). They are called Sparsha Devas, the Devas endowed with touch. These Hierarchies of Devas are progressive: the first have one sense; the second two; and so on to seven: each containing all the senses potentially, but not yet developed. Sparsha would be rendered better by affinity, contact. 3. _Rasâtala_, or Rûpatala: corresponds to the Hierarchies of Rûpa or Sight Devas, possessed of three senses, sight, hearing, and touch. These are the Kâma‐Mânasic entities, and the higher Elementals. With the Rosicrucians they were the Sylphs and Undines. It corresponds on earth with an artificial state of consciousness, such as that produced by hypnotism and drugs (morphia, etc.). 2. _Mahâtala._ Corresponds to the Hierarchies of Rasa or Taste Devas, and includes a state of consciousness embracing the lower five senses and emanations of life and being. It corresponds to Kâma and Prâna in man, and to Salamanders and Gnomes in nature. 1. _Pâtâla._ Corresponds to the Hierarchies of Gandha or Smell Devas, the underworld or antipodes: Myalba. The sphere of irrational animals, having no feeling save that of self‐preservation and gratification of the senses: also of intensely selfish human beings, waking or sleeping. This is why Nârada is said to have visited Pâtâla when he was cursed to be reborn. He reported that life there was very pleasant for those “who had never left their birth‐place”; they were very happy. It is the earthly state, and corresponds with the sense of smell. Here are also animal Dugpas, Elementals of animals, and Nature Spirits. Further Explanations of the Same Classifications. 7. Auric, Âtmic, Alayic, sense or state. One of full potentiality, but not of activity. 6. Buddhic; the sense of being one with the universe; the impossibility of imagining oneself apart from it. (It was asked why the term Alayic was here given to the Âtmic and not to the Buddhic state. _Ans._ These classifications are not hard and fast divisions. A term may change places according as the classification is exoteric, Esoteric or practical. For students the effort should be to bring all things down to states of consciousness. Buddhi is really one and indivisible. It is a feeling within, absolutely inexpressible in words. All cataloguing is useless to explain it.) 5. Shâbdic, sense of hearing. 4. Spârshic, sense of touch. 3. Rûpic, the state of feeling oneself a body and perceiving it (rûpa = form). 2. Râsic, sense of taste. 1. Gândhic, sense of smell. All the Kosmic and anthropic states and senses correspond with our organs of sensation, Gnyânendryas, rudimentary organs for receiving knowledge through direct contact, sight, etc. These are the faculties of Sharîra, through Netra (eyes), nose, speech, etc., and also with the organs of action, Karmendryas, hands, feet, etc. Exoterically, there are five sets of five, giving twenty‐five. Of these twenty are facultative and five Buddhic. Exoterically Buddhi is said to perceive; Esoterically it reaches perception only through the Higher Manas. Each of these twenty is both positive and negative, thus making forty in all. There are two subjective states answering to each of the four sets of five, hence eight in all. These being subjective cannot be doubled. Thus we have 40 + 8 = 48 “cognitions of Buddhi.” These with Mâyâ, which includes them all, make 49. (Once that you have reached the cognition of Mâyâ, you are an Adept.) The Lokas. In their exoteric blinds the Brâhmans count fourteen Lokas (earth included), of which seven are objective, though not apparent, and seven subjective, yet fully demonstrable to the Inner Man. There are seven Divine Lokas and seven infernal (terrestrial) Lokas. SEVEN DIVINE LOKAS. SEVEN INFERNAL (TERRESTRIAL) LOKAS. 1. Bhûrloka (the earth). 1. Pâtâla (our earth). 2. Bhuvarloka (between the 2. Mahâtala. earth and the sun [Munis]). 3. Svarloka (between the sun 3. Rasâtala. and and Pole Star [Yogîs]). 4. Maharloka (between the 4. Talâtala (or Karatala). earth and the utmost limit of the Solar System).(858) 5. Janarloka (beyond the Solar 5. Sutala. System, the abode of the Kumâras, who do not belong to this plane). 6. Taparloka (still beyond the 6. Vitala. Mahâtmic region, the dwelling of the Vairâja deities). 7. Satyaloka (the abode of the 7. Atala. Nirvanîs). These the Brâhmans read from the bottom. Now all these fourteen are planes from without within, and (the seven Divine) States of Consciousness through which man can pass‐‐and must pass, once he is determined to go through the seven paths and portals of Dhyâni; one need not be disembodied for this, and all this is reached on earth, and in one or many of the incarnations. See the order: the four lower ones (1, 2, 3, 4), are _rûpa_; _i.e._, they are performed by the Inner Man with the full concurrence of the diviner portions, or, elements, of the Lower Manas, and consciously by the personal man. The three higher states cannot be reached and remembered by the latter, unless he is a fully initiated Adept. A Hatha Yogî will never pass beyond the Maharloka, psychically, and the Talâtala (double or dual place), physico‐mentally. To become a Râja Yogî, one has to ascend up to the seventh portal, the Satyaloka. For such, the Master Yogîs tell us, is the fruition of Yajna, or sacrifice. When the Bhûr, Bhuvar and Svarga (states) are once passed, and the Yogî’s consciousness centred in Maharloka, it is in the last plane and state between entire identification of the Personal and the Higher Manas. One thing to remember: while the infernal (or terrestrial) states are also the seven divisions of the earth, for planes and states, as much as they are Kosmic divisions, the divine Saptaloka are purely subjective, and begin with the psychic Astral Light plane, ending with the Satya or Jîvanmukta state. These fourteen Lokas, or spheres, form the extent of the whole Brahmânda (world). The four lower are transitory, with all their dwellers, and the three higher eternal; _i.e._, the former states, planes and subjects, to these, last only a Day of Brahmâ, changing with every Kalpa: the latter endure for an Age of Brahmâ. Students must learn the correspondences: then concentrate on the organs and so reach their corresponding states of consciousness. Take them in order beginning with the lowest, and working steadily upwards. A medium might irregularly catch glimpses of higher, but would not thus gain orderly development. The greatest phenomena are produced by touching and centering the attention upon the little finger. The Lokas and Talas are reflections the one of the other. So also are the Hierarchies in each, in pairs of opposites, at the two poles of the sphere. Everywhere are such opposites: good and evil, light and darkness, male and female. H. P. B. could not say why blue was the colour of the earth. Blue is a colour by itself, a primary. Indigo is a colour, not a shade of blue, so is violet. The Vairâjas belong to, are the fiery Egos of, other Manvantaras. They have already been purified in the fire of passions. It is they who refused to create. They have reached the Seventh Portal, and have refused Nirvâna, remaining for succeeding Manvantaras. The seven steps of Antahkarana correspond with the Lokas. Samâdhi is the highest state on earth that can be reached in the body. Beyond that the Initiate must have become a Nirmânakâya. Purity of mind is of greater importance than purity of body. If the Upâdhi be not perfectly pure, it cannot preserve recollections coming from a higher state. An act may be performed to which little or no attention is paid, and it is of comparatively small importance. But if thought of, dwelt on in the mind, the effect is a thousand times greater. The thoughts must be kept pure. Remember that Kâma, while having bad passions and emotions, helps you to evolve by giving also the desire and impulse necessary for rising. The flesh, the body, the human being in his material part, is, on this plane, the most difficult thing to subject. The highest Adept, put into a new body, has to struggle against it and subdue it, and finds its subjugation difficult. The Liver is the General, the Spleen is the Aide‐de‐Camp. All that the Liver does not accomplish is taken up and completed by the Spleen. H. P. B. was asked whether each person must pass through the fourteen states, and answered that the Lokas and Talas represented planes on this earth, through some of which all must pass, and through all of which the disciple must pass, on his way to Adeptship. Everyone passes through the lower Lokas, but not necessarily through the corresponding Talas. There are two poles in everything: seven states in every state. Vitala represents a sublime as well as an infernal state. That state which for the mortal is a complete separation of the Ego from the personality is for a Buddha a mere temporary separation. For the Buddha it is a Kosmic state. The Brâhmans and Buddhists regard the Talas as hells, but in reality the term is figurative. We are in hell whenever we are in misery, suffer misfortune and so on. Forms In The Astral Light. The Elementals in the Astral light are reflections. Everything on earth is reflected there. It is from these that photographs are sometimes obtained through mediums. The mediums unconsciously produce them as forms. The Adepts produce them consciously through Kriyâshakti, bringing them down by a process that may be compared to the focussing of rays of light by a burning glass. States Of Consciousness. Bhûrloka is the waking state in which we normally live; it is the state in which animals also are, when they sense food, a danger, etc. To be in Svarloka is to be completely abstracted on this plane, leaving only instinct to work, so that on the material plane you would behave as an animal. Yogîs are known who have become crystallized in this state, and then they must be nourished by others. A Yogî near Allahabad had been for fifty‐three years sitting on a stone; his Chelâs plunge him into the river every night and then replace him. During the day his consciousness returns to Bhûrloka, and he talks and teaches. A Yogî was found on an island near Calcutta round whose limbs the roots of trees had grown. He was cut out, and in the endeavour to awaken him so many outrages were inflicted on him that he died. _Q. Is it possible to be in more than one state of consciousness at once?_ _A._ The consciousness cannot be entirely on two planes at once. The higher and lower states are not wholly incompatible, but if you are on the higher you will wool‐gather on the lower. In order to remember the higher state on returning to the lower, the memory must be carried upwards to the higher. An Adept may apparently enjoy a dual consciousness; when he desires not to see he can abstract himself: he may be in a higher state and yet return answers to questions addressed to him. But in this case he will momentarily return to the material plane, shooting up again to the higher plane. This is his only salvation in adverse conditions. The lower you go in the Talas the more intellectual you become and the less spiritual. You may be a morally good man but not spiritual. Intellect may remain very closely related to Kâma. A man may be in a Loka and visit one and all the Talas, his condition depending on the Loka to which he belongs. Thus a man in Bhûrloka only may pass into the Talas and go to the devil. If he dwells in Bhuvarloka he cannot become as bad. If he has reached the Satya state he can go into any Tala without danger; buoyed up by his own purity he can never be engulfed. The Talas are brain intellect states, while the Lokas—or more accurately the three higher—are spiritual. Manas absorbs the light of Buddhi. Buddhi is Arûpa, and can absorb nothing. When the Ego takes all the light of Buddhi, it takes that of Âtmâ, Buddhi being the vehicle, and thus the three become one. This done, the _full_ Adept is one spiritually, but has a body. The fourfold Path is finished and he is one. The Masters’ bodies are, as far as they are concerned, illusionary, and hence do not grow old, become wrinkled, etc. The student, who is not naturally psychic, should fix the fourfold consciousness in a higher plane and nail it there. Let him make a bundle of the four lower and pin them to a higher state. He should centre on this higher, trying not to permit the body and intellect to draw him down and carry him away. Play ducks and drakes with the body, eating, drinking and sleeping, but living always on the ideal. Mother‐Love. Mother‐love is an instinct, the same in the human being and in the animal, and often stronger in the latter. The continuance of this love in human beings is due to association, to blood magnetism and to psychic affinity. Families are sometimes formed of those who have lived together before, but often not. The causes at work are very complex and have to be balanced. Sometimes when a child with very bad Karma is to be born, parents of a callous type are chosen, or they may die before the Karmic results appear. Or the suffering through the child may be their own Karma. Mother‐love as an instinct is between Rasâtala and Talâtala. The Lipikas keep man’s Karmic record, and impress it on the Astral Light. Vacillating people pass from one state of consciousness to another. Thought arises before desire. The thought acts on the brain, the brain on the organ, and then desire awakes. It is not the outer stimulus that arouses the organ. Thought therefore must be slain ere desire can be extinguished. The student must guard his thoughts. Five minutes’ thought may undo the work of five years; and though the five years’ work will be run through more rapidly the second time, yet time is lost. Consciousness. H. P. B. began by challenging the views of consciousness in the West, commenting on the lack of definition in the leading Philosophies. No distinction was made between consciousness and self‐consciousness, and yet in this lay the difference between man and the animal. The animal was conscious only, not self‐conscious; the animal does not know the Ego as Subject, as does man. There is therefore an enormous difference between the consciousness of the bird, the insect, the beast, and that of man. But the full consciousness of man is self‐consciousness—that which makes us say, “_I_ do that.” If there is pleasure it must be traced to some one experiencing it. Now the difference between the consciousness of man and of animals is that while there is a Self in the animal, the animal is not conscious of the Self. Spencer reasons on consciousness, but when he comes to a gap he merely jumps over it. So again Hume, when he says that on introspection he sees merely feelings and can never find any “I,” forgets that without an “I” no seeing of feelings would be possible. What is it that studies the feelings? The animal is not conscious of the feeling “I am I.” It has instinct, but instinct is not self‐consciousness. Self‐ consciousness is an attribute of the mind, not of the soul, the _anima_, whence the very name _animal_ is taken. Humanity had no self‐consciousness until the coming of the Mânasaputras in the Third Race. Consciousness, brain‐consciousness, is the field of the light of the Ego, of the Auric Egg, of the Higher Manas. The cells of the leg are conscious, but they are the slaves of the idea; they are not self‐conscious, they cannot originate an idea, although when they are tired they can convey to the brain an uneasy sensation, and so give rise to the idea of fatigue. Instinct is the lower state of consciousness. Man has consciousness running through the four lower keys of his septenary consciousness; there are seven scales of consciousness in his consciousness, which is none the less essentially and pre‐eminently one, a unit. There are millions and millions of states of consciousness, as there are millions and millions of leaves; but as you cannot find two leaves alike, so you cannot find two states of consciousness alike; a state is never exactly repeated. Is memory a thing born in us that it can give birth to the Ego? Knowledge, feeling, volition, are colleagues of the mind, not faculties of it. Memory is an artificial thing, an adjunct of relativeness; it can be sharpened or left dull, and it depends on the condition of the brain‐cells which store all impressions; knowledge, feeling, volition, cannot be correlated, do what you will. They are not produced from each other, nor produced from mind, but are principles, colleagues. You cannot have knowledge without memory, for memory stores all things, garnishing and furnishing. If you teach a child nothing, it will know nothing. Brain‐consciousness depends on the intensity of the light shed by the Higher Manas on the Lower, and the extent of affinity between the brain and this light. Brain‐mind is conditioned by the responsiveness of the brain to this light; it is the field of consciousness of the Manas. The animal has the Monad and the Manas latent, but its brain cannot respond. All potentialities are there, but are dormant. There are certain accepted errors in the West which vitiate all their theories. How many impressions can a man receive simultaneously into his consciousness and record? The Westerns say one: Occultists say normally seven, and abnormally fourteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty‐one, up to forty‐nine, impressions can be simultaneously received. Occultism teaches that the consciousness always receives a sevenfold impression and stores it in the memory. You can prove it by striking at once the seven notes of the musical scale: the seven sounds reach the consciousness simultaneously, but the untrained ear can only recognize them one after another, and if you choose you can measure the intervals. The trained ear will hear the seven notes at once, simultaneously. And experiment has shown that in two or three weeks a man may be trained to receive seventeen or eighteen impressions of colour, the intervals decreasing with practice. Memory is acquired for this life, and can be expanded. Genius is the greatest responsiveness of the brain and brain‐memory to the Higher Manas. Impressions on any sense are stored in the memory. Before a physical sense is developed there is a mental feeling which proceeds to become a physical sense. Fishes who are blind, living in the deep sea, or subterranean waters, if they are put into a pond will in a few generations develop eyes. But in their previous state there is a sense of seeing, though no physical sight; how else should they in the darkness find their way, avoid dangers, etc.? The mind will take in and store all kinds of things mechanically and unconsciously, and will throw them into the memory as unconscious perceptions. If the attention is greatly engrossed in any way, the sense perception of any injury is not felt at the time, but later the suffering enters into consciousness. So, returning to our example of the seven notes struck simultaneously, we have one impression, but the ear is affected in succession by the notes one after another, so that they are stored in the brain‐mind in order, for the untrained consciousness cannot register them simultaneously. All depends on training and on attention. Thus the transference of a sensation passing from any organ to the consciousness is almost simultaneous if your attention is fixed on it, but if any noise distracts your attention, then it will take a fraction more of a second before it reaches your consciousness. The Occultist should train himself to receive and transmit along the line of the seven scales of his consciousness every impression, or impressions, simultaneously. He who reduces the intervals of physical time the most has made the most progress. Consciousness, Its Seven Scales. There are seven scales or shades of consciousness, of the Unit; _e.g._, in a moment of pleasure or pain; four lower and three higher. 1. Physical sense‐perception: Perception of the cell (if paralyzed, the sense is there, though _you_ do not feel it). 2. Self‐perception or apperception: _I.e._, self‐perception of cell. 3. Psychic apperception: Of astral double, döppelganger, carrying it higher to the: 4. Vital perception: Physical feeling, sensations of pleasure and pain, of quality. These are the four lower scales, and belong to the psycho‐physiological man. 5. Mânasic discernment of the Mânasic self‐perception. Lower Manas: 6. Will perception: Volitional perception, the voluntary taking in of an idea; you can regard or disregard physical pain. 7. Spiritual, entirely conscious apperception: Because it reaches the Higher, self‐conscious Manas. [Apperception means self‐perception, conscious action, not as with Leibnitz, but when attention is fixed on the perception.] You can take these on any planes: _e.g._, bad news passes through the four lower stages before coming to the heart. Or take Sound: 1. It strikes the ear. 2. Self‐perception of the ear. 3. On the psychic or mental, which carries it to 4. Vital (harsh, soft; strong, weak; etc.). The Ego. One of the best proofs that there is an Ego, a true Field of Consciousness, is the fact already mentioned, that a state of consciousness is never exactly reproduced, though you should live a hundred years, and pass through milliards and milliards. In an active day, how many states and substates there are; it would be impossible to have cells enough for all. This will help you to understand why some mental states and abstract things follow the Ego into Devachan, and why others merely scatter in space. That which touches the Entity has an affinity for it, as a noble action, is immortal and goes with it into Devachan, forming part and parcel of the biography of the personality which is disintegrating. A lofty emotion runs through the seven stages, and touches the Ego, the mind that plays its tunes in the mind‐cells. We can analyze the work of consciousness and describe it; but we cannot define consciousness unless we postulate a Subject. Bhûrloka. The Bhûrloka begins with the Lower Manas. Animals do not feel as do men. The dog thinks more of his master being angry than of the actual pain of the lash. The animal does not suffer in memory and in imagination, feeling past and future as well as actual present pain. Pineal Gland. The special physical organ of perception is the brain, and perception is located in the aura of the pineal gland. This aura answers in vibrations to any impressions, but it can only be sensed, not perceived, in the living man. During the process of thought manifesting in consciousness, a constant vibration occurs in the light of this aura, and a clairvoyant looking at the brain of a living man may almost count, see with the spiritual eye, the seven scales, the seven shades of light, passing from the dullest to the brightest. You touch your hand; before you touch it the vibration is already in the aura of the pineal gland, and has its own shade of colour. It is this aura which causes the wear and tear of the organ, by the vibrations it sets up. The brain, set vibrating, conveys the vibrations to the spinal cord, and so to the rest of the body. Happiness as well as sorrow sets up these strong vibrations, and so wears out the body. Powerful vibrations of joy or sorrow may thus kill. The Heart. The septenary disturbance and play of light around the pineal gland are reflected in the heart, or rather the aura of the heart, which vibrates and illumines the seven brains of the heart, just as does the aura round the pineal gland. This is the exoterically four‐ but Esoterically seven‐ leaved lotus, the Saptaparna, the cave of Buddha, with its seven compartments. Astral And Ego. There is a difference between the nature and the essence of the Astral Body and the Ego. The Astral Body is molecular, however etherealized it may be: the Ego is atomic, spiritual. The Atoms are spiritual, and are for ever invisible on this plane; molecules form around them, they remaining as the higher invisible principles of the molecules. The eyes are the most Occult of our senses: close them and you pass to the mental plane. Stop all the senses and you are entirely on another plane. Individuality. If twelve people are smoking together, the smoke of their cigarettes may mingle, but the molecules of the smoke from each have an affinity with each other, and they remain distinct for ever and ever, no matter how the whole mass may interblend. So a drop of water, though it fall into the ocean retains its individuality. It has become a drop with a life of its own, like a man, and cannot be annihilated. Any group of people would appear as a group in the Astral Light, but would not be permanent; but a group meeting to study Occultism would cohere, and the impression would be more permanent. The higher and the more spiritual the affinity, the more permanent the cohesion. Lower Manas. The Lower Manas is an emanation from the Higher Manas, and is of the same nature as the Higher. This nature can make no impression on this plane, nor receive any: an Archangel, having no experience, would be senseless on this plane, and could neither give nor receive impressions. So the Lower Manas clothes itself with the essence of the Astral Light; this astral envelope shuts it out from its Parent, except through the Antahkarana which is its only salvation. Break this and you become an animal. Kâma. Kâma is life, it is the essence of the blood. When this leaves the blood the latter congeals. Prâna is universal on this plane; it is in us the vital principle, Prânic, rather than Prâna. Self‐Hood. Qualities determine the properties of “Self‐hood.” As, for instance, two wolves placed in the same environment would probably not act differently. The field of the consciousness of the Higher Ego is never reflected in the Astral Light. The Auric Envelope receives the impressions of both the Higher and the Lower Manas, and it is the latter impressions that are also reflected in the Astral Light. Whereas the essence of all things spiritual, all that which reaches, or is not rejected by, the Higher Ego is not reflected in the Astral Light, because it is on too low a plane. But during the life of a man, this essence, with a view to Karmic ends, is impressed on the Auric Envelope, and after death and the separation of the Principles is united with the Universal Mind (that is to say, those “impressions” which are superior to even the Devachanic Plane), to await there Karmically until the day when the Ego is to be reincarnated. [There are thus three sets of impressions, which we may call the Kâmic, Devachanic and Mânasic.] For the entities, no matter how high, must have their Karmic rewards and punishments on earth. These spiritual impressions are made more or less on the brain, otherwise the Lower Ego would not be responsible. There are some impressions, however, received through the brain, which are not of our previous experience. In the case of the Adept the brain is trained to retain these impressions. The Reincarnating Ray may, for convenience, be separated into two aspects: the lower Kâmic Ego is scattered in Kâma Loka; the Mânasic part accomplishes its cycle and returns to the Higher Ego. It is, in reality, this Higher Ego which is, so to speak, punished, which suffers. This is the true crucifixion of the Christos—the most abstruse but yet the most important mystery of Occultism; all the cycle of our lives hangs on it. It is indeed the Higher Ego that is the sufferer; for remember that the abstract consciousness of the higher personal consciousness will remain impressed on the Ego, since it must be part and parcel of its eternity. All our grandest impressions are impressed on the Higher Ego, because they are of the same nature as itself. Patriotism and great actions in national service are not altogether good, from the point of view of the highest. To benefit a portion of humanity is good; but to do so at the expense of the rest is bad. Therefore, in patriotism, etc., the venom is present with the good. For though the inner essence of the Higher Ego is unsoilable, the outer garment may be soiled. Thus both the bad and the good of such thoughts and actions are impressed on the Auric Envelope and the Karma of the bad is taken up by the Higher Ego, though it is perfectly guiltless of it. Thus both sets of impressions, after death, scatter in the Universal Mind, and at reincarnation the Ego sends out a Ray which is itself, into a new personality, and there suffers. It suffers in the Self‐consciousness that it has created by its own accumulated experiences. Every one of our Egos has the Karma of past Manvantaras behind. There are seven Hierarchies of Egos, some of which, _e.g._, in inferior tribes, may be said to be only just beginning the present cycle. The Ego starts with Divine Consciousness; no past, no future, no separation. It is long before realizing that it is itself. Only after many births does it begin to discern, by this collectivity of experience, that it is individual. At the end of its cycle of reincarnation it is still the same Divine Consciousness, but it has now become individualized Self‐consciousness. The feeling of responsibility is inspired by the presence of the Light of the Higher Ego. As the Ego in its cycle of re‐birth becomes more and more individualized, it learns more and more by suffering to recognize its own responsibility, by which it finally gains Self‐consciousness, the consciousness of all the Egos of the whole Universe. Absolute Being, to have the idea or sensation of all this, must pass through all experience individually, not universally, so that when it returns it should be of the same omniscience as the Universal Mind _plus_ the memory of all that it has passed through. At the Day “Be with us” every Ego has to remember all the cycles of its past reincarnations for Manvantaras. The Ego comes in contact with this earth, all seven Principles become one, it sees all that it has done therein. It sees the stream of its past reincarnations by a certain divine light. It sees all humanity at once, but still there is ever, as it were, a stream which is always the “I.” We should therefore always endeavour to accentuate our responsibility. The Higher Ego is, as it were, a globe of pure divine light, a Unit from a higher plane, on which is no differentiation. Descending to a plane of differentiation it emanates a Ray, which it can only manifest through the personality which is already differentiated. A portion of this Ray, the Lower Manas, during life, may so crystallize itself and become one with Kâma that it will remain assimilated with Matter. That portion which retains its purity forms Antahkarana. The whole fate of an incarnation depends on whether Antahkarana will be able to restrain the Kâma‐Manas or not. After death the higher light (Antahkarana) which bears the impressions and memory of all good and noble