Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales
Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24 1DL
Searchable Full Text of The
Secret Doctrine Volume 3
The
Secret Doctrine
Volume
3
Compilation
of H P Blavatskys writings
Published
after her death
The
Secret Doctrine by H P Blavatsky
The Secret Doctrine,Volume 3
by H.P.Blavatsky
Published
in the late 1800's
As
for what thou hearest others say who persuade the many that the soul when once
freed from the
body
neither suffers....evil nor is conscious,I know that thou art better grounded
in the doctrines
received
by us from our ancestors and in the sacred orgies of Dionysus than to believe
them;for the
mystic
symbols are well known to us who belong to the Brotherhood.
Plutarch
The
problem of life is man.Magic,or rather Wisdom is the evolved knowledge of the
potencies of man's
interior
being which forces are divine emanations,as intuition is the perception of
their origin and
initiation
our induction into that knowledge ...We begin with instinct;the end is
omniscience.
A.Wilder
Page
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The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------
TABLE OF CONTENTS Sect.Page
INTRODUCTORY 1
One Key to all Sacred Books 3
Assumptions Have to be Proven 5
The Spirit of Plato's Teaching 7
Self-Contradiction of the Critic 9
The Character of Ammonius Saccas 11
Plato a Follower of Pythagoras 13
Preliminary Survey 1 14
The Protectors of
The A.B.C.Of Magic 1 17
Magic As Old As Man 1 19
The Tree of Knowledge 1 21
Occultism Must Win the Day 1 23
Black Magic at Work 1 25
Black Magic and Hypnotism 1 27
The Philosophy Stands on Its Own Merits 1 29
Modern Criticism and the Ancients 2 30
All Honour to Genuine Scientists 2 31
What is a Myth?2 33
Chaldean Oracles 2 35
The Origin of Magic 3 36
The Books of Hermes 3 37
What is the Origin of Magic?3 39
Pherecydes of Syros 3 41
Cain Mathematical and Anthropomorphic 3 43
The Secrecy of Initiates 4 44
Exoteric and Esoteric Teachings 4 45
Origen on Genesis 4 47
The Dark Sayings of the Testaments 4 49
The Greatest Crime Ever Perpetrated 4 51
Asiatic Religions Proclaim Their Esoterism Openly 4 53
The Wisdom-Religion 4 55
Some Reasons for Secrecy 5 56
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Con't Sect.Page
The Key of Practical Theurgy 5 57
The Ladder of Being 5 59
Three Ways Open to the Adept 5 61
Man is God 5 63
Jesus Taught Reincarnation 5 65
The Dangers of Practical Magic 6 67
Names are Symbols 6 69
The Three Mothers 6 71
The Bible and Word 6 73
Moses and the Jews 6 75
Old Wine in New Bottles 7 76
Copies That Ante-Dated Originals 7 77
Which Were the Thieves?7 79
Character of the Bible 7 81
The Book of Enoch The Origin and the Foundation of
Christianity 8 82
The Book of Enoch and Christianity 8 83
Enoch Records The Races 8 85
The Book of Enoch Symbolical 8 87
Occultists Do Not Reject the Bible 8 89
Hermetic and Kabalistic Doctrines 9 91
The Kabalah and The Book of Enoch 9 93
Numbers and Measures 9 95
The Doctrine Belongs to All 9 97
Various Occult Systems of Interpretations -of Alphabets and
Numerals 10 98
Numbers and Magic 10 99
Gods and Numbers 10 101
The Universal Language 10 103
The Hexagon with the Central Point,or The Seventh Key 11
105
Occult Weapons 11 107
The Duty of the True Occultist Toward Religions 12 109
Christian and Non-Christian Adepts 12 111
Post-Christian Adepts and Their Doctrines 13 112
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The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
TABLE OF CONTENTS Con't Sect.Page
Unfair Criticism 13 113
The Two Eternal Principles 13 115
Simon and His Biographer Hippolytus 14 117
Uneven Balances 14 119
Stones as Evidences.14 121
St.Paul the Real Founder of Present Christianity 15 122
Abrogation of Law by Initiates 15 123
Paul Changed to Simon 15 125
Peter a Jewish Kabalist,Not an Initiate 16 126
The Seat of Peter 16 127
Appollonius of Tyana 17 129
The Mysterious Teacher 17 131
Apollonius Cannot Be Destroyed 17 133
De Mirville on Apollonius 17 135
Apollonius No Fiction 17 137
Facts Underlying Adept Biographies 18 138
Jesus and Apollonius 18 139
Biographies of Initiates 18 141
Similarity of Legends 18 143
Nature of Christ 18 145
A Serious Mistranslation 18 147
Secret Doctrine of Jesus 18 149
The Cross and Crucifix 18 151
The Story of Jesus 18 153
The Primitive Woman 18 155
Kabalistic Reading of Gospels 18 157
Universal Teachings 18 159
St.Cyprian of
Magic in
Sorcerer Become Saint 19 163
The Eastern Gupta Vidya &The Kabalah 20 164
A Mystery Within a Mystery 20 165
Authorship of the Zohar 20 167
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The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
TABLE OF CONTENTS Con't Sect.Page
Chaldaic and Hebrew 20 169
The First Men 20 171
Many Events Not Historical 20 173
The Real Hebrew Characters Lost 20 175
Hebrew Esotericism Not Primitive 20 177
The Concealed of all the Concealed 20 179
Three-in-one and Four 20 181
The Septenary Sephira 20 183
The Blind Leading the Blind 20 185
Hebrew Allegories 21 186
The Hebrew Bible does not Exist 21 187
Some Hebrews Were Initiates 21 189
The Seven Creative Gods 21 191
Seven Keys to all Allegories 21 193
Gerald Massey on the Seven Creators 21 195
The Father and Mother 21 197
The Zohar on Creation and the Elohim 22 199
Angels as Builders 22 201
Who are the Elohim?22 203
Monad Duad and Triad 22 205
The Creative Gods 22 207
God the Host 22 209
What the Occultists and Kabalists Have to Say 23 211
The Mystery of the Sun 23 213
Modern Kabalists in Science and Occult Astronomy 24 215
The Place of Neptune 24 217
Self-Generation Ex-Niholo?24 219
Are There Angels in Stars?24 221
Eastern and Western Occultism 25 222
Primordial Matter 25 223
The Great Deep 25 225
The Chaos of Genesis 25 227
The Bible of Humanity 25 229
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The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Con't Sect.Page
Chaos is Theos or Kosmos 25 231
One Hundred and Eight 25 233
The Idols and the Teraphim 26 234
Divining By Teraphim 26 235
Jehovah and Teraphim 26 237
Idol of the Moon 26 239
Egyptian Magic 27 241
Evidence of Papyri 27 243
Symbols and Their Reading 27 245
Rebirth and Transmigration 27 247
The Egyptian Khous 27 249
Obsession in Egypt 27 251
Two Rituals of Magic 27 253
Magical Statues 27 255
Romances -But True 27 257
The Origin of the Mysteries 28 258
An Instant in Heaven 28 259
Growth of Popular Beliefs 28 261
A True Priesthood 28 263
The Egyptian Priests 28 265
Revealing and Reveiling 28 267
Atlanteans Degenerating 28 269
The Trial of the Sun Initiate 29 270
Vishvakarma and Vikarttana 29 271
The Transmission of Light 29 273
Masonry and the Jesuits 29 275
The Mystery Sun of Initiation 30 277
The Sun as God 30 279
The Objects of the Mysteries 31 281
Mysteries and Theophany 31 283
The Mysteries and Masonry 31 285
Traces of the Mysteries 32 287
Christos and Chrestos 32 289
The Symbolism of Narada 32 291
Page
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The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
TABLE OF CONTENTS Con't Sect.Page
Egyptian Initiation 32 293
The Self-Sacrificing Victim 32 295
Orpheus 32 297
The Last of the Mysteries in Europe 33 298
Alesia and Bibractis 33 299
The Learning of Egypt 33 301
The Post-Christian Successors to the Mysteries 34 303
The Root Races 34 305
The False Gnosis 34 307
Teachers of Ammonius 34 309
Difficulties and Dangers 34 311
The Neo-Platonic School 34 313
Symbolism of Sun and Stars 35 315
The Circle Dance 35 317
Christian Astrolatry 35 319
Michael the Conqueror 35 321
The Christian Sun-God 35 323
Pagan Sidereal Worship or Astrology 36 325
The Planetary Angels 36 327
Celestial Wheels 36 329
The Promethean Mystery 36 331
The Souls of the Stars Universal Heliolatry 37 332
Christian Star-Worship 37 333
A Singular Confession 37 335
Astrology and Astrolatry 38 337
The Defence of Astrology 38 339
Its Later Deterioration 38 341
Its Prominent Disciples 38 343
Cycles of Avatāras 39 345
An Unfulfilled Prophecy 39 347
Secret Cycles 39 349
Secret Cycles 40 350
The Naros 40 351
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The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
TABLE OF CONTENTS Con't Sect.Page
Age of the Vedas 40 353
Testimony of the Song Celestial 40 355
Mackey's Arguments 40 357
The Doctrine of Avatāras 41 361
All Avatāras Identical 41 363
Voluntary Incarnation 41 365
Cardinal De Cusa 41 367
The Seven Rays 41 369
Special Cases 41 371
The Higher Astral 41 373
The Seven Principles 42 374
The Mystery of Buddha 43 376
Shankarāchārya 43 377
The Buddha Cannot Reincarnate 43 379
A Fuller Explanation 43 381
Sacrifice 43 383
Shankarāchārya Still Living 43 385
Reincarnations of Buddha 44 386
Vajradhara 44 387
Living Buddhas 44 389
An Obscure Passage 44 391
An Unpublished Discourse of Buddha 45 393
A Mistaken View 45 395
Nirvana-Moksha 46 396
The Ćkāsha 46 397
Matter is Ever Giving 46 399
Blind Faith Not Expected 46 401
What Annihilation Means 46 403
The Secret Books of Lam-Rin and Dzyan 47 405
Amita Buddha Kwan-Shai-Yin and Kwan-Yin What the
Book of Dzyan and the Lamaseries of Tsong-Kha-Pa Say 48
407
Tsong-Kha-Pa Lohans in China 49 409
The Lost Word 49 411
Page
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The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
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TABLE OF CONTENTS Con't Sect.Page
Tibetan Prophecies 49 413
A Few More Misconceptions Corrected 50 414
Misrepresentations of Buddhism 50 415
A Mysterious Land 50 417
Absurd Conclusions 50 419
Materialistic Orientalists 50 421
Introduction of Buddhism into Tibet 50 423
The 'Doctrine of the Eye'and The 'Doctrine of the Heart'or
the
'Heart's Seal'51 424
Swedenborg Claims 51 425
The God 'Who'51 427
More Misrepresentations 51 429
Āryāsanga 51 431
Note 52 434
A Warning 52 435
The Jewel of the Lotus 52 437
The Pythagorean Tetrad 52 439
Seven Correspondential Contents 52 441
Correspondence Between Races and Man 52 443
Man and The Logos 52 445
Cosmic Spiritual and Physical Centres 52 447
Woman and Alchemy 52 449
Sound and Colour 52 451
The Days of the Week 52 453
An Explanation 52 455
Astrology and Lunar Weeks 52 457
Seeing Sounds and Hearing Colours 52 459
Planetary and Human Bodies 52 461
Planets and Faculties 52 463
Simon Magnus the Magician 52 465
Series of Ęons 52 467
The Triple Ęon 52 469
Magic and Miracles 52 471
Magic a Divine Science 52 473
Page
9.
The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
TABLE OF CONTENTS Con't Sect.Page
The Seven Hierarchies 52 475
Origins 52 477
Colours and Principles 52 479
The Primordial Seven 52 481
The Hierarchies and Man 52 483
Wisdom and Truth 52 485
Occult Secrecy 52 487
The Light and Dark Sides of Nature 52 489
Nature's Finer Forces 52 491
The Seven Principles 52 493
The Auric Egg 52 495
Five or Seven Tattvas 52 497
The Tattvas 52 499
Esoteric and Tāntra Tables of the Tattvas 52 501
Hatha and Rāja Yoga 52 503
The Awakening of the Seventh Sense 52 505
The Master Chakras 52 507
The Human Harp 52 509
The Duality in Manas 52 511
The Living and the Dead 52 513
Gaining Immortality 52 515
Light and Life 52 517
The Two Egos 52 519
Death of the Soul 52 521
Reincarnation of Lower Soul 52 523
The Dweller on the Threshold 52 525
The Word 52 527
The Divine Witness 52 529
Appendix 52 530
A Mantra Operative 52 531
Colour and Spiritual Sound 52 533
Musical Table 52 535
Notes on Some Oral Teachings 52 537
The Dweller on the Threshold 52 539
Page
10.
The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
TABLE OF CONTENTS Con't Sect.Page
Fear and Hatred 52 541
Triangle and Quaternary 52 543
Prāna and Antahkarana 52 545
Sacred Centres of Body 52 547
Ćkāsha Nature's Sounding-Board 52 549
Kosmic Consciousness 52 551
Divisions of the Astral Plane 52 553
Kosmic Planes 52 555
Differentiation 52 557
Men and Pitris 52 559
Power of Imagination 52 561
Why Cycles Return 52 563
Talas and Lokas 52 565
States of Consciousness 52 567
Man and Lokas 52 569
Yogīs in Svarloka 52 571
Consciousness and Self-Consciousness 52 573
Scales of Consciousness 52 575
Vibrations and Impressions 52 577
The Crucifixion of the Christos 52 579
Rising Above the Brain 52 581
Christ and Apollonius 52 583
The Beginnings 52 585
Karmic Effects 52 587
Fire is Kriyāshakti 52 589
Responsibility and the Ego 52 591
Functions of the Astral Body 52 593
Page
11.
The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
PREFACE
The
task of preparing this volume for the press has been a difficult and anxious
one and it is necessary
to
state clearly what has been done.The papers given to me by H.P.B.were quite
unarranged and had
no
obvious order;I have therefore taken each paper as a separate Section and have
arranged them as
sequentially
as possible.With the exception of the correction of grammatical errors and the
elimination of
obviously
un-English idioms,the papers are as H.P.B.left them save as otherwise marked.In
a few
cases
I have filled in a gap but any such addition is enclosed within square
brackets,so as to be
distinguished
from the text.In "The Mystery of Buddha"a further difficulty
arose;some of the Sections
had
been written four or five times over each version containing some sentences
that were not in the
others;I
have pieced these versions together taking the fullest as basis,and inserting
therein everything
added
in any other versions.It is,however with some hesitation that I have included
these Sections in
the
Secret Doctrine .Together with some most suggestive thought they contain
very numerous errors of
fact
and many statements based on exoteric writings,not on esoteric knowledge.They
were given into
my
hands to publish as part of the Third Volume of the Secret Doctrine,and
I therefore do not feel
justified
in coming between the author and the public,either by altering the
statements,to make them
consistent
with fact or by suppressing the Sections.She says she is acting entirely on her
own authority
and
it will be obvious to any instructed reader that she makes -possibly
deliberately -many statements
so
confused that they are mere blinds,and other statements -probably inadvertently
-that are nothing
more
than the exoteric misunderstandings of esoteric truths.The reader must here as
everywhere use
his
own judgment but feeling bound to publish these Sections,I cannot let them go
to the public without
a
warning that much in them is certainly erroneous.Doubtless,had the author
herself issued this book,
she
would have entirely rewritten the whole of this division;as it was it seemed
best to give all she had
said
in the different copies,and to leave it in its rather unfinished state for
students will best like to have
what
she said as she said it even though they may have to study it more closely than
would have been
the
case had she remained to finish her work.
The
quotations made have been as far as possible found and correct references
given;in this most
laborious
work a whole band of earnest and painstaking students,under the guidance of
Mrs.Cooper-
Oakley
have been my willing assistants.Without their aid it would not have been
possible to give the
references,as
often a whole book had to be searched through in order to find a paragraph of a
few lines.
This
volume completes the papers left by H.P.B.with the exception of a few scattered
articles that yet
remain
and that will be published in her own magazine L cifer.Her pupils are
well aware that few will be
found
in the present generation to do justice to the occult knowledge of H.P.B.and to
her magnificent
sweep
of thoughts but as she can wait to future generations for the justification of
her greatness as a
teacher
so can her pupils afford to wait for the justification of their trust.
ANNIE BESANT
Page
12.
The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
INTRODUCTORY
(Page 1)"POWER belongs to him who knows;"this is a very old
axiom.Knowledge -the first step to
which
is the power of comprehending the truth of discerning the real from the false
-is for those only
who
have freed themselves from every prejudice and conquered their human conceit
and selfishness,
are
ready to accept every and any truth once it is demonstrated to them.Of such
there are very few.The
majority
judge of a work according to the respective prejudices of its critics,who are
guided in their turn
by
the popularity or unpopularity of the author rather than by its own faults or
merits.Outside the
Theosophical
circle therefore the present volume is certain to receive at the hands of the
general public
a
still colder welcome than its two predecessors have met with.In our day no
statement can hope for a
fair
trial or even hearing unless its arguments run on the line of legitimate and
accepted enquiry
remaining
strictly within the boundaries of official Science or orthodox Theology.
Our
age is a paradoxical anomaly.It is preėminently materialistic and as
preėminently pietistic.Our
literature
our modern thought and progress,so called both run on these two parallel
lines,so
incongruously
dissimilar and yet both so popular and so very orthodox,each in its own way.He
who
presumes
to draw a third line as a hyphen of reconciliation between the two has to be
fully prepared for
the
worst.He will have his work mangled by reviewers,mocked by the sycophants of
Science and
Church
misquoted by his opponents,and rejected even by the pious lending libraries.The
absurd
misconceptions,in
so-called cultured circles of society of the ancient Wisdom-Religion
(Bodhism)after
the
admirably clear and scientifically-presented explanations in Esoteric B
ddhism are a good proof in
point.They
might have served as a caution even to those Theosophists who hardened in an
almost life-
long
struggle in the service of their Cause are neither timid with their pen nor in
the least appalled by
dogmatic
(Page 2)assumption and scientific authority.Yet do what
Theosophical writers may neither
Materialism
nor doctrinal pietism will ever give their Philosophy a fair hearing.Their
doctrines will be
systematically
rejected and their theories denied a place even in the ranks of those
scientific ephemera
the
ever-shifting "working hypotheses"of our day.To the advocate of the
"animalistic"theory our
cosmogenetical
and anthropogenetical teachings are "fairy-tales"at best.For to those
who would shirk
any
moral responsibility it seems certainly more convenient to accept descent from
a common simian
ancestor
and see a brother in a dumb tailless baboon than to acknowledge the fatherhood
of the Pitris,
the
"Sons of God "and to have to recognise as a brother a starveling from
the slums.
"Hold
back!"shout in their turn the pietists."You will never make of
respectable church-going Christians
Esoteric
Buddhists!"
Nor
are we in truth in any way anxious to attempt the metamorphosis.But this cannot
nor shall it
prevent
Theosophists from saying what they have to say especially to those who in
opposing to our
doctrine
Modern Science do so not for her own fair sake but only to ensure the success
of their private
hobbies
and personal glorification.If we cannot prove many of our points,no more can
they;yet we may
show
how instead of giving historical and scientific facts -for the edification of
those who knowing less
than
they look to Scientists to do their thinking and form their opinions -the
efforts of most of our
scholars
seem solely directed to killing ancient facts,or distorting them into props to
support their own
special
views.This will be done in no spirit of malice or even criticism as the writer
readily admits that
most
of those she finds fault with stand immeasurably higher in learning than
herself.But great
scholarship
does not preclude bias and prejudice nor is it a safeguard against self-conceit
but rather the
Page
13.
The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
reverse.Moreover
it is but in the legitimate defence of our own statements,i.e.the vindication
of Ancient
Wisdom
and its great truths,that we mean to take our "great authorities"to
task.
Indeed
unless the precaution of answering beforehand certain objections to the
fundamental
propositions
in the present work be adopted -objections which are certain to be made on the
authority of
this,that
or another scholar concerning the Esoteric character of all the archaic and
ancient works on
Philosophy
-our statements will be once more contradicted and even discredited.One of the
main points
in
this Volume is to indicate in the works of the old Aryan Greek and
One Key to all Sacred Books -(Page 3)other Philosophers of note as well as in all the world-scriptures,
the
presence of a strong Esoteric allegory and symbolism.Another of the objects is
to prove that the key
of
interpretation as furnished by the Eastern Hindu-Buddhistic canon of Occultism
-fitting as well the
Christian
Gospels as it does archaic Egyptian Greek,Chaldean Persian and even Hebrew
-Mosaic
Books
-must have been one common to all the nations,however divergent may have been
their
respective
methods and exoteric "blinds."These claims are vehemently denied by
some of the foremost
scholars
of our day.In his Edinburgh Lectures,Prof.Max Muller discarded this fundamental
statement of
the
Theosophists by pointing to the Hindu Shastras and Pandits,who know nothing of
such Esotericism.
[ 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 P ranas 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 Mahātmās -
initiated
Yogis and Adepts -even in this age of Kali Yuga.] The learned Sanskrit
scholar stated in so
many
words that there was no hidden meaning no Esoteric element or
"blinds,"either in the P rānas or
the
Upanishads .Considering that the word "Upanishad"means,when
translated the "Secret Doctrine."
the
assertion is,to say the least extraordinary.Sir M.Monier Williams again holds
the same view with
regard
to Buddhism.To hear him is to regard Gautama the Buddha as an enemy of every
pretence to
Esoteric
teachings.He himself never taught them!All such "pretences"to Occult
learning and "magic
powers"are
due to the later Arhats,the subsequent followers of the "Light of
Asia"!Prof.B.Jowett again
as
contemptuously passes the sponge over the "absurd"interpretations of
Plato's Timae s and the
Mosaic
Books by the Neoplatonists.There is not a breath of the Oriental
(Gnostic)spirit of Mysticism in
Plato's
Dialog es the Regius Professor of Greek tells us,nor any approach to
Science either.Finally to
cap
the climax,Prof.Sayce the Assyriologist although he does not deny the actual
presence in the
Assyrian
tablets and cuneiform literature of a hidden meaning -
"Many
of the sacred texts ....so written as to be intelligible only to the
initiated"-
yet
insists that the "keys and glosses"thereof are now in the hands of
the Assyriologists.The modern
scholars,he
affirms,have in their possession clues to the interpretation of the Esoteric
Records.
"Which
even the initiated priests [of Chaldaea ] did not possess."
(Page 4)Thus,in the scholarly appreciation of our modern Orientalists and
Professors,Science was in its
infancy
in the days of the Egyptian and Chaldean Astronomers.Pānini the greatest
Grammarian in the
world
was unacquainted with the art of writing.So was the Lord Buddha and everyone
else in India until
300
B.C.The grossest ignorance reigned in the days of the Indian Rishis,and even in
those of Thales,
Pythagoras,and
Plato.Theosophists must indeed be superstitious ignoramuses to speak as they do
in
Page
14.
The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
the
face of such learned evidence to the contrary!
Truly
it looks as if since the world's creation there has been but one age of real
knowledge on earth -
the
present age.In the misty twilight in the grey dawn of history stand the pale
shadows of the old
Sages
of world renown.They were hopelessly groping for the correct meaning of their
own Mysteries,the
spirit
whereof has departed without revealing itself to the Hierophants,and has
remained latent in space
until
the advent of the initiates of Modern Science and Research.The noontide
brightness of knowledge
has
only now arrived at the "Know-All "who basking in the dazzling sun of
induction busies himself with
his
Penelopeian task of "working hypotheses,"and loudly asserts his
rights to universal knowledge.Can
anyone
wonder then that according to present views the learning of the ancient
Philosopher and even
sometimes
that of his direct successors in the past centuries,has ever been useless to
the world and
valueless
to himself?For as explained repeatedly in so many words,while the Rishis and
the Sages of
old
have walked far over the arid fields of myth and superstition the mediaeval
Scholar and even the
average
eighteenth century Scientist have always been more or less cramped by their
"supernatural"
religion
and beliefs.True it is generally conceded that some ancient and also mediaeval
Scholars,such
as
Pythagoras,Plato Paracelsus,and Roger Bacon followed by a host of glorious
names,had indeed
left
not a few landmarks over precious mines of Philosophy and unexpected lodes of
Physical Science.
But
then the actual excavation of these the smelting of the gold and silver and the
cutting of the
precious
jewels they contain are all due to the patient labours of the modern man of
Science.And it is
not
to be the unparalleled genius of the latter that the ignorant and
hitherto-deluded world owes a correct
knowledge
of the real nature of the Kosmos,of the true origin of the universe and man as
revealed in the
automatic
and mechanical theories of the Physicists in accordance with strictly
scientific Philosophy?
Assumptions Have to be Proven -(Page 5)Before our cultured era Science was but a name
Philosophy
a delusion and a snare.According to the modest claims of contemporary authority
on genuine
Science
and Philosophy the Tree of Knowledge has only now sprung from the dead weeds of
superstition
as a beautiful butterfly emerges from an ugly grub.We have therefore nothing
for which to
thank
our forefathers.The Ancients have at best prepared and fertilised the soil;it
is the Moderns who
have
planted the seeds of knowledge and reared the lovely plants called blank
negation and sterile
agnosticism.
Such
however is not the view taken by Theosophists.They repeat what was stated
twenty years ago.It
is
not sufficient to speak of the "untenable conceptions of an uncultured
past"(Tyndall):of the "parler
enfantin "of the
Vaidic poets (Max Muller);of the "absurdities"of the Neoplatonists
(Jowett);and of the
ignorance
of the Chaldaeo-Assyrian initiated Priests with regard to their own
symbols,when compared
with
the knowledge thereon of the British Orientalist (Sayce).Such assumptions have
to be proven by
something
more solid than the mere word of these scholars.For no amount of boastful
arrogance can
hide
the intellectual quarries out of which the representations of so many modern
Philosophers and
Scholars
have been carved.How many of the most distinguished European Scientists have
derived
honour
and credit for the mere dressing-up of the ideas of these old Philosophers,whom
they are ever
ready
to disparage is left to an impartial posterity to say.Thus it does seem not
altogether untrue as
stated
in Isis Unveiled to say of certain Orientalists and Scholars of dead
languages,that they will allow
their
boundless conceit and self-opinionatedness to run away with their logic and
reasoning powers
rather
than concede to the ancient Philosophers the knowledge of anything the modern
do not know.
As
part of this work treats of the Initiates and the secret knowledge imparted
during the Mysteries,the
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statements
of those who in spite of the fact that Plato was an Initiate maintain that no
hidden Mysticism
is
to be discovered in his works,have to be first examined.Too many of the present
scholars,Greek and
Sanskrit
are but too apt to forego facts in favour of their own preconceived theories
based on personal
prejudice.They
conveniently forget at every opportunity not only the numerous changes in
language
but
also that the allegorical style in the writings of old Philosophers and the
secretiveness of the Mystics
had
their raison d'źtre ;that both the pre-Christian and the post-Christian (Page 6)classical writers -the
great
majority at all events -were under the sacred obligation never to divulge the
solemn secrets
communicated
to them in the sanctuaries;and that this alone is sufficient to sadly mislead
their
translators
and profane critics.But these critics will admit nothing of the kind as will
presently be seen.
For
over twenty-two centuries everyone who has read Plato has been aware that like
most of the other
Greek
Philosophers of note he had been initiated;that therefore being tied down by
the Sodalian Oath
he
could speak of certain things only in veiled allegories.His reverence for the
Mysteries is unbounded;
he
openly confesses that he writes "enigmatically "and we see him take the
greatest precautions to
conceal
the true meaning of his words.Every time the subject touches the greater
secrets of Oriental
Wisdom
-the cosmogony of the universe or the ideal preexisting world -Plato shrouds
his Philosophy in
the
profoundest darkness.His Timaeus is so confused that no one but an Initiate can
understand the
hidden
meaning As already said in Isis Unveiled:
The
speculations of Plato in the Banq et on the creation or rather the
evolution of primordial men and
the
essay on cosmogony in the Timaeus,must be taken allegorically if we accept them
at all.It is this
hidden
Pythagorean meaning in Timae s Cratyl s and Parmenides and a few
other triologies and
dialogues,that
the Neoplatonists ventured to expound as far as the theurgical vow of secresy
would
allow
them.The Pythagoran doctrine that God is the Universal Mind diffused through
all things,and the
dogma
of the soul's immortality are the leading features in these apparently
incongruous teachings.His
piety
and the great veneration he felt for the Mysteries are sufficient warrant that
Plato would not allow
his
indiscretion to get the better of that deep sense of responsibility which is
felt by every Adept.
"Constantly
perfecting himself in perfect Mysteries a man in them alone becomes truly
perfect "says he
in
the Phaedrus .
He
took no pains to conceal his displeasure that the Mysteries had become less
secret than formerly.
Instead
of profaning them by putting them within the reach of the multitude he would
have guarded them
with
jealous care against all but the most earnest and worthy of his disciples.[ 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
] While mentioning the Gods on every page his monotheism is
unquestionable for the whole
thread
of his discourse indicates that by the term "God"he means a class of
beings lower in the scale
than
Deities,and but one grade higher than men.Even Josephus perceived and
acknowledged this fact
despite
the natural prejudice of his race.
The Spirit of Plato's Teaching -(Page 7)In his famous onslaught upon Apion this historian says;"Those
however
among the Greeks who philosophized in accordance with truth were not ignorant
of anything ..
.nor
did they fail to perceive the chilling superficialities of the mythical
allegories,on which account they
justly
despised them....By which thing Plato being moved says it is not necessary to
admit any one of
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the
other poets into the Commonwealth 'and he dismisses Homer blandly after having
crowned him and
pouring
unguent upon him in order that indeed he should not destroy by his myths the
orthodox belief in
respecting
one God."[ Isis Unveiled i.287 288.]
And
this is the "God"of every Philosopher God infinite and impersonal.All
this and much more which
there
is no room here to quote leads one to the undeniable certitude that (a )as
all the Sciences and
Philosophies
were in the hands of the temple Hierophants Plato as initiated by them must
have known
them;and
(b),that logical inference alone is amply sufficient to justify anyone in
regarding Plato's writings
as
allegories and "dark sayings,"veiling truths which he had no right to
divulge.
This
established how comes it that one of the best Greek scholars in England
Prof.Jowett the modern
translator
of Plato's works seeks to demonstrate that none of the Dialogues -including
even the
Timae s -have any
element of Oriental Mysticism about them?Those who can discern the true spirit
of
Plato's
Philosophy will hardly be convinced by the arguments which the Master of
Balliol College lays
before
his readers."Obscure and repulsive"to him,the Timae s may
certainly be;but it is as certain that
this
obscurity does not arise as the Professor tells his public,"in the infancy
of physical science "but
rather
in its days of secresy;not "out of the confusion of theological
mathematical and physiological
notions,"or
"out of the desire to conceive the whole of Nature without any adequate
knowledge of the
parts."[
The Dialog es of Plato translated by B.Jowett.Regius Professor of
Greek at the University of
Oxford
111 5z3.]For Mathematics and Geometry were the backbone of Occult
cosmogony hence of
"Theology
"and the physiological notions of the ancient Sages are being daily
verified by Science in our
age;at
least to those who know to read and understand ancient Esoteric works.The
"knowledge of the
parts"avails
us little if this knowledge only leads us the more to ignorance of the Whole or
the "nature
and
the reason of the Universal "as Plato called Deity and causes us to
blunder most egregiously
because
of our boasted inductive methods.
(Page 8)Plato may have been "incapable of induction or generalization in
the modern sense";[ Op.cit.
p.561
] he may have been ignorant also of the circulation of the blood which
we are told "was
absolutely
unknown to him,"[ Op.cit.p.591 ]but then there is naught to
disprove that he knew what
blood
is -and this is more than any Physiologist or Biologist can claim
nowadays.
Though
a wider and far more generous margin for knowledge is allowed the
"physical philosopher"by
Prof.Jowett
than by nearly any other modern commentator and critic,nevertheless,his
criticism so
considerably
outweighs his laudation that it may be as well to quote his own words,to show
clearly his
bias.Thus
he says:
To
bring sense under the control of reason;to find some way through the labyrinth
or chaos of
appearances,either
the highway or mathematics,or more devious paths suggested by the
analogy
of man with the world and of the world with man;to see that all things have a
cause
and
are tending towards an end -this is the spirit of the ancient physical
philosopher.[This
definition
places (unwittingly of course),the ancient "physical philosopher"many
cubits higher
than
his modern "physical"confrčre since the ltima th le 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
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impartial
reader to decide.] But we neither appreciate the conditions of knowledge
to which he
was
subjected nor have the ideas which fastened upon his imagination the same hold
upon
us.For
he is hovering between matter and mind;he is under the dominion of
abstractions;his
impressions
are taken almost at random from the outside of nature;he sees the light but not
the
objects which are revealed by the light;and he brings into juxtaposition things
which to us
appear
wide as the poles asunder because he finds nothing between them.
The
last proposition but one must evidently be distasteful to the modern
"physical philosopher "who sees
the
"objects"before him but fails to see the light of the Universal Mind
which reveals them i.e .who
proceeds
in a diametrically opposite way.Therefore the learned Professor comes to the
conclusion that
the
ancient Philosopher whom he now judges from Plato's Timae s must have
acted in a decidedly
unphilosophical
and even irrational way.For:
He
passes abruptly from persons to ideas and numbers,and from ideas and numbers to
persons;[
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 ] he confuses
subject and
object
first and final causes,and in dreaming of geometrical figures is
lost in a flux of sense.
Self-Contradiction of the Critic -(Page 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 the 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 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 archaeus
(Anima
Mundi ),is self-moving and from the centre diffuses itself over the whole
body of the Macrocosm.]
And
now an effort of mind is required on our parts in order to nderstand his do
ble lang age or to
apprehend
the twilight character of the knowledge and the genius of ancient
philosophers which under
such
conditions [?] seems by a divine power in many instances to have anticipated
the truth.[ Op.cit.
page
523 .]
Whether
"such conditions"imply those of ignorance and mental stolidity in
"the genius of ancient
philosophers"or
something else we do not know.But what we do know is that the meaning of the
sentences
we have italicized is perfectly clear.Whether the Regius Professor of Greek
believes or
disbelieves
in a hidden sense of geometrical figures and of the Esoteric "jargon
"he nevertheless admits
the
presence of a "double language"in the writings of these
Philosophers.Thence he admits a hidden
meaning
which must have had an interpretation.Why then does he flatly contradict his
own statement
on
the very next page?And why should he deny to the Timae s -that
preėminently Pythagorean (mystic)
Dialogue
-any Occult meaning and take such pains to convince his readers that
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The
influence which the Timaeus has exercised upon posterity is partly due to a
misunderstanding.
The
following quotation from his Introduction is in direct contradiction with the
paragraph which precedes
it
as above quoted:
In
the supposed depths of this dialogue the Neo-Platonists found hidden meanings
and
connections
with the Jewish and Christian Scriptures,and out of them they dictated
doctrines
quite
at variance with the spirit of Plato.Believing that he was inspired by the Holy
Ghost or
had
received his wisdom from Moses,[ 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 Judaeus.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
Judaeus
-since the latter seems to know his works and follow his methods.](Page 10)they
seemed
to find in his writings the Christian Trinity the Word the Church ...and the
Neo-
Platonists
had a method of interpretation which could elicit any meaning out of any words.
They
were really incapable of distinguishing between the opinions of one philosopher
and
another
or between the serious thoughts of Plato and his passing fancies.[Only
Clemens
Alexandrinus,a
Christian Neoplatonist and a very fantastic writer.]...[But ] there is
no danger
of
the modern commentators on the Timae s falling into the absurdity of the
Neo-Platonists.
No
danger whatever of course for the simple reason that the modern commentators
have never had the
key
to Occult interpretations.And before another word is said in defence of Plato
and the Neoplatonists,
the
learned master of Balliol College ought to be respectfully asked:What does,or
can he know of the
Esoteric
canon of interpretation?By the term "canon"is here meant that key
which was communicated
orally
from "mouth to ear"by the Master to the disciple or by the Hierophant
to the candidate for
initiation;this
from time immemorial throughout a long series of ages,during which the inner
-not public -
Mysteries
were the most sacred institution of every land.Without such a key no correct
interpretation of
either
the Dialog es of Plato nor of any Scripture from the Vedas to
Homer from the Zend Avesta to the
Mosaic
Books,is possible.How then can the Rev.Dr.Jowett know that the interpretations
made by the
Neoplatonists
of the various sacred books of the nations were "absurdities"?Where
again has he found
an
opportunity of studying these "interpretations"?History shows that
all such works were destroyed by
the
Christian Church Fathers and their fanatical catechumens,wherever they were
found.To say that
such
men as Ammonius,a genius and a saint whose learning and holy life earned for
him the title of
Theodidaktos
("God-taught"),such men as Plotinus,Porphyry and Proclus,were
"incapable of
distinguishing
between the opinions of one philosopher and another or between the serious
thoughts of
Plato
and his fancies,"is to assume an untenable position for a Scholar.It
amounts to saying that (a)
scores
of the most famous Philosophers,the greatest Scholars and Sages of Greece and
of the Roman
Empire
were dull fools,and (b)that all the other commentators,lovers of Greek
Philosophy some of
them
the acutest intellects of the age -who do not agree with Dr.Jowett -are also
fools and no better
than
those whom they admire.The patronising tone of the last above-quoted passage is
modulated with
the
most naive conceit remarkable even in our age of self-glorification and
mutual admiration cliques.
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The Character of Ammonius Saccas -(Page 11)We have to compare the Professor's views with those
of
some other scholars.
Says
Prof.Alexander Wilder of New York,one of the best Platonists of the day
speaking of Ammonius,
the
founder of the Neoplatonic School:
His
deep spiritual intuition his extensive learning his familiarity with the
Christian Fathers,
Pantaenus,Clement
and Athenagoras,and with the most erudite philosophers of the time all
fitted
him for the labour which he performed so thoroughly.[The labour of
reconciling the
different
systems of religion.] He was successful in drawing to his views the
greatest scholars
and
public men of the Roman Empire who had little taste for wasting time in
dialectic pursuits
or
superstitious observances.The results of his ministration are perceptible at
the present day
in
every country of the Christian world;every prominent system of doctrine now
bearing the
marks
of his plastic hand.Every ancient philosophy has had its votaries among the
moderns;
and
even Judaism ...has taken upon itself changes which were suggested by the
"God-
taught"Alexandrian
...He was a man of rare learning and endowments,of blameless life and
amiable
disposition.His almost superhuman ken and many excellencies won for him the
title
of
Theodidaktos;but he followed the modest example of Pythagoras,and only assumed
the
title
of Philalethian or lover of truth.[ New Platonism and Alchemy by
Alex.Wilder M.D.pp.
7.4.]
It
would be happy for truth and fact were our modern scholars to follow as
modestly in the steps of their
great
predecessors.But not they -Philalethians!
Moreover
we know that:
Like
Orpheus,Pythagoras,Confucius,Socrates,and Jesus himself [ 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 in 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 .] Ammonius committed nothing to
writing.[ Two
works
are falsely attributed to Ammonius.One now lost called De Consensu Moysis et
Jes
is
mentioned by the same "trustworthy"Eusebius,the Bishop of Caesaraea
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.Ill st .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 Neoplatonic interpretations as
"absurdities"?] Instead
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he
...communicated his most (Page
12)important doctrines to persons duly
instructed and
disciplined
imposing on them the obligations of secresy as was done before him by Zoroaster
and
Pythagoras,and in the Mysteries.Except a few treatises of his disciples we have
only the
declarations
of his adversaries from which to ascertain what he actually taught.[Op.cit
.p.7.]
It
is from the biased statements of such "adversaries."probably that the
learned Oxford translator of
Plato's
Dialogues came to the conclusion that:
That
which was truly great and truly characteristic of him [Plato ] his effort to
realise and
connect
abstractions,was not nderstood by them [the Neoplatonists ] at all [?].
He
states,contemptuously enough for the ancient methods of intellectual
analysis,that:
In
the present day ...an ancient philosopher is to be interpreted from himself and
by the
contemporary
history of thought.[ Op.cit .iii 524 .]
This
is like saying that the ancient Greek canon of proportion (if ever found),and
the Athena Promachus
of
Phidias,have to be interpreted in the present day from the contemporary history
of architecture and
sculpture
from the Albert Hall and Memorial Monument and the hideous Madonnas in
crinolines
sprinkled
over the fair face of Italy.Prof.Jowett remarks that "mysticism is not
criticism."No;but neither
is
criticism always fair and sound judgement.
La critiq e est aisée,mais l'art est difficile.
And
such "art"our critic of the Neoplatonists -his Greek scholarship
notwithstanding -lacks from a to z .
Nor
has he very evidently the key to the true spirit of the Mysticism of Pythagoras
and Plato since he
denies
even in the Timae s an element of Oriental Mysticism and seeks to show
Greek Philosophy
reacting
upon the East forgetting that the truth is the exact reverse;that it is
"the deeper and more
pervading
spirit of Orientalism"that had -through Pythagoras and his own initiation
into the Mysteries -
penetrated
into the very depths of Plato's soul.
But
Dr.Jowett does not see this.Nor is he prepared to admit that anything good or
rational -in
accordance
with the "contemporary history of thought"-could ever come out of
that Nazareth of the
Pagan
Mysteries;nor even that there is anything to interpret of a hidden nature in
the Timae s or any
other
Dialogue.For him,
The
so-called mysticism of Plato is purely Greek,arising out of his imperfect
knowledge
[ "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
.] and high aspirations,and is the growth of an age in which philosophy
is not wholly
separated
from poetry and mythology.[ Op.cit .p.524 .]
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Plato a Follower of Pythagoras -(Page 13)Among several other equally erroneous propositions,it is
especially
the assumptions (a)that Plato was entirely free from any element of Eastern
Philosophy in his
writings,and
(b)that every modern scholar without being a Mystic and a Kabalist himself can
pretend to
judge
of ancient Esotericism -which we mean to combat.To do this we have to produce
more
authoritative
statements than our own would be and bring the evidence of other scholars as
great as Dr.
Jowett
if not greater specialists in their subjects,moreover to bear on and destroy
the arguments of the
Oxford
Regius Professor of Greek.
That
Plato was undeniably an ardent admirer and follower of Pythagoras no one will
deny.And it is
equally
undeniable as Matter has it that Plato had inherited on the one hand his
doctrines,and on the
other
had drawn his wisdom from the same sources as the Samian Philosopher.[ I'Histoire
Critiq e d
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.)] And
the
doctrines of Pythagoras are Oriental to the backbone and even Brāhmanical;for
this great
Philosopher
ever pointed to the far East as the source whence he derived his information
and his
Philosophy
and Colebrooke shows that Plato makes the same profession in his Epistles,and
says that
he
has taken his teachings "from ancient and sacred doctrines."[Asiat.Trans
.i.579.] Furthermore the
ideas
of both Pythagoras and Plato coincide too well with the systems of India and
with Zoroastrianism to
admit
any doubt of their origin by anyone who has some acquaintance with these
systems.Again:
Pantaenus,Athenagoras,and
Clement were thoroughly instructed in the Platonic philosophy
and
comprehended its essential unity with the Oriental systems.[ New
Platonism and
Alchemy .p.4.]
The
history of Pantaenus and his contemporaries may give the key to the
Platonic,and at the same time
Oriental
elements that predominate so strikingly in the Gospels over the Jewish
Scriptures.
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SECTION I
Preliminary Survey
(Page 14)INITIATES who have acquired powers and transcendental
knowledge can be traced back to the
Fourth
Root Race from our own age.As the multiplicity of the subjects to be dealt with
prohibits the
introduction
of such a historical chapter which however historical in fact and truth would
be rejected a
priori as blasphemy
and fable by both Church and Science -we shall only touch on the
subject.Science
strikes
out at its own sweet will and fancy dozens of names of ancient heroes,simply
because there is
too
great an element of myth in their histories;the Church insists that biblical
patriarchs shall be regarded
as
historical personages,and terms her seven "Star-angels"the
"historical channels and agents of the
Creator."Both
are right since each finds a strong party to side with it.Mankind is at best a
sorry herd of
Panurgian
sheep following blindly the leader that happens to suit it at the
moment.Mankind -the
majority
at any rate -hates to think for itself.It resents as an insult the humblest
invitation to step for a
moment
outside the old well-beaten tracks,and judging for itself to enter into a new
path in some fresh
direction.Give
it an unfamiliar problem to solve and if its mathematicians,not liking its
looks,refuse to
deal
with it the crowd unfamiliar with mathematics,will stare at the unknown
quantity and getting
hopelessly
entangled in sundry x 's and y 's,will turn round trying to rend
to pieces the uninvited disturber
of
its intellectual Nirvana.This may perhaps,account for the ease and
extraordinary success enjoyed by
the
Roman Church in her conversions of nominal Protestants and Free-thinkers,whose
name is legion
but
who have never gone to the trouble of thinking for themselves on these most
important and
tremendous
problems of man's inner nature.
And
yet if the evidence of facts,the records preserved in History and the
uninterrupted anathemas of
the
Church against "Black Magic"and Magicians of the accursed race of
Cain are not to be heeded our
efforts
will prove very puny indeed.When for nearly two millenniums a body of men has
never ceased to
lift
its voice against Black Magic,the inference ought to be irrefutable that if Black
Magic exists as a real
fact
there must be somewhere its counterpart -White Magic.
The Protectors of
silver
money.Nature is dual in whatever she attempts,and this ecclesiastical
persecution ought alone to
have
opened the eyes of the public long ago.However much travellers may be ready to
pervert every
fact
with regard to abnormal powers with which certain men are gifted in
"heathen"countries;however
eager
they may be to put false constructions on such facts,and -to use an old proverb
-"to call white
swan
black goose "and to kill it yet the evidence of even Roman Catholic
missionaries ought to be taken
into
consideration once they swear in a body to certain facts.Nor is it because they
choose to see
Satanic
agency in manifestations of a certain kind that their evidence as to the
existence of such powers
can
be disregarded.For what do they say of
long
years,and have seriously studied every fact and belief that may prove an
obstacle to their success
in
making conversions,and who have become familiar with every exoteric rite of
both the official religion
and
sectarian creeds -all swear to the existence of a certain body of men whom no
one can reach but
the
Emperor and a select body of high officials.A few years ago before the war in
in
story
that had been reported twenty-five years before and had been widely circulated
in clerical papers.
They
had fathomed it was said the mystery of certain official deputations,sent at
times of danger by the
Emperor
and ruling powers to their Sheu and Kiuay as they are called among the
people.These Sheu
and
Kiuay they explained were the Genii of the mountains,endowed with the most
miraculous powers.
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They
are regarded as the protectors of
power
by the good and "learned"missionaries.
The
Sheu and Kiuay are men belonging to another state of being to that of the
ordinary man
or
to the state they enjoyed while they were clad in their bodies.They are disembodied
spirits,
ghosts
and larvae living nevertheless,in objective form on earth and dwelling in the
fastnesses
of mountains,inaccessible to all but those whom they permit to visit them.[ This
fact
and others may be found in Chinese Missionary Reports and in a work by
Monseigneur
Delaplace
a Bishop in
(Page 16)In
communicate.The
Sheu and Kiuay who enjoy the highest consideration of the Emperor and
Philosophers,and
of Confucianists who believe in no "Spirits "are simply Lohans
-Adepts who live in the
greatest
solitude in their unknown retreats.
But
both Chinese exclusiveness and Nature seem to have allied themselves against
European curiosity
and
-as it is sincerely regarded in
European
who ventured farthest into the interior of these countries.What was said of him
in 1876 may
now
be repeated.
The
district of the
Tibet
is carefully guarded against foreign intrusion.Those who are permitted to
traverse it are
under
the particular care and pilotage of certain agents of the chief authority and
are in duty
bound
to convey no intelligence respecting places and persons to the outside
world.But for
this
restriction many might contribute to these pages accounts of exploration
adventure and
discovery
that would be read with interest.The time will come sooner or later when the
dreadful
sand of the desert will yield up its long-buried secrets,and then there will
indeed be
unlooked-for
mortifications for our modern vanity.
"The
people of Pashai "[ The regions somewhere about Udyana and Kashmir
as the
translator
and editor of Marco Polo (Colonel Yule)believes (i.x75).] says Marco
Polo the
daring
traveller of the thirteenth century "are great adepts in sorceries and the
diabolic arts."
And
his learned editor adds:"This Paschai or Udyana was the native country of
Padma
Sambhava
one of the chief apostles of Lamaism i.e .of Tibetan Buddhism and a
great
master
of enchantments.The doctrines of Sakya as they prevailed in Udyana in old
times
were
probably strongly tinged with Sivaitic magic,and the Tibetans still regard the
locality as
the
classic ground of sorcery and witchcraft."
The
"old times"are just like the "modern times";nothing is
changed as to magical practices
except
that they have become still more esoteric and arcane and that the caution of
the
adepts
increases in proportion to the traveller's curiosity.Hiouen-Thsang says of the
inhabitants:"The
men ...are fond of study but pursue it with no ardour.The science of
magical form lae has become a reg lar professional b siness
with them."[Voyage des
Pčlerins
Bouddhistes.Vol.1..Histoire de la Vie de Hio en-Thsang etc.traduit du
chinois en
francais,par
Stanislas Julien .]We will not contract the venerable Chinese pilgrim on
this point
and
are willing to admit that in the seventh century some people made
"a professional
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business:of
magic,so also do some people now but certainly not the true adepts.
Moreoever
in that century Buddhism had hardly penetrated into Tibet and its races were
steeped
in the sorceries of the Bhon -the pre-lamaic religion.It is not Hiouen-Thsang
the
pious,courageous
man who risked his life a hundred times to have the bliss of perceiving
Buddh's
shadown in the cave of Peshwur who would have accused the good lamas and
monkish
thaumaturgists of "making a professional business"of showing it to
travellers.
The A.B.C.Of Magic -
(Page 17)The injunction of Gautama contained in his answer to King
Prasenajit his protector
who
called on him to perform miracles,must have been ever-present to the mind of
Hiouen-
Thsang."Great
king "said Gautama "I do not teach the law to my pupils,telling them
Go ye
saints
and before the eyes of the Brahmans and householders perform by means of your
supernatural
powers miracles greater than any man can perform.'I tell them when I teach
them
the law Live ye saints,hiding yo r good works,and showing yo r sins .'"
Struck
with the accounts of magical exhibitions witnessed and recorded by travellers
of every
age
who had visited Tartary and Tibet Colonel Yule comes to the conclusion that the
natives
must
have had "at their command the whole encyclopaedia of modern
Spiritualists."Duhalde
mentions
among their sorceries the art of producing by their invocations the figures of
Laotseu
[ Lao-tse the Chinese
philosopher.] and their divinities in the air and of making a
pencil write
answers to q estions witho t anybody to ching it ."[T he Book of Ser Marco Polo i.3x8.]
The
former invocations pertain to the religious mysteries of their sanctuaries;if
done
otherwise
or for the sake of gain they are considered sorcery necromancy
and strictly
forbidden.The
latter art that of making a pencil write without contact was known and
practised
in China and other countries before the Christian era.It is the A B C of magic
in
those
countries.
When
Hiouen-Thsang desired to adore the shadow of Buddha it was not to
"professional
magicians"that
he resorted but to the power of his own soul-invocation;the power of prayer
faith
and contemplation.All was dark and dreary near the cavern in which the miracle
was
alleged
to sometimes take place.Hiouen-Thsang entered and began his devotions.He made
one
hundred salutations,but neither saw nor heard anything.Then thinking himself
too sinful
he
cried bitterly and despaired.But as he was about to give up all hope he
perceived on the
eastern
wall a feeble light but it disappeared.He renewed his prayers,full of hope this
time
and
again he saw the light which flashed and disappeared again.After this he made a
solemn
vow:he
would not leave the cave till he had the rapture to at last see the shadow of
the
"Venerable
of the Age."He had to wait longer after this,for only after two hundred
prayers was
the
dark cave suddenly "bathed in light and the shadow of Buddha of a
brilliant white colour
rose
majestically on the wall as when the clouds suddenly open and all at once
display the
marvellous
image of the Mountain of Light.'A dazzling splendour lighted up the features
of the
divine
countenance.Hiouen-Thsang was lost in contemplation and wonder and would not
turn
his
eyes away from the sublime and incomparable object."Hiouen-Thsang adds in
his own
diary
See-yu-kee,that it is only when man prays with sincere faith and if he
has received
from
above a hidden impression that he sees the shadow clearly but he cannot enjoy
the
sight
for any length of time (Max Muller B ddhist Pilgrims.)
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From
one end to the other the country is full of mystics,religious
philosophers,Buddhist saints
and
magicians.Belief in a spiritual world full of invisible beings who on certain
occasions,
appear
to mortals objectively is universal."According (Page 18)to the belief of the nations of
atmosphere
are filled with spiritual beings,which exercise an influence partly beneficent
partly
malignant on the whole of organic and inorganic nature....Especially are
deserts and
other
wild and uninhabited tracts,or regions in which the influences of nature are
displayed on
a
gigantic and terrible scale regarded as the chief abode or rendez-vo s of
evil spirits.And
hence
the steppes of Turan and in particular the great sand desert of the
looked
on as the dwelling place of malignant beings,from the days of hoary
antiquity."
The
treasures exhumed by Dr.Schliemann at
the
eyes of adventurous speculators are being turned toward the localities where
the wealth of
ancient
peoples is supposed to be buried in crypt or cave or beneath sand or alluvial
deposit.
Around
no other locality not even
independent
Tartary this howling waste of shifting sand was once if report speaks correctly
the
seat of one of the richest empires the world ever saw.Beneath the surface is
said to lie
such
wealth in gold jewels,statuary arms,utensils,and all that indicates
civilization luxury
and
fine arts as no existing capital of Christendom can show today.The
regularly
from east to west before terrific gales that blow continually.Occasionally some
of the
hidden
treasures are uncovered but not a native dare touch them,for the whole district
is
under
the ban of a mighty spell.Death would be the penalty.Bahti -hideous,but
faithful
gnomes
-guard the hidden treasures of this prehistoric people awaiting the day when
the
revolution
of cyclic periods shall again cause their story to be known for the instruction
of
mankind.[
Isis Unveiled i.599-601 603 598.]
The
above is purposely quoted from Isis Unveiled to refresh the reader's
memory.One of the cyclic
periods
has just been passed and we may not have to wait to the end of Maha Kalpa to
have revealed
something
of the history of the mysterious desert in spite of the Bahti and even the
Rakshasas of India
not
less "hideous."No tales or fictions were given in our earlier
volumes,their chaotic state
notwithstanding
to which chaos the writer entirely free from vanity confesses publicly and with
many
apologies.
It
is now generally admitted that from time immemorial the distant
knowledge
and of every kind of learning.Yet there is none to whom the origin of all her
Arts and Sciences
has
been so much denied as to the land of the primitive Aryas.From Architecture
down to the Zodiac,
every
Science worthy of the name was imported by the Greeks,the mysterious Yavanas
-agreeably with
the
decision of the Orientalists!Therefore it is but logical that even the
knowledge of Occult Science
should
be refused to
any
other ancient people.
Magic As Old As Man -(Page 19)It is so
simply because:
With
the Hindus it was,and is,more esoteric,if possible than it was even among the
Egyptian
priests.So
sacred was it deemed that its existence was only half admitted and it was only
practised
in public emergencies.It was more than a religio s matter,for it was [and is
still ]
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considered divine .The
Egyptian hierophants,notwithstanding the practice of a stern and pure
morality
could not be compared for one moment with the ascetical Gymnosophists,either in
holiness
of life or miraculous powers developed in them by the supernatural abjuration
of
everything
earthly.By those who knew them well they were held in still greater reverence
than
the
magians of Chaldaea."Denying themselves the simplest comforts of life they
dwelt in
woods,and
led the life of the most secluded hermits,"[ Ammianus
Marcellinus,xxiii.6 .] while
their
Egyptian brothers at least congregated together.Notwithstanding the slur thrown
on all
who
practised magic and divination history has proclaimed them as possessing the
greatest
secrets
in medical knowledge and unsurpassed skill in its practice.Numerous are the
volumes
preserved
in Hindu Mathams,in which are recorded the proofs of their learning.To attempt
to
say
whether these Gymnosophists were the real founders of magic in
only
practised what has passed to them as an inheritance from the earliest Rishis [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
even
twenty-one in number.Haug shows that they occupy in the Brahmanical religion a
position
answering to that of the twelve sons of Jacob in the Jewish Bible The Brahmans
claim
to
descend directly from the Rishis.] -the seven primeval sages -would be
regarded as mere
speculation
by exact scholars.[ Isis Unveiled i.90 .]
Nevertheless,this
must be attempted.In Isis Unveiled all that could be stated about Magic
was set down
in
the guise of hints;and thus,owing to the great amount of material scattered
over two large volumes,
much
of its importance was lost upon the reader while it still more failed to draw
his attention on account
of
the faulty arrangement.But hints may now grow into explanations.One can never
repeat it too often -
Magic is as old as man .It
cannot any longer be called charlantry or hallucination when its lesser
branches
-such as mesmerism now miscalled "hypnotism ""thought reading
""action by suggestion "
and
what not else only to avoid calling it by its right and legitimate name -are
being so seriously
investigated
by the most famous Biologists and Physiologists of both
indissolubly
blended with Religion of every country and is (Page 20)inseparable
from its origin.It is as
impossible
for History to name the time when it was not as that of the epoch when it
sprang into
existence
unless the doctrines preserved by the Initiates are taken into
consideration.Nor can Science
ever
solve the problem of the origin of man if it rejects the evidence of the oldest
records in the world
and
refuses from the hand of the legitimate Guardians of the mysteries of Nature
the key to Universal
Symbology.Whenever
a writer has tried to connect the first foundation of Magic with a particular
country
or
some historical event or character further research has shown his hypothesis to
be groundless.There
is
a most lamentable contradiction among the Symbologists on this point.Some would
have it that Odin
the
Scandinavian priest and monarch originated the practice of Magic some 70 years
B.C..although it is
spoken
of repeatedly in the Bible.But as it was proven that the mysterious rites of
the priestesses Valas
(Voilers)were
greatly anterior to Odin's age [See Munter "On the most Ancient
Religions of the North
before
Odin.'Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de France.ii.230.] then
Zoroaster came in for an
attempt
on the ground that he was the founder of Magian rites;but Ammianus
Marcellinus,Pliny and
Arnobius,with
other ancient Historians,have shown that Zoroaster was but a reformer of Magic
as
practised
by the Chaldaeans and Egyptians,and not at all its founder.[ Ammianus
Marcellinus,xxvi.6.]
Who
then of those who have consistently turned their faces away from Occultism and
even Spiritualism
as
being "unphilosophical"and therefore unworthy of scientific thought
has a right to say that he has
studied
the ancients;or that if he has studied them,he has understood all they have
said?Only those
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who
claim to be wiser than their generation who think that they know all that the
Ancients knew and
thus,knowing
far more today fancy that they are entitled to laugh at their ancient
simple-mindedness
and
superstition;those who imagine they have discovered a great secret by declaring
the ancient royal
sarcophagus,now
empty of its King Initiate to be a "corn-bin "and the Pyramid that
contained it a
granary
perhaps a wine-cellar!["The date of the hundreds of pyramids in the
Valley of the
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
.]
The Tree of Knowledge -(Page 21)Modern society on the authority of some men of Science
calls Magic
charlatantry.But
there are eight hundred millions on the face of the globe who believe in it to
this day;
there
are said to be twenty millions of perfectly sane and often very intelligent men
and woman members
of
that same society who believe in its phenomena under the name of Spiritualism.The
whole ancient
world
with its Scholars and Philosophers,its Sages and Prophets,believed in it.Where
is the country in
which
it was not practised?At what age was it banished even from our own country?In
the New World
as
in the Old Country (the latter far younger than the former),the Science of
Sciences was known and
practised
from the remotest antiquity.The Mexicans had their Initiates,their
Priest-Hierophants and
Magicians,and
their crypts of Initiation.Of the two statues exhumed in the Pacific States,one
represents
a
Mexican Adept in the posture prescribed for the Hindu ascetic,and the other an
Aztec Priestess,in a
head-gear
which might be taken from the head of an Indian Goddess;while the
"Guatemalan Medal"
exhibits
the "Tree of Knowledge"-with its hundreds of eyes and ears,symbolical
of seeing and hearing -
encircled
by the "Serpent of Wisdom"whispering into the ear of the sacred
bird.)Bernard Diaz de
Castilla
a follower of Cortez,gives some idea of the extraordinary refinement
intelligence and
civilization
and also of the magic arts of the people whom the Spaniards conquered by brute
force.Their
pyramid
are those of
Pharaohs,and
the Aztecs appear to have derived their civilization and religion in more than
one way from
the
same source as the Egyptians and before these the Indians.Among all these three
peoples arcane
Natural
Philosophy or Magic,was cultivated to the highest degree.
That
it was natural not supernatural and that the Ancients so regarded it is shown
by what Lucian says
of
the "laughing Philosopher "Democritus,who he tells his readers,
Believed
in no [miracles ] ...but applied himself to discover the method by which the
theurgists
could produce them;in a word his philosophy brought him to the conclusion that
magic
was entirely confined to the application and the imitation of the laws and the
works of
nature.
[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 Smith 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.)]
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(Page 22)Who then can still call the Magic of the Ancients
"superstition"?
In
this respect the opinion of Democritus is of the greatest importance to
us,since the Magi left
by
Xerxes,at Abdera were his instructors,and he had studied magic,moreover for a
considerable
time with the Egyptian priests.[ Diog.Laert.in "Democrit.Vit."]
For nearly
ninety
years of the one hundred and nine of his life this great philosopher had made
experiments,and
noted them down in a book,which according to Petronius,[Satyric ix.3.]
treated of nat re -facts
that he had verified himself.And we find him not only disbelieving in
and
utterly rejecting miracles,but asserting that every one of those that were
authenticated by
eye-witnesses,had
and could have taken place for all even the most incredible were
produced
according to the "hidden laws of nat re ."[ Pliny Hist.Nat
.]...Add to this that
one
of them still is,devoted to its study and practice -and who shall venture to
discredit its
dignity
as a study and its profundity as a science?[Isis Unveiled I.512 .]
No
true Theosophist will ever do so.For as a member of our great Oriental body he
knows indubitably
that
the Secret Doctrine of the East contains the Alpha and the Omega of Universal
Science;that in its
obscure
texts,under the luxuriant though perhaps too exuberant growth of allegorical
Symbolism lie
concealed
the corner and the key-stones of all ancient and modern knowledge.That Stone
brought
down
by the Divine Builder is now rejected by the too-human workman and this because
in his lethal
materiality
man has lost every recollection not only of his holy childhood but of his very
adolescence
when
he was one of the Builders himself;when "the morning stars sang together
and the Sons of God
shouted
for joy."after they had laid the measures for the foundations of the earth
-to use the deeply
significant
and poetical language of Job the Arabian Initiate.But those who are still able
to make room in
their
innermost selves for the Divine Ray and who accept therefore the data of the
Secret Sciences in
good
faith and humility they know well that it is in this Stone that remains buried
the absolute in
Philosophy
which is the key to all those dark problems of Life and Death some of which at
any rate
may
find an explanation in these volumes.
The
writer is vividly alive to the tremendous difficulties that present themselves
in the handling of such
abstruse
questions,and to all the dangers of the task.Insulting as it is to human nature
to brand truth
with
the name of imposture nevertheless we see this done daily and accept it.
Occultism Must Win the Day -(Page 23)For every occult truth has to pass through such denial and
its
supporters
through martyrdom before it is finally accepted;though even then it remains but
too often -
A
crown
Golden
in show yet but a wreath of thorns.
Truths
that rest on Occult Mysteries will have for one reader who may appreciate them
a thousand who
will
brand them as impostures.This is only natural and the only means to avoid it
would be for an
Occultist
to pledge himself to the Pythagorean "vow of silence."and renew it
every five years.Otherwise
cultured
society -two-thirds of which think themselves in duty bound to believe that
since the first
appearance
of the first Adept one half of mankind practised deception and fraud on the
other half -
cultured
society will undeniably assert its hereditary and traditional right to stone
the intruder.Those
benevolent
critics,who most readily promulgate the now famous axiom of Carlyle with regard
to his
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countrymen
of being "mostly fools,"having taken preliminary care to include
themselves safely in the
only
fortunate exceptions to this rule will in this work gain strength and derive
additional conviction of the
sad
fact that the human race is simply composed of knaves and congenital idiots.But
this matters very
little.The
vindication of the Occultists and their Archaic Science is working itself
slowly but steadily into
the
very heart of society hourly daily and yearly in the shape of two monster
branches,two stray off-
shoots
of the trunk of Magic -Spiritualism and the Roman Church.Fact works its way
very often through
fiction.Like
an immense boa-constrictor Error in every shape encircles mankind trying to
smother in
her
deadly coils every aspiration towards truth and light.But Error is powerful
only on the surface
prevented
as she is by Occult Nature from going any deeper;for the same Occult Nature
encircles the
whole
globe in every direction leaving not even the darkest corner unvisited.And
whether by
phenomenon
or miracle by spirit-hook or bishop's crook,Occultism must win the day before
the present
era
reaches "Shani's (Saturn's)triple septenary"of the Western Cycle in
the
end of the twenty-first century "A.D."
Truly
the soil of the long by-gone past is not dead for it has only rested.The
skeletons of the sacred
oaks
of the ancient Druids may still send shoots from their dried-up boughs and be
reborn to a new (Page
24)life
like that handful of corn in the sarcophagus of a mummy 4.000 years old which
when planted
sprouted
grew and "gave a fine harvest."Why not?Truth is stranger than
fiction.It may any day and
most
unexpectedly vindicate its wisdom and demonstrate the conceit of our age by
proving that the
Secret
Brotherhood did not indeed die out with the Philalethians of the last Eclectic
School that the
Gnosis
flourishes still on earth and its votaries are many albeit unknown.All this be
done by one or
more
of the great Masters visiting
of
Magic.Such secret Brotherhoods have been mentioned by several well-known
authors,and are
spoken
of in Mackenzie's Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia .The writer now in the face
of the millions who
deny
repeats boldly that which was said in
If
they [the Initiates ] have been regarded as mere fictions of the novelist that
fact has only
helped
the "brother-adepts"to keep their incognito the more easily....
The
St.Germains and Cagliostros of this century having learned bitter lessons from
the
vilifications
and persecutions of the past pursue different tactics now-a-days.[Op.cit
.ii.403 .]
These
prophetic words were written in 1876 and verified in 1886.Nevertheless,we say
again
There
are numbers of these mystic Brotherhoods which have naught to do with
"civilized"
countries;and
it is in their unknown communities that are concealed the skeletons of the
past.
These
"adepts"could if they chose lay claim to strange ancestry and exhibit
verifiable
documents
that would explain many a mysterious page in both sacred and profane history.
[ 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 .]Had the keys to the hieratic writings
and the secret of
Egyptian
and Hindu symbolism been known to the Christian Fathers,they would not have
allowed
a single monument of old to stand unmutilated.[ Ibid.]
But
there exists in the world another class of adepts,belonging to a brotherhood
also and mightier than
any
other of those known to the profane.Many among these are personally good and
benevolent even
pure
and holy occasionally as individuals.Pursuing collectively however and as a
body a selfish one-
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sided
object with relentless vigour and determination they have to be ranked with the
adepts of the
Black
Art.
Black Magic at Work -(Page 25)These are our
modern Roman Catholic "fathers"and clergy.Most of the
hieratic
writings and symbols have been deciphered by them since the Middle Ages.A
hundred times
more
learned in secret Symbology and the old Religions than our Orientalists will
ever be the
personification
of astuteness and cleverness,every such adept in the art holds the keys tightly
in his
firmly
clenched hand and will take care the secret shall not be easily divulged if he
can help it.There are
more
profoundly learned Kabalists in
suspected.Thus
are the professedly public "brotherhoods"of "black"adepts
more powerful and
dangerous
for Protestant countries than any host of Eastern Occultists.People laugh at
Magic!Men of
Science
Physiologists and Biologists,deride the potency and even the belief in the
existence of what is
called
in vulgar parlance "Sorcery"and "Black Magic"?The
Archaeologists have their
them
who even suspects what has been going on in its crypts and its mysterious nooks
and corners,for
the
last century.More than that they do not even know of the existence of such
"magic halls"in their
of
experiments have been and are being made daily at the Salpetriere and also by
learned hypnotisers
at
their private houses.It is now proved that certain sensitives -both men and
women -when
commanded
in trance by the practitioner who operates on them to do a certain thing -from
drinking a
glass
of water up to simulated murder -on recovering their normal state lose all
remembrance of the
order
inspired -"suggested"it is now called by Science.Nevertheless,at the
appointed hour and
moment
the subject though conscious and perfectly awake is compelled by an irresistible
power within
himself
to do that action which has been suggested to him by his mesmeriser;and that
too whatever it
may
be and whatever the period fixed by him who controls the subject that is to say
holds the latter
under
the power of his will as a snake holds a bird under its fascination and finally
forces it to jump into
its
open jaws.Worse than this:for the bird is conscious of the peril;it resists
however helpless in its final
efforts,while
the hypnotized subject does not rebel but seems to follow the suggestions and
voice of its
own
free-will and soul.Who of our European men of Science who believe in such scientific
experiments
-and
very (Page 26)few are they who still doubt them now-a-days,and who do not
feel convinced of their
actual
reality -who of them it is asked is ready to admit this as being Black
Magic?Yet it is the gen ine
undeniable
and actual fascination and sorcery of old.The Mulu Kurumbas of
Nilgiri do not proceed
otherwise
in their envo tements when they seek to destroy an enemy nor do the
Dugpas of Sikkim and
and
starts but acts with certainty;it does not depend on the amount of receptivity
or nervous
impressibility
of the "subjects."Having chosen his victim and placed himself en
rapport with them the
Dugpa's
"fluid"is sure to find its way for his will is immeasurably more
strongly developed than the will of
the
European experimenter -the self-made untutored and nconscio s Sorcerer for
the sake of Science
-who
has no idea (or belief either)of the variety and potency of the world-old
methods used to develop
this
power by the conscio s sorcerer the "Black Magician"of the
East and West.
And
now the question is openly and squarely asked:Why should not the fanatical and
zealous priest
thirsting
to convert some selected rich and influential member of society use the same
means to
accomplish
his end as the French Physician and experimenter uses in his case with his
subject?The
conscience
of the Roman Catholic priest is most likely at peace.He works personally for
no selfish
purpose
but with the object of "saving a soul"from "eternal
damnation."In his view if Magic there be in
it
it is holy meritorious and divine Magic.Such is the power of blind faith.
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Hence
when we are assured by trustworthy and respectable persons of high social
standing and
unimpeachable
character that there are many well-organised societies among the Roman Catholic
priests
which under the pretext and cover of Modern Spiritualism and mediumship hold séances
for the
purposes
of conversion by suggestion directly and at a distance -we answer:We know
it.And when
moreover
we are told that whenever those priest-hypnotists are desirous of acquiring an
influence over
some
individual or individuals,selected by them for conversion they retire to an
underground place
allotted
and consecrated by them for such purposes (viz .ceremonial Magic);and
there forming a circle
throw
their combined will-power in the direction of that individual and thus by
repeating the process,gain
a
complete control over their victim -we again answer:Very likely.
Black Magic and Hypnotism -(Page 27)In fact we know the practice to be so whether this kind of
ceremonial
Magic and envoūtement is practised at
through
personal experience;and also because several of the writer's best and most
loved friends have
been
unconsciously drawn into the Romish Church and under her
"benign"protection by such means.
And
therefore we can only laugh in pity at the ignorance and stubbornness of those
deluded men of
Science
and cultured experimentalists who while believing in the power of Dr.Charcot
and his disciples
to
"envoūté "their subjects find nothing better than a scornful
smile whenever Black Magic and its
potency
are mentioned before them.Eliphas Levi the Abbe-Kabalist died before Science
and the
Faculté de Médecine of
scientific
experiments,but this is what he said twenty-five years go in his Dogme et
Rit el de la Ha te
Magie,on "Les
Envo tements et les Sorts ":
That
which sorcerers and necromancers sought above all things in their evocations of
the
Spirit
of Evil was that magnetic potency which is the lawful property of the true
Adept and
which
they desired to obtain possession of for evil purposes....One of their chief
aims was
the
power of spells or of deleterious influences....That power may be compared to
real
poisonings
by a current of astral light.They exalt their will by means of ceremonies to
the
degree
of rendering it venomous at a distance....We have said in our
"Dogma"what we
thought
of magic spells,and how this power was exceedingly real and dangerous.The true
Magus
throws a spell without ceremony and by his sole disapproval upon those with
whose
conduct
he is dissatisfied and whom he thinks it necessary to punish;[ 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.] he casts a spell even by his pardon over those who
do him injury and
the
enemies of Initiates never long enjoy impunity for their wrong-doing.We have
ourselves
seen
proofs of this fatal law in numerous instances.The executioners of martyrs
always perish
miserably;and
the Adepts are the martyrs of intelligence.Providence [Karma ] seems to
despise
those who despise them and puts to death those who would seek to prevent them
from
living.The legend of the Wandering Jew is the popular poetry of this arcanum.A
people
had
sent a sage to crucifixion;that people had bidden him "Move on!"when
he tried to rest for
one
moment....well!That people will become subject henceforth to a similar
condemnation;it
will
become entirely proscribed and for long centuries it will be hidden "Move
on!move on!"
finding
neither rest nor pity.[Op.cit .ii.239.241 240.]
(Page 28)"Fables,"and "superstition "will be the
answer.Be it so.Before the lethal breath of selfishness
and
indifference every uncomfortable fact is transformed into meaningless fiction
and every branch of
the
once verdant Tree of Truth has become dried up and stripped of its primeval
spiritual significance.
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Our
modern Symbologist is superlatively clever only at detecting phallic worship
and sexual emblems
even
where none were ever meant.But for the true student of Occult Lore White or
Divine Magic could
no
more exist in Nature without its counterpart Black Magic,than day without night
whether these be of
twelve
hours or of six months duration.For him everything in that Nature has an occult
-a bright and a
night
side to it.Pyramids and Druid's oaks,dolmens and Bo-trees,plant and mineral
-everything was full
of
deep significance and of sacred truths of wisdom when the Arch-Druid performed
his magic cures and
incantations,and
the Egyptian Hierophant evoked and guided Chemnu the "lovely spectre
"the female
Frankenstein-creation
of old raised for the torture and test of the soul-power of the candidate for
initiation
simultaneously with the last agonising cry of his terrestrial human nature.True
Magic has lost
its
name and along with it its rights to recognition.But its practice is in daily
use;and its progeny
"magnetic
influence ""power of oratory ""irresistible fascination
""whole audiences subdued and held as
though
under a spell "are terms recognised and used by all generally meaningless
though they now are.
Its
effects,however are more determined and definite among religious congregations
such as the
Shakers,the
Negro Methodists,and Salvationists,who call it "the action of the Holy
Spirit"and "grace."
The
real truth is that Magic is still in full sway amidst mankind however blind the
latter to its silent
presence
and influence on its members,however ignorant society may be and remain to its
daily and
hourly
beneficent and maleficent effects.The world is full of such unconscious
magicians -in politics as
well
as in daily life in the Church as in the strongholds of Free-Thought.Most of
those magicians are
"sorcerers"unhappily
not metaphorically but in sober reality by reason of their inherent
selfishness,their
revengeful
natures,their envy and malice.The true student of Magic,well aware of the truth
looks on in
pity
and if he be wise keeps silent.For every effort made by him to remove the
universal cecity is only
repaid
with ingratitude slander and often curses,which unable to reach him,will react
on those who
wish
him evil.Lies and calumny -the latter a teething lie adding actual bites to
empty harmless
falsehoods
-become his lot and thus the well-wisher is soon torn to pieces,as a reward for
his
benevolent
desire to enlighten.
The Philosophy Stands on Its Own Merits -(Page 29)Enough has been given it is believed to show
that
the existence of a Secret Universal Doctrine besides its practical methods of
Magic,is no wild
romance
or fiction.The fact was known to the whole ancient world and the knowledge of
it has survived
in
the East in
professors
of it or Adepts.In any case it matters little whether the Guardians of the
Sacred Lore are
regarded
as living actually existing men or are viewed as myths.It is their Philosophy
that will have to
stand
or fall upon its own merits,apart from and independent of any Adepts.For in the
words of the wise
Gamaliel
addressed by him to the Synedrion:"If this doctrine is false it will
perish and fall of itself;but if
true
then -it cannot be destroyed.
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SECTION II
Modern Criticism and the Ancients
(Page 30)THE Secret Doctrine of the Aryan East is found repeated
under Egyptian symbolism and
phraseology
in the Book of Hermes.At or near the beginning of the present century all the
books called
Hermetic
were in the opinion of the average man of Science unworthy of serious
attention.They were
set
down and loudly proclaimed as simply a collection of tales,of fraudulent
pretences and most absurd
claims.They
"never existed before the Christian era "it was said:"they were
all written with the triple
object
of speculation deceiving and pious fraud;"they were all even the best of
them silly apocrypha.[
See
in this connection Pne matologie 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.] In this respect the nineteenth century
proved a most worthy scion
of
the eighteenth for in the age of Voltaire as well as in this century everything
save what emanated
direct
from the
laughed
to scorn perhaps more so even than it is now.The very thought of accepting as
authentic the
works
and vagaries of "a false Hermes,a false Orpheus,a false Zoroaster "of
false Oracles,false Sibyls,
and
a thrice false Mesmer and his absurd fluid was tabooed all along the line.Thus
all that had its
genesis
outside the learned and dogmatic precincts of
sidereal
phantom of the old Philosopher and Mystic -once of
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 Sadd cism s Tri
mphat s 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
Unveiled i 205 206)]or
the
"ridiculously
absurd."This tendency has survived to the present day.
All Honour to Genuine Scientists -(Page 31)Nothing can be further from the intention of any true
Occultist
-who stands possessed by virtue of his higher psychic development of
instruments of
research
far more penetrating in their power than any as yet in the hands of physical
experimentalists -
than
to look unsympathetically on the efforts that are being made in the area of physical
enquiry.The
exertions
and labours undertaken to solve as many as possible of the problems of Nature
have always
been
holy in his sight.The spirit in which Sir Isaac Newton remarked that at the end
of all his
astronomical
work he felt a mere child picking up shells beside the
reverence
for the boundlessness of Nature which Occult Philosophy itself cannot
eclipse.And it may
freely
be recognised that the attitude of mind which this famous simile describes is
one which fairly
represents
that of the great majority of gen ine Scientists in regard to all the
phenomena of the physical
plane
of Nature.In dealing with this they are often caution and moderation
itself.They observe facts with
a
patience that cannot be surpassed.They are slow to cast these into
theories,with a prudence that
cannot
be too highly commended.And subject to the limitations under which they serve
Nature they are
beautifully
accurate in the record of their observations.Moreover it may be conceded
further that modern
Scientists
are exceedingly improbable that any discovery will ever conflict with such or
such a theory
now
supported by such and such an aggregation of recorded facts.But even in
reference to the broadest
generalizations
-which pass into a dogmatic form only in brief popular text books of scientific
knowledge
-the
tone of "Science"itself if that abstraction may be held to be
embodied in the persons of its most
distinguished
representatives,is one of reserve and often of modesty.
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Far
therefore from being disposed to scoff at the errors into which the limitations
of their methods may
betray
men of Science the true Occultist will rather appreciate the pathos of a
situation in which great
industry
and thirst for truth are condemned to disappointment and often to confusion.
That
which is to be deplored however in respect to Modern Science is in itself an
evil manifestation of
the
excessive caution which in its most favourable aspect protects Science from
over-hasty conclusions:
(Page 32)namely the tardiness of Scientists to recognise that other
instruments of research may be
applicable
to the mysteries of Nature besides those of the physical plane and that it may
consequently
be
impossible to appreciate the phenomena of any one plane correctly without
observing them as well
from
the points of view afforded by others.In so far then as they wilfully shut
their eyes to evidence which
ought
to have shown them clearly that Nature is more complex than physical phenomena
alone would
suggest
that there are means by which the faculties of human perception can pass
sometimes from one
plane
to the other and that their energy is being misdirected while they turn it
exclusively on the minutiae
of
physical structure or force they are less entitled to sympathy than to blame.
One
feels dwarfed and humbled in reading what M.Renan that learned modern
"destroyer"of every
religious
belief past present and future has to say of poor humanity and its powers of
discernment.He
believes
Mankind
has but a very narrow mind;and the number of men capable of seizing acutely
(finement)the
true analogy of things,is quite imperceptible.[ Ét des Religie ses .]
Upon
comparing however this statement with another opinion expressed by the same
author namely
that:
The
mind of the critic should yield to facts,hand and feet bound to be dragged by
them
wherever
they may lead him.[Ét des Historiq es .]
one
feels relieved.When moreover these two philosophical statements are
strengthened by a third
enunciation
of the famous Academician which declares that:
To t parti pris a priori,doit etre banni de la science [Mémoire read at the Academie des
Inscriptions
des Belles Lettres,in 1859 .]
there
remains little to fear.Unfortunately M.Renan is the first to break this golden
rule.
The
evidence of Herodotus -called sarcastically no doubt the "Father of
History "since in every
question
upon which Modern Thought disagrees with him,his testimony goes for nought -the
sober and
earnest
assurances in the philosophical narratives of Plato and Thucydides,Polybius,and
Plutarch and
even
certain statements of Aristotle himself are invariably laid aside whenever they
are involved in what
modern
criticism is pleased to regard as myth.It is some time since Strauss proclaimed
that:
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What is a Myth?-
(Page 33)The presence of a supernatural element or miracle in a
narrative is an infallible sign
of
the presence in it of a myth;
and
such is the canon of criticism tacitly adopted by every modern critic.But what
is a myth -ģõčļņ-to
begin
with?Are we not told distinctly by ancient writers that the word means
tradition?Was not the Latin
term
fab la a fable synonymous with something told as having happened in
pre-historic times,and not
necessarily
an invention.With such autocrats of criticism and despotic rulers as are most
of the French
English
and German Orientalists,there may then be no end of historical geographical
ethnological
and
philological surprises in store for the century to come.Travesties in
Philosophy have become so
common
of late that the public can be startled by nothing in this direction.It has
already been stated by
one
learned speculator that Homer was simply "a mythical personification of
the épopée ";[ See Alfred
Maury's
Histoire des Religions de la Grčce .i.248:and the speculations of
Holzmann in Zeitschriftf r
Vergleichende Sprach forsch ng ann.1882 p.487.sq.] by another that Hippocrates,son
of Esculapius,
"could
only be a chimera";that the Asclepiades,their seven hundred years of
duration notwithstanding
might
after all prove simply a "fiction";that "the city of
on
the maps."etc.Why should not the world be invited after this to regard
every hitherto historical
character
of days of old as a myth?Were not Alexander the Great needed by Philology as a
sledge-
hammer
wherewith to break the heads of Brahmanical chronological pretensions,he would
have become
long
ago simply "a symbol for annexation "or "a genius of conquest
"as has been already suggested by
some
French writer.
Blank
denial is the only refuge left to the critics.It is the most secure asylum for
some time to come in
which
to shelter the last of the sceptics.For one who denies unconditionally the
trouble of arguing is
unnecessary
and he also thus avoids what is worse having to yield occasionally a point or
two before
the
irrefutable arguments and facts of his opponent.Creuzer the greatest of all the
modern
Symbologists,the
most learned among the masses of erudite German Mythologists,must have envied
the
placid self-confidence of certain sceptics,when he found himself forced in a
moment of desperate
perplexity
to admit that:
We
are compelled to return to the theories of trolls and genii as they were
understood by the
ancients;[it
is a doctrine ] without which it becomes absolutely impossible to explain to
oneself
anything
with regard to the Mysteries.[Creuzer's Introd ction des Mystčres iii
456.]
of
the Ancients,which Mysteries are undeniable.
(Page 34)Roman Catholics,who are guilty of precisely the same
worship and to the very letter -having
borrowed
it from the later Chaldaeans,the Lebanon Nabathaeans,and the baptized Sabaeans,[The
later
Nabathaeans adhered to the same belief as the Nazarenes and the
Sabaeans,honoured John the
Baptist
and used Baptistm.(See Isis Unveiled ii.127:Munck,
Man .etc.)]and
not from the learned Astronomers and Initiates of the days of old -would now by
anathematizing
it hide the source from which it came.Theology and Churchianism would fain
trouble the
clear
fountain that fed them from the first to prevent posterity from looking into it
and thus seeing their
original
prototype.The Occultists,however believe the time has come to give everyone his
due.As to
our
other opponents -the modern sceptic and the Epicurean the cynic and the
Sadducee -they may find
an
answer to their denials in our earlier volumes.As to many unjust aspersions on
the ancient doctrines,
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the
reason for them is given in these words in Isis Unveiled :
The
thought of the present-day commentator and critic as to the ancient learning is
limited to
and
runs round the exoterism of the temples;his insight is either unwilling
or unable to
penetrate
into the solemn adyta of old where the hierophant instructed the neophyte to
regard
the
public worship in its true light.No ancient sage would have taught that man is
the king of
creation
and that the starry heaven and our mother earth were created for his sake.[i.535.]
When
we find such works as Phallicism [ By Hargrave Jennings .] appearing
in our day in print it is easy
to
see that the day of concealment and travesty has passed away.Science in
Philology Symbolism and
Comparative
Religion has progressed too far to make wholesale denials any longer and the
Church is
too
wise and cautious not to be now making the best of the situation.Meanwhile the
"rhombs of Hecate"
and
the "wheels of Lucifer "[ See de Mirville's Pne matologie iii
267 et seq.] daily exhumed on the sites
of
shown
in the ritual of the Latin Church.The latter is too learned to be ignorant of
the fact that even the
later
Chaldaeans,who had gradually fallen into dualism reducing all things to two
primal Principles,
never
worshipped Satan or idols,any more than did the Zoroastrians,who now lie under
the same
accusation
but that their Religion was as highly philosophical as any;their dual and
exoteric Theosophy
became
the heirloom of the Jews,who in their turn were forced to share it with the
Christians.Parsis
are
to this day charged with Heliolatry and yet in the Chaldean Oracles,under the
"Magical and
Philosophical
Precepts of Zoroaster"one finds the following:
Chaldean Oracles -(Page 35)
Direct
not thy mind to the vast measures of the earth;
For
the plant of truth is not upon ground.
Nor
measure the measures of the sun collecting rules,
For
he is carried by the eternal will of the Father not for your sake.
Dismiss
the impetuous course of the moon;for she runs always by work of necessity.
The
progression of the stars was not generated for your sake.
There
was a vast difference between the true worship taught to those who showed
themselves worthy
and
the state religions.The Magians are accused of all kinds of superstition but
this is what the same
Chaldaean
Oracle says:
The
wide aerial flight of birds is not true
Nor
the dissections of the entrails of victims;they are all mere toys
The
basis of mercenary fraud;flee from these
If
you would open the sacred paradise of piety
Where
virtue wisdom and equity are assembled.
[ Psellus,4:in Cory's
Ancient Fragments.269.]
As
we say in our former work:
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Surely
it is not those who warn people against "mercenary fraud"who can be
accused of it;
and
if they accomplished acts which seem miraculous,who can with fairness presume
to deny
that
it was done merely because they possessed a knowledge of natural philosophy and
psychological
science to a degree unknown to our schools?[ Isis Unveiled,i 535
536.]
The above q oted stanzas are a rather strange teaching to
come from those who are niversally
believed to have worshipped the s n,and moon,and the starry
hosts,as Gods.The sublime prof ndity
of the Magian precepts being beyond the reach of modern
materialistic tho ght,the Chaldean
Philosophers are acc sed of Sabaeanism and S
n-worship,which was the religion only of the
ned cated masses.
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SECTION III
The Origin of Magic
(Page 36)THINGS of late have changed true enough.The field of
investigation has widened;old religions
are
a little better understood;and since that miserable day when the Committee of
the
headed
by Benjamin Franklin investigated Mesmer s phenomena only to proclaim them
charlatanry and
clever
knavery both heathen Philosophy and Mesmerism have acquired certain rights and
privileges,
and
are now viewed from quite a different standpoint.Is full justice rendered them
however and are they
any
better appreciated?We are afraid not.Human nature is the same now as when Pope
said of the
force
of prejudice that:
The
difference is as great between
The
optics seeing as the objects seen.
All
manners take a tincture from our own
Or
some discolour d through our passions shown
Or
fancy s beam enlarges,multiplies,
Contracts,inverts,and
gives ten thousand dyes.
Thus
in the first decades of our century Hermetic Philosophy was regarded by both
Churchmen and men
of
Science from two quite opposite points of view.The former called it sinful and
devilish;the latter
denied
point-blank its authenticity notwithstanding the evidence brought forward by
the most erudite men
of
every age including our own.The learned Father Kircher for instance was not
even noticed;and his
assertion
that all the fragments known under titles of works by Mercury
Trismegistus,Berosus,
Pherecydes
of Syros,etc.were rolls that had escaped the fire which devoured 100 000
volumes of the
great
Alexandrian Library -was simply laughed at.Nevertheless the educated classes of
then
as they do now that the famous Alexandrian Library the marvel of the ages,
was founded by
Ptolemy
Philadelphus;that numbers of its MSS had been carefully copied from hieratic
texts and the
oldest
parchments,Chaldaean Phoenician Persian etc;and that these transliterations and
copies
amounted
in their turn to another 100 000 rolls,as Josephus and Strabo assert.
The Books of Hermes -(Page 37)There is also
the additional evidence of Clemens Alexandrinus,that
ought
to be credited to some extent.[ The forty-two Sacred Books of the
Egyptians mentioned by
Clement
of
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 Egypte,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 Archaeologists 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
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says
Bunsen.If the eminent Egyptologist rejects the period of 48.863 years before
Alexander to which
Diogenes
Laertius 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.44).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. (Egypte,i 15:Isis Unveiled i.33)] Clemens
testified to the existence of an
additional
30 000 volumes of the Books of Thoth placed in the library of the Tomb of
Osymandias,over
the
entrance of which were inscribed the words, A Cure for the Soul.
Since
then as all know entire texts of the apocryphal works of the false
Pymander and the no less
false
Asclepias,have been found by Champollion in the most ancient monuments of
Egypt.[ These
details
are taken from Pne matologie,iii pp 204 205 ] As said in Isis
Unveiled :
After
having devoted their whole lives to the study of the records of the old
Egyptian wisdom
both
Champollion-Figeac and Champollion Junior publicly declared notwithstanding many
biased
judgments hazarded by certain hasty and unwise critics,that the Books of
Hermes
truly
contain a mass of Egyptian traditions which are constantly corroborated by the
most
authentic
records and monuments of Egypt of the hoariest antiquity.[ Egypte,p.143
Isis
Unveiled,i.625.]
The
merit of Champollion as an Egyptologist none will question and if he declare
that everything
demonstrates
the accuracy of the writings of the mysterious Hermes Trismegistus,and if the
assertion
that
their antiquity runs back into the night of time be corroborated by him in (Page 38)minutest details,
then
indeed criticism ought to be fully satisfied.Says Champollion:
These
inscriptions are only the faithful echo and expression of the most ancient
verities.
Since
these words were written some of the apocryphal verses by the mythical
Orpheus have also
been
found copied word for word in hieroglyphics,in certain inscriptions of the
Fourth Dynasty
addressed
to various Deities.Finally Creuzer discovered and immediately pointed out the
very
significant
fact that numerous passages found in Homer and Hesiod were undeniably borrowed
by the
two
great poets from the Orphic Hymns,thus proving the latter to be far older than
the Iliad or the
Odyssey.
And
so gradually the ancient claims come to be vindicated and modern criticism has
to submit to
evidence.Many
are now the writers who confess that such a type of literature as the Hermetic
works of
Egypt
can never be dated too far back into the prehistoric ages.The texts of many of
these ancient
works,that
of Enoch included so loudly proclaimed apocryphal at the beginning of this
century are now
discovered
and recognised in the most secret and sacred sanctuaries of Chaldaea India
Phoenicia
Egypt
and Central Asia.But even such proofs have failed to convince the bulk of our
Materialists.The
reason
for this is very simple and evident.All these texts -held in universal
veneration in Antiquity found
in
the secret libraries of all the great temples,studied (if not always
mastered)by the greatest statesmen
classical
writers,philosophers,kings and laymen as much as by renowned Sages -what were
they?
Treatises
on Magic and Occultism pure and simple;the now derided and tabooed Theosophy
-hence
the
ostracism.
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Were
people then so simple and credulous in the days of Pythagoras and Plato?Were
the millions of
Babylonia
and Egypt of India and Greece with their great Sages to lead them all
fools,that during those
periods
of great learning and civilization which preceded the year one of our
era -the latter giving birth
but
to the intellectual darkness of mediaeval fanaticism -so many otherwise great
men should have
devoted
their lives to a mere illusion a superstition called Magic?It would seem so had
one to remain
content
with the word and conclusions of modern Philosophy.
Every
Art and Science however whatever its intrinsic merit has had its discoverer and
practitioner and
subsequently
its proficients to teach it.
What is the Origin of Magic?-(Page 39)What is the origin of the Occult Sciences,or Magic?Who were
its
professors,and what is known of them whether in history or legend?Clemens
Alexandrinus,one of
the
most intelligent and learned of the early Christian Fathers,answers this
question in his Stromateis.
That
ex-pupil of the Neoplatonic School argues:
If
there is instruction you must seek for the master.[ Strom .VI
vii.The following paragraph
from
the same chapter .]
And
so he shows Cleanthes taught by Zeno Theophrastus by Aristotle Metrodorus by
Epicurus,Plato by
Socrates,etc.And
he adds that when he had looked further back to Pythagoras,Pherecydes,and
Thales,he
had still to search for their masters.The same for the Egyptians,the
Indians,the Babylonians,
and
the Magi themselves.He would not cease questioning he says to learn who it was
they all had for
their
masters.And when he (Clemens)had traced down the enquiry to the very cradle of
mankind to the
first
generation of men he would reiterate once more his questioning and ask,Who is
their teacher?
Surely
he argues,their master could be no one of men. And even when we should have
reached as
high
as the Angels,the same query would have to be offered to them:Who were their
(meaning the
divine
and the fallen Angels)masters?
The
aim of the good father s long argument is of course to discover two distinct
masters,one the
preceptor
of biblical patriarchs,the other the teacher of the Gentiles.But the students
of the Secret
Doctrine
need go to no such trouble.Their professors are well aware who were the Masters
of their
predecessors
in Occult Sciences and Wisdom.
The
two professors are finally traced out by Clemens,and are as was to be expected
God and his
eternal
and everlasting enemy and opponent the Devil;the subject of Clemens enquiry
relating to the
d al aspect of
Hermetic Philosophy as cause and effect.Admitting the moral beauty of the
virtues
preached
in every Occult work with which he was acquainted Clemens desires to know the
cause of the
apparent
contradiction between the doctrine and the practice good and evil Magic,and he
comes to the
conclusion
that Magic has two origins -divine and diabolical.He perceives its bifurcation
into two
channels,hence
his deduction and inference.
We
perceive it too without however necessarily designating such bifurcation
diabolical for we judge the
left-hand
path as it (Page 40)issued from the hands of its founder.Otherwise judging also
by the effects
of
Clemens own religion and walk in life of certain of its professors,since the
death of their Master the
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Occultists
would have a right to come to somewhat the same conclusion as Clemens.They
would have a
right
to say that while Christ the Master of all true Christians,was in every
way godly those who resorted
to
the horrors of the Inquisition to the extermination and torture of
heretics,Jews and Alchemists,the
Protestant
Calvin who burnt Servetus and his persecuting Protestant successors,down to the
whippers
and
burners of witches in America must have had for their Master the
Devil.But Occultists,not believing
in
the Devil are precluded from retaliating in this way.
Clemens
testimony however is valuable in so far as it shows (1)the enormous number of
works on
Occult
Sciences in his day;and (2)the extraordinary powers acquired through those
Sciences by certain
men.
He
devotes,for instance the whole of the sixth book of his Stromat eis to
this research for the first two
Masters
or the true and the false Philosophy respectively both preserved as he
says,in the Egyptian
sanctuaries.Very
pertinently too he apostrophises the Greeks,asking them why they should not
accept
the
miracles of Moses as such since they claim the very same privileges for
their own Philosophers,
and
he gives a number of instances.It is,as he says,Aeachus obtaining through his
Occult powers a
marvellous
rain;it is Aristaeus causing the winds to blow;Empedocles quieting the gale and
forcing it to
cease
etc.[ See Pne matologie,iii.207 Therefore Empedocles is called
źłėõčįõåģļņthe dominator of
the
wind.Strom.,VI.iii.]
The
books of Mercurius Trismegistus most attracted his attention.[ Ibid.iv.]
He is also warm in his praise
of
Hystaspes (or Gushtasp),of the Sibylline books,and even of the right Astrology.
There
have been in all ages use and abuse of Magic,as there are use and abuse of
Mesmerism or
Hypnotism
in our own.The ancient world had its Apollonii and its Pherecydae and
intellectual people
could
discriminate then as they can now.While no classical or pagan writer has ever
found one word of
blame
for Apollonius of Tyana for instance it is not so with regard to
Pherecydes.Hesychius of Miletia
Philo
of Byblos and Eusthathius charges the latter unstintingly with having built his
Philosophy and
Science
on demoniacal traditions -i.e.on Sorcery.
Pherecydes of
rather
a soothsayer than a physician and Diogenes Laertius gives a vast number of
stories relating to
his
predictions.One day Pherecydes prophesies the shipwreck of a vessel hundreds of
miles away from
him;another
time he predicts the capture of Lacedaemonians by the Arcadians;finally he
foresees his
own
wretched end.[Summarised from Pne matologie,iii.209.]
Bearing
in mind the objections that will be made to the teachings of the Esoteric
Doctrine as herein
propounded
the writer is forced to meet some of them beforehand.
Such
imputations as those brought by Clemens against the heathen Adepts,only
prove the presence of
clairvoyant
powers and prevision in every age but are no evidence in favour of a Devil.They
are
therefore
of no value except to the Christians,for whom Satan is one of the chief pillars
of the faith.
Baronius
and De Mirville for instance find an unanswerable proof of Demonology in the
belief in the co-
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eternity
of Matter with Spirit!
De
Mirville writes that Pherecydes
Postulates
in principle the primordiality of Zeus or Ether and then on the same plane a
principle
coeternal and coactive which he calls the fifth element or Ogenos.[ Loc.cit.]
He
then points out that the meaning of Ogenos is given as that which shuts up
which holds captive and
that
is Hades,or in a word hell.
The
synonyms are known to every schoolboy without the Marquis going to the trouble
of explaining them
to
the Academy;as to the deduction every Occultist will of course deny it and only
smile at its folly.And
now
we come to the theological conclusion.
The
resumé of the views of the Latin Church -as given by authors of the same
characters as the Marquis
de
Mirville -amounts to this:that the Hermetic Books,their wisdom -fully admitted
in Rome -
notwithstanding
are the heirloom left by Cain the accursed to mankind. It is generally
admitted says
that
modern memorialist of Satan in History:
That
immediately after the Flood Cham and his descendants had propagated anew the
ancient
teachings of the Cainites and of the surmerged Race.[Op.cit.,iii
208 ]
(Page 42)This proves at any rate that Magic,or Sorcery as he calls
it is an antediluvian Art and thus
one
point is gained.For as he says:-
The
evidence of Berosius makes Ham identical with the first Zoroaster founder of
Bactria the
first
author of all the magic arts of Babylonia the Chemesen a or Cham [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 ] the infamo s [ Black
Magic,or Sorcery is the ev il
result
obtain e d 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.] of the faithful Noachians,finally the object
of adoration for
Egypt
which having received its name ÷ēģåéį whence chemistry built in his honour a
town
called
Choemnis,or the city of fire. [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
(today
Akhmem)was the chief seat of the God Khem.The Greeks identifying Khem with Pan
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called
this city Panopolis.] Ham adored it it is said whence the name Chammaim
given to
the
pyramids;which in their turn have been vulgarised into our modern noun
chimney.[
Pne matologie,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.]
This
statement is entirely wrong.Egypt was the cradle of Chemistry and its
birth-place -this is pretty well
known
by this time.Only Kenrick and others show the root of the word to be chemi or
chem,which is not
Chem or Ham but Khem,the
Egyptian phallic God of the Mysteries.
But
this is not all.De Mirville is bent upon finding a satanic origin even for the
now innocent Tarot.
He
goes on to say:
As
to the means for the propagation of this evil Magic,tradition points it out in
certain runic
characters
traced on metallic plates [or leaves,des lames ] which have escaped
destruction by
the
Deluge [ How could they escape from the Deluge unless God so willed
it?This is scarcely
logical.]
This might have been regarded as legendary had not subsequent discoveries
shown
it
far from being so.Plates were found covered with curious and utterly
undecipherable
characters,characters
of undeniable antiquity to which the Chamites [Sorcerers,with the
author
] attribute the origin to their marvellous and terrible powers.[Loc.cit.,p.210
]
The
pious author may meanwhile be left to his own orthodox beliefs.
Cain Mathematical and Anthropomorphic -(Page 43)He at any rate seems quite sincere in his views.
Nevertheless,his
able arguments will have to be sapped at their very foundation for it must be
shown on
mathematical
grounds who or rather what Cain and Ham really were.De Mirville is only the
faithful son
of
his Church interested in keeping Cain in his anthropomorphic character and in
his present place in
Holy
Writ. The student of Occultism on the other hand is solely interested in the
truth.But the age has
to
follow the natural course of evolution.
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SECTION IV
The Secrecy of Initiates
(Page 44)THE false rendering of a number of parables and sayings of
Jesus is not to be wondered at in
the
least.From Orpheus,the first initiated Adept of whom history catches a glimpse
in the mists of the
pre-Christian
era down through Pythagoras,Confucius,Buddha Jesus,Apollonius of Tyana to
Ammonius
Saccas,no Teacher or Initiate has ever committed to writing for public use.Each
and all of
them
have invariably recommended silence and secresy on certain facts and deeds,from
Confucius,
who
refused to explain publicly and satisfactorily what he meant by his Great Extreme
or to give the
key
to the divination by straws down to Jesus,who charged his disciples to tell
no man that he was
Christ
[ Matthew xvi.20.] (Chrestos),the man of sorrows and
trials,before his supreme and last
Initiation
or that he had produced a miracle of resurrection.[ Mark v.43 .]
The Apostles had to
preserve
silence so that the left hand should not know what the right hand did;in
plainer words,that the
dangerous
proficients in the Left Hand Science -the terrible enemies of the Right Hand
Adepts,
especially
before their supreme Initiation -should not profit by the publicity so as to
harm both the healer
and
the patient.And if the above is maintained to be simply an assumption then what
may be the
meaning
of these awful words:
Unto
you it is given to know the mystery of the Kingdom of God;but unto them that
are without
all
these things are done in parables;that seeing they may see and not perceive;and
hearing
they
may hear and not understand;lest at any time they should be converted and their
sins
should
be forgiven them.[ Mark iv.11 .]
Exoteric and Esoteric Teachings -(Page 45)Unless interpreted in the sense of the law of silence and
Karma
the utter selfishness and uncharitable spirit of this remark are but too
evident.These words are
directly
connected with the terrible dogma of predestination.Will the good and
intelligent Christian cast
such
a slur of cruel selfishness on his Saviour?[ It is 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 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.]
The
work of propagating such truths in parables was left to the disciples of the
high Initiates.It was their
duty
to follow the key-note of the Secret Teaching without revealing its
mysteries.This is shown in the
histories
of all the great Adepts.Pythagoras divided his classes into hearers of exoteric
and esoteric
lectures.The
Magians received their instructions and were initiated in the far hidden caves
of Bactria.
When
Josephus declares that Abraham taught Mathematics he meant by it Magic, for
in the
Pythagorean
code Mathematics mean Esoteric Science or Gnosis.
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Professor
Wilder remarks:
The
Essenes of Judea and Carmel made similar distinctions,dividing their adherents
into
neophytes,brethren
and the perfect ....Ammonius obligated his disciples by oath not to
divulge
his higher doctrines,except to those who had been thoroughly instructed and
exercised
[prepared for initiation ].[New Platonism and Alchemy,1869.pp.7.9.]
One
of the most powerful reasons for the necessity of strict secresy is given by
Jesus Himself if one may
credit
Matthew.For there the Master is made to say plainly:
Give
not that which is holy unto the dogs,neither cast ye your pearls before
swine;lest they
trample
them under their feet and turn again and rend you.[vii.6.]
Profoundly
true and wise words.Many are those in our own age and even among us,who have
been
forcibly
reminded of them -often when too late.[ 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 remembrances 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 is the secret annals of the
Mysteries had to
remain
veiled under penalty of death.]
(Page 46)Even Maimonides recommends silence with regard to the true
meaning of the Bible texts.This
injunction
destroys the usual affirmation that Holy Writ is the only book in the world
whose divine
oracles
contain plain unvarnished truth.It may be so for the learned Kabalists;it is
certainly quite the
reverse
with regard to Christians.For this is what the learned Hebrew Philosopher says:
Whoever
shall find out the true sense of the Book of Genesis ought to take care
not to divulge
it.This
is a maxim that all our sages repeat to us,and above all respecting the work of
the six
days.If
a person should discover the true meaning of it by himself or by the aid
of another
then
he ought to be silent or if he speaks he ought to speak of it obscurely in an
enigmatical
manner
as I do myself leaving the rest to be guessed by those who can understand me.
The
Symbology and Esoterism of the Old Testament being thus confessed by one
of the greatest Jewish
Philosophers,it
is only natural to find Christian Fathers making the same confession with
regard to the
New Testament and the Bible
in general.Thus we find Clemens Alexandrinus and Origen admitting it as
plainly
as words can do it.Clemens,who had been initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries
says,that:
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The
doctrines there taught contained in them the end of all instructions as they
were taken
from Moses and the prophets,
a
slight perversion of facts pardonable in the good Father.The words admit after
all that the Mysteries
of
the Jews were identical with those of the Pagan Greeks,who took them from the
Egyptians,who
borrowed
them in their turn from the Chaldaeans,who got them from the Aryans,the
Atlanteans and so
on
-far beyond the days of that Race.The secret meaning of the Gospel is again
openly confessed by
Clemens
when he says that the Mysteries of the Faith are not to be divulged to all.
But
since this tradition is not published alone for him who perceives the
magnificence of the
word;it
is requisite therefore to hide in a Mystery the wisdom spoken which the Son of
God
taught.[
Stromateis,xii.]
Origen on Genesis -(Page 47)Not less
explicit is Origen with regard to the Bible and its symbolical
fables.He
exclaims:
If
we hold to the letter and must understand what stands written in the law after
the manner of
the
Jews and common people then I should blush to confess aloud that it is God who
has
given
these laws;then the laws of men appear more excellent and reasonable.[See
Homilies
7.quoted
in the So rce of Measures,p.307.]
And
well he might have blushed the sincere and honest Father of early Christianity
in its days of
relative
purity.But the Christians of this highly literary and civilised age of ours do
not blush at all;they
swallow
on the contrary the light before the formation of the sun the Garden of Eden
Jonah s whale
and
all notwithstanding that the same Origen asks in a very natural fit of
indignation:
What
man of sense will agree with the statement that the first second and third days
in which
the
evening is named and the morning were without sun moon and
stars,and the first day
without
a heaven?What man is found such an idiot as to suppose that God planted trees
in
Paradise
in Eden like a husbandman etc?I believe that every man must hold these things
for
images,under which a hidden sense lies concealed.[ Origen:Huet.Origeniana,167:
quoted
from Dunlop s Sid .p.176 .]
Yet
millions of such idiots are found in our age of enlightenment and not only
in the third century.When
Paul
s unequivocal statement in Galatians,iv.22-25 that the story of Abraham
and his two sons is all an
allegory.
and that Agar is Mount Sinai is added to this,then little blame indeed can
be attached to
either
Christian or Heathen who declines to accept the Bible in any other light
than that of a very
ingenious
allegory.
Rabbi
Simeon Ben-Jochai the compiler of the Zohar never imparted the most
important points of his
doctrine
otherwise than orally and to a very limited number of disciples.Therefore
without the final
initiation
into the Mercavah the study of the Kabalah will be ever
incomplete and the Mercavah can be
taught
only in darkness,in a deserted place and after many and terrific trials.
Since the death of that
great
Jewish Initiate this hidden doctrine has remained for the outside world an
inviolate secret.
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Among
the venerable sect of the Tanaim or rather the Tananim the wise men there were
those
who taught the secrets practically and initiated some disciples into the grand
and final
Mystery.But
the Mishna Hagiga,2 nd Section say that the table of contents of the Mercaba
must
only be delivered to wise old ones.The Gemara is still more
dogmatic.The more
important
secrets of the Mysteries (Page
48)were not even revealed to all
priests.Alone the
initiates
had them divulged. And so we find the same great secresy prevalent in every
ancient
religion.[
Isis Unveiled ii.350 .]
What
says the Kabalah itself?Its great Rabbis actually threaten him who
accepts their sayings verbatim.
We
read in the Zohar :
Woe
to the man who sees in the Thorah i.e.,Law only simple recitals and
ordinary words!
Because
if in truth it only contained these we would even today be able to compose a
Thorah
much
more worthy of admiration.For if we find only the simple words we would only
have to
address
ourselves to the legislators of the earth.[ 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 .] to
those in whom
we
most frequently meet with the most grandeur.It would be sufficient to imitate
them and
make
a Thorah after their words and example.But it is not so;each word of the Thorah
contains
an elevated meaning and a sublime mystery....The recitals of the Thorah are the
vestments
of the Thorah.Woe to him who takes this garment for the Thorah itself ....The
simple
notice only of the garments or recitals of the Thorah they know of no other
thing they
see
not that which is concealed under the vestment.The more instructed men do not
pay
attention
to the vestment but to the body which it envelops.[ iii.fol.1526 quoted
in Myer s
Qabbalah,p.102.]
Ammonius
Saccas taught that the Secret Doctrine of the Wisdom-Religion was found
complete in the
Books of Thoth (Hermes),from
which both Pythagoras and Plato derived their knowledge and much of
their
Philosophy;and these Books were declared by him to be identical with the
teachings of the Sages
of
the remote East. Professor A.Wilder remarks:
As
the name Thoth means a college or assembly it is not altogether improbable that
the books
were
so named as being the collected oracles and doctrines of the sacerdotal
fraternity of
Memphis.Rabbi
Wise has suggested the same hypothesis in relation to the divine utterances
recorded
in the Hebrew Scriptures.[ New-Platonism and Alchemy.p.6 ]
This
is very probable.Only the divine utterances have never been so far
understood by the profane.
Philo
Judaeus,a non-initiate attempted to give their secret meaning and -failed.
But
Books of Thoth or Bible,Vedas or Kabalah,all enjoin the same secresy as
to certain mysteries of
nature
symbolised in them.Woe be to him who divulges nlawf lly the words
whispered into the ear of
Manushi
by the First Initiator.
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The Dark Sayings of the Testaments (Page 49)Who that Initiator was is made plain in the Book of
Enoch:
From
them [the angels ] I heard all things,and understood what I saw that which will
not take
place
in this generation [Race ] but in a generation which is to succeed at a distant
period [ the
6
th and 7 th Races ] on account of the elect [the Initiates ].[ i.2.]
Again
it is said with regard to the judgment of those who when they have learned
every secret of the
angels,
reveal them that:
They
have discovered secrets,and they are those who have been judged;but not
thou my
son
[Noah ] ...thou art pure and good and free from the reproach of discovering
[revealing ]
secrets.[
IXIV.10.]
But
there are those in our century who having discovered secrets unaided and
owing to their own
learning
and acuteness only and who being nevertheless,honest and straightforward men
undismayed
by
threats or warning since they have never pledged themselves to secresy feel
quite startled at such
revelations.One
of these is the learned author and discoverer of one Key to the
Hebrew-Egyptian
Mystery.
As he says,there are some strange features connected to the promulgation and
condition of
the
Bible.
Those
who compiled this book were men as we are.They knew saw handled and realized
through
the key measure [ 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.] the law of
the living ever active
God
.[ 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.]
They
needed no faith that He was that He worked planned and accomplished as a mighty
mechanic
and architect.[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.]What was it then that
reserved to them
alone
this knowledge while first as men of God and second as Apostles of Jesus the
Christ
they
doled out a blinding ritual service and an empty teaching of faith and
no substance as
proof
properly coming through the exercise of just those senses which the Deity has
given all
men
as the essential means of obtaining any right understanding?Mystery and parable,and
dark saying,and cloaking
of the true meanings are the burden of the Testaments,Old and
New.Take
it that the narratives of the Bible were purposed inventions to deceive
the ignorant
masses,even
while enforcing a most perfect code of moral obligations:How is it possible to
justify
so great frauds,as part of the Divine economy when to that economy the
attribute of
simple
and perfect truthf lness must in the nature of things,be (Page 50)ascribed?What has,
or
what by possibility ought mystery to have with the promulgation of the truths
of God?[
So rce of Measures,pp.308
309 ]
Nothing
whatever most certainly if those mysteries had been given from the first.And so
it was with
regard
to the first semi-divine pure and spiritual Races of Humanity.They had the
truths of God and
lived
up to them and their ideals.They preserved them so long as there was hardly any
evil and hence
scarcely
a possible abuse of that knowledge and those truths.But evolution and the
gradual fall into
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materiality
is also one of the truths and also one of the laws of God. And as mankind
progressed and
became
with every generation more of the earth earthly the individuality of each
temporary Ego began
to
assert itself.It is personal selfishness that develops and urges man on to
abuse of his knowledge and
power.And
selfishness is a human building whose windows and doors are ever wide open for
every kind
of
iniquity to enter into man s soul.Few were the men during the early
adolescence of mankind and
fewer
still are they now who feel disposed to put into practice Pope s forcible
declaration that he would
tear
out his own heart if it had no better disposition than to love only himself and
laugh at all his
neighbours.Hence
the necessity of gradually taking away from man the divine knowledge and power
which
became with every new human cycle more dangerous as a double-edged weapon whose
evil side
was
ever threatening one s neighbour and whose power for good was lavished freely
only upon self.
Those
few elect whose inner natures had remained unaffected by their outward
physical growth thus
became
in time the sole guardians of the mysteries revealed passing the knowledge to
those most fit to
receive
it and keeping it inaccessible to others.Reject this explanation from the
Secret Teachings,and
the
very name of Religion will become synonymous with deception and fraud.
Yet
the masses could not be allowed to remain without some sort of moral
restraint.Man is ever craving
for
a beyond and cannot live without an idea of some kind as a beacon and a
consolation.At the same
time
no average man even in our age of universal education could be entrusted with
truths too
metaphysical
too subtle for his mind to comprehend without the danger of an imminent
reaction setting
in
and faith in Gods and Saints making room for an unscientific blank Atheism.No
real philanthropist
hence
no Occultist would dream for a moment of a mankind without one title of
Religion.
The Greatest Crime Ever Perpetrated -(Page 51)Even the modern day Religion in Europe confined to
Sundays,is
better than none.But if as Bunyan put it Religion is the best armour that a
man can have
it
certainly is the worst cloak ;and it is that cloak and false pretence
which the Occultists and the
Theosophists
fight against.The true ideal Deity the one living God in Nature can never
suffer in man s
worship
if that outward cloak woven by man s fancy and thrown upon the Deity by the
crafty hand of the
priest
greedy of power and domination is drawn aside.The hour has struck with the
commencement of
this
century to dethrone the highest God of every nation in favour of One
Universal Deity -The God of
Immutable
Law not charity;the God of Just Retribution not mercy which is merely an
incentive to evil-
doing
and to a repetition of it.The greatest crime that was ever perpetrated upon
mankind was
committed
on that day when the first priest invented the first prayer with a selfish
object in view.A God
who
may be propitiated by iniquitous prayers to bless the arms of the worshipper
and send defeat and
death
to thousands of his enemies -his brethren;a Deity that can be supposed not to
turn a deaf ear to
chants
of laudation mixed with entreaties for a fair propitious wind for self and as
naturally disastrous to
the
selves of other navigators who come from an opposite direction -it is this idea
of God that has
fostered
selfishness in man and deprived him of his self-reliance.Prayer is an ennobling
action when it
is
an intense feeling an ardent desire rushing forth from our very heart for the
good of other people and
when
entirely detached from any selfish personal object;the craving for a beyond is
natural and holy in
man
but on the condition of sharing that bliss with others.One can understand and
well appreciate the
words
of the heathen Socrates,who declared in his profound though untaught wisdom
that:
Our
prayers should be for blessings on all in general for the Gods know best what
is good for
us.
But
official prayer -in favour of a public calamity or for the benefit of one
individual irrespective of losses
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to
thousands -is the most ignoble of crimes,besides being an impertinent conceit
and a superstition.
This
is the direct inheritance by spoliation from the Jehovites -the Jews of the
Wilderness and of the
Golden
Calf.
It
is Jehovah as will be presently shown that suggested the necessity of
veiling and screening this
substitute
for the unpronounceable name and that led to all this mystery parables,dark
sayings (Page
52)and
cloaking. Moses had at any rate initiated his seventy Elders into the hidden
truths,and thus the
writers
of the Old Testament stand to a degree justified.Those of the New
Testament have failed to do
even
so much or so little.They have disfigured the grand central figure of Christ by
their dogmas,and
have
led people ever since into millions of errors and the darkest crimes,in His
holy name.
It
is evident that with the exception of Paul and Clement of Alexandria who had
been both initiated into
the
Mysteries,none of the Fathers knew much of the truth themselves.They were
mostly uneducated
ignorant
people;and if such as Augustine and Lactantius,or again the Venerable Bede and
others,were
so
painfully ignorant until the name of Galileo [ In his Pne matologie,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.] of the most vital truths taught in the Pagan temples -of
the rotundity of the earth for
example
leaving the heliocentric system out of question -how great must have been the
ignorance of
the
rest!Learning the accusations of dealing with the Devil lavished on the Pagan
Philosophers.
But
truth must out.The Occultists,referred to as the followers of the accursed
Cain by such writers as
De
Mirville are now in a position to reverse the tables.That which was hitherto
known only to the ancient
and
modern Kabalists in Europe and Asia is now published and shown as being
mathematically true.
The
author of the Key to the Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery or the So rce of Meas res has
now proved to
general
satisfaction it is to be hoped that the two great God-names,Jehovah and Elohim
stood in one
meaning
of their numerical values,for a diameter and a circumference value
respectively;in other
words,that
they are numerical indices of geometrical relations;and finally that Jehovah
is Cain and vice
versa.
This
view says the author
Helps
also to take the horrid blemish off from the name of Cain as a put-up-job to
destroy his
character;for
even without these showings,by the very text he [Cain ] was Jehovah.So
the
theological
schools had better be alive to making the amend honorable if such a thing is
possible
to the good name and fame of the God they worship
Asiatic Religions Proclaim Their Esoterism Openly -(Page 53)[
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 Able
Seth.etc.
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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 it 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.]
This
is not the first warning received by the theological schools. which however
no doubt knew it from
the
beginning as did Clemens of Alexandria and others.But if it be so they will
profit still less by it as the
admission
would involve more for them than the mere sacredness and dignity of the
established faith.
But
it may also be asked why is it that the Asiatic religions,which have nothing of
this sort to conceal
and
which proclaim quite openly the Esoterism of their doctrines,follow the same
course?It is simply
this:While
the present and no doubt enforced silence of the Church on this subject relates
merely to the
external
or theoretical form of the Bible -the unveiling of the secrets of which
would have involved no
practical
harm had they been explained from the first -it is an entirely different
question with Eastern
Esoterism
and Symbology.The grand central figure of the Gospels would have remained as
unaffected
by
the symbolism of the Old Testament being revealed as would that of the
Founder of Buddhism had
the
Brahmanical writings of the P ranas,that preceded his birth all been
shown to be allegorical.Jesus
of
Nazareth moreover would have gained more than he would have lost had he been
presented as a
simple
mortal left to be judged on his own precepts and merits,instead of being
fathered on Christendom
as
a God whose many utterances and acts are now so open to criticism.On the other
hand the symbols
and
allegorical sayings that veil the grand truths of Nature in the Vedas,the
Brahmanas,the Upanishads
and
especially in the Lamaist Chagpa Thogmed and other works,are quite of a
different nature and far
more
complicated in their secret meaning.While the Biblical glyphs have nearly all a
triune foundation
those
of the Eastern books are worked on the septenary principle.They are (Page 54)as closely related to
the
mysteries of Physics and Physiology as to Psychism and the transcendental
nature of cosmic
elements
and Theogony;unriddled they would prove more than injurious to the
uninitiated;delivered into
the
hands of the present generations in their actual state of physical and
intellectual development in the
absence
of spirituality and even of practical morality they would become absolutely
disastrous.
Nevertheless
the secret teachings of the sanctuaries have not remained without witness;they
have been
made
immortal in various ways.They have burst upon the world in hundreds of volumes
full of the quaint
head-breaking
phraseology of the Alchemist;they have flashed like irrepressible cataracts of
Occult
mystic
lore from the pens of poets and bards.Genius alone had certain privileges in
those dark ages
when
no dreamer could offer the world even a fiction without suiting his heaven and
his earth to biblical
text.To
genius alone it was permitted in those centuries of mental blindness,when the
fear of the Holy
Office
threw a thick veil over every cosmic and psychic truth to reveal unimpeded
some of the grandest
truths
of Initiation.Whence did Ariosto in his Orlando F rioso,obtain his
conception of that valley of the
Moon
where after our death we can find the ideas and images of all that exists on
earth?How came
Dante
to imagine the many descriptions given in his Inferno -a new Johannine
Apolcalypse a true Occult
Revelation
in verse -his visit and communion with the Souls of the Seven Spheres?In poetry
and satire
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every
Occult truth has been welcomed -none has been recognised as serious.The Comte
de Gabalis is
better
known and appreciated than Porphyry and Iamblichus.Plato s mysterious Atlantis
is proclaimed a
fiction
while Noah s Deluge is to this day on the brain of certain Archaeologists who
scoff at the
archetypal
world of Marcel Palingenius Zodiac and would resent as a personal
injury being asked to
discuss
the four worlds of Mercury Trismegistus -the Archetypal the Spiritual the
Astral and the
Elementary
with three others behind the opened scene.Evidently civilised society is still
but half
prepared
for the revelation.Hence the Initiates will never give out the whole secret
until the bulk of
mankind
has changed its actual nature and is better prepared for truth.Clemens
Alexandrinus was
positively
right in saying It is requisite to hide in a mystery the wisdom spoken
-which the Sons of
God
teach.
That
Wisdom as will be seen relates to all the primeval truths delivered to the
first Races,the Mind-
born
by the Builders of the Universe themselves.
The Wisdom-Religion -(Page 55)There was in
every ancient country having claims to civilisation an
Esoteric
Doctrine a system which was designated WISDOM [ 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,Neitha Metis,
Athena
and the Gnostic potency Achamoth or Sophia.The Samaritan Pentate ch 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
Disco rses of 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
Dhyani-Chohans,who
have
been shown to be identical with the Seven Spirits of the Presence of the
Roman Catholics.] and
those
who were devoted to its prosecution were first denominated sages,or wise
men...Pythagoras
termed
this system ēćķłóéņ ōłķ äķōłķ the Gnosis or Knowledge of things that are.Under
the noble
designation
of WISDOM the ancient teachers,the sages of India the magians of Persia and
Babylon
the
seers and prophets of Israel the hierophants of Egypt and Arabia and the
philosophers of Greece
and
the West included all knowledge which they considered as essentially
divine;classifying a part as
esoteric
and the remainder as exterior.The Rabbis called the exterior and secular series
the Mercavah
as
being the body or vehicle which contained the higher knowledge.[New
Platonism and Alchemy,p.6 .]
Later
on we shall speak of the law of silence imposed on eastern chelās.
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SECTION V
Some Reasons for Secrecy
(Page 56)The fact that the Occult Sciences have been withheld from
the world at large and denied by the
Initiates
to Humanity has often been made matter of complaint.It has been alleged that
the Guardians of
the
Secret Lore were selfish in withholding the treasures of Archaic Wisdom;that
it was positively
criminal
to keep back such knowledge -if any -from the men of Science etc.
Yet
there must have been some very good reasons for it since from the very dawn of
History such has
been
the policy of every Hierophant and Master.Pythagoras,the first Adept and real
Scientist in pre-
Christian
Europe is accused of having taught in public the immobility of the earth and
the rotary motion
of
the stars around it while he was declaring to his privileged Adepts his belief
in the motion of the Earth
as
a planet and in the heliocentric system.The reasons for such secresy however
are many and were
never
made a mystery of.The chief cause as given in Isis Unveiled .It may now
be repeated.
From
the very day when the first mystic,taught by the first Instructor of the
divine Dynasties
of
the early races,was taught the means of communication between this world and
the worlds
of
the invisible host between the sphere of matter and that of pure spirit he
concluded that to
abandon
this mysterious science to the desecration willing or unwilling of the profane
rabble -
was
to lose it.An abuse of it might lead mankind to speedy destruction;it was like
surrounding
a
group of children with explosive substances,and furnishing them with
matches.The first
divine
Instructor initiated but a select few and these kept silence with the
multitudes.They
recognised
their God and each Adept felt the great SELF within
himself.The Atman the
Self
the mighty Lord and Protector once that man knew him as the I am the Ego
Sum the
Asmi
showed his full power to him who could recognise the still small voice. From
the days
of
the primitive man described by the first Vedic poet down to our modern age
there has not
been
a philosopher worthy of that name who did not carry in the silent sanctuary of
his heart
the
grand and mysterious truth.If initiated he learnt it as a sacred science;if
otherwise then
like
Socrates,repeating to himself as well as his fellow-men the noble injunction
O man
know
thyself he succeeded in recognising his God within himself.
The Key of Practical Theurgy -
(Page 57)Ye are Gods,the king-psalmist tells us,and we find Jesus
reminding the scribes
that
this expression was addressed to other mortal men claiming for themselves the
same
privilege
without any blasphemy.And as a faithful echo Paul while asserting that we are
all
the
temple of the living God cautiously remarked elsewhere that after all these
things are
only
for the wise and it is unlawful to speak of them.[ 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.]
Some
of the reasons for this secresy may be given.
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The
fundamental law and master-key of practical Theurgy in its chief applications
to the serious study of
cosmic
and sidereal of psychic and spiritual mysteries was,and still is,that which was
called by the
Greek
Neoplatonist Theophania. In its generally-accepted meaning this is
communication between the
Gods
(or God)and those initiated mortals who are spiritually fit to enjoy such an
intercourse.
Esoterically
however it signifies more than this.For it is not only the presence of a God
but an actual -
howbeit
temporary -incarnation the blending so to say of the personal Deity the Higher
Self with man -
its
representative or agent on earth.As a general law the Highest God the Over-soul
of the human being
(Atma-Buddhi),only
overshadows the individual during his life for purposes of instruction and
revelation;
or
as Roman Catholics -who erroneously call that Over-soul the Guardian Angel
-would say It stands
outside
and watches. But in the case of the theophanic mystery it incarnates itself in
the Theurgist for
purposes
of revelation.When the incarnation is temporary during those mysterious trances
or ecstasy
which
Plotinus defined as
The
liberation of the mind from its finite consciousness,becoming one and
identified with the
Infinite
this
sublime condition is very short.The human soul being the offspring or emanation
of its God the
Father
and the Son become one the divine fountain flowing like a stream into its
human bed.
[ Proclus claims to
have experienced this sublime ecstasy six times during his mystic life:Porphyry
asserts
that Appollonius of Tyana was thus united four times to his deity -a statement
which we believe
to
be a mistake since Apollonius was a Nirmanakaya (divine incarnation -not
Avatara)-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.]
In
exceptional
cases,however the mystery becomes complete;the (Page 58)Word is made Flesh in real
fact
the individual becoming divine in the full sense of the term since his personal
God has made of him
his
permanent life-long tabernacle -the temple of God as Paul says.
Now
that which is meant here by the personal God of Man is,of course not his
seventh Principle alone
as
per se and in essence that is merely a bean of the infinite Ocean of
Light.In conjunction with our
Divine
Soul the Buddhi it cannot be called a Duad as it otherwise might since though
formed from
Atma
and Buddhi (the two higher Principles),the former is no entity but an emanation
from the Absolute
and
indivisible in reality from it.The personal God is not the Monad but indeed the
prototype of the latter
what
for want of a better term we call the manifested Karanatma [ Karana
Sharira is the causal body
and
is sometimes said to be the personal God. And so it is,in one sense.] (Causal
Soul),one of the
seven
and chief reservoirs of the human Monads or Egos.The latter are gradually
formed and
strengthened
during their incarnation-cycle by constant additions of individuality from the
personalities in
which
incarnates that androgynous,half-spiritual half-terrestrial principle partaking
of both heaven and
earth
called by the Vedantins Jiva and Vijnanamaya Kosha and by the Occultists the
Manas (mind);
that
in short which uniting itself partially with the Monad incarnates in each new
birth.In perfect unity
with
its (seventh)Principle the Spirit unalloyed it is the divine Higher Self as
every student of
Theosophy
knows.After every new incarnation Buddhi-Manas culls,so to say the aroma of the
flower
called
personality the purely earthly residue of which its dregs -is left to fade out
as a shadow.This is
the
most difficult -because so transcendentally metaphysical -portion of the
doctrine.
As
is repeated many a time in this and other works,it is not the
Philosophers,Sages,and Adepts of
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antiquity
who can ever be charged with idolatry.It is they in fact who recognising divine
unity were the
only
ones,owing to their initiation into the mysteries of Esotericism to understand
correctly the
õšóķóéį(hyponea),or
under-meaning of the anthropomorphism of the so-called Angels,Gods,and
Spiritual
Beings of every kind.Each worshipping the one Divine Essence that pervades the
whole world
of
Nature reverenced but never worshipped or idolised any of these Gods, whether
high or low -not
even
his own personal Deity of which he was a Ray and to whom he appealed.[ This
would be in one
sense
Self-worship.]
The Ladder of Being -
(Page 59)The holy Triad emanates from the One and is the
Tetraktys;the gods,daimons,and
souls
are an emanation of the Triad.Heroes and men repeat the hierarchy in
themselves.
Thus
said Metrodorus of Chios,the Pythagorean the latter part of the sentence
meaning that man has
within
himself the seven pale reflections of the seven divine Hierarchies;his Higher
Self is,therefore in
itself
but the refracted beam of the direct Ray.He who regards the latter as an Entity
in the usual sense
of
the term is one of the infidels and atheists, spoken of by Epicurus,for he
fastens on that God the
opinions
of the multitude -an anthropomorphism of the grossest kind.[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. ] The Adept and the Occultist know that
what are styled the Gods are only
the
first principles (Aristotle).None the less they are intelligent conscious,and
living Principles, the
Primary
Seven Lights manifested from Light nmanifested -which to us is
Darkness.They are the Seven
-exoterically
four -Kumaras or Mind-Born Sons of Brahma.And it is they again the Dhyan
Chohans,
who
are the prototypes in the aeonic eternity of lower Gods and hierarchies of
divine Beings,at the
lowest
end of which ladder of being are we -men.
Thus
perchance Polytheism when philosophically understood may be a degree higher
than even the
Monotheism
of the Protestant say who limits and conditions the Deity in whom he persists
in seeing the
Infinite
but whose supposed actions make of that Absolute and Infinite the most
absurd paradox in
Philosophy.From
this standpoint Roman Catholicism itself is immeasurably higher and more
logical than
Protestantism
though the Roman Church has been pleased to adopt the exotericism of the
heathen
multitude
and to reject the Philosophy of pure Esotericism.
Thus
every mortal has his immortal counterpart or rather his Archetype in
heaven.This means that the
former
is indissolubly united to the latter in each of his incarnations,and for the
duration of the cycle of
births;only
it is by the spiritual and intellectual Principle in him entirely distinct from
the lower self never
through
the earthly personality.Some of these are even liable to break the union
altogether in case of
absence
in the moral individual of binding viz.,of spiritual ties.Truly as
Paracelsus puts it in his quaint
tortured
(Page 60)phraseology man with his three (compound)Spirits is
suspended like a foetus by all
three
to the matrix of the Macrocosm;the thread which holds him united being the
Thread-Soul
Sutratma
and Taijasa (the Shining )of the Vedantins.And it is through this spiritual
and intellectual
Principle
in man though Taijasa -the Shining because it has the luminous internal organ
as its
associate
-that man is thus united to his heavenly prototype never through his lower
inner self or Astral
Body
for which there remains in most cases nothing but to fade out.
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Occultism
or Theurgy teaches the means of producing such union.But it is the actions of
man -his
personal
merit alone -that can produce it on earth or determine its duration.This lasts
from a few
seconds
-a flash -to several hours,during which time the Theurgist or Theophanist is
that
overshadowing
God himself;hence he becomes endowed for the time being with relative
omniscience
and
omnipotence.With such perfect (divine)Adepts as Buddha [ Esoteric,as
exoteric,Buddhism rejects
the
theory that Gautama was an incarnation or Avatara 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 .]
and
others such a hypostatical state of avataric condition may last during the
whole life;whereas in the
case
of full Initiates,who have not yet reached the perfect state of Jivanmukta [
One entirely and
absolutely
purified and having nothing in common with earth except his body.] Theopneusty
when in full
sway
results for the high Adept in a full recollection of everything seen heard or
sensed.
Taijasa
has fruition of the supersensible .[ Mand kyopanishad,4.]
For
one less perfect it will end only in a partial indistinct remembrance;while the
beginner has to face in
the
first period of his psychic experiences a mere confusion followed by a rapid and
finally complete
oblivion
of the mysteries seen during this super-hypnotic condition.The degree of
recollection when one
returns
to his waking state and physical senses,depends on his spiritual and psychic
purification the
greatest
enemy of spiritual memory being man s physical brain the organ of his sensuous
nature.
The
above states are described for a clearer comprehension of terms used in this
work.There are so
many
and such various conditions and states that even a Seer is liable to confound
one with the other.
Three Ways Open to the Adept -(Page 61)To repeat:the Greek,rarely-used word Theophania meant
more
with the Neoplatonists than it does with the modern maker of dictionaries.The
compound word
Theophania
(from theos, God and phainomai to appear), does not simply mean a
manifestation
of
God to man by act al appearance -an absurdity by the way -but the
actual presence of a God in
man
a divine incarnation.When Simon the Magician claimed to be God the
Father what he wanted to
convey
was just that which has been explained namely that he was a divine incarnation
of his own
Father
whether we see in the latter an Angel a God or a Spirit;therefore he was called
that power of
God
which is called great [ Acts viii 10 (Revised Version).] or
that power which causes the Divine Self
to
enshrine itself in its lower self -man.
This
is one of the several mysteries of being and incarnation.Another is that when
an Adept reaches
during
his lifetime that state of holiness and purity that makes him equal to the
Angels, then at death his
apparitional
or astral body becomes as solid and tangible as was the late body and is
transformed into
the
real man.[ See the explanations given on the subject in The Elixir
of Life by G.M.(From a Chela s
Diary),Five
Years of Theosophy.] The old physical body falling off like the
cast-off serpent s skin the
body
of the new man remains either visible or at the option of the Adept
disappears from view
surrounded
as it is by the Akashic shell that screens it.In the latter case there are
three ways open to the
Adept:
(1)He
may remain in the earth s sphere (Vayu or Kama-loka),in that ethereal locality
concealed from
human
sight save during flashes of clairvoyance.In this case his astral body owing to
its great purity and
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spirituality
having lost the conditions required for Akashic light (the nether or
terrestrial ether)to absorb
its
semi-material particles,the Adept will have to remain in the company of
disintegrating shells -doing
no
good or useful work.This,of course cannot be.
(2)He
can by a supreme effort of will merge entirely into and get united with his
Monad.By doing so
however
we would (a)deprive his Higher Self of posthumous Samadhi -a bliss which is not
real Nirvana
-the
astral however pure being too earthly for such state;and (b)he would thereby
open himself to
Karmic
law;the action being in fact the outcome of personal selfishness -of reaping
the fruits produced
by
and for oneself -alone.
(3)The
Adept has the option of renouncing conscious Nirvana and (Page 62)rest to work on earth for the
good
of mankind.This he can do in a two-fold way:either as above said by
consolidating his astral body
into
physical appearance he can reassume the self-same personality;or he can avail
himself of an
entirely
new physical body whether that of a newly-born infant or -as Shānkarācharya is
reported to
have
done with the body of a dead Rajah -by entering a deserted sheath and living
in it as long as he
chooses.This
is what is called continuous existence. The Section entitled The Mystery
about Buddha
will
throw additional light on this theory to the profane incomprehensible or to the
generality simply
absurd .Such is the
doctrine taught everyone having the choice of either fathoming it still deeper
or of
leaving
it unnoticed.
The
above is simply a small portion of what might have been given in Isis
Unveiled had the time come
then
as it has now.One cannot study and profit by Occult Science unless one gives
himself up to it -
heart
soul and body.Some of its truths are too awful too dangerous,for the average
mind.None can
toy
and play with such terrible weapons with impunity.Therefore it is,as St.Paul
has it unlawful to
speak
of them.Let us accept the reminder and talk only of that which is lawful.
The
quotation on p.56 relates,moreover only to psychic or spiritual Magic.The
practical teachings of
Occult
Science are entirely different and few are the strong minds fitted for them.As
to ecstasy and
such
like kinds of self-illumination this may be obtained by oneself and without any
teacher or initiation
for
ecstasy is reached by an inward command and control of Self over the physical
Ego;as to obtaining
mastery
over the forces of Nature this requires a long training or the capacity of one
born a natural
Magician.
Meanwhile those who possess neither of the requisite qualifications are
strongly advised to
limit
themselves to purely spiritual development.But even this is difficult as the
first necessary
qualification
is an unshakable belief in one s own powers and the Deity within
oneself;otherwise a man
would
simply develop into an irresponsible medium.Throughout the whole mystic
literature of the ancient
world
we detect the same idea of spiritual Esoterism that the personal God exists
within nowhere
outside
the worshipper.That personal Deity is no vain breath or a fiction but an
immortal Entity the
Initiator
of the Initiates,now that the heavenly or Celestial Initiators of primitive
humanity -the Shishta of
the
preceding cycles -are no more among us.Like an undercurrent rapid and clear it
runs without
mixing
its crystalline purity with the muddy troubled waters of dogmatism an enforced
anthropomorphic
Deity
and religious intolerance.
Man is God -(Page 63)We find this idea in
the tortured and barbarous phraseology of the Codex
Nazarae s,and in the
superb Neoplatonic language of the Fourth Gospel of the later Religion in the
oldest
Veda and in the Avesta in the Abhidharma,in Kapila s Sankhya,and
the Bhagavad Gitā.We
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cannot
attain Adeptship and Nirvana Bliss and the Kingdom of Heaven unless we link
ourselves
indissolubly
with our Rex Lux the Lord of Splendour and of Light our immortal God within
us.Aham eva
param Brahman - I am
verily the Supreme Brahman -has ever been the one living truth in the heart
and
mind of the Adepts,and it is this which helps the Mystic to become one.One must
first of all
recognize
one s own immortal Principle and then only can one conquer or take the Kingdom
of Heaven
by
violence.Only this has to be achieved by the higher -not the middle nor the
third -man the last one
being
of dust.Nor can the second man the Son -on this plane as his Father is the
Son on a still
higher
plane -do anything without the assistance of the first the Father.But to
succeed one has to
identify
oneself with one s divine Parent.