aspirations, assimilates itself with the Higher Ego, the bad is dissociated in space, and comes back as bad Karma awaiting the personality. The feeling of responsibility is the beginning of Wisdom, a proof that Ahankâra is beginning to fade out, the beginning of losing the sense of separateness. Kâma Rûpa. The Kâma Rûpa eventually breaks up and goes into animals. All red‐blooded animals come from man. The cold‐blooded are from the matter of the past. The blood is the Kâma Rûpa. The white corpuscles are the scavengers, “devourers”; they are oozed out of the Astral through the spleen, and are of the same essence as the Astral. They are the sweat‐born of the Chhâyâ. Kâma is everywhere in the body. The red cells are drops of electrical fluid, the perspiration of all the organs oozed out from every cell. They are the progeny of the Fohatic Principle. Heart. There are seven brains in the heart, the Upâdhis and symbols of the seven Hierarchies. The Fires. The fires are always playing round the pineal gland, but when Kundalinî illuminates them for a brief instant the whole universe is seen. Even in deep sleep the Third Eye opens. This is good for Manas, who profits by it, though we ourselves do not remember. Perception. In answer to a question on the seven stages of perception, H. P. B. said that thought should be centred on the highest, the seventh, and then an attempt to transcend this will prove that it is impossible to go beyond it on this plane. There is nothing in the brain to carry the thinker on, and if thought is to rise yet further it must be thought without a brain. Let the eyes be closed, the will set not to let the brain work, and then the point may be transcended and the student will pass to the next plane. All the seven stages of perception come before Antahkarana; if you can pass beyond them you are on the Mânasic Plane. Try to imagine something which transcends your power of thought, say, the nature of the Dhyân Chohans. Then make the brain passive, and pass beyond; you will see a white radiant light, like silver, but opalescent as mother of pearl; then waves of colour will pass over it, beginning in the tenderest violet, and through bronze shades of green to indigo with metallic lustre, and that colour will remain. If you see this you are on another plane. You should pass through seven stages. When a colour comes, glance at it, and if it is not good reject it. Let your attention be arrested only on the green, indigo and yellow. These are good colours. The eyes being connected with the brain, the colour you see most easily will be the colour of the personality. If you see red, it is merely physiological, and is to be disregarded. Green‐bronze is the Lower Manas, yellow‐bronze the Antahkarana, indigo‐bronze is Manas. These are to be observed, and when the yellow‐bronze merges into the indigo you are on the Mânasic Plane. On the Mânasic Plane you see the Noumena, the essence of phenomena. You do not see people or other consciousnesses, but have enough to do to keep your own. The trained Seer can see Noumena always. The Adept sees the Noumena on this plane, the reality of things, so cannot be deceived. In meditation the beginner may waver backwards and forwards between two planes. You hear the ticking of a clock on this plane, then on the astral—the soul of the ticking. When clocks are stopped here the ticking goes on on higher planes, in the astral, and then in the ether, until the last bit of the clock is gone. It is the same as with a dead body, which sends out emanations until the last molecule is disintegrated. There is no time in meditation, because there is no succession of states of consciousness on this plane. Violet is the colour of the Astral. You begin with it, but should not stay in it; try to pass on. When you see a sheet of violet, you are beginning unconsciously to form a Mâyâvi Rûpa. Fix your attention, and if you go away keep your consciousness firmly to the Mâyâvic Body; do not lose sight of it, hold on like grim death. Consciousness. The consciousness which is merely the animal consciousness is made up of the consciousness of all the cells in the body except those of the heart. The heart is the king, the most important organ in the body of man. Even if the head be severed from the body, the heart will continue to beat for thirty minutes. It will beat for some hours if wrapped in cotton wool and put in a warm place. The spot in the heart which is the last of all to die is the seat of life, the centre of all, Brahmâ, the first spot that lives in the fœtus and the last that dies. When a Yogî is buried in a trance it is this spot that lives, though the rest of the body be dead, and as long as this is alive the Yogî can be resurrected. This spot contains potentially mind, life, energy, and will. During life it radiates prismatic colours, fiery and opalescent. The heart is the centre of spiritual consciousness, as the brain is the centre of intellectual. But this consciousness cannot be guided by a person, nor its energy directed by him until he is at one with Buddhi‐Manas; until then it guides him—if it can. Hence the pangs of remorse, the prickings of conscience; they come from the heart, not the head. In the heart is the only manifested God, the other two are invisible, and it is this which represents the Triad, Âtmâ‐Buddhi‐Manas. In reply to a question whether the consciousness might not be concentrated in the heart, and so the promptings of the Spirit caught, H. P. B. said that any one who could thus concentrate would be at one with Manas, would have united Kâma‐Manas to the Higher Manas. The Higher Manas could not directly guide man, it could only act through the Lower Manas. There are three principal centres in man, Heart, Head, and Navel: any two of which may be + or ‐ to each other, according to the relative predominance of the centres. The heart represents the Higher Triad; the liver and spleen represent the Quaternary. The solar plexus is the brain of the stomach. H. P. B. was asked if the three centres above‐named would represent the Christos, crucified between two thieves; she said it might serve as an analogy, but these figures must not be over‐driven. It must never be forgotten that the Lower Manas is the same in its essence as the Higher, and may become one with it by rejecting Kâmic impulses. The crucifixion of the Christos represents the self‐sacrifice of the Higher Manas, the Father that sends his only begotten Son into the world to take upon him our sins: the Christ‐myth came from the Mysteries. So also did the life of Apollonius of Tyana; this was suppressed by the Fathers of the Church because of its striking similarity to the life of Christ. The psycho‐intellectual man is all in the head with its seven gateways; the spiritual man is in the heart. The convolutions are formed by thought. The third ventricle in life is filled with light, and not with a liquid as after death. There are seven cavities in the brain which are quite empty during life, and it is in these that visions must be reflected if they are to remain in the memory. These centres are, in Occultism, called the seven harmonies, the scale of the divine harmonies. They are filled with Âkâsha, each with its own colour, according to the state of consciousness in which you are. The sixth is the pineal gland, which is hollow and empty during life; the seventh is the whole; the fifth is the third ventricle; the fourth the pituitary body. When Manas is united to Âtmâ‐Buddhi, or when Âtmâ‐Buddhi is centred in Manas, it acts in the three higher cavities, radiating, sending forth a halo of light, and this is visible in the case of a very holy person. The cerebellum is the centre, the storehouse, of all the forces; it is the Kâma of the head. The pineal gland corresponds to the uterus; its peduncles to the Fallopian tubes. The pituitary body is only its servant, its torch‐bearer, like the servants bearing lights that used to run before the carriage of a princess. Man is thus androgyne so far as his head is concerned. Man contains in himself every element that is found in the Universe. There is nothing in the Macrocosm that is not in the Microcosm. The pineal gland, as was said, is quite empty during life; the pituitary contains various essences. The granules in the pineal gland are precipitated after death within the cavity. The cerebellum furnishes the materials for ideation; the frontal lobes of the cerebrum are the finishers and polishers of the materials, but they cannot create of themselves. Clairvoyant perception is the consciousness of touch: thus reading letters, psychometrizing substances, etc., may be done at the pit of the stomach. Every sense has its consciousness, and you can have consciousness through every sense. There may be consciousness on the plane of sight, though the brain be paralyzed; the eyes of a paralyzed person will show terror. So with the sense of hearing. Those who are physically blind, deaf or dumb, are still possessed of the psychic counterparts of these senses. Will And Desire. Eros in man is the will of the genius to create great pictures, great music, things that will live and serve the race. It has nothing in common with the animal desire to create. Will is of the Higher Manas. It is the universal harmonious tendency acting by the Higher Manas. Desire is the outcome of separateness, aiming at the satisfaction of Self in Matter. The path opened between the Higher Ego and the Lower enables the Ego to act on the personal self. Conversion. It is not true that a man powerful in evil can suddenly be converted and become as powerful for good. His vehicle is too defiled, and he can at best but neutralize the evil, balancing up the bad Karmic causes he has set in motion, at any rate for this incarnation. You cannot take a herring barrel and use it for attar of roses: the wood is too soaked through with the drippings. When evil impulses and tendencies have become impressed on the physical nature, they cannot at once be reversed. The molecules of the body have been set in a Kâmic direction, and though they have sufficient intelligence to discern between things on their own plane, _i.e._, to avoid things harmful to themselves, they cannot understand a change of direction, the impulse to which is from another plane. If they are forced too violently, disease, madness or death will result. Origines. Absolute eternal motion, Parabrahman, which is nothing and everything, motion inconceivably rapid, in this motion throws off a film, which is Energy, Eros. It thus transforms itself to Mûlaprakriti, primordial Substance which is still Energy. This Energy, still transforming itself in its ceaseless and inconceivable motion, becomes the Atom, or rather the germ of the Atom, and then it is on the Third Plane. Our Manas is a Ray from the World‐Soul and is withdrawn at Pralaya; “it is perhaps the Lower Manas of Parabrahman,” that is, of the Parabrahman of the manifested Universe. The first film is Energy, or motion on the manifested plane; Alaya is the Third Logos, Mahâ‐Buddhi, Mahat. We always begin on the Third Plane; beyond that all is inconceivable. Âtmâ is focussed in Buddhi, but is embodied only in Manas, these being the Spirit, Soul and Body of the Universe. Dreams. We may have evil experiences in dreams as well as good. We should, therefore, train ourselves so as to awaken directly we tend to do wrong. The Lower Manas is asleep in sense‐dreams, the animal consciousness being then guided towards the Astral Light by Kâma; the tendency of such sense‐ dreams is always towards the animal. If we could remember our dreams in deep sleep, then we should be able to remember all our past incarnations. Nidânas. There are twelve Nidânas, exoteric and Esoteric, the fundamental doctrine of Buddhism. So also there are twelve exoteric Buddhist Sûttas called Nidânas, each giving one Nidâna. The Nidânas have a dual meaning. They are: (1) The twelve causes of sentient existence, through the twelve links of subjective with objective Nature, or between the subjective and objective Natures. (2) A concatenation of causes and effects. Every cause produces an effect, and this effect becomes in its turn a cause. Each of these has as Upâdhi (basis), one of the sub‐divisions of one of the Nidânas, and also an effect or consequence. Both bases and effects belong to one or another Nidâna, each having from three to seventeen, eighteen and twenty‐one sub‐divisions. The names of the twelve Nidânas are: (1) Jarâmarana. (2) Jâti. (3) Bhava. (4) Upâdâna. (5) Trishnâ. (6) Vedanâ. (7) Sparsha. (8) Chadayâtana. (9) Nâmarûpa. (10) Vignâna. (11) Samskâra. (12) Avidyâ.(859) (1) JARÂMARANA, lit. death in consequence of decrepitude. Notice that death and not life comes as the first of the Nidânas. This is the first fundamental in Buddhist Philosophy; every Atom, at every moment, as soon as it is born begins dying. The five Skandhas are founded on it; they are its effects or product. Moreover, in its turn, it is based on the five Skandhas. They are mutual things, one gives to the other. (2) JÂTI, lit. Birth. That is to say, Birth according to one of the four modes of Chaturyoni (the four wombs), _viz._: (i) Through the womb, like Mammalia. (ii) Through Eggs. (iii) Ethereal or liquid Germs—fish spawn, pollen, insects, etc. (iv) Anupâdaka—Nirmânakâyas, Gods, etc. That is to say that birth takes place by one of these modes. You must be born in one of the six objective modes of existence, or in the seventh which is subjective. These four are within six modes of existence, _viz._: _Exoterically_:— (i) Devas; (ii) Men; (iii) Asuras; (iv) Men in Hell; (v) Pretas, devouring demons on earth; (vi) animals. _Esoterically_:— (i) Higher Gods; (ii) Devas or Pitris (all classes); (iii) Nirmânakâyas; (iv) Bodhisattvas; (v) Men in Myalba; (vi) Kâma Rûpic existences, whether of men or animals, in Kâma Loka or the Astral Light; (vii) Elementals (Subjective Existences). (3) BHAVA = Karmic existence, not life existence, but as a moral agent which determines _where_ you will be born, _i.e._, in which of the Triloka, Bhûr, Bhuvar or Svar (seven Lokas in reality). The cause or Nidâna of Bhava is Upâdâna, that is, the clinging to existence, that which makes us desire life in whatever form. Its effect is Jâti in one or another of the Triloka and under whatever conditions. Nidânas are the detailed expression of the law of Karma under twelve aspects; or we might say the law of Karma under twelve Nidânic aspects. Skandhas. Skandhas are the germs of life on all the seven planes of Being, and make up the totality of the subjective and objective man. Every vibration we have made is a Skandha. The Skandhas are closely united to the pictures in the Astral Light, which is the medium of impressions, and the Skandhas, or vibrations, connected with subjective or objective man, are the links which attract the Reincarnating Ego, the germs left behind when it went into Devachan which have to be picked up again and exhausted by a new personality. The exoteric Skandhas have to do with the physical atoms and vibrations, or objective man; the Esoteric with the internal and subjective man. A mental change, or a glimpse of spiritual truth, may make a man suddenly change to the truth even at his death, thus creating good Skandhas for the next life. The last acts or thoughts of a man have an enormous effect upon his future life, but he would still have to suffer for his misdeeds, and this is the basis of the idea of a death‐bed repentance. But the Karmic effects of the past life must follow, for the man in his next birth must pick up the Skandhas or vibratory impressions that he left in the Astral Light, since nothing comes from nothing in Occultism, and there must be a link between the lives. New Skandhas are born from their old parents. It is wrong to speak of Tanhâs in the plural; there is only one Tanhâ, _the desire to live_. This develops into a multitude or one might say a congeries of ideas. The Skandhas are Karmic and non‐Karmic. Skandhas may produce Elementals by unconscious Kriyâshakti. Every Elemental that is thrown out by man must return to him sooner or later, since it is his own vibration. They thus become his Frankenstein. Elementals are simply effects producing effects. They are disembodied thoughts, good and bad. They remain crystallized in the Astral Light and are attracted by affinity and galvanized back into life again, when their originator returns to earth‐life. You can paralyze them by reverse effects. Elementals are caught like a disease and hence are dangerous to ourselves and to others. This is why it is dangerous to influence others. The Elementals which live after your death are those which you implant in others: the rest remain latent till you are reincarnated, when they come to life in you. “Thus,” H. P. B. said, “if you are badly taught by me or incited thereby to do something wrong, you would go on after my death and sin through me, but I should have to bear the Karma. Calvin, for instance, will have to suffer for all the wrong teaching he has given, though he gave it with good intentions. The worst * * * * does is to arrest the progress of truth. Even Buddha made mistakes. He applied his teaching to people who were not ready; and this has produced Nidânas.” Subtle Bodies. When a man visits another in his Astral Body, it is the Linga Sharîra which goes, but this cannot happen at any great distance. When a man _thinks_ of another at a distance very intently, he sometimes appears to that person. In this case it is the Mâyâvi Rûpa, which is created by unconscious Kriyâshakti, and the man himself is not conscious of appearing. If he were, and projected his Mâyâvi Rûpa consciously, he would be an Adept.(860) No two persons can be simultaneously conscious of one another’s presence, unless one be an Adept. Dugpas use the Mâyâvi Rûpa and sorcerers also. Dugpas work on the Linga Sharîra of other people. The Linga Sharîra in the spleen is the perfect picture of the man, and is good or bad, according to his own nature. The Astral Body is the subjective image of the man which is to be, the first germ in the matrix, the model of the physical body in which the child is formed and developed. The Linga Sharîra may be hurt by a sharp instrument, and would not face a sword or bayonet, although it would easily pass through a table or other piece of furniture. Nothing however can hurt the Mâyâvi Rûpa or thought‐body, since it is purely subjective. When swords are struck at shades, it is the sword itself, not its Linga Sharîra or Astral that cuts. Sharp instruments alone can penetrate Astrals, _e.g._, under water, a blow will not affect you, but a cut will. The projection of the Astral Body should not be attempted, but the power of Kriyâshakti should be exercised in the projection of the Mâyâvi Rûpa. Fire. Fire is not an Element but a divine thing. The physical flame is the objective vehicle of the highest Spirit. The Fire Elementals are the highest. Everything in this world has its Aura and its Spirit. The flame you apply to the candle has nothing to do with the candle itself. The Aura of the object comes into conjunction with the lowest part of the other. Granite cannot burn because its Aura is Fire. Fire Elementals have no consciousness on this plane, they are too high, reflecting the divinity of their own source. Other Elementals have consciousness on this plane as they reflect man and his nature. There is a very great difference between the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. The wick of the lamp, for instance, is negative. It is made positive by fire, the oil being the medium. Æther is Fire. The lowest part of Æther is the flame which you see. Fire is Divinity in its subjective presence throughout the universe. Under other conditions, this Universal Fire manifests as water, air and earth. It is the one Element in our visible Universe which is the Kriyâshakti of all forms of life. It is that which gives light, heat, death, life, etc. It is even the blood. In all its various manifestations it is essentially _one_. It is the “seven Cosmocratores.” Evidence of the esteem in which Fire was held are to be found in the _Old Testament_. The Pillar of Fire, the Burning Bush, the Shining Face of Moses—all Fire. Fire is like a looking‐glass in its nature, and reflects the beams of the first order of subjective manifestations which are supposed to be thrown on to the screen of the first outlines of the created universe; in their lower aspect these are the creations of Fire. Fire in the grossest aspect of its essence is the first form and reflects the lower forms of the first subjective beings which are in the universe. The first divine chaotic thoughts are the Fire Elementals. When on earth they take form and come flitting in the flame in the form of the Salamanders or lower Fire Elementals. In the air you have millions of living and conscious beings, besides our thoughts which they catch up. The Fire Elementals are related to the sense of sight and absorb the Elementals of all the other senses. Thus through sight you can have the consciousness of feeling, hearing, tasting, etc., since all are included in the sense of sight. Hints On The Future. As time passes on there will be more and more ether in the air. When ether fills the air, then will be born children without fathers. In Virginia there is an apple tree of a special kind. It does not blossom but bears fruit from a kind of berry without any seeds. This will gradually extend to animals and then to men. Women will bear children without impregnation, and in the Seventh Round there will appear men who can reproduce themselves. In the Seventh Race of the Fourth Round, men will change their skins every year and will have new toe and finger nails. People will become more psychic, then spiritual. Last of all in the Seventh Round, Buddhas will be born without sin. The Fourth Round is the longest in the Kali Yuga, then the Fifth, then the Sixth, and the Seventh Round will be very short. The Egos. On the separation of the Principles at death the Higher Ego may be said to go to Devachan by reason of the experiences of the Lower. The Higher Ego in its own plane is the Kumâra. The Lower Quaternary dissolves; the body rots, the Linga Sharîra fades out. At reincarnation the Higher Ego shoots out a Ray, the Lower Ego. Its energies are upward and downward. The upward tendencies become its Devachanic experiences; the lower are Kâmic. The Higher Manas stands to Buddhi as the Lower Manas to the Higher. As to the question of responsibility, it may be understood by an example. If you take the form of Jack the Ripper, you must suffer for its misdeeds, for the law will punish the murderer and hold him responsible. You are the sacrificial victim. In the same way the Higher Ego is the Christos, the sacrificial victim for the Lower Manas. The Ego takes the responsibility of every body it informs. You borrow some money to lend it to another; the other runs away, but it is you who are responsible. The mission of the Higher Ego is to shoot out a Ray to be a Soul in a child. Thus the Ego incarnates in a thousand bodies, taking upon itself the sins and responsibilities of each body. At every incarnation a new Ray is emitted, and yet it is the same Ray in essence, the same in you and me and every one. The dross of the incarnation disintegrates, the good goes to Devachan. The Flame is eternal. From the Flame of the Higher Ego, the Lower is lighted, and from this a lower vehicle, and so on. And yet the Lower Manas is such as it makes itself. It is possible for it to act differently in like conditions, for it has reason and self‐ conscious knowledge of right and wrong, and good and evil, given to it. It is in fact endowed with all the attributes of the Divine Soul. In this the Ray is the Higher Manas, the speck of responsibility on earth. The part of the essence is the essence, but while it is out of itself, so to say, it can get soiled and polluted. The Ray can be manifested on this earth because it can send forth its Mâyâvi Rûpa. But the Higher cannot, so it has to send forth a Ray. We may look upon the Higher Ego as the Sun, and the personal Manases as its Rays. If we take away the surrounding air and light the Ray may be said to return to the Sun, so with the Lower Manas and Lower Quaternary. The Higher Ego can only manifest through its attributes. In cases of sudden death, the Lower Manas no more disappears than does the Kâma Rûpa after death. After the severance the Ray may be said to snap or be dropped. After death such a man cannot go to Devachan, nor yet remain in Kâma Loka; his fate is to reincarnate immediately. Such an entity is then an animal Soul _plus_ the intelligence of the severed Ray. The manifestation of this intelligence in the next birth will depend entirely on the physical formation of the brain and on education. Such a Soul may be re‐united with its Higher Ego in the next birth, if the environment is such as to give it a chance of aspiration (this is the “grace” of the Christians); or it may go on for two or three incarnations, the Ray becoming weaker and weaker, and gradually dissipating, until it is born a congenital idiot and then finally dissipated in lower forms. There are enormous mysteries connected with the Lower Manas. With regard to some intellectual giants, they are in somewhat the same condition as smaller men, for their Higher Ego is paralyzed, that is to say, their spiritual nature is atrophied. The Manas can pass its essence to several vehicles, _e.g._, the Mâyâvi Rûpa, etc., and even to Elementals which it can ensoul, as the Rosicrucians taught. The Mâyâvi Rûpa may be sometimes so vitalized that it goes on to another plane and unites with the beings of that plane and so ensouls them. People who bestow great affection upon animal pets are ensouling them to a certain extent, and such animal Souls progress very rapidly; in return such persons get back the animal vitality and magnetism. It is, however, against Nature to thus accentuate animal evolution, and on the whole is bad. Monadic Evolution. The Kumâras do not direct the evolution of the Lunar Pitris. To understand the latter, we might take the analogy of the blood. The blood may be compared to the universal Life Principle, the corpuscles to the Monads. The different kinds of corpuscles are the same as the various classes of Monads and various kingdoms, not, however, because of their essence being different, but because of the environment in which they are. The Chhâyâ is the permanent seed, and Weissmann in his hereditary germ theory is very near truth. H. P. B. was asked whether there was one Ego to one permanent Chhâyâ seed, oversouling it in a series of incarnations; her answer was: “No, it is Heaven and Earth kissing each other.” The animal Souls are in temporary forms and shells in which they gain experience, and in which they prepare materials for higher evolution. Until the age of seven the astral atavic germ forms and moulds the body; after that the body forms the Astral. The Astral and the Mind mutually react on each other. The meaning of the passage in the _Upanishads_, where it says that the Gods feed on men, is that the Higher Ego obtains its earth experience through the Lower. Astral Body. The Astral can get out unconsciously to the person and wander about. The Chhâyâ is the same as the Astral Body. The germ or life essence of it is in the spleen. “The Chhâyâ is coiled up in the spleen.” It is from this that the Astral is formed; it evolves in a shadowy curling or gyrating essence like smoke, gradually taking form as it grows. But it is not projected from the physical, atom for atom. This latter intermolecular form is the Kâma Rûpa. At death every cell and molecule gives out its essence, and from it is formed the Astral of the Kâma Rûpa; but this can never come out during life. The Chhâyâ in order to become visible draws upon the surrounding atmosphere, attracting the atoms to itself; the Linga Sharîra could not form _in vacuo_. The fact of the Astral Body accounts for the Arabian and Eastern tales of Djins and bottle imps, etc. In spiritualistic phenomena, the resemblance to deceased persons is mostly caused by the imagination. The clothing of such phantoms is formed from the living atoms of the medium, and is no real clothing, and has nothing to do with the clothing of the medium. “All the clothing of a materialization has been paid for.” The Astral supports life; it is the reservoir or sponge of life, gathering it up from all the natural kingdoms around, and is the intermediary between the kingdoms of Prânic and physical life. Life cannot come immediately from the subjective to the objective, for Nature goes gradually through each sphere. Therefore the Linga Sharîra is the intermediary between Prâna and our physical body, and pumps in the life. The spleen is consequently a very delicate organ, but the physical spleen is only a cover for the real spleen. Now Life is in reality Divinity, Parabrahman. But in order to manifest on the Physical Plane it must be assimilated; and as the purely physical is too gross, it must have a medium, _viz._, the Astral. Astral matter is not homogeneous, and the Astral Light is nothing but the shadow of the real Divine Light; it is however not molecular. Those (Kâmarûpic) entities which are below the Devachanic Plane are in Kâma Loka and only possess intelligence like monkeys. There are no entities in the four lower kingdoms possessing intelligence which can communicate with men, but the Elementals have instincts like animals. It is, however, possible for the Sylphs (the Air Elementals, the wickedest things in the world) to communicate, but they require to be propitiated. Spooks (Kâmarûpic entities) can only give the information they see immediately before them. They see things in the Aura of people, although the people may not be aware of them themselves. Earth‐bound spirits are Kâmalokic entities that have been so materialistic that they cannot be dissolved for a long time. They have only a glimmering of consciousness and do not know why they are held, some sleep, some preserve a glimmering of consciousness and suffer torture. In the case of people who have very little Devachan, the greater part of the consciousness remains in Kâma Loka, and may last far beyond the normal period of one hundred and fifty years and remain over until the next reincarnation of the Spirit. This then becomes the Dweller on the Threshold and fights with the new Astral. The acme of Kâma is the sexual instinct, _e.g._, idiots have such desires and also food appetites, etc., and nothing else. Devachan is a state on a plane of spiritual consciousness; Kâma Loka is a place of physical consciousness. It is the shadow of the animal world and that of instinctual feelings. When the consciousness thinks of spiritual things, it is on a spiritual plane. If one’s thoughts are of nature, flowers, etc., then the consciousness is on the material plane. But if thoughts are about eating, drinking, etc., and the passions, then the consciousness is in the Kâmalokic plane, which is the plane of animal instincts pure and simple. [Transcriber’s Note: Obvious printer’s errors have been corrected.] FOOTNOTES 1 The majority of the Pandits know nothing of the Esoteric Philosophy now, because they have lost the key to it; yet not one of these, if honest, would deny that the _Upanishads_, and especially the _Purânas_, are allegorical and symbolical; nor that there still remain in India a few great scholars who could, if they would, give them the key to such interpretations. Nor do they reject the actual existence of Mahâtmâs—initiated Yogis and Adepts—even in this age of Kali Yuga. 2 This assertion is clearly corroborated by Plato himself, who writes: “You say that in my former discourse I have not sufficiently explained to you the nature of the First. I purposely spoke enigmatically, that in case the tablet should have happened with any accident, either by sea or land, a person without some previous knowledge of the subject might not be able to understand its contents.” (Plato, _Ep._, ii. 312; Cory, _Ancient Fragments_, p. 304.) 3 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 287, 288. 4 _The Dialogues of Plato_, translated by B. Jowett, Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Oxford, iii. 523. 5 _Op. cit._, p. 561. 6 _Op. cit._, p. 591. 7 This definition places (unwittingly, of course), the ancient “physical philosopher” many cubits higher than his modern “physical” _confrère_, since the _ultima thule_ of the latter is to lead mankind to believe that neither universe nor man have any cause at all—not an intelligent one at all events—and that they have sprung into existence owing to blind chance and a senseless whirling of atoms. Which of the two hypotheses is the more rational and logical is left to the impartial reader to decide. 8 Italics are mine. Every tyro in Eastern Philosophy, every Kabalist, will see the reason for such an association of persons with ideas, numbers, and geometrical figures. For number, says Philolaus, “is the dominant and self‐produced bond of the eternal continuance of things.” Alone the modern Scholar remains blind to the grand truth. 9 Here again the ancient Philosopher seems to be ahead of the modern. For he only “confuses ... first and final causes” (which confusion is denied by those who know the spirit of ancient scholarship), whereas his modern successor is confessedly and absolutely ignorant of both. Mr. Tyndall shows Science “powerless” to solve a single one of the final problems of Nature and “disciplined [read, modern materialistic], imagination retiring in bewilderment from the contemplation of the problems” of the world of matter. He even doubts whether the men of present Science possess “the intellectual elements which would enable them to grapple with the ultimate structural energies of Nature.” But for Plato and his disciples, the lower types were but the concrete images of the higher abstract ones; the immortal Soul has an arithmetical, as the body has a geometrical, beginning. This beginning, as the reflection of the great universal Archæus (_Anima Mundi_), is self‐moving, and from the centre diffuses itself over the whole body of the Macrocosm. 10 _Op. cit._, p. 523. 11 Nowhere are the Neoplatonists guilty of such an absurdity. The learned Professor of Greek must have been thinking of two spurious works attributed by Eusebius and St. Jerome to Ammonius Saccas, who wrote nothing; or must have confused the Neoplatonists with Philo Judæus. But then Philo lived over 130 years before the birth of the founder of Neoplatonism. He belonged to the School of Aristobulus the Jew, who lived under Ptolemy Philometer (150 years B.C.), and is credited with having inaugurated the movement which tended to prove that Plato and even the Peripatetic Philosophy were derived from the “revealed” Mosaic Books. Valckenaer tries to show that the author of the _Commentaries on the Books of Moses_, was not Aristobulus, the sycophant of Ptolemy. But whatever he was, he was not a Neoplatonist, but lived before, or during the days of Philo Judæus, since the latter seems to know his works and follow his methods. 12 Only Clemens Alexandrinus, a Christian Neoplatonist and a very fantastic writer. 13 The labour of reconciling the different systems of religion. 14 _New Platonism and Alchemy_, by Alex. Wilder, M.D. pp. 7, 4. 15 It is well‐known that, though born of Christian parents, Ammonius had renounced the tenets of the Church—Eusebius and Jerome notwithstanding. Porphyry, the disciple of Plotinus, who had lived with Ammonius for eleven years together, and who had no interest for stating an untruth, positively declares that he had renounced Christianity entirely. On the other hand, we know that Ammonius believed in the bright Gods, Protectors, and that the Neoplatonic Philosophy was as “pagan” as it was mystical. But Eusebius, the most unscrupulous forger and falsifier of old texts, and St. Jerome, an out‐and‐out fanatic, who had both an interest in denying the fact, contradict Porphyry. We prefer to believe the latter, who has left to posterity an unblemished name and a great reputation for honesty. 16 Two works are falsely attributed to Ammonius. One, now lost, called _De Consensu Moysis et Jesu_, is mentioned by the same “trustworthy” Eusebius, the Bishop of Cæsaræa, and the friend of the Christian Emperor Constantine, who died, however, a heathen. All that is known of this pseudo‐work is that Jerome bestows great praise upon it (_Vir. Illust._, § 55; and Euseb., _H. E._, vi. 19). The other spurious production is called the _Diatesseron_ (or the “Harmony of the Gospels”). This is partially extant. But then, again, it exists only in the Latin version of Victor, Bishop of Capua (sixth century), who attributed it himself to Tatian, and as wrongly, probably, as later scholars attributed the _Diatesseron_ to Ammonius. Therefore no great reliance can be placed upon it, nor on its “esoteric” interpretation of the Gospels. Is it this work, we wonder, which led Prof. Jowett to regard the Neo‐platonic interpretations as “absurdities”? 17 _Op. cit._, p. 7. 18 _Op. cit._, iii, 524. 19 “Imperfect knowledge” of what? That Plato was ignorant of many of the modern “working hypotheses”—as ignorant as our immediate posterity is sure to be of the said hypotheses when they in their turn after exploding join the “great majority”—is perhaps a blessing in disguise. 20 _Op. cit._, p. 524. 21 _Histoire Critique du Gnosticisme_, by M. J. Matter, Professor of the Royal Academy of Strasburg, “It is in Pythagoras and Plato that we find, in Greece, the first elements of [Oriental] Gnosticism,” he says. (Vol. i, pp. 48 and 50.) 22 _Asiat. Trans._, i, 579. 23 _New Platonism and Alchemy_, p. 4. 24 This fact and others may be found in Chinese Missionary Reports, and in a work by Monseigneur Delaplace, a Bishop in China. _Annales de la Propagation de la Foi._ 25 The regions somewhere about Udyana and Kashmir, as the translator and editor of Marco Polo (Colonel Yule) believes (i. 175). 26 _Voyage des Pélerins Bouddhistes_, Vol. I.; _Histoire de la Vie de Hiouen‐Thsang_, etc., traduit du chinois en français, par Stanislas Julien. 27 Lao‐tse, the Chinese philosopher. 28 _The Book of Ser Marco Polo_, i. 318. 29 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 599‐601, 603, 598. 30 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxiii. 6. 31 The Rishis—the first group of seven in number—lived in days preceding the Vedic period. They are now known as Sages and held in reverence like demigods. But they may now be shown as something more than merely mortal Philosophers. There are other groups of ten, twelve and even twenty‐one in number. Haug shows that they occupy in the Brâhmanical religion a position answering to that of the twelve sons of Jacob in the Jewish _Bible_. The Brâhmans claim to descend directly from the Rishis. 32 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 90. 33 See Münter “On the most Ancient Religions of the North before Odin.” _Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de France_, ii. 230. 34 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxvi. 6. 35 “The date of the hundreds of pyramids in the Valley of the Nile is impossible to fix by any of the rules of modern science; Herodotus informs us that each successive king erected one to commemorate his reign, and serve as his sepulchre. But, Herodotus did not tell all, although he knew that the real purpose of the pyramid was very different from that which he assigns to it. Were it not for his religious scruples, he might have added that, externally, it symbolized the creative principle of Nature, and illustrated also the principles of geometry, mathematics, astrology and astronomy. Internally, it was a majestic fane, in whose sombre recesses were performed the Mysteries, and whose walls had often witnessed the initiation scenes of members of the royal family. The porphyry sarcophagus, which Professor Piazzi Smyth, Astronomer Royal of Scotland, degrades into a corn‐bin, was the baptismal font, upon emerging from which, the neophyte was ‘born again,’ and became an adept.” (_Isis Unveiled_, i. 518, 519.) 36 Diog. Laërt., in “Democrit. Vit.” 37 _Satyric_, ix. 3. 38 Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ 39 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 512. 40 _Op. cit._, ii. 403. 41 This is precisely what some of them are preparing to do, and many a “mysterious page” in sacred and profane history are touched on in these pages. Whether or not their explanations will be accepted—is another question. 42 _Ibid._ 43 This is incorrectly expressed. The true Adept of the “Right Hand” never punishes anyone, not even his bitterest and most dangerous enemy; he simply leaves the latter to his Karma, and Karma never fails to do so, sooner or later. 44 _Op. cit._, ii. 239, 241, 240. 45 See, in this connection, _Pneumatologie des Esprits_, by the Marquis de Mirville, who devotes six enormous volumes to show the absurdity of those who deny the reality of Satan and Magic, or the Occult Sciences—the two being with him synonymous. 46 We think we see the sidereal phantom of the old Philosopher and Mystic—once of Cambridge University—Henry More, moving about in the astral mist over the old moss‐covered roofs of the ancient town in which he wrote his famous letter to Glanvil about “witches.” The “soul” seems restless and indignant, as on that day of May, 1678, when the doctor complained so bitterly to the author of _Sadducismus Triumphatus_ of Scot, Adie and Webster. “Our new inspired saints,” the soul is heard to mutter, “sworn advocates of the witches ... who against all sense and reason ... will have no Samuel but a confederate knave ... these in‐blown buffoons, puffed up with ... ignorance, vanity and stupid infidelity!” (See “Letter to Glanvil,” and _Isis Unveiled_, i. 205, 206.) 47 _Études Religieuses._ 48 _Études Historiques._ 49 _Mémoire_ read at the Académie des Inscriptions des Belles Lettres, in 1859. 50 See Alfred Maury’s _Histoire des Religions de la Grèce_, i. 248; and the speculations of Holzmann in _Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Sprach forschung_, ann. 1852, p. 487, _sq._ 51 Creuzer’s _Introduction des Mystères_, iii. 456. 52 The later Nabathæans adhered to the same belief as the Nazarenes and the Sabæans, honoured John the Baptist, and used Baptism. (See _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 127; Munck, _Palestine_, p. 525; Dunlap, _Sod, the Son of Man_, etc.) 53 i. 535. 54 By Hargrave Jennings. 55 See De Mirville’s _Pneumatologie_, iii. 267 _et seq._ 56 Psellus, 4: in Cory’s _Ancient Fragments_, 269. 57 _Isis Unveiled_, i, 535, 536. 58 The forty‐two Sacred Books of the Egyptians, mentioned by Clement of Alexandria as having existed in his time, were but a portion of the Books of Hermes. Iamblichus, on the authority of the Egyptian priest Abammon, attributes 1,200 of such books to Hermes, and Manetho 36,000. But the testimony of Iamblichus as a Neoplatonist and Theurgist is of course rejected by modern critics. Manetho, who is held by Bunsen in the highest consideration as a “purely historical personage,” with whom “none of the later native historians can be compared” (see _Égypte_, i. 97), suddenly becomes a Pseudo‐Manetho, as soon as the ideas propounded by him clash with the scientific prejudices against Magic and the Occult knowledge claimed by the ancient priests. However, none of the Archæologists doubt for a moment the almost incredible antiquity of the Hermetic books. Champollion shows the greatest regard for their authenticity and truthfulness, corroborated as it is by many of the oldest monuments. And Bunsen brings irrefutable proofs of their age. From his researches, for instance, we learn that there was a line of sixty‐ one kings before the days of Moses, who preceded the Mosaic period by a clearly‐traceable civilization of several thousand years. Thus we are warranted in believing that the works of Hermes Trismegistus were extant many ages before the birth of the Jewish law‐giver. “Styli and inkstands were found on monuments of the fourth Dynasty, the oldest in the world,” says Bunsen. If the eminent Egyptologist rejects the period of 48,863 years before Alexander, to which Diogenes Laërtius carries back the records of the priests, he is evidently more embarrassed with the ten thousand of astronomical observations, and remarks that “if they were actual observations, they _must have_ extended over 10,000 years” (p. 14). “We learn, however,” he adds, “from one of their own old chronological works ... that the genuine Egyptian traditions concerning the mythological period treated of _myriads_ of years.” (_Égypte_, i. 15; _Isis Unveiled_, i. 33.) 59 These details are taken from _Pneumatologie_, iii. pp. 204, 205. 60 _Égypte_, p. 143; _Isis Unveiled_, i. 625. 61 _Strom._, VI. vii. The following paragraph is paraphrased from the same chapter. 62 See _Pneumatologie_, iii. 207. Therefore Empedocles is called κωλυθάνεμος, the “dominator of the wind.” _Strom._, VI. iii. 63 _Ibid._, iv. 64 Summarised from _Pneumatologie_, iii. 209. 65 _Loc. cit._ 66 _Op. cit._, iii. 208. 67 The English speaking people who spell the name of Noah’s disrespectful son “Ham” have to be reminded that the right spelling is “Kham” or “Cham.” 68 Black Magic, or Sorcery, is the _evil_ result obtained in any shape or way through the practice of Occult Arts; hence it has to be judged only by its effects. The name of neither Ham nor Cain, when pronounced, has ever killed any one; whereas, if we have to believe that same Clemens Alexandrinus who traces the teacher of every Occultist, outside of Christianity, to the Devil, the name of Jehovah (pronounced Jevo and in a peculiar way) had the effect of killing a man at a distance. The mysterious Schemham‐phorasch was not always used for holy purposes by the Kabalists, especially since the Sabbath or Saturday, sacred to Saturn or the evil Shani, became—with the Jews—sacred to “Jehovah.” 69 Khoemnis, the pre‐historic city, may or may not have been built by Noah’s son, but it was not his name that was given to the town, but that of the Mystery Goddess Khoemnu or Khoemnis (Greek form); the deity that was created by the ardent fancy of the neophyte, who was thus tantalised during his “twelve labours” of probation before his final initiation. Her male counterpart is Khem. The city of Choemnis or Khemmis (to‐day Akhmem) was the chief seat of the God Khem. The Greeks identifying Khem with Pan, called this city “Panopolis.” 70 _Pneumatologie_, iii. 210. This looks more like pious vengeance than philology. The picture, however, seems incomplete, as the author ought to have added to the “chimney” a witch flying out of it on a broomstick. 71 How could they escape from the Deluge unless God so willed it? This is scarcely logical. 72 _Loc. cit._, p. 210. 73 _Matthew_, xvi. 20. 74 _Mark_, v. 43. 75 _Mark_, iv. 11, 12. 76 Is it not evident that the words: “lest at any time they should be converted (or: ‘lest haply they should turn again’—as in the revised version) and their sins be forgiven them”—do not at all mean to imply that Jesus feared that through repentance any outsider, or “them that are without,” should escape damnation, as the literal dead‐letter sense plainly shows—but quite a different thing? Namely, “lest any of the profane should by understanding his preaching, undisguised by parable, get hold of some of the secret teachings and mysteries of Initiation—and even of Occult powers? ‘Be converted’ is, in other words, to obtain a knowledge belonging exclusively to the Initiated: ‘and their sins be forgiven them,’ that is, their sins would fall upon the illegal revealer, on those who had helped the unworthy to reap there where they have never laboured to sow, and had given them, thereby, the means of escaping on this earth their deserved Karma, which must thus re‐act on the revealer, who, instead of good, did harm and failed.” 77 _New Platonism and Alchemy_, 1869, pp. 7, 9. 78 vii. 6. 79 History is full of proofs of the same. Had not Anaxagoras enunciated the great truth taught in the Mysteries, _viz._, that the sun was surely larger than the Peloponnesus, he would not have been persecuted and nearly put to death by the fanatical mob. Had that other rabble which was raised against Pythagoras understood what the mysterious Sage of Crotona meant by giving out his remembrance of having been the “Son of Mercury”—God of the Secret Wisdom—he would not have been forced to fly for his life; nor would Socrates have been put to death, had he kept secret the revelations of his divine Daimon. He knew how little his century—save those initiated—would understand his meaning, had he given out all he knew of the moon. Thus he limited his statement to an allegory, which is now proven to have been more scientific than was hitherto believed. He maintained that the moon was inhabited and that the lunar beings lived in profound, vast and dark valleys, our satellite being airless and without any atmosphere outside such profound valleys; this, disregarding the revelation full of meaning for the few only, must be so of necessity, if there is any atmosphere on our bright Selene at all. The facts recorded in the secret annals of the Mysteries had to remain veiled under penalty of death. 80 _Stromateis_, xii. 81 See _Homilies_ 7, in _Levit._, quoted in the _Source of Measures_, p. 307. 82 Origen: Huet., _Origeniana_, 167; Franck, 121; quoted from Dunlap’s _Sôd_, p. 176. 83 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 350. 84 The materialistic “law‐givers,” the critics and Sadducees who have tried to tear to shreds the doctrines and teachings of the great Asiatic Masters past and present—no scholars in the modern sense of the word—would do well to ponder over these words. No doubt that doctrines and secret teachings had they been invented and written in Oxford and Cambridge would be more brilliant outwardly. Would they equally answer to universal truths and facts, is the next question however. 85 iii. fol. 1526, quoted in Myer’s _Qabbalah_, p. 102. 86 _New‐Platonism and Alchemy_, p. 6. 87 i. 2. 88 lxiv. 10. 89 The _key_ is shown to be “in the source of measures originating the British inch and the ancient cubit” as the author tries to prove. 90 The word as a plural might have better solved the mystery. God is _ever‐present_; if he were _ever‐active_ he could no longer be an infinite God—nor ever‐present in his limitation. 91 The author is evidently a Mason of the way of thinking of General Pike. So long as the American and English Masons will reject the “Creative Principle” of the “Grand Orient” of France they will remain in the dark. 92 _Source of Measures_, pp. 308, 309. 93 In his _Pneumatologie_, in Vol. iv., pp. 105‐112, the Marquis de Mirville claims the knowledge of the heliocentric system—earlier than Galileo—for Pope Urban VIII. The author goes further. He tries to show that famous Pope, not as the persecutor but as one persecuted by Galileo, and calumniated by the Florentine Astronomer into the bargain. If so, so much the worse for the Latin Church, since her Popes, knowing of it, still preserved silence upon this most important fact, either to screen Joshua or their own infallibility. One can understand well that the _Bible_ having been so exalted over all the other systems, and its alleged monotheism depending upon the silence preserved, nothing remained of course but to keep quiet over its symbolism, thus allowing all its blunders to be fathered on its God. 94 _Op. cit._, App. vii. p. 296. The writer feels happy to find this fact now mathematically demonstrated. When it was stated in _Isis Unveiled_ that Jehovah and Saturn were one and the same with Adam Kadmon, Cain, Adam and Eve, Abel, Seth, etc., and that all were convertible symbols in the Secret Doctrine (see Vol. ii. pp. 446, 448, 464 _et seq._); that they answered, in short, to secret numerals and stood for more than one meaning in the _Bible_ as in other doctrines—the author’s statements remained unnoticed. _Isis_ had failed to appear under a scientific form, and by giving too much, in fact, gave very little to satisfy the enquirer. But now, if mathematics and geometry, besides the evidence of the _Bible_ and _Kabalah_ are good for anything, the public must find itself satisfied. No fuller, more scientifically given proof can be found to show that Cain is the transformation of an Elohim (the Sephira Binah) into Jah‐Veh (or God‐Eve) androgyne, and that Seth is the Jehovah male, than in the combined discoveries of Seyffarth, Knight, etc., and finally in Mr. Ralston Skinner’s most erudite work. The further relations of these personifications of the first human races, in their gradual development, will be given later on in the text. 95 The writings extant in olden times often personified Wisdom as an emanation and associate of the Creator. Thus we have the Hindu Buddha, the Babylonian Nebo, the Thoth of Memphis, the Hermes of Greece; also the female divinities, Neïtha, Metis, Athena, and the Gnostic potency Achamoth or Sophia. The Samaritan _Pentateuch_ denominated the _Book of Genesis_, Akamouth, or Wisdom, and two remnants of old treatises, the _Wisdom of Solomon_ and the _Wisdom of Jesus_, relate to the same matters. The _Book of Mashalim_—the _Discourses_ or _Proverbs_ of Solomon—thus personifies Wisdom as the auxiliary of the Creator. In the Secret Wisdom of the East that auxiliary is found collectively in the first emanations of Primeval Light, the Seven Dhyáni‐Chohans, who have been shown to be identical with the “Seven Spirits of the Presence” of the Roman Catholics. 96 _New Platonism and Alchemy_, p. 6. 97 ii. 317. 318. Many verbal alterations from the original text of _Isis Unveiled_ were made by H. P. B. in her quotations therefrom, and these are followed throughout. 98 Proclus claims to have experienced this sublime ecstasy six times during his mystic life; Porphyry asserts that Apollonius of Tyana was thus united four times to his deity—a statement which we believe to be a mistake, since Apollonius was a Nirmânakâya (divine incarnation—not Avatâra)—and he (Porphyry) only once, when over sixty years of age. Theophany (or the actual appearance of a God to man), Theopathy (or “assimilation of divine nature”), and Theopneusty (inspiration, or rather the mysterious power to hear orally the teachings of a God) have never been rightly understood. 99 Kârana Sharîra is the “causal” body and is sometimes said to be the “personal God.” And so it is, in one sense. 100 This would be in one sense Self‐worship. 101 “The Gods exist,” said Epicurus, “but they are not what the _hoi polloi_ [the multitude] suppose them to be. He is not an infidel or atheist who denies the existence of Gods whom the multitude worship, but he is such who fastens on the Gods the opinions of the multitude.” 102 Esoteric, as exoteric, Buddhism rejects the theory that Gautama was an incarnation or Avatâra of Vishnu, but teaches the doctrine as herein explained. Every man has in him the materials, if not the conditions, for theophanic intercourse and Theopneusty, the inspiring “God” being, however, in every case, his own Higher Self, or divine prototype. 103 One entirely and absolutely purified, and having nothing in common with earth except his body. 104 _Mândûkyopanishad_, 4. 105 Acts, viii. 10 (Revised Version). 106 See the explanations given on the subject in “The Elixir of Life,” by G. M. (From a Chelâ’s Diary), _Five Years of Theosophy_. 107 _I. Cor._, xv. 47, 50. 108 _I. Cor._, iii. 16. Has the reader ever meditated upon the suggestive words, often pronounced by Jesus and his Apostles? “Be ye therefore perfect as your Father ... is perfect” (_Matt._, v. 48), says the Great Master. The words are, “as perfect as your Father which is in heaven,” being interpreted as meaning God. Now the utter absurdity of any man becoming as perfect as the infinite, all‐ perfect omniscient and omnipresent Deity, is too apparent. If you accept it in such a sense, Jesus is made to utter the greatest fallacy. What was Esoterically meant is, “Your Father who is above the material and astral man, the highest Principle (save the Monad) within man, his own personal God, or the God of his own personality, of whom he is the ‘prison’ and the ‘temple.’ ” “If thou wilt be perfect (_i.e._, an Adept and Initiate) go and sell that thou hast” (_Matt._, xix. 21). Every man who desired to become a neophyte, a chelâ, then, as now, had to take the vow of poverty. The “Perfect,” was the name given to the Initiates of every denomination. Plato calls them by that term. The Essenes had their “Perfect,” and Paul plainly states that they, the Initiates, can only speak before other Adepts. “We speak wisdom among them [only] that are perfect” (_I. Cor._ ii. 6.) 109 _John_, i. 21. 110 _John_, iii. “Born” from above, _viz._, from his Monad or divine EGO, the seventh Principle, which remains till the end of the Kalpa, the nucleus of, and at the same time the overshadowing Principle, as the Kâranâtmâ (Causal Soul) of the personality in every rebirth. In this sense, the sentence “born anew” means “descends from above,” the last two words having no reference to heaven or space, neither of which can be limited or located, since one is a state and the other infinite, hence having no cardinal points. (See _New Testament, Revised Version_, _loc. cit._) 111 This can have no reference to Christian Baptism, since there was none in the days of Nicodemus and he could not therefore know anything of it, even though a “Master.” 112 This word, translated in the _New Testament_ “world” to suit the official interpretation, means rather an “age” (as shown in the _Revised Version_) or one of the periods during the Manvantara, a Kalpa, or Æon. Esoterically the sentence would read: “He who shall reach, through a series of births and Karmic law, that state in which Humanity shall find itself after the Seventh Round and the Seventh Race, when comes Nirvâna, Moksha, and when man becomes ‘equal unto the Angels’ or Dhyân Chohans, is a ‘son of the resurrection’ and ‘can die no more’; then there will be no marriage, as there will be no difference of sexes”—a result of our present materiality and animalism. 113 _Luke_, xx. 27‐38. 114 _John_, ix. 2, 3. 115 The conscious Ego, or Fifth Principle Manas, the vehicle of the divine Monad or “God.” 116 Some Symbologists, relying on the correspondence of numbers and the symbols of certain things and personages, refer these “secrets” to the mystery of generation. But it is more than this. The glyph of the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” has no doubt a phallic and sexual element in it, as has the “Woman and the Serpent”; but it has also a psychical and spiritual significance. Symbols are meant to yield more than one meaning. 117 _Wisdom_, xi. 21. Douay version. 118 _Ecclesiasticus_, i. 9. Douay version. 119 _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie_, i. 361. 120 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 6, 7. 121 “Synesius mentions books of stone which he found in the temple of Memphis, on one of which was engraved the following sentence: ‘One _nature_ delights in another, one nature overcomes another, one nature overrules another, and the whole of them are _one_’.” “The inherent restlessness of matter is embodied in the saying of Hermes: ‘Action is the life of Phta’; and Orpheus calls nature πολυμήχανος μάτηρ, ‘the mother that makes many things,’ or the ingenious, the contriving, the inventive mother.”—_Isis Unveiled_, i. 257. 122 _Source of Measures_, p. x. 123 _Masonic Review_, July, 1886. 124 See _Source of Measures_, pp. 47‐50, _et pass._ 125 See Cary’s translation, pp. 322, 323. 126 _Exodus_, xxxiv. 29, 33. 127 _Op. cit._, V. vii. 128 _The Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, under “Gnosticism.” 129 In the Ferouers and Devs of Jacobi (Letters F. and D.) the word “ferouer” is explained in the following manner: The Ferouer is a part of the creature (whether man or animal) of which it is the type and which it survives. It is the Nous of the Greeks, therefore divine and immortal, and thus can hardly be the Devil or the satanic copy De Mirville would represent it (see _Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions_, Vol. XXXVII. p. 623, and chap. xxxix. p. 749). Foucher contradicts him entirely. The Ferouer was never the “principle of sensations,” but always referred to the most divine and pure portion of Man’s Ego—the spiritual principle. Anquetil says that the Ferouer is the purest portion of man’s soul. The Persian Dev is the antithesis of the Ferouer, for the Dev has been transformed by Zoroaster into the Genius of Evil (whence the Christian Devil), but even the Dev is only finite; for having become possessed of the soul of man by _usurpation_, it will have to leave it at the great day of Retribution. The Dev obsesses the soul of the defunct for three days, during which the soul wanders about the spot at which it was forcibly separated from its body; the Ferouer ascends to the region of eternal Light. It was an unfortunate idea that made the noble Marquis de Mirville imagine the Ferouer to be a “satanic copy” of a _divine_ original. By calling all the Gods of the Pagans—Apollo, Osiris, Brahmâ, Ormazd, Bel, etc., the “Ferouers of Christ and of the chief Angels,” he merely exhibits the God and the Angels he would honour as inferior to the Pagan Gods, as man is inferior to his Soul and Spirit; since the Ferouer is the immortal part of the mortal being of which it is the type and which it survives. Perchance the poor author is unconsciously prophetic; and Apollo, Brahmâ, Ormazd, Osiris, etc., are destined to survive and replace—as eternal cosmic verities—the evanescent fictions about the God, Christ and Angels of the Latin Church! 