The
first man is of the earth earthy;the second [inner our higher ] man is the Lord
from
heaven....Behold
I show you a mystery.[ I.Cor.,xv.47.50 .]
Thus
says Paul mentioning but the dual and trinitarian man for the better
comprehension of the non-
initiated.But
this is not all for the Dephic injunction has to be fulfilled:man must know
himself in order to
become
a perfect Adept.How few can acquire the knowledge however not merely in its
inner mystical
but
even in its literal sense for there are two meanings in this command of the
Oracle.This is the
doctrine
of Buddha and the Bodhisattvas pure and simple.
Such
is also the mystical sense of what was said to Paul to the Corinthians about
their being the temple
of
God for this meant Esoterically:
Ye
are the temple of [the or your ] God and the Spirit of [a or your ] God
dwelleth in you.[ 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 chela
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).]
(Page 64)This carries precisely the same meaning as the I am
verily Brahman of the Vedantin.Nor is the
latter
assertion more blasphemous than the Pauline -if there were any blasphemy in
either which is
denied.Only
the Vedantin who never refers to his body as being himself or even a part of
himself or
aught
else but an illusory form for others to see him in constructs his assertion
more openly and
sincerely
than was done by Paul.
The
Delphic command Know thyself was perfectly comprehensible to every nation of
old.So it is now
save
to the Christians,since with the exception of the Mussulmans,it is part and
parcel of every Eastern
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religion
including the Kabalistically instructed Jews.To understand its full meaning
however
necessitates,first
of all belief in Reincarnation and all its mysteries;not as laid down in the
doctrine of
the
French Reincarnationists of the Allan Kardec school but as they are expounded
and taught by
Esoteric
Philosophy.Man must in short know who he was,before he arrives at knowing what
he is.And
how
many are there among Europeans who are capable of developing within themselves
an absolute
belief
in their past and future reincarnations,in general even as a law let alone
mystic knowledge of
one
s immediately precedent life?Early education tradition and training of thought
everything is
opposing
itself during their whole lives to such a belief.Cultured people have been
brought up in that
most
pernicious idea that the wide difference found between the units of one and the
same mankind or
even
race is the result of chance;that the gulf between man and man in their
respective social positions,
birth
intellect physical and mental capacities -every one of which qualifications has
a direct influence on
every
human life -that all this is simply due to blind hazard only the most pious
among them finding
equivocal
consolation in the idea that it is the will of God. They have never analysed
never stopped to
think
of the depth of the opprobrium that is thrown upon their God once the grand and
most equitable
law
of the manifold re-births of man upon this earth is foolishly rejected.Men and
women anxious to be
regarded
as Christians,often truly and sincerely trying to lead a Christ-like life have
never paused to
reflect
over the words of their own Bible.
Jesus Taught Reincarnation -(Page 65)Art thou Elias? the Jewish priests and Levites asked the
Baptist.[
John,i.21.] Their Saviour taught His disciples this grand
truth of the Esoteric Philosophy but
verily
if His Apostles comprehended it no one else seems to have realised its true meaning.No;not
even
Nicodemus,who to the assertion:Except a man be born again [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 Karanatma (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.)] he
cannot see the Kingdom of God answers:How can a man be born when he is old?
and is
forthwith
reproved by the remark:Art thou a Master in Israel and knowest not these
things?-as no one
had
a right to call himself a Master and Teacher without having been initiated
into the mysteries (a)of a
spiritual
re-birth through water fire and spirit and (b)of the re-birth from flesh.[ 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.] Then again what can be a
clearer expression as
to
the doctrine of manifold re-births than the answer given by Jesus to the
Sadducees,who deny that
there
is any resurrection i.e.,any re-birth since the dogma of the
resurrection in the flesh is now
regarded
as an absurdity even by the intelligent clergy:
They
who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world [Nirvana ] [ 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 Aeon.
Esoterically
the sentence would read:He who shall reach through a series of births and
Karmic
law the state in which Humanity shall find itself after the Seventh Round and
the
Seventh
Race when comes Nirvana Moksha and when man becomes equal unto the
Angels
of Dhyan 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
.]....neither marry ...Neither can they die any more
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which
shows that they had already died and more than once.And again:
Now
that the dead are raised even Moses shewed ...He calleth the Lord the God of
Abraham
and the God of Isaac,and the God of Jacob for he is not a God of the dead but
of
the
living.[ L ke,xx.27-38.]
The
sentence now that the dead are raised evidently applied to the then
actual re-births of the Jacobs
and
the Isaacs,and not to their (Page
66)future resurrection;for in such case
they would have been still
dead
in the interim and could not be referred to as the living.
But
in the most suggestive of Christ s parables and dark sayings is found in
the explanation given by
him
to his Apostles about the blind man:
Master
who did sin this man or his parents,that he was born blind?Jesus answered
Neither
hath
this [blind physical ] man sinned nor his parents;but that the works of [his ]
God should be
made
manifest in him.[ John ix.2.3.]
Man
is the tabernacle the building only of his God;and of course it is not
the temple but its inmate -
the
vehicle of God [The conscious Ego of Fifth Principle Manas,the
vehicle of the divine Monad or
God
.] that had sinned in a previous incarnation and had thus brought the
Karma of cecity upon the new
building.Thus
Jesus spoke truly;but to this day his followers have refused to understand the
words of
wisdom
spoken.The Saviour is shown by his followers as though he were paving by his
words and
explanation
the way to a preconceived programme that had to lead to an intended
miracle.Verily the
Grand
Martyr has remained thenceforward and for eighteen centuries,the Victim
crucified daily far more
cruelly
by his clerical disciples and lay followers than he ever could have been by his
allegorical enemies.
For
such is the true sense of the words that the works of God should be made
manifest in him in the
light
of theological interpretation and a very undignified one it is,if the Esoteric
explanation is rejected.
Doubtless
the above will be regarded as fresh blasphemy.Nevertheless there are a number
of Christians
whom
we know -whose hearts go out as strongly to their ideal of Jesus,as their souls
are repelled from
the
theological picture of the official Saviour -who will reflect over our
explanation and find in it no
offence
but perchance a relief.
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SECTION VI
The Dangers of Practical Magic
(Page 67)MAGIC is a dual power:nothing is easier than to turn it
into Sorcery;an evil tho ght suffices for
it.Therefore while
theoretical Occultism is harmless,and may do good practical Magic,or the fruits
of
the
Tree of Life and Knowledge [ 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.] or otherwise the Science of
Good and Evil is
fraught
with dangers and perils.For the study of theoretical Occultism there are no
doubt a number of
works
that may be read with profit besides such books as the Finer Forces of Nat
re,etc.the Zohar,
Sepher Jetzirah,The Book of Enoch,Franck s Kabalah,and many Hermetic treatises.These
are scarce
in
European languages,but works in Latin by the mediaeval Philosophers,generally
known as
Alchemists
and Rosicrucians,are plentiful.But even the perusal of these may prove
dangerous for the
unguided
student.If approached without the right key to them and if the student is unfit
owing to mental
incapacity
for Magic,and is thus unable to discern the Right from the Left Path let him
take our advice
and
leave this study alone;he will only bring on himself and on his family
unexpected woes and sorrows,
never
suspecting whence they come nor what are the powers awakened by his mind being
bent on
them.Works
for advanced students are many but these can be placed at the disposal of only
sworn or
pledged
chelas (disciples),those who have pronounced the ever-binding oath and who
are therefore
helped
and protected.For all other purposes,well-intentioned as such works may (Page 68)be they can
only
mislead the unwary and guide them imperceptibly to Black Magic or Sorcery -if
to nothing worse.
The
mystic characters,alphabets and numerals found in the divisions and
sub-divisions of the Great
Kabalah are
perhaps,the most dangerous portions in it and especially the numerals.We say
dangerous,because
they are the most prompt to produce effects and results and this with or
without the
experimenter
s will even without his knowledge.Some students are apt to doubt this
statement simply
because
after manipulating these numerals they have failed to notice any dire physical
manifestation or
result.Such
results would be found the least dangerous:it is the moral causes produced and
the various
events
developed and brought to an unforeseen crisis,that would testify to the truth
of what is now stated
had
the lay students only the power of discernment.
The
point of departure of that special branch of the Occult teaching known as the
Science of
Correspondences,numerical
or literal or alphabetical has for its epigraph with the Jewish and
Christian
Kabalists,the two mis-interpreted verses which say that God ordered all things
in
number
measure and weight;[ Wisdom,xi.21.Douay version ]
and:
He
created her in the Holy Ghost and saw her and numbered her and measured her.[
Ecclesiasticus,i.9.Douay
version.]
But
the Eastern Occultists have another epigraph:Absol te Unity,x,within
number and plurality. Both
the
Western and the Eastern students of the Hidden Wisdom hold to this axiomatic
truth.Only the latter
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are
perhaps more sincere in their confessions.Instead of putting a mask on their
Science they show her
face
openly even if they do veil carefully her heart and soul before the
inappreciative public and the
profane
who are ever ready to abuse the most sacred truths for their own selfish
ends.But Unity is the
real
basis of the Occult Sciences -physical and metaphysical.This is shown even by
Eliphas Levi the
learned
Western Kabalist inclined as he is to be rather jesuitical.He says:
Absolute
Unity is the supreme and final reason of things.Therefore that reason can be
neither
one
person nor three persons;it is Reason and preeminently Reason (raison par
excellence ).
[ Dogme et Rit el
de la Ha te Magie,i,361 .]
Names are Symbols -(Page 69)The meaning
of this Unity in Plurality in God or Nature can be solved
only
by the means of transcendental methods,by numerals,as by the correspondences
between soul
and
the Soul.Names,in the Kabalah,as in the Bible such as Jehovah
Adam Kadmon Eve Cain Abel
Enoch
are all of them more intimately connected by geometrical and astronomical relations,with
Physiology
(or Phallicism)than with Theology or Religion.Little as people are as yet
prepared to admit it
this
will be shown to be a fact.If all those names are symbols for things hidden as
well as for those
manifested
in the Bible as in the Vedas,their respective mysteries differ
greatly.Plato s motto God
geometrises
was accepted by both Aryans and Jews;but while the former applied their
Science of
Correspondences
to veil the most spiritual and sublime truths of Nature the latter used their
acumen to
conceal
only one -to them the most divine -of the mysteries of Evolution namely that of
birth and
generation
and then they deified the organs of the latter.
Apart
from this,every cosmogony from the earliest to the latest is based upon
interlinked with and most
closely
related to numerals and geometric figures.Questioned by an Initiate these
figures and numbers
will
yield numerical values based on the integral values of the Circle -the secret
habitat of the ever-
invisible
Deity as the Alchemists have it -as they will yield every other Occult
particular connected with
such
mysteries,whether anthropographical anthroplogical cosmic,or psychical.In
reuniting Ideas to
Numbers,we
can operate upon Ideas in the same way as upon Numbers,and arrive at the
Mathematics
of
Truth writes an Occultist who shows his great wisdom in desiring to remain
unknown.
Any
Kabalist well acquainted with the Pythagorean system of numerals and geometry
can
demonstrate
that the metaphysical views of Plato were based upon the strictest mathematical
principles.True
mathematics,says the Magicon is something with which all higher
sciences
are
connected;common mathematics is but a deceitful phantasmagoria whose much
praised
infallibility
only arises from this -that materials,conditions and references are made to
foundation.
The
cosmological theory of numerals which Pythagoras learned in India and from the
Egyptian
Hierophants is alone able to reconcile the two units,matter and spirit and
cause
each
to demonstrate the other mathematically.The sacred numbers of the universe in
their
esoteric
combination can alone solve the great problem and explain the theory of
radiation
and
the cycle of the emanations.The lower orders,before they develop into higher
ones,must
emanate
from the (Page 70)higher spiritual ones,and when arrived at the turning-point
be
reabsorbed
into the infinite.[Isis Unveiled,i 6,7.]
It
is upon these true Mathematics that the knowledge of the Kosmos and of all
mysteries rests,and to
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one
acquainted with them it is the easiest thing possible to prove that both Vaidic
and Biblical structures
are
based upon God-in-Nature and Nature-in-God as the radical law.Therefore
this law -as
everything
else immutable and fixed in eternity -could find a correct expression only in
those purest
transcendental
Mathematics referred to by Plato especially in Geometry as transcendentally
applied.
Revealed to men -we
fear not and will not retract the expression -in this geometrical and
symbolical
garb
Truth has grown and developed into additional symbology invented by man for the
wants and
better
comprehension of the masses of mankind that came too late in their cyclic
development and
evolution
to have shared in the primitive knowledge and would never have grasped it
otherwise.If later
on
the clergy -crafty and ambitious of power in every age -anthropomorphised and
degraded abstract
ideals,as
well as the real and divine Beings who do exist in Nature and are the Guardians
and
Protectors
of our manvantaric world and period the fault and guilt rests with those
would-be leaders,not
with
the masses.
But
the day has come when the gross conceptions of our forefathers during the
Middle Ages can no
longer
satisfy the thoughtful religionist.The mediaeval Alchemist and Mystic are now
transformed into the
sceptical
Chemist and Physicist;and most of them are found to have turned away from truth
on account
of
the purely anthropomorphic ideas,the gross Materialism of the forms in which it
is presented to them.
Therefore
future generations have either to be gradually initiated into the truths
underlying Exoteric
Religions,including
their own or to be left to break the feet of clay of the last of the gilded
idols.No
educated
man or woman would turn away from any of the now called superstitions, which
they believe
to
be based on nursery tales and ignorance if they could only see the basis of
fact that underlies every
superstition.
But let them once learn for a certainty that there is hardly a claim in the
Occult Sciences
that
is not founded on philosophical and scientific facts in Nature and they will
pursue the study of those
Sciences
with the same if not with greater ardour than that they have expended in
shunning them.This
cannot
be achieved at once for to benefit mankind such truths have to be revealed
gradually and with
great
caution the public mind not being prepared for them.
The Three Mothers -(Page 71)However much
the Agnostics of our age may find themselves in the
mental
attitude demanded by Modern Science people are always apt to cling to their old
hobbies so long
as
the remembrance of them lasts.They are like the Emperor Julian -called the
Apostate because he
loved
truth too well to accept aught else -who though in his last Theophany he beheld
his beloved Gods
as
pale worn-out and hardly discernible shadows,nevertheless clung to them.Let
then the world cling
to
its Gods,to whatever plane or realm they may belong.The true Occultist would be
guilty of high
treason
to mankind were he to break forever the old deities before he could replace
them with the whole
and
unadulterated truth -and this he cannot do as yet.Nevertheless,the reader may
be allowed to learn
at
least the alphabet of that truth.He may be shown at any rate what the Gods and
Goddesses of the
Pagans,denounced
as demons by the Church are not if he cannot learn the whole and final truth as
to
what
they are.Let him assure himself that the Hermetic Tres Matres, and the Three
Mothers of the
Sepher Jetzirah are
one and the same thing;that they are no Demon-Goddesses,but Light Heat and
Electricity
and then perchance the learned classes will spurn them no longer.After this,the
Rosicrucian
Illuminati
may find followers even in the Royal Academies,which will be more prepared
perhaps,than
they
are now to admit the grand truths of archaic Natural Philosophy especially when
their learned
members
shall have assured themselves that in the dialect of Hermes,the Three Mothers
stand as
symbols
for the whole of the forces or agencies which have a place assigned to them in
the modern
system
of the correlation of forces. [ Synesius mentions books of stone
which he found in the temple of
Memphis,on
one of which was engraved the following sentence:One nat re delights in
another one
nature
overcomes another one nature overrules another and the whole of them are one
. The inherent
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restlessness
of matter is embodied in the saying of Hermes:Action is he life of Phta :and
Orpheus calls
nature
÷ļėõģē÷įķļņ ģįōēń the mother that makes many things, or the ingenious,the
contiving the
inventive
mother.-Isis Unveiled.i.257.]Even the polytheism of the
superstitious Brāhman and idolater
shows
its raison d źtre,since the three Shaktis of the three great
Gods,Brahma Vishnu and Shiva are
identical
with the Three Mothers of the monotheistic Jew.
The
whole of the ancient religious and mystical literature is symbolical.The Books
of Hermes,the Zohar,
the
Ya-Yakav,the Egyptian Book of the Dead,(Page 72)the Vedas,the Upanishads,and the Bible are
as
full
of symbolism as are the Nabathean revelations of the Chaldaic Qu-tāmy;it is a
loss of time to ask
which
is the earliest;all are simply different versions of the one primeval Record of
prehistoric knowledge
and
revelation.
The
first four chapters of Genesis contain the synopsis of all the rest of
the Pentate ch,being only the
various
versions of the same thing in different allegorical and symbolical
applications.Having discovered
that
the Pyramid of Cheops with all its measurements is to be found contained in its
minutest details in
the
structure of Solomon s Temple;and having ascertained that the biblical names
Shem Ham and
Japhet
are determinative
of
pyramid measures,in connection with the 600-year period of Noah and the
500-year period
of
Shem Ham and Japhet:...the term Sons of Elohim and Daughters of H-Adam [are
] for
one
thing astronomical terms,[ So rce of Measures.p.x.]
the
author of the very curious work already mentioned -a book very little known in
Europe we regret to
say
-seems to see nothing in his discovery beyond the presence of Mathematics and
Metrology in the
Bible .He also arrives
at most unexpected and extraordinary conclusions,such as are very little
warranted
by the facts discovered.His impression seems to be that because the Jewish
biblical names
are
all astronomical therefore the Scriptures of all the other nations can be only
this and nothing more.
But
this is a great mistake of the erudite and wonderfully acute author of The
So rce of Measures,if he
really
thinks so.The Key to the Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery unlocks but a certain
portion of the hieratic
writings
of these two nations,and leaves those of other peoples untouched.His idea is
that the Kabalah
is
only that sublime Science upon which Masonry is based ,in fact he regards
Masonry as the
substance
of the Kabalah,and the latter as the rational basis of the Hebrew text
of Holy Writ. About this
we
will not argue with the author.But why should all those who may have found in
the Kabalah
something
beyond the sublime Science upon which Masonry is alleged to have been built
be held up to
public
contempt?
In
its exclusiveness and one-sidedness such a conclusion is pregnant with future
misconceptions and is
absolutely
wrong.In its uncharitable criticism it throws a slur upon the Divine Science
itself.
The Bible and Word -Juggling -(Page 73)The Kabalah is indeed of the essence of Masonry
but it is
dependent
on Metrology only in one of its aspects the less Esoteric,as even Plato made no
secret that
the
Deity was ever geometrising.For the uninitiated however learned and endowed
with genius they
may
be the Kabalah which treats only of the garment of God or the veil and
cloak of truth
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is
built from the ground upward with a practical application to present uses.[ Masonic
Review,
July
1886 ]
Or
in other words represents an exact Science only on the terrestrial plane.To the
initiated the Kabalistic
Lord
descends from the primeval Race generated spiritually from the Mind-born
Seven.Having
reached
the Earth the Divine Mathematics -a synonym for Magic in his day as we are told
by Josephus -
veiled
her face.Hence the most important secret yet yielded by her in our modern day
is the identity of
the
old Roman measures and the present British measures of the Hebrew-Egyptian
cubit and the
Masonic
inch.[See So rce of Measures pp.47 -50 et pass.]
The
discovery is most wonderful and has led to further and minor unveilings of
various riddles in
reference
to Symbology and biblical names.It is thoroughly understood and proven as shown
by
Nachanides,that
in the days of Moses the initial sentence in Genesis was made to read B
rash ithbara
Elohim,or In the
head-source [ or Mūlaprakriti -the Rootless Root ] developed [or evolved ] the
Gods
[Elohim
] the heavens and the earth;whereas it is now owing to the Massora and
theological cunning
transformed
into B rashith bara Elohim,or In the beginning God created the heavens
and the earth -
which
word juggling alone has led to materialistic anthropomorphism and dualism.] How
many more
similar
instances may not be found in the Bible the last and latest of the
Occult works of antiquity?There
is
no longer any doubt in the mind of the Occultist that notwithstanding its form
and outward meaning
the
Bible -as explained by the Zohar or Midrash,the Yetsirah
(Book of Creation)and the Commentary
on the Ten Sephiroth (by
Azariel Ben Manachem of the X11th century)-is part and parcel of the Secret
Doctrine
of the Aryans,which explains in the same manner the Vedas and all other
allegorical books.The
Zohar in teaching that
the Impersonal One Cause manifests in the Universe through Its Emanations,the
Sephiroth
-that Universe being in its (Page
74)totality simply the veil woven from the
Deity s own
substance
-is undeniably the copy and faithful echo of the earliest Vedas .Taken
by itself without the
additional
help of the Vaidic and of Brahmanical literature in general the Bible will
never yield the
universal
secrets of Occult Nature.The cubits inches,and measures of this physical plane
will never
solve
the problems of the world on the spiritual plane -for Spirit can neither be
weighed nor measured.
The
working out of these problems is reserved for the mystics and the dreamers
who alone are capable
of
accomplishing it.
Moses
was an initiated priest versed in all the mysteries and the Occult knowledge of
the Egyptian
temples
-hence thoroughly acquainted with primitive Wisdom.It is in the latter that the
symbolical and
astronomical
meaning of that Mystery of Mysteries,the Great Pyramid has to be sought.And
having
been
so familiar with the geometrical secrets that lay concealed for long aeons in
her strong bosom -the
measurements
and proportions of the Kosmos,our little Earth included -what wonder that he
should
have
made use of his knowledge?The Esoterism of Egypt was that of the whole world at
one time.
During
the long ages of the Third Race it had been the heirloom in common of the whole
of mankind
received
from their Instructors,the Sons of Light the primeval Seven.There was a time
also when the
Wisdom-Religion
was not symbolical for it became Esoteric only gradually the change being
necessitated
by misuse and by the Sorcery of the Atlanteans.For it was the misuse only and
not the
use
of the divine gift that led the men of the Fourth Race to Black Magic and
Sorcery and finally to
become
forgetful of Wisdom ;while those of the Fifth Race the inheritors of the
Rishis of the Treta
Yuga
used their powers to atrophise such gifts in mankind in general and then as the
Elect Root
dispersed.Those
who escaped the Great Flood preserved only its memory and a belief founded on
the
knowledge
of their direct fathers of one remove that such a Science existed and was now
jealously
guarded
by the Elect Root exalted by Enoch.But there must again come a time when man
shall once
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more
become what he was during the second Yuga (age),when his probationary cycle
shall be over and
he
shall gradually become what he was -semi-corporeal and pure.Does not Plato the
Initiate tell us in
the
Phaedrus all that man once was and that which he may yet again become:
Before
man s spirit sank into sensuality and became embodied through the loss of his
wings,
he
lived among the Gods in the airy spiritual world where everything is true and
pure.[ See
Cary's
translation pp.322 323.]
Moses and the Jews -(Page 75 )Elsewhere he
speaks of the time when men did not perpetuate
themselves,but
lived as pure spirits.
Let
those men of Science who feel inclined to laugh at this,themselves unravel the
mystery of the origin
of
the first man.
Unwilling
that his chosen people -chosen by him -should remain as grossly idolatrous as
the profane
masses
that surrounded them Moses utilised his knowledge of cosmogonical mysteries of
the Pyramid
to
build upon it the Genesiacal Cosmogony in symbols and glyphs.This was more
accessible to the
minds
of the hoi polloi than the abstruse truths taught to the educated in the
sanctuaries.He invented
nothing
but the outward garb added not one iota;but in this he merely followed the
example of older
nations
and Initiates.If he clothed the grand truths revealed to him by his Hierophant
under the most
ingenious
imagery he did it to meet the requirements of the Israelites;that stiff-necked
race would accept
no
God unless He were as anthropomorphic as those of the Olympus;and he himself
failed to foresee
the
times when highly educated statesmen would be defending the husks of the fruit
of wisdom that grew
and
developed in him on Mount Sinai when communing with his own personal God -his
divine Self.
Moses
understood the great danger of delivering such truths to the selfish for he
understood the fable of
Prometheus
and remembered the past.Hence he veiled them from the profanation of public
gaze and
gave
them out allegorically.And this is why his biographer says of him that when he
descended from
Sinai
Moses
wist not that the skin of his face shone ...And he put a veil upon his face.[
Exod s.
xxxiv.29
33.]
And
so he put a veil upon the face of his Pentate ch;and to such an extent
that using orthodox
chronology
only 3376 years after the event people begin to acquire a conviction that it is
a veil indeed.
It
is not the face of God or even of a Johovah shining through;not even the face
of Moses,but verily the
faces
of the later Rabbis.
No
wonder if Clemens wrote in the Stromateis that:
Similar
then to the Hebrew enigmas in respect to concealment are those of the Egyptians
also.[
Op,cit.,V,vii.]
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SECTION VII
Old Wine in New Bottles
(Page 76)IT is more than likely that the Protestants in the days of
the Reformation knew nothing of the
true
origin of Christianity or to be more explicit and correct of Latin
Ecclesiasticism.Nor is it probable
that
the Greek Church knew much of it the separation between the two having occurred
at a time when
in
the struggle for political power the Latin Church was securing at any cost the
alliance of the highly
educated
the ambitious and influential Pagans,while these were willing to assume the
outward
appearance
of the new worship provided they were themselves kept in power.There is no need
to
remind
the reader here of the details of that struggle well-known to every educated
man.It is certain that
the
highly cultivated Gnostics and their leaders -such men as Saturnilus,an
uncompromising ascetic,as
Marcion
Valentinus,Basilides,Menander and Cerinthus -were not stigmatised by the
(now)Latin
Church
because they were heretics,nor because their tenets and practices were indeed ob
t rpit dinem
portentosam nimi m et horribilem,monstrous,revolting abominations, as Baronius says of
those of
Carpocrates
;but simply because they knew too much of fact and truth.Kenneth R.H.Mackenzie
correctly
remarks;
They
were stigmatised by the later Roman Church because they came into conflict with
the
purer
Church of Christianity -the possession of which was usurped by the Bishops of
Rome
but
which original continues in its docility towards the founder in the Primitive
Orthodox Greek
Church.[
The Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia nder Gnosticism.]
Unwilling
to accept the responsibility of gratuitous assumptions,the writer deems it best
to prove this
inference
by more than one personal and defiant admission of an ardent Roman Catholic
writer evidently
entrusted
with the delicate task by the Vatican.
Copies That Ante-Dated Originals -(Page 77)The Marquis de Mirville makes desperate efforts to
explain
to the Catholic interest certain remarkable discoveries in Archaeology and
Palaeography though
the
Church is cleverly made to remain outside of the quarrel and defence.This is
undeniably shown by
his
ponderous volumes addressed to the Academy of France between 1803 and
1865.Seizing the
pretext
of drawing the attention of the materialistic Immortals to the epidemic of
Spiritualism the
invasion
of Europe and America by a numberless host of Satanic forces,he directs his
efforts towards
proving
the same by giving the full Genealogies and the Theogony of the Christian and
Pagan deities,
and
by drawing parallels between the two.All such wonderful likenesses and
identities are only seeming
and
superficial he assures the reader.Christian symbols,and even characters,Christ
the Virgin
Angels
and Saints,tells them were all personated centuries beforehand by the fiends of
hell in order to
discredit
eternal truth by their ungodly copies.By their knowledge of futurity the devils
anticipated events,
having
discovered the secrets of the Angels.Heathen Deities,all the Sun-Gods,named
Sotors -
Saviours
-born of immaculate mothers and dying a violent death were only Ferouers [In
the Fero ers
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 Memoires de l Academie des Inscriptions
Vol.XXXV11 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 the Ferouer is the purest portion of man s soul.The Persian Dev is the
antithesis of the
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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 s
rpation 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,Brahma 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
Brahma 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!]-as they were called by
the Zoroastrians -the
demon-ante-dated
copies (copies anticipées )of the Messiah to come
The
danger of recognition of such facsimiles had indeed lately become
dangerously great.It had lingered
threateningly
in the air hanging like a sword of Damocles over the Church since the days of
Voltaire
Dupuis
and other writers on similar lines.The discoveries (Page 78)of the Egyptologists,the finding of
Assyrian
and Babylonian pre-Mosaic relics bearing the legend of Moses [ See
George Smith's Babylon
and
other works ]and especially the many rationalistic works published in
England such as S pernat ral
Religion made
recognition unavoidable.Hence the appearance of Protestant and Roman Catholic
writers
deputed to explain the inexplicable;to reconcile the face of Divine Revelation
with the mystery
that
the divine personages,rites,dogmas and symbols of Christianity were so often
identical with those
of
the several great heathen religions.The former -the Protestant defenders -tried
to explain it on the
ground
of prophetic,precursory ideas ;the Latinists,such as De Mirville by
inventing a double set of
Angels
and Gods,the one divine and true the other -the earlier -copies ante-dating
the originals and
due
to a clever plagiarism by the Evil One.The Protestant stratagem is an old one
that of the Roman
Catholics
is so old that it has been forgotten and is as good as new.Dr.Lundy s Mon
mental Christianity
and
A Miracle in Stone belong to the first attempts.De.Mirville s Pne
matologie to the second.In India
and
China every such effort on the part of the Scotch and other missionaries ends
in laughter and does
no
harm;the plan devised by the Jesuits is more serious.De Mirville s volumes are
thus very important
as
they proceed from a source which has undeniably the greatest learning of the
age at its service and
this
coupled with all the craft and casuistry that the sons of Loyola can
furnish.The Marquis de Mirville
was
evidently helped by the acutest minds in the service of Rome.
He
begins by not only admitting the justice of every imputation and charge made
against the Latin
Church
as to the originality of her dogmas,but by taking a seeming delight in
anticipating such charges;
for
he points to every dogma of Christianity as having existed in Pagan rituals in
Antiquity.The whole
Pantheon
of Heathen Deities is passed in review by him and each is shown to have had
some point of
resemblance
with the Trinitarian personages and Mary.There is hardly a mystery a dogma or a
rite in
the
Latin Church that is not shown by the author as having been parodied by the
Curvati -the Curved
the
Devils.All this being admitted and explained the Symbologists ought to be
silenced.And so they
would
be if there were no materialistic critics to reject such omnipotency of the
Devil in this world.For if
Rome
admits the likenesses,she also claims the right of judgment between the true
and the false
Avatāra
the real and the unreal God between the original and the copy -though the copy
precedes the
original
by millenniums.
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Which Were the Thieves?-(Page 79)Our author proceeds to argue that whenever the missionaries
try
to
convert an idolater they are invariably answered:
We
had our Crucified before yours.What do you come to show us?[This is as
fanciful as it is
arbitrary.Where
is the Hindu or Buddhist who would speak of his Crucified ?] Again
what
should
we gain by denying the mysterious side of this copy under the plea that
according to
Weber
all the present P ranas are remade from older ones,since here we have in
the same
order
of personages a positive precedence which no one would ever think of
contesting.[Op.
cit.,iv.237 ]
And
the author instances Buddha Krishna Apollo etc.Having admitted all this he
escapes the difficulty
in
this wise:
The
Church Fathers,however who recognised their own property under all such sheep
s
clothing
...knowing by means of the Gospel ...all the ruses of the pretended spirits of
light;
the
Fathers,we say meditating upon the decisive words,all that ever came before me
are
robbers
(John,x.8),did not hesitate in recognising the Occult agency at work
the general
and
superhuman direction given beforehand to falsehood the universal attribute and
environment
of all these false Gods of the nations;omnes dii genti m daemonia (elilim
).
(Psalm
xcv.)[ Loc cit.,250.]
With
such a policy everything is made easy.There is not one glaring resemblance not
one fully proven
identity
that could not thus be made away with.The above-quoted cruel selfish
self-glorifying words,
placed
by John in the mouth of Him who was meekness and charity personified could
never have been
pronounced
by Jesus.The Occultists reject the imputation indignantly and are prepared to
defend the
man
as against the God by showing whence come the words,plagiarised by the author
of the Fourth
Gospel.They
are taken bodily from the Prophecies in the Book of Enoch .The
evidence on this head of
the
learned biblical scholar Archbishop Laurence and of the author of the Evol
tion of Christianity who
edited
the translation may be brought forward to prove the fact.On the last page of
the Introduction to
the
Book of Enoch is found the following passage:
The
parable of the sheep rescued by the good Shepherd from hireling guardians and
ferocious
wolves,is
obviously borrowed by the fourth Evangelist from (Page 80)Enoch,Ixxxix,in which
the
author depicts the shepherds as killing and destroying the sheep before the
advent of the
Lord
and this discloses the true meaning of that hitherto mysterious passage in the
Johannine
parable
-All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers -language in which we
now
detect
an obvious reference to the allegorical shepherds of Enoch.
Obvious
truly and something else besides.For if Jesus pronounced the words in the
sense attributed
to
him then he must have read the Book of Enoch -a purely Kabalistic,Occult
work,and he therefore
recognised
the worth and value of a treatise now declared apocryphal by his
Churches.Moreover he
could
not have been ignorant that these words belonged to the oldest ritual of
Inititation.
[Q :Who knocks at
the door?
A.:The
good cowherd.
Page
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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
Himalayan
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.]
And
if he had not read it and the sentence belongs to John or whoever wrote the
Fourth Gospel then
what
reliance can be placed on the authenticity of other sayings and parables
attributed to the Christian
Saviour?
Thus,De
Mirville s illustration is an unfortunate one.Every other proof brought by the
Church to show the
infernal
character of the ante-and-anti-Christian copyists may be easily disposed
of.This is perhaps
unfortunate
but it is a fact nevertheless -Magna est veritas et prevalebit.
The
above is the answer to the Occultists to the two parties who charge them
incessantly the one with
Superstition.and
the other with Sorcery.To those of our Brothers who are Christians,and twit
us with
the
secresy imposed upon the Eastern Chelas,adding invariably that their own Book
of God is an open
volume
for all to read understand and be saved . we would reply by asking
them to study what we
have
just said in this Section and then to refute it -if they can.There are very few
in our days who are
still
prepared to assure their readers that the Bible had
God
for its author salvation for its end and truth without any mixture of error for
its matter.
Character of the Bible -(Page 81)Could Locke be asked the question now he would perhaps be
unwilling
to repeat again that the Bible is
all
pure all sincere nothing too much nothing wanting.
The
Bible,if it is not to be shown to be the very reverse of all this,sadly
needs an interpreter acquainted
with
the doctrines of the East as they are to be found in its secret volumes;nor is
it safe now after
Archbishop
Laurence's translation of the Book of Enoch to cite Cowper and assure us
that the Bible
...gives a light to
every age
It
gives,but borrows none.
for
it does borrow and that very considerably;especially in the opinion of those
who ignorant of its
symbolical
meaning and of the university of the truths underlying and concealed in it are
able to judge
Page
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only
from its dead letter appearance.It is a grand volume a master-piece composed of
clever ingenious
fables
containing great verities;but it reveals the latter only to those who like the
Initiates,have a key to
its
inner meaning;a tale sublime in its morality and didactics truly -still a tale
and an allegory;a repertory
of
invented personages in its older Jewish portions,and of dark sayings and
parables in its later
additions,and
thus quite misleading to anyone ignorant of its Esotericism.Moreover it is
Astrolatry and
Sabaean
worship pure and simple that is to be found in the Pentate ch when it is
read exoterically and
Archaic
Science and Astronomy to a most wonderful degree when interpreted
-Esoterically.
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SECTION VIII
The Book of Enoch The Origin and the
Foundation of Christianity
(Page 82)WHILE making a good deal of the Mercavah the Jews or
rather their synagogues,rejected the
Book of Enoch,either
because it was not included from the first in the Hebrew Canon or else as
Tertullian
thought it was disavowed
by
the Jews like all other Scripture which speaks of Christ [Book of
Enoch,Archbishop
Laurence
s translation.Introduction p.v.]
But
neither of these reasons was the real one.The Synedrion would have nothing to
do with it simply
because
it was more of a magic than a purely kabalistic work.The present day
Theologians of both Latin
and
Protestant Churches class it among apocryphal productions.Nevertheless the New
Testament
especially
in the Acts and Epistles,teems with ideas and doctrines,now
accepted and established as
dogmas
by the infallible Roman and other Churches,and even with the whole sentences
taken bodily
from
Enoch or the pseudo-Enoch who wrote under that name in Aramaic or
Syro-Chaldaic,as
asserted
by Bishop Laurence the translator of the Ethiopian text.
The
plagiarisms are so glaring that the author of The Evol tion of Christianity who
edited
Bishop
Laurence s translation was compelled to make some suggestive remarks in his
Introduction.On
internal evidence [ 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 .] this
book is
found
to have been written before the Christian period (whether two or twenty
centuries does
not
matter).As correctly argued by the Editor it is
either
the inspired forecast of a great Hebrew prophet predicting with miraculous
accuracy the
future
teaching of Jesus of Nazareth or the Semitic romance from which the latter
borrowed
His
conceptions of the triumphant return of the Son of man to occupy a judicial
throne in the
midst
of rejoicing saints and trembling sinners,expectant of everlasting happiness or
eternal
fire;and
whether these celestial visions be accepted as human or Divine they have
exercised
so
vast an influence on the destinies of mankind for nearly two thousand years
that candid and
impartial
seekers after religious truth can no longer delay enquiry into the relationship
of the
Book of Enoch with the
revelation or the evolution of Christianity.[Op.cit.,p.xx.]
The Book of Enoch and Christianity -
(Page 83)The Book of Enoch
a lso records the
supernatural control of the elements,through the action of individual angels
presiding
over the winds,the sea hail frost dew the lightening s flash and reverberating
thunder.The
names of the principal fallen angels are also given among whom we recognise
some
of the invisible powers named in the incantations [magical ] inscribed on the
terracotta
cups
of Hebrew-Chaldee conjurations.[ Loc.cit.]
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We
also find on these cups the word Halleluiah showing that
a
word with which ancient Syro-Chaldeans conjured has become through the
vicissitudes of
language
the Shibboleth of modern Revivalists.[Op.cit.,p.xiv.note.]
The
Editor proceeds after this to give fifty-seven verses from various parts of the
Gospels and Acts,with
parallel
passages from the Book of Enoch and says:
The
attention of theologians has been concentrated on the passage in the Epistle
of Jude
because
the author specifically names the prophet;but the cumulative coincidence of
language
and ideas in Enoch and the authors of the New Testament Scripture as
disclosed in
the
parallel passages which we have collated clearly indicates that the work of the
Semitic
Milton
was the inexhaustible source from which Evangelists and Apostles,or the men who
wrote
in their names,borrowed their conceptions of the resurrection judgement
immortality
perdition
and of the universal reign of righteousness,under the eternal dominion of the
Son of
man.This
evangelical plagiarism culminates in the Revelation of John which adapts the
visions
of Enoch to Christianity with modifications in which we miss the sublime
simplicity of
the
great master of apocalyptic prediction who prophesied in the name of the
antediluvian
patriarch.[Op.cit.,p.xxxv.]
In
fairness to truth the hypothesis ought at least to have been suggested that the
Book of Enoch in its
present
form is simply a transcript -with numerous pre-Christian and post-Christian
additions and
interpolations
-from far older texts.Modern research went so far as to point out that Enoch is
made in
Chapter
Ixxi to divide the day and night into eighteen parts and to represent the
longest day in the year
as
consisting of twelve out of these eighteen parts,while a day of sixteen (Page 84)hours in length could
not
have occurred in Palestine.The translator Archbishop Laurence remarks thus:
The
region in which the author lived must have been situated not lower than
forty-one degrees
north
latitude where the longest day is fifteen hours and a half nor higher perhaps
than forty-
nine
degrees,where the longest day is precisely sixteen hours.This will bring the
country
where
he wrote as high up at least as the northern districts of the Caspian and
Euxine Seas ..
.the
author of the Book of Enoch was perhaps a member of one of the tribes
which
Shalmaneser
carried away and placed in Halah and in Habor by the river Goshen and in the
cities
of the Medes.[Op.cit.,p.xiii.]
Further
on it is confessed that:
It
cannot be said that internal evidence attests the superiority of the Old
Testament to the
Book of Enoch ...The Book
of Enoch teaches the pre-existence of the Son of man the Elect
One
the Messiah who from the beginning existed in secret [The Seventh
Principle the First
Emanation.]
and whose name was invoked in the presence of the Lord of Spirits before
the
sun
and the signs were created.The author also refers to the other Power who was
upon
Earth
over the water on that day -an apparent reference to the language of Genesis
i.2.[ Op
cit.,p.xxxvii and xI.]
[We maintain that it applies as well to the Hindu Nārāyana -the mover
on
the waters. ] We have thus the Lord of Spirits,the Elect One and a third Power
seemingly
Page
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foreshadowing
the Trinity [as much as the Trimūrti ] of futurity;but although Enoch s ideal
Messiah
doubtless exercised an important influence on primitive conceptions of the
Divinity of
the
Son of man we fail to identify his obscure reference to another Power with
the
Trinitarianism
of the Alexandrine school;more especially as angels of power abound in the
visions
of Enoch.[Op cit.,pp x1 and 1i .]
An
Occultist would hardly fail to identify the said Power. The Editor concludes
his remarkable reflections
by
adding:
Thus
far we learn that the Book of Enoch was published before the Christian
Era by some
great
Unknown of Semitic [?] race who believing himself to be inspired in a post-prophetic
age
borrowed the name of an antediluvian patriarch [ Who stands for the
Solar or
Manvantaric
Year.] to authenticate his own enthusiastic forecast of the Messianic
kingdom.
And
as the contents of his marvellous book enter freely into the composition of the
New
Testament it follows
that if the author was not an inspired prophet who predicted the
teachings
of Christianity he was a visionary enthusiast whose illusions were accepted by
Evangelists
and Apostles as revelation -alternative conclusions which involve the Divine or
human
origin of Christianity.[ Op Cit.,pp.xli xlii.]
Enoch Records The Races -(Page 85)The outcome of all of which is,in the words of the same
Editor:
The
discovery that the language and ideas of alleged revelation are found in a pre-existent
work,accepted
by Evangelists and Apostles as inspired but classed by modern theologians
among
apocryphal productions.[ Op.cit.,p.xlviii.]
The
accounts also for the unwillingness of the reverend librarians of the Bodleian
Library to publish the
Ethopian
text of the Book of Enoch .
The
prophecies of the Book of Enoch are indeed prophetic,but they were
intended for and cover the
records
of the five Races out of the seven -everything relating to the last two being
kept secret.Thus
the
remark made by the Editor of the English translation that:
Chapter
xcii.records a series of prophecies extending from Enoch s own time to about
one
thousand
years beyond the present generation [Op.cit.,p.xxiii.]
is
faulty.The prophecies extend to the end of our present Race not merely to a
thousand years hence.
Very
true that:
In
the system of [Christian ] chronology adopted a day stands [occasionally ] for
a hundred
and
a week for seven hundred years.[Loc.cit.]
But
this is an arbitrary and fanciful system adopted by Christians to make Biblical
chronology fit with facts
or
theories,and does not represent the original thought.The days stand for the
undetermined periods
of
the Side-Races,and the weeks for the Sub-Races,the Root-Races being referred
to by an
expression
that is not even found in the English translation.Moreover the sentence at the
bottom of page
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150:
Subsequently
in the fourth week ...the visions of the holy and the righteous shall be seen
the
order of generation after generation shall take place [xcii.9.]
is
quite wrong.It stands in the original:the order of generation after generation
has taken place on the
earth
etc.;that is,after the first human race procreated in the truly human way had
sprung up in the
Third
Root-Races:a change which entirely alters the meaning.Then all that is given in
the translation -
as
very likely also in the Ethiopic text since the copies have been sorely
tampered with -as about things
which
were to happen in the future is,we are informed in the past tense of the
original Chaldean MSS.
and
is not prophecy but a narrative of what had already come to pass.When Enoch
begins -to speak
from
a book [Op.cit.,xcii.4.] he is reading the account (Page 86)given by a great Seer and the
prophecies
are not his own but are from the Seer.Enoch or Enoichion means internal eye
or Seer.
Thus
every Prophet and Adept may be called Enoichion without becoming a
pseudo-Enoch.But here
the
Seer who compiled the present Book of Enoch is distinctly shown as
reading out from a book:
I
have been born the seventh in the first week [the seventh branch or Side-Race
of the first
Sub-Race
after physical generation had begun namely in the third Root-Race ] ...But
after
me
in the second week [second Sub-Race ] great wickedness shall arise [arose
rather ] and in
that
week the end of the first shall take place in which mankind shall be safe.But
when the
first
is completed iniquity shall grow up.[Op.cit.,xcii 4-7 ]
As
translated it has no sense.As it stands in the Esoteric text it simply
means,that the First Root-Race
shall
come to an end during the second Sub-Race of the Third Root-Race in the period
of which time
mankind
will be safe;all this having no reference whatever to the biblical Deluge.Verse
10 th speaks of
the
sixth week [sixth Sub-Race of the Third Root Race ] when
All
those who are in it shall be darkened the hearts of all of them shall be
forgetful of wisdom [
the
divine knowledge will be dying out ] and in it shall a man ascend.
This
man is taken by the interpreters,for some mysterious reasons of their own to
mean
Nebuchadnezzar;he
is in reality the first Hierophant of the purely human Race (after the
allegorical fall
into
generation)selected to perpetuate the dying Wisdom of the Devas (Angels or
Elohim).He is the first
Son
of Man -the mysterious appellation given to the divine Initiates of the first
human school of the
Manushi
(men),at the very close of the Third Root-Race.He is also called the Saviour
as it was He
with
the other Hierophants who saved the Elect and the Perfect from the geological
conflagration
leaving
to perish in the cataclysm of the Close [ 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.)] those
who forgot the primeval wisdom
in
sexual sensuality.
And
during its completion [of the sixth week, or the sixth Sub-Race ]he
shall burn the house
of
dominion [the half of the globe or the then inhabited continent ] with fire and
all the race of
the
elect root shall be dispersed.[ Op.cit.,xcii xx .]
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The Book of Enoch Symbolical -(Page 87)The above applies to the Elect Initiates,and not at all to
the
Jews,the
supposed chosen people or to the Babylonian captivity as interpreted by the
Christian
theologians.Considering
that we find Enoch or his perpetuator mentioning the execution of the degree
upon
sinners in several different weeks,[ Op.cit.,xcii 7 11 13 15.]
saying that every work of the
ungodly
shall disappear from the whole earth during this fourth time (the Fourth
Race),it surely can
hardly
apply to the one solitary Deluge of the Bible still less to the
Captivity.
It
follows,therefore that as the Book of Enoch covers the five Races of the
Manvantara with a few
allusions
to the last two it does not contain Biblical prophecies, but simply facts
taken out of the Secret
Books
of the East.The Editor moreover confesses that:
The
preceding six verses,viz .13 th 15 th 16 th 17 th and 18 th are
taken from between the 14 th
and
15 th verses of the nineteenth chapter where they are to be found
in the MSS.[ Op.cit .
note
p.152 ]
By
this arbitrary transposition he has made confusion still more confused.Yet he
is quite right in saying
that
the doctrines of the Gospels and even of the Old Testament have
been taken bodily from the Book
of Enoch,for this is
as evident as the sun in heaven.The whole of the Pentate ch was adapted
to fit in
with
the facts given and this accounts for the Hebrews refusing to give the book
place in their Canon
just
as the Christians have subsequently refused to admit it among their canonical
works.The fact that
the
Apostle Jude and many of the Christian Fathers referred to it as a revelation
and a sacred volume is,
however
an excellent proof that the early Christians accepted it;among these the most
learned -as,for
instance
Clement of Alexandria -understood Christianity and its doctrines in quite a
different light from
their
modern successors,and viewed Christ under an aspect that Occultists only can
appreciate.The
early
Nazarenes and Chrestians,as Justin Martyr calls them were the followers of
Jesus,of the true
Chrestos
and Christos of Initiation;whereas,the modern Christians,especially those of
the West may be
Papists,Greeks,Calvinists,or
Lutherans,but can hardly be called Christians,i.e.,the followers of
Jesus,
the
Christ.
Thus
the Book of Enoch is entirely symbolical.It relates to the history of
the human Races and of their
early
relation to Theogony the symbols being interblended with astronomical and
cosmic mysteries.
(Page 88)One chapter is missing however in the Noachian records
(from both the Paris and
the
Bodleian MSS.),namely Chapter 1viii in Sect X;this could not be remodelled and
therefore
it had to disappear disfigured fragments alone having been left out of it.The
dream
about
the cows,the black,red and white heifers,relates to the first Races,their
division and
disappearance.Chapter
1xxxviii in which one of the four Angels went to the white cows and
taught
them a mystery after which the mystery being born became a man refers to
(a)the
first
group evolved of primitive Aryans (b)to the mystery of the Hermaphrodite so
called
having
reference to the birth of the first human Races as they are now.The well-known
rite in
India
one that has survived in that patriarchal country to this day known as the
passage or
rebirth
through the cow -a ceremony to which those of lower castes who are desirous of
becoming
Brahmans have to submit -has originated in this mystery.Let any Eastern
Occultist
read
with careful attention the above-named chapter in the Book of Enoch,and
he will find that
the
Lord of the Sheep in whom Christians and European Mystics see Christ is the
Hierophant
Victim whose name in Sanskrit we dare not give.Again that while the Western
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Churchmen
see Egyptians and Israelites in the sheep and wolves,all these animals relate
in
truth
to the trials of the Neophyte and the mysteries of initiation whether in India
or Egypt and
to
that most terrible penalty incurred by the wolves -those who reveal
indiscriminately that
which
is only for the knowledge of the Elect and the Perfect.
The
Christians who thanks to later interpolations,[Those interpolations and
alternations are
found
in almost 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.] have made out
in that
chapter
a triple prophecy relating to the Deluge Moses and Jesus,are mistaken as in
reality it
bears
directly on the punishment and loss of Atlantis and the penalty of
indiscretion.(The
Lord
of the sheep is Karma and the Head of the Hierophants also the Supreme
Initiator on
earth.)He
says to Enoch who implores him to save the leaders of the sheep from being
devoured
by the beasts of prey:
I
will cause a recital to be made before me ...how many they have delivered up to
destruction
and ...what they will do;whether they will act as I have commanded them or not.
Occultists Do Not Reject the Bible -
(Page 89)Of this,however they shall be ignorant;neither shalt thou
make any explanation to
them
neither shalt thou reprove them;but there shall be an account of all the
destruction done
by
them in their respective seasons.[Op.cit.,1xxxviii.99 100.]
...He
looked in silence rejoicing they were devoured swallowed up and carried off and
leaving
them in the power of every beast for food..[ Loc.cit.,94.This
passage as will be
presently
shown has led to a very curious discovery.]
Those
who labour under the impression that the Occultists of any nation reject the Bible
in its original
text
and meaning are wrong.As well reject the Books of Thoth the Chaldaean Kabalah
or the Book of
Dzyan itself.Occultists
only reject the one-sided interpretations and the human element in the Bible
which
is an Occult and therefore a sacred volume as much as the others.And terrible
indeed is the
punishment
of all those who transgress the permitted limits of secret revelations.From
Prometheus to
Jesus,and
from Him to the highest Adept as to the lowest disciple every revealer of
mysteries has had
to
become a Chrestos,a man of sorrow and a martyr.Beware said one of the
greatest Masters,of
revealing
the Mystery to those without -to the profane the Sadducee and the
unbeliever.All the great
Hierophants
in history are shown ending their lives by violent deaths -Buddha [ 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 Barthelemy 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
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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 Brahmanical
teachings -Vishnu
having
assumed in his first Avatāra 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
Brahmanical
mysteries,after which seeing the bad effects brought on some unworthy people by
the
revelation
he preferred instead of availing himself of Nirvana 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.]Pythagoras,Zoroaster most
of the great Gnostics,the
founders
of their respective schools;and in our own more modern epoch a number of
Fire-Philosophers
of
Rosicrucians and Adepts.All of these are shown -whether plainly or under the
veil of allegory -as
paying
the penalty for the revelations they had made.This may seem to the profane
reader only
coincidence.
(Page 90)To the Occultist the death of every Master is significant
and appears pregnant with meaning.
Where
do we find in history that Messenger grand or humble an Initiate or a
Neophyte who when he
was
made the bearer of some hitherto concealed truth or truths,was not crucified
and rent to shreds by
the
dogs of envy malice and ignorance?Such is the terrible Occult law;and he who
does not feel in
himself
the heart of a lion to scorn the savage barking and the soul of a dove to
forgive the poor ignorant
fools,let
him give up the Sacred Science.To succeed the Occultist must be fearless;he has
to brave
dangers,dishonour
and death to be forgiving and to be silent on that which cannot be given.Those
who
have
vainly laboured in that direction must wait in these days -as the Book of
Enoch teaches -until the
evildoers
be consumed and the power of the wicked annihilated.It is not lawful for the
Occultist to seek
or
even to thirst for revenge:let him
Wait
until sin pass away for their [the sinners ] names shall be blotted out of the
holy books
[the
astral records ] their seed shall be destroyed and their spirits slain.[Op.cit
.cv.21.]
Esoterically
Enoch is the Son of man the first;and symbolically the first Sub-Race of the Fifth
Root
Race.[
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
the
purpose of misleading.The years of only the last two are given the first one
being left without further
notice.]
And if his name yields for purposes of numerical and astronomical glyphs
the meaning of the
solar
year or 365 in conformity to the age assigned to him in Genesis,it is
because being the seventh
he
is,for Occult purposes,the personified period of the two preceding Races with
their fourteen Sub-
Races.Therefore
he is shown in the Book as the great grandfather of Noah who in his turn is the
personification
of the mankind of the Fifth struggling with that of the Fourth Root-Race -the
great period
of
the revealed and profaned Mysteries,when the sons of God coming down on Earth
took for wives
the
daughters of men and taught them the secrets of the Angels;in other words,when
the mind-born
men
of the Third Race mixed themselves with those of the Fourth and the divine
Science was gradually
brought
down by men to Sorcery.
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SECTION IX
Hermetic and Kabalistic Doctrines
(Page 91)THE cosmogony of Hermes is as veiled as the Mosaic system
only it is upon its face far more in
harmony
with the doctrines of the Secret Sciences and even of Modern Science.Says the
thrice great
Trismegistus,the
hand that shaped the world out of formless pre-existent matter is no hand ;to
which
Genesis is made to
reply The world was created out of nothing although the Kabbalah denies
such a
meaning
in its opening sentences.The Kabalists have never any more than have the Indian
Aryans
admitted
such an absurdity.With them Fire or Heat and Motion [ The eternal and
incessant inbreathing
and
outbreathing of Parabrahman or Nature the Universe of Space whether during
Manvantara or
Pralaya
.] were chiefly instrumental in the formation of the world out of
pre-existing Matter.The
Parabrahman
and Mūlaprakriti of the Vedāntins are the prototypes of the En Suph and
Shekinah of the
Kabalists.Aditi
is the original of Sephira and the Prajāpatis are the elder brothers of the
Sephiroth.The
nebular
theory of Modern Science with all its mysteries,is solved in the cosmogony of
the Archaic
Doctrine;and
the paradoxical though very scientific enunciation that cooling causes
contraction and
contraction
causes heat;therefore cooling causes heat is shown as the chief agency in the
formation of
the
worlds,and especially of our sun and solar system.
All
this is contained within the small compass of Sepher Jetsirah in its
thirty-two wonderful Ways of
Wisdom
signed Jah Jehovah Sabaoth for whomsoever has the key to its hidden
meaning.As to the
dogmatic
or theological interpretation of the first verses in Genesis it is
pertinently answered in the same
book,where
speaking of the (Page 92)Three Mothers,Air Water and Fire the writer describes them
as a
balance
with
The
good in one scale the evil in the other and the oscillating tongue of the
Balance between
them.[Op.cit.,iii
x.]
One
of the secret names of the One Eternal and Ever-Present Deity was in every
country the same and
it
has preserved to this day a phonetic likeness in the various languages.The Aum
of the Hindus,the
sacred
syllable had become the Aéųķ with the Greeks,and the Aevum with the Romans
-the Pan or All.
The
thirtieth way is called in the Sepher Jetzirah the gathering
understanding because
Thereby
gather the celestial adepts judgments of the stars and celestial signs,and
their
observations
of the orbits are the perfection of science.[Op.cit.,30.]
The
thirty-second and last is called therein the serving understanding and it is
so-called because it is
A
disposer of all those that are serving in the work of the Seven
Planets,according to their
Hosts.[Op.cit.,32
.]
The
work was Initiation during which all the mysteries connected with the Seven
Planets were
divulged
and also the mystery of the Sun-Initiate with his seven radiances or beams
cut off -the glory
and
triumph of the anointed the Christos;a mystery that makes plain the rather
puzzling expression of
Clemens:
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For
we shall find that very many of the dogmas that are held by such sects [of
Barbarian and
Hellenic
Philosophy ] as have not become utterly senseless,and are not cut out from the
order
of
nature [by cutting off Christ [ Those who are aware of 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 Sod
Vol.11.] or
rather
Chrestos ] ...Correspond in their origin and with the truth as a whole.[ Stromateis,1.
xiii.]
In
Isis Unveiled [ Op.cit.,II.viii.] the reader will
find fuller information than can be given here on the Zohar
and
its author the great Kabalist Simeon Ben Jochai.It is said there that on
account of his being known
to
be in possession of the secret knowledge and of the Mercaba which insured the
reception of the
Word
his very life was endangered and he had to fly to the wilderness,where he
lived in a cave for
twelve
years surrounded by faithful disciples,and finally died there amid signs and
wonders.[ 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!']
The Kabalah and The Book of Enoch -(Page 93)His teachings on the origin of the Secret Doctrine or
as
he also calls it the Secret Wisdom are the same as those found in the East with
the exception that in
place
of the Chief of a Host of Planetary Spirits he puts God saying that this
Wisdom was first taught
by
God himself to a certain number of Elect Angels;whereas in the Eastern Doctrine
the saying is
different
as will be seen.
Some
synthetic and Kabalistic studies on the sacred Book of Enoch and the
Taro (Rota)are before us.
We
quote from the MS.copy of a Western Occultist who is prefaced by these words:
There
is but one Law one Principle one Agent one Truth and one Word.That which is
above
is
analogically as that which is below.All that which is,is the result of
quantities and of
equilibriums.
The
axiom of Eliphas Levi and this triple epigraph show the identity of thought
between the East and the
West
with regard to the Secret Science which as the same MS tells us,is:
The
key of things concealed the key of the sanctuary.This is the Sacred Word which
gives to
the
Adept the supreme reason of Occultism and its Mysteries.It is the Quintessence
of
Philosophies
and of Dogmas;it is the Alpha and Omega;it is the Light Life and Wisdom
Universal.
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The
Taro of the sacred Book of Enoch,or Rota is prefaced moreover with this
explanation:
The
antiquity of this book is lost in the night of time.It is of Indian origin and
goes back to an
epoch
long before Moses ...It is written upon detached leaves,which at the first were
of fine
gold
and precious metals ...It is symbolical and its combinations adapt themselves
to all the
wonders
of the Spirit.Altered by its passage across the Ages,it is nevertheless
preserved -
thanks
to the ignorance of the curious -in its types and its most important primitive
figures.
This
is the Rota of Enoch now called Taro of Enoch to which de Mirville alludes,as
we saw as the
means
used for evil Magic.the (Page
94)metallic plates [or leaves ] escaped
from destruction during the
Deluge
and which are attributed by him to Cain.They have escaped the Deluge for the
simple reason
that
this Flood was not Universal.And it is said to be of Indian origin because
its origin is with the
Indian
Aryans of the first Sub-Race of the Fifth Root-Race before the final
destruction of the last
stronghold
of Atlantis.But if it originated with the forefathers of the primitive
Hindus,it was not in India
that
it was first used.Its origin is still more ancient and must be traced beyond
and into the Himaleh
[ Pockocke may be was
not altogether wrong in deriving the German Heaven Himmel from Himalaya;
nor
can it be denied that it is the Hindu Kailasa (Heaven)that is the father of the
Greek Heaven (Koilon),
and
of the Latin Coelum.] the Snowy Range.It was born in that mysterious
locality which no one is able
to
locate and which is the despair of both Geographers and Christian Theologians
-the regions in which
the
Brahman places his Kailasa the Mount Sumeru and the Pārvatī Pamīr transformed
by the Greeks
into
Paropamisus.
Round
this locality which still exists the traditions of the Garden of Eden were
built.From these regions
the
Greeks obtained their Parnassus [ 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 of Gods,called Gods of the Earth:Bhu
Devas.They lived
according
to the Puranas,in bowers or huts,called Parnasas,because they were made of
leaves;
(Parnas),p.302.]
and thence proceeded most of the biblical personages,some of them in their
day men
some
demigods and heroes,some -though very few -myths,the astronomical double of the
former.
Abram
was one of them -a Chaldaean Brāhman [Rawlinson is justly very confident
of an Aryan and
Vedic
influence on the early mythology and history of Babylon and Chaldea .] says
the legend
transformed
later after he had repudiated his Gods and left his Ur (p r town ?)in
Chaldaea into A-
brahms
[This is a Secret Doctrine affirmation and may or may not be
accepted.Only Abrahm Isaac and
Judah
resemble terribly the Hindu Brahmā Ikshvāku and Yadu.] (or A-braham
no-brāhman who
emigrated.Abram
becoming the father of many nations is thus explained.The student of
Occultism has
to
bear in mind that every God and hero in ancient Pantheons (that of the Bible
included),has three
biographies
in the narrative so to say running parallel with each other and each connected
with one of
the
aspects of the hero -historical astronomical and perfectly mythical the last
serving to connect the
other
two together and smooth away the asperities and discordancies in the narrative
and gathering into
one
or more symbols the verities of the first two.Localities are made to correspond
with astronomical and
even
with psychic events.
Numbers and Measures -(Page
95)History was thus made captive by
ancient Mystery to become later
on
the great Sphynx of the nineteenth century.Only instead of devouring her too
dull querists who will
unriddle
her whether she acknowledges it or not she is desecrated and mangled by the
modern
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Oedipus,before
he forces her into the sea of speculations in which the Sphynx is drowned and
perishes.
This
has now become self-evident not only through the Secret
Teachings,parsimoniously as they may
be
given but by earnest and learned Symbologists and even Geometricians.The Key
to the Hebrew
Egyptian Mystery in
which a learned Mason of Cincinnati Mr.Ralston Skinner unveils the riddle of a
God
with such ungodly ways about him as the Biblical Jah-ve is followed by the
establishment of a
learned
society under the presidentship of a gentleman from Ohio and four
vice-presidents one of whom
is
Piazzi Smith the well-known Astronomer and Egyptologist.The Director of the
Royal Observatory in
Scotland
and author of The Great Pyramid,Pharaonic by name,H manitarian by fact,its
Marvels,
Mysteries,and its Teachings,is seeking to prove the same problem as the American author
and Mason;
namely
that the English system of measurement is the same as that used by the ancient
Egyptians in
the
construction of their Pyramid or in Mr.Skinner's own words that the Pharaonic
source of measures
originated
the British inch and the ancient cubit. It originated much more than
this,as will be fully
demonstrated
before the end of the next century.Not only is everything in Western religion related
to
measures,geometrical
figures,and time-calculations,the principal period-durations being founded on
most
of the historical personages,[ It is said in The Gnostics and their
Remains by C.W.King (p.13)with
regard
to the names of Brahma and Abram:This figure of the man Seir Anpin
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 Brahma are equivalent in numerical value.Thus to one
acquainted
with Esoteric Symbolism it does not seem at all strange to find in the
Loka-pālas (the four
cardinal
and intermediate points of the compass personified by eight Hindu Gods)Indra s
elephant
names
Abhra -(matanga)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.] but the
latter are also connected with
heaven
and earth truly only with the Indo-Aryan heaven and earth not with those of
Palestine.
The
prototypes of nearly all the biblical personages are to be sought (Page 96)for in the early Pantheon of
India.It
is the Mind-born Sons of Brahma or rather of the Dhyāni-Pitara (the Father
-Gods ),the Sons
of
Light who have given birth to the Sons of Earth -the Patriachs.For if the Rig
Veda and its three
sister
Vedas have been milked out from fire air and sun or Agni Indra and
Surya as Man -Smriti tells
us,the
Old Testament was most undeniably milked out of the most ingenious
brains of Hebrew
Kabalists
partly in Egypt and partly in Babylonia -the seat of Sanskrit literature and
Brahman learning
from
her origin.as Colonel Vans Kennedy truly declared.One of such copies was Abram
or Abraham
into
whose bosom every orthodox Jew hopes to be gathered after death that bosom
being localised as
heaven
in the clouds or Abhra.[ 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
Asrronomy?(5)The
Abrahamic recollections go back at least three millenniums beyond the
grandfather
of
Jacob says Bunsen (Egypt s Place in History.v.35.)]
From
Abraham to Enoch s Taro there seems to be a considerable distance yet the two
are closely
related
by more than one link,Gaffarel has shown that the four symbolical animals on
the twenty-first key
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of
the Taro at the third septenary are the Teraphim of the Jews invented and
worshipped by Abram s
father
Terah and used in the oracles of the Urim and Thummim.Moreover astronomically
Abraham is
the
sun-measure and a portion of the sun while Enoch is the solar year as much as
are Hermes or Thot;
and
Thot numerically was the equivalent of Moses,or Hermes,the lord of the lower
realms,also
esteemed
as a teacher of wisdom the same Mason-mathematician tells us;and the Taro
being
according
to one of the latest bulls of the Pope an invention of Hell the same as
Masonry and
Occultism
the relation is evident.The Taro contains indeed the mystery of all such
transmutations of
personages
into sidereal bodies and vice versa .The wheel of Enoch is an archaic
invention the most
ancient
of all for it is found in China.Eliphas Levi says there was not a nation but
had it its real meaning
being
preserved in the greatest secrecy.It was a universal heirloom.
As
we see neither the Book of Enoch (his Wheel ),nor the Zohar nor
any other kabalistic volume
contains
merely Jewish wisdom.
The Doctrine Belongs to All
(Page 97)The doctrine itself being the result of whole millenniums
of thought is therefore the
joint
property of Adepts of every nation under the sun.Nevertheless,the Zohar teaches
practical
Occultism more than any other work on that subject;not as it is translated and
commented
upon by its various critics though but with the secret signs on its
margins.These
signs
contain the hidden instructions,apart from the metaphysical interpretations and
apparent
absurdities
so fully credited by Josephus,who was never initiated and gave out the dead
letter
as
he had received it.[ Isis Unveiled,ii.350.]
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SECTION X
Various Occult Systems of Interpretations
-of Alphabets and Numerals
(Page 98)THE transcendental methods of the Kabalah must not
be mentioned in a public work;but its
various
systems of arithmetical and geometrical ways of unriddling certain symbols may
be described.
The
Zohar methods of calculation with their three sections,the Gematria
Notaricon and Temura also
the
Albath and Algath are extremely difficult to practice.We refer those who would
learn more to
Cornelius
Agrippa s works [ See Isis Unveiled ii.218-300.Gematria is
formed by a metathesis from the
Greek
word ćńįģģįōåéįNotaricon may be compared to stenography;Temura is permutation
-a way of
dividing
the alphabet and shifting letters.] But none of those systems can ever be
understood unless a
Kabalist
becomes a real Master in his Science.The Symbolism of Pythagoras requires still
more arduous
labour.His
symbols are very numerous,and to comprehend even the general gist of his
abstruse
doctrines
from his Symbology would necessitate years of study.His chief figures are the
square (the
Tetraktys)the
equilateral triangle the point within a circle the cube the triple triangle and
finally the
forty-seventh
proposition of Euclid s Elements of which proposition Pythagoras was the inventor.But
with
the exception none of the foregoing symbols originated with him,as some
believe.Millenniums
before
his day they were well known in India whence the Samian Sage brought them not
as a
speculation
but as a demonstrated Science says Porphyry quoting from the Pythagorean
Moderatus.
The
numerals of Pythagoras were hieroglyphical symbols by means whereof he explains
all
ideas
concerning the nature of things.[ De Vita Pythag.]
Numbers and Magic -(Page 99)The
fundamental geometrical figure of the Kabalah as given in the Book
of N mbers,[ 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 mediaeval philosophical
authors.Among these authorities
are
Arnoldo di Villanova s Rosari m Philosoph.,Francesco Arnuphi s Op s
de Lapide Hermes
Trismegistus
Tractat s de Transm tatione Metallor m and Tab la Smaragdina and
above all the treatise
of
Raymond Lully Ab Angelis Op s Divin m de Q inta Essentia.] that figure
which tradition and the
Esoteric
Doctrines tell us was given by the Deity Itself to Moses on Mount Sinai [Exod
s,xxv.40.]
contains
the key to the universal problem in its grandiose because simple
combinations.This figure
contains
in itself all the others.
The
Symbolism of numbers and their mathematical interrelations is also one of the
branches of Magic,
especially
of mental Magic,divination and correct perception in clairvoyance.Systems
differ but the root
idea
is everywhere the same.As shown in the Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia by
Kenneth R.H.Mackenzie:
One
system adopts unity another trinity a third quinquinity;again we have sexagons,
heptagons,novems,and
so on until the mind is lost in the survey of the materials alone of a
science
of numbers.[S b voce Numbers.]
The
Devanāgarī characters in which Sanscrit is generally written have all that the
Hermetic,Chaldaean
and
Hebrew alphabets have and in addition the Occult significance of the eternal
sound and the
meaning
given to every letter in its relation to spiritual as well as terrestrial
things.As there are only
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twenty-two
letters in the Hebrew alphabet and ten fundamental numbers,while in the
Devanāgarī there
are
thirty-five consonants and sixteen vowels,making altogether fifty-one simple
letters,with numberless
combinations
in addition the margin for speculation and knowledge is in proportion
considerably wider.
Every
letter has is equivalent in other languages,and its equivalent in a figure or
figures of the calculation
table.It
has also numerous other significations,which depend upon the special
idiosyncrasies and
characteristics
of the person object or subject to be studied.As the Hindus claim to have
received the
Devanagari
characters from Sarasvati the inventress of Sanskrit the language of the Devas
or Gods
(in
their exoteric pantheon),so most of the ancient nations claimed the same
privilege for the origin of
their
letters and tongue.The Kabalah (Page 100)calls the Hebrew
alphabet the letters of the Angels,
which
were communicated to the Patriarchs,just as the Devanagari was to the Rishis by
the Devas.The
Chaldaeans
found their letters traced in the sky by the yet unsettled stars and comets,
says the Book of
N mbers ;while the
Phoenicians had a sacred alphabet formed by the twistings of the sacred
serpents.
The
Natar Khari (hieratic alphabet)and secret (sacerdotal)speech of the Egyptians
is closely related to
the
oldest Secret Doctrine Speech.It is a Devanāgarī with mystical combinations
and additions,into
which
the Senzar largely enters.
The
power and potency of numbers and characters are well known to many Western
Occultists as being
compounded
from all these systems,but are still unknown to Hindu students,if not to their
Occultists.In
their
turn European Kabalists are generally ignorant of the alphabetical secrets of
Indian Esoterism.At
the
same time the general reader in the West knows nothing of either;least of all
how deep are the
traces
left by the Esoteric numeral systems of the world in the Christian Churches.
Nevertheless
this system of numerals solves the problem of cosmogony for whomsoever studies
it while
the
system of geometrical figures represents the numbers objectively.
To
realise the full comprehension of the Deific and the Abstruse enjoyed by the
Ancients,one has to
study
the origin of the figurative representations of their primitive
Philosophers.The Books of Hermes are
the
oldest repositories of numerical Symbology in Western Occultism.In them we find
that the number
ten [See Johannes Meursius,Denari s Pythagoricus.] is
the Mother of the Soul Life and Light being
therein
united.For as the sacred anagram Teruph shows in the Book of Keys (Numbers),the
number 1
(one)is
born from spirit and the number 10 (ten)from Matter:the unity has made the ten
the ten the
unity
;and this is only the Pantheistic axiom in other words God in Nature and
Nature in God.
The
kabalistic Gematria is arithmetical not geometrical.It is one of the methods
for extracting the hidden
meaning
from letters,words and sentences.It consists in applying to the letters of a
word the sense they
bear
in numbers,in outward shape as well as in their individual sense.As illustrated
by Ragon:
The
figure I signified the living man (a body erect)man being the only living being
enjoying
this
faculty.A head being added to it the glyph (or letter)P was obtained meaning
paternity
creative
potency;the R signifying the walking man (with his foot forward)going iens,it
rus
[ Ragon Maconnerie
Occulte,p.426.note.]
Gods and Numbers -
(Page 101)The characters were also made supplementary to speech every
letter being at once
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a
figure representing a sound for the ear and idea to the mind;as,for instance
the letter F
which
is a cutting sound like that of air rushing quickly through space;fury fusee
fugue all
words
expressive of and depicting what they signify.[Ibid.,p.432 note.]
But
the above pertains to another system that of the primitive and philosophical
formation of the letters
and
their outward glyphic form -not to Gematria.The Temura is another kabalistic
method by which any
word
could be made to yield its mystery out of its anagram.So in Sepher Jetzirah we
read One -the
spirit
of the Alahim of Lives. In the oldest kabalistic diagrams the Sephiroth (the
seven and the three)are
represented
as wheels or circles,and Adam Kadmon the primitive Man as an upright
pillar.Wheels and
seraphim
and the holy creatures (Chioth)says Rabbi Akiba.In still another system of the
symbolical
Kabalah called Albath
-which arranges the letters of the alphabet by pairs in three rows -all the
couples
in
the first row bear the numerical value ten;and in the system of Simeon Ben
Shetah (an Alexandrian
Neoplatonist
under the first Ptolemy)the uppermost couple -the most sacred of all -is
preceded by the
Pythagorean
cypher:one and a nought -10.
All
beings,from the first divine emanation or God manifested down to the lowest
atomic existence
have
their particular number which distinguishes each of them and becomes the source
of their
attributes
and qualities as of their destiny.Chance as taught by Cornelius Agrippa is in
reality only an
unknown
progression;and time but a succession of numbers.Hence futurity being a
compound of
chance
and time these are made to serve Occult calculations in order to find the
result of an event or
the
future of one s destiny.Said Pythagoras:
There
is a mysterious connection between the Gods and numbers,on which the science of
arithmancy
is based.The soul is a world that is self-moving;the soul contains in itself
and is,
the
quaternary the tetraktys [the perfect cube ].
There
are lucky and unlucky or beneficent and maleficent numbers.Thus while the
ternary -the first of
the
odd numbers (the one being the perfect and standing by itself in Occultism)-is
the divine figure or
the
triangle;the duad was disgraced by the Pythagoreans from the (Page 102)first.It represented Matter
the
passive and evil principle -the number of Maya illusion.
While
the number one symbolized harmony order or the good principle (the one
God
expressed
in Latin by Solus,from which the word Sol the Sun the symbol of the Deity),
number
two expressed a contrary idea.The science of good and evil began with it.All
that is
double
false opposed to the only reality was depicted by the binary.It also expressed
the
contrasts
in Nature which are always double:night and day light and darkness,cold and
heat
dampness
and dryness,health and sickness,error and truth male and female etc....The
Romans
dedicated to Pluto the second month of the year and the second day of that
month to
expiations
in honour of the Manes.Hence the same rite established by the Latin Church and
faithfully
copied.Pope John XIX instituted in 1003 the Festival of the Dead which had to
be
celebrated
on the 2 nd of November the second month of autumn.[ Extracted
from Ragon
Maconnerie Occulte.p.427
note .]
On
the other hand the triangle a purely geometrical figure had great honour shewn
it by every nation
and
for this reason:
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In
geometry a straight line cannot represent an absolutely perfect figure any more
than two
straight
lines.Three straight lines,on the other hand produce by their junction a
triangle or
the
first absolutely perfect figure.Therefore it symbolized from the first and to
this day the
Eternal
-the first perfection.The word for deity in Latin as in French begins with D in
Greek
the
delta or triangle Ä,whose three sides symbolize the trinity or the three
kingdoms,or
again
divine nature.In the middle is the Hebrew Yod the initial of Jehovah [see
Eliphas Levi s
Dogme et Rit el,i.154
] the animating spirit or fire the generating principle represented by the
letter
G the initial of God in the northern languages,whose philosophical
significance is
generation.[
Summarised from Ragon ibid .p.428 note.]
As
stated correctly by the famous Mason Ragon the Hindu Trimurti is personified in
the world of ideas by
Creation
Preservation and Destruction or Brahma Vishnu and Shiva;in the world of matter
by Earth
Water
and Fire or the Sun and symbolised by the Lotus,a flower that lives by earth
water and the sun.
[ 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 Belgiam 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 Timaeus of
Loeris
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 I 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 the
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.] The Lotus,sacred to Isis had the same
significance in Egypt
whereas
in the Christian symbol the Lotus,not being found in either Judaea or Europe
was replaced by
the
water-lily.
The Universal Language -(Page 103)In every Greek and Latin Church in all the pictures of the
Annunciation
the Archangel Gabriel is depicted with this trinitarian symbol in his hand
standing before
Mary
while above the chief altar or under the dome the Eye of the Eternal is painted
within a triangle
made
to replace the Hebrew Yod or God.
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Truly
says Ragon there was a time when numbers and alphabetical characters meant
something more
than
they do now -the images of a mere insignificant sound.
Their
mission was nobler then.Each of them represented by its form a complete sense
which
besides
the meaning of the word had a double [ 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 .] interpretation
adapted
to a dual doctrine.Thus when the sages desired to write something to be
understood
only
by the savants,they confabulated a story a dream or some other fictitious
subject with
personal
names of men and localities,that revealed by their lettered characters the true
meaning
of the author by that narrative.Such were all their religious creations.[Ragon
Op,
cit.,p.431 note.]
Every
appellation and term had its raison d'źtre.The name of a plant or
mineral denoted its nature to the
Initiate
at the first glance.The essence of everything was easily perceived by him once
that it was figured
by
such characters.The Chinese characters have preserved much of this graphic and
pictorial character
to
this day though the secret of the full system is lost.Nevertheless,even now
there are those among
that
nation who can write a long narrative a volume on one page;and the symbols that
are explained
historically
allegorically and astronomically have survived until now.
Moreover
there exists a universal language among the Initiates,which an Adept and even a
disciple of
any
nation may understand by reading it in his own language.We Europeans,on the
contrary possess
only
one graphic sign common to all &(and);there is a language richer in
metaphysical terms than any
on
earth whose every (Page
104)word is expressed by like common
signs.The Litera Pythagorae so
called
the Greek Y (the English capital Y)if traced alone in a message was as explicit
as a whole page
filled
with sentences,for it stood as a symbol for a number of things -for white and
black Magic,for
instance.[The
Y exoterically signifies only the two paths of virtue of vice and stands also
for the
numeral
150 and with a dash over the letter Y for 150.000.]Suppose one man
enquired of another:To
what
School of Magic does so and so belong?And the answer came back with the letter
traced with the
right
branch thicker than the left then it meant to right hand or divine Magic;but
if the letter was traced
in
the usual way with the left branch thicker than the right then it meant the
reverse the right or left
branch
being the whole biography of a man.In Asia especially in the Devanāgarī
characters,every letter
had
several secret meanings.
Interpretations
of the hidden sense of such apocalyptic writings are found in the keys given in
the
Kabalah and they are
among its more secret lore.St.Hieronymus assures us that they were known to
the
School of the Prophets and taught therein which is very likely.Molitor the
learned Hebraist in his
work
on tradition says that:
The
two and twenty letters of the Hebrew alphabet were regarded as an emanation or
the
visible
expression of the divine forces inherent in the ineffable name.
These
letters find their equivalent in and are replaced by numbers,in the same way as
in the other
systems.For
instance the twelfth and the sixth letter of the alphabet yield eighteen in a
name;the other
letter
of that name added being always exchanged for that figure which corresponds to
the alphabetical
letter;then
all those figures are subjected to an algebraical process which transforms them
again into
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letters;after
which the latter yield to the enquirer the most hidden secrets of divine
Permanency (eternity
in
its immutability)in the Futurity.
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SECTION XI
The Hexagon with the Central Point or The
Seventh Key
(Page 105)Arguing the virtue in names (Baalshem),Molitor thinks it
impossible to deny that the Kabalah -
its
present abuses notwithstanding -has some very profound and scientific basis to
stand upon.And if it
is
claimed he argues,
That
before the Name of Jesus every other Name must bend why should not the
Tetragrammaton
have the same power?[ Tradition chap on Numbers.]
This
is good sense and logic.For if Pythagoras viewed the hexagon formed of two
crossed triangles as
the
symbol of creation and the Egyptians,as that of the union of fire and water (or
of generation),the
Essenes
saw in it the seal of Solomon the Jews the Shield of David the Hindus the sign
of Vishnu (to
this
day);and if even in Russia and Poland the double triangle is regarded as a
powerful talisman -then
so
widespread a use argues that there is something in it.It stands to reason
indeed that such an
ancient
and universally revered symbol should not be merely laid aside to be laughed at
by those who
know
nothing of its virtues or real Occult significance.To begin with even the known
sign is merely a
substitute
for the one used by the Initiates.In a Tāntrika work in the British Museum a
terrible curse is
called
down upon the head of him who shall ever divulge to the profane the real Occult
hexagon known
as
the Sign of Vishnu Solomon s Seal etc.
The
great power of the hexagon -with its central mystic sign the T or the Svastika
a septenary -is well
explained
in the seventh key of Things Concealed for it says
(Page 106)The seventh key is the hieroglyph of the sacred septenary
of royalty of the
priesthood
[the Initiate ] of triumph and true result by struggle.It is magic power in all
its force
the
true Holy Kingdom.In the Hermetic Philosophy it is the quintessence resulting
from the
union
of the two forces of the great Magic Agent [Akāsha Astral Light.] ...It is
equally Jakin
and
Boaz bound by the will of the Adept and overcome by his omnipotence.
The
force of this key is absolute in Magic.All religions have consecrated this sign
in their rites.
We
can only glance hurriedly at present at the long series of antediluvian works
in their postdiluvian and
fragmentary
often disfigured form.Although all of these are the inheritance from the Fourth
Race -now
lying
buried in the unfathomed depths of the ocean -still they are not to be
rejected.As we have shown
there
was but one Science at the dawn of mankind and it was entirely divine.If
humanity on reaching its
adult
period has abused it -especially the last Sub-Races of the Fourth Root-Race -it
has been the fault
and
sin of the practitioners who desecrated the divine knowledge not of those who
remained true to its
pristine
dogmas.It is not because the modern Roman Catholic Church faithful to her
traditional
intolerance
is now pleased to see in the Occultist and even in the innocent Spiritualist
and Masons,the
descendants
of the Kischuph the Hamite the Kasdim,the Cephene the Ophite and the Khartumim
-all
these
being the followers of Satan that they are such indeed.The State or National
Religion of every
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country
has ever and at all times very easily disposed of rival schools by professing
to believe they were
dangerous
heresies -the old Roman Catholic State Religion as much as the modern one.
The
anathema however has not made the public any the wiser in the Mysteries of the
Occult Sciences.
In
some respects the world is all the better for such ignorance.The secrets of
nature generally cut both
ways
and in the hands of the undeserving they are more than likely to become
murderous.Who in our
modern
day knows anything of the real significance of and the powers contained in
certain characters
and
signs -talismans -whether for beneficent or evil purposes?Fragments of the Runes
and the writing
of
the Kischuph found scattered in old mediaeval libraries;copies from the
Ephesian and Milesian letters
or
characters;the thrice famous Book of Thoth,and the terrible treatises
(still preserved)of Targes,the
Chaldaean
and his disciple Tarchon the Etruscan -who flourished long before the Trojan
War -are so
many
names and appellations void of sense (though met with in classical
literature)for the educated
modern
scholar.Who in the nineteenth century believes in the art described in such
treatises as those
of
Targes,of evoking and directing thunderbolts?
Occult Weapons -
(Page 107)Yet the same is described in the Brāhmanical literature and
Targes copied his thunderbolts
from
the Astra [This is a kind of magical bow and arrow calculated to destroy
in one moment whole
armies;it
is mentioned in the Ramayana,the P ranas and elsewhere.] those
terrible engines of
destruction
known to the Mahabharatan Aryans.A whole arsenal of dynamite bombs would pale
before
this
art -if it ever becomes understood by the Westerns.It is from an old fragment
that was translated to
him
that the late Lord Bulwer Lytton got his idea of Vril.It is a lucky thing
indeed that in the face of the
virtues
and philanthropy that grace our age of iniquitous wars,of anarchists and
dynamiters,the secrets
contained
in the books discovered in Numa s tomb should have been burnt.But the science
of Circe and
Medea
is not lost.One can discover it in the apparent gibberish of the Tantrika
Sutras,the K ku-ma of
the
Bhutani and the Sikhim Dugpas and Red-caps of Tibet and even in the sorcery
of the Nilgiri Mula
Kurumbas.Very
luckily few outside the high practioners of the Left Path and of the Adepts of
the Right -
in
whose hands the weird secrets of the real meaning are safe -understand the
black evocations.
Otherwise
the Western as much as the Eastern Dugpas might make short work of their
enemies.The
name
of the latter is legion for the direct descendants of the antediluvian
sorcerers hate all those who
are
not with them arguing that therefore they are against them.
As
for the Little Albert -though even this small half-esoteric volume has become
a literary relic -and the
Great
Albert or the Red Dragon together with the numberless old copies still in
existence the sorry
remains
of the mythical Mother Shiptons and the Merlins -we mean the false ones -all
these are
vulgarised
imitations of the original works of the same names.Thus the Petite Albert is
the disfigured
imitation
of the great work written in Latin by Bishop Adalbert an Occultist of the
eighth century
sentenced
by the second Roman Concilium.His work was reprinted several centuries later
and named
Alberti Parvi L cii Libell s de Mirabilib s Nat rae
Arcanis.The severities of the Roman Church
have ever
been
spasmodic.While one learns of this condemnation which placed the Church as will
be shown in
relation
to the Seven Archangels,the Virtues or Thrones of God in the most embarrassing
position for
long
centuries,it remains a (Page
108)wonder indeed to find that the Jesuits
have not destroyed the
archives
with all their countless chronicles and annals,of the History of France and
those of the Spanish
Escurial
along with them.Both history and the chronicles of the former speak at length
of the priceless
talisman
received by Charles the Great from a Pope.It was a little volume on Magic -or
Sorcery rather -
all
full of kabalistic figures,signs mysterious sentences and invocations to the
stars and planets.These
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were
talismans against the enemies of the King (les ennemis de Charlemagne ),which
talismans,the
chronicler
tells us,proved of great help as every one of them [the enemies ] died a
violent death.The
small
volume Enchiridin m Leonis Papie,has disappeared and is very luckily out
of print.Again the
Alphabet
of Thoth can be dimly traced in the modern Tarot which can be had at almost
every bookseller s
in
Paris.As for its being understood or utilised the many fortune-tellers in
Paris,who make a
professional
living by it are sad specimens of failures of attempts at reading let alone
correctly
interpreting
the symbolism of the Tarot without a preliminary philosophical study of the
Science.The real
Tarot
in its complete symbology can be found only in the Babylonian cylinders,that
any one can inspect
and
study in the British Museum and elsewhere.Any one can see these Chaldaean
antediluvian
rhombs,or
revolving cylinders,covered with sacred signs;but the secrets of these divining
wheels,or
as
de Mirville calls them the rotating globes of Hecate have to be left untold
for some time to come.
Meanwhile
there are the turning-tables of the modern medium for the babes,and the Kabalah
for the
strong.This
may afford some consolation.
People
are very apt to use terms which they do not understand and to pass judgments on
prima facie
evidence.The
difference between White and Black Magic is very difficult to realise fully as
both have to
be
judged by their motive upon which their ultimate though not their immediate
effects depend even
though
these may not come for years.Between the right and the left hand [Magic ]
there is but a cobweb
thread
says an Eastern proverb.Let us abide by its wisdom and wait till we have
learned more.
We
shall have to return at greater length to the relation of the Kabalah to
Gupta Vidya and to deal further
with
esoteric and numerical systems,but we must first follow the line of Adepts in post
Christian times.
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SECTION XII
The Duty of the True Occultist Toward
Religions
(Page 109)HAVING disposed of pre-Christian Initiates and their
Mysteries -though more has to be said
about
the latter -a few words must be given to the earliest post-Christian Adepts
irrespective of their
personal
belief and doctrines,or their subsequent places in History whether sacred or
profane.Our task
is
to analyse this adeptship with its abnormal thaumaturgical or as now called
psychological powers;to
give
each of such Adepts his due by considering firstly what are the historical
records about them that
have
reached us at this late day and secondly to examine the laws of probability
with regard to the said
powers.
And
at the outset the writer must be allowed a few words in justification of what
has to be said.It would
be
most unfair to see in these pages,any defiance to or disrespect for the
Christian religion -least of all
a
desire to wound anyone s feelings.The Theosophist believes in neither Divine
nor Satanic miracles.At
such
a distance of time he can only obtain prima facie evidence and judge of
it by the results claimed.
There
is neither Saint nor Sorcerer Prophet nor Soothsayer for him;only Adepts,or
proficients in the
production
of feats of a phenomenal character to be judged by their words and deeds.The
only
distinction
he is now able to trace depends on the results achieved -on the evidence whether
they were
beneficent
or maleficent in their character as affecting those for or against whom the
powers of the Adept
were
used.With the division so arbitrarily made between proficients in miraculous
doings of this or that
Religion
by their respective followers and advocates,the Occultist cannot and must
not be concerned.
The
Christian whose Religion commands (Page 110)him to regard Peter
and Paul as Saints,and divinely
inspired
and glorified Apostles,and to view Simon and Apollonius as Wizards and Necromancers,helped
by
and serving the ends of supposed Evil Powers -is quite justified in thus doing
if he be a sincere
orthodox
Christian.But so also is the Occultist justified if he would serve truth and
only truth in rejecting
such
a one-sided view.The student of Occultism must belong to no special creed or
sect yet he is bound
to
show outward respect to every creed and faith if he would become an Adept of
the Good Law.He
must
not be bound by the prejudged and sectarian opinions of anyone and he has to form
his own
opinions
and to come to his own conclusions in accordance with the rules of evidence
furnished to him
by
the Science to which he is devoted.Thus,if the Occultist is,by way of
illustration a Buddhist then
while
regarding Gautama Buddha as the grandest of all the Adepts that lived and the
incarnation of
unselfish
love boundless charity and moral goodness,he will regard in the same light
Jesus -
proclaiming
Him another such incarnation of every divine virtue.He will reverence the
memory of the
great
Martyr even while refusing to recognise in Him the incarnation on earth of the
One Supreme Deity
and
the Very God of Gods in Heaven.He will cherish the ideal man for his personal
virtues,not for the
claims
made on his behalf by fanatical dreamers of the early ages,or by a shrewd
calculating Church
and
Theology.He will even believe in most of the assorted miracles,only
explaining them in
accordance
with the rules of his own Science and by his psychic discernment.Refusing them
the term
miracle
-in the theological sense of an event contrary to the established laws of
nature -he will
nevertheless
view them as a deviation from the laws known (so far)to Science quite another
thing.
Moreover
the Occultist will on the prima facie evidence of the Gospels -whether
proven or not -class
most
of such works as beneficent divine Magic,though he will be justified in
regarding such events as
casting
out devils into a herd of swine [ Matthew,viii.30-34.] as
allegorical and as pernicious to true faith
in
their dead-letter sense.This is the view a genuine impartial Occultist would
take.And in this respect
even
the fanatical Mussulmans who regard Jesus of Nazareth as a great Prophet and
show respect to
Him
are giving a wholesome lesson in charity to Christians,who teach and accept
that religious
tolerance
is impious and absurd [ Dogmatic Theology,iii.345.] and
who will never refer to the prophet
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of
Islam by any other term but that of a false prophet.
Christian and Non-Christian Adepts -(Page 111)It is on the principles of Occultism then that Peter and
Simon
Paul and Apollonius,will now be examined.
These
four Adepts are chosen to appear in these pages with good reason.They are the
first in post-
Christian
Adeptship -as recorded in profane and sacred writings -to strike the key-note
of miracles,
that
is of psychic and physical phenomena.It is only theological bigotry and
intolerance that could so
maliciously
and arbitrarily separate the two harmonious parts into two distinct
manifestations of Divine
and
Satanic Magic,into godly and ungodly works.
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SECTION XIII
Post-Christian Adepts and Their Doctrines
(Page 112)WHAT does the world at large know of Peter and Simon for
example?Profane history has no
record
of these two while that which the so-called sacred literature tells us of them
is scattered about
contained
in a few sentences in the Acts .As to the Apocrypha their very
name forbids critics to trust to
them
for information.The Occultists,however claim that one-sided and prejudiced as
they may be the
apocryphal
Gospels contain far more historically true events and facts than does
the New Testament the
Acts included.The
former are crude tradition the latter [the official Gospels ] are an
elaborately made up
legend.The
sacredness of the New Testament is a question of private belief and of
blind faith and while
one
is bound to respect the private opinion of one s neighbour no one is forced to
share it.
Who
was Simon Magus,and what is known of him?One learns in the Acts simply
that on account of his
remarkable
magical Arts he was called the Great Power of God. Philip is said to have
baptised this
Samaritan;and
subsequently he is accused of having offered money to Peter and John to teach
him the
power
of working true miracles, false ones,it is asserted being of the Devil [ viii.9
10.] This is all if we
omit
the words of abuse freely used against him for working miracles of the latter
kind.Origen mentions
him
as having visited Rome during the reign of Nero [ Adv.Celsum.]
and Mosheim places him along the
open
enemies of Christianity;[ Eccles.Hist.,i.140.] but Occult
tradition accuses him of nothing worse
than
refusing to recognise Simeon as Vicegerent of God whether that Simeon was
Peter or anyone
else
being still left an open question with the critics.
Unfair Criticism -(Page 113)That which
Irenaeus [Contra Haereses,1.xxiii.1-4.] and Epiphanius [
Comtra Haereses,ii
1-6.] say of Simon Magus -namely that he represented himself as the
incarnated
trinity;that
in Samaria he was the Father in Judaea the Son and had given himself out to the
Gentiles as
the
Holy Spirit -is simply backbiting.Times and events change;human nature remains
the same and
unaltered
under every sky and in every age.The charge is the result and product of the
traditional and
now
classical odi m theologic m.No Occultists -all of whom have experienced
personally more or less,
the
effects of theological rancour -will ever believe such things merely on the
word of an Irenaeus,if
indeed
he ever wrote the words himself.Further on it is narrated of Simon that he took
about with him a
woman
whom he introduced as Helen of Troy who had passed through a hundred
reincarnations,and
who
still earlier in the beginning of aeons,was Sophia Divine Wisdom an emanation
of his own
(Simon
s)Eternal Mind when he (Simon)was the Father ;and finally that by her he
had begotten the
Archangels
and Angels,by whom this world was created etc.
Now
we all know to what a degree of transformation and luxuriant growth any bare
statement can be
subjected
and forced after passing through only half a dozen hands.Moreover all these
claims may be
explained
and even shown to be true at bottom Simon Magus was a Kabalist and a Mystic,who
like so
many
other reformers,endeavoured to found a new Religion based on the fundamental
teachings of the
Secret
Doctrine yet without divulging more than necessary of its mysteries.Why then
should not Simon
a
Mystic deeply imbued with the fact of serial incarnations (we may leave out the
number one hundred
as
a very probable exaggeration of his disciples),speak of any one whom he knew
psychically as an
incarnation
of some heroine of that name and in the way he did -if he ever did so?Do we not
find in our
own
century some ladies and gentlemen not charlatans but intellectual persons
highly honoured in
society
whose inner conviction assures them that they were -one Queen Cleopatra another
one
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Alexander
the Great a third Joan of Arc,and who or what not?This is a matter of inner
conviction and is
based
on more or less familiarity with Occultism and belief in the modern theory of
reincarnation.The
latter
differs from the one genuine doctrine of old as will be shown but there is no
rule without its
exception.
(Page 114)As to the Magus being one with God the Father God the Son
and God the Holy Ghost this
again
is quite reasonable if we admit that a Mystic and Seer has a right to use
allegorical language;and
in
this case moreover it is quite justified by the doctrine of Universal Unity
taught in Esoteric Philosophy.
Every
Occultist will say the same on (to him)scientific and logical grounds,in full
accordance with the
doctrine
he professes.Not a Vedantin but says the same thing daily:he is,of course
Brahman and he is
Parabrahman
once that he rejects the individuality of his personal spirit and recognizes
the Divine Ray
which
dwells in his Higher Self as only a reflection of the Universal Spirit.This is
the echo in all times and
ages
of the primitive doctrine of Emanations.The first Emanation from the Unknown is
the Father [Op
cit.,ii.337.] the
second the Son and all and everything proceeds from the One or that Divine
Spirit
which
is unknowable.Hence the assertion that by her (Sophia or Minerva the Divine
Wisdom)he
(Simon),when
yet in the bosom of the Father himself the Father (or the first collective
Emanation),begot
the
Archangels -the Son -who were the creators of this world.
The
Roman Catholics themselves,driven to the wall by the irrefutable arguments of
their opponents -the
learned
Philologists and Symbologists who pick to shreds Church dogmas and their
authorities,and point
out
the plurality of the Elohim in the Bible -admit today that the first
creation of God the Tsaba or
Archangels,must
have participated in the creation of the universe.Might not we suppose:
Although
God alone created the heaven and the earth ...that however unconnected they
[the
angels ] may have been with the primordial ex nihilo creation they may
have received a
mission
to achieve to continue and to sustain it?[ Op cit.,ii.337.]
exclaims
De Mirville in answer to Renan Lacour Maury and the t tti q anti of the
French Institute.With
certain
alterations it is precisely this which is claimed by the Secret Doctrine.In
truth there is not a single
doctrine
preached by the many Reformers of the first and the subsequent centuries of our
era that did
not
base its initial teachings on this universal cosmogony.Consult Mosheim and see
what he has to say
of
the many heresies he describes.Cerinthus,the Jew
Taught
that the Creator of this world ...the Sovereign God of the Jewish people was a
Being
...who derived his birth from the Supreme God;
that
this Being moreover
Fell
by degrees from his native virtue and primitive dignity.
The Two Eternal Principles -(Page 115)Basildes,Carpocrates and Valentinus,the Egyptian Gnostics
of
the
second century held the same ideas with a few variations.Basilides preached
seven Aeons (Hosts or
Archangels),who
issued from the substance of the Supreme.Two of them Power and Wisdom begot
the
heavenly hierarchy of the first class and dignity;this emanated a second;the
latter a third and so on;
each
subsequent evolution being of a nature less exalted than the precedent and each
creating for itself
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a
Heaven as a dwelling the nature of each of these respective Heavens decreasing
in splendour and
purity
as it approached nearer to the earth.Thus the number of these Dwellings
amounted to 365;and
over
all presided the Supreme Unknown called Abraxas,a name which in the Greek method
of
numeration
yields the number 365 which in its mystic and numerical meaning contains the
number 355
or
the man value [Ten is the perfect number of the Supreme God among the
manifested deities,for
number
"I"is the symbol of the Universal Unit or male principle in Nature
and a number "0"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.]
This
was a Gnostic Mystery based upon that of primitive Evolution which ended with
man.
Saturnilus
of Antioch promulgated the same doctrine slightly modified.He taught two
eternal principles,
Good
and Evil which are simply Spirit and Matter.The seven Angels who preside over
the seven Planets
are
the Builders of our Universe -a purely Eastern doctrine as Saturnilus was an
Asiatic Gnostic.These
Angels
are the natural Guardians of the seven Regions of our Planetary System one of
the most
powerful
among these seven creating Angels of the third order being Saturn the
presiding genius of the
Planet
and the God of the Hebrew people:namely Jehovah who was venerated among the
Jews,and
to
whom they dedicated the seventh day or Sabbath Saturday -Saturn s day among
the Scandinavians
and
also among the Hindus.
Marcion
who also held the doctrine of the two opposed principles of Good and Evil
asserted that there
was
a third Deity between the two -one of a mixed nature -the God of the Jews,the
Creator (with his
Host)of
the lower or our World.Though ever at war with the Evil (Page 116)Principle this intermediate
Being
was nevertheless also opposed to the Good Principle whose place and title he
coveted.
Thus
Simon was only the son of his time a religious Reformer like so many others,and
an Adept among
the
Kabalists.The Church to which a belief in his actual existence and great powers
is a necessity -in
order
the better to set off the miracle performed by Peter and his triumph over
Simon -extols
unstintingly
his wonderful magic feats.On the other hand Scepticism represented by scholars
and
learned
critics,tries to make away with him altogether.Thus,after denying the very
existence of Simon
they
have finally thought fit to merge his individuality entirely in that of
Paul.The anonymous author of
S pernat ral Religion assiduously
endeavoured to prove that by Simon Magus we must understand the
Apostle
Paul whose Epistles were secretly as well as openly calumniated and
opposed by Peter and
charged
with containing dysnoetic learning. Indeed this seems more than probable when
we think of the
two
Apostles and contrast their characters.
The
Apostle of the Gentiles was brave outspoken sincere and very learned;the
Apostle of
Circumcision
cowardly cautious,insincere and very ignorant.That Paul had been partially at
least
if not completely initiated into the theurgic mysteries,admits of little
doubt.His
language
the phraseology so peculiar to the Greek philosophers,certain expressions used
only
by the Initiates,are so many sure earmarks to that supposition.Our suspicion
has been
strengthened
by an able article entitled Paul and Plato by Dr.A.Wilder in which the author
puts
forward one remarkable and for us,very precious observation.In the Epistles
to the
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Corinthians he shows
Paul abounding with expressions suggested by the initiations of
Sabazius
and Eleusis,and the lectures of the (Greek)philosophers.He (Paul)designates
himself
as idiotes -a person unskilful in the Word but not in the gnosis or
philosophical
learning.We
speak wisdom among the perfect or initiated he writes,even the hidden
wisdom not the wisdom
of this world nor of the Archons of this world but divine wisdom in a
mystery
secret -which none of the Archons of this world knew.[I.Cor.,ii.6-8.]
What
else can the Apostle mean by those unequivocal words,but that he himself as
belonging
to the Mystae (Initiated),spoke of things shown and explained only in the
Mysteries?The
divine wisdom in a mystery which none of the Archons of this world knew,
has
evidently some direct reference to the Basileus of the Eleusinian Initiation
who did know.
The
Basileus belonged to the staff of the great Hierophant and was an Archon of
Athens,and
as
such was one of the chief Mystae belonging to the interior Mysteries,to
which a very select
and
small number obtained an entrance.[ Compare Taylor s Ele sinian and
Bacchic
Mysteries.] The magistrates supervising the Eleusinia were called
Archons.[ Isis Unveiled.ii.
89.]
We
will deal however first with Simon the Magician.
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SECTION XIV
Simon and His Biographer Hippolytus
(Page 117)AS shown in our earlier volumes,Simon was a pupil of the
Tanaim of Samaria and the
reputation
he left behind him together with the title of the Great Power of God testify
in favour of the
ability
and learning of his Masters.But the Tanaim were Kabalists of the same secret
school as John of
the
Apocalypse whose careful aim it was to conceal as much as possible the
real meaning of the names
in
the Mosiac Books.Still the calumnies so jealously disseminated against Simon
Magus by the unknown
authors
and compilers of the Acts and other writings,could not cripple the truth
to such an extent as to
conceal
the fact that no Christian could rival him in thaumaturgic deeds.The story told
about his falling
during
an aerial flight breaking both his legs and then committing suicide is
ridiculous.Posterity has
heard
but one side of the story.Were the disciples of Simon to have a chance we might
perhaps find that
it
was Peter who broke his legs.But as against this hypothesis we know that this
Apostle was too prudent
ever
to venture himself in Rome.On the confession of several ecclesiastical
writers,no Apostle ever
performed
such supernatural wonders, but of course pious people will say this only the
more proves
that
it was the Devil who worked through Simon.He was accused of blasphemy against
the Holy Ghost
only
because he introduced as the Holy Spiritus the Men's (Intelligence)or the
Mother of all. But we
find
the same expression used in the Book of Enoch,in which in
contradistinction to the Son of Man
he
speaks of the Son of the Woman.In the Codex of the Nazarenes,and in
the Zohar as well as in the
Books of Hermes the
same expression is used;and even in the apocryphal Evangeli m of the Hebrews
we
read that Jesus admitted the female sex of the Holy Ghost by using the expression
My Mother the
Holy
Pneuma.
(Page 118)After long ages of denial however the actual existence of
Simon Magus has been finally
demonstrated
whether he was Saul Paul or Simon.A manuscript speaking of him under the last
name
has
been discovered in Greece and has put a stop to any further speculation.
In
his Histoire des Trois Premiers Siecles de L Eglise,[ Op.cit.,ii.395.]M.de
Pressensé gives his
opinion
on this additional relic of early Christianity.Owing to the numerous myths with
which the history
of
Simon abounds -he says -many Theologians (among Protestants,he ought to have
added)have
concluded
that it was no better than a clever tissue of legends.But he adds:
It
contains positive facts,it seems,now warranted by the unanimous testimony of
the Fathers
of
the Church and the narrative of Hippolytus recently discovered.[ Quoted
by De Mirville.Op
cit.,vi.41 and 42.]
This
MS.is very far from being complimentary to the alleged founder of Western
Gnosticism.While
recognizing
great powers in Simon it brands him as a priest of Satan -which is quite enough
to show
that
it was written by a Christian.It also shows that like another servant of the
Evil One -as Manes is
called
by the Church -Simon was a baptised Christian;but that both being too
well versed in the
mysteries
of true primitive Christianity were persecuted for it.The secret of such
persecution was then
as
it is now quite transparent to those who study the question impartially.Seeking
to preserve his
independence
Simon could not submit to the leadership or authority of any of the
Apostles,least of all to
that
of either Peter or John the fanatical author of the Apocalypse.Hence
charges of heresy followed by
anathema
maranatha.The persecutions by the Church were never directed against
Magic,when it was
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orthodox;for
the new Theurgy established and regulated by the Fathers,now known to
Christendom as
grace
and miracles,was and is still when it does happen only Magic -whether
conscious or
unconscious.Such
phenomena as have passed to posterity under the name of divine miracles were
produced
though powers acquired by great purity of life and ecstacy.Prayer and
contemplation added to
asceticism
are the best means of discipline in order to become a Theurgist where there is
no regular
initiation.For
intense prayer for the accomplishment of some object is only intense will and
desire
resulting
in unconscious Magic.In our own day George Muller of Bristol has proved it.But
divine
miracles
are produced by the same causes that generate effects of Sorcery.
Uneven Balances -(Page 119)The whole
difference rests on the good or evil effects aimed at and on the
actor
who produces them.The thunders of the Church were directed only against those
who dissented
from
the formulae and attributed to themselves the production of certain marvellous
effects,instead of
fathering
them on a personal God;and thus while those Adepts in Magic Arts who acted
under her direct
instructions
and auspices were proclaimed to posterity and history as saints and friends of
God all others
were
hooted out of the Church and sentenced to eternal calumny and curses from their
day to this.
Dogma
and authority have ever been the curse of humanity the great extinguishers of
light and truth.[
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 Aryan Samāj,the Theosophical Society,Brahmo and Hind
Samaj and other Religio s and
Progressive Societies in India.)]
It
was perhaps the recognition of a germ of that which later on in the then
nascent Church grew into the
virus
of insatiate power and ambition culminating finally in the dogma of infallibility
that forced Simon
and
so many others,to break away from her at her very birth.Sects and dissensions
began with the first
century.While
Paul rebukes Peter to his face John slanders under the veil of vision the
Nicolaitans,and
makes
Jesus declare that he hates them.[Revelation,ii.6.] Therefore
we pay little attention to the
accusations
against Simon in the MS.found in Greece.
It
is entitled Philosoph mena .Its author regarded as Saint Hippolytus by
the Greek Church is referred to
as
an unknown heretic by the Papists only because he speaks in it very
slanderously of Pope
Callistus,also
a Saint.Nevertheless,Greeks and Latins agree in declaring the Philosoph mena
to be an
extraordinary
and very erudite work.Its antiquity and genuineness have been vouched for by
the best
authorities
of Tubingen.
Whoever
the author may have been he expresses himself about Simon in this wise:
Simon
a man well versed in magic arts,deceived many persons partly by the (Page 120)art of
Thrasymedes,[This
art is not common jugglery as some define it now:it s 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.] and partly with the help
of demons.[ The
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author
asserts in this his Christian persuasion.]...He determined to pass
himself off as a
god...Aided
by his wicked arts,he turned to profit not only the teachings of Moses,but
those
of
the poets ...His disciples use to this day his charms.Thanks to incantations,to
philtres,to
their
attractive caresses [ Magnetic passes,evidently followed by a trance and
sleep.] and
what
they call sleeps,they send demons to influence all those whom they would fascinate.
With
this object they employ what they call familiar demons.[ Elementals
used by the
highest
Adept to do mechanical not intellectual work as a physicist uses gases and
other
compounds.]
Further
on the MS.reads:
The
Magus (Simon)made those who wished to enquire of the demon write what their
question
was on a leaf of parchment;this,folded in four was thrown into a burning
brazier in
order
that the smoke should reveal the contents of the writing to the Spirit (demon)(Philos.,IV.
IV.)Incense
was thrown by handfuls on the blazing coals,the Magus adding on pieces of
papyrus,the
Hebrew names of the Spirits he was addressing and the flame devoured all.
Very
soon the divine Spirit seemed to overwhelm the Magician who uttered
unintelligible
invocations,and
plunged in such a state he answered every question -phantasmal apparitions
being
often raised over the flaming brazier (ibid .iii.);at other times fire
descended from
heaven
upon objects previously pointed out by the Magician (ibid.);or again the
deity evoked
crossing
the room would trace fiery orbs in its flight.(ibid .ix.).[Quoted
from De Mirville.
op.cit.,vi.43.]
So
far the above statements agree with those of Anastasius the Sinaļte:
People
saw Simon causing statues to walk;precipitating himself into the flames without
being
burnt;metamorphosing
his body into that of various animals [lycanthropy ];raising at banquets
phantoms
and spectres;ca sing the f rnit re in the rooms to move abo t,by
invisible spirits .
He
gave out that he was escorted by a number of shades to whom he gave the name of
souls
of
the dead.Finally he used to fly in the air ...(Anast.Patrol,Grecq e,vol.lxxxix.col.523
quaest.xx.).[
Ibid.,vi.45 .]
Suetonius
says in his Nero,
In
those days an Icarus fell at his first ascent near Nero s box and covered it
with his blood.[
Ibid.,p.46.]
This
sentence referring evidently to some unfortunate acrobat who missed his footing
and tumbled is
brought
forward as a proof that it was Simon who fell.[ Amédée Fleury.Rapports
de St.Pa l avec
Sénčq e.ii.100.The
whole of this is summarised from De Mirville.]
Stones as Evidences.-(Page 121)But the latter s name is surely too famous,if one must
credit the
Church
Fathers,for the historian to have mentioned him simply as an Icarus. The
writer is quite aware
that
there exists in Rome a locality names Simonium near the Church of SS.Cosmas and
Daimanus
(Via
Sacra),and the ruins of the ancient temple of Romulus,where the broken pieces
of a stone on
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which
it is alleged the two knees of the Apostle Peter were impressed in thanksgiving
after his supposed
victory
over Simon are shown to this day.But what does this exhibition amount to?For
the broken
fragments
of one stone the Buddhists of Ceylon show a whole rock on Adam s Peak with
another imprint
upon
it.A crag stands upon its platform a terrace of which supports a huge boulder
and on the boulder
rests
for nearly three thousand years the sacred footprint of a foot five feet
long.Why not credit the
legend
of the latter if we have to accept that of St.Peter?Prince of Apostles,or
Prince of Reformers,
or
even the First-born of Satan as Simon is called all are entitled to legends
and fictions.One may be
allowed
to discriminate however.
That
Simon could fly i.e.,raise himself in the air for a few minutes,is no
impossibility.Modern mediums
have
performed the same feat supported by a force that Spiritualists persist in
calling spirits.But if
Simon
did so it was with the help of a self-acquired blind power that heeds little
the prayers and
commands
of rival Adepts,let alone Saints.The fact is that logic is against the supposed
fall of Simon at
the
prayer of Peter.For had he been defeated publicly by the Apostle his disciples
would have
abandoned
him after such an evident sign of inferiority and would have become orthodox
Christians.But
we
find even the author of Philosoph mena,just such a Christian showing
otherwise.Simon had lost so
little
credit with his pupils and the masses,that he went on daily preaching in the
Roman Campania after
his
supposed fall from the clouds far above the Capitolium in which fall he broke
his legs only!Such a
lucky
fall is in itself sufficiently miraculous,one would say.
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SECTION XV
St.Paul the Real Founder of Present
Christianity
(Page 122)We may repeat with the author of Phallicism:
We
are all for construction -even for Christian,although of course
philosophical construction.
We
have nothing to do with reality in man s limited mechanical scientific sense
or with
realism .We have
undertaken to show that mysticism is the very life and soul of religion;[ But
we
can never agree with the author that rites and ritual and formal worship and
prayers are of
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.]...that
the
Bible is only misread and misrepresented when rejected as
advancing supposed fab lo s and
contradictory things;that
Moses did not make mistakes,but spoke to the children of men in
the
only way in which children in their nonage can be addressed;that the
world is indeed a
very
different place from that which it is assumed to be;that what is derided as
superstition is
the
only true and the only scientific knowledge and moreover that modern
knowledge and
modern
science are to a great extent not only superstition,but superstition of
a very
destructive
and deadly kind.[ H.Jennings,op.cit.,pp.37.38.]
All
this is perfectly true and correct.But it is also true that the New
Testament the Acts and the Epistles -
however
much the historical figure of Jesus may be true -all are symbolical and
allegorical sayings,and
that
it was not Jesus but Paul who was the real founder of Christianity;[See
Isis Unveiled ii.574.] but it
was
not the official Church Christianity at any rate.The disciples were called
Christians first in Antioch
the
Acts of the Apostles tell us,[ xi.26.] and they were not
so called before nor for a long time after but
simply
Nazarenes.
This
view is found in more than one writer of the present and the past centuries.But
hitherto it has
always
been laid aside as an unproven hypothesis,a blasphemous assumption;though as
the author of
Pa l,the Fo nder of Christianity [Art by Dr.A.Wilder in
Evol tion .] truly says:
Abrogation of Law by Initiates -
(Page 123)Such men as Irenaeus,Epiphanius and Eusebius have
transmitted to posterity a
reputation
for such untruth and dishonest practices that the heart sickens at the story of
the
crimes
of that period.
The
more so since the whole Christian scheme rests upon their sayings.But we
find now another
corroboration
and this time on the perfect reading of biblical glyphs.In The So rce of
Measures we find
the
following:
It
must be borne in mind that our present Christianity is Pa line,not Jesus.Jesus,in
his life
was
a Jew conforming to the law;even more He says:The scribes and pharisees sit in
Moses
seat;whatsoever therefore they command you to do that observe and do.And
again:
I did not come to destroy but to fulfil the law Therefore he was under the law
to the day of
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his
death and could not while in life abrogate one jot or title of it.He was
circumcised and
commanded
circumcision.But Paul said of circumcision that it availed nothing and he (Paul)
abrogated
the law.Sa l and Pa l -that is,Saul under the law and Paul freed
from the
obligations
of the law -were in one man but parallelisms in the flesh of Jesus the
man under
the
law as observing it who thus died in Chrestos and arose freed from its
obligations,in the
spirit
world as Christos,or the triumphant Christ.It was the Christ who was freed
but Christ
was
the Spirit.Saul in the flesh was the function of and parallel of Chrestos.Paul
in the flesh
was
the function and parallel of Jesus become Christ in the spirit as an early
reality to answer
to
and act for the apotheosis;and so armed with all authority in the flesh
to abrogate human
law.[
Op.cit.,p.262.]
The
real reason why Paul is shown as abrogating the law can be found only in
India where to this day
the
most ancient customs and privileges are preserved in all their purity
notwithstanding the abuse
levelled
at the same.There is only one class of persons who can disregard the law of
Brāhmanical
institutions,caste
included with impunity and that is the perfect Svāmis,the Yogis -who
have reached
or
are supposed to have reached the first step towards the Jivanmukta state -or
the full Initiates.And
Paul
was undeniably an Initiate.We will quote a passage or two from Iris
Unveiled,for we can say now
nothing
better than what was said then:
Take
Paul read the little of original that is left of him in the writings attributed
to this brave
honest
sincere man and see whether anyone can find a word therein to show that Paul
meant
by the word Christ anything more than the abstract ideal of the personal
divinity
indwelling
in man.For Paul Christ is not a person but (Page 124)an embodied
idea.If any
man
is in Christ he is a new creation he is reborn,as after initiation for
the Lord is spirit -the
spirit
of man.Paul was the only one of the apostles who had understood the secret
ideas
underlying
the teachings of Jesus,although he had never met him.
But
Paul himself was not infallible or perfect.
Bent
upon inaugurating a new and broad reform one embracing the whole of humanity he
sincerely
set his own doctrines far above the wisdom of the ages,above the ancient
Mysteries
and
final revelation to the Epoptae.
Another
proof that Paul belonged to the circle of the Initiates lies in the following
fact.The
apostle
had his head shorn at Cenchreae where Lucius (Ap lei s)was initiated
because he
had
a vow.The Nazars -or set apart -as we see in the Jewish Scriptures,had to cut
their
hair
which they wore long and which no razor touched at any other time and
sacrifice it on
the
altar of initiation.And the Nazars were a class of Chaldaean Theurgists or
Initiates.
It
is shown in Isis Unveiled that Jesus belonged to this class.
Paul
declares that:According to the grace of God which is given unto me as a wise master-
b ilder I have laid
the foundation.(1.Corinth.,iii.10.)
The
expression master-builder used only once in the whole Bible,and
by Paul may be
considered
as a whole revelation.In the Mysteries,the third part of the sacred rites was
called
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Epoteia
or revelation reception into the secrets.In substance it means the highest
stage of
clairvoyance
-the diviner;...but the real significance of the word is overseeing from
óšōļģįé
-I see myself. In Sanskrit the root āp had the same meaning
originally though now
it
is understood as meaning to obtain.[ 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 receive 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
Brahmanical
Vaidic rites,and the latter from the Ante-Vaidic religious Mysteries -primitive
Wisdom
Philosophy.]
The
word epopteia is compound from åšé upon and óšōļģįé-to
look, or an overseer an
inspector
-also used for a master-builder.The title of master-mason in Freemasonry is
derived
from this,in the sense used in the Mysteries.Therefore when Paul entitles
himself a
master-builder
he is using a word pre-eminently kabalistic,theurgic,and masonic,and one
which
no other apostle uses.He thus declares himself an adept having the right
to initiate
others.
If
we search in this direction with those sure guides,the Grecian Mysteries and
the Kabalah,before us,it
will
be easy to find the secret reason why Paul was so persecuted and hated by Peter
John and James.
The
author of the Revelation was a Jewish Kabalist p r sang,with all
the hatred inherited by him from
his
forefathers toward the Pagan Mysteries.[ 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.] His
jealousy
during the life of Jesus extended even to Peter;and it is but after the death
of their common
master
that we see the two apostles -the former of whom wore the Mitre and the
Petaloon of the Jewish
Rabbis
-preach so zealously the rite of circumcision.
Paul Changed to Simon -(Page 125)In the eyes of Peter Paul who had humiliated him and whom
he
felt
so much his superior in Greek learning and philosophy must have naturally
appeared as a
magician
a man polluted with the Gnosis,with the wisdom of the Greek Mysteries
-hence perhaps,
Simon
the Magician as a comparison not a nickname.[Ibid.,loc.cit.The
fact that Peter persecuted the
Apostle
of 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 (I
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.]
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SECTION XVI
Peter a Jewish Kabalist Not an Initiate
(Page 126)As to Peter biblical criticism has shown that in all
probability he had no more to do with the
foundation
of the Latin Church at Rome than to furnish the pretext so readily seized upon
by the cunning
Irenaeus,of
endowing the Church with a new name for the Apostle -Petra or Kiffa -a name
which by an
easy
play upon words,could be readily connected to Petroma.The Petroma was a pair of
stone tablets
used
by the Hierophants at the Initiations,during the final Mystery.In this lies
concealed the secret of the
Vatican
claim to the seat of Peter.As already quoted in Isis Unveiled,ii.92:
In
the Oriental countries the designation Peter (in Phoenician and Chaldaic an
interpreter),
appears
to have been the title of this personage.[Taylor s Ele sinian and
Bacchic Mysteries,
Wilder
s ed.p.x.]
So
far and as the interpreters of Neo-Christianism,the Popes have most
undeniably the right to call
themselves
successors to the title of Peter but hardly the successors to least of all the
interpreters of
the
doctrines of Jesus,the Christ;for there is the Oriental Church older and far
purer than the Roman
hierarchy
which having ever faithfully held to the primitive teachings of the Apostles,is
known
historically
to have refused to follow the Latin seceders from the original Apostolic Church
though
curiously
enough she is still referred to by her Roman sister as the Schismatic
Church.It is useless to
repeat
the reasons for the statements above made as they may all be found in Isis
Unveiled [ ii.91-94.]
where
the words,Peter Patar and Pitar are explained and the origin of the Seat of
Pitah is shown.
The
reader will find upon referring to the above pages that an inscription was
found on the coffin of
Queen
Mentuhept of the Eleventh Dynasty (2250 B.C.according to Bunsen),which in its
turn was shown
to
have been transcribed from the Seventeenth Chapter of the Book of the Dead,dating
certainly not
later
than 4500 B.C.or 496 years before the World s Creation in the Genesiacal
chronology.
The Seat of Peter -(Page 127)Nevertheless,Baron
Bunsen shows the group of the hieroglyphics given
(Peter-ref-s
,the Mystery Word )and the sacred formulary mixed up with a whole series
of glosses and
various
interpretations on a monument 4 000 years old.
This
is identical with saying that the record (the true interpretation)was at that
time no longer
intelligible
...We beg our readers to understand that a sacred text a hymn containing the
words
of a departed spirit existed in such a state about 4.000 years ago as to be all
but
unintelligible
to royal scribes.[ Bunsen Egypt s Place in History.v.90.]
Unintelligible
to the non-initiated -this is certain;and it is so proved by the confused and
contradictory
glosses.Yet
there can be no doubt that it was -for it still is -a mystery word.The
Baron further explains:
It
appears to me that our PTR is literally the old Aramaic and Hebrew Patar
which occurs in
the
history of Joseph as the specific word for interpreting whence also
Pitrum is the term for
interpretation
of a text a dream.
This
word PTR was partially interpreted owing to another word similarly written in
another group of
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hieroglyphics,on
a stele the glyph used for it being an opened eye interpreted by De Rougé [ Stele,
p.44.]
as to appear and by Bunsen as illuminator which is more correct.However
it may be the word
Patar
or Peter would locate both master and disciple in the circle of initiation and
connect them with the
Secret
Doctrine;while in the Seat of Peter we can hardly help seeing a connection
with Petroma the
double
set of stone tablets used by the Hierophant at the Supreme Initiation during
the final Mystery as
already
stated also with the Pitha-sthāna (seat or the place of a seat),a term used in
the Mysteries of
the
Tantriks in India in which the limbs of the Satī are scattered and then united
again as those of Osiris
by
Isis.[ See Dowson s Hind Classical Dict.,sub voc.,Pitha-sthānam.]
Pitha is a Sanskrit word and is
also
used to designate the seat of the initiating Lama.
Whether
all the above terms are due simply to coincidences or otherwise is left to
the decision of our
learned
Symbologists and Philologists.We state facts -and nothing more.Many other
writers far (Page
128)more
learned and entitled to be heard than the author has ever claimed to be have
sufficiently
demonstrated
that Peter never had anything to do with the foundation of the Latin
Church;that his
supposed
name Petra or Kiffa also the whole story of his Apostleship at Rome are simply
a play on the
term
which meant in every country in one or another form the Hierophant or
interpreter of the
Mysteries;and
that finally far from dying a martyr at Rome where he had probably never been
he died
at
a good old age at Babylon.In Sepher Tolaoth Jesh ,a Hebrew manuscript of
great antiquity -
evidently
an original and very precious document if one may judge from the care the Jews
took to hide it
from
the Christians -Simon (Peter)is referred to as a faithful servant of God who
passed his life in
austerities
and meditation a Kabalist and a Nazarene who lived at Babylon at the top of a
tower
composed
hymns,preached charity and died there.
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SECTION XVII
Appollonius of Tyana
(Page 129)IT is said in Isis Unveiled that the greatest
teachers of divinity agree that nearly all ancient
books
were written symbolically and in a language intelligible only to the
Initiated.The biographical
sketch
of Apollonius of Tyana affords an example.As every Kabalist knows,it embraces
the whole of the
Hermetic
Philosophy being a counterpart in many respects of the traditions left us of
King Solomon.It
reads
like a fairy story but as in the case of the latter sometimes facts and
historical events are
presented
to the world under the colours of fiction.The journey to India represents in
its every stage
though
of course allegorically the trials of a Neophyte giving at the same time a
geographical and
topographical
idea of a certain country as it is even now if one knows where to look for
it.The long
discourses
of Apollonius with the Brāhmans,their sage advice and the dialogues with the
Corinthian
Menippus
would if interpreted give the Esoteric Catechism.His visit to the empire of the
wise men his
interview
with their king Hiarchas,the oracle of Amphiaraus,explain symbolically many of
the secret
dogmas
of Hermes -in the generic sense of the name -and of Occultism.Wonderful is this
to relate and
were
not the statement supported by numerous calculations already made and the
secret already half
revealed
the writer would never have dared to say it.The travels of the great Magus are
correctly
though
allegorically described -that is to say all that is related to Damis had
actually taken place -but
the
narrative is based upon the Zodiacal signs.As transliterated by Damis
under the guidance of
Appollonius
and translated by Philostratus,it is a marvel indeed.At the conclusion
of what may now be
related
of the wonderful Adept of Tyana our meaning will become clearer.Suffice it to
say for the present
that
the dialogues spoken of would disclose if correctly understood some of the most
important secrets
of
Nature.Eliphas Levi points out the great (Page 130)resemblance which
exists between King Hiarchus
and
the fabulous Hiram from whom Solomon procured the cedars of Lebanon and the
gold of Ophir.But
he
keeps silent as to another resemblance of which as a learned Kabalist he could
not be ignorant.
Moreover
according to his invariable custom he mystifies the reader more than he teaches
him
divulging
nothing and leading him off the right track.
Like
most of the historical heroes of hoary antiquity whose lives and works strongly
differ from those of
commonplace
humanity Apollonius is to this day a riddle which has,so far found no
Oedipus.His
existence
is surrounded with such a veil of mystery that he is often mistaken for a
myth.But according to
every
law of logic and reason it is quite clear that Apollonius should never be
regarded in such a light.If
the
Tyanean Theurgist may be put down as a fabulous character then history has no
right to her Caesars
and
Alexanders.It is quite true that this Sage who stands unrivalled in his
thaumaturgical powers to this
day
-on evidence historically attested -came into the arena of public life no one
seems to know whence
and
disappeared from it no one seems to know whither.But the reasons for this are
evident.Every
means
was used -especially during the fourth and fifth centuries of our era -to sweep
from people s
minds
the remembrance of this great and holy man.The circulation of his
biographies,which were many
and
enthusiastic,was prevented by the Christians,and for a very good reason as we
shall see.The
diary
of Damis survived most miraculously and remained alone to tell the tale.But it
must not be
forgotten
that Justin Martyr often speaks of Apollonius,and the character and
truthfulness of this good
man
are unimpeachable the more in that he had good reason to feel bewildered.Nor
can it be denied
that
there is hardly a Church Father of the first six centuries that left Apollonius
unnoticed.Only
according
to invariable Christian customs of charity their pens were dipped as usual in
the blackest ink of
odi m theologic m,intolerance
and one-sidedness.St.Jerome (Hieronymus)gives at length the story of
St.John
s alleged contest with the Sage of Tyana -a competition of miracles -in
which of course the
truthful
saint [ See Preface to St.Matthew s Gospel.Baroni s i.752 quoted
in De Mirville VI 63.
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Jerome
is the Father who having found the authentic and original Evangel (the
Hebrew text)by Matthew
the
Apostle-publican in the library of Caesarea written by the hand of
Matthew (Hieronymus:De Viris,
Illus.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.]
describes
in glowing colours the defeat of Apollonius,and seeks corroboration in St.John
s Apocrypha
proclaimed
doubtful even by the Church.[ 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 Verb m.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.]
The Mysterious Teacher (Page 131)Therefore it is that nobody can say where or when
Apollonius was
born
and everyone is equally ignorant of the date at which and of the place where he
died.Some think
he
was eighty or ninety years old at the time of his death others that he was one
hundred or even one
hundred
and seventeen.But whether he ended his days at Ephesus in the year 96 A.D.as
some say or
whether
the event took place at Lindus in the temple of Pallas-Athene or whether again
he disappeared
from
the temple of Dictynna or whether as others maintain he did not die at all but
when a hundred
years
old renewed his life by Magic,and went on working for the benefit of humanity
no one can tell.The
Secret
Doctrine alone have noted his birth and subsequent career.But then -Who hath
believed in that
report?
All
that history knows is that Apollonius was the enthusiastic founder of a new
school of contemplation.
Perhaps
less metaphorical and more practical than Jesus,he nevertheless inculcated the
same
quintessence
of spirituality the same high moral truths.He is accused of having confined
them to the
higher
classes of society instead of doing what Buddha and Jesus did instead of
preaching them to the
poor
and the afflicted.Of his reasons for acting in such an exclusive way it is
impossible to judge at so
late
a date.But Karmic law seems to be mixed up with it.Born as we are told among
the aristocracy it
is
very likely that he desired to finish the work undone in this particular
direction by his predecessor and
sought
to offer peace on earth and good will to all men and not alone to the
outcast and the criminal.
Therefore
he associated with the kings and mighty ones of the age.Nevertheless,the three
miracle-
workers
exhibited striking similarity of purpose.Like Jesus and like Buddha
Apollonius was the
uncompromising
enemy of all outward show of piety all display of useless religious
ceremonies,bigotry
and
hypocrisy.That his miracles were more wonderful more varied and far better
attested in (Page 132)
History
than any others,it is also true.Materialism denies;but evidence and the
affirmations of even the
Church
herself however much he is branded by her show this to be the fact.[ This
is the old old story.
Who
of us,Theosophists,but knows by bitter personal experiences 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!]
The
calumnies set afloat against Apollonius were as numerous as they were false.So
late as
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eighteen
centuries after his death he was defamed by Bishop Douglas in his work against
miracles.In
this the Right Reverend bishop crushed himself against historical facts.For it
is
not
in the miracles but in the identity of ideas and doctrines preached that
we have to look for
a
similarity between Buddha Jesus and Apollonius.If we study the question with a
dispassionate
mind we shall soon perceive that the ethics of Gautama Plato Apollonius,
Jesus,Ammonius
Sakkas,and his disciples,were all based on the same mystic philosophy -
that
all worshipped one divine ideal whether they considered it as the Father of
humanity
who
lives in man as man lives in Him or as the Incomprehensible Creative
Principle.All led
God-like
lives.Ammonius,speaking of his philosophy taught that their school dated from
the
days
of Hermes,who brought this wisdom from India.It was the same mystical contemplation
throughout
as that of the Yogin:the communion of the Brahman with his own luminous Self -
the
Atman. [ Isis Unveiled,ii.342 .]
The
groundwork of the Eclectic School is thus shown to be identical with the
doctrines of the Yogis -the
Hindu
Mystics;it is proved that it has a common origin from the same source as the
earlier Buddhism of
Gautama
and of his Arhats.
The
Ineffable Name in the search for which so many Kabalists -unacquainted
with any
Oriental
or even European Adepts -vainly consume their knowledge and lives,dwells latent
in
the
heart of every man.This mirific name which according to the most ancient
oracles,
rushes
into the infinite worlds,įöļéōēōł ļōńļöįėéćįé can be obtained in a twofold
way:by
regular
initiation and through the small voice which Elijah heard in the cave of
Horeb the
mount
of God.And when Elijah heard it he wrapped his face in his mantle and
stood in the
entering
of the cave.And behold there came the voice.
When
Apollonius of Tyana desired to hear the small voice he used to wrap himself
up
entirely
in a mantle of fine wool on which he placed both his feet after having
performed
certain
magnetic passes,and pronounced not the name but an invocation well known to
every
adept.Then he drew the mantle over his head and face and his translucid or
astral
spirit
was free.On ordinary occasions he no more wore wool than the priests of the
temples.
The
possession of the secret combination of the name gave the Hierophant supreme
power
over
every being human or otherwise inferior to himself in soul-strength.[ Loc.cit.,ii
343
344.]
Apollonius Cannot Be Destroyed (Page 133)To whatever school he belonged this fact is certain that
Apollonius
of Tyana left an imperishable name behind him.Hundreds of works were written
upon this
wonderful
man;historians have seriously discussed him;pretentious fools,unable to come to
any
conclusion
about the Sage have tried to deny his very existence.As to the Church although
she
execrates
his memory she has ever tried to present him in the light of a historical
character.Her policy
now
seems to be to direct the impression left by him into another channel -a well
known and a very old
stratagem.The
Jesuits,for instance while admitting his miracles, have set going a double
current of
thought
and they have succeeded as they succeed in all they undertake.Apollonius is
represented by
one
party as an obedient medium of Satan surrounding his theurgical powers by a
most wonderful and
dazzling
light;while the other party professes to regard the whole matter as a clever
romance written
with
a predetermined object in view.
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In
his voluminous Memoirs of Satan the Marquis de Mirville in the course of his
pleading for the
recognition
of the enemy of God as the producer of spiritual phenomena devotes a whole
chapter to this
great
Adept.The following translation of passages in his book unveils the whole
plot.The reader is asked
to
bear in mind that the Marquis wrote every one of his works under the auspices
and authorisation of the
Holy
See of Rome.
It
would be to leave the first century incomplete and to offer an insult to the
memory of St.
John
to pass over in silence the name of one who had the honour of being his special
antagonist
as Simon was that of St.Peter Elymas that of Paul etc.In the first years of the
Christian
era ...there appeared at Tyana in Cappadocia one of those men of whom the
Pythagorean
School was so very lavish.As great a traveller as was his master initiated in
all
the
secret doctrines of India Egypt and Chaldaea endowed therefore with all the
theurgic
powers
of the ancient Magi he bewildered each in its turn all the countries which he
visited
and
which all -we are obliged to admit -seem to have blessed his memory.We could
not
doubt
this fact without repudiating real historical records.The details of his life
are transmitted
to
us by a historian of the fourth century (Philostratus),himself the translator
of a diary that
recorded
day by day the life of the philosopher written by Damis,his disciple and
intimate
friend.[
Pne matologie,vi.62.]
De
Mirville admits the possibility of some exaggerations in both recorder
and translator;but he does not
believe
they hold a very wide space in the narrative. Therefore he regrets to find the
Abbe (Page 134)
Freppel
in his eloquent Essays,[ Les Apologistes Chrétiens a Second
Sičcle.p.106.] calling the diary
of
Damis a romance.Why?
[Because ] the
orator bases his opinion on the prefect similitude calculated as he imagines,of
that
legend with the life of the Saviour.But in studying the subject more profoundly
he [Abbe
Freppel
] can convince himself that neither Apollonius nor Damis,nor again
Philostratus ever
claimed
a greater honour than a likeness to St.John.This programme was in itself
sufficiently
fascinating
and the travesty as sufficiently scandalous;for owing to magic arts Apollonius
had
succeeded
in counterbalancing in appearance several of the miracles at Ephesus [produced
by
St.John ] etc.[ Pne matologie,vi.62.]
The
ang is in herba has shown its head.It is the perfect the wonderful
similitude of the life of Apollonius
with
that of the Saviour that places the Church between Scylla and Charybdis.To deny
the life and the
miracles
of the former would amount to denying the trustworthiness of the same Apostles
and patristic
writers
on whose evidence is built the life of Jesus himself.To father the Adept s
beneficent deeds,his
raisings
of the dead acts of charity healing powers,etc.on the old enemy would be
rather dangerous
at
this time.Hence the stratagem to confuse the ideas of
those
who rely upon authorities and criticisms.The Church is far more clear-sighted
than any of our great
historians.The
Church knows that to deny the existence of that Adept would lead her to
denying the
Emperor
Vespasian and his Historians,the Emperors Alexander Severus and
Aurelianus and their
Historians,and
finally to deny Jesus and every evidence about Him thus preparing the way to
her flock
for
finally denying herself .It becomes interesting to learn what she says
in this emergency through her
chosen
speaker De Mirville.It is as follows:
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What
is there so new and so impossible in the narrative of Damis concerning their
voyages to the
countries
of the Chaldees and the Gymnosophists?-he asks.Try to recall before denying
what were in
those
days those countries of marvels par excellence as also the testimony of
such men as Pythagoras,
Empedocles
and Democritus,who ought to be allowed to have known what they were writing
about.With
what
have we finally to reproach Apollonius?Is it for having made as the Oracles did
a series of
prophecies
and predictions wonderfully verified?No:because better studied now we know what
they
are.[
Many are they who do not know :hence they do not believe in them.]
The Oracles have now
become
to us,what they were to every one during the past century from Van Dale to
Fontenelle.
De Mirville on Apollonius (Page 135)Is it for having been endowed with second sight and having
had
visions
at a distance?[ 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.]
No;for
such phenomena are at the present day endemical in half Europe.Is it for having
boasted of his
knowledge
of every existing language under the sun without having ever learned one of
them?But who
can
be ignorant of the fact that this is the best criterion [ No criterion
at all.The Hindu Saddhus and
Adepts
acquire the gift by the holiness of their lives.The Yoga-Vidya teaches it and
no spirits are
required.]
of the presence and assistance of a spirit of whatever nature it may be?Or
is it for having
believed
in transmigration (reincarnation)?It is still believed in (by millions)in our
day.No one has any
idea
of the number of the men of Science who long for the re-establishment of the
Druidical Religion and
of
the Mysteries of Pythagoras.Or is it for having exorcised the demons and the
plague?The Egyptians,
the
Etruscans and all the Roman Pontiffs had done so long before.[ As to the
Pontiffs,the matter is
rather
doubtful.] For having conversed with the dead?We do the same today or
believe we do so -which
is
all the same.For having believed in the Empuses?Where is the Demonologist that
does not know that
the
Empuse is the south demon referred to in David s Psalms,and dreaded
then as it is feared even
now
in all Northern Europe?[ But this alone is no reason why people should
believe in this class of
spirits.There
are better authorities for such belief.] For having made himself
invisible at will?It is one of
the
achievements of mesmerism.For having appeared after his (supposed)death to the
Emperor
Aurelian
above the city walls of Tyana and for having compelled him thereby to raise the
siege of that
town?Such
was the mission of every hero beyond the tomb and the reason of the worship
vowed to the
Manes.[
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.] For having descended into the
famous den of Trophonius,
and
taken from it an old book preserved for years after by the Emperor Adrian in
his Antium library?The
trustworthy
and sober Pausanias had descended into the same den before Apollonius,and came
back
no
less a believer.For having disappeared at his death?Yes like Romulus,like Votan
like Lycurgus,like
Pythagoras,(Page 136)[
He might have added:like the great
Shankaracharya 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 .] always under the
most mysterious
circumstances,ever
attended by apparitions,revelations,etc.Let us stop here and repeat once more:
had
the life of Apollonius been simple romance he would never have attained
such a celebrity during his
lifetime
or created such a numerous sect one so enthusiastic after his death.