130 See George Smith’s _Babylon_ and other works. 131 This is as fanciful as it is arbitrary. Where is the Hindu or Buddhist who would speak of his “Crucified”? 132 _Op. cit._, iv. 237. 133 _Loc. cit._, 250. 134 “_Q._: Who knocks at the door? _A._: The good cowherd. _Q._: Who preceded thee? _A._: The three robbers. _Q._: Who follows thee? _A._: The three murderers,” etc., etc. Now this is the conversation that took place between the priest‐ initiators and the candidates for initiation during the mysteries enacted in the oldest sanctuaries of the Himâlayan fastnesses. The ceremony is still performed to this day in one of the most ancient temples in a secluded spot of Nepaul. It originated with the Mysteries of the first Krishna, passed to the First Tirthankara and ended with Buddha, and is called the Kurukshetra rite, being enacted as a memorial of the great battle and death of the divine Adept. It is not Masonry, but an initiation into the Occult teachings of that Hero—Occultism, pure and simple. 135 _Book of Enoch_, Archbishop Laurence’s translation. Introduction, p. v. 136 _The Book of Enoch_ was unknown to Europe for a thousand years, when Bruce found in Abyssinia some copies of it in Ethiopic; it was translated by Archbishop Laurence in 1821, from the text in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. 137 _Op. cit._, p. xx. 138 _Loc. cit._ 139 _Op. cit._, p. xiv., note. 140 _Op. cit._, p. xxxv. 141 _Op. cit._, p. xiii. 142 The Seventh Principle, the First Emanation. 143 _Op. cit._, pp. xxxvii. and xl. 144 _Op. cit._, pp. xl. and li. 145 Who stands for the “Solar” or Manvantaric Year. 146 _Op. cit._, pp. xli., xlii. 147 _Op. cit._, p. xlviii. 148 _Op. cit._, p. xxiii. 149 _Loc. cit._ 150 xcii. 9. 151 _Op. cit._, xcii. 4. 152 _Op. cit._, xcii. 4‐7. 153 At the close of every Root‐Race there comes a cataclysm, in turn by fire or water. Immediately after the “Fall into generation” the dross of the third Root‐Race—those who fell into sensuality by falling off from the teaching of the Divine Instructors—were destroyed, after which the Fourth Root‐Race originated, at the end of which took place the last Deluge. (See the “Sons of God” mentioned in _Isis Unveiled_, 593 _et seq._) 154 _Op. cit._, xcii. 11. 155 _Op. cit._, xcii. 7, 11, 13, 15. 156 _Op. cit._, note, p. 152. 157 Those interpolations and alterations are found almost in every case where figures are given—especially whenever the numbers eleven and twelve come in—as these are all made (by the Christians) to relate to the numbers of Apostles, and Tribes, and Patriarchs. The translator of the Ethiopic text—Archbishop Laurence—attributes them generally to “mistakes of the transcriber” whenever the two texts, the Paris and the Bodleian MSS., differ. We fear it is no mistake, in most cases. 158 _Op. cit._, lxxxviii. 99, 100. 159 _Loc. cit._, 94. This passage, as will be presently shown, has led to a very curious discovery. 160 In the profane history of Gautama Buddha he dies at the good old age of eighty, and passes off from life to death peacefully with all the serenity of a great saint, as Barthélemy St. Hilaire has it. Not so in the Esoteric and true interpretation which reveals the real sense of the profane and allegorical statement that makes Gautama, the Buddha, die very unpoetically from the effects of too much pork, prepared for him by Tsonda. How one who preached that the killing of animals was the greatest sin, and who was a perfect vegetarian, could die from eating pork, is a question that is never asked by our Orientalists, some of whom made (as now do many charitable missionaries in Ceylon) great fun at the alleged occurrence. The simple truth is that the said rice and pork are purely allegorical. Rice stands for “forbidden fruit,” like Eve’s “apple,” and means Occult knowledge with the Chinese and Tibetans; and “pork” for Brâhmanical teachings—Vishnu having assumed in his first Avatâra the form of a boar, in order to raise the earth on the surface of the waters of space. It is not, therefore, from “pork” that Buddha died, but for having divulged some of the Brâhmanical mysteries, after which, seeing the bad effects brought on some unworthy people by the revelation, he preferred, instead of availing himself of Nirvâna, to leave his earthly form, remaining still in the sphere of the living, in order to help humanity to progress. Hence his constant reincarnations in the hierarchy of the Dalai and Teshu Lamas, among other bounties. Such is the Esoteric explanation. The life of Gautama will be more fully discussed later on. 161 _Op. cit._, cv. 21. 162 In the _Bible_ (_Genesis_, iv and v) there are three distinct Enochs (Kanoch or Chanoch)—the son of Cain, the son of Seth, and the son of Jared; but they are all identical, and two of them are mentioned for purposes of misleading. The years of only the last two are given, the first one being left without further notice. 163 The eternal and incessant “in‐breathing and out‐breathing of Parabrahman” or Nature, the Universe in Space, whether during Manvantara or Pralaya. 164 _Op. cit._, iii. 1. 165 _Op. cit._, 30. 166 _Op. cit._, 32. 167 Those who are aware that the term Christos was applied by the Gnostics to the Higher Ego (the ancient Pagan Greek Initiates doing the same), will readily understand the allusion. Christos was said to be cut off from the lower Ego, Chrestos, after the final and supreme Initiation, when the two became blended in one; Chrestos being conquered and resurrected in the glorified Christos.—Franck, _Die Kabbala_, 75; Dunlap, _Sôd_, Vol. II. 168 _Stromateis_, I. xiii. 169 _Op. cit._, II. viii. 170 Many are the marvels recorded as having taken place at his death, or we should rather say his translation; for he did not die as others do, but having suddenly disappeared, while a dazzling light filled the cavern with glory, his body was again seen upon its subsidence. When this heavenly light gave place to the habitual semi‐darkness of the gloomy cave—then only, says Ginsburg, “the disciples of Israel perceived that the lamp of Israel was extinguished.” His biographers tell us that there were voices heard from Heaven during the preparation for his funeral, and at his interment, when the coffin was lowered into the deep cave prepared for it, a flame broke forth and a voice mighty and majestic pronounced these words: “This is he who caused the earth to quake, and the kingdoms to shake!” 171 Pockocke, maybe, was not altogether wrong in deriving the German Heaven, Himmel, from Himâlaya; nor can it be denied that it is the Hindu Kailâsa (Heaven) that is the father of the Greek Heaven (Koilon), and of the Latin Cœlum. 172 See Pockocke’s _India in Greece_, and his derivation of Mount Parnassus from Parnasa, the leaf and branch huts of the Hindu ascetics, half shrine and half habitation. “Part of the Par‐o‐ Pamisus (the hill of Bamian), is called Parnassus. ‘These mountains are called Devanica, because they are so full of Devas or Gods, called “Gods of the Earth,” Bhu Devas. They lived, according to the Purânas, in bowers or huts, called Parnasas, because they were made of leaves’ (Parnas),” p. 302. 173 Rawlinson is justly very confident of an Âryan and Vedic influence on the early mythology and history of Babylon and Chaldæa. 174 This is a Secret Doctrine affirmation, and may or may not be accepted. Only Abrahm, Isaac and Judah resemble terribly the Hindu Brahmâ Ikshvâku and Yadu. 175 It is said in _The Gnostics and their Remains_, by C. W. King (p. 13), with regard to the names of Brahmâ and Abram; “This figure of the _man_, Seir Aupin, consists of 243 numbers, being the numerical value of the letters in the name ‘Abram’ signifying the different orders in the celestial Hierarchies. In fact the names Abram and Brahmâ are equivalent in numerical value.” Thus to one acquainted with Esoteric Symbolism, it does not seem at all strange to find in the Loka‐pâlas (the four cardinal and intermediate points of the compass personified by eight Hindu Gods) Indra’s elephant, named Abhra—(mâtanga) and his wife Abhramu. Abhra is in a way a Wisdom Deity, since it is this elephant’s head that replaced that of Ganesha (Ganapati) the God of Wisdom, cut off by Shiva. Now Abhra means “cloud,” and it is also the name of the city where Abram is supposed to have resided—when read backwards—“Arba (Kirjath) the city of four ... Abram is Abra with an appended _m_ final, and Abra read backward is Arba” (_Key to the Hebrew Egyptian Mystery_). The author might have added that Abra meaning in Sanskrit “in, or of, the clouds,” the cosmo‐astronomical symbol of Abram becomes still plainer. All of these ought to be read in their originals, in Sanskrit. 176 Before these theories and speculations—we are willing to admit they are such—are rejected, the following few points ought to be explained, (1) Why, after leaving Egypt, was the patriarch’s name changed by Jehovah from Abram to Abraham. (2) Why Sarai becomes on the same principle Sarah (_Gen._, xvii.). (3) Whence the strange coincidence of names? (4) Why should Alexander Polyhistor say that Abraham was born at Kamarina or Uria, a city of soothsayers, and invented Astronomy? (5) “The Abrahamic recollections go back at least three millenniums beyond the grandfather of Jacob,” says Bunsen (_Egypt’s Place in History_, v. 35.) 177 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 35. 178 See _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 218‐300. Gematria is formed by a metathesis from the Greek word γραμματεία; Notaricon may be compared to stenography; Temura is permutation—a way of dividing the alphabet and shifting letters. 179 _De Vita Pythag._ 180 We are not aware that a copy of this ancient work is embraced in the catalogue of any European library; but it is one of the “Books of Hermes,” and it is referred to and quotations are made from it in the works of a number of ancient and mediæval philosophical authors. Among these authorities are Arnoldo di Villanova’s _Rosarium Philosoph._, Francesco Arnuphi’s _Opus de Lapide_, Hermes Trismegistus’ _Tractatus de Transmutatione Metallorum_ and _Tabula Smaragdina_, and above all the treatise of Raymond Lully, _Ab Angelis Opus Divinum de Quinta Essentia_. 181 _Exodus_, xxv. 40. 182 _Sub voce_ “Numbers.” 183 See Johannes Meursius, _Denarius Pythagoricus_. 184 Ragon, _Maçonnerie Occulte_, p. 426, note. 185 _Ibid._, p. 432, note. 186 Extracted from Ragon, _Maçonnerie Occulte_, p. 427, note. 187 Summarised from Ragon, _ibid._, p. 428, note. 188 Ragon mentions the curious fact that the first four numbers in German are named after the elements. “Ein, or one, means the air, the element which, ever in motion, penetrates matter throughout, and whose continual ebb and tide is the universal vehicle of life. “Zwei, two, is derived from the old German Zweig, signifying germ, fecundity; it stands for earth the fecund mother of all. “Drei, three, is the _trienos_ of the Greeks, standing for water, whence the Sea‐gods, Tritons; and trident, the emblem of Neptune—the water, or sea, in general being called Amphitrite (surrounding water). “Vier, four, a number meaning in Belgian fire.... It is in the quaternary that the first solid figure is found, the universal symbol of immortality, the Pyramid, ‘whose first syllable means fire.’ Lysis and Timæus of Locris claimed that there was not a thing one could name that had not the quaternary for its root.... The ingenious and mystical idea which led to the veneration of the ternary and the triangle was applied to number four and its figure: it was said to express a living being, 1, the vehicle of the triangle 4, vehicle of God, or man carrying in him the divine principle.” Finally, “the Ancients represented the world by the number five. Diodorus explains it by saying that this number represents earth, fire, water, air and ether or spiritus. Hence, the origin of Pente (five) and of Pan (the God) meaning in Greek all.” (Compare Ragon, _op. cit._, pp. 428‐430.) It is left with the Hindu Occultists to explain the relation this Sanskrit word Pancha (five) has to the elements, the Greek Pente having for its root the Sanskrit term. 189 The system of the so‐called Senzar characters is still more wonderful and difficult, since each letter is made to yield several meanings, a sign placed at the commencement showing the true meaning. 190 Ragon, _op. cit._, p. 431, note. 191 The Y exoterically signifies only the two paths of virtue or vice, and stands also for the numeral 150 and with a dash over the letter Y for 150,000. 192 _Tradition_, chap. on “Numbers.” 193 This is a kind of magical bow and arrow calculated to destroy in one moment whole armies; it is mentioned in the _Râmâyana_, the _Purânas_ and elsewhere. 194 _Matthew_, viii. 30‐34. 195 _Dogmatic Theology_, iii. 345. 196 viii. 9, 10. 197 _Adv. Celsum._ 198 _Eccles. Hist._, i. 140. 199 _Contra Hæreses_, I. xxiii. 1‐4. 200 _Contra Hæreses_, ii. 1‐6. 201 _Op. cit._, ii. 337. 202 Ten is the perfect number of the Supreme God among the “manifested” deities, for number 1 is the symbol of the Universal Unit, or male principle in Nature, and number O the feminine symbol Chaos, the Deep, the two forming thus the symbol of Androgyne nature as well as the full value of the solar year, which was also the value of Jehovah and Enoch. Ten, with Pythagoras, was the symbol of the Universe; also of Enos, the Son of Seth, or the “Son of Man” who stands as the symbol of the solar year of 365 days, and whose years are therefore given as 365 also. In the Egyptian Symbology Abraxas was the Sun, the “Lord of the Heavens.” The circle is the symbol of the one Unmanifesting Principle, the plane of whose figure is infinitude eternally, and this is crossed by a diameter only during Manvantaras. 203 _I. Cor._, ii. 6‐8. 204 Compare Taylor’s _Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries_. 205 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 89. 206 _Op. cit._, ii. 395. 207 Quoted by De Mirville, _Op. cit._, vi. 41 and 42. 208 Mr. St. George Lane‐Fox has admirably expressed the idea in his eloquent appeal to the many rival schools and societies in India. “I feel sure,” he said, “that the prime motive, however dimly perceived, by which you, as the promoters of these movements, were actuated, was a revolt against the tyrannical and almost universal establishment throughout all existing social and so‐called religious institutions of a usurped authority in some external form supplanting and obscuring the only real and ultimate authority, the indwelling spirit of truth revealed to each individual soul, true conscience in fact, that supreme source of all human wisdom and power which elevates man above the level of the brute.” (_To the Members of the Ârya Samâj, the Theosophical Society, Brahmo and Hindu Samâj and other Religious and Progressive Societies in India._) 209 _Revelation_, ii. 6. 210 This “art” is not common jugglery, as some define it now: it is a kind of psychological jugglery, if jugglery at all, where fascination and glamour are used as means of producing illusions. It is hypnotism on a large scale. 211 The author asserts in this his Christian persuasion. 212 Magnetic passes, evidently, followed by a trance and sleep. 213 “Elementals” used by the highest Adept to do mechanical, not intellectual work, as a physicist uses gases and other compounds. 214 Quoted from De Mirville, _op. cit._, vi. 43. 215 _Ibid._, vi. 45. 216 _Ibid._, p. 46. 217 Amédée Fleury, _Rapports de St. Paul avec Sénèque_, ii. 100. The whole of this is summarised from De Mirville. 218 But we can never agree with the author “that rites and ritual and formal worship and prayers are of the absolute necessity of things,” for the external can develop and grow and receive worship only at the expense of, and to the detriment of, the internal, the only real and true. 219 H. Jennings, _op. cit._, pp. 37, 38. 220 See _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 574. 221 xi. 26. 222 Art., by Dr. A. Wilder, in _Evolution_. 223 _Op. cit._, p. 262. 224 In its most extensive meaning, the Sanskrit word has the same literal sense as the Greek term; both imply “revelation,” by no human agent, but through the “receiving of the sacred drink.” In India the initiated received the “Soma,” sacred drink, which helped to liberate his soul from the body; and in the Eleusinian Mysteries it was the sacred drink offered at the Epopteia. The Grecian Mysteries are wholly derived from the Brâhmanical Vaidic rites, and the latter from the Ante‐Vaidic religious Mysteries—primitive Wisdom Philosophy. 225 It is needless to state that the _Gospel according to John_ was not written by John, but by a Platonist or a Gnostic belonging to the Neoplatonic school. 226 _Ibid._, _loc. cit._ The fact that Peter persecuted the “Apostle to the Gentiles” under that name, does not necessarily imply that there was no Simon Magus individually distinct from Paul. It may have become a generic name of abuse. Theodoret and Chrysostom, the earliest and most prolific commentators on the Gnosticism of those days, seem actually to make of Simon a rival of Paul and to state that between them passed frequent messages. The former, as a diligent propagandist of what Paul terms the “antithesis of the Gnosis” (_1. Epistle to Timothy_), must have been a sore thorn in the side of the apostle. There are sufficient proofs of the actual existence of Simon Magus. 227 Taylor’s _Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries_, Wilder’s ed., p. x. 228 ii. 91‐94. 229 Bunsen, _Egypt’s Place in History_, v. 90. 230 _Ibid._ 231 _Stele_, p. 44. 232 See Dowson’s _Hindu Classical Dict._, _sub voc._, “Pîtha‐sthânaru.” 233 See _Preface to St. Matthew’s Gospel_, Baronius, i. 752, quoted in De Mirville, vi. 63. Jerome is the Father who having found the authentic and original _Evangel_ (the Hebrew text), by Matthew the Apostle‐publican, in the library of Cæsarea, “_written by the hand_ of Matthew” (Hieronymus: _De Viris_, Illust. Chap. iii.)—as he himself admits—set it down as heretical, and substituted for it his own Greek text. And it is also he who perverted the text in the _Book of Job_ to enforce belief in the resurrection in flesh (see _Isis Unveiled_, Vol. ii. pp. 181 and 182, _et seq._), quoting in support the most learned authorities. 234 De Mirville gives the following thrilling account of the “contest.” “John, pressed, as St. Jerome tells us, by all the churches of Asia to proclaim more solemnly [in the face of the miracles of Apollonius] the divinity of Jesus Christ, after a long prayer with his disciples on the Mount of Patmos and being in ecstasy by the divine Spirit, made heard amid thunder and lightning his famous _In Principio erat Verbum_. When that sublime extasis, that caused him to be named the ‘Son of Thunder,’ had passed, Apollonius was compelled to retire and to disappear. Such was his defeat, less bloody but as hard as that of Simon, the Magician.” (“The Magician Theurgist,” vi. 63) For our part we have never heard of extasis producing thunder and lightning and we are at a loss to understand the meaning. 235 This is the old, old story. Who of us, Theosophists, but knows by bitter personal experience what clerical hatred, malice and persecution can do in this direction; to what an extent of falsehood, calumny and cruelty these feelings can go, even in our modern day, and what exemplars of _Christ‐like_ charity His alleged and self‐constituted servants have shown themselves to be! 236 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 342. 237 _Loc. cit._, ii. 343, 344. 238 _Pneumatologie_, vi. 62. 239 _Les Apologistes Chrétiens au Second Siècle_, p. 106. 240 _Pneumatologie_, vi, 62. 241 Many are they who _do not know_: hence, they do not believe in them. 242 Just so. Apollonius, during a lecture he was delivering at Ephesus before an audience of many thousands, perceived the murder of the Emperor Domitian in Rome and notified it at the very moment it was taking place, to the whole town; and Swedenborg, in the same manner, saw from Gothenburg the great fire at Stockholm and told it to his friends, no telegraph being in use in those days. 243 No criterion at all. The Hindu Sâddhus and Adepts acquire the gift by the holiness of their lives. The Yoga‐Vidyâ teaches it, and no “spirits” are required. 244 As to the Pontiffs, the matter is rather doubtful. 245 But this alone is no reason why people should believe in this class of spirits. There are better authorities for such belief. 246 De Mirville’s aim is to show that all such apparitions of the Manes or disembodied Spirits are the work of the Devil, “Satan’s simulacra.” 247 He might have added: like the great Shankarâchârya, Tsong‐Kha‐Pa, and so many other real Adepts—even his own Master, Jesus; for this is indeed a criterion of true Adeptship, though “to disappear” one need not fly up in the clouds. 248 See _Dion Cassius_, XXVII. xviii. 2. 249 Lampridius, _Adrian_, xxix. 2. 250 The passage runs as follows: “Aurelian had determined to destroy Tyana, and the town owed its salvation only to a miracle of Apollonius; this man so famous and so wise, this great friend of the Gods, appeared suddenly before the Emperor, as he was returning to his tent, in his own figure and form, and said to him in the Pannonian language: ‘Aurelian, if thou wouldst conquer, abandon these evil designs against my fellow‐citizens: if thou wouldst command, abstain from shedding innocent blood; and if thou wouldst live, abstain from injustice.’ Aurelian, familiar with the face of Apollonius, whose portraits he had seen in many temples, struck with wonder, immediately vowed to him (Apollonius) statue, portrait and temple, and returned completely to ideas of mercy.” And then Vopiscus adds: “If I have believed more and more in the virtues of the _majestic_ Apollonius, it is because, after gathering my information from the most serious men, I have found all these facts corroborated in the Books of the Ulpian Library.” (See Flavius Vopiscus, _Aurelianus_). Vopiscus wrote in 250 and consequently preceded Philostratus by a century. 251 _Ep. ad Paulinum._ 252 The above is mostly summarised from De Mirville, _loc. cit._, pp. 66‐69. 253 A “true prophet” because an Initiate, one perfectly versed in Occult astronomy. 254 _Key to Hebrew‐Egyptian Mystery_, p. 259 _et seq._ Astronomy and physiology are the bodies, astrology and psychology their informing souls; the former being studied by the eye of sensual perception, the latter by the inner or “soul‐eye”; and both are _exact_ sciences. 255 _New Platonism and Alchemy_, p. 12 256 _Heracles_, 807. 257 _Æneid_, viii., 274 ff. 258 App., vii., p. 301. 259 _Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie_, ii. 88. 260 (Hieronymus, _De Viris Illust._, iii.) “It is remarkable that, while all Church Fathers say that _Matthew_ wrote in _Hebrew_, the whole of them use the _Greek_ text as the genuine apostolic writing, without mentioning what relation the _Hebrew_ Matthew has to our _Greek_ one! It had many _peculiar additions_ which are wanting in our (Greek) Evangel” (Olshausen, _Nachweis der Echtheit der Sämmtlichen Schriften des Neuen Test._, p. 32; Dunlap, _Sôd, the Son of the Man_, p. 44.) 261 _Commen. to Matthew_ (xii. 13) Book II. Jerome adds that it was written in the Chaldaic language, but with Hebrew letters. 262 “St. Jerome,” v. 445; Dunlap, _Sôd, the Son of Man_, p. 46. 263 This accounts also for the rejection of the works of Justin Martyr, who used only this “Gospel according to the Hebrews,” as also did most probably Tatian, his disciple. At what a late period the divinity of Christ was fully established we can judge by the mere fact that even in the fourth century Eusebius did not denounce this book as spurious, but only classed it with such as the _Apocalypse_ of John; and Credner (_Zur Gesch. des Kan_, p. 120) shows Nicephorus inserting it, together with the _Revelation_, in his _Stichometry_, among the Antilegomena. The Ebionites, the _genuine_ primitive Christians, rejecting the rest of the Apostolic writings, make use only of this Gospel (_Adv. Hær._, i. 26) and the Ebionites, as Epiphanius declares, firmly believed, with the Nazarenes, that Jesus was but a man, “of the seed of a man.” 264 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 182‐3. 265 _Op. cit._, ii. 5. 266 See also _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 180, to end of chapter. 267 _Source of Measures_, p. 299. This “stream of life” being emblematised in the Philloc _basso‐relievo_ just mentioned, by the water poured in the shape of a Cross on the initiated candidate by Osiris—_Life_ and the Sun—and Mercury—_Death_. It was the _finale_ of the rite of Initiation after the _seven_ and the _twelve_ tortures in the Crypts of Egypt were passed through successfully. 268 Another untrustworthy, untruthful and ignorant writer, an ecclesiastical historian of the fifth century. His alleged history of the strife between the Pagans, Neoplatonists, and the Christians of Alexandria and Constantinople, which extends from the year 324 to 439, dedicated by him to Theodosius, the younger, is full of deliberate falsifications. 269 _Gems of the Orthodox Christians_, vol. I., p. 135. 270 _Revelation_, xiv. 1. 271 A Dagoba is a small temple of globular form, in which are preserved the relics of Gautama. 272 Prachidas are buildings of all sizes and forms, like our mausoleums, and are sacred to votive offerings to the dead. 273 The Talmudistic records claim that, after having been hanged, he was lapidated and buried under the water at the junction of two streams. _Mishna Sanhedrin_, Vol. VI., p. 4; _Talmud_, of Babylon, same article, 43 a, 67 a. 274 _Coptic Legends of the Crucifixion_, MSS. XI. 275 We are at a loss to understand why King, in his _Gnostic Gems_, represents Solomon’s Seal as a five‐pointed star, whereas it is six‐ pointed, and is the signet of Vishnu in India. 276 King (_Gnostics_) gives the figure of a Christian symbol, very common during the middle ages, of three fishes interlaced into a triangle, and having the FIVE letters (a most sacred Pythagorean number) ΙΧΘΥΣ engraved on it. The number five relates to the same kabalistic computation. 277 _Op. cit._, ii., 253‐256. 278 _Op. cit._, 301. All this connects Jesus with great Initiates and solar heroes; all this is purely Pagan, under a newly‐evolved variation, the Christian scheme. 279 _Op. cit._, 296. 280 Pp. 294, 295. 281 P. 295 282 Pp. 295, 296. 283 Had we known the learned author before his book was printed, he might have been perchance prevailed upon to add a seventh link from which all others, far preceding those enumerated in point of time, and surpassing them in universally philosophical meaning, have been derived, aye, even to the great pyramid, whose foundation square was, in its turn, the great Âryan Mysteries. 284 We would say cosmic Matter, Spirit, Chaos, and Divine Light, for the Egyptian idea was identical in this with the Âryan. However, the author is right with regard to the Occult Symbology of the Jews. They were a remarkably matter of fact, unspiritual people at all times; yet even with them “Ruach” was Divine Spirit, not “air.” 285 Mr. Ralston Skinner shows that the symbol ☧, the crossed bones and skull, has the letter ק _Koph_, the half of the head behind the ears. 286 Pp. 296‐302. By these numbers, explains the author, “Eli is 113 (by placing the word in a circle); _amah_ being 345, is by change of letters to suit the same value משת (in a circle) or Moses, while Sabachth is John or the dove, or Holy Spirit, because (in a circle) it is 710 (or 355 × 2). The termination _ni_, as _meni_ or 5651, becomes Jehovah.” 287 The Western personification of that power, which the Hindus call the _Vija_, the “one seed,” or _Mahâ Vishnu_—a power, not the God—or that mysterious Principle that contains in Itself the Seed of Avatârism. 288 “Arise into Nervi from this decrepit body into which thou hast been sent. Ascend into thy former abode, O blessed Avatâr!” 289 _The Gnostics and their Remains_, King, pp. 100, 101. 290 _Loc cit._ 291 _Op. cit._ 258. 292 _Homilies_ XIX., xx. 1. 293 The Pleroma constituted the synthesis or entirety of all the spiritual entities. St. Paul still used the name in his Epistles. 294 The “Comforter,” second Messiah, intercessor. “A term applied to the Holy Ghost.” Manes was the disciple of Terebinthus, an Egyptian Philosopher, who, according to the Christian Socrates (I. i., cited by Tillemont, iv. 584), “while invoking one day the demons of the air, fell from the roof of his house and was killed.” 295 _Cf._ _op. cit._, vi. 169‐183. 296 “The _great serpent_ placed to _watch the temple_,” comments De Mirville. “How often have we repeated that it was no _symbol_, no personification but really a serpent occupied by a god!”—he exclaims; and we answer that at Cairo in a Mussulman, not a _heathen_ temple, we have seen, as thousands of other visitors have also seen, a huge serpent that lived there for centuries, we were told, and was held in great respect. Was it also “occupied by a God,” or possessed, in other words? 297 The Mysteries of Demeter, or the “afflicted mother.” 298 By the satyrs. 299 This looks rather suspicious and seems interpolated. De Mirville tries to have what he says of Satan and his Court sending their imps on earth to tempt humanity and masquerade at _séances_, corroborated by the ex‐sorcerer. 300 This does not look like sinful food. It is the diet of Chelâs to this day. 301 “Grafted” is the correct expression. “The seven Builders graft the divine and the beneficent forces on to the gross material nature of the vegetable and mineral kingdoms every Second Round”—says the _Catechism of Lanoos_. 302 Only the Prince of the World is not Satan, as the translator would make us believe, but the collective Host of the Planetary. This is a little theological back‐biting. 303 Here the Elemental and Elementary Spirits are evidently meant. 304 The reader has already learned the truth about them in the course of the present work. 305 Pity the penitent _Saint_ had not imparted his knowledge of the rotation of the earth and helio‐centric system earlier to his Church. That might have saved more than one human life—that of Bruno for one. 306 Chelâs in their trials of initiation, also see _in trances artificially generated for them_, the vision of the Earth supported by an elephant on the top of a tortoise standing on nothing—and this, to teach them to discern the true from the false. 