And
so to add to this,had all this been a romance never would a Caracalla have
raised a haroon to his
memory
[ See Dion Cassi s.XXVII XVIII 2 ] or Alexander Severus
have placed his bust between those
of
two Demi-Gods and of the true God [Lampridlius,Adrian,xxxix.2.]
or an Empress have corresponded
with
him.Hardly rested from the hardships of the siege at Jerusalem Titus would not
have hastened to
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write
to Apollonius a letter asking to meet him at Argos and adding that his father
and himself (Titus)
owed
all to him the great Apollonius,and that therefore his first thought was for
their benefactor.Nor
would
the Emperor Aurelian have built a temple and a shrine to that great Sage to
thank him for his
apparition
and communication at Tyana.That posth mo s conversation as all knew
saved the city
inasmuch
as Aurelian had in consequence raised the siege.Furthermore had it been a
romance History
would
not have had Vopiscus,[ 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 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,A relian s ).Vopiscus wrote in 250 and
consequently preceded
Philostratus
by a century.] one of the most trustworthy Pagan Historians,to certify to
it.Finally Apollonius
would
not have been the object of the admiration of such a noble character as
Epictetus,and even of
several
of the Fathers of the Church;Jerome for instance in his better moments,writing
thus of
Apollonius:
This
travelling philosopher found something to learn wherever he went;and profiting
everywhere
thus improved with every day.[ Ep.ad Pa lin m.]
Apollonius No Fiction (Page 137)As to his
prodigies,without wishing to fathom them Jerome most
undeniably
admits them as such;which he would assuredly never have done had he not been
compelled
to do so by facts.To end the subject had Apollonius been a simple hero of a
romance
dramatised
in the fourth century the Ephesians would not in their enthusiastic gratitude
have raised to
him
a golden statue for all the benefits he had conferred upon them.[ The
above is mostly summarised
from
De Mirville.loc cit.,pp.66-69 ]
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SECTION XVIII
Facts Underlying Adept Biographies
(Page 138)THE tree is known by its fruits;the nature of the Adept by
his words and deeds.These words
of
charity and mercy the noble advice put into the mouth of Apollonius (or of his
sidereal phantom),as
given
by Vopiscus,show the Occultists who Apollonius was.Why then call him the
Medium of Satan
seventeen
centuries later?There must be a reason and a very potent reason to justify and
explain the
secret
of such a strong animus of the Church against one of the noblest men of his
age.There is a
reason
for it and we give it in the words of the author of the Key to the
Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery in the
So rce of Measures,and
of Professor Seyffarth.The latter analyses and explains the salient dates in
the
life
of Jesus,and thus throws light on the conclusions of the former.We quote both
blending the two.
According
to solar months (of thirty days,one of the calendars in use among the
Hebrews)all
remarkable
events of the Old Testament happened on the days of the equinoxes and
the
solstices;for
instance the foundations and dedications of the temples and alters [and
consecration
of the tabernacle ].On the same cardinal days,the most remarkable events
of
the
New Testament happened;for instance the annunciation the birth the
resurrection of
Christ
and the birth of John the Baptist.And thus we learn that all remarkable epochs
of the
New Testament were
typically sanctified a long time before by the Old Testament,beginning
at
the
day succeeding the end of the Creation which was the day of the vernal
equinox.During
the
crucifixion on the 14 th day of Nisan Dionysius Areopagita saw in Ethopia an
eclipse of
the
sun and he said Now the Lord (Jehovah)is suffering something. Then Christ
arose from
the
dead on the 22d March 17 Nisan,Sunday the day of the vernal equinox
(Seyf.quoting
Philo
de Septen)-that is,on Easter or on the day when the sun gives new life to the
earth.
The
words of John the Baptist He must increase but I must decrease serve to prove
as is
affirmed
by the fathers of the church that John was born on the longest day of the year
and
Christ
who was six months younger on the shortest 22d June and 22d December the
solstices.
Jesus and Apollonius-
(Page 139)This only goes to show that as to another phase John and
Jesus were but
epitomisers
of the history of the same sun under differences of aspect or condition;and one
condition
following another of necessity the statement L ke ix.7 was not only not
an empty
one
but it was true that which was said of some that (in Jesus)John was risen from
the
dead.
(And this consideration serves to explain why it has been that the Life of
Apolloni s of
Tyana,by
Philostratus,has been so persistently kept back from translation and from
popular
reading.Those
who have studied it in the original have been forced to the comment that either
the
Life of Apolloni s has been taken from the New Testament,or that
the New Testament
narratives
have been taken from the Life of Apolloni s,because of the manifest
sameness of
the
means of construction of the narratives.The explanation is simple enough
when it is
considered
that the names of Jes s Hebrew éł and Apollonius,or Apollo are alike
names of
the sun in the heavens ;and
necessarily the history of the one as to his travels through the
signs with the
personifications of his sufferings,triumphs and miracles,could be but the
history of the other where
there was a widespread common method of describing those
travels
by personification.)It seems also that for long afterward all this was known to
rest
upon
an astronomical basis;for the secular church so to speak,was founded by
Constantine
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and
the objective condition of the worship established was that part of his decree
in which it
was
affirmed that the venerable day of the sun should be the day set apart
for the worship of
Jesus
Christ as S n -day.There is something weird and startling in some other
facts about this
matter.The
prophet Daniel (true prophet,as says Graetz).[ A true prophet
because an
Initiate
one perfectly versed in Occult astronomy.] by use of the pyramid
numbers,or
astrological
numbers,foretold the cutting off of the Meshiac as it happened (which
would go
to
show the accuracy of his astronomical knowledge if there was an eclipse of the
sun at that
time)....Now
however the temple was destroyed in the year 71 in the month Virgo and 71
is
the Dove number as shown or 71X5 =355 and with the fish a Jehovah number.
Is
it possible queries,further on the author thus answering the intimate thought
of every Christian and
Occultist
who reads and studies his work:
Is
it possible that the events of humanity do run co-ordinately with these number
forms?If so
while
Jesus Christ as an astronomical figure was true to all that has been advanced
and
more
possibly.He may as a man have filled up under the numbers,answers in the sea of
life
to predestined type.The personality of Jesus does not appear to have been
destroyed
because
as a condition he was answering to astronomical forms and relations.The
Arabian
says
Your destiny is written in the stars.[ 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 .]
Nor
is the personality of Apollonius destroyed for the same (Page 140)reason.The case of Jesus
covers
the ground for the same possibility in the cases of all Adepts and Avataras
-such as Buddha
Shankaracharya
Krishna etc.-all of these as great and as historical for their respective
followers and in
their
countries,as Jesus of Nazareth is now for Christians and in this land.
But
there is something more in the old literature of the early centuries.Iamblichus
wrote a biography of
the
great Pythagoras.
The
latter so closely resembles the life of Jesus that it may be taken for a
travesty.Diogenes
Laėrtius
and Plutarch relate the history of Plato according to a similar style.[ New
Platonism
and Alchemy .p.12 .]
Why
then wonder at the doubts that assail every scholar who studies all these
lives?The Church herself
knew
all these doubts in her early stages;and though only one of her Popes has been
known publicly
and
openly as a Pagan how many more were there who were too ambitious to reveal the
truth?
This
mystery for mystery indeed it is to those who not being Initiates,fail to
find the key of the perfect
similitude
between the lives of Pythagoras,Buddha Apollonius,etc,-is only a natural result
for those
who
know that all these great characters were Initiates of the same school.For them
there is neither
travesty
nor copy of one from the other;for them they are all originals,only
painted to represent one
and
the same subject:the mystic,and at the same time the public,life of the
Initiates sent into the world
to
save portions of humanity if they could not save the whole bulk.Hence the same
programme for all.
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The
assumed immaculate origin for each referring to their mystic birth during
the Mystery of Initiation
and
accepted literally by the multitudes,encouraged in this by the better informed
but ambitious clergy.
Thus,the
mother of each one of them was declared a virgin conceiving her son directly by
the Holy Spirit
of
God;and the Sons,in consequence were the Sons of God though in truth none of
them was any
more
entitled to such recognition than were the rest of his brother Initiates,for
they were all -so far as
their
mystic lives were concerned -only the epitomisers of the history of the same
Sun which epitome
is
another mystery within the Mystery.The biographies of the external
personalities bearing the names of
such
heroes have nothing to do with and are quite independent of the private lives
of the heroes,being
only
the mystic records of their public and parallel therewith of their inner lives,in
their characters as
Neophytes
and Initiates.
Biographies of Initiates-(Page 141)Hence the manifest sameness of the means of construction of
their
respective
biographies.From the beginning of Humanity the Cross,or Man with his arms
stretched out
horizontally
typifying his kosmic origin was connected with his psychic nature and with the
struggles
which
lead to Initiation.But if it is once shown that (a)every true Adept had and
still has,to pass
through
the seven and the twelve trials of Initiation symbolised by the twelve labours
of Hercules;(b)that
the
day of his real birth is regarded as that day when he is born into the world
spiritually his very age
being
counted from the hour of his second birth which makes of him a twice-born a
Dvija or Initiate on
which
day he is indeed born of a God and from an immaculate Mother;and (c)that the
trials of all these
personages
are made to correspond with the Esoteric significance of initiatory rites -all
of which
corresponded
to the twelve zodiacal signs -then every one will see the meaning of the
travels of all those
heroes
through the signs of the Sun in Heaven;and that they are in each individual
case a
personification
of the sufferings,triumphs and miracles of an Adept before and after his
Initiation.When
to
the world at large all this is explained then also the mystery of all those
lives,so closely resembling
each
other that the history of one seems to be the history of the other and vice
versa,will like everything
else
become plain.
Take
an instance.The legends -for they are all legends for exoteric purposes,whatever
may be the
denials
in one case -of the lives of Krishna Hercules,Pythagoras,Buddha
Jesus,Apollonius,
Chaitanya.On
the worldly plane their biographies,if written by one outside the circle would
differ greatly
from
what we read of them in the narratives that are preserved of their mystic
lives.Nevertheless,
however
much masked and hidden from the profane gaze the chief features of such lives
will all be
found
there in common.Each of those characters is represented as a divinely begotten
Soter (Saviour),a
title
bestowed on deities,great kings and heroes;everyone of them whether at their
birth or afterwards
is
searched for and threatened with death (yet never killed)by an opposing power
(the world of Matter
and
Illusion),whether it be called a king Kansa king Herod or king Mara (the Evil
Power).They are all
tempted
persecuted and finally said to have been murdered at the end of the rite of
Initiation i.e.in their
physical personalities,of
which they are supposed to have been rid for ever after spirit al resurrection
or
birth. And having thus come (Page 142)to an end by this
supposed violent death they all descend to
the
Nether World the Pit or Hell -the Kingdom of Temptation Lust and Matter
therefore of Darkness,
whence
returning having overcome the Chrest-condition they are glorified and become
Gods.
It
is not in the course of their everyday life then that the great similarity is
to be sought but in their inner
state
and in the most important events of their career as religious teachers.All this
is connected with and
built
upon an astronomical basis,which serves,at the same time as a foundation for
the representation
of
the degrees and trials of Initiation:descent into the Kingdom of Darkness and
Matter for the last time
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to
emerge therefrom as Suns of Righteousness,is the most important of these and
therefore is found
in
the history of all the Soters -from Orpheus and Hercules,down to Krishna and
Christ.
Says
Euripides:
Heracles,who
has gone from the chambers of earth
Leaving
the nether home of Pluto.[ Heracles 807 ]
And
Virgil writes:
At
Thee the Stygian lakes trembled;Thee the janitor of Orcus
Feared
...Thee not even Typhon frightened ...
Hail
true son of Jove,glory added to the Gods.[ Aeneid,viii.274
ff.]
Orpheus
seeks,in the kingdom of Pluto Eurydice his lost Soul;Krishna goes down into the
infernal
regions
and rescues therefrom his six brothers,he being the seventh Principle;a
transparent allegory of
his
becoming a perfect Initiate the whole of the six Principles merging into the
seventh.Jesus is made
to
descend into the kingdom of Satan to save the soul of Adam or the symbol of
material physical
humanity.
Have
any of our learned Orientalists ever thought of searching for the origin of
this allegory for the parent
Seed
of that Tree of Life which bears such verdant boughs since it was first
planted on earth by the
hand
of its Builders ?We fear not.Yet it is found as is now shown even in the exoteric,distorted
interpretations
of the Vedas -of the Rig Veda the oldest the most trustworthy of
all the four -this root
and
seed of all future Initiate-Saviours being called in it the Visvakarmā the
Father Principle beyond
the
comprehension of mortals;in the second stage Sūrya the Son who offers
Himself as a sacrifice to
Himself;in
the third the Initiate who sacrifices His physical to His Spirit al Self.
Similarity of Legends-(Page 143)It is in
Visvakarmā the omnificent who becomes (mystically)
Vikkartana
the sun shorn of his beams, who suffers for his too ardent nature and then
becomes
glorified
(by purification),that the keynote of the Initiation into the greatest Mystery
of Nature was struck.
Hence
the secret of the wonderful similarity.
All
this is allegorical and mystical and yet perfectly comprehensible and plain to
any student of Eastern
Occultism
even superficially acquainted with the Mysteries of Initiation.In our objective
Universe of
Matter
and false appearances the Sun is the most fitting emblem of the life-giving
beneficent Deity.In
the
subjective boundless World of Spirit and Reality the bright luminary has
another and a mystical
significance
which cannot be fully given to the public.The so-called idolatrous Parsis and
Hindus are
certainly
nearer the truth in their religious reverence for the Sun than the cold
ever-analysing and as
ever-mistaken
public is prepared to believe at present.The Theosophists,who will be alone
able to take
in
the meaning may be told that the Sun is the external manifestation of the
Seventh Principle of our
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Planetary
System while the Moon is its Fourth Principle shining in the borrowed robes of
her master
saturated
with and reflecting every passionate impulse and evil desire of her grossly
material body Earth.
The
whole cycle of Adeptship and Initiation and all its mysteries are connected
with and subservient to
these
two and the Seven Planets.Spiritual clairvoyance is derived from the Sun;all
psychic states,
diseases,and
even lunacy proceed from the Moon.
According
even to the data of History -her conclusions being remarkably erroneous while
her premises
are
mostly correct -there is an extraordinary agreement between the legends of
every Founder of a
Religion
(and also between the rites and dogmas of all)and the names and course of
constellations
headed
by the Sun.It does not follow however because of this,that both Founders and
their Religions
should
be the one myths and the other superstitions.They are one and all the different
versions of the
same
natural primeval Mystery on which the Wisdom-Religion was based and the
development of its
Adepts
subsequently framed
And
now once more we have to beg the reader not to lend an ear to the charge
-against Theosophy in
general
and the writer in particular -of disrespect toward one of the greatest and
noblest characters in
the
History of Adeptship -Jesus of Nazareth -nor even of hatred to the Church.The
expression of truth
and
fact can hardly be regarded (Page
144)with any approximation to justice as
blasphemy or hatred.
The
whole question hangs upon the solution of that one point:Was Jesus as Son of
God and Saviour
of
Mankind unique in the World s annals?Was His case -among so many similar
claims -the only
exceptional
and unprecedented one;His birth the sole supernaturally immaculate;and were
others as
maintained
by the Church but blasphemous Satanic copies and plagiarisms by anticipation?Or
was He
only
the son of his deeds, a pre-eminently holy man and a reformer one of many who
paid with His life
for
the presumption of endeavouring in the face of ignorance and despotic power to
enlighten mankind
and
make its burden lighter by His Ethics and Philosophy?The first necessitates a
blind all-resisting
faith;the
latter is suggested to every one by reason and logic.Moreover had the Church
always believed
as
she does now -or rather as she pretends she does,in order to be thus justified
in directing her
anathema
against those who disagree with her -or has she passed through the same throes
of doubt
nay
of secret denial and belief suppressed only by the force of ambition and love
of power?
The
question must be answered in the affirmative as to the second alternative.It is
an irrefutable
conclusion
and a natural inference based on facts known from historical records.Leaving
for the present
untouched
the lives of many Popes and Saints that loudly belied their claims to
infallibility and holiness,
let
the reader turn to Ecclesiastical History the records of the growth and
progress of the Christian
Church
(not of Christianity)and he will find the answer on those pages.Says a writer:
The
Church has known too well the suggestions of freethought created by enquiry as also
all
those
doubts that provoke her anger today;and the sacred truths she would
promulgate
have
been in turn admitted and repudiated transformed and altered amplified and
curtailed
by
the dignitaries of the Church hierarchy even as regards the most fundamental
dogmas.
Where
is that God or Hero whose origin biography and genealogy were more hazy or more
difficult to
define
and finally agree upon than those of Jesus?How was the now irrevocable dogma
with regard to
His
true nature settled at last?By His mother according to the Evangelists,He was a
man -a simple
mortal
man;by His Father He is God!But how?Is He then man or God or is He both at the
same time?
asks
the perplexed writer.Truly the propositions offered on this point of the
doctrine have caused floods
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of
ink and blood to be shed in turn on poor Humanity and still the doubts are not
at rest.In this as in
everything
else the wise Church Councils have contradicted themselves and changed their
minds a
number
of times.
Nature of Christ-(Page 145)Let us recapitulate
and throw a glance at the texts offered for our
inspection.This
is History.
The
Bishop Paul of Samosata denied the divinity of Christ at the first Council of
Antioch;at the very origin
and
birth of theological Christianity He was called Son of God merely on account
of His holiness and
good
deeds.His blood was corruptible in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.
At
the Council of Nicaea held A.D.325 Arius came out with his premisses,which nearly
broke asunder
the
Catholic Union.
Seventeen
bishops defended the doctrines of Arius,who was exiled for
them.Nevertheless,thirty years
after
A.D.355 at the Council of Milan three hundred bishops signed a letter of
adherence to the Arian
views
notwithstanding that ten years earlier A.D.345 at a new Council of Antioch the
Eusebians had
proclaimed
that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and One with His Father.
At
the Council of Sirmium A.D.357 the Son had become no longer
consubstantial.The Anomaeans,
who
denied that consubstantiality and the Arians were triumphant.A year later at
the second Council of
Ancyra
it was decreed that the Son was not consubstantial but only similar to the
Father in his
substance.Pope
Liberius ratified the decision.During several centuries the Council fought and
quarrelled
supporting the most contradictory and opposite views the fruit of their
laborious travail being
the
Holy Trinity which Minerva-like issued forth from the theological brain armed
with all the thunders of
the
Church.The new mystery was ushered into the world amid some terrible strifes,in
which murder and
other
crimes had a high hand.At the Council of Saragossa A.D.380 it was proclaimed
that the Father
Son
and Holy Spirit are one and the same Person Christ s human nature being merely
an illusion -an
echo
of the Avatāric Hindu doctrine.Once upon this slippery path the Fathers had to
slide down ad
absurd m -which they
did not fail of doing. How deny human nature in him who was born of a woman?
The
only wise remark made during one of the Councils of Constantinople came from
Eutyches,who was
bold
enough to say:May God preserve me from reasoning on the nature of my God -for
which he was
excommunicated
by Pope Flavius.
At
the Council of Ephesus,A.D.449 Eutyches had his revenge.As Eusibius,the
veracious Bishop of
Caesarea
was forcing him into the (Page
146)admission of two distinct
natures in Jesus Christ the
Council
rebelled against him and it was proposed that Eusebius should be burned
alive.The bishops
arose
like one man and with fists clenched foaming with rage demanded that Eusebius
should be torn
into
halves,and be dealt by as he would deal with Jesus,whose nature he
divided.Eutyches was re-
established
in his power and office Eusebius and Flavius deposed.Then the two parties
attacked each
other
most violently and fought.St.Flavius was so ill-treated by Bishop Diodorus,who
assaulted and
kicked
him that he died a few days from the injuries inflicted.
Every
incongruity was courted in these Councils,and the result is the present living
paradoxes called
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Church
dogmas.For instance at the first Council of Ancyra A.D.314 it was asked In
baptising a
woman
with child is the unborn baby also baptised by the fact?The Council answered
in the negative;
because
as was alleged the person thus receiving baptism must be a consenting party
which is
impossible
to the child in the mother s womb.Thus then unconsciousness is a canonical
obstacle to
baptism,and
thus no child baptised nowadays is baptised at all in fact.And then what
becomes of the
tens
of thousands of starving heathen babies baptised by the missionaries during
famines,and otherwise
surreptitiously
saved by the too zealous Padres?Follow one after another the debates and
decisions of
the
numberless Councils,and behold on what a jumble of contradictions the present
infallible and
Apostolic
Church is built!
And
now we can see how greatly paradoxical when taken literally is the assertion in
Genesis :God
created
man in his own image. Besides the glaring fact that it is not the Adam of dust
(of Chapter ii.)who
is
thus made in the divine image but the Divine Androgyne (of Chapter i.),or Adam
Kadmon one can
see
for oneself that God -the God of the Christians at any rate -was created by man
in his own image
amid
the kicks,blows and murders of the early Councils.
A
curious fact one that throws a flood of light on the claim that Jesus was an
Initiate and a martyred
Adept
is given in the work,(already so often referred to)which may be called a
mathematical revelation
-The
So rce of Measures.
Attention
is called to the part of the 46 th verse of the 27 th Chapter of Matthew as
follows:Eli Eli Lama
Sabachthani?-that
is to say My God my God why hast thou forsaken me?Of course our versions are
taken
from the original Greek manuscripts (the reason why we have no original
Hebrew manuscripts
concerning
these occurrences being because the enigmas in Hebrew would betray themselves
on
comparison
with the sources of their derivation the Old Testament).
A Serious Mistranslation
(Page 147)The Greek manuscripts,without exception give these words as
-
Hėé
Hėé ėįģį .óįāį÷čįķé
They
are Hebrew words,rendered into the Greek and in Hebrew are as
follows:
.
The
scripture of these words says that is to say My God my God why hast thou
forsaken
me?as
their proper translation.Here then are the words beyond all dispute;and beyond
all
question
such is the interpretation given of them by Scripture.Now the words will not
bear this
interpretation
and it is a false rendering.The true meaning is j st the opposite of the one
given and is -
My God,My God,how tho dost glorify me!
But
even more for while lama is why or how as a verbal it
connected the idea of to dazzle or
adverbially
it could run how dazzlingly, and so on.To the unwary reader this
interpretation is
enforced
and made to answer as it were to the fulfilment of a prophetic utterance by a
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marginal
reference to the first verse of the twenty-second Psalm which
reads:
My
God my God why hast thou forsaken me?
The
Hebrew of this verse for these words is -
as
to which the reference is correct and the interpretation sound and good but
with an utterly
different
word.The words are -
Eli,Eli,lamah azabvtha-ni?
No
wit of man however scholarly can save this passage from falseness of
rendering on its
face;and
as so it becomes a most terrible blow upon the proper first-face sacredness of
the
recital.[
App.vii.p.301.]
For
ten years or more sat the revisers (?)of the Bible a most imposing and
solemn array of the learned
of
the land the greatest Hebrew and Greek scholars of England purporting to correct
the mistakes and
blunders,the
sins of omission and of commission of their less learned predecessors,the
translators of
the
Bible.Are we going to be told that none of them saw the glaring difference
between the Hebrew
words
in Psalm xxii.Azabbvtha-ni and sabachthani in Matthew ;that
they were not aware of the
deliberate
falsification?
For
falsification it was.And if we are asked the reason why the early Church
Fathers resorted to it the
answer
is plain:Because the Sacramental words belonged in their true rendering
to Pagan temple rites.
(Page 148)They were pronounced after the terrible trials of
Initiation and were still fresh in the memory of
some
of the Fathers when the Gospel of Matthew was edited into the Greek
language.Because finally
many
of the Hierophants of the Mysteries,and many more of the Initiates were still
living in those days,
and
the sentence rendered in its true words would class Jesus directly with the
simple Initiates.The
words
My God my Sun thou hast poured thy radiance upon me?were the final words that
concluded
the
thanksgiving prayer of the Initiate the Son and the glorified Elect of the
Sun. In Egypt we find to this
day
carvings and paintings that represent the rite.The candidate is between two
divine sponsors;one
Osiris-Sun
with the head of a hawk,representing life the other Mercury -the ibis-headed
psychopompic
genius,who guides the Souls after death to their new abode Hades -standing for
the
death
of the physical body figuratively.Both are shown pouring the stream of life
the water of
purification
on the head of the Initiate the two streams of which interlacing form a
cross.The better to
conceal
the truth this basso-relievo has also been explained as a Pagan
presentment of a Christian
truth.The
Chevalier des Mousseaux calls this Mercury:
The
assessor of Osiris-Sol as St.Michael is the assessor Ferouer of the Word.
The
monogram of Chrestos and the Labarum the standard of Constantine -who by the by
died a
Pagan
and was never baptised -is a symbol derived from the above rite and also
denotes life and
death.Long
before the sign of the Cross was adopted as a Christian symbol it was employed
as a
secret
sign of recognition among Neophytes and Adepts.Says Eliphas Levi:
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The
sign of the cross adopted by the Christians does not belong exclusively to
them.It is
kabalistic,and
represents the oppositions and quaternary equilibrium of the elements.We see
by
the occult verse of the Pater to which we have called attention in
another work,that there
were
originally two ways of making it or at least two very different formulas to
express its
meaning;one
reserved for priests and initiates;the other given to neophyte and the profane.
[Dogme et Rit el de
la Ha te Magie,ii 88.]
One
can understand now why the Gospel of Matthew,the Evangel of the
Ebionites,has been for ever
excluded
in its Hebrew form from the world s curious grace.
Jerome
found the authentic and original Evangel written in Hebrew by Matthew the
Publican
at
the library collected at Caesarea by the martyr Pamphilius,I received
permission from the
Nazaraeans,who at
Beroea of Syria used this (gospel to translate it he writes toward the
end
of the fourth century.[ (Hieronymus,Des Viris Ill st.,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 Sammtlichen Schriften des Ne en Test.,p.32;Dunlap
Sod,the Son of Man,p.44.)]
Secret Doctrine of Jesus
(Page 149)In the Evangel which the Nazarenes and Ebionites
use said Jerome which
recently
I translated from Hebrew into Greek,and which is called by most persons the gen
ine
gospel
of Matthew etc.[Comment to Matthew (XII 13)Book 11.Jerome adds
that it was
written
in the Chaldaic language but with Hebrew letters.]
That
the apostles had received a secret doctrine from Jesus,who confessed it in an
unguarded
moment.Writing to the Bishops Chromatius and Heliodorus,he complains that a
difficult
work is enjoined since this (translation)has been commanded me by your
Felicities,
which
St Matthew himself the Apostle and Evangelist did not wish to be
openly written.For if
this
had not been secret he (Matthew)would have added to the Evangel that
what he gave
forth
was his ;but he made up this book sealed p in the Hebrew characters,which
he put
forth
even in such way that the book,written in Hebrew letters and by the hand
of himself
might
be possessed by the men most religio s ;who also in the course of time
received it
from
those who preceded them.But this very book they never gave to any one to be
transcribed
and its text they related some one way and another. [St.Jerome.v.445:
Dunlap
Sod,the Son of Man,p.46.] And he adds further on the same
page:And it happened
that
this book,having been published by a disciple of Manichaeus,named Seleucus,who
also
wrote
falsely The Acts of the Apostles exhibited matter not for edification
but for destruction;
and
that this (book)was approved in a synod which the ears of the Church
properly refused to
listen
to.[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
later
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 (Z r Gesch.des Kan,p.129)shows
Nicephorus
inserting it together with the Revelation in his Stichometry,among
the
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Antilegomena.The
Ebionites,the gen ine primitive Christians,rejecting the rest of the
Apostolic
writings,make use only of this Gospel (Adv Hev.,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.]
Jerome
admits,himself that the book which he authenticates as being written by the
hand of
Matthew
was nevertheless a book which notwithstanding that he translated it twice was
nearly
unintelligible to him for it was arcane.Nevertheless,Jerome coolly sets down
every
commentary
upon it but his own as heretical.More than that Jerome knew that this
Gospel
was
the only original one yet he becomes more zealous than ever in his
persecution of the
Heretics.
Why?Because to accept it was equivalent to reading the death sentence of the
established
Church.The Gospel according to the Hebrews was well known to have been
the
(Page 150)only one accepted for four centuries by the Jewish
Christians,the Nazarenes and
the
Ebionites.And neither of the latter accepted the divinity of Christ.[
Isis Unveiled.II,182-3 .]
The
Ebionites were the first the earliest Christians,whose representative was the
Gnostic
author
of the Clementine Homilies,and as the author of S pernat ral Religion
shows 8 [Op.
cit.,II 5 ] Ebionitic
Gnosticism had once been the purest form of Christianity.They were the
pupils
and followers of the early Nazarenes -the kabalistic Gnostics.They believed in
the
Aeons,as
the Cerinthians did and that the world was put together by Angels (Dhyan
Chohans),as
Epiphanius complains (Contra Ebionitas ):Ebion had the opinion of the
Nazarenes,the
form of Cerinthians.They decided that Christ was of the seed of a man he
laments.[
See also Isis Unveiled,ii.180 to end of chapter.] Thus again:
The
badge of Dan-Scorpio is death-life,in the symbol .as crossbones and
skull ..
or
life-death ...the standard of Constantine the Roman Emperor.Abel has
been shown to be
Jesus,and
Cain-Vulcain or Mars,pierced him.Constantine was the Roman Emperor whose
warlike
god was Mars,and a Roman soldier pierced Jesus on the cross ....
But
the piercing of Abel was the consummation of his marriage with Cain and this
was proper
under
the form of Mars Generator;hence the double glyph one of Mars-Generator
[Osiris-
Sun
] and Mars-Destroyer [Mercury the God of Death in the Egyptian basso-relievo
] in one;
significant
again of the primal idea of the living cosmos,or of birth and death as
necessary to
the
continuation of the stream of life.[So rce of Measure,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.]
To
quote once more from Isis Unveiled :
A
Latin cross of a perfect Christian shape was found hewn upon the granite slabs
of the
Adytum
of the Serapeum;and the monks did not fail to claim that the cross had been
hallowed
by
the Pagans in a spirit of prophecy.At least Sozomen with an air of triumph
records the
fact.[
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
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dedicated
by him to Theodosius,the younger is full of deliberate falsifications.] But
archaeology
and symbolism,those tireless and implacable enemies of clerical false
pretences,
have
found in the hieroglyphics of the legend running round the design at least a
partial
interpretation
of its meaning.
According
to King and other numismatists and archaeologists,the cross was placed there as
the
symbol of eternal life.
The Cross and Crucifix
(Page 151)Such a Tau or Egyptian cross,was used in the Bacchic and
Eleusinian Mysteries.
Symbol
of the dual generative power it was laid upon the breast of the Initiate after
his new
birth
was accomplished and the Mystae had returned from their baptism in the sea.It
was a
mystic
sign that his spiritual birth had regenerated and united his astral soul with
his divine
spirit
and that he was ready to ascend in spirit to the blessed abodes of light and
glory -the
Eleusinia.The
Tau was a magic talisman at the same time as a religious emblem.It was
adopted
by the Christians through the Gnostics and Kabalists,who used it largely as
their
numerous
gems testify.These in turn had the Tau (or handled cross)from the Egyptians,and
the
Latin Cross from the Buddhist missionaries,who brought it from India (where it
can be
found
even now)two or three centuries B.C.The Assyrians,Egyptians,ancient Americans,
Hindus
and Romans had it in various,but very slight modifications of shape.Till very
late in
the
middle ages,it was considered a potent spell against epilepsy and demoniacal
possession
and the signet of the living God brought down in St.John s vision by the
angel
ascending
from the east to seal the servants of our God in the foreheads,was but the
same
mystic
Tau -the Egyptian Cross.In the painted glass of St.Denis (France)this angel is
represented
as stamping this sign on the forehead of the elect;the legend reads,SIGNUM
TAY.In
King s Gnostics the author reminds us that this mark is commonly borne
by St.
Anthony
an Egyptian recluse.[ Gems of the Orthodox Christians.Vol.1.p.135
.] What the
real
meaning of the Tau was,is explained to us by the Christian St.John the Egyptian
Hermes,and
the Hindu Brahmans.It is but too evident that with the Apostle at least it
meant
the
Ineffable Name as he calls this signet of the living God a few chapters
further on [
Revelation,XIV 1 ] Father
s name written in their foreheads.
The
Brahmātmā the chief of the Hindu Initiates,had on his headgear two keys symbol
of the
revealed
mystery of life and death placed cross-like;and in some Buddhist pagodas of
Tartary
and
Mongolia the entrance of a chamber within the temple generally containing the
staircase
which
leads to the inner dagoba.[ A Dagoba is a small temple of globular form
in which are
preserved
the relics of Gautama.] and the porticos of some Prachidas [ Prachidas
are
buildings
of all sizes and forms,like our mausoleums,and are sacred to votive offerings
to the
dead.]
are ornamented with a cross formed of two fishes,as found on some of the
zodiacs of
the
Buddhists.We should not wonder at all at learning that the sacred device in the
tombs in
the
catacombs at Rome the Vesica Piscis,was derived from the said Buddhist
zodiacal sign.
How
general must have been that geometrical figure in the world-symbols,may be
inferred
from
the fact that there is a Masonic tradition that Solomon s temple was built on
three
foundations,forming
the triple Tau or three crosses.
In
its mystical sense the Egyptian cross owes its origin as an emblem to the
realisation by
the
earliest philosophy of an androgyno s d alism of every manifestation in nat
re which
proceeds
from the abstract ideal of a likewise androgynous deity while the Christian
emblem
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is
simply due to chance.Had the Mosaic law (Page 152)prevailed Jesus
should have been
lapidated.[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.V1.p.4:
Talm d,of Babylon same
article 43a 67a.] The crucifix was an instrument of torture and
utterly
common among Romans as it was unknown among Semitic nations.It was called the
Tree
of Infamy.It is but later that it was adopted as a Christian symbol;but during
the first
two
decades the apostles looked upon it with horror .[ Coptic Legends of
the Crucifixion.MSS.
XI
].It is certainly not the Christian Cross that John had in mind when
speaking of the signet
of
the living God but the mystic Tau -the Tetragrammaton or mighty name
which on the
most
ancient Kabalistic talismans,was represented by the four Hebrew letters
composing the
Holy
Word.
The
famous Lady Ellenborough known among the Arabs of Damascus,and in the desert
after
her last marriage as Hano m Medjo ye had a talisman in her possession
presented to
her
by a Druse from Mount Lebanon.It was recognised by a certain sign on its left
corner as
belonging
to that class of gems which is known in Palestine as a Messianic amulet
of the
second
or third century B.C.It is a green stone of a pentagonal form;at the bottom is
engraved
a fish higher Solomon s Seal;[ 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 .] and still higher the four Chaldaic
letters -Jod He Vau He
IAHO
which form the name of the Deity.These are arranged in quite an unusual way
running
from
below upward in reversed order and forming the Egyptian Tau.Around these there
is a
legend
which as the gem is not our property we are not at liberty to give.The Tau in
its
mystical
sense as well as the Crux ansata,is the Tree of Life.
It
is well known that the earliest Christian emblems -before it was ever attempted
to represent
the
bodily appearance of Jesus -were the Lamb the Good Shepherd and The Fish .The
origin
of the latter emblem which has so puzzled the archaeologists thus becomes
comprehensible.The
whole secret lies in the easily ascertained fact that while in the Kabalah
the
King Messiah is called Interpreter or Revealer of the Mystery and shown to
be the fifth
emanation
in the Talm d -for reasons we will now explain -the Messiah is very
often
designated
as DAG or the Fish.This is an inheritance from the Chaldees,and relates -as
the
very name indicates -to the Babylonian Dagon the man-fish who was the
instructor and
interpreter
of the people to whom he appeared.Abarbanel explains the name by stating that
the
sign of his (Messiah s)coming is the conjuction of Saturn and Jupiter in the
sign Pisces.
[ 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)É×ČÕ× engraved on it.The number five relates to the same kabalistic
computation
.] Therefore as the Christians were intent upon identifying their
Christos with the
Messiah
of the Old Testament they adopted it so readily as to forget that its
true origin might
be
traced still further back than the Babylonian Dagon.How eagerly and closely the
ideal of
Jesus
was united by the early Christians,with every imaginable kabalistic and pagan
tenet
may
be inferred from the language of Clemens,of Alexandria addressed to his
co-religionists.
The Story of Jesus
(Page 153)When they were debating upon the choice of the most
appropriate symbol to
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remind
them of Jesus,Clemens advised them in the following words.Let the engraving
upon
the
gem of your ring be either a dove or a ship running before the wind (the
Argha),or a fish .
Was
the good father when writing this sentence labouring under the recollection of
Joshua
son
of Nun (called Jes s in the Greek and Slavonian versions);or had he
forgotten the real
interpretation
of these pagan symbols?[Op.cit.,II 253-256.]
And
now with the help of all these passages scattered hither and thither in Isis
and other works of this
kind
the reader will see and judge for himself which of the two explanations -the
Christian or that of the
Occultist
-is the nearer to truth.If Jesus were not an Initiate why should all these allegorical
incidents of
his
life be given?Why should such extreme trouble be taken so much time wasted
trying to make the
above:(a)answer
and dovetail with purposely picked out sentences in the Old Testament to
show them
as
prophecies ;and (b)to preserve in them the initiatory symbols,the
emblems so pregnant with Occult
meaning
and all of these belonging to Pagan mystic Philosophy?The author of the So
rce of Measures
gives
out that mystical intent;but only once now and again in its one-sided
numerical and kabalistic
meaning
without paying any attention to or having concern with the primeval and more
spiritual origin
and
he deals with it only so far as it related to the Old Testament.He
attributes the p rposed change in
the
sentence Eli Eli lama sabachthani to the principle already mentioned of the
crossed bones and
skull
in the Labarum.
As
an emblem of death being placed over the door of life and signifying birth or
of the
intercontainment
of two opposite principles in one just as,mystically the Saviour was held to
be
man-woman.[ 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.] .
The
author's idea is to show the mystic blending by the Gospel writers of Jehovah
Cain Abel etc.with
Jesus
(in accordance with Jewish kabalistic numeration);the better he succeeds,the
more clearly he
shows
that it was a forced blending and that we have not a record of the real
events of the life of Jesus,
narrated
by eyewitnesses or the Apostles.The narrative is all based on the signs of the
Zodiac:
Each
a double sign or male-female [ in ancient astrological Magic ] -viz.:it
was Taurus-Eve
and
Scorpio was Mars-Lupa or Mars with the female wolf [ in relation to
Romulus ] .(Page
154)
So
as these signs were opposites of each other yet met in the centre they
were connected;
and
so in fact it was,and in a double sense the conception of the year was in
Taurus,as the
conception
of Eve by Mars,her opposite in Scorpio.The birth would be at the winter
solstice
or
Christmas.On the contrary by conception in Scorpio -viz.,of Lupa by
Taurus -birth would
be
in Leo.Scorpio was Chrestos in h miliation,while Leo was Christos in tri
mph.While
Taurus-Eve
fulfilled astronomical functions,Mars-Lupa fulfilled spiritual ones by type.[
Op.
cit.,296.]
The
author bases all this on Egyptian correlations and meanings of Gods and
Goddesses,but ignores
the
Aryan which are far earlier.
Mooth or Mo th was
the Egyptian cognomen of Venus,(Eve mother of all living)[as Vach
mother
of all living a permutation of Aditi as Eve was one of Sephira ] or
the moon.Plutarch
(Isis,374)hands
it down that Isis was sometimes called Muth,which word means mother
...
(Issa
ąłē woman).(Isis,p.372).Isis,he says is that part of Nature which as
feminine
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contains
in herself as (nutrix)nurse all things to be born...Certainly the moon
speaking
astronomically
chiefly exercises this function in Taurus,Venus being the house (in opposition
to
Mars,generator,in Scorpio),because the sign is luna hypsoma.Since...Isis
Metheur
differs
from Isis Muth and that in the vocable Muth the notion of
bringing forth may be
concealed
and since fructification must take place Sol being joined with L na in
Libra,it is not
improbable
that Muth first indeed signifies Venus in Libra;hence Luna in Libra.(Beiträge
zur
Kenntniss,pars
11 S.9 under Muth.)[ Pp.294.295 .]
Then
Fuerst under Boh is quoted to show
The
double play upon the word Muth by help of which the real intent is
produced in the occult
way
...sin,death,and woman are one in the glyph and correlatively
connected with
interco rse and death.[
P.295.]
All
this is applied by the author only to the exoteric and Jewish
euhemerised symbols,whereas they
were
meant first of all to conceal cosmogonical mysteries,and then those of
anthropological evolution
with
reference to the Seven Races,already evoluted and to come and especially as
regards the last
branch
races of the third Root-Race.However the word void [primeval
Chaos ] is shown to be taken for
Eve-Venus-Naamah
agreeably with Fuerst s definition;for as he says:
In
this primitive signification [ of void ] was (bohu)taken in the Biblical
cosmogony and used in
establishing
the dogma [Jes(us)m aven,Jes-us from nothing ] respecting
creation.(Which
shows
the writers of the New Testament considerably skilled in the Kabalah and
Occult Sciences,and
corroborates
still more our assertion.)Hence Aquila translates ļõäåķ vulg.vacua (hence vacca,cow
)
[hence also the horns
of Isis -Nature Earth and the Moon -taken from Vąch the Hindu Mother of all
that
lives, identified with Virąj and called in Atharvaveda the daughter of Kąma
the first desires:That
daughter
of thine O kąma is called the cow,she whom Sages name Vach-Viraj, who
was milked by
Brihaspati
the Rishi which is another mystery ] Onkelos and Samarit
The Primitive Woman-(Page 155)The
Phoenician cosmogony has connected Boh āįįķBaav
into
a personified expression denoting the primitive substance,and as a deity
the mother of races of the
Gods [ which is Aditi and Vach ].The Aramean name āįöóņ
Buto
for the mother of the gods,which passed over to the Gnostics,Babylonians
and Egyptians,is
identical then with Mōt (.our
Muth)properly (āłč oriiginated in Phoenician from an
interchange
of b with m.[ Pp.295.296 ]
Rather
one would say go to the origin.The mystic euhemerisation of Wisdom and
Intelligence operating
in
the work of cosmic evolution or B ddhi under the names of Brahma Purusha
etc.as male power
and
Aditi-Vąch etc.as female whence Sarasvati Goddess of Wisdom who became under
the veils of
Esoteric
concealment Butos,Bythos -Depth the grossly material personal female
called Eve the
primitive
woman of Irenaeus,and the world springing out of Nothing.
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The
workings out of this glyph of 4 th Genesis help to the comprehension of
the division of one character
into
the forms of two persons;as Adam and Eve Cain and Abel Abram and Isaac,Jacob
and Esau and
so
on [all male and female ] ...Now as linking together several
great salient points in the Biblical
structure:(1)as
to the Old and New Testament;with also (2)as to the Roman
Empire;(3)as to
confirming
the meaning and uses of symbols;and (4)as to confirming the entire explanation
and reading
of
the glyphs;as (5)recognizing and laying down the base of the great pyramid as
the fo ndation sq are
of
the Bible construction;(6)as well as the new Roman adoption under Constantine
-the following given:
[ 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 Aryan Mysteries.]
Cain
has been shown to be ...the 360 circle of the Zodiac,the perfect and exact
standard b a squared
division;hence
his name of Melchizadik ...[The geometrical and numerical demonstrations
here follow.]
It
has been repeatedly stated that the object of the Great Pyramid construction
was to measure the
heavens and the earth ...(the objective spheres as evoluting from the subjective purely spiritual
Kosmos,we
beg leave to add);therefore its measuring containment would indicate all the
substance of
measure
of the heaven and the earth,or agreeably to ancient recognition Earth,Air,Water
and Fire.[ We
would
say cosmic Matter Spirit Chaos,and Divine Light for the Egyptians idea was
identical in this with
the
Aryan.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.] (The base side of this pyramid was diameter to a circumference in
feet of 2400.The
characteristic
of this is 24 feet or 6 X 4 =24 or this very Cain-Adam square.)Now by the
restoration of
the
encampment of the Israelites,as initiated by Moses,by the great scholar (Page 156)Father
Athanasius
Kircher the Jesuit priest the above is precisely by Biblical record and
traditionary sources,
the
method of laying off this encampment.The fo r interior sq ares were
devoted to (1)Moses and
Aaron;(2)Kohath;(3)Gershom;and
(4)Merari -the last three being the head of the Levites.The
attributes
of these squares were the primal attributes of Adam-Mars and were
concreted of the elements,
Earth,Air,Fire,Water,or
=Iam =Water .Nour =Fire,=Rouach =Air,and
=Iabeshah
=Earth.The initial letters of these words are INRI.[The words
translated as Iesus
Nazarenus
Rex Iudaeorum -Jesus,King of the Jews.]This square of INRI is the Adam
sq are,which
was
extended from as a foundation into four others of 145 X 2 =288 to the side of
the large square of
288
X 4 =115 -2 =the whole circumference.But this square is the display of also
circular elements and
115-2
can denote this.Put INRI into a circle or read it as the letters stand in the
square as to its value of
1521
and we have which reads 115-2 of this fact.
But
as seen Cain denotes this as,or in the 115 of his name:which 115 was the very
complement to
make
up the 360 day year to agree with the balances of the standard circle which
were Cain.The
corner
squares of the larger square are A =Leo and B =Dan Scorpio;and it is seen that
Cain pierces
Abel
at the intersection of the equinoctial with the solstice cross lines,referred
to from Dan-Scorpio on
the
celestial circle.But Dan-Scorpio borders on Libra the scales,whose sign is
(which sign is
that
of the ancient pillow on which the back of the head to the ears [Mr
Ralston Skinner shows that the
symbol
the crossed bones and skull has the letter P Koph,the half of the head
behind the ears.]
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rested
the pillow of Jacob),and is represented for one symbol as Also the badge of
Dan-
Scorpio
is death-life in the symbol Now the cross is the emblem of the origin of measures
in the
Jehovah form of a straight
line ONE of a denomination of 20612,the perfect circumference;hence Cain
was
this as Jehovah for the text says that he was Jehovah.But the attachment
of a man to this cross
was
that of 113:355 to 6561:5153 X 4 =20612 as shown.Now over the head of
Jesus crucified was
placed
the inscription of which the initial letters of the words have always been
retained as symbolic,and
handed
down and used as a monogram of Jesus Chrestos -viz .INRI or Jes s
Nazaren s Rex
Judaeor m;but they are
located on the Cross or the cubed form of the circular origin of
measures which
measure
the substance of Earth,Air,Fire and Water,or INRI =1152 as
shown.Here is the man on the
cross or 113;355
combined with 6561:5153 X 4 =20612.These are the pyramid-base numbers as
coming
from 113:355 as the Hebrew source;whence the Adam-square which is the
pyramid base and
the
centre one to the larger square of the encampment .Bend INRI into a
circle and we have 1152 or the
circumference
of the latter.But Jesus dying (or Abel married)made use of the very words
needed to set
forth
all.He says,Eli,Eli,Lama Sabachthani ...Read them by their power
values,in circular form,as
produced
from the Adam form as shown and we have ..=113 =113 or 113-311:
=345
or Moses in the Cain-Adam pyramid circle:=710 equals Dove or Jonah and 710
divided
by 2 =355 or 355 -553:and finally as determinative of all or ni .........where
=n n
fish
=565 and =1 or 10;together 565 .=or the Christ value.
Kabalistic Reading of Gospels-(Page 157)[All of the above ] throws light on the
transfiguration scene on
the
mount.There were present there Peter and James and John with Jesus;or Iami
James,
Water ;Peter Earth John
Spirit Air,and Jesus,Fire,Life -together
INRI.But
behold Eli and Moses met them there or .and or Eli and Lamah,or
113
and
345.And this shows that the scene of transfiguration was connected with the one
above set forth.
[ 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 (in a circle)or Moses,while
Sabachth
is
John or the dove or Holy Spirit because (in a circle)it is 710 (or 355 X 2).The
termination ni as meni
or
5651 becomes Jehovah.]
This
kabalistical reading of the Gospel narratives -hitherto supposed to record the
most important the
most
mystically awful yet most real events of the life of Jesus -must fall with
terrible weight upon some
Christians.Every
honest trusting believer who has shed tears of reverential emotion over the events
of
the
short period of the public life of Jesus of Nazareth has to choose one of the
two ways opening before
him
after reading the aforesaid:either his faith has to render him quite impervious
to any light coming
from
human reasoning and evident fact;or he must confess that he has lost his
Saviour.The One whom
he
had hitherto considered as the unique incarnation on this earth of the One
Living God in heaven
fades
into thin air on the authority of the properly read and correctly interpreted Bible
itself.Moreover
since
on the authority of Jerome himself and his accepted and authentic confession
the book written by
the
hand of Matthew exhibits matter not for edification but for destruction
(of Church and h man
Christianity
and only that)what truth can be expected from his famous V lgate ?H
man mysteries,
concocted
by generations of Church Fathers bent upon evolving a religion of their own
invention are
seen
instead of a divine Revelation;and that this was so is corroborated by a
prelate of the Latin Church.
Saint
Gregory Nazianzen wrote to his friend and confidant St.Jerome:
Nothing
can impose better on a people than verbiage;the less they understand the more
they
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admire
...Our fathers and doctors have often said not what they thought but that to
which
circumstances
and necessity forced them.
(Page 158)Which then of the two -clergy or the Occultists and
Theosophists -are the more blasphemous
and
dangerous?Is it those who would impose upon the world s acceptance a Saviour
of their own
fashioning
a God with human shortcomings,and who therefore is certainly not a perfect
divine Being;or
those
others who say:Jesus of Nazareth was in Initiate a holy grand and noble
character but withal
human
though truly a Son of God ?
If
Humanity is to accept a so-called supernatural Religion how far more logical to
the Occultist and the
Psychologist
seems the transparent allegory given of Jesus by the Gnostics.They as Occultists
and
with
Initiates for their Chiefs differed only in their renderings of the story and
in their symbols,and not at
all
in substance.What say the Ophites,the Nazarenes,and other heretics ?Sophia
the Celestial
Virgin
is prevailed upon to send Christos,her emanation to the help of perishing
humanity from whom
Ilda-Baoth
(the Jehovah of the Jews)and his six Sons of Matter (the lower terrestrial
Angels)are shutting
out
the divine light.Therefore Christos,the perfect [ The Western
personification of that power which
the
Hindus call the Vija the one seed or Maha Vishn -a power not
the God -or that mysterious
Principle
that contains in itself the Seed of Avatārism .]
Uniting
himself with Sophia [divine wisdom ] descended through the seven
planetary regions,
assuming
in each an analogous form ...[and ] entered into the man Jesus at
the moment of
his
baptism in the Jordan.From this time forth Jesus began to work miracles;before
that he
had
been entirely ignorant of his own mission.
Ilda-Baoth
discovering that Christos was bringing to an end his kingdom of Matter stirred
up the Jews,
his
own people against Him and Jesus was put to death.When Jesus was on the Cross
Christos and
Sophia
left His body and returned to Their own sphere.The material body of Jesus was
abandoned to
the
earth but He Himself the Inner Man was clothed with a body made up of aether.[
Arise into Nervi
from
this decrepit body into which thou hast been sent.Ascend into thy former abode
O blessed
Avatār!]
Thenceforth
he consisted merely of soul and spirit ...During his sojourn upon earth of
eighteen months after
he had risen he received from Sophia that perfect knowledge that true
Gnosis,which
he communicated to the small portion of the Apostles who were capable of
receiving
the same.[ The Gnostics and their Remains.King.pp.100 101.]
The
above is transparently Eastern and Hindu;it is the Esoteric Doctrine pure and
simple save for the
names
and the allegory.It is,more or less,the history of every Adept who obtains
Initiation.
Universal Teachings-(Page 159)The Baptism
in the Jordan is the Rite of Initiation the final purification
whether
in sacred pagoda tank,river or temple lake in Egypt or Mexico.The perfect
Christos and
Sophia
-divine Wisdom and Intelligence -enter the Initiate at the moment of the mystic
rite by
transference
from Guru to Chela and leave the physical body at the moment of the death of
the latter to
re-enter
the Nirmānakāya or the astral Ego of the Adept.
The
spirit of Buddha [collectively ] overshadows the Bodhisattvas of
his Church says the
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Buddhist
Ritual of Aryasangha.
Says
the Gnostic teaching:
When
he [ the spirit of Christos ] shall have collected all the
Spiritual all the Light [ that exists
in
matter ] out of Ildabaoth s empire Redemption is accomplished and the
end of the world
arrived.[Loc.Cit
.]
Say
the Buddhists;
When
Buddha [the Spirit of the Church ] hears the hour strike he will
send Maitreya Buddha -
after
whom the old world will be destroyed.
That
which is said of Basilides by King may be applied as truthfully to every
innovator so called whether
of
a Buddhist or of a Christian Church.In the eyes of Clemens Alexandrinus,he says
the Gnostics
taught
very little that was blameable in their mystical transcendental views.
In
his eyes the latter (Basilides),was not a heretic that is an innovator
upon the accepted
doctrines
of the Catholic Church but only a theosophic speculator who sought to express
old
truths
by new formulae.[ Op.cit.,p.258 .]
There
was a Secret Doctrine preached by Jesus;and secrecy in those days meant
Secrets,or
Mysteries
of Initiation all of which have been either rejected or disfigured by the
Church.In the
Clementine
Homilics we read:
And
Peter said:We remember that our Lord and Teacher commanding us,said Guard the
mysteries
for me and the sons of my house.Wherefore also he explained to His disciples
privately
the Mysteries of the Kingdom of the Heavens.[Homilies XIX.XX I ]
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SECTION XIX
St.Cyprian of Antioch
(Page 160)THE Aeons (Stellar Spirits)-emanated from the Unknown of
the Gnostics,and identical with
the
Dhyan Chohans of the Esoteric Doctrine -and their Pleroma having been
transformed into
Archangels
and the Spirits of the Presence by the Greek and Latin Churches,the
prototypes have lost
caste.The
Pleroma [ The Pleroma constituted the synthesis or entirety of all the
spiritual entities.St.Paul
still
used the name in his Epistles.] was now called the Heavenly Host and
therefore the old name had
to
become identified with Satan and his Host. Might is right in every age and
History is full of contrasts.
Manes
has been called the Paraclete [ 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 (1.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.] by his followers.He was an
Occultist but passed to posterity
owing
to the kind exertions of the Church as a Sorcerer so a match had to be found
for him by way of
contrast.We
recognise this match in St.Cyprianus of Antioch a self-confessed if not a real
Black
Magician
it seems,whom the Church -as a reward for his contrition and humility
-subsequently raised
to
the high rank of Saint and Bishop.
What
history knows of him is not much and it is mostly based on his own confession
the truthfulness of
which
is warranted we are told by St.Gregory the Empress Eudoxia Photius and the Holy
Church.This
curious
document was ferreted out by the Marquis de Mirville [Cy.Op.cit.,vi
169-183 .] in the Vatican
and
by him translated into French for the first time as he assures the reader.We
beg his permission to
retranslate
a few pages,not for the sake of the penitent Sorcerer but for that of some
students of
Occultism
who will thus have an opportunity of comparing the methods of ancient Magic (or
as the
Church
calls it Demonism)with those of modern Theurgy and Occultism.
Magic in Antioch-(Page 161)The scenes
described took place at Antioch about the middle of the third
century
252 A.D.says the translator.This Confession was written by the penitent
Sorcerer after his
conversion;therefore
we are not surprised to find how much room he gives in his lamentations to
reviling
his
Initiator Satan or the Serpent Dragon as he calls him.There are other and
more modern
instances
of the same trait in human nature.Converted Hindus,Parsis and other heathen
of India are
apt
to denounce their forefathers religions at every opportunity.Thus runs the
Confession:
O
all of you who reject the real mysteries of Christ see my tears!...You who
wallow in your
demoniacal
practices,learn by my sad example all the vanity of their [the demons ]
baits ...I
am
that Cyprianus,who vowed to Apollo from his infancy was early initiated into
all the arts of
the
dragon.[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?] Even before the age of seven I had already been
introduced into
the
temple of Mithra:three years later my parents taking me to Athens to be
received as
citizen
I was permitted likewise to penetrate the mysteries of Ceres lamenting her
daughter
[ The Mysteries of
Demeter or the "afflicted mother".] and I also became the
guardian of the
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Dragon
in the Temple of Pallas.
Ascending
after that to the summit of Mount Olympus,the Seat of the Gods,as it is called
there
too I was initiated into the sense and the real meaning of their [the
Gods ] speeches and
their
clamorous manifestations (strepit m ).It is there that I was made to see
in imagination
(phantasia
)[or mayā ] those trees and all those herbs that operate such
prodigies with the help
of
demons;...and I saw their dances,their warfares,their snares,illusions and
promiscuities.
I
heard their singing.[ By the satyrs.]I saw finally for forty
consecutive days,the phalanx of
the
Gods and Goddesses,sending from Olympus,as though they were Kings,spirits to
represent
them on earth and act in their name among all the nations.[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 seances
corroborated
by the ex-sorcerer.]
At
that time I lived entirely on fruit eaten only after sunset the virtues of
which were explained
to
me by the seven priests of the sacrifices.[This does not look like
sinful food.It is the diet of
Chelas
to this day.]
When
I was fifteen my parents desired that I should be made acquainted not only with
all the
natural
laws in connection with the generation and corruption of (Page 162)bodies on earth in
the
air and in the seas,but also with all the other forces grafted [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.]
(insitas )on these by the Prince of
the World in order to counteract their
primal
and divine constitution.[ 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
backbiting.]
At twenty I went to Memphis,where penetrating into the Sanctuaries,I was
taught
to
discern all that pertains to the communications of demons [Daimones or
Spirits ] with
terrestrial
matters,their aversion for certain places,they sympathy and attraction for
others,
their
expulsion from certain planets,certain objects and laws,their persistence in
preferring
darkness
and their resistance to light.[ Here the Elemental and Elementary
Spirits are
evidently
meant.] There I learned the number of the fallen Princes,[ The
reader has already
learned
the truth about them in the course of the present work.] that which
takes place in
human
souls and the bodies they enter into communication with.
I
learnt the analogy that exists between earthquakes and the rains,between the
motion of the
earth
[ Pity the penitent Saint had not imparted his knowledge of the
rotation of the earth and
heliocentric
system earlier to his Church.That might have saved more than one human life -
that
of Bruno for one.] and the motion of the seas;I saw the spirits of the
Giants plunged in
subterranean
darkness and seemingly supporting the earth like a man carrying a burden on is
shoulders.[
Chelas 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.].
When
thirty I travelled to Chaldaea to study there the true power of the air placed
by some in the fire and
by
the more learned in light [Akāsha ].I was taught to see that the planets were
in their variety as
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dissimilar
as the plants on earth and the stars were like armies ranged in battle order.I
knew the
Chaldaean
division of Ether into 365 parts,[ Relating to the days of the year also
to 7X7 divisions of the
earth
s sublunary sphere divided into seven upper and seven lower spheres with their
respective
Planetary
Hosts or armies.] and I perceived that everyone of the demons who
divide it among
themselves
[ Daimon is not demon as translated by De Mirville but Spirit.] was
endowed with that
material
force that permitted him to execute the orders of the Prince and guide all the
movements therein
[in the Ether ].[All
this is to corroborate his dogmatic assertions that Pater Aether 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!] They [the
Chaldees ] explained
to
me how those Princes had become participants in the Council of Darkness,ever in
opposition to the
Council
of Light.
I
got acquainted with the Mediatores [surely not mediums as De Mirville
explains!] [ The translator
replaces
the word Mediators by mediums,excusing himself in a footnote by saying that
Cyprian m st
have
meant modern mediums!] and upon seeing the covenants they were mutually bound
by I was
struck
with wonder upon learning the nature of their oaths and observances.[ Cypriannus
simply meant
to
hint at the rites and mysteries of Initiation and the pledge of secrecy and
oaths that bound the Initiates
together.His
translator however has made a Witches Sabbath of it instead.]
Sorcerer Become Saint
(Page 163)Believe me I saw the Devil;believe me I have embraced him [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 footnote 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.][like the witches at the Sabbath
(?)] when I was yet
young
and he saluted me by the title of the new Jambres,declaring me worthy of my
ministry
(initiation).He
promised me continual help during life and a principality after death.[ Every
Adept
has a principality after his death.] Having become in great honour (an
Adept)under his
tuition
he placed under my orders a phalanx of demons,and when I bid him goodbye
Courage
good success,excellent Cyprian he exclaimed rising up from his seat to see me
to
the door plunging thereby those present into a profound admiration.[ 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.
Having
bidden farewell to his Chaldaean Initiator the future Sorcerer and Saint went
to Antioch.His tale
of
iniquity and subsequent repentance is long but we will make it short.He
became an accomplished
Magician
surrounded by a host of disciples and candidates to the perilous and
sacrilegious art.He
shows
himself distributing love-philtres and dealing in deathly charms to rid young
wives of old
husbands,and
to ruin Christian virgins. Unfortunately Cyprianus was not above love
himself.He fell in
love
with the beautiful Justine a converted maiden after having vainly tried to make
her share the
passion
one named Aglaides,a profligate had for her.His demons failed he tells us,and
he got
disgusted
with them.This disgust brings on a quarrel between him and his Hierophant whom
he insists
on
indentifying with the Demon;and the dispute is followed by a tournament between
the latter and some
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Christian
converts,in which the Evil One is,of course worsted.The Sorcerer is finally
baptised and
gets
rid of his enemy.Having laid at the feet of Anthimes,Bishop of Antioch all his
books on Magic,he
became
a Saint in company with the beautiful Justine who had converted him;both
suffered martyrdom
under
the Emperor Diocletian;and both are buried side by side in Rome in the Basilica
of St.John
Lateran
near the Baptistery.
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SECTION XX
The Eastern Gupta Vidya &The Kabalah
(Page 164)WE now return to the consideration of the essential
identity between the Eastern Gupta Vidya
and
the Kabalah as a system while we must also show the dissimilarity in their
philosophical
interpretations
since the Middle Ages.
It
must be confessed that the views of the Kabalists -meaning by the word those
students of Occultism
who
study the Jewish Kabalah and who know little if anything of any other
Esoteric literature or of its
teachings
-are as varied in their synthetic conclusions upon the nature of the mysteries
taught even in
the
Zohar alone and are as wide of the true mark,as are the dicta upon
it of exact Science itself.Like
the
mediaeval Rosicrucian and the Alchemist -like the Abbot Trithemius,John
Reuchlin Agrippa
Paracelsus,Robert
Fludd Philalethes,etc.-by whom they swear the continental Occultists see in the
Jewish
Kabalah alone the universal well of wisdom;they find in it the secret
lore of nearly all the
mysteries
of Nature -metaphysical and divine -some of them including herein as did
Reuchlin those of
the
Christian Bible .For them the Zohar is an Esoteric Thesaurus of
all the mysteries of the Christian
Gospel;and
the Sephyr Yetsirah is the light that shines in every darkness,and the
container of the keys
to
open every secret in Nature.Whether many of our modern followers of the
mediaeval Kabalists have
an
idea of the real meaning of the symbology of their chosen Masters is another
question.Most of them
have
probably never given even a passing thought to the fact that the Esoteric
language used by the
Alchemists
was their own and that it was given out as a blind necessitated by the dangers of
the epoch
they
lived in and not as the Mystery-language used by the Pagan Initiates,which the
Alchemists had
retranslated
and re-veiled once more.
A Mystery Within a Mystery-(Page 165)And now the situation stands thus:as the old Alchemists
have
not
left a key to their writings,the latter have become a mystery within an older
mystery.The Kabalah is
interpreted
and checked only by the light which mediaeval Mystics have thrown upon it and
they in their
forced
Christology had to put a theological dogmatic mask on every ancient teaching
the result being
that
each Mystic among our modern European and American Kabalists interprets the old
symbols in his
own
way and each refers his opponents to the Rosicrucian and the Alchemist of three
and four hundred
years
ago.Mystic Christian dogma is the central maelstrom that engulfs every old
Pagan symbol and
Christianity
-Anti-Gnostic Christianity the modern retort that has replaced the alembic of
the Alchemists -
has
distilled out of all recognition the Kabalah,i.e.,the Hebrew Zohar and
other rabbinical mystic works.
And
now it has come to this:The student interested in the Secret Sciences has to
believe that the whole
cycle
of the symbolical Ancient of Days every hair of the mighty beard of
Macroprosopos,refers only to
the
history of the earthly career of Jesus of Nazareth!And we are told that the Kabalah
was first taught
to
a select company of angels by Jehovah himself -who out of modesty one must
think,made himself
only
the third Sephiroth in it and a female one into the bargain.So many Kabalists
so many
explanations.Some
believe -perchance with more reason than the rest -that the substance of the
Kabalah is the basis
upon which masonry is built since modern Masonry is undeniable the dim and hazy
reflection
of primeval Occult Masonry of the teaching of those divine Masons who
established the
Mysteries
of the prehistoric and prediluvian Temples of Initiation raised by truly
superhuman Builders.
Others
declare that the tenets expounded in the Zohar relate merely to
mysteries terrestrial and profane
having
no more concern with metaphysical speculations -such as the soul or the post-mortem
life of
man
-than have the Mosaic books.Others,again -and these are the real genuine
Kabalists,who had
their
instructions from initiated Jewish Rabbis -affirm that if the two most learned
Kabalists of the
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mediaeval
period John Reuchlin and Paracelsus,differed in their religious professions
-the former being
the
Father of the Reformation and the latter a Roman Catholic,at least in
appearance -the Zohar cannot
contain
much of Christian dogma or tenet one way or the other.In other words,they
maintain that the
numerical
language of the Kabalistic works teaches universal truths -and not any one
Religion in
particular.Those
who make this (Page 166)statement are perfectly right in saying that the Mystery-
language
used in the Zohar and in other Kabalistic literature was once in a time
of unfathomable
antiquity
the universal language of Humanity.But they become entirely wrong if to this
fact they add the
untenable
theory that this lang age was invented by,or was the original
property of,the Hebrews,from
whom all the other nations borrowed it.
They
are wrong because although the Zohar (.)The Book of Splendo r of
Rabbi
Simeon
Ben Iochai did indeed originate with him -his son Rabbi Eleazar helped by his
secretary Rabbi
Abba
compiling the Kabalistic teachings of his deceased father into a work called
the Zohar -those
teachings
were not Rabbi Simeon s,as the Gupta Vidya shows.They are as old as the Jewish
nation
itself.and
far older.In short the writings which pass at present under the title of the Zohar
of Rabbi
Simeon
are about as original as were the Egyptian synchronistic Tables after being
handled by Eusebius,
or
as St.Paul s Epistles after their revision and correction by the Holy
Church.[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 [Pieus ] 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 .]
Let
us throw a rapid retrospective glance at the history and the tribulations of
that very same Zohar as
we
know of them from trustworthy tradition and documents.We need not stop to
discuss whether it was
written
in the first century B.C.or in the first century A.D.Suffice it for us to know
that there was at all
times
a Kabalistic literature among the Jews;that though historically it can be
traced only from the time of
the
Captivity yet from the Pentate ch down to the Talm d the
documents of that literature were ever
written
in a kind of Mystery-language were in fact a series of a symbolical records
which the Jews had
copied
from the Egyptian and the Chaldaean Sanctuaries,only adapting them to their own
national
history
-if history it can be called.Now that which we claim -and it is not denied even
by the most
prejudiced
Kabalist is that although Kabalistic lore had passed orally through long ages
down to the
latest
Pre-Christian Tanaim and although David and Solomon may have been great Adepts
in it as is
claimed
yet no one dared to write it down till the days of Simeon Ben Iochai.
Authorship of the Zohar-(Page 167)In short the lore found in Kabalistic literature was never
recorded in
writing
before the first century of the modern era.
This
brings the critic to the following reflection:While in India we find the Vedas
and the Brahmanical
literature
written down and edited ages before the Christian era -the Orientalists
themselves being
obliged
to concede a couple of millenniums of antiquity to the older manuscripts;while
the most
important
allegories in Genesis are found recorded on Babylonian tiles centuries
B.C.;while the Egyptian
sarcophagi
yearly yield proofs of the origin of the doctrines borrowed and copied by the
Jews;yet the
Monotheism
of the Jews is exalted and thrown into the teeth of all the Pagan nations,and
the so-called
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Christian
Revelation is placed above all others,like the sun above a row of street gas
lamps.Yet it is
perfectly
well known having been ascertained beyond doubt or cavil that no manuscript
whether
Kabalistic,Talmudistic,or
Christian which has reached our present generation is of earlier date than the
first
centuries of our era whereas this can certainly never be said of the Egyptian
papyri or the
Chaldaean
tiles,or even of some Eastern writings.
But
let us limit our present research to the Kabalah,and chiefly to the Zohar
-called also the Midrash .
This
book,whose teachings were edited for the first time between 70 and 110 A.D.is
known to have
been
lost and its contents to have been scattered throughout a number of minor
manuscripts,until the
thirteenth
century.The idea that it was the composition of Moses de Leon of Valladolid in
Spain who
passed
it off as a pseudograph of Simeon Ben Iochai is ridiculous,and was well
disposed of by Munk -
though
he does point to more than one modern interpolation in the Zohar .At the
same time it is more
than
certain that the present Book of Zohar was written by Moses de Leon and
owing to joint editorship
is
more Christian in its colouring than is many a genuine Christian volume.Munk
gives the reason why
saying
that it appears evident that the author made use of ancient documents,and among
these of
certain
Midraschim,or collections of traditions and Biblical expositions,which
we do not now possess.
As
a proof also that the knowledge of the Esoteric system taught in the Zohar came
to the Jews very
late
indeed -at any rate that they had so far forgotten it that the innovations and
additions made by de
Leon
provoked no criticism but were thankfully received -Munk quotes from Tholuck,a
Jewish authority
the
following information:Haya Gaon who died in 1038 is to our knowledge the first
author who
developed
(Page 168)(and perfected)the theory of the Sephiroth and he gave them
names which we find
again
among the Kabalistic names used by Dr.Jellinek.Moses Ben Schem-Tob de Leon who
held
intimate
intercourse with the Syrian and Chaldaean Christian learned scribes was enabled
through the
latter
to acquire a knowledge of some of the Gnostic writings.[ This account is
summarised from Isaac
Myer
s Qabbalah p.10 et seq.]
Again
the Sepher Jetzirah (Book of Creation)-though attributed to Abraham and
though very archaic as
to
its contents -is first mentioned in the eleventh century by Jehuda Ho Levi
(Chazari).And these two
the
Zohar and Jetzirah are the storehouse of all the subsequent
Kabalistic works.Now let us see how far
the
Hebrew sacred canon itself is to be trusted.
The
word Kabalah comes from the root to receive and has a meaning identical
with the Sanskrit
Smriti
(received by tradition )-a system of oral teaching passing from one
generation of priests to
another
as was the case with the Brahmanical books before they were embodied in
manuscript.The
Kabalistic
tenets came to the Jews from the Chaldaeans;and if Moses knew the primitive and
universal
language
of the Initiates,as did every Egyptian priest and was thus acquainted with the
numerical
system
on which it was based he may have -and we say he has -written Genesis and
other scrolls.
The
five books that now pass current under his name the Pentate ch,are not
withal the original Mosaic
Records.[
There is not in the decalogue one idea that is not the counterpart or the
paraphrase of the
dogmas
and ethics among the Egyptians long before the time of Moses and Aaron.(The
Mosaic Law a
transcript
from the Egyptian Sources:vide Geometry in Religion,1890)] Nor were they
written in the old
Hebrew
square letters,nor even in the Samaritan characters,for both alphabets belong
to a date later
than
that of Moses,and Hebrew -as it is now known -did not exist in the days of the
great lawgiver
either
as a language or as an alphabet.
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As
no statements contained in the records of the Secret Doctrine of the East are
regarded as of any
value
by the world in general and since to be understood by and convince the reader
one has to quote
names
familiar to him and use arguments and proofs out of documents which are
accessible to all the
following
facts may perhaps demonstrate that our assertions are not merely based on the
teachings of
Occult
Records.
Chaldaic and Hebrew (Page 169)(1)The great
Orientalist and scholar Klaproth denied positively the
antiquity
of the so-called Hebrew alphabet on the ground that the square Hebrew
characters in which the
Biblical
manuscripts are written and which we use in printing were probably derived from
the Palmyrene
writing
or some other Semitic alphabet so that the Hebrew Bible is written
merely in the Chaldaic
phonographs
of Hebrew words.
The
late Dr.Kenealy pertinently remarked that the Jews and Christians rely on
A
phonograph of a dead and almost unknown language as abstruse as the cuneiform
letters
on
the mountains of Assyria [ Book of God.Kenealy p.383.The
reference to Klaproth is also
from
this page.]
(2)The
attempts made to carry back the square Hebrew character to the time of Esdras
(B.C.458)have
all
failed.
(3)It
is asserted that the Jews took their alphabet from the Babylonians during their
captivity.But there
are
scholars who do not carry the now-known Hebrew square letters beyond the late
period of the fourth
century
A.D.[ See Asiat.Jo r.,N.S.vii.p.275 quoted by Kenealy.]
The
Hebrew Bible is precisely as if Homer were printed not in Greek,but in English
letters;or
as
if Shakespeare s works were phonographed in Burmese.[Book of
God,loc.cit.]
(4)Those
who maintain that the ancient Hebrew is the same as the Syraic or Chaldaic have
to see what
is
said in Jeremiah wherein the Lord is made to threaten the house of
Israel with bringing against it the
mighty
and ancient nation of the Chaldaeans:
A
nation whose language thou knowest not neither understandest what they say.[
Op.cit.,
v.15.]
This
is quoted by Bishop Walton [ Prolegomena.iii 13 quoted by
Kenealy.p.385.] against the
assumption
of the identity of Chaldaic and Hebrew and ought to settle the question.
(5)The
real Hebrew of Moses was lost after the seventy years captivity when the
Israelites brought back
Chaldaic
with them and grafted it on their own language the fusion resulting in a
dialectical variety of
Chaldaic,the
Hebrew tincturing it very slightly and ceasing from that time to be a spoken
language.[See
Book of God.p.385.Care
should be taken says Butler (quoted by Kenealy.p489),to distinguish
between
the Pentateuch in the Hebrew language but in the letters of the Samaritan
alphabet and the
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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.]
(Page 170)As to our statement that the present Old Testament does
not contain the original Books of
Moses,this
is proven by the facts that:
(1)The
Samaritans repudiated the Jewish canonical books and their Law of
Moses.They will have
neither
the Psalms of David nor the Prophets,nor the Talm d and Mishna
:nothing but the real Books of
Moses,and
in quite a different edition.[ See Rev.Joseph Wolff s Jo rnal.p.200.]The
Books of Moses
and
of Joshua are disfigured out of recognition by the Talmudists they say
(2)The
black Jews of Cochin Southern India -who know nothing of the Babylonian
Captivity or of the
ten lost tribes (the
latter a pure invention of the Rabbis),proving that these Jews must have come
to
India
before the year 600 B.C.-have their Books of Moses which they will show to no
one.And these
Books
of Laws differ greatly from the present scrolls.Nor are they written in the
square Hebrew
characters
(semi-Chaldaic and semi-Palmyrean)but in the archaic letters,as we were assured
by one of
them
-letters entirely unknown to all but themselves and a few Samaritans.
(3)The
Karaim Jews of the Crimea -who call themselves the descendants of the true
children of Israel
i.e.of the Sadducees
-reject the Torah and the Pentate ch of the Synagogue reject the
Sabbath of the
Jews
(keeping Friday),will have neither the Books of the Prophets nor the Psalms -nothing
but their own
Books
of Moses and what they call his one and real Law.
This
makes it plain that the Kabalah of the Jews is but the distorted echo of
the Secret Doctrine of the
Chaldaeans,and
that the real Kabalah is found only in the Chaldaean Book of N mbers now
in the
possession
of some Persian Sufis.Every nation in antiquity had its traditions based on
those of the Aryan
Secret
Doctrine;and each nation points to this day to a Sage of its own race who had
received the
primordial
revelation from and had recorded it under the orders of a more or less divine
Being.Thus it
was
with the Jews,as with all others.They had received their Occult Cosmogony and
Laws from their
Initiate
Moses,and they have now entirely mutilated them.
Adi
is the generic name in our Doctrine of all the first men i.e..the first
speaking races,in each of the
seven
zones -hence probably Ad-am.
The First Men (Page 171)And such first men
in every nation are credited with having been taught the
divine
mysteries of creation.Thus,the Sabaeans (according to a tradition preserved in
the Sufi works)
say
that when the Third First Man left the country adjacent to India for Babel a
tree [ A tree is
symbolically
a book -as pillar is another synonym of the same.]was given to
him,then another and a
third
tree whose leaves recorded the history of all the races;the Third First Man
meant one who
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belonged
to the Third Root-Race and yet the Sabaeans call him Adam.The Arabs of Upper
Egypt and
the
Mohammedans generally have recorded a tradition that the Angel Azaz-el brings a
message from the
Wisdom-Word
of God to Adam whenever he is reborn;this the Sufis explain by adding that this
book is
given
to every Seli-Allah (the chosen one of God )for his wise men.The story
narrated by the Kabalists
-namely
that the book given to Adam before his Fall (a book full of mysteries and signs
and events
which
either had been were or were to be)was taken away by the Angel Raziel after
Adam's Fall but
again
restored to him lest men might lose its wisdom and instruction;that this book
was delivered by
Adam
to Seth who passed it to Enoch and the latter to Abraham and so on in
succession to the most
wise
of every generation -relates to all nations,and not to the Jews alone.For
Berosus narrates in his
turn
that Xisuthrus compiled a book,writing it at the command of his deity which
book was buried in
Zipara
[ 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.] or
Sippara
the City of the Sun in Ba-bel-on-ya and was dug up long afterwards and
deposited in the
temple
of Belos;it is from this book that Berosus took his history of the antediluvian
dynasties of Gods
and
Heroes.Aelian (in Nimrod )speaks of a Hawk (emblem of the Sun),who in
the days of the
beginnings
brought to the Egyptians a book containing the wisdom of their religion.The Sam-Sam
of the
Sabaeans
is also a Kabalah,as is the Arabic Zem-Zem (Well of Wisdom).[ See
for these details the
Book of God,pp.244 250
]
We
are told by a very learned Kabalist that Seyffarth assets that the old Egyptian
tongue was only old
Hebrew
or a Semitic dialect;and he proves this,our correspondent thinks,by sending him
some 500
words
in common in the two languages.This proves very little to our mind.It only
shows that the two
nations
lived together for centuries,and that before adopting the Chaldaean for their
phonetic (Page 172)
tongue
the Jews had adopted the old Coptic or Egyptian.The Israelitish Scriptures drew
their hidden
wisdom
from the primeval Wisdom-Religion that was the source of other Scriptures,only
it was sadly
degraded
by being applied to things and mysteries of this Earth instead of to those in
the higher and
ever-present
though invisible spheres.Their national history if they can claim any autonomy
before their
return
from the Babylonian captivity cannot be carried back one day earlier than the
time of Moses.The
language
of Abraham -if Zeruan (Saturn the emblem of time -the Sar Saros,a cycle
)can be said
to
have any language -was not Hebrew but Chaldaic,perhaps Arabic,and still more
likely some old
Indian
dialect.This is shown by numerous proofs,some of which we give here;and
unless,indeed to
please
the tenacious and stubborn believers in Bible chronology we cripple the
years of our globe to the
Procrustean
bed of 7 000 years,it becomes self-evident that the Hebrew cannot be called an
old
language
merely because Adam is supposed to have used it in the Garden of Eden.Bunsen
says in
Egypt s Place in Universal History that in the
Chaldean
tribe immediately connected with Abraham we find reminiscences of dates
disfigured
and misunderstood as genealogies of single men or figures of epochs.The
Abrahamic
recollections go back at least three millennia beyond the grandfather of Jacob [
Op.cit.V.85 .]
The
Bible of the Jews has ever been an Esoteric Book in its hidden meaning
but this meaning has not
remained
one and the same throughout since the days of Moses.It is useless,considering
the limited
space
we can give to this subject to attempt anything like the detailed history of
the vicissitudes of the
so-called
Pentate ch and besides,the history is too well known to need lengthy
disquisitions.Whatever
was,or
was not the Mosaic Book of Creation -from Genesis down to the
Prophets -the Pentate ch of
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today
is not the same.It is sufficient to read the criticisms of Erasmus,and even of
Sir Isaac Newton to
see
clearly that the Hebrew Scriptures had been tampered with and re -modelled had
been lost and
rewritten
a dozen times before the days of Ezra.This Ezra himself may yet one day turn
out to have
been
Azara;the Chaldaean priest of the Fire and Sun-God a renegade who through his
desire of
becoming
a ruler and in order to create an Ethnarchy restored that old lost Jewish Books
in his own way.
Many Events Not Historical-(Page 173)It was an easy thing for one versed in the secret system of
Esoteric
numerals,or Symbology to put together events from the stray books that had been
preserved
by
various tribes,and make of them an apparently harmonious narrative of creation
and of the evolution
of
the Judaean race.But in its hidden meaning from Genesis to the last word
of De teronomy the
Pentateuch
is the symbolical narrative of the sexes,and is an apotheosos of Phallicism
under
astronomical
and physiological personations.[ As is fully shown in the So rce of
Measures and other
works.]
Its co-ordination however is only apparent;and the human hand appears at
every moment is
found
everywhere in the Book of God.Hence the Kings of Edom discuss in Genesis before
any king
had
reigned in Israel;Moses records his own death and Aaron dies twice and is
buried in two different
places,to
say nothing of other trifles.For the Kabalist they are trifles,for he knows
that all these events
are
not history but are simply the cloak designed to envelope and hide various
physiological
peculiarities;but
for the sincere Christian who accepts all these dark sayings in good faith it
matters a
good
deal.Solomon may very well be regarded as a myth [ Surely even Masons
would never claim the
act al 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 tho sand 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?] by the Masons,as they lose nothing by it for all their secrets are
Kabalistic and allegorical -
for
those few at any rate who understand them.For the Christian however to give up
Solomon the son
of
David -from whom Jesus is made to descend -involves a real loss.But how even
the Kabalists can
claim
great antiquity for the Hebrew texts of the old Biblical scrolls now possessed
by the scholars is not
made
at all apparent.For it is certainly a fact of history based on the confessions
of the Jews
themselves,and
of Christians likewise that:
The
Scriptures having perished in the captivity of Nabuchodonozar Esdras,the Levite
the
priest
in the times of Artaxerxes king of the Persians,having become inspired in the
exercise
of
prophecy restored again the whole of the ancient Scriptures.[ Clement Stromateis.XXII.]
(Page 174)One must have a strong belief in Esdras,and especially in
his good faith to accept the now-
existing
copies as genuine Mosaic Books;for:
Assuming
that the copies,or rather phonographs which had been made by Hilkiah and
Esdras,and
the various anonymous editors,were really true and genuine they must have
been
wholly exterminated by Antiochus;and the versions of the Old Testament which
now
subsist
must have been made by Judas,or by some unknown compilers,probably from the
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Greek
of the Seventy long after the appearance and death of Jesus.[ Book of
God .p.408 .]
The
Bible therefore as it is now (the Hebrew texts that is),depends for its
accuracy on the genuineness
of
the Sept agint ;this,we are again told was written miraculously by the
Seventy in Greek,and the
original
copy having been lost since that time our texts are retranslated back into
Hebrew from that
language.But
in this vicious circle of proofs we once more have to rely upon the good faith
of two Jews -
Josephus
and Philo Judaeus of Alexandria -these two Historians being the only witnesses
that the
Septuagint
was written under the circumstances narrated.And yet it is just these
circumstances that are
very
little calculated to inspire one with confidence.For what does Josephus tell
us?He says that
Ptolemy
Philadelphus,desiring to read the Hebrew Law in Greek,wrote to Eleazar the
high-priest of the
Jews,begging
him to send him six men from each of the twelve tribes who should make a
translation for
him.Then
follows a truly miraculous story vouchsafed by Aristeas,of these seventy-two
men from the
twelve
tribes of Israel who shut up in an island compiled their translation in exactly
seventy-two days,
etc.
All
this is very edifying and one might have had very little reason to doubt the
story had not the ten lost
tribes
been made to play their part in it.How could these tribes,lost between 700 and
900 B.C.each
send
six men some centuries later to satisfy the whim of Ptolemy and to disappear
once more
immediately
afterwards from the horizon?A miracle verily.
We
are expected nevertheless,to regard such documents as the Sept agint as
containing direct divine
revelation:Documents
originally written in a tongue about which nobody now knows anything;written by
authors
that are practically mythical and at dates as to which no one is able even to
make a defensible
surmise;documents
of the original copies of which there does not now remain a shred.
The Real Hebrew Characters Lost -(Page 175)Yet people will persist in talking of the ancient Hebrew
as
if there were any man left in the world who knows one word of it .So
little indeed was Hebrew known
that
both the Septuagint and the New Testament had to be written in a heathen
language (the Greek),
and
no better reasons for it given than what Hutchinson says,namely that the Holy
Ghost chose to write
the
New Testament in Greek.
The
Hebrew language is considered to be very old and yet there exists no trace of
it anywhere on the
old
monuments,not even in Chaldaea.Among the great number of inscriptions of
various kinds found in
the
ruins of that country:
One
in the Hebrew Chaldee letter and language has never been fo nd;nor has a
single
authentic
medal or gem in this newfangled character been ever discovered which could
carry
it
even to the days of Jesus.[ Book of God.p.453 .]
The
original Book of Daniel is written in a dialect which is a mixture of
Hebrew and Aramaic;it is not even
in
Chaldaic,with the exception of a few verses interpolated later on.According to
Sir.W.Jones and other
Orientalists,the
oldest discoverable languages of Persia are the Chaldaic and Sanskrit and there
is no
trace
of the Hebrew in these.It would be very surprising if there were since the
Hebrew known to the
Philologists
does not date earlier than 500 B.C.and its characters belong to a far later
period still.Thus,
while
the real Hebrew characters,if not altogether lost are nevertheless so
hopelessly transformed -
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A
mere inspection of the alphabet showing that it has been shaped and made
regular in doing
which
the characteristic marks of some of the letters have been retrenched in
order to make
them
more square and uniform -[Asiatic Jo rnal VII.p.275 quoted by
Kenealy.]
That
no one but an initiated Rabbi of Samaria or a Jain could read them the new
system of the
masoretic
points has made them a sphinx-riddle for all.Punctuation is now to be found
everywhere in all
the
later manuscripts,and by means of it anything can be made of a text;a Hebrew
scholar can put on
the
texts any interpretation he likes.Two instances given by Kenealy will suffice:
In
Genesis,x1ix.21 we read:
Naphtali
is a hind let loose ;he giveth goodly words.
By
only a slight alternation of the points Bochart changes this into:
Napthali
is a spreading tree,shooting forth bea tif l branches.
So
again in Psalms (xxix.9),instead of:(Page 176)
The
voice of the Lord maketh the hind to calve and discovereth the forests;
Bishop
Lowth gives:
The
voice of the Lord striketh the oak,and discovereth the forests.
The
same word in Hebrew signifies God and nothing etc.[ Book of God.p.385.]
With
regard to the claim made by some Kabalists that there was in antiquity one
knowledge and one
language
this claim is also our own and it is very just.Only it must be added to make
the thing clear
that
this knowledge and language have both been esoteric every since the submersion
of the Atlanteans.
The
Tower of Babel myth relates to that enforced secrecy.Men falling into sin were
regarded as no longer
trustworthy
for the reception of such knowledge and from being universal it became limited
to the few.
Thus,the
one-lip -or the Mystery-language -being gradually denied to subsequent
generations,all the
nations
became severally restricted to their own national tongue;and forgetting the
primeval Wisdom-
language
they stated that the Lord -one of the chief Lords or Hierophants of the
Mysteries of the Java
Aleim
-had confounded the languages of all the earth so that the sinners could
understand one
another
s speech no longer.But Initiates remained in every land and nation and the
Israelites,like all
others,had
their learned Adepts.One of the keys to this Universal Knowledge is a pure
geometrical and
numerical
system the alphabet of every great nation having a numerical value for every
letter [ 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
Page
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significance
of ancient Sanskrit nomenclature in the old Aryan myths.1.Find out the synonyms
of the
word
used which have other meanings.2.Find out the numerical value of the letters
composing of the
word
according to the methods of the ancient Tāntrik works [Tāntrika
Shastra -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 Tāntrika Shāstras are as old as Magic itself.Have
they also borrowed
their
Esotericism from the Hebrews?] and moreover a system of permutation of
syllables and synonyms
which
is carried to perfection in the Indian Occult methods,and which the Hebrew
certainly has not.This
one
system containing the elements of Geometry and Numeration was used by the Jews
for the
purpose
of concealing their Esoteric creed under the mask of a popular and national
monotheistic
Religion.The
last who knew the system to perfection were the learned and atheistical Sadducees,the
greatest
enemies of the pretensions of the Pharisees and of their confused notions
brought from
Babylon.
Hebrew Esotericism Not Primitive-(Page 177)Yes the Sadducees,the Illusionists who maintained that
the
Soul the Angels,and all similar Beings,were illusions because they were
temporary -thus showing
themselves
at one with Eastern Esotericism.And since they rejected every book and
Scripture with the
exception
of the Law of Moses,it seems that the latter must have been very different from
what it is now.
[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 same time of the Separation the Samaritans recognized only
the Book of
the Law of Moses and
the Book of Josh a,and their Pentate ch 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 Joseph
s 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 Pentate ch
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.]
The
whole of the foregoing is written with an eye to our Kabalists.Great scholars
as some of them
undoubtedly
are they are nevertheless wrong to hang the harps of their faith on the willows
of Talmudic
growth
-on the Hebrew scrolls,whether in square or pointed characters,now in our
public libraries,
museums,or
even in the collections of Paleographers.There do not remain half-a-dozen
copies from the
true
Mosaic Hebrew scrolls in the whole world.And those who are in possession of
these -as we
indicated
a few pages back -would not part with them or even allow them to be examined on
any
consideration
whatever.How then can any Kabalist claim priority for Hebrew Esotericism and
say as
does
one of our correspondents,that the Hebrew has come down from a far remoter
antiquity than any
of
them [whether Egyptian or even Sanskrit!] and that it was the
source or nearer to the old original
source
than any of them ?[ 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
So rce of
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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.]
As
our correspondent says:It becomes more convincing to me every day that in a
far past time there
was
a mighty civilization with (Page 178)enormo s
learning,which had a common lang age over the
earth,as to which its essence can be recovered from the
fragments which now exist.
Aye
there existed indeed a mighty civilization and a still mightier secret learning
and knowledge the
entire
scope of which can never be discovered by Geometry and the Kabalah alone:for
there are seven
keys
to the large entrance-door and not one nor even two keys can ever open it
sufficiently to allow
more
than glimpses of what lies within.
Every
scholar must be aware that there are two distinct styles -two schools,so
to speak -plainly
traceable
in the Hebrew Scriptures:the Elohistic and the Jehovistic.The portions
belonging to these
respectively
are so blended together so completely mixed up by later hands,that often all
external
characteristics
are lost.Yet it is also known that the two schools were antagonistic;that the
one taught
esoteric,the
other exoteric,or theological doctrines;that the one the Elohists,were Seers
(Roch),
whereas
the other the Jehovists were prophets (Nabhi)[This alone shows how the
Books of Moses
were
tampered with.In Sam el (ix.9),it is said:He that is now a prophet [Nabhi
]was beforetime called a
Seer
[Roch ].Now since before Sam el the word Roch is met
nowhere in the Pentate ch 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 Antiq ities,by the
Rev.D.Jennings.D.D.)] and that the
latter
-who later became Rabbis -were generally only nominally prophets by virtue of
their official
position
as the Pope is called the infallible and inspired vicegerent of God.That again
the Elohists
meant
by Elohim forces,identifying their Deity as in the Secret Doctrine with
Nature;while the
Jehovists
made of Jehovah a personal God externally and used the term simply as a phallic
symbol -a
number
of them secretly disbelieving even in metaphysical abstract Nature and
synthesizing all on the
terrestrial
scale.Finally the Elohists made of man the divine incarnate image of the Elohim
emanated
first
in all Creation;and the Jehovists show him as the last the crowning glory of
the animal creation
instead
of his being the head of all the sensible beings on earth.(This is reversed by
some Kabalists,but
the
reversion is due to the designedly-produced confusion in the texts,especially
in the first four chapters
of
Genesis .)
Take
the Zohar and find in it the description relating to Ain-Suph the
Western or Semitic Parabrahman.
What
passages have come so nearly up to the Vedantic ideal as the following:
The
creation [the evolved Universe ] is the garment of that which has
no name the garment
woven from the Deity s own substance.[Zohar.i.2a.]
The Concealed of all the Concealed-(Page 179)Between that which is Ain or nothing and the
Heavenly
Man there is an Impersonal First Cause however of which it is said:
Page
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Before
It gave any shape to this world before It produced any form It was alone
without form
or
similitude to anything else.Who can comprehend It how It was before the
creation since It
was
formless?Hence it is forbidden to represent It by any form similitude or even
by Its
sacred
name by a single letter or a single point.[Zohar 42b .]
The
sentence that follows,however is an evident later interpolation;for it draws
attention to a complete
contradiction:
And
to this the words (De t.iv.15),refer -Ye saw no manner of similitude on
the day the Lord
spake
unto you.
But
this reference to Chapter iv.of De teronomy,when in Chapter v God is
mentioned as speaking face
to
face with the people is very clumsy.
Not
one of the names given to Jehovah in the Bible has any reference
whatever to either Ain-Suph or the
Impersonal
First-Cause (which is the Logos)of the Kabalah ;but they all refer to
the Emanations.
It
says;
For
although to reveal itself to us,the concealed of all the concealed sent forth
the Ten
Emanations
[Sephiroth ]called the Form of God Form of the Heavenly Man yet
since even
this
luminous form was too dazzling for our vision it had to assume another form or
had to put
on
another garment which is the Universe .The Universe therefore or the
visible world is a
farther
expansion of the Divine Substance and is called in the Kabalah The Garment of
God.
[Zohar i.2a.See Dr.Ch.Ginsburg s essay on The Cabbalah,its
Doctrines,Developments and
Literat re.]
This
is the doctrine of all the Hindu Puranas,especially that of the Vishn P rāna
.Vishnu pervades the
Universe
and is that Universe;Brahmā enters the Mundane Egg and issues from it as the
Universe;
Brahmā
even dies with it and there remains only Brahman the impersonal the eternal the
unborn and
the
unqualifiable.The Ain-Suph of the Chaldeans and later of the Jews is assuredly
a copy of the Vaidic
Deity;while
the Heavenly Adam the Macrocosm which unites in itself the totality of beings
and is the
Esse of the visible
Universe finds his original in the Puranic Brahmā.In Sod,the Secret of
the Law one
recognizes
the expressions used in the oldest fragments of the Gupta Vidyā the Secret
Knowledge.And
it
is not venturing too much to say that even a Rabbi quite familiar with his own
special Rabbinical
Hebrew would only
comprehend its secrets thoroughly if he added to (Page 180)his learning a serious
knowledge
of the Hindu philosophies.Let us turn to Stanza I.of the Book of Dzyan for
an example.
The
Zohar premises,as does the Secret Doctrine a universal eternal Essence
passive -because
absolute
-in all that men call attributes.The pregenetic or pre-cosmical Triad is a pure
metaphysical
abstraction.The
notion of a triple hypostasis in one Unknown Divine Essence is as old as speech
and
thought.Hiranyagarbha
Hari and Shankara -the Creator the Preserver and the Destroyer -are the
three
manifested attributes of it appearing and disappearing with Kosmos;the visible
Triangle so to
speak,on
the plane of the ever-invisible Circle.This is the primeval root-thought of
thinking Humanity;
the
Pythagorean Triangle emanation from the ever-concealed Monad or the Central
Point.
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Plato
speaks of it and Plotinus calls it an ancient doctrine on which Cudworth
remarks that:
Since
Orpheus,Pythagoras,and Plato who all of them asserted a Trinity of divine
hypostases,
unquestionably
derived their doctrine from the Egyptians,it may be reasonably suspected that
the
Egyptians did the like before them.[ Cudworth I.iii.quoted by Wilson.Vishn
P rana,i.
14
note.]
The
Egyptians certainly derived their Trinity from the Indians.Wilson justly
observes:
As,however
the Grecian accounts and those of the Egyptians are much more perplexed and
unsatisfactory
than those of the Hindus,it is most probable that we find amongst them the
doctrine
in its most original as well as most methodical and significant form.[Vishn
P rana.
I
14 ]
This,then
is the meaning:
Darkness
alone filled the Bo ndless All,for Father,Mother and Son were once more One.[
Stanza
i.4.]
Space
was and is ever as it is between the Manvantara.The Universe in its pre-kosmic
state was once
more
homogeneous and one -outside its aspects.This was a Kabalistic,and is now a
Christian teaching.
As
is constantly shown in the Zohar the Infinite Unity or Ain-Suph is ever
placed outside human thought
and
appreciation;and in Sepher Jetzirah we see the Spirit of God -the
Logos,not the Deity itself -
One
is the Spirit of the Living God ..Who liveth forever.Voice Spirit [of
the spirit ] and Word:
this
is the Holy Spirit [Mishna,i.9 .]
Three-in-one and Four -(Page 181)-and the Quaternary.From this Cube emanates the whole
Kosmos.
Says
the Secret Doctrine:
It
is called to life.The mystic C be in which rests the Creative Idea,the
manifesting Mantra [or articulate
speech
-Vāch ] and the holy Pūrusha [both radiations of prima
material ] exist in the Eternity in the Divine
S bstance in their latent state.
-during
Pralaya.
And
in the Sepher Jetzirah,when the Three-in-One are to be called into being
-by the manifestation of
Shekinah
the first effulgency or radiation in the manifesting Kosmos -the Spirit of God
or Number
One
[ In its manifested state it becomes Ten the Universe.In the Chaldaean Kabalah
it is sexless.In the
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Jewish
Shekinah is female and the early Christians and Gnostics regarded the Holy
Ghost as a female
potency.In
the Book of N mbers Shekina is made to drop the final h that makes
it a female potency.
Nārāyana
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.] fructifies
and awakens
the
dual Potency Number Two Air and Number Three Water;in these are darkness and
emptiness,
slime
and dung -which is Chaos,the Tohu-Vah-Bohu.The Air and Water emanate Number
Four Ether
or
Fire the Son.This is the Kabalistic Quaternary.This Fourth Number which in the
manifested Kosmos
is
the One or the Creative God is with the Hindus the Ancient Sanat the
Prajāpati of the Vedas and
the
Brahmā of the Brāhmans -the heavenly Androgyne as he becomes the male only after
separating
himself
into two bodies,Vāch and Virāj.With the Kabalists,he is at first the Jah-Havah
only later
becoming
Jehovah like Virāj his prototype;after separating himself as Adam-Kadmon into
Adam and
Eve
in the formless,and into Cain-Abel in the semi-objective world he became
finally the Jah-Havah or
man
and woman in Enoch the son of Seth.
For
the true meaning of the compound name of Jehovah -of which unvoweled you can
make almost
anything
-is:men and women or humanity composed of its two sexes.From the first chapter
to the end
of
the fourth chapter of Genesis every name is a permutation of another
name and every personage is at
the
same time somebody else.A Kabalist traces Jehovah from the Adam of earth to
Seth the third son -
or
rather race -of Adam.[ 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 .] Thus Seth is Jehovah male;and Enos,(Page 182)being a permutation of Cain and Abel is
Jehovah
male and female or our mankind.The Hindu Brahmā-Virāj Virāj-Manu and
Manu-Vaivasvata
with
his daughter and wife Vāch present the greatest analogy with these personages
-for anyone who
will
take the trouble of studying the subject in both the Bible and the P
rānas.It is said of Brahma that he
created
himself as Manu and that he was born of and was identical with his original
self while he
constituted
the female portion Shāta-rupa (hundred-formed)In this Hindu Eve the mother of
all living
beings,
Brahmā created Virāj who is himself but on a lower scale as Cain is Jehovah on
an inferior
scale:both
are the first males of the Third Race.The same idea is illustrated in the
Hebrew name of God
(ēē)Read
from right to left Jod (")is the father.He (ē)the mother Vau (ź)the
son and He (ē),
repeated
at the end of the word is generation the act of birth materiality.This is
surely a sufficient
reason
why the God of the Jews and Christians should be personal as much as the male
Brahma
Vishnu
or Shiva of the orthodox exoteric Hindu.
Thus
the term of Jhvh alone -now accepted as the name of One living [male ]
God -will yield if
seriously
studied not only the whole mystery of Being (in the Biblical sense )but
also that of the Occult
Theogony
from the highest divine Being the third in order down to man.As shown by the
best
Hebraists:
The
verbal or Hāyāh or E-y-e means to be,to exist,while or Chayah or H-
y-e
means to live,as motion of existence.[The So rce of
Measures.p.5 ]
Hence
Eve stands as the evolution and the never-ceasing becoming of Nature.Now if
we take the
almost
untranslatable Sanskrit word Sat which means the quintessence of absolute
immutable Being or
Be-ness
-as it has been rendered by an able Hindu Occultist -we shall find no
equivalent for it in any
language;but
it may be regarded as most closely resembling Ain or En-Suph Boundless
Being.Then
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the
term Hāyāh to be as passive changeless,yet manifested existence may perhaps
be rendered by
the
Sanskrit Jivatma universal life or soul in its secondary or cosmic
meaning;while Chāyāh to live
as
motion of existence is simply Prāna the ever-changing life in its objective
sense.It is at the head of
this
third category that the Occultist finds Jehovah -the Mother Binah and the
Father Arelim.
The Septenary Sephira-(Page 183)This is made
plain in the Zohar,when the emanation and evolution of
the
Sephiroth are explained:First Ain-Suph then Shekinah the Garment or Veil of
Infinite Light then
Sephira
or the Kadmon and thus making the fourth the spiritual Substance sent forth
from the Infinite
Light.This
Sephira is called the Crown Kether and has besides,six other names -in all
seven.These
names
are:1.Kether;2.the Aged;3.the Primordial Point;4.the White Head;5.the Long
Face;6.the
Inscrutable
Height;and 7.Ehejeh ( I am .)[ This identifies Sephira the third potency
with Jehovah the
Lord
who says to Moses out of the burning bush:(Here)I am.(Exod s iii.4).At
this time the Lord has
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.] This
Septenary
Sephira
is said to contain in itself the nine Sephiroth.But before showing how she
brought them forth let
us
read an explanation about the Sephiroth in the Talm d which gives it as
an archaic tradition or
Kabalah.
There
are three groups (or orders)of Sephiroth:1.The Sephiroth called divine
attributes (the Triad in
the
Holy Quaternary);2.the sidereal (personal)Sephiroth;3.the metaphysical
Sephiroth or a
periphrasis
of Jehovah who are the first three Sephiroth (Kether Chokmah and Binah),the
rest of the
seven
being the personal Seven Spirits of the Presence (also of the
planets,therefore).Speaking of
these
the angels are meant though not because they are seven but because they
represent the seven
Sephiroth
which contain in them the universality of the Angels.
This
shows (a)that when the first four Sephiroth are separated as a Triad-Quaternary
-Sephira being
its
synthesis -there remain only seven Sephiroth as there are seven Rishis;these
become ten when the
Quaternary
or the first divine Cube is scattered into units;and (b)that while Jehovah
might have been
viewed
as the Deity if he be included in the three divine groups or orders of the
Sephiroth the collective
Elohim
or the quaternary indivisible Kether once that he becomes a male God he is not
more than one
of
the Builders of the lower group -a Jewish Brahmā.[ The Brahmans were
wise in their generation
when
they gradually for no other reason than this,abandoned Brahmā 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 Brāhma 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.] A demonstration is now
attempted.
The
first Sephira containing the other nine brought them forth in (Page 184)this order:(2)Hokmah
(Chokmah
or Wisdom),a masculine active potency represented among the divine names as
Jah;and
as
a permutation or an evolution into lower forms in this instance -becoming the
Auphanim (or the
Wheels
-cosmic rotation of matter)among the army or the angelic hosts.From this
Chokmah emanated
a
feminine passive potency called (3)Intelligence Binah whose divine name is
Jehovah and whose
angelic
name among the Builders and Hosts,is Arelim.[ A plural word
signifying a collective host
generically:literally
the strong lion.]It is from the union of these two potencies,male and
female (or
Chokmah
and Binah)that emanated all the other Sephiroth the seven orders of the
Builders.Now if we
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call
Jehovah by his divine name then he becomes at best and forthwith a female
passive potency in
Chaos.And
if we view him as a male God he is no more than one of many an Angel Arelim.But
straining
the analysis to its highest point and if his male name Jah that of Wisdom be
allowed to him,
still
he is not the Highest and the one Living God;for he is contained with many
others within Sephira
and
Sephira herself is a third Potency in Occultism though regarded as the first in
the exoteric Kabalah -
and
is one moreover of lesser importance than the Vaidic Aditi or the Primordial
Water of Space which
becomes
after many a permutation of the Astral Light of the Kabalist.
Thus
the Kabalah as we have it now is shown to be of the greatest importance
in explaining the
allegories
and dark sayings of the Bible .As an Esoteric work upon the mysteries
of creation however it
is
almost worthless as it is now disfigured unless checked by the Chaldaean Book
of N mbers or by the
tenets
of the Easter Secret Science or Esoteric Wisdom.The Western nations have
neither the original
Kabalah nor yet the
Mosaic Bible.
Finally
it is demonstrated by internal as well as by external evidence on the testimony
of the best
European
Hebraists,and the confessions of the learned Jewish Rabbis themselves,that an
ancient
document
forms the essential basis of the Bible,which received very considerable
insertions and
supplements;
and that the Pentateuch arose out of the primitive or older document by means
of a
supplementary
one.Therefore in the absence of the Book of N mbers,[ 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 .] the Kabalists of the West are only
entitled to come to definite
conclusions,when
they have at hand some data at least from that ancient document -(Page 185)data
now
found scattered throughout Egyptian papyri Assyrian tiles,and the traditions
preserved by the
descendants
of the disciples of the last Nazars.Instead of that most of them accept as
their authorities
and
infallible guides Fabre d Olivet -who was a man of immense erudition and of
speculative mind but
neither
a Kabalist nor an Occultist either Western or Eastern -and the Mason Ragon the
greatest of the
Widow
s sons, who was even less of an Orientalist than d Olivet for Sanskrit
learning was almost
unknown
in the days of both these eminent scholars.
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SECTION XXI
Hebrew Allegories
(Page 186)How can any Kabalist acquainted with the foregoing deduce
his conclusions with regard to
the
true Esoteric beliefs of the primitive Jews,from only that which he now finds
in the Jewish scrolls?
How
can any scholar -even though one of the keys to the universal language be now
positively
discovered
the true key to the numerical reading of a pure geometrical system -give out
anything as his
final conclusion?Modern
Kabalistic speculation is on a par now with modern speculative Masonry; for
as
the latter tries vainly to link itself with the ancient -or rather the archaic
-Masonry;of the Temples,
failing
to make the link because all its claims have been shown to be inaccurate from
an archaeological
standpoint
so fares it also with Kabalistic speculation.As no mystery of Nature worth
running after can
be
revealed to humanity by settling whether Hiram Abif was a living Sidonian
Builder or a solar myth so
no
fresh information will be added to Occult Lore by the details of the exoteric
privileges conferred on the
Collegia
Fabrorum by Numa Pompilius.Rather must the symbols used in it be studies in the
Aryan light
since
all the Symbolism of the ancient Initiations came to the West with the light of
the Eastern Sun.
Nevertheless,we
find the most learned Masons and Symboligists declaring that all these weird
symbols
and
glyphs,that run back to a common origin of immense antiquity were nothing more
than a display of
cunning
natural phallicism or emblems of primitive typology.How much nearer the truth
is the author of
The So rce of Measures,who
declares that the elements of human and numerical construction in the
Bible do not shut out
the spiritual elements in it albeit so few now understand them.The words we
quote
are
as suggestive as they are true:
How
desperately blinding becomes a superstitious use through ignorance of such
emblems
when
they are made to possess the power of bloodshed and torture through orders of
propaganda
of any species of religious cultus.
The Hebrew Bible does not Exist
(Page 187)When one thinks of the horrors of a Moloch,or Baal,or
Dagon worship;of the
correlated
blood deluges under the Cross baptized in gore by Constantine at the initiative
of
he
secular Church;...when one thinks of all this and then that the cause of all
has been
simply
ignorance of the real radical reading of the Moloch and Baal and Dagon,and
the
Cross and the Tphillin,all
running back to a common origin and after all being nothing more
than
a display of pure and natural mathematics,...one is apt to feel like cursing
ignorance
and
to lose confidence in what are called int itions of religion;one is apt
to wish for a return of
the
day when all the world was of one lip and of one knowledge ....But
while these elements
[of the construction
of the pyramid ] are rational and scientific,....let no man consider
that
with
this discovery comes a cutting off of the spirit ality [ Aye:but
that spirit ality can never be
discovered
far less proved unless we turn to the Aryan 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 .] of the Bible
intention
or
of man s relation to this spiritual foundation.Does one wish to build a
house?No house was
ever
actually built with tangible material ntil first the architect ral design of
b ilding had been
accomplished no matter
whether the structure was palace or hovel.So with these elements
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and
numbers.They are not of man nor are they of his invention.They have been
revealed to
him
to the extent of his ability to realize a system which is the creative
system of the eternal
God....But
spirit ally,to man the value of this matter is that he can actually in
contemplation
bridge
over all material construction of the cosmos,and pass into the very tho ght and
mind of
God
to the extent of recognizing this system of design for cosmic creation
-yea even before
the
words went forth:Let there be. [ Op.cit.,pp.317-319 ]
But
true as above words may be when coming from one who has rediscovered more
completely than
anyone
else has done during the past centuries,one of the keys to the universal
Mystery Language it is
impossible
for an Eastern Occultist to agree with the conclusion of the able author of The
So rce of
Measures .He has set
out to find the truth and yet he still believes that:
The
best and most authentic vehicle of communication from [the creative ]God
to man ...is to
be
found in the Hebrew Bible.
To
this we must and shall demur giving our reasons for it in a few words.The
Hebrew Bible exists no
more
as has been shown in the foregoing pages,and the garbled accounts the falsified
and pale copies
we
have of the real Mosaic Bible of the Initiates,warrant the making of no
such sweeping assertion and
claim.All
that the scholar can fairly claim is that the Jewish Bible,as now extant
-in its latest and final
interpretation
and according to the newly-discovered key -may give (Page 188)a partial presentment of
the
truths it contained before it was mangled.But how can he tell what the Pentate
ch contained before it
has
been recomposed by Esdras;then corrupted still more by the ambitious Rabbis in
later times,and
otherwise
remodelled and interfered with?Leaving aside the opinion of the declared
enemies of the
Jewish
Scripture one may quote simply what their most devoted followers say.
Two
of these are Horne and Prideaux.The avowels of the former will be sufficient to
show how much
now
remains of the original Mosaic books,unless indeed we accept his sublimely
blind faith in the
inspiration
and editorship of the Holy Ghost.He writes that when a Hebrew scribe found a
writing of any
author
he was entitled if he thought fit being conscious of the aid of the Holy
Spirit to do exactly as he
pleased
with it -to cut it up or copy it or use as much of it as he deemed right and so
to incorporate it
with
his own manuscript.Dr.Kenealy aptly remarks of Horne that it is almost
impossible to get any
admission
from him.
That
makes against his church so remarkably guarded is he [Horne ] in
his phraseology and
so
wonderfully discreet in the use of words that his language like a diplomatic
letter
perpetually
suggests to the mind ideas other than those which he really means;I defy any
unlearned
person to read his chapter on Hebrew characters and to derive any
knowledge
from
it whatever on the subject on which he professes to treat.[ The Book
of God.pp.388
389
]
And
yet this same Horne writes:
We
are persuaded that the things to which reference is made proceeded from the
original writers or
compilers of the books
[Old Testament ].Sometimes they took other
writings,annals,genealogies,and
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such
like with which they incorporated additional matter,or which they put
together with greater or less
condensation.The
Old Testament authors used the sources they employed (that is,the
writing of other
people)with
freedom and independence.Conscious of the aid of the Divine Spirit they
adapted their own
productions,or
the productions of others,to the wants of the times.But in these respects they
cannot be
said
to have corrupted the text of Scriptures.They made the text.
But
of what did they make it?Why of the writings of other persons,justly observes
Kenealy:
And
this is Horne s notion of what the Old Testament is -a cento from the
writings of unknown persons
collected
and put together by those who he says,were divinely inspired.No infidel that I
know of has
ever
made so damaging a charge as this against the authenticity of the Old
Testament.[ See Horne s
Introd ction (10th
edition),vol.ii.p.33.as quoted by Dr.Kenealy.p.389.]
Some Hebrews Were Initiates-(Page 189)This is quite sufficient we think,to show that no key to
the
universal
language-system can ever open the mysteries of Creation in a work in which
whether through
design
or carelessness,nearly every sentence has been made to apply to the latest
outcome of religious
views
-to Phallicism,and to nothing else.There are a sufficient number of stray bits
in the Elohistic
portions
of the Bible to warrant the inference that the Hebrews who wrote it were
Initiates;hence the
mathematical
coordinations and the perfect harmony between the measures of the Great Pyramid
and
the
numerals of the Biblical glyphs.But surely if one borrowed from the other it
cannot be the architects
of
the Pyramid who borrowed from Solomon s Temple if only because the former
exists to this day as a
stupendous
living monument of Esoteric records,while the famous temple has never existed
outside of
the
far later Hebrew scrolls.[The author says that Parker s q adrat re 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 mon ment it and its ses.and that from it the sacred
cubit-val e 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.] Hence there is
a great distance between the
admission
that some Hebrew Bible must be the best standard as being the highest
representative of the
archaic
Esoteric System.
Nowhere
does the Bible say moreover that the Hebrew is the language of God;of
this boast at any
rate
the authors are not guilty.Perhaps because in the days when the Bible was
last edited the claim
would
have been too preposterous -hence dangerous.The compilers of the Old
Testament,as it exists
in
the Hebrew canon knew well that the language of the Initiates in the days of
Moses was identical with
that
of the Egyptian Hierophants;and that none of the dialects that had sprung from
the old Syriac and
the
pure old Arabic of Yarab -the father and progenitor of the primitive
Arabians,long before the time of
Abraham
in whose days the ancient Arabic had already become vitiated -that none of
those languages
was
the one sacerdotal universal tongue.Nevertheless all of them included a number
of words which
could
be traced to common roots.And to do this is the business of modern Philology
though to this day
with
all the respect due to the labours of the eminent Philologists of Oxford and
Berlin that Science
seems
to be hopelessly floundering in the Cimmerian darkness of mere hypothesis.
(Page 190)Ahrens,when speaking of the letters as arranged in the
Hebrew sacred scrolls,and remaking
that
they were musical notes,had probably never studied Aryan Hindu music.In the
Sanskrit language
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letters
are continually arranged in the sacred Ollas so that they may become musical
notes.For the
whole
Sanskrit alphabet and the Vedas from the first word to the last are
musical notations reduced to
writing;the
two are inseparable.[ See Theosophist .1879.art.Hindu
Music,p.47.] As Homer
distinguished
between the language of Gods and the language of men.[ 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 Tāntrika
works,and are called
Devanāgari
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 monosyllable
form into a perfect
one
as we see in terrestrial linguistic evolution.] so did the Hindus.The
Devanagari the Sanskrit
characters,are
the speech of the Gods,and Sanskrit is the divine language.
It
is argued in defence of the present version of the Mosaic Books that the mode
of language adopted
was
an accommodation to the ignorance of the Jewish people.But the said mode of
language drags
down
the sacred text of Esdras and his colleagues to the level of the most
unspiritual and gross phallic
religions.This
plea confirms the suspicions entertained by some Christian Mystics and many
philosophical
critics,that;
(a)Divine
Power as an Absolute Unity had never anything more to do with the Biblical
Jehovah and the
Lord
God than with any other Sephiroth or number.The Ain-Suph of the Kabalah of
Moses is as
independent
of any relation with the created Gods as is Parabrahman Itself.
(b)The
teachings veiled in the Old Testament under allegorical expressions are
all copied from the
Magical
Texts of Babylonia by Esdras and others,while the earlier Mosaic Text had its
source in Egypt.
A
few instances known to almost all Symbologists of note and especially to the
French Egyptologists
may
help to prove the statement.Furthermore no ancient Hebrew Philosopher Philo no
more than the
Sadducees,claimed
as do now the ignorant Christians,that the events in the Bible should be
taken
literally.Philo
says most explicitly:
The
verbal statements are fabulous [in the Book of Law ]:it is in the
allegory that we shall find
the
truth.
The Seven Creative Gods-(Page 191)Let us give a few instances,beginning with the latest
narrative the
Hebrew
and thus if possible trace the allegories to their origin.
1.Whence
the Creation in six days the seventh day as day of rest the seven Elohim [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
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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
Khnūmū the assistant-architects :the seven Amshaspends of the
Zoroastrians:the Seven
Spirits
subordinate to Ildabaoth of the Nazareans;the seven Prajāpati of the
Hindus,etc.] and the
division
of space into heaven and earth in the first chapter of Genesis ?
The
division of the vault above from the Abyss,or Chaos,below is one of the first
acts of creation or
rather
of evolution in every cosmogony.Hermes in Pymander speaks of a heaven
seen in seven circles
with
seven Gods in them.We examine the Assyrian tiles and find the same on them -the
seven creative
Gods
busy each in his own sphere.The cuneiform legends narrate how Bel prepared the
seven
mansions
of the Gods;how heaven was separated from the earth.In the Brahmanical allegory
everything
is
septenary from the seven zones,or envelopes,of the Mundane Egg down to the
seven continents,
islands,seas,etc.The
six days of the week and the seventh the Sabbath are based primarily on the
seven
creations of the Hindu Brahma the seventh being that of man;and secondarily on
the number of
generation.It
is pre-eminently and most conspicuously phallic.In the Babylonian system the
seventh day
or
period was that in which man and the animals were created.
2.The
Elohim make a woman out of Adam s rib.[Gen.ii.21 22.] This
process is found in the Magical
Texts
translated by G.Smith.
The
seven Spirits bring forth the woman from the loins of the man
explains
Mr.Sayce in his Hibbert Lect res.[ Op.cit.p.395 note.]
(Page 192)The mystery of the woman who was made from the man is
repeated in every national religion
and
in Scriptures far antedating the Jewish.You find it in the Avestan fragments,in
the Egyptian Book of
the Dead and finally
in Brahmā the male separating from himself as a female self Vāch in whom he
creates
Virāj.
3.The
two Adams of the first and second chapters in Genesis originated from
garbled exoteric accounts
coming
from the Chaldaeans and the Egyptian Gnostics,revised later from the Persian
traditions,most of
which
are old Aryan allegories.As Adam Kadmon is the seventh creation [ The
seventh esoterically
exoterically
the sixth.] so the Adam of dust is the eighth;and in the Purānas one
finds an eighth the
Anugraha
creation and the Egyptian Gnostics had it.Irenaeus,complaining of the heretics
says of the
Gnostics:
Sometimes
they will have him [man ] to have been made on the sixth day and
sometimes on
the
eighth.[ Contra Hereses.1.xviii.2.]
The
author of The Hebrew and Other Creations writes:
These
two creations of man on the sixth day and on the eighth were those of the
Adamic,or
fleshly
man and of the spiritual man who were known to Paul and the Gnostics as the
first
and
second Adam the man of earth and the man of Heaven.Irenaeus also says they
insisted
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that
Moses began with the Ogdoad of the Seven Powers and their mother Sophia (the
old
Kefa
of Egypt who is the Living Word at Ombos).Op.cit,by Gerald
Massey.p.19 ]
Sophia
is also Aditi with her seven sons.
One
might go on enumerating and tracing the Jewish revelations ad infinit m to
their original sources,
were
it not that the task is superfluous,since so much is already done in that
direction by others -and
done
thoroughly well as in the case of Gerald Massey who has sifted the subject to
the very bottom.
Hundreds
of volumes,treatises,and pamphlets are being written yearly in defence of the
divine-
inspiration
claim for the Bible ;but symbolical and archaeological research is
coming to the rescue of
truth
and fact -therefore of the Esoteric Doctrine -upsetting every argument based on
faith and breaking
it
as an idol with feet of clay.A curious and learned book,The Approaching End
of the Age,by H.Gratton
Guinness,professes
to solve the mysteries of the Bible chronology and to prove thereby God
s direct
revelation
to man.Among other things its author thinks that:
It
is impossible to deny that a septiform chronology was divinely appointed in
the elaborate
ritual
of Judaism.
Seven Keys to all Allegories-(Page 193)This statement is innocently accepted and firmly believed
in by
thousands
and tens of thousands,only because they are ignorant of the Bibles of other
nations.Two
pages
from a small pamphlet a lecture by Mr.Gerald Massey [Op cit.,p.278
]so upset the arguments
and
proofs of the enthusiastic Mr.Grattan Guinness,spread over 760 pages of small
print as to prevent
them
from ever raising their heads any more.Mr.Massey treats of the Fall and says:
Here
as before the genesis does not begin at the beginning.There was an earlier Fall
than
that
of the Primal Pair.In this the number of those who failed and fell was seven.We
meet
with
those seven in Egypt -eight with the mother -where they are called the
Children of
Inertness,who
were cast out from Am-Smen the Paradise of the Eight;also in a Babylonian
legend
of Creation as the Seven Brethren who were Seven Kings,like the Seven Kings in
the
Book of Revelation ;and
the Seven Non-Sentient Powers who became the Seven Rebel
Angels
that made war in heaven.The Seven Kronidae described as the Seven Watchers,who
in
the beginning were formed in the interior of heaven.The heaven like a vault
they extended
or
hollowed out;that which was not visible they raised and that which had no exit
they
opened;their
work of creation being exactly identical with that of the Elohim in the Book
of
Genesis.These are the
Seven elemental Powers of space who were continued as Seven
Timekeepers.It
is said of them:In watching was their office but among the stars of heaven
their
watch they kept not and their failure was the Fall.In the Book of Enoch the
same Seven
Watchers
in heaven are stars which transgressed the commandment of God before their time
arrived
for they came not in their proper season therefore was he offended with them
and
bound
them until the period of the consummation of their crimes,at the end of the secret
or
great
year of the World i.e.,the Period of Precession when there was to be
restoration and
rebeginning.The
Seven deposed constellations are seen by Enoch looking like seven great
blazing
mountains overthrown -the seven mountains in Revelation,on which the
Scarlet Lady
sits.[
The Hebrew and other Creations;with a reply to Prof.A.H.Sayce,p.19.]
There
are seven keys to this,as to every other allegory whether in the Bible or
in pagan religions.While
Mr.Massey
has hit upon the key in the mysteries of cosmogony John Bentley in his Hind
Astronomy
claims
that the Fall of the Angels,or War in Heaven as given by the Hindus,is
but a figure of the
calculations
of time-periods,and goes on to show that among the Western nations the same war
with
Page
158.
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like
results took the form of the war of the Titans.
In
short he makes it astronomical.So does the author of The So rce of
Measures:
(Page 194)The celestial sphere with the earth was divided into twelve
compartments
[astronomically ] and
these compartments were esteemed as sexed the lords or h
sbands
being
respectively the planets presiding over them.This being the settled scheme want
of
proper
correction would bring it to pass,after a time that error and confusion would
ensue by
the
compartments coming under the lordship of the wrong planets.Instead of lawful
wedlock,
there
would be illegal intercourse as between the planets sons of Elohim. and
these
compartments,daughters
of H-Adam or the earth-man:and in fact the fourth verse of sixth
Genesis will bear this
interpretation for the usual one viz.,In the same days,or
periods,there
were
untimely births in the earth;and also behind that when the sons of Elohim came
to the
daughters
of H-Adam,they begat to them the offspring of harlotry etc.astronomically
indicating
this confusion.[ Op.cit.,p.243 .]
Do
any of these learned explanations explain anything except a possible ingenious
allegory and a
personification
of the celestial bodies,by the ancient Mythologists and Priests?Carried to
their last word
they
would undeniably explain much and would thus furnish one of the right seven
keys fitting a great
many
of the Biblical puzzles yet opening none naturally and entirely instead of
being scientific and
cunning
master-keys.But they prove one thing -that neither the septiform chronology nor
the septiform
theogony
and evolution of all things is of divine origin in the Bible .For let us
see the sources at which the
Bible sipped its
divine inspiration with regard to the sacred number seven.Says Mr.Massey in the
same
lecture:
The
Book of Genesis tells us nothing about the nature of these Elohim
erroneously rendered
God
who are creators of the Hebrew beginning and who are themselves preextant and
seated
when the theatre opens and the curtain ascends.It says that in the beginning
the
Elohim
created the heaven and the earth.In thousands of books the Elohim have been
discussed
but ...with no conclusive result ...The Elohim are Seven in number whether as
nature-powers,gods
of constellations,or planetary gods,...as the Pitris and Patriarchs,
Manus
and Fathers of earlier times.The Gnostics,however and the Jewish Kabalah preserve
an
account of the Elohim of Genesis by which we are able to identify them
with other forms of
the
seven primordial powers ...Their names are Ildabaoth Jehovah (or Jao),Sabaoth
Adonai
Eloeus,Orfus,and astanphaeus.Ildabaoth signifies the Lord God of the
fathers,that
is
the fathers who preceded the Father;and thus the seven are identical with the
seven Pitris
or
Fathers of India (Irenaeus,B.L.xxx.5).Moreover the Hebrew Elohim were preextant
by
name
and nature as Phoenician divinities or powers.Sanchoniathon mentions them by
name
and
describes them as Auxiliaris of Kronos or Time.In this phase then the Elohim
are
timekeepers
in heaven!In the Phoenician mythology the Elohim are the Seven sons of Sydik
[Melchizedek ] identical
with the Seven Kabiri who in Egypt are the Seven sons of Ptah and
the
Seven Spirits of Ra in The Book of the Dead;...in America with the seven
Hohgates,...
in
Assyria with the seven Lumazi ...
Gerald Massey on the Seven Creators-(Page 195)They are always seven in number ...who Kab -that
is,turn
round together whence the Kab-iri. ...They are also the Ili or Gods,in
Assyrian who were
Page
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seven
in number!...They were first born of the Mother in Space [ When they are
the Anupādakas
(Parentless)of
the Secret Doctrine.See Stanzas,i.9 Vol.i.56.] and then the Seven
Companions passed
into
the sphere of time as auxiliaries of Kronus,or Sons of the Male Parent.As
Damascius says in his
Primitive Principles,the
Magi consider that space and time were the source of all;and from being powers
of
the air the gods were promoted to become timekeepers for men.Seven
constellations were assigned
to
them ....As the seven turned round in the ark of the sphere they were
designated the Seven Sailors
Companions,Rishis,or
Elohim.The first Seven Stars are not planetary.They are the leading stars of
seven
constellations which turned round with the Great Bear in describing the circle
of the year.[These
originated
with the Aryans,who placed therein their bright-crested
(Chitra-Shikhandan)Seven Rishis.
But
all this is far more Occult than appears on the surface.] These the
Assyrians called the seven
Lumazi
or leaders of the flocks of stars,designated sheep.On the Hebrew line of
descent or
development
these Elohim are identified for us by the Kabalists and Gnostics,who retained
the hidden
wisdom
or gnosis,the clue of which is absolutely essential to any proper understanding
of mythology or
theology....There
were two constellations with seven stars each.We call them the Two
Bears.But the
seven
stars of the Lesser Bear were once considered to be the seven heads of the
Polar Dragon which
we
meet with -as the beast with seven heads -in the Akkadian Hymns and in Revelation.The
mythical
dragon
originated in the crocodile which is the dragon of Egypt....Now in one
particular cult the Sut-
Typhonian
the first god was Sevekh [the sevenfold ] who wears the crocodile
s head as well as the
Serpent
and who is the Dragon or whose constellation was the Dragon....In Egypt the
Great Bear was
the
constellation of Typhon or Kepha,the old genetrix,called the Mother of
Revolutions;and the Dragon
with
seven heads was assigned to her son Sevekh-Kronus,or Saturn called the Dragon
of Life.That is,
the
typical dragon or serpent with seven heads was female at first and then the
type was continued as
male
in her son Sevekh the Sevenfold Serpent in Ea the Sevenfold ....Iao Chnubis,and
others.We
find
these two in The Book of Revelation.One is the Scarlet Lady the mother
of mystery the great harlot
who
sat on a scarlet-coloured beast with seven heads,which is the Red Dragon of the
Pole.She held in
her
hand the unclean things of her fornication.That means the emblems of the male
and female imaged
by
the Egyptians at the Polar Centre the very uterus of creation as was indicated
by the Thigh
constellation
called the Khepsh of Typhon the old Dragon in the northern birthplace of Time
in heaven.
The
two revolved about the pole of heaven or the Tree as it was called which
was figured at the centre
of
the starry motion.In The Book of Enoch these two constellations are
identified as Leviathan and
Behemoth-Bekhmut
or the Dragon and Hippopotamus=Great Bear and they are the primal pair that
were
first created in the Garden of Eden.So that the Egyptian first (Page 196)mother Kefa [or Kepha ]
whose
name signifies mystery was the original of the Hebrew Chavah our Eve;and
therefore Adam is
one
with Sevekh the sevenfold one the solar dragon in whom the powers of light and
darkness were
combined
and the sevenfold nature was shown in the seven rays worn by the Gnostic
Iao-Chnubis,god
of
the number seven who is Sevekh by name and a form of the first father as head
of the Seven.[
Op.cit.,pp.19-22 ]
All
this gives the key to the astronomical prototype of the allegory in Genesis but
it furnishes no other
key
to the mystery involved in the sevenfold glyph.The able Egyptologist shows also
that Adam himself
according
to Rabbinical and Gnostic tradition was the chief of the Seven who fell from
Heaven and he
connects
these with the Patriarchs,thus agreeing with the Esoteric Teaching.For by
mystic permutation
and
the mystery of primeval rebirths and adjustment the Seven Rishis are in reality
identical with the
seven
Prajāpatis,the fathers and creators of mankind and also with the Kumāras,the
first sons of
Brahmā
who refused to procreate and multiply.This apparent contradiction is explained
by the sevenfold
nature
-make it fourfold on metaphysical principles and it will come to the same thing
-of the celestial
men
the Dhyan Chohans.This nature is made to divide and separate;and while the
higher principles
(Atma-Buddhi)of
the Creators of Men are said to be the Spirits of the seven
constellations,their middle
Page
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and
lower principles are connected with the earth and are shown.
Without
desire or passion inspired with holy wisdom estranged from the Universe and
undesirous
of progeny [Vishn P rana,Wilson s Translation I 101.The period
of these
Kumaras
is Pre-Adamic.i.e.before the separation of the sexes,and before humanity
had
received
the creative or sacred fire of Prometheus.]
remaining
Kaumāric (virgin and undefiled):therefore it is said they refuse to create.For
this they are
cursed
and sentenced to be born and reborn Adams, as the Semites would say.
Meanwhile
let me quote a few lines more from Mr.G.Massey s lecture the fruit of his long
researches in
Egyptology
and other ancient lore as it shows that the septenary division was at one time
a universal
doctrine:
Adam
as the father among the Seven is identical with the Egyptians Atum ...whose
other
name
of Adon is identical with the Hebrew Adonai.In this way the second Creation in Genesis
reflects
and continues the later creation in the mythos which explains it.The Fall of
Adam to
the
lower world led to his being humanised on earth by which process the celestial
was turned
into
the mortal and this,which belongs to the astronomical allegory got literalised
as the Fall
of
Man or descent of the soul into matter and the conversion of the angelic into
an earthly
being
....
The Father and Mother-
(Page 197)It is found in the [Babylonian ] texts,when
Ea the first father is said to grant
forgiveness
to the conspiring gods,for whose redemption did he create mankind.(Sayce;
Hib.Lec.,p.140)...The
Elohim,then are the Egyptian Akkadian Hebrew and Phoenician
form
of the universal Seven Powers who are Seven in Egypt Seven in Akkad Babylon
Persia
India Britain and Seven among the Gnostics and Kabalists.They were the Seven
fathers
who preceded the Father in Heaven because they were earlier than the
individualised
fatherhood
on earth ...
When
the Elohim said:Let us make man in our image after our likeness.there were
seven
of
them who represented the seven elements,powers,or souls that went to the making
of the
human
being who came into existence before the Creator was represented
anthropomorphically
or could have conferred the human likeness on the Adamic man.It was
in
the sevenfold image of the Elohim that was first created with his seven
elements,
principles,or
souls,[The Secret Doctrine says that this was the second creation nor
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.] and
therefore
he
could not have been formed in the image of the one God.The seven Gnostic Elohim
tried
to
make a man in their own image but could not for lack of virile power.[This
is a Western
mangling
of the Indian doctrine of the Kumaras.] Thus their creation in earth and
heaven was
a
failure ...because they themselves were lacking in the soul of the
fatherhood!When the
Gnostic
Ildabaoth [He was regarded by several Gnostic sects as one with
Jehovah.See Isis
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Unveiled vol
ii.p.184.] chief of the Seven cried: I am the father and God his mother
Sophia
[Achamoth ] replied:Do
not tell lies,Ildabaoth for the first man (Anthropos,son of Anthropos [
Or
man son of man.The Church found in this a prophecy and a confession of
Christ the
Son
of Man!] )is above thee.That is,man who had now been created in the
image of the
fatherhood
was superior to the gods who were derived from the Mother-Parent alone![ See
Stanza
ii.Secret Doctrine.ii.16.] For as it had been first on earth so was it
afterwards in
heaven
[the Secret Doctrine reaches the reverse ];and thus the primary
gods were held to be
soulless
like the earliest races of men ....The Gnostics taught that the Spirits of
Wickedness,
the
inferior Seven derived their origin from the great Mother alone who produced
without the
fatherhood!It
was in the image then of the sevenfold Elohim that the seven races were
formed
which we sometimes hear of as the Pre-Adamite races of men because they were
earlier
than the fatherhood which was individualised only in the second Hebrew
Creation.[
See
Stanza ii.5 Secret Doctrine.ii.16 ]
This
shows sufficiently how the echo of the Secret Doctrine -of the Third and Fourth
Races of men
made
complete by the incarnation in humanity of the Manasa Putra Sons of
Intelligence or Wisdom -
reached
every corner of the globe.The Jews,however although they borrowed of the older
nations the
groundwork
on which to build their (Page
198)revelation never had more than three
keys out of the seven
in
their mind while composing their national allegories -the astronomical or
numerical (metrology)and
above
all the purely anthropological or rather physiological key.This resulted in the
most phallic religion
of
all and has now passed part and parcel into Christian theology as is proved by
the lengthy
quotations
made from a lecture of an able Egyptologist who can make naught of it save
astronomical
myths
and phallicism as is implied by his explanations of fatherhood in the
allegories.
Page
162.
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SECTION XXII
The Zohar on Creation and the Elohim
(Page 199)THE opening sentence in Genesis,as every Hebrew
scholar knows,is:
Now
there are two well-known ways of rendering this line as any other Hebrew
writing:one exoteric,as
read
by the orthodox Bible interpreters (Christian),and the other
Kabalistic,the latter moreover being
divided
into the Rabbinical and the purely Kabalistic or Occult method.As in Sanskrit
writing the words
are
not separated in the Hebrew but are made to run together -especially in the old
systems.For
instance
the above divided would read:B rashith bara Elohim eth hashamayim v eth h
areths; and it
can
be made to read thus:B rash ithbara Elohim ethhashamayim v eth arets, thus
changing the
meaning
entirely.The latter means,In the beginning God made the heavens and the
earth whereas the
former
precluding the idea of any beginning would simply read that out of the
ever-existing Essence
[divine
] [or out of the womb -also head -thereof ] the dual [or androgyne ]
Force [Gods ] shaped the
double
heaven; the upper and the lower heaven being generally explained as heaven and
earth.The
latter
word means Esoterically the Vehicle as it gives the idea of an empty globe
within which the
manifestation
of the world takes place.Now according to the rules of Occult symbolical
reading as
established
in the old Sepher Jetzirah (in the Chaldaean Book of N mbers )[
The Sepher Jetzirah now
known
is but a portion of the original one incorporated in the Chaldean Book of N
mbers .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.)] the initial
fourteen letters (or B rasitb
raalaim
)are in themselves quite sufficient to explain the theory of creation
without any further
explanation
(Page 200)or qualification.Every letter of them is a sentence;and
placed side by side with
the
hieroglyphic or pictorial initial version of creation in the Book of
Dzyan the origin of the Phoenician
and
Jewish letters would soon be found out.A whole volume of explanations would
give no more to the
student
of primitive Occult Symbology than this:the head of a bull within a circle a
straight horizontal
line
a circle or sphere then another one with three dots in it a triangle then the
Svastika (or Jaina
cross);after
these come an equilateral triangle within a circle seven small bulls heads
standing in three
rows,one
over the other;a black round dot (an opening),and then seven lines,meaning
Chaos or Water
(feminine).
Anyone
acquainted with the symbolical and numerical value of the Hebrew letters will
see at a glance
that
this glyph and the letters of B rasitb raalaim are identical in
meaning.Beth is abode or region;
Resh
a circle of head; Aleph bull (the symbol of generative or creative
power);[ 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.] Shin a
tooth
(300 exoterically -a trident or three in one in its Occult
meaning);Jodh the perfect unity or one
;[
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
Page
163.
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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.] Tau
the
root
or foundation (the same as the cross with the Egyptians and Aryans):again
Beth Resh and
Aleph.
Then Aleph or seven bulls for the seven Alaim:an ox-goad Lamedh active
procreation;
He
the opening or matrix: Yodh the organ of procreation;and Mem
water or chaos, the
female
Power near the male that precedes it.
The
most satisfactory and scientific exoteric rendering of the opening sentence of Genesis
-on which
was
hung in blind faith the whole Christian religion synthesized by its fundamental
dogmas -is
undeniably
the one given in the Appendix to The So rce of Measures by Mr.Ralston
Skinner.He gives,
and
we must admit in the ablest clearest and most scientific way the numerical
reading of this first
sentence
and chapter in Genesis.
Angels as Builders-(Page 201)By the means
of number 31 or the word El (1 for Aleph and 30 for
Lamedh
),and other numerical Bible symbols,compared with the measures used in
the great pyramid of
Egypt
he shows the perfect identity between its measurements -inches,cubits,and plan
-and the
numerical
values of the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve and the Patriarchs.In short the
author shows
that
the pyramid contains in itself architecturally the whole of Genesis and
discloses the astronomical
and
even the physiological secrets in its symbols and glyphs;yet he will not admit
it would seem the
psycho-cosmical
and spiritual mysteries involved in these.Nor does the author apparently see
that the
root
of all this has to be sought in the archaic legends and the Pantheon of India.[
Is it everything to have
found
out that the celestial circle of 360 degrees 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 problem of the Universe with their seven Rays or Rishis.]
Failing this,
whither
does his great and admirable labour lead him?Not further than to find out that
Adam the earth
and
Moses of Jehovah are the same -or to the a-b-c of comparative Occult
Symbology -and that the
days
in Genesis being circles displayed by the Hebrews as squares, the
result of the sixth-day s
labour
culminates in the fructifying principle.Thus the Bible is made to yield
Phallicism,and that alone.
Nor
-read in this light and as its Hebrew texts are interpreted by Western scholars
-can it ever yield
anything
higher or more sublime than such phallic elements,the root and the corner-stone
of its dead-
letter
meaning.Anthropomorphism and Revelation dig the impassable chasm between the
material world
and
the ultimate spiritual truths.That creation is not thus described in the
Esoteric Doctrine is easily
shown.The
Roman Catholics give a reading far more approaching the true Esoteric meaning
than that of
the
Protestant.For several of their saints and doctors admit that the formation of
heaven and earth of the
celestial
bodies,etc.belongs to the work of the Seven Angels of the Presence. St.Denys
calls the
Builders
the coöperators of God and St.Augustine goes even farther and credits the
Angels with the
possession
of the divine thought the prototype as he says,of everything created.[ Genesis
begins with
the
third stage of creation skipping the preliminary two.] And
finally St.Thomas Aquinas has a long
(Page 202)dissertation upon this topic,calling God the primary and
the Angels the secondary cause of all
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visible
effects.In this,with some dogmatic differences of form the Angelic Doctor
approaches very
nearly
the Gnostic ideas.Basilides speaks of the lowest order of Angels as the
Builders of our material
world
and Saturnilus held as did the Sabaeans,that the Seven Angels who preside over
the planets are
the
real creators of the world;the Kabalist-monk,Trithemius,in his De Secundis
Deis,taught the same.
The
eternal Kosmos the Macrocosm is divided in the Secret Doctrine,like
man the Microcosm into
three
Principles and four Vehicles,[ 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 (Sthula-Sharira
Linga-Sharira Kāma-
rūpa
and Buddhi the vehicle of Atma 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 Kāma-rūpa;(3)that of
Jiva or Prana (life)is
the
Linga-Sharira (the double of man:the Linga-Sharira 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.] which in
their
collectivity are the seven Principles.In the Chaldaean of Jewish Kabalah,the
Kosmos is divided into
seven
worlds:the Original the Intelligible the Celestial the Elementary the Lesser
(Astral),the Infernal
(Kāma-loka
or Hades),and the Temporal (of man).In the Chaldaean system it is in the
Intelligible World
the
second that appear the Seven Angels of the Presence or the Sephiroth (the
three higher ones
being
in fact one and also the sum total of all).They are also the Builders of the
Eastern Doctrine:and
it
is only in the third the celestial world that the seven planets and our solar
system are built by the
seven
Planetary Angels,the planets becoming their visible bodies.Hence -as correctly
stated -if the
universe
as a whole is formed out of the Eternal One Substance or Essence it is
not that everlasting
Essence
the Absolute Deity that builds it into shape;this is done by the first Rays the
Angels or Dhyān
Chohans,that
emanate from the One Element which becoming periodically Light and
Darkness,remains
eternally
in its Root-Principle the one unknown yet existing Reality.
A
learned Western Kabalist.Mr.S.L.MacGregor Mathers,whose reasoning and
conclusions will be the
more
above suspicion since he is untrained in Eastern Philosophy and unacquainted
with its Secret
Teachings,writes
on the first verse of Genesis in an unpublished essay:
Berashith Bara Elohim
-in the beginning the Elohim created! Who are these Elohim of
Genesis ?
Who are the Elohim?
(Page 203)Va-Vivra Elohim Ath Ha-Adam Be-Tzalmo,Be-Tzelem Elohim Bara
Otho.Zakhar
Vingebah Bara Otham -And
the Elohim created the Adam in Their own Image in the Image
of
the Elohim created They them Male and Female created They them! Who are they
the
Elohim?The
ordinary English translation of the Bible renders the word Elohim by
God: it
translates
a pl ral noun by a sing lar one.The only excuse brought forward
for this is the
somewhat
lame one that the word is certainly plural but is not to be used in a plural
sense:
that
it is a plural denoting excellence.But this is only an assumption whose
value may be
justly
gauged by Genesis i.26 translated in the orthodox Biblical version
thus:And God
[Elohim
] said Let us make man in our own image after our likeness.Here is a
distinct
admission
of the fact that Elohim is not a plural of excellence but a plural
noun denoting
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more
than one being.[ 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 St.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.11.)(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!]
What
then is the proper translation of Elohim and to whom is it referable?Elohim
is not
only
a plural but a feminine pl ral!And yet the translators of the Bible have
rendered it by a
masculine sing lar!Elohim
is the plural of the feminine noun El-h for the final letter -h marks
the
gender.It however instead of forming the plural in -oth takes the usual
termination of the
masculine
plural which is -im.
Although
in the great majority of cases the nouns of both genders take the terminations
appropriated
to them respectively there are yet many masculines which form the plural in
-oth
as
well as feminine which form it in -im while some nouns of each gender take
alternately
both.It
must be observed however that the termination of the plural does not affect its
gender
which remains the same as in the singular ...
To
find the real meaning of the symbolism involved in this word Elohim we must go
to that key
of
Jewish Esoteric Doctrine the little-known and less-understood Kabalah.There
we shall find
that
this word represents two united masculine and feminine Potencies,co-equal and
co-
eternal
conjoined in everlasting union for the maintenance of the Universe -the great
Father
and
Mother of Nature into whom the Eternal One conforms himself before the Universe
can
subsist.For
the teaching of the Kabalah is that before the Deity conformed himself
thus -i.e.
as
(Page 204)male and female -the Worlds of the Universe could not
subsist;or in the words of
Genesis that the
earth was formless and void. Thus,then is the conformation of the Elohim
the
end of the Formless and the Void and the Darkness,for only after conformation
can the
R ach Elohim -the
Spirit of the Elohim -vibrate upon the countenance of the Waters.But
this
is a very small part of the information which the Initiate can derive from the Kabalah
concerning
this word Elohim.
Attention
must here be called to the confusion -if not worse -which reigns in the Western
interpretations
of
the Kabalah.The eternal One is said to conform himself into
two:the Great Father and Mother of
Nature.To
begin with it is a horribly anthropomorphic conception to apply terms implying
sexual
distinction
to the earliest and first differentiations of the One.And it is even more
erroneous to identify
these
first differentiations -the Purusha and Prakriti of Indian Philosophy -with the
Elohim the creative
powers
here spoken of;and to ascribe to these (to our intellects)unimaginable
abstractions,the
formation
and construction of this visible world full of pain sin and sorrow.In truth the
creation by the
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Elohim
spoken of here is but a much later creation and the Elohim far from being
supreme or even
exalted
powers in Nature are only lower Angels.This was the teaching of the
Gnostics,the most
philosophical
of all the early Christian Churches.They taught that the imperfections of the
world were
due
to the imperfection of its Architects or Builders -the imperfect and therefore
inferior Angels.The
Hebrew
Elohim correspond to the Prajāpati of the Hindus,and it is shown elsewhere from
the Esoteric
interpretation
of the Purānas that the Prajāpati were the fashioners of man s material and
astral form
only :that they could
not give him intelligence or reason and therefore in symbolical language they
failed
to
create man.But not to repeat what the reader can find elsewhere in this work
his attention needs
only
to be called to the fact that creation in this passage is not the Primary
Creation and that the
Elohim
are not God nor even the higher Planetary Spirits,but the Architects
of this visible physical
planet
and of man s material body or encasement.
A
fundamental doctrine of the Kabalah is that the gradual development of
the Deity from
negative
to positive Existence is symbolized by the gradual development of the Ten
Numbers
of
the denary scale of numeration from the Zero through the Unity into the
plurality.This is
the
doctrine of the Sephiroth or Emanations.
For
the inward and concealed Negative Form concentrates a centre which is the
primal Unity.
But
the Unity is one and indivisible:it can neither be increased by multiplication
nor decreased
by
division for 1x1=1 and no more;and 1 divided by1 =1 and no less.And it is this
changelessness
of the Unity or Monad which makes it a fitting type of the One and
Changeless
Deity.It answers thus to the Christian idea of God the Father for as the Unity
is
the
parent of the other numbers,so is the Deity the Father of All.
Monad Duad and Triad-(Page 205)The
philosophical Eastern mind would never fall into the error which
the
connotation of these words implies.With them the One and Changeless
-Parabrahman -the
Absolute
All and One cannot be conceived as standing in any relation to things
finite and conditioned
and
hence they would never use such terms as these which in their very essence
imply such a relation.
Do
they then absolutely sever man from God?On the contrary.They feel a closer
union than the
Western
mind has done in calling God the Father of All for they know that in his
immortal essence man
is himself the
Changeless,Secondless One.
But
we have just said that the Unity is one and changeless by either multiplication
or division;
how
then is two the Duad formed?By reflection.For unlike Zero the Unity is partly
definable
-that
is,in its positive aspect;and the definition creates an Eikon or Eidolon of
itself which
together
with itself forms a Duad;and thus the number two is to a certain extent
analogous to
the
Christian idea of the Son as the Second Person.And as the Monad vibrates,and
recoils
into
the Darkness of the Primary Thought so is the Duad left as its vice-gerent and
representative
and thus co-equal and co-eternal with the Duad in the bosom of the Unity yet
as
it were proceeding therefrom in the numerical conception of its sequence.
This
explanation would seem to imply that Mr.Mathers is aware that this creation
is not the truly divine
or
primary one since the Monad -the first manifestation on o r plane of
objectivity -recoils into the
Darkness
of the Primal Thought i.e.,into the subjectivity of the first divine
Creation.
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And
this,again also partly answers to the Christian idea of the Holy Ghost and of
the whole
three
forming a Trinity in unity.This also explains the fact in geometry of the three
right lines
being
the smallest number which will make a plane rectilineal figure while two can
never
enclose
a space being powerless and without effect till completed by the number Three.
These
three first numbers of the decimal scale the Qabalists call by the names of
Kether the
Crown
Chokmah Wisdom and Binah Understanding;and they furthermore associate with
them
these divine names:with the Unity Eheich I exist; with the Duad Yah;and with
the
Triad
Elohim;they especially also call the Duad Abba -the Father and the Triad Aima
-the
Mother
whose eternal conjunction is symbolized in the word Elohim.
But
what especially strikes the student of the Kabalah is the malicious
persistency (Page 206)
with
which the translators of the Bible have jealously crowded out of sight
and suppressed
every
reference to the feminine form of the Deity.They have as we have just seen
translated
the
feminine plural Elohim by the masculine singular God. But they have done
more than
this:they
have carefully hidden the fact that the word Ruach -the Spirit -is feminine
and
that
consequently the Holy Ghost of the New Testament is a feminine
Potency.How many
Christians
are cognizant of the fact that in the account of the Incarnation in L ke (i.35)two
divine
Potencies are mentioned?
The
Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the Power of the Highest shall overshadow
thee.
The
Holy Ghost (the feminine Potency)descends,and the Power of the Highest (the
masculine
Potency)is united therewith.Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born
of
thee
shall be called the Son of God -of the Elohim namely seeing that these two
Potencies
descend.
In
the Sepher Yetzirah,or Book of Formation,we read:
One
is She the Ruach Elohim Chum -(Spirit of the Living Elohim)....Voice Spirit and
Word;and
this is She the Spirit of the Holy One. Here again we see the intimate
connection
which
exists between the Holy Spirit and the Elohim.Furthermore farther on in this
same
Book of Formation -which
is be it remembered one of the oldest of the Kabalistical Books,
and
whose authorship is ascribed to Abraham the Patriarch -we shall find the idea
of a
Feminine
Trinity in the first place from whom a masculine Trinity proceeds;or as it is
said in
the
text:Three Mothers whence proceed three Fathers.And yet this double Triad
forms,as it
were
but one complete Trinity.Again it is worthy of note that the Second and Third
Sephiroth
(Wisdom
and Understanding)are both distinguished by feminine names,Chokmah and Binah
notwithstanding
that to the former more particularly the masculine idea and to the latter the
feminine
are attributed under the titles of Abba and Aima (or Father and Mother).This
Aima
(the
Great Mother)is magnificently symbolized in the twelfth chapter of the Apocalypse
which
is
undoubtedly one of the most Kabalistical books in the Bible .In fact
without the Kabalistical
keys
its meaning is utterly unintelligible.
Now
in the Hebrew as in the Greek,alphabet there are no distinct numeral
characters,and
consequently
each letter has a certain numerical value attached to it.From this circumstance
results
the important fact that every Hebrew word constitutes a number and every number
a
word.This
is referred to in the Revelations (xiii.18)in mentioning the number of
the beast !In
the
Kabalah words of equal numerical values are supposed to have a certain
explanatory
connection
with each other.This forms the science of Gematria which is the first division
of
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the
Literal Kabalah.Furthermore each letter of the Hebrew alphabet had for
the Initiates of the
Kabalah a certain
hieroglyphical value and meaning which rightly applied gave to each word
the
value of a mystical sentence;and this again was variable according to the
relative
positions
of the letters with regard to each other.From these various Kabalistical points
of view
let
us now examine this word Elohim.
First
then we can divide the word into the two words,which signify The Feminine
Divinity of
the
Waters; compare with the Greek Aphrodite sprung from the foam of the sea.
The Creative Gods
(Page 207)Again it is divisive into the Mighty One Star of the Sea
or the Mighty One
breathing
forth the Spirit upon the Waters.Also by combination of the letters we get
the Silent
Power
of Iah.And again My God the Former of the Universe for Mah is a
secret
Kabalistical
name applied to the idea of Formation.Also we obtain Who is my God.
Furthermore
the Mother in Iah.
The
total number is 1+30+5+10+40=86 Violent heat or the Power of Fire. If we
add
together
the three middle letters we obtain 45 and the first the last letter yield 41
making thus
the
Mother of Formation. Lastly we shall find the two divine names El and Yah
together
with
the letter m which signifies Water for Mem the name of this letter
means water.
If
we divide it into its component letters and take them as hieroglyphical signs
we shall have:
Will
perfected through Sacrifice progressing through successive Transformation by
Inspiration.
The
last few paragraphs of the above in which the word Elohim is Kabalistically
analysed show
conclusively
enough that the Elohim are not one nor two nor even a trinity but a Host -the
army of the
creative
powers.
The
Christian Church in making of Jehovah -one of these very Elohim -the one
Supreme God has
introduced
hopeless confusion into the celestial hierarchy in spite of the volumes written
by Thomas
Aquinas
and his school on the subject.The only explanation to be found in all their
treatises on the
nature
and essence of the numberless classes of celestial beings mentioned in the Bible
-Archangels,
Thrones,Seraphim
Cherubim Messengers,etc.-is that The angelic host is God s militia. They are
Gods
the creat res,while he is God the Creator but of their true
functions -of their actual place in the
economy
of Nature -not one word is said.They are
More
brilliant than the flames,more rapid than the wind and they live in love and
harmony
mutually
enlightening each other feeding on bread and a mystic beverage -the communion
wine
and water?-surrounding as with a river of fire the throne of the Lamb
and veiling their
faces
with their wings.This throne of love and glory they leave only to carry to the
stars,the
earth
the kingdoms and all the sons of God their brothers and pupils,in short to all
creatures
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like themselves the
divine influence....As to their number it is that of the great army of
Heaven
(Sabaoth),more numerous than the stars ....Theology shows us these rational
luminaries,each
constituting a species,and containing in their natures such or another
position
of Nature covering immense space though of a determined area;residing -
incorporeal
though they are -within circumscribed limits;....more rapid than light or
thunderbolt
disposing of all the elements of Nature providing at will inexplicable mirages
[illusions?]
objective and subjective (Page
208)in turn speaking to men a language at
one time
articulate
at another purely spiritual.[ De Mirville ii.295 .]
We
learn farther on in the same work that it is these Angels and their hosts who
are referred to in the
sentence
of verse I chapter ii.of Genesis :Igitur perfecti sunt coeli et terra et
omnis ornatus eorum:and
that
the Vulgate has peremptorily substituted for the Hebrew word tsaba (host
that of ornament;
Munck
shows the mistake of substitution and the derivation of the compound title
Tsabaoth-Elohim
from
tsaba.Moreover Cornelius a Lapide the master of all Biblical commentators,
says de Mirville
shows
us that such was the real meaning.Those Angels are stars.
All
this,however teaches us very little as to the true functions of this celestial
army and nothing at all as
to
its place in evolution and its relation to the earth we live on.For an answer
to the question.Who are
the
true Creators? we must go to the Esoteric Doctrine since there only can the
key be found which will
render
intelligible the Theogonies of the various world-religions.
There
we find that the real creator of the Kosmos,as of all visible Nature -if not of
all the invisible hosts
of
Spirits not yet drawn into the Cycle of Necessity or evolution -is the Lord
-the Gods, or the
Working
Host the Army collectively taken the One in many.
The
One is infinite and unconditioned.It cannot create for It can have to relation
to the finite and
conditioned.If
everything we see from the glorious suns and planets down to the blades of
grass and the
specks
of dust had been created by the Absolute Perfection and were the direct work of
even the First
Energy
that proceeded from It [ To the Occultists and Chela 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 coeval
with the subject
postulated
or in other words,Energies.
It
is these Auxiliaries, the Auphanim the half human Prajāpatis,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.] then every such thing would have been perfect eternal and
unconditioned
like its author.
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God the Host-(Page 209)The millions upon
millions of imperfect works found in Nature testify loudly that
they
are the products of finite conditioned beings -though the latter were and are
Dhyān Chohans,
Archangels,or
whatever else they may be named.In short these imperfect works are the
unfinished
production
of evolution under the guidance of the imperfect Gods.The Zohar gives us
this assurance as
well
as the Secret Doctrine.It speaks of the auxiliaries of the Ancient of
Days,the Sacred Aged and
calls
them Auphanim or the living Wheels of the celestial orbs,who participate in the
work of the creation
of
the Universe.
Thus
it is not the Principle One and Unconditioned nor even Its reflection that
creates,but only the
Seven
Gods who fashion the Universe out of the eternal Matter vivified into
objective life by the
reflection
into it of the One Reality.
The
Creator is they -God the Host -called in the Secret Doctrine the Dhyan Chohans;with
the Hindus
the
Prajāpatis;with the Western Kabalists the Sephiroth;and with the Buddhist the
Devas -impersonal
because
blind forces.They are the Amshaspends with the Zoroastrians,and while with the
Christian
Mystic
the Creator is the Gods of the God with the dogmatic Churchman he is the
God of the Gods,
the
Lord of lords,etc.
Jehovah
is only the God who is greater than all Gods in the eyes of Israel.
I
know that the lord [of Israel ] is great and that our Lord is above all gods.[
Psalms cxxxv.5.]
And
again:
For
all the gods of the nations are idols,but the Lord made the heavens.[Psalms
xcvi.5.]
The
Egyptian Neteroo translated by Champollion the other Gods, are the
Elohim of the Biblical writers,
behind
which stands concealed the One God considered in the diversity of his powers.[
Rather as
Ormazd
or Ahura-Mazda Vit-nam-Ahmi and all the unmanifested Logoi.Jehovah is the
manifested Virāj
corresponding
to Binah the third Sephira in the Kabalah,a female Power which would
find its prototype
rather
in the Prajāpati than in Brahma the Creator .] This One is not
Parabrahman but the Unmanifested
Logos,the
Demiurgos,the real Creator or Fashioner that follows him standing for the
Demiurgi
collectively
taken.Further on the great Egyptologist adds:
We
see Egypt concealing and hiding so to say the God of Gods behind the agents
she
surrounds
him with ;she gives the precedence to her great gods before the one (Page 210)and
sole
Deity so that the attributes of that God become their property.Those great Gods
proclaim
themselves
uncreate ....Neith is that which is as Jehovah;[Neith is Aditi
evidently .]
Thoth
is self-created [ The Self-created Logos,Narāyana Purushottama and
others.] without
having
been begotten etc.Judaism annihilating these potencies before the grandeur of
its
God
they cease to be simply Powers,like Philo s Archangels,like the Sephiroth of
the
Kabalah like the
Ogdoades of the Gnostics -they merge together and become transformed
into
God himself.[ Mčre d'Apis.pp.32-35.Quoted by De Mirville.]
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Jehovah
is thus,as the Kabalah teaches,at best but the Heavenly Man Adam
Kadmon used by the
self-created
Spirit the Logos,as a chariot a vehicle in His descent towards manifestation in
the
phenomenal
world.
Such
are the teachings of the Archaic Wisdom nor can they be repudiated even by the
orthodox
Christian
if he be sincere and open-minded in the study of his own Scripture.For if he
reads St.Paul s
Epistles carefully he
will find that the Secret Doctrine and the Kabalah are fully admitted by
the Apostle
of
the Gentiles. The Gnosis which he appears to condemn is no less for him than
for Plato the supreme
knowledge
of the truth and of the One Being; [ See Rep blic .I.vi.] for
what St.Paul condemns is not
the
true but only the false Gnosis and its abuses:otherwise how could he use the
language of a
Platonist
p r sang ?The Ideas,types (Archai),of the Greek Philosopher;the
Intelligences of Pythagoras;
the
Aeons or Emanations of the Pantheist;the Logos or Word Chief of these
intelligences;the Sophia or
Wisdom;the
Demiurgos,the Builder of the world under the direction of the Father the
Unmanifested
Logos,from
which He emanates;Ain-Suph the Unknown of the Infinite;the angelic Periods;the Seven
Spirits
who are the representatives of the Seven of all the older cosmogonies
-are all to be found in his
writings,recognized
by the Church as canonical and divinely inspired.Therein too may be recognized
the
Depths of Ahriman Rector of this our World the God of this World; the Pleroma
of the Intelligences;
the
Archontes of the air;the Principalities,the Kabalistic Metatron;and they can
easily be identified again
in
the Roman Catholic writers when read in the original Greek and Latin
texts,English translations giving
but
a very poor idea of the real contents of these.
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SECTION XXIII
What the Occultists and Kabalists Have to
Say
(Page 211)THE Zohar an unfathomable store of hidden wisdom and
mystery is very often appealed to by
Roman
Catholic writers.A very learned Rabbi now the Chevalier Drach having been
converted to
Roman
Catholicism and being a great Hebraist thought fit to step into the shoes of
Picus de Mirando
and
John Reuchlin and to assure his new co-religionists that the Zohar contained
in it pretty nearly all
the
dogmas of Catholicism.It is not our province to show here how far he has
succeeded or failed;only
to
bring one instance of his explanations and preface it with the following.
The
Zohar is already shown is not a genuine production of the Hebrew mind.It
is the repository and
compendium
of the oldest doctrine of the East transmitted orally at first and then written
down in
independent
treatises during the Captivity at Babylon and finally brought together by Rabbi
Simeon Ben
Iochai
toward the beginning of the Christian era.As Mosaic cosmogony was born under a
new form in
Mesopotamian
countries,so the Zohar was a vehicle in which were focussed rays from
the light of
Universal
Wisdom.Whatever likenesses are found between it and the Christian teachings,the
compilers
of
the Zohar never had Christ in their minds.Were it otherwise there would
not be one single Jew of the
Mosaic
law left in the world by this time.Again if one is to accept literally what the
Zohar says,then any
religion
under the sun may find corroboration in its symbols and allegorical sayings;and
this,simply
because
this work is the echo of the primitive truths,and every creed is founded on
some of these;the
Zohar being but a veil
of the Secret Doctrine.This is so evident that we have only to point to the
said ex-
Rabbi
the Chevalier Drach to prove the fact.
(Page 212)In Part III fol.87 (col.346 th )the Zohar treats of
the Spirit guiding the Sun its Rector
explaining
that it is not the Sun itself that is meant thereby but the Spirit on or nder
the Sun.Drach is
anxious
to show that it was Christ who was meant by that Sun or the Solar Spirit
therein.In his
comment
upon that passage which refers to the Solar Spirit as that stone which the
builders rejected
he
asserts most positively that this
Sun-stone
(pierre soleil )is identical with Christ who was that stone
and
that therefore
The
sun is undeniably (sans contredit )the second hypostasis of the Deity [Harmonie
entre
l Eglise et la Synagog e.t.11.p.427 by the Chevalier Drach.See de Mirville.]or
Christ.
If
this be true then the Vaidic or pre-Vaidic Aryans Chaldaeans and Egyptians,like
all Occultists past
present
and future Jews included have been Christians from all eternity.If this be not
so then modern
Church
Christianity is Paganism pure and simple exoterically and transcendental and
practical Magic or
Occultism
Esoterically.
For
this stone has a manifold significance a dual existence with gradations,a
regular progression and
retrogression.It
is a mystery indeed.
Page
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The
Occultists are quite ready to agree with St.Chrystostom that the infidels -the profane
rather -
Being
blinded by sun-light thus lose sight of the true Sun in the contemplation of
the false
one.
But
if that Saint and along with him now the Hebraist Drach chose to see in the Zohar
and the Kabalistic
Sun
the second hypostasis, this is no reason why all others should be
blinded by them.The mystery of
the
Sun is the grandest perhaps,of all the innumerable mysteries of Occultism.A
Gordian knot truly but
one
that cannot be severed with the double-edged sword of scholastic casuistry.It
is a true deo dign s
vindice nod s and can
be untied only by the Gods .The meaning of this is plain and every
Kabalist will
understand
it.
Contra solem ne loq aris was not said by Pythagoras with regard to the visible Sun.It was the
Sun of
Initiation
that was meant in its triple form -two of which are the Day-Sun and the
Night-Sun.
If
behind the physical luminary there were no mystery that people sensed
instinctively why should every
nation
from the primitive peoples down to the Parsis of today have turned towards the
Sun during
prayers?
The Mystery of the Sun-(Page 213)The Solar Trinity is not Mazdean but is universal and is as
old as
man
.All the temples in Antiquity were invariably made to face the Sun their
portals to open to the East.
See
the old temples of Memphis and Baalbec,the Pyramids of the Old and of the New
(?)Worlds,the
Round
Towers of Ireland and the Serapeum of Egypt.The Initiates alone could give a
philosophical
explanation
of this,and a reason for it -its mysticism notwithstanding -were only the world
ready to
receive
it which alas!it is not.The last of the Solar Priests in Europe was the
Imperial Initiate Julian
now
called the Apostate.[ 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 pertain 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
Page
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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 Himalyan ashrams,but this is not so.] He tried to benefit
the world by revealing at least a
portion
of the great mystery of the ōńåšėįóļņ and -he died.There are three in
one he said of the Sun -
the
central Sun [ A proof that Julian was acquainted with the heliocentric
system.] being a precaution of
Nature:the
first is the universal cause of all Sovereign Good and perfection;the Second
Power is
paramount
Intelligence having dominion over all reasonable beings,ķļåńļéņ;the third is
the visible Sun.
The
pure energy of solar intelligence proceeds from the luminous seat occupied by
our Sun in the centre
of
heaven that pure energy being the Logos of our system;the Mysterious Word
Spirit produces all
through
the Sun and never operates through any other medium says Hermes
Trismegistus.For it is in
the
Sun more than in any other heavenly body that the [unknown ] Power placed the (Page 214)seat of its
habitation.Only
neither Hermes Trismegistus nor Julian an initiated Occultist nor any other
meant by
this
Unknown Cause Jehovah or Jupiter.They referred to the cause that produced all
the manifested
great
Gods or Demiurgi (the Hebrew God included)of our system.Nor was our visible material
Sun
meant
for the latter was only the manifested symbol.Philolaus the Pythagorean explains
and completes
Trismegistus
by saying:
The
Sun is a mirror of fire the splendour of whose flames by their reflection in
that mirror [the
Sun
] is poured upon us,and that splendour we call image.
It
is evident that Philolaus referred to the central spiritual Sun whose beams and
effulgence are only
mirrored
by our central Star the Sun.This is as clear to the Occultists as it was to the
Pythagoreans.As
for
the profane of pagan antiquity it was of course the physical Sun that was the
highest God for them
as
it seems -if Chevalier Drach s view be accepted -to have now virtually become
for the modern
Roman
Catholics.If words mean anything the statements made by the Chevalier Drach
that this sun is,
undeniably
the second hypostasis of the Deity imply what we say;as this Sun refers to
the Kabalistic
Sun
and hypostasis means substance or subsistence of the Godhead or Trinity
-distinctly personal.As
the
author being an ex-Rabbi thoroughly versed in Hebrew and in the mysteries of
the Zohar ought to
know
the value of words;and as,moreover in writing this,he was bent upon reconciling
the seeming
contradictions,
as he puts it between Judaism and Christianity -the fact becomes quite evident.
But
all this pertains to questions and problems which will be solved naturally and
in the course of the
development
of the doctrine.The Roman Catholic Church stands accused not of worshipping
under
other
names the Divine Beings worshipped by all nations in Antiquity but of declaring
idolatrous,not only
the
Pagans ancient and modern but every Christian nation that has freed itself from
the Roman yoke.
The
accusation brought against herself by more than one man of Science of
worshipping the stars like
true
Sabaeans of old stands to this day uncontradicted yet no star-worshipper has
ever addressed his
adoration
to the material stars and planets,as will be shown before the last page of this
work is written;
none
the less it is true that those Philosophers alone who studied Astrology and
Magic knew that the last
word
of those sciences was to be sought in and expected from the Occult forces
emanating from those
constellations.
Page
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SECTION XXIV
Modern Kabalists in Science and Occult
Astronomy
(Page 215)THERE is a physical an astral and a super-astral Universe
in the three chief divisions of the
Kabalah ;as there are
terrestrial super-terrestrial and spiritual Beings.The Seven Planetary Spirits
may
be ridiculed by Scientists to their hearts content yet the need of
intelligent ruling and guiding Forces
in
so much felt to this day that scientific men and specialists,who will not hear
of Occultism or of ancient
systems,find
themselves obliged to generate in their inner consciousness some kind of
semi-mystical
system.Metcalf
s sun-force theory and that of Zaliwsky a learned Pole which made
Electricity the
Universal
Force and placed its storehouse in the Sun [ La Gravitation par l
Electricité,p.7.quoted by De
Mirville
iv.156 ] were revivals of the Kabalistic teachings.Zaliwsky tried to
prove that Electricity
producing
the most powerful attractive calorific,and luminous effects, was present in
the physical
constitution
of the Sun and explained its peculiarities.This is very near the Occult
teaching.It is only by
admitting
the gaseous nature of the Sun-reflector and the powerful Magnetism and
Electricity of the solar
attraction
and repulsion that one can explain (a)the evident absence of any waste of power
and
luminosity
in the Sun -inexplicable by the ordinary laws of combustion;and (b)the
behaviour of the
planets
so often contradicting every accepted rule of weight and gravity.And Zaliwsky
makes this solar
electricity
differ from anything known on earth.
Father
Secchi may be suspected of having sought to introduce
Forces of q ite a new order and quite foreign to gravitation which he had discovered in
Space.[
De Mirville.iv.157.](Page 216)
in
order to reconcile Astronomy with theological Astronomy.But Nagy a member of
the Hungarian
Academy
of Sciences,was no clerical and yet he develops a theory on the necessity of
intelligent
Forces
whose complacency would lent itself to all the whims of the comets. He
suspects that:
Notwithstanding
all the actual researches on the rapidity of light -that dazzling prod ct of
an nknown
force ....which we see
too frequently to understand that light is motionless in reality.
[
C.E.Love the well-known railway builder and engineer in France tired of blind
forces,made all the
(then)imponderable
agents -now called forces -subordinates of Electricity and declares the
latter to
be
an
Intelligence -albeit molecular in nature and material.[ Essai sur
l'Identité des Agents
Prod cte rs d Son,de la L miere,etc.p.15 ibid .]
In
the author s opinion these Forces are atomistic agents,endowed with
intelligence spontaneous will
and
motion [Ibid.,p.218 .] and he thus,like the
Kabalists,makes the cousal Forces substantial while the
Forces
that act on this plane are only the effects of the former as with him matter is
eternal and the
Gods
also;[ Summarised from Ibid.,p.213.De Mirville iv.158 .] so
is the Soul likewise though it has
inherent
in itself a still higher Soul [Spirit ] preėxistent endowed with memory and
superior to Electric
Page
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Force;the
latter is subservient to the higher Souls,those superior Souls forcing it to
act according to the
eternal
laws.The concept is rather hazy but is evidently on the Occult lines.Moreover
the system
proposed
is entirely pantheistic,and is worked out in a purely scientific
volume.Monotheists and Roman
Catholics
fall foul of it of course;but one who believes in the Planetary Spirits and who
endows Nature
with
living Intelligences,must always expect this.
In
this connection however it is curious that after the moderns have so laughed at
the ignorance of the
ancients
Who
knowing only of seven planets [yet having an ogdoad which did not include
the earth!]
invented
therefore seven Spirits to fit in with the number
Babinet
should have vindicated the superstition unconsciously to himself.In the Rev
e des De x
Mondes this eminent
French Astronomer writes:
The Place of Neptune -
(Page 217)The ogdoad of the Ancients included the earth [which is an
error ] i.e.,eight or seven
according
to whether or not the earth was comprised in the number.[ May.1855.Ibid.,p.139
.]
De
Mirville assures his readers that:
M.Babinet
was telling me but a few days ago that we had in reality only eight big
planets,
including
the earth and so many small ones between Mars and Jupiter ....Herschell
offering
to
call all those beyond the seven primary planets asteroids![ La Terre
et notre Systieme
solaire.De Mirville
iv.139.]
There
is a problem to be solved in this connection.How do Astronomers know that Neptune
is a planet
or
even that it is a body belonging to our system?Being found on the very confines
of our Planetary
World
so called the latter was arbitrarily expanded to receive it;but what really
mathematical and
infallible
proof have Astronomers that it is (a)a planet and (b)one of o r planets?None
at all!It is as
such
an immeasurable distance from us,
the
apparent diameter of the sun being to Neptune but one-fortieth of the sun s
apparent
diameter
to us,
and
it is so dim and hazy when seen through the best telescope that it looks like
an astronomical
romance
to call it one of our planets.Neptune s heat and light are reduced to 1/900th
part of the heat and
light
received by the earth.His motion and that of his satellites have always looked
suspicious.They do
not
agree -in appearance at least -with those of the other planets.His system is
retrograde etc.But
even
the latter abnormal fact resulted only in the creation of new hypotheses by our
Astronomers,who
forthwith
suggested a probable overturn of Neptune his collision with another body
etc.Was Adams and
Leverrier
s discovery so welcomed because Neptune was as necessary as was Ether to throw
a new
glory
upon astronomical prevision upon the certitude of modern scientific data and
principally upon the
Page
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power
of mathematical analysis?It would so appear.A new planet that widens our
planetary domain by
more
than four hundred million leagues is worthy of annexation.Yet as in the case of
terrestrial
annexation
scientific authority may be proved right only because it has might.
Neptune s motion
happens
to be dimly perceived:Eureka!it is a planet!A mere motion however proves very
little.It is now
an
ascertained fact in Astronomy that there are no absolutely fixed stars in
Nature [ 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).] even though
such stars should (Page
218)
continue
to exist in astronomical parlance while they have passed from the scientific
imagination.
Occultism
however has a strange theory of its own with regard to Neptune.
Occultism
says that if several hypotheses resting on mere assumption -which have been
accepted only
because
they have been taught by eminent men of learning -are taken away from the
Science of Modern
Astronomy
to which they serve as props,then even the presumably universal law of
gravitation will be
found
to be contrary to the most ordinary truths of mechanics.And really one can
hardly blame Christians
-foremost
of all the Roman Catholics -however scientific some of these may themselves be
for refusing
to
quarrel with their Church for the sake of scientific beliefs.Nor can we even
blame them for accepting in
the
secresy of their hearts -as some of them do -the theological Virtues and
Archons of Darkness,
instead
of all the blind forces offered them by Science.
Never
can there be intervention of any sort in the marshalling and the regular
precession of
the
celestial bodies!The law of gravitation is the law of laws;who ever witnessed a
stone
rising
in the air against gravitation?The permanence of the universal law is shown in
the
behaviour
of the sidereal worlds and globes eternally faithful to their primitive
orbits;never
wandering
beyond their respective paths.Nor is there any intervention needed as it could
only
be
disastrous.Whether the first sidereal incipient rotation took place owing to an
intercosmic
chance
or to the spontaneous development of latent primordial forces;or again whether
that
impulse
was given once for all by God or Gods -it does not make the slightest
difference.At
this
stage of cosmic evolution no intervention superior or inferior is
admissible.Were any to
take
place the universal clock-work would stop and Kosmos would fall into pieces.
Such
are stray sentences,pearls of wisdom,fallen from time to time from scientific
lips,and now chosen
at
random to illustrate a query.We lift our diminished heads and look
heavenward.Such seems to be the
fact:worlds,suns,and
stars,the shining myriads of the heavenly hosts,remind the Poet of an infinite
shoreless
ocean whereon move swiftly numberless squadrons of ships,millions upon millions
of
cruisers,large
and small crossing each other whirling and gyrating in every direction;and
Science
teaches
us,that though they be without rudder or compass or any beacon to guide them
they are
nevertheless
secure from collision -almost secure at any rate save in chance accidents -as
the whole
celestial
machine is built upon and guided by an immutable albeit blind law and by
constant and
accelerating
force or forces.
Page
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Self-Generation Ex-Niholo?-(Page 219)Built upon by whom?By self-evolution is the answer.
Moreover
as dynamics teach that
A
body in motion tends to continue in the same state of relative rest or motion
unless acted
upon
by some external force
this
force has to be regarded as self-generated -even if not eternal since this
would amount to the
recognition
of perpetual motion -and so well self-calculated and self-adjusted as to last
from the
beginning
to the end of Kosmos.But self-generation has still to generate from
something generation
ex-nihilo being as
contrary to reason as it is to Science.Thus we are placed once more between the
horns
of a dilemma:are we to believe in perpetual motion or in self-generation ex-nihilo
?And if in neither
who
or what is that something which first produced that force or those forces?
There
are such things in mechanics as superior levers,which give the impulse and act
upon secondary
or
inferior levers.The former however need an impulse and occasional renovation
otherwise they would
themselves
very soon stop and fall back into their original status.What is the external
force which puts
and
retains them in motion?Another dilemma!
As
to the law of cosmical non-intervention,it could be justified only in
one case namely if the celestial
mechanism
were perfect;but it is not.The so-called unalterable motions of celestial
bodies alter and
change
incessantly;they are very often disturbed and the wheels of even the sidereal
locomotive itself
occasionally
jump off their invisible rails,as may be easily proved.Otherwise why should
Laplace speak
of
the probable occurrence at some future time of an out-and-out reform in the
arrangements of the
planets;[
Exposition d vrai System d Monde .p.282.] or Lagrange
maintain the gradual narrowing of
the
orbits;or our modern Astronomers,again declare that the fuel in the sun is
slowly disappearing?If
the
laws and forces which govern the behaviour of the celestial bodies are
immutable such modifications
and
wearing-out of substance or fuel of force and fluids,would be impossible;yet
they are not denied.
Therefore
(Page 220)one has to suppose that such modifications will have to
rely upon the laws of forces,
which
will have to self-regenerate themselves once more on such occasions,thus
producing an astral
antinomy
and a kind of physical palinomy since as Laplace says,one would then see fluids
disobeying
themselves
and reacting in a way contrary to all their attributes and properties.
Newton
felt very uncomfortable about the moon.Her behaviour in progressively narrowing
the
circumference
of her orbit around the earth made him nervous,lest it should end one day in our
satellite
falling
upon the earth.The world he confessed needed repairing and that very often.[
See the passage
quoted
by Herschel in Nat ral Philosophy,p.165.De Mirville.iv.165 .] In
this he was corroborated by
Herschel.[
l,oc.cit .] He speaks of real and quite considerable
deviations,besides those which are only
apparent
but gets some consolation from his conviction that somebody or something will
probably see to
things.
We
may be answered that the personal beliefs of some pious Astronomers,however
great they may be
as
scientific characters,are no proofs of the actual existence and presence in
space of intelligent
supramundane
Beings,of either Gods or Angels.It is the behaviour of the stars and planets
themselves
that
has to be analysed and inferences must be drawn therefrom.Renan asserts that
nothing that we
know
of the sidereal bodies warrants the idea of the presence of any Intelligence
whether internal or
Page
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external
to them.
Let
us see says Reynaud if this is a fact or only one more empty scientific
assumption.
The
orbits traversed by the planets are far from being immutable.They are on the
contrary
subject
to perpetual mutation in position as in form.Elongations,contractions,and
orbital
widenings,oscillations
from right to left slackening and quickening of speed ....And all this
on
a plane which seems to vacillate.[ Terre et Ciel.p.28.Ibid .]
As
is very pertinently observed by des Mousseux:
Here
is a path having little of the mathematical and mechanical precision claimed
for it;for we
know
of no clock which having gone slow for several minutes should catch up the
right time of
itself and witho t
the t rn of a key.
So
much for blind law and force.As for the physical impossibility -a miracle
indeed in the sight of
Science
-of a stone raised in the air against the law of gravitation this is what
Babinet -the deadliest
enemy
and opponent of the phenomena of levitation -(cited by Arago)says:
Are There Angels in Stars?-
(Page 221)Everyone knows the theory of bolides [meteors ] and
aerolithes ....In Connecticut
an
immense aerolith was seen [a mass of eighteen hundred feet in diameter ]
bombarding a
whole
American zone and returning to the spot [in mid-air ] from which it had
started.[ Oe vres
d'Arago.vol.i.219:quoted
by De Mirville iii.462.]
Thus
we find in both of the cases above cited -that of self-correcting planets and
meteors of gigantic size
flying
back into the air -a blind force regulating and resisting the natural
tendencies of blind matter
and
even occasionally repairing its mistakes and correcting its failures.This is
far more miraculous and
even
extravagant one would say than any Angel-guided Element.
Bold
is he who laughs at the idea of Von Haller who declares that:
The
stars are perhaps an abode of glorious Spirits;as here Vice reigns,there is
Virtue master.
[Die Sterne sind
vielleicht ein Sitz Verklarter Geister;
Wie hier das Laster herrscht,ist dort die T gend Meister.]
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SECTION XXV
Eastern and Western Occultism
(Page 222)IN The Theosophist for March 1886 [ Op.cit.,p.411
] in an answer to the Solar Sphinx, a
member
of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society wrote as follows:
We
hold and believe that the revival of Occult Knowledge now in progress will some
day demonstrate
that
the Western system represents ranges of perceptions which the Eastern -at least
as expounded in
the
pages of The Theosophist has yet to attain .[ 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 fullness,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.]
The
writer is not the only person labouring under this erroneous impression.Greater
Kabalists than he
had
said the same in the United States.This only proves that the knowledge
possessed by Western
Occultists
of the true Philosophy and the ranges of perceptions and thought of the
Eastern doctrines,is
very
superficial.This assertion will be easily demonstrated by giving a few
instances,instituting
comparisons
between the two interpretations of one and the same doctrine---the Hermetic
Universal
Doctrine.It
is the more needed since were we to neglect bringing forward such
comparisons,our work
would
be left incomplete.
Primordial Matter-(Page 223)We may take
the late Éliphas Lévi rightly referred to by another Western
Mystic
Mr.Kenneth Mackenzie as one of the greatest representatives of modern Occult
Philosophy [
See
The Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia,art.Sepher Jetzirah.] as
presumably the best and most learned
expounder
of the Chaldaean Kabalah,and compare his teaching with that of Eastern
Occultists.In his
unpublished
manuscripts and letters,lent to us by a Theosophist who was for fifteen years
his pupil we
had
hoped to find that which he was unwilling to publish.What we do find however
disappoints us
greatly.We
will take these teachings,then as containing the essence of Western or
Kabalistic Occultism
analyzing
and comparing them with the Eastern interpretation as we go on.
Éliphas
Lévi teaches correctly though in language rather too rhapsodically rhetorical
to be sufficiently
clear
to the beginner that
Eternal
life is Motion equilibrated by the alternate manifestations of force.
But
why does he not add that this perpetual motion is independent of the manifested
Forces at work?He
says:
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Chaos
is the Tohu-vah-bohu of perpetual motion and the sum total of primordial
matter;
and
he fails to add that Matter is primordial only at the beginning of every new
reconstruction of the
Universe:matter
in abscondito,as it is called by the Alchemists,is eternal
indestructible without
beginning
or end.It is regarded by Eastern Occultists as the eternal Root of all the
Mūlaprakriti of the
Vedāntin
and the Svabhāvat of the Buddhist;the Divine Essence in short or Substance;the
radiations
from
This are periodically aggregated into graduated forms,from pure Spirit to gross
Matter;the Root or
Space
is in its abstract presence the Deity Itself the Ineffable and Unknown One
Cause.
Ain-Suph
with him also is the Boundless,the infinite and One Unity secondless and
causeless as
Parabrahman.Ain-Suph
is the indivisible point and therefore as being everywhere and nowhere is
the
absolute
All.It is also Darkness because it is absolute Light and the Root of the
seven fundamental
Cosmic
Principles.Yet Éliphas Lévi by simply stating that Darkness was upon the face
of the Earth
fails
to show (a)that Darkness in this sense is Deity Itself and he is (Page 224)therefore withholding the
only
philosophical solution of this problem for the human mind;and (b)he allows the
unwary student to
believe
that by Earth our own little globe an atom in the Universe is meant.In
short this teaching
does
not embrace the Occult Cosmogony but deals simply with Occult Geology and the
formation of our
cosmic
speck.This is further shown by his making a resume of the Sephirothal
Tree in this wise:
God
is harmony the astronomy of Powers and Unity outside of the World.
This
seems to suggest (a)that he teaches the existence of an extra-cosmic God thus
limiting and
conditioning
both the Kosmos and the divine Infinity and Omnipresence which cannot be
extraneous to or
outside
of one single atom;and (b)that by skipping the whole of the pre-cosmic period
the manifested
Kosmos
here being meant the very root of Occult teaching he explains only the
Kabalistic meaning of
the
dead-letter of the Bible and Genesis leaving its spirit and
essence untouched.Surely the ranges of
perception
of the Western mind will not be greatly enlarged by such a limited teaching.
Having
said a few words on Tohu-vah-bohu the meaning of which Wordsworth rendered
graphically as
higgledy-piggledy
and having explained that this term denoted Cosmos,he teaches that:
Above
the dark abyss [ Chaos ]were the Waters ....the earth [la
terre!] was Tohu-vah-bohu
i.e.,in confusion and
darkness covered the face of the Deep and vehement Breath moved on
the
Waters when the Spirit exclaimed [?] Let there be light and
there was light.Thus the
earth
[our globe of course ] was in a state of cataclysm;thick vapours
veiled the immensity of
the
sky the earth was covered with waters and a violent wind was agitating this
dark ocean
when
at a given moment the equilibrium revealed itself and light reappeared;the
letters that
compose
the Hebrew word Bereshith (the first word of Genesis )are Beth the
binary the
verb
manifested by the act a feminine letter;then Resch the Verbum and Life
number 20
the
disc multiplied by 2;and Aleph the spiritual principle the Unit a masculine
letter.
Place
these letters in a triangle and you have the absolute Unity that without being
included
into
numbers creates the number the first manifestation which is 2 and these two
united by
harmony
resulting from the analogy of contraries [opposites ] make I
only.This is why God is
called
Elohim (plural).
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All
this is very ingenious,but is very puzzling besides being incorrect.For owing
to the first sentence
Above
the dark abyss were the Waters,the French Kabalist leads the student away from
the right track.
This
an Eastern Chela will see at a glance and even one of the profane may see
it.For if the Tohu-vah-
bohu
is under and the Waters are above then these two are quite distinct from
each other and this is
not
the case.
The Great Deep -(Page 225)This statement is a
very important one inasmuch as it entirely changes the
spirit
and nature of Cosmogony and brings it down to a level with exoteric Genesis gerhaps
it was so
stated
with an eye to this result.The Tohu-vah-bohu is the Great Deep and is
identical with the Waters
of
Chaos, or the primordial Darkness.By stating the fact otherwise it makes both
the Great Deep and
the
Waters which cannot be separated except in the phenomenal world ---limited
as to space and
conditioned
as to their nature.Thus Éliphas in his desire to conceal the last word of
Esoteric Philosophy
fails
whether intentionally or otherwise does not matter to point out the
fundamental principle of the
one
true Occult Philosophy namely the unity and absolute homogeneity of the One
Eternal Divine
Element
and he makes of the Deity a male God.Then he says:
Above
the Waters was the powerful Breath of the Elohim [the creative Dhyan
Chohans ].
Above
the Breath appeared the Light and above the Light the Word ...that created it.
Now
the fact is quite the reverse of this:it is the Primeval Light that creates the
Word or Logos,Who in
His
turn creates physical light.To prove and illustrate what he says he gives the
following figure:
Now
any Eastern Occultist upon seeing this would not hesitate to pronounce it a
left hand magic figure.
It
is entirely reversed and it represents the third stage of religious thought
that
current
in Dvapara Yuga when the one principle is already separated into male
and
female and humanity is approaching the fall into materiality (Page 226)
which
brings the Kali Yuga.A student of Eastern Occultism would draw it thus:
For
the Secret Doctrine teaches us that the reconstruction of the Universe
takes
place in this wise:At
the
periods of new
generation
perpetual
Motion
becomes Breath;
from
the Breath comes
forth
primordial Light
through
whose radiance
manifest
the Eternal
Thought
concealed in
darkness,and
this
becomes
the Word
(Mantra).[
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 Brāhmanas.In
Esoteric
phraseology Mantra is the Word made flesh or rendered objective through divine
magic.] It is
That (the Mantra or
Word)from which all This (the Universe)sprang into being.
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Further
on Éliphas Lévi says:
This
[ the concealed Deity ]radiated a ray into the Eternal Essence [
Waters of Space ] and
fructifying
thereby the primordial germ the Essence expanded.[The secret meaning of the
word
Brahmā is expansion increase or growth.]giving birth to the
Heavenly Man from
whose
mind were born all forms.
The
Kabalah states very nearly the same.To learn what it really teaches one
has to reverse the order in
which
Éliphas Lévi gives it replacing the word above by that of "in"as
there cannot surely be any
"above"or
"under"in the Absolute.This is what he says:
Above
the waters the powerful breath of the Elohim;above the Breath the Light;above
Light
the
Word or the Speech that created it.We see here the spheres of evolution:the
soul [?]
driven
from the dark centre (Darkness)toward the luminous circumference.At the bottom
of
the
lowest circle is the Tohu-vah-bohu or the chaos which precedes all
manifestation [
Naissances g eneration
];then the region of Water;then Breath;then Light;and lastly the
Word.
The Chaos of Genesis -(Page 227)The
construction of the above sentences shows that the learned
Abbé
had a decided tendency to anthropomorphize creation even though the latter has
to be shaped out
of
preėxisting material as the Zohar shows plainly enough.
This
is how the great Western Kabalist gets out of the difficulty:he keeps silent
on the first stage of
evolution
and imagines a second Chaos.Thus he says:
The
Tohu-vah-bohu is the Latin Limbus,or twilight of the morning and evening of
life [ 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 (Limb s patrum and
Limb s infant m ),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
B ddhism is
called
the Kāma Loka between Devachan and Avitchi.] It is in perpetual motion [As
Chaos,
the
eternal Element not as the Kāma Loka surely?] it decomposes continually [A
proof that
by
this word Éliphas Lévi means the lowest region of the terrestrial Akasha.] and
the work of
putrefaction
accelerates,because the world is advancing towards regeneration [Evidently
he
is
concerned only wiht our periodical world or the terrestrial globe.] .The
Tohu-vah-bohu of
the
Hebrews is not exactly the confusion of things called Chaos by the Greeks,and
which is
found
described in the commencement of the Metamorphosis of Ovid;it is something
greater
and
more profound;it is the foundation of religion it is the philosophical
affirmation of the
immateriality
of God.
Rather
an affirmation of the materiality of a personal God.If a man has to seek his
Deity in the Hades of
the
ancients for the Tohu-vah bohu or the Limbus of the Greeks,is the Hall of
Hades then one can
wonder
no longer at the accusations brought forward by the Church against the witches
and sorcerers
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versed
in Western Kabalism that they adored the goat Mendes,or the devil personified
by certain
spooks
and Elementals.But in face of the task Éliphas Lévi had set before himself
that of reconciling
Jewish
Magic with Roman ecclesiasticism he could say nothing else.
Then
he explains the first sentence in Genesis :
Let
us put on one side the vulgar translation of the sacred texts and see what is
hidden in the
first
chapter of Genesis.
He
then gives the Hebrew text quite correctly but transliterates it:
Bereschith
Bara Eloim uth aschamam ouatti aares ouares ayete Tohu-vah-bohu....Ouimas
Eloim
rai avur ouiai aour.
And
he then explains:
The
first word Bereschith signifies genesis,a word equivalent to nature. (Page 228)The
act
of generation or production we maintain;not nature.He then continues:
The
phase then is incorrectly translated in the Bible .It is not in the
beginning for it should
be
at the stage of the generating force .[ In the
reawakening of the Forces would be more
correct.]which
would thus exclude every idea of the ex-nihilo ....as nothing cannot
produce
something.The
word Eloim or Elohim signifies the generating Powers and such is the
Occult
sense of the first verse ....Bereschith (nature or genesis ),Bara
(created )
Eloim
(the forces )Athat-ashamaim (heavens )ouath and oaris (the earth
);that is to
say
The generative potencies created indefinitely (eternally)[ 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 Vedantin: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.] those forces that
are the equilibrated
opposites
that we call heaven and earth meaning the space and the bodies,the volatile and
the
fixed the movement and the weight.
Now
this,if it be correct is too vague to be understood by any one ignorant of the
Kabalistic teaching.
Not
only are his explanations unsatisfactory and misleading in his published works
they are still worse
but
his Hebrew transliteration is entirely wrong;it precludes the student who would
compare it for
himself
with the equivalent symbols and numerals of the words and letters of the Hebrew
alphabet from
finding
anything of that he might have found were the words correctly spelt in the
French transliteration.
Compared
even with exoteric Hindu Cosmogony the philosophy which Éliphas Lévi gives out
as
Kabalistic
is simply mystical Roman Catholicism adapted to the Christian Kabalah.His
Histoire de la
Magie shows it plainly
and reveals also his object which he does not even care to conceal.For while
stating
with his Church that
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The
Christian religion has imposed silence on the lying oracles of the Gentiles and
put an end
to
the prestige of the false gods,[ Histoire de la Magie.Int.p.1.]
he
promises to prove in his work that the real Sanctum Regnum the great Magic Art
is in that Star of
Bethlehem
which led the three Magi to adore the Savior of this World.He says:
We
will prove that the study of the sacred Pentagram had to lead all the Magi to
know the new
name
which should be raised above all names,and before which every being capable of
worship
has to bend his knees.[ Histoire de la Magic.Int.p.2.]
The Bible of Humanity -(Page 229)This shows that Lévi s Kabalah is mystic
Christianity and not
Occultism;for
Occultism is universal and knows no difference between the Saviours (or
great Avatāras)
of
the several old nations.Éliphas Lévi was not an exception in preaching
Christianity under a disguise of
Kabalism.He
was undeniably the greatest representative of modern Occult Philosophy as it
is studied
in
Roman Catholic countries generally where it is fitted to the preconceptions of
Christian students.But
he
never taught the real universal Kabalah and least of all did he teach
Eastern Occultism.Let the
student
compare the Eastern and Western teaching and see whether the philosophy of the Upanishads
has
yet to attain the ranges of perception of this Western system.Everyone has
the right to defend the
system
he prefers,but in doing this,there is no need to throw slurs upon the system of
one s brother.
In
view of the great resemblance between many of the fundamental truths of
Christianity and the
myths
of Brāhmanism there have been serious attempts made lately to prove that the Bhagavad
Gita
and
most of the Brāhamanas and the P rānas are of a far later date
than the Mosaic Books and even
than
the Gospels.But were it possible that an enforced success should be
obtained in this direction such
argument
cannot achieve its object since the Rig Veda remains.Brought down to the
most modern limits
of
the age assigned to it its date cannot be made to overlap that of the Pentate
ch which is admittedly
later.
The
Orientalists know well that they cannot make away with the landmarks,followed
by all subsequent
religions,set
up in that Bible of Humanity called the Rig Veda .It is there that at
the very dawn of
intellectual
humanity were laid the foundation-stones of all the faiths and creeds,of every
fane and
church
built from first to last;and they are still there.Universal myths,
personifications of Powers divine
and
cosmic,primary and secondary and historical personages of all the now-existing
as well as of extinct
religions
are to be found in the seven chief Deities and their 330 000 000 correlations
of the Rig Veda
and
those Seven with the odd millions,are the Rays of the one boundless Unity.
But
to THIS can never be offered profane worship.It can only be the object of the
most abstract
meditation
which Hindus practice in order to obtain absorption in it. At the beginning of
every dawn of
Creation
eternal Light which is darkness assumes the aspect of so-called Chaos
chaos to the
human
intellect;the eternal Root to the superhuman or spiritual sense.
(Page 230)Osiris is a black God. These were the words pronounced at
low breath at Initiation in Egypt
because
Osiris Noumenon is darkness to the mortal.In this Chaos are formed the
Waters, Mother Isis,
Aditi
etc.They are the Waters of Life in which primordial germs are created or
rather reawakened
by
the primordial Light.It is Purushottama or the Divine Spirit which in its
capacity of Nārāyna the
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Mover
on the Waters of Space fructifies and infuses the Breath of life into that germ
which becomes the
Golden
Mundane Egg in which the male Brahmā is created;[ The Vaishnavas,who
regard Vishnu as
the
Supreme God and the fashioner of the Universe claim that Brahmā sprang from the
navel of Vishnu
the
imperishable or rather from the lotus that grew from it.But the word navel
here means the Central
point
the mathematical symbol of infinitude or Parabrahman the One and the
Secondless.] and from
this
the first Prajapāti the Lord of Beings,emerges,and becomes the progenitor of
mankind.And though
it
is not he but the Absolute that is said to contain the Universe in Itself yet
it is the duty of the male
Brahmā
to manifest it in a visible form.Hence he has to be connected with the
procreation of species,
and
assumes,like Jehovah and other male Gods in subsequent anthropomorphism a
phallic symbol.At
best
every such male God the Father of all becomes the Archetypal Man. Between
him and the
Infinite
Deity stretches an abyss.In the theistic religions of personal Gods the latter
are degraded from
abstract
Forces into physical potencies.The Water of Life the Deep of Mother Nature
is viewed in its
terrestrial
aspect in anthropomorphic religions.Behold how holy it has become by
theological magic!It is
held
sacred and is deified now as of old in almost every religion.But if Christians
use it as a means of
spiritual
purification in baptism and prayer;if Hindus pay reverence to their sacred
streams,tanks and
rivers;if
Pārsi Mahommedan and Christian alike believe in its efficacy surely that
element must have
some
great and Occult significance.In Occultism it stands for the Fifth Principle of
Kosmos,in the lower
septenary:for
the whole visible Universe was built by Water say the Kabalists who know the
difference
between
the two waters the Waters of Life and those of Salvation so confused
together in dogmatic
religions.The
King-Preacher says of himself:
I
the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem and I gave my heart to seek and
search out
by
wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven.[ Ecclesiastes.i.12.13.]
Speaking
of the great work and glory of the Elohim [ 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.]
unified
into the Lord God in the English Bible whose garment he tells us,is
light and heaven the
curtain
he refers to the builder
Chaos is Theos or Kosmos -
(Page 231)Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters,[ Psalms.civ.2.3.]
that
is,the divine Host of the Sephiroth who have constructed the Universe out of
the Deep the Waters
of
Chaos.Moses and Thales were right in saying that only earth and water can bring
forth a living Soul
water
being on this plane the principle of all things.Moses was an Initiate Thales a
Philosopher -i.e.,a
Scientist
for the words were synonymous in his day.
The
secret meaning of this is that water and earth stand in the Mosaic Books for
the prima materia and
the
creative (feminine)Principle on our plane.In Egypt Osiris was Fire and Isis was
the Earth or its
synonym
Water;the two opposing elements just because of their opposite properties
being necessary
to
each other for a common object;that of procreation.The earth needs solar heat
and rain to make her
throw
out her germs.But these procreative properties of Fire and Water or Spirit and
Matter are symbols
but
of physical generation.While the Jewish Kabalists symbolized these elements
only in their
application
to manifested things,and reverenced them as the emblems for the production of
terrestrial
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life
the Eastern Philosophy noticed them only as an illusive emanation from their
spiritual prototypes,
and
no unclean or unholy thought marred its Esoteric religious symbology.
Chaos,as
shown elsewhere is Theos,which becomes Kosmos:it is Space the container of
everything
in
the Universe.As Occult Teachings assert it is called by the
Chaldaeans,Egyptians,and every other
nation
Tohu-vah-bohu or Chaos,Confusion because Space is the great storehouse of
Creation whence
proceed
not forms alone but also ideas,which could receive their expression only
through the Logos,the
Word
Verbum or Sound.
The n mbers 1,2,3,4 are the successive emanations from
Mother [Space ] as she forms running
downward her garment,spreading it pon the seven steps of
Creation.[ To avoid misunderstanding of the
word
creation so often used by us,the remarks of the author of Thro gh 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)] The roller ret rns pon itself,as one end joins the other (Page 232)in infinit de,and
the n mbers 4,3,and 2 are displayed,as it is the only side
of the veil that we can perceive,the first
n mber being lost in its inaccessible solit de.
....Father,which is Bo ndless Time,generates Mother,which
is infinite Space,in Eternity;and Mother
generates Father in Manvantaras,which are divisions of d
rations,that Day when that world becomes
one ocean.Then the Mother becomes Nārā [Waters the
Great Deep ] for Nara [ the S preme Spirit ] to
rest or move upon,when,it is said,that 1,2,3,4 descend
and abide in the world of the nseen,while
the 4,3,2,become the limits in the visible world to deal
with the manifestations of Father [Time ].
[ Commentary on Stanza
ix.on Cycles .]
This
relates to the Mahāyugas which in figures become 432 and with the addition of
noughts,4 320.000.
Now
it is surpassingly strange if it be a mere coincidence that the numerical value
of Tohu-vah-bohu or
Chaos
in the Bible which Chaos,of course is the Mother Deep or the
Waters of Space should
yield
the same figures.For this is what is found in a Kabalist manuscript:
It
is said of the Heavens and the Earth in the second verse of Genesis that
they were Chaos
and
Confusion that is,they were Tohu-vah-bohu; and darkness was upon
the face of the
deep.
i.e.,the perfect material out of which construction was to be made lacked
organization.
The order of the digits of these words as they stand i .e.,[ 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.]the
letters
rendered
by their numerical value is 6 526 654 and 2 386.By art speech these are key-
working
numbers loosely shuffled together the germs and keys of construction but to be
recognized
one by one as used and required.They follow symmetrically in the work as
immediately
following the first sentence of grand enunciation:In Rash developed itself
Gods,
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the
heavens and the earth.
Multiply
the numbers of the letters of Tohu-vah-bohu together continuously from right
to left
placing
the consecutive single products as we go and we will have the following series
of
values,viz.,(a)30
60 360 2 160 10 800 43 200 or as by the characterizing digits;3 6 36
216
108 and 432;(b)20 120 720 1 440 7 200 or 2 12 72 144 72 432 the series
closing
in 432 one of the most famous numbers of antiquity and which though obscured
crops
out in the chronology up to the Flood.[ Mr.Ralston Skinner s MSS.]
One Hundred and Eight -(Page 233)This shows that the Hebrew usage of play upon the numbers
must
have
come to the Jews from India.As we have seen the final series yields,besides
many another
combination
the figures 108 and 1008 the number of the names of Vishnu whence the 108
grains of
the
Yogi s rosary and close with 432 the truly famous number in Indian and
Chaldaean antiquity
appearing
in the cycle of 4 320 000 years in the former and in the 432 000 years,the
duration of the
Chaldaean
divine dynasties.
Page
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SECTION XXVI
The Idols and the Teraphim
(Page 234)THE meaning of the fairy-tale told by the Chaldaean
Qū-Tāmy is easily understood.His
mod s operandi with
the idol of the moon was that of all the Semites before Terah Abraham s
father
made
images the Teraphim,called after him or the chosen people of Israel ceased
divining by them.
These
teraphim were just as much idols as in any pagan image or statue.[ That
the teraphim was a
statue
and no small article either is shown in Sam el 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 .] The
injunction Thou
shalt
not bow to a graven image or teraphim must have either come at a later date or
have been
disregarded
since the bowing-down to and the divining by the teraphim seems to have been so
orthodox
and
general that the Lord actually threatens the Israelites,through Hosea to
deprive them of their
teraphim.
For
the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king ...without a
sacrifice and
without
an image.
Matzebah
or statue or pillar is explained in the Bible to mean without an ephod
and without teraphim.
[ Op.cit.,iii..4.]
Father
Kircher supports very strongly the idea that the statue of the Egyptian Serapis
was identical in
every
way with those of the seraphim or teraphim in the temple of Solomon.Says Louis
de Dieu:
They
were perhaps,images of angels,or statues dedicated to the angels,the presence
of
one
of these spirits being thus attracted into a teraphim and answering the
inquirers
[consultants ] ;and
even in this hypothesis the word teraphim would become the equivalent of
seraphim
by changing the t into s in the manner of the Syrians.[Louis de
Dieu Genesis,
XXI.19.See
de Mirville iii.257 .]
Divining By Teraphim -(Page 235)What says
the Sept agint?The teraphim are translated successively
by
åéäłėį forms in someone s likeness;eidolon an astral body;ćėõšōį the
sculptured;źåķļōįöéį
sculptures
in the sense of containing something hidden or receptacles;öēėļõņ.
manifestations;įėēöåéįņ.truths
or realities;ģóńöłģįōį.or öłōéóģļéņ.luminous,shining likenesses.
The
latter expression shows plainly what the teraphim were.The V lgate translates
the term by
annuntientes,the
messengers who announce and it thus becomes certain that the teraphim were
the
oracles.They
were the animated statues,the Gods who revealed themselves to the masses
through the
Initiated
Priests and Adepts in the Egyptian Chaldaean Greek,and other temples.
As
to the way of divining or learning one s fate and of being instructed by the
teraphim [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
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wilderness,is
Shiva the Hindu Saturn.(The Zendic h is s in India;thus,Hapta is
Sapta: Hindu is
Sindhaya.
(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.1.570.]
it is explained quite
plainly
by Maimonides and Seldenus.The former says:
The
worshippers of the teraphim claimed that the light of the principal stars [planets
]
penetrating
into and filling the carved statue through and through the angelic virtue [of
the
regents,or
animating principle in the planets ]conversed with them teaching them
many most
useful
arts and sciences.[ Maimon.More Nevochim,III.xxx .]
In
his turn Seldenus explains the same adding that the teraphim [ Those
dedicated to the sun were
made
in gold and those to the moon in silver.] were built and fashioned in
accordance with the position
of
their respective planets,each of the teraphim being consecrated to a special
star-angel those that
the
Greeks called stoichae as also according to figures located in the sky and
called the tutelary Gods :
Those
who traced out the óōļé÷åéį.were called óōļé÷åéłģįōéźļé.[ or the
diviners by the planets ]
and
the óōļé÷åéį.[ De Diis Syriis,Teraph,11.Syat.p.31.]
Ammianus
Marcellinus states that the ancient divinations were always (Page 236)accomplished with the
help
of the spirits of the elements (spiritus elementorum),or as they were called
in Greek ēķåķģįōį ōłķ
ļōļé÷åéłķ.Now
the latter are not the spirits of the stars (planets),nor are they divine
Beings;they are
simply
the creatures inhabiting their respective elements,called by the Kabalists
elementary spirits,and
by
the Theosophists elementals.[ 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.]
Father
Kircher the Jesuit tells the reader:
Every
god had such instruments of divination to speak through.Each had his
speciality.
Serapis
gave instruction on agriculture;Anubis taught sciences;Horus advised upon
psychic and spiritual
matters;Isis
was consulted on the rising of the Nile and so on.[OEdip s.ii.444
].
This
historical fact furnished by one of the ablest and most erudite among the
Jesuits,is unfortunate for
the
prestige of the Lord God of Israel with regard to his claims to priority and
to his being the one living
God.Jehovah
on the admission of the Old Testament itself conversed with his elect in
no other way
and
this places him on a par with every other Pagan God even of the inferior
classes.In Judges xvii.
we
read of Micah having an ephod and a teraphim fabricated and consecrating them
to Jehovah (see
the
Sept agint and the V lgate );these objects were made by a founder
from the two hundred shekels of
silver
given to him by his mother.True King James Holy Bible explains this little
bit of idolatry by
saying:
In
those days there was no king in Israel but every man did that which was right
in his own
eyes.
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Yet
the act must have been orthodox since Micah after hiring a priest a diviner for
his ephod and
teraphim
declares:Now know I that the Lord will do me good. And if Micah s act who
Had
an house of Gods,and made an ephod and teraphim and consecrated one of his sons
to
their service as also to that of the graven image dedicated unto the Lord
by his mother now
seems
prejudicial it was not so in those days of one religion and one lip.How can the
Latin Church
blame
the act since Kircher one of her best writers,calls the teraphim the holy
instruments of primitive
revelations;
since Genesis shows us Rebecca going to enquire of the Lord [ Op.cit.,xxv.22
et seq.]
and
the Lord answering her (certainly through his teraphim),and delivering to her
several prophecies?
Jehovah and Teraphim -(Page 237)And if this
be not sufficient there is Saul who deplores the silence
of
the ephod [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.] and David who consults the thummim and receives oral advice
from the
Lord
as to the best way of killing his enemies.
The
thumim and urim however the object in our days of so much conjecture and
speculation was not
an
invention of the Jews,nor had it originated with them despite the minute
instruction given about it by
Jehovah
to Moses.For the priest-hierophant of the Egyptian temples wore a breastplate
of precious
stones,in
every way similar to that of the high priest of the Israelites.
The
high-priests of Egypt wore suspended on their necks an image of saphire called Truth
the
manifestation of truth becoming evident in it.
Seldenus
is not the only Christian writer who assimilates the Jewish to the Pagan
teraphim and
expressed
a conviction that the former had borrowed them from the Egyptians.Moreover we
are told by
Döllinger
a preeminently Roman Catholic writer:
The
teraphim were used and remained in many Jewish families to the days of Josiah.
[Paganism and
Judaism,iv.I 97 ] .
As
to the personal opinion of Döllinger a papist and of Seldenus,a Protestant
both of whom trace
Jehovah
in the teraphim of the Jews and evil spirits in those of the Pagans it is
the usual one-sided
judgment
of odi m theologicum and sectarianism.Seldenus is right however in
arguing that in the days
of
old all such modes of communication had been primarily established for purposes
of divine and
angelic
communications only.But
The
holy Spirit [spirits,rather ]spake [not ] to the
children of Israel [alone ] by urim and
thummim,while
the tabernacle remained
as
Dr.A.Cruden would have people believe.Nor had the Jews alone need of a
tabernacle for such a
kind
of theophanic,or divine communication;for no Bath-Kol (or Daughter of the
divine Voice ),called
thummim
could be heard whether by Jew Pagan or Christian were there not a fit
tabernacle for it.The
Page
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tabernacle
was simply the archaic telephone of those days of Magic when Occult powers
were acquired
by
Initiation just as they are now.The nineteenth century (Page 238)has replaced with an electric
telephone
the tabernacle of specified metals,wood and special arrangements and has
natural
mediums
instead of high priests and hierophants.Why should people wonder then that
instead of
reaching
Planetary Spirits and Gods,believers should now communicate with no greater
beings than
elementals
and animated shells -the demons of Porphyry?Who these were he tells us candidly
in his
work
On the Good and Bad Demons :
They
whose ambition is to be taken for Gods,and whose leader demands to be
recognized as
the
Supreme God.
Mmost
decidedly and it is not the Theosophists who will ever deny the fact there
are good as well as
bad
spirits beneficent and malevolent Gods in all ages.The whole trouble was and
still is,to know
which
is which.And this,we maintain the Christian Church knows no more than her
profane flock.If
anything
proves this,it is,most decidedly the numberless theological blunders made in
this direction.It is
idle
to call the Gods of the heathen devils,and then to copy their symbols in such
a servile manner
enforcing
the distinction between the good and the bad with no weightier proof than that
they are
respectively
Christian and Pagan.The planets the elements of the Zodiac have not figured
only at
Heliopolis
as the twelve stones called the mysteries of the elements (elementorum
arcana).On the
authority
of many an orthodox Christian writer they were found also in Solomon s temple
and may be
seen
to this day in several old Italian churches,and even in Notre Dame of Paris.
One
would really say that the warning in Clement s Stromateis has been
given in vain though he is
supposed
to quote words pronounced by St.Peter.He says:
Do
not adore God as the Jews do who think they are the only ones to know Deity and
fail to
perceive
that instead of God they are worshipping angels,the lunar months,and the moon.
[Op cit.,I.vi.5.]
Who
after reading the above can fail to feel surprise that notwithstanding such
understanding of the
Jewish
mistake the Christians are still worshipping the Jewish Jehovah the Spirit who
spoke through his
teraphim!That
this is so and that Jehovah was simply the tutelary genius, or spirit of the
people of
Israel
-only one of the pneuma ton stoicheion (or great spirits of the elements
),not even a high
Planetary
is demonstrated on the authority of St.Paul and of Clemens Alexandrinus,if
the words they
use
have any meaning.
Idol of the Moon -(Page
239 )With the latter the word óōļé÷åéį signifies not only
elements,but also
Generative
cosmological principles,and notably the signs [or constellations ] of
the Zodiac,of
the
months,days the sun and the moon.[Disco rse to the Gentiles,p.I46.]
The
expression is used by Aristotle in the same sense.He says,ōłķ įóōńłķ óōļé÷åéį.[De
Gener.,III.iv .]
while
Diogenes Laertius calls äłäåźį óōļé÷åéį.the twelve signs of the Zodiac.[See
Cosmos by Ménage
I.vi.p
101.] Now having the positive evidence of Ammianus Marcellinus to the
effect that
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Ancient
divination was always accompanied with the help of the spirits of the elements,
or
the same šķåįģįōį ōłķ óōļé÷åéłķ.and seeing in the Bible numerous
passages that (a)the Israelites,
including
Saul and David resorted to the same divination and used the same means;and
(b)that it was
their
Lord namely Jehovah who answered them what else can we believe Jehovah to
be than a
spiritus
elementorum ?
Hence
one sees no great difference between the idol of the moon the Chaldaean
teraphim through
which
spoke Saturn and the idol or urim and thummim the organ of Jehovah.Occult
rites,scientific at
the
beginning and forming the most solemn and sacred of sciences have fallen
through the
degeneration
of mankind into Sorcery now called superstition.As Diogenes explains in his History
:
The
Kaldhi having made long observations on the planets and knowing better than
anyone
else
the meaning of their motions and their influences,predict to people their
futurity.They
regard
their doctrine of the five great orbs which they call interpreters,and
we planets as
the
most important.And though they allege that it is the sun that furnishes
them with most of
the
predictions for great forthcoming events,yet they worship more particularly
Saturn.Such
predictions
made to a number of kings,especially to Alexander Antigonus,Seleucus,Nicanor
etc....have
been so marvellously realised that people were struck with admiration.[Op
Cit.,
I
.ii.]
It
follows from the above that the declaration made by Qū-tāmy the Chaldean Adept to
the effect that all
that
he means to impart in his work to the profane had been told by Saturn to the
moon by the latter to
her
idol and by that idol or teraphim to himself the scribe no more implied
idolatry than did the
practice
of the same method by King (Page 240)David.One fails to perceive in it
therefore either an
apocrypha
or a fairy-tale.The above-named Chaldaean Initiate lived at a period far
anterior to that
ascribed
to Moses in whose day the Sacred Science of the sanctuary was still in a flourishing
condition.
It
began to decline only when such scoffers as Lucian had been admitted and the
pearls of the Occult
Science
had been too often thrown to the hungry dogs of criticism and ignorance.
Page
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SECTION XXVII
Egyptian Magic
(Page 241)FEW of our students of Occultism have had the opportunity
of examining Egyptian papyri
those
living or rather re-arisen witnesses that Magic,good and bad was practised many
thousands of
years
back into the night of time.The use of the papyrus prevailed up to the eighth
century of our era
when
it was given up and its fabrication fell into disuse.The most curious of the
exhumed documents
were
immediately purchased and taken away from the country.Yet there are a number of
beautifully-
preserved
papyri at Bulak,Cairo though the greater number have never been yet properly
read.[ 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
single 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.
80.A
copy of the Harris papyrus translated by Chabas-Papyrus Magiq e -may be
studied at the British
Museum.]
Others
those that have been carried away and may be found in the museums and public
libraries of
Europe
have fared no better.In the days of the Vicomte de Rougé some twenty-five
years ago only a
few
of them were two-thirds deciphered; and among those some most interesting
legends,inserted
parenthetically
and for purposes of explaining royal expenses,are in the Register of the Sacred
Accounts.
This
may be verified in the so-called Harris and Anastasi collections,and in some
papyri recently
exhumed;one
of these gives an account of a whole series of magic feats performed before the
Pharaohs
Ramses
II and III.A curious document the first-mentioned truly.It is a papyrus of the
fifteenth century
B.C.written
during the reign of Ramses V.the last king of the eighteenth dynasty and is the
work of the
scribe
Thoutmes,who notes down some of the events with (Page 242)regard to defaulters occurring on
the
twelfth and thirteenth days of the month of Paophs.The document shows that in
those days of
miracles
in Egypt the taxpayers were not found among the living alone but every mummy
was
included.All
and everything was taxed;and the Khou of the mummy in default was punished by
the
priest-exorciser
who deprived it of the liberty of action.Now what was the Khou?Simply the
astral body
or
the aerial simulacrum of the corpse or the mummy that which in China is called
the Hauen and in
India
the Bhūt.
Upon
reading this papyrus today an Orientalist is pretty sure to fling it aside in
disgust attributing the
whole
affair to the crass superstition of the ancients.Truly phenomenal and
inexplicable must have been
the
dullness and credulity of that otherwise highly philosophical and civilized
nation if it could carry on for
so
many consecutive ages,for thousands of years such a system of mutual
deception!A system
whereby
the people were deceived by the priests,the priests by their
King-Hierophants,and the latter
themselves
were cheated by the ghosts,which were in their turn but the fruits of
hallucination. The
whole
of antiquity from Menes to Cleopatra from Manu to Vikramaditya from Orpheus
down to the last
Roman
augur were hysterical we are told.This must have been so if the whole were not
a system of
fraud.Life
and death were guided by and were under the sway of sacred conjuring. For
there is hardly
a
papyrus,though it be a simple document of purchase and sale a deed belonging to
daily transactions
Page
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of
the most ordinary kind and that has not Magic,white or black,mixed up in it.It
looks as though the
sacred
scribes of the Nile had purposely and in a prophetic spirit of race-hatred
carried out the (to them)
most
unprofitable task of deceiving and puzzling the generations of a future white
race of unbelievers yet
unborn!Anyhow
the papyri are full of Magic,as are likewise the stelae.We learn moreover that
the
papyrus
was not merely a smooth-surfaced parchment a fabric made of
Ligneous
matter from a shrub the pellicles of which superposed one over the other formed
a
kind
of writing paper;
but
that the shrub itself the implements and tools for fabricating the parchment
etc.were all previously
subjected
to a process of magical preparation according to the ordinance of the Gods,who
had taught
that
art as they had all others,to their Priest-Hierophants.
There
are however some modern Orientalists who seem to have an inkling of the true
nature of such
things,and
especially of the analogy and the relations that exist between the Magic of old
and our
modern-day
phenomena.
Evidence of Papyri -
(Page 243)Chabas is one of these for he indulges,in his translation
of the Harris papyrus,in the
following
reflections:
Without
having recourse to the imposing ceremonies of the wand of Hermes,or to the
obscure
formulae
of an unfathomable mysticism a mesmeriser in our own day will by means of a few
passes,disturb
the organic faculties of a subject inculcate the knowledge of a foreign
language
transport him to a far-distant country or into secret places,make him guess the
thoughts
of those absent read in closed letters,etc....The antre of the modern sybil is
a
modest-looking
room the tripod has made room for a small round table a hat a plate a piece
of
furniture of the most vulgar kind;only the latter is even superior to the
oracle of antiquity
[how
does M.Chabas know?] ,inasmuch as the latter only spoke [ 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.] while the oracle of our day writes its answers.At the
command of the
medium
the spirits of the dead descend to make the furniture creak,and the authors of
bygone
centuries
deliver to us works written by them beyond the grave.Human credulity has no
narrower
limits today than it had at the dawn of historical times ....As teratology is
an
essential
part of general physiology now so the pretended Occult Sciences occupy
in the
annals
of humanity a place which is not without its importance and deserve for more
than one
reason
the attention of the philosopher and the historian.[ Papyrus Magiq e.p.186.]
Page
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Selecting
the two Champollions,Lenormand Bunsen Victomte de Rougé and several other
Egyptologists
to serve as our witnesses,let us see what they say of Egyptian Magic and
Sorcery.They
may
get out of the difficulty by accounting for each superstitious belief and
practice by attributing them
to
a chronic psychological and physiological derangement and to collective
hysteria if they like;still facts
are
there staring us in the face from the hundreds of these mysterious papyri
exhumed after a rest of
four
five and more thousands of years with their magical containments and evidence
of antediluvian
Magic.
A
small library found in Thebes,has furnished fragments of every kind of ancient
literature many of
which
are dated and several of which have thus been assigned to the accepted age of
Moses.Books or
manuscripts
on ethics,history religion and medicine calendars and (Page 244)registers,poems and
novels
everything may be had in that precious collection;and old legends -traditions
of long forgotten
ages
(please to remark this:legends recorded during the Mosaic period)are already
referred to therein
as
belonging to an immense antiquity to the period of the dynasties of Gods and
Giants.Their chief
contents,however
are formulae of exorcisms against black Magic,and funeral rituals:true
breviaries,or
the
vade mecum of every pilgrim-traveller in eternity.These funeral texts
are generally written in hieratic
characters.At
the head of the papyrus is invariably placed a series of scenes,showing the
defunct
appearing
before a host of Deities successively who have to examine him.Then comes the
judgement of
the
Soul while the third act begins with the launching of that Soul into the divine
light.Such papyri are
often
forty feet long.[ See Maspero s G ide to the B lah Muse m,among
others.]
The
following is extracted from general descriptions.It will show how the moderns
understand and
interpret
Egyptian (and other)Symbology.
The
papyrus of the priest Nevo-loo (or Nevolen),at the Louvre may be selected for
one case.First of all
there
is the bark carrying the coffin a black chest containing the defunct s
mummy.His mother
Ammenbem-Heb
and his sister Hooissanoob are near;at the head and feet of the corpse stand
Nephtys
and Isis clothed in red and near them a priest of Osiris clad in his panther s
skin his censer in
his
right hand and four assistants carrying the mummy s intestines.The coffin is
received by the God
Anubis
(of the jackal s head),from the hands of female weepers.Then the Soul rises
from its mummy
and
the Khou (astral body)of the defunct.The former begins its worship of the four
genii of the East of
the
sacred birds,and of Ammon as a ram.Brought into the Palace of Truth the
defunct is before his
judges.While
the Soul a scarabaeus,stands in the presence of Osiris,his astral Khou is at
the door.
Much
laughter is provoked in the West by the invocations to various
Deities,presiding over each of the
limbs
of the mummy and of the living human body.Only judge:in the papyrus of the
mummy
Petamenoph
the anatomy becomes theographical astrology is applied to physiology or
rather to the
anatomy
of the human body the heart and the soul. The defunct s hair belongs to the
Nile his eyes to
Venus
(Isis),his ears to Macedo the guardian of the tropics;his nose to Anubis,his
left temple to the
Spirit
dwelling in the sun ....What a series of intolerable absurdities and ignoble
prayers ....to Osiris,
imploring
him to give the defunct in the other world geese eggs,pork,etc. [ De Mirville
(from whom
much
of the preceding is taken).v 8I 85 ]
Symbols and Their Reading -(Page 245)It might have been prudent perhaps,to have waited to
ascertain
whether all these terms of geese eggs,and pork had not some other Occult
meaning.The
Indian
Yogi who in an exoteric work is invited to drink a certain intoxicating
liquor till he loses his senses,
was
also regarded as a drunkard representing his sect and class,until it was found
that the Esoteric
Page
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sense
of that spirit was quite different;that it meant divine light and stood for
the ambrosia of Secret
Wisdom.
The
symbols of the dove and the lamb which abound now in Eastern and Western
Christian Churches
may
also be exhumed long ages hence and speculated upon as objects of present-day
worship.And
then
some Occidentalist in the forthcoming ages of high Asiatic civilization and
learning may write
karmically
upon the same as follows:The ignorant and superstitious Gnostics and Agnostics
of the sects
of
Pope and Calvin (the two monster Gods of the Dynamite-Christian
period)adored a pigeon and a
sheep!
There will be portable hand-fetishes in all and every age for the satisfaction
and reverence of the
rabble
and the Gods of one race will always be degraded into devils by the next
one.The cycles revolve
within
the depths of Lethe and Karma shall reach Europe as it has Asia and her
religions.
Nevertheless,
This
grand and dignified language [in the Book of the Dead ] these
pictures full of majesty this
orthodoxy
of the whole evidently proving a very precise doctrine concerning the
immortality of
the
soul and its personal survival
as
shown by De Rougé and Abbe Van Drival have charmed some Orientalists.The
psychostasy (or
judgment
of the Soul)is certainly a whole poem to him who can read it correctly and
interpret the images
therein.In
that picture we see Osiris,the horned with his sceptre hooked at the end the
original of the
pastoral
bishop s crook or crosier the Soul hovering above encouraged by Tmei daughter
of the Sun of
Righteousness
and Goddess of Mercy and Justice;Horus and Anubis,weighing the deeds of the
soul.
One
of these papyri shows the Soul found guilty of gluttony sentenced to be re-born
on earth as a hog;
forthwith
comes the learned conclusion of an Orientalist (Page 246)This is an indisputable proof of belief
in
metempsychosis of transmigration into animals etc.
Perchance
the Occult law of Karma might explain the sentence otherwise.It may for all our
Orientalists
know
refer to the physiological vice in store for the Soul when re-incarnated a
vice that will lead that
personality
into a thousand and one scrapes and mis-adventures.
Tortures
to begin with then metempsychosis d ring 3 000 years as a hawk,an
angel a lotus-
flower
a heron a stork,a swallow a serpent and a crocodile:one sees that the
consolation of
such
a progress was far from being satisfactory.
argues
De Mirville in his work on the Satanic character of the Gods of Egypt.[See
De Mirville.v.84 85 .]
Again
a simple suggestion may throw on this a great light.Are the Orientalists quite
sure they have read
correctly
the metempsychosis during 3 000 years ?The Occult Doctrine teaches that
Karma waits at the
threshold
of Devachan (the Amenti of the Egyptians)for 3 000 years;that then the eternal Ego
is
reincarnated
de novo to be punished in its new temporary personality for sins
committed in the
preceding
birth and the suffering for which in one shape or another will atone for past
misdeeds.And the
hawk
the lotus-flower the heron serpent or bird every object in Nature in short
had its symbolical
and
manifold meaning in ancient religious emblems.The man who all his life acted
hypocritically and
passed
for a good man but had been in sober reality watching like a bird of prey his
chance to pounce
upon
his fellow creatures,and had deprived them of their property will be sentenced
by Karma to bear
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the
punishment for hypocrisy and covetousness in a future life.What will it
be?Since every human unit
has
ultimately to progress in its evolution and since that man will be reborn at
some future time as a
good
sincere well-meaning man his sentence to be re-incarnated as a hawk may simply
mean that he
will
be regarded metaphorically as such.That notwithstanding his real good intrinsic
qualities,he will
perhaps
during a long life be unjustly and falsely charged with and suspected of greed
and hypocrisy
and
of secret exactions,all of which will make him suffer more than he can bear.The
law of retribution
can
never err and yet how many such innocent victims of false appearance and human
malice do we not
meet
in this world of incessant illusion of mistakes and deliberate wickedness.We
see them every day
and
they may be found within the personal experience of each of us.
Rebirth and Transmigration -(Page 247)What Orientalist can say with any degree of assurance that
he
has
understood the religions of old?The metaphorical language of the priests has
never been more than
superficially
revealed and the hieroglyphics have been very poorly mastered to this day.[ 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.
What
says Isis Unveiled on this question of Egyptian rebirth and
transmigration and does it clash with
anything
that we say now?
It
will be observed that this philosophy of cycles which was allegorized by the
Egyptian
Hierophants
in the cycle of necessity explains at the same time the allegory of the
Fall of
Man
According to the Arabian descriptions,each of the seven chambers of the
pyramids
those
grandest of all cosmic symbols was known by the name of a planet.The peculiar
architecture
of the pyramids shows in itself the drift of the metaphysical thought of their
builders.The
apex is lost in the clear blue sky of the land of the Pharaohs,and typifies the
primordial
point lost in the unseen Universe from whence started the first race of the
spiritual
prototypes
of man.Each mummy from the moment that it was embalmed lost its physical
individuality
in one sense:it symbolised the human race.Placed in such a way as was best
calculated
to aid the exit of the Soul the latter had to pass through the seven
planetary
chambers
before it made its exit through the symbolical apex.Each chamber typified at
the
same
time one of the seven spheres [ of our Chain ] and one of the
seven higher types of
physico-spiritual
humanity alleged to be above our own.Every 3000 years the soul
representative
of its race had to return to its primal point of departure before it underwent
another
evolution into a more perfected spiritual and physical transformation.We must
go
deep
indeed into the abstruse metaphysics of Oriental mysticism before we can
realise fully
the
infinitude of the subjects that were embraced at one sweep by the majestic
thought of its
exponents.[Op.cit.,i.297.]
This
is all Magic when once the details are given;and it relates at the same time to
the evolution of our
seven
Root-Races,each with the characteristics of its special guardian or God and
his Planet.The
astral
body of each Initiate after death had to reenact in its funeral mystery the
drama of the birth and
death
of each Race the past and the future and pass through the seven planetary
chambers, which
as
said above typified also the seven spheres of our Chain.
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The
mystic doctrine of Eastern Occultism teaches that
The
Spirit al Ego [not the astral Kho ] has to revisit,before it
incarnates into a new body,the scenes it
left at its last disincarnation.It (Page 248)has to see for itself and take cognizance of all the
effects
prod ced by the ca ses [the Nidānas ] generated
by its actions in a previo s life;that,seeing,it sho ld
recognize the j stice of the decree,and help the law of
Retrib tion [Karma ] instead of impeding it.[ Book
II.Commentary.]
The
translations by Vicomte de Rougé of several Egyptian papyri imperfect as they
may be give us one
advantage:they
show undeniably the presence in them of white divine Magic,as well as of
Sorcery and
the
practice of both throughout all the dynasties.The Book of the Dead,far
older than Genesis [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.)]
or
any other book of the Old Testament shows it in every line.It is full of
incessant prayers and
exorcisms
against the Black Art.Therein Osiris is the conquerer of the aerial
demons.The worshipper
implores
his help against Matat from whose eye proceeds the invisible arrow. This
invisible arrow that
proceeds
from the eye of the Sorcerer (whether living or dead)and that circulates
throughout the world
is
the evil eye cosmic in its origin terrestrial in its effects on the
microcosmical plane.It is not the Latin
Christians
whom it behoves to view this as a superstition.Their Church indulges in the
same belief and
had
even a prayer against the arrow circulating in darkness.
The
most interesting of all those documents,however is the Harris papyrus,called
in France le
papyrus magiq e de
Chabas,as it was first translated by the latter.It is a manuscript written in
hieratic
characters,translated
commented upon and published in 1860 by M.Chabas,but purchased at Thebes
in
1855 by Mr.Harris.Its age is given at between twenty-eight and thirty
centuries.We quote a few
extracts
from these translations:
Calendar
of lucky and unlucky days ...He who makes a bull work on the 20 th of the month
of
Pharmuths
will surely die;he who on the 24 th day of the same month pronounces the name
of
Seth
aloud will see trouble reigning in his house from that day;....he who on the 5
th day of
Patchous
leaves his house falls sick and dies.
Exclaims
the translator whose cultured instincts are revolted:
If
one had not these words under our eyes,one could never believe in such
servitude at the
epoch
of the Ramessides.[ 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.]
The Egyptian Khous -(Page 249)We belong to
the nineteenth century of the Christian era and are
therefore
at the height of civilization and under the benign sway and enlightening
influence of the
Christian
Church instead of being subject to Pagan Gods of old.Nevertheless we personally
know
dozens,and
have heard of hundreds,of educated highly-intellectual persons who would as
soon think of
committing
suicide as of starting on any business on a Friday of dining at a table where
thirteen sit down
Page
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or
of beginning a long journey on a Monday.Napoleon the Great became pale when he
saw three
candles
lit on a table.Moreover we may gladly concur with De Mirville in this,at any
rate that such
superstitions
are the outcome of observation and experience. If the former had never
agreed with
facts,the
authority of the Calendar,he thinks,would not have lasted for a week.But
to resume:
Genethliacal infl ences :The
child born on the 5 th day of Paophi will be killed by a bull;on the
27
th by a serpent.Born on the 4 th of the month of Athyr he will succumb to
blows.
This
is a question of horoscopic predictions;judiciary astrology is firmly believed
in in our own age and
has
been proven to be scientifically possible by Kepler.
Of
the Khous two kinds were distinguished:first the justified Khous,i.e.,those
who had been absolved
from
sin by Osiris when they were brought before his tribunal;these lived a second
life.Secondly here
were
the guilty Khous,the Khous dead a second time; these were the damned.Second
death did not
annihilate
them but they were doomed to wander about and to torture people.Their existence
had
phases
analogous to those of the living man a bond so intimate between the dead and
the living that one
sees
how the observation of religious funeral rites and exorcisms and prayers (or
rather magic
incantations)should
have become necessary.[See De Mirville.iii.65 ] .Says one prayer:
Do
not permit that the venom should master his limbs [of the defunct ] ,...that
he should be
penetrated
by any male dead or any female dead;or that the shadow of any spirit should
haunt
him (or her).
M.Chabas
adds:
These
Khous were beings of that kind to which human beings belong after their
death;they
were
exorcised in the name of the god Chons ....The Manes then could enter the
bodies of
the
living haunt and obsess the formulae and talismans,and especially statues or divine
fig res were used
against such formidable invasions.[ Ibid.p.168 ].They
were combatted by
the
help of the divine power the god (Page 250)Chons being famed
for such deliverances.The
Khou
in obeying the order of the god none the less preserved the precious faculty
inherent in
him
of accommodating himself in any other body at will.
The
most frequent formula of exorcism is as follows.It is very suggestive;
Men
gods,elect dead spirits,amous,negroes,menti-u do not look at this soul to show
cruelty
toward it.
This
is addressed to all who were acquainted with Magic.
Amulets
and mystic names. This chapter is called very mysterious, and contains
invocations to
Penhakahakaherher
and Uranaokarsankrobite and other such easy names.Says Chabas:
Page
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We
have proofs that mystic names similar to these were in common use during the
stay of the
Israelites
in Egypt.
And
we may add that whether got from the Egyptians or the Hebrews,these are sorcery
names.The
student
can consult the works of Éliphas Lévi such as his Grimoire des Sorciers.In
these exorcisms
Osiris
is called Mamuram-Kahab and is implored to prevent the twice-dead Khou from
attacking the
justified
Khou and his next of kin since the accursed (astral spook)
Can
take any form he likes and penetrate at will into any locality or body.
In
studying Egyptian papyri one begins to find that the subjects of the Pharaohs
were not very much
inclined
to the Spiritism or Spiritualism of their day.They dreaded the blessed spirit
of the dead more
than
a Roman Catholic dreads the devil!
But
how uncalled-for and unjust is the charge against the Gods of Egypt that they
are these devils, and
against
the priests of exercising their magic powers with the help of the fallen
angels, may be seen in
more
than one papyrus.For one often finds in them records of Sorcerers sentenced to
the death penalty
as
though they had been living under the protection of the holy Christian Inquisition.Here
is one case
during
the reign of Ramses III quoted by De Mirville from Chabas.
The
first page begins with these words:From the place where I am to the people of
my
country.There
is reason to suppose as one will see that the person who wrote this,in the
first
personal pronoun is a magistrate making a report and attesting it before men
after an
accustomed
formula for here is the main part of this accusation:This Hai a bad man was an
overseer
[or perhaps keeper ] of sheep:he said:Can I have a book that
will give me great
power?
....And a book was given him with the formulae of Ramses-Meri-Amen the great
God
his royal master;and he succeeded in getting a divine power enabling him to
fascinate
men.
Obsession in Egypt -
(Page 251)He also succeeded in building a place and in finding a very
deep place,and
produced
men of Menh [magical homunculi?] and ...love-writings ..stealing
them from the
Khen
[ the occult library of the palace ] by the hand of the
stonemason Atirma ...by forcing
one
of the supervisors to go aside and acting magically on the others.Then he
sought to read
futurity
by them and succeeded.All the horrors and abominations he had conceived in his
heart
he did them really he practised them all and other great crimes as well such as
the
horror [?] of all the Gods and Goddesses.Likewise let the
prescriptions great [severe?] nto
death be done unto him
such as the divine words order to be done to him.The accusation
does
not stop there it specifies the crimes.The first line speaks of a hand paralysed
by means
of
the men of Menh,to whom it is simply said Let such an effect be prod
ced, and it is
produced.Then
come the great abominations,such as deserve death....The judges who
had
examined him (the culprit)reported saying Let him die according to the order
of
Pharaoh
and according to what is written in the lines of the divine language.
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M.Chabas
remarks:
Documents
of this kind abound but the task of analysing them all cannot be attempted with
the
limited means we possess.[ Maimonides in his Treatise on Idolatry says,speaking
of
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 wo nd 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.
Then
there is an inscription taken in the temple of Khous,the God who had power over
the elementaries,
at
Thebes.It was presented by M.Prisse d Avenue to the Imperial now National
Library of Paris,and
was
translated first by Mr.S.Birch.There is in it a whole romance of Magic.It dates
from the day of
Ramses
XII.[The Ramses of Lepsius,who reigned some 1300 years before our era.]
of the twentieth
dynasty;it
is from the rendering of Mr.de Rougé as quoted by De Mirville that we now
translate it.
This
monument tells us that one of the Ramses of the twentieth dynasty while
collecting at
Naharain
the tributes paid to Egypt by the Asiatic nations,fell in love with a daughter
of the
chief
of Bakhten one of his tributaries,married her and bringing her to Egypt with
him,raised
her
to the dignity of Queen under the royal name of Ranefrou.Soon afterwards the
chief of
Bakhten
dispatched a messenger to Ramses,praying the assistance of Egyptian science for
Bent-Rosh
a young sister of the queen attacked with illness in all her limbs.
The
messenger asked expressly that a wise-man (an Initiate -Reh-Het)should be
sent.The
king
gave orders that all the hierogrammatists of the palace and the guardians of
the secret
books
of the Khen should be sent for and choosing from among them the royal scribe
Thoth-
em-Hebi
an intelligent man well versed in writing charged him to examine the sickness.(Page
252)Arrived
at Bakhten Thoth-em-Hebi found that Bent-Rosh was possessed by a Khou (Em-
seh-eru
ker h ou),but declared himself too weak to engage in a struggle with him.[ 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 nder 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.]
Eleven
years elapsed and the young girl s state did not improve.The chief of Bakhten
again
sent
his messenger and on his formal demand Khons-peiri-Seklerem-Zam one of the divine
forms
of Chons -God the Son of the Theban Trinity -was dispatched to Bakhten....
The
God [incarnate ] having saluted (besa )the patient she
felt immediately relieved and the
Khou
who was in her manifested forthwith with his intention of obeying the orders of
the God.
O great God who forces:the phantom to vanish said the Khou I am thy slave
and I will
return
whence I came! [De Mirville v.247 248 ].
Evidently
Khons-peiri-Seklerem-Zam was a real Hierophant of the class named the Sons of
God since
he
is said to be one of the forms of the God Khons;which means either that he was
considered as an
incarnation
of that God an Avatāra or that he was a full Initiate.The same text shows
that the temple
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to
which he belonged was one of those to which a School of Magic was
attached.There was a Khen in it
or
that portion of the temple which was inaccessible to all but the highest priest
the library or depository
of
sacred works,to the study and care of which special priests were appointed
(those whom all the
Pharaohs
consulted in cases of great importance),and wherein they communicated with the
Gods and
obtained
advice from them.Does not Lucian tell his readers in his description of the
temple of Hierapolis,
of
Gods who manifest their presence independently? [ Some translators
would have Lucian speak of
the
inhabitants of the city but they fail to show that this view is maintainable .]
And further on that he once
travelled
with a priest from Memphis,who told him he had passed twenty-three years in the
subterranean
crypts
of his temple receiving instructions on Magic from the Goddess Isis
herself.Again we read that it
was
by Mercury himself that the great Sesostris (Ramses II.)was instructed in the
Sacred Sciences.On
which
Jablonsky remarks that we have here the reason why Amun (Ammon)whence he
thinks our
Amen
is derived was the real evocation to the light.[ De Mirville v.256 257
.]
In
the Papyrus Anastasi which teems with various formulae for the evocation of
Gods,and with
exorcisms
against Khous and the elementary demons,the seventh paragraph shows plainly the
difference
made between the real Gods,the Planetary Angels,and those shells of mortals
which are left
behind
in Kama-loka as though to tempt mankind and to puzzle it the more hopelessly in
its vain search
after
the truth outside the Occult Sciences and the veil of Initiation.
Two Rituals of Magic -(Page 253)This seventh
verse says with regard to such divine evocation or
theomantic
consultations:
One
must invoke that divine and great name [ 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 then 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 .] only in cases of absolute necessity and
when
one
feels absolutely pure and irreproachable.
Not
so in the formula of black Magic.Reuvens,speaking of the two rituals of Magic
of the Anastasi
collection
remarks that they
Undeniably
form the most instructive commentary upon the Egyptian Mysteries attributed
to
Jamblichus,and
the best pendant to that classical work,for understanding the thaumaturgy of
the
philosophical sects thaumaturgy based on ancient Egyptian religion.According to
Jamblichus,thaumaturgy
was exercised by the ministry of secondary genii.[Reuvens Letter
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to Letronne on the 75 th n mber of the Papyri A nastasi.See De Mirville v.255 .]
Reuvens
closes with a remark which is very suggestive and is very important to the
Occultists who
defend
the antiquity and genuineness of their documents for he says:
All
that he [Jamblichus ] gives out as theology we find as history in
our papyri.
But
then how deny the authenticity the credibility and beyond all the
trustworthiness of those classical
writers,who
all wrote about Magic and its Mysteries in a most worshipful spirit of
admiration and
reverence?Listen
to Pindarus,who exclaims:
Happy
he who descends into the grave thus initiated for he knows the end of his life
and the
kingdom
[The Eleusinian Fields .] given by Jupiter.[ Fragments.ix.]
(Page 254)Or to Cicero:
Initiation
not only teaches us to feel happy in this life but also to die with better
hope.[ De
Legib s.11.iv.]
Plato
Pausanias,Strabo Diodorus and dozens of others bring their evidence as to the
great boon of
Initiation;all
the great as well as the partially-initiated Adepts,share the enthusiasm of
Cicero.
Does
not Plutarch thinking of what he had learned in his initiation console himself
for the loss
of
his wife?Had he not obtained the certitude at the Mysteries of Bacchus that
the soul
[ spirit ] remains
incorruptible and that there is a hereafter ?...Aristophanes went even
further:All
those who participated in the Myseries,he says led an innocent calm and holy
life;they
died looking for the light of the Eleusinian Fields [Devachan ] while
the rest could
never
expect anything but eternal darkness [ ignorance?].
...And
when one thinks about the importance attached by the States to the principle
and the
correct
celebration of the Mysteries,to the stipulations made in their treaties for the
security of
their
celebration one sees to what degree those Mysteries had so long occupied their
first and
their
last thought.
It
was the greatest among public as well as private preoccupations,and this is
only natural
since
according to Döllinger the Eleusinian Mysteries were viewed as the
efflorescence of all
the
Greek religion as the purest essence of all its conceptions.[Judaism
and Paganism.i.
184.]
Not
only conspirators were refused admittance therein but those who had not
denounced
them;traitors,perjurers,debauchees,[Frag
of Styg.,ap.Stob .]...so that Porphyry could say
that:Our
soul has to be at the moment of death as it was during the Mysteries.i.e.,exempt
from
any blemishes,passion envy hatred or anger.[De Special.Legi.]
Truly
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Magic
was considered a Divine Science which led to a participation in the attributes
of the
Divinity
itself.[ De Mirville.v.278 279.]
Herodotus,Thales,Parmenides,Empedocles,Orpheus,Pythagoras,all
went each in his day in search
of
the wisdom of Egypt s great Hierophants in the hope of solving the problems of
the universe.
Says
Philo:
The
Mysteries were known to unveil the secret operations of Nature.[Isis
Unveiled.i.25 ] The prodigies
accomplished
by the priests of theurgic magic are so well authenticated and the evidence if
human
testimony
is worth anything at all is so overwhelming that rather than confess that the
pagan theurgists
far
outrivalled the Christians in miracles,Sir David Brewster conceded to the
former the greatest
proficiency
in physics and everything that pertains to natural philosophy.Science finds
herself in a very
disagreeable
dilemma ....
Magical Statues
(Page 255)Magic,says Psellus,formed the last part of the
sacerdotal science.It investigated
the
nature power and quality of everything sublunary:of the elements and their
parts,of
animals,of
various plants and their fruits,of stones and herbs.In short it explored the
essence
and power of everything.From hence therefore it produced its effects.And it
formed
stat es [magnetized ]which procure health and made all
various figures and things
[talismans ] which
could equally become the instruments of disease as well as of health.
Often
too celestial fire is made to appear through magic,and then statues laugh and
lamps
are
spontaneously enkindled.[ Isis Unveiled.I.282.283.]
This
assertion of Psellus that Magic made statues which procure health is now
proven to the world to
be
no dream no vain boast of a hallucinated Theurgist.As Reuvens says it becomes
history. For it is
found
in the Papyrus Magiq e of Harris and on the votive stele just
mentioned.Both Chabas and De
Rougé
state that:
On
the eighteenth line of this very mutilated monument is found the formula with
regard to the
acquiescence
of the God (Chons)who made his consent known by a motion he imparted to
his
statue.[ De Mirville.v.248 ]
There
was even a dispute over it between the two Orientalists.While M.de Rougé wanted
to translate
the
word Han by favour or grace M.Chabas insisted that Han meant a
movement or a sign
made
by the statue.
Excesses
of power abuse of knowledge and personal ambition very often led selfish and
unscrupulous
Initiates
to black Magic,just as the same causes led to precisely the same thing among
Christian popes
and
cardinals;and it was black Magic that led finally to the abolition of the Mysteries,and
not Christianity
as
is often erroneously thought.Read Mommsen s Roman History vol.i.and you
will find that it was the
Pagans
themselves who put an end to the desecration of the Divine Science.As early as
560 B.C.the
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Romans
had discovered an Occult association a school of black Magic of the most
revolting kind;it
celebrated
mysteries brought from Etruria and very soon the moral pestilence had spread
all over Italy.
More
than seven thousand Initiates were prosecuted and most of them were sentenced
to
death
...
Later
on Titus-Livius shows us another three thousand Initiates sentenced during a
single
year
for the crime of poisoning.[ De Mirville.v.281.]
(Page 256)And yet black Magic is derided and denied!
Paulthier
may or may not be too enthusiastic in saying that India appears to him as
The
grand and primitive hearth of human thought that has ended by embracing the
whole
ancient
world
but
he was right in his idea.That primitive thought led to Occult knowledge which
is our Fifth Race is
reflected
from the earliest days of the Egyptian Pharaohs down to our modern times.Hardly
a hieratic
papyrus
is exhumed with the tightly swathed-up mummies of kings and high priests that
does not contain
some
interesting information for the modern students of Occultism.
All
that is,of course derided Magic,the outcome of primitive knowledge and of
revelation though it was
practised
in such ungodly ways by the Atlantean Sorceres that it has since become
necessary for the
subsequent
Race to draw a thick veil over the practices which were used to obtain
so-called magical
effects
on the psychic and on the physical planes.In the letter no one in our century
will believe the
statements,with
the exception of the Roman Catholics,and these will give the acts a satanic
origin.
Nevertheless,Magic
is so mixed up with the history of the world that if the latter is ever to be
written it
has
to rely upon the discoveries of Archaeology Egyptology and hieratic writings
and inscriptions;if it
insists
that they must be free from that superstition of the ages it will never see
the light.One can well
imagine
the embarrassing position in which serious Egyptologists,Assyriologists savants
and
academicians
find themselves.Forced to translate and interpret the old papyri and the
archaic
inscriptions
on stelae and Babylonian cylinders,they find themselves compelled from first to
last to face
the
distasteful and to them repulsive subject of Magic,with its incantations and
paraphernalia.Here they
find
sober and grave narratives from the pens of learned scribes,made up under the
direct supervision of
Chaldaean
or Egyptian Hierophants the most learned among the Philosophers of
antiquity.These
statements
were written at the solemn hour of the death and burial of Pharaohs,High
Priests,and other
mighty
ones of the land of Chemi;their purpose was the introduction of the newly-born
Osirified Soul
before
the awful tribunal of the Great Judge in the region of Amenti there where a
lie was said to
outweigh
the greatest crimes.Were the Scribes and Hierophants,Pharaohs,and King Priests
all fools
or
frauds to have either believed in or tried to make others believe in such
cock-and-bull stories as are
found
in the most respectable papyri?Yet there is no help for it.
Romances -But True -(Page 257)Corroborated
by Plato and Herodotus,by Manetho and Syncellus,as
by
all the greatest and most trustworthy authors and philosophers who wrote upon
the subject those
papyri
note down as seriously as they note any history or any fact well known and
accepted as to need
Page
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no
commentary whole royal dynasties of Manes,to wit of shadows and phantoms
(astral bodies),and
such
feats of magic skill and such Occult phenomena that the most credulous
Occultist of our own times
would
hesitate to believe them to be true.
The
orientalists have found a plank of salvation while yet publishing and
delivering the papyri to the
criticism
of literary Sadducees:they generally call them romances of the days of Pharaoh
So-and-So.
The
idea is ingenious,if not absolutely fair.
Page
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SECTION XXVIII
The Origin of the Mysteries
(Page 258)ALL that is explained in the preceding Sections and a
hundredfold more was taught in the
Mysteries
from time immemorial.If the first appearance of those institutions is a matter
of historical
tradition
with regard to some of the later nations,their origin must certainly be
assigned to the time of the
Fourth
Root Race.The Mysteries were imparted to the elect of that Race when the
average Atlantean
had
begun to fall too deeply into sin to be trusted with the secrets of
Nature.Their establishment is
attributed
in the Secret Works to the King-Initiates of the divine dynasties,when the
Sons of God had
gradually
allowed their country to become Kookarma-des (land of vice).
The
antiquity of the Mysteries may be inferred from the history of the worship of
Hercules in Egypt.This
Hercules,according
to what the priests told Herodotus,was not Grecian for he says:
Of
the Grecian Hercules I could not in no part of Egypt procure any
knowledge:...the name
was
never borrowed by Egypt from Greece ....Hercules,....as they [the priests ]
affirm is
one
of the twelve (great Gods,)who were reproduced from the earlier eight Gods 17
000 years
before
the year of Amasis.
Hercules
is of Indian origin and his Biblical chronology put aside Colonel Tod was
quite right in his
suggestion
that he was Balarāma or Baladeva.Now one must read the P rānas with the
Esoteric key in
one
s hand in order to find out how on almost every page they corroborate the
Secret Doctrine.The
ancient
classical writers so well understood this truth that they unanimously
attributed to Asia the origin of
Hercules.
A
section of the Mahābhārata is devoted to the history of the Hercūla of
which race was
Vyasa....Diodorus
has the same legend with some variety.
An Instant in Heaven -(Page 259)He
says:Hercules was born amongst the Indians and like the
Greeks,they
furnish him with a club and lion s hide. Both [Krishna and Baladeva ] are
(lords)of the race
(cūla)of
Heri (Heri-cul-es)of which the Greeks might have made the compound Hercules.[Tod
s
Rajasthań i.28.]
The
Occult Doctrine explains that Hercules was the last incarnation of one of the
seven Lords of the
Flame
as Krishna s brother Baladeva.That his incarnations occurred during the Third
Fourth and Fifth
Root-Races,and
that his worship was brought into Egypt from Lanka and India by the later
immigrants.
That
he was borrowed by the Greeks from the Egyptians is certain the more so as the
Greeks place his
birth
at Thebes,and only his twelve labours at Argos.Now we find in the Vishn P rāna
a complete
corroboration
of the statement made in the Secret Teachings,of which Purānic allegory the
following is a
short
summary:
Raivata
a grandson of Sharyāti Manu s fourth son finding no man worthy of his lovely
daughter
repaired
with her to Brahmā s region to consult the God in this emergency.Upon his
arrival Hā Hā Hāhū
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and
other Gandharvas were singing before the throne and Raivata waiting till they
had done imagined
that
but one Muhūrta (instant)had passed whereas long ages had elapsed.When they had
finished
Raivata
prostrated himself and explained his perplexity.Then Brahmā asked him whom he
wished for a
son-in-law
and upon hearing a few personages named the Father of the World smiled and said:Of
those
whom you have named the third and fourth generation [Root-Races ] no longer
survive for many
successions
of ages [Chatur-Yuga or the four Yuga cycles ] have passed away while you were
listening
to
our songsters.Now on earth the twenty-eighth great age of the present Manu is
nearly finished and
the
Kali period is at hand.You must therefore bestow this virgin-gem upon some
other husband.For you
are
now alone.
Then
the Rāja Raivata is told to proceed to Kushasthaī his ancient capital which was
now Dvārakā and
where
reigned in his stead a portion of the divine being (Vishnu)in the person of
Baladeva the brother of
Krishna
regarded as the seventh incarnation of Vishnu whenever Krishna is taken as a
full divinity.
Being
thus instructed by the Lotus-born [Brahmā ] Raivata returned with his daughter
to earth where he
found
the race of men dwindled in stature [see what is said in the Stanzas and
Commentaries of the
races
of mankind gradually decreasing in stature ];...(Page 260)reduced in vigour and enfeebled in
intellect.Repairing
to the city of Kushasthalī he found it much altered Krishna had reclaimed
from the
sea
a portion of the country which means in plain language that the continents
had all been changed
meanwhile
-and had renovated the city -or rather built a new one Dvārakā;for one
reads in the
Bhagavad P rāna [Op.cit.,ix.iii.28.]
that Kushasthalī was founded and built by Raivata within the sea;
and
subsequent discoveries showed that it was the same or on the same spot as Dvārakā.Therefore
it
was
on an island before.The allegory in Vishn P rāna shows King Raivata
giving his daughter to the
wielder
of the ploughshare or rather the plough-bannered Baladeva who beholding
the damsel of
excessively
lofty height ....shortened her with the end of his ploughshare and she became
his wife.
[Vishn P rāna.iv.i.Wilson s translation iii.248-254.]
This
is a plain allusion to the Third and Fourth Races -to the Atlantean giants and
the successive
incarnations
of the Sons of the Flame and other orders of Dhyān Chohans in the heroes and
kings of
mankind
down to the Kali Yuga or Black Age the beginning of which is within historical
times.Another
coincidence :Thebes is
the city of a hundred gates,and Dvārakā is so called from its many gateways or
doors,from
the word Dvāra gateway. Both Hercules and Baladeva are of a passionate hot
temper
and
both are renowned for the fairness of their white skins.There is not the
slightest doubt that Hercules
is
Baladeva in Greek dress.Arrian notices the great similarity between the Theban
and the Hindu
Hercules,the
latter being worshipped by the Suraseni who built Methorea or Mathūrā Krishna
s
birthplace.The
same writer places Sandracottus (Chandragupta the grandfather of King Asoka of
the
clan
of Morya)in the direct line of the descendants of Baladeva.
There
were no Mysteries in the beginning we are taught.Knowledge (Vidyā)was common
property and
it
reigned universally throughout the Golden Age (Satya Yuga).As says the
Commentary:
Men had not created evil yet in those days of bliss and p
rity,for they were of God-like more
than of h man nat re.
But
when mankind rapidly increasing in numbers,increased also in variety of
idiosyncrasies of body and
Page
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mind
then incarnated Spirit showed its weakness.Natural exaggerations,and along with
these
superstitions,arose
in the less cultured and healthy minds.
Growth of Popular Beliefs -(Page 261)Selfishness was born out of desires and passions hitherto
unknown
and but too often knowledge and power were abused until finally it became
necessary to limit
the
number of those who knew.Thus arose Initiation.
Every
separate nation now arranged for itself a religious system according to its
enlightenment and
spiritual
wants.Worship of mere form being discarded by the wise men these confined true
knowledge
to
the very few.The need of veiling truth to protect it from desecration becoming
more apparent with
every
generation a thin veil was used at first which had to be gradually thickened
according to the
spread
of personality and selfishness,and this led to the Mysteries.They came to be
established in
every
country and among every people while to avoid strife and misunderstanding
exoteric beliefs were
allowed
to grow up in the minds of the profane masses.Inoffensive and innocent in their
incipient stage
like
a historical event arranged in the form of a fairy tale adapted for and
comprehensible to the child s
mind
in those distant ages such beliefs could be allowed to grow and make the
popular faith without
any
danger to the more philosophical and abstruse truths taught in the
sanctuaries.Logical and scientific
observation
of the phenomena in Nature which alone leads man to the knowledge of eternal
truths
provided
he approaches the threshold of observation unbiassed by preconception and sees
with his
spiritual
eye before he looks at things from their physical aspect does not lie within
the province of the
masses.The
marvels of the One Spirit of Truth the ever-concealed and inaccessible Deity
can be
unravelled
and assimilated only through Its manifestations by the secondary Gods,Its
acting powers.
While
the One and Universal Cause has to remain for ever in abscondito Its
manifold action may be
traced
through the effects in Nature.The latter alone being comprehensible and
manifest to average
mankind
the Powers causing those effects were allowed to grow in the imagination of the
populace.
Ages
later in the Fifth the Aryan Race some unscrupulous priests began to take
advantage of the too-
easy
beliefs of the people in every country and finally raised those secondary
Powers to the rank of God
and
Gods,thus succeeding in isolating them altogether from the One Universal Cause
of all causes.
[There were no
Brāhmans as a hereditary caste in days of old.In those long-departed ages a man
became
a Brāhman through personal merit and Initiation.Gradually however despotism
crept in and
the
son of a Brāhman was created a Brāhman 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 Brāhmans which
was soon
changed
into a powerful caste.]
(Page 262)Henceforward the knowledge of the primeval truths remained
entirely in the hands of the
Initiates.
The
Mysteries had their weak points and their defects,as every institution welded
with the human
element
must necessarily have.Yet Voltaire has characterised their benefits in a few
words:
In
the chaos of popular superstitions there existed an institution which has ever
prevented
man
from falling into absolute brutality:it was that of the Mysteries.
Verily
as Ragon puts it of Masonry;
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Its
temple has Time for duration the Universe for space ....Let us divide that we
may rule have said
the
crafty;Let us unite to resist have said the first Masons.[Des
Initiations Anciennes et Modernes.
The
mysteries, says Ragon were the gift of India. In this he is mistaken for the
Āryan 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.]
Or
rather the Initiates whom the Masons have never ceased to claim as their
primitive and direct
Masters.The
first and fundamental principle of moral strength and power is association and
solidarity of
thought
and purpose.The Sons of Will and Yoga united in the beginning to resist the
terrible and ever-
growing
iniquities of the left-hand Adepts the Atlanteans.This led to the foundation of
still more Secret
Schools,temples
of learning and of Mysteries inaccessible to all except after the most terrible
trials and
probations.
Anything
that might be said of the earliest Adepts and their divine Masters would be
regarded as fiction.It
is
necessary therefore if we would know something of the primitive Initiates to
judge of the tree by its
fruits;to
examine the bearing and the work of their successors in the Fifth Race as
reflected in the works
of
the classic writers and the great philosophers.How were Initiation and the
Initiates regarded during
some
2 000 years by the Greek and Roman writers?Cicero informs his readers in very
clear terms.He
says:
An
Initiate must practise all the virtues in his power:justice fidelity liberality
modesty
temperance;these
virtues cause men to forget the talents that he may lack.[De Off.,i.e.33
.]
Ragon
says"
When
the Egyptian priests said:All for the people nothing through the people they
were
right:in
an ignorant nation truth must be revealed only to trustworthy persons ....We
have
seen
in our days,all through the people nothing for the people a false and dangerous
system.The
real axiom ought to be:All for the people and with the people. [ Des
Initiations,
p22.]
A True Priesthood -(Page 263)But in order
to achieve this reform the masses have to pass through a
dual
transformation:(a)to become divorced from every element of exoteric
superstition and priestcraft
and
(b)to become educated men free from every danger of being enslaved whether by a
man or an
idea.
This,in
view of the preceding may seem paradoxical.The Initiates were priests, we may
be told at
any
rate all the Hindu Egyptian Chaldaean Greek,Phoenician and other Hierophants
and Adepts were
priests
in the temples,and it was they who invented their respective exoteric creeds.To
this the answer
is
possible:The cowl does not make the friar. If one may believe tradition and
the unanimous opinion of
ancient
writers,added to the examples we have in the priests of India the most
conservative nation in
the
world it becomes quite certain that the Egyptian priests were no more priests
in the sense we give to
Page
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the
word than are the temple Brāhmans.They could never be regarded as such if we
take as our
standard
the European clergy.Laurens observes very correctly that:
The
priests of Egypt were not strictly speaking ministers of religion.The word
priest which translation
has
been badly interpreted had an acceptation very different from the one that is
applied to it among us.
In
the language of antiquity and especially in the sense of the initiation of the
priests of ancient Egypt
the
word priest is synonymous with that of philosopher.....The institution of
the Egyptian priests
seems
to have been really a confederation of sages gathered to study the art of
ruling men to centre the
domain
of truth modulate its propagation and arrest its too dangerous dispersion.[ Essais
Historiq es
sur la Franc-Maēonnerie,pp.142.143.]
The
Egyptian Priests,like the Brāhmans of old held the reins of the governing
powers a system that
descended
to them by direct inheritance from the Initiates of the great Atlantis.The pure
cult of Nature in
the
earliest patriarchal days the word patriarch applying in its first original
sense to the Progenitors of
the
human race [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.] the Fathers,Chiefs,and Instructors of primitive men
became the heirloom of
those
(Page 264)alone who could discern the noumenon beneath the
phenomenon.Later the Initiates
transmitted
their knowledge to the human kings,as their divine Masters had passed it to
their forefathers.
It
was their prerogative and duty to reveal the secrets of Nature that were useful
to mankind the hidden
virtues
of plants,the art of healing the sick,and of bringing about brotherly love and
mutual help among
mankind.No
Initiate was one if he could not heal aye recall to life from apparent death
(coma)those
who
too long neglected would have indeed died during their lethargy.[There
is no need to observe here
that
the resurrection of a really dead body is an impossibility in Nature.] Those
who showed such powers
were
forthwith set above the crowds,and were regarded as Kings and Initiates
.Gautama Buddha was a
King-Initiate
a healer and recalled to life those who were in the hands of death.Jesus and
Apollonius
were
healers,and were both addressed as Kings by their followers.Had they failed to
raise those who
were
to all intents and purposes the dead none of their names would have passed down
to posterity;for
this
was the first and crucial test the certain sign that the Adept had upon Him the
invisible hand of a
primordial
divine Master or was an incarnation of one of the Gods.
The
later royal privilege descended to our Fifth Race kings through the kings of
Egypt.The latter were all
initiated
into the mysteries of medicine and they healed the sick,even when owing to the
terrible trials
and
labours of final Initiation they were unable to become full Hierophants.They
were healers by
privilege
and by tradition and were assisted in the healing art by the Hierophants of the
temples,when
they
themselves were ignorant of Occult curative Science.So also in far later
historical times we find
Pyrrhus
curing the sick by simply touching them with his foot;Vespasian and Hadrian
needed only to
pronounce
a few words taught to them by their Hierophants,in order to restore sight to
the blind and
health
to the cripple.From that time onward history has recorded cases of the same
privilege conferred
on
the emperors and kings of almost every nation.[The kings of Hungary
claimed that they could cure
the
jaundice;the Dukes of Burgandy 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.]
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The Egyptian Priests -(Page 265)That which
is known of the Priests of Egypt and of the ancient
Brāmans,corroborated
as it is by all the ancient classics and historical writers,gives us the right
to
believe
in that which is only traditional in the opinion of sceptics.Whence the
wonderful knowledge of the
Egyptian
Priests in every department of Science unless they had it from a still more
ancient source?The
famous
Four the seats of learning in old Egypt are more historically certain than
the beginnings of
modern
England.It was in the great Theban sanctuary that Pythagoras upon his arrival
from India
studied
the Science of Occult numbers.It was in Memphis that Orpheus popularized his
too-abstruse
Indian
metaphysics for the use of Magna Grecia;and thence Thales,and ages later
Democritus,
obtained
all they knew.It is to Saļs that all the honour must be given of the wonderful
legislation and the
art
of ruling people imparted by its Priests to Lycurgus and Solon who will both
remain objects of
admiration
for generations to come.And had Plato and Eudoxus never gone to worship at the
shrine of
Heliopolis,most
probably the one would have never astonished future generations with his
ethics,nor the
other
with his wonderful knowledge of mathematics.[ See Laurens Essais
Historiq es for further
information
as to the world-wide universal knowledge of the Egyptian Priests .]
The
great modern writer on the Mysteries of Egyptian Initiation one however who
knew nothing of
those
in India the late Ragon has not exaggerated in maintaining that:
All
the notions possessed by Hindustan Persia Syria Arabia Chaldaea Sydonia and the
priests
of Babylonia [on the secrets of Nature ] was known to the Egyptian priests.It
is thus
Indian
philosophy without mysteries,which having penetrated into Chaldaea and ancient
Persia
gave rise to the doctrine of Egyptian Mysteries.[Des Initiations.p.24
.]
The
Mysteries preceded the hieroglyphics.[The word comes from the Greek
hieros (sacred )and
glupho
( I grave ).The Egyptian characters were sacred to the Gods,as the Indian
Devanāgarī is the
language
of the Gods.]They gave birth to the latter as permanent records were
needed to preserve and
commemorate
their secrets.It is primitive Philosophy [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 ÷óöļę 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.]
that has served as the (Page
266)foundation-stone for modern
philosophy;only the progeny
while
perpetuating the features of the external body has lost on its way the Soul and
Spirit of its parent.
Initiation
though it contained neither rules and principles,nor any special teaching of Science
as now
understood
was nevertheless Science and the Science of sciences.And though devoid of
dogma of
physical
discipline and of exclusive ritual it was yet the one true Religion that of
eternal truth.
Outwardly
it was a school a college wherein were taught sciences,arts ethics,legislation
philanthropy
Page
214.
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the
cult of the true and real nature of cosmic phenomena;secretly during the
mysteries,practical proofs
of
the latter were given.Those who could learn on all things i.e.,those
who could look the great Isis in
her
unveiled face and bear the awful majesty of the Goddess became Initiates.But
the children of the
Fifth
Race had fallen too deeply into matter always to do so with impunity.Those who
failed disappeared
from
the world without leaving a trace behind.Which of the highest kings would have
dared to claim any
individual
however high his social standing from the stern priests once that the victim
had crossed the
threshold
of their sacred Adytum?
The
noble precepts taught by the Initiates of the early races passed to India Egypt
and Greece to China
and
Chaldaea and thus spread all over the world.All that is good noble and grand in
human nature
every
divine faculty and aspiration were cultured by the Priest-Philosophers who
sought to develop them
in
their Initiates.Their code of ethics,based on altruism has become universal.It
is found in Confucius,
the
atheist who taught that he who loves not his brother has no virtue in him
and in the Old
Testament precept
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.[Lev.,xix.18.] The
greater Initiates
became
like unto Gods,and Socrates,in Plato s Phaedo is represented as saying:
The
Initiates are sure to come into the company of the Gods.
Revealing and Reveiling -(Page 267)In the same work the great Athenian Sage is made to say:
It
is quite apparent that those who have established the Mysteries,or the secret
assemblies of
the
Initiates,were no mean persons,but powerful genii who from the first ages had
endeavoured
to make us understand under those enigmas that he who will reach the invisible
regions
unpurified will be hurled into the abyss [the Eighth Sphere of the
Occult Doctrine;that
is,he
will lose his personality for ever ] while he who will attain them
purged of the
maculations
of this world and accomplished in virtues,will be received in the abode of the
Gods.
Said
Clemens Alexandrinus,referring to the Mysteries:
Here
ends all teaching.One sees Nature and all things.
A
Christian Father of the Church speaks then as did the Pagan Pretextatus,the
pro-consul of Achaia
(fourth
century A.D.) a man of eminent virtues,who remarked that to deprive the
Greeks of the sacred
Mysteries
which bind in one the whole of mankind was to render their very lives
worthless to them.
Would
the Mysteries have ever obtained the highest praise from the noblest men of
antiquity had they
not
been of more than human origin?Read all that is said of this unparalleled
institution as much by
those
who had never been initiated as by the Initiates themselves.Consult Plato
Euripides,Socrates,
Aristophanes,Pindar
Plutarch Isocrates,Diodorus,Cicero Epictetus,Marcus Aurelius,not to name
dozens
of other famous Sages and writers.That which the Gods and Angels had revealed
exoteric
religions,beginning
with that moses,reveiled and hid for ages from the sight of the world.Joseph
the
son
of Jacob was an Initiate otherwise he would not have married Aseneth the daughter
of Petephre
(Potiphar
he who belongs to Phre the Sun-God),priest of Heliopolis and governor of
On.[On the
Sun
the Egyptian name of Heliopolis (the City of the Sun )].Every truth revealed
by Jesus,and which
even
the Jews and early Christians understood was reviled by the Church that
pretends to serve Him.
Page
215.
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Read
what Seneca says,as quoted by Dr.Kenealy:
"The
world being melted and having reėntered the bosom of Jupiter [or
Parabrahman ] ,this
God
continues for some time totally concentred in himself and remains concealed as
it were
wholly
immersed in the contemplation of his own ideas.Afterwards we see a new world
spring
from
him ....An innocent race of men is formed.And again speaking of mundane
dissolution
as
involving the destruction or death of all he [Seneca ] teaches us
that when the laws of
Nature
shall be buried in ruin and the last day of the world shall come the Southern
Pole shall
crush
as it falls,all the regions of Africa;and the North Pole shall overwhelm all
the countries
beneath
its axis.The affrighted s n shall be deprived of its light:(Page 268)the palace of
heaven
falling to decay shall produce at once both life and death and some kind of
dissolution
shall equally seize upon all the deities,who thus shall return to their
original chaos.
[Book of God,p.160.]
One
might fancy oneself reading the Purānic account by Parąshara of the great
Pralaya.It is nearly the
same
thing idea for idea.Has Christianity nothing of the kind?Let the reader open
any English Bible and
read
chapter iii of the Second Epistle of Peter and he will find there the
same ideas.
There
shall come in the last days scoffers,....saying Where is the promise of his
coming?
For
since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the
beginning of the
creation.For
this they willingly are ignorant of that by the word of God the heavens were of
old
and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:whereby the world that
then was
being
overflowed with water perished.But the heavens and the earth which are now by
the
same
word are ....reserved unto fire ....in the which the heavens shall pass away
with a
great
noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat...Nevertheless we ....look
for
new
heavens and a new earth.
If
the interpreters chose to see in this a reference to a creation a deluge and a
promised coming of
Christ
when they will live in a New Jerusalem in heaven that is no fault of Peter.What
he meant was the
destruction
of the Fifth Race and the appearance of a new continent for the Sixth Race.
The
Druids understood the meaning of the Sun in Taurus,therefore when all the fires
were extinguished
on
the 1 st of November their sacred and inextinguishable fire remained alone to
illumine the horizon like
those
of the Magi and the modern Zoroastrian.And like the early Fifth Race and the
later Chaldaeans
and
Greeks,and again like the Christians (who do it to this day without suspecting
the real meaning),
they
greeted the Morning-Star the beautiful Venus-Lucifer.[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.] Strabo speaks of an island near Britannia where
Ceres and
Persephone
were worshipped with the same rites as in Samothrace and this was the sacred
Ierna
where
a perpetual fire was lit.The Druids believed in the rebirth of man not as
Lucian explains,
That
the same Spirit shall animate a new body not here but in a different
world
Page
216.
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but
in a series of reļncarnations in this same world;for as Diodorus says,they
declared that the souls of
men
after a determinate period would pass into other bodies.[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.]
Atlanteans Degenerating -(Page 269)These tenets came to the Fifth Race Aryans from their
ancestors
of
the Fourth Race the Atlanteans.They piously preserved the teachings,while their
parent Root-Race
becoming
with every generation more arrogant owing to the acquisition of superhuman
powers,were
gradually
approaching their end.
Page
217.
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SECTION XXIX
The Trial of the Sun Initiate
(Page 270)WE will begin with the ancient Mysteries those received
from the Atlanteans by the primitive
Äryans
whose mental and intellectual state Professor Max Müller has described with
such a masterly
hand
yet left so incomplete withal.
He
says:We have in it [ in the Rig Veda ] a period of the
intellectual life of man to which there is no
parallel
in any other part of the world.In the hymns of the Veda we see man left
to himself to solve the
riddle
of this world....He invokes the gods around him he praises,he worships them.But
still with all
these
gods ....beneath him and above him the early poet seems ill at rest within
himself.There too in
his
own breast he has discovered a power that is never mute when he prays,never
absent when he
fears
and trembles.It seems to inspire his prayers and yet to listen to them;it seems
to live in him and
yet
to support him and all around him.The only name he can find for this mysterious
power is Brahman;
for
brahman meant originally force will wish and the propulsive power of
creation.But this impersonal
brahman
too as soon as it is named grows into something strange and divine.It ends by
being one of
many
gods,one of the great triad worshipped to the present day.And still the thought
within him has no
real
name;that power which is nothing but itself which supports the gods,the
heavens,and every living
being
floats before his mind conceived but not expressed.At last he calls it Ćtman
for ātman originally
breath
or spirit comes to mean Self and Self alone whether divine or human;Self
whether creating of
suffering;Self
whether One or All;but always Self independent and free.Who has seen the
first-born?
says
the poet when he who has no bones (i.e.,form)bore him that had
bones?Where was the life the
blood
the Self of the world?Who went to ask this from any one who knew it? (Rig
Veda I 164 4.)This
idea
of a divine Self once expressed everything else must acknowledge its supremacy;Self
is the Lord
of
all things;it is the King of all things;as all the spokes of a wheel are
contained in the nave and
circumference
all things are contained in this Self;all selves are contained in this Self .
(Brihadāranyaka
IV.v.15).[Chips
from a German Workshop i.69.70.]
Vishvakarma and Vikarttana -(Page 271)This Self the highest the one and the universal was
symbolised
on the plane of mortals by the Sun its life-giving effulgence being in its turn
the emblem of
the
Soul killing the terrestrial passions which have ever been an impediment to
the re-union of the Unit
Self
(the Spirit)with the All-Self.Hence the allegorical mystery only the broad
features of which may be
given
here.It was enacted by the Sons of the Fire-Mist and of Light.The second
Sun (the second
hypostasis
of Rabbi Drach)appeared as put on his trial Vishvakarma the Hierophant cutting
off seven
of
his beams,and replacing them with a crown of brambles,when the Sun became
Vikarttana shorn of
his
beams or rays.After that the Sun enacted by a neophyte ready to be initiated
was made to
descend
into Pātāla the nether regions,on a trial of Tantalus.Coming out of it
triumphant he emerged
from
this region of lust and iniquity to re-become Karmasākshin witness of the Karma
of men [Sūrya
the
Sun is one of the nine divinities that witness all human actions.] and
arose once more triumphant in
all
the glory of his regeneration as the Graha-Rājah King of the Constellations,and
was addressed as
Gabhastiman
re-possessed of his rays.
The
fable in the popular Pantheon of India founded upon and born out of the
poetical mysticism of the
Rig-Veda the sayings
of which were mostly all dramatised during the religious Mysteries grew in the
course
of its exoteric evolution into the following allegory.It may be found now in
several of the P rānas
Page
218.
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and
in other Scriptures.In the Rig-Veda and its Hymns,Vishvakarma a
Mystery-God is the Logos,the
Demiurgos,one
of the greatest Gods,and spoken of in two of the hymns as the highest.He is the
Omnificent
(Vishvakarma)called the Great Architect of the Universe the
All
seeing God ....the father the generator the disposer who gives the gods their
names,
and
is beyond the comprehension of mortals,
as
is every Mystery-God.Esoterically He is the personification of the creative
manifested Power;and
mystically
He is the seventh principle in man in its collectivity.For He is the son of
Bhuvana the self-
created
luminous Essence and of the virtuous,chaste and lovely Yoga-Siddhā the virgin
Goddess,
whose
name speaks for itself since it personified Yoga-power the chaste mother
that creates the
Adepts.In
the Rig-Vaidic Hymns,Vishvakarma performs the great sacrifice i.e.,sacrifices
himself for
the
world;or as the Nir kta is made to say translated by the Orientalists:
(Page 272)Vishvakarma first of all offers up all the world in a
sacrifice and then ends by
sacrificing
himself
In
the mystical representations of his character Vishvakarma is often called
Vittoba and is pictured as
the
Victim the Man-God or the Avatąra crucified in space.
[Of the true
Mysteries,the real Initiations,nothing of course can be said in public:they can
be known
only
to those who are able to experience them.But a few hints can be given of the
great ceremonial
Mysteries
of Antiquity which stood to the public as the real Mysteries,and into which
candidates were
initiated
with much ceremony and display of Occult Arts.Behind these in silence and
darkness,were the
true
Mysteries,as they have always existed and continue to exist.In Egypt as in
Chaldaea and later in
Greece
the Mysteries were celebrated at stated times,and the first day was a public
holiday on which
with
much pomp the candidates were escorted to the Great Pyramid and passed
thereinto out of sight.
The
second day was devoted to ceremonies of purification at the close of which the
candidate was
presented
with a white robe;on the third day ] [There is a gap in H.P.B s MS.and
the paragraph in
brackets
supplies what was missing.A.B .] he was tried and examined as to his
proficiency in Occult
learning.On
the fourth day after another ceremony symbolical of purification he was sent
alone to pass
through
various trials,finally becoming entranced in a subterranean crypt in utter
darkness,for two days
and
two nights.In Egypt the entranced neophyte was placed in an empty sarcophagus
in the Pyramid
where
the initiatory rites took place.In India and Central Asia he was bound on a
lathe and when his
body
had become like that of one dead (entranced),he was carried into the crypt.Then
the Hierophant
kept
watch over him guiding the apparitional soul (astral body)from this world of
Samsąra (or delusion)
to
the nether kingdoms,from which if successful he had the right of
releasing seven suffering so ls
(Elementaries).Clothed
with his Anandamayakosha the body of bliss the Srotāpanna remained there
where
we have no right to follow him and upon returning received the Word with
or without the heart s
blood
of the Hierophant.[ 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
Page
219.