307 Relating to the days of the year, also to 7 × 7 divisions of the earth’s sublunary sphere, divided into seven upper and seven lower spheres with their respective Planetary Hosts or “armies.” 308 Daimon is not “demon,” as translated by De Mirville, but Spirit. 309 All this is to corroborate his dogmatic assertions that Pater Æther or Jupiter is Satan! and that pestilential diseases, cataclysms, and even thunderstorms that prove disastrous, come from the Satanic Host dwelling in Ether—a good warning to the men of Science! 310 The translator replaces the word Mediators by mediums, excusing himself in a foot‐note by saying that Cyprian _must_ have meant modern mediums! 311 Cyprianus simply meant to hint at the rites and mysteries of Initiation, and the pledge of secresy and oaths that bound the Initiates together. His translator, however, has made a Witches’ Sabbath of it instead. 312 “Twelve centuries later, in full renaissance and reform, the world saw Luther do the same [embrace the Devil he means?]—according to his own confession and in the same conditions,” explains De Mirville in a foot‐note, showing thereby the brotherly love that binds Christians. Now Cyprianus meant by the Devil (if the word is really in the original text) his Initiator and Hierophant. No Saint—even a penitent Sorcerer—would be so silly as to speak of his (the Devil’s) rising from his seat to see him to the door, were it otherwise. 313 Every Adept has “a principality after his death.” 314 Which shows that it was the Hierophant and his disciples. Cyprianus shows himself as grateful as most of the other converts (the modern included) to his Teachers and Instructors. 315 This is proved if we take but a single recorded instance. J. Picus de Mirandola, finding that there was more Christianity than Judaism in the _Kabalah_, and discovering in it the doctrines of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Divinity of Jesus, etc., wound up his proofs of this with a challenge to the world at large from Rome. As Ginsburg shows: “In 1486, when only twenty‐four years old, he [Picus] published nine hundred [Kabalistic] _theses_, which were placarded in Rome, and undertook to defend them in the presence of all European scholars whom he invited to the Eternal City, promising to defray their travelling expenses.” 316 This account is summarised from Isaac Myer’s _Qabbalah_, p. 10, _et seq._ 317 There is not in the decalogue one idea that is not the counterpart, or the paraphrase, of the dogmas and ethics current among the Egyptians long before the time of Moses and Aaron. (The Mosaic Law a transcript from Egyptian Sources; vide _Geometry in Religion_, 1890.) 318 _Book of God._ Kenealy, p. 383. The reference to Klaproth is also from this page. 319 See _Asiat. Jour._, N.S. vii., p. 275, quoted by Kenealy. 320 _Book of God_, _loc. cit._ 321 _Op. cit._, v. 15. 322 _Prolegomena_, iii. 13, quoted by Kenealy, p. 385. 323 See _Book of God_, p. 385. “Care should be taken,” says Butler (quoted by Kenealy, p. 489), “to distinguish between the Pentateuch in the Hebrew language but in the letters of the Samaritan alphabet, and the version of the Pentateuch in the Samaritan language. One of the most important differences between the Samaritan and the Hebrew text respects the duration of the period between the deluge and the birth of Abraham. The Samaritan text makes it longer by some centuries than the Hebrew text; and the Septuagint makes it longer by some centuries than the Samaritan.” It is observable that in the authentic translation of the Latin Vulgate, the Roman Church follows the computation expressed in the Hebrew text; and in her Martyrology follows that of the Seventy, both texts being inspired, as she claims. 324 See Rev. Joseph Wolff’s _Journal_, p. 200. 325 A tree is symbolically a book—as “pillar” is another synonym of the same. 326 The wife of Moses, one of the seven daughters of a Midian priest, is called Zipora. It was Jethro, the priest of Midian, who initiated Moses, Zipora, one of the seven daughters, being simply one of the seven Occult powers that the Hierophant was and is supposed to pass to the initiated novice. 327 See for these details the _Book of God_, pp. 244, 250. 328 _Op. cit._ v. 85. 329 As is fully shown in the _Source of Measures_ and other works. 330 Surely even Masons would never claim the _actual_ existence of Solomon? As Kenealy shows, he is not noticed by Herodotus, nor by Plato, nor by any writer of standing. It is most extraordinary, he says, “that the Jewish nation, over whom but a few years before the mighty Solomon had reigned in all his glory, with a magnificence scarcely equalled by the greatest monarchs, spending nearly _eight thousand millions_ of gold on a temple, was overlooked by the historian Herodotus, writing of Egypt on the one hand, and of Babylon on the other—visiting both places, and of course passing almost necessarily within a few miles of the splendid capital of the national Jerusalem? How can this be accounted for?” he asks (p. 457). Nay, not only are there no proofs of the twelve tribes of Israel having ever existed, but Herodotus, the most accurate of historians, who was in Assyria when Ezra flourished, never mentions the Israelites at all; and Herodotus was born in 484 B.C. How is this? 331 Clement, _Stromateis_, xxii. 332 _Book of God_, p. 408. 333 _Book of God_, p. 453. 334 _Asiatic Journal_, vii., p. 275, quoted by Kenealy. 335 _Book of God_, p. 385. 336 Speaking of the hidden meaning of the Sanskrit words, Mr. T. Subba Row, in his able article on “The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac,” gives some advice as to the way in which one should proceed to find out “the deep significance of ancient Sanskrit nomenclature in the old Âryan myths. 1. Find out the synonyms of the word used which have other meanings. 2. Find out the numerical value of the letters composing the word according to the methods of the ancient Tântrik works [_Tântrika Shâstra_—works on Incantation and Magic]. 3. Examine the ancient myths or allegories, if there are any, which have any special connection with the word in question. 4. Permute the different syllables composing the word and examine the new combinations that will thus be formed and their meanings,” etc. But he does not give the principal rule. And no doubt he is quite right. The Tântrika _Shâstras_ are as old as Magic itself. Have they also borrowed their Esotericism from the Hebrews? 337 Their founder, Sadoc, was the pupil, through Antigonus Saccho, of Simon the Just. They had their own secret _Book of the Law_ ever since the foundation of their sect (about 400 B.C.) and this volume was unknown to the masses. At the time of the Separation the Samaritans recognised only the _Book of the Law of Moses_ and the _Book of Joshua_, and their _Pentateuch_ is far older, and is different from the Septuagint. In 168 B.C. Jerusalem had its temple plundered, and its Sacred Books—namely, the _Bible_ made up by Ezra and finished by Judas Maccabeus—were lost (see Burder’s _Josephus_, vol. ii. pp. 331‐335); after which the _Massorah_ completed the work of destruction (even of Ezra’s once‐more adjusted _Bible_) begun by the change into square from horned letters. Therefore the later _Pentateuch_ accepted by the Pharisees was rejected and laughed at by the Sadducees. They are generally called atheists; yet, since those learned men, who made no secret of their freethought, furnished from among their number the most eminent of the Jewish high‐priests, this seems impossible. How could the Pharisees and the other two believing and pious sects allow notorious atheists to be selected for such posts? The answer is difficult to find for bigotry and for believers in a personal, anthropomorphic God, but very easy for those who accept facts. The Sadducees were called atheists because they believed as the initiated Moses believed, thus differing very widely from the latter made‐up Jewish legislator and hero of Mount Sinai. 338 The measurements of the Great Pyramid being those of the temple of Solomon, of the Ark of the Covenant, etc., according to Piazzi Smythe and the author of the _Source of Measures_, and the Pyramid of Gizeh being shown on astronomical calculations to have been built 4950 B.C., and Moses having _written_ his books—for the sake of argument—not even half that time before our era, how can this be? Surely if any one borrowed from the other, it is not the Pharaohs from Moses. Even philology shows not only the Egyptian, but even the Mongolian, older than the Hebrew. 339 This alone shows how the Books of Moses were tampered with. In _Samuel_ (ix. 9), it is said: “He that is now a prophet [Nabhi] was beforetime called a Seer [Roch].” Now since before _Samuel_, the word “Roch” is met nowhere in the _Pentateuch_, but its place is always taken by that of “Nabhi,” this proves clearly that the Mosaic text has been replaced by that of the later Levites. (See for fuller details _Jewish Antiquities_, by the Rev. D. Jennings, D.D.) 340 _Zohar_, i, 2a. 341 _Zohar_, 42b. 342 _Zohar_, i, 2a. See Dr. Ch. Ginsburg’s essay on _The Cabbalah, its Doctrines, Developments and Literature_. 343 Cudworth, I. iii, quoted by Wilson, _Vishnu Purâna_, i. 14, note. 344 _Vishnu Purâna_, i. 14. 345 Stanza i, 4. 346 _Mishna_, i. 9. 347 In its manifested state it becomes Ten, the Universe. In the Chaldæan _Kabalah_ it is sexless. In the Jewish, Shekinah is female, and the early Christians and Gnostics regarded the Holy Ghost as a female potency. In the _Book of Numbers_ “Shekina” is made to drop the final “h” that makes it a feminine name. Nârâyana, the Mover on the Waters, is also sexless; but it is our firm belief that Shekinah and Daiviprakriti, the “Light of the Logos,” are one and the same thing philosophically. 348 The Elohim create the Adam of dust, and in him Jehovah‐Binah separates himself into Eve, after which the male portion of God becomes the Serpent, tempts himself in Eve, then creates himself in her as Cain, passes into Seth, and scatters from Enoch, the Son of Man, or Humanity, as Jodheva. 349 _The Source of Measures_, p. 8. 350 This identifies Sephira, the third potency, with Jehovah the Lord, who says to Moses out of the burning bush: “(Here) I am.” (_Exodus_, iii, 4.) At this time the “Lord” had not yet become Jehovah. It was not the one Male God who spoke, but the Elohim manifested, or the Sephiroth in their manifested collectivity of seven, contained in the triple Sephira. 351 The Brâhmans were wise in their generation when they gradually, for no other reason than this, abandoned Brahmâ, and paid less attention to him individually than to any other deity. As an abstract synthesis they worshipped him collectively and in every God, each of which represents him. As Brahmâ, the male, he is far lower than Shiva, the Lingam, who personates universal generation, or Vishnu, the preserver—both Shiva and Vishnu being the regenerators of life after destruction. The Christians might do worse than follow their example, and worship God in Spirit, and not in the male Creator. 352 A plural word, signifying a collective host generically; literally, the “strong lion.” 353 The writer possesses only a few extracts, some dozen pages in all, verbatim quotations from that priceless work, of which but two or three copies, perhaps, are still extant. 354 Aye; but that _spirituality_ can never be discovered, far less proved, unless we turn to the Âryan Scriptures and Symbology. For the Jews it was lost, save for the Sadducees, from the day that the “chosen people” reached the Promised Land, the national Karma preventing Moses from reaching it. 355 _Op. cit._, pp. 317‐319. 356 _The Book of God_, pp. 388, 389. 357 See Horne’s _Introduction_ (10th edition), vol. ii, p. 33, as quoted by Dr. Kenealy, p. 389. 358 See Horne’s _Introduction_ (10th edition), vol. ii, p. 33, as quoted by Dr. Kenealy, p. 389. 359 The author says that Parker’s _quadrature_ is “that identical measure which was used anciently as the perfect measure, by the Egyptians, in the construction of the Great Pyramid, which was built to _monument it and its uses_,” and that “from it the _sacred cubit‐ value was derived_, which was the cubit‐value used in the construction of the Temple of Solomon, the Ark of Noah, and the Ark of the Covenant” (p. 22). This is a grand discovery, no doubt, but it only shows that the Jews profited well by their captivity in Egypt, and that Moses was a great Initiate. 360 See _Theosophist_, November, 1879, art. “Hindu Music,” p. 47. 361 The Sanskrit letters are far more numerous than the poor twenty‐two letters of the Hebrew alphabet. They are all musical, and they are read—or rather chanted—according to a system given in very old Tântrika works, and are called Devanâgarî, the speech, or language, of the Gods. And since each letter answers to a numeral, the Sanskrit affords a far larger scope for expression, and it must necessarily be far more perfect than the Hebrew, which followed the same system but could apply it only in a very limited way. If either of these two languages, were taught to humanity by the Gods, surely it would more likely be the Sanskrit, the perfect form of the most perfect language on earth, than the Hebrew, the roughest and the poorest. For once anyone believes in a language of divine origin, he can hardly believe at the same time that Angels or Gods or any divine Messengers have had to develop it from a rough monosyllabic form into a perfect one, as we see in terrestrial linguistic evolution. 362 In the first chapter of _Genesis_ the word “God” represents the Elohim—Gods in the plural, not one God. This is a cunning and dishonest translation. For the whole _Kabalah_ explains sufficiently that the Alhim (Elohim) are seven; each creates one of the seven things enumerated in the first chapter, and these answer allegorically to the seven creations. To make this clear, count the verses in which it is said “And God saw that it was good,” and you will find that this is said seven times—in verses 4, 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, and 31. And though the compilers cunningly represent the creation of man as occurring on the sixth day, yet, having made man “male and female in the image of God,” the Seven Elohim repeat the sacramental sentence, “It was good,” for the seventh time, thus making of man the seventh creation, and showing the origin of this bit of cosmogony to be in the Hindu creations. The Elohim are, of course, the seven Egyptian Khnûmû, the “assistant‐architects”; the seven Amshaspends of the Zoroastrians; the Seven Spirits subordinate to Ildabaoth of the Nazareans; the seven Prajâpati of the Hindus, etc. 363 _Gen._, ii. 21, 22. 364 _Op. cit._, p. 395, note. 365 The seventh esoterically, exoterically the sixth. 366 _Contra Hereses_, I, xviii, 2. 367 _Op. cit._ by Gerald Massey, p. 19. 368 _Op cit._, p. 278. 369 _The Hebrew and other Creations: with a reply to Professor A. H. Sayce_, p. 19. 370 _Op. cit._, p. 243. 371 When they are the Anupâdakas (Parentless) of the Secret Doctrine. See Stanzas, i, 9, Vol. i, 56. 372 These originated with the Âryans, who placed therein their “bright‐ crested” (Chitra‐Shikhandan) Seven Rishis. But all this is far more Occult than appears on the surface. 373 _Op. cit._, pp. 19‐22. 374 _Vishnu Purâna_, Wilson’s Trans., i, 101. The period of these Kumâras is Pre‐Adamic, _i.e._, before the separation of sexes, and before humanity had received the creative, or sacred, fire of Prometheus. 375 The Secret Doctrine says that this was the second creation, not the first, and that it took place during the Third Race, when men separated, _i.e._, began to be born as distinct men and women. See Vol. ii. of this work, Stanzas and Commentaries. 376 This is a Western mangling of the Indian doctrine of the Kumâras. 377 He was regarded by several Gnostic sects as one with Jehovah. See _Isis Unveiled_, vol. ii. p. 184. 378 Or “man, son of man.” The Church found in this a _prophecy_ and a confession of Christ, the “Son of Man!” 379 See Stanza ii. 5, Secret Doctrine, ii. 16. 380 _Op. cit._, pp. 23, 24. 381 The _Sepher Jetzirah_ now known is but a portion of the original one incorporated in the Chaldæan _Book of Numbers_. The fragment now in possession of the Western Kabalists is one greatly tampered with by the Rabbis of the Middle Ages, as its masoretic points show. The “Masorah” scheme is a modern blind, dating after our era and perfected in Tiberias. (See _Isis Unveiled_, vol. ii, pp. 430‐431.) 382 In the oldest symbolism—that used in the Egyptian hieroglyphics—when the bull’s head only is found it means the Deity, the Perfect Circle, with the procreative power latent in it. When the whole bull is represented, a solar God, a _personal_ deity is meant, for it is then the symbol of the acting generative power. 383 It took three Root‐Races to degrade the symbol of the One Abstract Unity manifested in Nature as a Ray emanating from infinity (the Circle) into a phallic symbol of generation, as it was even in the _Kabalah_. This degradation began with the Fourth Race, and had its _raison d’etre_, in Polytheism, as the latter was invented to screen the One Universal Deity from profanation. The Christians may plead ignorance of its meaning as an excuse for its acceptance. But why sing never‐ceasing laudations to the Mosaic Jews who repudiated all the other Gods, preserved the most phallic, and then most impudently proclaimed themselves Monotheists? Jesus ever steadily ignored Jehovah. He went against the Mosaic commandments. He recognized his Heavenly Father alone, and prohibited public worship. 384 Is it everything to have found out that the celestial circle of 360° is determined by “the full word‐form of Elohim,” and that this yields, when the word is placed in a circle, “3.1415, or the relation of circumference to a diameter of _one_.” This is only its astronomical or mathematical aspect. To know the full _septenary_ significance of the “Primordial Circle,” the pyramid and the Kabalistic _Bible_ must be read in the light of the figure on which the temples of India are built. The mathematical squaring of the circle is only the terrestrial _résumé_ of the problem. The Jews were content with the six days of activity and the seventh of rest. The progenitors of mankind solved the greatest problems of the Universe with their seven Rays or Rishis. 385 _Genesis_ begins with the _third_ stage of “creation,” skipping the preliminary two. 386 The three _root_‐principles are, exoterically: Man, Soul, and Spirit (meaning by “man” the intelligent personality), and esoterically: Life, Soul, and Spirit; the four vehicles are Body, Astral double, Animal (or human) Soul, and Divine Soul (Sthûla‐Sharîra, Linga‐ Sharîra, Kâma‐rûpa, and Buddhi, the vehicle of Âtma or Spirit). Or, to make it still clearer: (1) the _Seventh_ Principle has for its vehicle the Sixth (Buddhi); (2) the vehicle of Manas is Kâma‐rûpa; (3) that of Jîva or Prâna (life) is the Linga‐Sharîra (the “double” of man; the Linga‐Sharîra proper can never leave the body till death; that which appears is an astral body, reflecting the physical body and serving as a vehicle for the human soul, or intelligence); and (4) the Body, the physical vehicle of all the above collectively. The Occultist recognizes the same order as existing for the cosmical totality, the _psycho_‐cosmical Universe. 387 St. Denys, the Areopagite, the supposed contemporary of St. Paul, his co‐disciple, and first Bishop of St. Denis, near Paris, teaches that the bulk of the “work of creation” was performed by the “_Seven_ Spirits of the Presence”—God’s _co‐operators_, owing to a participation of the divinity in them. (_Hierarch._, p. 196.) And Saint Augustine also thinks that “things were rather created in the angelic minds than in Nature, that is to say, that the angels perceived and knew them (all things) in their thoughts before they could spring forth into actual existence.” (_Vid. De Genesis ad Litteram_ p. II.) (Summarized from De Mirville, Vol. II., pp. 337‐338.) Thus the early Christian Fathers, even a non‐initiate like St. Augustine, ascribed the creation of the visible world to Angels, or Secondary Powers, while St. Denys not only specifies these as the “_Seven_ Spirits of the Presence,” but shows them owing their power to the informing divine energy—Fohat in the Secret Doctrine. But the egotistical darkness which caused the Western races to cling so desperately to the _Geo_‐centric System, made them also neglect and despise all those fragments of the true Religion which would have deprived them and the little globe they took for the centre of the Universe of the signal honour of having been expressly “created” by the One, Secondless, Infinite God! 388 De Mirville, ii. 295. 389 To the Occultist and Chelâ the difference made between _Energy_ and Emanation need not be explained. The Sanskrit word “Sakti” is untranslatable. It may be Energy, but it is one that proceeds through itself, not being due to the active or conscious will of the one that produces it. The “First‐Born,” or Logos, is not an Emanation, but an Energy inherent in and co‐eternal with Parabrahman, the One. The _Zohar_ speaks of emanations, but reserves the word for the seven Sephiroth emanated from the first three—which form one triad—Kether, Chokmah, and Binah. As for these three, it explains the difference by calling them “immanations,” something inherent to and coëval with the subject postulated, or in other words, “Energies.” It is these “Auxiliaries,” the Auphanim, the half‐human Prajâpatis, the Angels, the Architects under the leadership of the “Angel of the Great Council,” with the rest of the Kosmos‐Builders of other nations, that can alone explain the imperfection of the Universe. This imperfection is one of the arguments of the Secret Science in favour of the existence and activity of these “Powers.” And who know better than the few philosophers of our civilised lands how near the truth Philo was in ascribing the origin of evil to the admixture of inferior potencies in the arrangement of matter, and even in the formation of man—a task entrusted to the divine Logos. 390 _Psalms_ cxxxv. 5. 391 _Psalms_ xcvi. 5. 392 Rather as Ormazd or Ahura‐Mazda, Vit‐nam‐Ahmi, and all the unmanifested Logoi. Jehovah is the manifested Virâj, corresponding to Binah, the third Sephira in the _Kabalah_, a female Power which would find its prototype rather in the Prajâpati, than in Brahmâ, the Creator. 393 Neith is Aditi, evidently. 394 The Self‐created Logos, Nârâyana, Purushottama, and others. 395 _Mère d’Apis_, pp. 32‐35. Quoted by De Mirville. 396 See _Republic_, I. vi. 397 _Harmonie entre l’Église et la Synagogue_, t. II., p. 427, by the Chevalier Drach. See De Mirville iv. 38, 39. 398 Julian died for the same crime as Socrates. Both divulged a portion of the solar mystery, the heliocentric system being only a part of what was given during Initiation—one consciously, the other unconsciously, the Greek Sage never having been initiated. It was not the real solar system that was preserved in such secrecy, but the mysteries connected with the Sun’s constitution. Socrates was sentenced to death by earthly and worldly judges; Julian died a violent death because the hitherto protecting hand was withdrawn from him, and, no longer shielded by it, he was simply left to his destiny or Karma. For the student of Occultism there is a suggestive difference between the two kinds of death. Another memorable instance of the unconscious divulging of secrets pertaining to mysteries is that of the poet, P. Ovidius Naso, who, like Socrates, had not been initiated. In his case, the Emperor Augustus, who was an Initiate, mercifully changed the penalty of death into banishment to Tomos on the Euxine. This sudden change from unbounded royal favour to banishment has been a fruitful scheme of speculation to classical scholars not initiated into the Mysteries. They have quoted Ovid’s own lines to show that it was some great and heinous immorality of the Emperor of which Ovid had become unwillingly cognizant. The inexorable law of the death penalty, always following upon the revelation of any portion of the Mysteries to the profane, was unknown to them. Instead of seeing the amiable and merciful act of the Emperor in its true light, they have made it an occasion for traducing his moral character. The poet’s own words can be no evidence, because as he was not an Initiate, it could not be explained to him in what his offence consisted. There have been comparatively modern instances of poets unconsciously revealing in their verses so much of the hidden knowledge as to make even Initiates suppose them to be fellow‐Initiates, and come to talk to them on the subject. This only shows that the sensitive poetic temperament is sometimes so far transported beyond the bounds of ordinary sense as to get glimpses into what has been impressed on the Astral Light. In the _Light of Asia_ there are two passages that might make an Initiate of the first degree think that Mr. Edwin Arnold had been initiated himself in the Himâlyan _âshrams_, but this is not so. 399 A proof that Julian was acquainted with the heliocentric system. 400 _La Gravitation par l’Electricité_, p. 7, quoted by De Mirville; iv. 156. 401 De Mirville, iv. 157. 402 _Memoir on the Solar System_, p. 7, De Mirville, iv. 157. 403 _Essai sur l’ Identité des Agents Producteurs du Son, de la Lumière_, etc., p. 15, _Ibid._ 404 _Ibid._, p. 218. 405 Summarised from _Ibid._, p. 213. De Mirville, iv. 158. 406 May, 1855. _Ibid._, p. 139. 407 _La Terre et notre Système solaire._ De Mirville, iv. 139. 408 If, as Sir W. Herschel thought, the so‐called fixed stars have resulted from, and owe their origin to nebular combustion, they cannot be fixed any more than is our sun, which was believed to be motionless and is now found to rotate around its axis every twenty‐ five days. As the fixed star nearest to the sun, however, is eight‐ thousand times farther away from him than is Neptune, the illusions furnished by the telescopes must be also eight‐thousand times as great. We will therefore leave the question at rest, repeating only what A. Maury said in his work (_La Terre et l’Homme_, published in 1858): “It is utterly impossible, so far, to decide anything concerning Neptune’s constitution, analogy alone authorising us to ascribe to him a rotary motion like that of other planets” (De Mirville, iv. 140). 409 _Exposition du vrai Système du Monde_, p. 282. 410 See the passage quoted by Herschel in _Natural Philosophy_, p. 165. De Mirville, iv. 105. 411 _Loc. cit._ 412 _Terre et Ciel_, p. 28. _Ibid._ 413 _Œuvres d’Arago_, vol. i., p. 219; quoted by De Mirville, iii. 462. 414 “_Die Sterne sind vielleicht ein Sitz verklarter Geister;_ _Wie hier das Laster herrscht, ist dort die Tugend Meister._” 415 _Op. cit._, p. 411. 416 Whenever Occult doctrines were expounded in the pages of _The Theosophist_, care was taken each time to declare a subject incomplete when the whole could not be given in its fulness, and no writer has ever tried to mislead the reader. As to the Western “ranges of perception” concerning doctrines really Occult, the Eastern Occultists have been made acquainted with them for some time past. Thus they are enabled to assert with confidence that the West may be in possession of Hermetic philosophy as a speculative system of dialectics, the latter being used in the West admirably well, but it lacks entirely the knowledge of Occultism. The genuine Eastern Occultist keeps silent and unknown, never publishes what he knows, and rarely even speaks of it, as he knows too well the penalty of indiscretion. 417 See _The Royal Masonic Cyclopædia_, art. “Sepher Jetzirah.” 418 In the exoteric sense, the Mantra (or that psychic faculty or power that conveys perception or thought) is the older portion of the _Vedas_, the second part of which is composed of the _Brâhmanas_. In Esoteric phraseology Mantra is the Word made flesh, or rendered objective, through divine magic. 419 The secret meaning of the word “Brahmâ” is “expansion,” “increase,” or “growth.” 420 Why not give at once its theological meaning, as we find it in Webster? With the Roman Catholics it means simply “purgatory,” the borderland between heaven and hell (_Limbus patrum_ and _Limbus infantum_), the one for all men, whether good, bad or indifferent; the other for the souls of unbaptized children! With the ancients it meant simply that which in _Esoteric Buddhism_ is called the Kâma Loka, between Devachan and Avitchi. 421 As Chaos, the eternal Element, not as the Kâma Loka surely. 422 A proof that by this word Éliphas Lévi means the lowest region of the terrestrial Âkâsha. 423 Evidently he is concerned only with our periodical world, or the terrestrial globe. 424 In the “reäwakening” of the Forces would be more correct. 425 An action which is incessant in eternity cannot be called “creation;” it is evolution, and the eternally or ever‐becoming of the Greek Philosopher and the Hindu Vedântin; it is the Sat and the one Beingness of Parmenides, or the Being identical with Thought. Now how can the Potencies be said to “create movement,” once it is seen movement never had any beginning, but existed in the Eternity? Why not say that the reawakened Potencies transferred motion from the eternal to the temporal plane of being? Surely this is not Creation. 426 _Histoire de la Magie._ Int., p. 1. 427 _Histoire de la Magie._ Int., p. 2. 428 The Vaishnavas, who regard Vishnu as the Supreme God and the fashioner of the Universe, claim that Brahmâ sprang from the navel of Vishnu, the “imperishable,” or rather from the lotus that grew from it. But the “navel” here means the Central Point, the mathematical symbol of infinitude, or Parabrahman, the One and the Secondless. 429 _Ecclesiastes_, i. 12, 13. 430 It is probably needless to say here what everyone knows. The translation of the Protestant _Bible_ is not a word for word rendering of the earlier Greek and Latin _Bibles_: the sense is very often disfigured, and “God” is put where “Jahve” and “Elohim” stand. 431 _Psalms_, civ. 2, 3. 432 To avoid misunderstanding of the word “creation” so often used by us, the remarks of the author of _Through the Gates of Gold_ may be quoted owing to their clearness and simplicity. “The words ‘to create’ are often understood by the ordinary mind to convey the idea of evolving something out of nothing. This is clearly not its meaning. We are mentally obliged to provide our Creator with chaos from which to produce the worlds. The tiller of the soil, who is the typical producer of social life, must have his material: his earth, his sky, rain and sun, and the seeds to place within the earth. Out of nothing he can produce nothing. Out of a void nature cannot arise; there is that material beyond, behind, or within, from which she is shaped by our desire for a Universe.” (P. 72.) 