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male
principle of wisdom and the latter on the third Sephiroth from the Chaldaean Kabalah,and
even
from
the Hindu Brahmā and Sarasvati 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 Shiva.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 maēonniq e,p.104.All
that however was emblematic and exoteric.Weapon and killing
must
be understood in their allegorical sense.]
The Transmission of Light -(Page 273)Only in truth the Hierophant was never killed neither in
India
nor
elsewhere the murder being simply feigned unless the Initiator had chosen the
Initiate for his
successor
and had decided to pass to him the last and supreme WORD after which he had to
die only
one
man in a nation having the right to know that word.Many are those grand
Initiates who have thus
passed
out of the world s sight disappearing.
As
mysteriously from the sight of men as Moses from the top of Mount Pisgah (Nebo
oracular
Wisdom),after
he had laid his hands upon Joshua who thus became full of the spirit of
wisdom;i.e.,initiated.
But
he died he was not killed.For killing if really done would belong to black,not
to divine Magic.It is
the
transmission of light rather than a transfer of life of life spiritual and
divine and it is the shedding of
Wisdom
not of blood.But the initiated inventors of theological Christianity took the
allegorical language ą
la lettre ;and
instituted a dogma the crude misunderstood expression of which horrifies and
repels the
spiritual
heathen.
All
these Hierophants and Initiates were types of the Sun and of the Creative
Principle (spiritual potency)
as
were Vishvakarma and Vikarttana (Page 274)from the origin of
the Mysteries.Ragon the famous
Page
220.
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Mason
gives curious details and explanations with regard to the Sun rites.He shows
that the biblical
Hiram
the great hero of Masonry (the widow s son )a type taken from Osiris,is the
Sun-God the
inventor
of arts,and the architect the name Hiram meaning the elevated a
title belonging to the Sun.
Every
Occultist knows how closely related to Osiris and the Pyramids are the
narratives in Kings
concerning
Solomon his Temple and its construction;he knows also that the whole of the
Masonic rite of
Initiation
is based upon the Biblical allegory of the construction of that Temple Masons
conveniently
forgetting
or perhaps ignoring the fact that the latter narrative is modelled upon
Egyptian and still earlier
symbolisms.Ragon
explains it by showing that the three companions of Hiram the three
murderers,
typify
the three last months of the year;and that Hiram stands for the Sun from its
summer solstice
downwards
when it begins decreasing the whole rite being an astronomical allegory.
During
the summer solstice the Sun provokes songs of gratitude from all that
breathes;hence
Hiram
who represents it can give to whomsoever has the right to it the sacred Word
that is
to
say life.When the Sun descends to the inferior signs all Nature becomes mute
and Hiram
can
no longer give the sacred Word to the companions,who represent the three inert
months
of
the year.The first companion strikes Hiram feebly with a rule twenty-four
inches long
symbol
of the twenty-four hours which make up each diurnal revolution;it is the first
distribution
of time which afer the exaltation of the mighty star feebly assails his
existence
giving
him the first blow.The second companion strikes him with an iron sq are symbol
of the
last
season figured by the intersections of two right lines,which would divide into
four equal
parts
the Zodiacal circle whose centre symbolises Hiram s heart where it touches the
point of
the
four squares representing the four seasons;second distribution of time which at
that
period
strikes a heavier blow at the solar existence.The third companion strikes him
mortally
on
his forehead with a heavy blow of his mallet whose cylindrical form symbolises
the year
the
ring or circle:third distribution of time the accomplishment of which deals the
last blow to
the
existence of the expiring Sun.From this interpretation it has been
inferred that Hiram,a
fo nder of metals,the
hero of the new legend with the title of architect is Osiris (the Sun)of
modern
initiation;that Isis his widow is the Lodge,the emblem of the
Earth (loka in Sanskrit
the
world)and that Horus,son of Osiris (or of light)and the widow s son is
the free Mason,
that
is to say the Initiate who inhabits the terrestrial lodge (the child
of the Widow,and of
Light.)[Orthodoxie
maēonniq e.pp.102-104 ]
And
here again our friend the Jesuits have to be mentioned for the above rite is of
their making.To give
one
instance of their success in throwing dust into the eyes of ordinary
individuals to prevent their seeing
the
truths of Occultism we will point out what they did in what is now called
Freemasonry.
Masonry and the Jesuits -(Page 275)This Brotherhood does possess a considerable portion of the
symbolism
formulae and ritual of Occultism handed down from time immemorial from the
primeval
Initiations.To
render this Brotherhood a mere harmless negation the Jesuits sent some of their
most
able
emissaries into the Order who first made the simple brethren believe that the
true secret was lost
with
Hiram Abiff;and then induced them to put this belief into their
formularies.They then invented
specious
but spurious higher degrees,pretending to give further light upon this lost
secret to lead the
candidate
on and amuse him with forms borrowed from the real thing but containing no
substance and
all
artfully contrived to lead the aspiring Neophyte to nowhere.And yet men of good
sense and abilities,
in
other respects,will meet at intervals,and with solemn face zeal and
earnestness,go through the
mockery
of revealing substituted secrets instead of the real thing.
Page
221.
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If
the reader turns to a very remarkable and very useful work called The Royal
Masonic Cyclopaedia Art
Rosicrucianism
he will find its author a high and learned Mason showing what the Jesuits have
done
to
destroy Masonry.Speaking of the period when the existence of this mysterious
Brotherhood (of which
many
pretend to know something if not a good deal and know in fact nothing)was
first made known
he
says:
There
was a dread among the great masses of society in byegone days of the unseen a
dread
as recent events and phenomena show very clearly not yet overcome in its
entirety.
Hence
students of Nature and mind were forced into an obscurity not altogether
unwelcome....The
Kabalistic reveries of a Johann Reuchlin led to the fiery action of a Luther
and
the patient labours of Trittenheim produced the modern system of diplomatic
cipher
writing.....It
is very worthy of remark,that one particular century and that in which the
Rosicrucians
first showed themselves,is distinguished in history as the era in which most of
these
efforts at throwing off the trammels of the past [Popery and
Ecclesiasticism ] occurred.
Hence
the opposition of the losing party and their virulence against anything
mysterious or
unknown.They
freely organised pseudo-Rosicrucian and Masonic societies in return;and
these
societies were instructed to irregularly entrap the weaker brethren of the True
and
Invisible
Order and then triumphantly betray anything they may be so inconsiderate as to
communicate
to the superiors of these transitory and unmeaning associations.Every wile was
adopted
to the authorities,fighting in self-defence against the progress of truth to
engage by
persuasion
interest or terror such as might be cajoled into receiving the Pope as Master
when
(Page 276)gained as many converts to that faith know but dare not own
they are treated
with
neglect and left to battle of life as best they may not even being admitted to
the
knowledge
of such miserable aporrheta as the Romish faith considers itself entitled to
withhold.
But
if Masonry has been spoiled none is able to crush the real invisible
Rosicrucian and the Eastern
Initiate.The
symbolism of Vishvakarma and Sūrya Vikarttana has survived where Hiram Abiff
was
indeed
murdered and we will now return to it.It is not simply an astronomical but is
the most solemn
rite
an inheritance from the Archaic Mysteries that has crossed the ages and is used
to this day.It
typifies
a whole drama of the Cycle of Life of progressive incarnations,and of psychic
as well as of
physiological
secrets,of which neither the Church nor Science knows anything though it is
this rite that
has
led the former to the greatest of its Christian Mysteries.
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SECTION XXX
The Mystery Sun of Initiation
(Page 277)THE antiquity of the Secret Doctrine may be better realised
when it is shown at what point of
history
its Mysteries had already been desecrated by being made subservient to the
personal ambition
of
despot-ruler and crafty priest.These profoundly philosophical and
scientifically composed religious
dramas,in
which were enacted the grandest truths of the Occult or Spiritual Universe and
the hidden lore
of
learning and become subject to persecution long before the days when Plato and
even Pythagoras
flourished.Withal
primal revelations given to Mankind have not died with the Mysteries;they are still
preserved
as heirlooms for future and more spiritual generations.
It
has been already stated in Isis Unveiled,[Op.cit.,i.15.]
that so far back in the days of Aristotle the
great
Mysteries had already lost their primitive grandeur and solemnity.Their rites
had fallen into
desuetude
and they had to a great degree degenerated into mere priestly speculations and
had become
religious
shams.It is useless to state when they first appeared in Europe and Greece
since recognised
history
may almost be said to begin with Aristotle everything before him appearing to
be in an
inextricable
chronological confusion.Suffice it to say that in Egypt the Mysteries had been
known since
the
days of Menes,and that the Greeks received them only when Orpheus introduced
them from India.In
an
article Was writing known before Pānini? [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 Pānini and his work still exists;there are seventeen
writers of Nirukta
(glossary)known
to have prescribed Yaska.] it is stated that the Pāndus had acquired
universal dominion
and
had taught the sacrificial Mysteries to other races as far back as 3 300
B.C.Indeed when Orpheus,
the
son of Apollo or Helios,received from his father the phorminx the
seven-stringed lyre symbolical of
the
sevenfold mystery (Page
278)of Initiation these Mysteries were
already hoary with age in Central.
Asia
and India.According to Herodotus it was Orpheus who brought them from India and
Orpheus is far
anterior
to Homer and Hesiod.Thus even in the days of Aristotle few were the true Adepts
left in Europe
and
even in Egypt.The heirs of those who had been dispersed by the conquering
swords of various
invaders
of old Egypt had been dispersed in their turn.As 8 000 or 9 000 years earlier
the stream of
knowledge
had been slowly running down from the tablelands of Central Asia into India and
towards
Europe
and Northern Africa so about 500 years B.C.it had begun to flow backward to its
old home and
birthplace.During
the two thousand subsequent years the knowledge of the existence of great
Adepts
nearly
died out in Europe.Nevertheless,in some secret places the Mysteries were still
enacted in all their
primitive
purity.The Sun of Righteousness still blazed high on the midnight sky ;and
while darkness
was
upon the face of the profane world there was the eternal light in the Adyta on
the nights of Initiation.
The
true Mysteries were never made public.Eleusinia and Agrae for the
multitudes;the God Åõāļõėē
of
the good counsel the great Orphic Deity for the neophyte.
This
mystery God mistaken by our Symbologists for the Sun who was He?Everyone who
has any
idea
of the ancient Egyptian exoteric faith is quite aware that for the multitudes
Osiris was the Sun in
Heaven
the heavenly King Ro-Imphab;that by the Greeks the Sun was called the Eye
of Jupiter as
for
the modern orthodox Pārsi he is the eye of Ormuzd: that the Sun moreover was
addressed as the
All-seeing
God (šļėõļöčįėģļņ )as the God Saviour and the saving God (Įéōéļķ ōēņ
ółōēńéįņ).
Read
the papyrus of Papheronmes at Berlin and the stela as rendered by Mariette Bey;[La
Mére d Apis
p.47.]and
see what they say:
Page
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Glory
to thee O Sun divine child!....thy rays carry life to the pure and to those
ready....The Gods
[the Sons of God ]
who approach thee tremble with delight and awe....Thou art the first born
the Son
of
God the Word.[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.]
The
Church has now seized upon these terms and sees presentments of the coming
Christ in these
expressions
in the initiatory rites and prophetic utterances of the Pagan Oracles.
The Sun as God -(Page 279)They are nothing of
the kind for they were applied to every worthy Initiate.If
the
expressions that were used in hieratic writings and glyphs thousands of years
before our era are now
found
in the laudatory hymns and prayers of Christian Churches,it is simply because
they have been
unblushingly
appropriated by the Latin Christians,in the full hope of never being detected
by posterity.
Everything
that could be done had been done to destroy the original Pagan manuscripts and
the Church
felt
secure.Christianity has undeniably had her great Seers and Prophets,like every
other religion;but
their
claims are not strengthened by denying their predecessors.
Listen
to Plato:
Know
then Glaucus,that when I speak of the production of good it is the Sun I
mean.The
Son
has a perfect analogy with his Father.
Iamblichus
calls the Sun the image of divine intelligence or Wisdom. Eusebius,repeating
the words of
Philo
calls the rising Sun (įķįōļėē )the chief Angel the most ancient adding that the
Archangel who is
polyonymo s (of many
names)is the Verbum of Christ.The word Sol (Sun)being derived from sol s the
One
or the He alone. and its Greek name Helios meaning the Most High the
emblem becomes
comprehensible.Nevertheless,the
Ancients made a difference between the Sun and its prototype.
Socrates
saluted the rising Sun as does a true Pārsī or Zoroastrian in our own day;and
Homer and
Euripides,as
Plato did after them several times,mention the Jupiter-Logos,the Word or the
Sun.
Nevertheless,the
Christians maintain that since the oracle consulted on the God Iao answered:It
is the
Sun
therefore
The
Jehovah of the Jews was well known to the Pagans and Greeks;[See De
Mirville iv.15 ]
and
Iao is our Jehovah. The first part of the proposition has nothing it seems to
do with the second
part
and least of all can the conclusion be regarded as correct.But if the
Christians are so anxious to
prove
the identity Occultists have nothing against it.Only in such case Jehovah is
also Bacchus.It is
very
strange that the people of civilised Christendom should until now hold on so
desperately to the skirts
of
the idolatrous Jews Sabaeans and Sun worshippers as they were [ II.Kings,xxiii
4-13.] like the
rabble
of Chaldaea and that they should fail to see that the later Jehovah is but a
Jewish development
of
the Ja-va or the (Page
280)Iao of the Phoenicians;that this name
in short was the secret name of a
Mystery-God
one of the many Kabiri.Highest God as He was for one little nation he never
was so
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regarded
by the Initiates who conducted the Mysteries;for them he was but a Planetary
Spirit attached to
the
visible Sun;and the visible Sun is only the central Star not the central
spiritual Sun.
And
the Angel of the Lord said unto him [Manoah ] Why askest thou
thus after my name
seeing
it is secret. [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 Delilah 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 Mōvers gives a definition
of the
Phoenician
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 Phoenicians,spirit and matter.But this is the echo of Jewish thought
not the
opinion
of Pagan Philosophers .]
However
this may be the identity of the Jehovah of Mount Sinai with the God Bacchus is
hardly
disputable
and he is surely as already shown in Isis Unveiled Dionysos.[See
Isis Unveiled.ii.526 ]
Wherever
Bacchus was worshipped there was a tradition of Nyssa [Beth-San or
Scythopolis in Palestine
had
that designation:so had a spot on Mount Parnassus.But Diodorus declares that
Nyssa was between
Phoenicia
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.] and
a cave where he
was
reared.Outside Greece Bacchus was the all-powerful Zagreus,the highest of
Gods, in whose
service
was Orpheus,the founder of the Mysteries.Now unless it be conceded that Moses
was an
initiated
Priest an Adept whose actions are all narrated allegorically then it must be
admitted that he
personally
together with his hosts of Israelites,worshipped Bacchus.
And
Moses built an altar and called the name of it Jehovah Nissi [or
Iao-nisi or again
Dionisi
].[Ex.,xvii.15.]
To
strengthen the statement we have further to remember that the place where
Osiris,the Egyptian
Zagreus
or Bacchus,was born was Mount Sinai which is called by the Egyptians Mount
Nissa.The
brazen
serpent was a nis,and the month of the Jewish Passover is Nisan.
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SECTION XXXI
The Objects of the Mysteries
(Page 281)THE earliest Mysteries recorded in history are those of
Samothrace.After the distribution of
pure
Fire a new life began.This was the new birth of the Initiate after which like
the Brāhmans of old in
India
he became a dwija a twice born
Initiated
into that which may be rightly called the most blessed of all Mysteries
...being
ourselves
pure [Phaedrus,Cary s translation p.326.]
says
Plato.Diodorus Siculus,Herodotus and Sanchoniathon the Phoenician the oldest
of Historians
say
that these Mysteries originated in the night of time thousands of years
probably before the historical
period.Iamblichus
informs us that Pythagoras
Was
initiated in all the Mysteries of Byblus and Tyre in the sacred operations of
the Syrians,
and
in the Mysteries of the Phnicians.[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).]
As
was said in Isis Unveiled:
When
men like Pythagoras,Plato and Iamblichus,renowned for their severe morality
took
part
in the mysteries and spoke of them with veneration it ill behoves our modern
critics to
judge
them [and their Initiates ] upon their merely external aspect.
Yet
this is what has been done until now especially by the Christian
Fathers.Clement Alexandrinus
stigmatises
the Mysteries as indecent and diabolical though his words,showing that the
Eleusinian
Mysteries
were identical with and even as he would allege borrowed from those of the
Jews,are
quoted
elsewhere in this work.The Mysteries were composed of two parts,of which the
Lesser were
performed
at Agrae (Page 282)and the Greater at Eleusis,and Clement had been himself
initiated.But
the
Katharsis,or trials of purification have ever been misunderstood.Iamblichus
explains the worst;and
his
explanation ought to be perfectly satisfactory at any rate for every
unprejudiced mind.
He
says:--
Exhibitions
of this kind in the Mysteries were designed to free us from licentious
passions,by
gratifying
the sight and at the same time vanquishing all evil thought through the awful
sanctity
with which these rites were accompanied.
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Dr.Warburton
remarks:
The
wisest and best men in the Pagan world are unanimous in this,that the Mysteries
were
instituted
pure and proposed the noblest ends by the worthiest means.
Although
persons of both sexes and all classes were allowed to take part in the
Mysteries,and a
participation
in them was even obligatory very few indeed attained the higher and final
Initiation in these
celebrated
rites.The gradation of the Mysteries is given us by Proclus in the fourth book
of his Theology
of Plato.
The
perfective rite precedes in order the initiation Telete Muesis,and the
initiation Epopteia,
or
the final apocalypse [revelation ].
Theon
of Smyrna in Mathematica,also divides the mystic rites into five parts:
The
first of which is the previous purification;for neither are the Mysteries
communicated to all who are
willing
to receive them;but there are certain persons who are prevented by the voice of
the crier......
since
it is necessary that such as are not expelled from the mysteries should first
be refined by certain
purifications;but
after purification the reception of the sacred rites succeeds.The third part is
denominated
epopteia or reception.And the fourth which is the end and design of the
revelation is (the
investiture)the
binding of the head and fixing of the crowns [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.]...whether
after this he [the initiated
person
] becomes a torchbearer or an hierophant of the Mysteries,or sustains some
other part of the
sacerdotal
office.But the fifth which is produced from all these is friendship and
interior communion with
God.And this was the
last and most awful of all the Mysteries.[Ele sinian and Bacchic
Mysteries,
T.Taylor
p.46 47.]
The
chief objects of the Mysteries,represented as diabolical by the Christian
Fathers and ridiculed by
modern
writers,were instituted with the highest and most moral purpose in view.
Mysteries and Theophany (Page 283)There is no need to repeat here that which has been already
described
in Isis Unveiled [ii.III 113 ]that whether through temple
Initiation or the private study of
Theurgy
every student obtained the proof of the immortality of his Spirit and the
survival of his Soul.
What
the last epopteia was is alluded to by Plato in Phaedrus:
Being
initiated in those Mysteries which it is lawful to call the most
blessed of all mysteries....
we
were freed from the molestations of evils,which otherwise await us in a future
period of
time.Likewise
in consequence of this divine initiation we become spectators of entire
simple
immovable
and blessed visions,resident in a pure light.[Ele sinian and Bacchic
Mysteries,
p.63.]
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This
veiled confession shows that the Initiates enjoyed Theophany saw visions of
Gods and of real
immortal
spirits.As Taylor correctly infers:
The
most sublime part of the epopteia or final revealing consisted in
beholding the Gods [the
high
Planetary Spirits ] themselves,invested with a resplendent light.[Op.cit
p.65 ]
The
statement of Proclus upon the subject is unequivocal:
In
all the Initiations and Mysteries,the Gods exhibit many forms of themselves,and
appear in
a
variety of shapes;and sometimes indeed a formless light of themselves if held
forth to the
view;sometimes
this light is according to a h man form and sometimes it proceeds into a
different
shape.[Quoted by Taylor.p.66.]
Again
we have
Whatever
is on earth is the resemblance and shadow of something that is in the sphere
while
that
resplendent thing [the prototype of the Soul-Spirit ] remaineth in nchangeable
condition it
is
well also with its shadow.When that resplendent one removeth far from its
shadow life
removeth
[from the latter ] to a distance.Again that light is the shadow of something
more
resplendent
than itself.[Verses 35-38 ]
Thus
speaks the Desatir,in the Book of Shet (the prophet
Zirtusht),thereby showing the identity of its
Esoteric
doctrines with those of the Greek Philosophers.
The
second statement of Plato confirms the view that the Mysteries of the Ancients
were identical with
the
Initiations practised even now among the Buddhist and the Hindu Adepts.The
higher (Page 284)
visions,the
most truthful were produced through a regular discipline of gradual
Initiations,and the
development
of psychical powers.In Europe and Egypt the Mystę were brought into close union
with
those
whom Proclus calls mystical natures, resplendent Gods, because as Plato
says:
[We
] were ourselves pure and immaculate being liberated from this surrounding
vestment
which
we denominate body and to which we are now bound like an oyster to its shell.
[Phaedrus 64 quoted by Taylor p.64.]
As
to the East
The
doctrine of planetary and terrestrial Pitris was revealed entirely in
ancient India as well as
now
only at the last moment of initiation and to the adepts of superior degrees.[Isis
Unveiled
ii
114.]
The
word Pitris may now be explained and something else added.In India the
chela of the third degree
of
Inititation has two Gurus:One the living Adept;the other the disembodied and
glorified Mahātmā Who
remains
the adviser or instructor or even the high Adepts.Few are the accepted chelas
who even see
their
living Master their Guru till the day and hour of their final and for ever
binding vow.It is this that
was
meant in Isis Unveiled when it was stated that few of the fakirs (the
word chela being unknown to
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Europe
and America in those days)however
Pure
and honest and self-devoted have yet ever seen the astral form of a purely h
man
pitar (an ancestor or
father),otherwise than at the solemn moment of their first and last
initiation.It
is in the presence of his instructor the Guru and just before the vato -fakir
[the
just
initiated chela ] is despatched into the world of the living with his
seven-knotted bamboo
wand
for all protection that he is suddenly placed face to face with the unknown
PRESENCE
[of
his Pitar or Father the glorified invisible Master or disembodied Mahātmā ].He
sees it and
falls
prostrate at the feet of the evanescent form but is not entrusted with the
great secret of
its
evocation for it is the supreme mystery of the holy syllable.
The
Initiate says Éliphas Lévi knows ;therefore he dares all and keeps
silent. Says the great French
Kabalist:
You
may see him often sad never discouraged or desperate;often poor never humbled
or
wretched;often
persecuted never cowed down or vanquished.For he remembers the
widowhood
and the murder of Orpheus,the exile and solitary death of Moses,the martyrdom
of
the prophets,the tortures of Apollonius,the Cross of the Savior.He knows in
what forlorn
state
died Agrippa whose memory is slandered to this day;he knows the trials that
broke
down
the great Paracelsus,and all that Raymond Lully had to suffer before he arrived
at a
bloody
death.
The Mysteries and Masonry -(Page 285)He remembers Swedenborg having to feign insanity and losing
even
his reason before his knowledge was forgiven to him;St.Martin who had to hide
himself all life;
Cagliostro
who died forsaken in the cells of the inquisition;[This is false and the
Abbé Constant (Éliphas
Lévy)knew
it was so.Why did he promulgate the untruth?] Cazotte who perished
on the guillotine.
Successor
of so many victims,he dares,nevertheless,but understands the more the necessity
to keep
silent.[Dogme
de la Ha te Magie,i.219.220.]
Masonry
not the political institution known as the Scotch Lodge but real Masonry some
rites of which
are
still preserved in the Grand Orient of France and that Elias Ashmole a
celebrated English Occult
Philospher
of the XVIIth century tried in vain to remodel after the manner of the Indian
and Egyptian
Mysteries
Masonry rests,according to Ragon the great authority upon the subject upon
three
fundamental
degrees:the triple duty of a Mason is to study whence he comes,what he is,and
whither
he goes;the study that
is,of God of himself and of the future transformation.[Orthodoxie
Maconniq e,
p.99.]
Masonic Initiation was modelled on that in the lesser mysteries.The third
degree was one used in
both
Egypt and India from time immemorial and the remembrance of it lingers to this
day in every Lodge
under
the name of the death and resurrection of Hiram Abiff the Widow s Son. In
Egypt the latter was
called
Osiris; in India Loka-chakshu (Eye of the World),and Dinakara
(day-maker)or the Sun and
the
rite itself was everywhere named the gate of death.The coffin or
sarcophagus,of Osiris,killed by
Typhon
was brought in and placed in the middle of the Hall of the Dead with the
Initiates all around it
and
the candidate near by.The latter was asked whether he had participated in the
murder and
notwithstanding
his denial and after sundry and very hard trials,the Initiator feigned to
strike him on the
head
with a hatchet;he was thrown down swathed in bandages like a mummy and wept
over.Then
came
lightening and thunder the supposed corpse was surrounded with fire and was
finally raised.
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Ragon
speaks of a rumour that charged the Emperor Commodus when he was at one time
enacting
the
part of the Initiator with having played this part in the initiatory drama so
seriously that he actually
killed
the postulant when dealing him the blow with the hatchet.This shows that the lesser
Mysteries had
not
quite died out in the second century A.D.
(Page 286)The Mysteries were carried into South and Central America
Northern Mexico and Peru by the
Atlanteans
in those days when
A
pedestrian from the North [of what was once upon a time also India ] might have
reached
hardly
wetting his feet the Alaskan Peninsula through Manchooria across the f t re
Gulf of
Tartary
the Kurile and Aleutian Islands;while another traveller furnished with a canoe
and
starting
from the South could have walked over from Siam crossed the Polynesian Islands
and
trudged into any part of the continent of South America.[Five Years
of Theosophy.p.214.]
They
continued to exist down to the day of the Spanish invaders.These destroyed the
Mexican and
Peruvian
records,but were prevented from laying their desecrating hands upon the many
Pyramids the
lodges
of an ancient Initiation whose ruins are scattered over Puente Nacional
Cholula and
Teotihuacan.The
ruins of Palenque of Ococimgo in Chiapas,and others in Central America are
known to
all.If
the pyramids and temples of Guiengola and Mitla ever betray their secrets,the
present Doctrine will
then
be shown to have been a forerunner of the grandest truths in Nature.Meanwhile
they have all a
claim
to be called Mitla the place of sadness and the abode of the
(desecrated)dead.
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SECTION XXXII
Traces of the Mysteries
(Page 287)SAYS the Royal Masonic Cyclopędia,art Sun:
In
all times,the Sun has necessarily played an important part as a symbol and
especially in
Freemasonry.The
W.M.represents the rising sun the J.W.the sun at the meridian and the
S.W.the
setting sun.In the Druidical rites,the Arch-Druid represents the sun and was
aided
by
two other officers,one representing the Moon in the West and the other the Sun
at the
South
in its meridian.It is quite unnecessary to enter into any lengthened discussion
on this
symbol.
It
is the more unnecessary since J.M.Ragon has discussed it very fully as one
may find at the end of
Section
XXIX.where part of his explanations have been quoted.Freemasonry derived her
rights from
the
East as we have said.And if it be true to say of the modern Rosicrucians that
they are invested with
a
knowledge of chaos,not perhaps a very desirable acquisition the remark is
still more true when
applied
to all the other branches of Masonry since the knowledge of their members about
the full
signification
of their symbol is nil .Dozens of hypotheses are resorted to one more
unlikely than the
other
as to the Round Towers of Ireland;one fact is enough to show the ignorance
of the Masons,
namely
that according to the Royal Masonic Encylopędia,the idea that they were
connected with
Masonic
Initiation may be at once dismissed as unworthy of notice.The Towers, which
are found
throughout
the East in Asia were connected with the Mystery-Initiations,namely with the
Vishvakarma
and
the Vikarttana rites.The candidates for Initiation were placed in them for
three days and three nights
whenever
there was no temple with a subterranean crypt close at hand.These round towers
were built
for
no other purposes.Discredited as are all such monuments of Pagan origin by the
Christian clergy
who
thus soil their own nest they are still the living and indestructible relics
of the Wisdom of old.(Page
288)Nothing
exists in this objective and illusive world of ours that cannot be made to
serve two purposes
a good and a bad one.Thus in later ages,the Initiates of the Left Path
and the anthropomorphists took
in
hand most of those venerable ruins,then silent and deserted by their first wise
inmates,and turned
them
indeed into phallic monuments.But this was a deliberate wilful and vicious
misinterpretation of
their
real meaning a deflection from their first use.The Sun though ever even for
the multitudes,ģļķļņ
ļõńįķļõ
öåļņ the only and one King and God in heaven and the Åõāļõėē the God of Good
Counsel
of
Orpheus had in every exoteric popular religion a dual aspect which was
anthropomorphised by the
profane.Thus
the Sun was Osiris-Typhon,Ormuzd-Ahriman,Bel-Jupiter and Baal the
life-giving and the
death -giving
luminary.And thus one and the same monolith pillar pyramid tower or temple
originally
built
to glorify the first principle or aspect might become in time an idol-fane or
worse a phallic emblem
in
its crude and brutal form.The Lingam of the Hindus has a spiritual and highly
philosophical meaning
while
the missionaries see in it but an indecent emblem; it has just the meaning
which is to be found in
all
those baalim chammanim and the bamoth with the pillars of unhewn stone of the
Bible set up for the
glorification
of the male Jehovah.But this does not alter the fact that the pureia of the
Greeks,the nur-
hags
of Sardinia the teocalli of Mexico etc.were all in the beginning of the same
character as the
Round
Towers of Ireland.They were sacred places of Initiation.
In
1877 the writer quoting the authority and opinions of some most eminent
scholars,ventured to assert
that
there was a great difference between the terms Chrestos and Christos ,a
difference having a
profound
and Esoteric meaning.Also that while Christos means to live and to be
born into a new life
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Chrestos,in
Initiation phraseology signified the death of the inner lower or personal
nature in man;
thus
is given the key to the Brąhmanical title the twice-born;and finally
There
were Chrestians long before the era of Christianity and the Essenes
belonged to them.
[In I Peter .ii.3
Jesus is called the Lord Chrestos.]
For
this epithets sufficiently opprobrious to characterise the writer could hardly
be found.And yet then as
well
as now the author never attempted a statement of such a serious nature without
showing as many
learned
authorities for it as could be mustered.
Christos and Chrestos -(Page 289)Thus on the next page it was said:
Lepsius
shows that the word Nofre means Chrestos,good and that one of the
titles of Osiris,
Onnofre
must be translated the goodness of God made manifest. The worship of Christ
was
not universal at this early date explains Mackenzie by which I mean that
Christolatry
had
not been introduced;but the worship of Chrestos the Good Principle had
preceded it
by
many centuries,and even survived the general adoption of Christianity as shown
on
monuments
still in existence ....Again we have an inscription which is pre-Christian on
an
epitaphial
tablet (Spon.Misc.Er d.,Ant.x xviii.2)..
.and
de Rossi (Roma Sotteranea tome i.tav.xxi.)gives us
another
example from the catacombs Ęlia Chreste in Pace.[Isis Unveiled.ii.323.]
Today
the writer is able to add to all those testimonies the corroboration of an
erudite author who proves
whatever
he undertakes to show on the authority of geometrical demonstration.There is a
most curious
passage
with remarks and explanations in the So rce of Measures,whose author has
probably never
heard
of the Mystery-God Visvakarma of the early Āryans.Treating on the difference
between the terms
Chrest
and Christ he ends by saying that:
There
were two Messiahs:one who went down into the pit for the salvation of this
world;this
was
the Sun shorn of his golden rays and crowned with blackened ones (symbolising
this
loss),as
the thorns:the other was the triumphant Messiah mounting up to the summit of
the
arch
of heaven and personified as the Lion of the Tribe of J dah .In both
instances he had the
cross;once
in humiliation and once holding it in his control as the law of creation He
being
Jehovah.
And
then the author proceeds to give the fact that there were two Messiahs,
etc.as quoted above.
And
this leaving the divine and mystic character and claim for Jesus entirely
independent of this event
of
His mortal life shows Him beyond any doubt as an Initiate of the Egyptian
Mysteries,where the
same
rite of Death and of spiritual Resurrection for the neophyte or the suffering
Chrestos on his trial
and
new birth by Regeneration was enacted for this was a universally adopted rite.
The
pit into which the Eastern Initiate was made to descend was,as shown before
Pātāla one of the
seven
regions of the nether world over which rules Vāsuki the great snake God. This
pit Pātāla has
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(Page 290)in the Eastern Symbolism precisely the same manifold
meaning as is found by Mr.Ralston
Skinner
in the Hebrew word shiac in its application to the case in hand.For it
was the synonym of
Scorpio
Pātāla s depths being impregnated with the brightness of the new Sun
represented by the
newly
born into the glory;and Pātāla was and is in a sense a pit a grave the
place of death and the
door
of Hades or Sheol as,the partially exoteric Initiations in India the
candidate had to pass through
the
matrix of the heifer before proceeding to Pātāla.In its non-mystic sense it is
the Antipodes America
being
referred to in India as Pātāla.But in its symbolism it meant all that and much
more.The fact alone
that
Vāsuki the ruling Deity of Pātāla is represented in the Hindu Pantheon as the
great Nāga (Serpent)
who
was used by the Gods and Asuras as a rope round the mountain Mandara at the
churning of the
ocean
for Amrita the water of immortality connects him directly with Initiation
For
he is Shesha Nāga also serving as a couch for Vishnu and upholding the seven
worlds;and he is
also
Ananta the endless, and the symbol of eternity hence the God of Secret
Wisdom degraded by
the
Church to the rōle of the tempting Serpent of Satan.That what is now
said is correct may be verified
by
the evidence of even the exoteric rendering of the attributes of various Gods
and Sages both in the
Hindu
and the Buddhist Pantheons.Two instances will suffice to show how little our
best and most
erudite
Orientalists are capable of dealing correctly and fairly with the symbolism of
Eastern nations,
while
remaining ignorant of the corresponding points to be found only in Occultism
and the Secret
Doctrine.
(1)The
learned Orientalist and Tibetan traveller Professor Emil Schlagintweit mentions
in one of his
works
on Tibet a national legend to the effect that
Nāgārjuna
[a mythological personage without any real existence the learned German
scholar
thinks ] received the book Paramārtha or according to others,the book Avatamsaka
from
the Nāgas,fabulous creatures of the nature of serpents,who occupy a place among
the
beings
superior to man and are regarded as protectors of the law of Buddha.To these
spiritual
beings Shākyamuni is said to have taught a more philosophical religious system
than
to
men who were not sufficiently advanced to understand it at the time of his
appearance.
[B ddhism in Tibet,p.31.]
The Symbolism of Narada -(Page 291)Nor are men sufficiently advanced for it now;for the more
philosophical
religious system is the Secret Doctrine the Occult Eastern Philosophy which is
the corner-
stone
of all sciences rejected by the unwise builders even at this day and more today
perhaps than ever
before
in the great conceit of our age.The allegory means simply that Nāgārjuna having
been initiated
by
the Serpents the Adepts,the wise ones and driven out from India by the
Brāhmans,who
dreaded
to have their Mysteries and sacerdotal Science divulged (the real cause of
their hatred of
Buddhism),went
away to China and Tibet where he initiated many into the truths of the hidden
Mysteries
taught
by Gautama Buddha.
(2)The
hidden symbolism of Nārada the great Rishi and the author of some of the
Rig-Vaidic hymns,
who
incarnated again later on during Krishna s time has never been understood.Yet
in connection with
the
Occult Sciences,Nārada the son of Brahmā is one of the most prominent
characters;he is directly
connected
in his first incarnation with the Builders hence with the seven Rectors
of the Christian
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Church
who helped God in the work of creation. This grand personification is hardly
noticed by our
Orientalists,who
refer only to that which he is alleged to have said of Pātāla namely that it
is a place of
sexual
and sensual gratifications. This is thought to be amusing and the reflection
is suggested that
Nārada
no doubt found the place delightful. Yet this sentence simply shows him to
have been an
Initiate
connected directly with the Mysteries,and walking as all the other
neophytes,before and after
him
had to walk in the pit among the thorns in the sacrificial Chrest condition
as the suffering victim
made
to descend thereinto a mystery truly!
Nārada
is one of the seven Rishis,the mind-born sons of Brahmā.The fact of his
having been during
his
incarnation a high Initiate he like Orpheus,being the founder of the Mysteries
is corroborated and
made
evident by his history.The Mahābhārata states that Nārada having
frustrated the scheme formed
for
peopling the universe in order to remain true to his vow of chastity was cursed
by Daksha and
sentenced
to be born once more.Again when born during Krishna s time he is accused of
calling his
father
Brahmā a false teacher because the latter advised him to get married and he
refused to do so.
This
shows him to have been an Initiate going against the orthodox worship and
religion.It is curious to
find
this Rishi and leader among the Builders and the Heavenly Host as (Page 292)the prototype of the
Christian
leader of the same Host the Archangel Mikael.Both are the male Virgins,
and both are
the
only ones among their respective Hosts who refuse to create.Nārada is said
to have dissuaded the
Hari-ashvas,the
five thousand sons of Daksha begotten by him for the purpose of peopling the
Earth
from
producing offspring.Since then the Hari-ashvas have dispersed themselves
through the regions,
and
have never returned.The Initiates are perhaps,the incarnations of these
Hari-ashvas?
It
was on the seventh day the third of his ultimate trial that the neophyte arose
a regenerated man who
having
passed through his second spiritual birth returned to earth a glorified and
triumphant conqueror of
Death
a Hierophant.
An
Eastern neophyte in his Chrest condition may be seen in a certain engraving in
Moor s Hind
Pantheon,whose author
mistook another form of the crucified Sun or Vishnu Vittoba for Krishna and
calls
it Krishna crucified in space.The engraving is also given in Dr.Lundy s Mon
mental Christianity in
which
work the reverend author has collected as many proofs as his ponderous volume
could hold of
Christian
symbols before Christianity as he expresses it.Thus he shows us
Krishna and Apollo as good
shepherds,Krishna
holding the cruciform Conch and the Chakra and Krishna crucified in Space as
he
calls
it.Of this figure it may be truly said as the author says of it himself:
This
representation I believe to be anterior to Christianity ....It looks like a
Christian crucifix
in
many respects ....The drawing the attitude the nail marks in hands and feet
indicate a
Christian
origin while the Parthian coronet of seven points,the absence of the wood and
of
the
usual inscription and the rays of glory above would seem to point to some other
than a
Christian
origin.Can it be the victim-man or the priest and victim both in one of the
Hindu
Mythology
who offered himself a sacrifice before the worlds were?
It
is surely so.
Can
it be Plato s Second God who impressed himself on the universe in the form of
the cross?
Or
is it his divine man who would be scourged tormented fettered have his eyes
burnt out;
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and
lastly ...wo ld be crucified ?
It
is all that and much more;archaic religious Philosophy was universal and its
Mysteries are as old as
man.It
is the eternal symbol of the personified Sun astronomically purified in its
mystic meaning
regenerated
and symbolised by all the Initiates in memory of a sinless Humanity when all
were Sons of
God.
Egyptian Initiation -(Page 293)Now mankind
has become the Son of Evil truly.Does all this take
anything
away from the dignity of Christ as an ideal or of Jesus as a divine man?Not at
all.On the
contrary
made to stand alone glorified above all other Sons of God He can only
forment evil feelings
in
all those many millioned nations who do not believe in the Christian system
provoking their hatred and
leading
to iniquitous wars and strifes.If on the other hand we place Him among a long
series of Sons
of
God and Sons of divine Light every man may then be left to choose for himself
among those many
ideals,which
he will choose as a God to call to his help and worship on earth as in Heaven.
Many
among those called Saviours were good shepherds, as was Krishna for one and
all of them are
said
to have crushed the serpent s head in other words to have conquered their
sensual nature and to
have
mastered divine and Occult Wisdom.Apollo killed Python a fact which exonerates
him from the
charge
of being himself the great dragon Satan:Krishna slew the snake Kalināga the
Black Serpent;
and
the Scandinavian Thor bruised the head of the symbolical reptile with his
crucifixion mace.
In
Egypt every city of importance was separated from its burial-place by a sacred
lake.The same
ceremony
of judgement as is described in The Book of the Dead that precious and
mysterious book
(Bunsen)as
taking place in the world of Spirit took place on earth during the burial of
the mummy.
Forty-two
judges or assessors assembled on the shore and judged the departed Soul
according to its
actions
when in the body.After that the priests returned within the sacred precincts
and instructed the
neophytes
upon the probable fate of the Soul and the solemn drama that was then taking
place in the
invisible
realm whither the Soul had fled.The immortality of the Spirit was strongly
inculcated on the
neophytes
by the Al-om-jalt the name of the highest Egyptian Hierophant.In the
Crata Nepoa the
priestly
Mysteries in Egypt the following are described as four out of the seven degrees
of Initiation.
After
a preliminary trial at Thebes,where the neophyte had to pass through many
probations,called the
Twelve
Tortures, he was commanded in order that he might come out triumphant to
govern his
passions
and never lose for a moment the idea of his inner God or seventh Principle.Then
as a symbol
of
the wanderings of the unpurified Soul he had to ascend several ladders and
wander in darkness in a
cave
with many doors,all of which were locked.Having (Page 294)overcome all he received the degree
of
Pastophoris,after which he became in the second and third degrees,the Neocoris
and Melancphoris.
Brought
into a vast subterranean chamber thickly furnished with mummies lying in state
he was placed
in
presence of the coffin which contained the mutilated body of Osiris.This was
the hall called the Gates
of
Death whence the verse in Job:
Have
the gates of Death been opened to thee
Hast
thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?
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Thus
asks the Lord the Hierophant the Al-om-jah the Initiator of Job alluding to
this third degree of
Initiation.For
the Book of Job is the poem of Initiation par excellence.
When
the neophyte had conquered the terrors of this trial he was conducted to the
Hall of Spirits to be
judged
by them.Among the rules in which he was instructed he was commanded:
Never
to either desire or seek revenge;to be always ready to help a brother in danger
even
unto
the risk of his own life;to bury every dead body;to honour his parents above
all;to
respect
old age and protect those weaker than himself;and finally to ever bear in mind
the
hour
of death and that of resurrection in a new and imperishable body.
Purity
and chastity were highly recommended and adultery was threatened with
death.Thus the
Egyptian
neophyte was made a Kristophoros.In this degree the mystery-name of IAO was
communicated
to him.
Let
the reader compare the above sublime precepts with the precepts of Buddha and
the noble
commandments
in the Rule of Life for the ascetics of India and he will understand the
unity of the
Secret
Doctrine everywhere.
It
is impossible to deny the presence of a sexual element in many religious symbols,but
this fact is not in
the
least open to censure once it becomes generally known that in the religious
traditions of every
country
man was not born in the first human race from father and mother.From the
bright mind-born
Sons
of Brahmā the Rishis,and from Adam Kadmon with his Emanations,the Sephiroth
down to the
parentless,
the Anupādaka or the Dhyāni Buddhas,from whom sprang the Bodhisattvas and
Manushi-
Buddhas,the
earthly Initiates men the first race of men was with every nation held as
being born
without
father or mother.Man the Manushi Buddha the Manu the Enosh son of Seth or
the Son of
Man
as he is called is born in the present way only as the consequence the
unavoidable fatality of the
law
of natural evolution.
The Self-Sacrificing Victim -(Page 295)Mankind having reached the last limit and that turning
point
where
its spiritual nature had to make room for mere physical organization had to
fall into matter and
generation.But
man s evolution and involution are cyclic.He will end as he began.Of course to
our
grossly
material minds even the sublime symbolism of Kosmos conceived in the matrix of
Space after the
divine
Unit had entered into and fructified it with Its holy fiat will no doubt
suggest materiality.Not so with
primitive
mankind.The initiatory rite in the Mysteries of the self-sacrificing Victim
that dies a spiritual
death
to save the world from destruction really from depopulation was established
during the Fourth
Race
to commemorate an event which physiologically has now become the Mystery of
Mysteries
among
the world-problems.In the Jewish script it is Cain and the female Abel who are
the sacrificed and
sacrificing
couple both immolating themselves (as permutations of Adam and Eve or the dual
Jehovah)
and
shedding their blood of separation and union for the sake of and to save
mankind by inaugurating
a
new physiological race.Later still when the neophyte as already mentioned in
order to be re-born
once
more into his lost spiritual state had to pass through the entrails (the
womb)of a virgin heifer [The
Aryans
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 Brāhman a twice-born in India.] killed
at the moment of the rite
it
involved again a mystery and one as great for it referred to the process of
birth or rather the first
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entrance
of man on to this earth through Vāch the melodious cow who milks forth
sustenance and
water
and who is the female Logos.It had also reference to the same self-sacrifice
of the divine
Hermaphrodite
of the third Root-Race the transformation of Humanity into truly physical
men after
the
loss of spiritual potency.When the fruit of evil having been tested along with
the fruit of good there
was
as a result the gradual atrophy of spirituality and a strengthening of the
materiality in man then he
was
doomed to be born thenceforth through the present process.This is the Mystery
of the
Hermaphrodite
which the Ancients kept so secret and veiled.It was neither the absence of
moral feeling
nor
the presence of gross sensuality in them that made them imagine their Deities
under a dual aspect;
but
rather their knowledge of the mysteries and processes of primitive Nature.The
Science of Physiology
was
better known to them than it is to us now.It is in this (Page 296)that lies buried the key to the
Symbolism
of old the true focus of national thought and the strange dual-sexed images of
nearly every
God
and Goddess in both pagan and monotheistic Pantheons.
Says
Sir William Drummond in dip s Judaļcus:
The
truths of science were the arcana of the priests because these truths were the
foundations
of religion.
But
why should the missionaries so cruelly twit the Vaishnavas and Krishna
worshippers for the
supposed
grossly indecent meaning of their symbols,since it is made clear beyond the
slightest doubt
and
by the most unprejudiced writers,that Chrestos in the pit whether the pit to
be taken as meaning
the
grave or hell had likewise a sexual element in it from the very origin of the
symbol.
This
fact is no longer denied today.The Brothers of the Rosy Cross of the Middle
Ages were as good
Christians
as any to be found in Europe nevertheless,all their rites were based on symbols
whose
meaning
was pre-eminently phallic and sexual.Their biographer Hargrave Jennings,the
best modern
authority
on Rosicrucianism speaking of this mystic Brotherhood describes how
The
tortures and the sacrifice of Calvary the Passion of the Cross,were in their
[the Rose-
Croix
s ] glorious blessed magic and triumph the protest and appeal.
Protest
by whom?The answer is,the protest of the crucified Rose the greatest and the
most unveiled
of
all sexual symbols the Yoni and Lingam the victim and the murderer the
female and male
principles
in Nature.Open the last work of that author Phallicism,and see in what
glowing terms he
describes
the sexual symbolism in that which is most sacred to the Christian:
The
flowing blood streamed from the crown or the piercing circlet of the thorns of
Hell.The
Rose
is feminine.Its lustrous carmine petals are guarded with thorns.The Rose is the
most
beautiful
of flowers.The Rose is the Queen of God s Garden (Mary the Virgin).It is not
the
Rose
alone which is the magical idea or truth.But it is the crucified rose or the
martyred
rose
(by the grand mystic apocalyptic figure)which is the talisman the standard the
object of
adoration
of all the Sons of Wisdom or the true Rosicrucians.[Op.cit.,p.141.]
Not
of all the Sons of Wisdom by any means,not even of the true Rosicrucian.For
the latter would
never
put in such sickening relievo in such a purely sensual and terrestrial not to
say animal light the
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grandest
the noblest of Nature s symbols.
Orpheus -(Page 297)To the Rosicrucian
the Rose was the symbol of Nature of the ever prolific and
virgin
Earth or Isis,the mother and nourisher of man considered as feminine and
represented as a
virgin
woman by the Egyptian Initiates.Like every other personification of Nature and
the Earth she is the
sister
and wife of Osiris,as the two characters answer to the personified symbol of
the Earth both she
and
the Sun being the progeny of the same mysterious Father because the Earth is
fecundated by the
Sun
according to the earliest Mysticism by divine insufflation.It was the pure
ideal of mystic Nature
that
was personified in the World Virgins, the Celestial Maidens, and later on
by the human Virgin
Mary
the Mother of the Saviour the Salvator Mundi now chosen by the Christian
World.And it was the
character
of the Jewish maiden that was adopted by Theology to archaic Symbolism,[ In
Ragon s
Orthodoxie Maconniq e p.105
note we find the following statement borrowed from Albumazar the
Arabian
probably:The Virgin of the Magi and Chaldęans.The Chaldęan 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 Ędip s Ęgyptic
s,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 Jesus ...which
signifies Issa
whom
they also call Christ in Greek. (See Isis Unveiled,ii.491)] and
not the Pagan symbol that was
modelled
for the new occasion.
We
know through Herodotus that the Mysteries were brought from India by Orpheus
a hero far anterior
to
both Homer and Hesiod.Very little is really known of him,and till very lately
Orphic literature and even
the
Argonauts,were attributed to Onamacritus,a contemporary of Pisistratus,Solon
and Pythagoras
who
was credited with their compilation in the present form toward the close of the
sixth century B.C.or
800
years after the time of Orpheus.But we are told that in the days of Pausanias
there was a sacerdotal
family
who like the Brāhmans with the Vedas had committed to memory all the
Orphic Hymns,and that
they
were usually thus transmitted from one generation to another.By placing Orpheus
so far back as
1200
B.C.official Science so careful in her chronology to choose in each case as
late a period as
possible
admits that the Mysteries,or in other words Occultism dramatised belong to a
still earlier
epoch
than the Chaldęans and Egyptians.
The
downfall of the Mysteries in Europe may now be mentioned.
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SECTION XXXIII
The Last of the Mysteries in Europe
(Page 298)AS was predicted by the great Hermes in his dialogue with
Ęsculapius,the time had indeed
come
when impious foreigners accused Egypt of adoring monsters,and naught but the
letters engraved
in
stone upon her monuments survived enigmas unintelligible to posterity.Her
sacred Scribes and
Hierophants
became wanderers upon the face of the earth.Those who remained in Egypt found
themselves
obliged for fear of a profanation of the sacred Mysteries to seek refuge in
deserts and
mountains,to
form and establish secret societies and brotherhoods such as the Essenes;those
who
had
crossed the oceans to India and even to the (now-called)New World bound
themselves by solemn
oaths
to keep silent and to preserve secret their Sacred Knowledge and Science;thus
these were buried
deeper
than ever out of human sight.In Central Asia and on the northern borderlands of
India the
triumphant
sword of Aristotle s pupil swept away from his path of conquest every vestige
of a once pure
Religion:and
its Adepts receded further and further from that path into the most hidden
spots of the
globe.The
cycle of****being at its close the first hour for the disappearance of the
Mysteries struck on
the
clock of the Races,with the Macedonian conqueror.The first strokes of its last
hour sounded in the
year
47 B.C..Alesia [Now called St.Reine (Cote d Or)on the two
streams,the Ose and the Oserain.Its
fall
is a historical fact in Keltic Gaulish History.]the famous city in Gaul
the Thebes of the Kelts,so
renowned
for its ancient rites of Initiation and Mysteries,was,as J.M.Ragon well
describes it:
The
ancient metropolis and the tomb of Initiation of the religion of the Druids and
of the
freedom
of Gaul.[Orthodoxie Maconniq e,p.22.]
Alesia and Bibractis -(Page 299)It was
during the first century before our era that the last and supreme
hour
of the great Mysteries had struck.History shows the populations of Central Gaul
revolting against
the
Roman yoke.The country was subject to Cęsar and the revolt was crushed;the
result was the
slaughter
of the garrison at Alesia (or Alisa),and of all its inhabitants,including the
Druids,the college-
priests
and the neophytes;after this the whole city was plundered and razed to the
ground.
Bibractis,a
city as large and as famous,not far from Alesia perished a few years
later.J.M.Ragon
describes
her end as follows:
Bibractis,the
mother of sciences,the soul of the early nations [in Europe ] a town equally
famous
for its sacred college of Druids,its civilisation its schools,in which 40 000
students
were
taught philosophy literature grammar jurisprudence medicine astrology occult
sciences,architecture
etc.Rival of Thebes,of Memphis,of Athens and of Rome it possessed
an
amphitheatre surrounded with colossal statues,and accommodating 100 000
spectators,
gladiators,a
capital temples of Janus,Pluto Prosperpine Jupiter Apollo Minerva Cybele
Venus
and Anubis;and in the midst of these sumptuous edifices the Naumachy with its
vast
basin
an incredible construction a gigantic work wherein floated boats and galleys
devoted to
naval
games;then a Champ de Mars an aqueduct fountains,public baths;finally
fortifications
and
walls,the construction of which dated from the heroic ages.[Op.cit.,p.22
.]
Such
was the last city in Gaul wherein died for Europe the secrets of the
Initiations of the Great
Mysteries,the
Mysteries of Nature and of her forgotten Occult truths.The rolls and
manuscripts of the
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famous
Alexandrian Library were burned and destroyed by the same Cęsar [ 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 .] but while History
deprecates the action of the Arab
general
Amrus,who gave the final touch to this act of vandalism perpetrated by the
great conqueror it
has
not a word to say to the latter for his destruction of nearly the same amount
of precious rolls in Alesia
nor
to the destroyer of Bibractis.While Sacrovir chief of the Gauls,who revolted
against Roman
despotism
under Tiberius,and was defeated by Silius in the year 21 of our era was
burning himself
alive
with his fellow conspirators on a funeral pyre before the gates of the city as
Ragon tells us,the
latter
was sacked and plundered and all her treasures of literature on the Occult
Sciences perished by
fire.The
once majestic city Bibractis,has now become Autun Ragon explains.
(Page 300 )A few monuments of glorious antiquity are still there such
as the temples of Janus
and
Cybele.
Ragon
goes on:
Arles,founded
two thousand years before Christ was sacked in 270.This metropolis of Gaul
restored
40 years later by Constantine has preserved to this day a few remains of its
ancient
splendour;amphitheatre
capitol an obelisk,a block of granite 17 metres high a triumphal
arch
catacombs,etc.Thus ended Kelto Gaulic civilisation.Cęsar as a barbarian worthy
of
Rome
had already accomplished the destruction of the ancient Mysteries by the sack
of the
temples
and their initiatory colleges,and by the massacre of the Initiates and the
Druids.
Remained
Rome;but she never had but the lesser Mysteries,shadows of the Secret
Sciences.The
Great Initiation was extinct.[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 Initiations (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 Maconnerie Occulte and
the Fastes Initiatiq es.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.]
A
few further extracts may be given from his Occult Masonry,as they bear
directly upon our subject.
However
learned and erudite some of the chronological mistakes of that author are very
great.He says:
After
deified man (Hermes)came the King-Priest [the Hierophant ] Menes was the first
legislator
and the founder of Thebes of the hundred palaces.He filled that city with
magnificent
splendour;it
is from his day that the sacerdotal epoch of Egypt dates.The priests reigned
for
it
is they who made the laws.It is said that there have been three hundred and
twenty-nine
[Hierophants
] since his time all of whom have remained unknown.
After
that genuine Adepts having become scarce the author shows the Priests choosing
false ones from
the
midst of slaves whom they exhibited having crowned and deified them for the
adoration of the
ignorant
masses.
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Tired
of reigning in such a servile way the kings rebelled and freed themselves.Then
came
Sesostris,the
founder of Memphis (1613 they say before our era).To the sacerdotal election
to
the throne succeeded that of the warriors....Cheops who reigned from 1178 to
1122 built
the
great Pyramid which bears his name.He is accused of having persecuted theocracy
and
closed
the temples.
This
is utterly incorrect though Ragon repeats History. The Pyramid called by the
name of Cheops is
the
Great Pyramid the building of which even Baron Bunsen assigned to 5 000 B.C.He
says in Egypt s
Place in Universal History :
The Learning of Egypt -
(Page 301)The Origins of Egypt go back to the ninth millennium before
Christ.[Op.cit.,iv.462.]
And
as the Mysteries were performed and the Initiations took place in that Pyramid
for indeed it was
built
for that purpose it looks strange and an utter contradiction with known facts
in the history of the
Mysteries
to suppose that Cheops,if the builder of that Pyramid ever turned against the
initiated Priests
and
their temples.Moreover as far as the Secret Doctrine teaches,it was not Cheops
who built the
Pyramid
of that name whatever else he might have done.
Yet
it is quite true that
Owing
to an Ethiopian invasion and the federated government of twelve chiefs,royalty
fell into
the
hands of Amasis,a man of low birth.
This
was in 570 B.C.and it was Amasis who destroyed priestly power.And
Thus
perished that ancient theocracy which showed its crowned priests for so many
centuries
to
Egypt and the whole world.
Egypt
had gathered the students of all countries around her Priests and Hierophants
before Alexandria
was
founded.Ennemoser asks:
How
comes it that so little has become known of the Mysteries and of their
particular contents,
through
so many ages,and amongst so many different times and people?The answer is that
it
is
again owing to the universally strict silence of the initiated.Another cause
may be found in
the
destruction and total loss of all the written memorials of the secret knowledge
of the
remotest
antiquity.
Numa's
books,described by Livy consisting of natural philosophy were found in his
tomb;but
they
were not allowed to be made known lest they should reveal the most secret
mysteries of
the
state religion....The senate and the tribunes of the people determined ...that
the books
themselves
should be burned which was done.[History of Magic,ii II.]
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Cassain
mentions a treatise well-known in the fourth and fifth centuries,which was
accredited to Ham
the
son of Noah who in his turn was reputed to have received it from Jared the
fourth generation from
Seth
the son of Adam.
Alchemy
also was first taught in Egypt by her learned Priests,though the first
appearance of this system
is
as old as man.Many writers have declared that Adam was the first Adept;but that
was a blind and a
pun
upon the name which is red earth in one of its meanings.The correct
information under its
allegorical
veil is found in the sixth chapter of Genesis,which speaks of the Sons of God
who took
wives
of the daughters of men after which they communicated to (Page 302)these wives many a mystery
and
secret of the phenomenal world.The cradle of Alchemy says Olaus Borrichius,is
to be sought in the
most
distant times.Democritus of Abdera was an Alchemist and a Hermetic
Philosopher.Clement of
Alexandria
wrote considerably upon the Science and Moses and Solomon are called
proficients in it.We
are
told by W.Godwin;
The
first authentic record on this subject is an edict of Diocletian about 300
years A.D.
ordering
a diligent search to be made in Egypt for all the ancient books which treated
of the art
of
making gold and silver that they might without distinction be consigned to the
flames.
The
Alchemy of the Chaldęans and the old Chinamen is not even the parent of that
Alchemy which
revived
among the Arabians many centuries later.There is a spiritual Alchemy and a
physical
transmutation.The
knowledge of both was imparted at the Initiations.
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SECTION XXXIV
The Post-Christian Successors to the
Mysteries
(Page 303)THE Eleusinian Mysteries were no more.Yet it was these
which gave their principle features to
the
Neo-platonic school of Ammonius Saccas,for the Eclectic System was chiefly
characterised by its
Theurgy
and ecstasis.It was Iamblichus who added to it the Egyptian doctrine of Theurgy
with its
practices,and
Porphyry the Jew who opposed this new element.The school however with but few
exceptions,practised
asceticism and contemplation its mystics passing through a discipline as
rigorous
as
that of the Hindu devotee.Their efforts never tended so much to develop the
successful practice of
thaumaturgy
necromancy or sorcery such as they are now accused of as to evolve the higher
faculties
of the inner man the Spiritual Ego.The school held that a number of spiritual
beings,denizens
of
spheres quite independent of the earth and of the human cycle were mediators
between the Gods
and
men and even between man and the Supreme Soul.To put it in plainer language the
soul of man
became
owing to the help of the Planetary Spirits,recipient of the soul of the world
as Emerson puts it.
Apollonius
of Tyana asserted his possession of such a power in these words (quoted by
Professor Wilder
in
his Neo-Platonism ):
I
can see the present and the future in a clear mirror.The sage [Adept ]
need not wait for the
vapours
of the earth and the corruption of the air to foresee plagues and fevers;he
must know
them
later than God but earlier than the people.The theoi or gods see the
future;common
men
the present;sages that which is about to take place.My peculiar abstemious mode
of
living
produces such an acuteness of the senses,or creates some other faculty so that
the
greatest
and most remarkable things may be performed.[Neo-Platonism and
Alchemy.p.15 ]
(Page 304)Professor A.Wilder s comment thereupon is remarkable:
This
is what may be termed Spirit al photography .The soul is the camera in
which facts and
events,future
past and present are alike fixed;and the mind becomes conscious of them.
Beyond
our everyday world of limits,all is as one day or state the past and future
comprised
in
the present.Probably this is the great day the last day the day of the
Lord.of the Bible
writers
the day into which everyone passes by death or ecstasis.Then the soul
is freed from
the
constraint of the body and its nobler part is united to higher nature and
becomes partaker
in
the wisdom and foreknowledge of the higher beings.[ Loc.cit.]
How
far the system practised by the Neo-Platonists was identical with that of the
old and the modern
Vedāntins
may be inferred from what Dr.A.Wilder says of the Alexandrian Theosophists.
The
anterior idea of the New Platonists was that of a single Supreme Essence...All
the old
philosophies
contained the doctrine that öåļé,theoi,gods or
disposers,angels,demons,and
other
spiritual agencies,emanated from the Supreme Being.Ammonius accepted the
doctrine
of
the Books of Hermes,that from the divine All proceeded the Divine Wisdom or
Amun;that
from
Wisdom proceeded the Demiurge or Creator;and from the Creator the subordinate
spiritual
beings;the world and its people being the last.The first is contained in the
second
the
first and second in the third and so on through the entire series.[Op.cit.,pp.9.10
]
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This
is a perfect echo of the belief of the Vedāntins,and it proceeds directly from
the secret teachings of
the
East.The same author says:
Akin
to this is the doctrine of the Jewish Kabala which was taught by the Pharsi or
Pharisees,
who
probably borrowed it as their sectarian designation would seem to indicate from
the
Magians
of Persia.It is substantially embodied in the following synopsis.
The
Divine Being is the All the source of all existence the Infinite;and He cannot
be known.
The
Universe reveals Him and subsists by Him.At the beginning His effulgence went
forth
everywhere.[This
Divine Effulgence and Essence is the light of the Logos:only the Vedāntin
would
not use the pronoun He but would say It.]Eventually He retired
within Himself and
so
formed around Him a vacant space.Into this He transmitted His first Emanation a
Ray
containing
in it the generative and conceptive power and hence the name IE or Jah.This in
turn
produced the tikkun the pattern or idea or form;and in this
emanation which also
contained
the male and female or generative and conceptive potencies,were the three
primitive
forces of Light Spirit and Life.This Tikkun is united to the Ray or first
emanation and
pervaded
by it;and by that union is also in perpetual communication with the infinite
source.It
is
the pattern the primitive man the Adam Kadmon the macrocosm of
Pythagoras and other
philosophers.
The Root Races -
(Page 305)From it proceeded the Sephiroth ....From the
Sephiroth in turn emanated the four
worlds,each
proceeding out of the one immediately above it and the lower one enveloping its
superior.These
worlds became less pure as they descended in the scale the lowest of all
being
the material world.[Loc.cit.,note.p.10 ]
This
veiled enunciation of the Secret Teaching will be clear to our readers by this
time.These worlds are:
Azil th is peopled
with the purest emanations [ the First almost spiritual Race of the
human
beings
that were to inhabit [the Fourth;] the second Beriah,by a
lower order the servants of
the
former [ the second Race ];the third Jesirah,by the
cherubim and seraphim the Elohim
and
B ni Elohim [Sons of Gods or Elohim,our Third Race ] .The
fourth world Asiah,is
inhabited
by the Klipputh of whom Belial is chief [the Atlantean Sorcerers ] .[
Loc.cit.,note.]
These
worlds are all the earthly duplicates of their heavenly prototypes the mortal
and temporary
reflections
and shadows of the more durable if not eternal races dwelling in other to
us,invisible worlds.
The
souls of the men of our Fifth Race derive their elements from these four worlds
Root Races that
preceded
ours:namely our intellect.Manas,the fifth principle our passions and mental and
corporeal
appetites.A
conflict having arisen called war in heaven among our prototypical
worlds,war came to
pass,ęons
later between the Atlanteans [See Esoteric B ddhism,by
A.P.Sinnett.Fifth Edition.] of
Asiah
and those of the third Root Race the B ni Elohim or the Sons of God [See
Isis Unveiled .Vol.I .
pp.589-595.The
Sons of God and their war with the giants and magicians .]and then
evil and
wickedness
were intensified.Mankind (in the last sub-race of the third Root Race)having
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Sinned
in their first parent [a physiological allegory truly!] from
whose soul every human soul
is
an emanation
says
the Zohar men were exiled into more material bodies to
Expiate
that sin and become proficient in goodness.
To
accomplish the cycle of necessity rather explains the doctrine;to progress on
their task of evolution
from
which task none of us can be freed neither by death nor suicide for each of us
have to pass
through
the Valley of Thorns before he emerges into the plains of divine light and
rest.And thus men
will
continue to be born in new bodies.
Till
they have become sufficiently pure to enter a higher form of existence.
(Page 306)This means only that Mankind from the First down to the
last or Seventh Race is composed
of
one and the same company of actors,who have descended from higher spheres to
perform their
artistic
tour on this our planet Earth.Starting as pure spirits on our downward journey
around the world
(verily!)with
the knowledge of truth now feebly echoed in the Occult Doctrines inherent in
us,cyclic
law
brings us down to the reversed apex of matter which is lost down here on earth
and the bottom of
which
we have already struck;and then the same law of spiritual gravity will make us
slowly ascend to
still
higher still purer spheres than those we started from.
Foresight
prophecy oracular powers!Illusive fancies of man s dwarfed perceptions,which
see actual
images
in reflections and shadows,and mistakes past actualities for prophetic images
of a future that
has
no room in Eternity.Our macrocosm and its smallest microcosm man are both
repeating the same
play
of universal and individual events at each station as on every stage on which
Karma leads them to
enact
their respective dramas of life.False prophets could have no existence had
there been no true
prophets.And
so there were and many of both classes,and in all ages.Only none of these ever
saw
anything
but that which had already come to pass,and had been before prototypically
enacted in higher
spheres
if the event foretold related to national or public weal or woe or in some
preceding life if it
concerned
only an individual for every such event is stamped as an indelible record of
the Past and
Future
which are only after all the ever Present in Eternity.The worlds and the
purifications spoken of
in
the Zohar and other Kabalistic books,relate to our globe and races no
more and no less than they
relate
to other globes and other races that have preceded our own in the great
cycle.It was such
fundamental
truths as these that were performed in allegorical plays and images during the
Mysteries,
the
last Act of which the Epilogue for the Mystę was the anastasis or
continued existence as also the
Soul
transformation.
Hence
the author of Neo-platonism and Alchemy shows us that all such Eclectic
doctrines were strongly
reflected
in the Epistles of Paul and were
Inculcated
more or less among the Churches.Hence such passages as these Ye were dead
in
errors and sins;ye walked according to the ęon of this world according to the archon
that
has
the domination of the air. We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against
the
dominations,against
potencies,against the lords of darkness,and against the
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mischievousness
of spirits and the empryrean regions.
The False Gnosis -(Page 307)But Paul was
evidently hostile to the effort to blend his gospel
with
the gnostic ideas of the Hebrew-Egyptian school as seems to have been attempted
at
Ephesus;and
accordingly wrote to Timothy his favorite disciple Keep safe the precious
charge
entrusted to thee;and reject the new doctrines and the antagonistic principles
of the
gnosis,falsely
so-called of which some have made profession and gone astray from the faith.
[ Loc.cit.note.]
But
as the Gnosis is the Science pertaining to our Higher Self as blind faith is a
matter of temperament
and
emotionalism and as Paul s doctrine was still newer and his interpretations
far more thickly veiled to
keep
the inner truths hidden far away from the Gnostic,preference has been given to
the former by every
earnest
seeker after truth.
Besides
this,the great Teachers who professed the so-called false Gnosis were very
numerous in the
days
of the Apostles,and were as great as any converted Rabbi could be.If Porphyry
the Jew Malek,
went
against Theurgy on account of old traditional recollections,there were other
teachers who practised
it.Plotinius,Iamblichus,Proclus,were
all thaumaturgists,and the latter:
Elaborated
the entire theosophy and theurgy of his predecessors into a complete system.[Op.
cit.,p.18.]
As
to Ammonius,
Countenanced
by Clemens and Athenagoras,in the Church and by learned men of the
Synagogue
the Academy and the Grove he fulfilled his labour by teaching a common
doctrine
for all.[Op.cit.,p.8.]
Thus
it is not Judaism and Christianity that re-modelled the ancient Pagan Wisdom
but rather the latter
that
put its heathen curb quietly and insensibly on the new faith;and this,moreover
was still further
influenced
by the Eclectic Theosophical system the direct emanation of the Wisdom
Religion.All that is
grand
and noble in Christian theology comes from Neo-Platonism.It is too well-known
to now need much
repetition
that Ammonius Saccas,the God-taught (theodidaktos )and the lover of
truth (philalethes ),in
establishing
his school made a direct attempt to benefit the world by teaching those
portions of the
Secret
Science that were permitted by its direct guardians to be revealed in those
days.[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.)] The modern movement of our own Theosophical Society (Page 308)was begun on the
same
principles;for the Neo-Platonic school of Ammonius aimed as we do at the
reconcilement of all
sects
and peoples,under the once common faith of the Golden Age trying to induce the
nations to lay
aside
their contentions in religious matters at any rate by proving to them that
their various beliefs are
all
the more or less legitimate children of one common parent the Wisdom Religion.
Nor
was the Eclectic Theosophical system as some writers inspired by Rome would
make the world
believe
developed only during the third century of our era;but it belongs to a much
earlier age as has
been
shown by Diogenes Laertius.He traces it to the beginning of the dynasty of the
Ptolemies;to the
great
seer and prophet the Egyptian Priest Pot-Amun of the temple of the God of that
name for Amun
is
the God of Wisdom.Unto that day the communication between the Adepts of Upper
India and Bactria
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and
the Philosophers of the West had never ceased.
Under
Philadelphus ...the Hellenic teachers became rivals of the College of Rabbis of
Babylon.The
Buddhistic,Vedāntic and Magian systems were expounded along with the
philosophies
of Greece ....Aristobulus,the Jew declared that the ethics of Aristotle were
derived
from the law of Moses (!);and Philo after him attempted to interpret the
Pentateuch
in
accordance with the doctrines of Pythagoras and the Academy.In Josephus it is
said that in
the
Book of the Genesis,Moses wrote philosophically that is,in the figurative
style;and the
Essenes
of Carmel were reproduced in the Therapeutę of Egypt who in turn were declared
by
Eusebius to be identical with the christians,though they actually existed long
before the
Christian
era.Indeed in its turn Christianity also was taught at Alexandria and underwent
an
analogous
metamorphosis.Pantęnus,Athenagoras and Clement were thoroughly instructed
in
the Platonic philosophy and comprehended its essential unity with the oriental
systems.
[Op.cit.,pp.3 4.]
Ammonius,though
the son of Christian parents,was a lover of the truth a true
Philaletheian foremost of
all.He
set his heart upon the work of reconciling the different systems into a
harmonious whole for he
had
already perceived the tendency of Christianity to raise itself on the hecatomb
which it had
constructed
out of all other creeds and faiths.What says history?
The
ecclesiastical historian Mosheim declares that
Ammonius,conceiving
that not only the philosophers of Greece but also all those of the
different
barbarous nations,were perfectly in unison with each other with regard to every
essential
point made it his business so to temper and expound the tenets of all these
various
sects,as
to make it appear they had all of them originated from one and the same source
and
all
tended to one and the same end.
Teachers of Ammonius -(Page 309)Again
Mosheim says that Ammonius taught that the
religion
of the multitude went hand in hand with philosophy and with her had shared the
fate
of
being by degrees corrupted and obscured with mere human conceits,superstition
and lies;
that
it ought therefore to be brought back to its original purity by purging it of
this dross and
expounding
it upon philosophical principles;and that the whole which Christ had in view
was
to
reinstate and restore to its primitive integrity the Wisdom of the Ancients.[Quoted
by Dr.
Wilder.p.5
]
Now
what was that Wisdom of the Ancients that the Founder of Christianity had in
view ?The system
taught
by Ammonius in his Eclectic Theosophical School was made of the crumbs
permitted to be
gathered
from the antediluvian lore;those Neo-Platonic teachings are described in the Edinb
rgh
Encyclopdia as
follows:
He
[ Ammonius ]adopted the doctrines which were received in Egypt
concerning the Universe
and
the Deity considered as constituting one great whole;concerning the eternity of
the world
the
nature of souls,the empire of Providence [Karma ]and the
government of the world by
demons
[daimons or spirits,archangels ].He also established a
system of moral discipline
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which
allowed the people in general to live according to the laws of their country
and the
dictates
of nature;but required the wise to exalt their minds by contemplation and to
mortify
the
body [ Mortification is here meant in the moral not the physical
sense:to restrain every
lust
and passion and live on the simplest diet possible.] so that they might
be capable of
enjoying
the presence and assistance of the demons [including their own daimon
or Seventh
Principle
]...and ascending after death to the presence of the Supreme [ Soul
]Parent.In
order
to reconcile the popular religions,and particularly the Christian with this new
system he
made
the whole history of the heathen gods an allegory maintaining that they were
only
celestial
ministers [ This is a Neo-Platonic teaching adopted as a doctrine in the
Roman
Catholic
Church with its worship of the Seven Spirits.] entitled to an inferior
kind of worship;
and
he acknowledged that Jesus Christ was an excellent man and the friend of God
but
alleged
that it was not his design entirely to abolish the worship of demons,[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 Dhyān 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?] and that his only intention was
to purify
the
ancient religion.
No
more could be declared except for those Philaletheians who were initiated
persons duly instructed
and
disciplined to whom Ammonius communicated his more important doctrines,
Imposing
on them the obligations of secrecy as was done before him by Zoroaster and
Pythagoras,and
in the Mysteries [where an oath was required from the (Page 310)neophytes
or
catechumens not to divulge what they had learned ].The great Pythagoras
divided his
teachings
into exoteric and esoteric.[Op.cit.,p.7.]
Has
not Jesus done the same since He declared to His disciples that to them it was
given to know the
mysteries
of the kingdom of heaven whereas to the multitudes it was not given and
therefore he spoke
in
parables which has a two-fold meaning?
Dr.A.Wilder
proceeds:
Thus
Ammonius found his work ready to his hand.His deep spiritual intuition his
extensive
learning
and his familiarity with the Christian fathers,Pantęnus,Clement and
Athenagoras,
and
with the most erudite philosophers of the time all fitted him for the labour he
performed so
thoroughly
....The results of his ministration are perceptible at the present day in every
country
of the Christian world;every prominent system of doctrine now bearing the marks
of
his
plastic hand.Every ancient philosophy has had its votaries among the
moderns;and even
Judaism
oldest of them all has taken upon itself changes which were suggested by the
God-
taught
Alexandrian.[Op.cit.,p.7.]
The
Neo-Platonic School of Alexandria founded by Ammonius the prototype proposed
for the
Theosophical
Society taught Theurgy and Magic,as much as they were taught in the days of
Pythagoras,and
by others far earlier than his period.For Proclus says that the doctrines of
Orpheus,
who
was an Indian and came from India were the origin of the systems afterwards
promulgated.
What
Orpheus delivered in hidden allegories,Pythagoras learned when he was initiated
into
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the
Orphic Mysteries;and Plato next received a perfect knowledge of them from
Orphic and
Pythagorean
writings.[Op.cit.,p.18.]
The
Philaletheians had their division into neophytes (chelas )and
Initiates,or Masters;and the eclectic
system
was characterised by three distinct features,which are purely Vedāntic;a
Supreme Essence
One
and Universal;the eternity and indivisibility of the human spirit;and Theurgy
which is Mantricism.
So
also as we have seen they had their secret or Esoteric teachings like any other
mystic school.Nor
were
they allowed to reveal anything of their secret tenets any more than were the
Initiates of the
Mysteries.Only
the penalties incurred by the revealers of the secrets of the latter were far
more terrible
and
this prohibition has survived to this day not only in India but even among the
Jewish Kabalists in
Asia.
[The Talm d 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 Talm d 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.]
Difficulties and Dangers -(Page 311)One of the reasons for such secrecy may be the undoubtedly
serious
difficulties and hardships of chelaship and the dangers attending
Initiation.The modern
candidate
has,like his predecessor of old to either conquer or die;when which is still
worse he does
not
lose his reason.There is no danger to him who is true and sincere and
especially unselfish.For he
is
thus prepared beforehand to meet any temptation.
He
who fully recognised the power of his immortal spirit and never doubted for one
moment
its
omnipotent protection had naught to fear.But woe to the candidate in whom the
slightest
physical
fear sickly child of matter made him lose sight and faith in his own
invulnerability.
He
who was not wholly confident of his moral fitness to accept the burden of these
tremendous
secrets was doomed.[ Isis Unveiled.ii.119.]
There
were no such dangers in Neo-Platonic Initiations.The selfish and unworthy
failed in their object
and
in the failure was the punishment.The chief aim was reunion of the part with
the all.This All was
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One
with numberless names.Whether called D i the bright Lord of Heaven by
the Aryan;Iao by the
Chaldęan
and Kabalist;Iabe by the Samaritan;the Ti or T isco by the
Northman;D w by the Briton;
Ze s,by the Thracian
or Jupiter by the Roman it was the Being the Facit.One
and Supreme [See
Neo-Platonism.p.9.]the
unborn and the inexhaustible source of every emanation the fountain of life and
light
eternal a Ray of which every one of us carries in him on this earth.The
knowledge of this Mystery
had
reached the Neo-Platonists from India through Pythagoras,and still later
through Apollonius of Tyana
and
the rules and methods for producing ecstasy had come from the same lore of the
divine Vidyā the
Gnosis.For
Āryavarta the bright focus into which has been poured in the beginning of time
the flames
(Page 312)of Divine Wisdom had become the centre from which radiated
the tongues of fire into every
portion
of the globe.What was Samādhi but that
Sublime
ecstasy in which state things divine and the mysteries of Nature are revealed
to us,
of
which Porphyry speaks?
The
efflux from the divine soul is imparted to the human spirit in unreserved
abundance
accomplishing
for the soul a union with the divine and enabling it while in the body to be
partaker
of the life which is not in the body
he
explains elsewhere.
Thus
under the title of Magic was taught every Science physical and metaphysical
natural or deemed
supernatural
by those who are ignorant of the omnipresence and universality of Nature.
Divine
Magic makes of man a God;human magic creates a new friend.
We
wrote in Isis Unveiled :
In
the oldest documents now in the possession of the World the Vedas and
the older laws of
Manu
we find many magical rites practised and permitted by the Brāhmans.[See
the Code
published
by Sir William Jones,Chapter ix.p.11.] Tibet Japan and China teach in
the
present
age that which was taught by the oldest Chaldęns.The clergy of these respective
countries
prove moreover what they teach namely that the practice of moral and physical
purity
and of certain austerities,develops the vital soul-power of
self-illumination.Affording to
man
the control over his own immortal spirit it gives him truly magical powers over
the
elementary
spirits inferior to himself.In the West we find magic of as high an antiquity
as in the
East.The
Druids of Great Britain practised it in the silent crypts of their deep
caves;and Pliny
devotes
many a chapter to the wisdom [Pliny:Hist.Nat.,xxx.i :ib.xvi.14:xxv.9.etc.]of
the
leaders
of the Celts.The Semothees the Druids of the Gauls expounded the physical as
well
as the spiritual sciences.They taught the secrets of the universe the
harmonious
progress
of the heavenly bodies,the formation of the earth and above all the
immortality of
the
Soul.[Pomponius ascribes to them the knowledge of the highest sciences.]
In their sacred
groves
natural academies built by the hand of the Invisible architect the initiates
assembled
at the still hour of midnight to learn about what man once was and what he will
be.[Cęsar
iii.14 ] They needed no artificial illumination nor life-drawing gas,to
light up their
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temples,for
the chaste goddess of night beamed her most silvery rays on their oak-crowned
heads;and
their white-robed sacred bards knew how to converse with the solitary queen of
the
starry vault.[Pliny.xxx.Isis Unveiled.i.18.]
During
the palmy days of Neo-Platonism these Bards were no more for their cycle had
run its course
and
the last of the Druids had perished at Bibractis and Alesia.
The Neo-Platonic School -(Page 313)But the Neo-Platonic school was for a long time successful
powerful
and prosperous.Still while adopting Āryan Wisdom in its Doctrines,the school
failed to follow
the
wisdom of the Brāhmans in practice.It showed its moral and intellectual
superiority too openly caring
too
much for the great and powerful of this earth.While the Brāhmans and their great
Yogis experts in
matters
of philosophy metaphysics,astronomy morals and religion preserved their
dignity under the
sway
of the most powerful princes,remained aloof from the world and would not
condescend to visit
them
or to ask for the slightest favour [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.] the Emperors Alexander Severus,and Julian and the
greatest among the
aristocracy
of the land embraced the tenets of the Neo-Platonists,who mixed freely with the
world.The
system
flourished for several centuries and comprised within the ranks of its
followers the ablest and
most
learned among the men of the time;Hypatia the teacher of the Bishop
Synesius,was one of the
ornaments
of the School until the fatal and shameful day when she was murdered by the
Christian mob
at
the instigation of Bishop Cyril of Alexandria.The school was finally removed to
Athens,and closed by
order
of the Emperor Justinian.
How
accurate is Dr.Wilder s remark that
Modern
writers have commentated upon the peculiar views of the Neo-Platonists upon
these
[metaphysical ] subjects,seldom
representing them correctly even if this was desired or
intended.[Op.cit.,p.9
.]
The
few speculations on the sublunary material and spiritual universes that they
did put into writing
Ammonius
never having himself written a line after the wont of reformers could not
enable posterity to
judge
them rightly even had not the early Christian Vandals,the later crusaders,and
the fanatics of the
Middle
Ages,destroyed three parts of that which remained of the Alexandrian Library
and its later
schools.
Professor
Draper shows that Cardinal Ximenes alone
(Page 314)Delivered to the flames in the squares of Granada eighty
thousand Arabic
manuscripts,many
of them translations of classical authors.
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In
the Vatican Library whole passages in the most rare and precious treatises of
the Ancients were found
erased
and blotted out for the sake of interlining them with absurd psalmodies!
Moreover it is well
known
that over thirty-six volumes written by Porphyry were burnt and otherwise
destroyed by the
Fathers.Most
of the little that is known of the doctrines of the Eclectics is found in the
writings of
Plotinus
and of those same Church Fathers.
Says
the author of Neo-Platonism :
What
Plato was to Socrates,and the Apostle John to the head of the Christian faith
Plotinus became to
the
God-taught Ammonius.To Plotinus,Origenes,and Longinus we are indebted for what
is known of the
Philaletheian
system.They were duly instructed initiated and entrusted with the interior
doctrines.[Op.
cit.,p.11.]
This
accounts marvellously for Origen s calling people idiots who believe in the
Garden of Eden and
Adam
and Eve fables;as also for the fact that so few of the writings of that Church
Father have passed
to
posterity.Between the secrecy imposed the vows of silence and that which was
maliciously destroyed
by
every foul means,it is indeed miraculous that even so much of the Philaletheian
tenets has reached
the
world.
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SECTION XXXV
Symbolism of Sun and Stars
(Page 315)And the Heaven was visible in Seven Circles and the planets
appeared with all their signs,in
star-form
and the stars were divided and numbered with the rulers that were in them and
their revolving
course
through the agency of the divine Spirit.[ Hermes,iv.6 ]
Here
Spirit denotes Pneuma collective Deity manifested in its Builders, or as the
Church has it the
seven
Spirits of the Presence the mediantib s angelis of whom Thomas Aquinas
says that God never
works
but through them.
These
seven rulers or mediating Angels were the Kabiri Gods of the Ancients.This
was so evident that
it
forced from the Church together with the admission of the fact an explanation
and a theory whose
clumsiness
and evident sophistry are such that it must fail to impress.The world is asked
to believe that
while
the Planetary Angels of the Church are divine Beings,the genuine Seraphim [From
Saraph
fiery
burning plural (see Isaiah,vi.2-6).They are regarded as the personal
attendants of the
Almighty
his messengers, angels or metratons.In Revelation they are the seven
burning lamps in
attendance
before the throne.] these very same angels,under identical names and
planets,were and are
false
as Gods of the ancients.They are no better than pretenders;the cunning copies
of the real
Angels,produced
beforehand through the craft and power of Lucifer and of the fallen Angels.Now
what
are
the Kabiri?
Kabiri
as a name is derived from Habir great and also from Venus,this Goddess being
called
to
the present day Kabar as in also her star.The Kabiri were worshipped at Hebron
the city of the
Anakim
or anakas (kings,princes).They are the highest Planetary Spirits,the greatest
Gods and the
powerful.
Varro following Orpheus,(Page
316 )calls these Gods åõäõķįōļé divine
Powers.The word
Kabirim
when applied to men and the words Heber Gheber (with reference to Nimrod or the
giants of
Genesis vi.)and Kabir
are all derived from the mysterious Word the Ineffable and the
Unprounceable.
Thus it is they who represent tsaba the host of heaven.The Church
however
bowing
before the angel Anael (the regent of Venus).[ Venus with the Chaldęans
and Egyptians was the
wife
of Prote s 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 Chaldęan Kabalah.] connects
the planet Venus with
Lucifer
the chief of the rebels under Satan so poetically apostrophized by the prophet
Isaiah as O
Lucifer
son of the morning. [ Loc.cit.,xiv.12.] All the Mystery
Gods were Kabiri.As these seven lictors
relate
directly to the Secret Doctrine their real status is of the greatest
importance.
Suidas
defines the Kabiri as the Gods who command all the other dęmons (Spirits),
Macrobius
introduces them as
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Those
Penates and tutelary deities,through whom we live and learn and know (Sat
rn,I.iii.
ch.iv.).
The
teraphim through which the Hebrews consulted the oracles of the Urim and the
Thummim were the
symbolical
hieroglyphics of the Kabiri.Nevertheless,the good Fathers have made of Kibir
the synonym
of
devil and of daimon (spirit)a demon.
The
Mysteries of the Kabiri at Hebron (Pagan and Jewish)were presided over by the
seven Planetary
Gods,among
the rest by Jupiter and Saturn under their mystery names,and they are referred
to as
and
and by Euripides as Creuzer moreover
shows
that whether in Phnicia or in Egypt the Kabiri were always the seven planets
as known in
antiquity
who together with their Father the Sun referred to elsewhere as their elder
brother
composed
a powerful ogdoad;[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.] the eight superior powers as .or
solar
assessors,danced
around him the sacred circular dance the symbol of the rotation of the planets
around
the
Sun.Jehovah and Saturn moreover are one.
It
is quite natural therefore to find a French writer D Anselme applying the same
terms of
to
Jehovah and his word and they are correctly so applied.
The Circle Dance -(Page 317)For if the
circle dance prescribed by the Amazons for the Mysteries
being
the circle dance of the planets,and characterised as the motion of the
divine Spirit carried on the
waves
of the great Deep can now be called infernal and lascivious when
performed by the Pagans,
then
the same epithets ought to be applied to David s dance;[ II.Sam.,vi.20-22.]
and to the dance of
the
daughters of Shiloh [Judges.xxi.21 et seq.] and to
the leaping of the prophets of Baal;[ I.Kings.
xviii.26
] they were all identical and all belonged to Sabęan worship.King David
s dance during which
he
uncovered himself before his maid-servants in a public thoroughfare saying:
I
will play (act wantonly)before .(Jehovah),and I will yet be more vile
than this,
was
certainly more reprehensible than any circle dance during the Mysteries,or
even than the modern
Rāsa
Mandala in India.[This dance Rāsa Mandala enacted by the Gopis or
shepherdesses of Krishna
the
Sun-God is enacted to this day in Rājputāna 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.] which is the same thing.It was David who introduced Jehovistic
worship into Judea after
sojourning
so long among the Tyrians and Philistines,where these rites were common.
David
knew nothing of Moses;and if he introduced the Jehovah-worship it was not in
its monotheistic
character
but simply as that of one of the many (Kabirean )gods of the
neighbouring nations,a tutelary
deity
of his own to whom he had given the preference whom he had chosen among all
other
(Kabeiri)gods,[ Isis Unveiled.ii.45 .]
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and
who was one of the associates,Chabir of the Sun.The Shakers dance the circle
dance to this
day
when turning round for the Holy Ghost to move them.In India it is Nārā-yana who
is the mover on
the
waters; and Nārāyana is Vishnu in his secondary form and Vishnu has Krishna
for an Avatāra in
whose
honour the circle dance is still enacted by the Nautch-girls of the
temples,he being the Sun-God
and
they the planets as symbolised by the gopis.
Let
the reader turn to the works of De Mirville a Roman Catholic writer or to Mon
mental Christianity,by
Dr.Lundy
a Protestant (Page 318)divine if he wants to appreciate to any degree the subtlety
and
casuistry
of their reasonings.No one ignorant of the occult version can fail to be
impressed with the
proofs
brought forward to show how cleverly and perseveringly Satan has worked for
long millenniums
to
tempt a humanity unblessed with an infallible Church in order to have himself
recognized as the One
living
God and his fiends as holy Angels.The reader must be patient and study with
attention what the
author
says on behalf of his Church.To compare it the better with the versions of the
Occultists,a few
points
may be quoted here verbatim.
St.Peter
tells us:May the divine Lucifer arise in your hearts [ 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 L cifer 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 .] [ Now the
Sun is Christ
].... I will send my
Son from the Sun said the Eternal through the voice of prophetic
traditions;and
prophecy having become history the Evangelists repeated in their turn:The
S n rising from on
high visited us.[Again the English translation changes the world Sun
into
day-spring.The
Roman Catholics are decidedly braver and more sincere than the Protestant
theologians.De
Mirville.iv.34.38.]
Now
God says through Malachi that the Sun shall arise for those who fear his name
What Malachi
meant
by the Sun of Righteousness the Kabalists alone can tell;but what the
Greek,and even the
Protestant
theologians understood by the term is of course Christ referred to
metaphorically.Only as
the
sentence I will send my Son from the Sun is borrowed verbatim from a
Sibylline Book,it becomes
very
hard to understand how it can be attributed to or classed with any prophecy
relating to the Christian
Savior
unless,indeed the latter is to be identified with Apollo.Virgil again
says,Here comes the
Virgin
s and Apollo s reign and Apollo or Apollyon is to this day viewed as a form
of Satan and is taken
to
mean the Antichrist.If the Sibylline promise He will send his Son from the Sun
applies to Christ then
either
Christ and Apollo are one and then why call the latter a demon?or the
prophecy had nothing to
do
with the Christian Savior and in such a case why appropriate it at all?
But
De Mirville goes further.He shows us St.Denys,the Areopagite affirming that
The
Sun is the special signification and the statue of God.[Thus said the
Egyptians and the
Sabęans
in days of old the symbol of whose manifested gods,Osiris and Bel was the sun.
But
they had a higher deity.]....It is by the Eastern door that the glory of
the Lord penetrated
into
the temples [of the Jews and Christians,that divine glory being
Sun-light.]..We build
our
churches towards the east says in his turn St.Ambrose for during the
Mysteries we
begin
by renouncing him who is in the west.
Christian Astrolatry -(Page 319)He who is
in the west is Typhon the Egyptian god of darkness the
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west
having been held by them as the Typhonic Gate of Death.Thus,having borrowed
Osiris from the
Egyptians,the
Church Fathers thought little of helping themselves to his brother Typhon.Then
again:
The
prophet Baruch [ 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.] speaks of the stars
that rejoice
in
their vessels and citadels (Chap.iii.);and Ecclesiastes applies
the same terms to the sun
which
is said to be the admirable vessel of the most High and the citadel of the
Lord
öõėį÷ē
[ Corneli s a Lapide.v.248 ]
In
every case there is no doubt about one thing for the sacred writer says.It is a
Spirit who
rules
the sun s course.Hear what he says (in Eccles .i.6),The sun also
ariseth and its spirit
lighting
all in its circular path (gyrat gyrans)returneth according to his circuits. [Ecclesiastes.
xIiii.The
above quotations are taken from Dr Mirville s chapter On Christian and Jewish
Solar
Theology
iv.35-38.]
De
Mirville seems to quote from texts either rejected by or unknown to Protestants
in whose bible there
is
no forty-third chapter of Ecclesiastes ;nor is the sun made to go in
circuits in the latter but the wind.
This
is a question to be settled between the Roman and the Protestant Churches.Our
point is the strong
element
of Sabęanism or Heliolatry present in Christianity.
An
cumenical Council having authoritatively put a stop to Christian Astrolatry by
declaring that there
was
no sidereal Souls in sun moon or planets,St.Thomas took upon himself to settle
the point in
dispute.The
angelic doctor announced that such expressions did not mean a soul but only
an
Intelligence
not resident in the sun or stars,but one that assisted them a guiding and
directing
intelligence.
[ 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.]
(Page 320)Thereupon the author comforted by the explanation quotes
Clement the Alexandrian and
reminds
the reader of the opinion of that philosopher the inter-relation that exists
between the seven
branches
of the candlestick the seven stars of the Revelation and the sun:
The
six branches (says Clement)fixed to the central candlestick have lamps,but the
sun
placed
in the midst of the wandering ones (šėįķēōłķ)pours his beams on them all;this
golden
candlestick hides one more mystery:it is the sign of Christ not only in shape
but
because
he sheds his light through the ministry of the seven spirits primarily created
and who
are
the Seven Eyes of the Lord.Therefore the principal planets are to the seven
primeval
spirits
according to St.Clement that which the candlestick-sun is to Christ Himself
namely
their
vessels,their öõėį÷įé
Plain
enough to be sure;though one fails to see that this explanation even helps the
situation.The
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seven-branched
chandelier of the Israelites,as well as the wanderers of the Greeks,had a far
more
natural
meaning a purely astrological one to begin with.In fact from Magi and Chaldęans
down to the
much-laughed-at
Zadkiel every astrological work will tell its reader that the Sun placed in the
midst of the
planets
with Saturn Jupiter and Mars on one side and Venus,Mercury and the Moon on the
other the
planets
line crossing through the whole Earth has always meant what Hermes tells
us,namely the
thread
of destiny or that whose action (influence)is called destiny.[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.]
But symbol for symbol we prefer the sun to a candlestick.One can understand
how the latter came
to
represent the sun and planets,but no one can admire the chosen symbol.There is
poetry and
grandeur
in the sun when it is made to symbolise the Eye of Ormuzd or of Osiris,and is
regarded as
the
Vąhan (vehicle)of the highest Deity.But one must for ever fail to perceive that
any particular glory is
rendered
to Christ by assigning to him the trunk of a candlestick.[ Christ then
.the author says (p 40),
is
represented by the trunk of the candlestick.] in a Jewish synagogue as
mystical seat of honour.
There
are then positively two suns,a sun adored and a sun adoring.The Apocalypse proves
it.
The
Word is found in Chap.vii.in the angel who ascends with the rising of the sun
having the
seal
of the living God....While commentators differ on the personality of this angel
St.
Ambrose
and many other theologians see in him Christ himself ....He is the S n
adored.
Michael the Conqueror -(Page 321)But in Chap.xix.we find an angel standing in the sun
inviting
all the nations to gather to the great supper of the Lamb.This time it is
literally and
simply
the angel of the sun who cannot be mistaken for the Word since the prophet
distinguishes
him from the Word the King of Kings and Lord of Lords....The angel in the
sun
seems
to be an adoring sun.Who may be the latter?And who else can he be but the
Morning
Star
the guardian angel of the Word his fero er,or angel of the face,as
the Word is the angel
of
the Face (presence)of his Father his principal attribute and strength as his
name itself
implies
(Mikael),powerful rector glorified by the Church the Rector potens who
will fell the
Antichrist
the Vice-Word in short who represents his master and seems to be one with
him.[
De Mirville.iv.41 42.]
Yes,Mikael
is the alleged conqueror of Ormuzd Osiris,Apollo Krishna Mithra etc.of all the
Solar
Gods,in
short known and unknown now treated as demons and as Satan. Nevertheless,the
Conqueror
has not disdained to don the war-spoils of the vanquished foes their
personalities,
attributes,even
their names to become the alter ego of these demons.
Thus
the Sun-God here is Honover or the Eternal.The prince is Ormuzd since he
is the first
of
the seven Amshaspends [ the demon copies of the seven original angels ]
(cap t
angelor m);the lamb (hamal
),the Shepherd of the Zodiac and the antagonist of the snake.
But
the Sun (the Eye of Ormuzd)has also his rector Korshid or the Mitraton,who
is the
Fero er of the face of
Ormuzd his Ized or the morning star.The Mazdeans had a triple Sun..
..For
us this Korshid-Mitraton is the first of the psychopompian genii
and the guide of the
sun
the immolator of the terrestrial Bull [or lamb ] whose wounds are
licked by the serpent [
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on
the famous Mithraic monument ] .[De Mirville.iv.42 ]
St.Paul
in speaking of the rulers of this world the Cosmocratores,only said what was
said by all the
primitive
Philosophers of the ten centuries before the Christian era only he was scarcely
understood
and
was often wilfully misinterpreted.Damascius repeats the teachings of the Pagan
writers when he
explains
that
There
are seven series of cosmocratores or cosmic forces,which are double:the higher
ones
commissioned
to support and guide the superior world;the lower ones,the inferior world [our
own
].
And
he is but saying what the ancients taught.Iamblichus gives this dogma of the
duality of all the
planets
and celestial bodies,of gods and daimons (spirits).He also divides the
Archontes into two
classes
the more and the less spiritual;the latter more connected with and clothed
with matter as
having
a form,while the former are bodiless (Page 322)(arūpa ).But
what have Satan and his angels to do
with
all this?Perhaps only that the identity of the Zoroastrian dogma with the
Christian and of Mithra
Ormuzd
and Ahriman with the Christian Father Son and Devil might be accounted for.And
when we
say
Zoroastrian dogmas we mean the exoteric teaching.How explain the same
relations between
Mithra
and Ormuzd as those between the Archangel Mikael and Christ?
Ahura
Mazda says to holy Zaratushta:When I created [ emanated ] Mithra
...I created him
that
he should be invoked and adored equally with myself.
For
the sake of necessary reforms,the Zoroastrian Āryans transformed the Devas,the
bright Gods of
India
into devs or devils.It was their Karma that in their turn the Christians should
vindicate on this point
the
Hindus.Now Ormuzd and Mithra have become the devs of Christ and Mikael the dark
lining and
aspect
of the Saviour and Angel.The day of the Karma of Christian theology will come
in its turn.Already
the
Protestants have begun the first chapter of the religion that will seek to
transform the Seven Spirits
and
the host of the Roman Catholics into demons and idols.Every religion has its
Karma as has every
individual.That
which is due to human conception and is built on the abasement of our brothers
who
disagree
with us,must have its day.There is no religion higher than truth.
The
Zoroastrians,Mazdeans,and Persians borrowed their conceptions from India:the
Jews borrowed
their
theory of angels from Persia;the Christians borrowed from the Jews.
Hence
the latest interpretation by Christian theology to the great disgust of the
synagogue forced to
share
the symbolical candlestick with the hereditary enemy that the seven-branched
candlestick
represents
the seven Churches of Asia and the seven planets which are the angels of those
Churches.
Hence
also the conviction that the Mosaic Jews,the investors of that symbol for their
tabernacle were a
kind
of Sabęans,who blended their planets and the spirits thereof into one and
called them only far
later
Jehovah.For this we have the testimony of Clemens Alexandrinus,St.Hieronymus
and others.
And
Clement as an Initiate of the Mysteries at which the secret of the
heliocentric system was taught
several
thousands of years before Galileo and Copernicus proves it by explaining that
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By
these various symbols connected with (sidereal)phenomena the totality of all
the creatures
which
bind heaven with earth are figured....The chandelier represented the motion of
the
seven
luminaries,describing their astral revolution.To the right and left of that
candelabrum
projected
the six branches,each of which has its lamp because the Sun placed as a
candelabrum
in the middle of other planets distributes light to them.[ 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!].....As to the cherubs having twelve wings
between the
two
they represent to us the sensuous world in the twelve zodiacal signs.[Stromateis.V.vi.]
The Christian Sun-God -(Page 323)And yet in the face of all this evidence sun moon planets
all are
shown
as being demoniacal before and divine only after the appearance of Christ.All
know the Orphic
verse:It
is Zeus,it is Adas,it is the Sun it is Bacchus,these names having been all
synonymous for
classic
poets and writers.Thus for Democritus Deity is but a soul in an orbicular fire
and that fire is the
Sun.For
Iamblichus the sun was the image of divine intelligence ;for Plato an
immortal living Being.
Hence
the oracle of Claros when asked to say who was the Jehovah of the Jews answered
It is the
Sun.
We may add the words in Psalm xix.4:
In
the sun hath he placed a tabernacle for himself [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.]....his going forth is from the end of the heaven and his
circuit unto the
ends
of it;and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.
Jehovah
then is the sun and thence also the Christ of the Roman Church.And now the
criticism of
Dupuis
on that verse becomes comprehensible as also the despair of the Abbé
Foucher.Nothing is
more
favorable to Sabęism than this text of the Vulgate! he exclaims.And however
disfigured may be
the
words and sense in the English authorised bible the Vulgate and the Septuagint
both give the correct
text
of the original and translate the latter:In the sun he established his abode
;while the vulgate
regards
the heat as coming direct from God and not from the sun alone since it is God
who issues forth
from
and dwells in the sun and performs the circuit:in sole pos it ....et ipse
exultavit.From these facts
it
will be seen that the Protestants were right in charging St.Justin with saying
that
God
has permitted us to worship the sun.
(Page 324)And this,notwithstanding the lame excuses that what was
really meant was that
God
permitted himself to be worshipped in or within the sun
which
is all the same.
It
will be seen from the above that while the Pagans located in the sun and
planets only the inferior
powers
of Nature the representative Spirits so to say of Apollo Bacchus,Osiris,and
other solar gods
the
Christians,in their hatred of Philosophy appropriated the sidereal
localities,and now limit them to the
use
of their anthropomorphic deity and his angels new transformations of the old
old gods.Something
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had
to be done in order to dispose of the ancient tenants,so they were disgraced
into demons, wicked
devils.
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SECTION XXXVI
Pagan Sidereal Worship or Astrology
(Page 325)THE Teraphim of Abram s father Terah,the maker of
images,and the Kabiri Gods are directly
connected
with ancient Sabęan worship or Astrolatry.Kiyun or the God Kivan worshipped by
the Jews
in
the wilderness,is Saturn and Shiva later on called Jehovah.Astrology existed
before astronomy and
Astronom s was the
title of the highest hierophant in Egypt.[ When the hierophant took his
last degree
he
emerged from the sacred recess called Manneras and was given the golden Ta
the Egyptian Cross,
which
was subsequently placed upon his breast and buried with him.] One of the
names of the Jewish
Jehovah
Saboath or the Lord of Hosts (tsabaoth ),belongs to the Chaldęan
Sabęans (or
Tsabęans ),and has for
its root the word tsab meaning a car a ship and an army ;sabaoth
thus
meaning
literally the army of the ship,the crew,or a naval host,the
sky being metaphorically referred to
as
the upper ocean in the doctrine.
In
his interesting volumes,The God of Moses,Lacour explains that all such
words as
The
celestial armies or the hosts of heaven signify not only the totality of the
heavenly
constellations,but
also the Aleim on whom they are dependent;the aleitzbao t are the forces
or
so ls of the constellations,the potencies that maintain and guide the
planets in this order
and
procession;....the Jae-va Tzbaout signifies Him the supreme chief of those
celestial
bodies.
In
his collectivity as the chief Order of Spirits, not a chief Spirit.
The
Sabęans having worshipped in the graven images only the celestial hosts
angels and gods whose
habitation
were the planets,never in truth worshipped the stars.For on Plato s authority
we know that
among
the stars and constellations,the (Page 326)planets alone had a
right to the title of theoi (Gods),as
that
name was derived from the verb öåéķ to run or to circulate.Seldenus also tells
us that they were
likewise
called
öåļ
āļõėįéóé (God-Councillors)and ńįāļóļńļé(lictors )as they (the
planets)were present at
the
sun s consistory solis consistoris adstantes.
Says
the learned Kircher:
The
sceptres the seven presiding angels were armed with explain these names of
Rhabdophores
and lictors given to them.
Reduced
to its simplest expression and popular meaning this is of course fetish
worship.Yet esoteric
astrolatry
was not at all the worship of idols,since under the names of Councillors and
Lictors, present
at
the Sun s consistory it was not the planets in their material bodies that
were meant but their Regents
or
Souls (Spirits).If the prayer Our Father in heaven or Saint so-and-so
in Heaven is not an
idolatrous
invocation then Our Father in Mercury.or Our Lady in Venus,Queen of Heaven
etc.is
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no
more so;for it is precisely the same thing the name making no difference in the
act.The word used in
the
Christian prayers,in heaven cannot mean anything abstract.A dwelling whether
of Gods,angels
or
Saints (every one of these being anthropomorphic individualities and
beings)must necessarily mean
a
locality some defined spot in that heaven ;hence it is quite immaterial for
purposes of worship
whether
that spot be considered as heaven in general meaning nowhere in particular or
in the Sun
Moon
or Jupiter.
The
argument is futile that there were
Two
deities,and two distinct hierarchies or tsabas in heaven in the ancient
world as in our
modern
times ...the one the living God and his host and the other Sat rn Lucifer
with his
councillors
and lictors,or the fallen angels.
Our
opponents say that it is the latter which Plato with the whole of antiquity
worshipped and which two-
thirds
of humanity worship to this day.The whole question is to know how to discern
between the two.
Protestant
Christians fail to find any mention of angels in the Pentateuch we may
therefore leave them
aside.The
Roman Catholics and the Kabalists find such mention ;the former because they
have
accepted
Jewish angelology without suspecting that the tsabęan Hosts were colonists
and settlers on
Judęan
territory from the lands of the Gentiles;the latter because they accepted the
bulk of the Secret
Doctrine
keeping the kernel for themselves and leaving the husks to the unwary.
The Planetary Angels -(Page 327)Cornelius a
Lapide points out and proves the meaning of the word
tsaba in the first
verse of Chapter ii.of Genesis ;and he does so correctly guided as he
probably was by
learned
Kabalists.The Protestants are certainly wrong in their contention for angels are
mentioned in the
Peutateuch
under the word tsaba which means hosts of angels.In the Vulgate the word
is translated
ornat s meaning the
sidereal army the ornament also of the sky kabalistically.The
biblical scholars
of
the Protestant Church and the savants among the materialists who failed
to find angels mentioned
by
Moses,have thus committed a serious error.For the verse reads:
Thus
the heaven and the earth were finished and all the host of them
the
host meaning the army of stars and angels ;the last two words being it
seems,convertible terms
in
Church phraseology.A Lapide is cited as an authority for this;he says that
Tsaba does not mean either
one or the other but the one and the other, or both siderum ae
angelor m
If
the Roman Catholics are right on this point so are the Occultists when they
claim that the angels
worshipped
in the Church of Rome are none else than their Seven Planets, the Dhyān
Chohans of
Buddhistic
Esoteric Philosophy or the Kumarās,the mind-born sons of Brahmā known under
the
patronymic
of Vaidhātra.The identity between the Kumarās,the Builders or cosmic Dhyān Chohans,and
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the
Seven Angels of the Stars,will be found without one single flaw if their
respective biographies are
studied
and especially the characteristics of their chiefs,Sanat-Kumāra (Sanat Sujāta),and
Michael the
Archangel.Together
with the Kabirim (Planets),the name of the above in Chaldęa they were all divine
Powers
(Forces).Fuerot says that the name Kabiri was used to denote the seven sons
of
meaning
Pater Sadic,Cain or Jupiter or again of Jehovah.There are seven Kumāras four
exoteric and
three
secret the names of the latter being found in the Sānkhya Bhāshya by
Gaudapādāchārya.[ The
three
secret names are Sana Sanat Sujāta and Kapila:while the four exoteric Gods
are called Sanat
Kumāra
Sananda Sanaka and Sanātana.] They are all Virgin Gods,who remain
eternally pure and
innocent
and decline to create progeny.In their primitive aspect these Āryan seven
mind-born sons of
God
are not the regents of (Page
328)the planets,but dwell far beyond the
planetary region.But the same
mysterious
transference from one character or dignity to another is found in the Christian
Angel-scheme.
The
Seven Spirits of the Presence attend perpetually on God and yet we find them
under the same
names
of Mikael Gabriel Raphael etc.as Star-regents or the informing deities of the
seven planets.
Suffice
it is to say that the Archangel Michael is called the invincible virgin
combatant as he refused to
create
which would connect him with both Sana Sujāta and the Kumāra who is the God
of War.
[ Another Kumāra the
God of War is called in the Hindu the eternal celibate the virgin
warrior. He is
the
Ćryan St.Michael.]
The
above has to be demonstrated by a few questions.Commenting upon St.John s
Seven Golden
Candlesticks,Cornelius
a Lapide says:
These
seven lights relate to the seven branches of the candlestick by which were
represented
the
seven [principal ] planets in the temples of Moses and Solomon
...or better still to the
seven
principal Spirits,commissioned to watch over the salvation of men and churches.
St.Jerome
says:
In
truth the candlestick with the seven branches was the type of the world and its
planets.
St.Thomas
Aquinas,the great Roman Catholic doctor writes:
I
do not remember having ever met in the works of saints or philosophers a denial
that the
planets
are guided by spiritual beings ....It seems to me that it may be proved to
demonstration
that the celestial bodies are guided by some intelligence either directly by
God
or
by the mediation of angels.But the latter opinion seems to be far more
consonant with the
order
of things asserted by St.Denys to be without exception that everything on earth
is,as a
rule
governed by God through intermediary agencies.[ We give the
original:Coelestia
corpora
moveri a spiritual creatura a nemine Sanctorum vel philosophorum negatum
legisse
me
memini.(Op se.X.art.iiil)...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
(Op
sc.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 to
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be
deemed idolatrous?]
And
now let the reader recall what the Pagans say of this.All the classical authors
and philosophers who
have
treated the subject repeat with Hermes Trismegistus,that the seven Rectors the
planets including
the
sun were the associates,or the co-workers,of the Unknown All represented by
the Demiurgos
commissioned
to contain the Cosmos our Planetary world within seven circles.
Celestial Wheels -(Page 329)Plutarch
shows them representing the circle of the celestial worlds.Again
Denys
of Thracia and the learned Clemens of Alexandria both describe the Rectors as
being shown in
the
Egyptian temples in the shape of mysterious wheels or spheres always in motion
which made the
Initiates
affirm that the problem of perpetual motion had been solved by the celestial
wheels in the
Initiation
Adyta.[ In one of Des Mousseaux's volumes on Demonology ( vres 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 or
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.]This
doctrine of Hermes was that of
Pythagoras
and of Orpheus before him.It is called by Proclus the God-given
doctrine.Iamblichus
speaks
of it with greatest reverence.Philostratus tell his readers that the whole
sidereal court of the
Babylonian
heaven was represented in the temples.
In
globes made of sapphires and supporting the golden images of their respective
gods.
The
temples of Persia were especially famous for these representations.If Cedrenus
can be credited
The
Emperor Heraclius on his entry into the city of Bazaeum was struck with
admiration and
wonder
before the immense machine fabricated for King Chosroes,which represented the
night-sky
with the planets and all their revolutions,with the angels presiding over them.
[ 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.]
It
was on such spheres that Pythagoras studied Astronomy in the adyta arcana of
the temples to which
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he
had access.And it was there on his Initiation that the eternal rotation of
those spheres the
mysterious
wheels as they are called by Clemens and Denys and which Plutarch calls
world-wheels
demonstrated
to him the verity (Page
330)of what had been divulged to him
namely the heliocentric
system
the great secret of the Adyta.All the discoveries of modern astronomy like all
the secrets that
can
be revealed to it in future ages,were contained in the secret observatories and
Initiation Halls of the
temples
of old India and Egypt.It is in them that the Chaldęan made his calculations
revealing to the
world
of the profane no more than it was fit to receive.
We
may and shall be told no doubt that Uranus was unknown to the ancients,and that
they were forced
to
reckon the sun amongst the planets and as their chief.How does anyone
know?Uranus is a modern
name ;but one thing is
certain:the ancients had a planet a mystery planet that they never named and
that
the highest Astronomus,the Hierophant alone could confabulate with.But this
seventh planet was
not
the sun but the hidden Divine Hierophant who was said to have a crown and to
embrace within its
wheel
seventy-seven smaller wheels.In the archaic secret system of the Hindus,the
sun is the visible
Logos
Sūrya ,over him there is another the divine or heavenly Man who after
having established the
system
of the world of matter on the archetype of the Unseen Universe or Macrocosm
conducted during
the
Mysteries the heavenly Rąsa Mandala;when he was said:
To
give with his right foot the impulse to Tyam or Bhūmi [ Earth ]
that makes her rotate in a
double
revolution.
What
says Hermes again?When explaining Egyptian Cosmology he explains:
Listen
O my son ...the Power has also formed seven agents,who contain within their
circles
the
material world and whose action is called destiny ....When all became subject
to man
the
Seven willing to favour human intelligence communicated to him their powers.But
as
soon
as man knew their true essence and his own nature he desired to penetrate
within and
beyond
the circles and thus break their circumference by usurping the power of him who
has
dominion
over the Fire [ Sun ]itself;after which having robbed one of the
Wheels of the Sun
of
the sacred fire he fell into slavery.[Champollion s Egypte Moderne.p.42
.]
It
is not Prometheus who is meant here.Prometheus is a symbol and a
personification of the whole of
mankind
in relation to an event which occurred during its childhood so to say the
Baptism by Fire
which
is a mystery within the great Promethean Mystery one that may be at present
mentioned only in its
broad
general features.
The Promethean Mystery -(Page 331)By reason of the extraordinary growth of human intellect
and the
development
in our age of the fifth principle (Manas)in man its rapid progress has
paralysed spiritual
perceptions.It
is at the expense of wisdom that intellect generally lives,and mankind is quite
unprepared
in
its present condition to comprehend the awful drama of human disobedience to
the laws of Nature and
the
subsequent Fall as a result.It can only be hinted at in its place.
Page
265.
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SECTION XXXVII
The Souls of the Stars Universal Heliolatry
(Page 332)IN order to show that the Ancients have never mistaken
stars for Gods, or Angels and the sun
for
the highest Gods and God but have worshipped only the Spirit of all and have
reverenced the minor
Gods
supposed to reside in the sun and planets the difference between these two
worships has to be
pointed
out.Saturn the Father of Gods must not be confused with his namesake the
planet of the
same
name with its eight moons and three rings.The two though in one sense
identical as are for
instance
physical man and his soul must be separated in the question of worship.This
has to be done
the
more carefully in the case of the seven planets and their Spirits,as the whole
formation of the
universe
is attributed to them in the Secret Teachings.The same difference has to be
shown again
between
the stars of the Great Bear the Riksha and the Chitra Shikhandina the
bright-crested and the
Rishis
the mortal Sages who appeared on earth during the Satya Yuga.If all of these
have been so far
closely
united in the visions of the seers of every age the bible seers included
there must have been a
reason
for it.Nor need one go back so far as into the periods of superstition and
unscientific fancies to
find
great men in our epoch sharing in them.It is well known that Kepler the eminent
astronomer in
common
with many other great men who believed that the heavenly bodies ruled
favourably or adversely
the
fates of men and nations fully credited besides this the fact that all
heavenly bodies,even our own
earth
are endowed with living and thinking souls.
Le
Couturier s opinion is worthy of notice in this relation:
Christian Star-Worship -(Page 333)We are too inclined to criticize unsparingly everything
concerning
astrology and its ideas;nevertheless our criticism to be one ought at least to
know
lest it should be proved aimless,what those ideas in truth are.And when among
the
men
we thus criticize we find such names as those of Regiomontanus,Tycho Brahe
Kepler
etc.there
is reason why we should be careful.Kepler was an astrologer by profession and
became
an astronomer in consequence.He was earning his livelihood by genethliac
figures,
which
indicating his state of the heavens at the moment of the birth of
individuals,were a
means
to which everyone resorted for horoscopes.That great man was a believer in the
principles
of astrology without accepting all its foolish results.[Musée des
Sciences.p.230.]
But
astrology is nevertheless proclaimed as a sinful science and together with
Occultism is tabooed by
the
Churches.It is very doubtful however whether mystic star-worship can be so
easily laughed down
as
people imagine at any rate by Christians.The hosts of Angels,Cherubs and
Planetary Archangels
are
identical with the minor Gods of the Pagans.As to their great Gods,if Mars
has been shown on
the
admission of even the enemies of the Pagan astrologers to have been regarded
by the latter simply
as
the personified strength of the one highest impersonal Deity Mercury being
personified as its
omniscience
Jupiter as its omnipotency and so on then the superstition of the Pagan has
indeed
become
the religion of the masses of the civilized nations.For with the latter
Jehovah is the synthesis
of
the seven Elohim the eternal centre of all those attributes and forces,the Alei
of the Aleim and the
Adonai
of the Adonim.And if with them Mars is now called St.Michael the strength of
God Mercury
Gabriel
the omniscience and fortitude of the Lord and Raphael the blessing or
healing power of God
this
is simply a change of names,the characters behind the masks remaining the same.
Page
266.
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The
Dalai-lama s mitre has seven ridges in honour of the seven chief Dhyāni
Buddhas.In the funeral
ritual
of the Egyptians the defunct is made to exclaim:
Salutation
to you O Princes,who stand in the presence of Osiris ....Send me the grace to
have
my sins destroyed as you have done for the seven spirits who follow the Lord!
[ Translated by the
Vicomte de Rougemont.See Les Annales de Philosophie Chrétienne,7 th
year.1861
]
Brahmā
s head is ornamented with seven rays and he is followed by the seven Rishis,in
the seven
Svargas.China
has her seven Pagodas;(Page
334)the Greeks had their seven
Cyclopes,seven
Demiurgi
and the Mystery Gods,the seven Kabiri whose chief was Jupiter-Saturn and with
the Jews,
Jehovah.Now
the latter Deity has become chief of all by Mikael (Michael).He is the Chief
of the Host
(tsaba
);the Archistrategus of the Lord s army ;the Conqueror of the Devil
Victor diaboli and the
Archisatrap
of the Sacred Militia he who slew the Great Dragon.Unfortunately astrology
and
symbology
having no inducement to veil old things with new masks,have preserved the real
name of
Mikael
that was Jehovah Mikael being the Angel of the face of the Lord [ Isaiah,IXIII.9.]
the
guardian
of the planets,and the living image of God.He represents the Deity in his
visits to earth for as
it
is well expressed in Hebrew he is one who is as God or who is like unto God.It
is he who
cast
out the serpent.[ Chap 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).]
Mikael
being the regent of the planet Saturn is Sat rn .[ He is also
the informing Spirit of the Sun and
Jupiter
and even of Venus.] His mystery-name is Sabbathiel because he presides
over the Jewish
Sabbath
as also over the astrological Saturday.Once identified the reputation of the
Christian
conqueror
of the devil is in still greater danger from further identifications.Biblical
angels are called
Malachim
the messengers between God (or rather the gods )and men.In Hebrew
.Malach is
also
a King and Malech or Melech was likewise Moloch or again Saturn the Seb of
Egypt to whom
Dies Sat rni,or the
Sabbath was dedicated.The Sabęans separated and distinguished the planet
Saturn
from its God far more than the Roman Catholics do their angels from their
stars;and the Kabalists
make
of the Archangel Mikael the patron of the seventh work of magic.
In
theological symbolism....Jupiter [the Sun ]is the risen and
glorious Saviour and Saturn God the
Father
or the Jehovah of Moses,[ Dogme et Rit el.ii.116 ]says
Éliphas Lévi who o ght to know.
Jehovah
and the Saviour Saturn and Jupiter being thus one and Mikael being called the
living image of
God
it does seem dangerous for the Church to call Saturn Satan le die ma vais .However
Rome is
strong
in casuistry and will get out of this as she got out of every other
identification with glory to herself
and
to her own full satisfaction.
A Singular Confession -(Page 335)Nevertheless all her dogmas and rituals seem like so many
pages
torn
out from the history of Occultism and then distorted.The extremely thin
partition that separates the
Kabalistic
and Chaldęan Theogony from the Roman Catholic Angelology and Theodicy is now
confessed
by
at least one Roman Catholic writer.One can hardly believe one s eyes in
finding the following (the
passages
italicized by us should be carefully noticed):
Page
267.
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One
of the most characteristic features of our Holy Scriptures is the calculated
discretion sed
in the en nciation of the mysteries less directly sef l to
salvation.....Thus,beyond those
myriads
of myriads of angelic creatures just noticed [If enumerated they will
be found to be
the
Hindu divisions and choirs of Devas,and the Dhyān Chohans of Esoteric
Buddhism.] and
all
these prudently elementary divisions,there are certainly many others,whose very
names
have
not yet reached us.[ 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 Kabalists Jews and Pagans.] For excellently
says St.John
Chrysostom
there are doubtless,(sine d bio,)many other Virt es [celestial
beings ] whose
denominations
we are yet far from knowing ....The nine orders are not by any means the
only
populations in heaven where on the contrary are to be fo nd n mberless
tribes of
inhabitants
infinitely varied and of which it would be impossible to give the slightest
idea
through
human tongue ....Paul who had learned their names,reveals to us their
existence.
(De
Incomprehensibili Nat ra Dei,Bk.IV.)...
It
would thus amount to a gross mistake to see merely errors in the
Angelology of the Kabalists
and
Gnostics,so severely treated by the Apostle of the Gentiles,for his imposing
censure
reached
only their exaggerations and vicio s interpretations,and still more the
application of
those noble titles to
the miserable personalities of demoniacal surpers.[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!]Often nothing so
resemble each other as
the lang age of the j dges and that of the convicts [of saints and
Occultists ].One has to
penetrate
deeply into this d al study [of creed and profession ] and
what is still better to trust
blindly to the a thority of the trib nal [ the Church of Rome
of course ] to enable oneself to
seize
precisely the point of the error.The Gnosis condemned by St.Paul
remains,
nevertheless,for
him as for Plato the supreme knowledge of the truths,and of the Being par
excellence,ó óķōłņ (Rep
bl.Bk.VI).The Ideas,types įń÷įé of the Greek philosopher the
Intelligences of
Pythagoras,the aeons or emanations,the occasion of so much
reproach to
the
first heretics,the Logos or Word Chief of these Intelligences,the Demi rgos the
architect
of
the world under his father s direction [ of the Pagans ] the
unknown God the En-soph or
the
It of the Infinite [ of the Kabalists ] the angelical periods,[
Or the divine ages the days
and
years of Brahmā.] the seven spirits,the Depths of Ahriman,the
World s Rectors,the
Archontes of the air
the God of this world,the pleroma of the (Page 336)intelligences,down to
Metatron the angel of
the Jews all this is fo nd word for word,as so many truths,in the works
of o r greatest doctors,and in St.Pa l.[ 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.]
If
an Occultist eager to charge the Church with a numberless series of plagiarisms
were to write the
above
could he have written more strongly?And have we or have we not the right after
such a
complete
confession to reverse the tables and to say of Roman Catholics and others what
is said of the
Gnostics
and Occultists.They used our expressions and rejected our doctrines. For it
is not the
promoters
of the false Gnosis who had all those expressions from their archaic
ancestors who
helped
themselves to Christian expressions,but verily the Christian Fathers and
Theologians,who
helped
themselves to our nest and have tried ever since to soil it.
The
words above quoted will explain much to those who are searching for truth and
for truth only.They
will
show the origin of certain rites in the Church inexplicable hitherto to the
simple-minded and will give
Page
268.
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the
reasons why such words as Our Lord the Sun were used in prayer by Christians
up to the fifth and
even
sixth century of our era and embodied in the Liturgy until altered into Our
Lord the God.Let us
remember
that the early Christians painted Christ on the walls of their subterranean
necropolis,as a
shepherd
in the guise of and invested with all the attributes of Apollo driving away the
wolf.Fenris,who
seeks
to devour the Sun and his Satellites.
Page
269.
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SECTION XXXVIII
Astrology and Astrolatry
(Page 337)The books of Hermes Trismegistus contain the exoteric
meaning still veiled for all but the
Occultist
of the Astrology and Astrolatry of the Khaldi.The two subjects are closely
connected.Astrolatry
or
the adoration of the heavenly host is the natural result of only half-revealed
Astrology whose Adepts
carefully
concealed from the non-initiated masses its Occult principles and the wisdom
imparted to them
by
the Regents of the Planets the Angels. Hence divine Astrology for the
Initiates;superstitious
Astrolatry
for the profane.St.Justin asserts it:
From
the first invention of the hieroglyphics it was not the vulgar but the
distinguished and
select
men who became initiated in the secrecy of the temples into the science of
every kind of
Astrology
even into its most abject kind:that Astrology which later on found itself
prostituted
in
the public thoroughfares.
There
was a vast difference between the Sacred Science taught by Petosiris Necepso
the first
Astrologers
mentioned in the Egyptian manuscripts,believed to have lived during the reign
of Ramses II.
(Sesostris)[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.] and the miserable charlatanry of
the quacks called
Chaldęans,who
degraded the Divine Knowledge under the last Emperors of Rome.Indeed one may
fairly
describe the two as the high ceremonial Astrology and astrological
Astrolatry.The first depended
on
the knowledge by the Initiates of those (to us)immaterial Forces or Spiritual
Entities that effect matter
and
guide it.Called by the ancient Philosophers the Archontes and the
Cosmocratores,they were the
types
or paradigms on the higher planes of the lower and more material beings on the
scale of evolution
whom
we call Elementals and Nature-Spirits to whom the Sabęans bowed and whom they
worshipped
without
suspecting the essential difference.Hence (Page 338)the latter
kind when not a mere pretence
degenerated
but too often into Black Magic.It was the favourite form of popular or exoteric
Astrology
entirely
ignorant of the apotelesmatic principles of the primitive Science the doctrines
of which were
imparted
only at initiation.Thus,while the real Hierophants soared like Demi-Gods to the
very summit of
spiritual
knowledge the hoi polloi among the Sabęans crouched steeped in
superstition ten
millenniums
back,as they do now in the cold and lethal shadow of the valleys of
matter.Sidereal
influence
is dual.There is the physical and physiological influence that of
exotericism;and the high
spiritual
intellectual and moral influence imparted by the knowledge of the former called
Astrology so
far
back as the eighteenth century The very foolish mother of a very wise daughter
Astronomy.On the
other
hand Arago a luminary of the nineteenth century supports the reality of the
sidereal influence of
the
Sun Moon and Planets.He asks:
Where
do we find lunar influences refuted by arguments that science would dare to
avow?
But
even Bailly having as he thought put down Astrology as publicly practised dares
not to do the
same
with the real Astrology.He says:
Judiciary
Astrology was at its origin the result of a profound system the work of an
enlightened
nation
that would wander too far into the mysteries of God and Nature.
Page
270.
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A
Scientist of a more recent date a member of the Institute of France and a
professor of history Ph.
Lebas,discovers
(unconsciously to himself)the very root of Astrology in his able article on the
subject in
the
Dictionnaire Encyclopédiq e de France .He well understands,he tells his
readers,that the adhesion
to
that Science of such a number of highly intellectual men should be in itself a
sufficient motive for
believing
that all Astrology is not folly:
While
proclaiming in politics the sovereignty of the people and of public opinion can
we admit
as
heretofore that mankind allowed itself to be radically deceived in this
only:that an absolute
and
gross absurdity reigned in the minds of whole nations for so many centuries
without being
based
on anything save on one hand human imbecility and on the other charlatanry?How
for
fifty centuries and more can most men have been either dupes or knaves?....Even
though
we may find it impossible to decide between and separate the realities of
Astrology
from
the elements of invention and empty dreaming in it ...let
us,nevertheless,repeat with
Bossuet
and all modern philosophers,that nothing that has been dominant could be
absolutely
false.Is it not true at all events,that there is a physical reaction on one
another
among
the planets.
The Defence of Astrology -(Page 339)It is not again true that the planets have an influence on
the
atmosphere
and consequently at any rate a mediate action on vegetation and animals?Has not
modern
science
demonstrated now these two points beyond any doubt?...Is it any less true that
human liberty
of
action is not absolute;that all is bound that all weighs,planets as the rest on
each individual will;that
Providence
[ or Karma ] acts on us and directs men through those
relations that it has established
between
them and the visible objects and the whole universe?...Astrolatry in its
essence is nothing
but
that;we are bound to recognise that an instinct superior to the age they lived
in guided the efforts of
the
ancient Magi.As to the materialism and annihilation of human moral freedom with
which Bailly
charges
their theory (Astrology)the reprobate has no sense whatever.All the great
astrologers admitted
without
one single exception that man could reäct against the influence of the
stars.This principle is
established
in the Ptolemian Tetrabiblos,the true astrological Scriptures,in
chapters ii and iii of book
i.[Op.cit.,p.422.]
Thomas
Aquinas had corroborated Lebas in anticipation;he says:
The
celestial bodies are the ca se of all that happens in this subl nary world,they
act
indirectly
on human actions;but not all the effects produced by them are unavoidable.[
S mma.Quest.xv.Art
v.upon Astrologers,and Vol.III.pp.2-29.]
The
Occultists and Theosophists are the first to confess that there is white and
black Astrology.
Nevertheless,Astrology
has to be studied in both aspects by those who wish to become proficient in it;
and
the good or bad results obtained do not depend upon the principles,which are
the same in both
kinds,but
in the Astrologer himself.Thus Pythagoras,who established the whole Copernican
system by
the
Book of Hermes,2 000 years before Galileo s predecessor was born found and
studied in them the
whole
Science of divine Theogony of the communication with and the evocation of the
world s Rectors
the
Princes of the Principalities of St.Paul the nativity of each Planet and of
the Universes itself the
formulę
of incantations and the consecretation of each portion of the human body to the
respective
Zodiacal
sign corresponding to it.All this cannot be regarded as childish and absurd
still less
devilish
save by those who are and wish to remain tyros in the Philosophy of the
Occult Sciences.
Page
271.
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No
true thinker no one who recognises the presence of a common bond between man
and visible as
well
as invisible Nature would see in the old relics of Archaic Wisdom such as the
Petemenoph
Papyrus,for instance
childish nonsense and absurdity as many Academicians (Page 340)and
Scientists
have done.But upon finding in such ancient documents the application of the
Hermetic rules
and
laws,such as
The
consecration of one s hair to the celestial Nile;of the left temple to the
living Spirit in the
sun
and the right one to the spirit of Ammon
he
will endeavour to study and comprehend better the laws of correspondences.Nor
will he disbelieve
in
the antiquity of Astrology on the plea that some Orientalists have thought fit
to declare that the Zodiac
was
not very ancient being only the invention of the Greeks of the Macedonian
period.For this
statement
besides having been shown to be entirely erroneous by a number of other
reasons,may be
entirely
disproved by facts relating to the latest discoveries in Egypt and by the more
accurate readings
of
hieroglyphics and inscriptions of the earliest dynasties.The published polemics
on the contents of the
so-called
Magic Papyri of the Anastasi collection indicate the antiquity of the
Zodiac.As the Lettres ą
Lettrone say:The
papyri discourse at length upon the four bases or
Foundations
of the world the identity of which it is impossible according to Champollion to
mistake
as one is forced to recognise in them the Pillars of the World of St.Paul.It is
they
who
are invoked with the gods of all the celestial zones,quite analogous,once more
to the
Spirit alia neq itia in clestib s of the same apostle.[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
dęmons
(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 Dhyān Chohans of the more ancient religions.]
That
invocation was made in the proper terms ....of the formula reproduced far too
faithfully
by
Jamblichus for it to be possible to refuse him any longer the merit of having
transmitted to
posterity
the ancient and primitive spirit of the Egyptian Astrologers.[ Answer by
Reuvens to
Letronne
with regard to his mistake notion about the Zodiac of Dendera.]
As
Letronne had tried to prove that all the genuine Egyptian Zodiacs had been
manufactured during the
Roman
period the Sensaos mummy is brought forward to show that:
All
the Zodiacal monuments in Egypt were chiefly astronomical.Royal tombs and funereal
rituals
are so many tables of constellations and of their influences for all the hours
of every
month.
Thus
the genethliac tables themselves prove that they are far older than the period
assigned to their
origin;all
the Zodiacs of the sarcophagi of later epochs being simple reminiscences of the
Zodiacs
belonging
to the mythological [ archaic ]period.
Its Later Deterioration -(Page 341)Primitive Astrology was as far above modern judiciary
Astrology so-
Page
272.
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called
as the guides (the Planets and Zodiacal signs)are above the lamp-posts.Berosus
shows the
sidereal
sovereignty of Bel and Mylitta (Sun and Moon),and only the twelve lords of the
Zodiacal Gods,
the
thirty-six Gods Counsellors and the twenty-four Stars,judges of this world
which support and
guide
the Universe (our solar system),watch over mortals and reveal to mankind its
fate and their own
decrees.Judiciary
Astrology as it is now known is correctly denominated by the Latin Church the
Materialistic
and pantheistic prophesying by the objective planet itself independently of its
Rector
[ the Mlac of the Jews,the ministers of the Eternal commissioned by him
to announce
his
will to mortals ];the ascension or conjunction of the planet at the
moment of the birth of an
individual
deciding his fortune and the moment and mode of his death.[ St.Ausgustine
(De
Gen .I.iii.)and Delrio
(Disq isit.,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 tranquility of mind.]
Every
student of Occultism knows that the heavenly bodies are closely related during
each Manvantara
with
the mankind of that special cycle;and there are some who believe that each
great character born
during
that period has as every other mortal has,only in a far stronger degree his
destiny outlined
within
his proper constellation or star traced as a self-prophecy an anticipated
autobiography by the
indwelling
Spirit of that particular star.The human Monad in its first beginning is that
Spirit or the Soul of
that
star (Planet)itself.As our Sun radiates its light and beams on every body in
space within the
boundaries
of its system so the Regent of every Planet-star the Parent-monad shoots out
from itself the
Monad
of every pilgrim Soul born under its house within its own group.The Regents
are esoterically
seven
whether in the Sephiroth the Angels of the Presence the Rishis,or the
Amshaspends.The
One
is no number is said in all the esoteric works.
(Page 342)From the Kasdim and Gazzim (Astrologers)the noble primitive
science passed to the
Khartumim
Asaphim (or Theologians)and the Hakamin (or scientists the Magicians of the
lower class),
and
from these to the Jews during their captivity.The Books of Moses had been
buried in oblivion for
centuries,and
when rediscovered by Hilkiah had lost their true sense for the people of
Israel.Primitive
Occult
Astrology was on the decline when Daniel the last of the Jewish Initiates of
the old school
became
the chief of the Magi and Astrologers of Chaldęa.In those days even Egypt who had
her
wisdom
from the same source as Babyon had degenerated from her former grandeur and her
glory had
begun
to fade out.Still the science of old habit left her eternal imprint on the
world and the seven great
Primitive
Gods reigned for ever in the Astrology and the division of time of every nation
upon the face of
the
earth.The names of the days of our (Christian)week are those of the Gods of the
Chaldęans,who
translated
them from those of the Āryans;the uniformity of these antediluvian names in
every nation
from
the Goths back to the Indians,would remain inexplicable as Sir W.Jones thought
had not the
riddle
been explained to us by the invitation made by the Chaldęan oracles,recorded by
Porphyry and
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quoted
by Eusebius:
To
carry those names first to the Egyptian and Phnician colonies,then to the
Greeks,with
the
express recommendation that each God should be invoked only on that day that
had been
called
by his name.....
Thus
Apollo says in those oracles: I must be invoked on the day of the sun ;Mercury
after his
directions,then
Chronos [Saturn ] then Venus,and do not fail to call seven times
each of
those
gods. [Preparatio Evangelica.I.xiv.]
This
is slightly erroneous.Greece did not get her astrological instruction from
Egypt or from Chaldęa but
direct
from Orpheus,as Lucian tells us.[ Ast .iv.60 ] It was
Orpheus,as he says,who imparted the
Indian
Sciences to nearly all the great monarchs of antiquity;and it was they the
ancient kings favoured
by
the Planetary Gods,who recorded the principles of Astrology as did
Ptolemus,for instance.Thus
Lucian
writes:
The
Botian Tiresias acquired the greatest reputation in the art of predicting
futurity ....In
those
days divination was not as slightly treated as it is now;and nothing was ever
undertaken
without
previous consultation with diviners,whose oracles were all directed by
astrology ....
At
Delphos the virgin commissioned to announce futurity was the symbol of the
Heavenly
Virgin
....and Our Lady.
Its Prominent Disciples -(Page 343)On the sarcophagus of an Egyptian Pharaoh Neith mother of
Ra
the
heifer that brings forth the Sun her body spangled with stars,and wearing the
solar and lunar discs,
is
equally referred to as the Heavenly Virgin and Our Lady of the Starry
Vault.
Modern
judiciary Astrology in its present form began only during the time of
Diodorus,as he apprises the
world.[Hist.,I.ii.]
But Chaldęan Astrology was believed in by most of the great men in History
such as
Cęsar
Pliny Cicero whose best friends,Nigidius Figulus and Lucius Tarrutius,were
themselves
Astrologers,the
former being famous as a prophet.Marcus Antonius never travelled without an
Astrologer
recommended to him by Cleopatra.Augustus,when ascending the throne had his
horoscope
drawn
by Theagenes.Tiberius discovered pretenders to his throne by means of Astrology
and divination.
Vitellius
dared not exile the Chaldęans,as they had announced the day of their banishment
as that of
his
death.Vespasian consulted them daily;Domitian would not move without being
advised by the
prophets;Adrian
was a learned Astrologer himself;and all of them ending with Julian (called the
Apostate because he
would not become one),believed in and addressed their prayers to the Planetary
Gods.The
Emperor Adrian moreover predicted from the January calends up to December 31
st every
event
that happened to him daily.Under the wisest emperors Rome had a School of
Astrology wherein
were
secretly taught the occult influences of the Sun Moon and Saturn.[All
these particulars may be
found
more fully and far more completely in Champollion Figeac s Egypte.] Jndiciary
Astrology is used to
this
day by the Kabalists;and Éliphas Lévi the modern French Magus,teaches its
rudiments in his
Dogme et Rit el de la Ha te Magic.But the key to ceremonial or ritualistic Astrology with the
teraphim
and
the urim and thummim of Magic,is lost to Europe.Hence our century of
Materialism shrugs it
shoulders
and sees in Astrology a pretender.
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Not
all scientists scoff at it however and one may rejoice in reading in the Musée
des Sciences [ Op.
cit.,p.230.]the
suggestive and fair remarks made by Le Couturier a man of science of no mean
reputation.He
thinks it curious (Page
344)to notice that while the bold
speculations of Democritus are
found
vindicated by Dalton
The
reveries of the alchemists are also on their way to a certain
rehabilitation.They receive
renewed
life from the minute investigations of their successors,the chemists;a very
remarkable
thing indeed is to see how much modern discoveries have served to vindicate of
late
the theories of the Middle Ages from the charge of absurdity laid at their
door.Thus,if as
demonstrated
by Col.Sabine the direction of a piece of steel hung a few feet above the soil
may
be influenced by the position of the moon whose body is at a distance of 240
000 miles
from
our planet who then could accuse of extravagance the belief of the ancient
astrologers
[ or the modern either
]in the influence of the stars on human destiny.[ Op.cit.,p.230.]
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SECTION XXXIX
Cycles of Avatāras
(Page 345)We have already drawn attention to the facts that the
record of the life of a World-Savior is
emblematical
and must be read by its mystic meaning and that the figures 432 have a cosmic
evolutionary
significance.We find these two facts throwing light on the origin of the
exoteric Christian
religion
and clearing away much of the obscurity surrounding its beginnings.For is it
not clear that the
names
and characters in the Synoptical Gospels and in that of St.John are not
historical?Is it not
evident
that the compilers of the life of Christ desirous to show that the birth of
their Master was a
cosmic,astronomical
and divinely-preördained event attempted to coördinate the same with the end of
the
secret cycle 4 320?When facts are collated this answers to them as little as
does the other cycle of
thirty-three
solar years seven months,and seven days which has also been brought forward as
supporting
the same claim the soli-lunar cycle in which the Sun gains on the Moon one
solar year.The
combination
of the three figures,4 3 2 with cyphers according to the cycle and Manvantara
concerned
was,and
is,preėminently Hindu.It will remain a secret even though several of its
significant features are
revealed.It
relates,for instance to the Pralaya of the races in their periodical
dissolution before which
events
a special Avatāra has always to descend and incarnate on earth.These figures
were adopted by
all
the older nations,such as those of Egypt and Chaldęa and before them were
current among the
Atlanteans.Evidently
some of the more learned among the early Church Fathers who had dabbled
whilst
Pagans,in temple secrets,knew them to relate to the Avatāric or Messianic
Mystery ,and tried to
apply
this cycle to the birth of their Messiah;they failed because the figures relate
to the respective ends
of
the Root-Races and not to any individual.In their badly-directed
efforts,moreover an error of five
years
occurred.Is it possible if their claims as to the (Page 346)importance and universality of the event
were
correct that such a vital mistake should have been allowed to creep into a
chronological
computation
preördained and traced in the heavens by the finger of God?Again what were the
Pagan
and
even Jewish Initiates doing if this claim as to Jesus be correct?Could they the
custodians of the
key
to the secret cycles and Avatāras,the heirs of the Āryan Egyptian and Chaldęan
wisdom have
failed
to recognize their great God-Incarnate one with Jehovah [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 Lect res in Sweden.] their
Saviour of the latter days,him
whom
all the nations of Asia still expect as their Kalki Avatāra Maitreya Buddha
Sosiosh Messiah etc.?
The
simple secret is this:There are cycles within greater cycles,which are all
contained in the one Kalpa
of
4 320 000 years.It is at the end of this cycle that the Kalki Avatāra is
expected the Avatāra Whose
name
and characteristics are secret Who will come forth from Shamballa the City of
Gods,which is in
the
West for some nations,in the East for others,in the North or South for yet
others.And this is the
reason
why from the Indian Rishi to Virgil and from Zoroaster down to the latest Sibyl
all have since the
beginning
of the Fifth Race prophesied sung and promised the cyclic return of the Virgin
Virgo the
constellation
and the birth of a divine child who should bring back to our earth the Golden
Age.
No
one however fanatical would have sufficient hardihood to maintain that the
Christian era has ever
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been
a return to the Golden Age Virgo having actually entered into Libra since
then.Let us trace as
briefly
as possible the Christian traditions to their true origin.
First
of all they discover in a few lines from Virgil a direct prophecy of the birth
of Christ.Yet it is
impossible
to detect in this prophecy any feature of the present age.It is in the famous
fourth Eclogue in
which
half a century before our era Pollio is made to ask the Muses of Sicily to sing
to him about greater
events.
The
last era of Cumęan song is now arrived and the grand series of ages [ that
series which
recurs
again and again in the course of our mundane revolution ] begins
afresh.Now the
Virgin
Astęa returns,and the reign of Saturn recommences
An Unfulfilled Prophecy -(Page 347)Now a new progeny descends from the celestial realms.
Do
thou chaste Lucina smile propitious to the infant Boy who will bring to a close
the present
Age
of Iron [ Kali Yuga the Black or Iron Age.] and introduce
throughout the whole world the
Age
of Gold.....He shall share the life of Gods and shall see heroes mingled in
society with
Gods,himself
to be seen by them and all the peaceful world....Then shall the herds no
longer
dread the huge lion the serpent also shall die:and the poison s deceptive
plant shall
perish.Come
then dear child of the Gods,great descendant of Jupiter!....The time is near.
See
the world is shaken with its globe saluting thee:the earth the regions of the
sea and the
heavens
sublime.[ Virgil Eclog e.iv.]
It
is in these few lines,called the Sibylline prophecy about the coming of Christ
that his followers now
see
a direct foretelling of the event.Now who will presume to maintain that either
at the birth of Jesus or
since
the establishment of the so-called Christian religion any portion of the
above-quoted sentences
can
be shown as prophetic?Has the last age the Age of Iron or Kali Yuga closed
since then?Quite
the
reverse since it is shown to be in full sway just now not only because the
Hindus use the name but
by
universal personal experience.Where is that new race that has descended from
the celestial
realms
?Was it the race that emerged from Paganism into Christianity?Or is it our
present race with
nations
ever red-hot for fight jealous and envious,ready to pounce upon each other
showing mutual
hatred
that would put to blush cats and dogs,ever lying and deceiving one another?Is
it this age of ours
that
is the promised Golden Age in which neither the venom of the serpent nor of
any plant is any
longer
lethal and in which we are all secure under the mild sway of God-chosen
sovereigns?The wildest
fancy
of an opium-eater could hardly suggest a more inappropriate description if it
is to be applied to our
age
or to any age since the year one of our era.What of the mutual slaughter of
sects,of Christians by
Pagans,and
of Pagans and Heretics by Christians;the horrors of the Middle Ages and of the
Inquisition;
Napoleon
and since his day an armed peace at best at the worst torrents of blood shed
for
supremacy
over acres of land and a handful of heathen :millions of soldiers under
arms,ready for
battle;a
diplomatic body playing at Cains and Judases;and instead of the mild sway of a
divine
sovereign
the universal though unrecognised sway of Cęsarism of might in lieu of
right and the
breeding
therefrom of anarchists socialists,pétroleuses,and destroyers of every
description?
(Page 348)The Sibylline prophecy and Virgil s inspirational poetry
remain unfulfilled in every point as we
see.
The
fields are yellow with soft ears of corn;
Page
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but
so they were before our era:
The
blushing grapes shall hang from the rude brambles,and dewy honey shall [ or
may ] distil
from
the rugged oak;
but
they have not thus done so far.We must look for another interpretation.What is
it?The Sibylline
Prophetess
spoke as thousands of other Prophets and Seers have spoken though even the few
such
records
that have survived are rejected by Christian and infidel and their
interpretations are only allowed
and
accepted among the Initiated.The Sibyl alluded to cycles in general and to the
great cycle especially.
Let
us remember how the Purānas corroborate the above among others the Vishn P
rāna:
When
the practices taught by the Vedas,and the Institutes of Law shall have nearly
ceased
and
the close of the Kali Yuga [the Iron Age of Virgil ] shall be
nigh an aspect of that divine
Being
who exists of his own spiritual nature in the character of Brahmā and even is
the
beginning
of the end [ Alpha and Omega ] ...shall descend upon
earth:he will be born in the
family
of Vishnuyashas,an eminent Brāhman of Shamballah ....endowed with the eight
superhuman
powers.By his irresistible might he will destroy ...all whose minds are devoted
to
iniquity.He will then reėstablish righteousness upon earth;and the minds of
those who live
at
the end of the [ Kali ] Age shall be awakened and shall be as
pellucid as crystal.[ 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.] The men who are thus changed by virtue
of that
peculiar
time shall be as the seeds of human beings [ the Shistha the survivors
of the future
cataclysm
] and shall give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita [
or Satya ]
Yuga
[the age of purity or the Golden Age ] For it is said:When the sun
and moon and
Tishya
[asterisms ] and the planet Jupiter are in one mansion the Krita
Age [the Golden ]shall
return.[Vishn
P rāna.IV.228.Wilson s translation.]
The
astronomical cycles of the Hindus those taught publicly have been
sufficiently well understood
but
the esoteric meaning thereof in its application to transcendental subjects
connected with them has
ever
remained a dead-letter.The number of cycles was enormous;it ranged from the
Mahā Yuga cycle of
4
320 000 years down to the small septenary and quinquennial cycles,the latter
being composed of the
five
years called respectively the Samvatsara Parivatsara Idvatsara Anuvatsara and
Vatsara each
having
secret attributes or qualities attached to them.
Secret Cycles -(Page 349)Vriddhagarga gives
these in a treatise now the property of a Trans-
Himālayan
Matham (or temple);and describes the relation between this quinquennial and the
Brihaspati
cycle
based on the conjunction of the Sun and Moon every sixtieth year:a cycle as
mysterious for
national
events in general and those of the Āryan Hindu nation especially as it is
important.
Page
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SECTION XL
Secret Cycles
(Page 350)THE former five-year cycle comprehends sixty solar-sidereal
months or 1800 days sixty-one
solar
months (or 1830);sixty-two lunar months (or 1860 lunations),and sixty-seven
lunar-asterismal
months
(or 1809 such days).
In
his Kāla Sankalita,Col.Warren very properly regards these years as
cycles;this they are for each
year
has its own special importance as having some bearing upon and connection with
specified events
in
individual horoscopes.He writes that in the cycle of sixty there.
Are
contained five cycles of twelve years,each supposed equal to one year of the
planet
(Brihaspati
or Jupiter)...I mention this cycle because I found it mentioned in some books,
but
I know of no nation or tribe that reckons time after that account.[ Op.cit.,p.212.]
The
ignorance is very natural since Col.Warren could know nothing of the secret
cycles and their
meanings.He
adds:
The
names of the five cycles of Yugas are:....(1)Samvatsara (2)Parivatsara
(3)Idvatsara
(4)Anuvatsara
(5)Udravatsara.
The
learned Colonel might however have assured himself that there were other
nations which had the
same
secret cycle if he had but remembered that the Romans also had their l strum
of five years (from
the
Hindus undeniably)which represented the same period if multiplied by 12.[ At
any rate the temple
secret
meaning was the same.] Near Benares there are still the relics of all
these cycle-records,and of
astronomical
instruments cut out of solid rock,the everlasting records of Archaic Initiation
called by Sir
W.Jones
(as suggested by the prudent Brāhmans who surrounded him)old back records or
reckonings.
The Naros -(Page 351)But in Stonehenge
they exist to this day.Higgins says that Waltire found the
barrows
of tumuli surrounding this giant-temple represented accurately the situation
and magnitude of
the
fixed stars,forming a complete orrery or planisphere.As Colebrook found out it
is the cycle of the
Vedas recorded in the Jyotisha,one
of the Vedąngas,a treatise on Astronomy which is the basis of
calculation
for all other cycles,larger or smaller;[ Aiat.Res.,vol.viii
p.470.et seq ] and the Vedas were
written
in characters,archaic though they be long after those natural observations,made
by the aid of
their
gigantic mathematical and astronomical instruments had been recorded by the men
of the Third
Race
who had received their instruction from the Dhyān Chohans.Maurice speaks truly
when he
observes
that all such
Circular
stone monuments were intended as durable symbols of astronomical cycles by a
race
who
not having or for political reasons,forbidding the use of letters,had no other
permanent
method
of instructing their disciples or handing down their knowledge to posterity.
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He
errs only in the last idea.It was to conceal their knowledge from profane
posterity leaving it as an
heirloom
only to the Initiates,that such monuments,at once rock observatories and
astronomical
treatises,were
cut out.
It
is no news that as the Hindus divided the earth into seven zones,so the more
western peoples
Chaldęans,Phnicians,and
even the Jews,who got their learning either directly or indirectly from the
Brąhmans
made all their secret and sacred numerations by 6 and 12 though using the
number 7
whenever
this would not lend itself to handling.Thus the numerical base of 6 the
exoteric figure given by
Ćrya
Bhatta was made good use of.From the first secret cycle of 600 the
Naros,transformed
successively
into 60 000 and 60 and 6 and with other noughts added into other secret cycles
down to
the
smallest an Archęologist and Mathamatician can easily find it repeated in every
country known to
every
nation.Hence the globe was divided into 60 degrees,which multiplied by 60
become 3 600 the
great
year. Hence also the hour with its 60 minutes of 60 seconds each.The Asķatic
people count a
cycle
of 60 years also after which comes the lucky seventh decad and the Chinese have
their small
cycle
of 60 days the Jews of 6 days,the Greeks of 6 centuries the Naros again.
(Page 352)The Babylonians had a great year of 3 600 being the Naros
multiplied by 6.The Tartar cycle
called
Van was 180 years,or three sixties;this multiplied by 12 times 12=144 makes 25
920 years,the
exact
period of revolution of the heavens.
India
is the birthplace of arithmetic and mathematics;as Our Figures,in Chips
from a German
Workshop,by Prof.Max
Müller shows beyond a doubt.As well explained by Krishna Shāstra Godbole in
The Theosophist :
The
Jews ...represented the units (1-9)by the first nine letters of our alphabet;the
tens (10-90)by the
next
nine letters;the first four hundreds (100-400)by the last four letters and the
remaining ones
(500-900)by
the second forms of the letters kāf (11 th ),mīm (13 th ),nūn (13 th
),pe (17 th ),and sād
(18
th );and they represented other numbers by combining these letters according to
their value ....The
Jews
of the present period still adhere to this practice of notation in their Hebrew
books.The Greeks had
a
numerical system similar to that used by the Jews,but they carried it a little
farther by using letters of
the
alphabet with a dash or slant-line behind to represent thousands
(1000-9000),tens of thousands
(10
000-90 000)and one hundred of thousands (100 000)the last for instance being
represented by
rho
with a dash behind while rho singly represented 100.The Romans represented
all numerical
values
by the combination (additive when the second letter is of equal or less
value)of six letters of their
alphabet:i
(=I),v (=5),x (=10),c (for centum =100),d (=500),and m (=1000):thus 20=xx
15=xv and
9=ix.These
are called the Roman numerals,and are adopted by all European nations when
using the
Roman
alphabet.The Arabs at first followed their neighbours,the Jews,in their method
of computation
so
much so that they called it Abjad from the first four Hebrew letters alif
beth gimel or rather
jimel
that is jim (Arabic being wanting in g ,and daleth representing the
first four units.But when in
the
early part of the Christian era they came to India as traders,they found the
country already using for
computation
the decimal scale of notation which they forthwith borrowed literally;viz.,without
altering its
method
of writing from left to right at variance with their own mode of writing which
is from right to left.
They
introduced this system into Europe through Spain and other European countries
lying along the
coast
of the Mediterranean and under their sway during the dark ages of European
history.It has thus
become
evident that the Äryas knew well mathematics or the science of computation at a
time when all
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other
nations knew but little if anything of it.It has also been admitted that the
knowledge of arithmetic
and
algebra was first introduced from the Hindus by the Arabs,and then taught by
them to the Western
nations.This
fact convincingly proves that the Āryan civilisation is older than that of any
other nation in
the
world:and as the Vedas are avowedly proved the oldest work of that
civilisation a presumption is
raised
in favour of their great antiquity.[Theosophist,August.1881 .]
Age of the Vedas -(Page 353)But while
the Jewish nation for instance regarded so long as the first
and
oldest in the order of creation knew nothing of arithmetic and remained
utterly ignorant of the
decimal
scale of notation the latter existed for ages in India before the actual era.
To
become certain of the immense antiquity of the Āryan Asiatic nations and of
their astronomical records
one
has to study more than the Vedas .The secret meaning of the latter will
never be understood by the
present
generation of Orientalists;and the astronomical works which give openly the
real dates and
prove
the antiquity of both the nation and its science elude the grasp of the
collectors of ollas and old
manuscripts
in India the reason being too obvious to need explanation.Yet there are
Astronomers and
Mathematicians
to this day in India humble Shāstris and Pandits,unknown and lost in the midst
of that
population
of phenomenal memories and metaphysical brains,who have undertaken the task and
have
proved
to the satisfaction of many that the Vedas are the oldest works in the
world.One of such is the
Shāstri
just quoted who published in The Theosophist [ Aug.1881x to
Feb.1882.] an able treatise
proving
astronomically and mathematically that:
If
the Post-Vaidika works alone the Upanishads,the Brāhmanas,etc.down to the
Purānas,
when
examined critically carry us back to 20 000 B.C.then the time of the
composition of the
Vedas themselves
cannot be less than 30 000 B.C.in round numbers,a date which we may
take
at present as the age of that Book of books.[Loc.cit.,iv.127 ]
And
what are his proofs?
Cycles
and the evidence yielded by the asterisms.Here are a few extracts from his
rather lengthy
treatise
selected to give an idea of his demonstrations and bearing directly on the
quinquennial cycle
spoken
of just now.Those who feel interested in the demonstrations and are advanced
mathematicians
can
turn to the article itself The Antiquity of the Vedas [Theosophist
vol.iii.p.22.] and judge for
themselves.
10.Somākara
in his commentary on the Shesha Jyotisha quotes a passage from the
Satapatha Brāhmana,which
contains an observation on the change of the topics,and which is
also
found in the Sākhāyana Brāhmana,as has been noticed by Prof.Max Müller
in his
preface
to Rigveda Samhitā (p.xx.foot-note vol.iv.).The passage is this:...The
full-moon
night
in Phālguna is the first night of Samvatsara the first year of the quinquennial
age.This
passage
clearly shows that the quinquennial age which according to the sixth verse of
the
Jyotisha,begins on the
1 st of Māgha (January-February),once began on the 15 th of Phālguna
(February-March).(Page 354)Now when the 15 th of Phālguna of the first year called
Samvatsara
of the quinquennial age begins,the moon according to the Jyotisha is in
Page
281.
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position
of the four principal points on the ecliptic was then as follows:
The
winter solstice in 3 .29 of Purva Bhādrapadā.
The
vernal equinox in the beginning of Mrigashīrsha.
The
summer solstice in 10 of Purva Phālgunī.
The
autumnal equinox in the middle of Jyeshtha.
The
vernal equinoctial point we have seen coincided with the beginning of Krittikā
in 1421
B.C.;and
from the beginning of Krittikā to that of Mrigashīrsha was,consequence 1421+26
2/3x72=1421+1920=3341
B.C.supposing the rate of precession to be 50 a year.When we
take
the rate to be 3 .20"in 247 years,the time comes up to 1516+1960.7=3476.7
B.C.
When
the winter solstice by its retrograde motion coincided after that with the
beginning of
Pūrva
Bhādrapadā then the commencement of the quinquennial age was changed from the
15
th to the 1 st of Phālguna (February-March).This change took place 240 years
after the date
of
the above observation that is,in 3101 B.C.This date is most important as from
it an era
was
reckoned in after times.The commencement of the Kali or Kali Yuga (derived from
kal
to
reckon ),though said by European scholars to be an imaginary date becomes thus
an
astronomical
fact.
Interchange for Krititkā and Ashvinī
[The impartial study
of Vaidic and Post-Vaidic works shows that the ancient Ćryans 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 Sūrya Siddhānta,Brahmā Siddānta,and other ancient treatises on
astronomy the
vernal
equinoctial point had not actually reached the beginning of Ashvini 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
Page
282.
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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 Ćryas.Theosophist,iii.
23.
We
thus see that the asterisms,twenty-seven in number were counted from the
Mrigashīrsha
when
the vernal equinox retrograded was in its beginning and that the practice of
thus
counting
was adhered to till the vernal equinox retrograded to the beginning of Krittikā
when it
became
the first of the asterisms.For then the winter solstice had changed receding
from
Phālguna
(February-March)to Māgha (January-February)one complete lunar month.
Testimony of the Song Celestial -(Page 355)And in like
manner the place of Krittikā was
occupied
by Ashvini that is,the latter became the first of the asterisms,heading all
others,
when
its beginning coincided with the vernal equinoctial point or in other
words,when the
winter
solstice was in Pansha (December-February).Now from the beginning of Krittikā
to that
of
Ashvinī there are two asterisms,or 26 Øų. and the time the equinox takes to
retrograde this
distance
at the rate of 1 in 72 years is 1920 years;and hence the date at which the
vernal
equinox
coincided with the commencement of Ashvinī or with the end of Revatī is
1920-1421=499
A.D.
Bentley s Opinion
12.The
next and equally-important observation we have to record here is one discussed
by
Mr.Bentley
in his researches into his researches into the Indian antiquities.The first
lunar
asterism
he says in the division of twenty-eight was called Mūla that is to say the
root or
origin.In
the division of twenty-seven the first lunar asterism was called Jyestha that
is to say
the
eldest at first and consequently of the same import as the former (vide his
View of the
Hind Astronomy,p.4).From
this it becomes manifest that the vernal equinox was once in the
beginning
of Mūla and Mūla was reckoned the first of the asterisms when they were twenty-
eight
in number including Abhijit.Now there are fourteen asterisms,of 180 . from the
beginning
of Mrigashīrsha to that of Mūla and hence the date at which the vernal equinox
coincided
with the beginning of Mūla was at least 3341+180x72=16 301 B.C.The position of
the
four principal points on the ecliptic was then as given below:
The
winter solstice in the beginning of Uttara Phālgunī in the month of Shrāvana.
The
vernal equinox in the beginning of Mūla in Kārittka
The
summer solstice in the beginning of Pūrva Bhādrapadā in Māgha
The
autumnal equinox in the beginning of Mrigashīrsha in Vaishākha.
A Proof from the Bhagavad Gītā
13.The
Bhagavad Gītā as well as the Bhāgavata,makes mention of an
observation which
points
to a still more remote antiquity than the one discovered by Mr.Bentley.The
passages
are
given in order below:
Page
283.
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I am the Mārgashīrsha [ viz.the first morning for months ] and
the spring [viz .the first among
the
seasons ].
This
shows that at one time the first month of spring was Mārgashīrsha.A season
includes two
months,and
the mention of a month suggests the season.
I am the Samvatsara among the years [ which are five in number ] and
the spring among the
seasons,and
the Mārgashīrsha among the months and the Abhijitamong the asterisms
[ which are
twenty-eight in number ].
This
clearly points out that at one time in the first year called Samvatsara of the
quinquennial
age
the Madhu that is the first month of spring was Mārgashīrsha and Abhijit was
the first of
the
asterisms.It then concided with the vernal equinoctial point and thence from it
the
asterisms
were counted.To find the date of this observation:There are three asterisms
from
the
beginning of Mūla to the beginning of Abhijit and hence the date in question is
at least
16
301+3/7 x 90 x 72 =19 078 (Page
356)or about 20 000 B.C.The Samvatsara at
this time
began
in Bhādrapadā the winter solstitial month.
So
far then 20 000 years are mathematically proven for the antiquity of the Vedas
.And this is simply
exoteric.Any
mathematician provided he be not blinded by preconception and prejudice can see
this,
and
an unknown but very clever amateur Astronomer S.A.Mackey has proved it some
sixty years back.
His
theory about the Hindu Yugas and their length is curious as being so very near
the correct doctrine.
It
is said in volume ii.p.131 of Asiatic Researches that:The great
ancestor of Yudhister
reigned
27 000 years ...at the end of the brazen age.In volume ix.p.364 we read:
In
the beginning of the Cali Y ga,in the reign of Yudhister.And
Yudhister ...began his reign
immediately
after the flood called Pralaya.
Here
we find three different statements concerning Yudhister ...to explain these
seeming differences we
must
have recourse to their books of science where we find the heavens and the earth
divided into five
parts of unequal
dimensions,by circles parallel to the equator.Attention to these divisions will
be found to
be
of the utmost importance ...as it will be found that from them arose the
division of their Maha-Yuga
into
its four component parts.Every astronomer knows that there is a point in the
heavens called the
pole
round which the whole seems to turn in twenty-four hours;and that at ninety
degrees from it they
imagine
a circle called the eq ator which divides the heavens and the
earth into two equal parts,the
north
and the south.Between this circle and the pole there is another imaginary
circle called the circle of
perpet al apparition :between
which and the equator there is a point in the heavens called the zenith
through
which let another imaginary circle pass,parallel to the other two;and then
there wants but the
circle
of perpetual occultation to complete the round....No astronomer of Europe
besides myself has
ever
applied them to the development of the Hindu mysterious numbers.We are told in
the Asiatic
Researches that
Yudhister brought Vicramāditya to reign in Cassimer which is in the latitude of
36
degrees.And
in that latitude the circle of perpetual apparition would extend up to 72
degrees altitude
and
from that to the zenith there are but 18 degrees,but from the zenith to the
equator in that latitude
there
are 36 degrees,and from the equator to the circle of perpetual occultation
there are 54 degrees.
Here
we find the semi-circle of 180 degrees divided into four parts,in the
proportion of 1 2 3 4 i.e.,18
Page
284.
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36
54 72.Whether the Hindu astronomers were acquainted with the motion of the
earth or not is of no
consequence
since the appearances are the same;and if it will give those gentlemen of tender
consciences any
pleasure I am willing to admit that they imagined the heavens rolled round the
earth but
they
had observed the stars in the path of the sun to move forward through
the equinoctial points,at the
rate
of fifty-four seconds of a degree in a year which carried the whole zodiac
round in 24 000 years;in
which
time they also observed that the angle of obliquity varied so as to extend or
contract the width of
the
tropics 4 degrees on each side which rate of motion would carry the tropics
from the equator to the
poles
in 540 000 years:in which time the Zodiac would have made twenty-two and a half
revolutions,
which
are expressed by the parallel circles from the equator to the poles ..or what
amounts to the same
thing
the north pole of the ecliptic would have moved from the north pole of the
earth to the equator ....
Mackey's Arguments -(Page 357)Thus the
poles become inverted in 1 080 000 years,which is their
Maha
Yuga and which they had divided into four unequal parts,in the proportions of 1
2 3 4 for the
reasons
mentioned above;which are 108 000 216 000 324 000 and 432 000.Here we have the
most
positive
proofs that the above numbers originated in ancient astronomical
observations and
consequently
are not deserving of those epithets which have been bestowed upon them by the
Essayist
echoing
the voice of Bentley Wilford Dupuis,etc.
I
have now to show that the reign of Yudhister for 27 000 years is neither absurd
nor disg sting,but
perhaps
the Essayist is not aware that there were several Yudhisters or Judhisters.In
volume ii.p.131
Asiatic Researches :The
great ancestor of Yudhister reigned 27 000 years at the end of the brazen or
third
age. Here I must again beg your attention to this projection.This is a plane
of that machine which
the
second gentleman thought so very clumsy;it is that of a prolong spheroid,called
by the ancients an
atroscope.Let
the longest axis represent the poles of the earth making an angle of 28 degrees
with the
horizon;then
will the seven divisions above the horizon to the North Pole the temple of
Buddha and the
seven
from the North Pole to the circle of perpetual apparition represent the
fourteen Manvantaras,or
very
long periods of time each of which according to the third volume of Asiatic
Researches,p.258 or
259
was the reign of a Manu.But Capt.Wilford in volume v.p.243 gives us the
following information:
The
Egyptians had fourteen dynasties,and the Hindus had fourteen dynasties,the rulers
of which are
called
Menus....
Who
can here mistake the fourteen very long periods of time for those which
constituted the Cali Yuga of
Delhi
or any other place in the latitude of 28 degrees,where the blank space from the
foot of Meru to the
seventh
circle from the equator constitutes the part passed over by the tropic in the
next age;which
proportions
differ considerably from those in the latitude of 36;and because the numbers in
the Hindu
books
differ Mr.Bentley asserts that:This shows what little dependence is to be put
in them. But on
the
contrary it shows with what accuracy the Hindus had observed the motions
of the heavens in
different
latitudes.
Some
of the Hindus inform us that the earth has two spindles which are
surrounded by seven tiers of
heavens and hells at
the distance of one Raj each. This needs but little explanation when it
is
understood
that the seven divisions from the equator to their zenith are called Rishis or
Rashas .But what
is
most to our present purpose to know is that they had given names to each of those
divisions which the
tropics
passed over during each revolution of the Zodiac.In the latitude of 36 degrees
where the Pole or
Meru
was nine steps high at Cassimere they were called Shastras;in latitude
28 degrees at Delhi
where
the Pole of Meru was seven steps high they were called Menus;but in 24 degrees
at Cacha
Page
285.
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where
the Pole or Meru was but six steps high they were called Sacas.But in the ninth
volume (Asiatic
Researches )Yudhister
the son of Dherma or Justice was the first of the six Sacas;(Page 358)the name
implies
the end and as everything has two ends.Yudhister is as applicable to the
first as to the last.And
as
the division on the north of the circle of perpetual apparition is the first of
the Cali Yuga supposing the
tropics
to be ascending it was called the division or reign of Yudhister.But the
division which immediately
precedes
the circle of perpetual apparition is the last of the third or brazen age,and
was therefore called
Yudhister
and his reign preceded the reign of the other as the tropic ascended to the
Pole or Meru he
was
called the father of the other the great ancestor of Yudhister who
reigned twenty-seven tho sand
years,at the end of
the brazen age. (Vol.ii.Asiatic Researches.)
The
ancient Hindus observed that the Zodiac went forward at the rate of fifty-four
seconds a year and to
avoid
greater fractions,stated it at that which would make a complete round in 24 000
years;and
observing
the angle of the poles to vary nearly 4 degrees each round stated the three
numbers as such
which
would have given forty-five ro nds of the Zodiac to half a revolution of
the poles;but finding that
forty-five
rounds would not bring the northern topic to coincide with the circle of
perpetual apparition by
thirty
minutes of a degree which required the Zodiac to move one sign and a half more
which we all
know
it could not do in less that 3 000 years,they were in the case before us,added
to the end of the
brazen age ;which
lengthen the reign of that Yudhister to 27 000 years instead of 24 000
but at another
time
they did not alter the regular order of 24 000 years to the reign of each of
these long-winded
monarchs,but
rounded up the time by allowing a regency to continue three or four
thousand years.In
volume
ii.p.134 Asiatic Researches we are told that:Paricshit the great nephew
and successor of
Yudhister
is allowed without controversy to have reigned in the interval between the brazen
and earthen
or
Cali Ages,and to have died at the setting-in of the Cali Yug. Here we find an interregn
m at the end
of
the brazen age and before the setting-in of the Cali Yug:and as
there can be but one brazen or Treta
Yug
i.e.,the third age in a Maha Yuga of 1 080 000 years:the reign of this
Paricshit must have been in
the
second Maha Yuga when the pole had returned to its original position which must
have taken
2
160 000 years:and this is what the Hindus call the Prajanatha Yuga.Analogous to
this custom is that of
some
nations more modern who fond of even numbers,have made the common year to
consist of
twelve
months of thirty days each and the five days and odd measure have been
represented as the
reign
of a little serpent biting his tail and divided into five parts,etc.
But
Yudhister began his reign immediately after the flood called Pralaya, i.e.,at
the end of the Cali Yug
(or
age of heat),when the tropic had passed from the pole to the other side of the
circle of perpetual
apparition
which coincides with the northern horizon;here the tropics of summer solstice
would be again
in
the same parallel of north declination at the commencement of their
first age as he was at the end of
their
third age or Treta Yug called the brazen age.
Enough
has been said to prove that the Hindu books of science are not disgusting
absurdities,originated
in
ignorance vanity and credulity;but books containing the most profound knowledge
of astronomy and
geography.
What
therefore can induce these gentlemen of tender consciences to insist that
Yudhister was a real
mortal
man I have no guess;unless it be that they fear for the fate of Jared and his
grandfather
Methuselah?
Page
286.
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The "Mystery of the Buddha"(Pages 359-360)Note
It
is with some hesitation that I include the following Sections in the Secret
Doctrine.Together with some
most
suggestive thought they contain very numerous errors of fact and many
statements based on
exoteric
writings,not on esoteric knowledge.They were given into my hands to publish as
part of the
Third
Volume of the Secret Doctrine,and I therefore do not feel justified in
coming between the author
and
the public,either by altering the statements,to make them consistent with fact
or by suppressing the
Sections.She
says she is acting entirely on her own authority and it will be obvious to any
instructed
reader
that she makes possibly deliberately many statements so confused that they
are merely blinds,
and
other statements probably inadvertently that are nothing more than the
exoteric
misunderstandings
of esoteric truths.The reader must here as everywhere use his own judgment but
feeling
bound to publish these Sections,I cannot let them go to the public without a
warning that much in
them
is certainly erroneous.
Annie Besant
Page
287.
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SECTION XLI
The Doctrine of Avatāras
(Page 361)A STRANGE STORY a legend rather is persistently current
among the disciples of some
great
Himālayan Gurus,and even among laymen to the effect that Gautama the Prince of
Kapilavastu
has
never left the Terrestrial regions,though his body died and was burnt and its
relics preserved to this
day.There
is an oral tradition among the Chinese Buddhists,and a written statement among
the secret
books
of the Lamaists of Tibet as well as a tradition among the Ćryans,that Gautama
BUDDHA has two
doctrines:one
for the masses and His lay disciples,the other for His elect the Arhats.His
policy and
after
Him that of His Arhats was,it appears,to refuse no one admission into the ranks
of candidates for
Arhatship
but never to divulge the final mysteries except to those who had proved
themselves,during
long
years of probation to be worthy of Initiation.These once accepted were
consecrated and initiated
without
distinction of race caste or wealth as in case of His western successor.It is
the Arhats who have
set
forth and allowed this tradition to take root in the people s mind and it is
the basis,also of the later
dogma
of Lamaic reincarnation or the succession of human Buddhas.
The
little that can be said here upon the subject may or may not help to guide the
psychic student in the
right
direction.It being left to the option and responsibility of the writer to tell
the facts as she personally
understood
them the blame for possible misconceptions created must fall only upon her.She
has been
taught
the doctrine but it was left to her sole intuition as it is now left to the
sagacity of the reader to
group
the mysterious and perplexing facts together.The incomplete statements herein
given are
fragments
of what is contained in certain secret volumes,but it is not lawful to divulge
the details.
The
esoteric version of the mystery given in the secret volumes may (Page 362)be told briefly.The
Buddhists
have always stoutly denied that their BUDDHA was as alleged by the Brāhmans,an
Avatāra
of
Vishnu in the same sense as a man is an incarnation of his Karmic ancestor.They
deny it partly
perhaps,because
the esoteric meaning of the term Mahā Vishnu is not known to them in its full
impersonal
and general meaning.There is a mysterious Principle in Nature called Mahā
Vishnu which
is
not the God of that name but a principle which contains Bīja the seed of
Avatārism or in other words,
is
the potency and cause of such divine incarnations.All the World Saviours,the
Bodhisattvas and the
Avatāras,are
the trees of salvation grown out from the one seed the Bija or Maha
Vishnu.Whether it
be
called Adi-Buddha (Primeval Wisdom)or Mahā Vishnu it is all the same.Understood
esoterically
Vishnu
is both Saguna and Nirguna (with and without attributes).In the first aspect
Vishnu is the object
of
exoteric worship and devotion;in the second as Nirguna he is the culmination of
the totality of
spiritual
wisdom in the Universe Nirvanā [A great deal if misconception is raised
by a confusion of
planes
of being and misuse of expressions.For instance certain spiritual states have
been confounded
with
the Nirvāna of BUDDHA.The Nirvāna of BUDDHA is totally different from any other
spiritual state of
Samādhi
or even the highest Theophania enjoyed by lesser Adepts.After physical death
the kinds of
spiritual
states reached by Adepts differ greatly.] in short and has as worshippers
all philosophical
minds.In
this esoteric sense the Lord BUDDHA was an incarnation of Mahā Vishnu.
This
is from the philosophical and purely spiritual standpoint.From the plane of
illusion however as one
would
say or from the terrestrial standpoint those initiated know that He was
a direct incarnation of one
of
the primeval Seven Sons of Light who are to be found in every Theogony the
Dhyān Chohans
whose
mission it is,from one eternity (ęon)to the other to watch over the spiritual
welfare of the regions
Page
288.
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under
their care.This has been already enunciated in Esoteric B ddhism.
One
of the greatest mysteries of speculative and philosophical Mysticism and it is
one of the mysteries
now
to be disclosed is the mod s operandi in the degrees of such hypostatic
transferences.As a matter
of
course divine as well as human incarnations must remain a closed book to the
theologian as much as
to
the physiologist unless the esoteric teachings be accepted and become the
religion of the world.This
teaching
may never be fully explained to an unprepared public;but one thing is certain
and may be said
now:that
between the dogma of a newly created soul for each new birth and the
physiological
assumption
of a temporary animal soul there lies the vast region of Occult teaching [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 .] with its
logical
and reasonable demonstrations,the links of which may all be traced in logical
and philosophical
sequence
in nature.
All Avatāras Identical -(Page 363)This Mystery is found for him who understands its right
meaning in
the
dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gītā,chapter iv.Says
the Avatāra:
Many
births of mine have passed as also of yours O Arjuna!All those I know but you
do not
know
yours,O harasser of your enemies.
Although
I am unborn with exhaustless Ćtmā and am the Lord of all that is,yet taking up
the
domination
of my nature I am born by the power of illusion.[ 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 Ęons,whose name was the Anointed
(Christ)to
incarnate in the man Jesus.Basildes 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.]
Whenever
O son of Bhārata there is decline of Dharma [the right law ] and
the rise of
Adharma
[ the opposite of Dharma ] here I manifest myself.
For
the salvation of the good and the destruction of wickedness,for the
establishment of the
law
I am born in every yuga.
Whoever
comprehends truly my divine birth and action he O Arjuna having abandoned the
body
does not receive re-birth;he comes to me.
Thus,all
the Avatāras are one and the same:the Sons of their Father in a direct
descent and line the
Father
or one of the seven Flames becoming for the time being the Son and these two
being one in
Eternity.What
is the Father?Is it the absolute Cause of all?the fathomless Eternal?No;most
decidedly.It
is Kāranātma the Causal Soul which in its general sense is called by the
Hindus Īshvara
the
Lord and by Christians.God the One and Only.From the standpoint of unity it
is so;but then the
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lowest
of the Elementals could equally be viewed in such case as the One and
Only.Each human being
has,moreover
his own divine Spirit or personal God.That divine Entity or Flame from which
Buddhi
emanates
stands in the same relation to man though on a lower plane (Page 364)as the Dhyāni-Buddha
to
his human Buddha.Hence monotheism and polytheism are not irreconcilable;they
exist in Nature.
Truly
for the salvation of the good and the destruction of wickedness,the
personalities known as
Gautama
Shankara Jesus and a few others were born each in his age as declared I am
born in every
Yuga
and they were all born through the same Power.
There
is a great mystery in such incarnations and they are outside and beyond the
cycle of general re-
births.Rebirths
may be divided into three classes:the divine incarnations called Avatāras;those
of
Adepts
who give up Nirvana for the sake of helping on humanity the Nirmānakāyas;and
the natural
succession
of rebirths for all the common law.The Avatāra is an appearance one which may
be termed
a
special illusion within the natural illusion that reigns on the planes under
the sway of that power Māyā;
the
Adept is re-born consciously at his will and pleasure;[ 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.]the units of the common herd
unconsciously follow the great law
of
dual evolution.
What
is an Avatāra?for the term before being used ought to be well
understood.It is a descent of the
manifested
Deity whether under the specific name of Shiva Vishnu or Ādi-Buddha into an
illusive
form
of individuality an appearance which to men on this illusive plane is objective
but it is not so in
sober
fact.That illusive form having neither past nor future because it has neither
previous incarnation
nor
will have subsequent rebirths,had naught to do with Karma which has therefore
no hold on it.
Gautama
BUDDHA was born an Avatāra in one sense.But this,in view of unavoidable
objections on
dogmatic
grounds,necessitates explanation.There is a great difference between an Avatāra
and a
Jīvanmukta:one
as already stated is an illusive appearance Karmaless,and having never before
incarnated;and
the other the Jīvanmukta is one who obtains Nirvāna by his individual merits.To
this
expression
again an uncompromising philosophical Vedāntin would object.He might say that
as the
condition
of the Avatāra and the Jivanmukta are one and the same state no amount of
personal merit in
howsoever
many incarnations,can lead its possessor to Nirvāna.Nirvāna he would say is
actionless;
how
can then any action lead to it?
Voluntary Incarnation -(Page 365)It is neither a result nor a cause but an ever-present
eternal Is as
Nāgasena
defined it.Hence it can have no relation to or concern with action merit or
demerit since
these
are subject to Karma.All this is very true but still to our mind there is an
important difference
between
the two.An Avatātara is ;a Jīvanmukta becomes one.If the state of
the two is identical not so
are
the causes which lead to it.An Avatāra is a descent of a God into an illusive
form;a Jīvanmukta who
may
have passed through numberless incarnations and may have accumulated merit in
them certainly
does
not become a Nirvāni because of that merit but only because of the Karma
generated by it which
leads
and guides him in the direction of the Guru who will initiate him into the
mystery of Nirvāna and
who
alone can help him to reach this abode.
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The
Shāstras say that from our works alone we obtain Moksha and if we take no pains
there will be no
gain
and we shall be neither assisted nor benefited by Deity [the Mahā-Guru ]
.Therefore it is maintained
that
Gautama though an Avatāra in one sense is a true human Jīvanmukta owing his
position to
personal
merit and thus more than an Avatāra.It was personal merit that enabled him to
achieve
Nirvāna.
On
the voluntary and conscious incarnations of Adepts there are two types those
of Nirmānakāyas,and
those
undertaken by the probationary chelās who are on their trial.
The
greatest as the most puzzling mystery of the first type lies in the fact that
such re-birth in a human
body
of the personal Ego of some particular Adept when it has been dwelling in the
Māyāvi or the Kāma
Rūpa
and remaining in the Kāma Loka may happen even when his Higher Principles
are in the state
of
Nirvāna.[ From the so-called Brahmā Loka the seventh and higher world
beyond which all is arūpa
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
Brahmā):there are other
states
or spheres from which there is only return after 100 years of Brahmā (Mahā
Kalpa a period
covering
311 040.000.000.000 years).Nirvāna 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.] Let
it be understood that
the
above expressions are used for popular purposes,and therefore that what is
written does not deal
with
this deep and mysterious question from the highest plane that of
absolute spirituality nor again from
the
highest philosophical point of view comprehensible but to the very few.It must
not be supposed that
anything
can go (Page 366)into Nirvāna which is not eternally there;but human
intellect in conceiving the
Absolute
must put It as the highest term in an indefinite series.If this be borne in
mind a great deal of
misconception
will be avoided.The content of this spiritual evolution is the material on
various planes
with
which the Nirvānī was in contact prior to his attainment of Nirvāna.The plane
on which this is true
being
in the series of illusive planes,is undoubtedly the highest.Those who search
for that must go to
the
right source of study the teachings of the Upanishads and must go in the
right spirit.Here we
attempt
only to indicate the direction in which the search is to be made and in showing
a few of the
mysterious
Occult possibilities we do not bring our readers actually to the goal.The ultimate
truth can be
communicated
only from Guru to initiated pupil.
Having
said so much the statement still will and must appear incomprehensible if not
absurd to many.
Firstly
to all those who are unfamiliar with the doctrine of the manifold nature and
various aspects of the
human
Monad;and secondly to those who view the septenary division of the human entity
from a too
materialistic
standpoint.Yet the intuitional Occultist who has studied thoroughly the
mysteries of Nirvāna
who
knows it to be identical with Parabrahman and hence unchangeable eternal and no
Thing but the
Absolute
All will seize the possibility of the fact.They know that while a Dharmakāya
a Nirvāni without
remains,as
our Orientalists have translated it being absorbed into that Nothingness,which
is the one
real
because Absolute Consciousness cannot be said to return to incarnation on
Earth the Nirvānī
being
no longer a he a she or even an it the Nirmānakāya or he who has obtained
Nirvāna with
remains,i.e.,who
is clothed in a subtle body which makes him impervious to all outward
impressions
and
to every mental feeling and in whom the notion of his Ego has not entirely
ceased can do so.
Again
every Eastern Occultist is aware of the fact that there are two kinds of
Nirmānakāyas the natural
and
the assumed;that the former is the name or epithet given to the condition of a
high ascetic,or
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Initiate
who has reached a stage of bliss second only to Nirvāna;while the latter means
the self-sacrifice
of
one who voluntary gives up the absolute Nirvāna in order to help humanity and
be still doing it good
or
in other words,to save his fellow-creatures by guiding them.It may be objected
that the Dharmakāya
being
a Nirvānī or Jīvanmukta can have no remains left behind him after death for
having attained that
state
from which no further incarnations are possible there is no need for him of a
subtle body or of the
individual
Ego that reincarnates from one birth to another and that therefore the latter
disappears of
logical
necessity;to this it is answered:it is so for all exoteric purposes and a
general law.
Cardinal De Cusa -(Page 367)But the case
with which we are dealing is an exceptional one and its
realization
lies within the Occult powers of the high Initiate who before entering into the
state of Nirvāna
can
cause his remains (sometimes,though not very well called his Māyāvi Rūpa),to
remain behind
[This fact of the
disappearance of the vehicle of Egotism in the fully developed Yogi who is supposed
to
have
reached Nirvāna on earth years before his corporeal death has led to the law in
Manu sanctioned
by
millenniums of Brāhmanical authority that such a Paramātmā should be held as
absolutely blameless
and
free from sin or responsibility do whatever he may (see last chapter of the Laws
of Man ).Indeed
caste
itself that most despotic,uncompromising and autocratic tyrant in India can
be broken with
impunity
by the Yogi who is above caste.This will give the key to our statements.] whether
he is to
become
a Nirvānī or to find himself in a lower state of bliss.
Next
there are cases rare yet more frequent than one would be disposed to expect
which are the
voluntary
and conscious reincarnations of Adepts [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 as uninitiated disciple and then an initiated one.Eds .]
on their trial.Every man
has
an Inner a Higher Self and also an Astral Body.But few are those who outside
the higher degrees
of
Adeptship can guide the latter or any of the principles that animate it when
once death has closed
their
short terrestrial life.Yet such guidance or their transference from the dead to
a living body is not
only
possible but is of frequent occurrence according to Occult and Kabalistic
teachings.The degrees of
such
power of course vary greatly.To mention but three:the lowest of these degrees
would allow an
Adept
who has been greatly trammelled during life in his study and in the use of his
powers,to choose
after
death another body in which he could go on with his interrupted studies,though
ordinarily he would
lose
in it every remembrance of his previous incarnation.The next degree permits him
in addition to this,
to
transfer the memory of his past life to his new body;while the highest has
hardly any limits in the
exercise
of that wonderful faculty.
As
an instance of an Adept who enjoyed the first mentioned power some medięval
Kabalists cite a well-
known
personage of the fifteenth century Cardinal de Cusa;Karma due to his wonderful
devotion to
(Page 368)Esoteric study and the Kabalah led the suffering
Adept to seek intellectual recuperation and
rest
from ecclesiastical tyranny in the body of Copernicus.Si non e vero e ben
trovato ;and the perusal of
the
lives of the two men might easily lead a believer in such powers to a ready
acceptance of the alleged
fact.The
reader having at his command the means to do so is asked to turn to the
formidable folio in
Latin
of the fifteenth century called De Docta Ignorantia written by the
Cardinal de Cusa in which all the
theories
and hypotheses all the ideas of Copernicus are found as the key-notes to the
discoveries of
the
great astronomer.[About fifty years before the birth of Copernicus,De
Cusa wrote as follows:
Though
the world may not be absolutely finite 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
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world
is like a vast machine having its centre [Deity ] everywhere and
its circumference nowhere [
machina m ndi,q asi habens biq e centrum,et n llibi circ
mferenti m ] ....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.] Who
was this extraordinary
learned
Cardinal?The son of a poor boatman owing all his career his Cardinal s hat and
the reverential
awe
rather than friendship of the Popes Eugenius IV.Nicholas V.and Pius II.to the
extraordinary
learning
which seemed innate in him since he had studied nowhere till comparatively late
in life.De
Cusa
died in 1473;moreover his best works were written before he was forced to enter
orders to
escape
persecution.Nor did the Adept escape it.
In
the voluminous work of the Cardinal above-quoted is found a very suggestive
sentence the authorship
of
which has been variously attributed to Pascal to Cusa himself and to the Zohar
and which belongs
by
right to the Books of Hermes:
The
world is an infinite sphere whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference
is
nowhere.
This
is changed by some into:The centre being nowhere and the circumference
everywhere a rather
heretical
idea for a Cardinal though perfectly orthodox from a Kabalistic standpoint.
The Seven Rays -(Page 369)The theory of
rebirth must be set forth by Occultists,and then applied to
special
cases.The right comprehension of this psychic fact is based upon a correct view
of that group of
celestial
Beings who are universally called the seven Primeval Gods or Angels our Dhyān
Chohans
the
Seven Primeval Rays or Powers adopted later on by the Christian Religion as
the Seven Angels of
the
Presence.Arūpa formless,at the upper rung of the ladder of Being materializing
more and more as
they
descend in the scale of objectivity and form ending in the grossest and most
imperfect of the
Hierachy
man it is the former purely spiritual group that is pointed out to us,in our
Occult teaching as
the
nursery and fountain-head of human beings.Therein germinates that consciousness
which is the
earliest
manifestation from causal Consciousness the Alpha and Omega of divine being
and life for
ever.And
as it proceeds downward through every phase of existence descending through man
through
animal
and plant it ends its descent only in the mineral.It is represented by the
double triangle the
most
mysterious and the most suggestive of all mystic signs,for it is a double glyph
embracing spiritual
and
physical consciousness and life the former triangle running upwards,and the
lower downwards,
both
interlaced and showing the various planes of the twice-seven modes of
consciousness,the
fourteen
spheres of existence the Lokas of the Brāhmans.
The
reader may now be able to obtain a clearer comprehension of the whole thing.He
will also see what
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is
meant by the Watchers,there being one placed as the Guardian or Regent over
each of the seven
divisions
or regions of the earth according to old traditions,as there is one to watch
over and guide
every
one of the fourteen worlds or Lokas.[This is the secret meaning of the
statements about the
Hierarchy
of Prajāpatis 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
Brahmā
and then they become 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.] But
it is not with
any
of these that we are at present concerned but with the Seven Breaths,
so-called that furnish man
with
his immortal Monad in his cyclic pilgrimage.
The
Commentary on the Book of Dzyan says:
Descending on his region first as Lord of Glory,the Flame
(or Breath),having called into
conscio s being the highest of the Emanations of that
special region,ascends from it again to
Its primeval seat,whence It watches (Page 370)over and g ides Its co ntless Beams
(Monads).It chooses as Its Avatāras only those who had the
Seven Virt es in them [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
Avatāra of his Watcher or Guardian Angel as the Christian would put it.] in
their previo s
incarnation.As for the rest,It overshadows each with one of
Its co ntless beams....Yet even
the beam is a part of the Lord of Lords.[The title of the
highest Dhyān Chohans.]
The
septenary principle in man who can be regarded as dual only as concerns
psychic manifestation
on
this gross earthly plane was known to all antiquity and may be found in every
ancient Scripture.The
Egyptians
knew and taught it and their division of principles is in every point a
counterpart of the Āryan
Secret
Teaching.It is thus given in Isis Unveiled :
In
the Egyptian notions,as in those of all other faiths founded on philosophy man
was not
merely
...a union of soul and body:he was a trinity when Spirit was added to
it.Besides,that
doctrine
made him consist of Kha (body)Khaba (astral form or shadow),Ka (animal soul or
life-principle
)Ba (the higher soul),and Akh (terrestrial intelligence).They had also a sixth
principle
named Sah (or mummy)but the functions of this one commenced after the death of
the
body.[Op.cit.,ii.367 ]
The
seventh principle being of course the highest uncreated Spirit was generically
called Osiris,
therefore
every deceased person became Osirified or an Osiris after death.
But
in addition to reiterating the old ever-present fact of reincarnation and Karma
not as taught by the
Spiritists,but
as by the most Ancient Science in the world Occultists must teach cyclic and
evolutionary
reincarnation:that
kind of re-birth mysterious and still incomprehensible to many who are ignorant
of the
world
s history which was cautiously mentioned in Isis Unveiled .A general
re-birth for every individual
with
interlude of Kāma Loka and Devachan and a cyclic concious reincarnation with a
grand and divine
object
for the few.Those great characters who tower like giants in the history of
mankind like Siddārtha
BUDDHA
and Jesus in the realm of the spiritual and Alexander the Macedonian and
Napolean the Great
in
the realm of physical conquests are but the reflected images of human types
which had existed not
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ten
thousand years before as cautiously put forward in Isis Unveiled,but for
millions of consecutive
years
from the beginning of the Manvantara.
Special Cases -(Page 371)For with the
exception of real Avatāras,as above explained they are the
same
unbroken Rays (Monads),each respectively of its own special Parent-Flame
called Devas,
Dhyān
Chohans,or Dhyāni-Buddhas,or again Planetary Angels,etc.shining in ęonic
eternity as their
prototypes.It
is in their image that some men are born and when some specific humanitarian
object is in
view
the latter are hypostatically animated by their divine prototypes reproduced
again and again by the
mysterious
Powers that control and guide the destinies of our world.
No
more could be said at the time when Isis Unveiled was written;hence the
statement was limited to the
single
remark that
There
is no prominent character in all the annals of sacred or profane history whose
prototype
we
cannot find in the half fictitious and half real traditions of bygone religions
and mythologies.
As
the star glimmering at an immeasurable distance above our heads,in the
boundless
immensity
of the sky reflects itself in the smooth waters of a lake so does the imagery
of men
of
the antediluvian ages reflect itself in the periods we can embrace in a
historical retrospect.
But
now that so many publications have been brought out stating much of the
doctrine and several of
them
giving many an erroneous view this vague allusion may be amplified and
explained.Not only does
this
statement apply to prominent characters in history in general but also to men
of genius,to every
remarkable
man of the age who soars beyond the common herd with some abnormally developed
special
capacity in him leading to the progress and good of mankind.Each is a
reincarnation of an
individuality
that has gone before him with capacities in the same line bringing thus as a
dowry to his
new
form that strong and easily re-awakened capacity or quality which had been
fully developed in him in
his
preceding birth.Very often they are ordinary mortals,the Egos of natural men in
the course of their
cyclic
development.
But
it is with special cases that we are now concerned.Let us suppose that a
person during his cycle of
incarnations
is thus selected for special purposes the vessel being sufficiently clean by
his personal
God
the Fountain-head (on the plane of the manifested)of his Monad who thus becomes
his in-dweller.
That
God his own prototype or Father in Heaven is,in one sense not only the image
in which he the
spiritual
man is made but in the case we are considering it is that spiritual individual
Ego himself.This
is
a case of permanent life-long Theophania.Let us bear in mind that this is
neither Avatārism as it is
understood
in Brāhmanical Philosophy nor is the (Page 372)man thus selected a
Jīvanmukta or Nirvānī
but
that it is a wholly exceptional case in the realm of Mysticism.The man may or
may not have been an
Adept
in his previous lives;he is so far and simply an extremely pure and spiritual
individual or one
who
was all that in his preceding birth if the vessel thus selected is that of a
newly-born infant.In this
case
after the physical translation of such a saint or Bodhisattva his astral
principles cannot be
subjected
to a natural dissolution like those of any common mortal.They remain in our
sphere and within
human
attraction and reach;and thus it is that not only a Buddha a Shankarāchārya or
a Jesus can be
said
to animate several persons at one and the same time but even the principles of
a high Adept may
be
animating the outward tabernacles of common mortals.
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A
certain Ray (principle)from Sanat Kumāra spiritualized (animated)Pradvumna the
son of Krishna
during
the great Mahābhārata period while at the same time he Sanat Kumāra gave
spiritual
instruction
to King Dhritarāshtra.Moreover it is to be remembered that Sanat Kumāra is an
eternal
youth
of sixteen dwelling in Jana Loka his own sphere or spiritual state.
Even
in ordinary medi mistic life so-called it is pretty well ascertained
that while the body is acting
even
though only mechanically or resting in one place its astral double may be
appearing and acting
independently
in another and very often distant place.This is quite a common occurrence in
mystic life
and
history and if this be so with ecstatics,Seers and Mystics of every description
why cannot the same
thing
happen on a higher and more spiritually developed plane of existence?Admit the
possibility on the
lower
psychic plane then why not on a higher plane?In the cases of Higher Adeptship
when the body is
entirely
at the command of the Inner Man when the Spiritual Ego is completely reünited
with its seventh
principle
even during the life-time of the personality and the Astral Man or personal Ego
has become so
purified
that he has gradually assimilated all the qualities and attributes of the middle
nature (Buddhi and
Manas
in their terrestrial aspect)that personal Ego substitutes itself so to say for
the spiritual Higher
Self
and is thenceforth capable of living an independent life on earth;when
corporeal death takes place
the
following mysterious event often happens.As a Dharmakāya a Nirvāni without
remains entirely free
from
terrestrial admixture the Spiritual Ego cannot return to reincarnate on
earth.But in such cases,it is
affirmed
the personal Ego of even a Dharmakāya can remain in our sphere as a whole and
return to
incarnation
on earth if need be.
The Higher Astral -(Page 373)For now it
can no longer be subject like the astral remains of any ordinary
man
to gradual dissolution in the Kāma Loka (the limb s or purgatory of the
Roman Catholic,and the
Summer-land
of the Spiritualist);it cannot die a second death as such disintegration is
called by
Proclus.[After
death the soul continueth in the aerial (astral)body till it is entirely
purified from all angry
sensual
passion: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 L ke xx.36).It has become too holy and pure
no longer by
reflected
but its own natural light and spirituality either to sleep in the unconscious
slumber of a lower
Nirvānic
state or to be dissolved like any ordinary astral shell and disappear in its
entirety.
But
in that condition known as the Nirmānakāya [the Nirvānī with remains,]
he can still help humanity.
Let
me suffer and bear the sins of all [be reincarnated unto new misery ]
but let the world be saved! was
said
by Gautama BUDDHA:an exclamation the real meaning of which is little understood
now by his
followers.If
I will that he tarry till I come what is that to thee?[St.John,xxi.21.]
asks the astral Jesus
of
Peter.Till I come means till I am reincarnated again in a physical body.Yet
the Christ of the old
crucified
body could truly say: I am with my Father and one with Him which did not
prevent the astral
from
taking a form again nor John from tarrying indeed till his Master had come;nor
hinder John from
failing
to recognize him when he did come or from then opposing him.But in the Church
that remark
generated
the absurd idea of the millennium or chiliasm in its physical sense.
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Since
then the Man of Sorrows has returned perchance more than once unknown to and
undiscovered
by
his blind followers.Since then also this grand Son of God has been
incessantly and most cruelly
crucified
daily and hourly by the Churches founded in his name.But the Apostles,only
half-initiated
failed
to tarry for their Master and not recognizing him spurned him every time he
returned.[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.]
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SECTION XLII
The Seven Principles
(Page 374)THE Mystery of Buddha is that of several other Adepts
perhaps of many.The whole trouble
is
to understand correctly that other mystery:that of the real fact so abstruse
and transcendental at first
sight
about the Seven Principles in man the reflections in man of the seven powers
in Nature
physically
and of the seven Hierarchies of Being intellectually and spiritually.Whether a
man material
ethereal
and spiritual is for the clearer comprehension of his (broadly speaking)triple
nature divided
into
groups according to one or another system the foundation and the apex of that
division will be
always
the same.There being only three Upādhis (basics)in man any number of Koshas
(sheaths)and
their
aspects may be built on these without destroying the harmony of the
whole.Thus,while the Esoteric
System
accepts the septenary division the Vedāntic classification gives five
Koshas,and the Tāraka
Rāja
Yoga simplifies them into four the three Upādhis synthesized by the highest
principle.Ätmā.
THE SEPTENARY DIVISION IN DIFFERENT INDIAN SYSTEMS
Esoteric Buddhism Vedānta Tāraka Rāja Yoga
1 Sthūla Sharira
Annamayakosha
(Kosha is "sheath"literally
the sheath of every principle)
2 Prāna (Life)
3 The Vehicle of Prāna
(The Astral Body or Linga Sharira)
Prānamayakosha
Sthūlopādhi (Sthūla-
upādhi or basis of the
principle)
4 Kāma Rūpa
5 Mind (a)Volitions and feelings
etc.
Mānomayakosha
(b)Vijnāgam Vijnāmayakosha
Sūkshmopādhi
6 Spiritual Soul (Buddhi)Anandamayakosha Kāranopādhi
7 Atmā Atmā Atmā
That
which has just been stated will of course suggest the question:How can a
spiritual (or semi-spiritual)
personality
lead a triple or even a dual life shifting respective Higher Selves ad
libit m and be
still
the one eternal Monad in the infinity of a Manvantara?The answer to this is
easy for the true
Occultist
while for the uninitiated profane it must appear absurd.The Seven Principles
are of course
the
manifestation of one indivisible Spirit but only at the end of the Manvantara
and when they come to
be
re-united on the plane of the One Reality does the unity appear;during the
Pilgrim s journey the
reflections
of that indivisible One Flame the aspects of the one eternal Spirit have each
the power of
action
on one of the manifested planes of existence the gradual differentiations from
the one
unmanifested
plane on that plane namely to which it properly belongs.
The Purified Self -(Page 375)Our earth
affording every Māyāvic condition it follows that the purified
Egotistical
Principle the astral and personal Self of an Adept though forming in reality
one integral whole
with
its Highest Self (Ātmā and Buddhi)may nevertheless,for purposes of universal
mercy and
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benevolence
so separate itself from its divine Monad as to lead on this plane of illusion
and temporary
being
a distinct independent conscious life of its own under a borrowed illusive
shape thus serving at
once
and the same time a double purpose:the exhaustion of its own individual Karma
and the saving of
millions
of human beings less favoured than itself from the effects of mental
blindness.If asked:When
the
change described as the passage of a Buddha or a Jīvanmukta into Nirvāna takes
place where does
the
original consciousness which animated the body continue to reside in the
Nirvānī or in the
subsequent
reincarnations of the latter s remains (the Nirmānakāya)?the answer is that
imprisoned
consciousness
may be a certain knowledge from observation and experience as Gibbon puts it
but
disembodied consciousness
is not an effect but a cause.It is a part of the whole or rather a Ray on the
graduated
scale of its manifested activity of the one all-pervading limitless Flame the
reflections of
which
alone can differentiate;and as such consciousness is ubiquitous,and can be
neither localized
nor
centered on or in any particular subject nor can it be limited.Its effects
alone pertain to the region of
matter
for thought is an energy that affects matter in various ways,but consciousness per
se,as
understood
and explained by Occult philosophy is the highest quality of the sentient
spiritual principle in
us,the
Divide Soul (or Buddhi)and our Higher Ego and does not belong to the plane of
materiality.After
the
death of the physical man if he be an Initiate it becomes transformed from a
human quality into the
independent
principle itself;the conscious Ego becoming Consciousness per se without
any Ego in the
sense
that the latter can no longer be limited or conditioned by the senses,or even
by space or time.
Therefore
it is capable without separating itself from or abandoning its possessor Buddhi
of reflecting
itself
at the same time in its astral man that was without being under any necessity
for localizing itself.
This
is shown at a far lower stage in our dreams.For if consciousness can display
activity during our
visions,and
while the body and its material brain are fast asleep and if even during those
visions it is all
but
ubiquitous how much greater must be its power when entirely free from and
having no more
connection
with our physical brain.
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SECTION XLIII
The Mystery of Buddha
(Page 376)NOW the mystery of Buddha lies in this:Gautama an
incarnation of pure Wisdom had yet to
learn
in His human body and to be initiated into the world s secrets like any other
mortal until the day
when
He emerged from His secret recess in the Himālayas and preached for the first
time in the grove of
Benares.The
same with Jesus:from the age of twelve to thirty years,when He was found
preaching the
sermon
on the Mount nothing is positively said or known of Him.Gautama had sworn
inviolable secrecy
as
to the Esoteric Doctrines imparted to Him.In His immense pity for the ignorance
and as its
consequence
the sufferings of mankind desirous though He was to keep inviolate His sacred
vows,He
failed
to keep within the prescribed limits.While constructing His Esoteric Philosophy
(the Eye-Doctrine )
on
the foundations of eternal Truth He failed to conceal certain dogmas,and
trespassing beyond the
lawful
lines,caused those dogmas to be misunderstood.In His anxiety to make away with
the false
Gods,He
revealed in the Seven Paths to Nirvāna some of the mysteries of the Seven
Lights of the
Arūpa
(formless)World.A little of the truth is often worse than no truth at all.
Truth
and fiction are like oil and water:they will never mix.
His
new doctrine which represented the outward dead body of the Esoteric Teaching
without its vivifying
Soul
had disastrous effects:it was never correctly understood and the doctrine
itself was rejected by the
Southern
Buddhists.Immense philanthropy a boundless love and charity for all
creatures,were at the
bottom
of His unintentional mistake;but Karma little heeds intentions,whether good or
bad if they
remain
fruitless.If the Good Law as preached resulted in the most sublime code of
ethics and the
unparalleled
philosophy of things external in the visible Kosmos,it biassed and misguided
immature
minds
into believing there was nothing more under the outward mantle of the system
and its dead-letter
only
was accepted.Moreover the new teaching unsettled many great minds which had
previously
followed
the orthodox Brāhmanical lead.
Shankarāchārya -(Page 377)Thus,fifty odd
years after his death the great Teacher [ 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.]having refused full Dharmakāya and Nirvāna was
pleased for purposes of
Karma
and philanthropy to be reborn.For Him death has been no death but as expressed
in the Elixir
of Life .[ Five
Years of Theosophy,New Edition p.3 .] He changed
A
sudden plunge into darkness to a transition into a brighter light.
The
shock of death was broken and like many other Adepts,He threw off the mortal
coil and left it to be
burnt
and its ashes to serve as relics,and began interplanetary life clothed in His
subtle body.He was
reborn
as Shankara the greatest Vedāntic teacher of India whose philosophy based as
it is entirely on
the
fundamental axioms of the eternal Revelation the Shruti or the primitive
Wisdom-Religion as
Buddha
from a different point of view had before based His finds itself in the middle
ground between
the
too exuberantly veiled metaphysics of the orthodox Brāhmans and those of
Gautama which stripped
in
their exoteric garb of every soul-vivifying hope transcendental aspiration and
symbol appear in their
cold
wisdom like crystalline icicles,the skeletons of the primeval truths of
Esoteric Philosophy.
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Was
Shankarāchārya Gautama The Buddha then under a new personal form?It may perhaps
only
puzzle
the reader the more if he be told that there was the astral Gautama inside
the outward
Shankara
whose higher principle or Ätman was,nevertheless,his own divine prototype the
Son of
Light
indeed the heavenly mind-born son of Aditi.
This
fact is again based on that mysterious transference of the divine
ex-personality merged in the
impersonal
Individuality now in its full trinitarian form of the Monad as
Ātma-Buddhi-Manas to a new
body
whether visible or subjective.In the first case it is a Manushya-Buddha;in the
second it is a
Nirmānakāya.The
Buddha is in Nirvāna it is said though this once mortal vehicle the subtle
body of
Gautama
is still present among the Initiates:nor will it leave the realm of conscious
Being so long as
suffering
mankind needs its divine help not to the end of this Root Race at any
rate.From time to time
He
the astral Gautama associates Himself in some most mysterious to (Page 378)us quite
incomprehensible
manner with Avatāras and great saints,and works through them.And several such
are
named.
Thus
it is averred that Gautama Buddha was reincarnated in Shankarāchāya that as is
said in Esoteric
B ddhism :
Shankarāchārya
simply was Buddha in all respects in a new body.[Op.cit .p.175
Fifth
Edition.]
While the expression in its mystic sense is true the way of putting it may
be
misleading
until explained.Shankara was a Buddha most assuredly but he never was a
reincarnation
of the Buddha though Gautama s Astral Ego or rather his Bodhisattva may
have
been associated in some mysterious way with Shankarāchārya.Yes it was perhaps
the
Ego
Gautama under a new and better adapted casket that of a Brāhman of Southern
India.
But
the Ātman the Higher Self that overshadowed both was distinct from the Higher
Self of
the
translated Buddha which was now in Its own sphere in Kosmos.
Shankara
was an Avatāra in the full sense of the term.According to Sayanāchārya the
great
commentator
on the Vedas he is to be held as an Avatāra or direct incarnation of
Shiva the Logos,the
Seventh
Principle in Nature Himself.In the Secret Doctrine Shri Shankarāchārya is
regarded as the
abode
for the thirty-two years of his mortal life of a Flame the highest of the
manifested Spiritual
Beings,one
of the Primordial Seven Rays.
And
now what is meant by a Bodhisattva ?Buddhists of the Mahāyana mystic system
teach that each
BUDDHA
manifests Himself (hypostatically or otherwise)simultaneously in three worlds
of Being
namely
in the world of Kāma (concupiscence or desire the sensuous universe or our
earth)in the
shape
of a man;in the world of Rūpa (form yet supersensuous)as a Bodhisattva;and in
the highest
Spiritual
World (that of purely incorporeal existences)as a Dhyāni Buddha.The latter
prevails eternally in
space
and time i.e.from one Mahā-Kalpa to the other the synthetic culmination
of the three being Ädi-
Buddha
[ 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 Ädi-Buddha
is
to be found only in the writings of comparatively recent date.What is given
here is taken from the
secret
portions of Dus Kyi Khorlo (Kāla Chakra in Sanskrit or the Wheel of Time or
duration).] the
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Wisdom-Principle
which is Absolute and therefore out of space and time.Their inter-relation is
the
following:
The Buddha Cannot Reincarnate -(Page 379)The Dhyāni-Buddha when the world needs a human
Buddha
creates through the power of Dhyāna (meditation omnipotent devotion),a
mind-born son a
Bodhisattva
whose mission it is after the physical death of his human or Manushya-Buddha
to
continue
his work on earth till the appearance of the subsequent Buddha.The Esoteric
meaning of this
teaching
is clear.In the case of a simple mortal the principles in him are only the more
or less bright
reflections
of the seven cosmic,and the seven celestial Principles,the Hierarchy of
supersensual Beings.
In
the case of a Buddha they are almost the principles in esse themselves.The
Bodhisattva replaces in
him
the Kārana Sharira the Ego principle and the rest correspondingly;and it is in
this way that Esoteric
Philosophy
explains the meaning of the sentence that by virtue of Dhyāna [or
abstract meditation ]the
Dhyāni-Buddha
[the Buddha s Spirit or Monad ] creates a Bodhisattva or the
astrally clothed Ego within
the
Manushya-Buddha.Thus,while the Buddha merges back into Nirvāna whence it
proceeded the
Bodhisattva
remains behind to continue the Buddha s work upon earth.It is then this
Bodhisattva that
may
have afforded the lower principles in the apparitional body of Shankarāchārya
the Avatāra.
Now
to say that Buddha after having reached Nirvāna returned thence to reļncarnate
in a new body
would
be uttering a heresy from the Brāhmanical as well as from the Buddhisic
standpoint.Even in the
Mahāyāna
exoteric School in the teaching as to the three Buddhic bodies,[ The
three bodies are (1)
the
Nirmānakāya (Pru-lpai-Ku in Tibetan),in which the Bodhisattva after entering
the six Pāramitās the
Path
to Nirvāna appears to men in order to teach them:(2)Sambhogakāya
(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)Dharmakāya (in Tibetan Chos-Ku),the Nirvānic body.] it is said of the
Dharmakāya
the
formless Being that once it is taken the Buddha in it abandons the world of
sensuous perceptions
for
ever and has not nor can he have any more connection with it.To say as the
Esoteric or Mystic
School
teaches,that though Buddha is in Nirvāna he has left behind him the Nirmānakāya
(the
Bodhisattva)to
work after him is quite orthodox and in accordance with both the Esoteric
Mahāyāna and
the
Prasanga Mādhyāmika Schools,the latter an anti-esoteric and most rationalistic
system.For in the
Kāla Chakra Commentary
it is shown that there is:(1)Ädi-Buddha eternal and conditionless;then (2)
come
Sambhogakāya-Buddhas,or Dhyāni-Buddhas,existing from (ęonic)eternity and never
disappearing
the Ca sal Buddhas so to say;and (3)the Manushya (Page 380)Bodhisattvas.The
relation
between them is determined by the definition given.Ädi-Buddha is Vajradhara and
the Dhyāni-
Buddhas
are Vajrasattva;yet though these two are different Beings on their respective
planes.They are
identical
in fact one acting through the other as a Dhyāni through a human Buddha.One is
Endless
Intelligence;the
other only Supreme Intelligence.It is said of Phra Bodhisattva who was
subsequently
on earth Buddha Gautama:
Having
fulfilled all the conditions for the immediate attainment of perfect Buddhaship
the Holy
One
preferred from unlimited charity towards living beings,once more to
reincarnate for the
benefit
of man.
The
Nirvāna of the Buddhists is only the threshold of Paranirvāna according to the
Esoteric Teaching:
while
with the Brāhmans,it is the summ m bon m that final state from which
there is no more return
not
till the next Mahā-Kalpa at all events.And even this last view will be opposed
by some too orthodox
and
dogmatic Philosophers who will not accept the Esoteric Doctrine.With them
Nirvāna is absolute
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nothingness,in
which there is nothing and no one:only an unconditioned All.To understand the
full
characteristics
of that Abstract Principle one must sense it intuitionally and comprehend fully
the one
permanent
condition in the Universe which the Hindūs define so truly as
The
state of perfect unconsciousness bare Chidākāsham (field of consciousness)in
fact.
however
paradoxical it may seem to the profane reader.[ Five Years of
Theosophy,art.Personal and
Impersonal
God p.129 .]
Shankarāchārya
was reputed to be an Avatāra an assertion the writer implicitly believes in but
which
other
people are of course at liberty to reject.And as such he took the body of a
southern Indian newly-
born
Brāhman baby;that body for reasons as important as they are mysterious to us,is
said to have
been
animated by Gautama s astral personal remains.This divine Non-Ego chose as its
own Upādhi
(physical
basis),the ethereal human Ego of a great Sage in this world of forms,as the
fittest vehicle for
Spirit
to descend into.
Said
Shankarāchārya:
Parabrahman
is Kartā [Purusha ] as there is no other Adhishtāthā [ Adhishtāthā
the active or
working
agent in Prakriti (or matter).] and Parabrahman is Prakriti there being
no other
substance.[Vedānta-Sūtras.Ad.I.Pāda
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.]
A Fuller Explanation -(Page 381)Now what is
true of the Macrocosmical is also true of the
Microcosmical
plane.It is therefore nearer the truth to say when once we accept such a
possibility
that
the astral Gautama or the Nirmānakāya was the Upādhi of Shankarāchāya s
spirit rather than the
latter
was a reincarnation of the former.
When
a Shankarāchārya has to be born naturally every one of the principles in the
manifested mortal
man
must be the purest and finest that exist on earth.Consequently those principles
that were once
attached
to Gautama who was the direct great predecessor of Shankara were naturally
attracted to him
the
economy of Nature forbidding the re-evolution of similar principles from the
crude state.But it must
be
remembered that the higher ethereal principles are not like the lower more
natural ones,visible
sometimes
to man (as astral bodies),and they have to be regarded in the light of separate
or
independent
Powers or Gods,rather than at material objects.Hence the right way of
representing the
truth
would be to say that the various principles,the Bodhisattva of Gautama Buddha
which did not go
to
Nirvāna reunited to form the middle principles of Shankarāchārya the earthly
Entity.[In Five Years of
Theosophy (art.Shākya
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
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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 Nirvāna 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.
It
is absolutely necessary to study the doctrine of the Buddhas esoterically and
understand the subtle
differences
between the various planes of existence to be able to comprehend correctly the
above.Put
more
clearly Gautama the human Buddha who had exoterically Amitābha for his
Bodhisattva and
Avolokiteshvara
for his Dhyāni-Buddha the triad emanating directly from Ädi-Buddha
assimilated
these
by his Dhyāna (meditation)and thus become a Buddha (enlightened ).In
another manner this is
the
case with all men;every one of us has his Bodhisattva the middle principle if
we hold for a moment
to
the trinitarian division of the septenary group and his Dhyāni-Buddha or
Chohan the Father of the
Son.
Our connecting link with the higher Hierarchy of Celestial Beings lies here in
a nutshell only we are
too
sinful to assimilate them.
(Page 382)Six centuries after the translation of the human Buddha
(Gautama)another Reformer as noble
and
as loving though less favoured by opportunity arose in another part of the
world among another and
a
less spiritual race.There is a great similarity between the subsequent opinions
of the world about the
two
Saviours,the Eastern and the Western.While millions became converted to the
doctrines of the two
Masters,the
enemies of both sectarian opponents,the most dangerous of all tore both to
shreds by
insinuating
maliciously-distorted statements based on Occult truths,and therefore doubly
dangerous.
While
of Buddha it is said by the Brāhmans that He was truly an Avatāra of Vishnu but
that He had come
to
tempt the Brāhmans from their faith and was therefore the evil aspect of the
God:of Jesus the
Bardesanian
Gnostics and others asserted that He was Nebu the false Messiah the destroyer
and the
old
orthodox religion.He is the founder of a new sect of Nazars,said other
sectarians.In Hebrew the
word
Naba means to speak by inspiration. ()is Nebo the God of wisdom).But Nebo
is also
Mercury
who is Buddha in the Hindu monogram of planets.And this is shown by the fact
that the
Talmudists
hold that Jesus was inspired by the Genius (or Regent)of Mercury confounded by
Sir William
Jones
with Gautama Buddha.There are many other strange points of similarity between
Gautama and
Jesus,which
cannot be noticed here.[ See Isis Unveiled ii.132.]
If
both the Initiates,aware of the danger of furnishing the uncultured masses with
the powers acquired by
ultimate
knowledge left the innermost corner of the sanctuary in profound darkness,who
acquainted
with
human nature can blame either of them for this?Yet although Gautama actuated by
prudence left
the
Esoteric and most dangerous portions of the Secret Knowledge untold and lived
to the ripe old age
of
eighty the Esoteric Doctrine says one hundred years,dying with the certainty
of having taught its
essential
truths,and of having sown the seeds for the conversion of one-third of the
world He yet
perhaps
revealed more than was strictly good for posterity.But Jesus,who had promised
His disciples
the
knowledge which confers upon man the power of producing miracles far greater
than He had ever
produced
Himself died leaving but a few faithful disciples men only half-way to
knowledge.They had
therefore
to struggle with a world to which they could impart only what they but
half-knew themselves,
and
no more.In later ages the exoteric followers of both mangled the truths given
out often out of
recognition.
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Sacrifice -(Page 383)With regard to the
adherents of the Western Master the proof of this lies in the very
fact
that none of them can now produce the promised miracles.They have to
choose:either it is they
who
have blundered or it is their Master who must stand arraigned for an empty
promise an uncalled-for
boast.[Before
one becomes a Buddha he must be a Bodhisattva:before evolving into a
Bodhisattva he
must
be a Dhyāni-Buddha....A bodhisattva is the way and Path to his Father and
thence to the One
Supreme
Essence (Descent of B ddhas .p.17.from Äryāsanga). 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 the Buddha the students of Esoteric Philosophy see
in the
Nazarene
Sage a Bodhisattva with the spirit of Buddha Himself in Him.] Why such a
difference in the
destiny
of the two?For the Occultist this enigma of the unequal favour of Karma or
Providence is
unriddled
by the Secret Doctrine.
It
is not lawful to speak of such things publicly as St.Paul tells us.One more
explanation only may be
given
in reference to this subject.It was said a few pages back that an Adept who
thus sacrifices himself
to
live giving up full Nirvāna though he can never lose the knowledge acquired by
him in previous
existences,yet
can never rise higher in such borrowed bodies.Why?Because he becomes simply the
vehicle
of a Son of Light from a still higher sphere Who being Arūpa has no personal
astral body of His
own
fit for this world.Such Sons of Light or Dhyāni-Buddhas,are the Dharmakāyas
of preceding
Manvantaras,who
have closed their cycles of incarnations in the ordinary sense and who being
thus
Karmaless,have
long ago dropped their individual Rūpas,and have become identified with the
first
Principle.Hence
the necessity of a sacrificial Nirmānakāya ready to suffer for the misdeeds or
mistakes
of
the new body in its earth-pilgrimage without any future reward on the plane of
progression and rebirth
since
there are no rebirths for him in the ordinary sense.The higher Self or Divine
Monad is not in such
a
case attached to the lower Ego;its connection is only temporary and in most
cases it acts through
decrees
of Karma.This is a real genuine sacrifice the explanation of which pertains to
the highest
Initiation
of Gńāna (Occult Knowledge).It is closely linked by a direct evolution of
Spirit and involution of
Matter
with the primeval and great Sacrifice at the foundation of the manifested
Worlds,the gradual
smothering
and (Page 384)death of the spiritual in the material.The seed is not
quickened except it die.[
I.Corinth
.xv.36 ]Hence in the Purusha Sūkta of the Rig Veda,[ Op.cit.,Mandala
x.hymn 90.] the
mother-fount
and source of all subsequent religions,it is stated allegorically that the
thousand-headed
Purusha
was slaughtered at the foundation of the World that from his remains the
Universe might arise.
This
is nothing more or less than the foundation the seed truly of the later
many-formed symbol in
various
religions,including Christianity of the sacrificial lamb.For it is a play upon
the words Aja
(Purusha),the
unborn or eternal Spirit means also lamb in Sanskrit.Spirit disappears
dies,
metaphorically
the more it gets involved in matter and hence the sacrifice of the unborn or
the
lamb.
Why
the BUDDHA chose to make this sacrifice will be plain only to those who to the
minute knowledge
of
His earthly life add that of a thorough comprehension of the laws of Karma.Such
occurrences,
however
belong to the most exceptional cases.
As
tradition goes,the Brāhmans had committed a heavy sin by persecuting Gautama
BUDDHA and His
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teachings
instead of blending and reconciling them with the tenets of pure Vaidic
Brāhmanism as was
done
later by Shankarāchārya.Gautama had never gone against the Vedas only
against the exoteric
growth
of preconceived interpretations.The Shruti divine oral revelation the outcome
of which was the
Veda is eternal.It
reached the ear of Gautama Siddartha as it had those of the Rishis who had
written it
down.He
accepted the revelation while rejecting the later overgrowth of Brāhmanical
thought and fancy
and
built His doctrines on one and the same basis of imperishable truth.As in the
case of His Western
successor
Gautama the Merciful the Pure and the Just was the first found in the
Eastern
Hierarchy
of historical Adepts,if not in the world-annals of divine mortals,who was moved
by that
generous
feeling which locks the whole of mankind within one embrace with no petty
differences of race
birth
or caste.It was He who first enunciated that grand and noble principle and He
again who first put it
into
practice.For the sake of the poor and the reviled the outcast and the
hapless,invited by Him to the
king
s festival table He had excluded those who had hitherto sat along in haughty
seclusion and
selfishness,believing
that they would be defiled by the very shadow of the disinherited ones of the
land
and
these non-spiritual Brāhmans turned against Him for that preference.
Shankarāchārya Still Living -(Page 385)Since then such as these have never forgiven the prince-
beggar
the son of a king who forgetting His rank and station had flung widely open the
doors of the
forbidden
sanctuary to the pariah and the man of low estate thus giving precedence to
personal merit
over
hereditary rank or fortune.The sin was theirs the cause nevertheless
Himself:hence the Merciful
and
the Blessed One could not go out entirely from this world of illusion and
created causes without
atoning
for the sin of all therefore of these Brāhmans also.If man afflicted by man
found safe refuge
with
the Tathāgata man afflicting man had also his share in His self-sacrificing
all embracing and
forgiving
love.It is stated that He desired to atone for the sin of His enemies.Then only
was he willing to
become
a full Dharmakāya a Jīvanmukta without remains.
The
close of Shankarāchārya s life brings us face to face with a fresh mystery
Shankarāchārya retires to
a
cave in the Himālayas permitting none of his disciples to follow him,and
disappears therein forever
from
the sight of the profane.Is he dead?Tradition and popular belief answer in the
negative and some
of
the local Gurus,if they do not emphatically corroborate do not deny the
rumour.The truth with its
mysterious
details as given in the Secret Doctrine is known but to them;it can be given
out fully only to
the
direct followers of the great Dravidian Guru and it is for them alone to reveal
of it as much as they
think
fit.Still it is maintained that this Adept of Adepts lives to this day in his
spiritual entity as a
mysterious,unseen
yet overpowering presence among the Brotherhood of Shamballa beyond far
beyond
the snowy-capped Himālayas.
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SECTION XLIV
Reincarnations of Buddha
(Page 386)EVERY section in the chapter on Dezhin Shegpa [ Literally
he who walks [or follows ] in the
way
[or path ] of his predecessors.] (Tathāgata)in the
Commentaries represents one year of that great
Philosopher
s life in its dual aspect of public and private teacher the two being
contrasted and
commented
upon.It shows the Sage reaching Buddhahood through a long course of study
meditation
and
Initiations,as any other Adept would have to do not one rung of the ladder up
to the arduous Path
of
Perfection being missed.The Bodhisattva became a Buddha and a Nirvānī through
personal effort
and
merit after having had to undergo all the hardships of every other neophyte
not by virtue of a divine
birth
as thought by some.It was only the reaching of Nirvāna while still living in
the body and on this
earth
that was due to His having been in previous births high on the Path of Dzyan
(knowledge
wisdom).Mental
or intellectual gifts and abstract knowledge follow an Initiate in his new
birth but he has
to
acquire phenomenal powers anew passing through all the successive stages.He has
to acquire
Rinchen-na-dun
(the seven precious gifts )[ Schmidt in Slanong Seetsen .p.471
and Schlagintweit in
B ddhism in Tibet p.53
accept these precious things literally enumurating 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 Dhyāni-Buddhi and a Dhyāni-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.] one after
the other.During the period of
meditation
no worldly phenomena on the physical plane must be allowed to enter into his
mind or cross
his
thoughts.Zhine-lhagthong (Sanskrit:Vipashya religious abstract meditation)will
develop in him most
wonderful
faculties independently of himself.
Vajradhara -(Page 387)The four degrees of
contemplation or Sam-tan (Sanskrit:Dhyāna),once
acquired
everything becomes easy.For once that man has entirely got rid of the idea of
individuality
merging
his Self in the Universal Self becoming so to say the bar of steel to which the
properties
inherent
in the loadstone (Ädi Buddha or Anima Mundi)are imparted powers hitherto
dormant in him are
awakened
mysteries in invisible Nature are unveiled and becoming a Thonglam-pa (a
Seer)he
becomes
a Dhyāni-Buddha.Every Zung (Dhāranī a mystic word or mantra)of the
Lokottaradharma (the
highest
world of causes)will be known to him.
Thus,after
His outward death twenty years later Tathāgata in His immense love and pitiful
mercy for
erring
and ignorant humanity refused Paranirvāna [A Bodhisattva can reach
Nirvāna and live as Buddha
did
and after death he can either refuse objective incarnation 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 Paranirvāna or Nirvāna
without remains the
highest
Dharmakāya 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 birth.] in order that He might continue to help men.
Says
a Commentary:
Having reached the Path of Deliverance [Thar-lam ] from
transmigration,one cannot perform T lpa [Tulpa
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is
the voluntary incarnation of an Adept into a living body whether of an adult
child or new-born babe.]
any longer,for to become a Paranirvānī is to close the
circle of the Septenary K -S m.[Ku-sum is the
triple
form of the Nirvanā state and its respective duration in the cycle of Non
Being.The number seven
here
refers to the seven Rounds of our septenary System.] He has merged
his borrowed Dorjesempa
[Vagrasattva ] into the
Universal and become one with it.
Vajradhara
also Vajrasattva (Tibetan:Dorjechang and Dorjedzin or Dorjosampa),is the regent
or
President
of all the Dhyān Chohans or Dhyāni Buddhas,the highest the Supreme
Buddha;personal yet
never
manifested objectively;the Supreme Conqueror the Lord of all Mysteries,the
One without
Beginning
or End in short the Logos of Buddhism.For as Vajrasattva He is simply the
Tsovo (Chief)
of
the Dhyāni Buddhas or Dhyān Chohans,and the Supreme Intelligence in the Second
World;while as
Vajradhara
(Dorjechang),He is all that which was enumerated above.These two are one and
yet two
and
over them is Chang the Supreme Unmanifested and (Page 388)Universal Wisdom that has no
name.As
two in one He (They)is the Power that subdued and conquered Evil from the
beginning
allowing
it to reign only over willing subjects on earth and having no power over those
who despise and
hate
it.Esoterically the allegory is easily understood;exoterically Vajradhara
(Vajrasattva)is the God to
whom
all the evil spirits swore that they would not impede the propagation of the
Good Law (Buddhism),
and
before whom all the demons tremble.Therefore we say this dual personage has the
same rōle
assigned
to it in canonical and dogmatic Tibetan Buddhism as have Jehovah and the
Archangel Mikael
the
Metatron of the Jewish Kabalists.This is easily shown.Mikael is the angel of
the face of God or he
who
represents his Master.My face shall go with thee (in English presence
),before the Israelites,
says
God to Moses (Exod s,xxxiii.141).The angel of my presence (Hebrew:of
my face )(Isaiah
Ixiii.9).etc.The
Roman Catholics identify Christ with Mikael who is also his ferouer or face
mystically.
This
is precisely the position of Vajradhara or Vajrasattva in Northern Buddhism.For
the latter in His
Higher
Self as Vajradhara (Dorjechang),is never manifested except to the seven
Dhyān Chohans,the
primeval
Builders.Esoterically it is the Spirit of the Seven collectively their
seventh principle or Ćtman.
Exoterically
any amount of fables may be found in Kāla Chakra the most important work
in the Gyut [or
(D)guy
] division of the Kanjur the division of mystic knowledge [(D)gyu
] .Dorjechang (wisdom)
Vajradhara
is said to live in the second Arūpa World which connects him with Metatron in
the first world
of
pure Spirits,the Briatic world of the Kabalists,who call this angel El-Shaddai
the Omnipotent and
Might
One.Metatron is in Greek į åėļņ(Messenger),or the Great Teacher.Mikael fights
Satan the ..
Dragon
and conquers him and his Angels.Vajrasattva who is one with Vajrapāni the
Subduer of the Evil
Spirits,conquers
Rāhu the Great Dragon who is always trying to devour the sun and moon
(eclipses).
War
in Heaven in the Christian legend is based upon the bad angels having
discovered the secrets
(magical
wisdom)of the good ones (Enoch),and the mystery of the Tree of Life.Let
anyone read
simply
the exoteric accounts in the Hindu and Buddhist Pantheons the latter version
being taken from
the
former and he will find both resting on the same primeval archaic allegory from
the Secret Doctrine.
In
the exoteric texts (Hindu and Buddhist),the Gods churn the ocean to extract
from it the Water of Life
Amrita
or the Elixir of Knowledge.
Living Buddhas -(Page 389)In both the Dragon
steals some of this,and is exiled from heaven by
Vishnu
or Vajradhara or the chief God whatever may be his name.We find the same in the
Book of
Enoch and it is
poetized in St.John s Revelation .And now the allegory with all its
fanciful
ornamentations,has
become a dogma!
As
will be found mentioned later the Tibetan Lamaseries contain many secrets and
semi-secret volumes,
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detailing
the lives of great Sages.Many of the statements in them are purposely confused
and in others
the
reader becomes bewildered unless a clue be given him by the use of one name to
cover many
individuals
who follow the same line of teaching.Thus there is a succession of living
Buddhas,and the
name
Buddha is given to teacher after teacher.Schlagintweit writes:
To
each human being Buddha belongs a Dhyāni-Buddha and a Dhyāni-Bodhisattva and
the
unlimited
number of the former also involves equally unlimited number of the latter.[B
ddhism
in Tibet.p.52.This
same generic use of a name is found among Hindus with that of
Shankarāchārya
to take but one instance.All His successors bear his name but are not
reincarnations
of Him.So with the Buddhas.]
[But
if this be so and the exoteric and semi-exoteric use of the name justify the
statement the reader
must
depend on his own intuition to distinguish between the Dhyāni Buddhas and the
human Buddhas,
and
must not apply to the great BUDDHA of the Fifth Race all that is ascribed to
the Buddha in books
where
as said blinds are constantly introduced.
In
one of these books some strange and obscure statements are made which the
writer gives,as before
entirely
on her own responsibility since a few may sense a meaning hidden under words
misleading in
their
surface meaning.][The words within brackets are supplied to introduce
the statements following
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.] It is stated that
at the age of thirty-three
Shankarāchārya
tired of his mortal body put it off in the cave he had entered and that the
Bodhisattva
that
served as his lower personality was freed.
With
the burden of a sin upon him which he had not committed.
At
the same time it is added:
At
whatever age one puts off his outward body by free will at that age will he be
made to die a
violent
death against his will in his next rebirth.
(Page 390)Now Karma could have no hold on Mahā Shankara (as
Shankara is called in the secret
work),as
he had as Avatāra no Ego of his own but a Bodhisattva a willing sacrificial
victim.Neither
had
the latter any responsibility for the deed whether sinful or
otherwise.Therefore we do not see the
point
since Karma cannot act unjustly.There is some terrible mystery involved in all
this story one that
no
uninitiated intellect can ever unravel.Still there it is,suggesting the natural
query Who then was
punished
by Karma?and leaving it to be answered.
A
few centuries later Buddha tried one more incarnation it is said in ****and
again fifty years
subsequent
to the death of this Adept in one whose name is given as Tiani-Tsang.[King
Suddhodana.]
No
details,no further information or explanation is given.It is simply stated that
the last Buddha had to
work
out the remains of his Karma which none of the Gods themselves can escape
forced as he was to
bury
still deeper certain mysteries have revealed by him hence misinterpreted.The
words used would
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stand
when translated:[There are several names marked simply by asterisks.]
Born
fifty-two years too early as Shramana Gautama the son of King Zastang;then
retiring
fifty-seven
years too soon as Mahā Shankara who got tired of his outward form.This wilful
act
aroused
and attracted King Karma who killed the new form of ***at thirty-three
[Shankarāchārya died
also at thirty-two years of age or rather disappeared from the sight of
his
disciples,as the legend goes.] the age of the body was put off.[ At
whatever age one puts
off
his outward body by free will at that age will he be made to die in his next
incarnation
against his will Commentary.]
He died in his next (body)at thirty-two and a little over and
again
in his next at eighty a Māyā and at one hundred in reality.The Bodhisatva
chose
Tiani-Tsang
[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.] then again the Sugata became Tsong-Kha-pa who became thus
Dezhin-Shegpa
[Tathāgata one who
follows in the way and manner of his predecessors.].The Blessed One
could
do good to his generation as ***but none to posterity and so as Tiani-Tsang he
became
incarnated only for the remains [of his precedent Karma as we
understand it ].The
Seven
Ways and the Four Truths were once more hidden out of sight.The Merciful One
confined
since then his attention and fatherly care to the heart of Bodyul the nursery
grounds
of
the seeds of truth.The blessed remains since then have overshadowed and
rested in
many
a holy body of human Bodhisattvas.
No
further information is given least of all are there any details or explanations
to be found in the secret
volume.
An Obscure Passage -(Page 391)All is
darkness and mystery in it for it is evidently written but for those
who
are already instructed.Several flaming red asterisks are placed instead of
names,and the few facts
given
are abruptly broken off.The key of the riddle is left to the intuition of the
disciple unless the direct
followers
of Gautama the Buddha those who are to be denied by His Church for the next
cycle and
of
Shankarāchārya are pleased to add more.
The
final section gives a kind of summary of the seventy sections covering
seventy-three years of
Buddha
s life [According to Esoteric teaching Buddha lived one hundred years
in reality though having
reached
Nirvana in his eightieth year he was regarded as one dead to the world of the
living.See article
Shākyamuni
s Place in History in Five Years of Theosophy.]from which the
last paragraph is
summarized
as follows:
Emerging
from ,the most excellent seat of the three secrets [Sang-Sum ] the
Master of
incomparable
mercy after having performed on all the anchorites the rite of .and each of
these
having been cut off [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. (B ddhism in Tibet.p.163).] perceived
through [the power
of
] Hlun-Chub [ Hlun-Chub is the divining spirit in man the highest
degree of seership.] what
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was
his next duty.The Most-Illustrious meditated and asked himself whether this
would help
[the future ]generations.What
they needed was the sight of Māyā in a body of illusion.Which?
...The
great conqueror of pains and sorrows arose and proceeded back to his
birthplace.
There
Sugata was welcomed by the few for they did now know Shramana Gautama.Shākva
[the Mighty ] is
in Nirvāna ...He has given the Science to the Shuddhas [Shūdra ]said
they
of
Damze Yul [the country of Brāhmans:India ]....It was for that
born of pity that the All-
Glorious
One had to retire to ,and then appear [karmically ] as Mahā
Shankara;and out of
pity
as ,and again as ,and again as Tsong-Kha-pa....For he who chooses in
humiliation
must
go down and he who loves not allows Karma to raise him.[ The
secret meaning of this
sentence
is that Karma exercises its way 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 Dharmakāya the Nirvāna 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 right 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 ***]
This
passage is confessedly obscure and written for the few.It is not lawful to say
any more for the time
has
not yet come when nations are (Page 392)prepared to hear
the whole truth.The old religions are full
of
mysteries,and to demonstrate some of them would surely lead to an explosion of
hatred followed
perhaps,by
bloodshed and worse.It will be sufficient to know that while Gautama Buddha is
merged in
Nirvāna
ever since his death Gautama Shākyamuni may have had to reincarnate this dual
inner
personality
being one of the greatest mysteries of Esoteric psychism.
The
seat of the three secrets refers to a place inhabited by high Initiates and
their disciples.The
secrets
are the three mystic powers known as Gopa Yasodhara and Uptala Varna that
Csomo de
Köros
mistook for Buddha s three wives,as other Orientalists have mistaken Shakti
(Yoga power)
personified
by a female deity for His wife;or the Draupadī also a spiritual power for the
wife in
common
of the five brothers Pāndava.
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SECTION XLV
An Unpublished Discourse of Buddha
(Page 393)(IT is found in the second Book of Commentaries and
is addressed to the Arhats.)
Said
the All-Merciful:Blessed are ye O Bhikshus,happy are ye who have understood the
mystery of
Being
and Non-Being explained in Bas-pa [Dharma Doctrine ] and
have given preference to the latter
for
ye are verily my Arhats....The elephant who sees his form mirrored in the lake
looks at it and then
goes
away taking it for the real body of another elephant is wiser than the man who
beholds his face in
the
stream and looking at it says,Here I am ...I am I :for the I his Self is
not in the world of the
twelve
Nidānas and mutability but in that of Non-Being the only world beyond the
snares of Māyā.....
That
alone which has neither cause nor author which is self-existing eternal far
beyond the reach of
mutability
is the true I [Ego ] the Self of the Universe.The Universe of
Nam-Kha says: I am the world
of
Sien-Chan ;[The Universe of Brahmā (Sien-Chan;Nam-Kha)is Universal
illusion or our phenomenal
world.]
the four illusions laugh and reply Verily so.But the truly wise man knows
that neither man nor
the
Universe that he passes through like a flitting shadow is any more a real
Universe than the dewdrop
that
reflects a spark of the morning sun is that sun....There are three
things,Bhikshus,that are
everlastingly
the same upon which no vicissitude no modification can ever act:these are the
Law
Nirvāna
and Space [ Ākasha.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.]
and
those three are One since the first two are within the last and that last one a
Māyā so long as man
keeps
within the whirlpool of sensuous existences.One need not have his mortal body
die to avoid the
(Page 394)clutches of concupiscence and other passions.The Arhat who
observes the seven hidden
precepts
of Bas-pa may become Dang-ma and Lha.[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.] He may hear the holy voice
of ...[Kwan-yin ] ,
[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 Vāchishvara (the
Voice-deity )of the
Brāhmans.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 daimon -voice of Socrates.] and find himself within
the quiet precincts of his
Sangharama
[Sanharama is the sanct m sanctorum of an ascetic,a cave or any
place he chooses for
his
meditation.] transferred into Amitābha Buddha.[ Amitābha Buddha
is in this connection the
boundless
light by which things of the subjective world are perceived.] Becoming
one with Anuttara
Samyak
Sambodhi [ Esoterically the unsurpassingly merciful and enlightened
heart said of the
Perfect
Ones,the Jīvan-muktas,collectively.] he may pass through all the six
worlds of Being (Rūpa-
loka)and
get into the first three worlds of Arūpa.[These six worlds seven with
us are the worlds of
Nats
or Spirits,with the Burmese Buddhists,and the seven higher worlds of the
Vedāntins.]...He who
listens
to my secret law preached to my select Arhats,will arrive with its help at the
knowledge of Self
and
thence at perfection.
It
is due to entirely erroneous conceptions of Eastern thought and to ignorance of
the existence of an
Esoteric
key to the outward Buddhist phrases that Burnouf and other great scholars have
inferred from
such
propositions held also by the Vedāntins as my body is not body and myself
is no self of mine
that
Eastern psychology was based upon non-permanency.Cousin for instance lecturing
upon the
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subject
brings the two following propositions to prove on Burnouf s authority that
unlike Brāhmanism
Buddhism
rejects the perpetuity of the thinking principle.These are:
1.Thought
or Spirit [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.]for the faculty is not
distinguished from the
subject
appears only with sensation and does not survive it.
2.The
Spirit cannot itself lay hold of itself and in directing attention to itself it
draws from it
only
the conviction of its powerlessness to see itself otherwise than as successive
and
transitory.
This
all refers to Spirit embodied not to the freed Spiritual Self on whom Māya has
no more hold.
A Mistaken View -(Page 395)Spirit is no
body;therefore have the Orientalists made of it nobody and
nothing.Hence
they proclaim Buddhists to be Nihilists,and Vedāntins to be the followers of a
creed in
which
the Impersonal [God ]turns out on examination to be a
myth;their goal is described as
The
complete extinction of all spiritual mental and bodily powers by absorption
into the
Impersonal.[Vedānta
Sāra,translated by Major Jacob.p.123.]
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SECTION XLVI
Nirvana-Moksha
(Page 396)THE few sentences given in the text from one of Gautama
Buddha s secret teachings show
how
uncalled for is the epithet of Materialist when applied to One Whom
two-thirds of those who are
looked
upon as great Adepts and Occultists in Asia recognize as their Master whether
under the name of
Buddha
or that of Shankarāchārya.The reader will remember the just-quoted words are
what Buddha
Sanggyas
(or Pho)is alleged by the Tibetan Occultists to have taught:there are three
eternal things in
the
Universe the Law Nirvāna and Space.The Buddhists of the Southern Church claim
on the other
hand
that Buddha held only two things as eternal Åkāsha and Nirvāna.But Ākāsha
being the same as
Aditi
[Aditi is,according to the Rig Veda,the Father and Mother of all
the Gods:and Ćkāsha 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).]and
both being translated Space
there
is no discrepancy so far since Nirvāna as well as Moksha is a state.Then in
both cases the great
Kapilavastu
Sage unifies the two as well as the three into one eternal Element and ends by
saying that
even
that One is a Māyā to one who is not a Damg-ma a perfectly purified Soul.
The
whole question hangs upon materialistic misconceptions and ignorance of Occult
Metaphysics.To
the
man of Science who regards Space as simply a mental representation a conception
of something
existing
pro formā and having no real being outside our mind Space per se is
verily an illusion.He may
fill
the boundless interstellar space with an imaginary ether nevertheless Space
for him is an
abstraction.Most
of the Metaphysicians of Europe are so wide of the mark,from the purely Occult
standpoint
of a correct comprehension of Space as are the Materialists,though the
erroneous
conceptions
of both of course differ widely.
The Ćkāsha -(Page 397)If bearing in mind
the philosophical views of the Ancients upon this question we
compare
them with what is now termed exact physical Science it will be found that the
two disagree only
in
inferences and names,and that their postulates are the same when reduced to
their most simple
expression.From
the beginning of the human Ęons,from the very dawn of Occult Wisdom the regions
that
the men of Science fill with ether have been explored by the Seers of every
age.That which the
world
regards simply as cosmic Space an abstract representation the Hindu Rishi the
Chaldęan
Magus,the
Egyptian Hierophant held each and all as the one eternal Root of all the
playground of all
the
Forces in Nature.It is the fountain-head of all terrestrial life and the abode
of those (to us)invisible
swarms
of existences of real beings,as of the shadows only thereof conscious and
unconscious,
intelligent
and senseless that surround us on all sides,that interpenetrate the atoms of
our Kosmos,
and
see us not as we do not either see or sense them through our physical
organisms.For the Occultist
Space
and Universe are synonyms.In Space there is not Matter Force nor Spirit but
all that and
much
more.It is the One Element and that one the Anima Mundi Space Ćkāsha Astral
Light the
Root
of Life which in its eternal ceaseless motion like the out-and in-breathing of
one boundless ocean
evolves
but to reabsorb all that lives and feels and thinks and has its being in it.As
said of the Universe
in
Isis Unveiled it is.
The
combination of a thousand elements and yet the expression of a single Spirit
a chaos to
the
sense a Kosmos to the reason.
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Such
were the views upon the subject of all the great ancient Philosophers,from Manu
down to
Pythagoras,from
Plato to Paul.
When
the dissolution [Pralaya ] had arrived as its term the great
Being [Para-Ćtmā or Para-
Purusha
] the Lord existing through himself out of whom and through whom all
things were
and
are and will be ...resolved to emanate from his own substance the various
creatures.
[Mānava-Dharma-Shāstra.i.6 7.]
The
mystic Decad [of Pythagoras ](1 +2 +3 +4 =10)is a way of
expressing this idea.The
One
is God;[The God of Pythagoras,the disciple of the Ćryan 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.]the
Two Matter;
the
Three combining Monad and Duad and partaking of the nature of both is the
phenomenal
world;the
Tetrad or form of perfection expresses the emptiness of all;and the Decad or
sum
of
all involves the entire cosmos.[Isis Unveiled.i.xvi.]
(Page 398)Plato's God is the Universal Ideation and Paul saying
Out of him and through him and in
him
all things are had surely a Principle never a Jehovah in his profound
mind.The key to the
Pythagorean
dogmas is the key to every great Philosophy.It is the general formula of unity
in multiplicity
the
One evolving the many and pervading the All.It is the archaic doctrine of
Emanation in a few words.
Speusippus
and Xenocrates held like their Master Plato that;
The
Amima Mundi (or world-soul )was not the Deity but a manifestation.Those
philosophers
never
conceived of the One as an animate nat re .The original One did not exist
as we
understand
the term.Not till he (it)had united with the many emanated existences (the
Monad
and
Duad),was a being produced.The ōéģéļķ(honoured ),the something manifested
dwells
in
the centre as in the circumference but it is only the reflection of the Deity
the World-Soul.
In
this doctrine we find the spirit of Esoteric Buddhism.[ Isis
Unveiled,i xviii.]
And
it is that of Esoteric Brāhminism and of the Vedāntin Adwaitis.The two modern
philosophers,
Schopenhauer
and von Hartmann teach the same ideas.The Occultists say that:
The
psychic and ectenic forces,the ideo-motor and electro-biological powers,
latent
thought
and even unconscious cerebration theories can be condensed in two words:the
Kabalistic
Astral Light.[Isis Unveiled,i 58 .]
Schopenhauer
only synthesized all this by calling it Will and contradicted the men of
Science in their
materialistic
views as von Hartmann did later on.The author of the Philosophy of the
Unconscio s calls
their
views an instinctual prejudice.
Furthermore
he demonstrates that no experimenter can have anything to do with matter
properly
so termed but only with the forces into which he divides it.The visible effects
of
matter
are but the effects of force.He concludes thereby that that which is now called
matter is
nothing
but the aggregation of atomic forces,to express which the word matter is
used;
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outside
of that for science matter is but a word void of sense.[Isis
Unveiled,i.59.]
As
much it is to be feared as those other terms with which we are now concerned
Space Nirvāna
and
so on.
The
bold theories and opinions expressed in Schopenhauer s works differ widely
from those of
the
majority of our orthodox scientists.[While they are to a great extent
identical with those of
Esoteric B ddhism the
Secret Doctrine of the East.] In reality remarks this daring
speculator
there is neither Matter nor Spirit.
Matter is Ever Giving -(Page 399)The tendency to gravitation in a stone is as unexplainable
as
thought in the human brain ...If matter can no one knows why fall to the
ground then it
can
also no one knows why think....As soon even in mechanics,as we trespass
beyond
the
purely mathematical as soon as we reach the inscrutable adhesion gravitation
and so
on
we are faced by phenomena which are to our senses as mysterious as the will and
tho ght in man :we
find ourselves facing the incomprehensible for such is every force in
nature.Where
is,then that matter which you all pretend to know so well and from which
being
so familiar with it you draw all your conclusions and explanations,and
attribute to it all
things?...That
which can be fully realized by our reason and senses is but the superficial:
they
can never reach the true inner substance of things.Such was the opinion of
Kant.If you
consider
that there is in a human head some sort of a spirit then you are obliged
to concede
the
same to a stone.If your dead and utterly-passive matter can manifest a tendency
toward
gravitation
or like electricity attract and repel and send out sparks,then as well as the
brain it
can
also think.In short every particle of the so-called spirit we can replace with
an equivalent
of
matter and every particle of matter replace with spirit ...Thus,it is not the
Christian
division
of all things into matter and spirit that can ever be found philosophically
exact;but only
if
we divide them into will and manifestation,which form of division
has naught to do with the
former
for it spiritualizes everything;all that which is in the first instance real
and objective
body
and matter it transforms into a representation and every manifestation into
will.
[Parerga,II.iii 112:quoted in Isis Unveiled.i.58 .]
The
matter of science may be for all objective purposes a dead and utterly
passive matter;to the
Occultist
not an atom of it can be dead Life is ever present in it.We send the reader
who would know
more
about it to our article Transmigration of Life-Atoms. [ Five Years
of Theosophy.p.338.et seq.]
What
we are now concerned with is the doctrine of Nirvāna.
A
system of atheism it may be justly called since it recognizes neither God nor
Gods least of all a
Creator
as it entirely rejects creation.The Fecit ex nihilo is as
incomprehensible to the Occult
metaphysical
Scientist as it is to the scientific Materialist.It is at this point that all
agreement stops
between
the two.But if such be the sin of the Buddhist and Brāhman Occultist then
Pantheists and
Atheists,and
also theistical Jews the Kabalists must also plead guilty to it;yet no one
would ever
think
of calling the Hebrews of the Kabalah Atheists.Except the Talmudistic and
Christian exoteric
systems
there never was a religious Philosophy whether in the ancient or modern world
but rejected a
priori the ex
nihilo hypothesis,simply because Matter was always co-eternalized with
Spirit.
Page
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(Page 400)Nirvāna as well as the Moksha of the Vedāntins,is regarded
by most of the Orientalists as a
synonym
of annihilation;yet no more glaring injustice could be done and this capital
error must be
pointed
out and disproved.On this most important tenet of the Brāhmo-Buddhistic system
the Alpha
and
Omega of Being or Non-Being rests the whole edifice of Occult
Metaphysics.Now the
rectification
of the great error concerning Nirvāna may be very easily accomplished with
relation to the
philosophically
inclined to those who
In
the glass of things temporal see the image of things spiritual.
On
the other hand to that reader who could never soar beyond the details of
tangible material form our
explanation
will appear meaningless.He may comprehend and even accept the logical
inferences from
the
reasons given the true spirit will ever escape his intuitions.The word nihil
having been
misconceived
from the first it is continually used as a sledge-hammer in the matter of
Esoteric
Philosophy.Nevertheless
it is the duty of the Occultist to try and explain it.
Nirvāna
and Moksha then as said before have their being in non-being if such a paradox
be permitted
to
illustrate the meaning the better.Nirvāna as some illustrious Orientalists have
attempted to prove
does
mean the blowing-out [Prof.Max Mūller in a letter to The Times (April.1857),maintained
most
vehemently
that Nirvāna 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 Nirvāna
means annihiliation.
(Trubner
s Amer-and Oriental Lit.Rec .Oct.16 th 1869.)] of all sentient existence.It
is like the flame of a
candle
burnt out to its last atom and then suddenly extinguished.Quite
so.Nevertheless,as the old
Arhat
Nāgasena affirmed before the king who taunted him:Nirvāna is and
Nirvāna is eternal.But the
Orientalists
deny this,and say it is not so.In their opinion Nirvāna is not a re-absorption
in the Universal
Force
not eternal bliss and rest but it means literally the blowing-out the
extinction complete
annihilation
and not absorption.The Lankāvatāra quoted in support of their arguments
by some
Sanskritists,and
which gives the different interpretations of Nirvāna by the Tīrthika
Brāhmans,is no
authority
to one who goes to primeval sources for information namely to the Buddha who
taught the
doctrine.As
well quote the Chārvāka Materialists in their support.
Blind Faith Not Expected -(Page 401)If we bring as an argument the sacred Jaina books,wherein
the
dying
Gautama Buddha is thus addressed:Arise into Nirvi [Nirvāna ] from
this decrepit body into which
thou
hast been sent....Ascend into thy former abode O blessed Avatāra;and if we add
that this
seems
to us the very opposite of nihilism we may be told that so far it may only
prove a contradiction
one
more discrepancy in the Buddhist faith.If again we remind the reader that since
Gautama is believed
to
appear occasionally re-descending from his former abode for the good of
humanity and His faithful
congregation
thus making it incontestable that Buddhism does not teach final annihilation we
shall be
referred
to authorities to whom such teaching is ascribed.And let us say at once:Men are
no authority
for
us in questions of conscience nor ought they to be for anyone else.If anyone
holds to Buddha s
Philosophy
let him do and say as Buddha did and said;if a man calls himself a Christian
let him follow
the
commandments of Christ not the interpretations of His many dissenting priests
and sects.
In
A B ddhist Catechism the question is asked:
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Are
there any dogmas in Buddhism which we are required to accept on faith?
A.No.We
are earnestly enjoined to accept nothing whatsoever on faith whether it be
written
in
books,handed down from our ancestors,or taught by sages.Our Lord Buddha has
said
that
we must not believe in a thing said merely because it is said;nor traditions
because they
have
been handed down from antiquity;nor rumours,as such;nor writings by
sages,because
sages
wrote them;nor fancies that we may suspect to have been inspired in us by a
Deva
(that
is,in presumed spiritual inspiration);nor from inferences drawn from some
haphazard
assumption
we may have made;nor because of what seems an analogical necessity;nor on
the
mere authority of our teachers of masters.But we are to believe when the
writing doctrine
or
saying is corroborated by our own reason and consciousness.For this,says he
in
concluding
I taught you not to believe merely because you have heard but when you
believed
of your consciousness,then to act accordingly and abundantly.[See the Kalama
S tta of the Ang
ttaranikayo,as quoted in A B ddhist Catechism by H.S.Olcott
President of
the
Theosophical Society.pp.55.56 .]
That
Nirvāna or rather that state in which we are in Nirvāna is quite the reverse of
annihilation is
suggested
to us by our reason and consciousness, and that is sufficient for us
personally.At the same
time
this fact being inadequate and very ill-adapted for the general reader
something more efficient may
be
added.
(Page 402)Without resorting to sources unsympathetic to Occultism the
Kabalah furnishes us with the
most
luminous and clear proofs that the term nihil in the minds of the Ancient
Philosophers had a
meaning
quite different from that it has now received at the hands of Materialists.It
means certainly
nothing
or no-thing. F.Kircher in his work on the Kabalah and the Egyptian
Mysteries [dip s
Ęgypt.,II.I 291.] explains
the term admirably.He tells his readers that in the Zohar the first of
the
Sephiroth
[Sephir or Aditi (mystic Space).The Sephiroth be it understood are
identical with the Hindu
Prajāpatis,the
Dhyān Chohans of Esoteric Buddhism the Zoroastrian Amshaspends,and finally with
the
Elohim
the Seven Angels of the Presence of the Roman Catholic Church.] has a
name the
significance
of which is the Infinite,but which was translated indifferently by the
Kabalists as Ens and
Non-Ens
(Being and Non-Being );a Being inasmuch as it is the root and
source of all other beings;
Non-Being because Ain
Soph the Boundless and the Causeless,the Unconscious and the Passive
Principle
resembles nought else in the Universe.
The
author adds:
This
is the reason why St.Denys did not hesitate to call it Nihil.
Nihil
therefore stands even with some Christian theologians and thinkers,especially
with the earlier
ones
who lived but a few removes from the profound Philosophy of the initiated
Pagans as a synonym
for
the impersonal divine Principle the Infinite All which is no Being or thing
the En or Ain Soph the
Parabrahman
of the Vedānta.Now St.Denys was a pupil of St.Paul an Initiate and this fact
makes
everything
clear.
The
Nihil is in esse the Absolute Deity itself the hidden Power or
Omnipresence degraded by
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Monotheism
into an anthropomorphic Being with all the passions of a mortal on a grand
scale.Union
with
That is not annihilation in the sense understood in Europe.[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.]In
the East annihilation in
Nirvāna
refers but to matter:that of the visible as well as the invisible body for the
astral body the
personal
double is still matter however sublimated.Buddha taught that the primitive
Substance is
eternal
and unchangeable.Its vehicle is the pure liminous ether the boundless,infinite
Space.
Not
a void resulting from the absence of forms,but on the contrary the foundations
of all
forms
....
What Annihilation Means -(Page 403)[This ]denotes it to be the creation of Māyā all the
works
of which are as nothing before the uncreated Form [Spirit ] ,in
whose profound and
sacred
depths all motion must cease for ever.[Isis Unveiled .i 289.]
Motion
here refers only to illusive objects to their change as opposed to perpetuity
rest perpetual
motion
being the Eternal Law the ceaseless Breath of the Absolute.
The
mastery of Buddhistic dogmas can be attained only according to the Platonic
method :from
universals
to particulars.The key to it lies in the refined and mystical tenets of
spiritual influx and divine
life.
Saith
Buddha:
Whosoever is nacq ainted with my Law,[The Secret Law the
Doctrine of the Heart so called in
contrast
to the Doctrine of the Eye. or exoteric Buddhism.] and dies in that
state must ret rn to earth
ntil he becomes a perfect Samano [ascetic ].To achieve this
object he must destroy within himself the
trinity of Māyā.[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.] He m
st exting ish his passions,
nite and identify himself with the Law [the teaching
of the Secret Doctrine ],and comprehend the
philosophy of annihilation.[Isis Unveiled .i.289.]
No
it is not in the dead-letter of Buddhistical literature that scholars may ever
hope to find the true
solution
of its metaphysical subtleties.Alone in all antiquity the Pythagoreans
understood them perfectly
and
it is on the (to the average Orientalist and the Materialist)incomprehensible
abstractions of
Buddhism
that Pythagoras grounded the principal tenets of his Philosophy.
Annihilation
means with the Buddhistical Philosophy only a dispersion of matter in whatever
form or
semblance of form it
may be for everything that bears a shape was created and thus must sooner or
later
perish i.e.,change that shape;therefore as something temporal though
seeming to be permanent
it
is but an illusion Māyā;for as eternity has neither beginning nor end the more
or less prolonged
duration
of some particular form passes,as it were like an instantaneous flash of
lightning.Before we
have
the time to realize that we have seen it it is gone and passed for ever;hence
even our astral
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bodies,pure
ether are but illusions of matter so long as they retain their terrestrial
outline.The latter
changes,says
the Buddhist according to the merits or demerits of the person during his
lifetime and this
is
(Page 404)metempsychosis.When the spiritual Entity breaks loose for
ever from every particle of
matter
then only it enters upon the eternal and unchangeable Nirvāna.He exists in
Spirit in nothing;as
a
form a shape a semblance he is completely annihilated and thus will die no more
for Spirit alone is
no
Māyā but the only Reality in an illusionary universe of ever-passing forms.
It
is upon this Buddhist doctrine that the Pythagoreans grounded the principal
tenets of their
philosophy.Can
that Spirit which gives life and motion and partakes of the nature of light be
reduced
to nonentity? they ask.Can that sensitive Spirit in brutes which exercises
memory
one
of the rational faculties,die and become nothing?And Whitelock Bulstrode in
his able
defence
of Pythagoras expounds this doctrine by adding:
If
you say they [the brutes ] breathe their Spirits into the air and
there vanish that is all that I
contend
for.The air indeed is the proper place to receive them being according to
Laertius full
of
souls;and according to Epicurus full of atoms,the principles of all things;for
even this place
wherein
we walk and birds fly has so much of a spiritual nature that it is invisible
and therefore
may
well be the receiver of forms,since the forms of all bodies are so;we can only
see and
hear
its effects;the air itself is too fine and above the capacity of the age.What
then is the
ether
to the region above and what are the influences of forms that descend from
thence?
The
Spirits of creatures,the Pythagoreans hold who are emanations of the
most sublimated
portions
of ether emanations,breaths,b t not forms.Ether is corruptible all
philosophers
agree
in that:and what is incorruptible is so far from being annihilated when
it gets rid of the
form that it lays a
good claim to immortality.
But
what is that which has no body no form;which is imponderable invisible
and indivisible
that
which exists,and yet is not ?ask the Buddhists.It is Nirvāna is the
answer.It is
nothing not a region
but rather a state.[Isis Unveiled.i.290.]
Page
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SECTION XLVII
The Secret Books of Lam-Rin and Dzyan
(Page 405)THE Book of Dzyan from the Sanskrit word Dhyān
(mystic meditation)is the first volume
of
the Commentaries upon the seven secret folios of Kiu-te and a Glossary of the
public works of the
same
name.Thirty-five volumes of Kiu-te for exoteric purposes and the use of the
laymen may be found
in
the possession of the Tibetan Gelugpa Lamas,in the library of any monastery;and
also fourteen
books
of Commentaries and Annotations on the same by the initiated Teachers.
Strictly
speaking those thirty-five books ought to be termed The Popularized Version
of the Secret
Doctrine
full of myths,blinds,and errors;the fourteen volumes of Commentaries,on
the other hand
with
their translations,annotations,and an ample glossary of occult terms,worked out
from one small
archaic
folio the Book of the Secret Wisdom of the World [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.]contain a digest of all the Occult
Sciences.These it appears,are kept secret
and
apart in the charge of the Teshu Lama of Tji-gad-je.The Books of Kiu-te are
comparatively modern
having
been edited within the last millennium whereas the earliest volumes of the Commentaries
are of
untold
antiquity some fragments of the original cylinders having been preserved.With
the exception that
they
explain and correct some of the too fabulous,and to every appearance grossly
exaggerated
accounts
in the Books of Kiu-tet [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
Himālayan
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
of Seat of the Brothers ] the residence of Mahā-Chohan .. etc.This is
the real meaning.The
Hopahma
of Della Penna is the Mahā-Chohan the Chief.]properly so called the
Commentaries
have
little to do with these.They stand in relation to them (Page 406)as the Chaldęo-Jewish Kabalah
stands
to the Mosaic Books.In the work known as the Avat msaka Sūtra,in
section:The Supreme
Ćtman
[ Soul ] as manifested in the character of the Arhats and
Pratyeka Buddhas,it is stated that:
Because
from the beginning all sentient creatures have confused the truth and embraced
the
false
therefore there came into existence a hidden knowledge called Alaya Vijńāna.
Who
is in possession of the true knowledge?is asked.The great Teachers of the
Snowy Mountain is
the
response.
These
great Teachers have been known to live in the Snowy Range of the
Himālayas for countless
Page
321.
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ages.To
deny in the face of millions of Hindus the existence of their great
Gurus,living in the Ćshrams
scattered
all over the Trans-or the Cis-Himālayan slopes is to make oneself ridiculous in
their eyes.
When
the Buddhist Saviour appeared in India their Ćshrams for it is rarely that
these great Men are
found
in Lamaseries,unless on a short visit were on the spots they now occupy and
that even before
the
Brāhmans themselves came from Central Asia to settle on the Indus.And before
that more than one
Ćryan
Dvija of fame and historical renown had sat at their feet learning that which
culminated later on in
one
or another of the great philosophical schools.Most of these Himālayan Bhante
were Aryan
Brāhmans
and ascetics.
No
student unless very advanced would be benefited by the perusal of those
exoteric volumes.[ 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 heritage.The Egyptian enchorial or hieractic system
is child s play to
our
sacerdotal puzzles.] They must be read with a key to their meaning and
that key can only be found
in
the Commentaries .Moreover there are some comparatively modern works
that are positively injurious
so
far as fair comprehension of even exoteric Buddhism is concerned.Such are the B
ddhist Cosmos,
by
Bonze Jin-ch on of Pekin;the Shing-Ta -ki (or The Records of the
Enlightenment of Tathāgata ),by
Wang
Puk seventh century;Hisai Sūtra (or Book of Creation ),and some
others.
Page
322.
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SECTION XLVIII
Amita Buddha Kwan-Shai-Yin and Kwan-Yin
What the Book of Dzyan and the
Lamaseries of Tsong-Kha-Pa Say
(Page 407)AS a supplement to the Commentaries there are many
secret folios on the lives of the
Bhuddhas
and Bodhisattvas,and among these there is one on Prince Gautama and another on
His
reincarnation
in Tsong-Kha-pa.This great Tibetan Reformer of the fourteenth century said to
be a direct
incarnation
of Amita Buddha is the founder of the secret School near Tji-gad-je attached to
the private
retreat
of the Teshu Lama.It is with Him that began the regular system of Lamaic
incarnations of
Buddhas
(Sang-gyas),or of Shākya-Thub-pa (Shakyamuni).Amida or Amita Buddha is called
by the
author
of Chinese B ddhism,a mythical being.He speaks of
Amida
Buddha (Ami-to Fo )a fabulous personage worshipped assiduously like
Kwan-yin
by
the Northern Buddhists,but unknown in Siam Burmah and Ceylon.[Chinese
B ddhism .
p.171.]
Very
likely.Yet Amida Buddha is not a fabulous personage since (a )Amida
is the Senzar form of Ćdi
;Ćdi-Buddhi
and Ćdi-Buddha [Buddhi is a Sanskrit term for discrimination or
intellect (the sixth
principle),and
Buddha is wise wisdom and also the planet Mercury.] as already
shown existed
ages
ago as a Sanskrit term for Primeval Soul and Wisdom ;and (b )the
name was applied to
Gautama
Shākyamuni the last Buddha in India from the seventh century when Buddhism was
introduced
into Tibet.Amitābha (in Chinese Wu-lian-sheu )means literally Boundless
Age a (Page
408)synonym
of En or Ain-Suph the Ancient of Days and is an epithet that connects
Him directly
with
the Boundless Ādi-Buddhi (primeval and Universal Soul)of the Hindus,as well as
with the Anima
Mundi
of all the ancient nations of Europe and the Boundless and Infinite of the
Kabalists.If Amitābha be
a
fiction of the Tibetans,or a new form of Wu-liang-sheu a fabulous personage
as the author-compiler
of
Chinese B ddhism tells his readers,then the fable must be a very
ancient one.For on another page
he
says himself that the addition to the canon of the books containing the Legends
of Kwan-yin and of
the
Western heaven with its Buddha Amitābha was also previous to the Council of
Kashmere a little
before
the beginning of our era [This curious contradiction may be found in Chinese
B ddhism .pp.171.
273.The
reverend author assures his readers that to the philosophic Buddhists
...Amitābha 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 .]
and
he places
the
origin of the primitive Buddhist books which are common to the Northern and
Southern Buddhists
before
246.B.C.
Since
Tibetans accepted Buddhism only in the seventh century A.D.how comes it that
they are charged
with
inventing Amita-Buddha?Besides which in Tibet Amitābha is called Odpag-med
which shows that it
is
not the name but the abstract idea that was first accepted of an unknown
invisible and Impersonal
Page
323.
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Power
taken moreover from the Hindu Adi-Buddhi and not from the Chinese
Amitābha. [The
Chinese
Amitābha (Wu-liang-sheu)and the Tibetan Amitābha (Odpag-med)have now become
personal
Gods,ruling
over and living in the celestial region of Sukhāvati or Tushita
(Tibetan:Devachan):while Ądi-
Buddhi
of the philosophic Hindu and Amita Buddha of the philosophic Chinaman and
Tibetan are
names
for universal primeval ideas.] There is a great difference between the
popular Odpag-med
(Amitābha)who
sits enthroned in Devachan (Sukhāvati),according to the Mani Kamb m Scriptures
the
oldest
historical work in Tibet and the philosophical abstraction called Amita
Buddha the name being
passed
now to the earthly Buddha Gautama.
Page
324.
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SECTION XLIX
Tsong-Kha-Pa Lohans in China
(Page 409)IN an article Reincarnation in Tibet everything that
could be said about Tsong-Kha-pa was
published.[See
The Theosophist for March 1882.] It was stated that this reformer
was not as is alleged
by
Pārsi scholars,an incarnation of one of the celestial Dhyānis,or the five
heavenly Buddhas,said to
have
been created by Shākyamuni after he has risen to Nirvāna but that he was an
incarnation of Amita
Buddha
Himself.The records preserved in the Gon-pa the chief Lamasery of
Tda-shi-Hlumpo show that
Sang-gyas
left the regions of the Western Paradise to incarnate Himself in Tsong-Kha-pa
in
consequence
of the great degradation into which His secret doctrines had fallen.
Whenever
made too public,the Good Law of Cheu [magical powers ] fell
invariably into
sorcery
or black magic.The Dwijas,the Hoshang [Chinese monks ] and the
Lamas could
alone
be entrusted safely with the formulę.
Until
the Tsong-Kha-pa period there had been no Sang-gyas (Buddha)incarnations in
Tibet.
Tsong-Kha-pa
gave the signs whereby the presence of one of the twenty-five Bodhisattvas [The
intimate
relation
of the twenty-five Buddhas (Bodhisattvas)with the twenty-five Tattvas (the
Conditioned or
Limited)of
the Hindus is interesting.] or of the Celestial Buddhas (Dhyān
Chohans)in a human body
might
be recognized and He strictly forbade necromancy.This led to a split amongst
the Lamas,and the
malcontents
allied themselves with the aboriginal Bhons against the reformed Lamaism.Even
now they
form
a powerful sect practising the most disgusting rites all over Sikkhim Bhutan
Nepaul and even on
the
borderlands of Tibet.It was worse then.With the permission of the Tda-shu or
Teshu Lama [ It is
curious
to note the great importance given by European Orientalists to the Dalai Lamas
of Lhasa and
their
utter ignorance as to the Tda-shu (or Teshu)Lamas,while it is the latter who
began the hierarchical
series
of Buddhi-incarnations,and are de facto the popes in Tibet:the Dalai
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.] some hundred Lohans
(Arhats)to avert strife
(Page 410)went to settle in China in the famous monastery near Tien-t
-ai where they soon became
subjects
for legendary lore and continue to be so to this day.They had been already
preceded by other
Lohans.
The
world-famous disciples of Tathāgata called the sweet-voiced on account of
their ability
to
chant the Mantras with magical effect.[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 formulae 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 Vāch (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.)]
Page
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The
first ones came from Kashmir in the year 3 000 lf Kali Yuga (about a century
before the Christian
era).[The
celebrated Lohan Mādhyantika 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-Tsang 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.] while the last ones arrived
at the end of the
fourteenth
century 1 500 years later;and finding no room for themselves at the lamasery of
Yihigching
they
built for their own use the largest monastery of all on the sacred island of
Pu-to (Buddha or Put in
Chinese),in
the province of Chusan.There the Good Law the Doctrine of the Heart
flourished for
several
centuries.But when the island was desecrated by a mass of Western
foreigners,the chief
Lohans
left for the mountains of ----------------.In the Pagoda of Pi-yun-ti near
Pekin one can still see the
Hall
of the Five-hundred Lohans.There the statues of the first-comers are arranged
below while one
solitary
Lohan is placed quite under the roof of the building which seems to have been
built in
commemoration
of their visit.
The
works of the Orientalists are full of the direct landmarks of Arhats
(Adepts),possessed of
thaumaturgic
powers but these are spoken of whenever the subject cannot be avoided with
unconcealed
scorn.Whether innocently ignorant of or purposely ignoring the importance of
the Occult
element
and symbology in the various Religions they undertake to explain short work is
generally made
of
such passages,and they are left untranslated.In simple justice however it
should be allowed that
much
as all such miracles may have been exaggerated by popular reverence and fancy
they are neither
less
credible nor less attested in heathen annals than are those of the numerous
Christian Saints in the
church
chronicles.Both have an equal right to a place in their respective histories.
The Lost Word -(Page 411)If after the
beginning of persecution against Buddhism the Arhats were no
more
heard of in India it was because their vows prohibiting retaliation they had to
leave the country
and
seek solitude and security in China Tibet Japan and elsewhere.The sacerdotal
powers of the
Brāhmans
being at that time unlimited the Simons and Apolloniuses of Buddhism had as
much chance
of
recognition and appreciation by the Brāhmanical Irenęuses and Tertullians as
had their successors in
the
Judęan and Roman worlds.It was a historical rehearsal of the dramas that were
enacted centuries
later
in Christendom.As in the case of the so-called Heresiarchs of Christianity it
was not for rejecting
the
Vedas or the sacred Syllable that the Buddhist Arhats were persecuted
but for understanding too
well
the secret meaning of both.It was simply because their knowledge was regarded
as dangerous and
their
presence in India unwelcome that they had to emigrate.
Nor
were there a smaller number of Initiates among the Brāhmans themselves.Even
today one meets
most
wonderfully-gifted Sāddhus and Yogīs,obliged to keep themselves unnoticed and
in the shadow
not
only owing to the absolute secresy imposed upon them at their Initiation but
also for fear of the Anglo-
Indian
tribunals and courts of law wherein judges are determined to regard as
charlatanry imposition
and
fraud the exhibition of or claim to any abnormal powers and one may judge of
the past by the
present.Centuries
after our era the Initiates of the inner temples and the Mathams (monastic
communities)chose
a superior council presided over by an all-powerful Brahm-Ćtmā the Supreme
Chief
of
all those Mahātmās.This pontificate could be exercised only by a Brāhman who
had reached a certain
age
and he it was who was the sole guardian of the mystic formula and he was the
Hierophant who
created
great Adepts.He alone could explain the meaning of the sacred word AUM,and of
all the
Page
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religious
symbols and rites.And whosoever among those Initiates of the Supreme Degree
revealed to a
profane
a single one of the truths,even the smallest of the secrets entrusted to him
had to die;and he
who
received the confidence was put to death.
But
there existed and still exists to this day a Word far surpassing the mysterious
monosyllable and
which
renders him who comes into possession of its key nearly the equal of
Brahman.The Brahmātmās
alone
possess this key and we know that to this day there are two (Page 412)great Initiates in Southern
India
who possess it.It can be passed only at death for it is the Lost Word.No
torture no human
power
could force its disclosure by a Brāhman who knows it;and it is well guarded in
Tibet.
Yet
this secresy and this profound mystery are indeed disheartening since they
alone the Initiates of
India
and Tibet could thoroughly dissipate the thick mists hanging over the history
of Occultism and
force
its claims to be recognized.The Delphic injunction Know thyself, seems
for the few in this age.
But
the fault ought not to be laid at the door of the Adepts,who have done all that
could be done and
have
gone as far as Their rules permitted to open the eyes of the world.Only while
the European
shrinks
from public obloquy and the ridicule unsparingly thrown on Occultists,the
Asiatic is being
discouraged
by his own Pandits.These profess to labour under the gloomy impression that no
Bīga
Vidyā
no Arhatship (Adeptship),is possible during the Kali Yuga (the Black Age )we
are now passing
through.Even
the Buddhists are taught that the Lord Buddha is alleged to have prophesied that
the
power
would die out in one millennium after His death. But this is an entire
mistake.In the Dīgha
Nikāya the Buddha
says:
Hear
Subhadra!The world will never be without Rahats,if the ascetics in my
congregations
well
and truly keep my precepts.
A
similar contradiction of the view brought forward by the Brāhmans is made by
Krishna in the Bhagavad
Gītā,and there is
further the actual appearance of many Sāddhus and miracle-workers in the past
and
even
in the present age.The same holds good for China and Tibet.Among the
commandments of Tsong-
Kha-pa
there is one that enjoins the Rahats (Arhats)to make an attempt to enlighten
the world including
the
white barbarians,every century at a certain specified period of the cycle.Up
to the present day
none
of these attempts has been very successful.Failure has followed failure.Have we
to explain the
fact
by the light of a certain prophecy?It is said that up to the time when
Phan-chhen-rin-po-chhe (the
Great
Jewel of Wisdom)[A title of the Tda-shu-Illum-po Lama.] condescends
to be reborn in the land of
the
P helings (Westerners),and appearing as the Spiritual Conqueror
(Chom-den-da),destroys the
errors
and ignorance of the ages,it will be of little use to try to uproot the
misconceptions of P heling-pa
(Europe):her
sons will listen to no one.
Tibetan Prophecies -(Page 413)Another
prophecy declares that the Secret Doctrine shall remain in all its
purity
in Bhod-yul (Tibet)only to the day that it is kept free from foreign
invasion.The very visits of
Western
natives,however friendly would be baneful to the Tibetan populations.This is
the true key to
Tibetan
exclusiveness.
Page
327.
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SECTION L
A Few More Misconceptions Corrected
(Page 414)NOTWITHSTANDING widespread misconceptions and errors often
most amusing to one who
has
certain knowledge of the true doctrines about Buddhism generally and
especially about Buddhism
in
Tibet all the Orientalists agree that the Buddha s foremost aim was to lead
human beings to salvation
by
teaching them to practise the greatest purity and virtue and by detaching them
from the service of this
illusionary
world and the love of one s still more illusionary because so evanescent and
unreal body
and
physical self.And what is the good of a virtuous life full of privations and
suffering if the only result
of
it is to be annihilation at the end?If even the attainment of that supreme
perfection which leads the
Initiate
to remember the whole series of his past lives,and to foresee that of the future
ones,by the full
development
of that inner divine eye in him and to acquire the knowledge that unfolds the
causes [The
twelve
Nidānas,called in Tibetan Tin-bred Chug-nyi which are based upon the Four
Truths.] of the
ever-recurring
cycles of existence brings him finally to non-being and nothing more then the
whole
system
is idiotic,and Epicureanism is far more philosophical than such Buddhism.He
who is unable to
comprehend
the subtle and yet so potent difference between existence in a material or
physical state
and
a purely spiritual existence Spirit or Soul-life will never appreciate at
their full value the grand
teachings
of the Buddha even in their exoteric form.Individual or personal existence is
the cause of
pains
and sorrows;collective and impersonal life-eternal is full of divine bliss and
joy for ever with neither
causes
nor effects to darken its light.And the hope for such a life-eternal is the
keynote of the whole of
Buddhism.If
we are told that impersonal existence is no existence at all but amounts to
annihilation as
was
maintained by some French reincarnationists,then we would ask:
Misrepresentations of Buddhism -(Page 415)What difference can
it make in the spiritual perceptions of
an
Ego whether he enter Nirvāna loaded with recollections only of his own personal
lives tens of
thousands
according to the modern reincarnationists or whether merged entirely in the
Parabrāhmic
state
it becomes one with the All with the absolute knowledge and the absolute
feeling of representing
collective
humanities?Once that an Ego lives only ten distinct individual lives he must
necessarily lose
his
one self and become mixed up merged so to say with these ten selves.It really
seems that so
long
as this great mystery remains a dead letter to the world of Western
thinkers,and especially to the
Orientalists,the
less the latter undertake to explain it the better for Truth.