433 Commentary on Stanza ix. on Cycles. 434 Or, read from right to left, the letters and their corresponding numerals stand thus: “t,” 4; “h,” 5; “bh,” 2; “v,” 6; “v,” 6; “h,” 5; “v” or “w,” 6; which yields “thuvbhu,” 4566256, or “Tohu‐vah‐ bohu.” 435 Mr. Ralston Skinner’s MSS. 436 That the teraphim was a statue, and no small article either, is shown in _Samuel_ xix., where Michal takes a teraphim (“image,” as it is translated) and puts it in bed to represent David, her husband, who ran away from Saul (see verse 13, _et seq._). It was thus of the size and shape of a human figure—a statue or real _idol_. 437 _Op. cit._, iii. 4 438 Louis de Dieu, _Genesis_, xxxi. 19. See De Mirville, iii. 257. 439 “The teraphim of Abram’s father, Terah, the ‘maker of images,’ were the Kabeiri Gods, and we see them worshipped by Micah, by the Danites, and others. (_Judges_, xvii.‐xviii., etc.) Teraphim were identical with seraphim, and these were serpent images, the origin of which is in the Sanskrit ‘Sarpa’ (the ‘serpent’) a symbol sacred to all the deities as a symbol of immortality. Kiyun, or the God Kivan, worshipped by the Hebrews in the wilderness, is Shiva, the Hindu Saturn. (The Zendic ‘h’ is ‘s’ in India; thus, ‘Hapta’ is ‘Sapta;’ ‘Hindu’ is ‘Sindbaya.’ (A. Wilder)) ‘The “s” continually softens to “h” from Greece to Calcutta, from the Caucasus to Egypt,’ says Dunlap. Therefore the letters ‘k,’ ‘h,’ and ‘s’ are interchangeable. The Greek story shows that Dardanus, the Arcadian, having received them as a dowry, carried them to Samothrace, and thence to Troy; and they were worshipped long before the days of glory of Tyre or Sidon, though the former had been built 2760 B.C. From where did Dardanus derive them?” _Isis Unveiled_, i. 570. 440 Maimon, _More Nevochim_, III. xxx. 441 Those dedicated to the sun were made in gold, and those to the moon in silver. 442 _De Diis Syriis, Teraph._ II. Syat, p. 31. 443 Those that the Kabalists call _elementary_ spirits are sylphs, gnomes, undines and salamanders, nature‐spirits, in short. The spirits of the angels formed a distinct class. 444 _Œdipus_, ii. 444. 445 _Op. cit._, xxv. 22 _et seq._ 446 The ephod was a linen garment worn by the high priest, but as the thummim was attached to it, the entire paraphernalia of divination was often comprised in that single word, ephod. See I. _Sam._, xxviii. 6, and xxx. 7, 8. 447 _Paganism and Judaism_, iv. 197. 448 _Op. cit._, I. vi. 5. 449 _Discourse to the Gentiles_, p. 146. 450 _De Gener._, I, II. iv. 451 See _Cosmos_, by Ménage, I., vi., § 101. 452 _Op. cit._, I. ii. 453 “The characters employed on those parchments,” writes De Mirville, “are sometimes hieroglyphics, placed perpendicularly, a kind of lineary tachygraphy (abridged characters), where the image is often reduced to a simple stroke; at other times placed in horizontal lines; then the hieratic or sacred writing, going from right to left as in all Semitic languages; lastly, the characters of the country, used for official documents, mostly contracts, etc., but which since the Ptolemies has been also adopted for the monuments,” v. 81, 82. A copy of the Harris papyrus, translated by Chabas—_Papyrus magique_—may be studied at the British Museum. 454 And what of the “Mene, mene, tekel, upharsin,” the words that “the fingers of a man’s hand,” whose body and arm remained invisible, wrote on the walls of Belshazzar’s palace? (_Daniel_, v.) What of the writings of Simon the Magician, and the magic characters on the walls and in the air of the crypts of Initiation, without mentioning the tables of stone on which the finger of God wrote the commandments? Between the writing of one God and other Gods the difference, if any, lies only in their respective natures; and if the tree is to be known by its fruits, then preference would have to be given always to the Pagan Gods. It is the immortal “To be or not to be.” Either all of them are—or at any rate, may be—true, or all are surely pious frauds and the result of credulity. 455 _Papyrus Magique_, p. 186. 456 See Maspero’s _Guide to the Bulak Museum_, among others. 457 De Mirville (from whom much of the preceding is taken), v. 81, 85. 458 See De Mirville, v. 84, 85. 459 One sees this difficulty arise even with a perfectly known language like Sanskrit, the meaning of which is far easier to comprehend than the hieratic writings of Egypt. Everyone knows how hopelessly the Sanskritists are often puzzled over the real meaning and how they fail in rendering the meaning correctly in their respective translations, in which one Orientalist contradicts the other. 460 _Op. cit._, i. 297. 461 Book II., Commentary. 462 Bunsen and Champollion so declare, and Dr. Carpenter says that the _Book of the Dead_, sculptured on the oldest monuments, with “the very phrases we find in the _New Testament_ in connection with the Day of Judgment ... was engraved probably 2,000 years before the time of Christ.” (See _Isis Unveiled_, i., 518.) 463 De Mirville, v. 88. Just such a calendar and horoscope interdictions exist in India in our day, as well as in China and all the Buddhist countries. 464 See De Mirville, iii. 65. 465 _Pap. Mag._, p. 163. 466 _Ibid._, p. 168. 467 Maimonides in his _Treatise on Idolatry_ says, speaking of the Jewish teraphim: “They talked with men.” To this day Christian Sorcerers in Italy, and negro Voodoos at New Orleans fabricate small wax figures in the likeness of their victims, and transpierce them with needles, the _wound_, as on the teraphim or Menh, being repercussed on the living, often killing them. Mysterious deaths are still many, and not all are traced to the guilty hand. 468 The Ramses of Lepsius, who reigned some 1300 years before our era. 469 One may judge how trustworthy are the translations of such Egyptian documents when the sentence is rendered in three different ways by three Egyptologists. Rougé says: “He found her in a state _to fall under the power of spirits_,” or “with her limbs quite stiff,” (?) another version; and Chabas translates: “And the Scribe found the Khou too wicked.” Between her being in possession of an evil Khou and “with her limbs quite stiff,” there is a difference. 470 De Mirville, v. 247, 248. 471 Some translators would have Lucian speak of the inhabitants of the city, but they fail to show that this view is maintainable. 472 De Mirville, v. 256, 257. 473 How can de Mirville see Satan in the Egyptian God of the great divine Name, when he himself admits that nothing was greater than the name of the oracle of Dodona, as it was that of the God of the Jews, IAO, or Jehovah? That oracle had been brought by the Pelasgians to Dodona more than fourteen centuries B.C. and left with the forefathers of the Hellenes, and its history is well‐known and may be read in Herodotus. Jupiter, who loved the fair nymph of the ocean, Dodona, had ordered Pelasgus to carry his cult to Thessaly. The name of the God of that oracle at the temple of Dodona was Zeus Pelasgicos, the Zeuspater (God the Father), or as De Mirville explains: “It was the name _par excellence_, the name that the Jews held as the ineffable, the unpronounceable Name—in short, _Jaoh‐ pater_, _i.e._, ‘he who was, who is, and who will be,’ otherwise the Eternal.” And the author admits that Maury is right “in discovering in the name of the Vaidic Indra the Biblical Jehovah,” and does not even attempt to deny the etymological connection between the two names—“the _great_ and the _lost_ name with the sun and the thunder‐ bolts.” Strange confessions, and still stranger contradictions. 474 Reuvens’ _Letter to Letronne on the 75th number of the Papyri Anastasi_. See De Mirville. v. 258. 475 The Eleusinian Fields. 476 _Fragments_, ix. 477 _De Legibus_, II. iv. 478 _Judaism and Paganism_, i. 184. 479 _Frag. of Styg., ap. Stob._ 480 _De Special. Legi._ 481 De Mirville, v. 278, 279. 482 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 25. 483 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 282, 283. 484 De Mirville, v. 248. 485 De Mirville, v. 281. 486 Tod’s Rajasthan, i. 28. 487 _Op. cit._, ix. iii. 28. 488 _Vishnu Purâna_, iv. i. Wilson’s translation, iii. 248‐254. 489 There were no Brâhmans as a hereditary caste in days of old. In those long‐departed ages a man became a Brâhman through personal merit and Initiation. Gradually, however, despotism crept in, and the son of a Brâhman was created a Brâhman by right of protection first, then by that of heredity. The rights of blood replaced those of real merit, and thus arose the body of Brâhmans, which was soon changed into a powerful caste. 490 _Des Initiations Anciennes and Modernes._ “The mysteries,” says Ragon, “were the gift of India.” In this he is mistaken, for the Âryan race had brought the mysteries of Initiation from Atlantis. Nevertheless he is right in saying that the mysteries preceded all civilisations, and that by polishing the mind and morals of the peoples they served as a base for all the laws—civil, political, and religious. 491 _De Off._, i. 33. 492 _Des Initiations_, p. 22. 493 _Essais Historiques sur la Franc‐Maçonnerie_, pp. 142, 143. 494 The word “patriarch” is composed of the Greek word “Patria” (“family,” “tribe,” or “nation”) and “Archos” (a “chief”), the paternal principle. The Jewish Patriarchs who were pastors, passed their name to the Christian Patriarchs; yet they were no priests, but were simply the heads of their tribes, like the Indian Rishis. 495 There is no need to observe here that the resurrection of a really dead body is an impossibility in Nature. 496 The kings of Hungary claimed that they could cure the jaundice; the Dukes of Burgundy were credited with preserving people from the plague; the kings of Spain delivered those possessed by the devil. The prerogative of curing the king’s evil was given to the kings of France, in reward for the virtues of good King Robert. Francis the First, during a short stay at Marseilles for his son’s wedding, touched and cured of that disease upwards of 500 persons. The kings of England had the same privilege. 497 See Laurens’ _Essais Historiques_ for further information as to the world‐wide, universal knowledge of the Egyptian Priests. 498 _Des Initiations_, p. 24. 499 The word comes from the Greek “hieros” (“sacred”) and “glupho” (“I grave”). The Egyptian characters were sacred to the Gods, as the Indian Devanâgarî is the language of the Gods. 500 The same author had (as Occultists have) a very reasonable objection to the modern etymology of the word “philosophy,” which is interpreted “love of wisdom,” and is nothing of the kind. The philosophers were scientists, and philosophy was a real science—not simply verbiage, as it is in our day. The term is composed of two Greek words whose meaning is intended to convey its secret sense, and ought to be interpreted as “wisdom of love.” Now it is in the last word, “love,” that lies hidden the esoteric significance: for “love” does not stand here as a noun, nor does it mean “affection” or “fondness,” but is the term used for Eros, that primordial principle in divine creation, synonymous with πόθος, the abstract desire in Nature for procreation, resulting in an everlasting series of phenomena. It means “divine love,” that universal element of divine omnipresence spread throughout Nature and which is at once the chief cause and effect. The “wisdom of love” (or “philosophia,”) meant attraction to and love of everything hidden beneath objective phenomena and the knowledge thereof. Philosophy meant the highest Adeptship—love of and assimilation with Deity. In his modesty Pythagoras even refused to be called a Philosopher (or one who knows every hidden thing in things visible; cause and effect, or absolute truth), and called himself simply a Sage an aspirant to philosophy, or to Wisdom of Love—love in its exoteric meaning being as degraded by men then as it is now by its purely terrestrial application. 501 _Lev._, xix. 18. 502 “On,” the “Sun,” the Egyptian name of Heliopolis (the “City of the Sun”). 503 _Book of God_, p. 160. 504 Mr. Kenealy quotes, in his _Book of God_, Vallancey, who says: “I had not been a week landed in Ireland from Gibraltar, where I had studied Hebrew and Chaldaic under Jews of various countries, when I heard a peasant girl say to a boor standing by her ‘_Feach an Maddin Nag_’ (‘Behold the morning star’), pointing to the planet Venus, the Maddena Nag of the Chaldeans.” 505 There was a time when the whole world, the totality of mankind, had one religion, as they were of “one lip.” “All the religions of the earth were at first one, and emanated from one centre,” says Faber. 506 _Chips from a German Workshop_, i. 69, 70. 507 Sûrya, the Sun, is one of the nine divinities that witness all human actions. 508 [There is a gap in H. P. B.’s MS., and the paragraph in brackets supplies what was missing.—A. B.] 509 In _Isis Unveiled_, Vol. II., pp. 41, 42, a portion of this rite is referred to. Speaking of the dogma of Atonement, it is traced to ancient “heathendom” again. We say: “This cornerstone of a church which had believed herself built on a firm rock for long centuries, is now excavated by science and proved to come from the Gnostics. Professor Draper shows it as hardly known in the days of Tertullian, and as having ‘originated among the Gnostic heretics’ (see _Conflict Between Religion and Science_, p. 224).... But there are sufficient proofs to show that it _originated_ among them no more than did their anointed Christos and Sophia. The former they modelled on the original of the King Messiah, the male principle of wisdom, and the latter on the third Sephiroth, from the Chaldæan _Kabalah_, and even from the Hindu Brahmâ and Sarasvatî, and the Pagan Dionysius and Demeter. And here we are on firm ground, if it were only because it is now proved that the _New Testament_ never appeared in its complete form, such as we find it now, till 300 years after the period of the apostles, and the _Zohar_ and other Kabalistic books are found to belong to the first century before our era, if not to be far older still. “The Gnostics entertained many of the Essenean ideas; and the Essenes had their greater and minor Mysteries at least two centuries before our era. They were the _Isarim_ or _Initiates_, the descendants of the Egyptian hierophants, in whose country they had been settled for several centuries before they were converted to Buddhistic monasticism by the missionaries of King Asoka, and amalgamated later with the earliest Christians: and they existed, probably, before the old Egyptian temples were desecrated and ruined in the incessant invasions of Persians, Greeks, and other conquering hordes. The hierophants had their atonement enacted in the Mystery of Initiation ages before the Gnostics, or even the Essenes, had appeared. It was known among hierophants as the Baptism of Blood, and was considered not as an atonement for the ‘fall of man’ in Eden, but simply as an expiation for the past, present, and future sins of ignorant, but nevertheless polluted mankind. The hierophant had the option of either offering his pure and sinless life as a sacrifice for his race to the gods whom he hoped to rejoin, or an animal victim. The former depended entirely on their own will. At the last moment of the solemn ‘new birth,’ the Initiator passed ‘the word’ to the initiated, and immediately after the latter had a weapon placed in his right hand, and was ordered _to strike_. This is the true origin of the Christian dogma of atonement.” As Ballanche says, quoted by Ragon: “Destruction is the great God of the World,” justifying therefore the philosophical conception of the Hindu Shîva. According to this immutable and sacred law, “the Initiate was compelled to kill the Initiator; otherwise initiation remained incomplete.... It is death that generates life.” _Orthodoxie maçonnique_, p. 104. All that, however, was emblematic and exoteric. Weapon and killing must be understood in their allegorical sense. 510 _Orthodoxie maçonnique_, pp. 102‐104. 511 _Op. cit._, i. 15. 512 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 258. A curious question to start and to deny, when it is well‐known even to the Orientalists that, to take but one case, there is Yaska, who was a predecessor of Pânini, and his work still exists; there are seventeen writers of Nirukta (glossary) known to have preceded Yaska. 513 _La Mère d’Apis_, p. 47. 514 One just initiated is called the “first‐born,” and in India he becomes dwija, “twice born,” only after his final and supreme Initiation. Every Adept is a “Son of God” and a “Son of Light” after receiving the “Word,” when he becomes the “Word” himself, after receiving the seven divine attributes or the “lyre of Apollo.” 515 See De Mirville, iv. 15. 516 II. _Kings_, xxiii. 4‐13. 517 _Judges_, xiii. 18. Samson, Manoah’s son, was an Initiate of that “Mystery” Lord, Ja‐va; he was consecrated before his birth to become a “Nazarite” (a chela) an Adept. His sin with Dalilah, and the cropping of his long hair that “no razor was to touch” shows how well he kept his sacred vow. The allegory of Samson proves the Esotericism of the _Bible_, as also the character of the “Mystery Gods” of the Jews. True, Môvers gives a definition of the Phœnician idea of the ideal sunlight as a spiritual influence issuing from the highest God, Iao, “the light conceivable only by intellect—the physical and spiritual Principle of all things; out of which the soul emanates.” It was the male Essence, or Wisdom, while the primitive matter or _Chaos_ was the female. Thus the first two principles, co‐eternal and infinite, were already with the primitive Phœnicians, spirit and matter. But this is the echo of Jewish thought, not the opinion of Pagan Philosophers. 518 See _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 526. 519 Beth‐San or Scythopolis in Palestine had that designation; so had a spot on Mount Parnassus. But Diodorus declares that Nyssa was between Phœnicia and Egypt; Euripides states that Dionysos came to Greece from India; and Diodorus adds his testimony: “Osiris was brought up in Nyssa, in Arabia the Happy; he was the son of Zeus, and was named from his father (nominative Zeus, genitive _Dios_) and the place Dio‐Nysos”—the Zeus or Jove of Nyssa. This identity of name or title is very significant. In Greece Dionysos was second only to Zeus, and Pindar says: “So Father Zeus governs all things, and Bacchus he governs also.” 520 _Ex._, xvii. 15. 521 _Phædrus_, Cary’s translation, p. 326. 522 _Life of Pythagoras_, p. 297. “Since Pythagoras,” he adds, “also spent two and twenty years in the adyta of the temples in Egypt, associated with the Magians in Babylon, and was instructed by them in their venerable knowledge, it is not at all wonderful that he was skilled in Magic or Theurgy, and was therefore able to perform things which surpass merely human power, and which appear to be perfectly incredible to the vulgar” (p. 298). 523 This expression must not be understood simply literally; for, as in the initiation of certain Brotherhoods, it has a secret meaning that we have just explained; it was hinted at by Pythagoras, when he describes his feelings after the Initiation, and says that he was crowned by the Gods in whose presence he had drunk “the waters of life”—in the Hindu Mysteries there was the fount of life, and _soma_, the sacred drink. 524 _Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries_, T. Taylor, p. 46, 47. 525 ii. 111, 113. 526 _Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries_, p. 63. 527 _Op. cit._, p. 65. 528 Quoted by Taylor, p. 66. 529 Verses 35‐38. 530 _Phædrus_, 64, quoted by Taylor, p. 64. 531 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 114. 532 This is false, and the Abbé Constant (Éliphas Lévi) _knew_ it was so. Why did he promulgate the untruth? 533 _Dogme de la Haute Magie_, i. 219, 220. 534 _Orthodoxie Maçonnique_, p. 99. 535 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 214. 536 In I. _Peter_, ii. 3, Jesus is called “the Lord Chrestos.” 537 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 323. 538 _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 31. 539 The Âryans replaced the living cow by one made of gold, silver or any other metal, and the rite is preserved to this day, when one desires to become a Brâhman, a twice‐born, in India. 540 _Op. cit._, p. 141. 541 In Ragon’s _Orthodoxie Maçonnique_, p. 105, _note_, we find the following statement—borrowed from Albumazar the Arabian, probably: “_The Virgin of the Magi and Chaldæans._ The Chaldæan sphere [globe] showed in its heavens a newly‐born babe, called _Christ and Jesus_; it was placed in the arms of the Celestial Virgin. It was to this Virgin that Eratosthenes, the Alexandrian Librarian, born 276 years before our era, gave the name of Isis, mother of Horus.” This is only what Kircher gives (in _Ædipus Ægypticus_, iii. 5), quoting Albumazar: “In the first decan of the Virgin rises a maid, called Aderenosa, that is pure, immaculate virgin ... sitting upon an embroidered throne nursing a boy...; a boy, named Jessus ... which signifies Issa, whom they also call Christ in Greek.” (See _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 491.) 542 Now called _St. Reine_ (Côte d’Or) on the two streams, the Ose and the Oserain. Its fall is a historical fact in Keltic Gaulish History. 543 _Orthodoxie Maçonnique_, p. 22. 544 _Op. cit._, p. 22. 545 The Christian mob in 389 of our era completed the work of destruction upon what remained; most of the priceless works were saved for students of Occultism, but lost to the world. 546 _Op. cit._ p. 23. J. M. Ragon, a Belgian by birth, and a Mason, knew more about Occultism than any other non‐initiated writer. For fifty years he studied the ancient Mysteries wherever he could find accounts of them. In 1805, he founded at Paris the Brotherhood of _Les Trinosophes_, in which Lodge he delivered for years lectures on Ancient and Modern Initiation (in 1818 and again in 1841), which were published, and now are lost. Then he became the writer in chief of _Hermes_, a masonic paper. His best works were _La Maçonnerie Occulte_ and the _Fastes Initiatiques_. After his death, in 1866, a number of his MSS. remained in the possession of the Grand Orient of France. A high Mason told the writer that Ragon had corresponded for years with two Orientalists in Syria and Egypt, one of whom is a Kopt gentleman. 547 _Op. cit._, iv. 462. 548 _History of Magic_, ii. 11. 549 _Neo‐Platonism and Alchemy_, p. 15. 550 _Loc. cit._ 551 _Op. cit._, pp. 9, 10. 552 This Divine Effulgence and Essence is the light of the Logos; only the Vedântin would not use the pronoun “He,” but would say “It.” 553 _Loc. cit._, _note_, p. 10. 554 _Loc. cit._, _note_. 555 See _Esoteric Buddhism_, by A. P. Sinnett, Fifth Edition. 556 See _Isis Unveiled_, Vol. I., pp. 589‐595. The “Sons of God” and their war with the giants and magicians. 557 _Loc. cit._, _note_. 558 _Op. cit._, p. 18. 559 _Op. cit._, p. 8. 560 No orthodox Christian has ever equalled, far less surpassed, in the practice of true Christ‐like virtues and ethics, or in the beauty of his moral nature, Ammonius, the Alexandrian pervert from Christianity (he was born from Christian parents). 561 _Op. cit._, pp. 3, 4. 562 Quoted by Dr. Wilder, p. 5. 563 “Mortification” is here meant in the moral, not the physical sense; to restrain every lust and passion, and live on the simplest diet possible. 564 This is the Neo‐Platonic teaching adopted as a doctrine in the Roman Catholic Church, with its worship of the Seven Spirits. 565 The Church has made of it the worship of devils. “Daimon” is Spirit, and relates to our divine Spirit, the seventh Principle and to the Dhyân Chohans. Jesus prohibited going to the temple or church “as Pharisees do” but commanded that man should retire for prayer (communion with his God) into a private closet. Is it Jesus who would have countenanced in the face of the starving millions, the building of the most gorgeous churches? 566 _Op. cit._, p. 7. 567 _Op. cit._, p. 7. 568 _Op. cit._, p. 18. 569 The _Talmud_ gives the story of the four Tanaim, who are made, in allegorical terms, to enter into _the garden of delights_, _i.e._, to be initiated into the occult and final science. “According to the teaching of our holy masters the names of the four who entered the garden of delight, are: Ben Asai, Ben Zoma, Acher, and Rabbi Akiba.... “Ben Asai looked and—lost his sight. “Ben Zoma looked and—lost his reason. “Acher made depredations in the plantation” (mixed up the whole and failed). “But Akiba, who had entered in peace came out of it in peace; for the saint, whose name he blessed, had said, ‘This old man is worthy of serving us with glory.’ ” “The learned commentators of the _Talmud_, the Rabbis of the synagogue, explain that the _garden of delight_, in which those four personages are made to enter, is but that mysterious science, the most terrible of sciences for weak intellects, which it leads directly to insanity,” says A. Franck, in his _Kabbalah_. It is not the pure at heart and he who studies but with a view to perfecting himself and so more easily acquiring the promised immortality, who need have any fear; but rather he who makes of the science of sciences a sinful pretext for worldly motives, who should tremble. The latter will never understand the kabalistic evocations of the supreme initiation.—_Isis Unveiled_, ii. 119. 570 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 119. 571 See _Neo‐Platonism_, p. 9. 572 See the Code published by Sir William Jones, Chapter ix. p. 11. 573 Pliny: _Hist. Nat._, xxx. 1; _Ib._, xvi. 14; xxv. 9, etc. 574 Pomponius ascribes to them the knowledge of the highest sciences. 575 Cæsar, iii. 14. 576 Pliny, xxx. _Isis Unveiled_, i. 18. 577 “The care which they took in educating youth, in familiarizing it with generous and virtuous sentiments, did them peculiar honour, and their maxims and discourses, as recorded by historians, prove that they were expert in matters of philosophy, metaphysics, astronomy, morality and religion,” says a modern writer. “If kings or princes desired the advice or the blessings of the holy men, they were either obliged to go themselves, or to send messengers. To these men no secret power of either plant or mineral was unknown. They had fathomed nature to its depths, while psychology and physiology were to them open books, and the result was that science that is now termed, so superciliously, _magic_.” 578 _Op. cit._, p. 9. 579 _Op. cit._, p. 11. 580 _Hermes_, iv. 6. 581 From _Saraph_ שרף “fiery, burning,” plural (see _Isaiah_, vi. 2‐6). They are regarded as the personal attendants of the Almighty, “his messengers,” angels or metatrons. In _Revelation_ they are the “seven burning lamps” in attendance before the throne. 582 Venus with the Chaldæans and Egyptians was the wife of _Proteus_, and is regarded as the mother of the Kabiri, the sons of Phta or Emepth—the divine light or the Sun. The angels answer to the stars in the following order: The Sun, the Moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn; Michael, Gabriel, Samael, Anael, Raphael, Zachariel, and Orifiel; this is in religion and Christian Kabalism; astrologically and esoterically the places of the “regents” stand otherwise, as also in the Jewish, or rather the real Chaldæan _Kabalah_. 583 _Loc. cit._, xiv. 12. 584 This is one more proof that the Ancients knew of seven planets besides the Sun; for otherwise which is the eighth in such a case? The seventh, with two others, as stated, were “mystery” planets, whether Uranus or any other. 585 II. _Sam._, vi. 20‐22. 586 _Judges_, xxi. 21, _et seq._ 587 I. _Kings_, xviii. 26. 588 This dance—the Râsa Mandala, enacted by the Gopîs or shepherdesses of Krishna, the Sun‐God, is enacted to this day in Râjputâna in India, and is undeniably the same theo‐astronomical and symbolical dance of the planets and the Zodiacal signs, that was danced thousands of years before our era. 589 _Isis Unveiled_, ii. 45. 590 II. _Epistle_, i. 19. The English text says: “Until the day‐star arise in your heart,” a trifling alteration which does not really matter—as _Lucifer_ is the day as well as the “morning” star—and it is less shocking to pious ears. There are a number of such alterations in the Protestant bibles. 591 Again the English translation changes the word “Sun” into “day‐ spring.” The Roman Catholics are decidedly braver and more sincere than the Protestant theologians. De Mirville: iv. 34, 38. 592 Thus said the Egyptians and the Sabæans in days of old, the symbol of whose manifested gods, Osiris and Bel, was the sun. But they had a higher deity. 593 Exiled from the Protestant bible but left in the _Apocrypha_ which, according to Article VI. of the Church of England, “she doth read for example of life and instruction of manners” (?), but not to establish any doctrine. 594 _Cornelius a Lapide_, v. 248. 595 _Ecclesiastes_, xliii. The above quotations are taken from De Mirville’s chapter “On Christian and Jewish Solar Theology,” iv. 35‐38. 596 Nevertheless the Church has preserved in her most sacred rites the “star‐rites” of the Pagan Initiates. In the pre‐Christian Mithraic Mysteries, the candidate who overcame successfully the “twelve Tortures” which preceded the final Initiation, received a small round cake or wafer of unleavened bread, symbolising in one of its meanings, the solar disc, and known as the manna (heavenly bread).... A lamb, or a bull even, was killed, and with the blood the candidate had to be sprinkled, as in the case of the Emperor Julian’s initiation. The seven rules or mysteries that are represented in the _Revelation_ as the seven seals which are opened in order were then delivered to the newly born. 597 Truly says S. T. Coleridge: “Instinctively the reason has always pointed out to men the ultimate end of various sciences.... There is no doubt but that astrology of some sort or other will be the last achievement of astronomy; there must be chemical relations between the planets ... the difference of their magnitude compared with that of their distances is not explicable otherwise.” Between planets and our earth with its mankind, we may add. 598 “Christ then,” the author says (p. 40), “is represented by the trunk of the candlestick.” 599 De Mirville, iv. 41, 42. 600 De Mirville, iv. 42. 601 Notwithstanding the above, written in the earliest Christian period by the renegade Neo‐Platonist, the Church persists to this day in her wilful error. Helpless against Galileo, she now tries to throw a doubt even on the heliocentric system! 602 _Stromateis_, V., vi. 603 The English bible has: “In them (the Heavens) hath he set a tabernacle for the sun,” which is incorrect and has no sense in view of the verse that follows, for there _are_ things “hid from the heat thereof” if the latter word is to be applied to the sun. 604 When the hierophant took his last degree, he emerged from the sacred recess called _Manneras_ and was given the golden _Tau_, the Egyptian Cross, which was subsequently placed on his breast, and buried with him. 605 The three secret names are “Sana, Sanat Sujâta, and Kapila;” while the four exoteric Gods are called, Sanat Kumâra, Sananda, Sanaka and Sanâtana. 606 Another Kumâra, the “God of War” is called in the Hindu system the “eternal celibate”—“the virgin warrior.” He is the Âryan St. Michael. 607 We give the original: “Coelestia corpora moveri a spirituali creatura, a _nemine_ Sanctorum vel philosophorum, negatum, legisse me memini. (_Opusc._ X. art. iii.).... Mihi autam videtur, quod _Demonstrative_ probari posset, quod ab aliquo intellectu corpora coelestia moveantur, vel a Deo immediate, vel a mediantibus angelis. Sed quod mediantibus angelis ca moveat, congruit rerum ordine, quem Dionysius infallibilem asserit, ut inferiora a Deo per _Media_ secundum cursum communem administrentur” (_Opusc._ II. art. ii.), and if so, and God _never_ meddles with the once for ever established laws of Nature, leaving it to his administrators, why should their being called Gods by the “heathen” be deemed idolatrous? 608 In one of Des Mousseaux’s volumes on Demonology (_Œuvres des Demons_) if we do not mistake the statement of the Abbé Huc is found, and the author testifies to having heard the following story repeatedly from the Abbé himself. In a lamasery of Tibet, the missionary found the following: It is a simple canvas without the slightest mechanical apparatus attached, as the visitor may prove by examining it at his leisure. It represents a moonlit landscape, but the moon is not at all motionless and dead; quite the reverse, for, according to the Abbé, one would say that our moon herself, or at least her living double, lighted the picture. Each phase, each aspect, each movement of our satellite, is repeated in her facsimile, in the movement and progress of the moon in the sacred picture. “You see this planet in the painting ride as a crescent, or full, shine brightly, pass behind the clouds, peep out or set, in a manner corresponding in the most extraordinary way with the real luminary. It is, in a word, a most perfect and resplendent reproduction of the pale queen of the night, which received the adoration of so many people in the days of old.” We know from the most reliable sources and numerous eye‐ witnesses, that such “machines”—not canvas paintings—do exist in certain temples of Tibet; as also the “sidereal wheels” representing the planets, and kept for the same purposes—astrological and magical. Huc’s statement was translated in _Isis Unveiled_ from Des Mousseaux’s volume. 609 Cedrenus, p. 338. Whether produced by _clockwork_ or _magic_ power, such machines—whole celestial spheres with planets rotating—were found in the Sanctuaries, and some exist to this day in Japan, in a secret subterranean temple of the old Mikados, as well as in two other places. 610 Champollion’s _Égypte Moderne_, p. 42. 611 _Musée des Sciences_, p. 230. 612 Translated by the Vicomte de Rougemont. See _Les Annales de Philosophie Chrétienne_, 7th year, 1861. 613 _Isaiah_, lxiii. 9. 614 Chapter xii. of _Revelation_: “There was war in heaven, Mikael and his angels fought against the Dragon,” etc. (7) and the great dragon was cast out (9). 615 He is also the informing Spirit of the Sun and Jupiter, and even of Venus. 616 _Dogme et Rituel_, ii. 116. 617 If enumerated, they will be found to be the Hindu “divisions” and choirs of Devas, and the Dhyân Chohans of Esoteric Buddhism. 618 But this fact has not prevented the Roman Church from adopting them all the same, accepting them from ignorant, though perchance sincere Church Fathers, who had borrowed them from Kaballists—Jews and Pagans. 619 To call “usurpers” those who preceded the Christian Beings for whose benefit these same titles were borrowed, is carrying paradoxical anachronism a little too far! 620 Or the _divine ages_, the “days and years of Brahmâ.” 621 De Mirville, ii. 325, 326. So we say too. And this shows that it is to the Kabalists and _Magicians_ that the Church is indebted for her dogmas and names. Paul never condemned _real_ Gnosis, but the _false_ one, now accepted by the Church. 622 Sesostris, or Pharaoh Ramses II., whose mummy was unswathed in 1886 by Maspero of the Bulak Museum, and recognised as that of the greatest king of Egypt, whose grandson, Ramses III. was the last king of an ancient kingdom. 623 _Op. cit._, p. 422. 624 _Summa_, Quest. xv. Art. v., upon Astrologers, and Vol. III. pp. 2‐29. 625 “The principalities and powers [born] in heavenly places” (_Ephes._, iii. 10). The verse, “For though there be that are called Gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as there be Gods many and lords many” (I. _Corinth._, viii. 5), shows, at any rate, the recognition by Paul of a plurality of “Gods” whom he calls “dæmons” (“spirits”—never _devils_). Principalities, Thrones, Dominions, Rectors, etc. are all Jewish and Christian names for the Gods of the ancients—the Archangels and Angels of the former being in every case the Devas and the Dhyân Chohans of the more ancient religions. 626 Answer by Reuvens to Letronne with regard to his mistaken notions about the Zodiac of Dendera. 627 St. Augustine (_De Gen._, I. iii.) and Delrio (_Disquisit._, Vol. IV., chap. iii.) are quoted by De Mirville, to show that “the more astrologers speak the truth and the better they prophesy it, the more one has to feel diffident, seeing that their agreement with the devil becomes thereby the more apparent.” The famous statement made by Juvenal (_Satires_, vi.) to the effect that “not one single astrologer could be found who did not pay dearly for the help he received from his genius”—no more proves the latter to be a devil than the death of Socrates proves his daimon to have been a native from the nether world—if such there be. Such argument only demonstrates human stupidity and wickedness, once reason is made subservient to prejudice and fanaticism of every sort. “Most of the great writers of antiquity, Cicero and Tacitus among them, believed in Astrology and the realization of its prophecies;” and “the penalty of death decreed nearly everywhere against those mathematicians [astrologers] who happened to predict falsely diminished neither their number nor their tranquillity of mind.” 628 _Preparatio Evangelica_, I. xiv. 629 _Ast._, iv. 60. 630 _Hist._, I. ii. 631 All these particulars may be found more fully and far more completely in Champollion Figeac’s _Égypte_. 632 _Op. cit._, p. 230. 633 _Op. cit._, p. 230. 634 In the 1,326 places in the _New Testament_ where the word “God” is mentioned nothing signifies that in God are included more beings than God. On the contrary in 17 places God is called the only God. The places where the Father is so‐called amount to 320. In 105 places God is addressed with high‐sounding titles. In 90 places all prayers and thanks are addressed to the Father; 300 times in the _New Testament_ is the Son declared to be inferior to the Father; 85 times is Jesus called the “Son of Man;” 70 times is he called a man. In not one single place in the bible is it said that God holds within him three different Beings or Persons, and yet is one Being or Person.—Dr. Karl von Bergen’s _Lectures in Sweden_. 635 Kali Yuga, the Black or Iron Age. 636 Virgil, _Eclogue_, iv. 637 At the close of our Race, people, it is said, through suffering and discontent will become more spiritual. Clairvoyance will become a general faculty. We shall be approaching the spiritual state of the Third and Second Races. 638 _Vishnu Purâna_, IV., xxiv. 228, Wilson’s translation. 639 _Op. cit._, p. 212. 640 At any rate, the temple secret meaning was the same. 641 _Asiat. Res._, vol. viii. p. 470, _et seq._ 642 _Theosophist_, August, 1881. 643 Aug., 1881 to Feb., 1882. 644 _Loc. cit._, iv. 127. 645 _Theosophist_, vol. iii. p. 22. 646 The impartial study of Vaidic and Post‐Vaidic works shows that the ancient Âryans knew well the precession of the equinoxes, and “that they changed their position from a certain asterism to two (occasionally three) asterisms back whenever the precession amounted to two, properly speaking, to 2 11/61 asterisms or about 29°, being the motion of the sun in a lunar month, and so caused the seasons to fall back a complete lunar month.... It appears certain that at the date of _Sûrya Siddhânta_, _Brahmâ Siddânta_, and other ancient treatises on astronomy, the vernal equinoctial point had not actually reached the beginning of Ashvinî, but was a few degrees east of it.... The astronomers of Europe change westward the beginning of Aries and of all other signs of the Zodiac every year by about 50" 25, and thus make the names of the signs meaningless. But these signs are as much fixed as the asterisms themselves, and hence the Western astronomers of the present day appear to us in this respect less wary and scientific in their observations than their very ancient brethren—the Âryas.”—_Theosophist_, iii. 23. 647 A great deal of misconception is raised by a confusion of planes of being and misuse of expressions. For instance, certain spiritual states have been confounded with the Nirvâna of BUDDHA. The Nirvâna of BUDDHA is totally different from any other spiritual state of Samâdhi or even the highest Theophania enjoyed by lesser Adepts. After physical death the kinds of spiritual states reached by Adepts differ greatly. 648 This region is the one possible point of conciliation between the two diametrically opposed poles of religion and science, the one with its barren fields of dogmas on faith, the other over‐running with empty hypotheses, both overgrown with the weeds of error. They will never meet. The two are at feud, at an everlasting warfare with each other, but this does not prevent them from uniting against Esoteric Philosophy, which for two millenniums has had to fight against infallibility in both directions, or “mere vanity and pretence” as Antoninus defined it, and now finds the materialism of Modern Science arrayed against its truths. 649 Whence some of the Gnostic ideas? Cerinthus taught that the world and Jehovah having fallen off from virtue and primitive dignity the Supreme permitted one of his glorious Æons, whose name was the “Anointed” (Christ) to incarnate in the man Jesus. Basilides denied the reality of the body of Jesus, and calling it an “illusion” held that it was Simon of Cyrene who suffered on the Cross in his stead. All such teachings are echoes of the Eastern Doctrines. 650 A genuine initiated Adept will retain his Adeptship, though there may be for our world of illusion numberless incarnations of him. The propelling power that lies at the root of a series of such incarnations is not Karma, as ordinarily understood, but a still more inscrutable power. During the period of his lives the Adept does not lose his Adeptship, though he cannot rise in it to a higher degree. 651 From the so‐called Brahmâ Loka—the seventh and higher world, beyond which all is arûpa, formless, purely spiritual—to the lowest world and insect, or even to an object such as a leaf, there is perpetual revolution of the condition of existence, evolution and re‐birth. Some human beings attain states or spheres from which there is only a return in a new Kalpa (a day of Brahmâ); there are other states or spheres from which there is only return after 100 years of Brahmâ (Mahâ‐Kalpa, a period covering 311,040,000,000,000 years). Nirvâna, it is said, is a state from which there is no return. Yet it is maintained that there may be, as exceptional cases, re‐incarnation from that state; only such incarnations are illusion, like everything else on this plane, as will be shown. 652 This fact of the disappearance of the vehicle of Egotism in the fully developed Yogî, who is supposed to have reached Nirvâna on earth, years before his corporeal death, has led to the law in Manu, sanctioned by millenniums of Brâhmanical authority, that such a Paramâtmâ should be held as absolutely blameless and free from sin or responsibility, do whatever he may (see last chapter of the _Laws of Manu_). Indeed, caste itself—that most despotic, uncompromising and autocratic tyrant in India—can be broken with impunity by the Yogî, who is above caste. This will give the key to our statements. 653 [The word “Adept” is very loosely used by H. P. B., who often seems to have implied by it no more than the possession of special knowledge of some kind. Here it seems to mean first an uninitiated disciple and then an initiated one.—EDS.] 654 About fifty years before the birth of Copernicus, de Cusa wrote as follows: “Though the world may not be absolutely infinite, no one can represent it to himself as finite, since human reason is incapable of assigning to it any term.... For in the same way that our earth cannot be in the centre of the Universe, as thought, no more could the sphere of the fixed stars be in it.... Thus this world is like a vast machine, having its centre [Deity] everywhere, and its circumference nowhere [_machina mundi, quasi habens ubique centrum, et nullibi circumferentiam_].... Hence, the earth not being in the centre, cannot therefore be motionless ... and though it is far smaller than the sun, one must not conclude for all that, that she is worse [_vilior_—more vile].... One cannot see whether its inhabitants are superior to those who dwell nearer to the sun, or in other stars, as sidereal space cannot be deprived of inhabitants.... The earth, very likely [_fortasse_] one of the smallest globes, is nevertheless the cradle of intelligent beings, most noble and perfect.” One cannot fail to agree with the biographer of Cardinal de Cusa, who, having no suspicion of the Occult truth, and the reason of such erudition in a writer of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, simply marvels at such a miraculous foreknowledge, and attributes it to God, saying of him that he was a man incomparable in every kind of philosophy, by whom many a theological mystery inaccessible to the human mind (!), veiled and neglected for centuries (_velata et neglecta_) were once more brought to light. “Pascal might have read De Cusa’s works; but whence could the Cardinal have borrowed his ideas?” asks Moreri. Evidently from Hermes and the works of Pythagoras, even if the mystery of his incarnation and re‐incarnation be dismissed. 655 This is the secret meaning of the statements about the Hierarchy of Prajâpatis or Rishis. First seven are mentioned, then ten, then twenty‐one, and so on. They are “Gods” and creators of men—many of them the “Lords of Beings”; they are the “Mind‐born Sons” of Brahmâ, and then they became mortal heroes, and are often shown as of a very sinful character. The Occult meaning of the Biblical Patriarchs, their genealogy, and their descendants dividing among themselves the earth, is the same. Again, Jacob’s dream has the same significance. 656 He “of the Seven Virtues” is one who, without the benefit of Initiation, becomes as pure as any Adept by the simple exertion of his own merit. Being so holy, his body at his next incarnation becomes the Avatâra of his “Watcher” or Guardian Angel, as the Christian would put it. 657 The title of the highest Dhyân Chohans. 658 _Op. cit._, ii. 367. 659 “After death, the soul continueth in the aerial (astral) body, till it is entirely purified from all angry, sensual passions; then doth it put off by a _second death_ [when arising to Devachan] the aerial body as it did the earthly one. Wherefore the ancients say that there is a celestial body always joined with the soul, which is immortal, luminous and star‐like.” It becomes natural then, that the “aerial body” of an Adept should have no such second dying, since it has been cleansed of all its natural impurity before its separation from the physical body. The high Initiate is a “Son of the Resurrection,” “being equal unto the angels,” and cannot die any more (see _Luke_, xx. 36). 660 _St. John_, xxi. 21. 661 See the extract made in the _Theosophist_ from a glorious novel by Dostoievsky—a fragment entitled “The Great Inquisitor.” It is a fiction, naturally, still a sublime fiction of Christ returning in Spain during the palmy days of the Inquisition, and being imprisoned and put to death by the Inquisitor, who fears lest Christ should ruin the work of Jesuit hands. 662 When we say the “great Teacher,” we do not mean His Buddhic Ego, but that principle in Him which was the vehicle of His personal or terrestrial Ego. 663 _Five Years of Theosophy_, New Edition, p. 3. 664 _Op. cit._, p. 175, Fifth Edition. 665 It would be useless to raise objections from exoteric works to statements in this, which aims to expound, however superficially, the Esoteric Teachings alone. It is because they are misled by the exoteric doctrine that Bishop Bigandet and others aver that the notion of a supreme eternal Âdi‐Buddha is to be found only in writings of comparatively recent date. What is given here is taken from the secret portions of Dus Kyi Khorlo (Kâla Chakra, in Sanskrit, or the “Wheel of Time,” or duration). 666 The three bodies are (1) the Nirmânakâya (Pru‐lpai‐Ku in Tibetan), in which the Bodhisattva after entering by the six Pâramitâs the Path to Nirvâna, appears to men in order to teach them; (2) Sambhogakâya (Dzog‐pai‐Ku), the, body of bliss impervious to all physical sensations, received by one who has fulfilled the three conditions of moral perfection; and (3) Dharmakâya (in Tibetan, Chos‐Ku), the Nirvânic body. 667 _Five Years of Theosophy_, art. “Personal and Impersonal God,” p. 129. 668 Adhishtâthâ, the active or working agent in Prakriti (or matter). 669 _Vedânta‐Sûtras_, Ad. I. Pâda iv. Shi. 23. Commentary. The passage is given as follows in Thibaut’s translation (Sacred Books of the East, xxxiv.), p. 286: “The Self is thus the operative cause, because there is no other ruling principle, and the material cause because there is no other substance from which the world could originate.” 670 In _Five Years of Theosophy_ (art. “Shâkya Muni’s Place in History,” p. 234, note) it is stated that one day when our Lord sat in the Sattapanni Cave (Saptaparna) he compared man to a Saptaparna (seven leaved) plant. “Mendicants,” he said, “there are seven Buddhas in every Buddha, and there are _six_ Bhikshus and but one Buddha in each mendicant. What are the _seven_? The seven branches of complete knowledge. What are the _six_? The six organs of sense. What are the five? The five elements of illusive being. And the One which is also ten? He is a true Buddha who develops in him the ten forms of holiness and subjects them all to the One.” Which means that every principle in the Buddha was the highest that could be evolved on this earth; whereas in the case of other men who attain to Nirvâna this is not necessarily the case. Even as a mere human (Manushya) Buddha Gautama was a pattern for all men. But his Arhats were not necessarily so. 671 See _Isis Unveiled_, ii., 132. 672 “Before one becomes a Buddha he must be a Bodhisattva; before evolving into a Bodhisattva he must be a Dhyâni‐Buddha.... A Bodhisattva is the way and Path to his Father, and thence to the One Supreme Essence” (_Descent of Buddhas_, p. 17, from Âryâsanga). “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me” (_St. John_, xiv. 6). The “way” is not the goal. Nowhere throughout the _New Testament_ is Jesus found calling himself God, or anything higher than “a son of God,” the son of a “Father” common to all, synthetically. Paul never said (I. _Tim._, iii. 10), “God was manifest in the flesh,” but “He who was manifested in the flesh” (Revised Edition). While the common herd among the Buddhists—the Burmese especially—regard Jesus as an incarnation of Devadatta, a relative who opposed the teachings of Buddha, the students of Esoteric Philosophy see in the Nazarene Sage a Bodhisattva with the spirit of Buddha Himself in Him. 673 I. _Corinth._, xv. 36. 674 _Op. cit._, Mandala x., hymn 90. 675 Literally, “he who walks [or follows] in the way [or path] of his predecessors.” 676 Schmidt, in _Slanong Seetsen_, p. 471, and Schlagintweit, in _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 53, accept these precious things _literally_, enumerating them as “the wheel, the precious stone, the royal consort, the best treasurer, the best horse, the elephant, the best leader.” After this one can little wonder if “besides a Dhyâni‐ Buddhi and a Dhyâni‐Bodhisattva” each human Buddha is furnished with “a female companion, a Shakti”—when in truth “Shakti” is simply the Soul‐power, the psychic energy of the God as of the Adept. The “royal consort,” the third of the “seven precious gifts,” very likely led the learned Orientalist into this ludicrous error. 677 A Bodhisattva can reach Nirvâna and live, as Buddha did, and after death he can either refuse objective reincarnation or accept and use it at his convenience for the benefit of mankind whom he can instruct in various ways while he remains in the Devachanic regions within the attraction of our earth. But having once reached Paranirvâna or “Nirvâna without remains”—the highest Dharmakâya condition, in which state he remains entirely outside of every earthly condition—he will return no more until the commencement of a new Manvantara, since he has crossed beyond the cycle of births. 678 Tulpa is the voluntary incarnation of an Adept into a living body, whether of an adult, child, or new‐born babe. 679 Ku‐sum is the triple form of the Nirvâna state and its respective duration in the “cycle of Non‐Being.” The number seven here refers to the seven Rounds of our septenary System. 680 _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 52. This same generic use of a name is found among Hindus with that of Shankarâchârya, to take but one instance. All His successors bear his name, but are not reincarnations of Him. So with the “Buddhas.” 681 [The words within brackets are supplied to introduce the following statements that are confused and contradictory as they stand, and which H. P. B. had probably intended to elucidate to some slight extent, as they are written two or three times with different sentences following them. The MS. is exceedingly confused, and everything H. P. B. said is here pieced together, the addition above made being marked in brackets to distinguish it from hers.—A. B.] 682 King Suddhodana. 683 There are several names marked simply by asterisks. 684 Shankarâchârya died also at thirty‐two years of age, or rather disappeared from the sight of his disciples, as the legend goes. 685 Does “Tiani‐Tsang” stand for Apollonius of Tyana? This is a simple surmise. Some things in the life of that Adept would seem to tally with the hypothesis—others to go against it. 686 According to Esoteric teaching Buddha lived one hundred years in reality, though having reached Nirvâna in his eightieth year he was regarded as one dead to the world of the living. See article “Shâkyamuni’s Place in History” in _Five Years of Theosophy_. 687 It is a _secret_ rite, pertaining to high Initiation, and has the same significance as the one to which Clement of Alexandria alludes when he speaks of “the token of recognition being in common with us, as by cutting off Christ” (Strom., 13). Schlagintweit wonders what it may be. “The typical representation of a hermit,” he says, “is always that of a man with long, uncut hair and beard.... A rite very often selected, though I am unable to state for what reason, is that of Chod (‘to cut’ or ‘to destroy’) the meaning of which is anxiously kept a profound secret by the Lamas.” (_Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 163.) 688 Hlun‐Chub is the divining spirit in man, the highest degree of seership. 689 The secret meaning of this sentence is that Karma exercises its sway over the Adept as much as over any other man; “Gods” can escape it as little as simple mortals. The Adept who, having reached the Path and won His Dharmakâya—the Nirvâna from which there is no return until the new grand Kalpa—prefers to use His right of choosing a condition inferior to that which belongs to Him, but that will leave him free to return whenever He thinks it advisable and under whatever personality He may select, must be prepared to take all the chances of failure—possibly—and a lower condition than was His lot—for a certainty—as it is an occult law. Karma alone is absolute justice and infallible in its selections. He who uses his rights with it (Karma) must bear the consequences—if any. Thus Buddha’s first reincarnation was produced by Karma—and it led Him higher than ever; the two following were “out of pity” and * * *. 690 The Universe of Brahmâ (Sien‐Chan; Nam‐Kha) is Universal Illusion, or our phenomenal world. 691 Âkâsha. It is next to impossible to render the mystic word “Tho‐og” by any other term than “Space,” and yet, unless coined on purpose, no new appellation can render it so well to the mind of the Occultist. The term “Aditi” is also translated “Space,” and there is a world of meaning in it. 692 Dang‐ma, a purified soul, and Lha, a freed spirit within a living body; an Adept or Arhat. In the popular opinion in Tibet, a Lha is a disembodied spirit, something similar to the Burmese Nat—only higher. 693 Kwan‐yin is a synonym, for in the original another term is used, but the meaning is identical. It is the divine voice of Self, or the “Spirit‐voice” in man, and the same as Vâchîshvara (the “Voice‐ deity”) of the Brâhmans. In China, the Buddhist ritualists have degraded its meaning by anthropomorphizing it into a Goddess of the same name, with one thousand hands and eyes, and they call it Kwan‐ shai‐yin‐Bodhisat. It is the Buddhist “daïmon”‐voice of Socrates. 694 Sangharama is the _sanctum sanctorum_ of an ascetic, a cave or any place he chooses for his meditation. 695 Amitâbha Buddha is in this connection the “boundless light” by which things of the subjective world are perceived. 696 Esoterically, “the unsurpassingly merciful and enlightened heart,” said of the “Perfect Ones,” the Jîvan‐muktas, collectively. 697 These six worlds—seven with us—are the worlds of Nats or Spirits, with the Burmese Buddhists, and the seven higher worlds of the Vedântins. 698 Two things entirely distinct from each other. The “faculty is not distinguished from the subject” only on this material plane, while thought generated by our physical brain, one that has never impressed itself at the same time on the spiritual counterpart, whether through the atrophy of the latter or the intrinsic weakness of that thought, can never survive our body; this much is sure. 699 _Vedânta Sâra_, translated by Major Jacob, p. 123. 700 Aditi is, according to the _Rig Veda_, “the Father and Mother of all the Gods”; and Âkâsha is held by Southern Buddhism as the Root of all, whence everything in the Universe came out, in obedience to a law of motion inherent in it; and this is the Tibetan “Space” (Tho‐ og). 701 _Mânava‐Dharma‐Shâstra_, i. 6, 7. 702 The “God” of Pythagoras, the disciple of the Âryan Sages, is no personal God. Let it be remembered that he taught as a cardinal tenet that there exists a permanent Principle of Unity beneath all forms, changes, and other phenomena of the Universe. 703 _Isis Unveiled_, i. xvi. 704 _Isis Unveiled_, i. xviii. 705 _Isis Unveiled_ i. 58. 706 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 59. 707 While they are to a great extent identical with those of Esoteric Buddhism, the Secret Doctrine of the East. 708 _Parerga_, II. iii. 112; quoted in _Isis Unveiled_, i. 58. 709 _Five Years of Theosophy_, p. 338, _et seq._ 710 Prof. Max Müller, in a letter to _The Times_ (April, 1857), maintained most vehemently that Nirvâna meant _annihilation_ in the fullest sense of the word. (_Chips from a German Workshop_, i. 287.) But in 1869, in a lecture before the General Meeting of the Association of German Philologists at Kiel, “he distinctly declares his belief that the Nihilism attributed to Buddha’s teaching forms no part of his doctrine, and that it is wholly wrong to suppose that Nirvâna means annihilation.” (Trubner’s _Amer. and Oriental Lit. Rec._, Oct. 16th, 1869.) 711 See the _Kalama Sutta_ of the _Anguttaranikayo_, as quoted in _A Buddhist Catechism_, by H. S. Olcott, President of the Theosophical Society, pp. 55, 56. 712 _Œdipus Ægypt._, II. i. 291. 713 Sephir, or Aditi (mystic Space). The Sephiroth, be it understood, are identical with the Hindu Prajâpatis, the Dhyân Chohans of Esoteric Buddhism, the Zoroastrian Amshaspends, and finally with the Elohim—the “Seven Angels of the Presence” of the Roman Catholic Church. 714 According to the Eastern idea, the All comes out from the One, and returns to it again. Absolute annihilation is simply unthinkable. Nor can eternal Matter be annihilated. Form may be annihilated: co‐ relations may change. That is all. There can be no such thing as annihilation—in the European sense—in the Universe. 715 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 289. 716 The Secret Law, the “Doctrine of the Heart,” so called in contrast to the “Doctrine of the Eye,” or exoteric Buddhism. 717 “Illusive matter in its triple manifestation in the earthly, and the astral or fontal Soul (the body), and the Platonian dual Soul—the rational and the irrational one.” 718 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 289. 719 _Isis Unveiled_, i. 290. 720 It is from the texts of all these works that the Secret Doctrine has been given. The original matter would not make a small pamphlet, but the explanations and notes from the Commentaries and Glossaries might be worked into ten volumes as large as _Isis Unveiled_. 721 The monk Della Penna makes considerable fun in his _Memoirs_ (see Markham’s _Tibet_) of certain statements in the Books of Kiu‐te. He brings to the notice of the Christian public “the great mountain 160,000 leagues high” (a Tibetan league consisting of five miles) in the Himâlayan Range. “According to their law,” he says, “in the west of this world is an eternal world ... a paradise, and in it a Saint called Hopahma, which means ‘Saint of Splendour and Infinite Light.’ This Saint has many disciples who are all Chang‐chub,” which means, he adds in a footnote, “the Spirits of those who, on account of their perfection, do not care to become saints, and train and instruct the bodies of the reborn Lamas ... so that they may help the living.” Which means that the presumably “dead” Yang‐Chhub (not “Chang‐chub”) are simply living Bodhisattvas, some of those known as Bhante (“the Brothers”). As to the “mountain 160,000 leagues high,” the _Commentary_ which gives the key to such statements explains that according to the code used by the writers, “to the west of the ‘Snowy Mountain’ 160 leagues [the cyphers being a blind] from a certain spot and by a direct road, is the Bhante Yul [the country or ‘Seat of the Brothers’], the residence of Mahâ‐Chohan ...” etc. This is the real meaning. The “Hopahma” of Della Penna is—the Mahâ‐Chohan, the Chief. 