Of
all the existing religious Philosophies,Buddhism is the least understood.The Lassens,Webers,
Wassiljows
the Burnoufs and Juliens,and even such eye-witnesses of Tibetan Buddhism as
Csoma de
Köros
and the Schlagintweits,have hitherto only added perplexity to confusion.None of
these has ever
received
his information from a genuine Gelugpa source:all have judged Buddhism from the
bits of
knowledge
picked up at Tibetan frontier lamaseries,in countries thickly populated by
Bhutanese and
Leptchas,Bhons,and
red-capped Dugpas,along the line of the Himālayas.Hundreds of volumes
purchased
from Burats,Shamans,and Chinese Buddhists,have been read and translated glossed
and
misinterpreted
according to invariable custom.Esoteric Schools would cease to be worthy of
their name
were
their literature and doctrines to become the property of even their profane
co-religionists still less
of
the Western public.This is simple common-sense and logic.Nevertheless this is a
fact which our
Orientalists
have ever refused to recognize:hence they have gone on gravely discussing the
relative
merits
and absurdities of idols,soothsaying tables, and magical figures of Phurbu
on the square
tortoise.
None of these have anything to do with the real philosophical Buddhism of the
Gelugpa or
even
of the most educated among the Sakyapa and Kadampa sects.All such plates and
sacrificial
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tables,Chinsreg
magical circles,etc.were avowedly got from Sikkhim Bhutan and Eastern Tibet
from
Bhons
and Dugpas.Nevertheless,these are given as characteristics of Tibetan
Buddhism!It would be as
fair
to judge the unread Philosophy of Bishop Berkeley after studying Christianity
in the clown-worship of
Neapolitan
lazzaroni dancing a mystic jig before the idol of St.Pip or carrying the ex-voto
in wax of the
phallus
of SS Cosmo and Domiano at Tsernie.
(Page 416)It is quite true that the primitive Shrāvakas (listeners or
hearers)and the Shramanas (the
thought-restrainers
and the pure )have degenerated and that many Buddhist sects have fallen into
mere
dogmatism and ritualism.Like every other Esoteric,half-suppressed teaching the
words of the
Buddha
convey a double meaning and every sect has gradually come to claim to be the
only one
knowing
the correct meaning and thus to assume supremacy over the rest.Schism has crept
in and has
fastened
like a hideous cancer on the fair body of early Buddhism.Nāgārjuna s Mahāyāna
(Great
Vehicle
)School was opposed by the Hīnayāna (or Little Vehicle )System and even the
Yogāchārya of
Ćryāsanga
became disfigured by the yearly pilgrimage from India to the shores of
Mansarovara of hosts
of
vagabonds with matted locks who play at being Yogis and Fakirs,preferring this
to work.An affected
detestation
of the world and the tedious and useless practice of the counting of
inhalations and
exhalations
as a means to produce absolute tranquillity of mind or meditation have brought
this school
within
the region of Hatha Yoga and have made it heir to the Brāhmanical Tīrthikas.And
though its
Srotāpatti
its Sakridāgāmin Anāgāmin and Arhats,[The Scrotāpatti is one who has
attained the first
Path
of comprehension in the real and the unreal:the Sakridāgāmin is the candidate
for one of the higher
Initiations:one
who is to receive birth once more the Anāgāmin is he who has attained the
third path
or
literally he who will not be reborn again nless he so wishes it,having
the options 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 higher Path:he may merge into
Nirvāna at will
while
here on earth.] bear the same names in almost every school yet the
doctrines of each differ
greatly
and none of these is likely to gain real Abhijńās (the supernatural abnormal
five powers).
One
of the chief mistakes of the Orientalists when judging on internal (?)evidence
as they express it
was
that they assumed that the Pratyeka Buddhas,the Bodhisattvas and the Perfect
Buddhas were a
later
development of Buddhism.For on these three chief degrees are based the seven
and twelve
degrees
of the Hierarchy of Adeptship.The first are those who have attained the Bodhi
(wisdom)of the
Buddhas,but
do not become Teachers.[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.]
The
human Bodhisattvas are candidates,so to say for perfect Buddhaship (in Kalpas
to come),and with
the
option of using their powers now if need be.
A Mysterious Land -(Page 417)Perfect
Buddhas are simply perfect Initiates.All these are men and
not
disembodied Beings,as is given out in the Hinayāna exoteric books.Their correct
character may be
found
only in the secret volumes of Lugrub or Nāgārjuna the founder of the Mahāyāna
system who is
said
to have been initiated by the Nāgas (fabulous Serpents, the veiled name for
an Initiate or
Mahātmā).The
fabled report found in Chinese records that Nāgārjuna considered his doctrine
to be in
opposition
to that of Gautama Buddha until he discovered from the Nāgas that it was
precisely the
doctrine
that had been secretly taught by Shākyamuni Himself is an allegory and is based
upon the
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reconciliation
between the old Brāhmanical secret Schools in the Himālayas and Gautama s
Esoteric
teachings,both
parties having at first objected to the rival schools of the other.The former
the parent of
all
others,had been established beyond the Himālayas for ages before the appearance
of Shākyamuni.
Gautama
was a pupil of this;and it was with them those Indian Sages,that He has learned
the truths of
the
Sungata the emptiness and impermanence of every terrestrial evanescent thing
and the mysteries
of
Prajńā Pāramitā or knowledge across the River which finally lands the
Perfect One in the regions
of
the One Reality.But His Arhats were not Himself.Some of them were ambitious,and
they modified
certain
teachings after the great councils,and it is on account of these heretics
that the Mother-School
at
first refused to allow them to blend their schools,when persecution began
driving away the Esoteric
Brotherhood
from India.But when finally most of them submitted to the guidance and control
of the chief
Ćshrams,then
the Yogāchārya of Ćryāsanga was merged into the oldest Lodge.For it is there
from time
immemorial
that has lain concealed the final hope and light of the world the salvation of
mankind.Many
are
the names of that School and land the name of the latter being now regarded by
the Orientalists as
the
mythic name of a fabulous country.It is from this mysterious land
nevertheless,that the Hindu
expects
his Kalki Avatāra the Buddhist his Maitreya the Pārsī his Sosiosh and the Jew
his Messiah
and
so would the Christian expect thence his Christ if he only knew of it.
There
and there alone reigns Paranishpanna (Gunggrub),the absolutely perfect
comprehension of
Being
and Non-Being the changeless true Existence in Spirit even while the latter is
seemingly still in
the
body every inhabitant thereof being a Non-Ego because he has become the Perfect
Ego.Their
voidness
is self-existent and perfect (Page 418)if there were
profane eyes to sense and perceive it
because
it has become absolute;the unreal being transformed into conditionless Reality
and the realities
of
this,our world having vanished in their own nature into thin
(non-existing)air.The Absolute Truth
(Dondam-pay-den-pa;Sanskrit:Parmārthasatya)having
conquered relative truth (Kunza-bchi-den-pa;
Sanskrit:Samvritisatya),the
inhabitants of the mysterious region are thus supposed to have reached the
state
called in mystic phraseology Svasamvedanā (self-analyzing reflection )and
Paramārtha or that
absolute
consciousness of the personal merged into the impersonal Ego which is above all
hence
above
illusion in every sense.Its Perfect Buddhas and Bodhisattvas may be on every
nimble Buddhist
tongue
as celestial therefore unreachable Beings,while these names may suggest and
say nothing to
the
dull perceptions of the European profane.What matters it to Those who being in
this world yet live
outside
and far beyond our illusive earth!Above Them there is but one class of
Nirvānīs,namely the
Chos-ku
(Dharmakāya),or the Nirvānīs without remains the pure Arūpa the formless
Breaths.[ It is
an
erroneous idea which makes the Orientalists take literally the teaching of the
Mahāyāna School about
the
three different kinds of bodies,namely the Prulpa-ku the Longehod-dzocpaig-ku
and the Chos-ku
as
all pertaining to the Nirvānic condition.There are two kinds of Nirvāna: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
Pāramitās,or Paths of
Buddha.Once
He enters upon the seventh He can return no more to earth.See Cosma Jo
r.As.Soc.
Beng.,vii.142:and
Schott B ddhism s,p.9 who give it otherwise.]
Thence
emerge occasionally the Bodhisattvas in their Prul-pai-ka (or Nirmānakāya)body
and assuming
an
ordinary appearance they teach men.There are conscious,as well as
unconscious,incarnations.
Most
of the doctrines contained in the Yogāchārya or Mahāyāna systems are
Esoteric,like the rest.One
day
the profane Hindu and Buddhist may begin to pick the Bible to
pieces,taking it literally.Education is
fast
spreading in Asia and already there have been made some attempts in this
direction so that the
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tables
may then be cruelly turned on the Christians.Whatever conclusions the two may
arrive at they will
never
be half as absurd and unjust as some of the theories launched by Christians
against their
respective
Philosophies.Thus,according to Spence Hardy at death the Arhat enters Nirvāna:
That
is,he ceases to exist.
And
agreeably to Major Jacob the Jīvanmukta
Absorbed
into Brahma enters upon an unconscious and stonelike existence.[Vedānta
Sāra,
translated
by Major Jacob p.119.]
Absurd Conclusions -(Page 419)Shankarāchārya
is shown as saying in his prolegomena to the
Shvetāshvatara :
Gnosis,once
arisen requires nothing farther for the realization of its result:it needs subsidia
only
that it may arise.
The
Theosophist it has been argued as long as he lives,may do good and evil as he
chooses and incur
no
stain such is the efficacy of gnosis.And it is further alleged that the
doctrine of Nirvāna lends itself to
immoral
inferences,and that the Quietists of all ages have been taxed with immortality.[Ibid.p.122.]
According
to Wassilyew [Der B ddhism s,pp.327 357 et seq.,quoted by
Schlagintweit.] and Csoma
de
Köros,[B ddhism in Tibet,p.41.] the Prasanga School
adopted a peculiar mode of
Deducing
the absurdity and erroneousness of every esoteric opinion.[Jo r of
As.Soc.
Bengal,vii 144 quoted
as above.]
Correct
interpretations of Buddhist Philosophy are crowned by that gloss on a thesis
from the Prasanga
School
that
Even
an Arhat goes to hell in case he doubt anything [B ddhism in Tibet,p.44.]
thus
making of the most free-thinking religion in the world a blind-faith system.The
threat refers simply
to
the well-known law that even an Initiate may fail and thus have his object
utterly ruined if he doubt for
one
moment the efficacy of his psychic powers the alphabet of Occultism as every
Kabalist well knows.
The
Tibetan sect of the Ngo-vo-nyid-med par Mraba (they who deny existence or
regard nature as
Māyā
)[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.] can never be contrasted for one
moment with some of the
nihilistic
or materialistic schools of India such as the Chārvāka.They are pure Vedāntins
if anything in
their
views.And if the Yogāchāryas may be compared with or called the Tibetan
Vishishtadwaitīs,the
Prasanga
School is surely the Adwaita Philosophy of the land.It was divided into two:one
was originally
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founded
by Bhavya the Svantatra Madhyamika School and the other by Buddhapālita;both
have their
exoteric
and esoteric divisions.It is necessary to belong to the latter to know anything
of the (Page 420)
esoteric
doctrines of that sect the most metaphysical and philosophical of
all.Chandrakirti (Dava Dagpa)
wrote
his commentaries on the Prasanga doctrines and taught publicly;and he expressly
states that
there
are two ways of entering the Path to Nirvāna.Any virtuous man can reach by
Naljorngonsum
(meditation
by self-perception ),the intuitive comprehension of the four Truths,without
either belonging
to
a monastic order or having been initiated.In this case it was considered as a
heresy to maintain that
the
visions which may arise in consequence of such meditation or Vishnā (internal
knowledge),are not
susceptible
of errors (Namtog or false visions),for they are.Alaya alone having an absolute
and eternal
existence
can alone have absolute knowledge;and even the Initiate in his Nirmānakāya [Nirmānakāya
(also
Nirvānakāya vulg.)is the body or Self with remains, or the influence of
terrestrial attributes,
however
spiritualized clinging yet to that Self.An initiate in Dharmakāya or in Nirvāna
without remains,
is
the Jīvanmukta the Perfect Initiate who separates his Higher Self entirely from
his body during
Samādhi.[It
will be noticed that these two words are here used in a sense other than that
previously
given.A.B.]
body may commit an occasional mistake in accepting the false for the true
in his
explorations
of the Causeless World.The Dharmakāya Bodhisattva is alone infallible when in
real
Samādhi.Ćlaya
or Nying-po being the root and basis of all invisible and incomprehensible to
human
eye
and intellect it can reflect only its reflection not Itself.Thus that
reflection will be mirrored like the
moon
in tranquil and clear water only in the passionless Dharmakāya intellect and
will be distorted by
the
flitting image of everything perceived in a mind that is itself liable to be
disturbed.
In
short this doctrine is that of the Rāj-Yoga in its practice of the two kinds of
the Samādhi state;one of
the
Paths leading to the sphere of bliss (Sukhāvatī or Devachan),where man enjoys
perfect unalloyed
happiness,but
is yet still connected with personal existence;and the other Path that leads to
entire
emancipation
from the worlds of illusion self and unreality.The first one is open to all and
is reached by
merit
simply;the second a hundredfold more rapid is reached through knowledge
(Initiation).Thus the
followers
of the Prasanga School are nearer to Esoteric Buddhism than are the
Yogāchāryas;for their
views
are those of the most secret Schools,and only the echo of these doctrines is
heard in the
Yamyangshapda and
other works in public circulation and use.For instance the unreality of two out
of
the
three divisions of time is given in public works,namely (a )that there
is neither past nor future both of
these
divisions being correlative to the present;and (b )that the reality of
things can never be sensed or
perceived
except by him who has obtained the Dharmakāya body;here again is a difficulty
since this
body
without remains carries the Initiate to full Paranirvāna if we accept the
exoteric explanation
verbally
and can therefore neither sense nor perceive.
Materialistic Orientalists -(Page 421)But evidently our Orientalists do not feel the caveat in
such
incongruities,and
they proceed to speculate without pausing to reflect over it.Literature on
Mysticism
being
enormous,and Russia owing to the free intercourse with the Burats Shamans,and
Mongolians,
having
alone purchased whole libraries on Tibet scholars ought to know better by this
time.It suffices to
read
however what Csoma wrote on the origin of the Kāla Chakra System [The
Secret Books of Dus-
Kyi
Khorio (Time Circle ).See Jo r.As.Soc .ii.57.These works were
abandoned to the Sikkhim
Dugpas,from
the time of Tsong-Kha-pa s reform.] or Wassilyew on Buddhism to make
one give up every
hope
of seeing them go below the rind of the forbidden fruit. When Schlagintweit
is found saying that
Tibetan
Mysticism is not Yoga
That
abstract devotion by which supernatural powers are acquired [ Glossary
of J dicial and
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Reven e Terms,art.Yoga
quoted in B ddhism in Tibet.p.47.]
as
Yoga is defined by Wilson but that it is closely related to Siberian Shamanism
and is almost identical
with
the Tāntrika ritual ;and that the Tibetan Z ng is the Dhāranīs,and
the Gynt only the Tantras pre-
Christian
Tantra being judged by the ritual of the modern Tāntrikas one seems almost
justified in
suspecting
our materialistic Orientalists of acting as the best friends and allies of the
missionaries.
Whatever
is not known to our geographers seems to be a non-existent locality.Thus:
Mysticism
is reported to have originated in the fabulous country Sambhala.....Csoma from
caref l investigations,places
this [ fabulous?] country beyond the Sir Daria [Yaxartes ]
between
45 . and 50 . north latitude.It was first known in India in the year 965 A.D
and was
introduced
...into Tibet from India via Kashmir in the year 1025 A.D.[B
ddhism in Tibet.pp.
47
48.]
It
meaning the Dus-kyi Khorlo or Tibetan Mysteries.A system as old as man known
in India and
practised
before Europe had become a continent was first known we are told only nine or
ten
centuries
ago!The text of its books in its present form may have originated even later
for there are
numerous
such texts that have been tampered with by sects to suit the fancies of
each.But who has
read
(Page 422)the original book on Dus-Kyi Khorlo re-written by
Tsong-Kha-pa with his Commentaries?
Considering
that this grand Reformer burnt every book on Sorcery on which he could lay his
hands in
1387
and that he has left a whole library of his own works not a tenth part of
which has ever been
made
known such statements as those above quoted are to say the least premature.The
idea is also
cherished
from a happy hypothesis offered by Abbé Huc that Tsong-Kha-pa derived his
wisdom and
acquired
his extraordinary powers from his intercourse with a stranger from the West
remarkable for a
long
nose. This stranger is believed by the good Abbé to have been a European
missionary; hence the
remarkable
resemblance of the religious ritual in Tibet to the Roman Catholic service.The
sanguine
Lama
of Jehovah does not say however who were the five foreigners who appeared in
Tibet in the
year
371 of our era to disappear as suddenly and mysteriously as they came after
leaving with King
Thothori-Nyang-tsan
instructions how to use certain things in a casket that had fallen from heaven
in his
presence
precisely fifty years before or in the year A.D.331.[B ddhism 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 Kanj r .They were said to be:(1)two hands joined (2)a miniature
Choten (Stūpa or
reliquary);(3)a
talisman with Om mani padme hum inscribed on it:(4)a religious book,Zamatog
( a
constructed
vehicle ).]
There
is generally a hopeless confusion about Eastern dates among European
scholars,but nowhere is
this
so great as in the case of Tibetan Buddhism.Thus,while some correctly enough
accept the seventh
century
as the date of the introduction of Buddhism there are others such as Lassen
and Koeppung
for
instance who show on good authority the one the construction of a Buddhist
monastery on the
slopes
of the Kailas Range so far back as the year 137 B.C.[Alterth mskunde ii
1072.] and the other
Buddhism
established in and north of the Punjab as early as the year 292 B.C.The
difference though
trifling
only just one thousand years is nevertheless puzzling.But even this is easily
explained on
Esoteric
grounds.Buddhism the veiled Esotericism of Buddha was established and took
root in the
seventh
century of the Christian era;while true Esoteric Buddhism or the kernel the
very spirit of
Tathāgata
s doctrines,was brought to the place of its birth the cradle of humanity by
the chosen Arhats
of
Buddha who were sent to find for it a secure refuge as
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Introduction of Buddhism into Tibet -(Page 423)The Sage had perceived the dangers ever since he
had
entered upon Thonglam (the Path of seeing or clairvoyance).
Amidst
populations deeply steeped in Sorcery the attempt proved a failure;and it was
not until the
School
of the Doctrine of the Heart had merged with its predecessor established ages
earlier on the
slope
facing Western Tibet that Buddhism was finally engrafted with its two distinct
Schools the
Esoteric
and the exoteric divisions in the land of the Bhon-pa.
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SECTION LI
The 'Doctrine of the Eye'and The 'Doctrine
of the Heart'or the 'Heart's Seal'.
(Page 424)PROF.ALBRECHT WEBER was right when he declared that the
Northern Buddhists
Alone
possess these [Buddhist ] Scriptures complete.
For
while the Southern Buddhists have no idea of the existence of an esoteric
doctrine enshrined like a
pearl
within the shell of every religion the Chinese and the Tibetans have preserved
numerous records
of
the fact.Degenerate fallen as is now the Doctrine publicly preached by Gautama
it is yet preserved in
those
monasteries in China that are placed beyond the reach of visitors.And though
for over two
millennia
every new reformer taking something out of the original has replaced it by
some speculation
of
his own still truth lingers even now among the masses.But it is only in the
Trans-Himālayan
fastnesses
loosely called Tibet in the most inaccessible spots of desert and mountain
that the
Esoteric
Good Law the Heart s Seal lives to the present day in all its pristine
purity.
Was
Emanual Swedenborg wrong when he remarked of the forgotten long-lost Word:
Seek
for it in China;peradventure you may find it in Great Tartary.
He
had obtained this information he tells his readers,from certain Spirits,who
told him that they
performed
their worship according to this (lost)ancient Word.On this it was remarked in Isis
Unveiled
that
Other
students of Occult Sciences had more than the world of spirits to rely upon
in this
special
case:they have seen the books
that
contain the Word.[Op.cit.,ii.470.]
Swedenborg Claims -(Page 425)Perchance
the names of those Spirits who visited the great Swedish
Theosophist
were Eastern.The word of a man of such undeniable and recognised integrity of
one whose
learning
in Mathematics,Astronomy the natural Sciences and Philosophy was far in advance
of his age
cannot
be trifled with or rejected as unceremoniously as if it were the statement of a
modern
Theosophist:further
he claimed to pass at will into that state when the Inner Self frees itself
entirely from
every
physical sense and lives and breathes in a world where every secret of Nature
is an open book to
the
Soul-eye.[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.]Unfortunately two-thirds
of his public writings are
also
allegorical in one sense:and as they have been accepted literally criticism has
not spared the great
Swedish
Seer any more than other Seers.
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Having
taken a panoramic view of the hidden Sciences and Magic with their Adepts in
Europe Eastern
Initiates
must now be mentioned.If the presence of Esotericism in the Sacred Scriptures
of the West only
now
begins to be suspected after nearly two thousand years of blind faith in their verbatim
wisdom the
same
may well be granted as to the Sacred Books of the East.Therefore neither the
Indian nor the
Buddhist
system can be understood without a key nor can the study of comparative
religion become a
Science
until the symbols of every Religion yield their final secrets.At the best such
a study will remain
a
loss of time a playing at hide-and-seek.
On
the authority of a Japanese Encyclopędia,Remusat shows the Buddha before
His death
committing
the secrets of His system to His disciple Kāsyapa to whom alone was entrusted
the sacred
keeping
of the Esoteric interpretation.It is called in China Ching-fa-yin-Tsang (the
Mystery of the Eye of
the
Good Doctrine ).To any student of Buddhist Esotericism the term the Mystery
of the Eye would
show
the absence of any Esotericism.Had the word Heart stood in its place then it
would have meant
what
it now only professes to convey.The Eye Doctrine means dogma and dead-letter
form church
ritualism
intended for those who are content with exoteric formulę.The Heart Doctrine
or the Heart s
Seal
(the Sin Yin)is the only real one.This may be found corroborated by Hiuen
Tsang.(Page 426)In his
translation
of Mahā-Prajnā-Pāramitā (Ta-poh-je-King ),in one hundred and
twenty volumes,it is stated
that
it was Buddha s favourite disciple Ćnanda who after his great Master had
gone into Nirvāna was
commissioned
by Kāsyapa to promulgate the Eye of the Doctrine the Heart of the Law
having been
left
with the Arhats alone.
The
essential difference that exists between the two the Eye and the Heart or
the outward form and
the
hidden meaning the cold metaphysics and the Divine Wisdom is clearly
demonstrated in several
volumes
on Chinese Buddhism written by sundry missionaries.Having lived for years in
China they
still
know no more than they have learned from pretentious schools calling themselves
esoteric,yet freely
supplying
the open enemies of their faith with professedly ancient manuscripts and
esoteric works!This
ludicrous
contradiction between profession and practice has never as it seems,struck any
of the western
and
reverend historians of other people s secret tenets.Thus many esoteric schools
are mentioned in
Chinese B ddhism by
the Rev.Joseph Edkins,who believes quite sincerely that he has made a minute
examination
of the secret tenets of Buddhists whose works were until lately inaccessible
in their original
form.It
really will not be saying too much to state at once that the genuine Esoteric
literature is
inaccessible
to this day and that the respectable gentleman who was inspired to state that
It
does not appear that there was any secret doctrine which those who knew it
would not
divulge
made
a great mistake if he ever believed in what he says on page 161 of his work.Let
him know at once
that
all those Yū-luh (Records of the Sayings )of celebrated teachers are simply
blinds,as complete if
not
more so than those in the Purānas of the Brāhmans.It is useless to enumerate
an endless string of
the
finest Oriental scholars or to bring forward the researches of Remusat Burnouf
Koeppen St.Hilaire
and
St.Julian who are credited with having exposed to view the ancient Hindu world
by revealing the
sacred
and secret books of Buddhism:the world that they reveal has never been
veiled.The mistakes of
all
the Orientalists may be judged by the mistake of one of the most popular if not
the greatest among
them
all Prof.Max Müller.It is made with reference to what he laughingly translates
as the god Who
(Ka).
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The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
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The God 'Who'-(Page 427)The authors of the Brāhmanas had so completely broken with
the
past
that forgetful of the poetical character of the hymns and the yearning of the
poets after
the
Unknown God they exalted the interrogative pronoun itself into a deity and
acknowledged
a
god Ka (or Who?)...Wherever interrogative verses occur the author states that
Ka is
Prajāpati
or the Lord of Creatures.Nor did they stop here.Some of the hymns in which the
interrogative
pronoun occurred were called Kadvat i.e.,having Kad or Quid.But soon a
new
adjective
was formed and not only the hymns but the sacrifice also offered to the god
were
called
Kaya or Who -ish ....At the time of Pānini this word acquired such legitimacy
as to
call
for a separate rule explaining its formation.The Commentator here explains Ka
by
Brahman.
Had
the commentator explained It even by Parabrahman he would have been still more
in the right than
he
was by rendering It as Brahman.One fails to see why the secret and sacred
Mystery-Name of the
highest
sexless,formless Spirit the Absolute Whom no one would have dared to classify
with the rest
of
the manifested Deities,or even to name during the primitive nomenclature of the
symbolical
Panthenon
should not be expressed by an interrogative pronoun.Is it those who belong to
the most
anthropomorphic
Religion in the world who have a right to take ancient Philosophers to task for
even an
exaggerated
religious awe and veneration?
But
we are now concerned with Buddhism.Its Esotericism and oral instruction which
is written down and
preserved
in single copies by the highest chiefs in genuine Esoteric Schools,is shown by
the author San-
Kian-yi-su.Contrasting
Bodhidharma with Buddha he exclaims:
Julai
(Tathāgata)taught great truths and the causes of things.He became the
instructor of
men
and Devas.He saved multitudes,and spoke the contents of more than five hundred
works.Hence
arose the Kiau-men or exoteric branch of the system and it was believed to be
the
tradition of the words of Buddha.Bodhidharma brought from the Western
Heaven
[Shamballa ] the
Seal of Truth (true seal)and opened the fountain of contemplation in the
East.He
pointed directly to Buddha s heart and nature swept away the parasitic and
alien
growth
of book-instruction and thus established the Tsung-men or Esoteric branch of
the
system
containing the tradition of the heart of Buddha.[ Chinese B ddhism,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.]
A
few remarks made by the author of Chinese B ddhism throw a flood of
light on the universal
misconceptions
of Orientalists in general and (Page 428)of the missionaries
in the lands of the Gentiles
in
particular.They appeal very forcibly to the intuition of Theosophists more
particularly those in India.
The
sentences to be noticed are italicized.
The
common [Chinese ]word for the Esoteric Schools is dan the
Sanskrit Dhyāna ....Orthodox
Buddhism
has in China slowly but steadily become heterodox.The Buddhism of books
and ancient
traditions
has become the B ddhism of mystic contemplation ....The history of
ancient schools
springing
up long ago in the Buddhist communities of India can now be only very
partially recovered.
Possibly
some light may be thrown back by China upon the religious history of the
country from which
Buddhism
came.[That country India has lost the records of such Schools and
their teaching only so
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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 Mahātmās.] In no
part
of the story is aid to the recovery of the lost knowledge more likely to be
found than in the accounts
of
the patriarchs,the line of whom was completed by Bodhidharma.In seeking the
best explanation of
the
Chinese and Japanese narrative of the patriarchs,and the seven B ddhas terminating
in Gautama
or
Shākyamuni it is important to know the Jain traditions as they were early in
the sixth century of our
era
when the Patriarch Bodhidharma removed to China ....
In
tracing the rise of the various schools of esoteric Buddhism it must be kept in
mind that a principle
somewhat
similar to the dogma of apostolical succession belongs to them all.They all
profess to derive
their doctrines thro gh a succession of teachers,each
instructed personally by his predecessor,till the
time of Bodhidharma,and so f rther p in the series to
Shākyam ni himself and the earlier B ddhas.
[Chinese B ddhism.pp.155-159.]
It
is complained further on and is mentioned as a falling away from strict
orthodox Buddhism that the
Lamas of Tibet are received in Pekin with the tmost respect
by the Emperor.
The
following passages,taken from different parts of the book,summarise Mr.Edkin s
views:
Hermits
are not uncommonly met with in the vicinity of large Buddhist temples ...their
hair
being
allowed to grow unshorn....The doctrine of metempsychosis is rejected.Buddhism
is
one
form of Pantheism on the ground that the doctrine of metempsychosis makes all
nature
instinct
with life and that that life is the Deity assuming different forms of
personality that Deity
not
being a self-conscious,free-acting Self-Cause but an all-pervading Spirit.The
esoteric
Buddhists
of China keeping rigidly to their one doctrine [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.]
say nothing of the metempsychosis,....or any other of the more material
parts
of
the Buddhist system ......The Western paradise promised to the worshippers of
Amida
Buddha
is ...inconsistent with the doctrine of Nirvana [?].[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 bona-fide locality
in the
mountain
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 Anāgāmins (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.]
More Misrepresentations -(Page 429)....It
promises immortality instead of annihilation.
The
great antiquity of this School is evident from the early date of the
translation of the Amida
Sū tra which came from
the hands of Kumārajīva and Ku-lian-theu-King dating from the Han
dynasty
its extent of influence is seen in the attachment of the Tibetans and Moguls to
the
worship
of this Buddha and in the fact that the name of this fictitious personage [?]is
more
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commonly
heard in China than that of the historical Shākyamuni.
We
fear the learned writer is on a false track as to Nirvāna and Amita
Buddha.However here we have
the
evidence of a missionary to show that there are several schools of Esoteric
Buddhism in the Celestial
Empire.When
the misuse of dogmatical orthodox Buddhist Scriptures had reached its climax
and the
true
spirit of the Buddha s Philosophy was nearly lost several reformers appeared
from India who
established
an oral teaching.Such were Bodhidharma and Nāgārjuna the authors of the most
important
works
of the contemplative School in China during the first centuries of our era.It
is known moreover as
is
said in Chinese B ddhism that Bodhidharma became the chief founder of
the Esoteric Schools,which
were
divided into five principal branches.The data given are correct enough but
every conclusion
without
one single exception is wrong.It was said in Isis Unveiled that
Budda
teaches the doctrine of a new birth as plainly as Jesus does.Desiring to break
with the
ancient
Mysteries,to which it was impossible to admit the ignorant masses,the Hindu
reformer
though generally silent upon more than one secret dogma clearly states his
thought
in
several passages.Thus,he says:Some people are born again;evil-doers go
to hell
[Avitchi ];righteous
people go to heaven [Devachan ] ;those who are free from all
worldly
desires
enter Nirvāna (Precepts of the Dhammapada,v.126).Elsewhere Buddha
states that
it
is better to believe in a future life in which happiness or misery can be
felt:for if the heart
believes
therein it will abandon sin and act virtuously;and even if there is no
resurrection
[rebirth ] such
a life will bring a good name and the reward of men.But those who believe in
extinction
at death will not fail to commit any sin that they may choose because of their
disbelief
in a future.(See Wheel of the Law.)
How
is immortality then inconsistent with the doctrine of (Page 430)Nirvāna?The above are only a few
of
Buddha s openly-expressed thoughts to his chosen Arhats;the great Saint said
much more.As a
comment
upon the mistaken views held in our century by the Orientalists,who vainly try
to fathom
Tathāgata
s thoughts,and those of Brāhmans,who repudiate the great Teacher to this day
here are
some
original thoughts expressed in relation to the Buddha and the study of the
Secret Sciences.They
are
from a work written in Chinese by a Tibetan and published in the monastery of
Tientaļ for circulation
among
the Buddhists
Who
live in foreign lands,and are in danger of being spoiled by missionaries,
as
the author truly says,every convert being not only spoiled for his own creed
but being also a sorry
acquisition
for Christianity.A translation of a few passages,kindly made from that work for
the present
volumes
is now given.
No
profane ears having heard the mighty Chau-yan [secret and enlightening precepts
] of Vu-
vei-Tchen-jen
[Buddha within Buddha ] [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 o twardly.] of
our
beloved Lord and Bodhisattva how can one tell what his thoughts really were?The
holy
Sang-gyas-Panchhen
[One of the titles of Gautama Buddha in Tibet.] never offered an
insight
into
the One Reality to the unreformed [uninitiated ] Bhikkus.Few
are those even among the
Tu-fon
[Tibetans ] who knew it;as for the Tsung-men [The
Esoteric Schools,or sects,of
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which
there are many in China.] Schools,they are going with every day more
down hill ....
Not
even the Fa-siong-Tsung [ 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.]
can give one the wisdom taught in real Naljor-chod-pa [Sanskrit:[
Esoteric,or hidden
teaching
of Yoga (Chinese:Yogi-mi-Kean).]Yogāchārya ]:....it is all Eye
Doctrine and no
more.The
loss of a restraining guidance is felt;since the Tch -an-si [teachers ]
of inward
meditation
[self-contemplation or Tchung-kwan ] have become rare and the
Good Law is
replaced
by idol-worship [Siang-kyan ] .It is of this [idol-or
image-worship ] that the Barbarians
[Western people ] have
heard and know nothing of Bas-pa-Dharma [the secret Dharma or
doctrine
] .Why has truth to hide like a tortoise within its shell?Because it is
now found to have
become
like the Lama s tonsure knife [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 lightening 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.] a weapon too dangerous to use even for the
Lanoo.
Therefore
no one can be entrusted with the knowledge [Secret Science ] before
his time.
Āryāsanga -(Page 431)The Chagpa-Thog-mad
have become rare and the best have retired
to
Tushita the Blessed.[Chapa-Thog-mad is the Tibetan name of Ćryāsanga the
founder of
the
Yogāchārya 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
Shambballa
called the source of happiness (wisdom-acquired )and declared by some
Orientaliss
to be a fabulous place.]
Further
on a man seeking to master the mysteries of Esotericism before he had been
declared by the
initiated
Tch -an-si (teachers)to be ready to receive them is likened to
One
who would;without a lantern and on a dark night proceed to a place full of
scorpions,
determined
to feel on the ground for a needle his neighbour has dropped.
Again:
He
who would acquire the Sacred Knowledge should before he goes any farther trim
his
lamp of inner
understanding and then with the help of such good light use his meritorious
actions
as a dust-cloth to remove every impurity from his mystic mirror [ 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
Atma
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
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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 Chaldęans
and the
Brāhmans
still earlier.] so that he should be enabled to see in its lustre the
faithful reflection of
Self
....First this;then Tong pa-nya [The state of absolute freedom from any
sin or desire.]
lastly;Samma
Sambuddha.[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.)]
In
Chinese B ddhism a corroboration of these statements is to be found in
the aphorisms of Lin-tsi:
Within
the body which admits sensations,acquires knowledge thinks,and acts,there is
the
true
man without a position Wu-wei-chen-jen.He makes himself clearly visible;not
the
thinnest
separating film hides him.Why do you not recognise him?...If the mind does not
come
to conscious existence there is deliverance everywhere .....What is Buddha?Ans.A
mind
clear and at rest.What is the Law?Ans.A mind clear and enlightened.What
is Ta ?
Ans.In every place
absence of impediments and pure enlightenment.These three are one.
(Page 432)The reverend author of Chinese B ddhism makes merry
over the symbolism of Buddhist
discipline.Yet
the self-inflicted slaps on the cheek and blows under the ribs find their
pendants in the
mortifications
of the body and self-flagellation the discipline of the scourge of the
Christian monks,
from
the first centuries of Christianity down to our own day..But then the said
author is a Protestant who
substitutes
for mortification and discipline good living and comfort.The sentence in the
Lin-tsi
The
true man without a position Wu-wei-chen-jen is wrapped in a prickly shell
like the
chestnut.He
cannot be approached.This is Buddha the Buddha within you
is
laughed at.Truly
An
infant cannot understand the seven enigmas!
Page
341.
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SOME PAPERS ON THE BEARING OF OCCULT PHILOSOPHY ON LIFE
(Page 433-434)
Note
Papers
I.II.III.of the following were written by H.P.B and were circulated privately
during her lifetime but
they
were written with the idea that they would be published after a time.They are
papers intended for
students
rather than for the ordinary reader and will repay careful study and
thought.The Notes of some
Oral
Teaching were written down by some of her pupils and were partially corrected
by her but no
attempt
has been made to relieve them of their fragmentary character.She had intended
to make them
the
basis for written papers similar to the first three but her failing health
rendered this impossible and
they
are published with her consent the time for restricting them to a limited
circle having expired.
Annie
Besant
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PAPER 1
A Warning
(Page 435)THERE is a strange law in Occultism which has been
ascertained and proven by thousands of
years
of experience;nor has it failed to demonstrate itself almost in every case
during the years that the
Theosophical
Society has been in existence.As soon as anyone pledges himself as a
Probationer
certain
Occult effects ensue.Of these the first is the throwing o tward of
everything latent in the nature of
the
man;his faults habits qualities or subdued desires,whether good bad or
indifferent.
For
instance if a man be vain or a sensualist or ambitious,whether by atavism or by
karmic heirloom
those
vices are sure to break out even if he has hitherto successfully concealed and
repressed them.
They
will come to the front irrepressibly and he will have to fight a hundred times
harder than before
until
he kills all such tendencies in himself.
On
the other hand if he be good generous,chaste and abstemious,or has any virtue hitherto
latent and
concealed
in him it will work its way out as irrepressibly as the rest.Thus a civilized
man who hates to be
considered
a saint and therefore assumes a mask,will not be able to conceal his true
nature whether
base
or noble.
THIS IS AN IMMUTABLE LAW IN THE DOMAIN OF THE OCCULT .
Its
action is the more marked the more earnest and sincere the desire of the
candidate and the more
deeply
he has felt the reality and importance of his pledge.
The
ancient occult axiom Know Thyself must be familiar to every student;but few
if any have
apprehended
the real meaning of this wise exhortation of the Delphic Oracle.You all know
your earthly
pedigree
but who of you has ever traced all the links of heredity (Page 436)astral psychic and spiritual
which
go to make you what you are?Many have written and expressed their desire to
unite themselves
with
their Higher Ego yet none seem to know the indissoluble link connecting their
Higher Egos with
the
One Universal SELF.
For
all purposes of Occultism whether practical or purely metaphysical such
knowledge is absolutely
requisite.It
is proposed therefore to begin these papers by showing this connection in all
directions with
the
worlds:Absolute Archetypal Spiritual Mānasic,Psychic,Astral and
Elemental.Before however we
can
touch upon the higher worlds Archetypal Spiritual and Mānasic we must master
the relations of
the
seventh the terrestrial world the lower Prakriti or Malkuth as in the Kabalah
to the worlds or planes
which
immediately follow it.
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Om
OM,says
the Ćryan Adept the son of the Fifth Race who with this syllable begins and
ends his
salutation
to the human being his conjuration of or appeal to non-human PRESENCES.
OM-MANI
murmurs the Turanian Adept the descendant of the Fourth Race;and after pausing
he
adds,PADME-HUM.
This
famous invocation is very erroneously translated by the Orientalists as meaning
Oh the Jewel in
the
Lotus. For although literally OM is a syllable sacred to the Deity PADME means
in the Lotus,and
MANI
is any precious stone still neither the words themselves,nor their symbolical
meaning are thus
really
correctly rendered.
In
this,the most sacred of all Eastern formulas,not only has every syllable a
secret potency producing a
definite
result but the whole invocation has seven different meanings and can produce
seven distinct
results,each
of which may differ from the others.
The
seven meanings and the seven results depend upon the intonation which is given
to the whole
formula
and to each of its syllables;and even the numerical value of the letters is
added to or diminished
according
as such or another rhythm is made use of.Let the student remember that number
underlies
form
and number guides sound.Number lies at the root of the manifested
Universe:numbers and
harmonious
proportions guide the first differentiations of homogeneous substance into
heterogeneous
elements;and
number and numbers set limits to the formative hand of Nature.
The Jewel of the Lotus -(Page 437)Know the corresponding numbers of the fundamental principle
of
every
element and its sub-elements,learn their interaction and behaviour on the
occult side of
manifesting
Nature and the law of correspondences will lead you to the discovery of the
greatest
mysteries
of macrocosmical life.
But
to arrive at the macrocosmical you must begin by the microcosmical i.e.,you
must study MAN the
microcosm
in this case as physical science does inductively proceeding from particulars
to
universals.At
the same time however since a key-note is required to analyze and comprehend
any
combination
of differentiations of sound we must never lose sight of the Platonic method
which starts
with
one general view of all and descends from the universal to the individual.This
is the method
adopted
in Mathematics the only exact science that exists in our day.
Let
us study Man therefore;but if we separate him for one moment from the Universal
Whole or view
him
in isolation from a single aspect apart from the Heavenly Man the Universe
symbolized by Adam
Kadmon
or his equivalents in every Philosophy we shall either land in Black Magic or
fail most
ingloriously
in our attempt.
Thus
the mystic sentence Om Mani Padme H m,when rightly understood instead
of being composed
of
the almost meaningless words,Oh the Jewel of the Lotus,contains a reference
to this indissoluble
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union
between Man and the Universe rendered in seven different ways,and having the
capability of
seven
different applications to as many planes of thought and action.
From
whatever aspect we examine it it means: I am that I am; I am in thee and
thou art in me.In this
conjunction
and close union with the good and pure man becomes a God.Whether consciously or
unconsciously
he will bring about or innocently cause to happen unavoidable results.In the
first case if
an
Initiate (of course an Adept of the Right-hand Path alone is meant),he can
guide a beneficent or a
protecting
current and thus benefit and protect individuals and even whole nations.In the
second case
although
quite unaware of what he is doing the good man becomes a shield to whomsoever
he is with.
Such
is the fact;but its how and why have to be explained and this can be done only
when the actual
presence
and potency of numbers in sounds,and hence in words and letters,have been
rendered clear.
The
formula Om Mani Padme H m, has been chosen as an illustration on
account of its almost infinite
potency
in the mouth of an Adept and (Page 438)of its potentiality
when pronounced by any man.Be
careful
all you who read this:do not use these words in vain or when in anger lest you
become yourself
the
first sacrificial victim or what is worse endanger those whom you love.
The
profane Orientalist who all his life skims mere externals,will tell you
flippantly and laughing at the
superstition
that in Tibet this sentence is the most powerful six-syllabled incantation and
is said to have
been
delivered to the nations of Central Asia by Padmapāni the Tibetan Chenresi.[See
supra.ii.188.
189.]
But
who is Padmapāni in reality?Each of us must recognize him for himself whenever
he is ready.Each
of
us has within himself the Jewel in the Lotus, call it Padmapāni Krishna
Buddha Christ or whatever
name
we may give to our Divine Self.The exoteric story runs thus:
The
supreme Buddha or Amitābha they say at the hour of the creation of man caused a
rosy ray of
light
to issue from his right eye.The ray emitted a sound and became Padmapāni
Bodhisattva.Then the
Deity
allowed to stream forth from his left eye a blue ray of light which becoming
incarnate in the two
virgins
Dolma acquired the power to enlighten the minds of living beings.Amhitābha then
called the
combination
which forthwith took up its abode in man.Om Mani Padme H m, I am the
Jewel in the
Lotus
and in it I will remain.Then Padmapāni the One in the Lotus,vowed never to
cease working
until
he had made Humanity feel his presence in itself and had thus saved it from the
misery of rebirth.
He
vowed to perform the feat before the end of the Kalpa adding that in case of
failure he wished that
his
head should split into numberless fragments.The Kalpa closed;but Humanity felt
him not within its
cold
evil heart.Then Padmapāni s head split and was shattered into a thousand
fragments.Moved with
compassion
the Deity re-formed the pieces into ten heads,three white and seven of
various colours.
And
since that day man has become a perfect number or TEN.
In
this allegory the potency of SOUND COLOUR and NUMBER is so ingeniously
introduced as to veil
the
real Esoteric meaning.To the outsider it reads like one of the many meaningless
fairy-tales of
creation;but
it is pregnant with spiritual and divine physical and magical meaning.From
Amitābha no
colo r or the white
glory are born the seven differentiated colours of the prism.
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The Pythagorean Tetrad -(Page 439)These each emit a corresponding sound forming the seven of
the
m sical scale.As
Geometry among the Mathematical Sciences,is specially related to Architecture
and
also
(proceeding to Universals)to Cosmogony so the ten Jods of the Pythagorean
Tetrad
or Tetraktys being made to symbolize the Macrocosm the Microcosm or
man
its image had also to be divided into ten points.For this Nature herself has
provided
as will be seen.
But
before this statement can be proved and the perfect correspondences between
the
Macrocosm and Microcosm demonstrated a few words of explanation are
necessary.
To
the learner who would study the Esoteric Sciences with their double object:(a
)of proving Man to be
identical
in spiritual and physical essence with both the Absolute Principle and with God
in Nature;and
(b
)of demonstrating the presence in him of the same potential powers as exist
in the creative forces in
Nature
to such a one a perfect knowledge of the correspondences between
Colours,Sounds,and
Numbers
is the first requisite.As already said the sacred formula of the far East Om
Mani Padme
H m.is the one best
calculated to make these correspondential qualities and functions clear to the
learner.
In
the allegory of Padmapāni the Jewel (or Spiritual Ego)in the Lotus,or the
symbol of androgynous
man
the numbers 3 4 7 10 as synthesizing the Unit Man are prominent as I
have already said.It is
on
the thorough knowledge and comprehension of the meaning and potency of these
numbers,in their
various
and multiform combinations,and in their mutual correspondence with sounds or
words,and
colours
or rates of motion (represented in physical science by vibrations),that the
progress of a student
in
Occultism depends.Therefore we must begin with the first initial word OM,or
AUM.OM is a blind.
The
sentence Om Mani Padme H m,is not a six-but a seven-syllabled phrase
as the first syllable is
double
in its right pronunciation and triple in its essence A-UM.It represents the for
ever concealed
primeval
triune differentiation not from but in the ONE Absolute and is
therefore symbolized by the 4 or
the
Tetraktys,in the metaphysical world.It is the Unit-ray or Ćtman.
It
is the Ćtman this highest Spirit in man which in conjunction with Buddhi and
Manas,is called the
upper
Triad or Trinity.This (Page
440)Triad with its four lower human
principles,is,moreover enveloped
with
an auric atmosphere like the yolk of an egg (the future embryo)by the albumen
and shell.This,to
the
perceptions of higher Beings from other planes,makes of each individuality an
oval sphere of more
or
less radiancy.
To
show the student the perfect correspondence between the birth of Kosmos,a World
a Planetary
Being
or a Child of Sin and Earth a more definite and clear description must be given.Those
acquainted
with
Physiology will understand it better than others.
Who
having read say the Vishn or other P rāna,is not familiar with
the exoteric allegory of the birth of
Brahmā
(male-female)in the Egg of the World Hiranyagarbha surrounded by its seven
zones,or rather
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planes,which
in the world of form and matter become seven and fourteen Lokas;the numbers
seven and
fourteen
reäppearing as occasion requires.
Without
giving out the secret analysis,the Hindus have from time immemorial compared
the matrix of the
Universe
and also the solar matrix to the female uterus.It is written of the former:Its
womb is vast as
the
Meru and
The
future mighty oceans lay asleep in the waters that filled its cavities,the
continents,seas
and
mountains,the stars,planets,the gods,demons and mankind.
The
whole resembled in its inner and outer coverings,the cocoanut filled interiorly
with pulp and
covered
externally with husk and rind.Vast as Meru say the texts.
Meru
was its Amnion and the other mountains were its Chorion
adds
a verse in Vishn P rāna.[ Wilson s translation as amended by
Fitzedward Hall i.40.]
In
the same way is man born in his mother s womb.As Brahmā is surrounded in
exoteric traditions,by
seven
layers within and seven without the Mundane Egg so is the embryo (the first or
the seventh layer
according
to the end from which we begin to count).Thus,just as Esotericism in its
Cosmogony
enumerates
seven inner and seven outer layers,so Physiology notes the contents of the
uterus as seven
also
although it is completely ignorant of this being a copy of what takes place in
the Universal Matrix.
These
contents are:
1.Embryo.2.Amniotic
Fl id,immediately surrounding the Embryo.3.Amnion,a membrane derived
from
the
Ftus,which contains the fluid.4.Umbilical l esicle,which serves to
convey nourishment originally to
the
Embryo and to nourish it.
Seven Correspondential Contents -(Page 441)5.Allantois a protrusion from the Embryo in the form
of
a
closed bag which spreads itself between 3 and 7 in the midst of 6 and which
after being specialized
into
the Placenta serves to conduct nourishment to the Embryo.6.Interspace between
3 and 7 (the
Amnion
and Chorion),filled with an albuminous fluid.7.Chorion,or outer layer.
Now
each of these seven contents severally corresponds with and is formed after an
antetype one on
each
of the seven planes of being with which in their turn correspond the seven
states of Matter and all
other
forces,sensational or functional in Nature.
(Page 442)
The
following is a bird s-eye view of the seven correspondential contents of the
wombs of Nature and of
Woman.We
may contrast them thus:
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Cosmic Process (Upper Pole)Human Process (Lower Pole)
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1
The
mathematical Point called the "Cosmic
See"the
Monad of Leibnix;which contians
the
whole Universe as the acorn the oak.
This
is the first bubble on the surface of
boundless
homogeneous Substance or
Space
the buble of differentiation in its
incipient
stage.It is the beginning of the
Orphic
or Brahmā's Egg.It corresponds in
Astrology
and Astronomy to the Sun
The
terrestrial Embryo which contains in it the
future
man with all his potentialities.In the
series
of principles of the human system it is the
Atman
or the super-spiritual principle just as in
the
physical Solar System it is the Sun
2
The
vis vitae of our solar system exudes from
the
Sun.
(a)It
is called when referred to the higher
planes,Akāsha
(b)It
proceeds from the ten "divinities"the ten
numbers
of the Sun which is itself the
"Perfect
Number".These are called Dis -in
reality
Space -the forces spread in Space
three
of which are contained in the Sun's
Atman
or seventh principle and seven are
the
rays shot out by the Sun.
The
Amniotic Fluid exudes from the Embryo.
(a)It
is called on the plane of matter Prāna
[ Prāna is in reality
the universal Life Principle.]
(b)It
proceeds,taking its source in the universal
One
Life from the heart of man and Buddhi
over
which the Seven Solar Rays (Gods)
preside.
3
The
Ether of Space which in its external
aspect
is the plastic crust which is supposed
to
envelope the Sun.On the higher plane it is
the
whole Universe as the third differentiation
of
evolving Substance Mulaprakriti becoming
Prakriti.
(a)It
corresponds mystically to the
manifested
Mahat or the Intellect or Soul of
the
World
The
Amnion the membrane containing the
Amniotic
Frluid and enveloping the Embryo.
After
the birth of man it becomes the third layer
so
to say of his magneto-vital aura.
(a)Manas,the
third principle (counting from
above),or
the Human Soul in Man.
4
The sidereal contents of Ether the substantial
parts
of it unknown to Modern Science
represented:
(a)In
Occult and Kabalistic Mysteries,by
Elementals.
(b)In
physical Astronomy by
meteors,comets,and
all kinds of casual and
phenomenal
cosmic bodies
Umbilical
Vesicle serving as Science teaches,
to
nourish the Embryo originally but as Occult
Science
avers,to carry to the Foetus by
osmosis
the cosmic influences extraneous to
the
mother.
(a)In
the grown man these become the feeders
of
Kāma over which they preside.
(b)In
the physical man his passions and
emotions,the
moral meteors and comets of
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human
nature.
5
Life
currents in Ether having their origin in
the
Sun:the canals through which the vital
principle
of that Ether (the blood of the
Cosmic
Body)passes to nourish everything
on
the Earth and on the other Planets:from
the
minerals,which are thus made to grow
and
become specialized from the plants,
which
are thus fed to animal and man to
whom
life is thus imparted.
The
Allantois,a protrusion from the Embryo
which
spreads itself between the Amnion and
Chorion;it
is supposed to conduct the
nourishment
from the mother to the Embryo.It
corresponds
to the life-principle Prāna or Jīva.
6
The
double radiation psychic and physical
which
radiates from the Cosmic Seed and
expands
around the whole Kosmos,as well
as
around the Solar System and every
Planet.In
Occultism it is called the upper
divine
and the lower material Astral Light.
The
Allantois is divided into two layers.The
inter
space between the Amnion and the
Chorion
contains the Allantois and also an
albuminous
fluid.[All the uterine contents,
having
a direct spiritual connnection with their
cosmic
antetypes,are on the physical plane
potent
objects in Black Magic,and are therefore
considered
unclean.]
7
The
outer crust of every sidereal body the
Shell
of the Mundane Egg or the sphere of
our
Solar System of our Earth and of every
man
and animal.In sidereal space Ether
proper;on
the terrestrial plane Air which
again
is built in seven layers.
(a)The
primordial potential world-stuff
becomes
(for the Manvantaric period)the
permanent
globe or globes.
The
Chorion or the Zona Pellucida the globular
object
called Blastodermic Vesicle the outer
and
the inner layers of the membrane of which
go
to form the physical man.The outer or
ectoderm
forms his epidermis;the inner or
endoderm
his muscles,bones,etc..Man's skin
again
is composed of seven layers.
(a)The
"primitive"becomes the "permanent"
Chorion.
Correspondence Between Races and Man -(Page 443)Even in the evolution of the Races we see the
same
order as in Nature and Man.[See supra,ii.Part I.] Placental
animal-man became such only after
the
separation of sexes in the Third Root-Race.In the physiological evolution the
placenta is fully formed
and
functional only after the third month of uterine life.
(Page 444)Let us put aside such human conceptions as a personal God
and hold to the purely divine to
that
which underlies all and everything in boundless Nature.It is called by its
Sanskrit Esoteric name in
the
Vedas TAT (or THAT),a term for the unknowable Rootless Root.If we do so
we may answer these
seven
questions of the Esoteric Catechism thus:
(1)Q.What
is the Eternal Absolute?
A.THAT.
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(2)Q.How
came Kosmos into being?
A.Through
THAT.
(3)Q.How
or what will it be when it falls back into Pralaya?
A.In
THAT.
(4)Q.Whence
all the animate and suppositionally the inanimate nature?
A.From
THAT.
(5)Q.What
is the Substance and Essence of which the Universe is formed?
A.THAT.
(6)Q.Into
what has it been and will be again and again resolved?
A.Into
THAT.
(7)Q.Is
THAT then both the instrumental and material cause of the Universe?
A.What
else is it or can it be than THAT?
As
the Universe the Macrocosm and the Microcosm [The Solar System or the
Earth as the case may
be.]
are ten why should we divide Man into seven principles
?This is the reason why the perfect
number
ten is divided into two:in their completeness,i.e.,super-spiritually and
physically the forces are
TEN:to-wit
three on the subjective and inconceivable and seven on the objective plane.Bear
in mind
that
I am now giving you the description of the two opposite poles:(a )the
primordial Triangle which as
soon
as it has reflected itself in the Heavenly Man the highest of the lower
seven disappears,
returning
into Silence and Darkness ;and (b )the astral paradigmatic man whose
Monad (Ćtmā)is also
represented
by a triangle as it has to become a ternary in conscious Devachanic
interludes.The purely
terrestrial
man being reflected in the universe of Matter so to say upside down the upper
Triangle
wherein
the creative ideation and the subjective potentiality of the formative faculty
resides,is shifted in
the
man of clay below the seven.
DIAGRAM I (Page 444a)
Man and The Logos -(Page 445)Thus three
of the ten containing in the archetypal world only ideative
and
paradigmatical potentiality i.e.,existing in possibility not in action
are in fact one.The potency of
formative
creation resides in the Logos,the synthesis of the seven Forces or Rays,which
becomes
forthwith
the Quaternary the sacred Tetraktys.This process is repeated in man in whom the
lower
physical
triangle becomes,in conjunction with the female One the male-female creator or
generator.
The
same on a still lower plane in the animal world.A mystery above a mystery below
truly.
This
is how the upper and highest and the lower and most animal stand in mutual
relation.
In
this diagram No.-1-,we see that physical man (or his body)does not share in the
direct pure waves of
the
divine Essence which flows from the One in Three,the Unmanifested
through the Manifested Logos
(the
upper face in the diagram).Purusha the primeval Spirit touches the human head
and stops there.
But
the Spiritual Man (the synthesis of the seven principles)is directly connected
with it.And here a few
words
ought to be said about the usual exoteric enumeration of the principles.At
first an approximate
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division
only was made and given out.Esoteric B ddhism begins with Ćtmā the
seventh and ends with
the
Physical Body the first.Now neither Ćtmā which is no individual principle but
a radiation from and
one with the
Unmanifested Logos,nor the Body which is the material rind or shell of the
Spiritual Man
can
be in strict truth referred to as principles. Moreover the chief principle
of all one not even
mentioned
heretofore is the Luminous Egg (Hiranyagarbha),or the invisible magnetic
sphere in which
every
man is enveloped.[ 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.] It is the
direct emanation:(a )
from
the Ćtmic Ray in its triple aspect of Creator Preserver and Destroyer
(Regenerator);and (b )from
Buddhi-Manas.The
seventh aspect of this individual Aura is the faculty of assuming the
form of its body
and
becoming the Radiant the Luminous Augoeides.It is this,strictly speaking
which at times
becomes
the form called Māyāvi Rūpa.Therefore as explained in the second face of the
diagram (the
astral
man),the Spiritual Man consists of only five (Page 446)principles,as
taught by the Vedāntins,[See
supra .i.181.for the
Vedāntic exoteric enumeration.] who substitute tacitly for the physical
this sixth or
Auric,Body
and merge the dual Manas (dual mind or consciousness)into one.Thus they speak
of the
five
Koshas (sheaths or principles),and call Ćtmā the sixth yet no principle.This
is the secret of the late
Subba
Row s criticism of the division in Esoteric B ddhism .But let the
student now learn the true
Esoteric
enumeration.
The
reason why public mention of the Auric body was not permitted was on account of
its being so
sacred.It
is this Body which at death assimilates the essence of Buddhi and Manas and
becomes the
vehicle
of these spiritual principles,which are not objective and then with the
full radiation of Ćtmā upon
it
ascends as Manas-Taijasi into the Devachanic state.Therefore it is called by
many names.It is the
Sūtrātmā
the silver thread which incarnates from the beginning of Manvantara to the
end stringing
upon
itself the pearls of human existence in other words,the spiritual aroma of
every personality it
follows through the
pilgrimage of life.[See L cifer January 1889 Dialogue upon the
Mysteries of After-
Life.]
It is also the material from which the Adept forms his Astral Bodies,from
the Augoeides and the
Māyāvi
Rūpa downwards.After the death of man when its most ethereal particles have
drawn into
themselves
the spiritual principles of Buddhi and the Upper Manas,and are illuminated with
the radiance
of
Ćtmā the Auric Body remains either in the Devachanic state of consciousness,or
in the case of a full
Adept
prefers the state of a Nirmānakāya that is,one who has so purified his whole
system that he is
above
even the divine illusion of a Devachanī.Such an Adept remains in the astral
(invisible)plane
connected
with our earth and henceforth moves and lives in the possession of all his
principles except
the
Kāma Rūpa and Physical Body.In the case of the Devachanī the Linga-Sharira the
alter ego of the
body
which during life is within the physical envelope while the radiant aura is
without strengthened by
the
material particles which this aura leaves behind remains close to the dead body
and outside it and
soon
fades away.In the case of the full Adept the body alone becomes subject to
dissolution while the
centre
of that force which was the seat of desires and passions,disappears with its
cause the animal
body.But
during the life of the latter all these centres are more or less active and in
constant
correspondence
with their prototypes the cosmic centres,and their microcosms,the principles.
Cosmic Spiritual and Physical Centres -(Page 447)It is only through these cosmic and spiritual
centres
that the physical centres (the upper seven orifices,and the lower triad)can
benefit by their Occult
interaction
for these orifices,or openings,are channels conducting into the body the
influences that the
will of man attracts
and uses,viz.,the cosmic forces.
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This
will has,of course to act primarily through the spiritual principles.To make
this clearer let us take
an
example.In order to stop pain let us say in the right eye you have to attract
to it the potent
magnetism
from that cosmic principle which corresponds to this eye and also to
Buddhi.Create by a
powerful
will effort an imaginary line of communication between the right eye and Buddhi
locating the
latter
as a centre in the same part of the head.This line though you may call
it imaginary is,once you
succeed
in seeing it with your mental eye and give it a shape and colour in truth as
good as real.A rope
in
a dream is not and yet is .Moreover according to the prismatic
colour with which you endow your line
so
will the influence act.Now Buddhi and Mercury correspond with each other and
both are yellow or
radiant
and golden coloured.In the human system the right eye corresponds with Buddhi
and Mercury;
and
the left with Manas and Venus or Lucifer.Thus,if your line is golden or silvery
it will stop the pain;if
red
it will increase it for red is the colour of Kāma and corresponds with
Mars.Mental or Christian
Scientists
have stumbled upon the effects without understanding the ca ses .Having
found by chance
the
secret of producing such results owing to mental abstraction they attribute
them to their union with
God
(whether a personal or impersonal God they know best),whereas it is simply the
effect of one or
another
principle.However it may be they are on the path of discovery although they
must remain
wandering
for a long time to come.
Let
not Esoteric students commit the same mistake.It has often been explained that
neither the cosmic
planes
of substance nor even the human principles with the exception of the lowest
material plane or
world
and the physical body which as has been said are no principles,can be
located or thought of
as
being in Space and Time.As the former are seven in ONE so are we seven in ONE
that same
absolute
Soul of the World which is both Matter and non-Matter Spirit and non-Spirit
Being and non-
Being.Impress
yourselves well with this idea all those of you who would study the mysteries
of SELF.
Remember
that with our physical senses alone at our command none (Page 448)of us can hope to reach
beyond
gross Matter.We can do so only through one or another of our seven spirit al
senses,either by
training
or if one is a born Seer.Yet even a clairvoyant possessed of such faculties,if
not an Adept no
matter
how honest and sincere he may be will through his ignorance of the truths of
Occult Science be
led
by the visions he sees in the Astral Light only to mistake for God or Angels
the denizens of those
spheres
of which he may occasionally catch a glimpse as witness Swedenborg and others.
These
seven senses of ours correspond with every other septenate in nature and in
ourselves.
Physically
though invisibly the human Auric Envelope (the amnion of the physical man in
every age of
life)has
seven layers,just as Cosmic Space and our physical epidermis have.It is this
Aura which
according
to our mental and physical state of purity or impurity either opens for us
vistas into other
worlds,or
shuts us out altogether from anything but this three-dimensional world of
Matter.
Each
of our seven physical senses (two of which are still unknown to profane
Science),and also of our
seven
states of consciousness viz.:(1)waking;(2)waking-dreaming;(3)natural
sleeping;(4)induced
or
trance-sleep;(5)psychic;(6)super-psychic;and (7)purely spiritual corresponds
with one of the
seven
Cosmic Planes,develops and uses one of the seven super-senses,and is connected
directly in
its
use on the terestro-spiritual plane with the cosmic and divine centre of force
that gave it birth and
which
is its direct creator.Each is also connected with and under the direct
influence of one of the
seven
sacred Planets.[See supra i.626-629 ] These belonged to
the Lesser Mysteries,whose followers
were
called Mystai (the veiled),seeing that they were allowed to perceive things
only through a mist as it
were
with the eyes closed ;while the Initiates or Seers of the Greater Mysteries
were called Epoptai
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(those
who see things unveiled).It was the latter only who were taught the true
mysteries of the Zodiac
and
the relations and correspondences between its twelve signs (two secret)and the
ten human orfices.
The
latter are now of course ten in the female and only nine in the male;but this
is merely an external
difference.In
the second volume of this work it is stated that till the end of the Third
Root-Race (when
androgynous
man separated into male and female)the ten orifices existed in the
hermaphrodite first
potentially
then functionally.
Woman and Alchemy (Page 449)The
evolution of the human embryo shows this.For instance the only
opening
formed at first is the buccal cavity a cloaca communicating with the
anterior extremity of the
intestine.These
become later the mouth and the posterior orifice:the Logos differentiating and
emanating
gross matter on the lower plane in Occult parlance.The difficulty which some
students will
experience
in reconciling the correspondences between the Zodiac and the orifice can be
easily
explained.Magic
is coėval with the Third Root-Race which began by creating through Kriyāshakti
and
ended
by generating its species in the present way.[See supra i.228 et
seq.,ii.passim.] Woman being
left
with the full or perfect number 10 (the divine number of Jehovah),was deemed
higher and more
spiritual
than man.In Egypt in days of old the marriage service contained an article that
the woman
should
be the lady of the lord and real lord over him the husband pledging himself
to be obedient to
his
wife for the production of alchemical results such as the Elixir of Life and
the Philosopher s Stone for
the
spirit al help of the woman was needed by the male Alchemist.But woe to
the Alchemist who should
take
this in the dead-letter sense of physical union.Such sacrilege would
become Black Magic and be
followed
by certain failure.The true Alchemist of old took aged women to help him
carefully avoiding the
young
ones;and if any of them happened to be married they treated their wives for
months both before
and
during their operations as sisters.
The
error of crediting the Ancients with knowing only ten of the zodiacal signs is
explained in Isis
Unveiled .[Op.cit.,456
461 et seq.] The Ancients did know of twelve but viewed these
signs differently
from
ourselves.They took neither Virgo nor Scorpio singly into consideration but
regarded them as two
in
one since they were made to refer directly and symbolically to the primeval
dual man and his
separation
into sexes.During the reformation of the Zodiac,Libra was added as the twelfth
sign though
it
is simply an equilibrating sign at the turning point the mystery of separated
man.
Let
the student learn all this well.Meanwhile we have to recapitulate what has been
said.
(1)Each
human being is an incarnation of his God in other words,one with his Father in
Heaven
just as Jesus,an Initiate is made to say.As many men on earth so many Gods in
Heaven;and
yet these (Page 450)Gods are in reality ONE for at the end of every period of
activity
they are withdrawn like the rays of the setting sun into the Parent Luminary
the Non-
Manifested
Logos,which in its turn is merged into the One Absolute.Shall we call these
Fathers
of ours,whether individually or collectively and under any circumstances,our
personal God?Occultism
answers,Never .All that an average man can know of his Father is
what
he knows of himself through and within himself.The Soul of his Heavenly Father
is
incarnated
in him.This Soul is himself if he be successful in assimilating the Divine
Individuality
while in his physical animal shell.As to the Spirit thereof as well expect to
be
heard
by the Absolute.Our prayers and supplications are vain unless to potential
words we
add
potent acts,and make the Aura which surrounds each one of us so pure and divine
that
the
God within us may act outwardly or in other words,become as it were an
extraneous
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Potency.Thus
have Initiates,Saints,and very holy and pure men have been enabled to help
others
as well as themselves in the hour of need and produce what are foolishly called
miracles,
each by the help and with the aid of the God within himself which he alone has
enabled
to act on the outward plane.
(2)The
word AUM or OM which corresponds to the upper Triangle if pronounced by a very
holy
and pure man will draw out or awaken not only the less exalted Potencies
residing in the
planetary
spaces and elements,but even his Higher Self or the Father within him.
Pronounced
by an averagely good man in the correct way it will help to strengthen him
morally
especially if between two AUMS he meditates intently upon the AUM within him
concentrating
all his attention upon the ineffable glory.But woe to the man who pronounces it
after
the commission of some far-reaching sin:he will only thereby attract to his own
impure
photosphere
invisible Presences and Forces which could not otherwise break through the
Divine
Envelope.
AUM
is the original of Amen.Now.Amen is not a Hebrew term but like the word
Halleluiah
was
borrowed by the Jews and Greeks from the Chaldees.The latter word is often
found
repeated
in certain magical inscriptions upon cups and urns among the Babylonian and
Ninevean
relics.Amen does not mean so be it or verily but signified in hoary
antiquity
almost
the same as AUM.The Jewish Tanaļm (Initiates)used it for the same reason as the
Ćryan
Adepts use AUM and with a like success,the numerical value of AMeN in
Hebrew
letters
being 91 the same as the full value of YHVH,[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.]26 and A
DoNa Y,65 or 91.Both
words
mean the affirmation of the being or existence of the sexless Lord within us.
Sound and Colour -(Page 451)(3)Esoteric
Science teaches that every sound in the visible world
awakens
its corresponding sound in the invisible realms,and arouses to action some
force or other on
the
Occult side of Nature.Moreover every sound corresponds to a colour and a number
(a potency
spiritual
psychic or physical)and to a sensation on some plane.All these find an echo in
every one of
the
so-far developed elements,and even on the terrestrial plane in the Lives that
swarm in the terrene
atmosphere
thus prompting them to action.
Thus
a prayer unless pronounced mentally and addressed to one s Father in
the silence and solitude of
one
s closet must have more frequently disastrous than beneficial
results,seeing that the masses are
entirely
ignorant of the potent effects which they thus produce.To produce good effects
the prayer must
be
uttered by one who knows how to make himself heard in silence when it is no
longer a prayer but
becomes
a command.Why is Jesus shown to have forbidden his hearers to go to the public
synagogues?Surely
every praying man was not a hypocrite and a liar nor a Pharisee who loved to be
seen
praying by people!He had a motive we must suppose:the same motive which prompts
the
experienced
Occultist to prevent his pupils from going into crowded places now as then from
entering
churches,séance
rooms,etc.unless they are in sympathy with the crowd.
There
is one piece of advice to be given to beginners,who cannot help going into
crowds one which
may
appear superstitious,but which in the absence of Occult knowledge will be found
efficacious.As well
known
to good Astrologers,the days of the week are not in the order of those planets
whose names they
bear.The
fact is that the ancient Hindus and Egyptians divided the day into four
parts,each day being
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under
the protection (as ascertained by practical magic)of a planet;and every day as
correctly asserted
by
Dion Cassius,received the name of the planet which rules and protected its
first portion.Let the
student
protect himself from the Powers of the Air (Elementals)which throng public
places,by wearing
either
a ring containing some jewel of the colour of the presiding planet or else of
the metal sacred to it.
But
the best protection is a clear conscience and a firm desire to benefit
Humanity.
The Planets The Days of the Week and Their Corresponding
Colours and Metals -(Page
452)In the
accompanying
diagram the days of the week do not stand in their usual order though they are
placed in
their
correct sequence as determined by the order of the colours in the solar
spectrum and the
corresponding
colours of their ruling planets.The fault of the confusion in the order of the
days revealed
by
this comparison lies at the door of the early Christians.Adopting from the Jews
their lunar months,
they
tried to blend them with the solar planets and so made a mess of it;for the
order of the days of the
week
as it now stands does not follow the order of the planets.
Now
the Ancients arranged the planets in the following order:Moon Mercury Venus,Sun
Mars Jupiter
Saturn
counting the Sun as a planet for exoteric purposes.Again the Egyptians and
Indians,the two
oldest
nations,divided their day into four parts,each of which was under the
protection and rule of a
planet.In
course of time each day came to be called by the name of that planet which
rules its first
portion
the morning.Now when they arranged their week,the Christians proceeded as
follows:they
wanted
to make the day of the Sun or Sunday the seventh so they named the days of the
week by
taking
every fourth planet in turn;e.g.,beginning with the Moon (Monday)they
counted thus:Moon
Mercury
Venus,Sun Mars;thus Tuesday the day whose first portion was ruled by
Mars,became the
second
day of the week;and so on.It should be remembered also that the Moon like the
Sun is a
substitute
for a secret planet.
The
present division of the solar year was made several centuries later than the
beginning of our era;
and
our week is not that of the Ancients and the Occultists.The septenary division
of the four parts of the
lunar
phases is as old as the world and originated with the people who reckoned time
by the lunar
months.The
Hebrews never used it for they counted only the seventh day the Sabbath though
the
second
chapter of Genesis seems to speak of it.Till the days of the Cęsars
there is no trace of a week
of
seven days among any nation save the Hindus.From India it passed to the
Arabs,and reached
Europe
with Christianity.The Roman week consisted of eight days,and the Athenian of
ten.[See Notice
sur le Calendrier.J.H.Ragon.]
The Days of the Week -(Page 453)Thus one of
the numberless contradictions and fallacies of
Christendom
is the adoption of the Indian septenary week of the lunar reckoning and the
preservation at
the
same time of the mythological names of the planets.
Nor
do modern Astrologers give the correspondences of the days and planets and
their colours correctly;
and
while Occultists can give good reason for every detail of their own tables of
colours,etc.it is
doubtful
whether the Astrologers can do the same.
To
close this first Paper let me say that the readers must in all necessity be
separated into two broad
divisions:those
who have not quite rid themselves of the usual sceptical doubts,but who long to
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ascertain
how much truth there may be in the claims of the Occultists;and those others
who having
freed
themselves from the trammels of Materialism and Relativity feel that true and
real bliss must be
sought
only in the knowledge and personal experience of that which the Hindu
Philosopher calls the
Brahmavidyā
and the Buddhist Arhat the realization of Ćdibuddha the primeval Wisdom.Let the
former
pick
out and study from these Papers only those explanations of the phenomena of
life which profane
Science
is unable to give them.Even with such limitations,they will find by the end of
a year or two that
they
will have learned more than all their Universities and Colleges can teach
them.As to the sincere
believers,they
will be rewarded by seeing their faith transformed into knowledge.True
knowledge is of
Spirit
and in Spirit alone and cannot be acquired in any other way except through the
region of the
higher
mind the only plane from which we can penetrate the depths of the all-pervading
Absoluteness.
He
who carries out only those laws established by human minds,who lives that life
which is prescribed
by
the code of mortals and their fallible legislation chooses as his guiding star
a beacon which shines on
the
ocean of Māya or of temporary delusions,and lasts for but one incarnation.These
laws are
necessary
for the life and welfare of physical man alone.He has chosen a pilot who
directs him through
the
shoals of one existence a master who parts with him however on the threshold of
death.How much
happier
that man who while strictly performing on the temporary objective plane the
duties of daily life
carrying
out each and every law of his country and rendering in short to Cęsar s what
is Cęsar s,leads
in
reality a spiritual and permanent existence a life with no breaks of continuity
no gaps,no interludes,
(Page 454)not even during those periods which are the halting places
of the long pilgrimage of purely
spiritual
life.All the phenomena of the lower human mind disappear like the curtain of a
proscenium
allowing
him to live in the region beyond it the plane of the noumenal the one
reality.If man by
suppressing
if not destroying his selfishness and personality only succeeds in knowing
himself as he is
behind
the veil of physical Māyā he will soon stand beyond all pain all misery and
beyond all the wear
and
tear of change which is the chief originator of pain.Such a man will be
physically of Matter he will
move
surrounded by Matter and yet he will live beyond and outside it.His body will
be subject to change
but
he himself will be entirely without it and will experience everlasting life
even while in temporary
bodies
of short duration.All this may be achieved by the development of unselfish
universal love of
Humanity
and the suppression of personality or selfishness which is the cause of
all sin and
consequently
of all human sorrow.
DIAGRAM II
These
Correspondences
are
from the Objective
Terrestrial
Plane
ATMAN
is no
Number
and
ccorresponds
to
no
visible Planet
for
it proceeds
from
the Spiritual
Sun;nor
does it
bear
any relation
either
to Sound
Colour
or the
rest
for it
includes
them
ATMA
As the Human Principles have no numbers
per se,but only correspond
to Numbers,
Sounds,Colours,etc.they
are not
enumerated
here in the order used for
esoteric
purposes.
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all.
NUMBER
S
METALS PLANETS THE HUMAN
PRINCIPLES
DAYS OF
THE WEEK
COLOUR
S
SOUND
MUSIC SCALE
1 and 10
Physical
Man's
Key-
note
Iron Mars
The
Planet of
Generation
Kāma Rūpa
The
Vehicle or
seat
of the
Animal
Instincts
and
Passions
Tuesday
Dies Martis,
or
Tiu
1-Red
Sanskrit
Gamut
Italian
Gamut
Sa
Do
2
The
Spiritual
and
Life
Physical
Gold The Sun
The
Giver of Life
physically
Spiritually
and
Esoterically
the
substitute
for the
inter-Mercurial
Planet
a sacred
and
secret planet
with
the ancients
Prāna or Jiva
Life
Sunday
Dies
Sola or
Sun
2-
Orange
Ri
Re
3
Because
BUDDHI
is
(so
to
speak)
between
Atma
and
Manas,
and
forms
with
the
seventh
or
AURIC
ENVELOP
E
the
Devachani
c
Triad
Mercury
Mixes
with
Sulphur
as
Buddhi
is
mixed
with
the
Flame of
Spirit
(See
Alchemical
Definitions)
Mercury Buddhi
Spiritual
Soul
or
Atmic Ray
vehicle
or Atmā
Wednesday
Dies
Mercuri
or
Woden
Day
of
Buddha in
the
South
and
of
Woden
in
the
North -
Gods
of
Wisdom
3
Yellow Ga Mi
4
The
middle
principle
-
between
the
purely
material
and
purely
spiritual
trias.The
Lead Saturn Kama Manas
The
Lower
Mind
or
Animal
Soul
Saturday
Dies
Saturni
or
Saturn
4
Green
Ma
Fa
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conscious
part
of
animal
man.
5 Tin Jupiter Auric
Envelope
Thursday
Dies...
or
Thor
5
Black
Pa
Sol
6 Copper
When
alloyed
becomes
Bronze
(the
d al
principle)
Venus
The
Morning and
the
Evening Star
Manas
The
Higher
Mind
or
Human
Soul
Friday
Dies...
6
Indigo or
Dark
Blue
Da
La
7
Contains
in
itself
the
reflection
of
Septenary
Man
Silver The Moon
The
Parent of
the
Earth
Linga Sharira
The
Astral
Double
of Man;
the
Parent of
the
Physical
Man
Monday
Dies
Lunae
or
Moon
7
Violet
Ni
Si
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PAPER II
An Explanation -(Page 455)IN view of the
abstruse nature of the subjects dealt with the present Paper
will
begin with an explanation of some points which remained obscure in the
preceding one as well as of
some
statements in which there was an appearance of contradiction.
Astrologers,of
whom there are many among the Esotericists,are likely to be puzzled by some
statements
distinctly contradicting their teachings;whilst those who know nothing of the
subject may
perhaps
find themselves opposed at the outset by those who have studied the exoteric
systems of the
Kabalah
and Astrology.For let it be distinctly known nothing of that which is printed
broadcast and
available
to every student in public libraries or museums,is really Esoteric,but is
either mixed with
deliberate
blinds,or cannot be understood and studied with profit without a complete
glossary of Occult
terms.
The
following teachings and explanations,therefore may be useful to the student in
assisting him to
formulate
the teaching given in the preceding Paper.
In
Diagram I it will be observed that the 3 7 and 10 centres are respectively as
follows:
(a
)The 3 pertain to the spiritual world of the Absolute and therefore to the
three higher principles in Man.
(b
)The 7 belong to the spiritual psychic,and physical worlds and to the body
of man.Physics
metaphysics
and hyper-physics are the triad that symbolizes man on this plane.
(c
)The 10 or the sum total of these is the Universe as a whole in all its
aspects,and also its Microcosm
Man
with his ten orifices.
Laying
aside for the moment the Higher Decad (Kosmos)and the (Page 456)Lower Decad (Man),the
first
three numbers of the separate sevens have a direct reference to the Spirit Soul
and Auric Envelope
of
the human being as well as to the higher supersensual world.The lower four or
the four aspects,
belong
to Man also as well as to the Universal Kosmos,the whole being synthesized by
the Absolute.
If
these three discrete or distributive degrees of Being be conceived according to
the Symbology of the
Eastern
Religions,as contained in one Ovum or EGG the name of that EGG will be
Svabhāvat or the
ALL-BEING
on the manifested plane.This Universe has,in truth neither centre nor
periphery;but in the
individual
and finite mind of man it has such a definition the natural consequence of the
limitations of
human
thought.
In
Diagram II as already stated therein no notice need be taken of the numbers
used in the left-hand
column
as these refer only to the Hierarchies of the Colours and Sounds on the
metaphysical plane and
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are
not the characteristic numbers of the human principles or of the planets.The
human principles elude
enumeration
because each man differs from every other just as no two blades of grass on the
whole
earth
are absolutely alike.Numbering is here a question of spiritual progress and the
natural
predominance
of one principle over another.With one man it may be Buddhi that stands as
number one;
with
another if he be a bestial sensualist the Lower Manas.With one the physical
body or perhaps
Prāna
the life principle will be on the first and highest plane as would be the case
in an extremely
healthy
man full of vitality;with another it may come as the sixth or even seventh
downward.Again the
colours
and metals corresponding to the planets and human principles,as will be
observed are not those
known
exoterically to modern Astrologers and Western Occultists.
Let
us see whence the modern Astrologer got his notions about the correspondence of
planets metals
and
colours.And here we are reminded of the modern Orientalist who judging by
appearances credits
the
ancient Akkadians (and also the Chaldęans,Hindus and Egyptians)with the crude
notion that the
Universe
and in like manner the earth was like an inverted bell-shaped bowl!This he
demonstrates by
pointing
to the symbolical representations of some Akkadian inscriptions and to the
Assyrian carvings.It
is,however
no place here to explain how mistaken is the Assyriologist for all such
representations are
simply
symbolical of the Khargakkurra,the World-Mountain or Meru and relate
only to the North Pole
the
Land of the Gods.
Astrology and Lunar Weeks -(Page 457)Now the Assyrians arranged their exoteric teaching
about the
planets
and their correspondences as follows;
Numbers Planets Metals Colours Solar Days of Week
1
Saturn Lead Black Saturday (Whence Sabbath
in
honour of Jehovah)
2
Jupiter Tin White but as often Purple or
Orange
Thursday
3
Mars Iron Red Tuesday
4
Sun Gold Yellow-golden Sunday
5
Venus Copper Green or Yellow Friday
6
Mercury Quick Silver Blue Wednesday
7
Moon Silver Silver-white Monday
This
is the arrangement now adopted by Christian Astrologers,with the exception of
the order of the days
of
the week,of which by associating the solar planetary names with the lunar
weeks,they have made a
sore
mess,as he has been already shown in Paper I.This is the Ptolemaic geocentric
system which
represents
the Universe as in the following diagram showing our Earth in the centre of the
Universe and
the
Sun a Planet the fourth in number:
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And
if the Christian chronology and order of the days of the week are being daily
denounced as being
based
on an entirely wrong astronomical foundation it is high time to begin a reform
also in Astrology
built
on such lines,and coming to us entirely from the Chaldęan and Assyrian exoteric
mob.
But
the correspondences given in these Papers are purely Esoteric.
(Page 458)For this reason it follows that when the Planets of the
Solar System are named or symbolized
(as
in Diagram II.)it must not be supposed that the planetary bodies themselves are
referred to except
as
types on a purely physical plane of the septenary nature of the psychic and
spiritual worlds.A material
planet
can correspond only to a material something.Thus when Mercury is said to
correspond to the right
eye
it does not mean that the objective planet has any influence on the right optic
organ but that both
stand
rather as corresponding mystically through Buddhi.Man derives his Spiritual
Soul (Buddhi)from
the
essence of the Mānasa Putra the Sons of Wisdom who are the Divine Beings (or
Angels)ruling and
presiding
over the planet Mercury.
In
the same way Venus,Manas and the left eye are set down as
correspondences.Exoterically there is,
in
reality no such association of physical eyes and physical planets;but
Esoterically there is:for the right
eye
is the Eye of Wisdom i.e.,it corresponds magnetically with that Occult
centre in the brain which we
call
the Third Eye ;[See supra,ii.302.et seq.] while
the left corresponds with the intellectual brain or
those
cells which are the organ on the physical plane of the thinking faculty.The
kabalistic triangle of
Kether
Chokmah and Binah shows this.Chokmah and Binah or Wisdom and Intelligence the
Father
and
Mother or again the Father and Son are on the same plane and reäct mutually on
one another.
When
the individual consciousness is turned inward a conjunction of Manas and Buddhi
takes place.In
the
spiritually regenerated man this conjunction is permanent the Higher Manas
clinging to Buddhi
beyond
the threshold of Devachan and the Soul or rather the Spirit which should not be
confounded
with
Ćtmā the Super-Spirit is then said to have the Single Eye.Esoterically in
other words,the Third
Eye
is active.Now Mercury is called Hermes,and Venus,Aphrodite and thus their
conjunction in man
on
the psycho-physical plane gives him the name of the Hermaphrodite or
Androgyne.The absolutely
Spiritual
Man is,however entirely disconnected from sex.The Spiritual Man corresponds
directly with the
higher
coloured circles,the Divine Prism which emanates from the One Infinite White
Circle;while
physical
man emanates from the Sephiroth which are the Voices or Sounds of Eastern
Philosophy.
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Seeing Sounds and Hearing Colours -(Page 459)And these Voices are lower than the Colours,for
they
are the seven lower Sephiroth or the objective Sounds,seen not heard as the Zohar
shows [Op.
cit.,ii.81.6.] and
even the Old Testament also.For when properly translated verse 18 of chapter
xx.
Exod s would read:And
the people saw the Voices (or Sounds,not the thunderings as now
translated);and
these Voices,or Sounds,are the Sephiroth.[See Frank s Die Kabbala,p.314
et seq.]
In
the same way the right and left nostrils,into which is breathed the Breath of
Lives, [Genesis,ii 7.]
are
here said to correspond with Sun and Moon as Brahmā-Prajāpati and Vāch or
Osiris and Isis,are
the
parents of the natural life.This Quaternary viz.:the two eyes and two
nostrils,Mercury and Venus,
Sun
and Moon constitutes the Kabalistic Guardian-Angels of the Four Corners of the
Earth.It is the
same
in the Eastern Esoteric Philosophy which however adds that the Sun is not a
planet but the
central
star of our system and the Moon a dead planet from which all the principles are
gone both being
substitutes,the
one for an invisible inter-Mercurial planet and the other for a planet which
seems to have
now
altogether disappeared from view.These are the Four Mahārājahs,[S
pra,i.147.] the Four Holy
Ones
connected with Karma and Humanity Kosmos and Man in all their aspects.They
are:the Sun or
its
substitute Michael;Moon or substitute Gabriel;Mercury Raphael;and
Venus,Uriel.It need hardly be
said
here again that the planetary bodies themselves being only physical symbols,are
not often referred
to
in the Esoteric System but as a rule their cosmic,psychic,physical and
spiritual forces are
symbolized
under these names.In short it is the seven physical planets which are the lower
Sephiroth of
the
Kabalah,and our triple physical Sun whose reflection only we see which
is symbolized or rather
personified
by the Upper Triad or Sephirothal Crown.[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.]
Then
again it will be well to point out that the numbers attached to the psychic
principles in Diagram I.
appear
the reverse of those in exoteric writings.This is because numbers in this
connection are purely
arbitrary
changing with every school.Some schools count (Page 460)three some
four some six and
others
seven as do all the Buddhist Esotericists.As said before [S pra,i
147.] the Esoteric School has
been
divided into two departments since the fourteenth century one for the inner
Lanoos,or higher
Chelās,the
other for the outer circle or lay Chelās.Mr.Sinnett was distinctly told in the
letters he
received
from one of the Gurus that he could not be taught the real Esoteric Doctrine
given out only to
the
pledged disciples of the Inner Circle.The numbers and principles do not go in
regular sequence like
the
skins of an onion but the student must work out for himself the number
appropriate to each of his
principles,when
the time comes for him to enter upon practical study.The above will suggest to
the
student
the necessity of knowing the principles by their names and their appropriate
faculties apart from
any
system of enumeration or by association with their corresponding centres of
actions,colours,
sounds,etc.until
these become inseparable.
The
old and familiar mode of reckoning the principles,given in the Theosophist and
Esoteric B ddhism
leads
to another apparently perplexing contradiction though it is really none at
all.The principles
numbered
3 and 2 viz :Linga Sharīra and Prāna or Jīva stand in the reverse order
to that given in
Diagram
I .A moment's consideration will suffice to explain the apparent discrepancy
between the
exoteric
enumeration and the Esoteric order given in Diagram I.For in Diagram I.the
Linga Sharīra is
defined
as the vehicle of Prāna or Jīva the life principle and as such must of
necessity be inferior to
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Prāna
not superior as the exoteric enumeration would suggest.The principles do not
stand one above
the
other and thus cannot be taken in numerical sequence;their order depends upon
the superiority and
predominance
of one or another principle and therefore differs in every man.
The
Linga Sharīra is the double or protoplasmic antetype of the body which is its
image.It is in this
sense
that it is called in Diagram II.the parent of the physical body i.e.,the
mother by conception of
Prāna
the father.This idea is conveyed in the Egyptian mythology by the birth of
Horus,the child of
Osiris
and Isis,although like all sacred Mythoi this has both a threefold spiritual
and a sevenfold
psycho-physical
application.To close the subject Prāna the life principle can in sober truth
have no
number
as it pervades every other principle or the human total.
Planetary and Human Bodies -(Page 461)Each number of the seven would thus be naturally applicable
to
Prāna-Jīva exoterically as it is to the Auric Body Esoterically.As Pythagoras
showed Kosmos was
produced
not thro gh or by number but geometrically i.e.,following
the proportions of numbers.
To
those who are unacquainted with the exoteric astrological natures ascribed in
practice to the planetary
bodies,it
may be useful if we set them down here after the manner of Diagram II.in
relation to their
dominion
over the human body colours,metals,etc.and explain at the same time why genuine
Exoteric
Philosophy
differs from the astrological claims.
Planets Days Metals Parts of the Body Colours
Saturn
Saturday Lead Right Ear Knees and Bony Sytem Black *
Jupiter
Thursday Tin Left Ear Thighs,Feet and Arterial
System
Purple
Mars
Tuesday Iron Forehead and Nose the Skull.Sex-
function
and Muscular Sytem
Red.
Sun
Sunday Gold Right Eye Heart and Vital Centres Orange
Venus
Friday Copper Chin and Cheeks,Neck and Reins and
the
Venous Sytem
Yellow
§
Mercury
Wednesday Quicksilver Mouth Hands,Abdominal Viscera and
Nervous
System
Dove
or
Cream
¶
Moon
Monday Silver Breasts,Left Eye the Fluidic Sytem
Saliva
Lymph etc.
White**
*[Esoterically
green there being no black in the prismatic ray.]
[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.]
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[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 absorbtion of vapours (chiefly metallic)by its atmosphere.All is Mayā on
our earth.]
§
[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 reasons.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.]
¶
[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.]
**[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
aerial
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 .]
(Page 462)Thus it will be seen that the influence of the solar system
in the exoteric kabalistic Astrology is
by
this method distributed over the entire human body the primary metals,and the
gradations of colour
from
black to white;but that Esotericism recognizes neither black nor white as
colours,because it holds
religiously
to the seven solar or natural colours of the prism.Black and white are
artificial tints.They
belong
to the Earth and are only perceived by virtue of the special construction of
our physical organs.
White
is the absence of all colours,and therefore no colour;black is simply the
absence of light and
therefore
the negative aspect of white.The seven prismatic colours are direct emanations
from the
Seven
Hierarchies of Being each of which has a direct bearing upon and relation to
one of the human
principles,since
each of these Hierarchies is,in fact the creator and source of the
corresponding human
principle.Each
prismatic colour is called in Occultism the Father of Sound which corresponds
to it;
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Sound
being the Word or the Logos,of its Father-Thought.This is the reason why
sensitives connect
every
colour with a definite sound a fact well recognized in Modern Science (e.g.,Francis
Galton s
H man Faculty ).But
black and white are entirely negative colours,and have no representatives in
the
world
of subjective being.
Planets and Faculties -(Page 463)Kabalistic Astrology says that the dominion of the
planetary bodies in
the
human brain also is defined thus:there are seven primary groups of
faculties,six of which function
through
the cerebrum and the seventh through the cerebellum.This is perfectly correct
Esoterically.But
when
it is further said that:Saturn governs the devotional faculties;Mercury the
intellectual;Jupiter the
sympathetic;the
Sun the governing faculties;Mars,the selfish;Venus,the tenacious;and the Moon
the
instincts;we
say that the explanation is incomplete and even misleading.For in the first
place the
physical
planets can rule only the physical body and the purely physical functions.All
the mental
emotional
psychic and spiritual faculties,are influenced by the Occult properties of the
scale of causes
which
emanate from the Hierarchies of the Spiritual Rulers of the planets,and not by
the planets
themselves.This
scale as given in Diagram II leads the student to perceive in the following
order:(1)
colour;(2)sound;(3)the
sound materializes into the spirit of the metals,i.e.,the metallic
Elementals;(4)
these
materialize again into the physical metals;(5)then the harmonial and vibratory
radiant essence
passes
into the plants,giving them colour and smell both of which properties depend
upon the rate of
vibration
of this energy per unit of time;(6)from plants it passes into the
animals;(7)and finally
culminates
in the principles of man.
Thus
we see the Divine Essence of our Progenitors in Heaven circling through seven
stages;Spirit
becoming
Matter and Matter returning to Spirit.As there is sound in Nature which is
inaudible so there is
colour
which is invisible but which can be heard.The creative force at work in its
incessant task of
transformation
produces colour sound and numbers,in the shape of rates of vibration which
compound
and
dissociate the atoms and molecules.Though invisible and inaudible to us in
detail yet the synthesis
of
the whole becomes audible to us on the material plane.It is that which the
Chinese call the Great
Tone
or K ng.It is,even by scientific confession the actual tonic of Nature
held by musicians to be the
middle
Fa on the keyboard of a piano.We hear it distinctly in the voice of Nature in
the roaring of the
ocean
in the sound of the foliage of a great forest in the distant roar of a great
city in the wind the
tempest
and the storm;in short in everything in Nature which has a voice or produces
sound.To the
(Page 464)hearing of all who hearken it culminates in a single
definite tone of an unappreciable pitch
which
as said is the F or Fa of the diatonic scale.From these particulars,that
wherein lies the
difference
between the exoteric and the Esoteric nomenclature and symbolism will be
evident to the
student
of Occultism.In short kabalistic Astrology as practised in Europe is the
semi-esoteric Secret
Science
adapted for the outer and not for the inner circle.It is,furthermore often left
incomplete and not
infrequently
distorted to conceal the real truth.While it symbolizes and adapts its
correspondences on
the
mere appearances of things,Esoteric Philosophy which concerns itself
pre-eminently with the
essence
of things,accepts only such symbols as cover the whole ground i.e.,such
symbols as yield a
spiritual
as well as a psychic and physical meaning.Yet even Western Astrology has done
excellent
work,for
it has helped to carry the knowledge of the existence of a Secret Wisdom
throughout the
dangers
of the Medięval Ages and their dark bigotry up to the present day when all
danger has
disappeared.
The
order of the planets in exoteric practice is that defined by their geocentric
radii or the distance of
their
several orbits from the Earth as a centre viz .Saturn Jupiter Mars,Sun
Venus,Mercury and
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Moon.In
the first three of these we find symbolized the celestial Triad of supreme
power in the physical
manifested
universe or Brahmā Vishnu and Shiva;while in the last four we recognize the
symbols of the
terrestrial
quaternary ruling over all natural and physical revolutions of the
seasons,quarters of the day
points
of the compass,and elements.Thus:
Spring Summer Autumn Winter
Morning Noon Evening Night
Youth Adolescence Manhood Age
Fire Air Water Earth
East South West North
But
Esoteric Science is not content with analogies on the purely objective plane of
the physical senses,
and
therefore it is absolutely necessary to preface further teachings in this
direction with a clear
explanation
of the real meaning of the word Magic.
Simon Magnus the Magician (Page 465)
What
Magic is,in Reality
Esoteric
Science is,above all the knowledge of our relations with and in Divine Magic,[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 magn s,all
signifying great .] inseparableness
from
our divine Selves the latter meaning something else besides our own
higher Spirit.Thus,before
proceeding
to exemplify and explain these relations,it may perhaps be useful to give the
student a
correct
idea of the full meaning of this most misunderstood world Magic. Many are
those willing and
eager
to study Occultism but very few have even an approximate idea of the Science
itself.Now very
few
of our American and European students can derive benefit from Sanskrit works or
even their
translations,as
these translations are for the most part merely blinds to the uninitiated.I
therefore
propose
to offer to their attention demonstrations of the aforesaid drawn from
Neo-Platonic works.These
are
accessible in translation;and in order to throw light on that which has
hitherto been full of darkness,it
will
suffice to point to a certain key in them.Thus the Gnosis,both pre-Christian
and post-Christian will
serve
our purpose admirably.
There
are millions of Christians who know the name of Simon Magus,and the little that
is told about him
in
the Acts;but very few who have even heard of the many motley fantastic
and contradictory details
which
tradition records about his life.The story of his claims and his death is to be
found only in the
prejudiced
half-fantastic records about him in the works of the Church Fathers,such as
Irenęus,
Ephiphanius
and St.Justin and especially in the anonymous Philosoph mena .Yet he is
a historical
character
and the appellation of Magus was given to him and was accepted by all his
contemporaries,
including
the heads of the Christian Church as a qualification indicating the miraculous
powers he
possessed
and irrespective of whether he was regarded as a white (divine)or a black
(infernal)
Magician.In
this respect opinion has always been made subservient to the Gentile or
Christian
proclivities
of his chronicler.
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It
is in his system and in that of Menander his pupil and successor that we find
what the term Magic
meant
for Initiates in those days.
Simon
as all the other Gnostics,taught that our world was created by the lower angels,whom
he called
Ęons.He
mentions only three (Page
466)degrees as such because it was and is
useless,as we have
before
explained to teach anything about the four higher ones,and he therefore begins
at the plane of
globes
A and G.His system is as near to Occult Truth as any so that we may examine it
as well as his
own
and Meander s claims about Magic,to find out what they meant by the term.Now
for Simon the
summit
of all manifested creation was Fire.It was,with him as with us,the Universal
Principle the
Infinite
Potency born from the concealed Potentiality.This Fire was the primeval cause
of the manifested
world
of being and was dual having a manifested and a concealed or secret side.
The
secret side of the Fire is concealed in its evident [or objective ]side
and the objective is
produced
from the secret side [Philosoph mena,vi.9.]
he
writes,which amounts to saying that the visible is ever present in the
invisible and the invisible in the
visible.This
was but a new form of stating Plato s idea of the Intelligibe (Noźton )and
the Sensible
(Aisthźton
),and Aristotle s teaching on the Potency (D namis )and the Act (Energeia
).For Simon all that
can
be thought of all that can be acted upon was perfect intelligence.Fire
contained all .And thus all the
parts
of that Fire being endowed with intelligence and reason was susceptible of
development by
extension
and emanation.This is our teaching of the Manifested Logos,and these parts in
their
primordial
emanations are our Dhyān Chohans,the Sons of Flame and Fire or higher
Ęons.This
Fire
is the symbol of the active and living side of Divine Nature.Behind it lay
infinite Potentiality in
Potentiality
which Simon named that which has stood stands and will stand or permanent
stability
and
personified immutability.
From
the Potency of Thought Divine Ideation thus passed to Action.Hence the series
of primordial
emanations
through Thought begetting the Act the objective side of Fire being the Mother
the sacred
side
of it being the Father.Simon called these emanations Syzygies (a united pair or
couple),for they
emanated
two-by-two one as an active and the other as a passive Ęon.Three couples thus
emanated
(or
six in all the Fire being the seventh),to which Simon gave the following
names:Mind and Thought;
Voice
and Name;Reason and Reflection [No s,Epinoia:Phōni :Onoma
:Logismos,Enth mesis.]
the
first in each pair being male the last female.From these primordial six
emanated the six Ęons of the
Middle
World.Let us see what Simon himself says:
Series of Ęons -(Page 467)Each of these six
primitive beings contained the entire infinite
Potency
[of its parent ];but it was there only in Potency and not in
Act.That Potency had to be
called
forth [or conformed ]through an image in order that it
should manifest in all its essence
virtue
grandeur and effects;for only then could the emanated Potency become similar to
its
parent
the eternal and infinite Potency.If on the contrary it remained simply
potentially in the
six
Potencies and failed to be conformed through an image then the Potency would
not pass
into
action but would get lost.[Philosoph mena,vi.12.]
in
clearer terms,it would become atrophied as the modern expression goes.
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Now
what do these words mean if not that to be equal in all things to the Infinite
Potency the Ęons had
to
imitate it in its action and become themselves,in their turn emanative
Principles,as was their Parent
giving
life to new beings,and becoming Potencies in act themselves?To produce
emanations,or to
have
acquired the gift of Kryiāshakti [See supra,s b voce.] is
the direct result of that power an effect
which
depends on our own action.That power then is inherent in man as it is in the
primordial Ęons
and
even in the secondary Emanations,by the very fact of their and our descent from
the One Primordial
Principle
the Infinite Power or Potency.Thus we find in the system of Simon Magus that
the first six
Ęons,synthesized
by the seventh the Parent Potency passed into Act and emanated in their turn
six
secondary
Ęons,which were each synthesized by their respective Parents.In the Philosoph
mena we
read
that Simon compared the Ęons to the Tree of Life.Said Simon in the Revelation
:[The Great
Revelation (Hź Megalź Apophasis),of which Simon himself is supposed to have been the author.]
It
is written that there are two ramifications of the universal Ęons,having
neither beginning
nor
end issued both from the same Root the invisible and incomprehensible
Potentiality Sigź
[Silence ].One
of these [series of Ęons ]appears from above.This is the Great
Potency
Universal
Mind [or Divine Ideation the Mahat of the Hindus ];it orders all
things and is male.
The
other is from below for it is the Great [manifested ]Thought the
female Ęon generating
all
things.These [two kinds of Ęons ] corresponding [Literally
standing opposite each other in
rows
or pairs.] with each other have conjunction and manifest the middle
distance [the
intermediate
sphere or plane ] the incomprehensible Air which has neither beginning
nor end.
[Philosoph mena,vi.18.]
This
female Air is our Ether or the kabalistic Astral Light.It (Page 468)is,then the Second World of
Simon
born of Fire the principle of everything.We call it the ONE LIFE the
Intelligent Divine Flame
omnipresent
and infinite.In Simon s system this Second World was ruled by a Being or
Potency both
male
and female or active and passive good or bad.This Parent-Being like the
primordial infinite
Potency
is also called that which has stood stands and will stand so long as the
manifested Kosmos
shall
last.When it emanated in act and became like unto its own Parent it was
not dual or androgyne.It
is
the Thought (Sigź)that emanated from it which became as itself (the
Parent),having become like unto
its
image (or antetype):the second had now become in its turn the first (on its own
plane or sphere).As
Simon
has it:
It
[the Parent or Father ] was one.For having it [the thought
] in itself it was alone.It was not
however
first though it was preėxisting:but manifesting itself to itself from itself it
became the
second
(or dual).Nor was it called Father before it [the Thought ] gave
it that name.As,
therefore
itself developing itself by itself manifested to itself its own Thought so also
the
Thought
being manifested did not act but seeing the Father hid it in itself that
is,(hid)that
Potency
(in itself)And the Potency [D namis,viz.:No s ] and
Thought [Epinoia ] are male-
female.Whence
they correspond with one another For Potency in no way differs from
Thought
being one.So from the things above is found Potency and from those below
Thought.It
comes to pass,therefore that that which is manifested from them although being
one
yet is found to be twofold the androgyne having the female in itself.So is Mind
in
Thought
things inseparable from each other which though being one are yet found dual.
[Op.cit.,vi.18.]
He
[Simon ] calls the first Syzygy of the six Potencies and of the
seventh which is with it Nous
and
Epinoia Heaven and Earth:the male looks down from on high and takes thought for
his
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Syzygy
[or spouse ] for the Earth below receives those intellectual
fruits which are brought
down
from Heaven and are cognate to the Earth. [Op.cit.,i.13.]
Simon
s Third World with its third series of six Ęons and the seventh the Parent is
emanated in the
same
way.It is this same note which runs through every Gnostic system gradual
development
downward
into Matter by similitude;and it is a law which is to be traced down to
primordial Occultism or
Magic.With
the Gnostics,as with us,this seventh Potency synthesizing all is the Spirt
brooding over
the
dark waters of undifferentiated Space Nārāyana or Vishnu in India;the Holy
Ghost in Christianity.
But
while in the latter the conception is conditioned and dwarfed by limitations
necessitating faith and
grace
Eastern Philosophy shows it pervading every atom conscious or unconscious.
The Triple Ęon -(Page 469)Irenęus supplements
the information on the further development of these
six
Ęons.We learn from him that Thought having separated from its Parent and
knowing through its
identity
of Essence with the latter what it had to know proceeded on the second or
intermediate plane or
rather
World (each of such Worlds consisting of two planes,the superior and inferior
male and female
the
latter assuming finally both Potencies and becoming androgyne),to create
inferior Hierarchies,
Angels
and Powers Dominions and Hosts,of every description which in their turn created
or rather
emanated
out of their own Essence our world with its men and beings,over which they
watch.
It
thus follows that every rational being called Man on Earth is of the same
essence and possesses
potentially
all the attributes of the higher Ęons,the primordial Seven.It is for him to
develope with the
image
before him of the highest by imitation in act the Potency with which
the highest of his Parents,
or
Fathers,is endowed.Here we may again quote with advantage from the Philosoph
mena:
So
then according to Simon this blissful and imperishable [principle ] is
concealed in
everything
in potency not in act.This is that which has stood stands and will stand viz.,that
which
has stood above in ingenerable Potency;that which stands below in the stream of
the
waters
generated in an image;that which will stand above beside the blissful infinite
Potency
if
it makes itself like unto this image.For three he says are they that stand and
without these
three
Ęons of stability there is no adornment of the generable which according to
them [the
Simonians
] is borne on the water and being moulded according to the similitude is
a perfect
and
celestial (Ęon),in no manner of thinking inferior to the ingenerable
Potency.Thus they
say:
I and thou [are ] one;before me [wast ] thou:that which is after
thee [is ] I. This,he says,
is
the one Potency divided into above and below generating itself nourishing
itself seeking
itself
finding itself;its own mother father brother spouse daughter and son one for
it is the
Root
of all.[Op cit.,vi.17.]
Thus
of this triple Ęon we learn the first exists as that which has stood stands
and will stand or the
uncreate
Power Ātman;the second is generated in the dark waters of Space (Chaos,or
undifferentiated
Substance
our Buddhi),from or through the image of the former reflected in those waters
the image of
Him
or It which moves on them;the third World (or in man Manas)will be endowed with
every power
of
that eternal and omnipresent Image if it but assimilates it to itself.For (Page 470)
All
that is eternal pure and incorruptible is concealed in everything that is
Page
370.
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206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
if
only potentially not actually.And
Everything
is that image provided the lower image (man)ascends to that highest Source and
Root
in Spirit and Thought.
Matter
as Substance is eternal and has never been created.Therefore Simon Magus,with
all the great
Gnostic
Teachers and Eastern Philosophers,never speaks of its beginning.Eternal Matter
receives its
various
forms in the lower Ęon from the Creative Angels,or Builders,as we call them.Why
then should
not
Man the direct heir of the highest Ęon do the same by the potency of his
thought which is born
from
Spirit?This is Kriyāshakti the power of producing forms on the objective plane
through the potency
of
Ideation and Will from invisible indestructible Matter.
Truly
says Jeremiah [Op.cit.,i.5.] quoting the Word of the Lord
:
Before
I formed thee in the belly I knew thee;and before thou camest forth out of the
womb I
sanctified
thee
for
Jeremiah stands here for Man when he was yet an Ęon or Divine Man both with
Simon Magus and
Eastern
Philosophy.The first three chapters of Genesis are as Occult as that
which is given in Paper I.
For
the terrestrial Paradise is the Womb says Simon [Philosoph mena,vi.14.]
Eden the region
surrounding
it.The river which went out of Eden to water the garden is the Umbilical
Cord;this cord is
divided
into four Heads,the streams that flowed out of it the four canals which serve
to carry nutrition to
the
Ftus,i.e.,the two arteries and the two veins which are the channels for
the blood and convey the
breathing
air the unborn child according to Simon being entirely enveloped by the Amnion
fed through
the
Umbilical Cord and given vital air through the Aorta.[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 Ftus,and two Hypogastic or Umbilical Arteries
which take the
used-up
blood from the Ftus 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 ftal nutrition as advanced in Paper I.Briefly the Ftus 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 N trition of the Ft s.(Wood &Co.New York)]
Magic and Miracles -(Page 471)The above is
given for the elucidation of that which is to follow.The
disciples
of Simon Magus were numerous,and were instructed by him in Magic.They made use
of so-
called
exorcisms (as in the New Testament ),incantations,philtres;believed in
dreams and visions,and
produced
them at will;and finally forced the lower orders of spirits to obey them.Simon
Magus was
called
the Great Power of God literally the Potency of the Deity which is called
Great.That which was
then
termed Magic we now call Theosophia or Divine Wisdom Power and Knowledge.
Page
371.
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His
direct disciple Menader was also a great Magician.Says Irenęus,among other
writers:
The
successor of Simon was Menander a Samaritan by birth who reached the highest
summits
in the Science of Magic.
Thus
both master and pupil are shown as having attained the highest powers in the
art of enchantments,
powers
which can be obtained only through the help of the Devil as Christians
claim;and yet their
works
were identical with those spoken of in the New Testament wherein such
phenomenal results are
called
divine miracles,and are therefore believed in and accepted as coming from and
through God.But
the
question is,have these so-called miracles of the Christ and the Apostles
ever been explained any
more
than the magical achievements of so-called Sorcerers and Magicians?I say
never.We Occultists
do
not believe in supernatural phenomena and the Masters laugh at the word
miracle. Let us see
then
what is really the sense of the word Magic.
The
source and basis of it lie in Spirit and Thought whether on the purely divine
or the terrestrial plane.
Those
who know the history of Simon have the two versions before them that of White
and of Black
Magic,at
their option in the much talked of union of Simon with Helena whom he called
his Epinoia
(Thought).Those
who like the Christians,had to discredit a dangerous rival talk of Helena as
being a
beautiful
and actual woman whom Simon had met in a house of ill fame at Tyre and who was,
according
to those who wrote his life the incarnation of Helen of Troy.How then was she
Divine
Thought
?The lower angels,Simon is made to say in Philosoph mena or the third
Ęons,being so
material
had more badness in them than all the others.Poor man created or emanated from
them had
the
vice of his origin.What was it?Only this:when the third Ęons possessed
themselves,in their turn of
the
Divine Thought through (Page
472)the transmission into them of Fire
instead of making of a man a
complete
being according to the universal plan they at first detained from him that
Divine Spark
(Thought
on Earth Manas);and that was the cause and origin of senseless man s
committing the
original
sin as the angels had committed it ęons before refusing to create.[S
pra.vol.ii.] Finally after
detaining
Epinoia prisoner amongst them and having subjected the Divine Thought to every
kind of insult
and
desecration they ended by shutting it into the already defiled body of
man.After this,as interpreted
by
the enemies of Simon she passed from one female body into another through ages
and races,until
Simon
found and recognized her in the form of Helena the prostitute the lost
sheep of the parable.
Simon
is made to represent himself as the Saviour descended on Earth to rescue this
lamb and those
men
in whom Epinoia is still under the dominion of the lower angels.The greatest
magical feats are thus
attributed
to Simon through his sexual union with Helena hence Black Magic.Indeed the
chief rites of
this
kind of Magic are based on such disgusting literal interpretation of noble
myths,one of the noblest of
which
was thus invented by Simon as a symbolical mark of his own teaching.Those who
understood it
correctly
knew what was meant by Helena.It was the marriage of Nous (Ćtmā-Buddhi)with
Manas,the
union
through which Will and Thought become one and are endowed with divine
powers.For Ćtman in
man
being of an unalloyed essence the primordial Divine Fire (or the eternal and
universal that which
has
stood stands and will stand ),is of all the planes;and Buddhi is its vehicle
or Thought generated by
and
generating the Father in her turn and also Will.She is that which has stood
stands and will
stand
thus becoming in conjunction with Manas,male-female in this sphere only.Hence
when Simon
spoke
of himself as the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost and of Helena and his
Epinoia Divine
Thought
he meant the marriage of his Buddhi with Manas.Helena was the Shakti of the
inner man the
female
potency.
Page
372.
The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
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Now
what says Menander?The lower angels,he taught were the emanations of Ennoia
(Designing
Thought).It
was Ennoia who taught the Science of Magic and imparted it to him together with
the art of
conquering
the creative angels of the lower world.The latter stand for the passions of our
lower nature.
Magic a Divine Science -(Page 473)His pupils,after receiving baptism from him (i.e.,after
Initiation),
were
said to resurrect from the dead and growing no older became immortal.[See
Eusebius,Hist.
Eccles.,Lib.III,iii.cap.26.]This
resurrection promised by Menander meant of course simply the
passage
from the darkness of ignorance into the light of truth the awakening of man s
immortal Spirit to
inner
and eternal life.This is the Science of the Rāja Yogīs Magic.
Every
person who had read Neo-Platonic Philosophy knows how its chief Adepts,such as
Plotinus,and
especially
Porphyry fought against phenomenal Theurgy.But beyond all of them
Jamblichus,the
author
of the De Mysteriis,lifts high the veil from the real term Theurgy and
shows us therein the true
Divine
Science of Rāja Yoga.
Magic,he
says is a lofty and sublime Science Divine and exalted above all others.
It
is the great remedy for all ....It neither takes its source in nor is it
limited to the body of
its
passions,to the human compound or its constitution;but all is derived by it
from our upper
Gods,
our
divine Egos,which run like a silver thread from the Spark in us up to the
primeval divine Fire. [De
Mysteriis,p.100 lines
10 to 19:p.109 fol.I.]
Jamblichus
execrates physical phenomena produced as he says,by the bad demons who deceive
men
(the
spooks of the sźance room),as vehemently as he exalts Divine Theurgy.But to
exercise the latter
he
teaches,the Theurgist must imperatively be a man of high morality and a
chaste Soul. The other
kind
of Magic is used only by impure selfish men and has nothing of the Divine in
it.No real Vates
would
ever consent to find in its communications anything coming from our higher
Gods.Thus one
(Theurgy)is
the knowledge of our Father (the Higher Self);the other subjection to our lower
nature.One
requires
holiness of the Soul a holiness which rejects and excludes everything
corporeal;the other the
desecration
of it (the Soul).One is the union with the Gods (with one s God),the source of
all Good;the
other
intercourse with demons (Elementals),which unless we subject them,will subject
us,and lead us
step
by step to moral ruin (mediumship).In short:
Theurgy
unites us most strongly to divine nature.This nature begets itself through
itself
moves
through its own powers,supports all and is intelligent.Being the ornament of
the
Universe
it invites us to intelligible truth to perfection (Page 474)and imparting perfection to
others.It
unites us so intimately to all the creative actions of the Gods,according to
the
capacity
of each of us,that the soul having accomplished the sacred rites is
consolidated in
their
[the Gods ] actions and intelligences,until it launches itself
into and is absorbed by the
primordial
divine essence.This is the object of the sacred Initiations of the Egyptians.[De
Mysteriis.p.290.lines
15 to 18.et seq.,caps.v and vii.]
Page
373.
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Now
Jamblichus shows us how this union of our Higher Soul with the Universal Soul
with the Gods,is
to
be effected.He speaks of Manteia which Samādhi the highest trance.[Ibid.,p.100
sec.iii.cap ] He
speaks
also of dream which is divine vision when man re-becomes again a God.By Theurgy
or Rāja
Yoga
a man arrives at:(1)Prophetic Discernment through our God (the respective
Higher Ego of each
of
us)revealing to us the truths of the plane on which we happen to be
acting;(2)Ecstacy and
Illumination;(3)Action
in Spirit (in Astral Body or through Will);(4)and Domination over the minor
senseless
demons (Elementals)by the very nature of our purified Egos.But this demands the
complete
purification
of the latter.And this is called by him Magic,through initiation into Theurgy.
But
Theurgy has to be preceded by a training of our senses and the knowledge of the
human Self in
relation
to the Divine SELF.So long as man has not thoroughly mastered this preliminary
study it is idle
to
anthropomorphize the formless.By formless I mean the higher and the lower
Gods,the
supermundane
as well as mundane Spirits,or Beings,which to beginners can be revealed only in
Colours
and Sounds.For none but a high Adept can perceive a God in its true
transcendental form
which
to the untrained intellect to the Chelā will be visible only by its Aura.The visions
of full figures
casually
perceived by sensitives and mediums belong to one or another of the only three
categories they
can
see:(a )Astrals of living men;(b )Nirmānakāyas (Adepts good or
bad whose bodies are dead but
who
have learned to live in the invisible space in their ethereal
personalities);and (c )Spooks,
Elementaries
and Elementals masquerading in shapes borrowed from the Astral Light in general
or from
figures
in the mind s eye of the audience or of the medium which are immediately
reflected in their
respective
Auras.
Having
read the foregoing students will now better comprehend the necessity of first
studying the
correspondences
between our principles which are but the various aspects of the triune (spiritual
and
physical)man
and our Paradigm;the direct roots of these in the Universe.
The Seven Hierarchies (Page 475)In view of
this,we must resume our teaching about the Hierarchies
directly
connected and for ever linked with man.
Enough
has been said to show that while for the Orientalists and profane masses the
sentence Om
Mani Padma H m,means
simply Oh the Jewel of the Lotus,Esoterically it signifies Oh my God within
me.Yes;there
is a God in each human being for man was,and will re-become God.The sentence
points
to the indissoluble union between Man and the Universe.For the Lotus is the
universal symbol of
Kosmos
as the absolute totality and the Jewel is Spiritual Man or God.
In
the preceding Paper the correspondences between Colours,Sounds,and Principles
were given;and
those
who have read our second volume will remember that these seven principles are
derived from the
seven
great Hierarchies of Angels,or Dhyān Chohans,which are in their turn associated
with Colours
and
Sounds,and form collectively the Manifested Logos.
In
the eternal music of the spheres we find the perfect scale corresponding to the
colours,and in the
number
determined by the vibrations of colour and sound which underlies every form
and guides every
sound
we find the summing-up of the Manifested Universe.
Page
374.
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206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
We
may illustrate these correspondences by showing the relation of colour and
sound to the geometrical
figures
which [See supra i.34:i 4 et seq .and 625 et seq .]
express the progressive stages in the
manifestation
of Kosmos.
But
the student will certainly be liable to confusion if in studying the
Diagrams,he does not remember
two
things:(1)That our plane being a plane of reflection and therefore illusionary the
vario s notations
are reversed and m st be co nted from below pwards.The musical scale begins from below upwards,
commencing
with the deep Do and ending with the far more acute Si.(2)That Kāma Rūpa
(corresponding
to Do in the musical scale),containing as it does all potentialities of Matter
is necessarily
the
starting-point on our plane.Further it commences the notation on every plane as
corresponding to
the
matter of that plane.Again the student must also remember that these notes
have to be arranged
in
a circle thus showing how Fa is the middle note of Nature.In short musical
notes,or Sounds,Colours
(Page 476)and Numbers proceed from one to seven and not from seven to
one as erroneously shown in
the
spectrum of the prismatic colours,in which Red is counted first;a fact which
necessitated my putting
the
principles and the days of the week at random in Diagram II.The musical scale
and colours,
according
to the number of vibrations,proceed from the world of gross Matter to that of
Spirit thus:
Principles Colours Notes Numbers States of Matter
Chhāyā Shadow or Double Violet Si 7 Ether
Higher Manas Spiritual
Intelligence Indigo La 6 Critical State called
Air in Occultism
Auric Envelope Blue Sol 5 Steam or Vapour
Lower Manas or Animal Soul Green Fa 4 Critical State
Buddhi or Spiritual Soul Yellow Mi 3 Water
Prāna or Life Principle Orange Re 2 Critical State
Kāmā Rūpa the Seat of Animal
Life Red Do 1 Ice
Here
again the student is asked to dismiss from his mind any correspondences between
principles and
numbers,for
reasons already given.The Esoteric enumeration cannot be made to correspond
with the
conventional
exoteric.The one is the reality the other is classified according to illusive
appearances.The
human
principles,as given in Esoteric B ddhism were tabulated for beginners,so
as not to confuse
their
minds.It was half a blind.
Origins (Page 477)
Colours Sounds and Forms
To
proceed:
The
point in the Circle is the Unmanifested Logos,corresponding to Absolute Life
and absolute Sound.
Page
375.
The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
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206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
The
first geometrical figure after the Circle or the Spheroid is the Triangle.
It
corresonds to Motion Colour and Sound.Thus he Point in the Triangle
represents
the Second Logos,Father-Mother or the White Ray which is
no
colour since it contains potentially all colours.It is shown radiating from
the
Unmanifested Logos,or the Un-spoken Word.Around the first Triangle
is
formed on the plane of Primordial Substance in this order (reversed as
to
our plane):
(a
)The Astral Double of Nature or the Paradigm of all Forms.
(b
)Divine Ideation or Universal Mind.
(c )The synthesis of
Occult Nature the Egg of Brahmā containing all and radiating all.
(d
)Animal of Material Soul of Nature source of animal and vegetable
intelligence and instinct.
[The
Master-Key or Tonic of Manifested Nature.]
(Page 478)
(e
)The aggregate of Dhyān Chohanic Intelligence Fohat.
(f
)Life Principle in Nature.
(g
)The Life Procreating Principle in Nature.That which on the spiritual plane
corresponds to sexual
Page
376.
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--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
affinity
on the lower.
Mirrored
on the plane of Gross Nature the World of Reality is reversed and becomes on
Earth and our
plane:
(a
)Red is the colour of manifested dual or male and female.In man it is shown
in its lowest animal form.
(b
)Orange is the colour of the robes of the Yogīs and Buddhist Priests the
colour of the Sun and Spiritual
Vitality
also of the Vital Principle.
(c
)Yellow or radiant Golden is the colour of the Spiritual Divine Ray in
every atom;in man of Buddhi.
(d
)Green and Red are so to speak,interchangeable colours,for Green absorbs
the Red as being
stronger
in its vibrations than the latter;and Green is the complementary colour of
extreme Red.This is
why
the Lower Manas and Kāma Rūpa are respectively shown as Green and Red.
(c
)The Astral Plane or Auric Envelope in Nature and Man.
(f
)The Mind or rational element in Man and Nature.
(g
)The most ethereal counterpart of the Body of man the opposite pole
standing in point of vibration
and
sensitiveness as the Violet stands to the Red.
The
above is on the manifested plane;after which we get the seven and the
Manifested Prism,or Man
on
Earth.With the latter the Black Magician alone is concerned.
In
Kosmos,the gradations and correlations of Colours and Sounds,and therefore of
Numbers are
infinite.This
is suspected even in Physics,for it is ascertained that there exist slow
vibrations than those
of
the Red the slowest perceptible to us,and far more rapid vibrations than those
of the Violet the most
rapid
that our senses can perceive.But on Earth in our physical world the range of
perceptible
vibrations
is limited.Our physical senses cannot take cognizance of vibrations above and
below the
septenary
and limited gradations of the prismatic colours,for such vibrations are
incapable of causing in
us
the sensation of colour and sound.
Colours and Principles (Page 479)It will always be the graduated septenary and no more
unless we
learn
to paralyze our Quaternary and discern both the superior and inferior
vibrations with our spiritual
senses
seated in the upper Triangle.
Now
on this plane of illusion there are three fundamental colours,as demonstrated
by Physical
Science
Red Blue and Yellow (or rather Orange-Yellow).Expressed in terms of the human
principles
Page
377.
The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
they
are;(1)Kāma Rūpa the seat of the animal sensations,welded to and serving as a
vehicle for the
Animal
Soul or Lower Manas (Red and Green as said being interchangeable);(2)Auric
envelope or
the
essence of man;and (3)Prāna or Life Principle.But if from the realm of illusion
or the living man as
he
is on our Earth subject to his sensuous perceptions only we pass to that of
semi-illusion and
observe
the natural colours themselves,or those of the principles,that is,if we try to
find which are those
in
the perfect man absorb all others,we shall find that the colours correspond and
become
complementary
in the following way:
A
faint violet mist-like form represents the Astral Man
within
an oviform bluish circle over which radiate in
ceaseless
vibrations the prismatic colours.That colour is
predominant
of which the corresponding principle is the
most
activPae generally or at the particular moment when
the
clairvoyant perceives it.Such man appears during his
waking
states;and it is by the predominance of this or that
colour
and by the intensity of its vibrations,that a clairvoyant if he be
acquainted with
correspondences,can
judge of the inner state or character of a person for the latter is an open
book to
every
practical Occultist.
In
the trance state the Aura changes entirely the seven prismatic colours being no
longer discernible.In
sleep
also they are not all at home.For those which belong to the spiritual
elements in the man viz.,
Yellow
Buddhi;Indigo Higher Manas;and the Blue of the Auric Envelope will be either
hardly
discernible
or altogether missing.The Spiritual Man is free during sleep and though his
physical
memory
may not become aware of it lives,robed in his highest essence in realms on
other planes,in
realms
which are the land of reality called dreams on our plane of illusion.
(Page 480)A good clairvoyant moreover if he had an opportunity of
seeing a Yogī in the trance state and
a
mesmerized subject side by side would learn an important lesson in Occultism.He
would learn to
know
the difference between self-induced trance and a hypnotic state resulting from
extraneous
influence.In
the Yogī the principles of the lower Quaternary disappear entirely.Neither
Red Green
Red-Violet
nor the Auric Blue of the Body are to be seen;nothing but hardly perceptible
vibrations of the
golden-hued
Prāna principle and a violet flame streaked with gold rushing upwards from the
head in the
region
where the Third Eye rests,and culminating in a point.If the student remembers
that the true
Violet
or the extreme end of the spectrum is no compound colour of Red and Blue but a
homogeneous
colour
with vibrations seven times more rapid than those of the Red [ and that the
golden hue is the
essence
of the three yellow hues from Orange-Red to Yellow-Orange and Yellow he will
understand the
reason
why:he lives in his own Auric Body now become the vehicle of Buddhi-Manas.On
the other
hand
in a subject in an artificially produced hypnotic or mesmeric trance an effect
of unconscious when
not
of conscious Black Magic,unless produced by a high Adept the whole set of the
principles will be
present
with the Higher Manas paralyzed Buddhi severed from it through that paralysis
and the red-
violet
Astral Body entirely subjected to the Lower Manas and Kāma Rūpa (the green and
red animal
monsters
in us).
Page
378
Violet
1 Red Green
2 Orange Blue
3 Yellow Indigo
Violet.
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--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
Colours Wave-Lengths in
Millimetres
Number of Vibrations in
Trillions
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
One
who comprehends well the above explanations will readily see how important it
is for every student
whether
he is striving for practical Occult powers or only for the purely psychic and
spiritual gifts of
clairvoyance
and metaphysical knowledge to master thoroughly the right correspondences
between the
human
or nature principles,and those of Kosmos.
The Primordial Seven (Page 481)It is
ignorance which leads materialistic Science to deny the inner man
and
his Divine powers;knowledge and personal experience that allow the Occultist to
affirm that such
powers
are as natural to man as swimming to fishes.It is like a Laplander in all
sincerity denying the
possibility
of the catgut strung loosely on the sounding board of a violin producing
comprehensive
sounds
or melody.Our principles are the Seven-Stringed Lyre of Apollo truly.In this
our age when
oblivion
has shrouded ancient knowledge men s faculties are no better than the loose
strings of the
violin
to the Laplander.But the Occultist who knows how to tighten them and tune his
violin in harmony
with
the vibrations of colour and sound will extract divine harmony from them.The
combination of these
powers
and the attuning of the Microcosm and the Macrocosm will give the geometrical
equivalent of the
invocation
Om Mani Padme H m.
This
was why the previous knowledge of music and geometry was obligatory in the
School of
Pythagoras.
The Roots of Colour and Sound
Further
each of the Primordial Seven the first Seven Rays forming the Manifested
Logos,is again
Page
379.
The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------Cardiff Theosophical Society in Wales--------
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
sevenfold.Thus,as
the seven colours of the solar spectrum correspond to the seven Rays or
Hierarchies,so
each of these latter has again its seven divisions corresponding to the same
series of
colours.But
in this case one colour viz.,that which characterizes the particular
Hierarchy as a whole is
predominant
and more intense than the others.
These
Hierarchies can only be symbolized as concentric circles of prismatic
colours;each Hierarchy
being
represented by a series of seven concentric circles,each circle representing
one of the prismatic
colours
in their negative order.But in each of these wheels one circle will be
brighter and more vivid in
colour
than the rest and the wheel will have a surrounding Aura (a fringe as the
physicists call it)of that
colour.This
colour will be the characteristic colour of that Hierarchy as a whole.Each of
these
Hierarchies
furnishes the essence (the Soul)and is the Builder of one of the seven
kingdoms of Nature
which
are the three elemental kingdoms,the mineral the vegetable the (Page 482)animal and the
kingdom
of spiritual man.[See Five Years of Theosophy.pp.273 to 278.] Moreover
each Hierarchy
furnishes
the Aura of one of the seven principles in man with its specific colour.Further
as each of these
Hierarchies
is the Ruler of one of the Sacred Planets,it will easily be understood how
Astrology came
into
existence and that real Astrology has a strictly scientific basis.
The
symbol adopted in the Eastern School to represent the Seven Hierarchies of
creative Powers is a
wheel
of seven concentric circles,each circle being coloured with one of the seven
colours;call them
Angels,if
you will or Planetary Spirits,or again the Seven Rulers of the Seven Sacred
Planets of our
system
as in our present case.At all events,the concentric circles stand as symbols
for Ezekiel s
Wheels
with some Western Occultists and Kabalists,and for the Builders or Prajāpati
with us.
The
student should carefully examine the following Diagram.
DIAGRAM III
The Human
Principles
The Seven Hierarchies and their
Subdivisions
VIOLET
Linga Sharira
VIOLET
Indigo
Blue
Green
Yellow
Orange
Red
INDIGO
Higher Manas
Violet
INDIGO
Blue
Green
Yellow
Orange
Page
380.
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Red
BLUE
Auric Egg
Violet
Indigo
BLUE
Green
Yellow
Orange
Red
GREEN
Lower Manas
Violet
Indigo
Blue
GREEN
Yellow
Orange
Red
YELLOW
Buddhi
Violet
Indigo
Blue
Green
YELLOW
Orange
Red
ORANGE
Prāna
Violet
Indigo
Blue
Green
Yellow
ORANGE
Red
RED
Kāma Rupa
Violet
Indigo
Blue
Green
Yellow
Orange
RED
Thus
the Linga Sharīra is derived from the Violet sub-ray of the Violet
Hierarchy;the Higher Manas is
Page
381.
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similarly
derived from the Indigo sub-ray of the Indigo Hierarchy and so on.Every man
being born under
a
certain planet there will always be a predominance of that planet s colour in
him because that
principle
will rule in him which has its origin in the Hierarchy in question.There will
also be a certain
amount
of the colour derived from the other planets present in his Aura but that of
the ruling planet will
be
strongest.Now a person in whom say the Mercury principle is predominant will by
acting upon the
Mercury
principle in another person born under a different planet be able to get him
entirely under his
control.For
the stronger Mercury principle in him will overpower the weaker Mercurial
element in the
other.But
he will have little power over persons born under the same planet as
himself.This is the Key to
the
Occult Sciences of Magnetism and Hypnotism.
The
student will understand that the Orders and Hierarchies are here named after
their corresponding
colours,so
as to avoid using numerals,which would be confusing in connection with the
human
principles,as
the latter have no proper numbers of their own.The real Occult names of these
Hierarchies
cannot
now be given.
The Hierarchies and Man (Page 483)
The
student must however remember that the colours which we see with our physical
eyes are not the
true
colours of Occult Nature but are merely the effects produced on the mechanism
of our physical
organs
by certain rates of vibration.For instance Clerk Maxwell has demonstrated that
the retinal effects
of
any colour may be initiated by properly combining three other colours.It
follows,therefore that our
retina
has only three distinct colour sensations and we therefore do not perceive the
seven colours which
really
exist but only their imitations so to speak,in our physical organism.
Thus,for
instance the Orange-Red of the first Triangle is not a combination of Orange
and Red but
the
true spiritual Red if the term may be allowed while the Red (blood-red)of the
spectrum is the
colour
of Kāma animal desire and is inseparable from the material plane.
The Unity of Deity
Esotericism
pure and simple speaks of no personal God;therefore are we considered as
Atheists.But
in
reality Occult Philosophy as a whole is based absolutely on the ubiquitous
presence of God the
(Page 484)Absolute Deity;and if IT Itself is not speculated upon as
being too sacred and yet
incomprehensible
as a Unit to the finite intellect yet the entire Philosophy is based upon Its
Divine
Powers
as being the Source of all that breathes and lives and has existence.In every
ancient Religion
the
ONE was demonstrated by the many.In Egypt and India in Chaldę
and Phnicia and finally in
Greece
the ideas about Deity were expressed by multiples of three five and seven;and
also by eight
nine
and twelve great Gods,which symbolized the powers and properties of the One and
Only Deity.
This
was related to that infinite subdivision by irregular and odd numbers to which
the metaphysics of
these
nations subjected their ONE
DIVINITY.Thus constituted the cycle of the
Gods has all the qualities
and
attributes of the ONE SUPREME
AND UNKNOWABLE;for in this collection of
divine Personalities,or
rather
of Symbols personified dwells the ONE GOD the GOD ONE that
God which in India is said to have
no
Second.
Page
382.
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O
God Ani [the Spiritual Sun ] thou residest in the agglomeration of thy divine
personages.
[Ap
d Grebaat Papyrus Orbiney.p.101.]
These
words show the belief of the ancients that all manifestation proceeds from one
and the same
Source
all emanating from the one identical Principle which can never be completely
developed except
in
and through the collective and entire aggregate of Its emanations.
The
Pleroma of Valentinus is absolutely the Space of Occult Philosophy;for Pleroma
means the
Fullness,the
superior regions.It is the sum total of all the Divine manifestations and
emanations
expressing
the plen m or totality of the rays proceeding from the ONE
differentiating on all the planes,
and
transforming themselves into Divine Powers,called Angels and Planetary Spirits
in the Philosophy of
every
nation.The Gnostic Ęons and Powers of the Pleroma are made to speak as the
Devas and
Siddhas
of the P rānas.The Epinoia the first female manifestation of God the
Principle of Simon
Magus
and Saturninus,holds the same language as the Logos of Basilides;and each of
these is traced
to
the purely esoteric Alźtheia the TRUTH of the Mysteries.All of them we are
taught repeat at different
times
and in different languages the magnificent hymn of the Egyptian
papyrus,thousands of years old:
The
Gods adore thee they greet thee O the One Dark Truth.
Wisdom and Truth (Page 485)And addressing Ra
they add:
The
Gods bow before thy Majesty by exalting the Souls of that which produces them
...and say to
thee
Peace to all emanations from the Unconscious Father of the Conscious Fathers of
the Gods ...
Thou
producer of beings,we adore the souls which emanate from thee.Thou begettest
us,O thou
Unknown
and we greet thee in worshipping each God-Soul which descendeth from thee and
liveth in us.
This
is the source of the assertion:
Know
ye not that ye are Gods and the temple of God.
This
is shown in the Roots of Ritualism in Church and Masonry in L cifer for
March 1889.Truly then
as
said seventeen centuries ago Man cannot possess Truth (Alźtheia)except he
participate in the
Gnosis.
So we may say now:No man can know the Truth unless he studies the secrets of
the Pleroma
of
Occultism;and these secrets are all in the Theogony of the ancient
Wisdom-Religion which is the
Alźtheia
of Occult Science.
Page
383.
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PAPER III
A Word Concerning the Earlier Papers
(Page 486)AS many have written and almost complained to me that they
could find no practical clear
application
of certain diagrams appended to the first two Papers,and others have spoken of
their
abstruseness,a
short explanation is necessary.
The
reason of this difficulty in most cases has been that the point of view taken
was erroneous;the
purely
abstract and metaphysical was mistaken for and confused with the concrete and
the physical.
Let
us take for example the diagrams on page 477 (Paper II ),and say that these are
entirely
macrocosmic
and ideal.It must be remembered that the study of Occultism proceeds from
Universals to
Particulars
and not the reverse way as accepted by Science.As Plato was an Initiate he very
naturally
used
the former method while Aristotle never having been initiated scoffed at his
master and
elaborating
a system of his own left it as an heirloom to be adopted and improved by
Bacon.Of a truth
the
aphorism of Hermetic Wisdom As above so below applies to all Esoteric
instruction;but we must
begin
with the above;we must learn the formula before we can sum the series.
The
two figures,therefore are not meant to represent any two particular planes,but
are the abstraction
of
a pair of planes,explanatory of the law of reflection just as the Lower Manas
is a reflection of the
Higher.They
must therefore be taken in the highest metaphysical sense.
The
diagrams are only intended to familiarize students with the leading ideas of
Occult correspondences,
the
very genius of metaphysical or macrocosmic and spiritual Occultism forbidding
the use of figures or
even
symbols further than as temporary aids.Once define an idea in words,and it
loses its reality;once
figure
a metaphysical idea and you materialize its spirit.
Occult Secrecy (Page 487)Figures must be used
as ladders to scale the battlements,ladders to be
disregarded
when once the foot is set upon the rampart.
Let
students,therefore be very careful to spiritualize the Papers and avoid
materializing them;let them
always
try to find the highest meaning possible confident that in proportion as they
approach the
material
and visible in their speculations on the Papers,so far as they from the right
understanding of
them.This
is especially the case with these first Papers and Diagrams,for as in all true
arts,so in
Occultism
we must first learn the theory before we are taught the practice.
Concerning Secrecy
Students
ask:Why such secrecy about the details of a doctrine the body of which has been
publicly
revealed
as in Esoteric B ddhism and the Secret Doctrine ?
Page
384.
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To
this Occultism would reply:for two reasons:
(a
)The whole truth is too sacred to be given out promiscuously.
(b
)The knowledge of all the details and missing links in the exoteric
teachings is too dangerous in
profane
hands.
The
truths revealed to man by the Planetary Spirits the highest Kumāras,those
who incarnate no
longer
in the Universe during this Mahāmanvantara who will appear on earth as
Avatāras only at the
beginning
of every new human Race and at the junctions or close of the two ends of the
small and great
cycles
in time as man became more animalized were made to fade away from his
memory.Yet
though
these Teachers remain with man no longer than the time required to impress upon
the plastic
minds
of child-humanity the eternal verities they teach Their Spirit remains vivid
though latent in
mankind.And
the full knowledge of the primitive revelation has remained always with a few
elect and
has
been transmitted from that time up to the present from one generation of Adepts
to another.As the
Teachers
say in the Occult Primer:
This is done so as to ensure them [the eternal truths ] from being tterly lost or
forgotten in ages
hereafter by the forthcoming generations.
The
mission of the Planetary Spirit is but to strike the key-note of Truth.When
once He has directed the
vibration
of the latter to run its course uninterruptedly along the concatenation of the
race to the end of
the
cycle He disappears from our earth until the following Planetary Manvantara.The
mission of any
teacher
of Esoteric truths,(Page
488)whether he stands at the top or the
foot of the ladder of knowledge
is
precisely the same;as above so below.I have only orders to strike the key-note
of the various
Esoteric
truths among the learners as a body.Those units among you who will have raised
themselves
on
the Path over their fellow-students,in their Esoteric sphere will as the
Elect spoken of did and do
in
the Parent Brotherhoods,receive the last explanatory details and the ultimate
key to what they learn.
No
one however can hope to gain this privilege before the MASTERS not
my humble self find him or
her
worthy.
If
you wish to know the real raison d źtre for this policy I now give it
to you.No use my repeating and
explaining
what all of you know as well as myself;at the very beginning events have shown
that no
caution
can be dispensed with.Of our body of several hundred men and women many did not
seem to
realize
either the awful sacredness of the pledge (which some took at the end of their
pen),or the fact
that
their personality has to be entirely disregarded when brought face to
face with their HIGHER SELF;or
that
all their words and professions went for naught unless corroborated by
actions.This was human
nature
and no more;therefore it was passed leniently by and a new lease accorded by
the MASTER.But
apart
from this there is a danger lurking in the nature of the present cycle
itself.Civilized humanity
however
carefully guarded by its invisible Watchers,the Nirmānakāyas who watch over our
respective
races
and nations,is yet owing to its collective Karma terribly under the sway of the
traditional opposers
of
the Nirmānakāyas the Brothers of the Shadow embodied and disembodied;and
this,as has
already
been told you will last to the end of the first Kali Yuga cycle (1897),and a
few years beyond as
the
smaller dark cycle happens to overlap the great one.Thus,notwithstanding all
precautions,terrible
Page
385.
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secrets
are often revealed to entirely unworthy persons by the efforts of the Dark
Brothers and their
working
on human brains.This is entirely owning to the simple fact that in certain
privileged organisms,
vibrations
of the primitive truth put in motion by the Planetary Beings are set up in what
Western
philosophy
would term innate ideas,and Occultism flashes of genius,*[See Genius,L
cifer.Nov.
1889.p.227
] Some such idea based on eternal truth is awakened and all that the watchful
Powers can
do
is to prevent its entire revelation.
Everything
in this Universe of differentiated matter has its two aspects the light and the
dark side and
these
two attributes applied practically lead the one to use the other to abuse.
The Light and Dark Sides of Nature (Page 489)Every man may become a Botanist without apparent
danger
to his fellow-creatures;and many a Chemist who has mastered the science of
essences knows
that
every one of them can both heal and kill.Not an ingredient not a poison but can
be used for both
purposes
aye from harmless wax to deadly prussic acid from the saliva of an infant to
that of the
cobra
di capella.This every tyro in medicine knows theoretically at any rate.But
where is the learned
chemist
in our day who has been permitted to discover the night side of an attribute
of any substance in
the
three kingdoms of Science let alone in the seven of the Occultists?Who of them
has penetrated into
its
Arcana into the innermost Essence of things and its primary correlations?Yet it
is this knowledge
alone
which makes of an Occultist a genuine practical Initiate whether he turn out a
Brother of Light or a
Brother
of Darkness.The essence of that subtle traceless poison the most potent in
nature which
entered
into the composition of the so-called Medici and Borgia poisons,if used with
discrimination by
one
well versed in the septenary degrees of its potentiality on each of the planes
accessible to man on
earth
could heal or kill every man in the world;the result depending of course on
whether the operator
was
a Brother of the Light or a Brother of the Shadow.The former is prevented from
doing the good he
might
by racial national and individual Karma;the second is impeded in his fiendish
work by the joint
efforts
of the human Stones of the Guardian Wall.[See Voice of the Silence.pp.68
and 94.art 28.
Glossary.]
It
is incorrect to think that there exists any special powder of projection or
philosopher s stone or
elixir
of life.The latter lurks in every flower in every stone and mineral throughout
the globe.It is the
ultimate
essence of everything on its way to higher and higher evol tion.As there
is no good or evil per
se,so there is neither
elixir of life nor elixir of death nor poison per se,but all this
is contained in one
and
the same universal Essence this or the other effect or result depending on the
degree of its
differentiation
and its various correlations.The light side of it produces life health
bliss,divine peace
etc;the
dark side brings death disease sorrow and strife.This is proven by the
knowledge of the nature
of
the most violent poisons;of some of them even a large quantity will produce no
evil effect on the
organism
whereas a grain of the same poison kills with (Page 490)the rapidity
of lightning;while the
same
grain again altered by a certain combination though its quantity remains almost
identical will
heal.The
number of the degrees of its differentiation is septenary as are the planes of
its action each
degree
being either beneficent or maleficent in its effects,according to the system
into which it is
introduced.He
who is skilled in these degrees is on the high road to practical Adeptship;he
who acts at
haphazard
as do the enormous majority of the Mind Curers,whether Mental or
Christian
Scientists
is likely to rue the effects on himself as well as on others.Put on the track
by the example of
the
Indian Yogis,and of their broadly but incorrectly outlined practices,which they
have only read about
but
have have no opportunity to study these new sects have rushed headlong and
guideless into the
practice
of denying and affirming .Thus they have done more harm than
good.Those who are successful
Page
386.
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owe
it to their innate magnetic and healing powers which very often counteract that
which would
otherwise
be conductive to much evil.Beware I say:Satan and the Archangel are more than
twins;they
are
one body and one mind De s est Demon inversus.
Is the Practice of Concentration
Beneficent?
Such
is another question often asked.I answer:Genuine concentration and meditation conscio
s and
ca tio s upon one s
lower self in the light of the inner divine man and the Pāramitās,is an
excellent
thing.But
to sit for Yoga with only a superficial and often distorted knowledge of the
real practice is
almost
invariably fatal:for ten to one the student will either develop mediumistic
powers in himself or lose
time
and get disgusted both with practice and theory.Before one rushes into such a
dangerous
experiment
and seeks to go beyond a minute examination of one s lower self and its walk
in life or that
which
is called in our phraseology The Chelā s Daily Life Ledger he would do well
to learn at least the
difference
between the two aspects of Magic,the White or Divine and the Black or
Devilish and
assure
himself that by sitting for Yoga with no experience as well as with no guide
to show him the
dangers,he
does not daily and hourly cross the boundaries of the Divine to fall into the
Satanic.
Nevertheless,the
way to learn the difference is very easy;one has only to remember that no
Esoteric
truths entirely nveiled will ever be given in p blic print,in book or magazine.
Nature's Finer Forces (Page 491)I ask
students to turn to the Theosophist of November 1887.On page
98
they will find the beginning of an excellent article by Mr.Rāma Prasād on
Nature s Finer Forces. *
[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 Shivāgama which are contained in the book called Nat re s Finer
Forces.The Shivāgama in its
details
is purely Tāntric,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
Rāja Yoga.Beware I say.] The value of this work is not so much in its literary
merit though it
gained
its author the gold medal of the Theosophist as in its exposition of
tenets hitherto concealed in a
rare
and ancient Sanskrit work on Occultism.But Mr.Rāma Prasād is not an Occultist
only an excellent
Sanskrit
scholar a university graduate and a man of remarkable intelligence.His essays
are almost
entirely
based on Tāntra works,which if read indiscriminately by a tyro in Occultism
will lead to the
practice
of most unmitigated Black Magic.Now since the difference of primary importance
between
Black
and White Magic is the object with which it is practised and that of secondary
importance the
nature
of the agents used for the production of phenomenal results the line of
demarcation between the
two
is very very thin.The danger is lessened only by the fact that every Occult
book,so-called is
Occult
only in a certain sense:that is,the text is Occult merely by reason of its
blinds.The symbolism
has
to be thoroughly understood before the reader can get at the correct sense of
the teaching.
Moreover
it is never complete its several portions each being under a different title
and each containing
a
portion of some other work;so that without a key to these no such work divulges
the whole truth.Even
the
famous Shivāgama,on which Nat re s Finer Forces is based is
nowhere to be found in complete
form
as the author tells us.Thus,like all others,it treats of only five Tattvas
instead of seven as in
Esoteric
teachings.
Page
387.
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Now
the Tattvas being simple the substratum of the seven forces of Nature how can
this be?There are
seven
forms of Prakriti as Kapila s Sānkhya the Vishn P rāna,and other works
teach.Prakriti is
Nature
Matter (primordial and elemental);therefore logic demands that the Tattvas also
should be
seven.For
whether Tattvas mean as Occultism teaches,forces of Nature or as the learned
Rāma
Prāsad
explains,the substance out of which the universe is formed and the power by
which it is
sustained
it is all one;they (Page
492)are Force,Purusha and Matter
Prakriti.And if the forms or
rather
planes,of the latter are seven then its forces must be seven also.In other
words,the degrees of
the
solidity of matter and the degrees of the power that ensouls it must go hand in
hand.
The
Universe is made out of the Tattva it is sustained by the Tattva and it
disappears into the
Tattva
says
Shiva as quoted from the Shivāgama in Nat re s Finer Forces.This
settles the question;if Prakriti
is
septenary then the Tattvas must be seven for as said they are both Substance
and Force or atomic
Matter
and the Spirit that ensouls it.
This
is explained here to enable the student to read between the lines of the
so-called Occult articles on
Sanskrit
Philosophy by which they must not be misled.The doctrine of the seven Tattvas
(the principles
of
the Universe and also of man )was held in great sacredness and therefore
secrecy in the days of old
by
the Brāhmans,who have now almost forgotten the teaching.Yet it is taught to
this day in the Schools
beyond
the Himālayan Range though now hardly remembered or heard of in India except
through rare
Initiates.The
policy has,however been changed gradually;Chelās began to be taught the broad
outlines
of it and at the advent of the T.S.in India in 1879 I was ordered to teach it
in is exoteric form to
one
or two.I now give it out Esoterically.
Knowing
that some students try to follow a system of Yoga in their own fashion guided
only by the rare
hints
they find in Theosophical books and magazines,which must naturally be
incomplete I chose one of
the
best expositions upon ancient Occult works,Nat re s Finer Forces,in
order to point out how very
easily
one can be misled by their blinds.
The
author seems to have been himself deceived.The Tantras read Esoterically are as
full of wisdom as
the
noblest Occult works.Studied without a guide and applied to practice they may
lead to the
production
of various phenomenal results,on the moral and physiological planes.But let
anyone accept
their
dead-letter rules and practices,let him try with some selfish motive in view to
carry out the rites
prescribed
therein and he is lost.Followed with pure heart and unselfish devotion merely
for the sake
of
experiment either no results will follow or such as can only throw back the
performer.
The Seven Principles (Page 493)But woe to the selfish man who seeks to develop Occult powers
only
to
attain earthly benefits or revenge or to satisfy his ambition;the separation of
the Higher from the
Lower
Principles and the severing of Buddhi-Manas from the Tantrist s personality
will speedily follow
the
terrible Karmic results to the dabbler in Magic.
In
the East in India and China So lless men and women are as frequently met
with as in the West
though
vice is,in truth far less developed there than it is here.
Page
388.
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It
is Black Magic and oblivion of their ancestral wisdom that lead them
thereunto.But of this I will speak
later
now merely adding:you have to be warned and know the danger.
Meanwhile
in view of what follows,the real Occult division of the Principles in their
correspondences
with
the Tattvas and other minor forces has to be well studied.
About "Principles"and
"Aspects"
Speaking
metaphysically and philosophically on strict Esoteric lines,man as a complete
unit is
composed
of Four basic Principles and their Three Aspects on this earth.In the
semi-esoteric teachings,
these
Four and Three have been called Seven Principles,to facilitate the
comprehension of the masses.
THE ETERNAL BASIC PRINCIPLES TRANSITORY ASPECTS
PRODUCED BY THE PRINCIPLES
1-Atmā,or
Jiva "the One Life"which
permeates
the Monadic Trio.(One in three
and
three in One)
1-Prāna,the
Breath of Life the same as
Nephesh.At the death
of a livinb being Prāna
re-becomes
Jiva *
2-A
ric envelope;because the substratum of
the
Aura around man is the universally
diffused
primordial and pure Akāsha the first
film
on the boundless and shoreless expanse
of
Jiva the immutable Root of all
2-Linga
Sharira,the Astral Form the transitory
emanation
of the Auric Egg.This form precedes
the
formation of the living Body and after death
clings
to it dissipating only with the
disappearance
of its last atom (the skeleton
excepted).
3-B
ddhi;for Buddhi is a ray of the Universal
Spiritual
Soul (ALAYA)
4-Manas
(the Higher Ego);for it proceeds
from
Mahat the first product or emanation of
Pradhāna
which contains potentially all the
Gunas
(attributes).Mahat is Cosmic
Intelligence
called the "Great Principle".
[Remember
that our reincanating Egos are
called
the Mānasaputras,"Sons of Manas"
(or
Mahat),Intelligence Wisdom ]
3-Lower
Manas,the Animal Soul the reflection
or
shadow of the Buddhi-Manas,having the
potentialities
of both but conquered generally
by
its association with the Kāma elements.
*-Prāna
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 Jiva the
synonym
of the Absolute and Unknowable Deity.Prāna is not absolute life or Jiva but its
aspect
in a world of delusion.In the Theosophist,May 1888,page 478,Prāna is
said to be
"one
stage finer than the gross matter of the earth."
As
the lower man is the combined product of two aspects physically of his Astral
Form and psycho-
physiologically
of Kāma-Manas he is not looked upon even as an aspect but as an illusion.
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The
Auric Egg on account of its nature and manifold functions,has to be well
studied.As
Hiranyagarbha
the Golden Womb or Egg contains Brahmā the collective symbol of the Seven
Universal
Forces,so the Auric Egg contains,and is directly related to both the divine and
the physical
man.In
its essence as said it is eternal;in its constant correlations and
transformations,during the
reincarnating
progress of the Ego on this earth it is a kind of perpetual motion machine.
As
given out in our second volume the Egos or Kumāras,incarnating in man at the
end of the Third
Root-Race
are not human Egos of this earth or plane but become such only from the moment
they
ensoul
the Animal Man thus endowing him with his Higher Mind.Each is a Breath or
Principle called
the
Human Soul or Manas,the Mind.As the teachings say:
Each
is a pillar of light.Having chosen its vehicle,it expanded,surro nding with an
Ćkāshic A ra the
h man animal,while the Divine (Mānasic)Principle settled
within that h man form.
Ancient
Wisdom teaches us,moreover that from this first incarnation the Lunar
Pitris,who had made
men
out of their Chhāyās or Shadows are absorbed by this Auric Essence and a
distinct Astral Form is
now
produced for each forthcoming personality of the reincarnating series of each
Ego.
The Auric Egg (Page 495)Thus the Auric Egg
reflecting all the thoughts,words and deeds of man is:
(a
)The preserver of every Karmic record.
(b
)The storehouse of all the good and evil powers in man receiving and giving
out at his will nay at his
very
thought every potentiality which becomes,then and there an acting potency:this
Aura is the
mirror
in which sensitives and clairvoyants sense and perceive the real man and see
him as he is,not
as
he appears.
(c
)As it furnished man with his Astral Form around which the physical entity
models itself first as a
ftus,then
as a child and man the astral growing apace with the human being so it
furnishes him
during
life if an Adept with his Māyāvic Rūpa or Illusion Body which is not his Vital-Astral
Body;and
after
death with his Devachanic Entity and Kāma Rūpa or Body of Desire (the
Spook).[It is erroneous
to
call the fourth human principle Kāma Rūpa.It is no Rūpa or form at all until
after death but stands
for
the Kāmic elements in man his animal desires and passions,such as anger lust
envy revenge etc.
the
progeny of selfishness and matter.]
In
the case of the Devachanic Entity the Ego in order to be able to go into a
state of bliss,as the I of
its
immediately preceding incarnation has to be clothed (metaphorically
speaking)with the spiritual
elements
of the ideas,aspirations and thoughts of the now disembodied
personality;otherwise what is it
that
enjoys bliss and reward?Surely not the impersonal Ego the Divine
Individuality.Therefore it must
be
the good Karmic records of the deceased impressed upon the Auric Substance
which furnish the
Human
Soul with just enough of the spiritual elements of the ex-personality to enable
it to still believe
itself
that body from which it has just been severed and to receive its fruition
during a more or less
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prolonged
period of spiritual gestation. For Devachan is a spiritual gestation within
an ideal matrix
state
a birth of the Ego into the world of effects which ideal subjective birth
precedes its next terrestrial
birth
the latter being determined by its bad Karma into the world of causes.[Here the
world of effects is
the
Devachanic state and the world of causes,earth life.]
In
the case of the Spook,the Kāma Rūpa is furnished from the animal dregs of the
Auric Envelope with
its
daily Karmic record of animal life so full of animal desires and selfish
aspirations.[It is this Kāma
Rūpa
alone that can materialize in mediumistic séances,which occasionally
happens when it is not the
Astral
Double or Linga Sharīra 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.]
(Page 496)Now the Linga Sharira remains with the Physical Body and
fades out along with it.An astral
entity
then has to be created a new Linga Sharīra provided to become the bearer of all
the past Tanhas
and
future Karma.How is this accomplished?The mediumistic Spook,the departed angel
fades out
and
vanishes also in its turn [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 Kāma Rūpa
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 it was impossible to go into details,but where the
Skandhas are spoken.] as an
entity
or full image of the personality that was,and leaves in the Kāmalokic world of
effects only the
record
of its misdeeds and sinful thoughts and acts known in the phraseology of
Occultists as Tānhic or
human
Elementals.Entering into the composition of the Astral Form of the new body
into which the Ego
upon
its quitting the Devachanic state is to enter according to Karmic decree the
Elementals form that
new
astral entity which is born within the Auric Envelope and of which it is often
said:
Bad
Karma waits at the threshold of Devachan with its army of Skandhas.[Key to
Theosophy.
p.141.]
For
no sooner is the Devachanic state of reward ended than the Ego is indissolubly
united with (or
rather
follows in the track of)the new Astral Form.Both are Karmically propelled
towards the family or
woman
from whom is to be born the animal chila chosen by Karma to become the
vehicle of the Ego
which
has just awakened from the Devachanic state.Then the new Astral Form
composed partly of the
pure
Akāshic Essence of the Auric Egg and partly of the terrestrial elements of the
punishable sins and
misdeeds
of the last personality is drawn into the woman.Once there Nature models the
ftus of flesh
around
the Astral out of the growing materials of the male seed in the female soil.Thus
grows out of the
essence
of a decayed seed the fruit or eidolon of the dead seed the physical fruit
producing in its turn
within
itself another and other seeds for future plants.
And
now we may return to the Tattvas,and see what they mean in nature and man
showing thereby the
great
danger of indulging in fancy amateur Yoga without knowing what we are about.
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Five or Seven Tattvas (Page 497)
The T ć ttvic Correlations and Meaning
In
Nature then we find seven Forces,or seven Centres of Force and everything seems
to respond to
that
number as for instance the septenary scale in music,or Sounds,and the septenary
spectrum in
Colours.I
have not exhausted its nomenclature and proofs in the earlier volumes,yet
enough is given to
show
every thinker that the facts adduced are no coincidences,but very weighty
testimony.
There
are several reasons why only five Tattvas are given in the Hindu systems.One of
these I have
already
mentioned;another is that owing to our having reached only the Fifth Race and
being (so far as
Science
is able to ascertain)endowed with only five senses,the two remaining senses
that are still latent
in
man can have their existence proven only on phenomenal evidence which to the
Materialist is no
evidence
at all.The five physical senses are made to correspond with the five lower
Tattvas the two yet
undeveloped
senses in man;and the two forces,or Tattvas,forgotten by Brāhmans and still
unrecognized
by Science being so subjective and the highest of them so sacred that they can
only be
recognized
by and known through the highest Occult Sciences.It is easy to see that these
two Tattvas
and
the two senses (the sixth and the seventh)correspond to the two highest human
principles,Buddhi
and
the Auric Envelope impregnated with the light of Atmā.Unless we open in
ourselves,by Occult
training
the sixth and seventh senses,we can never comprehend correctly their
corresponding types.
Thus
the statement in Nat re s Finer Forces that in the Tāttvic scale the
highest Tattva of all is Ćkāsha *
[Following
Shivāgama,the said author enumerates the correspondences in this
wise:Ćkāsha Ether is
followed
by Vāyu Gas:Tejas,Heat:Ćpas,Liquid:and Prithivī Solid.] (followed by [only ]
four each of
which
becomes grosser than its predecessor),if made from the Esoteric standpoint is
erroneous.For
once
Ćkāsha an almost homogeneous and certainly universal Principle is translated
Ether then Ćkāsha
is
dwarfed and limited to our visible Universe for assuredly it is not the Ether
of Space.Ether whatever
Modern
Science makes of it is differentiated Substance;Ćkāsha having no attributes
save one
SOUND of which it is
the substrat m is no substance even
exoterically and in the minds of some
Orientalists,[See
Fitz-Edward Hall s notes on the Vishn P rānas.] but rather Chaos,or the
Great
Spatial
Void. [The pair which we refer to as the One Life the Root of All and Ćkāsha
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 Mūlaprakriti of the Vedāntins.]
(Page 498)Esoterically Ćkāsha alone is Divine Space and
becomes Ether only on the lowest and last
plane
or our visible Universe and Earth.In this case the blind is in the word attribute
which is said to
be
Sound.But Sound is no attribute of Ćkasha but its primary correlation its
primordial manifestation
the
LOGOS or Divine Ideation made WORD
and that WORD made Flesh.Sound may be
considered
an
attribute of Ćkāsha only on the condition of anthropomorphizing the latter.It
is not a characteristic of
it
though it is certainly as innate in it as the idea I am I is innate
in our thoughts.
Occultism
teaches that Ćkāsha contains and includes the seven Centres of Force therefore
the six
Tattvas
of which it is the seventh or rather their synthesis.But if Ćkāsha be taken as
we believe it is in
this
case to represent only the exoteric idea then the author is right;because
seeing that Ćkāsha is
universally
omnipresent following the Paurānic limitation for the better comprehension
of o r infinite
intellects,he places
its commencement only beyond the four planes of our Earth Chain [See
above.i.
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diagram.p.221.]
the two higher Tattvas being as concealed to the average mortal as the
sixth and
seventh
senses are to the materialistic mind.
Therefore
while Sanskrit and Hindu Philosophy generally speak of five Tattvas only
Occultists name
seven
thus making them correspond with every septenary in Nature.The Tattvas stand in
the same
order
as the seven macro-and micro-cosmic Forces:and as taught in Esotericism are as
follows:
(1)ĆDI TATTVA the
primordial universal Force issuing at the beginning of manifestation or of the
creative
period from the eternal immutable SAT the substratum of ALL.It corresponds
with the Auric
Envelope
or Brahmā s Egg which surrounds every globe as well as every man animal and
thing.It is
the
vehicle containing potentially everything Spirit and Substance Force and
Matter.Ćdi Tattva in
Esoteric
Cosmogony is the Force which we refer to as proceeding from the First or
Unmanifested
LOGOS.
(2)ANUPĆDAKA TATTVA [Anupādaka Opapatika in Pāli means the parentless, born without
father or
mother
from itself as a transformation e.g.,the God Brahmā sprung from
the Lotus (the symbol of the
Universe)that
grows from Vishnu s navel Vishnu typifying eternal and limitless Space and
Brahmā the
Universe
and LOGOS:the mythical Buddha is also born from a Lotus.] the first
differentiation on the
plane
of being the first being an ideal one or that which is born by transformation
from something
higher
than itself.With the Occultists this Force proceeds from the SECOND LOGOS.
The Tattvas (Page 499)(3)ĆKĆSHA TATTVA this is the point from which all exoteric Philosophies
and
Religions
start.Ćkāsha Tattva is explained in them as Etheric Force Ether.Hence Jupiter
the highest
God
was named after Pater Ęther;Indra once the highest God in India is the etheric
or heavenly
expanse
and so with Uranus,etc.The Christian biblical God also is spoken of as the Holy
Ghost
Pneuma
rarefied wind or air.This the Occultists call the Force of the Third LOGOS the
Creative Force in
the
already Manifested Universe.
(4)VĆYU TATTVA the aėrial plane where substance is gaseous.
(5)TAIJAS TATTVA the plane of our atmosphere from tejas luminous.
(6)ĆPAS TATTVA watery or liquid substance or force.
(7)PRITHIVĪ TATTVA solid earthly substance the terrestrial spirit or force the
lowest of all.
All
these correspond to our Principles,and to the seven senses and forces in
man.According to the
Tattva
or Force generated or induced in us,so will our bodies act.
Now
what I have to say here is addressed especially to those members who are
anxious to develop
powers
by sitting for Yoga. You have seen from what has been already said that in
the development of
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Rāja
Yoga no extant works made public are of the least good;they can at best give
inklings of Hatha
Yoga
something that may develop mediumship at best and in the worst case
consumption.If those
who
practice meditation and try to learn the Science of Breath will read
attentively Nat re s Finer
Forces,they will find
that it is by utilizing the five Tattvas only that this dangerous science is
acquired.For
in
the exoteric Yoga Philosophy and the Hatha Yoga practice Ćkāsha Tattva is
placed in the head (or
physical
brain)of man;Tejas Tattva in the shoulders;Vāyu Tattva in the navel (the seat
of all the phallic
Gods,creators
of the universe and man);Ćpas Tattva in the knees and Prithivī Tattva in the
feet.
Hence
the two higher Tattvas and their correspondences are ignored and excluded;and
as these are
the
chief factors in Rāja Yoga no spiritual or intellectual phenomena of a high
nature can take place.The
best
results obtainable will be physical phenomena and no more.As the Five
Breaths, or rather the five
states
of the human breath in Hatha Yoga correspond to the above terrestrial planes
and colours,what
spiritual
results can be obtained?On the contrary they are the very reverse of the plane
of Spirit or the
higher
macrocosmic plane reflected (Page
500)as they are upside down in the Astral
Light.This is
proven
in the Tāntra work,Shivāgama,itself.Let us compare.
First
of all remember that the Septenary of visible and also invisible Nature is said
in Occultism to
consist
of the three (and four)Fires,which grow into the forty-nine Fires.This
shows that as the
Macrocosm
is divided into seven great planes of various differentiations of Substance
from the spiritual
or
subjective to the fully objective or material from Akāsha down to the sin-laden
atmosphere of our
earth
so in its turn each of these great planes has three aspects,based on four
Principles,as already
shown
above.This seems to be quite natural as even modern Science has her three
states of matter
and
what are generally called the critical or intermediate states between the
solid the fluidic,and the
gaseous.
Now
the Astral Light is not a universally diffused stuff but pertains only to our
earth and all other bodies
of
the system on the same plane of matter with it.Our Astral Light is,so to
speak,the Linga Sharīra of
our
earth;only instead of being its primordial prototype as in the case of our
Chhāyā or Double it is the
reverse.Human
and animal bodies grow and develop on the model of their antetypal
Doubles;whereas
the
Astral Light is born from the terrene emanations,grows and develops after its
prototypal parent and
in
its treacherous waves everything from the upper planes and from the lower solid
plane the earth both
ways
is reflected reversed .Hence the confusion of its colours and sounds in
the clairvoyance and
clairaudience
of the sensitive who trusts to its records,be that sensitive a Hatha Yogī or a
medium.The
following
parallel between the Esoteric and the Tāntra Tables of the Tattvas in relation
to Sounds and
Colours
shows this very clearly:
(Page 501)
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Esoteric and Tāntra Tables of the Tattvas
Esoteric Principles Tattvas or Forces and
their
Correspondences with the Human Body States
of Matter and
Colour
Tāntra Tattvas and their
Correspondences with the Human Body
States of matter and Colour
Tattvas Principles States of
Matter Parts of Body Colour Tattvas States of
Matter
Parts of
Body Colour
(a)Adi Auric Egg
Priomardial
Spiritual
Substance;
Akāsha;
Substratum of
the Spirit of
Ether
Envelopes the
whole body
and
penetrates it.
Reciprocal
emanation
endosmotic
and
exosmotic
Synthesis
of all
Colours.
Blue (a)
Ignored Ignored Ignored Ignored
(b)
Anupādaka Buddhi
Spiritual
Essence or
Spirit;
"Primordial
Waters of the
Deep"
Third Eye or
Pineal Gland Yellow (b)
Ignored Ignored Ignored Ignored
(c)Alaya or
Akāsha
Manas Ego
Ether of
Space or
Akāsha in its
third
differentiation.
Critical state
of Vapour
Head Indigo (c)
Akāsha Ether Head Black or
Colourless
(d)Vāyu Kāma
Manas
Critical state
of Matter
Throat or
Navel Green (d)Vāyu Gas Navel Blue
(e)Tejas Kāma
(Rūpa)
Essence of
gross Matter;
corresponds
to Ice
Shoulders
and Arms to
Thighs
Red (e)Tejas Head (?)Shoulder
s Red
(f)Apas Linga
Sharira
Gross Ether or
Liquid -Air
Thighs to
Knees Violet (f)Apas Liquid Knees White
(g)Prithivi
Living Body
in Prāna or
animal life
Solid and
Critical State Knees to feet Orange-
Red *
(g)
Prithivi Solid Feet Yellow **
*One may see at a glance how reversed are the colours of
the Tattvas,reflected in the Astral Light when we
find the Indigo called black;the green blue;the violet
white;and the orange yellow.
**The colours I repeat do not here follow the prismatic
scale -red orange yellow green blue indigo nd
violet -because this scale is a false reflection a true
Māyā;whereas our esoteric scale is that of the spiritual
spheres,the seven planes of the Macrocosm.
(Page 502)Such then is the Occult Science on which the modern
Ascetics and Yogīs of India base their
Soul
development and powers.They are known as the Hatha Yogīs.Now the science of
Hatha Yoga
rests
upon the suppression of breath or Prānāyāma?Literally translated it means the
death of (vital)
breath.Prāna
as said is not Jīva the eternal fount of life immortal;nor is it connected in
any way with
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Pranava
as some think,for Pranava is a synonym of AUM in a mystic sense.As much as has
ever been
taught
publicly and clearly about it is to be found in Nat re s Finer Forces .If
such directions,however
are
followed they can only lead to Black Magic and mediumship.Several impatient
Chelās,whom we
know
personally in India went in for the practice of Hatha Yoga notwithstanding our
warnings.Of these
two
developed consumption of which one died;others became almost idiotic;another
committed
suicide;and
one developed into a regular Tāntrika a Black Magician but his career
fortunately for
himself
was cut short by death.
The
science of the Five Breaths,the moist the fiery the airy etc.has a twofold
significance and two
applications.The
Tāntrikas take it literally as relating to the regulation of the vital lung
breath whereas
the
ancient Rāja Yogīs understood it as referring to the mental or will breath
which alone leads to the
highest
clairvoyant powers to the function of the Third Eye and the acquisition of the
true Rāja Yoga
Occult
powers.The difference between the two is enormous.The former as shown use the
five lower
Tattvas;the
latter begin by using the three higher alone for mental and will development
and the rest
only
when they have completely mastered the three;hence they use only one (Ćkāsha
Tattva)out of the
Tāntric
five.As well said in the above stated work,Tattvas are the modifications of
Svara. Now the
Svara
is the root of all sound the substratum of the Pythagorean music of the
spheres,Svara being that
which
is beyond Spirit in the modern acceptation of the word the Spirit within
Spirit or as very properly
translated
the current of the life-wave the emanation of the One Life.The Great Breath
spoken of in
our
first volume in ĆTMĆ the etymology of which is eternal motion. Now
while the ascetic Chelā of our
school
for his mental development follows carefully the process of the evolution of
the Universe that is,
proceeds
from universals to particulars,the Hatha Yogī reverses the conditions and
begins by sitting for
the
suppression of his (vital)breath.
Hatha and Rāja Yoga (Page 503)And if as
Hindu philosophy teaches,at the beginning of kosmic
evolution
Svara threw itself into the form of Ćkāsha and thence successively into the
forms of Vāyu
(air)Agni
(fire),Apas (water),and Prithivī (solid matter),[See Theosophist February
1888 p.276 ]then it
stands
to reason that we have to begin by the higher supersens o s Tattvas.The
Rāja Yogī does not
descend
on the planes of substance beyond Sūkshma (subtle matter),while the Hatha Yogī
develops
and
uses his powers only on the material plane.Some Tāntrikas locate the three
Nadīs,Sushumnā Īdā
and
Pingalā in the medulla oblongata the central line of which they call Sushumnā
and the right and
left
divisions,Pingalā and Īdā and also in the heart to the divisions of which they
apply the same
names.The
Trans-Himālayan school of the ancient Indian Rāja Yogīs,with which the modern
Yogīs of
India
have little to do locates Sushumnā the chief seat of these three Nadīs,in the
central tube of the
spinal
cord and Īdā and Pingalā on its left and right sides.Sushumnā is the
Brahmadanda.It is that
canal
(of the spinal cord),of the use of which Physiology knows no more than it does
of the spleen and
the
pineal gland.Īdā and Pingalā are simply the sharps and flats of that Fa of
human nature the keynote
and
the middle key in the scale of the septenary harmony of the Principles,which
when struck in a
proper
way awakens the sentries on either side the spiritual Manas and the physical
Kāma and
subdues
the lower through the higher.But this effect had to be produced by the exercise
of will-power
not
through the scientific or trained suppression of the breath.Take a transverse
section of the spinal
region
and you will find sections across three columns,one of which columns transmits
the volitional
orders,and
a second a life current of Jīva not of Prāna which animates the body of man
during what
is
called Samādhi and like states.
He
who has studied both systems,the Hatha and Rāja Yoga finds an enormous
difference between the
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two:one
is purely psycho-physiological the other purely psycho-spiritual.The Tāntrists
do not seem to
go
higher than the six visible and known plexuses,with each of which they connect
the Tattvas;and the
great
stress they lay on the chief of these the Mūladhāra Chakra (the sacral
plexus),shows the material
and
selfish bent of their efforts towards the acquisition of powers.Their five
Breaths and five Tattvas are
chiefly
concerned (Page 504)with the prostatic,epigastric,cardiac,and laryngeal
plexuses.Almost
ignoring
the Ćjńā they are positively ignorant of the synthesizing laryngeal plexus.But
with the followers
of
the old school it is different.We begin with the mastery of that organ which is
situated at the base of
the
brain in the pharynx,and called by Western Anatomists the Pituitary Body.In the
series of the
objective
cranial organs,corresponding to the subjective Tāttvic principles,it stands to
the Third Eye
(Pineal
Gland)as Manas stands to Buddhi;the arousing and awakening of the Third Eye
must be
performed
by that vascular organ that insignificant little body of which once again
Physiology knows
nothing
at all.The one is the Energizer of Will the other that of Clairvoyant
Perception.
Those
who are Physicians,Physiologists,Anatomists,etc.will understand me better than
the rest in the
following
explanation.
Now
as to the functions of the Pineal Gland or Conarium and of the Pituitary Body
we find no
explanations
vouchsafed by the standard authorities.Indeed on looking through the works of
the
greatest
specialists,it is curious to observe how much confused ignorance on the human
vital economy
physiological
as well as psychological is openly confessed.The following is all that can be
gleaned from
the
authorities upon these two important organs.
(1)The
Pineal Gland or Conarium,is a rounded oblong body from three to four lines long
of a deep
reddish
grey connected with the posterior part of the third ventricle of the brain.It
is attached at its base
by
two thin medullary cords,which diverge forward to the Optic Thalami.Remember
that the latter are
found
by the best Physiologists to be the organs of reception and condensation of the
most sensitive and
sensorial
incitations from the periphery of the body (according to Occultism from the
periphery of the
Auric
Egg which is our point of communication with the higher universal planes).We
are further told that
the
two bands of the Optic Thalami which are inflected to meet each other unite on
the median line
where
they become the two peduncles of the Pineal Gland.
(2)The
Pituitary Body or Hypophysis Cerebri is a small and hard organ about six lines
broad three
long
and three high.It is formed of an anterior bean-shaped and of a posterior and
more rounded lobe
which
are uniformly united.Its component parts we are told are almost identical with
those of the Pineal
Gland;yet
not the slightest connection can be traced between the two centres.To
this,however
Occultists
take exception;they know that there is a connection and this even
anatomically and
physically.
The Awakening of the Seventh Sense (Page 505)Dissectors,on the other hand have to deal with
corpses;and
as they themselves admit brain matter of all tissues and organs,collapses and
changes
form
the soonest in fact a few minutes after death.When then the pulsating life
which expanded the
mass
of the brain filled all its cavities and energized all its organs,vanishes,the
cerebral mass shrinks
into
a sort of pasty condition and once open passages become closed.But the
contraction and even
interblending
of parts in this process of shrinking and the subsequent pasty state of the
brain do not
imply
that there is no connection between these two organs before death.In point of
fact as Professor
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Owen
has shown a connection as objective as a groove and tube exists in the crania
of the human
ftus
and of certain fishes.When a man is in his normal condition an Adept can see
the golden Aura
pulsating
in both the centres,like the pulsation of the heart which never ceases
throughout life.This
motion
however under the abnormal condition of effort to develop clairvoyant
faculties,becomes
intensified
and the Aura takes on a stronger vibratory or swinging action.The arc of the
pulsation of the
Pituitary
Body mounts upward more and more until just as when the electric current
strikes some solid
object
the current finally strikes the Pineal Gland and the dormant organ is awakened
and set all
glowing
with the pure Ćkāshic Fire.This is the psycho-physiological illustration of two
organs on the
physical
plane which are respectively the concrete symbols of the metaphysical concepts
called Manas
and
Buddhi.The latter in order to become conscious on this plane needs the more
differentiated fire of
Manas:b
t once the sixth sense has awakened the seventh the light which radiates
from this seventh
sense
illumines the fields of infinitude.For a brief space of time man becomes
omniscient;the Past and
the
Future Space and Time disappear and become for him the Present.If an Adept he
will store the
knowledge
he thus gains in his physical memory and nothing save the crime of indulging in
Black
Magic,can
obliterate the remembrance of it.If only a Chelā portions alone of the whole
truth will impress
themselves
on his memory and he will have to repeat the process for years never allowing
one speck of
impurity
to stain him mentally or physically before he becomes a fully initiated Adept.
It
may seem strange almost incomprehensible that the chief success of Gupta Vidyā
or Occult
Knowledge
should depend upon flashes (Page
506)of clairvoyance and that the latter
should depend in
man
on two such insignificant excrescences in his cranial cavity two horny warts
covered with grey
sand
(acervulus cerebri), as expressed by Bichat in his Anatomic Descriptive ;yet
so it is.But this sand
is
not to be despised;nay in truth it is only this landmark of the internal
independent activity of the
Conarium
that prevents Physiologists from classifying it with absolutely useless
atrophied organs,the
relics
of a previous and now utterly changed anatomy of man during some period of his
unknown
evolution.This
sand is very mysterious and baffles the inquiry of every Materialist.In the
cavity on the
anterior
surface of this gland in young persons,and in its substance in people of
advanced years,is
found
A
yellowish substance semi-transparent brilliant and hard the diameter of which
does not
exceed
half a line.[Smmerring De Acervulo Cerebri,vol.ii.p.322.]
Such
is the acervulus cerebri.
This
brilliant sand is the concretion of the gland itself so say the
Physiologists.Perhaps not we
answer.The
Pineal Gland is that which the Eastern Occultist calls Devāksha the Divine
Eye.To this
day
it is the chief organ of spirituality in the human brain the seat of genius,the
magical Sesame uttered
by
the purified will of the Mystic,which opens all the avenues of truth for him
who knows how to use it.
The
Esoteric Science teaches that Manas,the Mind Ego does not accomplish its full
union with the child
before
he is six or seven years of age before which period even according to the canon
of the Church
and
Law no child is deemed responsible.[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.]
Manas
becomes a prisoner one with the body only at that age.Now a strange thing was
observed in
several
thousand cases by the famous German anatomist Wengel.With a few extremely rare
exceptions,this
sand or golden-coloured concretion is found only in subjects after the
completion of
their
seventh year.In the case of fools these calculi are very few indeed;in
congenital idiots they are
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completely
absent.Morgagni [De Ca s.Ep .vol.xii.] Grading [Advers.Med.,ii.322.]
and Gum [De
Lapillis Gland lę Pinealis in Q inq e.Ment.Alien.1753.] were wise men in their generation and are
wise
men today since the are the only Physiologists,so far who connect the calculi
with mind.
The Master Chakras (Page 507)For sum up
the facts,that they are absent in young children in very old
people
and in idiots,and the unavoidable conclusion will be that they are connected
with mind.
Now
since every mineral vegetable and other atom is only a concretion of
crystallized Spirit or Ćkāsha
the
Universal Soul why asks Occultism should the fact that these concretions of the
Pineal Gland are
upon
analysis found to be composed of animal matter phosphate of lime and carbonate
serve as an
objection
to the statement that they are the result of the work of mental electricity
upon surrounding
matter?
Our
seven Chakras are all situated in the head and it is these Master Chakras which
govern and rule the
seven
(for there are seven)principal plexuses in the body besides the forty-two minor
ones to which
Physiology
refuses that name.The fact that no microscope can detect such centres on the
objective
plane
goes for nothing;no microscope has ever yet detected nor ever will the
difference between the
motor
and sensory nerve-tubes,the conductors of all our bodily and psychic
sensations;and yet logic
alone
would show that such difference exists.And if the term plexus,in this
application does not
represent
to the Western mind the idea conveyed by the term of the Anatomist then call
them Chakras
or
Padmas,or the Wheels,the Lotus Heart and Petals.Remember that Physiology
imperfect as it is,
shows
septenary groups all over the exterior and interior of the body;the seven head
orifices,the seven
organs
at the base of the brain the seven plexuses,the pharyngeal laryngeal
cavernous,cardiac,
epigastric,prostatic,and
sacral etc.
When
the time comes,advanced students will be given the minute details about the
Master Chakras and
taught
the use of them;till then less difficult subjects have to be learned.If asked
whether the seven
plexuses,or
Tāttvic centres of action are the centres where the seven Rays of the Logos
vibrate I
answer
in the affirmative simply remarking that the rays of the Logos vibrate in every
atom for the
matter
of that.
In
these volumes it is almost revealed that the Sons of Fohat are the
personified Forces known in a
general
way as Motion Sound Heat Light Cohesion Electricity or Electric Fluid and
Nerve-Force or
Magnetism.This
truth however cannot teach the student to attune and moderate the Kundalini of
the
cosmic
plane with the vital Kundalini (Page 508)the Electric Fluid
with the Nerve-Force and unless he
does
so he is sure to kill himself;for the one travels at the rate of about 90 feet
and the other at the rate
of
115 000 leagues a second.The seven Shaktis respectively called Para Shakti
Jńāna Shakti etc.are
synonymous
with the Sons of Fohat for they are their female aspects.At the present stage
however
as
their names would only be confusing to the Western student it is better to
remember the English
equivalents
as translated above.As each Force is septenary their sum is,of course
forty-nine.
The
question now mooted in Science whether a sound is capable of calling forth
impressions of light
and
colour in addition to its natural sound impressions,has been answered by Occult
Science ages ago.
Every
impulse or vibration of a physical object producing a certain vibration of the
air that is,causing the
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collision
of physical particles,the sound of which is capable of affecting the ear
produces at the same
time
a corresponding flash of light which will assume some particular colour.For in
the realm of hidden
Forces,an
a dible sound is but a subjective colour;and a perceptible colour but an
ina dible sound;
both
proceed from the same potential substance which Physicists used to call ether
and now refer to
under
various other names;but which we call plastic,through invisible SPACE.This may
appear a
paradoxical
hypothesis,but facts are there to prove it.Complete deafness,for instance does
not
preclude
the possibility of discerning sounds;medical science has several cases on
record which prove
that
these sounds are received by and conveyed to the patient s organ of sight
through the mind under
the
form of chromatic impressions.The very fact that the intermediate tones of the
chromatic musical
scale
were formerly written in colours shows an unconscious reminiscence of the
ancient Occult teaching
that
colour and sound are two out of the seven correlative aspects,on o r plane of
one and the same
thing
viz.,Nature s first differentiated Substance.
Here
is an example of the relation of colour to vibration well worthy of the
attention of Occultists.Not only
adepts
and advanced Chelās,but also the lower order of Psychics,such as clairvoyants
and
psychometrists,can
perceive a psychic Aura of various colours around every individual
corresponding to
the
temperament of the person within it.In other words,the mysterious records
within the Auric Egg are
not
the heirloom of trained Adepts alone but sometimes also of natural Psychics.
The Human Harp (Page 509)Every human passion
every thought and quality is indicated in this Aura by
corresponding
colours and shades of colour and certain of these are sensed and felt rather
than
perceived.The
best of such Psychics,as shown by Galton can also perceive colours produced by
the
vibrations
of musical instruments,every note suggesting a different colour.As a string
vibrates and gives
forth
an audible note so the nerves of the human body vibrate and thrill in
correspondence with various
emotions
under the general impulse of the circulating vitality of Pranā thus producing
undulations in the
psychic
Aura of the person which result in chromatic effects.
The
human nervous system as a whole then may be regarded as an Ęolian Harp
responding to the
impact
of the vital force which is no abstraction but a dynamic reality and manifests
the subtlest shades
of
the individual character in colour phenomena.If these nerve vibrations are made
intense enough and
brought
into vibratory relation with an astral element the result is sound.How then
can anyone doubt
the
relation between the microcosmic and macrocosmic forces?
And
now that I have shown that the Tāntric works as explained by Rāma Prāsad and
other Yoga
treatises
of the same character which have appeared from time to time in Theosophical
journals for
note
well that those of true Rāja Yoga are never published tend to Black Magic and
are most
dangerous
to take for guides in self-training I hope that students will be on their
guard.
For
considering that no two authorities up to the present day agree as to the real
location of the Chakras
and
Padmas in the body and seeing that the colours of the Tattvas as given are
reversed e.g.:
(a
)Ćkāsha is made black or colourless,whereas,corresponding to Manas,it is
indigo;
(b
)Vāyu is made blue whereas,corresponding to the lower Manas,it is green.
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(c
)Ćpas is made white whereas,corresponding to the Astral Body it is violet
with a silver moonlike
white
substratum;
Tejas,red
is the only colour given correctly from such considerations,I say it is easy
to see that these
disagreements
are dangerous blinds.
Further
the practice of the Five Breaths results in deadly injury both physiologically
and psychically as
already
shown.It is indeed that which it is called Prānāyāma or the death of the breath
for it results,for
the
practiser in death in moral death always and in physical death very
frequently.
On Exoteric "Blinds"and
"The Death of the Soul"
(Page 510)As a corollary to this,and before going into still more
abstruse teachings,I must redeem the
promise
already given.I have to illustrate by tenets you already know the awful
doctrine of personal
annihilation.Banish
from your minds all that you have hitherto read in such works as Esoteric B
ddhism
and
thought you understood of such hypotheses as the eighth sphere and the moon and
that man
shares
a common ancestor with the ape.Even the details occasionally given out by
myself in the
Theosophist and L
cifer were nothing like the whole truth but only broad general ideas,hardly
touched
upon
in their details.Certain passages,however give out hints especially my
foot-notes on articles
translated
from liphas Lévi s Letters on Magic.[See Stray Thoughts on Death and
Satan in the
Theosophist,vol.iii
No.1:also Fragments of Occult Truth vols.iii and iv.]
Nevertheless,personal
immortality is conditional for there are such things as soulless men a
teaching
barely
mentioned although it is spoken of even in Isis Unveiled ; [Op.cit.ii.368.et
seq.] and there is an
Avīchi
rightly called Hell though it has no connection with or similitude to the good
Christian s Hell
either
geographically or psychically.The truth known to Occultists and Adepts in every
age could not be
given
out to a promiscuous public:hence though almost every mystery of Occult
Philosophy lies half
concealed
in Isis and the two earlier volumes of the present work,I had no right
to amplify or correct the
details
of others.Readers may now compare those four volumes and such books as Esoteric
B ddhism
with
the diagrams and explanations in these Papers,and see for themselves.
Paramātmā
the Spiritual Sun may be thought of as outside the human Auric Egg as it is
also outside
the
Macrocosmic or Brahmā s Egg.Why?Because though every particle and atom are so
to speak,
cemented
with and soaked through by this Paramātmic essence yet it is wrong to call it a
human or
even
a universal Principle for the term is very likely to give rise to naught but
an erroneous idea of the
philosophical
and purely metaphysical concept;it is not a Principle but the cause of every
Principle the
latter
term being applied by Occultists only to its shadow the Universal Spirit that
ensouls the
boundless
Kosmos whether within or beyond Space and Time.
The Duality in Manas (Page 511)Buddhi
serves as a vehicle for that Paramātmic shadow.This Buddhi is
universal
and so also is the human Ćtmā.Within the Auric Egg is the macrocosmic pentacle
of LIFE
Prāna
containing within itself the pentagram which represents man.The universal
pentacle must be
pictured
with its point soaring upwards,the sign of White Magic in the human pentacle
it is the lower
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limbs
which are upward forming the Horns of Satan as the Christian Kabbalists call
them.This is the
symbol
of Matter that of the personal man and the recognized pentacle of the Black
Magician.For this
reversed
pentacle does not stand only for Kāma the fourth Principle exoterically but it
also represents
physical
man the animal of flesh with its desires and passions.
Now
mark well in order to understand that which follows,that Manas may be pictured
as an upper
triangle
connected with the lower Manas by a thin line which binds the two together.This
is the
Antahkarana
that path or bridge of communication which serves as a link between the
personal being
whose
physical brain is under the sway of the lower animal mind and the reincarnating
Individuality the
spiritual
Ego Manas,Manu the Divine Man. This thinking Manu alone is that which
reincarnates.In
truth
and in nature the two Minds,the spiritual and the physical or animal are one
but separates into
two
at reincarnation.For while that portion of the Divine which goes to animate the
personality
consciously
separating itself like a dense but pure shadow from the Divine Ego [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.] wedges itself into the
brain and the senses
[The
brain or thinking machinery is not only in the head but as every physiologist
who is not quote 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 makes 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.] of the
ftus,at the
completion
of it seventh month the Higher Manas does not unite itself with the child
before the
completion
of the first seven years of its life.This detached essence or rather the
reflection or shadow of
the
Higher Manas,becomes,as the (Page
512)child grows,a distinct thinking
Principle in man its chief
agent
being the physical brain.No wonder the Materialists,who perceive only this rational
soul or
mind
will not disconnect it with the brain and matter.But Occult Philosophy has ages
ago solved the
problem
of mind and discovered the duality of Manas.The Divine Ego tends with its point
upwards
towards
Buddhi and the human Ego gravitates downwards,immersed in Matter connected with
its
higher
subjective half only by the Antahkarana.As its derivation suggests,this is the
only connecting link
during
life between the two minds the higher consciousness of the Ego and the human
intelligence of
the
lower mind.
To
understand this abstruse metaphysical doctrine fully and correctly one has to
be thoroughly
impressed
with an idea which I have in vain endeavoured to impart to Theosophists at
large namely the
great
axiomatic truth that the only eternal and living Reality is that which the
Hindus call Paramātmā and
Parabrahman.This
is the one ever-existing Root Essence immutable and unknowable to our physical
senses,but
manifest and clearly perceptible to our spiritual natures.Once imbued with that
basic idea
and
the further conception that if It is omnipresent universal and eternal like
abstract Space itself we
must
have emanated from It and we must some day return into It and all the rest
becomes easy.
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If
so then it stands to reason that life and death good and evil past and future
are all empty words,or
at
best figures of speech.If the objective Universe itself is but a passing
illusion on account of its
beginning
and finitude then both life and death must also be aspects and illusions.They
are changes of
state
in fact and no more.Real life is in the spiritual consciousness of that life in
a conscio s existence
in Spirit,not Matter ;and
real death is the limited perception of life the impossibility of sensing
conscious
or
even individual existence outside of form or at least of some form of
Matter.Those who sincerely
reject
the possibility of conscious life divorced from Matter and brain-substance are dead
nits .The
words
of Paul an Initiate become comprehensive.Ye are dead and your life is
hid with Christ in God;
which
is to say:Ye are personally dead matter unconscious of its own spiritual
essence and your real
life
is hid with your Divine Ego (Christos)in or merged with God (Ćtmā);now it has
departed from you
ye
soulless people.[See Coloss .]
The Living and the Dead (Page 513)Speaking on Esoteric lines,every irrevocably materialistic
person is
a
dead man a living automaton in spite of his being endowed with great
brain power.Listen to what
Aryasangha
says stating the same fact:
That
which is neither Spirit nor Matter neither Light nor Darkness,but is verily the
container
and
root of these that thou art.The Root projects at every Dawn its shadow on
ITSELF and
that
shadow thou callest Light and Life O poor dead Form.(This)Life-Light streameth
downward
through the stairway of the seven worlds,the stairs of which each step become
denser
and darker.It is of this seven-times-seven scale that thou art the faithful
climber and
mirror
O little man!Thou art this,but thou knowest it not.
This
is the first lesson to learn.The second is to study well the Principles of both
the Kosmos and
ourselves,dividing
the group into the permanent and the impermanent the higher and immortal and
the
lower
and mortal for thus only can we master and guide first the lower cosmic and
personal then the
higher
cosmic and impersonal.
Once
we can do that we have secured our immorality.But some may say:How few are
those who can
do
so.All such are great Adepts and none can reach such Adeptship in one short
life.Agreed;but there
is
an alternative.If the Sun thou canst not be then be the humble Planet says
the Book of the Golden
Precepts.And if even
that is beyond our reach then let us at least endeavour to keep within the ray
of
some
lesser star so that is silvery light may penetrate the murky darkness,through
which the stone path
of
life treads onwards:for without this divine radiance we risk losing more than
we imagine.
With
regard then to soulless men and the second death of the Soul mentioned
in the second
volume
of Isis Unveiled you will there find that I have spoken of such soulless
people and even of
Avītchi
though I leave the latter unnamed.Read from the last paragraph on page 367 to
the end of the
first
paragraph on page 370 and then collate what is there said with what I have now
to say.
The
higher triad Ćtmā-Buddhi-Manas,may be recognized from the first line of the
quotation from the
Egyptian
papyrus.In the Rit al,now the Book of the Dead,the purified Soul
the dual Manas,appears as
the
victim of the dark influence of the Dragon Apophis,the physical personality of
Kāmarūpic man with
his
passions.If it has attained the final knowledge of the heavenly and infernal
Mysteries,the Gnosis
the
divine and the terrestrial Mysteries,of White and Black Magic then the defunct
personality will
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triumph
over its enemy death.This alludes to the case of a complete re-union at the
end of (Page 514)
earth
life of the lower Manas,full of the harvest of life with its Ego.But if
Apophis conquers the Soul
then
it cannot escape a second death.
These
few lines from a papyrus,many thousands of years old contain a whole revelation
known in
those
days only to the Hierophants and the Initiates.The harvest of life consists
of the finest spiritual
thoughts,of
the memory or the noblest and most unselfish deeds of the personality and the
constant
presence
during its bliss after death of all those it loved with divine spiritual
devotion.[See Key to
Theosophy.pp.147 148 et
seq.] Remember the teaching:The Human Soul lower Manas,is the only
and
direct mediator between the personality and the Divine Ego.That which goes to
make up on this
earth
the personality miscalled individ ality by the majority is the
sum of all its mental physical and
spiritual
characteristics,which being impressed on the Human Soul produces the man.Now
of all
these
characteristics it is the purified thoughts alone which can be impressed on the
higher immortal
Ego.This
is done by the Human Soul merging again in its essence into its parent source
commingling
with
its Divine Ego during life and re-uniting itself entirely with it after the
death of the physical man.
Therefore
unless Kāma-Manas transmits to Buddhi-Manas such personal ideations,and such
consciousness
of its I as can be assimilated by the Divine Ego nothing of that I or
personality can
survive
in the Eternal.Only that which is worthy of the immortal God within us,and
identical in its nature
with
the divine quintessence can survive;for in this case it is its own the Divine
Ego s shadows or
emanations
which ascend to it and are indrawn by it into itself again to become once more
part of its
own
Essence.No noble thought no grand aspiration desire or divine immortal love can
come into the
brain
of the man of clay and settle there except as a direct emanation from the
Higher to and through
the
lower Ego:all the rest intellectual as it may seem,proceeds from the shadow
the lower mind in its
association
and commingling with Kāma and passes away and disappears for ever.But the
mental and
spiritual
ideations of the personal I return to it as parts of the Ego s Essence and
can never fade out.
Thus
of the personality that was,only its spiritual experiences,the memory of all
that is good and noble
with
the consciousness of its I blended with that of all the other personal I s
that preceded it survive
and
become immortal.
Gaining Immortality (Page 515)There is no
distinct or separate immortality for the men of earth outside
of
the Ego which informed them.That Higher Ego is the sole bearer of all its alter
egos on earth and their
sole
representative in the mental state called Devachan.As the last embodied
personality however has
a
right to its own special state of bliss,unalloyed and free from the memories of
all others,it is the last
life only which is f lly and realistically vivid.Devachan is often compared to the happiest day in a series
of
many thousands of other days in the life of a person.The intensity of its
happiness makes the man
entirely
forget all others,his past becomes obliterated.
This
is what we call the Devachanic state the reward of the personality and it is on
this old teaching that
the
hazy Christian notion of Paradise was built borrowed with many other things
from the Egyptian
Mysteries,wherein
the doctrine was enacted.And this is the meaning of the passage quoted in Isis
.The
Soul
has triumphed over Apophis,the Dragon of Flesh.Henceforth the personality will
live in eternity in
its
highest and noblest elements,the memory of its past deeds,while the
characteristics of the
Dragon
will be fading out in Kāma Loka.If the question be asked How live in eternity
when Devachan
lasts
but from 1 000 to 2 000 years the answer is:In the same way as the
recollection of each day
which
is worth remembering lives in the memory of each one of us. For the sake of an
example the
days
passed in one personal life may be taken as an illustration of each personal
life and this or that
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person
may stand for the Divine Ego.
To
obtain the key which will open the door of many a psychological mystery it is
sufficient to understand
and
remember that which precedes and that which follows.Many a Spiritualist has
felt terribly indignant
on
being told that personal immortality was conditional ;and yet such is
the philosophical and logical fact.
Much
has been said already on the subject but no one to this day seems to have fully
understood the
doctrine.Moreover
it is not enough to know that such a fact is said to exist.An Occultist or he
who
would
become one must know why it is so;for having learned and comprehended
the raison d źtre,it
becomes
easier to set others right in their erroneous speculations,and most important
of all it affords
one
an opportunity without saying too much to teach other people to avoid a
calamity which sad to say
occurs
in our age almost daily.This calamity will now be explained at length.
(Page 516)One must know little indeed of the Eastern modes of
expression to fail to see in this passage
quoted
from the Book of the Dead,and the pages of Isis (a )an
allegory for the uninitiated containing
our
Esoteric teaching;and (b )that the two terms second death and Soul
are in one sense blinds.
Soul
refers indifferently to Buddhi-Manas and Kāma-Manas.As to the term second
death the
qualification
second applies to several deaths which have to be undergone by the
Principles during
their
incarnation Occultists alone understanding fully the sense in which such a
statement is made.For
we
have (1)the death of the Body;(2)the death of the Animal Soul in Kāma
Loka;(3)the death of the
Astral
Linga Sharīra following that of the Body;(4)the metaphysical death of the
Higher Ego the
immortal,every time it
falls into matter or incarnates in a new personality.The Animal Soul or lower
Manas,that
shadow of the Divine Ego which separates from it to inform the personality
cannot by any
possible
means escape death in Kāma Loka at any rate that portion of this
reflection which remains as a
terrestrial
residue and cannot be impressed on the Ego.Thus the chief and most important
secret with
regard
to that second death in the Esoteric teaching was and is to this day the
terrible possibility of the
death of the Soul that
is,its severance from the Ego on earth during a person s lifetime.This is a real
death
(though with chances of resurrection),which shows no traces in a person and yet
leaves him
morally
a living corpse.It is difficult to see why this teaching should have been
preserved until now with
such
secrecy when by spreading it among people at any rate among those who believe
in
reincarnation
so much good might be done.But so it was,and I had no right to question the
wisdom of
the
prohibition but have given it hitherto as it was given to myself nder pledge
not to reveal it to the
world
at large.But now I have permission to give it to all revealing its tenets first
to the Esotericists,and
then
when they have assimilated them thoroughly it will be their duty to teach
others this special tenet of
the
second death and warn all the Theosophists of its dangers.
To
make the teaching clearer I shall seemingly have to go over old ground;in
reality however it is given
out
with new light and new details.I have tried to hint at it in the Theosophist
as I have done in Isis but
have
failed to make myself understood.I will now explain it point by point.
The Philosophical Rationale of the Tenet
Light and Life (Page 517)(1)Imagine for
illustration s sake the one homogeneous,absolute and
omnipresent
Essence above the upper step of the stair of the seven planes of worlds,ready
to start on
its
evolutionary journey.As its correlating reflection gradually descends,it
differentiates and transforms
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into
subjective and finally into objective matter.Let us call it at its north pole
Absolute Light;at its south
pole
which to us would be the fourth or middle step or plane counting either way we
know it
Esoterically
as the One and Universal Life.Now mark the difference.Above LIGHT;below
Life .The
former
is ever immutable the latter manifests under the aspects of countless
differentiations.According
to
the Occult law all potentialities included in the higher become differentiated
reflections in the lower;
and
according to the same law nothing which is differentiated can be blended with
the homogeneous.
Again
nothing can endure of that which lives and breathes and has its being in the
seething waves of
the
world or plane of differentiation.Thus Buddhi and Manas being both primordial
rays of the One
Flame
the former the vehicle the upādhi or vāhana of the one eternal Essence the
latter the vehicle of
Mahat
or Divine Ideation (Mahā-Buddhi in the P rānas ),the Universal
Intelligent Soul neither of them
as
such can become extinct or be annihilated either in essence or
consciousness.But the physical
personality
with its Linga Sharīra and the animal soul with its Kāma [Kāma Rūpa 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.] can and do become so.They are born in the realm of
illusion and must
vanish
like a fleecy cloud from the blue and eternal sky.
He
who has read these volumes with any degree of attention must know the origin of
the human Egos,
called
Monads,generically and what they were before they were forced to incarnate in
the human
animal.The
divine beings whom Karma led to act in the drama of Manvantaric life are
entities from
higher
and earlier worlds and planets,whose Karma had not been exhausted when their
world went into
Pralaya.Such
is the teaching;but whether it is so or not the Higher Egos are as compared to
such
forms
of transitory terrestrial mud as ourselves Divine Beings,Gods,immortal
throughout the
Mahāmanvantara
or the 311 040 000 000 000 years during which the Age of Brahmā lasts.And as
the
Divine
Egos,in (Page 518)order to re-become the One Essence or be indrawn again into
the AUM have
to
purify themselves in the fire of suffering and individual experience so also
have the terrestrial Egos,
the
personalities,to do likewise if they would partake of the immortality of the
Higher Egos.This they
can
achieve by crushing in themselves all that benefits only the lower personal
nature of their selves
and
by aspiring to transfuse their thinking Kāmic Principle into that of the Higher
Ego.We (i.e.,our
personalities)become
immortal by the mere fact of our thinking moral nature being grafted on our
Divine
Triune
Monad Ćtmā-Buddhi-Manas,the three in one and one in three (aspects).For the
Monad
manifested
on earth by the incarnating Ego is that which is called the Tree of Life
Eternal that can only
be
approached by eating the fruit of knowledge the Knowledge of Good and Evil or
of GNOSIS Divine
Wisdom.
In
the Esoteric teachings,this Ego is the fifth Principle in man.But the student
who had read and
understood
the first two Papers,knows something more.He is aware that the seventh is not a
human
but
a universal Principle in which man participates;but so does equally every
physical and subjective
atom
and also every blade of grass and everything that lives or is in Space whether
it be sensible of it
or
not.He knows,moreover that if man is more closely connected with it and
assimilates it with a
hundredfold
more power it is simply because he is endowed with the highest consciousness on
this
earth;that
man in short may become a Spirit a Deva or a God in his next transformation
whereas
neither
a stone nor a vegetable nor an animal can do so before they become men in their
proper turn.
(2)Now
what are the functions of Buddhi?On this plane it has none unless it is united
with Manas,the
conscious
Ego.Buddhi stands to the divine Root Essence in the same relation as
Mūlaprakriti to
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Parabrahman
in the Vedānta School;or as Alaya the Universal Soul to the One Eternal Spirit
or that
which
is beyond Spirit.It is its human vehicle one remove from that Absolute which
can have no relation
whatever
to the finite and the conditioned.
(3)What
again is Manas and its functions?In its purely metaphysical aspect Manas,though
one
remove
on the downward plane from Buddhi is still so immeasurably higher than the
physical man that
it
cannot enter into direct relation with the personality except through its
reflection the lower mind.
Manas
is Spirit al Self-Conscio sness in itself and Divine Consciousness when
united with Buddhi
which
is the true producer of that production (vikāra),or
Self-Consciousness,through Mahat.
The Two Egos (Page 519)Buddhi-Manas,therefore
is entirely unfit to manifest during its periodical
incarnations,except
through the human mind or lower Manas.Both are linked together and are
inseparable
and can have as little to do with the lower Tanmātras,[Tanmātra means
subtle and
rudimentary
form the gross type of the finer elements.The five Tanmātras 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.] or rudimentary
atoms as the
homogeneous
with the heterogeneous.It is,therefore the task of the lower Manas,or thinking
personality
if it would blend itself with its God the Divine Ego to dissipate and paralyse
the Tanmātras,
or
properties of the material form.Therefore Manas is shown double as the Ego and
Mind of Man.It is
Kāma-Manas,or
the lower Ego which deluded into a notion of independent existence as the
producer
in
its turn and the sovereign of the five Tanmātras,becomes Ego-ism,the
selfish Self in which case it
has
to be considered as Mahābhūtic and finite in the sense of its being connected
with Ahankāra the
personal
I-creating faculty.Hence
Manas
has to be regarded as eternal and non-eternal in its atomic nature (paramanu
rūpa),as eternal
substance
(dravya),finite (kārya-rūpa)when linked as a duad with Kāma (animal desire or
human
egoistic volition),a
lower production in short.[See Theosophist,August.1883.The Real and the
Unreal.]
While
therefore the INDIVIDUAL EGO owing to its essence and nature is immortal
throughout eternity
with
a form (rūpa),which prevails during the whole life cycles of the Fourth Round
its Sosie,or
resemblance
the personal Ego has to win its immortality.
(4)Antahkarana
is the name of that imaginary bridge the path which lies between the
Divine and the
human
Egos,for they are Egos,during human life to rebecome one Ego in
Devachan or Nirvāna.This
may
seem difficult to understand but in reality with the help of a familiar though
fanciful illustration it
becomes
quite simple.Let us figure to ourselves a bright lamp in the middle of the room
casting its light
upon
the wall.Let the lamp represent the Divine Ego and the light thrown on the wall
the lower Manas,
and
let the wall stand for the body.That portion of the atmosphere which transmits
the ray from the lamp
to
the wall will then present the Antahkarana.We must further suppose that the
light thus cast is
endowed
with reason and intelligence and (Page 520)possesses,moreover
the faculty of dissipating all
the
evil shadows which pass across the wall and of attracting all brightness to
itself receiving their
indelible
impressions.Now it is in the power of the human Ego to chase away the
shadows,or sins,and
multiply
the brightnesses,or good deeds,which make these impressions,and thus through
Antahkarana
ensure
its own permanent connection and its final re-union with the Divine
Ego.Remember that the
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latter
cannot take place while there remains a single taint of the terrestrial of
matter in the purity of that
light.On
the other hand the connection cannot be entirely ruptured and final re-union
prevented so long
as
there remains one spiritual deed or potentiality to serve as a thread of
union;but the moment this last
spark
is extinguished and the last potentiality exhausted then comes the severance.In
an Eastern
parable
the Divine Ego is likened to the Master who sends out his labourers to till the
ground and to
gather
in the harvest and who is content to keep the field so long as it can yield
even the smallest
return.But
when the ground becomes absolutely sterile not only is it abandoned but the
labourer also
(the
lower Manas)perishes.
On
the other hand however still using our simile when the light thrown on the wall
or the rational
human
Ego reaches the point of actual spiritual exhaustion the Antahkarana
disappears,no more light
is
transmitted and the lamp becomes non-existent to the ray.The light which has
been absorbed
gradually
disappears and Soul eclipse occurs;the being lives on earth and then passes
into Kāma
Loka
as a mere surviving congeries of material qualities;it can never pass onwards
towards Devachan
but
is reborn immediately a human animal and scourge.
This
simile however fantasic will help us to seize the correct idea.Save through the
blending of the
moral
nature with the Divine Ego there is no immortality for the personal Ego.It is
only the most spiritual
emanations
of the personal Human Soul which survive.Having during a lifetime been imbued
with the
notion
and feeling of the I am I of its personality the Human Soul the bearer of
the very essence of the
Karmic
deeds of the physical man becomes,after the death of the latter part and parcel
of the Divine
Flame
the Ego.It becomes immortal through the mere fact that it is now strongly grafted
on the Monad
which
is the Tree of Life Eternal.
And
now we must speak of the tenet of the second death.What happens to the Kāmic
Human Soul
which
is always that of a debased and wicked man or of a soulless person?This mystery
will now be
explained.
Death of the Soul (Page 521)The personal
Soul in this case viz.,in that of one who has never had a
thought
not concerned with the animal self having nothing to transmit to the Higher or
to add to the sum
of
the experiences gleaned from past incarnations which its memory is to preserve
throughout eternity
this
personal Soul becomes separated from the Ego.It can graft nothing of self on
that eternal trunk
whose
sap throws out millions of personalities,like leaves from its branches,leaves
which wither die
and
fall at the end of their season.These personalities bud blossom forth and
expire some without
leaving
a trace behind others after commingling their own life with that of the parent
stem.It is the Souls
of
the former class that are doomed to annihilation or Avītchi a state so badly
understood and still
worse
described by some Theosophical writers,but which is not only located on our
earth but is in fact
this
very earth itself.
Thus
we see that Antahkarana has been destroyed before the lower man has had an
opportunity of
assimilating
the Higher and becoming at one with it;and therefore the Kāmic Soul becomes a
separate
entity
to live henceforth for a short or long period according to its Karma as a
soulless creature.
But
before I elaborate this question I must explain more clearly the meaning and
functions of the
Antahkarana.As
already said it may be represented as a narrow bridge connecting the Higher and
the
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lower
Manas.If you look at the Glossary of the Voice of the Silence,pp.88 and
89 you will find it is a
projection
of the lower Manas,or rather the link between the latter and the Higher Ego or
between the
Human
and the Divine or Spiritual Soul.[As the author of Esoteric B ddhism 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.
At
death it is destroyed as a path or medium of communication and its remains
survive as
Kāma
Rūpa.
the
shell.It is this which the Spiritualists see sometimes appearing in the
séance rooms as materialized
forms,which
they foolishly mistake for the Spirits of the Departed. [In the exoteric teachings
of Rāja
Yoga
Antahkarana is called the inner organ of perception and is divided into four
parts:the (lower)
Manas,Buddhi
(reason),Ahankāra (personality)and Chitta (thinking faculty).It also together
with
several
other organs,forms a part of Jīva Sou called also Lingadeh.Esotericists,however
must not be
misled
by this popular version.] So far is this from being (Page 522)the case that in dreams,though
Antahkarana
is there the personality is only half awake;therefore Antahkarana is said to be
dr nk or
insane during our
normal sleeping state.If such is the case during the periodical death or sleep
of the
living
body one may judge what the consciousness of Antahkarana is like when it has
been transformed
after
the eternal sleep into Kāma Rūpa.
But
to return.In order not to confuse the mind of the Western student with the
abstruse difficulties of
Indian
metaphysics,let him view the lower Manas,or Mind as the personal Ego during the
waking state
and
as Antahkarana only during those moments when it aspires towards its Higher Ego
and thus
becomes
the medium of communication between the two.It is for this reason that it is
called the Path.
Now
when a limb or organ belonging to the physical organism is left in disuse it
becomes weak and
finally
atrophies.So also it is with mental faculties;and hence the atrophy of the
lower mind-function
called
Antahkarana becomes comprehensible in both completely materialistic and
depraved natures.
According
to Esoteric Philosophy however the teaching is as follows:Seeing that the
faculty and
function
of Antahkarana is as necessary as the medium of the ear for hearing or that of
the eye for
seeing;then
so long as the feeling of Ahankāra that is,of the personal I or
selfishness,is not entirely
crushed
out in a man and the lower mind not entirely merged into and become one with
the Higher
Buddhi-Manas,it
stands to reason that to destroy Antahkarana is like destroying a bridge over
an
impassable
chasm;the traveller can never reach the goal on the other shore.And here
lies the difference
between
the exoteric and Esoteric teaching.The former makes the Vedānta state that so
long as Mind
(the
lower)clings through Antahkarana to Spirit (Buddhi-Manas)it is impossible for
it to acquire true
Spiritual
Wisdom Gnyāna and that this can only be attained by seeking to come en
rapport with the
Universal
Soul (Ćtmā);that in fact it is by ignoring the Higher Mind altogether that one
reaches Rāja
Yoga.We
say it is not so.No single rung of the ladder leading to knowledge can be
skipped.No
personality
can ever reach or bring itself into communications with Ćtmā except through
Buddhi-Manas;
to
try and become a Jīvanmukta or a Mahātma before one has become an Adept or even
a Narjol (a
sinless
man)is like trying to reach Ceylon from India without crossing the
sea.Therefore we are told that
if
we destroy Antahkarana before the personal is absolutely under the control of
the impersonal Ego we
risk
to lose the latter and be severed for ever from it unless indeed we hasten to
re-establish the
communication
by a supreme and final effort.
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Reincarnation of Lower Soul (Page 523)It is only when we are indissolubly linked with the essence
of
the
Divine Mind that we have to destroy Antahkarana.
Like
as a solitary warrior pursued by an army seeks refuge in a stronghold;to cut
himself off
from
the enemy he first destroys the drawbridge and then only commences to destroy
the
pursuer;so
must the Srotāpatti act before he slays Antahkarana.
Or
as an Occult axiom has it:
The Unit becomes Three,and Three generate Fo r.It is for
the latter [the Q arternary ] to
rebecome Three,and for the Divine Three to expand into the
Absol te One.
Monads,which
become Duads on the differentiated plane to develop into Triads during the
cycle of
incarnations,even
when incarnated know neither space nor time but are diffused through the lower
Principles
of the Quarternary being omnipresent and omniscient in their nature.But this
omniscience is
innate
and can manifest its reflected light only through that which is at least
semi-terrestrial or material;
even
as the physical brain which in its turn is the vehicle of the lower Manas
enthroned in Kāma Rūpa.
And
it is this which is gradually annihilated in cases of second death.
But
such annihilation which is in reality the absence of the slightest trace of
the doomed Soul from the
eternal
MEMORY and therefore signifies annihilation in eternity does not
mean simply discontinuation of
human
life on earth for earth is Avītchi and the worst Avītchi possible.Expelled
forever from the
consciousness
of the Individuality the reincarnating Ego the physical atoms and psychic
vibrations of
the
now separate personality are immediately reincarnated on the same earth only in
a lower and still
more
abject creature a human being only in form doomed to Karmic torments during the
whole of its
new
life.Moreover if it persists in its criminal or debauched course it will suffer
a long series of
immediate
reincarnations.
Here
two questions present themselves:(1)What becomes of the Higher Ego in such
cases?(2)What
kind
of an animal is a human creature born soulless?
Before
answering these two very natural queries,I have to draw the attention of all of
you who are born
in
Christian countries to the fact that the romance of the vicarious atonement and
the mission of Jesus
(Page 524)as it now stands,was drawn or borrowed by some too liberal
Initiates from the mysterious and
weird
tenet of the earthly experience of the reincarnating Ego.The latter is indeed
the sacrificial victim of
and
through its own Karma in previous Manvantaras,which takes upon itself
voluntarily the duty of
saving
what would be otherwise soulless men or personalities.Eastern truth is thus
more philosophical
and
logical than Western fiction.The Christos or Buddhi-Manas of each man is not
quite an innocent
and
sinless God though in one sense it is the Father being of the same essence
with the Universal
Spirit
and at the same time the Son for Manas is the second remove from the
Father. By incarnation
the
Divine Son makes itself responsible for the sins of all the personalities which
it will inform.This it can
do
only through its proxy or reflection the lower Manas.The only case in which the
Divine Ego can
escape
individual penalty and responsibility as a guiding Principle is when it has to
break off from the
personality
because matter with its psychic and astral vibrations,is then by the very
intensity of its
combinations,placed
beyond the control of the Ego.Apophis,the Dragon having become the conqueror
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the
reincarnating Manas,separating itself gradually from its tabernacle breaks
finally asunder from the
psycho-animal
Soul.
Thus,in
answer to the first question I say:
(1)The
Divine Ego does one of two things:either (a )it recommences immediately
under its own Karmic
impulses
a fresh series of incarnations;or (b )it seeks and finds refuge in the
bosom of the Mother
Alaya
the Universal Soul of which the Manvantaric aspect is Mahat.Freed from the
life-impressions of
the
personality it merges into a kind of Nirvānic interlude wherein there can be
nothing but the eternal
Present
which absorbs the Past and Future.Bereft of the labourer both field and
harvest now being
lost
the Master in the infinitude of his thought naturally preserves no recollection
of the finite and
evanescent
illusion which had been his last personality.And then indeed is the latter
annihilated.
(2)The
future of the lower Manas is more terrible and still more terrible to humanity
than to the now
animal
man.It sometimes happens that after the separation the exhausted Soul now
become supremely
animal
fades out in Kāma Loka as do all other animal souls.But seeing that the more
material is the
human
mind the longer it lasts,even in the intermediate stage it frequently happens
that after the
present
life of the soulless man is ended he is again and again reincarnated into new
personalities,each
one
more abject than the other.
The Dweller on the Threshold (Page 525)The impulse of animal life is too strong;it cannot
wear itself
out
in one or two lives only.In rarer cases,however when the lower Manas is doomed
to exhaust itself
by
starvation ;when there is no longer hope that even a remnant of a lower
light will owing to favourable
conditions
say even a short period of spiritual aspiration and repentance attract back
to itself its
Parent
Ego and Karma leads the Higher Ego back to new incarnations,then something far
more
dreadful
may happen.The Kāma-Mānasic spook may become that which is called in Occultism
the
Dweller
on the Threshold.This Dweller is not like that which is described so
graphically in Zanoni,but
an
actual fact in Nature and not a fiction in romance however beautiful the latter
may be.Bulwer
however
must have got the idea from some Eastern Initiate.This Dweller led by affinity
and attraction
forces
itself into the astral current and through the Auric Envelope of the new
tabernacle inhabited by
the
Parent Ego and declares war to the lower light which has replaced it.This,of
course can only
happen
in the case of the moral weakness of the personality so obsessed.
No
one strong in virtue and righteous in his walk of life can risk or dread any
such thing;but only those
depraved
in heart.Robert Louis Stevenson had a glimpse of a true vision indeed when he
wrote his
Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde .His story is a true allegory.Every Chelā will recognize in
it a
substratum
of truth and in Mr.Hyde a Dweller an obsessor of the personality the tabernacle
of the
Parent
Spirit.
This
is a nightmare tale!I was often told by one now no more in our ranks,who had a
most
pronounced
Dweller a Mr.Hyde as an almost constant companion.How can such a process
take
place
without one s knowledge?It can and does so happen and I have almost described
it once before
in
the Theosophist.
Page
411.
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The
Soul the lower Mind becomes as a half animal principle almost paralyzed with
daily vice
and
grows gradually unconscious of its subjective half the Lord and of the mighty
Host;[and ]
in
proportion to the rapid sensuous development of the brain and nerves,sooner or
later it
(the
personal Soul)finally loses sight of its divine mission on earth.
Truly
Like
the vampire the brain feeds and lives and grows in strength at the expense of
its spiritual
parent
...and the personal half-unconscious Soul becomes senseless,beyond hope of
redemption.It
is powerless to discern the voice of its (Page 526)God.It aims but at
the
development
and fuller comprehension of natural earthly life;and thus can discover but the
mysteries
of physical nature ....It begins by becoming virtually dead during the life of
the
body;and
ends by dying completely that is,by being annihilated as a complete
immortal
So l .Such a
catastrophe may often happen long years before one s physical death;We
elbow
soulless men and women at every step in life. And when death arrives ...there
is no
more
a Soul (the reincarnating Spiritual Ego)to liberate ...for it has fled years
before.
Result:Bereft of its
guiding Principles,but strengthened by the material elements,Kāma-Manas,from
being
a derived light now becomes an independent Entity.After thus suffering itself
to sink lower and
lower
on the animal plane when the hour strikes for its earthly body to die one of
two things happen:
either
Kāma-Manas is immediately reborn in Myalba the state of Avītchi on earth [The
Earth or earth-
life
rather is the only Avītchi (Hell)that exists for the men of our humanity on
this globe.Avītchi is a state
not
a locality a counterpart of Devachan.Such a state follows the Soul wherever it
goes,whether into
Kāma
Loka as a semi-conscious Spook,or into a human body when reborn to suffer
Avītchi.Our
Philosophy
recognizes no other Hell.] or if it become too strong in evil immortal
in Satan is the Occult
expression
it is sometimes allowed for Karmic purposes,to remain in an active state of
Avītchi in the
terrestrial
Aura.Then through despair and loss of all hope it becomes like the mythical
devil in its
endless
wickedness;it continues in its elements,which are imbued through and through
with the
essence
of Matter;for evil is coeval with Matter rent asunder from Spirit.And when its
Higher Ego has
once
more reincarnated evolving a new reflection or Kāma-Manas,the doomed lower Ego
like a
Frankenstein
s monster will ever feel attracted to its Father who repudiates his son and
will become a
regular
Dweller on the Threshold of terrestrial life.I gave the outlines of the
Occult doctrine in the
Theosophist of October
1881 and November 1882 but could not go into details,and therefore got very
much
embarrassed when called upon to explain.Yet I have written there plainly enough
about useless
drones,those
who refuse to become co-workers with Nature and who perish by millions during
the
Manvantaric
life-cycle;those as in the case in hand who prefer to be ever suffering in
Avītchi under
Karmic
law rather than give up their lives in evil and finally those who are
co-workers with Nature for
destruction.These
are thoroughly wicked and depraved men but yet as highly intellectual and
acutely
spirit al for evil as
those who are spiritual for good.
The
(lower)Egos of these may escape the law of final destruction or annihilation
for ages to
come.
The Word (Page 527)Thus we find two
kinds of soulless beings on earth:those who have lost their Higher
Ego
in the present incarnation and those who are born soulless,having been severed
from their
Spiritual
Soul in the preceding birth.The former are candidates for Avītchi;the latter
are Mr.Hydes,
whether
in or o t of human bodies,whether incarnated or hanging about as
invisible though potent
Page
412.
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ghouls.In
such men cunning develops to an enormous degree and no one except those who are
familiar
with the doctrine would suspect them of being soulless,for neither Religion nor
Science has the
least
suspicion that such facts actually exist in Nature.
There
is,however still hope for a person who has lost his Higher Soul through his
vices,while he is yet
in
the body.He may be still redeemed and made to turn on his material nature.For
either an intense
feeling
of repentance or one single earnest appeal to the Ego that has fled or best of
all an active effort
to
amend one s ways may bring the Higher Ego back again.The thread of connection
is not altogether
broken
though the Ego is now beyond forcible reach for Antahkarana is destroyed and
the personal
Entity
has one foot already in Myalba;[See Voice of the Silence,p.97.] yet
it is not entirely beyond
hearing
a strong spiritual appeal.There is another statement made in Isis Unveiled [Loc.cit.]
on this
subject.It
is said that this terrible death may be sometimes avoided by the knowledge of
the mysterious
NAME the WORD. [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
discoverers
when they found the Word mentioned in old papyri.] What this WORD
which is not a
Word
but a So nd is,you all know.Its potency lies in the rhythm or the
accent.This means simply that
even
a bad person may by the study of the Sacred Science be redeemed and stopped on
the path of
destruction.But
unless he is in thorough union with his Higher Ego he may repeat it parrot-like
ten
thousand
times a day and the Word will not help him.On the contrary if not entirely at
one with his
Higher
Triad it may produce quite the reverse of a beneficent effect the Brothers of
the Shadow using it
very
often for malicious objects;in which case it awakens and stirs up naught but
the evil material
elements
of Nature.But if one s nature is good and sincerely strives towards the HIGHER SELF which is
that
Aum through one s Higher Ego which is its third (Page 528)letter and Buddhi the second there is no
attack
of the Dragon Apophis which it will not repel.From those to whom much is given
much is
expected.He
who knocks at the door of the Sanctuary in full knowledge of its sacredness,and
after
obtaining
admission departs from the threshold or turns round and says Oh there s
nothing in it! and
thus
loses his chance of learning the whole truth can but await his Karma.
Such
are then the Esoteric explanations of that which has perplexed so many who have
found what they
thought
contradictions in various Theosophical writings,including Fragments of Occult
Truth in vols.iii
and
iv of The Theosophist,etc.Before finally dismissing the subject I must
add a caution which pray
keep
well in mind.It will be very natural for those of you who are Esotericists to
hope that none of you
belong
so far to the soulless portion of mankind and that you can feel quite easy
about Avītchi even as
the
good citizen is about the penal laws.Though not perhaps,exactly on the Path as
yet you are
skirting
its border and many of you in the right direction.Between such venal faults as
are inevitable
under
our social environment and the blasting wickedness described in the Editor s
note on liphas Lźvi s
Satan
[See Theosophist,vol.iii.October 1882 p.13.] there is an abyss.If not
become immortal in
good
by identification with (our)God or AUM,Ćtma-Buddhi-Manas,we have surely not
made ourselves
immortal
in evil by coalescing with Satan the lower Self.You forget however that
everything must
have
a beginning;that the first step on a slippery mountain slope is the necessary
antecedent to one s
falling
precipitately to the bottom and into the arms of death.Be it far from me the
suspicion that any of
the
Esoteric students have reached to any considerable point down the plane of
spiritual descent.All the
same
I warn you to avoid taking the first step.You may not reach the bottom in this
life or the next but
you
may now generate causes which will insure your spiritual destruction in your
third fourth fifth or
even
some subsequent birth.In the great Indian epic you may read how a mother whose
whole family of
warrior
sons were slaughtered in battle complained to Krishna that though she had the
spiritual vision to
enable
her to look back fifty incarnations,yet she could see no sin of hers that could
have begotten so
Page
413.
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dreadful
a Karma;and Krishna answered her:If thou could st look back to thy
fifty-first anterior birth as I
can
thou would st see thyself killing in wanton cruelty the same number of ants as
that of the sons thou
hast
now lost.This,of course is only a poetical exaggeration;yet it is a striking
image to show how
great
results come from apparently trifling causes.
The Divine Witness (Page 529)Good and
evil are relative and are intensified or lessened according to
the
conditions by which man is surrounded.One who belongs to that which we call the
useless portion
of
mankind that is to say the lay majority is in many cases irresponsible.Crimes
committed in Avidyā
or
ignorance involve physical but not moral responsibilities or Karma.Take for
example the case of
idiots,children
savages,and people who know no better.But the case of each who is pledged to
the
HIGHER
SELF is quite another matter.Yo cannot invoke this Divine Witness with Imp
nity,and once
that
you have put yourselves under its tutelage you have asked the Radiant Light to
shine and search
through
all the dark corners of your being;consciously you have invoked the Divine
Justice of Karma to
take
note of your motive to scrutinize your actions,and to enter up all in your
account.The step is
irrevocable
as that of the infant taking birth.Never again can you force yourselves back
into the matrix of
Avidyā
and irresponsibility.Though you flee to the uttermost parts of the earth and
hide yourselves from
the
sight of men or seek oblivion in the tumult of the social whirl that Light will
find you out and lighten
your
every thought word and deed.All H.P.B can do is to send to each earnest one among
you a most
sincerely
fraternal sympathy and hope for a good outcome to your
endeavours.Nevertheless,be not
discouraged
but try ever keep trying;[Read pp.40 and 63 in the Voice of the Silence.]
twenty failures
are
not irremediable if followed by as many undaunted struggles upward.Is it not so
that mountains are
climbed?And
know further that if Karma relentlessly records in the Esotericist s account
bad deeds that
in
the ignorant would be overlooked yet equally true is it that each of his good
deeds is,by reason of his
association
with the Higher Self a hundredfold intensified as a potentiality for good.
Finally
keep ever in mind the consciousness that though you see no Master at your
bedside nor hear
one
audible whisper in the silence of the still night yet the Holy Power is about
you the Holy Light is
shining
into your hour of spiritual need and aspirations,and it will be no fault of the
MASTERS or of their
humble
mouthpiece and servant if through perversity or moral feebleness some of you
cut yourselves off
from
these higher potencies,and step upon the delivery that leads to Avītchi.
Page
414.
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Appendix
Notes on Papers I II III
Page 436
(Page 530)Students in the west have little or no idea of the forces
that lie latent in Sound the Ćkashic
vibrations
that may be set up by those who understand how to pronounce certain words.The
Om or the
Om
mani padme h m are in spiritual affinity with cosmic forces,but without a
knowledge of the natural
arrangement
or of the order in which the syllables stand very little can be achieved.Om
is,of course
Aum
that may be pronounced as two three or seven syllables,setting up different
vibrations.
Now
letters as vocal sounds,cannot fail to correspond with musical notes,and therefore
with numbers
and
colours;hence also with forces and Tattvas.He who remembers the Universe is
built up from the
Tattvas
will readily understand something of the power that may be exercised by vocal
sounds.Every
letter
in the alphabet whether divided into three four or seven septenaries,or
forty-nine letters,has its
own
colour or shade of colour.He who has learnt the colours of the alphabetical
letters,and the
corresponding
numbers of the seven and the forty-nine colours and shades on the scale of
planes and
forces,and
knows their respective order in the seven planes,will easily master the art of
bringing them
into
affinity or interplay.But here a difficulty arises.The Senzar and Sanskrit
alphabets,and other Occult
tongues,besides
other potencies,have a number colour and distinct syllable for every letter and
so had
also
the old Mosaic Hebrew.But how many students know any of these tongues?When the
time comes,
therefore
it must suffice to teach the students the numbers and colours attached to the
Latin letters only
(N.B.as
pronounced in Latin not in Anglo-Saxon Scotch or Irish).This,however would be
at present
premature.
A Mantra Operative (Page 531)The colour
and number of not only the planets but also the zodiacal
constellations
corresponding to every letter of the alphabet are necessary to make any special
syllable
and
even letter operative .[See The Voice of the Silence.p.viii.]
therefore if a student would make
Buddhi
operative for instance he would have to intone the first words of the Mantra on
the note mi .But
he
would have still further to accentuate the mi and produce mentally the
yellow colour corresponding to
this
sound and note on every letter M in Om mani padme h m ;this,not
because the note bears the
same
name in the vernacular Sanskrit or even the Senzar for it does not but because
the letter M
follows
the first letter and is in this sacred formula also the seventh and the
fourth.As Buddhi it is
second;as
Buddhi-Manas it is the second and third combined.
H.P.B.
PAGE 439
[The
following notes were contributed by students and approved by H.P.B ]
The
Pythagorean Four or Tetraktys,was the symbol of the Kosmos,as containing within
itself the point
the
line the superficies,the solid;in other words,the essentials of all forms.Its
mystical representation is
the
point within the triangle.The Decad or perfect number is contained in the
Four;thus,1+2+3+4=10.
Page
415.
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PAGE 453
O
PAGE 477
The
difficult passage:Bear in mind ....a mystery below truly [See Page 444 ] may
become a little
more
clear to the student if slightly amplified.(Page 532)The
primordial Triangle is the Second Logos,
which
reflects itself as a Triangle in the Third Logos,or Heavenly Man and then
disappears.The Third
Logos,containing
the potency of formative creation develops the Tetraktys from the Triangle
and so
becomes
the Seven the Creative Force making a Decad with the primordial Triangle which
originated it.
When
this heavenly Triangle and Tetraktys are reflected in the Universe of Matter as
the astral
paradigmatic
man they are reversed and the Triangle or formative potency is thrown below the
Quaternary
with its apex pointing downwards:the Monad of this astral paradigmatic man is
itself a
Triangle
bearing to the Quaternary and Triangle the relation born by the primordial
Triangle to the
Heavenly
Man.Hence the phrase the upper Triangle ...is shifted in the man of clay below
the seven .
Here
again the point tracing the Triangle the Monad becoming the Ternary with the
Quaternary and the
lower
creative triangle make up the Decad the perfect number.As above so below.
The
student will do well to relate the knowledge here acquired to that given on
p.477.Here the upper
Triangle
is given as Violet Indigo Blue associating Violet as the paradigm of all forms
with Indigo as
Mahat
and blue as the Ćtmic Aura.In the Quaternary Yellow as substance is associated
with Yellow-
Orange
Life and Red-Orange the creative potency.Green is the plane between.
The
next stage is now explained.Green passes upward to Violet Indigo Blue the
Triangle opening out
to
receive it and so forming the square Violet Indigo Blue Green.This leaves the
Red-Orange Yellow-
Orange
and Yellow and these having thus lost their fourth member can only form a
triangle.This
triangle
revolves to point downwards for the descent into matter and mirrored on the
plane of gross
Page
416.
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nature
it is reversed and appears as in the diagram following these words.
[See
supra,i.89 90 and 95.]
Colour and Spiritual Sound (Page 533)In the perfect man the Red will be absorbed by the
Green;Yellow
will
become one with Indigo;Yellow-Orange will be absorbed in Blue;Violet will
remain outside the True
Man
though connected with him.Or to translate the colours:Kāma will be absorbed in
the Lower
Manas;Buddhi
will become one with Manas;Prāna will be absorbed in the Auric Egg;the physical
body
remains,connected
but outside the real life.
A.Besant
Page 481
To
the five senses at present the property of mankind two more on this globe are
to be added.The sixth
sense
is the psychic sense of colour.The seventh is that of spiritual sound.In the
second instruction the
corrected
rates of vibration for the seven primary colours and their modulations are
given.Inspecting
these
it appears that each colour differs from the preceding one by a step of 42 or
6x7.
Carrying
the process backward and subtracting 42 we find that the first or ground colour
is green for
this
globe.
Page
417
462 Red +42 =504
504 Orange +42 =546
546 Yellow +42 =588
588 Green +42 =630
630 Blue +42 =672
672 Indigo +42 =714
714 Violet +42 =756
756 Red +
Third Octave
of psychic
colour perceptions
Green
42 Blue
84 Indigo
126 Violet
First semi-octave
168 Red
210 Orange
252 Yellow
294 Green
336 Blue
378 Indigo
420 Violet
462 Red
Second octave.
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The
third and fourth octaves would be heat and actinic rays,and are invisible to
our present perception.
The
seventh sense is that of spiritual sound;and since the vibrations of the sixth
progress by steps of
6x7
those of the seventh progress by steps of 7x7.This is their table:
The
fifth sense is in our possession:it is possibly that of geometrical form and
its steps of progression
would
be 5x7 or 35.
The
fourth sense is that of physical hearing music,and its progressions are 28 or
4x7.The truth of this
is
demonstrated by the fact that it is in accord with the theories of Science as
to the vibrations of musical
notes.Our
scale is as follows.
28 56 84 112 140 168 196 224 252 280 308 336 364 392 420 448 476 504 532 560
588
616
644 672 700.
According
to musical science the notes C E G are as 4 5 6 in their ratios of
vibrations.The same
ratio
obtains between the notes of the triplet G B D and F A C.This gives the scale
and reducing the
vibrations
to C as I the ratios of the seven notes to C are
Reducing
these to whole numbers,we get for one octave:
Page
418
Fa Green Sound
49 Sol Blue Sound
98 La Indigo Sound
147 Si Violet Sound
First semi-octave
196 Do Red Sound
245 Re Orange Sound
294 Mi Yellow Sound
343 Fa Green Sound
392 Sol Blue Sound
441 La Indigo Sound
490 Si Violet Sound
539 Do Red Sound
etc etc
Second Octave
1 9/8 5/4 4/3 3/2 5/3 15/8 2
C D E F G A B C
24 27 30 32 36 40 45 48
C D E F G A B C.
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(Page 535)By a similar calculation we can put an octave below C and
above C.Writing these three
octaves
in line and multiplying by seven we obtain a nearly exact correspondence with
our table of
vibration
for the fourth sense.
Musical Table
Fourth Sense Scale Ratio Product
28 4 x 7 =28 E
56 8 x 7 =56 F
84 12 x 7 =84 G
112 16 x 7 =112 A
140 20 x 7 =140 B
168 24 x 7 =168 C
196 27 x 7 =189 D
...30 x 7 =210 E
224 32 x 7 =224 F
252 36 x 7 =252 G
280 40 x 7 =280 A
308 45 x 7 =315 B
336 48 x 7 =336 C
364 54 x 7 =378 D
392
420 60 x 7 =420 E
448 64 x 7 =448 F
476
504 72 x 7 =504 G
532
560 80 x 7 =560 A
588
616 90 x 7 =630 B
644
672 96 x 7 =672 C
H.C.
Notes on Some Oral Teachings
The Three Vital Airs
(Page 537)IT is the pure Ćkāsha that passes up Sushumnā:its two
aspects flow in Idā and Pingalā.These
Page
419.
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are
the three vital airs,and are symbolized by the Brāhmanical thread.They are
ruled by the Will.Will
and
Desire are the higher and lower aspects of one and the same thing.Hence the
importance of the
purity
of the canals;for if they soil the vital airs energized by the Will Black Magic
results.This is why all
sexual
intercourse is forbidden in practical Occultism.
From
Sushumnā Idā and Pingalā a circulation is set up and from the central canal
passes into the whole
body.(Man
is a tree;he has in him the macrocosm and the microcosm.Hence the trees used as
symbols;the
Dhyān-Chohanic body is thus figured.)
The Auric Egg
The
Auric Egg is formed in curves,which may be conceived from the curves formed by
sand on a
vibrating
metal disk.Each atom as each body has its Auric Egg each centre forming its
own.This Auric
Egg
with the appropriate materials thrown into it is a defence;no wild animal
however ferocious,will
approach
te Yogī thus guarded:it flings back from its surface all malign influences.No
Will power is
manifested
through the Auric Egg.
Q.What is the connection between the circulation of the
vital airs and the power of the Yogī to make his
A ric Egg a defence against aggression?
A.It
is impossible to answer this question.The knowledge is the last word of
Magic.It is connected with
Kundalini
that can as easily destroy as preserve.The ignorant tyro might kill himself.
Q.Is
the A ric Egg of a child a differentiation of Ćkāsha,into which may be thrown
by the Adept the
materials he needs for special p rposes e.g.,the Māyāvi
Rūpa?
[The
question was somewhat obscurely worded.Evidently what the questioner wanted to
know was if the
Auric
Egg was a differentiation (Page 538)of Akāsha into which as the child became a
man he might if
an
Adept weave the materials needed for special purposes,etc.]
A .Taking the question
in the sense of an Adept putting something into or acting on the Auric Egg of a
child
then this could not be done as the Auric Egg is Karmic,and not even an Adept
must interfere with
such
Karmic record.If the Adept were to put anything into the Auric Egg of another
for which the person
is
not responsible or which does not come from the Higher Self of that personality
how could Karmic
justice
be maintained?
The
Adept can draw into his own Auric Egg from his planet or even from that of the
globe or of the
universe
according to his degree.This envelope is the receptacle of all Karmic
causes,and photographs
all
things like a sensitive plate.
The
child has a very small Auric Egg which is in colour almost pure white.At birth
the Auric Egg consists
of
almost pure Ćkāsha plus the Tanhās,which until the seventh year remain
potential or in latency.
The
Auric Egg of an idiot cannot be said to be human that is,it is not tinged with
Manas.It is Ćkāshic
Page
420.
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vibrations
rather than an Auric Egg the material envelope such as that of the plant the
mineral or other
object.
The
Auric Egg is the transmitter from the periodical lives to the Life eternal i.e.,from
Prāna to Jīva.It
disappears,but
remains.
The
reason why the confession of the Roman Catholic and Greek Churches is so great
a sin is because
the
confessor interferes with the Auric Egg of the penitent by means of his will
power engrafting
artificially
emanations from his own Auric Egg and casting seeds for germination into the
Auric Egg of his
subject.It
is on the same lines as hypnotic suggestion.
The
above remarks apply equally to Hypnotism although the latter is a
psycho-physical force and it is
this
which constitutes one of its many serious dangers.At the same time a good
thing may pass through
dirty
channels, as in the case of the breaking by suggestion of the alcohol or opium
habit.Mesmerism
may
be used by the Occultist to remove evil habits if the intention be perfectly
pure;as on the higher
plane
intention is everything and good intention must work for good.
Q.Is the A ric Egg the expansion of the Pillar of Light,
the Mānasic Principle,and so not surro nding
the child till its seventh year?
The Dweller on the Threshold (Page 539)A.It is the Auric
Egg.The Auric Egg is quite pure at birth but it
is
a question whether the higher or lower Manas will colour it at the seventh year.The
Mānasic
expansion
is pure Ćkāsha.The ray of Manas is let down into the vortex of the lower
Principles,and being
discoloured
and so limited by the Kamic Tanhās and by the defects of the bodily organism
forms the
personality.Hereditary
Karma can reach the child before the seventh year but no individual Karma can
come
into play till the descent of the Manas.
The
Auric Egg is to the Man
As
the Astral Light is to the Earth
As
the Ether is to the Astral Light
As
the Akāsha is to the Ether
The
critical states are left out in the enumeration.They are the Laya Centres,or
missing links in our
consciousness,and
separate these four planes from one another.
The Dweller
The
Dweller on the Threshold is found in two cases:(a )In the case of the
separation of the Triangle
from
the Quaternary;(b )When Kāmic desires and passions are so intense that
the Kāma Rūpa persists
in
Kāma Loka beyond the Devachanic period of the Ego and thus survives the
reincarnation of the
Devachanic
Entity (e.g.,when reincarnation occurs within two hundred or three
hundred years).The
Dweller
being drawn by affinity towards the Reincarnating Ego to whom it had belonged
and being
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unable
to reach it fastens on the Kāma of the new personality and becomes the Dweller
on the
Threshold
strengthening the Kāmic element and thus lending it a dangerous potency.Some
become
mad
from this cause.
Intellect
The
white Adept is not always at first of powerful intellect.In fact H.P.B had
known Adepts whose
intellectual
powers were originally below the average.It is the Adept s purity his equal
love to all his
working
with Nature with Karma with his Inner God that give him his power.Intellect
by itself alone will
make
the Black Magician.For intellect alone is accompanied with pride and
selfishness:it is the
intellectual
pl s the spiritual that raises man.For spirituality prevents pride and
vanity.
Metaphysics
are the domain of the Higher Manas;whereas (Page 540)Physics are
that of Kāma-Manas,
which
does the thinking in Physical Science and on material things.Kāma-Manas,like
every other
Principle
is of seven degrees.The Mathematician without spirituality however great he may
be will not
reach
Metaphysics;but the Metaphysician will master the highest conceptions of
Mathematics and will
apply
them without learning the latter.To be born Metaphysician the Psychic Plane
will not be of much
account:he
will see its errors immediately he enters it inasmuch as it is not the thing he
seeks.With
respect
to Music and other Arts,they are the children of either the Mānasic or
Kāma-Mānasic Principle
proportionately
as Soul or technicality predominates.
Karma
After
each incarnation when the Mānasic Ray returns to its Father the Ego some of its
atoms remain
behind
and scatter.These Mānasic atoms,Tānhic and other causes,being of the same
nature as the
Manas,are
attracted to it by strong bonds of affinity and on the reincarnation of the Ego
are unerringly
attracted
to it and constitute its Karma.Until these are all gathered up the
individuality is not free from
rebirth.The
Higher Manas is responsible for the Ray it sends forth.If the Ray be not soiled
no bad
Karma
is generated.
The Turīya State
You
should bear in mind that in becoming Karma-less,good Karma as well as bad has
to be gotten rid
of
and that Nidānas,started towards the acquisition of good Karma are binding as
those induced in the
other
direction.For both are Karma.
Yogis
cannot attain the Turīya state unless the Triangle is separated from the
Quaternary.
Mahat
Mahat
is the manifested universal Parabrāhmic Mind (for one Manvantara)on the Third
Plane [of
Kosmos
].It is the Law whereby the Light falls from plane to plane and
differentiates.The Mānasaputras
are
its emanations.
Man
alone is capable of conceiving the Universe on this plane of existence.
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Existence
is ;but when the entity does not feel it for that eternity it is not.The
pain of an operation exists,
though
the patient does not feel it and for the patient it is not.
Fear and Hatred (Page 541)
How to Advance
Q.What is the correct pron nciation of AUM?
A.It should first be
practised physically;always at the same pitch which must be discovered in the
same
way
as the particular colour of the student is found for each has its own tone.
AUM
consists of two vowels and one semi-vowel which latter must be prolonged.Just
as Nature has its
Fa
so each man has his:man being differentiated from Nature.The body may be
compared to an
instrument
and the Ego to the player.You begin by producing effect on yourself;then little
by little you
learn
to play on the Tattvas and Principles;learn first the notes,then the
chords,then the melodies.Once
the
student is master of every chord he may begin to be a co-worker with Nature and
for others.He may
then
by the experience he has gained of his own nature and by the knowledge of the
chords,strike such
as
will be beneficial in another and so will serve as a keynote for beneficial
results.
Try
to have a clear representation of the geometrical triangle on every plane the
conception gradually
growing
more metaphysical and ending with the subjective Triangle Ćtmā-Buddhi-Manas.It
is only by
the
knowledge of this Triangle under all forms that you can succeed e.g.,in
enclosing the past and the
future
in the present.Remember that you have to merge the Quaternary in the
Triangle.The Lower
Manas
is drawn upwards,with the Kāma Prāna and Linga leaving only the physical body
behind the
lower
reinforcing the higher.
Advance
may be made in Occultism even in Devachan if the Mind and Soul be set thereon
during life;
but
it is only as in a dream and the knowledge will fade away as memory of a dream
fades,unless it be
kept
alive by conscious study.
Fear and Hatred
Fear
and hatred are essentially one and the same.He who fears nothing will never
hate and he who
hates
nothing will never fear.
The Triangle
Q.What is the meaning of the phrase:Form a clear image of
the Triangle on every plane; e.g.,on the
Astral Plane,what sho ld one think of as the Triangle?
A.[H.P.B asked whether
the question signified the meaning of (Page 542)the Triangle or the
way to
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represent
the Triangle on the screen of light.The questioner explaining that the latter
was the meaning
H.P.B
said that ] it was only in the Turīa state the fourth of the seven steps of
Rāja Yoga that the Yogī can
represent
to himself that which is abstract.Below this state the perceptive power being
conditioned
must
have some form to contemplate;it cannot represent to itself the Arūpa.In the
Turīya state the
Triangle
is in yourself and is felt.Below the Turīya state there must be a symbol to
represent Atmā-
Buddhi-Manas.It
is not a mere geometrical Triangle but the Triad imaged to make thought
possible.Of
this
Triad we can make some kind of representation of Manas,however indistinct;while
of Atmā no
image
can be formed.We must try to represent the Triangle to ourselves on higher and
higher planes.
We
must figure Manas as overshadowed by Buddhi and immersed in Ćtmā.Only Manas,the
Higher
Ego
can be represented;we may think it as the Augoeides,the radiant figure in Zanoni.A
very good
Psychic
might see this.
Psychic Vision
Psychic
vision however is not to be desired since Psyche is earthly and evil.More and
more as Science
advances,the
psychic will be reached and understood;Psychism has in it nothing that is
spiritual.
Science
is right on its own plane from its own standpoint.The law of the Conservation
of Energy implies
that
psychic motion is generated by motion.Psychic motion being only motion on the
Psychic Plane a
material
plane the Psychologist is right who sees in it nothing beyond matter.Animals
have no Spirit but
they
have psychic vision and are sensitive to psychic conditions;observe how these
react on their
health
their bodily state.
Motion
is the abstract Deity;on the highest plane it is Arūpa absoolute;but on the
lowest it is merely
mechanical.Psychic
action is within the sphere of physical motion.Ere psychic action can be
developed
in
the brain and nerves,there must be adequate action which generates it on the
Physical Plane.The
paralysed
animal that cannot generate action in the physical body cannot think.Psychics
merely see on
a
plane of different material density;the spiritual glimpses sometimes obtained
by them come from a
plane
beyond.A Psychic s vision is that of one coming as it were into the lighted
room and seeing
everything
there by an artificial light;when the light is extinguished vision is
lost.Spiritual vision sees by
the
light within the light hidden beneath the bushel of the body by which we can
see clearly and
independently
of all outiside.
Triangle and Quaternary (Page 543)The Psychic seeing by an external light the vision is
coloured by the
nature
of that light.
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 colo r of the Linga Sharīra,placed
at the apex of the when the Macrocosm is ¢
figured
as thus throwing the yellow Buddhi into the lower Quaternary? ¢
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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 Quaternay 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 upwards 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 planes.The Lower
Manas is as a
tablet
which retains the impressions made on it during trance.
The
Turīya 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
bl e?
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 (Page 544)
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 previo s q
estion,is the A ric 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.]
Nidānas
Q.The root of the Nidānas is Avidyā.How does this differ
from Māyā?How many Nidānas are there
Esoterically?
A.Again too much is
asked.The Nidānas,the concatenations of causes and effects (not in the sense of
the
Orientalists),are not caused by ignorance.They are produced by Dhyān Chohans
and Devas,who
certainly
cannot be said to act in ignorance.We produce Nidānas 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 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 fo rteen degrees of Manas,or is
Manas,taken as a whole,divided into forty-nine Mānasic
fires?
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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 P ranas.The forty-nine fires are all states of Kundalinī to be
produced in ourselves by
the
friction of the triad.First learn the septenary 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 f nction in
Occultism?Is it fo nd only after a certain stage of
animal evol tion,and wo ld seem to be evolving in
complexity towards a second spinal cord.
Prāna and Antahkarana (Page 545)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 one.The
evolution
corresponds to the Races,and with the evolution of the Races the sympathetic
develops 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 Sharīra.Occultists know each minute
portion of the heart and
have
a name for each.They call them by the names of the Gods,as Brahmā 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 Tāntrikas,who call it Shiva s Vīnā.
Prāna
Q.What is the relation of man to Prāna the periodical
life?
A.Jīva becomes Prāna
only when the child is born and begins to breathe.It is the breath of life
Nephesh.There
is no Prāna on the Astral Plane.
Antahkarana
Q.The Antahkarana is the link between the Higher and the
Lower Egos;does it correspond to the
mbilical 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 Māyāvi
Rūpa or
Mānasic
body has no material connection with the physical body no umbilical cord.It is
spiritual and
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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 (Page 546)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 conscio sness 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
sho ld be practised physically. Does this mean that,colo r being more
differentiated than so nd,it is only thro gh the colo rs
that we shall get at the real so nd of each of s?
and that AUM can
only have its Spirit al and Occult signification when attained to the Ćtmā-B
ddhi-
Manas of each person?
A.AUM means good
action not merely lip-sound.You must say it in deeds.
Q.With reference to the ¢is
not the Ćtmā-B ddhi-Manas different for each entity,according to the plane
on which he is?
A.Each Principle is on
a different plane.The Chelā must rise to one after the other assimilating each
until
the three are one.This is the root of the Trinity.
Q.In The Secret
Doctrine we are told that Ćkāsha is the same as Pradhāna.Akasha is the A ric
Egg of
the earth,and yet Ćkāsha is the same as Pradhāna.Ćkāsha is
the A ric Egg of the earth,and yet
Ćkāsha is Mahat.What then is the relation of Manas to the A
ric Egg?
A.Mūlaprakriti is the
same as Ćkāsha (seven degrees).Mahat is the positive aspect of Akasha and is
the
Manas of the Kosmic Body.Mahat is to Ćkāsha as Manas is to Buddhi and Pradhāna
is but another
name
for Mūlaprakriti.
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The
Auric Egg is Ćkāsha 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 Vidyā or the fourfold knowledge in one the four-faced
Brahmā.
Sacred Centres of Body (Page 547)
Nādīs
Q.Have the Nādīs any fixed relationship to the vertebrę?can
they be located opposite to or between
any vertebrae?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 Nādīs corresponded to regions of the spinal cord known to Anatomists.There
are
thus six or seven Nādīs or plexuses along the spinal cord.The term however is
not technical but
general
and applies to any knot centre ganglion etc.The sacred Nādīs are those which
run along or
above
Sushumnā.Six are known to Science and one (near the atlas)unknown.Even the
Tāraka Rāja
Yogīs
speak only of six and will not mention the sacred seventh.
Idā
and Pingalā play along the curved wall of the cord in which is Sushumnā.They
are semi-material
positive
and negative sun and moon and start into action the free and spiritual current
of Sushumnā.
They
have distinct paths of their own otherwise they would radiate all over the
body.By concentration on
Idā
and Pingalā is generated the sacred fire.
Another
name for Shiva s Vīnā (sympathetic system)is Kālī s Vīnā.
The
sympathetic cords and Idā and Pingalā 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 Brahmā.This is again
symbolized by the bamboo
rod
carried by Ascetics.The Yogis on the other sides of the Himālayas,who assemble
regularly at Lake
Mānsarovara
carry a triple knotted bamboo stick,and are called Tridandins.This has the same
signification
as the Brāhmanical cord which has many meanings besides the three vital airs;e.g.,it
symbolizes
the three initiations of a Brāhman 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.
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(Page 548)Q.If it is right to st dy the body and its organs,with
their correspondences,will yo give the
main o tline of these in connection with the Nādīs and with
the diagram of the orifices?
The Corresponds to the
Spleen Linga Sharira
Liver Kāma
Heart Prāna
Corpora-quadrigemina Kāma-Manas
Pictuitary body Manas-Antahkarana
Pineal gland Manas
until
it is touched by the vibrating light of Kundalinī 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 paralysed.If an influence on the optic nerve is thus produced and the
current thus reversed the
colour
will probably be compementary.
Sevens
Q.If the physical body is no part of the real h man
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 Upādhi 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
Upādhi.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,inasm ch as we co ld (1)
directly contact it;(2)retinally
reprod ce 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 o
r way of seeing one thing.Is it objectively
septenary?
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Ćkāsha Nature's Sounding-Board (Page 549)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.So nd is an attrib te of Ćkāsha;b t we cannot cognize
anything on the Ćkāshic plane;on what plane
then do we recognize so nd?On what plane is so nd prod ced
by the physical contact of bodies?Is
there so nd on seven planes,and is the physical plane one
of them?
A.The physical plane
is one of them.You cannot see Ćkāsha but you can sense it from the Fourth Path.
You
may not be fully conscious of it and yet you may sense it.Ćkāsha 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 Ćkāsha 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 some (Page
550)thing
which passes into something else.It is eternal in the Nidānas it produces. A
sound if not
previously
produced on the Astral Plane and before that on the Ćkāshic,could not be
produced at all.
Ćkāsha
is the bridge between nerve cells and mental powers.
Q.Colo rs are psychic,and so nds are spirit al. What,ass
ming 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
Page
430.
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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 Ćkāshic Sound.It depends to what degree of matter
the sense of
touch
relates itself as to what we call it.
Prāna
Q.Is Prāna the prod ction of the co ntless lives of the
h man body,and therefore,to some extent,of
the congeries of the cells or atoms of the body?
A.No;Prāna 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 Prāna;outside is Jīva.Prāna is the
motor-principle in
life.The
lives leave Prāna;Prāna does not leave them.Take out the sponge from the
water and it
becomes
dry thus symbolizing death.Every principle is a differentiation of Jīva but the
life-motion in
each
is Prāna the breath of life.Kāma depends on Prāna without which there would
be no Kāma.
Prāna
wakes the Kāmic germs to life;it makes all desires vital and living.
The Second Spinal Cord
Q.With reference to the answer to the q estion on the
second cord,what is it that will become a second
spinal cord in the Sixth Race?Will Idā and Pingalā have
separate physical d cts?
A.It is the
sympathetic cords which will grow together and form another spinal cord.Idā and
Pingalā will
be
joined with Sushumnā and they will become one.Idā is on the left side of the
cord and Pingalā on
the
right.
Kosmic Consciousness (Page 551)
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.She sketched the
planes as in the
following
diagram.
Page
431.
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Taking
the lowest only the Terrestrial (it was afterwards decided to call this
plane
Prākritic),it is divisible into seven planes,and these again into seven
making
the forty-nine.
Terrestrial
(Page 552)She then took the lowest plane of Prakriti or the true
Terrestrial
and
divided it as follows:
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.
The
following table of the terrestrial objective consciousness was given:
Divisions of the Astral Plane (Page 553)
Astral
The
three lower Prākritic are related to the three lower of the Astral Plane
immediately succeeding.
Page
432
Manas-Ego
Kāma-Manas
or Higher
Psychic
Prānic-Kāma
or Lower
Psychic
Astral
Prakritic
or Terrestrial
True terrestrial
planes
or 7th Prākritic
7 Para-Ego or Atmic
6 Inner-Ego or Buddhic
5 Ego-Manas
4 Kāma-Manas or Lower Manas
3 Prānic Kāma or Psychic
2 Astral
1 Objective.
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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 Prānic,is of an intensely vivid nature.Extreme delirium carried 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,Kāmic and terrible.Hence come the
images that tempt;
images
of drunkards in Kāma 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.
(Page 554)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
analyse
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.
4th Kosmic Plane Fohat Kosmic Kāma-Mans
3rd Kosmic Plane Jiva-Fohat Prānic-Kāma Kosmic Life
2nd Kosmic Plane Kosmic Astral
1st Kosmic Prakiristic Kosmic Body
(next graphic part of this one)
Page
433.
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[In
this diagram all the Kosmic Planes should be figured as of one size the size
given to the lowest
plane
Prakriti.Further within the circle all the Prākritic Planes should be of one
size that given to the
first
or lowest.To do this would make so large a diagram that the planes are
compressed.Ed.]
Kosmic Planes (Page 555)
General Notes
The
two planes a/bove dealt with are the only two used in the Hatha Yoga.
Prāna
and the Auric Envelope are essentially the same and again as Jīva 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
Sūkshma.In
us this is Manas,and the very Logoi are less high not having gained
experience.The
Mānasic
Entity will not be destroyed even at the end of the Mahāmanvantara when all the
Gods are
absorbed
but will re-emerge from Parabrāhmic latency.
Consciousness
is the Kosmic seed of superkosmic omniscience.It has the potentiality of
budding into the
Divine
Consciousness.
Page
434.
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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.
In
the Kosmic Auric Envelope is all the Karma of the manifesting Universe.This is
the Hiranyagarbha.
Jīva
is everywhere and so with the other Principles.
(Page 556)
Page
435.
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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
Page
436.
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Taking
this figure to represent the human Principles and planes of consciousness,then
Differentiation (Page 557)
7
6 5 represent respectively Shiva Vishnu Brahmā being the lowest.
Shiva
is the four-faced Brahmā;the Creator Preserver Destroyer and Regenerator.
Between
5 and 4 comes the Antahkarana.The represents the Christos,the Sacrificial
Victim crucified ¢
between
the thieves:this is the double-faced entity.The Vedāntins make this a
quarternary for a blind:
Antahkarana
Chit Buddhi and Manas.
Page
437.
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Manvantaric Aspect of Parabrahman and
Mūlaprakriti
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 Kāma and Manas.Ćtmā-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 Ćtma-Buddhi;
these
are entirely without Manas.
Astral Consciousness
(Page 558)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 paralysed 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
Page
438.
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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.
Kāma-Prānic 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 Kāmic consciousness.
Kāma-Mānasic 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 Kāma-Mānasic consciousness is
the psychic.
Thus
there are seven degrees from the instinctual animal to the rationalized
instinctual and psychic.
Mānasic 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 Ćtmā and
reflects
all that is in the Auric Envelope.Five and six therefore cover the planes from
the psychic to the
divine.
Men and Pitris (Page 559)
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 Kāma we must crush out all out 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 Samādhi on the Fourth Solar Plane but cannot go
outside the Solar
System.When
he begins Samādhi he is on a par with some of the Dhyān Chohans,but he
transcends
them
as he rises to the seventh plane (Nirvāna).
Page
439.
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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 Samādhi.
The
Dhyān Chohans are passionless,pure and mindless.They have no struggle no
passion to crush.
The
Dhyān Chohans are made to pass through the School of Life.God goes to School.
The
best of us in the future will be Mānasaputras;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 Ćtma-Buddhi falling into matter.T he
Pudding-bags has
Life
and Ćtmā-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 pay the part of the Pitris.We shall have to go
and shoot out our Chhāyās
into
another humanity and remain until that humanity is perfected.The Pitris have
finished their office in
this
Round and have gone into Nirvāna;but they will return to do the same office up
to the middle point of
the
Fifth Round.The Fourth or Kāmic 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
Chhāyā is really the lower Manas,the shadow of the higher Mind.This Chhāyā
makes the Māyāvi
Rūpa.The
Ray clothes itself (Page
560)in the highest degree of the Astral
Plane.The Māyāvi Rūpa is
composed
of the astral body as Upādhi the guiding intelligence from the heart the
attributes and
qualities
from the Auric Envelopes.
The
Auric Envelope takes up the light of Ćtmā 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.
Ćtmā-Buddhi-Manas
in man corresponds to the three Logoi in Kosmos.They not only correspond but
Page
440.
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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 Kshetrajńa.
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:
the
two lower are disregarded;they go out disintegrate are of not account.Remain
five under the
radiation
of Ćtmā.
Power of Imagination (Page 561)
In
the second:
Page
441.
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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
principi m individ ationis 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.
Page
442.
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The
first step towards the accomplishment of Kriyāshakti 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
Kriyāshakti.
Suns and Planets
(Page 562)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 Kāma-
Rūpa
all the suns forming the Kāma-Rūpa of Kosmos.To its own system the sun is
Buddhi as being the
reflection
and vehicle of the true Sun which is Ćtmā 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 Chhāyās 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 any one 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
Rākshakas 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.
Page
443.
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Why Cycles Return (Page 563
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
Kāma-Prāna with
the
most physical Kāmic elements in us;it is the vital principle which helps
growth.The effect of the
moon
is chiefly Kāma-Mānasic 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 saphire 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 Ćtman of the objective Kosmos,i.e.,it is on the seventh plane of
the lowest Prakriti.
Terms
(Page 564)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
Page
444.
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Esoteric
classification and names of the fourteen (7 X 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
Each
and all correspond Esoterically to the Kosmic or Dhyān 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 Vedāntic classification must be first understood.
Page
445
LOKAS
1
The general exoteric orthodox and tāntric category:
Bhūr-loka
Bhuvar-loka
Swar-loka
Mahar-loka The second seven are reflected.
Janar-loka
Tapar-loka
Satya-loka
2
The Sānkhya category and that of some Vedāntins
Brahmā-loka
Pitri-loka
Soma-loka
Indra-loka
Gandharva-loka
Rākshasa-loka
Yaksha-loka
And an eighth.
3
The Vedāntic the nearest approach to the Esoteric:
Atala
Vitala
Sutala
Talātala (or Karatala).
Rasātala
Mahātala
Pātāla.
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Talas and Lokas (Page 565)
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 Tanmātras,outer and inner senses.
5
and 7 Bhūtas,or elements.
5
and 7 Gnyānendryas,or organs of sensation.
5
and 7 Karmendryas,or organs of action.
These
correspond in general to States of Consciousness,to the Hierarchies of Dhyān
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 Vedāntic
Classification of Lokas
7.Atala
The Ćtmic or Auric state or locality:it emanates directly from ABSOLUTENESS and is the first
Page
446
Word means
Tala place
Atala no place
Vitala
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 good excellent,place.
Karatala something that can be grasped or touched (from
kara a
hand):i.e.the state in which matter becomes tangible.
Rasātala place of taste;a place you can sense with one of
the organs
of sense.
Mahātala exoterically great place ;but Esoterically a
place including
all others subjectively and potentially including all that
precedes it.
Pātāla something under the feet (from pada foot)the upādhi
or
basis of anything the antipodes America etc..
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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,and will be from the beginning to the end of the Mahāmanvantara;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 Dhyāni Buddhas.Their state is that of Parasamādhi of
the Dharmakāya;
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 Dhyāni Buddhas.It is related on earth to Samādhi to the Buddhic
consciousness in man.
No
adept save one can be higher than this and live;if he passes into the Ćtmic or
Dharmakāya state
(Alaya)he
can return to earth no more.These two states are purely hyper-metaphysical.
5.utala
.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 Samādhi (which is septenary).Here belong the Hierachies
of the
Kumāras
the Agnishvattas,etc.
4.Karatala
corresponds with Sparsha (touch)and to the Hierarchies of ethereal
semi-objective Dhyān
Chohans
of the astral matter of the Mānasa-Manas,or the pure ray of Manas,that is the
Lower Manas
before
it is mixed with Kāma (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.Rasātala
or Rūpatala :corresponds to the Hierachies of Rūpa or Sight
Devas,possessed of three
senses,sight
hearing and touch.These are the Kāma-Mānasic 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.Mahātala.Corresponds
to the Hierachies 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
Kāma
and Prāna in man and to Salamanders and Gnomes in nature.
1.Pātala.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,walking or sleeping.This is
why Nārada is said to
have
visited Pātāla 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 happy.It is the earthly
state and corresponds with
the
sense of smell.Here are also animal Dugpas,Elementals of animals,and Nature
Spirits.
Page
447.
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States of Consciousness (Page 567)
Further Explanations of the Same
Classifications
7.Auric,Ćtmic,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 Ćtmic 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.Shābdic,sense
of hearing.
4.Spārshic,sense
of touch.
3.Rūpīc
the state of feeling oneself a body and perceiving it (rūpa =form).
2.Rāsic,sense
of taste.
1.Gāndhic,sense
of smell.
All
the Kosmic and anthropic states and senses correspond with our organs of
sensation Gnyānendryas
rudimentary
organs for receiving knowledge through direct contact sight etc.These are the
faculties of
Sharīra
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 can
(Page
568)not be doubled.Thus we have 40 +8 =48 cognitions of Buddhi. These with
Māya which
includes
them all make 49.(Once that you have reached the cognition of Māya you are an
Adept.)
Page
448
5 +5 Tanmātras 2
5 +5 Bhūta 2
5 +5 Gnyānendry
as 2
5 +5 Karmendrya
s 2
TOTAL
S 20 +20 +8 +Māy
ā =49.
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The Lokas
In
their exoteric blinds the Brāhmans 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 Bhūrloka (the earth).1 Pātāla (our earth).
2 Bhuvarloka (between the earth and the sun [Munīs ]).2
Mahātala
3 Svarloka (between the sun and the Pole Star [Yogīs ]).3
Rasātala
4 Maharloka (between the earth and the and the utmost
limit of the Solar System *4 Talātala (or Karatala).
5 Janarloka (beyond the Solar System the abode of
the Kumāras who do not belong to this plane).5 Sutala
6 Taparloka (still beyond the Mahātmic region the
dwelling of the Vairāja deities).6 Vitala
7 Satyaloka (the abode of the Nirvanīs).7 Atala
*[All
these spaces denote the special magnetic currents the planes of substance and
the
degrees
of approach that the consciousness of the Yogi or Chela performs towards
assimilation
with
the inhabitants of the Lokas.]
[GRAPHIC
PAGE 568A missing)
Man and Lokas (Page 569)
These
the Brāhmans 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 Dhyāni;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 rūpa ;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 Yogī will never pass beyond the Maharloka psychically
and the Talātala
(double
or dual place),physico-mentally.To become a Rāja Yogī one has to ascend up to
the seventh
portal
the Satyaloka.For such the Master Yogīs tells us,is the fruition of Yajna or
sacrifice.When the
Bhūr
Bhuvar and Svarga (states)are once passed and the Yogi s consciousness
centered in Maharloka
it
is in the last plane and state between entire identification of the Personal
and the Higher Manas.
Page
449.
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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 Jīvanmukta
state.These fourteen
Lokas,or
spheres,form the extent of the whole Brahmānda (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 Brahmā changing with every Kalpa:the latter endure for an Age of Brahmā.
In
Diagram V.only Body Astral Kāma Lower Manas,Higher Manas,Buddhi and Auric Ćtmā
are given.
Life
is a Universal Kosmic Principle and no more than Ćtman does it belong to
individuals.
In
answer to questions on the diagram H.P.B said that Touch and Taste have no
order.Elements have a
regular
order but Fire pervades them all.Every sense pervades every other.There is no
universal order
that
being first in each which is most developed.
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
(Page 570)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
Vairājas 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
Nirvāna remaining for succeeding Manvantaras.
The
seven steps of Antahkarana correspond with the Lokas.
Samādhi
is the highest state on earth that can be reached in the body.
Beyond
that the Initiate must have become a Nirmānakāya.
Purity
of mind is of greater importance than purity of body.If the Upādhi be not
perfectly pure it cannot
Page
450.
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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 Kāma 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.
Yogīs in Svarloka (Page 571)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
Brāhmans 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 Kriyāshakti bringing them
down by a process
that
may be compared to the focussing of rays of light by a burning glass.
States of Consciousness
Bhūrloka
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.Yogīs are
known who have
become
crystallized in this state and then they must be nourished by others.A Yogī
near Allahabad had
Page
451.
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been
for fifty-three years sitting on a stone;his Chelās plunge him into the river
every night and then
replace
him.During the day his consciousness returns to Bhūrloka and he talks and
teaches.A Yogī 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 conscio
sness 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 (Page 572)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 Kāma.A
man may be in a
Loka
to which he belongs.Thus a man in Bhūrloka 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 Arūpa and can absorb nothing.When the Ego
takes all the
light
of Buddhi it takes that of Ćtmā Buddhi being the vehicle and thus the three
become one.This
done
the f ll 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 Rasātala
and
Talātala.
Page
452.
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Consciousness and Self-Consciousness (Page 573)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 Philosphies.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
is must be traced to some one experiencing it.Now the difference between the
consciousness
of
man and 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 Mānasaputras 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 (Page 574)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
Page
453.
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Lower
and the extent of affinity between the brain to this light.Brain-mind is
conditioned by the
responsiveneness
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
Western
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 patience.
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.
Scales of Consciousness (Page 575)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.
Page
454.
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Consciousness Its Seven Scales
1
Physical sense-perception:Perception of the cell (if paralyzed the sense is
there
though yo do not feel it).
2
Self-perception or apperception:I.e.,self-perception of cell.
3
Psychic apperception:
4
Vital perception
Of
astral double döppelganger carrying it higher to
the
Physical feeling sensations of pleasure and
pain
of quality.
These
are the four lower scales,and belong to the psycho-physiological man.
5
Manasic
discernment of the
Mānasic
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
conscious
Manas.
**Apperception
means self-perception conscious action not as with Leibnitz but when
attention
is fixed on the perception
(Page 576)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 mentionned
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.
Page
455.
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Bhūrloka
The
Bhūrloka 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.
Vibrations and Impressions (Page 577)
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 its
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
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
(Page 578)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.
Page
456.
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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.
Kāma
Kāma
is life it is the essence of the blood.When this leaves the blood the latter
congeals.Prāna is
universal
on this plane;it is in us the vital principle Prānic,rather than Pranā.
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 Karmīc 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 Kāmic,Devachanic and Mānasic.] For the entities no matter how
high must have
their
Karmic rewards and punishments on earth.
The Crucifixion of the Christos (Page 579)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
Kāmic Ego is
scattered
in Kāma Loka;the Mānasic 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 remained 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.
Page
457.
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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.
(Page 580)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 of 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 pl s 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 Kāma 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 Kāma-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 Ahankāra is
beginning to fade out
the
beginning of losing the sense of separateness.
Kāma Rūpa
The
Kāma Rūpa eventually breaks up and goes into animals.All red-blooded animals
come from man.
Page
458.
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The
cold-blooded are from the matter of the past.The blood is the Kāma Rūpa.
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 seat-born of the
Chhāyā.Kāma 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.
Rising Above the Brain (Page 581)
Heart
There
are seven brains in the heart the Upādhis and symbols of the seven Hierarchies.
The Fires
The
fires are always playing round the pineal gland but when Kundalini 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 might 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 seen stages of
perception
come before Antahkarana;if you can pass beyond them you are on the Mānasic
Plane.
Try
to imagine something which transcends your power of thought say the nature of
the Dhyān
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 (Page 582)indigo-
bronze
is Manas.These are to be observed and when the yellow-bronze merges into the
indigo you are
on
the Mānasic Plane.
On
the Mānasic 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
Page
459.
The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
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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 Māyāvi Rūpa.Fix your
attention and if you
go
away keep your consciousness firmly to the Māyāvic 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 Brahmā the first spot that
lives in the ftus and the
last
that dies.When a Yogi 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 Yogī 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.Ćtmā-Buddhi-Manas.
Christ and Apollonius (Page 583)
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 Kāma-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.
Page
460.
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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 Kāmic 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 Ćkāsha 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 (Page 584)to Ćtmā-Buddhi or when Ćtmā-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 Kāma 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.
Page
461.
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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 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
powerfully 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 Kāmic 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.
The Beginnings (Page 585)
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
Mūlaprakrity 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,Mahā-Buddhi Mahat.We always begin
on the Third
Plane;beyond
that all is inconceivable.Ćtmā 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 Kāma;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.
Page
462.
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Nidānas
There
are twelve Nidānas,exoteric and Esoteric,the fundamental doctrine of Buddhism.(Page 586)So
also
there are twelve exoteric Buddhist Sūttas called Nidānas,each giving one Nidāna.
The
Nidānas 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 an
Upādhi
(basis),one of the sub-divisions of one of the Nidānas,and also an effect or
consequence.
Both
bases and effects belong to one or another Nidāna each having from three to
seventeen eighteen
and
twenty-one sub-divisions.
The
names of the twelve Nidānas are:
Page
463
THE TWELVE NIDANAS
1 Jarāmarana
2 Jāti
3 Bhava
4 Upādāna
5 Trishnā
6 Vedanā
7 Sparsha
8 Chadayātana
9 Nāmarūpa
10 Vigńāna
11 Samskāra
12 Avidyā *
*If the Nidānas are read the reverse way i.e.from
12 to 1 they give the evolutionary order.Ed.J ].
The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
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(1)JARĀMARANA
lit death in consequence of decrepitude.Notice that death and not life comes as
the
first
of the Nidānas.This is the first fundamental in Buddhist Philosophy;every Atom
at every moment
as
soon as it is born begins dying.
The
five Skandhahas 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)JĀTI
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)Anupādaka
Nirmānakāyas,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
vis.:
Karmic Effects (Page 587)
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)Nirmānakāyas;(iv)Bodhisattvas;(v)Men in Myalba;
(vi)Kāma
Rūpic existences,whether of men or animals,in Kāma 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 Bhūr Bhuvar or Svar (seven Lokas in
reality).
Page
464.
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The
cause or Nidāna of Bhava is Upādāna that is,the clinging to existence that
which makes us desire
life
in whatever form.
Its
effect is Jatī in one or another of the Triloka and under whatever conditions.
Nidānas
are the detailed expression of the law of Karma under twelve aspects;or we
might say the law
of
Karma under twelve Nidānic 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.
(Page 588)It is wrong to speak of Tanhās in the plural;there is only
one Tanhā 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 Kriyāshakti.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 Nidānas.
Subtle Bodies
When
a man visits another in his Astral Body it is the Linga Sharira which goes,but
this cannot happen
Page
465.
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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 Māyāvī Rūpa which is created by unconscious Kriyāshakti and
the man himself is
not
conscious of appearing.If he were and projected his Māyāvi Rūpa consciously he
would be an
Adept
.[ 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 Māyāvi Rūpa in more than one sense.-Editor ] No two
persons can be
simultaneously
conscious of one another s presence unless one be an Adept.Dugpas use the
Māyāvi
Rūpa
and sorcerers also.Dugpas work on the Linga Sharīra of other people.
The
Linga Sharīra 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 Sharīra
may
be hurt by a sharp instrument and would not face a sword or a bayonet although
it would easily
pass
through a table or other piece of furniture.
Fire is Kriyāshakti (Page 589)
Nothing
however can hurt the Māyāvi Rūpa or thought-body since it is purely
subjective.When swords
are
struck at shades,it is the sword itself not its Linga Sharīra 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
Kriyāshakti should be
exercised
in the projection of the Māyāvi Rūpa.
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.Ęther is Fire.The lowest part
of Ęther 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
Kriyāshakti 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
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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.
(Page 590)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
Elements 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
In
explaining the relations of the Higher and Lower Ego Devachan and the Death of
the Soul the
following
figure was drawn:
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
Kumāra.
The
Lower Quaternary dissolves;the body rots,the Linga Sharīra 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 Kāmic.The Higher Manas stands to Buddhi as the
Lower
Manas to the Higher.
Responsibility and the Ego (Page 591)
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.
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You
are the sacrificial victim.In the same way the Higher 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 Māyāvi
Rūpa.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 Kāma
Rūpa 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 Kāma Loka;his fate is to reincarnate immediately.Such an
entity is then an
animal
Soul pl s the intelligence of the severed Ray.The manifestation of this
intelligence in (Page 592)
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
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The Secret Doctrine Volume 3 by H.P.Blavatsky
--------
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 Māyāvi Rūpa
etc.and even to Elementals
which
it can ensoul as the Rosicrucians taught.
The
Māyāvi Rūpa 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 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
Kumāras do not direct the evolution of the Lunar Pitris.To understand the
latter we might take the
analogy
of the blood.
The
blood maybe 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 Chhāyā
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 Chhāyā 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.
Functions of the Astral Body (Page 593)
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.
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Astral Body
The
Astral can get out unconsciously to the person and wander about.
The
Chhāyā is the same as the Astral Body.
The
germ or life essence of it is in the spleen.
The
Chhāyā 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 Kāmā Rūpa.At death every
cell and
molecule
gives out its essence and from it is formed the Astral of the Kāma Rūpa;but
this can never
come
out during life.
The
Chhāyā in order to become visible draws upon the surrounding atmosphere
attracting the atoms to
itself;the
Linga Sharīra 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 Prānic and physical life.
Life
cannot come immediately from the subjective to the objective for Nature goes
gradually through
each
sphere.Therefore the Linga Sharīra is the intermediary between Prāna 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.
(Page 594)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
(Kāmarūpic)entities which are below the Devachanic Plane are in Kama Loka and
only possess
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206 Newport Road, Cardiff, Wales, UK. CF24-1DL
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 commuicate but they
require to be
propitiated.
Spooks
(Kāmarūpic 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 Kāmalokic 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
Kāma
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 Kāma 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;Kāma Loka is a place of
physical
consciousness.It
is the shadow of the animal world and that of instinctual feeling.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
Kāmalokic
plane which is the plane of animal instincts pure and simple.
PEACE TO ALL BEINGS
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