722 In some MSS. notes before us, written by Gelung (priest) Thango‐pa Chhe‐go‐mo, it is said: “The few Roman Catholic missionaries who have visited our land (under protest) in the last century and have repaid our hospitality by turning our sacred literature into ridicule, have shown little discretion and still less knowledge. It is true that the Sacred Canon of the Tibetans, the _Kahgyur_ and _Bstanhgyur_, comprises 1707 distinct works—1083 public and 624 secret volumes, the former being composed of 350 and the latter of 77 volumes folio. May we humbly invite the good missionaries, however, to tell us when they ever succeeded in getting a glimpse of the last‐named secret folios? Had they even by chance seen them I can assure the Western Pandits that these manuscripts and folios could never be understood even by a born Tibetan without a key (_a_) to their peculiar characters, and (_b_) to their hidden meaning. In our system every description of locality is figurative, every name and word purposely veiled; and one has first to study the mode of deciphering and then to learn the equivalent secret terms and symbols for nearly every word of the religious language. The Egyptian enchorial or hieratic system is child’s play to our sacerdotal puzzles.” 723 _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 171. 724 “Buddhi” is a Sanskrit term for “discrimination” or intellect (the sixth principle), and “Buddha” is “wise,” “wisdom,” and also the planet Mercury. 725 This curious contradiction may be found in _Chinese Buddhism_, pp. 171, 273. The reverend author assures his readers that “to the philosophic Buddhists ... Amitâbha Yoshi Fo, and the others are nothing but the signs of ideas” (p. 236). Very true. But so should be all other deific names, such as Jehovah, Allah, etc., and if they are not simply “signs of ideas” this would only show that minds that receive them otherwise are not “philosophic”; it would not at all afford serious proof that there are personal, living Gods of these names in reality. 726 The Chinese Amitâbha (Wu‐liang‐sheu) and the Tibetan Amitâbha (Odpag‐med) have now become personal Gods, ruling over and living in the celestial region of Sukhâvatî, or Tushita (Tibetan: Devachan); while Âdi‐Buddhi, of the philosophic Hindu, and Amita Buddha of the philosophic Chinaman and Tibetan, are names for universal, primeval ideas. 727 See _Theosophist_ for March, 1882. 728 The intimate relation of the twenty‐five Buddhas (Bodhisattvas) with the twenty‐five Tattvas (the Conditioned or Limited) of the Hindus is interesting. 729 It is curious to note the great importance given by European Orientalists to the Dalaï Lamas of Lhassa, and their utter ignorance as to the Tda‐shu (or Teshu) Lamas, while it is the latter who began the hierarchical series of Buddha‐incarnations, and are _de facto_ the “popes” in Tibet; the Dalaï Lamas are the creations of Nabang‐ lob‐Sang, the Tda‐shu Lama, who was Himself the sixth incarnation of Amita, through Tsong Kha‐pa, though very few seem to be aware of that fact. 730 The chanting of a Mantra is not a prayer, but rather a magical sentence in which the law of Occult causation connects itself with, and depends on, the will and acts of its singer. It is a succession of Sanskrit sounds, and when its string of words and sentences is pronounced according to the magical formulæ in the _Atharva Veda_, but understood by the few, some Mantras produce an instantaneous and very wonderful effect. In its esoteric sense it contains the Vâch (the “mystic speech”), which resides in the Mantra, or rather in its sounds, since it is according to the vibrations, one way or the other, of ether that the effect is produced. The “sweet singers” were called by that name because they were experts in Mantras. Hence the legend in China that the singing and melody of the Lohans are heard at dawn by the priests from their cells in the monastery of Fang‐Kwang. (See _Biography of Chi‐Kai_ in Tien‐tai‐nan‐tchi.) 731 The celebrated Lohan, Mâdhyantika, who converted the king and whole country of Kashmir to Buddhism, sent a body of Lohans to preach the Good Law. He was the sculptor who raised to Buddha the famous statue one hundred feet high, which Hiuen‐Tsaung saw at Dardu, to the north of the Punjab. As the same Chinese traveller mentions a temple ten Li from Peshawur—350 feet round and 850 feet high—which was at his time (A.D. 550) already 850 years old, Koeppen thinks that so far back as 292 B.C. Buddhism was the prevalent religion in the Punjab. 732 A title of the Tda‐shu‐Hlum‐po Lama. 733 The twelve Nidâwas, called in Tibetan Tin‐brel Chug‐nyi, which are based upon the “Four Truths.” 734 The Srotâpatti is one who has attained the _first_ Path of comprehension in the real and the unreal; the Sakridâgâmin is the candidate for one of the higher Initiations: “one who is to receive birth once more;” the Anâgâmin is he who has attained the “third Path,” or literally, “he who will not be reborn again” _unless he so wishes it_, having the option of being reborn in any of the “worlds of the Gods,” or of remaining in Devachan, or of choosing an earthly body with a philanthropic object. An Arhat is one who has reached the highest Path; he may merge into Nirvâna at will, while here on earth. 735 [The Pratyeka Buddha stands on the level of the Buddha, but His work for the world has nothing to do with its teaching, and His office has always been surrounded with mystery. The preposterous view that He, at such superhuman height of power, wisdom and love could be selfish, is found in the exoteric books, though it is hard to see how it can have arisen. H. P. B. charged me to correct the mistake, as she had, in a careless moment, copied such a statement elsewhere.—A. B.] 736 It is an erroneous idea which makes the Orientalists take literally the teaching of the Mahâyâna School about the three different kinds of bodies, namely, the Prulpa‐ku, the Longehod‐drocpaig‐ku, and the Chos‐ku, as all pertaining to the Nirvânic condition. There are two kinds of Nirvâna: the earthly, and that of the purely disembodied Spirits. These three “bodies” are the three envelopes—all more or less physical—which are at the disposal of the Adept who has entered and crossed the six Pâramitâs, or “Paths” of Buddha. Once He enters upon the seventh, He can return no more to earth. See Cosma, _Jour. As. Soc. Beng._, vii. 142; and Schott, _Buddhismus_, p. 9, who give it otherwise. 737 _Vedânta Sâra_, translated by Major Jacob, p. 119. 738 _Ibid._, p. 122. 739 _Der Buddhismus_, pp. 327, 357, _et seq._, quoted by Schlagintweit. 740 _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 41. 741 _Jour. of As. Soc. Bengal_, vii. 144, quoted as above. 742 _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 44. 743 They maintain also the existence of One Absolute pure Nature, Parabrahman; the illusion of everything outside of it; the leading of the individual Soul—a Ray of the “Universal”—into the true nature of existence and things by Yoga alone. 744 Nirmânakâya (also Nirvânakâya, vulg.) is the body or Self “with remains,” or the influence of terrestrial attributes, however spiritualized, clinging yet to that Self. An Initiate in Dharmakâya, or in Nirvâna “without remains,” is the Jivanmukta, the Perfect Initiate, who separates his Higher Self entirely from his body during Samâdhi. [It will be noticed that these two words are here used in a sense other than that previously given.—A. B.] 745 The “Sacred” Books of Dus‐Kyi Khorlo (“Time Circle”). See _Jour. As. Soc._, ii. 57. These works were abandoned to the Sikkhim Dugpas, from the time of Tsong‐Kha‐pa’s reform. 746 _Glossary of Judicial and Revenue Terms_, art. “Yoga,” quoted in _Buddhism in Tibet_, p. 47. 747 _Buddhism in Tibet_, pp. 47, 48. 748 _Buddhism in Tibet_, pp. 63, 64. The objects found in the casket, as enumerated in the exoteric legend, are of course symbolical. They may be found mentioned in the _Kanjur_. They were said to be: (1) two hands joined; (2) a miniature Choten (Stûpa, or reliquary); (3) a talisman with “Om mani padme hum” inscribed on it; (4) a religious book, _Zamatog_ (“a constructed vehicle”). 749 _Alterthumskunde_, ii. 1072. 750 _Op. cit._, ii. 470. 751 Unless one obtains exact information and the right method, one’s visions, however correct and true in Soul‐life, will ever fail to get photographed in our human memory, and certain cells of the brain are sure to play havoc with our remembrances. 752 _Chinese Buddhism_, p. 158. The Rev. Joseph Edkins either ignores, or—which is more probable—is utterly ignorant of the real existence of such Schools, and judges by the Chinese travesties of these, calling such Esotericism “heterodox Buddhism.” And so it is, in one sense. 753 That country—India—has lost the records of such Schools and their teachings only so far as the general public, and especially the inappreciative Western Orientalists, are concerned. It has preserved them in full in some Mathams (refuges for mystic contemplation). But it may perhaps be better to seek them with, and from, their rightful owners, the so‐called “mythical” Adepts, or Mahâtmâs. 754 _Chinese Buddhism_, pp. 155‐159. 755 They certainly reject most emphatically the popular theory of the transmigration of human entities or Souls _into_ animals, but not the evolution of men _from_ animals—so far, at least, as their lower principles are concerned. 756 It is quite consistent, on the contrary, when explained in the light of the Esoteric Doctrine. The “Western paradise,” or Western heaven, is no fiction located in transcendental space. It is a _bonâ‐fide_ locality in the mountains, or, to be more correct, one encircled in a desert within mountains. Hence it is assigned for the residence of those students of Esoteric Wisdom—disciples of Buddha—who have attained the rank of Lohans and Anâgâmins (Adepts). It is called “Western” simply from geographical considerations; and “the great iron mountain girdle” that surrounds the Avitchi, and the seven Lokas that encircle the “Western paradise” are a very exact representation of well‐known localities and things to the Eastern student of Occultism. 757 The word is translated by the Orientalists as “true man without a position,” (?) which is very misleading. It simply means the true inner man, or Ego, “Buddha _within_ Buddha” meaning that there was a Gautama _inwardly_ as well as _outwardly_. 758 One of the titles of Gautama Buddha in Tibet. 759 The “Esoteric” Schools, or sects, of which there are many in China. 760 A school of contemplation founded by Hiuen‐Tsang, the traveller, nearly extinct. Fa‐siong‐Tsung means “the School that unveils the inner nature of things.” 761 Esoteric, or hidden, teaching of Yoga (Chinese: Yogi‐mi‐kean). 762 The “tonsure knife” is made of _meteoric_ iron, and is used for the purpose of cutting off the “vow‐lock,” or hair from the novice’s head during his first ordination. It has a double‐edged blade, is sharp as a razor, and lies concealed within a hollow handle of horn. By touching a spring the blade jerks out like a flash of lightning, and recedes back with the same rapidity. A great dexterity is required in using it without wounding the head of the young Gelung and Gelung‐ma (candidates to become priests and nuns) during the preliminary rites, which are public. 763 Chagpa‐Thog‐mad is the Tibetan name of Âryâsanga, the founder of the Yogâchârya or Naljorchodpa School. This Sage and Initiate is said to have been taught “Wisdom” by Maitreya Buddha Himself, the Buddha of the Sixth Race, at Tushita (a celestial region presided over by Him), and as having received from Him the five books of _Champaitehos‐nga_. The Secret Doctrine teaches, however, that he came from Dejung, or Shambhalla, called the “source of happiness” (“wisdom‐acquired”) and declared by some Orientalists to be a “fabulous” place. 764 It may not be, perhaps, amiss to remind the reader of the fact that the “mirror” was a part of the symbolism of the Thesmophoria, a portion of the Eleusinian Mysteries; and that it was used in the search for Atmu, the “Hidden One,” or “Self.” In his excellent paper on the above‐named mysteries, Dr. Alexander Wilder of New York says: “Despite the assertion of Herodotus and others that the Bacchic Mysteries were Egyptian, there exists strong probability that they came originally from India, and were Shaivitic or Buddhistical. Kore‐Persep‐honeia was but the goddess Parasu‐pani, or Bhavani, and Zagreus is from Chakra, a country extending from ocean to ocean. If this is a Turanian story we can easily recognise the ‘horns’ as the crescent worn by Lama‐priests, and assume the whole legend [the fable of Dionysus‐Zagreus] to be based on Lama‐succession and transmigration.... The whole story of Orpheus ... has a Hindu ring all through.” The tale of “Lama‐succession and transmigration” did not originate with the Lamas, who date themselves only so far back as the seventh century, but with the Chaldæans and the Brâhmans, still earlier. 765 The state of absolute freedom from any sin or desire. 766 The state during which an Adept sees the long series of his past births, and lives through all his previous incarnations in this and the other worlds. (See the admirable description in the _Light of Asia_, p. 166, 1884 ed.) 767 See _supra_, ii. 188, 189. 768 Wilson’s translation, as amended by Fitzedward Hall, i. 40. 769 Prâna is in reality the universal Life Principle. 770 All the uterine contents, having a direct spiritual connection with their cosmic antetypes, are, on the physical plane, potent objects in Black Magic, and are therefore considered unclean. 771 See _supra_, ii. Part I. 772 The Solar System or the Earth, as the case may be. 773 So are the animals, the plants, and even the minerals. Reichenbach never understood what he learned through his sensitives and clairvoyants. It _is_ the odic, or rather the auric or magnetic fluid which emanates from man, but it is also something more. 774 See _supra_, i. 181, for the Vedântic exoteric enumeration. 775 See _Lucifer_, January, 1889, “Dialogue upon the Mysteries of After‐ Life.” 776 See _supra_, i, 626‐629. 777 See _supra_, i, 228, _et seq._, and ii. _passim_. 778 _Op. cit._, ii, 456, 461, 465 _et seq._ 779 _Jod‐Hevah_, or male‐female on the terrestrial plane, as invented by the Jews, and now made out to mean Jehovah; but signifying in reality and literally, “giving being” and “receiving life.” 780 See _Notice sur le Calendrier_, J. H. Ragon. 781 See _supra_, ii. 373; and 152, _et seq._ 782 See _supra_, ii. 302, _et seq._ 783 _Op. cit._, ii. 81, 6. 784 See Frank’s _Die Kabbala_, p. 314, _et seq._ 785 _Genesis_, ii. 7. 786 _Supra_, i. 147. 787 We may refer for confirmation to Origen’s works, who says that “the seven ruling daimons” (genii or planetary rulers) are Michael, the Sun (the lion‐like); the second in order, the Bull, Jupiter or Suriel, etc.; and all these, the “Seven of the Presence,” are the Sephiroth. The Sephirothal Tree is the Tree of the Divine Planets as given by Porphyry, or Porphyry’s Tree, as it is usually called. 788 _Supra_, i, 147. 789 Esoterically, green, there being no black in the prismatic ray. 790 Esoterically, light blue. As a pigment, purple is a compound of red and blue, and in Eastern Occultism blue is the spiritual essence of the colour purple, while red is its material basis. In reality, Occultism makes Jupiter blue because he is the son of Saturn, which is green, and light blue as a prismatic colour contains a great deal of green. Again, the Auric Body will contain much of the colour of the Lower Manas if the man is a material sensualist, just as it will contain much of the darker hue if the Higher Manas has preponderance over the Lower. 791 Esoterically, the Sun cannot correspond with the eye, nose, or any other organ, since, as explained, it is no planet, but a central star. It was adopted as a planet by the post‐Christian Astrologers, who had never been initiated. Moreover, the true colour of the Sun is blue, and it appears yellow only owing to the effect of the absorption of vapours (chiefly metallic) by its atmosphere. All is Mâyâ on our Earth. 792 Esoterically, indigo, or dark blue, which is the complement of yellow in the prism. Yellow is a simple or primitive colour. Manas being dual in its nature—as is its sidereal symbol, the planet Venus, which is both the morning and evening star—the difference between the higher and the lower principles of Manas, whose essence is derived from the Hierarchy ruling Venus, is denoted by the dark blue and green. Green, the Lower Manas, resembles the colour of the solar spectrum which appears between the yellow and the dark blue, the Higher Spiritual Manas. Indigo is the intensified colour of the heaven or sky, to denote the upward tendency of Manas toward Buddhi, or the heavenly Spiritual Soul. This colour is obtained from the _indigofera tinctoria_, a plant of the highest occult properties in India, much used in White Magic, and occultly connected with copper. This is shown by the indigo assuming a copper lustre, especially when rubbed on any hard substance. Another property of the dye is that it is insoluble in water and even in ether, being lighter in weight than any known liquid. No symbol has ever been adopted in the East without being based upon a logical and demonstrable reason. Therefore Eastern Symbologists, from the earliest ages, have connected the spiritual and the animal minds of man, the one with dark blue (Newton’s indigo), or true blue, free from green; and the other with pure green. 793 Esoterically, yellow, because the colour of the Sun is orange, and Mercury now stands next to the Sun in distance, as it does in colour. The planet for which the Sun is a substitute was still nearer the Sun than Mercury now is, and was one of the most secret and highest planets. It is said to have become invisible at the close of the Third Race. 794 Esoterically, violet, because, perhaps, violet is the colour assumed by a ray of sunlight when transmitted through a very thin plate of silver, and also because the Moon shines upon the Earth with light borrowed from the Sun, as the human body shines with qualifications borrowed from its double—the aërial man. As the astral shadow starts the series of principles in man, on the terrestrial plane, up to the lower, animal Manas, so the violet ray starts the series of prismatic colours from its end up to green, both being, the one as a principle and the other as a colour, the most refrangible of all the principles and colours. Besides which, there is the same great Occult mystery attached to all these correspondences, both celestial and terrestrial bodies, colours and sounds. In clearer words, there exists the same law of relation between the Moon and the Earth, the astral and the living body of man, as between the violet end of the prismatic spectrum and the indigo and the blue. But of this more anon. 795 Magic, _Magia_, means, in its spiritual, secret sense, the “Great Life,” or divine life _in spirit_. The root is _magh_, as seen in the Sanskrit _mahat_, Zend _maz_, Greek _megas_, and Latin _magnus_, all signifying “great.” 796 _Philosophumena_, vi. 9. 797 _Nous_, _Epinoia_; _Phône_, _Onoma_; _Logismos_, _Enthumêsis_. 798 _Philosophumena_, vi. 12. 799 See _supra_, _sub voce_. 800 _The Great Revelation_ (_Hê Megalê Apophasis_), of which Simon himself is supposed to have been the author. 801 Literally, standing opposite each other in rows or pairs. 802 _Philosophumena_, vi. 18. 803 _Op. cit._, vi. 18. 804 _Op. cit._, i. 13. 805 _Op. cit._, vi. 17. 806 _Op. cit._, i. 5. 807 _Philosophumena_, vi. 14. 808 At first there are the omphalo‐mesenteric vessels, two arteries and two veins, but these afterwards totally disappear, as does the “vascular area” on the Umbilical Vesicle, from which they proceed. As regards the “Umbilical Vessels” proper, the Umbilical Cord ultimately has entwined around it from right to left the one Umbilical Vein which takes the oxygenated blood from the mother to the Fœtus, and two Hypogastric or Umbilical Arteries which take the used‐up blood from the Fœtus to the Placenta, the contents of the vessels being the reverse of that which prevails after birth. Thus Science corroborates the wisdom and knowledge of ancient Occultism, for in the days of Simon Magus no man, unless an Initiate, knew anything about the circulation of the blood or about Physiology. While this Paper was being printed, I received two small pamphlets from Dr. Jerome A. Anderson, which were printed in 1884 and 1888, and in which is to be found the scientific demonstration of the fœtal nutrition as advanced in Paper I. Briefly, the Fœtus is nourished by osmosis from the Amniotic Fluid and respires by means of the Placenta. Science knows little or nothing about the Amniotic Fluid and its uses. If any one cares to follow up this question, I would recommend Dr. Anderson’s _Remarks on the Nutrition of the Fœtus_. (Wood & Co., New York.) 809 _Supra_, vol. ii. 810 See Eusebius, _Hist. Eccles._, lib. iii. cap. 26. 811 _De Mysteriis_, p. 100, lines 10 to 19; p. 109, fol. 1. 812 _De Mysteriis_, p. 290, lines 15 to 18, _et seq._, caps. v. and vii. 813 _Ibid._, p. 100, sec. iii, cap. iii. 814 See _supra_, i. 34; i. 4, _et seq._; ii. 39, _et seq._, and 625, _et seq._ 815 The following table lists the wave‐lengths in Millimetres, and the number of vibrations in Trillions, of the various colours. Violet extreme: 406, 759 Violet: 423, 709 Violet‐Indigo: 439, 683 Indigo: 449, 668 Indigo‐Blue: 459, 654 Blue: 479, 631 Blue‐Green: 492, 610 Green: 512, 586 Green‐Yellow: 532, 564 Yellow: 551, 544 Yellow‐Orange: 571, 525 Orange: 583, 514 Orange‐Red: 596, 503 Red: 620, 484 Red‐extreme: 645, 465 816 See _Five Years of Theosophy_, pp. 273 to 278. 817 _Apud Grêbaut Papyrus Orbiney_, p. 101. 818 See “Genius,” _Lucifer_, Nov., 1889, p. 227. 819 See _Voice of the Silence_, pp. 68 and 94, art. 28, Glossary. 820 The references to “Nature’s Finer Forces” which follow, have respect to the eight articles which appeared in the pages of the _Theosophist_ and not to the fifteen essays and the translation of a chapter of the Shivâgama which are contained in the book called _Nature’s Finer Forces_. The _Shivâgama_ in its details is purely Tântric, and nothing but harm can result from any practical following of its precepts. I would most strongly dissuade any student from attempting any of these Hatha Yoga practices, for he will either ruin himself entirely, or throw himself so far back that it will be almost impossible to regain the lost ground in this incarnation. The translation referred to has been considerably expurgated, and even now is hardly fit for publication. It recommends Black Magic of the worst kind, and is the very antipodes of spiritual Râja Yoga. Beware, I say. 821 Prâna, on earth at any rate, is thus but a mode of life, a constant cyclic motion from within outwardly and back again, an out‐breathing and in‐breathing of the ONE LIFE, or Jîva, the synonym of the Absolute and Unknowable Deity. Prâna is not absolute life, or Jîva, but its aspect in a world of delusion. In the _Theosophist_, May, 1888, p. 478, Prâna is said to be “one stage finer than the gross matter of the earth.” 822 Remember that our re‐incarnating Egos are called the Mânasaputras, “Sons of Manas” (or Mahat), Intelligence, Wisdom. 823 It is erroneous to call the fourth human principle “Kâma Rûpa.” It is no Rûpa or form at all until after death, but stands for the Kâmic elements in man, his animal desires and passions, such as anger, lust, envy, revenge, etc., the progeny of selfishness and matter. 824 Here the world of effects is the Devachanic state, and the world of causes, earth life. 825 It is this Kâma Rûpa alone that can _materialize_ in mediumistic séances, which occasionally happens when it is not the Astral Double or Linga Sharîra, of the medium himself which appears. How, then, can this vile bundle of passions and terrestrial lusts, resurrected by, and gaining consciousness only through the organism of the medium, be accepted as a “departed angel” or the Spirit of a once human body? As well say of the microbic pest which fastens on a person, that it is a sweet departed angel. 826 This is accomplished in more or less time, according to the degree in which the personality (whose dregs it now is) was spiritual or material. If spirituality prevailed, then the Larva, or Spook, will fade out very soon; but if the personality was very materialistic, the Kâma Rûpa may last for centuries and—in some, though very exceptional cases—even survive with the help of some of its scattered Skandhas, which are all transformed in time into Elementals. See the _Key to Theosophy_, pp. 141 _et seq._, in which work it was impossible to go into details, but where the Skandhas are spoken of as the germs of Karmic effect. 827 _Key to Theosophy_, p. 141 828 Following _Shivâgama_, the said author enumerates the correspondences in this wise; Âkâsha, Ether, is followed by Vâyu, Gas; Tejas, Heat; Âpas, Liquid; and Prithivî, Solid. 829 See Fitz‐Edward Hall’s notes on the _Vishnu Purâna_. 830 The pair which we refer to as the One Life, the Root of All, and Âkâsha in its pre‐differentiating period answers to the Brahma (neuter) and Aditi of some Hindus, and stands in the same relation as the Parabrahman and Mûlaprakriti of the Vedântins. 831 See above, i. diagram, p. 221. 832 Anupâdaka, Opapatika in Pâli, means the “parentless,” born without father or mother, from _itself_, as a transformation, _e.g._, the God Brahmâ sprung from the Lotus (the symbol of the Universe) that grows from Vishnu’s navel, Vishnu typifiying eternal and limitless Space, and Brahmâ the Universe and LOGOS; the mythical Buddha is also born from a Lotus. 833 See _Theosophist_, February, 1888, p. 276. 834 Sœmmerring, _De Acervulo Cerebri_, vol. ii. p. 322. 835 In the Greek Eastern Church no child is allowed to go to confession before the age of seven, after which he is considered to have reached the age of reason. 836 _De Caus. Ep._, vol xii. 837 _Advers. Med._, ii. 322. 838 _De Lapillis Glandulæ Pinealis in Quinque Ment Alien_, 1753. 839 See “Stray Thoughts on Death and Satan” in the _Theosophist_, vol. iii. No. 1; also “Fragments of Occult Truth,” vols. iii. and iv. 840 _Op. cit._, ii. 368, _et seq._ 841 The essence of the Divine Ego is “pure flame,” an entity to which nothing can be added and from which nothing can be taken; it cannot, therefore, be diminished even by countless numbers of lower minds, detached from it like flames from a flame. This is in answer to an objection by an Esotericist who asked whence was that inexhaustible essence of one and the same Individuality which was called upon to furnish a human intellect for every new personality in which it is incarnated. 842 The brain, or thinking machinery, is not only in the head, but, as every physiologist who is not quite a materialist will tell you, every organ in man, heart, liver, lungs, etc., down to every nerve and muscle, has, so to speak, its own distinct brain or thinking apparatus. As our brain has naught to do in the guidance of the collective and individual work of every organ in us, what is that which guides each so unerringly in its incessant functions; that make these struggle, and that too with disease, throws it off and acts, each of them, even to the smallest, not in a clock‐work manner, as alleged by some materialists (for, at the slightest disturbance or breakage the clock stops), but as an entity endowed with instinct? To say it is Nature is to say nothing, if it is not the enunciation of a fallacy; for Nature after all is but a name for these very same functions, the sum of the qualities and attributes, physical, mental, etc., in the universe and man, the total of agencies and forces guided by intelligent laws. 843 See _Key to Theosophy_, pp. 147, 148, _et seq._ 844 Kâma Rûpa, the vehicle of the Lower Manas, is said to dwell in the physical brain, in the five physical senses and in all the sense‐ organs of the physical body. 845 Tanmâtra means subtle and rudimentary form, the gross type of the finer elements. The five Tanmâtras are really the characteristic properties or qualities of matter and of all the elements; the real spirit of the word is “something” or “merely transcendental,” in the sense of properties or qualities. 846 See _Theosophist_, August, 1883, “The Real and the Unreal.” 847 As the author of _Esoteric Buddhism_ and the _Occult World_ called Manas the Human Soul, and Buddhi the Spiritual Soul, I have left these terms unchanged in the _Voice_, seeing that it was a book intended for the public. 848 In the exoteric teachings of Râja Yoga, Antahkarana is called the inner organ of perception and is divided into four parts: the (lower) Manas, Buddhi (reason), Ahankâra (personality), and Chitta (thinking faculty). It also, together with several other organs, forms a part of Jîva, Soul called also Lingadeh. Esotericists, however, must not be misled by this popular version. 849 The Earth, or earth‐life rather, is the only Avîtchi (Hell) that exists for the men of our humanity on this globe. Avîtchi is a state, not a locality, a counterpart of Devachan. Such a state follows the Soul wherever it goes, whether into Kâma Loka, as a semi‐conscious Spook, or into a human body, when reborn to suffer Avîtchi. Our Philosophy recognizes no other Hell. 850 See _Voice of the Silence_, p. 97. 851 _Loc. cit._ 852 Read the last footnote on p. 368, vol. ii. of _Isis Unveiled_, and you will see that even profane Egyptologists and men who, like Bunsen, were ignorant of Initiation, were struck by their own discoveries when they found the “Word” mentioned in old papyri. 853 See _Theosophist_, vol. iii., October, 1882, p. 13. 854 Read pp. 40 and 63 in the _Voice of the Silence_. 855 See _Voice of the Silence_, p. viii. 856 The following notes were contributed by students and approved by H. P. B. 857 See page 444. 858 All these “spaces” denote the special magnetic currents, the planes of substance, and the degrees of approach that the consciousness of the Yogî, or Chelâ, performs towards assimilation with the inhabitants of the Lokas. 859 [If the Nidânas are read the reverse way, _i.e._, from 12 to 1, they give the evolutionary order.—ED.] 860 [_I.e._, an Initiate, the word Adept being used by H. P. B. to cover all grades of Initiation. As above seen, she used the words Mâyâvi Rûpa in more than one sense.—ED.]